Triple Click - The Games of Summer

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

There sure are a lot of games this summer. It's time for Kirk, Jason, and Maddy to talk about them! And then maybe we'll go out for some sloppy steaks. Games discussed: Chicory, Overboard, Mario Golf, Scarlet Nexus, Ender Lilies, Astalon: Tears of the Earth, Before Your EyesOne More Thing: Kirk: Six of CrowsMaddy: BillionsJason: I Think You Should LeaveLinks:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinJoin 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

You got the top pulled down and the podcast on, baby. I can tell you, our love for you will still be strong. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about all the recent games we've been playing, from indie gems to breakout titles. Let's get our wayfarers on, baby. It's time for the games of summer. I'm Maddie Myers.

I'm Jason Shrier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton and hello to both of you. Hello. Hello, hello. It's so nice to see you both. It's us. It sure is. Welcome back for another week. Yeah. It's us. It's us. And, you know, I really didn't have a joke there. I didn't have a joke prepared. I was like, I said the word and then I was like, what am I going to say next? Every day, every day of my life, what am I going to say next? How about it's us? And if you wanted to keep being us, then you go. That's a good one. If you wanted to keep being us, if you just can't get enough of us and you're like, wow. Also, I have some disposable income.

You might go to maximum fun.org slash join. You might go over there and you might become a member and support the show. Just the thing you might do. And then also get a bonus episode of the show every single month. And what are we doing this month? Oh, man. We are soliciting questions from our listeners about deep thoughts. Deep deep thoughts.

Deep deep thoughts. Like deep thought, the computer from Hitchhiker's Guide, 42. We'll be calculating that. Among other things, people will be writing in. that'll be, that'll be fun. But we are also going to be off next week. So that is yet another reason why somebody might want to hear more from us and might want to become a max fun member because we're taking next week off.

Kirkson and be camping in the woods or something. I don't know. He'll be gone. It's going to be a week off because you know what? Taking breaks is good. Sometimes you've got to take breaks. Taking breaks is good. It is good.

And Jason and I won't speak to each other of Kirkerson present to mediate out. We will not do it. It's the only way this whole thing will. You can't be done. But before we move on to this week's topic, Kirk, you want to just give us a couple quick tips about Half-Life-2? Yes. So I've been playing Half-Life-2. It's a pretty good game.

I really like that game. It's been cool. We've been talking about it over on the Triple-Click Discord. Some people are starting to play as well. We've got a little channel for it, which has been fun. I've been sort of talking with people over there as I play it, sort of watching other people play. And I just wanted to add two little things. I already gave some tips and some sort of backstory on Half-Life One.

to both of you and to listeners. I mentioned that this game is better with a mouse and keyboard, which I think is true, but I did play this originally on Xbox 360 with a controller. It's totally fine with the controller, and there's a PC mod that you can install that puts the Xbox 360 UI into the game, so you get the controller interface from the console version, which is great. And so if you're going to play with a controller and you use that mod, it's a totally great experience. So I didn't want to give anyone the impression that you have to play with a mouse and keyboard. If you want to play with the controller, it's fine, and I recommend that mod. Is there a mod for the PlayStation UI?

Not as far as I know. Because I use it in ToolShack 5 on my PC. As far as I know, the mod that I'm talking about is an Xbox 360 UI mod. So I think it also maybe changes some other stuff about the game to work with the controller, but it is Xbox 360. That is what the mod is called Xbox 360 UI mod. The other tip is there's a thing called Half-Life 2 Update, which is just a collection of small bug fixes and other things by the community that I do recommend using. It adds some slight visual tweaks, but it's basically the same game. It just looks a little better.

It's a little bit more polished, not that it wasn't polished to begin with. So I recommend using Half-Life 2 update to anybody who's playing, and it's possible to transfer your progress over between the two. So those are my two little Half-Life 2 notes, and now we can get into it. Maddie, what are we doing? We are talking about video games. Shocking, I know. First time we've ever done it.

We're talking about video games. We're doing sort of a monster, what are we playing? this week where we just talk about a whole bunch of different video games that came out recently. Games of Summer, Boys of Summer. Yeah, I was about to say that. That's so funny. I was about to say, I've been reading this the whole time as the song, The Boys of Summer. After the Games of Summer have gone.

Yes, we're doing that. And we'll do a quick disclosure up top. We got pretty much all these games for free. I think Jason managed to get codes for every single one of them. I purchased Chickery and Mario Golf myself. Kirk, did you actually pay for anything you're going to mention today? No, I think I'm looking at these. No, I got a code for Underlilies and then the rest are through a press account.

So yeah, no. Cool, cool, cool. I'm the only one who actually buys games. Make of that one of the real. The only real Salt of the Earth gamer, I guess. Natty Myers. So far, one of my favorite games of the year so far is the game I bought House of Fatto Morgana. There you go.

Maybe that's why you love it because you paid for it. Maybe that is why that 40 bucks. Yeah, it's biased you into thinking it's a good game because it's so expensive. But we're not going to talk about that today. We are talking about these games in no particular order. We put them in an order and we're doing it. So the first thing we're going to talk about is chickery a colorful tail. So this is an indie game where you play as a little dog with a paintbrush, which sounds super adorable.

Except it's also, it is very adorable, but it's also about sad. stuff. So, Kirk, why don't you tell me what you think about Chick-Ree so far? I really like it a lot. I think it's a very pleasing and relaxing game that I think uses how pleasing and relaxing it looks and the vibe is and it just feels to play to then talk about, yeah, like real stuff, like depression and imposter syndrome and the fear of not being worth anything as a creative person or just as a person in general. I like that a lot. I like that kind of packaging, right?

It's a nice way to tackle some of those feelings because it's just really a pleasant place to be, just like the world can be a pleasant place to be, but it has a lot of real feelings in it, just like the world does. And I guess I should say, so this is a coloring game to describe the gameplay to people a little bit.

You are a little dog. Your dog is named, well, should I tell people how the dog is named? Because if you're playing it in the first time, it's sort of fun. You pick your favorite food at the beginning of the game. I mean, you find out in like 10 seconds. Yeah, but I didn't know. Because it just asked me, what's my favorite food? And I said, well, sandwiches.

And then that's the name of my little dog. That's an amazing dog name. What are your dog names? My dog's name is chocolate. Jason, what's your dog's name? Peanut. I just picked one of the predefined answers. Adorable.

I picked one of the predefined answers. That's great. Whatever you do, you're going to have a cute name for your dog. And I loved sandwiches. At first I was like, wait, is that a good name? And then I was like, don't overthink it, man. It's fine. That's a great name.

