Moonstone Island

[00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome into another episode of The Pre-Order Bonus podcast. I'm one of your hosts Cameron Warren and I'm joined as always by the irracular Jacob Price. Nice. He is an orator of words and phrases. Jake, video games. It's November 16, 2023. I want to

[00:00:38] first off apologize to our listeners. We've had some scattered podcast episode releases, so if you've noticed that if you're a Patreon subscriber and you're not getting stuff early or you've had maybe some like back-to-back or some longer wait times, I apologize. Life is crazy.

[00:00:55] Many of you probably know Jake and I don't do this full time. So you can probably tell obviously, but yeah, life gets crazy and kind of gets in the way sometimes and especially lately that has

[00:01:09] been that way. Yeah, life has been pretty nuts for both of us, but here we are. We're still doing episodes. We've got the rest of the year planned out. We've got exciting things coming up, so hang in there. Hang in there with us. Yeah. Video games.

[00:01:34] Since we lost Chatted, we've had the Game Awards nominees, Jake. I feel like pretty much standard fare here. I don't feel like there was any major surprises. I think my only comment, my only probably controversial comment on this topic to Jake

[00:01:52] was that I feel that the one snub, some of the categories are weird and I'll just whatever. It doesn't really matter, whatever. I'll say for Game of the Year Noms, the one snub, despite Resident Evil 4 Remake being a really fantastic game and like an incredible remake,

[00:02:12] I think Jedi Survivor got snubbed in my opinion for that spot. Yeah, that's it. I freaking love Jedi Survivor and I think it did a lot of really cool stuff and really succeeded at what it was doing. That being said,

[00:02:28] it had a ton of bugs and so I think its performance probably knocked it down several notches, especially because it came out so long ago until all the outlets voting. But compared to Resident Evil 4, which I think performed flawlessly at launch and

[00:02:44] didn't have any issues whereas the people who reviewed Jedi Survivor had to slog through a lot of painful performance. Had that not been the case, I feel like that would have taken that spot.

[00:02:56] Yeah, it doesn't help that Jedi Survivor I believe launched with a lot of big launches happened around then. It was really close to Tears of the Kingdom for one. It was pretty close. It was sandwiched with a few other things. That was one of the tight

[00:03:15] squeezes for us I feel like in terms of the year. There were probably four or so different games coming out all in that window and we were interested in trying them all. This is probably

[00:03:26] helping Star Wars Jedi Survivor, but if I'm not mistaken Redfall also came out around there as well. I don't know, I think for me I don't know if you like considering the year that we've had in

[00:03:40] 2023 for game releases, I don't know how much I would shift this list. The one that the Game Awards has for all their nominees and I think I'm with you Kamen where like yeah there are

[00:03:54] games that I wish would have gotten more. There's some games that surprised me like Dead Island 2 Getting Best Action Game nominee. That was a surprise. Remnant 2 not getting nominated for like multiplayer games. That was also a surprise, but on the whole considering the year that we've

[00:04:10] had I'm like you know what this shift this list probably wouldn't change all that much with any more time. There's just so many games and it's hard to get them all represented.

[00:04:21] Of course we don't need to dig into this too deeply either but the Dave the Diver getting Best Independent Game also that was probably the biggest controversial nomination right? Yeah there's this debate going around about what qualifies as an independent game.

[00:04:37] And I think it's a valid debate. I do think they need to redefine this category. It should be indie and I don't know and I think that definition can even get hazy, but what we do

[00:04:48] know about Dave the Diver is that its owned the studio that makes it is owned and funded by like a super massive corporation giant studio. So it doesn't sit outside quote unquote like the traditional publishing umbrella even though it feels and kind of looks like an indie game.

[00:05:08] And so the argument was like well what if Insomniac made like an 8-bit like side scrolling platformer would that then be like you know qualify for Best Independent Game

[00:05:18] or Naughty Dog right? So I mean the thing is like if you really want to get in the argument like you could put Bouldersgate in that category even though Bouldersgate had a well over north of

[00:05:31] $200 million budget right which technically it's an indie game because it's an independent studio that's not owned by anyone. So yeah it's kind of interesting. Honestly the Bouldersgate 3 being in there makes more sense to me than Insomniac or Naughty Dog. But you know and I've seen a lot of

[00:05:51] different sort of ideas being floated around and I just kind of think like maybe what you really need here is two different categories. Maybe if people are dividing the term indie into two different

[00:06:05] camps one being aesthetics and the other sort of being the financial reality of the studio producing the game maybe just have two different categories and you know like one that is interpreting

[00:06:16] indie one way and one that's doing it the other way. Of course if you're a long-term listener you know that I love indie games, I want to champion them always and so more categories related to

[00:06:28] indie games is of course going to be what sounds like the right answer to me but it's just so curious right to see and you should go back and listen to our Dave the Diver episode where

[00:06:38] we talk about this and I think we've kind of changed our tune a little bit as more information has come out and it's fascinating because the team lead of Mint Rocket, the studio that made Dave the

[00:06:48] Diver is on record for saying that they do not consider themselves an indie studio right and that's I don't know for me it's like hey if you were out there saying you're not indie

[00:07:00] don't give them the best independent game. I feel like it wouldn't be that hard to put some structure around this like the indie definition and maybe that's not what Jeff and his team are

[00:07:10] trying to do they're trying to do something different but something like you know made by less than 50 developers or with a budget under 50 million or 25 million or yeah I don't know you know what I'm saying like because there's a huge difference between something like Spirit T that

