The Cabin Factory

[00:00:09] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Pre-Order Bonus Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Cameron Warren and I'm joined as always by the pixel professor Jacob Price. It's February 6th, 2025. We're back to talk about video games. Jake, once again.

[00:00:28] Once again. EA executives have learned all the wrong lessons from the quote-unquote failure of Dragon Age, The Veil Guard. Ah, man.

[00:01:10] Please explain to me, who are these investors that for five years at least, right, are still being duped into believing that live service is somehow this golden ticket to profitability? Like, excuse me, not just profitability, but just like insane money printing machine games.

[00:01:35] Like, we're so far past the launch and blowout success of Fortnite and PUBG. Like, who are these people that still are just like live service games? That's all they want to hear, right? Because every time we see something like this from Ubisoft, now from EA, they're always like, well, live service this, live service that.

[00:01:57] Well, Jake, EA makes a few little games called Madden, College Football 25, EA FC, and Apex Legends. And those pay for everything else. Like FIFA or EA Sports FC or whatever it's called now, pays for everything else, right?

[00:02:23] So, like, I think it's really easy for an executive to sit back and say, well, like, this didn't, like, engage. This didn't have any opportunities for monetization beyond just buying the game. And that's the thinking of every executive ad nauseum in the games industry for the last, like, 10 years. Right. The problem is, is we, it's, it's demonstrated that that just doesn't, it's, it works and it doesn't work.

[00:02:51] It doesn't work because if you, you know, the example that was put out was, was, it was a great piece from the, from the couple articles I read. It was like, look, Larian took a franchise, Baldur's Gate, and made Baldur's Gate 3, which is literally a sequel to a Bioware game. Yeah.

[00:03:14] And turned it into this monstrous hit that had all the elements that, frankly, Dragon Age of the Veil Guard didn't have. Was Dragon Age of the Veil Guard a good game? Yeah. It was fine. It wasn't a bad game. It wasn't a bad game. But it wasn't great. And that's the difference between like a breakout single player hit that, that's going to make a ton of money and one that's just not.

[00:03:38] And like, I think we're just in a world now, like where if you're going to release a single player game, you better have your budget in check. We know that they didn't, they spent way too long. They rebooted it like four times. And so compared to the budget, yeah, I'm sure it was a, as it was a major disappointment. But, um, so if you're going to spend a ton of money, like the game better be great. And it means like, you're probably going to, it's probably going to take a long time to make. And like, I don't know. It's, it's short-sighted thinking.

[00:04:09] And that's the problem. That's the, that's the, the ever ongoing, never ending problem that we talk about on this podcast. Like every time that we talk and it's the dissonance between art and business and video games are an art. And there's this, like, there's just this clash between those two things.

[00:04:31] And it's awesome to hear speeches from like, you know, and conversations from guys like Sven, who heads up Larian Studios, like his game of the year speech at the game awards. Yeah. That's an amazing speech. Right. And that epitomizes like, I think the way that you should think about this business. But the reality is, is any executive who's in a place where they actually have power in a big company situation, they're just not thinking about it that way. They literally cannot think about it that way. They're incentivized to not think about it that way.

[00:05:01] They think about it in terms of what are the levers I can pull to squeeze as much money as I can out of my consumer. It's not about creating incredible art that's going to reach a huge number of people. That's not what it's about. Even though that's a pretty good strategy for also making a lot of money. Yeah. As evidenced by, by Boulder's Gate 3. But I don't know. It's weird, dude.

[00:05:25] You know, it's the shareholders and EA and the, you know, reoccurring revenue and minimizing risk. And like, there's so many variables that these guys just don't have time. You know, you can't, it doesn't, it's not even in the lexicon. Yeah. So what's disappointing about it is it leads to the disappointing products and ultimately disappointing products lead to disappointing financial results. And so that's the dissonance, right?

[00:05:54] When you have a whole bunch of MBAs sitting in a room, guys that maybe haven't even worked in the video game industry, but were successful in another industry. And then they come in and they have to deal with art. They can't think about it in terms of art. They can't think of like the long-term impact. We call it the, it's like you can't really measure it. Right. And you have to be so patient and those things just don't align with these big companies. They're just like out of sync.

[00:06:27] So I think that there's a cup, there's probably a couple executives out there in these big companies who can withhold the tide and can be patient and can say like, just hold on a second. And they can kind of operate in a little bit of a different model. I think Nintendo is kind of one of those. Like they're a little bit shielded from that. Right. But the rest of them are just. Yeah. I think, I think you're right. I think the example that you bring up Nintendo is, is really solid. Right.

[00:06:57] Nintendo knows that they want to give, you know, Legends of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, an extra year to dedicate to polish. Right. They know that they can do that. They know that it's worth the wait. And they know that I feel like, I mean, that sold like so much. That was a ridiculously well, well-received game. Did I just heard numbers recently? I'm not, not interrupting you. Just adding to your point.

[00:07:25] Mario Kart Deluxe 8 has sold 47 million copies. And Nintendo games never go on sale. Nope. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I think a lot of times when we talk about this, we tend to talk about, you know, really high production AAA or Microsoft or Sony. But I think you're right. Like Nintendo, this is why Nintendo is going to outlast them all. Right.

