We've all done it. You promise to play something but don't follow through. Also, Taylor (kind of, lol) makes his freestyle rap debut. Join us for the first attempt at our new mini-series called Controller Confessions.
We've all done it. You promise to play something but don't follow through. Also, Taylor (kind of, lol) makes his freestyle rap debut. Join us for the first attempt at our new mini-series called Controller Confessions.
In this episode, we're trying out a new format that allows us to catch up with each other about the games we play solo. More importantly, we confess about the games we promised to play but never did. The versatility of the Pizza Tower soundtrack comes up, Taylor spits fire (discreetly), and Willie updates us on his Star Wars Jedi: Survivor progress. Joseph digs into the deep and powerful messaging behind the platformer, Celeste, and Willie's computer crashes in the middle of the episode, lol. As usual, Taylor finds a way to shift the conversation toward AI, we chat horror games, and Willie shares how he uses Dungeon Alchemist to create D&D maps. Later in the episode, we revisit Shadow of Mordor's groundbreaking Nemesis System, which prompts a stream of confessions, and we wrap with the speculation surrounding Redfall.
Games briefly mentioned in this episode: Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Elden Ring, Fallout, Atomic Heart, Pizza Tower, Celeste, Metroid Dread, Surviving Mars, Beat Saber, Super Meat Boy, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Red Dead Redemption, GTA, Mass Effect, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Dragon Age, Dungeon Alchemist, D&D, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Resident Evil 7, God of War (2018), Ghost of Tsushima, Halo Infinite, No Man Sky, Destiny 2, Resident Evil 4, Starfield, and Redfall.
Here's the full transcript for this episode.
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The music you hear on the podcast is by ELFL, Lexica, Peerlees, and Christian Nanzell.
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00:00:00
[Alienated by ELFL plays in background]
Joseph: But Celeste I think is incredible. A game that's written in a way that can be super relatable for a lot of people, especially if you know, you experience any form of anxiety or, I, I also don't wanna speak on this subject, like I actually know a lot about it, but dealing with anxiety or imposter syndrome or just depression, I think overall.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: It's super relatable. But the story is super touching too. Like when you get all the way through the story, um, the main character's name is Madeline and she's basically battling a voice inside her head, which is kind of nicknamed Badeline, like in the, in the Celeste gaming community. And you're really just, she's just really battling herself.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: And confidence and imposter syndrome. And in the story, she overcomes a lot of those things, but not in the sense that she's kind of like defeated anxiety.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Or imposter syndrome or depression, but has defeated them because she's learned how to embrace them and like how to live with them and how to accept it for what it is.
So I think that message comes across very clearly in the story, and I think they do a really brilliant job of baking it into the different characters of the game.
[Intro theme plays - Tiger Tracks by Lexica]
00:01:32
Joseph: What is up? Welcome to Berries and Blades. Thanks for joining us for a casual, unscripted conversation about video games. My name is Joseph and I'm here with my friends Willie and Taylor. And we're just three regular guys getting smacked up by those shithead demonized officers from Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.
But I digress. So what have y'all been up to lately?
Willie: Man, I need to get back to that game.
Actually, I haven't played it in a couple weeks probably. I don't know when I'll get back to it 'cause I've been pretty focused on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for the last four or five days, however long it's been out, it's kind of been all I've been playing.
Joseph: I wanna play that. I kind of feel like I'm falling back into my rut of wanting to play through an entire game before moving on to something else. I kind of feel like that with Wo Long right now, but I just want to finish it.
Willie: I will go back to that game for sure, 'cause I did like it. I'm gonna talk about that a little bit, but I also wanna play Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, so I can like, know what the story is.
That's the main reason I'm interested in it I think. Just been into a lot of Star Wars for pretty much all my life. But I wanna know the story before I like just get spoiled on what's happening in the story. So I'm like, want to finish it quickly.
Joseph: Yeah, that's a good point. I see what you're saying.
Taylor, have you ever, have you been a Star Wars fan? Did you play like Fallen Order or wanna play Survivor?
Taylor: I played whatever the last one was. Uh, Jedi...
Willie: Fallen Order.
Taylor: Fallen Order? That was that one. Yeah. So I played it.
Dude, I have no idea why I-- Like, there's a lot of reasons. I like the main character. I like the dude that they chose to play. I, I love that dude and basically anything he does. I do like Star Wars. I love the aesthetics of it. I love the main stories. I think a major part of my problem is that I've fallen off of the story in general. I could not tell you what the last couple were even about, what the main plot line was, even though I've probably seen both of them twice.
It's tough for me to keep up with, so on Fallen Order every time I try to hop back on it. I don't have that drive that Willie does where he wants to know the story, and that's where an Elden Ring or something like that. I get into it and I do want to know that story. So I drive and I, I have to get past this boss to figure out more.
But I just don't feel that with these, sadly, if it ever comes out on the Pass or gets real cheap or something, I'll still play it, but I may just actually resign to watching Willie play or watching people play this one.
00:03:55
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Well, in today's episode, we're actually introducing a new mini-series called Controller Confessions, and the idea behind these episodes is to give us a chance to catch up and talk about the games each of us have been playing individually or lately. Or, talk about the games that we said we were gonna play, but haven't.
But going back to Survivor, it's interesting you feel that way about the story because those games are way more story driven-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: -than something like Elden Ring.
Taylor: Yeah. There's definitely some sort of disconnect that I'm having with it where...
it feels like the world has gotten so massive, and it always has been. I know that it was a gigantic world to begin with. When you start considering all the, the different alien species and the planets and the everything, it seems, it seems tough to deal with because you don't understand what a lot of words even mean.
You know what I mean? Like, they'll refer to some alien race or something and you don't, you don't even know what they're talking about. I mean, you could pick it up later, but I, I think that's, that's just been the part that makes it tough for me to get in there and really start being driven on lore alone.
Joseph: So you don't feel like you have the Star Wars legacy knowledge
Taylor: Yeah
Joseph: -to kind of easily jump into something that's new.
Taylor: Exactly, dude. I, I feel like if, um, if it say if it were Fallout and it were a just some story that I knew back and forth, then I would definitely have that same drive.
Joseph: Willie, would you say that you don't need that Star Wars legacy knowledge to play a game like Fallen Order or Survivor? Taylor's reacting to the entire universe of Star Wars.
Willie: I think that's interesting with this game. I definitely feel like there's some stuff that I wish I knew only because there's like five years that pass between the first game and this game.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: There is specifically a book that I haven't read that has some information about like what they were doing in that timeframe.
This is a very minor spoiler, but you start the game without the original crew that's in the first game.
Taylor: Hmm.
Willie: You sort of hear about their adventures in that book, that I don't quite know about.
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: And then it also is covering some stuff that's kind of newer lore in Star Wars, just generally about the High Republic era of Star Wars, which has just been around for the last few years as far as I know, like there's new content over the last few years about it.
And I didn't really read any of that stuff either, actually.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: So there's some of that that's pulled into this. I don't think you necessarily need to know that to know like what's going, you don't need to know that to know what's going on in this story. But being a person who's interested in the world, you know, it's one of those things that's like, oh, well I should go read those things and I just haven't.
I just need to read more in general, to be perfectly honest with you, but
Joseph: Yeah, me too. For sure. [Chuckling]
Willie: But it's been fun. I am interested in the story that it is telling like in within the game itself.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And when we started this up, I was trying to see how many hours I've played and I think I'm like 15 hours in, but that includes like a lot of just like side questing and exploring stuff. And I don't feel like I'm very far in the game.
Joseph: Right.
Willie: And I've been playing for 15 hours. I don't know how long the game is gonna turn out to be, but I do, I plan on a hundred percenting it by the time I'm finished with it 'cause I did the first one.
00:07:11
Joseph: Taylor, did you ever get back into Wo Long after beating, what's his name? Boss number one, tutorial boss?
Taylor: I think I did a couple runs, made it to maybe the next boss, whoever that was, and got uh, face slapped multiple times and fell off of it there. But yeah, I did beat the first boss. And-
Joseph: That was a journey.
Taylor: Yeah, not much after that. Yeah, [Joseph laughs] that was a journey that, that took a bit.
It's, and it's funny, uh, once I did get him to where he needed to be, whenever I finally saw the prompt that you guys were talking about on his second phase, as soon as I saw that, I hit the combo and it just, it didn't even do anything. It just immediately cut right to the cut scene.
Joseph: Oh, wow.
Taylor: So I was expecting it to do some move or. Make something happen, but it just literally went right to the cut scene and-
Willie: Yeah
Taylor: -started that up. So it was a little anti climactic, but I was super happy to be past him.
Joseph: Interesting. Well, what have you been playing lately, Taylor?
Taylor: Um, to be honest, not too much. I've been still working on Atomic Heart, working through that little by little and otherwise we've been trying to get the, get the little man walkin and getting a, uh, chicken coop built in the backyard.
So those have been the primary projects and everything else has been on the back burner.
Joseph: I forgot about the chicken coop. How's that coming along? Is it done?
