Video Gamers Podcast - Abyssus Deep Sea Adventure! - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are setting sail into the mysterious depths of Abyssus, the rogue-lite underwater shooter packed with sea monsters, sea shanties, and nonstop gaming action! This week���s episode is a wild dive through coral-covered ruins, biomechanical beasts, and surprisingly catchy tunes that’ll make you want to hoist the anchor and game ‘til dawn. We’re breaking down how Abyssus fuses nautical horror with adrenaline-pumping gameplay and whether this aquatic thrill ride is worth the plunge. Whether you're a fan of rogue-lites or just looking for something that feels fresh in the current video games landscape, this episode is for you. So grab your oxygen tanks and brace for impact—because this isn’t just another gaming episode, it’s a full-blown underwater adventure. Don’t miss this action-packed, sea-shanty-singing deep dive into one of the most unique video games of the year—only on the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf and Phelps   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, Patrick, NorwegianGreaser and PeopleWonder   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: ⁠https://discord.com/invite/Dsx2rgEEbz⁠ Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Conjuring Last Rites On September 5th I come down here with you in your house. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Array! The Conjuring, last rites.

Only in theater September 5th. Of all the ships that sail the seas in navy's old and new Greater are none beneath the sea than submarine so true Sing iron steam and brine good sirs with friends we form a line surely we sing of no little thing than iron and steam and brine hello fellow gamers and welcome to the video gamers podcast how do you stand out in a crowded genre what trick or innovation do you need to have to stand apart from every other game it's a riddle devs have been trying to solve for ages today we're deep diving the recent release of abyssableness

a brine punk co-op roguelike shooter that looks like Bioshock and Doom had a love child or Hellsporn? Does it solve the riddle and stand apart or is this just another roguelike shooter? Well we're about

to find out but first some introductions are in order I am your host Josh and joining me you'll find him belting out sea shanties as we yell at him to Ready up. It's Ryan.

By far, in a way, the best part of this game is the sea shanties. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing. We're going to talk about it. Don't you worry. Don't you worry. I love it. And joining us, he may have gotten swept up in the currents because he said he'll go to any depth to talk about abysses. It's ace. Hey, just call me the master of the abyss, baby, because I will go absolutely to any death to talk about this game. Heck, I got it upgraded to a main episode. You did. You did get an ace.

We don't want to have to, we don't want to say how Ace, you know, managed to convince this to not be the indie episode to be the main episode here. That's not a family friendly topic. It could be something to do with him like 100%ing this game already too. So. And Ryan and I are not above bribery. So this is true. Let's be honest. so all right well welcome in to everybody look people are like abystis what i've never even

heard of this game before well you're about to hear about it problem yeah well a says that's the problem uh we're going to see if it's a problem or not because the three of us have been playing this game together for a bit we actually have gotten the chance to play with uh some community members as well jiggle puff uh one of them who got to join us on a pretty insane run uh ace but we're going to get to all that here in just a little bit, but we've got some people to thank. Guys, I, this is, I'd love that this is becoming like a consistent thing because it just goes to show you that when we talk about stuff that people actually do listen to us a little bit of the time, sometimes maybe, you know, but we've been saying, hey, we need your support to keep

this podcast going. You know, we, we do these episodes because we absolutely love gaming, but there is a lot of work. There is a lot of money that goes into various aspects of that. And honestly, as much as we love this, we wouldn't be able to continue to do this after five years that we've been doing this if it wasn't for the support of the listeners. And so for those that do

take the moment to support the show, there's a link in the episode description. It takes about two minutes to sign up over on Patreon. But one of the things we love doing is just saying thank you. So we've got a few people to thank today, starting off with Bobby S, who signed up for Epic Studios.

Epic. Bobby, Bobby got in on the hijack a host vote for the September, just in time, which was really cool. So that was neat to have Bobby get a say in that vote for a game that Ryan has to play. Yeah, we'll see how much I like that. Yeah, well, that episode's coming up. But you know what? Supporters of the show get to see those episodes too. So if you want to see some behind the scenes stuff, the banter and the talk that we have before the actual podcast recording, starts and afterwards, you know, supporters of the show get a lot of perks on top of a very

big thank you and shout out on the show. And then we have two more, both awesome members of the community as well. MilkDud! Signed up for rare status. MilkDud's been hanging out in our streams, been hanging out in the Discord with people. So MilkDud, thank you. Thank you. And then they didn't say, please don't talk about me. So we can do that. But their username is, please don't look at me who signed up for rare status as well. So look, a deal's a deal. We will not look at you, but we are going to thank you for your supports. We are

and I, what is it? What was it? S.E.K. Was it a denomination? Isn't it a Corona? It's like that's a Swedish Corona. I saw come through on her email and I'm like, wait, what is this denomination? I'm like, dude, what is this? I'm like, this is the beauty as you guys

get to like give Ryan some culture. He had to look up another currency. I did. I was like, what's the conversion rate? What do dealing with here? He's like, what are we talking to here? Can I, can I buy a new 3D printer? Can I buy a game? Like, what's going on here?

