Triple Click - Can A Game Be Good When It Makes You Feel Bad?

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Kirk, Jason, and Maddy open up the mailbag to answer some of YOUR burning questions. Do we ever return to side quests after beating a game? Can a game succeed while making you feel bad for playing it? And what kind of impact did the pandemic have on video game endings? Plus: Video game novels!One More Thing: Kirk: New Morning RoutineMaddy: Triangle of SadnessJason: Unscripted by James Stewart and Rachel AbramsLinks: MaxFunDrive Livestream! Wednesday March 29, 8PM Eastern: https://www.twitch.tv/tripleclickpodKirk’s 2013 interview with Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley about the ending to The Last of Us: https://kotaku.com/the-last-of-us-climactic-moments-could-have-been-very-600685013The Writer Will Do Something: https://matthewseiji.itch.io/twwdsTriple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join 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

Once you've beaten a game's final mission, it can be hard to go back and polish off side quests, kind of like grabbing some more salad after you've already had dessert. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. Max Fund Drive, 2023 is underway, and we're answering a bunch of your burning questions on topics like choice or the lack thereof in games like The Last of Us, sticking with games we've beaten and what a triple click should do in a game. Let's go. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers.

And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello. Hello there. Hello. Hello, hello. Welcome back. It's nice to see you both. We are currently, Kirk and I are currently, as you hear this, we are in San Francisco at the game developers conference.

Right. As you hear this, but not as we record this. So there's a lot of temporal conceptual stuff going on. We're recording a little bit early. So this is another, we're recording early. So, you know, if there's yet another Metroid game surprise announced, I'm just going to say this every time because it happened last time. So I feel like if I manifest it, like if they just suddenly put out. the match right prime two three and four if they announced silk song no wait we said we don't want silk song to come out until later if they stealth dropped a switch pro and we aren't talking about it right now well that's why that's why because we're recording us a little bit early because jason and i will both be traveling next week which is going to be a lot of fun what do we know is happening this week while we record this current what's happening this week is max fun drive 2023 it is currently underway it is all happening it started uh i guess

on Monday, and you're hearing this later in the week. It will be going on through Friday the 31st. And Max Fund Drive is an annual drive that we do as part of our network, or everybody does on our network, the Maximum Fun Network. It's our big pledge drive to get new members, because, as I'm sure you all know, we are a totally listener-supported show, that means that we just make the show for all of you, and you pay us all to make it. We don't get paid by any of the ads that we run. We just run ads for other shows on the Maximum Fun Network, which is the network. that we're part of a wonderful network that we've been a member of ever since we started Triple Click. We really love them.

And Max Fun Drive is the sort of annual celebration of maximum fun and a way to kind of goose some of you to become members if you've been thinking about it or to boost your membership. What a word. Stop putting it off. Get those eggs out of you. Yeah. We're giving some Nogis, some gentle, gentle goosing is occurring. It's just a little reminder. Some friendly Nogis.

It's just a little bit of a push, you know? Some light, like you saying. And there are some fun incentives and some fun things will be going on. So we'll talk a little bit more about those a little later in the show. Though I do want to mention up top that as part of Max Fund Drive, we are going to be doing a stream, a live stream of some sort, some sort of video game or something. But it will be taking place the 29th on Wednesday, March 29th, 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. On our Twitch channel. Pacific.

Twitch channel, yes, which is Twitch, triple-click pod. We'll have links and information down in the show notes, and we'll be mentioning it on social media and stuff too. We'll have more details later, but just in case you want to mark your calendars, and it'll be fun. We've done one of these every year for Max Fund Drive, and I'm sure it will be fun this year. So more on Max Fund Drive in a little bit.

For now, though, we've got some burning listener questions to get through. So, Jason, why don't you get us going? Yeah, today we are opening up the mail bag answering some questions from our listeners, some fun ones this week. Just a reminder, if you have a burning question that you would like us to read on the show potentially, send us an email, triple click at maximum fun.org. That's where all the questions must go

for us to consider reading them. They have to be on fire also when you send them. They're automatically converted to being on fire when they land in the mailbox. Oh, cool. So you don't even have to worry about it. They're going to be lit up as soon as you get it. on fire. As soon as they get here, we light them on fire,

make some toasty questions. All right, let's start with a question from Jaina. Maddie, why don't you read this one? Okay, so Jaina writes, Hey, Team Triple Click. I was enjoying the latest episode. I guess we should note Jane was referring to the

episode in which Jason proposed two types of video game, which are thought and flow, thinking and flow. I'll continue. Jane writes, I think my experience may be a little different from how Jason's describing it. My most played game of all time is Civilization 6, with thousands of hours across multiple platforms.

Siv is definitely a thinking game, as Jason says in the episode. But eventually, I accumulated so many hours that my turns go lightning fast, and I barely think about what decisions I'm making. Siv is what I play when I need to turn off my brain. And the switch port is my go-to-second screen. game. I think there's a tipping point where you've memorized every critical decision and possibility in the game where thought can turn into flow. There are other games like Ocaryne of Time that have puzzles, but once you know the solution, playing them is also a kind of flow. Fun episode. Thanks,

guys. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think that a game can certainly, certainly doesn't have to be static in being one or the other. And once you kind of master, and that's true of really all flow games is you do have to give some thought to like understanding the rule sets, understanding even something like Tetris, which is kind of the epitome of a game in which you are just kind of rapidly, yeah, I mean, that's a game where you have to know the rules and you have to think about them and you have to think about each decision you're making. And then eventually, ideally, you get to this flow state where you're just kind of like moving pieces around.

I feel like civilization is a perfect example from Jaina here because I know exactly what she's talking about and also agree with StarCraft, which we'll see if I think that when we re-up StarCraft too, thanks to Jason this year. But when I was in my heyday, I remember describing it as meditative. And I think I've even done that on this show at one time or other because I've just had so many specific build orders that I'd done so many times that the experience of playing it, even in multiplayer, was pure flow and not so much thinking anymore. I'd just be like, oh, they're doing this, I'm going to do that. They're doing that. I'm going to do this. And I do think there's a downside that can come of this because sometimes if you get into a flow mode or state or whatever

you want to call it, if the decisions aren't interesting enough to actually be thinking about them. And so I feel like it can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the game and your kind of state in mind when you're playing it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really like a qualitative judgment. It's just sort of the way the game works. I really like the idea of a thinking to flow pipeline that a lot of games follow. And I do kind of, I mean, I actually like don't think of this as the two kinds of video games. I mentioned this on that episode, but this is like two different modes of play, but a lot of video games contain both of these. Yeah, and I was saying that as well, that they're different, like, times that you think about both. Right, you just titled the episode, the two types of video games, which felt a little bit, a little bit binary for me, just saying.