It's like the plural dog names are hilarious. Like crackers. Yes. Yes. Completely agree. It always means you think of like a goofy golden retriever sort of romping through the fields. So Sandwiches, sandwiches becomes, it lives in a world, a sort of coloring book that is, has no color due to events that, you know. Shenanigans.

Yeah, that the plot concerns itself with. But you get this magical paintbrush that you become basically the wielder. who is this super cool, you know, magical being who is like the one chosen one, who is actually Chickory. And the game is named after this other character that isn't you. And chickery is meant to be coloring the world. And so you then have control over this paintbrush. You're the janitor.

And you find a pretty much. Yeah. And you have no training. Yes. So you're kind of a sorcerer's apprentice, right? It's like the sorcerer's apprentice. You're Mickey Mouse and you're sort of putting on the magical wizard cap. And you can just color the whole.

world. And so you, I'm playing with a mouse, which is, speaking of playing with a mouse keyboard, pretty great to play this game with a mouse. I'm sure it's fine with the controller, but like, with a mouse, it feels like MS paint. Like you're just coloring in everything. And there's a lot of cool little clever, approachable Mario Paint style, like paintbrush approaches for coloring in the world, and then also gameplay mechanics are built out of it. And I really like this game. I've played a few hours of it and totally planned to play more. I'm really just drawn in by it and find it very charming, but also just so soothing. It's just coloring. is a very soothing thing to do.

So yeah, I'm going into it. Yeah, I'm playing in a controller and the controls are not nearly as smooth, but they're okay. I mean, you use one joystick to, like, move your mouse cursor around and the other to move. It reminds me, this game reminds me of Okami,

which is another kind of paintbrush-centric game where you have to go and color things in or draw things or make symbols like that. And yeah, I also think it's adorable. I'm not that far. I'm just like, just on Chapter 2, just got back to the, chickery and like a founder locked in her room. But I'm enjoying it. I dig it. Some kind of rudimentary

Zelda-esque exploration and puzzles. It's kind of like a Zelda. It's basically a Zelda, which I really like the dialogue, which I find very charming, like you said, Kirk and and very, I don't know, what's the right word? I guess emotionally impactful without being too like hardcore about it. Yeah, it almost feels like a kid's game, but it's like a little bit too adult. I don't know if I would quite recommend it. It also feels like a game that's on the switch

and it's not on the switch. It's only on PC and PlayStation, I think, four and five. And it just feels like a switch game to me, which is odd because I agree, playing it with mouse and keyboard feels really good. And with a switch, I'd like want a stylus or something if I were going to play it so that I could draw stuff more

specifically. It feels like a DS game. It should be a good game. It does. It just feels it feels like a handheld game somehow. There's something very handcrafted about it, not just because you're painting, but it's got this hand-drawn art style to it. Yeah, and it just, I don't know, it feels that way. So I really like that. I love the music as well. There's some very cool sound design. And the puzzles are neat. I was not, I mean, this is one of those indie games that has a certain look where it's like, is this just going to be a game where you walk around? And I love a game where you just walk around and talk to people. There's nothing wrong with that. But there's

some stuff in shickery that's somewhat difficult. And I know, like, as it goes along, there's some bullet-held boss fights and some more stressful mechanics come on board. You have to actually use the painting mechanic, which gets more complex, the more things you unlock and solve different puzzles in order to progress through the world. And that part is kind of Zelda-like. Like, your paintbrush can eventually illuminate areas of darkness with glow-in-the-dark paint, for example. And, like, you use sort of puzzle mechanics to do that. And I'm sure, As you go along, you're going to unlock more and more types of paint that do different things and have more puzzles. So I don't know. I'm really enjoying it.

Everyone I know who's played it has loved it. And at least at work, people are like, this is my game of the year. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to try to make time for the rest of chicory. That's cute. Yeah, it's neat. It's kind of one of those, I will, to shout out Lena Rain, the composer. Yes, yes. The composer of Celeste and a wonderful composer.

And it really has her touch. And her music is a big part of the energy of this game, which, like, it has a kind of similar energy to Celeste as well. Just narratively speaking, you know, it's also sort of about dealing with your inner demons to an extent. And her music somehow channels that in a way that works. Maybe it's just because both games were about that and both games had her music. But it really does.

It has that sort of commonality that I feel like there's something to that. I agree. I feel like this game works better, at least so far. Having beaten Celeste, I mean, it's not to say, I don't think the last gameplay goes with its story. I would say it does, but it's also like if you just like twitchy, like leap around 2D stuff, you can kind of ignore the story and it's fine. But in chicory, the fact that you are the painter and that creating art is such a huge

part of both what you do and what the characters are talking about and experiencing and the idea of creative burnout is the thing you're fighting against seemingly. I mean, I don't know. I haven't beaten it, but it's a clear thematic part of the game, like this idea of the darkness that you're overcoming. And like, that's clearly what Chickory's issue is. Like, she's run out of ideas and you're literally painting and coming up with ideas for other people's houses as you're painting them. And then sometimes they don't like what you painted. Like, that is what the game, what you're doing in the game. And then also it's what the game is

about. And that pairing of mechanics and story, I mean, it's, it's nice when a game manages to pull that off. Like, it doesn't actually always work out quite that well. And it definitely does in chicory and I think that's why it seems so special. I also love whenever you play a game where when you leave a level, the level has just been transformed by you, which is something that constantly happens in this game, especially you were talking about, you go through these shadowed areas and you have to like color things, certain colors and then, you know, light up certain areas with the paint. And then by the time you leave, the cave looks awesome. Or if you made it look awesome, it's like covered in paint. Or it's a mess, yeah. Right, you kind of went through it, which is a

sort of a fun, just a fun feeling that you leave your mark on the game by playing the game not just because you wanted to paint things but because you kind of had to get through the level. Yeah, and not just the levels, also any random bits of paint you might have left like at the beginning of the game, you'll go, when you go back there, you find it all.

The game is very clever about keeping everything rather than erasing it every time you leave a screen or something like that. Yeah, that's a crucial thing too. Yeah, which is pretty cool. Yeah, because like when you first get the brush, I didn't know how to change colors, so I was just like painting everything green. And then when I went back to Chickory's Tower, which I guess you just did, Jason. I was like, oh, it looks like

shit. I have all this other stuff now and I can like make it look really cool if I want to, but I didn't know what I was doing when I first painted this. And that's a fun feeling that I'm sure we'll have many, many times over and over again. So that'll be cool. Okay. Let's move on. We got games to get to. Let's talk about overboard. Jason, why don't you go first? Because you're the one who recommended this game to both of us. Yeah, well, I've already talked a bunch about it. I want to hear what you guys think, because this is my one more thing. A couple of weeks ago, I love this game to death.

