Battlefield 6, Megabonk, Steam Next Fest | Noclip Crewcast

🎵, 🎵.

Hey hey, gamers and non-gamers, welcome back to the noclip crewcast.

This is episode 249.

We are almost a quarter of a way through a thousand.

We've done so many podcasts, but you know who's not going to be here for episode 250 or this episode Daniel Dwyer.

He's not with us this week or next because he is in Australia.

Is he coming back next week?

I don't think so, right?

I think he's gone.

I don't know what you guys are going to do, though, because I will be gone for the next few weeks.

Jeremy's going to be gone, too.

But he is with us this week.

Jeremy, hello.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm exhausted.

I couldn't sleep last night, but I'm caffeinated.

I have two games I'm excited to talk about, and I'm physically here.

He's caffed, vaxxed, and waxed.

Jeremy Jane joins us on that. on the crew cast as per always.

And the lovely Frank Howley is with us as well.

Uh, Frank, when's the last time you got your flu shot?

Oh God.

Uh, before my, like, uh, I don't know.

Many years ago.

I gotta get, I should get, so my dad used to always bug me.

Like you should get your flu shot.

I'm like, all right, I'll do it.

And now he's gone.

So no one, there's no one asking.

So Jesse, you are, you, you have, uh, I don't know, set the fire.

No, I gotta do it.

Cause I got super sick.

Like two weeks ago, my mom is super sick right now.

And it's like, oh man, Um, it's the hard thing is picking a day.

Cause it's just like, it's gotta do it.

I just gotta do it.

I don't know.

And you got to book the rest of the day out.

You get your shot and it's like, well, I can't do anything.

I got to order door dash.

It's like, I got to pick like a Saturday, like a Friday or Saturday.

I have nothing going on, but, um, yeah, soon.

So feel free to keep asking every week until it gets done and we can have like a, a bedding pool.

I don't know.

But yeah, feel free to bug me about it.

Cause that's literally what my dad would do.

Now that he's gone.

It's like, well, finally I don't do that anymore, but no, I got it.

Cause it's My mom is elderly.

I don't want her to get further sick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get it.

It's important, but it's just, you know, the gamer procrastinates.

So if you asked when's the last time you got a trophy, it would have been like, oh, four hours ago.

We need to get trophies.

So what did we give you achievements for?

We need achievements.

When the lady at CVS gives you the jab, she needs to make the little like boop boop noise and give you a little pop up.

They used to give stickers, didn't they?

And candy.

That was kind of like getting a trophy.

That's true.

They give you jack shit.

Now, we've talked about.

It's like the dentist.

They need to bring back the dentist.

Little balsa wood planes, a little styrofoam planes oh, you used to get those.

Yeah, we've talked about, didn't?

We have this on the podcast?

Maybe you were gone, maybe i was gone when i at the dentist when i was a kid.

We get little airplanes, a bit of styrofoam, but then in retrospect it's a terrible idea because then it's flying styrofoam trash that children are throwing around.

It's okay, as long as they're happy.

It's worth it.

Did those go away because of 9-11?

I feel like as a kid you said paper airplanes, and then now you just don't get them anymore.

I think you would only be concerned about that if you were also giving out two buildings with the plastic airplanes.

Airplanes were no longer associated with whimsy.

Yeah, then it's like, uh-oh, we gotta make this serious.

Okay, no more little paper airplanes.

That's a great video essay is the conspiracy theory that little balsa wood planes went away because of 9-11.

See, and you could make that on noclip too.

You could yeah, you can make it happen.

We could find some way to spin that into being a video game video, i'm sure if we try hard enough, do some pilot wings, put pilot wings in there.

Oh yeah, that's why.

That's why they won't make another pilot wings too.

It's because 9-11.

Because you know, as soon as nintendo announces pilot wings 747, which is what they'll call the game, they'll do 9-11 too, and that'll be it.

All right this, this episode is getting deleted.

Nintendo's not working on it.

Jesse is not a treehouse insider.

That is just a coincidence.

We do not know what Nintendo's developing next.

Doug Bowser on his way out did not hand me a piece of paper telling me about pilot wing 747.

It's fine.

Um, but you know, if we end up making that, that video essay on no clip to, the only reason we can do it is because of the support of our great patrons over at patrioncom slash no clip and patrioncom slash no clip to, who support all the work that we do, including documentaries, this podcast, loads of other stuff, including a bonus pod uh, every month, which this month is going to be our review of final fantasy.

Spirits Within, which should be out either when this episode is live or shortly after.

You can listen to that, again, on the Patreon.

If you're not already supporting, you can do that again at patreoncom.

Slash noteclip and join.

If you want the list of the Battle Pass holders, the tippy-top supporters on that page, which includes if you've supported since the last podcast.

I don't know if it's been updated, so we'll find out.

Lovepreet Yutt TinyTal DwayneTheRockLobster, Anthony Thomas, Nico Passateri.

It's a me Ferrari.

Senator Armstrong.

Reed Reg.

Harry Flanagan.

Joosh.

Arno.

Matt Pearson.

James Brown.

Mark Rojas.

Quote.

Tucker Morgan.

David McGarry.

Goddison.

Sven Hooster.

Pez.

John Akers.

You int Nate.

Tim Robinson.

Forrest Pruitt.

It's been a while since I've had to read this.

Dark Insanities.

Jonathan Kremen.

Eric Hamilton Schneider.

Christophe Fetouhi.

Enox.

Cameron Ladd.

Whoa.

It's weird to hear it normal, right?

I don't like doing it normal.

Let me do it again.

Cameron Ladd.

I like that one.

Zachary Snader, Alex Gouchet, George Zerkotis, Jacob Godserve, Entheogen James Med Tohir, Tillyev and Rison.

Thank you all so much for your support.

That list has gotten really long.

I should try to do that all in one breath next time I have to do it and see whether or not I asphyxiate.

Hopefully not.

It's a long list.

We're gonna talk about a lot of video games. on this week's episode, but not too many.

It's going to be a shorter one.

You've had some, you've had long ones.

All right, listener, you can enjoy a normal length podcast.

How about that?

I'll probably only an hour and a half, but we do have some cool games to talk about, including battlefield six, mega bonk.

Uh, Jeremy's going to be talking about Kari Mara, I believe is maybe I got it.

I feel like that sounds right.

Uh, and I'm going to be talking about some next fest demos as well.

Uh, and Frank has one to cover and also mega.

Did I say mega bonk already?

If I haven't said mega bonk, I love saying it mega bonk.

We're going to be bonking mega time.

It's going to be great.

I can't wait to hear about it.

In fact, you know what?

Let's not jump into that one first.

Frank, Battlefield 6 is here.

You guys have been very excited for this one.

New first person shooter from DICE.

Gamers have been clamoring for a new Battlefield experience.

You've played a couple hours of the this is 1.0 or is this still beta?

Tell us about they're not doing the skate thing.

They're not calling a game early access and releasing it.

It's straight up.

This is the full thing.

The open beta was like a month or two ago.

Battlefield 6.

Yeah, i've only had like a day or two to play because i was out of town this weekend.

But um yeah, i've bought every single battlefield that launches battlefield 4 like like, like battlefield 2.

I got way late and i i didn't play battlefield 3, but like, i'm always curious um, and i love battlefield hardline, like i, like the weird.

You know, i spent half a year grinding all the trophies in star wars, battlefront 2, and then i got to a point where i downloaded battlefield 1 and i wanted to play it.

So it's so weird to be playing a battlefield six at launch.

It's like, Oh, there's other people playing like, Oh, like, um, yeah.

So I'm playing battlefield six did like two levels of the campaign.

It's like generic Xbox 360.

Like quarter, whatever.

There's trophies associated with each level, so it's fine, but it's like you know, I don't know if I'll finish it.

It does do the thing that a lot of like Call of Duties have done recently where, like when you're downloading the game, it's like do you want to bother downloading the single player, things like that.

So I appreciate that, but I'll keep it on there until I whatever.

Yeah, so I'm playing a little bit of Battlefield 6 and it's so funny.

The way I've been describing it to friends is like oh, it's like a really good Call of Duty.

They made a really good Call of Duty.

It's awesome, like Um, I will say like I really like battlefield five, the world war two one, because I played a medic.

I didn't get too deep into battlefield one.

This is so much of a smoother launch than battlefield.

Is it 2042?

What's the thing that came out like a few years ago?

Yeah.

That, that one was super rough.

And like, I bought it with a bunch of friends at lodge.

We were all excited.

And Oh my God, battlefield 24, two at launch was like buggy.

Couldn't cross.

It was like just them kind of starting to do cross play stuff.

So connecting to servers was glitchy.

It was constant, all this bad stuff.

Battlefield 6, because maybe they had the open beta, because maybe they didn't want to completely screw it up.

Like, oh, it works.

Getting into servers are super easy and playing it is very, very fun.

I'm only doing a medic, which I like, because I feel like most people do not either revive other teammates or be like no, you can revive teammates.

I don't know.

It's insane.

So it's like if you just play the medic, you can spam revive constantly and get so many points.

So when I'm playing Battlefield same thing I did in Battlefield 5 it feels like I'm playing Tony Hawk.

Because I am dashing back and forth on the front line and just looking to revive teammates.

And so I immediately get floated to the top of the leaderboard, because I'm the only one reviving people.

So for me, it's extremely fun.

I haven't bothered playing other classes.

I know sniping looks cool.

I think if you're the engineer you can throw down ladders.

So it's kind of like death stranding.

People are just spamming ladders across the map because you get xp for putting down the ladder and you get xp if people walk on the ladder.

So it's like, oh i got, you know you're.

You're incentivized to try their classes because there are like dailies and weeklies and all all this stuff.

But i like playing the medic and i will say i don't know more so than others are if they've changed, like the gun system or whatever.

But I'm finding it also very easy to get kills as a medic.

So it's, it's super engaging for me.

Cause I'll be reviving people constantly can shoot people, get kills.

And it's like, Oh, I'm constantly in a flow state when I'm playing it.

Uh, I've only done like the conquest stuff, which is stuff with vehicles.

There's a super long exhaustive mode.

It's a.

Is it breakthrough where the front line is just being pushed forward or back, as opposed to having multiple like domination points?

And then they basically have their own like call of duty playlist.

That's like close quarters combat, which is like 12 player, like team death match, king of the hill stuff.

So if I want like that, so, so the, the number one thing is like on the main menu, when you're picking the different playlists, it's like breakthrough.

It could be 20 to 40 minutes.

Conquest back 20 minute max um the close quarters stuff like 10 minute max.

So you can kind of gauge like, How much time do you want to play?

I did one mission of the breakthrough which was like a.

The match was like 36 minutes and I was so exhausted.

I was like, all right, I'm good.

I'm good.

Cause like, you know, I'm playing, I am sprinting across the entire map, just reviving people.

