Triple Click - Triple Read: Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Jason, Maddy, and Kirk pull out their reading glasses for the very first Triple Read! This week, they discuss the brilliant novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, a decades-sprawling book about the epic journey of a boy and a girl from childhood friends to hit video game developers. The gang dives into the book's themes, its twists and turns, and all the fictional video games that make Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow such a joy to read. Plus: a tribute to our dear friend Mike Fahey.One More Thing: Kirk: Immortality Maddy: Nope (2022)Jason: Who is Maud Dixon? By Alexandra AndrewsLinks:In memory of Mike Fahey: https://kotaku.com/mike-fahey-kotaku-eulogy-obituary-senior-reporter-1849501728A GoFundMe for Mike’s family: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fahey-family-fundSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin 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

If you couldn't do something yesterday and you don't want to do it today, well, I guess you're going to have to do it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we're talking about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Gabrielle Zeven's wonderful new novel about the trials and tribulations of a trio of game developers. So stick around as Kirk, Maddie and Jason tell the story of Sadie, Sam, and Marks. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers.

And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. We are back. We are.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I'm glad that there are three tomorrow's in that title because there are three of us. That's right. For this triple read, we are, it's just a fitting, a fitting title for this triple read. It really is. Yes. It really is. On this episode, I will be playing the role of tomorrow.

Well, Jason will be playing the role of tomorrow and Maddie. This is a surprise twist. I'll be playing the role of Anne. Right. And then we're actually going to have a special guest come on to play tomorrow. Of course, the third tomorrow, very important. If you like listening to this show today when you're listening to it, we hope that you'll consider supporting it. Don't wait until tomorrow. Don't wait. Do it today. And you could support us tomorrow, but you could also support us today. And if you supported us yesterday, well, hey, thank you. No, you can't support us tomorrow. This is your last chance. Today's July's chance. We're running out of time.

Oh, okay. So it's today and today and today. Those are your options. McDeaf is going to show up. Some crazy shit is going to go down. You've got to get on it today. Exactly. Yes. Become a maximum fun member and support listeners supported media like Triple Click and every other show on Maximum Fun. We love being a maximum fun podcast. And we love the fact that we can make this show just with the support of listeners. That's a really cool thing. So if you go to Maximum Fun. You can become a member. You can support our show, and you can also get access to a whole tranche. Is that a good word? A whole trunch of bonus episode. A treasure trunch.

A treasure trunch. You know, as it's known. A treasure trove, a treasure trunch of bonus episodes that we've done. We've done one every month since we've been going. We're up in the 20s now. All kinds of topics that we've covered. We've done a lot of beans casts where we spill the beans, a.k.a. post-spoilers for games and TV shows and movies.

We've done just random conversations about personal things, our relationships to games and life, all kinds of stuff. This month, or at least this most recent one, is about the TV show Better Call Saul, which is a very fun conversation about a very good show. And we have a cool one plan for this month for September as well. That should be a lot of fun. So yeah, maximum fun.org slash join, become a member, support triple click and maximum fun and get bonus stuff. Get the beans. All right. Well, we are going to be talking about something a little bit different today.

We're going to be talking about a book. And we've been telling you all for a while that we would be talking about this book. So I guess it's not a big surprise. But here we are to talk about it. It's a book called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevon. The very first triple read. Yeah. This is our first time doing a book together.

It is. We only read books with words that repeat three times in the titles. That's right. If you can think of any good ones, let us know. All right. Here's a little synopsis to get us going. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a new novel by Gabrielle Zeven. It tells the story of a relationship spanning several decades,

an intense, mostly platonic, creative romance between two game developers named Sam Mazur and Sadie Green. He, the son of a Korean-American single mom with a brilliant mind for game design living in Los Angeles's Koreatown, and she, a member of a well-off Jewish family living in Beverly Hills. Sam and Sadie are thrown into a friendship by a chance meeting at an L.A. hospital where Sam is recovering from a traumatic car accident in the late 1980s. They bond over games of Super Mario Brothers, all while Zevin's storytelling time jumps around, giving us glimpses of the pair's later successes as game developers

and some of their later challenges as well. Years after a childhood falling out, Sam and Sadie reconnect in the mid-90s in Boston. Sam's attending Harvard and Sadie, MIT. They're both studying and dreaming about making games. They soon form a partnership, along with Sam's charming half-Korean half-Japanese roommate, Marks Watanabe, who quickly proves himself invaluable as their producer and also as their friend. Over the course of one intense summer, the three of them make their first game together,

an indie game called Ichigo, a child of the sea, and it becomes a global sensation. Zebben then charts all three of their relationships as they start a small game studio, move back to Los Angeles, they navigate the turbulent world of video game development in the late 90s and 2000s, along with small and large personal tragedies, and their ever-changing creative, personal desire. and relationships. And here I'll just provide a final warning that in this conversation we are going to spoil this whole story.

So if you want to skip right to one more thing, I will bing my way in here and it will give you the timestamp right now. Bing! 51 minutes, 48 seconds. Bing! All right, let's get into it. We all read this book.

Books are cool. That's my take. I like reading books. I want to get some big overall thoughts from the two of you. Jason, how about you go first? What did you think of this book? My overall thought is that

if this was a realistic depiction of game development in the 90s, they all would have burnt out after five years because they would have worked 16-hour days for seven days. So it just killed your immersion. You just couldn't get into it. Yeah, I just couldn't get into it. No, I really enjoyed this book. It also drove me crazy

because the whole time I was yelling at Sam and Sadie to just friggin talk to each other and act like human beings. It's a really... Do you don't think they were acting like human beings? Yeah, do not think they were? Act like adults. Okay, fair enough.

I think it's really a testament to Gabrielle Zevins, just the quality of her writing and her capability as a storyteller, that even though I kind of hated the two main characters, I love the story. And I didn't really hate them. I just thought they were very flawed humans and some of their flaws drove me crazy. But I could still, but I could still empathize with them, which, again, is just testament to how good a writer she is and how good a storyteller she is. So I was just really impressed by the book in general. could have done without the like gut punch three quarters of the way through that really, really did not really ruin my afternoon. But yeah, really enjoyed it for the most part. Nice. Maddie. How about you? I ended up really liking it.

I did feel like the book kind of dragged in the middle. I'm curious if you two felt that way. There was this specific kind of turning point in the book for me where I felt like I started to get back on board, which is the party. where Sadie takes ecstasy with Marx and his girlfriend, who he will soon be dumped by, and they kiss one another. And that was when I started to be like, oh, we're going to also have a love triangle, but a creative love triangle plus some real romance love triangle stuff happening here.

It's not to say I need a love triangle in order to be interested in the rest of a book. But before that moment, there are many, many chapters of Sam and Sadie being very frustrating with one another. and those moments, while very human and very realistic seeming, could also be quite frustrating to read for the reasons that Jason already described. And I just, I wanted to throttle the two of them sometimes. But then after that kiss, I felt like the book took on a really good pace for the entire second half. I'm actually not even sure if that kiss happens halfway through, but in my head it's halfway through. And then I really liked the second half of the book.

