Video Gamers Podcast - Ibb and Obb Review - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Gaming blob things Michael, Josh and Paul are diving into the beautiful and surreal world of Ibb and Obb. A unique entry into couch co-op gaming, Ibb and Obb combines puzzle elements with co-op gaming mechanics in a charming, yet challenging experience.  Check out our Streamer of the Week: Twitch.TV/AnnacakeLIVE Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Toro, Scrump, Gaius, Remi, MarbleMadness, Dr. Catatonic, Blackstar (DQ), Glapsuidir, Phelps, Michele B, Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Offer ends March 3rd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply. invest with RBC. Offer ends March 3rd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply. Invest with RBC today. Hello to everyone out there in podcast land. This is the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast, where three lifelong gamer dads get together to talk about video games. Today is a Deep Dive Monday, and we will be breaking down the puzzle platform game Ib and Ob. But before we do that, please make sure to follow the pod so you get all of our episodes, rate our show 5 stars, and leave

a written review. We also have a Patreon page where you can help financially support what we do starting at $5 a month. Anybody who signs up on Patreon gets a shout out on the show and will also receive two bonus episodes every month. Come check it out at MultiplayerSquad.com. All right then, I am your host, Paul, and it's very hard to make any jokes about this uh introduction because of the nature of the game joining me he can be our ib this episode because i don't know he's short and green it's josh yeah ib lovers unite come on ib followers and then joining for president for president ib 2024 all right and then joining us since ib's already taken i guess that makes him the ob because maybe he likes the color pink it's michael

oh yeah everybody join me on team ob i'm a little taller i'm better team ob ob for president 2024 let's be honest everyone knows that michael's the ob one in this group oh man oh it was right there michael it was like the lowest hanging fruit have you been holding on to that for like the whole week wait oh weeks man weeks i'll probably use it again in this episode to be honest just because it's it's it's right there it's coming it's coming oh my goodness's coming. It's coming. Oh, my goodness. All right. Well, we're going to jump into the deep dive here in just a moment. But before we do that, we do have a very exciting brand new segment for you all. We have decided to call this our Streamer of the Week. Michael, take it away. Tell the people

about this. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things we value most about this podcast is the incredible community that we have. You know, if you're on Discord, people talk about it all the time. They're like, I cannot believe how great this community is. And so in the spirit of our community, we're adding something that's new just for you. Because every once in a while we're thinking, you know, we'd like to recommend like a Twitch streamer or YouTuber that we think our community would really like. And we have really great taste, so you should listen to us. So what goes into picking this? What's our choice for recommendations? We like to select people who play a variety of games that we recommend you play, or play in our deep dive episodes, or just

variety of fun and popular games. And also, we like to point out people who seem to have a good community that actively are engaged with their viewers and so forth. And sure enough, I want to point you out to... That was a weird choice of word order there. I want to point you out... Yeah, stuff happens. I want to introduce you to a great friend of the show who streams consistently on Twitch, and this is Anna Cake Live.

So Anna Cake Live, this week she was streaming diablo 2 remastered and diablo 3 great games we love them talk about them on the show she's constantly engaging her chat and we know it's important to you just how we always engage you guys on our discord or wherever else you talk to us so uh one thing also is anna cake live also has a rocking accent because she's from Germany. So you hit that multicultural button. Oh, I love listening to her because I'm just like, she sounds so great. But seriously, I'm addicted to her stream. And I think you guys as our listeners will love her as well. So go check her out. Be sure when you go check her out that you tell her that we sent you because that feels warm and fuzzy. Everybody loves it, right? And also while you're there, make sure you hit the follow because just like we're wanting to grow our podcast,

she wants to grow her stream, and that helps her out too. So one last thing, don't forget though, as always, if you really like what she does, if you have Amazon Prime, you can also give her money for free. It doesn't cost you anything by subscribing to her channel. So go check out Anna Cake Live, one of my favorite streamers. Go check her out. And also, we're putting the link in the description below. So just go do it. Well, yeah. Thanks for that recommendation, Michael.

Hopefully, people will go check that out. This is a segment that we're probably not going to have every single week. But every once in a while, we just want to highlight someone that we appreciate their work. They appreciate ours. Just to let people know what else is out there. Absolutely. So that's just kind of the idea here. All right. know what else is out there absolutely so you know that's just kind of the idea here all right so

now going into our ibn ab conversation here some people might be wondering what is this game i had never heard of it before it is a little bit older came out in 2013 josh do you want to tell the people why we're deep diving it today uh who doesn't want to play a game called ibn ab man you know that's all you need it hooks you right there that's all you need shows over go play it guys this game was actually one of the games that was chosen by a legendary supporter so marble madness uh who became a legendary supporter of the podcast you know thank you to all our supporters of this podcast because if you're listening right now one of the supporters is the reason you're listening because it because it's what makes all of this possible. But Marble Madness went legendary, which gives

you the right to pick a game for us to deep dive. And they thought about it for a little while. And they said, hey, I've got a couple games I'm thinking about. And we said, take your time. There's no rush. And then Marble came out and said, hey, I want you guys to play this game called Ibn Ab. And I went, what, what? Like the what? Did you have a stroke? Yeah, like Ibn Ab. I have never even heard of this game before. And he said, you know, I've played this game. It's a couch co-op game. There's not enough of these games anymore. You know, it's good to... I want to hear your thoughts on this. It's a cooperative game. You basically have to play with somebody else. You can play solo, but this game is not meant

to be played solo. In fact, I'm not sure it would even work all the way through as a solo game. Um, and then we kind of went like, dude, I love finding out about games that I have never even heard of before. And so I got really excited in a couch. Who doesn't love a good couch co-op game at the same time? So that's why we're doing this deep dive. Thank you, Marvel, for picking this game. And we're going to break it down for everybody else that goes, Ibn Ab, I've never even heard of this. Well, we're going to break it all down for you. We're going to let you know what we think about it and whether this game might be worth you checking out. Ibn Ab sounds exactly like something that comes out of my mouth right before Paul hits

the Mario death button. Pretty much. I will say that the timing of this worked out beautifully because Marble chose it, and we all brought up our Steam pages, and the game was on Steam sale, so it was like $2.39.

And we're like, alright. I love it. It's a nice, cheap game. Low stakes. Even if we hate it, at least it's a cheap one. And yeah, especially to play couch co-op games, we don't get a chance to do a whole lot. I actually played it for free on PlayStation Plus. Oh, well, there you go. That's even better. All right. Well, I think that we've covered everything by way of housekeeping. And so if you guys want to become a legendary supporter like Marble Madness, MultiplayerSquad.com takes you to our Patreon page. And we just knocked out a couple legendary picks back to back.

