Talkin' about Short Games!

I might getting some pot off. Did you close the garage door? I don't have a coffee pot. I have fucking pod machines, all these damn pod machines, so many fucking pots. I just want to get rid of them. I just want beans. Mm hmm. I bought the new I bought a new bag of beans at Costco. You should, we should make some orders. Uh, there's like fresh bean places that you can order online and they literally roast them when you make your order and then they send it to you. So you order, they fucking wrote stum and ship them so they're fresh roasted. And they're not gonna want to spend that much money. Man, it's not expensive. You fourteen hundred dollars for a bocks? How much is a bag of beans? How much is a pound of beans? Fourteen bucks at Costco? Okay it's the same. Well at Costco you probably get more than a pound though. Yeah I got that big Oh yeah, I got that big fucking bag like that. But what's the roast date on it? Does it even have a roast date? It's like the size of my head. It doesn't have a roasting date. It has had Timothy's coffee. We had to toss out all our roasts if it hit like a week or something, No, or a month? What was it? Maybe a month? They're good for like six weeks, I think, yeah, so we would do I think we would do four weeks. And we had a little marker on the on the bag and slipped the rest fresh coffee. I was a preset. I was. I even took training. I took the training and I wrote my exams and I got a raise for passing my breast exams. Wow, didn't I didn't know that? Yeah, man, he was a badista. I was a man. He was. That's a little different, isn't it. Isn't that a law? It doesn't that have to do with like medieval last they were in Henry, they were in kingdom. Come you could like do quests for the h All right, well, hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Elder Trolls Gaming podcast. If you are new, we are three brothers. We talk about gaming, and we talk about other things movies, tech, TVs. Geeky stuff too. I am take it easy John, and I'm nasty night and I'm dan off these bro I was eating cookie and today we are going to be discussing speaking of cookies, bite size games, short games that scratch your rich. No need for any creams or powders. Just play a game. All you need to do is play a short game and it'll it'll, uh, it'll cure what ails you. Yeah, like you're you're like, oh, I'm jones in for some gaming, but I gotta get to breakfast or something, or the wife's making you go to Costco to do groceries, but you just have to get some gaming in before you go. These are the kind of games mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, So we'll talk about that a little bit later. But yeah, I feel like that'd be a terrible head space to be in for just wanting to game, like, oh, I've gotta get half an hour in before I go. Like it's just like the matter to me, But I do. I do feel that way about certain things. But I can't. Like there's no way I could give in and play the game. That's me, that's me. That's why I have a problem. You have a problem. Yeah, this episode is for nasty nay for people like him. Mm hmmm hmm. Okay, all right, let's do it. We got the new soundboard up here and I'm hoping that you've got two sounds. Yeah, I couldn't figure it out, but there will be more over time. Yeah, I'll have to add some nice I don't know. If you guys think of something that we kind of say a lot that might be a good record, a good soundboard. Let me know and I'll get the sound bite of it. But right now, all the movies that we've grown up watching all yeah, sound like maybe some dumb and dumber stuff, you know, like some stuff like that Ace vent Dura. What what have we got? We got something? I've got some stuff here. Finn will be the death of me. This dog I told I was telling the guys last night in hockey, but I don't think Jonathan heard the whole story. So fleasy story one one day after work. It always seems to be the days that I bike home from work and I'm drenched, I'm tired. I get home and we've been like caging Finn in the living room in a certain way. But he pushed out his cage so he could squeeze out of the living room and he goes right for the garbage, annihilates the garbage, all the garbage, all over the garbage all over the kitchen, and I don't know what was in the garbage, but it was like paste of the floor, Like all the dirt and grime just like caked onto the floor. Like he was like stomping it in, you know, like forcefully, like telling me, you know, fuck you dad, stomping it in there. But a week earlier, Alma had bought Costco boxes of chocolates and uh like fuzzy peaches. Right. He just likes to eat garbage like his old man pretty much. He somehow got he got onto the kitchen table, knocked off the full box of mini chocolate bars and Eminem's, and he scattered that all over the house. He didn't eat. He didn't eat the many chocolate bars. He like punctured them and then left them. But he ate a bunch of his teeth in there. Yeah, just dip his teeth trucolate and then that's trucolate. Though what happened the other day, I'll continue the story. He breaks out of the living room because we had him contained, goes into the garbage where I had thrown out the mini chocolate bars and he ate them all. He only likes them if they're in the garbage. Yeah, and he ate them all. But once you throw them out, he goes. He's like, oh that garbage trash is ever men. Well think it's like, but now we're just gonna cage him if I step out of the house for more than two minutes and cage this this animal. He is an animal, this beast. And then we buy picture him without his tongue hanging out of his mouth and like cross eye those blue eyes like crossss like doing something fucking and just he's like a character. Yes, he reminds me of the Ice Age. He reminds me of the y from from Lion King. Yeah, it's like a cross between those two. That's what I picture in my head. So I buy them. And I don't remember his name sid, I think from Ice Ice Age. I buy some baby gates like get this. I buy some baby gates, some new baby gates from the Amazon sale that that retractable ones. I was like, okay, this will keep him in the living room. We can't move him whatever. And I was like, those are not going to keep him in the living room. I was like, yeah, well, we're gonna try it out. So I drilled him into the wall. I retract them. I locked them, and we're upstairs and we're lying in bed. Good Lord, And like five minutes later, at the end of the bed, all I see is Fin's tail wagging across the bed at the end of the bed, Like, how the did he get off? He's got like some teleportation. Yeah, so I go downstairs and everything's locked, and like, I don't know he he may have jumped over the baby gates, but like if he jumped over the baby gates, I would have heard him land on the tiles, like land on the ground. So I don't think he jumped over it. I think he like weaseled his way underneath, like like weaseled his entire You have a huge body that too, you feel like I feel like you'd hear the scratching and like the gate just like him, he's like a ferret because they have like all this compressed. He slips under the gate or he's like Alex smack, he just turns into a puddle of good Alex. I don't know if anyone would get that. I don't know if anyone to get that. Reference is that Canadian TV, don't I don't remember. Actually, Nicole, you are you sure those noise canceling headphones are now a good idea because you're not gonna hear anything he gets. Oh he's gonna be caged, doesn't matter. Oh okay, are they he's canceling right now? Yeah? Oh yeah, I can't have to turn it on, like the switch all over the kitchen Like he's just like, you can't hear my PC fans. I can't hear anything other than you guys. Is there a switch to turn that on? Yeah, there's two modes. There's like normal mode and then there's high. Yeah. I guess the high mode takes more battery. Just necro goblining the garbage almost down there. No, the cheese goblin. That cheese goblin goblin, that's me. Was that that was just like some other brand, Like it wasn't obviously just a Mac and Cheese brand. Cheese something weird. He's like puking up the cheese as if they had that commercial in the nineties. The nineties were unhinged. Yeah, it was crazy. Other than that, I bought some new gadgets saw on Amazon with the Prime Day. Hey, I got my new mouse here that's the uh the Naga. Oh yeah, see all my buttons, gotta have all these buttons, and then it has a module. It's it's modular, so you can change the side, clip in, clip in other kinds of buttons. So there's a there's like a six button side or a two button side, or a fucking well brand is it a razor? Oh? I have to use their shitty software though, so I'm not it's horrible. It's fucking so far, so good. It's been what four days. I haven't had any issues with the software. The other item my butt are my new Bluetooth headphones here by anchor, the Soundcore Q fives. I plug them into the PC. I don't use Bluetooth on the PC because it's ship but they're plugged into my to my USB dack. So are they on your ears? Do they pressed down on your ears? Are they comfortable? Oh? Yeah, yeah? Right now, I'm just wearing my two because of my bald head. I didn't shave my head yet, so I uh. It's a shame that they didn't have any of those mixers, those sound mixers on sales. Some of them were, but they were just the kind of the shitty ones that didn't have any actual faders or anything. So I was looking at them, but I wasn't going to bother. I did get some sweet UHD titles, such as Spider Man into the Spider Verse, which I'm looking forward to watching for the first time in UHD because fun fact, Netflix only has it in four K and it's not UHD. You mean it's not HD. It's not HDR. It's UHD four K whatever, but it's not HDR. They may have changed it now, but whatever you do, don't watch it on Netflix if you want HDR. Black Cooked Down one of the greatest war films of all time, modern