This is a new game from Inkle, makers of 80 days, among other cool stuff. It's like an interactive piece of interactive fiction. And you play as this woman on a steamship in the 1930s. What's her name? Like villainous? Yeah, she's a femme fatal. That's fair to say. Yeah, Victoria.

And your job is. is to, essentially you kill your husband in the beginning of the game and your job is to frame someone else for doing it or get out of the ship, get off the ship without getting caught, getting arrested for the murder of your husband. So I played through the whole thing. I've seen every ending. Have you guys, tell me what you guys think. I have played through several endings. I've not caught every ending after a certain point. I was like, I think I've seen enough. It's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I did enjoy it. But it does get somewhat repetitious after a while and you're sort of like, you know, quickly skipping through dialogue because you've seen a lot of scenarios.

That's the only thing approaching a complaint I could say. I think this game is extremely clever. I have never played a game where you are the murderer and you have to frame somebody else. We talk a lot about mystery games on this show and how much we all like mysteries and we read mysteries and so forth. And it's very fun to see a game with the premise where you're the murderer and you have to find a way to almost reverse solve the mystery. Like you have to be like Viola Davis on how to get away with murder. You have to pull off some sort of absurd plot in order for everybody to not catch you. And that's fun.

And the other thing it reminds me of a little bit is Untitled Goose game because I have to really embrace the part of myself that is mean, which is, I would say, not something that comes naturally to me that I don't want to be a bad guy. So when I'm playing this game and I have to like, you know, put the sleeping pills on somebody's nightstand or, you know, put something in someone's. to indicate that they've done the deed. And I'm always like, but they didn't. I did. I'm the murderer. I'm the bad person. And I have to just get over that sensibility and be like, no, I'm awful.

I have to just lean into it. It's all good. I'm going to do the deed. So yeah, I enjoyed it. What did you think about it, Kirk? I like it as well. It has some things in common with Hitman. It feels very similar to Him in some ways,

though the framing other people for the murder part is new. and that's definitely the defining thing of the game for me. Yeah, I've played through a few endings and haven't played a ton. I like it. It's a little, like you said, Maddie, it is a little repetitive or fiddly. It is, you know, the premise of this game is you're going to screw it up the first time. I mean, the first time I played, I, like, went to sleep and then just lost, like, immediately because you can do that. And so then you're going to make a lot of mistakes.

And then it has that kind of Groundhog Day feeling. And, yeah, I mean, it helps that the other. characters are kind of not that likable. Like, I feel okay, you know, framing whatever the, like, old lady who's kind of, she's pretty awful. And also, like, your husband was a Nazi sympathizer. So, like, you get to feel okay immediately that he's dead. But also, you're a little terrible.

Oh, sure. Yeah. You're not a nice person by any stretch. So wait, have you guys successfully framed anyone? Yes, multiple times. Yes. So, yeah. Are we going to spoil it?

We can spoil some of the things you can get a little spoiler. Yeah, we can get a lot of spoiler. Sure. So there's a few different ways you can get out of it. So I would say probably, at least for me, the easiest one is to make it look like a suicide or to frame the girl who's having an affair with your husband. Those are like the two kind of easiest routes to take. And those are the ones I've successfully done. Oh, and then the third hardest is the old lady.

Well, yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Jason. So even when you, I mean, what happens is once you, even if you frame the woman, you'll find that there's another. unresolved loose end that you have to deal with. And dealing with that is a little trickier. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then also the old lady is difficult to frame as well because, I mean, I don't think I ever actually did successfully frame her. I kept trying to poison her glass and then running into problems with that. And I was like, maybe there isn't a way to poison her glass. So, Maddie, I know that the repetition has gotten your goat a little bit, but I recommend giving

another try for a couple reasons. First of all, if you go to the chapel and you keep having conversations with your Lord and Savior, you will eventually... Basically the game developer, yeah. You will unlock a wind condition that is

incredible and essentially asks you to do something that is ridiculous and then you can actually do it and then even more ridiculous things happen and one of the craziest endings in the game happens. This part I won't spoil because it does, I don't think you guys have gotten there Yeah, but essentially if you do that, keep talking in the chapel,

eventually, like keep exploring all the different dialogue options in the chapel. Eventually, you'll get to this point where you'll get an assignment and it'll appear on your objectives checklist. And if you do it, it's very fun to figure out how to do. And it's extremely clever and leads to a very satisfying ending. But the other thing is that what I found most fun about the game was memorizing everyone's patterns. And so knowing that, like, okay, if I take too long here, then I, I will not be able to, then I know that what's his name, car, car face will not be on the bridge

anymore. And so I won't be able to interact with him. And then I know that the old lady will be in her room at this point so I can go there and sneak into her room and smother it with a pillow at this point. But then I won't have time to do this and kind of thinking that through and kind of like unraveling the whole like, like it's very clockworkish. It is very hitmanish. It's like thinking through that puzzle of like, okay, I have to do this, this and this before this happens. and then I can do this and then I can do this. And to get the best possible ending, there isn't a lot of room for error.

So it's really fun to just kind of gradually figure out exactly what it's going to look like to get that best case scenario. And it is a little frustrating when you're like, oh God, I have to see the scene again. I've seen it a million times before. But it's worth it. At least it was worth it for me, the satisfaction of like actually pulling off the grand finale,

solving the big puzzle. and like putting all the pieces together was really worth it for me. Yeah, and I do think that the distinction with Hitman is the rigidity of this game versus the fluidity of Hitman, because Hitman runs in a loop and does not restrict you to a schedule and doesn't require you to memorize specific things. Like you can, and that can be rewarding. But it is a game for people who like what you just described, who would say, oh, the most fun thing about this game is that you have to memorize all of this stuff.

