Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Played Mouse: P.I. For Hire! - Kinda Funny Gamecast

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Be like me and head to Factor Meals.com slash Kind of Funny 50 off and use code Kind of Funny 50 off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, March 5th, 2026. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30.
Starting point is 00:00:39 under 30. A. K. A. New York Game Awards nominated, a.k.a. Biceps, Poppy.
Starting point is 00:00:47 Blessing. Annie O.e. June. Yeah. Good day. You don't wear the liquid jersey as much anymore.
Starting point is 00:00:54 No. It felt out of rotation. Yeah. I started wearing it as a gym shirt. And then after a while, I was like,
Starting point is 00:01:00 no, this is nice. I'm going to upgrade you back. I have to call back. Yeah. You're going to get caught. Back up for the minors. Yeah. You weren't got your junk.
Starting point is 00:01:07 You're all redemption story. Exactly. But I feel like I don't do just regular long sleeves as much. So I'm trying to build that back into the other. Especially when they got these guns. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:16 Kurt Warner coming back from, you know, just bagging groceries going back to the Super Bowl. Yeah. It's like, no, you still got it. Yeah. Let's come back. Let's bring you back. He was on the St. Louis Rams. It was a big deal.
Starting point is 00:01:26 The biggest show on turf. Yeah. The biggest show on turf. Yeah. Well, that was the whole team. Yeah. Not just Kurt Warner. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:32 I'm having a fall. I don't know what's happening. I'm having crazy dejaobu right now. Really? Done this before. Well, here's Kurt Warner. And of course, he's a Hispanic heartthrope, Texas treat Latino. He'd clicking heads and ripping him to shreds.
Starting point is 00:01:45 The Globe shot and head shot and root and tootin. Three point shooting. Nitroi from Twitch.combe. Andy Cortez. Hey, everybody. They get the order right? You cut all of it. You crush all of it.
Starting point is 00:01:54 I think you said shot and twist. Shotten Freud? You said like Globe shot and head shoten. Oh, did I? I guess I'm still hung up but getting root and tooting first. Yeah. R.T. First is what you're getting your head about everything else. Did the Horizon Hunter's gathering playtest happen?
Starting point is 00:02:09 Yeah, they did a beta offer or whatever it was or whatever. I couldn't get in. Yeah, they didn't invite us. I signed up in everything. Fucked up, you know what I mean? They invited like five people, I'm convinced because nobody's talked about it. Well, I mean, there's embargoes too, right? There's got to be NDAs on that, right?
Starting point is 00:02:21 That's probably why they didn't invite us. Yeah, probably. We'll talk about it on their podcast. Maybe I did go and I can't tell you. Oh. Wow. As you know, PlayStation. I thought it was just an open thing, though.
Starting point is 00:02:30 No. You just signed up through the PlayStation Insiders beta program or whatever. People online were like posting like player numbers and stuff. and everybody had to remind them like, no, this is a closed beta. Like, of course, the steam numbers aren't going to be that high compared to a marathon or whatever.
Starting point is 00:02:43 Right. I played a couple rounds of marathon. Yeah? Yeah? Not today says it came out, but over the weekend. Everything's coming out, yeah, right?
Starting point is 00:02:51 It's raining games right now. It was so weird to just, I was just kind of relaxing with it, you know? Just by myself. Just looking at the flowers, walking around with the guns. Me and a couple of Randoes playing on, you know, they're playing on, you know,
Starting point is 00:03:04 PlayStation over there, and it's just me on crossplay. and we're just kind of walking around and doing each other. And you see what each other's missions are. And you're like, oh, we should do this. And I'm trying to, like, talk to him. Like, hey, Rodrigo, can you resby, man? That's a resume.
Starting point is 00:03:16 Thanks, Rodrigo. Like, just, you know, he was using his microphone on his controller. Exactly. It was a great time. It was a great time. How does it compare to Arc Raiders? Because Arc Raiders is the only point of reference I have for extraction. I, I, I, I, overall, I probably like arc graders more, but not by a whole lot.
Starting point is 00:03:33 Really? The vibe is just, like, super sick here. The visuals are off. awesome, of course. Like, I'm just so into the aesthetic of all of it. And I don't know, there's something like just kind of really meditative, and that's probably just the beginning portions of it, because you're, whenever you pick the sort of early missions, it puts you in the beginner zone, which is like on the outskirts of, you know, how hot I can get. And then you can dive deeper into the area if you want, and those maps kind of change up and get a bit more
Starting point is 00:04:00 difficult. But I would say I like, I like arc graders more for sure, but still not a genre for me. So when I'm done talking about it in a week and a half, don't be like, oh, Andy fucking marathon. You said it was a contender? I was like, well, no. I just, I play these extraction shooters for a bit, and then I bounce because I just don't really vibe with them as much as I want to. But here's
Starting point is 00:04:20 the thing, here's my pitch. Moon dog pitch right now. Moon dog pitch, everybody. Making a single player game or like, you know, campaign game. Nobody's heard of that one. Yeah. That's a brand new pitch. But also, just the way it's all kind of laid out, they could definitely hell divers this shit. Oh, yeah? You drop into
Starting point is 00:04:36 the map, you see all the things on the map, and it's like, okay, I have a mission here, I can, we can go here with our friends, there's no other players, just, it's, it's, you know, put some big boss machines over there, put some other, you know, you know, encounters in this zones or whatever, like, you could do it. Yeah. You know what I mean? My fear is that I, because I want to try Marathon, but I'm scared that I like looking at Marathon more than I like playing Marathon. Because every single time I see it keeps you going along though. Like, I, I think it's so gorgeous, not just from the, you. UI stylistic perspective.
Starting point is 00:05:08 When you're in the game, it's so nice to look at when these interiors look gorgeous. I would recommend, like, I know we were in kind of a spot where you were like, should I be playing this or should I be playing this or whatever. Yeah. I think you could definitely just get in several rounds of marathon because you don't have to know life it for eight hours in one day. Do two to three runs in one night and just like, that's going to take you maybe an hour. Really?
Starting point is 00:05:35 Get in, get out. Because I've decided Saturday I'm clearing my schedule. I canceled plans. Whoa. Saturday is going to be a gaming day for me. Wow. Because a lot of games coming out.
Starting point is 00:05:46 There are games that we're reviewing. Yeah. I just need the time. Need the time. I called up Oakland. I was like, hey, Oakland. See you later. All the city.
Starting point is 00:05:54 Yeah. I called the city of Oakland. Alert the city. I was like, hey, can't make it out on Saturday. I got to play video games. In traffic, like in Oakland seeing on the billboards. Bless you would not be here on Saturday. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:04 Damn. For real. If Pleasant doesn't show up to Oakland on the weekend, the mayor calls in, like, a missing person's report of, like, oh, shit, he's not here to party. Like, the Oakland mayor and Daniel Lurie, they're going to call together. Have you seen him? Is he okay? Where is he at? Go get to do a welfare check. Quick question.
