Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Pre-Order Bonus podcast. I'm

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_00]: one of your hosts Cameron Warren and I'm joined as always by Jacob Price. I'm coughing again

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's August 12th, 2024. Jake, how's it going?

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh man, it is turbulent times over here. My, let's see, the summer term class that I

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_02]: taught has ended. I'm about to start teaching at a new university in a week and a half and

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_02]: my kids are starting school. So all I'm thinking about is education. It is kind of draining my

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_02]: brain right now.

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_00]: You're teaching at a new university? Am I, did I miss something?

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yep. New school. New school for me. But I actually worked there previously so it's not

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_02]: like that big of a change. But yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna, I'm actually really

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_02]: excited for it. It should be a good change, but it's just so much work man. Prepping a

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_02]: class from scratch is just so much work.

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I just have chat GPT doing it for you.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what's funny is that the department I'm gonna be working for actually has a blanket

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_02]: ban on chat GPT and gen i related software or programs.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Interesting approach which I feel like will miserably fail.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_02]: It's, I have mixed opinions.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, I get it, but I also, it feels like one of those things is just inevitable.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So you got to figure out how to go with it instead of trying to block it off, you

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00]: know?

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like in higher ed what you got to do is just, you've really got to come up with

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_02]: a way that your department or your class can see this as a tool. Otherwise, students

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_02]: will just use it as a shortcut. And you know what I mean? And I agree. I think a

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_02]: blanket ban is just encouraging more risk taking students to continue to use it as

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_02]: a shortcut. So it's not really a solution, you know?

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Not to get into the AI debate, but I think any smart person in their job is figuring

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_00]: out how to leverage chat GPT as a way to make them better at the things that they

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: do. So I think it's beholden to the educator to figure out how to put this

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: into a repertoire of many tools that can be used to be successful rather than,

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, it's like, you know, it'd be like coming in and make all your students

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: right and cursive, right? It's not. Right? Or like, oh, you can't don't, you can't

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_00]: use, it's like when laptops were getting big, like if we don't use laptops here,

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_00]: you just hand write everything. Well, that's not really, you know what I mean?

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I know I totally get that. I mean, my personal stance on like gen AI

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_02]: software and programs is, and I'm from the coming from the humanities in

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_02]: the university setting, I think that it can be used as a wonderful proofreading

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: tool, something that's infinitely beyond what spellcheck is able to accomplish.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And the way that I have developed my own sort of personal policy with with

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_02]: this is that there is a specific way that you can use AI programs to be

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_02]: a really fantastic external proofreader to something that you have written.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I actually do think that there is like a use case scenario for it.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And that and I've actually tested it out and I've seen students use it to great

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_02]: success. And that, I mean, there are other problems with these programs,

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_02]: right? They're like super energy inefficient and they're really costly.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And then when it comes to the art space, I mean, it's just straight up

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_02]: copying everything. But I feel like in this specific realm in which I work,

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_02]: which is humanities university professor, I do see a use case scenario

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_02]: for this type of program and I have seen benefits from it.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But sorry, I'm not going to rant too long on this, but I'll just say that like in

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_02]: languages, we already dealt with something like this and it was Google

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Translate 10 years ago. And there was this really big kerfuffle.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_02]: People were really worried that Google Translate was going to ruin language

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_02]: learning. And very, I feel like within two years, all those fears kind of

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: washed away as people figured out how to actually use it and how to teach

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_02]: students what Google Translate was capable of and what its limitations were.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And by doing so, I felt like I taught students how to use Google

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Translate as a sophisticated online dictionary.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was like a really awesome tool for them.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just feel like there, there is a possibility to do something similar

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_02]: here, but I don't know. We're still in the freak out phase.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll get there. No, we'll get there.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, still in the freak out phase.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And as you can tell, I feel like I do this like once every three months.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why this happens to be.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I have weird sinus related things, but no, I was sick last week.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Still kind of on.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm on the upward mend, thankfully, but.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why this episode will be a little bit late.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_00]: But enough talk about Gen AI.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about video games, Jake.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I bet you can't guess the game that I'm about to talk about.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh, if you preface it like that, I don't think I can.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Baldur's Gate three.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00]: You guessed it.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: What? That's a it's a really good video game.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So I actually purchased a copy for console.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So now I own it in multiple places.

[00:06:01] Nice.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I did it because my brother and sister in law,

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_00]: my brother's in law, I should say,

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: sort of interested in the co-op in the couch co-op.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And so when couch co-op.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like, yeah, I'd be down for that for sure.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to convince my wife and I just I don't think

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to get her across the finish line there, but not enough farming.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just it's not a cozy game.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not exactly a cozy game.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, so I've been continuing my dark, dark urge play through is what

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: when I had the energy to kind of play something over the last few days

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_00]: to keep my sanity while I was sinking deeper into my couch

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and taking the lots of tile at all.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Picked back up the Baldur's Gate Darker's play through.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Nice. Yeah, man.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_00]: That game is just a never ending.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I could it continues to surprise and show new things

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: no matter how many hours I put into it.

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Encroaching on 200 hours.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So how about how many hours worth of content do you think is in Baldur's

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Gate three and how many playthroughs do you think it would take to access all of it?

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's permutations.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_00]: There's there's there's literally thousands upon thousands of permutations

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: of the game that you can create.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's still multiple, I guess, endings and different things

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_00]: that players have not found yet.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Really? Yeah.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. So.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just a game which is like endless replayability because a

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: because I think of class builds and what you can do with builds is so

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: complex and like so much fun to experiment with.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And then also just crazy story choices that depending on what character

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_00]: you are and so on and so forth, just change stuff.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So. Dang.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_02]: That is pretty, pretty nifty.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's just so much in that game.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: But Jake, there's there's something else that I've been seeing coming.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been seeing happening.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And I don't have anyone else has been seeing this.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_00]: The first person shooter genre, first person shooter genre, right?

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, it's been in need of a little bit of a shake up.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, like competitive FPS games.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's been in need of a little bit of a like,

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, we need we need something like to jolt it away a little bit.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: OK. And I think it might be happening.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_02]: You think maybe we're coming into a renaissance for FPS games?

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Not necessarily a renaissance, but I think we might.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_00]: The excitement might be getting a little bit higher than it's.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it's been a few years where it's been a little bit dull.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_00]: OK. And so I think that's coming on the back of.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: A couple things started doing this podcast and I'm I'm coughed all day.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm coughing.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: One is the release of a first person shooter game in alpha

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_00]: called in you need to forgive the name on this one, because the name

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00]: of this game is literally the worst first person shooter game name

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: that's ever been created.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like they got a group of middle school

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_00]: aged boys

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_00]: in a in a marketing brain trust and got them to come up with

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_00]: it's Delta Force Hawk. No.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_00]: You're already. Yeah, you already.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Delta Force Hawk Ops.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Hawk Ops. That's I mean, that's what you came up with.

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Delta Force Hawk Ops.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_00]: That's I mean, that's the one is that because is it 2001?

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it 2003?

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Why is this like the most generic Xbox is this the most generic Xbox game?

