Triple Click - Triple Play: Donkey Kong Bananza

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

OH, BANANA! Kirk, Jason, and Maddy punch through some rocks for Donkey Kong Bananza, the first big single-player Switch 2 exclusive and the latest game from the team behind Super Mario Odyssey. They talk about its delightful design tricks, how much fun it is to smash up the world, and whether it's a worthy successor to Odyssey.One More Thing:Kirk: Children of Time (Adrien Tchaikovsky)Maddy: The DrifterJason: Nurikabe WorldLINKS:Maddy’s review of The Drifter: https://www.endlessmode.com/video-games/the-drifter/the-drifter-is-a-gripping-mystery-with-grating-charactersSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinAll-New Triple Click Merch!! https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

On this episode, we are pleased to welcome a special guest, Donkey Kong. Oh, I'm being told he's destroyed the podcast and is gone. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about Donkey Kong Bonanza, Nintendo's brilliant new Switch to Exclusive that is much more exuberantly weird than any of us quite expected. There's a lot to talk about. Let's get into it. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's nice to see you both on Zoom again after all that excitement in person. Thank goodness. We're back where we're meant to be. Back in these little boxes where we belong. Back in these little boxes.

Man, that was a whole lot of fun doing a live show with you two. Man, playing music with two actual professional musicians is very intimidating. I hope people out there got to listen to the bonus because hearing Kirk and Maddie sing is a real treat. I gotta say. That was super fun. That was the first time we've ever sung harmony together. I know.

I've wanted to do that for years. And it was awesome. You guys both sound incredible. It goes click, click, click. That's the sound that brings us here tonight. It goes click, click, click, click brings us here tonight. The only other time we all played a song together was the three of us played the split screen theme song at a New York live show.

Many years ago. Which was pretty short, but we did all play. together. So that was how we knew it could be done. But this was far more complex because we played three songs, arguably four songs. Well, and Kirk had to play some themes also on the saxophone. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Now you might be hearing us talk about all this musical stuff, me playing saxophone, Jason playing guitar, me and Maddie singing harmony and thinking, what, I listened to the live episode in the main feed, and I didn't hear any of that. Well, the reason for that is.

is that there is an extended cut of the live episode. In fact, the uncut live episode, two hours long, is currently available in the maximum fun bonus feed for members. And you should really go listen to it because it was a very special night. We had a great time. The crowd was amazing. The music was super fun.

All of the extra bits we did. Spinning the wheel of games. We had a great time. And you can listen to it. Really, you can think of it like paying five bucks for a ticket. You could just be a member for a month, a member of Max Fun, and you'll get to listen to that episode. It's like you got to be there.

You get to hear the whole thing for $5. A pretty good deal, if you ask me. But you could also like really quickly mainline what else every other episode we've ever recorded. That's true. And then there's nothing stopping you from downloading every other bonus episode because, of course, we do a bonus episode every month. And that is just this month's bonus episode. There's a lot more, a lot more good stuff that you can go and listen to.

And there will be much more in the future if that's any incentive for you to stick around after paying your $5 That's just my opinion. So maximum fun.org slash join. That's how you sign up to become a member. And one more thing I wanted to tell people about. If you were at the show, you saw some really fun designs that Dina and Emily were selling at the merch table. And they were on pins and stickers.

But now all of those designs are available in the Maximum Fun stores. So we have greatly expanded the amount of triple-click merch that is available. There are tank tops. There are hoodies. There are stickers, buttons. there's a like beer coozy, there's a notebook, there's so much cool stuff. And we have all these new designs that click click click design, the Kuberb Bing, there's the little note design, there's a bunch of different designs.

So those are all available at the Maximum Fun Store. There's a link for that in the show notes. And if you have any requests or anything, if you see there like isn't some type of item that you would like or with a design you'd want, let us know because we're kind of in the process of expanding the store and just putting more merch out there because we haven't really pushed that much merch or had that much merch up until now, but now we are adding a whole bunch more. So we're really excited to get some triple-click merch out there. I just ordered a sweatshirt. I'm very excited for it. Nice. Yes. There's, there are a few things that I want to get as

well. And one other thing about the live show that I just want to share is that, so Amanda's asked me before, like, do you ever get nervous going on stage and speaking in front of people? Because I've done dozens and dozens of times, like on book tour and just like our live shows and speaking on panels and stuff like that. And I'm always like, no, I don't get nervous at all. I'm like, speaking in front of people is something that I feel like I have a decent mastering of. But playing guitar in front of people, I have never. It was weird to see you nervous, honestly. The entire show, I was just like totally fine. And then my fingers are sweating. Like, they feel like they're soaking in bathwater. I'm like screwing up 20 times. This is basically the first time I played live music

in front of people other than that split screen thing. And it was very intimidating. I've got to say, I'm in awe that you too guys are so good at it You got this You got this Yeah I love that it's like for this huge crowd Yeah I think we're just throwing you in front of bunch of people Right into the sharks

Yeah it's really leveling up Yeah and I didn't think I would biff it that much But I did Kirk made it sound really good And like he did some editing wizardry to make it sound better But I'm in awe of you two at how good you both are at playing and singing And it was really cool to be part of I mean you would if with practice is you would get better at it if you chose to. Because for me, I've now done it

enough times in my life that it doesn't make me nervous in that way. So it would be the same for you if you chose to. And you could. It could be an average. Sure. I'll be playing a set down at Café Wah tomorrow night. So go check it out. I'm looking forward to the next time we do a live show, Jason comes in and sort of sandbags us. And then just like, wha-na-na-na-no-no. Jason secretly starts hardcore practicing eight hours a day. He like warms up with a little flourish and some harmonics and like tunes it. Oh shit. Jason's been practicing. Isn't nervous at all anymore suddenly is fine. Yeah. That would be amazing. You could have it.

That would be amazing. Yeah. I don't think I think the amount of practice doesn't really matter because I practice a ton for this show. It's just that like being, you have to have the reps of actually being in front of people. Yeah. The reps of doing that is. You have to practice the emotion exposure. Get the yips out. Yep. Right. Like you do it a bunch. You get you get that. your head and then you can kind of simulate it in your head and you practice performing. And you can kind of remind yourself what it's like, okay, I'm going to have this in my head. I'm going to, it's going to feel this way. It's going to look this way, you know, and it's a little easier to practice it.

And then you're kind of ready, or at least sort of ready. Man, that was cool though. I've never quite played for a crowd like that big and that fully there for it before. Everyone who came to the show was so awesome. Thank you. If you're listening to this and you came to the show, like thanks for coming. You made it as special as it was. It was really, really cool.

Yes. And if you didn't, we will do more live shows in other cities in the future. Absolutely. We are already planning the next one. And hopefully one day outside of the country, but for now, at least in the U.S. Maybe. Maddie, there's one thing you wanted to tell listeners that they should be maybe getting ready for. Yeah, that's right.