Just to mess with the listener. This is when I workshop Jason's episode titles. This episode is critiquing episode titles. That's right. We're going to talk about headlines, something Jason and I have been debating for more than a decade. Yeah, wow, since 2012. But a thought on this, this is a really good observation, I think, by Jaina. And it kind of underlines that thought, right?

That this is a fluid thing and that you can move from the one to the other. And it's kind of like jazz. I say that actually. seriously because I have a lot of experience with that. And the way that you learn jazz, the way that you learn to play on a tune, or really the way that you learn to play jazz in general is there is a lot of practical, direct thought applied to playing through chord progressions, where you're learning like, okay, I really got to learn this chord progression for this song and I got to go over it and over it and you drill it in this very methodical, practical, and thought kind of way. And the goal is that eventually when you're playing with other people, you can totally let go of that and you can be in the moment and you can kind of improvise. But what you're improvising is still your fingers, kind of that muscle memory I was talking about during one more thing last week, that part of your brain is sort of working its way through all that stuff that you drilled so many times, which is really similar to playing a game like Civilization or Tetris

or any of these games we've talked about where you start out having to learn the sort of ludic language, whatever, the physical language, and then your brain kind of smooths it out and eventually you can really relax and get into a flow state, which really is one of the reasons that I really like writing and talking about video games is because they are a lot like jazz and yes Jason it is all about the games that you don't play. No I was going to say it's all about the decisions you don't make.

It's all about the thoughts you don't have yet. I was going to say it's all about the pylons you don't construct which I think of it is sure I tried to head you both off and I mean if you're playing civilization it's all about the nations you don't nuke. Right. It's all about the barbarians you don't fight.

It's all about the roads you don't build the spearmen you don't take down. The tech trees you don't fill out. Let's get to the next question. Kirk, take us away. Okay, I love this question. This is from Benjamin. Benjamin writes, triple click is a fun name.

If you were in a game, what would triple clicking do? I have a thought on this, but I'm curious if either of you do. Well, okay, when you were thinking about this, when you say, when Benjamin says, if you were in a game, how did you enter? How did you enter with you? Yeah, did you think if you are in a game? A game about the three of us? No, I see. No, I kind of, I think I like skimmed over that part of the sentence

and then created my own meaning from a separate arrangement of words, which basically I assumed he was asking if you were making a game with a triple-click command where like clicking three times did something unique compared to once or twice, what would it do? That was my interpretation of this question, though I will admit that is not exactly what Benjamin wrote. So maybe I don't love this question. I love the version of this question that I read. Okay, well, give us your answer on the version that you read it as.

So I think, since most games have just a single click, and this is assuming you're playing with a mouse, but you could say a button press too, but let's say it, for whatever, it doesn't matter. So there's kind of a single press, and some games have a double press where it does something, but it is very rare that there's a triple press. So what I think it should do, like, say you're playing a fighting game where, like, you press it once and you do a regular attack, you press it twice and you do a fast attack,

I think if you do it three times, it's usually because you're like frantically pressing the button. So it should reflect that in some way. Like your player, your character on screen should like look at you and be like, dude, chill out. Like there should be some, something that tells you to calm down because probably if you've entered the realm of clicking three times, you're clicking a whole bunch of times. And I think the game should reflect that in some way. I like that.

I had two responses. One is about perfect dark because we just played it. So it's on my mind. There is a crouch and a prouche and a. own position in perfect dark. It's like super crouch. It's not even because the little icon doesn't show her lying down. It just shows her like crouched even further.

Yeah, she can crouch and then she can really crouch. Super crouch, yeah. Great. And you'd need to click down on the thumbs stick. It's really good squatting. Yeah, really getting in there. She's really working out her thighs, that Joanna Dark. That's why they call her perfect.

So triple clicking in that game for me is, oh, didn't mean to crouch, need to reset. So the triple click is that third click getting Joanna of dark back up to standing position, which is a funny answer. But just to kind of pile on the fighting game answer, that's more of a real answer. There are certainly fighting games where you do need to press the same button three times just to do the same move or chain a move. But I mean, one of my favorite examples of that is Chun Li's kick where she's got her leg in the air and you've got to do the piano fingers on your pad and just hit those buttons in a rhythmic movement. I have always thought that felt extremely satisfying

to get right. You guys know what I'm talking about, right? It's like the Matrix kick where she's got got her knee in the air and she's like, I don't know. I'm moving my finger around. The listener can imagine this. Is that kick? I'm trying to remember the one. You need to keep hitting the buttons at the right rhythm in order for it to work. That's all you

need to know. Is that the move the guy does in that bananas match where I think it's E Honda versus Chen Lee? The Daigo Perry. Yes, the Daigo Perry. That's it. Where he blocks every single one of Honda's attacks and then hits him for the K-O. Yeah, it's not that move. It's a parry. He's not doing it. Nonetheless, it is a Chunle being extremely awesome and needing to hit a button three

times video. So, so well taken. More than three times. More than three times. Yeah. A bunch of times in perfect. So a triple click is doing the diego parry. Is that, is that, is that good? Let's just say that. That's like the coolest answer ever. My answer is, okay, sticking with the Starcraft theme here. Sure. My answer is that, okay, so clicking it, let's say you, you select. some units and you click somewhere that'll make a move or you can do a plus click to make them attack move. And let's say you double click. I think they maybe they get a little exasperated.

Let's say you triple click. Then they turn around and they're like, what the hell man? Like you already told us once. You don't have to tell us three times. This is of course inspired by what Blizzard actually does or did with their RTS games, which is if you click on a unit, they have like a bark that they say like, hello. Yeah. like at your command, whatever. You click them again.

They have another one. You keep clicking them. And eventually you get to the point where they have like pissed lines. Right, they get frustrated. They get frustrated. Sometimes they have jokes or like pop culture references. The science vessel in Starcraft and the original Starcraft,

the voice sounds a lot like Mr. Burns. And he'll start quoting Mr. Burns if you like from the systems. He'll start quoting Mr. Burns if you keep clicking them. So that's my answer. It's triple clicking. Pisses off your units and makes them turning into. Nice. Nice.

I just installed StarCraft too. because I know we're going to be playing it. And I just thought I would mention that. Yeah, I'm excited. Maybe that, maybe we could stream that. We could stream that. I don't know if I'm ready, yeah. But it's something.

I guess you guys need to need to practice more. All right. Next question. This is Spencer. Dear Triple Click, has this ever happened to you? I feel like we're doing an info where. Spencer is staring down the barrel of the camera. I think you should leave with Tim Robinson.