Last week, we did Dungeon Defenders. Today, we're knocking out Ibn Ab. And then moving forward, we'll be back to our regular schedule. So deep dives will only be every other Monday. And this just gave us a good chance to start out the year strong and knock out a couple of these legendary picks. All right, well, guys, scoot down the couch, make some room for this couch co-op game, and let's deep dive Ib and Ob. Okay, here's the description of the game on Steam. Ibn Ab is a two-player cooperative game set in a puzzle-filled world where gravity goes both up and down.

You can only succeed by working closely together. Find a friend for some true local co-op couch fun or match up online. And so I will add in here that Ibn Ab originally released on the PS3 back in 2013. A year later, it came out on Windows, and also it is now on Switch. For some reason, they waited all the way until 2020 to port it, but you can pick it up also on the Switch. Now, since we're talking about a couch co-op game, this has been coming up a lot lately in our Discord. A lot of people have asked for recommendations. A lot of people are looking for couch co-op games. What is it about this

genre? What makes a couch co-op game so much fun when it works well? It's the cooperative nature. I mean, it's in the name. It's couch co-op. These games aren't great because you have a really comfy couch to sit on. I mean, that definitely helps the enjoyment factor, but it's the co-op nature. So, you know, Paul, you and I basically played through this entire game together. Michael, you played with your buddy that you said comes over and plays the Steam Deck with you, right? My Steam Deck pal, Steven, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this is, you know, without touching base on the game at all, because I don't want to spoil anything, I will say that I instantly love the fact that

Paul would message me or I would message Paul and say, hey, do you have time to play? Do you want to hop in? And the second he was like, yeah, let's go. I just get excited. You know what I mean? It's not the game necessarily. It's just the fact that you are doing something with a friend. You are hanging out virtually with somebody. You have a common goal, the working together part is, it feels good. Like when you accomplish something with a friend, that feels better than if you just accomplish something by yourself. We all love single player games. If I beat a boss in Elden Ring, I definitely fist bump and I go, yeah,

but there's nobody there to share the experience with. And in a game like ibn ab or any couch co-op if we do something and we go yeah i've got paul there going yeah or to rib each other when you die in a really stupid way which we both did multiple times yeah of course no i think also like i played it as an actual couch we literally played on my couch like literally played on my couch with playstation controllers but like i was like hey man you know you haven't been over in a couple weeks cruise on by bring the steam deck and he came by and i was like actually i think i want to play this game instead check it out because you're here let's do this couch co-op game we literally got a pizza we each had a little glass of scotch and we just hung out and made an event

of it there's something about about hanging out in person with a friend that just can't really be duplicated over Discord or something. And I think that's why couch co-ops still are just the best because you're hanging out, you're physically in person, you can pause it, take a break, go do something. We went out and had dinner, come back, something like that. And I just wish we had more good couch co-ops out there because it's so hard to find them nowadays yeah and back then i feel like in the mid to late 2000s we had such a slew of them oh yeah and even in the early 2010s you know for me i think when couch co-op games work the best it's when they are puzzle oriented like ibn ab

because you can have co-op games like New Super Mario Bros., right? And that's where it's a little more chaotic, especially if you throw three or four people on at the same time. And I remember playing a lot of that game with my wife and our two oldest kids. And if someone fell behind, we would yell at them, like, just turn into a bubble. Just let me finish this level. And it's just more chaotic, and there's not much thought behind it all. And even though it's cooperative, you're still almost battling each other because someone's running too fast or whatever. And so, I really appreciate when it's puzzle-oriented, where there's a lot of communication. And especially in a game like Ibn Ab, we'll probably get into this, where you first look at the puzzle and you

think there's absolutely no way that you can get past this with the mechanics of the game. And you start tinkering and trying different things. And all of a sudden it clicks and the light bulb goes off. And to me, that is the fun of the shared experience. You both figure out that puzzle together. And I think that's when it really works best. Now, Michael, you mentioned, you know, we don't get a whole lot of these couch co-op games anymore. Why do you guys think that is? Why did this genre kind of die off?

I just think that it's so much easier to market something that is anybody can play multiplayer like on Steam and via Discord. It's just the way culture is nowadays, especially, I mean, look at COVID as well. Anybody can play multiplayer on Steam and via Discord. It's just the way culture is nowadays, especially, I mean, look at COVID as well. Like, couch call is probably not the most popular thing in the world during a time when you can't be six feet near each other. I don't know exactly what happened. I think slowly it was a phase out because we can do this online technology that we just did. Whereas before, we couldn't.

If you wanted to play something together, you either had to go over and have a LAN party and bring your computers or your PlayStations or Xboxes together, or you played a game together on the same machine as a couch co-op. I think that we just kind of moved on from it. I think it has partly to do with complexity because most couch co-op games are very simple in nature. And I don't know if it's because it needs to be because nobody wants to spend the first hour explaining how this game is played to your buddy where it's like, hey, you want to play this game with me? Sure. Okay. Sit down for an hour while I explain the mechanics to you. Do you know what I mean? Like, honestly, or it's just that, you know, by nature of having dual inputs, you know, on something that they need to keep it simple or, you know, maybe it's just,

I mean, maybe even innovation to a certain degree. Like these, you know, we've seen all these games, you know, and, and people are having a hard time innovating. I think the other thing it could be is also, unfortunately, money-driven. Because if you have a couch co-op game, you only need to buy one game and anybody can play it. You can have 18 people come over and play this game with you, which means that's 17 copies that they're not selling to somebody else. I love the Joseph Farris games where if you buy this game, you get a free copy to give to a friend. Now, it's a limited copy. They can't launch the game and play it with somebody else. But that is the perfect solution to something like that. I just don't know if people are craving

more complexity. And that's why the simple nature of couch co-op is dying. I mean, obviously, the rise of the internet and the ease of which we play multiplayer games comes into play. I don't need to go to Paul's house to play this game with him. There's a convenience factor there. But sometimes there's a little bit of that magic that's lost in the convenience too. Yeah, I think just an added thought real fast too. One of the first real couch co-ops that I played on the 360 was Gears of War, and it broke the world open. It's like, holy cow, this game is better if you play with two people. If you played

solo, it was kind of just not the same experience. And everybody I know wants more games like that, but it's just not a thing anymore. Yeah. I will say it definitely depends on your teammate i remember going through the halo campaign of uh combat evolved and my brother-in-law couldn't help himself and would always throw sticky bombs on me and we would lose so much progress to where i hated playing that campaign in co-op uh so yeah i think it also yeah you gotta have a good teammate with you agreed all right now i do have a couple of facts about the development of Ibn Ab that I thought was kind of interesting. So this game was actually started by a person named Richard Boeser, and he started it as

a graduation project. And a couple of years later, it made its debut at IndieCade in 2008. Now, as a side note, there's another deep dive game we did that started off as a graduation project. Do you guys happen to know what it was? Splitgate. Splitgate. Yeah, how funny now that we have two games that were like graduation projects. Yeah.