[00:07:52] Because I think they have the patience to, and they know what it takes to make a really successful video game. But they also know that it's really difficult to make a good video game. And so they're willing to sit and they can. They can afford to sit. But they can also, between Super Mario Odyssey and whatever the next Mario 3D platformer is, they can greenlight games that are kind of smaller and riskier, like Pikmin 4. Pikmin 4 was the best-selling Pikmin game, but it pales in comparison.

[00:08:21] I want to say it sold like 1.5 million copies, something like that, right? Which is still great. Don't get me wrong, right? But for Nintendo, 1.5 million copies is pennies, you know, compared to what Mario Odyssey or anything else can sell. But they're willing to be like, you know what? Yeah, put out Pikmin 4. Why not? Let's put it out. It looks good. It's a really well-done, well-polished game. Send it out there. It'll make some money, and it'll just kind of sit, you know, between our big, huge blockbuster releases.

[00:08:51] But yeah, I think you're right. I think Microsoft is trying to figure that out with Game Pass, right? And hopefully 2025 does that. Yeah, they're looking for dependable. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They want to be comfortable. They want to be comfortable. They want to be comfortable. That's what it comes down to. We've already talked about this, too. I just think, for me, Sony, it's like, crap. This huge bet on live service games here, it's like, oh, no.

[00:09:19] One was the last first-party Sony game, and what ones are coming? Ghost of Yotai, which is going to be amazing, right? But I don't know. It feels like things have slowed down there. And then the last example I'll bring up is Ubisoft's Skull and Bones, right? I think the worst thing you could do, and I think this is why we see some games get canceled, right, when they're still in production or pre-production, is the worst thing you could do is make a game take seven years to develop, right?

[00:09:48] Like, unless you have a super unusual funding model, aka an indie game, for example, Stardew Valley can be made because Eric Barone's girlfriend is working full-time as a nurse while he's programming full-time. You know, that was his funding model before that game came out. But, yeah, seven years is just way too long, right? And I think that's probably why, unfortunately, and this is unfortunate because we lose games that would be really cool,

[00:10:17] like that Blizzard survival game. After the acquisition, Microsoft's like, this is just taking way too long to make. It could be the greatest game ever, but because it's taking, this has been incubating for, like, five or six years or whatever. Yeah, we... We can't do it. We lost that Blizzard survival game. It's funny, I saw somebody... It was on, like, a podcast or something, or somebody made a comment that was like, man, what if a Blizzard made, like, their own survival game?

[00:10:46] That would be crazy. And I was, like, screaming to myself, like, listening to this podcast. I was like, man, people just don't know. They just don't know this stuff, you know? And the truth is, like, Jake, I think these big publishers, these big game publishers that are not also hardware and service providers, they are on the way out. Ubisoft, EA...

[00:11:16] I mean, that's the only two, right? Like, they're in the end of days. Is that right? Who am I missing? As far as, like, super big ones, yeah, Sega, Capcom. Well, in this... Sorry to interrupt here. You do bring up an interesting point, because the really big ones we're worried about are Western-based studios. These Eastern-based studios, Capcom has been on fire the past, like, 18 months, right? That's true. Sega seems to be doing pretty well. Sega's doing okay, and they don't...

[00:11:45] Yeah, that's a good point. So, that's actually a great point. What are these Eastern studios doing that these Western studios are not? I mean, I think the answer is they're making better games. Like, that's the long and short of it. And more often. They're just making better games? I mean, Square Enix, I think, is consistently disappointed. I don't think they're... But no one's worried about Square Enix. I don't think they're... Like, we're worried about Ubisoft. Yeah, exactly. We're not worried about, like, insolvency.

[00:12:15] Right. Why is it that we're worried about insolvency with these Western studios and, like, Capcom and Sega and Square Enix and Ryu Gotoku or whatever. Like, these studios that are kind of independent... Public... They're... I say... They're third party, right? They're not studios, but they're, like... They make a lot... They're big studios, right? That make a ton of different titles. Yeah, they're studios. Studios...

[00:12:45] They're, like, the mega... Well, they're the mega companies that are studios and publishers, right? Capcom publishes a ton. Square Enix publishes a ton. Exactly. That's what I mean. So, yeah, that's an interesting point. How come the Western one... That's actually a great... I haven't thought about that. That's a... If you have an answer... Really interesting point. Please reach out to us on our Discord or Blue Sky or something. And Capcom's about to come out with Monster Hunter Wilds, which is going to be huge. That thing is going to take over.

[00:13:15] I mean, that thing will sell 10 million copies this year. Yeah. Easy. Easy. Yeah. Kind of crazy to think. Well... And listen, folks, we're not really not trying to pit like some sort of East versus West, you know... Oh, no, we are. No, we're not. We're not. We're not console warriors or we're not East-West studio warriors either. But it is a tendency

[00:13:44] studios that you think of on the same level as EA and Ubisoft. There's a bunch out there, I'm sure, but those two seem to be having way more problems than everyone else. I mean, I think CD Projekt Red is doing fine after they saved Cyberpunk. Yeah, what a turnaround. Over a couple years. Yeah. Yeah, no, last thing I was going to say about that, I think the sad part of this is I think Bioware is on its lost legs.