Robinson, you're like, is this ever happen to you? And it's like the plumbers skit where they come over. Man, that skits good. Anyway, back to Spencer's letter. Has this ever happened to you? You're splitting your time between the main and side missions of a game when you reach a boss that's slightly more difficult than some of the others. And after beating them, you get a long cinematic in the end credits roll. You say to yourself, I had no idea that was the last mission. Do you return to the side missions after seeing the end credits or is the game over for you? And actually I'm going to take this question a little bit further and say that it applies to like even if you did know the game was over

do you revisit it to play the side missions and stuff? Right, right. I'll answer this first because it's actually very relevant to my life right now. So as you guys know, as most listeners know by now, I have been obsessed with Octopath Traveler 2, the new JRP, that just blows its predecessor out of the water. And really, after beating it, I think it's one of the best RPGs I've ever played. after meeting it I still have some side stuff that I haven't done there's an optional super boss that I was thinking about taking on and at some point I decided you know I kind of have the urge to just replay this whole thing from scratch so sometimes I think my answer at least is like either waiting for a few years down the road and replaying it all from scratch and then doing some of the side stuff I missed before or just starting right then and there and starting from scratch and doing all the side stuff under the thing that I'll often do is I

I'm not a completionist at all in game, so I don't tend to just do every side quest just because it's on a list. What I'll often do is I'll Google, like, most interesting side quests. And then so if I beat a game and I still feel like I want to keep playing it, I might go look for, like, the more interesting stories or quests to do and take care of those. But I'll never, it's very rare for me to be like, okay, I'm done with this game. Now I'm going to spend the next, like, another 20 hours just like doing all the side stuff. That's very rare for me. Anyway, what about you guys? I don't think I've ever beaten a game by accident the way Spencer described, but that sounds very funny.

Yeah, that's why I wanted to extrapolate it a little bit. I just like the idea of that. I think the closest I've come is the fact that Citizen Sleeper, which is like an indie strategy game that we talked about a bunch, has a lot of credits roll moments. Pretty much every time you defeat one of the story arcs. And there are several in the game, like a dozen. It will roll credits. And I think some people do stop after the first one, but you really do. don't have to, and the clock in the game keeps ticking forward as well. Like the next mission

that you do when you go back in takes place the following day. It doesn't reset you back in time to like, oh, Gannondorf hasn't ascended yet or whatever. Like it just time continues on forward. So I always thought that was kind of odd that Citizen Sleeper chose to include the credit role maneuver there. I think it is a little weird. But nonetheless, that is definitely an example of a time when I completed every single possible mission, because I like, that game and I wanted to complete them all. And I also agree with you, Jason, I tend to, after a game is over, just make sure that there aren't any cool side quests I missed.

I know I did that for Horizon, both Horizon games after beating them, just making sure I didn't miss anything cool because there's a lot of side quests in those games for sure. Making sure you didn't miss them, like you missed the fact that you could slow down time. Yeah. Well, we, that's not related to side quests, but definitely wasn't going to beat. that game by accident in that scenario. No, it's pretty clear when that one's ending. Yeah, I don't think I've been to game by accident,

but I have had a similar thing happen where I enter an endgame, for lack of a better way of putting it where just like the world changes, the sun becomes an eclipse and, you know, everything, like some side quests become unavailable. Or I get that pop-up that's like, you are entering end game. Are you sure? You won't be able to do any side quests until it's complete. And that sometimes does come, if not unexpectedly, at least earlier than I want.

And I do have a problem playing side quests after I've beaten the game. Like I don't like to go back and do them. Like you, Jason, I like to go back on a replay and play them. I'm actually, I'm going to go on a show to talk about Reddit Redemption 2 at some point, which was, it's been a fun excuse to just revisit a PC playthrough of that game that I had started forever ago and have going. That I really would like to do too. Yeah.

Yeah. And the way, when I revisited that game in particular, I really enjoy just taking my time, especially because as that game goes, things get more and more dire narratively. Arthur is sick. It really starts falling apart. Everything is just falling apart, and it really becomes a bummer. Also a game that's fun to know the ending as you're playing it. Yes, yes.

And that made me want to take my time more during the healthy, more relaxed sections at the beginning. Because when you finish that game, everything is really changed. There are still some side quests you can do. It just doesn't narratively feel right, doing them. So, yeah, I've been really enjoying just taking my time. doing all these little things, all those little side quests in that game. And Citizen Sleeper is an interesting one. So yeah, Maddie, I've played every single ending in that up through the currently

available DLC. So I'm kind of waiting on the next chapter to be released. Yep. But I really like that choice to run credits because it's like it's very, it's different than any game I've ever played. And because the credits play at the end of each of those sections, it's like the game is telling you, you can be done here. This can be an ending.

We're even going to make it look like an ending. Here's the credits. you've finished, and if you want to keep going, sure, you can. Because if you've stayed on the space station, there's more to do. And the narrative even folds in, you know, the person who left and you chose not to go with them. They're gone and now you can go do other things. And then soon maybe there will be another possible ending. And then you get the credits again.

I think that's kind of cool because it makes me feel like the game is being sort of gently telling me, you know, anytime you want to stop or keep going, whatever, which is a nice and very relaxing feeling, considering how sort of stressful that game is when it starts out by the game. end, you're just sort of cruising along and ending when you choose. Having like the Return of the King vibe of the game ending every 30 minutes or so and being like, you can go if you want. The best sequence when you're just bouncing up on the bed with all of your friends. Yeah, it's great.

Well, I think, I really think the video games are all about the side quests you don't do. That's true. They are like jazz in that way. Oh, no. Oh, no. All right. Next question, Maddie, take us away. Okay. Eric writes,

y'all mentioned in your romance show about when you place yourself into the character choices versus making choices as that character. And I'm curious when else you make that distinction, especially in games where there are no choices. Specifically, I've been thinking about The Last of Us a ton since the show is so good. It made me want to play part two,

and I really appreciated your review of the game. I assume he means my review. Only me, Maddie. It felt really gross at different points. numerous reasons, but while I can think of a few examples of books and shows that make me feel gross while reading slash watching them, it feels like it's different when a game makes me feel gross for playing it, since the player, me, is implicated in quote-unquote bad behavior. Why do I need to press square to hurt this guy when I don't want to? While this can be mitigated by fantasy

slash camp, the example in parentheses is Colts of the Lamb, it's definitely different in the hyper-realism of The Last of Us. Are there games that are easier to separate yourself from, and you can just enjoy the ride of the story? Can a game still succeed artistically while making the player feel bad for participating? Or do people like me just need to take ourselves out of the equation? Man, I love this question. This is something I'm sure that we're going to get into in depth

when we talk about The Last of Us, the TV show. Because the debate is back, guys. And our bonus episode for members of all. Yeah, the debate, the ending of the show has aired, and the Polygon Slack is a light in debate about Joel's ethics. as the parent I've become a parent since playing the original last of us