Exactly. Thank you, Bobby S, Milk Dud, and please don't look at me and all of our other supporters of this show for making this all possible. And then guys, real quick, we need to do this because we haven't done it a little while, but we've got another review to read. Ryan, Ryan, coming back from his time in the woods, he was like, I got this, boy. So, Ryan, what do you got for us? Oh, well, we have an amazing review from what I'm going to read as Sleepy 41 with a lot of other numbers and letters and whatever crazy signs you want to read.

But it is titled A Gem. It is a five-star review that reads, this is a podcast that I didn't know I needed. In a world that feels so serious and bleak, sometimes people need a respite of kicking back and having fun. nice i was wondering how you were going to handle the word respite and respite is uh respite's respite's close enough ryan yeah you were close yeah that's that works but also that's a great review yeah that was a great review thank you thank you sleepy that's a refitting voice something it's respite isn't it uh-uh need a respite well you really butchered both of them now respite, respite.

Well, darn, Teet, I made me a respite. Your, I'll be out in the booth for a while, I'll tell you what. Your trip to the woods was your respite from the busy life, Ryan. I mean, the deer's respite, too, since you didn't get any. Yeah, that's true that you gave the deer a lot. Okay, here's the deal. You guys aren't getting anything when I get it, though. I'll tell you that much right now.

Neither did you. So we can talk all the trash we want because we didn't get nothing. Exactly. Wait and see We were promised venison I want a jerky man Come on Just wait to see

We were counting on you Ryan Don't worry I got two more trips plan this year So you're gonna get nothing Well that's to be expected Ryan if they go like your last two trips went So I'm still stuck on this

Respite respite thing You know Ryan's just He didn't even respond I'm like is he Googling this No I'm just looking Just Google the pronunciation I don't want to. I've already, I've, I've already put myself out there too much right now.

Oh, man. All right. All right. We got to, we got to talk about some abysses, guys. Oh, my goodness. This is, these are how, look, if this is your first time joining us, this is how every one of these episodes goes. Sorry, we apologize for nothing. We do. We apologize for nothing. This is, this is friends talking games. This is what gamers do. And this is why we love it so much. So, all right. Ace, I'm going to, I'm going to blame you on this one or give you credit. that remains to be seen but you you went hey guys look at this game and we said okay and there's this game called abysus and i will say the graphics on this game right away looked pretty good and from the very beginning you were pushing very hard for us to cover this so what is it about abysis that just drew your attention and not only drew your attention but then you were like josh ryan

you guys got to play this game with me and i want to cover it for our in our first First indie deep dive. Yeah. So first indie deep dive. Yeah. We've had a lot of first indie deep dives. Is this what? What other deep dives did we do for the indie podcast?

I'm almost certain we've done other indie deep dive. Wasn't this our first indie deep dive? Uh-oh. I don't know. He's calling you up, but you don't know. We're calling things respite. I guess it's your first, I guess, it would be your first, I guess, with all three of us. But yeah.

if this is your first time nothing will change nothing will change you're always like this we play a lot of games so trying to remember what all we have played I say you just sent me down

like memory lane is getting old man the memory's not as good just when I think I escape it but I found abyss is for an indie or an indie like news episode that you weren't on and I think the first thing I said to Ryan

was like we got to show Josh this he's going to be so into it because this is like a remnant Bioshock Rogueleg almost When I first saw it I was like he's gonna love this And I loved the setting I loved the graphics

And I hadn't played the demo yet But just looking at gameplay alone It looked fast and snappy And really fun and chaotic And I was not wrong So I have to ask you Ace Because I and I hinted to this In the intro of the show

I mean Rogue like shooter They seem like they're a dime a dozen dude Like honestly It's a crowded space you know more recently like void breakers we've talked about that a little bit that is a single player rogue like shooter but you know this is a genre that is starting to get fairly saturated so what is it about abysis that drew your eye more than like some some other games in this genre it looked like it just had soul like it doesn't have necessarily a straightforward story but it looked like it had something it was trying to show and tell you and based off the environments and the characters and the heart they put into the, like, the shanties and the dancing and the goofy fun stuff. Plus, it was co-op, which already piqued my interest.

I'm going to say the wrong word. Peaked my interest because there's not a lot of roguelike co-ops that are also first-person shooters. And we can think of a lot of roguelikes. We're like, okay, this is like the pinnacle of a roguelike. But I can't think of one that's like the pinnacle of a first person rogue like. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, we tout Risk of Rain 2 a lot for roguelikes, uh, Hades, you know, if you want to get into the card base, you know, there's slay the spire and stuff. Yeah, but they're, I'm trying to think, I think the only,

and it's an old game that probably nobody has heard of, but I do remember my very first foray into this genre was a game called Zigarot. Now, this is, Ryan's laughing. This ain't from like the 90s, Ryan, okay? But it was a game called Zigarot that is, was my first ever first person roguelike shooter. Uh, and I quite enjoyed that game. So, so, all right, well, you know, Ace pushes and he says, let's play this game. You don't have to twist my arm. I know you don't have to twist Ryan's arm to do a co-op shooter. So we both jump in.

