Video Gamers Podcast - The Alters [Deep Dive] - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and John take a mind-bending journey through The Alters, the new sci-fi survival thriller video game from 11bit Studios. Join us for a controversy packed episode as we break down what worked and what DO NOT! We dive the video game’s core loop, its emotional storytelling, and the brilliant mechanic of confronting alternate versions of yourself. We also break down our opinions of how indie gaming studios are competing with AAA properties. All the gaming news you need, each and every week from the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, and Phelps Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. The Alters was one of our more anticipated games of the year with an incredible demo that captured our attention to an amazing premise and great presentation. It seems like it was destined for greatness, but did we get it right? On this episode, we're breaking down our thoughts after having played it. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me in one timeline, he's a boss MMA fighter. In another, he's a successful voiceover actor

and impressionist, but in this timeline, he's one of the hosts of the world's favorite gaming podcast, it's Ryan. I, you know, the second you started that, I knew that's where you're going to go with this one. I, I really didn't. I had to put it like a positive spin on this cause it's like MMA fighter voiceover podcast host.

Why'd he get stuck with this life? Right. And joining us, he's been actively trying to create altars of himself but he's having a hard time choosing between pastry chef John or donut shop owner John it's podcast host John as attractive as that sounds I think that one me is probably annoying enough for this world. I Told my wife that and she was like I would I would kill any other versions of you She's like just so you know and I'm like, okay. Well as far as I know

Yeah, and then she kind of looked at me funny and I was like, hey, hey, it's only one of me, baby And then she kind of looked at me funny and I was like, Hey, Hey, it's only one of me, baby. Guys, we, I mean, look, we've been hyping the alters for a long time, man. The demo came out, I don't know. What was it? Like seven, eight months ago, maybe a year ago. It was a long time. I mean, famously, you know, we played the demo.

We went, yo, this game is going to be great. I remember, I think it was Paul way back in the day that found the alters and was like, you guys should try this demo. And I'm like, bro, this isn't, this isn't my kind of game, man, like, I don't know if I'm gonna, and then I played the demo and I was like, this is great. Ryan, I know you played the demo and you were like,

yo, this is great. John, I know you have the demo and you were like, yo, this is great. John, I know you have heard about the alters, like from us just talking about it on the show and all that, but did you get a chance to actually play the demo before just jumping straight into this thing? No, I didn't play the demo. This is one of those games where honestly, if I hadn't heard about it on the podcast,

I probably, it probably would have never crossed my sphere sphere or at least not until it came out free day one on game pass yeah but no I didn't get a chance to play the demo okay so this is one of the things that I love because I you know one of our favorite things in the world is putting games in front of people and just saying hey guys there's this game we're excited about it looks really good famously expedition 33 was one that we were shouting from the rooftops forever and a day. That one panned out, which is great.

But we have seen a lot of people in our Discord server chatting about the alters. I mean, it's getting a lot of praise from people in our community. I know we've kind of built this up and then it's time to play it. I get super excited any time we get to kind of come together and like share our thoughts on this because We have not shared any of our thoughts on this game with each other at all

No, like I know John's been playing it I've been playing it Ryan's been playing it and it's like, you know, we've been talking about which alters we've gotten and things like that But I have no clue what you gentlemen think about this game and I know you guys have no clue what I think about this game either so Let's guys before we get into the actual breakdown of the game What our thoughts on this game are kind of what it is for people that may be unfamiliar with it at this point We do have to thank somebody a A huge shout out to rare supporter of the show that signed up to support this amazing podcast. Butch, we want to give you

a thank you. Thank you, Butch. Butch has been watching our Twitch streams, hanging out every time we stream. Butch is there right away. Just awesome member of the community. So thank you, Butch, for just supporting the show, man, and hanging out with us and having a good time. One of the things that I think people don't realize a lot of times, we're gamers, man. Like we're not, we've always said we are not industry professionals.

We're not journalists where we're like, oh, I'm this fancy game industry journalist. Bro, we're just gamers. And honestly, one of our favorite things in the world is just hanging out with other gamers. Like this is the best thing for us, man. It's why we love our community. Yeah.

