Triple Click - Big Walk Made Us A Better Podcast

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Welcome to Big Walk, a Triple Click corporate trust exercise that has made us all better co-workers and better people. Kirk, Jason, and Maddy break down the new hit game from House House and talk about their experiences playing it together... and falling off cliffs. One More Thing: Kirk: Martyr! (Kaveh Akbar) Maddy: The Other Bennet Sister (Amazon Prime/Britbox) Jason: Homeland (2011) LINKS: Daniel Dennett on Wikipedia, and a cool Big Think video featuring him and his work Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

First, there was baby steps, then Big Walk. After that, Marathon. And finally, Dante's Inferno. Welcome to Triple Creek where we bring the games to you. This week we're talking about Big Walk, a game that all three of us have been playing, exploring the Australian Outback, solving puzzles, and big walking. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

And I'm Maddie Myers. And hello. Hello. Are you guys ready to go for a walk? I am ready. I am. Wait, I can't. I need to come back over to my microphone so you can hear what I'm saying because I walk. I got too far away from it.

That's good. Could you imagine if we recorded a podcast that was just entirely just as fading it out? We should make an episode in big walk. We should. If you would like to hear us try to make an episode in Big Walk, you can become a maximum fun. It'll be a bonus episode. It's actually kind of a good idea. possible. Yeah, we could call it click walk. Triple, triple big walk. Big click. Big click. Big click.

Big old click. Wasn't that a movie? The Big Sick. The Big Sick is a great movie. You can go to Maximfund.org slash join and support our show. In addition to making this show possible, you will also get access to our monthly bonus episodes, including one we just did a few weeks ago about the new movie from Christopher Nolan, The Odyssey. Of course, we are finishing our ongoing watch of the Sopranos. Our next bonus episode at the end of August will be us talking about seasons four and five of the Sopranos. We'll cap that off in a month to come with season six. So a whole lot of episodes, lots and lots of good bonus episodes for you. We talk about games. We talk about movies.

We talk about films. We talk about life advice. We talk about all sorts of stuff. So go and check that out. Go to maximum fun. dot org slash join. All right. As for this week, Kirk, what are we talking about today?

We're talking about a very cool video game called Big Walk, as we have basically already explained to people. We'll be talking about Big Walk. Before we get into that, I actually wanted to mention one thing real quick related to our conversation last week about Soma. That was a very fun conversation. And in it, I mentioned that some of the philosophical ideas explored by Soma are likely explored by philosophers.

with whom I am not familiar. And a friend of the show, Brett Duvill wrote in to tell me about one of those philosophers, a philosopher named Daniel Dennett, who we can maybe link just to his Wikipedia or something in the show notes. I was not aware of him, but he is very interesting and posits some of the ideas, like he was doing some of the thought experiments, the kind of current thought experiments, that feel similar to some of the things explored in Soma. So I wanted to throw that out there for anyone who might find that interesting and want to do some further reading. Daniel Dennett is one place to start.

And thanks to Brett for sharing that. Cool. As for this week, we're going to talk about a very different game from Soma. We're going to talk about Big Walk, the newest from House House, a multiplayer sensation that's sweeping the international nation. The Gamer Nation? The Gamer Nation. There we go.

Taking the World by Storm. It is kind of like Soma in that when you disconnect, your body is left behind with X's on it and then you come back in and a new body. Yeah, that can be maybe a running theme of this conversation is finding the surprising parallels. Because there are some. That's the headline. That's the YouTube video. Surprising parallels between Soma and BigWalk.

That's going to do numbers. That's going to be huge. If those were two big budget games out at the same time, that would absolutely be the Kotaku article that one of us would have been. But instead, they have essentially no relation other than to fans of Triple Click. I feel like I saw a headline that was like. what GTA 6 can learn from Big Walk, right? I feel like that headline is somewhere in the world. That's got to exist.

It's got to exist. It has to exist. Someone's writing it right now as we speak. I'm sure that some of the ideas in it are interesting and valid. So anyhow. I can't find a headline that actually says that. I'll write it up after this, Jason, don't worry. Yeah, please do.

Yeah, it can be on mothership. You guys can get this sweet SEO juice for everyone. I did find, I do find IGN, GTA6 could learn a few lessons, from Bully, but that's a little bit different. Not quite the same. But anyhow, big walk. Let's talk about it. So this is the new game from House House, an Australian game developer,

a very small studio for people who made the Untitled Goose Game, is their most famous game from 2019, though they did make a game before that called Push Me, Pull You. That's a neat game. But Untitled Goose game was their breakout success. That came out in 2019 was a big hit. especially among all of my friends who play video games with their kids, but really among everybody. Yeah, I loved that game, and I didn't play it with a child.

I agree. I really thought that it was a brilliant little game, especially like taken as a whole. I thought it was much more than it needed to be maybe. It was a really, the sign of some very sharp design minds. So it's not a surprise that their follow-up is a tremendously cool game, but it is a little unexpected what kind of a game it is. and the ways in which it is so special and neat. So Big Walk has been out for a little while. It is a multiplayer game for anywhere from two to, I believe, 12 players online. It can only be played online.

It is not a couch co-op game due to the way that it is designed. And that is because it is all about communication and the ways in which we communicate. And it makes communication difficult in some ways. it adds some barriers to communication in ways that make all of the puzzles go. So in Big Walk, you design a little character, you're kind of just this little dude, you've got little arms and little legs, and then you are set loose in a world that looks somewhat like the Australian wilderness, kind of an island covered in play structures. It is an open world, largely undirected game full of just player-directed puzzles.

So you and your team begin together, and the first thing that you will notice upon playing is that proximity chat is turned on. And that is how you will communicate with your fellow players. So instead of being in a Discord chat where you can just talk and do whatever you want in the game, you must walk up to one another in order to talk. And if you walk too far away from them, you will no longer hear what your teammates are saying. And then the whole game kind of flows from there. You're then put in situations in which you have to solve a puzzle and one person is in a different room and can't hear you. So you have to figure out how to communicate. the necessary information in order to solve the puzzle.

And really, you also just find yourself wandering around this big, interesting open space together, looking for things to do, talking about whatever you might want to talk about, and gradually uncovering the secrets and surprises of this island. That's the structure of the game. I'm finding it completely delightful and honestly revolutionary in a way that I find sort of shocking. And I'm very excited to talk with the two of you about. You got to set the scene.

You've got to tell everybody how we've been playing. Yeah, this is unusual for us. game where the three of us are only playing together for the most part. Yes, we have been playing this game together. I mean, I could do that or you could do that. Jason, how about you describe it? How have we been playing this game? Sure, yeah.

So, Maddie had played a session, but then the three of us got together a couple of weeks ago and started playing it. And since then, we've done like four sessions. It's like a triple-click, like corporate trust building. It feels like a corporate retreat. Yeah, instead of going to like a ski shell lay in the mountains, we go to the world of big walk and learn how to communicate with one another. And it's super cool. Occasionally we've had cameo appearances from friends from other shows. Those are like the guest speakers at the corporate retreat.

Russ Proustic turns out. He gave us a lecture about avoiding spoilers. That is what his keynote would be on. But for the most part of the three of us have been going around and solving puzzles together and it's been very rewarding and fun. And I mean, I think we all love it. I certainly love it to the point where we have a date scheduled tonight to play it after recording this episode, which I think is especially rare because usually it's like, all right, played the game for the triple play. I don't know if we'll keep going. Got to keep playing other stuff for the podcast. But this game is so enjoyable that we're going to keep playing it together. I think there are a few things that make it masterful. I think that one is the

communication that you mentioned, Kirk, and just the way that it's designed. Not only, um, are you like is do you quickly discover the way that proximity chat works at the beginning of the game it says very explicitly do not use external voice chat for this game use headphones and your mic and don't put on any other apps because that just ruins the experience and well i'm sure there are a couple of people out there who have just been cheekily playing on discord chat or whatever um i imagine most people would realize that that just ruins the fun and ruins the purpose of this game. And then, of course, the way that you communicate really dictates a lot of how the world functions and how the puzzles function.