Starting point is 00:06:20 I saw somebody in chat talking about, was that, were you imitating my voice? Interesting. Here, I'm going, man. Somebody said. Yeah, me swing back seven times harder. Somebody said marathon. walk around, find out. Somebody said Marathons, concurrent players,
Starting point is 00:06:39 they were like, on Steam, it's this amount, compared to STS2. What is that? STS, you know S-S-2? No. I don't know what it is. What is that? South, no.
Starting point is 00:06:51 Sick. Don't just guess. Steam-concern. Like, if it's higher the marathon, we can figure it out. Super. Oh, Team 14. No.
Starting point is 00:07:02 Right now their peak, on Steam, the peak was too. minutes ago at 84,872 players for Marathon. Oh, Slay the Spire! Oh! Slead, that's a game I got to buy. Holy shit. No way, that's out.
Starting point is 00:07:13 Yeah. It's out there. It's launched at the same time as Marathon and people were struggling to buy either for a couple minutes. Whoa. Do they know that Pocopias? Yeah. Probably right now in the Steam charts.
Starting point is 00:07:23 Copeia? Slaid Aspire 2 has 135,125,125. Oh, my. Wow. Good for Slaid the Spy. Man. Oh, my God. You know, people, hey, this is what we should do.
Starting point is 00:07:33 review it because I got on my fancies to So if you're an outlet Slate Aspire Slate the Spire 2 Early Access man, it's a gamble Yeah, you gotta review it though I'll tell you love That many players people should know if it's good or not
Starting point is 00:07:45 I'm getting all giddy I got a long flight coming up guys And I got Slade the Spire too Shut up here's the thing Shut up about Slate the Spire and shut up about fucking a marathon I want to know about Polkopia
Starting point is 00:07:56 Oh I started Polkopea last night I know you did I want to know how you like it Holy shit man It's gonna be a problem I cannot wait. That's what I said in the review. Holy shit. Should I cancel Sunday, too?
Starting point is 00:08:07 It's just like every little, every little carrot on the stick. You could also eat carrots. Yeah, of course. And then you're spicy. And they all talk. That in there. Spicy. Oh.
Starting point is 00:08:17 What do you mean? Ingredients. Man, they all talk to you, do. Like, everybody's got, you know. The Pokemon? Yeah. I smell a carrot. You got a carrot on you?
Starting point is 00:08:25 Like, yeah, I have this shit, don't. And you eat that. Wow. What Pokemon is that? All of them. Oh. I thought that was like a boobososaurus. No, no, it was oddish.
Starting point is 00:08:34 Otis, one of the carrot, yeah. Nice. And then, you know, I see a little, bless, I see, like, some water coming out of a piece of a wall. And I had just, God, hot smash, bam, hit that fucking wall. Water comes out, and it's like, oh, squirrel, you're going to love this shit, squirrel! Get over here, dude. You've been kind of, like, complaining passive-aggressively about your environment.
Starting point is 00:08:53 You've been like, I wish I was a little more comfortable in this zone. Now you have water over here, squirrel. And then, but check this out, Greg. You could lead a squirrel to water. You can't keep teaching my fish. And I brought him and he just didn't do anything. I was like,
Starting point is 00:09:08 look what I've helped. He just kind of like, he wants some place to be wet. He went to go back. He went to go back to play with blocks in Charzard. He just didn't give a shit. Good game. Oh man.
Starting point is 00:09:17 I can't wait. Great. Holy fuck. Yeah, I'm very, very excited. We have this conversation on Games Daily about if it'll be a contender. And I'm hopeful that you guys get into it as much.
Starting point is 00:09:25 Yeah, at some level that I am into it. Yeah, for sure. Of course, we're doing a games cast plays of Pokemon, Pocopia. Today, after in review,
Starting point is 00:09:32 interstellar, which is still coming up. Of course, this is your Kind of Funny Games cast. Should I supposed to watch that? Ah, shit. And every, you can fit it in right after this. Each and every weekday, we run you through the biggest topics in video games, whether they be reviews, previews, or just things we need to talk about. Of course, YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games, Twitch.tv.com slash Kind of Funny Games,
Starting point is 00:09:51 podcast services around the globe. If you're watching live right now, you need to super chat, be part of the conversations we're about to have, which include, of course, previewing mouse PI for hire, Recan super chatted already and said The most important thing I want to take away from this podcast is do I draft Mouse PI We'll talk about that for your fantasy critic in just a second
Starting point is 00:10:11 Remember of course We can do this out our producers over on patreon.com Slash kind of funny So thank you Carl Jacobs Omega Buster And Delaney the Somp-twining Usually this is where I transition To the topic of the show Oh we're not doing it. Don't hit the graphic
Starting point is 00:10:24 Okay all right Because I got no I said don't hit the graphic Barrett That's a strike against you I want to say the word pop up and be like Fuck shit my bad bad shit. I got a box. It's a box. I don't. I get scared
Starting point is 00:10:38 when Greg busts out non-descript boxes. Right before. We went live. I got a box out there. Okay. And I said what's in this box? I know it's in this box. And I'll bring it out for my boys to go through because this is their kind of box. All right. What could it be? Start tearing in there. Maybe it's
Starting point is 00:10:54 Overwatch? What do me and Andy have in common? We don't play the same video games. No, but you use... Is it Resident Evil? The same thing. Oh. Oh. So PlayStation has sent the hyper-pop collection of dual-sense controllers. So we have techno-red, remix green, and rhythm blue. Thank you, PlayStation. Controllers provided by PlayStation.
Starting point is 00:11:12 But I know Andy is all about the bright, vibrant colors. I know Bless always takes controllers when we get them. So I figured. Black and red is my favorite color combo. There you go to. I mean, this has to go to Tim, I feel like. Yeah, that blue. This blue.
Starting point is 00:11:26 I don't know how I feel about the black one in the blue, though. Open them up. See what's up. Blue is my favorite color, though. Oh, really? I didn't know that about you. I thought it was purple. You're always using purple.
Starting point is 00:11:35 Yeah. You know? This is an old party mode called back. Yeah. Tim sucks. We hate it. I like this green though. Wow.
Starting point is 00:11:42 Yeah. Yeah. If you're an audio listener, of course, these are the ones that got revealed a while back. They are coming out March 12th. Oh. Andy, of course,
Starting point is 00:11:49 is Mr. Controller. So I figure that need to be a part of that. Here, let me open up blues. This is the one where I need to get, I need to get the marathon like sticker to put on this. Oh, sure.
Starting point is 00:11:58 Really? Shout to Cameron Kennedy. He was like, this is how the marathon controller should look. Yeah. You get this black and this neon action yellow green. This is my new favorite one. That one, that's going to be a personal one.