[00:07:28] just came out and was made by one developer and Dave the Diver which is made by a team of who knows 100 people you know 75 people I don't know and money right oh yeah money right money being a

[00:07:42] big difference I guess there's we could easily talk about this forever there's just two points that I kind of want to make related to this I cannot find the tweet so I apologize I'm not you know

[00:07:56] citing my source here so it's sorry it's do trust me bro but somebody on Twitter recommended they said you know what if we defined indie as like the CEO or the lead the director is still

[00:08:12] doing active game development like on the game itself like as soon as you separate into management that is not doing development at all and like the team of developers like for this person and I

[00:08:25] can't remember who was you're like for them they're like that's when I feel like things stop being indie and I understand that and I kind of like that I think that could be more refined but the other

[00:08:35] part of it too is what you're getting at Cameron where it's like a lot of times when we talk about indie games we actually want to use the word underdog instead of the word indie and so

[00:08:45] we think of like the solo bedroom developer and we think of you know people like the game we're talking about you know super soft studios we're talking about hey our good friend sandy had this

[00:08:55] vision for a game recruited people and just decided to do this and got lucky enough to land a publisher you know and so somebody like super soft studios absolutely deserves to be in the running of

[00:09:08] for indie game even though they have a publisher that's like making their game possible like financially and a part of me is like but that studio super fast still like retains creative control

[00:09:23] over their game like the game is theirs even though they have a different type of financial situation and so I'm like I think those things need to be factored in or they become their own

[00:09:33] categories in some some way right yeah I mean the that ceo one is interesting but once again bouldersgate three would still fall into that one yeah because he's he's ceo and game director

[00:09:49] which is kind of wild so so bouldersgate three best independent game was gay three best indie game of the year I mean let's just be honest my biggest takeaway from this list is that bouldersgate three

[00:10:01] should just win every category and let's just call the day and go home let's just send them up to the front give them the trophy you win and then you win shows over you win 2023 uh yeah there is

[00:10:14] definitely the possibility of a bouldersgate three sweep here but I'm looking at categories where bouldersgate three isn't listed and um there's some that I think are going to be really really

[00:10:28] tough to to predict a winner for so like I'm looking at the list now excuse me best action game we have armor core six dead island two ghost runner two high-five rush remnant two and I honestly

[00:10:41] could see a case being made for about half of those like winning that um best action adventure game we got island wake two spider man two resident evil four star wars Jedi survivor I think one of two

[00:10:54] nominees their nominations I got and then legends of the tears of the kingdom I think there's quite a bit of wiggle room in there as well so I mean some of these categories are interesting

[00:11:02] but um I think bouldersgate three is going to walk away with some with a lot of trophies in their hands yeah man bouldersgate three I mean frankly bouldersgate three ruined gaming for me this year

[00:11:16] like that's that's how good of a game it was is that it was so much it was so good for me personally it was like so leaps and bounds far away from anything else that I played this

[00:11:29] year that it's just not even it's not even a competition like for me personally it just didn't it couldn't even it just could not touch it uh just like what they pulled off is like extraordinary

[00:11:41] but yeah I I'm excited on that note there's going to be some sort of announcement at the game awards regarding the xbox release um I am planning to do my second play through on console so hoping

[00:11:54] that that's like a shadow drop which has been rumored which would be pretty cool so would be really cool I would not be surprised either um you think you think Phil Spencer pulled off

[00:12:04] that game pass deal despite all the didn't know I know because he's like I mean we're going to make so much money how much would you have to they'd have to offer him a huge check no so when all

[00:12:17] the xbox info leaked and they were and of course his info is kind of old but they were floating how much they would pitch to have Baldur's Gate 3 oh yeah they had it for like a steal

[00:12:26] yeah they had it for five million like five million for I don't know what timed window let's say six months minimum for Baldur's Gate 3 oh dude somebody is is sitting in a corner crying you know slowly

[00:12:40] rocking back and forth um uh ever since uh that decision was made right um I don't know I think it would cost him probably way too much at this point I do think that Baldur's Gate 3 is just

[00:12:53] going to shift copies kind of regardless on xbox because of its high praise it so I think xbox will probably just be content with making the money that they do selling games digitally digitally

[00:13:06] on their xbox storefront you know yeah that's uh you know they have to do that analysis of every game I think do you net out a bunch of game but you I mean it would be a pretty big game

[00:13:17] pass boon but not not at the expense of uh probably what they can demand basically any price they want right so I know yeah maybe larian is like you know what if we can acquire xbox game studios

[00:13:32] we'll be on game pass xbox are just by larian but they won't sell no yeah larian needs to be what they're doing but spin is not going to sell he's just gonna do what he there've been way too successful

[00:13:49] on their own to even consider that yeah they are not in a position to need that at all um but I don't know embrace your group huh what is their problem

[00:14:04] dude I don't know man that's that's also been the other like I think in this last week alone we had maybe another thousand additional people get laid off at game companies across the industry

[00:14:14] yeah dude dude I would love for them at the game awards to show a total like um and just like to do like a minute talking about uh just like showing some sort of respect for all the people that

[00:14:28] make the games that were celebrating in 2023 I think that would be really dope um I don't I don't know if they'll do that because might make people not want to advertise at the game awards but

