Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - KF Games Showcase Behind The Scenes Breakdown - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 201

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

We breakdown all the behind the scenes secrets and stories of making the Kinda Funny Games Showcase. (Released first to http://www.Patreon.com/KindaFunnyGames Supporters on 12.21.18) Time Codes - 00:00:18 - Start 00:03:12 - Smash Bros. Ultimate Progress Update 00:07:56 - Thief of Thieves Skybound 00:11:44 - Borderlands VR 00:20:48 - Earth Defense Force 5 00:28:09 - Mobile Game or Hallmark Original Christmas Movie 00:37:23 - BTS of the Kinda Funny Games Showcase Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys? Welcome to the first ever episode 201 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Getty's joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games. Greg Miller. Hey, do you do get back. I want something to animate me rotating out of my chair and spinning around. I like that. And once again, the Reverend Jared Paddy. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah. Joy as Noel at all, etc. These here, December holidays are in full swing. I'm excited about it. Joy and as Noel. Is that what you said? Joy is Noel. Joy is noel.

You're not, you're pronouncing all the letters. I know, I'm doing it all wrong there though. We need, we need, we need, we need, we need, we need Jen to do it. She's in the other room working around. I know, I know, I know, she's just that she got work going on. I can't do it right.

I've been on the whole French accent kick today. I've been thinking about a lot. You have been on it? Yeah, I was thinking about a little coworker of mine had a, he was French, so understandably a thick French accent. And I always kind of admire that the coolness of the French accent. My, my accent is, is all weird and, and lispy and strange. I like people with with strong accents and the French things such is a great accent. I love it.

A very jealous pretty much of all. Jen's been taking a conference call to senior French all day. It's been cool. She's French. She's French. She's quite French. Yeah. Well, she's French Canadian. She's quite French Canadian. But French Canadian people also have an awesome accent.

Like, or many of them do. Oh, yeah. I don't want to just overgeneralized. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast. We each and every week right here on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. We get together talk about video games, all the things that we love about them. You can get the show early by going to Patreon.com slash kind of funny. games just like our Patreon producers Matthew Felier and Travis Barrett did.

If you want your name shout it out just go to Patreon. It's cool. We shot a lot of people out. It is cool. You can also get the show early by going to patreon.com slash kind of funny games and you get the pre and post show. A little added bonus. That's pretty good.

What are their names again, Tim? Matthew Felier and Travis Barrett. All right, because I feel like they didn't get shouted enough. Matthew, Travis! There we are. There you go. There's your shouts, boys. Those are your pretty, pretty shouts.

You can the show is a podcast and podcast services where Greg? Around the globe. Thank you very much for that. And you can be watching live like so many people are right now. And for that, we appreciate you. They got to see when everything went wrong and there weren't sound. And we had trouble shooting stuff. That's the problem with the kind of funny morning show is, well, one of the problems.

I was going to say. That's what you're going to see. That's what you're going to back a bit, buddy. There's no rules on what's going to get copyright claim. What got copyright claim? It's this video of a car drifting. It's like we watched all the spring breaker stuff. We watched all these like they, no, that's all fine.

But this dude in a damn car. So it's not 75 minutes of Nick talking about his balls. That's the problem. No, there's no problem with that. No problem at all. Hey man, that's on brand. Quality balls. Quality balls.

Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves there. They're old man balls. Oh, God. Just imagine Nick's balls for a second, Tim. I think he has good balls. I don't know for a fact. You think so? Yeah.

What defines a good ball? Roundness. I want to keep talking about Super Smash Brothers Ultimate Of course No one's surprise I want to give a quick The ball to end them all

The ball to end them all I want to give a quick progress update I want 100% this game I'm going to 100% This game It is going to take me A long time Many years some might think

And that might be Because there is a lot of content In this game A lot of characters to beat Classic Mode in But my update for World of Light Is I am finally 100% complete

What was the game clock on that? We ended up being like 45 or something like it was fucking nice. Were those those weird fake time units or was that real time? It's fake time units. Okay. It's fake time units. But that doesn't account for the real time units I had doing one of the challenges, which is the thing I want to talk about.

A big problem with this game, we've talked about World Light a lot of issues that it has. But a big problem is the last two fights that you go through. Like the final battle and then there's a final final battle. are fucking awesome. And so few people are ever going to actually see them because it takes 40 hours to get there. The final fight, and I'm telling everyone with us now, in case they want to be like, you know what,

it's worth doing to push through, you go into, you face all the people, whatever, then you go, you play as master hand. Oh, that's perfect. You play as the head and you need to defeat all the characters in the game. Is your move segment? Every smash by the character. Every single one.

And they're all there, It reminds me of the Final Battle in Final Fantasy 10. Did you ever play Final Fantasy 10? Yeah. You don't have to now fight all the aons that have been your partners the whole time. Your Master Hand, you're just batten the evil puppetry out of these characters. Okay, that's rad. And it was super cool.

Back in melee, there was if you used Codebreaker or whatever, like the GameShark for the GameCube era, it was in the code that you can end up controlling Master Hand. But with this, it's cool. It's like you left and right up and down, you're moving. But then there's special attacks. and each one of them does all the different master-hand things. Like, why is no one talking about this? This is awesome. They probably don't want to spoil the game, and also no one's beating it.

Yeah, that's the bigger problem. That's the secret, yeah. So then after that, real quick, Joey Nguel, what's up? No, no, I needed my computer from Joe. I forgot what topic of the show was, and I'm going to need stuff for that. Oh, yeah, that's helpful. Then, then that's not it. You do that.

Then the final battle is you choose a character, and you know how in the trailer there was that, that light guy in Galium or whatever the fuck. that kills all the characters in the intro. Didn't pay a lot of attention. The thing that kills everybody. There's that. Later in the game, you find out there's an equal, dark version of it. You start the final match with them fighting each other as you're going up this platform

tower and you need to hit each one of them, but pretty much you're just trying to avoid being attacked by both of them. And I'm like, this is a really cool concept that eventually you get to the top, you fight a bunch of just random smash characters. Then you go through a boss rush mode and you play through all the bosses back to back to back. And that's awesome because it really makes you realize, like, how much cool shit's in this game. Yeah. That is just spread across way too long of a playtime.

You face off against Dracula, Gigabowser, Marks from Kirby. Dry bones, of course. Oh, my God. Please tell me. But it's awesome. It's like you just do all of that. And then once you beat that, then you have to fight the actual two, the light and dark thing, whatever. And then you're done and you beat the game.

That's great. One of the, there's the challenge board in Smash that has, it's essentially achievements or trophies. Yeah. And that's all like the extra shit you have to do. One of them is to beat that whole final segment without dying. Wow. And I'm like, this sucks. Yeah.

This is going to be grueling because it takes about 20 minutes to do that segment. Yeah. Yeah. So do you really want to do that just to have 100%? You did it? Oh, you already did. I did it. I'm so happy that I never have to do that again.

But oh my God, I'm so happy because it was one of those things where you don't get anything for losing. It's like because if you lose you, it doesn't. count as like killing anybody. So you don't get any stats. I'm like, this sucks, but it's fucking done. It's over with. Now I can move on to all the other mindless shit to complete for no reason. Yeah, yeah. But it brings me joy, Greg. That's what it's all about. Smash Brothers trophy collecting or spirit, whatever. It's the only time I understand you. You platinum trophy. There we go. There you go. You can never be mean about it again. You can never throw stones. You can never be rude. And you're not allowed to play any more games until you platinum Spider-Man.

That's what Jared and I decided. Oh, damn. Yep, definitely. I'm close because I sure platinum spider man yeah you got you dude I know have you played spider man yet you're such a husk of a person you just make me sick next year you're gonna tell me you don't even have the mr massagy platinum get out of here Greg Miller hey buddy um when we were watching the x018 a game popped up called thief of thieves right from skybound games yeah based on a comic book from kirkman we didn't even know existed i didn't know existed i don't know you didn't know yeah definitely Yeah. It looked cool and I said

this looks like a Greg Miller ass game. And it's so close to being a Greg Miller ass game. So close. Because it was, we did the XO18 event. We watched it. All right, cool. It's got cell shading. It's got comic book panels.

The trailer was cut really well. It was almost, you're watching it like, is this like a hitman game? Like, what are we getting into? And I kind of, I was like, I'm going to go home. We get it. Totally forgot about it. Went on, turned down my Xbox, downloaded below. It was in game pass.

And I was like, oh, shit, Thief of Thief of Thieves. downloaded that as well. You want to talk about below later, right? You're saying like next week? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. I did a little bit of blow and then jumped into Thief of Thieves.