I mean, it's why we love our community. It's why we love everybody hanging out on Twitch stream, you know, watching the shenanigans and all that. So thank you to everybody out there for just being gamers with us, man. It's awesome, dude. Alright guys, let's get into the alters. I have a question for you. Okay. I know our hype levels were high going into this, but I kind of want to just like, the game comes

out. What were your hopes for this game? Like the demo, I think gave us a very good look at the game. Was it just, Hey, I wanted more of the demo, John, for you who didn't play the demo. Like I know you kind of went into this not blind, but like almost as blind as somebody can get. Cause I know you said you weren't reading the reviews or anything like that. So what was your hope for this game? My expectations for this game were, were pretty modest. Honestly, it was a game that you guys are a hope for and that there was some buzz for in the discord community And so I had I had interest because of that but I this wasn't like expedition 33 where I had these big lofty expectations for it and I was

Really hopeful and it also wasn't like doom the dark ages where you had hyped me to the point where I was now height It was you know, pretty modest expectations. What I can tell you is, is that there's lots of people, uh, who I've gotten to know very well through the discord community who had said, you know, John, this, this feels like a game you're really going to like. Uh, there's another game that gets mixed arounds in our discord called satisfactory that I also haven't played at this point. But people are like, John, I feel like that's going to like, that's going to scratch an itch for you. And so I was, I was interested because of that. It sounded like there was, you know, a lot of resource management based building and there was kind of like a strong

logic component to it. And so that's's that's primarily where my interest came from. All right, Ryan. What about you buddy? Oh, man. I Since we played that demo, I think it was Paul that got us onto it and and I remember Like when was the last time that you were that psyched for a game after a demo? Like I don't know if you can think of another one But what is another demo That's been that much of Quality that's hyped you up that much for the game. I can't think of another one that I've played in a long time You know remember the old days the demos were like, okay I gotta get this game and that's what this one did for me and

And it just kept the hype train going all the way to release. I was I was so stoked to launch it on day one Yeah, the same for me, honestly. And that's a really good point, dude. I think this demo might be one of the best demos for a game that I have played legitimately. Like we're always diving into like little indie demos and Steam Next Fest demos and things like that. But I'll be honest, like it's rare that a demo I'm like, I am in on this game, man. Like, I don't when this game comes out, I'm like, I am in on this game, man. Like, I don't, when this game comes out, I'm in,

this demo has sold me. And it sold us so much that we really started like, touting it to other people and saying, you guys really should play the demo. The crazy part is they pulled the demo for like a really long time. I understand why places do that, yeah. I don't know why either, unless it's an old build

or they get to something where they're like, well, we've changed this enough or something. So, all right. Let's give a kind of very quick breakdown on what the altars is. Like, what is the premise of this game? I mean, give me the 60 second, you know, version of like, what, what is the altars? If you were trying to explain it to somebody? And they're like, what kind of game is this? to explain it to somebody, and they're like, what kind of game is this? It's basically, you are a builder, you work for a large corporation that you're sent out into space to try to find this mineral.

It's very rare, very valuable, and you crash, your whole crew dies, and from there you have to kind of survive. You have to base build, you have to manage people. So there's a lot of cool factors, kind of almost like a pie of like three where you got to divvy all your kind of attention as you progress through the planet, you know, and kind of follow the story. Yep. John, you got anything to add to that?

No. No? I'll tack on a little bit. I mean, that is that is the premise of it. You there you kind of mentioned it, Ryan. There is a kind of trifecta in this game, in my opinion, where it is you are on the planet and they show all this stuff in trailers. We're not going to get into spoiler territory for people like what we might talk a little bit about maybe a base module that's you know, but there's not going to be any like major spoilers or anything for people. But there is the there's the part of the game where you are exploring the planet, you're looking around, you're finding finding metals and materials and things like that. Then you have your base, which I think is one of the coolest looking bases that I've seen. I would agree with that. Your base is a gigantic wheel, like a bike wheel. Your base is a gigantic wheel, like a bike wheel. It's like a giant Michelin tire. Yeah, and I mean, it's such a simple thing,

but it just looks so neat when you see it. You're like, bro, this is really cool, man. Like how, like it's dumb and how simple it is, but they really did a great job making your base look neat. So then there's the base kind of management part of it. You're constantly trying to build new modules, upkeep things, things break in the base, that kind of management part of it. You're constantly trying to build new modules, upkeep things, things break in the base,

that kind of stuff. And then you have the namesake of the game, which is the altars. We're gonna expand on all that stuff here in just a little bit to kind of break down the gameplay elements. Guys, I'll tell you what, man, we've been keeping this from each other for a while now.