So the names Ibn Ab were taken from a book called The Well of Lost Plots, where there are two characters that literally have those names, Ibn Ab, all lowercase. And in this game, it's stylized all lowercase in honor of that. And also, the game was originally titled Brothers, which I thought was kind of funny, because we have other games already called Brothers now. But ultimately, they decided to change it because they wanted it to relate to friends, parents, and children. They didn't just

want to try to limit it as Brothers, so they ended up changing the name to Ibn Ab down the road. That's why I think Brothers is kind of a forgetful name. Ibn Ab was a good choice. It definitely stands out. And yeah, when you Google it, there's nothing else that matches it. That's one of the things. I get that it was funny back in the 60s, but the band called The Band, there's no way you can try to Google that because it's such a generic term but like ibn ab is so yeah so unique you can find it anywhere now uh we always start off our deep dives here talking about stories so michael can you please give us a breakdown of the deep lore and story laid out in ibn ab yeah absolutely so and that's it all right that's

it breath michael yeah there's these two things called ibn ab i remember even josh josh even jokingly said because at one point i was like guys i don't know how we're gonna do a deep dive that's longer than like 12 minutes and josh is like what are you talking about? We can break down who's Ib and who's Ob. And then that's all he said. That was the joke. Oh, man. All right. So, yeah, there is no story in this game. This game, you literally launch it and you're already on level one.

You're already running as Ib and Ob. Josh, you're going to get the harder job here today with some heavier lifting. This is, I think, one of those games where it's so hard to describe verbally. Like a lot of people out there might just want to hit pause and take a minute and watch some gameplay. But doing your best, how would you describe Ibn Ab? Ibn Ab is so simple at its core. You play this game with four buttons. You know, honestly, like I was playing on my keyboard at first. It's just the

arrow keys or WASD, whatever you prefer. I did switch to controller because it does lend itself to a controller game, but that is it. And I'll be honest, that's kind of refreshing, man. Jumping into a game where it's like, what are all the buttons? You guys pick on me because I rebind everything and I spend 20 minutes in the key binding menu, you know, thinking about everything and what, you know, what do I want to default to? Ibn Ab is just left, right, up and down. That's it. And like you said, it dumps you straight into the game. And you're like, I don't know, man, it was kind of a breath of fresh air, to be honest with you. But basically, the way that this game plays is your goal is to make it from the left side of the level to the right side of the level. So if you've ever played a Mario game,

this is just like that. You are just running to the right and trying to make it to the end of the level. And just like Mario, where you know you've made it to the end because there's a flag pole, Ibn Ab has these weird little shape things with faces that I don't know if they're part of the story or supposed to be your friends, or I don't know what they are, but you definitely know when you make it to the end of a level. But along the way, you are basically just trying to overcome any obstacle that's in your way. And the way that Ibn Abbas presents obstacles are things that you cannot jump over because they're too tall, which means you either need to rely on your teammate to stand on their head,

have them jump, and then you jump to get that boost or other things that become the, basically the puzzles of this game. We'll get into those here in a little bit, but that is, that is the gameplay in its most simplest form is figure out how to go from the left side all the way over to the right side, make it to the level and then just continue on to the next level. You will encounter puzzles. These are not pull this lever and open that door and turn these dials type puzzles. This is just how are you going to get around or over or through this obstacle? I think the only major thing that was left out there is the fact that the screen is split in half. And so gravity is just mirrored. So if you are above a certain line,

you jump up and your character falls back down. But every once in a while, the game will give you a little portal. And if you just kind of jump through it, now your character is running upside down on that line. And now when you jump, your character shoots downward. And so the game gets very clever in how it uses a lot of those mechanics. So it's very physics light, but it is absolutely physics puzzles because it's just figuring out how do I use different things in regards to momentum or getting a boost or whatever it might be to figure out ways to get to higher heights. And it's incredibly simple. I love the way that you described that just now, because I was trying to explain it to my wife.

I was like, hey, I want to play this Ibn Ab game with you just to laugh for a little bit. Couch co-op, right? And she's like, well, what are the puzzles like? And I'm like, I don't know how to explain it. But physics makes a lot... It's like everything is physics-based. And it is trippy, by the way, when you're the person on the bottom and you're trying to jump over something man it gets you sometimes yeah it's pretty funny so let's start to break down some of the basic mechanics that they throw to you in this game so in the very beginning you know the game starts off incredibly simple it just teaches you run to the right okay jump through this portal now you're upside down and then they start to hit you with different things

that start to complicate the puzzles, whether it be different forms of enemies or different things that are on the map that you can use to your advantage. Where do you guys want to start with this? Let's start with the enemies first, because I think that's the first obstacle that you actually come across.

So there are these little black sea urchin looking things. That's they're basically the only enemy that you really encounter in the game. They do have different sizes and they do move differently, but that's, that's it. Like there's not like major enemy variety in this game. And the way that the enemies work is they have a weak spot that is either that is in the beginning is on the lower half of the screen. So that's where gravity is inverted. And all you have to do to kill the enemy is simply touch the little white

sphere that is on the underside of the enemy. Now, sometimes the enemies are on the lower half of the screen, which means the white sphere is on the top half. And all you have to do is have your buddy just run over and touch it. And the enemy explodes and you get these little crystal things that are like, you know, you're completionist. You want to get everyone for a level kind of thing. But that's the first obstacle. Now, this game does some really neat things with those enemies later on, where maybe one is so big that you can't jump over it. So you have to launch your buddy over it. Or maybe they move quickly and they start to follow you. Or they bounce up and down. Or they just sit there and hover until you run under one, and then it smashes down to the ground really fast. you have to kind of figure out yeah like honestly yeah and

so this the enemies in the game are one of the puzzle mechanics in this game now they do provide some hazards so when there's like there's like i'll say platforming light because this isn't like a you need to jump to this moving platform and time it right. But a lot of the skill in that is simply just make sure you time your jump over this enemy or run under them as they're bouncing over you. And it should be noted that if one person gets hit by an enemy, you both die. And you both explode. Yes. And you lose your little coins too. Yeah.