So I did one of that.

I was like, I'm done.

And that's just constant, right?

There's no like intervals.

There's no two minute break or anything.

No, no, no, no.

Yeah.

There's no halftime.

There's no like a timeout or anything.

Like real war.

Yeah.

I will say, I was playing, I was playing, again, I almost called it Call of Duty.

I was playing Battlefield 6 and I was like, dude, why aren't other people reviving?

Why is the team lagging?

What's going on?

And in the middle of the mission my friend texted me because he was at Tower Record Shinjuku buying Stardom merch.

He was like, what do you need?

So I put down my controller for five minutes and was texting my friend in the middle of this exchange.

I was like, oh, this is probably what other people are doing too.

Everyone else is probably talking to their friend in Tokyo trying to get them Stardom merch.

That's why no one's playing the game.

Um, but it was so funny because i was being such an aggro gamer like why, what's going on?

Where am i?

Why isn't my teammate helping?

And then i put down my controller for five minutes in the middle of a match.

I was like, oh it's so, no one's, you're not gonna get in trouble.

There's no commanding officer yelling at you like why aren't you, whatever?

So i don't know.

So yeah, i'm having fun with it.

Again, i'm not playing with any friends.

I don't know anyone else who has this game, but i've got i don't blame them this game's 70 us dollars yes, that's right.

Well, that's the price of war.

You know, that's the price of freedom and i'm willing to pay that price.

You know, stand up, that's right, that's right.

Um, new head of department of war, frank howley's dude, i mean, i again, if i'll do anything for achievements and it's not always clean my hands will get dirty, my hands will get bloody, i do not mind, it's for the gamer score.

Uh, less so for the freedom, but just more so the gamer score.

Um no, but yeah, a lot.

Especially, you have a very good point.

People are hesitant to get this because a maybe they played the early access and weren't blown away by it, or b 2042 had such a terrible launch that everyone knows wait a, wait a month.

It'll be on sale for black Friday.

Someone posted a thing of like the steam sale thing, where it's like you can chart every single like major EA release or like battlefield release.

And like, literally like by eight weeks, the game is slashed to $40.

So it's like, I just wait too much, you know, or whatever.

So um, But I will say I really like it, as someone who's played a bunch of random Battlefield games this year just for trophies and achievements.

I'm like, oh, this is fun.

I do wish there were Star Wars characters and music playing, because I will say, I think Star Wars Battlefront two is better.

There's no third person camera mode.

There's no Ewoks.

There's no Chewbacca.

But yeah, I'm having fun with it.

But yeah like like, like Jeremy talked about, we did the open beta where it's like.

To me this feels so much more like a um xbox 360 call of duty experience in the sense of like it's not hyper, there's no wall sprinting sliding, dashing.

It does feel way faster than the traditional battlefield experience, which i like, but i know it's different than like the old school uh vibe of the thing.

So yeah, i like, and i also think like yeah, no one's gonna care about call of duty 7 or whatever the new, whatever i think, but it has meal event.

Amelia, what do you mean?

You're not exactly who.

Who is that?

The guy from this is us or right?

Is that what?

It is the show.

I don't know the actor and I don't know the show.

You're not This Is Us fans?

I know the name.

Isn't that a Judd Apatow movie?

Isn't that the movie where Michael Cera and James Franco and Seth Rogen, the post-apocalypse?

Isn't that This Is The End?

Yeah, yeah.

What is This Is Us?

It's the worst TV show you could ever watch.

Oh, Milo Ventimiglia.

He's also in Heroes.

He was the main guy in season one and two.

Oh, okay.

Now you're talking my life.

He's in Call of Duty? he's the call of duty he's he's mr duty oh yeah we were playing a like trivia game last night it was canadian thanksgiving and uh and the old guy who knew nothing about video games had to come up with a video game name and he chose tour of duty tour of duty that's a great like ipad version of call of duty yeah you know like you could buy that on the playstation store right now for two dollars I remember an old Jerma YouTube video pre-streaming career where he played Grab That Auto, and it was like a GTA ripoff.

I feel like Tour of Duty is the Grab That Auto of Call of Duty.

Grab That Auto.

Sounds like a Simpsons spinoff, where you're trying to chase down the school bus driver.

Yeah, that's true.

Just get a hold of him.

Put him in jail.

That's a mod for the iPad version ripoff of GTA.

Come on, dude.

This game's rated M for Mature.

Battlefield 6.

Frank...

I have not played a battlefield game ever.

Really?

I keep I keep outing myself as as a not.

And I don't enjoy culture.

All right.

If there were Digimon in Battlefield, I would play.

Did you?

I would play Battlefield.

No, I would just play Digimon and then think about Battlefield instead.

So OK, if I wanted to experience, because you've played from four on, I know four back is a sort of different play style.

I played everyone up to three.

So we have the two covered.

Perfect.

If I want, and since you've played some of it, Jeremy, this is a good question.

If somebody who's never played a battlefield game before, should they buy six or should they play bad company two or should they play four?

Like, where do you think Frank and Jeremy, what are your guys' thoughts?

Where should they go to get the battlefield experience? main thing is like just fighting the player base so it's like if like where is the active play that's why it's like it's fun playing these games at launch because people are here two months from now where will they flock to like like what what subreddit is going to explode of like yeah we need a new battlefield one i don't know who knows um but yeah it's it's hard to say because yeah it's also hard to push this for like recommending buying at a full price i did it just because i like all the battlefield games and also i needed something to talk about this week so i'm like ah whatever um So, uh, so you picked an $80 thing to talk about.

I'd rather I do that than sit here and not have anything to talk about.

That's a very good point.

I'm like, you know, yeah.

So I don't know.

Uh, again, unless we have any friends at EA's, please.

Hey, I, Hey, I love EA.

You know, EA was electronic arts.

I'm a fan of the electronic arts.

You love them so much.

Such a big fan.

He couldn't remember what it stood for.

He was so overcome with emotion that the words.

Electronic arts.

I love it.

Yeah.

Um, I will say, it's kind of like the Borderlands 4 thing.

I want to play Borderlands 4.

I'm not buying that full price.

I know exactly what it is.

It'll be a fun game to listen to podcasts to while I loot and shoot.

Battlefield 6.

Hey, Mark Maron had Barack Obama on his podcast.

That was the last episode, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So I was listening to Barack Obama while playing Battlefield 6.

I was like, dude, this is good.

Again, yeah, so it's hard to say.

It's also weird to say, because I feel like the prime Battlefield experience is you playing with a full squad of friends and messing around playing by myself, i like, but it's like it's.

I feel like i'm in such a weird like satellite of an experience but like yeah, where are player people gaming on that?

That roblox battlefield game we played a few months ago, like a year, oh yeah, so would that be your suggestion?

Go to the roblox battle battle battle, bit battle remastered, i think.

Yeah, i know that player base fell off super hard.

That's the tough thing about like everyone's always like, why don't, why doesn't a team of like six devs just make the indie battlefield?

And i think the hard thing is is that like it's incredibly expensive to engineer this fucking like super game that millions of people play.

But it's also just like, if you lose that player base, it's fucking over.

Like, yeah, I don't know.

It's, and people, you can't like enjoy.

That's the thing, Jesse, you asked, like, should I go play battlefield two or whatever?

Um, People still play those games, but the player base is so diminished that it's not like you can't have the experience of playing that game when it was an active game.

It's like if you played Street Fighter Alpha three and like an online version on Steam or something.

You're playing, people who have played it for three million hours and that's who's left.

It's like you're not going to have the same experiences figuring out what the heavy punch button is on your controller.

Yeah, and they're, you know.

I feel like when a game has a diminished community, the people that are left playing it definitely would be more receptive to.

If you were like i have no idea, like i just started playing battlefield 2, i feel like the 400 people left playing it would be like oh dude, let me like teach you about commander mode, you know, but i, i just feel like it would be.

I don't know.

It's like a ghost town, you know, it's like going west for the.

Yeah, I totally know what you mean.

I wish there was some way, especially as somebody who missed out on a lot of those games because I just didn't grow up with a console.

I wish there was a way to bottle that experience because, like bots, even if they're really good, it's not going to be the same experience as sitting down and playing with the actual community.

And it sounds like six.

It sounds like it's good, Frank.

It sounds like you're having fun.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, sorry, go on.

No, yeah, I really like it.

But like the thing is, like, it's weird playing a multiplayer game with no friends.

It's like oh my God like like So, but I do not blame like friends who are like again, there's 6 billion games out right now.

And it's like, yeah, you can.

And again, you can totally wait.

In this game will a run better, have more content and like be so much cheaper when it's out later.

But yeah, like on steam, it has a very positive 35,000 reviews.

People are, people are liking it.

But yeah again, to me it kind of plays more like a call of duty, like a and again, cause I didn't Vince Zampella like produce this, or didn't his team oversee it to try to specifically get that modern warfare to feel like.

Um, but I will say like again, I like the revive, like the fact that you're reviving teammate people.

It does kind of force.

That's what I like more.

So then like, cause I like a month or two, I was playing black ops six for, for achievements.

And like, that is such an isolated gaming experience.

Like no, there's no teamwork or no, you're just load in, shoot die, load in, shoot die.

At least there's a pinch of like, okay, you're moving with the squad.

You're putting down blockades.

You're reviving your teammates.

It's like, Oh no, you are actually reviving, like working with other people to defend, get the attack points.

That is so much more of a like, parallel play, social feeling of uh, of combat, as opposed to like how, like cracked out call of duty is.

Um, so yeah, I do like it, but yeah, it is weird to like, it's a different experience.

Cause like like, what Jeremy said is like yeah, you respond, you're kind of immediately thrown into battle.

Whereas like the traditional uh, like slower scale battlefield experiences, you spawn all the way on like a naval ship, you get on a plane, you parachute down into a building, you're driving, you're walking up 10 stories, then you get sniped and then you respawn, you know or whatever, but like it's like it has these like beats, like it's like tom hanks sitting on the foot on the boat, shaking as he gets to the spot um, which is like, but it's during those months if you're playing with friends, you get on the helicopter.

You let me just around you laugh like.

I mean, i remember like And maybe he's still in Battlefield 4, but just like flying helicopters in each other is like always so funny.

So yeah, the quote unquote Battlefield moments, I think I've had like one of those experiences so far. um just with like funny vehicle stuff but again i want to play more i do like it um again it's so fun to like play games at launch and just the the the vault the uh the the player skill base is so all over the place i think there are a lot of people coming into this treating it like call of duty so i think that's why people like as soon as they die hit respawn it's like no no let me i get so angry as a medic when i am rushing out to revive someone and they just ignore me and i'm like no dude trust me i'm the one medic who's actually trying to revive people i feel like that it points to sort of like my critique of battlefield 6 which is like like you said frank having not like that lead up experience where you're like transporting there and then you're like deep behind enemy lines and you're like all right if we die it's fucking you know 15 minutes on the bus to get back here um i i think that like The experience I haven't played, I haven't bought Battlefield 6 yet.

