Triple Click - Video Game Controllers

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

Jason, Kirk, and Maddy talk about the most important tool in any video game player's arsenal: the controller! From fight sticks to Wiimotes to the Steam Deck, controllers have a lot to offer. This week, the gang goes back in time to talk about the best, the worst, and the just plain weird.One More Thing: Kirk: Switch SportsMaddy: Better Call SaulJason: BarryLinks:Support 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

Get those thumbs ready. Line them up over your favorite button and prepare to hear that sweet, sweet sound. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, you can click along with us on your favorite controller because that's what we're talking about. These little devices are how we interact with the games we play, and boy, do we have preferences.

I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shire. And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hi. Hello. It's us again. For another episode. Week two of Max Fun Drive. Week two of Max Fun Drive.

You pumped? You pumped? That's exciting. I'm pumped to be spending time with my two favorite lowercase G gamers. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for specifying. It's important to specify.

Thank goodness. Happy to be spending time with our listeners. Be they maximum fun members or not. But I do hope that they're feeling a little antsy. Like maybe they're, I don't want to say jealous, but they do probably want to be in the cool club. That's what I would say about being a Max Fun member is it's a very cool club. And at least if you are a Max Fun member with us, then you get a monthly bonus episode all year round. If you go to Maximumfund.org slash join and become a member.

But this time of year is even cooler because if you were to pay more money, you get even more rewards. But we can talk about that later. I just wanted to say the thing about the bonus episode just because it's so cool. That's all. It is cool. It is cool. And the bonus episodes are very fun. And we'll be your friends.

You can pay us to be your friends. Right. That's an additional stretch goal is if you pay us enough, we will be your friend. And by we, I mean Jason. Jason will do this. I feel like the three of us are really, all of our listeners, we talk to you every week. Many people have told us that, like, it feels like we're their friends. So, hey, pay us.

Pay us for you friends. I mean, I pay most of my friends. You know how your friends say this to you all the time? Your friends are always like, come on, pay me to keep hanging out with you. We've kind of been hanging out a lot and you have to pay you in a little while. Where's that money? Wow. Well, I mean, Kirk, you actually have to pay me at Maddie after we record for this month.

So, yes. That is true. That's true. That's true. All three of us are paid to be here. Well, anyway, speaking of Kirk getting to be in charge of everything we do, apparently. Kirk, what are we talking about this week? Well, we are talking about a hot topic.

And that hot topic is video game control. controllers. We are, we're going to be talking about those things that we hold that we interface with and use to control the video games that we play. Yes, this is a topic that I am routinely fascinated by. I love video game controllers. I love the idea of how they work. But I mean, I think we all love video game controllers because if you play video games, you spend a lot of time using a controller and getting used to one and kind of contorting and bending your body around it in all these ways that become second nature that we don't even think about. And so we want to think about. some of those ways on this episode. So for starters, I just wanted us each to pick a controller that we think is interesting or infuriating or amazing or anything, really, just a control that we find fascinating and talk a little bit about it. So let's just go around. Natty, why don't you go first? Sure. So I picked the type of controller that I have thought about the most. I would say most of the time I don't actually think about the controllers that I use very much except when they're hurting my hand.

And we can get in, I'm sure we're going to talk about hand pain a lot in this episode. But I actually got my very first arcade stick, which is the type of controller I want to talk about because of hand pain. Because I was playing Marvel versus Capcom. I believe it was three where I started really noticing the issue.

And you got to press the same button at the same time a lot, or multiple buttons at the same time, a lot in that game in order to do certain attacks. And doing that on a control. with just your thumb covering multiple buttons pretty hard. I have pretty small hands, so it was uniquely hard for me. But also it was just causing me a lot of hand pain because you're like grasping the controller in sort of a weird way. It's not really designed for that. But a fight stick, I know some people call them arcade sticks. They both mean the same thing. A fight stick

will have all the buttons laid out on a board, a plastic board, basically, and it'll have a joystick. and you can very easily press many buttons at the same time if you wish to, and it feels great and it feels super clicky. I don't know if we're like including Foley on this episode. Oh yeah, sure. Do it. I have my fight stick right here. Can you guys hear that?

Yes. Can you hear this octagonal gate clicking around? Very, very clicky. Yeah. So square gate versus octagonal gate for the joystick, just a matter of preference. What do you mean by gate? What does that mean? So the gate that the joystick is in.

So like, I'm holding it up. I'm trying to show you guys. Like it's encased underneath the hood of this big rectangular piece of plastic that I have. Square would just let it go in four directions. As opposed to octagonal, which would let you do in the directions. Or four corners, I suppose, in four walls. Precisely. But they're both cool.

I like both. But yeah, anyway, I do like how so much stuff in the fighting game community is just, it's a matter of preference. There are certainly some things in gaming where it really is, there is the best way to do something, and people have agreed on what that is. But when it comes to fighting games and also competitive games as a whole, I would say it's like, if for some reason using a video game controller works great for you, just do that. And if for some reason using an octagonal gate versus a square gate works great for you, do that. And no one's going to question it if you are good. And that is pretty much the be all end all. But yeah, I've had many fight sticks over the years.

This one is a PlayStation, a rap for Hori stick, and I don't have a strong preference about brands, but that's the current stick I have, and I like it. It's so funny. Maybe it's because I'm not a big fighting game player other than like Smash Brothers, but I can't imagine using one of those things ever. Like, controllers feel so comfortable to me, and I can't imagine, like, smashing with my hands, like, on a big rectangular thing.

It's a different thing. It's definitely, you have to learn how to do it, though I understand why it's easier because of the reason you said. Yeah, I think Jason, if you were playing a street fighter, for example, or a Marvel versus Capcom and you were trying to really improve, you would be experiencing some pretty significant hand pain. I know, again, I know there are people who are really into certain controllers and love them and don't have issues. I think hand size really plays a role in what kinds of controllers you like and your own comfort. But for me, switching to a fight stick immediately made MVC easier. I don't know. It's just something about it. It felt natural somehow.