And I loved the ending of the book, even though I think the final conversation that Sam and Sadie have might be the least realistic conversation that they have in the entirety of the book in the sense that usually people don't have that level of closure or smarts about their own relationship. And it's kind of a fantasy that you would have that moment with your BFF slash frustrating creative partner and be like, let's sit back and talk about this as though we were in a novel that spanned decades of our lives. But it was extremely pleasurable for me, the reader, to have that finally happen between them. And it felt like a reward, a final video game ending screen, the credits, whatever. It felt very rewarding in a particular kind of way. There's a good contrast to be made between that and the end of Better Call Saul, which is also a decade-spanning love story. That's true.

And the end of that show has roughly four lines exchanged. in there. Well, yeah. And yet, I mean, I don't want to say anything about Better CallSall. People can listen to the Beanscast. We're only spoiling the book here. So I'll just say the book is very rewarding to complete. And looking back at this outline that Kirk made, I feel like I've even softened on some of the slower parts of the book because I'm reading through everything that happens in it. And I'm like, oh, that part was great, actually. It's just that reading about these creative struggles, you really feel the frustration of the artist characters along with them and you're like, oh, come on, just talk to each other and collaborate better.

Get it together, kids. How about you, Kirk? What did you think? I really liked it. I found it so pleasant or so pleasurable, really, to read a book like this. It's just been a while since I've read this kind of sort of literary fiction that goes down easy, but is concerned with characters in this way. I don't know. I've been reading a lot of Stephen King lately. Stephen King is just very different from this kind of book. So it was just nice to read a book that so thoroughly explores the inner lives of his characters. And yeah, there were two things about it that really stuck with me that I sort of walked away from it with. The depiction of youthful creativity and how that changes into young adulthood and the depiction of a partnership and the communication and lack of

communication that can happen. The creativity part, there's a line early on and it is, I'm going to read it. I have it highlighted here. It's there is a time for any fledgling artist where one's tastes exceed one's abilities. The only way to get through this period is to make things anyways. And I, God, I resonate with that line. I know a lot of other people do. I hear from a lot of musicians and people who like to play music via strong songs. That's a very common thing where people will say, my taste is really good.

I love, I know what sounds good. I know what's good. But I'm just not really that good at piano. And so when I make music, it's just, it's awful. and so I never want to release any of it, and I really know that feeling. I think anyone who's creative does. I just loved that, and I love the way that this book, especially in those early chapters, those sort of delirious period where they're so young and they're so excited to be working together

and they make Ichigo, that was just so well depicted. And then while it's much more frustrating and goes on for much longer, the whole period of having success and then all of this complicated that comes after and all of these games and these moves and these miscommunications and these. sort of creative failures and, you know, just they move forward in all these unexpected ways, the fact that they wind up making something unlike they ever would have expected they would have been making it first. I think that was just all wonderfully drawn and really liked that. And then the relationship part of it, I just think so often we see one side of a relationship

like this and something that a novel like this is able to do better than really any other media probably is just really show you both sides to use the name of Sadie's artistic failure of an interesting sounding game is to show you both sides and I think that's not a mistake right I think that that's Zevin being as Evan being you know clever with the name representing some of the themes of the book but I just I loved reading these sections that were very frustrating Sam going through this long anguished thing and assuming so much about what Sadie thinks and I knew, you know, you kind of learn, once you're maybe a third of the way into the book,

oh, okay, whenever this is happening, I am next going to go and spend this same amount of time with Sadie, and I'm going to see what she was going through and the assumption she was making about what Sam was thinking, which can be really tragic and sad when they're not communicating and when you're watching their friendship and their partnership fall apart. But I think that for me personally, just as a reader, it just really made me think about my own relationships and communication and the way that that works and how harmful it can be to make those assumptions about people. And that was just really like illuminating and interesting for me,

just reading the whole story. I really loved that about it. So yeah, I thought this was a great book. So the one point that I think was probably the most frustrating for anyone who reads this is, of course, when Sadie essentially like tanks everything because she thinks that Sam had seen the note on the disc that like essentially led her back to Dove to have a toxic relationship. that she had. And essentially she makes all these assumptions about Sam's motives. And then it's not

for a while that Marx points out that like, actually, Sam probably wouldn't have seen this. And in fact, I probably put it in the player. And even then, Sadie just like doesn't really grapple with it and grapple with the fact that it really led to the deterioration of a relationship with Sam. And that was really one of the big, if not the biggest sticking points. It made me think a lot about my own relationships and how, I guess, thankful I am to be in what I consider a healthy relationship where we talk about things that bother us instead of letting them in. And I think that is really such a key part of any relationship, whether it's a marriage or a creative partnership, is just to like be adult enough to confront those things and talk about those things. And

I really don't think that like there would have, I don't think anything would have gone raw or I don't think there would have been any bad reasons or negative reasons for or any cons to Sadie bringing that up with Sam and seeing what he actually said and maybe he would defend himself and maybe she wouldn't believe him but like at least they would have it out in the open and Sam would understand okay this is why she's upset instead of just letting it fester and it really man it really bothered me it really it was so infuriating that they just let that that Sadie just let that fester for so long. And man, as likable of a character, Sadie was, that just, ugh, makes me, gives me anger chills. Yeah, it's challenging. I mean, these, I continually found myself

trying to empathize with my own 24, 23-year-old self, since these are very young people going through this. And of course, that's the kind of stuff is hard. That kind of communication is hard when you're an adult or a more fully grown adult, let alone when you're a young adult when you're in your early 20s and when you're in your early 20s and you're really successful and you know there's all this attention on you but yeah I mean I was equally frustrated with Sam after he gets his foot surgery and has his foot amputated where he's really suffering and it's so clearly so hard for him I really thought that this book's depiction of that of just his physical therapy of the phantom pain of his foot a lot of that just I really empathize with him there were some

pretty gnarly descriptions of how much his foot hurt and just how an injury like that, which I think sometimes it's easy to think of an injury of like a foot, oh, well, you don't need that to right. You know, that's your foot. I don't know. But how like a foot injury can completely upend your whole life and make everything so hard. I really thought she captured that really well and really sympathetically. And then as he's going through this, he kind of closes him off.

He closes himself off from Marx and from Sadie, and he's not reaching out. And so Sadie starts to assume, oh, well, he thinks he's too good for me. me. He thinks that she gets all these things in her head. And just because of their life circumstances, they're separated for these various reasons. And yeah, they can't communicate. And it is a great tragedy. It's frustrating to watch it. But at the same time, I definitely found it believable and sort of very rich just from a character standpoint. Me too. It's interesting because I think both points of frustration are very similar, actually, because they're both scenarios where the character can't admit how much pain they're in.

Like in Sadie's case, she is not willing to even describe her relationship with Dove as abusive for a long time. And they stay friends or like kind of networking buddies throughout the entirety of the story, which I thought was really fascinating and also really common. Where you don't always just have an abusive relationship with someone and then never speak to them again. Like it's not always just, oh, you know, post a call out post of this major game developer who was your mentor. And then you never speak to them again and everything goes great for you. like Sadie's story is much more about this man who abused her and then also helped her career a lot and her mixed feelings about that. And I really loved all of that. I was like, this is a level of complication for a female character that I don't think I've ever seen.

