Triple Click - Esoteric Ebb Is D&D Meets Disco Elysium

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Esoteric Ebb: bad name, great game. Jason, Kirk, and Maddy dive into this new Disco-like where you play as a cleric tasked with investigating the explosion of a tea shop in a fantasy world where the voices in your head are D&D attributes. It's a lot of fun. One More Thing: Kirk: Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir) (Ray Porter Audiobook) Maddy: 30 Rock Jason: Void Stranger LINKS: “Norvik” from Esoteric Ebb composed by Anders Bach, Brian Batz, and Kristian Paulsen 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

I love a role-playing game with meaningful choices or memorable characters, but what I really love is a protagonist who can get so embarrassed it literally kills him. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we're talking about the delightful new role-playing game, Esoteric Ebb, a political parable that, for all its clear echoes of Disco Elysium, is very much its own thing. Let's get into it. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Trier. Hello.

Hello, my friends. It's good to see. you both. As always. It's true. It is. It's lovely. It is lovely. I'm so glad that I get to see my two gamer friends, my two lowercase G gamer friends each week. And a big reason for that is thanks to all of you out there who support Triple Click by being members of Maximum Fun. Maximum Fun, of course, our wonderful network, a worker-owned network that supports many great podcasts, including Triple Click. And you can become a member by going to Maximum Fun.

dot org slash join. That is where you can join the network, become a member, and if you become a member, you get access to all kinds of bonus episodes from every maximum fun show, including triple click. We have recorded 60-some bonus episodes, most recently talking about the King of Kong, a fistful of quarters, a really fun 2007 documentary that we watched, that kind of dovetailed with our episode on indie game, the movie, another bonus episodes. So we're forming a little bit of a narrative here with some of the documentaries that we watch. And this month we'll be talking about Resident Evil Requiem with full spoilers.

That'll be coming out pretty soon in the bonus feed. So yeah, become a member, maximumfund.org slash join, support triple click. And thank you to everyone who is already a member and supports our show. All right. Jason, what are we talking about today? Today we're talking about a super cool video game.

That's right. It is a triple play. for the video game. Esoteric E. Yes. Should I spell that? It's E-S-O-T-E-R, I-C-E, space, E-B-B, a good video game despite its title. Let me tell you about esoteric ab in case you are not familiar out there.

This was my one more thing a few weeks ago, but I will repeat the same pithy description I use then. This game is Disco Elysium meets Dungeons and Dragons by way of. of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams, the healthy dose of comedy. It is directed by Christopher Bodegard, and it was released on March 3rd. We've all been playing it. I actually finished it.

It's a really cool game that I'm excited to talk about with both of you. But first, let's hear some initial impressions, where you both are, et cetera. Kirk, why don't you go first? How far are you into the game? And what are your thoughts? I am loving this game. I'm so glad that you brought it into the show. I'm glad we decided to play it. I'm about 12 or 13 hours in, so it is very late in day three for me. And I guess that can be different. That can mean different people have made a different amount of progress in the story. I'm pretty far. I'm deep underground, the city, deep in the underground, I suppose, beneath the city. I've solved quite a bit and worked out a lot of what is going on in this town. What is it, the town of Tolstead?

Is that the name of the town? I've been pronouncing it Tolstad, but who knows? Sure, the city where you live. Bing. Kirk here editing the episode. And just for total accuracy's sake, you actually live in a city called Norvik, and Tolstad is the region in which you spend most of the game. So we talk about Tolstad in this episode.

We're talking about the part of the city in which you play the game. So Tolstad is kind of like Manhattan. Norvik is like New York City. That's the way to think of it. Okay, back to the episode. Bing! And yeah, I love this game. Another comparison point I would make is actually the Monkey Island games,

because while it isn't as rambunctiously comedic as those games, it's a drier humor, your protagonist, the cleric, Rogan, if you choose to embrace his name, or just the cleric, if that's what you want him to be known as, is a kind of a bumbling fool, a real guy brush threep would, and a really great protagonist for this kind of story

because he's somewhat of a blank slate and you can decide his politics and his sort of personal philosophies. But at the same time, he is just kind of a dunderhead and that makes him very fun to play as because it makes failure and failing the dice rolls in this game a lot of fun. And I fail as many dice rolls as I make

and it's something that I really enjoy. So I guess one thing we can talk about is that I've been struck by how I am role-playing this game very differently from other similar games we might compare it to, notably Baldur's Gate 3, but some others as well. I am loving it, though. I think this game is really something special. We'll get into the D&D and the role-playing of it all. Of course. Maddie, you want to give some broad impressions and tell us how far you've gone?

Sure. I'm at a similar place to Kirk. I'm also on day three, maybe a couple hours shy of where Kirk is, but I have also explored the city below extensively and learned a lot about the central mystery of this game, which is who blew up the tea shop sounds low stakes, but it's kind of not, except given the comedy of this game, many low stakes foibles seem very high stakes to our bumbling protagonist. I think this game lives or dies on its comedy, which happens to really work for me, and also for the two of you, I could picture somebody not finding this funny. But I think Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams

are really good kind of North Stars for the listener who's imagining whether or not they'll like this kind of humor. It's so funny to me. I regularly am laughing at this game. And like Kirk, I am also enjoying putting myself into the shoes of this particular kind of bumbling protagonist,

who I would argue is bumbling, no matter which skill you max out, which is an interesting balance to strike. You can never quite, at least I don't know that you can ever quite be like a power fantasy superhero guy in this game who's doing everything right. Or if you can, I sure haven't managed that. And that is really fun to fail roles and see how I can progress anyway. Some of it is something that this game shares with Disco Elysium is that the cleric has this defined backstory that you gradually learn. And he's kind of a fuck up. He's, you know, and he was, he has been for a long time. And there are these tragic events in his past that you learn about, events at school, mistakes at job,

at his job, you know, like things that have led him to be a kind of, to feel like a failure. He lives with his mom. He thinks of everything in terms of rent, because I think he is constantly obsessed with rent. One running joke is that any time he hears an amount of money, he'll say, that's like three months rent, which just shows his mindset, is that he's always thinking, man, if I could just afford rent, I could not live with my mom and not feel like such a failure. So he has this backstory that puts him in a kind of downtrodden position, and then he's always kind of trying to prove himself. And then just what proving himself looks like depends on which of your attributes you value

and what kind of a person you think that he is. So let me zoom out for a second. So this is a game that is not an officially licensed D&D game, but does use a lot of D&D mechanics. I was wondering about that. There are voices inside of your head that are your attributes, charisma, strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, and constitution. At the start of the game, you can choose whether you can put it points in each of those attributes,

choose which ones to make good and which ones to make not so good. There are also spells in this game that you can use at various points that are all based on D&D spells. It's based on the D&D spell tier system. So I was curious about this because, again, it's not an officially licensed game. So I looked it up, and it turns out then Dungeons and Dragons actually allows people to

use certain aspects of its mechanics under a Creative Commons license, so anyone can just use it for any purpose they want. So like basic stats and some spells and just kind of like regular fantasy tropes, like elves and goblins and stuff like that. There's a lot of stuff you can use

in any purpose you want. which I think is pretty cool that Wizards of the Coast allows that. You can't use some specific things like beholders and other kind of like very specific D&T. I guess not tropes, but characters or monsters. Which is funny because when you make a perception check while looking at a character, it is called beholding. So there are these little echoes even without using some of those terms. Well, but I mean, Beholder the monster.

I know, I know. I'm just saying it's a fun little echo. Sure. Yeah, yeah. And so that's what this game does. And so like I mentioned before, the attributes are all voices in your head. They're talking to you constantly. They have different dialogue options based on whether you pass or fail a skill check.