And hearing the click of the buttons is also very soothing to me in a primal way at this point in my life. So there's that too. Yeah, it totally makes sense. It's not a mechanical literacy that I have because I haven't practiced it, but I totally can see how just going straight down onto all of the buttons makes it easier to press different combos. Yeah. Well, Jason, what's the?

what's the controller that you brought us? Yeah, so one of the controllers that I have found most fascinating over the years is the Wii moat, the infamous, iconic remote control slash video game controller. And I remember first finding out about that thing and it just like, well, like, first seeing it, and it just blowing my mind and me being like, how could this possibly be a thing? And then I remember going to like a Wii demo. It wasn't a press demo because I wasn't in, I was in college when the Wii launched, but it must have been some sort of like

New York City early play this thing, check this thing out sort of event and I remember going and checking it out and how amazing it actually felt in my hand especially with the Nunchuk on one side and like they were connected by that weird string thing and it was so cool and then you could waggle

it and do all sorts of crazy stuff I remember getting one at midnight taking it home playing tennis playing Zelda until the weed broke actually I think the first one I got was like totally dead on launch I had to get in there on the next day. That's right.

You got home at like 4 a.m. But point being that this thing is so weird and crazy. And like one of the things I loved about it, this is kind of weird. But one of the things I love most about it is that I could keep my hands spread apart. And so like I would play games while like my right hand is like over my like behind my neck and my left hand is like stretched down towards the floor. And there was something really freeing about that about being able to. And this was, I believe, the first time you could ever do that. There was something so freeing about this idea that, like, your hands don't need to be stuck together to, like, play a game.

And that was really cool. And it's just like, even when you weren't using the motion controls, which were their own kind of beast and had hit or miss applications, the controller itself was actually really cool and comfortable and felt good to play with in a surprising way. As for the motion controls, they were cool. There were some games that worked, some games that didn't work. it got to the point where Nintendo actually had to release the Wii Motion Plus, which was this accessory that made the motion controls better, which is kind of like

saying, yeah, we know we shipped something inferior, but here's a good one. Just spend a bunch of money to buy this actual good one. Just clip this thing onto the base of your Wii mode. Or buy a completely new Wii moat that's a little bit longer. I did that option. Yeah, I got one of those with Skyward Sword. I think actually I'd become, I had like started working

in the games press at that point because I got one of those in an early copy of Skyward Sword from what I remember. But yeah, the Wii mode just like, it was such a fascinating device. And then it also led kind of directly to, well, not directly, it led to the Wii U, but then led to the Switch. And the Switch controllers, the Joycons are very similar to the Wii modes in a lot of ways. Most of all being that, unless you're playing in Handel, which I usually do, you can also put your hand, your right hand behind your neck and your left hand like all the way down, stretch while you play.

So I have this memory when I think I was reviewing the Switch and you were reviewing Zelda and we were both playing it. And Stephen Totillo, our boss at the time, was also playing Switch. And I remember Jason, you kept talking about how you loved that you could sit with the JoyCon separated and you're like, it's so comfortable. I love it. And I remember Stephen saying to me, he was like, why does Jason think that's so cool? He's like the only person I've ever heard to talk about that.

You were like, it's like the best thing about it is you can have your hands. Am I really, is that really weird? Am I really unique in that, in that way? I've never heard of this before either. I didn't, it has never. I get it. And I've played that way, and it is kind of nice. I get it now, and now I can't believe I didn't play that way, but I've never done that. I click the joycons into the little controller frame that they give you, and I use that controller, which is not comfortable. So clearly, I am off my game and I need to start using the joycotts separately, Jason Trier's style. Well, with the switch, I mean, 99% of my switch time. I play in handheld mode with the controls in the switch itself. So that's not really relevant. But the occasions that I do play on my TV.

Also, adorable story. Actually, this morning, I was watching my kid for a couple hours. And I was like, hey, you want to check out Mario? And she was like, yeah. And then I played Mario for it. Like, I had her hold one of the controllers. And I would move around. We were playing Mario 64 on the Switch's emulator thing.

And she would press A to jump. And she was very excited for about two minutes. And then she was like, I want to go play with puzzles. and so she'll actually go play the phone. Yep. Slowly but Shirley, though, you're turning her into a gamer. But that's another advantage of having split controllers as you can give one to your toddler and hold one yourself.

Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I've been playing, this will be my one more thing, but I've been playing Switch Sports. And that game, it's kind of, it actually, it's really fun. Of course, it's fun. It's like basically Wii Sports for the Switch.

But it is making me realize how much more I liked the Wii mode as a controller than the JoyCon just taken as like handheld, motion controlled kind of dohickies because the JoyCon are just so small. Like they're really small and that was what was so nice about the Wii mode. Like you're talking about it, Jason, is reminding me of just, it was really nice. Like the Nunchuck also felt really nice in your hand. It was a good size. Like the trigger fit really nicely under your left hand if you're playing with it in your left hand.

And like it was just a kind of heavy but kind of glossy feeling. It was a very nice controller. I do agree even though I never really. had a Wii for a prolonged period of time or loved the system. It was nice. The joycons feel like you could drop them at any moment. They're just flimsy and something. Yeah, they're a little more fragile, yeah. Right. And of course, they're made to do also clip onto this little tiny handheld. So they need to be small, but it was kind of making me re-appreciate the Wii mode.

Well, sort of related to that, the controller that I want to talk about is the Steam Deck controller, which probably not a surprise to anyone who knows how excited I am about the Steam Deck, which I've been playing around for the last, that a month or so. Excited is one word. Obsessed is. I'm pretty obsessed. I'm pretty into it. It's the coolest video game thing I've owned in a long time.

It's really like, I'm just the exact person who wanted a Steam Deck at that moment in time. It's really hitting, it's hitting all the, checking all the boxes for me. But as a controller, I think that the Steam Deck is really fascinating. just take it on its own as an innovation in video game controls because it takes pretty much every single idea, not every single idea, it takes a lot of ideas that I've seen successfully implemented in various controllers and combines them into one thing.

And it also combines that with software that gives you like basically OS level control over every single aspect of the controller. And that to me is actually just as important as the hardware. We'll talk more about software in a little bit, but that's been kind of the revelation for me as I build these custom control schemes for every game. So the way that this thing works is it's basically you start with, you know, whatever, Dual Shock 4 Xbox 360 controller. So two triggers, two shoulder buttons, two thumbsticks, four face buttons, select, like the two kind of start. The A and B swapped from the Nintendo version.

Yes, right, that maddening flip. So it's the Xbox version where the A is on the bottom. the B is over to the right, aka the X in the Circle in Sony World. Can we just talk about that for an hour? Just where is the freaking X button? I'm like keep this train on the tracks because, yeah, that could be a whole separate topic. The X in the Circle, which are also reversed in Japan where one is the opposite of the other. So basically the Xbox format, click the Thumbsticks.

