Triple Click - The Best Quarantine Video Games

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

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When outdoors you can never roam, a video game is there at home. Remember this rhyme from the time of the Black Plague? Still true today. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we're talking about what to play in a pandemic, from online party games to role-playing games that let you escape. We close out with one more thing each on Puppies, The Last of Us Part 2, and The Wire. I'm Maddie Myers.

I'm Jason Schreier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton. And here we are. Here we are. Once again. We're making a podcast. Again. Thank you to everybody for listening to our pilot episode.

The support and the audience reaction has been wonderful. Overwhelming in a good way. It has. Yes, it's been very cool to hear from people, and we are very excited to be doing something new on Maximum Fun. So we are a Maximum Fun podcast now. Maximum Fun is a listener-supported network. That means that you can join, become a member.

And depending on which tier you sign up for, you get some cool rewards. You get bonus episodes from us. and you get the good feeling of supporting us. You can do that at maximum fun.org slash join. Though the thing is right now, I would say the number one thing you can do to support us is tell people about this show.

It's very exciting to be launching a new thing, even though we've been doing this for a long time and we were Kotaku split screen for so long. This is a new thing. It's got a new name. We are all using pseudonyms and recording under false identities. And that's going to be really exciting. It's also really hard for people to find us, though.

It is. It's why we need your help. Right. That's why we need your help. Anyways, if you know anybody who might like this show, people who like games, people looking for a new games podcast and everybody's sort of stuck inside. People who don't like games, but you want to get them to like games. Ah, yes.

Yes. That's also, that's our target audience, really. So we kind of hinted at this a little bit last week. But so it's been a meme on Kataka Split Screen between the three of us for a long time that, like, anytime we play something and enjoy it, we're like, we should do a spoiler cast on that. We should do a spoiler cast on that. Sometimes we do them. Here's some good news.

We will be doing a lot more spoiler cast. So here's what we are going to do. If you are a member of Max Fun, you will get access to a bonus spoiler cast that we're going to do about once a month, monthly spoiler cast, from Triple Click. So you subscribe to Triple Click. You will get a monthly spoiler cast. It will just appear in your bonus MaxFun feed. And that's alongside a bunch of other Max Fun bonus episodes as well from other MaxFund shows.

And you will just get more. of us, more of the three of us, playing stuff and talking about stuff. And so what we're going to do is every time, pretty much every month thereabouts, we're going to tell you all, this is what our next spoiler cast is going to be about. It might be a video game, it might be a TV show, it might be a book, who knows, it could be about anything. And so therefore, you can get to know that thing, play that thing, read that thing, watch that thing, whatever, in advance of the spoiler cast and listen to us, spoil it, and be entertained along with us. So... Can I throw something in here really quick that I just, I want to get this into the lexicon

for triple click as we go. I tweeted about this a few days ago, but one of my nieces, who is nine years old, instead of saying spoiler, she says, spill the beans. So she'll say that she's reading Harry, she's reading Harry Potter right now and she'll say, well, I don't, don't spill the beans. Like, don't tell me what happens. And I propose that we call, instead of spoiling, we should start calling things spilling the beans. Still the beans cast? Right, a beans cast. Beancast. I liked beanstalk. Okay. Kind of works on multiple levels. She also calls someone who spoils things is a spiller. So you don't want to be a spiller unless you're recording some beans talk. So I just wanted to throw that out there. I like that. And so, okay, so the other piece of

exciting news here is that our very first triple click spoiler cast, which again, you will be able to get to, if you are a member of Max Fun, is going to be about Final Fantasy 7 remake, which I finished and you two are playing through. I believe we are going to run this in mid-May, maybe even towards at the end of May. At some point, and I have to- to beat it. Mid to late late, because you still have to finish it. So still, so expect that at mid to late May. And that also gives all of you listeners out there time to finish the game in time for our spoiler cast or spill the beans cast. Beans talk. And if you listen to that spoiler cast, or even if you don't, you can always contact us and let us know what you think about Final

Fantasy 7 remake or anything else. And there are a couple ways you can do that. You can add us on Twitter at triple click pod. And we also have an email address, which is triple click at maximum fun.org. And we've already gotten so many awesome emails from people who liked the pilot and are sharing their gaming know-how and stories about not knowing various gaming terms. And we love to read listener mail on this show and talk about it, which we did in the pilot. So it's definitely worth sending us a email if that's something you're interested in. Also, topic change. I have a small announcement, which is that I no longer work at kataku.com.

I have left. I don't work there anymore. You are between jobs at the moment. I will announce a job at a future time. So you could follow me on Twitter for that, I guess. Cool. Just keep listening to the show. Yeah, congratulations, Maddie.

Now we are all officially Kataku expatriates. That's right. None of us work there anymore. No, we can talk about Jim Spanfeller all we want. Yeah, but we don't want to. But we will not. But we have no interest in that. We're going to talk about video games instead.

All right, moving on. talk about some video games, shall we? So every week in our first segment of the show, we are going to, we're going to come up with some fun names for different segments that we're going to do. This segment is called Hot Topic. And this segment, Hot Topic is essentially the three of us discuss a topic that everybody's talking about, something we find interesting that we think is worth discussing. And this week, should we make like a riff?

Should there be a riff where it's like, Hot Topic? I'll come up with something. Yeah. If you want to make that riff, please do. I think you should make different riffs for each of the different segments we come up with over time. So this week's hot topic is video games to play during a pandemic. This is something that I know a lot of people have been wondering. The more of this drags on, people are just like, God, what should I play right now?

How should I connect with people with video games? How should I escape from life with video games? Well, hey, we are going to give you a whole bunch of recommendations and games to play. So why don't I start with a suggestion that I know is a popular one these days because it's the best way to connect with friends. I have been playing pretty much every single week I've been playing the Jackbox Party Pack. And I know you two are both familiar with that as well.

