Triple Click - What Makes a Great Video Game Hero?

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

From silent protagonists to badass students, there are all sorts of protagonists in the world of video games. Let's talk about them! Jason, Maddy, and Kirk list their favorite heroes, then break down all of the archetypes, from the Chosen One to the Determined Daughter (subcategory: Queer Millennial Edition). From Mario to Kratos, we've got'em all.One More Thing: Kirk: Station ElevenMaddy: The official Dark Souls TTRPGJason: Arrested DevelopmentLinks: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

When I heard the call to adventure and the screams of a princess in need, I had just one question. What about my plumbing business? Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we talk about video game heroes, the silent, the strong, the brave and secretly villainous. We've walked many miles and many shoes, and only some have been a good fit. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shrier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton and hello.

Hello. It's us again. Back for another week. Another episode. More video games, you know? That's your bottom podcast. More of the same. More of the same video games, except it's different every week.

That's triple click for you. And if you love how different it is. More of the same video games except it's different every week. Yeah, lies words from Maddie Myers. You know, we bring the games to you is pithy. But more of the same, what was it? More of the same games, but they're different games each week. Well, the video games part is the same.

I just want people to not. get too alarmed and be like, whoa, are they going to talk about movies this week? Don't worry. Don't worry. But let's say you did want to hear us talk about movies or TV shows or also still video games and you just couldn't get enough of it in the one more thing section that we do at the end where every now and then we do that. You could become a maximum fun member and you could get a monthly bonus episode that we put out. You could. And you'd go to maximum fun.org slash join if you were interested in that sort of thing. And later this month, you would get a bonus, a beans cast where we spill the beans about

yellow jackets, a really cool TV show that we talked about a bunch as our one more things. And now we're going to spill the beans about the whole darn thing. I'm pretty pumped about that. Definitely one of those shows where when you can just talk about everything that's happened, much, much more fun to talk about it. I think we're going to spell, we're going to spill the bees. Just a can of bees. Just a can of bees.

Yeah. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Yellow jackets. Great television show. And there's a whole backlog of other bonus episodes that you could listen to. If you become a member, they all become available to you. It's very exciting. So maximum fund org slash join.

I think you should do it. Why not? And speaking of video games, I'm playing one right now because I'm legally obligated to. And Jason, what video games? might that be and why have you done this and what are you what's going on with you like brain wise in terms of choosing this and well that's quite a transition what's your problem jason what's going on i'm very excited i'm very excited to remind everybody that as we have announced in the past we will be talking about our first episode during our first episode on sweet code into next week so

to those of you who want to play along with this jrbg sweet code and two spelled by the way S-U-I-K-O-D-E-N-2. Those of you want to play along, next week we will be playing, for next week we will be playing all the way up to the point where you get your castle. The point where you get your castle, it's about maybe six, seven, eight hours into the game.

So everyone should go and do that. And we'll be spoiling the first part of the game and some big plot twists in that episode. So that'll be next week. Who knows. Who knows how many of the 108 characters I will have recruited by then? Only Jason knows. That's all I know.

He probably does know. It's true. Anyway, I'm also doing the topic this week. It's a hot topic week. Hot topic. What's our hot topic, Maddie? Our hot topic is video game heroes because we did a villains episode. We talked about Sephiroth.

And now we got to talk about Cloud Strife, I guess. This is maybe too big of a topic, which I think is evident. in this outline that we have in this document that is shadowed by a massive outline that I have. And we'll see how it goes. Oh, so this is the tip of the iceberg, the tip of the outline iceberg. Yeah, it's the tip of the outline iceberg. I tried to do what I did for our spiritual successors episode where I came up with a taxonomy. Yes.

But it was quite difficult because there's so many different kinds of video games. I don't know if you guys know about this. There's a lot of different kinds of games. And therefore, there's a lot of different kinds of video game here. heroes and a taxonomy may be impossible. I tried to do one. We can go over some of them, maybe not all of them, or maybe we will. But my first question for the two of you, I just wondered, if you're thinking about your favorite video game protagonists, who springs into your mind first? Kirk, why don't you tell me yours first? All right. So I was thinking about this, and there's a sort of

there's a bunch that I could have listed as the one that I wanted to talk about. Some favorites include, I wrote these down. Mani and Guy Brush from Grim Frandango and Monkey Island. Adventure game protagonist, pretty good. I really do like Gerald Rivia from The Witcher 3, and I really liked Arthur Morgan and Reda Deremption, too. A totally different kind of protagonist is Luigi and Luigi's Mansion. I think he is a fantastic protagonist in those games.

It is. The character I wanted to mention is a little more in line with Gerald and Arthur Morgan, and that is Ezzio Auditori da Frenzi from the Assassin's Squaminsie. from the Assassin's Creed trilogy because he's a character that I spent so long with and in that series in particular he is unique I think

in that he started in three games Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and then Assassin's Creed Revelations and he aged over the course of those games and we really got to know him and I really got a sense of him as a character and it was really cool to see him mature and change

and while the story he was going through was kind of wild he was a pretty grounding presence And I just, I really still really like Etzio. He's still probably my favorite Assassin's Creed protagonist as many good protagonists as that series has had. So Etsio is my pick. Yeah. I think part of why he got so many games is because so many people like him.

And in my own Googling, a lot of people chose him as their personal favorites because I was curious what the consensus is. He's on a lot of top 10 lists. Jason, who's your fave? Yeah. So my favorite, this is a little niche we're going to get here. It's from a JRP. What? A game called...

Shocked to hear this. There's a game called The Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky and the star of that game is this girl named Estelle. She's great. And she is this like spunky, badass hero, like adventurer. Just like, we'll talk shit and stand up to anybody even though she's like this 15-year-old little pimpsqueat girl. And of course there's also like just way too precocious

and like gets herself in trouble as a result. But she's just like the perfect archetype for a jare. G hero and have always had a soft spot for Estelle. She's just a badass. But I always, I actually, I enjoy all sorts of different, like, character archetypes depending on the game. I think the blank slate can work pretty well. And there's something iconic about...

That's my very first category that I have in my list here. That's kind of the classic, because that's how video games really started off with the blank slate protagonist. And I think there's something kind of classic about your links and your Mario's and your kind of, your silent hero or your Suicodan 2's main character, you're silent, you're silent. Yeah, he's quite silent. It's true. You can even name him whatever you want.