We jumped in the demo first. Oh, that's right. We did play the demo. Yep. That's right. Because they had a demo out and we jumped in. I went, I kind of went, okay. Like, there's something to this game, man. Like, it controls well. The graphics look good. Like, this seems polished. Okay. Like, let's do it.

So we buy the game when it releases and we say, hey let's jump in so we jump in we start playing that night Ryan I want to go to you because this was right before you left for your your five day trip to the woods with no animals and so like when was the last time you've hunted dude you know how hard this is you know why because when I was not good at it I gave up and I just said I'm not good at this man

so I mean we all played that night you know we what was your initial impression ryan of this game so we jump in we're playing i think we played for a few hours too we did i remember right yeah we had we had a long session um my initial impressions were i i thought i thought it was it was smooth it was crisp um the gameplay was good it didn't feel super new but it didn't feel super old you know if you understand what i'm saying like it wasn't like some advanced mechanics or anything crazy but it still felt like a good quality first person shooter that um that had the mechanics you would want like it was the environment was nice and i i was like i was bummed like because i was about to head out of

town i knew you punks were going to play it all week while i was gone you know and you did and you did and so uh yeah i was initially uh right away like this this is i'm viking with it it was is very much I have a feeling and emotional like connection to this game already just just hopping in

initially like right off the bat I remember you very clearly saying like guys I really want to play more and then you knew that you couldn't because you were leaving and so you were like dang it like I really want to play some more your fate was already seen

I think we played like five hours that night I think we played a lot is that the night we streamed it too it was like I look and it was like five and a half hours or something crazy it was a pretty good session we got a pretty good taste of the game yeah i'm going to jump in and say that i in my initial impression of this game was was very mid right like it's it's a fine game there's absolutely nothing wrong with this game but there wasn't anything that was really like

catching my attention either like it's kind of like okay i feel like i've done this before you know yes it runs well and it's pretty and you know i think the the honestly the pinnacle moment for me in the first few hours of this game were when we realize that if you emote together and your characters start singing a very well done sea shanty and and then we realize that we can dance while we're singing the sea shanty and your characters start to harmonize like so they like they completely like planned for this development and it was just like bro this is so cool like I love these little development touches the fact that somebody took the time to make this sync up and harmonize and all that really shows a level of passion

for the development of this game but for me in the beginning it was very like you know there's a boss fight that you get to fairly early and we died to that boss i don't know five times or whatever and i was kind of like guys i just like there's just not enough here man like i get it it it's it's fine but they're like what's so magical about this and then ryan left Ace and I played the next day and we beat the first boss and Ace, you equated this to a game recently that we covered

which is like Night Rain. This is exactly like our experience with Night Rain. You had to beat the first boss to see what the game actually opened up into. It was basically a skill check to see if you were worthy of playing the rest of the game. Can you handle this? Can you handle this? Exactly. You got two hours to refund the game

if you can't make it past the game. We couldn't handle it in the beginning though. We're like, we're pretty good gamers. but this first boss was kicking our butt, man. And we were like, and I'm like, you know, I don't know. I think I remember telling you, Ace, like, I don't know if there's enough variety in this. Like, I don't know what the hook for this game is. It's fine, but I don't know.

Like, that was literally what I told you is like, I don't know, man. I was bummed, man. Because I was like, I was understanding what you were saying. I was like, yeah. And then we beat that boss, dude. And when you beat that boss, you get some loot, you get some soul fragments. You get a new weapon. you get a new alternate ability as you're playing and dude it was like the clouds parted the sun started

shining down upon me and the and then after that i was like wait a minute like wait a minute there's a lot going on here i've got abilities i've got weapons with different fire modes we're starting to get what they call blessings which are these like upgrades that you get as you play the game these blessings are starting to stack and combo with each other and dude i i'm just going to say it i don't know that i have ever gone from finding a game like a mid game to completely turning around and being like dude it was a switch what yeah it flipped the switch man and i went this game just turned into something completely different than what i had experienced for the first few hours and now it's like it's it's like I came out of the cave and there's just this

beautiful valley in front of me and I'm just like the birds are singing the sun is shining yep it flipped this so much that we were even talking about like you know we always brainstorm like show ideas and things we started talking about like games that you were unsure about or didn't like that yeah yeah it changed on you and then you're like oh my god I love this and so that like that's how much it flipped for you guys and I missed kind of the chunk of of it, but I got plenty of time in, and it's the same for me. Like, it was cool. You got it when you got back.