so it'll be interesting to discuss so to just discuss that in the context of the game because I mean the show has the same ending as the game but it has been really interesting to watch the debate about the ethics of the ending erupt again on the internet in a fresh way because of the show and because the show's been so popular

and yeah I think so I interviewed Neil Druckman and Bruce Staley after the game came out and went back in Reddit it was a pretty cool interview. They were really candid and talked a lot about the process of making the game. I'll link it in the show notes. I think it's interesting to read it in the context of the show, since, of course, Druckman was one of the two showrunners and wrote a lot of it. And they talked about how that ending sequence, so Joel does this arguably monstrous or arguably totally defensible thing. Jason,

you mentioned being a parent now. He said at the time, he was like, so some people were mixed on what Joel did, and none of those people were parents. And all the people who were parents were like, No question. He did the right thing, which I think is pretty interesting. And I've seen that kind of borne out in comment sections. But apparently that was going to not be playable. This is in the first last of us. It was just a cutscene. And then it was one of their designers who suggested or really adamantly felt, I can't remember the particulars, but basically it was like, we should make this interactive. Bing, Kirk here, as I edit the episode with the benefit of having the article in front of me, the designer's name was Peter Field, who advocated for that segment at the end of the game to be playable per Neil Druckman, at least when I talked to him back in 2013. So hey, Peter Field, good on you for advocating for something that I think at least made the ending of that game much more provocative and interesting.

Okay, back to the show. Bing! And so they reworked the whole section and made it interactive. And it does raise this question, I think, that Eric is asking, where you don't have a choice in how it plays out short of putting down the controller and walking away. So you feel implicated, even though the game isn't actually giving you a choice. And I think that's just a really interesting place that games can occupy in terms of implicating the audience and bringing them into the moral gray area of whatever choice you want to put them in the middle of. And I'll also mention spec ops the line here. Yeah. Because I think that's a really interesting game that is typically usually brought up in this kind of in terms of this topic.

Just because it was so consciously designed to implicate you and to trick you even. at times into doing things. Like there are sequences in that game. You're a sort of military unit in the UAE somewhere, I think. Kind of increasingly going off the rails and horrible things are happening. You're basically committing war crimes. There are sequences in that game where you believe you are shooting enemy soldiers, and then it's revealed to you that you weren't because your character is losing his grip

on reality. And so you're committing atrocities without even realizing it. Then the game is pulling the rug out from under you and being like, look at what you did. and then making you ask, well, if you were just shooting enemy combatants, like, what even is the difference and is what you're doing moral in any way if you're killing people? And, like, those questions are super, super interesting. And I think personally that games can ask them and challenge the audience in really interesting and provocative ways that I am totally, I just think is fascinating and I'm very much interested in experiencing more often. Yeah, so I think Las of us is a really, really good touch point for this conversation.

both the first and the second one. Actually, Last of Us 2 was one of our first ever Beans cast way back in 2010. Sorry, 2020 when it came out. Yeah, we went back in time and recorded it. That summer. And I think that there's like both of those games ask you to do a big questionable thing, an awful thing.

And I think the key difference and one of the reasons that Last of Us 1 is so successful and Less of Us 2 isn't is that in Last of Us 1, it's really easy for anyone to understand. understand Joel's motives and empathize with them and understand that where he's coming from when he does this. Because even though he's not like a great person by any means, he's someone who is acting out of love, lover, surrogate daughter, trying to rescue her, making decisions that hurt people for the right reasons. Or least logical reasons. Yeah, sure. For the right reasons in his mind. Whereas unless of us too,

it's a lot harder to understand why Ellie is doing the things she doing. And she's, doing and we had a long conversation about this back in 2020 because it was so hard to just kind of like grapple with the fact that you're watching this this girl this woman makes so many bad decisions and they don't even make sense like because of the way that the ending like retroactively just like make sense of it again but the internal logic isn't the same I totally agree yes so the point that I'm making here is that I think when a game asks you as the player to kind of reckon with that fact that you're making bad decisions and you're making things that you might not do in real life and confronting real ethical dilemmas, I think the most important part of that is for

you to be able to empathize with the character and understand why the character is doing what they're doing. And if you can't understand why the character is doing what they're doing, then it just kind of feels like you're being led on this shitty course of action that you don't want to be doing as opposed to making you really wrestle with the decisions. And then some of the case, I should note here some of the times your character might be a cipher and you might just be making a decision on your own. But in those cases, usually you're presented with like a cost-benefit analysis and kind of like the reasons why you might make either decision. So you're not really forced to make a bad decision.

I think in Last of Us, too, you're forced to make a bad decision, a series of bad decisions and the motivations really make no sense at the end of the game. So that, I think, is really frustrating and certainly frustrated me. And you guys too from what I remember. Mm-hmm. I think it's also been really fascinating to hear from people who didn't play the game and how differently they describe watching that ending. And they're still having the same debate, but I know personally, I'm somebody who doesn't

agree with what Joel did, but I don't have a daughter. So who's to say, anyway, doesn't matter. I don't agree with the decision he makes at the end. We'll talk about this more. Sure. But I do think there's a very different sensation of playing that yourself as a opposed to watching characters on a television show, act something out. And I haven't finished watching the entirety of The Last of Us show yet. I do know how it's going to end, of course. But even just

in the pilot, I thought it was fascinating to watch Sarah, who's Joel's daughter at the beginning of the game, who you play as at the beginning of the game and how different that feels in the game versus watching a show where you're not playing as her. And then that perspective switch from her to Joel, the fact that much later in The Last of Us Part 1, you do play as Ellie. and then switch back to Joel again. I thought that those decisions were fascinating at the time and really changed how I felt about the game and what it was trying to say and do.

And the show can't do that because it's not a video game. And that's fine. It's just, it's a different medium. It has to tell a different story about agency and control and family and what choices you can make. But it's, it's just interesting how different that conversation necessarily has to be because it's about a show that you're sitting on the couch,

watching as opposed to I, the player, was forced to make these decisions, which I think does make it feel, at least to me, worse on purpose, because you're kind of implicated. You're invited into the head of someone you may or may not agree with. Right. And even if you don't agree, like, it is still effective in bringing into that moment. Yes, very, very much so. Yeah. There's also stuff that we'll talk more about with spoilers, but a lot of the changes that the show makes are in the service of setting up that final sequence in some, I think, really smart ways, like in some really consistent ways, there's this running theme throughout it that watching it, knowing how it was going to end, was actually really interesting.