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like budget like bottom of the Walmart bin first person shooter

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_00]: double A anyway, worst name ever.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But this game has a lot of promise and it's making waves.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And so then this combined with Black Ops Six, which is going

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_00]: to be on Game Pass, which they've like redone the movement for,

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: which has kind of been a long time coming.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And the movement meta in cod is kind of a big deal.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: So they've got that going hunt showdown in four days

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_00]: has a new engine update, has a full engine refresh.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Nice. Yeah.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So massive update, brand new map, totally new engine.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_00]: So you've got that apex.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Remember apex legends?

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. It hasn't gone anywhere.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: That game was out of a huge shake up as well.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like gameplay systems mechanics.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: It's introduced some like interesting new game modes.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It's done like a huge shake up to a lot of its systems

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: that people seem to be responding well to.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And then I don't know if you saw, but.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Shroud.

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_00]: The streamer.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. So Shroud is working on a first person shooter.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: He has a studio.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I've heard this story before, but Shroud is a decent human being, right?

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_00]: He has not messaged a minor as far as.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Good, good, good off to a good start.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_00]: What is this game called Shroud's new Shroud's new first person shooter?

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I got to tell you the name of this game so you can look it up.

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Spectre Divide.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Wait a second.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I've heard of this game.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, three three something.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So this is Shroud and another streamer,

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Sakriel, British dude.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_00]: You might have seen a couple of his streams, maybe.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's got like divide.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_00]: It's got like counter strike ish vibes.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But the the the unique mechanic is that.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_00]: You can switch you have like a spectre in the game.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like two bodies.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: You can write two characters at a time.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, this actually looked interesting.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know where the marketing got me, but.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: This one looks good.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I actually really was interested in the art direction.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Looked pretty good.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a really good. Yeah.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And then.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what this makes me think of?

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It makes me think that all this is just going to culminate in Splitgate 2, right?

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like a two is the other one they got announced that like looks really cool.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, I just I used to be someone who played a lot of first person shooters.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And obviously we I think the one we've been playing the most recently is.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_00]: The finals, which is great.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the finals is really great.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not playing the finals like you're missing out, that's a super fun game.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just there's a lot going on in the first person shooters.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_00]: But we haven't we barely almost never talk about first person shooters at all.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Jake, I know you're not the biggest fan of them.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I used to play them a lot.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I exclusively played FPS games a long time ago.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think I think most of us, you know, that's true.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Most of us did.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll just real quickly start interrupting here.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The finals is really good.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And we did do an episode on that, but I also do recommend that if you have lapsed

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: from FPS games, the finals is amazing.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_00]: It is the best out there at the moment, I think.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I agree.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And then honestly, the Spectre Divide game actually looks really good.

[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I was a huge fan of Splitgate one.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Its biggest problem was that it launched a month or two before Halo

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Infinite multiplayer came out, which was also which was super solid.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So I would play Spectre Divide and I'm definitely going to play Splitgate too.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And then I shouldn't I shouldn't I this all goes without even mentioning

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_00]: that Valorant just came to consoles.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_00]: So which is which is pretty huge.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, lots going on in the first one.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Shooter I've got my excitement for FPS has been reinvigorated

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_00]: a little bit, even in just the last week.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm actually now like, OK, which one of these am I actually going to hop back

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_00]: into and actually like sink some pretty solid time and actually try and

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_00]: here's the thing with first person shooters, right?

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody is really good at video games now.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And we've just reached that phase of the world where through streaming

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and social media and whatever.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's been this has been true for the last probably I would say.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think, Jake?

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Four years probably since 2020, maybe 2019 is like when it really started.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like this could just be me because I suck really bad.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But I feel like 2020 is when every single skill based video game

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_00]: became almost impenetrable and in order to actually like have

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_00]: like a sort of a cause of enjoyment of it to like

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and actually sink real time into it.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Like you really have to sink your teeth into it and like dedicate yourself

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_00]: to actually be good.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like very few games have been able to have like a casual experience.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's not really a casual experience and almost any serious FPS.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I feel like the last time I entered a game

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_02]: with an even playing field was actually when Apex Surprise launched

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_02]: because it came out of nowhere and tons of people

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_02]: meeting a huge range of ability of skills shows up in this game all at once.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I agree.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like with a lot of these FPS games, if you're not there from the get go,

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_02]: you join late, you're already so far behind when it comes to

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: knowledge of the meta, map knowledge.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, map knowledge is so freaking crucial in these types of games,

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_02]: knowing where things are going to spawn, where players are going to spawn

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and just distances to in times to get from one place to another.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember when Apex Surprise launched, I mean, we all it was

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_02]: an even playing field like completely.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was the last time I feel like I had a chance.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I would say with the finals do the finals just

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_02]: that's a game that works with my FPS brain.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a game that I feel like every time I play,

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I actually make a contribution to the team.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not just totally dead weight.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I feel like you jump into a game late,

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_02]: like even three months after it launches like a new FPS,

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_02]: you're behind.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_02]: You're so far behind and you got to be like

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_02]: grinding out six hours, 12 hours a day to try to catch up

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_02]: with everybody else's skill and knowledge of the game.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's it's brutal out there.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's funny, you mentioned about four years ago

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_02]: because everybody in their mom had time, right?

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this we're talking quarantine of the pandemic, right?

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Where people could play a game six hours at a time.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's when the conversation started around like

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_00]: skill based matchmaking, right?

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And how everything's sweaty now.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, I don't know.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I do kind of feel that way to be out.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I can't lie to you.

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I I honestly do feel like I get just put in lobbies

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_00]: and I just get absolutely destroyed, like just stopped.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And it really does depend on the game to for that,

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like is better, but because it has so many players.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Right?

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: The more players you have, the better off you are,

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_00]: because then SBMM actually kind of like works a lot better

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_00]: because there's just a larger pool to pull from.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. But even in Fortnite,

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: like you'll run across players who just absolutely

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_00]: decimate you to the point where it's like,

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I literally didn't even blink and I just.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I yeah, this is like a 11 year old on Fruit Loop Laced

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_00]: heroin laced Fruit Loop or something.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's why I haven't played build mode in Fortnite

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_02]: since like Fortnite first came out

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_02]: because even just I don't even like watch

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Fortnite streams that much, but when like a Fortnite clip

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_02]: will show up in my social media feed, I'm like, dude,

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: my brain is not even computing.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think part of that is just like I'm getting older.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_02]: But the other part of me is like in an FPS game,

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I really want the shooting to be crucial,

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: which is a little ironic because I love the finals so much.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like the finals you can actually be like,

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how to express it,

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02]: but there's something about the way that the environments

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and maps work.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_02]: The thing about the finals, here we go,

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_02]: is that map knowledge is super crucial,

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_02]: but it's also super flexible,

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_02]: where suddenly destroying a building or a wall

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_02]: makes such a fun and innovative and fresh way of engaging with a map.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm kind of just rambling at this point.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, some games it's just too fast.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I cannot keep up with like my brain cannot compute.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Just I am on the verge of turning 36, which is essentially 40,

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_00]: which is essentially 50. So.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So Cameron's 50 years old.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm essentially 50 years old in about two weeks.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Jake, I've talked way too much.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_00]: What have you been playing?

