Video Gamers Podcast - Dispatch Decoded, A Deep Dive [Remastered] - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

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, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and Night Wizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu 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 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 Abysis, a brine-punk co-op, rogue-like shooter that looks like Bioshock and Doom had a love child?

or hellspod? Does it solve the riddle and stand apart? Or is this just another rogue-like 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. Oh. 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 a. Hey, just call me the master of the abyss, baby, because I will go absolutely to any depth to talk about this game. Heck, I got it upgraded to a main episode.

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. 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. All right.

Well, welcome in to everybody. Look, people are like, Abysus. What? I've never even heard of this game before. Well, you're about to hear about it. That's the problem. Yeah, well, Ace says that's a problem. 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 some community members as well, Jigglepuff, one of them, who got to join us on a pretty insane run, 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'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. But we've been saying, hey, we need your support to keep this podcast going. You know, 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. Oh, yeah. Epic. Bobby got in on the hijack a host vote for the September, just in the time. Timber 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. Yeah. 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. 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. Signed up for rare status as well. So look, a deal is a deal. We will not look at you, but we are going to thank you for your support. We are. And I, and I, what is it? What was it, S-E-K?

Was it a denomination? Isn't it a Krona? It's like, that's a Swedish Krona. I saw it 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 is you guys get to like give Ryan some culture. He had to look up another currency. I was like, what's the conversion rate?

What are we dealing with here? He's like, what are we talking here? Can I buy a new 3D printer? Can I buy a game? Like, what's going on here? Exactly. So 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? 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. I was wondering how you were going to handle the word respite. And respite is a 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 was a frisphid voice. Something lead talk. It's respite, isn't it? Uh-uh. It's respite, but. Need a respite.

Well, you really butcher both of them now. Respit, respite. Well, darn, darn, too. You know, made me a rest bit. Donnie, I'll be in the woods for a while. I'll tell you what. Your trip to the woods was your respite from the, from the busy life. life, Ryan.

I mean, the deer's respite, too, since you didn't get any. Yeah, that's true that you gave the deer. Okay, here's the deal. You guys aren't getting anything when I get it, though. I'll tell you that much right now. So we can talk all the trash we want because we ain't get nothing. Exactly. Wait and see.

Wait and see, brothers. We were promised venison. I want a jerky, man. Come on. Just wait to see. Don't worry. I got two more trips planned this year. So you're going to 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 to like is he Googling this no I'm just look at just Google the pronunciation I don't want to I've already I've I've I've already put myself out there too much right now oh man all right all right we got we got to talk about some abysses guys oh my goodness this is these are how look look if this is your first time joining us this is how every one of these episodes goes apologize for nothing.

We apologize for nothing. 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 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 first indie deep dive. Yeah. So first indie deep dive. Yeah, we've had a lot of first indie deep dives. 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 with all three of us but yeah uh what i was gonna say 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 is uh 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 Abyssus 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 rogue leg almost. When I first saw it, I was like, he's going to 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.

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 other games in this genre. It looked like it just had soul.

Like it, 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 rogue-like 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 rogue like. 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, we tout out risk of rain too a lot for roglykes. 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 is a game called

Ziggarot. Now, this is Ryan laughing. This ain't from like the 90s, Ryan, okay? But it was a game called Ziggarot that was my first ever first person rogue like shooter. And I quite enjoyed that game. So, all right, well, you know, A's 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. convincing. I kind of went, okay. Like, there's something to this game, man. 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 five-day trip to the woods with no animals. And so, like, So, 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 a long session. My initial impressions were I thought, I thought it was smooth. It was crisp. 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 had the mechanics you would want.

Like, it was the environment was nice. And 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. well, I was gone, you know, 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, a feeling and emotional, like, connection to this game already. Just, just hopping in and initially, like, right off the bat. I, I, 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. Yeah. And 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? Yeah, we streamed it. 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 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, 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. So they like, they completely like plan 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'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. This was like Night Rain. This was 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. Hey, can you handle this? Can you handle this? Exactly.

you got two hours to refund the game if you can't make it past this 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. It was like, I don't know, man. I was bummed,

because I was like, I was understanding what you were saying. I was like, yeah. And then. 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 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'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 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's how much it flipped for you guys. And I missed kind of the chunk 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 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 abyssis 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. All right. We're back. We're talking abystus. 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 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 roglykes, like I was with Risk of Rain too, with you guys and stuff. And, 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 me and Ace, and 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, boom, bong, bong, bouncer all over the place. 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. Abyssusis 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 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. It's scaling is actually incredible when you start going into 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,

swap over what blessings we were going for because we were losing cold so much. I would enter a goal, a room with like 400 gold. I would take three or four hits and like, oh, no. Yeah, just starts beating 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 find your guns in the, in the levels by completing puzzles or by, you know, doing secret activities.