I named him Ryu as well, Kirk, because I just, I don't know. I couldn't think of anything. I felt like the Swikodon police would find me if I named him anything else. Do you mean Jason? Yeah, yeah, he would show him. And I have one more, one more name to throw out here, and that is Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney. Oh, I like this. Superstar lawyer, who is awesome.

And what's really cool about Phoenix, right, is that, and this is kind of an interesting trait of video games, is that you see, he's a very different character when you're seeing things through his perspective. So, like, in the first few games, you're seeing everything through his perspective, and you get his inner monologue. I guess this is also true of novels, I should say, it's not a unique trait of video games. So you get his inner monologues, you get his perspective, you get his point of view, and he is a lot more insecure. And then in the fourth game, you play as other characters, and you get to see the outside version of Phoenix, right? and you see him as this like badass, grizzled lawyer veteran, and you don't see his inner thoughts, you have your own inner thoughts. And it's this really cool thing that the series does where like you only see people's insecurities when you're playing as them,

which kind of like is reflective of how we all are just like constantly insecure. And we don't really think about each other's insecurities, just our own. So I thought that was really interesting. But Phoenix Raiden in general, I just think is an awesome, awesome hero. Nice. He is. Mattie, what's your pick? Well, I was going to go with Samus Aaron.

who I would agree is also a blank slight character. I put her down for that, but I feel like she's changed a lot over time and could fit into a lot of these different characters. I could put her down as the badass, which is my second category here. She's certainly a badass. That's right, especially in Metroid Drive.

Do you want to just read some of these, by the way, Maddie? Sure, I can. So the blank slate, I mean, I would say Aiden from Dying Light 2 is perhaps the best possible example of what this is, just a character where you, you are allowed to step into their shoes. The early master chief was explicitly envisioned as this. A person who doesn't have a lot of characterization in early video game days,

usually a straight white male character assumed defaults wrongly, of course. But then over time, that's changed. Like I would say Shell and Portal is a very blank slate because she doesn't even speak. So you're just invited to project whatever you want onto this character or whatever they might be feeling. Would you say that like the protagonist of persona four or persona five, like a totally silent RPG protagonist counts as a blank slate? It seems like maybe there's a distinction there. Possibly.

I have... The subcategory of blank slate is silent protagonist because that's like totally blank as a place to blank in which you can make them talk. Right, as opposed to Master Chief who started talking more and more over time. And at this point, as of Halo Infinite, I would say Master Chief is anything but a blank slate. He's kind of got a tune. He has a personality. He's got an attitude.

He's made a lot of mistakes over the course of his military career and people know about them. And he has a fully formed human being at this point, although a very cool one. So he might just be the badass. So that was my second category, is the badass. I guess I should also say these are not exclusionary categories, the way that they have been for a lot of our other taxonomies, because they can't be. These are more like tropes or a really big Van diagram where these are just a bunch of qualities that I've noticed video game protagonists tend to have.

You can be all of these. And Samis is all of them. She is a lot of them. She has a lot of them. Some characters especially that have been around for a really long time almost have been all. Like Mario has probably been all of these. Yeah, well, I don't know. Has Mario ever been a sad dad?

So my subcategories for the badass were Soul Survivor Edition, which I was thinking of the number of video games that start out with you having survived a battle you never get to see. Like Commander Shepard, for example, has this as one of the optional backstories in Gears of War. That's Marcus Phoenix's backstory, et cetera. And then I have extra cheese addition as a modifier for the badass, which I would put somebody like Sonic or Duke Newcomb in this category, a character who's badass, but only in the circumstances of the world in which they live. And perhaps not by any regular circumstances. The next category is chosen one. I thought I was going to be able to come up with a lot more of these, but I feel like it's really falling out of fashion. Aloy and Horizon is the obvious modern example. Link is the obvious old-timey example, but I wouldn't say Mario is a chosen one. per se and Master Chief is a badass but it's not like he I mean Cortana picked him but it's it's not quite there but yeah I feel like that idea yeah the hero of Cotor is a good example I'm sure Jason could think of a lot of chosen ones a lot of them are also blank slates they're just silent antagonists who are yeah bylith is kind of a chosen one but I I put Bileth down under

multiple choice personality which is a little further down the chart then this one conveniently amnesiac. I originally titled this one, I'm as confused as you, but then I realized how much literal amnesia there is in video games. And I was like, I feel like I may as well just acknowledge this. Like Phoenix Wright is a good example of a character

who just doesn't know how to be a lawyer for no reason at the beginning of the games and has to learn how to do everything. Link often doesn't know or remember any person in his town and sometimes they even make fun of him for that. But then there's also Colt and Deathloop who literally has amnesia. He's as confused as you, the player.

You have to figure out everything right along with him. Well, Kirk just mentioned Cotor also. Yeah. Another amnesiac protagonist. All right. So after conveniently amnesiac, I have the professional, which this is where I put a lot of our military protagonists, like Sam Fisher, Solid Snake, etc.

Solid Snake. Oh, okay, that's good. Well, you pretty much have to be if you're a video game hero. You have to be like... Well, but it's kind of a variation on badass, where it's like you aren't necessarily a badass who everybody talks about, knows about. Like sure, solid snake might be in that category, but it's also like he's doing his

job. And so I created this subcategory called It's a Living Edition. And this is really just for Mario and Doom Guy, because I thought that was a funny way to think about those guys. They are professionals at what they do, but they're really just doing their job, ma'am. And that's their vibe. Mario isn't doing his job. That's part of the fun of it all. He's a plumber who just goes and saves the princess. Well, I guess, yeah, defending the mushroom kingdom is more of a hobby for Mario. Exactly. He goes down pipes sometimes. He's getting paid, though, and he's getting lot of money for it. So I would argue it is a vocation. He is getting paid, but it's

like a side hustle though and it's like really he's working so many hours. He's like he's a plumber Think about him. Mary is a plumber during the day. He's like working probably odd hours. I mean, do you think he is or do you think it's a career change for him where like he's a former plumber and now he's a whole time adventure?

And in fact, plumbers work weird hours because like you never know your toilet clogs can take a big shit in the middle of the night. You call your plumber. Marry was to come. He has to come and deal with that. like unclogging toilets at midnight and then 2 a.m. he hops in a pipe to the Mushroom Kingdom as to save the Princess. He's, dude is like never sleeping.

