Video Gamers Podcast - Indie RV There Yet, Escape From Duckov, Dispatch and Absolum - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace are diving into the world of indie creativity with four standout titles — RV There Yet, Escape From Duckov, Dispatch, and Absolum. From chaotic road trips to daring escapes and emotional storytelling, these games show just how bold and inventive the indie gaming scene has become. We break down what makes each of these video games special, how they push boundaries, and why they’re making waves among fans of fresh, experimental design. If you love gaming that surprises and challenges you, this is one episode you don’t want to miss. Tune in for another deep dive into the heart of indie video games on The Video Gamers Podcast!   -RV there Yet https://store.steampowered.com/app/3949040/RV_There_Yet -Escape from Duckov https://store.steampowered.com/app/3167020/Escape_From_Duckov/ -Dispatch https://store.steampowered.com/app/2592160/Dispatch/ -Absollum https://store.steampowered.com/app/1904480/Absolum/       Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder and Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/WraYzbpx 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

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Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome back to the video gamers podcast. This week in indie gaming, we're hitting the road, dodging ducks and descending into the depths of horror one last time. I am your host, Ace, and joining me, he's taking this podcast off-road on an RV trip of our lives, and, oh God, oh, God, look out! That's a bear! Observer! It's Josh. Is this the cocaine bear? I've seen this guy before.

Watch out, man. Yeah, I didn't know where you were going with that one, but, uh, dude, I, A, A, you don't remember the bears? Oh, I remember the bears. I'm going to say this, Ace, because you know, bro, this might be the best list of into games I've ever seen you come up with. Ooh, that is a little spoiler, a little spoiler. And a reason to stick around.

Yeah. And he is our last hope, the only person we can count on to hunt these folklore monsters, which with his hunting reputation means we're all doomed. It's Ryan. Wrecked, Ryan. Oh, my God. Maybe he should play this game to get better. You know, I'll tell you what, that's why they call it hunting and not killing. I do a whole heck of a lot of hunting guys.

I can find the animals. I can't ever get them. thing, man. That was great, Ace. Shots fire. You gotta make them fun, man. Well, anyways, thanks for joining the video game podcast. That was Ace's last episode. I was saying, that was

my final episode. Didn't even make it to December. Guys, what a week it has been for indie games. I know we say that a lot. I know I sound like a broken record. Every time I come on an indie episode, I'm like, indie games are the greatest. But

genuinely, these might be some of the biggest indie releases this year, not counting something like Soxong. Yep. I mean, you, you guys heard of all of these. Like, I didn't even have to tell you about most of these. I have heard of already heard about them. Yeah, which, yeah, I mean, which does not happen.

Well, I say that. I don't know if we're going to have time to get to your little indie horror showcase that you put together, Ace, because there's way better games that we're going to talk about. So I've heard of all the really cool games, except for those weird indie horror games. That's fair. Yeah. We do have some indie horror here. on the end, we're going to try to get in.

But if we run out of time, we run out of time, you probably had enough horror for me anyway. Yeah, honestly. Like we've all had enough horror to last us a lifetime. But starting off, we're going to look at RV there yet,

which we had the pleasure of watching some of our, our community members play in a Discord call. What is the best way you could describe this game, Josh? I feel like this is kind of like, think Breaking Bad and the RV

from Breaking Band and you're just going on a trip in the RV minus the methamphetamine lab you know but all the smoking yes all the smokers you can handle in and short little fat like Danny DeVito looking look alike like type characters that are just chain smoking for no reason whatsoever dude this is the funny part to me ace you would put together a a community night for dead by daylight there was a lot of people that wanted to play it you were teaching people how to play which was awesome. Before the night started, it was Jigglepuff

and another member, Kwondale, that were playing the game. And everybody was so interested in watching them play this game. We were late to the start the community night because people were like,

what is this game? Oh, you're fixing the air. Watch out for the bears. Oh, no, they got killed by snakes. Oh, the RV fell apart. But everybody was just watching this going like, we were invested, man. oh i was dude we did not want to stop i was for sure i hopped in and then i saw jiggle was streaming a game

and i'm like wait what is he already in uh you know a game and then i look and he's playing the the rv game and i look and there's just this little man he reminds me of uh the movie up little russell yes yes that's it yeah yeah definitely yeah yeah so uh mr frederickson you know that guy and in he's just chain smoking at the table in the rv and drinking beer and chain smoking and i'm like what is this game and then they're like no turn right no turn left and then the RV like rolls over and stuff and no there there seems to