Let's, I want to I want to just Spill the beans man like we'll rate it later for people that want to know like you know What our actual like rating on this game is but? We've been hiding this and I don't want to hide it anymore man. What what did you guys think about this game? What were your overall impressions of this? Did you like it was this a whiff? What were your overall impressions of this? Did you like it? Was this a whiff? Was the demo not quite in what you thought it was going to be when you got to play in

the game? Where are you boys out with this? This game for me was almost the polar opposite of the Midnight Walk, where the Midnight Walk seemed like it was very catered to what my interests are in that it was like kind of whimsical horror, Tim Burton-y sort of thing. And ultimately I felt like that game was sort of soulless, even though like that type of game is a good fit for me. This is the opposite. This game was very well, I think, designed and realized, very well acted, very creative in a lot of ways polished I mean man it's another indie game that's put in triple-a on notice guys but

ultimately it's not for me didn't like it no not for me no what didn't you like about it well there are at the risk of at the risk of sort of adding tinder to a little fire that's going on, I used to own a business and there were parts of that business that were really, really, really fulfilling. And there were parts that were not so fulfilling. And that was specifically that no matter what I did, I couldn't keep everyone happy. And this felt, it triggered all the bad stuff. And like, no matter what. I'm laughing because I know exactly what you mean, man. No matter what I did, there was going

to be somebody who wasn't happy with something. And that, it hurt my feelings. I don't know what. This guy's just making me feel terrible. Yeah, exactly. Like, come on, man. Trying to, you know, like there was some fun elements of like trying to figure out how to speak to each one of your alters and you go like, oh, the technician's kind of a jerk and he wants you to be a jerk to him. And the science, I don't know if this goes into spoilers territory, but there's like certain ways that you talk to certain people that like best succeed in keeping them happy. But no matter what, when I was playing, it just

felt like somebody was nagging me about something. And, uh, and yeah, honestly, I was playing the game and going, wow, this is really well crafted and I hate it so much. But, but there are people that this, this game will like absolutely resonate with. I think this is going to be a game of the year for a certain type of person. Yeah. All right. What about you, Ryan? Oh man. I kind of want to hear what you have to say. Cause I have a feeling, uh, you are along the lines of John, but I personally freaking loved this game. I had every every bit of fun I had with the demo I had and then some with the rest of the game. I thought the world was absolutely beautiful. You talked about

the base. Even they designed it to where you can see the tread marks of the tire in the you know kind of walkways in the, you know, kind of walkways or the place you rolled through, which was awesome. The audio was great. The gameplay, if you're doing it right, and we'll probably come back to that later, was fantastic. I really enjoyed the base building, the management. It was a top notch game for me. I kind of figured that was your take. Cause when you, you, you kept talking about the alters and where you were at in the game and stuff like that. I'm like, Oh, I'm pretty sure Ryan is digging this game right now.

So basically like there's parts just so this isn't really spoilery, but you can kind of reload from previous days. Um, if you need to, if something happens, that's wrong. It's just kind of like reload reloading the save point when I failed in act two pretty deep in I restarted back to like day like eight or something like all the way back early just because I was having so much fun and there were so many things I wanted to do differently just so I could replay so I have like 25 hours in already yeah yeah so for me again you know I I've been saying this forever I did not feel like this was my kind of game. Even Paul was like Josh

I'm really surprised that you like the demo so much because this is not your kind of game I do not like games that feel like work to me. I do not like sim games Dad it and hey every gamer is different, right? That's no shade to a game that people love I mean the Sims to me is one of the most mind-numbing games out there But I get that millions and millions and millions of people absolutely adore the Sims It's just it just doesn't resonate with my brain now the altar is on the other hand I mean, I loved this demo. I start playing it. I am just a kid in a candy store, man I'm having so much fun. I'm

Replaying all the parts of the demo. I cannot wait to see where this game goes. I get my alters, I get my base. I love the base building aspect. I like survival crafting games. I am just having an absolute blast. And then I hit the wall, boys. And then I hit the wall.

And I gotta say, man, we tout a lot lot of games we get excited about a lot of games You know, we're not right all the time You know Man on this game. I think we're right. I think that we hyped this game for the right reasons I think that a lot of people absolutely love this game I think it's masterfully done to be be honest with you, between the presentation, the voice acting, the three different systems between being on the planet, being in your base, managing the altars. It's done so well, but I think I hate it, guys.

There it is. I agree, man. I think I hate this game. I agree. I totally agree with you, dude. This makes me feel so bad because I've been excited. I've been hype in this game. I've been telling everybody it's Altar's release day. Yay. Guys, I got to a point in this game where I failed spectacularly.

I could not keep my alters happy. I was out of minerals. I was out of freaking organics. Like my base is falling apart. Everything is just going to poo. And I'm just like, what the heck, man? So you know what? I said, no, Josh, no, you're gonna like this game.

You've been hyping this game. You're gonna like it. I reloaded a save point, like you said, Ryan, that was about four hours earlier, because I was like, okay, I've learned a thing or two in my dumbness about how to manage all this stuff. I went back like three to four hours. I made better choices.