And the skill checks are all done based on 20-sided die, just like D&D. And the game will tell you like what level check you have to hit, whether it's like a DC20, which is really tough or a DC30, which is impossible unless you get an at 20. etc, et cetera, et cetera. So it's got a lot of that kind of just D&D core to it. And yeah, I mean, the cleric is definitely a hilarious bumbling fool, sort of in the way that Harry is in disco Elysium, and that they both are just kind of messes. They are waking up in a situation in which they have no idea how they got in this place and have to figure out how to solve a mystery by bumbling through one step at a time. And yes, in this game, failure is often very funny. What I appreciate the most about this game is that when you fail a check, kind of a passive check.

So there are dice rolls that you can actively choose based on dialogue options where it'll be like roll a G20 and try to hit this. And then there are passive checks where as you're just talking to people naturally, your skills will chime in and have to pass certain checks. to give you sage advice or else give you really bad advice. And one of the skills, like, for example, charisma, if it passes one of those passive texts, it'll be like, just be straightforward with this guy. You can tell that this guy will appreciate you being straightforward to it.

And then if you fail it, it might be like, try your hardest to, like, jump up on the table and the scream at the top of your lungs, and that'll really convince this guy to do what you want. And that is just the funniest thing. And then you can take their bad advice. which is always very entertaining. At certain points, it'll be like, no matter what you do, do not shake this person's hand.

Or like, do not, do not, like, make a comment about the way this guy looks. And you could just do it, which is always extremely entertaining. And yeah, it's a very funny game. I think that's really its charm. If you take one thing away from this whole conversation, be it that this game is funny as shit. And you should play for that reason alone. Yeah, I think the stats play a really cool and disqual. distinct role in the sort of narrative structure of this game. So this isn't just a funny adventure.

It's a political parable. This is a game that is very interested in local and regional politics, and it explores a variety of political perspectives. And it does that through the stats, which is a really cool and I think smart approach. So let me try to explain what each stat is and what it kind of represents. I'm curious how you're going to do this. Yeah, yeah, I'll be looking for feedback. So your dexterity is a yellow hand. And it speaks to you in the voice of what I would describe as a sort of someone who believes in the free market, you know? Libertarian. Yeah, a capitalist. Yes, I am a libertarian. So they're really excited about freedom. They're literally the invisible hand of the free market. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's what the yellow hand symbolizes, right, is the invisible hand of the market.

Not so invisible. Well, also the hand that pickpockets. Sure. To be fair. Yes. And they represent a political party, the free striders. So as you're in this city of Tolstad, you're there, I think, four days before the first ever election. And that's the backdrop of this violent event that has happened, this sort of mysterious explosion that has blown up, a tea shop that is frequented by the Azgolists, which are kind of the Workers Party, the Dorvan Workers Party. And they're a much more collectivist sort of political philosophy. And they're represented actually by your wisdom. So your wisdom is a heart. And whenever it speaks, the wisdom is actually pretty right on. It's kind of an interesting thing that I agree with the wisdom most of the time because the wisdom is very thoughtful and empathetic and not, it doesn't

really have any major blind spots to me anyways. Like, and maybe it's just because it lines up with my way of thinking. I don't know. I'm going to push back on that a little bit because I don't know if, I mean, this is like where we see the dialogue versus not. I feel like wisdom's flaw is that it also has like a kind of older school definition of feminism that it really leans into whereby occasionally wisdom will fall into the trap of being like women are actually better than men. They're inherently peaceful and like sort of puts them on this pedestal occasionally from time to time. And I think that also that is like considered a commentary on how even that, I think every ideology in the game is presented as having its flaws. And wisdom is absolutely the one to

which I too fall prey in my real life as well, I'll admit. But like the flaw that they've given wisdom is that it sort of prizes feminine characteristics above all else, which sounds good in theory, but can also be at times reductive because women can be bad to, guys. Women can also be terrible. And maybe we shouldn't just put women in charge of everything in the world and assume things would go well. It doesn't always work out that way. Wisdom is the guy on Twitter with hashtag, listen, clap to clap women. You know, I see what you're both saying, but I find that generally wisdom does not have that

insufferable quality to it, which is, I think, an interesting thing about the trait. I think that it is actually a fairly reasonable argument or arguer. Yeah. And I should say that a lot of times, so when you complete a major quest, your attributes then have a debate within your mind. And you get to hear both sides of this. idea and then choose a trait to take. So it's really fun. You get to watch them kind of argue with one another. For example, wisdom will debate strength. So that's the next one. Let's talk about.

Strength is represented as a muscular body with a sword impaling it, which is a pretty great visual. And whenever it speaks, it speaks in the voice of nationalism and patriarchy. It is very much you are a man and you should establish your strength. We should be a nationalist movement that is strong and reestablishes our strength in this like feminized world. And it also was represented by a political party, this sort of, I don't remember what their call, but they're like the nationalist coalition. Nationalists. I think they're literally called on the nationalists. Okay, the nationalists. So that's strength and sometimes strength and wisdom will engage in a debate. There is actually a very interesting debate about the role of gender in understanding people that

winds up having this like very fascinating breakdown that I believe it was wisdom articulating. it that did not go in the direction exactly that you're describing, Maddie, where it says, oh, women should be in charge of everything. Instead, it gets into this whole idea of statistical averages and how to understand gender. I was like, man, this game has a lot of really big ideas that it wants to explore. And the fact that it gives you this Greek chorus in your head that can explore them and poke at them from all these different directions is so cool. Let me really quickly just explain the other ones so we can move on. I guess each one is so interesting. We could talk about them forever. But I'll go really quickly through the last few. And they are characters. Yes.

Intelligence is an egomaniacal skull with a brain. And it is clearly just, it's like you're smarter than everyone else. You're so smart. Oh my God, everyone is so stupid. It's very much like the ego and the intellect. Charisma is very cynical. It's a face on a hand. And it's very much the like, just convince them to like you. Tell them whenever they need to hear. It's fine. You know, you just you want everyone to like you so that you can advance because that's what matters. And then Constitution, maybe my favorite, actually, is a stomach, a speaking stomach, and because of the way it speaks, it always looks like it's kind of vomiting. And it reacts in pure gut instinct.

It is like the voice of gut reaction. In all capital letters. It'll just say, no. Like a very funny running side quest is that you are trying to talk to more women so that you can get better at it. And when you begin to talk to a woman and try to flirt with her, your stomach will be like, I don't like this. And the text will be shaking.

You'll have to pass a constitution check, you know, to not, like, throw up all over this woman's shoes. And it's very, very funny. The text shaking mechanic is such a good comedy conceit that the game uses over and over when your character's embarrassed. Like, the first time you admit to Snell, who's like, becomes your companion character, the Kim Kitsuragi, if you will, that you have to admit to him that you live with your mom. Like, the text sort of unfolds really slowly as opposed to quickly and like starts shaking really bad when it says. that and like if you kind of hover over it like you might dame to choose to admit that i think it shakes even more i did admit to to snell that i lived with my mom and he's he's like surprisingly compassionate towards you most of the time when you're vulnerable with him maybe more than he should

because you're utterly ridiculous so yeah i mean and you can kind of you can play you can lean into any or all of these different um parties as you go um you at a at a certain point you get a quest that's just like, go around asking people how they're going to vote in the election. And that leads to some incredible, incredible dialogues with all sorts of different people where they talk about their own political parties. You're like talking to a demigod or something. How are you going to vote in the election? Well, not just that.

You could ask like a big spider thing or like a big, like there are all sorts of creatures. You can ask that, which is amazing. There's a great, or you cast Speak with Dead and you have five questions and one of the questions can be, how are you going to vote in the election? So good. But that also allows you to explore how you're going to vote in the election, which is something that a lot of people wind up just kind of countering at you and being like, so what are you going to vote? And the options are all kind of like tied to each of those attributes.