It kind of makes sense though, because the Princess can be, can be kidnapped at any time. He needs a labor union, man. The Mushroom Kingdom needs a labor union. Let's talk about that. Yeah, I feel like that's the kind of thing that Bowser should be instigating if he really wants to sow the seeds of revolution.

Well, he doesn't want his Gumbos to unionize because those creatures are like, yeah, it's not okay what they have to get through. He doesn't want his kids to unionize. Anyway, so the next one is the student. This is actually where I put the persona protagonist, by the way, as well as Pokemon trainers, Psychonauts hero. But literally being a student is a variation on conveniently amnesiac, I would say,

because if you're a character who's a student, it's okay for every other character to constantly explain things to you. Like, that's how they get away with that in every Pokemon game. You're just starting out. So I feel like the student is a unique version of. of you're a newcomer to this world. Everyone's going to tell you how it works and that's okay. A lot of these things are ways to... I think maybe conveniently amnesiac is like a subcategory of the student

because the student is such a common thing in that you're like learning things. But I wouldn't say Colt and Death Loop is a student. I mean, I guess it's a student of reality. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Okay. He's kind of a student of reality. Razz and Psychonauts. He's a student, especially in the first one.

That's another example of like a fantastical world that's introduced to you through the mechanisms of school and class. I think the trope of amnesiac is a trope where like you're learning information about the world and the game is deliberately hiding things from you for narrative reasons. Whereas the student trope I feel like is more to start you off at a really like low place so you can gain more power, gain more knowledge or follow more of an upward trajectory over time. They're a little different right. Like the amnesiac trope is also like there are aspects about your own character,

like that your character doesn't, that you don't know. Like Kota is an example, Kotor is an example, you don't know things that you did in the past that you then will learn. So you're a blank slate at first, but then eventually that gets filled in and it's like, oh, turns out you're this whole other person. And then you decide who are you really or sometimes you decide. So that's, yeah, it's kind of a separate trip, the amnesiac thing. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I feel like a lot of these things can overlap, which is part of why I have all these subcategories, because it was hard to decide how to classify any of these things. So next, of course, we have the multiple choice personality.

I would put, you know, your fallout New Vegas, your BioWare games in here. I thought I was going to come up with more versions of games where you create a character a la Skyrim, but I realize that isn't hugely different from games where you don't have to do that, and you're just Aiden and in Dying Light too, and you also have a multiple choice personality. Well, this is a perfect, this is Disco Elysium is the definition of this. Yes. Yeah. The maybe ultimate example of multiple choice personality. You really pick your personality in that game.

Yes, and you're conveniently amnesiac at the beginning of that one. That's true. Harry was one of the examples that I put down for conveniently amnesiac as well. And you're a very unprofessional professional in the fiscal elizium as well. I don't think I would put Harry under the professional at all. He's a subversion of the throat, in fact, like where the protagonist of Obridon or like Sherlock Holmes would be under the professional, Harry would not be there because he's like not allowed. Disco Elysium really puts a lot of these into. a very interesting relief in what it's doing.

Like the fact that you can be the super cop where you're the badass, but it's within your own head and you're not badass at all and you're always acting like one. That's actually a great game to think about these in terms of. Mm-hmm. And you are kind of the student of Kim Kitsaragi in the sense that he has to teach you how to do absolutely everything. You've forgotten how to live. God, Disco Elysium is so good.

But you are not, it's important to note, you are not a sad dad in disco Elysium. However, there are quite a few sad dads and games, and I guess I could list them all, but I'll just say Cratos and move on. And we're done with the episode. The Sad Dad, I mean, that's just the Sony third-party action and open world game. Noddy Dog, naughty dad, I say, that's what those games all are. And then there's the... Is Days Gone Hero? Is he a Dad? No, I don't think so. No. But he's like sad.

The hero of Ghost of Tsushima is not a dad, and Aloi is not a dad. But they both feel that archetype. They both feel like that. They both feel like sad dad. I don't know. I feel like Ghost of Sushima is probably more professional or maybe badass. He's like the leader of his region. He's kind of a politician warrior, I guess.

He's not a dad, though. All right. So Joel and Kratos are sad dads. Yes, Joel, Kratos, Booker, Booker, Bioschuker, Infantic Eye. Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And then the counterpart to sad dad is determined daughter. Not sad daughter. They're usually not very sad. So this is the Ellie to Joel. I actually put Sammas in here for Metroid Dred. That's actually Estelle, who I mentioned before, is very much a determined daughter. A lot of that game is her tracking down her dad. Mm-hmm.

And I created a subcategory for this called Queer Millennial Edition, which Ellie could technically also fall into, but I came up with a bunch of other ones. There's, like, May and Night in the Wood. The gone home protagonist is kind of Sam and not Caitlin. Max in Life is Strange. Alex in The New Life is Strange. Would you say that Jesse in control, though she's a determined sister in that game, but still kind of a...

Yeah, but she has determined daughter vibes. And the other fun example that I have here that's a gender swap on, it is Zagrius and Hades, who I think is the only male queer millennial I can think of for the modern day. He is the determined daughter, though. That's true. But he is a determined daughter, and he is truly fighting his dad in that game, and that's what that game's about.

So, you know, shout out. Shout out to Hades for gender swapping something that I think is bordering on trope at this point. And then, of course, we have Surprise You're the Bad Guy. There are only a couple of these that don't also have the subcategory Unreliable Narrator Edition. Like, I guess I'll just name the really famous Unreliable Narrator ones because I don't want to spoil games for people. But I think it's fair to say most people know James in Silent Hill, too, for example, is an unreliable narrator and also the bad. guy. Well, damn it, Jason. Come on, man. All right. I quit. Forget everything I say. Jason doesn't play horror games. Screw this. I'm out. Okay, never one. Can't believe you spoiled

Silent Hill too for me. All right. I will never release the list of games for which you turn out to be the bad guy. It is a lockbox in my heart and I will never tell. Bioshchok is an example. I would say it kind of fits under this. And SpeckOps the Line is another well-known example of this. Yeah, I was thinking about that too. Yeah. And I, yeah. And I, and I, and I, An unreliable narrator where you aren't necessarily the bad guy is heavy rain. That's another example. Like these two things don't necessarily overlap. I would put, I put Cloud Strife down for that as well.