And it starts like, I was like, oh shit, this is totally, why is no one talking about this? This is going to fly another radar because it starts with you walking through an airport and you're like silhouetted and it looks like a comic book and I was like, and it's got like a good soundtrack to it. I was like, fuck, this is pretty good. And then like you start talking to somebody over your phone or whatever and you're like, okay, this is this neat?

This is interesting. all right, cool. And then it did like what I think is one of those telltale, not telltale games, but like telltale things in video games. We're like, oh, where you're walking and it's ready for the scenes transition and you just stop. And I was like, oh, no. It faded out and came into the next thing.

And then it went into a comic bookie cutscene again, but it was like, oh, it's all still frames and they're talking over and the war bubbles problem. Oh, that's, okay, that's not a big deal. That's just a presentation issue. And then got into actual game plan. It was like, oh, man. You just hear the prices right? Like the boom, bum, boom, boom.

And it's like, what I'm saying is, this is falling, from what I played, the hour of it, maybe, give or take an hour. Maybe a little over, maybe a little under. It totally is like that thing of like, yep, no one's talking about this because this is one of those, what I would say, the double A games that fell away. Yeah. This is like a solid, from what I played of it, it was very early, yes. But like, this is a six. This is a six. Not even seven.

You know, probably a six. It's probably a six from the hour, 50s. 15, 45 I played. Now, do you associate AA games with sixes? Like, do those two things? Yeah, the THQ mid-run, like, all right, cool, here's something to play

in between your giant releases, the things you're super excited about. Before, Indies were everywhere, and you had all these different things. I usually associate, like, the AA's I remember, I just didn't play games like that very long unless I absolutely had to.

Yeah. And so usually I associate even AA experiences with seven or eight type area scores just because I only played the ones that I was having fun. And I think, and I'm saying on the south end of a double A game, you know, I mean, a bad way of something that.

When you see a game, like, remember, like, I just, and granted, this is totally skewed by when I started at I Jan, right, of 2007. So I'm getting all these PS2 games, all these 360 games, all dropping at once, and there's things you're picking up out of the crates of the library, like, what the fuck is this? Yeah, I never even heard of this game. And you look it up and it's like, oh, yeah, flat six. No wonder nobody knew. There were approximately six trillion PlayStation 2 games.

Right. And so that's, that's the thing is, right, like, you're, you're playing it and it was like, okay, that was a weird, the presentation choices are weird. But again, it's like, okay, cool, whatever. It's a smaller game, and they're telling it through comic books and stuff's popping up. That's neat. That's fine. But then, yeah, gameplay is, like, very hitman-esque of, like, you're infiltrating this thing.

Like, I need to get this guy's delivery driver, you know, maintenance uniform to go in there. And it's just like, oh, all right. If I wanted this kind of experience, I play hitman. Like, I don't know how to, and this isn't as detail at all or is in-depth as hitman, right? Like, it's more towards a narrative, but it's just like, all right, no, narrative's not that great. It was like, I see what you're doing. Cool. I'm going to bounce now.

Bye. I'm going to bounce. Done. Uninsault. But hey, I turn on my Xbox. Yeah. Hey, there you go. Borderlands VR.

You're playing a little bit of that today. Yes, of course. Borderlands 2 on PlayStation VR dropped last week. It's something we had been interested about since it got Shadow announced pretty much, right? Where it was just out of blue and it's going to be out next month. You're like, oh, shit, fuck. All right, cool. And if you're unfamiliar, there's no multiplayer in it, but it is the entire Borderlands 2 campaign.

It's gained infamy recently with the IG. IGN review kerfuffle, which if you're not familiar with, a review got posted on IGN late last week, and then was taken down Friday night along with Dan Stapleton stepping onto Reddit to be like, we understand that there was misinformation in this review, we've removed it, we're working on it, we've reached out to Medicare to take down the score. Oh, I missed that whole thing. Yeah, it was that they gave it a 3 out of 10, and the reviewer was like, there's no, you can't do this, that of the other thing in it.

And comments were like, no, you very much can. Did you look at the controls? Like, those are in there, like, very much. like immediately the knocks he had on it were then taken out by that kind of thing. And it has been that thing. What a year for I Jan and reviews and problems, not of their own. I digress. That's a different game.

Yeah, that's good people. Playing the game. Got it in. Again, did an hour of it today because showcase and then just live and everything else we're doing. January 4th coming up real quick. But got in there put an hour because it was that thing of, man, what's going on? And we had a really great conversation on games daily about the IGN kerfuffle, me and Andrea, right? And Andrew's point being to that of if something out of three out of ten, I would want someone to overlook or oversight that and do that.

And we went back and forth about it with that's possible and not. But in the very same way, I'm talking about the Thief of Thieves where I'm like, ooh, yeah, six. Okay, I see what you're on for this. You know what I mean? It's the same way of playing that game for the hour I played it, which is if you're a borderlands two person, right? you know, you wake up, meet clap trap, pick your character, bully mongers, all this stuff, or bully mongers, get out,

and then you're out into the world or whatever, right? Like, I played through all that, like, the opening tutorial. Just from that, I'm like, there's no way this game's a three. You know what I mean? Like, for the argument of Andrea, or not the argument, but the conversation of like, if somebody else in the office would have been playing,

I think they would have been like, wait, no way, what are you talking about? Yeah. Again, I digress. What I'm saying is it runs really well. Awesome. It looks like Borderlands, too, which is an old game.

Right? You know what I mean? But it's still in VR. And exactly. There's weird presentation choices of like, you know, like obviously you're in this game and you're in VR and you know, wherever you're looking is where you're looking. But then yeah, cutscenes, whatever do go like theater mode and you're watching that or like that's interesting.

And like the intro cutscene didn't run super well or this side of the other. But playing it, I was like, no, this functions well. I'm walking around with a free move. You can teleport. I was walking on free movement with stick. What did you think of the detached hand thing? Like, did that work? It did.

I got over it. It was at first. like, that's a weird choice, Ryan. So if you, are you from, so like, when you're running, you see, like, your arm, like your arms all the way. But, like, when I equip the shotgun, like, he, it pumps out a little bit further than you. So you see, basically, like, floating it hands from Adam's family.

Oh. So you see, like, the cutoff of where the arms are. They don't extend to your body. Got it. I'm assuming that so it's not like traveler so that you don't have this, like, yeah, armed storing and horrible ways. And that was the thing is, like, the game, it's borderlands. It's the same, like, the new dialogue they've added in to explain what's going on from

Claptrap. I'm like, oh, you've got one of those fancy virtual reality echoes or whatever he calls it. It's like they're playing off that. They know what they're doing. And I think it does work well. And I was surprised, you know, in the hour I got, I didn't get any guns that aimed down sights. So it was just having like a loose handgun with no sights on or whatever. And the target floating around, I'm like, I don't know if I'm a fan of that.

And then as I started playing, I was like, you know what? This is actually nice fighting all the bully mott. I'm saying that wrong, right? Do you play borderline? I'm not a big borderlands guy. The bully mongs is what I want to say, right? That's one of those games that, like, I respect from a, Like I've played it.

Yeah. I just did not pull me off. I did have that moment of like, I could play this again. I could see me playing this again, but it's like, no, I'm not going to do it. But it was, shooting felt really good. Moving felt really good.

Looting felt really good. Like I wasn't surprised, but it also was surprising like the way the HUD felt really good. Like when you activated the first time and your health pops up down here and then eventually shields get at it over and the way it hovers over as you go

rather than be locked to the screen, which sounds weird, but you know how it's when you play VR. I feel like Borderlands 3 could be a, like a huge jump above what two was in terms of like how contemporary game design has changed. If it were designed based on the aesthetics of other games of its ilk now. And other things that have happened, you could have a really exceptional video game that I would get really into. Playing Porterlands 2, it is like, man, Portland was great.

That's the thing is the playing is like turning. in the thing, getting the money, getting the quest, getting my badass points. All right, cool. I've leveled it. It's like, yeah, I remember this. I remember this being awesome and going in and selecting my weapons and putting on my shields and all the stuff. But it is that thing of, they've been working on Borderlands 3, hopefully, for so long.