So to what you're saying, Jason, yeah, the whole thing feels like this sort of crucible or like a fulcrum that's heading toward this one moment. And when you look back on it and you know that that's coming, you can see that all happening. And it feels very logical whether or not you agree with what Joel chooses to do. it's all narratively very sound. And that is, yeah, in the sequel, it's just a much more complicated and challenging

and kind of all over the place story. And while I do admire a lot of things about The Last of Us part too, there is kind of just this feeling of like, man, it's just so much. Like there's so much going on. And also it just gets so dark. And you start to just question,

why are we doing any of this? Which is not the case in the first story because of that clarity. And the clarity then makes that moment where you have control, like you're talking about Maddie, all the more impactful. So yeah, I don't know.

I think a game can definitely succeed artistically while making the player feel bad for participating. Like, I think that to answer Eric's question or to address that question, yes. Like, I think actually that can be a great artistic success and that I am really interested in when games do that, even though I totally understand if that's not your kind of game or not the kind of experience you want to have, why you would just avoid it.

Like, that's also totally understandable. Mm-hmm. Okay, let's get to the next question. Kirk, you want to read this one? Sure, this comes from Riley. Riley writes, you've talked on the podcast about how the pandemic has affected game development and how it has become especially apparent in the last year, often in the context of delays. I felt like a recent trend in big budget games in the last year has been a lot of very rushed endings to games.

So I was curious if that's just the games I'm playing or if others see that as a common trend that may be connected to pandemic-related development issues. More broadly, I was wondering if you had insight on how decisions to make cuts in these types of situations are made. I'm a writer, and I used to think the idea of making cuts on a project. I'm used to the idea of making cuts on a project, but it's usually in the context of cutting things just to make a stronger or more concise story. I imagine the factors involved in a 100-plus-person development team's project are more complicated. So I was curious if you had any insight into how those issues get sorted out in game development. Yeah, I always wonder how often. I mean, a lot of games,

I think are made in a non-linear way and oftentimes you might have this level blocked out but not fully like modeled or doesn't have all its like graphics in yet which is kind of a crude way of putting it but I'll avoid like technical terms because I don't even know it after that they haven't finished

sanding down the polygons what does it dial up the graphics? They haven't tightened up the graphics yeah they haven't tightened up the graphics yet that's right that's right point being that like games are not made in sequential fashion the way that you might write a book in more of a linear order. You might do a lot of things in a more linear sequence. That said, I think that sometimes certainly like the stuff that's more at the beginning of the game or even the first 99% of the game gets a lot more attention

for a variety of reasons. First of all, because I think most people don't finish games. And I think there are all these statistics about that. That showed that that's true, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so there's not a lot of the incentive is to like make all the good stuff. happen like front load all the good stuff because most people aren't going to see your incredible ending um that said in terms of the pandemic i don't know i mean have you guys noticed a trend of like games feeling a little more rushed um towards the end during during the pandemic i don't think it's a pandemic thing i think this is just a video game just a general game thing i not to correct riley this is this is purely my opinion i feel like it's such a common thing especially for like a 30-hour

narrative game to feel rushed or like the last 10 hours don't quite hang together. I mean, we've talked about the last was part two a lot, but I had similar problems with God of War Ragnarok very recently, similar problems with Horizon Forbidden West. And even, I mean, I actually think the ending of the first horizon is probably its strongest moment, but that's an outlier. Usually with single player games in that zone of like the 25 to 35 hours, it's those last 10 where I'm like, yeah, this is, the pacing's weird, or like, things are suddenly popping up that were never an issue before or things are getting wrapped up in a way that if it were a season of television, probably wouldn't be quite this situation.

Or the final boss is just a bigger version of an enemy. You fought before. Although it does happen in every Marvel movie. So I don't know, just to say if it's bad or not. That's true. Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, Riley does not list the games that they're talking about. so it's a little hard to know, like, specifically what they might be referencing.

But, yeah, I mean, I noticed the thing that you're all talking about. A few games that come to mind where, like, one game is a game that mechanically ends really strongly, I think, is Metroid Dread that we played, I guess, whenever that came out last year, two years ago. And story-wise, freaking cool ending, too. Yeah, that's just a really well-paced game, and that was one thing I liked about it, is just there's a feeling that you are constantly leveling up and getting more powerful. And then there's this point in kind of the final third where you're just cooking with gas. cruising. You have all these cool abilities and weapons. There's always new stuff to do. Every fight feels so dynamic. And then you're really getting challenged by the final fights and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you just like run out of the thing and the timer ticks down and then it ends.

And it's like, man, that was great. And then another thing to mention is actually the Last of Us where I just last night watched the final episode of the show and the ending is exactly the same as the game. And I remember, I reviewed the 2013 game. I played it. This was before it had been out, before the Last of Us had become this dominant thing. And the ending on that game is so strong and unusual in video games. The whole thing about the way it ends, the way it shot, the final cut to black, everything. I was like floored by that because, like you both say, it's unusual for a game to even end well, let alone to end so confidently and in a way that is designed to completely contextualize the entire story.

It's just very rare to have an ending like that. So then every time a game does, and actually spec off the line, is another one that does. That's true, it does. Another great ending. So anytime there's an ending where they're like... This is here in the early 2010 episode of Jopold. Well, people were doing some cool stuff then, right? But anytime someone comes up with an ending where they really,

you need to play to the end to understand everything you did in the game, it's pretty cool because it's unusual. Because more often you kind of get too powerful, there's too much stuff, and you kind of keep going. I'm actually thinking now of also in terms of what gets cut to another part of Raleigh's question, we were talking about Perfect Dark last week And you can just tell Sometimes the cuts just have nothing to do with what would work best

Like narratively or anything It's just sort of this section of the game isn't fun We can't make it work So then you get things like Joanna Dark whispering into her comms And then blasting Where it just seems like maybe there was stealth But they couldn't make this self-fun So they just had to cut it

Even though I'm sure everyone would have preferred they kept it It wasn't like an edit Like an edit that you make when you're writing a story And you're like well let's just cut this pair because it's needless. It's more just like, oh man, this part of the game is just we can't get it to work, so we have to cut it. And then we just have to kind of like Frankenstein and stretch the rest around the hole that it left because what are you going to do? Yeah. And logistically, sometimes like if you have a voice actor, you might not be able to get them and so you can't or get them back in the studio. Once you made those decisions, since you can't actually like get more lines to fit things around. Yeah, I always think of the writer will do something. Tom Bissell and Matthew Burns's Twine game, where. There's a really hilarious part of that.

Everyone should play that. We'll maybe link it in the show notes. We've talked about it plenty of times. But there's a very funny part of that, which is this is a twine game where you are a creative director of a video game, meeting with all your team leads about... You're the writer. You're the writer.

The creator director is that other guy. You're the writer. The writer will do something, which is why it's called that. And different department leads come in, and at one point the audio guy comes in, and he's like, ah, like he's so mad because he's like, everything always comes to us last. then we always get screwed, which is, I think, reflective of a truth in video games.