And especially is something that I feel like a lot of readers might get something out of because I feel like, especially during Me Too, a lot of people were like, how can these relationships happen? And what are they like? And why do we even still talk to the guy? And this book really answers those questions in an interesting way. But it also means that Sadie, in part, I think, because she still talks to Dove and still, like, gets something out of that relationship, even as a friend, not just career-wise, she feels shame about having to admit how much he hurt her as well. And also, to be honest with Sam and be like, when you told me, we needed to work with him to

promote Ichigo, it really hurt me. She's not capable of ever saying that to him, which is part of what the CD symbolizes. to her, I think, is just actually being able to go to Sam and be like, I don't really care whether or not you knew about this, but I was in a lot of pain. And I feel like you knew and didn't care or maybe you didn't know. Let's talk about it. And in Sam's case, it's like he's in a lot of physical pain, but he has so much shame around his disability that he's not ever willing to tell other people he's in physical pain, let alone the emotional pain of the fact that he broke his foot because his mother died in a horrifying car crash that he was present for.

Like, that's also part of his whole life. There's something striking about the fact that it's about video games, and I don't know if this is intended, but I just have this thought while you're talking, Maddie, that there's something striking about the fact that video games are completely not subtle when it comes to displaying pain. Like, you have a health bar on your screen. Every single video game, it needs to tell you if you're in pain, if you're suffering, whereas these game developers are just,

keeping the pain internal. Like there are no health bars. There are no hit points, right? And all the games they make are so symbol-laden, like to almost an anvil extent where it's like, okay, both sides is about this character who fantasizes about not being in the hospital anymore. And she pretends to be this warrior in this other world.

And it's like so literal. I mean, no offense to both sides. And Ichigo, for that matter. but some of these games, I was like, I don't know if I would love these. I could have done without the whole Pioneer section. That part I felt dragged the Pioneers section. That part was bizarre. I feel like I guessed very early on that it was Sam,

and then that whole section came off quite creepy to me. Did you two guess that, or was it a surprise to that? Yeah, it was extremely obvious, I thought that, like, we're not going to be spending time with random characters. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I thought it was pretty clear with him. I mean, to me, the games are a little bit secondary to the story. I want to go through the games.

I think that might be a good way to just chronicle the story of the whole book because the games sort of progress along through the story as they make new games. But, you know, again and again and again, Zevin comes back to this idea, like what you were saying, that games provide all this clarity and games provide these systems and you can master a game in these different ways. And these characters repeatedly think to themselves, these similar thoughts of, if only this were so simple, if only making a game or working with someone or having relationships or being in love or whatever else, like if only that could be as simple as Mario Brothers,

where it's just super clear cut and a game gives me this clarity. And then the games are constantly juxtaposed against their real lives and their creative struggles and their personal struggles. And I think that works. Like as a literary device, the games work. And then, yeah, it's fun reading it if you're really into games, if you know something about game development just because, of course, there are things about it that aren't that believable. A game developer friend of mine was basically, like, the least believable thing about this game

is how their ideas just go, just turn up in the game. They have an idea, and then the game is pretty much that idea. As opposed to something completely different, yeah. Tom Bissell in the New York Times and his review in the New York Times also mentioned that exact same thing, that, like, the book could have done more to characterize the professional struggles rather than just the personal struggles. That's not the story of this one. It's a tell, of course.

Right, and I think that's fine because it's clear that Gabriel Zeven is really deeply into video games, and she laces all these wonderful references through the book. And, you know, it's very of a piece with the way that I think about games and the way that I think a lot of people do, the way that people who grew up on them and like to, you know, think in this sort of critical way, you know, think about games. And I think that's a really special thing about this book. book. So I guess let's go through these games. And I'm kind of curious just how the two of you envisioned each of these, because they are described, but they're also, you know, there's a bit of shorthand used and we're supposed to be imagining them. And also, I'll say that for my part, I pretty

much just imagine that everything in this book in terms of the games was taking place 10 years later than it was in the actual story. Like, Ichigo is not a game that would be made in the late 90s. That's a game from the like 20, 10s is a game like Journey. That's like a 2011 years. a game number. Yeah. Yeah. Like both sides is not really a game. They would have come out in the 90s that would probably happen in the later. Counterpart high, I mean, for them to make a persona clone like three years after the first persona game came out. So whatever. I mean, even Dead Sea, the reflections and the pools of blood, I was like, that's not even possible. And she like writes some paragraphs being like, it was actually very impressive even at the time. And I'm like, I don't know that computers could have been. Yeah. Dead Sea, I read Dead Sea is basically Biashok. And that's 2007. Yeah. That was what I was picturing. It was like the little. sister, but like as the main character, because you're playing as this little girl fighting the zombies, but she is twist ending herself a zombie. I love that there was a like absurd, arty twist ending. It felt very dope. Like what a, what a well-realized asshole he is. Dove is a great character, I will say, an asshole, top to bottom. Like feels like a real guy, you know.

He has a pop, the meeting that they have near the end of the book where they get lunch after they're both kind of, you know, separate from one another. And he's jokingly like, I wouldn't date me, I'm an asshole. And it's like, have you learned anything? Is this a joke to you? I don't, but it's like he just seems like a guy. What's funny is that it's a, it's a, it's a right of passage, I think, for teenage Jewish girls to have a crush on an older Israeli who they meet at like summer camp or on birthright in Israel or something. And he's a dishbag. It's just a right of passage. Yeah, I think it unfortunately is also a right of passage in in fields where women are the minority and they are fetishized.

Like, that kind of has the double whammy here. I know you're kidding around, Jason, but I do feel like there is something about this story that is pretty common and a tragic way. And the cases I'm talking about, usually nothing happens. It's just like a crush. But in this case, an abusive relationship came of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, there are a lot of little moments of truth. Another early game is solution that Sadie makes for her class. This is a clear kind of reference to Brenda Romero's game, Train, which is the same idea you're packing trains and then of course you realize over the course of the game that you're actually packing trains that are being sent to concentration camps that's in train and in solution it's the same you're designing i think what pumps for the gas chambers at concentration camps then of course you find that out and then the only way to win the game is out to play it's a very creative and and fun idea and i think there's a moment where sadie is looking for solidarity to the other woman in

her class yeah and totally doesn't find it there and that that student winds up like going to like lodging ethics complaint about her. There were a lot of things in this that I was like, Gabrielle's oven was a girl gamer. Like that was, there were so many moments where I was just like, she gets it. She's been here.

She had this argument with like another girl in her college class. I don't know what the circumstances were, but like there were just so many moments that I was like, this is real life. This is something very similar to what I've experienced where like, there's the only two women in a room of mostly men. And they're like, well, we got to fight to the table.

death. And it's just like, why is this happening? Yeah. Yeah, that, just from stories I've heard that are like that, that struck me as a moment of truth. And then I like Emily Blaster as well. This is the Emily Dickinson poetry shooting game. It's kind of an edutainment game like we talked about a little while ago. That I could see coming in the 90s, I will say. Yes, I agree. That one feels also very much like the college student game that you make because you ran out of time. Like that felt like perfect as an example. Yeah. And it's fun the way that with both Solution and Emily Blaster, the way that she references them continually throughout her career and kind of keeps coming back to them. Because I think, again, I keep coming back to this,

the way that this book depicts creative evolution and development and the way that you're always kind of going back to those early years. And just how she'll think back to when she made something like Solution and threw it together. Or people will reference it that she'll be being interviewed by Kataku or whoever. A lot of quality Kataku cameos in this book. And they'll sort of mention Solution or Emily Blaster, you know, to show they're a real fan. And just she'll reflect on who she was when she made those games. I think that all of that is just really, feels very true to me as well. Yeah.