There was one puzzle where I think we'll probably lightly spoil a few of the puzzles in vague ways, but there was one puzzle that I will spoil, just warning everybody out there. But it has to be mentioned just because while trying to explain the appeal of this game, where we all were kind of in separate rooms and had to communicate. with one another's using these intercoms in order to say what this pattern looked like. And then it gradually dawned on all three of us that each of us was only talking to one other person, that there were one way intercoms and he couldn't talk back. You'd only talk to the other person.

I can only imagine what that would be like with like six different rooms or something like that. Fortunately, these are puzzles and then for three. But very fun experience and very fun realizing that and then figuring out how to communicate that at a certain point. I was like, Kirk, tell Maddie. I can't talk. to her. She's only talking one way. It's very fun to go through. But the other big thing that I think

really just makes this game special is the way that there is no real tutorializing and the game's kind of puzzles that are dotted all around the landscape of the world and all have the same sort of reward, which is just these kind of like gourds or seeds that you are collecting and using to unlock keys, which then take you open different roots of the game and different fast travel opportunities for you, and I assume eventually you'll get to some big endgame state. We're not quite there yet. But the thing I think is brilliant is the way, almost like a destiny raid, which might be the closest comparison point here, it doesn't tutorialize, it doesn't tell you, okay, this is the next puzzle. Here is how you do this. Instead, it just throws you into it,

and you have to just kind of figure out both parts of the puzzle, the concept and the execution, and the concept can vary a great deal. Sometimes it's like, like a sports concept where you have to get a basketball into a hoop a bunch of times. Other times it's a little less clear and you're not 100% sure what you have to do. You just see like a bunch of signs and a button and a telescope and you just have to piece together what's next. And I think that kind of that little bit of endorphin rush that comes with both figuring out what you have to do and then also executing on that concept and actually pulling off the solution, I think that's a, great one to punch that I always appreciate in puzzle games. And you combine that with the

multiplayer aspect and the teamwork aspect. And it just makes for a brilliant experience that I've been loving a great deal every time I've played with you too. Yeah, I think this is our first triple play where we can't quite go around the horn and be like, here's how far I got in the game. And here's what I thought of it. And we kind of like delight and surprise each other with what our actual takes on the game are because we have been playing the game. together for pretty much the entire time. I did start playing it with my gaming group, my Thursday gaming group, but then continued on with the two of you after that point. And you two are the only people I've played with because some of the members of the gaming group continued on without

us. This is one of those games where you kind of need a core group that is going to continue playing it and just decide, like, this is the group I'm playing with. Because once you've seen the solution to the puzzles, I mean, you can still enjoy. playing it with somebody else a second time. But I think when you're in that position, which I was for the very beginning of our time playing it together, you don't want to spoil the puzzle for the other people that you're playing with because part of the fun of Big Walk is figuring out what the puzzle even is

and not only what the solution to the puzzle is, but what it even entails. And that's, I didn't want to spoil it for you guys. So I was kind of glad when we got past the part I'd already played in when the three of us committed, We were like, we're going to play Big Walk together. The three of us are a trio in Big Walk, and I think we're going to see it through to the end. I hope so.

Yeah, that I think is, that's something else that it has in common with a Destiny raid. Jason and I have experienced this many times on a raid. Mani, I don't think we ever raided together, right? We didn't. I had a different rating group long after you two had stopped raiding. We did a lot of blind raids, like when the raids came out, which is a little bit different of that experience. Yeah.

Yeah. And we definitely had the experience of wanting to have a core group where no one in the group knew what to do because it just like taints it a little bit when there's one person who's biting their tongue. Oh, that button over there. Well, that is interesting, isn't it? And you're like, it's just kind of annoying that you know what to do. So it's just nice when everyone is discovering it and figuring it out and experiencing it together. And it has been nice to have that experience. That said, I do think that this game has a little more replayability than your average puzzle game.

only because a lot of times you'll come across a new structure, you know, a new puzzle, and it is usually very clear what you have to do. It doesn't really take that long. It's not so mysterious. And then the execution itself is kind of a big part of the fun. It's just saying, okay, well, now we have to figure out how to execute this, you know, how to actually do it.

And I could imagine specifically, if the three of us play through the whole game together and then a little later, if we knew a group of people who got together 12 people to play through this game again, I think that would be incredibly fun. Because something I guess we should say about the way that this game works is when you kind of populate your island, like when you create your server, you pick how many players you have. The puzzles redesign themselves according to how many people there are. So I could imagine playing through this with a lot of people being really fun.

It sounds like I was initially not sure how this worked. And then Maddie, you were saying that it goes up to 4 plus. So 4 plus is like the biggest group that you can have on the island. So anything above that, that's like as big as the puzzles get, which I guess makes sense that they haven't designed it so that there's like a different island for every group size. It would be a little impression. Well, just like imagine the intercom puzzle that I mentioned, imagine that with 12 people, that would be impossible to actually pull up. It would be so good. If there was a version.

But very funny. It would be amazing. Four seems like a more reasonable limit. Yeah, especially given the small team size. Like designing these puzzles to scale up like that. I mean, just the geographic space you would need would be really tricky. Well, but also I do think there's like a very different experience playing it with two people, which I haven't done versus three versus four. Like even that is different.

And then also there are the social dynamics in play where you kind of naturally fall into who's going to lead the puzzle. who's going to be in charge of the puzzle. And one person kind of has to go into that role. And I mean, we can get into it, but I feel like that was, that's been like an interesting part of our group dynamic is like each of us figuring out which of us is going to be in charge of each puzzle and, you know, whether we're going to when and how we're going to work together. Yeah, I think that that's part of the sort of team building, you know,

corporate retreat part of this game is that without putting a lot of structure on it, It's just allowed us to collaboratively problem solve in a space that isn't triple-click. You know, we spent a lot of time problem-solving triple-click, you know, figuring out programming, deciding, scheduling on stuff, that kind of thing. And I think we're very good at that at this point because we've been doing it a long time. And it's nice to take those dynamics and then put them onto a completely different context, which I do think is the kind of core idea of a corporate retreat for like, you know, any group of coworkers. It's the same thing. Okay, now we're on an island and we're going to do some survivor-style games so that we can kind of put different people in different roles and let everybody kind of get to know one another in a different context. Can we, okay, I want to draw some parallels here. I want to extrapolate a little bit and draw some parallels between Big Walk and making video games.

A couple of thoughts. One is that, Maddie, your point about needing someone to step up and take the leadership role. makes me think about that sort of creative collaboration where if you don't have someone stepping up and taking that leadership role can just lead to a disaster. Like someone has to be making the calls and actually making decisions and saying, look, you know what? We can't just discuss this at infinitum. We have to actually make some decisions here. But two, and this might be even bigger of a thing, is it makes me think about how much harder communication gets the bigger your team is and how much easier it is when it's just three of you trying to coordinate and collaborate. And one of you can step up at different times and make choices. Imagine trying to do something like big

walk with a team of 500 people or a thousand people. I mean, even 12 sounds very difficult. Exactly. I would love to try that. Man, we should try to do a group of 12 just for kicks. But like, imagine trying to do this sort of like collaborative, creative collaboration. And then obviously when you're making a game or doing something, making a movie, making something a piece of art, it's way, way harder than solving a puzzle in Big Walk. So it's just fun to think about those dynamics is applied to much, much trickier things to accomplish. You know what would be really cool

would be team competitive Big Walk, where you have a team of 12, and your job is to solve, to open all of the keys as quickly as possible. I guess we can say how far we do it. Speed running, Big Walk speed running. So like multiple teams could, split up basically is what you're proposing, Kirk.

