Peak, Iron Nest, Nintendo Direct (Witchbrook, City of None, Tenjutsu)

Hello and welcome to SideQuest. This is our video game show here at Geekverse. I am your host, Dylan Mustenap. With me, the nicknameless Kirkland Patzer. How are you doing today, my friend?

I'm nicknameless, apparently, but I'm doing pretty good. It's an interesting time because this is the first official Monday after the time that we would be changing our clocks. We don't do that anymore in this province, but I feel like it's actually fucked me up more than like previous years we do switch the time and that's specifically because it's like oh i'm not on the same time zone of like seattle now or like la or something you know so if i'm like planning to watch a sport event that i know is on at the same time right all the time and it's like an hour after when i would not think my computer also like changed because it's based on like la time i guess so that threw me for a loop.

Yeah my computer did not update but like my phone and stuff did It's so weird.

Yeah, it's throwing me off in more ways than I would have expected. I guess it's just because I am so used to referencing the other Pacific Standard Time, but we're not on Pacific Standard Time anymore. So it's kind of a weird feeling.

But no, I'm doing good.

I'm doing good.

How about you? You know, it was funny. I worked this morning. We had a meeting, and they pulled up a map of North America and all the time zones.

Yeah.

Now, and it's just a total mess visually. It's like, this is not intuitive in any way, shape, or form. But now we never have to change our clocks again. Yeah, it's like weird now, but then every other time it'll just be normal and less work and less things to adjust to, I think, over time. So it's just weird now, and a lot of machines are effed up, but I think in the long run it'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

I think it'll be good for the long run.

Yeah, we're also the, you know, it's November 2nd here at the time of recording, so it's Halloween over the weekend, a nice Saturday Halloween, which I feel like it's been a minute since that. We also, I don't know about you guys, but I assume we had pretty nice weather for it, so it was nice to see. But yeah, how was your Halloween? How was your weekend in general?

We haven't caught up on that yet.

Yeah, no, it was good.

Yeah.

I mean, you mentioned the weather. It was kind of perfect for the trick-or-treaters and whatnot, because, like, all week here, it was, like, rainy and gloomy and wet, and we don't normally get that here, so it's, like, it's kind of a thumbs-up. It's, like, nice.

We get some rain.

We don't normally see rain, but, of course, for trick-or-treaters, that would kind of suck, but, no, Saturday was nice and dry, and it's a little chilly. It's getting a little chilly now, but, no, it was good. We went over to some friends' house, uh, That was a weird way to say that.

We went over to some.

Friends' house.

Why does that feel so weird? A singular house that multiple friends live in.

I'm comboing plurals and singulars. It's messing with my brain. We went over there on Saturday and just played cards. They had trick-or-treaters coming by, so we were handing out candy and whatnot.

What card games were you playing?

Phase 10. Have you ever heard of it?

No, I've never heard of phase 10. What's phase 10?

You get a little reference card. You have to go through 10 different phases. The first one would be you need a run of four plus four of a kind or something. So first person to get that, then they're done that round technically, and then the round doesn't end until one person is out of cards. So you basically want to complete the first phase because then you move on next round. but you also want to be the first person to get rid of all your cards because at the end, you get points accumulated based on how many cards you have in your hand. It's kind of like golf, so you don't want points in that sense.

So I think 10 and under, you get five points per card and then anything over a 10. So like, yeah, I don't... Yeah, there's no face cards. So it'd be like 10, 11, 12. Those would be, I think they're 10... points maybe even more maybe yeah maybe 15 or something but then there's also like uh they have like a skip a turn card kind of like uno rules that would be like a 25 pointer so you really want to get rid of those but you also kind of want to be strategic on when you play them like if if you're to my left and you're popping off this round like obviously i want to save that for you but i also want to get rid of my cards it I was kind of slow picking up, but, like, honestly, first round, it was okay. And I definitely got sewered on, like,

I think it was, like, round four. I was stuck on it, like, seven rounds in a row. Like, it was horrible. But then the next couple rounds, I was, like, the first one out. So it was kind of funny how that played out. And, no, it was lots of fun. It was pretty low-key. It was just, like, four of us. It was nice and intimate.

And, yeah.

I got pretty drunk, though. I'm not going to lie. Oh. Yeah. I... Didn't think I would be, but I was just steadily drinking. It was me and the one other gentleman that was with me. Because it was, like, me, Shay, and then Shay's friend that she met from nursing, and then her, like, husband, boyfriend. Like, now we're all friends together, but that's kind of how that friend group kind of started. Her friend is, like, pretty pregnant. Like, she's due, like, January 3rd. And then Shay doesn't drink at all. So it was just me and Buddy, just, like, Just hitting the sauce, but no, it was good. It was a good time. I didn't throw up or anything, but I just felt it. Fortunately, Shay drove me home, and I was in the car.

I was like, oh man, I did not realize how sauced up I was. I haven't felt that way in a while. I'm not really a drinker, and I haven't been drunk in a while to that level. But no, it was good. We were all responsible. They got stink-bombed. One trick-or-treater came through and, like, dropped a stink bomb on their doorstep. It smelled like horse manure. I didn't smell it personally.

That's so effed up.

Yeah. That's just, like, a Halloween thing, I guess. Like, one buddy didn't seem too surprised by it. He's like, oh, yeah, classic. We just got stink bombed. Oh, okay. He wasn't too upset about it, but just members of the youth being little hooligans.

Man, speaking of members of the youth, I had a weird experience this weekend where my nephew who's six years old has started saying like oh bro bro bro like that that kind of speak like he was calling me bro and he calls his mom bro and uh it was it was quite a wild experience when he i haven't seen him in like a month or two and like when he first dropped that it was it was wild i mean he's like i guess he's now in grade one and so like things like that are happening now but it was It was a weird experience. I'm sure you've, I don't know if you've experienced that with the age.

My nephew does that.

Yeah.

He's at that point.

He's, uh, how old is he? He's seven actually. So like right around that same age. And, uh, yeah, totally. I like, it's funny too, like seeing him cause I, I visited them in Edmonton, uh, in the springtime, you had like a hockey tournament. So just seeing him like with his friends and they're, they're all like talking that same way together. It's like, this is so strange. I'm sure I was the same. Like, I still say stuff like that. It probably originated way back then.

But it is funny.

Especially, like, I just saw him as, like, a baby. And now he's, like, kind of getting a little bit older and just being a little shit disturber. But, no, he's amazing. I love my nephew. Yeah.

It was a weird experience. But, no, overall, that sounds good. That sounds like a great Halloween. That sounds super fun.

Yeah it was pretty like like i said it was just the four of us it was pretty quiet but uh it was it was nice just to shoot the shit and socialize and yeah nothing too crazy it's not like you're at like a big party event where it's like oh man like i don't know half the people here and like kind of right kind of a recluse anyways so it's like 90 of the time i'd rather just be home but uh that was one evening i'm like yeah i'm glad we did it was it was good time.

Yeah I went to a Halloween party on Saturday. It was like a murder mystery kind of party. And I mean, I live in Vancouver. People don't have like a lot of square footage typically among my friends. So I haven't been to like a house party in a fucking long ass time. So that was super fun. You know, everyone's like dressed up doing costumes and all that. But yeah, it was like, it was a lot of the people that I played Blood on the Clocktower with. and the guy who was hosting it he plays clock tower a lot and he created like kind of like a custom game that was like very close to blood on the clock tower but was kind of a bit more chill and that like not everyone needed to be in a circle playing the game so it was like oh yeah

people can go around the house people can go eat food people can like not really pay much attention you don't need to be there there's not like big public announcements that happen things like that right People can be answering the door when the kids show up. People can go eat food. People can go do whatever they want.

And then the game kind of still goes on. So it was a cool, it was like a nice backdrop for the party. And then I feel like in the last like half an hour, 40 minutes of the game is when people were like a lot more focused in it. But even like some people at the party didn't participate in the game itself. So they were kind of just hanging out. There were some people who had like very passive roles in the game. And yeah, it was really cool.

It was really well designed. I think it was, like, it was probably not a very balanced experience, but I didn't go in expecting that kind of thing. It was a bit silly. The evil team absolutely stomped and just destroyed everyone. Because it was almost impossible to coordinate, especially with the fact that everyone's, like, going around and not in, like, one cohesive circle. I knew most people there, but, yeah, it was, like, I probably knew, like, 70% of them, most people that I've played Blood Uncollected. with are other games like that. So that was a really, it was a fun time. And we also played this game, Kirkland, this board game called Play Things, which I had never heard of before. Sounds pretty familiar. Does it? Because I

had never heard of it, but maybe, yeah, maybe you've played it before. It's kind of like a horror kind of game. It's, It's a small game. It's in, like, a small box. There's, like, a little felt mat, essentially, that you put down. And it kind of has, like, the blueprint of a house where there's, like, different rooms.

There's a bedroom, kitchen, garage. I don't even know what the rooms are because it's not, like, that relevant to the game. And then, essentially, one person is called, like, the Nightmare or Night Terror. I think it's the Night Terror or something like that. And then everyone else is playing. You're playing like a kid. And you, like, flip a card, and that's, like, your toy, your favorite toy or whatever it is. So it's, like, a pinwheel or a train or a horse, things like that. And then, essentially, all the players close their eyes, except for the Night Terror.

And then you, like, they slowly place the toys, and it's, like, upside down, right? It's, like, a closed chest. And when you flip it, that's when, like, it says the toy's name on it. And they're slowly, like, placing the thing around the different parts of the house. And then when... When they've done all that, everyone has to open their eyes and try and find their item. And the way you do that is there's all sorts of weird little gimmicks.

You flip a card and it will tell you different ways that you can kind of learn about the space. And so one of them might be that you get to put collectively five fingers under the mat. So you have someone sticking their hand awkwardly under the mat so they can feel when a box is getting dropped near their hand. Or you are pulling string with someone else across the table. And then you can tell when, like, they put a block near the string because you can kind of feel it ever so slightly. Just really weird, goofy little things like that. It was, like, a very physical game and very, like, very small and physical game. Like, sometimes they have to, like, drop the blocks upside down and things like that. And I don't know. There's this

whole mechanic, too, where, like, players can peek. So you could like just straight up see when they're placing the thing. But then after the round, the Night Terror individually goes by each person and says like, okay, I think you peaked. I think you didn't peak. And then they get more points if they are correct, the fact that you peaked.