So our longtime listeners know that we have an annual predictions bet. Basically, we all three make predictions every year and there's one winner, one person who gets most predictions right. It was me this past year. and the winner of the bet every year gets to make all three of us play a video game of their choosing. And the game I chose was Ocarina of Time, a really wonderful Zelda game that I've played multiple times. And I'm about to start playing again because we all are. We're getting started.

When that episode comes out, we're going to have played up to the Temple of Time. So if you want to play along with us, which I highly recommend. I specifically recommend the 3DS version of the game, actually, if you've got a 3DS version. B.S. lying around. There's plenty of other ways to play that game, whatever your preference. So that's the first chunk that we're going to be talking about. Yes. And that'll be sometime in the next couple of weeks. We're a little bit loose on scheduling. But you should start now if you want to be kind of caught up to know or remember what we're talking about. Yeah, that's right. All right. Well, Jason, we're talking about another Nintendo game today.

What are we going to be talking about? Today we are punching and smashing our way through Donkey Kong. Bonanza, a new game for the Nintendo Switch 2. Oh, banana. And the first true single player, Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. Mario Kart was the first big exclusive game from Nintendo. But this is the first, unless you count Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, which I do. Which we all do. Yeah, we all count it.

But this is the first killer ape, I would say, for the Switch 2. is the only time any of us are allowed to make a pun like that on this episode. Donkey Kong Bonanza is a wild and fascinating game that I'm very excited to talk about. I've been playing quite a lot of it. And I will start things off by saying something that I've been telling a lot of people in real life recently, outside of the kind of the gaming world, which is a lot of people have been asking me, hey, should I get a switch two? Or like, hey, my kids are asking about a switch two.

Is it worth getting? And I'm like, Donkey Kong isn't enough. to justify the purchase of a Switch 2 right now. But a couple more games like this. And it might have to, you might have to dish out that $450 because it might become a must play. I love this game. I am excited to talk about. Let's go around and give some kind of general thoughts and impressions. Maddie, why don't you start? Sure. I also am having a great time with this game. So you play as Donkey Kong. It's 3D and we'll get to the plot. I guess there's a plot in this game.

But perhaps the most important part to me is that you're spending this entire game punching things. And it's a really, really fun mechanic. It feels good. The punching feels good. Everything in this environment is destructible. And if something isn't destructible, you're going to figure out how to destroy it later. With a few exceptions, obviously they have to have things that you can't fall through the map on. But there's kind of some immersive sim elements where you have to destroy things in a certain order to make outcomes happen.

3D puzzle kind of design, environmental design. Love all of that stuff, but to just kind of speak to the punching slightly more. I don't think you two ever played Borderlands 1. Did you? Oh, yes. Okay. So then you're going to remember this. There's a character in that game called Brick.

And one of his power-ups, I think the main power-up he has, has been years, is simply that he just starts punching wildly, like just, swinging both arms, and it felt so good and, like, powered me through so much of that game. Like, I completionist played that game, and Brick was my favorite character, because it's just so fun to just be like, I'm wild and out, and I'm, like, going super cyan punchman mode. And that is this entire game. It's like somebody took the most fun part of Borderlands One for me, and they were like, what if that was the whole game, and you could destroy all the environments, and it felt really good. And, I mean, I'm sure we're going to talk about the soundtrack.

but that adds another layer to it. It's just, it's super fun to play, and I'm really, really enjoying it. Kirk, thoughts? Yeah, I'm having a great time as well. It was a little overwhelming at first. I installed this game and wasn't sure what to expect and started playing it on the TV, which is where I've been mostly playing it. And I found it almost dizzying.

I was feeling a little bit motion sick from it. And then I turned off the screen shake, which helped. and also just sort of got used to it. And then, I don't know, got my sea legs under me by the first hour or so. But the opening level, it just drops you into this mine as Kong, and you just start destroying things. And it's so unlike most games in terms of how the camera works and how it looks that I was just shocked by it.

I found it visually shocking, which I would imagine is not an unusual experience. You begin punching the wall, and the camera is just swinging around, It's getting buried in the rock. It's clipping through the level outside of the level to show you what you're doing. It's very disorienting until you learn the kind of visual language of the game and figure out how to tell where you are in the level since every level is just built out of basically destructible peanut brittle that you can smash your way through at any moment. So I found that very overwhelming.

It took me a little while to just get my feet under me, like I said. And then I really started getting into it. and sort of discover the rhythm of the game, which of course is very similar to Mario Odyssey on a macro level, because this is made by the same team, and it has that same type of design where there's a big open level, there's a bunch of hidden bananas in this case instead of moons, there's a bunch of hidden power-ups that you're trying to find, and then there are also these locked doors that lead to these discrete side challenges. So the more you play, the more that you get into that rhythm of, okay, now I'm going to go do a little combat challenge.

Now I'm going to do a platforming challenge. Now I'm going to explore the map and try to get to this weird hidden banana that I can't figure out. And I kind of got more comfortable with how it all worked. And I stopped destroying everything, which made things a little bit easier. But they open with this real sensory overload on purpose, I think, to just freak you out a little bit. One of the very first things that you do, you're in a room that's just gold. And there's just gold everywhere. The room is made of gold.

and you want the gold because the gold is currency that you can spend. So you're very incentivized to just spend your time basically just clearing out this massive gymnasium-sized cube. And, you know, that is a very overwhelming thing to do at first, but also very fun and very satisfying. So I've been really, really enjoying it. I think it's an unusual game, like a very almost shockingly strange game. So a few months ago, I played a demo for this game at the Nintendo Switch 2 big, like, blowout announcement event thing. in New York City. And if you guys remember, I came back and I was talking about it and I called it. I described it as kind of like a B-tier game, like something that wasn't going to hit the heights.

And that's in large part because all I really saw was that intro you talked about Kirk and then like a little bit into the lagoon, like a little bit of bomb throwing and stuff. But mostly that kind of weird mine intro where you're just like, okay, is the point of this game just to destroy as much as as possible? And then you play a little bit more and then a little bit more and then a little bit more. and then you realize, oh, yes, the point of this game is to destroy as much as possible, but also it's a lot more clever than that. Yeah, you have kind of directions in mind here. Yeah, this is made by the Odyssey team, and I think you can tell that in a lot of ways,

not just the macro of, like, collecting bananas and them being kind of that, that nice balance of, like, uncommon, but not super rare, or I guess not super rare that it feels like a chore to find them, but also not so common that they feel valueless. Like there's always a little pleasure to finding one of them. But also, there's a lot of other stuff. I mean, the way NPCs talk to you, the little jokes that they have or the little kind of

comedic flourishes, there's this part at the beginning in the first area where like you'll see these little monkeys who are fishing and they'll talk about fishing and then you can destroy their boat and they'll fall in the water and they'll be like, oh, I could have used to swim or now I'm swimming instead of fishing or something like that. It's very supportive of your destructive

who's building his house and he's like, I love my new house. Yeah, exactly, which is like exactly what Odyssey did. Like if you were in New Dong City and you like send a geyser flying, someone would just be like making one comment and then they switch comments. Or like in Odyssey how you would get this framing of the level, like almost you would start at the bottom of this big massive like, I don't know, grass area to climb or like you would see dinosaurs in the horizon and then you would gradually. get over there and it would kind of view it. It had a certain visual language by which the game would give you direction and show you where the interesting points are and tell you what to do.