Essentially, it's a collection of party games that you play with your friends. Usually you play them in person. But you can also share a screen with Google Hangouts and it's really easy to get that set up and play online with people, which is what I've been doing. one of the interesting points of conversation I think here is which are the best jackbox game and I will offer a couple of my favorites my favorite my number one favorite is quiplash and that is essentially it's you're given prompts and two people have to come up with a different answer for each prompt it might be like the worst thing to find in your refrigerator and two people have to come up with different answers

and then everybody else votes on the best one and then it keeps track of all your points and by the end whoever has the most points wins Um, just because if, if you have the right group of friends to play that with, like a group of funny-minded people, it can get absurd and amazing and hilarious and sometimes, uh, uh, sick, sometimes twisted in some, some funny ways. Um, depending on your group, depending on your group of friends. So that, that has been a personal favorite of mine. But I've also grown partial to joke boat. I don't know if you guys have played that song. This one, it's one of the newer ones. What is joke boat? So this one, so this is, it's kind of similar. It's got this fun. the structure where so the way it works is at the very beginning everybody comes up with a list of like words and it's like an animal dog like a brand Oreos whatever tons of different words it can be inside jokes too which generally makes it work even better and then each player has to come up with take that word and like a setup that is provided by the game like what's the deal with Oreos and then

the player has to write a punchline for that and then there's a performance performance stage where player has to actually read the joke I would have to say like, what's the deal with Oreos? Nobody likes the cream inside of them. And it would, and then... It's a good joke. That's pretty solid. You can work on it a little bit, but you can be a little punchy. And then you compete against someone else, and you compete against someone else. And head-to-head, people vote. In terms of the joke or the delivery or both of those things? No, you both. So I read my joke, and then you read your joke, and your joke is completely different.

And then we see who votes, who likes which one better, right? Right. So it's sort of like quiplash in that people are just voting. and which one is funny. Anonymously, yeah. And so one of the cool things about a joke about is that because you're reading it out loud, you can actually win games just based on your performance alone. Like, even if the joke isn't that good,

if you have a good enough performance, like you can sell people to your side, like if you make them laugh with the way you say it. So anyway, those are two of my favorites. I'm curious to hear Kirk and Maddie, Mattie, why don't you go first, like what your favorite jackbox games are? Sure. I really like Quip Flash.

I will actually say there's a jackbox game I don't think is good, so I want to warn people off of it. it because there are so many. I have a few of those too, yeah. So I don't remember what it's called, but there's an art gallery jackbox game where you pretend to be, everybody's an artist and you can draw stuff on your phone or whatever you're using, but it's so difficult to do. And I feel like usually jackbox games are really good and like it's easy to be funny in that context. But like drawing a joke painting just for some reason doesn't result in funny stuff because a lot of people can't draw anyway. I think it's called bidiots as the game. Yes. And the way that the game works is they

give you a lot of very similar prompts for things to draw. So, like, everybody will be drawing something that's on fire or everybody will be drawing a beach. And then all of the ways that you match them up are also similar. So you're, like, looking at a bunch of really badly drawn art and you're trying to figure out which art matches with which absurd prompt. And it's just, it's the worst. Like, it's funny, but not because it's supposed to be. That sounds like a worst version of drawful. Yeah. Or there are a lot of games where you draw stuff. And this one is just, just not good. So definitely skip that one. I really like Quip Blash.

I think I'm going to try Jokeboat the next time. I have a Jackbox. Yeah, it's fun. So that's in Jackbox, the six, number six, the most recent one. Okay, yeah, I haven't played that one. That one also has a new version of trivia murder house, which is also fun.

Is it still like the murder, the murder setup? Yeah, but it's in a hotel instead of a basement this time. So I don't love the murder vibe of that one for some reason. So it's Because that is basically just classic You Don't Know Jack, which was like the original Jackbox game. The trivia is what's fun. Yeah. Right. It's just the setup and like the voice filter is very different. So I really like Fibbage.

I like Fibbage 3 because that has, is it actually Cookie Master Center? Or is just a guy who sounds like the original host of You Don't Know Jack? But he's doing the whole Smarmy guy, like talk. I'm the game show host guy. And it has a whole kind of groovy 70s vibe, which is the main reason that I like Fibbage 3. Like I like Fibbage because so the way Fibbage works is you get a trivia question. and then everybody makes up the answer and you try to fool people into guessing your answer. It's kind of like the board game, Balderdash. If you ever played that, I think that was the one. I haven't thought about that game in years. It's a great, that's a great game. I think Balder Dash is the reverse where like they give you what the thing is and you make up the word for it. Yeah, they give you a word and you prefer Balderdash's gate.

I like Balderdash's game too. That's where they really got the story down then. In Balder Dash, they give you a word and everybody has to invent a definition for the word. So it's the opposite. So it's the opposite. The most plausible definition and trick people into voting on it. My family would play that game all the time. I wonder if that, like, says something about me that that was the Hamilton family's number one game. Anyway, I like Fibbage, but I like it in part just because the presentation is great.

It has all these 70s. They look just like stock photos from the 1970s and that great kind of art deco orange lines everywhere and stuff. And the music is really cool. And I like the presentation more than on trivia murder party, even though I really like the overall vibe of, you don't know, Jack? To answer your question, by the way, Fivage is hosted by Cookie Masterson. It is Cookie. That's what I thought. He's like, I'm Cookie Masterson here and I'm like, Cookie, I love you, man.

Been playing your games for like 30 years or something crazy. Yeah, that company, Jelly Vision, they're fascinating because they've just been doing this for years and years and years. I think they're in Chicago. Yeah, they're really cool. Doing a good job. They did, the translation to this to make it a phone game or make it work with phones is the smartest. One of the smartest game design ideas that kind of goes unsung. It's like the most immediate party game too, like in ways that Mario Kart and Mario Party

never could be. Like you can get all the people who are intimidated by games on board because everyone has a phone. It's incredible. Yeah. And you don't have to press buttons. You don't have to think about controllers. Yeah.

It's amazing. It's nice to see them getting their due. I feel like I've felt this way for a few years where the first time I played one, I think it was at some big event. I was like, this is brilliant. Why isn't everyone talking about this all the time? And it's because it's just one of those things. Now they are.