war films. Looking forward to watching that Space Odyssey two thousand and one. Never seen it, never said apparently it's seminal side five viewing. Stop using your big fucking words, buddy. It means winter essential semen, it means and then the thing. I recommended the thing okay by my horror head friends. They're like, like one of the best horror movies ever. Like it's like I've never seen it, so I'll watch it. I think I've seen it. He's like stuck in the Arctic. Yeah, yeah, I know that much. That's all I really know is that the one with Sylvester Stallone. No, that's I see you. Oh no, it's Kurt Russell. Kurt, Yeah, you didn't get anything at Amazon and Jonathan, No, I don't think so oh wait no, no, no, maybe I did. I don't know if it was not nothing like cool. I think it was like, oh, I I ordered two things for my Actually they should be here today. My my PS five controller. Oh nice to modit a little bit more. The the short triggers kit I got, and oh yeah, that's what I was gonna get for Alma, but I'm too lazy to mod anything. The short trigger kit and the they have these little things that you can you solder onto the joystick pitins that you can adjust the stick drift. If you have stick drift. It comes. There's two little adjustment screws for X and Y axe and a little ceramic screw driver that you have to use and you kind of turn it on and you bring up the whatever like controller testing software and you adjust the screws so it counter counteracts your stick drift. So I got that, huh, So we'll see. If I don't know, I don't know how bad my stick drift actually is. Mine's terrible on my PS five control. It's fucking brutal. Then there you go, oh, this could be a certainly a mod for you. I only got it on switch. That's the only that's the only controller I experience that have and have ever is switched, not my Xbox, no I PlayStation. Well I experience it because I turned zero Dead Zone on and you're just like and it's just like wow, like ah, yeah, okay, so that's what it's for. Really anyway, let's get into uh game, A team game, a welcome to game, a game time. What we're playing currently? Mm hmmmm mm hmm. I actually haven't been playing a whole lot months ago. First, I have just been playing Phantom Liberty. M hmm. Nice. It was very nice to get back in a cyberpunk, you know, very nice to kind of roll around in there. You get a free spec reset with the two point zero patch that came out just before Phantom Liberally. So I reset, I zeroed out, and I specked into shotguns and blunt bludgeoning weapons really nice, and body my body. So I'm like zipping around, dodging around and double jumping. I don't need a car anymore. I can just dash. Like there's a dash Did you ever use that? It's you don't need a car. You can just jump and dash everywhere. It's so fast, it's faster than like. Yeah, but there's a cool down on it. No, there isn't. I can immediately do it again because my spec like I specked fully into body, I don't. It doesn't cost stamina either, because because I'm full body in the Bass game and I can't. Stats are completely different, so they must have changed that too. That's cool. Yeah, there's no stamina, Like, it doesn't use stamina when I dash, So I'm just like and I just hop around in that old Ultimate Spider Man game. Yeah, so I'm doing that and bludgs and weapon. I haven't found a good bludge and weapon though. I only have this, like it's almost like a hammer, and it just it just kills people. It's funny. It's funner to use the shotguns though. So I'm using shotguns. Oh yeah, that's what I use right now. That's my thing. Yeah, but it's cool. I like. So the story so far is pretty cool. Of vandom liberty. I I'm liking Idris Elba. Oh, it's fantastic. Just starting to learn a little bit more about him. I'm only about I think I'm only like three hours in or something like that or so, because I sometimes get sidetracked, you know how that is in night City. You just get sidetracked and you start people to see things to do. I actually find myself now in Dogtown, in the new area, just getting into street fights way more. And it just this giant shootout in It's like everyone is hostile everywhere, and I'm just like, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, just beating and blowing everyone up. It's sucking, hilarious. Cool. I've got Fomo. It's fantastic, dude. Yeah. And that. I've been playing Apex as well a lot more with my new mousepad. I got a new mousepad, a E Sports professional mousepad made of glass. It is made of glass, guys. Okay, it's very sleek. It's very hard and sleek. Doesn't the laser doesn't your laser go through the glass and not move? No? No, it's the back is painted. Oh okay, wow, but yeah, I had to I have to actually lower my sensitivity by a lot because of how much more this thing just fucking glides. It's like like grease pig spit, grease pig spit. Okay, I have a request whenever you're eating, don't talk, huh. I'll just mute his audio track. Yeah, just mute it. That cloud looks like a drums to you, hungry Tammy. Yeah, that's that's it for me. Yeah, you know, I have been I've definitely been playing Starfield. I've been doing. I finished the Crimson Fleet story and what a right is so sick going to that ship when it's blown up? Oh man, Yeah, that was crazy. That was crazy to do. Then Dan for for the Crimson Fleet story. Spoiler alert right here, so skip ahead if you don't want to hear it. Anybody listening. But I decided to give the money to Sistef and not give it to crimson Fleet because I again I didn't like the crimson Fleet dick, but I also didn't if I could have taken that money and fucked off, I would have. But I don't think that that is an option. I don't think you can just not but that he was about to arrest me. That guy was about to arrest me because I killed too many people on my missions. It was so money. So then I just blasted him, killed him, started in the room, and then I was like, then I went over to the pirates. I shared my money with the pirates, and then I went out and I shot a bunch of pirates. So now you get a ton of money, you get like two hundred and fifty k or something. Yeah. Yeah, But the thing is you get that regardless, you get the same cut. So I was like, okay, I'll I mean, I don't know why I did. I just didn't. I didn't like the pirates, I didn't like the assist deepf. I was like, fine, I'll just go to Sisteph and then like whatever, I'll do that and and but it was crazy because I wasn't expecting what I had to do, which is just completely go and kill all these pirates that you kind of make a connection with through the Crimson Fleet story. And I come in, I'm just mowing them down without a second thought. Like I see these characters come out, I'm like, oh shit, it's Jazz Boom. She's dead. And I looked at her bodies just like and she's just dead. And then I take her things and then that mathis guy mowed him down and everyone's like fuck you, rook, and they're like cursing you as they're dying. It was crazy. It was crazy. I really enjoyed that. Yeah. I also finished the Free Star Collective story, and I'm not even sure I was crazy about my choice here, but I went with the Spock logic, which is the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few. And so I decided to tell Ron Hope that he can he'd be he'll be let off the hook. Yeah, I did that too. Yeah. Same, if you know, if I don't get me though, all isn't Yeah, all this replays. He only gave me twenty grand Yeah, but then you're supposed to say no a little bit more. Yeah, I'm like, m He's like God Davin. Yeah, So anyway, I told I told him that he could, you know, he's let off the hook if his other people, if his employeers and everybody stay safe. Of course, Sarah Morgan wasn't crazy about that. Oh She's like, give me the needs of the many speeches like that's exactly what I thought whenever I made the decision, which is kind of funny. So she she saw right through me. She saw right through me. She's not a fan of the Vulcan logic. I'm playing the Vanguard story currently, so I want to finish that one. Now, that was pretty cool. I didn't get much into it, but it seemed pretty cool. Yeah, so far's I don't know that one the monsters there, the pteromorphs, kind of hysterical story. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Early on, I didn't yeah early on. So far it's been a lot of talking. It's been a lot of talking, which I'm not in that game. Yeah, that's an really thing. Yeah, I thought you had to like go around and maybe I'm thinking a little bit more. Maybe I did get a little bit. It could be later. I don't know. I'll find out. But I was given my uh United but the hell they called United colonies, uh citizenship, so I can like go buy it maybe in a parking so I should do that. But anyway, we'll see about that. I'm gonna I'm probably gonna finish that before I go and do the main story, because I just decided I don't want to rush the Starfield experience because you know, Phantom Liberty will always be there and I don't I don't just don't want to fall victim to the whole abundance of Triple A games coming. We got Spider Man coming on October twentieth six. More days fall Victim what yes, yes, because six more days till Spider Man. I think so the twentieth. I'm pretty sure we might need a confirm on that, but I just it's been Starfield's like hugely anticipated. Why would I rush it. I don't want to rush it. I want to enjoy it. It deserves to be enjoyed. So I'm just gonna keep doing that. I'll finish Vanguard, then I'll do the mains. That way, I've done three huge faction mission lines, storylines, and then I'll beat the main story. That was kind of my goal in the end. Anyway, I'm really not interested in the Reugion thing. I'm not a stealth character build. I need to be killing things, Okay, I have to be shooting things. I wasn't dead, Yeah, I wasn't really. Yeah, I wasn't really into the Reugion thing. It was kind of like, go there, yeah, do this