My personal favorite and the one that I wound up choosing the most is I'm going to vote for myself as God's supreme wizard of this city because I'm the only person who can truly run things here, which intelligence appreciates quite a bit. That's hilarious that that's intelligence's choice. I have been just admittedly choosing the thing I would actually choose, which is Asgolus, which is what wisdom would like the most. But I imagine a role played version where I pick the apolitical choice every time because those dialogue choices are so funny that you can just brag about how you're like, I don't have any opinions at all, actually. And I don't know anything.

Like that is always an option and it's always written in a different comedic way. And I presume you can stay apolitical all the way to the end. Yeah. I mean, I believe, well, I don't want to spoil all the end. Yeah. Don't tell me. I think you can play out anything you want. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of this stuff, I mean, maybe one flaw of the game that I think this leads to, Maddie, is that a lot of the times you're making decisions that will have impacts within these kind of individual conversations. But there aren't a ton of long-term ramifications. There aren't a lot of decisions that, like, will come back to haunt you in some way in a way that maybe they could if you were playing an actual D&D campaign with a human who could interact and react to what you're doing. That said, I mean, the number of choices in this game are pretty significant and there's a lot of text in this game and there are a lot of options. And I imagine if you play through it twice, you can have very different experiences each time in part because just like Disco Elysium, you are on a finite amount of time and a schedule, in this case, five days till the election.

And time passes every time you do anything. you talk to people or like interact with people and interact with the world in some way. And so therefore you could go the game without doing a bunch of stuff. Like you could not have enough time to do every single thing in the game. So there are, there is room for a lot of different replays. But that said, I mean, it doesn't really seem to matter what you wind up saying to a lot of different people. You can just say asinine things to people and it doesn't actually make a difference. But I want to follow back up on what you were saying earlier about role playing, Kirk.

Something that I appreciate about this game, I don't know, but if you two noticed it, is that the game is kind of, it's like written in a way or it's presented in a way where Christopher, the designer and director of the game is actually kind of presenting himself as a dungeon master of your campaign, which I think is really interesting. And every time you quit the game and then come back in, you will see, I don't know if you guys actually saw this on Steam deck Maddie you did um but like because on steam deck you don't have to quit at all you just like leave it in sleep mode but if you do quit i'm playing this on pc actually i'm not playing on steamp okay you are okay good so every time you quit the game and then come back in you'll see like a summary

and it'll be like from chris like here's what you've been up to and here's what's been up to you've been up to you and here's what's been going on when you go to bed when you do at long rest also he weighs in when you go to bed yeah you'll see interlose or he'll talk to you and sum up what's been going on and give you hints about what you should do next he apologized for letting me go into the dungeon on the first day. Sorry for letting you do that. That was probably, you probably shouldn't have done that. Yeah, he made fun of me for taking a really long time to investigate the tea shop,

which was comical to me that he was like, you're really taking your time to get around to actually going in there. Maybe you should go in and I was like, all right, DM. That's a fair point. Yeah. It's good. And yeah, it's really interesting to see the Dungeons and Dragons and the roleplaying aspect of it all, which I think is one of the things that makes the stand out from Disco

Elysium and other. go likes that I've seen. Kirk, you wanted to talk a little bit about your kind of role-playing experience, right? The thing that has struck me about this game is the fact that I don't care about failing roles and I'm not invested in any one outcome of really anything. I just, it is interesting because in Ballersgate 3, I was happy to reload a save if something went badly. It just felt like there was more weight on any given engagement or like any given encounter.

Like, I needed to, I can't let this talk, like, go bad and then I went up in a fight with this guy. Like, he's supposed to be a party member. I'm supposed to have him in my group for the next 30 or 50 hours. Like, that kind of thing just doesn't really happen in this game because it's a little more authored. It's not quite Ballard's Gate 3 in terms of you can kill anyone and go full evil and have this completely different branching story where you're, you become the great villain and, like, have this dramatically different storyline. It's not trying to do that. It's just giving you a lot of different ways through the world. And then your reward for taking those paths through the world is just different information or more kind of a fleshed out backstory or just more character information.

Or really just a funny pratfall that happens to your character, like a joke. And I find... It's usually what it is. I find I'm totally fine with that. And just another interesting little comparison that I'll mention is that I also don't mind the time mechanic at all in this game. even though we talked about the seance at Blake Manor, and that was this game where I kind of got fixated on the idea of time passing every time I did something, and I didn't want to run out of time,

and then, of course, had so much time left at the end because it was way, way too parsimonious with my time expenditures. In this game, I totally don't even think about it. I'm like, I'm sure it'll be fine, whatever. I'm going to talk to everybody, mostly because for me, the world and the story, the backstory, the history, especially over time as I've kind of gotten my head around it has become the reason to play the game.

I'm loving all of that stuff. And so, yeah, if someone's just going to tell me a big, long story about the sorcerer who put his soul on this book and what his philosophy was and why he did it, I'm just going to read all of that because it'll be cool. And I kind of trust the game, I guess, to carry me across the finish line, which ties in with what you were saying, Jason,

about the idea of this DM, who's there for you. He wants you to get through the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which, I mean, I think the downside of, that is what I was saying earlier where there isn't quite as much reactivity. Like you're not making choices that then come back to haunt you two days later as far as I could tell in my playthrough. That certainly didn't happen and it didn't really matter that much whether I failed,

whether I succeeded, what I wound up choosing. Do you see that as a downside, like as an actual notable flaw of the game? I'm not sure that I do. Well, I don't know. I mean, certainly when I'm making choices, I want them to feel like they have weight. That said, I don't know. that I necessarily need an RPG to be like, well, you made this call. So now you're fucked like three days later. Or like now you're, this is going to come back to hunt you in some way. It is nice to see, though. It's always nice when in like, I don't know, a Fallout New Vegas or something like that.

You make a decision early in the game and then you have to deal with the consequences of that much later. Or like the Outerscape 3 was actually really good at that. Which maybe is what made those choices feel like they had so much more weight. Kirk and made you feel like you had to had to, save scum out of them a little bit. Plus it's a longer game in a literal sense, Baldr's Gate 3, as that is, as compared to this game,

which I haven't completed it. But Jason, how long did it take you? 25 hours, something like that? I'll check. I'll try to look it up. Most of the steam reviews have had that as they're kind of 25, 27 hours. Right.

I read more quickly than most people, but I'll check my... Right, yeah. And so I'm sure it depends on how quickly you read, of course, but that's probably about right, given that Kirk and I are about halfway, through day three and we're both in the like 12 hour range. So that makes sense that, you know, multiply that by two. It's just math. But yeah, based on that, I feel like you, in my case, I'm like, well, there aren't that many days. So if I make a ridiculous decision,

I'll not have to wait that long to see how it plays out. And I mean that in a positive way. Whereas with Baldersgate three, I was like, I'm making a bad decision now, but I don't actually know how it's going to impact me. And I might have forgotten that I even did it until 20 hours from now. And then I'll see the consequences of it. And by that point, I'm never going to save scum back to that and redo it. That would be wild. I would just play it again. And that's part of the Balders Gate 3 journey. Whereas for this game, maybe I will play it again and make different decisions. But I don't know if it's, I don't know if that's the point. And if anything, I think the point of esoteric ebb is to make silly decisions because you are rewarded for them with silly outcomes.

and that's the tone of the game. I think that a big part of what we're talking about here is the difference between Baldur's Gate 3 specifically or a game like that and this one is partly about scope and about structure. And so it's about how the scope of the game is structured. And I think that's actually a really interesting comparison and something to think about with this game. And it is something that esoteric ebb has in common with Disco Elysium. So Esoteric Ebb feels most overwhelming at the very beginning, I found. because you're getting so much backstory. It's actually very complicated.

