Inscryption

Alex and Luke talk Inscryption.

Inscryption is a psychological horror, rouguelike deck-building game that has been praised for its unique blend of genres and captivating storytelling. Developed by Daniel Mullins Games and published by Devolver Digital, the game takes players on a dark and twisted journey through a mysterious forest. Along the way, players must gather cards, build a deck, and use their strategic skills to battle against a variety of terrifying creatures.

What sets Inscryption apart from other deck-building games is its innovative gameplay mechanics, which incorporate elements of puzzle-solving, exploration, and even escape room-style challenges. Each card in the game has its own unique abilities, and players must use these cards to overcome obstacles, defeat enemies, and uncover the secrets of the forest. With a gripping storyline and unexpected twists and turns, Inscryption is a must-play for fans of horror, puzzle, and deck-building games alike.

Inscryption was released for Windows on October 19, 2021. It was released on Linux and macOS on June 22, 2022, which was followed by PlayStation 4 and 5 versions in August. A Nintendo Switch port was released in December 2022. Versions for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S released in April 2023. Inscryption has received generally positive reviews and won several Game of the Year awards. The game sold 1 million copies by January 2022. As of publication of this podcast, the PC version of the game has a Metascore of 85 and a User Score of 8.6 on metacritic.com.

Alex played Inscryption on his PC and Steam Deck. Luke played on his gaming laptop. Both hosts had completed act one at the time of recording.

This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by grillin' season!

Sidequestin':

Alex: Vader, Cocaine Bear, Death's Door, Logitech G920, Dreamcast, PS2

Luke: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Skyrim, MLB The Show

Referenced guest spots:

• Pixel Project Radio (Death's Door)
• Tales from The Backlog (Read Dead Redemption 2)

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Transcript

Alex: 0:21

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 22 of Lo Five Gaming, a backlog book club style podcast that I host with my brother Luke. What's up, Luke?

Luke: 0:29

Hey there, coming at you for our late night edition for the second time. Ooh, late night vibes recording at the nighttime. In spirit of our game, this is our second act. First act is straight Goon Squad. Second act, controversial. Some don't think it's as good as the first, but hey, it's all part of the vibes. Deal with it. I think there's three acts in total, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. We haven't unveiled the third act yet.

Alex: 0:53

Right on. Just chill on that. True, true. So this is if this is your first time listening, welcome. And if you've been with us from the start, welcome back. We get listeners from all over the world, which is pretty rad. Blows my mind to be honest. But outside of our home turf, Minneapolis, St. Paul, the Twin Cities, most of our listeners are coming from Montreal and Winnipeg in Canada.

Luke: 1:14

They're actually comfortable with our accents. I think that's that might be, dude. It might be west, and they're like, I want to go American, but I don't want the shocking, jarring Texas or the New York. So they hear our oops and our, you know, all that, and they're they must be comfortable.

Alex: 1:27

Comfortable. Comfortable with the low pipe. But Montreal and Winnipeg are neck and neck right now, man. The same amount of listens. Montreal, get on your shit and start sharing us with your friends because you can't be letting Winnipeg.

Luke: 1:39

It was like $10 a day in Winnipeg. So what up, Winnipeg? You got a house for me? Ooh.

Alex: 1:44

There we go. Luke's Luke's back in Winnipeg. I'm back in Montreal. Let's see.

Luke: 1:49

I can do it.

Alex: 1:50

Next month, I want to see it. I want to see those numbers go up. Uh, but for real. Uh share us with your friends as an independent pod. That is the best way for us to grow and get out there. And we appreciate everybody who's been tuning in. If this is your first time, if it's your 22nd time, plus, because we had some bonus apps. Welcome back. And if you're hungry for more low five content, Luke and I recently guested on Tales from the Backlog covering Red Dead Redemption 2. So that's going to drop on April 19th. So depending on when you listen to this episode, it's either out there already or it's about to be out there. We'll drop a little link in the show notes. And I just guested on Pixel Project Radio talking about Death's Door. So a little low five content outside of the low five realm.

Luke: 2:35

Yeah, so Al's like hit me with like he wanted to start a polyamorous relationship. And like I'm like all sad because I'm like, yeah, we can do an open relationship. And the it's really just him exploring, you know, his different relations and me just staying at home. So, you know, I don't know. I mean you and Dave had that threesome, bro. Right, right, right. I was a little tepid. I think that went well. I was a little tepid, but I got there, and it's just, you know, I'm just trying to make my man's happy here. So I guess I'll just explore the thruple action to Al just exploring his inner uh pod casuality, and uh, we're just having a good time.