The Thumbsticks, it's all very nice, all of that stuff. The thumbs sticks in particular are really, really good, like surprisingly good. And now when I try to play on the joycon on the switch, I'm like, what is this little tiny toy? I'm using my hands are giant. I was telling Jason that it's kind of like if you play a lot of electric bass and then you play an electric guitar and you're like, whoa. Tiny doll strings. It's so weird. Right.

I would play Barry Sacks and then play alto and be like, what is this tiny toy instrument that I'm playing? It's that same kind of feeling of like scale, like shock. I guess you'd call it scale shock. So anyways, it's got all that stuff and it's all well made and good and feels great. but the things that it adds, it adds, so for underbuttons, which I've talked many times about my love of underbuttons, I feel like the world is coming around as more and more people get to use them, and they're not just on sort of, you know, really expensive controllers like scuff controllers and that expensive Xbox controllers, so you have to pay extra for them. Because what they really do for me is they alleviate a lot of the repetitive stress that I've been getting, particularly in my right thumb, from face buttons, particularly face button attacks in games like Hollow Night, or any game where they're still hitting X on the face buttons to attack, I now put that on the first trigger, the right, I guess it's my right middle finger.

So it's the top under button. And as I'm playing, I'm just like, and you can hit that. Like this motion for me, like basically pulling a trigger with my middle finger is much less difficult, like, for my tendons than pressing down my thumb, which just becomes painful, especially as I get older. So that's been really cool. Those four under buttons are nice. And then there's the thing that really puts this controller over the top.

and that is that there are two track pads underneath the thumbsticks. So there are track pads that you can then just drop your thumb right onto and use like a mouse track pad. They have these cool little haptics in them, so you can feel them kind of rumble under your fingers or your thumbs as you move them around. And the thing is, this is getting to the software part of it, it's all totally customizable per game.

So what I've been finding is I've been getting more and more into the Steam deck is you can do totally amazing stuff because it's got this like, you know, the Steam OS level, sort of, or at least in the big picture mode in Steam, like it can do anything. So I'll be playing Divinity Original Sin 2, by one more thing from last week, this like complicated PC game.

And I'm playing with mouse and keyboard controls, moving the mouse with the right trackpad, then I have the right thumb stick is set to be like the camera controls and the zoom, which you can just customize all of this. And then with my left trackpad, if I hold it down, a radial pops up that has all of these keys.

And you can assign all of this stuff. So suddenly my one through zero keys for hotbar commands come up in this radial menu, as well as F5 and F9 for quick saving and quick loading. But it's all so customizable that you can like set different layers to where you press a button and the controller goes into a whole new layer. So the Dpad is doing something completely different and everything is totally different.

And then you go back to the original layer. Like it's basically as deep as you want to go and as much as you want to get into it. And it's really incredible. how flexible it is, and it's made me realize how inflexible so many other video game controllers are. It was a big deal only a few years ago when Sony added the ability to remap PlayStation keys at the OS level just for accessibility purposes. That's like nothing compared to what Valve is letting you do, and it makes me think that every controller should work this way. Bing!

Kirk here, as I edit the episode, and just wanted to note we're about to talk about a couple of Nintendo games and our frustration with the fact that the in-game options don't let us do things, but it is actually possible now with the Nintendo Switch to go to the OS level and remap your controls and customize the controls somewhat, which is pretty nice. It's nice that Nintendo added that. Okay, back to the show. Bing!

Yeah, Kirby would not let me invert the camera, which I was briefly very angry about until I actually played the game and realized that you literally never need to touch the camera stick even one time because, one, it's Kirby, it's not Dark Souls, you're going to be fine. and just follow the camera wherever Kirby is and let it do its thing. But also the camera is pretty good in that game, so you don't really need it. But also, how dare they? And Nintendo get it together.

Let me invert controls, thanks. They really should. I remember it was Wind Waker HD, which came out on the Wii U, where you couldn't, I believe you can't invert the vertical access on the thumsick. You can only invert the horizontal axis, which is just madness. And it always frustrated me because I was like, what if I could just get in at the OS level and just change just for this game, I totally would. Who is inverting the horizontal axis?

Who are these? There must be people who do it. If you invert the horizontal axis, send us an email, actually. I would love to hear from you because I know some people do do it. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure there are people like who have, I mean, I'm sure there's some people with disabilities for which it is helpful to invert all the axes. Or there are people who are from opposite land and they need that.

That's true. I think when you're from opposite land, you prefer things to work that way. You're from opposite. you come in and I really, I just want to, I just want to make clear that triple-click's position on people from opposite land is we are very supportive and we not want to offend their culture. No, wait, shouldn't we say that we're not supportive? Right. I'm sorry, we are not supportive. We're still working on our language.

We're still learning. We're learning every day. They're picking up what we're putting down. Please don't cancel us. Oh no, please cancel us. Right. Please cancel us. Oh my God.

They're not picking up what we're not putting down. Kirk, to get back on topic, something you said to not get back on topic. Maybe think about this. Oh, boy. If you look at the evolution of controllers over the years, and I've spent some time doing that because I find controllers super fascinating, like I know you do, they are like totally different, like, alien beasts from generation to generation for a while, and then they kind of just stop.

So like, if you look at NES, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, or like, you go back further, Atari, Comptor 64, although that could in some really weird directions of the time. chari joysticks and whatnot. But like starting at NES, you can see the kind of shape of the modern video controller. But first it's like two buttons and a start and select and a deep, a Dpad and then becomes four buttons of the Super Nintendo. Sega Genesis tried three buttons. Eventually you get into actually using joysticks of the N64 and the PlayStation and then you start entering these different kind of permutations. Although the N64 is built for people with three hands, interestingly, because it has three different like juts that you have

That's possibly the worst controller of all time and the most very strange one. It's really weird, yeah. But then eventually you get to the point where we're at today, which is really like around 360 PS3 era, which is that we just landed on this one design and I haven't really deviated too much from it. And that design is essentially a D-pad, two joysticks or thumbsticks, and then four face buttons. And then like something in the middle, the PlayStation, they have their kind of touchpad thing

in the middle, but this doesn't really drastically change to design all that much, and then two kind of like start select or like share, whatever they call them, buttons in the middle too. So a lot of that is just kind of that basic core has really just kind of stayed the same for the last 10 years or so, and the steam deck, which

feels, or the steam controller, really, which feels in a lot of ways like that. A little different from the steam controller, but yeah, fair enough. It's an evolution. That feels like very much like the pinnacle of the form as we know it right now with every possible bell and whistle you could attack. to it. Like everything you can think of in a controller is in that thing in some way or another.