Oh, when I got back, dude. Yeah. No, we just, I was playing with Ace and Jiggle, and then I played a couple with you, and, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is this is amazing. Yeah. Gold, baby. Gold. Oh, gold. All right. So, we're

going to take a quick break, and then we're going to kind of talk a little bit more about some of the aspects of this game for people that don't know what Abyssus is or haven't seen the trailers or anything on it either, because there's a lot here that really makes this game enjoyable. And we'll talk about that here in just a second. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellar lenses for

myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SELOR Stellis Lenses at your child's next visit. All right. We're back. We're talking abyss this look. I spilled the beans a little bit. This game started off very mid for me. And boy,

did it turn things around. I'm not going to hide it. I think this game is absolutely fantastic. I mean, I don't say that lightly. This game is fantastic, dude. I mean, we had to get through a little bit of the learning process in the beginning, but man, once we got through that, if this isn't some of the most fun that I have had playing an indie game, I don't know what it is, dude. Like, honestly, this game surprised the heck out of me, dude.

Ryan, we were pulling in people left and right to join us. We were having so much fun. We're like, you've got to try this game. Yeah. Yeah. Ryan, what's your thoughts on this, man? Like, I mean, your overall impression of Abysis, like, you know, because I don't want to save it for the very end of the show. like people need to know you know yeah no it's it's uh man this is one of those games like like when i was introduced to these roguelikes like i was with risk of rain too with you guys and stuff and again that's third person but the ability to make the different builds and the different stacks that you can do to make every encounter and every uh run you do different and more powerful or you're trying to build this thing every time you're like oh man i need this i need that so it's almost like this strategic chess game that you play as you're playing the game, which I absolutely

loved. It's like, okay, I need to get this. I need to get that. Oh, now I have this and my teammate has that so I can pair this with him and we're going to wreck. And like, I know, uh, me and Ace, and you were, you were working Josh, but me, Ace and Jiggle, like we went and we all, we all had gold like to the max and everything. We were just getting gold statues everywhere and they're like bouncing all over the place. So I think it's such a cool mechanic and design that they have set up to where

as you progress to this game, you have complementing abilities and complementing things that are random. It is random. But when you have that stack, you have that setup that complements each other, it makes for just an amazing time and an awesome experience.

And you just have so much fun. And some of the levels are tough. Some of them are hard. But if you build it right, you can make it easy and then just laugh at the enemies. And then other times the next run, they're destroying you. So it's really, really unique how you can build in this game and get yourself to an optimum level or you just don't quite make it. So I thought it was an amazing game. And I had so much fun, especially for a $20 indie, you know?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ace. Tell the people what you think on this one. Oh, dude. This might be one of the best Indies that's come out this year And that's saying something

I don't disagree with you dude And before people go like Okay this is like clickbait You know like this is not like Expedition 33 level But no no no It is one of the best indies that I have played this year Like hands down dude like that is not an exaggeration That is not lip service

You know Like that is absolutely true It is one of the best indies I've played this year Like, it was fun solo. It was fun with friends. Its scaling is actually incredible when you start going into the, the higher depths because things get way harder, but also things that were viable in the lower depths are no longer viable in the high depths because I'll just give an example.

We, me and Jiggle played to depth 30, which is one of the highest you can go. One of the requirements for that was to have on the debuff that we lose 10 gold whenever we took a hit, making gold the most overpowered blessing in the game right now a very unviable option for runs. Yeah. So we had to think on the fly and swap over what blessings we were going for because we were losing cold so much. I would enter a room with like 400 gold.

I would take three or four hits and be like, oh, no. Yeah, just starts spitting you down. Oh, that's crazy. There's so many, like, hidden mechanics and hidden things in the levels, too. Like, I equated it to Remnant, how you, you find your guns in the in the levels by completing puzzles or by you know doing secret activities like the disc thrott launcher challenges time challenges yeah i mean yeah this game rewards you for playing certain ways doing certain things exploring a little bit interacting with certain

things um you know it absolutely does reward your time and your subsequent runs through this through this game it's a very clever game and i i will say this now just i'm not hiding it i 100% of this game i know i told people earlier this game this game is not easy i was so in love with this game i just burned so much time into it to 100% it just to say i could and i i do not regret it at all it is amazing yeah all right so one of the things that i want to touch on just so that people can understand is one of the things to me that makes this game and you guys both touched on this that makes this game so awesome is every run feels unique and this is the turnaround round for me because our first six, seven, eight runs felt exactly the same to me because we kept

just dying on the first boss, right? And then I'm like, guys, and I said this. I said, I don't know if this game has enough variety for me, man. I remember saying that, yeah. You know, and, but here is the thing. The variety in the gameplay in this game is spectacular, dude. And it all comes about from the different builds that you can try to do. Now, the way that this works is you play through a, like a room, We'll call it a level or a room. You kill all the enemies or you stand on these pressure plates. You have objectives that you need to do. Go stand in these circles or whatever, right?