Alex: 3:12

So uh yes, but this isn't about Red Dead, and it's not about Death Store this episode.

Luke: 3:17

No, no, sorry.

Alex: 3:18

It's about inscription.

Luke: 3:20

Insert creepy noises.

Alex: 3:50

The game was released in October 2021 and has received critical acclaim for its unique gameplay mechanics and storytelling. Players must use a deck of cards to battle their way through a dark forest, solving puzzles and facing off against terrifying creatures. The game is known for its unconventional twists and turns, keeping players on the edge of their seats throughout the entire experience.

Luke: 4:11

Yeah, it's creepy. I really like the vibes right off the bat. Keeping you on your seat. I mean, I'm not like a old god there, but like let's just say the first time you used the pliers, I was like, what the fuck? Yeah, do it in these. I was never comfortable using, dude. Yeah, if you've played. I I don't want to ruin either one of those for you, but if you've played, you're just like, yikes.

Alex: 4:32

Right. To get it out there off the bat, there's three acts to this game, and we're gonna be covering the first act for this podcast. Nothing was really spoiled for me entering this game, and I think it's for those that haven't played it yet. I want to keep it that way for you. I think it's it's fine for us to kind of go through the first act, but we'll we'll uh we'll cut out that second and third act stuff and leave that for the Discord. So if you want to talk about that stuff, jump at the Discord.

Luke: 4:54

I think it's a game where there's some technical issues on my end as to why I didn't get further, and there's a skill issue on Al's end as to why it took him forever. So I think it'd be really cool if in future pods we could either do I had to be a dick about it. We could either do mini pods or dude.

Alex: 5:13

I was fretting. I was fretting.

Luke: 5:15

Remember when we touched base on Mario Golf and the game just continued to not be worth talking about anymore, but we like touched base on it for three more pods. Like, I think it would be more interesting to do this with inscription.

Alex: 5:27

Fair enough. Dude, I don't even play. I I used to check in Mario Golf every month to get the new skin. I don't even do that shit anymore. Yeah, like did they do anything for the movie? Probably not.

Luke: 5:37

But anyway, inscription. We got through the first act individually, loved it. A lot of great things to say about it. You'll hear that coming up. And I think that stay tuned as far as if you're bummed that we didn't get to the greater acts. This is probably one of my favorite games that I've played uh in a while, certainly this year. So I have I have deep interest in getting through the acts, and I think the game is super rad.

Alex: 5:59

Yeah, dude, it's been a treat. And I chose this game. I've had this game in my backlog for a while. I I probably picked it up on sale on Steam a while back, but I wanted to play it because I had been hearing so many rumblings. Like everybody, you know, I listened to a lot of different podcasts and stuff, and a lot of folks were this this game kept appearing in people's like end of year lists, right? People would whether it was their favorite game or whether it was like a a game that kind of surprised them, came out of nowhere. Uh so like I have been hearing all this inscription talk, and then it's also from Devolver Digital, dude, and Devolver be still my heart. I love me some Devolver.

Luke: 6:36

Great publisher to pick up what you were saying. One of the best, in my opinion. Absolutely. They're like the one of them indie indie labels that just produces slappers. So the artist is making the making the music, but they keep coming through this excellent taste making and supportive uh publishing house.

Alex: 6:52

Uh right, Devolver, they got good taste, bro. We got Ape Out, Bro Force, Call the Lamb, Death Store, Darwell, Enter the Gungeon, Gris, Hotline, Miami, Loop Hero, List goes on.

Luke: 7:03

Yeah, no, they're they don't release bad games, it appears.

Alex: 7:07

My friend Pedro, Ali Ali, Runer, Sirius Sam, Terra Dale, the Messenger. I told you the list went on.

Luke: 7:14

Um, yeah, so continuing as to why we chose the game, uh appeared on a lot of lists, and I can see that given that it is very, very unique. Um, and it's it's it's fun to talk about. It's fun to it's fun to feel. Like the vibe-ness of it is particularly exquisite. And it was actually a gift from Senior Ace. So there's uh there's another shout out.

Alex: 7:35

He doesn't get any of those on this podcast, but doggy, we we need a sound effect for when we drop ace in these things.

Luke: 7:41

Figure that out. We'll work on it. I don't know if that's the one, but yeah. Won a ton of awards. It's it's been it's been the in the podcast ether, so we had to talk about it. And uh, I'm glad because it it was, you know, we haven't gotten deep enough into it to be true, true Capital G gamers, but we we definitely enjoyed it. Right.