Right. So, yeah, I'll, yes, that's kind of what I'm picturing. And first off, just just kind of explain the structure of the game a little bit, since we can say how far we are. We have gotten two keys, which is to say we've filled up to, like, there are these kind of receptacles that you have to fill up. Three keys. With the gords.

Oh, do we have three? Well, if you count the intro one, we've gotten two after the intro, right? Yeah. We got the red tower and the green tower. You're right, right. Okay, so we're up to three keys. So basically, that's kind of how you measure your progress. You fill up these receptacles with gourds or seeds that you get from solving a puzzle. I think you get it, I believe it's five of those. And then you get a key, five or six. And once you

have a key, you can use that to kind of unlock something. And Jason, you said fast travel. We should specify that there isn't actually a fast travel where you warp around. Yeah, I guess I meant shortcuts. You unlock travel options. Like they're really cool. Like there's a monorail that we haven't unlocked, but there's a monorail around the island that will be really cool. And we do unlock it. And we actually just unlocked a chairlift, like a ski, like at a ski resort. We have to tell that story about how that went unlocking. It was very funny. Okay, you can tell that a second.

But to finish the thought about multiplayer, yeah, the way that that could work is you have 12 people. You can do what you can organize that however you want. But with 12 people, given that 4 plus is the size, you could have three teams of four. And then the goal is to solve, you know, to get every key maybe as quickly as possible. and so you would have to be really coordinated and know exactly what you're doing. And the more you do it, the better you would get at it because you'd know which puzzles you were going to solve.

But the puzzles do have some randomized elements. So it requires a fair amount of skill. I would watch that. I think that would be amazing to watch two teams on separate servers trying to complete the game more quickly. I hope somebody organizes that. Yeah, maybe at GDQ.

You know that this is going to get turned into an Amazon reality show that's like big walk with Mr. Beast. It's just like, Beast walk. I guess the Beast games kind of is this. Yeah, that's true. I guess so. Yeah, Maddie, you want to tell the story about the ski lift?

Yeah, we, so I don't even remember how we managed to unlock the chairlift. It's one of many things where you do a series of puzzles and then you get a key and that unlocks the chairlift. I think it's just a key. And so as soon as we unlocked the chairlift, it started, I think it wasn't moving and then it began to move. And then Jason immediately hopped on. to one of the chairs. Well, no. I hopped on, I had time before it was moving.

I was like, oh, I wonder if I could get on here. Yeah, I didn't realize that it was going to take me away. That's so funny. Matt, my experience of it was just, we turned it on and we looked and there goes Jason. We were like, well, there he goes. And we were like, what the heck? Jason just left. Okay, but let me complete the story.

So Jason hops on a chair. Hold on, hold on. Oh, no, I have to tell you an important detail here, which is that I'm holding the blue walkie-talkie. So I'm like, oh, okay, fine. I can just communicate with them, no big deal. And I start talking in the walkie-talkie, and then I hear the response, I hear my own voice, because the yellow walkie-talkie is in my backpack. Someone decided to put that odd being for some of it. This is why you don't give one player both of the walkie-talkie. Yeah, so Jason is, Jason is unwittingly holding both walkie-talkies. As for how that happened, clearly either Kirk's

or my fault, although I don't know who's to blame in that scenario. Some of that is just part of part of the merriment of Big Walk. That just happened somehow. So Jason is riding off into the sunset by himself with both halves with walkie-talkie. And Kirk and I are like, oh my God, okay. And so we hurriedly, both of us hop onto a chair on the chairlift. And we're like, okay, great, we're going to catch up to Jason. Except what we don't realize until we're already on the chair is that we are headed

in the complete opposite direction of the chair. I realized that when we got on. I was like, well, there goes Jason. I'm going the other way. We're like going the other way. Did you get on backwards on purpose, Kirk? Because I did not. I was like, I'm just going to get on a chair.

I didn't think of it as backwards. I, yes. So I should say, like, when I'm playing this game, I am actually very willing to embrace separation. Yeah, this is, this is, you're aiming for chaos. It's a somewhat chaotic approach to Big Walk that I swiftly learned. I don't think, I don't see it as chaos,

but I do think it's, it's really fun to embrace the friction in this game. I think it's fun to put yourself in positions, where to put yourself into situations where you've been separated. Which means like seconds into the game, Kirk was saying things like, I'd like to get lost. What happens if I get lost? Yeah, because I think that's really cool because in the game they've built all these systems to make up for that. When we were playing, for example, and Russ Frustick dropped into our game, he was then, he fired a flare up from the tower where he was and we could see the flare from where we were. And then he was on a PA kind of saying, hey, guys, I'm up here.

And I think those systems are all really cool. if you play the game perfectly and are always a little unit, you don't actually get to use a lot of the systems that they've built in. And I like the idea of trying to solve a puzzle, you know, in a little bit more difficult way. Like, for example, there was one puzzle where there are a series of symbols far away from a tower. On the tower you have a telescope or a series of telescopes that are pointed, you know, at the different locations, you know, maybe half a mile away.

So one player can go and look at those shapes. And then the shapes that they're trying to communicate are actually gestures. So the player who's gone to look at the, you know, whatever, the gesture in question, they can like do, they hold their arm up in the air and one arm to the side and crouch. And that sort of tells you, okay, we need to do the crouching arm up in the air symbol for this first one. So you can do the whole thing just communicating with gestures. Or as we wound up doing it, you can do the whole thing with the walkie-talkie. So we went and got the walkie-talkies.

And then I was actually going out and looking at them and setting down the walkie-talkie and doing the gesture. But halfway through, I realized, oh, I could just tell them. Oh, it's like a guy crouching with his arm in the air. And the walkie-talkie makes it way easier. To me, it's kind of more fun to try to do it the slightly harder way to work out these elaborate methods of communication, because I just think that's interesting. And when Jason went the opposite direction on the chairlift,

I definitely thought, oh, cool, he's going to go that way, we'll go this way. One way or another, we're going to meet back up. Like, it'll be fine. But I'm kind of curious what's going to happen when we now go to the other direction. Okay, but you guys have to finish. You have to finish the story. You've got to finish the story, guys. Yes.

So continue, Maddie, there is a little more to the story. Meanwhile, I am none the wiser of any of this. I'm none the wiser, apparently. I'm the third party in this story who just got on a chair following Kirk being like, okay, we're going to catch up to Jason, only to realize that Kirk had apparently intentionally gotten on a chair going the opposite way, which I guess I should have known what happened. So then we continue along. We continue along Kirk and I talking about how now we've been separated and we don't even

have the walkie-talkies anymore. and eventually we get to kind of a stopping point for the chairlift, like a point where we can stop. And then I think, I'm trying to remember what we did. Jason, how did we get back in touch with you? Do we use the PA system? Well, so I got off and I looked around, and we were at a kind of a new high point.

And then I see right next to the chairlift a walkie-talkie. Because, you know, there are items in this game that you just find around. And you find copies of them around. So there's a laser pointer, for example, that you can use to point at things far away, that you can actually see from a great distance, or binoculars, and so on and so on, these various useful tools.