[00:14:39] I like to think that the game awards has enough poll that they could probably make some sort of statement but maybe I'm just being optimistic yeah I think for people who don't I don't know

[00:14:51] I don't know man it's just it's such a weird it's such a weird business it's such a weird business and like yeah it's pretty depressing it would be interesting I don't know it's weird

[00:15:05] decisions are getting made and and it's uh people are losing their livelihoods and losing their jobs and you hope that they you know kind of quickly find other places to work and stuff like that so

[00:15:16] you hope it's not too big of a you know no one's like going out of work for months on end you hope but that there's enough that amidst all the decline there's still enough success out there that

[00:15:29] like those people are getting just picked up and like redistributed but it just it still sucks no matter what yep yep that's that's just kind of the hope at this point okay uh what games are

[00:15:42] you playing right now no games all games uh I think I'm I have come down off the high of the fall releases Jake I'm in one of my sort of depressive gaming episodes which happens every

[00:15:58] now and again I just I've played so many things that I've sort of come down off the high of having so many new releases but I've been playing a little bit of Halo still playing Stronghold which is

[00:16:09] great the new campaign there obviously um still playing Alan Way too all the playing it very slowly not it's not I don't think it's for me I completely respect what it's doing and know why

[00:16:22] people think it's like one of the greatest games of the year I absolutely like respect it I don't know if it's like my jam I think is the is the best way to to put it and

[00:16:34] yeah it's not it's it's not something I really want to like sink my teeth into like incredibly deep but I definitely respect like what it's pulled off and what it's doing in a big way for sure

[00:16:46] so I've been playing that and also War Tales I think I mentioned last week on which is on now on Game Pass for PC and console actually uh which is a pretty cool concept there and then um yeah kind

[00:16:58] of looking for something else to sink my teeth into really hard like which which thing in my backlog is gonna really draw me out just looking for my next thing that's gonna like really draw me in

[00:17:10] super hard I haven't quite found it yet uh Stronghold's obviously there in the background but that's sort of like comfort food game I you know it's still it's still the game that it was

[00:17:21] uh it just looks a lot prettier and it's it's great for it but right yeah I don't know man Mario RPG comes out tomorrow Super Mario RPG which I do have so we'll see if that maybe

[00:17:31] that's the one that that kind of grabs my attention so we'll see yeah very cool um I let's see I'm still playing through Alan Wake 2 mostly um I'm loving it like this could be my game of the year thus far

[00:17:50] so really dude I which is really shocking for me because I'm not really a horror fan and this game is very scary folks I'm a wimp but like this this game is freaking scary for me but um

[00:18:09] dude I love weird like the weirdness the multimedia aspect to it it is maybe on the nose like very heavily on the nose meta but um I don't know dude I like it I like I've been in the mood

[00:18:26] the past few months for just getting into like really weird media trying to find like weird films and stuff to watch and yeah and this is doing it for me for sure um but I think this this game is kind

[00:18:39] of as much as it's been getting praised um my concerns are that one this game is not for everybody two you gotta know your lore like I'm very grateful that I finished Alec um Alan

[00:18:54] Wake 1 remastered before starting this game because I would have been lost and I'm still lost with some of the references that they're making but having played control in Alan Wake 1 I feel

[00:19:05] like is like kind of required homework um to be able to get a much better sense of what's going on which um yeah sure I'm grateful that I've done that but I don't know for a sequel that depends

[00:19:18] so much on what has come before it I have mixed feelings there but yeah I'm really loving it the other game that I'm playing as I'm finally back into judgment um which I'm gonna finish like

[00:19:31] I'm gonna finish judgment I'm so proud of myself that's impressive started it impressive started this I started this game in January 2023 which you know nearly a year ago what's your record for the game longest in your backlog that like you consistently played over a period of

[00:19:54] several years and you actually rolled credits on it I know mine straight up because I did it this this year actually what's yours give me some time to think what's yours I started Wasteland 2 in like 2020 Wasteland 3 literally started it in like 2020 or 2021 and finally rolled credits

[00:20:17] in like July of this year and it was totally worth it it's amazing I loved that game amazing played it actually finished it right before boulders gate and then like went straight into

[00:20:28] boulders gate three which is kind of crazy okay that is pretty amazing um like the game that I've spent the most time playing no it was the one that you keep installed for you had

[00:20:42] installed for like years but you just never come around to play oh you know what it's mass effect and drama mm I think I've had that game that's a good day installed since it launched um

[00:20:57] I played about 10 hours of it and listen I played mass effect and drama before I played the trilogy and I was really enjoying and drama but I had no idea what was going on

[00:21:08] or why I needed to care about anything but I was enjoying it and when the game came out you know it looked really good and um I keep telling myself I'm gonna finish it someday and um

[00:21:19] yeah that day hasn't come yet I keep there's two other games that I keep installed that I hope to finish one day and I just have them sitting on my computer I never uninstall them and that's Gears Tactics and Crusader Kings 3 which I'm like I need to finish

[00:21:40] a full round of Crusader Kings which can you beat Crusader Kings 3? uh sort of but it's one of those things where like you can just achieve a lot and I feel like I would like to do like an actual

[00:21:55] full run but it's just very daunting like I just don't feel like I have the brain power to boot it up and do it like almost ever gotcha so yeah yeah that would be brain power intensive for sure

[00:22:10] well Jake that's enough about that let's jive right in to our game of the show Moonstone Island from our good friend friend of the show Sandy who we've interviewed and spoken to uh you could find that episode well make sure to link that episode

