Triple Click - Is Nolan's Odyssey The Elden Ring of Movies? [Mailbag]

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

It's an episode full of questions this week as Kirk, Maddy, and Jason reach into the mailbag for some hot, hot queries. Is FromSoftware basically Christopher Nolan? Why do companies shut down game studios instead of spinning them out? And when is life like a video game? One More Thing: Kirk: Still Life (Louise Penny) Maddy: Hell Clock Jason: Alan Opts Out (Courtney Maum) LINKS: Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

If you are listening to this, I sure hope that you either have wax in your ears or you're tied to a mask. Otherwise, good luck. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the siren song to you. Today we are opening up the mailbag and answering some questions about all sorts of things. We got some good ones this week. I'm excited to get into it. I'm Jason Schreier. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. We're back. We are. Here we are. Back to make a podcast. We are back for another episode. We have sailed the seas and fought the gods and made it home. This is the same thing you said before our Odyssey. But that's why it's a perfect segue. I actually said that at the end of our Odyssey episode. And at the beginning of our Odyssey, I was just listening to it.

This is like a Christopher Nolan movie. You repeat an idea multiple. times and then reference back to it. So you learn new things about it in a different content. It says something different about us now that we're saying it again. It means something new. Get ready for 10 years of this. So if you would like to know what we are referencing, you should become a maximum fun member and help us make this show possible. Because in addition to supporting the show, making it so we can do this every week, you will also get access to our monthly bonus episodes, including the one we just did about the Odyssey, a very fun conversation about Christopher Nolan's excellent new picture. And to do that, you can go to maximum fun.org

slash join and sign up and support triple click and get some cool stuff, a massive backlog of bonus episodes, including the one we just did. Yeah, might put up a little teaser of that in the feed. It's exciting. Then people get to hear a little bit of what you're missing out on. So we should definitely join that. It was a great conversation, I think. Very, very fun. I think it was a really good episode. And one other thing that you should know is that we will be playing through the video game, Soma, as our yearly triple-click predictions bet game.

And talking about that in two weeks on August 13th. So if you would like to play along with us, you should do so by then. Can I make a little Soma note slash recommendation, possibly for the two of you, but for you? listeners as well. I started playing that and was reminded that there are two ways you can play through Soma. So Soma is a pretty scary game at times. It is a horror game and you have to creep away from very scary monsters that hunt you through some of the environments. And you can play it in safe mode, which means that the monsters will not hurt you. They'll still be there. They're still scary, but they don't hurt you. But the thing to keep in mind is that you can't actually

switch midway through your game. So you have to choose at the beginning. And I would say look into it if you're thinking about playing it. And especially if you get scared of stuff, or if you just find like stealth, like being hunted sequences where a monster is kind of present and you're having to do stuff around the environment while a monster hunts you.

Like if you find that stressful and you just want to hang with the story, go for safe mode. It's fine. The story is the main thing and that's what we're really going to be talking about in our episode. The story is what makes me love that. game. So I just wanted to warn people that it doesn't, I don't know if it tells you. Like, you can't switch midway through if you decide you're not liking, you know, being killed by monsters. So, bear that in mind as you're making that decision. That's very annoying that you can't switch.

Yeah. I know. I appreciate knowing this because I had been having this internal debate as someone who had previously played Soma in scary version and found it pretty stressful. And I was like, do I want to play safe mode for the second time through? And I'm thinking I, will because I already know what it's like to sneak past those guys. And apparently I need to make that decision just one time. So thanks, Kirk. Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing because I played it already and I kind of just want to remember the story and go through all of that. Jason, the choice is now up to you. It's a first time player. Won't judge either way. Having played through a demo of Alien Isolation 2 at Summer Game Fest and completely hated that experience, I think I will be

doing Safe Mode for this one. It's not, and it's not as stressful as alien isolation. It's not, but I get it. But it's the same kind of game plays. So for sure, it's a good reference. Very enjoyable experience for me. All right. Today we are doing some burning questions.

We have gotten so many good questions that we might have to do another burning questions next week too, because we got this massive backlog full of great emails from listeners. You all are coming through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got some good ones. As a reminder, you can always reach us at triple click at maximum fun.

dot org. Please keep them short and keep them safe. Keep it simple. Keep it safe. Keep it safe. Keep it safe. Keep it simple. Keep it short. All right. On with it. Let's do this first question. Kirk, why don't you read this first one from David? Sure. David writes, hello Jason, Maddie, and Kirk. I'm a 42-year-old listener and long-time gamer and I have a question that's been on my mind for a bit. Do you ever have a complicated relationship with games. Not just burnout, but that nagging feeling that maybe you're wasting your

time? For me, it tends to happen when I try a few games in a row that just don't click. I start wondering if I should be putting that time and energy somewhere else. Until I get to one of those special games that makes me remember why I love them so much and everything makes sense again.

What do you two think? Yeah, all the time. Totally. Very relatable. I feel like we're in a little bit of a different position because everything we play can be considered for work in some capacity, whether it's a full-time job or kind of most of our jobs in the case of Myanmar or in the case of Kirk, a podcast job, part, part-time job, gig. Whatever you want to call. A part of my. Kirk's a part of the gig economy.

It is a part of my overall employment picture. Your overall, Kirk, it's so funny. when people ask me what you're out to these days. And I'm like, yeah, he's a full-time podcaster. That's just what he does. He's a podcaster. Yeah, most of what I do anyway. Podcaster and musician.

And now, yeah, live performer. Live entertainer. Live jazz, jazz act, Kirk Hamilton. So I think I found it most pronounced, I mean, I feel this with a lot of games, regardless of like always feeling like I'm playing them for work purposes. And like I'll get something out of them, at least to talk about them on the show or something like that. But I do feel it very,

in a very pronounced way when I am playing like a live service game like Destiny and I'm just like, why am I doing this? Why am I watching these numbers go up? This is a real waste of time and have felt it before with other kind of monotonous games as well. Maddie, how about you? Yeah, me too. I feel like it's funny that we're bringing up the work aspect because I, if I'm having a tough time with a game or series of games for work, I will go full existential crisis and be like, have I actually made a grave error in my career direction? And should I be covering something else? I mean, it's been a while. How many times a week does that happen to me? Luckily, luckily zero. It's more like it's happened to me a couple of times over many, many years of doing this. But they're, you know, we've, we've all had

that happen, especially if you're playing multiple games in a row for work that you don't like. And you start kind of catastrophizing, or at least I do, and I start being like, are video games just bad now? Are they just making bad ones? Are they going to never make a good one again? And then, I don't know what happens. I'll take a break or I'll just finally play something incredible and I'll be like, it's fine. I'm fine. Everything's going to be okay. There's still something incredible about this art form that I find exciting and tantalizing and compelling and all of those gooey words that mean nice. Yeah, it's a relatable question for sure. I actually, David's question made me think about a review of mine that I recently re-read from 2013

for our recent episode on the remake of Assassin's Creed 4. I'm going to read the opening of my review of Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag. The loading screen is always the same in Assassin's Creed. Your character stands, clad in the robes of his people, armed to the teeth and surrounded by empty space. A desaturated digital landscape fades into the distance and out of sight. You press the thumbsick forward and he begins to jog. What's left to do but run.

And so you run. I shudder to think how many cumulative hours I've spent trapped in Assassin's Creed loading screens running. Six, eight, half a day perhaps, staring at a screen, watching a man trapped in a digital construct within a digital construct, sprinting endlessly and getting nowhere. That was the opening of my review from 13 years ago. Hold on. felt this way. There is no way. You've spent that many hours. Like that loading screen is what?

Like a minute at most when you're like waiting for the game? I played a lot of Assassins Creed at that point. And it depends on the console. Hold on. Like some of them are taking a while to load those games. Okay. Let's say it's like max a minute, right? That would be, so 60 minutes would be an hour.