Taylor: It is 95%. We need to hang the door. We, we built the door for it yesterday and now we just need to put it up on the hinges and all that and then get the chickens in there. So, it'll be nice.
Joseph: Do you already have chickens?
Taylor: Yeah, yeah. We've got seven chickens. We've got a few that are normies, just typical chickens. And we've got some that are the Easter Eggers that they lay, uh, multicolored eggs that are supposed to be really pretty.
Joseph: Hmm. I wish I had chickens for the eggs, man.
Taylor: Yeah, the eggs are a game changer for a lot of stuff.
Joseph: Especially when all hell broke loose and eggs were like $8 for 12.
Taylor: Yeah, it, I, I don't want to see things go back to that. But now that you've seen it once, it's almost like, you remember when we, everybody joked about $3 gas, I don't know, 10 years ago or something?
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: And then it touched $3 and then it went down and then it came back. And now $3 is the norm. $3 is exactly what it is.
So that kind of stuff scares me. 'Cause if you see it go up to at once, then it's almost set. It's like stocks or crypto or anything else.
Joseph: [Laughs] Set a new floor.
Taylor: Yeah, it's at a new floor and sometimes that can happen. It gets back to it and it's like, oh no, I like this floor. And suddenly everybody's paying 30% more for something.
Not to get into that.
Joseph: I don't think I fueled up our vehicle for, I don't know, maybe a week or two, but I think gas here is like 3.50 to like 3.80.
Taylor: That's pretty high. Especially if you're driving a lot or if you own a truck or anything like that.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: You throw in any extra factors and that compounds and suddenly gets a lot more difficult. I could never see myself buying another gas car unless I absolutely have to. 'Cause once you, once you have the ability to plug in your car and then go drive across the state or, or whatever that is, you can't undo that feeling.
That's something, it's just like your cell phone. If you used to have to charge your cell phone by waving your arms a lot and running around real vigorously, that was the only way to do it. And then you, somebody released the charger and you could just plug it in or lay it down and it charged it. You would never want to go back to the other thing.
Joseph: Do you, do you have an electric vehicle now?
Taylor: Nah, I had to sell mine when the baby was born. Sadly, I miss it very much. That was, that was one of my favorite things that I had ever had.
Um, other than the baby obviously is my favorite. [Joseph laughs] Yeah, that was tough. Someday I'll get there. You know, somebody will come out with a 20,000, $25,000 one at some point in the next five years probably so.
00:11:04
Joseph: I discovered something new, I don't know, maybe two days ago, that I very much recommend, especially to you, Willie, the Pizza Tower soundtrack.
There's a game called Pizza Tower, which I had never heard of. It's on Steam and it's like a 2D platformer. The illustration slash r direction is super nineties cartoon-like.
Taylor: I like that reminds me of something.
Joseph: Yeah, like Rocko's Modern Life. Like that seems like the, the animation style.
The soundtrack is amazing. And we were talking about the el, how the Elden Ring soundtrack was like 67 tracks. This one is 73.
Taylor: Whoa.
Joseph: A ton of tracks. It's all over the place in the best way possible. It's like super jazzy. There's like magic sword ish single note guitar solos. The baselines are super groovy and they're everywhere throughout these tracks, but it just has like so many different vibes, man.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: I'm 30 tracks through. It's amazing.
Taylor: The first one, I'm listening to the first track right now on the, uh, it's got the full soundtrack on a video and even the first one, it has super stylistic, almost anime vibes to the music.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: For sure. That is really cool.
Joseph: It jumps around like, uh, in a really good way. Like sometimes at nineties hip hop percussion.
Taylor: Ah
Joseph: And then it'll jump into like jazz flute stuff and then come back to,
Taylor: So all the good stuff. Okay.
Joseph: Yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty incredible. I've been really enjoying it.
Taylor: I love that concept. You just gave me an idea. And why doesn't this exist a game that just has straight up hip hop beats in the background that you can freestyle to while you play?
Joseph: Oh, shit.
[Laughter]
Taylor: I wonder if that's a thing. And you can even have, uh, parts where, maybe it would be on the four four or whatever, that would be the natural progression of say a chorus. And if you happen to be rappin during that part, it pops up and doubles your voice or, or throws in some harmonies or something, man.
[background music]
Joseph: Dude-
Taylor: Be back- be right back guys. I gotta make this shit.
Joseph: Dude. Why don't we do this? You bust out some rhymes and then in post I'll put some music underneath it. Some hip hop beats. [Taylor laughs]
Taylor: Some hip hop. Okay, that sounds good.
Yeah. Bee-ba-dop.
Yeah, yeah.
No, no, no, no, no. Hold on.
Bumping this beat. I'm on my feet. Gotta be discreet talking skeet, skeet.
Wait, no, no, no, no. Hold on. Yeah. Delete that one.
Okay. No, no. We'll try that again sometime, maybe someday.
Joseph: All right. All right.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Uh, yeah. So Pizza sou- the, the Pizza Tower soundtrack. Pretty, pretty kickass.
Willie: That sounds cool. I'll definitely check that out at some point. How did you come across that?
Joseph: I stumbled across a website that has video game music that you can download as MP3s.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: And 'cause I was fooling around with that Elden Ring episode. Cutting in some of the Elden Ring music.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And I was looking for an easy way to get the MP3s that didn't involve using some kind of converter to take Spotify tracks and then convert them to an mp3. But I came across a website that just has all the mp3s that you can download, but I was on the site listening to stuff as like a music player [chuckles] and just listening through like all the tracks.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And they have like a top 40 section on that website. And that's where I found the pizza, the Pizza Tower soundtrack, because it was like number one. And I was like, what is this? Like this? I mean, this doesn't even sound like it's real music. So I took a look at the game and started listening through there, but the website is, I'll post it in the chat.
Taylor: Yeah, please do. That sounds cool.
Joseph: It seems like a pretty good resource, like if you either just wanna listen to soundtracks or you actually wanted to download the MP3s for whatever reason. The website doesn't look great, but it functions.
[Chuckling]
Taylor: Sometimes. That's all that matters.
00:14:58
Willie: Nice. Yeah, that's cool. That reminded me, something that's interesting that I haven't even actually gotten into too far into Jedi: Survivor is not only is there like, you know, all new music for the original soundtrack or whatever, but there's also.
You can find tracks in the world that once you get, I think you have to get like a band or a DJ or something to come to the saloon that you like, stay at. The cantina that you're at. And there's like new tracks you can find around the world that can be played by the, like in-game DJ or whatever. So like when you come back to the, your home base, There's like music also always playing in the background, but you can change that just based on what tracks you found in the world.
Joseph: Is it like a droid or a person or is it like jukebox?
Willie: I haven't looked into it yet because I haven't found them. I think I know where they are. I just haven't gone to go get them yet.
Joseph: I'm wishing there was a jukebox, like some kind of machine that would function as a jukebox and you could. Walk up to, and then there's like a UI that pops up on the screen where you can like cycle through the tracks and select them.
That just sounds cool.
Willie: I'm not sure I had seen someone reference it. I think on Twitter, I think I knew that you could find music tracks for some reason. I don't know how I learned that information, but I knew that there was like, there's clearly a spot in the bar that I thought it might go, but then I saw someone refer to it and I don't, I can't, I don't know where I saw that anymore.
But I know that like someone who, I guess the composer on the, somebody whose name is Composer Barton on Twitter, and I haven't clicked on their thing, but I think they, they obviously worked on the game, but they're just like, we made not just a few cantina tracks for Jedi si- Survivor, but like an entire album in in-universe music with four different bands.
Joseph: I like that 'cause there was nothing like that in the first game.
Willie: No.
Joseph: In Fallen Order. In most games actually. I mean, I guess like, uh, like GTA back in the day, you could like cycle through radio stations and stuff like that.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But I like the idea that you can control music inside of the game.
Willie: I don't think there's that many you can do in the game itself. I think it's pretty small as far as the tracks that they picked. But they did like make an entire album of all of the in-universe game- in-universe music.
Joseph: Got it. So they made a bunch, but not all of them are available in the game.
Willie: I think so. That would be my guess, but I'm not sure.
Joseph: That's still pretty cool.
Willie: I'll know in a, in a week or so when I've found all of them. [chuckles]
Joseph: So you said you're like 15 hours in and it doesn't feel like you're very far.
Willie: No, it doesn't.
Joseph: I guess that makes sense from, from what I remember of Fallen Order. I don't know how long I played that game for or what it took to finish it, but I know that feeling when you're playing something and you can just tell like it's a lot more massive than what you can do in like 20 hours versus something like Celeste, right?
If you play Celeste for, well, you, you'll finish the game in 20 hours or like Metroid Dread, right? You'll also finish that game within 20, 20 hours. But if you play those two games for 10 hours, You feel like you're like halfway through the game or more.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Versus something like Survivor where you can tell you've barely scratched the surface or of like the playable area.
Willie: Yeah, and I can also just tell based on like, I just am not very far in the skill trees either, you know?