[00:22:30] actually uh but now we've Jake and I have both been playing it and we're gonna dive in and break this one down for you guys Jake how are we gonna do it? We are gonna talk about

[00:22:40] Moonstone Island in our four categories so if you are new to this podcast and this is your first episode listening to us uh this will be very helpful for you if you've been listening to us for a while

[00:22:54] just kind of check your phone now um but we will do it this way so first we will be talking about the narrative we'll be talking about the story here we'll be talking about themes that

[00:23:03] are present sort of how you're interacting with NPCs we talk a lot about the the writing and games at this point as well um if you are listening this is your first time we don't really

[00:23:14] spoil we don't do spoilers typically the first fourth or first third of a game is up for grabs though just so we can kind of establish themes and plot lines and who's who and all that jazz next will be

[00:23:26] mechanics oh man as a farming sim this farming sim is like one fourth of this game this game has a ton of mechanics and we're not going to be able to cover them all but there's a lot going

[00:23:37] on here and in this category we'll be talking about just the different systems built in place um you know monster catching card collecting deck building farming romance all that stuff is in here and we'll

[00:23:48] be talking about as much of that system as many of those systems as we can um and just how they work and how they mesh together to create the experience that is moose on island third uh we

[00:24:00] will be talking about the gameplay loop so we'll be talking about how you're engaging with the game essentially how these different mechanisms and systems work together what a typical play session is going to look like and how the game sort of feeds into itself and keeps you engaged

[00:24:16] and then finally we'll be talking about impact on the industry here we get a little speculative we'll be talking about what we think moonstone island has accomplished um and a giant you know

[00:24:29] wave of indie games and farming sims especially and just how they're taking notes and maybe what moonstone island indicates is a greater trend in the games industry overall and then finally just as a reminder to myself and to Cameron and to our patreon supporters this will actually be

[00:24:48] an extended edition episode we're just going to do one extended category and we'll just be talking about the state of farming sims broadly and where moonstone island fits into that so

[00:24:58] stay tuned until the very end for that extra category if you want to hear more about that you can uh subscribe to our patreon and you can have access to the extended edition of this episode

[00:25:07] so that is how we will be talking about moonstone island tonight all right jaco seven talk about the narrative uh from moonstone island um i had a hard time kind of keeping track

[00:25:26] of anything story wise but like the basic gist is that i'm gonna say this wrong it's you are leaving home for a year to be an alchem al alchemist right yes two for two so far yeah so you're going out

[00:25:46] into the islands and you leave home and you kind of crash land into place and then that's that's kind of where you're at and that's uh kind of you kick off your adventure

[00:25:56] and then you go find the moonstones there you go that is exactly how the game starts right there's a you know touching moment you're talking with mom and dad they wish you well you're off into the

[00:26:09] great wide world to become an alchemist and find some sort of community to serve and then you crash and uh you're like oh crap uh you know when you to me like reminded me of like your first week

[00:26:24] of college you pick up your feet pretty quickly you know you you do right but like narratively you were just like oh crap i just got screwed and i'm trying to do a big thing and i have to do it all

[00:26:34] by myself now yeah um this game's narrative i think you know it took me a long time to be able to figure out what i actually think about this narrative and i don't think that there are any bad

[00:26:49] decisions here but i do think that uh there is a there's a distinct decision that might alienate specific types of players and so buckle up here it is i think the game is written really well

[00:27:02] and i love the npcs and those interactions are cool and you know everybody has personality and all that but it's really difficult to pinpoint what the culture of moons like the

[00:27:14] moonstone island community or the community that you land in is and i think this is one way the moonstone island is quite different than other farming sims or live sims where the game starts

[00:27:27] out like presenting like okay you are an alchemist you have a special set of skills and you are going to help better some sort of community and become like a member of a community

[00:27:36] and do this and and that is that is it right but when you arrive to this one community where you crash land the community doesn't like really have a problem for you to solve collectively and um this

[00:27:50] is this is i think where the game is quite different because in most farming sims you arrive to a new community and you are introduced to what is supposed to be the big long term

[00:28:00] goal of the game quite quickly and that is not the case in moonstone island and so i would say that like narratively um on the individual level this game is awesome like i love the characters i love how

[00:28:11] they're written i love talking to them i love sort of developing relationships with them etc but as soon as you leave that community in the bulk of the game i feel like as outside of this

[00:28:21] community um you are meandering quite a quite a lot like you're exploring a lot you're discovering things but i feel like it is it's not necessarily contributing to like uh some big

[00:28:37] way that you can help bolster the community that you're becoming a part of does that make sense to you cameron yeah it does i we were having this discussion and i think it's a sense of

[00:28:51] like and i think we'll get into this more when we do our our extended conversation about just farming sims in general but like i think i think you put it correctly which is like you

[00:29:06] want to feel some sense of like greater mission to accomplish beyond kind of what you're set out to do and i think there is sort of that but it doesn't really come through

[00:29:17] like i think maybe other games have done perhaps a bit more successfully that makes you feel like invested in the community in a significant way uh which i think is missing here yeah yeah you really get involved in the community through the individual relationships and through

[00:29:36] romancing and i i think that like i'm repeating myself i've already said it right but it i this is one of the my favorite parts about moonstone island narratively is how these relationships