[00:14:14] It's got Mass Effect 5 and that's it. If they don't... If Mass Effect 5 doesn't do Gangbusters, it's game over. And it will have a multiplayer live service component. I... I'm thinking that the failure of Dragon Age, there's going to be a lot of pressure to have something that they can monetize. it's almost like an insurance policy for these executives. It really is. It's almost like

[00:14:44] an insurance policy, which the irony is like those don't pay out unless people actually you know, like they have to come play the game, but anyways, Jake, enough about that. Excuse me. It's that time of year there's this sickness everywhere. My son's like sick again. Oh man, I'm sorry. Oh my gosh. I mean, he's like not like deathly ill like he was,

[00:15:14] but like he's going to school and stuff. He's just like coughing off of everybody. Nice. Yeah, let's talk about today's episode. We're going to talk about a tiny little game. Maybe not... I didn't even know anything about this game until if you listen to our predictions episode for 2025, this is the game that Jake requested that I play since he won this year somehow. Cabin Factory. Jake, how are we going to break this one down? We're going to be talking about

[00:15:43] The Cabin Factory in three categories. The first one will be the narrative. We're going to talk about the story, the story that's being told in this game. Just so you know for reference, this is a tiny indie horror game and this is a little outside of our wheelhouse. This was brought to my attention by Emily from No Small Games who I highly recommend you should check out. She was on Indie Impressions to talk about Phoenix Springs with me. Anyway, we're talking about the story of this game in the first part.

[00:16:12] The second part will be talking about the game design. This has a relatively unique game design. I think it'd be really difficult to put this into a genre succinctly. Horror, FPS horror is kind of the best that we can do. First person perspective. It's not a shooter. Excuse me. Anyway, we'll talk about that and how the game works mechanically and what the heck is going on. And then finally, impact on the industry. Man, this will pair really nicely with our opening conversation with these

[00:16:42] massive games because The Cabin Factory is a tiny game from a tiny studio and it has a retail price of $3 on Steam. So, talk about less than coffee. Talk about difference between Cameron and I were just joking before we were recording. Kingdom Come Deliverance, the deluxe package, is like $90. The game retails at $70 versus a game

[00:17:12] that is super tiny and niche like this at $3. So, very different price modeling. But that's how we're going to talk about The Cabin Factory. Oh my goodness. Cameron, what did you think of the story of this game? So, the best part about Cabin Factory is this game. I think total is like somewhere between an hour or less. Yeah. Depending on how good you are at the game.

[00:17:41] And I'm really bad. Listen, in your defense and in everybody's defense, I don't think you can be good at The Cabin Factory. Like, your first time playing it, for sure. So, I want to hear Jake's interpretation of the narrative because I think that the whole point of this is to interpret it and discuss it and kind of talk about maybe what it means. But, you

[00:18:11] are seemingly an old woman. And you start off the game going down an elevator and you work at a company. Tell me if I'm explaining this right. You work at a company that checks, they do like theme park stuff, right? They mention this in like the video. For sure. Yeah, yeah. Something about like, they create attractions, right? Yeah.

[00:18:41] I'm like trying to remember that beginning like opening crawl or whatever. Yeah. Anyway, so you go in and there's a, it's an assembly line and a cabin shows up and you look at the little board and it has two buttons and it has a red button for if, so your job is to decide if the cabin is

[00:19:10] haunted or not haunted. Or if it's safe. Dangerous or safe. Red and green. And it's like, look, if anything in the cabin is moving, it's haunted. If it's not moving, it's safe. And so the entire game is just going into the cabin, looking around, shiz happens, and then you come out and you decide if it's safe or if it's not safe. I mean, it's pretty, pretty good summary there. So,

[00:19:41] so there's an underlying narrative here and this game is really short. How much should we spoil, Jake? Because I feel like I want to dig in a little bit because it's so short. I forgot to mention this when we talk about the episodes. If you're new to the period of bonus podcast, typically we will not discuss past 20, 30% of a video games narrative. We're going to talk about everything in the cabin factory. So the entire game is fair game. We're going to talk about it all. Yeah.

[00:20:11] Because there is a very specific ending that I would like to discuss and actually I was told that there are multiple endings to this game, which I did not think would be possible. And full disclosure, I got really close to finishing, but I lost on my eighth pass. So I think if you don't want to be spoiled, just go ahead and skip ahead to the design discussion. Or the impact on the industry discussion. But yeah, I mean,

[00:20:40] so dude, this is nightmare of people. This is really, so there's something about when it's stuff involving children, like haunted stuff involving children just creeps me the heck out, bro. Like I literally, I kid you not, had hard physical goosebumps playing this game.

[00:21:10] I'll tell you specifically, like there's something about the freaky evil parents or mom, or I don't know what the situation is, but there's, so there's one moment where you get a little bit of story context, which is, I think, I don't know if it's random when this appears, but you get the radio in one of them, right? So you walk and you get the radio of like the house burning down with the parents in it,

[00:21:40] and then like the two kids are gone. And I think up until then, like you can kind of tell that maybe there are some kids here, but there's some freaky stuff going on. But then after that, it starts to like get more deep into the Duffy, and so you start to believe that there's some murder, there's some freaky shiz that's been going on in this cabin involving these two individuals and these two kids, which are they the parents, Jake? I don't know. So, yeah, I think it's routine that

[00:22:10] the first time that you go to inspect one of the cabins, the radio plays. And the radio kind of gives a super freaky backstory of this cabin. It gives a freak, it's very, it's very, it's chilling. So basically it says, like the names, I don't remember the names of anybody here, but two adults were in a cabin with two children. And if I remember correctly, it actually doesn't specifically state that it was their parents, or maybe that it was their foster parents. There's some sort of