thing, this thing on my computer. Yeah, I'm not crazy, and that's fine. Again for stell, you can do it. Do I get to a you know, call anybody. But yeah, so that's my Starfield update. But I did I did download for the twenty twenty three from game Pass because I do want to check it out. It's been a while Motors played one. Yeah, a while as well. I've been a while since I played a racing game, so I really want to check it out before my game pass is up next month. So I'll take advantage for a bit and just kind of play it and see what it's all about. But I haven't played it yet because I just downloaded it. Beyond that, I played a Little Animal Crossing New Horizons with the nephews over the weekend because they were I think Samuel lost his original copy that's a game in the seats of their car and they couldn't find it forever until it just showed up and so but in the meantime they yeah, but in the meantime they had bought a new copy. Oh, they bought a new copy because he really loved it. Oh, so do I get the second copy? Well, no, Eli did, so he's playing it on his little switch light. So he started his new island and we were we were playing together, checking out their islands, blowing their minds with mine. So I helped Eli on the right foot with some crops and fencing to like propel his economy, because that's something I wish that somebody could have done for me when I started, but I had to rely on turnips and strangers like islands for their their stock market prices and planting bell trees like strangers like Elijah Wood. Yeah, that would have been sing and Tony Truo, Tony Daniel Daniel, oh and Danny Treo. Also to Danny Danny Sorry, yeah, Danny Tray. Okay, I thought that was a different guy. But yeah, so he can now contribute bells to any project he needs on his island, like freaking his house, loans, bridges, ramps, anything that you can make and have to like buy over time. All he's got to do is harvest. Harvest is crops. So that was fun though, but that's kind of it really, that's all my game time stuff. Well damn well, how do you guys? Mm hmm. I beat Phantom Liberty fan fantastic. It was great, nice, Like, I don't want to go too far in it because you guys, how many hours that take you? I'd have to check, but I don't know, maybe, like I want to say, around ten okay something like that maybe. But again, I just didn't do just the main I did a handful of all the Fixers have they have some stuff in Dogtown now some of the new Fixers. You get to really learn and and meet mister Hans there. He's all awesome. He's so good like that. The voice actor for him is fantastic, but overall amazing storytelling, amazing voice acting. You know, it was just it's top tier. It's just top tier gaming, Phantom Liberty. You can't get much better than it like that. It's insane. Just the fidelity, like everything, everything about it is top notch. If it could win something, I hope it does. Maybe I don't know, do they do DLC of the Year or something. I have no idea that would be cool. But man, oh man, so good and I'm glad they that's the last big that's the last DLC that's gonna come out but one and only, so they're going to be finishing off Cyberpunk with that, I think. But it definitely ended very good, very good. Just remember I don't want to say that either. I'll just leave it with that. I'll let you guys finish it and then react it well. Talk spoilers leader. I got into Lives of p which was on game Pass, and I immediately fell in love. It's so good. It's fucking hard, but it is so good. It's brutally hard. It's harder than well, not harder than Securo. Securo was ridiculous. I quit Securo, but like Guess, but this one is like hard where I just keep coming back because the whole puppet thing, like you're fighting puppets and Geppetto's there and it's such a dark yeah, and it's all Italian like names and people like Italian accidents. It's very it's very fun, like the whole like like the dialogue is balders Gate Bard. But yeah, I'm almost done that. I got like three chapters left, so be like a handful of bosses left. I'm determined to get through it. Even though Lords of the Fallen just came out installed that I've paid. I've played about five hours of that, and my god, it looks so nice, this unreal engine five game boys. It is beautiful, very nice. People are saying that this is a soul's like that doesn't make you want to kill yourself, So if that, I I don't believe you. So far, I've beaten the first boss. She was relatively easy, took me like a couple of tries three hours. But what I have the issues with is obviously the performance of it, because it's unreal Engine five. I don't think they really specify if your rate racing has turned on or not, you know, because they use the lumen's thing and all this shit. They don't specifically say ray tracing on. It's global illumination, I think, but they have low, medium, high ultra. So the buzz online is that once you turn global global illumination and reflections past medium like high ultra, that's when ray tracing gets turned on. So everyone's saying, if you want better frames, just leave those two at medium, because once you get higher on those two settings, it's rate racing. I was like, oh shit, no wonder. I'm like, get my computer's melting over here. So I haven't tried that yet. Yeah, I haven't tried it yet, right, but I didn't know that. I didn't even know the game had rate tracing because it doesn't say anywhere. So I've maxed everything out right, ultra everything, four K, ultra everything, and I'm getting like thirty fps. I'm like, oh my god, that's gross. I know it's crazy, And then I was like, Okay, I can't fight bosses at thirty FPS because I need to get those blocks and those dodges down like perfectly. So I'm going through everything and I switched. I have a custom thing I've done myself, and I can get around eighty fps now at four K, which is pretty decent. So right there, and then I still I think I still have global illumination on like Ultra, because I like the lighting in that game. It's insane. But we'll see I have to jump back in and take a look. So you can't actually turn on ray tracing switch can't. Yeah, you can't have it on high. I'll at like and then turn that off. Yeah, it's not like Cyberpunk where it's at the bottom. It's like turn ray tracing on and then turn on the lighting, turn on the shadows whatever. It's part of all the all the switches in there for all that other stuff. So okay, I wish they would have told that. There's no description in the settings, like it's not like, oh, this turns ray tracing on if you go higher than medium. I'm like, oh, off right, yeah, pretty cool. It's very it feels very heavy, like the controls feel heavy. It's not as fluid I find as lies of PA but it might be because of what I'm wearing and my weapon of choice. So I chose. I chose a ranger, a crow ranger. He's got a cool hat, looks like Robin Hood hat. It might because of what I'm wearing. You're gaming in a full like suit of armor like nights, You're like ultra role play. But yeah, he's I've got the bone arrow, so I can shoot from far and then come in and kill him with my axe. Pretty sweet, But yeah, that's that's that story. Yes, there is a story. So like simplest terms, like, there was this big god dude, and the more mortal like men took like killed him or sent them to the underworld or whatever, and now he's like big carcasses lying in this world. And then there was these five heroes that were tasked with keeping him in his slumber, like in his defeated state or whatever. But for as long as he is dead, his evil like creeps through the earth and infects people. It kind of like Lord of the Rings nodings. There's another fantasy world that doesn't like creeps in and infects like weak people and all that stuff. And then it just keeps creeping and creeping, creeping, and then all the heroes fall and their lamps are put out, so they're like protective beams of light. You have to go and turn them back on by killing the the cursed hero and freeing them, and to keep this god sleeping. So that's pretty much the story. It's pretty sick. Oh yeah. Other than that Overwatch, I jumped in a bit shooting some things. I tried FORTSA. It's garbage. No am D Day one drivers, Like, what are they thinking? I'm still waiting on them. I can't get through one race without getting It doesn't run well on Nvidia either, so no, yeah, like I get, I get through one race, I get to the result screen. A crash is the desk up after every race result screen crash, every single one. I've tried like ten races, and every single time it's yeah, weird. You can play it on you could play it on. Yeah, I installed it on Series. I haven't tried it yet, but I was hoping to see all the cool reflections in the racetracing and whatnot. It actually doesn't look that good what I thought I did. I don't know, maybe because I tried putting my settings down. Oh I cranked that ship up, I feel because I was having like stuttering and it wasn't really smooth. I was just like, this is fucking ship. Like the replays like, you know, you want to see a nice smooth replay, yeah, but it's not. It's like even the really choppy choppy. Yeah, the replays choppy during the game, a little bit chop. I'm just like, this isn't the racing game well smooth? And I found Grand Tourisma looked better. Oh really, I'd have to do a side by side. I liked what I saw in Forts. It looked really nice, Like the reflections cranked up, everything cranked up. It looked really nice. Okay, maybe on my setting sign of can report for a Series X experience once I play it. It is free. You can just download it and play it. I did download it. You downloaded Forts to the racing game. He said that good night. I said that in my game time. You must have been you must have cookies in your ears. Those noise canceling headphones are just canceling all sound. I'm just sitting here, no one's talking. Yeah, that's pretty bunch it. Okay, well, let's