Pragmata with John from Gaming in the Wild

[00:00:10] Welcome, welcome, one and all. It's another Pre-Order Bonus podcast episode with me, Jake, the Pixel Professor, your host for the episode. Now, you're panicking. We're 20 seconds into this and you're like, where's Cameron? He always does this. Well, we made this announcement on a different social media platforms, but we have yet to make it in an official episode. So here it goes. I'm going to explain what's going on.

[00:00:36] So Cameron and I are extremely busy people and our lives are changing quite a lot with our kids getting older and us needing more sleep and just kind of trying to balance all the things that we've got going on, even just within the podcasting sphere. And so Cameron is going to be on the podcast part time. Essentially, he will be on every other episode or just about two episodes a month.

[00:01:05] And the episodes with Cameron will be the same episodes that we've always heard, that we've always done. We're going to feature a game. We're going to talk about it in three different categories. And we're going to be talking probably that opening section, I'll be honest, where we talk about gaming news will get bigger because there'll be just less time between things that are happening. So if you're listening to this and you're like, why haven't you guys talked about Summer Games Fest? Why haven't you talked about what's going on at Xbox?

[00:01:29] We'll just sit tight because when we do our next episode, which will be on 007 First Light, you can bet that we have a whole lot to say about what we liked, didn't like about Summer Games Fest and what the heck is going on over at Xbox. However, that means the episodes that Cameron won't be here. It'll be me. However, very rarely, and I would say that this episode is going to be one of the major exceptions.

[00:01:56] Very rarely will it be me talking, me Jake talking at you for 45 minutes or so. The plan will be to have a guest on the episode. So guests will start appearing much more frequently. And we will be we will follow the same format that we have used in the pre-order bonus podcast. We will be talking about games in categories and those categories, as you are well aware of, will be narrative, game design, impact on the industry.

[00:02:22] And we'll be keeping the same protocol where we won't really spoil a game unless I have a guest. It's like, oh, I'd really love to talk spoilers. If we do, we'll move that to the very end of the episode so you don't have to worry about anything being spoiled. But essentially, that's how that is going to go. So on those episodes where it is just me, there will be instead of me doing a 10 to 15 minute recap of game industry news, because that's stuff that Cameron and I really love talking about. I will be doing an indie spotlight.

[00:02:49] So if you are familiar with our Patreon or how our Patreon worked, there was a tier of indie impressions where I would release 20 to 30 minute episodes talking about an indie game that I had recently played and beat. Well, part of the reason why we're making these changes in the pre-order bonus podcast is that I was putting those out every single week. Now, I play a ton of indie games, but that was starting to get really taxing to put out those episodes weekly. And so indie impressions as a patron tier has been retired.

[00:03:18] And instead of doing the 10 to 15 minute recap of what's going on in the industry, what we're playing, kind of what's happening in our lives with Cameron, I'll be doing an indie spotlight where I'll be talking about an indie game that I've been playing for 10 to 15 minutes. So it'll be shorter than it has been historically with the Patreon. And then I'll get into the section that has a guest. And so what that means, if you're like, Jake, I don't really care so much about indie games. Like, good for you, man. I'm glad you love them, but I'm not a huge fan of them. Well, don't worry about it.

[00:03:48] We're going to be much more diligent about timestamps as well. So what you'll be able to do is you should be able to see a timestamp for when the episode kicks in with a guest when we're talking about whatever the episode game is. So I think everybody should win that way, right? If you are just interested in what's going on in the world of indies, if you are sad that Indie Impressions is being retired, if you're like, hey, this guy's a pixel professor. Why isn't he talking about indies? Well, guess what? We'll be talking about indies.

[00:04:16] The other thing that I would like to note is that after the indie spotlight, the games that are up kind of for rotation there that I will be doing with guests will not necessarily be indie games as much as I love them. I have been going back and playing a lot of I've been filling in potholes from my backlog. And there are so many, so many wonderful games that Cameron and I were never able to have an episode on that I would love to talk with somebody about.

[00:04:44] And so, for example, one of those first episodes will be the game Pragmata. I recently played through the cult classic now iconic game Eco, and I'm going to be reaching out to somebody to talk about Eco. I've been dying to talk to somebody on the show about Final Fantasy 15. I like Wu Chang Fallen Feathers. This is another game that I played or the first Berserker Kazan games that Cameron and I just weren't both interested in. But these are games that we're going to be talking about as well.

[00:05:14] And so those episodes with guests will not just necessarily be indie games. Now, there is one indie game that I desperately want to talk about, which is Bonnie Bear Saves Frog Time. So sometimes those will be indies. But essentially what I'm saying here is that in the episodes where it's me and a guest, it's still the full range of games available. They might be retro. They might be brand new. They might be indie. They might be obscure.

[00:05:41] It's just going to be this kind of huge gamut of different games that are going on. So in brief, in sum, essentially what will be happening when there are episodes without Cameron, which will be about every other one. I will start the episode. I will have an indie spotlight. And then I will cut to a segment with a guest in which we cover a game that can come from any corner of the games industry or medium. Yeah, with a guest, we'll be talking about that in our three regular categories.

[00:06:11] So that is what's going on. If this is a huge shock for you, it might be. I mean, talk to us about it. Please hop in our Discord. Send me a DM on Blue Sky. Talk to Cameron on his many social media. He's still on X. He's on Blue Sky. He's on Instagram. Talk to us about it. Let us know what you think. Let us know if that's going to work for you or what's going to change. If there's maybe something that you would want to suggest as well. We're all ears.

[00:06:38] So let's begin with the indie spotlight for this episode. And the indie spotlight is a game that came out this year, April 20th, 2026. This is All Hail the Orb. So this is developed by Legendre Dev, and this is published by Legendre Dev and Grab the Games. In full transparency, I was offered a review key for this game. And so many, many thanks to the publisher for allowing me to have that.

[00:07:08] Now, All Hail the Orb. Guess what? I'm the pixel professor after all. This is a pixel game. And what drew my attention to this game just beyond the really cool pixel art is the fact that it is absolutely bonkers. Now, I work from home. I guess you could say that I kind of have a hybrid schedule. So I'm a university lecturer.

[00:07:32] And essentially, what that means is I obviously have to be on campus for teaching classes because I teach face-to-face classes and in office and other responsibilities that I have. But oftentimes, I'll also be at home. So specifically, when I'm lesson planning or grading, those are things I don't have to go to my office for necessarily. And so I like to have incremental idle games in the background.

[00:07:54] In the last year or so, really ever since the game Rusty's Retirement came out, a game that I adore that comes from Mr. Morris Games who made Haiku the Robot, which was my indie game of the year pick the year it came out. Anyway, ever since Rusty's Retirement, I have really loved this genre. All Hail the Orb is this. So it's an incremental idler or idle game.

[00:08:19] And what this means is that you kind of have to play these games for the first, I don't know, for about 20 to 30 minutes. And then you can leave them on in the background while you're doing something and you just check in on them. And so you're like, Jacob, aren't these just mobile games? I mean, yes. In a way, idle games have existed for an incredibly long time. And the incremental kind of tag there, essentially what it means is that the numbers are going to get big really quickly.

[00:08:47] So, for example, in All Hail the Orb, you might need like 10 million of a currency in order to progress to the next stage. That's totally normal for these types of games. Totally, totally normal. But you're not supposed to be playing these games actively all the time. Like I said, for me, what I like about this on the desktop is the music. I mean, a huge part of these games for me is like I want to be listening to something while I'm grading or while I'm lesson planning.

[00:09:15] And oftentimes these incremental idler games have incredible soundtracks. And I love that. So I have a dual monitor set up is I can just check in, you know, and I'll have maybe the number go big incremental idler on one side and I'll be working on the other on the other monitor. And that's that's kind of what's going on. So, OK, so I'm interested in this genre. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to check out this game. What I like about All Hail the Orb. So many of you might not know this about me, but one of my favorite animals are ducks.

[00:09:45] I love ducks for a lot of different reasons. One, I mean, as commonplace as they are, they're like one of the hardiest birds, one of the hardiest animals. Right. This is and they're very cool because it can fly. They obviously live on land and they can swim. So they are masters of many different environments. There's a lot of kind of like ecological nerdy reasons why I really like ducks. The hardiness is one thing, but also the variety of ducks. They're very cool and very cute.