[00:22:38] illusion to a relationship between the grown-ups and the kids, and you just assume that it's parents and kids, right? And the radio explains that they were in a cabin, and the cabin caught on fire, and the two grown-ups were tragically lost, and that the two kids haven't been found, that they essentially were disappeared, or not were disappeared, but disappeared. Something happens, something freaky. And so when you go into this

[00:23:08] cabin, you're like, okay, my job as a cabin inspector is to see if anything in here is moving, and if something is moving, then you rush out of the cabin. The direction is to rush out of the cabin and then immediately slam dangerous, and then that cabin gets hauled away, and another one comes in behind it. And so that's kind of the setting that you get. You're listening to this story. It's awful sounding. There are flame noises in the background, you know, crackling wood, and you're like hearing the tragedy

[00:23:37] happens as the first time you go into this. And so I think the first time I heard the radio, I didn't see anything moving in the cabin, and so I left and I marked it as safe, and it was safe, and I got carted away, and what caught me off guard is that the exact same cabin showed up. And so I was like, oh, wait a second. You know, I'm laughing. Actually, I saw stream this live, and so I was laughing. I was like, oh, did they just have one

[00:24:06] prefab cabin or whatever, right? But you go back in, and you see this creepy portrait of a mother, and you see this dad who looks like he's sitting at the table yelling while eating, and it's like totally silent, except for the ambient noises. And so it's the same cabin, but every single time you enter into the cabin, something, you are learning something about what happened to this supposed family unit.

[00:24:37] And sometimes when you enter the cabin, you will get brand new scenarios. People will be in new locations, but they won't be moving. And so you get this, I actually like it from a storytelling element because every time you go into the cabin, you get new bits and pieces about what the heck was happening here. You don't really ever hear anybody speak. You see, like, okay, this dad, father figure, is abusive. This mother is insane.

[00:25:07] She's terrifying, right? And then eventually you'll see two kids, a boy and a girl, right? And they're creepy as heck. Half the time the boy has a bag on his head, right? Just why not? You know? Gosh. Yeah. So in terms of the narrative, you really don't get a whole lot except for a few specific cabins. And so Cameron, I'm interested. Did you actually get the cabin scenario where the cabin is on fire? Yes. Okay. Terrifying.

[00:25:39] Terrifying. Because you walk in, the dad is running around knocking things over, the cabin's on fire, he and the mom are fighting, and you're like, well, everything's on fire, therefore stuff's moving. And so I just immediately booked it. You just book out. Yeah. I got to a point where if I saw something moving, I'm out. Just immediately hitting a button. I'm like trying to finish. I was like, really wanting to beat this game.

[00:26:10] Like, I was getting so mad that I kept getting reset, and I actually got close to the end quite a few times, and then I missed it because I was just, I must have just missing, I'm missing like one team element. We'll talk about that in the design aspect of it. But dude, the episode in the basement where you go into the basement. Oh my gosh. Dude, that, that freaked me out. That, yeah. So just for context for

[00:26:39] people, you get these bits and pieces. The majority of the cabin scenarios that you get, just one thing will be out of place or one thing will be moving, and it's just creepy vibes. I got one terrifying one where I walked in and they were just in giant plushies everywhere. Yeah, I got that a few times, right? And so I would turn around and all the plushies had moved and I was like, okay, well, it's time to leave. But they had blocked your exit. And so I was

[00:27:09] like, I can't fit through this gap. And so I progressed until they moved again. And then I did that until I found a moment where I could squeeze out, right? And so that's kind of the extent of what most of these scenarios will be. But you will get these big, like basically exposition dump ones. The first one I'm referring to is you actually witness the fire that the radio thing was talking about. And then when you exit to leave, you actually don't leave into the factory. You leave into the woods where the cabin is and

[00:27:39] you see the two kids standing outside watching the fire burning. I nearly peed my pants, dude. I was like, dude, where is the exit? I was lied to. I was led to believe that this door was an exit. You can't exit that scenario. And then the yeah. So the no, I mean the first time the mom like comes after you that she can chase you dude.

[00:28:09] Okay. So the basement where like you get stuck in the bathroom and then you come out of the bathroom and she's just standing like in front of you and you have to like bob and weave to like get I was like do that. My heart rate was like 190. Post marathon heart. Right. But Jake, let me I mean we've kind of that's kind of what it it right. It's a bunch of like spooky little like scenes that happen. What's your

[00:28:39] interpretation and then tell me about the ending that you got. What's like your interpretation? Like what is the meaning of this? Like what how does this all fit together? So I at first was like this is just major spoilers I'm talking about an ending that I think most people get. So that bathroom moment so one part of the scenario is you have you're forced to go down into the basement. It's this cold basement and the mom is berating the son in a corner and it's really disturbing. You know it's

[00:29:09] leading up to physical violence and eventually you have to go you can't leave the basement. You run into the bathroom in the basement. The mom starts banging on the door and if you look in the mirror at first you see the old lady that you see at the beginning but then you see the reflection of the daughter or the little girl and you see the reflection of the little girl pushing back against the bathroom door right? And so that to me was

[00:29:39] probably the first hint that I was like wait a second how involved in this history are we? And so the ending I got so if you can get five or excuse me if you can get eight cabin checks in a row correctly say whether or not it's safe or dangerous then your first day of work is over and you can leave. And so you leave through an exit and then you go to your apartment and it's playing this happy music credits are about to roll and you walk around your apartment and then you start seeing items in your apartment that were in the cabin.