get over to gaming news. So you've got some gaming news here, you say, big gaming news. Activision Blizzard is now officially part of Microsoft. Oh, yes, that has officials. It's finally over. It's done. Bobby Kotik, staying on until the end of this year. Phil Spencer says the work to add Activision Blizzard. But what the K stands for ABK active Activision Blizzard K franchises to game Pass begins today. Today we start work to bring beloved Activision, Oh, Blizzard and King franchisers. So like mobile shit, I guess to game Pass and other platforms, says Philly Spence. Philly Spence in a letter to employees, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotik suggests that the deal will bring his time with the company to a close in the near future. Thank god, this fucking guy, get him out. Yeah. I've long said that I'm fully committed. This is a quote by Bobby Kotik. I have long said that I am fully committed to helping with the transition. Phil has asked me to stay on as CEO of ABK, reporting to him, and we have agreed that I will do that through the end of twenty twenty three. We both look forward to working together on a smooth integration for other or for our teams and players. But bullshit, I'm sure Philly Cheese Steak asked him him to stay on. Yeah, fucking right, man. He was like, you're out. You're fucking out. Do we know? Man, Imagine that conversation that you have to have with somebody like, yeah, are you gonna Suxpencer. You're like, sorry, buddy, you're fucking out. Yeah, You're a piece of ship. Get the fuck out. How much was this deal? Like? How much? Sixty nine billion? Yeah, sixty nine billions and billions and billions and billions. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money for Activision and Blizzard. Trump. I gotta get some Trump sounds sounds. Yeah, Yeah, that would be fun. It's a lot of money. But now you're gonna start seeing older Activision games. I think coming on to game Pass, you're not going to see new ones like Call of Dude, Oh yeah call. I think Tony Hawk definitely will show up for Nice. For Nice, I would love that. I would do that is not going to show up yet. I don't think the new Call of Duties aren't. Maybe Warcraft three reforged. That would be sweet. That would be cool. Play that again on console. Is Heartstone coming to Xbox? WHOA, that'd be nice. That'd be sweet. Actually, I don't know how you work with I could get my ass on it from the couch. I've remoted into my PC and played it with controller. It's nice. Other set of news is Diable four will be Steam deck ready when it leaves battle Neet. So now you can already see Battlenet games getting onto Steam because of this whole this deal coming through. So there's gonna be you're not gonna need Battlenet to play Blizzard games anymore. They've already got Overwatch on there, Diablo fours coming to Steam. Ah, that's crazy, man, It's crazy. How it's crazy? Are this has all come because like I just I mean, I haven't played Blizzard games in a long time, but maybe back in two thousand and eight, I would play star Craft, I would play uh, you know, World of Warcraft and all this shit, and I would need my Blizzard thing to log in. And it's just like they were their own entity back then, and now Microsoft is just like for fast forward to twenty twenty three and they're so huge that there's no there's just no beating these massive studios, the studios anymore, and there's no point. I'm hoping that this takeover like brings the old Blizzard back, you know, like really whips them into shape, gets to me to stop being the Blizzard of today just a little horrible, you know what I mean, just a little bit activision specifically. Just now with that being said, Diablo four. Say what you will about Blizzard, like I just did. But these guys that are in the Diablo four team, like there are really they're trying really hard to get players invested. They're listening to the community, they're making games accessible. You don't need a monster machine to run them. Their patches are frequent. Although in the past garbage, they seem to be turning it around. For season two that launches next week, I'll probably be diving in a lot of players. Like almost says she probably won't because she wants to see more classes. There's not gonna be any new classes, So I agree with her there, that's like there's only four. Still a lot of these live action or these live service games come out with a new class or hero like every season, right, like every three months there's a new class or a new hero. How the hell is the albo going to follow that? I just don't know what I want from Diablo for, Like what do I want? It would be hard. I've already done the campaign. I'm almost level hundred, I've done it. Season one was nothing different really, just doing the same shit over again. No, Like the bosses are all the same. They're very easy, they're not they don't take any brain power to beat them. Yeah. Yeah, So now in season two, there's gonna be three new big bosses, like kind of like Uber Lilith but not so, there's gonna be Uber Lilith and like I think three others that you confirm to get like materials to then some and other bosses to then do your grind for your Uber uniques, like your super uber stuff, like your high end gear. Do you guys feel like you've been spoiled by Balder's gates like bosses and mechanics and like it's just kind of it's different. It's like getting based. Yeah, Diablo is like you're like flip your your fingers are flying right. Well, I just mean the reason I ask is because Jonathan said there's no brain power required to beat these bosses. But then I thought, okay, so that maybe because maybe he just came out of Baller's Gate three and you got to like strategize and you gotta you know what I mean. There's some bosses that happen. I mean, like they're not like typically typical, like like a raid boss. You know, there's mechanics, you you got to move out of the way for this, you gotta everything kind of go over there, you know, you have to avoid this and all that, like it kind of does, but it's not really. There are a couple of bosses in Diablo that do that, yes, but most of them are just like, yeah, I killed you in three fucking seconds. I had a YouTube short on there, I literally kill a boss. Ah, yes, how much? How many levels higher? Was? It was like ten levels higher than me? Yeah. Also before season one, took me four seconds to kill the boss. Ye. But yeah, So these bosses will have mechanics, they were showing them on the on the live stream, and you'll be able to farm certain things to get certain stuff that you want. Now, like target farming, which is a big deal for like MMO players and stuff like that. What else was their target farming in the Tier three and four worlds, you're only gonna get like the good stuff, like the good uniques, the or the ancestrals versus like Tier one and two, So like you're not gonna get garbage white blue and shitty yellow drops in like Tier four anymore, you know what I mean. Like you're either gonna get like the higher tier gear or you're getting get nothing or materials. You're not gonna get all this shit, So that's pretty cool. I'll be jumping in coming back to the classes though, Like I don't know what they else could they add. They have maybe up their sleeve. They have they have Amazon or demon Hunter, but I guess that would be Rogue, So I don't think you're gonna see demon Hunter. Paladin, Crusader. Templar is like the same kind of class. So that's like rolled into one and Monk. So they have maybe three classes left come out with Monk. Yeah, but we'll see. I will dabble, I will dabble. I don't know if I'll try it. I don't know, maybe maybe, maybe not. There's other things to play. Yeah, I'll just let it. I'll just let it develop and just let it. Yes, exactly yeah, let it develop. I'm in no hurry to play it, but it would be cool. I just in no hurry. It's really cool to play with your friends. So if your buddies get it, didn't get it, I feel like they might have already. I could have missed that boat. I'll just have to solo everything. Let me solo her. Yeah, exactly, all right. Uh do we have an AD break? Do you want to do an AD break? Yes, we do have an AD break. I forgot to put that in the notes. Thanks for remembering. Okay, well we'll do an AD break and uh it's probably the VR rock. But keep in mind this is not just for ps VR people. It's not. Even though it might sound like it is the way we recorded it, that is not only for PSVR two. But here it is. Hello everyone. We are thrilled to announce an excitingnew partnership with vrrock dot com. 