And this game does that 100% as well. It very much feels like a product of the Odyssey team. Like you can tell that in so many different ways, I mean the colors, the kind of using purple is an indicator of like certain like special rare things the way it did with currencies. Even the equivalent fossils in this game are the equivalent of those kind of purple coins or it would be different shapes in Odyssey that you would collect in each world. Very, very similar game. The biggest difference is that instead of jumping, you are smashing things. And that creates so many wild and extremely fun possibilities. It feels like you're breaking the game a lot of the time. And the camera is a perfect example of that. I feel like this is a very, I don't know,

it's a very post-breath of the wild incarnation of Nintendo, where it's all about saying yes to the player instead of forcing the player on this kind of roller coaster, this very fun roller coaster, but a roller coaster where you're not allowed to go off the tracks. This time it's like, we'll let you break the tracks and then climb under him and see what you can find. And if that makes the camera go out of control, we don't care, as long as you're having a good time, which I love. I love that about this. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'm just laughing the whole time I'm playing this game. It's so funny. It's so silly. The whole vibe between Kong and Pauline, his little friend, who is your sort of And in co-op, it's the other player, but she's just like a girl that Kong winds up going on this adventure with.

And she's an amazing singer. That's kind of the plot is that Pauline is this amazing singer who doesn't like singing in front of crowds, but she has this really powerful voice. And her magic is kind of the key to unlocking things in the world. And then she and Kong roll around. It's a bit like a wreckett Ralph, actually. Which is funny because Reckett Ralph was very Donkey Kong, so it's like we've come full circle, I guess. But the look and feel sort of reminds me a bit of Reckett Ralph. and Kong is just this kind of big dummy, this really silly guy who just is real strong and wants bananas. And that whole vibe is so playful and ridiculous.

The whole world, this subterranean series of kingdoms with all different kinds of apes and chimpanzees. And, you know, all of that is all just like really wacky and weird. Then, yeah, this tone of your destruction being co-signed by everyone around you. No one really cares. If you go and punch the friendly NPCs, you just high-five them. I don't know if you've noticed this. Well, except for the rock ones, you'll destroy them and then they'll regenerate. And they don't really mind.

Or even the rock giraffe guys, there's one who's like, man, I got something in my neck. I'll break them and a fossil comes out. And he's like, thanks. Yeah, like sometimes they want you to destroy them. It's great. Yeah. So there's this very, you know, like you said saying yes to the player adjacent. There's very much this even narrative layer of that where just everything is telling you, yeah, go ahead, destroy stuff.

It's totally fine. And that is just really, really wonderful. It's really funny. I mean, all these little cues, that oh, banana cue, every time you get a banana. The little rhythm, as he eats the banana. Just all the little animations with him and Pauline, these cutscenes where she learns a new song and he goes bonanza mode. All of it. I mean, it just has such a hilarious vibe.

I'm just sitting there just laughing and laughing. Every time it says, oh banana, I say it. and start laughing. And I can't really fall to a game where I'm just laughing the entire time I'm playing it. Yeah, it's pretty great. I mean, the Bonanza mode, it is essentially like a super-sayan mode from Dragon Ball, but like, a even more ludicrous version of it where it's like, okay, Donkey Kong just becomes like the yellow banana-haired version of himself and he's more powerful. I'm on the ice level now and there's a zebra version of the mode that I know they showed in the trailer. and I was kind of like, are they really going to explain why dokey Kong could become a zebra? No, it's fine.

He's just going to become a zebra because that's going to be another one of his modes. And I'm like, great, maybe I'm going to become other ludicrously animated animals as time goes on. Love that. The other thing I wanted to say about the ice level that I think is kind of emblematic of what you were saying, Jason, about the breath of the wild and also Tears of the Kingdom influences here. I mentioned immersive sims. This is like a kid-friendly immersive sim so far anyway. Maybe it gets more complicated. But like in the ice level, there's these big ice machines.

And also ice sometimes falls from stalactites or whatever. And there's also lava that you have to contend with. So you've got to figure out how to redirect the ice from the ice machines at various points by like destroying stuff in its path to have the ice go a certain direction. Or just pick up pieces of ice and make your own path through the lava. And just that idea of having multiple. ways through a puzzle felt really cool. There were a couple points where I did it and I was like, I'm not sure if this is where I'm supposed to be going. And then it would turn out that of course that was where I was supposed to be going and that there would be a reward at the end or like even

that was where the story was going to tell me to go eventually. But I felt like I was exploring by throwing ice on the lava and being like, what is this going to do? Oh, it's creating a path. Oh, that's wild. What do I, what do I do if I redirect the ice machine and like break these blocks here? oh cool the ice cubes are going to go over here like that feeling of you discovering it on your own and quote unquote breaking the game is so pleasurable because then the game rewards you by being like no we knew you were going to do that and also here's a banana or here's a little bit more story or whatever it is that tells you the next thing to do it's great which is especially apparent in the little shrine areas which i'll call them shrines just for for the sake of this that kirk was mentioning earlier because a lot of those you'll see a

little icon when you go in that'll be like three gray bananas signifying that you can find three in there. A lot of the times if you just follow the normal path, you'll find one or two of them, and you really have to like break the boundaries or like push the game to its limits to find the third one. And those are some really fun and clever challenges that often require you to do things that you wouldn't think that you should be able to do, like dig. Like if you're, there's like some, a lot of them are these like Donkey Kong country inspired side scrolling levels, which are really, really cool. And sometimes it'll be like you'll be walking up to a platform and the platform will be like a platform that moves up and down and has a giant piece of stone on it and you're meant to

jump on top of it at a certain time and then jump to the next platform or whatever. But because you're Donkey Kong and this is Donkey Kong Bonanza, you can smash the stone also and then like get to an area of the platforming that you normally in a normal like a Donkey Kong country game, for example, you wouldn't be able to get to. And that will reward you with some coins or an extra banana or something like that. It's really cool. It's such a clever, just fun bit of design where it just is constantly making you feel like a genius who can also smash things really hard. I was finding myself a little disincentivized to try too hard in some of those rooms because of the 500 gold penalty for dying. If you die, you lose a chunk of money that isn't nothing.