The plates. Oh, the place. Oh, the plates. I know. So, but, you know, kill everything in the room, beat the objective in the room, and then you get to move on to the next one. Now, occasionally you'll come across a blessing altar. And these altars, when you interact with them are what allow you to pick a, like, an element, basically.

Okay? And so there are a variety of elements in this game. I think there's, like, eight of them. if I had to just take a quick guess. I believe there's eight. You've got like blood, lightning, uh, spirit, shadow, fire, frost,

uh, abyss, tentacles, uh, tentacles and barrier, I believe. And the barrier. So there's probably like close to 10. Uh,

and so you get these things, but then you get the choice of what you put them on. And, and what that means is every weapon has two fireboats. Okay. So you can put it on your primary fire, your secondary fire, and you have an ability.

So you, can say, hey, I just got this blessing altar. It's giving me two choices. Do I want fire or frost? And you say, okay, well, I want frost. And then it'll go, do you want to put it on your primary fire, your secondary fire, or your ability? And this choice

matters, which I love. This choice absolutely matters because of the different fire modes that the weapons and the abilities that you get have. So you place it on there, and then the game will not let you override it after that. So once you put fire on your primary fire,

you can't just go back and say you know what I think I want to put frost on there now the game goes nope you don't get to do that so you kind of lock into this path but what you do get to do is then say well now I have a barrier that I want to put on my secondary fire

so now you're starting this like weird fire barrier build that winds up playing in a very very unique way and this build as it progresses becomes this like really insane just fun to play unique experience for that run and then every run is like that where it's like okay well now i've got

a gold burst primary fire ability with a frost secondary ability and so i'll freeze things and then i'll hit it with my primary fire which triggers the gold burst and turns them into solid gold statues but but that's just the tip of the iceberg man like that is literally the tip of the iceberg because not only do you get these, but you get about 15 levels of upgrades to every single one of these blessings. And they all do different things. And it's like, this is why I started to just absolutely love this game, dude,

because every single run felt like a unique, completely different play style of a run. So much so that it was like, if you have fire on your primary and frost on your secondary, But then you swap them and you go frost on your primary, fire on your secondary, like the next run. Even though they're the same elements, it's like, it feels like a completely different build at that point. Like, I absolutely loved the depth that this game went into with how you can play this game and the different builds that you can experience in the different upgrades and all that. Dude, it was incredible.

Progression. Yeah, I know. Progression. But you guys know, and I do. I love that, man. Yeah. You know, and just it's not only progression because there is. a progression system in this game where you get to kind of unlock perks through the soul fragments

that you get just from playing the game. Um, but I, you know, it is, it is that progression. But it's like the, even without the actual permanent progression, the ability to just do these different runs with these different elements is what absolutely knocked it out of the park for me, man. Yeah. Dude, it's, it's wild like, um, you know, you, you, you have these skill sets and you have what you want and then you end up not getting that but you're able to build something cool and unique and then you still have an awesome time so like every time you you make this run it's different but it's still enjoyable which which is what's I think is really cool about this game I think that no matter what you're looking for you're trying to do whatever you get as long

as you're playing accordingly like it's going to be a good time like and that's what games are supposed to be like you're supposed to have fun you know at the end of the day the crazy part is to give an example of the amount of content that is in this game that's just the blessings yeah yeah like how many weapons are there in this game ace i believe there's eight weapons like eight like seven eight weapons something like that with those eight weapons yeah those eight weapons have different fire modes yeah those eight weapons have different modes they each have different mods which change how the weapons function unlocked lately yep and you have your abilities that you can swap in and out on the fly that are crazy like you go from a grenade at the start to a turret to maybe you want to put down a giant force field that has the effect of your blessing in a giant aoE radius yep yeah or a giant anchor that you can just melee the heck out of things we're smashing into the ground with a shockwave if this is and this is the thing right like so you've got 10 different elements with a like i'll say just 15 tiers of

upgrades to these that you pick from and and and this works like haydies for anybody that's played haiti where it's like hey you get to this altar pick one of these two things Boom. Okay. And then it's like you get to another one. Pick one of these two things. Okay, well, now once you have your primary, your secondary, and your ability locked into an element, now it starts giving you the upgrades to these.

So it's like, well, which of these two upgrades do you want? You know? And then you start looping in eight different weapons with different fire modes, with different mods. Like you said, completely change the feel of this weapon. Yep. Now you have these soul fragments in this perk tree that you can get these permanent upgrades on. and it's like, sure, it might be more health or an extra heel, but some of them are game-changing where, like, you unlock a forge

that might show up in a run. I love the forge, dude. The forge is my favorite thing. I love the forge. Dude, because you don't unlock this until you're probably a good six hours into this game. Now you unlock this forge that when you interact with it, and it's random whether it shows up or not, but if you get it, it says, do you want to upgrade your ability or your weapon?

