Video Gamers Podcast - Gaming Quick Takes - Wallpaper Engine

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

From gaming hosts Josh, Paul, and Ryan we're bringing you even more gaming content each week. Gaming Quick Takes are a short series of game recommendations, funny moments, off-topic chat and more. A small dose of gaming to brighten your Saturdays! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hey guys, welcome to this Quick Take episode. We're so excited to have you here with us. In the past, these Quick Take episodes actually were only available to those who financially supported the show through Apple subscriptions and Patreon.

But due to popular demand, we have decided to shake up the perks for our supporters and we'll be releasing these Quick takes on Saturdays to everyone, giving you all some extra free content that was previously unavailable to the public. And these quick takes are a little more laid back and they're hosted by just one of us. So sit back, relax and enjoy this quick take episode. Shazam! Boom! Hey, everybody. It's Josh, and I'm back with another Quick Takes episode for you.

Just one of our ways of saying thanks for supporting the show. We could not do this podcast without your support, and you are one of the many that has chosen to support the show. So thank you from Paul and myself for that. Today, I'm going to be talking to you. It's not a game, but it is something that I think every gamer needs. And that is a program that is called Wallpaper Engine. Now, I remember seeing some of my Steam friends hopping into this. You know how you get the notification when somebody starts a game on Steam? It kind of pops up in the lower corner of the screen.

I remember seeing this Wallpaper Engine just over and over again. And it seemed like a lot of my friends had this program. And I just never checked it out. I was like, why do people care so much about wallpaper? I mean, yeah, I want my background to look cool on my desktop or whatever. But it's just a picture. Why is this such a big deal? So one day, curiosity got the better of me. I went to Steam. I pulled up wallpaper engine. I looked at the store page. It didn't look like anything amazing, to be honest. The pitch page for this program on Steam really does not do it justice as to what it actually is. that this is something that you should most definitely check out is the fact that the ratings for Wallpaper Engine are sitting at a 98% positive. That is overwhelmingly positive, and that's out of 435,000 reviews. So obviously, people know something about this. And I was like, what is this? Why? What's going on? So I did a little bit of digging. And I can tell you

right now that this is worth your interest. Wallpaper Engine is only $3.99. So that right there should tell you something. But basically what Wallpaper Engine is, is it is a live wallpaper for your desktop. And what that means is that normally, you know, people put a picture of their family or they find like a picture of a dragon or just whatever they're interested in. Right. You know, there's a gajillion different categories of stuff. There is anime. There's cute stuff. There's realistic.

You know, if you want a picture of like, you know, a photo of fruit on your desktop, you know, that's, you know, that's on there, I'm sure. But basically, what this program does is it allows you to make your desktop the coolest looking thing that you have seen. And so I, the second I downloaded this program, and I started searching around in it, that's when I realized where the draw for this comes from. And what you do is you load up Wallpaper Engine. It kind of has the interface that you would look at. And you can go into the discovery portion. And that's where you find the millions and millions of wallpapers that people have made. And the cool thing is I like fantasy type stuff. So I was looking into dragons and cool World of Warcraft characters or Star Wars. There's an amazing battle scene where it's like these capital ships fighting TIE fighters and X-Wings and stuff like that.

And all this stuff is full motion for the most part. Now, these aren't like movies that are playing, although I do have a really, really cool one that's some kind of weird hummingbird with lights all over it that flies around the screen and stuff like that. But basically, what it does, like I said, is it makes your desktop something amazing so that when you are looking at your battle station and you're checking it out, whatever's on the screen is honestly really mind-blowing. And it's one of those things where I have gone through several playlists. So what you can do also is when you download these wallpapers, you can create playlists that it will cycle through on the desktop at that point. And so that's really neat as well, because you can sit there and say,

I want these 10 wallpapers, and I want it to cycle through those. Some of them actually come with audio. So you might have this really kind of Zen desktop going on where there's like spa-like music playing in the background and you can actually change the volume and how loud you want it to be and stuff like that as well. So to give you an idea, some of my favorites, I actually just pulled up this list here. One of my absolute favorites is one called Rainy Day. And this looks like you are looking out a window in a city and it's raining really hard. And so you see the water droplets kind of streaming down the screen and you can see the reflections of the lights and stuff like that. This is insanely clear. It's like 4k clarity on this so people that have come in say it actually looks like you're walking or you're looking out a window another one that's

really neat is one called aquarium 4k where it turns your monitor into a fish tank and it looks insanely lifelike and so that's another really neat one. I love Star Wars. So there are a gajillion really, really cool Star Wars wallpapers. One of my favorites is one called Star Wars, Darth Vader, where it is Darth Vader holding a lightsaber and using force lightning, and his armor is kind of all shattered. And what's really neat on this is on the screen, the lightsaber is glowing, the lightning is crackling. You can actually hover your mouse over the lightsaber and it'll make the lightsaber kind of spark on certain areas and stuff. So basically, the gist of it is that these are very interactive, like motion-oriented, effects-oriented wallpapers for your desktop.

And it just looks absolutely phenomenal. Now, it's a functional desktop. Your icons are all still there. You can use everything like you would. But when you go back to the desktop, you're just blown away by this incredible scene that's in front of you. I cannot recommend this program enough. For $3.99, honestly, it's absolutely game-changing. I highly recommend you check it out. There is something for everyone in this program. And I have told a lot of people about it. My kids, who honestly, they like the games that they like, but they're not really interested in a lot of new things. Both my kids saw me using Wallpaper Engine and instantly asked if they could buy it for their

computers. I have had other friends that have said, hey, this thing is incredible. Why did I wait so long to pick this up? So definitely go check it out. Wallpaper Engine, it's on Steam. You will not regret it. It's just one of those things you can literally play around with it for hours and hours and hours. Occasionally, I'll sit down and find the coolest wallpapers out there. I'll make an entirely new playlist. And then I just sit and marvel at what my desktop looks like as well. So check it out. If you've got some favorites, I would love to hear about them. Tell me which ones I should look into and maybe which ones I should use as well.

And hop on over to our Discord server. Let us know your favorites. We can share some of ours. And we can have the coolest desktops around. So anyway, that's it for this bonus episode. Check it out. Let us know what you think. Thank you for supporting the show. I will see you all on the next Quick Takes episode.