[00:29:46] are developed and i think this is a prominent theme just like how you get to know people and and what it means to like really form a connection with somebody and i think that's done really well

[00:29:58] here but yeah i just kind of wish i was contributing to something a little bit bigger for with the community overall whereas as much as i like getting grained into this community

[00:30:13] on the individual level and i feel like i'm helping people out individually i feel like it's still like well when a year's up you know i'm going to go back to mom and dad um and do i you'll probably

[00:30:24] you know stay in the community but yeah i just wish there was something else there to sort of grit me because narratively i think beyond the relationships in the town um the games themes

[00:30:35] are primarily like exploration and just like really getting i really felt like what this game does well as captures is sort of like early 20th century spirit or like late 19th century spirit

[00:30:48] in in the sciences and in you know natural being a naturalist and going out and cataloging and understanding like the world in which you live in the community like both you know the ecological and human communities and how they interact like there's there's like that kind

[00:31:04] of stuff baked into this game but a lot of that is emergent narrative and it's just because it's like you out and alone in the in the many sky islands sort of discovering and learning more

[00:31:16] about them as you are out there but um i kind of wish that you would run into npcs out on these islands too so you could just share in this exploration like with the community a little

[00:31:31] more rather than just kind of going out and coming back the game feels quite solo as a as a player despite there being a community that you're supposed to really feel like you're a part of

[00:31:44] i guess that's what i'm really trying to say yeah i feel that for sure um yeah it it it uh you know it feels well like you said like all the relationship building and all that stuff

[00:32:01] with individual characters and you know i think that's all super well done um but to your point like it doesn't extend beyond kind of just those individual interactions and so then at that point

[00:32:16] it kind of feels more like a mechanic unless like hey here's this narrative that's like that's compelling me to move forward or solve something or do something or solve a greater

[00:32:26] mystery or whatever it is uh i feel like it just it just needed a bit more of that but obviously like you know that is the caveat incredibly hard balance to strike right because this is a game

[00:32:38] filled with like some insane ideas just incredible ideas across the board just amazing ideation and like really really close i think to fulfilling uh you know the full spectrum of those ideas

[00:32:53] that it kind of puts out uh narrative i just i think it just fell a little bit short and needed a little bit more and maybe it will over over time like it get things added to that piece but yeah

[00:33:04] it fell a little bit short for me but um yeah yeah i would say that being said the reason why i don't think this is necessarily a bad decision is because if if you want to play the type of

[00:33:17] farming sim but not feel like you have to do a lot of the narrative stuff yeah right like dude this is the game for you you know and maybe the demographic or the the population of players who are into

[00:33:31] farming life management sims that aren't like super invested in narrative maybe that population is a little more niche but i do feel like um and this is sort of me transitioning to our mechanics

[00:33:41] section of the game i feel like there's so much to do here in this game and that the systems do mesh pretty dang well that if you just want to go out and really just have like the the walden

[00:33:53] experience sorry folks i'm i'm i have a lot of like 19th century early 20th century like environmental thinking on my mind because of work right but like if you want the the henry david throw

[00:34:05] walden experience like you absolutely can get that in this game and it is immensely satisfying let's move on to the mechanics jake um there's a lot of mechanics i don't even know where to start

[00:34:21] it's so funny because like you call this game a farming sim but like the farming mechanic is i don't know one eighth of what you do you know what i mean yeah yeah so you've got the farming

[00:34:34] and then you've got obviously exploration which is a huge thing because you're you're flying you're literally flying between these hundreds of islands that exists like in the game and you start

[00:34:45] off just doing that with a balloon and then you can eventually i think this is a spoiler there's a trailer for you can get a plane and you have a broom and other devices and then there's crafting

[00:34:56] so gathering materials you know and like your sort of typical survival game style loop where you're gathering specific types of material so you can craft better things and then you could fly around farming obviously relationship management in the town and in the community

[00:35:14] exploration we already talked about and then throw on top of all that a monster hunter or a monster catching game right so you're literally have like a pokemon like combat system where you're

[00:35:31] capturing different monsters and on top of all that you're not just using abilities to fight with those monsters it's literally a card based system that has rpg mechanics built into it and then

[00:35:45] the combat is card based with different cards and so then you have card uh you know card style combo management and combat in that way and so it's just system after system after system just stacked on top of each other you know and surprisingly

[00:36:04] almost all of them like work really quite well like it's it's like shocking that they kind of all comes it does i don't think it quite gets there but it's pretty close to all coming together really seamlessly right i think i think

[00:36:25] what's the right word for it i think visually and in the animation and kind of how the game feels doesn't necessarily always hit at a level for all those things that i think

[00:36:38] for most players i think even myself included it doesn't maybe i don't even know the right word to describe it doesn't necessarily like pop enough or or give me that sort of visual

[00:36:49] haptic feedback that i'm looking for when i'm playing a game like i want for me personally like i get a lot of satisfaction out of the visual component of what i'm doing in the game

[00:36:59] having some sort of reaction that's cool or interesting right that's even if it's just visual or with sound or whatever a lot of that is not necessarily there but it's because there's so many of these systems i think and and that they surprisingly like work really well together

[00:37:16] yeah i think um the the way that i would describe like the mechanics and all the systems is that while there are none of them are necessarily like deep in the sense that you really have to

[00:37:28] like figure out nitty gritty and there's high there's like fine tuning or like significant build crafting like that there isn't like a whole lot of depth but that i think is a