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Folks, I'm I'm drowning in games.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I did the dumb thing and I have started a lot of games

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_02]: and I'm but I'm nearing the end of a bunch.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm at like the very end of Dungeons of Hinterberg,

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_02]: which has been a huge surprise for me.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I've actually really been enjoying that one.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Man, I love that.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't started it yet.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been hesitant to for because I'm bad at puzzles.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so here's the thing about Dungeons of Hinterberg, right?

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Like the combat itself is pretty mediocre.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_02]: It's pretty middle of the road to be to be totally honest.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_02]: The puzzling is is interesting.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I like it.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I would say it's definitely above average.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Some puzzles have been really cool.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a huge variety in there as well.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: There's like a level that's like Super Mario Odyssey.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's another level that's like classic 2D Zelda.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: The art style is fantastic.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But the here's the thing that's really caught me off guard

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: is this game has a freaking cool story

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_02]: and it's taking on two themes

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_02]: that I feel like are not super common in video games.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_02]: The first one is small town politics.

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, interesting, which is very cool.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it talks a lot about local government.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the second theme is just tourism.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Tourism is a double edged sword.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It could be a huge boom,

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_02]: but it could also just be a thorn in the side of the communities

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_02]: where tourism happens.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And so you have a game that like engages these two topics

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_02]: in like a very cool, nuanced way.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It's been a huge surprise.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And I've actually been surprised at how much of progressing the story

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_02]: has been a motivating factor for me to continue playing Dungeons of Hinterberg.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's one that I've been playing, really been loving it.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I've been playing Mad Max slowly.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, that might be the best seven out of 10 game ever.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Which is I know it's like a backhand to compliment,

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_02]: but I like it a lot actually.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I probably have, I don't know,

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm probably coming up close to like 10 hours in it

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_02]: because I've been chipping away at it quite slowly.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But I've really, really been enjoying it.

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I've been playing Final Fantasy 15

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and I like it.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It is probably the worst Final Fantasy game I've played, though.

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I haven't played all that many,

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_02]: but I'm really enjoying it.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I couldn't really tell you why.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Because when I think of the game, what comes to mind is like

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_02]: combat is way too messy.

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I haven't like really become emotionally attached to the characters.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_02]: The environments look really good.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_02]: The quests seem pretty straightforward.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The overall story seems kind of whatever.

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think for me, I'm playing it on easy, by the way.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just been a nice comfort like game of just like, hey,

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_02]: let's just kind of cruise like literally in a car.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's cruise this open world.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do this little quest over here.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do this little main quest over here.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just feel like it has been like a really refreshing laid back,

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_02]: open world experience.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's really why I'm enjoying it.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It helps a lot that it has the Final Fantasy coat of paint on it.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I think if this game, I think if Final Fantasy, excuse me,

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Final Fantasy 15 was not a Final Fantasy game,

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I would have dropped off it by now.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's my extremely weird take on.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a very back and forth, non committed take on Final Fantasy 15.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that's kind of what's been occupying my time.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Nice. Yeah, I could never.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Get into Final Fantasy 15.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I just I couldn't make it happen.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very OK.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_00]: It did nothing for me at all, like just the whole vibe, unfortunately.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I really wanted to.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to like it, but I did it's messy.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And honestly, sorry, I'm interrupting.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I keep interrupting you.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_02]: It's actually making me appreciate Final Fantasy 16 a little more.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So I wonder I am curious.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I would like to go back and do some stuff in Final Fantasy 16

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_02]: and see if my opinion shifted at all after playing a bunch of Final Fantasy 15.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know.

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_02]: It's making me think it's making me think a lot about the Final Fantasy games.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_02]: It's actually also making me want to go back and play nine,

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_02]: which I know is your favorite because.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you know?

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I realize one thing about I realized something about myself is that.

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_00]: If the combat of the game doesn't click with me.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot stick with it at all.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I will drop off so.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Freaking fast.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It's unbelievable.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And so that is a huge, huge problem for me because you can have even

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_00]: even having like an amazing story.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_00]: But if the combat, if you see me in the game is based around combat scenarios,

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_00]: if the combat is super mid, like I'm out.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm out so fast.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, Final Fantasy 15's combat is so messy.

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: It is so freaking messy.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I think I think after playing 12 hours of it or so, I finally figured out

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_02]: how to do combat and I'm playing on easy.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I haven't been dying a bunch or anything, but I just feel like

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: nothing makes sense.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think I've finally hit the point where it's like, OK,

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I actually know what to use in what scenario.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a mess. Love it.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Jake, lots of talk about video games, lots of stuff.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: We were on the verge of a massive downpouring of video games.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think we'll talk about that next time.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_00]: For now, let's jump into the game for this show.

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_00]: This episode, which is.

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Flintlock, the Siege of Dawn, Jake, how are we going to break it down?

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Flintlock Siege of Dawn.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_02]: We will be talking about this game in three different categories.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: The first one will be the narrative.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll be talking about the story, the characters, the themes

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_02]: and what's kind of the driving force behind what you are doing

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_02]: as you're playing as nor in this world of Flintlock.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Secondly, we will be talking about the game design here.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about just kind of really the bones of the game

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_02]: and how it's structured and what what you do and why you kind

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_02]: of do those things mechanically.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So we focus a lot on the different mechanics here.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_02]: We focus on things like level design and essentially how the game

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_02]: literally is structured to propel the player forward to get the player involved.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And then finally, we'll talk and we'll talk impact on the industry here.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a little bit of number crunching.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about OK, what did this game do and what do we think

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_02]: that this game will do for other game devs in the future

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_02]: and what kind of legacy might it have?

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm excited.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_02]: These I'm always excited to talk about impact on the industry,

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: but Flintlock, I think is a really interesting game.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it occupies a really weird space in video games,

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_02]: especially in the industry right now.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So we'll have things to say.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So first narrative story of this game.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Cameron.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, I so I've beat this game.

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I beat this game not that long ago.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And I really mostly remember like a few details about the story.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's not even that the game is full of jargon,

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02]: because we just did one on Immortals of Avium, right?

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was its big problem.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But I got to tell you, Cameron, like, what do you remember from this story?

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So what I remember basically general gist of

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_00]: you are a sapper in this big army for I can't remember what nation

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_00]: or what civilization.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And you do something that you're sieging this big fortress

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_00]: that was supposedly holding back.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_00]: This all happens at the beginning of the game, right?

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is first like holds back.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_00]: It's holding back the undead.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But for whatever reason, and I've played through this

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_00]: intro, I think three times.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Nice.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_00]: You you do something and I still don't fully understand what it is.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_00]: You do something that causes you basically you fight this boss

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_00]: and then there's like a big time jump and you wake up and like, OK,

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, the undead are like all through the world now.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Like you whatever you did, you screwed it up.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And then this God shows up who's in the form of the little creature

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_00]: that you see like in all the marketing and stuff.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And God is like, hey, you're going to be my my vessel now

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and we're going to go save the world.

