Triple Click - Romance in Video Games

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

And now for a subject near and dear to our hearts: Romance! Maddy, Kirk, and Jason talk about video game love stories and which games do them right (and wrong), from Mass Effect to Uncharted to Hatoful Boyfriend. Can a video game romance ever really work if it's based on dialogue options? Plus: impressions of the new Square Enix game Forspoken!One More Thing: Kirk: Star Wars Imperial Assault: Legends of the Alliance (2017)Maddy: Then We Came To The End by Joshua FerrisJason: ForspokenLinks:Triple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again? No? Okay, yeah, I'm just going to reload my save on that one. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we're talking about romance in video games. The times it's swept us off our feet and the times it's left us cold. Love is no game, but games still do keep trying. I'm Maddie Myers.

I'm Jason Shire. And I'm Kirk Hamilton and hello. Hello. Hi. It's us again. back. It's good to see you both as always. It was nice to see you both. I don't know. I was looking forward to this week's

episode for whatever reason. Yeah, for whatever reason, because you're always looking forward. I mean, I'm always looking forward to it, but it's just nice. It's extra nice. It's because today we're talking about romance and the three of us have our own kind of romance. The podcast is romance. Oh, I thought you meant our respective significant others.

No, no, I mean the three of us. I mean the triple-click romance. You mean the bond that we all share, that we power up every time we record. We're earning little heart points. The triangle romance. The triangle strategy romance. You know, it's too bad that bromance is gendered because bromance is a great term.

What is it? There's no platonic. No, platonmance. Does it have the same thing to it? Not good at all. Did you two know that we're a listener supported show? And that's the reason why we don't have any ads? I didn't know if you two knew that.

What? I thought I was adding ads to every episode. I don't know if you guys know this, but we've recorded nearly more than 140 episodes. of the show. And if I didn't know that by now, I feel like my brain would probably be broken, more broken than it already is. Right. Yeah. Well, we all have pretty bad memories. So maybe just week to, it's pretty well established. That's true. That's true. Well, that's why we have to be bringing it up. Yeah, because we'll forget. We think it's the first time we're telling you about it each time. Yeah. And it's also the first time we're telling each other about it because every week is

completely new for us. The eternal sunshine of the triple click mind. Yeah. So anyway, if you, if you, if want to support the show, you could become a member of the Maximum Fun Network by going to Maximumfund.org slash join and being a supporter of ours or any other show on the network if you wish. But if you do that, you get access to our bonus feed, which has a monthly bonus episode from us. And we'll have one this month. I don't think we've decided what it's about. Oh, no, wait, we have. We have. We know what it's going to be. Well, talk about forgetting things. We were just talking about no memory. We're just talking about no memory. We know exactly what it's going to be.

Where am I right now? Okay. We're doing one on the ones more thing of 2022 for each of us. So we're each picking a movie, a TV show, an album, a book. Who can even remember it all? We're picking those and we're talking about them. And that's our bonus app. But we have one every single month and we've got a big backlog of them.

So I don't know. If I were a listener, I would go to maximum fund.org slash join and I would become a member. And you know what else I would do? I would get out my calendar. or, you know, open it up if it's digital. And I would scroll on down to May 18th because we are having a live triple-click show that night at the bellhouse in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, New York, New York, New York. I'm going there.

Not from there. I'm going to physically go there and appear next to the two of you. And let's say you didn't want to go to New York for whatever reason. but you did want to see us live, there's also digital tickets. You could watch us on a live stream. So we'll have a link. We just open those up.

Yeah. If you have FOMO, if you're like, man, I wish I could go to triple click live, but I cannot make it to New York. Now is your chance. Link is in the show notes. It's the same link as where you get the physical tickets. Basically, you click get tickets in the right side,

on the right side of the Eventbrite link, and you will see options for both physical and live stream tickets. So if you want to watch the show, but you do not want to go. you can totally do that. So we're very happy to be able to open it up to everyone. Which is cool. So you can be part of the live event experience.

I believe there's a chat so you can type poggers or whatever during the show and we'll see it. I think that's what people will do. We're going to wind up doing like an audience Q&A. Yeah, totally. So you can try to pull out. And we'll also release a regular episode in the feed. But hey, nothing like seeing it live, right? That's always fun.

It's true. The visual, the accompanying visual. you can see all of our faces that we get to see every every week but none of you get to see and the ability to type or shout poggers during the show very important that is very important i also imagine there will be like when when we edit it i imagine there'll be parts that aren't like don't make it into all our flubs the controversial stage crasher and like so much other crazy stuff that's going to happen all the awful things we say on stage all right and with that Let's get to this topic.

Just another easy one this week. After running comedy, I thought to myself, what could be easier than that? Let's talk about romance and video games. We really are kind of covering all the big ones. Laughing. We've already done for it. Yeah, it's good. It's 2023.

We're getting ambitious. We're talking sweeping topics. We have to do violence in games next. Right. Oh, let's get Jack Thompson in here. Let's get the ESRB. We're just going to do all the big feelings. But today it's time.

for some lovin. Mm-hmm. It's time for some sweet, sweet lovin. So what are you two's first memories of romance in a game or formative memories? Like the first time you remember having to choose one. Jason, you clearly have an example, so go ahead. Well, my answer is less romance and more sex because when I was a young, like, pre-prevent Brescent boy, I was probably like 10, 9 or 10 or something, I played this text game called

Leather Goddesses of Phobos and it's like this infocom game that is like R-rated, like very sexually explicit and that was definitely one of my first exposures to anything having to do with sex and I was like, what is this? Whoa. And it was really educational and that's where you learned everything you know today. Yes, I learned about the leather goddesses of Phobos. I'm sure. But actually, in general, I feel like romance in games has been disappointing to me. And I'm the type of person who's a sucker for like a really amazing romance story.