One of the really neat things about the enemies is that sometimes you get a boost or something and now you're on a ledge and you have to keep dodging the sea urchin until the other person can complete their part of the puzzle and then destroy them on the other side so there were a lot of times that you know we were getting excited or yelling and you got to keep jumping over these enemies and i thought that was kind of a neat way to also add a little bit of complexity and where you're not just standing around looking at the other person. It's almost at all times, both people are doing something to solve the puzzle. You're never bored just sitting around for very long. Yeah. And you also, essentially there is a scoring system in this game. So every time you pop one of the opposites, like the killable Mario side of one of the

enemies, a bunch of little diamonds go flying out of it. And these disappear very, very quickly. And you don't have points in any top or bottom, like Mario Brothers tells you how many coins you have. You don't know until you finish the level if you've done if you've gotten everything or not and so that was kind of an interesting challenge is that sometimes there would just be one of these diamond things hanging out off the screen and so you're walking around in this game thinking well should we be looking everywhere almost like you know like how i

overthought god of war and i went around trying to like treat it like elder scrolls when you look inside every box you also kind of overthink like, well, am I missing something here? Should we look around a little bit more? Because maybe if you jump on top of me and then jump from there, that we'll see this hidden box somewhere. And I'm assuming there's an achievement for getting perfect, for getting all of them. I did not get that. Not on a single level. I don't know if there's an achievement or not, but I did read in one of the interviews with the developer that the entire reason that they put the diamond system into the game, it's actually a mechanic that they just did to force the characters to stay in the same spot together. Because they noticed in the earliest builds that as soon as the person popped the urchin, they would keep

sprinting to the right and they would have to wait a few seconds while the other person caught up. And so they said, what if we make the enemy explode into diamonds on the other side that they collect for two and a half seconds, and now we're actually forcing them to stay lined up vertically? And I thought that was actually really clever. That's ingenious. It's a really neat way. Brilliant. And to boot, oftentimes, that played into my strategy like okay so you're gonna go pop that but i need to be there when you do that so i have to time when i jump over there at the same time you're good and sometimes like it the timing doesn't work out

very well and it's tough because if you land on the urchin you're dead so that that's ingenious the way they did that and it's not punitive that's why it's not like oh you didn't get enough points so you can't unlock the next level it was just their little way okay if you see diamonds pop out who's not gonna collect them right they're diamonds it doesn't yeah they don't really mean anything other than just to try to go for your high score see i thought that was really clever i think one of the coolest things in this game were the jump pads yeah absolutely now these are kind of hard to explain but every once in a while on a level there will be a clear little brown pad in the ground and it doesn't just bounce you like it's not a trampoline where if i jump on

it it automatically shoots me in the air but what what it does let you do is transfer momentum through the jump pad. So if I was standing on the jump pad on the top, and then Josh jumps onto it from the bottom, however high he jumped, it's now going to boost me on the other side. And so a lot of the puzzles required in trying to get one character to a higher level so that way they could jump and land on a pad and now launch you on the other side. And they ended up using that in really clever ways. I know there were a lot of times Josh and I would just stay on the pad, boosting each other up and down, talking and trying to figure out what's our next move. Okay, now on the next jump, let's both go. And then we would have to time that. And so i thought that was a really neat mechanic that i don't remember ever quite seeing in a game well these pads also work off of like

einstein's theory of relativity like an object that is in motion stays in motion so you don't ever it's like there's no atmosphere right you don't ever lose like if you are jumping three inches up because your buddy bounced you you will perpetually forever do that until you decide to make a decision which it was just really interesting to see that because you think sometimes like do i need to like do i need to try harder do i need to do more are we are we at the right spot it was just really interesting uh tiny tiny fact correction i think you're thinking of newton's laws of motion i that's what i said as fun as relativity would be like uh like the movie interstellar what is what is einstein's theory is that e equals mc squared yes that is one of mine yes yes

see i'm real smart guys i promise i advertised that i was smart and i i that's exactly what i said i want michael to break down special relativity and you know relativity let's see how that goes einstein just sounded smarter than newton so i went with one of them uh what other mechanics did you guys find interesting in this game i thought the uh the little round orbs that look like balloons that would lift you they would change gravity in a small little area um i thought that was a really neat mechanic it was one of the more frustrating mechanics for me because whatever reason,

my brain just didn't jive with what was going on there. But I did think that it was a really neat aspect that, and I love how this game introduces you to stuff. You're on a new level and then it kind of forces you onto this jump pad or into this bubble or something like that. So it does a very good job of saying like, here's the mechanic for this level. You better get used to it. And it makes it very, very simple at first before it

really gets complex quick. But I thought that was neat because not only are you falling down when you're on the underside and you're jumping up, you then have to kind of time how you float through these bubbles. And sometimes you need to go from one bubble to another. And it just, it kind of took a game that's linear in, you know, in, in from that left to right aspect and a little bit of the up and down, because you never really go far from that center line to just kind of a whole nother dimension there, as far as like, Hey, you need to float up high for a little while, or use the angle that you're going to start falling from by floating through this thing you know i just i thought it was neat that they added that in there and it kind of changed some of the mechanics slightly in that regard but it was it was neat to see i guess there

was uh the bubbles i i loved and i thought it was ingenious until one part of the game there was one part of the game and i was like i it took us like 30 minutes steven and i he got lucky on the first try and just just happened because you have to sail through like 17 of these bubbles off the screen you can't see where you're going half the time and at one point i remember putting the controller down taking a breath and being like okay the rest of the game was fun. This is just frustrating. There is nothing fun about this. I hate it when developers do this kind of stuff.

But yeah, one of the other things that I thought was cool is that we already talked about how there's an underside and an oversight, right? And there's this white bubbly little line of little, looks like foam or whatever, where you go from one side to the other. Well, in some cases, this was go from one side to the other. Well, in some cases, this was colored green, or it was colored pink, and only that character could go through it. Which means that sometimes you had one dude, right, really having to do really hard stuff, or maybe the other guy, but it just kind of made it so that it wasn't like, oh, you know,

I got this real fast. No, the person that had the green character had to do that part, which I thought was nice, because there was a couple times where you'd have a green and a pink on the screen at the same time. And it's just like Paul said at the beginning, you're like, how the heck do we get over there? Like, if I have to go through this one, and you have to go through that one, and they don't, it was just, it added an extra level of that go on top and bottom and around things. Yeah, and I think one of the coolest things as the game introduces these mechanics is that the game never just pops up a little tutorial window and tells you, oh, this is a circle. Inside here, gravity reverses again. So they don't do that.