And there was a walkie-talkie up at the top of this point. So I just picked it up, and then I pressed the send button, and I was like, Jason? And Jason's like, hey, what's up? Where are you guys? Yeah. Which was just an incredible moment. It was like a little confluence that feels like an amazing coincidence,

but also, I think, actually displays how smartly this game is made. Like, it was actually a moment of design where they thought, of that and they put the walkie-talkie at that point thinking it is possible that someone will wind up here and want to communicate with someone else elsewhere on the island because this will be their first time riding on the chairlift since it's one stopover from where you turn the chairlift on. So it was like a little hand of the developer moment that then led to this delightful moment of, you know, us getting back in touch and saying, Jason, oh, where are you? And he's like, oh, I went this way. I'm going to come around and get on the chairlift. And then eventually he came

to where we're. I feel like you need to approach it like you're going to Disneyland with small children and you have to be like, if we get lost, we're all going to meet at this statue. If we get lost, there's nobody to ask for help. So you got to come, Mina's here. Yeah, it's not like Disneyland in that sense. There's no like professionals standing around who will be like, okay, I'm going to help you find your mommy. You're like out in the pseudo-Australian wilderness, the outback. And you, you only have walkie-talkies to find. But there are all these other tools there. They're the walkie-talkies. There are flares. And there's also this massive PA system that we described Russ using, which are all different means of explaining to somebody

where you are. But again, there's no fast travel. So I think we just waited for you to come back, Jason. Well, you got, we had the walkie talking. But I was already, I mean, I had already turned around. I had already turned around because I saw you guys who were going in the opposite direction. So, um, the other thing, another, we're another thing, not the other thing, but another thing that I find very appealing about this game is that it's very easy to play in short bursts. Um, and so like, for me personally I can only play after I put my kids to bed which is like eight or eight 30 at night my time and I'd like to go to bed around 10 Maddie you like to turn off screens before 10 and so we wind up only having like an hour or an hour and a half to play which is perfect because we can like go in knock out a few puzzles and then just call it a day it's almost that's one area in which it is much better than destiny and it's interminable raids where we really I had to stop playing that game when I had children from part from like that's one of the big reasons is because you could spend five hours just knocking your head against the raid and then when you next time you came back you basically had to

start from the beginning if it was the weekly reset had happened since then so yeah um in this it's it's it's very easy to just kind of jump in um we are finding the thanks to shortcuts and just like a little bit of hiking it's really not so hard to get where we were um even though you don't you don't just when you when you log out of the game you don't just come back in where you left off you come back in in the starting area with whatever items that were on your person just kind of tucked away in the lost and found part of that area. You do have to actually go to the lost and found and pick those items back up. You do have to get them, which we forgot one of the times that we played. But yeah, thanks to these shortcuts that we're unlocking, including the first big

one, which like gets you right from the tutorial into like that main main area, it's really not so bad. And plus, it's just kind of chill to walk around that world anyway. Isn't that the whole point to go for a big walk. So yeah, I mean, not going in and knocking out two or three puzzles a night or a session, I think is like a really good cadence. I don't know how long it's going to take us to actually finish this thing at that pace, but I don't really care that much. It's, it's been fun. Yeah, we'll see. I also appreciate that unlike Destiny Rates, there aren't always time bound puzzles. There are a few puzzles with like a ticking time bomb of some kind where it's like, okay, we have to finish this in 10 seconds or 30 seconds or whatever the case may be. But most of the puzzles, you can really just

stand around and be like, huh, let's figure this out. Let's like take some time and really talk out how we want to approach this, especially if we're going to have to contort our avatar's bodies in some type of silly way. And I just like that. It has a much more chill vibes hangout type of an energy. And there are also parts of the game where the point is just to hang out. Like we've passed a few of them already where there's just nice music playing and like there's no puzzle there. It's just like a bunch of radio set up just playing a cool song. And the whole point is that you just sit in the chairs and you listen to a nice song. It's like that is another design ethos for the game that emphasizes its hangout vibe. I think that's really the thing that makes the game so distinct for me.

It's one of the biggest distinguishes of this, if comparing this game to any other puzzle game or co-op game is how playful it is. It just feels like going to a big playground with your friends and having a fun time. It so encourages this playground sense of just experimentation and joy. There are puzzles, but also everything is just very funny and fun. You know, you pick things up and drop them and they roll all around. You can kind of troll one another. You can pick a character up and throw them off a cliff. You know, when you fall off of a cliff, if you fall too far, you drop whatever you're carrying and your like googly eyes start spinning around. There are a lot of really funny little character animations that are built into the game.

Everything just feels like playful. It feels like it's embracing this feeling of play. And that's actually something that a lot of multiplayer games don't do because they're so scaffolded around rewards and punishments, you know, around friction and kind of pushing you. Like the low-level frictions of this game, you know, you can only carry one thing. It's really easy to drop it. You fall and like lose your way. You can get separated. All of those little things are very constant.

Like, there is a lot of low-level friction in the game. But the high-level friction, what are the stakes? Are we going to lose a lot of time? Is this really difficult? Is there a lot of pressure on me to do, you know, to successfully solve this puzzle in this given moment? The high-level friction is very low. Like, there's not very much of it. Even if you have to start all the way over, like we've said, the island isn't as big as it looks.

You really quickly start to be able to just get wherever you're going in a few minutes. And then even when you have to take a little while, as we've also said, you wind up just sort of talking. And the fact that there's proximity chat and you have to stay close to people to talk really changes the energy of the game for me. I mean, that's the other thing that I'm super struck by with this game. Proximity chat is not new. It's been in games for a long time. But I am really struck by how much of an impact it has on this game and how dramatically it changes the experience of playing it. Yeah, it's funny. I was talking to Steven Totilla, who I just saw this morning. We were talking about

Big Walk, and he said he hadn't played it because he would want to play it with his kids, but there's no couch co-op. And I was like, no, Stephen, this is not a game that could ever have couch co-op. That's just not how it's designed. You need that in order for the puzzles to work, in order for the vibe to work. Everything around this game is just built around that system. Kirk, we did one thing that you were like, oh, I got to tell this story on the podcast, which I'm going to remind you of now, which is that, One night we were just walking somewhere, like probably just had started, walking for the tutorial to, like, our first, the first place we wanted to go.

And I was like, I was like, shit, my daughter is still awake. I got to tell her on the monitor to be quiet. Kirk, can you, can one of you carry me? And so what have you carried me? So I didn't, so I could put the controller down and, like, tell my daughter to go to sleep on the monitor. Yeah, that was amazing. And wonderfully, we could hear you talking to your daughter, you know, as were carrying you coming out of Jason's little guys, you know, just you're saying some nice

things to your daughter. Which is another brilliant mechanic. They're so, so this game has been a development for seven years, or at least the Anteal Goose game came out seven years ago. So the last game came out seven years ago. And the amount of like polish, including things like that, just like aspects of the game where like if one of your friends is, I don't know, away from their keyboard or something, you can just pick them up and walk for them.

That sort of stuff is so smart and so well designed. I really love it. I'm really so impressed by this game for that and many other things. Yeah, the polish is definitely noteworthy. Even though you would look at it, I think people have had this discussion of, is this game friend slop? You know, is this the same as something like Peek? Because looking at it, you can kind of see an aesthetic similarity to some very mechanically simple, just fun multiplayer games. But then actually playing it and leaving that debate aside because whatever, like actually playing it, there's a lot of. lot of polish in it. And it's polish of a certain kind. It's a very thoughtfully made game. They've thought through so many things. You're in a very carefully and

thoughtfully arranged space. All these little things like Jason, you were talking about when you talk into the walkie-talkie, you then heard yourself coming out of your backpack. That's because your voice comes out of the walkie-talkie. And that experience of talking into a walkie-talkie and then hearing

myself when, you know, Maddie has the walkie-talkie and she's 20 feet away, and I can hear a little bit of my voice, that really takes me back to being a kid and playing with walkie-talkies. Because when I was a kid, that's what made walkie-talkies cool, was you could talk to your friend when they were 100 feet, 200 feet away from you, and you couldn't otherwise. And because the game imposes that limitation and because they've so carefully implemented the sound design so that your voice comes right out of the walkie-talkie. Like if you drop the walkie-talkie off a cliff while you're talking in it, and it goes by someone else, they'll hear your voice coming out of the

walkie-talkie as it bounces along. And there are all these other little bits of polish like that that really make it all kind of feel very sturdy. It feels like a Nintendo game. That's the thing. Like you're playing a friend Slop game and I haven't, granted, I haven't played a ton of them, but they feel a little bit more like you're playing something rough and just kind of amateur, I would say. Not in a bad way necessarily, but just it feels like something that was made pretty quickly. Like there's bugs, there's glitches. And that's part of the fun of it. You play this. This is not a buggy game. I haven't experienced any glitches or anything like. that, it feels very polished, and that level of detail and polish just feels very Nintendo. It feels