Your leftovers, your better call Saul's of the world, especially TV romances. Love them. Kim and Jimmy, can't get enough of it. But like in games, for whatever reason, maybe because usually it's the player character rather than two fleshed out people, I just have never been

able to connect. And I've just never had any interest in like dating, despite joking around a lot about like, oh man, Matsuro is so hot. I've never actually had any interest in dating or like romancing digital characters. So yeah, what about you two? I mean, I thought you were going to say Final Fantasy 7, Jason. I'm not going to let you off the hook just yet. Yeah, the date with the date with, well, you don't actually get to choose in the original. You kind of like the game picks points for you. And then eventually you go on a date with either Aris or Tifa or Yuffy or if you're really lucky Barrett. Yes. In the golden saucer. And but you don't actually get to choose. You don't like pick up. who you date. Or you don't know

you're choosing, I guess we should say. It's kind of, yeah, it's like a secret point system that goes on under the hood of the game. But nonetheless was something that everyone I know was deeply invested in. That's true. Kirk, how about you? I've definitely cooled on romance in games

over the last 10 years or whatever. I remember playing, you know, when I came back to video games around 2007, 2008, playing Mass Effect. And Mass Effect was, you know, it was the first time I'd played that kind of BioWare RPG

and then I believe then I went and played I guess Dragon Age came out after Mass Effect is that right I think it came out

in 2009 so I played that but then I had gone back and played Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire and those earlier

games which also had dating but it was Mass Effect was the first time Baldur's Gate 2 I think was the first of the

Byro War Games to have which I've never really played maybe one day but I'm definitely going to play Baldiers Gate 3 so playing

Mass Effect at the time I remember being I think that the first time I played through it, I didn't date anybody, which in retrospect totally makes sense, because I wind up in that situation a lot. As much as I, like you, Jason, have fun, goofing around about like, oh, this character is totally the whatever, the most datable character in the game. When I'm actually playing, it doesn't do anything for me. I don't feel like some vicarious thrill

because there's this beautiful woman who's in love with my player character. And honestly, in most of these RPGs, I play as a female character, and there haven't even, there haven't really been good queer options, especially not in like the first mass effect. Not until somewhat recently, yeah. Right. So it was just pretty removed from me, which then winds up being the way that I engage, I think a little better with romance in games is when the character that I'm controlling and like, you know, romancing characters with is a little more removed from me.

And it feels a little more interesting when I'm like, well, who should this character wind up with? rather than like who do I think is the most, you know, mariable or whatever of all of these characters. So it never did that much for me. And then I have one memory of around this time of playing Uncharted 2. And there's a scene in Uncharted 2 early on between Chloe Fraser and Nathan Drake where they're kind of canoodling in bed. Yep. And just it's like a pretty dynamite scene where there's a lot of chemistry between the two characters. And I remember being like, this is cool, like seeing two digital avatars.

You know, at the time it was naughty dogs, you know, peak technology. It still looks fine now because it's mocap. It's Claudia Black. It looks pretty good. I recently watched all the cutscenes for all of the uncharted games. And I can verify that scene's fun. So it's, and it's like a sexy fun scene where they're just kind of flirting. And I remember being like, this is pretty missing from most other games I play.

Like it was the exception that proved the rule or whatever that most games cannot. cannot match that. So I guess in that situation, it's almost just watching a movie about two characters. Like I don't really associate myself with Nathan Drake when I'm playing. And that worked fine. I thought that was kind of fun. And the romance of that game is fun. But yeah, for RPGs, it really has never done that much for me. And now I'm kind of really being able to articulate that for the first time. I think to your point, Kirk, I think that it's more, it's always more interesting and appealing when it's two characters who are just kind of like you're watching their chemistry and decision-making unfold as opposed to you making the decisions

because usually in games the decisions fall so flat it's like oh this decision has a heart next to it so that must be the romance one or like oh yes I am I am pushing this character's buttons by following by giving them flowers or

following the scripted path that has been laid out for me as opposed to watching like a good story between two characters with depth to them which is a lot more I think appealing than Yeah, I really agree. Not to skip over the answer to my own question that I just posed, but a great example of what Jason described,

but I just want to mention first is in Marvel's Midnight Suns, the romance between Carol Danvers and Blade is one of my favorite parts of the game because it unfolds between two characters who you are not playing as, and you know both of them and they're both in your party and Blade is too nervous to ask out Carol for most of the game, but they obviously have chemistry and all their interactions. And I loved it. And by the end of the game, they're more or less together. But it's like a lot of it happens outside of your view. You get to have conversations with each of them and then be present for some of the conversations they have together. But at least in my interpretation, they have many that you don't see and that you kind of hear about secondhand. And it just, I really enjoyed it in a way

that I often don't where I feel like in Mass Effect, if you don't date certain characters, they end up with each other, but it's not a huge focus of the storytelling or like an intention of it, and it more just seems like... They maybe got there in three. Yeah. If I'm remembering correctly.

Yeah, but I, it doesn't feel as intentional almost because it's like, well, since the player character didn't choose either of these people, they just had to end up together, I guess. Whereas in Midnight Suns, it's like, no, these two characters had a crush on each other and ended up together and you are not playing a role in it because

there is no romance option for the player character in that game. But to answer the question myself, I for many years thought I was really weird for not ever falling in love with a video game character as a player character and always being like, how am I supposed to choose a person? Like, am I supposed to choose the person I would be attracted to? And that like really stymied me in the early Mass Effect and Dragon Age era because I would play. my commander shepherd as a facsimile of myself generally. Like what would I do in this situation? And I'd play my version of Hawk in a similar way.

And then when it came time to choose my paramour, I'd be like, well, none of these people are really my type or how would I even evaluate that? And it really messed with me. So I'd end up just kind of choosing someone at random and being like, I guess I like this person. I don't know. And then as time went on, I realized that that was not

the way to have the most fun for me, and that I'd rather play games, even if there's a player character, by inventing a different person who is not like me and playing as them. And then the romance option is based on me almost being like a TV director who's like, what's the best story? And that is way more fun across the board. And then I can still end up with a romantic arc that could be pretty fun to watch play out. But I don't feel like I need to be attracted to either party

because that just usually doesn't happen to me. sorry to all video games, I guess. No, yeah, I think there's something to that. I think that for all, it sounds like we're all kind of describing a similar feeling, which for me, it's that the farther removed I am from the depiction of romance, the more interested in it I am. And that's, I don't think that we're, that's universal. I do think there are people who enjoy the sort of fantasy elements of games.