To get to six hours would be 360 loading screens that you watch for an entire minute. I don't know about that one. All right. It's totally possible. It's still a lot of wasted time. Even if it's like only 30 minutes, it's still like, wow, that loading screen, though, it's, it makes you think. It makes you think about what you're doing with your life. So this is a sale, this is an advertisement for the PlayStation 5, really, where there's no more loading screens.

Solid State Drive, baby. Yeah, I mean, I've always found those Assassin's Creed loading screens to be rhetorically useful. And rather than nitpicking my math, I think the idea that I've always felt this way, right? This is a show where we nipick math, Kirk. I think you just have to accept that. I suppose it is. So anyways, I've always felt this way. This is certainly relatable.

Man, I feel it lately. You know, I've mentioned this before. But there are just, it takes a lot for me to not want to be just like practicing guitar. Guitar has gotten really fun as I've gotten better over the last few years. And I love practicing it. And it's such a similar kind of thing to do. Like, it uses my brain similarly. it's a similar kind of pursuit.

It requires repetition. But then the guitar is like, you're playing the blues and stuff. Like, I'm, like, getting better and getting to, like, expressing myself and connecting to something really cool. So I just, there, it takes, it's a higher bar for a game to clear now,

where I'm sitting there like, all right, I'll play a little bit of this. And then I just start thinking, man, I should really be practicing. But then, you know, as David says, I think, as we've all said, then the right game comes along. And before you know it,

you're back in love and playing something wonderful. I think Blueprints was that way for me last year. I really remember feeling a little bit of it. I was a little bit in a funk. And I wasn't sure, ah, Blue Prince is this really going to do it? And then, you know, I played 100 hours of that. And actually, recently, I've been finishing Kairn,

the rock climbing game that I mentioned earlier this year. What a game. Holy shit. Man, it's still my favorite game of the year. It's so amazing. I really went back and, like, I'm finishing it. I'm like playing the whole thing, which is a real commitment. It's really involved in different.

It's like a Dark Souls game. It has that same feeling. And it's just got me. And I have that same feeling of just like, oh, man, I'm so into this. I just want to keep going. I want to experience more. I want to get better and see the rest of the story. And so it's nice to have those games that make me feel that way. I got Amanda playing blueprints on the steam machine. She just got to the underground for the first time. Oh, really? Oh, so she's doing well. Nice. That's a nice moment. That's a cool moment. Frustick is playing it too because they finally put out the colorblindness. That's so exciting. He and I talk about this every day. I know because it's so his kind of jam.

Yeah, I know he's been talking with you. He's actually about to come to my house in three hours. We're about to talk more about this. Just he's only coming over for Blue Prince's time. Well, now Amanda can join in. It's very funny. I was actually going to talk to them both about this because she's like still early on, hasn't gotten to Room 46 yet.

And he's like in the end game stuff. And he's, as you guys know, and anyone who listens to the besties knows, he's such a spoiler phobe and, like, so freakish about spoilers that he'll get mad if you, like, tell him instructions for a game or something like that. Well, even our listeners know that because he came on our show to talk about Animal Well. And we had to, like, force him to talk about the game. And he was really reticent to do so.

So he's gotten to the point where he, like, actually needs nudges because there's a point in Blueprintend Game where it's impossible to do by yourself, unless you have a freakish brain or something like that. But, like, he's something. resistant to it that I keep telling him like, trust me, you need this nudge. And he'll be like, wait, give me, give me some time. And he'll have to me dare at this wall. That's amazing.

So yes, he and I'm talking about this every day. I'm just really glad that he gets to play it because it was, you know, seeing someone who is so well suited to a game not be able to play it for so long was, I was frustrated on his behalf. Maybe you should create a scavenger hunt for him in real life where he has to solve a puzzle to get the hint. and that way he'll feel like he's still really experiencing. Jason, you have time for this, right? Do you not have anything else going on?

I do. Just develop an ARG for a rough. Well, I try to give nudges that are like subtle enough. Of course. You're very good. That's a skill that most people develop when having a friend play through blueprints and you developed it very well. All right, let's do another question. Matt, do you want to read this one?

Sure. This one is from Luke, who writes. I was once waiting for my commuter train when a woman approached me explaining she had just come from a nearby craft fair where her phone had died, and she needed to contact friends of hers she was staying with in the city. She didn't know their number, but I offered to let her use my phone to send them a Facebook message. After sending the message, she reached into her tote bag and pulled out a gorgeous hand-painted plate from the craft fair and presented it to me as a token of her gratitude.

I could practically feel the completed quest XP flashing above my head. Have you ever had a similar encounter where your reality followed? video game logic for a moment. It's so funny to imagine her like ruffling through her bag and just seeing like, what is some shit I could just like unload on this person and exchange as a token of my appreciation. This is so funny. I love this story. I love it.

Do you two have an example because I actually do have one? Oh, let me hear yours. It's not similar to this one, but it was a moment that made me turn to Dina and be like, this is a video game. We're in a video game right now, so I'm going to count that as close enough. So we recently moved apartments and we have a room that doesn't have a ceiling light anymore. So we've had to buy some fixtures for the room so that it's not dark. And we bought one of those lamps, like a stand-up lamp that has three light bulb sockets in it.

And it came with light bulbs, but they were really, really dim. And so we were like, okay, let's just replace these light bulbs. And we quickly found out that it was, for one, a closed circuit or whatever you call it, when you can't have one of the light bulbs not be screwed in. And we also found out that it only takes a specific either voltage or wattage, which we never determined, but we tried a series of different light bulbs and we're like looking at the numbers on the bulbs and doing math and like full video game puzzle mode of being like, okay, so these two light bulbs and this one work together. But those are three different colors, which is going to irritate us. So can we find three bulbs in the house or on the internet, whatever, in the hardware store that will be the right colors, but also divide into three. in terms of the power that they're drawing.

Anyway, we managed to do it, but it was hilarious. And even when the three bulbs arrived that we ordered, that we were like, we think these are going to be perfect, they actually didn't end up working and we ended up having to do more math. It was utterly ludicrous.

But great, it was great. Man, if only you could reload to before you made the order. I know, right? I know. We wasted so much time. That's a really wasted run. I know, I know. I wasted so much on that run and I needed to just like already know the puzzle solution

so that I could keep advancing towards playing video games in my living room. Maybe that knowledge that will be helpful later. In a later puzzle. Yeah, it's foreshadowing. Yeah, like the puzzle of the numbers on the light bulb is actually like foreshadowing for something else that's going to happen later in life.

You never know. Life is kind of a Metroid brain yet. At least you weren't in a Assassin's Creed loading screen. It was true. It was a lot more brain stimulating than that in that moment. You weren't just running forward into empty space. No, definitely not. Can you think of one, Jason?

I can't really, but I do have a little, I have something to add. I don't have a specific, like, video, I'm in a video game moment, but my life and my job is sometimes video game, like specifically detective, detective game, deductive game. I feel like part of why you like this game is for sure. Yeah, I mean, or vice versa. I don't know. It's kind of all linked in my head, but like occasionally I'll be working on a story and I'll need to fact check something. And so it'll be like a light bulb flashing moment when I'm like going through a document. a court document or something and I'll see a number and I'll be like, yes, that is the number that

I already knew was true and this is confirmation of it or something like that. But I haven't had the fortune of doing someone a favor and them handing me a token from their bag as appreciation. Yeah, I hope that happens. Yeah, I do. I also hope that happens to me one day. Yeah, and I mean, sort of similarly, like if you've played a guitar hero game where you play a guitar solo and people cheer. Like, I just played a guitar solo and a bunch of people cheered. Nice. So. This is exactly like rock band. I was like, wow, this is just like rock band. I did not actually have that thought at the time. And if you got one wrong note, did they immediately start booing? Like really loudly. And the music, the band kind of stopped. The whole band stopped. And it was just like, boo, get off the stage. It's like the least realistic part of rock band, but it's so

powerful and horrible. Yes. Yes. Very powerful. Yeah, no, my main thought is this makes me think of all of the times where video games have just sort of bled into life, which is a different thing than what Luke is talking about, that kind of Tetris effect. And actually talking about blueprints, because Blueprints is set in just a house that you're sort of walking through, I remember, I can't remember what house it was. There were a few different houses that were like somebody else's house that I would go visit. And it was when I was playing through Blueprints and just having that feeling of like seeing a shovel leaning up against the wall and being like, oh man, yes, there's a shovel. It's like, oh great, I can finally use that later.