So you kind of want to do it in stealth or just not do it at all or just, I don't know, whatever you think they think you're going to do, you want to do the opposite of. So it was just a really weird, unique game. I've never played anything quite like it before, but it was like a perfect Halloween themed game as well. And the whole thing took like maybe 20 minutes and we were all like new players.

doing it as well. And it was fun that we were doing that while this big murder mystery party was happening. Like that's how chill this murder mystery themed game night was. We could kind of do other things and play other games while it was happening. So yeah, it was a, that was a, that was a cool game. It was called play things. I highly, highly recommend it.

Nice.

Yeah.

No, I, it's just the name sounded familiar. I looked it up and I have never seen or played this. Definitely a Halloween like aesthetic to it. I like the black and white feel. Just the setup that you're playing as children reminds me of Little Nightmares.

Is that that game? Yeah, I feel like it has a similar visual style to that.

But that's fun. I like it.

Yeah, so it was a good Halloween weekend. It was the first Halloween in a long time that I haven't gone trick-or-treating with my nieces and nephews. I took a break, I guess, this year from that, but I'm sure next year will be back watching them do all that stuff. It's chaos though, because like my sister, you know, she has three kids now. And then they, they like, they were cousins. There's like a family of like, I think they have five kids. I can't even keep track. Typically this is my family. I can't even keep track of how many kids they have. There's like five other kids.

And then like, they all get together, go do Halloween trick or treating together. And it's just havoc, you know, it's like nearly 10 kids. So yeah, it's, it's pretty wild, wild stuff. So I was, fine to take one year off of that and go to this Halloween party because I haven't been to something like that in a while.

It was pretty cool.

I've never trick-or-treated with children before now that I'm an adult.

My sister lives far away. She lives in a different time zone. Speaking of time zones.

I think not right now, technically.

I think Alberta also is doing the thing where they are no longer changing time, but I think they're still permanently an hour ahead. But now we're lined up with, like, the middle of the U.S. So it's, like, just a mess.

It's so strange. It's so strange.

Yeah.

But, no, they had a good time. My brother-in-law, he's a 3D printer, and he goes hard. He, like, 3D prints stuff all the time. He literally 3D printed, like, a full Mandalorian, like, legit costume for him. Like, it looks legit. It's a lot of time.

I wonder how much that costs in materials.

Yeah, he says, like, the filaments and whatnot, like, it's not that expensive, but, like, sometimes when he, like, gives me, like, price points, I'm like, man, you're in a totally different tax bracket than me, so, like, it's expensive, but for him, maybe not, but at the end of the day, it was worth it, like, it turned out really good, obviously.

My nephew, he looked really good, he was super pumped, and then my niece, she was, like, rogu, so they were, like, the combo, it was, yeah, it was a good time, and They had a blast, and fortunately.

From the hit film, Mandalorian and Grogu.

Yes, if nobody's seen it. I wouldn't say the hit film, but it stunned theaters.

Yeah, everyone at the door is like, oh, what are you guys dressed up as? Huge Star Wars character. That's hilarious. Well, I don't know what my transition is here. Speaking of next weekend, last weekend was exciting, but next weekend is even more exciting, Kirkland, because it is, of course, our yearly Extra Life 24-hour stream. We are raising money for the BC Children's Hospital. We're doing all sorts of activities.

We have all sorts of donation incentives and stretch goals. And it's going to be a great time. That is happening this Saturday, which is November 7th for 24 hours. And normally, almost always that we've done the 24-hour stream, it occurs during the time change. So there's some weird jank that we got to do to make the time all line up. And it throws us off in the middle of the night when it's later than it should be, but then the time has gone back. But we don't have to deal with that anymore, Kirkland. That's nice. Hey, there's one immediate benefit of not doing.

Uh, I suppose.

Yeah, I suppose. Yeah.

I was already like dreading that, uh, that following Monday, but like, it's also, we get like a stat day halfway through the week. So I'm like, man, as long as I can make it through those first two days, then I get like a little, little bit of a break to reset. But, um, the trick is to just like not sleep that much, I think the following Sunday, but I heard you have some crazy transportation scheduling things.

You're coming down the day it starts. Is that correct?

No, I am coming down Friday. But yeah, it's a weird situation where I'm with a new job and I don't have many holidays. I also don't have accumulated sick days yet, so I couldn't even take a sick day or I would just be losing money. So I'm going to come down Friday night and I've set it up so that I'm going to start work early and then leave work early so I can hopefully... be any sort of cold or hopefully it doesn't snow that much. Hopefully the weather holds out until I drive down. I just got some brand new winters put on the car last week, so that'll be good. But yeah, I'm going to drive down Friday night. Barring if there's some crazy storm on the Coquihalla, then I will not do that because I

don't want to die. But I would try and come up Saturday or something like that. So yeah, the plan is Friday night, come up Friday night, be there for for the whole stream and then just leave on Sunday after, I guess, getting like a couple hours of sleep or something like that. So it'll be a frantic time, but I'll be there. One way or another, I'll be there. Nice. Yeah.

But yeah, the stream's coming up, so look forward to that. All sorts of fun gaming activities that are going to happen on that. And yeah, support us if you want. Really, it's not supporting us. It's supporting the BC Children's Hospital. And if you don't have any money to spare, just come check out the stream. Say hello. No matter what time of day for our entire day, we will be there.

It's going to be a lot of fun. So check it out. I'll do some other plugs in a bit. But let's talk about some of the games today. We've been playing, and let's start with a follow-up on Peak, which you and I talked about a few weeks ago. Because I know after that episode, you then bought Peak and have been playing it. I have a Peak update as well, but I want to hear from you first.

How has your first few hours and runs in Peak been?

Yeah, I'm just pulling up my Steam here so I can see my play time on here. So I'm seven and a half hours in.

Nice.

Still rookie climber for sure. To this day, I still have not hit the third biome. I've done, like, a couple solo runs. I've done three, like, really good, like, team runs. And, yeah, I'll start at the beginning because I got this game. I played for the first time with my one good friend, Denzel. Shouts out to him.

He's probably going to listen to this episode, so he'll appreciate the name shout out. He also, he's my Warhammer buddy. So anytime that we're talking about anything Warhammer, he just like on the feeds, he's listening to that Cyquist episode. So major supporter of me constantly talking about Warhammer. I'm not going to do that this episode. But yeah, him and I booted up Peak. And I'm not even kidding you, Dylan, before we even got on that plane ride, And flew out on our peak adventure, you know, did the whole plane crash thing and.

Started our ascent.

We literally just played basketball for, like, I'm not even kidding, like, probably 45 minutes straight. I'm not even kidding.

Like, it was so intense.

Like, we're just practicing, like, the mechanics. We're, like, laughing at our characters because it's just, like, goofy. uh yeah just just a goofy aesthetic to the game uh and we're like having fun with like the proximity chat too like he's on the other side of the airport and i can like barely hear him and there's like a uh but like we just started like shooting hoops and then we're like oh we're getting pretty good at this and then i just started like blocking him and it just turned it like we didn't even plan it it just turned like a full-on intense 1v1 where we were just like like i was like playing defense he would be shooting i'd be blocking him and the game like it doesn't have like good basketball mechanics in the sense

of like i can like block him properly it's usually if you can like get your hand above them or like click as they shoot like you're probably gonna block it like nine times out of ten yeah but but that just made that much more intense like he would be like doing like pump fakes and i'd be jumping then he would shoot it like hit the brim and go out and like it was literally just like first to score in that instance and it was like like i was like exhausted after playing that i love just like the mental strain of like trying so hard sprinting back and forth Which is hilarious because it doesn't even track your score when you play that. All it does is you got some confetti when you do shoot. But man, we.

Were so try-harding.

I think it was like an hour of gameplay before we even went on to the island, which is so amazing. So major shout out to that.

Yeah, there's also a full-on chessboard in there. It's full physics mechanics. It's not like the chessboard in the Outlast lobby where they made... chess like this is just a bunch of sprites that look like chess pieces and you can pick them up and move them around but it is you know not following the rules or making you follow the rules in any sort of.

Way 100 and like to fast forward to the end of my story we also did a full chess game between him and i because uh later down the line we we got our other good friend hidalgo actually he was in there with us and um he did the classic it was like late at night he's like hold on i'll be right back and then he just we're waiting for him so it's like oh let's play some chess we did a full chess game and then all of a sudden it's just like user logged out it's like okay he's not coming back he just fell asleep or something or something happened but we just kept playing chess because he had to finish the game he ended up beating me but it was a very long like game you know when you're like stalling out and like

one person can't really finish but like one person surviving uh.

I can imagine moving the pieces and that is really janky oh yeah.

And like once he started like like he he like got his pawns like to the end so he had to like get another queen which you I think you have like one or two backups on the board they supply you with but every time I would take his piece I would just like yeet it across the airport I'm like fuck this piece this piece is down so he had to like find his piece at one point I was like blocking him from like returning back to the board we were just having so much fun and that's literally not even the game like that is so extra but I had to share that because it's just I love in video games when there is stuff like that that's provided that you just It's not even the main game mechanics, but you're just actually maxing the dopamine

and enjoyment.

It's a great mini game. 100%.

And I know you're a big fan of wheels and games of the sort that actually has true mechanics to them within the game. Peak doesn't have that with chess or basketball.

Not at all.

But we were just having so much fun with that. So I had to shout that out because that was just a special... That's like a core gaming memory now that I'll probably never forget. My intense 1v1. I've played NBA 2K and the actual sports games. That probably tops all my basketball enjoyment that I've had of just playing these janky mechanics and getting better at three-pointers. I was getting pretty consistent with it at one point there. Fast forward to the actual gameplay. Man, what an amazing game.

It is totally.

I don't think you oversold it by any means. There... Like, some of the hardest laughs I've had, like, playing this game, one core one that I really, really have to shout out. Like, of course, there's, like, when somebody, like, falls down or something, and, like, you just lose.

It's like, where are you?