I mean, you have, say, 13,000, I have like 13,000 gold. And if I lose 500, you know, I can imagine if I tried something over and over and over again actually running out of gold. And while there's gold everywhere and, you know, I don't know how much of a big deal it would really be to zero out. It still is kind of like, I don't know, it makes me feel a little bit of anxiety. Kirk, that's a metaphor for tariffs. Right. It's about capitalism.

I found that I would go to the vendors and you can, for 400 gold, you can buy a pack of 10 balloons. So that's basically 10 free falls. And that's cheaper than one death. That's right. So then I realized, oh, so they're telling me to go and buy this stuff, which I just kind of hadn't been doing. I'd been finding those items, you know, the juice or whatever, the things that heal you or save you from a fall. I've been finding them in the wild, but you only find a few. You just go buy some if you feel that way like I do. And then you just don't worry about it because then it does become very fun in those side challenges, especially thinking, okay, where the hell is the middle banana? And eventually figuring out, oh, I have to really break the level and get to the very top of this, you know, this weird platform. using this trick jump. And it's very rewarding. It is. So I think that's a good point about the shopping, and that's something that you

wouldn't think to play around with if you're used to Odyssey. Because in Odyssey, all you really bought was, I mean, occasionally you could buy moons from a shop, but usually all you were buying is cosmetic stuff. And Donkey Garmanenza, this is a big change from this team's last game. Not only can you buy useful items like balloons and like the smoothie things that you drink or apple juice or whatever it is that restores you, but also you can buy ties and pants that actually have an impact on gameplay. They speed up your swimming or you're sliding and stuff.

And on top of that, there's also a skill tree where you're unlocking abilities and enhancing your abilities, which really adds a new layer to this that I think is interesting. I don't feel like I've played enough to really know how much that means and what that does. to the overall balance of the game and stuff. But it is interesting to see, and it adds a little bit more reward for collecting the bananas than collecting the moons did in Odyssey. Although in Odyssey, in Odyssey,

you had to collect a certain number of moons to make progress to get to the next planet. In this, you don't. All you have to do is kind of get through the level, hit all the main objectives, and get to the boss. It doesn't matter how many bananas you have, unless there's some gate at the end that I haven't reached yet. But in this, instead, you're incentivized to collect the bananas

because they make you more powerful, which is a little bit of a different design approach, which I think is interesting. There's a virtuous cycle to some of it, at least the power up that I found the most useful, is expanding my radar range. And you get these upgrades and then spend more points to continue to upgrade the same skill.

So it isn't just like you unlock an upgrade once. You then can unlock the next level of it and the next level and the next level. And I'm on like level three of the radar. So one of Kong's moves, He doesn't have that many moves, but like Odyssey, it's deceptive where he has more moves than you think. And one of his moves is just a hand slap on the ground that sends out a radar pulse and also collects all the nearby. So you're kind of doing it all the time. And now my radar pulse is really wide, and it shows you

if there's a banana buried somewhere or a fossil buried somewhere. And I'm finding that very helpful for orienting myself and giving myself little mini goals when I'm exploring the world. So I'm really motivated then to get more bananas to get more skills so that I can then find more bananas more easily. And I think that that sort of, that kind of virtuous cycle with upgrades is really cool, that upgrading your character, it doesn't just make you more powerful, have more health. It also makes it easier to keep getting bananas to keep leveling up. Yeah. The map is also really helpful in this game when it comes to finding stuff. It's pretty kind to the player, again, in a way where I'm like, if you're sort of a younger person, and this is one of your first even remotest of RPG.

style games. It's like, it tells you where anything is that you've kind of passed by and radared. It'll show up on the map as well. And also you can add pings to the map. But mostly I use it if I'm like, okay, there's a tower. I need to climb it. I can't really see what I'm supposed to do to get there exactly. I just want to look around. And you can just zoom around the map and just see where different pathways are and also see, oh, here's a rock that I know how to break, or there's this specific special purple rock that's like always tied to big story moments and like at various points, you can just be like, okay, so I know I'm going to eventually go to there. Like the game just kind of shows you what you're going to have to do eventually, which is pretty great, especially

because I get lost in games a lot. And at no point have I felt lost in this game because I can just look at the map immediately and be like, oh, I know exactly where I am. And also does this this zooming in and zooming out thing with the map that I don't know if you two have noticed. Like it literally zooms back in on Donkey Kong as you close the map. So you can see exactly where you were, which again is a directionally challenged person so helpful because I don't have to be like, okay, so when I get out of the map, I need to turn left. It's like very obvious where I am. I just, I really appreciate the camera design on all of that.

Yeah, it's not a representative map. It's not you're looking down at a flat recreation of the world. It is actually the level that you're in, just with a lot of detail removed and kind of zoomed out a little bit, and then you can just look around in it, which is, I think, really helpful. It's actually a difference between this and, say, Metroid Prime, which I've gone back to a little bit on the Switch 2. I want them to release an update for that before I really go back. But a difference with that game, the map in Metroid Prime is really great and is kind of similar. You can even imagine a version where it does what Donkey Kong does. But, of course, that game was made so long ago.

they didn't have the capability to do that kind of seamless transition, which even in Donkey Kong isn't that seamless. There are a lot of moments in this game where you can feel them really pushing up against the limits of what the Switch 2 can do. The frame rate chugs quite a bit, not even just in moments of chaos, but in moments of, I don't know, when you're buying a new bed, you know, like a new bedroom, just the frame rate kind of dips. Or when you go out to the map, it gets a little crusty, at least for me on my TV. I don't really mind. But I do think it's kind of funny that the first big game Nintendo has released for the Switch 2 is like

immediately like pushing up against everything that this console can do just because of its sheer ambition. Yeah, bodes well for the next six or seven years. It kind it does since it's such an absurdly like ambitious share in it has like a fully destructible environments. I'm sure that's taking up a lot of power. Yeah, that changes

everything. I found that in handheld mode I don't really get a lot of frame rate chugs except for... Same. I find it smoother in handheld for sure. Except for in the map when in the map because it's storing, I guess, every single thing you've done to the map. It is chugging a little bit whenever I go into that. And it's less noticeable on the smaller screen.

I do really think it looks great in hand-home. I do think it's helpful for orientation's sake that each area is divided into a few different sub-layers that themselves are relatively small contained maps that you can kind of try to get your bearing around. Probably useful for a technological standpoint, too, since the game is keeping track of everything you've destroyed and everything you've done to the map. But I find that it would be, like, imagine if, like, that first Lagoon Beach area was, like, instead of having three sub layers that you could explore in kind of different chunks,

if they were all together and there's one huge map, that would be a lot harder to orient yourself around, especially because you're doing so much destroying and recreating and playing around with the mechanics. I'm also struck, as I keep playing this game, by the fact that every single new area, add some sort of new mechanic to the game, which again is a very odyssey thing and a very just smart way to stop things from getting repetitive feeling because this could be in the hands of less talented developers.