[00:37:38] pro i think that's a bonus here because you want all these systems to mesh and so to have all those systems be a little more shallow makes it so i think it's a lot easier to keep track of everything

[00:37:48] you're trying to accomplish it's a lot easier to set like daily goals when you like wake up in the morning and you leave the house and you're like okay this is what i want to accomplish today and

[00:37:56] this is how i can do it so i think it just made like the management aspect of this game that much more concise and fluid which i think is awesome um when we first interviewed sandy

[00:38:09] like a thousand years ago on this podcast um one of our big questions was like how on earth are you going to juggle the fact that this game is like four different genres in one and i think Cameron

[00:38:20] and i can confidently say that hey man super soft did it like yeah i think they really did yep they really managed to do that and i enjoyed all of them and for a farming sim like that's

[00:38:33] where i spend the least amount of time um you can i mean there's like fertilizers and stuff and lots of different seeds that you can gather or plant to get different items that you use in battle

[00:38:46] but this game i feel like is relatively generous when it comes to resources just out in the wild so i like this i like not having to depend on my little you know patch of crops in order to go out

[00:38:57] for the day but just knowing that hey i have this in mind this is my goal i'll probably be able to collect x amount of this and be able to you know accomplish that goal so i spent the majority of my

[00:39:07] time monster catching and um just actually deck building which i typically don't like deck building games but again this deck building isn't necessarily deep which i think is a good thing which meant that i could form a team of three monsters and have because you're pulling from like

[00:39:26] each each monster like contributes them to the main deck that you're pulling from and you can really have each deck from each monster that you have work in tandem one quick example

[00:39:38] will share is that there's one card that you can get that makes it so that um anytime you draw a tackle card it costs like zero energy to use and so i had like two monsters where they

[00:39:49] had like i don't know five tackle cards in each of their mini decks and so when i would invest in and pull the one card that made tackle cost zero energy you know i could get a hand that had like

[00:40:01] four tackle cards in it and i was just using them for free and doing a ton of damage and so i think the the deck system here is exploitable in the best way possible like

[00:40:11] you can really do some build crafting and you can save yourself a lot of time and i felt like the battles never really felt cumbersome in that way because i had so much control over my deck

[00:40:20] and how i was going to use it so that was just like that's one aspect of the game that i engaged in quite a lot because you have to do these mini dungeons and mini dungeons have a boss at the

[00:40:32] end of them and you have to do battling through to get through these dungeons um which again think of like think of the side quest top down Zelda mini dungeons and that's kind of what

[00:40:43] you're at here maybe not a whole lot of depth maybe not a whole lot of puzzling but i just love this because it created for a much more frictionless experience yeah it's uh it's a smoothie of just a

[00:40:58] lot of different stuff just like a lot a lot of different things and again i just just a reiterate like i think shockingly really works quite like really does do like a lot of it really well

[00:41:13] which you know i think you get good in the argument of like you know for a small indie game i think this is it's very impressive i think what they've pulled off uh i wonder if they had pulled back

[00:41:24] in certain areas like could they have put in more time and emphasis into specific parts of it that would have i don't know made some of those systems stand out more i don't know you know it's

[00:41:35] always hard to tell and it's it's not like a judgment call that i'd like to make but specifically thinking about you know just the narrative or if like you had gone all in on sort of a monster

[00:41:45] catcher style like combat or card combat style game and you just went 100% on that or even just like the exploration portion like blowing that out 100 which you kind of have all of them here

[00:41:56] you do kind of get into that headspace at least i do have thinking about well what if they just like emphasize one of these because they're doing all these like really pretty well so how far

[00:42:05] could they have taken it if they'd just like gone all in on one piece but i think you know obviously sandi's vision and maybe we'll talk to him again and have a you know now that the

[00:42:16] game's out i hope i hope we get a chance to speak with him again interview him again but you know his vision was the was obviously to do all these things which which really nobody

[00:42:24] else has done um and impressively so i think he he he pulled it off yeah it's one of those things where i felt like playing moonstone island i was like i can see why nobody else has

[00:42:35] tried to put this many things together once because it must have been a balancing nightmare right to try to think of how to make all these systems work together but yeah i think it's done

[00:42:45] super well here um something else that i love too is just like this game is like chock full of mini dungeons yeah which i loved and and that's what made exploration i feel like so rewarding

[00:42:58] folks i just got to point out that this is a pretty meaty map like this is not a small map like the world map that utrivers is not small by any means and so hopping from island to island

[00:43:10] it's sort of leaving sort of the focal point of this map and branching out to all these different directions and finding more islands and discovering more things to do and to harvest from each of

[00:43:20] these islands and then discovering different biomes on each of the islands that would get different you know monsters for you like i i do think that the exploration pacing here was done incredibly well now there is one relatively significant um like bottleneck right where you've

[00:43:39] really got to level up your team and you have to have a really good handle on your deck uh before you go to a specific point i'm speaking vaguely as to not spoil um so you have to keep up with

[00:43:50] that stuff and that's kind of why i focus so much more on monster catching and training than other aspects of this game but yeah um really genuinely impressed that the pacing and exploration

[00:44:04] as you get out to more and more islands and you're finding more and more things to do there i mean this is a tiny mechanic but you can find treasure maps and essentially just shows

[00:44:13] your red x on a specific island and if you can find that island you're like oh sweet i have a treasure map for that let me go find what's buried here as well this game throws all sorts