When you're creating something new and you're staring at a blank piece of paper, you're often trying to, and you've done it before. You're trying to channel the energy that you had. Like I'm working on a third book right now and just being like, what was I thinking? How did I possibly write my first two books? Like, what the hell? How did that even happen? I think also when your reach exceeds your grasp in those youthful years that Kirk was describing, you still remember those ideas for the rest of your life.

And a lot of creative people have described. Like, I actually came up with this idea when I was 19 years old, and I made a crappy version of it. But I think the idea was really good. I feel like I read that in so many interviews, not just with game developers. And oftentimes it is a good idea. It's just something they could never possibly have done at that time. Isn't that the story of Inception that Christopher Nolan dreamed that up when he was a kid, which absolutely tracks for that movie, and then he finally had a blank check and could make his dream heist movie.

It explains a lot. Sure. So now we get into the games that they actually make with their game studio. What's their game studio called again? Unfair games. Unfair games. And they all have a different idea of who came up with the title. Right.

That's fun, the kind of Rashomon, who came up with the title thing. So their first game is Ichigo, A Chigua. Child of the Sea, another game that does not sound like it would have come out in the early 90s or, I guess, mid-90s. But, you know, kind of an adventure game. It sounds a little bit like a journey, like a sort of more complex journey. I could never quite tell how much, like, how many systems there were in Ichigo. I know the movement was really complicated.

There's a lot of fun discussion of how hard it is to get Ichigo's walk right. And I think the thing that struck me about this game that was interesting is how hard they tried to make Ichigo not designated a male or female character and how they constantly run into people being like, no, it needs to be a boy, like we're going to make it a boy. And then eventually Ichigo becomes Sam. And then that, of course, leads to this just kind of, you know, it's one of the rifts between them is the way that Sam, who is kind of naturally this very extroverted guy who loves to get up and, you know, do the Ken Levine thing and give the talk and make everyone feel smart and welcomed and sell the game in that way, which is a real skill as a game developer. And Sadie doesn't like doing

that stuff, but she watches as he does it, he becomes identified with the game. And people are basically like, well, Ichigo is Sam. And Sam is, you know, unfair games. And this whole thing is him, even though so many of the ideas were hers and the tech was hers. And that kind of continues to be an issue for them as they go. It reminded me of that mythic quest episode, a dark, quiet death. Really, the whole book reminded me a lot of that, but especially the part where the marketing executives of the publisher that they go with really force the game to have a male protagonist because that's a sort of like creative compromise that you make and then suddenly you're turning your game into like an action shooter with a terrible B-movie spin-off.

Yeah, it reminded me of Poppy and Ion. Is that his name? I am? He is a just one with the quest. Yeah, it reminded me of that too in almost a fantastical way, to be honest, because they're really aren't that many game development teams that are a man and a woman of technically equal respect within the studio itself, but it's just a matter of correcting the record outside the studio. I mean, I think part of that is because the stories we want to tell nowadays, we want it to be diverse, of course, because, you know, there are so many, it's sort of an accepted fact that we play games. It also makes for more drama. Yeah, of course.

There's like, well, they, won't they aspect to it. Right. But there were some things in this book. that I was like, would the persona developers be two gay men and they would be out, like, publicly? Would that happen in this time period? And would this tiny game studio have this woman creative director essentially in which she have this much power at age 23? Like, there were some things like that.

Not in a bad way, but just like in the sense that I'm like. Ken and Roberta Williams. Roberta Williams is kind of my go-to mental example of this. But I also know, like, the 90s were the midst of. of a backlash against women in gaming. So I'm kind of like, but that's what makes the book more enjoyable to read. It's just the fact that you get to have a more diverse cast of characters to look at and just relate to as a modern day reader who can then map that on to studios today.

But I do feel that way about Poppy and Ion sometimes too, where I'm like, is there a Poppy in current day who's like making World of Warcraft? I don't think she would succeed at Blizzard. So it's tough. It's tough, you know? You want that to be real. Yeah, I guess, I mean, for me at least, any believability stuff like that, it always seems to take a backseat to the overarching goal of the novel,

which is to explore many different types of relationships. Because we get to see, is it Simon and Aunt? Yeah, Simon and Ants, we get to see some of their relationship. I think we even get a chapter from the perspective of, is it Aunt? I think from his perspective. We get some standalone chapters. I think Zoe gets a chapter and a couple other people do. I guess Anna, doesn't she get a,

the chapter of Sam's mom. So it's like she wants to explore different kinds of relationships, and she's more interested in that than anything specific to like the game development side of it being all that believable. And I think that's fine. Like I basically accepted that early on and was like, this is primarily a book about relationships that's using this backdrop as a very fun metaphorical backdrop that I do think works really well.

Yeah. I agree. I like that they have to make the sequel and that it's just sort of not as well received. All of the video game review excerpts are wonderful. Yeah. So despite, I mean, despite the nitpicking there that Maddie that you just did, which is totally fair, this is also the most accurate recreation of the video game industry that I've ever seen in a piece of anything. The accurate parts are just cut you to the bone.

Exactly. And the depiction of games journalism, like, I will accept that I've been home. It's very funny. The part where she, I don't even know which character says it, but it's like, video, game reviewers always like to describe a non-character as a character in the game. I was like, I've probably done that. Owned. Distriest thing ever.

Destroyed. But I think that helps me look past maybe the less realistic parts, such as like the time and a woman having the sequel role in the time being. Yeah, it's more fun to read anyway. I can accept that as a fantasy. Exactly. I accept that as a fantasy because so much of it is so accurate. Yeah.

I wouldn't want to play each ago, too, though. No. I wouldn't play each ago, too. Ichigo, either. Those controls sound really frustrating. Well, Ichigo 2 sounds like such a classic video game sequel, where a game that you loved gets another game that's more of the same. And it's not an Assassin's Creed 2, where it's more of the same, but that's a good thing. I don't know what sequel you'd compare it to, but one where it's just sort of, ah, the magic just kind of isn't here. They're playing the hits, but the tempo doesn't quite match.

