Triple Click - Deeper Into Baldur's Gate 3

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Jason, Maddy, and Kirk are still obsessing over Baldur's Gate 3, the tremendous new roleplaying game from Larian Studios. This week they dive deeper into the game's multiplayer, the pros and cons of its opacity, and of course, exploding barrels.One More Thing:Kirk: FrosthavenMaddy: AngelJason: Traffic (by Ben Smith)LINKS:Support 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

Have you heard that Baldersgate 3 is making other game developers panic? That's because they just rolled a 1 and a DC-10 wisdom check. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. Today we are diving back into the world of Baldur's Gate 3, where with rolling our D-20s and pulling out our Broad Sword plus 1s for another adventure. I'm Jason Schreier. I'm Kirk Campbellton. And I'm Maddie Myers.

Hello. Hello. Hello, my friend. Welcome back. Here we are. Another episode, here we are. Kirk, roll the die. Again.

We can't start until he rolls his 20-sided dice. Kirk is a huge bag of hundreds of dice right now. Whatever. If you get like, okay, roll a DC-10 for the quality of this show. If it's below 10, this will be a terrible episode. If it's above 10, it'll be awesome. This is a 20-sided die. Okay.

17. It's going to be an amazing show. It's going to be a great show. And hey, if you all out there want more 17 quality show, you should become a maximum-fund member. That's true. And support our show. Yeah, that's it.

I would say we each have a plus one, I think we get a plus one for every, like, I don't know, 10,000 maximum fund members. We get a plus one for every vocal plug-in that I have on each vocal show. So we get like a plus 30. And we get a minus one for every Bing that you put in. Oh, no. That makes sense.

We'll see how that turns out by the end. So, yeah, hey, you should support our show. Become a maximum fun member because we are a listener-supported show. We rely on all of you fine folks out there to make this show possible. And, hey, if you do become a member, you get bonus episodes as part of your membership, including the one we are about to record in a couple of weeks about the legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, where the three of us really go deep on that game. without worrying about spoilers.

We all finished it. We're going to talk about our whole time with it. It's going to be super fun. We also have this massive backback bonus episodes that you can listen to if you become a member. To become a member, go to maximum fun.org slash join. And yeah, we are very appreciative to everybody

who is a member. One more thing. Today we're going to talk a little bit more about Balders Gate 3. I think we had said we were going to talk about StarCraft 2 this week. we're actually delaying that by another week, so we're going to talk about StarCraft 2.

Unless we talk about Waltersgate 3 again. Unless we're, yeah, so hooked on about this. The thing is, our StarCraft 2 conversation had some bugs in the third act, and we're going to delay it a week so we can earn those out. Right, totally. That's what it was. We're not going to release it a month early,

despite all the bugs in the third act. So, yeah, so look forward to that next week. In the meantime, Kirk, take us away. All right, so we're going to talk more about this video game because, damn, it's good. and there's a lot to say about it. There's a lot going on with it. And I at least have played a whole bunch more of it.

And for me anyways, that's been, I don't know, I haven't felt this way about a game in a long time where I am just, I am a friggin' gremlin gamer up there just on my PC, playing away up late every night playing this thing. And that just feels very special to me. Has it really been a long time? Didn't you feel that way about Zelda too? No, I really didn't.

Wow. So, then Alden Ring? Yeah, exactly. I'd say it's been since Zelda in Ring where there was a game where I was like, okay, I'll put a hundred years into this. And this one feels that way. Bye, Emily. Sorry, you don't exist anymore. Appa, you're not getting walked.

Doesn't matter. It's really not even necessarily entirely quality-based thing. Like Zelda came out just when I was like traveling all over the world and getting married and had so much going on that I just, I played it. I was like, this game is amazing. There were a few times where I really sat down before. for our triple play. And I still haven't finished, but I will really, I think,

drill into it before our beans, cast which I'm excited about. But I just haven't done this thing where I'm like, okay, I'm going to rearrange and reprioritize my life. And so as a result, it feels very special to me

to be playing a game like that. And it's just, there's a lot more to say about it. So we're going to talk about it more on this episode. So for starters, let's just talk about what we've played in the last week

because I know I've played a lot more. I'm guessing the two of you, or at least I know Jason that you've played a lot more. So why don't you go first? Jason. And just talk a little bit about your experience with the game since last week. Yeah, I've played a ton more. So I am pretty deep into Act 3. I mean, a good, healthy amount of progress into Baldur's Gate, the City. And it's interesting. I was feeling a little bit sour

on the game, although that's since turned around. And I think that a lot of people will hit the point that I hit, because I've seen a lot of people talking about it, where you get to Act 3. It's pretty overwhelming. There isn't a lot of good direction for where to go. You feel like you're seeing just like NPCs with names all over the place and they all have unique lines of dialogue. So you're just like, oh my God, this is too much. And then on top of that, there are bugs and some of them are really annoying bugs. So for example, I got to the city and I got a quest where I was supposed to go talk to the editor of the newspaper and I went to talk to him. And the editor of the newspaper like got mad at me and locked me out of the building, but there was no way to continue

the quest. Definitely a bug and not something that you did. that contributed to that? Okay. Well, no, no. The bug is that the quest, the bug is that I couldn't continue the quest because it still said, talk to the editor,

even though I already had. And then the next time I did a long rest, it was the next day and the edit, and the quest was over, and the editor had printed this story that has now made everybody in the city hate me because he printed these lies about my party.

This is just actually, they coded the game specifically so that when your Steam account did this, you would have to experience what it's like to have. have someone read a story about you. Yeah, how does it feel? That's just an example.

I think that I've, having read a lot about people's thoughts on this thing on the internet, it seems like a lot of people are running into bugs with acting. They are. We're just teasing you. Yeah, a lot of people are feeling like it's kind of unfinished. A lot of people aren't super happy with the way it resolves and some of the resolutions to some of the characters and the quest and stuff. And so I think it can sour on people.