Alex: 8:06

And dude, I tell you what, I I've been trying to uh be respectful of the fact you got those two twins in the household taking up all your time. To my understanding, it's a little easier these days. You I'm not gonna say you got through like the hard part, but you uh, you know, they're doing good, right?

Luke: 8:21

They're doing good parent and they just laugh at me. And I'm like, stop that, just tell me and they just laugh.

Alex: 8:26

But my point is, I've when I pick a game, I try and pick one that I'm like, all right, like this will be something that we can both put a decent amount of time into, but not oh like I'm not gonna give you like a Skyrim, right? So like so I kind of I did my research and how long to beat says that this game takes 12 hours, bro. No, sir. No, not a chance, dude. I first I hadn't even beat I didn't even beat act one and I was at like 11.5 hours, and I was like, oh shit, man, I just really suck at this game, I'm never gonna beat it. And I'm like 15 hours in now, man. And I'm I'm like a quarter of the way through act two, so I need to have some words with the people that are putting their times into how long to beat.

Luke: 9:05

Maybe they literally just mean the first act. Uh I'm not sure.

Alex: 9:08

Like, well, here's the deal. If you are good at this game, I don't know if you're gonna be able to do it. And if you're if you knew what you're doing, you're like, if you're like revisiting the game, sure, maybe. But no, if you're approaching this game for the first time, yeah. Uh, anyways, not for me. I'm 15 hours in and I haven't beat it yet.

Luke: 9:26

It just released, I sent you a message, it just released on Xbox, and like if it was on Game Pass, I would have thrown a fit, but it just released on Xbox, which was enough to frustrate me because uh when you got babies, they're constantly you know moving around and having their needs and whatnot. So, like my gaming laptop is not ideal. Like, I sent a picture on the Discord, I got all cuddled up with a baby when he passed out, I played for an hour. This gaming laptop, when it's playing a game, can probably give you an hour and a half of battery life not plugged in. So it's just a beastie experience. So uh, if I just had it on that controller while the baby's passed out on the couch, or so I could constantly set down the controller, that would have been that would have been ideal. Sure. That's kind of why this will be a slow burn game for me, because I like I think about it all the time and I kind of want to sneak away. But uh it's just gonna take some time.

Alex: 10:17

Fair enough. Yeah, I played this game primarily on the Steam Deck, actually. It was a nice. Yeah, it was a nice uh nice way to play. I also played on my PC.

Luke: 10:28

Outside of main quest or side questing, where it's just not just a tech flex exhibition, but it's coming today too, bud. Oh my god, you guys should see the outline anyway. Continue.

Alex: 10:40

I also played on my PC, bro, and I've got the three monitors because you wanted to talk tech, so we're talking tech. And I've got that set up, and not all games will automatically bump into like the three monitor spread, but inscription did, even though I wasn't like uh I didn't at first I was like, I don't know if I wanted to take up all three screens, but dude, it's like the creep vibes are even higher when you're surrounded by it, and like all everything pretty much happens on the main screen in the middle, but when you're surrounded by like the dark stuff on the left and the right, like you feel like you're in that cabin, bro, and it's creepy, dude. Absolutely. Should we describe that cabin? How do you want to start? Go for it. Like, honestly, I don't even remember how you landed. I mean, obviously, I remember the cabin, spent a lot of time in that cabin, but I don't remember how you were dropped there.

Luke: 11:25

Well, it's those instant like noises of every time the dude talks, and he like it seems as if you get this vibe like you've been drugged, or you're you're awaking in this dude's cabin, and you're kind of like his prisoner, right? And he makes you play this game, and through this game, he's kind of telling you how you got there, but really it's more like he's just narrating like a campaign almost, and it's this deck building game, and right off the bat, like you're like, All right, I laid on my cards, and then you sacrifice the cards, and then that's like right away, you're like, Oh, this is weird, right? And then some of the cards talk to you, and you're like, What is happening? And that fucking stoat is such a little dick.

Alex: 12:09

He had me I have anxiety running, dude, because he he was like always second guessing whenever you play him. So I was like, Oh, yeah, awful play. I was like, shit, I thought it was a good play.