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_00]: What's it basically like all I understand from the premise.

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_02]: The.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_02]: You nailed it, dude, like the introduction to this game.

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know why.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I felt like I was experiencing like severe brain fog or something.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it was I could not figure out like, OK, nor she's cool.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I like her. I like her voice acting.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_02]: She's a part of an army and they're trying to blow this door down

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_02]: to the land of the dead.

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And I could not for the life of me figure out why we were doing that

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_02]: because it seemed like a really bad idea.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody was talking about how dangerous it was,

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_02]: nor is a little hard headed.

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And so she decides to go through with it.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_02]: She's, you know, at first her her commanding officer

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_02]: tells her to stand down.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Then she convinces her CEO that she needs to go forward

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and sort of help out these, you know, these comrades of her

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_02]: that she's close to big explosion happens.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Massive God shows up out of nowhere.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_02]: You get knocked out cold.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I kept thinking to myself, why?

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Why did this army get themselves into this predicament?

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And then that I felt like the rest of the story.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously hinges on that, but it stumbled because it just for the

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_02]: life of me was not clear why we were doing what we were doing

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_02]: at the beginning of the game.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it was just like vague exposition to try to

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_02]: not make the story not feel super rote or rigid or something.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But something needed to be tightened up.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I felt like in that beginning to give the player like you

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_02]: were doing this because of this rather than like, Hey, suddenly

[00:31:29] [SPEAKER_02]: you're in this extremely important battle on this battlefield

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_02]: and your nor and your sapper and you're doing stuff.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Like something there felt way too loose.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm glad that you said what you said because it wasn't just me.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_00]: No, yeah, I appreciate that.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I appreciate what you said there because it did come off

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_00]: like, I don't even know if rush is the right word, but it

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_00]: just like the setup like didn't land.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting because like I do feel like the world is

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_00]: like a pretty interesting world and they do some kind of unique

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_00]: things that I appreciate.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you're a sapper and your powers are kind of built

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_00]: around like using gunpowder and your main weapon is your little

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_00]: like sapper axe and it's sort of like 18th century sort of

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_00]: like steam punkish vibes but then also like magic.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So it definitely does unique stuff and has come to some

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_00]: interesting world building there.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But just the whole setup of the story just didn't.

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it didn't quite they didn't quite.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it didn't it didn't give me anything to kind of hang on

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_00]: to to kind of keep me going similar for me, I guess in the

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_00]: same way we talked about Immortals of Aviam.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of a similar problem for me on that one.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I feel like it's great that we did these back to

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_02]: back. It's like the same problem, right?

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_02]: The introduction does a poor job of really hooking the player

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_02]: but through two different wildly different approaches.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Immortals of Aviam doesn't just bombard you.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_02]: It like sinks you to the bottom of an ocean full of information

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_02]: and then Flintlock I feel like throws you out into a fog

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_02]: and is like, OK, North is vaguely this direction.

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, it was really tough to sort of figure out.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I came to appreciate the narrative and like you said,

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_02]: the world building especially as the game progressed.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_02]: There's NPCs that had some interesting things to say.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I loved the cities, the different like villages

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_02]: that you would go into this game.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_02]: It felt like they had a lot of flair personality

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_02]: and culture in that there were some cool,

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_02]: really cool art direction.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Like when you unlock like the coffee house,

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_02]: which is essentially a hub in each village,

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_02]: like the person that runs the coffee house

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_02]: was like, dude, what is this creature?

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_02]: It is very cool looking, though.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Like the world did a really great job of getting me

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_02]: intrigued to learn a lot about it.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But it felt like that initial first impression

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_02]: was a pretty big stumbling block.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And I ended up really shifting gears away

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_02]: from caring about the world and caring a lot more

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_02]: about the relationship between Nohr and Enki.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Enki is like this God that, like you mentioned,

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_02]: like essentially partners up with you

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_02]: and gives you or essentially enhances your abilities,

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_02]: gives you these kind of magical abilities

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_02]: that you can use in combat.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And their relationship, there's a lot of back and forth,

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_02]: highs and lows, trust and distrust between them.

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And it felt like that's where I really cared about the story.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Like there are other NPCs that show up

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and yeah, I talk to them and stuff.

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was that partnership

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_02]: that really carried me forward narratively.

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought it was done well.

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I really liked the voice acting.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I liked how they interacted with each other.

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And I like how they grew together as well.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_02]: They really grew from partnership of convenience

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_02]: to having a true trust and friendship between them.

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's where this game really shines.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of why I brushed off the rest of it.

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, no, I think, I think things I appreciated the most

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_00]: was probably the world building aspects.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_00]: But overall story, like didn't,

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_00]: didn't extremely grab me again.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Like we already talked about kind of the setup,

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_00]: but I did really appreciate again,

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_00]: like the uniqueness of what they try to do with the world

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and kind of the world building

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and the decisions they made there.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd I appreciate games that like really try and go

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_00]: for a crazy different setting.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think this game quite pulled it off all the way.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm hoping that like Clockwork Revolution

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_00]: is also kind of going for like the steampunk time period.

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I hope they're able to,

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_00]: they look like they might be the ones

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_00]: who actually have the knack to like maybe actually pull it off.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_00]: This one was wasn't quite there,

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_00]: but I really appreciate what they what they try to do that.

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, at the very least, everything looked really cool.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Right? Like great art direction.

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I actually loved Nora's look.

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It actually kind of hurt me a little bit to put helmets on

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_02]: because I just kind of liked how they get

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_02]: like the soldier uniform that she had and just

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_02]: yeah, and I thought the weapons and stuff looked really cool.

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I liked Enki.

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought Enki was, you know, Enki, like you said,

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_02]: is highly featured in all the promotional materials

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_02]: like this little mystical magical Fox God thing.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Enki is cool.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And then repeating myself here,

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_02]: but I really enjoyed the voice acting of the two main

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_02]: protagonists of Nora and Enki.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I liked listening to them.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought Enki especially was a really interesting character

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_02]: that underwent some very cool characterization.

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Lots of cool character development there.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I agree, though, like things,

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_02]: the screws needed to be a little tighter on the on the product.

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I think for me to really, truly appreciate what they were trying

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_02]: to accomplish with the world and why this story matters

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_02]: within this world.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Jake, anything else to say about story before we talk about design?

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, without getting it without mentioning the spoilers,

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I would say that I really got invested

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_02]: the most probably around the halfway point onward.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_02]: That's when Enki as a character, especially, got very interesting.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Took some time to pick up there.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And and just for

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_00]: a really other positive thing to note on this is this game is not very long.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And so which is which is great because we say like,

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, it takes about halfway through, but halfway through is only

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_00]: what, like four hours, five hours?

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's see. I did actually quite a bit of extra content.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it took me 13 hours.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that's I mean, that's essentially like a first person shooter

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_00]: camp, but that's like the length of like the Titanfall 2 campaign.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_00]: which is a really good thing.

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, no, I think I thought it was a really good thing here as well.

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about the design, Jake.

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I think so this is a souls light.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And so what you have is souls light style combat,

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_00]: meaning you have a light attack, heavy attack.