Starting point is 00:12:10 You're going to keep that one? You know what's also nice? I'm not used to the gloss. Yeah, the gloss is different. Oh, the gloss does feel different. Yeah. There's nothing better than a new controller. It's a back paddle zone.
Starting point is 00:12:23 Well, yeah, I mean, you can argue about the control, but I mean, just don't feel of fresh sticks. No, no, it feels good. Because the thing is at home I have with Dual Sense Edge, which is what I use for everything. So I feel like if I take it home, I won't use it as much. But I might use it as decoration. We'll get the blue one on Timz.
Starting point is 00:12:38 At this point, I'm going to start framing controllers. Yeah, you got a lot. You got that Genshinxian Impact one. I know, I got the Genshinxen impact one. You could do the Rain Arvase controller wall. You could just full controller wall. Well, the most expensive wall of all time. Dual Sense controllers.
Starting point is 00:12:50 Thank you, PlayStation, for sending those over. Of course, yeah, Techno Red, Remix Green, Rhythm Blue. Available March 12, these new dual senses, if you want to get out there. And thank you to lunch, and Paulton for subscribing over on Twitch. I think you're crunchibles for a second. It's like lunchebles? Oh man, I can go for lunchebles. I'd fuck up
Starting point is 00:13:08 a lunchable right now. Should you order some? What are the stupidest things we've done here? Oh, we've done it before. Don't worry about it. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be. Topic of the show. That's strike two, Barrett. Oh, sorry. See what happens. Fucker on, do you find out.
Starting point is 00:13:28 Andy, I want to go home today. You take all the pillows. out of his bed. All right. He's got to learn. He's got to learn tonight. He's got to learn tonight. A topic of the show, we played mouse P.I.
Starting point is 00:13:38 for a higher. Maybe you've been living under a rock and haven't seen this game. The Steam description reads, join private investigator Jack Pepper, played by Troy Baker, on a guns blazing jazz-fueled adventure and Mouse P.I. for hire.
Starting point is 00:13:50 Mouse combines the charm of hand-drawn rubber hose animation inspired by the classic cartoons of the 1930s with the adrenaline and action of an explosive first-person shooter. It is coming out on April 16th, 2026 to Steam. PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, X-N-S, Xbox 1, Nintendo Switch slash Switch 2. The developer is Fumi Games. The publisher is Playside. We've seen this game for a long time. It's been out there. It's been gestating.
Starting point is 00:14:19 And then I have it open. Months ago, Xbox had a big old documentary presentation about it, this big old deal, and they made just about this game, which was kind of crazy to see. in terms of what they were going. And I want to say reaction here has been mixed for it. But there's been an anticipation for it. But then they showed so much. And it was almost why are we in or we out or whatever? Blessing.
Starting point is 00:14:44 Where were you before you started this with your journey for mouse? I want to say was it a developer direct or an ID at Xbox showcase where we saw that big presentation for it? 17 minute documentary from four months ago. Yeah. I have it in the description. My nose spared if you need to get to it. close that showcase with, yeah, that big deep dive. And I think that was the turning point for me where I was like,
Starting point is 00:15:06 damn, this seems big. Like, they're treating this like this is a huge release. Troy Baker is voicing the main character. Like, this seems like such a big release. So I've, my anticipation has been up. I'm not going to, it's not like it's been, you know, oh, this is going to be a game of the year contender or anything like that. But that definitely put it on my map stronger than it was before.
Starting point is 00:15:26 Okay. Andy, what about you? Yeah, it was a weird one because I think, With the more that we saw of it, the more that expectations rose, the more that maybe we cast our own doubt in this video game. I think it was when we first see it, it's this really kind of novel, oh, here's this small kind of indie game that's going to be first person boomer shooter speed, you know, with an awesome art style reminiscent of what Cubhead does and why that game is so charming with its art style. and then the more and more you see of it, especially with this little kind of deep dive, you go, oh shit,
Starting point is 00:16:04 this is kind of more than what it is. And now I'm kind of worried that maybe it's too much than it needs to be. And maybe they're kind of, you know, maybe the scope has gotten a little too large for what this game maybe should be because you kind of just, part of me was kind of hoping it was just going to be
Starting point is 00:16:20 a two hour, three hour. Five hour, boomer shooter. Here's a $15 video game, lots of fun. And then we might add a little challenge room DLC and whatever, you know, a couple months from now. But then, yeah, this thing started showing off, oh, shit, a lot of NPCs. A lot of things in this world. And then I think that kind of naturally leads us as the people who have seen a lot of games
Starting point is 00:16:43 go through these stories of kind of, oh shit, your scope is really, really expanding. Can you all match up and live up to this? So, Andy, after roughly an hour, it took, my clock said an hour at the end. That's how long it took me to play through the Steam demo. Correct, yeah. Yeah. Where do you stand? I think it's a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be.
Starting point is 00:17:04 And I think a lot of that has to do with the boss fights. Oh, okay. The way that the boss fights are sort of the way that they telegraph their attacks, the way that you are having to avoid them with the dash, with the double jump. It's exactly what I want out of a first-person shooter boss fight. There was also a mini-boss that didn't have a whole lot of telegraphed moves. it's just kind of coming at you quickly and you got a dash at the right moment. All that stuff just feels so good to do.
Starting point is 00:17:32 I said the last time we talked about this video game that I've never quite loved the PNG sort of style of first person. The paper Mario, hey, yeah, if you're an audio listener, of course, you're moving through a 3D space, but you're fighting things that are 2D like Paper Mario. Right. And so they are just, you know, 2D PNG cards that are standing in front of you. And they, you know, depending on whether the NPC will turn around,
Starting point is 00:17:56 obviously they change the way the perspective is drawn. So all that stuff looks really damn good. But I've never quite been in love with this style of game. And this one definitely turned me around a bit more on it. I think it is because of the charming art style of the, I thought Troy Bigger's awesome. Dude. Troy Bigger's kicking ass in this game.
Starting point is 00:18:15 I really enjoy his presence here. And yeah, everything that's kind of happening with this game seems really cool and interesting. Being a detective who is, again, for audio listeners who have never seen this game, if you're maybe tuning in for the first time, hey, I'm Andy. Work for this company called kind of funny.
Starting point is 00:18:30 Going to 2017. And this game has a very cup head, steamboat Willie looking style of our art style. It's all black and white. One really neat thing that's, what a really neat thing about that is something that they mentioned in the
Starting point is 00:18:46 little deep dive. Whenever you are playing a game with normal color, like the way most games are, the interactive interactible object will be shining a color to let you know, right? Yeah, yeah. They kind of did a very cool meta approach
Starting point is 00:19:03 to the way that those interactive objects work in this game, similar to how they work when you watch the, when you watch these old cartoons, you see the way the background looks, and then the one object that's going to be interacted with by the main character always looked a little bit different, and because that isn't part of the background, that's like an actual animated object that's about to move.