That said, after a couple of days of just being kind of, like, oh man, I wish this game hadn't like really turned in its last act. I spent a bunch more time today and yesterday just kind of diving into Veldersgate and doing more stuff. And there's still so many awesome quests and like so much awesome stuff to do in the game. So it's not including some truly hilarious like demented stuff that Kirk and I were talking about a little bit off the air. And yeah, it's still an incredible game. That said, it can be overwhelming. And so one bit of advice I'll give to the many of you out there who are playing this game is if you're feeling overwhelmed when you get to act three, just kind of stick with it, pick a direction and go in it. Don't worry too much about

locking yourself out of stuff or like talking to every single NPC. You're probably going to wander around the city a bunch of times. Don't try, try not to let yourself get kind of, I don't know, bummed out and feeling malaise because of how overwhelming the whole thing or because your frame rate is taking some hits when you, when you enter the city and it's full of people. Just stick with it because I think it'll, there's some moments that are worth getting to. So yeah, that's where I'm at. I'm pretty deep into it and still just thinking about my second play through, thinking about how incredible this game is and all the accomplishments,

all the things it accomplishes are just incredibly impressive. Maddie, how about you? I'm not as far as you too because I've been busy with life the past week, but I know how that goes. I did manage to start a completely new play-through with a couple of friends that I think we're going to continue on a week-to-week basis. And that meant that I started a completely different character who is a wizard, which means now I know the beauty of magic missile.

And I just want to use magic missile as every single attack for the rest of my life, because it's like just shooting a massive Cyclops laser beam at people. And it somehow feels way more powerful than playing as a barbarian fighter did. And that's maybe my only complaint about it, is that I'm like, this level of killing is what I hoped to experience as a half-work barbarian. And I'm now experiencing it as a somewhat more petite wizard. But loving it, really excited to talk about how the multiplayer feels, because I know you two have played it as well. And the social dynamic of this game, which changes it a lot for the better and makes it significantly more fun. and also easier strategy-wise because you're all learning together and working together.

So some of the issues that I had early on playing the game solo, I think if I'd just started off playing it with friends, especially if you've got at least one friend who's played Divinity Original Sin or the second one, then you can learn from them as you go and not feel as muddled by the combat in those early moments and also have a great time strategizing about which NPCs to talk to, decisions to make, all that good D&D tabletop player stuff that the game has to offer in a virtual form. Yeah, so let's talk about that. Let's talk about multiplayer. I've got thoughts on Act 2 and thoughts on

the narrative structure and a lot of other stuff that we can get into maybe in a little bit. But Maddie, since you played multiplayer and yeah, Jason and I did as well, let's just stay on that for a little while since we didn't talk about that at all last week. And it's a remarkable thing about this game, that it's completely playable with up to four people in co-op multiplayer. player, which is totally wild, given how ambitious it is as a single-player game. Of course, that was also true of Divinity Original Sin, too, and they're just carrying that on with this game, but that doesn't make it any less impressive that it's possible. And yeah, so Jason and I played just a little bit.

We started a new game, which I gather is generally a good idea with multiplayer, because you can't remove multiplayer characters from your party once they've joined your game. So, you know, if someone joins your game, they're just going to be with you forever. It kind of separates out your multiplayer game from your single player game. So we started playing. It was just the two of us. It set it up so that I was controlling one NPC. I had Shadowheart in my little sub-party.

And then Jason was controlling the other NPC for most of what we played. He was controlling Astaireans. So we had two kind of sub-parties that were moving through the game. I found it really cool. I think it really requires you to communicate and sort of agree on how you're going to play. Like, we were going through stuff really fast because we were like, let's just get to something weird.

Let's go to the goblin camp and we're just going to totally like turn on all the good guys and side with the goblins as quickly as we possibly could. And then as a result, it really kind of felt like speed running. Like, Jason, you play games, I think faster than I do in general anyways. And playing through dialogue where somebody else is skipping through the dialogue instead of you. Like, you know, you're pressing the button to advance the dialogue. It really wound up feeling kind of.

frantic and jarring. So I think if you sat down with someone beforehand, or if you're going to do this, you should sit down with them before, if you're like co-op friends beforehand and kind of talk through, okay, like we're not, we're going to play through everything. We're going to have to vote because there's like a voting system in dialogue. We're going to vote on the lines of dialogue that are a sort of face character, whoever, like charisma, talky character is, like what lines they're going to say. We're going to kind of take our time with it. Or we're not. Like we're just going to go mass chaos. We're going to kill as many people as we can. Anything goes. Do whatever you want. It was a fun approach.

We did slaughter an entire grandful of druids and tiefling children. Yeah, that's brutal. It was great. In action was crazy. You just kill all these unarmed civilians if you do that.

Yeah, Minthara. We were just following Minthara around and she just like slaughtered everybody. It was really sad. Yeah, it was a real bummer. These are the characters that I've really gotten to know over the course of that too

and I really like them all. I was like, oh, I'm just going to murder you all. Okay. Yeah, it's fine. They're not real, supposedly. real in my heart, so I am very upset with you too. Yeah, we played it a lot more honestly than it sounds like the two of you did, where we actually were looking at all the dialogue choices. So the way the NPC control thing works is, take Shadow Heart, for example, the last person to have interacted with Shadow Heart in your party will control them going forward until

somebody else clicks on her to either talk to her or do something else with her. And then that person would take control of her. So you could just decide, like, I'll be in charge of Shadow Heart. I'll take charge. And one of my friends was like, I want a romance astirian. So nobody else touch him. But of course, I had already accidentally initiated a conversation with him. So then we had to fight over him from that point forward. But that was how I learned that you can actually trade over control of an NPC to somebody else if they click on them after the conversation has ended and then sort of initiate some type of interaction with them that then puts them in that player's control. So when you say control, so you,

you were playing with three people. That's right. Three people were playing. And then there's a fourth and there's basically one computer controlled character being handed around among the three of you. And that's how that works. That's pretty cool. That makes sense.

Yeah. So I would say that's actually the ideal way. So you just pass around Astyrian and each one has your way. He would love that. Yeah. I mean, you can pass around Shadow Heart or Astarian as needed. Yeah. I mean, we started off with Shadow Heart and then when we met Asteroon, we were like, well,

we need to send Shadow Heart back to camp because we got to get Astarian up in here. So we sent away Shadow Heart and got Astarian on the men. And I think playing with three people is pretty hilarious because it's just enough people to be chaotic, but also you have that additional party slot so that you can romance or interact with an NPC, which also provides additional comedy. So one of the main hilarious aspects of the game is that when you are navigating through dialogue, there is a voting system, like Kirk said, like the other players who aren't participating actively in the conversation can hover over a dialogue choice and click it to vote that they would like you to choose it.

But also, they can see what your mouse is hovering over. Yeah, that's true. And I both did and did not enjoy getting dragged for whatever choices I was hovering over and then deciding not to click on. Like, it felt very much like playing a real tabletop game where you're, like, talking through your different options with your friends. And they're like, don't do that. What? Kill him. No.