[00:30:10] So like the frog plushie that you see in one of the chairs is there one of the pictures that was on the mantel is also I believe it's a picture of you or the little girl and the little boy. And so there's all these hints that the old woman you're playing as is the little girl who was in this abusive family and who escaped the fire. And so interesting this dude I'm gonna spoil this was the best ending it caught

[00:30:40] me off guard so bad. Credits like stop the music stops and you hear the cabin door open while you're in the apartment. And I was like I was like dude if somebody entered this apartment right now I might just shut off my PC. And then you go over and it's the closet doors you can open the closet doors and it leads to the cabin. And so you push open the door you see the hallway that you're very familiar with to

[00:31:09] the cabin and then you take the closet doors and you shut the closet and walk away. And then that's the end of the game. So it's this awesome fake out. And so the way I interpret this is that this game is PTSD. Like you're playing as an old woman who still is having nightmares about witnessing what happened and what happened in this cabin. The abusive

[00:31:38] you know nature of her two parents or parent figures watching them burn alive in a cabin but also probably feeling a lot of guilt for you and the boy being like this is our chance to escape. We could let them die in this cabin you know and so I think narratively like with that interpretation and with the clues that I got from that ending like okay it's actually a really awesome game because it's about really it's

[00:32:07] about PTSD is about reliving like really traumatic moments of your life and trying to find closure in that final moment when you close the closet doors that lead to this entrance to the cabin is like okay you were you're working through this you're trying to close off or remove that kind of memory from you. So narratively I think it's a very cool game and it ended extremely well because it's like the cool down of your adrenaline of having beat the game and then you freak out because you think you're gonna have to

[00:32:37] go into the cabin one more time. Yeah. And then and then it ends up so I don't know what the other endings are but that's the ending that I got and so that's the interpretation of the game that I have. Interesting. Yeah man this is like I don't know if it's the horror elements but something about it like really hit emotionally and obviously like physically because I had a physically reaction to like the

[00:33:07] horror and that's one of the things with horror that's so interesting and I think about films that I really love if you think about films that like you really really like you realize that a lot of like the most popular films out there and especially like classic films that we did a lot of us like they implement a lot of horror elements that they pull that get pulled from like horror films to make them like do interesting

[00:33:36] things and like cause sort of physical reactions to what's happening on screen. Lord of the Rings is one. Yeah. Like a lot of the stuff with the orcs like there's a lot of like horror elements that get implemented that and then if you look at like Peter Jackson's film history and kind of how he his like early films same thing with with Spielberg and like the Indiana Jones movies. Yeah. And like and then

[00:34:04] obviously Jaws and like there's just these horror elements that they they add like this sort of like the stress that you feel like the physical reaction that you feel watching the film has an impact on like sort of your emotional reaction to it and kind of heightens the potency of the message that the that the film or in

[00:34:33] this case the video game is like trying to deliver. It's really interesting because I'm not like a horror film fan but I do walk away from things that have elements of horror and I feel like it's it's like a very it's like a much more fulfilling experience. It's like weird to describe I'm having a like tough time describing it but I think I think you know what I mean. But yeah this game has that in spades and I was like fascinated but it totally like knocked me on my feet. I was like fascinated by

[00:35:02] kind of what I was doing and like the level of darkness in the story and like that level of you know it's nightmare feel like everybody has a nightmare of somebody like chasing them right and you know that the thing chasing you can't do anything to you but you're still afraid of it and this game just nails that feeling like so badly that it really gave me like a visceral reaction. Yeah. I'm gonna so let's see I remember taking in grad school I was taking this film class with this amazing professor and we

[00:35:32] watched dude have you ever watched Pedro Almodovar some of his movies. Dude I can't. We did watch some Spanish films in college but I mean lots of wonderful films in Spain the Almodovar stuff a lot of it I can't stomach like we watched some really difficult things to watch. Like horror movies? I mean I would consider them horror because they were really terrifying in other ways. It's like psychological

[00:36:02] thriller horror stuff. Anyway but the point that she brought up and the reason why we watch some of these is it's really fascinating. A lot of movies that are considered like A tier games or not games movies are ones that are really cerebral or psychological where the impact is about what you're thinking and how you understand and perceive the world. Like we tend to consider those movies really high art and she said that the three genres that are

[00:36:29] considered like B or C tier are the ones that provoke the strongest physical reactions out of people. And so she was saying for example horror like comedy. Shoot I'm missing what oh my gosh I just had these in my brain. But like yeah horror comedy and she said pornography. Like these are all considered lower tier because they don't like make you think about the

[00:36:59] world in a different way. That's not how people criticize them or critique them. Interesting. I should say they tend to focus on physical reaction. Right. But the argument that she had is I don't know if she personally like believed in it but the one that she had to study and consider was like however are those movies actually doing more to get the viewer like immersed in their worlds and storytelling if

[00:37:28] they can provoke physical reactions. So in the case of horror which is what we studied to kind of talk about this point. It's like with horror you feel physically scared. You have goosebumps. You you cover your eyes. You look away. You know like right. You jump. You know we talked about jump scares and like how this stuff could be used effectively. And so bringing this back to the cabin factory and part of the reason why I like this narrative so much is because dude we are going through this

[00:37:57] woman's trauma with her and at the end when we kind of figure out everything that she's experiencing what's going on I mean it does kind of create a fairly good empathetic understanding of the horror that this person has lived and you know survives with right. And so I think it can be used to like really effective storytelling right. Of course you know horror like other genres there's this huge spectrum of like

[00:38:27] you know their their artistic nature and how successful they kind of are communicating those things but I actually think the cabin factory does a pretty dang good job of it. It really does. It's terrifying dude. I was. It is terrible. It is. It is very freaky. Yeah. Yeah. It's. Maybe I need to go watch the Vavich. It's. Robert. Robert Eggers. Don't watch the trailer for that.