Right. And now they all finally are. Now they're having their moment. Exactly. So I like Fibbage. I do like TKO, which is the drawing game, because you have to design t-shirts. See, that sounds better. And it works a little like joke boat, how you're describing it. It's one of those, you make a thing and I make a thing, and then we have to combine our two things into some sort of a joke and make it work, which is a funny way of working. Like, you'll draw a t-shirt design or you just draw random things is how every round begins. It's like, just draw stuff. And you draw like five things. And it usually devils into dicks

like halfway through or depending on how many drinks people have had but you can just draw funny faces and then you write catchphrases separate from the drawings and then you just have to assign from a small group of catchphrases to the drawing so the drawing will just be

like a weird face and it'll say like shit and then like that's the and then it's just that's a t-shirt I think the winner of TKO when we played it last week was a dick with dicks for hands and dicks for feet yeah that's usually where it winds up which I guess is maybe

maybe a knock against the game, but that's also just people for you. Yeah. Well, so what I didn't, what I actually don't like about TKO is that it's not really a chance. Like, you don't, so if you draw the funniest drawing, someone else gets the credit for that. And like if you come up with the funniest catchphrase, someone else gets the credit for that because someone else is mastering the two. So that's a little frustrating. Right. It's more like the appeal of it for me is the like seeing how random, not exactly random, but kind of randomly selected things can just result in something hilarious.

which is just funny. It's kind of a good way to break up a night of Jackbox games is to play a round of TKO. And I think you can get the t-shirts. Can you like order? I think you can order a t-shirt of your stupid t-shirt

and they'll send it to you. Which is good. I do want to say to point out one that I don't like also is survive the internet. Have you played that one? Yeah, not great. It's partly because I hate the internet.

Partly because none of us are surviving. It's supposed to be, the host is supposed to be this like nerd in the 90s and it's like a weird like, uncomfortable vibe. Well, but what's the game? Do you just navigate Twitter.com? Kind of. It's like a bunch of internet stuff. So you have to, so essentially, yeah, you have to like come up with a hashtag for someone else that like will embarrass them.

It's hard. You hate it. It's not great. But I will, so just in general, like Jackbox, I think is just the perfect like game for right now because it'll let you connect with people who like, it's a better, more comfortable, like, game to play than just like. like hanging out with your friends in a Zoom call. If you're the type of person who likes doing stuff with your friends as opposed to just like sitting around and talking. And you can do it across ages.

Like a lot of people I know are playing with their parents. It's like their weekly parent hang. They're playing jackbox games and that seems like it's going really well. I don't know. I love that. One more thing I wanted to mention and then I'll throw it to you guys for some thoughts on games to play during a pandemic is RingFit Adventure, which I have been, I know this is super, super hard to get these days.

It almost feels like a bad recommendation. I'm going to say. You haven't? So you're just bragging about the fact that you own RingFit Adventure? Well, I got it a few months before the pandemic. Like coveted again. Whatever, man. I've been looking for a copy of that.

I'm just going to say shout out to that game. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. I feel bad that people can't actually get it. All the listeners, like, everybody is just like, fuck this podcast. I'm over. Yeah, everybody's turning it off and they're deleting the episode and they're clicking on subscribe. Come back, people.

But it actually has a lot of, it has a lot of issues as a game. Like, one of the biggest issues. Oh, does it? It's the issue that I don't have a cut. I gotta say, well, if it does make you feel better, like, one of the problems is that you'll be, like, doing an exercise and, like, you know how it works, right? It's like this RPG where you do all these exercises, squats and an arm, arm shoulder presses and whatnot. You run in place, and you run into monsters and you kill the monsters using your abilities. This is like going to the gym.

I mean, it's just the standard stuff. You kill monsters using your abilities. We've all done it. Of course. One of the problems is that when you do an exercise and, like, the monster runs out of health in the middle, it just cuts you off. So it's like, oh, I'm trying to get fit. I'm trying to do all these squats. And it's like, once a lot, the monster's dead and then you're done.

You have to like find another monster. Yeah. And be like, well, I got to keep fighting more monsters. No, but it's good. It's good. It's good. What about you guys? Maddie, any thoughts on like games that playing?

Well, I don't have RingFit adventure, so I've just had to settle for going for walks and playing Pokemon Go, which to me is the exciting workout game that it was always intended to be. And I've talked to you guys about Pokemon Go before. There's really not that much to it. But I have been pretty excited that a lot. lot of my friends are getting back into Pokemon Go because it means I can send and receive gifts from them in the game again. And also, everybody I know is going for tragic, lonely walks and

their masks. So, like, you may as well catch some Pokemon while you're out there, folks. I've also given up on the Harry Potter game because there was, there was also a Niantic game that was based on Harry Potter. And for a time, it never got the traction. It never got the traction. And I was super into it. And then J.K. Rowling made all those turfy tweets. And I just was like, I think I'm going to go back to Pokemon Go for a bit, just to like check it out. And you know what? You just can't be catching a mall. You really can't. It turns out. It's still thrilling after all these years and I'm enjoying it. They've also changed the game a little bit so that you don't have to walk around. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. As much to get the rewards and they have a bunch of free upgrades in the shop now pretty often. And like they still do community day events where like certain Pokemon appear outside. And so they motivate you to go out, but you don't have to just do stuff at, Poke Stops and gyms so you can stay away from people and still get cool awards. I'm really digging that part of it. And since I'm going on a lot of walks to prevent myself from going completely insane,

I am enjoying Pokemon Go again. Nice. Kirk, any thoughts on pandemic games? Oh, I have so many thoughts. So I've been playing a fair amount of games, not a crazy amount, only because it's been really busy the last few weeks. You may or may not know that we launched a new podcast. And there's been a lot of...

And you got a puppy, and so that's taking up a lot of time. That's true. That's true. I'm going to talk about that in our second segment. But that is actually, kind of does take up a lot of time. Yeah, it wasn't really a joke. Yeah, no, it is a big time commitment. So I've been playing Final Fantasy 7. And I've been finding, so first off on the Animal Crossing tip,

I think it's been interesting to watch the evolution of Animal Crossing as Err quarantine game over the last couple of weeks, just since it launched right at the beginning of all of this. It's been with us throughout it. There was the Animal Crossing Mania where, like, everybody was playing it and living in it for a few weeks. Which is still somewhat true, though obviously people have cooled on the game, and you do reach a point where, like, if you're going to run out of things to do, you're going to run out of things to do, and then you're kind of done.