I mean, there are dating sims that we don't really play. And even like Eroger games, where the whole point is that you're fantasizing about being with, you know, one of these beautiful people that you get to go on dates with, and they're all just there waiting for you. And, like, that's a cool fantasy. Like, I get being into that. When it comes to storytelling, yeah, like, I'm more into it, the more removed it is from me. So, the most, you know, the version where it's, like, persona comes pretty close, where your character isn't even a character, and every character in the game, it just, or every, you know, in the case of persona five, every girl in the game can date you even, like, teachers and completely

inappropriate characters. And it never is, it's never the thing that I care about, really. It actually like feels weird sometimes depending on who you're dating. So that's like on the one end. And then all the way at the other end, yeah, it's like a character that isn't even the playable character that you're just watching team up. Captain Marvel and Blade is a good example. I always think about Avaline from Dragon Age 2, who is a really wonderful character in a very flawed game.

But one of the things about that game that I think gives, is what its defenders cite is, you know, one of the reasons that that game is good or a redeeming factor about it is this character, Avaline, who's a member of the city guard, this kind of tough lady who has a lot of walls up and doesn't let people in. And as you get to know her, you learn that she is carry. I can't remember the particulars, but she's carrying on a romance with someone else in the guard and is worried about it. And then your whole friendship arc with her is about helping her get with this person that she's in love with.

And I don't think she's a romance option at all for Hawk. And so, you know, it's really cool. It like winds, it's like a subversion or a twist on the bioware arc where. And usually, you know, you romance on the whole game and then you sleep together right before the final mission. And that was kind of what they set up. But with Avalene, it was different. And I thought that remove was what made it interesting because suddenly, like, it didn't

feel weird. It didn't feel like the whole world was just set up so that everyone would fall in love with me. And I was just choosing who to put the most love tokens into until they, like, give me sex. Which is the creepy thing about all the way every dating sim and every bioware game, has been designed whenever that's the outcome of a romance arc. Yeah, and it's really hard to get away from that. I think even games that have tried to iterate on that concept by having more surprising options or unexpected options

be the one that causes the character to fall in love with you. Like, Midnight Suns doesn't have romance options, but we gave the example of magic liking it when you're kind of mean. And that is something really fun about her character. Yeah, exactly. I mean, some of it is that, but some of it is. also giving more unexpected answers to a question can result in a character respecting you more rather than just sucking up to them endlessly. Like if you just always give the corny answer

with Captain America, it might work, but with Wolverine, he's going to be like, what's your problem, et cetera. Like that concept for a game works really well. And another thing I was thinking about ahead of this episode was just the way that character sexuality has been increasingly designed around. Like in cyberpunk 2077, there's a character who you can only romance. She's lesbian character and you can only romance them if you're playing as a female character. And pretty soon after the game came out, people created mods whereby you can get around that. And this is something where I still don't even know how I personally feel about it because she's a video game character. So like in theory, I should be completely fine with this. But for some reason,

it just really grosses me out. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to say anyone is like morally wrong for doing this. But just me personally, I was like, oh, that makes me feel really weird. Like, installing a mod to change her sexuality so that she dates a guy. That's so weird. But it's like, well, why would that even matter? And it's also just something that's repeatedly come up with like the latter day dragon age games where some characters have a very defined sexuality. And they're only interested in Hawk if Hawk is either a man or a woman. And there's, that's just programmed into the game. And it is what it is. You can pick the same dialogue options. It doesn't matter. I just think it's fascinating that that's something that has come about as a

a design problem, but it also doesn't feel entirely like a solved problem, you know? I will say it does fit the theme of cyberpunk. Like, that would be an interesting cyberpunk story to have like mods that change your sexuality. Yeah, to brainwash somebody. Or like hijack your own brain to change who you're attracted to. Now that is a DLC, guys, academics, cyberpunk? Terrifying idea. Horror game DLC. I think something that you guys have gotten at, that kind of that I, that I, can relate to or at least made me start thinking about what

makes a lot of this unappealing to me is that like one of the things that I find really interesting about romance stories and love stories in any media is watching two people who just have their own kind of like quirks and strengths and weaknesses find a way to

kind of get along with each other and recognize each other's personality traits and just kind of learn to live with that or not learn to live with that and the kind of chemistry or lack of chemistry or explosions that result of that, whether it's like leftovers is a good example, Justin Thoreen, Carrie Coon, just their fiery back-and-forth relationship is one of the most fascinating things to watch on TV.

And when you, the player, are making decisions, you're always going to be a cipher of some sort. Like you might have a voice actor attached to it, but if you're choosing between dialogue options every time you talk to someone, you just don't have a personality. You can't by nature. Even if you're consistently choosing like, the best-hearted ones. You still don't have a personality

or like any sort of brain chemistry that could interact with another character's brain chemistry. And yeah, I think that's why the Nathan Drake and Chloe thing or Nathan Drake and Elena in Uncharted 4, which has a really good... That's a really good... And in fact, one of the best parts of Uncharted 4 is that section in their house

where they're just like having a human, normal relationship. That would never work in a thousand years if you could choose dialogue options for Nathan Drake. It only works because you can see these people and one of them and they have like interesting conflicts and problems because one of them is addicted to adventure and the other one is not pleased about that. And that is really interesting. And just like when you are going around being like, well, I am going to push the buttons here that make this person appealing to me. Then there's nothing to grab onto as a human who like as people who have our own relationships and challenges there. Like there's nothing appealing, at least to me.

I mean, I know it's appealing. I know this stuff is appealing to some people, and a lot of people get a lot out of the biore style relationship. So I don't mean to be shitting on that. It's just for me, it just doesn't work. Yeah, I mean, it's funny that Elena is upset with Drake because he's a video game protagonist. You keep going on these crazy 15 to 17 hour adventures. Hanging precariously off of ledges and then just barely hoisting your way back up onto them and not dying. Stepping on things and then watching them collapse. But yeah, I agree that the fight that they have, especially in the middle of that game, really picks up the narrative intrigue for me.