What are you doing? And, like, everyone was kind of arguing with each other. And, like, people voted on a choice. and I could go against it if I chose to because chaos reigns. And that was really opening up the hilarity. But the other thing that we did was just try out narrative options that none of us had seen the first time around because all three of us had at least played through Act 1 of the game.

So, for example, we had heard that you can kiss the mind flare. Have you two heard about this? Yes. You don't want to kiss that guy as it turns out. I almost did. And then Kirk was like, he's just going to kill him. you. Yeah. I didn't want to kiss him, but I failed the role where I tried to like pull away from kissing him. And if you fail that role, you don't have any inspiration yet, so you can't

re-roll because it's too early in the game. And he kisses you. And it's like an Insta-K-O for you. And I think anyone nearby, because I think two of us got Insta-killed by the Mind-Flayer kiss. And then like the one person remaining had to like straggle on with an NPC and got a game over. And then we were like, okay, how do we not kiss the mind player? But it was very fun to enter into that interaction, knowing that there was dialogue that we had not seen and just trying weird shit together and being like, okay, what happens if we do this? What if we do this? That plus arguing with each other felt like the perfect D&D experience to me in a way that playing alone hadn't. And I was really happy about it.

Yeah. A thing that I'm really excited about is that the PlayStation 5 version of this game is going to have. have split screen co-op. Oh, good. Which I think would be a really fun way to play through this game. It would take a thousand years, but it'd be pretty fun to play with just one other person sitting together on the couch and having those sorts of debates about what to say. And then also sort of strategizing through combat, which is something that I found

a little bit scattered playing through combat, at least when Jason and I were doing it, because, you know, it's not quite as turn-based. Like, we were both assigning our two characters. we had linked initiative a lot of the time, but not all of the time. And it was a little confusing. Like, I think it would take slowing down and really talking through all of your moves to know what to do. But even then, when I think about the way that I play through combat when I'm playing single player, it's like I don't save scum exactly, but I still do experiment a lot in battle.

And I like try different gambits. And sometimes they completely fall apart. And I have to reload. I don't know. I could see it. It's such a different rhythm when you're playing. multiplayer, that it does feel a little bit like you're playing a single player game. Like two people are playing a single player game at the same time.

Yeah, or three people. Or three people or four people, right. The other thing that almost immediately became a problem was that I was in charge of the game. So it was on me to save, which mostly just meant that the other two people would periodically yell save at me in moments when they wanted me to save. And it was kind of stressful because I was like, why do I have to be in charge of saving? Why can't all of us press F5 whenever we feel anxious about what's going. to happen next. And then your computer responds

to them telling it to save. Yeah. Maddie, don't worry. When you play more, you'll get in the habit of just hitting a five console. And no one will have to yell save at me. Although honestly, I probably do need people to yell save at me when I'm playing by myself. Yeah. Kirk and I, I mean, Kirk, we had a very different experience to multiplayer because we just

played as kind of like a fuck around. Yeah, yeah. You weren't like trying to go through the story and be like, okay, we all made new characters for this and we're going to actually try to be strategic in battle and learn our new moves. Which was The aspect is that, I mean, a lot of people, I imagine, will run into the same problem they run into with real D&D, which is getting together with your friends, like, and consistently and being

able to do it, especially the game this big. But hey, I mean, if some people, some D&D groups out there plan on playing this through over the course of a year and, like, do a session every week or something, then that sounds like an awesome experience. But I imagine it's hard to do, like, a multiplayer session and also a single player session just because you're seeing a lot of the same stuff twice, but I don't know. It'll be curious. I'm curious to hear what other people are doing and how many people are like really into the multiplayer. It's very interesting. As someone with small children, I will never be doing this for another 18 years, but it does seem cool. I think it helps that there are legitimately so many different paths you can take in the game. So it didn't really

feel like I was just re-experiencing everything again, because I was also playing as a different character with higher intelligence than my half work. So she was getting totally different dialogue options and all this. So it did kind of feel like a different game. Having played through all of Gloomhaven and just now started on Frosthaven at sequel with my tabletop group, that group of guys, it's me and three other people. We could play this game. I could totally see it. I mean, a Gloom Haven campaign isn't totally dissimilar from playing through this. This is just more animated and it's a video game. It's just not quite a tabletop game, but there's a lot of similarities and it would work. I'm actually going

to talk about Frost Haven a little bit later on the show. show. So I'll mention then a sort of combat, an interesting thing about the way that turn-based combat is designed, or sort of initiative turn-based combat versus Balders Gate 3. I think Baldersgate 3's combat is better for single-player, though, and it hasn't. There are some things they could do with it, I think, to make it work a little bit better with multiplayer, but it's still fun. And if you, it all depends on how you approach it, I think, like you said, Jason, like we've all said. It's, it's really just in talking it through ahead of time and figuring out how you want to play it. So let me talk a little bit about my experience with the game so far because I've played a whole bunch more since last week.

I played all the way through Act 2. I'm right around where Jason is in Act 3 as well. And I'm really amazed by this game. Like I really, really just think that it's incredible. It's an incredible achievement in interactive storytelling and also in really fun dynamic combat design. I mean, a lot of the hours I've spent playing this game are just spent in combat. And the combat is really, really good. and really enjoyable.

So I'm amazed at the narrative pacing of this story. I think Act 2 could have been the end of another, a different game in a different universe. That could have been the grand finale of a AAA, you know, big budget role-playing game. And people would have been satisfied. They really, like, it builds to such an epic climax by the end of Act 2. I'm not going to get into specifics. but it really, I mean, I think I finished Act 2 at 60 hours. So it would have been like a 60-hour, massive role-playing game with a ton of characters.

And yet there's a second game on top of the first game, which is, I think, one of the sort of overwhelming things about this game is just the sheer scope of it is kind of hard to get your head around. I was thinking about this, and it's kind of like Shadowheart is kind of the main character of the first game, like of the game that ends at the end of Act 2. and there's more, she has more to do in Act 3, but she feels like the protagonist of the game. And then there are a couple other characters as well who play

really important roles in Acts 1 and 2. But then other characters like Astairean and Carlock, they're kind of more act, like they carry from Act 2 into Act 3. And so there's this feeling like, it really almost feels like two massive RPGs stacked on top of one another. It's funny you say that. I just want to interject real quick.