Starting point is 00:19:27 And so those animated objects have like kind of a different, they have a stroke around them. They do kind of move and bounce a little bit the way the rest of the work does. They draw your eye. They draw your eye. Yeah, I think it's really cool and creative. You see the T&T bouncing over there if you're a, yeah,
Starting point is 00:19:40 they do like the 1930s cartoon bounce. Yeah, but it also just, it doesn't blend in with the background. It looks like it's part of a different drawn layer the way the animations did back in the day. Also, shout out really cool options for audio. You can make the audio sound like vinyl. You can make it sound like a certain type of wax of vinyl.
Starting point is 00:20:01 Like it's really... Visuals too. There was a bunch of stuff to really degrade the visuals to look like what the cartoon would look like in modern day. I thought that was really cool. Super fascinating. But yeah, I think largely it's like I was super impressed by how much fun I had with the boss fights, but also the detectiveing, you know, talking to NPCs trying to figure out what's happening with this little mystery. Really cool. It's like, oh shit, I really want to play this now. Yeah, I'll jump in. Like, I... saw it from afar and many times they've been like,
Starting point is 00:20:28 oh, that looks really cool, but I'm not the shooter guy. Like, I just don't, that's just not a game I usually like to be the perspective of. I don't know if it would work for me. I am so happy to report that I had so much fun with this. Like this is so high on my anticipated list. I saw the chat debating. Yes, remember it is April 16th. It got delayed.
Starting point is 00:20:45 It was originally coming out this month. It was delayed to April 16th. I had so much fun. You know, I'm not the sweaty shooter by any stress of the imagination. So boss fights, I was like, all right, is this where we're going to go and I'm going to get annoyed and not have fun? And like, boss fights I thought were totally manageable. This was a really clever one of like run out there, shoot, get behind this when she goes for the big attacks. Like, okay, like it called back to when I was a kid back of the day, played the boomer shooters, playing Doom on my family PC, right?
Starting point is 00:21:14 But then it's not so far at least grueling in some kind of like I'm ramming my head against the wall. I enjoy the exploration. again, Troy Baker is phenomenal in this. I think it's one of those things where it's funny with Troy, maybe not so much anymore, especially after Indiana Jones. But for a while there, you know, Troy would get shit for just being Troy or whatever
Starting point is 00:21:35 and we're not doing much. I think he does such a great fucking 30s cartoon detective. You know what I mean? Yeah, and like this, that and the other. And all the different puns he did, I went out of my way to text him yesterday when I was playing it. I sent it to assets.
Starting point is 00:21:48 I'm just like, hey, like, you're really, I don't do that for every Troy performance. It's not because Troy's ever bad, but like, you expect Troy to be great. And so for Troy to actually be awesome, I sent it to, you know, over of like, hey, you crushed this. You were great in this role, right? Like, listen, you don't like me. I don't like you. But I got to admit, you're really good in Mouse.
Starting point is 00:22:03 I'm doing the preview, right? Like, crushed it. Just so good. And this makes me so excited for that final game of what else is going to be in here because they have so many cute touches that we'll touch on. I want to get top level thoughts. But I am wowed by it. Not wild, like, 9.5 wild. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:22:20 like to Rakan. Do I think, should you draft mouse? Right now I think this is going to, I would say this is in. This is, I think this will get like an 81 to an 83. That's how I feel too. My worry, what if it overstays, it's welcome. What if it doesn't hold up the humor wise? What if it gets boring?
Starting point is 00:22:40 I don't know. But like for an hour of this, I was like, I want more of this. Right. But bless, what about you? I think I echo most of what you guys are saying. I think I come in more on where you kind of land the point as far as it. coming in at like a gray in eight out of ten and 81 to 83 range because I think you know as I hear you guys talk about it initially I'm like oh damn you guys like this way more than I do but
Starting point is 00:22:58 I think resetting it there that is kind of where I come in where I think the game feels good I think the art style is fantastic and I love existing in this world and when I say existing I love looking around seeing the art style seeing the black and white seeing the 1930s art style there's newspapers to pick up in clips three I love I love picking the lock picking I was going to say The thing is like if we get into the minutia of the stuff that they put in here as a first person shooter, but the things that you're doing in between of, yeah, the lock picking mechanic is really fun that we'll talk about the, uh, there are some, like pickups that you'll, you'll see that are kind of like little mini comic strips. Yeah. That are really cool. I love that kind of stuff. I think the love letter to 1930s cartoon stuff that they're doing here, fantastic. I think playing the game felt just fine for me. I wasn't, you know, this didn't feel like a damn. The first person shooter gameplay is really key. is really caring for me here. Like it gets the job done. Greg,
Starting point is 00:23:53 you mentioned the bringing you back to playing like old school boomer shooters. The immediate thought I had as I was playing. It was like playing a 007 campaign or playing like I love playing Red Faction 1 on PS2. Totally. That's what I was telling you, right.
Starting point is 00:24:04 I felt like a PS2 or PS3, especially in some of these segments where it was, I'd walk in and see the guy all the way over there, but I hadn't triggered his box for him to attack me. So I would just shoot from way over here. Yeah, which is cool.
Starting point is 00:24:14 And like, I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily. I just don't know if that'll carry me for if this is a longer game. I want this game to come in at around 7 to 8 hours. I fear it being longer. But I think for what it does, I think it does such a great job of it.
Starting point is 00:24:29 And everything, especially aesthetically in this game, is so on point. And I think that's going to be the thing that people really rave about. The gameplay for me was like, all right, this is cool. It didn't really do much for me where I was like, damn, I can't wait to play MousPI for hire.
Starting point is 00:24:42 Yeah, again, my gameplay take on it, I'm right there with you of like, it feels like, okay, you can't aim down sights, right? So it feels like that level of shooter, which I was more worried about it trying to be sweaty or trying to be something it's not. I got excited at, you know, you leave this boss fight,
Starting point is 00:24:56 you get a little bit of the world you can exist in and going there and seeing how I could upgrade my weapons and be like, oh, okay, here's where I'm going to add on. But even when I upgraded the pistol and the demo, it put a big Reddit, uh, iron site on it, but I couldn't use that even.