Like, I find that much more interesting than a lot of the story of that game. I would say, so I have two thoughts here that I'm going to hold one right here. I'm going to place it on a little shelf. And I'm going to, because you made me think of something, Jason, which is The Witcher 3. I think is a good example of a kind of a middle ground where you are playing as Geralta of Rivia. He is a very defined character. You have a number of relationships in that game. of them are romantic and some are not. All of them are very, you know, they're very centered around

Gerald. When I play that game, I'm like, what would Gerald do? My version of Gerald is a little bit different than the version of Gerald that other people play. He maybe makes slightly different decisions. Then those decisions might reflect a slightly different internal moral compass, but he is very much his own character. And that's, I think, a great strength of that game. And I would actually say that now that I'm playing cyberpunk 2077 I think that actually

V is a more well-defined character than I realized when I had first started it and I think I play as female V and she's really a strong character but anyways not to get sidetracked so in The Witcher 3 you're basically choosing between

Yenifer and Tris I mean there are other options that you can choose and you can even choose Gerold you can wind up with Gerald and these reflect result in you having different endings, ending up with different characters. What do you mean wind up with Gereltz?

Like, wind up alone? Well, so there are different things you can do. So if you just romance... Mary image version of Carol? You just like fall in love with yourself? It's like an X-Men plot line where there's like a clone of Gerald and you end up with him. Well, so there are a lot of different endings. I guess I'll explain what they are.

I mean, you can have an ending where you are with Yannifer. Or you can not do any of that. You can just get with Triss, who is another one of Geralt's great loves. I've never thought of on the same level as Yenifer, but that's just me. And you can be with Tris, or you can actually blow it. You can try to be with both of them, tell them both that you love them. And then later in the game, they get to talking because they are, of course, friends slash frenemies. And then there's a very funny scene where they lure Gerald into what he thinks is going to be a threesome.

And then they leave him tied to the bed and they're like, fuck off, dude. And then you wind up alone. So there's all these different possible endings. They all reflect different aspects of relationships that Gerald has. And I think they're all really good and really well written because I was invested as much. in those as any part of the story, especially the relationship to Siri, because she's, like, their relationship is the center of the whole game. You're constantly making decisions with Siri, and because it's not a romantic relationship, it's a more familial one. You're kind of

giving her advice, but she doesn't always listen to it. It's more, it's not like whether you're going to tell her what to do and then she'll do it. It's more, you're going to tell her what, like, Gerald's going to tell her what he thinks she should do. And then she's going to form her opinion of Gerald based on the advice that he gave her, which is, I think, just a more interesting and interpersonal dynamic rather than like a gameplay narrative branching dynamic, and I find that very interesting. So the little thought on the shelf that's related to this because this is something the Witcher does. Jason, earlier you mentioned that sometimes you'll see like a heart next to the dialogue option or some sort of transparency. I think that the more games remove that

transparency, the better for me. I, in The Witcher 3, there is no, like, there's a heart next to this. You just have to kind of know. Just like in the Final Fantasy 7 days, you just find out who wants to date you when it happens. Right. And the Rubicon that you can cross with, Tris or Yenifer is basically saying, I love you at a crucial moment. And if you do that and you go and you're like really, you know, like tell them like you really care about them. Put yourself out there, yeah. Yeah, if you do that and you're not and you don't mean it and you're also kind of saying the same thing to the other woman, then they wind up, they don't like that. But you can sleep with both of them. I mean, sex is a pretty open thing in the world of the Witcher. It's not a huge deal if you're not

emotionally committing. But the game doesn't tell you that. It doesn't say this choice matters. There's no heart next to it. You just kind of pick it. So I think that that alone is a really important thing. It's a UI decision, but it winds up mattering a lot in the way that interpersonal relationships and romances play out in games. And so basically removing UI from interpersonal gameplay mechanics is a good thing and more games should do it. Mm-hmm. That was very long, sorry, but thanks for sticking with me as I moved things around on my shelf. Yeah.

So I think, well, I think Witcher 3 is kind of a rare game in a lot of ways, but what you've just described and what I obviously experienced playing through the game, this idea of like Geralt who is a distinct character but also has dialogue options and you can kind of choose which path he takes. that's very rare in a game. I haven't seen that very often. And that, I think, distinction is why the romances work well in that game. Because you can imagine Gerald is a person even outside of your choices in a way that you can't in a lot of other video games.

Like, who is the Dragon Age Inquisitor? Someone that is the adaptation, right? That it's an adaptation of a series of novels. Yeah, for sure. No, I mean, he's a person. He's like a distinct, there's no character creator in the Witcher 3. There's no, like, you're not building this personality, which I think makes the biggest difference there. You're coming in with books and books of knowledge of this character.

Yeah, although I would actually say, and this is no coincidence, that cyberpunk 2077 is a little bit similar in the sense that V is written to be a fairly specific character. Yes, you can design them visually in a variety of ways, but there's a limited number of dialogue choices that you can make. They have some clear motivations throughout that you can't really change. And romance is a part of that game. But you can also choose to not have it. And that isn't key to the story, which I think is something about that game that I actually liked. I never did beat it. But I played it for a long enough time that I do know that that's the case.

And I liked that. And it's apparently very witcher-esque OCD Project Red to have a game operate in those terms. I've been really struck by the writing in that game. Just as I play it, it's not a surprise because the Witcher is well-written. But, yeah, it's a well-written game. There's just a lot of good quest. I think it's really good. Can we talk about Fire Emblem a little bit?

Please. So we're all playing Fire Emblem Engage. We're going to talk about that more next week. One notable thing about that game is that it significantly reduces or removes the social elements that we're so emphasized in three houses. And you wrote here, Maddie, actually, that there is some superficial data, which I didn't even realize playing it. So far, I mean, I'm not far in, but the characters are so superficial that I, like, just don't care at all. Yeah, well, Kirk, you're going to have to give one of them your ring, your promise rings. So think carefully about who gets to the S rank because you're going to need to propose to one of these cardboard cutouts.

So going back to Fire Emblem. You're going to have to Engage. Yeah. So going back to Fire Emblem Awakening from 2013. This was the first Fire Emblem game that I got into. I think there are probably a lot of people who are kind of that way. I think it was a big gateway for a lot of people. And a big gateway, I think, for a lot of discussions of romance in games and the idea of multi-gender romances.