I think you're saying that because Shadow Horror and Aserian and Carlisker in your party. Like, there's a way to, like, like, feel like, Laisal is the main character of Act 1 and Act 2 if you, like, are doing stuff with it. No, I think Laisel is another one. Well, I wasn't saying only her.

No, but I really think, like, it's more that characters like Carlac and Asterian, Asterian don't have much to do in Acts 1 and 2, where Shadowheart has, like, a whole character arc that plays out, so does Laisel. She has, like, a huge character arc that plays out. So it's more like there are some characters

who have a lot to do in those first acts, And then some characters who have a lot more to do once you get to Baldur's Gate, like Carlock's whole story concerns a character in Baldur's Gate. Same with Astaire, like his sire is in Baldur's Gate. He says that at the beginning. So that's where it kind of almost feels like those could have been characters in the Boulder's Gate second half of this game. So my hypothetical that I've been playing with is what if this game had come out

where you play all the way through the end of Act 2 right now, and then they release Baldur's Gate not as like paid DLC, but just later, because it is a little bugger, it's like a little bigger and more overwhelming. And just people can play all the way through to the end of Act 2, which having done it would be like a really satisfying and exciting experience. Like it feels like the end of across the Spiderverse or something. Like it ends and you're like, wow, that was amazing. I can't wait for the next thing. And then like, I don't know, a few months later, they're like, okay, Act 3 is now out.

Everybody just gets it and you can play it. That could have been kind of cool. I don't think that's ever really happened before. I can't think of that having happened, even though you never say that on a podcast because it means that it has. Well, there's like episodic games. Like life is strange. It's not quite the same, but games have done things like that. But not 60 hours, like a 60 hour massive RPG that's then like surprise, here's the

act. The third act that's like another, God knows how many hours now. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons. The third act is so overwhelming. It's because it comes after like you've just been through this incredible, like, epic fight at the end of act two. So let me.

And then another fight when you get to, well, I won't. Yeah. There's a lot of, the transition from Act 2 to Act 3 is pretty intense. There's just like, it really just goes. at you for a while. Like it kind of it peaks and you're like, okay, that was amazing. And I was kind of like, okay, and now I'm going to get to the city and it'll chill out

and I'll kind of have that new city energy that you have in a role-playing game where you're in a new city and there's you know, there's an inn and there's a... Yeah, you got to meet the new blacksmith, got to check out the new wares. It is perfect that you mentioned that stuff, Maddie, which I won't get into specifically, but like when you get to the

city. So you get to the city and like immediately the game is like subverts that in a way that I think is pretty delightful and really exciting, but also definitely frustrates that desire that you have to just settle in and maybe find an adventurer's guild and go kill some trolls somewhere. Like that is not happening. You are like in the thick of a narrative and political web, like both in terms of the structure of the interactive story and also the like, you know, what's happening in the city. Like it's totally not just like you're in a city and it's time to explore. It's like, oh my God, people are coming at you right and left in ways you don't even

expect. You're walking around, just thinking you're going to go look in a room. And then suddenly you're like in a major story thing. And it's a little jarring. This is why Maddie, you learn to hit F5 COPP. Well, by then I'll be an expert. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that happens. And I'll say like that a lot just because it's so surprising and I like being surprised, even while the part of me that wanted to settle down in a new act is feeling like, oh my God, Can I please just settle down? Like, can I please just have a quest that's an easy side quest that I can go do that doesn't surprise turn out to be like a whole big thing that ties in with the main narrative? Because it's kind of stressing me out.

And also, to mention the bugs thing, I haven't run into as many bugs. I've been kind of doing everything in this game. And I think maybe that helps it, like the narrative threads. If you skip stuff or if you're like doing things in a maybe more complex order, I could see it starting to kind of fall in on itself because there's whole. in the narrative. And it's making more calculations of what it needs to do. This is just a guess, I don't really know. But I have run into some bugs, and as a result

you have this feeling of, there's a kind of a feeling of fragility that the game has a little as you play it, where I just am always kind of checking. Like, at this point, like, it used to be, when I started the game, there's a feeling of narrative mystery, where I was like, well, I don't know. Like, if I go to sleep, does that mean, like, the illithet is going to take me over and I'm going to turn into a mind flare?

This is kind of exciting. Like, there's all this sort of ambiguity around how things work and I really liked it. Now that I'm this far in, I don't feel that way anymore and instead I look stuff up regularly because I'm like, is that a bug? Like, is this supposed to happen? Is that character supposed to be there? Like, is this supposed to happen? And that it's a feeling of fragility that the game just gives itself because it is a little bit

fragile and the narrative is just kind of holding together, but there's a feeling like it could crumble at any moment. And it does just kind of change my relationship to it over time where now I'm just checking, stuff a little bit more and like saving a lot and just being wary of bugs. So that fragility is what soured me on the game and there are a bunch of different points where I had to restart because something stupid happened. Like maybe I have non-lethal toggled because I need to knock somebody out instead of killing them and then somehow they die because like I hit them with a with an arrow that has like an add-on of fire damage and so it kills them even though

that's just the game. That's not really a bug. But yeah. Well that's a stupid part of the game when it's like a, the point of the fight is to knock out an enemy. Like, it shouldn't, you shouldn't have to walk on eggshells. But that's part of my point, right? Is that like you're constantly, I mean, the point, part of the point you made, which is, and that, that is what made me feel like, oh, man, this is kind of a bummer because in a game like this, it's almost a curse of its own ambition and its own accomplishment, because it's created this, this whole massive world where you expect things to have consequences. You expect characters from Act 1 to pop back up in Act 3, you expect your decisions to matter, but like if something stupid happens, like an

NPC you're trying to save, like runs into an exploding barrel or something like that, and then the quest just disappears, you're kind of like, oh, man, that was a bummer, or worse, if it's not even like a systemic problem, if it's like an actual bug where, like, something just isn't where it should be or, like, something just disappears. That can be so frustrating because you're like, man, I want to trust this game, but now I feel like I have to be Googling things in order to make sure it's playing out right. And that is something that I think is really, it really takes away from the experience in a really unpleasant way for me. And it is why I was talking about how I was pretty sour on Act 3 for a while is because I ran into more than a few of those types of situations.