I played quite a bit of probably like 10, 15 hours of the open beta and I was hopeful about it.

But like it felt so claustrophobic that like everything was so close together that I would die.

I'd be like all right well, I can cross my fingers and hope that someone revives me, which is, you know, a coin flip, or I could just respawn like 15 seconds away is what I felt like most of the time.

Um whereas, like most of my memories from battlefield two are being a squad and like pushing up the side and then making sure that the squad leader stayed alive.

So you could squad squad spawn, making sure the medic stayed up, making sure you had like, two medics to revive each other.

Um, because then it was like it was like this operation, this like ongoing operation, which feels like weird sort of like emergent quest design or something, where it's like, all right, we're gonna push up with, you know, everyone's fighting at b, we're gonna swing behind and we're gonna take c and that's really gonna fuck them up and it becomes this like that's your mission for you know, whatever two-thirds of the, the match um, and i was not feeling that with battlefield 6, but I feel like it's a very well-made game.

It felt good to play.

The sound design's incredible.

It looks good.

So I'm hopeful that larger maps might solve some of my issues with it.

Well, there you go.

Battlefield 6.

Sounds like it's a game that we will hear more about in the future.

Frank, I hope you continue playing and report back on the hopefully not dwindling player base.

Hopefully people keep picking it up, especially when, like you said, it's 40 in a couple of weeks for Black Friday.

Yeah, that's right.

So check that out.

PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.

Battlefield 6.

Buy it on Steam if you want.

70 US dollars.

Let's move on to Karimara.

Jeremy, I shared a little fun fact with you about this game and its developer and another game that they made that you also thought was really cool.

So tell us about this creepy-looking Halloween-y card game, Karimara.

Yeah, so Karimara, this is a game by a developer named Bastinus Rex, published by Critical Reflex.

It is a...

I don't even really know how to describe this game.

It is a.

It's not really a horror game, but I think sort of first person narrative horror game is the best touchstone for understanding what this is.

This is sort of like.

This is a very short game, but very like narratively, thematically and aesthetically rich.

So I think it's a very worthwhile experience.

If you're on the fence as well, like.

This game took me an hour to beat.

Not there's more secret stuff.

I think you could do all the secret stuff in about two hours.

But this game is like under five bucks.

And I just I'm such a sucker for like a little bite sized experience that just you have it.

It's done and you enjoy it.

So Karamara is a game where you play as a Karamara, which is like a little I think it's a.

Is it a goblin or a troll?

I forget which term they use.

I think it's a goblin.

But you're like a little fantasy creature being who shows up to the house of this old sort of like, like hag of the woods, like a Baba Yaga figure.

And she has a spirit in her house in the basement.

And you are there to purge the spirit from the basement.

Now your character is mute and cannot speak.

But your character has a magical ability where, once they interact with something, they can conjure a card that has a picture and the name of the thing on it.

So if you see the old lady, you get a card that says old lady.

And now anyone who in the world who is like interactable, like if you can go up and talk to someone, you can present them with the old lady card and get their thoughts on the old lady um, so as you explore, you're gaining uh, you're building a deck of conversation options, which i think is a really cool uh mechanic um, so that that's kind of like.

The whole game is like that's the mechanic.

It's just going around and looking at stuff, getting these cards to get more options, to talk to people about more things, and the entire game takes place within this sort of like very small, almost diorama.

Like you know, it's like this house in the surrounding area.

Is it?

There's no like Morrowind world where you leave the house and walk to say to Neen.

It's just, or I think say to Neen is where you start walk from say to Neen.

Um, I And it's kind of like I don't know I'm struggling with how much to say about this because it's such a short game.

So I don't want to say too much about what the narrative thrust of it is.

But basically yeah, you're like a goblin exorcist who's building conversation options through this core mechanic.

And I really like this.

So you mentioned that this developer is working on another game that I thought was promising, which is Trip.

I did not realize this was the same developer until you pointed it out.

But I played the demo for Trip recently, you know, some number of next fests ago.

Um yeah, it came out september 2024.

The demo did for trip uh, which is it's like a psychedelic, weird colorful first person, also like mysterious sort of horror-ish game, where you're on a train in like a weird sort of like loop.

Every time you go through the train it loops back again, but everything's different.

Um, and i also highly recommend playing the trip demo.

I don't know when the full game is out for that.

I'll have to look that up um, Cause I don't think they have a date yet.

This seemed like sort of Kairi Mara was like a, like a bridge game.

They were just like, this is cool.

Let me finish this and get this out.

Critical reflex gave him money.

So why not?

Right.

Yeah.

They have very similar vibes though.

Like they're both sort of just about going around and observing, which I think is is a really strong sort of like core design premise for these games is that, instead of being like oh, you got to like go around and solve this thing.

But there's like the monsters chasing you don't get caught by the monster.

I think in in absence of that sort of like core negative pressure on the player, it frees you up to challenge as a designer, to challenge the player in other ways, because I found that Karamara, most of the obstacle was created by, just like me, not being observant enough, which I think is a cool like way to do a mystery.

It's like the way you should do a mystery game, you know?

Um, like it, it's not like you talk to a guy and he's like, ah, did you go talk to that guy yet?

Go to him and tell him this.

And then you go do that.

It's more just like you're collecting little bits of sort of passive storytelling and things that seem very sort of like innocuous and like little side details are actually core, crucial details of understanding what's happening in this world.

Yeah.

It's like getting all of your money's worth out of a single set in a movie.

Like, if you make like a short film, that's just a small set, very specific world building elements inside of it.

It's like you have to get the most that you can out of that.

Where here it's like, I feel like I totally agree.

I think a lot of smaller games that sell themselves on being a two hour one hour long experience, that are like five bucks, end up almost trying to do too much or are way too linear.

Like they are way too, here's what, go see the thing that I made.

This is like, it sounds like you're just full, you're forced to focus.

You're forced to like look around, really appreciate everything that's there and like get the most out of it on a on a narrative level, and on like just like your curiosity.

You should feel curious in this little weirdo world.

Yeah, for sure.

And it definitely like I feel like it respects the player's intelligence, because I sort of like built my own theory of what was i mean.

Again, this is like a one hour experience, so this is all happening within the course of 60 minutes, but i sort of built my own theory of what was happening in this game and then playing the game was essentially just like disproving my own biases and understanding of the world, and i thought that that was really interesting.

It wasn't like i immediately intuited what was happening here.

It was more like the game sort of leads you down a path and then it's like all right now, like you have this little pocket world and it's it's small enough that when you hit a roadblock, you can kind of just walk around the entire game looking at everything again, which I thought was interesting.

It's, it's sort of because it's one environment, it, it gives the developer a lot of, um, a lot of license to basically be like to roadblock you in ways that like if it forces you to, to into a situation where you know that in order to progress, you're going to have to make some sort of intuitive leap.

Um, And I think in like larger point and click adventures, that can be a frustrating wall to hit.

Because if you play like fucking Monkey Island, it's like because it's a larger game, it's a larger amount of space to walk around and click on everything.

Whereas because this is so small, they can just be like, I don't know, you better figure it out.

And you're like, OK, I guess I'll just go like walk everywhere again.

But because it's so small, it's interesting.

And do they utilize the unintentionality?

Like you're saying I think that's a really good observation that, like point and click, games tend to have a lot of unnecessary information that they can do a lot with to build up the story.

Does this do that at all?

Like there's stuff that isn't necessary to progression, that you can sort of gain more insight on the world from.

Or is it sort of very everything is very intentional?

It feels like everything in this game is intentional, but not necessarily pointing you towards solving the core mystery, if that makes sense.

In fact I think that that works to the advantage of the core sort of like mystery puzzle here, because I think that giving you things that are building out your understanding of the world but not getting you closer to solving the mystery is interesting, because then it allows you to create red herrings for yourself where you're like oh, I noticed that thing over there.

It implies this.

And then you sort of build this theory and then you have to overcome that bias that you've built early on by misunderstanding the way things are.

So again, I'm being very vague because I don't want to solve the mystery in this one hour game for you.

So how does it end?

Let me tell you what the ending is.

The ending is great.

This is how it goes.

No, the ending is unironically actually really good.

I found it very.

I think this game.

It tells a very touching story in such a short amount of time.

Um, i was very pleasantly surprised.

So uh yeah, go play karamara, it's good.

And uh, you know, it's like what are you gonna do for an hour?

You're gonna go, like Fucking, play a game on your phone, or you want to have a meaningful experience.

That's two breakthroughs, brother.

I'm playing Breakthrough in Battlefield 6.

That's easy.

And that's exhausting.

That does sound fun, too, actually.

You could do both of those things if you just set aside two hours.

And one tenth of the money.

Actually, less than one.

You'll need it like seventy five dollars to play both of these games.

But.

It's not bad.

That's a good average.

It's a bargain.

37 and a half.

Yeah, BB in the middle is pretty good.

Yeah.

Karamara?

Is that where we're going?

Karamara.

Sorry, go ahead.

No, I will say GameStop does things like that, where they'll screw you, where it's like they'll have a thing, where it's like buy two games, get one free.

And it's like, oh, you bought the $70 game and a $7 game.

The $7 game will make free.

I'm like, come on, that's so, you know, that's brutal yeah, or like a 70 to 50 and a 20, and then like the 20s free and i'm like look, i get it, but can't the 50 be free instead?

Yeah, you got, you got.

Yeah yeah, you gotta be careful.

But i damn you split the median.

That's pretty, but no, i didn't mean to step on your call.

No no no, that's some free airheads with your purchase of battlefield 6.

Yeah dude yeah, one free funko pop.

They're just giving them away at this point.

One free m16, go for it.

Hey all right, now that's an american game.

Stop, we have eb games back.

Baby, we're free up here in canada.

Um yeah, there you go.

Karamara beneath the forlorn limbs is the full title on steam.

Pick it up.

It's on a 10% off.

It'll still be on sale when this goes live, but once it's off sale, it's a five bucks.

One other thing to mention that I totally skipped over which is the thing that got me in the door for this game is that uh, the aesthetic is incredibly bizarre and cool.

It's, um, it's very limited color palette.

It's sort of like uh uh, Not like PS1 aesthetic, but it does have some of the vertex jitter of PS1.

But the limited color palette and the sort of like gothic cutesy horror.

It reminds me a little bit of Tim Burton like good Tim Burton.

Yeah.

But yeah, I don't know.

It's just kind of like this is like a little little living Tim Burton adjacent folk horror game.

It's really good.

Yeah.

Check it out.

Look at the screenshots.

See it for yourself.

Buy it for five bucks and play.

It sounds like it's an hour.

You're going to have a good time.

From the sounds of it, again, published by Critical Reflex, developed by Bassinus Rex.