I mean, this was a huge conversation in 2013. Yes. And it's a great game And actually Engage reminds me of it quite a bit just in terms of the gameplay and the overall design which is one reason that I'm liking Engage Despite, you know I liked some of the dating in three houses

But what I want to talk about is the mechanic of romance Specifically in awakening Because I really thought it was interesting And it also wound up Baring out some of the ways that I feel about romance So in this game it's a tactical RPG You're moving characters around on a grid and as you move them around, if you have one character attack someone while they're standing next to another character,

you'll see these little hearts appear between them because they boost one another in combat, so it's a good idea to keep your units together. You get an attack bonus, a defense bonus, whatever. And then also their relationship improves. And then as you play, you get to watch these little cutscenes between those two characters, not your character, where they have a little conversation, whatever, they talk a little bit, they get to know one another. Maybe at first, you know, in the first ranks, they, like, misunderstand one another. or don't like each other,

then they become friends over the course of the game, and then eventually in awakening, they'll fall in love. And not every character can do this, and this was, yeah, I remember being a hot topic for discussion, but some of them will.

And then because of the narrative framework of awakening, once they get together, they have a kid, and there's a time portal in that game, so then their kid will appear as like an adult who will join your army. So you can be, like, kind of breeding an army of soldiers

by like playing matchmaker. Because their kid will also be a permutation of those two warriors and their fighting styles, right? So it's like a Punnet Square situation where you can be like, all right, I need an archer, but like with the sensibilities

of this axe guy. So I got to get these two together. Wild stuff. It's just eugenics. Right, when you start talking about it in terms of eugenics, it's always a kind of frighteningly short road to eugenics. That kind of seemed very creepy.

I mean, hey, I've been breeding chocobos since 1996. Yeah, I mean, you played any Pokemon lately? Like, a lot of games have these elements. Chocopos, sentient human beings, really no difference. Same thing. Same thing. So that can be seen as creepy.

But it is, if you think of it as like you're playing a matchmaker and, you know, getting people together, in that respect, before I even do that I was going to get their progeny in my army, like, I just thought it was kind of fun. I mean, that's the part that's creepy, right? Like, the matchmaker part is really fun. And it's the part of Midnight Suns that I enjoy so much. But it's not like then Carol and Blade have a kid who, becomes a part of my army against Lilith's undead army, that would instantly make it strange.

So you're saying matchmaking plus child soldiers, not a great count. Matchmaking when you have a direct vested interest in the offspring, like tomorrow because of time travel. So matchmaking plus time travel equals problematic, I think is the equation that we've come up with here. But anyways, I think this is fun because when I was playing that game, I found myself really enjoying some of these pairings I'd come up with. I remember there's a lady who's kind of like a mole person. That's like a type of person. Like right, she had like big hands and she kind of, she was sort of part animal. And then I paired her with the guy with a sword who's like really kind of quiet.

He has like a katana. He's super badass. And the two of them were like super tough badasses together. But then they fell in love on the battlefield. And it was cool. I was like, oh, this is neat. I mean, it wasn't like the reason I was playing the game, but I enjoyed it. So I played through the whole game and really enjoyed, you know, everybody sort of pairing off

and having all these little relationships bloom because it was happening in the game on the battlefield. It wasn't like in a biowar game where you just go back to base and do your romance chores and then go back out into the field. It was actually like integrated into gameplay.

Then I played long enough that everyone was kind of paired off except for my main character who's this kind of not speaking cipher in that game. Oh no. Your main character is going to have to go to prom with the principal. This kind of is, well sort of.

I wound up being marrying without realizing that was what's going to happen. The girl who's like the little kid who's actually 300 years old and is like a dragon. And that happened. And I think I wrote about this. That happened and I was like, oh shit.

I was like, no. Like, I will not do this. So I like backed up to an old save and then just like was like, I'm not going to fight alongside you anymore because it's going to get weird. And then I wound up marrying, I think I wound up marrying Anna,

my character wound up marrying Anna, the merchant, who now turns up and engages a little kid. So I'm like, God damn it, fire emblem. Because she's in every fire emblem game. Anyways, so I just remember having that same feeling playing, awakening, where it was like, oh, I'm kind of enjoying all these pairings. But, like, I have no interest in who my protagonist is teamed up with.

Like, this is the least interesting part of the game. So it's, again, I think evidence of that. I like having a layer of remove narratively. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to like even compare that to a romance that is trying to build human relationships. Because like when the concept of the game is like these two are building romantic relationships by standing next to each other when they attack an enemy, it's like what do you do with that? Yeah. As opposed to. I mean, you can see people, you can see them backing each other up, you know?

But they are different. Sure, yeah. Like in a in a Marvel movie, they're backing against each other and finding off a giant circle of enemies. But that to me almost feels like more like, I don't know, I can wrap my head around that a little bit more than when a game is saying if you make all the right dialogue options. this person will fall in love with you. Like there's almost, it sometimes feels like there's a little bit of grossness to the way you can manipulate or the way you can like kind of just pick the right dialogue options and someone like it feels like you're, uh, uh, I know this is not what the writer's intended,

but it sometimes feels like a pickup artist type thing where it's like you just choose the right. It's in a game. There's a reason that the pickup artist's tome is called the game. I mean, this is absolutely a mindset that exists in the real world. Yeah. Yeah. You pull the right triggers and bam, you got yourself a relationship. think that is an inherent problem. And it's part of why the examples we're using that we like are

the ones like uncharted where the romance isn't gamified at all. And like the will they won't say with Chloe is sort of like a side plot, a past romance that Nathan Drake has. And then his romance with Elena, you, the player, aren't causing any of that to happen. Those are choices that Nathan Drake is making and you're just along for the ride trying to make sure he doesn't fall off and he alleges and that he successfully murders 3,027 people. And that's all you have to do. But he's the one making decisions in his own life. And that is, I think, the only way that you can have romance feel real, at least to me.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's, I think what we're circling around here, what we're kind of zeroing in on is that the more gameplay mechanics are expressly introduced into romance, the less well it works, at least for the three of us. Because if you're in a Gerald Rivia situation and you're just having, naturalistic conversations with people and judging their responses and saying things to them, you know, and like seeing how that goes and then getting different feedback from different characters, that can feel pretty cool. But when you're, you know, in a persona game or Fire or whatever, a game where it's like expressly mechanized and you know exactly how many inputs and outputs. I need to get this gift. This is a thing in persona. Well, I need to look up on the internet, what is the best gift to give to Kawakami so I can get her to like me the most. You have to minmax

your calendar, too. Like, how do I speak? spend time with people so as to make all of them the most powerful they possibly can be, which imagine spending your entire life and friendships that way as a person. Some people do. That's what my Google calendar looks like. Oh, wow. Okay, so I'm learning the both of you do do this, and I shouldn't have said what I just said. No, but I think some people do think of relationships that way.