I made better decisions. I got to the part where I failed spectacularly again, and I failed again. It wasn where I failed spectacularly again, and I failed again It wasn't quite as spectacularly and I just went I think I hate this game man. I don't like it It's too much. It's too much work. The alters are mad at me. My base is falling apart. I don't have minerals I can't get more minerals because my alters are mad at me and they won't go mine stuff So it's like fine. I'll go mine it then well guess what the base is falling apart because I'm out mining minerals now My alters won't fix the base because I'm out of repair packs and it's like this game stupid. I hate it Josh

I'm so happy to hear you say this you have no idea I've never had a game make me feel so incompetent in my life like it was the same thing like I got to a point where everybody was complaining about everything I didn't have enough materials and paradoxically I was also out of storage space I was like what the heck is going on right now it was again it just felt like I was getting absolutely nagged on for everything in the game and I really really wanted to like this game. I am a big champion of indie games but man I hated it. Some people are going to love it. Yes. But most people most people will love it. You know why? Because

they're going to play it the right way. They're going to play it how it's supposed to be played. And listen you know what that is a fair Ryan, because I had a very long conversation with Paul on the side, right? Because Paul's been playing this. He's finally life's calmed down a little bit for him. And he's like, guys, I finally got a chance to play the Alters. He's chatting with us. He loves it.

And I don't want to spoil anything for Ryan. So I go off on the side to Paul. Right. And I'm like, bro, I hate this game. And Paul just absolutely cracks up. And he's like, that doesn't, right? And I'm like, bro, I hate this game. And Paul just absolutely cracks up and he's like, that doesn't surprise me. And I'm with John. I'm like, I feel like I'm an idiot, dude. Like other people are like, oh, I'm in act two,

I'm in act three. And I'm going, I can't make my alters happy. Apparently I'm bad at juggling all of these different like systems because everything is falling apart. Even after I reloaded, I'm like, bro, go out there and mine stuff. Oh, well, I'm out of rapidium, but you need rapidium to make this altar happy because I don't want to spoil anything. But he did something really, really stupid where you need more rapidium now. So it's like, Hey, alter you go out there, mine some rapidium. Okay. I'll go do that. But

I do it really slow. Hey, the base is falling apart Oh, well, you don't have enough repair kits to repair everything. Oh, I better make some repair kits now Oh, well, you don't have enough organics because you've been mining rapidium instead of the organics for two days now So now you're out of organics. Oh my goodness. Well organics is what you need for food. Hey alter go out there and mine organics Okay, cool. I'll do that, but i'm starving to death now Oh, and by the way, there's a magnetic storm coming which breaks everything in the base. It radiates everybody. I'm out of radiation filters I'm scrambling to make those every I thought guys I So, okay. Yes, I hate this game. I hate this game

I hate it and it kills me because I wanted to love this game so much. And I did not realize that this was just going to be a management Sim. I should have known that because this developer has made other games that are very popular. This is the same developer that made the Frostpunk games. Guess what? I have tried both Frostpunk one and two. I love it for the first two hours or so until the management stuff kicks in and then everything just falls apart and I go, I hate this game. It's the exact

same thing. Dude, let me, let me ask you real quick. Did you ever like, how often were you actually doing the stuff yourself? Mining? Very rarely, very rarely, dude. I know that there's production systems. I know you can cue things. I know that you can make your alters do it. I know that you can go do it. It didn't matter. It was always work. I never, he was happy. I'm most of the time I played this game. I've been exploring. Everyone else does everything. I always have people. I never ran out of materials. I never ran out of storage. I was always the next

size up. I would have multiple days to just hang out and mine more and get more materials before moving on to the next Well Ryan, you're a better altar than I am. I don't understand how you can't have that happen Bro, okay So this is you're gonna get me started because the other thing that I hate in video games is RNG Right where just some random event can happen and it completely ruins like my game. I had a, so there's a point in the game where the planet's getting a little bit more turbulent and a magnetic storm, a magnetic storm rolls through, right?

Everybody gets hit by the magnetic storm. You better have a ton of radiation filters and all this stuff, but even if you do things break and everything goes haywire. I had a magnetic storm that lasted two days straight guys. I was talking to Paul Paul's like mine lasted like three hours, dude I used up like three filters and one repair kit and that was it My last two full days. I had

Everything man. Guess what guys the one thing the only thing that I could think about was this game should be a rogue like this should not be like a Progression game because I got to a point where everything was so out of whack that I could not recover dude I could not recover dude. I could not agree more man I think if this is a rogue like it would have changed a lot of things absolutely There was another indie sort of base builder resource management game that came out a while ago called Spiritfarer. I think you guys played that. And so there was something about that game

where when you're playing it, you feel productive. Like, I'm creating something. I'm enhancing something. This game just made me feel like I'd gotten walked off the plank with a weight on my leg, man. And I was just struggling to frick fricking stay afloat. Yeah, definition of work in a game. Yeah. So I fully admit I'm bad at the game guys.