Critical Reflex on fire this year, except for Eclipsium, which Jeremy said was the worst game.

I did not say that.

He said he liked it.

I'm joking.

A lot of people really liked it.

I admired it.

It seems neat.

I will have to check it.

I also bought Karamara like a week ago and did not play it.

So thank you for reminding me that it's in my Steam wish list. before it rots away.

You have another game here that we could I'd like to get through quickly, because I think we have a bunch of Next Fest demos and other stuff and then I have to run out the door.

But Vampire's Best Friend.

I want to hear a little bit about this, because I've seen screenshots of it and I still don't know if that gets everything across.

So what is this game?

So Vampire's Best Friend.

This is a game developed by Synx Adventure, who I'm going to click on see what other games they made.

Nothing I've heard of, but maybe I'm going to check them all out now.

Vampire's Best Friend.

This is a...

It's a platformer.

Is this a UFO 50 game?

Did you find a UFO 50 game?

It's kind of a UFO 50 game.

It looks like one.

In the most complimentary way.

In the nicest way possible.

This is a game where you The introductory cutscene shows an adorable little vampire girl and her bad best friend who sneak into the town and they drink all the tomato soup in the town.

And the townspeople are furious about this.

So they hire vampire hunters to go I don't think they say the word kill, but to capture, to incapacitate the little adorable vampire girl.

And so the vampire hunters spread garlic all throughout the castle, vampire castle.

And this incapacitates the vampire girl.

So you do not play as her.

You play as the eponymous vampire's best friend, a little cute bat.

Aww.

And you have to free your vampire friend by collecting all of the garlic, by purging all of the garlic from the castle.

And you do so by it's a it's an upside down platformer, i guess, is how i would describe this.

So um, you're navigating this like trap laden castle full of like weird labyrinthine little corridors and traps and moving compartments and all sorts of bullshit um, and you can only land on the ceiling because you're a bat.

So if, if you, you have this meter that goes down, which is basically like a stamina meter um, It's just a timer but it's not exhausted by inputs.

It's just time-based.

And so before the timer hits zero, you need to land in another position on the ceiling somewhere.

And if you do not, you die quote-unquote and are sort of teleported back to the last spot you landed on the ceiling.

So it's this bizarre... So the way you move is you either tap left or right.

If you tap either one, it moves you in that direction and slightly upward.

So like a like a flappy bird.

Yes.

OK, it's like a flappy bat.

So you.

All right.

This creates these weird situations where like.

Say you need to get through something to the left, but it's below you.

Then you need to create enough momentum moving leftward but then kill the throttle enough to have the leftward momentum but then drop early enough to get through.

I kind of felt like I was driving a boat upside down or something.

There's this very bizarre.

You have to get used to drifting a bat through these openings and stuff.

And then the world has all these wrinkles on that.

There's like a...

There's like a gas trap that reverses the controls.

So now not only are you playing sort of like something adjacent to Flappy Bird, but also the controls are reversed.

And it's just like it builds really cleverly on this one core mechanic that the whole thing is based around.

But it's basically just like a sort of like open world platformer.

I wouldn't call this a Metroidvania, but it doesn't look like one.

No, but but the fact that you are in a. vampire-themed open 2D platformer world.

I kept being like, this feels like a Metroid.

It's not a Metroidvania.

Is this a Batroidvania?

I'm leaving.

Hanging up the call.

Yeah no, I.

I really like the design of this game as well, because I kept hitting the places where I was like I feel like I don't quite have the skill level, like I've played you know whatever 20 minutes of this game and I got to this one puzzle and I feel like I can't solve this yet.

And because the world is sort of, like, small and dense enough, it's not that bad.

Like, it's not, like, punishing.

Like, when you die, you don't get teleported back to the start.

But you can choose to do that and sort of, like, retake another route.

And you're basically just exploring this whole castle as a little bat.

And it's... This game is fucking hard, though.

I... For all of its cutesy aesthetic, I found this game, like, incredibly punishing.

Wow, but i yeah, i don't know.

I feel like that that's what makes it interesting.

It has this sort of like nes aesthetic and i feel like it has this sort of nes platformer design ethos where it's like you know, it's not it's you're, it's not like a token taker, like it's not trying to eat your quarters.

But it does feel a little bit reminiscent of that era of design where it's like This game is so fucking hard.

I'm on a home console.

Why are you doing this to me, Nintendo?

I gave you all my quarters already.

What more do you want?

I paid for this game in quarters and prepaid for the arcade experience.

I was going to do laundry, but instead I bought Vampire's Best Friend.

Yeah, exactly.

Cause it looks, it looks fantastic.

It looks really, really good.

It's got a very similar sort of like the earlier, you know the early years of moon soft or whatever.

The team is in UFO 50 uh, the first handful of games there.

It has that same sort of like color palette and the pixel arts really nice.

And yeah, it just, it looks lovely.

It sounds really good too.

Just the music and sound effects in this trailer are really like just very Castlevania adjacent.

Uh nice yeah no, it's.

Uh, it's sort of i feel like it's sort of like super positioned between nes and super nintendo um, in terms of like aesthetic and fidelity and design and stuff.

But um yeah, vampire's best friend, i am definitely gonna play more of this.

Uh, it only has 29 reviews.

That's fucking crazy.

It's been a weird year, man.

Uh yeah, this game is fantastic.

I hope, i hope, if you like hard platformers, you will love this game.

Um, and yeah, it's i i also.

The last thing i'll say about it is that it's like.

Platformers are a genre that I often associate with incredibly precise controls, like things like Celeste and Meat Boy and stuff.

The joy there is mastering these incredibly precise controls and, you know, like precision platformers.

This is sort of like an imprecision platformer where you need to be very precise with it.

But because the controls are, like you know, the little sort of like upward sideways acceleration per input.

It's very, it's finicky in a way that like mastery of it, feels satisfying because it is not intuitive.

Um, so you, you feel the skill curve cutting against you and as you start to get a handle on it, you're like oh, this is like, this is not as bad as i thought it was, or i'm pretty good at this, after all um, and it's a very satisfying thing to overcome.

So uh, highly sorry, the flaps are consistent right, so each time you press the button you always go the same height, or sorry, did you say it was different?

No, it's consistent.

Um, you can also hold left or right, so you can sort of like You don't have to button mash or whatever.

But yeah, it's a fucking hard-ass game.

It's really good.

It sounds like a fun challenge.

Sounds like something I'd be into.

I'm going to pick this up.

I had seen pictures of it, but yeah, I hadn't seen anyone explain what it was.

They were kind of like, this looks cool.

Someone else play it and tell me if it is.

I'm that guy.

Yeah, thank you for being that guy.

You're always that guy.

Thank you.

That was Vampire's Best Friend.

Pick it up on Steam.

It's also on Itch.

I feel like this would be a good Itch.io game.

I don't know.

I can't find it.

I'll let you know later if it is.

But you know what isn't on itch.io?

Actually, it might be too.

I didn't check.

Megabonk.

While we're talking about indie games, before we get on to the Steam Next Fest stuff.

Real quick, Frank.

I have seen so many clips of this.

Megabonk seems like some sort of vampire survivors adjacent 3D game.

How do you like the bonking?

Are you enjoying doing a little bonk? yeah so megabonk is yeah essentially 3d vampire survivors like this game blew up like over like the last two weeks like jeff gerstmann recovered it like a week or two ago on his podcast but the reason i got it is i had i had like i flew i'm from california i flew up to oregon for a friend's wedding so it's like oh i need to just burn up i need a game to like burn a plane ride and like thought about bringing my switch playing donkey kong or the just remastered mario galaxy 2 but it was like oh man another vampire survivors type thing let me check it out and um yeah it's uh it's it's it's i really liked it it's one of the things things as soon as i as soon as i started playing it was like okay yeah there's so many like waves of progression and things to unlock so it's just constant like uh taking stuff but yeah the fact that they basically took uh vampire survivors which is over the top 2d and essentially i've made a game that kind of looks like n64 or like early world of warcraft graphics um uh there's only two levels i don't know if they're gonna add more and there's like scaling difficulty so there's a forest biome and then like a desert biome and uh yeah it's just that like immediately start um there's so many characters and like i will say the game has like a more silly meme-ish like quality to it like it's very silly irreverent but like the guys on reddit and steam just like hey i just want to make a game i think is cool and fun and and so normally i'm like like kind of like the borderlands say i get annoyed when there's like that kind of that stuff but it's very genuine it's just like oh you mean like contemporary means memes sorry memes yeah like like i'm trying to think of one example it's like there's a power-up where you get a lot of money and i think it just says like stonks or whatever i'm like oh brother it's not there are a lot of jokes like that in this game it's just that but i'm like i'm not look i'm not that's you know i don't care about that but like I close my eyes.

I just do.

I'm here for the bonking.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So no, but play the game is fun.

It is kind of cool.

So there is a little bit of platforming stuff.

So like you could theoretically jump over enemies.

Enemies will throw down like AOE attacks.

So there'll be like a red orb that expands and you have like a little bit of time to jump out of it.

And yeah, there's so many weapons, so many power ups.

And so it's been funny looking at the Reddits and people coming up with like already there's a character that has broken the game.

There's a character where it's like the more currency you have on you and you can spend your currency on chests and power-ups in the middle of your run the more currency you have, the more damage you do and people realize like oh, he didn't cap that value.

So like, current meta right now is this one character where if you just keep collecting coins you do insane amount of damage output but um yeah so i played it non-stop on my plane rides non-stop going to sleep like before going to bed i played the game so much by the time i came back from the wedding trip i had severe eye strain because i screwed up hard so uh imagine what 6 a.m flying out of oregon i sit like even before i get on the plane i'm in the terminal playing megabonk Okay, here's a life hack.

Maybe, whatever, I'll out myself, and it's over.

Here's the thing.

When the Delta United are like hey, we're boarding group four, if you're group five, you can still get in line and they're not going to say anything.

So I cut.

I'm kind of a gate cutter.

It's okay.

Whatever.

Boarding group cutter.

I don't care.

I need to sit down.

I need that luggage space.

That overhead bin space.

That's right.

That should be a game.

We're at an airport trying to get overhead bin space.

Cause that's like the craziest thing in the world.

Whatever.

Um, so I sit down on the plane, pull up my steam deck.

I start playing mega bonk.

The plane takes off.

I'm playing Mega Bonk.

They turn off all the lights in the cabin.

I'm playing Mega Bonk.

Oh, no.

I didn't adjust my brightness.

Yeah.

So I'm sitting there on a dark plane at like 6 a.m. staring at Mega Bonk.

There's so many lights and flashes and things blasting my eyes.

And then I'm playing it the entire time during takeoff, in the air, during the landing, sitting down still playing Mega Bonk.

I get off the plane.

I get to the next connecting gate.

I sit down.