like this could very, if this had different skins and maybe slightly different art direction, it could totally feel like something that Nintendo put out for the Switch 2 is like a weird experiment. Yeah, an Untitled Goose game felt that way as well. It had that, it could have just been a silly concept indie game, but then when you really played it, it was remarkably polished and thoughtful. It had all these little unique bespoke mechanics, and especially when that game came out on Switch, you know, I just, I remember playing that with my nieces, and it just felt, it felt of a piece with the Nintendo Switch. It felt totally at home there. And by the way, I just want to say real quick, we haven't gotten to any of the like end game stuff yet, but from everything I've

heard from friends who have played it from reading articles online, the ending just knocks it out of the park and there's like a ton of like really tough stuff in the end game that I'm really excited for the three of us to get to. Yeah, it's going to get harder, allegedly. So we have more to go that will be more difficult for us, I'm very stoked for that. And there's quickly even tie that to Untitled Use game. That was also the case for Untitled Use game. We're playing that game I thought it was really neat. And it was the finale of that game

that really elevated it for me. I was like, oh. Man, I haven't played it. I feel like I should. You really should. You should really play it. It runs on Steam deck, right? It runs on Steam deck.

Oh, yeah. For sure. I'll get it on there. And it's at the end where you realize it, oh, the people making this game are something special. This team, like, really has something going. And I really find it wonderful.

that they then took their same design sensibilities and put it towards something so different, but also so much more ambitious. And so cool that they've made a multiplayer game that stands apart in 2026. I mean, that is a really remarkable feat. And it's of a piece with Untitled Goose game in a lot of ways.

And it's just nice to see that artistic continuity. Yeah, and it just fits into this mold that I think a lot of the Friends Slop games too fit into, a lot of the Friends Slop games fit into also, where people just want more experiences where they're just like being social with their friends and getting together with their friends and to kind of do another extrapolation to another another zoom out as I might say. I think that like one of the biggest problems that a lot of these trend chasing service games

run into is that they're all trying to do sweaty PVP just really intense stuff, especially PVP, whereas what players tend to want a lot more of is just a place to hang out with their friends, such as this, such as the friend slops, places where a lot of the point is just like getting together and goofing off with people, not necessarily playing this game where you have to do this daily grind in order to get your PVP medals or whatever. Yeah, I wanted to talk about Peak a bit because I actually, I really enjoy Peak, but I think that this game has some benefits that Peak doesn't have, which is part of why people are comparing them, because they also have a lot of similarities. They're both hiking games.

They're both team-based proximity chat games. They both have really adorable, non-human super colorful avatars and like a limited amount of items that help you navigate the world, all of that. And Peak has so many benefits that are just oriented around hanging out. Like you get to the top of a mountain and you just roast marshmallows together. It's very outer wilds. There's like this moment where the point is just that you sit down around a campfire and you eat a marshmallow. and like just having those touches in a game, I think, have become really important to people and probably always were.

But like you said, Jason, I think now it's seemingly indie developers that are realizing this and kind of speaking to this need that people have where it's like, well, actually, I was playing Destiny because I just wanted to talk to my friends. I didn't like have some really intense need to like be competing or like even doing the timed aspects and stressful aspects of a raid. The point of the raid being fun was that we were all working together and like all meeting at the same time. in the same place virtually to do something. I just want to step in for one sec. I think that the time, the stressful aspects can actually be really cool too. They can. And they can also be like rewarding in their own way.

Well, that's what I'm saying. What I'm saying is more that just, I think what Destiny had that was special is the PVE aspect and co-op aspect of it. And I think a lot of service games go for, well, all of Destiny, other than the crucible, all of Destiny is co-op. And I think what a lot of service games try and then fail to do is just be competitive. PVP and that I think is not the market that's not what the market wants right now that's not what people want people want much more this kind of experience where they get to hang out with their friends

whether it's stressful or not and I think both types of game can work well yeah it's funny jason it's like you forgot about gambit the pveevp game mode that they have that counts as co-op when you're talking to your friends and competing even but there was a pvp element and i do think that some some of these games try to incorporate some PVP element just because that seems like it'll add more replayability or more variants where actually people just like the PVE like you don't need any PVP at all and a lot of people are happy with that. Well, okay, so that's that the replayability is the biggest thing, right? Like PVE is a lot more expensive to me because you have to make all this stuff. It's very difficult to make it feel more replayable when it's like the same strikes you're doing over and over again.

Destiny pulled it off. Most games cannot pull it off. Which is why even a game like this could never be a game because you can't play this forever at a certain point you finish all of the content that's in there and then it's what got away for dLC or something so when i say that like this trend chasing service game i'm not necessarily saying that a service game could be something like this but i think the market and the appetite for people out there when i say the market i saw a little business analyst you've been working at bloomberg for a while i know it's true i guess what people want i think and what people are really craving especially since covid especially in this modern era is just ways to to bond across games. And I think this just really appeals to that. And so does PEEC and so does

METHA Camillion and many other games that have been really popular in recent years. Yeah. And just to echo that, I think one of the only real downsides with Peak is that it's running up against that problem. Like, it's why it has the procedurally generated mountain so that it's different every time. But it actually ends up still feeling really samey to have to climb a very similar looking mountain over and over again to get to the next peak because it's you have to climb the peaks in order every time you can't skip ahead and be like okay we've gotten past the first mountain and now I want to climb the next peak and start where we left off there's just not that same functionality and peak to do that whereas big walk actually speaks directly to that and is significantly more

bespoke because it doesn't have procedurally generated anything that I know of that we've found so far I don't think that exists in this game. It is like very specific puzzles and it has an ending. And that I think is interesting. I think it's an interesting choice. Well, because peak was made in less than a year and Big Walk was made in six years. That's the key here, right? Is that Bigwock, the reason it's all handcrafted is because the people took the time.

And the Househouse was in a position after the success of Untitled Goose game, which I think sold like a million copies in its first few months after release, that they could just keep working on this game as long as they wanted. So different, it's kind of the apples and oranges there in terms of dev timeline. But yeah, that's why this sort of thing can't really be recreated is because it takes six years and a lot of money to be able to create this bespoke puzzles everywhere and a world this big with that many cool puzzles. It's really difficult to pull off. It's really a monumental achievement that they did this. Yeah, I mean, six years, a lot of money and these four specific people.

Yes, and a lot of talents. I think this game is very much the, it's not just the talent, it's the specific, philosophy, the creative philosophy of this group of people, I think it's really cool that that is still possible, that a group of people with a specific and, as it turns out, wonderful artistic philosophy are able to find the success and create the things that they want to create. That makes me feel really good, just given how much bleak news there is in the world of video games. And it wasn't because some like Saudi billionaire gave them a bunch of money. It's because they made a good game that was successful and broke through, and now they've done it again. I find that,

that really cool. And yeah, I mean, I think that there is something about a playground that makes you feel very cared for. I think that when we are on a piece of civic infrastructure, like a play structure that has been built by someone designed to be safe yet fun, built with the very specific intention of giving someone, specifically children, a like place to play, I think that that is like a very cool and special thing that it exists in our world, thanks to civic investment in public spaces, you know, thanks to the play structure at the park that all the kids can play on. And that's something that I think, at least for me, is very deeply ingrained in me, that I see a structure like that.

And I just think, how cool, someone made this for me. And now I'm here and I can use it. And that's something that this game really captures and that it would not capture if it were procedurally generated. It wouldn't be the same. The feeling of like, oh, here's a little puzzle. This was made just for us. And they really, the whole thing looks that way.

And I don't think that it's a coincidence that the architecture in this game, its design language, is very much civic architecture, civic play structure. It looks like a playground you would find in a city in Melbourne or in Bloomington, Indiana, where I grew up or wherever. You know, it has that kind of universal design language. And I think that that's a really cool part of this game. It's a subtle but pervasive part of its aesthetic that I find very appealing. You can even slide. You can slide. That's true.