So I've been playing, let me give a little bit of my Animal Crossing story first, I guess. So I started playing the game, was not able to keep up with people. I was like outpaced so quickly by people online that I just stopped carrying. And, you know, like now I'm like, okay, well, whatever, I'm going to go at my own speed. A big thing for me has been that, so Emily and I are quarantined together as my partner, Emily, live together, and she started playing the game too. So now it's something that we share, and that to me is kind of like what you were saying about the Jackbox games, Jason, is kind of, it's a crucial part of one type of quarantine game is the game that you can share with somebody. I think there's also the game that you can play by yourself, and we'll probably talk about those in a minute. But having this game that we share together, that's like a little place that you sort of just take care of.

I saw someone refer to this as friending, friend and tend. Is this like style of game? I think that's what it was. Bing! Kirk from the future here, as I edit this episode, I just wanted to interject that the term is tend and befriend. It is indeed a social psychology term and it is often used as a counterpart to fight or flight. Okay, back to the episode. Bing!

It was a term I hadn't used that I think is like a social psychology term, but how this type of game is like it's just just about building relationships and tending to, like, things. And that's what this game is. It's, like, so much just maintenance and, like, slowly developing your town. And sharing that with someone has been really, really cool. And actually kind of nice because there's a lot of, like, busy work in Animal Crossing. And there are totally times where Emily will be like, oh, yeah, I just played for an hour while I was sitting out here while you were doing something else.

And I, like, took care of all of this stuff and, like, you know, dug up a whole bunch of fossils and, like, went and visited an island. And I harvested all the fruit from the fruit trees. It's so funny. It's like you're tending out of it. a garden together at your apartment except it's Animal Crossing. Right. And we're not playing, like we're playing on that one account, like just on my game. She doesn't have a switch or her own account, though she could. Who is the first player? You? Yeah, it's me. So it's just my character. So I guess we could like almost change the character back and forth between us if we wanted,

because you can just completely... I don't know if you can. I've heard some complaints about how the second player gets the shaft and Animal Crossing. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I meant we could like redesign the character to look like either of us. Yeah. No, I know there's some accounts. and stuff that's a little weird, but it's worked to really just be like whatever. It would be nice if we could go sit on the like the bench that we set up looking out over the harbor together, which is like a cute thing to do an Animal Crossing. And right now we just sit on the couch together while the character on screen goes and does that, which isn't quite the same thing.

But anyways, I have reached the end of the game. So I saw the credits, which is like you get KK Slider to come do a concert in your town. Sorry, I don't mean to spill the beans. But that's what I don't mean to be a spiller. That's the thing you're working towards. There's a lot of showing up. There's your spilling the bean stock stock market.

There's some way to put in all of these things together. There's already stock puns in that game. That's true. We can connect this. There's a triple animal crossing, bean spilling beanstock stock market pun that I think is just slightly eluded us. People can pretend that we made the best version of that joke. Anyways, I got there.

And after that, that's when you get the ability to like redesign the island and start to build roads and do terraforming, which is really fun because it doesn't cost you anything to do that and that's where your island starts to look really sweet it doesn't cost you anything no you can just make them with your phone man i gotta pick this game back up it's worth getting to that point i would say it's not that hard and like once you're there bulldoze people's homes to build your own roads you can move their homes it's their eminent domain and you can't build it's not sim city the homes cannot be created or destroyed they must always functionally exist and they come though you can like

i had one guy named shirb who's kind of a herb i call him shirb the herb he was like one of my early. I thought we weren't going to talk about it. Different herb, different herb. There's more than one herb in the world. He was one of my first neighbors when I was kind of just like, I don't know, I'll take whoever. And there comes a point in this game where you become more discerning about who you let move to your island. Like when you meet someone and you're like, oh, okay, like Gladys, she seems kind of like a crazy old dame. She's going to be a great neighbor. This ostrich can move in, you know, she looks really cool. Or like this like punk rock rhino with pink face paint. I can't remember her name. She like rules. I was like, you can move in. But at the beginning,

I was like, whatever, Shurb you seem fine. And Shrb's kind of, I feel bad because Shrb's kind of just like quiet. Not cool enough to hack it on Perks Island. Exactly, like on the coolness of my island. Anyway, Shirb left. And so now there's an empty plot. You can move the houses, but you can't bulldoze them. And I think there might be a way to like get people to leave, but I haven't done that.

That's probably, that seems mean. There are a lot of ways you can try to. Right, right. There's some randomness involved there. Mm-hmm. So anyway, that game is cool. It's been fun watching the sort of just charting. the course. Sorry about the baby cries.

That's totally fine. Life in quarantine. Leave them in. So yeah, I mean, Kirk, do you have other recommendations? I want to kind of fire off a few recommendations that I've thought of. I think my main thing has been, since I've been playing Final Fantasy 7, I think that it's nice to have a game that's a shared casual thing that you share with people to go along with

something bigger. And the only other thing that I wanted to mention was, I've mentioned this before on Kataku's split screen, but never on triple click, is that I have a board game night that obviously can't meet. And we've been meeting every week to play a game called Lords of Waterdeep, which is a D&D board game. That's a pretty complicated board game, but you can play it via Steam. And it's been fun.

We just get in like a Discord chat and we all sit and we play together like it's a board game. But what's cool about that game is you can actually play it asynchronously. So you could just have a game going with your friends. And once it's your turn, your phone just tells you, you can play it on your phone. Nice. Well, that isn't the experience of like zooming with your friends to hang out. of course it's more of a, it's a different thing.

It's like on the spectrum of all the way from playing by yourself to playing with people. It's a little closer to playing by yourself. But you can still be kind of connecting and texting about the game as you go. And I would think while I haven't played an asynchronous game during quarantine, that could actually be really nice because it's a little easier to do and you're still kind of connecting with people in the lower key way. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's all three play an asynchronous game. Why not?

I'm getting pretty good at Lords of Waterdeep, so I'm going to do it. Oh, no. I don't even know how to play it. I think if anyone, if anyone out there just, like, wants a big, meaty RPG, basically the opposite of what we've been talking about to just, like, sink into during quarantine. Some off the cuff suggestions. Well, not off the cuff, but things that I randomly thought of. Some well-prepared suggestions.

