Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Keeper Review: Xbox Game of the Year? - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE, the action RPG based on the popular Solo Leveling franchise,launches on November 17 and is open for preorder and wishlisting on Steam and XBOX PC. But folks at TwitchCon can experience an exclusive demo at the Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE booth.⁠https://slvariseoverdrive.netmarble.com/en/twitchcon⁠ Go to ⁠http://shadyrays.com⁠ and use code FUNNY to get 35% off polarized sunglasses. Thank you for the support! Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Topic of the Show: Keeper Review - Parris’ thoughts and score - Blessing’s thoughts and score - Mike’s Thoughts and score - What is the gameplay? - Ads - Final Spoilerfree thoughts - Spoiler Talk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Friday, October 17th, 2025. Today we're brought to you by solo leveling a rise overdrive, the action RPG based on the popular solo leveling franchise that Mike Howard loves. Audio listeners, he thumbs up. Of course, it launches on November 17th and is open for pre-order and wishlisting on Steam and Xbox PC. But folks at TwitchCon can experience an exclusive demo at Solo Level A Rise Overdrives booth.

Of course, and Shady raises our other responsible. We'll tell you about that later. For now, hello. Best voice in the business, Paris, Lily. Hey, good afternoon. How are you doing, Greg? Where are you running to? What happens?

The dog do something? What happened? The kids do something? What happened over there? I turned a fan on. Okay. I was like, wait, it's getting hot in here already. You lost your focus. Yeah, broke the focus. Yeah, I see, I lost my focus. See?

Damn it. All right. I'm back. Of course, next to him, four was 30 under 30, a.k.a. New York Game Awards nominated, aka Poppy of All Trades. Blessing Eddie Oia Jr. Good day, Greg.

You look good in this Pac-Man sweatshirt. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Shout out Pac-Man. Never forget him. But we got the shirt from Pac-Man. From a Pac-Man? Yeah, when Pac-Man was in the office? I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was Pac-Man Battle Royale.

Pac-Man. Boy, yeah. Yeah. We had a lot of fun with that one. We did. Yeah, it brought the whole suit and stuff. It was awesome. It was a good time. And, of course, there he is the master of hype, rehabilitating his groin. Mike Howard.

I'm like LeBron James. I'm out two to three weeks with a groin injury. Shouldn't have played that scary game late last night, but it was awesome. What game was this again? Who's at the door? Oh. Who's at the door? I recommend that one, a fun, probably $15,

steam scary game. Get you a good little fright fest for about an hour. And then after that, I think you'll probably know the jump scares, but still, you'll have a good time. Giving mortuary's assistant meets zucosis. of course the upcoming, very exciting, shark dentist, everybody's pumped up about. Man, I can't wait for a shark dentist.

We can't talk about Mike's vast knowledge of video games because the three things you just named is insane. Those are all games. The Zucosis meets the upcoming shark dentist. You can't forget about shark dentist now. Come on. You know how that's good. I'm very impressed.

Thank you, honey. By the games you just listed. Thank you, homie. Paris, what a joy to have you on so many games cast this week. Of course, you were just here for the expert. box ally review. Thank you for doing that. And then have you here today. I'm stoked to hear you talk about Keeper. I know. I'm excited to be here. I'm actually going to go to TwitchCon right after this.

Whoa. Are you going to go to the solo leveling arise overdrive booth and try it out? I might. Actually, you know what? No, I'm not. No, I'm not. I'm not going in actual TwitchCon. I'm going to outside shit. Doing the parties. Twitchcom. Yes. He's going to be a hobnobbing. He'll be rubbing elbows with.

Popular streamers, Shroud. Dr. Lupo. Dr. Lupo, yeah, he's still doing the thing. Valcurae. There you go. Yeah. Pokey mane. Ninja.

Ninja. Sinna. Is Ninja going to be a TwitchCon? Agent. Who? No idea. Ninja can't be a Twitchcon. Is he not on TwitchCon?

I just think he's too big. I mean, but that's TwitchCon. Don't they get the big? Twitch can't they? I mean, I feel like, I feel like ninja's the top of what they can't throw money around to get. I feel like once you get to speed. Is Shroud going to be there? I would think so.

I mean, am I off about this, Mike? No, you can definitely get Ninja nowadays. If you do remember back when they brought it to San Jose in our neck of the woods after, of course, 2015, when Greg Miller was headlining TwitchCon, they had Ninja Khan. That was at the peak of when Ninja was his biggest and baddest. He was having stuff. Plus, he's at Walmart at that moment. There was underwear.

But they dubbed that Ninja Khan because that was like, oh, there's a fever pitch. And everyone just wants to see Ninja. Everybody says he's way too. It's over for him. Yeah, his numbers are. You know who I wish was at TwitchCon? Me. No.

Snowbike Mike. He would be a madman at TwitchCon. It would be amazing. I would just follow him around. I would love it. Yeah, the best, man. You're going to, we'll all get together. We'll all get together.

We'll have some fun. I want to talk to Agent and, like, all these cool people. We met Duke Dennis. You should have been there. We met Duke Dennis. He knows me. He knows him, everybody. You think Kai's gone?

No, no. He's too big. He's too big. Yeah, right. That's somebody who's too big for sure. I want to give a special shout out, everybody. If you watched yesterday's Kind of Funny Games cast, you, of course, heard from Marty Pixelrod, who's super chat and said,

speaking of Steam games, I've been making a game for a while, and watching you guys on my third screen while I do it. I literally pressed release button an hour ago. Prototype Juan is a mini Metro Bittvania for four bucks. If you can click on the Steam powered link there to Kevin, to look at it over there. Of course, we're happy to support the people who support us like Marty,

and I want to tell you everybody, This is a small little indie game we think looks cool. 52 copies were sold. All right. Oh, Marty gave me the update in BS DMs. That's a blue sky direct message, Tim. That yes, 52 copies sold and jumped from 305 wish lists to 396. So this is all huge stuff.

Steam estimates a lot of people buy over the weekend. So if you want to support a kind of funny best friend selling his game for less than a cup of coffee, go get prototype one. I think it's 399 right now with the discount. We can get those numbers up. We can, that's what I'm saying. Yesterday it was a fun throwaway. Now it's a, now it's a, now it's a fucking thing.

Because for audio listeners, this looks like a really cool 2D platform where you're going between two different art styles. Yeah, I'm always a fan of it. Yeah. What he said here, he said, I was also featured on Steam's popular upcoming under $5 at one point fourth place there. So that was cool to see. Everybody get out there and support this here game.

The Juan prototype. Prototype one. I probably should not screw up the name of the last time I mentioned it. The Juan prototype. It's like I couldn't find in my notes. to the second prototype one. Of course, here's some other housekeeping. Remember that this is Kind of Funny Games Daily each and every week

to end a variety of platforms. We run you through the video game topics you need to know about whether they be reviews, previews, or just conversations we need to have. We cover them each and every week weekday live on Twitch.tv.tv.com slash Kind of Funny Games. YouTube.com slash funny games. Apple, Spotify, every

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You saw me inhale that burrito trying to make sure I had something. Wow. Wow. Get a kind of funny subscription if you like what we do here. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Patreon.com slash kind of funny. Apple, Spotify. What the fuck was that?