Yeah. Because he's an unreliable narrator. Yeah, in the original as well. Yeah. He doesn't really know who he is. And also like conveniently amnesiac, but only when he's in a bad mood. And a badass. And a professional.

Yeah. Now, he has amnesia for sure. He locked away his memories. Like he deliberately doesn't remember stuff. It's true. It's true. And then last but not least, it's literally you is the title of the final category. Surprisingly large amount of games in this category. I wrote down Mist and I was like, that's it. And then I was like, wait, also inscription. Also, Emily is away. Also, most soothcore games,

like house flipper, you're playing as like a version of yourself and the game sort of invites that. Dokey Dokey Literature Club is another famous example. The characters talk to you, the player. The Stanley Parable, I think, is directed at you, the player. Analog a hate story, which is the game we almost played. If I had one, you play as yourself, and that's part of what's so awesome about that game, in my opinion. But we'll never play it. So Jason won't ever know. And yeah, I just thought it was fun that I had so many games that I could come up with for.

It's literally you as the protagonist. Anyway, what do you guys think? How do you feel about the protagonist you chose in light of my subcategories? Do you feel like you can come up with? I put ETSO under badass, Kirk, for whatever. it's worth. Yeah, Etzio fits under a few. He's not really a chosen one, I suppose. Yeah, I've been thinking about this. Like, my preference for video game protagonists has changed over the years because, you know, each of them kind of fit into various, you know, categories here. Because, like

you said, there's a lot of overlap, and even at various points in one game, a character may be one role and then another role and then another, because video game heroes in particular have to be so flexible. It's such a weird thing. about a protagonist in a game. It's like the only kind of character that has to be this way is the protagonist of an interactive story who is both a character and is also being defined by someone else, like the audience member who's controlling them.

That is a really weird thing. Like when we talked about villains, a lot of what we were talking about was just what makes a good villain. Like, you know, our kind of takeaway was basically, well, they need to be a good character, which is just true in books and in movies and in TV and wherever. that's the same thing is true as in games. With a hero, it's very different.

It's a different question because you have to have this weird relationship with them. And I find that the longer I play games, and especially now, I like it more and more when the characters that I'm playing as sort of impose their own character and their own decisions and their own personality onto the game, and I'm less interested in being a blank slate. So to that point, I actually have a proposal for another archetype here, Maddie to your taxonomy, which is the anti-hero.

And that's something that you don't see often in games, because not a lot of games are trying to do the whole literary, ambitious, Breaking Bad story thing. But when it works, I think it works really well. And I actually think that Rockstar, for all of those, their games' faults, and especially for GTA-5's faults, I think it does a really good job of creating these three anti-hero characters who are awful yet captivating, especially with Trevor, who is this real. real nasty psycho of a character who you still can't keep your eyes away from when he's on screen. But especially with Red Dead too, which I think is a masterpiece and like really Rockstar's

best work ever. Arthur Morgan is such a compelling anti-hero. And like in the same way that like you'll be watching Tony Sabrano and some of the time you'll be like, oh my God, he just did this such a nice thing for Carmela. What a good guy. While he's also like betraying her and it's just horrible and toxic to everyone who touches, You see a lot of that with Arthur Morgan where he'll be like saving people on one hand

and just like doing these horrible awful things and the other. Yeah, I think with Arthur Morgan in particular, the thing that really makes that character work and that shows, demonstrates that the writing of that game is on a different level than other rock star games is that it isn't just that you see those contrasts that he's a good guy one minute and then a jerk to someone else, which is true, you know, GTA 5,

which I would say has much weaker protagonist than Red Dead 2. it's that Arthur Morgan is a pretty consistent character throughout. There's only a few things in the story, like in the actual story, not counting going and just killing civilians, which I guess you can do in that game. But in the story, the one thing he does that's truly vile is he's doing these debt collection missions, where he's going and just beating up innocent people to take their money. And it's awful.

And it seems awful. And the game presents it as like, he are doing an awful thing. And it winds up being his undoing. Like it winds up being the thing that leads to his down. fall and he kind of has this whole actual redemption arc as he like comes back from having been this awful person. And that is remarkable. Like that's working on a level with an anti-hero that very few games are able to. And even though that game is too big and has all these digressions everywhere, when you just look at that arc, it's like, whoa, they really kind of did the thing. And that's,

that is pretty amazing, I think. Yeah, I agree. I also think that when it works, Joel from the last of us, feels like a good anti-hero to me. I don't think all of that. In the first game. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, well, yeah. I mean, in Last of Us 2, I think Ellie is also intended to be an anti-hero. I just don't think her arc is as effective in that way.

But I get that that's what the game was going for. And the first game, there are certainly emotional moments that landed for me with that, where I'm like, wow, Joel's really actually acting against everyone's best interest, including his own because of his own selfishness. And yet this is the character I'm inhabiting, which is a tension that I often find really difficult in games, but I don't think it makes for a bad game. It's part of why I stopped playing games about sad dads because I was like, I just have a lot of trouble personally playing sad dad games. And I don't think it's the fault of these games. Like, I think it's me.

And I'm willing to own that and just be like, I can't connect personally with a lot of these stories. But I love that the determined daughter is a thing now as a trend, because I can much more often relate to that. And I'm even down for some surprise you're the bad guy. I don't mind if it turns out that I'm a bad guy. I don't mind if I disagree with the character's choices or if it turns out that I don't agree with them. If they're so well illustrated that I'm going on that journey along with them. Madi, what about surprise sad dad games? Surprise you're a dad. Well, there's like Guardians of the Galaxy. Hey, Guardians of the Galaxy. Like, I, that is what that game is. I was not thinking of that. I was thinking of another one that I won't say because it's a

big spoiler for a recent game. In Guardians, it's really not. It's just, it's very early on that surprise one of last year's bigger games that has that as an actual big plot. And that game is Final Fantasy 7. Sephiroth is your dad and we all know and it's what we've been trying not to spoil. Maddie, do you just quit it immediately as soon as the sad dad twist comes in? I mean, I did, I feel like I did have a moment in Guardians where I like put down my controller. I feel like I put something in the G-chat about it where I was like, guys, something's got to happen in this game. I was laughing when I was playing it. I was was like, oh, no, it's a dad game. Maddie's going to be pissed.