And that might not be everybody, but it is very satisfying as you start to learn it and see the pieces. Yeah, it's for people who really like puzzles and Hitman is a little bit more for people who like systems and like thinking on the fly and that sort of thing. This is more for like if you really like, I love logic puzzles and if you really like logic puzzles, I feel like this is built for brains that really are into logic levels. It kind of is. Yeah, like it is like a big logic puzzle that you're inside of. It is a logic puzzle. I feel like the problem I ran into is not necessarily the repetition per se. Like I can I can deal with that. But I would be forgetting which things I had and had. done in a given run because I played the game for like several hours on one day, which I actually don't recommend people do. I think it's a lot more fun if you play like a few runs one day and then the next day you do a few runs or a few days later you do a few runs having taken a break from it because you'll remember everything you probably need to remember and you won't be as confused as I was about what I had and hadn't done. Yeah, you need a notebook. Yeah, I feel like I needed to like keep track of what I'd done. And also I'd be like, wait, what kind of a run am I doing this time? Like,

was I going to try to frame that guy or the other guy? Like, did I want to go seduce the boat captain guy this time around? Or do I not really care? Oh, I ran out of time to do it anyway. It doesn't matter. I guess I'm just going to whiff this one. Like I, that's the fun thing is that you, it's so easy to repeat the runs and they're so generally short that like, you can use an entire run just to experiment with something. Like I used entire runs just to be like, okay, what happens if I unlock every room and see what's in every room or like what happens if I read every single page in this guy's little notebook stuff like that and yeah I mean by the end I had done like 70 runs or somewhere like that so I was very willing to like put in the time because I found it so enjoyable and fun to play

but yeah if you like logic puzzles this game is for you god I love this game so much I mean the dialogue's very funny there's a lot of gems to it if you're willing to keep reading everything and you find out more and more about each character if you talk to them in different circumstances and that part of it is fun too. But it does mean there's some repetition involved. But I feel like it's mostly worth it. I would just recommend playing it over several days rather than the way that I did, which was cramming it in. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about Mario Golf, which only Jason and I played. So Jason, did you like this game? That's a leading question. Did you enjoy this? I haven't played a lot of it

And I haven't tried out like the story mode thing at all Okay But to me I mean to me it just feels like another golf game Like I don't really have good or bad feelings about it I'm just kind of neutral about it Because it doesn't it didn't really do anything for me Like it's cute to watch like Donkey Kong swing with one hand

Like of his little one handed club And like Waluigi wearing a golf A golf outfit is ridiculous Oh yeah The outfits are great in this game We can just say that right off the bat Wario looks great. Bowser looks like he just went to Hot Topic. It's incredible. He looks wonderful. But to me, it's just like another golf game and it has all the frustrations that a golf video game has for me.

So I don't know. I'm just kind of eh on it, I suppose. What about you? Did you play the super rush aspect of it at all, which is basically like it's the same as golf except between every swing, you have to run to your ball and race everybody else at the same time? No, that sounds amazing, though. I have to play around with it more. The only thing I've played, okay, so full disclosure, my switch has been occupied for quite some time now with Ace Attorney, great Ace Attorney, which we'll talk about more in a few weeks, which is truly incredible, an incredible video game. But so I haven't played a ton of Mario Golf, just like a couple of rounds, a couple of holes

in the normal match. I haven't played with any of the extra stuff. No. It's Super Rush fun. It sounds fun. It's fun. I mean, I feel like I think the Super Rush aspect is a lot more fun. than the golf aspect, but just to quickly explain it. So obviously you can pick any character

from the Mario lineup, just like Mario Kart, and you play as them, and they each have different slight skills and matchups in terms of what they're good at in terms of golfing, whether it's like precision or distance or what have you. And in between each hole, if you're playing, or in between each swing, if you're playing the Super Rush style, you and your opponents are all racing to your balls. Right. And if you get the whole into the whole fastest, that's part of your overall score is trying to golf as fast as you can. So like you're running.

And then also kind of like a Mario Kart game, you have different like ways to run faster. Like you have a certain amount of stamina and you have the ability to like smash into other people and knock them off their game on their way to the ball. So that sort of adds a whole other mechanic. This is just how you play golf, right? Yeah. Last time I played golf, this is basically what we do. It's much more aerobic.

It's like, it would be as though you were playing golf and there were no golf carts involved and everybody was like a long distance sprinter basically and they were all trying to run to their ball every single time. And part of winning was not just being like under par or trying to be is just also trying to get to your ball in time and trying to get it into ball in time. It's very fun and it's very like frenetic and bizarre. But I'm not very good at golf and I just don't super care about golf. Like I've played golf games. for, and the super rush part of it sounded really fun to me. And I was like, oh, you know, I like Mario Cardi, like Super Smash Brothers and like Mario

goofy sports games. Like, I'll probably enjoy that aspect of it. And I definitely do. And like smashing into Wario or Bowser or whoever on my weight of my ball is super fun and great. But I don't love, like, looking at what kind of golf club I'm supposed to pick and looking at, like, how far away things are and making a quick decision. I mean, I would say it's more fun to have to do that stuff when there's a time limit,

because that kind of means that those calculations are slightly less important. So in terms of golf games that I'm going to enjoy, this is definitely up there because those minute golf-related decisions are like, yes, you need to kind of think about which club you're going to pick, but it doesn't super matter because you just need to quickly get through to the next thing as fast as you can. And that's fun for me, but it's still a golf game. I played it for a while, though, and I definitely enjoyed my time with it. I'm probably done, but I enjoyed it.

And if that sounds fun to you and you're listening, and you all, also really like golf games, I think he'll probably enjoy it. Yeah, also probably much more fun multiplayer. Oh, for sure. I think I would have enjoyed playing it multiplayer for sure. I was playing it just against the computer, though, and it was still pretty fun. So there's that. Nice. Okay. So, Kirk, do you want to talk about Scarlet Nexus, which neither Jason nor I have played?

Sure, I'll just tell you a little bit about it because I played some of it over the weekend because I was curious about it. This is a new Namco Bandai JRPG. I guess I'd call it a JRP. it's pretty good. It's pretty fun. It's kind of, it's like a lot of, it's like a big old game with a lot of combat, whole big anime story. And it's like a thing for someone who wants a 50-hour single-player game. Is it a JRP?

I thought it was like an action, an action game. Yeah, I mean, it is. It's a JRP in the same way that Final Fantasy VII remake is a JRP. Like, it is an action game. It looks more like it's going to be a kind of DMC style, you know, third person beat him. up, but in practice I'm finding that the gameplay is closer to something. It's got that quality, but it's also kind of more like Final Fantasy 7 remake. It's making me appreciate why the combat in FF7 remake doesn't totally gel with me, because I really like the combat in Scarlet Nexus,

and just think, if you're going to do the real-time action thing, you know, the way that both of these games do, it helps to just make it a little bit more real-time action to just lean a little more in that direction. And I like the way this game works. So I don't know how much detail to give since both of you didn't play it. And I don't want to just monologue about it. Well, is it party-based, or do you just play as one character? So it's party-based, but based on, like, because of the narrative premise, your party works very differently than, say, FF7 remake or another party-based game. So the premise of this game is that it's like the future, your kind of child soldiers, because there's this weird psychic force,

these like others they're called that are just weird creatures that attack everybody. The game actually looks to me, art style-wise, somewhat like Gravity Rush. To anyone who's played Gravity Rush, the world has that kind of penciled-in quality to it. It's a really cool-looking game. It's very, very anime.