That audio kind of has to be the last thing to get baked in for that very reason that you can't get actors back. And they're like, oh, sorry, we need to re-record all the lines and however say them loud because she's not seeking anymore. And they're like, sorry, she's like on a TV show now. Yeah, she's got her. Not going to happen. It's not going to work. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm not 100% sure, like, what those decisions are made in terms of like, are we going to cut towards the end?

But if I were a video game executive decision maker and I saw statistics that were saying only 10% of players were actually finishing the end of the game, I would be inclined to be like, yeah, we should put a lot more effort towards the front of the game. But yeah, I mean, I think that there could be a lot of reasons for bad game endings and bad game last sections. But you know what? It has an awesome ending, Octopath Traveler, too. Man, talk about an amazing final act. I want to play more of that. I'm still playing it on Steam Deck. Like I am still playing it just for pleasure.

It has eight stories. And it has eight stories that seem totally independent. And then the final act really ties them all together. It's amazing. Let's get through one last quick question. Basically, Paul, I won't read this whole thing. But Paul says, I'm curious about your opinions on video game novelizations. Have you ever read one?

Would you like to see more of them? Or should books take a cue from movies and let video games just be video games? And I don't know about you guys, but I have some fun memories of as a kid. reading through at least a couple of video game novelizations. I had one on Baldur's Gate that was like a story just like it was sort of like part walkthrough part like fictional story. And I always enjoyed video game novelizations when they were like that and they were actually like like telling their own versions of the story in the game as opposed to some sort of like side canon stuff about like a prequel to the to the game or whatever. I always enjoyed it more when it's like actually something because I played

the game and I'm like, oh, this is cool. Like I'm reading. this version of the game. It just felt like a novel experience to me. Get it? Novel experience. I do. I do get it. But yeah, I'm curious to hear, do you guys, are you guys into video game novels at all? Yeah, I had a missed player's guide that was similar to what you're describing, although it was much more of a player's guide. It couldn't really just read it. Yeah, but it was a narrative style description of how one might play missed. I have a couple of those too. Yeah. And then I also liked the missed novels as a kid, although I barely remember them now. I know I read the Halo novel Fall of Reach

because I was writing a joke post for Kotaku about Master Chief's suit and whether it jacks him off or not. There's a meme about that that has a fake screenshot from that book. But honestly, I feel like I haven't really read any of them as an adult

and I'm kind of sad I didn't get my act together and read the perfect dark novelization before our episode because I have them. There's two books and I might still read them and talk about them as one more thing at some point. I want to hear about that. Who the heck knows what the stories are in Perfect Dark 1 and 0?

That's what the... Somebody had to write them around. They'll tell you what the stories are. I think it's Greg Rooka, who's written some Wonder Woman comics I like. So I feel like they'll probably be pretty good. But yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of... I'm in Paul's camp.

I think it's kind of fun that these books exist and they should keep existing because it's like a weird piece of media to exist. Yeah, same. I mean, I think any, like, cross-media adaptation is interesting. just, I mean, we've seen so many interesting TV and movie adaptations of video games lately, and people are finally really kind of getting their heads around it, and that can certainly be true of novels as well. I haven't really read many novelizations of video games.

I've talked about this on the show before, but I did use to read guides for games just because I wasn't allowed to have that many video games as a kid. And I think it'd be cool if more guides were written in the kind of, I guess they're usually written in second person where it's like, go here, now you're going to find this, go do that. Where if instead it was like, Joanna Dark, arrived in Chicago in the dead of night, the neon lights reflected in the street.

And then the whole thing was kind of narrative. Because I do think that IGN walkthrough that we both read did have a lot of fun. The writer was just having a good time. Yeah, there's a little editorializing in there. Right, it would be like, lay waste to your enemies. Instead of just saying, like, take out the enemies

or whatever, things like that. And I'm remembering. some of our, it might have been Sweetoden or Final Fantasy Six. I think it was that Final Fantasy Six walkthrough where it was like really wonderfully and playfully written. So actually walkthroughs are really a kind of a fertile ground for creative writing. And I'm sure there are some walkthroughs out there that are like that. So yeah, that would be my main, my main thought on this question. Cool. All right. Thank you. As always, to everyone to send in questions. Once again, reminder, you can reach us a triple click at maximum fun.org. Let's take a quick break and then

we'll be back with one more thing. All right. Well, this is where you would normally hear an ad for another maximum fun show, but instead you're going to hear me and Maddie and Jason tell you a little bit more about what's going on in Maximum Fun Drive. Max Fun Drive, I suppose. It's not Maximum Fun. It's Max Fun.

Well, you can pronounce the full name. The full legal name is Maximum Fun Drive. Right. When Max Fun Drive is in trouble, you say Maximum Fun Drive. You come over here. This is stuff. You listen to your father. Max Fund Drive is happening right now through next Friday the 31st.

And it's pretty much just a reason, it's a way for us to reward people for being members and to do some kind of fun extra stuff and to offer some fun rewards for new people who sign up or who boost their membership. So I guess that's the first thing is if you sign up to become a member $5 a month, you get access to bonus content for the show. Same as always. Right, same as always. That's very cool. But if you sign up for $5 more than that, for $10, $10. a month. Or you boost your current $5 membership up to $10 a month. You get a special unique to this year, unique to Max Fund Drive bonus. Maddie, what is that bonus? So there are stickers for every show,

but you're going to pick the triple click sticker. And you know why? Because it's great. It's great. So before even revealing what's on the sticker, I'll just say, I'm excited that these are restickable stickers. They're like those cling stickers. So you could put it on like a car windshield. You can put it on your water bottle, whatever. So you don't have to think to yourself, oh, my God, what if I get rid of this water bottle? What if I replace my laptop? Yes. Etcetera.

Those are the only two things I can think of, those two items. But laptops exist as well. So here's what's going to be on the sticker that you are definitely getting. Wait, can I ask you a question first, Maddo you seem very excited. Would you say that you are, how would you say that you're feeling to tell people about this sticker? Well, I'm just not sure how to pronounce how I'm feeling. But I would say I'm either Something about a bit.

Yeah, I'm either chomping at the bit or I'm champing at the bit. And if you, the listener, also aren't sure whether it's one or the other of those, then you'll enjoy this Wheel of Fortune theme sticker in which the answer to the Wheel of Fortune clue or puzzle, I guess I should say, is champing at the bit?

Or is it chomping at the bit? Or chomping at the bit? Nobody knows. You could actually get a marker and fill it in. The letter is missing. The letter is missing. I had to explain this very carefully to our artist in order to get the joke because it's the funniest joke that's ever been devised. And it's so easy to understand.