And you can't hear them at all. It's like, oh, my, I don't even know where he went. And, like, the proximity chat is definitely a must. But one of my favorite moments, it was the first time we were playing with Hidalgo, and he... I think he got poisoned or something. He just was unconscious. So I was like, okay, we can't just leave our boy here. So I picked him up.

I gave the backpack to Denzel. Denzel's going to start... We're sharing the load. We're getting up to this area.

And then it was probably.

Five minutes. So I don't know. It doesn't seem like a long time. But when you're just strategizing for five minutes straight of how are we going to get this body up this terrain? And we're going... Like, we were trying things and it wasn't working. So, we're, like, kind of, like, back to the drawing board and, like, pivoting in some ways.

And we're, like, okay, yeah, we'll do this. X, Y, Z. And, like, we just have Hidalgo's, like, corpse right here. And as we're, like, dialoguing, all of a sudden, Hidalgo just, like, wakes up. And, like, his proximity check is, like, hey, guys.

Like, what's going on? Like, where am I right now? Like, it was... I just burst out laughing.

Like, you can't script that type of, like, situation in a game like that, man. I was laughing so hard.

And it was just.

It was like, okay, our five minutes of strategy was so useful. Because we had no idea he was going to wake up like that. Like, he just literally woke up. Like, we didn't feed him or anything. He just randomly woke up. And we just carried on with our adventure. It was so funny, though. This game is so special. And, yeah, I...

I'm excited to jump back in there. The first time that we played it, you sent an invite for us, and I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I want to join with Dylan yet. It's one thing to jump in there, and I'm sure you'd be a great teacher and everything, teach me all the mechanics, but I also just kind of wanted to fumble blindly. Yeah, for sure. First-time player of just, oh, what does this mushroom do? And you just eat it, and all of a sudden, you're like straight poisoned. It's like, well, don't eat that one. And I think that's the beauty of this game. or sorry, a game like this is like actually just the feeling out process and trying things and failing and just failing together and realizing that like you

can do, or like, oh, I wonder if this works. If I throw this object at the coconut and it'll actually like make it fall down, which it does. It's like, okay, sweet. Like just the feeling out process is really, really fun. Yeah. I see what you mean now, but like the map rotations, how it can kind of be like, like you wish maybe it could rotate more. uh, because if you, if you like schedule, I mean, we've never beat a full run yet or anything like that, but like, I imagine if you like, let's say you only get like one day to play the game and then you want to like play the game, but it's like, oh, okay, well we kind of know how the layout is going to be.

For that one day.

So it's a little bit of a, I don't know, a little bit of a bummer there, but overall it's, it's an amazing game. It's, it's really fun. It's cute. I, I do see what you mean about like the, like the immersive sim feel to it. Like there's, there's some fucking parkour type things I do sometimes where I'm like at the end of like my meter and I just somehow like, like, like just scratch my way up to the top and I do some like, like just some hops and yeah, just, just, I don't know. I feel like I'm channeling my, my Corvo. Just, just climbing the terrain in some aspects and yeah, no, it's, it's amazing.

Highly recommend, totally worth the money. It's like a super cheap game based on Steam and, Yeah, no, it's a fun one. It's one I'm definitely going to have to update, like, the more I get through it and on to the third. What was the one biome that you said was your favorite?

The Mesa.

The Mesa one, yeah.

Which is in the third slot rotation, yeah.

Yeah, because Denzel also listened to, like, our talk about that episode. So he was like, man, I want to see what this Mesa is all about. Like, you're definitely selling them on it. So, yeah, but, man, it's amazing. Um, I, I like thought it might be easier with like more people, but like, and maybe it is, uh, I've only played with a third person one time. So like going from three to two in some aspects, it's like easier, but also just like, I don't know when it's like, Oh, I'm just going to go this way. And then it's just like more chaotic in, in, in certain aspects. Um, but yeah, I, I never play games with proximity chat really like at all, especially just cause discord is so easy, but man, it's, it's such a special experience. It makes

sense for sure. I just love the immersiveness to you, like go into a cave and everyone's echoing or, or, or stuff like that. Um, and yeah, when someone falls, it's just so hilarious. There's one instance, I think it was the end of our last session before, you know, Tyler hit us with the, I'll be right back. And Denzel and I played a full chess game. Um, I think we were like, we're pretty far into like the second biome, like the jungle one. Um, man, the wind on that biome Fox with me so hard. Uh, I, I died so hard on, on, on that one. When the wind kicks in, you're not like ready for it, but, uh, we're like climbing up something and I totally lost energy and I just fell. And I, and like, of course

I know what just happened to me, but I can like hear them like, Oh, what happened to Kirk? Like, like maybe.

He's up here.

And meanwhile, I'm just like completely unconscious at like the bottom of this ravine.

Only a few seconds left to live.

Like a couple moments later. someone else just falls down, lands right by my body, and they're just, like, laughing because they found my body. And then they, like, found what happened to me, which is the exact same thing that happened to them. Yeah, it was some great, like, core comedic gaming memories. I've, like, already got my money's worth up from that game. And, yeah, I'm basically halfway through, right? Like, if I'm only through the first two biomes.

The customized.

The customizing feature is really fun in there, too. I do really like the badges that you kind of like get them added to your sash that's really cool um my like one like holy shit moment that i i will shout out here is the you get the it's like this trumpet thing yeah you might know what i'm talking about and uh But it's not like the one you start the game with. It's called the Scoutmaster trumpet or something.

Oh, yes. The bugle of friendship.

And this big fucker just comes out of nowhere and smacks you around. Man, do you know what I'm talking about? It's like the really tall Scoutmaster guy that just randomly appears and runs at you. That was like a jump scare moment for me.

Holy moly. I can tell you one of the things that makes him appear, but I won't because you probably won't learn that for yourself.

Yeah. I picked up like a trumpet thing and I like played it. And then all of a sudden he came out of nowhere and just yeeted me.

That I don't know if I've actually seen that happen before. I don't even know if I know what you're talking about.

It was, I got to like the first campsite and there was this like musical instrument. And I'm like, oh, let's just play this and see what happens. And then all of a sudden he just appeared and yeeted me. I didn't die, but he just like sent me.

That's crazy. It was, yeah, it was.

And I was playing solo. So I couldn't even like talk to anyone.

Oh, you played solo and that happened.

Whoa. Yeah.

That's weird. Because the thing that I know that creates the Scalemaster is a multiplayer thing. So I don't even know. Okay.

There you go.

Uncharted territory.

I don't even know. Yeah. I got a badge for it.

I guess that was one thing, but I was also very scared in that moment.

Because it's just like so sudden. That's the last thing I ever would have imagined that like to happen in a video game. Like of this aesthetic and like what I thought the game was. It can get kind of spooky, you know, if you're running behind and the fog's coming up to claim you. But, like, in that moment, like, I actually, like, holy shit, what the fuck just happened?

There are, without, I won't spoil anything because I know how fun it is to discover stuff on your own. But, yeah, there are some things in the game that are creepy for sure. Some scary things occur. And, yeah, definitely unexpected, I would say, as well. So, yeah, it's got a lot of layers to it. It's a real onion thing.

But yeah, good shout out to bring it back because I don't know if it just came to a new console, but I think that they just launched cross-play on it. So that's a good opportunity for anyone who hasn't yet played the game, playing your console of choice now and still play it with your friends. So that's pretty cool.

I think maybe it just launched on PS5 and then along with a cross-play update or something like that. So yeah, good time for people to check it out. I'm glad that you're having a great time with it. Not to one-up you, but my peak update is that I have finally crushed Ascent 8 and got all the... I think on our last episode, I told you I just got all the badges. I think that was the update I had for you. But I've now beat Ascent 8 as well, which is the highest level of difficulty.

I can't even imagine.

Yeah, because there's new mechanics that unlock with at least three or four of the difficulties, and then some of them are just like, oh, you have less stamina.

Yeah.

And then the last couple ones, and particularly the last one, there's an extra step you have to do. So you have to essentially do this whole side quest. But what is normally a side quest is now a mandatory quest in order to beat the game. So you have to exit the island in different ways and things like that.

So it adds a whole bunch. And then the one main mechanic, I don't think this is too much of a spoiler to share, is I think it's a four or five, something like that. One of them makes it so that when it's nighttime, it's just cold. So you just are... freezing through the night and so you have to like huddle together for warmth or find sources of heat and things like that and that is like one of the most rough mechanics especially uh you know obviously i feel like it makes it almost impossible if you're playing alone um but particularly when you get like separated it's just curtains like it's just the end of the run so it makes it so you have to stick together even more which i actually really appreciate that angle

of it but Yeah, I mean, honestly, getting through Ascent 5, 6, 7, I don't think any of those were that challenging. Maybe they took us a couple attempts. But 8 took me and my crew, like, probably a good 8 to 10 dedicated, like, run attempts we were going for, which maybe doesn't sound... Like, it honestly was maybe a little bit more than that.

And maybe that doesn't sound like a ton, but that's after we had already played, like, tens and tens of hours of this game. We had all the badges. We had done everything else. And it was just getting that last... It was so, so hard. But we had a group of three of us, and we were able to do it. And honestly, that run went really, really clean. But it's funny, in the days leading up to it, where we'd have a couple runs where we'd maybe get really close or maybe get really far, or the run was looking really promising, and then one person fucks up or one janky thing happened, that definitely happened a couple times too, like some certain bugs that kind of screwed with us. Sometimes the edge of the map is unclear. And so there was one

point where we're like, running out of time, running out of food, so we're running pretty quick. We run and jump to grab onto this ledge and then realize that it's technically outside of the edge of the map. So you just can't grab it. And then we just fell into lava and died. And then we were, like, pissed off because that's, like, near the end of the game.

And that was kind of felt insulting or something. But, yeah, the run when we finally went, we had really good communication. All the days prior, like, there was so much we were bickering, we were fighting. There was one day where it actually got, like, actually quite tense. We were really salty.

Animosity.

Yeah, the animosity was building. I was like, I don't know if we're ever going to do this, but we really need to do this. And then finally, it all came together, and we made it happen, and it felt really good. It was very, very satisfying. You get a decent reward, nothing crazy, but something kind of fun. Then again, it's like all the rewards are cosmetic-based, and now it's like, well, I have nothing else to do, so I don't know how much more I'll play this game. I mean, if I have other friends, you or other friends who are wanting to get certain badges or just want to jump in, I definitely still would because I just love the game.