It's like, I'll be able to dig up so many gems. This just happened to us. Oh, my God. So we just, we were at the Botanical Gardens a few days ago for a work, a big work event. Bloomberg, like rented out the whole park and had families come. It was really cool. But on top of the elevator, there was a little sign that was like elevator control room panels here. And Amanda's like, it's like blueprints.

I got to rewire this. Yeah. I was going to, I mean, there's also gardens and blueprints. So it's like, were you going in and being like, well, where's the little puzzle box that I have to solve? Looking for little mounds of dirt. We saw mountains of dirt and we started digging them up. Let's do some more questions. This is from Stewart.

Stewart is asking if people report on Blizzard and Riot games differently. He writes that, I'm going to paraphrase a little bit. Riot has this like incredibly interesting output of games like Arcane, like Ligon, Arcane and Riffon. and Riot Forage and the enormous successive team fight tactics, especially in China, he says. And he says it's more interesting than Blizzard's output in their time. But compared to Blizzard, he says, I hear far fewer games journalists talking about engaging with what Riot puts out on podcasts

and news posts and excitement, whereas Blizzard is a lot more, is covered a lot more. And so he's asking what gives? He says, it feels though if Blizzard had half of riots output in the past decade, those projects would be getting twice the media attention that Riot stuff does now. I have a couple of theories about this. I'm going to give you guys two theories that I have to answer this question because I think it's an interesting question. And it's true. Riot has become a lot more successful than Blizzard in many ways, but does not get covered quite as much.

So I have two theories. One is that most people who talk about games, such as the three of us and our friends of the besties and a lot of other just kind of like podcast that people are listening to, are millennials who grew up with Blizzard games and not Riot games. Riot started much later. And so people like us don't have, people our generation don't have the same attachment to Riot stuff. This is the everyone is 37 theory.

But it is 37. And if you were 37, that means you were what, seven or eight? Exactly. Like Blizzard games are starting to come out. And if you're 37 in 2026, that means you were,

you were seven in 1996, which is when Diablo 1 came out. So, yeah, there you go. But the other thing, and I think this actually might be the bigger thing, is that riots games are entirely PVP, whereas Blizzard's games, a lot of them have PVE campaigns and stories, and PVEE is much more interesting to talk about than PVP. It's very difficult to talk about PVP in an interesting way, to report on it in an interesting way.

There's not a lot to get there. That's why, despite the fact that Team Fortress 2 is one of the biggest games in the world, nobody is covering it on a regular basis unless something crazy happens involving stuff like outside of the game like hackers or other kind of drama that doesn't involve the game as opposed to the new Diablo where there's a new story and there's stuff to kind of sink your teeth into and talk about in a critical way. So I think Blizzard games generally have that and even something like Overwatch when people talk about Overwatch they're generally talking about the story and the lore and stuff that's kind of around Overwatch, the e-sports, whatever it is, that isn't just the games

themselves. So those are my two theories. That second one is a good theory, I think. That feels right for me as someone who doesn't really actually play games by either company that much, really. I guess I play Diablo, or a bit, but not a lot. And yeah, that character story thing, the fact that there's this slightly different focus on character and story, like as you mentioned in Overwatch, how just people know Tracer and Diva and Winston, they just know these characters because of the little movies they made for them, because everyone played a little bit in that game. It's similar to how with Marvel rivals,

like, I don't play that game, but I get press releases about it, and I see news about it, and I just know who all those characters are because they're all Marvel characters. And, like, Riot has kind of struggled with that. It's a little interesting to look at rivals, or to look at riots's recent attempt

to kind of bridge that gap with transmedia stuff, because that show Arcane was set in the League of Legends, I watched the whole thing. It was great, especially, it started really great, and I think it got a little in the weeds and maybe crowded too much into its second season, but it was far from a bad show. It was very, very well made at times, like really kind of amazing. And watching it, like, when we then went back and watched players, the TV show that we did a Beans cast on, there's a whole thing about Heimerdinger in that.

It was like, Haimerdinger, you're playing as Heimerdinger. Heimerdinger is a character in Arcane, and having watched it, I was like, oh, I actually know who Heimerdinger is, like in the lore of League of Legends now. legends now. I know what that means. And then I know all these other popular characters too. So in that respect, it was a success. Like when I see people talk about jinx now, I'm like, yeah, jinks. I remember her. She's like that main character from that show. Maybe not quite enough. But they are kind of trying to move in that direction. And I could see if they can do that more. They could kind of make the characters land a little more in the broader culture and just

make people pay that different kind of attention to them. Yeah. I think the other difference is that Riot has League of Legends and a lot of the other games that Stewart lists and even Arcane are related to or direct spinoffs of League of Legends. And that's because League of Legends is one of the most popular games in the world, not as much here in the United States, but in the world, it's extremely popular. And I think that the barrier to entry for a very difficult PVP game, like Jason said, if you're not already in, you're going to be turned off by that because also it's been around for years. So you're like, okay, well, it's probably too late for me to understand it now. And that I think makes it very difficult to sell from a coverage at a mainstream

media outlet perspective, or at least that's something that we ran into at Polygon. Like people, we talked about this on the Players episode too, because I talked about kind of getting people to read e-sports stories and how there were some difficulties with that. And we talked about League of Legends specifically. People should check out the bonus feed. It's so good, you guys. But honestly, I do think, I think that single player game piece is interesting too. I don't know if you too remember when people were talking about the 2021 game Ruined King of League of Legends story. I remember hearing that was really good.

And I kept being like, oh, I should check it out. I should check it out. And the reason why I never did is just because I'm like, yeah, I don't know what any of Legends characters are, though. So like I just couldn't get myself over that hump, even though I actually heard it was like a really good turn-based RPG. And I like turn-based RPGs. So that should have been.

my thing. And like you, Kirk, like, I could have also just watched Arcane, but I don't think that would have actually gotten me to start playing League of Legends. That makes sense. But so it's like, they're almost there. But I do think that that is a really key difference from Blizzard where they have standalone games. You can kind of pick one and decide that's yours. Like when you go to BlizzCon, you can like get a pin for each of your games that you play and like get a Diablo pin or a Starcraft Panner. Like, they really allow fans to identify themselves by which Blizzard franchise they are a fan.

Whereas I feel like if you're a right games fan, you're into League of Legends probably. And maybe also all these other things as a result of that. Valorant or whatever. Yeah. And if Blizzard does have one game that's a little more like that than there are others, it's Warcraft or one universe. It's Warcraft and then World of Warcraft. But those have a single player history and a lot of different kinds of people play them.

They weren't just PVP games. Well, also World of Warcraft is a lot more. community oriented than League of Legends or Valorant are because again it's PVE so you're teaming up with your friends and so the reason that things like Bliscon exists is because all these people get their guilds together and hang out with all these people they've been playing with for years and years and years League of Legends of course you have friends who you play with but you're not going and meeting new people and like forging new friendships a lot of the time because it's PVP and chances are if you're playing with other people they're yelling at you. Yeah nobody's getting married in League of Legends

That is true. Not a lot of wedding to do 10 emails from people about some person who got married. We actually got married in league. Okay, honestly, I'm so impressed if you got married in league. Please, Ryan. Imagine two people are getting married in league and the three other players are yelling at them. Because they're missing their bots. It's like, come on, what are you doing?