[00:10:14] And so I like ducks. And guess what? This game features a bunch of ducks. And so I was like, OK, great pixel art, great pixel art ducks, incremental idler. Let's check this one out. So I played quite a few of these, I would say, at this point. And there are a few things that can really bother me about these games.

[00:10:35] And it's when you can't really leave them alone, when you can't really just leave them and check in on them every 20 to 30 to 40, 50 minutes. Right. The way that I like to play these games is sure, I'll play the initial 30 minutes to set up the kind of loops so I can leave it be and just kind of let resources accumulate. From there, I like these games best when I can check in on them every 30 minutes.

[00:11:03] I can play, tinker around, get upgrades for five minutes, and then I get back to work. All hail the orb, I'm happy to report, does a really great job of this. Right. The other thing I love about it is that it's just immensely silly. It is not trying to do much other than, okay, you are basically running this cult. I mean, you recruit cultists.

[00:11:24] It's centered around ducks that are extremely cute, kind of rubber duck, pixel art little guys that just kind of cruise around this different, essentially dungeon. Dungeon. And it's just silly. I mean, you are powering a mysterious orb trying to free, which, you know, I don't want to spoil, but you're freeing something that resides in there. And the game has great humor. The NPCs are super silly, right?

[00:11:54] It's just, it's just, for me, this works beautifully when I'm trying to take a break from work. Maybe I've been thinking about something super serious, or maybe I'm grading a paper, and I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, I'm just frustrated. I need some sort of release, whatever it is. I'm not always frustrated while grading. Just, you know, that's pretty rare, actually. But yeah, all of those things, sometimes I just want a break, and I want something lighthearted. And all hail the orb does that, I think, incredibly well.

[00:12:20] Other incremental games that I've played like this, they are very lightly narrative. Because it's not, they're not super story driven for the most part. But oftentimes, they don't make an attempt at strong humor or personality. Usually, incremental idlers are selling you on a concept of like, hey, we are going to invest in this thing. And you get to do that, you know, ad nauseum or whatever. And you get to accumulate a bunch of hours in it.

[00:12:50] Other incremental idlers that I think do this really well would be like, oh my gosh, I just blanked. Tower Wizard. I've been playing Star Vester. This is a game that I've really loved. Cast and Chill is probably one of my favorites outside of Rusty's Retirement, where you can leave them be, and then you can come back to them. But also, they have personality, even though they don't have a strong story. And I think that's the point that I want to get out with All Hail the Orb.

[00:13:16] All Hail the Orb has strong, lighthearted, silly, humor that lands personality. And that makes it really shine. That makes it a really fun game to just kind of having going around in the background, right? So if this sounds like something that you would be interested in, this game retails for $7. They may be unfortunate, but I think probably more, I think it makes more sense to me anyway. This is only available on Steam.

[00:13:44] Sometimes these games make it to Switch, which to me doesn't make a whole lot of sense as idlers. When they are available on mobile, that to me kind of makes more sense for my brain. But yeah, so All Hail the Orb. It is on Steam. And if this is something that you are interested in, from what I can tell, this does not have any AI in its creation as well.

[00:14:10] So it's something to maybe keep in mind if that is important to you or not, whatever your opinion is on that. So I've been a big fan of All Hail the Orb. I'm still playing it. I give it two thumbs up for sure. And I recommend it to anybody who's interested in this genre, especially for folks who maybe want to test out this genre. Be like, hey, I work from home. Would this be a cool thing to have on in the background or is it going to be too distracting? This would be a good one to kind of test those waters. All right, folks. Thank you for listening to the Indie Spotlight. Sit tight.

[00:14:38] The regular episode will begin after a musical break. Welcome back, everybody, after the music break. But now we are going to begin the episode in earnest. We will be talking about Pragmata. And just for folks who are still getting accustomed to the new style over here at the Pre-Outer Bonus Podcast,

[00:15:07] we have a substitute for Cameron today. And we're recording this during the World Cup. So just think about this in terms of a substitution for a football team right now. And so you probably are familiar with the man who's joining me across the virtual table. This is John from Gaming in the Wild. We'll be talking about Pragmata. John, how are you doing? Very good. Very good. I'm off the bench. I am warmed up.

[00:15:32] I've had a couple of power raids, done my stretches, and I'm ready to get that goal that we need to win this podcast. Since podcasts are about winning, right? Yeah, I've got World Cup fever, obviously. You know, national sport over in Britain. So having a great time. And happy to be with you. Yeah, great to have you back. It's funny, when I first reached out to you to talk about Pragmata, I can't remember if it was you or I,

[00:15:59] but one of us pointed out that most of the conversations that we've had together are about science fiction action games, like sci-fi action shooters, and ones, let's see, that need somebody to come to their defense. This is, it's funny because, John, gaming in the wild, obviously you're heavily associated with indie games primarily. But the conversations we had last time you were on the Priority Bonus podcast, it was for Star Wars Outlaws.

[00:16:29] Which needs a defense like nothing else. Which, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we really are speaking, I think, in World Cup terms, right? The defense there is lacking for sure. And I don't think we did, no, we didn't do an episode with you on this, but Starfield, you're also an ardent defender of Starfield. Now, I think Pragmata kind of stands out in the sense that it probably doesn't need anybody to come to its defense.

[00:16:53] But there is, I feel like, a common thread between these three games and the conversations that we've had previously. You're right. You've identified like a chink in my taste, right? Which is, like, if you look at a Gaming in the Wild top 10 any given year, you're going to have like a card game. You're going to have some kind of like literary walking thing. And then you're going to have a AAA sci-fi blockbuster that people blink at and say, really? But it's just, man, I don't know. What can I say?

[00:17:23] We're like approximately the same age. I guess we grew up with Star Wars and probably got a bug for that kind of sci-fi early. And so, you know, the games that I dreamed of as a child, being able to explore an open universe, being able to hop planets and tear out of your ship on a speeder, being able to explore a moon base and just to soak it all in. Definitely my thing.

[00:17:50] Just perhaps like a slightly incongruous element of the whole picture. But an important one, I think. No, and I think it's a good thing. Something that I strive to do as much as I will also kind of go to the front lines and champion indies and indie games. And Indian games. And Indian games as well, too. What a slip. All right. I had a train of thought there.

[00:18:15] No, I think the reality of this is, I mean, games are fun and games are enjoyable and you can still have quality games from kind of any corner of the industry. Right. So it shows a sense of well-roundedness that I think is important to gaming. Right. Yeah. I don't. I mean, I always say at the start of Gaming in the Wild, it's interesting games from indie to AAA. I don't ring fence it just as indie stuff because, you know, Gaming in the Wild is like a bit of a gaming diary. I'm a one person operation.

[00:18:43] And so whatever I've been playing is the topic of the episode. Right. Yeah. And I play everything. And I love a blockbuster game as much as anyone. And I think that we've got a pretty good one today. A pretty interesting one, actually. Yeah. Pragmata really, honestly, the marketing cycle for this one was so, I would say, in your face. I felt like Pragmata was everywhere. And I, just from the trailers, was ready to pass on it and pick it up a year down the road when it went on sale.

[00:19:12] And it actually wasn't until it came out and I heard all this buzz that just really surprised me. And it was interesting just because the sales pitch of this game did not really grab my attention. Slow tank controls coupled with hacking mechanics. To me, it felt like, okay, we are going to be... This sounds too busy for me to really handle all the stuff that's happening on screen. As much as I graphically look good and as much as I have had kind of this Resident Evil awakening in the past year or so,

[00:19:41] where I've played a lot of the remake games, I was like, oh, I'm sure it's a good game, but it just doesn't look like it's for me. But having played it now, it's towards the top of my favorite games this year. It's been a nice little surprise. Yeah, same here. I think I was mixed on it. Like, obviously, like a shiny sci-fi game with like a crazy little robot person and like a clunky astronaut walking through dark halls. Yeah, I'm down.

[00:20:09] But then I saw this mechanic with the puzzles, you know? It's like you have to, like, what is it? Like rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time to play this game. And I thought, I don't know, man. That could hit or miss. And Capcom have been on a winning streak, but they do put out the odd clanger. And there was like a little air swirling around this game where you're like, this could be, you know, this could be either way. This could be one of those games that is a 73 and is never spoken of again.

[00:20:39] Or it could be like the start of something and it could hit the heights of some of the best form that Capcom has recently shown. And it turned out to be the latter for sure. I mean, there are a few complaints out there about the game from people who found it a little easy or people that found it a little short. But for me, it was really well pitched, really enjoyed it. I'm glad it was the length it was. And it seems like another big hit for Capcom. The streak continues.