Joseph: Oh yeah. That's a good indicator too.
Willie: There are a couple sections that are completely blocked off that I haven't, I haven't really unlocked those trees. Actually, I think there might only be one now.
Joseph: Do you know what, HowLongToBeat says it should take to finish the game?
Willie: No, I didn't look.
Joseph: I'm guessing like 35 hours, 40 hours.
Willie: I'm guessing it's a little bit on the shorter side. I probably technically would be like halfway through if I weren't doing side quests and stuff. I bet.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: But I've been doing all of the, uh, what are rumors and stuff as I can.
Joseph: I always feel like if it says it'll, like for the main, the main quest line or the main story, if it says like 40 hours, it's probably gonna take me like 120 [Laughter] to like do everything in the game.
Taylor: Same or, or half that because I, I maybe don't like it and I put it on easy and just blast through it.
Joseph: Yeah.
00:18:55
Taylor: Yeah. If we're throwing out good soundtrack recommendations, if you still haven't listened to Surviving Mars, check that one.
Joseph: Oh, no I haven't.
Taylor: There's five hours of that. That, if I remember correctly on the YouTube video, if you just play it through that, the first half of it is all the ambient badass music that they made for it.
And then the second half is all of their contest music, which was, if I remember correctly, they had a contest where you could just enter your tracks and they were, they would get selected for the game, or if they were selected, they, you know, went into the game.
Joseph: Hm.
Taylor: And it has a badass soundtrack. It's great.
It's a little cheesy, but it's also, uh, some of it is some good like surf rock and, and it's all feel good stuff, but it's all really good to listen to while you're working on something. It's awesome project music. Uh, Surviving Mars, keep it up.
Joseph: I might have to remember that 'cause that's definitely stuff- I would probably put that in class too.
Taylor: It's good, man. Yeah. And all the music is totally. It's very listenable and it's uh, no bad language or anything like that.
Joseph: Are there words and lyrics?
Taylor: Yeah. The second half has-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: -has words and lyrics, and it even has, uh, ads that they ma- made for, you know, joining the miners on Mars and things like that. Just-
Joseph: Mm
Taylor: - different, cool. Cause I think that the ad was for slug mines or something. It was like, join the slug mines on Mars and [laughs]
Joseph: That's what we need at Berries and Blades.
Taylor: Yeah. A little slug mining.
Joseph: All these delicious ads... pushing you to-
Taylor: Yeah
Joseph: -our incredible products.
Taylor: That's it. That do or do not exist, could exist.
00:20:29
Willie: I was gonna say, Joey, you sort of, you mentioned Celeste for a second.
How did you like that game? We haven't really talked about that.
Joseph: Fucking amazing. Love that game. Easily in the top three all-time platformers. For me, the music is incredible, which is how I got there because you recommended that soundtrack. And I did listen to the music before I started playing and was fucking hooked immediately by the music, especially the B-Sides album, which you can, you can find pretty easily.
I haven't played through all the BSides in the game. But I did finish the main part of the game 'cause it's definitely the kind of game you can just fucking play for a long time and it's difficult enough to kind of force you to play for a long time.
Willie: I really, really liked that game when I first played it, and I know I never beat it. I remember at some point I, for whatever reason, I just put it down. I don't know what else I was playing. I played like three or four hours I think, into it.
And when we started talking about it recently, I put it on for a little bit and found myself in the middle of a, a stage that was like, felt impossible for a little bit 'cause it was just like, there's like not a lot of controls to that game, but the way that it puts the mechanics together and the difficulty of that game, you go away from it for, you know, however many years now. It's just really difficult. It just is.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: When you first start out. I, I got into the groove and I played through the rest of that level, but, um, I, I do wanna finish that game.
Joseph: Hard to come in cold turkey.
Willie: For sure.
Joseph: Yeah. I thought the story was so good, man.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And like the music too, like the sound design in general. Not just the quality of the music, but what they play when they play it and the mood they set and how it enhances the messaging behind the story and the characters, because they don't, they don't say real words. They have like, you know, like they, they just have like sound effects of people talking.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: They get so much motion- mo- emotion across through it in the way that like Star Wars does with droids. Like droid sound effects and noises, but to capture that much emotion in the story through just those sounds, I think it was pretty incredible.
Taylor, have you played any of it?
Taylor: Yeah, I played about 10 minutes of it. [Joseph laughs]
Got to the first puzzle that I couldn't figure out at the time and I was not having it.
Joseph: I think I played for 17 hours, like between finishing the main game and then going through some of the B-sides. I think it was about 17 hours. Which I think is how long I played Metroid Dread too, like right around that amount.
Taylor: That's a good chunk of time.
Joseph: Yeah, it was good.
Willie: I wouldn't have thought it was that long.
Taylor: That's awesome.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I guess the thing is I've watched like speed runners play that game a little bit too, so that definitely skews like my view of how long it can take to beat that game.
Joseph: Yeah, that is wild.
Willie: [Laughing] Yeah.
Joseph: The speed running in that game is kind of mind blowing.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: It's mind blowingly fast and even hard to keep up with what is happening.
00:23:14
Taylor: In that video that I just posted in there, it, it looks like they're playing a beat game. That's what it looks like, 'cause I'm seeing, I'm guessing the mechanics as he is going through these kind of invisible walls and he is hitting it and he is boosting through them and keeping momentum.
All of those, it just looks like he's hitting a beat game. Like playing beat saber, like [vocalizes percussion] .
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Dude, just, and it, it is like music and you can see it, you can see it just playing through. He is making through each stage in like, I don't know, 10 seconds, 20 seconds through some of 'em. And-
Joseph: The name of this video.
If any of you want to go find it, it's called "The Absurdity of Celeste Speed Running." That is the perfect name, [Taylor chuckles] I think to sum up all of what I've seen that relates to speed running.
Willie: Yeah, and I haven't watched a ton of it, but I've watched enough to know that yeah, that that is an accurate description of the things that I've seen done in that game.
Joseph: Yeah, it's on like another level. I mean, I guess it reminds me of like Super Meat Boy and like the, the pros that were running through that game.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: You know, it has a lot of like very similar Meat Boy vibes for sure. Like the way it platforms and the way that you can cling to walls and bounce off of them pretty easily.
The controls super minimal where you can basically just jump and cling to a wall. That's pretty much all of the mechanics in the game, aside from like environmental factors like the wind levels. [Laughing] Those are frustrating.
Willie: That's where I came in. When I picked up the game again, I was on one of those wind levels and I was like-
Joseph: Oh yeah, that's fucking game over. It reminds me of Ninja Gaiden, man with the like the snow levels.
Taylor: Oh, the ice.
Joseph: Or Mega Man, some of the Mega Mans where you're just frustrated because it's like affecting- it's slowing you down. In Celeste, it slows you down so much. It's fucking annoying.
Taylor: Mario ice. That one sucked.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: What was it Mario two, you would hit it and you're just like, [vocalizes tapping] but you're not going anywhere. And then you turn.
Joseph: When you said Mario ice, I was just thinking about the ice palace in uh, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
Taylor: Oh.
Joseph: Slipperiness. Where you can't really control what's happening.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: It's almost like you gotta lean into it. And go with the fishtailing or go with the sliding instead of trying to work against it.
Taylor: [Laughs] Willie's picture right now for me is stuck with him smiling. He's like this.
Joseph: Oh, [laughing] yeah
Taylor: And he's just like stuck [laughing]
Joseph: He is for me too. [laughs]
Taylor: He's just stuck that way.
Joseph: Oh shit, he's gone.
Taylor: His internet must have cut out. That was amazing.
Joseph: Oh, you know, I wonder if he had, I wonder if this is a crash break.
[sound effect]
Joseph: We got our second crash break of the podcast.
Taylor: Oh, yep, yep.
00:25:48
Joseph: But Celeste, I think is incredible. A game that's written in a way that can be super relatable for a lot of people. Especially if, you know, you experience any form of anxiety or, I, I also don't wanna speak on this subject, like I actually know a lot about it, but dealing with anxiety or imposter syndrome or just depression, I think overall.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: It is super relatable, but the story is super touching too. Like when you get all the way through the story, um, the main character's name is Madeline and she's basically battling. A voice inside her head, which is kind of nicknamed Badeline like in the-
Taylor: Yeah
Joseph: -in the Celeste gaming community. And you're really just, she's just really battling herself.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: And confidence and imposter syndrome. And in the story, she overcomes a lot of those things, but not in the sense that she's kind of like defeated anxiety.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: Or imposter syndrome or depression, but has defeated them because she's learned how to embrace them and like how to live with them.
Taylor: Hm.
Joseph: And how to accept it for what it is. So I think that message comes across very clearly in the story, and I think they do a really brilliant job of baking it into the different characters of the game.
Taylor: That sounds like something I do need to do, need to work through.
Joseph: Incredible story. Super touching, but also really deep.It's the kind of game you can break down and analyze in a legit, you know, in a legit, serious way.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: The lighter end of it, and just the platforming is also incredible. And the way that the game handles and the, the stickiness of it, right? Like when you cling to walls and bounce off of them and-
Taylor: Yeah
Joseph: -how you can be pixel perfect with jumps and, and stuff like that, I think is mechanically very well executed.