And, you know, you could look up a sort of dialogue guide for The Witcher 3 that would tell you exactly what to say to maximize your chances of whatever. and you can get into a kind of content. Like I want to see as much of the game as I possibly can. So like I want to get every possible sex scene because otherwise I'm not getting my money's worth. There can be all these other weird sort of layers to it. But I think in the end, if you're removing some of that gameplay stuff, it discourages people thinking about the game in those terms

and encourages a more naturalistic kind of interaction with non-player characters. And I think that that stuff I can totally find plenty engrossing. interesting. And actually, just to mention it, because we haven't mentioned it, but it was something I really liked about Horizon Forbidden West, that you just sort of watch these relationships evolve. None of them are romantic, but you get to talk to people a whole lot, and it has that kind of naturalistic feeling to it. Yeah, wasn't our read that Aloi was asexual or at least a romantic? Yeah, I don't know if it could have been a read. I feel like it's totally plausible. Yeah, whether accidental or not. I guess I'll also say to just push back slightly, Kirk, I actually

really enjoy playing a dating sim and seeing every single outcome. I don't tend to play dating sims and have crushes on any of the characters, but I do, there are some dating sims that are so well written. I mean, I've talked about Christine loves work many times on the show, how much I love her dating sim-esque work and how well-written I think it is. But also, Had a Full Boyfriend is a comedy dating sim that I'm a huge fan of and that I highly recommend playing every single plotline in because one, it's a comedy, and so it's worth seeing every single scene. And also, two, it's a really good illustration of how a dating sim works because it's a parody of classic dating sim tropes. So if you just want to kind of see like, oh, here's the mean boy and like here's the popular boy, except all of them and had a full boyfriend are various kinds of birds.

And you're the only human girl at a school that is entirely populated by anthropomorphic super. intelligent birds because the entire world is experienced a post-apocalyptic event and no humans are left and you live in a cave in the middle of nowhere. It's an incredible video game, honestly, how do you boyfriend owns. But that's a game we're seeing every single outcome was the point, not to get my money's worth, but because it's just plain fun. And I think that is an experience a lot of people have with that genre because it's part of the point. That's true. And I think Lady Killer in Abind is the one, Christine Lovine that I've, played and it's really wonderfully written. So good. That is true and good writing goes a long way.

I mean, if you're writing it well and you're a clever designer, dokey dokey literature club, a very different kind of game, but is another one that uses dating sim tropes to spin a really horrifying story that is also really engrossing and kind of works in this way by, I mean, it's really kind of subverting and commenting on dating sims. Lady Killer in her bind is a very well-written game. Right. That game uses dating sim mechanics and it is explicit about its mechanics, but it still works because, you know, just because it's so fun and well-written. Something else worth noting here is that the three of us are all in our 30s or 40s. Some of us.

And we're all in long-term relationships. And we're all in long-term relationships. And I think that like a dating sim can be appealing in different ways if you're younger, if you're socially awkward, if you haven't had a lot of experience dating. If you don't have a lot of romance, it can be more of a fantasy experience. Or if you're single and you like, you know, laughing. off how annoying it is to date. I certainly remember that period of time in my life. Yeah. So our perspective is a little different.

I think with a topic like this, it's worth underlining that we are very much like coming from our own perspective and that there are lots of different ways to feel about this kind of thing. Exactly. Yep. But no matter who you are,

you should play how to full boyfriend because it's hilarious. It does roll. That game is great. It's really quite incredible. On that note, let's take a little break and then come back with one more thing.

Dear reading glasses, it's been years since I've been able to read. I missed it so much, but I had no idea where to start. I felt so overwhelmed. But thanks to your show, now I'm back to enjoying books again and feeling like a reader. Love Sarah. Yeah, that's an email we actually answered. Okay, maybe not that email specifically, but one just like it, because most of our listeners are named Sarah.

We're reading glasses, and we're here to solve all your reader problems. We give advice, help you find books you love, and discuss reading without making you feel pressured. No matter what you read or how you read it, will help you do it better. Reading glasses. Every week on Maximum Fun. Which animal has the most bones? Why isn't Pluto a planet? Why are bees electrically charged? Let's find out together on our show, let's learn everything, where we learn anything and everything interesting. My name's Caroline, and I studied biodiversity and conservation.

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I read a book called Then We Came to the End. It's by Joshua Ferris. This is a book written in second person plural. Is that how you describe we? We did this. We did that. Never read a book like this before. I guess that's first person.

First person. Second person would be you. Yeah. So this is a book about some copyrighters in an ad agency in the late 90s who all get laid off. And the we in the book is all the copywriters, all the ad agency staffers. And it describes the mundanities of all. office life and weird, bad things that happen to each one of them. I don't even know how to describe this, but Jason, you've also read this. It sounds really boring as I'm describing it.

And at first, for like the first couple hours, because I listened to it on audiobook, and it's only six hours long. It's quite short. I was like, did I make a mistake? Is this the most boring book I've ever read? I can't listen to people talk about getting a birthday cake for the office celebration. I don't know what I'm doing here. And then at a certain point, I kind of got to know each of the characters because although we is described, it'll be like, oh, we heard Karen say such and such and then we heard Joe say such and like, Joe did X and Y. And eventually you get to know the cast of characters through that, and it's an ensemble cast. And then also terrible things happen to certain of them.