That, even that, it's just like, contains that same core that we have all grown to appreciate. And I actually, I think that even though you kind of lose some innovation along the way, I think it's a good thing to have something, some sort of like familiar, recognizable kind of language for controllers that we can all just kind of like use and grow familiar with, especially for people who like aren't super familiar with video games and don't want to have to deal with like switching to these drastically different controllers from system to system and um it also helps game design not having to think too much about like whether you're going to have to deal with like all these different drastic permutations on controllers so yeah i think it's kind of a good thing but it's interesting that

we've landed on this like or form for video game controllers that i think it seems like we've stuck with collectively yeah i think there have been smaller innovations i I think the introduction of gyro controls and the fact that that's more of a standard thing is one that does kind of matter. Anyone who's played Breath of the Wild and turned on gyro aiming for that game and actually is really helpful. And the Steam Deck can do it as well. It's very cool. You can set it so that when you hold the left trigger, I play cyberpunk this way. When I hold the left trigger, it turns on gyro controlling.

So just when I'm aiming, suddenly I can kind of fine-tune my aim by moving the Steam Deck, which is cool. There's other stuff like the evolution of haptics. And I think that the touch pads on the Steam Deck are a legit innovation. I know the Dual Shock also has that touchpad. But really the thing is, it's true. I think what you're saying, that there's kind of a standardized, generally like a standard frame. Yeah, I'm not saying, and the haptic on the PS5 controller, the haptic touch stuff, that's also a big innovation. But it's all kind of marginal.

It's just that we've landed on the same kind of form. Exactly. Yeah. Or it's like enhancing the form that we have, which has not gone away, which is interesting. Right. And I think that the fact that the form hasn't changed that much kind of underlines the software side of things because what feels revolutionary to me about the Steam Deck

is the fact that I can just change whatever I want and move functions around and add secondary functions and do anything, like just operate the controller like any of these controllers could be operated if the software made it possible. And that's actually been a really interesting revelation. There are a couple of terms I think I wanted to define as we talk here.

we've talked about some of them, but just to sort of explain what they are, and then we can get maybe more into our own sort of history and evolving history with controllers. But three things that I think are worth explaining that some listeners might not have thought about before. The first one is analog versus digital when it comes to controls, because anytime you're using a button or a trigger or a stick on a controller, it's fun to think about, well, is this an analog controller or a digital control. So it doesn't mean quite the same thing as, you know, like analog versus digital audio or something. It's the nature of the control. So a digital control is a button that it's either pressed or it's not. It's got two states. It's an on-off thing.

And most buttons on a controller are digital. An analog control is something that's like a constant state. Like it's sending a constant signal. So thumbsticks are analog on most video game controllers. The triggers on modern controllers are also analog. So that's how you get like you pull the trigger down and it kind of slowly pulls down. Or at least you have two states, right? The thumbsticks, definitely.

And if you've ever looked at the controller mapping like on a PC, you'll see that little X, that cross that moves around when you move the thumbstick. And that's where you get like dead zones and into neutral states and thumbstick drift, which I know is a big thing with various controllers. It was with the Steam Deck and it was with the switch as well. That's like where the neutral state on the stick is a little bit off. So the software is picking up that it's actually moving when you're not moving. So anyways, analog versus digital.

Good thing to think about. Another term is travel, which when talking about fighting sticks, I know fighting game players talk about travel all the time. which travel is the distance that something has to, an analog control has to move. So, for example, with the Xbox Elite controller, you can put new thumbsticks on if you want to, and they can be taller or shorter. So when you have a really short little stumpy thumbstick, that has very low travel, because you're like, boop, you push it, and it immediately is kind of up against the end.

When you have a big long one, suddenly it's like moving at the end of that sphere. It's like really long travel. So you kind of have more fine control. So a fight stick can have super long travel, even though a lot of fight sticks are actually digital because they don't want to be dealing with analog. They want to just have fast results. Last thing is haptics versus rumble. Longtime listeners will have heard the lovely Dan Sunshine, who is a visiting expert who just called in to tell us about the difference between haptics and rumble. And at the time, we were talking about returnal on that triple play episode.

And he sort of explained why the dual sense, the dual sense, I guess it's not the dual sense five, it's just the dual sense. The PS5 controller. Why the way that the rumble, quote unquote, rumble in that works is so revolutionary and so cool. It basically comes down to like it's like sound signals and it's able to do really quick switches and like modulations rather than rumble, which is almost just like a jelly bean inside of a thing spinning around. You know, like old controller rumble, which goes back to, you know, the rumble pack for the N64 or the dual shack for the PlayStation. So there are just some terms and some things that have kind of changed. haptics in particular being an exciting new one. Yeah, well, I mean, speaking of haptics,

there's one thing that we would be remiss not to mention, which is the advent of touchscreen controls and smartphones and iPads, because even though we tend to be more console PC focused here on this show because those are the types of games we enjoy, a giant chunk of the market in the video game playing audience is playing games on their phones and their tablets, and that is in large part because they're so easy to control. you don't have to think about anything, you just touch them.

And I think that over the years a lot of game designers have gotten really good at making touch controls work for certain types of games. There are a lot of phone games that I wouldn't have thought would work but do. Final Fantasy tactics comes to mind as like a game that is one of my favorites of all time and is actually brilliant with touch controls. But then also there are games that you can create with touch controls that wouldn't be nearly as fun if you were playing them with the controller because part of the appeal is that kind of swinging sensation or flinging things with your finger.

A game like Angry Birds, which was a sensation back in the day, today's kids might not know that one, but back in one of the first big mobile hits, part of the appeal of that was using your finger to actually fling the creatures, and it wouldn't have been nearly as cool if you weren't using a touchpad. So that also is worth noting when we talk about the evolution of controllers. Also, Kirk, when you put travel on this list,

I thought we were going to talk about different times we've traveled with our controllers, and I'm only a little bit disappointed because I had a whole stretch prepared about traveling with a fight stick to different fight nights and how I went about it. But it's fine. It's okay. You bring your fake stick everywhere, huh? You just bring it anywhere you go. Well, I used to.