And is it going to be, is it going to be Fallout 4? Or where it is just, hey, guess what, everybody, it's Borderlands 2, but better. And it's like, well, cool, but like things have changed since. Even when I played the handsome collection with the pre-sequent, again, the pre-sequels put into the handsome collection to get onto the current gen consoles. Great times, but again, very much what it was. But there is something to be said for

just reintroducing a kind of game that kind of gets forgotten about. If it is just more borderlands two, but better and prettier and quicker, maybe that's a good thing because we, you know, some design and aesthetics, they fall behind, we forget about it, but one of the things I really liked about Housemark was how they would find ways to take games that we had kind of forgotten existed, genres. And they'd be like, no, no, really, there's a lot to be mind in this still. And I think one of the reasons people reacted to their comment about Arcade is dead so violently. was that they had proved over and over again, no, it's not. Right.

And that was probably a very carefully chosen quote. A Borderlands that leans into its old strengths in a way that doesn't test our patience. Sure. Could be great. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see, you know, Borderlands is a beloved franchise, and it has been gone a long time, which is why every time we do a prediction for anything. Borderlands, it's got to be coming. It's got to be happening now.

I'm really surprised at the amount of full-fledged games that are being put into VR that seemed to work. Like when you look at this, you look at Skyrim, it's like Doom. Well, the weirdest thing about it, yeah, like, it was Skyrim and Doom, I didn't give much time. I played Skyrim again enough that I need to. Doom was fun, but not my thing. I was surprised jumping into this one because when I think about VR, I am, and I'm not

thinking about experiences anymore, right? But I am thinking about it in totally different ways where Moss has me anchored, except for when I lean in, right? And the astrobot very similar. I'm anchored, and then I move the world with me. Beat Sabre, I'm anchored in interacting. When it was like, all right, cool. it's a full-blown, you know, FPS.

It's on, in VR. It brings up memories of me of, the Tomb Raider, PlayStation 4 edition they put out for the second one. Definitive, no. I don't remember. Rise of the Tomb Raider. It's right there, but I can't see past the one box. Tomb of the Rise Raider.

Tomb of the Rise of PlayStation 4 box. I was like a 20 year celebration. Rise of the Tomb Raider, 20 year celebration? Yeah. Sounds wrong. Nah, it was fine. But they put in Lockroft Manor, and that was a walk-around thing,

And that was one of the few VR experiences where I was like, who, okay, like, I'm not ready for this. And then you get it in here, and it's like immediately, clapchamps, I was like, no, you got your teleport. And you can do this if you want to. And I was like, all right, cool. And I tried it a little bit. And I'm like, wow, this seems like it might have made combat really easy or this,

the other. But then it was like, can I move? And I hit the stick and I just was moving and I wasn't sick. And again, so I think one of the, the, probably the reason that people, no, I shouldn't say that. Jumping into controls, like, there are so many comfort settings. Yeah. In terms of that.

And like, you know what I mean? like of moving your walk speed up to run. Turning. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. But I thought personally I thought even more, but I never went to inflate. I never went too deeply in depth of that. But in terms of shooting and mechanics and this, that and for borderlands, there was a bunch of things in there where it's like,

oh, awesome. Even if it wasn't working for me as is, there'd be different things to do it. You were asking me earlier about Spider-Man, which is, you know, a beautiful, very interesting game. Yeah. But there is a part of me that wonders, like, I would love the idea of a VR Spider-Man game. And I also wonder if it would kill me. Yeah.

to play. But, God, what if it didn't kill you? And that's there are a way to play it that didn't make me want to die. I should go back and put Tomb Raider back in. Because is it the fact that that was within the window, launch window really, a PlayStation VR? And now that I play, not like I'm too many, but I play a lot of PlayStation VR compared to the normal person.

Like, is it that, yeah, I've just got my sea legs finally. And like, that just doesn't happen anymore. But it was weird because I took it off and then ran outside to get packages. And coming back upstairs, I was like, oh, now I'm kind of car sick. Yeah. I'm like going from that to actually doing it. What is happening here? But yeah, from the hour I played of it, yeah, it's fun and it works, and it is something I'm interested to engage more with.

I don't know if I will, because this morning I woke up and I was like, I think it's time. I'm going to fire the division back up. It's time to start getting my shields or whatever for division, too. Yeah, you're mentioning that last time in time. Yeah, I'm so I'm finally getting there, I think. Jared. Yes, sir. Earth Defense Force 5.

Yes, indeed. I would use this for the Imagine Games Network. Oh. IGN a while ago. And on our last show, it didn't have time to bring it up. Holy crap. What a delightful surprise this was. Really?

No, I want to be clear. You've done previews of it, right? You liked it. I'm a fan of Earth Defense Force. I had played some Earth Defense Force before this came out. I played many of the other games, and I had played a little of five before it came out. But this is the best Earth Defense Force game I've ever played. Oh, shit.

Why? It is really, really good. Well, I'll tell you why, Greg. Thank you. One, because there is some quality of life stuff that's been done. stuff like increased mobility for some of the classes where it was a little grindy to pick things up before now making things like that easier or significantly increasing frame rates in more situations so that it doesn't feel nearly as choppy as a lot of EDF games do when that was always the charm right

I remember Clayman and Bradwick being obsessed with EDF at IGN and it was always the yeah it stutters and it chugs and things appear out of nowhere and it's bad but it's just a B movie and I'm shooting bugs. Yeah, for those that are not familiar with the series, have you ever played it, Tim? I did not. I've seen Let's plays, though, the Funhouse Guys do, and it looks like a lot of stupid dumb fun. It is. It's like, it's a whole, like, school. It's as if the PlayStation 2 generation never ended, and they just kept stacking more chips inside a PS2? And they're like, what if instead of creating the most beautiful graphics imaginable, you know, the kind of cutting edge, God of War, Red Dead Redemption 2 style, Spider-Man experiences were used to? And instead we use all that

processing power to make like 600 ants the size of houses attacking you all at once. And that's what the game is. And you just deal with dozens and dozens of enemies, some of which, and I'm not exaggerating, are like half a mile tall. And it's not like a rendered background. It's an enemy. And just the scale of this game is unfathomable. The cities are completely destructible. So on top of blowing up like dozens of enemies at once, you're also blowing up buildings everywhere and things are raining down on new ways. But what really made me love it, one is it's just solid mission design.

The first few missions, like all EDF games, are slow. And the last few missions, which veer from the pattern of experimentation or a little more like trial and error are not as great. But the vast bulk of the game, it's 110 missions. Wow. I'd say about, you know, 90, 100 of those are just great arcade shoot-em-up fair.

And good Lord, the multiplayer is awesome. And that I did not. You know how I feel about multiplayer games. I don't want to play with people. Sure. Yeah, you hate people. It's like destiny without the stress. Wow.

Class-based, four-player multiplayer game play out there or two-player split screen. But even with a couple of people, it works pretty well or it did when I was playing it. I was playing with somebody in Australia. So, you know, it's a fair distance there. You get together, you pick your classes, the abilities complement each other. Somebody can lock on a laser to give my missiles more range. and other guy can call in airstrikes. Vehicles go from practical useless

to completely awesome. Like lots of lots and lots of things change. And, you know, and suddenly it's like I'm fighting 10 kaiju and there are like 10 rip-off giant Yeager robots running around and there are 200 giant spiders, the size of semi-trucks. And there's explosions going on around me and all of this is happening and multiple people are running around and AIs are helping me out and I'm having a blast.

And it's not just, it's not like Dynasty Warriors where it starts to feel like endless, like, whacking, though. The weapons really make a difference. And there is a strategy. It's like even when you're being attacked by 50 things at point black range, it's like, how long do I reload, when do I do my weapon switch? Can I make a roll to that first aid box that just dropped before I fall here? Where's my partner?

Or have they been grabbed? Should I shoot the radar? And all this has happened in quarter second burst. Sure. It's great. That's awesome. I played on PlayStation 4. Cool.

And I I'm thoroughly impressed by Earth Defense Force 5. It is ugly. And when you play the first few missions, you're going to be like, Jared, you're crazy. Yeah. These are just big, empty, dumb hallways. Why am I playing this? And even with the first aunt show up, you know, like, there are over a thousand weapons in this game. Like, it's just, yeah.

It keeps track of the number of enemies I kill. And by the way, it took me like 60 hours to beat it. 55, 60. It's really long. But. Suck it, World of the Light. Yeah, exactly. But it kept track and I killed, I have the count in my review, but I killed something like 21,000 enemies in the course of playing the game and it keeps track of how many times you.

Also, you know, this is a dumb spoiler, but I love it so much. This is one of the, it's part of the very few video games I've ever played where at the end you kill God. Oh, nice. Is he an aunt? No, no, he's God and you kill him with an assault rifle. That's cool. And so after battling. Do you become God then?