Starting point is 00:25:09 So it's like, it's that level of shooter, which is for me a non-shooter fan, what I'd want out of it. And so, yeah, but I am there like, am I going to be bored for, hours in shooting this way. Yeah, I think I had also the reverse of Andy where Andy talked about the
Starting point is 00:25:22 2D enemies in this 3D zone, like not necessarily looking as great for you initially and then playing it. You kind of warmed up to me to it. For me, I had the opposite where as I'm playing these shooting segments and I'm fighting the bosses or whatever, something about the first person shooter impact on these 2D enemies just didn't feel as great gameplay wise. Like even as I'm rotating around them and they're always facing me or whatever. Like I get that that's the gimmick and I think that's cool from a visual perspective, but something about that for me didn't work as far as like the impact of bullets on my enemies, what I want that to feel like. But overall, I think this is cool. Overall, I think this is a game that people should look forward to. If you see the
Starting point is 00:25:59 trailer and you're like, damn, I want to play that, it is exactly that game that you're looking at. And so if you're excited for it, continue to be excited for it. Yeah, I would, I mean, you know, in a perfect world, I would much more prefer 3D models with like good shading tech. There's, there's a moment where you find a little secret and then you find a dead skeleton mouse that is modeled really well and I was like I kind of wish that you were just kind of all the NPCs or whatever and that's what I would prefer but yeah I guess like I guess talking about the gameplay I I enjoyed the boss fights as much as I did because I was expecting just arenas of bad guys I wasn't expecting like cool telegraph the boss fights
Starting point is 00:26:40 and so I was expecting, you know, if we're doing like the old school game pro rating by like sound and visuals and gameplay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say that like I was expecting a six out of ten of just like a serviceable time. Yeah, and it brought it up to like an A for me gameplay-wise. I was like, oh, this is doing more than I was expecting.
Starting point is 00:26:58 I thought we were just going to be entering rooms, shooting gallery, blah, blah, blah, blah, move on to the next point. I really did kind of enjoy that. In this small hour, we got a miniboss and a, a boss fight. And it's like, oh, okay, if you could kind of keep up that pace and give me
Starting point is 00:27:15 cool creative things that I have to jump over the rays of lasers as they're coming underneath me or dodge underneath them, I had a lot of fun with it and trying to like outskill that. In layering it on top of that, it is the fact that Troy's talking the entire time and giving you this story. And I felt
Starting point is 00:27:31 at first it was jarring kind of a disservice yours tossed right into this demo, right? But as you go and even read some of the stuff they sent over, it's like, okay, so you're there investigating this missing magician, right? And you go in and find some fucked up shit. And then you debrief on that fucked up shit afterwards
Starting point is 00:27:47 when you're out of here. And I was like, damn, this is what I'm looking for in terms of feeling like I'm playing a detective noir cartoon, I guess, where I'm a mouse. Shout out to Biggsler Soul who called out the gameplay whenever you're upgrading the gun. Your Tommy gun is called James Gun. And I got a good laugh out of it. James Gunn was killing
Starting point is 00:28:03 me. I also love that the shotgun is called a boomstick. Like a lot of personality there in terms of how they're naming the weapons in. to even break down one of the many bosses that we're talking about for audio listeners who might not be watching, right? Like, I agree totally with what Andy's saying as far as the bosses are designed.
Starting point is 00:28:17 And so you have one of the bosses that you're fighting who is like a character in the middle that is has rotating lasers that are also changing like the height of the lasers. And so you might have to duck. You might have to jump over them. And then at the same time, you have these windows of glass that rise from the floor that will protect you
Starting point is 00:28:32 from more rays that are coming at you. And so it is really a, all right, you got to make sure you're timed out, right? Okay, now I know they're entering this phase. let me hide behind the window. All right, now let me get out, get out my boom stick and start blasting them. Take care of them.
Starting point is 00:28:45 Yeah. Yeah, really enjoyed the characters and the exploration and then loved the kind of overworld driving around. Oh, yeah. So cool. To toss in there and put this under the section, right?
Starting point is 00:28:58 There's so much personality to this game. And even coming off that Xbox developer, direct, whatever documentary they put up, right, the 17 minutes, you really got the vibe of how much this game means to them and how artisanal, handcrafted it is. And when they're talking about
Starting point is 00:29:13 we're game developers, we love hand animation, that's what we're doing. The little touches of this. And so, yeah, I would put the overall driving in there where you climb in your car
Starting point is 00:29:21 and you drive it, and it's not really for any reason that it's kind of fun to drive this car around, but then also the lockpicking, which I think does need to be called on on its own for as in genius as it was, right,
Starting point is 00:29:30 you lock pick with your tail. So you go in and then you only have a certain number of moves. You got to come in. It's a game of snake, yeah. You got to get it in there. not touch. You got to put up the things.
Starting point is 00:29:40 Some of them have sharp edges eventually that you run into and can lose and get locked out. It was like when I got in like, you know, Mike and I always joke around about this with Bethesda RPGs or any RPG. You got to, what do we do to take lock picking to the next level? And to make it so in world here that like,
Starting point is 00:29:56 that's how he's picking it. He's picking it with his tail. I've loved that little mini game. Yeah, I sought out every lock pick or you know, every lock big opportunity from there. But yeah, the, the overworld very similar to what you see in Cuphead when you are moving from, you know, level to level. But you get into your little, you know, a little cord model. I don't know what they'll.
Starting point is 00:30:17 But you're, you just kind of, you drive from zone to zone, whether that's back, whether that's to the next mission and all those little points on the map were they had a little lock icon to show that you can't access that yet. But then you drive from the mission zone back to like the hub world where all the NPCs are at. There's the bar there. There's all, you know, interesting cast. of characters that you will meet.
Starting point is 00:30:40 I will say this, and this may be a little bit controversial, was hoping for the mouse lady to be a bit, like a bit more voluptuous. Oh. There's multiple mouse ladies in this.
Starting point is 00:30:55 Maybe the next one will have bigger titties for you. Well, okay, I didn't say that. Bigger ass. We're reading between lines. Jessica rabbits, you know, so along that line. Okay, yeah. Curvy. Oh, that's not bad, actually.
Starting point is 00:31:05 I was going to say, I was like, what more do you want? Oh, so you're talking about the mouse robot? The robot. The old. You know, more of the hometown, you know. I kind of wanted that, you know, old, you know, what's his name, mouse? John, Jack Pepper.
Starting point is 00:31:18 Jack Pepper and like, hey, hey, lady, good to see you. Jack Pepper. No. Pepper Jack. Pepper Jack. Cheese, mouse. Fuck. Yeah, there you go.
Starting point is 00:31:25 They're on it. They're on it. You know what I mean? You get it? No. No. No. We just like, we're throwing every.
Starting point is 00:31:34 You don't get that mouse reference? No. Mice. They're all named Dr. All these nice puns, yeah. But I really just enjoyed all the characters, you know. I thought everybody kicked out. Another really nice touch I thought when you're,
Starting point is 00:31:46 I don't know how much they have in there or whatever. Stilton is a cheese. It's an English cheese. Shit. What about what was Wanda's name? Wanda Fuller. They're like fondue? Fuller.