You heard it too. Yeah. Okay. Wrestling left it right all over our heads. What is going on out here? Under the sun and around the globe. I see where you can. I was going under sun.

Yeah. Yeah. I just got there. We could do this about your support. So please pick up a kind of funny membership to get everything ad free and get your daily dose of me or Mike as you're about to hear. While we are live right now, you of course can be part of our Keeper Review. YouTube super chat with your questions about Double Find's latest game. These three gentlemen are prepared to answer and critique.

Havsky before you, happy ZA launch week to those who celebrate our Pokey Smiley crew necks are now available in two colorways, perfect for catching the Mon as the weather gets colder. Grab the new, Kind of Funny Knock Off Pokemon sweatshirts over at Kindof. com slash store. Allegedly. It's just a ball. Yeah. Red and white.

It's fine. Pokemon doesn't care. No, not yet. It's a review season. I ain't got time. Too much stuff going on right now. We're at 11 person business all about live talk shows. Today's kind of funny games daily was Horizon Zero Dawn movie coming in 2027.

Of course, before us, there was a game showdown that featured a robbery, a miscarriage of justice. Maybe a hate crime. After this show, we're doing a sponsor stream for our. Raters and everyone's very excited about that. Really? Super excited, actually. Super excited. If you're a kind of funny member, today's Greg Way is Mike, what did you talk about? Yeah, I talked about my excitement for fall gaming. I know when the thick of review season, we're kind of seeing the light at the end of it all, but for me, I am like an excited mode

because I have Battlefield 6 right now. I have Arc Raiders end of the month, and I got Call Duty Battlefield, or Battle of Black Ops 7, November 14th. So I am in like the thick of it for myself, and I'm really excited about that. For now, we want to thank our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Somme Twining. Let's start with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Ladies, gentlemen, NB's, can you believe it? A new Double Fine game is upon us. Mike, Blessing in Paris, have played Keeper.

We're going to get their opinions on it, but before then I'll read the Steam description. From Lee Petty and Double Fine Productions, Keeper is an atmospheric puzzle. adventure in which a long-forgotten lighthouse is awakened and joined by a spirited seabird. It embarks upon a heartening tale of unlikely companionship and an unexpected journey into realms beyond understanding. Of course, developed by Double Fine, as we have said, published by Xbox. It currently has a 78 on Metacritic. IGN's Sarah Thwaits came in with a 9 out of 10 and said,

A Surreal Painting Come to Life, Keeper is a stunning puzzle game that carefully balances its Moorish mechanics with a heartfelt story. GameSpot's Steve Watts. David a nine out of ten, Keeper is Double Fine at its most confident, a visual feast, a tone poem, and exploration of movement mechanics, a fable about the world and what we owe to it. It's recognizable as an evolution of the studio's earlier works while also feeling fresh and inventive. Double Fine games have always been dense with artistry, but it's Keeper, a game without

words that feels most like it's letting the artistry speak for itself. And then over at Game Informer, I got a 7.5 out of 10. Matt Miller wrote, Keeper is strange in many ways and sometimes crosses over into genuine psychedelia. In evaluating it as a game, some things don't work for me.

As a piece of art and creative endeavor, it fares far better. Before we even get to scores, I want to go through and say, have you beaten it and how long it took you? Paris Lilly. Yes, and it took me eight hours. What'd you play on?

I played it on PC, and I played it on the Xbox Series X, and I took a little peek on the ROG Xbox LAX as well. How'd it look over there? Look good, looks great. They hadn't worn ahead of time

because they still hadn't optimized so I knew it wasn't going to be perfect but I just want to see what it looked like. Mr. Adioia. I played six hours and yes, I completed it. Ooh, speed run. Oh, wait. Wait for Mike.

I beat the game and it took me three hours and seven minutes. So I will say if you are moving forward on your nice hike throughout this double-fined adventure. It is a three-hour game, a one-sitting game. It's a three-hour mic game. I still don't understand how you did that.

Yeah, that's the thing is I want to hear all about this. So for me, Keeper has in this review onslaught, Keeper has been one of those ones that I knew I probably wouldn't get a chance to review because of where I'm at with Redacted and before that, Pokemon and after that, redacted. So I don't even know much about Keeper in general. Start Mike in blessing arguing. Is there a lot of, are there a lot of collectibles or are there a lot off the beaten path?

Not real. I mean, there's a little bit of off the beaten path stuff and a little bit of, like, I don't know how you describe the off the beaten path stuff. Yeah, I mean, how I describe this game is it is a nice simple hike, right? It is a journey where you are always moving forward. And while you're moving forward, you will be kind of, you know, you'll be faced with some questions of, do you want to take a left path really quick? That might be a stop off where you will solve a very small puzzle, rebuild the statute, that's the collectible.

That's the kind of side activity. Yeah. Okay, okay. Or you stay on the main path, move forward. Well, you will encounter puzzles throughout, but they're very basic puzzles. You know,

we went to double-fine studios, met with Lee Petty and the team over there, and they described it as like, we never want you to be stuck on these puzzles. These puzzles are very basic. You'll always be solving them and moving forward. And so you just, you'll find a rhythm.

And there's moments where you scratch your head and go, where is this? But 90% of the time, I never got lost. I always knew where I was going, what I needed to do. It's a very focused game.

I would say 95% of it is main path as far as it trying to guide you through a very particular catered experience. So then Paris, Lily, why don't you kick us off? Start me with your review. So let me start by saying this because of the fact that Mike did it

in like what you said, three hour, three and a half hours or whatever, that's crazy to me. But blessing at six is probably, the standard play through for this, right? I felt I stopped a lot and I was looking at stuff. I was like, ooh, that's pretty. Ooh, that's pretty.

Right? Is there a photo mode? Or you photo mode? With it. So the basic premise of this, your lighthouse, you awaken, this bird comes to you, you sprout legs, you learn to walk and you go on this adventure of discovery through this realm. The puzzles like Mike mentioned are pretty simple for the most part. There's some time dilation in there with some of the puzzles, things that you'll solve.

It's a beautiful game. I think for me it's more art than game and that's okay. Love the music. There's zero dialogue in this. And I think a lot of what happens, especially if you get to a certain point in the game, it's kind of left up to your interpretation on how you want to describe the relationship between the bird and the lighthouse. and some of the other creatures that you'll encounter throughout the world and the meaning of certain things as you go along. But I thought, it's a double-fine-ass game.

I don't know any other way to describe it. This is totally something that would come from Double-Fine. And I found myself, by the time credits rolled, I was like, damn, I really loved this game. I love it as a piece of art. Is this something that you need to go back and replay? Probably not. this is probably a one and done, but that's okay. I don't think double fine ever sold this as this big adventure that you were going on.