I mean, it's like watching an anime, it's got anime characters, every anime trope, every character design is like a different kind of anime character. They're all young people fighting a battle against, you know. I mean, it's got a lot of those trips, and it's very anime. But it's a pretty cool story. So you're like a kid who joins the, what are they called?

It's like the defense force. And there's kind of two defense forces, the psychics and then the regular army, and the psychics fight on a different front. And they're both fighting against these others who are invading people. And humanity has been driven into these last cities that they live in. You're kind of in this city with your friends. And you make friends with the people in your division, and then you go out and you fight.

But then the story goes from there and it starts getting pretty wild, pretty fast, and then I gather it just goes crazy from there. You can play as either a female or male protagonist and both are characters in the game. So I think the idea is that you play through as one, I'm playing as the girl, then you finish and then you replay it,

kind of a new game plus as the guy, and you see his side. So he's in a different platoon and he has like different squad mates and he's in the story as his own character. So the two of you interact, and you basically see the other side of the story. So you're meant to play the fifth.

50 hours RPG twice. Yeah. No, I think that it's 50 hours total. I believe that that length is more like it's like 20 something. Yeah, it's just a lean 25. And once you're done with that 25, you do the next 25. It's a big game. So it's kind of like RET remake or RE2, I guess, where you play as Claire and then you play

as Leon and then you kind of get the full story. So you like it, huh? I had it, for some reason, I haven't really seen many people talking about this game, so it wasn't really on my radar. Yeah, no, it's totally fun. I've heard it's good. I've heard it's good from Kirk Hamilton on this podcast. Yeah, I'm here to tell you.

I don't know if I'll finish it, but also I wasn't really, I was sort of just curious and just downloaded it and started playing it and was like, oh, I dig this. And just sort of, it was really playable. Like, it just really went down easy. The story is pretty silly, but also pretty cool. There's some cool stuff going on where you're, like, plugged into this psychic network with your teammates. There's a thing where they're censoring. The government is censoring things. So everything you look at is augmented reality.

And some things are just blocked from your view. And so I'm thinking, oh, what don't they want me to see? I'm sure it's not really what they're telling me. So there's that kind of layer to it. And then I should say, because I mentioned it earlier, the way that your party works is you're all psychically connected. So you don't control the other members of your party, but they have different powers.

Like my character has telekinesis. So as you're fighting, you like pick up cars and throw them at enemies and use those as part of the combo system. And it's really all about this rhythm of like, throwing a thing and then attacking and doing a combo and then retreating and then you have enough psychic energy to throw another thing and you kind of balance those throwing like big objects and fighting but you can summon the power psychically of any of your teammates who are like computer controlled fighting alongside you you summon their power and then you suddenly have like

shock power or you can become invisible or you get a duplicating power that like duplicates things as you throw them so the more people you have in your party the more options you have and then also you get to know it's like persona style. Persona, yeah. You build up a social link with them. Yeah. Yeah, and it's not like nearly as fleshed out, but you do sort of build up a link with them,

and then you get better abilities. So you get to know your party members. They get more powerful and it does that whole thing too. So it's a big game, so long game. I don't know if I have time to finish it, but I really found it like very playable and enjoyable and enjoyed it. So yeah, I liked it more than I thought I would. Yeah, it seems like a Jason game.

I'm shocked Jason never heard of it. Yeah, it's definitely, you might dig it. I've heard of it. I just haven't seen a lot of people. He's never heard of it in his life. I haven't seen a lot of buzz about it. Yeah, it's weirdly under the radar, but I don't think that's for lack of quality.

I think it's a good game. Yeah, yeah, hidden gem. All right, so this next one is a game that all three of us played, and it's called Ender Lilies. And I mentioned it, I think last week, as the game that inspired me to re-download Hollow Night and try playing it again. And not exactly a compliment for Ender Lillies.

I've sort of given away at least some of my feelings about it. But I'm curious what you two think of it. Jason, what do you think about Andrew Lillies? Yeah, I haven't really played enough to have a strong opinion on it, which I guess is an opinion in and of itself because it didn't really grip me that much.

It made me just want to go and play more holiday. Well, do you want to describe what the premise of it while we're on you? Yeah, I mean, you play as this woman, this lady, who is able to summon these apparitions to fight for her. So I've played a fair amount of it. And my first thought is if you were playing this and you haven't played Hollow Night, then yeah. Like, Maddie, you're doing the right thing. Go play Hollow Night. Yeah.

But if you're deprived because you've already beaten Hollow Night and you just want something that's a little bit like it, then Andrew Langelley. You want like a moody dark game where you're like a light colored creature moving through the world. Yeah. Metroidvania, Soulslike. Yeah. Well, you don't lose stuff if you die. So like there's actually no punishment for death in this game. Well, that's true.

although you can level up like a soul's game. Like you can just keep grinding out and level up. But you don't lose your XP if you get killed. Well, yes, that's true. That's true. So there's not, in Hollow Night, there's that feeling of like being really deep in uncharted territory with a whole bunch of geo and being stressed out. That doesn't exist in this game. Like you just, I just explore and sometimes I get killed and then I go again and you don't, like there's no like, oh God, I'm going to lose all my progress.

So it's a pretty different energy. How many times have you been killed? more or less than seven. More than seven. So one reason for that is I was playing on my Switch and I was playing outside because the weather's been nice here. And it's super hard to see. I find I don't actually like playing this on Switch. It's too dark.

And I couldn't even like I turned the brightness up. Well, don't play it outside. Like what? Yeah, playing games outside. Yeah. So playing it on the screen docked was better. I think this has a really cool core idea, which is that you're this little girl who summons ghosts and then the ghosts do you're fighting for you. And that sometimes means it's as simple as like your first attack is just a sword attack from this guy.