Some written down suggestions that I've been thinking about for weeks. Persona 5 Royal, which is awesome. I've been plugging away at that for a couple of months now, I think, or at least a few weeks now. Final Fantasy VII remake, which we will talk about. That is definitely a game you should play if you listen to Triple Click because we will be doing a fun spoiler cast on it. The official Final Fantasy 7 remake podcast. Divinity Original Sin 2, which is just one of those games that I know a lot of people

have been like, like, want to get around to when they have time. I think it's like the wire of people's video games choice shows, I think. Or I hope because a lot of people have been watching the wire finally, and I want a lot of people to play Divinity Original Sin 2 because it's like the greatest game ever. I do have a couple of friends who are like, oh, I play that on your recommendation. Oh my God, it's so good. Like, thanks for recommending it. So highly recommend that.

And then Disco Elysium. which is another game. We've talked about a lot on this podcast. Just a fantastic, like needy single player RPG. Finally out for Mac. Yeah, that's right. Consoles also or not yet. It's coming to consoles later, but it's not out yet.

Yeah, I don't think it's out yet. I'm just excited to set out for Mac. I had to stream that game to my Mac laptops so that I can play it in bed, which is the only way it should be played. Well, now you can play it on your MacLy. I kind of want to replay it. I know.

And that's actually, Disco Elysium is a type of game that I would recommend to people, even if they haven't played a lot of games, because it's very accessible. Once you understand how to do a few things, it's really just pointing and clicking and reading. So that's a game you can show to your significant other who hasn't played a lot of games or something like that.

Yeah, it's like reading a book with someone. And then one random one for the JRP that's out there is, of course, Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky and dive into that whole saga. If you really have a lot of time on your hands, you can really just jump into all of those games and you will enjoy yourself. Yes, for many, many, many hours.

Any other thoughts from you guys on games to play during a pandemic? or games not to fight or anything? Sure. Do you guys want to hear a story about something stupid I did related to Final Fantasy 7? Yes. I mean, I always want to hear stories about stupid things people did, so yes. Of course.

Of course. So I had the brilliant idea that I could start replaying the original Final Fantasy 7 at the same time that I'm playing remake because I like Final Fantasy 7 now and I don't know who I am anymore and I'm accepted it. I'm a JRP fan now. Jason Shire's dreams are coming true. So I went ahead and I got it. But what was stupid about this was that my friend, who I've mentioned on this show a few times,

who hadn't played the original Final Fantasy 7, he's replaying it. He's playing it now, the original game after beating remake and realizing it ends on a cliffhanger. He's playing the original game. And he bought it for his iPhone. And he's been posting screenshots and just being like, oh, yeah, I'm playing this on my phone. And I was like, oh, I should just do this. I should just get this game on my phone because then I can play the game wherever I go. You know what I'm not doing right now? I'm not going anywhere at all. And yet, I stupidly bought

Final Fantasy 7 on my phone for $50. And it's quite a good port. It's actually quite fun to play on my phone. It looks great. I have a new iPhone. It looks wonderful. I don't really regret it. And if I were still leaving the house as often as I used to, I'd be really glad I had Final Fantasy 7 on my phone. But I'm not leaving the house. So this was really dumb. And I have now played the first two hours of the original Final Fantasy 7 on my phone. And I truly think I'm going to buy it for my switch. I'm going to buy the game, I guess, a fourth time in my life just so that I can play it again. Anyway, now you're really a JRP fan because most JRP fans have bought these games. You own the correct number of FFF7 copies. I think everybody should play the original Final Fantasy

No one should do what I did. No one should buy it on the phone. Just get it on one system. Get it on a system that you can sit down and play in your house that you are currently trapped in. Because you deserve to watch it on a TV. Like what it, what? So dumb. So dumb.

I'm now I'm even more excited for the spoiler cast because you'll be able to talk about your experiences like playing through the original. Yeah, because I've played. Yeah, I've played the first two hours of the original and I'm already up to the point where I was when I was 20 hours. and to remake. And so I'm just like, yeah, I see what Jason means about how short Midgar is. It's so weird. What's it like? Just give us a quick synopsis of like what the experience has been like, like first playing. Sure, sure, sure, sure. I will talk about it more on the spoiler cast, but I guess I will say I'm really gratified that remake sticks with the versions of Tifa and Cloud and Ereth that I always imagined they could be because the original game leaves so much to be

like sort of imagined by the player. Like, there's a lot of subtlety for. better, worse, and it's kind of a crappy translation, which is how so many people played that game and managed to come away with a very different conception of Cloud than I ever had as Cloud being like a really cool guy, whereas in remake, he's so awkward and like his PTSD has emphasized so much more as being like a part of his characters, facial expressions, all of that. I've talked about that before. And that's what I think is so great about the remake is that they really nailed those things. And playing the original, you can see the seeds of that, but it's so sparse in comparison that it's like, kind of funny at the same time because you're like, wow.

That's nice. Like you can take the versions of them that you've now seen and kind of superimpose them over the older versions. Yes, and you can put them back onto the original game again. That makes sense. It's like it's all coming full circle. Okay, we'll talk way more about this stuff. We'll talk way more about this stuff in the podcast. Let's take a break and then we'll be back with one more thing. Hey, Keith. Hey, Helen. I hear you have a true false quiz you want me to finish. I do. Here we begin. We host a trivia game show podcast on the Max Funner network called GoFact Yourself.

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The survey will help keep the few ads we do run relevant and interesting for you. Again, that's maximum fun.org slash ad survey, all one word. And thanks for your help. And we are back. Kirk Maddie, it is now time for one more thing. One more thing. One more thing is a segment of the show where we all bring up. We each bring up a topic of discussion.

It could be anything. could be a game we're playing, could be a news story we saw and found interesting, could be a TV show we are watching, it could be a conversation topic, it could be anything. Kirk, it could be the wire three times over and over again. No, that was the old show. Kirk, what is your one more thing? My one more thing is basically a thought that I had while I was falling asleep one night, so I guess I'm just a thought. Oh, great, I love this. Some Kirk dream analysis. So, okay, here's my one more thing, and I'm curious what you both think of this idea. So, We have a puppy. We have gotten a puppy. Her name is Appa. She's a golden retriever puppy. She is now like 10 weeks old. She's growing a huge amount every day. She's already much, much larger than she was. She's going to be a big girl. And Clifford, the big red dog situation in Kirk says right now. She's going to be Apah. She is going to be a flying sky bison. She will be a very big creature. We love her to death. It's been incredible. She's actually currently at puppy daycare or like a puppy play thing because there's this whole thing. All right. I'm going to tell you my thought, but I want to talk a little bit about puppies first. But there's a whole thing with puppies where they need to be socialized.