No, you did not become. Does the universe fall apart? I'm not going to spoil the rest. It's enough to know that you kill God at the end of a game about fighting giant ants. My dream in life is to be one of the, it also has the world's deliberately worst voice acting. Like there will be people that are just like, you know, the ants, they're, no! Like, I want to be one of those people so bad. And eventually they start debating, like, philosophy over the radio while you're playing.

I'm talking a lot. This sounds like a jazz ass game. It's so good. But also there are like blatant typos in the text in the game. Uh-huh. Like just completely misspelled words. Do you think it was on purpose? Yeah.

Oh, no, I think it was not a purpose. Oh, but just somebody saw it and didn't correct it. Yeah. Because again, that's the charm of this. The charm of Earth Defense Force is that it's, it's kind of broken. It's kind of weird. Yeah. But it's not just like fake charm.

It is one of the most fun games I played this year. Wow. All right. In a great year, this game stands up with some of the best of them. That's awesome. What about, what about you, Greg? have you played them? I mean, did you ever enjoy it?

I was tinkered here and there when we were at IGN, but I never got a super into one. I think I tried there was a Vita one, right? I think I tinkered with that. Escape from planet space. Of course I'm going to forget. No, invaders from planet space. That's all you need to know, Tim. That's all you need to know.

Which is a remake of the PlayStation 2 Japan exclusive Earth Defense Force. Tim, what I need to know is while he was talking at one point, you got distracted by the ceiling. What did you see? I just don't know what that thing is. What thing? The power brick? Is that a power brick? That's a power brick.

Yeah, there's a, oh, okay, there's a cable. It looked like there was just a black thing Yeah, I was like, what the hell Tim Gettys, I don't know if you're aware of this, but it's occasionally been noted that I tend to rant On my own on the show So with Earth Defense, maybe I should have done more back and forth Than ranting there

So I wouldn't have noticed out of the ceiling I appreciate it. I just don't know what to, it could be a giant ant It might be, dude, we got to be careful with this Greg, I want to get straight to it now Now here's my question for you I know what you want to get straight to topic of the show, right? Why don't you do

mobile gamer bullshit. That way if topic of the show goes long and you have to bowl I can continue that. Jared can ask me questions about topic the show. You're part of topic of the show, a huge part of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but if we go long on topic of the show, we don't get to do mobile game or bullshit for like the 15th week in a row. Well, the biggest thing is we have to do it this week

because it's Christmas themed. Let's fucking do it. Cool guy, hit the song. Oh, what's that? The song don't work. It's mobile game or bullshit. It's a mobile game or bullshit. Jared's gonna read some Suffer with a thing and the inside of it's getting I'm a

Jay and Betty! Hey, that was awesome. Thank you. Can we just do that every week? No, it's not nearly as fun. Ladies and gentlemen, this week a straight rip-off of an inspiration.

One of my favorite podcasts, good job, brain, go check it out, great folks. But they play a game sometimes with Lifetime Original and Hallmark Original Movies where you have to

decide whether or not it's real or not. It is absolutely an inspiration for mobile gamer bullshit. But this week we are diving right in mobile game or Hallmark Original Christmas Movie. Got it, cool.

You're familiar with the Hallmark Christmas Classic. Of course, how can I not be? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't remember any of their names, but I know what they are. Usually Candice Cameron Burris or whatever, she's in it all the time. Joe Johnson, she's in them too. Looking these up, I just didn't understand. They make literally, and I'm not dozens of these a year.

Yeah. We have a friend who was trying to sell a spec script for one. That is a year. Yes. Wow. It's incredible. Back in the day, Disney Channel original movies were once a month, so I get it. There were a lot of those.

Yeah, but I'm talking like four dozen. First time I ever saw Catherine Hegel. Oh, really? On a Disney Channel original? The one where she switched bodies with her sister. Fiki Friday. No, that's what you think, but it's not that one. I know what you're talking about.

I don't remember the name of it, though. The holiday classic hocus pocus originally planned as a Disney Channel original film. No shit. Yeah. That was what it was first written for. And then they're like, we got Bet Midler. Put this on the big screen. Yeah, yeah.

The first ever Disney Channel original movie, most people don't know this. Susie Q. Did not know that. With Amy Jo Johnson, the Pink Ranger. All right, Jared. All right. There we go. Ladies and gentlemen, here we go.

In honor of the 12 days of Christmas, there are 12. Jesus Christ. That's right. 12 opportunities for me to lose. That's right. This could be it, Tim. You're secretly really into lifetime and hallmark. I know.

I've never lost to Tim. All right. For people joining, it's just a heads up. I've never lost. Can I keep it perfect for the year? We'll see. You're about to get got, Greg Miller. All right.

Here we go. Number one. Tim Gettys. Yes. Mingle all the way. Ah, fuck. It's definitely a movie. Hallmark original movie.

Greg Miller. I am saying it's a game. Mobile game. Mobile game. In the first day of Christmas, Greg Miller said, on the second day of Christmas, Greg Miller. Yeah.

Road to Christmas. Oh, that is a good one. I do like where your head's at. You're a great picker. That is a good one. Road to Christmas. And there's no bullfist time around, right? No both.

are all one or the other. Oh, fuck. Mobile game. Mobile game. Tim Gettys. Movie. Number three, Tim Gettys. Third Day of Christmas.

Magical Christmas ornaments. Game. Mobile game. That is in fact a mobile game. Mobile game. Number four. Romance at Reindeer Lodge. That is a movie.

Bullshit. Movie. Movie. Number five. Christmas Connection movie that is in fact a mobile game mobile game number six finding Santa hmm ha ha ha fuck you Jared that's a really good one that's a both if I haven't fucking oh thank Santa I'm gonna say that that is in fact a mobile game okay I'm also gonna say mobile game

copy can't number seven seventh day of Christmas here miss Christmas like Ms. Packman. Movie. Movie. I'm gonna say mobile game. Mobile game. These are really good. I'm not,

I'm not confident. Thank you. I'm very proud of these. Cool. Number eight, Operation Christmas. Damn it. Operation Christmas is in fact

a movie bullshit. I'm going to movie as well. Bullshit. Number nine, Christmas land. Fucking. Fuck. Game.

Mobile game. I'm saying mobile game as well. Mobile game. Number 10. Santa's Village. Ha ha ha ha. What game could that possibly be? It's so there was a Santa's village I went to, you know, in Illinois. I think it was in Hampshire, maybe.

We'd go to Santa's Village. Open you around weird. Uh, and Nick Foley goes to one to all the time with his kids. Santa's Village shit is a movie. I'm gonna say it's a bullshit movie. I'm gonna go game. It's going to lose. This game. Number 11, Tim Getty's. North Pole All one word

Oh, that's a game changer Game, mobile game I'm saying mobile game as well Mobile game Number 12 Santa Switch Oh damn Jared I'm saying bullshit

That's a homework movie It's a movie Bullshit Here we go That's the 12 days of Christmas Ladies and gentlemen Here we go Are you ready

Let me ask a question To start this off All right Are they all movies No. Okay, good. But it's close. There's just not many Christmas games. There are not a lot of Christmas games. We talked about this. There's very, very, very few of them.

I'm hoping for that hot health bowling rebu. Here we fucking go. Hot elves. No, hot elf bowling reboot. Sorry, hot elves. Like hot elves, local hot elves in your area. This December 24th. Go, Jared. Yeah, I don't want to be, you know.

Go, Jared. Yeah. Just saying Zoe Dash, you know, was a hot elf in that movie. I never watched it. What movie? Elf. Oh, she was in that? I don't remember that.

She was very very Zoha Dashnellish and therefore very beautiful. All right. Here we go. Number one. Mingle all the way. Hallmark original Christmas movie. Tim is on the board first. Yes.

Whoa. Really? Yeah. Number two, road to Christmas. Hallmark original Christmas movie. Tim is out to a two-nothing lead. On the third day of Christmas, my tree live gave to me magical Christmas ornaments.

Believe it or not, a Hallmark original Christmas movie. We all struck out there. Two to zero, Tim. I'll take it. Number four, kind of kept this on as a gimmy because I just love the name.

Romance at Reindeer Lodge is in fact a Hallmark Original Christmas movie. We both get it. Three to one, Tim. It's getting scary, right? I know. It's getting really good.

Can Santa come deliver his goods inside Tim's chimney? But you hate Christmas so much. That's why he likes to do this. This is the sweetest victory. For five, Christmas Connection. That's a Hallmark Original Christmas movie. Tim, once again, he is at 4-1.

Oh, my gosh. That's a commanding. Yeah, I don't think he can come back from it. Uh-huh. Number six, Finding Santa, Hallmark Original Christmas movie. We both struck out there. Wow.