[00:38:56] The trailer is enough to get you scared. Like let's move to the design conversation because this is another part of this game that I really thought made it an actual video game. Yeah. So I do struggle sometimes with quote unquote walking simulators then I and I'm critical. I'm a little critical of them because sometimes they don't feel like games. They just feel like I'm

[00:39:25] walking through a world but I'm not like actually engaging with it in some sort of mechanical way and where this game where the where the cabin factory. Solved that for me because I was thinking like oh we're just going to walk in these cabins and we come out and like we push the button but then what I realized was that there's actually like a legitimate challenge to getting the stupid buttons right. Yeah.

[00:39:55] And so I was like wait a second like I didn't see anything move in that one that I just went into but I got that one wrong. So what am I missing? And so then what that it triggered like this. Okay. What is going on? So then I'm going in and I'm looking like a lot closer at everything and I'm trying to figure out like okay is there like certain and then you start to realize like oh there's like things that are moving and it's really subtle and the game is trying to trick you and this game is like

[00:40:25] trying to be ambiguous and then it makes it a challenge when you come out you're like you feel a little bit nervous before you hit that button you're like wait a second do I have this right? Like I'm not sure if I have this right. And so that from a design standpoint I think was super effective for me because it was like the search it was the hunt for something that's moving and I felt like stressed and it pushed me to the edge of like what this tiny little game has to offer in

[00:40:55] terms of mechanics it pushed me to the edge of that which is really effective game. Yeah I agree. So I'm sure that this isn't the only horror game like this but I thought that this game design was super smart right? It's you know it's a horror game it's billed as one and then you're you're forced to look for the jump scares or the horror elements you know? Yeah it forces you to yeah it's yeah you cannot avoid them. Now you could sit at the console

[00:41:24] and hey it's a coin toss you could just sit there every time a cabin comes and you can just hope that you get eight in a row. Yeah that's true I tried that actually a couple times Jake I'm not gonna lie to you. It doesn't really work right? It doesn't work. I mean you know statisticians listening out there I mean you you can calculate that probability right? You have eight coin flips can you get all heads right? That's a low odds there. Yeah low odds indeed and so you're looking for stuff that moves and I also think that the smart part of

[00:41:54] this is it forces you to stare at the environment and so and as we talked about with the narrative like every little bit every scenario in here right feeds you a bit of information right? And you are kind of it's a really clever way to force the player to pay attention to what's going on in this cabin and who these people are and so Cameron and I you know despite there not being like a whole lot of dialogue or exposition I feel like we walked away with a pretty firm

[00:42:23] grasp of who these people were and what their personalities were like because you're forced to look at them you know and they're terrifying and there's plenty that that you see literally in there right? And then with the different some of the scenarios I pointed out like the the plushies that are giant you know they're seemingly following you right? That's another moment it's like well I know I need to leave right or even the basement scenario you get a hint that something is wrong before you get

[00:42:53] trapped you know and so it's extremely effective in that way where it's like oh it it does a really good job of I guess of directing the player to be in a specific spot so it can trap them and that's where a lot of the horror for me came in was like crap I cannot get to the front door and folks the cabin is not big but you have to wind around a bunch of corners right so this is good level design in my opinion you have to walk through a hall and then you have to take a left to look at the living room then you

[00:43:23] have to do a u-turn to see the kitchen in the other hall in the door to the basement then you have to walk to the far wall and look left to see the stairs going up and you have to go all the way up the stairs to look around at what's happening in the in the room that there's only one room in the second story so there that's a whole blueprint of the cabin but how many turns are in that small level design that forces you to look at everything you know I thought it was super genius the way that they combine the level design without looking

[00:43:51] mechanic to just I don't know man I was just sweating when I played this I looked I think I beat in 73 minutes and every minute of that was just pure fear and they throw one wrench at you where the dude will come running out of the cabin at you yeah that one was that was unfair man and that's like and then the buttons are gone wait I did not get you're like really well you know I know that there

[00:44:20] are there's 40 something different scenarios okay I got this like multiple times where the dude he walk in and you see him outside the window in the back and then he runs and then you run out and he's chasing you and the buttons are gone from the console buttons are gone okay so I had him chase me the buttons are gone so you can't just like send him away he's literally so the first time I'm like dude what do I do what do I do I'm literally

[00:44:48] this guy's chasing me like I'm gonna die I'm like literally scared for my life eventually I realized that there's a door at the back that opens up oh and you can run through it to escape so you can escape I saw okay I got that scenario once but I didn't make it to the console you just died yeah I died I saw him outside the window and I was like he's not moving yet so maybe this isn't a fake scenario or

[00:45:18] maybe this maybe it's safe I explored the whole cabin and then I went outside and then I heard footsteps and I was he's chasing I was killed on the porch before I could even fully see the guy yeah and then the other thing that it does in a couple of the levels is you walk in and you see a miniature version of the cabin on the table and it's and it's telling you where like the ghosts versions of the people are but like dude every time that