It's so much fun, even though I've done everything at this point. But yeah, I definitely feel, or I felt rather in the first couple weeks after I'd done that, like a pit, the classic gaming pit of emptiness where it's like, oh, nothing's like, I just want more peak, but I have like nothing to do in it now.

I've like done all this stuff and like, I don't know what other game I need. And so we've like been trying to find the next co-op game. We tried one that had like a demo, but it didn't really, didn't really hit the same. And so I don't know. I definitely felt that for a couple of weeks where I was like, I don't really want to play anything else because I just want more peak, but I have no more peak to play. So, That's how good of a game it was. So yeah, shout out to Peak.

Fantastic game. Deserving of all the praise it got last year, all the awards and things like that it won. And yeah, I'm curious to see what that team does next. I'm guessing they will make another similar kind of thing, like a prox chat friend kind of game. But I don't know, maybe they'll switch it up and do something completely different.

But definitely a developer that I think you know, it's, it has like, if you try to read the book by its cover, I feel like you're not going to appreciate all the depth that actually exists in peak as well. And I think that's why I was able to put like 50 or 60 hours into it. So, uh, yeah. Excited to see, uh, whatever, whatever they do next.

Yeah.

Uh, Speaking of what's next, though, let me shout out our Patreon producers over here. We've got April of Darkness, Jack Grant, Superbad Mike, TGGL, M69, aka NRF, Hidalgo, one of Kirkland's fellow peak buddies here, Cocktail Clay, John with no H, Sam Green, John M, Matthew Fletcher, and Summer Hansi.

Thank you all so much for keeping the lights on here at Geekverse. Patreon is by far the best place to go to support what we're doing here. You get episodes early. Ad-free, exclusively. You get voting power. You get to, yeah, choose a lot of the content we make. You get to join us on After 9 and share the movies and games you've been interested in lately. Me and Kirkland, after this episode, we're recording a bread and butter episode that I'm quite excited about. I think it's going to be a fun one. We're going to do a ranking.

The best Canadian cartoon slash maybe just kids shows. I don't know. We're still figuring out exactly what the parameters of this ranking are, but that's going to be a fun episode. That it's bread and butter. So it's only accessible on Patreon. So go check out that. I know I'm doing another one with Taylor later this week. That also is quite a fun topic. So definitely you want to check out all that kind of fun stuff. But most importantly this week, it is the 24-hour stream. The Extra Life charity stream again happening on November 7th. Join us.

Check it out. You can donate early if you want. If you can't be there on the day, you can donate in advance. That's all good too. And yeah, again, if you can't donate, no problem at all. Come stop by the stream. Say hello. All that kind of stuff is all good. So yeah, thank you everyone for all the support over the years. And we are going to jump to a quick ad break and we'll be right back. Okay, we are back. And earlier this week, a couple days ago, yesterday, last week, I don't even know when this stuff was, there was a Nintendo Indie Direct. that showed off a bunch of games, mostly, I think, centered around the Switch 2, but I'm sure a lot of these will come to the Switch 1 as well, and then almost all these

games are also on Steam and other things, so it's really just a good check-in on some cool indie games coming out. And it's funny, normally with all these shows, whether it's Xbox Showcase in the summer, any Nintendo Direct, I almost always start by the preface of like, oh yeah, we're not going to talk about everything, by the way, we're just going to talk about things we're interested in.

This is like a rare showcase where I actually want to talk about almost every single thing in this Direct, because it was a short 20-minute Direct, but I thought it like packed a punch. I thought there was a lot of really cool games in here. A couple of nice updates, little ones, you know, like classic, any Nintendo Switch Direct is like, oh, here's this game from two years ago that's getting ported over to the console. But there was a bunch of new things that were at least new to me in here or a couple of new trailers for games that I've been interested in. And there was also, it's funny, there was a section specifically for like peak-like games. That's not how they framed it, but that's how my mind is. And again, as someone

who just got off my peak intense binge session and I'm looking for my next fix, that section was much appreciated for me specifically. So yeah, we'll just go through it in order and we'll start with Witchbrook, which is a game that I had on my draft. and was kind of on the edge of coming out on the cusp of coming out in the year 2026 unfortunately it has been officially bumped to the start of next year so it's not gonna make it on my draft anymore but at the end of the day i'm still very excited for this game i was it was a fun one for me to draft because i have been anticipating it for years and years at this point i've played some of the developers previous games they make really cool stuff the pixel arts unreal And yeah, if you forget

what Witchbrook is, it's essentially like a Harry Potter RPG, but top-down pixel art. And you can play with up to, I believe, four friends. And yeah, it's like there's a huge, I assume, campus, maybe even a town all around. You're going to classes. You're doing witchy stuff. You're making potions. You're looking at the stars. You're doing all these things.

There's like an arcade in this game, too. I saw in this trailer you can go to and just play some games or whatever. It kind of just seems like in every game you can go and, like, build out your room or house or things like that. You're going to classes with your friends, doing fun stuff. I don't know.

It's just a game that seems like everything in one. It's one of those games that I almost can't believe exists, and then somehow it also has co-op functionality. And, yeah, I feel like it's kind of, you know, Hogwarts Legacy in many ways was, like, the Harry Potter game we maybe have always wanted, but it didn't have co-op. So if that's, like, a part of the fantasy you want, too, is the fact that you can, like, go to school with your friends like this game is kind of I think hitting that niche that that game couldn't and has a very different art style as well so I'm very very excited for this game I was slightly bummed it got delayed but honestly in terms of release date stuff I'm gonna be playing GTA till the end of the

year so this probably works out well for me in terms of actually having bandwidth to play it myself so yeah I know I think we've talked about this game before Kirkland but yeah any any new thoughts or reminder thoughts on Witchbrook now that we got a fresh new trailer here.

Yeah, I mean, it's a good little reminder that we're getting close to it. This is a nice reminder, too, that it's actually out on the original Switch, which is nice because I don't have a Switch 2. I heard about, like, the Legend of Zelda Switch 2 combo, which I'm like, oh, man, that might be something that gets me a little bit closer to the door.

We'll see.

We'll see. Okay, the way you.

Phrase that, closer to the door, is not convincing.

I mentioned closer. It's one of those things where it's like, yeah, Switch 2, it's never coming to my house. I did say that about the first Switch a long time ago, and then, of course, I bought the Switch. But just, I don't know. I'm a sucker for, like, special edition consoles. And I haven't really, like, had one personally.

I've never had one either.

Never had one, yeah.

But I always want them. But then, like, I buy the consoles I launched. No, I don't really have the opportunity to.

So, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, it's tricky. But, oh, yeah. So, I have access to this. Shade definitely wants to play this game, Witchbrook.

Nice.

It comes out on my birthday, which is kind of cool. Uh, January 28th, shouts out to that day. And, uh, also, uh, Elijah Wood's birthday. Let's shout out to Elijah Wood. I do that anytime I can. And, um, it just, it looks really cute. It looks really awesome. Um, the aesthetic, like the isometrical camera was something that I was curious if that would like deter Cher or whatnot, but no, she, she's totally for it and she's really looking forward. So it might be a day one, honestly, for us. Um, I'll keep you updated on that. She hasn't really been playing video games lately, but she did ask me for an update on that McKenna sequel, which I actually.

Yeah, which last time I looked at that, it was still slated for this year. I have to imagine at this point that that's getting bumped.

It says scheduled to launch 2027 for PS5 PC.

Okay, so yeah, I know in my notes I had 2026 still, but I guess they did some PlayStation blog posts announcing that delay.

I think it was, like, initially for, like, the summer of 2026, which clearly hasn't happened. But we were talking about, like, I actually want to replay that first one because I personally never rolled credits on it. Like, Shay was playing it, and I would, like, kind of be there with her for most of the playthroughs. So, like, I think I, like, experienced the final boss and some stuff like that. But I was playing on, like, the hardest difficulty, and I was kind of getting humbled a little bit. But it would be a fun one to play. jump back into before the release of that sequel. I know that's obviously not an indie game. It has nothing to do with this one, but I just wanted to mention that.

Yeah. Yeah, good shout-out for sure. Yeah, I wonder, like, I feel like that could be a Game Awards hit, maybe, like, a release date trailer for that. I could see that. I don't know if, like, what else PlayStation has. I guess they have a couple things they could do, but maybe that's one they want to put there, put there in the Game Awards, possibly.

I think it's a good spot for it.

I feel like it maybe got nommed. I can't remember if it won anything. It probably didn't win a game award last time.

It did get nommed. I remember. Yeah. I think I gave it some of my votes or whatever. Right. I think I might have been predicted for it because I was pretty high on that game. I think it's a really good one that maybe people shouldn't sleep on. For a smaller... Well, I can't remember if it was a smaller studio.

It's like an indie game, but it's also Sony, right? Yeah, it was that studio's first time making a video game. Prior to that, they made animation for movies and things like that. So it was a known studio, but not a game development studio. So it was quite a big pivot for them. Yeah, great entry then. Yeah, very good way to enter a new industry. So yeah, that's Witchbrook coming out early next year. Winds of Viridia is the next one, which is a very Zelda, kind of funny enough, Ocarina of Time, I would say, looking sort of experience in terms of the gameplay, but the art style is definitely like a Studio Ghibli sort of thing. So I thought that this one might be a Kirkland joint. This one maybe would stand out to you. The creature design,

the look of the character, it seemed like a very whimsical... Ghibli sort of fantastical experience that looked very cute and fun.

This was, sorry, Winds of Viridia? Yes. Yeah, this is actually the one that reminded me of Kena, so I'm glad that I brought that one up. It reminded me a lot of that game of just a similar type of world where it's like it has history, but it's not very popular right now. It's like you're going through...

What's the word? Yeah, like a society that's ceased. It's kind of... it's got a term to it, man. I'm, I'm butcher right now though. It's, it's near, near automata kind of has that we were going through like an old civilization.

So yeah, but like, it's not really post-apocalyptic. It's just got like, it's, it's like posts. Yeah.