Taylor: I thought the engine felt great, and now that I'm hearing this about the story, it makes me want to go give it another try. I think. I think it was one of those things where at the time that I, that I attempted it, it just wasn't a good time to try that kind of game or maybe to be playing a game at all.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: I don't remember why I bounced off of it, but I just remember, getting to the first puzzle and not feeling inclined to solve it whatsoever. And wasn't that the game didn't play good or didn't look good or anything like that, it was just a bad time.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: So I think I'm gonna give it another shot.
Joseph: It's a challenging game. It also looks really good. Like the pixel art I think looks great.
Taylor: So is it, there's nothing random about it as far as I can. I could just go through one of those speed videos and watch how they navigate through it and just kind of, At least get the idea of what they're using, what mechanics they're using to get through each stage?
Joseph: Probably. Yeah.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: I didn't, I didn't watch any of the speed running videos until after I had finished it, so I don't know if they're doing a straightforward of enough run that you could actually follow a similar route or use like similar techniques.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I don't know if it's super glitchy and they're like bouncing through walls and shit like that.
Taylor: Yeah, that's true. Sometimes they, they use technique like that. I didn't notice much of it on that video, but I also was just barely half watching, so.
Joseph: I think you're right 'cause I don't, I, I mean I've seen a couple of videos and I don't remember seeing anything that seemed like they were taking advantage of like major glitches.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Skipping entire stages or anything. I think most of it is them actually-
Taylor: Mm
Joseph: -legitimately going through all the, all the levels. So that could work. Just to give you a sense of like-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -what you could do.
Taylor: Now that we're talking about this. That may have been the thing was, I, I couldn't find, I couldn't figure out what even the mechanic was that it wanted me to do.
Joseph: Right.
Taylor: For that, you know what I mean? And that could be just to see them do it real quick and you see, oh, that wall is a thing that does this.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: I may give it another try, man. Sounds like the story is worth sticking it out.
Joseph: I would say the story is completely worth playing through the game.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: And like, just kind of like, you know, powering through it or stumbling through it in a lot of areas, but you're right in those situations where you can't, like, it's not obvious of what to do-
Taylor: Yeah
Joseph: I think that would be the best place to watch. Even if it's not a speed run.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Just watch somebody play through that one stage so that you can understand like what the, the thought process is supposed to be.
Taylor: Yeah. And it may become even more fun to me, uh, solving the puzzles and stuff, just in that, just learning the mechanics and then knowing what they are going into the puzzle fully aware of-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: -what you use to solve it. That might help too. And I, yeah, I've been, I've been dealing with the, uh, imposter syndrome myself quite a bit, so might be good to watch a introspective story about that.
Joseph: Mm-hmm. Shit. If all else fails, you can just go to YouTube and watch like all the cut scenes. I'm pretty, [chuckles] there's probably a video of that.
Taylor: Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. If I fall off of it again, just watch the story that way and still get the benefits of that without the-
Joseph: Mm-hmm
Taylor: -having to go through the part I don't like.
Joseph: I found it super rewarding, dying 20 times on one stage and then finally getting past it. Like I, I love that satisfaction and I felt a lot of that in Metroid Dread, where it's like, damn, this is challenging. This is difficult. But then when you finally overcome it, it's like, yes!
And now I feel inspired to like, go onto the next one and get, beat the fuck up all over again. You know? And then repeat that cycle over and over.
Willie, did your computer crash?
Willie: Yes.
[Laughter]
Joseph: Oh.
Taylor: Yeah.
00:31:05
Taylor: Do we want to, do, we want to check out Zelda, uh, the, whatever the release trailer was or whatever they did for it?
And I didn't know-
Joseph: Yeah, pull it up.
Taylor: -If you guys up wanted to, wanted to do that. Cause I haven't even seen it yet, so. Okay. It looks like there's multiples. I guess we'll watch the newest one.
Joseph: They're probably all released by now, like, being this close to the release of the game.
Taylor: Yeah, this might be the finale.
There's also that, uh, in Discord I think you can pull up the YouTube app now and everybody can watch it together. You can click on it. Just fyi.
Joseph: Oh, really?
Taylor: That's pretty cool.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, Ruben and I were messing with that. Pretty nice feature.
Joseph: Oh yeah. This looks good already, man.
Taylor: Yeah
Joseph: Just like the environment, the, the world.
Taylor: Movement of the trees makes me think that, still kind of based in the same Switch technology.
Joseph: I mean just the-
Willie: Yep
Joseph: -the art direction in general. It's very, very Nintendo. Very-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Legend of Zelda, but also...
Taylor: Can't be mad at that intro. Just skydiving in from-
Joseph: Yeah. Seriously.
Taylor: -space.
Willie: I still never played through Breath of the Wild fully. I don't know how far I got into that game.
Joseph: It's robust, man. Like, I don't know how many hours I spent playing that game, but I would guess like maybe like 150 or something.
Taylor: I'm probably stuck until the kid can play it before I end up playing through that stuff.
Joseph: Mm. It's great though.
Taylor: That'll be a great reason to go back and revisit all that stuff and actually do it. Oh my God. So this dude's named Ganon?
Joseph: I can definitely think of- what's up?
Taylor: Ganon. Is that the bad guy in Zelda?
Joseph: Yeah
Willie: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: There's Ganon and Ganondorf, which I haven't got to that in the trailer, but I'm pretty sure it's Ganondorf in this game. Right?
Willie: Yeah. And there's just like a. There was like a quick shot from like-
Taylor: I saw that
Willie: -behind, basically, so far.
Joseph: Oh yeah. Yeah. I just got there. This style of animation and the like the visual style, it not being super kind of like high realism is something they've been doing for a while, but I think they do it so well.
Taylor: Well, and it's because the mechanics are so super polished.
Joseph: Yeah, that's for sure.
Taylor: They don't compromise at all. They make sure that it all works perfectly, seamlessly.
Joseph: Yeah, it looks like you, you can do a lot of the same things that you could do in Breath of the Wild.
Taylor: Exactly. That's what I was gonna say earlier was it seems very same samey, but then they're throwing in a lot of kind of new, interesting flair, and-
Joseph: I think this is gonna be fun to play. I mean, the Breath of the Wild was super fun. I also like all the cooking that you could do too, and basically create different buffs-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: -from the dishes that you could cook. I think that was a clever addition to just the whole series in general.
Taylor: Oh, I love the music. It really hitting it with the music.
Joseph: Aw, I'm listening on mute, so I'm missing out.
Taylor: Oh, okay. If you started right now, you'll get the best part of it. It's really like a jazz style metal, almost, uh, version of the original song. That's pretty cool.
Joseph: Yeah, I did see Ganondorf in there.
Taylor: I'm not mad at that at all. So that's May 12th. Nice. Getting pretty close for anybody who's gonna play that.
Joseph: Dude, that's so close, Willie, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna play it? Are you ever gonna go back and play through Breath of the Wild?
Willie: I, I don't know. I think that the game played pretty well. For whatever reason, that's a story that I just wasn't really that into because I think I was just like going around and looking at random stuff- a lot. I never got pulled into the main quests line.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: I don't know how much I've, how much of it I've actually played.
Joseph: Oh yeah.
Willie: And it is not a huge drive for me, for whatever reason, just 'cause there's so many things to play.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah. That's-
Joseph: So many things to play that I haven't been playing that I, I would continue to play if I weren't spending, you know, a hundred hours playing Breath of the Wild or this new one.
Taylor: That was my feel on that too. That was a very similar effect. Where it had was cool and it had a bunch of cool mechanics, but also, I don't have the time to be running around a gigantic world very slowly. And it is.
I'm not gonna say that it doesn't value your time. It does a really good job. I think if you, if that's the thing you want in that story, in that world and everything, it is really good. You get way more than $60 worth when you're playing that.
Joseph: Oh, yeah. Value there for sure. It does take a long time to traverse the lands, for sure.
Taylor: Yeah. And there was no way around it. You just had to, you had to do it. So seeing the horse is a, that's, that's cool. Um, having a faster way to, to move around and, and I guess you could do that in the first game. I don't even remember.
Joseph: Mm-hmm, yeah.
Taylor: It's honestly been so long, but.
Joseph: Yeah, there are stables and stuff and you can even tame-
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: -like wild stallions and stuff and basically turn them into your horse.
00:35:41
Taylor: Lack of variety was a thing I ran into, like you were saying, the cooking was really cool. I thought it was clever and it was cute. It had an awesome little song to it and little animation.
But it was the exact same song, the exact same animation a trillion times by the time you played it for 20 or 30 hours. I gotta the point where I wasn't even making anything because it was boring. I was tired of seeing the same thing. Hopefully they mix that up a little bit, either shorten it or mix it up.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: You can even have a slightly different song or slightly different picture. There's a lot of ways to mix it up.