[00:21:08] The streak continues. Yeah, they're having quite the year. It'll be really interesting to see as we get towards the end of the year how their games are going to be holding up against the others in the fabled game of the year conversation. But before we continue too much, this is still a pre-order bonus podcast episode, which means we will be talking about Pragmata in distinct categories. This has become our hallmark. And in fact, we've even gotten feedback when we've strayed from this of why didn't you do your categories, which I think is kind of funny.

[00:21:37] So got to make sure we stick to that. But the categories are as follows if you're new to the pre-order bonus podcast. First, we'll be talking about the narrative. We'll be talking about the story, the main characters, where it takes place. Primarily, we'll be focusing on the game thematically, maybe what resonated with us, maybe what rang a little hollow. And we will not talk beyond the first 20-30% of the game's narrative. And so there will be no major spoilers in here.

[00:22:08] Yeah, you can play the game or you can look up the spoilers elsewhere. But we're going to be talking about the game more thematically than anything else. Then we're going to move into the game design. And we'll talk about just the, we've alluded to it already, but essentially the nuts and bolts of how you interact with the game, how you play it, what works there, what doesn't work. We'll talk about design features that really functioned well and ones that were misses if we find that there were any misses. And then finally, the last category will be impact on the industry.

[00:22:36] Here, we are going to zoom out and we're going to speculate a little bit more about what are maybe the lessons that are learned in the games industry from a game like Pragmata coming out. This is a game we just, we were talking briefly, we've started recording. It has sold incredibly well for when it, since it launched. And so it'll be kind of interesting. This could be the start of a new trend here in pricing models, but we'll get to that when we get to the end of the episode. And so let us begin now. We'll be talking about the narrative.

[00:23:06] I'll turn it over to you, John. Was there, I don't know, your overall thoughts just on the story that's being told here in Pragmata? Yeah. It's like it would make a great science fiction movie, right? The intro is very cinematic. We get this like dropship sweeping into a moon base with a couple of guys who've come to just like check up why no one's radioing out of there.

[00:23:32] It's like a classic premise, you know, going towards the beacon, wondering what's happening. Soon enough, like the team is gone and it's just Hugh, our protagonist, battling his way through this station, and trying to get out. And that's the whole deal, right? So it's like a classic sci-fi premise. There's a lot of interesting world building packed into it that unfolds as it goes. And I think actually like a lot of it's kind of between the lines, right?

[00:23:57] Like you travel from hub to hub within this little space station and each one is run by a different corporation, has different logos and different purposes. And so there's a lot of world building there for people who want it. But I think that a lot of people probably skate past it and just enjoy the spectacle. But it seems like they've tried to build out what this base actually is, what its function is, how that's woven into the story.

[00:24:26] But yeah, I mean, who doesn't like that premise, right? Coming to a station in distress, diagnosing the problem, getting into trouble, and then having to get out of there if you possibly can. Yeah, I agree with you. This, as far as I have actually on my mind right now, just with other things I'm thinking about, but movie adaptations of novels and of video games. Yeah, I think this is very much teed up to function quite well in a two-hour movie package, right?

[00:24:55] I love how this game begins because it starts like in many arrests. You start with this action, but we're not given like an hour-long explanation as to why this lunar base exists. We're focused on this team, like you said, that's checking out what the heck is going on because they're not getting radio back from it. I think it's a very clever way just to get us into the action, get us into the character of Hugh, and to give us urgency and purpose, which is, okay, let's explore why the heck everything,

[00:25:23] why the crap is hitting the fan here. And I don't know, I just love that. Rather than trying to kind of front load a feast of world building, it's spoon-feeding you interesting things, breadcrumbs that you want to follow. Yeah, I like it when we get a protagonist that doesn't know everything, and so we learn alongside them, you know? Yeah. But there were some interesting little things they did there. I mean, sometimes when a new AAA game comes up, I will say to my girlfriend,

[00:25:52] like, this is going to be a big one, that's a cool one. Do you want to sit and watch the first hour or something? And she'll say yeah. And we were watching the landing sequence and the team coming out and sort of commenting on it with her. And this guy was like, yeah, my two kids and my third one on the way. And we both went, he's dead. He's dead. He's gone. He's gone any minute now. Anyone that's got two kids and a third one on the way is on their way to a quick death. Yeah. But I mean, that's not a spoiler, right? This is within the first sort of 10 minutes of the game.

[00:26:22] Yeah. No, no, you're good. You're good. Yeah. But then like, there was also a really cool bit where the team starts setting up, wondering why the lights aren't on, wondering why there's no welcoming party. And they sort of scatter out a little bit. There's a couple standing by a big window that gives you a vista over the moon. Yeah. And you can kind of see the scale of the bass. And they just have a little chat. Like one of them is feigning ignorance to help us have this little conversation. He's like, what's this bass for anyway? The other one's like, well, it's a 3D printer basically. And so we can sit there and listen as Hugh. You don't have to.

[00:26:52] You can just wander off. But I hung around there for a good couple of minutes, just hearing them converse about what the bass was. Felt like a nice organic way to pack some of that in. Yeah, I agree. I think the word that right there at the end you said is organic. I mean, the narrative here. Yeah, you're given. I just love this. You're given urgency. You're given a reason to kind of do what you're doing. And then you will slowly kind of pick things up as you're just walking around and walking through the bass.

[00:27:20] Something that I've come to really appreciate from Capcom games, from Resident Evil games, is that there are plenty of notes scattered everywhere. Those notes are probably at most five paragraphs long. And they tend to be written in such a way, I don't know, I find them to be engaging or funny, where it's like, this is an email of somebody who's really pissed off. It's three paragraphs long. And the point of this is to teach you one thing about the world. And so I love this kind of really breezy, but also optional way of kind of learning about what's going on.

[00:27:49] And that same kind of storytelling method takes place here in Pragmata. It works incredibly well. Soon enough, you're going to run into Diana. Well, she has, I can't remember what her name is. I think I have it here. Pragmata DI03367. He was like, I'm not going to call you that. I'm going to call you Diana. And so that's who she becomes. And I think that's one of the most memorable sequences of the game, actually.

[00:28:14] You know, you kind of fall through the floor after this earthquake and find yourself lying in a hole, basically. And he's kind of unconscious. It's something that I will not forget from this game is this moment where this small, beatific, cherubish child comes out of the wreckage with a big blue coat on, a big optimistic expression. You're like, what on earth? Like, why is this? Why is this who we find here? Are there children on this ship?

[00:28:41] And yeah, she kind of stitches you up and gets his suit fixed. And he comes to, and he's kind of equally confused. But it's such a memorable moment. It's a, like, it's the early story twist that kind of comes to define what the game is, right? Is that you're with an unexpected child in this scenario. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:01] And what I love about this is it's not bubbly child and, you know, cold-hearted, grumpy old man story, which I feel like that happens quite a lot, especially I feel like in children's media, right? Where there's, like, okay, you have this older adult, super grumpy. They're jaded because of some tragedy that happened in their life. And then some child warms their heart and fixes them, right? Yeah. It's less than this. Yeah. For example, right?

[00:29:30] Hugh, on the other hand, this is somebody who, as you come to learn more about him, he has experienced, you know, tragedies and he hasn't had exactly an easy life. But he's not grumpy. And I actually found this to be pretty refreshing where he's, like, pretty open and he's like, okay, I'm just going to roll with the punches here. A little bit of a golden retriever kind of attitude where it's just like, okay, well, this is life now. I'm going to be working with Diana and we're going to be kind of going through the space station together.

[00:30:01] I liked it, though, because it kind of set the tone for this game to be, like I said, just welcomed in those lighthearted moments much more easily. And like the childlike wonder of Diana as she's kind of discovering like what humanity is and kind of how humanity operates and things that are important. So, like, you'll be able to collect like these different, I forget what they're called, but I think they're called like Earth memories. And she'll ask like, oh, so this is what this is like on Earth and this is what kids do on Earth.

[00:30:28] And I just found this to be enjoyable because he was like, okay, Diana, let's just talk this out. Let's work through this. And that's, I don't know. It's an interesting partnership. It's absolutely, I think, meant to be kind of like father-daughter. Although for me, again, the word organic comes back up. This really didn't feel like gruff old man is like, now I have the burden of taking this child along with me.