It just makes it not even necessarily super clear what you're supposed to do. But all of a sudden you realize, I can't get to this platform. And then it's like, wait, what's that giant circle? We haven't seen any of those before. Maybe I can jump into it. And then all of a sudden you boost your body and then you realize, oh, that's what it does. So the game never holds your hand. But at the same time, they don't just introduce things that are impossible to understand. I think everything in the game is rather intuitive.

I kind of feel like good games like Rocket League, they're easy to understand and hard to master. And I think this game kind of brings that in spades. If I wanted to be a little bit nitpicky of what I think they left on the table, they did not work in the character's heights enough because Ib is very clearly shorter than Ob, but that's really only used that I can remember twice in the whole game. That's twice, yeah, I think. Yeah, like there's one little area where a sea urchin is going to roll over a character, and if Ib stands in this little notch, it'll go right over him, and Ib still gets hit straight in the head. So there's like only one or two instances of that i thought for sure we were going to get more

parts where that was going to come to matter and uh it never actually did i was overthinking that a lot too i was like oh that's a little bit higher over there i'll bet i'm supposed to do that it's like no it didn't we just never really did that you know um yeah how how long did it how long did you guys look at your little buddies the little bouncy balls and think what am i supposed to do with these things only to realize that they really didn't have a purpose oh i just smashed them yeah i was like oh look they squish when you land on them okay we're supposed to squish these things yeah i figured they did end up serving a utility late in the game, but yeah, maybe that's one of the few things

we won't spoil here. All right, well, we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back with some more Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags.

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and I thought I was doing something most people didn't do. I opened Ibn Ab, and the game tells you if you're playing on PC, one person can use WASD and the other one use the arrows. And I was like, oh, I wonder how this game works. And I just started controlling both characters. And the beginning is so easy that it was easy enough even for me to do on the first try but then i did end up watching some videos on youtube and there are people that will use the dual sticks on a controller or on a pc by themselves and they beat the whole game which really kind of breaks my brain thinking how someone can multitask and finely tune timing for all of that that seems crazy to me i could imagine people that people that play elden ring on bananas too

there's just some different breeds of people out there like playing ibn ab solo i think would be almost akin to that it like we'll get into some of that here in just a little bit, but I cannot imagine trying to play this entire game solo. Absolutely not. I did read a couple reviews from when this game first came out, and Game Informer said, this is not better with a friend. It's only play with a friend. Yeah. And I think we would all agree with that.

Yes, sure. You can play it single player. That is hard mode, but I don't think you'll have as much fun it's gonna drain the fun out of it and i think it's gonna become work all right so we uh we i think we kind of touched on this but just to maybe solidify here do you think that this game is okay to play remotely on steam or do you have to be on the same couch i i would prefer to play it on the same couch but i would i would be totally fine with playing it remotely. Yeah. I mean, Paul, you and I did play it remotely. I thought it was perfectly fine.

You know, I mean, there's always something to be said for being next to somebody in person, but as far as from playing this game, is anything lost by not sitting next to the person? I don't think so. The only thing that I would add is because there's such a shortage of games that you can play couch co-op, if you're going to play remotely with a buddy, maybe play a different game and save this one for when you do go over because you can't play a lot of games

couch co-op these days. That's a really good point. Now, Josh, do you remember when we tried playing co-op Cuphead? Yes. And it was with the Steam play together or whatever it's called it was terrible if you have the tiniest bit of lag in a game like that it completely falls apart and it's impossible to play which you did encounter yeah we sure did and we gave up

we stopped playing it multiplayer because it was too hard online with ibn, I would say a good 95% of the game doesn't require super fine-tuning that jump time and things like that. There are a couple of occasions where that does come into play, but for the most part, I thought it played pretty well. The way that they kind of try to make up for it is you can grab your mouse and move it around, and it'll draw a little line on the screen so if you want you can kind of like show okay jump through here and then bounce up here and you can draw it with your mouse but i do think this game would work rather better on the same couch so on the playstation you use the left stick to move around the right stick is what draws that line and so you don't know what it is and i'm like is is my character farting this color?

What is he doing? That's what I said to Paul. Yeah. I was like, how are you doing that? Right. And I'm looking at this and I'm like, what am I supposed to do with this line? And I look and I'm like, I think this is so that if we can't talk to each other, we show each other what to do with that little line. I'm like, so many of this game, because like Paulul said earlier it doesn't spell out what to do with these things

you just got to figure it out and that was part of it by the way when you mentioned earlier the lag issue like if you were to play not on the couch co-op guys i just that's why i died so much at bro force i had more lag than you guys had nobody else said that that's what it was for me and josh it's my we're always talking about how fast my internet too is so it's impossible oh yeah yeah the lag did not force michael to shoot the uh fire extinguisher directly in front of him and us you know i don't think that's like or run straight off the cliff or uh yeah yeah sure it did sure the lag told me to do it guys it's all whispered in my ear.

Oh, how funny. All right, so I do have two quotes here that I wanted to read you guys, just as we kind of wrap things up before we move into our normal segments here to end the show. But in talking about the difficulty curve, I thought that both of these quotes were kind of interesting, and it kind of shows the two sides of the same coin. So this first quote is from pc gamer the puzzles start pleasantly is that the word pleasingly pleasant pleasing it's not pleasantly that's not what they wrote it's it's pleasingly which i have never said in my life all right the puzzles start pleasingly enough and slowly scale up in complexity until they are as brain bending as anything in portal two.

In fact, portal two is a good comparison. Almost every puzzle in Ibn Ab requires both of you to help each other. And the cerebral puzzling is mixed with some very satisfying momentum mechanics. Do you guys agree with that? Yeah, absolutely.

I would say that the first, how many levels there is 15 levels right uh something like that 15 or 16 i don't know if this is considered a spoiler well and eight eight secret levels as well wait what yeah there's there's hidden levels oh you didn't find any of the secret you didn't find any michael you're you're pulling my leg aren't you no no absolutely not secret levels how do you oh and they're harder they're secret you gotta find them michael i don't want to do secret levels now oh my goodness i did not know you guys are kidding right come on we are not joking i'm not april first okay well i gotta go back then um but anyways so the first 13 levels kind of remind me of like an old game

called bubble bobble on the nes anybody ever plays your little tiny dragon it's like there's pleasant music and and kind of chillax and you're just you're just chilling out trying to solve these puzzles the last two levels i can tell you where those two levels can go and i can't say on this podcast he double hockey sticks is it he double hockey sticks? They were hard. Yeah. But it was good hard, though, but it was hard at the end. It definitely does ramp up. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, I thought that Portal 2 was an interesting comparison, because even though you're not using any portals, the fact that it is still physics-based, but it's also 2D, which I think innately makes it easier than Portal 2.