It's a short experience. It's something that will leave you thinking once you finish it, you know, trying to interpret some of the things, especially, like I said, the relationship between the bird and the lighthouse. But overall, I loved it. If I had to give it a score. And you do because you have gun to your head. 9 out of 10 9 out of 10 wow amazing all right

I like that quite a bit Blessing at aioia Jr. The world turns their eyes to you I'll start off from my score I would give this game an 8.5 I think it's a very great game now I'm going to take my score throughout the window and say that I

fucking adore this video game I think Keeper is fucking phenomenal I think a lot of what I love about this game interestingly Interestingly enough is kind of comparable to what I love about games like Shadow the Colossus or Eco or like any of those Team Eco games where it is about the experience. But also, I'm so in awe of what I'm looking at moment to moment on the screen. And you do such a good job of immersing you into this world.

The first thing you see is the lighthouse coming to life, right? And like the seabird kind of landing on top of it and your adventure going. the way this lighthouse moves I remember back in I believe it was end of 2016 when the last Guardian came out and one of the things that people will talk about the last Guardian

is like how in all of just the monster in that game Trico that they were from the way that it moved how lively it felt all that stuff I feel that way about the lighthouse in this game where I love the way this thing moves

I love the way that this world is realized it is vibrant every new area feels like you're stepping into a new dimension and I just love I love being in this world world. I love being in this game. The music is so incredible. The sound design is fucking fantastic. Like art is the easy way to describe this game, but I'll use the word art

to describe any video game. I think there's something about this game that is transcendent beyond that. Being something that feels like a worthwhile, I want to have an experience for six hours. And so I love it for all those things. I have like, I have complaints about it. I think from a game design perspective. My main beef with. is that this game is divided into like three acts, maybe like three and a half acts. The second act of this game, not my favorite. I think it slows down dramatically and design-wise does some things that I'm not in love with. And also like the game, it introduces certain things that I'm not going to spoil here.

I think the second half of this episode will get into more of a spoil section. But the way that it progresses as it gets further into it, it's not my favorite. But all in all, I think they do something really special here. I really enjoyed this experience. Nice. Michael. I like it, you guys. Yeah, to me, Keeper is a vibe game.

It's a vibe. It's a double-fine vibe here. And I'll stop you right there. Tell me. Because, of course, the one, the only Jenny, aka Sen Nuggy, says in her super chat. This looks fun. It would be my first double-fine game. What kind of things make it a double-fine-ass game?

For somebody who doesn't know, what's a double-fine-ass game, which is what we've been saying here, that this is clearly double-fine. The art style, Jenny. It feels like you're right. on psychedelics. It feels like the whole team built this on psychedelics. It's the colors. It's the art. It's the wacky nature. It's the humor. It's the out of the box

thinking that you don't see many video games and studios do that makes it so double fine. And I think everybody has their own touchstones to double fine. Custom quest. It be costume quest, whether it be psychonauts with Barrett, myself and Paris.

We love psychonauts too. I think there's just moments that when you experience your first double find game you attach yourself to and really for me it comes down to the art it comes down to the art style that I don't see many other teams really dip their toes into like double fine and Tim

Schaefer does and getting weird with it getting so weird with it and I think just from watching if that's what you see right again vibes animation the visuals the environments what you're seeing what the world is let alone for it to have no speaking and all this stuff like these are choices a lot of in this conservative market of video games

where people just want to make money. You don't see a lot of people take big swings chances. This is a small game, but clearly we saw this and we talked for so long about as Xbox and the industry in general tightens their belts, does Double Fine fit with them. Are they actually going to make space for them?

It sounds like they did here and made it work, Mike. Yeah, Double Fine will make you feel a lot of emotions as well, Jenny. It will take you from smiling, giggling, laughing to tugging on your heartstrings, trying to really pull out a tear from your eyes. With no voice. With no voice, but I'm talking about all their games as well. But yeah, this one's a special one. So for me, it is a vibe game.

And what I wrote a big one, I think, in the first probably act as Blessing says, it very much feels like a Disney theme ride. It feels like I am the cart behind one and I'm looking at your cards and I'm looking at everything happening in front of you. That's how it felt to me. the whole entire time on that first act of like, I'm watching something take place in front of me that has all the glitz, the glamour, the wow,

the just the whimsy that a Disney ride would normally capture for me, which I really, really loved. And so I liked this game. I vibed with this game. The art, as we bring up, is beautiful. It's stunning. The gameplay I didn't love until Act 2, 3, and beyond. And so for me, I'm a little bit opposite of

Bless, was like when we hit Act 2 and beyond, that's when it finally like, now I'm in it, right? And so I'm a mix of a 7 to 8 window. I think for me on the art side of things, the double fine ass double fine game, it is an 8, it is a great piece of

art, it is a great emotional experience, but when it comes down to playing the game, I think it is just a good experience. It's just a seven to me. And so I'm looking forward to diving deeper, but I'm impressed with Keeper. I did not think that this team would be doing that coming off of Psychonauts, too, having a no dialogue, viby-ass, let's take a hike video game that can be played for

three to eight hours. I did not see this one coming, to be honest. Are you given an eight or a seven? I'm going to go with a solid 75 good with a capital G. Oh, capital G. I like that. Capital G. I like that. Capital G, good from Mike. So let's swing the pendulum back and go back you blessing. Talk to me, again, someone who's seen these trailers, heard the presentations,

whatever. What is the gameplay? We keep tossing up puzzles, this, that, the other, but then we're talking about it being vibes.

We're talking about three hours, six hours, more, like, yeah. What are we doing in Keeper and how can there be these discrepancies and how long it takes me?

I mean, it really is, as far as the discrepancies, I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know how, yeah, Mike beats it in three, pairs beats it in eight.

But I will say the moment to moment, I was describing it to Tim earlier is like, you know, it might be a him kind of game because it reminds me of the artful escape. Where a lot of it is going from point A to point B with light puzzles in between. They're not tough puzzles by any means, but I think there to give you something to do

to keep you moving to the next moment. But a lot of the game is U.S. this tower, just walking forward. You have your light that you can use. You press R2 to kind of shine the light a bit brighter. You have a dash on A. And so some of the obstacles might be, oh, there's a fence in front of you,

press A, dash through it kind of thing. But then a lot of the puzzles are going to be, all right, use your light to shine on this thing so you can like open up the door or so you can activate a switch that'll then, you know, make a lever go this way so that you can open up the way to go forward, right? A lot of it is environmental puzzles that are kind of carrying you forward in the game. But so much of it really is just this forward momentum of you walking and going through these different environments. And the game does a really cool thing too that I like where a moment to moment, environment to environment, you might get new mechanics. that'll be very particular to a certain area. Earlier in the gameplay, Kevin was showing, there's an area where, like, you're covered it in,

I almost describe it as like pink cotton candy. That's what I call it, cotton candy. Yeah, it looks exactly like cotton candy, and that essentially allows you to float in the air and jump and stuff like that. And that is very much just for that area. The game has a lot of stuff like that where it is, all right, we're giving you this mechanic

for this specific moment in the game, and then we move on to the next thing with an entirely new idea, but it's all based around puzzles. Like Astrobody? Remember we always talked about that with Astrobat, right, where it was like they're giving us the, this puncher. Very light on the platform, like that cloud area, this very light platforming in that area, but it changes it up. Oh, I mean, the ability of, I'm sorry, I'm adding in things for like one level and then never coming back to it kind of thing.