It is. It is a lot of course. Olivia Fields, the artist. Shoutouts to her for making this joke work. And this, of course, is a reference to the time that Jason, I think, ironically, incorrectly corrected Maddie. That actually it was chomping at the bit, which was partly a reference to billions and partly just a grammar nerd joke. that then led to a lot of people telling Jason how could he, how dare he incorrectly correct Matt?

You know what, it's not worth it. You get it. You've probably said it wrong and right. And when you look at it, you'll understand what it is. Even without that context, it's still. You know, that's what's great about the sticker is that I feel like anyone who's kind of a grammar nerd will get it. Exactly.

They can just look at it and laugh and be like, wow, where did you get that great hilarious sticker? And you can be like, oh, it's actually from a video game podcast. It is. And it's from Max Fundrape. Maybe you can't remember to see what you can say. Oh, hey, check out triple click. So we'll have pictures of that sticker on our feed so you can check it out if that lengthy explanation didn't make it make sense.

But that's what you get for $10 per month. That's what we're focusing on for now. There are some other really cool rewards that we'll talk about maybe next week. But it goes all the way up. There's like a culinary kit. There's some really good recipes. There's a little apron. It's so cute.

There's a sick apron you can get that they sent us these aprons. It's very cool. It's maximum yum. It's like a professional. apron. You'd see that thing on the bear or something. It's a really nice apron. But anyways, right now, that sticker, that's the thing. You can boost your existing membership up to 10 to get it, or you can just start at 10. You'll get a really cool sticker. And yeah, there's a lot of other stuff going on all across the network, all during Maximum Fun Drive. So we're really excited. As always,

it's always a fun time of the year. So yeah, that's that. Maximumfund.org slash join. And yeah, thanks so much. Thanks so much for being a member if you already are one. And if you're considering it, do it. Do it. We believe in you. Now's your chance. And we are back. It is time for one more thing. Kirk, Maddie, what you got for us? Maddie, why don't you start?

Sure. So I watched a movie called Triangle of Sadness. Yeah. Which is on Hulu. And which, upon watching it, Dina and I were like, oh, it's like the menu crossed with below deck, which is the menu being the satirical comedy movie in which Anya Taylor Joy's character ends up in a restaurant with a bunch of other rich people and has to kind of fight her way out socially and literally.

And Below Deck being the wonderful reality show in which we get to know the crew of a luxury yacht. And Triangle of Sadness really is that. Can I just say we started watching Below Deck and it is wonderful. So thanks for the recommendation. Let me just say, you're welcome. Greatest show ever. Below Deck, check it out. But Triangle of Sadness, really strange film. So this is, I do recommend this movie.

It is the men you cross with below deck, but I have some important caveats with this movie. I do think people should watch it. But it's a three-part movie. And there's like, you know, on the screen, black screen, white text, part one, part two, part three. So part one, it's about a male model who's dating a female model. And it's about how the world of male models, they make less than female models. Isn't that weird? Doesn't that pose like an interesting gender quandary that doesn't exist in other industries?

That's what part one is about. Part two. The two of them are on a luxury yacht together. Everybody gets violently ill, and there's extremely graphic vomiting and diarrhea. Like, poop is shown. There's a lot of poop. And I would recommend fast forwarding through a lot of this. Yeah, sounds good.

It's not actually very good, and it doesn't really help the film, I would say. And there's also, like, a lot of monologuing from the captain of the boat about socialism, but I don't think it really works or, like, helps the plot at all. Part three, amazing movie, probably should be its own entire movie. It's about all the characters, well, the main characters from the boat getting stranded on a desert island where they have to survive. And the person who becomes most powerful instantly is the, like, lowly toilet cleaner who's like this Asian woman who has English as a second language, who is the only one who can

catch fish, the only one who can make a fire. And all these rich people are completely fucking useless. And she becomes like the queen of the island instantly. and rules over all of them. She's amazing. And part three is fascinating. And I was like, I would have watched an entire movie

just about this like former toilet cleaner become queen of all these rich people who have to bow down to her for an entire movie's length. So yeah, fast word part two. You don't actually need it at all. Just catch up part three. It's fascinating and weird

and like a meditation on gender and power and race and class. And I don't know. It's really cool and funny and wacky. So yeah, triangle of status. Cool movie. Fast forward through the Diary of Parts. That's my review. So I'm picking up on something from the movies that you have mentioned over the last couple of months.

And my question is, now that you've watched all of the best picture nominees, do you agree that everything everywhere all at once should have won best picture? What would have been your best picture choice? I agree with that of the lineup. But I haven't actually seen Top Gun Maverick. I have. And it's very fun, but should not win best picture. So I think I can help with that. Everywhere all at once of the list of nominees was perfect, but I will also say women talking. I was really glad to see that win Best Adapted Screenplay, still one of my favorites of the entire

year. And it's on streaming finally, but I've talked too long. Somebody else go. You're fine. I'll go next. I'll go really quick. I'm reading a book called Unscripted by James Stewart and Rachel Abrams. And boy, if you two ever wanted to read a book that is basically the show succession, except in real life. life. This is your book. So Unscripted is a nonfiction journalistic book and it's about Paramount Global, the entertainment company behind like CBS and MTV and Nickelodeon and so on and so it's about this guy Sumner Redstone who's 93 and a super creep. Lech and creep. He's dead now, but it's about his time alive. And it's about the power struggle about who will replace him.

And believe it or not, I'm only like a third of the way to be. through the book and believe it or not at several occasions through even just the first hundred pages he both he um says that his daughter shari will be his successor and then rescinds it at least three different times yeah there's uh there is like um he has these girlfriends who are like secretly plotting against him to to take over the family money and all sorts of uh uh fantastic rich politicking um the type that you see on succession except this time it's in real life. I'm really good reporting from what I've read so far and just really interesting story, well-written book. Again, I'm not, have not finished reading it yet. I'm only

about a third of the way through. But if you want real life succession, this book, from what I've seen so far does Fitz the Bell. I think it's on the, I think Slate Money's recaps of Succession, they talk about this. I mean, I don't know if they've explicitly said this, but that the Murdox and the Red Stones are kind of the basis families for. sense, yeah. For the family on succession. Yeah, the Murdox are, I think, the most obvious comparison, but this book so far from what I've read are like, is like the, uh, the real clear, like, uh, definitely an inspiration for it, but like really feels like you're reading a version. Like the entire time, I'm picturing the, the various Roy kids in their

situations and how, so excited for that show to come back. I'm like, there's even, there's one, there's one, there's one, there's one, there's one, there's one, there's one, there's one, living on a ranch in Colorado or something. Oh, really? Oh, it's Connor. Funny. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is a new morning routine that I've been trying that I wanted to share

with Listeros, because I like to share this kind of thing from time to time. And where would we watch this? Is this on Roku? Yeah, this is a, it's actually on freebie. It's a new morning routine. You do have to watch ads. But it started as a quibby thing. It was, right.