Yeah, I just really, really want to like avoid feeling like I am being hard on the game. Because I know how these conversations tend to wind up focusing on these things. And then the narrative starts to feel like, oh, like they don't like the game. and I just really want to stress that I think this game is so incredible. And I actually, a lot of this stuff, don't worry. The point that I really want to underline here is that I think a lot of this is just an almost inevitable side result of how ambitious and incredibly cool this game is. Like a big thing that it does with the passage of time where you think, oh, like, I can't long rest because maybe some secret narrative thing is going on. That can be really effective, but also it's a double-edged sword because,

I at least now regularly feel worried that something happens in the story and I'm going to screw up and get a bad outcome because I long-rested, which I think isn't really what the game wants you to think. I think you're basically fine to long-rest a lot of time, but I have to keep saying think because I don't actually know that. I just had something happen in Act 3 where like a major thing happens. Like one of my characters was in jeopardy, sort of out of nowhere with no warning. And I was just getting going in the city. And I have this feeling of like, wait a minute, do I have to go? into a showdown with one of the final bosses, like to rescue one of the people from my, like,

why is this happening? Like, I just got here. I feel like there's so much more for me to do. But I also think that I can just chill and, like, do that whenever I want. And there's no actual time pressure on me. But because the game has so effectively put me in the mindset of this believable world, I'm not totally sure what to believe. Yeah.

Well, what you're describing is more of, like, the mystery of the game, like, what will happen when you long rest, as opposed to. I think the fragility that you pointed to earlier is more about bugs. Like what I don't want to happen, I'm fine with. In fact, I let the game like cut off a quest for me because I rested too much. I was fine with that. I was like, well, that's the way the dice roll. Like, this is an interesting part of the adventure.

I think that's an okay thing. I think it's more the problem for me, at least, and I think what you were alluding to earlier is like if it long rests and then the game bugs out in a quest that you should be able to keep continuing with. like you can't anymore. That's the thing that bugs me. Yeah, there's a kind of a like, there's a version of that that combines both of those things, where for me it's, it's less like, is there an actual bug happening and more did this trigger sooner than it was supposed to? Like, was there something that I did wrong that caused this event to happen where ordinarily, if I hadn't gone to this one area, it wouldn't have triggered

it? Or did it just like trigger it the wrong time? And as a result, I'm going to miss a whole bunch of the story because I'm going to rush to. the end of the story because I triggered something too soon. And that's kind of that fragility, too. There's just so many moving pieces. Yeah, there are also so many bad outcomes. I think that's really what both of you are getting at is that it is actually possible to quote unquote ruin your game because you didn't do something that does generally seem important when you run into it. I mean, I haven't gotten this far, but I've edited enough guides to know about at least a couple of these quests. And I've been grateful to have edited them because I'm like, okay, good.

These are the ones I really don't want to miss or fail because if I don't rescue this character or do this thing, my game is going to completely change. Like, the world's state will change. Like, it is really possible to fundamentally alter the outcome of Baldur's Gate 3. And that's what's so exciting about it. And I think it's what we all really love about it, but it's what makes it scarier the longer you play. Like, when you start out, you're like, oh, yeah, the whole world's ahead of me. I can make any decision. I'll just kill all the T-Flame.

I don't care. But then as you go on, you've built more and more of this beautiful object that is your save, where you have these characters that you love and the more you get to know them or romance them or whatever, the more you're like, well, I want this save to turn out right. And I've invested so much time in it. I don't know. I really get what you're saying, Kirk. And I think I'm going to be in the same boat when I get to Act 3 where I'm increasingly

Googling stuff and being like, okay, is this a quest that I can just forget about? Or do I need to do this or else everyone's going to die? Like, what is the situation here? Yeah, I think that's very well said. That's very true. There's a dog in this game named Scratch, who you can completely miss in Act 1, or you can accidentally just have turned hostile to you and you kill the dog at the beginning of the game. The dog will join your camp otherwise.

See, that ruins your game. That's ruined. Your game's ruined if you do that. Exactly. So it's like there are so many things like that. And it's actually really funny how many threads there are about Scratch. Because, you know, there's a whole website, does the dog die.com, which I'm makes me check for every movie or TV show we watch with the dog.

There's basically, does Scratch die. There's a good. There could be a subreddit just about scratch. Every scratch outcome. Right. Like, am I going to screw up and get the dog killed at any moment? And so, yeah, like you said, you get more invested over time and become a little, I've become a little more precious in general about things.

And then also knowing that there are bugs that could cause a character to just vanish from my camp. And then also, given what is happening in Act 3 and the amount of the amount of the, of like subterfuge and misinformation that's happening in the story. It makes it, it makes for a really rich tapestry of sort of confusion and stress, some of which is intended, some of which is not. It is a singular experience, though. I'll certainly say that about it.

I wouldn't stress too much. I mean, I've long rested a bunch of times in the city and I haven't really lost any question. Have you tried that? Have you tried not being anxious? Oh, no. I looked that one up and I think I'm fine. I could just like

Well this is the kind of thing where One of the ways that I experiment in this game Is by doing this kind of thing like all quicksaving And then just long rest until I run out of supplies Just long rest like 15 times Just to see if it loses that quest And then go back to my quick save And be like okay now I know I'm fine

I can just play the game Which I appreciate that the game makes it that easy To experiment with it and see what's going to happen And then just load a save Has it ever actually lost a quest when you've done that Or is it like still fine after 15 days of sleeping. Oh, I haven't done that.

I just could. I might actually. That just happened to me right before we started recording. Yeah, that sounds actually very freeing mentally. I think I'm going to do that after this. My understanding, just because we're fixated on the swim thing, I mean, my understanding is that the game makes kind of clear to you, like, if you need something to do something ASAP in the quest journal.

Like, it'll say, you should do this soon. And those are the only kinds of quests that will, like, disappear after a long rest. The challenge is that it's ambiguous. The quest log is clear, but I've talked to. to characters and they're like, well, we should probably get on that. And I'm like, wait a minute, is this the game telling me that I have to hurry? Or is this just the flavor text from a character? That happens a few times.

And because it's just because of the ambiguity previously, like, because I know about it. We don't have to fix it on it too long. This is giving too many, too much of an insight into my neuroses. No, I love it. I get it too. It's like why I always have to complete side quest for NPCs once I've agreed to them because I'm like, they're going to be mad at me if I don't. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the combat a little bit more because I've played more of it and I want to give a couple of tips.

Please give tips because you're clearly loving it. So, lay on me. I really, really like it a lot. And my tips are as follows. First tip is to use speed potions. And really, the broader tip is to get into crafting potions in general. So when I got the haste spell, which is like a level, I think a level three spell or a level four spell, so you unlock it kind of a little later in the game, that spell gives two actions per turn to somebody, but it requires concentration and the concentration can get broken. But for a little while, I was like just having my castor give my barbarian haste because then Carlock would just go and murder everybody because she had like five attacks in a turn or something. But a speed potion gives you the same effect, but you can just give it to any character. So that is my big combat tip for everybody. It's a good tip. If you're struggling, like craft a bunch of speed potions and then use those for those harder fights.