I see other people like I didn't even struggle on this one part and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, well, apparently I'm bad at this, but also I don't want to work in my video games. So this absolutely crushes my soul because I was so excited for this game. You were, I was excited for you. And we've been blasting this game to the world.

I loved the first three hours, maybe even four hours of, and then I hit the point where I went, guys, I've made some bad choices that have come back to haunt me. I can't just restart the day. This is not a rogue-like game. I cannot recover from the bad choices that I have made. Let me reload four hours back.

And then even then it was still just fell apart for me. So, all right, that's enough of that. John and I hate this game. Ryan loves this game. All right, let's. I wanna clarify, I hate my experience with the game. I have a lot of respect for the game. But I think this game isn't for me.

That's very fair, because I can appreciate the heck out of what this game is, man. It is masterfully done. Honestly, it oozes quality. It oozes a really neat storyline. I love games that make you think, because you get into some serious kind of like ethics questions and issues in the game a little bit later on with creating these alters, you're in a life threatening situation. So it's like, bro, I'm just trying to live. But everything in this game kind of comes with some ramifications as well. All right.

Let's let's break down. Man, we went way too long on that. But I know people want to know what we think. Yeah, okay. Let's break down, we promised to break down the various elements of the game. So let's dive into that a little bit more, all right? Because this is also gonna get into why I don't like parts of this game. So when you start out, you start out on the alien planet and you're basically told, hey, your crew's all dead, you gotta go explore and look around.

Ryan, what are some of the things that you can wind up doing on the outer, like, alien planet landscape stuff? So they did a really good job with this as far as the exploration goes. You have a kind of Jedi Fallen Order-looking map, like that hollow 3D-looking depth of map that you can have that. I didn't mind, a lot of times those aren't very good, but the map was pretty solid. But you go around you can explore for for your minerals that you have to get there's there's metals. There's organics Excuse me all kinds of stuff that you have to get to Do your you know base additions and your building and stuff so as far as exploration goes the name of the game is finding these Minerals to to you know harvest and you can buildposts on them and then kind of go exponentially from there.

Yep. John, why don't you talk about the base part a little bit, because you got this really wicked looking base. It's a giant wheel. You get all these different modules and base components and you know, you got to have a kitchen because you need to be able to cook food. And so talk about the base component a little bit for us. Yeah, so the base component, if I'm being honest, is it's not a terribly innovative base building system. There's kind of a lot of the general recipe components for a base builder on there. You've got storage areas, and you've got production areas, and you've got research areas, and you've got production areas and you've got research areas and you've got areas for your crew to either get well or experience joy. I will say that the style component was very well realized. The base looks gorgeous and then even the detail of what the inside of the rooms is gorgeous. Every room has its own little unique personality, especially love.

There's a social room in it that looks really nice. And the dorm always has this really cool, almost like modern 80s music playing in it that is just great. But so yeah, not terribly innovative in a base building perspective but very refined like very very refined very well polished yeah I actually think the base part might be my favorite part of the game because you had to kind of work within the confines of space too which I always find fun and it let you just freely rearrange the modules and stuff so it's like a little bit of a

puzzle game with can you cram in one more thing without upgrading the size of your base? And your alters are always coming to you saying, hey man, we don't have a place to sleep. And then you're like, oh, oops, sorry. I guess it better build you a dormitory. Like, you know. You can sleep in on the floor, man.

Yeah, dude. Honestly, I found the base building to be quite enjoyable and the exploration to be quite enjoyable. If you would have removed the urgency of the The resource management part or changed it some way it this would have been a big hit for me It was honestly that the Sun was coming John. I'm sorry. We can't control the Sun The Sun is coming in and we're running out of everything

Yeah, oh and by the way, if you're're running out of stuff it means you've made errors and now you can't recover because there's no way to fix these problems that you made four hours ago guys. Alright I'm gonna talk about the alters because the game's called the alters. I think that this is a masterful system. I really love the premise behind this. I love the fact that like the technology behind creating your altars, you get to see these life kind of paths where you make these major life choices.