[00:44:24] resources at you as well too which kind of helps with that pacing and with the fluid um we're moving into gameplay loop but already i don't mean to sort of speed us through this episode but i feel like

[00:44:34] i kind of am tonight um but yeah i just think the mechanics are solid um there's a really good like a weapon wheel or two belt wheel if you will as well here that's customizable um and in one

[00:44:47] of the more recent patches you can change how long a day is which i think is dude that that's okay that's actually the last thing i want to say about mechanics is there are some quality of life stuff here

[00:44:58] that are just phenomenal and being able to change how long a day is in real time love that dude beautiful thank you you know not ever having to fill up your watering can thank you you know what i mean

[00:45:10] um not being like tied back or restricted on being able to upgrade your weapons to higher and higher tiers or your tools i should say thank you you know the quality of life stuff just makes

[00:45:23] for all these systems to mesh that much better together let's talk about the gameplay loop i think this is uh this is a hard one to define for this game because there's like a dozen gameplay

[00:45:36] loops like jake mentioned there's what do i want to do today i can uh and this is terrible for somebody like me who has insane adhd because i'm like i feel like i can accomplish nothing because i'm like oh

[00:45:50] do i want to be a monster catcher and like upgrade my monsters and get more and like find more combos and do the dance there do i want to go explore do i want to go do a dungeon do i want

[00:46:02] to amp up my farms so i can be making more cash and like craft better stuff do i want to work on relationships there's just a million gameplay loops here uh do i want to explore do i want to

[00:46:12] discover more islands so like yeah i mean i i don't think there is another game that offers more in terms of like different kinds of gameplay loops like all rolled into one game where it's

[00:46:24] just kind of like take your pick yeah i would say as far as farming sim goes like farming sims go moonstone island might be the most open world one that i've played yeah um right precisely because

[00:46:41] of what you're talking about and i don't know if i would consider this like an open world game but yeah i would i would the thing about this game it works for a person like me because i want to

[00:46:52] plan out my entire week and so i pull up i pull up the game and i think okay this is where i left off and i'm like okay today i'm gonna get this done and i'm gonna focus on this and tomorrow

[00:47:02] i'm gonna do this and i think that third day in this game i'm gonna do this and so um depending on how you how much like direction you want and structure you want your games um this game

[00:47:14] could very easily turn into oh just play one more day and it turns into like oh crap it's 2 a.m and i need to go to bed or or like karen we're like maybe you just have indecision paralysis

[00:47:25] and you're just like um what do i want to do there's kind of a lot going on it's relatively daunting what am i actually trying to accomplish and so again i think moonstone island is a

[00:47:35] game that is designed where like some people are gonna really fall into the routine of this game and some people really aren't and i don't think i don't think this is a bad

[00:47:45] design decision at all but i do think that this is a little um well what's the phrasing i want like it's just not it's just really not like other farming sims i think in that regard you know like

[00:47:59] the gameplay loop is really open and like i've said a few times already i focused a lot on monster catching and so a lot of the core of my you know in game day today was okay i'm gonna

[00:48:11] wake up and explore and then when it gets to a certain hour i'm just gonna start monster you know fighting a bunch of monsters and leveling up my guys so i can get them really tough

[00:48:20] i'm gonna mark which mini dungeons i want to get accomplished in the day and then another mechanic which i failed to mention because there's a billion like there is a whistle where you

[00:48:29] can teleport home once for free every single day another awesome quality of life thing and so that's how i ended my days where it's like okay i need to make it to bed i'm gonna whistle

[00:48:38] home and then i'm gonna go tend to my farm and then i'm gonna go to sleep and so the beginning and the ends of my days are relatively rude like planned but the middle portion of the day

[00:48:48] i don't know whatever i felt like i needed to get done yeah i i had decision paralysis in this game and it didn't it didn't help my i think for me the gameplay loop is what is so critical

[00:49:05] to keeping me like i mean there's that obviously the narrative right the overarching like i want to understand like what happens but just like that natural yeah i want to know what happens

[00:49:14] next right and then with a game you combine like okay i want to know what happens next with like is the stuff that i'm doing in that little phase of figuring out what's going to happen next

[00:49:27] is that fun to do and this game like i think there's just i think what it pulls on is the variety of things to do and when you get bored of one thing you can kind of go do another

[00:49:38] thing which for me just it didn't work it didn't work for me i i kind of wanted again like the lack of narrative piece but then just having too much to focus on i like just didn't know how i

[00:49:50] wanted to spend my time and when that and nowadays especially like very recently when i hop into a game i kind of need the game to like really just tell me here's what you're going to be doing

[00:50:01] 100 right because i just don't want to think about it i just want to jump in it's like oh okay i know what i'm doing like i'm going and killing guys or i'm going in i'm gonna go i know exactly

[00:50:12] where i'm heading i have an objective and i'm going to do this thing and obviously they do give you objectives and there's a journal but it's it can be stuff like right you know just really broad

[00:50:21] strokes grandiose and having those kind of gives me anxiety because i can't check the box and get it done too so um those are just little things i think that that didn't didn't work super well

[00:50:32] for me but for those of you who do love just having like a ton of crap to do i think you're absolutely in for a tree and like like we said like it's all done well enough that you can get a

[00:50:43] lot of itches scratched from this game yeah yeah i think that's well said let's talk about the impact on the industry um and we'll expound on this category in our extended edition where