And then I don't want to give too much away because it's so short, but I don't know. it's really haunting and incredible. And as somebody who's worked in a creative job and has experienced layoffs in my life, I found it really illuminating to read. And also, I was astounded that a book written in the late 90s felt like it could have been written yesterday. Like, I read it without knowing that it had been written 25 years ago and thought it was a new book. I didn't think it was old, but it's just timeless. I think the thing you didn't, I think the thing you didn't mention is,

that it's essentially a parody of office culture. It's like office space. The movie is the closest comparison. It's, if you like the darkness of office space, but without the characters ever deciding to rip off the office, because that doesn't happen in this book. It's more just sticking with the weird, surreal mundanities of office life.

And then. Or like the other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But not quite like the office at all. I don't know. I really recommend it.

It's weird. It's good. I really likes the audience. book. I like reading a short book, just as an aside. It's nice to have something that's six hours long and really contained. I like the reader. So yeah, then we came to the end by Joshua Ferris. I recommend it if you're feeling weird about work. And when am I not, you know? Did you see the person in December who robbed their company in the same method used in office space? There's like Seattle Software Engineer.

That's hilarious. Incredible. It looks like $300,000. And like, yeah, with the same kind of. Same kind of method. The skimming method. I should rewatch office space. I feel like that would be the best way to celebrate completing reading then we came to the end. Kirk, what's your one more thing?

My one more thing is a version of a tabletop game than I've talked about on the show before. So Star Wars Imperial Assault is a tabletop game that I play with my group. And it's been a little while since I've talked about it because it's been a little while since we've played it. We were playing Gloomhaven for a long time. We beat Gloomhaven or we like finish the last. You never really beat Gloomhaven, but we finished it. It's a state of mind. It's a state of mind.

Yeah, it's a really gloomhaven is a state of mind. Well, and now Frosthaven is out, which is the sequel and looks sick, but it's going to be a million years long. One day we'll play that. But we went back to Imperial Assault, and we've been playing it in Tabletop Simulator, which is the PC game, or you can play on Mac, that just creates a tabletop, and then you can get mods that have different games in them. A lot of game makers don't mind if someone makes a mod out of their tabletop games. and just let them be on tabletop simulator. In our case, we play Gloom Haven that way. We own Gloom Haven, so we kind of see that as fair game.

We own Imperial Assault, and we've been playing that with a really great mod that has really, you know, automated a lot of stuff. It's a very complicated game, so it makes setup and sort of combat dice rolls are all really, you know, really slick and well done. There's a whole UI. But the thing I want to talk about with it is the version of the game we're playing, which is called Legends of the Alliance. And it involves an app or a game, like a computer component that is kind of like works at like a game master and directs your game. So this is basically a squad-based tactics game. So it is actually a lot like Gloomhaven. Four players are, you know, like a Jedi and a sniper and a wookie with a big sword and a demolitions expert.

And maybe those are, there's a bunch of characters you play as. And then you take turns and you're just fighting against imperial, different arrays of imperial enemies are like Wamp. and creatures from around the world of Star Wars. And then it's just combat. So it's like line of sight and I'm going to go here and okay, I'll double up. There's a lot of strategy. It's a very crunchy, really fun game. What Legends of the Alliance adds is, first of all, one player doesn't have to play as the Empire,

which is the last time that we played it. My friend Sean was the Empire. So every game, he was against four of us. And I think it was just, I mean, it was fun, but I'm sure it was kind of exhausting for him too by the end, just because you have to do a lot, you have to keep track of a lot, and you're just the opponent every night. So it's, you're playing as the canonical bad guy. It's kind of like being the dungeon master in a way.

It is, but you don't have as many opportunities to do fun, collaborative things with your players. You're just hammering them. So it's like, reinforcements. I'm just going to kill you guys. Like, when we would lose to him, we would never get mad, but it would just be kind of a, you know, if you're like, damn, you beat us. And then that's kind of what we did that night. Anyways, so now he gets to play on our side.

We're all together. And the app, which we're kind of running into the Zoom call, the app, dictates what we're going to do, which is cool. But one cool thing about how this works is that it allows a new kind of gameplay in this world. Because they've designed the campaigns with the app in mind, suddenly there are just new things happening. We just started playing, but we just did our first mission. Normally in this game, you arrive, it's like there's a little bit of flavor text, you unload, and then there's like, oh, a bunch of bad guys run in, and then you're just in a fight.

And then you fight until you beat the last guy, and then it's over. That was how our whole first campaign was. this time in our first mission, we just land. And we're like on a space station and there's a can'tina. And we lay out tokens that are like nonviolent NPCs. And we can just, and it's like go up and talk to them. So on our turn, we're like, okay, there's no enemies anywhere. And we just go up and like one guy is playing cards.

And so then the app can just give us like options. And it's like, ask him where the, you know, soldiers you're looking for or play cards with him. And so we like play cards with him. And it's like make us make an insight role. and that's a stat you have. Romance him by clicking the option of the heart. They totally could. And basically, the stats that used to exist,

which you can do a dice roll for your strength or your insight, it used to all be combat stuff. You know, like, can you hack this terminal to open this door? Now suddenly it's like, can you beat this guy at cards? So there was a bunch of stuff like that, and we did this whole sequence that was kind of role-playing, like, non-violent stuff before the combat broke out, and it's entirely because of the way that this app has been designed

to integrate with the game, which I didn't know and wasn't expecting, and it was just delightful and added a whole new really cool layer to the game. So I just wanted to say we've been playing it and it's cool to anyone out there with a tabletop group thinking about something like this. It's called Legends of the Alliance. It's on Steam. I think it's also on the App Store. You can play it with an iPad.

And we're having a lot of fun with it. Cool. All right, Jason. What should have been up to? My one more thing is a video game called For Spoken. Yeah. Heard of it. It's just fantastic name for a video game.