What the hell? I can't believe you picked that dress. All right, let's keep going. Kirk, can read this next one, please. Sure. This is from Levi who writes, If you died and in the afterlife, you were allowed to see any statistics about your life.

What stats would you want to know? Personally, I would want to know where I ranked in terms of running speed in all of history or how many people were secretly into me. Those are two good ones for Levi to kick us off. That last one is a little bleak. I would not want to know that. That's so depressing because it's like,

think of all the opportunities you missed. Yeah, but who cares? I'm happily married. At this point, sure. Here's another bleak one. Imagine finding out how many, like, potentially important or life-changing or, like, interesting emails were sent to your spam filter. Oh, God.

And so you never got to see them. Talk about bleak. Yeah, I feel like I'd always want to know, like, what would happen if things went slightly differently. Like, if I had taken different jobs or, like, almost like the multiverse. Is that a statistic? I know it's not. Statistics-wise, I,

I just want to know, like, how intelligent am I? I know there's no good way to measure that in our world the test for it or debunked and useless. But I'm like, I do kind of want to know how smart I am. Is that an egotistical answer? Whatever, it's a truth. I would want to know, first of all, how many hours I spent in Assassin's Creed loading screens in the entire life.

Oh, that would be good. And then we could see if I was right. I know. I would want Jason to be there. So presumably we both died. We're all three going to die at the exact same time. Yeah. And the ceiling collapses.

That's the triple click guarantee that we will all die together. Part of our LLC operating agreement has a death pact that's near the end of the agreement. Yeah, it's weird that we all agreed on that. And we all make it to a hundred. There's no way to vote out of it either. Like we baked in that we can't not have that happen. Right. No, yes.

That one's binding. It was an odd decision. We did have to sign the contract in blood. Yeah. I actually just initialed in blood, but apparently that's still binding. So I would want to know that. I would want to know how many A-list celebrities routinely listen to either strong songs or triple-cliff. Oh, that's good.

Because I know, for a fact, I know there are celebrities, and I guess maybe not A-list. Or what even is A-list? I know there are celebrities that listen to strong songs. And I know there are big people in video game world that listen to Triple-Flip. Which ones? Wait. How do you know this? No, I can't, I can't, I can't betray.

What is this tease? I'll betray one for myself. I will say Ronan Farrow read my Last of Us Part 2 review and started following me on Twitter. And that was a huge deal for me. To me, Ronan Farrow is an endless celebrity. Yeah, I think, and I would write, I would probably define celebrity fairly broadly, like people that I really admire. But also, it's fun to know that whatever Tom Cruise listens to triple click or something. That'd be crazy if he did.

Maddie, it's funny you say that because, so Ronan, Ronan is a big gamer. I talked him a little bit. It's not that weird that he would like that. But a while back, but he also started following me on Twitter. And my first thought was, oh my God,

what did I do? Is he looking into me? Luckily, there was like a specific like cause and effect. It was like, oh, he tweeted my review and then started following me. He's not going to destroy my life.

It's such a kudos. It's like such a credit to his reputation. His investigation capabilities is that I'm like, well, you know what? Ronan, you're not going to find anything. Really boring.

life over here. Mostly light bulb stuff. Mostly dealing the light bulbs. That's about it. So Jason, do you have any celebs following you or no? Do you know of any? On Twitter? Well, I don't use Twitter anymore. I feel like you probably more than the two of them. Yeah. Yeah, I've had some interactions. Like Kumail Nanjiani is like a big gamer. I talk to him a little bit about that sort of thing. Yeah, a couple of people here and there. But like, I don't know if any of them are secret, if any of celebrities are secretly listening to triple-click. Yeah, right in. let me know. We're inviting people to write in a lot.

It's a fun thing about making a show. In the games world, I mean, I think in the games world, none of these are A-List celebrities, but certainly there are people who are relatively big names who listen to our show and follow us, because I've heard from them. And follow all of our advice about it. Yeah, of course. And we only ever hear from them that we got everything perfectly correct. Exactly.

All of our takes are perfect and great. Exactly. I have one other thought related to this question, and that is that the thing I would always, I would like to know. Like the pointless superpower that I would love to have, I've probably mentioned this on the show in the past, but I'll just mention it again, is just being able to know with pinpoint accuracy

where any one object is, which obviously could be used to, for great and terrible ends, you know? But I would just want to know, you know, like, what happened to my car that I drove when I was in high school? You know, where is it now? Is it in pieces, maybe?

Is it been, is it in some junkyard somewhere? Like, where is it? Or, you know, that whatever, that toy that I lost. that I still think about sometimes, because I just don't know what happened to it. Just being able to, like, see on, like, a kind of, you know, Batman map of the world, and then it's kind of highlighted. And I can zoom in and just see wherever that thing is sitting.

You know, with that microphone that I sold off seven years ago. Like, who's using that right now, you know? And it's, like, at Madison Square Garden and it's the main microphone. It'd be kind of fun to just know random objects and, like, what became... You just wish everything at an air tag on it. Right, that I could see in, like, a perfect 3D. model of the world. Let's keep going. Maddie, read this next question. This one's from Nick, who writes, hi, triple click. As much as the recent Xbox news sucks, it seems to have a silver lining.

The affected studios, or at least most of them, will continue to exist. Why do companies like Microsoft and EA normally shut studios down instead of letting them spin off? And why is this different? This is a little bit ironic, and they couldn't have known this, but we're recording this a day after Double Fine, which is one of those studios, announced that they're laying off 23 people, which is about a quarter of their staff. Yeah, pretty significant for their size. Part of the expedition here is that there's going to be layoffs and that it's not much of a silver lining for some of these people.

And compulsion will undoubtedly be laying people off as well. I think the main answer to this is that like usually it's not an option for the studio heads. I think in some of these cases, the studio heads themselves had been put in a position by selling their companies where they had some money and could potentially help get the studio going after the sale. And the other thing, I think the main explanation here is the IP rights. So in this case, both compulsion and Double Fine, the two companies that were allowed to spin out, both of them negotiated their way into getting control of their IPs.

So like DoubleFine is leaving Xbox and gets back control of Psychonauts and Brutal Legend and whatever, else, scrimpanning or whatever else they own. I don't know exactly what that list is. Stacking, because it's Xbox really wanted stacking, but that was a real sticking point. No.

Stacking point. But no, the IP, no, it is a cool game. It is a cool game. They should do a remaster of that. Next review when it came out, but I really have come to really like it.

It was a fun, fun concept. But anyway, so the answer to that is usually because of that. And so like if you're EA and you're shutting down visceral games, the thing that makes visceral valuable is dead space. Otherwise, it's just an expensive studio in San Francisco that would be very hard to maintain as an independent studio without being able to say, we're going to

make a new dead space game, and so we're going to get funding to pay for our staff. And so if EA said, hey, visceral, do you want to go and spin out? It would be impossible for them to do that and pay for themselves without having the rights to dead space. And so sometimes it's more preferable to get the severance from EA that you would get in shutting. the studio down. Yeah, and I can understand why Nick sees this as a silver lining in just in specifically the Double Fine case, just because the version of this story where Double Fine is shut down and no longer exists, that is a very heartbreaking outcome.

Obviously, this is as well, and it really sucks that so many people were laid off. But imagining that where, like, truly Double Fine dies and we're sitting here and everyone is like doing eulogies for Double Fine. And just the feeling of, like, man, wow, they got bought by my. Microsoft and it killed them in the end. Like, that would have been a pretty awful outcome. Not that the current outcome is all rosy, but at least double finds still exists. Yeah, and they have the opportunity, one hopes, to maybe build back up and be successful in an indie model.

I just don't, I don't know what the future holds. I've tried to be optimistic, though. Fingers are crossed. I'm rooting for them, for sure. Yeah. I have a theory. I have a good theory, actually. It could be bunnies.