I think this could be a game that wound up feeling very repetitive because ultimately if you're just breaking things and trying to find bananas that are like hidden under mountains, it would not. it would wear out its welcome pretty fast, but because this game just keeps switching it up all the time, including by giving you all those new bonanzas, like you mentioned money, I think the game has something like five of them.

I'm about to get the ostrich one, which I believe is going to let me fly. Yeah, I'm very excited about that one. It's very different. It lets you fly. It's very different. Which is very exciting. So the game does switch things up quite a lot,

which is really cool. Because in contrast to Odyssey, which again is the most natural comparison point. That was a game where you, because you had that hat ability, you could really switch up the gameplay by taking over new things. And you can kind of use that as your kind of central conceit. And your real core ability is punching. So instead they throw all sorts of new mechanics at you.

Like in the forest, you can throw the seed at the thing and create a pathway or like the bombs that you get in the first level, et cetera, et cetera, which again, smart design. Yeah, it's cool because it kind of. externalizes the mechanics. I think that's actually something that they did do in Odyssey as well. The hat is cool, but there are plenty of times in Odyssey where the new mechanic is something in the world, not some new ability given to Mario. And that happens here as well. And it's a smart way of always being able to introduce new ideas without giving you whole new moves to do. There's a really cool series of platforming challenges that turn up, you know, a few hours in where there are pink and blue,

I guess they're like sandbars and so when you punch a blue sandbar it fills up the pink sandbar and when you punch the pink sandbar it fills up the blue sandbar so suddenly your destruction is also creation and you have to think sudden you're like totally have to change the way that you think

about the geometry of the level by like destroying one part to build up another part so that you can climb up to this part to then maybe destroy something up there that'll build up something on the other side of the room and that is like Kong is still just punching stuff the mechanics haven't changed, it's just the level and the mechanic exists outside of him. And so suddenly there's this whole new mechanical idea that you're wrestling with.

That is like very, very smart stuff. And they're doing a lot of it throughout this game so far at least. You know what's so clever about that is it's essentially this old, old mechanic from the Mario games where you like flip a switch or even from Zelda where you flip a switch. And Zelda was always the blue and orange. Like you flip a switch and some of the blue kind of obstacles, pegs go down and the orange. wins goes up and then you flip the switch again and the the uh the reverse happens um except what's so clever about this is that you can destroy only pieces of it instead of the entire thing in those games it was like figuring out how to solve puzzles by alternating between them as you needed to in this you can kind of

take advantage of donkey cong's jump like punching ability by like only punching part of it so that part so you can create steps for yourself without even having no worry about switching back and forth it's it's just a total new variation on a very old concept. Super cool. It makes me think of the Mario 3D world and 3D land where there are levels where your jump causes something to happen. Every time you jump, the platforms shift. That's another variation. Like Mario just kind of just jumps. I mean, I know he gets fireballs and other things, but mostly what he does is jump. So then you externalize the mechanic, right? You put the mechanic in the world. So whenever he jumps, the level changes. And so suddenly you have to think, okay, wait, I can't just jump all the time. I have to think about my jumps very

similar here to have Donkey Kong's punch change something. Like, he's still just punch in, but it's making you think of the game very differently. Yeah, or like Sam is getting different missiles. It's like, that's all she has. She has a gun. She has to shoot at everything. So we need to figure out how to make shooting unlock levels in different ways or do something different. For Donkey Kong, it's punching stuff. It's like it all, it's all of a piece. What I'm saying is this game is a Metroidvania and you unlock different abilities in each level and then they let you progress in a different way. That's a really good, it's a good, I think it's a good thing to stick on or that we're kind of pointing out here, because that is true in Metroid, Samus basically shoots, and if she jumps and morph balls and whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They give her a little more to do. Then the levels are designed around shooting to make it feel as though shooting is accomplishing a bunch of different goals. And that is something that's different from a lot of games made by other developers. I don't know if it's uniquely Nintendo exactly, but a lot of games do tend to just give a bunch more abilities rather than constraining the abilities that you have. in changing the world around you. And I hadn't really thought about it before this conversation, but there are two very different approaches. And this one is very cool, this one that all these games take.

Yeah, I mean, Donkey Kong, I think Mario might be the purest of this. Because in Bonanza, I mean, you can punch, you can also jump, and there's a lot of jumping kind of challenges. You can also throw bricks, which also are pieces of the ground, rocks, whatever, which is just kind of another mechanic that you have to use quite a bit. So there are a few other kind of variations of them. There's the jumping inside. Same with Metroid.

Metroid is much more complex than Mario. Not saying they're all the same, just that that one idea kind of turns up in all three games in different ways. Well, the concept of like taking an idea and just like milking it for all its worth. And I say that in a good way, even though milking has negative connotations.

They're really taking, exploiting an idea. Nope, negative connotation. Taking advantage of an idea. Nope, can't do it. Just taking a concept and just using it as a many ways as possible. Fully exploring. There we go.

There we go. I think is classic Nintendo design. A couple of the thoughts. One is that, Maddie, you were wondering about the zebra and stuff. I don't know if you've played Donkey Kong country, but in those games,

you get an animal companion. Okay, so you know, you get your animal buddy. I think this is the equivalent of that. It's different animals this time. Although the ostrich, I think you get in Tucker. Well, cranky and his rhino turn up. Well, Ramby, yes, cranky and Ramby turn up.

But I think it's a little. Orrnege a gong war in this game. But the idea is that instead of riding animals this time, you're getting to transform into them, which I think is kind of the... And high five. And high five. And then the other thought was that I really appreciate how interesting and fun and challenging the little shrine areas are.

There was one that I really loved. Some of them are hard. Some of them have you do things within a time limit and then give you an extra banana if you beat an even a harder time limit, which is really fun. there was one that I really loved that gave you this giant house and was like destroy the house. And the optimal way to do it is to go after all these concrete pillars. And if you get them fast enough, you get two bananas for your hard work. Yeah, I did that one too.