You can slide down the slide. Things you can do. Or down a cliff edge. A slope. Whichever. Yeah. Well, my final thought on this game, I suppose, is one observation I wanted to share and didn't find room for earlier. And that is just one of the most striking things I have found about Big Walk is the feeling of briefly walking away from your friends and just standing in the quiet outdoors.

And that is a remarkable feeling. It's something that can only exist. with the contrast of the chattering group that you're normally a part of. And it's something that I've felt many times when on a walk with a group of friends in nature or when backpacking with people, anytime I'm out in nature walking with people, is it's nice and you're on a walk and you're talking in the way that you talk when you walk because I do think that's a particular type of talking. You know, anytime I really want to have a good conversation with someone,

I'll say, let's go on a walk just because when you're walking and talking something, it's good for your brain. So you're having that experience with people. and then maybe it happens accidentally. They went left and you didn't realize, but there will be these moments in Big Walk where you were just briefly alone with your thoughts and the sound of, you know, nature and the world that you're in.

And I think that is also a really special thing about this game. And it's, you know, kind of a culmination of a lot of the design ideas that they've made in particular, the way that proximity chat works, but also that polish, the way the audio fades in and you'll hear just murmurs, but you can't quite make out what people are saying. I guess you draw closer, the sound design that's so key to this game. And it's really another magical thing that this game manages to do over and over again. There were multiple times where I'm talking to Jason and Maddie,

and of course we're all three very loquacious, talkative people, and we're trying to talk through some puzzle. And then I'll go off and just be on my own for a minute. And it's really wonderful. It's a nice contrast. So one more little bit of magic that this game captures. Very cute. Yeah, my final thought, I mean, I really love it.

I was trying to think, like, is there any kind of critique I have of this game and I legitimately can't think of anything? Like, maybe that'll change when we get to the end game. Maybe I'll be like, oh, this is so frustrating this last part. Yeah, maybe the hard puzzles will get us. But, like, when it comes to a game that, like, has a clear vision and executes on that vision impeccably, like, I really can't think of anything that I don't like about this game or that it does wrong in any way. It's really remarkable. It's really quite an accomplishment. Yeah, I agree.

And I think even the moments of what one might call tediousness are part of the ethos of the game as well in the sense that it's about just being mindful and walking and hanging out. Or it's like, yeah, oh, I have to go all the way down there and get that item. And it's like, well, yeah, that's part of the game is that you have to go all the way down there and figure out how you're going to get back and not get lost and so on. Or getting lost is maybe part of it as well. and that's all, that's Big Walk, baby. We're big walking. Yeah, man, that's Big Walk, baby. And as we've said, I think the greatest endorsement of this game is that we're all going to go play it in a few hours.

Yeah, and three hours for now. And I can't wait. I'm really, I'm really excited. We're all going to play it. We're going to eat dinner and then we're going to play Big Walk. Yeah, we are. Nice. All right.

Well, that's Big Walk, a wonderful game. Let's take a break and then we'll be back for one more thing. International Waters is back, baby. Do you like fun, silly conversations? Do you like fun, silly games? We got them both. And it's on International Waters. I am the host, Dave Holmes.

This is a panel show that pits American and British comics against each other in a lively and hilarious competition. What is gentlemen's relish? Who is Bagpuss? Why is the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile so emotionally resonant? And why doesn't American cheese have its own anthem? Get the answers and be left with numerous questions about that and so much more nonsense and or codswallop twice a month. here on international waters. You can catch international waters

on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Say, what's the trivia show where dreams come true? It's got to be go fact yourself. Legend in the house. We quiz celebrity contestants about topics they love. Then bring out surprise experts. To delight and amaze. And then finally tell us why you know and love the lyrics to the song

Knockin' Boots by Candyman. Joining us tonight is a rapper and producer. It's Candyman! This is among the greatest moments of my life. That's go fact yourself. Twice a month, every month. Here on Maximum Fun. And we're back for one more thing. Maddie, kick us off. Sure. So, Dina and I watched this television show this week that just surprised and delighted us so, so

much. It's called the other Bennett sister, and it is like a spin-off of pride and prejudice, for lack of a better way, to describe it, as in the famous Jane Austen novel, which has been adapted and retold so many times, countless times, many of which I have seen myself. I'm a big fan of the Kura Knightley adaptation personally, but I think they're all wonderful. Fire Island is like another modern retelling of it that I talked about on this show a while back and thought was really great. But this version of the story, it's based on a novel that I haven't read, but the novel is entirely from the perspective of Mary, who's the fifth sister who does not get married over the course of the events of the book and is largely forgotten by the plot and pretty underdescribed,

I would say. She's kind of like the nerdy one for lack of a better description. She's the and Peggy, the Peggy Skyler. She's like the odd one out and she's like described as plain essentially and like sort of unremarkable as compared to all of her sisters. And so the first couple episodes of the show, I was like, oh, I'm not sure if I'm going to love this because the first two episodes basically recap the entirety of pride and prejudice just from Mary's perspective. And I was like, oh, are we going to redo like this entire story? Like I really know all the plot beats and I'm just not sure that I'm up for this. But then there's another eight episodes that continues on after all the events of Pride and Prejudice have concluded. And Mary is just still living with her parents and what is going to become of her.

And she gets her own entire sequence of events and her own love triangle and story and, like, way of finding herself. And kind of her relationship with her sisters gets redefined. The actress who plays her and the actress who they have playing Lizzie Bennett. Both of them are really wonderful. and it's like a really interesting reconceptualizing of how one might perceive the Bennett sisters if one were maybe not quite as exciting and charming as those other four women are.

And I thought it was really wonderful. And I just really ended up enjoying the hell out of it. So I recommend it. If you like Pride and Prejudice, give it a shot. I would say try to stick with it until the third up because then that's where like the quote unquote new stuff starts and like a completely new story is told about all of it. these characters and like their continued lives and what might happen after the events with

the book are done that I think is actually pretty true to what the characters might be like. And I enjoyed it a lot. So yeah, it's called the other bandit sister. And here is how you could watch it because that was a point of contention for us in our household. It is on Amazon Prime seemingly, but they'll get you. The first episode's free. And then you have to sign up for this service called Britbox, which we did do because we were like, well, we want to see what happens. So you can sign up for that if you want.

They have a seven-day free trial. And yes, I did put a reminder in my phone to cancel it. So you can watch it for free if you already have Amazon Prime and you sign up for this additional service called Britbox. Nice. Yeah. I think Britbox is its own thing owned by the BBC. And you're kind of subscribing through Amazon. Yeah, I think you can also pay for it separately.

Yeah. The way you can watch like others like separate streaming services through Amazon and you're kind of getting it through. Yeah. That's how we chose to do it. If you already have a Brickbox subscription, then you don't even have to worry about it. And you're probably watching BBC content all the time on there, but we are not really doing that in our house. So that's how we went about not paying for it. We're really living in an age of this kind of adaptation.

This makes me think of Circey, the Odyssey story, you know, telling a side character's story. I mean, really, it all comes back to Rosencranton, Guildenstern. Probably the OG, yes, that's true. I mean, I love Rosencrantcrantz and Guildenstern are dead. That is one of the most fun movies and stories. Toppered. Genius. Has anyone ever done this with little women? Speaking of famous stories of families with lots of different interesting female characters. I could imagine a little women. I could see that. Variant, you know, where you get one of the less, the non-jo characters. Yeah, that'd be interesting

to see. I'm... Rosencranton-Gildenstein, the original play came out in 1874. Wow. Wow. I wonder if that's an first edition of someone being like, let's take these minor characters and tell the story from Oh, surely not. That's got to be something that's appealed to humans since time and memorial. That feels like, you know, like even in the Odyssey era. Since time and memorial, Maddie Myers quoting the Sopranos. You're right. You're right. Hey, Syl. So which business is a recession? See, you know, spin-offs. Check out what we're talking about at Maximumphoon.com.