[00:30:53] But rather like, okay, let's form this partnership and let's move forward together. Yeah, I was just thinking about it as you were talking. And I think, like, in essence, it's probably more odd couple than Joel and Ellie. Right? It's like Diana is an odd little creature you've come across who is necessary to your journey. And Hugh is this just an everyman type character. And they kind of bounce off each other. Excuse me. They kind of bounce off each other in an interesting way.

[00:31:25] It's not the relationship you might automatically expect. I think, if anything, I was... When it comes to the script writing and the trajectory of the story, I was... I thought if it were me writing this, I think Hugh may have been a little more suspicious for a little longer. Because he has found this creature that is an AI. It's an AI child in a robotic body. This is known.

[00:31:50] And Hugh starts treating her like his beautiful little chum, like, pretty quickly. Yeah. Like, he goes from like, what are you... Like, he has like a few seconds of like, get away from me, you strange robot child. And then pretty quickly, he's like, come along, my beautiful robot daughter. In like three scenes. So they just sped that through, right? I think if it were written to be realistic, then Hugh may have been more skeptical about Diana for longer.

[00:32:20] Although she does turn out to be intensely helpful because she has hacking abilities that he does not have. She can open doors on the station. She can hack the antagonists. The automaton robots that are murderous and going off the charts. And the main problem you're going to have in the game. And so she becomes essential to him very quickly, which maybe speeds along his appreciation of her. Let's be generous and say that's what's happening. Yeah. Honestly, I think we can talk about like the length of the game later.

[00:32:49] But this is for AAA game. This is probably on the shorter side of things. Because it's not like this big, grandiose open world epic adventure. And I think part of the narrative pacing here just kind of works to get us moving along. Which I found to be okay. There's more in this story that they want to tell and they want to focus on. I personally, from this point out, I didn't check out of the story. But I definitely went along for the ride. I think I stopped trying to read into it.

[00:33:17] And I started seeing it like more like, okay, this is a blockbuster popcorn flick. I don't think that's a problem. I think there's absolutely space. No pun intended for stories like that. And they work and they're fun and they're enjoyable. And that's what this game ended up being for me. It was like, okay, we have our duo. We're going to learn why there's a bunch of autonomous murderous robots. Why we got to stop them. Why the lunar base is failing. We're going to talk a little bit about 3D printing.

[00:33:46] I thought that was kind of a nice little touch to put in there to make something that felt a little more just like grounded. I think in terms of like, this is the point of this base installation is we can 3D print things here really massively and easily. And that ties in really neatly with different narrative themes and kind of just how the game progresses generally. Yeah, the open questions of, I mean, the most urgent being why is the base broken?

[00:34:11] Why is this AI that's in charge of it malfunctioning and trying to kill human intruders? But that's the main thrust of the story. But the main point of interest for me is, was why is Diana? Diana. And I think that that was, I had a theory within 10 minutes of the game starting that turned out to be exactly what it was.

[00:34:35] So this is a, if you're familiar with movie tropes, if you're familiar with sci-fi movies, it's what you want it to be. It's a comfortable story. It's enjoyable. I think like a lot of blockbusters, actually, the opening section is awesome. It's where you're learning everything. The middle section is interesting where you're going through the meat of the story and getting into things. And then the last section tends to be the part I don't like.

[00:35:01] It's like in Batman, you have him like going to the top of a mountain and Buddhist monastery and learning to be Batman. And in the middle, you have like a new villain. You learn who they are. And at the end, it's like a lot of people fighting on trains, like doing karate on a moving vehicle. And like, you know, the action finale. And I think that this story was like that too. Really enjoyed the opening where the mystery is fresh. The setup is always the most interesting part in some ways.

[00:35:29] And then the middle part was really good where you're going around the hubs of the station. You're learning what it's for. You're learning more about Diana. Then at the end, it kind of pumps things up a lot. You know, I'm not going to spoil it, but it's just obvious that's going to happen. It pumps the story up a lot. It adds new elements to it. And at that point, I was rolling my eyes a little bit. So I will say that, I mean, by the end, it kind of held me through it and I got through it. And at the end, I was satisfied.

[00:35:56] But I will say that the last third of the game, I wish that they would have chilled out a little bit. Let the story just be a Hugh and Diana story. But it has to be a lot more and be pumped up a lot. And that was a little bit of a disappointment to me. But it's very much in the format of a blockbuster movie or a AAA game story. Yeah, I agree. I think it's really safe in that way. It's not really trying. It has, it has, it like injects some interesting elements to it for sure.

[00:36:24] Like you're saying in this middle section, it has something to say about AI and the creation and use of AI. It has something to say about what happens if you have a material that's very easy to 3D print and to create a whole lot of things in, you know, very quick time. And it's got things to say. And I think those little moments are interesting. But yeah, overall, I agree. It's a really safe story. Yeah. And I want, again, I'm not going to spoil this either. But I'll just say it's a limited cast of characters.

[00:36:51] And if you're familiar with this type of story, you can piece things together quite, quite quickly based on what point of the story you're at. It is very much a three-act narrative arc. And you're going to get through that. Unless there's anything else you want to say about the narrative, I think this is a good time to start talking game design. Let's do it. All right. The game design, this is probably, oh man, the combination of third-person shooter and hacking.

[00:37:20] It worked. And I can only imagine how much time Capcom spent refining this system. Because like I said earlier, the pitch, the sales pitch here seemed to me like, yeah. And you said it this way, right? Rubbing your stomach and then patting your head at the same time. It just seemed like it was going to be way too much information and inputs to manage simultaneously. But it really worked. I have a few ideas on why it worked for me. But let's hear it from you, John.

[00:37:49] Is there something about that that really worked for you? Yeah. I mean, the combat when we saw it in trailers was intriguing. So we see Hugh in his giant hulking space suit. We see Diana hanging on his back in a little blue coat. And we see enemies coming towards them. And it seems that like time slows down for a second. And there's like a little hacking minigame that looks a little bit like a phone keypad, like an old-fashioned phone keypad, right? And you're kind of like popping the numbers and stuff.

[00:38:18] And then suddenly they're available to be destroyed. The robots have opened up. And then you can shoot the weak points and take them down. If they are not opened up, you only get chip damage. You're never going to take them down that way. And so it's an absolutely essential core facet of the combat gameplay that you have to do this hacking thing. And the question was, if I'm – I mean, I think about the game Two Cars when I think about rubbing your tummy and patting your head.

[00:38:47] It's a game where you've just left brain, right brain game where you have to move two cars using your two thumbs to avoid obstacles. And it's surprisingly compellingly difficult and interesting. And I spent a lot of time playing two cars. And two cars is fine. But then if you kind of make one of the cars navigating three-dimensional space with a character with the right stick on the camera and the left stick on the movement and the trigger buttons to wield or fire a gun.

[00:39:13] And then the other car is doing this like puzzle solving where you have to take a little line from A to B past obstacles. I was like, that's maybe – like maybe these two cars are like too big. It's like a lorry rig and a Ferrari instead of just like – you know what I mean? It's like a lot of control. So I had a skeptical feeling about how it might work. But I think that they've done some really good stuff to make it work.

[00:39:40] Like the enemies don't press you incredibly hard at first. They lumber towards you like zombies. They leave you the breathing space to get that puzzle solved. And so it feels like they're pressing towards you. You get the feeling of them being oppressive. And like as the game progresses, they get faster and more aggressive. But at first, they're just zombies that come towards you. And so you have about the right amount of time to get it done. And it's incredibly well judged in onboarding you into that.

[00:40:09] And like throughout the game, a lot of the enemies are slow. So at least in my experience, they are sort of big tanky things that stomp towards you. There are a couple that charge you later on and stuff like that. So you have to work on your space management. But by then, you're adept with it. So I think for the first half of the game, it's basically slow, clunky enemies that give you a feeling of threat. But the time to do it right. And it really works. I absolutely agree.

[00:40:36] I think the pacing of difficulty here is superbly measured. Like in the beginning, yeah, it gives you plenty of time with these enemies as they are just slow lumbering at you. And it's great because I feel like I could, you know, sense the Resident Evil roots in this game where it's like, okay, it's the same kind of zombies you get at the beginning of a Resident Evil game. They're slow. They maybe don't have a ton of health. But you have time to navigate that space.