And then both sides is such a classic sophomore stumble, where, of course, Ichago 2 doesn't really count. both sides just sounds like this wildly ambitious game. It reminds me of the longest journey that adventure game, the premise of it, which is a really wonderful point-and-click adventure game where you play as a young woman who's in this one world and then discovers a portal to another world and winds up doing a kind of Alice and Wonderland thing back and forth between the two and having a whole adventure. It's sort of a late-90s adventure game. And I could see that working for a late-90s adventure game, but it's pretty wild that they make it work

with real-time technology that's streaming two different worlds at the same time. and stuff. Yeah, and it sounded in some parts like you could switch between the worlds at will because there were people who got really into the hospital world and just only played that. And I'm like, so you can beat the whole game that way? That's crazy. I don't know

of itself. I mean, that would be absurd. You imagine sort of 20, like Titan Fall 2 or Dishonored 2 where there are levels, where there are two levels superimposed and you can press a button and go between them and it's the coolest thing ever, but those are games from what, 2017 or something,

16. This is, I think, this game is probably the least well defined and the one that's also the most metaphorical of all of them. So I think that kind of matches up, right? That makes sense. It's the one that has to do the most metaphorical baggage carrying because it has to represent how they were growing apart. I mean, this is when they're really removed from one another and they each basically make separate games and then they just stitch them together and then have this realization afterwards of like, oh, you know, this part that Sadie made is actually. reflecting something that Sam said. And Sadie, I love when she realizes that Mapletown, which is the part that everyone winds up really liking, actually has a lot of her ideas. And he sort of explains to her, like, no, I made this because of this thing you said. Like, I made this because I wanted you to play it. Like, this was all kind of for you when she was thinking of it as, oh, that's Sam's

world. Like, that's Sam's game. Of course they all like Sam's game. And when they finally do communicate about it, I thought that was a neat trick, like a neat way to do that in the story. I think another very accurate part of the creative process is that idea of having your one target audience member in mind and like being like, I can't wait till this person like sees this or reads this and plays this. I think that's another very true, very true thing. Yeah, which then of course becomes very true later with pioneers. So this is kind of where I guess we should talk about Marx's death because this is like it is kind of the major fulcun point. It happens right around here. Counterpart high also comes out, the persona clone. They didn't make that. That's just sort of a fun little. thing in the background. It's a fun detail that

the people they brought on wind up making a game that's way more successful than anything they make financially anyways. And just, I don't know, those characters just seem nice. I like Aunt and Simon. They're nice supporting characters. But yeah, this is kind of where things fall apart because Marks is killed essentially by some like gamer trolls who come to the office and shoot the place up and kill him.

Which, yeah, I mean, I guess I have my take on this is that I think it's okay. that Marx dies, I think that having him, that's kind of his role in the story, and I mean that in the kind of sad way that it implies. Like, that's kind of Marx's character, and that's the tragedy of Marx, is that he was never quite the star, right? He was just this affable guy who really goes along and really makes so much things work. Right, he's the NPC, as they describe, and so then he dies. Like, that is a fitting role in the story. I think the way that he died it was pretty upsetting just because

that's scary, violent gamers are scary anyways. I don't know. I don't know if he needed to be shot. Like, if it needed to be this shocking violence, that whole scene was just really wild and a little jarring for me. He could have just gotten cancer and died or something. There's a lot of ways that people

can die and died in a car accident. But I don't know, I'm curious what the two of you thought. Well, it felt very real. It's just a gutlunch. Yeah, sure. People get shot in office shootouts. The only, I mean, that was another part I felt dragged a little bit was just the dreams that his subconscious as he was dying. I didn't super need all of that stuff.

But I think it worked because I think that part of being a game developer is like actually that scary reality, that gamers can be really frigging scary. And as far as I know, we haven't seen any actual incidents of like a shooting, but we've certainly seen death threats and people go. way too far with their swatting and all sorts of crazy stuff. So it felt true to me. Yeah, I mean, people have also tried. There was the Ubisoft threat not that long ago, right? In France. And there have also certainly been celebrity deaths where a fan or angry fan has attacked a celebrity and people have died. I mean, there are other examples you can point to. But I don't know. I

I have mixed feelings about it. There was a part of me that felt like it was too much because the book has so much death already that it started to verge on soap opera for me when Marks also died, not because I felt like his death didn't make sense or something, but simply because, again, this is a book where a lot of other characters die.

Like, there's the NYC jumper. I thought the scene between her and Sam's mom was really interesting and weird and uncanny. and then her death affecting Sam for the rest of his life felt like a through line that made a lot of sense. And then later his grandpa, uncle, elderly relative dies as well. And that's a big part of the ending moments of the book. And it just, it feels a little weird to kill off another major character in a book that only has a couple characters in it, if that makes sense.

And it's like, okay, so you wanted to take marks off the board. and get back to the story that's just about Sam and Sadie and their relationship. But I'm just, I'm not sure if an office shooting is the best way to do that. Yeah, that's kind of where I come down as well. I mean, I agree that it's believable and that's not really my issue. It's more that just the violence and trauma of it creates a ripple in the story that's much bigger than it maybe needed to be, given that this story is generally, you know, moving in these ebbs and flows. there's this kind of bombshell drops into the middle of the water and it's pretty horrifying.

And I was a little just like, whoa. I'm not sure. But again, Marx's death, the way that it works is like works in the overall framing of the story. Yeah, I mean, it's a story about human relationships and partnership and the kind of the love, whether Platonic or not, that springs from that. And I think Marx's death allowed Gabrielle Zeven to explore a new dimension of that, which I thought was interesting. And so for that reason, I think it works because you can suddenly explore grief going into that. And Sam, Sam is grieving, but does he also see this as an opportunity because he has this unrequited love, subconscious, subtle love, but certainly there for Sadie. And so there's certainly some, I mean, interesting stuff that comes as a result of that.

So I liked it for that reason, I suppose. For sure. No, yeah. I think that he essentially almost had to die from the beginning of the story when I look at it. overall. And that's for that reason. Let's talk about the end and about their relationship. Because to me, Sam and Sadie never seemed like a romantic thing. I actually didn't really entertain any will they or won't they. It just struck me as I understood their dynamic from the start. I understood that it was a little more to Sam than it was to Sadie. That was pretty clear just in the way he thought about her and the way they interacted and that it was also just never going to quite reach that level. And Marx, by his presence, was this kind of buffer between the two

of them. He was the eminent producer. He was the one who just kept everything moving along. And then when he was gone, they had to figure out what they actually mean to one another. And I think that is like structurally really smart writing. Like that's just a really great way to tell that story. And I did really like the ending. I mean, I was just by the end of a book like this, I'm just kind of, you know, that feeling when you're at the end and you're just coasting along on this feeling of just these people that you know and you know it's coming to the end. And I could tell, I was like, they're going to be fine. Like, of course these kids are going to be fine. Like, they're so lucky. They found one another. And people very rarely find someone like that. And that was the ending that

she went with. And I thought that was really wonderful. And Marks played his role, you know, that he always played in a sad, but really kind of lovely way. Yeah. I didn't necessarily see it as like a sexual longing, but I did think it was somewhat romantic on Sam's side. And I felt like the book was sort of taking an approach to entertaining the idea that Sam was asexual without outright saying that? Oh, I think that was made clear. To me, it was clear, yeah.

I mean, without Sam identifying himself as such. But, like, he describes having multiple sexual experiences with men and women and not enjoying it, not really feeling connected to his body, not really feeling in need for that in his life, but then still having some feeling for Sadie that is undefinable. And I think...