And Appa was actually the only puppy in her litter. She was a rescue. And so, like, her mom wasn't in great shape. And so she didn't have litter mates, which if the puppy doesn't have litter mates, it doesn't get to know other dogs. And it can be a problem. And because we're all under quarantine, so it's, like, really hard to, like, get her to meet other dogs. You have to wait for vaccines.

There's a whole thing. We've been, like, following this training regimen. and where now we can take her to these puppy, like, play sessions. And you go and other people bring their puppies, too, because a lot of people are, like, getting puppies right now because everyone's trapped at home, and it's kind of a good time. And they want to socialize those puppies. Right.

So they all play together. So it's, like, the best thing ever. It's just, like, a room with a bunch of puppies. And there are trainers there, and they keep track of all the dogs. And there's a little bit of training, but mostly just getting used to other dogs and, like, learning how to play with other dogs. So that's what she's doing right now. It's adorable.

She's adorable. Anyways, so here's the thought I had that relates to video games. I swear this relates to video games. It doesn't have to. If you have ever had a puppy in your house, you have to puppy proof your house, and it is quite an undertaking. You have to, like, the dog will just chew on everything. Like, the thing that I've learned is nothing is safe.

You have to, like, cover up every electrical wire. You have to get everything off the floor. The dog will also grow so quickly that things that were safe a week ago suddenly won't be. And it's incredible how fast she goes for the one thing that we don't want her to go for, like that we were hoping she wouldn't notice. It's like you look up and there she is on that frigging on the wall. And it's made me think,

you see where I'm going with this? So it's made me think about playtesters and how this feels like having my house playtested. Because if you're a game designer, right, you build a level, you build the thing, you make it kind of work, you get a working prototype. And then you send it to the testers.

And their whole job is to just run around the perimeter being a puppy, basically, like chewing at every wall, like trying to get through every crevice. trying to get everywhere. And it's felt so much to me like that. I just, it can't get it out of my head, like the parallel. So good. And it's really, really funny. This would be such a good katakubost in another lifetime. It would be. Unfortunately, it's just a one more thing entry. But it also has made me thinking this is something that Jason you'll be learning about in not too long, but in the not too distant future. Yeah, we're already talking about baby proofing.

Right. One then like, right, so toddler proofing is so similar. And I wonder if this is something that game developers who have kids have ever thought about. I guess if you're a game developer with kids and you have ever made this comparison, or I guess if you've ever had a puppy and you've made this comparison, you should write in, write to us at a triple click at maximum fun.org and tell us about it. Very good bed thought. Yeah, I like that. We should have a separate segment called Kirk's Bed Thoughts.

Kirk's things I think is... Actually, maybe not. Maybe that's a bad idea for a segment for a few reasons. It depends on what they are. If they're all puppy related, it seems pretty PG-D. Right now they are. Mostly because the puppy is. the thing that is keeping me from sleeping.

So when I'm lying there and she's like, let me out of my crate. And we're like, no, dude, it's for your own good. And then, you know, I'm usually thinking about puppy-related things. Anyways, I have a whole new sympathy for game designers, for anyone who's had their game destroyed by some playtester who discovered that, oh, like, turns out if you go underneath the fence, you can get out into the street and then everybody has a heart attack and freeze out. Very good. Love it. Love it, love it, love it.

Maddie, what's your one more thing? Okay, so speaking of spilling the beans, I have a pretty spill the beans themed one more thing this week, which is that a heck of a lot of beans were spilled about a video game that all of us are interested in called The Last of Us Part 2, which is a sequel to the 2013 sad dad game, the Last of Us. Which we will not spoil because I don't even know the spoilers. Except in, I won't spoil the original game and I won't spoil Last of Us part two. I did look at the spoilers, but I will not say anything about them at all. However, I do want to talk about the circumstances of these stories. Because they have been a cause for a lot of tweets,

including tweets by our very own Jason Trier, that I won't make him analyze on the show unless he wants to. So here's what happened. So all of these cutscenes and just scenes from the game were leaked on YouTube this past weekend, and it depicts a bunch of twists. in the game, like significant gameplay twists. And we don't know if all of these twists happen in the game, but the footage looks pretty good and it seems pretty likely that they were actually part of the game at one time.

And some news outlets are reporting rumors that these spoilers were leaked by a naughty dog employee who was disgruntled about the crunch at this company, which is something that Jason reported on. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know that anyone's actually verified that that's true, but it is what a lot of folks I've reported and I have no personal reporting on this. I can't verify it at all, but that's supposedly what happened. My thought on this, let's see if I regret having a take on

this guy. So let's let's find out what my Twitter mentions look like in a few weeks. Give it to us. Give us your take. Here's my thought. So this is anecdotal, just an anecdotal opinion that I have on whistleblowers. A lot of, or people who do things like this, like a person who is a disgruntled employee who does something to hurt their company. A lot of times the first person to do something like this at a company is someone who usually does something along these lines that's kind of irritating. And like, you look at it and you're like, oh, but you posted all these videos, but that's actually going to hurt your colleagues. And you, maybe you did this because you wanted to help them, but you did it in an annoying way. And a lot of times, just anecdotally as a reporter,

when I hear stories about other people who are whistleblowers at companies, usually that person is also described as annoying or like brash or loud or like making mistakes at work, always complaining. Like these are usually the traits of the whistleblower type that you hear about. But also usually there are other people at the job who on some level agree with whatever those annoying complaints are, even if they approach them more reasonably later. And those people eventually come forward with a more reasonable form of protest. And then that can lead to substantive change.