I genuinely used to bring my fight stick everywhere. I had a friend who was much better at games than I am, and he had a 360 and a PS4 stick in his car at all times in case he was challenged in any venue at any moment. to accommodate any console. He was constantly ready to fight at any moment. It's like in old times when you had your pistols. Yeah, or you have your swords on you. You might be challenged to a duel.

That's how you really get good. But I, my old, I think I got rid of it when I moved and I just kept the PS4 one. But I had a 360 fight stick that had a removable stick. So you could like press it down in a certain way that you would never do when you were playing. and then remove it so that it was completely flat, which meant it would fit into a backpack more easily. It was pretty cool. Anyway, it's fine.

You got to travel with Fite Stick a lot. That's all I'm getting at. You've got to be careful. I find thinking about Angry Birds, and I've actually been watching Emily play What the Golf, that Apple Arcade game, which is this extremely funny sort of parody golf game. It starts as a golf game and then quickly becomes just absurd stuff.

But the way that you play that game is similar to Angry Birds where you kind of draw back a thing on the screen. and then it goes flying forward. And it's really satisfying in the same way that Angry Birds is where you're like, yeah, like it feels really good. It has that what Tim Rogers would call sticky friction. It has that feeling where I find that the best mobile games

tend to be designed for the system rather than those like Zelda clones that you can play where you're supposed to be kind of playing with a joystick that's like on the screen and buttons. Those can be okay, but it's just never really quite, it never quite works. And of course now you can just plug a PS4 controller into your iPhone and like just, just play games with a controller.

That's probably a better way to go. But it's kind of the same thing with, like, console games or PC games or whatever. Like when they're designed for the controller that you're using really specifically, it tends to work better than when they're just sort of generalized and you're kind of faking it. Depends on that game too, right? Like turn-based versus real-time also makes a big difference there. Yes, also very true. It's a lot of easy.

Like Final Fantasy Tactics, like you said. And then that goes all the way to like the music games or Dance Dance Revolution, like games where the controller is so specific to the game. Like you're using a guitar hero controller because the game is literally built by the people who made the controller to work with it. Or you're playing Dance Dance Revolution and it's just straight up, you have to be using this pad.

And then that kind of goes all the way around because, of course, when you make a really specific controller in video games, people are going to take that very specific controller and they're going to use it to beat Dark Souls. It's true. Yeah, all roads lead back to use. using a weird controller to beat Dark Souls. That's very important.

And also, all roads lead to people finding ways to modify that controller, like creating their own version of the DDR pad or whatever other controller format they're into that looks slightly different or is weirder or is somehow better. I don't know. I don't think you two have gotten into controller modding at all, but clearly I have at least one fight stick modding story. And the other one that I think I've told before is the one where I tried to to create a fight stick that could work on both a 360 and a PS4.

It was incredibly hard, and I don't recommend it. But it means then that I have so much more respect for people who do think it's fun to either modify or try to fix old controllers that they've just gotten super attached to for whatever reason. I mean, I wrote a story back in the Kataku days about the GameCube controller and how the melee audience has just become so obsessed with it that they are endlessly preserving it. And anytime Nintendo releases another run of them, they'll all buy them because it's like barely created. And so they need the parts. And just that sort of fetishization of a specific type of controller has always been really interesting to me. Just watching it. I love the GameCube controller.

It's pretty great. That huge A button. It's such a weird controller. And I never owned a GameCube and really never had cause to use when I think I played some Wind Waker on like a roommate's GameCube or something like back when it was first out of there. early 2000s, but that was it. But that controller is, it's kind of like calling something a fetish object sounds weird. Like it's not in a sexual way, but it has that like, it just has that sort of tangible physical quality that I think the best controllers have. Like even thinking about

the wemo when you were talking about it, Jason, there is something about the parts of the video game that we touch, that we have this like physical relationship with when it's good, when it feels really nice. You do kind of get a special relationship with it. And I understand why people would be like, oh my God, I have to keep using the GameCube controller for everything. And just associating it with certain moves. And it's funny to think about it in those terms. It's incredible how many one-off crazy, weird, innovative controllers have been over the years. Like, they're the obvious ones that you think of, like, connect and, like, DTR pads, like you guys mentioned.

But they're also controllers that were created for, like, one game. Guitar Hero is one obvious one that comes to mind or rock band. But also, like, the Donkey Kong, Konga, drum. Oh, the congos, yeah. Uh-huh. They're just like so many random things. Any type of driving wheel. There are so many different driving wheels.

I briefly, we, I had a PlayStation move situation in my apartment for a time whereby my roommate kept buying different guns that you could put the PlayStation move controller into and all of them were terrible to actually play any video game with, but they were hilarious to try to play a video game with. So we had like just a million different plastic sniper rifle. that we were putting the move controller into. That's right, I remember those. There were like tactical rifles that you could play.

Yeah, there was like a huge one. And then there was like a slightly like more duck-hunty-looking one that was a little goofier looking. We had one that really looked like a gun. It was a little terrifying. There was that one Dead Space light gun shooter for the PlayStation 3. Yeah, I'm trying to remember what that's called because that is where we used it. It's like, it's like, dead space extraction, I believe is the name. And it's supposed to be.

No, I'm thinking of like a spin-off that was like a Halo alike, but for, PlayStation games that was like about aliens popping out of sacks and it was also cooperative. I feel like it starts with D. It's going to come to me and I'm going to have to make you Bing it in. I'm so sorry. Bing, true to form, Maddie did remember what the game is. And in fact, she remembered it while we were recording and I'll just let her tell you. Also, I've remembered the name of the game. It's Resistance. That's all. Yes, Resistance 3 supported the move and that was what Maddie played. Okay, back to the show. Bing. Um, yeah, I'm I'm thinking of dead space extraction, which was a PlayStation move game.

It was apparently good that I never played. I think I played a little bit of it. But yeah, those, I mean, the ultimate one-off controller is the Steel Battalion controller. Have the two of you seen the controller for Steel Battalion? I don't. Yeah, is that the big thing you stand in? I vaguely remember this. You should look at it.

I'll, here, look it up and tell me, tell me when you found it. Google the... I feel like I know this. Wow. Yeah, it's a panel thing. Yeah, I saw this at an E3 once. So, Jason, describe what you're seeing right now. It's like these three different panels that you have to.