Because I didn't know going in. I was like, oh, it's just going to be a fun game about some people in space. I was concerned when I hit that scene. I was like, is the rest of this game going to be about how Peter Quill is not a good father? Because I can't, I can't play a game about that. But it's really not. It's actually really not. And that game has many other fun sort of family values moments that don't have anything to do with being a literal dad.

And I get why that's, I don't know. I, whatever, whatever to dad games. I try not to make fun of them too much. I know people love them, and there's a lot of dads out there making games. So something I find really cool about video games is that they can tell really good stories, even when there is no protagonist, which I think would be impossible for a lot of other mediums. And I think that's pretty cool. Like, I'm thinking of like, of all games, this one randomly popped in my head,

bug snacks, which I don't know if you two played or finished. But I finished that game. And it has a really good story. It has like a really emotionally engaging, like, interesting story of all these characters who just have these fascinating plots. And Maddie, you would really like it because there's a lot of like queer characters and interesting explorations of their relationships. Yeah, I kind of meaning to play it.

Yeah, I will eventually sometime. But your hero says nothing the entire time. And it's just like a blank slate. And I think that's pretty cool. And the fact that, like, stories can be good despite that, I think is a really interesting part of the form. And I almost feel like sometimes, um, it almost makes a story better when the character you're controlling doesn't have a personality of their own.

I'm thinking of Swikodin 2 is an example of that where like the hero has so much more personality because he doesn't talk in a way. But we can get to that next week when we talk a little bit more. Yeah, I would think of Byleth from Fire Emblem Three Houses is my go-to example there, where that game has a really great story and it's very character-driven and it's an ensemble cast and you get to choose the ensemble and like how the, the balls, the billiard balls bounce off of one another, according to who you recruit. And that's what's so fun and also heartbreaking about that game. Right. I'm sure it is. And I mean, having a huge party-based game, the protagonist, I mean, in a mass effect, the protagonist is still a centerpiece there. But in Fire Emblem Three Houses, Bailiff is just kind of chilling. And that's, that's cool too. But it does mean, though, that I don't leave being like, wow, Bile was such a great

protagonists. Like instead, your favorite characters are like, right. Well, part of, I actually think what can be a strength is that in, you combine that with the chosen one, um, trope. And it's like, sometimes when a hero is, it can be tough for the writers of a game to script a character who is like this magnetic charismatic hero who draws everybody in and becomes this like perfect force for good. But if they stay silent, you can kind of imagine that working and imagine them as this like incredibly suave. Like in persona, for example, you're like this hero who can make these incredible relationships with everybody and everybody loves and is drawn to. But that would be much harder if they actually had dialogue in a way that you can kind of imagine it happening when they're silent. Same with

Baileth, same with the Suikodin guy who draws in all these people. I think silence can have a powerful effect there. Yeah, I mean, character design, right, is what it comes down to with those characters. Like, it's, Bileth is a, in part, a beloved character because Byleth has a good look. And you like to cosplay as Bylith. That's her. Snazzy outfits. Looks good.

It's interesting because this is another sort of unique thing about video game protagonists is that in these games, like Bugsnecks is a great example. There's so many games like this, though. The protagonist isn't really the protagonist in the conventional sense of a narrative. It's more like kind of a mix of the camera who is just present and the director who's sort of putting people in different places and choosing who's going to be where to talk. and then the story just plays out, which is just interesting. Like, it's mechanically involved in a way that other kinds of protagonists aren't.

I also think it's interesting how Mass Effect changed. We've mentioned Mass Effect a little bit. I think that that kind of reflects a way that writing of protagonists, especially in RPGs, has sort of changed over the last 10 years. Both of the actors, Mark Mir and Jennifer Hale, who played male and female Commander Shepard, talk about this and about the challenges. I remember there was an interview with Mark. With Mark Mier.

Yeah. There is, believe it or not. You can play as a guy in that game. One, so, and you know, we make all these jokes because, yes, Jennifer Hale is like the Queen of Mass Effect and Femmchep is the one true Shep. But Mark Mier really developed the character. And lots of people talk about this. I've seen video reels of his performance, especially in Mass Effect 3.

He's a very good voice actor. And he brings a lot more character to the role. So does Jen Hale. The ending of Mass Effect 3, as much as people criticize it, I like a lot of things about it in particular. because it really is this performance. I mean, it's like emotional because Shepard is like at the end of their rope and they're pushing forward and sacrificing everything to try to save the world.

And it has this like exhaustion and determination and like emotion in the performance. That stuff was just not present in the first game. And it's really interesting playing through them because I, you know, I think Mattie, you and I both played through the HD, through at least part of the HD series last year. And I was just watching clips of the end and really noticing how even from the first to the second game, the protagonist became much more mouthy, much more specific, much more like leaning into these different line readings and this type of character, where in the first game, it was so like the earlier era of BioWare, where it was just this kind of blank slate that's

very neutral, no matter what's going on around them. And then you can see that happening across other series as well, where like similar games like The Witcher and the First Horizon Zero Dawn, where they have these protagonists who are much more characters. You're very much Gerald of Rivia, even though he's kind of middle of the road. Like, Aloy, she's kind of middle of the road, but she's definitely your own person as well. I think that's been a cool, a cool shift. Yeah. I was thinking about that, too, for the modern-day Assassin's Creed games, where you can pick more dialogue options.