So hopefully they, they did that.
Joseph: I definitely got to the point where I was skipping the meal animation too, like would start it and then skip it.
Taylor: It was like skinning animals was what it reminded me of.
In any game that you skin animals, uh, Red Dead once you skinned your 20th or 30th or 50th animal, let me skip that. Like, just do it. Just have my eyes locked on the animal and its skin go away. Like I don't wanna fucking do that anymore. That's, I, I definitely don't want to just always be bringing up AI on the show or anything, but it is a big part of my life right now.
But in gaming, I think that's gonna be one of the coolest things about it, is the ability to maybe interact with you or you to interact with it and literally have a prompt on there where you're like, this is getting old. Like, I'm tired of these follows, these follow sequences. This is boring. And it can be like, okay, you know what?
We're not gonna have any more following sequences. And even go further and say, what do you, what do you dig in this? You know? And you could say, well, I like the things where we go into the bar and we shoot at everybody and, and it's like, okay, well guess what? "da-ding!", here's- an event just popped up. We just got a call and there's people in a bar and shoot everybody. And then you get to go do that. I don't know.
Willie: Now I'm trying to figure out if you're still talking about Red Dead or some other game.
[Laughter]
Taylor: Yeah, kind of Red Dead. That's a, and I wonder if maybe GTA 6, maybe that's what these guys are waiting for, is maybe they see this all on the horizon as they're building.
You gotta imagine some studios are working with it somewhere. That's the kind of stuff that gets me excited about it. Mainly it's just, it's the ability that it can throw in that variety that really keeps you in a game. The thing that makes you bounce off. Maybe it can fix that. Maybe that'll be a whole episode someday.
That'd be cool.
Willie: That feels, what you're describing feels very far off. Because of the implementation so far and what people are using it for, what mainstream people are using it for feels very like early on in progress.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Willie: Even though progress is happening really fast at like a pace that we're not gonna even be able to keep up with, honestly-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -I don't think.
Joseph: Or afraid of.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: I don't know how to, I don't know how to describe it, but I think that there's just not enough. There's not enough people who want to use it for specific things and then, you know, on the complete flip side of this argument, I think there's, there are also people who are just like, no, I like literally don't care about that at all because it's not, yeah, it's not something that, that I need.
I could see a world where, you know, having a, an AI draft me an email is, is cool. I guess. Like it's, it's nice to be able to like leave that part out of my life-
Taylor: Yeah, if you send a hundred emails a day.
Willie: if I don't feel like doing it, but also at the same time like, the same person would just be like, it's not necessary at all. Like, it's literally just completely unnecessary for me.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Like I don't see the use for that, for me. I would never use it for that. I actually, honestly rather just do something where I don't have to send emails.
Taylor: But what about in a game? Whenever they start implementing AI and NPCs or into the antagonist, it's like, try to murder you or something. [chuckles]
What, how would you feel about that? You think you'd play those or jump at them, or would you not be interested?
Willie: I mean, I think I'd treat it the same as anyth- anything that happens now in games.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Because I mean, those things are obviously more programmed now. They exist if you find a really good game.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: That's also not necessarily the fun part of a game. I'm like- in playing a game like Mass Effect or Skyrim or, I'm trying to think of things that are just like, you know, where every interaction has like a consequence.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah. Like in the choose your own adventure way.
Willie: Yeah. Even like any of the Telltale games-
Joseph: Dragon Age
Willie: -that have that sort of stuff or yeah-
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Willie: Or Dragon Age or like-
Taylor: Yeah, I forgot about Telltale.
Willie: There's like a whole series of things that I do enjoy that sort of type of story mechanic. And they're sort of reacting to you, and it's all pre-programmed. So I, I definitely see an appeal there for something like that in the future.
Taylor: The examples I've seen so far are in RPGs.
Uh, one, I, they had to build it themselves because it didn't look like it was outta Skyrim, but it was like the riding in a wagon scene at the beginning where everybody, all the prisoners and. You're just riding in a wagon. There's a, a guy in there and his buddy is GBT. So basically he's pre-programmed to an amount where he realizes he's in this world and, and he's Schlub or whatever from a village.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: That got me a little excited about it just. Just the way that he was showing it, where the NPC was able to basically, one, just respond, which is something that would be incredible and unprecedented, is us just- no wheel to respond. Just you being like, what do you think about big floppy dicks? And it's like, I'm not allowed to talk about that. [Laughter]
You know? Cause people are definitely gonna do that. That will definitely,
Joseph: Oh gosh
Taylor: That's definitely gonna be 90%.
Joseph: Something appealing to me is that ability to ask a question that isn't predetermined. Like in the story's dialogue.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Like if you could ask a character something and then they could respond with a unique response.
Taylor: Uh, even, even cooler. What if you're in the middle of your game? We're in a co-op Skyrim. We're playing, we're talking to an NPC in a lodge. And you're like, what's the price of Matic right now? [laughs]
Joseph: Oh gosh.
Taylor: And the NPC is like, he's like, he's like, oh, I don't know. Let me check the scroll. Oh, it looks like a Polygon asset is-
You know, I just, I'm thinking of silly and stupid ways, but
Joseph: Yeah, I wouldn't go there with it.
Taylor: Once it has that ability- nah, no.
Joseph: Or, or be interested in that.
Taylor: No. But people, there are people that would.
Willie: But that's what I mean that like, I feel like the stuff that you were talking about at the beginning and even what Joey's talking about is still a long ways off for like where we are right now.
Joseph: For sure.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. We're trying to figure out a lot of stuff.
Willie: But on the way there, I think the problem is, the roadblock is all of those things that like people won't actually take what they're doing seriously because they will ask silly questions like that, that don't matter right now to, you know, a chatbot.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Because that's all they can do with it, and there's no like, there's not a standard that people are going for right now.
Joseph: And the use cases.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: We're like in the very early use cases where people are like using it to fucking generate Instagram hashtags and stuff. Like the stakes are very low.
Taylor: Yeah. A lot of marketing.
Joseph: Marketing and writing or creating visuals.
Taylor: When I wrote the Auto-GPT, when I did my first Auto GPT bot and just let it go loose for 20 or 50, I, I was like, just find me, you know, the best marketing strategies to make money or whatever, just as a test.
That was where it came back was just heavy marketing, niche marketing, things like that. So I think it's the fact that we have the technology coming out and we're also in a, inflationary period where people are really like trying to find ways to either save money or make money or survive. We're gonna get some interesting stuff out of this.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
00:43:06
Willie: To pull this back towards gaming-
Taylor: Yeah
Willie: -and talk about stuff we play. The thing that I have been playing or use every now and then is uh, a game called Dungeon Alchemist that's been around for a few years.
Joseph: I know that name.
Willie: It's not really a game, I guess I should say. It's called Dungeon Alchemist, and it's an AI powered like map generator.
Joseph: Oh right. You told me about that. That's why I know about it.
Willie: I, I don't remember. I kickstarted it a couple years ago now it feels like. I don't remember when it came out sometime in the last three years though. But I had early access to it for a long time and it got released, uh, maybe like a year ago now.
So there's like a lot more stuff being added to it, but it's basically a map maker for any sort of tabletop game or you can play in it, you know? So if you're playing D&D or Pathfinder or whatever, whatever other TTRPG that you might be playing, you can build maps in it. It uses AI to help you design things quickly.
So you just drag out a a five by five square and say, I want this room to be a bedroom in a castle, and it'll like spit out a bedroom in a castle.
Taylor: Awesome.
Willie: It'll place, you know, a bed in there and like, a nightstand and a desk, you know, or some wall hangings or something, or paintings.
Joseph: And you can change the furniture, right? Like you could change it pretty easily just by asking it to?
Willie: Yeah. Well, and so you can just click on any object, right? And be like, well, I don't like this bed. I'm gonna go find a different bed. So then you just go through all the objects that it has and you pick a different bed, and you can also resize the bed.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: Or resize the candle that's in the corner of the room, or there's just all kinds of things that you would find in, in, in multiple settings, but mostly fantasy settings. I would say.
Taylor: The assets are beautiful, man. Like I'm, I'm looking through pictures of a lot of people's. How do you utilize the map? Is that a AR thing?
Like, are you guys using your, your phones and viewing it as ar down on a tabletop or something?
Willie: There's a couple ways to use it. This one I've never, like you can't invite anybody to the room to like be in that space. But I think the way to use this one would be two main ways. One is to just print out a map, uh, or print to like PDF or-
Taylor: Okay.
Willie: A jpeg actually
Taylor: Hand it out to everybody or have the big one in the center traditional style?
Willie: Or have it in the digital sort of space. So like I use Foundry VTT when we play D&D, and it has some settings that you can just export the map to that. And then it's a 2D flat map that you're looking at from the top.
If there's lighting in the room, 'cause it will generate lighting for you, so there's like candles around the room, or like a lantern or whatever, that stuff will be output to the the map. So when you import it into something like Foundry, where all your players are looking at the map from a top down view, like in 2d. The lighting is still there. It'll be reflected in, in the room in a way that like makes sense that some parts are darker than others, and there are walls that are included.