I start playing Mega Bonk.

And then I get hit with the worst wave of nausea.

So I got legit motion sickness playing Megabonk for hours upon hours.

You're why those warning screens are on games at the start.

Yeah, I always ignore.

Should have listened this time.

That's for weak-willed gamers.

You haven't seen my gamer score.

And then I sat there in the turn.

But I also was at a wedding, so I probably also was hungover.

So good combination.

So i was sitting there just like oh, i thought i was gonna throw up.

It was so bad, just sitting in the sitting in the terminal, just like sweating and like rubbing my eyes, and i felt like.

It felt like i was experiencing an exorcist.

I was so sick um, and then i googled on steam like mega bonk, motion sick, and there's been a handful of people being like yeah, this game gave me motion sickness.

So i like didn't play it for two days because like, oh man, i like Wait, I need to know more about you being sick.

What happened?

Did you get on the plane and you were still nauseous?

No, so it was like when I got off the plane, I hadn't played Megabonk for like two hours.

But that was your connecting, I thought.

Didn't you have another flight?

No, so did I play?

I did not play Megabonk on the second flight.

Yeah, I bet.

Yeah.

And so I just sat there with my hands over my eyes, just like that for like an hour and then i just you ate the, the free snacks at the.

Yeah yeah, they brought around.

And you're like, give me a sprite, i want to.

But then last night, before going to bed, after some battlefield 6, i pulled up my steam deck and listened to mark maron and barack obama and i was like, oh yeah, but it's like dangerous, i think i have to quit it.

Cold turkey, because it's one of those things yeah, me too.

You know, we always talk about like the dark patterns, the rng that, and it's like it's so good, but it's like, oh no, i i od'd on megabonk, and so this is me warning you, and i'm also hesitant because i'm like yeah i, i love it killed, it killed plane rides, but i almost died.

I almost oh, i like i almost died from it.

Not not really, but you know what i mean it.

It messed me up.

But i will say i really do like the game.

If you do like trying all these uh uh, what do you call it?

Jeff kersman called them ass games auto, auto assistant aimers or whatever we call them, but like I don't know.

I've also heard the term mowers, which I like because that's a Japanese one, right?

Yeah.

It reminds me of like Dynasty Wars.

And there is something so satisfying of like that, like when you're scrap, peeling off this giant layer of things coming at you.

But it also makes me excited for Dynasty Warriors three remastered, which got announced for next year.

But yeah, so I liked it again.

It's like one of those novelty games like, oh, it's fun.

You could theory.

It seems like the average like to unlock everything, plow through everything is maybe like 20 hours of just chipping every character doing all this stuff vampire survivors, the og i like because i didn't get motion sick and that was a game i played like 50 to 60 hours.

But um yeah, if you really do like those games, if you do want something to kill time or chill with, like i will say it is fun, it it ticks all those boxes.

It was very satisfying but like it's so hard to put down the one more run at it.

It's like, oh god, it's so bad.

So I literally had to stop playing because of motion sickness.

Um, but again, that was me on a plane, maybe a little hungover.

Yeah.

So um, I don't know, but I will say I liked it.

But yeah, at this point it's got like 20000 reviews.

I feel like it's only 10 bucks and not super extreme, but I had fun with it.

I do.

I kind of do like the art style.

It kind of does remind me of Owen forest that first, that first, uh, level, but yeah, I liked it.

I don't know if they're going to keep updating stuff, adding more characters or whatever, but for 10 I've had, I've had a good time with it.

And uh, it's one of those things too, where it's like it's like got a hundred achievements but it's got the.

It's like vampire survivors, like upgrade this item to level 10 and use this character on this map, whatever.

So all those little little things, I have 51 of 102 achievements um so far, but I also don't know if my steam decks updated.

I feel like I have more.

But yeah, so I liked it, but it gave me super bad motion sickness playing it on a plane.

So that's, yeah, I wonder if that's going to be a thing for some people.

Cause the.

The appeal of this genre seems to be that it's fairly straightforward and you can kind of just play it wherever, in any circumstance and not, you know, a lot of big flashing lights.

I wouldn't recommend playing vampire survivors if you have epilepsy, but uh, it's still like an enjoyable time where this is like.

You also need to worry about 3d positioning.

You got to jump.

You got to, the camera moves around in interesting ways.

It's yeah.

This seems like too much for me.

I think I had my fill with vampire survivors personally.

Um, but I'm glad that you're having fun with it, man.

It looks like it looks really fun.

Like it looks like it's just a good time.

Big numbers popping up on the screen.

I think somebody you had mentioned you wanted to play this and somebody mentioned that you would enjoy Disgaea for the big numbers.

Yeah, yeah.

You need to report back from the Disgaea universe.

I need to know how you feel about that.

So here's the thing.

I'm looking for a copy.

It was, it's like 50 bucks on the PlayStation store.

Disgaea, Disgaea one complete.

So their GameStop does have it for sale for 25 bucks, but you don't want to order it online because you might just get a disc with like like like a cardboard box as the case.

But um, i do want to play this guy because yeah, i've been playing so much more tactics and this guy feels like the parody version of that very anime, but yeah, but uh, so i'm looking out for a ps4 copy of this guy i won.

But yeah, big numbers, just games, that kind of.

It's also kind of funny to play stuff that like mock gate, like game stuff too.

So it's, it's very silly.

But yeah, it's the kind of thing where i'm like yeah, it's not changing the world, like it's fun.

You know it's like it's like junk food, but You know it's, it's sometimes it's fun to OD on a bag of Doritos too.

No, I completely agree.

Yeah, there's nothing better than just mowing down on a whole bag of Doritos one weekend.

Although don't do that on a plane is the message I'm getting from you.

Yeah, Megabonk.

Check it out.

Also, the developer has been posting a lot of clips on YouTube shorts and TikTok and stuff.

I just happen to see them every once in a while.

And I'm always like this.

Whoever this is, is like very excited to be working on this game.

They think this is really fun.

It's it's weirdly more fun to me than playing the game.

I bet I would have like a good amount of fun with it.

But watching them. figure out how to fix things, how to make a bug into a feature and all that.

That's been like a weirdly enjoyable experience.

I really like it.

It turns out, people who like talking about making video games like hearing people talk about making their video games.

Who would have thought?

That's Megabonk.

Pick it up on Steam.

It's only on Steam.

Vampire's Best Friend is on itch.io.

Oh, nice.

So you want to get it there as well.

Yeah.

Buy that on itch if you.

I mean, I'm not, I like stuff on my steam library so I'm not going to preach, but itch does give a bigger share to, to the, to the peeps.

Exactly.

Give them the 10 old buckies straight to the dome.

Let's talk about some next fest.

Let's get in the next fest zone.

Steam next fest time.

It's the October one.

It's the last one of the year.

It's Halloween season.

So, you know, it's time for lots of spooky games.

I've tried a couple of them.

Haven't been great, but I do have a ton that I've enjoyed.

I'm excited to share some of those here on the pod and a video that we're making over on Noclip 2.

And there's also a thread on Blue Sky.

If you want to check that out, jessegrasher.com.

It's my first and last name.com on Blue Sky.

Follow me there.

Keep up with all the cool stuff that I'm checking out.

I think I've got like eight or nine in a thread as of recording.

But by the time you check it out, if you're listening to this, it'll be 11 or 12.

Who knows?

It's been a weird next fest for demos.

We'll talk about that in a second.

But you guys mind if I just rattle off a couple here?

And Frank, you've got one as well?

Yeah?

I won't be too long on these, I promise.

First one, Tears of Metal.

This, so I think there was a trailer for this like a year, year and a half ago.

It's a, it's a Musau.

It's a Musau game, Frank, but it's Braveheart.

You play as a bunch of Scottish warriors trying to fight off the British who have invaded your homeland and you're trying to reconquer it back from them.

It is straight up.

So I have played maybe, I don't know, 20, 30 hours of, I want to see Dynasty Warriors 2.

That's my whole experience with the Musau genre.

I'm like, I like it.

Oh, and you know what?

I played the Age of Calamity, the new Zelda one.

That was a good time.

But that's it.

That's like I don't.

I'm not a master at this genre or anything, but this feels like they've figured it out.

They nailed it.

It's you.

You play, as you know, not Mel Gibson, fighting off hordes of British people and beating the crap out of them with your sword doing that.

Third person melee combat.

It feels good.

You fight off the easy pawns and then you've got bigger captains that you can focus on and you have abilities that you can use.

Either you can tell your spear men to use the spears or get the arrows.

But then you also have like team abilities, where you can just be like everyone, shoot all your arrows at everybody and do a ton of damage.

There's also like roguelike unlocks as well that build out the gameplay a little bit more.

So like you're you have combos that you can do, right?

Your light combo at the end might do something.

Your dodge might cause an explosion, stuff like that.

It's fairly straightforward in terms of its presentation.

Gameplay wise, you know what this is if you've seen this genre before.

But the setup is kind of neat.

It's set up like a roguelike.

You start from your sort of base screen.

It's just a menu where you can like go to town and buy stuff or like upgrade your units or whatever.

And then you go out and it's a bunch of different laid out almost a bit like a map.

Actually it is literally a map, but laid out sort of like binding of isaac.

Each of the areas has different rewards and you can see what they are in advance, that sort of thing.

Um so maybe not like binding advising, maybe more like slate the spire.

Um, and yeah, you go there, you fight them.

There's bosses, you get to the end and you, you clear out the British and then you're like Hey, we did it.

Let me go back.

Uh, I, I wasn't able to finish it.

I found it actually pretty challenging.

Um, the, the difficulty ramp is like, it's easy, easy.

And then you fight one or two decent, like enemies at the same time falls apart.

It's like so much more challenging, which is cool.

Like I do like that.

I actually like the challenge of it.

Um, but no, it looks great.

It has a really cool art style.

I think, um, the music's fantastic.

It's like bag pipes and then also like hard metal rock.

It's great.

It's it's so much fun.

The sound effects are great.

The voice acting is obviously very scottish and they're like yelling, like yeah, for for liberty or what.

I don't know what they say, but like there's just yelling and very excited.

It's great game.

It's really really cool.

Check out the demo on steam if you haven't already.

It's a good time.

Uh, skate story is another one.

Uh, developed by sam ang.

I want to say is the name uh paper cult with the developers of tears of metal?

Uh but yeah, sam ang on skate story.

If you don't know what skate story is, you know Check it out.

If you do know what it is, you're probably already excited for it.

But yeah, Skate Story is a fantastic skateboarding game.

I think this is a fantastic skateboarding game, but it's also like a fantastic adventure game.

It's a lot more structured than I thought it would be.

Like I had no idea going into it if it was going to be like a linear sort of like walking sim with some skateboarding gameplay.

But no, like it actually has challenges and stuff that you can do in smaller maps.

So yeah.