be a lot there I just think I think these styles of games are really I don't know man they just keep bringing out these bangers that are unique and different and they just hit man I love it it's a very simplistic game I mean the whole thing is you're taking this RV from the bottom

of a mountain to the top but it's not a straight path and you're going to have to navigate it with your friends the RV falls apart there's all sorts of variables and things you can come across set up the winch set up the winch get the bear spray guys

this game has already sold 1.3 million copies I remember hopping in and saying what is this game and Jigalpuff was like it's an RV roguelike and I went bro come on and he was like no really and I'm like no really like come on he's like no that's what it is like you have to try to

like get to the top of this mouth. And I just remember asking, the first thing I asked was like, so if you, if you don't, do you have to start all over? You know, and I was like, is this peak all over again, but like in an RV? And then I, like I said, I joked around, but I'm, like, I just instantly got invested in watching them try to like, you know, Quondale Dingle was, was driving this thing. And, you know, he's, he's, he's shift by the way. He's a younger listener. So it was like, you know, people were asking like, do you know, how to drive a stick and he's like yeah i do and we were like all right dude and he was doing a great job and then he was running around repairing stuff jiggle puffs fixing things he's

getting getting out like jumping around snakes because the snakes will kill you everything in this game's trying to kill you and it just looked like fun man like i i would actually play this game guys like i was actually i was excited to look at it too like you see it and you're like oh maybe i think i think i may check that out i was absolutely flabbergasted to find out you have to drive stick i will say that that episode it's like who drive stick anymore but you know i'm right there with you this game looks

great you know from an outside looking in you think oh just another four player you know proximity check co-op game but there's clearly something very special and fun about this almost kind of reminds me of uh remember when we played chain together yes a very similar experience to that where you just have to work together to get

up a difficult path no i don't guys no i don't oh did Ryan he had to chain together oh yeah I don't remember chain together? No, I didn't. I didn't get to play with you. I mean, this game just released a few days, a week ago. It sold one point, would you say, 1.3 million copies.

Yeah, 1.3 million copies. It is a co-op multiplayer game. You are working together. It is hilarious. It is silly. It's got the right vibes to this kind of game. Sand smoking. Don't smoke people.

It's gross. Just don't, don't do that. But you think it looks cool, but it doesn't. But it's sitting in a very positive review score, 85% out of 5,000. 749 reviews like and it's $8 man I was saying it's a cheap game too what more can you ask for from a fun little game

like we talk about this all the time and I know that I'm hard on a lot of these games but this game has that angle right it's it has something that makes it a little bit different and as insane and silly as it sounds to drive this RV like it's a fun gameplay loop and it's cost effective eight bucks to have even one quality night

cheaper than a movie you spend two three hours with your friends and have a good laugh like you've already you know you made your money back like you're good yeah you've absolutely made your money back just some one game night which is what we always say like even if you just get a little bit of enjoyment out of it if you didn't pay that much you basically got you got your money's word yeah but moving on to escape from duck of you know I love me an indie game where you play as an animal

specifically rats, but this time I'll accept ducks. This is a PVE top-down extraction looter shooter, which is a lot of big words, I know, but it is clearly playing off of, you know, the pun escape from Tarkov. However, the biggest difference is there is no PVP in this game, which is very odd for me for an extraction shooter. What do you think of this one, Ryan? For me, I don't know.

I've seen a lot of people talking about it. I think it looks kind of, I guess, cute, if you will. It's something different. I'm sure it's enjoyable. I don't particularly like if I'm going to play an extraction shooter, that PVP element that's always looming is part of the enjoyment, is part of the stress. You know, that's why you play. People who like to play extraction shooters, that's what they want out of it.

I think it looks cool. I think the color in art design and stuff is really neat and unique. And some people have liked it, you know, it's overwhelmingly popular. positive reviews, probably not one for me, but maybe escape from Ratopia. That's when we can do it. I will say what you're saying is very much what people have been parroting. Okay. Was that they didn't think extraction could work without PVP.