When someone walks up to a door, there's a door there that you have to click on to open to let the light escape into the next room, or there won't be light in the next room, you know, if the door's closed.
Taylor: Awesome.
Willie: Or instead of using the 2D, like top down view, you know, you could be sharing your screen if you're playing online or- we haven't played in person in, you know, over three years now- but I have a, a TV that we set down, like on the table, like on its back. I have a case that I made for a TV
Taylor: Oh-ho-ho, wow.
Willie: That you can put minis on top of, but also-
Taylor: Ohh
Willie: -in this case, you wouldn't need to, you could just have the TV where everyone can see it, and then the DM would control the player characters in the map.
Taylor: Right
Willie: Because the other thing is in integrates with Hero Forge. So if you have a Hero Forage account and or a subscriber, I think you have to be a subscriber. You can import all of the minis that you have built on Hero Forge, which is just a thing that you build miniatures in. Then you can have those miniatures in the game and like pick them up and move them around the map in the three-dimensional space, or go into first person view on any one of the miniatures and then just walk around the space-
Taylor: Wow
Willie: -which is a, a newer feature in Dungeon Alchemist. It's been doing it for like, maybe a year as well, but.
Taylor: How did you say you control your character if you do go in the space?
Willie: I mean, it's just like mouse and keyboard.
Taylor: Keyboard. Okay.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: Do they have an AR aspect yet?
Willie: No, they don't. They don't have that yet.
Taylor: This seems ripe for it, dude, because especially when the AR glasses come out, I bet they're getting ready for it.
If I had to guess, 'cause. This is perfect for everybody to be in their living rooms and either using your phone or the glasses you're like surrounded in these environments. Wow. That would be mind blowing. That, I would come back to D&D in a heartbeat for that.
Willie: Yeah, there are, there are some cool VR games that are using, uh, tabletop spaces like this in interesting ways where you move miniatures around.
Taylor: Nice.
Willie: And there's some stuff that's been kickstarted recently that they're trying to do more of that, but I haven't seen anybody implement like AR in that way.
What I really like about this, and the reason I wanted to bring it back to this is that, uh, you know, it is using AI to generate these maps and you can do it super quickly.
And what I like about it is like, I can say I wanna build a tavern and just throw out a tavern with a main dining hall, a kitchen area, a like a secret back room that has like a stage in it or something. But I can do that really quickly. And then it prompts me to come up with a story for the space.
And it gives me something to work with when I'm thinking about, oh my, my group just walked into a new room and I have to describe it now. And because this has been generated quickly, within seconds, I can just look around the room and just describe what I see to my players. And I didn't have to like, think about it all on my own. And it makes me make interesting stories with things. And I, I've used this example before when talking to y'all probably, but you know, there'll be like, sometimes there's weird things that happen with anything that's AI generated.
So it'll put like a barrel right in the middle of the room or something. And if that happens and it happens right in front of the door, I'll just be like, oh, that's the barrel where you have to put your, your swords in. They don't let you carry any blades in this place that are longer than like a regular long sword.
Taylor: Nice. [Laughs] Just write that shit in.
Willie: And you just have to like, put it there.
Taylor: That's awesome.
Willie: And so then you, you just have to think of new ways to like talk about the space that you're in.
Joseph: It's kind of similar to just having prompts, right?
Taylor: Yep.
Joseph: To getting prompts from, you know, something like, uh, a chatbot.
00:49:23
Joseph: When we were talking about AI and just like how it's been integrated into games. And like Willie was talking about how far away we are from some of the, the concepts Taylor's been talking about. I think one of the best uses of that kind of generative art and just AI technology and games was the fucking nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Joseph: And Shadow of War where it would generate basically,
Willie: Yeah
Joseph: -like, it's like orcs and like uruk-hai and stuff like that in the game. And it was just like piecing them together in such a way that I felt like was groundbreaking at the time.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Because I mean, how old is even Shadow of Mordor now.
Taylor: That kept me totally engaged. Just the stupid names. Like a dude would come up.
Joseph: Yes.
Taylor: And he would have a hand growing out of his neck and it's, his name is like Butt Arm or whatever, and everybody's chanting it.
Joseph: Yeah, Neck Neck the Destroyer or something.
Taylor: Neck! Yeah.
Joseph: [chanting] "Neck! Neck!"
[Joseph and Taylor laughing]
Taylor: And they would come in and he would literally chop their head off or something. He'd be like, it'd be like the un uh, Uncapp-able or whatever. And you do. Yeah. It's. Man, that created a great system.
Joseph: That was so good, man. And that-
Taylor: It was.
Joseph: -that I think is what I go to when I, when I try to come up with like the best use of like something that's generative
Willie: Yeah
Joseph: -or that feels like AI and that's like the thing that has always left a, a pretty big impact on me.
Taylor: I think of Resident Evil immediately. I think the thing that I can't do, I think of the impossible, I think of like, Imagine Resident Evil 7. Uh, we all played that one, or at least saw that one, right?
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Imagine that one. Okay? You got like the granny who's following you around, like that's, that's okay, but you know, she's confined to that area or an area.
Imagine a horror game where there is Resident Evil 7 going on, but it's 9 and you're in New York, and um, it's, the plague happened or whatever. But there's a character that's always following you throughout the game, and maybe it's quadrants are different. Like maybe it's for the first half of the game, it can only scare the shit out of you, [laughs] right?
[Joseph laughs]
Taylor: Like the second half of the game it can actually get you or whatever. Like is it's sectioned off like that. Imagine that that is my nightmare, is a game where you are playing and you're just doing whatever. You- safe rooms are, safe rooms, and you turn around and there is an AI there that does something scary to you.
I don't care what it is, but I will shit my pants so fast. I will have to play that game sitting on a toilet because things are gonna be unbearable, but I would still have to play it, and that's the future that I see happening.
Joseph: That could be terrorizing.
Taylor: Dude, that it would, somebody will do it soon. Soon.
Joseph: If there was the, the ability for the game to be completely unexpected and like for, for us to not even know what was gonna happen.
Taylor: Dude. Somebody would be in the menu screen. Imagine that.
Joseph: Yes.
Taylor: [Laughing] If in the menu screen, that motherfucker could pop up! It's like, oh, it's like Five Nights at Freddy's but, you know, Resident Evil.
And so you're going around. You could open a mailbox and a dude's fucking face is in there for no reason, for literally no reason. No, don't do it. [Joseph laughs] If anybody hears this and wants to do it, don't fucking do it.
Willie: This is absolutely not the same thing as that. But, uh, reminded me that some of my favorite speed runs are Resident Evil speed runs with randomizers.
Taylor: Whoa, how's that work?
Willie: There's a couple ways, right? They can randomize where the objects are in the game that you need, but also you can randomize the enemies that are in every room.
Joseph: Oh snap.
Willie: You'll open the first door in the Resident Evil one. In the original Resident Evil.
You'll open a door in the mansion. That's like the first or second door you can open, and suddenly it's one of the bosses from the end of the game [Taylor laughs] and you're just like, oh shit. And you gotta deal with it. When they're speed running, you're just running really most of the time.
Joseph: That can dramatically change the speed run.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Dude.
Joseph: The way you react to it.
Willie: Uh-huh
Joseph: -and that completely changes the run because there's no like standardization to them.
Willie: And it can lock the game sometimes. There's a couple that I've seen where you just get locked because you get to a place where there's an enemy that you, there's not enough room and you just can't-
Joseph: [laughing] Oh wow.
Willie: You can't beat it. Like you literally can't go past that spot anymore because you'll die if you try to run through that room.
Joseph: Like you can't get by. There's not like enough physical space to get by something.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: Yeah. A little bit of that.
Joseph: Damn.
Taylor: Okay, so could you reload your last save and then it re randomizes and you can get through there? Or is it like you gotta start the whole run over again?
Willie: When people make speed runs like that for like the purpose of entertainment or just showing it off, the seed that's generated, because everything will just be generated off of a number, right? Or a random code. They won't use ones that can be locked like that.
Taylor: Okay.
Willie: Someone will have pre ran the speed run to see what happens and make sure that there are no locks, and then they'll do it.
Taylor: Okay? So the rails are already laid. All you need to do is apply that aspect. That's gonna happen sooner than we even think, 'cause you just apply that to an AI. Combine the two.
Where it gets real interesting is where that AI can also generate. Like that's where it's gonna get super terrifying is where it could have anything.
Willie: Some Elden Ring style enemies.
Taylor: Yeah.
Willie: Cause that's all they do. They just-
Taylor: Yeah dude, yeah.
Willie: That's probably their method.
Joseph: Yeah. The revenant.
Willie: [Laughing] Fee- yeah.
Joseph: [Laughs] Get arms growing out of all everywhere.
Taylor: Dude, you open a, open a door and there's, you know, somebody with their face imploded and inside is just a world of pain that you can like look at right before it kills you or whatever. It's. It terrifies me, but it gets me excited. It makes me wanna make a game. Like the, that we're getting in this period of, uh, where AI can augment and help you with a lot of this stuff.