Like, yeah, the disc thrott launcher. 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. 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 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, 100% it, just to say I could. And 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. Oh, yeah.

This is the turnaround 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 you 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 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 plates. Oh, the plates. 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 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. I love the builds. 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.

But, 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, you, it's, it's wild. Like, you know, 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 make this run, it's different, but it's still enjoyable, which is what I think is really cool about this game. I think that no matter what you're looking for or 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. 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 different fire modes. Yeah, those eight weapons have different fire modes. They each have different mods, which change how the weapons function and lock,

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. I love the anchor, man.

Smashing into the ground with a shockwave. 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 this works like Hades for anybody that's played Hades 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 sole 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 a 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 Abysus 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 Abysus has a hook, but it does everything so well. And it knows what a roguly game needs to be to keep you interested in playing. And I'll tell people, just in case they're like me, 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, too. Yeah. And honestly, that is one of the highest compliments that we can give a rogue-like 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 playing with you guys. But I always, you know, I played the chick with the, the, chick with the,

you know the huntress yeah i played i played i played huntress that was the one i always made and well you could get different bills 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 the ability to make those runs unique and make them different and make them play out a way that you never expected. 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 have a good time. And that's what this game did. Oh, 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 rogue-like 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 Abyssus 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 that.

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 the 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 yeah they're each very unique very well done You know, they have different, 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. Kudos to the art team on Abysus 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 looking around. We just stood there, man. And we were just like, it was beautiful. And that's not to mention the final, final bosses, final stage. Yes, that's what I was going to bring up next. So talk about the different boss fights a little bit, Ais. 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 hell.

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, ACE is like, look down at the black spot. And it's just like a nebula.

Star and space and stuff. That texture is crazy. Yeah, it's so cool. It's very unique. It's very different. And 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. And 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 the sign of a good game. That's the mark of something 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 Abyssis. 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'm approaching the end of my time with Abyssis because I feel like I've experienced most of the content on this.

I've had an incredible amount of fun with the variety of builds. I've gotten all the weapons and the upgrades and things like that. At this point, the progression has kind of slowed down for me. this is not a slander against the game at all. My point in this 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. 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? 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, okay, because slow down, guys, you already gave us a great.

It's like, hold on. And we don't, 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 DLC 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 black. This is like, why you call me out, man? I might have 40 hours of this. People may 100% it because they're psychopaths. You know, like, who knows? But, but like there's a lot there. And it's criminally underrated, I think. Like, I think, I don't know why anybody isn't talking about this game.

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 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, not, 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 here.

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 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. 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 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 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. you know and so we just we're trying to let people know you out there as gamers there is something special about abyss 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 don't 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 Abysus. I'm glad we got to discover this one and play 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 rogue like. It is everything I want to have a rogue like.

That being said, it's not perfect. There are definitely some issues, like having to start at the same place every time. 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 Abyssis 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 indie. that you have played in a very long time. Dude, this one. That's a 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. Yeah. 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. Abyssus is just great, dude. If you're not playing Abystis right now,

we're in a lull. You should play it. Yeah, you should play it. So 9. Wow, that's huge praise. I'm giving it, dude. Yeah, that's a big story. Ryan, what about you, man?

This one, I'm definitely not that high, but I did absolutely love this game. 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 and 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 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 draw was there. The graphics were amazing. The gameplay was awesome. I think the gun stuff, all the unique abilities, the effects. Everything was what it needs to be, especially for a unique rogue 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 see shanty together. And like, those, those do. As small as a, yeah, and clap and. Oh, gosh. 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. Right. 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 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. Yeah.

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 roguelike to be. I want crazy builds. I want different builds to complete. changed 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, Bing, 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 being 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. And then even like humor, dude, like at one point like my tiny teeniest 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 turns 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? It's 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. 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. it, but you are going 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 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 games. chat, game recommendations, you know, life, people talking 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. If you want to support the show like Bobby S. Milkdud and please don't look at me, did. 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, 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.