And then they played the game and they, they think they're wrong. Really? Okay. Yes. Hey, maybe I'm wrong. I got to watch, I got to watch Red Letter play this game for a solid probably like 20 minutes or so. He was streaming it. We were waiting on community night or something. I can't remember what we were waiting

for, but I got to watch him stream this. And dude, this game looks great. Like, legitimately, it's like, it is, graphically it's very pretty. The mechanics are sound. It's responsive. Like, you have to be careful. The enemies are actually pretty good. Like, you take damage. It's risky. You can't get overwhelmed. Like,

This is one of those games where I think this could easily be the, like, kind of chill game that you wind up just playing to pass some time. It's very well done. It is absolutely ripping off escape from Tarkov. I mean, even down to the looting where it's like you loot something and it's got the little, like, progress bars before it unveils something like, you know, the loot, similar to Arc Raiders for people that have played that, that maybe haven't played Escape from Tarkov. everything about this game just looks fun dude like and even Joe like he was talking about it and he's like it's not escaped from Tarkov but he's like I am having a blast playing this game and I had fun watching him I'm like dude you get different weapons you get armor there's upgrades there's progression like I mean it's got a little bit of everything and again overwhelmingly positive 95% reviews on steam tells you

something like people are absolutely loving this game man like do you think people do you think though like it's going to be because what was the one that was like battlefield battle bit battle bit uh battle yeah that was multiplayer based yeah but like uh you know it's kind of something different and it blew up for a month

and then it disappeared do you think this will be kind of like that where it's like oh everybody likes it for you don't you get your money's worth out of it because this is not like a live service game this is I mean it's this game is 15 dollars on sale right now normal price is $18 you know and it seems like it has a lot of content to me again it seems polished the gunplay because i even asked is this like a twin stick shooter you know and he was like yeah kind of i mean

he's like but everything just feels good when you're playing this game so this is one i think could again be that like i just want to kick back have fun play a game that's easy to get into but it's challenging enough has enough stuff to keep me interested it looks fun man i think it's a great like entry level game for the PV extraction genre. Because if you're like nervous about getting into extraction because you're like, I don't want to lose all my stuff, maybe this could like soften the blow. But this game's only been out for two weeks.

I want you to give me a guess. How many copies do you think it's sold? Oh, I see this everywhere. I'm going to guess, I'm going to guess a million. I'm going to guess like $750. Two million copies sold. Two million? That's a million.

in a week. That's some Buku Bucks there. I've heard nothing the good things about this game, man. Like, legitimately. And seeing it with my own eyes, like, it looks well done. Like, it looks fun. Goofy visuals, tight mechanics, good time is what I get from this. Guys, I'll take a game.

Like, I feel like we could do this. You're so confident. And then once we start, we'll be like, why did we ever do this? This is just like Devon. We'll be just like Devin's and you're like, yeah, it's a miserable experience, but I'm dedicated to it. I'm a masochist, you know. I'm a masochist. I'm dedicated to it now.

Okay. A segue very quickly. Think about all the like the very famous streamers that have tried to like make a game studio. Like, you know, Dr. Disrespect tried to make his game. You had a shroud that made his game that, you know, failed miserably. Like, you know, now they're trying to make competitive shooters, which is a very saturated market. But man, sometimes. you just have to make a game that's simple

and fun and hope that you sell a million copies because if you do I mean, bro, two million copies at 18 bucks apiece this dude's $36 million richer now, man. That's so much money. We're making a game with Docs about Tarkov. Like, what the heck?

Oh, dude. It's funny that you mention creators making games, though, because this next game coming up, we've talked about it before, is Dispatch released its first two episodes this is a game made by former telltale devs but also they are being kind of helmed by critical role of all people which for those who don't know critical role is one of the biggest d and d podcast of all time helmed by all your favorite voice actors quite frankly if you have a favorite voice actor they've probably been on critical role at some point yep dispatch is a narrative driven game where you play as a sort of iron man ripoff character who lost lost his super suit has ended up behind the desk of a dispatch operation where you are converting

villains to heroes in this thing called the Phoenix program. And I think that is just a super interesting concept personally. This game is like hot fire guys. People love this game. I remember being wowed by this trailer when it came out and being very excited because again, TellTill knows how to tell a story and get you invested in the characters, dude. I mean, again, if you haven't played the Walking Dead series, that is a must play, in my opinion. And it's one of the few games that have ever made me legitimately cry in a video game.