And I was like, okay, technically Cassandra and Avor should go under multiple-choice personality. But I do feel like both of them have personalities and anything I'm choosing is just, like, barely deviating from that path. And that was often how I felt about Hawk and Dragon Age, like the little sarcastic version. of Hawk always felt like the correct version of her to me. Yeah, yeah. And that path has continued for me where I generally feel like even if there is a multiple

choice personality, there is a correct way to go. And that's part of why Dying Light 2 felt such, like such a flashback to me because it was so blank slate in comparison to some of those other performances and so neutral that I was surprised. I was like, wow, it's been so long

since I played a video game as a guy who has no thoughts head empty. Like, he is truly doing whatever I tell him to do. And he is just a super strong puppet. And that's it. And that's Aiden. And he's not a guy. He is no one. You know what I mean? It's so weird to play a game like that now. Yeah. It's a funny one. He, I mean, he like has this whole tragic backstory. And there's he gets more to do. And he gets mad at people and has, it's, it's not a bad performance. He has emotions. So the actor is named Jonah Scott. And he's doing a, it's like, it's a very old fashioned. performance in a lot of ways. And it's kind of just because it's incoherent. Like, it's not really his fault. Yeah, it's, I don't think it's his fault at all. I actually think he's bringing as much as he can to some relatively wooden writing and really neutral writing where it's like, well, Jonah, you're doing all you can. Right. It keeps coming back to this middle ground and then he's like angry at one person, but then coming back, it, you know, the metamorphosis the characters

have undergone also. I feel like Nathan Drake, we just talked about Uncharging a couple weeks ago. But Nathan Drake is another example where in the first couple of of games, that was like Nolan North's arrival moment, the actor who played Drake. Because if you remember in 2008, Nolan North was what, he was the protagonist of Assassin's Creed, he was the protagonist of Uncharted, and he was also, he was also like the protagonist of like three other major games. And then throughout that whole period of time, up through SpeckOps the line, he was just, oh, Prince of Persia, that was the other one. He was like in Prince of Persia 2008. So everywhere you looked, it was just the same voice, like this same guy playing the protagonist.

and his take on Nathan Drake was like the best version of that. Like it had the most life, it had the best writing. And in those first two games, it was just this kind of quippy fun guy. He would get stressed out sometimes, but that was about it. And then with three and then four, the games that we kind of like a little bit less, he becomes a little more serious. It becomes a little more introspective. He shows his range, which like Noah North's a great actor.

But for the character, it actually doesn't work as well, where I really like the similar transition that Commander Shepard underwent. I'm not really sure why that is. Yeah. What did you think about Troy Baker doing a really weird Boston accent in the fourth Uncharted game? I just feel like we didn't get into that enough on the Uncharted app. And I could not believe that he was supposed to be from Boston. And I'm still blown away by it, honestly. You know, I don't know either. The accent I never thought about as a Boston accent. Well, it's supposed to be, I guess. I looked up where their orphanage is located on the Uncharted Wiki. And I was like, I guess they're from Boston. Nathan, Drake and his brother are from Boston. And that is supposed to inform who they are as characters. And that's why it didn't work for me personally, just because I felt like I wasn't getting, I wasn't getting the dunks orders. Right.

They should be talking about the Celtics every 10 minutes. Yeah. They should be talking about putting pylons in their parking spaces for every blizzard. Like these are the cultural moments that I need to see on the table if I'm going to connect to a protagonist in a video game. I think it is interesting that to specifically pick Nolan North and Troy Baker, who were like the protagonist students for so long, that they've both really now leaned into playing. characters more. Like, I didn't even recognize Troy Baker in the Avengers game as Bruce Banner. Oh, yeah. See, I don't even know who he played. He was Bruce Banner. Yeah, it didn't seem like himself. And Nolan North, of course, is like the penguin in the Batman games is doing this whole

thing. And they're really kind of showing their range. It seems like the actors who for that period of time, it was like, well, you're going to be the start. Roger Craig Smith is another example of this. Yuri Lohenthal, even, who plays Spider-Man, is a really versatile actor. He was in Matthew's game, in Eliza. He plays a character. He plays a character. in that game, and he's amazing in it. Like, he's a great actor who is just good at doing the protagonist thing, you know, in Prince of Persia and in Spider-Man. All of those actors can do that, but it seems like they're all moving away from that as the protagonist that they used to play also become more, you know, more measured. Like, I mean, Cratos is a great example of, like,

that's a really specific character with a really specific performance behind it from Christopher Judge. It's not just, like, generic protagonist at all. Yeah, I feel like what's also changed is just that AAA development at this point is much more reliant on those mocap suits. And that changes everything about how voice actors and actors now do their jobs, where now it's like performing a little theater scene. And you have to be good at movement and blocking, if you're assuming you're working in the mocap suits, which if you're in a naughty dog game, you're in freaking, you know, God of War reboot or whatever it may be, you're going to be expected to do the movement. And I remember reading an article,

about why Christopher Judge became Kratos. It was because he had the right build, at least in part. It wasn't just his acting. It was because the previous voice actor was short. And that sucks. Like, I just feel like that's too bad. By the way, just speaking of Christopher Judge,

Emily's been watching Stargate. She watched all of Stargate, which he is a star on. He's so good on that show. He's amazing. Yeah, every time he talks, I'm like, it's Kratos. Hey, man. Yeah, it's crados.

But I do feel like that has changed the way that we think about protagonist because now they can be defined by not only an actor's voice, but also their body movements. Like Lady Demetresk for Resident Evil won a game award, you know, like the actor who played her. And I know that is at least in part because of her movements and not just her voice. You know what I mean? Like she did interviews about the movements she did, you know?

Yeah, it's a huge change. Imagine being a short actor and being like, oh man, all right, I can finally make it in video games because nobody cares about my height here. Yeah. And then it's all over for. For you? Settily, it's the Lever. You have to do the moxham.

Speaking as a short person, I personally think this is nonsense. Short rights. Yeah, it's messed up. I don't know. I totally agree. I feel like they got to bring back that old Kratos guy. I don't know his name. I wish I did.

I will say, though, like, just in terms of other protagonist trends that have emerged, I do really like the queer millennial trend, and I want it to continue and continue to be in AAA games. That's my last thought I want to say before we go. I just want to say, I think Hades had it right. I think more queer millennials should be fighting against their parents and games. And I think that we should be casting major A-list stars in these games as these queer millennials. I just think that should be where we go from here.

That's my take on having written up a thousand video game protagonist for this episode. Yeah. Zagrius, really. What a protagonist. He's the best. He's just a great protagonist. Yeah, I hadn't even thought about him just because I haven't thought about that game in a little while. But, God, he's such a good protagonist.

He's very, very good. Let's take a break and we'll be back with one more thing. Did your neighbor back into your car? Bring that case to Judge Judy. Think the mailman might be the real father? Give that one to Judge Mathis. But does your mom want you to flush her ashes down the toilet at Disney World when she, She passes away.