And boy, do these upgrades really change the way that this run happens. Infinite turrets. Infinite turrets forever. All that to say, because I, dude, we could sit here and talk about Abyst for an hour, right? But all that to say that what the game excels at, and I said this in the intro, right? Like, you got to have something, right? I don't know that Abyssis has a hook, but it does everything so well. And it knows what a rogue like game needs to be to keep you interested in playing and i'll tell people just in case they're like me the the first few hours does not show that off but man when you break through that wall you smash through that wall and it opens up like i've never seen dude like honestly man

and to me that was the best part about this is just the fact that it's like there is so much variety to how every single run plays out. It reminds me of Risk of Rain 2. Yeah. And honestly, that is one of the highest compliments that we can give a roguelike game because every run in Risk of Rain 2 felt vastly different

based on what you wound up getting as your upgrades in that. And Abysus does this in Spades, man. It lets you break it. And I love that. I love that so much. I felt like it was more. Dude, I felt like it was more.

Like, I loved Risk of Rain 2. And I love, I love, playing with you guys but i always you know i played the the chick with the you know the huntress yeah i played i played huntress that was the one i always made and well you could get different builds and different setups it always kind of similarly you know it had you had the same some of the stuff but you could get different perks that made it better this felt like so different on every run it was like extremely unique like every single time you loaded in you had the same gun but that was about it. Like, you know, whatever you had, like, you had it there, but then everything else was

different. So I think they did such a good job on making, uh, the ability to make those runs unique and make them different and make them play out a way that you never expected. Um, it was just, it was, it was such an absolute blast. And every run we had was memorable. And that's what you want in a game. Like you want, you want to have fun. You want to go in there and, and have a good time, and that's what this game did. There was a run where me, Josh, and Jiggle were playing, and me and Josh entered the boss room first. And Josh killed the boss before it spawned.

So Jiggle didn't get credit for the kill. If you were going to make a roguelike game where you have crazy fantastic abilities like this, and then you kind of limit them to where it's like, well, you can have some fun, but you can't have too much fun. You're holding your own game back. I want all the fun. But a business just goes,

you want all the fun like here you go here's the developer tools yeah if you get lucky enough to get a good build like a crazy build you will break this game and it is the most glorious thing ever and we got to experience that and I mean the three of us were absolutely just cracking up because this build was broken

dude and I mean we were killing things so quickly that a boss fight the boss started to spawn in and died before he could finish spawning in and jiggle did not get the credit for it because he was going to get like an achievement or I forget like some kind of reward and then after the run he's like

oh man and we're like what and he's like I didn't get credit for that boss because you guys killed it so fast it was just but this is this is what you want from this kind of experience this is not talking because we're running low on time here but the level design in this game is incredible

there's I think what five or six different levels not counting like the final level they're each very unique very well done uh you know they have different uh like designs they have different monsters so the monster variety is absolutely perfect in my opinion stupid frogs always hate it frogs music is great visuals are great the last level in my opinion is one of the coolest looking levels that i've seen in a game in a while dude yeah um kudos to the art team on abysis because that like y'all y'all knocked it out of the park man i remember ace and i the very first time we got there we just stood there looking around we just stood there man we were just like yeah it was beautiful

and that's not to mention the uh final final bosses final stage yes that's what i was going to bring up next to talk about the different boss fights a little bit is oh dude well this is something i really admire about abyssis the first boss you fight he jumps around and leaves like shockwaves on the ground that you have to jump over in order to damage him one of the bigger enemies you encounter in the rooms up to this boss jumps at you and leave shockwaves on the ground to teach you this mechanic of how you need to be able to jump over the shockwaves and damage the boss at the same time. And I thought that was freaking cool.

But there you go from, you know, a golem who jumps around an arena leaving shockwaves and lasers everywhere to a water deity who wants to push you off of his platform into poisoned waters instead of fighting you directly to a Aztec god of death. that is slinging mystic crystals at you and then send you through a platforming section halfway through the boss fight. Oh, yeah. Twice.

And I love that. That was such a cool, like, twist where we got there, we get it half health. And he's like, no, get out of here. Go do this. Go do this instead while I heal. It was such a cool variety in these levels, too. Like, yeah, with that on the boss fights.

And it's just, it's fantastical, beautiful worlds where you're looking down, like look down at the black spot and it's just like a nebula and star and space and stuff and that texture is crazy yeah it's it's so cool it's it's very unique it's very different and um the way the way it's all set up it just plays so well to just a good time it is absolutely you don't have a bad time at it even when you lose or if you lose you're like dang man i want to do that again let's see if we can get a good better build and try to go back you know like that's That's the sign of a good game.