A mechanic rather than, yeah, there's a bit more of like, I think a gradient to it where Asterobot, you know, you finish a level, going to the next level, it's entirely different thing. Here, I feel like there's a bit more of a progression to, all right, now we're kind of ending this and remarging into this thing. you're into this new thing right here okay but see one thing I want to go about the blessings talking about again the discrepancy between time like I said I was stopping a lot kind of taking in what was going on like the light even when you don't focus it and you just shine it on certain things you're almost like healing the world like flowers or blooming things like that so I was doing a lot honestly I was doing a lot of it going is this gonna lock some secret shit that I'll see you but you know but also you would you're

kind of getting the history of this realm to with like insert, again, I'm trying to not spoil anything, but certain things you would see and go, huh, that's the skeleton of this of this creature. Like, what's the history behind this, right? So with the game not having any dialogue, it's really the environment itself that's trying to tell you the story along the way, you know, in certain parts of it. So that's where I think you will see this discrepancy where if someone just wants to just mainline it right on through, yeah, you're going to be closer to what Mike did. But if someone really slows down and is really trying to take in everything that's happening in the environment at that time, yeah, I can definitely see it taking you maybe even more than eight hours, you know, to be able to get this from start to finish. Yeah, we didn't really describe like there's a scourge here on this island. I was going to say what, right? We haven't really described that like, you know, the bird comes to this lighthouse and seek of safety because we shine the light on a scourge that's chasing it and kind of gives it this like safety net of a, hey, I'm a home base you can be on. This thing right here. And then we go on this journey of like, hey, this island has something going on with it with this scourge.

And maybe the lighthouse can help us do it. And as we go, we progress through small towns and cities where we see other life forms. And they're like, they're kind of giving the vibe of like, hey, help us. And we help them along the way. And then, of course, we're trying to save this little island from the scourge at the end of the day. You know, you're talking about the scourge. You're talking about, you know, evil and corporate. You know, it's creeping in and hope being there.

Andres sent a while ago had Super Chat and said, I'm getting stray vibes from this. How does it compare? Is there a similarity there in terms of, hey, we're this cat and this robot paired up trying to do this stuff? And it's a world where you just want to get back to your family and get back to the sunshine and get back to being free?

I think there's for sure elements of that. I think thematically there, there's crossover there. And even mechanically, right? Like you, again, you being in this quiet world. I know stray had elements of dialogue going on.

Yeah, yeah, you had the robots and stuff. Yeah, you had the robots that kind of talk to each other and stuff. But I think there's a, similar level of being in a world that's unlike the world that we're from, you know what I mean? And kind of like seeing something completely new.

I like how Keeper, I think, dives you more into that of like, I'm, as I'm playing this game, I'm like, legitimately, I'm like, oh, there's nothing I've ever seen that's like this. Really? And I fucking love that. Wow. Yeah. I guess I'm so excited. Just from an artistic direction.

Yeah. Like, as I'm going into new environments or as I'm doing new things, I'm just like, man, the level of creativity on display from Double Fine, I think knows no bounce here. Like they really, I think they're really at the peak of their, at the very least, visual and aesthetic powers as they're giving you these cool sounds, these cool visuals, these like beautiful music. Like, you know, one of the things they said they told us when we went to Double Fine was like the audio director of the game. Essentially, we had to invent new instruments. Yes, this is the first game in Double Fine's history to go full Dobie Atmos on this. Okay.

So if you are blessed to have the special headphones or the awesome sound system, me and blessed when we're in Double Fine. We went to the auditor director's studio and it was like, hey, let me put this on Full Blast. And it was wild. It was awesome, right? And so, yeah, you have that. It definitely shows. Yeah. I have a question here.

And I think Mike or Paris might be the best to tackle it. Verum Dex. Well, they keep saying, they keep talking about psychonauts. They keep talking about psychonauts. Barrett's not here. Otherwise, you'd coolly the man through the wall and do it. Verum Dex, Super Chat. He says, as someone who didn't vibe with psychonauts,

do you think I could enjoy this game? Thanks for all the great content. love you all. Harris is. I think so. I think you can enjoy it. I think Cyclonauts 2 really gets even more psychedelic in some of those levels than than this does.

But this isn't like in the same world as cyclonauts or something, right? This isn't this big heavy platformer. There isn't boss battles that have that difficulty that you would have had in Cyclonauts too. It's more like what what Mike had already alluded to, you know, part of this game, you're literally just on this. Disney ride and then there's other parts of it where you get into the more of the actual emotional parts of the the unspoken storytelling that's happening as well. So I think they're different games.

Again, it's a very short experience. So it's not something that you need to invest a lot of time in, but I'm happy this game exists because, and it's just it's art. It's just something beautiful that I'm happy that I experience. I feel like this is a dumb question because the way you're all talking about it, I would imagine. But we haven't specifically hit on it. We're talking about it. We're talking about sound effects and all this stuff and the Dolby and Yeti. We're talking about there being no voice. I assume the soundtrack's badass. Soundtracks great.

Okay. Yeah. Soundtracks. I just love it. Oh, really? Yeah, I have mixed feelings on it. There are some moments where it really hit for me. I am coming off of baby steps, which had very weird music that was like,

it was like built out of the environment. And Keeper definitely has those kind of vibes where there's moments where I'm like, I don't like what I'm hearing right now. And then there's moments where I like, I love what I'm. me hearing. Yeah, I really liked it for how varied it was. You know, you could tell that they really put a lot into trying to create sounds and create like melodies that felt super unique to this world. So much of it feels alien to me. And I think that really works for what Keeper is. But yeah, it's also, but I guess to the flip side, I wouldn't listen to it outside of the

context of the game. Like it very much is a curating this music for this experience that you're having, which I think works out really well. Michael, you bring up baby steps. I have a funny connection for you here. Toast, Super Chat. says, I heard another reviewer say that it was very much a walking simulator. Would you agree with that? The first 90 minutes are very much a walking simulator. You are on a hike as the lighthouse. You are pressing forward on the controller.

It will give you a dash where you'll dash through different twigs and logs to open up a certain area. It very much feels like I am just walking, solving basic puzzles. I think Sinatch 2 and 3 in particular, the gameplay kind of changes up where it gets off of a walking sim and there's a little more fun to be had on a game side of thing, a gamer game type of thing. But the first 90 minutes in my opinion, that first act is, hey, this is a adventure, a walking, look at this beautiful painting, and look at this world. I disagree. But I also think maybe I'm confused about what a walking simulator is.