The world, all the bands of existence, all these different peoples from all around. I mean, you're really learning a lot of very complicated history, political history. There have been many wars, gods that walked the earth, different ages. There's like a glossary in the dialogue, so you can click on certain words

and get a definition, assuming your intelligence is up to it. And you get all of this information, and it's really overwhelming at first. And I really, my eyes were kind of glazing over at the beginning of the game for maybe the first 45 minutes. There's an amazing joke. I don't know if you guys saw this. Did you guys find the calendar? Which one? Okay. So you start off the game and it's like, it is March 21 or whatever. You have until March 26 and you're like, oh, okay.

Like this is a world where they have normal months. And then you find a calendar and it lists all the buds. And it turns out they're all fantasy bullshit, except March. It doesn't even include all of the months. It's like there are some other ones that we're not even. Yeah, would I get into this. In the sense that I was like, wait, March, nothing else about this world has been like our world. It's so weird that he kept the months. And then I felt so smart, much like my intelligence check

when I later heard about the calendar and I was like, cool, yeah. All of the months have fantasy names. That's as it should be. Also, have I mentioned I'm playing with a very high intelligence score. My character's deeply irritating. Yeah. So anyways, back to this idea, right, of scope and structure. So it drops you into this very deep end.

And then over time, you become familiar with that stuff. You sort of realize what you need to pay attention to. And the actual scope of the game doesn't really expand. It does somewhat as you go deeper underneath the city. But you're basically in this one city with this one election looming and this one set of political parties, this one group of different sort of factions that are pushing and pulling and trying to control the future of Tolstad. But that's all. And so the game actually becomes simpler the more you play, or at least the more I've played,

because I've come to realize, oh, okay, I now understand what's going on. I have a really solid frame of reference. And now when someone starts telling me some historical event or talking about the Golden Horde, for example, something like that, I know what it is and I know how it fits into everything, so it all actually feels much simpler. A game like Baldur's Gate 3 does the opposite and is a kind of more traditional game design approach where they drop you into a small microcosm where there's just a little bit, and they don't overwhelm you with too much, they just show you kind of one conflict that's the major

conflict and there's a couple of combat encounters and maybe a side quest or two. And then it kind of grows from there and grows and grows and grows. And if you imagine Baldur's Gate 3, by Act 3, you're seeing the downstream effects of decisions you made dozens of hours ago. You're running into characters who would have been dead if you'd made different choices. Also, you're in this huge new city. There's a ton going on. And it's become this incredibly elaborate involved thing. I just think it's interesting how the two games approach that idea of structural. the scope of the game very differently, and then they have a very different impact on the player as result. Yeah, I mean, the downside to this approach is that it can really turn people off if they get in and they're just like barraged by proper nouns.

If you're used to reading fantasy books, you might be okay with this, but I mean, for a lot of people, I imagine, you have to, you have to kind of listen to like people like us being like, hey, it's worth it. It's worth committing to this. Otherwise, it can be kind of impenetrable. Yeah, it's kind of true to the whole like usability. Everything must be maximally efficient. like, we're maximally frictionless and get people in, and we need to show them why they're having fun before we, you know, elaborate things. Like, it's a, that's a very traditional design approach. And I think very true to the dominant design aesthetic and even storytelling aesthetic everywhere, you know, in movies, in games, in everything. And certainly in technology and in application design. And then this approach is much more literary.

It's more just, you're reading this book, you can handle it. Like, we're going to kind of drop you into the deep end. And by the end of the first chapter, you're going to. figure out what's going on and being this kind of having this richer and kind of inverse experience where you become a master of the information toward the end of the story. And as a result, it's like a differently satisfying experience. If it was really literary, you wouldn't have the glossary info at all. It would just be like, hey, you better just learn this fucking shit. I can like hold down, you know, words on my Kindle and tell me what they mean.

It's like a fantasy novel that has a map at the beginning and like a series of terms of Yeah, and a fantasy tree. A glossary at the end. Passive characters. Yeah, like in Game of Thrones, and you have to skim to the back to be like, who's in house, Lannister again?

Yeah, Sanderson always does this. There's always a big explanation of all the arcana and the magic and stuff. So do you need a high intelligence score to understand it, though? That is also true when you're reading Sanderson book. Right. It's locked unless you can pass a little Rubik's Cube test. So the thing we haven't talked about is the combat in this game,

which is also really interesting. Yeah, I love it. the combat in this game is unlike combat in any other game. It is truly Dungeons and Dragons combat in that you are just, like the game just describes to you what is happening. You'll run in, you'll be fighting, one of the first encounters in the game is with an undead and you'll be fighting it and you'll roll initiative and you'll think like, oh, is this going to turn into like a Baldur's Gate 3 style, like turn-based combat or something like that, but no, it is still just dialogue options and you'll see the descriptions from the dungeon master of the undead creature

coming at you and fainting and thrusting and you'll have to respond using your dice roll checks. And in combat in this game, unlike in D&D, you can actually use all of your stats in different ways. And it'll give you different options of checks that you can use. Sometimes it'll be like talking someone into not fighting you. Sometimes it'll be just a straight up attack with your strength stat, et cetera, et cetera, dodging with dexterity. It's really cool and it's really well done. I wouldn't say there's much strategy involved. It's kind of just reading and picking dialogue options in the same way the rest of the game is. So don't think of this as like a strategy RPG or something like that.

But it is the closest I've seen a game to recreating the feel of tabletop combat system for better and for worse, I suppose. Yeah, it's also kind of fun to almost die. I don't know if that happened to YouTube, but I'm playing as such an extraordinarily squishy character. that I have had many, many close calls when I'm in combat, and I've been really impressed by how the game handles that. I've yet to truly die. There's often, like, there's the classic, like, saving throw mechanics and all of the other D&D aspects that really try to prevent you from dying. And I had some flashbacks to our Triple Quest campaign that we played together when I was doing some of these sections and thinking, like, okay, here's, here's all the protections D&D has

built into it to prevent you from dying. And also, in addition to that, Christopher Bodegarde has written in all of these things your character can say and things that in this case, Snell, was the character who's with me, can say to me as I'm almost dying and to like help me out of it. And I was like, there must be so many permutations of this. And I'm always like extra impressed by that when it's a development team that's smaller where I'm like, okay, they had to like really consider, okay, there might be a player who has stat checks that are going really well or middling, or in my case, they're terrible at everything other than like their high wisdom and intelligence scores. What is going to happen when they actually get hit? I'm going to need to write around

that and create all these circumstances that will allow them to potentially still survive and speak to the other characters in such a way that would indicate how poorly the battle went for them and have it be funny. Yeah, I love the combat and really love the encounters in general because they they're so malleable because it is really just being described to you in text, and they don't have to show that much. Occasionally, you'll trigger a trap and you'll see a, you know, graphic on screen to represent what's happening. But a lot of times, there's a labyrinth I went through where it was literally just text. I couldn't see anything. And, you know, the DM was just describing to me what was happening. And that's really fun. You know, you trigger a trap early on,

and suddenly you're in this kind of Indiana Jones trap, you know, can you pass this trial sequence? And it's really just you and Snell kind of yelling to each other, well, what does that say? And he's like, I don't know. I only kind of speak this language. And he's trying to translate it to you. The cat language. You're trying to make decisions.

I only kind of speak cat. It's funny too, because the cats kind of speak Spanish. I know. I know. I like, no one on Spanish. But I was like, is this just literally the cats speak Spanish? Are we, are we? I guess it's like Pussin' Boots style.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Antonio Vanderas is playing the ancient cats. Right. Well, there were ancient cats. And before the ancient cats, there were ancient snails. And so the kind of precursor races are cats and snails, which is very fun. The lore in this game is like so wild and hilarious.