Miss Christmas, Hallmark Original Christmas movie. Damn. There you go, that's gotta be game, but five to one, Tim. Yes! Number eight, Operation Christmas. Hallmark original Christmas movie. We both got a point there.

Six to two. Number nine. I would have to, yeah. Christmas land. Hallmark original Christmas movie. We both struck out. Wow. Number 10, Santa's Village, mobile game.

Damn. Good job, Tim. Seven to two, Tim. Number 11, North Pole, one word. Somehow a whole mark original Christmas. Really? We both were moved. I saw that one. I was like, well, they're going to get that one wrong. Got to make a point of that one word. Number 12, Santa Switch. Hallmark original Christmas. We both got that one, but it doesn't matter.

Eight to three. Ladies and gentlemen. It's finally happened. I'm the fucking king of Christmas. I don't know if that's how it works. That is how it works. Do you have Santa's official hat? I don't know. Is that Santa's official hat? It's his official hat. The motherfucker gave it to me himself for winning this game. He was right off camera.

It's his Instagram verified hat. Yes. Oh, I'm so happy about this. Oh, it feels good. You finally won. Tell you how to get, how to prepare for this. How to get ready for this feeling that just overwhelms you. You made of like being a loser for so long and then suddenly not being a loser for a brief period?

You know why, Jared? Why's that? Because it's mobile game Or bullshit Is it a mobile game or bullshit Jared's gonna read some stuff from the thing And we'll side if it's game or not Jared, Betty

That was fun Now it's time for topic of the show That was a really good way Thank you I know I went really heavy on the Hallmark But I just thought it worked That made it good Damn some of these are terrible

Fucking movie titles My God Hallmark movies in review Greg Miller Finally Yeah We're gonna do the behind the scenes Of the kind of funny game showcase

So many people Have reached out to us asking questions here and there. We kept saying, we'll talk about it on games, guys. We'll talk about it on games guys. Now's the time to talk about it on games. Sure, okay.

Before you guys get into the details, I'd like to leap in and explain what it was like. It was you guys and get your desk going. Oh, God! For about three months. That was from the outside experience. It was a month and a half. And it's funny.

I was selling Jen last night as we pour it over how bad this week already. It was just like, it's, man, it's silly aftershocks of the showcase. We put off all the stuff we need to do for January 5th and to get ready for the break. So we're working this week. And I thought it was just going to be totally easy. And it's like, oh, we have at least one extra podcast every day. It's like, this isn't, and we're not ending things early. We're stuck here doing all this amazing work that we love. But it's like, oh man, I thought the showcase was the last hurdle. This is the last hurdle. And even then we ought to get more hurdles for the

fourth. I will say, though, and not that I want to like turn this into this, uh, Circle Jerk. Bich Fess, Circle Jerk. I remember about two months ago, looking at all the things, the big projects we had, the Amazon Black Friday stream, the Amazon Cyber Monday stream, the showcase, knowing that we had to plan for January 4th, knowing, like, there was a bunch of other things. And to know that we just now have one thing to focus on. Sure.

It feels so good. Sure. It's still overwhelming. That'll last you another three days until an offer comes out. overwhelming where it's like, okay, we can deal with this. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Instead of like, oh, let's plan a press conference. The only thing that's so bad about this week is that, I think, at least me,

and it's just me taking my out of the ball while I was working on that. I still was like, Skeleton Crew, easy week. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I looked at the schedule like, oh man, there's two podcasts after morning showing games daily on some of these days. Yeah. Like, that's not what we expected. Yeah, we should have not done the morning.

It's all good. It's fine. Yeah, we don't care. Because I'm very proud of the kind of funny game showcase. Who is he? I feel like it went, it went. perfectly. Kind of funny.com slash showcase right now. Hit me with some of the behind the scene shit.

Hit me with some of the secrets that people want to know. Okay. The big question I think I see come around all the time is I think it was a games cast or a games daily or whatever. Some show we were doing where I was like, oh, that thing fell through. Like, I don't want to give away what it fell through. Yeah. We were working with a partner, a large AA, I would say.

Party. Don't we bargain of things? it wasn't 40 working with a large AA studio and publisher and developer and they were running it down to the line to get us a brand new asset a brand new trailer to end it and have that be the hey in one more thing and that was definitely like going into it for me

when we were first workshopping because like this project was 90% Greg Miller up to a point and then it became 90% me afterwards and somewhere in the middle that that 10% from both sides was equals 20% because that's how math works was me and Greg together like trying to come up with the run of show

which really was like okay this is how it's gonna work but from the very beginning we knew we wanted to start with something really cool and end with something really cool and ideally we'd have really cool stuff peppered in throughout the whole thing but I feel like it was pretty early on

that that thing we had to end the show was confirmed and I'm sorry to it's not a cop out not to tell you I'm just sure they're still working on that asset and are going to be excited to catch you off guard. Yeah, yeah.

And my thing was, that was awesome. And I was like, this is a really, really, really cool thing. The thing about it was it was confirmed early. Yeah. Like, it was super early that, oh, my God, we love that you're doing this. These guys want to do some. Holy shit, they want to do something.

And I think that's what gave me the confidence that this was going to work. Yeah. Because I'm like, all right, could we have the one more thing? Yeah, yeah. Just tell people it's halfway three and get a little. Totally, yeah, exactly. It was going to be the rock steady Superman game. But jumping ahead.

Didn't happen. No, yeah. So then it didn't happen late in the game. Like, it was like days before, like, before shooting. I was going to say, yeah, what we, we gave the deadline of November 16th, I think, Monday, November 16th, if that equates out, of assets, which we knew most people wouldn't hit. In weird fashion, which I didn't expect, but I guess you should,

most of the Indies hit it. Yeah. It was people that weren't indies that are bigger studios, bigger publishers, bigger developers, that needed more time with their asset, which I get. Totally makes sense. A proof of process. Of course. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, of stuff like that. And like more, you know, a lot of Indies were like, like Y2K, right? Like, it's not hard for them necessarily to cut a trailer. They were already had so much that game done. Not to mention a lot of, it just lined up that a lot of people were getting ready to announce release day. It's getting ready to announce things for us. Well, there's a huge difference between like being able to take your three or four coworkers around the table and watch it all and be like, good? Yeah.

Okay, that's the cut. And having to send it off to the marketing department, the international relations department. And get everybody to sign off on it at different times of day around the world. one person finds one thing wrong you got to start a whole thing over exactly yeah and so yeah that thing fell apart at the 11th hour like literally as we're running in that's why i talk about on a podcast because you and i can't talk not on a podcast because we're working nonstop and it was that idea of like all right cool we got something else and the other the the the one we were going to end with in its place stick with me of course was uh housemark i'm fine telling this and i imagine they are as well

housemark was going to be one of the and you can get into the beta today things it was that was one of the, when you see, when we talked about the press release going out, and it was nearly half a dozen, right? Everybody's like, why don't they just say five? And it was like, well, it's actually four because a bunch of people fell apart at the last second and pulled out. Like, there was one, right, where we were, we were driving around filming and kicking this bit and kicking this bit because we were waiting on one group to get back to me because in the original emails, they had said, what were these day and date?

And then they had submitted their stuff out of a Google form set up to submit your actual info. And they put a Q1 on it. And I was like, wait, isn't this today? And like, we were driving around and they finally answered. Not finally. I noticed it that morning when we were finalizing the script, got an answer for them. Like, oh, no, we didn't move it. So it was like, we ran through the script to cross out everywhere where we said five to put it to four to do this.

You know what I mean? Like it was all the housemark thing was they were all set to do it where, yeah, we're going to, you know, they'll be the one more thing. We'll have a big lead into it. Then it'll end and it'll be like go to housemark.com slash kind of funny to get in the beta that day. in similar fashion it was I think we already recorded right yeah we already recorded and the next that Monday like I hit them up for asses like hey we're sending it to you now we're not we're not primetime ready to have people jump into the beta the beta is going to be soon we still want to give

out the codes it's all still there it's still limited it's still kind of funny URL it's just not that day and it was that thing of fuck like now stick with me all together well now I guess this is but stick with me it was like okay shit what are we going to do about that blah blah on top of it It was like we had a, it got mentioned in, it was one of our favorite shots from it because we shot at a coin op, right? That's what we call that bar. Which looked rad.

We're excited to be in an arcade to say, arcade is dead. And so there is a whole intro to that we cut that was like, yeah, you know what, and we have another game to tell you about this coming out today,

blah, and then it just picks up instead with, they shocked the world and they said, arcade is dead. Like there was, there's a lot more before that. Well, that's going to be on disc two of the blue right? Of course, yeah, all the deleted scenes.