That's the mark of something that is of quality is when after you lose and you don't meet your goal, you want to try again. And that's what this game does in spades. Yeah. I love, you guys know I love a good boss fight. The boss fight mechanics in this game are really well done. You get a mini boss halfway through each like stage that you get to fight that they're unique in and of themselves. And then you have the final boss for that stage. I mean, this is just, it's an all around.

incredibly well done game. I will say this too. You know, I just checked my hours. I have 17.6 hours in Abysis. I will gladly do a few more runs on this game if somebody wanted to join in and do it. I will say this. I, you know, I'm approaching the end of my time with Abysis, because I feel like I've experienced most of the content on this. I've had an incredible amount of fun with a variety of builds. I've gotten all the weapons and the upgrades and things like that. At this point, progression has kind of slowed down for me. This is not a slander against the game at all. My point in this is, is that this game is 2499. I got 18 hours worth of sheer joy out of this game with friends. I'm good, dude. What more can a gamer ask for? This isn't a live service game

that needs to try to continue on for 50 hours, man. Like, you nailed it, Abyssus. You absolutely nailed it. You gave me 18 hours of fun with my friends. in a extremely well-done video game for 2499, man. Like, this is what we want as gamers, you know? Like, what more can you ask for? And they're going to add more content for free. I know they will, but just say it's already great, man. They already said, like, oh, we're going to add more bosses, more levels, more guns.

It's like, wait, well, okay, go slow down, guys. You already gave us a great. It's like, hold on, we don't have to pay. Wait, what? You know, it's like, remember. in the early 2000s like they would send hey we got a new map keep playing our game you know and you'd be like okay cool you know now it's you know all the dc stuff but like it's just you said it josh it's just one of those games where for 20 25 bucks you can go and have 15 20 25 30 hours

like you could a lot of people a lot different than you could get probably 40 50 60 hours out of this game like and just have an absolute blast this is like why you call me out man yeah i might have 40 hours of this people may may 100% it Because they're psychopaths, you know, like, who knows? But, uh, but, like, there's a lot there and, um, it's criminally underrated, I think. Like, I, I, I don't know why anybody isn't, isn't talking about this. I know there's a lot going on in the kind of gaming sphere. This year, we are very blessed with all that we have, but man, this is one that if, if you got

20 shekels, go throw it at this game and it is, it is a good time. You will have fun no matter what. Yeah. If you're one of the people complaining that this game is, too expensive and doesn't have enough content, what are you on? Because this game has so much content. We, you know, people that have been listening to us for a long time now know, like, we are critical of games. If we don't like a game, we absolutely will say, hey, I didn't like this game. This didn't work for me. These are the aspects that I didn't enjoy or something

like that. When we collectively say there is something special about this game, you know, I'm not saying that we're always right by any means, but when the three of us who have very different gaming tastes all kind of say, yo, there's something special for us. For us. You know what I mean? Like there's something special here. You should at least pay attention, you know, at that point.

And what we're saying and the reason that we're, we went from the indie episode to wanting to talk about this on the main show is because we want to put this game in front of people, you know, as gamers, we're not getting paid to say this. You know what I mean? Like this is just simply the. joy of gaming and you know ace i know like you said because it is a co-op shooter but you you played a lot of this solo the game does scale so it's just i won't say it's just as fun because

let's be honest with friends is always better it's better with friends and also being able to put it at more depths to make it harder but it's plenty playable as a solo player like if you're a solo player don't let that hold you back in this case because this game is still an incredibly good time um you know and so we just we're trying to let people know you out there there is gamers. There is something special about Abyssus. This is an indie developer, but man, if they didn't get this game right, take a look at it.

You know, like look at the gameplay, watch the trailer. If you think it looks fun, I am telling you, Ace is telling you, Ryan is telling you that it is way, way better than it looks on video. Pick this game up and play it. Guys, let's rate it. Because, I mean, we've been

talking about it. I know it's hard, but that's why we do this, man. We'll shy away from a challenge. all right ace i'm going to start with you you found it you pushed us to play it number one thank you because i'm actually really glad that we got to play abys i'm glad we got to discover this one and put together i honestly am we had such a good time with it we got to introduce some of our other close personal friends to abysus and they really enjoyed it too abysus is what i want out of a roguelike it is everything i want over roguelike yeah that being said it's not perfect there

are definitely some issues like having to start at the same place every time that that gets a little old they did talk about that but they actually said we're going to randomize the starting level which i think is a fantastic idea yep i'm going to give abysis a 9.8 because 9.8 i will come back to i will come back to abysis when they add more content to 100% it again you did say this is one of your favorite indies that you have played in a very long time dude this one that's that's the big score What I look for when I'm picking out these indies is something with heart, something that someone clearly cared about when they put it out in the world. They didn't just come up with an idea and like, okay, we'll make money off this. When I saw Abysus and I put it into that indie news episode, I already knew that it had something special because one of the trailers is like a job training program on how to use the different guns.