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We extend our sincere gratitude of vr rock dot com for supporting us and making our VR experiences safer and more enjoyable. So don't miss out, Grab your vr rock lenses and get ready for an unforgettable gaming journey. Should we get into today's topic, Okay, let's good, let's go. Let's you need the music a little bit, all right, So we're gonna talk about short games, nice and short games that won't take you long to finish and enjoy. We're going to talk about I think some that we liked, some that that we played. What's important to us in a short game. We're going to talk about it. Now. First of all, I think we need to establish some rules. Oh, what is a short game? How many hours? What's the cutoff? Let's say a few fives? Really that short? Yes, limiting the games a lot. I don't think I've even played that many. I was going to say, like ten tenie, No one size said short games. It's a short game. It all counts, it's all under one umbrella. I just had what duration counts as on the spectrum for short games. I've never played a game that is two hours long? Like, what are you talking about? You know I'm about to tell you. Well, then my notes are all obsolete, I guess, so go ahead, host the show continue without all Right, well, what what of our what I can't do this? Well, looks like it's hours then, so, and we should probably have a year cutoff as well, because because I couldn't handle it, because older games are also way shorter. So yeah, I think we should have a year cutoff, like fifteen years. Maybe let's say, oh, I'm only going to talk about the recent short games I've played. That's fine, I've got some. I'm going to touch on some some things here as well. It might cover some bases for slightly older games that do I would say fall on the spectrum. Yeah, we said bite size, but Nathane'll put that in the note, so I just read it. I don't, I don't. I don't call it bite size. But I would just say short games short game to me as short. Even if you have like twelve hours hours playing one hour a day, you would be done the game in less than two weeks. That's not it. I'd say a short game is done within a week, an hour day. Interesting, Well, this is all part of it. This is all part of the no shouldn't have short games? The philosophy. Who listeners, you tell us what a short game is? How long would a short game be? Short game? Two to five hours for Nasty eight, for Nasty eight, there are no games that I have ever played that are two to five hours. Well, I'm gonna tell you a few. You're gonna try, and you're gonna love them. Okay. That Thanel's face just just froze for me while he was like moving his head and it was blurry and its eyes were like over heres like two to five hours for Nasty eight anyway, So yeah, we'll see, we'll talk about it. Let's let's get into it. Okay, well, so, okay, what the hell are you talking about? Two to five hour games? Hit us? Hit us with the bite sized games. Yeah, so what comes to mind when I think of short games or bite sized bite sized games or quick fix games are rogue likes and lights. I don't play those, so there you are. So. A roguelike is a subgenre of a role playing computer game, traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through a procedurally generated levels, turn based gameplay, grid based movement, and permanent death of the player character. So a roguelike is when you die death, you don't get anything. You start back, and you start your un again. Okay, okay, that's rogue like a road light. A rogue light is all of that above, but you make you have a progression system, so you while you play through the levels, you collect skills or items, and when you die, you go back and although you have to play your your whole play through again, like beat the same levels, you've accumulated skills or your level has your character has grown in a way where it'll make the first few levels easier. You can get through those faster to get back to where you were kind of thing. So that's that's what I think is short, short, bite sized games. Each play through can be pretty short depending on how bad you are, or a bit longer, maybe around an hour, depending on how good you are, or how far you can get without dying and collecting those skills to help you with your next playthrough of that of that loop, you know, I feel like that could get very confusing, calling these things rogue light and rogue like. Yeah, the very thought. Well I've described it there for you guys and our listeners. Okay, you heard it here first, all right, but probably not first. So what comes to mind for you guys? What games are you talking here? Oh? For me, I'm talking about like something that's five to ten hours. That's quick, you know, it's it's got substance, but it's short. Yeah, that's short. That's still sure for sure. Hang on, I want to hear give me some titles for these rogue like and light games. Just show some out. I want to see if I've heard of it. So, the most recent one I've been playing on and off is called Winter Frost. That card game, remember that one. Take on the elements in so no, no Winter Frost. Wild Frost, Sorry, take on the elements in Wild Frost. A tactical, rogue like deck builder journey across a frozen tundra collecting cards strong enough to banish the internal winter. This game hooked me. I have like seventy hours in this game. That's a long game. Okay, it's a long game, but each playthrough can last five minutes or an hour, depending how far you get. So that's that's kind of the thing I'm talking about. Okay, this is a rogue like though. So you collect your cards through your play through, You collect your cards, you collect your items, and you build. You build your little team as you play through the levels. And each build is going to be different because they give different shit every every time you play through, and you start with a different hero every time you play through as well, so that's one of the mechanics. And then you go back to your base and you can unlock new cards, new enemies, or new items that will appear in the world while you play your game through. Very cool game, Jonathan, I think you would actually like this one wild Yeah, I was gonna buy it, but I didn't want to buy it, so I didn't buy it. Well, was it's definitely worth twenty five bucks if it goes on sale for like twenty definitely. Well, if you've got seventy hours in it, i'd it's very very good. Yeah it's on Switch. I played on Switch. Okay, yeah, very good, and it's really cool, like mobile, just out on the patio watching the dogs run around the backyard. You're playing some Wildcross two three matches through or three games done within an hour. Well, you know what, I've got a game that you never played, Yeah, that I keep talking about, and it's a nice short game. And you know what it is. I think it's on my list. It's probably on my list. I'm going to say, rhyme, Yes, I guess correct. What did you say, Nate? I thought you were gonna say the Cat Game. It's called also yeah straight. I have also played, which is also very good. But I have I have a bunch of games on my list, surprising that I have played, and I was like, oh, yeah that's short, that's short. But these are all under ten, So from five to ten that's what I was going to ask. So I had a stray rhyme that Eternit's game that I just played. Oh, titan Fall two. Titan Fall two. Man, it's a nice quick six hour campaign and it's amazing, A great game. Call of Duty, Block Ops, Cold War. That was a quick one. I beat that one. Hell Blade is pretty short. I think it's like, yeah, eight hours, seven eight hours, yeah, yeah, ye. A game called Hugh I played. It's a little color game. It's like a it's like a two D side scroller. You ever see that is where he like draws himself. It's something about colors, like you changed colors of the the palette and you like two different things in the level. It's one hour, one decision. Talk about that. That sounds familiar. It sounds familiar. It may be I beat that a while back. Truck to yomi Keena, Bridge of Spirits I had on PS five, but I started that right I started that didn't finish it. Metal Hell Singer and Shredder's Revenge. Those are the games that I kind of that I at the top of my head remember playing, and that are all under ten hours or ten round. Well, why don't I take you guys through some of game rank game Ranks on YouTube. He's got seven point eight million subs. I'm going to give you a list of of of one source of okay, some of the ten best shortest single player games. Okay, before you do that, I'm gonna finish my list. I got two more. Oh okay, oh okay, so recent things I've played. It's called Amber Nights is another Rogue Light one to four player where you play as legendary knights with flames on their heads, the last spark of Hope against the mad sorcerer Praxis and his hordes of unwavering fiends. So there's four worlds, I think four or five worlds, and you run through kill a bunch of guys using different weapons that you collect through your playthroughs. Very cool game. I keep getting to the end, and I keep failing on the last boss, and then it resets. I gotta do it again. Another one is for PSVR two. Actually this one is sick. You guys have to come over and play this one. It's called Synaps for PSVR two. It's a fun FPS rogue Light so while you go, while you play through your levels, you collect skills like telekinesis skills that you can use your hands to Jedi mind power people. It's crazy, it's so good. That's yeah. You can pick them up and smash them against the ground and like throw them into other bad guys. It's like the gravity gun and Half Life two. Yeah, it's really so you're a mind breaking operative. You'll invade the subconscious of a notorious enemy of the state and battle the twisted products of his mind. Evolve and master your own combat style by combining increasingly sophisticated skills and abilities, and then you can like telekinesis or your guns, like you have a pistol. It's like black and white, except for the blood is red and like it's HDR so that the blacks are really black. It's really cool on the old led screen in the PSVR too. How many how many hours is this one? Oh? Maybe a couple. Oh, it's it's another one of those rogue lights, right, So you just keep playing until you run through your whole gameplay until you beat it. So like a whole if you go from beginning to end, your one playthrough might be an hour and a half or so. But you can't die, you know, I say Okay, so all your games are rogue lights. Yeah, pretty much. That's what that's to me, is like a short or bite sized game. Are mobile games considered short games? How long? I don't. I feel like it's would racing games be considered The mobile game thing is tricky because every mobile game is going to be small on some scale because it's mobile, so you can play it taking a ship, right, And that's not what I mind. Game that you can that has a game and a finish and a story and you play it. That's what a game is. Okay, at least short game is. But at least Nasty Night was the seat for the bite sized units that somebody might be looking for in this kind of segment. Yeah, but I feel like in those games there's not any The story isn't crazy. Story