Usually it's just used as an insult. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Don't use it as an insult. Because I view a walking simulator as a gone home or as a everybody's gone to the rapture or a game like that. Whereas for me, I look at this game as a puzzle game. Throughout the entire game, the thing that you're doing consistently is solving puzzles and

trying to figure out how to get past the ops score or whatever. You know, I think if you're going to call this a walking sim, then like is any game where you're walking a walking sim in that case? Like I don't know if I would use that to describe that. Peres, where do you enter the walking sim conversation? I get what Mike is saying because I do feel it's pretty linear just taking you on the straight path where you'll stop at a certain point, solve a pretty light puzzle, and then you just continue walking along that path. I mean, you'll have some side things like you already

mentioned, Mike, where you will assemble the statues and that's like the collectible, you know, that you're getting there. But I don't think you're too off on what you mean. But I also don't take it as a negative either. I just think this is their approach to how they're trying to tell this story in the game and then, you know, obviously we don't want to spoil anything, but then it flips up, you know, once you get the act too, and then they change it up and you're like, oh, okay, you know, and you go from there. Did anybody cry? No. Almost. Almost. No, I wish I did. Not for me, but there's a couple moments from like, oh, and like I felt it, you know what I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do that and I didn't cry, though.

I think you would, Greg, because I think what got me is for parents. got kids. I knew there'd be a dead baby lighthouse. I knew I'd see it eventually washed up on the shore. Could have been. What could have been?

Dead baby lighthouse is an insane sentence. His game doesn't seem all that sane to begin with. Gondor's Condor. Mike, you might be the best one for this. I know it's not a multiplayer, but is this something you'd want to play with others? No,

this isn't like a short hike that will be coming out later on, which is the, you know, 10 person. We're all on the big hike. Remembering we're all like solving puzzles together? No, I don't want any other lighthouses in this. This is a me experience.

And possibly, would you want someone on the couch with you? Would you want to be streaming this? Like, what about a person just involved that way? If it was a significant other, a family member, one of my children, of course, shout to Susie and Little Mike. I would take good care of them. We'd have a really fun adventure because it is a Disney-ass ride. It's a Pixar film in front of you.

It's beautiful. And I would do that. Entertaining-wise, when I played this, I did not feel the vibe of like being witty and trying to entertain while doing this. This was a vibe. I wanted to vibe. Yeah. Turn off the lights.

Get the sound just right on your headphones or speakers and just have fun. If I was a teacher, this would be the kind of game. You know how like you have those days where it's the teacher, they're either lazy or they have a hangover, but they don't say that. And they roll in the VCR thing. Oh yeah. You get so excited. And they're like, just watch this thing, right?

If I was a teacher, I could see it being like, I could see myself like letting kids experience this as a art kind of lesson, right? Of, hey, this is an auditory visual experience that you're getting right here. Like, what, how do you read what's going on in this game? What kind of feelings are you feeling? What kind of feelings do you feel? Yeah, let me sit over here and try to recover from my hango. Mr. Lilly.

Ironically enough, Greg, just thinking about it as they're saying this, I would love for Ben to play this. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. I would love to get his reaction from this. Is it scary? Like, I, you know, usually if I'm introducing an animated movie, it's, or I shouldn't say that.

if it's a bigger boy movie, a bigger boy, whatever game, I usually know what I'm getting into rather than blindly going. How does he feel about like tentacles or spiders? No problem. No problem. Yeah, you'd be all right. Yeah, I think he'd be all right. Nothing like, no jump scares, nothing crazy. It's just, yeah, a lot of tentacles, slimy things moving around.

Okay. I wish, you know, you bring up art and like art teachers is right. It's like, when we grew up, it was like, hey, paint that banana, right? Yeah. When we walked in a double find, they had the wall of art right there, it's like someone should have showed that to me when I was a child. might have helped me out a little bit. I got bored painting bananas.

Art was done, you know? Wow. Give me back to P.E. Mike could have been one of the great artists of our times. We were just painting bananas. Where are you playing in P.E? Oh, man, when we used to play hockey, this poor lady, Mrs. Dan's skin, okay? This poor old lady, she had shin marks all over her sheds for people whacking her with the hockey sticks

because she'd be out there blowing the whistle. Can you be chucking at it? Oh, poor lady. It's the best. God I love P.E. our first PE teacher was sister Judy and she had a puppet like literally like you know

it's like that thing where Mr. Garrison in South Park like somebody must have told them about sister Judy. Very different upbringing. We did. We did. Mr. DeLeo was then the realty. He was the gym team did not give a shit. You know, he did not want to be a part of it. But I'm glad you're a part of this, everybody.

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anything you want to express to the audience, Paris Lily. I will repeat what Mike said that this game is definitely a vibe. It is something that you want to experience. I think it is just visually just one of the, maybe unique is the wrong word, but it's just visually pleased, such a visually pleasing game to see just some of the different biomes and realms that you'll go into while you're playing this.

I think the sound, the music, and it is fantastic. And to not have any dialogue in a game and still be able to tell a story that could hit me emotionally, it's fantastic. Absolutely recommended. And it's only 30, bucks. So I think it's priced right. I think we need more shorter experiences with games. Not everything needs to be 20 or 30 hours. And also just I'll say this too as far as just Xbox as a

whole. We've we've obviously been very critical of them over the past weeks and months. But I'm I'm yeah. I'm glad that they give studios like Ninja Theory like Obsidian like compulsion games and then obviously here would double fine. They give us. them to create a freedom to do stuff like this because we need these kind of games and this is again like i said absolutely something that i think everyone should at least play once because i really enjoyed my time bless yeah i want to throw out two little small things too that um are little critiques of my i think the camera camera is a little bit of a struggle because the right analog stick is mapped to rotating your light on the lighthouse okay um and so you kind of have to trust the game that it

knows where you want to look. Yeah, which can sometimes, sometimes I actually pretty impressed by it, but then other times I'm like, oh man, it's a little bit tough, but there is that. And I also think that some of the, you have puzzles that require you to kind of command the bird to like be at a certain thing or get a lever or do whatever. Sometimes that can be a little bit finicky to actually, you know, show up with like the queue to let you know you can press that button to make that happen. Sometimes it doesn't show up.

So it was a few my other critiques, but all in all, I think this is a game that I'd recommend to anybody if you're looking for something. to bring you back to that like journey feeling or something to bring you back to that I just want to experience something that makes you feel something sort of feeling right again that asks you to surrender to it a little bit I this game did that of me and I really really appreciated it for that to the point where I look at this game at least for me and I look at the bringing back to Xbox right the Xbox first party slate of the year and I think this is one of the shining highlights if not maybe the shining highlight for me of the year so far

damn okay hell yeah Mike yeah Yeah, Greg, I would recommend Keeper. I would actually highly recommend Keeper if you're looking to vibe. If you're looking for just a night on the couch with some beautiful art, a double-fine-ass, double-fine game where you and a partner can just crank up the volume and get lost in a journey in an adventure that not many games nowadays really have, right? This is something special and we don't get much of it, and it's always nice to support when you get something special like this.

And so, yeah, you can beat this in a night. You can have some fun with it. It's very basic and easy to get through. Nothing will ever make you want to pound your head against the wall. I would just say give yourself, like Blessing said, surrender yourself to this game and go enjoy yourself. You'll have a good time. Gentlemen, I can't wait.