And that can be a really good thing. So even though if this person was a disgruntled employee and they leaked all these videos as a form of protest, I think that's shitty to their colleagues. And who knows what this person is truly like or if they even exist. But I will say I think that was shitty. But I do hope that it leads to something good. I don't know whether or not it will. But I'm sure there are other more reasonable people at Noddy Dog who will look at this and be like, okay, well, this sucks. But for better or worse, now more people are talking about Crunch at Nottie Dog. Is there something we can do after this game ships, those of us who actually want to do something about it. That's my hope for this. And that was how I felt when I saw

I think that was, that was a pretty nuanced take, honestly. I thought that was. Well, I thought about it. I was expecting something, something more brash and spicy, but that was, that was pretty well thought through. Yeah, when you, when you preface that with like, oh, I'm ready for my take, my controversy. It's because people have really, this is a really tough one. I mean, you guys have seen the tweets about it. Like, there's a lot of black and white thinking out there, or, or people will try to post a nuanced tweet and people will not interpret it as such, because it's tough. I see Jason laughing ruefully in the Zoom call.

It's tough to talk about. Yeah, it is. It's been frustrating. So the thing that I tweeted, I essentially tweeted that this person was, no matter what they were upset about, they were ultimately hurting their colleagues by this. And the reason that I tweeted that,

and the reason I've been so frustrated with the responses to that tweet, well, first of all, the reason that I tweeted it, well, first of all, even before I gave that. The reason you tweeted is because you're using Twitter, which is your first mistake. Let me preface this by saying I've actually come to be more and more skeptical that this was actually a naughty dog employee. So I very much regret a tweet that kind of presumed that.

And that's kind of, that's what happens when I'm off work, like in between baby duty, like just checking something on Twitter and reacting to something based on what I see on Twitter. Don't tweet, man. So that in itself, like the fact that I gave a platform to something that may not be true, that I very much regret. So with that preface in mind, let's say. that were operating under the premise that this is true. The reason that I tweeted that was because I texted some people and messaged some people who work for Naughty Dong and was like, hey, what's the deal?

These happened to me the people who spoke to me for my large article about Naughty Dog's crunch culture a month ago. Those people who were mad enough of the company to have talked to me about, like, for a story about this, also said to me, hey, this is like brutal, this is devastating. This really fucking sucks because one of the things that gets us through all of those nights and weekends at the office over the years is knowing that we're making something we're proud of and like wanting to see players really experience that and just have that

moment for that for for them and like that's that makes it like helps make it worth it in our minds and helps us get through this and I know there's some people out there who will say oh my god Stockholm syndrome or like how dare you are being exploited like how can you not recognize that but like again this is not this is like to to not see the nuance here is just you yourself a disservice to be so so, like, stubborn in your mindset that you can't see that someone who's feeling pain is actually feeling pain is just, like, doing everybody a disservice. And I think that a lot of people willfully misinterpreted what I said as, like, as if I was defending Noddy Dog management.

Nobody willfully misinterprets things on Twitter. I don't know where you're getting that. Man, it's frustrating because it felt like, I mean, it was a frustrating situation because it just felt like a lot of people were not willing to see. that, hey, maybe something that even if it is a form of protest against some legitimate problems and it's like a worthy action, it is also doing a lot of collateral damage. And you could certainly argue that there have been that the history of labor relations and unions and protesting is filled with examples of actions that also do damage to people.

Oh, yeah. Sometimes you do have to. Individual action. Individual action that is not like a union or collective or an organized action that is one rogue person. who ultimately I'm very skeptical of any idea that this will lead to any change, even if it is a protester. I don't think it is at this point. Like I kind of feel like it was a hacker or something like that. That seems more likely to me. But I don't think this would do any, have any substantial change in any sort of way, in a way that organizing and collectively bargaining would, and obviously easier said than done. But just like taking this sort of individualized action, like hurting your coworkers and not just management, it just has this ring of.

shittiness to me. And I mean, I think a lot of people who are reacting to this on Twitter, reacting to this on Twitter are not people who actually have talked to any of the people who are at Naughty Dog and seen how they feel about this. Because trust me, there's not a lot of like celebrating, stick it to the man, even from some of the people who were the angriest at Nottie Dog. And I talked to some people who were really fucking angry at that company. They are not happy that this happened. So, I mean, make of that what you will. Yeah, I'd much rather see an employee leak something like unfair emails from corporate, for example. Like there's some other documentation you could leak of a job that's going very badly.

Salaries. There's all kinds of stuff. I am not against leaks at all and I'm not against whistleblowers or disgruntled employees. There are a lot of actions you can do even before you get to the unionization stage that put a spotlight on it. And I guess I'm glad that at least now people are talking about crunch again at naughty dog. the only silver lining I have for this, even if I think this particular action didn't work the way it could have. I think that some other stuff could have been leaked that might have worked a lot better and been a more popular move for people who want to be on the side of something like unionization,

and that's a shame. Yeah, agree. I have one thought on this that is just related to the fact that there are now spoilers for The Last of Us 2 out in the world. I know what they are. I think it's interesting, yeah, that you, I've thought about looking them up. Well, okay, but I didn't like the last of us. So I wanted to know what the spoilers were because I was curious what would happen in this second game because I'll play it. So my thought on this really is just that I remember when the original Last of Us was coming out, for whatever reason, this series is really a spoilery thing because when the first Last of Us came out, there were so many fake spoilers out that I wrote an article for Kataku at the time. And the headline was like, that Last

of a Spiler that you read might not be real because I had played the game because I reviewed it for Kitaki. So I'd played it before everybody else. I knew how it ended. And we're not spoiling the last of us here, but I will say that it ends in an actually surprising way where everybody was predicting, like, the usual things you would predict. Oh, like, Ellie becomes a zombie and she kills Joel or like Joel has to kill Ellie or Ellie has to kill Joel. Why are you spoiling the game? All of that happens. All these things that really definitely happened. And instead, the ending is actually like much more subtle and interesting. And that I kept seeing people like in the comments of like articles and stuff, like, you know, the trolls who drop spoilers? And they would say something, they'd be like,

yeah, right, like, Ellie is actually an alien and she blows up the whole planet. And then people would be like, oh, fuck, I got spoiled. They'd like, look out, man, there's someone dropping spoilers in the comments of your article. And I would go, look, and it would be somebody saying shit that's totally not true. So I think, like, the existence of spoilers in the world for this very anticipated game creates a weird environment where now some people do know spoilers, but there's also the fake spoilers. But are they real, though? The footage is definitely real. I'll say that. Like, I've verified that at least. All right. Well, no more, no more beanstalk. No more beanstalk on triple click. Jason, I want to hear, I want to hear what your thing is.