Post post lived in world society. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Many, many games that have that, but like Kenna definitely had that same vibe. Um, this just really reminded me of that, like very similar kind of cute, uh, companion that you get. I think it was like the moth, Something is what they get the moth bug or something.

Uh, the combat even looked pretty similar.

It looks like you're going to be doing some boss battles, but then you're also like incorporating, uh, adventuring through the world with like the combat mechanics sort of thing. So it was just like very similar type of game to Kenna. This one didn't really, like, pull my heart into it too much, which is kind of interesting. Like, Kenna was, like, instantly, like, as soon as I saw the aesthetic and what the game was, like, even before gameplay, I think I was kind of hooked because it very much reminded me of, like, the Ghibli aesthetic with the little, like, suit sprite equivalent.

I can't remember what they're called in the game, but it reminded me of, like, a Ghibli type thing. type thing and this.

One scratches a little bit of that.

But it's mostly just reminded me of of canna so i think when i see this it's like okay i'm getting that canna sequel that'll scratch my itch for these types of games but uh not really anything like against what this game is specifically put out there or like the studio or anything it does look really cute um but uh yeah i think if i'm if i'm buying one carton of eggs it's it's the one i already i'm already familiar with you.

Know Yeah, I mean, I agree in that sense. I don't think that there was anything that blew me away in this trailer. I just think that it was an Azard style. And yeah, I think it'll find its audience. But yeah, I don't think there was one like gameplay hook or something like that that really shattered my mind in a way. But again, I always like these Nintendo Indie Directs. I think they do a good job of splicing in the developers and you get to hear from them.

And I think that always gives some good context and makes me a little more. intrigued in the people behind these games. Speaking of that, the next game, City of None, is a game from one of the co-creators of Celeste, which is one of the best 2D platformers of all time. I think this game looked really cool. It's a much more simplistic pixel art style, and they kind of highlighted the four color palette that they have going on for this.

There's different color palettes based on the area or maybe even the rooms that you're in. I wonder if that'll be related to the mechanics in some sort of way it's like oh this is a pink room that means i have like a bigger jump or a triple jumper i don't know something like that uh but yeah it looked really cool and uh i i feel like the only thing is like this with the simplistic art style like the low uh the low i don't know i guess like big chunky pixels that they have in here and the color palette there's a couple things that seemed like the readability seemed kind of weak like there was one section where he's like grapple hooking through like a city kind of environment i was like I cannot tell

what you have to grapple onto, but I'm sure when you're actually playing the game, it'll be much more intuitive. But again, when you have someone of that pedigree making another platformer game and something that looks a little bit simpler, I wonder if it's going to have as meaningful of a story. like celeste has one of the best like narratives i think in any game ever is like really impactful for me because it's just like a simple personal story and like the music's unreal the visuals are unreal and then the gameplay was just top notch it was kind of one of those games that in every single vertical is just crushing it and city of none seems like a bit more pared down a bit more of a simplified experience but i'm sure it'll have still still

have that mechanical depth to it And I'm curious to see the structure, because Celeste is screen-based and level-based at the same time, whereas this one is a bit more open-ended and maybe one cohesive world that you're going through, rather than breaking it down into individual levels. But whatever the case is, I feel like I play 1 to 2, maybe even more 2D platformers a year. It's a genre that I'm always down to come back to, and I think the indie space is definitely what's raising that torch these days, and this is one that I put it on my wish list immediately, and I'm like, I mean, I have to kind of wait and see the price and the release date and all that stuff, but I feel like this is probably one I'll be picking up.

I really like Celeste, but it's like now it's been... I didn't play Celeste at launch, but it's now been, I don't know, five plus years since I played Celeste, so I'm definitely in the mood for another game like this. So looking forward to City of None. Does this one do anything for you?

This is one I'll appreciate from afar. I think the... I think it was the colors. Like it's just, that is the choice. And I'm not a big fan of that.

I don't know.

It just, even like I've talked about this in the past, like one of my favorite side-scrolling games is Inside. And they did the very famous Limbo, which I think you are in that camp that you actually prefer Limbo over Inside. And I'm the complete opposite because I just hate the colors of what that game is. It's maybe a little too creepy, dude, that fucking spider that's following you. But the black and white nature of what that game is, like it's just, Something's deterring me from it.

Fair.

Maybe it's the colors, but I could definitely appreciate it. Some of the gameplay mechanics look definitely fun. I like how they said that you're utilizing your environment a lot. That is a big mechanic versus whether you're in a boss battle or just traversing. I think there's one section where you have a magnet. I don't know if you're using that to actually climb up the terrain, but it looks pretty wild.

Yeah. Yeah. Don't love the look of it. Fair. Fair enough. Next up was Sword of the Sea, which is just a port happening here for the Switch 2. Me and Kirkland did a review of that game last year, so anyone should go back and check that out if you want to hear our thoughts on the game. And then up was Tenjutsu. I'm really curious what you think about this one. This is one of the designers or creators of Dead Cells is now making a... Top down, like beat them up. I guess you'd call it like seafood like. Yeah, definitely.

You can definitely see the seafood inspiration, even if like visually it's a very different style.

Yeah.

Top down and whatnot. But I don't know. Like the visuals I thought were really great. And the gameplay was pretty great too.

Yeah. No, I completely agree.

Yeah.

I've actually played quite a bit of Dead Cells. I've never completed it. It's a challenging game, but I really love that game. I really was surprised by the amount I enjoyed it. Not normally playing Castlevania-type games, but that one wrote me in. I think I really liked the combo of the gameplay, the aesthetic, the world-building, and.

The soundtrack is so fucking good, man. Like when I'm, when I'm like starting to run and I just have that, like that music that plays, Oh, it's, it's so good. And, um, for, for like a, a 2d platformer, it's a beautiful game. Like, like just the way that they could design the world, like in the background, as you're like traversing along, like the ramparts or something that you could just see so many things in the background. Really, really cool. And I, I could see a lot of the dead cells, like ingredients in this game, not just because like the character designs, like you get some snippets of, uh, where you're kind of choosing between upgrades. You do that a lot in Dead Cells. It's like, yeah, I want this weapon, but

you're kind of balancing. It hits harder, but it's slower, so that type of thing. It looks like you're kind of doing the same sort of thing when you are choosing your upgrades or whatnot. Obviously, it's... I don't know. What would you call this type of... It reminds me of Shredder's Revenge kind of thing, the way that you move around.

I feel like compared to classic beat-em-ups, the camera's pulled out quite a bit more and it seems like there's a lot more space and it seems like the environment is more integral whereas i feel like a lot of these beat-em-ups yeah i don't know like the environment is not really a huge part of it or like it's it's all very like one standard plane whereas this feels like oh you're going to in different rooms you're interacting like hitting people into things in the environment so it feels a lot more interactive to me than i feel like the genre typically does.

Even just the movement right like it looks like you can kind of like jump and utilize that in your combat, which is cool. You get different outfits that seems like it gives you different boosts, I think. I didn't pause it, but it looked like when you were going through your outfits, one was plus 10 to attack speed or something like that, or speed. I thought that was kind of a cool idea there. Yeah, it's definitely not.

I don't think it would be my main game or genre that would pull me into a game like this, but just knowing that it is the Dead Cells creator... um i really enjoyed that game i imagine like the vibe is going to be although it's not like the same world or anything just just similar level of like creativity of the world design and and the soundtrack and all that so i'm uh for for i never thought like if i just saw this on the disc like like really quick snippet i'd be like yeah okay i'll never touch that but just knowing what i know and that that it is like the people that did dead cells and i have a lot of respect for that game i i'm I'm interested. I'm not going to drop everything and get a day one, but I don't know,

maybe down the line. I think it would be a cool Switch title. I own Dead Cells on PlayStation, so I played it on the console there, but it would seem like it would be a fun on-the-go type of game. I imagine that would have a similar type of gameplay feel. I like the cover, too. When you see your protagonist looking out on the city, I'm like, man, this is a cool vibe. I appreciate guys that are making that.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a testament to how good this game looks that I'm pretty interested in it, too, because this is not my genre, as I've talked about many times in SideQuest. I just don't really care for the beat-em-up genre. Shredder's Revenge was kind of the exception. I really enjoyed that game, actually, and I think part of that is because I just absolutely love the pixel art in that game. I'm such a big fan of pixel art as a pixel artist in my own right, too.

I appreciate how much better these people are than I am at it, and I love the visual style of this game. And it's funny, you said you really liked the visuals of Dead Cells. I didn't really like the visual. I think mostly for me it's like the character model just always moved in a way that I could never really fully get invested in. And I also love roguelikes, but I didn't really like Dead Cells. It was just a game that never really clicked for me in a way that it did for so many other people. It's like one of the biggest roguelikes of all time now, I feel like. But it's cool that I like the visual style of this a lot more than I did Dead Cells. And I don't know, the combat looks like pretty fun as well. And obviously they have all the

roguelike systems down pat at this point, making Dead Cells and all the DLC and all the expansions and stuff for that game. The knowledge there on the genre space is really good. I know there's been some other beat-em-up roguelike games I think Absalom was the name of one that came out last year that I heard some really good praise on there's been other ones as well but yeah this one I think for me just visually honestly a big part of it is just pulling the camera out and having a bigger environment to play with and move around it and I think that's another thing with beat-em-ups I normally don't like is the games feel very clunky they're very slow your character moves very slow even when you double click forward and you run your character

like runs really slowly whereas this game looks like really fast paced and so I'm into that. I also didn't really like seafood. It's funny. All the ingredients put into this dish are things individually I don't really care much for, but together it expands into something so much more than the individual parts. So I'm pretty intrigued by this game and surprised to say that it's going on the wish list, one I'm keeping an eye on, even if it's kind of my anti-style in a way. So that's always fun to see. The name of that one was Tenjutsu again. Uh, next up is a game called Threads of Time, which is definitely playing into the Chrono Trigger inspiration, which so many games have done in the past. But even this

is so overt in that at one point it shows you like a clock spinning around and it's showing you like three different time periods as well. It looks a lot like Save Stars, which is of course a game that is very closely inspired to Chrono Trigger. I feel like the trailer for this maybe wasn't the best like, obviously, it's sold, like, for a lot of people, including me, like, sometimes, just, here's a game that's like Chrono Trigger or Speed of Stars, that's enough of a selling point, but I did want to see a little bit more of this, so it's a game I'm definitely going to investigate more into, and get a bigger, a better vibe for, like, the gameplay of it, and the overall, like, story, and the, I

don't know, I feel like I need to see a bit more of the overall picture, but obviously, you know, for, like, a teaser, to some extent, like, this kind of is a good job of selling what the game is all about. So yeah, Threads of Time. I know you're someone who's dabbled in these games as well. So any interest in this one?