Join for the spinoff of triple click, the bonus feed for Triple Duk. Right, right. The Sopranos podcast that we spun off of our main show. Well, that sounds really cool. what is your one more thing? You joke, but I feel like we should do a Supranos podcast where we just do every episode because we could totally, totally break it down. We practically did do that, though. I know, but I feel like we still had so much to talk about, even after hours and hours. My one more thing is a TV show called Homeland. So on Saturday, I found myself home alone without my children for various reasons or my wife. So I was home alone for the evening. And I got some work done.

like, I'm just going to put on a show and zone out. And I was like, oh, there's this show on Hulu. I was browsing through Hulu. Oh, Homeland. I've heard of that. Everyone has told me for years that it's good, but for some reason I've never watched it. And so I watched the pilot of this show and oh my God, holy crap, maybe the best pilot of television I've ever seen. Certainly up there. It starts strong is what I'll say for Homeland. It starts very strong. Everybody, everything I've heard is that the first season is amazing and then it all just goes downhill from there. I'd say you could just stop after the first season. That's what a lot of people have told me. Actually, wait, specifically, I would say watch like the first two or three episodes of the second season and then stop.

Okay, get to know. I know it was a very specific recommendation, but that's my memory. We'll discuss this. We can discuss this off the air because I'm still in the thick of season one. The plot of the show, if you're not familiar, it was, it came out of two that started in 2011, the first season. And it stars Claire Daines, who is an incredible actress as this kind of, this bipolar CIA agent. And I mentioned that she's bipolar because that's an important part of the story is that we see her manic episodes unfolding and Claire Daines plays them masterfully. And she has given a tip at the very beginning of the show that a prisoner of war that is coming back, that has been rescued, an American prison of war who is in captivity has turned, is now working for Al-Qaeda.

And so she thinks that this guy, this guy Brody, played by Damien Lewis, of billions. fame. I guess Billions came after this, but still, that's where I know him. At the time, he was Damien Lewis of Band of Brothers fame. Yeah, I know him from billions. He's from billions. Yeah, that's her, that's her, that's her, that's where all three of us have gotten to know him over the years. But anyway, so Damien Lewis plays Brody and it is left unclear. I won't spoil everything that happens in the pilot, but like throughout the season, you're just like, well, is he turned? Is he not turned? Is he not turned? It's kind of an ongoing. question and you watch the show from Claire Daines's perspective and try to piece together

what actually happened and saw a thwart this big overarching terrorist plot that is going on at the same time. And man, what a show. So one of the producers on the show is Howard Gordon, who is a producer on 24. And it's definitely got some of that kind of 24 pacing to it because 24 was a show where it was just compulsive. It was propulsive, addictive to watch because it was pace so well and just had so many twists and turns in every episode that you really, it was hard to look away while you were watching. And this show has some of that same energy, but I think is a little bit smarter and certainly gives you more to chew on than 24, which is a little bit more popcorn TV viewing. This, I think, is certainly has more calories than 24 does. And God, I'm really

enjoying it. I'm like almost done with the first season. I've been binging it because I was like so hooked by that pilot that I'm really glad that I happen to randomly stumble upon it and watch it. Apparently there are eight seasons. I find it, I don't know if I buy that like all of them are bad. I don't know. I guess I'll see what happens after I watched season one. But yeah, I mean, I certainly believe that it goes downhill after this just because this one first season is so good and tightly constructed that it's very easy to imagine them losing the plot afterwards and not knowing

where to go with it. But I don't even know how it ends. So don't say anything. I'm very excited to finish this first season and then we'll see how it goes from here. But yeah, what a performance. Great performances by, of course, Damien Lewis and Claire Danes, but also Mandy Patankan who plays Claire Danes'

mentor, Saul. He's really a highlight for me. I love Patinkin in this show. That's awesome. I love him. But yeah, just a lot of great performances and a lot of just really fun writing and twists and turns, and I have really enjoyed watching it. Good show. Nice.

That's a blast from the past. I remember that first season thinking, like, wow, this show's on fire. And then, yeah, I mean, I lost Steam on it very quickly, so I actually don't have an informed take on those subsequent billion seasons. I just was like, oh, okay, I'm not going to watch this anymore. Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those that just has a bad second season and then gets better. I don't know.

I'll look into it a little bit. That is not my sense of things. but I'll be curious what you think. Because there have been shows, like Friday Night Lights is the best example of a show that had a really good first season, terrible second season, but then really good three, five, three, four, and five. So. Yeah.

My sense is that Homeland is not one of those, but I'm not sure. Fair enough. I guess we'll find out. Yeah, I'm looking forward to when you finish. We can talk about it. So, Maddie, have you seen Homeland? I know that Jason and I are talking about. Okay.

I haven't. I similarly had always intended to watch it, and I remember all the advertisements and Claire Dane's beautiful, mysterious facial expressions and billboards and. so on many years ago. I just never got around to it. She is so good, especially when she is like going through these manic episodes. She's incredible. And it really feels like, I don't know, I'd be curious if anyone out there like suffers from bipolar disorder and has thoughts on this. I would be curious to hear it. Like the podcast you were talking about last week. Oh, yeah. We got to get savant guard on the case. That would be interesting because it really feels like

an authentic, like sympathetic portrayal of like what it's like going through that, um, those kind of episodes because usually she takes this medicine, but then there's like a period in the first season where she's off for medicine for reasons that are explaining the show. And you see her going through it. And it's really, it's tough. You really empathize with her character. So yeah, I'd be curious to hear from people. I mean, the good thing about watching a show from 2011, Jason, is that I am sure you could Google this and find just dozens of wonderful essays about this very topic. That's true. It was the blogger. But I'm not Googling it. But if you Google it, you will be You're right.

Spoilers. Like, it used to be, fun, fun, quick divergence. It used to be that when you, when you, like, typed in something on Google, the autocomplete would spoil it. Now the autocomplete spoils it. And also the AI box will spoil it. So, like, you'll Google Homeland. It'll be like, it looks like you're searching for Homeland, the show where Claire Dines dies. Yeah, where everybody died in the season finale.

The number of times A. A.O. It's funny. We don't need to get into it. But God. The worst. I remember this is probably out there somewhere there being an incredible video montage of Claire Dane's crying face because she makes this very particular like, oh, like her whole face is melting with anguish. And she is an amazing actress. And in those moments, she is, it's very intense. But it was just this like montage set to, I don't remember what music of just her making that face over and over. And it was very funny. If a bit unfair to take them all out of context. It's very 2010s internet to have that kind of video. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was very 2010's YouTube.

Good times. Nice. All right. Well, I am the last. My one more thing is a book that I just finished called Martyr by Kavei Akbar, which is an incredible book that I wanted to recommend. It also has a kind of a funny story behind it. I heard about this book from my sister who recommends a lot of books to me. She was giving me sort of a list of interesting new fiction.

Martyr was published in 2024 to great acclaim a really big. kind of big literary release and she said oh this book is really interesting and I'd love you to read it because I want to know what you think of it what you think of the ending like how you think what you think it all means I just want to talk to you about it and I said cool so I put it on my to read on my to read list kind of check it out at Libby and kind of get on the waiting list to get it on my Kindle it finally comes through a little while later download it to my Kindle all right I've got martyr I'm ready to read it and then I get an email from Kaveh Akbar saying hey what's up I really like your podcast and I really did triple click and strong songs. And I just wanted to like reach out because I love that you make this cool thing. And I wanted to share the thing that I made, which is this novel called martyr that I wrote. And I was like, no way. Like I just got this guy's book on my Kindle. And here he is revealing himself to be a base triple click listener who wants to tell me about his book. So anyways, I responded to him and just thought that was very funny. So this is a book by

a triple-click listener and noted author Kaveh Akbar that I have now read. And yeah, I'm going to share my take on it, even though I'm guessing he's listening to this. I guess fortunately, I thought the book was really good. Yeah, I mean, I'm guessing if you didn't like it, we'd probably never be hearing a word of this. No, it is a remarkable book, but not surprising. It was a very acclaimed release. And he is a beautiful writer. Holy crap.