It may be bunnies. No, I have a theory. We'll see if this comes to. of fruition, but there is a game publisher that was started last year by the people who all quit Anapurna. If you remember that story, there were like 26 people who all quit Anapurna Games, and they started a new publisher. They were funded by this private equity firm, Haveli Investments, led by this former games agent

named Ophir Lupu. And so they then bought the catalog of Private Division, which was the label under Take 2, that did like outer worlds, the first outer worlds and ancestors and a bunch of other stuff. These guys' fictions are actually publishing Beast of Reincarnation, which is a new game from Game Freak,

the Pokemon people. I know it just dropped a bunch of names here, but Fictions is the entire thing, right? That comes out in a couple weeks here. Fictions is the important name here. They're a publisher, they have money, and guess what? One of the top executives at Fictions,

Greg Rice, former biz devi at Double-Fi. No, that's what Greg was. doing now. And so my theory is that fictions is going to find some way to make a deal with double fine and potentially. I've got a theory. It could be fictions. There you go. I think it's a good theory. It's a good idea. Maybe one of them is listening and now they'll do it. I don't know. Again, everyone in the games industry who listens to triple-click takes our advice because I know we're right. It's true. All right. Let's do another question. This is from L.J. who writes with the monumental release of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, the praise it is receiving, reminds me of the accolades thrown

around about Eldon Ring, a monumental achievement for the medium from a director of the peak of his talents. This made me wonder, is from software the Christopher Nolan of Gaines. They both make massively popular entertainment with huge budgets when managed to do so with the somewhat prestigious flair, at least compared to typical AAA blockbusters. Do you agree with that comparison? What other analogs would you draw? Is rock star James Cameron?

I love this special. This is a great question. Is Rockstar James Cameron is the perfect tag on this? And like just sent me reeling when I first read this LJ. I feel like Rockstar is a little bit more Scorsese. Rockstar is Quentin Tarantino. Oh, sure. No, no way.

No, Tarantino is way too indie to be Rockstar. But he is like such big. But he is antagonistic publicly. So I feel like personality-wise, there's some energy there. No, I think Rockstar is Scorsese. Scorsese doesn't quite feel right. because Scorsese, in addition to making mob movies, makes so much, like, artistic kind of, you know, non-mob movies.

I don't know. I mean, Rockstar used to do that, too. Yeah, Red Dead is totally Scorsese. I believe it did. Because, you know, with a Rockstar one is so much harder than coming up with, like, what Frum Software is. Well, I want to start with LJ's actual comparison of Christopher Nolan to Frumsoft, which I really like.

It's purely based on vibes. Obviously, they're just completely different, different. Yeah, this is an absurd comparison in the first place. of media, different, a whole creative team and one director with obviously his own, it's just completely different. But there is just sort of this like similarity actually, like where they both do stand apart as these just, just as LJ says, as these artistic triumphs that are also massively successful that do it by leaning into the best elements of the medium in which they're working, where

Nolan's films are so cinematically adventurous and cool. And also people really respond to them in the way they respond to movies. You know, FromSoft games are so video games. They're so good at being video games. They're difficult. They're so thorny and twisty and naughty and complicated. And like, you know, we obsess over them in the same way. And so there is actually, like the root of this question is coming from, I think,

the root comparison is a very strong one. Let me give you an alternative theory, which is, is From Software, the David Lynch of games? Because I also think that Chris, Nolan has a lot of work that's fairly accessible, even though it's also still prestigious and artistic. Some from software games are really weird and like turn off a lot of people. And like I don't think of like early days of from software as having kind of the same impact on people as early Chris Nolan films.

I think of people being like, these are niche and weird and you're kind of a masochist if you like from software in the way that people think of David Lynch's work where it's really influential, really powerful, really cool and artistic, but also you have to be kind of a masochist to enjoy a racer. I don't know. It doesn't totally work. This is all vibes based. I don't think David Lynch has had the same level of commercial success as from sophomore. The commercial success part doesn't well that's what makes the Nolan comparison so good is the artistic plus the commercial. And you can go back to Memento and Demon Souls or something. I mean I guess going back to Kingsfield or whatever and further. It's a little different. King's Field is really the Memento.

But the earlier Nolan was definitely a stranger. No, you're right. And then, like, who is Kojima? Because Kojima's kind of a filmmaker anyway. But maybe he's a little bit David Lynchy. I think he would love if we said that. He would love that. I mean, he'd love to be compared to any of these characters. It's like the highest compliment we could possibly give them.

Yeah, I don't know if there's a good comparison. I think Nintendo is kind of like the Chris Columbus of the video game in the same. Oh, yeah, I could see that. I get. The family friendly, like, some all-timers, some good classics. I think Nintendo is the Spielberg. I think because Nintendo is so successful and I think of Chris Columbus as a little bit of a Spielberg knockoff. He does not do what Spielberg does as artistically or as well.

Nothing really against him. He's made some good movies. But he's made a lot of movies that are kind of whatever. Interesting. But Spielberg has taken some real risks that Nintendo doesn't really. I think Nintendo takes so many risks. That's kind of what's amazing about Nintendo. No, I guess, okay, no, risks is the wrong word.

I'm playing Spletoon Raiders right now. And it's like, how is this the big shooter? Rist is the wrong word. Rist is the wrong word. Spielberg has gone into, let's say, more, more. Spilberg made a Holocaust movie. Matured. Sure.

Yeah. What is Nintendo's not? What is Nintendo's list? What is the Shindler's list? What is the Shindler's list? What an upsetting question that LJ has provoked us? The Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the Shindler's list. The answer to that question is Yoshi's Woolly World.

First of all. Second of all, yeah. that's what I was looking for. It's more like Nintendo doesn't take the kind of artistic risk. Or like the Nintendo, one of the conversations that Spielberg is willing to have, maybe because I just think of them as more childish, I suppose. Sure. I think the comparison kind of holds up for me because Spielberg is like not,

he's always trying something new. He's sort of, you know, he's like an IPN to himself in a similar way that Nolan is now. I mean, Nolan, I think, occupies a kind of similar space. albeit the movie world has changed quite a bit from when Spielberg was at the height of his powers. But still, it's like one of, like the director whose name is just means something really specific and important. And Nintendo is kind of that way as well. Like they do, they've been doing it for a very long time. They've covered a lot of ground.

They're comfortable in so many different areas. And they're very much just like Nintendo. And you know when Nintendo puts out something, you're going to check it out and it's probably going to be good. Steven Spielberg is very similar in that way he's had his misses but like he's covered a ton of ground he's made movies in like every style he's always coming back and he's been with us for a very very long time

and is even still making movies so it's like I think there's a there's a parallel there obviously quite a bit of differences but what a fun question yeah what an utterly silly question wait okay I have one more one more to throw at you guys Tarrantino is id software

It software is the Tarantino of the video game industry. Yeah, I was thinking about who it would be. All right. Say more. I think that's, well, I mean, just kind of like very influential, a lot of commercial success in the early days, maybe a little, little bit. Like reservoir dogs is Wolfensine 3D. Yeah, yeah.

And like Doom is, it's Pulp fiction, yeah. Yeah, okay, I like that. That whole. I don't even agree with this. I'm just coming up with ideas to make it work. Well, the violence, the violence. The hateful eight is like rage. yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah some weird some weird styles a little bit later on um that's funny and and yeah and then

kind of like uh has just disappeared maybe i don't know maybe we'll see what happens yeah i guess and it hasn't quite made the pivot to like these kind of broader you know the the sort of some of his more recent stuff that's a little more i don't want to say artsy it's a little less lurid I guess I don't even know like once upon a time in Hollywood actually is pretty lurid. So maybe I take that back. I feel like we're illustrating one of the difficulties of the question here because like now that we're throwing id software in there, I'm like, well, but the original id software had these big characters in and of themselves who were atturs. Like you had the Romero and Carmack Dynamic and like all the other guys. I mean, of course,

I've recently read Doom Guidemasters of Doom. So I'm kind of biased here. But, you're right. We're personifying a studio. But all those guys are gone. So it's like we're now talking about a version of its software that's super, super different from the original one. So like having Tarantino encompass the entirety of its software is utterly laughable. It just doesn't work here. But that's why this question is hilarious and in fact good because it is silly and it doesn't matter. I mean, it's actually fitting for From Software because you have Miyazaki who has been there. Right.