But I think that it is kind of a good comparison. Now, here is what Game Informer said, which I thought was also interesting. Early levels regularly introduce new gimmicks. For example, stay close to your partner to light up a dark level. Or gameplay elements, bounce pads, new enemies, etc., and clever new puzzles. But the creativity starts to peter out in the late stages. Rather than introducing new puzzles that further test your problem-solving abilities, it presents basic platforming sections that task you simply with dodging enemies. Instead of

feeling satisfied after conquering a brain-teasing gravity puzzle, I had to memorize tedious enemy patterns. Challenging platforming can be fantastic when done right, but in Ibn Ab, it can feel out of place and half-baked. What starts as a smart puzzle game that features platforming starts to feel like a ho-hum platformer by the end. Boo. Boo, I say. Here's why. I do hear what they're saying. I understand. I understand what they're saying. And this is kind of why I waited to chime in on the difficulty talk on this, because here's the thing with this game. Yes, it starts off easy. The music in this game, because we don't have time to get into the music and the graphics a whole lot. It's beautiful. I found it to be a beautiful game. The music is super cool.

One level I even commented to you, I was like, Paul, this music is my jam. I felt like I was in some weird techno-y alternate universe or something, man. So aesthetically, this game is very pleasing. And it starts off that way, which I think is misleading to a lot of people because they think this is just going to be a chill, kind of trippy co-op experience. And then you get about halfway through the game and you start having to use your brain. And then you go, oh, oh, okay. Well, that wasn't that bad. But then at the end of the game, they put it all together. And these puzzles get hard. I mean, they get hard, man. Paul and I are two smart dudes. And Mike, I'm not leaving you out

on purpose. It's just that I played with Paul. So I don't know how smart you are in this game you know um multiplayer gaming podcast colon two smart dudes and michael who's about half as smart as half of you on your half best i mean we're two very intelligent guys and we were like what the heck are we supposed to do we got in our own way a lot as well. We tried making some puzzles too complicated. I think we actually broke a puzzle in the solution that we weren't supposed to do. Like, no lie. Paul and I had the most amazing timing jump ever made where I jumped off of him while he was falling past me, jumped off his head and made it to a ledge. And then from then on, we're like, wow, these puzzles are hard. So then the next time I'm like well i gotta jump off

your head again and we finally broke down and i will admit we did google the answer to this one puzzle because we could not figure it out because we were trying to do what we did before which was almost like a glitch you know but then we saw the solution we're like we're idiots we made that way harder than it needed to be was it one of the parts where you have to like slingshot around a few times like and jump cleverly well that was the problem we were forcing we were forcing a massive like gravity loop where one of us would get on a high ledge and then hit a jump pad and then josh at the bottom would do like a serpentine move and then shoot out the portal up to the top and then all the way to the left and land on

another jump pad that I would run to. And finally, that's why we started on the wrong foot. Like we started off with, okay, clearly Josh has to do this serpentine move. And we were so hyper-focused on that, that we completely missed the fact that oh you just boost one person to the right and the other person just stands on this pad and they can shoot all the way to the right and the level ends and so it was just so funny that just by having the wrong step one we wasted a good 20 minutes and that's when we broke down said all right let's check youtube and then we just could not stop laughing guys steven and i did the exact same thing like we're looking at this and and i'm like there's got to be like what do we do here like this is getting ridiculous and i think that was the one time we broke down and we're like we have to look because we were not going to do it

it's like level 13 or something too like it's late in the game and we were like we're not going to do it. It's like level 13 or something, too. Like, it's late in the game. And we were like, we're not going to look it up. And it was like we had to. And we felt so dumb. We felt so dumb. Yeah. This game will do that to you. All right. Well, that shares a little bit about what we think about Ibn Ab.

Josh, you got a couple community reviews to read? I do. As we always do with every deep dive, we always like to give other opinions on the games that we cover. We're going to give our opinions here in just a little bit but we like to kind of say hey what what does the community think what are some of the negative reviews what are some of the positive reviews and so i always pull a few of those so this first one is not recommended this person has three and a half hours on record which is not quite enough to beat the game i would say this is not a long game but maybe, a little bit past halfway, maybe.

So they say, it has a cute style, and this game is fun and a nice casual co-op at first. But once you get into the difficulty ramp-ups, and I think it is too hard if you are looking for a game to play with people who are casuals, which is what I wanted from this game. So this guy basically got to where it gets difficult and went, that's not what I was looking for. And then just said, that's not for me. We're not joking when we say some of these puzzles are hard, man. They're not unsolvable by any means, especially if you're willing to just try a lot of different things.

But there is a significant ramp up in your ability to solve these puzzles easily. I never felt like it was punishing. Right, exactly. It was more just, were we overthinking it, or we're so stupid we didn't see that solution right in front of us kind of thing. Yeah, I never felt like it was out of grasp. Like, oh, I wish I studied physics more and I could solve this puzzle. None of it reaches that level.

Yes, it does. That stupid bubble part. The stupid bubble jumpy part where I'm like, stupid bubble jumpy. Legitimately, if I play this game again, I'm going to throw my controller again at that part. Alright, this next one is recommended seven hours on record, so

that's about what I would say. They beat the game. And it says, incredible and cute puzzle game. You can play it alone, but I'd honestly advise to play with a teammate. The co-op is much better and funnier some puzzles are a bit tough sometimes but a good teamwork can solve any of them it's a typical ps3 indie game original fun cute and relaxing just awesome if you want to have a great time i strongly recommend it 10 out of 10 amen i mean i don't disagree yeah it's uh there's not a ton of games like this anymore. And,

and the, the, their kind of reference to the typical PS three indie game was a good, uh, a good throwback to that. I couldn't, I was surprised that it came on the PS three. Cause when I searched for it on PlayStation,

they're like, it's not on PS three or PS four or PS five. And I'm like, okay, I guess I'll play it on the computer on the decks. And then I found it in like the, you know, if you have like this PS plus, you can play any PlayStation three game for streaming it. I'm like, okay, I guess I'll play it on the computer on the Dex. And then I found it in like the, you know, if you have like this PS Plus, you can play any PlayStation 3 game for streaming it. I'm like, okay.