music has to be good though we'll get to that later. Yeah, the story is not going to be nuts in those games. It's just you know, there's not going to be any character really characters, development, development, anything like that. Yeah, I have some notes on that. To me, that's like, eh, shortly, I'm not looking for a two hour game, you know what I mean? Yeah, but the addiction drives it that's how they get you depending the addiction to be better, the addiction to get better and overcome the obstacles, and then it becomes a seventy hour game. Yes exactly. Yeah, well okay, so let me let me take you through these these titles that I wrote down here. I didn't do all of them because some of them I just I've never heard of, and I don't they flew under the radar. But I chose some that I've had some experience with and desire to play. So some of game ranks ten best shortest single player games. We're going to start with. They started with, Actually this is in no particular order association. I shouldn't say what they started with, but let's all start with Mirror's Edge. You know, I remember you guys, remember hearing about this one? Yes, yeah, actually I have it. I think I got it for free. I want yeah, and I've neverble bundle. Probably I got it. Yeah. Came out in two thousand and eight on PCPs three and Xbox through sixty. I did play it. I played a lot of it. Well, I think it was on Xbox that I had played it, or PlayStation three. I don't remember which one it was. Not on PC, but I did play it. I had. I thought it was sweet. It comes I think it clocks in at about five to six hours if you are just kind of running through everything. There is combat you can do and all that, but it's it's apparently it's about five to six hours. So that's one Number one Mirror's Edge. I highly recommend it, and I'll talk a little bit about it later because I have some some notes on that. So number two is obviously hell Blade Sending a Sacrifice, which apparently clocks in at about seven hours. That came out for obviously PCPs four, Xbox one switch in twenty seventeen, which I didn't switch to play, and that is on my list. The next one being now, this is kind of what was interesting about talking about older games. So we have Call of Duty Modern Warfare two thousand and seven, so the original one that came out this the campaign is or story whatever you want to call it, clocks in at approximately six hours. So for sure, Yeah, Battlefield as well, they're like, yeah, the Battlefield and Call of Dute campaigns are pretty sweet, Like they're good to play, they're good, like they're pretty short, fun games. I mean, if you like FBSS, but yeah, good. I don't think the one that I mentioned was really good. The Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War one? Did you play that one? Uh? Cool? To war? Which one was that? No? I have it though, the first the first game I ever played with rate tracing. I think the right it came out and I think November twenty twenty or something. Maybe i'll install it right when we go through it, right when we got our cards, right when I got my thirty eighty. Anyway, I think it came out and oh I played Vanguard, that's what Vanguard? Yeah, that was the one. I didn't play that one yet. I didn't play that one, but it was very cool, like you're infiltrating like the Kremlin. It's it takes place in like the eighties and you're like, yeah, you know, like Cold War. Yeah, it was very cool Cold War, but not the sixties title. It was a stupid But there are undred and fifty six gigabytes for a six hour game. Well, it's not about that at the online, right, that's weird. That's probably installing yet, like all the other shit too, I don't want the other ship. I do remember Call of Duty Modern Warfare being amazing, like when I first fucking played that game on PC. I played on PC right over there actually on that wall first time ever. I was like, this is really cool because I was playing, I was watching Joey or Joseph and Caale playing Modern or Call of Duty three, which was their their oldest like World War Two won before this, and so I was like, okay, I'll try out Call Duty Modern Warfare. And I was playing, I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. You know, there's M fours and all these kind of new guns and all these cool Middle Eastern maps conflict in the Middle East type thing, but also over in Eastern Europe, and the campaigns were just the campaign was just really really sweet. So that's definitely a highly recommended I mean, if you're into playing slightly older games. Now, it is two thousand and seven, so the graphics aren't going to be I mean on PC maybe, but anyway. The next one was The Order eighteen eighty six, which I had heard about and never got to play, but that clucked in at six hours. It was like a Victorian kind of alternate history horror type thing. It's like a period piece and it takes place and I think it's London and it's like this group of Protectors that like fight were wolves and shit. I think really like that. And it came out twenty fifteen on PS four only, I think so it was Sony exclusive. It's sure the Order eighteen eighty six. I don't know if they've burned in me any ports since, but it kind of gives me like Leave League of Extraordinary Gentlemen sort of vibes, oh where it almost looks steampunk type universe almost, But the gameplay and the graphics looked really nice. So and I just never got to try it, and I apparently it's nice and short at around six hours, so I wanted to. I wanted to check it out. And the next one was actually titan Fall two, funnily enough, which is about my six hour playthrough. Did you play it? I never did, Oh man. I was watching some footage though on this YouTube video and the AI in the game looked really dumb. I don't know. I don't know if that was I just played. I played like three hours of it a few weeks ago. Now I never did, and it was cool. I really like it. It's just mis style. It's it's cool too, because I love Apex so it's like the same kind of guns, and a couple of the characters are in there, like ashes in there. Oh yeah, okay, so it was cool and and I think like val Valk's dad is in it. The Vipers name was yeah, so it's kind of cool. You see like the background of of the some of the people in Apex it was. It was sweet. Yeah. Titan Fall two, I don't know if I'll ever play it. It's hard to say. I don't. Came out in twenty sixteen, so it's getting it's getting a little bit up there. Of course, not as much as you know, call duty modern warfare. But the number one slot that game ranks ranked was of course Portal, which was two to three hours. Was that I'm not a puzzle guy. Yeaheah, it's true. That's kind of the whole shtick. The whole spiel for that game is PS three EC Xbox three sixty and that came out. I like to play it that I've never actually played it. You can do the one now. There's a rate tracing version on Steam. Really looks sweet. I played some of it when it came out in like the yeah, well mid two thousands, yeah, two thousand and seven, let's say, and uh, but I didn't finish it because I was just like, again, I'm not a huge puzzle guy. But I played around with it. I had some fun with it, and I got more into like Gary SPoD than anything else and like fucking around in Half Life two and on with like chets and shit like that. But it was cool. But I think that I do remember when Portal came out that that was like one of the first games where I was like, Oh, it's weird. It's not like a full length game. It's like a really short kind of side game. That's weird. So I remember when that happened, and I just that's what I thought of. I remember being like, okay, so they can just make any type of game length they want with any type of game style. But it was sweet. It was such a cool concept to just like put portals in the wall and then send something through it and then it comes out in front of you. Like that was wild. There's a game, there's a there's a there's a new game that's kind of like that, but it's an it's a an FPS and it's a it's a multiplayer shooter. Where what's that game. Then, know you remember that there's like portals in the levels and you can like split gate split gate. Yeah that looks cool and actually looked pretty cool, like you can get it for free. It was sweet. I played hand flowers of it. Nice. It looked really cool. Yeah, well it was like a cult phenomenon, I think Portal because like it had all these references in it that or I should say it had all these moments in it that are now like huge gamer meme references and all this stuff too, So it was kind of cool. I got ship. Oh my god. Okay, then we'll have to cut that, just leave it in. Actually ship, I'm back, Sorry I interupted you. Where was I? Anyway, we're just talking. I was talking about Portal. I just finished talking about Portal. But anyway, so I'm going to continue. Oh hell, I'm saying. So, the average duration of the above list from game ranks, let's say specifically, is around six hours. So I think that it's safe to say anything under ten hours is a short ten hours or shorter. I'm gonna say under. Obviously, if something's twelve, it's not it's pushing it. I would say ten or under. I think twelve is on the on the Edge still no way, thirteen, no way, don't tell me thirteen okay, twelve okay. But I just thought it was funny because I was I had made a note, I said, is that even considered short these days? When there are indie games out there clocking in at you know, three hours? Yeah, these exactly fucking games to play. So yeah, the roll lights I have played. The games that I have played, like I said, were Mirror's Edge, but I had a bucking a game breaking bug on the disc, so I never got to beat it. It FROs at the exact same spot in the story every time, and I was like, ah, and I didn't have like the head to just go and fucking return it and do all this bullshit. Was like fuck that wow? Because I bought it used