And it's just like you're swinging a sword. Like it is very responsive. But sometimes it's, you know, the subsequent things that I've gotten. It's like the next one is this girl who has a ball in chain. And when you summon her, she just stands there swinging it in place. And I can leave and she stays there. So I'll like jump in, hit the enemy, summon her, jump out. She stays there and attacks the enemy with impunity.

Or I can summon this bird who then shoots things like with kind of an AI helper. That's a cool idea. It hasn't grabbed me the way that Hollow Night has, though, and that's mostly because I don't like the way the platforming feels. This seems like a game that's maybe the combat is more fun than the platforming significantly so. And just, it's tough because Hollow Night is so the whole package where the combat is amazing, the platforming is amazing, the story is amazing, and the story here so far. Yeah, the bar is too high right now.

And it's not fair to compare everything to Hollow Night. It's like one of my favorite games ever. I mean, it is kind of fair, though, because this game, feels so directly inspired by Hollow Night that it's like we may as well make the comparison. And having played the first few hours of Ender Lillies and then played the first few hours of Hollow Night like in the same week, I am obviously making the comparison very directly. I can't help it. And part of what's so good about Hollow Knight's first few hours is they really titrate out

where the benches are and where your increased like level up abilities are in a way that feels perfect. And in Ender Lillies, it just felt a little clunky to me. Like, some of the benches are kind of close for no reason, and some of them are kind of far apart for no reason. And some of the design, like the jump that you do in Ender Lillies, like you said, it just feels a little bit wrong. Like, sometimes I would jump high enough to get somewhere that I'm like, oh, I didn't know I could jump high enough to get there, but I guess I actually could. And this is where I'm supposed to go, but that wasn't really visually apparent to me. That ledge grab, there's a weird ledge grab.

Yeah, it feels weird. Well, that's the thing actually that made me bounce off of it. That ledge grab just was so strange to me that I was like, this is unpleasant. It's like you're just barely tripping up onto certain, certain areas. And then there'd be other times when I'm like, I should be able to jump up there, but then I couldn't. And I'm like, am I just too bad at this or am I supposed to go there? Whereas in Holly night, I never have that issue. Like, it's very clear when I get to somewhere that I can't go to because it's too high up.

I can tell or when I'm just barely able to get there. That's always super obvious. It's clear how you fight each enemy and what I should, what tools I should be using and what I still need. Like, that's the Metroidvania stuff that feels really good is when you see something new and different and you're like, oh, I can imagine what I need to get past this. And Enterleys doesn't quite have that. And it's a little surprising because it was actually an early access for a long time.

And I went back and read like some of the notes on the early access thing just on the steam page. and I'm sure they've made a bunch of changes, but it kind of felt like maybe it needed to be an early access for like another few months. I don't know. I wish I liked it a little bit more. Yeah. Hollow Knight, great game.

Yeah, that's the thing. Some legibility stuff and just sort of hasn't quite grabbed me, but I'll maybe play a little bit more of it. Yeah, right on. So, Jason, what is Acelon Tears of the Earth? This is a game you've put here that Kirk and I have not played. Tell me about it. Basically, it's a game that's super under the radar.

I haven't seen anyone talking about it. It's a 2D Metroidvania-ish game. Reminds me a lot of Castlevania, where you play as these three different heroes who are going into this dungeon, and one of them is a fighter, one of them is a rogue, and one of them is a wizard,

and you can switch between them, and they each have, like, individual abilities that can be used to solve puzzles. Oh, like Trine. It's sort of like Trine, yeah, or sort of like the old Blizzard game, the Lost Vikings, but you can't switch at any time.

You switch at like these campfires, so you're not really, you can kind of like go in and explore areas as any character and then you could come back with them as another character or just go to a different area as another character. And yeah, I really like it. I haven't had time to play a ton of it yet, but it looks very much like an NES game. So it's got a really cool visual style. Yeah, it looks Mega Manish or Castlevania. Very Castlevania inspired.

And it feels really good to play, unlike for me at least, under Ender Lilley. So I really enjoyed playing it. It's also really tough. And it's a game where dying is kind of useful because like you die and then you can go to a shop where you can like buy abilities. And it's part of the whole story is like dying, dying a lot. And yeah, I really like it. I recommend people check it out. Again, it's called Astallon, Tears of the Earth, A-S-T-A-L-O-N.

And it's gone so under the radar. I haven't seen anybody talking about it. But it came out last month for all. a bunch of consoles. It's on Switch and PlayStation and PC and I think Xbox also. So, yeah, check it out. It's pretty cool. It looks neat.

Yeah, yeah. I hadn't heard of it at all until right this second. So that's cool. All right. So final game is before your eyes. And I think only Kirk and I played it. It's maybe an hour and a half, two hours long. Definitely a shorty.

I thought it was pretty good. It's not like gone home levels of short game that I'm like, oh, this is freaking amazing. Every piece of this is perfect. But it had some really interesting ideas in it. I liked that it was, so it's a game about the afterlife. It's also got these sort of pseudo-Egyptian gods in it where like I felt like the guy, the dog who you talk to and throughout the game seems like kind of an Anubis character.

And then the other god who you meet is, I believe also like sort of a version of an Egyptian god. I won't spoil the end of the game. But it's a game about the afterlife. And so you're playing as somebody who's already died. and you are telling your story to this anubis-like character who's just wearing regular hipster clothes and in a boat with a bunch of seagulls. With his thesaurus?

Yes, his thesaurus that he's really into. He's a fun character. I liked him. And as you tell the story of your life, you see these flashbacks to it that are sort of enacted for you. But none of that is the gimmick of the game. The gimmick of the game,

the way you play the game, is by blinking. So the game gets data, from your webcam on your computer about when you blink and you have to keep your eyes open in order to like see the rest of a scene from your own life. And you can also blink to make certain decisions about which parts you're going to share or what decisions you make basically, although I guess you already made them in theory because it was already your past in theory. And I thought it was really cool. And there are some things that sort of happen in the end of the game where like you have to keep your eyes closed at certain points that I thought was like

an interesting twist on it. And I really liked that concept. I feel like some of the story needed a little more time to bake, but I was so impressed by just the idea of it and the feel of it that I would still really recommend it. What do you think about it, Kirk? Yeah, I felt, I felt kind of the same. I was so enamored of the central idea and some of the ways that it was executed that I forgave any of the sort of clunkiness that I ran into in some parts of the story. It's a very childlike tale in a lot of ways that are explained i would argue yeah i guess so yes that's that's that's true but also like felt a little like how but what about a version of this where x y and z are more fleshed out and i think that also kind of like chicory it is a pretty nice it's a nice story about the life of an artist or

about like wanting to be an artist and i think like just through your mother and then your own character and the way that it represents this sort of like being a gifted child and being put in these different directions and having artistic dreams. I thought that was all really nice. And the blinking is so cool. I mean, it's such a beautiful idea. Seems unpleasant to play. You have to keep your eyes open and think about blinking the whole time.