00:54:57
Willie: I wanna jump back to Shadow of War real fast 'cause I think-
Taylor: Ooh
Willie: -we should talk for a second about games that we haven't played or haven't finished.
Taylor: Yes...
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Because we brought up Shadow of War, Shadow of Mordor back in like favorites I think.
Joseph: Yeah, that's true.
Willie: And that's one of those that I've never finished since we talked about it. I like haven't gone back to finish Shadow of Mordor or Shadow of War 'cause I've never finished either of those. I don't even think I played Shadow of War because I didn't finish Shadow of Mordor. Right. That's the right order, right?
Joseph: Yeah. Shadow of Mordor and then Shadow of War. I finished Shadow of Mordor and I played, I felt like maybe like 40% of Shadow of War, and then I stopped for whatever reason and like literally haven't touched that game in years.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But it's been popping up in like my library and I've been having thoughts of going back and playing it. Just because-
Taylor: It's good.
Joseph: I never finished Shadow of War.
Taylor: I'll say the, the ending of a Shadow of War. I'm not gonna tell you what the ending is, but it's, it was a little more generic than, um, than I hoped for, just because so much of the systems and everything in the game were, were so, like you said, mind blowing and, and really cutting edge.
It was just kind of, all right, here's how we're wrapping it up and, and you do it, but it's still worth playing.
Willie: Alright and from Shadow of War, let's jump over to God of War 'cause that's something that we've talked about on this podcast. And I'm talking about God of War 2018. Did anybody ever finish that game? 'Cause I know we all talked about it. [Laughs]
Joseph: That was gonna be my confession today, was that I have not finished God of War, which obviously means I haven't played Ragnarok. That is the game that I'm feeling regret about right now. Definitely failing at God of War for sure.
Taylor: Same. I got back into it. I cruised around the lake in the boat for a little bit [Joseph laughs] and uh, I couldn't even figure out how to determine where I was or what I needed to do.
And I think I played it about 15 minutes and um, then, went to do something else. So.
Joseph: I definitely feel like I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get smacked up when I turn that game back on.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Because I felt like I was just getting into the combat groove.
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Joseph: And like how to use the axe effectively. And I didn't do it long enough for it to, to just get baked into my memory.
So I think when I load that up, I'm gonna have trouble.
Taylor: It feels like your hands are, somebody took your hands off and put 'em on backwards. [Joseph laughs] Nothing feels right. I mean, yeah, I'm like pulling the ax and I already have the ax and I'm doing all this. It's tough. It is real tough to get back into that one.
Willie: I feel like I might play that one after Jedi: Survivor.
It. It'll be tricky to like retrain my brain, but it will definitely, I feel like there will be some things that feel right about it as well. Just the style of gameplay. Might help get back into that sort of mindset. Yeah. I never finished God of War either. I had started it and played, I don't know, maybe five hours at the most.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And didn't go back for whatever reason.
Joseph: I feel like I probably pay- played about 10 hours of that game.
00:57:55
Willie: I will also admit I never, I never finished Ghost of Tsushima, which is a thing we talked about.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: I'm still sitting at like one third of the way through that game. I think.
Joseph: Man, that game is so good.
Willie: I know. I know, it's just beautiful and I love the combat in it. I think it'll feel good to go back to that game too, after Jedi: Survivor.
Joseph: Mm
Willie: Because while Jedi: Survivor's combat is okay, I, I do think the Ghost of Tsushima stuff was better. Like from what I remember.
Joseph: Probably more fluid.
Taylor: Oh yeah. So fluid.
Willie: Jedi: Survivor's done some things to like make it interesting again.
Just with the stances that are in Jedi: Survivor as well, but it's not to the same depth of like, oh, I need this stance to beat this enemy, sort of thing. It's just like-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -choosing the the way you want to fight.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Hm. That might be cool.
Joseph: That's cool too. You know, for different reasons. Yeah, because you're not locked in.
Willie: I have found like I do prefer this style of fighting for certain enemies as well and I always keep this stance like-
Joseph: Mm
Willie: -in my ready to go slot, 'cause you can only have two at a time.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: I will say, I did just recently unlock the, the lightsaber and blaster combination.
00:59:03
Willie: Which is fun.
Joseph: Oh shit. Like dual wielding?
Willie: Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor: Oh, neat.
Joseph: That's pretty sick.
Taylor: Neat. Can you, uh, do either with either hand, can you switch?
Willie: No. The Saber I, as far as I know, the saber's always in your right hand and the blasters in your left.
Taylor: Okay. That's cool.
Joseph: That's probably 'cause uh, homeboy is right-handed.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Did you see the ad with him and Mark Hamill where he was like training him?
Willie: Yeah, yeah. I saw, yeah, I saw it the day before I think it came out.
Joseph: That shit was great.
Taylor: Oh man. Man, I'm gonna have to get back in there and finish the first one.
Willie: Let's talk for a second about a couple things that we said we were gonna do together, uh, just to check in-
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -About those things.
[Taylor chuckles]
Joseph: Well [laughs]
Willie: So there's Halo Infinite is one-
Joseph: Didn't happen.
Willie: -which we know has not happened. We started the co-op campaign at some point, and we should probably just go finish that-
Joseph: That's true.
Willie: 'cause it was fun. I mean, I think-
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Willie: -we just need to continue.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: We're always waiting on Taylor man. Taylor's the dude that never fucking shows up.
Taylor: Oh, whatever. [Taylor and Joseph laugh] Whatever. There have been no invites.
Willie: And then there's, there's No Man's Sky.
Joseph: Didn't happen.
Willie: Did not happen. And-
Taylor: More like, "Nope, Man Sky"
Willie: -since we've talked about it.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: I think there might have been two updates, but there's definitely been one big update since the last time we, we talked about playing No Man Sky and still didn't do it.
Joseph: Oh, really?
Taylor: Or it happened that day or something. It was even-
Joseph: Oh, that's right.
Taylor: -it was the, like, the day we were looking at it.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: We looked and, and there was some big new update that they released.
[01:00:23] Marker
Joseph: One of those did happen though, Willie, at least for us.
Willie: Yeah. Um, we've been playing Destiny 2 every now and then.
Joseph: Which I feel like is a, an accomplishment for me because-
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: -the... I... for so long, I have not wanted to start playing that game because it felt so old and so overwhelming to jump into cold turkey, and it was fucking brutal. The process to get where I am today. I feel like this is my story. [laughs]
[Taylor laughs]
Joseph: Like it was a fucking beast of a game with shit menus, that doesn't really tell you what to do, but the gameplay is fun. It's fun enough to keep doing, and the idea of collecting weapons and finding new shit and up-leveling gear and modifying armor, all of that is really cool.
But I honestly didn't start really feeling okay with the game until I bought all of the fricking expansions. [Taylor laughs] Because it was so hard to determine-
Taylor: You were forced by capitalism.
Joseph: Seriously, man, it's like I couldn't tell what I could do and what I couldn't do, and then I felt like there was no fucking story or campaign in the game. But then we bought the expansions and now I can like do almost everything.
So now it's way easier to not feel gated from content in the game or feel like I can't do a mission because I don't have, you know, enough of the expansions. And then like, I don't know, it's confusing as fuck because there's a lot of stuff that's so legacy that you can't even play it anymore in the game.
Taylor: Hmm.
Joseph: So like figuring out all that stuff was a fucking nightmare, but now I kind of feel like I have a grip on it and can play it and like actually enjoy it.
Taylor: I jumped in there, man. I jumped in when you guys mentioned it, and I tried to play that intro level and it, it feels, it still feels old to me. It just feels old.
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: And something about the I, it may be that I played it a hundred hours or 200 hours, however long I've played both destinies together. And that's essentially the same engine when you're talking about-
Willie: Oh, I guarantee it's more hours than that, just so you know.
Taylor: Yeah, it probably is but- [Joseph laughs]
Willie: [laughing] I guarantee you it is. 'Cause Destiny 1, I've had so many hours, close to a thousand hours on that game.
Taylor: Oh my god.
Joseph: Damn.
Willie: I know that you've got something like that.
Taylor: For sure, I did a lot of raiding. I just couldn't do it anymore. Like I need something out of that game. Like I need it to control differently. I need the character to move differently.
I need them to have a, something different because it was just too much of the same, just as I got about, you know, maybe 20 minutes into that first stage for, for the new expansion.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: I think that's the one they allow you to play without it, whatever it was. I, I just couldn't.
Joseph: They let you play like the very beginning of each of those expansions and then it's like, hey, okay, now you, to co-
Taylor: Maybe that was it.
Joseph: -to finish it you have to go buy it.
Taylor: I think it was the new one and I, I just couldn't. I need a different engine out of them for me to continue anything else playing?
Joseph: You just sound like you're bored with it. Bored with the game.
Taylor: I am for sure. That was, I just didn't even care to see what was coming next on that.
Joseph: Right.