[00:41:05] And most of the pressure, like the tension that you get is from your own anxiety to be able to complete the task on time. It's actually really not from the enemies themselves because they are moving much slower than I feel like your brain perceives them while under pressure. But yeah, the beginning of this game, the hacking minigame, it's small grids that you're working through. The controls I found to be surprisingly intuitive. And I think that this is the other element to why it worked for me.

[00:41:33] So I play this on PS5. So I'm holding down the left trigger button. And that's how you lock on to an enemy, sort of. That's how you bring up like the hacking minigame if they're within scope. And then with the minigame, you're using the symbols on the right side. So triangle, square, cross and circle to worm your way through hitting specific nodes. To get north, south, east and west, right? Correct. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. To get towards essentially the execute button on the grid.

[00:42:02] And it's really straightforward at the beginning. And what I love about this is as much as the game will start throwing more difficult enemies at you. I agree. By and large, they're still pretty slow by the end of the game. But there's some they're going to charge. And you're going to have to have more spatial awareness. You also can unlock more nodes. And you can kind of customize what type of nodes you want to appear on that hacking screen. And so one of my favorite ones was the multi-hack.

[00:42:28] Where if enemies were bunched together, if I could execute a hack on one enemy, it would spread to nearby enemies. And it was like, great. This is fantastic crowd control. So as much as I felt like there was a time, pressure, or tension on you to execute something very quickly, you were always allowed an opportunity to give yourself breathing space to reset, re-navigate like a room, or to shut down multiple enemies and then deal out massive damage when they're down. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:42:58] And Hugh is like a bulky character that's quite slow. But he does also have like an air dash. So if you find yourself in a pickle, you can like jump and dash away and kind of move around the space and space management. And then like hacking, using your hacks, as you said. I really like the shock hack. So if you've got a big enemy that is on your case, you can shock them, take them out of the battle for a little while, and then just like take out a few small guys. So you can immobilize them, or you can open them up further.

[00:43:28] And you can kind of chain them together as well. So there's little symbols that appear in the hacking grid that you've armed, can be chained together in interesting ways. And you can end up like, there is skill trees and stuff as well, this being a Capcom game. And you can power up Diana an awful lot. I've watched streamers play it. I put a lot of energy into Hugh. I don't know, it's just, I will always power up a gun if I can. I will always power up offensive damage if I can.

[00:43:54] But I watched a streamer who put everything into Diana and the effectiveness of hacking in the skill tree. And they played the game kind of differently to me. They were shooting less, hacking more, having more sort of knock-on effects from shock and flame and overheating, a system that I didn't even engage with really. I played it mostly as a hacking and gunplay game. So there is a little bit of surprising latitude within how you can make the system work for you. I agree.

[00:44:22] Yeah, I ended up using the overheat actually quite a lot. So by the end of the game, I was able to stun enemies and then go in for a quick finisher kill. And yeah, that's how I primarily played it towards the end there. It was sometimes less effective when it came to bosses just because, you know, their overheat meter is massive. But yeah, I agree. I was surprised, especially when you're looking at like the main stat upgrade screen, the one that you're talking about where you can upgrade like Hugh's defensive capabilities,

[00:44:51] offensive capabilities, and then Diana's hacking capabilities. It's really just three main stats that you can upgrade. You can upgrade and you can collect a whole lot of different hacking nodes and weapons, and you can upgrade those as well. Yeah, maybe more consequential is upgrading weapons because you're deciding your play style at that point, right? Like, are you going to be an in-their-face shotgun kind of guy? Are you going to be like a sort of sniper who hacks and then hits from afar?

[00:45:27] Yeah, I agree. In part, I think like with the skill path, it feels like pretty basic, like pretty rudimentary. It's like, okay, we're getting increased HP. We're getting increased, you know, gun power damage. Diana's hacking is quicker and more effective and does more damage as well. And so, yeah, but a lot of different tools kind of to work with. And the point that I'm getting at here is like all the tools were pretty straightforward and simplified, where it's like, okay, this is what this gun does.

[00:45:55] And there are four different categories of guns, essentially like crowd control, support, heavy fire, and then maybe just regular fire or something like that would be my off-the-cuff definition of those categories. But they're all relatively simple. Homing rockets does homing rockets. And if you want to upgrade it, your upgrades will be like homing rockets charge faster. They do more damage.

[00:46:20] And so as you had all of these options, but I never felt like I was bogged down in trying to min-max or figure out like fine-tune everything. I think you could, right? Like you're saying with streamers you've watched, I think you could really fine-tune and have like, okay, I'm going to have like a, you know, hacking build and I'm going to focus everything into hacking. But for, I think that every, like the every man regular player who picks up this game,

[00:46:48] it'll be quite easy to find something that works for you. And that thing will work for you for the entirety of the game. Yeah. Yeah. I really liked the weapons and I was kind of surprised. I felt like they'd gone an extra mile with this one. Like the amount of stuff that you can, the amount of stuff that's in the hub, like, like powering up your weapons, powering up your hacks, powering up Diana, powering up Hugh, collecting your cubes, collecting your currency,

[00:47:13] unlocking your virtual missions, which are actually something that I usually ignore. But in this game played all of because of the, the valuable rewards that they have. And then you're also unlocking these like secret diaries along the way. And I think that maybe when it comes to the gameplay and the structures of this game, the thing that I loved about Pragmata the most is that you can feel the Capcom expertise being brought to bear on how the systems interrelate to each other.

[00:47:43] And when you're out in the world, you might get a red key to open a door. That's a combat arena that then teaches you combat that you're then going to see out in open play. And it will also give you some currency that will allow you to then go into the computer and unlock something there that is perhaps relevant to plot. And so all of the systems of exploration, combat, combat challenges, virtual missions, the various currencies, keys, upgrades, weapons that you unlock, it all was so elegant to me.

[00:48:11] And I really felt like this is, this is just Capcom doing Capcom things. And that was maybe, I felt like I was in safe hands throughout the duration of the game. You know, later on, they introduced new types of puzzles, like some sort of crate moving soccer band almost. And like different kinds of things that you maybe weren't expecting to see. They kept like raising the stakes, introducing a new weapon, introducing a new enemy. Every area had something new, had a problem and it had a solution in the weapon that you get.

[00:48:40] And then by the end, you're just fully tooled up and you're getting, you know, waves and waves of all of the mixed enemies that you've learned how to deal with. So it's like just classic video game stuff of teaching you, equipping you, challenging you, and then like letting you cut loose with it all towards the end. So, you know, just A plus stuff. I mean, this is a game that is like an 80 Metacritic sort of game, right? Maybe a bit higher. I'm thinking maybe it's 85, 84, something like that.

[00:49:07] But to me, like the sheer craft elevates it a little bit. So I'm probably a little bit higher on it because of all of that good gameplay design by the end. You know, it's funny, as you were listing off the different currencies, I don't think it dawned on me how many currencies are actually in this game, which is usually a point that bothers me where it's like, okay, I need to go farm this thing. What is this thing? Where do I get this thing? Where am I finding this thing? Yeah.

[00:49:36] And I think you've explained it really well where do the side content, one, because it's short, and two, because it's rewarding in multiple ways, right? I thought about the different the red door areas that I accomplished. And you're not just chasing one specific item or currency from it, but you get a lot of different ones when you do that extra stuff. So yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, yeah, every time I went back to the hub, I essentially could spend something somewhere.

[00:50:03] And that always feels good when it's like, okay, I'll upgrade this. Oh, look, I managed, there's like, I think maybe one rare resource in the game, and it's the pure lunum, and it's required for a few specific, you know, like... High-grade game updates, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That was maybe it, but I still found them, and I was able to use them, and I was able to get some of those higher upgrades in there. I never felt bottlenecked in terms of any of the upgrade paths,

[00:50:33] which always, I think, feels fantastic as a player. And can I say, actually, that like, another design thing that struck me is that when you come into the hub, there is one desk where you upgrade using the cubes, the orange cubes that you see in the world. You see them from a distance, you're like, oh, that's orange, it's a cube, I know what that is, I know what it's for. And then when you come into the hub, the desk that allows you to spend your cubes is orange and has a little holographic hub rotating on it. So you're like, oh, that's the cubes that I saw right there, that's how I spend them.