Well, also extreme jealousy. Yeah, I mean, that's the part of it where I would say it's almost like it's a romantic love but not a sexual one. Like usually people will describe, I mean, in our modern day, people will describe aromantic and asexuality as like two different ways to describe yourself. And in this time period, this book is written, I don't even think the language for that is, is there. And certainly not something Sam's familiar with. But like, as a reader, I was kind of thinking along those lines. like I wonder if that describes him. But also, I really liked that at the end of the book, Sadie was, I wouldn't say she shuts him down,

but she's kind of like what we have is so much more special than any other relationship in my life, which is really intense to say, given her love for Marx and the fact that they had a child together. But Sam and Sadie, it's beyond just a romance for them. It's like a lifelong best friendship. And the two of them have been there for each other in deep depression. Like that's a really common theme for both of them too is like one of them is extremely depressed. And the other one is like, God damn it. I have to go rescue Sadie slash Sam from this situation again.

And that is, I don't know, it's almost like a brother's sister vibe. It's interesting. And I feel like I've, it's rare to see a story about something like that that doesn't also make it somehow sexual and have it be. like, and Sadie's so hot or, you know, whatever. And I just, I kind of liked that that wasn't really a part of it because it's interesting to see a character like Sam who doesn't experience that in the same way. Yeah, I don't like it, actually.

You're against it. Well, I just don't think, I think the ultimate relationship is love and is two people who are in a, like, loving romantic relationship. And I don't really think that like being super close, best friends, professional with someone supersedes that in any way. Like, I think that, I think a romantic relationship would be stronger than that, even if there's no sex involved at all. And it seems like Sam doesn't need that.

And maybe they're not compatible because maybe Sabian needs it and Sam doesn't, which is part of the whole thing. But I just don't think I don't really buy this idea that, like, there are some, like, relationships that are stronger than romance because I really don't. I think I've always believed the opposite, that love is the strongest force. and there's nothing that supersedes that. And like my wife, I consider my best friend. And I consider that the strongest relationship in my life.

And I wouldn't want it any other way. Yeah, I don't really see it that way. Or at least I don't think that the book is, that this story is running counter to that only because I think it is about love. I think it's about there's the sort of profound, romantic love of creative partnerships. I mean, when you really find someone that you can create with,

that can be a really profound thing. I mean, there are a lot of, you know, partnerships between two heterosexual women or two heterosexual men or whatever, like people who just aren't at all attracted to one another and yet still have a sometimes tempestuous romance over the course of decades while they create and make things together. I think that's kind of part of what the story is going for.

No, but I think that's all true. That's all well and good, but it's the part I take issue with the city being like, this relationship is stronger than love or whatever. I'm paraphrasing what she said. The notion that it's like what we have is better. Like lovers like come every day, but like what we have is stronger than that. Like that's the part that I kind of take issue with the comparison of the two, I suppose.

So you disagree with Sadie, but not with the novel. Yeah, I disagree with the notion. No, I totally. Kirk, 100% like creative partnership is awesome. But I think there's like putting one above the other is a notion that I disagree with pretty strongly. and being like, this is more special than love, especially when she had, like Maddie pointed out, like she had this relationship with Marx and it's kind of fucked up. Like, you had a kid with this dude and you're saying your relationship with Sam is, like, more important to you.

Like, that that I take issue with that sort of prioritization. Right. I would say that the book is not making that argument. Oh, yeah. No, definitely. I disagree with saving. The book is not saying that it's not really about one winning or coming out on top. It's just a wonderful depiction of that other type of love. And I actually really value that about the book because there are lots and lots and lots of depictions of romantic love in the world. And it's actually kind of rare to find one like this.

And for that reason, if for no other reason, all these other reasons, I really think it's a wonderful and unusual book. Yeah, me too. And I think I guess as a counterpoint for you, Jason, I would maybe compare it to something like a familial relationship where it's like you would never try. to say that a relationship with a coveted family member is somehow more special or more important than your relationship with your wife. But there is something extremely different about that relationship that you probably place in a different mental category. And I'm imagining that that's what Sadie is trying to communicate to Sam. At the end of the novel is that they have something that is like being a married couple, but it's also like being brother and sister. And it is

it is unlike those relationships at the same time. It is a third other thing that they have that is a creative partnership and also two people who've known each other since they were children, which I can't even think of a comparison for that. Like, I don't know, I guess like family bands, like members of musical groups where they've known each other for that long, but it's pretty rare. Leonard & McCartney or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I mean, I was thinking of examples like that or like Simon and Garfunkel who famously don't ever. didn't ever want to talk to each other again. I mean, it's like, but that, those are described as intense breakups. And although they're not romantic, we understand them through that lens because creative partnerships can be just as tempestuous as someone telling you, like, I don't talk to my mother anymore. Like, that can be just as intense of a breakup.

Lenin and McCarthy also broke up because of a violent shooting. Yes, I, that was actually one of the examples I was thinking of in my head during Marx's death was that I was like, well, that's how Lenin died. before that, but that's how their relationship was severed. Yes. You're talking about Lenin and McCarthy, right? Lenin and McCartney, of course. Yes. The long-standing relationship between

Lenin and McCarthy. Yes, Lenin and McCartee. We all remember the pains of McCartneyism, where we all had to describe which B-sides. We really liked better than the A-sides based on Lenin and McCartney-E. Are you now or have you ever been a fan of the White Album? All right, Well, this has been a really lovely book to talk about. I had a great time reading it. Thanks to everyone listening who read along with us. This was fun. We'll probably do this again at some point in the future. And yeah, that's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, a lovely book about video games and really a book about people. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back for one more thing.

Hey there, I'm Ellen Weatherford. And I'm Christian Weatherford. And we've got big feelings about animals that we just got to share. on just the zoo of us, your new favorite animal review podcast. We're here to critically evaluate how each animal excels and how it doesn't, rating them out of 10 on their effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. Guest experts give you their takes informed by actual real-life experiences studying and working with very cool animals like sharks, cheetahs, and sea turtles. It's a field trip to the zoo for your ears. So if you or your kids have ever wondered if a pigeon can count, why sloths,

move so slow or how a spider sees the world. Find out with us every Wednesday on just the zoo of us in its natural habitat on maximum fun.org. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Carrie is it? Oh yes. Hi. I'm Carrie. I am psychic Ross and I will be reading you this evening. Oh, interesting. Well, okay, I co-host a podcast. It's called Ono Ross and Carrie. Yes, I'm sensing that. The spirits are telling me. It is a show about poodles. Well, it's about fringe science and spirituality and claims of the paranormal. Oh, you knew that. You do research online. But more importantly, like we do in-person investigations. You get in-person investigate as well. Oh my God, that's amazing. See? Me and my friend, this is so weird, my friend Ross, same name as you. Weird. He and I just go

and try them all out. And actually, we've gone to a number of psychics. And to be honest with you, it's a lot like this. It's called Ono Ross and Kerry. They can find it at maximum fund.org. I could have told you that. And we're back for one more thing. Maddie, why don't you go first? Sure. So I watched Nope, the Jordan Peel movie and talk about something I don't want to spoil and that's hard to talk about without spoiling it.