So my tip is that if you have a sorcerer or main character, or any character, any sorcerer, well, you can respect any character to sorcerer. You get them the tadpole ability called Black Hole, which basically like sucks all these enemies into this vortex that both slows them and also puts them in one place. and then you cast a firebell on them, and then you use meta magic to quickening spell to turn your spells into a bonus action, and then you do another fireball on them. They'll pretty much all die immediately. That sounds very good. Yeah. It's very fun. Another tip that I saw was for multi-classing, which is something that I haven't really experimented with, but becomes more viable in higher levels. And that is if you, like, multi-class a thief character who gets two bonus actions with a lot of other characters, you can give two.

bonus actions to a lot of other classes that have really powerful things on bonus actions. The best example of this is a barbarian thief who can throw explosive barrels with a bonus action. So you could make Carlac a multi-class thief and she could throw two explosive barrels. I think this fast week has been, it's been a fun journey into the kind of granular analysis that was missing when we were first playing the game. and there are already these lists of tips, things you didn't know that you could do.

You know, everybody's kind of cranking those out. And the game feels much better charted now. And as fun as it was to be playing in the mystery experiment zone, it's also fun to have tips like that out there that I wouldn't have thought of on my own, but now I know are possible. It is, yeah. Especially with a game like this. Maddie, I think that you will find, if you stick with your barbarian character, that she gets more powerful around level three.

Level three is really when most characters get more powerful. Barbarians are amazing. They are. They're really good. And wizards have an advantage. I mean, I don't dislike her by any stretch, but the wizard is just good right out the game. Well, yeah. What I was going to say is wizards have an advantage in the first level or two because they have a big library of spells right away, whereas a lot of the other classes don't get their best abilities until level three and beyond.

But if you stick with the barbarian, I think it's pretty viable as the main character. and you'll enjoy the smashing and killing once you get strong enough to actually smash and kill. Yeah, I'm going to continue with her. I don't know how often my group is going to manage to get together. I mean, after all D&D rules dictate that we will actually never be able to play again. So I got to continue with my barbarian. And I do really like using the intimidation checks and dialogue as well

because they're generally very funny. The dialogue in this game is just great. It feels like Terry Pratchett wrote it. something or a bunch of Terry Pratchett fans in terms of the style of comedy there. And I've really gotten on board with it and I'm enjoying it a ton. So that's the other big draw. But we can keep talking about combat. Yeah, a Tifling called me a cuck.

I enjoyed that. That's my favorite moment in the game. So yeah, the voice acting in this game is really amazing. And I should also mention that the music is amazing, Borislav Slavov, who's the same composer from Divinity Original Sin 2. It really sounds like it to the point where, like, my, Bard plays. Some of the songs from Divinity Original Sin too,

like the Tavern music is one of the songs that she can call up, which is just pretty cool. It's a fun kind of connective tissue between the two series. Yeah, I love the music. I don't have any reference point for it, but I just think it's great. The thing that's most impressive about the voice acting and the performance capture is that, like,

especially in the city of Baldur's Gate, you just talk to some random person, and like, they have a fully, like, their face is like fully lip- It's like one line of dialogue. A single line and it's like total cinematic. Like they must have spent so much. I can't even imagine the amount of work.

Yeah. I'm curious. I had this feeling. I remember feeling this way about Horizon Forbidden West where like every conversation, even with the smallest NPCs seem performance captured. I feel like like animation has just come a long way. And they're, um, they've just got, it's gotten maybe a little more possible to do it on this scope that or yeah, they spent a million years doing it.

It's funny, you know, I feel like, Every great voice actor in England is just having a great time reading ridiculous fantasy, like endless ridiculous fantasy lines for this. And then there's one celebrity voice actor who I guess I won't call out my name because it feels like a spoiler or something. I mean, they made a whole thing of it before. Oh, okay. J.K. Simmons is not very good in this game. And I just want to throw that up. Wow.

It's like a P. Diggledch situation. It is exactly that. It is a hundred percent. I have the, Maddie, that's exactly what I thought. and I was listening to him because it sounds like Peter Dinklidge just reciting dialogue that sounds like gobbledygook, which is kind of J.K.C. Simmons's role is to read all this dialogue that like really, really is kind of high fantasy like proper nouns and stuff. He was so good in

Portal too. Like he's done video game voice acting before and he's been great. But that wasn't, this is like high fantasy gobbledy geck. Right. It was more on brand for his kind of thing. It's the wrong actor for this character. It makes no sense that they put J.K. Simmons in this character's voice. Like, yeah, maybe he should have been the newspaper editor that he should have. He should have. That would have been perfect. That would have been funny.

He does serve to kind of really illustrate how strong every other voice actor is. I mean, whenever Asterian just has a monologue, I am just so blown away by how much fun that actor is having. He's so incredible. We're really, yeah, everybody is so good with that one notable exception. And I, I will say that there are three celebrities that play the three voices. the three, sorry, three celebrities that voice the three major villains. The other two are actually really good.

Like, it's only different. Who are the other two? So Gortash, who's one of the other two, three main villains, is voiced by Jason Isaacs, who is, what's his face, Malfoy's dad in Harry Potter. Oh, sure. Okay, I can see that. And he's great. And then Oren, who's the third main villain, is played by Maggie Robertson, who also plays

the big hulking lady and Resident Evil that everyone was obsessed with. Oh, the Van Hireer. Oh, she is killing it. She's having a great time. So those two characters, voice acting for them is this superb. And especially, like, she is more of a voice actor,

which makes sense. She's a pro. But Jason Isaac is great as Gortosh. Yeah, he's doing a great voice. So, yeah, credit is, it's really only J.K. Yeah, poor J. He had something else to do that week. He did.

Yeah, he was. busy. Well, there's a lot more to say about this game, I'm sure, in the future. I don't know, maybe we'll do a beans cast down the road. If you hate Baldur's Gate 3, sorry for the last few episodes, but if you love it as much as we do... I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry at all. Deal with it. No apologies. Never mind. No, we'll be talking about StarCraft next week, but it's been a really good time talking about this game, and I have really just loved playing it. And I'm sure I'll be in our Discord more chatting with people about it as I make my way to the end of Act 3. But yeah, why don't we take a break? And then we'll be back for one more thing.