[00:51:02] And then it's got a picture of Hugh and Diana on the screen, and you're like, that's what I use, that colour, that shape is what I use to upgrade this. And then the blue shape is on the blue desk, and it has a picture of all of your other stuff or whatever. And so it's all very visually laid out. Like I was noticing the elegance of that as well. And I think that's why it doesn't feel bothersome. You're like, okay, my cubes are for this. And when I walk into the hub, I know where to spend them. My blue things, my lithium, and my little robot coins

[00:51:31] are with the robot coin guy who looks like a robot coin. So it's so helpful to have that visually threaded through the game. Yeah, I agree. I'm shifting gears a little bit. I would like to talk a bit about level design. This game is extremely linear. I would not say it's a Metroidvania. However, you do get abilities and it unlocks not critical path, but like extra side content and other avenues of things to explore.

[00:52:00] If you're interested in more upgrade materials or just playing the game more fully, that's all available to you. I loved this level design because it felt organic. You know, there's that word again, as you're kind of making your way through this lunar base. But also just everything was valuable. And so nothing was going to take me like 45 minutes. This is one of my biggest turnoffs when I know there's side content. Because I'm like, ooh, I think the rewards here are going to be really cool.

[00:52:30] Is this going to take me like 45 minutes to an hour to complete? Right. Whereas Pragmata is like, we'll never ask you more than 10 minutes, I think, to complete any of those optional things. And so if I'm judging how much time I have to play a game, I'm like, I want to make progress in Pragmata. Or maybe tonight's session, I'm going to spend 30 minutes kind of going back, doing red doors, going through previously inaccessible areas. It never felt cumbersome. And actually, as we're having this conversation,

[00:52:58] I think that's probably my biggest takeaway is like, this game never impedes you from playing it. And however you want to play it. And I think that's pretty rare in a game. Yeah, I think you're right. I love the level design too. I loved that, you know, I played Requiem earlier in the year. And you know, when you first get into the hospital in Requiem, and a new door opens, and it's a couple of corridors, a couple of rooms, and you inch your way through them, and you're scared, you're peeking around the corners. And then you become familiar with them,

[00:53:27] and they start to connect to each other. And maybe the most notable thing about Requiem in that sense was the way that it slowly unfolds. And Pragmata is like a friendlier version of that. Like it's not a horror game. But at first, you will feel a sense of the unknown as you are first exploring each corridor, reading the blogs, the emails, learning what this area was for. And then it will become second nature,

[00:53:57] and you will come to those Metroidvania points where there are crystals you can't blow up yet, doors you can't unlock yet, note them in your mind. And then you will come to think of these areas as cozy. Like when you're coming back to backtrack, you're like, okay, there's a couple of enemies here, I know where they're going to be, I know how to take them down. And you'll sort of dance through those areas. And it's still fun because there's a mixture of platforming and little combat rooms, exploration, secrets that are off track.

[00:54:26] Although they are very generously, like everything in this game, signaled. Like you say, it's a comfortable game to play. And so if there is a secret you might miss, they try to make sure you won't. They put it next to a little something that will catch your eye. There's sometimes a little trail of collectibles leading to a secret wall. It's a game that does want to be played, does want to be enjoyed. And so it has the intricacy of Resident Evil design, like Resident Evil Requiem's design,

[00:54:55] but with a friendliness to it that an oppressive survival horror doesn't have. So you kind of get the best of both worlds, you know? Yeah, I agree. I think when I did do backtracking, which I did, this is very typical of how I play games though. The first, like up until the halfway point, I will try to do all of the content. And then I reach a point where, okay, I kind of just want to see how this thing ends. And so I'll stop doing it. So when I was doing the backtracking though,

[00:55:23] it felt great going back to some of these areas. I'm familiar with them. I have all the shortcuts unlocked. And yeah, you just, like you said, you just kind of dance through them. You know the enemies, you've come back stronger. You have better nodes. You have equipment that you're more familiar with that's a little more upgraded. And so yeah, this game just makes it so easy to go back and to collect and to explore. And it's just such a joy to do that. I love that when it's not cumbersome. I love it when it's like, okay, if there were ever a point, and I really don't think there was a point

[00:55:53] where I wanted to farm materials. It was much more like, I want to see what's behind this red door. And I think that's a really difficult to accomplish as well for game design to have the player think, or really just have the player go back to this childlike wonder, just exploring a game. I've mentioned this before, but something that I admire and I envy so much for my kids when they are playing games is that they have no objectives when playing. They just want to play the game.

[00:56:21] So a little bit of a tangent here, but both of my older kids, so they're 10 and eight now, they have been playing Tears of the Kingdom for years at this point, and they refuse to finish it because they just want to keep seeing what's over there, what's in there. Like what they, there's driven by curiosity more than anything else. And as an adult, sometimes I'll sit down, I'm like, I have exactly one hour and 47 minutes to play games. How am I going to optimize my time playing this game?

[00:56:50] Yeah, and a podcast to make about it. Need to get through this thing. I need to finish this game and I know that this is going to happen. Yeah. So I have my whole life planned out down to the minute. But Pragmata, I think for me, kind of through its game design, allowed me just to be curious about what was behind a red door, which is a feeling that is also pretty rare for me these days. Yeah, and it's very generous with that as well. Like it doesn't waste your time at all. Like when you are back at Hub,

[00:57:18] you can look at any area you've been to and see your completion percentage. You can see exactly what remains for you there. You can see if there is pure lithium stuff that you might need. Linium, what's it called? I think Lunum. Lunum, linoleum. You can go get the rest of your linoleum and upgrade a weapon that maybe you want to use more. You know what I mean? So it kind of, it makes the backtracking approachable. And I think, you know, in Metroidvania style games, that's been an issue in,

[00:57:48] you know, it's like, where was that crumbly floor now that I've got the crumbly floor power? Yeah. And in a game like Silksong, it's like, it could be anywhere, mate. And there have been various, various attempts to ameliorate this, like Prince of Persia, allowing you to take a snapshot of a pin. So not only do you get a pin on the map, but you can see why you put that pin there. So you can refer to that. And I think that Pragmata takes some of those lessons. It has a really good map

[00:58:17] that shows you where everything is. It has a really good system that tells you what's left in that area for you to find. And so when all of these things come together, it's uncommonly approachable in a way that made me love it more. It's like the anti-Elden Ring. It's like, come enjoy the game. Here's what you need to do. Have a good time. Here's a save point five minutes after the last save point. So you can fast travel anywhere later in the game and you can always save and dip out,

[00:58:46] dip in if you want to. And here are virtual missions where you can do Pragmata as a platformer for 10 minutes and then get a good reward or Pragmata as a boss rush and get 10. So they've imagined the game in all of these different ways and used its systems and given you many levels of what Pragmata might have been if it was a platformer. So they're also short, enjoyable, snappy. You can play it for 10 minutes and there's always going to be a save point for you. You're never going to find yourself worrying about that,

[00:59:16] which really helped too. It really helped me. I would jump in for 20 minutes, do some virtual missions and then jump out. It didn't get that feeling of tiredness when you sit down to play it that you sometimes get where you're like, oh God, there's such a big mission ahead. This is going to be ours. Yeah. Yeah. And these days, that is one of my biggest fears is, oh no, I have a big, this looks like it's the next big main story mission. How much time do I have? Am I going to risk staying up late tonight? I have to wake up early tomorrow. You know, gaming as an adult, you know,

[00:59:46] the problems that we have now. So, I think this is a good time to transition talking about impact on the industry. Is there anything else about game design you wanted to get out there? Just a little bit, actually. Yeah, let's hear it. There's a couple of bits that kind of I missed from the story part, like another one of the rewards that you get, you mentioned the read-only memories, the Earth memories, which are things that you find out there. And the reward you get for those

[01:00:18] representations of Earth stuff. You're in a 3D printing base so they can print anything and they can print like a swing or a basketball hoop. I won't spoil any more of them, but there's a lot of them. And then the reward you get for that is seeing Diana play with them. So she comes over to you so excited, jumps up and down and is like, oh, I can't wait to see what this does and then uses it wrong. Like my favorite was a skateboard and then you come back to base and she's like lying face down on it using her hands and feet to push herself along like a little skateboard dolphin.