I won't lie. Like I had seen it and I was like, oh, that, I don't know. I like Double Fine. Double Fine for me is always hit or miss. Costum Quest, of course, let's go. Brutal Legend, never my bag. And so I was like, I don't know what kind of double fine this will be. if it's good, I'll get to it eventually.

This is climbing the ranks rapidly, the more you talk about it. So I've got to go crank this out after I'm done with Redacted and then Redacted after that. But then I think there's a break in there to get into and do it. Ladies gentlemen and NBs, guess what? The show isn't over. I'm going to leave. I would imagine a few of you will leave.

But blessing, this morning you hit me up. And you said, hey, we're doing this game's cast. But I think we should do the second half as a spoiler cast because you got things you need to say about this game. Yeah. So if you're like me and haven't beaten this, walk away. Bookmark this, favorite it, save it in your bookmarks. I don't know what else you do with things.

Come back late. Yeah. Just remember that this episode of the games cast will have a spoiler cast, mini one, I assume. Yeah. For this here, Keeper, and you can go play Keeper at your leisure, whether it takes you three hours, whether it takes you eight hours, and then come back and listen to this because apparently you're going to have feelings.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Remember if you're going to mute or you're leaving after this, we're doing an Arc Raider stream sponsored. I can't wait to see more of that too. That'll be sick. I have a good time, everybody. I'm going to wait for Greg to actually leave the room before he really talk about it.

So he's walking. He's walking. Oh, he's speeding up a little bit, but he's not speeding up that. He's speeding up. He's moving. He's a fast guy. So I wanted to talk about this with spoilers because I feel like this is one of those games where to truly review it, we kind of had to be able to talk about it unrestricted. Yeah. Because this game does really interesting things and where it goes. And so you start off in that first act, you're the lighthouse. And then spoilers, everybody.

At the end of the first act, you feel. fall down a pit and the lighthouse fucking dies. Lighthouse breaks apart. Which when I, I want to know what you guys' thoughts were when you got to that part because I couldn't believe it. Can I can I go first on that?

Please Paris. Oh shit. What? I was like, are we going to rebuild the lighthouse? Now I control the bird. That's literally what I thought. I was like, oh, we're going to control the bird now and we have to go reconstruct the lighthouse.

But no, your freaking boat. That's exactly what I said. This is crazy. Surely the bird will pick up the pieces. I was like, I don't know if it's picking up the cement pieces of the lighthouse. Yeah, and so I wanted to bring this up, too, because me and Mike had a very interesting back and forth right before the show where we were talking about the game. I told Mike, I was like, yeah, dude, I love the lighthouse stuff. I didn't really like the boat section that much.

And then you came at me with the reverse of saying, love the boat section. Yeah. I was like, man, I'm surprised because, yeah, for me, maybe it's me coming off of baby steps. Maybe there just wasn't enough because I really felt like I was just pressing forward and I was just moving forward. and I was just moving forward with that lighthouse section where the boat gave me a little more freedom. I thought it was cute kind of dashing around through the algae and all the different sections where I was like, oh, like, here we go. And then all of a sudden we become the wheel.

And I was like, oh, look at them. They're doing stuff now, you know? So, yeah, I had a little different feeling than you. Yeah, Paris. How did you feel about the transitions between the different things? Yeah, I enjoyed it. That was such a great surprise. I'm glad we had no inkling that.

I just thought, hey, you're going to be the lighthouse the entire time, but instead, no. And I know we're in spoilers, but then the fact that we get the other bird as well. Oh, yeah, the baby bird was cute. That was the light. Baby bird. We kind of got spoiled with that pairs because we went to double fine and they gave us pins. And it was a pin of twig the bird with the baby bird. And I was like, there's a baby bird.

So I was going to be a baby bird, I guess. I was curious with the nest and then the egg, I'm like, is the, I was like, here's what I thought. I thought, we'll get to the end of the game. and the egg's gonna hatch and then they're like oh no wait we're getting we're getting this baby bird now i thought that was cool but i like the boat section i like that part where you're you had to go to the little islands and there was like the little puzzles you had to do to get the dude so he would dock yeah you get the octopus the crab man yeah oh that uh that uh that's like yeah for me it was the thing where i think the the shift from being the lighthouse and doing the more straightforward puzzles

and doing like the time dilation stuff all that stuff was so cool to me and i loved how the lighthouse moves. I like how it looks. I think it's such a striking visual and I really, really adored that. The boat stuff, I liked, I liked how the boat looked, but then for me, it was being in this open area and it does the thing that I don't always love with puzzle games where it is, all right, now go to the different areas and collect the things. And it's a little bit mazy and it's a little bit like, I'm getting turned around in a way that I'm not enjoying. And I also, I think I just didn't like controlling the boat as much. Like, something about that middle section just felt a bit disjoined into me to where when you get out of that and then get into the wheel section, I was like, oh, this is fucking, this is amazing, but also it feels like a different game, which I like, but then also I was like, man, I wonder, I guess it didn't all come together for me in the way that I expected as a work of art.

So much to follow up on because, yeah, in the boat section, it became a little paint by numbers of, hey, there's one tentacle to take out. Okay, now there's two. Go to left or right. however you want to do it. Guess what? Now there's three and you're going to go in a circle. And so it's like, all right, we're doing this a lot here. But I want to go back to the time dilation with the bird.

That was cool. We all of a sudden, I was faced with the first one of like, all right, now the bird is an egg. Okay, well, what's that going to do? Now the bird is a ghost. And I didn't know to send it through the gate. And then you finally have that moment of like, oh, you send that through the gate. Then you turn him back on into a real bird. He cranks the handle.

Oh, you want him to sit on. that make him an egg so he's heavy pushes it down loved that stuff was awesome that was fun should we talk about the wheel I mean really quick the cotton candy was a blast I wish there was a little more

I love that I guess it was short and sweet it was perfect of like love jumping loved feeling the levitating on that the vibe of it and the floatiness that was awesome I had a couple of problems tell me Paris yeah oh no no I didn't mean interrupt you I was gonna say now I do have to admit when you first come into that area

and you realize you got to get all the way up to the top, I was like, oh shit, how are we going to do this? Right? But then it's not that bad at all. But yeah, I love this sex, but I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no. Yeah, and then breaking apart the little catalysts to bring them down. Oh, yeah, bring him down.

That's cool. For me, I had some problems. The lever sometimes you kind of brought up like the wonkiness of the controls occasionally. Yeah. The lever sometimes I would mess, I would have problems. Oh, when you had to rotate? Yeah, because it's like, it wants you to rotate a certain way, or when you were first move inside to side and you're like pulling at it.

But really the big one for me, me was whenever you would grab something and they wanted you to yank it out and you're like moving it side and side you're like where's the yank spot here like i don't know what's going on oh yeah i know exactly we're talking about it was odd i saw i saw a tweet and obviously i don't know how true this is but i saw a tweet that i guess

someone that also reviewed it was saying they fixed that i guess there's a day one patch that has kind of resolved some of that to make it easier that's interesting so it may not so it may not be that bad for people that are playing it now it wasn't perfect yeah It reminded me of playing an adventure game a little bit where the thing, the similar thing for me is when you're walking a certain direction and then the camera would change. But then like the game kind of doesn't know what direction you're going. Like it keeps going straight. I'm like, oh, now I got to.