They pitched it to quibby, but then, you know, one thing led to another. No, this is just a new thing I've been doing. in the morning. So I had been finding I haven't had enough time to read. This is one of the problems I've run into lately is just feeling like I want to read more books and I haven't had enough time. And also feeling pretty scattered in the morning like I wasn't quite, I hadn't locked in my morning routine like I kind of lost track of it at some point. And I blamed that largely on the internet. And so as usual, as you can blame most things on the internet. So I decided to try changing up my morning routine and I've been doing it for about a week. I've been doing it

by more time than that by the time people are listening to this. But I'm going to do it for a while let's see how it goes. And I thought I would just sort of share the details in case anybody likes to kind of try these sorts of little tweaks to their life. So I should say up front, this is obviously not going to work for everyone. This is really just something that I'm trying that works with my life. But maybe some of these principles might apply. But I don't mean to suggest that this is something that can work for everyone. I know sometimes people take things like this as advice. I don't even really mean it as advice. It's just something that I want to share, and you can take whatever you want from it. So I have had a rule for a while that I don't read

my phone in bed. I think that's a really good one. In the morning or in the evening, I just put the phone away, read a book or something. The internet is not in bed. Books are in bed, not the internet. So in the morning, though, I was finding I would get up. I wouldn't read my phone in bed, but then I'd kind of really quickly get up, sort of wash my face, whatever. And then I'd be like waiting for coffee and I'd check my email, just immediately on my phone. Then I kind of look at the news, a little bit, go walk the dog, go in a walk, put on a podcast maybe. I'd be listening to a podcast and people would be talking in my head. I'd be hearing all these people talking right as I was having coffee, sit down, you know, eventually I'd have breakfast, kind of be eating breakfast, reading the

internet, getting on, you know, G-chat and Discord talking to people. And it's just like, I would just lose the thread of the morning. And eventually it would be kind of later in the morning I'd like, okay, I'm going to go practice guitar. That's kind of part of my morning routine, but it could be anything. If you're listening to this, go to work, do whatever. So I wasn't happy with that. So what I've tried doing is no internet at all in the morning and no podcasts either. So I only listen to podcasts in the afternoon. So the morning is for listening to music, getting my start to my day, having breakfast, and reading my book. So if I want to read something while I'm having breakfast, I'm going to read whatever book I'm reading. And that kind of, it puts the

book on both ends of my day in the morning and in the evening. And so far at least I've found that I don't really need the internet in the morning. It's actually totally fine if I just check in with it in the midday. Obviously, if you're listening to this, you can adjust this for whatever the requirements of your job of your life are, but it's something to think about. Yeah, if you're listening of this, make sure you listen to a triple click in the morning. Right, of course. Other podcasts, not necessarily. Well, I don't know. I actually like, I mean, listen to us at some point, but I was really finding that listening to podcasts first thing in the morning, it was too much. It was all these voices in my head. It was so much input. And it's very nice to just not have that and actually

to really reestablish that as a space for music because music can be, you know, so many different vibes, so many different energies, you can listen to whatever you want. You don't run the risk of, like, suddenly you're just hearing like a lengthy argument or debate about, like, the role of education in the development of young men or something. And you're just like hearing all this interesting scientific stuff and you're like, okay, hang on. You know, it's a little too much input. So that has been the adjustment that I've made. And so far it's been great. I've been reading my book much more consistently, which

has been one of the goals that's been really nice. And just feeling a little more focused. So I thought I would share that. It's, of course, in progress. You could also try audiobooks if you haven't already. I love audiobooks. Yeah, that would be more of a, but that's closer to a podcast. So that would be more of an afternoon thing. I do enjoy audiobooks

as well. If you want a real, like if you want a real shake up to your morning routine, try having two small children. Yeah, no time to check your email then, huh? Well, then your morning routine will be wake up at 6.30, see who's crying, see which diaper needs to be changed first, see who needs to be taken to school, see who needs to be fed, clean up after the...

There's a lot. See who's presenting you just sort of like a diatribe on the role of education and the development of young men? Like somebody will be a voice in your ear about that. If you want voices in your head. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder. I'm sure that removing internet from the morning of a parent could also have some beneficial effects.

And I would, yeah, I would suggest if nothing else, to consider how often you need to be reading the internet. Because the less of it I do and the more I remove it from parts of my day, not all of my day, not totally removing it, nothing like that. Just consciously removing it from parts of my day, the more I realize that it doesn't need to be as omnipresent as it has been. I think it depends what you're reading, I think. Like the internet is such a broad term. I kind of don't think so. I mean, yeah, maybe. But like the way that I think most people, or at least a lot of people engaged with the internet,

is a pretty undirected just stream of information. And maybe one morning you read something great, and then the next morning you read other things. And like removing that and just going into a kind of more conscious thing can be very good. It is at least worth experimenting with and trying. And just to reiterate, this is not me saying that I think the internet is bad, that I'm going to stop using it full stop. This is just about the mornings and sort of coordinating off that time and reserving my internet usage for other parts of the day.

Sure. But I will say one quick counterpoint is that as someone who is very much on the internet, I find that when I'm reading Twitter, I'm usually just like, why am I doing this? I just wasted an hour reading things I don't care about, like miserable things. This is making me less happy. Whereas when I'm reading something like Reddit, Reddit is a good example, I come away from it being like, oh, I just learned something interesting. or I just like got an interesting technique for dealing with my toddler or I just like read a new recipe that I'm going to try tonight or things that actually I feel are a little more beneficial to my life especially because I've customized my Reddit homepage to have like a bunch of subredits that I find really interesting. So I don't know. It really depends.

I think what you're reading. But I see your point for sure that it can also be useful to tune out the information. But in terms of if you're going to read the internet, there's some stuff that is more vegetables and some stuff that is more candy. Yeah, and I think just the way that a lot of, like the way our phones are designed, it's very easy to fall into. Maybe you start with a productive site, but soon you're just kind of bouncing around muscle memory from site to site. And you're reading Vox and what's new? Oh, hey, like, Biden's new budget is out. Like, what is this?

Why do I need to be reading this with the company? So it's very easy to get sucked in. And I would, my suggestion is merely that people analyze and sort of reappraise those habits and think about experimenting with changing them and seeing if they like the change or if they don't. Good stuff. I can dig it. All right, folks, it is time to say goodbye for this week. Once again, it is Max Fun Drive. So do not miss it.

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All right. On that note, it's time to say goodbye. See you both next week. Yep, see you both next week. 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.

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