anyway, it wasn't brand new or anything. So but it looks I was actually looking at some footage and it looks to be hugely influential on Cyberpunk's player movement mechanics, Like if you guys watch the parkour in Mirror's Edge, you'll be like, that looks exactly like Cybermunk. Huh. So I also played Trek to Yomi I did not beat it because it got extraordinarily frustrating really quickly, and for the sake of my health, I had to stop. But it was very cool that I and the story was was from and what I could tell really cool. The art direction was incredible, and the directing was like unlike anything I'd seen in terms of fixed camera, very very very cool. The music was amazing as well, and I hope to beat it one day and finish it. But I did also start that Letter Season A Letter to the Future game on PlayStation because it was a Sony exclusive, and I would also love to finish this, but Triple A Games came out right after I got it, and I was like, ah, I have to play those, so kind of stifled it. But I do hope to go back and finish it. That's the one where you're kind of just bike riding through the country and like there was this weird sort of I don't know if you could call it an apocalypse, but the seasons change and people are kind of you just like learn about people's stories and take pictures and it's like journaling and whatnot. I think very very nice. I think, yeah, around the same time, that's probably what it was. Yeah, so I do have hell Blade, Stray and Rhyme on my list of things that i'd also want to play on top of the others. The Trektomian season beating those uh yeah, straight was really cool. But I also just wanted to kind of talk about some philosophies too, like for my piece that I had written here. So we've in our notes we had the short games have a small window in which to make a lasting impression, right, so how do they do that? And I started thinking, you know, they can have great music, and they do have great music and visual style, but those are elements that can be introduced and absorbed in a matter of minutes, Like we can hear how good the music is and seconds we can hear how good or we can see how good the visual style is, and in a matter of seconds we get the idea, we get the picture. So while those are memorable, maybe they're not the key because I think where the challenge definitely lies, like we talked about before, and as a result, where we're probably most impressed is the storytelling. So how well in terms of these games that are six hours, nine hours whatever, that have a beginning and middle and an end, how well the writers can introduce and develop characters and plots as the means to an end in a short time, in much the same way as a movie versus a television show. Right, yeah, but I think in these short games a lot of them only center around one kind of one person, you know, like it's not sprawling the it's not like maybe not a lot of characters, but maybe they introduce you one or two characters at the beginning and then tell a story around that and you learn what happened maybe to the person to the character throughout the short game play, like you know, like or the forest there. Oh yeah, yeah, that's one. It's only about one character, but like it tells a story. Same with you saying that it could be easier for the writers because it's no but because you have to you just have to focus on what's there, right, and what's there at the beginning is the is the is the one character. So that's my same with with Hugh. There was a little bit of a story and it surrounds, you know, the character, so it's usually just the one character, and they kind of develop that one character throughout the play through the same thing happened with rhyme, like it's about the boy. You don't really know what's happening, and it kind of gives you tidbits and you're like, what is happening? What's going on? And there's this little spirit fox that you're kind of chasing around and you don't know what it is yet and you don't know where it's going. And then and then you kind of learn what it is and you're like, oh my god, that's crazy, and it's just really really fucking good. And the music in Rhyme is phenomenal as well. What I'm looking forward to you, I might not want it because it's like it is puzzle. It's kind of like Zelda puzzles. You find it's like Zelda games, but that's like that's like all it is. There's no I don't think there's combat in it. So it's just like just kind of those puzzles and like if there is an enemy, it's like you have to kind of hide from it. Puzzle. Yeah, you have to like hide from it and kind of get through the level by by staying away from it and traversing the level. It's very cool. Nice. I also thought like there was a relatable kind of element to music writing, which made me think of the same thing. So from my own experience, like writing a great song hook that has very few notes of a melody in which to sing the message of the chorus, Like, I have a couple ideas that I started writing, and I was like, oh, that melody is really short, though, that means that the words are going to have to matter in that short time, you know what I mean. So that's kind of what I thought of too when I was thinking about this window, this notion of the window that they have to impress us as gamers. It's not easy. So I also thought, does that mean I wonder what you guys think. Does that Do developers have like a run time goal at the outset for a short game? Is it all to do with budget? Is budget we only have this much money to make this big a game? Or is it just as long as it is because that's how long it took to tell the story, you know? You know what I mean? I think I think the indie developers don't want to spend too much time on it, right, Like the resources are a lot limited, so they want to probably because in the indie space, I don't play a lot of them, but they are pretty short, like most of them are pretty short, probably because of the resources they don't have, like if you you know what I mean, like I have here, is there a developer or is it? You're gonna find more short games within the indie space. They have less time, less money, less resources, and they want the game to really hit you so you can tell your friends so they can go buy them, and then it blows up, like all those Steam games that blow up are usually like these little tiny indie games that are very short, you know what I mean? Okay, so I think I think it's resources and they want to get to their point quick while not going overboard on the resources, right, because having a run time of the outset just wouldn't make sense. It's only a byproduct of what is available to them. They're just like, wow, it can only be about this long because we only have this long to develop it and release it. Yeah, because otherwise they would just be limiting themselves. Yeah, I mean it could be. Yeah, they're good, a small team and they just they're not going to make a fucking huge mass yeah exactly, yeah game. They just want to make games, and you know, here's a little game that we made. That's true. Small we're a small team. We made a small game, you know. Okay, for what I have. If story is important in short games, I'm taking a look at it from the short games I play, which are the rogue games. The game. The stories in those are either non existent or they're very limited, Like it's not as much of a story, right, because you're just going through some levels, you're killing things, and you kill a boss that's been terrorizing the world or something, right, So I think they're mostly based on a like a progression addiction to keep you playing those games. Yes, so those will just feed your addiction to get those next skills, to get to the level, to beat that boss, and then that euphoria that explodes all over you whenever you beat that boss, right, and then you progress that little bit further. That's what keeps people playing those rogue games. The music, however, in these rogue games, have to be bang on. They have to they have to be pumped, because if you're not going to be paying attention to much else, you're going to be hearing music constantly, so and that music has to be flowing through your veins and in your ear drums and just pumping you forward right like Hades. Music in Hades was sick, it was so listen to it. It's very I think everything is important in a short game though, because, like we said, you have such a little time to experience and you want everything to matter, and the ones that get it right are very good. And yeah, and that's because everything is good about it and it's digestible at the same time. So it feels great to finish a nice like a short game like that and you feel that satisfaction, but it was also really good, and it's just like that's a good experience. That's a great experience right there. Yeah, and completing games feels good, right when you complete any game, and when you can complete three or four short games, that's gonna feel good, right Yeah. Ask Phil from Gaming Together, like he's smashing all those games off his back law his massive has read sheet. So do you guys think that, Like story, what's the most important thing to you? If you were going to take take away from a short game, is it gonna be story for you? Like, oh, well that was an incredible little I don't know, it depends narrative short games versus your guys short games. Yeah, well, well, I guess, but within let's say within that, you have to have a scope there within the scope the hook They got to hook you quick with with the engaging like gameplay or gameplay. Look, the music has to be good. That will also keep you kind of there, and then as it gets further on, they can develop the story. So right away you have to have music, you have to have the gameplay, you know, the addiction or the you know the hook, right, so you keep going and then you keep going to develop the whatever small story they have. But what if