Let me do my one more thing. My one more thing is the wire, which I have finished. We've talked about this on the previous show a few times, but I haven't talked about finishing yet. So I will give some quick, just broad overview thoughts, which is that it is excellent. It's an incredible show. I loved it. I thought it was great. It really stuck with me. A lot of parts of it have stuck with me in a lot of different ways. I kind of wish it had ended after four seasons because season five is a little disappointing to me in a few different ways. It just felt like it was very, I don't know, preachy and not, didn't make a lot of sense. A lot of the characters were doing things. It felt kind of character. Yeah, like some of the characters. More like a TV show and less like the wire.

Yeah. Yeah. It just didn't, it didn't, a lot of things. in that season did not sit well with me, including the whole journalism plot, which felt very much like black and white in a way that the rest of the wire isn't. Like, here's this guy who's just like a shithead plagiarist and that's it. That's the end of the story. Like nothing nuanced about it. But overall, but I don't want to fix Ava on that because season four of this show is incredible. And like some of the characters, I mean, some of these characters will just stick with me forever. Like Chris and Snoop and Marlowe and obviously Stringer Bell and Omar and Avon and all the popular ones. but even just like the small ones, like Putin and Bodie, like, just, they will just stick with me.

And that is, like, such a credit to the show and the quality of the acting and the writing that even the most minor characters just, like, live in your head and just, like, feel so real in so many interesting ways. I've gotten up to season three now, and I'm still doing the thing where I'm slowly just watching three on my third rewatch. And first off, yeah, season two is maybe the most Shakespearean season. It really feels Shakespearean. I loved season two. Yeah, it's very tragic. Fall from Grace. Just Sabatka is such a classic tragic figure

with his like he's so fixated on. He's like they're going to dredge his channel and we're going to get back to work and it's like, dude, it's all falling apart around you. It's not going to happen. And then starting season three, it's so cool how they introduce these new characters. And I'm like, oh my God, right.

Like Bunny Colvin hasn't even been on this show yet. And Cuddy, like, Cuddy's whole introduction. Cuddy's like the best character. And you meet his ex who is the teacher at the school from season four, which is like, tying everything together in all these cool ways. It's just, it's a really amazing show. Each time I watch it, I like it more.

Yeah, it's very much, yeah, it's just, everyone talks about it is literary, that's very true. It very much feels like this big story, this big, like, it does feel like a nonfiction story, except it's fiction, but it feels so real. And I mean, I think that's part of what rankled me about season five, is that it's the only one that didn't really feel all that real. It just felt like, like, the character of Templeton,

the plagiarist just, like, felt like this archetype, and he didn't really get a sense of, like, what he was thinking. And I would have actually loved to see more of like, like, more sympathetic look towards the mind of a plagiarist and, or a fabulous and why he made up all those stories. Why he did it? Yeah, that would be a lot more interesting. That would be great and also terrifying, because that's such a stressful story to watch as a journalist. And so, like, to sort of force yourself into that character's mindset, because they do that so well with other villains, supposedly villainous characters in the wire. And like season three introduces this whole

Hamsterdam thing, which is also not real feeling like that didn't happen. But it feels real within the sense. But it's believable. And you totally, right, you get into Bunny Colvin's head. You watch him come to this realization. Yeah, you get his weird ethos. Yeah. Well, also, I think part of that is that like the struggles they set up to get, the

struggles they had to go through to get there made it feel very real. Because it's not like it just snapped your fingers and like there's this drug, like, free zone in the middle of Baltimore. It was like he had to convince the drug. dealers that this wasn't a prank. He had to like literally ship the dealers in a van. When it takes like two episodes for him to even to make the decision to do it, like it's a long build. It doesn't just happen at the very beginning. Yeah. I imagine watching the show is frustrating live because so much of it is so interconnected that it's like it's not the type of show you can

watch episode to episode. Like you have to watch it all. You know, it's funny. I was, I sent you guys this interesting interview with David Simon since so many people are watching this show on quarantine. And one of the things he talked about is how the first, I think it's the first three seasons. They weren't even really on DVD. And it was just aired on HBO. And maybe if you had a TiVo or something, you could watch them like quickly back to back, but mostly it was just aired like a regular show. And that was how people watched. So people did watch it and like get it. I think it was when it started coming out on DVD. And then of course, now on streaming services, it's like people are really like, oh, okay, this is, it was like a streaming show before that was the thing. It was kind of

the first one of those. Yeah. And well, now it's part, it's like the pandemic. It's like if you've, you're, you got to get around to watching The Wire. Now's your last chance. You've been talking about it for all this time. Well, now you've got to watch The Wire, which I have. You've done it. You did it. And now it is time for Maddie to watch The Sopranos. I will not. Me to finish, Better Call Saul.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm still watching that. I'll talk about that another time. That'll be one of my one more things.

Because, yeah, I should, yeah, I'll bring that up as a one more thing also. Or if you do, I will talk about season five because incredible television. But yeah, the wire, it's just, yeah, it's just really good. I would say that if you're, first of all, you should know if you're getting into it now, that it's pretty dark and it's not like a pleasant watch, especially because so much of it feels so true and therefore, like, doesn't, is not the type of thing that will make you, like, go to bed thinking about happy thoughts.

Like, it's the type of thing that will make you think about injustice and poverty and, like, just a lot of unfortunate situations. Systemic injustices and problems and how we let, how education, in the U.S. lets kids down. It will make you not want to be a police officer. That's right. But it probably won't make you want to be a drug dealer either.

That's true. It won't make you want to do any of the professions depicted on the show. None of the, not a journalist either. But yeah, great show. I can see why people revere it. I can see why you have been asking me to watch it for so long. All right. That is the end of this episode.

I believe we should say goodbye now. I guess so. I will see you both next week. Goodbye, Kirk and Mani. See you all. next week. And thank you, everybody, for listening. 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.

Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to Maximumfund.org slash join and consider becoming a member. Doing so helps support us and gets you access to an exclusive Triple Click episode each month. Find us online at triple clickpodcast.com. On Twitter at triple click pod and send email to triple click at maximum fun.org. Thanks for listening. See you next time. comfun.comfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned, audience supported.