Oh, it's fantastic. Even when there isn't some direct sort of political valence on our real world, which there are many of those too and are often very interesting, a lot of times it's also just really kind of just crackerjack funny stuff that is a little like D&D, but all kind of bent. Yeah, Kirk, to that point, just real quick, to that point, I think the game is that its weakest writing-wise when it's very clearly like this is about Trump just smashing you over the head.

There are a couple of moments that I experienced like that. They were just like, this is a little too much. I'm not sure I've felt that way. Though there are some, you know, there's, I don't know,

there's the story of Dorvan women sort of fighting for equality and then human women joining in and kind of, you know, taking their privilege and pushing them across the finish line, but then not really being there for the whole fight. There are things like that where I'm like, okay, I see what this is a parallel to.

And it feels maybe a little, I don't know. It's very clear what he's saying. That hasn't bothered me that much. I think it's like, can you tolerate that or not? I mean, it's clear that Christopher has something he wants to say at various points and it helps that I would say we politically tend to agree with him. Like, we've kind of emphasized that.

But I do feel like that would be another thing about the game that if you don't, then it could come across as preachy. It doesn't to me. Because I find it charming most of the time. and I don't mind the parallels. Like, yes, occasionally they can be somewhat heavy-handed. Like, there's a similar backstory with the goblins kind of representing like this indigenous group

that has been trodden on by all the other fantasy races. And I was like, okay, yeah, I understand, like, what this is symbolizing. But it didn't really bother me because I also feel like those other fantasy races and other fiction that adapts them tend to not be treated with any care at all. So I'd rather have somebody go into it being like, what would be a way that I could adapt this into modern political terms that wouldn't insult the races by claiming that some of them are like inherently inferior? What would that world

look like if people presumed that some of them were? But it turned out that they weren't. And what kind of world might that be? I would be interested in how the game comes off if you play as just a full-on, jackbooted, you know, a nationalist, full strength, low intelligence, low wisdom. Like, I think that would be a very different story in your character. Maybe would be depicted as being a buffoonish, you know, fascist. But I'm really not sure. Like I, because I'm not playing that way and I'm guessing that none of us did. But I'd be curious to see what that playthrough is like at least. Yeah. I've always wondered that about disco Elysium 2, which is a similar game that was like clearly written by people who have socialist leanings. And that's like evident in their voice

cast like they cast like podcasters from various leftist podcasts to play the voice actors in that game when they eventually added voice acting. It's like very. Very. clear what their leanings are. And I think that can sometimes be a flaw in a game where it can seem like it is preachy because the developer's political ideology is like all over the text as opposed to kind of leading you to something or just telling you a good story. But also I think Descoa Lysium has amazing characters. And I think this game does too. So I think those things allow it to rise above that sense of feeling like you're being talked at about various political problems in our real world. Yeah, and I'm never going to be too mad at a game that makes like patriarchal

nationalists look like assholes. It's not something I'm going to get mad about, just personally speaking. That's fine. Some of these things I'm like, that's just objectively true. Like, what are we going to do here? We're going to pretend they're not the foods? They are. It's fine. So anyways, yeah, I think that this writing approach allows for a very flexible approach to encounters and that makes the game much richer. Actually, after that trap that I was describing earlier, you take a short rest with Snell and it's a great scene. It winds up being a scene. And this is something that Baldersgate does well, you know, in those scenes when you go back to camp. But this is a much more organic kind of thing where the two of you sort of collapse and just need to rest for a minute. And then you wind up having

this really long conversation and getting to know Snell a little bit better. And it's the kind of thing that would happen just as naturally as anything in an actual D&D session with your friends. Like when I play D&D with my friends, that's 90% of what it is, is our characters just sitting around and talking about whatever and not having, you know, exciting fights and engaging in Daring-Due. And I think that this sort of text approach, it really allows for that kind of encounter design. And it's so cool to see it in another game like Disco Elysium, just because Disco Elysium felt one of a kind when it came out. It felt inimitable. And to see that it is in fact imitable, like that someone can do it and do it really well. I think is a very cool thing about this game.

It makes me hopeful about the upcoming, you know, future games that are also taking the same kind of some of these same design ideas, the inward looking role playing, the text base and counter design and kind of continuing to flesh them out and try new things. Because so much of this does feel fresh, even though this game, you know, is a clear echo of Disco Elysium and was that game was an influence on it. It also feels new because it's a new person writing it with new ideas. I want to see even more new ideas. It makes me very excited. Yeah. Yeah. I like this game more than Disco Elysium in some ways.

I like the art style more in general, although I think some of the kind of individual faces are a little amateur looking. But overall, I really like the art of this game and the way it looks. I prefer the tone and the comedy over Disco Elysium. Disco Oliasma was a great game. Don't get me wrong. But I like this. And then most importantly, I like the simplified inner voices of this game as opposed to the 40 or whatever. dozens of voices and skills in disco elysium that you have to keep track of. And also the D20

system, I think, is much stronger than the kind of two D6s that Disco Elysium used. I think this is a much better system. Yeah, I tend to agree that I have ended up preferring this game. And it's interesting because when I was starting off, I had sort of a similar experience to Kirk of feeling kind of like bombarded with all this information and then feeling like, okay, this is very similar to Disco Elysium. Is it kind of living in its shadow? But the more I've played, the more I've actually found that I prefer some aspects of it, in part because I think, I mean, it's not to say I don't love disco elysium, but it does have some flaws. Like, for example, I feel like Harry and Kim are extremely well-defined characters. They get a lot of time.

But a lot of the NPCs feel very flat. And the conclusion of discoletium is somewhat abrupt, in my opinion, I haven't gotten to the end of esoteric ep, so I can't speak to that. but there are just various pacing aspects to disco that are not as satisfying, whereas this game so far, I've really enjoyed how the pacing works, the fact that I can do things in any order, regardless of what the quote unquote DM has to say to me about it, and also how fleshed out many of the NPCs seem to be, how much personality each of them has, in addition to the different personalities that the voices in your head have. I think it's very winning and charming. And also the sense of humor is different. Disco is very bleak. And that's fine. That's like the intended

tone of that game. But this game, despite having something to say about some pretty bleak topics, manages to do so in that very Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams-esque way, where it's not making light of those topics, but it is kind of allowing you to feel the existential crisis you might feel about them and how the world is big. the problems are impossible or feel that way sometimes and you're just a guy and that sensation just works so much better in a game where your protagonist can be a little more likable at times than Harry can be in disco. This is a game made in Sweden versus Discolema, a game made in Estonia worth no. Right.

I wouldn't want to get over my skis, but a Scandinavian outlook versus a sort of former Soviet block outlook. That's an interesting point, actually. Yeah, yeah. Although, to be fair, in Scandinavia, they have light like four hours. a day during the winter. So maybe they have to tell jokes in the dark to get through all of that, though. Yeah, and before we wrap, I do want to shout out the music.

It was composed by three Danish musicians, Anders, Bach, Brian Botts, and Christian Paulson. And I think the music is really lovely. The main theme, if you really get stuck in my head, that little kind of droning, groovy little thing that plays when you're walking around the town. But there's just a lot of really lovely music, and it has a very personal. particular kind of ambient electronic vibe. I think it's super cool and really adds to the game. I agree.

I love it. Also worth noting that Christopher Bodegard was able to make this in part because of a startup program in Sweden called the Sweden game startup that helped support. So it turns out, you know, it's funny. I was talking to the people behind Crosscode and about their new game, Alabaster, Dawn that I believe the demos on Steam, and centering early access name. They made their game in part because of this huge grant they got from the German government. So it turns out that you can make cool art in countries that actually support art. Turns out that's a good.

Social services. I can't believe it. All right. Esoteric ab, super cool game despite its title, which, man, next time come to us, guys. Just come to triple play. I do now know what the title means. Yeah, it has a meaning. Lower it makes sense.