[01:00:47] And so you get all of these wonderful moments from those collectibles too. And I think that that gave it a sense of warmth as well. Like when you came back to Hub, I mean, you're a parent, I'm not. Like there was a sense of like, oh, this is the little family area here. We've got a little chalkboard and we can come back and Diana's drawing something. And it had a sense of warmth when you come back to spend your currency, chat with Diana. She's always got dialogue. Like if you're in the middle of a boss fight and you died and went back to Hub, if you talk to Diana,

[01:01:17] she'll say, whoa, that was tough. Those missiles, huh? You know, she's always got dialogue for you and that really made it feel alive as well. So I think Diana's presence in the game and again, the way that those things plug together, just such a good game, such a nice game, man. Yeah, I agree. I'm glad that you brought this back to Diana because there's a few points that I wanted to mention about her that I noticed as a parent, which I think is oftentimes, I don't know,

[01:01:46] she's supposed to be like six or seven, maybe, right? Like about that's the age she's supposed to represent. When my kids were that age, they would ask a lot of questions they knew the answers to already just for confirmation that they weren't wrong because at that age, kids, they have kind of started, they're starting to wake up to the fact that they're a part of this wider world and they want to understand what living is and it's a beautiful thing. Sometimes it can be really annoying, I'll be honest,

[01:02:15] if your kid is asking the same question for 30 minutes and you're like, dude, I answered this and I know you know the answer to this, right? But in terms of what Diana's doing here, I think that there's this really difficult space to get between, which is when you have a secondary character or an NPC that is constantly coaching or guiding you through a game versus a secondary NPC that has a personality and is just your companion and I think Diana never really falls into like,

[01:02:45] this is the annoying telling me how to play the game, telling me how to beat the boss. Yeah, good point. Good point. I think what you brought up, that quote exactly is kind of what made me think of this too is she'll say something like, dang, those missiles were really tough, right? And maybe it was true that you died to the missiles or that's where you took the bulk of your damage but it's not like, well, Hugh, you got hit by missiles three times more this attempt than the last one. In order to dodge them, I think it would be kind of cool if you did this thing or you used this thing, right?

[01:03:16] It's not that and it feels to me much more like, okay, if I were in a combat scenario with my six or seven year old, they'd probably be like, dang, what are we going to do about those missiles, huh, dad? You know? Thankfully, that's not my life and that's never going to happen, right? But I just thought back to like, my kids at that age, they are asking a lot of questions for confirmation that they are understanding the world around them much better. And I think that you make me think of something interesting there because if you've got Atreus with you

[01:03:45] in God of War or like the head and it is instructing you all the time or if you're Aloy and your clan mate is with you and they're like, hey, don't you think we should solve this puzzle by turning this wheel? I'm turning the wheel, dude. Like, stop talking. Like, the fact that it's a weird little AI robot as well who doesn't have social niceties and is like a sort of subordinate to Hugh in some way, just like a kid and the fact that the person that's instructing you or easing you along

[01:04:15] the right path is not insistent, is not a person that is like pushing on you what you should be doing but is rather this like AI being who has no filters and is like, missiles, Hugh, the shield will help with the missiles and you're like, because it's Diana, you're like, okay, yeah, little robot's trying to help, that's nice. Yeah. Whereas if it was like God of War head, you'd be like, please shut up, head. So it was Diana's character that made her work as a companion and as a little guide as well

[01:04:45] because you're kind of in it together. It just had good vibes that way. Yeah, and I think a lot of it comes down to just tone, right? Because that is exactly how kids are. Kids have no filters. Sorry. Quick, another tangent here. I have to share the story about my kids. I remember we were going to a Trader Joe's once. My kid who said this was pretty young. I want to say they were four or five and so they're still, you know, maybe in their head a little bit but they're starting to recognize things in the outside world and outside of Trader Joe's which is a grocer here in the United States,

[01:05:16] there was somebody who was just leaving the store with their groceries but this was somebody who was in a wheelchair and they only had one leg and my kid who's four or five at the time was like very loudly, Dad, why does that person only have one leg? And to the point where the person definitely heard this and it kind of shot me this look of like, what's your kid asking right now? A part of me is like, it's a legitimate question for a kid who doesn't understand all the different scenarios that might make it

[01:05:44] so somebody only has one leg. I promise they weren't trying to be offensive and pointing this out but the way that my kid asked it was like genuine curiosity and the idea was, Dad, I have never seen this before. In my experience, all people have had two legs. Why does this person have one leg? And I'm like, oh geez. First, I'm like, let's get inside out of earshot and then we can talk about like sometimes things happen and people will lose a leg or whatever it is, right? And you know, I give my answer. So, yeah, with Diana,

[01:06:14] I think you nailed it. Tonally, she is somebody with no filters who is trying to understand what is going on. So she doesn't feel insistent. She doesn't feel condescending and she's not written in such a way to be like, Dad, you know, or you, you're doing this wrong, by the way. Do it the right way and you'll get through the boss fight. Yeah. Yeah, the way it's handled is very nice and something else I loved about Diana, right? And again, about Pragmata being a good game to play, a fun game to play, a game that wants to be enjoyed. If you're like coming

[01:06:44] through the end of an area, you've got no health left, used all your heals, just a few bits of ammo coming towards a door and you're like, finally. And then Diana says, I sense a powerful robot ahead and you're like, oh shit. Okay, back to the save point, back to the hub. It's just saved me a death. Diana, you just saved me an annoying death and having to come back here again. Yeah. Go back to hub and like they even warn you when a big boss is coming up, you know, and using Diana to do that was really cool as well. Just all of those little touches coming together to make you feel like the game

[01:07:13] is inviting you in in a really cool way. Yeah, I agree. All right, let's move on to impact on the industry here. Just again, we're not experts. We are not data analysts. We're not, you know, super tapped into all the numbers with the gaming industry. But what we're doing here as people who have played and obviously enjoyed this game, it's time. We're zooming out being a little more reflective of like, okay, so what does this mean for the games industry? What does it mean

[01:07:43] for games as a medium of, you know, an artistic medium? What lessons can really be learned here? I'll go first here just to get this conversation started. But man, give me, give me a 10 to 12 hour game that has a lot of depth with a lot of options and I am sold. Like, I'm starting to come to this point in my gaming hobby and life where if your game is three hours or less or 10 to 12 hours,

[01:08:12] like it's probably going to get played to completion and it's probably going to be one of my favorite games. I think it's a great time length to tell your story to get somebody feel like they're trained and adept in what the gameplay mechanics are and to walk away with a sense of victory and completion in a game. So I'm like, please, everybody else, take note. 10 to 12 hours here works very well. Absolutely. Yeah, very approachable and it's not a big sprawling open world game where they've had to, you know,

[01:08:43] just have people working on it for years and years and years. It's tighter, it's smaller, it still has a sense of scale and depth. It has enough of a runtime to make it feel like the price is right. And yeah, I think like Ubisoft have been wrestling with this a lot, right? Since making like Odyssey and Valhalla, these endless games that cost endless money that use their studios all around the world to try and populate this vast map and then they tried to make like smaller ones.

[01:09:12] So they're experimenting too. They tried to make the one that was set in Iran, I think. Mirage. Yeah. So that's what happens if we make a smaller journey with smaller town, scale it all down a little bit, will it still sell? And I think Pragmata is another entry in that side of things. It's like, let's make a focused game with focused systems. It's very polished. They're smartly made. So all the materials in the game are modular because it's a space station. So, you know, you're going to see the same crates around with serial numbers on them

[01:09:42] and it's going to feel right so they didn't have to reinvent the wheel every time. So a really smart game made it a smart scale with the right amount of meat on the bones. Yeah, I love this. This is obviously one of the big problems right now in the games industry is just ballooning production costs. They cost so much to make and again, we're not experts. We don't have access to all the numbers here but I would love to know like, okay, what did it take to make a game like Pragmata and is it a game that's going to work for Capcom?

[01:10:12] And I sure hope it does because I think for as a player it absolutely worked for me, right? And this seems to be like this type of game can be a really good trade-off for these AAA studios that like you said, I think Ubisoft is a great example to bring up here. We had our first quadruple A game, right? Skull and Bones that cost a whole lot of money and lost a whole lot of money, right? Valhalla is a, I put 20 hours into Valhalla and I feel like I probably completed 5% of that game. Yeah, I think everyone put 12 to 20 into Valhalla.