Now, now when we're running around shooting, even that was like, like, oh man, no offense to Housemark. We love Housemark and, you know, Stormdivers looks rad and it's different for them and they've always been so good with the gameplay. It was that thing of, oh, it's not as cool

as the AA announcement we had before, right? And so what it was is that we had that variety article go out on Friday before all this happened when we were shooting everything on Saturday. No, we shot on Friday, is that right? We shot Saturday. Did we? Yeah, the first round. First round.

But it was that we got somebody hit me up, it was Telltale, or not Skybound hit me up about the Walking Dead. While we were shooting though, right? I had that call outside of Gordoes. Wait, wait, wait. I think it was Sunday that we were shooting. We shot Sunday and then Monday did the reshoots.

Do you just call Victor's GOR? Right, right, right, right. No, no, no. We shot both places. Oh, okay. But yeah. One says where IGN people eat burritos and one says Tim's favorite burritos. Oh, okay.

That was the thing is like, from the beginning pretty much, we knew we had the thing that ended up getting cut that was the biggest thing we had. Yeah. We knew we had Sega involved. for what is now called judgment. Yeah.

We knew we had EA for Anthem. We knew that I was just going to be an extended thing of the Game Awards didn't understand exactly what it was going to be. And we knew we had Housemark. So it's like those were the four big things that were like, all right, we can kind of build the show around that.

Right. And then when the big thing fell out, I was bummed because I'm like editing wise, pacing wise, like we're missing a beat. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about specifically, Tim, because you edited the thing, ultimately. And what impressed me most about the show and there was a lot to love about it was the exquisite pacing. Press conferences and releases like this and Nintendo directs even often have

terrible pacing and pacing is the difference between these things working great or not doing games the justice they deserve. Like a lot of press conferences simply don't give games the treatment that they deserve in people whose interests, not because the games aren't good, but because the way they're presented is. Absolutely. The pacing was phenomenal. But as you talk about, these last minute changes. I imagine it was pretty nuts. Can you talk to us some about how that process worked, bringing it down to the wire and getting that pacing right with all the changes?

It was extremely stressful and difficult, but because me and Greg have watched press conferences for years, we knew the structure, we knew what we needed and we bucketed things in a way. We tried to make sure we didn't ride ourselves into a corner. We knew that at any moment, any asset we didn't already have, we might not get.

And we also knew that anything we had might change. And some things did. So it was kind of easy to put things together and even when there was changes all it took was 10 minutes of us sitting down and being like What if we put this here instead and then all of a sudden it makes sense? You know? But it still was a bummer because we didn't have the one more thing We ended up changing the one more thing to being Anthem like in the first That's right version of it. Like fuck I guess this is what we have to do Right so like none of that's a bummer

But like it was definitely a thing of like this is cool, but it's not a new asset. It's just more like if you're a fan of this is an And our biggest, my biggest concern with it, right, is because, yeah, it was awesome. Thank God, you know, Mike Gamble and BioWare and EA wanted to work with us and stuff. But it was very much what we don't like about press conferences, right? Where it's like, we've had this speed run of a show, pacing's been great, da-da-da-da-da. And here, and originally what I got told we were getting was 15 minutes. 15 minutes of him talking about anthem. And I was like, damn, how do we do that and still have one more thing or do it? And then it just, you know, when the one thing we thought was going to be one more thing fell out when Housemark wasn't really like because originally they were the original you

know when they fall out that doesn't happen it was like all right we put anthem there but then was that going to be interesting to everyone we recorded an outro our first outro that like we were kind of sad about was literally us being like hey and the one more thing is a deep dive into anthem yeah check it out and i'm so happy that didn't end up happening because we took that and then we're like we shot a new bit we're just like look we're going to give you a preview of it the whole thing's up you'll check out the site later so how did that that real one more thing end up coming together. So now you've rejogged my memory.

Thank you. So yeah, we shot over the weekend on the one day. Was it Sunday? It was Sunday, yeah. And we went too long. We were racing to get the final shot at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was freezing. My hair was blowing.

I was mad. We ended. We needed extra shots. So we had shot the entire thing, what you're talking about. That's where we started the day with the first shoot being, hey, everybody, thank you for watching.

Here at this, or in front of the desk. Anthems here one more thing. See you guys later. And then we went and shot the rest all around in San Francisco. Yeah. Were you doing those for the prompter, by the way? No. Okay.

We wrote the script and then just memorized it. Yeah. Woke up Monday, came and did a real day of work, but the variety thing posted. Hey, the press release from Jen and Pop agenda went out. And then it was, hey, yeah, you know, there's a variety article up, which got us on a lot of different people's radars, which was super nice. And so, yeah, Skybound reached out. And they were just like. So we went out while we were shooting.

Well, this happened before, right? No, we were. No, no, no. Remember, they emailed me and were like, hey, we think. love to do something. We didn't know about this press conference thing. I was like, ah, we'd love to do something. And like, I know all of them very well. So I responded back very, not Kurt, but very much like, cool, it has to happen today. It has to happen now. Like we are, we were asset locked, you know, whatever. We're filming the final thing today. Tim's editing the thing. Because the

problem is I had to edit. And on top of that, it's not the normal kind of funny thing of like, oh, I'll stay up all night and it's fine doing revisions. We had to get it to Twitch. We didn't trust our internet here. Thank God. Because the internet was a disaster that day. it was. But we got to Twitch, so we needed that couple day buffer time. So it was down to the wire. Yeah, of course. And to Skybound Games' credit, right? Their response wasn't, okay, we'll get you next time. I was like, oh shit, hold on. And so they ran off to do stuff. And I was expecting, you know, they're making a bunch of games. I didn't think they could actually get us a walking dead asset. And sure enough, we were out shooting. And the email came back of like, we think we

can do something. Can we jump on the phone? Jump on the phone. And it was like, we've been prepping this walking dead thing, you know, teasing the, giving the release date for the episode three, recapping pretty much Clems' entire journey, celebrating the still not-bitten team that, you know, that is still working up in the old telltale office right now on this game. And they were like, you know, we thought about doing it on our own. So then it became a full court press of like, I understand that the people I was talking to understand that they need to obviously make their bosses and make everybody happy and make them understand that, no, no, this is the thing you want to be a part of.

And so, yeah, like, if you see the one where we're, the bit where it is us out front of Gordo's where I forget what we're in showing, but it says Tim's favorite burrito place, Gordos is behind us. That shot was super delayed because I was around the corner of the building on the phone with Skybound, giving them all the information they needed having Joey slack me, our deck, so I could send it to them so they could go make the presentation. We're a big deal, quote unquote. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because it's so hard to make it. Fun fact for people who don't know what a deck is. Can you let them know? Oh, we have a PDF that's like, here's all the shows and here's all of our numbers and here's social following and like kind of funny at a glance.

So if you've never heard of us, because it's so hard to explain who we are. Right. And like, again, and we always joke around about it. If you went and looked at a YouTube video, you'd be like, these guys barely pull views, but the downloads for the podcast are so huge. The social findings are so huge. And everybody follows it for a different reason.

And so then it became this thing of, they were super into it. I think they're going to do it. Oh my God, that could be the one more thing. That'd be great. They came back and they're like, yeah,

they didn't really like it that much. Like, they understand it's going to be a cool show and they understand this, but they're not seeing why it's a good fit for them. And so then it was like, I think we were in the car again and I stopped the car or whatever.

And it was like, well remember like I want to involve the still not bitten team I like I want an original draft you and I had of this show was like how could we do something not immemorial to telltale but have it be that we had tell tell dev or former telltale devs come in here and talk about why they make games which they became I make games because and I do all this different stuff but there was an idea of that and it's like our whole thing is anchored in the bay area right like that's why we shot around here is what we think defines kind of funny in so many ways We think that works for Telltale 2 and this franchise to that extent, right?

And so it's a back and forth, this, that, and the other. The, I was going to shout out. It's what, not my car? Was that the game we added last second two right from them? Any idea there? I don't remember the name of it. You know what I'm talking about that, right? Yeah.

Not my. Fasten Fierce meets PubG. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That was one of the ones they were like, we have to assume, like, let's get into montage and do all stuff.

And so yeah, at the last second, basically, on the shooting day, the final day we were shooting, they were like, all right, cool, we're good to go, we can do it. And so even then, though, we didn't shoot that day. We pushed it because we needed, I wanted, I didn't want to fuck this up, right? Like, I didn't want it to be, like, insulting to telltale former devs. We didn't know they were called the Still Not Bitten team. We didn't know how many of them were. They were like, we think we can go get B roll of them working. I was like, let's do all that.