It does. Come on. But not the greatest word. I mean, it seems to be doing well regardless. So again, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe title is just do not matter one bit. But it is what it is. Worth checking out if you're listening to this and you haven't played it. If you think RPGs or disco likes, if they're up your alley, you should go and check it out.

If you don't like reading, then this is not the game for you. If you do like reading, then it is. Let's take a break. And then we'll be back with one more thing. Max Fun Meetup Day is on Thursday, April 23rd. Max Funsters from all over are getting together to hang out and celebrate their favorite podcasts. Want to go and meet some friends who like similar stuff and care about the same things as you? Head to MaximumFun.org slash meetup to see where and when your local meetup is.

Don't see one nearby? Host your own and make some new pals. All you need to do is pick a place that can hold a small group, a bar, cafe, park, library, wherever. Then fill out the form at maximum fun.org slash meetup. We'll add you to the page and help get the word out. So go to Maximumfund.org slash meetup, and maybe we'll see you on April 23rd. Hello, this is Alden Ford.

And Mujanzo Fagari. Two of the creators of Mission to Zix, your favorite improvised obsessively sound design sci-fi sitcom here on the MaxFund Network. And the news is, We're back! With an all-new miniseries set in the Zix universe, The Young Old Durf Chronicles.

Yeah. Well, DIRF, find his own killer before it's too late. To find out how that question could part possibly make sense, well, you just have to tune in. Yeah. And as always, it's ambitious and labor intensive to a frankly absurd degree. Indeed.

So if you are looking for a little break from your own galaxy, we would love for you to check it out. That's the Young Old Durf Chronicles. Search Mission to Zix, ZyX, and your podcast app. Or on maximum fun.org. Keep it fresh. And we are back, Kirk, Maddie. And it's time for one more thing. Kirk, start us off.

My one more thing is Project Hail Mary, the novel by Andy. Weir, noted former Blizzard developer turned novelist, and specifically the audiobook. I have not seen the movie of this yet. I'm very excited for it. Emily also is very excited, and a lot of my friends are, we're all going to go see it this weekend. And so I have had the audiobook of Project Hail Mary in my Audible account forever, because I think when I bought a Kindle or something, I got a free audiobook. So I just picked that one, because I think I had heard it was good somewhere. And then it was added to my account, but I never made space to listen to an audiobook in my life. Wait, can you hold on one second? When you bought a Kindle, an ebook reader,

you got a free audiobook? Yeah, because Audible is owned by Amazon and it was some kind of tie-in, I think. So if you activate, I think that's what it was. It might have been something else. That is kind of funny. Yeah, it's very strange. Well, they just want you to engage with all of their various literary powers. Yeah, they were like, you engage with one platform. Why not them bother? Like the Kindle. What if you also sign up for an audible subscription? So I've had this free book in my library forever, and I started it a little while ago, but then found that because I listened to lots of podcasts and lots of music, I was struggling to fit an audiobook into that mix. I know audiobooks are very popular.

Jason, you've said, right, that audiobook sales of your books are really an important part of sales, right? Yeah, huge, big time. Yeah. It's so cool. Emily listens to lots of audiobooks. She's really gotten into them over the last year. And it's made me want to give one a try. So there's a huge weight for this book at the library, you know, to get the Kindle version from Libby.

So I really wanted to read it before seeing the movie. Everyone that I'm going to see it with, this kind of large group of people, they've all read it. And they're all so excited. And we saw some other friends who had seen it. And they're like, oh, they got this thing right. And they were being kind of oblique for my sake because I hadn't read it. And then a lot of them had listened to the audiobook. and they're like, oh, you have the audiobook?

And I said, yeah, I started it. And then I kind of just didn't finish it. And they got so upset. They were like, what? And I was like, it wasn't that I didn't like it. I kind of, I don't know, I didn't have them all downloaded on my phone. And then I fell off of it. I don't know.

So anyhow, long story short, I have come back to the audiobook and I'm just marathoning it this week to get through the whole thing so I can finish it in time to see the movie this weekend. And first of all, it's been that's so. such a fun way to listen to an audio book to just, or it's a fun way for me to add an audio book to my rotation because it's made me just say, okay, well, I would be reading my regular book right now. I'm actually reading John Gantz's How the Clock Broke or When the Clock Broke, which Maddie was your one more thing. Great book, very different from Projects than Hail Mary, but a great book. So I've been reading that as my like, in the morning, I read a book instead of getting on the internet. So instead of doing that, I just get out my phone, put on some

headphones and listen to a chapter. And I got to say, this audiobook is so good. It's read by an actor named Ray Porter. Are either of you, are you familiar with this audio book? Have you heard it or anything? No. No. I read the book book. Okay. And Maddie, no? No. Okay. So this actor is fantastic. He does voices for everybody, but they're very good. He has a very particular way of reading this protagonist. Rylan Grace is the name of the protagonist. Oh man, I guess I should like really quickly summarize at least the setup of this. I'm assuming everyone out there kind of knows what it is, since it's a huge movie that everybody is seeing right now. But to give the very quick version, a guy wakes up in space, he's in a ship, the rest of the crew has died, he has been in a coma

for a very long time and his memory is kind of shot, and he's on some kind of a scientific mission. And then he gradually realizes and, you know, what's happening and regains his memory. So it then winds up being a kind of a split timeline story between the people of Earth discovering a threat to the planet, a scientific threat, not like alien invaders or anything. And then all working together, kind of like contact where all of the world governments are kind of pooling all of their expertise in a race against the clock to come up with something. And then what led him to be alone on this ship? And then as the story goes, what happens to him on the ship and as the sort of mission progresses. So it's a first person narrated story from his point of view, and he is a very, you know, a very can-do science thinker. It's very much in the vein of the Martian, which was Weir's previous novel, same idea of like a lone person isolated with just science and their curiosity and ability to problem-solve and think through many different types of scientific problems to carry them through.

And so it's a very fun book for anyone who is kind of a nerd and who likes science and likes to watch a kind of candu, slightly sardonic, can-do person solve problems. And Ray Porter's narration, the way that he embodies this protagonist, is really great. He has this kind of gruff, constantly frustrated and exasperated, but also, you know, self-deprecating tone that really matches, I think, with the way that we are wrote the story. It's a very cool way to experience a book. and I haven't listened to, you know, fiction, a fiction audiobook in a long time, and I'm really enjoying it. Plus, they're actually doing some sound design stuff related to various elements of the story that I won't get into, but some kind of cool stuff with music and chords that play out along with his narration in a way that's really cool. And I'm actually very curious what that looks like in the book.

Maybe offline, Jason, I'll ask you to describe it to me because I haven't, I don't have a copy of the book, so I can't compare it. So anyhow, I wanted to recommend that to anybody. who, I don't know, wants to read the book or is interested. I really recommend this audiobook. It won a bunch of awards. It won the like audio award for audiobook of the year in 2022. So it's a very like celebrated audiobook and very well known. That is for a reason.

It's really fantastic. And I'm loving it. I'm very excited to finish it and then go see the movie. So yeah, that's my great thing. Cool. Yeah, it's really a lot of fun. That's cool. I love audiobooks.

But I agree with you. You have to like stop listening to all the podcasts and music. your life and just be like, I'm going to read a book for the next couple weeks. And it is kind of a weird way to live. And then you're like, you come back and you're like, okay, I have so many podcasts to catch up on. And then that's kind of exciting. And you're like, what's even been happening in the world by I've been listening to an audio book? It really helps that I've been in a rut with podcasts. I feel like every podcast is a 37-year-old guy telling me about how Trump sucks. And I'm like, maybe you're listening to the wrong podcast because that does sound

tough. I'm certainly not saying that every podcast is that. It's totally my podcast mix. It's what you've done to yourself. I get it. I need to listen to something else. I've actually been listening to some really good history podcasts as well, which has been a nice change of pace. But yeah, this is definitely, it's a cool thing to introduce fiction to my kind of audio, doing chores, listening to something world.