Taylor: So yeah, we got some things that we need to play. We need to play one of these at least before the next time we do a, uh, our next podcast.
Joseph: I think it should be Halo Infinite. I think that should be the game.
Taylor: I'm down for that one.
Joseph: 'Cause all of us like that game.
Taylor: The least onboarding.
Joseph: Yeah, exactly.
Taylor: No Man Sky will be awesome. But ooh, there's some, there's a lot of onboarding and a lot of, lot of play that has to take place there so...
Willie: No Man Sky and, and Destiny would definitely take a lot of like, trying to get back on the same page.
Taylor: Yep. But I'm down. I'm down.
Joseph: Yeah, hmm.
Taylor: Y'all just let me know. Um, even if it's, tonight. Today I'm free. You know, I can always find a couple hours to do something like that.
Joseph: I don't believe that.
Taylor: Nah, you just let me know.
Joseph: All right, we'll, we'll put it to the test.
Taylor: Yeah, put it to the test. Do it.
01:04:01
Joseph: But yeah, I mean, this is episode one, I guess, of Controller Confessions, where we spend a little bit of time catching up, figuring out what we've been playing, making confessions about what we said we were gonna do, but we haven't.
Taylor: Gamer Lord forgives you.
Joseph: But hopefully we can, you know, kind of sprinkle these in. I dunno, they feel kind of bonus, episode-y, but it's been cool.
Willie: I will say very quickly that I do need to finish Resident Evil 4 'cause I did start that when it came out on PC.
Taylor: Ooh.
Joseph: Oh right. I do love all the visuals, man. Like everything I've seen of people playing, it looks like a game I would actually like, enjoy playing.
Willie: The other thing I am looking forward to that Taylor sort of reminded me of, but I'm also worried about is Starfield, which I think is supposed to come out in September.
Joseph: Ah. Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Mmm.
Willie: Which is Bethesda's new, next release after Redfall.
Taylor: Do we want to start a, uh, a, [Willie and Taylor chuckle] a bet? A bet about, uh, when it'll be pushed back to,
Joseph: Oh man, who knows? [Willie laughs]
Willie: Who knows?
Joseph: But obviously the, the Redfall stuff is concerning for that game. Like just what's happening.
Willie: For context. I don't, I obviously, I don't think any of us know the full story, but-
Taylor: Mm-hmm.
Willie: -Redfall came out recently for us, as of the time of this recording, and it's not in a good state according to a lot of people. I think it's buggy, but also a lot of people just don't think the narrative is that great and that the gameplay is not anything like new.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Not new enough to be exciting enough to like, warrant it. I was really excited when that game got first announced, 'cause I thought, I thought it was a cool concept. And then just seeing like some of the trailers after I was like, I don't know, maybe. And I sort of just fell off my interest and then now seeing bad reviews about it, I'm like, uh, man, I did kind of want that to be good.
Taylor: Dude. I, I had a very similar reaction. I, my first thought went to man vampires, like we're doing a lot of vampires. [Willie chuckles]
Is that like, that's the first thing I ask myself is, do I even give a shit about playing a vampire game right now? And I very quickly, my gut said, nah, not really. Almost would rather play a zombie game. And that's super low on my list of stuff I want to do. And so I wonder if that's a big part of it.
Maybe people are getting tired of the exact same tropes, the same enemies over and over.
Willie: I've seen two major things, which is like the gameplay is just not good.
Taylor: Oh, that sucks.
Willie: It... there... It's not rewarding is what I keep seeing. And I don't know exactly what that means, but I could also understand that it just feels the same as a lot of other things. Probably the worst of the worst that we're seeing on the internet. Like always, always see extremes.
I've seen stuff where like characters just don't show up.
Joseph: Oh dang.
Willie: They're talking to you, but they're not in the space.
Taylor: Oh, that sucks.
Joseph: Aww.
Willie: Or their like, heads are like the only thing poking out of the ground or-
Joseph: Oh, that's sad.
Willie: -characters are just like skating across the ground with no animation. It's just like moving across the floor downstairs is the one I keep seeing.
Joseph: Oh, like hovering, their legs aren't even moving.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Ouch.
Taylor: That sucks.
Willie: I think, you know, again, caveat is we don't, we have no idea what's going on with like why that happened, but I think a lot of people are just speculating that, this is pure speculation so I don't even really like talking about it, but that Microsoft just didn't really care about that when they bought-
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: -Bethesda or whatever, and they didn't really care about that particular game, so they kind of just rushed it out the door to be done with it.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Again, that's total fucking speculation and, and rumor mill bullshit.
Taylor: They might've just thought it was gonna be a turnkey thing too. They might've had that thought of, "Hey, you guys put out bangers."
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: "We're just gonna let you keep doing what you do. Here's a bunch of money," or, or whatever the deal may call for. Maybe they needed a little more help or more eyes on it, just being like, "Hey, this is buggy as shit."
Willie: I think maybe they just needed more time.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Taylor: Yeah, more time
Willie: Becaus.... I think the problem is probably just more time and people are like, "well, Microsoft just didn't want to give them more time." They're just like, whatever. They didn't really care about the project.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: And the other thing that I'll say that's again, speculation is that it's Arkane's first, it's their first foray into like doing online co-op.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: Like always online co-op. So that might be like a huge part of it. And again, without enough time to actually develop that, they just, it might not have happened.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: And I don't know-
Taylor: Two stars, yikes.
Joseph: All those things combined can definitely, like, that seems plausible for sure. All of that.
Willie: Right. So if that game gets a patch, you know, I would be inclined to check it out. 'Cause I do, again, I, I like the idea honestly. Uh, and I like playing co-op stuff as we have talked about before. And all of that makes me worried about Starfield because it's like, well, maybe they did move all their efforts towards making sure Starfield was good, or maybe they didn't and who knows.
Joseph: Yeah. I guess we'll find out in good time.
Taylor: Yeah, we will 'cause if this one has a huge blowback, then they're either gonna push it back and give it more time, or you would hope. Like that would be the normal move, is that they would take that as a sign of, "Ooh, we better tighten up, get our belts tightened up, and make sure everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing."
You know, double the QA, whatever needs to be done, and not let that happen because Starfield is one, that could be a big make or breaker right there. They could make as many games as they want, but they've been pushing it and, and just really building it up and getting the hype train going about it. You know, Todd, what's his nuts put on his leather jacket came out.
[Joseph chuckles]
Taylor: That's not a small, [chuckling] that's not a small event. [Joseph laughs] For that dude to put on that leather jacket and come out and that little headphone. I guess I had Redfall downloaded. So since I already have it installed and everything, I'll probably check it out-
Joseph: Mm.
Taylor: -at least play 30 minutes of it today and-
Joseph: That is a game pass game, right?
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, that's, hey, that's always the thing. It can be pretty crappy, if it's a big game and it's coming out on Game Pass, I'm gonna play it even if it's for five minutes.
Joseph: Mm-hmm.
Willie: Yeah. Definitely let us know and obviously I'll be watching out for a patch.
01:09:54
Joseph: Yeah, for sure. Well, as a last reminder, uh, everybody go out and check the, check out the Pizza Tower soundtrack, which is, I don't know, I think incredible. It's the best track, the best soundtrack I've listened to since that Elden Ring and Celeste soundtracks. Very much worth the listening, and it's, I haven't gotten through the whole thing yet, but it seems like it has a little bit of everything for anybody…for everybody.
Taylor: I'm digging it.
Willie: I'll definitely just put that on while I'm working today and see.
Joseph: Cool.
[Outro theme begins to fade in - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Taylor: I'll put it on in case there's no audio playing, uh, during Redfall or something [Joseph and Willie laugh] like that, a weird glitch. I'll just put that music on in its, [Joseph and Willie laughing] in its stead.
Joseph: Nice. Hell yeah. Uh, well cool. Well, this has been awesome.
Willie: Yeah. If you made it all the way to the end of this episode and you've listened to that Elden Ring episode, which you should definitely go do, thank you for getting all the way through this with us and we appreciate it.
Taylor: And with that, we'll catch you in the next episode but until then, never stop gaming.
Joseph: Never stop gaming.
[Outro theme continues - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Joseph: Berries and Blades is an independent podcast created by Joseph Bullard, Willie Garza and Taylor Garratt. Thanks for tuning in and consider subscribing if you enjoyed listening to this episode. You can also support us by telling your friends about the show, and we hope to see you in the next episode of Berries and Blades. Until then, thanks again.
[Outro theme fades out - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
01:11:13
Taylor: Berries and Blades presents the Infini-twist game controller. It has 100 buttons, 27 joysticks, and a live hamster running on a wheel for absolute total and utterly non-negotiable power. Or maybe just because it's cute. Feel the thrill of juggling buttons while balancing a cup of tea on the built-in coaster.
Can you beat level three while also making a sandwich? We didn't think so. Berries and Blades, absurdly sophisticated, ridiculously impossible, for when gaming wasn't hard enough.
That's the whole ad.
Joseph: Damn. [laughing] Damn.