And we've all been there. This is something everybody can relate to, which I think is fantastic. It's like, dude grew up in an abusive household. Does he stick around and protect his mom or does he leave and kind of say, hey, I'm gonna focus on my own life. And then if you do that, there's a branching path

and maybe he became a technician or maybe he became a botanist, you know? And then down those paths, it's like, hey, you meet a girl and you know, you guys fall in love but you have this opportunity to be a successful businessman. Do you pursue that or do you stick with your wife and you know give up success and then that creates a branching path and this is where all your alters come from. You can generate these alters you kind of grow them and then they help you but man

help you, but man, these guys got issues, man. These guys, and I think this is part of where I start to fall off on this a little bit, because I'm a problem solver, right? Like, that's a goofy thing, but I, like, and Ryan, I know you relate to this too, because we're both very handy and we fix things around our house and stuff like that. John, I'll be honest, I don't know how handy you are so um. Not very. Yeah so but like I'm a problem

solver if something's broken it's like cool I can analyze it I can fix it it's fixed and now I'm like yeah cool dad good husband award all that stuff you can't fix all the problems in this game and that bugs me to death because it's like you alters are never freaking happy man you wanted a dormitory I gave you a dormitory and it's like yeah but now we don't have good death because it's like, you alters are never freaking happy, man. You wanted a dormitory, I gave you a dormitory. And it's like, yeah, but now we don't have good food. And it's like, okay, well, let me make you some good food. If you make good food for this guy, now that altar gets mad. He's like, we're wasting resources.

Why are we eating these fancy meals? And I'm like, bro, I'm just doing the best I can over here, man. Why are you getting onto me all the time? And then he's like, oh, I think I'm just gonna revolt now and I'm gonna beat up this guy. And now all the alters are freaking out over each other and they're all blaming me for it.

I'm like, you guys need to look in the mirror, man. This isn't me. This is you. Anyway, sorry about that. But so yes, so you have to manage. Just talk about the alters. You have to manage your alters. You have to manage the happiness of your alters.

You have to manage their interpersonal relationships. And it's just, it's a really, really neat game element that I think is unlike anything else out there for the most part, I just hate it personally. Yeah, to put a positive note on this, something that I like, there's one actor, one voice actor who does all of the alters basically. And you could tell that that guy was having fun with it, man. I mean, like he, he had to do count that countless, but he had to do many iterations of the same

sort of voice and character. And you could tell that there was like different like speech patterns and different ways he was like kind of directing the dialogue towards you. And I thought that was cool that you know, the fact that they all had their own hairstyles and stuff was a little cheeseball but necessary to be able to tell them apart at a glance and stuff. But I thought I thought that was cool.

I thought that was a lot of fun. I had the same frustrations as Josh, but a lot of fun. Yeah, this this guy, I gotta give him credit too, because he is an accomplished voice actor. He was the voice of Mr. Hands in Cyberpunk. He was Rook in Dragon Age Veilguard. Like this guy's, yeah, he's done a lot of really stuff that people would recognize.

And to voice all of these alters single-handedly and give them the different inflections and all that stuff is I mean kudos man I have a question for you guys One of our discord members and I have had a couple of conversations His name is people wonders his discord name But we've had a couple of discussions about like cursing in games And so there was this game that came out recently south of midnight where the cursing just felt completely unnecessary

It felt out of place in that game. There was quite a bit of cursing in this too. Do you guys have any thoughts on that? I mean, here's my take on any of this stuff, man, is if it makes sense in the context of the game or movie, it's fine. You know, if you want to make a rated R movie and you know, there's violence and nudity and things like that in it, if it makes sense in the story that you're telling,

like at least I can wrap my head around that. It's when things feel like they're like shoved in because it's like, oh guys, like this doesn't have anything to do with our plot, but we need cussing and we need nudity in here to appeal to people. That's where I kind of go like, bro, this is so disingenuous. It seems fake. It doesn't make any sense to me.

You know, it's one of those things. If I was trapped on an alien planet and the sun is barreling down on me and I'm going to die, I'm probably going to be cursing a good bit. And I'm not the kind of person that curses very often, but in that situation, I'm probably going to pull out some strong adjectives to explain my, my feelings at the point. You know, I'm so, I, that's my thought honestly in, in as a whole with stuff like that. So like GTA is a great example, you know that the the way that that game is constructed you're like Oh, yeah, these people are throwing out, you know curse words like with reckless abandon for some reason I felt a little out of place in this one, too I know what you're talking about. Yeah It felt like you know, like hey guys, we haven't met our curse quota here. We're gonna you know

M game. Yeah. All right. Uh, we're going a little bit long, but that is the gist of the game. I mean, wait, wait, wait, worst alter the worst alter favorite alter. Oh, the miner. Oh, I was yes. Minor. He's the worst. I don't want to spoil why because it's a kind of a moment in the game, but I will, and maybe I'll be honest maybe part of my Frustration is that I went with the minor like in both times and And and people that are gonna play this game will understand why and maybe I should have just not worth it Like he sent me back about a week honestly of work to try to Appease him and I think that might be part of my downfall with that. But yeah, for me, it's the minor.