Give me the vague overview. Have you both not seen it? I have not seen it. It's not really going to change what I'm going to say. And I'm sure plenty of our listeners haven't as well. Well, so first of all, I recommend it. I would say it is a great movie about what it's like to have been working in Hollywood for a long time and being a very successful director

who has some anxieties about how to keep making movies and the exploitation in that industry and not just racism, but just general exploitation, exploitation of child actors. There's a lot of sort of discussion in the movie about the treatment of animals on sets,

which I think is, the text there is also subtext where I do think that animals are often mistreated on sets. But I also think it's saying something about how we as humans, treat the earth and also other people in our lives. And I just thought it was fascinating. There's a whole lot in the movie. And I've been thinking about it since I saw it, some really cool images, a lot of themes. Like I feel like with Get Out, Jordan Peel was like, okay, I'm going to have

characters face the camera and be like, this is racism. This is a film about racism. And like, now he can make a movie that's much more cerebral. And you have to really think about some of the shit in it. And you have to be like, what was he trying to say with that? And you talk about it with your partner. And you're like, yeah, I guess I could see that. And I dig that for him. I really dig that for him. It's a much weirder movie.

It's also very funny as a Jordan Peel horror movie is Wanted to Be. There are a lot of extremely funny parts. And it made me a little sad that I was too scared to watch us. I've been too scared to watch us this entire time. I may something watch it. It's not that bad. It's not that scary. I can't talk about it. That trailer gave me nightmares.

I can't, I don't know. I'll watch it at some point in the middle of the day. I will pause it frequently and get up and walk around. And I know that it will also have jokes in it to diffuse the tension. But doppelganger stress me out, man. I couldn't have played love doppelgangers slash counterpart hive. It's creepy, man. It's creepy to think about a doppelganger living under the earth, like controlling your every move.

That's creepy to me. But I actually didn't think Nope was scary. But it's so subjective. Like I have a friend who was utterly terrified by it. I don't even know what to tell people. It might completely terrify you. But it also might just be something you think is like mentally thrilling. I don't know how to describe the feeling that it.

Is it streaming? Or did you see it in there? Yes. Yeah. No, it's streaming now. It's as of last two weekends ago. So that's... I think you have to rent it, right?

Yeah, I rented it. I rented it. Yeah. On YouTube.com. Nope. Good movie. Nice. Yeah.

That description you gave is kind of how I would describe us as well. So I hope you get a chance to watch that. It is, it's a chance to watch that. It is. It's, it's, it's, it's a. spooky movie, but it wasn't that scary. And I was curious how scary nob is, whether I can talk Emily into it. I also have to talk Amanda into it. We almost went to see it in theaters, but she went down. I don't think it's scary at all, but I'm happy to answer questions from you both off air with more

specifics if you can tell me what each of your partners tends to be scared of. I can tell you if it's in the movie or not. I think that, I think Slate did one of those helpful, how scary is it? And then they give a different rating level for each like gore and jumps. But it's like what kinds of things scare you. I mean... Well, no, right. It's a very subjective question. Totally. In any rate, I'm sure I'll watch it at some point. I do love Jordan Peel. Jason, what's your one more thing?

My one more thing is a book called Who is Mod Dixon by Alexandra Andrews? And it's a pretty good book. It's a thriller about... Don't read the back cover, because the back cover spoils a little too much, but I'll try to sum it up without spoiling too much, which is

it's a thriller about this kind of aspiring author who moves to New York to become a literary assistant and her involvement with a book and an author, a book called, what is it, Mississippi Foxchrot, and it's mysterious Ray Clue's author, Maude Dixon, and the mysteries behind both our main character and Maude Dixon, the author, who may or may not be going by a pen name. And it's really good. It's a really good thriller. It goes from New York to Morocco to upstate. It's really interesting. Got a lot of interesting settings and got a lot of good twists, a lot of good well-paced twist and turns. Just a very good, just a very fun book, just a very fun read for your

end of summer reading lists, if you want a nice little thriller to check out. It becomes very clear early on that the protagonist, the literary assistant might have a couple screws loose. Might be not quite not quite what she seems. In a thriller? Shocked to hear this. I wouldn't say unreliable as much as like

you get her inner thoughts and you're like, wait a minute. What starts off as being like, oh, okay, I can relate to this like 20 something who's ambitious who's like moved to New York to try to do all the stuff. Then you're like, well, wait a minute. What's she doing? I'll leave it at that.

I'll leave it at that. Who is Maude Dixon? Good buck. Who is Maude Dixon by Alexandra Andrews? It's really good book. Nice. I'll check it out. Well, my one more thing is a video game called Immortality,

which is a new, largely full-motion video-based game by Sam Barlow, the creator of her story and telling lies. And I'll say that I really like it. I think it's really interesting and cool. It's not like anything I've ever played before, and I like it more than I liked his first two games, both of which I played, and neither of which I was wild about. They were both interesting, but I kind of admired them more than liked them

and left them a little bit frustrated, especially telling lies. That one left me pretty cold. Her story was cool, but had some flaws. So I haven't finished immortality. I gather it's not super long. I've played two or three hours. Emily and I have been playing on the couch because it largely consists of watching movie clips. So it works really well on your TV.

I think this is on Game Pass. It's going to be released to all Netflix subscribers. so you get it for free if you subscribe to Netflix. And of course, it's also on Steam and whatever I'm playing via Steam Link, just plugged into my TV. And you kind of have a controller and you are tasked with going through the archive of this actress, who is a fictional person, but she is presented as a real person. So like his other games, it's kind of an operating system game where you're working the controls of this kind of movie navigator, you know, one of those real-to-real movie, whatever things,

where you're scrubbing the jog dial and all of that. And there are three different movies from three different periods of time that were made in three different sort of styles and cinematic styles. And they all star the same actress. And you're trying to put them all back together. And then in the process, of course, there's kind of this mystery of what became of her. And the game explains this in the sort of about section at the very beginning. And of course, there's more to it than that. And I'm not going to say anything specific here because discovering the secrets of this game, that's the real.

First person shooter, right? Thrill of it. Yes, right. You get your shotgun and then suddenly it's you versus all of the Hollywood bigwigs. No. So I'll just say that I think it's really cool. It's, you know, it really was surprising and kind of beguiling in a lot of ways. It really drew me in. I found myself right at the moment where I was thinking, okay, so am I just like watching these movies? Like, that's cool, I guess. But what else is there? It kind of shocked me in a certain way and surprised me. And it kind of wound up being paced very well for me despite being largely nonlinear. I think it's very creative in the ways that it sort of pushes you around. And then you're watching these movies

out of order. All three of them are, they're kind of all adult erotic thrillers, which is just fun because that style of movie has totally fallen out of fashion. There's one that's very much like basic instinct. So it's these kinds of very, like, R-rated, lots of sex and murder and sort of, the kind of movies you just don't really see anymore, like fatal attraction and whatever else. So it's kind of fun just to piece the movies together as you go through each clip. And you see them out of order. You see some scenes from the movie. You see some scenes from when they're rehearsing to shoot the scene,

but you still get the plot of the movie through the rehearsal, along with extra stuff. You know, someone will say something. And then the way you actually play the game, just to explain that, is you can pause at any moment, and then you get a cursor that you can move around and click on any kind of object or face in the scene, and that zooms you in on that face,

and then zooms you out, and suddenly you're looking at a different scene that features the same person or the same object. So you'll be in a meeting room and there's a weird plant, you know, on a table, and you click on the plant, and it zooms in on the plant, and then you're in that same meeting room, but it's a different meeting.