Yeah. Older than I thought. All right. This next one is recommended 3.3 hours on record. And it says, this game is a delight. It's simple and challenging in just the right amounts. Most of the puzzles stumped us when we first encountered them, but only for a few moments. Never long enough to feel frustrating. It's a cycle of wee!

What? Aha! Wee! Verbatim. That's our review next time. That's what the review says. I love it. This isn't something I would normally praise, but I also appreciate the lack of a backstory

or anything like that. You just drop in and go. It gives the game an admirably, an admirable clarity of focus. Ib, ob, and things that make Ib and ob pop. What more do you need?

Good stuff. Yeah, that's a good point. Like, can you imagine if they had some kind of cut scene and Ib and ob have a third friend named, I don't know, knob or something that got kidnapped and you're trying to get them? It would be so stupid like i

do love literally they just tell you these are the buttons and it's not even really four buttons on pc it's actually three because up and down both just jump and that's all they tell you and then you just start playing it's great that'd be like that'd be like a comparison overcooked like why do we have the meatball story with the oh Oh, just let us solve the puzzles, you know? Like, why is this here? The worst part of Overcooked is mashing the button, trying to skip all the cutscenes. So yeah, good point.

All right, this last one is not recommended. 5.8 hours on record. This game started off really fun as a co-op game with my partner, but by level 11, you need a third player. No walkthroughs on youtube explained how to do it with just two people on pc this is funny because they thought like we need a third person to solve this and it's like no you just you know you just didn't solve the puzzle that's funny all right okay So that is some of the reviews from the community.

Now we play a little game where we try to guess the overall community rating for this game. We use the Steam score system of 0% to 100%. Who won last time? I think it was Paul. Paul was back in the winner's column. All right, Paul. So you're guessing first. All right.

I think this is going to be relatively high high but i don't think it's going to be like overwhelmingly positive or anything like that my gut just says 89 and i'm going to stick with it 89 okay all right michael you have no idea um can i buy a vowel sorry michael has been playing a lot of Wheel of Fortune on PC lately. He did tell us. He didn't mention that to me. Yeah, it was in the Squadcast. So, yeah, by the way, just, yeah, you can access the Squadcast if you, MultiplayerSquad.com, not MultiplayerPlayerPodcast, but for nonsense.

Michael wants R-S-T-L-N-E. I do. Show him which ones are up there. Yes. I want to give it a, I don't want to do this to Paul, but I also do want to do it to Yes. I want to give it a... I don't want to do this to Paul, but I also do want to do it to Paul. I want to give it an 88.

Ooh, I like it. I never do those where I go one below. I did that one time and I felt really bad about it. So since I have no idea, I just want to win. I won. I got a taste of victory one time, two games ago, and I want it back. Oh, I really hope Josh wrote down 87.

It would be fantastic. I actually wrote down 89%, which you stole from me, Paul. And so since Michael didn't want to admit to being devious, I'm going to sandwich Michael so he has no chance of winning this, and I'm going to say 87%. Sorry, Michael. Is that how it it works can we check the bylaws the so uh that would be the most adorable sandwich ever the actual on this game is 91 percent oh over the 90s which means that paul you again. Don't call it a comeback. Don't call it a comeback.

I've been here for years. I'm rocking my pants. You know what's hilarious is the number I was going to pick was 91. Like, no joke. I was like, 91. I'm like, no, I want to be devious. Sure you were, Michael. Yeah.

Yeah. So one time I was devious. Well, it is your right to take us into this next segment. Oh, boy. All right. Are Ivanov humans? segment. Oh, boy. All right. Are Ib and Ob humans? I don't know who to hit on. I would totally hit on Ob if I was Ib.

Fair enough. All right. Let's hit that music. Hey there, Ob. Do you like raisins? How do you feel about a date? All right. This segment is called make love marry

or murder this is where all three wow i get to keep it i get to keep introducing this segment guys i feel like i've been doing it every week all right all three of us give this game our individual rating is it marriage material where you would say marry is it a game that you can have some fun but you don't want to commit to it long term? Or maybe it's only worth getting on sale? Then that would be Make Love. Or is it murder material where we do not recommend it at all? I'm happy to go first. I'm going to say, as much as I did enjoy it, it is price dependent.

For us, getting it at $2.39, yeah, that's an absolute steal. Absolutely. That is marriage. Everyone should play it. The game is short. Josh and I played three sessions that were like 90 minutes each. So it is rather short. And this game does normally go for $11.99 for one copy.

I think that might be a bit too much. You can do $13.99 for a double pack where you get to send one copy to a friend but it's not like a guest copy you just gift it to one person and they're the only one that gets it so i'm gonna say that if it's full price it's make love if it's on sale it's mary if you're gonna force me to say one or the other i I would say make love, but as high of make love as it can be. It's like engaged. Yes. Engage it.

And then maybe, maybe you run at the altar. You know, maybe that's, that's what I'm going to do. Runaway bride. Yeah. Runaway bride.

That's my rating. We don't get to name drop Richard gear movies very often on this show, but we just did it. No good way. Good old runaway bride. this show, but we just did it. No. Good old Runaway Bride. Haven't seen that one in a while. Right. Probably for good reason.

What about you, Michael? What's your rating? This is a magical game. It's magical in so many different ways. Not often do you come across a game that you can play with your dad, if you're like me in your mid-40s, your friends, your wife, and your children. Anybody at any age really can play this game. And I think at, what did you say, $11.99, the price point?

Yeah. I'm still absolutely marrying this game at that price point. I think that it's just, it was magical. I don't even know how to explain it, except for it was magical. The puzzles are, everything about it it gets increasingly difficult as you go but not unmanageable and when i was complaining earlier about the last two levels being really hard it's a short game you can make the last two levels super hard you know give me a strong

challenge uh i did find it a little bit annoying that one guy's comparison of a platformer, there was a couple parts at the end where I felt like it was a little bit aggressive platformer, and there wasn't really a puzzle in there. But aside from those two minor gripes, I had so much fun with this game. I will absolutely play it again. I can't wait. I don't remember all the puzzles. So if somebody comes over, I can play it with my wife if I want to. Or if just a buddy of mine comes over in a year, and I'm like, you know? So if somebody comes over, like, or I can play it with my wife if I want to, or if just a buddy of mine comes over in a year and I'm like, let's play a couch co-op, I got a good one.