Like, you know, dispatch, the animation, the art, the voice acting are second to none. I remember seeing this. We've had, we've had members in our community that were very, very excited about it. I didn't know it was coming out. Like, this is just one of those games that somehow got lost in the, like, like the release schedule of all the incredible games that have come out this year. And I don't know if this is true, but I have heard mixed things on dispatch.

I, you know, people that were very, very excited for this that I talked to said, it's good, but I'm not sure I like the episode thing that they're doing. Now, you don't have to purchase more episodes.

I didn't know that at first. But like, why not just release the whole game, man? You know, this isn't a subscription service. like I get well see but but you don't have to pay for there isn't any money Ryan so it's like it's free well and that's the thing right when you if you subscribe to Netflix for instance right

like they do the episodic release so that you have to keep your subscription for two months or three months or whatever binging episodes does not make them more money but if you're buying this game and then you get the other episodes for free why you know what I mean like why do I can tell you why I can tell you why it's to build anticipation Because it's not like you're buying this game, you get the two episodes, you've got to wait a year for the next ones. You're waiting a week. So you're just waiting a week to get your next two episodes to get your next fill of these characters and their world. And it kind of gives you time to just sit on it and think about the things in the story and think about what you've experienced your choices, decide if you want to redo them, you know, things like that.

I think that's what they're kind of going for is to build more of a connection with their narratives. And media traffic, people online talking about it. What do you think the next episode is going to be? You know, it's all money moves, man. I think it may not be monetary to get the next episode, but I think it could get more people to talk about it, which would get more people to buy the game or, you know, what have you. So, I mean, it does, it looks awesome.

I love, I absolutely love the art style. Reminds me a lot of like Into the Spider-Verse type kind of that shell-sat-it- It is top-notch, man. Yeah, it reminds me of invincible. It looks beautiful. I love it. I'm yeah I'm excited to see kind of where this thing goes would you play this right I feel like it looks really good but I don't is this

your kind of game because it's it is it is the gameplay elements are minimal like this is more like you're playing a story yeah it is not I'm not like a story like I love story based games I am a cutscene junkie when I'm playing like an action RPG but a game that there's not a lot of gameplay and I'm just kind of progressing through a story that's not really uh my style but i mean if if you know like they keep releasing these episodes and then the the the height meter goes you know over the top and then i'm like okay maybe i got to check this out maybe i'll see what this is about so i think that's why they're doing it and i think that it's probably smart but also you know i guess we'll we'll see if if it

kind of because i also like you said josh i i've been seeing some people that we're really excited but also felt maybe a little let down on what they anticipated and maybe that's just their expectations that it didn't meet you know but this is the risk man like we talk about the episode thing right

and it's like yes it can pay off if your story gets better and better and better and people at work start talking about it and there's more and more conversation about it but at the same time like if the initial impression is well I'm not blown away by this you know and it's like are the developers going like but you will be don't worry you will be in like four weeks you know but then it's like but is it too

late at that point like has the stick around have you missed the wave you know or does the wave just keep building over the next four weeks because this game winds up being incredible at that point I don't know it's risky we haven't seen anybody else to do this man so I'm I'm interested to see how it turns out I'm hoping for the best for dispatch personally just because it looks amazing dude like watch these trailers people like the game looks insane insane. I just, I don't know. I'm curious. And this doesn't to sound negative. I'm just curious to see where this goes with how they decided to do this release schedule. People seem to be upset that each episode is like 40 minutes worth of playtime. So it's like, you know, you get episode one and two,

or at least so far, but again, that's all we know, right? So it's like, you bought this. You got an hour and a half of gameplay. And then it's like, okay, well, now you got to wait a week, you know? And so it's like, I don't know, man. It's an interesting choice. We'll see what happens with it. we'll see how that pans out for him but uh we will be right back to hit this last one that we have to talk about after this little break all right we are back and we are talking about absalom oh my gosh so i've brought up beat emups before on this show i've tried to look at them and they all look the same absalom does not look the same as other beat them ups It is a roguelike beat them up, which is, you know, it was going to happen eventually.

We make everything a roguelight eventually. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But it is beautifully hand-drawn. It has skill points and permanent progression. It's got all sorts of stuff going on for it. Josh, I want to know what you think, because I remember showing you the Steam page. You were just like, this looks incredible. I remember you saying you wanted to play this game, Ace.