It's structured almost like like a poem of a video game is very weird.

You like play through a bunch of tutorial sections to open you.

It's a third person skateboarding game where you are like a glass human trying to swallow the moon.

And the universe is watching you and they don't want you to skateboard.

It's like very clearly has commentary on like authoritarianism and what the state is allowed as allowing people to do or not do, which is kind of you know.

It leans back all the punk aspects of skateboarding and Tony Hawk and the series and everything but more specifically just skateboard culture, which I think is really cool.

Sort of recontextualizes that in like it turns the skateboarder into into a myth almost.

I was going to say I love when media does like like a story about like a punk rock band in the future where punk rock is illegal.

Like it's such a funny charged, like over the top comic book version of it.

Exactly.

It's so unnecessary because it's already fairly like.

Punk culture is pretty not not.

You know, you don't go to jail for being a punk rocker usually, but like they find ways to to get you for doing some, some anarchist stuff.

But no, skate story is like, it's really, it's, The skateboarding feels fantastic.

Like it's not flick trick stuff, but it's.

It's a weird middle ground between Tony Hawk and the flick trick of skate.

It's like you have um this loop that shows up once you get into Ollie mode, but you can bend the loop with different buttons to do like a pop, shove it or do like a kick flip.

And, um, there's obviously timing based stuff.

So like if, if you're in the green window, you get a better jump and all that.

Um, they call the score damage.

Like you're dealing damage when you get a certain amount.

There's like boss fights.

I didn't know you could do boss fights in a skateboarding game.

It works somehow.

I really like it.

Um, yeah, I think you guys will enjoy this.

I'm really curious what you think about it.

Cause you're really you're big into this the uh Tony Hawk and skateboarding scene a lot more than I am anyway these days.

Um, but it's, yeah, it's, It's very poetic.

It's a very poetic game.

I love the prose.

I love the writing.

I think it's weird.

It almost feels like if if Goichi Suda got really into skateboarding for like three weeks, this is the game he would make.

It's incredibly bizarre.

And that's the biggest compliment I can give to any video game is that it reminds me of a suit of 51 piece.

So this is awesome.

Yeah.

Skate story.

Check it out. on steam part of next fest.

And the last one I want to shout out uh, although there's a ton of really good stuff, is called shadow of the road.

I had not heard of this one before.

Um, it's a CRPG strategy game where you're playing as a well, you're basically controlling a team of people in.

I don't remember exactly what the era is, but it's like end of I don't know.

I don't want to get it wrong, but whatever.

It's like you're a samurai ronin.

Yeah, Feudal Japan, yeah.

But I think they specifically say it's like the border between the end of that and the start of the next era or something.

But whatever, whatever the point may be, it's just like there's something going on.

It's a tumultuous time in Japan and you are playing as two different characters to start a samurai and a – well, I guess a former samurai.

You're working for the shogun now, and you're like magical companion who is also an archer.

And it plays like –

A bit like a Mimimi game, like one of those, like a Desperados, something like that.

But it's more like a traditional CRPG.

You have hex positioning or XCOM is probably a better comparison point because it does have that like armor blocking cover thing.

Whenever you hover over cover, it'll be like full shield, half shield, that sort of stuff.

You can target enemies in different ways and you have different abilities.

It's actually very complex.

I think the demo does a good job of explaining everything.

It's just long enough for you to understand it by the end.

Narratively, it's interesting.

Like you have these conversations between the two characters and it's different set of characters as time goes on, because it's like a CRPG your choices, you can see, influence the alignment of the characters.

So like it'll be, like Hey you, you didn't want to kill this group of people, or you said Oh, we won't be mean to the Shogun.

So we'll now I'm leaning more to the right.

I mean more towards, uh, uh, samurai.

So like that sort of stuff, right.

It's fairly straightforward.

Um, it's a little janky.

It's a little weird.

Like it feels.

It feels like if this is the demo and it's out in two months, I would maybe wait a little while and like clean some stuff up.

But, uh, It's almost a charming jank at the same time.

Like there's stuff clipping through characters that like that seems like an accident but it weirdly I'm like I don't really it doesn't bug me that much because it doesn't seem like it's trying to be a hundred percent historically accurate.

But also they did their research.

It says in the start, I don't know.

It might just be a me thing, but it doesn't bug me as much.

Uh, I think it's, I thought it was really fun.

I really enjoyed my time doing this, the, uh, the combat.

It like has turn order stuff you need to be cognizant of, and like items that you you have to uh equip to the characters in advance.

So you need to think uh, about combat engagements, not when you see them coming, because everything just sort of happens on the fly.

You'll you'll be in a story conversation and then like, oh whoa, these bandits are now here.

So you can't be like oh, there's a bandit camp over there, let's make sure we're ready in advance all the time.

So you have to think about what might happen eventually.

It's neat.

There's a lot of different characters.

You meet like a big hulking guy who can ram into enemies and um, there's uh, an old guy who you meet his like daughter.

She can use her hair to attack enemies like.

There's a little bit of mystical magic stuff going on, but it's fairly grounded.

I think it's really interesting.

I'm excited to see what the full game ends up being like because um yeah, i had no idea what this was.

It's my favorite part of next fest.

You play a game you've never heard of before and you end up playing something really cool that you're excited for.

I was gonna say i feel like this has a sort of like um wild, wild west thing going on, because there's in the screenshots there's like a giant mechanical scorpion shooting lightning out of its stinger.

Yeah, it doesn't.

You know what I was saying?

It's got a little bit of that.

How historically accurate are we trying to be?

Remind me again, which was it?

Which period in feudal Japan was it with the giant scorpion?

Yeah.

When did they have the mechanical scorpions?

There's also a great screenshot where two characters are looking at a wagon full of machinery.

And one of the characters says, wait, isn't this Gaijin technology?

Yeah.

That is the funniest part is there's a lot of words where it's like it kind of feels like I didn't see any of the next stuff in the demo, but there are narrative bits in this where it seems almost like Forza Horizon, like four or five, where they especially five, I guess, where it's just like random Spanish in the middle of a sentence.

You're like, OK, all right.

But this game has a text highlight thing.

So in the middle of a conversation, you could hover over the text.

Yeah, it'll explain what Gaijin is.

Bro, I hate Gaijin technology.

Yeah, you're like Gaijin is a foreigner.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's honestly, I really liked this.

Again, it's very it's a little janky.

It probably needs a little bit more work, but I'm a big fan.

I'm definitely looking forward to this one.

Developed by Another Angle Games.

Yeah, I'm wishlisting this.

I'm going to pick this up.

Hell yeah, there you go, uh.

And then frank, you've got one as well.

Here uh, the union syndrome yeah so uh, this is union syndrome, rhythm psychosis.

This came on my rate and i never like mess with steam next best stuff, because i'm like i'll just play, like so i didn't mess with the battlefield beta, it's like i'll just play the game when it's out.

Because i know i hate being teased, but the timing of this is incredible, because i'm so obsessed in researching rhythm games and And because this is published by the same team that helped put out Needy Streamer Overload.

So it's got the same thing where it's like.

When you turn on the game it simulates like a Windows XP thing.

The premise of this game is it's about an otaku girl who's so.

It's a rhythm game, about an otaku girl who's obsessed with rhythm games.

And all she does is sit in her room and plays rhythm games and listens to Dempa music, which is that hyper like hyper, hyper J pop.

Um, she listens to it so much that she goes crazy and starts visualizing, like a rhythm game, demons in her room that are telling her to keep playing to find the secret transmissions in the Dempa songs.

And so it is an actual rhythm game, but like DD streamer, it's like pushing along a story and a narrative and it's got so much going.

And like the demo itself is maybe like, I think I spent like a full hour.

It gives you maybe like a dozen songs you can play through.

You can even play through like the, the, the theme song of needy streamer overload in it.

It's also got like Toho songs.

It's got original music.

It's all great.

The art's super cute.

The writing's really funny.

Um, Once you finish, like the first five set of songs you have to like, look around your room and it looks like my room.

It's like, oh, there's the hug pillow.

There's, like, the anime figures.

It looks like my room.

There's, like, trash everywhere.

And then it's like, oh, you see a glint.

You see, like, a glint.

And it's like, oh, I found a Dempa CD under this pile of clothes.

Let's put it in.

Just like your room.

Everything that you want glints.

Yeah, it's great.

So it's so funny.

There's a thing in the game where, like If your mom comes home and comes to your room, you hit the tab button and it's called mommy mode.

And it just like shifts to like Oh, I was just watching like a, I was just watching like a boat racing video or I was just watching like cats on YouTube.

So is it like a five nights at Freddy's thing?

Like your mom just shows up and you got to like, Oh, I'm just kidding.

Yeah.

So like that in the middle of the rhythm games, that's just part of the story thing.

And I wonder like how the game, what character are.

Cause yeah, the girl, like the girls that hit Kikomori neat, like she lives in a room.

She's afraid to leave the room.

She doesn't want to leave the room when her mom's home. but like when the mom leaves, she'll go out and she'll get like energy drinks to like, and you get like more points when you're on energy drinks and things like that.

And it's just genuinely funny.

The music's good.

And then the rhythm game itself, the core of the game.

I'm sure you can, if you can rebind, if you play with the controller, but you see the girl at her computer typing and, like you know, getting in sync with the music.

So the default is like your two left keys are SD.

And I think it's like KL or GH.

So you, So it's just this, but it's so specific and hyper and you can calibrate the timing.

So it's just tapping the four keys in sync and getting all the rhythm patterns.

So it's very similar to playing like Beatmania.

You're not spinning a DJ thing on the left, but very similar to Beatmania.

The music's good.

And yeah, like playing Beatmania or DDR, it was fun for me to find my like.

Oh, what level am I comfortable with?

So there's like normal and then like rhythm demon, whatever the super hard mode is.

And it's like I could do some songs in normal, some on super hard.

And, like, there's a difficulty scale of, like, 1 to 10, and you can find the sweet spot.

I was able to full clear a song and things like that.

But, yeah, it's really good.

Same thing like Needy Streamer.

It just hits, like, all the Otaku stuff well.

It's, like, you know, Japanese-made, so it's so authentic and great and funny and cute.

The art's awesome.

The music's great.

The actual rhythm game part of it's good.

So when this is out with achievements, like, oh, my God, I want to play all this.

Um so yeah, I rarely, I rarely local touch and uh steam, next best stuff.

But it's like Oh my God, this was made for me.

So it's awesome.

I'm, this is why I get mad at next best.

I mean, I would preorder it.

I would like, let me send the money in advance, help you guys out.

Like, like I legitimately want to like spend the money for it today.

So I can like, I don't know what else.

So that's why I'm like, Oh my God, the community service aspect, please guys wishlist.

Like, Oh my God, I need this game.

I need it.

I don't know if it's 2026.

There's no release date.

Um, I'm like, oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

That is the main thing with Nexfest, man.