It's really, really cool. Yeah, it could be really fun. You could be listening to a 37-year-old talk about video games. Yeah. I listen to those too. The whole world is 37. One of these days I'm going to explain my theory that everyone is 37. Hey man, I'm about to turn 39. Maddie's 39. I'm 39. We're way, you're like 60.

Way past 37, 37, 37, 38, 39. But 38 maybe as well. That's just that's my, that's my going theory. I'm still working on it and fleshing it out that everyone is 30. Are you going to put this in newsletter form at something? Maybe we all don't age past whoever we were at 37. That's kind of doomed. Oh, there's another theory that's everyone is 12. My sister keeps telling me about that, that we all regress to our inner 12-year-old. But that's kind of a separate theory. I don't know. I'll keep working on it. I'll let you know.

Let's keep going. Maddie, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is 30 Rock, which is a television show that I watched contemporaneously and then tried to rewatch a couple years ago and only recently have figured out which seasons I think are the best. And I'm going to lay it out for everybody. And this will help only people who have identical taste to. me. If that's you out there, I'm here to help. So the thing about 30 Rock is, it was produced

during the Obama years. That was a time period when people used the term post-racial unironically. And there are many things about the show that don't hold up as a result of that. The premise of the show stars Tina Fey. She wrote a ton of it. She plays a character who's loosely based on herself, specifically when she was writing for SNL. And in the text of the show, she is working on a show that bears a strong similarity to S&L, except that this version of the show is constantly struggling to stay on the air for a variety of reasons, not least of which is Alec Baldwin's character Jack Donagy, who is unlike Liz, a Republican and constantly trying to juice NBC's ratings. And sometimes on and off again has an on-again relationship with TGS and keeping it on the air.

and he and Liz are kind of constantly battling each other. So a couple years ago when I tried to rewatch this show, I watched a bunch of season one. And I was like, man, the show is bad now. I guess I just can't watch 30 Rock anymore. That's really sad. And then very recently, I remembered the episode Reunion, which is about Liz going back to her high school reunion, where she remembers being a nerd growing up and being like, everyone bullied me. And that was horrible.

And then I'm going to go back to this reunion and like show them how much times have changed. And this is like one of the greatest. episodes of television of all time. I stand by this. This episode is so good. It's in season three. I think people should just watch it. It's so funny. So, I mean, I'll spoil the reveal, which is that it turns out that Liz was actually the bully and people can just watch the episode and find out why that is. Alec Baldwin's character just goes with her at the reunion and he has a whole B-plot that's extremely hilarious and bizarre. It's great. 10 out of 10. And I was like, this episode was so great. Maybe I like 30 Rock. So I just

kept watching just from there. And I think I've identified the deal with this show, which is this. A lot of the humor on the show revolves around the concept of a character saying something bigoted, like something racist or sexist. And then the joke

needs to be on the character who says that thing. And for most of season three, up to season six, that is the case. And the show is very funny because it makes it clear that any of the characters that espouse these notions are themselves. the butt of the joke. And then somewhere around like late season six up to season seven is where

something changes again. And something about season one has the same quality where the butt of the joke is backwards. And it's like clear that you're meant to side with the character who's like making fun of someone for being a stereotype like Tracy Jordan is kind of like has to wrestle with the idea of feeling like he's playing this racist caricature on the TV show that he appears on. and like that kind of push and pull of the character is like a central part of the show. And I think it works when Tracy is not the butt of the joke, but at times he is. Anyway, so all this to say, I recommend season three from the episode reunion on through to season six. And then you should maybe not watch it anymore if you're exactly like me.

If you're not exactly like me, you can probably just enjoy the whole show and not be a sitting orchant of as I am. But yeah. That's an interesting analysis. 30 Rock, the middle of it. Pretty good. Yeah. I mean, you guys remember what it was like and like the push and pull of how it's how its comedy worked. It blends together for me, at least in that I remember that it had a pretty rough first season and then really found its groove.

Yeah. And now I just think of it as a show that established certain rhythms and certain sort of structural flows for an episode that then carried out to the follow up like Girls 5Eva or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, like shows made by the people who worked on 30 Rock. So it was like a very influential show in a lot of it. sort of stylistic. Yeah, like the office to Parks and Rec, for example, as like another, like, foundational show. Yeah, I'd say like a parallel track, really, along with, yeah, the sure sort of lineage of comedy. And, yeah, and it and Parks and Rec kind of existing parallel to one another. And then, of course, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler also being really good friends and sort of being the yin and yang of, like,

female comedy on primetime TV. Yeah, and like clearly having kind of different comedic impulses where Amy Poehler has this like, all people are good type of Michael Scheress comedy. And Tina Faye has this very acerbic, maybe everyone sucks comedy that 30 Rock espouses. And I would say sometimes wins that and sometimes loses that. The other funny thing about 30 Rock is that at the very beginning, 30 Rock was on at the same time as Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which Jason, I know you remember, the Aaron Sorkin show. And which Tina Faye famously hasn't watched, or so she says, is only watched a couple episodes of and It's a very funny David and Goliath story from that time period of sort of mid-2000s.

It was post-West Wing and everyone's like, oh man, Aaron Sorkin's back at it. He's got a new show. Well, hold on. David and Goliath, I mean, in S&L, Tina Fey was extremely famous at this point. I don't know. Well, it was portrayed as a critical David and Goliath because there was an idea that Sorkin had all of these powerhouse actors, a lot of people carrying over from the West Wing. He was on fire. He had been responsible for.

this show, you know, that won every freaking Emmy Award for like years running. And then he was up against 30 Rock, which, as I've mentioned, was not that strong when it started. It kind of was a mess. And so it just seemed like, oh, what is this little podunk whatever? And then it was like, oh, but Studio 60, that's this prestige show. And then very quickly it became, there's like a whole, there's probably multiple YouTube video essays about this, about the challenge of writing a show about a fictional sketch comedy

show and how 30 Rock actually, in retrospect, took the smarter approach because 30 Rock made it ridiculous. Like the Tracy Jordan show is never supposed to be good. What's funny about it is that it is a total train wreck. And every time you see them doing a skit, you're like, oh my God, this show is a disaster. I think this is the worst thing I've ever seen. Where the thing, the trap that Studio 60 fell into was that they're like, this is a great show. It is the epitome, the peak of comedy on TV. And then they're doing like Gilbert and Sullivan schick on the air. And singing whatever for he is an English man. And you're like, nobody would think this is funny. And so anyways, there's a lot more there. But I think of that or those early seasons in the

context of that sort of head to head. Yeah, it was an interesting time. And I do feel like part of why I have a soft spot for 30 Rock at all is because I watched it at the time and still kind of enjoy these characters on some level. And even when they say something problematic or whatever, I'm like, ah, damn it. Fast forward, fast forward. It's fine. Get back to the good stuff, guys. And like, I do still want to love it.

And then I'm sad that there are episodes that are mean and, like, hit the wrong way. So I was kind of glad that I was able to find that there were episodes that still really held up and were what I loved about it. And I just love Jeff Richmond. His music is so good. It's such a, it's such a, like, great aspect of that show. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And he wrote all the music for every, and all the songs, you know, like muffin tops and every, we're wolfutments.

The songs are so good. Also, like, Dr. Spichemen just as a character, like, all around icon. That's Parnell, right? Is that Chris Parnell? Spichemin. It's so good. It's like, there's so many dits like that. But I'm just like, these are great.