It reminds me playing heavy rain a little bit. And I'm like, oh, okay, let me stop and then readjust where I'm going. I had that a few times and I didn't love that. But the wheel? Let's get to the wheel. The wheel? The wheel is cool. That was my favorite.

I was like, now I'll bring you back. Xbox Game Pass had a great one called. X-01. Very similar to like a haste. You know, the Sonic-ass vibes of like, I'm this super fast thing, I got to catch the momentum. I wanted to text you so bad, bless of like, this game has become Sonic. This shit's

crazy. You remind me of playing like an older N64 or like late 90s like a computer game that has like it was just missing like, I don't know, like rock music and like fucking like post apocalyptic or alien vibes or some shit. This part and the Pegasus

part we'll get to in a minute. That part, those had some great music, some great songs I really enjoyed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pairs, what do you think about the wheel part? Oh, I love the wheel. I thought it was great. And I think what you're already alluding to, this is where I think the music really starts to kick in.

Yeah. The weird suck-in parts where you'd find the green hole and you'd go through and you're like, all right, I went through the hole on the left. That brought me back to the beginning. So I'll go into this hole. And then trying to connect the flowers with the power up. That was fun or banging it's like the heartbeats and yanking them. and then they would power that up.

What they nailed for me is just the feeling of almost like you're playing Tony Hawk. You know what I mean? Like they don't have you in those like gaps in the ground where you go in and it's essentially the big bowls. The big bowls, yeah, where it feels like a half pipe and so you would go in and then like launch yourself and then go like I think when you're able to nail just how a thing feels to control

where you're not even worrying about the objective. I'm just like let me see how I can get real quick. You know, like that for me that's a telltale sign of you created something that feels good. So I really enjoyed that. Pegasus's part was also fun. I thought we were going to get. a little bit more out of the Pegasus.

It clearly was like, this is the end. But I wanted, I guess I just wanted to fly a little bit more. Wanted a little more movement with the Pegasus? Because it was like, holy shit, this thing's a goddamn Pegasus. This is nuts. You know what I mean? Yeah. Really, it's just one of those birds.

Because the birds had four legs and stuff like that. But I'm going to call it a Pegasus for fun. But that was pretty wild to become one and like get to go on that small journey with that. And then the moment where they fly off and like the lighthouse gives it the wink, like go on without me. I was like, just fly with

them. Fly with them forever. Cool. Is there anything else, spoiler-wise, we want to cover here? I mean, yeah, of course, the ending was pretty powerful. The ending was also like, I described to you, but it's like, no one would believe me if I walked up to him and told him what happened in this game. Where I was like, you're a lighthouse. Then you break apart, you become a boat. Then get this. The lighthouse breaks apart one more time. You're this spinning wheel of death and light, and it's awesome.

Then you become a Pegasus. Then you get to the top of the mountain. and you help this mountain with its glaucoma and you fucking fill in its eyeball and you become the eyeball like no one would believe me if I said that to him it's one of those things where I'm like yeah I don't know how to describe this I don't know how to break this down even thematically of like what are they saying here but with all that said Mike if you said and double fine made it yeah I believe that yes yes exactly yeah yeah there you would definitely you'd be like okay yeah I get it now Mike is right yeah I don't I guess the fun part is like at the end of the day, what were we supposed to feel or think about, right? It's like, we helped this beautiful

little bird find its baby. We saved the island, right? And all the inhabitants from this scourge. We became the ultimate lighthouse to protect this island forever from darkness, I guess. I mean, this is what I took from it. And this is like where I was saying before, I think with there not being any dialogue, it's kind of left up to your interpretation on how you want to want to view this. So this is why I was saying as far as Greg goes, like I almost felt like I could got emotional on that. I think Greg could as well because as a dad, the lighthouse is the dad, right? The bird is your significant other than I was a bit. But the point is you were you're the protector. It's like, that's my job as a dad to protect my family. And that's what I felt

like at the end, I accomplished that job. And then when I bring that back into real life and I think about my family kids and all that. It's like, I get it. I get what you're trying to say. But maybe someone else, you play in Mikey, you got a completely different thing. I don't know. But that's what I took from all of that was this was me doing my job as a dad,

protecting my family and my home. That's really good. Yeah. Let them go on their own journey while I'm here now, right? You're working. This is home. You come back and see me whenever you want, but it's your journey now.

Yeah, I think that's a really good takeaway from it. Yeah. And I think there's also a sense of community there. when you're talking about, like, as you go to the place where there's the time dilation and you're, like, in that community figuring things out, right? Or then you go to the place where you're the boat and there's, like, the things that you're interacting there. Like, for me, there's, like, there's the dad and, like, I guess, caretaker aspect of it. But there's also, I guess for me, I was viewing it as, like, being a caretaker for the environment as well. Like, I kind of viewed it through, like, almost like an environmentalist frame of, like, you're talking about the scourge or the blight or whatever that's coming in, right?

Like, hey, we got to protect the world around us. from what's going on here, right? And it's the, it takes a village sort of thing. And so when you see the mother bird, like, you know, have this baby bird that's with it. It is the thing of we got to protect this for the next generation, which is why it is on you as the lighthouse to, like, really see this through and really put your all in

into protecting this world around you. It's crazy to feel that, like, feel about real life. Yeah. I mean, like, real life. It's like, damn, that shit's crazy, man. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, all in all, it was a really good time for me, right? Like, I enjoyed the journey.

I liked when they added. I guess just the more gameplay. I just didn't like pressing forward and solving the puzzles as the lighthouse. I liked the boat. I felt like I got a little more. Maybe it was just speed. Maybe it was the momentum. There was just something about

I'm just moving forward in that that I didn't love at first. Like I said, it felt like a Disney ride where I'm just watching this lighthouse from the cart behind it and they're experiencing everything and I'm just kind of watching the beauty of it all. Think of it this way, Mike. When you you first start off as the lighthouse, when you initially, or like, you're, you're learning

to crawl, like you're stumbling around, right? Then you kind of get your footing. So almost think of it. You start crawling. Then you walk. Yes. Is it a boat. Now, now you're running. And then you get to Pegasus. You could freaking fly, baby. I'm in my prime. That's beautiful. That's exactly right. Yeah. Tommy, talking to you, it's make me appreciate it a little bit more. Because, yeah, I think my thing, gameplay wise, not to refute myself, but like I, yeah, I really enjoyed the lighthouse stuff, right? And then for me, it's like that felt like it could be just its own game in a way to where like the wheel stuff was also awesome. But like totally, it just felt so different that I'm like, you know, does this take away from like everything you're doing

from the lighthouse? Obviously that's fun too. And I didn't really enjoy the both stuff as much. But I think what I'm thinking when I think through it, I guess thematically from the guys of, all right, as the lighthouse or as the keeper, you know what I mean? Like you are doing everything to kind of fulfill this responsibility that you have. have to the planet or to the community around you. And so through whatever it is, you fall down, you break apart, but you pull yourself together. I got to rebuild. You got a rebuild to, like, provide for your community, right?