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Doctor Who? We are back with one more thing. Kirk, why don't you go first? Okay. I am very excited to tell people about a TV show that I just finished watching that I started a little while back and then started to take a break from

and then came back and finished. And it was absolutely wonderful, and I loved it. It's called Station 11, which is probably familiar to some people out there. this is a post-apocalyptic mini-series, so a one-off 10-episode limited series on HBO Max about the world ending in a pandemic,

and then what happens afterward? It's an adaptation of a book by Emily St. John Mandel, Mandel. It's created by Patrick Somerville, who was a writer on The Leftovers, and has a very kind of leftovers energy. And it's great. It's really complex. It's one of the most complex shows I've watched

in a very long time. But in the end, I just thought it was so, so good and was glad that I watched the entire thing. It was just like a beautiful moving show. So the thing I like about it and what I found some valuable about it, I guess, is that it's a post-apocalyptic story in every sense. I mean, it shows the apocalypse and it shows the aftermath. After a pandemic, no less. Yes. So it's kind of set in two timelines. There's the timeline when this flu that just kills everybody, like almost instantly. Like, it's just a flu that basically immediately wipes out 99% of the world. One timeline is that happening, and it's sort of centered around a group of characters

around the Chicago area. And then the other timeline is 20 years later. They call it Year 20 because they start counting again, basically, when that happens. And it's also, it's a lot of the same characters 20 years later as they sort of move through the ruins of civilization and build a new world. And what I like about it is that it presents. this view of the apocalypse that's really all about people and humanity and like what makes us human in a way that feels really honest to me and really like profound and that I've found

so lacking in so much post-apocalyptic media because like we complain a lot about the Last of Us and the Last of Us part too. And I feel like when I'll say things like, I just hate that this game is so grim. It's so focused on like violence and justice and like retribution and like fear. Petty revenge, which you're definitely still going to care about when most of the world is dead. Right. Yeah, yeah. It just, it goes to this sort of like, oh, the world is just a mess and humans are all just animals inside and we're just going to kill each other. And when I say that criticism, it sounds like I'm saying, I just, you know, I want to play a game that's about people like making a commune where they plant gardens together, like, which isn't what I'm saying. And that's not what this show, what Station 11 is, crucially. It does feature like some kind of shocking and scary violence. It does feature, you know, conflict between characters, like dark and scary things happen. It is a post-apocalyptic story, but it's so not about that. It's so about, like, humanity and art and, like, expression and storytelling and the ways that we connect with one another,

and the ways our stories come around and around again. And, like, halfway through it, I was a little thrown because there's some violence and there's some intense stuff that happens. And I was like, what is this show exactly? Like, where are they going with this? And then my sister finished ahead of me. she's like, do you have to finish? Watch the whole thing. Finish the whole thing. And just by the end, like the full story, not every single aspect of it works as kind of one character that I gather is sort of changed from the book that doesn't work as well.

But the thrust of the story, the main gist of what they're going for is really beautiful and really subtle. Everybody in this show is like at the top of their game. It's McKenzie Davis is one of the stars who she's one of the best actresses working right now. The girl who plays the young version of her is named Matilda Locker is amazing. Yeah, she's really good. Yeah. Hymesh Patel is amazing in it as well. It's really about their relationship.

And then it's, I mean, I can't say enough about it. And also, if you are watching this show and you're enjoying it, I recommend the official podcast that HBO put out, especially the last few episodes where they talk with the directors. Somerville is one of the hosts. And it's really interesting. Like there's a lot of great insight into the way they conceptualize the show, the instructions they gave the actors, how they broke some really difficult scenes. And it's just, I don't know.

It feels like one of those really special, magical things that I kind of can't believe exists. I thought it was really inspiring and great and I've just been thinking about it nonstop. So I recommend it. So that's Station 11. It's on HBO. It's so intense. I'm trying to get through it. I think I'm at the part where you stopped before.

I think you might be. Take what you said to heart. I finished episode four and I started episode five. But I feel like every single episode has at least one thing that makes me cry. And people are like, oh, the first episode's really hard because it shows the pandemic. And that part's depressing. but then it gets a little easier because you're in the post-apocalypse and you get to know these characters. And I'm like, everything they're dealing with is hard at all times.

It alternates going back and forth, too. It never leaves the pandemic behind. Yeah, so I don't feel like that's a good way to describe the show. It's very trying the whole time, but it's also beautiful and it's about how people care about each other. And that means they sometimes hurt each other, but not in the way that you might expect. And that's an interesting thing for a show about the apocalypse to be focused on, is, love and human connection. So I dig that a lot. And it's, it also makes the post-apocalypse look freaking beautiful, like all the lush greenery growing everywhere. It does make it look like

a real dreamland. Very horizon zero dawn of them. But yeah, I guess I'll try to finish it. Anyway, Jason, what are you up to? So Amanda and I, my wife and I have been re-watching Arrested Development, which is a show I haven't watched in a long time. And so the first couple of seasons have aged quite well and are really good other than a few jokes that are like, oh, these days. But this is 2003, 2004, so different

time as far as a lot of like, especially season three, I don't know if you guys remember, but season three has an entire plot about a mentally disabled woman and she's kind of the butt of some jokes. Yeah, season three really doesn't work, but the first two

seasons, I remember being quite fun. Especially season one. has so many jokes that are just like iconic and you're rewatching it. It's like so much of it is just packed into like the first few episodes and you're like oh my God like all these memes I've been seeing on Twitter for years are like all from these like two episodes. It's incredible how dense they are and how much good stuff there is.

But what's really interesting is I don't know if you guys will ever watch season. So there are five seasons. Season four and season five are the newer ones. I don't know if you guys ever watch this. Yeah, I watched four and I know it was much maligned. And I actually thought it was. was okay, but not great. Okay, so listen to this.