I thought it looks beautiful. I really like the... I'd call it like 2.5D, but it's like 2.75D. It's like another layer. It just seems so much deeper. like like when they're doing like one of the combats just seems like the monster is like so far in the background but like not super far like it just it just fits uh when they're traversing through just the environments and exploring it very much though just like reminding me to see a star so i'm like man i gotta jump back and see a star it's like that that's really what this did for me more than anything uh i didn't really think about that i like how many games are like that chrono trigger type like messing with time, I guess, and like traversing through time. Because for me,

when I saw the time thing, I thought of, what's that game called? Live Alive?

Live Alive or something like that? Yeah, Live Alive.

Where you like choose, like I think you like actually choose like where you start on the timeline or whatever.

Yeah.

And you mentioned Chrono Trigger. It's like, man, there's a lot of games actually in the JRPG turn-based that are kind of riding off that Chrono Trigger inspiration, which... makes sense because that's arguably the greatest one in there. Maybe you can make the argument for them.

I don't know.

I'm not super well versed in the genres. It's up there for sure.

Yeah, this looks gorgeous. And a game that many people want a remake or HD remaster or HD 2D version of and they haven't done. So I think that carves out additional space for new people who haven't played Chrono Trigger back in the day. Like, oh yeah, I'll just check out this new game because it looks really cool.

And maybe they'll become fans of that and then go back and check out Chrono Trigger. Or for the people like me who love Chrono Trigger but aren't getting that remake, I don't really need one. I'm fine with that game as it is. I think it plays beautifully today. But yeah, this is another way to get that nostalgic itch while having something new at the same time.

That would be pretty insane if one day you get the Final Fantasy VII complete remake, but in the Chrono Trigger world. I don't think... I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but it just seems like Final Fantasy is a bigger... I think people.

Just want the 2D HD engine for it, right? Like the Did Final Fantasy 7 get that?

Like at one point?

Did it get like a remake before the full rebuild? They just released Final Fantasy Resonance which is like it's not a remake but it's like an old school style Final Fantasy and they just came out like using that sort of engine but it's like a new Final Fantasy game but no like Final Fantasy 7 only has like the remake but like hasn't had like a thing like that.

Like a retexture or HD version or whatever you'd call it.

Yeah. Interesting.

Interesting.

But this looks really cute and cool, and I appreciate the design. It looks really beautiful. More than anything, though, it's like, man, Sea of Stars is calling to me. I've got to get back to that game.

Next up was the co-op friend game section of it where they highlighted four games, two of which, Super Battle Golf and Repo, are games that are already very big on Steam. These are just getting ports to the Switch 2, so right on for that. There's one... That is a two-player co-op game called Haunted Paws, which, yeah, very cute.

A very cute co-op game where you and a buddy... Go ahead, go ahead.

I was just going to say they described it as like a cozy horror game. And I'm like, that's like an oxymoron to me. That doesn't seem like... It seems like they contradict each other a little bit. But then I actually saw the game. I'm like, okay, they kind of have some cozy spookiness going on.

I mean, I think those are two flavors that kind of go together in a way. It kind of works. I feel like there's been a lot of games in that space. But yeah, in this one particularly, you're playing as two cute dogs, or I guess you could probably make an ugly dog because you can customize it. But for the most part, you're probably going to have a very cute dog. And you're just doing little simple puzzles and things like that. I feel like if you compare it to the Split Fictions of the World or the Orbitals that I did a review episode on a couple months ago, this is not standing up in quality to either of those. But hey, it's a cute, fun little experience to play with it. play with a friend, so if you got that one. But I think the one

that stood out more to me was a game called Dumpster Gang, which is where you and a group of four people can all control raccoons, and you have to break into houses, steal stuff, create havoc, so I feel like it's got a little bit of that Untitled Goose game, but then the friend game kind of thing, breaking in, stealing stuff, getting out, maybe a little bit of moving out.

I feel like that Overcooked-style game that where you're, like, grabbing furniture and throwing it through windows and things like that. I feel like it was kind of a similar energy. So this one looked like a lot of fun. I definitely copy-pasted this one, put it on my friends. I started with my friends where we play Peak, and I was like, oh, could this be the next game that we check out together? So I feel like this one's coming out in December. I feel like over the holidays, it's going to be a fun one to play. So, yeah, I definitely got my eye on Dumpster Gang. And one thing that stood out to me about this, too, is they highlighted the fact that there's mouse controls for this on the Switch, too. And that's something I'm, like, My

ear always perks up because I'm so curious about the fact that they put all this R & D into creating mouse controls for this console and then it's just not really used at all. So it's interesting to me when an indie game like this is touting the mouse controls part. I wonder if Nintendo asks them to do that or if they just go for it and it could be a selling point. I don't know if anyone will use the mouse controls at all. I don't think I would if I was playing this game. I'd probably get it on Steam anyway. But yeah, interesting nonetheless. So there are still the odd games that are coming out that utilize the mouse controls.

That's great. I feel like I've heard that before, and I just keep forgetting that that's a thing.

It's so easy to forget, right? Yeah, and then it pops up in a trailer, and you're like, oh, yeah, I guess that is a feature that I've never used on a console.

Yeah, no, these look pretty fun. I think the one that stood out the most to me, which apparently is already out, Super Battle Golf, it just seems like a chaotic mess, and it could be like a, I don't know, like, a fun stream game when you just have the chaos of the high octane because it's, like, the fat, like, you want to be fast, but you also still have to get, like, the least amount of strokes, like classic golf.

I like how it's, like, you can, like, do an air horn while someone's putting. Like, it's just an extreme. And then there's, like, power-ups and whatnot. So it's, like, the striker's element involved in it, but it looked pretty goofy. And even, like, the character designs reminded me of Peak a little bit. It just seemed cartoony.

That's the aesthetic of the genre for sure. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, and then next up was a game called Kitsune, The Journey of Arashina, which is a really, really cool-looking game. It's hard for me to put my finger on what exactly it is. It's hard for me to relay to you, the listener, what exactly is the genre here. I guess, to me, it looks like kind of an adventure game, so it's very narrative-focused. You have a mix of art styles where a lot of it is in 3D environments, but they also have really nice 2D sprites that'll pop up during conversations, things like that. I don't know, I was getting a lot of, weird enough, you know, on the precipice of the Ocarina of Time remake coming out, I thought I was getting some vibes of that, like,

in Ocarina of Time, or even Majora's Mask, when you're, like, walking through the towns, and there's, like, fixed camera angles as you're walking through. I don't know, the character walking through, like, the town space in this reminded me a lot of that, and that kind of has, like, some creepy undertones. Again, like, has a, obviously, as the name would hint at, like, a very Japanese style aesthetic to it. I thought this game looked really cool. And again, it's hard for me to put my finger on what exactly it is, but they've certainly captured my attention with this one. So I'm going to keep an eye on it.

Yeah, this one, it looks cute. Definitely seems wholesome. Like there's like, I can appreciate the art style and everything. It just doesn't seem like one I'm really going to be cracking into.

Fair. Fair enough. Next up was one that I feel like was very close to being a game that I really wanted to play, and then there was one key word that kind of threw me off. It's called Spirit Crossing, and it is a multiplayer game in which, I don't even know, you're just doing all sorts of crazy things.

You're building bases. You're collecting things. You're making deliveries. Had a really cute aesthetic. Once again, I really like the art style here. But it is kind of like an MMO. So it's not quite like if this was like a four-player co-op thing, I think I'd be into it. But the fact that it's a full-on MMO, I don't know.

Not particularly into that. It's from the developers of Cozy Grove, which is a kind of, again, as the name would suggest, a cozy Animal Crossing-like game that I remember my ex was really into. She really liked it. So I didn't know that it was a good game. So I'm sure that this is kind of a cool pivot for them to go from a single-player uh, game to something like this. It's, uh, that's pretty, pretty cool. But yeah, I think the MMO angle of it is kind of, kind of turning me away.

So I don't think I'll be, uh, checking this one out. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I'm right there with you. I, uh, MMOs, not for me. I don't think I'll ever be there, uh, ever in my entire life. I think I can safely say that. I, I think the closest I came to was like Elder Scrolls Online. I'm like, man, this is going to be the one. Like, this is going to be the MMO that comes. I love Elder Scrolls, all this world. I play the beta, the beta. I couldn't even get through the tutorial area.

Yeah, same.

Even Destiny. I think I was really hyped for Destiny, and then I realized what that game was of just grinding dungeons and whatnot. It's for people out there. I know it's popular. They got WoW Forever coming out this week, so good for them. But yeah, MMOs, just never something for me. It's one of those things where I feel like if I actually played it as a kid, I would have been hooked for life. But the fact that I didn't, Now that I'm an adult, the idea of jumping into World of Warcraft or an MMO game like that where you just spend hours grinding the same dungeon to get one loot, that does not seem like something I'm ever interested in, ever. It seems like doing homework or something would be more entertaining than that.

Teach their own. Show us the doing homework thing. Let's take our very last ad break. We're going to go do some homework. We're going to take a quick ad break. We'll be right back for the final section of the show. All right, we are back. We only have a few more games. to talk about here. The next one, though, I fell in love with it immediately. It's called My Arms Are Longer Now.

I knew you were going to shout this one out.