It's like you're in front of in the White House Situation Room and you are commanding a drone or something like that. It does sort of. It's like a drone control. This is reminding me of like flight controls, like flight games controls. Yeah, it's sort of like that. Just the whole world of flight controls. There are also these foot pedals you have to use

because you're like controlling these giant robots. You're in a me. You're meant to be in this mic. Yeah, it's crazy. So right, it's like two joysticks. You also have to wear a plug suit whenever you boot this up. You need to be wearing a sexy plug suit. And you also need to be a teenager with some mental health problems.

With like a cool call sign printed on it. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah. So it's like these two joysticks. There's a throttle also. There's like a central thing with buttons and knobs. And there's three, there's like a full, like it's a clutch, I guess. There's like three foot pedals.

And this is what you use to play this game Steel Battalion, which is a meck game. And there are a lot of mech controllers that are building. like this because kind of, that's an interesting one because the fantasy of a mech video game is that you're going to get to be inside basically like a mecha anime, right? And that's where you sit in the cockpit and you have the controls in your hands and you play it. I don't know if you've ever, if any, neither of you have probably ever done this, but they used to have these things that you could go to like at the mall where it would be like a mech warrior. I think it might have even been mech warrior branded. And you pay for like a game and you and your friends all each

get to get inside of a like cockpit. And it's basically just like a, Mech Warrior PC game, but you're using a huge Steel Battalion-style controller, and you climb inside this thing, and there's LED lights everywhere, and then you drive the meck around and don't know what you're doing and probably get killed, and it's not actually as fun as you wish it was, but it's the same thing, and this is like taking that home. What was so funny about Steel Battalion was the sequel was announced for Connect, for the Xbox Connect, which is the camera that they were pushing. And I went to a press event for this when I was still at Kotaku, so I'm not sure what year this was in the mid-2010s.

And this was very much like, okay, well, we're going to do another Steel Battalion game. But this time, that infamous, unbelievable controller, nah, it's just going to be Connect. It's all going to be motion controls. No. Yeah. And they were really selling it. They're like, this is a hardcore game for Connect, man. Like, this is going to be for the true gamers.

They're going to love it. And I went to this big press event, you know, very swanky, like Microsoft Press event. And they have us standing in front of the Connect camera. And we're doing, we're like holding our control in our hands. And then you have to, like, sort of. stand up if you're going to, like, go to the scope and you, like, hold your hands up to your eyes, like, you're, like, holding up binoculars, and then binoculars will, like, come up on the screen.

Not good. Not good. And it's just, no, no, it never was going to work. And it was, we were all trying our hardest to kind of be credulous to at least be like, well, maybe this will be cool or someone will like it. I don't know. They seem really invested in this. And the game isn't out yet.

Maybe they'll finish it. But it was just very funny that they went from the super hardcore, like, the most famously hardcore controller game to, like, we're going to try a camera and see if that work. And it did not. It did not work. The mech is in your mind. Yeah, that's so disappointing. Talk about not understanding what exactly the fantasy is that the player wants to have. Right, you want the stuff. You could kind of recreate it in VR, but I feel like even that isn't the same.

The point is to have the physical objects that surround you. And then you get that tactile experience of controlling a Mac. It's true. And actually, like, the VR games that are the coolest that I've played are when I'm playing, usually a cockpit game where I have, because I have a, like, flight, you know, one of those kind of cheap T-flite. It's like a thrustmaster, amazing brand name. The thrust master, like, stick with, like, a throttle.

And you have to, like, if you kind of set it up next to your chair and you have a VR headset on, and you play, like, Elite Dangerous is a great example. Then you're kind of looking down and you see your VR hands are on the stick and on the throttle. And when you move the throttle, you know, the hand moves because they're kind of, your hands are in place, so it doesn't have to do too much. And that is really cool. I mean, that game captures the fantasy of being a, like, actually the best fantasy in that game is being, like, a lot. long-haul space trucker where you're just listening to

classic rock and like driving hauling freight. But it is, you know, it's sort of like those truck simulator games, but in space. But that does work when you have the controller in your hands. Like that kind of makes it cooler if you own the flight stick and can use it. I feel like

there was a run-on flight sticks when flight simulator came out. Is that true? It was like really hard to get them for a while. Oh, I bet. Maybe it was a supply chain thing. I mean, I can't imagine they were making that many in the first place. It's I think that it's worth noting that there are at least a couple of cases of controllers killing an entire company or entire machine or an entire brand in some way.

One being THQ, which came up with those U-Draw tablets, which killed THQ. The U-Draw, that's right. You could argue that the Wii U like hurt Nintendo a lot. And then also, the Kinect really killed the Xbox One because it was packaged with every Xbox One for $100 more than the PlayStation 4. And without that, the Xbox One probably would have, like, Microsoft's, like, course in gaming history would have been completely different, if not for the guy. And really, like, I really think sometimes about what a missed, it's a missed opportunity in that I think that motion and voice control, there's so much potential there that at some point someone's going to figure it out. But it was, it set the whole thing back that connects failure, set the whole thing back quite a bit.

Because, like, voice control and gaming, it kind of makes sense. Like, there's elite, speaking of elite dangerous, there's people who play that game with all kinds of complicated macros set to voice control. And I get it when it works, it frees your hands up. Yeah, I don't know. The last thing I want to do when I'm like immersed in a game is like talk out loud. Start talking, if you're already wearing a VR headset and you're in your like gamer cocaine, it's different. Though, do you remember Tom Clancy's End War? Do you remember?

Either of you remember this game? No. These are the kinds of things I remember because I'm... Sounds incredibly memorable. Tom Clancy's End war. It was an RTS, a Ubisoft RTS in the Tom Clancy universe that was released on consoles that you controlled largely with your voice, or at least it had voice control built in. You've got to find the ads. Maybe I'll put in a clip from an ad for Tom Clancy's End War right here.

All units, advance on enemy position. Copy that. Alpha's moving. Roger, Bravo, moving out. Units two and three move the tanks to flanking positions. Moving as order. Open fire. So it's just this guy being like, activate. Go, Albatim.

You're just imagining yourself, you know, and you're living in the guy in the chair, basically. Right, other people around you and you're yelling. Yeah, you're the guy in the chair, exactly. Just yelling at your game console. Who doesn't want to be the guy in the chair? It's the fantasy we all have, right? You know, as it turned out, I think a lot of people didn't want to be the guy in the chair. I feel like Tom Clancy doesn't want to end war.