Extremely enjoyable. Because it was so fun. Well, and some of them are Donkey Kong country. Like some of them are just 2D side scrollers, which are very fun. And a clever way for them to work that gameplay. And similar to how in Odyssey, they worked in that 2D Mario platforming by putting those, you know, those sections on the walls where Mario would go into the wall and play a 2D platformer. But you almost have to turn off your Docking Country brain, because like I mentioned

before in this game, because you have that extra layer of like being able to destroy the surfaces and the rocks that you see, you have to think of things a little bit differently than you do in Docking Country, which is also really cool. Yeah, it's like aesthetically similar, but mechanically pretty different. Can I talk a little bit about the co-op? Yes, please do. And also I want to hear your take on the music. Oh, well, the music, I don't have actually a super strong take. It's great. It's very fun. I've loved the songs so far that play during the bonanzas. It's okay. They remind me of persona battle music. It just has that same kind of feeling of like J-pop, like, synthy, fun dance music as stuff is exploding. But that's my main take on the music. And I like, this is something that I always liked about Wise's music in Donkey Kong country that for all the fun, like, kind of rambunctious music, there's often a lot of really dreamy, beautiful synth music that plays in these and this game is very true to that. I think they've stayed true to that part of Donkey Kong's musical identities. So I've really enjoyed the

soundtrack so far. I'll probably have a stronger take once I finish it. Co-op, man, the co-op in this game is Bananas. Oh no, I made a joke that was even mean to I said we were going to do it. Come on. Come on. It was an accidental joke. You do actually say that. The co-op in this game can you throw in some audio of just like of an audience booing. I can do that. The co-op in this game is bonkers. How about? It is totally wild.

Emily and I played a bunch last night, and we had a great time. I really wasn't sure what to expect, because there have been a lot of people have been talking about it and writing about it. I didn't know what to expect. And, oh, my God. So the way it works is you can play this game via game share

where, like if you have an old switch, you can beam it to the switch and play together. Emily and I just played on the same screen. So we were playing just with two controllers on the TV. And the second player takes control of Pauline, who, like I said, rides around on Kong's shoulder and is a singer. And basically all you do as Pauline is blast vocal, like blasts at things. So what she basically just yells out like, yeah, wow, wow, bam, yeah, wow. And like, she shoots out those words.

So they go flying out away from her in the show. shape of whatever word she just said, bam, wow, whatever. Like comic book, Onomatopoeia style. Like, yeah, like you'll see a kind of glowing word come from her. And then also the projectile launches from her. And it functions essentially like when Kong rips up a chunk of the ground and throws it. Only it's coming from Pauline. And she can run out of ammunition and then reload just by pointing the reticle at anything in the world and holding down the trigger.

And then she reloads with whatever that material is. So she can shoot words made out of earth or stone. or whatever, like any of the items, any of the materials that Kong can pick up and throw. So the game becomes totally unhinged because you just have a machine gunner on your shoulder, just destroying the world around you while you're also destroying the world. Like it is an overwhelming game to begin with playing as Kong because he's so destructive. You go into Bonanza mode, you know, and the world is just like crumbling before him. Then suddenly he's also got this, like I can't describe it any way other than a machine gun.

Someone just going, bam, wow, wow, bam, bam. And like, everything is blowing up. If you fight a boss with a co-op player, it just is unbelievable. The boss goes down in three seconds. Yeah, I was going to say, they're already not that hard as it is. It's so funny. I don't even understand. I mean, I do understand the point.

I think the point was, let's just do something totally ludicrous that isn't about making a, you know, a coherent challenge. Or even, like, I mean, it kind of messes the game up for the single player. Like, they can knock you off wall. If you're running across, say, we were in the jungle, running across those bridges that she built, and Emily just shot them because she was just shooting everything. And I, like, fell into the poison because she shot the ground out from under us. Like, it can be a very, it doesn't always mean they're helping you out. It can just be so chaotic that you have to kind of almost dial it down if you actually want to make progress.

But it's so funny and so much fun and so endlessly entertaining that I didn't really care. It's sort of my take on this game in general, as if I'm just like, laughing this much and kind of, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing that a co-op mode worked this way, that I can't really hold it against the game. It was so much fun. So I really recommend trying co-op. Anyone out there who's playing this game, it's such a trip. It's just crazy. Just as a co-op mode, I've never seen anything quite like it. That sounds a lot like the Odyssey co-op mode, which Maddie and I were playing a little bit at your house in Portland. No, I mean, it is like, yeah, having the other player play Cappy is one thing, but what if Cappy

He blew up the world around you constantly. It's a huge difference. It's like a heightened version of it. Incredibly heightened. I mean, we did play it and I eventually stopped because I was like everything I'm doing is messing Jason up. I'm just going to not do this anymore. But it was funny.

It sounds similar in the way that you could sabotage the main player. Yeah, that's true. But man, I mean, you can also help so much. I mean, we were going through that jungle level. There are like red thorns everywhere and Emily would just destroy them. You know, I would have had to. spend a while throwing chunks of earth at them. She just like blasted them out of the way. And then a boss would pop up and she would just like machine coming it to death. It was incredibly fun. I mean, it really felt like she was really helping. And then I did all the platforming and jumping around. It was really perfect and very fun. So similar in some ways to Odyssey, but really it's own thing. I really have never quite seen anything like it. I recommend you both try it out. It's super fun. Yeah, like a destructive star collector mode almost because like they're helping you get some extra gold, I would expect if they're destroying all that stuff. In so many games, you know, prototype Red Faction

Girla, there are these destroyer games, these Hulk style games that are very much like this. But I've never played one where they have same screen co-op like this and you can just destroy stuff together. It makes it even more fun. That sounds ridiculous. All right, that is all for Bonanza Talk. But yeah, really enjoyable game that I think all three of us are getting quite a lot out of. When do we take a break and then we'll be back for one more thing. Hey, I'm Alan McLeod, the host of Walking About, and I'm here with Adam. Hello.

You know, as a member of the month, you're the member of the month, you'll be getting a $25 gift card to the maximum fun store. Holy moly. Oh, yeah. I can't wait. Thank you so much for supporting this show and the network. Happy to do it. What made you decide to become a member?

I just said, you know, these people give me so much entertainment. and joy and fun in my life, I got to support them somehow. The outpouring of love and support that these folks, I mean, they made me maximum fun member of the month for crying out loud. If you want this stuff to keep going, then support it. Well, so nice to meet you, Adam. Thank you very much, everybody. Keep up the good work.

I mean, I'm not just blowing smoke. Become a max fund member now at maximum fun.org slash join. Good evening. Thanks for tuning in to 101.1 Max Fun. It's midnight here on Host to Coast, and we've got Sarah for Michigan on line one. Hi, I'm calling him for some help. I used to love reading, but between grad school,

having kids and the general state of the world, I can't seem to pick up a book and stick with it anymore. Sarah, this is an easy one. Just listen to Reading Glasses, a podcast designed to help you read better. Brea and Mallory will get all the pressure, shame, and guilt out of your reading life. You'll be finishing books you love in no time.