you had to say, what if you what if you could only choose one and that when you told your friends about it and you said, would you rather say the gameplay was okay and the music was like forgettable, but the story was amazing? You know what I mean? Like, I don't is that? Is that something that you would say? Because the music helps tell the story too. I don't think a story on itself can get me through a game, okay, Like I think, no, yeah, I don't think so. I think I'd say the story to me, like if it had the gameplay and the music, the story, I don't think there's one thing like because I'm thinking like going back and playing rhyme. Why did I continue playing that game? Right? Okay? And now I'm thinking about it, I'm like, I just wanted to see what happened, and it was just it was gripping. It was the music, it was the setting, The little fox I didn't he was kind of always eluding you. It's like where did he go? And you're like looking for him, and you wanted to know where he's going, where he's leading you, where he came from, what he is, where I came from, you know what I mean. And then there's these little things that throughout the story kind of give you little hints at what's happening. And it was just like it was kind of everything. So I don't know, there's no denying that. It's just lightning in a bottle. Sometimes there's the it's every creative project has that where it's just like you hit the fucking gold mine with this, this everything, this entire thing, and sometimes we walk away from it not being so impressed. But there are great elements and there are not so great elements in one path. I think it's going to be the cause Stray is kind of like that too. It's like you want to know what happened? It's okay, you're a little cat and you're in a mystery of robots. But there's a mystery what happened intrigue and what happened to the humans, and that's what you're kind of trying to find out as this little cat and the robots are like dropping hints. They talk about the humans like like they're gone now, but they talk about the humans like they kind of they respected them, they liked them, They they you know, they were really that they were our creators. You know. It wasn't a kind of I don't think it was. I don't remember it being like in a malicious thing between robots and humans. It's like the humans left and they left the robots behind, and they're kind of sad that the humans are are gone, and you're trying to wondering. You want to know what happened? Okay, what happened? It keeps dropping little hints and you keep finding things. So it's it's just it is a narrative thing, I think mostly Yeah, yeah, definitely still story. Now. That's funny because I'm imagining a game right now that doesn't exist, a hypothetical game with no music, with just dialogue, really well directed dialogue, beautiful delivery and silence, the power of silence. Maybe it'll be like one of those Instagram reels without the music that you sent. It would definitely be better than that. It would definitely be better than that. Like David Bowie and I love that one is the Clothes so fucking dumb. I think I think that if I think that it would be possible and you could walk away from that game being like I didn't need music, that would be a very interesting creative endeavor. And I think that you could still have like wind sounds or something, you know, Yeah, there would be effects and incredible yes, yeah, like a forest. I'm thinking something like that would be like a like outside forest maybe, you know, because you know how many I feel like anime comes to mind with that kind of delivery. They do that a lot in Ghibbli movies, where it's just silence is speaking. And I feel like a whole game could be done that way, and then you can see how important, Yeah, and you could see how important or I should say unimportant. And this is funny coming from the musician, but unimportant. The music could potentially be like it, Yes, sure it contributes to a certain delivery or of the game. But I just I just think that there could be elements that take that you take away from the game that's like, oh, the gameplay was incredible. I really that was addicting to play, Like whether it's shooting or or whether it's jumping around and swinging on ropes and whatever. If it felt really good, maybe I wouldn't need stories so much. If or if both those things were really good, maybe I wouldn't need music so much. So I don't know, definitely don't need story. Like as the thing I was saying, there's he plays those addicting rogue lights, but it's your truth to the gameplay, yes, you know. So it just depends on the genre. I guess a style like that triangle. I picture that triangle. It's like you can almost Yeah, I guess you can have all three, but sometimes you can only have two type thing. Yeah, usually you can't have the one. You know. Yeah, I don't know, Like you got the gameplay, but the music you ship in the stories, maybe maybe if it's addicting enough. You know, the music shit and the story shit. But man, this game feels fucking good. Yeah, yeah, you know, I don't know, like it'd be interesting anyway. Those are just things I thought of and I wanted to kind of flesh out. Like, there are so many of these short games on game passes. It's insane. It's insane how many there are. So there's a few that I want to that I would like to play, and they're all under like five hours. So there's this one that I have downloaded, I have not yet started. It's called Planet of Lena. Have you guys seen this one? It looks incredible, It looks so nice, sounds familiar. A young girl in her loyal friend and bark on a rescue mission through a colorful world. Oh yes, yes, yeah, full of cold machines and unfamiliar creatures. Didn't Tony like that? Yeah? Yeah, I believe Yeah, it may have been him. The other one I want to play, the other one that that one says it how long to be? Four hours? Like it's twenty five percent off right now it's on game pass. Oh, but it's on Steam for twenty five percent off. Inside I'd like to play that. Oh yeah, that's two hours. A boy, you're a boy running from something dark? Yeah, I watched that was on game ranks list. I just didn't talk about it. There's no nothing. One called Journey looks really cool, Like the graphics look really cool. Yeah, that's under two hours. That's two hours. Like there's a lot of these little ones that I'd like to like just hammer out, you know, But I gotta you gotta make time for him because the Triple A games have weighed they're weighing me down. Maybe I just need to take a break from them. These would be good games to get on, like Switch or something. Yeah, I handld and I don't want to sit at my computer and play that one. You know, I'm not gonna sit there play like a side scroller. Yeah, I don't know. But my my e Sports Skypad mouse pad and my one hundred dollars mouse are really getting a good workout and a side scroll or too deep exactly. Yeah, and my thirty eighty. But Jonathan, i'd really like you to try Wild Frost. Okay, I'd really like to try Wild Frost. Okay, I mean, and then we can have an episode with Aaron from Super Pod Sega because he was obsessed with that too. Okay, is it on? What do I get it on? Though? I don't know what to get it on I'd probably get it on switch so you can bring it around the house, play it on the couch. Okay, yeah, okay, Well I want Daniel to play Rhyme. Yeah, I would like to. Oh is it exclusive on Sony and I want you to play Rhyme? No? I remember. No. This is how we'll do it. You play Wild Frost, Daniel plays Rhyme, and then I'll play a game that Daniel tells me to play. But it has to be a short game. You gotta play Stray. Is that on game Pass? That's the other one I want to play? Yeah? No, but it's on Xbox now, which it wasn't before. But it is now, which it wasn't before. Yes, it was only on PS, PS five or PS and it was uh. I think you got access to it through the subscription, the game subscription there on PlayStation, which is what I did. I paid twenty bucks for the month of playing, forty dollars for the game, so I just paid for the month and then played it and beat it in six hours or whatever. Well, how about we do that. Jonathan plays Wild for us, Daniel plays Rhyme. All play playet of Lena. You can't choose your own game. You can't choose your own game. You can't trouble stan up a double stand. All right, Well, I think that's I think that's all we got. Is that all we got? I think that's it. I'd like to hear everyone else. I would like to hear our listener's favorite short games. Yes, and how long a short game should be? That's what I want to know. How long a million dollar question? The billion dollar question? Billions and billions and billions of questions. We're look at you do it. We're looking at you do it? Hope not, we're looking into it. Okay, let's let's uh, let's let's call it a wrap here and maybe we'll put out of twitter, put out of twitter asking well when we post the episode, Yeah, you know, what's your what's a short game? What's a short game? And what's your favorite short game? So that's it for this week's episode. Thanks for tuning in. Give us a rating review on Spotify or Apple, you know, your whatever platform you listen to, you know, helps us get out there. I think we're up to how many Spotify reviews do we have there? Did you remember? I think we're at thirty six. Possibly we'd like more, please, we'd like more. Wow thirty six We always six people listen to us. At least, that's cool. Let's see, how do I even look? I don't even know. Oh yeah, thirty six five star reviews. Wow, thirty six five star reviews. Amazing. Thank you, Thank you very much people. If you have anything you want to share with us, you can always leave us a comment on the video or send us an X chat, an x tweet something whatever the fuck it is now I don't know at Elder Trolls Pod. Thanks again everyone, and we hope you have one all day peace. See yupm