[01:10:42] Yeah. And you're like, okay, got it. That's cool. Enjoyed what I did and there's no way I'm going to see the end of this. So yeah, I hope that this is a sign of things to come. Another game that kind of comes to mind is I love the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Now that game, I think, was in production for way longer than Pragmata was. But in terms of what that game ended up being in terms of size and content available and polish, I'm like, okay, I hope that this is the beginning of a trend from these AAA studios

[01:11:11] so we can avoid things like, you know, studio closures or layoffs and all this nasty stuff that we really dislike seeing that's becoming all too common, right? So I hope that this becomes a solution to those problems. Yeah, and like you said, it sold 2 million in two weeks pretty much. So 50, is it 50 bucks this one? I think, I think, yeah. So it wasn't priced like a crazy AAA. It wasn't pushed

[01:11:41] or priced or had the expectations set at the level of it being a cyberpunk. It was like it's a slightly smaller game with a slightly lower runtime, a slightly lower price and joy, you know? Yeah. This is maybe the other thing that came to mind with Pragmata is now that the industry's standard for AAA games is $70 or $80 at retail for a game, anything that's priced at 40, 50,

[01:12:11] or 60 is instantly more palatable to look at. And I do hope that this is another trend that picks up that we get much more variable pricing when it comes to AAA games. I'm looking at Pragmata right now. Let's see. It looks like it retailed maybe at 60. But again, which used to be the standard, but 60 feels better than 70. And again, if I see the standard now for AAA, right? Yep, that's the standard. So anything, like I'm saying, that 40,

[01:12:41] 50, or 60 mark immediately is looking a lot more like, okay, is this something that I want to spend my money on? Do I feel like I'm going to get my money's worth from that? Yeah. And I also want to say that in a time when AAA production is retreating into safer and safer bets because of ballooning costs, so sequels, spinoffs, for Capcom to just launch this mid-priced

[01:13:10] AA to AAA shorter game with a completely new storyline, new characters, new property, and to have it sell a couple million right off the bat, I think is interesting too because a lot of people, you know, there's so many Star Wars games coming. Everyone's trying to spin up a multiplayer game off of a known project like, you know, Sony's failing at this famously with their cancelled God of War multiplayer, cancelled Spider-Man multiplayer, still trying with the Horizon multiplayer, let's see how long that lasts.

[01:13:39] There is this retreat into safety and known quantities and familiar properties and this being a smaller game that is brand new and has sold like gangbusters is like, maybe it's okay to take a swing now and then, you know, just don't bet the farm on it and it can happen. So maybe Pragmart is useful to the industry in that sense as well. Yeah, and I think just accompanying what you're saying here, not just in terms of like a new property but also having

[01:14:09] this pretty risky combat where you have shooting in conjunction with this hacking minigame. I think, you know, it's interesting, I saw this on Blue Sky and social media recently, somebody was talking about, they were reacting to a YouTube video they saw about marketing their video game and they said something about whether or not you should focus on the quality of the game and the reaction to that was if your game is high quality, like if the components are high quality, it becomes infinitely easier to market and I think

[01:14:38] it's funny because as much as Pragmata didn't sell me on its marketing, now that I've actually played and beaten the game, I'm like, no, it actually told you exactly what it was and it really was exactly what it looks like in the trailer, like that combat works and so you can also take risks with combat as well too and I think it makes sense that you have a shorter game scaled down, highly polished, you take some risks in it, you have it a mid-sale price or the pricing is there in between

[01:15:08] that $40 and $60 and I just really hope that for Capcom and for other companies that are following suit that they're like, okay, this is a success, this is sustainable, we're happy with these profits, we can keep making games like this. Yeah, and like if you look at the way that Ubisoft do things as well which is to try and make everything modular so you can like take a system out of one game and plug it into another game and you see that across their whole portfolio, sometimes to a fault you're like, oh,

[01:15:36] this experience system is from this game and now it's here and it has been plugged in and I can feel that and it's making me tired. Like what Capcom have done is to take familiar stuff like we've said like the lessons from Resident Evil in terms of level design and save points and that kind of thing and like the way that the power-up systems work seems to me that they've managed to bring all of the experience they have in design to this game

[01:16:05] whilst still having it feel fresh which is perhaps what Ubisoft have been failing to do. They've been having the same system and everything to the point where it starts to feel like a mush of Ubisoft-ness but Capcom for some reason is still bringing the expertise and experience whilst having games that feel new which is like what Ubisoft is trying to do and Capcom's pulling it off. And we're going to bring it full circle here because what you just made me think of

[01:16:34] was Star Wars Outlaws a game in which Ubisoft started to shed some of its Ubisoft-ness in terms of like the lack of a leveling up system and how you gain abilities and how you interact with that world or those different worlds in Star Wars Outlaws is markedly different than other Ubisoft games and guess what Star Wars Outlaws is a much better game from them not just completely wholesale

[01:17:02] lifting one modular system and putting it into another game but iterating and making tweaks where it makes sense for what that game is supposed to be go play Star Wars Outlaws. Yeah what a relief it was to not have XP levels where the same enemy will either kill you or be easily killed depending on which side of the border you're on and they just did away with all of that crap that was so much better and yeah I think this Pragmata joins that list for me you know I'm a Starfield fan I'm an Outlaws fan I love sci-fi games

[01:17:31] and Pragmata does join that list of AAA sci-fi games that I've really really loved you know it went straight into my long list for games of the year who knows where it will end up my hope is that it will end up in the bottom half because such good games are released in the back half of the year but if it was at number two I wouldn't be upset you know yeah excellent let's wrap it up there thank you again John for coming on the show for subbing in for coming off on the bench as we talk about

[01:18:01] Pragmata as we talked about in this conversation here it's always great chatting with you I actually remember the first episode that we did together was on the game Stray which if I'm not mistaken you're replaying right now or you recently replayed I got a code for the Switch 2 version and I just started up to see if it was better like if the lighting worked because the Switch 1 version was horrific I'm replaying I started it just to go through the slums it's every bit to my eye it's right up there with the PS5 version

[01:18:31] that I played and now it's handheld I haven't played it for a few years and so I've been sucked in I'm in like the second area of the game and I'm having the most the most comfortable glorious replay of Stray right now oh that is amazing to hear because I really I mean we talked about this we don't need to get into it right but I really enjoyed that game and so I'm glad to hear that it's doing well on Switch 2 because it was pretty disappointing to read about its performance on Switch 1 free upgrade too by the way if anyone bought it on Switch 1 and just bend it

[01:19:01] free upgrade on your Switch 2 okay that's very good to know but yeah so we've had a few conversations it's great to have you back here to talk about Pragmata thank you so much for joining me and talking Pragmata John you're in a lot of different places doing a lot of different cool things could you please tell people where some those places are yeah the main thing is Gaming in the Wild it started as a podcast it's been running for five years it's on all of your podcast service except Spotify because Boycott Spotify I also have a YouTube channel Gaming in the Wild

[01:19:31] I publish a monthly look ahead at all of the indie games that are coming out per month you know sieving for gold basically watching a lot of trailers watching hundreds of trailers coming down to the best 20 games that people can look at that's been popular I've been working on some books for Lost in Cult The Citizen Sleeper 2 Design Works is up for pre-order the Ultros book the Ultros Design Works is out now but yeah the main place to find my stuff is you google Gaming in the Wild you'll find everything if you go to

[01:20:00] gaminginthewild.com you'll find everything Steam Curator page YouTube channel Patreon social media it's everywhere so I'm easy to find if you want to find me I'll post some of those links in the description as well but yeah Gaming in the Wild John said it you just search that and you're gonna find you're gonna find them you're gonna find the cool things that John's up to folks thank you so much for listening to this episode thank you for being patient as we've kind of made this transition in how the Pre-order Bonus Podcast functions how it works

[01:20:30] if you've liked what you've heard here obviously check out John's stuff it's all very very cool stuff that he is working on and he is doing the Lost in Cult stuff is especially cool they have some they have some cool books there and John's looking forward to the Citizen Sleeper 2 one for sure can I just say if Cameron's listening by the way you gotta tell me how I did man I'm just I'm coming off the bench for you I hope I hope that this was an acceptable performance put me in again coach I hope I did good

[01:20:59] I'm sure he will let you know he'll let you know if you would like to support Pre-order Bonus Podcast we have our Patreon we have simplified it so there's just one or two tiers over there if you'd like to support us that way I'm streaming part time if you would like to catch me playing indie games or I've been playing a lot of games they're now considered retro in my backlog that's at twitch.tv slash chiptip18 I'm usually there three or four times a week doing some streams and that's what we've got for you thank you so much

[01:21:28] for listening and until the next episode take care