Starting point is 00:31:57 I barely know. Damn, you really want to fuck this mouth. That's crazy. That's nuts. Jesus fucking Christ. I appreciate it when I got into that open area and you're wandering around looking for it. Like, go talk to whoever. Like, you don't have a mini map, but you have a HUD bar across the top and it's got their faces on it. And they, when you
Starting point is 00:32:17 wander, it's like so easy to glance. Like, oh, that's the person. I don't know who Cornelius is. Yeah. But yeah, you see up there the corner, you're like, oh, okay, this is fun to explore and going. Like, I went into, you know, the bar or whatever. And they didn't have anything for me yet. I was like, okay, but it's still they want to around. They want to around. Yeah. It's back to what we're talking about, especially after watching that Xbox developer director, right? It's just so much bigger than I expected it to be. Like I really thought it was going to be a two hour, three hour, four hour game of running and shooting in black and white. But like this is where we bring it.
Starting point is 00:32:45 When you're going and exploring the world, you find blueprints. You can bring the blue prints back to Tammy here to then upgrade the weapons you want, which ones you're using, which ones you like. I loved it. Yeah. I had a really great time with it. Definitely shot up my like, okay, this is something that I actually do want to play because I just enjoy that. that sort of skill you know expression that's why I loved
Starting point is 00:33:10 that's why I loved Outriders so much you know yeah you talk about like third person first person shooters or whatever there's there's ways to make those boss fights fun and engaging and I thought they really kicked a lot of ass with it also shout out to these death animations too I forget the name of this weapon
Starting point is 00:33:24 but oh yeah the barnish gun yeah you can see like the skin melt off the enemies and then their bones stick there for a second and then they fall down oh you could kick the dudes at the shields oh no one more thing I want to kick to you. I didn't know that. Yay.
Starting point is 00:33:37 One more thing I want to mention because this isn't a problem because you can remap the controls, but the default control scheme for this game, I think is insane. Did you guys ever change your control? It's like, well, I forget what the three buttons are, but crouch, your dash, and then, I think melee are not where you would expect them to be. It's like they, like, took them and shifted all of them into like the wrong place. So I had to go back and remap because, like, I've noticed a lot of games recently having weird fucking button combo. That's a metric
Starting point is 00:34:07 system conversion thing. So here you go. You look at it. Couch is on L3 which should be like Dash or Sprint in my opinion. But I guess the dash here is more of like a it's not a sprint. Man I don't even yeah I don't even you're right a dash is on R3 I don't know if I ever use dash. I didn't understand R3 is crazy. That is weird. That's wild. Yeah. And then I think circle is kick is kick. And it's so hilarious. Because more important. Oh so well because I
Starting point is 00:34:33 basically remapped it to where I put melee on L, no, melee on R3, crouch on circle, and then sprint on L3. As it's got intended. Yeah, yeah, you're right, yeah. I just, I think that was bizarre.
Starting point is 00:34:48 There's been a lot of this going around, I think, right now, but devs are getting fucking weird with it. I'm not a fan of that. Yeah. More importantly, again, we're dropped into the game, we don't get the tutorial, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Like, I was infuriated playing two sections where I run, I jump, I land on the middle thing,
Starting point is 00:35:03 I run to get to the other one, I fall short. Dude again, fall short. And then I was like, what am I doing? Then I went up the wall. I was like, wait, if I climb on this and I jump on that, then I can get a bearer. Okay, cool. And then another segment happened.
Starting point is 00:35:15 Then I realized there was a double jump. And I was like, motherfucker. It felt so good. I was like, god damn, this double jump is great. And I wish I knew it was there. Yeah, there was like another part where you are underwater and the water is like killing you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I could not figure out how to like get to the top for the life.
Starting point is 00:35:30 I think I probably just had a tap jump or something. But I get no tutorial. so I was like, oh, fuck, I'm just gonna drown. You're underwater? Yeah, remember there's this part yet where we had to like platform over barrels are floating in water? Uh-huh.
Starting point is 00:35:41 Yeah, and I fell in the water. I think the water was electrocuted, which is why it was going. Oh, okay, okay. I thought it was awesome. Yeah, I'm very, very excited for this. This shot up to the, definitely, this is make time for it in April right away.
Starting point is 00:35:54 I'll be all about this one. April 16th, Mouse P.I. for hire is coming. We all seem to have really enjoyed our one hour with it. Blessing? Yes. Do you think Raka should pick it up for their?
Starting point is 00:36:04 fantasy critic team. Oh, that's a good question. Has anybody on our side picked it out? I drafted it when we did our initial draft. It was my fourth round pick, I think. I think it's a safe draft. I don't, if you're looking for something that's going to be a banger, banger, I don't know, but
Starting point is 00:36:20 like, if you're looking for something that's going to get you some points, mouse be I for hire, we'll get you some points. That's why I felt like it was a safe fourth round. I believe in this getting me 13 points, roughly, you know. Roger counterpicked it on you. That's tough. Well, then maybe means it's going to be the greatest game of all time this year, you know?
Starting point is 00:36:36 Yeah, that is following last year. Fucking Roger. He's definitely going to lose 12 points. I think this will get you in 82. Yeah, I put it in the chat. I put it in the chat. Or whatever. Everybody, we'll talk about this tomorrow on Kind of Funny Games Daily,
Starting point is 00:36:50 but Asha Sharman's CEO of Xbox has tweeted, great start to the morning with Team Xbox, where we talked about our commitment to the return of Xbox, including Project Helix, the code name for our next generation console. Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games. Looking forward to chatting about this more
Starting point is 00:37:07 with partners and studios at my first GDC next week. Wow. Damn. Well. Storm, I'm dying. Just stepping in New York and now everybody. The bus is free now.
Starting point is 00:37:20 Everybody, we have more show for you. We'll get to that after I remind you, of course, about the kind of funny membership. Patreon.com slash kind of funny. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Apple, Spotify. You can toss us $10 and get all of our programming. Add free. get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller,
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Starting point is 00:38:57 So many things happening. So many previews. GDC next week. Remember for us? Monday, we are streaming. all day long for our mix cross kind of funny game showcase and 16 developers coming through to show
Starting point is 00:39:08 their games live for you and wishless away there's just so much going on that games are starting to slip through the cracks that we're playing and you came in today and you said enough is enough it's time for me to talk Mugetics Yeah I'm tired of y'all not letting me talk about Mugetics. I hate cats and I hate your voice I played so much I mean listen
Starting point is 00:39:24 you can fight right now Mugetics is a game that as it was coming out I drafted it for fancy critic, never got around to it during that review period. Yeah. And I heard people in the office chirping. Chirpin. Chirpid about it.
Starting point is 00:39:41 Not saying favorable things about it. Got it. You know, Roger McCorny. God, I hate him. Maybe Andy Cortez might have been talking a little bit of shit about me, James. Damn. You know, saying they didn't like the song or whatever. Um, never been so viscerly turned off by anything in a game. Like, it's I understand that it's not warranted.