[00:50:56] we talk about the state of farming sims uh so if you're a patreon subscriber at the five dollar tier you will get access to that but get a little sneak peek as we break down the impact on the

[00:51:07] industry so moonstone island farming i mean is it really a farming sim i guess it kind of sits in that category cozy game whatever i don't know um i think it certainly markets itself and that's

[00:51:22] i'd be curious what sandi thinks about this this is why i'm really yeah i'd be really curious about he thinks about kind of where it markets itself but i don't know i it's i'm not clear kind

[00:51:33] of what the levels of success of moonstone island is having because that's really what it's going to all come down to um right but but i will say that like going back what i think the impact

[00:51:47] of moonstone island probably will be especially however it's you know however long it's it's tail is in terms of popularity it's just how many things that did in one game and did really pretty

[00:52:00] fantastically well which i think is just really impressive um and so i think probably what i expect or predict that it would be its biggest impact is depending on how successful it is

[00:52:15] like how big or how wild or how crazy do the ideas get across sort of the indie game sphere and especially like these big publishers that pick out games like raw fury like devolver

[00:52:28] are they gonna look at games like this and say like gimme your wackiest craziest thing right i just don't i don't want just roguelikes or stardew valley copycats right it's got to have

[00:52:40] just like go go wild right so and i think this game absolutely does go wild in just terms of how many things are thrown into one thing you know my comments in this category

[00:52:52] are relatively similar um i think my comments so or a little more of a warning um folks i think if you're an indie dev and you've got a great idea for a game um being able to manage the

[00:53:07] type of scope that this game has i think it's like once in a blue moon that an indie game is able to sort of pull off this type of balance and so this is kind of the reality of marking game of

[00:53:20] indie games and marketing them and getting pitches to publishers where you need something that's different and you need something that's going to be exciting and something that's not just a copycat but um how do you do that without making your scope go in totally wild

[00:53:36] and i think that's so so difficult to be able to design right like as as like the lead game designer of your indie studios game like how do you make that balance between trying to innovate

[00:53:47] and make something really cool but without your scope like just just going way out of proportion right and i think moonstone island um managed to hit that sweet spot but uh i don't know i i just

[00:54:01] feel like i would really hate for somebody to put so much time in developing a game with massive scope and have it not mesh as well as moonstone island does um i i just think it's a bit of a

[00:54:12] dangerous road maybe i'm being maybe i'm just being really pessimistic here but um i don't know indie games are often celebrated as being like this sphere where there can be a lot of innovation

[00:54:24] and game design and people can really push barriers and they can mash up weird genres i think like cold of the lamb is another wildly successful example of this but man i think it

[00:54:36] takes a maybe a lot more work to be able to pull that off than to just put out something that's really safe and so it's tough i don't know i think it's really tough aside from that i think like hey

[00:54:50] moonstone island is a great game and i while cameron and i have been either less than enthusiastic or lukewarm on sort of the openness of this game um i i wonder like what other indie

[00:55:04] games are willing to sort of open up the farming and life sim management types of games to be more open and character and what they do to really pull that off um and i do think moonstone island like

[00:55:17] you got to do your homework and play this game if if that's something that you're considering yeah i mean it's almost and again well this is a sneak preview i think of what we'll dig into

[00:55:28] but we've reached a saturation of there's too much that's too similar to stardew valley as the shining example of farming sims and the number one tier right and so if you're thinking if the impact

[00:55:45] is like hey let's look at moonstone island they probably made the biggest departure from this formula despite having like a lot of those elements that are super familiar in there but they probably made the biggest departure let's look at like how successful they were

[00:55:59] because you gotta have something you need to have a hook that in my opinion like it's got something's gotta be remixed or changed up someone's gotta like bring i don't know it's something some some change that like uh causes an impact that reverberates like through this genre

[00:56:24] that can kind of spill out into other games because we've seen so so many games that are just doing their version of stardew valley which i don't think is a bad thing by any means and like

[00:56:36] stardew valley is a great obviously one of the the most influential games like of the last decade right for sure uh but i think you gotta you gotta like make your stamp right um so

[00:56:54] and i think moonstone island island is pretty close to doing that at the very least doing it way differently than i think anyone else has done it yet like in this genre so

[00:57:05] kudos to them on that absolutely um i don't have anything else to say um in this category do you cameron i don't okay well with that ladies and gentlemen this has been our discussion of moonstone

[00:57:21] island uh go check this out this is on steam and switch coming soon question mark i feel i think yes switch coming at some point but i think early next year it's the last thing i saw but

[00:57:35] currently on on steam go check this out this is a great game especially if you're into the style of game and you want something a little bit different you want some monster catching you

[00:57:45] want some cool exploration uh go check this out on steam we'll have links to the store page and all that fun stuff in there for you to check out um you can follow us on x slash twitter

[00:57:58] at peer-recast me at uh master generic jake underscore at jake up underscore chiptip 18 you can find us on um discord join the discord we'll put a link to that in the description

[00:58:10] where you can come chat about video games and all sorts of fun other stuff and like we already mentioned if you want to continue the conversation have a longer episode you want to talk here

[00:58:20] about the state of farming sims you can sign up for the digital deluxe edition of the podcast on patreon.com slash peer-recast for just five bucks a month that gets you access to a whole

[00:58:31] bunch of extra content uh extended editions of our regular episodes early access jakes indian impressions and other goodies as we do them thank you so much for listening and have a great night