[00:45:47] happened my fear reflex just kicked in and I was just like I don't know where to go I don't know where to go I'm like and then I would just go get you and the ghost would just get me until I realized like a few times and it's like okay you can kind of just stand in one spot and kind of just shuffle around like one little area but there was one time I swear it's like there was nowhere to go yeah there was just nowhere to go I was like I'm dead but so yeah just he's like just interesting it just it really took this

[00:46:17] like one idea and really stretched it and pushed it to the edge just so brilliantly designed I was blown away and that was dude that was in the course of an hour like trying this game so so much packed into just such a short amount of time really just really really well done the last thing I'll say about game design what I learned is that there's a bunch of I guess I would call them false scenarios

[00:46:46] where there are two scenarios that are nearly identical but one will have subtle movement and the other one won't and so yeah I had this like yeah so it's much you really cannot memorize if one is safe or not and so for example there is one if you remember back to the blueprint of the house I gave you if you go to the very back of the cabin which it means going up the back stairs to the second story and

[00:47:15] there's a single room and typically it's the son sitting on the floor with the bag over his head the TV is to his left and it's on and to the right of him there's an armchair with the frog plushie and so for example there is there are two scenarios one nothing is out of place everything is as it is and it's the one that's safe and there's another one that you actually have to look at the plushie long enough to see that it is slowly growing in size and so for

[00:47:44] example this is one in retrospect I'm fairly confident I failed multiple times because I would go through the cabin and I'm like everything looks fine and of course when I'm going upstairs I let go halfway up and then I would just poke my head around you know swivel and then just run out I'm not up there looking at the frog plushie and so there are things like that where it's like I could have sworn this was safe and it's like now you need to spend an extra 15 seconds which in a horror game is an

[00:48:11] entire lifetime you know it's an eternity to actually see what the thing was and so the game is is very mean but clever and it's design in that way where it's like you really it really makes it difficult to memorize what's safe and what isn't Jake did you get the family photo cabin the family photo cabin I don't where you walk in and they're all standing together with the with the creepy smile I would have run I would have seen that and I wouldn't

[00:48:41] run nightmare I immediately ran but I the thing is they don't move so I marked so it's like yeah so I was like wait do I mark this safe anyway I got one where the mother and father are sitting at the table and it looks like they're arguing oh yeah yeah so I was like well to check the cabin have to go all the way upstairs and so I went upstairs and I came down and then the

[00:49:10] the dad's head had pivoted and was looking at you so I ran and got out but I'm pretty sure I'd seen that that scenario of them sitting arguing at the table both versions of it the safe version and the dangerous version of that one do the first time the dad's head moved I was like no nope yeah I can't do this yeah there's what I ended up doing a strategy for anybody out here

[00:49:40] who's considering playing this game as I ended up you go there's a tiny porch and then you have to enter the cabin and I would go to the porch and there's a window that you can look through and so I saved myself a lot of fear by looking through the window there was one for example like in the living room you see a portrait of the mom and I looked through the window and the portrait was empty and I was like you know what I don't think this is safe this is not

[00:50:07] yeah nope if the portrait's empty you're out I'm out dude yeah Jake let's talk about impact on the industry this is a three dollar game it is only on steam as far as I know I think I read somewhere that this game did pretty well on streaming oh it has twitch integration yes this is like it seems

[00:50:36] like a great game to stream but like this is one of those interesting ones where you know I don't like why is this game three bucks because yes I understand it's like a very short game but it has a ton of production values it was really actually has great graphics as fantastic lighting and like

[00:51:03] bells and whistles I mean it's a it's a lot packed into one package I mean it's short but dude three dollars I mean I feel like you could at least charge like ten bucks you know I don't know is that I don't know this is like an indie this is hardcore like an indie space so like from an industry standpoint this is purely like this indie game conversation around like indie pricing right how do you price a game yeah and Jake and I

[00:51:33] have had this discussion around like Stardew Valley basically borked all of indie game pricing for life and I think there some games are like starting to kind of push around that I think I'm I feel like I'm starting to see a lot more $25 offerings in the indie space I think yeah no I agree sorry I didn't mean to cut you off no you're fine no that's all I was gonna say it's just like the fact that this was three bucks

[00:51:59] was like dude that's and this came out this isn't this is pretty new this came out in December just December of just last year so it's only like a month and a half old dude three bucks is a very cheap it's like that's too cheap for everybody that's too cheap for this too cheap like up the price it's pretty wild I mean so this studio international cat studios never have heard of them I'm really not even entirely certain

[00:52:26] what they do right and so let's see just their home page it this looks like maybe the first one that they've ever made it's like a team of let's see international cat studios is a small remote indie game studio based between Barcelona Spain and Tokyo Japan founded by the proud parents of two cats right and so tiny studio right and but here's the crazy thing about the cabin

[00:52:54] factory we've got articles from Eurogamer we've got articles from vice like we have some fairly like you know what am I trying to say just like newspaper or like just articles yeah with high visibility right now on Steam this game I'm looking at the store page right now it has oh nearly 2,000

[00:53:21] reviews and it's very positive right so obviously a lot of people have played this game I mean 1,800 reviews for an indie game is huge they're always pushing to get 500 because at 500 the overwhelmingly positive rating can unlock and so to have three times as much as that almost four times as much as that obviously this game reached a whole lot of people and I think there's a few reasons