And I think for that reason, even at $11.99, I think it has pretty strong replayability. And I think for that, I just, I gotta marry it. And I'll play it again. All right, fair enough. Josh? I love a pleasant surprise. Having never even heard of this title until we were forced to play it. You know what I mean? I had no idea what to expect. The first time I played this game, I played it with my daughter because I said,

hey, I want to boot this game up and you have to play it with me. So we just shared the keyboard and played together for the first two levels. I mean, she plays games, but it was instantly we both knew exactly what to do. I love the ease of just dropping into this game. Michael, you mentioned it with your dad. Anybody can pick this up and play it, which is a rarity these days. I found the aesthetics of this game to be super pleasing. Like I said, the graphics and the music are great. I think for me, this is an easy Mary, honestly. Even at the $13.99 price point, that's two people. And I actually just looked up. I have 5.2 hours of playtime and we beat the game. So two people that get five hours of entertainment shared together for $13 is a no-brainer for me as well.

I understand the thought process that sometimes this game can be difficult. There's no way my youngest daughter would have wanted to finish this game with me. You know what I mean? Because she would have just gotten frustrated and left at that point. But she could play it with me. So I really enjoyed this, man. It actually kind of surprised me at that, but I loved every minute that I got to play this game. So for me, it's a Mary. Okay. Nice. Yeah. So two Marys and one Runaway Bride. We are not making that an official category.

Yes. Oh, no, it's coming. It's coming. All right. Well, we have one last segment here let's go to our leaderboard and see where this game stacks up all right in case anyone is new to the show and isn't aware we have an overall master leaderboard where we rank every game that we do a deep dive episode on if you want to check it out it's at multiplayerpodcast.com guys we have now covered 87 games i feel like this number just keeps getting so much higher so fast time goes quick it's crazy it's like we it's like every time we do a deep dive we add one more to it it's crazy i know so uh as opposed to make love marry or murder. Yeah, the two

smart guys in my quote quote Einstein. So basically, whereas make love marry or murder is an individual rating, the leaderboard, we have to come to a three person consensus. How do we rank this against everything else to give you a couple of placeholders? We've got stuff on

here like Apex Legends at eight. We've got Resident Evil of uh placeholders we've got stuff on here like apex legends at eight we've got resident evil village at 33 we've got uh keep talking and nobody explodes at 50 we have fall guys at 78 so on and so forth so what are you guys thinking about this one here like where where are you where are you thinking what kind? This one's tough. I'm having a really hard time with this one, to be honest. I mean, I know I just talked this game up. I married it. Broforce is 38. See, I looked at Broforce, but then I looked at Risk of Rain,

because that's a good co-op type game. Completely different in nature, but hey, that's a cooperative game. Risk of Rain has infinite replayability oh it does for sure but that's what that was my thought is well i can't put it above risk of rain which is sitting at 24 um and then i look in the 30s or early 40s and it's kind of like okay broforce does come to mind tribes Tribes of Midgard, I don't... That game could move lower for me. What about Keep Talking at 50? And see, that's the thing.

Again, Keep Talking, I think, has a higher high for sure. But I can't just... I mean, I could just pick up and play with somebody, but it's not as easy at the same time. It's my party game. So that's why... This one's tough for me. And normally, I have a number in mind, but I don't. So what do you guys... same time it's my party you know so that's why i'm this one's tough for me and normally i have

a number in mind but i don't i don't so what do you guys i feel like we just had almost this exact same conversation with dungeon defenders like it was very similar it's like hey you can go in it's a quick game it's a lot of fun um i don't i don't know which one's better i mean i think i think comparing it to broforce but i look at number 34 for instance deep rock galactic and i'm like i'd rather play this game than deep rock galactic just because it's fresh it's so unique and so different and the the ability to do a couch co-op is just i maybe i'm spoiled by it because it was so much fun in that aspect so i don't know where to put it but i think maybe like 34 or 30 or right next to dungeon

defenders at 29 or 27 or 28 where are you at with this paul you were the lowest of the three of us but not by much uh it's funny that we're all in the same spot because i think we all love the game but the simplicity and the shortness is kind of what makes it tough right i would have trouble putting this above the likes of like far cry 5 and rim world even lost arc for all its faults you get so much out of that game for free so for this one i would have trouble putting it above broforce but i'd be fine having it in the worst 30s into the better 40s since we never know how to describe numbers i i would late 30s early 40s yes somewhere in there um which coincidentally is all of us see what we did there oh you got it right late there oh i forgot you guys are the smart ones on this show of course you got it right yep oh I forgot you guys are the smart ones on this

show of course you got it multiplayer gaming podcast two old guys and Paul that's right honestly I have no heartburn

at putting it like at 39 right in between Broforce and V Rising I'm not gonna lie in my when I was

giving that range I was thinking if anyone says 39 I'm just gonna say that's fine with me. I think that works for me, too, to be honest. It's not too low for you, Josh? It's not, because I'm very torn on this one, which I never am on the leaderboard.

Honestly, I've usually always got something in mind, but I could make arguments for ranking it near Dungeon Defenders in the 20s, the 30s, or the 40s. Honestly, I could argue each of that. I don't think that this game will be as widely loved as some of the other games, even though I think there's just something to be said for its approachability and the low price and the co-op nature of it. But 39, I think, is a really good landing spot for it. Part of me in my head is like, I want to put this in the top 20 because it was refreshing. It's new. It's a great couch co-op,

but I can't do that in good conscience because it is short. And if you do play it a couple times, you're going to know the puzzles and it will lose its allure really fast. So I think we're in a good spot. Plus you look at top 20 and it's like, how do you argue this game

by bumping out something like Terraria, Stardew Valley? Oh, there's no way. You can can't it's not too hard to bump out stardew valley all right but that being said that wraps up today's deep dive uh we do want to say you kick me i kick you back fair enough all right smart guys don't you be bad talking stardew valley michael right all right so uh yeah to let you guys. Don't you be bad talking Stardew Valley, Michael. Right. All right. So, yeah, to let you guys know out there, you know, we do want to say thank you once again to Marble Madness for going legendary and picking this game. We want to say thank you to all of the rest of our Patreon supporters and for everyone for listening. Do please check out our Patreon page for those extra episodes by also helping out our show.

That's MultiplayerSquad.com. And you can toss us a follow on socials everywhere at MultiplayerPod. And then our next deep dive is going to be in two weeks, and that will be on the game Forspoken, which we are all currently playing. And we hope that you'll come back on Thursday when we break down recent gaming news. So until you join us next time, happy gaming, everybody. Cheers, all. All right. See you, everybody.