That's almost the way I feel like it's. And presumably a lot of other people as well. For like auteur-led studios, whether it's fair to say that those Artur's have creative control or not. I think it's a little easier for us to make. comparisons between them and movie directors, which comes with all the thorny considerations that movies have as well. Like, who's really in charge of everything? Or Japanese studios where there's a more consistent, you know, lineup of people working there. Like, the staff is just more consistent. Yeah, I mean, I also think that from what I've learned about Japanese studios, the kind of the

auture vision sort of thing is a lot more, like, kind of prevalent at Japanese studios. where in Western studios, sometimes we see someone as being in a tour, but actually it's like some other people below them who have a way more like say and and kind of input into what the final product turns out to be. I think just because of the way Japanese development culture works, there actually is a lot more. There's a lot more hands on from the person on top and a lot more just kind of auteur driven direction. I'm just enjoying imagining Quentin Tarantino stops making movies, but like the people who used to work for him keep making movies as Quentin Tarantino. that's the world that we live in right now and everyone's like man this new Quentin Tarantino movie is great and then some critics are like actually you know it's not even the same guy but like no one really cares about that because like that criticism doesn't matter to people the collective of people known as kind of Tarantino God let's read one more real quick uh Kirk why don't you just read this last one real quick sure John writes I'm 47 years old and I have been gaming my entire life I wait until games are under $10 on Steam and slowly work my way through my back catalog. My son is 12 and

plays three free to play games. He puts free in quotes, Roblox, Fortnite, and Brawl Stars. He has spent well over $500 on them. Every holiday, all he asks for is virtual money for these games so that he can buy the latest skin, weapon, or hero. But that's the thing. There's always a new skin, weapon, or hero. He is literally bought into a cycle that will only end when he stops playing the game. these days. Am I right? Oh my God. Jesus fucking Christ. Okay, I have a quick anecdote to share. So I will never let my kids play these games. First of all, um, second of all, my daughter has this elementary school yearbook that she got from her school. And the sixth graders all have this section, because this elementary school ends at sixth grade. So the six graders all have a section where they

all get these little interviews. It's very cute. And in the interview, they put favorite game slash app as like one of the questions they're asked. And a bunch of them are like, Roblox and Minecraft and YouTube and just kind of the stuff you'd expect. But there's one who put Hollow Night. And then there's two, two different kids who put under undertail. Hell yeah. One put undertale slash Delta Roon. So some of the kids are all right. Those three kids are going to form a podcast in 20 years. And when all three of us die on the same day, you can all stop listening to us, of course, and listen to that podcast. Yeah, they'll take over Triple Creek. Triple Cook will go on just like Tarantino, but it won't be.

the same triple-click. And those children will have to sign the blood pact. Well, yeah. Once they overwrite our blood with their blood, then we're finally free. For Tarantino, it's a very bloody blood pact. I mean, our old boss, Stephen Totillo, his policy is he won't let his kids to let his kids play anything but not free to play games. Like specifically, that is the rule. No free to play games, which I personally think is an excellent rule.

I think it makes sense. Keeping kids away from any predatory stuff, anything that is like trying to get you to spend money beyond what you are just paying for the price. a game, I think is just a good habit in general. And that's my plan with my kids is like they can play anything, anything on my switch. They can play stuff. Like as they get older, they can play stuff that's more appropriate for them, yada, yada, but no Fortnite. No Minecraft. They can definitely play. But no Fortnite, no Roblox. Like, none of the free to play stuff. All right. So, thank you again to everybody who sent in questions. We might do another burning questions next week or at least another one in August. We'll see because we've got so many good ones. Once again,

you can reach us to triple click at maximum fun.org. Let's take a break and we'll be back with one more thing. In 2026, our comedy podcast, Salvin's, is one of the most reputable sources for medical information. Does that make me feel great? No. No, me neither. But I do like to think we're doing our part in making sure that we're fighting the pseudoscientific misinformation that has pervaded modern society. Yeah, but we're doing our part over here on Salbone. every week, a marital tour of misguided medicine. It's not all serious stuff. We're still getting into all the wild, weird ways we used to try to heal people over the years.

But we're also trying to keep tabs on the evolving situation. Yeah, we can talk about drinking raw milk and eating mummies. It's sawbones. That's right. It's sawbones. It's every Tuesday. And it's on maximum fun.org or wherever you get a podcast these days. On Judge John Hodgman, the courtroom is fake, but the disputes are real. Brian would say I'm the Gumby of this family. He's just not.

Claiming to be Gumby is an ungambi-like claim. No, it's just Gumby and I being our authentic selves. So what's your complaint? Too many sauces? There are no foods on which to put the sauces. Have we named all the sauces on the top shelf yet? Not even close. You economize when it comes to pants. Truly, it's not about the cleanliness of the pants.

Well, why isn't it? This is what I want to know. Judge John Hodgman, fake court, weird cases, real justice. On maximum fun.org, YouTube, and everywhere you get podcasts. And we are back at it's time for one more thing. Maddie, start us off. Sure. I've been playing a video game called Hell Clock, and it's really cool. Have you two heard of Hell Clock at all?

No. Good name, that. I know, isn't it? It's a real Spider Mansion name. I know. It's almost like we gave him advice. came out a year ago and they just put out DLC, which is how I heard about it because a couple friends of mine were checking it out with the DLC drop.

And it's so cool. So Hellclock is a rogue light, rogue like, whatever. It's one of those. I can't be bothered to know the difference between those terms. It's similar to the video game Rogue, if you've heard of that. Or in my case, it's similar to the video game Hades. but it has a clock in it. This is like the main difference.

It's got a hell clock, you see. So when you're descending into hell, there's a timer. And that fundamentally changes how a run works in your psychology around the run, because instead of the run ending with you dying, it could end with you dying and getting reset, back to home base. There is a ticking clock which forces the run to end at a certain point, no matter how far you got. And that encourages you to level up your character back at home base more frequently. And one of the things that you can level up is the clock itself.

You can extend its time. But also the abilities in this game are so cool. They are like interlocking stacking abilities that kind of turn you into more of like a vampire survivor's type of a murder machine such that you proceed through hell significantly faster the more the more abilities you cultivate. the more you stack them. So for example... So hold on, just to zoom out for a sec. So this is an isometric action RPG. Yeah, kind of like Hades. Like you're looking down, you're going through how... Kind of grittier. I'm looking at, I'm looking at footage of it. It's like a little more

Diablo vibes. Yeah. So I guess I'll take a little pause and I'll explain like what the vibe is, because the vibe is part of why I'm playing it for so long, because I actually love the atmosphere of this game. And then I'll explain the stacking abilities and how fun they are. So this game is made by Brazilian development team, and it is about a historical event in Brazil called the Canudos Massacre that I knew nothing about, and now I know more about, in part because of this game, and also because I just wanted to read about it after this, because I was really interested in it. So this was this historical event in late 1800s. Let me see if I can explain it really quickly. This super religious, Catholic mystic guy became very popular with marginalized people at the time, like newly freed slaves,

who didn't have resources and money, indigenous people, other just people who were marginalized by society, ended up following this guy because they felt really unsupported by the Brazilian government. They ended up creating this sort of commune slash town called Canudos, and the Brazilian government went there and killed everybody because they perceived it as a threat to the government because it was, despite that it was like this religious enclave,

it was also like this really far-left extremist kind of ideology that was like really fascinating. And even now historians are kind of like divided on how to characterize this guy because it's like was he's this cult leader? Like should we like kind of not see him in a good light or was he like this kind of hopeful figure? So Hell Clock depicts him as a hopeful figure. And they don't name the guy who founded Canudos by name, but it's kind of like implied that that is the setting here and that's what happened. And it's right after the massacre. And you're this regular guy who is suddenly having to fight the Brazilian government except in this version of

the world. Heaven and hell are real. Catholicism and all that's trappings are real. And the Brazilian government is led by, or the military at least, is led by the literal antichrist. And so all of these demons from hell are what are massacring the people of Canudos. And you have to descend in hell to rescue the guy who like saved all of you. And that is, it's like a very, very religious game in the way that like Diablo is and you could argue Hades is, although it's about an ancient religion. But it also just has like, it has really cool aesthetics and vibes. And like history lesson-wise, I think it's very interesting. And it's like a very Brazilian game, like very Brazilian team.