Hell, yeah. It's a silly game from some silly people in Australia, which is a very fitting combo here. And I don't know, I guess it's similar to Untitled Goose Game again, that's coming up again, of it being like a silly game where you're just kind of creating havoc in this town. It seems like each level you're kind of popped down and have to do some obscure thing like steal this radio from this guy on the bus or, I don't know, mess with this person's laundry. I don't know, just random things like that. You know, the rare time where a video game was actually able to make me laugh through its writing, I feel like so many times the funniest things in games are when there's some weird bug happening or when you're playing peak and you get

blown off a tree and like, that's hilarious. But yeah, like when a game actually just has funny writing, there's, I'm sure there's a million, I'm sure every game developer is funny or half the game developers are funny people, but translating the gaming can sometimes be really difficult. And so the fact that they were able to make me chuckle with a few of the characters lines, whether it was literally the line or just the read of the line, like the, the performance really was able to get me there. So, I'm really into this. The gameplay itself, the concept based on the name there, is that you have a really long, stretchy, Mr.

Fantastic-style arm, and you're kind of moving it around the level, kind of wrapping it around things, flipping things over, and I don't know, just tangling yourself up in a way that is very similar to Snake Pass, which is an indie game I really enjoyed where you play as a big, heavy snake, and it's like a platforming, like a Banjo-Kazooie-style platforming game where you have to climb around trees and ledges and things like that, but using... this mechanic. So this seems more like a freeform version of that. But it was a mechanic and a form of movement that I found really satisfying in that game. And so yeah, this game is speaking to me in many ways. So got my eyes on that one.

Yeah, this one definitely stood out. So kudos to them for that. This is one where I would really want to try it on an extra life 24-hour stream or something.

So I think the release date was like spring. Maybe GV day.

I guess we're not normally playing video games on GV Day. Never mind.

We'll make an exception for this one game. There you go.

I do want to try it. And I can appreciate the comedy to it. Even just some of the animations. There's one where there's a lady eating spaghetti, and you're wiping her face afterwards. And she's just doing really goofy stuff with her lips.

All the characters' faces are a mess.

Yeah.

Next up was another really beautiful pixel art game called Pedal Runner. I love the art style, the color palette specifically of this one. Yeah, it looks like a cool RPG. If I had to compare it to anything, I would say it's a very Earthbound-looking game, which is cool because I think that's a specific kind of RPG that is just not really seen much anymore. Obviously, Earthbound is a series that's long been dead from Nintendo at least. So I thought this game looked really cool. Gameplay of it seems like you're kind of cruising around town. It looks like you're playing as kids, something like that. And I don't know, just kind of getting up to some, some hijinks, some havoc, doing some combat, a little bit of fun

stuff here and there. So a pedal runner, I think looks, uh, looks really great. Yeah. I, I, I feel like I, I appreciate this one.

It doesn't seem like one that I'll, that I'll check out. Uh, it just reminded me of, uh, pokemon actually when you get your bike yeah i could see that yeah and uh that's kind of where like like a cap for me like i think i could appreciate the aesthetic and the and like just yeah the attention to detail um there was one section too where like i can't i can't tell if it was like a mini game or whatnot but it just showed like there was like a device that came on and then there was like an arcade almost like a space invaders type section there's like a giraffe eating like a spoon or something i'm like It's just like a collection of games again. It's like UFO 50. It's kind of reminded me of it.

And even one of the games where you were literally in a UFO flying through a space in the way that looks identical to Campanella 3 from the UFO 50 collection.

There you go.

Yeah, definitely. Which, by the way, games I've been playing, I didn't bring it up, but I've been playing a lot of UFO 50 again.

Nice. Yeah.

I had another game to bring up. Hyper Contender. Hyper Contender and Party House. I've been playing a lot of those two games. Oh, there you go.

I had another game I should bring up on what we've been watching.

Oh, my God. You totally did.

But I was going to just DLC it at the end of Once We're Done Indie World because I do want to tell you about this game because it just feels like a.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm taking a swing. It may or may not be a Dylan game, but that's my disclaimer.

No, I feel so bad that I skipped past that. Well, honestly, that was the last big game in the Direct that I did want to shout out.

Okay.

There were a few other ones in there, like Raccoon is a very Bellatro-looking game, which I think was big on Steam a year or two ago. One art style for one called Finding Polka I thought looked really great. There was a game called Floorplan that looked very silly that had an interesting inventory where you look down... And you, like, open a pouch, and all your items are just, like, there.

And you, like, pull out the one you want, which I've never seen that before, but I thought it looked really cool. And then, you know how, like, the power wash sim has been, like, a big, somehow been a big genre lately? There was a really cute one called Bao Bao's Cozy Cleaning Service, where you're, it's like a pixel art version of this, where you're playing as, like, these cute little pandas, and you're, like, cleaning up an environment.

And it just looked very cute. So, shout-outs to some of those games. Was there any other games in that last section that seemed intriguing to you? No.

Okay.

No. Then let's go back to what we've been playing. Because, yeah, you had another game that you were going to bring up. And, yeah, back to you, Kirkland. What do you got for me?

Back to me. Yeah. I mean, normally I would have been like, okay, I'll just bring it up next time. But this is one that, like, I need to tell Dylan about this game. You might have heard about it. This is a simulator game. I don't know how into simulators you are. I never knew that this was a type of simulator, but this is Iron Nest, the heavy turret simulator.

Whoa.

Never heard of this. So this video game is very cool in the sense that you are a, you're like a tank engineer, essentially, but you're in this ginormous, like, I don't know what type of, like sci-fi universe you would compare this to where it's like, uh, like steam punky, I, I, I guess. Um, and the gameplay mechanic, it, it, it reminds me, maybe I'll say it this way. The world aesthetic reminds me of something like papers, please.

Where it's almost.

Like, uh, like a dystopian, like 1930s or twenties, like era. Like that's like the, like, yeah, that's kind of where you are. And then you're all for like the country. So it's like very like, like almost like a Soviet Union type, type of setting where like, just, yeah, we're all, we're all comrades and we're all going for like the country.

And there's like some underlying, like, I don't know, things that happen like in between missions that it really like flushes out the world in a unique way where like, and maybe I should dial back a little bit. So the gameplay is like, you are the, the, the tank engineer and, So you'll get, you'll get like a, like an order that comes in and there'll be a list of coordinates of where your spotters are specifically. Like, so, so this is, so, so it'll tell you where you are and then where your spotters are, like their coordinates.

And then it'll like, you'll get like, I don't know, let's just say, for example, you'll get, you'll have five targets. Three of them will actually have like coordinates and they'll be based on where your spotters are. So you'll take all this information. And this is why I just thought this would be a Dylan game. Because Dylan, there's like an in-game notebook for this. Fuck that, man. I'm going paper and pen. Oh, look at that. My notebook's breaking on me. Look how intense this gets, too. I'm like doing like chicken scratch math on there.

Nice.

So I got my degrees, my kilometer distances in there. I have my ABC targets. And this isn't even how the game tells you how to do it, but I just came up with a way that makes sense to me. I love this game so much, Dylan. This is a very guilty pleasure. It's not even guilty pleasure. This is just a little small pleasure game for me. I will have my coffee Saturday morning, and I'll boot up some Iron Nest. I have my coffee next to me. I got my notepad. I get my order coming in. There's, like, a record player in the tank. And you can, like, collect, like, records.

So I'll, like, put on a record or something. You can, like, play around with the lights a little bit. So maybe I'll, like, turn the lights off in the tank, of course. And then I get my orders coming in. I write down the information I need. And then you'll go over, like, the world map that has the coordinates. So, of course, that's where it's, like, hey, well, I'm on... Like, where was I this day? I was in D1... three apostrophe eight.

So then I put like where I am on the map there. And then you get like all of your like, it's basically like a ruler and like a protractor type thing. Like I'm doing like all my, like my lines. And I love this game so much because it like tells you like the base core mechanics sort of, but it's mostly like, just try some things and like, like what makes sense to you. But like, I am kind of a nerd when it comes to attention to detail stuff like this. I carry that in my day-to-day at my job.

I'm very like attention to detail and this game is like very much that where like you need to do all your checks um you need to um what's an example so so let's say i i found out where all my targets are based on where my spotters are i i maybe there's like there's there's like a hidden enemy somewhere in this range uh and obviously you don't want to just shoot randomly because like one Artillery is really expensive. You only get so many... What are they called?

I can't remember what it's called, but you basically get a ticket, and I'm going to spend that on an anti-armor piercing round. So it's more expensive. Okay, I have $ 300, so let's say I could buy a bunch of them, but because I'm such a min-maxer when it comes to this sort of thing, I only want to buy the bare minimum of what I need, because then, of course, you get a better result out of it. You get more medals.

Sure.

I've, like, redone multiple missions because I'm like, oh, fuck. Like, I missed that one medal. I got to redo it. Like, that's how seriously I take this. But, so, yeah. Like, so, I'm getting all the information I need. Now, let's say my target is so many kilometers away. You'll have to actually figure out how many powder kegs. You have to, like, how... Because, like, let's say my target's, like, 11 kilometers away.

I'll need, like, three.

powder kegs worth of gunpowder to insert into my artillery round. If I do four, man, I'm eating it. I'm going way too far. Maybe I hit a hospital or something. And then you'll get the information that comes in. It's like, ceasefire, ceasefire, you hit a civilian or whatnot. It's like, oh my god, what is going on? Now, of course, because I'm a min-maxer, I'm usually not allowing that to happen. I've been pretty lucky.

Casualties have been very, very minor here and there. like, like let's say I, I didn't do that. Like I, like I fucked up.

Okay.

I hit the hospital, but then I try again. I get my target. I finished the mission. It'll actually like change like the, um, like the result that you get from like the newspaper article. Cause there'll be like a newspaper that comes out. It's like victory to the motherland or whatever. But then in the bottom of it, it'll say like civilian or whatever, like caught in the crossfire, uh, because it's all like a big propaganda thing. They usually are like twisted in a way that's really good for like for the state. Um, there's been a couple moments like through the story, that it seems like maybe my character is starting to see some flaws with, I guess, the country or the state. And it kind of gives

a weight on you, the player, more than you would have imagined, especially like you're not actually seeing people getting murdered by these artilleries that I'm shooting out there. But it's just like I still feel it in the world. So a really, really great world building in that sense. It's such a niche game. It's so hard to recommend it to types of people because... I get so much fun of just playing this with a notepad and a pen and just doing all my checks, getting my rounds off.