What about you, John? The botanist. You hate the botanist? I hate the botanist. What? Why would you hate me, bro? Yeah. He's just, I don't know.

Man, that's not really chill. Just a very sensitive, just a very sensitive, I wouldn't get along with that guy. I don't know. I mean, that's fair. That was funny because it's like- I was not expecting the botanist. He's the dude that's giving food to everybody.

Usually the guy that's growing food and cooking it is the guy that everybody loves. You're smart, it's my dude. I'll do my own cooking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it the minor for you too, Ryan?

Oh, yeah, dude. He was the absolute worst. I hated him. Don't do the minor for you to write? Oh, yeah, dude. He was the absolute worst. I Hated him. Don't do them. All right, so Let guys what worked for you like I know John and I have kind of you know Harped on some of the aspects that didn't work and why we don't like the game, but what did work for you in this? For me basically everything worked and like I thought it was a great game. I Basically everything worked and like I thought it was a great game. I The controls were maybe not as like polished as I'd want but I mean that's not that's not what this game is I think for what this game is. I thought it was fantastic. Honestly, I thought it was a very well crafted game

It will find a very specific audience, which is awesome That's kind of one of the things I love about indie is that they typically operate cheaper and they can fill more of these niche things. Like it may not be perfect for everybody, but it's gotta be really perfect for a certain set of people. This isn't really my kind of game, you know?

Like Ryan hadn't liked Souls likes before You don't like cozy games Josh You know, they're not There's not a Game isn't gonna be for everybody. Yeah. Yeah And this one's just not for me. Was it mostly like the sim management part that kind of really turned you off? I think that if this had either been a rogue-like element where there's some sort of reset and progression, like notable progression built into the grind cycle, that would have helped. Or if they would have, you know, honestly, removed some of the urgency behind the resource

management, either one of those things would have made a far more enjoyable situation for me. I was really engaged in the story. I loved the characters. I love the music. I love the look of the game. Honestly, it was just, Hey man, we're running out of rad filters. Hey man, we got no food. Hey man, it's not the right food. You know, I'm just like, dude, I can't, I can't deal with these little jabby complaints anymore, man. It is just, it is wearing on me I need a park bench, man. Yeah Yeah, I mean you I mean you say you love the game what worked for you um

Honestly kind of all of it. I really really enjoyed The management and constructing my base and having everything look clean and nice like normally you know in a lot of games I just toss stuff everywhere extra items I don't try to be neat and cozy but with these I always try to make it look good I thought it was a lot of fun and it was enjoyable every time I had to add stuff to the base or configure it I love the exploration I thought it was a beautiful world the the gameplay gameplay, there wasn't a lot there as far as you could battle the voids and stuff, but that's about it for that. The gameplay could have been done on a mobile game. Overall though, I liked pretty much everything. The urgency part was a

little annoying at times with certain minerals and then you got crunch time and stuff and then like we said with the alters everybody gets mad Yeah, I I want to just clarify because I've made my dislike of certain aspects of this game No, I think that this is a fantastic video game Like this is a game that I would absolutely recommend to people to say hey this games well done man Like I am not faulting the game in any way the development of this game they delayed it they took their time with it I think that paid off it presents well it plays well it's satisfying with how it

rewards you it creates anxiety and stress when it needs to like this is a masterfully done video game like I do not discount any of that. So all of that works phenomenally. It is just the simple fact that this game became heavy into the management sim part of it. And again, I've played their other games and they do the same thing. So I know somebody's gonna go, Josh, you're an idiot

if you thought this was gonna be any different. And you're right, I am an idiot. I don't discount that at all, but like, you know, everything in this game worked, except for the fact that it's just not my kind of game. And it kind of veiled that for a little while because it had a really nice mix of things for the first four or five hours.

And then it went heavy into the management sim part and it just lost me. So, all right, Well, I would ask what didn't work for us, uh, as the next follow-up, but I think people kind of know at this point. So I do want to throw out one, one more thing that I think is a huge, gigantic positive and not, not just for this game specifically, but I just went through a relocation. I moved from Arizona to Washington state and this is a long drive. And I frankly got sick of blueprints

for some of the same reasons that we're talking about on the way up. And so the alters was released day one on game pass, like several other big games have come out. And I was able to play this game cloud on my backbone on cell service, literally just walking around my neighborhood or driving up here. It's awesome guys.