That sounds amazing. Also, I do think my husband is cheating on me with Mothman. Can you help me with that one? Ooh, I don't think they cover that. Reading glasses every Thursday on Maximum Fun. And we are back at his time for one more thing. Maddie, why don't you go first? Sure. So I reviewed a video game called The Drifter for a site called Endless Mode. And I wanted to talk about this game because it's so tough when you're playing a game where you're like all the things I like about this. game are being outweighed by the things I don't like. And yet, I do still like a lot of things about it. So I have to recommend it, but with a really specific caveat. So we talk about this a lot on the show, because it comes up a lot. You guys know the stereotype of journalists

that appears in like every piece of media about them, that they're kind of like an ambulance sleep with their sources. Yeah, that's a classic one, especially female journalists who sleeps with their sources. The female journalists in this game doesn't do that. So we're going to give the developers a round of applause for that. But she is still, this is a major character in the game. You play as like a male character who is like a drifter, titular drifter. And then he realizes that he's been subject to some mysterious science fiction experiments

that make it so that he can't die. And anytime he does die, he travels back in time two minutes. And so he's trying to solve the mystery of how this happened to him. It's a point and click adventure. Pretty cool point and click adventure stuff in here. Like cool mysteries, liked that central mystery. Really enjoyed that. Aesthetically, awesome.

Oh, amazing. I'm watching a really, really cool pixel art. But one of the other major secondary characters is this female journalist that you meet almost right away. And the whole point of her character is that she's annoying for comedic effect and that she's like this ambulance chaser type who like gets everything wrong and, like, like breaks ethical bounds constantly and is just terrible at her job and keeps bumbling into situations. And I just couldn't stay at it. I just was like, why do I have to play this game and then keep getting way laid by this other character? It was tough. But I still don't kind of recommend it because I did have fun in the end. And I thought the conclusion to the mystery was really cool. And

And so that made that tough because I was like, this is a really fun science fiction story. But I know we got a lot of writers who listen to our show. So I just figured they should be aware that's that's a stereotype of journalists is that we're all, we all only care about like chasing down a salacious crime and like not even getting the details right and just only care. Do you guys know what I mean? You're you're familiar with this stereotype. And yes. Yeah, it really disappointed me. I feel like they could have made it a lot better.

Like maybe had her seem like that trope And then it turned out that she actually like learned something Or knew what she was doing in some way Or changed as a character But yeah, I don't know Just didn't happen I thought ambulance chaser was referring to like lawyers I don't we I feel like we need one for journalists

You know what I mean? Like the idea that like we only care about like But an ambulance chaser would be a good thing for a journalist Because that's what they're supposed to do Like a lawyer is going to chase ambulances Because they want to get clients and make a bunch of money a journalist is chasing him. It's because that's where the story is and that's their job. Right. Because they care about the truth in theory. And like this character in the game should

care about the truth as much as our main character does. Like he's investigating what happened to him and he's the one who really cares about it. So you'd think the journalist would care just as much. Tabloidy journalist. Yes. Exactly. Just a weird choice. You know, I just saw Superman. Pretty good journalism in that movie. Kind of a surprise. Amazingly, like, solid journalism movie. There's a great scene. Maybe the most famous example of sleeping with a source that's ever been committed to print. Yes.

Well, there's definitely some ethical, serious ethical lapses. Well, and, like, Clark Ken is interviewing Superman in that, so he's interviewing himself. But in the movie, there's some pretty good journalism, and there's a very funny scene where, like, the climactic moment of the scene is Jimmy Olson, like, entering into the daily planet CMS and, like, pressing publish. and you get to see their back end on his laptop and it's pretty good. That's amazing. A positive depiction of journalism I recently saw. Is he writing?

He's writing directly into the CMS instead of like, publish it, go! And he like pushes it live and it's like set to live. Yeah, I've seen so many reporters talking about Jimmy writing into the CMS that it's going to make me go see the movie. I'm like, all right, all right. I need to see some good journalistic portrayals or at least some fun ones. You can have fun with the stereotypes too.

For sure. And speaking of journalism, you reviewed. this game for Endless Mode. Shout out to Endless Mode. The new Paced Games. Very cool to see them doing their thing. Some very, very cool articles over there. A lot of cool people.

Moises Tavares, Knight Nicole Carpenter, a bunch of people writing over there who used to be gainfully employed elsewhere. And Garrett, of course, who's been running Paste Games for a long time. Yes, and Garrett Martin, the one and only. I wish they just called it Pace Games.

Oh, well. Names are tough. I know. Higher triple-click consulting for all your being. he needs. Monster, spider mansion, what is it again? Yeah, Spider Mansion. Do we have Spider Mansion merch in the story yet? Spider Mansion, oh, that's a good request. Our first request has already come in for Maddie.

We need to create box art, like a Spider Mansion video game, the box art. Yeah, it's, maybe Jimmy Olson will become a podcaster just like Mary Jane and the Spider-Man games. The take on Jimmy Olson in Superman is very good. It's an unexpected Jimmy Olson. He's a lot of fun. So the drifter, good despite the character. You're going to have to understand that that character's never going to stop annoying you. So just let that be there for you and maybe play it anyway. It looks neat. I'll check it out.

Kirk, what's your one more thing? One more thing is a book I recently finished that I really enjoyed. My friend Daniel recommended this to me. And he is a listener of the show. Shoutouts to him. It's a book called Children of Time by Adrian Chikovsky. And man, what an interesting. book. I really highly recommend

this to anyone out there who likes sci-fi, who likes kind of speculative sci-fi. So this is a 2015 book. And the cover is very unremarkable. It's a green planet with a ship in like, you know, space outside of it. And you look at it

and think, boy, okay, a ship and a planet. And the reason for that is very funny, because if they actually put what the book is about on the cover of the book, it would horrify people and nobody would read it, even though is not actually a horrifying book. And that's because this book is kind of about spiders, but not in a way that is as terrifying as that might sound. So the premise of this book is killer. It starts out,

there's an incredibly advanced version of humanity. Humanity has advanced way beyond where we are now. We are terraforming the galaxy. We have made massive scientific advances. And we don't learn, we don't see a whole lot of that type of humanity. But we basically start with this expedition that has been sent to terraform this planet and this incredibly egotistical scientist who is in charge of that whole endeavor. She like totally sees herself as God because she has this plan where she's going to seed this planet with a bunch of monkeys. I think apes, you know, like sort of like they could evolve into humans eventually but are totally unavolved. And then this virus that's going to cause their evolution to both speed up and be kind of optimized

for a kind of fellow feeling among each ape so that they can kind of evolve to be this perfect new children of humanity. And she sees herself as basically God, giving this new life to the galaxy, and she's going to totally keep anyone from messing with them, and they're going to just let them evolve to be something better than we were.