I didn't find that in practice. No, okay. It's pretty well-timed. There's only a few moments where it's like keep your eyes open and it's during the parts of the game that are intended to be unpleasant for you. Like the parts that are sort of traumatic or like intense. And it's like keep your eyes. your eyes open for this to remember this sad thing that happened to you.

And then your eyes are feeling intense. But it's only like, I think, twice that that happens. And the rest of it is. So games can make you cry by forcing me to hold your eyes up. I really like that, though. I think that by experimenting with this alternate control technique, it really makes you be present in the game. And because it's a game that you largely just watch,

it turns that watching into something meaningful in a sort of, ludic way or whatever language you want to be. I mean, it feels like you're really interacting, even though it's not that different from what you're doing when you're watching a movie. But it is, though. Yeah. Well, right. It's a kind of a meditative concept. Like, it's the way that your attention becomes this entity that you really are aware of. And I found that to be the case at many points playing this game.

And that alone was so cool. Like, just to play something so different, I'd never played a game like this before. And I just found that to be really, really cool. And it was very glad that I played it. I thought it was a really neat, neat game. Yeah, me too. And I feel like the sound of it makes you think that, oh, it's going to be about treasuring every moment

and, like, really observing them. But, like, it's not quite that heavy-handed about that message. Like, it's heavy-handed about some other things, but not that one. And I felt like that was kind of a blessing and disguise of us. I was glad. Just because at the beginning, I was like, am I just going to cry this entire game?

Because, you know, I don't know. Like, it could be very easy to just hit you super hard with that, Like your life has passed you by, you blink and you miss it. And it, yeah, it doesn't really do that. Yeah. I mean, it still has plenty of sad moments, but not what I expected. And yeah, anyway, I recommend it. So yeah, same.

Let's take a break. And then we'll be back with one more thing. Hello, I'm Riley Smurrell. I'm Sidney McElroy. And I'm Taylor Smurrow. And we host Still Buffering, a cross-generational guide to the culture that made us. Every week, we share media that made us who we are, Things like Archie Comics, Sailor Moon.

And lots of Taylor Swift. And now that Riley's an adult, it comes with 100% more butts. And now I am totally comfortable with it. So check out new episodes of still buffering every Thursday on maximum fun.org. Buts, butt, butts, butts, butt, butt, butt. Join in, Riley. Butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, butts, buzz, Hi, I'm Allie Gers. And I'm Julia Prescott.

And we're the hosts of Round Springfield. Round Springfield is a Simpsons-adjacent podcast where we talk to Simpsons folks about non-Simpsons things. That's right. So in the past, we've gotten to talk to legendary showrunners and writers like Al Jean, Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, Dana Gould, Mike Reese and David X. Cohen. Voice actors like Maurice Lamarge, Maggie Roswell, and Yardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson herself. Hell yeah. we've been away securing guests for our final five episodes. We won't tell you everybody, but we'll let you know that the last episode is kind of a big deal. We got Matt Greening.

Homer's Dad. We got Homer's Dad. Check out new episodes of Round Springfield starting June 21st. On maximum of fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Smell you later. And we are back. Let's each talk about one more thing. I'll go first because I'm definitely going to be quick. So, Dina and I've been watching a television show called Billions. And this is sort of a deep cut of a joke. It's called Billions? Jason and I used to talk about billions for hours and hours and hours on our old podcast split screen. And Kirk's never watched it.

But he wants to. He just hasn't found the time. But we just, Dana and I were between shows and she was like, I don't know what I'm in the mood for. And for whatever reason, I was like, well, we might like billions. And we watched the pilot. And she got completely hooked on it to the point. where like every day when I would like walk out of my office, she'd be like jokingly chanting at me like billions, billions, billions.

And I was like, oh my God, okay. Like we can't watch it every day, but I understand you like the show. So we have completed all five seasons of billions. It's incredible. I would say the elevator pitch for billions is that it is a crime drama, but people don't die because it is about Wall Street crimes and prosecutors of Wall Street crimes and billionaires. and I love a crime drama.

I love thrillers and like cat and mouse stuff. And BDSM, of course. And BDFM, there's a touch of BDSM in there as well, but it's just to add a little flavoring to the cat and mouse drama between Chuck and Bobby and Taylor, which sort of is the through line of the show over the seasons. Taylor doesn't show up until season two, but they're by far my favorite character.

I love them. So yeah, I really recommend billions if that sounds good to you. You might get completely addicted to it and start chanting billions to your partner every single day. if you watch it. But you'll enjoy it. And it is a little bit sad that season five gets cut off halfway through because of COVID. But Billions Returns on September 5th.

Oh, did they know that? Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. Yes. Very excited. I know that because Hulu now has a little intro that it plays before every episode where it says, billions returns on September 5th.

It's been telling me that multiple times a day every day all week. So the promo doesn't just say billions, billions, billions. No, no, no. That's normally what it says. but now what it says is billions will return on September 5th. Also, the first TV show that I can think of that mentioned coronavirus because there's like a mention of it in season 5 before lockdowns in February of 2020. It's like Crackhouse or whatever his name is.

He like says some joke about coronavirus and I was like, oh, don't joke about this, man. This is the last episode before you guys stop filming. Like, what are you doing? And it's like, yeah, billions will return on September 5th. Anyway, Kurt, what is your one more thing? My one more thing is a book that I just finished that I've talked about before, sort of obliqually by talking about the show that was based on it. But this is a book called Six of Crows by Lee Bardugo that I just read and burned through because it rules. And I just wanted to tell people that they should read it.

So I mentioned this already that the show Shadow and Bone, the Netflix fantasy show, which I really enjoyed, is partly based on Six of Crows, but partly based on the Grishaverse trilogy, which starts with Shadow and Bone, also by Lee Bardugo. And the whole thing there is that the original trilogy, it's like fine, but she even doesn't love it. And then they made this show. And in adapting it, they also sort of shoehorned in her subsequent duology, which is about these thieves living in this other part of the world who go on this amazing fantasy heist in their first book, Six of Crows. And she like folded them in, or they folded them into the Netflix shows. The Netflix show is about everything all at once. They kind of change the timeline, which is just a fascinating undertaking on its own. and now I've actually also read Shadow and Bone the book, which goes super fast.