It's a real challenge.

But yeah, that's Yun Yun Syndrome.

Rhythm psychosis.

Jeremy, did you play any Nexfest demos?

I played a bunch, yeah.

We're going to do a Nexfest video, but there's one I would like to shout out.

Yeah, please.

Here on the podcast.

Love Eternal.

This is a...

2d platformer sort of like psychological horror precision platformer.

Um, I've seen this.

Yeah.

I really, really enjoyed the demo for this.

Uh, it sort of starts in a very like normal domestic setting of going out from your room to eat dinner with your family.

And then it transitions into sort of like weird unsettling, uh like mega structures um that you're platforming around.

But the core mechanic of this is that you are running and jumping and, uh, flipping gravity.

Um, and you can flip gravity once per jump while you're in the air, you can flip gravity.

Uh, so there's sort of like momentum based, like jump and then move.

And then at the right time, flip gravity.

So you have this sort of like sine wave trajectory, uh, stuff like that.

And then there's crystals that you can catch in air.

Um, and, uh, yeah, it's really good.

I I'm super enjoying it.

All right.

There you go.

Love eternal.

Yeah.

That sounds awesome, man.

I saw some screenshots of it.

I think I have it on my list of 9 million things that I found that look interesting.

Um, and it was one that stood out of, yeah, I love the art style.

I think it looks really cool.

I think the best thing you can do in a next fest steam page or any steam page really, but especially when you're trying to hook people in uh, or even with the trailer is like show normal shit.

And then one page where something really weird is happening.

And I'm like, okay, well now I need to see what that is.

Um, Yeah, this looks really cool.

Love Eternal.

Check it out.

Check out all those games.

I'll have links to all of the ones that we've mentioned in the description.

Again, Jeremy said we're going to have a Next Fest video on Noclip 2.

Check that out as well.

And let us know what you've been playing.

So let us know what you've enjoyed from seeing Next Fest.

I'm always excited to see what demos people pull out, especially because this one has felt particularly hard to find good demos.

And I, you know, I tend to scroll through as many as I can before the webpage crashes on me.

And this one has been AI art out the ass.

It's been bad video games.

It's, Hey, you want to play beer pong?

And I'm like, I wish, yeah, that actually would be fun.

I wish there was a good version of that.

And then you open it and it's like, would you spend a week on this?

Some of the stuff I'm like.

I just I would love to know what the logic is behind some of the like.

Did you just have a hundred dollars you wanted to get rid of?

Like, why did you put this on steam?

I don't, I don't understand.

Um, very weird.

It's very weird, but, uh, Yeah.

I don't know this one.

It happens every time, but this one in particular has been very hard to sift through and find the really great games.

Cause there are some that look okay.

Cause it's AI art that like is just they obfuscated enough, or like it just sort of fits in well enough that you can't really tell or you don't know.

And then you open it up and it's like, Oh, it's like AI voice acting and stuff.

It's like you guys there, you know, sometimes I have a little agency for that stuff.

It is what it is.

Um, but there's just so much of it here.

And and For every game that looks interesting that I haven't even had a chance to play yet to know if it is.

There's nine more where I'm like.

I don't know why.

If Despilote can just get everyone that they know to do the voice acting, then anyone can do that.

Exactly.

It doesn't have to be good.

I would rather listen to like mediocre, your friend doing voice acting.

That's like serviceable.

I would rather listen to your like slightly charismatic friend Jeff, just like fucking busting out a line.

That's why every PS1 game like Resident Evil or even Dynasty Warriors is so memorable, because it's like oh my God, this voice acting is so authentic.

Yeah.

I don't know what you want to say.

In a weird way, like really good voice acting is memorable.

And then like below par voice acting is very memorable as well.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like a charm to it.

It's fun.

But even then it's like placeholder stuff, you know, like if this is your next demo and you're just trying to get it out there in front of like a publisher or get enough wish lists or something to get a little bit more capital, or whatever the case might be.

This is partially an advertising event more than it is getting it in front of consumers.

Placeholder stuff is like it's OK if it's bad, but if it's AI, it's like I'm not excited about it anymore.

You know, now I'm like, I don't know why you did that.

It's whatever.

Everyone has their own. their own limit on that sort of thing.

But for me, I'm just, I'm pretty hard on it.

Cause there's only so many games, you know, there's only so many games we can cover.

If I'm going to cover one that has AI stuff or one that doesn't, I'm going to pick the one that doesn't every time.

Yeah.

That was also my experience is that scrolling through next fest was a a absurd amount of AI generated thumbnails.

I don't, yeah, I don't know.

I wonder if the logic is that because the little capsule image is so small, and the page generally, that they're like no one will notice or i can get away with it, or i wonder if it's just like people being like i don't have money to hire an artist, so i'll do this, but you know, i don't know, i would, i would rather have like the illusion of polished art to me is less effective because it's sort of i mean, this has been the thing.

I know air has come a long way, but like it still is this kind of thing where it's like Oh, that looks kind of good.

And then you look at it for a second.

You're like, Oh no, that doesn't look good at all.

Like it, it falls apart under the light of scrutiny.

Whereas I feel like the, the meta is to do so.

Like if you're not an artist and you can't hire an artist, just like draw something.

And if it's like, if it's sufficiently janky, I will notice it because I'll be like what?

What was this person thinking with this?

And like, that's charming though.

Like, I don't know.

I feel like, I mean, I get it.

Like there is this feeling.

As someone who like, has learned visual art skills to make games, i i get that.

There is a feeling that you only want to put your best foot forward, like you don't.

You don't want to put out a piece of art that sucks, especially when it's the capsule art.

That's like it's the storefront for your game.

It's like the, it's the window shopping experience where people are just like scrolling by and it has to catch their eye.

Um, but if that's the case, it's like You know, you're walking by two ice cream stores and one is like the sterile, like pink berry, that's like white tile inside.

And one is like, you know, some some lady at like a lemonade stand.

Like, actually restaurants, is probably the perfect comparison because like, if I go to a shawarma place called to like, called like you know shawarma, but it's missing three vowels for some reason.

And the inside is really clean and the branding is like it's got a sans serif font.

I'm not eating there.

I know what you did.

I know where you got all that from.

You made it on Canva.

But if I see a restaurant where it's like someone's cousin made the branding and everything in the restaurant was repurposed from the previous pizza store it used to be, that's when you know you're eating at a good shawarma place.

It's really Steam.

Steam is just the shawarma places of gaming.

You're just looking for the good ones.

Yeah, restaurant is a good analogy or like a band.

If a band sounds very sort of like like overly familiar or polished, like they're doing an imitation of a good band, i feel like it's less appealing than if a band is like you know, comes out and just starts like screaming into the microphone.

You're like these people are fucking nuts, but i i respect their, their commitment to this.

I want your crust.

Give me a little crust.

Yeah, i need a little crust on my arm, a little crust.

That's like what makes it fucking human, you know?

Yep, oh real, We still like Steam Deck Fest, though.

We like all the games that are on there.

It's cool.

Not all of them, but we like finding out cool, weird experiences.

Again, share yours in the comments or check out that video on NetFlip, too.

We do have some emails as well from you lovely listeners.

Frank, you want to get through?

Maybe just two of these before we get out.

Yeah, I know you have to bounce whenever.

Feel free.

All right yeah, if you want to write to us, please send us an email.

Chat, internet chat, message digital, whatever.

Podcasts at noclip.video.

Send us your emails.

Thank you so much.

Podcasts at noclip.video or in the Discord for patrons, podcast chat.

Thank you so much.

Our first comes from Retro Rents Out.

With it being October and the month of all things spooky.

Do each of you have a favorite game, classic or new?

They love to take out this time of year and replay.

I used to try to time my Quest for Glory series replay so that I'd hit the fourth game around this time.

It's got dark Lovecraftian themes, fall pumpkins everywhere.

Ooh, that's a good question.

I think every year around October I try to get through a new horror game series that I haven't played before.

Last year, I played all of the classic Resident Evil games up until four.

That was a fun experience.

This year, I've been making my way through the Silent Hill games.

I'm on three now.

I just started it last night.

Hey.

Those are really good games.

So if no one's ever told you before, the Silent Hill series, it's good for a reason.

I think that's is that kind of the end of them being great?

And then it's sort of all over the place.

Four has a lot of sort of like not filler, but like a lot of low moments.

But I think for some of the high moments of four, I think are some of like the heights of Silent Hill.

Oh, cool.

Great.

I think.

Yeah.

I mean, as a latecomer, I have no nostalgia for the series at all.

I started playing a few years ago for the first time, from the first one.

Uh, i think one is perfect.

I think two is perfect.

I think three is damn near i don't know about perfect, but it's fucking.

It's one of it's in the top three with one, two and three.

Um, but i think four is definitely worth playing.

Yeah, i played two last year after i finished the resident evil games and i mean it was fantastic.

I played the remake for this one and it was.

You know yeah, it's exactly what a remake of silent hill 2 would look and feel and sound like.

Maybe a little bit too much extra on some parts, like the combat feels good, which i didn't get from silent hill 2 original, but whatever.

And silent hole 1 is still a great game which they're also remaking.

So i guess i'll have to play that one again in the future.

How dare they?

No, i just i know.

No, ironically a little bit, how dare they?

It's a little.

It's a little weird.

Like they probably shouldn't remake resident evil 1 again.

Right, they should just leave that alone.

They did it enough.

I will say, if they do a third person over the shoulder, resident evil 4, resident evil 1 i, that's my dream game.

It's really.

I totally get it like, i get the appeal of that idea, but i'm like i'm fine man, i play two versions of one.

I'm happy.

If they do that, if they give the resident evil 4 treatment to resident evil 1, i think they will need to find ways to Make the combat more frictional without just like.

In my mind, the easy route to take on that is is give like, like sway or something or like make it harder to aim.

But I think that's a that's a cop out solution because that's not fun and nobody likes that.

Like it's a negative sort of like feedback mechanism where it's like resident evil 4.

You're so precise that i think the the sort of like finite combat and resident evil 1 would be trivialized by having that amount of control.

So they would need to find a way to make it challenging and not just, like.

You know, i have seven bullets, but that's fine because these zombies each take like one tap in the head.

Um yeah what uh, what series do you guys like picking up for?

Uh, for october?

I genuinely like when MMOs are just like whatever, like not always online games, but to me like traditionally MMOs like World of Warcraft.

Their Halloween stuff is so fun because you could get masks.

So, like especially back in the day, like now, you can, I forget what you call it, transmog everything.

But like in Vanilla WoW, You were just stuck with whatever gear you had.

But during Halloween, Oh my God, I put a mask on.

Now I'm an ogre.

Now I'm a pirate.

Now I'm an, it's like, I love that.

And you log on.

And now Ellen forest has or a gold shower, has pumpkins everywhere and witches cauldrons, and you get candy.