So we're up to season four now. So what they did was at some point over the past few years, I think it was in 20, so season four came out in 2013. And then in 2018, it was re-edited. So the original version of season four, because of the story structure and because of casting issues and like they could timing and scheduling and whatnot, what they did was they shot each episode revolving around one character, right? So you would have the Buster episode, the, the,

Job episode, the Tobias episode, etc. And so much of it was told in like out of order and you would only get one episode based on a specific character. So you wouldn't get like you wouldn't see some of your favorite characters for a while. And it was kind of hard to follow in a lot of ways. So what they did was in 2018, the creators recut the entire season. And they turned it from 15 episodes to 22 episodes. Each one is shorter. And they made it basically feel like one of the original seasons of Arrested Development by like cutting together all of the stories and they're completely in chronological order and they're no longer divided by character. Instead, every episode will have a bunch of characters in it. And it feels so much different and in a lot of ways

better, I think, and more like a proper season of Arrested Development than like kind of the weird experiments that they took with season four. Haven't gone to season five yet. I think that's going to be pretty terrible. But season four, at least, really interesting to see this recap. And it's incredible how just like completely overhauling the editing of this season can just make it a very different story. Yeah, that's interesting. It's really interesting to watch just even just from a like pure storytelling perspective to see what they do. And I really want to, now that I'm rewatching this version, I want to, you can't actually go into special features in Netflix and watch the original version. So I want to do that too for comparison sake because it's really interesting.

It's like the Snyder cut of Rested Valley. It is. Yeah. It's wild. And it's wild how much can change. That was also very interesting for the same reason. It's a lot of interesting stuff in there just because, like, yeah, it just feels very different and really more more comprehensible than the original version of season four was. Yeah, that's one more thing.

All right. Well, mine is a game. Dark Souls. And it's Dark Souls, kind of. It is the tabletop RPG version of Dark Souls. That's right. There's going to be one of these. It is not out yet.

Hell yeah, there is. There is. And it's made by Steamforged games. And like actually, officially, in association with From Software and Bandai Nameco, it is Dark Souls, the role-playing game. And I got to play a preview of it with my coworkers at Polygon, which basically meant that we played a one-shot D&D campaign because it is built on the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which I'll get to that in a minute. It's strange choice, I'll say preliminarily.

But anyway, so, so, um, a... A couple staffers from Steamforge put together a one shot just for us, which was very cool. I mean, I don't know if any other sites got to do it. Let's pretend they didn't. Let's pretend it was just for us. It was just probably. And I got to see. They DM'd it for you?

Yes, yes. And told us, told us a story set in the world of dark souls and got to take us on a journey. And I got to be a knight and I got to not have an axe, but instead have a long sword because they created character sheets for us. But it was fine. I'm picturing you just be like, what? What? No, I'm not playing this.

I can't even get into character. But mostly it was fun to get to roleplay with my coworkers and find out what we all already knew, which is that Tasha Robinson is like way better roleplaying than the rest of us. But Pat Gale got to really get his like Dark Souls giggle on, which I feel like was very important to him emotionally. Oh, did he like end everything that he said with, he, he, he, yeah, there's a lot of that.

And I feel like maybe the Steamforge guys were, I don't know if they were loving it or annoyed. It was kind of hard to say. It was a Zoom call. So what is the game like? So here's how it works. So they wanted to create a version of the game where you dying is okay and you just spawn back at the campfire, which in and of itself is wildly different from how DMD works. But not from Dark Souls. No, it's not different from Dark Souls.

And I do think that's a little tough and I'm not sure how well that would work in practice. And I don't feel like two hours was long enough for me to really say if that aspect of it works. But I can speak more to the way that they do stamina, which is a big deal in Dark Souls as well and was something that they wanted to try to incorporate. So obviously we were playing it with a party, which is also not typically how Dark Souls would work. I play by myself generally. I don't even really summon people in because I just, I love a challenge. But in this version, it's as though you're summoning people in.

And the game that we played started with none of us knowing each other and just trying to muddle through together, which was kind of rad. and each of us had different character classes like one would in Dark Souls but so the piece of it that they tried to introduce to make it feel like your positioning really matters and like your strength also matters was that you can take away points off your health and give that to your attack power

if you have a successful attack. So like let's say you successfully stab a skeleton or whatever let's be real it's a skeleton and then you're like, oh, the skeleton isn't probably dead just from the strength of that one attack, not quite a good enough role, perhaps. You can take away some of your own health to give yourself a few more points in the favor of that attack. And that introduces some fun concepts. There's also like the idea of your own memories.

And if you know a little bit about your own memories, but not a ton, and you can use those in like a fun role-playing way to give yourself more points as well. which is almost tied into the idea of you discovering who you truly are and not going hollow. And that gives you like role-playing juice and the DM can decide whether they want to prove that or not. I do think, though, that because D&D is so linear, it would be very hard to be as just open-minded as Dark Souls tends to be. I'm obviously playing the first one still. That depends on the DM. I like how open world it is.

Right. but there are more linear Dark Souls games. I haven't played two, but from what I understand it's more linear and the DM could be more like, okay, there's a path I'm envisioning the players will go on. The more open world of a D&D game you have,

the more difficult of a job it is for the DM, I would say. Well, so there are ways to do, I mean, what you do as a DM, the way to approach open world stuff is at the end of a session. Basically, you make the traversal part at the end of a session so you can prep in advance for the next session, right? So like,

you hit a certain key point at the end of your session and you're like, so, so players, what are you guys thinking of doing next? And you kind of make that decision as a, as a group together, and then you prepare in advance for that. So you let them decide, but you let them decide at the end of the session. Anyway, the verdict here, it sounds like what we should do is we should play the dark soul. Honestly, that could be very fun. I will say, I know there are some pretty significant limitations with D&D that I feel like even as someone who doesn't play it a lot, I could sense those limitations as I was playing. But, and I know there are also indie games that, indie tabletop games that are like trying to take inspiration from Souls games and that they've done

the multiple death mechanic. I haven't played enough tabletop games to recommend anything. But I do feel like if you're listening to this and you're like, you're into Dark Souls and you want to try a tabletop RPG, this actually seems like an interesting way to get into it. The book includes some some really cool looking monsters and beautiful. beautiful art and stuff that really feels like it's from the world of Dark Souls. And so in that way, I recommend it as almost like a starting point. Yeah, sure. If you're somebody who just wants to get into tabletop role playing, maybe not the be all end

all, depending on what you like about Dark Souls. But it was really fun. It was fun to roleplay with my pals at Polygon. And that is my one more thing. We've done it again, folks. We did it. We've recorded another episode of the show. Made it.

Good for us. And we will be back next week once again. We will. To talk about Sikodin. Yay. Yeah, that's right. See you both then. Bye.

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

member at maximum fun.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpods and email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum fun.org. Comedy and culture.

Artist owned. Audience. Audience, audience supported.