[00:53:51] for that one it's yeah the price point it's three bucks and if you're a studio I'm assuming of two people or you know I mean it says parents of two cats so I'm assuming that's two right two people you charge three bucks you sell at least 2,000 copies of the game right okay there's 6,000 bucks and you're only paying out fees to I guess they had a publisher right so I don't know this is a micro indie game

[00:54:20] like it is tiny but I think the price point and I think that it has a lot of viral possibility because it has twitch integration I mean I stream this on twitch for example because you get to people get to watch somebody be absolutely terrified and make a bunch of mistakes which this this is high quality entertainment folks right and so I think it just it really the the studio international cat

[00:54:48] studios understood well how the streaming market works right on twitch in particular and was able to get like a bunch of people like that's their big marketing was that because otherwise you wouldn't see this game anywhere else yeah I think it's great fantastic idea super well executed I think you could have charged way more for it that's my industry impact analysis it's just you know you know no sorry I was just say it's

[00:55:16] wild I know for me if a game is five bucks or less I'm much more willing to take a chance on it and I'm super forgiving if that game is an hour or less you know this game I got 73 minutes out of of entertainment value out of it I could probably stretch that to more if I really wanted to but it's super easy to take that kind of a bet yeah I mean multiple endings and tons of different yeah there's there's plenty to work with in there if you're really into it I think the

[00:55:46] majority of people are going to beat it once or get close to beating it and call it a day after an hour right you couldn't really make right add too much more I feel like to to the game but anyway yeah I think it was just the smart design it's a game that worked it's a game that looked well it's a game that was super cheap and it's a game that plays really well on streaming services and that's how this game was able to be as successful as it was yeah make more games that are like movies that I can

[00:56:14] finish in like one to two and a half hours max yeah that's what I want and they cost like like a movie ticket price yeah like a movie rental price on Apple TV yeah I mean I rented Menn Died in Paris it cost me four dollars there you go this was cheaper than that I actually bought this game on sale it

[00:56:41] was I bought it for like two bucks two bucks on sale on sale from three dollars what was like three cents off um yeah yeah uh yeah make more games like this it's wild it's yeah I agree it's kind of hard to do industry analysis but it's the I get the very last point I wanted to make about this game in particular is that the

[00:57:07] price point here is ludicrous and I think it's uh in the minds of a triple a executive how is it that you could package a game for three bucks right I think that bigger studios are starting to get comfortable with like the forty dollar and fifty dollar price mark and what comes to mind is like south of midnight retails I think for 39.99

[00:57:32] that game comes out was it next month um two months from now I can't remember two months from now whatever the case being you know they're starting these bigger studios and companies are starting to experiment with this they're experimenting the other way with deluxe editions being 80 90 100 120 bucks um and I think I don't think the cabin factory is going to change

[00:57:55] anybody's minds but I do think that having more price models and more pricing models and just I don't know I want to see in the double a and triple a space different pricing models a 45 dollar game it doesn't have to be 70 bucks yeah I think I think there's a bigger continuum we could access there

[00:58:21] yeah for sure last idea thought I'll leave you with is this would be an awesome thing to include in like a game pass like month of october like highlight five indie games that are like indie horror games and you put them on like the front page this would be like such a slam dunk for that something like that like game pass has got to do more of that they need to do more like theme they

[00:58:49] need to do more to get more juice out of their library they need to do more stuff to highlight cool games on in their library and I just I don't think they do nearly enough of that I would love to know I think I mentioned this before what is the process for game pass to select the smaller games the smaller titles that make it on there because for example the cabin

[00:59:17] factory for what it is how tiny it is and how little costs it did pretty dang well you could get a lot of people to play it now are they thinking I don't know a three dollar game most people are just going to buy that up front we can't compete with that but you're right I think if I think it all could come down to packaging you package this with like hey in the month of october guess what we've got I don't know

[00:59:41] uh inscription we got uh conscripts which cameron and I are playing through right now and we've got the cabin factory you know yeah absolutely it works yeah dude different models well ladies and gentlemen this has been another episode of the period of bonus podcast talking the cabin factory check this out on steam let us know what you think uh if you want to feel very scared and frightened and maybe not be

[01:00:10] able to sleep don't play this right before bed I recommend it's only like an hour play it during the day all the lights on um hold on last there's a lot obviously I have to say about this but when I was playing through this game the mom looks an awful lot like the scary version of jane seymour and then I watched a jane seymour movie recently afterwards and I was like I was like no man no I loved you but you're out

[01:00:40] well if you want to sip if you if you like this episode about uh the cabin factory leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice that's the best way to spread awareness of the show you can also join our discord uh link to an invite link to the discord is in our description and finally you can follow us uh on blue sky uh we we are still kind of on twitter but not really I've switched out all

[01:01:07] of the links uh in the descriptions to our blue sky locations we've moved over to blue sky because we hate nazis and uh if you want to support us directly you can do that on patreon.com slash period or cast uh where you can sign up multiple tiers multiple different offerings for you that where you can get access to a whole bunch of different offerings of different types of content from us including jake's indie impressions that he does weekly sometimes more often because

[01:01:37] he's playing so many different indie games totally uh independent thing that you can get from jake and then stay tuned because there is more stuff that we are constantly thinking about we got youtube on the mind more to come thanks for listening and have a great night