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Magic, you have a dodge.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_00]: You have, you know, obviously your kind of basic jump

[00:38:52] [SPEAKER_00]: dodge block counter.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have obviously RPG mechanics.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_00]: You have sort of a smallish upgrade tree,

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_00]: which hits three different components.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_00]: what's the God's name again?

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm blanky, Anki. Anki.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've said it a million times.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You have Anki who during combat, you can like

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_00]: have Anki go out and hit the dudes with like a purple blob,

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_00]: which allows you to do like a special ability and do a bunch of damage.

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, souls like combat.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So act like sort of difficult.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's as punishing as something like a Sekiro

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_00]: or even like a Dark Souls, not not near as punishing as that.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But there is some challenge here for sure.

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I I definitely died

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_00]: my fair share of times probably because I was lazy

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and also the stupid ostrich things

[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_00]: dude, oh, I sniped in the head every time

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_00]: because I just like I don't want to fight you.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I just don't want to do it.

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, what a ridiculous enemy.

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Let me do the ostrich things.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, Souls Light is kind of how they did their marketing.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And I you know, I really appreciated also that

[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_02]: there were starting to be a lot of souls like comparisons like,

[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_02]: oh, this is going to be a Souls game.

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And A44's previous game, Ashen, I would say was much more

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_02]: like a Souls game in terms of difficulty and everything.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But here, Flintlock, I played the game on normal difficulty

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_02]: like you said, there's fair share of challenges.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of the bosses would give me some grief, right?

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_02]: There's they're actually quite tanky, all of them.

[00:40:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And you've really got to learn their movesets

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_02]: and figure out dodging and parrying and all that jazz.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, the first part of the game is pretty rough

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_02]: when you have pretty limited abilities

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_02]: and what it is that you can do.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I ended up finding quite early on the specific acts

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_02]: that would accumulate burn damage on enemies.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, dude, if you can get burn damage

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_02]: and poison damage on enemies amazing,

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_02]: probably one of the unique mechanics that they're going for here

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_02]: is that with Enki, you can essentially build up

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_02]: what seems like a posture meter as well.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So there would be the health meter on the enemy

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_02]: and then there would be this purple meter on top of it.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you maxed it out, essentially you curse them.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like you put the death curse on enemies.

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And then after that, enemies will take tons of damage.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Like they will go down in a flash if you can max that out.

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So with many bosses, I found it to be super crucial

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_02]: to play it safe and sort of build up that death curse meter

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_02]: and then just kind of go to town rather than just getting totally hammered

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_02]: by different enemies or even bosses.

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. So bosses, they accumulate this meter as well.

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I liked that because it kind of forces the player

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_02]: to use all of the tools on your belt.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So not just melee attack and not just build crafting with different.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_02]: You only have like three armor pieces,

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_02]: but like with armor pieces and with whatever weapons you're using,

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_02]: you have a essentially you can use a melee weapon and a ranged weapon,

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_02]: which you could use to parry as well.

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So a little reminiscent of Bloodborne in there.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I just like that.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, OK, you can do this a hard way and slowly chip away

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: at some of these bosses or mini bosses with your melee weapon,

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_02]: or you can use Enki intelligently build up the death curse

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_02]: and then just get massive chunks of damage down on these on these enemies.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was kind of surprised that for a short game

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_02]: that there is quite a nice breadth of abilities that you could do.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's like plenty of build crafting in here.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And I switch things around quite often

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_02]: because everything's just tied to like armor pieces

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_02]: or just like items that you had, not so much stat points.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I actually really liked that aspect of the game.

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_02]: You could do kind of a lot with abilities and tinker

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_02]: and play with different different ways that you wanted to approach combat.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Super interesting.

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I had a lot of fun with it.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Jake, favorite boss.

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's a tough one.

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And let's see.

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_02]: There are only what four bosses in the game, five.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_00]: There's really not that many.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_00]: There are some mini bosses, but I felt like

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_00]: the mini bosses of sort of the areas that you liberate.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_00]: There's like a liberation mechanic where you can liberate towns.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's kind of a mini boss that's

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_00]: like the first the first one I thought or the second one.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's like a humanoid.

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sort of similar to just like the basic combat

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and maybe like a little tougher and maybe just like a couple unique moves.

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I actually really enjoy it to kind of that first.

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Big boss fight quite a bit, although, you know, it ends early

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_00]: because you're kind of not supposed to win it.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, yeah, it's not a boss rush akin to like

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_00]: that's that's what would make this more of like a true souls

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_00]: like if it was just filled to the brim with bosses

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and it was sort of built around boss engagements where I don't

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think this game is that.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_02]: No, it's really not.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It felt a lot more just like an action RPG, I think in a lot of ways.

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the better comparison would just be God of War, honestly.

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a fair call.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I felt better to compare it to something like that.

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, my favorite boss.

[00:44:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I could tell you my favorite.

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I could tell you my least favorite.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was the second boss.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Had one specific attack.

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, it's the second or third boss had this giant laser beam attack.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was super telegraphed should have been easy to dodge.

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But the timing of dodging it just threw me off and it just would one shot you.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was driving me up the wall because I was like

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_02]: the telegraphing seems to indicate that I need to dodge here.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And then after a few attempts, I was like, I actually need to dodge at this moment.

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise it's just going to track me and hit me.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So that one.

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But the first main boss that you have was really good.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I really liked the second to last boss as well, too.

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought that one was really well done.

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So memorable.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, not I can't remember their names, but they were bosses

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_02]: that I really enjoyed for sure.

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm over all sort of flow of the game is relatively linear.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_00]: You're kind of proceeding through just a kind of linear story.

[00:45:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You have open zones with objectives in them.

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_00]: There's like a couple side objectives again, like not much that this isn't a huge game.

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_00]: There's not like a lot of meat on the bone here, which again, I don't think is a bad thing.

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, relatively linear.

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have sort of this like we're just talking about the kind of liberation mechanic.

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_00]: But then when you complete major story points, you'll move on to kind of the next

[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_00]: larger area and kind of have story cut this.

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_00]: But overall.

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Not super huge, not like a ton going on, like not a huge amount of exploration

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_00]: similar to like banishers in that way, but maybe even smaller than that

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_00]: is kind of the vibe I got.

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Flintlock is is really.

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I feel like it was designed in mind, like from the get go to be actually a much bigger game.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But it ended up just being condensed and condensed.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think in that condensing that it was refined.

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think overall it was probably a smart decision

[00:46:50] [SPEAKER_02]: to make this campaign take between like eight and 12 hours for the average player.

[00:46:57] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, relatively linear game.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Extremely something I would do want to praise those extremely worthwhile actually

[00:47:04] [SPEAKER_02]: to do side quests and go off the main path.

[00:47:08] [SPEAKER_02]: That's where I got all my coolest items was just

[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_02]: you look at a map and you would you would see like OK, the objective markers over here.

[00:47:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But if I look at my map, look at that.

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, there's like four to six different little paths

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_02]: that I could probably take on my way over there.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And the maps I feel like are a little deceiving

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_02]: and that they make the world seem much bigger than it actually is.