So we delayed it one more day. So Tim's just doing this Frankenstein of a project with pieces here or there, not there, blackout things. Did you guys run up there to do the B or? Did they send it for it they did for they did for us yeah all right yeah and there there we had it we had a one more thing and it's like that to me was such like that brought this whole thing together the whole thing was great but it's like as a press conference like what you're talking about about the pacing and presentation how much that matters to us like I was like we need that and the other thing like I felt like we got cut off of the knees not getting the the big thing that we thought we had but on top of that the intro I had was so good like I had we started off with the the indie really release titles that you're anticipating. And then there was one game. Can I say, Oh, right. No, this is, yeah. And this is on me, not on them at all. But I'd obviously been a huge proponent for ape out.

And so I'd been leaning on them to get in the showcase to do this different stuff. And like you just brought up, right? 69 games. I was a fractured mess. And I made a joke to Nick when I was going through proofreading stuff for his graphics, which I still fucked up, but proofreading the graphics, right? And it was there, I paused one of them. And I was like, I know we can't do it now. and there's no way to do it. It would have been funny if before this

we did a mobile game or kind of funny game showcase games. Because I booked all these games and talked to every dev and I'm looking at titles for games and I'm like, I've never fucking heard of this and I go back and up

there's my emails, me mentioning it and talking about it, right? And so yeah, I got super turned around and Ape Out because Ape Out was in my information deck as we're gonna have a new trailer

for Ape Out. But then when we got the new trailer, it was the trailer that what? wide for Switch or would go wide. It was the release date trailer. Exactly.

And it was like, holy shit, this is awesome. This trailer is amazing. I forgot we're announcing the release date, which pushed it up into the release date section, which had it start the show because it was such a powerful trailer. And that's the thing is it literally started the show. It was us Golden Gate Bridge. We're like, um, here's a release date for some of our most anticipated entities. Let's check them out.

And the first one was an ape out trailer. And the trailer was so good. It set the tone so right. And I was just like, this is freaking perfect. And then So how'd just screw it up? While we're doing that, Nigel from DeVolver hit me back.

It was like, all right, here's your trailer. And I was like, wait, what? And I looked back and sure enough, he was just sharing that trailer

to be like, hey, here's the about trailer where Nintendo's going to release or whatever it was. And they released it like two days before the Thursday before the showcase. And then here's yours, which is a good trailer.

We had an exclusive level review. Exactly. But it didn't hit as hard as the first one. And also it had the same information. Yep. So it got, it was like, shit.

We got to move that down, start somewhere else here. I was just like, ah, like editing it, because I'm looking at the timeline in my head, and I'm like, we don't have a one more thing. We don't have the intro. Yeah. It's like, oh, fuck. And then the Housemark stuff was like slowly falling up. There was like rumblings that we were like, oh, this might not be accurate.

The way we wanted it. Yeah. So it was like, oh, shit. And that's where we started getting real general in the script of like how many things we're saying, what we're going to do. And at that point, we had Sega and the judgment section in the middle of the whole event because we're like, oh, we want to have, ideally. something in the beginning, something in the middle, something at the end. But then once we got the Walking Dead thing, and once we got the Anthem thing figured out what we're going to do, confirmed with Housemark and stuff, it all started to piece itself together.

I'm like, we got to move, judgment, or judgment to the end. Not to mention judgment was another asset we had known about forever. Again, Sega Atlas was so great about like, who want to be a part of us, we want to help you, when I support you. We have this thing where you announce the voice and oh my God, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it came in so late. And so I think we had been downplaying what that was going to be. And then we got it and watched it. It was like, holy fuck, this is really cool.

Awesome. And that's what it all worked out. Like I love that at the end of the day looking at it. I'm like all the worries we had, everything, like, it worked out because we planned it correctly of knowing that even if problems happen, it's like we can put things in buckets. Like I think the showcase is awesome. And I think that it is kind of just, we created the playbook now of like how to present these type of games. And it's like, I want to do it again.

Will we? No, I don't know. For my money. because I've been a part of a process like this before, planning something like this. And for my money, the best one I've ever seen done on a wide scale was the 2016 Sony E3.

Oh my God. I'm so good. I think that's the best one ever. I think y'all, and I'm not trying to brown-nose you here, really did approach that in terms of your control of pacing in terms of the way you presented the product. It was extraordinarily well done. So if you choose to do it again,

I think you've already got a formula that just, works wonderfully and with revision in the process and the experience you bring in, it'll be even better. Plus, once you do this once, that's going to open new doors. That was the biggest thing. The people who didn't work with us or couldn't work with us, a lot of it was like, oh man, like we'd like to help you up, but we need to know what it looks like. When we're describing it, it was very weird. No one that creates things in the corporate space likes new things. Exactly.

They like to be able to walk into a room full of people that have to spend money and say, here's what we're getting more of. Yes, exactly. It's the sequel thing, right? And like that I'm gonna have to leave it a second, but the thing that I love the most about the showcase is it is kind of funny at its purest essence It's us just being like we should do this thing Can we do this thing? Which we ask after like we've already announced it at that point and then that it's just like cool how we gonna do it? And it's like I love I keep repeating this but I love that there was never a moment of us being like

Fuck how do we do this what are we gonna do yeah, we always knew what we had to do Well we were lucky enough too that it evolved as we worked on it where in the beginning it was like I was thinking it's gonna be 15 minutes of us talking in the studio. And then I was like, well, you can do something cool than that. We can make it look like this, blah, blah. And then it was, guys, we're getting a lot of responses. We're getting a lot of things. And that's what I love most about those.

There was a moment, what we didn't know what this was, but we know what questions to ask. And we just were kind of like, all right, here's, let's see what happens. Let's throw everything at the wall, see what sticks, see what comes back to us. Because, yeah, there was a lot of different versions of what this was. But once we decided that we're going to do this pre-recorded, going around San Francisco, even that idea changed over time. But the intro, the hype video, right? Like we had so many ideas for that, but I just love how ambitious we are.

You guys saw what it ended up being of like the why I play games, like, thank you for playing, like why I create games, all that stuff. We just made a list of people. Yeah, we're like, we just kind of assumed we were going to get it. You know what I mean? It's just like we kind of willed that into existence. And we got a fraction of the people we listed. We got Ed Boone.

Yeah. Like that's freaking crazy. There was so much representation in that intro that I'm like, we just thought of it as a cool idea. And we're like, if we just reach out to these people, be great. And yeah, we reached out to this. So many mothers up this was to start with developers saying this is why I make games. Thank you for playing. Do the entire conference.

Do the one more thing and then end it with players saying this is why I play. Thank you for creating. Yeah. Yeah. I think the way you did it actually worked out really well. Me too. No, no. I thought this was like way better.

Things happen for a reason. It's one of those things that you can't plan that, you know? You have the vision in your head and you're like, this is what I want it to be and I think it's going to work. But it's not until you have the different colors of paint that you realize what you can actually paint. So for a little inside. baseball here, now that you've done this, now that you've created this incredible product

and been through the enormous sound of work it is. Do you think Nintendo has the right approach with building pre-filmed, constructed directs, or do you think that the old style press conference is the way to go for people that want to present products? Which do you think is the, allows you more creative flexibility to create the stronger argument for why games are good? I've always liked the Nintendo Direct way better than press conferences. However, press conferences, there's nothing that matches that type of hype. There's nothing like a room full of people in lights and moving stuff and like just the liveliness of it. But that allows for a lot of really awkward moments and things to go wrong. I think there's a time and place for both. Yeah. I mean, and that's the biggest thing

is I think I would still love to see Nintendo go back and do a E3 press conference, right? But more importantly, I think is the PSX press conference, which is just the keynote where it's a room full of PlayStation fans. You're playing to that audience. You're going crazy. X-O-18. Hey, we have a room full of Xbox fans from Mexico City and we're going crazy. And that sets the tone for what it is. The Nintendo Direct, the showcase, Nindis, all that stuff, right, is so good at presenting information in an digestible way. Right. Like, this is not the exact same answer or the situation, but a similar one, right? It's like, you know, we set out with, we want to do montages right. Whenever I wrote back somebody, I had a can responses that I was

sending out to developers who want to be a part of it. I was like, hey, your game looks great. We wanted to be part of a montage. Before you roll your eyes, this is what it said. Before you roll your eyes, I want you to know we hate montages. We are doing montages, what we think is the right way of. It's going to show your game. You're going to give me 280 characters to describe your game.