I do it super efficiently, and then I just shoot them all out. I hit them dead on, and I'm just so pumped at the end of the day. I can just retire happily. This is also another big thing in this game, Dylan. It's not a big thing, but I had to mention this to you. There's like in the... I guess, sleeping quarters area of the tank that you're living in. There's an espresso machine, and you have to get the temperatures right and the pressure. So you're tweaking all these meters and whatnot to make the perfect cup of coffee. And after you make it, it'll give you a grade. It'll say 98% success rate. The beans were great quality. Your temperature was dead on. but maybe, like, your pressure was a little low. So then that's why, like,

it came out as... And, like, it'll be on, like, your in-game notebook, like, all these results, which is just so funny to me. There'll be missions where there's, like, anti-artillery that are, like, trying to get you. So then those ones are, like, really time pressured. Like, you don't really have a lot of time to do all your calculations because they're firing back at you. So you kind of want to do everything in advance. Like, yeah. And, again, like, I...

So go, or sorry, I go so far above and beyond for, like, the min-maxing side of it, where I, like, I'm actually, like, so good at this game, because I am just so detail-oriented, and I don't shoot that first shot until I'm, like, ready to go. Like, you get two barrels also, so you can, like, simultaneously load them. Obviously, when you change your bearing, like, you're going on, like, your x-axis sort of thing, but you can only, like, face one way. So then you have to like keep track of like, okay, well I'm facing this target right here. However, for let's say target B, I have to change like my, my, my pitch to a certain degree because I have to go further or whatnot. So you have to make sure

that you're, you're keeping track of like cable. Now I'm shooting at this target set on my left barrel. And like, like I think there's in-game ways to kind of track that. Fuck that. I'm doing all my dope. Like I, I have a method on how I do this. And, uh, It is so satisfying. There is a demo out, so I do recommend you just try the demo, because I did try that first, and I was just hooked. I'm like, man, this is amazing. I was kind of surprised with how long the demo is. I thought it would be one mission, but you actually get to do three missions, which is pretty cool. You get a really good feel for the game.

But yeah, it is one of those super weird niche games that just... It's a Kirkland game. It just totally called to me, and I know how. Breaking the fourth wall you get with video games sometimes. You love your notepad. You love your real-world tools that you can bring into video games. I know you did that with Blueprints. Absolutely, yeah. And, yeah, this is one that just totally stood out to me because I got so into it. Like, I was playing this. I had, like, my cup of coffee. Shay came into the office, and she just saw, like, what I was... I'm, like, writing down my coordinates or whatnot. She's like, what are you doing?

And then she saw my screen.

She's like, for a video game? And I'm like, don't even ask. Like, just... I'm in war right now, okay?

Like, I.

This is intense, okay? I got to focus. But yeah, so shouts out to anyone that is interested in a game like this. Again, I think it's a very niche audience, but this is a really, really cool game and one I highly recommend. If anything I said sounded any interest levels at all, definitely check this out. I think the team, I think it's only two people that designed it. Like the one person actually did all the coding and the one person designed it and the actual architecture of what the tank is. It's so satisfying, though, just loading your barrels, because you can just see these giant mechanical things that are loading up your guns, and then you pull in the right powder keg charges that are going into it,

and it's really mechanical noises going off. It's just satisfying. Yeah, so there you go. Have you ever heard of this game?

No, I've never heard of it, but it's funny. Do you remember this game called PVKK that I... I forget if I talked to you or Taylor about it. I can't remember. It's called PVKK, and then there's a very long German subtitle that's almost a joke of how long it is. Oh, yeah.

I'm just going to stop there. But yes, that one.

Yeah, do you recognize this game? Have we talked about it before?

No, but this looks just like this.

Yeah, it's the same idea, and this was announced last year or something like that, and it very much caught my eye where it's like, Yeah, you're in like this small bunker controlling like a turret. I think this one you actually get to look outside rather than in the game you're talking about. I feel like your game seems a lot more mechanical. This one seems maybe more story focused if I had to kind of differentiate the two of them. But this game really caught my eye. And so the fact that you're talking about this, it seems like, oh my God, is this like a new sub-genre now?

But I love the idea of maintaining... like, a space and really getting, like, intimately familiar with a smaller space like this. And, you know, just, like, spinning all the dials, seeing all the pistons because I was just watching, like, a trailer for that game. Like, yeah, it just looks extremely satisfying. Oh, totally. Yeah. No, that looks like my cup of tea. And, again, yeah, I do love Tunic Blueprints, a game where my notebook is getting filled up with my crazy thoughts. And, you know, I'm not great at math, so it would probably be good as a little, like, math.

Get me back in math shape. So I feel like that would be good for me too. So I'm very intrigued by this.

You don't really have to do a lot of math on your own. It's mostly just tracking the information. And then there's an in-game calculator that will help you.

Oh, nice.

What you would do is you would change your distance. This is what's so amazing about it. Because it's not like you go to the calculator and it's like, okay, my target. like put in the numbers and that's what my target is. It's like, no, it's all in reference to what you did on the actual like map where I selected where my turret is. And then from that point, I found where my spotters were. And then from the spotters, I found out where the actual targets are in reference.

Cause it'd be like, I don't know, 186 degrees from spotter one. And then, and then you're triangulating your location. And then from there, like there's some like in-game like tokens that you can kind of place on the map, like manually, you don't even like, you don't have to use any of that really. Like you could do it.

a totally different way, but that's how I personally do it. And I just kind of messed around and did what makes sense to me. And there's been some instances where I'm like, oh, this actually makes more sense to do it this way. But yeah, just the whole tracking of the information. And then you go to your calculator. And what you could do technically is you could do your calculation on the calculator. And then I think you can just take that information onto your in-game clipboard. And that's probably how most people play that game. But I... like in the in the calculator you can like you basically make like a punch card and what it would do is like all the information you just put in the calculator it'll now be in like a physical card and

this is only a single player game but i think it should have like some sort of multiplayer element because i think in theory what you would do is you would take that card to whoever's on the gun or something, you know, and it's like, Hey, this is your information. This is, and like, I don't know, maybe that's how they actually, I don't know anything about tanks, but maybe that is actually how they, they, they, they did those types of, uh, I don't know, artillery measurements like way back in the day, but obviously now it's all digital and fucking AI and kill bots, uh, the technology that they have now. But, but back then, like it just, it just feels amazing in that way where I get all my information and then I'll, I'll make, All of

my little punch outs for all of my targets that I have. So then they're all ready to go. And then it's like, okay, from there, that's where I have to make sure that I have all the right ordinance. Then I have to order all my right. So I just have like a total like order of operations for how I tackle my missions in this game. And it's so satisfying. They've added a lot of new things in there because they have the base game. And then they have like challenge maps that they've added. I think they've even.

Added like August. That's like impressive that they have all this extra stuff in there. Oh, wow.

That's, that's news to me. That's cool. Um, but yeah, no, they, they've had like multiple updates. Like right now I'm looking at, it's like new missions are out now, which is, which is really cool. And, uh, just overwhelmingly positive reviews. Like everyone in, in, in, on the reviews, like I just want more of this game. Like it's just, it's just so satisfying. And, um it like it just feels really good to play um and like also like when you when you shoot your your your artillery you have like a little stopwatch and it'll be like counting down like the time when you actually hit your target um so it's kind of it's kind of fun because you'll have like the big audio effect of it shooting off and

then you just have your little watch just like to And then you like look at like your world map and then just kind of waiting for it to hit. And it's like, fuck, I hope I actually hit my target. Uh, you have a little bit of that in the back of your mind, but, um, Oh, there was one more thing I was going to say. Uh, what was it?

The, yeah, the, your in-game watch.

Uh, Oh, my, my most recent mission, it actually had a moving target. Like I had to take out like a train, which was really interesting because you, you basically get like, uh, you figure out where it's going to be at certain times. So then you have to like figure out how long it takes for your shot to get to the certain distance. But let's say I missed the first shot. Okay, well, I have another reference for where it's going to be at the next time, but it's going to actually be somewhere different on the map, obviously.

So then my bullet's going to take a different amount of time to get to. So then you're really like mentally like, oh man, is it going to take like 35 seconds? But it's not like you can pause the game. So like the time is always going. So it's like, okay, let's get things. Oh, it's like, oh man, I didn't move fast enough. So I probably just missed that window.

So instead of wasting my bullets here, let's just wait for it to hit that third checkpoint and then really hope that I hit my target on this one. So there's like some stress involved with it, especially when you're doing like where people are shooting back at you. That's where it adds a little bit extra layers of stress.

But man. like at the start of the year, I never thought I'd be playing a tank sim game, but man, this is, this, this, this is like one of the most fun gaming experiences I've.

Had this year.

Like it's, it's super, super fun. Um, but again, very niche, very specific to the individual.

No, I love it. I mean, yeah, the fact that it is so successful on steam just shows that, yeah, this is like a niche, but it's, uh, it's something that people are interested in. The fact that that PVK, K K PVKK game is, is coming out. And I know that one has like a lot of buzz for it too. So, Yeah, I don't know. I think people are just into extremely specific simulators right now. I think that's part of the reason why I wanted to make Potion Problem. I was like, yeah, let's just have a game where you only make potions and do absolutely nothing else.

I don't know. I think that, yeah, people are interested in that kind of thing. So I'm definitely intrigued by this. You've sold me on that. Again, for people, it's called Iron Nest Heavy Turret Simulator on Steam.

You can also customize a cat. You can fully customize a cat that just lives with you in this turret.

Right as you said that, that screenshot popped up on the Steam page.

It popped up for me, and I kind of forgot about it, but I wanted to mention it to you.

We love that. We love a cute companion. Thank you so much for shouting that game out and reminding me that I forgot to bring it up earlier in the show. But yeah, Kirkland, thank you for joining me. This was a fun episode. We had another topic planned, but I think we've covered just about enough today. So that's good when that happens. And yeah, we're going to just hit end stream and then we're going to start up a new one, do some bread and butter. So people should go check that out on Patreon. Thank you for joining me, Kirkland.

Thank you everybody for listening. We'll see you again next time. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Peak, Iron Nest, Nintendo Direct (Witchbrook, City of None, Tenjutsu) | Sidequest

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