Yeah, watch Reunion, everybody. It's good at. Man, while we're talking about old sitcoms, I finished my rewatch of how I met your mother, which I talked about a couple of months ago. Yeah, yeah. Man, the ending is incredible. I will fight to defend that ending. I think it's phenomenal.

I think I might really go watch it. You should go watch. I wonder. Maybe if it's like out of context of the time, it probably hits better, I would think. Wasn't the plan? And the plan that I think you endorsed was start, watch the first few seasons and then just jump to the end and watch the final season. No, no. I would say rewatch it all. It's a lot of fun. Oh, really? Oh, wow. Okay. Like I said, some parts of age poorly, especially like transgendered jokes. But other than that, I mean, it's a great show. There's a lot to love about it. And it's very, very emotionally impactful. Anyway, that's not my one more thing. My warmer thing is a video game. So a little while ago, someone messaged me on Discord, and this is not someone I really know, but I had talked to this person about blueprints a little while back. And so this person was like, hey, I just started, I've been playing this game called Void Stranger, and it is the closest I've come to, like, recreating that feeling of blueprints where I was, like,

taking notes and just, like, getting a lot out of it and solving metapizzles myself and stuff like that. I was like, hmm, intrigued. Void Stranger is a video game that came out in 2023. I had heard about it at the time, but I never played it. It is a Sokoban game, which means it is a game where you see the world from a top-down view, and it's all a grid, and you walk around in one of the four cardinal directions, and you push things as your main method of interacting with the world, pushing boulders on switches to unlock stairs or doors, that sort of thing.

That's kind of what a Sokabon is. And so I started playing this game, Void Stranger, and it's pretty cool. It's like this black and white sort of pixel, not quite NES, maybe S-NES style pixel graphics. And it's got some cool puzzles and you're going through this dungeon and you get to the bottom. And by the time you get to the bottom, you've probably died and lost all of your lives. In which case you are presented with this little creature, this little like circular creature with wings comes up to you and says, hey, it looks like you died. Well, you can you can have infinite lives by eating this fruit.

And so you eat the fruit and then you get to restore your character back to where you were and then you get to finish the dungeon And then some interesting stuff happens and the game kind of ends and you're left wondering what just happened here And then you go through the dungeon again and maybe you try to do it again without eating the fruit Maybe using this new power you just got to get infinite lives without actually eating the fruit and quote getting voided And then you might get another ending and along the way as you're doing this you might notice certain things about the way the world works. Some things that you learned on your first play-through and other things that you're just kind of figuring out as you go. Maybe you notice that there are these things, these kind of murals with patterns on them, and you can kind of interact with them in some way or use them to interact

with the world in some way. Maybe you notice that there are actually shortcuts you can take, and so you don't have to repeat every single level every time you're trying to go through this dungeon. And then shit gets real crazy, real fast. And I don't even want to say all the stuff that you can do and find and do it like discover in this game um did have to take some notes along the way uh and it is a wild ride that i think people who like blueprints would indeed enjoy but here's the caveat and it's a big one this game is tedious as shit and extremely unforgiving so this is a game in a lot of soko ban games a lot of puzzle games in general you have an undo button if you screw something up, the game doesn't want you, have to, like, start from the beginning. So, like, if you

push a boulder the wrong way, you can usually just press the undo button and be like, okay, I'm just going this way, so you can just kind of do trial and error. There is no undo button in Void Stranger. And in fact, Void Stranger is the type of game that will play these tricks on you. It is very kind of, uh, uh, uh, what's the word, masochistic. It's a game for Massacus. It will play tricks on you where, like, if you accidentally walk into a stairway at the wrong time or like with a wrong piece in place on the map, it will send you to the beginning of the game and you'll have to like go through a whole other like four, like hour of playing just to get where you were before. Or like it'll make you just repeat things for very stupid reasons.

There's also a lot of like the puzzles and a lot of what you need to do in order to just kind of keep making progress and see the true ending requires a lot of trial and error and or a lot of really devious, like devilish level thinking, which means you'll have to keep trying over and over again, which can be extremely tedious and frustrating. So the way I played it is I was pretty liberal about looking up solutions to certain things, which I'm glad about because I didn't really want to waste a lot of time

just going through the same levels over and over again. That said, I had a great time with this video game, and I highly recommend it. But you have to have a certain level of pain tolerance if you want to get through it. Certainly, the music is really good, so at least there's that, like while you're doing things that you've done before,

you can at least listen to the music, but you have to be willing to repeat yourself through this. Yeah, the music is cool. It's actually very reminiscent of Undertale's music, which I really enjoyed. Well, that's high praise. Toby Fox is a great composer. In fact, there's a lot of Undertale DNA in the game in general.

It's also got a really cool story that you're kind of like unraveling as you go through. It's got really good characters and relationships, and it does feel very undertale in a lot of different ways, definitely undertale inspired. It is a cool video game. I do recommend playing it. Just kind of be aware that you might find yourself frustrated with how many times you're repeating the same block pushing puzzles. That said, you'll get certain things that allow you to do them in much easier ways or take shortcuts and all sorts of stuff like that. And part of the fun, sort of like in blueprints, part of the fun is gaining mastery over this world and realizing that,

oh, actually, I don't have to deal with this RNG. I don't have to deal with this repetition because I've learned how to overcome it just by playing the game and finding its secrets. So there is that, too. That is a cool aspect of it. And it's almost like a game like this wouldn't work if not for the repetition of it all and then giving you the skills to overcome that repetition in order to solve the grander puzzle. So that's a big part of the experience as well. Yeah, I think you two would like it. So it's worth checking out. Once again, that game is called Void Stranger.

And it's pretty wild. Definitely unlike most things I've played. Pretty good name too. And yes, excellent name. Void Stranger. I want to know more. Is it good on the Steam Deck, Jason? Yes.

That's where I played the whole thing. The only downside is that like you'll have to take, if you're playing in a bed or something, you'll have to take photos with your phone or screenshots. Oh, yeah. No, I did a lot of that. Take notes. With blueprints. Photos of my phone.

I went old hand at that. Did you guys play blueprints on Steam Deck? I did. I did both. Both. Okay. Yeah, both. When I was traveling, I played it on deck.

I found it much easier to play on PC. Yeah. Me too. Sitting at a desk, I could write stuff down just in a document. But, you know, when it takes over your brain, you need to play it in every single room of the house because, like, what are you going to do? That is true. I mean, come on.

And the rooms in your house are shifting, so you need to play in a different room. That's right. That's right. And some of them only have a steam deck. and some of them have a PC and some have a laptop. It's true. It's easier you can carry the steam deck with you from room to room instead of hoping that you're going to draw your computer room. And some rooms have like 20 terminals and you have to figure out which one you can. Yeah, I mean, I think Steam Deck is the way to go with Void Stranger because when you're going through the puzzles,

if you choose to like repeat certain puzzles in order to try to figure out what's going on, it can be helpful to like watch TV or something. so you're not just kind of numbing yourself. Or listen to an audiobook. That would actually be perfect for like finishing Project Hail Mary. Although you'll have to keep pausing every time you get to like a story or something, a story cutscene or something like that. But yeah, it's a cool game.

I do recommend it. And especially if you like, if you don't like Socavans or like puzzle, like that kind of puzzle game, then this is not for you. But otherwise it's cool. All right. That is that for this week's episode. Stay tuned. Our Resident Evil Requiem bonus.

episode will be up very soon. So keep an eye out for that if you're a subscriber in the bonus feed. Kirk, is that going to be Friday of this week or Monday, you think? Yeah, Friday. It should be the end of the week. So I think Friday. Awesome. Sweet. All right. Kirk, Maddie, see you both next week. Yeah. 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.

Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us For free for review consideration, you can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org. Email us at triple click at maximumfund.org and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.