Starting point is 00:40:00 I'm in the wrong here. Hey man. You got to feel how you got to But there's never been anything so short into a game so quickly that it's made me go, fuck, I don't think you're alone in that, though. Like, that's something I have been hearing. Even people who like the game are like, oh, man. And it's possible that song is only for the first hour. I don't know. The funny thing is, I've not heard that song after the first, like, 15 minutes of the game.
Starting point is 00:40:20 It's totally unwarranted. Like, it's not fair for me to do that to the game. I totally get that. But I've never just like, oh, I was like, do my steam bag. This song fucking sucks, man. And it's, I, like, I'm not as visual with it, but I definitely feel you on that song. What's crazy is that there are other songs in the game that I think are fantastic. Cool.
Starting point is 00:40:39 Like, there's other music in the game where I'm like, damn, y'all are popping off with this stuff. Last year, late last year, I made a proclamation that 2026 was going to be hailed as tactical 2026. He said this to everybody, check it. This is a year where I'm playing some tactical games because I've always never been into tactical stuff outside of chess, classic. I'm playing tactical games this year. and Mugenics is the start of it
Starting point is 00:41:00 and I love Muggenics. I've been playing Mugetics nonstop for the last month. I guess I've stopped for playing other games or whatever. But I come back to this very regularly because I don't know what it is. I don't know what they put in this game.
Starting point is 00:41:15 All I know is that it has is hooks in me. If you're not familiar with Muginx, I'm sure most people are by now but it's essentially a game coming from Edmund McMullen, a dude who made Biden of Isaac, worked on other games such as I believe Super Meatboy
Starting point is 00:41:29 as far as art and stuff like that. Build the ultimate cat army through tactical breeding and send them into deep challenging turn-based adventures. Draft abilities, collect items, and manipulate genetics across generations in this rogue-like tactics game from the creators of Binding of Isaac
Starting point is 00:41:45 and the end is nigh. Yeah. Have you named any of your cats after any of your esteemed friends like me? I don't even know you can name your cats. I thought they were just all automatically named. Shout out to the homie Dylan who was like, yeah, your Nitro rifle is a cat in this game. It lets you import your friends or whatever.
Starting point is 00:42:01 Oh, you can import them. That's really cool. Pretty cool. I've noticed some weird names on the cats. And I still assume that they're just bits from the developer, but if they're pulling from other things, that could make sense because I got a cat named Waluigi. And I was like, you can do that. I'm like, that's crazy.
Starting point is 00:42:20 That's very fun. But yeah, it's a turn-based, grid-based, rogue-light game where you are recruiting cats and you are breeding them and you are basically building up these different classes of cats to then run through these battles and get as far as you can. It is very crude in its arsenal, which makes it a weird one to recommend because I've seen many people, many a person, offput by things like the music, things like how grotesque the cats and characters can be.
Starting point is 00:42:54 That was Roger. Roger was like, it's gross. I don't like it and I was like really what does that mean and I've never been the biggest fan of like the binding of Isaac
Starting point is 00:43:03 Super Me Boy and this art style like the strokes of the you know the thick lines the line width and that's just like an art style thing whatever but I think
Starting point is 00:43:13 Roger was more put off like the like you were mentioning there's a lot of poop yeah and there's a lot of cat fucking and like the cat
Starting point is 00:43:21 I mean there has to if you're gonna breed them yeah well that's the thing yeah if you're gonna breed the cats and the cats that's the only way to make them do that and so yeah
Starting point is 00:43:27 Are they not voluptuous enough for you, Andy? Is that the problem with cats? Maybe a patch could be put through, yeah. Fair, yeah. There's a mods out there. So, yeah, if you're somebody who's like, doesn't really love the crude humor, totally understand it.
Starting point is 00:43:40 Because that's something that kind of makes it a little bit off-putting to me, but the gameplay of it is so fun and so strong to me, where you go in and it feels like anything can happen, right? You have these different callers for the cats, which are essentially different classes that you can assign to them. Okay.
Starting point is 00:43:54 And so you have, for example, like the fighter collar, You have the, like, there's an arrow collar that gives them long range abilities and benefits for doing long range attacks. You have the cleric one that gives them healing abilities. You have the tank one, which will give that cat a lot of health and you have more that you unlock over time. And so you are basically looking at these cats that you've bred. You are picking one to four, them usually four, because you're going out with a full party. You are giving them these collars being like, all right, you're going to be a tank, you're going to be this, you're going to be that. And then you're going and you're navigating your map, like point by point.
Starting point is 00:44:27 And you will either encounter a battle or you might encounter a random event that could get you an item or you might encounter a store. But about every three nodes you're running into a battle. And the battles will be, there are, God, there's so many different variables that can, like, affect what's happening. And so you might have cat enemies that have specific things going on, right? One of the cat bosses is basically like a rainbow style cat that'll throw out bear traps. and like you have to like they have to dodge around the bear traps as they're trying to take out this cat
Starting point is 00:44:59 you might have another gigantic disgusting cat that will drag itself along the playing field and if you're caught in its movement they'll take big damage this cat destroyed this cat made one of my cats explode by fucking dragging itself over
Starting point is 00:45:14 and it's a permanent death situation they're gone like rogue legacy sort of style it is a permadeth situation now there is some leniency where if your cat gets downed like they'll get downed first before they die but their body will remain on the battlefield.
Starting point is 00:45:27 And so say an enemy down's my cat, all right, we're cool. If I win this fight, they'll get right back up and they'll heal a little bit. But enemies can keep attacking that down cat and we'll make it explode and you will lose that cat forever.
Starting point is 00:45:41 Oh, okay, so the cat is resable. Yes. Can you recover any parts from the cat? Like say you put on a sick-ass, like arm or something? I don't know. Oh, yeah, because there's definitely, there's like gear that you can put on your head. cats.
Starting point is 00:45:56 I don't believe, if your cat explodes, I don't believe you recover that gear. But chat, correct me if I'm wrong. That hasn't happened to me often. Okay. Question about kind of getting into the loadouts or whatever.
Starting point is 00:46:05 Yeah. Like, do you have any tips for how you're prepping your squad? Like, are you making, are you going into every battle knowing, all right,
Starting point is 00:46:18 this is kind of, this is kind of how I like to be prepared. I like having the tank, and then I like having these two. or is it just like a case by case thing? It's so case by case and I love it because I've tried to form my own meta and every run
Starting point is 00:46:32 my cats are so different that I'm kind of like all right we're bringing it like every single time I'm kind of just like I just got to figure out what's right in this specific scenario what do I do right now right here yeah and so I will look at my cats and like this cat like all the
Starting point is 00:46:48 I'll look at my cat I look at my cats and like they all have from the get-go their own unique abilities. And so you might have a cat that has a lob shot. You might have another one that is, you know, they have a punch. This one has a little bit more health than this one. And just based off of those things, I go, all right, you have a lob. So I know you're going to benefit more from having long distance moves. I'm going to make you the Ranger. All right, this cat, I feel like they could use more protection. I'm going to make them the tank. So they're going to start off with a lot of health. Oh, I like what this cat has going on as far as like their
Starting point is 00:47:23 melee attack. Yeah, I'll make them a fighter because I think they'll benefit more from those things. So you make those decisions off the bat. And then you also have, you have so much gear. Like, the gear will heavily influence the way your cats behave their additional like bonus moves, things like that. Passives, all that fun stuff.