I'm Yucky Jessica. I'm Chuck Crudsworth. And this is terrible. A podcast where we talk about things we hate that are awful. Today we're discussing wonderful. A podcast on the Maximum Fun Network? Hosts Rachel and Griffin McElroy, a real-life married couple. Yuck! Discuss a wide range of topics. Music, video games, poetry, snacks. But I hate all that stuff. I know you do, Yucky Jessica. It comes out every Wednesday, the worst day of the week, wherever you download your podcasts. For our next topic, we're talking Fiona, the baby hippo from the Cincinnati Zoo. I hate this little hippo. Hey, when you listen to podcasts, it really just comes down to whether or not you like the sound of

everyone's voices. My voice is one of the sounds you'll hear on the podcast, Dr. Game Show, and this is the voice of co-host and fearless leader Joe Firestone. This is a podcast where we play games submitted by listeners, and we play them with callers over Zoom. We've never spoken to in our lives. So that is basically the concept of the show. Pretty chill. So take it or leave it, Bucco.

And here's what some of the listeners have to say. It's funny, wholesome, and it never fails to make me smile. I just started listening, and I'm already binging it. I haven't laughed this hard in ages. I wish I discovered it sooner. You can find Dr. Gameshow on MaximumFun.org. And we're back for One More Thing. Maddie, what is your One More Thing?

My One More Thing is a television show called Angel. Heard of it? Oh, man. So this is a rewatch for me and a first time watch for Dina. I started watching it by myself. And then I was like, you know, I think she'd really like this. She kind of fell off the wagon with Buffy after starting it. Buffy's kind of a rough hang in the beginning, too.

A lot of Monster of the Week. a really long time to get going. Lots of filler. Angel is like a procedural detective mystery show, which is both of our favorite category of television show. And I was like, she's going to love this. And predictably, she does. The show is amazing.

It holds up perfectly. I have no complaints. Cordelia Chase is the greatest character of all time. I'm dreading her getting written off the show, which happened because charisma Carpenter got pregnant and wrote a very scatatheaval post of Joss Whedon about that many years later. it's very tragic that that all happened because I love her so much on the show. She's so, so funny and wonderful. And also the show holds up pretty well even if you don't know Buffy.

Dina's having a great time. I've periodically explained some things to her, but hasn't really been necessary. Just a really cool 90s television show. And also it has that classic biting dialogue with tons of references, but all the references are like up to the minute 1999 and 2000s references. So it'll be like, Dionne Warwick or like reservoir dogs, but like characters are saying them as though it's all just the hottest refs.

And just that is really, really delightful. Also the best, possibly the best theme music. Yes, I sing along with it every time. Pretty good theme music. Pretty good font. Like the typeface. The best maybe puppet themed episode of any show. That's probably safe to say.

Maybe there's a puppet theme episode. Yeah. A lot of good practical effects, too. Like, they clearly couldn't afford CGI. So they just kind of put people in demon suits and stilts and other various practical effects at get-ups. Every demon starts looking the same by season two. It's fine. There's only so many scary faces you can make into a mask and put on a guy.

But yeah, highly recommended if you, especially if you're a Buffy fan who never got around to watching Angel, what's your excuse? I kind of think it's the better of the two shows in some ways. very, very, very fun television show. Wesley's transformation from his first Buffy appearance to the end of angel is pretty wild. It's great. Yeah, that's true. It is fun to see some of those characters come into their own. Maddie, have you ever watched Lucifer with that show?

Yes, of course. That's another Maddie and Dina standby, one of our early shows that we watched together. I love that show. You're mentioning, like, supernatural, you know, Monster of the Week, sort of procedural detective. It is very much that kind of show. We loved it. Another great show. Nice.

Okay. I had a feeling. Jason, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is another book that I've been reading, and it is called Traffic by journalist Ben Smith. I caught the press tour for this book, but have not read the book, but I heard a lot of interviews with him. It's interesting.

It's kind of a weird read because I know a lot of the characters. The purpose of this book is that it's all about the rise of BuzzFeed and the rise of Gawker and their respective stories. So those two central characters of the book are Jonah Peretti and Nick Denton. And I know Nick Denton because I worked for him for several years. And there's this cast of characters. Well, Maddie didn't. Oh, that's true.

He was gone by the time I showed up. But you and I didn't. I have had several awkward conversations with Nick Denton in my time. He's a fascinating, fascinating figure. He is a fascinating guy. And it's also weird because Ben Smith, the author of the book who was close with Jonah and like worked for him for many years as his like news guy ran it running BuzzFeed News. Um, so there's kind of like an incestuous nature to the book and there's a weirdness to

it reading about like these like reading about descriptions of Nick's apartment and I'm like, oh yes, I've been to this apartment or like reading these characters in the book who are people who I've, uh, don't necessarily know super well or anything, but have worked with or passed in the hall or like stood next to you getting coffee or, or, uh, pancakes using the Gawker, Gawker Office pancake machine. And yeah, it's interesting. I don't really know if people would like it unless they're real media junkies and like really into like the reading about the New York like media scene in the early 2000s or whatever.

But it's interesting to read as someone who was, it was briefly changed it like somewhat part of it. Like yeah. In a kind of peripheral way. Right. And we were the video game nerds. But we were in the building. We were there. You don't have to sell yourself on the outside.

You guys were part of it. No, well, Maddie. No, no, no, no. I'm not saying this to sell myself short. I'm saying this because, like, oftentimes when I read about Gawker, there are things that I learned that I had no idea what happened. Right. You guys weren't invited to those parties. Right.

Or those meetings. We were very much on the edge of the Gawker scene because we were, like, a little bit, like, those nerds with their own little world and they're doing their own thing. But I was definitely, like, everyone was friendly and I was friends with some, some of the folks. Yeah, it's an interesting read. I don't really know what to make of it. I'm not super far into the book, but have been both like simultaneously gripped and also like a little bit weirded out at some of the way that the book approaches some of the storytelling. But I will say that it's fascinating to learn bits and pieces of the history that I didn't know like all these weird crossovers between the Huffington Post, which is Jonah Pruddy's first kind of invention before before you went off to do. do BuzzFeed and how like Andrew Breitbart was a key figure and the founding of the Huffington Post and then Steve Bannon comes along and there's all these that kind of weirdness to it and I'm looking forward to reading a little bit further when it gets into more of like that that kind of creation and like the BuzzFeed deciding to publish the Trump dossier and stuff like that but I will say one thing

that's weird to to about at least about the early portions is that Ben Smith the author writes about Jonah Peretti in this super detached way, despite the fact that they are like close friends, which I'm just like is in the back of my head. And as I'm reading this, and I'm kind of like, this is kind of a weird experience. And their Jonah and Nick are like written about using their first names, which also adds a weird, like sort of personal element to the whole thing. But there's no first person, at least not yet. So it's not like a memoir.