[00:47:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it doesn't take very long to do a bunch of side content,

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_02]: which I found to be super refreshing.

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_02]: It was just like, oh, let me spend like I'm serious.

[00:47:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you go down a path and you would get to the end of it in five to 10 minutes, right?

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Instead of the side quest or like some optional path taking you 30 to 60 minutes

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_02]: to complete and having a mediocre reward,

[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_02]: you could take five to 10 minutes on a path and it might have a reward.

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, oh, I'm going to save this item for later

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_02]: because it might be cool if I get something to complement it in a specific build.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that that type of design was done super well.

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_02]: They had these the other mechanic

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_02]: that I want to mention is sort of how you get XP.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can kind of combo your XP.

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_02]: The more like variety in your attacks

[00:48:22] [SPEAKER_02]: with that you unleash without getting hit,

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_02]: you can like stack huge combo multipliers for XP.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And then what you do is that you gain,

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's called what it's reputation and then you convert it into XP

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_02]: or some I'm getting the terminology all mixed up.

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was an interesting way to try to incentivize players.

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I felt like to use more items, like use more of your toolkit,

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_02]: but also play a lot more aggressively because it was aggressive play

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_02]: that really would bump those numbers up.

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I thought it was interesting.

[00:48:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I utilized it somewhat like when I noticed I had like a streak going.

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, OK, now I'm going to try hard.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to lean forward and I'm going to play harder to get more XP out of this.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_02]: It also made it so that if you wanted to XP farm,

[00:49:13] [SPEAKER_02]: which I didn't have to do a single time in this game,

[00:49:15] [SPEAKER_02]: but if you were like playing on hard and needed to XP farm,

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_02]: you could really perfect an XP farm

[00:49:22] [SPEAKER_02]: and really, really crank out a ton of levels that way

[00:49:25] [SPEAKER_02]: or a ton of just XP for ability nodes that way.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Jake, let's talk about flintlock siege of dawn impact on the industry.

[00:49:36] [SPEAKER_00]: This is developed by A44 Games published by Kepler Interactive.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Kepler is also publishing Expedition 33, Claire Obscure.

[00:49:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Which if you remember that trailer from, I want to say,

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, from Microsoft's show.

[00:49:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Remember that turn based RPG?

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, I'm super pumped for that game.

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It looks incredible.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And they're also publishing

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Windblown, which is the next game from the

[00:50:13] [SPEAKER_00]: dead cells, the dead cells developers.

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So they've got a pretty solid repertoire.

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_00]: These look like this looks like a smaller publisher.

[00:50:23] [SPEAKER_00]: They only have a few games, but a lot of these are like pretty interesting titles.

[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, this is where this is an interesting.

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_00]: This is an interesting conversation of like,

[00:50:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I think the industry has a problem.

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Jake, I'm interested in your perspective on this.

[00:50:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's an interesting problem in the in

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_00]: in the games industry right now where

[00:50:51] [SPEAKER_00]: you have triple A and then everything else is indie.

[00:51:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And the delineation between triple A

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and the delineation between the levels of indie

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_00]: is like the expectation of what an indie game is is like this.

[00:51:18] [SPEAKER_00]: For versus something like, say,

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_00]: this isn't even a good example because this was also like pretty big animal well.

[00:51:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. I think a lot of people would consider this like an indie title.

[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Because it's just because there's I think there's a problem.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we wouldn't consider this an indie title like we know this is like a double A game, right?

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think there's an issue out there is like, how do you

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_00]: how do you market and sell a game like this

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_00]: without triple A dollars

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and triple A marketing budgets?

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And then get the return that you want because this this is like an expensive looking game.

[00:52:08] [SPEAKER_00]: That's like a double A game with like presumably some funding behind it.

[00:52:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know all the details behind that or like the money behind that.

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_00]: There's not like a ton of information out there either on this one.

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just feel like this game is like this is a this is a great game pass situation.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's stuff.

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It probably suffers a little bit.

[00:52:36] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, so has reached 500,000 players.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's including game pass.

[00:52:42] [SPEAKER_02]: That verbiage to me includes game pass game pass players.

[00:52:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I have to imagine that's definitely includes game pass players.

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's really good.

[00:52:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's really solid for a game like this now as to how much of this game cost.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[00:52:56] [SPEAKER_00]: But it definitely costs a lot less than Immortals of Avium.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think by all turns, I think it looks like was budgeted and like produced

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_00]: on a budget that was commensurate with.

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Kind of maybe the outcome that they were looking for.

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's a guess.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I could be completely wrong on that and they may have lost like a bajillion dollars on this.

[00:53:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking at like some comparison.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_00]: These are not those are completely wrong.

[00:53:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Holy crap, this person is an idiot.

[00:53:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Someone saying Gotham Knights cost 50 million to make.

[00:53:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And now it didn't.

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_00]: It lost like 200 million.

[00:53:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so.

[00:53:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm just I'm super interested in games like this being able to thrive

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and curious what that looks like in light of the situation that we have

[00:53:51] [SPEAKER_00]: with Game Pass where with high five rush, right?

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, that studio being let go.

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And presumably, I think the IP being sold off.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And does that mean high five rushes off Game Pass now?

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, there's so much I want to tackle here.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Hold on.

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_02]: We do want it.

[00:54:11] [SPEAKER_02]: We are happy.

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, we didn't mean to gloss over this news.

[00:54:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So Tango Game Works is not dead.

[00:54:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:54:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, we should.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we should have brought this up at the beginning of the episode.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm blanking on that publisher's name.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_02]: The PUBG folks starts with a K.

[00:54:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't remember that their name, but essentially they

[00:54:30] [SPEAKER_02]: they brought out the resuscitator and they bought the works.

[00:54:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Tango Game Works and they bought rights to the IP.

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And so the.

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Assumption G Studio bought them.

[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the PUBG studio bought them actually rehired the laid off staff,

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_00]: which is insane to me, who also owns the Subnautica team, by the way.

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that I did not know.

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's cool.

[00:54:53] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, fantastic that they're back and they'll be working on HiFi Rush.

[00:54:59] [SPEAKER_02]: All of Tango Game Works's past catalog still belongs to Microsoft.

[00:55:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So Evil Within and Ghostwire Tokyo, those are going to be on Game Pass forever.

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't I think I don't know actually if HiFi Rush will stay on Game Pass or not.

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_02]: That might be part of the deal of them getting the IP was at the original

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_02]: game needs to stay on Game Pass.

[00:55:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Who knows?

[00:55:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think that this is a good comparison here because Game Pass gets a lot

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_02]: of criticism just as a subscription service, right?

[00:55:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And what that's doing to sales numbers like you heard me just a few minutes ago say,

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_02]: oh, that verbiage means that 500,000 includes players on Game Pass.

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And we don't know what the percentages of people who you just bought the game

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_02]: versus people who are playing it because they're subscribed to Game Pass.

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And another thing that's worth pointing out is I think Flintlock actually retailed

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_02]: for 40 bucks.