And then we're going to have a bug come in that tells platforms and release dates and stuff about your game. Because I hate watching anybody's press conference. And it's just game after game after game. I'm like, what game was that? What is it going on? I don't know what I'm talking about or what I'm looking at or what I'm thinking anymore. We wanted to get ahead of that and make it not like that. I needed cute things you were able to throw in jokes.

It's a gold fart game. It's triangles and it looks pretty cool. But then like today, right, media molecule announced the dreams beta information. Yeah. And they did it during a stream, which is a different thing. And it was the late back stream. It was Abby and two of the devs on a couch, right? And then they turned the camera and they were all over there.

And I was at my kitchen counter drink or eating breakfast. And I was trying to tweet about it. And I fucked up a whole bunch of dates. Like I said, I said 24th instead of the 21st. And then I was confused based on the way they presented it of that, you can, you can start getting you can start the literal verbiage was like you can they'll start general people will be able to start emailing around the fourth and then get into it on the eighth but then the way i you crafted the tweet on see you love you the way i looked at it after the fact was like oh well that makes it

telling you get into it whatever blah but it was that thing of that's what happens when you're giving the information that way yeah when it is a rolling it's like right now if you were trying to jot down all the information of what we were saying that would be a different product for at the very least. Are you proud? 100%. Yeah. Yeah, of course we are. I mean, I think we are. We all tried super, super hard on it, right? And we all did some of the best work of our career on it. And I think it's definitely, like I said, in the show, I believe, but like, you know, the most important contribution I've given back to the industry. Cool. Like a way of like, hey, here are 69 games, right, that

wouldn't get this. And the feedback we've gotten from those devs in terms of impressions, trailer views, signups, follows, that kind of, you know what I mean? The fact that people on beyond we're talking about Adams ascending right and the fact that like people were tweeting

about these games and saying man like these are games I wouldn't even know about but now that I've seen them there I'm excited about this that and the other like that's what it's all about

and that's what we wanted I know I saw on our subreddit someone had made a comment of like man it's crazy that Tim's reaction video to persona and smash has more views than the showcase

and that's kind of sad or whatever and enough people were there to be like well the showcase is an hour plus Tim's thing is a two-second video, you know, it's a different, different YouTube thing. But it's, it was never about getting views on a video. It was very much about promoting indie games that are cool and people that need help. And that's why we wanted to use our platform for it. So we got to set a whole

bunch of Twitch records and do all that jazz. But even people written into games daily, right, of like, oh, I'm seeing, you know, the games you guys debuted there being talked about on other sites, but they're not referencing you is that bad. It's like, well, no, because once our stuff was done, everybody got to blast out their information. And hopefully those press releases carried more weight because they'd just seen that game. knew to do it. And you don't need to credit us. We don't care about the credit. We just want to make sure that these people who are mortgaging their house are working for five years on one game out of their spare bedroom. Which is how it happens. This is how these games get made. And so many

of them never get seen. And it's, it's striking. I think it's a really beautiful thing you did. What would you do different next year? If you do it again next year. More time. You know what I mean? That was the biggest thing is that we just, we didn't have the correct amount of time to do it in a way that didn't kill us. You know what I mean? Like I shouldn't have been on any of the shows leading up to that show case. You had to a delegate. Exactly, but there was just not no, you didn't know you were in the rip current until it was pulling me away for sure. Yeah. And that was the thing of like, you know, a month and a half out.

Like I said earlier, like we are feeling the repercussions now. Right. Where I'm grumpy at work now, not because I love making the products, right, but because the schedule is so fucked up in a way I didn't expect it to be. You're very nice grumpy, but you've definitely been grumpy. Yeah, right. And it's just like, I need, I just want to get back to normal for a second. And like, I thought this would be a weird normal, but it's actually still a ton of work because of the abnormal we had before it. And so hopefully decompressed for a week, come back, you know, do January 4th and you'd be have the crazy whatever.

Yeah, because you're sure. Yeah, because you're sure. It's going to be beautiful. By the way, just along the grumpy joke, you may feel like you're grumpy, but we went out for the office party the other night. And she was like, Greg was so sweet to me all night. He wanted to make sure there was somebody to talk to. Oh, sure. I want to make sure everybody's happy.

Yeah. Your grumpy is like Winnie the Pooh. Oh, thank you very much. I'll take that. You're nice dude. My drunk he was drunk. I was drunk. You were inebriated there at the end of the evening.

But I knew that was going to happen because it was blow off steam. I also knew when I didn't, because you are the quickest email replyer I know. Yeah. And when you didn't write back on Saturday, I was like, oh my gosh, you must have had a night. Oh, dude, I was hung over until Sunday. Yeah. Like any minute, it took a second to go. I was like, it is not like Greg to be like, we're going to talk about this and then not.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, you must be gone. Oh, man. It was a great time, though, showcase and the thing. No, you did a great thing. My favorite part of it, in addition to watching the video, was the fact that I didn't have to do any work for it at all.

Sure, sure. You got to come be part of the after show? Yes, I got to come be part of the after show, which was delightful as we had three, like six-year-old children on there playing smash with all of us. This is such a family-friendly stream. I don't know about that. Hold on. And once you switched over to time mode.

Yeah. And we had time mode. You took advantage of those kids, man. You were like, you know what? If I just go spin next to them the whole time with Rob, They don't know how to block. No. And I can charge it my thing and win game after game.

It's pretty beautiful. You attacked them. Yeah. Yeah. You just deliberately target the young. They are weak. You deliberately target their young. They are weak.

Oh my goodness. You can destroy them easily and use them to build up your meter and do a smash to win every game. That's how you got to do it. That's how you do it. Just take advantage of the children's weaknesses. It's not about them having fun and smash. It's about Jared having fun. Jared.

Jared needs to have fun. Exactly. Exactly. You know what? It's fine. Any other questions? What are the kind of funny game showcase? I'd rather talk about myself some more.

Oh, okay. That's fine. Go for it. I don't mind that. No, yeah, I asked you about being proud and I asked you about next year. You, do you ever imagine yourself featuring one of your own? You reveal so many creations in the world. You've got 4.0 coming up.

But do you ever imagine yourself revealing your own art or one of the staff in here through a showcase like that? you ever going to make a game? Oh, I think it would be more that we showcase somebody from the kind of funny world staff that way. Yeah, that's just not my thing. Not your thing. I wondered if you've ever been drawn to the creative side of it. I've always talked about it.

Like, you know, like, oh, man, you're cool to make a SuperBank game or whatever. Like, I, I could see me being a consultant on something like that, but no, I don't, it's not what my passion is. This is my passion. It's the same thing with comics, right? Yeah. Where it's like, I've, you know, I talked about it before starting the YouTube channel that I was, I was like, oh, maybe I'll try making a comic.

or whatever. And I was like, ah, that's not what I'm looking for. Even this year with, like, writing the Superman script in the beginning of the year, where I was like, ah, I got so much free time. This is cool. It's still cool, but it's not my passion. That's why I can't go back to it, but I'll go home and play, you know, whatever. I need to stay here all hours in the day making a video. Yeah, I learned a couple of months ago. You used to be a cartoonist. I had no idea. Oh, yeah, and very, very, very few people from our world ever make them. But I do like to imagine the Greg Miller game. What it would be like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll see. I'm sure I would imagine one day we team up with somebody. You know what I mean? That we almost did once.

Yeah, we had a best friend working on a game for a while. Just never happened. Yeah, it was just, it was one of those things. He was very plucky, very gung-ho, but very green. And we're like, we're green too, so just try it. Yeah. And he went, went, went, and eventually it was like the scope of it kept getting big. And then it kind of just collapsed upon itself.

Overscoping. Yeah, that's rough. Yeah. That's really, really rough. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been the kind of funny games cast. Thank you so much for watching. Sorry, Tim had to run away. If you are watching live, don't worry, the post show is still coming up.

And you say, wait, Greg, there's a post show. show there sure is if you go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games you get a preamp post show if you watch live or if you watch the one big video that we put up each and every Friday there's an audio version too no pre-imp post show but it's still up every Friday as well if you don't want to give us any bucks over on patreon.com slash kind of funny games because you can't or you just think we're doing a crap job we understand you can wait Monday it goes up as a podcast around the globe and one big YouTube video at youtube.com slash kind of funny games Jared is here using his red hybrid thing.

Yeah, we know all about that. Four hybrid device red. You know all about that, of course. Yeah, if you watch the pre-show. That's right. Four hybrid. What is hybrid device red? We'll find out on the post show.

Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, it's been our pleasure to serve you.