If you guys aren't on game pass, man, what a deal. What an awesome deal is that? And, you know And again, Backbone, we had the CEO on the show a while ago. We haven't received one penny from them, but that's a really cool device. It turns your phone into basically a next-gen mobile platform. That's a really sweet really sweet combination guys

Yeah. All right. Let's guys. We're running out of time here. Let's let's rate this game, man I'll be honest. This is where it's really tough. Right? How do you take? Your your bias for certain game types, right and say I did I did not like game. I in fact, I walked out like to like down. And my wife's like, what's the matter? And I was like, you know, that game I was really excited about. She's like, yeah. And I was like, I think I hate it. And she was like, what? And I was like, I think I actually hate it, man.

It's just ticking me off. Like, I feel like I'm wasting my time and it's work. And like, this isn't fun for me. Same thing. But at the same time, it's like, bro, this is a really, really good video game. And one of the things we're always talking about is innovation. This game is unique. Like it stands on its own, like unlike a lot of other games out there

that are just clones of each other and things like that. So this is really hard for me because it's like I want to just shred this game on my rating because it's like I hate it. I won't play it ever again. Like, you know, but at the same time, it's like I want to just shred this game on my rating because it's like I hate it. I won't play it ever again Like, you know, but at the same time it's like I mean we really need more of this in the gaming world, too Where you know, I didn't crash at all. I didn't stutter the performance was good Beautiful well done. Well voice acted. I mean everything a game should be this game is so I am going to not eviscerate it as much as I really want to because I do appreciate what this

game is so I am going to give this game an 8 which is the compromise in my brain that says I hate it I really want to give it like a 3 or a 4 but also it's really really good game I can't go any higher than that just because of my own bias so I'm gonna give it an 8 I would absolutely recommend this game to but also it's really, really good game. I can't go any higher than that just because of my own bias. So I'm gonna give it an eight. I would absolutely recommend this game to people. I think a lot of, I mean, we've seen people in our Discord server saying game of the year contender.

And I absolutely, I absolutely understand that thinking. Yeah, for me, I would echo the same exact sentiments. My overall impression of the game, if I remove my bias, is probably like an 8 out of 10. My experience with the game? Like a 4 out of 10. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, all right. So what are you going to actually rate it though, John? Because

you can't give it both. You have to just give it a score. I'd give it an 8 out of 10 on its merit. All right. Yep there Ryan Loves this game. That's actually better than I thought you guys are gonna be that's pretty good. I'm not too mad about that This game did a lot right that I really enjoyed in a lot less wrong in my opinion um, I really wish you would try it again Josh at some point if like you watch some videos or something because He went back once right, if you watch some videos or something. Because if you get back once, Ryan. But you got it.

If you get in the right flow, you don't have to do anything. Like you set your cues up. You have everything set. But anyways, I know I probably won't convince you. But it was a really good game. I'm going to give it a 9.1. Whoa.

Wow. You hit the nines for Ryan. I haven't cracked out on a game like this in a long time. You did crack out on this. I this in a long time. You did crack out. Wow. Yeah. I was just a junkie playing it and I had a couple long sessions and I was just playing it in bed before and I kept falling asleep.

So yeah, 9.1. That's high praise. It is a very good game, everybody. You should give this a try if it looks even remotely interesting. I love the fact that so many people are talking about it in our server right now that are loving it. I love the fact that people are saying, hey, this might be a game of the year contender. That makes me really happy. I know this is gonna be a shock to people when they're like, Josh, no! John, no! You guys know us, man. I wanted to like this game. Everybody knows it.

No hate. No hate. Yeah. Yeah. No hate to the game. Exactly. This game, everything it tried to do, I think it did great. So, all right, fellas, that's going to do it for this one, man. I'm sorry, Alters. You made a great game. It's just not for me and it's just not for John, apparently. But check it out, people. It is a very good game and it would not surprise me if this is in game of the year contention. Like, I can admit that as a gamer, it very likely could be in that running. So we'll see. So, all right, listen, if you haven't done so already, make sure you follow the show. Leave us a review, a five star rating, a review on Apple podcast.

Let us know how we're doing. It really helps us out, but not only does it help the show, but it helps us know how we're doing too, you know? We're always striving to get better we want to make this the best gaming podcast on the planet and we need you to help us do that so make sure you follow come join our discord server there's a link in the episode description if you want to support this show and help us bring more content to the world get some awesome perks maybe have a say in some of the games that we're gonna play or some of the punishments that are gonna happen from Game Court

You can sign up on patreon. There's a link in the episode description for that It's super quick to do and it goes a long long way to helping us do what we do So thank you to everybody out there like butch that has signed up to support this podcast All right fellas, that's to do it for this one. I'm going to uninstall the altars. Until next time, happy gaming. I have my arm. See ya.

Toodle-loo.