Like that's so silly and fun. Abiscus is just great, dude. If you're not playing Abiscus right now, we're in. a lull you should play it yeah you you should play it uh so nine point wow that's huge praise i'm giving it dude yeah that's a big right ryan what about you man uh this one i'm i'm definitely not that high but i did absolutely love this game uh i don't recall an experience i had or a run i had that i was just like that was lame i don't want to play anymore like you know when you get frustrated you're like i'm done for the night no every run i finished i wanted to do another one and it was

like whether or not it was it was uh midnight or one in the morning or two in the morning i'm like i should probably go to bed you know so like the the draw was there the graphics were amazing the gameplay was awesome i think the gun the gun stuff all the unique abilities the um effects everything was was what it needs to be especially for a unique rogue like like this is the goofy stuff like the sea shanties and the stuff we can do where we can dance like that we would just, we were, every time, we would just all dance and sea shanty together. And like, those, those do, as small

as a, yeah, and clap and. Oh, gosh. Clap and do other things. We're not going to get into that. A lot of laughter in this game. Yeah. It's all amazing. So, this one, I'm going to give this an 8.8. Oh, you stole my rating. It is, it is way up there. There's some things that could be tightened up and be a little bit

better if it wanted to get into the nines. But for, for a roguelike, especially an indie rogue like this this is a monster game I think everybody should check it out it is absolutely fantastic and I loved it dude it was so good

yeah well Ryan stole my rating I was going to give it an 8.8 as well because I think that is absolutely like right on the nose you know that's fair I guess Ace you said it this is what I want a rogue like to be I want crazy builds I want different builds to completely change

the way that the game feels to me so that I don't feel like I'm playing something that's overly repetitive, you know? And this game absolutely nailed that. I love the fact that I could get crazy with these builds. The game felt like a completely different game based on that. I like the, what it did is it checked every box in my brain as I went through this list. And I went, okay, well, what about crazy builds? And it was like, Bing, checkmark.

And then I was like, yeah, okay, but what about like boss fights? And then it was like, ping, checkmark. And then I'm like, okay, yeah, but you guys are probably going to have like really sucky enemy variety then and it was like bing good enemy variety i bet you don't have a gun that's actually a fish god yeah you know like i mean but legitimately and it just like so it's weird because like every time my brain went yeah but i bet it doesn't have this it literally went oh yeah we got that yeah and then even like humor dude like at one point like my tiny tiniest of spoilers but like there's a merchant in the game that you can find in a run and we go i wonder what happens if i shoot this merchant and then the merchant

you to gold and punishes you and then we were like but that's perfect that's exactly what i wanted as a gamer you know what i mean is to just have something happen so it just it checked every single box that my brain could throw at this game i was insanely surprised by how much fun this game was uh i picked this game up support these devs the devs are double moose games they deserve it i mean like i said they deserve it not only do they deserve it but you are going to to have a lot of fun as a gamer playing this game. Find some friends to play with to make the experience even better. Come join our Discord server.

We'll play with you because we love playing games with people. So, you know, you will like just, just check this one out. It deserves it. Our goal, especially with indie devs, is to say, hey, this is a game that people should know about. You all know about it at this point. We've done our job. It's fun, man.

I mean, it's fun. It's affordable. It's very well done. It's not very buggy. We did. I had a bug with one of my builds, but I think they already fixed that. So kudos to double moose games on this one for making a really, really good video game. And I think we've gone longer on this than we did with Red Dead 2. Dang it. All right. Yeah, we got to wrap this up.

So I'm a little offended, but also it was a good game. It's fun to find these games, man. So kudos to Ace. Thank you for putting this in front of Ryan and I, because we got to have a heck of a lot of enjoyment out of it as well. all right we better wrap this one up boys thank you everybody for hanging out with us talking abysis having fun just you know this this is why we love being gamers man you know you find these games you didn't know existed you have fun with them it's the perfect length for me honestly for my kind of gamer ADD brain like I'm close to done with this but I got way way more enjoyment out of this than I thought as well make sure you join our discord server if you are not a part of it you are missing out

on incredible gaming chat, game recommendations, you know, life, people talk in life, sharing their hobbies. We've got Warhammer. Shout out to Moose with his incredible Warhammer 40K figurines he's posting. We got T. Foles with his photography of these bands that he's going to that is freaking awesome. It's just, listen, it is an awesome community. We have 1,100 gamers in there.

So this is not this awkward, tiny little discord that you're kind of scared to check out. you know it is there is no toxicity at all there is no opinion shaming it is just gamers being awesome to each other so if that sounds good to you we want you to be a part of it as well uh if you want to support the show like bobby s milk dud and please don't look at me did uh you can sign up on patreon there's a link in the episode description for that also and finally don't forget to leave us a review you know we if you if you leave a written review on apple good chance we're going to read it. And I'll read it wrong. On Spotify.

And that's it for this one. We probably need a respite, guys. It's been a long episode. So we're out, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya. Catch you later, Brian Hunters. Peace out.