And I just really want to recommend it. This is, the story is the story, I sense a semi-briographical story of an Iranian-American man named Cyrus. That's my pronunciation anyhow. And he is, his father emigrated to America in the 1980s and then worked. He actually grew up in Indiana and worked at a chicken farm. His father was basically just like working a kind of menial job after coming over here from Iran where he left kind of during, you know, the late 80s, the period of kind of the post-Iran-Iraq War, that period in Iran. Cyrus's mother is dead.

She was aboard Iran Air Flight 655, which was a passenger airline, an airliner that was shot down by a U.S. battleship by the USS Vincennes. This is an actual thing that happened in 1988, near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, a U.S. naval. ship shot down an Iranian airliner with civilians on board and just killed a whole bunch of civilians. In this story, Cyrus's mother was on board that plane. So she died and he never knew her. So Cyrus is a poet. He is an addict and now in recovery. And martyr is basically his story as he becomes fixated on the idea of martyrdom and on the idea of writing a book about martyrs and what it means to be a martyr. And Cyrus is definitely like he's not, his mental health is not great. He is not in a great place. He is really struggling with the idea of death and what it means to still be alive,

like whether life owes him anything, whether he even should be here, both because of the way that his mother died in this freakish and sort of horrible way. And also just because I think a lot of this book is about what it is like to be an addict and to be in recovery and to see, that recovery as time that maybe you weren't even supposed to have. Like, it's like bonus time. Like, you really could have just died from your addiction. And now you're a year in, like, past when you were supposed to die, which is a way that Cyrus describes this frequently. So, like, what is my life and am I maybe just supposed to die? That's kind of what it's about. But really, it's, it's not a very plotty book. It's more just an exploration of identity and self and language. Just all, all of that

through the lens of language and how language forms our world. This is a book about words and language and meaning and the beauty and the frustrations of words and all the different ways that we use them and all the stories and the poems that so many people have told over the years and how those poems and stories let us understand ourselves and let our countries and our cultures understand themselves and the ways that Iran and America both understand themselves through language and how we find lies and truth through the stories that we tell and the words that we use to tell them. And the way that Akbar writes this story, like his mastery of language and the different characters and perspectives that he jumps around through, especially like by the end of the book, it's

a pretty incredible reading experience. So Akbar is a poet. That's like what he is known for. This is his first novel. His poetry has been published like a bunch of places. He's a very celebrated poet. And I think a beautiful poet. I'm no poetry expert.

but every time I read any of his poetry, I'm just like, wow, this is like doing things with language that are really remarkable and actually like go beyond my ken when it comes to formal analysis. But he is a really amazing poet. There is a lot of poetry in this book. There is much discussion of language, the nature of writing, what words can do, how we try to find meaning and struggle to find meaning in words, the things that words can express and the things that words can't express. And in telling Cyrus's story, it also bounces back to both of his parents. and his uncle, who are all, you know, they're all alive at different periods of time. So we learn his mother's story in the 1980s in Iran, and we learn his father's story, like, through his immigration to America. And then his mother's brother, his uncle's story, who was serving in the Iranian military.

And like what, you know, so you get all these different perspectives on Iran and on America and on what it is to kind of be both Iranian and American and what that means. And then also, there's a device that he introduces that I think is very clever. Cyrus is an insomniac. And in order to sleep, he begins to imagine conversations between different characters and people in his life. So it will be a conversation between his mother and Lisa Simpson. And then we'll get a chapter in the book that is just Lisa Simpson and Cyrus's mother, who he never met, talking about, who knows what, talking about life, talking about whatever it is that he's currently thinking about. And those scenes play out in this really beautiful dream logic way because they exist at this kind of the space right before you fall asleep.

And he captures that so beautifully. Like as just the background changes, the setting changes, Lisa shrinks and becomes a different color. You know, his mother now looks like this and now looks like that and now is speaking in a different voice. Like it has this kind of hallucinatory dream logic that then begins to infuse the book more broadly as these scenes recur. you know, we're doing these kind of expected flashbacks. We're coming to Cyrus's story in real time. You know, he goes to New York to meet with this artist and have these conversations. But we're always flashing back to his ancestors and then going into his dreams to meet these different characters.

And it's a lot. Like you can tell, I think, just by the way I'm describing it, there's a lot in this book. It's doing a lot. And I think because Akbar is such a wonderful writer and has such a confident and strong style, it all holds together. He manages to like unify. the whole thing under his own writing style, where it feels completely coherent. And by the end, I like really, I mean, I have a million questions for him. I need to like email him and just say, okay, I have some questions. Though I guess my questions are like more procedural than they are

formal or than they are specific about the content of the story. This book embraces abstraction. It embraces that dream logic in some ways that I found truly, I don't know, kind of transcendent, beautiful. And they also resist a kind of straightforward interpretation. And in reading about this book after finishing it, I found that a lot of people are kind of debating what happened really in the end. I think the ending is something that people are kind of debating in this way that I found kind of frustrating or at least really wanting. It left me feeling unsatisfied. Because to me, this book's forays into the abstract, I guess, into dream logic, and then just, you know, into some really ecstatic spaces. They feel like these emotional explorations, like he's conjuring feelings

that go beyond words in ways that I found really beautiful and kind of purely emotional and purely experiential in, I guess in the way that poetry can be, where, you know, it's not about, like, did so-and-so live or die? Did so, like, you know, did this person betray that person? What was the actual story there. It's just about the feeling that it gives you. And I think, I don't know, this might be more common in books than I realize, but this is not something that I've experienced that often in a book where it kind of goes beyond language and into pure feeling. And I think that's something this book is doing. And there's an emotional truth that it conveys that to me was actually quite clear by the end of it, even though I find so many of the particulars and the

ways that he conveyed those feelings to be fascinating, and I would love to ask him about them, just because I'm sure he spent a really long time just crafting all of it and figuring out how to make it land, since this is something I find in music. Like as a composer, you spend a really long time with these kind of abstract musical ideas just trying to capture a certain feeling, and you know the feeling when you hit on it, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of iteration to get to that point. And I would imagine the writing process for this. book, and in particular for the final maybe couple of chapters, was a kind of a similar process, and I'd love to hear him talk about it. So this is a really remarkable book. I, you know,

don't always read books like this, books that are just interested in language, identity, and these kind of high ideas rather than focusing on plot. And I think it is, I always find it so refreshing when I do. It really engages me. It makes me really think, I came away from it, just I called my sister immediately was like, okay, let's talk. Like, I want to go and meet with her book group so that I can really hear what they all thought about it because I just have so many thoughts and I, you know, it raised so many questions for me in a way that, you know, a fun fantasy novel with a cool story does not. So I really recommend this for anyone who's like looking for that kind of an experience, just a truly rich literary experience. And also recommended for anyone who wants to know more about

an Iranian-American perspective and to just understand one perspective on. Iranian history and on what it is to be Iranian-American, especially at this time when our countries are locked in such needless and awful conflict. And I think understanding Iran better is something good that more Americans should be striving towards. So this book will certainly help accomplish that. So it's a beautiful book, Marder by Kave Akbar. And Kaveh, if you're listening, good job. I liked your book. And thanks for listening to Triple Click.

I hope I hope. you enjoy our show. That's awesome. It sounds really neat. Yeah, it is. All right, and that is another episode of Triple Click. I got to go edit this thing so that we can go play more Big Walk together. So let's call it there. And I'll see the two of you in Big Walk and then again for our episode next week. See you next time. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ.

Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Email us at triple click at maximum fun.org and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes.

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