This is a new game by Square Anex. It has been kind of widely criticized. I got some middling reviews. A lot of people trashing the story and the writing, among other things. And I will say I'm enjoying it, or I have enjoyed it more than the reviews suggest, although there are a couple issues. So let me explain what this game is. Basically, the premise of this game is you play as this woman who's kind of like, I don't know, if street urchin is a right. word, but she's definitely like in trouble on the streets of New York City. The first thing that you see is like her in a courtroom having been arrested for a crime. She's in trouble. She has a tough life and she's an orphan in New York. Her name is Frey Holland and her last name is Holland because she was found as a baby near the Holland Tunnel, which is I guess pretty much all you need to know about the writing and the storytelling of this game. The dialogue is uneven. I will say that. There have been a lot of memes floating around about the dialogue in this game and is definitely uneven. Um, not in a sense, a lot of people have been criticizing the Whedon like nature of it, the MCU nature of it where there's a lot of clips. Yeah. And there is some of that a lot of it not taking itself too seriously and that sort of thing like her being like, whoa, I can, I can do magic with my mind now. That stuff doesn't bother me quite as much as just like a lot of the kind of unevenness of like throwing curses every line and like that sort of thing that just kind of on a moment to moment. It isn't there's some moments that are good and some moments that are not. not so good. But anyway, so she winds up finding this like bracer thing that talks and transports her to another world and she winds up stuck in this new fantasy world and wants to find her way back home. Never really explain why she wants to find her way back home because home sucks for her, but that's the premise. And so in this fantasy world, she can do magic and she can do parkour and

stuff and there's where the game actually gets fun because the parkour and the fighting in this game is pretty enjoyable. It's very satisfying to be zipping around this world. It's like third person dying light in a way, but even cooler because you can have magical abilities for your parkour. The big downside of this is that the abilities are split into these trees and you only unlock a tree by defeating one of the game's big bads. There are these four women called Tantas who are the big bads of the world and to unlock a new tree, you have to defeat one of those tantas and absorb her powers. So like if once you beat the first Tanta, you absorb the fire tree and suddenly in addition to just like your first set of abilities, which is like earth-based, you throw rocks and

stuff like that, plants and stuff. Now you can also swing a fire sword and use like a grappling hook to swing on ledges and stuff like that. The problem is that it takes forever for you to unlock all this stuff because the whole core of the game is like beat these four bosses and then the game is over, right? So you're not really unlocking the full potential of all your abilities until very, very late. The first Anna, I mean, you might be six, seven hours into the game before you unlock that first tree and it's not a long game. It's like a 20 hour game. So if you're just doing the main story, I mean, there's a lot of open world filler too. But it is fun. And like I've been enjoying just like going on a like on these parkour like just zipping around the world and flying and

leaping and jumping and stuff. It is fun to play. The bosses are fun. The comment is fun. There's some cool little dungeons you can do. Sort of like Bloodborns Chalice Dungeons, I would say. These little, not randomized, but like little mini dungeons. And then it's just kind of like, I don't know, it feels like as generic and open world

game as you could get. But it's just fun. So like, it's not a game. I think this whole six out of ten, seven out of ten that's probably a good way to put it. Not a game that's going to be considered for games. of the year in December, but like if it's, if you're looking for something to do, it's January. This year's dying light too. A game I really enjoyed last year, despite not super caring about the story, but the parkour in that game was so freaking fun. I think it's one of those.

It's one of those. Most people will probably never finish it, but like if you see it on sale and you're like, yeah, why not? I would certainly, if you came to me and said, hey, Jason, should I spend like 70 bucks plus hacks on this, on this new first spoken game? I would probably not recommend that but like if when it's discounted later this year to like 10 bucks and you're like you know that game uh could be kind of fun to play for a little while i remember jason saying it was okay yeah it's not gonna like it's not gonna change your life or like have some sort of emotional resonance of you but but it's fun to play and sometimes that's what you need so i don't know i don't hate it as much as a lot of people do just yeah get ready for some uneven dialogue some questionable story moments one other thing i'll

say that really stood out to me was that the beginning of the game, before you wind up in this fantasy world, you're in your little apartment and you're like, man, I can finally, so, so basically before the game starts, your character Frey, she has like stolen a bunch of money and she has this plan where she's like, I'm going to get this money, I'm going to get out of town, bring my cat with me, and we're going to get out of here. We're going to start a new life. And you're in your apartment, you have your cat, you have your bag full of money and you're like, all right, I'm going to go to sleep. Then you wake up in the all the night and your apartment's on fire. Like the thugs that were chasing you earlier have set

your apartment on fire. And you were standing in the same room as your bag of money, but the game won't let you pick it up. Like you try to pick it up. No. No, no, can't do that. Got to find my cat first because you have to find your cat in the fire. It's never explained why she can't just pick up the money with one hand and look for the cat with the other. Yeah. What? But no, you can't pick up the money. And then you go to your living room. And of course, the door, like, is set in flames behind you and the money all burns down. Of course it does. And then you find your cat, but the money is gone.

But, like, it's so frustrating because you could just pick up your money and move on. But the game will let you. It's one of those things that just sets an awkward town before smoking. It's funny. As it continues. Why not just have the money already on fire when you wake up? It's so easy. I'm a genius.

Yeah. That's, you should be a narrative designer. Oh, boy. I'm sorry for even saying that. Who cares what my suggestion is? I don't know. from the bits and pieces that I've learned about game development over the years, it seems like one of those things where like one person made this thing and then another person

was like, no, actually the story says this. And then another person was like, no, we have to change all that because everything is coming in in the last minute. And it's just like 40 different people not talking to each other and just leads to a disaster at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Anyway, for spoken, it's a game. It's a video game. I doubt you two will play it. And that's totally fine. Probably not. There's a whole lot of other games. And plus I got to decide who I'm going to marry and Fire Elm will engage. It's keeping me up at night.

Yes, yes. That's a very pressing decision. So we'll get to that and so much more. Next week, until then, see you both. Yeah, see you next week. See you guys 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 slash join. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod.

Send email the triple click at Maximumfund.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. owned audience supported. One second. Jason isn't ready.

No, no, sorry, one second. One second. Jason's busy. He's always busy. He's a busy man. I don't know if you know this about Jason, but he's a busy man. It's got a lot going on.

Secret babies. A lot of balls in the air. Yeah, his secret triplets. Jason has a secret baby just out of frame. Like it looks like he's typing right now, but there's actually a baby that he's soothing right now. He's like putting a bottle in a baby's mouth. Quickly, quickly.

He's tickling all the babies. It looks like keyboard typing, but it's really tickles. Whenever I type on my keyboard, I go go, go, go, chico, too, go. Okay, the babies are ready. Do you do that with alpha? I do. I do. I go, go, gochigoo, go to go to go.

All right. Shall we? Yeah. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Dreyer. And I'm Kirk Hamilton.