Like writing about this is kind of like a, this is my connection to them. It's just a weird approach that I'm not sure how I feel about. it yet. But anyway, I'm going to keep reading it and I'll see if I wind up finishing it and what my take is on the whole thing there. But for now, I guess I'm just kind of like, I don't know, have a lot of mixed feelings about this particular story and this particular book in the way it was approached. But yeah, curious to read more. That's for sure. I want to know what you think when you finish it because I've been considering reading it, but now I'm not sure if I will.

Well, I got it from the library. at the library. If you're not sure about a book, that's the place to go. That's perfect. All right, well, my one more thing is a game that I mentioned earlier that I've been playing with my tabletop group called Frost Haven. We've been playing for a little while, and I've been sort of holding off mentioning

just because we're just getting into it, and we only meet once a week, and it's a very involved game that takes a lot of time, so I wanted to play for at least a few weeks before I talked about it. But yeah, so we have been playing it. It is the sequel to Gloomhaven, a game designed by Isaac Chilchel. Wildress, who is the now sort of famous game designer who made Gloomhaven probably the most

successful tabletop game of all time. I don't know, maybe Monopoly beats it. But it's up there. It was number one on board game geek for 700 years or something. And a very, very popular game, which I've talked about on the show in the past. And I'm very fond of, I think is really interesting. Like Gloomhaven, Frost Haven, comes in a huge box full of stuff. You get so much stuff.

It's the hugest box in the whole world. My friend Sean, who's the guy who owned Gloomhaven and now owns Frosthaven. He's kind of our friend who runs the game. There's not really a DM in this game, but if there were to be a DM, he's the one running the game. And we've actually been playing in tabletop simulator because there is a mod for tabletop simulator that uses the game. We say, for us, that's fine because we own the game.

We would be playing it physically, but it's just much, much easier to set it up and play it in tabletop simulator. So that's how I've been playing it. And it's really cool. It's an even more crunchy and involved version of Gloomhaven. The big difference here is that there's now a town to manage in addition to dungeons to explore. So for anyone who hasn't heard me talk about it, it's basically a lot of turn-based tactical combat. It actually feels a lot like Baldur's Gate 3.

You have a party of four, different classes, sort of grid-based combat, so it's not quite as open-ended as Baldur's Gate. But given how much time I've spent playing turn-based combat in a fantasy setting, like all the time. playing Baldersgate 3. Then on Monday night, I meet up with my friends. And I'm like, all right, guys, time for some fantasy turn-based combat. Let's do this. Fun. But we're playing, you know, we're each controlling a different character. And the game is designed pretty differently. And actually, it's made me think some about the multiplayer design of Balders Gate 3 and the combat. So that was the thing I wanted to mention. What's really cool about Gloomhaven combat is that you pick two cards and you have a top action and a bottom action on each card. And then your

initiative is decided by the cards that you've picked. And then once you've played them, you can actually change your mind and play the bottom action from one card and the top from the other, but you can only do one top or bottom from each card. So what you're doing is you're essentially picking four actions, two of which are mutually exclusive. And then you think you know what you want to do. But once you've played your cards, those are the only actions you can choose from everything, all the cards in your hand. You have to wait until next round. So everyone plays their cards face down at the same time. And then boom, everything flips and the initiative gets played for that round. So maybe the monsters are going really fast this round and they're shielding up so you don't

want to attack them. But your whole plan was that you were going to run up and attack them. So then suddenly you're like, ah, crap, you have to look at your cards and kind of improvise based on what your cards say and then make a decision from there. And then everyone in your party has to do that too. You're not supposed to plan out your moves before the initiative gets decided. So basically, you wind up with this sort of collection of possible moves for your whole party, and then everyone starts trying to figure out how to make the best of the moves that you picked, which is actually a really good way of doing four-player co-op turn-based strategy fight. It's a super brilliant system, and anyone who's played the game, I think will understand what I just described. Hopefully that was clear enough

for people who haven't. But I really like it. I think it's very clever, and am impressed by all of the sort of new abilities, the new classes. I'm playing a class called the Blinkblade that's the most complicated friggin class I've ever seen in gloomhaven or frost haven and just the general like all of the ways that he's refined and sort of built new ideas into the game he's made their little side quests that you do that are way better now like road events we had to solve a riddle it was like i am found in the water and also in the land i am not this but i am that say the word out loud and then flip the card and see if you got it right and we're like oh we have to solve a riddle so there's like a lot cool kind of role-playing-y stuff like that that you can do as well. So I'm really digging it.

I'll have a lot more thoughts on it, I'm sure, once we've played more, so I'll probably check back in in like a year because this game takes us forever, or these games take us forever to play. But that's, it's called Frost Haven. It's very famous. I'm sure everyone's heard of it, and I'm really enjoying it. So, yeah, I'm really digging it, and I'm very impressed by Isaac Childress in general. Kirk and Casey are curious. There are a lot of board games that have sold more than including Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Battleship, Trivial Pursuit. I've never heard of any of those. Don't know what those are.

Monopoly, get this, Monopoly has the Guinness World Record for being played by the most people. 500 million people worldwide. I don't know about sales, but it was the number one game on board game geek for some incredibly extended period of time. It is like among sort of modern tabletop game players one of the most successful ever. But yes, you can't compete with Scrabble. Yeah. Ganyan is more like, yes, like in terms of modern, like, crunchy board games, it's like tremendously successful. Yeah, if you leave out like family all ages style classic. Yeah, yeah, it's different. We're talking about, yeah, apples and oranges. Yeah. We're talking about monopolies and gloom havens.

Yes, like Baldersgate 3 sold well, but it did not sell better than Solitaire for Microsoft. Well, Solitaire is free. Well, yeah, that's free. That's like mindset. That comes to that break up. All right. Well, we did it. We recorded another episode. We made an episode of triple. Triple Click. Yes. We did. We did it again. So yeah, I'll see the two of you next week.

See you 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. 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 support. supporting us by becoming a member at maximum fun.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod, send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.