Oh, man, okay, that happens again. Even though I'm just the light, I'm still going to, like, pull through for this thing. I do my job. And then I'm going to be better than ever. I'm the mountain now. I'm the peak of it all. Yeah. And I can do it even better.

I like that. Yeah. Like, I think there's something there that brings it together. Are you surprised they made this? I guess my, my final, like, final question I just want to conversate with you guys is like, did we think they were going to did you think they would make this right everyone yells make banjo

double fine they're like we make double fine ass double fine games and it's like I respect that I love that right and then I think of psychonauts too and that to me third you know little 3D action platform or mascot type vibe right this was not that no this felt totally different and I was surprised

that they made this I mean as Paris said I love that Xbox gives them the freedom but I didn't think this would be the game that they would make here. Paris, what do you think? Yeah, and I'm in you, I know you guys went to studio because I'm blanking on his last name. Lee,

uh, basically to say, thank you. I think I read he came up with his idea during the pandemic, right? Yeah. He told that sense of loneliness and all that. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Um, no, I absolutely did not think this would be the game the double fine was making. But when I realized what it was, you know, after the, the showcase,

I go, yeah, let's do this. Let's do something different. I want to see what this is. It immediately shot up my anticipated list and honestly it delivered. It really did. I like these kind of games.

Not everything needs to be the cookie cutter standard thing. Do something different. And that's what they did. Yeah. And I do like that. You know, I never played all the way through Psychonauts 2. But this doesn't feel like a like this is our big gigantic next title or even if I don't

even know if you they would describe themselves as making gigantic titles. I guess Psychonauts 2 when I look at how long to beat, that's like a 15 hour game. So to play this and have it. be more of a six to eight hour, like, shorter experience, you know, I think there, I think for me, this feels like the, let's take a breather kind of game and let's make something that is more, I guess about the art, something that's more about the, like, I guess something different. You know what I mean? Like a pallet cleanser between our next big project sort of thing.

And I really appreciate it for that. I always find it fascinating when we go and talk with developers of like these game jams or the office coming together and having so many different ideas. Yeah. And someone going, oh, I like. that like let's do that and then the question of like well is a six to eight hour you know lighthouse game gonna cut it in this day and age and then being like being able to say no like let's make that right yeah can be our one off and we can keep making the large cyclonex games or

the weird game that we make my thing is that like let's do this these games deserve to exist yeah you know what I mean like yeah like fuck capitalism like a game like keeper oh dude needs to be able to exist yeah like in today's day and age when we look at EA being bought right now, Microsoft Sony. This should not exist. Yeah. Like, for $30, I don't know if this sells well. $30 is kind of wild.

Game passed and under the trillion dollar umbrella and hopefully Phil is like make the cool shit you want to make Tim Schaefer because it deserves to be made. 1,000%. I totally understand to the idea of like, man, I'll love double fine to make a banja because I'm also in the same mind of like

would I, like, do I want double fine to make a banjo or make this. I feel like if Double Fine made a banjo, it'd be a weird ass Bangerizooie game. It's going to be a weird banjo. Yeah. Like, I think if they locked in, they could, they have the talent to where they couldn't make a traditional banjo three and it would be

great or whatever, but that's not who they are. I feel like that would be turning away from who they are. I want them to make a weird shit. The analogy I use on what you're saying, blessing is it was like, remember a few years back, there was all the talk about Quentin Tarantino making a Star Trek movie. As much as I love Tarantino movies, him making a

it's not going to be Star Trek. So it's like well, why are we doing it in the first place? Exactly. So no, double-fine should do what they do. And this is the result that you get. So, yeah, very happy for that. Yeah, I would love to know the inner workings of this because it does, like, to me on the outside,

it feels like, yeah, this can be made because you're underneath the trillion-dollar umbrella. You're protected by Microsoft. You can do this, right? And it's like you look like Paris just went down, right? We're talking about south of midnight right now from compulsion games. Like all these games that's like,

Man, they're letting them just make games. Yeah, Penn's a few years ago. Like, good for them. Like, it's cool that we can have cool things like this. I just hope this maintains. I get so worried. What is it like in five years, 10 years? What is it like in two years?

Do they change this? Yeah. Yeah, like, is there, or is there like a world where double find just goes independent because Microsoft's like, you know, we got to make more, we got to find more moneymakers with our studios. Like, I have no idea where their heads are at versus, you know, the identity of double fine is. It's the same fear that I have with media molecules sometimes on the PlayStation

side where I'm like, man, y'all make weird games. Y'all made dreams. And dreams is special. I fucking love dreams. But is that getting the job done on, like, on paper for a PlayStation when it comes to the financials in the same way that I look at double fun? I'm like, does Microsoft view this or does Microsoft and Phil, like, is Phil Spencer trying to shield y'all? Like, do you all have a shield that's like, no, let them cook?

Because that's who they are. I hope that's the case, but you never know. Keep making rad shit. It's awesome. Keep making dope shit. They make dope shit. Keep making dope shit double fine. We love it.

Any last thoughts for a spoiler? Spoiler cast conversation? No, I liked all the cool creatures. I loved the art style. It's just a vibe. It's a vibe game. It's hard to describe. I do have one.

I got one. And this was in Act 1 where you go to that town and you start doing the time stuff to fix their problem. You know, that big statue in the middle and you have to fix it. But when you do it, at the end, they're literally throwing you a parade.

raid as you leave out of their area. I just thought that was so cool. That's cool. I just love that. Did you guys do a lot of the side stuff? I know I described it as like, I did about two statues to like, hey, take the left path and you would walk up and like rebuild the statue with the three little heads. Did you do a lot of those? I did maybe four or five of those, but also they didn't feel that stand out to me.

Yeah. Like they didn't feel like I feel like they're just there to give you something to chase like some kind of extra thing. But yeah, I wasn't, I never did it purposely. I think I've just had I've had it built into my like gamer brain of if I see two paths take the other one first. It's always sort of like well there's a couple paths from like which way am I supposed to. I have no idea what's the main path. Yeah.

And so I'd go right and it's like, well, that was the main path. I missed out on whatever's the left hand side or I chose left. I'm on the side thing. Now I have to backtrack and go over there. So it very much felt like I just kind of guessed and I would either be there. I wouldn't. Yeah. All right.

Well, Paris, thank you so much for joining us on this episode. Mike. Thank you for having to see you. Thank you, Bless, for letting us spoil this. I do love the post conversations of like, hey, take the security blanket off. Let's just get wild with it. Because I do need this during reviews of like, let's talk about everything, right? Because like, we have to talk about that wheel. We had to talk about the wheel. That shit was dope, bro.

Yeah. And the Pegasus! It became a Pegasus Blitz. It was great. I love this game. I know I gave it an 8.5s where I'm like, but I love this 8.5 to me. Of course, this has been Kind of Funny Gamescast. Each in a week

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