[00:55:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So this isn't retailed for 60 bucks, which is insane because I spent the same

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_02]: amount of time in Flintlock as they did Immortals of Avium.

[00:56:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And the price point between those two games initially outlaunches huge, right?

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Super, super wide.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, to that point, I think Immortals of Avium should have looked

[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_00]: more like this in size and scope.

[00:56:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I agree.

[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_00]: In my view.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I agree.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I think Immortals would have absolutely benefited from following the scope for sure.

[00:56:26] [SPEAKER_02]: The crazy thing though is that, and you mentioned this, right?

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_02]: The term Indy has absorbed double A.

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And Indy is such a finicky term as it is, it's starting to get

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_02]: a little irritating, right?

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Because Animalwell, you know, SoloDev, who I think Billy Blasso contracted

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_02]: out with some people at some point published with a brand new publisher.

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is Dunke's publisher.

[00:56:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's called Big Mode.

[00:56:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you look at it on paper, it follows the conventions of Indy, right?

[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_02]: First time published game from a publisher, first time debut release

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_02]: from somebody who has a ton of industry knowledge as a vet in the industry, knows

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_02]: game design and has a lot of experience in there.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But on paper, everything about Animalwell is Indy.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you look at the dollars and cents and hold on a second.

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_02]: There seems to be a lot more money happening there, right?

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Then other publishers or you even take something like what I consider

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_02]: to kind of be like the big three in the quote unquote Indy publishing sphere.

[00:57:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You have like raw fury, devolver, digital, digital and anapurna interactive.

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And we consider every single thing that they publish to be Indy,

[00:57:43] [SPEAKER_02]: which I think for the most part is absolutely true.

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got small teams, small studios and their budget tends to be a lot smaller.

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But man, when a devolver digital game comes out,

[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_02]: everybody in their mom knows it's coming.

[00:57:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody in their mom knows that the plucky squire, for example, right?

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_02]: It is coming out.

[00:58:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And so there are aspects there that don't feel necessarily Indy.

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you have Bellatro, right?

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Which should feel very indie, but it's this massive hit.

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's a shame and I do wish that we used

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and maybe defined more clearly what a double A game is,

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_02]: because I almost feel like Banisher's Ghost of New Eden

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Immortals of Aviam and Flintlock Siege of Dawn feel like double A games.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But all three of those games have a different relationship

[00:58:42] [SPEAKER_02]: to their publishers and what their budget was.

[00:58:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a mess.

[00:58:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But what this comes down to is how do you fund a game like this?

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, Game Pass and PS Plus, they offer a pretty big chunk of change

[00:58:56] [SPEAKER_02]: if you're willing to have your game launch on their service.

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_02]: That seems like a good thing to me, right?

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a bad thing if it comes down to subscription services being like not like

[00:59:10] [SPEAKER_02]: if they are becoming a must have in your publishing contract

[00:59:14] [SPEAKER_02]: in order to get a double A game like Flintlock out, then I think it's a problem.

[00:59:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I want double A games to be able to stand on their own two legs.

[00:59:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I want a game like Flintlock to retail for 40 bucks, be profitable

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_02]: and fund the next game that A44 is going to make

[00:59:30] [SPEAKER_02]: without having to rely on some sort of external funding from a subscription service.

[00:59:36] [SPEAKER_02]: That is ideal, but I don't think we live in ideal circumstances

[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_02]: like that right now in the industry.

[00:59:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, I'd take the lesser of two evils, which is, hey,

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_02]: if the only way that your game and your studio is going to survive

[00:59:48] [SPEAKER_02]: and give you enough profit to make the next game, then please sign a deal

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_02]: with Game Pass. Does that make sense?

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 100%. No, I just what I'm getting at is a healthy.

[01:00:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I think a healthy games industry is a games industry where games like this one

[01:00:10] [SPEAKER_00]: with very, which pretty honestly, like pretty small scope,

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_00]: but with like, you know, some solid graphics and some like pretty

[01:00:20] [SPEAKER_00]: decent production values that a handful, like a decent chunk

[01:00:25] [SPEAKER_00]: of handful of people can play and the developer can make their money back

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and maybe the publisher can make a little bit of cash and that's good.

[01:00:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's that's like a healthy environment

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_00]: that I think hopefully can flourish.

[01:00:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And I hope this game did well.

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I hope that Game Pass can be the portal for a lot of the games

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: like this to have that.

[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And we've talked about this like a bajillion times, but I just

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_00]: this is another good example of that, because I think people would even look at

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_00]: people don't look at Boulder's Gate three and call that a double a game.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Right? No.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that's because

[01:01:07] [SPEAKER_00]: of obviously the budget and the production values

[01:01:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and the size and the amount of money that was sunk into that

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: qualifies it as like triple A.

[01:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[01:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I just think like it's such a hard battle.

[01:01:27] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you get people to play your game without having triple A production values?

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. And it's like a marketing problem.

[01:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And so you have to figure out how do you figure out?

[01:01:39] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you get people to play your game without showing them that

[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: it's like some next level like product produced experience?

[01:01:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Among us is like a good example of that, right?

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Where it was sort of this unique kind of breakout thing and it was like a streamer thing.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's just an interesting problem that I think about.

[01:01:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the interesting thing about this game is

[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I think from a marketing standpoint, this is me speaking completely as a marketer.

[01:02:11] [SPEAKER_00]: This game probably looks too much like other like like a triple A game.

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Probably looks too much like other triple A games,

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: which I think in my opinion makes it really, really hard to market

[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_00]: because it sets it up.

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It sets it up for poor expectations, in my opinion,

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_00]: which is just interesting, right?

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And I it's just an interesting thing that I think about a lot.

[01:02:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But again, this is like a solid title with a great length

[01:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: that does a lot of really cool things.

[01:02:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just I want games like this to be successful.

[01:02:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I hope this was one that was able to kind of get through the crack

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: in all kind of that's going on the industry.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea they're not there's no numbers that I can see online

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_00]: that there's no like nothing showing on that stuff.

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's just interesting anyway.

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I agree and this game is really easy to recommend

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_02]: like a forty dollar price point for this game is fantastic.

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_02]: You can beat this campaign in ten hours.

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_02]: If that's all you want.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But there's actually plenty of extra content weapons to hunt down.

[01:03:20] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there are optional bosses out there as well

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: that you could stretch this out to probably 20 hours, I think pretty easily.

[01:03:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think for 40 bucks, I mean, you're getting a really great deal out of this game.

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It's very, very easy to recommend if you have Game Pass.

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Be like, hey, this is a game pass game and it's fantastic.

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you should definitely give this one a try.

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But I agree with you right?

[01:03:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Like outside of those things.

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_02]: How do you convince somebody like I'm just I'm with you, right?

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Who is looking for this type of game?

[01:03:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's definitely people who are a little strapped on time,

[01:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: but they want to have a fun, cool combat experience in a game.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and to me, this feels so much like just an action RPG.

[01:04:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Like people who want that but want to be able to finish it.

[01:04:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Like this is this is a game for you.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I almost feel like games like Flintlock and what Immortals of Avium could have been, right?