So anyway, the ability stacking, this is the other reason to keep playing the game and why it's fun. So it is an indie team. I will say there's like a lot of weird difficulty spiking. I don't think the balance is perfect by any means. And I think part of that is because like they're called relics. I think a lot of them are like auto generated, procedurally generated. So like sometimes you can kind of break your character as well. Is the game an early access?

No, it was out. It's out. It's out, baby. They're still updating it and they're still putting things out for it. But like I just wanted to warn people that since it's an indie, it's not, it's not as like smoothly polished as a Diablo, for example. There's definitely some spikes in it where I'm like, okay, interesting. Like this is made by a smaller team. So basically, you know how in Hades, like everything kind of revolts around the dash mechanic?

In this game, you're like a gunslinger. So you can, your dash is on a cool down. So like that also is something that kind of alters the game. So even though it's isometric, you're auto-aiming. And like, you see a couple zombies and you can automatically aim at them and like kill a couple guys and then like keep, keep walking instead of dashing. And like that's like how you start off. You're just individually killing guys by hitting. the fire button. And then eventually you like get an ability where okay, maybe the dash mechanic

cools down faster every time you kill someone. Okay, great. Now you can dash more. Then maybe you unlock an ability where you suddenly have like a circle of spinning knives around you. But that's on a cool down except maybe you can have that power up with either every time you kill somebody or every time you dash. And then you stack those things on top of each other. And like you or you have an ability that's like tied to your health, for example. Like you can tie your dash to your health and be like, okay, I'm going to dash, but it's going to take away some of my health every time. And then you get a different ability that you're like, this is going to give me health every time I kill someone. So the faster you kill the zombie guys, the more your abilities continue to stack and you just have to

like keep paying attention to like your levels and try to move as fast as you possibly can through each level, which is its own challenge. And like, this is kind of like what we were talking about with Mina the Hollower and like, I feel like other games where you like have stacks. abilities and you need to just create like a murderous hurricane guy. Right. Build crashing. And like it's, it gets really crunchy at a certain point. This looks dope as hell.

I'm watching footage of it. And just like the fully powered up characters are insane. It does look like vampire survivors. So this came out a couple of years ago. It came out one year ago. Yeah. The DLC just came out. It's like an annual DLC.

Yeah. So like that's why I'm playing it. And it's really fun and cool. And I learned about the Canuno's Massacre. but also the game is very cool and fun. Yeah, the art, man, that cutscene art. It's kind of like, looks a little like preacher like those comics. It's kind of got that.

Yeah, and like they have, they do have an English voice cast that's pretty good, but the Portuguese voice acting really good. So that's how I've been playing it and hearing it. It's got spooky music and sad voice acting for a sad situation. I also enjoy that the developer's name is Rogue Snail, which is a fun name for a developer, and also makes you think of rogue amoeba who make audio software.

That's fun. Like a rogue unlikely thing. A little bit spider mansiony as well. So they know how to name things. Yeah. Rogue snail. Hell clock. I like it.

I'm into it. It's fun. I'm not sure if I'm going to beat it because like again, like I said, at this point I have so many relics and so many abilities I'm stacking and like it's getting really unwieldy. And like, it's like this kind of sometimes they run out and you're like,

I'm like, this is going to run its course with me emotionally. But it has very fun. has very much captured my imagination this week, and I've really, really enjoyed it. And this is like one of those games where you look at a Steam review and somebody has 135 hours and like a negative review. And you're like, okay, yeah, sure, dude. There are a couple of those in there. And I get it. But yeah, it's called Hell Clock. It's really cool. Nice, yeah, it looks great. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My One More Thing is a book that I just finished. I finally listened to all the Dungeon Crawler Carl books. Maybe I'll make that my one more

thing later so I can talk a little more about those. You finish all of them? I listen to them, yeah, there's eight. They were like my soundtrack for getting ready for the live show. I was basically not listening to much music because I was just so focused on the show and then I just listened to those dungeon crawler Carl. What a fun experience that was. But no, the book that I read was a normal book that I returned to, you know, I returned to reading actual books and it was really great. Normal book, actual book. Not an audio book, I should say.

Okay, I couldn't tell if that was a slight diss to dungeon crawler car. No, no, no, a printed book of words that I'm reading instead of an audio book that I'm listening to. You're right, that wasn't very clear. Instead of a collection of RPG mechanics. Of course, I listened to the audiobooks of dungeon crawler Carl. The only way, in my opinion, to experience dungeon crawler Carl is the audiobook. But no, with this book, I read it. The book is a book called Still Life by the author Louise Penny,

who I'm sure some listeners will know because she is a very celebrated mystery author who has been writing, well, I know this series, the Armand Gamash novels, named for Armand Gamash, the detective, the Quebecois detective, who is the central character of this series,

so there are many returning characters, the residents of a small town outside of Montreal called Three Pines. And Still Life is the very first one. is a recommendation from my friend Steph, who, along with the two of you and my sister, plenty of other people, is one of my go-to book recommenders. And I feel very lucky that I have these people in my life who read a lot of good books, who have good taste and recommend them. That's really something I've tried to cultivate, and I feel very lucky. And Steph has great taste in books

and is always telling me about great ones. And I've been reading a lot of murder mysteries lately, many of them recommended by you, Jason. And had been talking with her about them. There's a murder club, the Anthony Horowitz books. And those were cool, but she's like, you know, these Louise Penny books, I think she's read all of them. There's 19 or something. You should really read them. They're great. So I got Still Life from the Library. This is a book from 2005. And holy shit, it's really good. From the beginning, it is unlike any of the other murder mysteries I've been reading in a number of ways. It is very much a murder mystery. A woman is killed. killed at the beginning. Armand Gamash and his team are called in. He works for the sort of

of Quebec, you know, police, like sort of, it's kind of, like, a broader than a local police force. It's, you know, all related to how Quebec, like, distributes police power. But he's essentially like a state investigator, I guess, is how I would think of it. And he comes in to investigate this murder, along with his team, and you get to know his team, but also you get to know all of the people in this small town and the people who knew this woman who was killed. And what makes it so remarkable, partly the writing, Louise Penny, I think is a beautiful writer of words. The sentences are gorgeous. The way she picks these arresting images and ways of describing feeling, the choices she makes with, like, the thoughts that her characters explore in any given moment are so striking.

It's just been a while since I read a murder mystery that was written with such interest in, like, humanity. character and emotion and history. And just, I don't know, she's a really empathetic writer. And, I mean, the very opening scene is Armand Gamash finding a dead body and examining it. And just the way he's described initially, the way the thoughts he has, it was so striking it, like, completely shook me. And then I just tore through the book. Bing!

Kirk here, I'm editing the episode, and I'm going to cheat a little bit because I meant to bring down my copy of the book so that I could actually read a couple of paragraphs from that opening chapter to convey what I'm talking about. And now I'm editing the show and I've got my copy of the book here, so I'm going to do that. This is actually starting with the second paragraph. We have been introduced to the woman Jane Neal, who is lying dead. That is the very start of the book. She is an elderly, beloved resident of this small town, Three Pines. And we begin then the second paragraph with Armand Gamash. I'm just going to read a couple of paragraphs to convey what to me at least makes Louise Penny's writing so special.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Cirritte de Quebec knelt down, his knees cracking like the report of a hunter's rifle, his large, expressive hands hovering over the tiny circle of blood, marring her fluffy cardigan, as though like a magician he could remove the wound and restore the woman. But he could not. That wasn't his gift. Fortunately for Gamash, he had others.