So and so I remember playing destiny too during a Halloween season.

It was like, Oh my God, it's so fun.

So I love when games will just decorate their spaces.

So I, I currently have an active five SC 14 subscription.

I don't know if they do any Halloween stuff, but I like when, like those, like I think even Call of Duty in years past have done, I think they're actually doing a big Halloween thing.

I think they're adding Jason Voorhees and, like, Chucky, a bunch of, like, cheesy stuff.

My favorite combatants.

Dude, yeah, if that's Warzone, I'll check it out.

Like, they put Jigsaw from Saw.

So I like when multiplayer games or online games do seasonal stuff.

There's not ones I will, like, traditionally replay.

I'm always hungry to replay, like, Resident Evil 4 and things like that.

But, yeah, I don't.

I I'm always so weird with like seasons.

Again, my head right now, today's date is like August 8th, 1998.

I track time based on where we're at in WC, my WCW watch along.

So I'm in August.

We just had, you know, so we're leading up to fall brawl, the wolf pack verse, uh, Hollywood NWO.

So it's like, Oh, the real world.

It's all it's October guys.

I got to know what, what's going on with sting is Ming joining it.

You know?

So I'm, I'm my, my sense of time is so messed up.

But I do like online MMO games doing decorations.

Yeah, those are great.

It has nothing on the summer of 98, but it is cool when there's pumpkins in World of Warcraft.

I agree.

I love that stuff.

It makes it festive in the video game.

Love it.

Jeremy, what do you... Fatal Frame? i've never played fatal frame actually it's uh i will probably play it this year um yeah i like to play new horror game not new like they just came out but horror games that are new to me um yeah i'm not a big i'm not a big game you're only replaying it makes me feel weird yeah i don't know yeah i feel like i'm like there's so many games that i want to play that it's like i don't even have time to replay stuff so yeah i don't have like a comfort game um Unless it's like something I haven't played in a million years.

That's what I was going to say.

Is I need like I'm in the same boat where if I played something and I thought it was great, I will let it just be great in my head forever.

But I haven't played in 10 years.

I kind of want to see if it was good or if I was just a stupid kid, you know?

Yeah, for sure.

Like I really want to replay Jet Force Gemini at some point. uh yeah because i don't know if it's good or not also that was a game that i mostly watched my brother play so it's fucking it's my turn dude mom said it's my turn on the n64 now that i'm in my 30s you don't have to hold the unplugged mad cats controller anymore now you can hold the real great player too dude you're controlling the camera um yeah i i'll probably just play new games yeah fatal frame is definitely on the list um i've also never played siren i would like to play siren oh yeah okay um so those are probably my two uh and i would like to play more of clock tower i played a little bit of it and enjoyed it um but i played the like the 2d one that i think what i don't know i can't remember the order of release there's like frank is didn't they make like a 2d one and then the 3d one was like the first one released in the west or something or the first popular one because they just remastered the original clock tower which is like 2d and then i know clock tower 3 is the weird one that's like directed by the guy who also did battle the film battle royale so i've always wanted to play clock tower three oh shit really yeah there's there's something involved with that i remember like that's oh my god dude yeah it's kinji fukasaku the guy who we just talked about because of battles without honor and humanity that's dude fucking is that crazy now you gotta play that oh shit that's crazy that guy invented kiryu kind of yeah all right cool that's i'm putting that on the list also the cover of it is very unnerving the north american box art yeah i got i got you up it up yeah you would fatal frame rules i don't think i actually beat one but number two i did and i feel like it's like oh that's the silent hill too like where it's like okay they figured out it and so i feel like one is good but like I don't know.

Two is badass.

So it's like, what is it?

Something butterfly.

Crimson butterfly.

It's so sick.

Yeah.

All right.

Remake of that one as well for you to not play Jeremy, but you play the PS2 one.

I will play the original.

Also recommending Kuon to people who have not played Kuon from soft survival horror game takes place in also feudal Japan.

Very cool.

There you go.

I should check that out. adding on to the halloween uh joy ajp a similar question what kinds of halloween scary horror games do you prefer unsolved mystery existential dread jump scares and then what's your most memorable jump scare get the jump scares out of my face personally i hate that shit what did i just say um no yeah so it's so weird like when i think of horror games it really is my experience as a kid renting a game from blockbuster and and then having to look at mag video game magazines and walkthroughs of how to beat it because i was too scared to like discover on my own so like i do like survival horror i am spoiled by like the post resident evil 4 like oh my god once they added like yeah i could just shoot and kill us stuff so easy the power fantasy like i love resident evil 5 but that's not a horror game that's an action you know and it literally is an action game so it's like to me horror is yeah resource management like like obstructed camera view um ps1 graphics um so like yeah i do like traditional survival horror stuff that's why it's like oh my god i've never played clock tower clock clock clock tower three like that um clack tower clack tower we gotta get into clack yeah so i do like that yeah i don't that's why five nights at freddy's and like a lot of these like twitch era horror games i just don't it just that's not that doesn't read to me um Yeah.

So I like I like the old school survival horror stuff, but not like too old school.

I'm not going to play like a text adventure.

Yeah.

Like that, like alien game that invented survival horror games were just like ASCII art.

Whatever.

Yeah.

I'm kind of the same way.

I like I feel like survival horror around the PS1 era was very because of part of it is just like limitations of technology, like because they were so limited in technology they had to rely a lot more on atmosphere and sort of like psychological horror.

I guess is what i enjoy.

I like things that um, that make me feel like a sense of dread and doom, not like something, not because i'm like something's gonna pop out and scare me, but because i'm like genuinely afraid to venture deeper into this world and unfold, kind of like, how fucked up it is.

That's that's why silent hill 2 the original works so well for me, because it's like you know you, you see these little glimpses of this horror.

It's, it's almost like David Lynch where like David Lynch is so good at, uh, and I mean, David Lynch was a huge influence on Silent Hill.

So this makes sense.

But Lynch does this thing where it's like, ah, here's like 1950s America.

And then it's like, but if you zoom in, it's all fucked up.

And it's like, that's what fucks me up.

Cause it's like you.

You know that something is coming that is is going to fuck you up, and you're slowly getting closer to it.

And it's the feeling of dread of like understanding and comprehending why this world is fucked up.

Not that like a guy is going to pop out, although Mulholland drive does have the best jump scare ever.

So yeah, that is, I think, the thing about horror that I tend to be drawn to the most myself as well, as like if it's all horror all the time that, to me, diminishes it.

Everything stops being scary.

Every buildup is like, what are we in for?

What kind of world am I about to see?

Is it going to be a scary monster?

Is it going to be a funny moment?

Is it going to be a weird character?

That was what I liked about Alan Wake too, was like, you never know what you're going to walk into.

And sometimes it's just a musical performance.

Sometimes it is a scary monster.

Sometimes it's just a pretzel.

Like, okay, what was scary about that?

I don't know. it's weird video games are weird about that uh yeah i'm in the same boat though i don't like jump scares not because i don't find not because i don't like getting scared i like getting scared but like they don't scare me i'm always just annoyed i'm like this is annoying yeah it's not scary it's it's more like um it's like a somatic overload like i'm not afraid i'm just like it's like if someone like kicks me in the dick i'm not like whoa dude you're so scary it's just like don't do that yeah it's it's never exciting you know well it's just like whatever There's always a company with a loud noise or like something.

Like if you're hanging out with your friends on Halloween and going around to the campfire telling ghost stories and someone's like all right, here's my story.

And then they have a guy run up behind you and grab you and go like ah, you're not like whoa dude, that was like.

You're a master of the craft of telling scary stories.

You're just like, why would you do that horrible thing to me? yeah objectively scary but like not in a cool way not where i'm like dude he was so good at scaring me it's in like a yeah you attacked my basic physiological response system yeah you like bypassed my brain to like make me have a mammalian response of startling me it's not like three weeks from now we're not gonna be like dude could you do that again because that'll scare me again like it's you know it's whatever it's not satisfying stupid uh yeah that's why i like like mouthwashing it's like weird yeah scary It's not scary because it's trying to scare me.

It's scary because the world is fucked up and the people in it are monsters.

And are we not?

Who's the real monsters?

It's man.

Yeah, I think we'll have to leave it there this week.

These other questions look really good and I'd like to get into it and not have them rushed out.

So thank you for sending them in, as Frank is always so diligent about finding all of them and bringing together the best ones.

They're all good questions, though.

So thank you for sending them in again to podcast at no clip dot video.

We got a lot of cool stuff coming up, perhaps way too much.

So many documentaries.

You can check out the patron update on Patreon, the patron show.

There's a lot of really cool stuff that Danny has included in that episode, including sneak peeks of upcoming documentaries that look really good.

Again, I know clip two.

We've got the Mugenics feature or preview rather, which you should check out.

I did watch all of it since we talked about Mugenics last week.

Really, really cool looking game.

I Danny had me excited that preview put it over the moon.

So this is, I think, a really good time.

And again, the Final Fantasy Spirits Within podcast will be up either again now or very soon from the release of this episode.

So hopefully you enjoy us being really confused about a perfectly cromulent sci-fi movie from the early 2000s.

So check that out again.

No patreoncom, slash noclip to get access to that.

Uh, become a supporter.

Become a supporter on noclip2 if you want as well.

There may be some discount codes.

I don't know, i'm not the, i don't run noclip.

I've just heard things.

I'm from the grapevine.

A little birdie told me, just the gravevine, because it's halloween.

It's exactly.

Yeah, that's what i said.

Fine, if that's.

I didn't mean to say that, but it sounds way cooler if i did.

Uh, I don't know.

Whatever.

Enjoy some video games.

We'll catch you next week for episode 250.

Me and Frank and someone else.

I don't know.

We'll have to figure that out.

That'll be an interesting two-person episode.

Maybe we'll come up with a fun game or something.

Or find some guests.

Maybe it'll be a surprise for episode 250.

We'll check you then.

Play some video games.

Check out ClackTower.

Buy whatever makes you happy.

And I hope you have a good weekend.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.

[Noclip Crewcast Episode 249: Battlefield 6, Indie Gems, and Seasonal Spooks]-[Battlefield 6, Megabonk, Steam Next Fest]

📋 Summary

A New Battlefield Experience

Bite-Sized Indie Horror and Platforming

The "Mega Bonk" Phenomenon

Steam Next Fest Highlights

Horror Preferences and Seasonal Gaming

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Noclip Crewcast Episode 249: Battlefield 6, Indie Gems, and Seasonal Spooks]-[Battlefield 6, Megabonk, Steam Next Fest]

📋 Summary

A New Battlefield Experience

Bite-Sized Indie Horror and Platforming

The "Mega Bonk" Phenomenon

Steam Next Fest Highlights

Horror Preferences and Seasonal Gaming

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

ListenLeap Brings You Into Real Context Learning