[01:04:12] [SPEAKER_02]: They're they're the anti open world 200 hour game.

[01:04:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But they give you some of that same dopamine hit.

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I'm with you.

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I really want games like this to flourish.

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I also agree.

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I think if games like this can be profitable and if they can,

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_02]: if these studios can be sustainable and keep making games, then yes,

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_02]: like that is a sign of a healthy industry having these midsize games do really well.

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But in such a competitive market, who is that demographic?

[01:04:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Who is the person that is looking to play eight midside midsize games a year?

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And from what we see in social media,

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_02]: that demographic feels pretty invisible, right?

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Most people are catering to what did you say?

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Heron Lace Fruit Loop hopped up 13 year old kids who were playing,

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, five hours of fortnight every night.

[01:05:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Kids who are aspiring to be streamers someday as their profession.

[01:05:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Or you're playing, you're catering to maybe people who only play one or two games a year,

[01:05:19] [SPEAKER_02]: like Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars Outlaws, you know, like those games,

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they're marketed like, hey, drop 70 bucks on this game.

[01:05:26] [SPEAKER_02]: You're looking for a big RPG that you're going to or, you know what I mean?

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Like where's the demographic of people who want to play eight midsize games a year?

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Eight Flintlocks. I don't know.

[01:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't know.

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_00]: It's I don't know.

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe that's like the biggest problem with Flintlock is that it looks too much

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_00]: like God of War or like something else.

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's like the biggest challenge in like Indian double A is like,

[01:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: if you're going to make an Indian double A, it's got to be like way different.

[01:06:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It needs to offer like a way different experience separate from these other titles.

[01:06:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I think the best thing that we've said about Flintlock

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and this is me just being like absolutely brutal conversation about the industry is

[01:06:14] [SPEAKER_00]: is that it's short.

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: But in terms of like where you're going to spend your time,

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_00]: which is the biggest challenge in the game industry right now,

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_00]: the biggest challenge in the game industry right now is

[01:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: everybody just spends their time on their one game.

[01:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And so to get people to come off that and play something else

[01:06:31] [SPEAKER_00]: is like the biggest challenge that is unsolvable currently

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: because everyone just keeps playing Fortnite.

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. How do you get people to play other games?

[01:06:40] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you get people to stop playing Fortnite?

[01:06:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Take their attention away from something else, even just for a little bit.

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_00]: They can even go back to Fortnite later.

[01:06:49] [SPEAKER_00]: But how do you take the attention away from Fortnite?

[01:06:52] [SPEAKER_00]: It's an unstoppable train because it's just it's it's like,

[01:06:57] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, it's like it's like the kids grew up playing it.

[01:07:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like they're rubber ducky.

[01:07:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like they're they're a teddy bear that they never want to give up.

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's funny.

[01:07:09] [SPEAKER_02]: We're coming we're coming full circle, man, because when we were talking

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: about these FPS games and the games that we listed

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_02]: are absolutely marketed to you and me.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_02]: They're marketed to people that when we were teenagers,

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: we were playing the O.G. Xbox, you know, and that's the type of games.

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was kind of the type of online multiplayer experience was

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_02]: there's no battle pass. It's all bragging rights.

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what you're playing for, right?

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You hop in, you're going to play like Friday night.

[01:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to stay late, have pizza, mountain do and play Halo with the buds.

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to play Halo 2 until 1 a.m.

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[01:07:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And but that gameplay experience was so centered around

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like just being able to hop into a match and hop out.

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's part of the reason why the finals is such a big hit for you and me.

[01:08:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's because you can hop in one night.

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_02]: You can play the finals for two hours.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you get a bunch of matches in, you have a good time,

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_02]: and then you log out and you don't feel like you have to go back.

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe you just set up like a weekly game night

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_02]: and you go back the next week and you play, right?

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas the the the market right now

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_02]: with these big online multiplayer games is how do we incentivize

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_02]: these people to log in every single day?

[01:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And when you're logging in every single day,

[01:08:29] [SPEAKER_02]: you are excluding time to play games like Flintlock, right?

[01:08:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So how does Flintlock convince you that you only need to play?

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. It's almost like the reverse, like what we played growing up.

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like as a kid growing up, it's his teenager.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I played a single player game maybe three times a week

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and I played a multiplayer game online with my friends once a week.

[01:08:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's totally reversed now, right?

[01:08:52] [SPEAKER_02]: You're playing online multiplayer games,

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_02]: the majority of your gaming sessions in a week.

[01:08:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you're probably saving maybe one night to play a single player game.

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It's weird. I think it's flipped.

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_02]: That's my thesis.

[01:09:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, anyways, I have no solutions for you, but I don't need.

[01:09:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm great at rambling.

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Have we come up with any solutions?

[01:09:13] [SPEAKER_00]: No, they're just they I yeah, I we just

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I want lots of different types of games to continue to exist

[01:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and to do well and for all games to be really good.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just hard, man.

[01:09:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just hard. It's just a hard role we live in.

[01:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is a solid title.

[01:09:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I think it's biggest biggest floss for me is maybe it just doesn't

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: quite do enough difference

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_00]: than maybe it's a bigger, larger, more sexy competitors

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_00]: to make it stand out and like get a lot of people to play it

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and get involved in it.

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of my that's basically the analysis that I was kind of getting to.

[01:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: It does look like from the top level that half a million people played it.

[01:09:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe that says something about its position in Game Pass

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_00]: and like how the marketing like really did did quite well for it.

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Which I love that.

[01:10:10] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's fantastic.

[01:10:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I hope that despite some of Microsoft's failings in this regard

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: that they can figure out how to keep Game Pass like a place

[01:10:22] [SPEAKER_00]: where these double A things can continue to survive

[01:10:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and do well and like make money, which we've talked about ad nauseam.

[01:10:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And we will continue to like nonstop talk.

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I think this is just going to be a never ending topic on the show.

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's something that you got to understand that part of the reason

[01:10:40] [SPEAKER_00]: this show exists is to highlight games like this one

[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and to tell people and analyze them and like show people like,

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: hey, why is this something that's worth your time?

[01:10:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, and absolutely, I think this one is especially given

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: the fact that's on Game Pass.

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, my final thoughts to be like,

[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: this is a super easy game to recommend.

[01:11:02] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a good time, right?

[01:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's not going to be your game of the year 2024,

[01:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: but I doubt you'll look back on your play time with Flintlock.

[01:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that was a bad time.

[01:11:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a good time.

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I highly recommend it for sure.

[01:11:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Easy price point and it's on Game Pass.

[01:11:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And with that, ladies and gentlemen,

[01:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: this has been another percent of the pre-order bonus podcast

[01:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: talking, Flintlock, The Siege of Dawn.

[01:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It's on Game Pass. Go check it out.

[01:11:29] [SPEAKER_00]: It's on Steam.

[01:11:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's I think it's everywhere.

[01:11:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's on PlayStation as well.

[01:11:35] [SPEAKER_00]: If you like the show, please leave us a review

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[01:11:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Link to that is in the description.

[01:11:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That's it. We got a growing discord community with thoughtful,

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[01:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening and have a great night.