The scent of mothballs, his grandmother's perfume, met him halfway. Jane's gentle and kindly eyes stared as though surprised to see him. He was surprised to see her. That was his little secret. Not that he'd ever seen her before, no. His little secret was that in his mid-50s, at the height of a long and now apparently stalled career, violent death still surprised him.

Which was odd for the head of homicide, and perhaps one of the reasons he hadn't progressed further in the cynical world of the serrethe. Gamash always hoped maybe someone had gotten it wrong, and there was no dead body. But there was no mistaking the increasingly rigid Miss Neal. Straightening up with the help of Inspector Beauvoir, he buttoned his lined burberry against the October chill and wondered.

And that's the end of the introductory section of the book. I just think that's really great. Okay, back to my broader description of this wonderful novel. Another thing that Penny does that I think is really cool and is quite a bit different from any, I think, any, murder mystery that I've read, certainly, is she has an omniscient narrator who is constantly bouncing around each scene. So you'll be in a scene, you know, a sort of dinner party with this group of old friends in this small town, and you'll jump from person to person to person with

no warning. It's just, it's all very organic and smoothly handled, but it'll be one person's perspective, and then the next thing you know, it's the thoughts of the person that that guy was talking to. And she just does this through the whole book. She never really sticks with one perspective. You'll get to, you know, Armand Gamash will get a chapter and he's the investigator, so he's thinking through, you know, what may have happened. But then suddenly you'll be hearing from the guy that he's with who's like a suspect. And so you will see the suspect's perspective and many other people's perspectives. And it winds up creating this incredibly rich sense of community. And because she's such an empathetic, wonderful writer of characters, the characters

just come to life immediately, like very, very early in the book, after the this woman has been killed, who is like a pillar of the community and beloved by everyone. All of her friends get together for a kind of a morning party, or actually it's even before she's died, they get together for a different reason to help their friends cope with something bad that's happened. And just, I was amazed within like three pages. I knew all of these characters. Like I knew what their deal was.

I could tell them all apart. I could remember their names because she draws the characters so well and is aided by the fact that she's jumping into their perspective really quickly. So I really highly recommend this book. It is, you know, essentially a murder mystery. It is a whodunit. It has a very satisfying, I think, payoff. But so much of what made it so rewarding to me was just getting to know all these people

and the little subplots and substories that I learned about over the course of this investigation as Gamash and his team kind of turn over rocks and upset the balance in this small community and we get to know everybody. And I can't believe that there are so many more. more, Steph tells me, you know, well, I'm glad you liked the first one because they just get better. And there are books that focus on individual characters that we're just getting to know. There are really flawed characters in this first book who I gather go on to become, you know, mainstays of the story and grow and become fan favorites.

I'm so excited to be starting out this series. And I wanted to throw it out there because I was just totally unaware of Louise Penny. I was not aware of these books, even though they are very well regarded. And she is a very successful mystery author. So that is my recommendation for Still Life by Louise Penny And more broadly, I think, of the Armand Gamash novels, which I'm very excited to be starting. I'm sold.

Yeah, that sounds great. I had heard of Louise Penny, but I didn't like know what the deal was with her. So I really appreciate the pitch. She is great. The omniscience to moving around between characters feels very Stephen King-ish. Yeah, I guess he does do that from time to time,

but he also restricts his chapters to a certain character's point of view. And then sometimes he'll just zoom out and tell you future events. No, it'll bounce around between characters. It's a little different, I guess. But yeah, it would be interesting to go and do a point-to-point comparison just to, yeah, to understand the style. Usually he'll do segment breaks, to be fair, between when he's doing that. Anyway, okay, my one more thing is also a book. It is a book in one of our favorite genres, which is very wealthy people doing bad things

and interesting things happening to them. but following them. It's a book called Alan Ops Out by Courtney Mowm, and it is a book about this ad executive, who is very wealthy and lives in a posh, Connecticut suburb, a fictional town called Bellport, where they have very strict rules about how much your lawn must be mowed, and whether you're allowed to have certain things on your property,

property. And his name is Alan. And Alan, after missing out on something important at work, has a mental breakdown and decides to opt out. You can leave. Of his life. And at the same time, his wife is trying to social climb within the Belport community and trying to join this kind of secret society like women's social club called the queen anne's and she's trying to do this while her husband is having a little bit of a breakdown which causes some some problems and their two kids meanwhile are dealing with problems of their own including one of their daughters thinks that she can talk to animals it all makes for a very very interesting story that was very entertaining and fun to read, in large part because of the characters in this Belport community, all doing ridiculous things

and saying ridiculous things. And this is a funny book, right? It's a funny book. It is a very entertaining, comedic book. In between each chapter is kind of like a look at like, I don't think they call it Facebook, but it is essentially a Facebook page for the Belport community. And you'll have these kind of like messages being exchanged by oftentimes the women of Belport who are very concerned with like the things that are going on at other people's houses and are talking about this constantly. Oh, and it's like epistolary style, like, where'd you go, Bernadette? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we're seeing some of the kind of the events unfold through those little chats in between the

chapters. It's such a funny way. It's a great way to convey jokes, like, about, okay, we need to talk about what just happened, you know, that kind of thing. We all understand posting. Everyone can get that. There's also an excellent Queen Bee character who you just truly love to hate. who comes in and plays a pretty major role in the story.

And yeah, I don't want to say much more about what happens to Allen and his lifestyle and how things change. But it's very entertaining, very entertaining read. I recommend it. Very reminiscent of like your friends and neighbors and other stories in long island vein. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the description for this book is like for fans of something, something.

and Taffy brought us their actor. So, yes. Yeah, it's called Alan Ops out. That sounds great. It's cool. Yeah, it sounds good. All right, that is that for this week's episode. Thank you again to everybody sent in questions.

Thank you, Kirk and Maddie, for being here and for agreeing to die at the same time as me. I really appreciate that. Anytime, dude. I mean, once you make a blood pack, you can't really go back on it. But you're welcome. No regrets. It's fine. I'm ready.

No regrets. Actually, the date is Tavis. is tattooed on all of our skin. Yeah, but we won't reveal it. You'll know when it happens. Well, if you find it, then you'll have power over my soul and I can't have that. We might reveal it one day, but it will only be as a

world premiere at the Game Wars. If a number of certain circumstances are met, then it will be revealed, but that's also in the contract, which of course, no one will ever read. One of the circumstances that Jeff Keeley has to unveil it for us. That's only one of the

circumstances, though. It's really complicated. And Jason, revealing that circumstance, actually, per the contract, it was on this day, July 29, 2026. We must reveal the QI circumstance to the world. We've now fulfilled that. So that's a good thing. Yeah, it's a good thing I remember to do that. I know. We've had to Bing in and do it.

And I think, I don't know if it would have actually worked. So it's good that you remember. No, it can't be a Bing. That's the, yeah. Yeah, that was a little qualification. But there is a clause that says that post-death bings are allowed. So like when those new people take over. And all that that implies.

Well, right. Well, so what's going to happen is that new group of kids is going to take over triple click. Right, right, right. But Bing's will still happen. They'll still be Kirk binging it. Yes. And the question will be, did I record these before I died or after? I mean, it'll be some people's question.

We'll know the answer. Yeah. We'll know the answers. We won't reveal it. We will not, not even in a big. No, we will. Well, until the next great revelation comes, this was a lot of fun. as always.

And yeah, I'll see the two next week. See you both next time. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration.

You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll consider. supporting us by becoming a member at maximum fund.org slash join. 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.

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