And it's, so I'll just say Six of Crows is a sweet book. The thing you're supposed to do if you watched the show Shadow and Bone and liked it is read Six of Crows, then read the main trilogy, then read the sequel to Six of Crows, which concludes that story, because apparently the second book has a bunch of spoilers and stuff that happened during the main trilogy, which is a kind of a weird thing. I believe there is a Polygon article explaining all of this. Maybe I'll, I think you guys publish something. Yeah.

Yeah, Petrona's big on the Grishiverse, so she does all of our explainers. It's pretty fun, but it's, I just think it's very interesting to read a book like Sixth of Crows, which, again, rules. It's just, it's a heist man. It's set, it goes for five different perspectives of the people in the crew. It's just so fun. It's so well written. I really loved it as a kind of like, Y-A, fantasy, crime, gritty, really good stuff. It seems like airport novel perfection almost.

For a summer read, you'll just burn through it. Yeah, you can't stop reading at a certain point. It's really great. And then the Grishaverse books are just, it's so interesting that it's by the same writer, but earlier in her career when she just wasn't as strong of a writer. And I'm reading it, and it's so cool to know that this writer will become capable of writing this just total killer. And this book is still totally entertaining. I mean, I can see why this thing got optioned and why it became a whole world that people like.

But it's just a much more rudimentary story. It's as interesting as first person. And so that's been really fun, too. just because I like the show reading the books. I mean, I read the first book and almost just like in an afternoon. Like it read so fast. And I'm kind of motivated because once I finish the trilogy, I can read the sequel to Six of Crows, which is also excited. But for anyone looking for a summer read that wants something that will just really fly by, Six of Crows by Lee Bardugo is a great book.

So I really recommend it. Cool. Okay. Jason, close us off. Mani. Slickback hair. White bathing suit. floppy steaks white couch

I used to be a real piece of shit is what you're telling me this is what you're revealing on the show My one more thing is of course I think you should leave Which is possibly the best show ever made I'm like now I'm just remembering that sketch And I'm like that's such a good sketch

It's so good So explain what this is I'm worried that the baby thinks people can't change Maddie I don't don't even want to explain this. I think everyone just needs to go on Netflix and like watch. I think you should leave. Those of you who have watched it and get what this is all about, no, no why we are quoting these ridiculous things. But if you haven't, and if you haven't seen all the memes floating

around over the past two years with the guy talking about cars or the hot dog suit guy saying, we're all trying to find the person who did this. All you have to know is that I think you should leave is a sketch comedy show by Tim Robinson. And it's a. all very short. Each episode is like 15 minutes long. And you should just go on Netflix and watch it. There's really no reason right now for you to go and just watch all of. I think you should leave seasons one. And two, which came out last week, which is why I am quoting it. Since watching it, I've just sent every group text I have. Just sending a billion quotes. Just been quoting it. Just like sloppy stakes and other things. I've been like saving screenshots as people

have been sharing them and turning them into memes. Like there's one of Tim Robinson in the car being like, I don't know what's going on. I've never driven a car before or whatever. And it's like, it's just great. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to use this, but I'm going to save it. I, it's like, I don't even know how to describe the kind of humor it is. So like, Tim Robinson has said that a lot of these sketches are like rejected S&L sketches for being like too absurd or too weird or whatever. I mean, there's a good way to describe it. There's a lot of, like, sexual humor, but there's also just a lot of absurd humor where it's like, who's the joke even on? Like, other than just Tim Robinson or whichever character is playing the sort of Tim Robinson

Weirdo Stand-in character, but it's very strange, but whatever type of humor it is, I think it's hilarious. It's kind of why? It's just an alternate reality. It's kind of manners comedy, right? Yes, it's manners comedy. So I know the two of you love this show, and I've just started watching it, so I'm in season one. I think it's very, very funny, and it's very strange.

It's a very specific kind of humor. I could see people watching this show and not liking it. It's not like friends or something. something where it's just kind of goes down easy. It's a weird show. You have to be into comedy. And into like a comedy fan. But it's very much about.

Into like social mannerisms and how absurd they are. Like there will be, it's always there's some violation of a social more that starts with, like there's a skit where he shows up, he and his partner, boyfriend, show up to a party. And they're like, he's like, oh, sorry, we're late. He's like, just if someone asks us why we're late, blame the babysitter. And so then in the very first conversation he's having, he's, he's, he's, He's like, yeah, it was the babysitter.

And he like starts going off on this crazy thing about the babysitter. He's like, fuck the babysitter. Got in a car accident. There was a hit and run. And there was a hit and run. Right. And it like, and quickly, and the guy's like, wait, there was a hit and run. Is everyone okay?

And then he just keeps escalating. And soon it's gone way beyond. Like the lie gets out of control and he just keeps telling more and more absurd lies. And it's like, why are you telling these weird lies? That's only some of them. Some of them are just like the, the Dan Flashes and Jamie Taco. So season two is full of so many moments that are just. like you have to, you just have to watch up.

I mean, and the skit's like, how do you describe it? The skit about the man who makes a joke about his life and then has a flashback to his lines getting stolen by Jamie Taco and how supportive his life was. It's just incredible. It's just something you have to watch.

I don't even want to spend too much time like analyzing what makes it funny or like how it works because it's just, just go watch it. Everybody just go watch. I think you should leave with Tim Robinson. It's not an Netflix. Just go watch it. You'll understand all the things on your social media that you didn't understand before. That's true.

You will just have an enjoyable couple hours. Or just like watch the car ideas sketch and like if you think that's funny, then you'll feel like the rest of it. Yeah. It's true. It feels like a good starting point. Or the jazz celebrities guy. That was a good.

That one's just for Kirk. Yeah. The jazz celebrity sketch. Extremely good. But in the meantime, I'm going to go to Dan Flashes where I could get shirts for $450 because the patterns are so complicated. They had a shirt that was $2,000. because the patterns were so wild.

You do a good voice. You do a good Tim Robinson. All right. Well, this has been another episode of Triple King. It has been. It has. We won't see you next week. That's true.

And if you're sad about that, check out maximum fun.org slash join. It's a cool website. Just check it out, you know? A lot of bonus apps there. Well, that's a full extra week to listen to all the bonus episodes that you have missed out on if you haven't been a number. So many pods. So many pods. All right. Well, I'll see you both in two weeks.

See you both in two weeks. See ya. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes.

Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximum Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod. Send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience, audience supported.