I feel like Tom Clancy's entirely at his entire release dead. That's the real issue. The title. So end war, not a great name. People saw end war and they were like, no, thank you. I'm not going to buy that. Yeah, end war. No way.

Tom Clancy's another war. Tom Clancy's more war. Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm sure there's so many more exciting controllers that will come out in the future that we'll get to play with. But for now, I think we can call it. And yeah, let's take a break. And then we'll be back for one more thing. Okay.

I promised we would talk about Max OneDrive a little bit more. And I keep my promises. I always keep my promises. It's important. I'm very honorable. It's an admirable thing about you. Much like maximum fun. I think Max Fun is very cool.

So, again, you could become a member at any time. We say this in every episode. We're always like, you know, $5 a month. Get our bonus episodes. Hear about Jason watching Die Hard for the first time. Hear about Jason playing Modern Warfare for the first time. All kinds of other things we force Jason to do for the first time. A lot of Jason firsts.

This is the main content that's in the bonus feed. But there's just this special time two weeks out of every year where if you were to pay more money, you would get the coolest possible stuff ever. You really would. And it's like limited time only stuff. Like you can only get it this time. Yeah. I know it sounds. We're sounding a little infomercially right now, but but it's justified.

So if you were to if you were to join at the $10 per month level, you could get a triple click patch, which has the controller on it, which of course. I mean, this is the controller's episode. It's true. And it is not just any controller. It is a Sega Genesis controller. The controller with the C button. It's the one with three buttons. It's got three buttons, three clicks.

That's very exciting for us. There's a bunch of other cool patches, though. And then also if you joined it $20 a month, you could choose to either get a hat with the Rocket logo on it, the Max 1 Rocket logo, or you could get this pack of cards that has inspirational suggestions, and we contributed inspirational suggestions. All the shows contributed inspirational suggestions.

it's just really cool. And there are all these other tiers. If you have more money. If you're a high roller. If you're a high roller, if you have cash on hand, you could go to maximum fund daughter slash join. And you know what? It's not about that for us. We just appreciate the listeners and we appreciate their support.

And we know that you like listening to us because you're here right now. So you should consider supporting us if you can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for listening. And thanks to everyone who's already a member. really do appreciate you.

We do. And we're back for one more thing. Maddie Myers, what's your one more thing? So my one more thing is a TV show called Better Call Saul. I don't know if you two to have heard about this before. Sounds kind of familiar. It's pretty good, it turns out. Checked it out.

Didn't know anything about it. But for real, though, didn't know anything about it. So Dina and I are watching Better Call Saul, having both watched the beginning of Breaking Bad and having both bailed on it because we were like, too dark. Not interested. Seems sad and stressful. And Better Call Saul, also sad and stressful, but a very different vibe. Much more like a legal drama meets funny scams episode, episodical show.

Sure. I love funny scams and I love unfunny scams and stressful scams. It's a little like leverage, right? It's got a bit of leverage. Sometimes yes, but also sometimes Jimmy's doing some scams that are maybe a little bit bit risky or he is allowing. Sometimes bad guys make the best bad guys. Right. And sometimes he's allowing his scammer Jimmy, his slip in Jimmy mentality to slip over into his lawyer Jimmy mentality. And that crossover is very, very fun to watch. We are almost at the end of season two now.

And I just want to say, if you're a listener who heard Jason and Kirk extolling the virtues of Better Call Saul a couple weeks ago and you were like, but I haven't seen Breaking Bad. How good could it be? I was you. I am you. And it's great. And you should watch it. I'm so happy to hear that. Maddie, two things. First of all, it just gets better and better. So you're in for such a treat as you keep going. Two is that not only is the show about like this guy who like succumbs to the dark side once in a while. It's also really about his, well, it's about two things. It's one about him like really gradually devolving into this character we knew from Breaking Bad called Saul Goodman, who is. the famous quote in the in the show is Jesse says no you don't need a criminal lawyer you need a criminal lawyer which is pretty good so that's amazing to watch and and extremely extremely good but also the real beating heart of the show is his relationship with his girlfriend partner Kim and I won't spoil anything but just their interaction is just such a highlight and re re Sehorne Rea Sehorne is incredible she is amazing really a travesty that she

hasn't been nominated for any Emmys because she is just like knockout performances on the show. She actually directed this week's episode of Eric Carl Saul, which was also amazing. I haven't watched the newest one. Super talented and everything. That's so cool. That's awesome. But yeah, no, having caught up also to shout out Michael Mando, who all of the video game players in the audience will know from Far Cry 3.

I'll never forget playing Far Cry 3 actually also at a press event and that opening sequence where you're in a cage and he comes and taunts you, just being like, who is this guy? I've never seen a performance like this in a video game before. And like this actor is just like magnetic. And he, of course, is an amazing, does an amazing job in Better Call Saul playing Nacho. And just, God, he's such a good actor. There's so many good actors on it. Anyways, whatever.

I talk about Better Call Saul forever. It's such a good show. I'm glad you're watching. Oh, maybe we should. Maybe we should make it a meanscast. Maybe. Maybe. That would be fun.

All right. Well, Jason, you're up. Yeah, my one more thing is also a TV show. It's a show called Barry. I don't remember if other of you have watched it. Kirk, you have. I watched the first season. And then I got stressed out because he keeps killing people.

But I hear it really gets good. So I might jump back. It's amazing. Okay. So, I mean, and I just watched the first season, and I really, really liked it. Way funnier than I expected, especially the character, what's his name, Noho. What is it?

Noho, Eric. Noho Hank. Noho Hank. Who is just incredible in that actor. is amazing. Really, real breakout performance there. But yeah, Bill Hader is great, and it's really got a lot to it that I'm really enjoying. But I also think it's hilarious that, like, just about one out of every three TV shows is about Hollywood in some way, like aspiring writers or aspiring actors and aspiring. It's just like they, Hollywood cannot resist the urge to insert itself into every show. So that I also find very amusing. And as I'm watching the aspiring actor stuff, I'm just, thinking to myself, I wonder how real this is for all of the people who are actually on this show who have not been on things before. And it's also very entertaining. But yeah, really good show. So we're only just up to that explosive season one finale, which I really enjoy. And so

we're about to enter season two. You have some wonderful stuff to look forward to in season two. Season two is where the show finds its groove and where it becomes clear that Bill Hader is like a super brilliant writer-director, like showrunner. It's just like, holy shit. There's some stuff. in season two. Well, and Alec Berg. Alec Berg also is a key component on this. And yeah, season three just started. So looking forward to catching up on that and getting caught up with everybody else.