Starting point is 00:47:40 And so every run feels so completely different, let alone you have weather that'll affect things. Like last night, as I made my way to the, I think it was the junkyard or the bone yard, there was like a weather condition that made it so that there's just flies everywhere. So now at the end of every turn,
Starting point is 00:47:56 every unit on the field takes one damage. I see altered rain in the chat. Says you also get punished for safe scumming. Yes, you do. Did you find out firsthand? I found out because I was playing at my desk because I was ignoring my work. And then there was a games cast was about to start.
Starting point is 00:48:15 So Kevin's like, you know, we got games cast. And I was like, shoot. And so I turned off the game and went to do gamescast. And when I came back to my game, it started up with a screen that was like, hey, fucker. Don't do that. If you do that again, we will punish you. And I'm not gone far enough to learn how it does.
Starting point is 00:48:34 But from what I've heard from the streets, they will, like, it's essentially there are specific mechanics that they'll change to punish you. I'll have to look it up in a second. But yeah, they will, I think one of them is like they'll automatically control the game for you. Like, they'll do weird shit to fuck with you if you try to save scum. So if you want to hop out the game,
Starting point is 00:48:52 You have to do it between battles in the run. How many hours do you play right now? It's not crazy. I want to say maybe 15 hours. It's the thing where I try to sneak it in whenever I can. Sure. And it's a, it plays so perfect on Steam Deck. And so it's one where it's like, all right, before bed, let's do one or two battles of
Starting point is 00:49:08 Mugenics. I've been kind of slow playing it. But like, whenever I get free time or I get a moment at home where I'm like, I'm kind of bored. Oh, I got Mee Genente. Let me, you know, boot up Mugenics play a little bit of this. It's become my go-to video game. Are you ready to put a score on it, you think?
Starting point is 00:49:22 No. I mean, because I, the percentage thing on my games says like seven percent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has a weird progression. I don't know if this is a complaint yet because at first I didn't like it, but I think I've allowed it to grow on me where you know how in any roguelight, let's say Hades, you can go as far as you want. You can theoretically beat a run in Hades in one go if you want to. They don't let you do that in this game.
Starting point is 00:49:50 Here they'll let you, you have to do a region at a time. where you'll get through the first region, and then at the end of it, they're like, all right, let's go home, let's reset. Okay, now you unlocked the second region beyond the first region. And so you go back to do the run, you do the first region again,
Starting point is 00:50:03 and then you do the second region. And then at the end of the second region, they're like, all right, go home, and then you had to keep doing it over and over again, which at first I didn't like, because I'm like, well, if I'm doing good, I keep doing what over and over again? You have to play,
Starting point is 00:50:16 if you want to, if you beat region two, and then you move on a three, you have to do one and two again? Again, yes. Oh, okay. So you had to do one, one and two, and then you have to do one, two, three. Oh, weird, okay.
Starting point is 00:50:25 There are different paths. And so in the way that of Hades, you're doing like the four regions back to back to back. Here it is region one and then junkyard and then bone yard. But at the end of region one, there is a fork where you can now do, I forget what they are, but let's say graveyard and then the one after graveyard. And so it's just a weird format where like to do the third region, either, direction. You had to do the first and second region over again. Don't love that.
Starting point is 00:50:58 But Spall says you have to unlock areas and bosses. It makes sense eventually. Yes. So maybe it becomes similar to Returnal where they give you like the fast forward, skip this area. The last region I just unlocked is very much
Starting point is 00:51:12 like, okay, thank God. Like now I can go directly here. There is a reset moment where it is, okay, I don't have to keep doing shit over and over again. I don't mind it now that I'm here because the game is so fun to play that I'm kind of like, oh, hell yeah. I get to find different configurations of cats to party up with. And so it's grown on me in that regard, but that was a weird thing starting off.
Starting point is 00:51:36 I like hearing about those strats because like when you're fighting the, when you're, you know, usually when I'm fighting against a Nilf guardian deck, then I go against somebody and Gwent with a with a monster deck. They're going to use a lot of close range stuff. And I can't let that, I cannot let that character, you know, the person I'm fighting and went put down a certain card that's going to then summon four more cards, close range cards from their deck. You know, hopefully I have a scorch card on me.
Starting point is 00:52:02 Hopefully I got one of them cards that adds rain. Got it. Just to negate the middle range or whatever. Is this guy ever not playing which is three? I haven't played through right now. Couldn't go to the basketball game. First play thing. But yeah, there are so many, oh man, there's so many good, unique abilities where it is like,
Starting point is 00:52:20 oh, okay, I got this thing against this enemy. Like this enemy throws bear traps, but I know that like, who will throw bear traps and then try to get away from you? Because he's like, oh, you're just going to get stuck in the bear trap. Yeah. And so I'm just going to try and get away. So like, I, if you have good range shit, like I get really excited because I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Well, I got my ranger that has a lob shot that it doesn't matter where you're at on the map. So I'm going to mess you up regardless, right?
Starting point is 00:52:44 Or there will be another boss that is for the one I was talking about, he'll drag himself towards you. And the way he does damage is that he'll do damage, very big damage in a small space. as he drags himself over you. Oh, well, I have a cat that throws bear traps. So I'm going to throw this bear trap before he even gets to me to stop him in his tracks. It's really, really fun to kind of like find ways to gain the system because it feels like everything has something that is weak to. Yeah, I'm glad you're loving it.
Starting point is 00:53:10 It's open me up to tackle stuff in a way. That's this year. That's the year. It's tackle 2026. I feel so ready for Fire Emblem. I'm sure it's a very similar game here. 100%. Lots of cats in that one is all right.
Starting point is 00:53:20 all right. Hold on. Bless you. Bless you, Andy. Thank you. Duro in the chat had a pretty dynamite one a second ago. That was Gamescast today talking cat and mouse games. Man. Oh, shit. Everybody, this has been another episode of the Kind of Funny Games cast. One of our many live programs on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games, Twitch. dot TV slash Kind of Funny Games and podcast services around the globe.
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Starting point is 00:54:01 Our day is far from over. We're about to do Interstellar in Review. And then Joey and I give you a kind of funny games cast plays of Pocopia. You can watch those lives as we record them. But if you miss them, YouTube podcast services around the globe. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. Great job.

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