And then it all goes wrong. This is all at the very beginning. It all goes wrong. The ship is destroyed. The monkeys don't make it, but the virus crashes onto this terraformed planet. So that's just the thing. the setup. So what happens basically is there are two parallel storylines in this book. One of them

is the story of a group of humans who many thousands of years later are the surviving remnants of that advanced humanity who is like they've killed themselves with wars and horrible advanced weaponries to the point where like humanity is much regressed and doesn't have all of the same technology. And they make this arc ship on Earth, which has like 100,000 people that are the last remnants of humanity. They set off into space. looking for maybe some of these terraformed planets if they can find them hoping, I don't know, where the Earth is dead, you know, we've killed the planet, there's nothing left for us, we have to find somewhere to settle.

So that's one of the storylines is some of the characters on that archship. The other storyline and the thing that makes this book so interesting is that on that terraformed planet, the virus has gone and infected the spiders. And actually, some of the other insects as well. It wasn't really designed for this, but there's this virus that then causes this advanced evolution and a kind of a weird, unexpected series of evolutionary steps in the spiders. And so you begin to follow the spiders as they evolve and grow, and their whole society undergoes all these changes.

And they're spiders, so they're very different from humans. They're not what the virus was designed for. So they grow in really different ways. They communicate in different ways. But it's totally fascinating. And Chikovsky is like really smartly approached this storyline by, It's a many generational story. And the Arkship is also like a story that's told over thousands of years.

On the humanity ship, they're all cryo-frozen. So a lot of that story is the main character waking up, and it's like hundreds of years later. And lots has changed. You know, some people are much older than they were, that people who are younger than him are older than him now or have died. And it's this like time becomes really dilated and messed up because he's like covering thousands of years, but he's frozen for so much of it. where on the spider planet, Portia is the name of the main spider, Portia and Bianca.

It's like kind of a reference to their species. There's always a new Porsche because it's, you know, hundreds of years later. But there's always a Portia and there's always a Bianca. And Portia is always like the spider who's pushing some boundary or exploring or, you know, trying some new thing. And Bianca is like a brilliant priestess in one life. And then she's this brilliant scientist. And then eventually there's Fabian, the male spider. because the males are like very sort of subjugated and kept down because in the spider world, the female spiders are way bigger and they're like important and powerful and the males are little and kind of weak.

So there's also this whole like interesting, there's a lot of gender politics among the spiders, especially as their society becomes more advanced. I could go on and on. It's totally not, it's totally wild. It's playing with ideas that I think are fairly common in this kind of speculative fiction, cryosleep and its effect on people, time and what that. that means even the evolution of non-human creatures and the ways that they might grow. Like, I think these are all things that have been in other books. This is Tchaikovsky's first sci-fi book. I really just thought it was cool.

It was a great recommendation. And I loved how it ended. I thought it had a really neat ending that was kind of of a piece with the whole story and totally made sense. I really just enjoyed it. And it actually has made me a little bit less creeped out by spiders. I've never had a huge problem with spiders. But right now in Portland, they are everywhere. This summer has been like a big spider summer for some reason.

So you might say you're living in a spider mansion right now? Kind of am, I guess. And every time you go outside in the morning, there are like spider webs everywhere. And I'll be out, you know, in the yard doing something. And I'm kind of making my way by a spider web. And I'm like, okay, Portia, all right, you stay up there and don't mess with me and I won't mess with you. Okay, I see you over there, Bianca. And I kind of have names for the spiders now.

And I understand their complexity and what neat little creatures they are. So anyways, I really recommend this book. It's super cool. It's not really like a story I've read before, but it is a really neat one. So that's Children of Time by Adrian Chikovsky. Cool. Spider Summer is my favorite indie rock band. Yeah, Spider Summer.

My one more thing is a video game called Nuri Kabe World. And this is a little known game. It was released like six months. ago, but our old boss, Stephen Totillo, texted me about it last week and it's like, hey, you should check this out. It seems pretty cool. And I did, and I've been addicted to it ever since. This is a game that is best described, I think, as a cross between Minesweeper and Sudoku.

And it is a game where you are kind of like, you are presented with a grid of tiles and some of them have to carve out islands from them. and they can only be carved following very specific rules. You are, they, they can't touch each other. There has to be, when you carve them out, you create water between them. So like basically you click on a tile and it turns into water or it turns back into island. And the water all has to be touching. So they all have to be separate from each other.

And also the water has to be connected in some way. And as you keep playing, the rules get, or the boards get more complicated and harder. and it is delightful. It is a truly serene, meditative, yet at the same time, addictive, like, oh, my God, one more turn. Trans-like experience that I love to death. I have beaten all 300 of the game's main puzzles, and I'm doing the daily puzzle challenges, and playing through user-submitted and user-created puzzles. I am hooked.

It is a perfect game for the Steam deck. It's only on Steam right now, I believe. It's a perfect game for playing on the Steam deck. I'm surprised. This isn't on Apple. I think this is, I mean, it has like 70 reviews on Steam. So I don't think anyone has ever, like, I think barely anyone knows about it or has played it or seen it or anything. But yeah, so I'm playing it on my Steam deck in bed while watching stuff. Actually, Matt, we were watching The Residence.

We just finished that, which was your one more thing a few months ago. Really enjoyable show. But yeah, very, very addictive, super fun, super chill. hits my brain just right. Aesthetically lovely. I'm watching it in action right now. Yes, it is gorgeous. It's very pleasing looking, which is, I'm sure, part of the appeal. That helps a lot. Yes, that is definitely part of the appeal. But the other part of the appeal is just kind of that brain-teasy, like, Sudoku way,

where you're just like, all right, just one more, just one more before bed. And soon enough, you've beaten the entire game. Extremely enjoyable. I love it. And thoroughly recommend it to people. it's called, once again, Nuri Kabe World, and if you're looking for a lo-fi, like, relaxing puzzle game, especially if you're also playing Donkey Kong and all you're doing is just like what, like, a caramel corn of, like, sensations, like a, just complete, like, rocking you visually and audily, and you want something a little more serene before bed, Neri Khabi World is a good kind of, like, change in pace.

Yeah, that's funny. I'm still replaying Tears of the Kingdom and have definitely found switching back and forth between those two has been important. Where I'm like, ah, and now I will stand on a hill and look at the sunset for a little while and not just have like everything on the screen explode. Yes. I could see this being a good pairing as well. This looks lovely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fewer particles effects in NACAWRELA world. Yeah, it's really cool.

Yes, I don't think it's on phones, but it would be perfect on phones. I think it's just on Steam right now. But yes, it would be lovely on the phone. I think some of the puzzles, the boards are too big to really fit on the phone. I wonder, or a tablet maybe. Yeah, on a tablet maybe. It does really kind of cry out for a touchscreen. Yes, but on the seam deck you can also use that as a touchscreen.

So it works just as well. Nice. Cool. And that's my one more thing. And that is it for this week's episode. Kirk sure is. Did it again. Maddie.

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

Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.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. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

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