I do, man. I really want to find time to just put some time with this. Ask me, ask me if I want to play this game with you, Ace. Do you want to play this game with me? Yeah? Oh, yeah, all right. We're playing this game then. This game was fantastic, dude.

Oh, my goodness, man. I, again, I don't want this game to get lost, dude. I don't want it to get lost in the Arc Raiders hype and the Battlefield 6 hype and the, you know, like all the other hype for these indie titles that are out right now. But this game looks incredible to me, dude. As somebody that grew up playing Double Dragon and Streets of Rage and. all of these beat-em-ups, these side-scroller Teenage Mutin Ninja Turtles. You know what I mean?

Like battle-todes. Like we grew up playing these games, man. And this genre kind of died for a while. And now you're telling me that I get a side-scroller beat-em-up rogue-like, which I like rogue-likes, even though not every game out there needs to be a rogue-like people. But I think it works for this genre. I do enjoy this genre too.

So I'm not complaining too much. But it's like, bro, Absalom might be. be it, dude. Like, do you know how many players? Is it three player co-op? Is it four? It's two players. It's just two players.

I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's online either. It says local co-op. So this is like couch co-op. Well, sorry, Ryan. Ryan, you want to play? Yeah. Yeah.

I've been abandoned so fast. I'm on my way over, buddy. Ace, you can watch it, dude. I'll say, I'll watch the stream. Is it real? It can't be just local, dude. That would be. Local.

up. That's what it says. It can't be that hard to make online. Okay, listen, Absalom devs, we love you. We're very impressed with what you've made. And honestly, I'm pretty excited about this, but please figure out how the internet works so that people can play together that don't necessarily. No, it says, right here, online co-op.

Okay. Where's you say online? It's on their Steam page. I see local. Right under single player, it says online co-op. I was going to say, okay, I was going to say if you, if you didn't make your game to where it could be online co-op, we have an issue. but now I'm always

you're back in the circle okay you're back in the circle okay I'm back yeah I want to play this game dude I you do not have to twist my arm for me to play this I mean I think this game looks fantastic that if you read the reviews it's beautifully hand drawn

people are talking about the combo system they're talking about the progression they're talking about how good the fighting is how like it's so much fun co-op like everything about this game screams it's going to be fun it's got a ton of polish you need to play it the the reviews on this game are incredible again i mean all these are absolute bangers dude but i mean overwhelmingly positive it's been out for almost a month now it's at 95% beautiful artwork i mean man

it looks it looks so good dude it deserves to have sold more than 200,000 copies in fact i did just wish list this so i don't forget about it nice i'm going to actually do the same thing right now yeah see audience they do wish list which you should take the example of and wish list these games links will be in the description this time it's an 87 on metacritic too yeah yeah we're going to start putting per request and we hear y'all and we like as we see the comments we're going to start putting the list of games in the episode descriptions with the links so you can just go straight to the game check out the trailers wish listed if you want

to um i'm not doing that yeah you are that's a lot of work yeah no man you are kidding i'm kidding it's too bad buddy do it anyway we want to get the people uh onto these games that we talk about this is definitely one that you guys should check out the graphical art style is so freaking beautiful i love i love that that devs are leaning into this style because it doesn't this holds up in 15 years this will still look really good and i love that like so i'm I'm excited. Yeah. So unfortunately, I don't have time to get to any of the horror stuff.

We are looking at. No, no. All right. Well, apparently Ace couldn't handle the excitement of Absalom because his internet died. And, you know, I think he took it a little too seriously when I said that I was going to play with Ryan and not him. So Ace has left us. He's having some technical difficulties. So Ryan and I are going to close out.

the show like the professionals we are you know here here's the thing these indie devs they need your support and as as awesome it is that they are all seeing massive success they still you know it it still helps them plus who doesn't want to play fun video games so again RV there yet escape from duckoff dispatch and absalom are the games that we covered we will have the links in the episode description for all of you um you know check those out we have an awesome episode coming up Monday. We got to interview Yacht Club games, the studio behind Shovel Night and the

upcoming Mina the Hollower. And I'm just going to say that was a very, very fun interview, so it should make for a great episode coming out on Monday as well. That's going to do it for this one, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya.

Peace out. Thank you. Thank you.