I was trying to remember the end. I've just rewatched the season two finale, which of course I'll say nothing about, because it gets pretty complicated and I did not remember so much of what happened. So I was really glad I did that because I want to watch season three. Yeah, that is an incredible show, though. I think, yeah, I'm glad you're watching it. And, Maddie, I think you did season two. It's incredible.

Yeah, I'll circle back to season two. I think I was just surprised because Bill Hader's character is a killer, but he's so sympathetic, but it becomes genuinely stressful when he keeps killing people. But also, I don't know that he is supposed to be sympathetic. And I feel like I need to approach the show at a different mindset as opposed to thinking to myself, well, maybe he should just stop being a killer. Like that isn't the kind of show that Barry is and it never will be. It's instead about his descent into.

the most ultimate Barry. Yeah, and it's just, and it's just like this creative place for them to just play with ideas. Like there are episodes in season two that are just like concept episodes almost that really get out there. But anyways, it's an awesome show.

Cool, well, I'll go last. My one more thing is Switch Sports, which I mentioned earlier. Nintendo sent it to me a physical copy because it comes with a strap that you have to put the joycon in and attach it to your leg so you can play soccer.

which is just one of the many games included in this. And I guess I just wanted to say that it's very fun, which should be not surprising to anyone who's read reviews or played Wii Sports. I mean, it's just like Wii Sports. It's very similar. And it's just, it's funny how timeless this one style of video game has proven to be. I mean, what, it's been like 15 years or something since Wii Sports came out?

And this game, I mean, it really looks about the same. It kind of works the same. And yet, here I am. I got it all set up. And then Emily and I played a little bit. And then we were out for pizza with our friend Kat and she came over. And I was like, oh, you should come over. We'll play some Switch sports.

So soon we've got like three people and we're all standing in front of the TV and we're like playing, you know, we were playing volleyball. The volleyball game is really fun. We were bowling, of course. And like, bowling, classic. The bowling is classic. I was like, this is still so fun. Like we're just taking turns. We're laughing.

We're like cheering each other on. We're trying to figure out like technique and get better. And it was just, it was cool to, I don't know, to have the same experience all these years later with this same kind of. like imprecise motion control. It still feels like you're not totally sure if you're getting the timing right or there are times where you know in volleyball in particular it'd be like you're too late on this hit or on this bump and I'd be like was I feel like I got getting robbed here but that's not really the point like that's not what makes the game fun and it's so fun it feels like I don't know what Nintendo's thinking is in the timing but given that we're kind of in this period where people are

hanging out more like this game is really perfect for when you're kind of having people over to your house for the first time in a long time and you just want to something kind of fun to do and screw around with. And it's interesting that they had, you know, Animal Crossing at the very beginning of the pandemic. And now we're in this whatever more sociable phase of it. And they've got this switch sports coming out. Small groups pandemic era. And what is the perfect small groups game? It really is. It really is. So yeah, I dig it. I don't know if I would have, you know, paid full price for it or anything or like bought it. It's nice that I just get to play it, you know, and didn't have to pay for it. But, you know,

getting to play it, it really is, it really is very fun. So I'm a fan. Do you like the controller situation? I feel like playing bowling with a joycon would just feel weird. Well, it's just, you just hold the, it's a little small, like I was saying, like, yeah, you kind of just hold it and then just move. And it's small enough that it fits in your hand. So it, like, it does feel imprecise. And it'd be nice if it was a little bit bigger. It is kind of driving home how, like the Wii moat was just kind of nice and solid and felt like a kind of baton you were holding where this kind of vanishes into your hand in a way that's a little like, oh, This is a little small. I'm not sure if I'm even holding it right, like if I'm holding it upright because it's so little it's just in my hand. So, you know, it's not, like, if I were playing a competitive game with it, I would, it would probably be pretty frustrating.

But given, like, the level that Switch Sports is on, it's, like, perfect for this kind of just casual fun thing. So it's funny that this comes out, this just came out because a new book is out this week from Reggie Fisa May, former president of Nintendo of America. And in it, I should say, by the way, I read an early copy. a few weeks ago, and it's not like a Nintendo tell-all. It's mostly about, like, business leadership and stuff, and a lot of it is about his time, just his memoir and his time, like, rising through corporate ranks and stuff. But there is some interesting Nintendo stuff.

Just don't go buy it, expecting, like, some crazy revelations or anything like that. But he does mention at one point, like, going back and forth and arguing with NCL about packaging Wii sports in every wee. And that's, um, they ultimately decide. decided to do that. And it's interesting that a standalone switch sports is now out. And you got to wonder, like, how much of a value is there is for that versus as a packaged product, which really feels like this added cool bonus that you're getting and doesn't feel like something you would buy on its own. It does, yeah, it kind of feels like if this were with the switch,

it would make the switch really, like even more enticing to buy. Like, it feels like it would be a perfect packing game, even though obviously it isn't. I guess there will be bundles. Like maybe if the Switch Pro was out right now, and if it was packaged with the Switch Pro. Yes. Yeah. Interesting. Oh, well. Oh, well.

All right. Well, that'll do it for this episode. As always, this was a lot of fun. And, hey, thanks so much to all of our Maximum Fun members, to everybody who supports us, making the show who supported us for two years and change. Thank you so much. Yes. And to the hundreds of you who have either started supporting the show or upgraded during MaxFun drive.

Thanks. So exciting. Extra thanks for the people who joined us this week. Yes. Thanks to all of you and thanks for listening. All right, I'll see the two of you next week. See ya. Bye.

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

clickpublicpod, 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. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience, audience supported. Okay, and let's go at 56. Beautiful. We need to get clapboards, I think. So we're up and when we're all clapping at the same time we're doing a clapboard. It would make the exact same sound. That would be really cool. We should do that the next time we do a live stream just for no reason.

We should all have clapboards. Get like branded little little triple click clapboards. That would be pretty cool. I bet that there's like Exce shops that sell those. I'm sure they're 100% very inexpensive. Or we should get clickers and I'll click. Like little dog training clickers? Because we are, we are.

It would be three clicks. That's right. That's not a terrible idea at all. Great. So we ready? Jesus. Okay.