And so you see something else. Or sometimes it's like a plant in a totally different place in a totally different movie, completely different time, and you're just like thrown into somewhere else. All right. I feel like I'm hearing too much about this game. I feel like I don't want to know anymore. Okay.

Well, I won't say anymore, but that is really not. that's not spoiling anything. That's just explaining the mechanics of the game. This is how the game works. It tells you this in the first tutorial. But I won't see any of the particulars. There's a plant in it. Well, I've seen, I only say that because I've seen a lot of people be like, don't look anything up going into this. Like, you shouldn't know anything going into this. But I do appreciate your description. Yeah, I wanted to at least, if I'm going to recommend a game to at least say what you do, because it's not the most interactive experience in the world. And if someone expecting something that isn't a very unusual, largely passive, mental exercise, like, it might be disappointed. But really cool game. I really recommend it, especially because so many people are going to be able to play it through subscriptions they already have. Totally worth your time. Put it on the TV.

Watch it with some friends. I think you'll have a good time. You'll at least be sort of provoked into thinking things and engaging with it. Bing! Kirk here, as I edit the episode, I just wanted to interject here really quickly to say this game does have a pretty significant content warning. And I should at least mention that it is a very adult game. There's a lot of sex and nudity and some kind of. creepy stuff in this game too.

And I didn't mention that when I was talking about it, but it does seem like it's worth mentioning just because that's the kind of game this is, even though it seems pretty straightforward. It's a very adult game, and it has a pretty extensive content warning in the opening menu that you should read and take seriously because all that stuff really is in the game. So this is not one for the kiddos or really for people who don't like things that can get kind of weird and kind of creepy. Okay, back to the episode. Bing!

So that's immortality. made by Sam Barlow, a really cool game. So before we wind up, something sad that we wanted to mark and pay tribute to, as I'm sure many of you listening already know, Mike Fahey, a Titan, a video game journalism, a longtime stalwart of Kataku, a former colleague of all three of ours, and friend of all three of ours, passed away over the weekend from health complications. This health had been deteriorating for a while, and it's a really, really, really sad thing. We just kind of wanted to mention it on the show all three of us.

I'll say for my part that Mike was just such a weird, funny, unique guy. He was there when I started. He was there when I left. He really was Kataku to me. And, you know, he was always a guy I worked with. So I've always associated him with Kataku, but he put so much of himself onto Kataku. You just got such a sense of his little obsessions. He got so into mechanical keyboards while we were there.

that he had this massive collection of keyboards. He had so many toys, so much candy that was kind of, he was just like a big kid. And he really helped me, I don't know, look at video games in a different way that I didn't fully appreciate until I was thinking about him over the weekend. And I'll really miss him. And I just wanted to, you know, say that and say thanks, Mike. Yeah, he had this warmth and humor that was like so genuine. And you could really feel it and everything that he wrote about is just so, at a time.

when blogs were very snarky. He could be snarky, but he also, like, he wrote with so much passion for everything he loved. Like, to the point where I mentioned this in my post on the obituary, which we'll link in the show notes, but to the point where, like, I would look at some of the stuff and I would be like, man, is this sponsored content? But, like, nobody would actually think that because you read Mike and you know this is just Mike. Like, this is he genuinely loves the things that he talks about and writes about. And what really impressed me is just, like, the consistency of his jokes. and like how he would always manage to be funny.

Like sometimes, sometimes he'd read something or you read something of his and it would be like it would not land well, but then the next line he would have something that was just funny. Like he would always turn it around and he would always cut the tension. And I think like I think he would want us to remember him and talk about him and think about him while smiling like and having humor, having more humor and warmth in our lives. lives. That's just how I'll always think of him as just like bringing more life and warmth and

humor to people. He was one of the few people I edited where he would come up with multiple versions of a joke and would be like, all right, I've got a few backup for this. He was a real craftsmu. He'd be like, okay, so like the last line of the post is going to be really funny, but I have three versions of it. So you let me know what you think works. Like he really was his own writer's room in that way. But just to echo what Jason said, and Kirk, I feel like he also really changed some of the more bitter feelings that I sometimes have covering video games where I just, I mean, I'm so jaded now. And, you know, we all get video game codes or whatever all the time. And there are certainly times when I get a code

for a game that I'm just not that interested in, but I have to play it for work or whatever. And I'm just like, oh, okay, I'm going to install this. But Fahy would be the guy who, it didn't matter what it was. He was so excited about video game codes. And like, it was just such a key part. part of who he was. Like every game he wanted to try it. And it wasn't just like, oh, like, of course he wants to try it to participate in the conversation. He legit just wanted to play the game. And coverage was sort of secondary to him. Like he never, he never didn't want a code for a game ever. And he was always so pumped. And I just, I was jealous of that sometimes, like just the endless font of enthusiasm that he had for what we do. And that didn't mean he didn't get backlash to

stories that he wrote or be it absurd or, you know, fair and you'd post some, some correction or apology, whatever, he's been doing, he had been doing it for so long that, of course, those things would happen. But somehow just he always believed in the things that he covered and he still loves them after all that. And I just, I don't know, I'm going to try to take that away when I think about him and remember him and try to be more enthusiastic about this stuff and a little less jaded about it, you know? Yeah. No, I mean, I was Totally, especially when I started at Kitaku, I was so, you know, I was really high-minded and into the art part of games and wanted to be this serious critic. And he was so, he could do that.

He had written reviews. There were these beautiful tributes to the artistic elements of games. But he was so also willing to meet games on the terms of just, they're fun, they're stupid, I don't know, they're silly, they're gross. Like, I just like them all. And we get to cover games, you guys. We get to cover video games. How great is that? It really helped me appreciate that part of video games, which was a really important thing for me in a way that I'm kind of only just now realizing.

And also he wrote a post about squishing a spider to his ceiling that is one of the greatest blog posts, any human being ever read. Everyone who's mentioned this post because it's iconic. I think about it all the time. He also had such a love for, like, Kataku and the institution and his colleagues and the readers. And I remember talking to him when Deadspin collapsed and it was kind of like a lot of people were making their exit plans, including me and Maddie. Kirk was already gone at that point. And I remember talking to him and he was just like,

I don't know what else I would do. And fortunately, he got to stick with Kotaku until the end. Until the end for him. But yeah, I was like you would have so many options. Like you're such a precarious guy. He didn't want those options. But yeah, that's all he wanted to do was just like write silly things for the readership of Kitaku.

And I know that many of our listeners, are either former readers or current readers of Kataku or both. And I think he just had, he just like cherished every interaction he had with all of you folks. And he loved it. Yeah, maybe the perfect blogger. Rest in peace, Mike Fahy. We'll put a link to the wonderful obituary that Kotaku put up with a whole bunch of people paying tribute to Mike in the show notes.

And there's also a GoFundMe for his family to help cover expenses related. And that's our show. So thanks as always everyone for listening. Take care of one another out there. Yep. I'll see the two of you next time around. See you guys next week. Bye.

Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at 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. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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