Luke: 12:19

Yeah, he's just a troll, but uh yeah, and sometimes he's like, do it, he's like sacrifice that thing. So it's cool. It's got a ton of character right off the bat. Um, every time he talks, it's that that super creepy, like noise, and there's just like all the vibes, all like the creepy little like this would be such an excellent game to be playing in spooky season in October. I just love it, man.

Alex: 12:45

Totally. I played a lot of it with my headphones on, and it it, you know, late nights, some late nights with inscription getting nice and creeped out.

Luke: 12:52

Getting the chills, and I had to lower his blinds, he was getting scared, people were looking at him in his fancy windows. He was like, no. Um anyway, and it's got like a low, I don't want to call it like a low fi art style, or like how would you describe it?

Alex: 13:09

I mean, it's like a but I don't even know how retro it is. I mean, it's like I almost looks like a first-person shooter because it's a first-person perspective, right? It's not super polished, so it's it's kind of like a boomer shooter. Looks a little bit like a boomer shooter, but I mean it's not a boomer shooter.

Luke: 13:26

That's like Doom 64 type thing, right? I mean, it's nicer than original Doom. Uh and the dude's got creepy hands and he's got these wild eyes, and you don't can see his face either. Until the main in the darkness.

Alex: 13:40

You can see his eyes until you beat him, and he's creepy looking. Uh small one. Well, no, couple rooms, cut couple room cabin, then there's a locked door, and you can actually leave the game table, right? So this game takes place, like the card game itself takes place at this table with this creep dude that is kind of guiding you with a way through it. And it's interesting because when the game starts, it's this 8-bit. So you're talking about the graphics, it's almost this 8-bit, like very old PC vibe, right? And you have to actually pull a card that is to continue, it says, not to start the game. It doesn't let you start to like use the start game option. So you pull the continue card up to where the card placement is, and then you know, whatever, and it starts up this game, all of a sudden you're in this cabin, and the graphics change a little bit into that more 3D first person view uh that we were just talking about. And but then when you're in there, dude, it's uh you can you the game itself, like the car game takes place at this table, but you can leave whenever you're not in play, you can get up and leave the table and look around this cabin, which I think is really interesting and cool.

Luke: 14:42

General idea is like you're fighting for your freedom, kind of right.

Alex: 14:46

So you don't you definitely get this idea that this dude's kind of almost holding you against your will, definitely holding you against your will.

Luke: 14:52

In a way, it's kind of like Saw, where it's like you're big Saw bots. If you lose, you definitely the implication is that he murders you if you die. There's no doubt about that.

Alex: 15:02

Dude, there's a pile of bodies in the corner of the cabin later on. That's a little bit of a spoiler, but oh yeah, see you're dying. And then you get death cards too, right? So like we can get to the weeds on like all the different cards in this game, but something that's important to this game is when you lose the character that's kind of the the DD guy, his name's what is called him what he is, his name's Lesh, right? Or Leshy or whatever. He takes a picture of you, and then he whatever cards are you get random cards pulled from your deck from that round, and you get to select the health cost. Yep, the cost, which is like blood tears or bone tears.

Luke: 15:40

We didn't talk about the bones, but essentially when any card dies, you get a bone. So it's like these two systems. It's like the sacrifice to lay down one of your cards. So you have to kill a card to lay down a card. So sometimes you sacrifice three to lay down one card, and that's like a more powerful one. And then similarly, there's bones. Anytime any card is um taken off the board on your end, either if your enemy beats you or if through your own sacrifices, you get these bones. So there's like two different ways, two different methods of which you're laying cards down.

Alex: 16:08

So that's the game itself, but then these death cards that you get when you lose, basically it's a blank card, and then Leslie tells you you have to you have to choose what did you call it again? Choose your cost, like what it's gonna cost down. The blood of the bones. So there'll be three cards to choose from, and then it's gonna be what's the second thing? Attack and power the attack and health.

Luke: 16:27

And attack, yeah.

Alex: 16:28

Yep, from another set of three. And then the last one is the sigil. Uh, what are they the sigil, right? So the sigils are these different signs that allow special abilities to whatever the cards, and then he takes your picture, right? And then you get to name the card, and then that death card, whatever you named it, ends up being something that's fed into your deck at random for different runs.

Luke: 16:49

Pretty cool. Yeah, like you can select it as a a reward or something to add to your deck. How much anxiety did you get naming your death card?

Alex: 16:57

Uh well, I didn't know what was going on at first, so I just named it Alex because I was like, oh, this must be my like how I, you know, and then all of a sudden the first time you died, so what'd you do all the other time?

Luke: 17:05

Right.

Alex: 17:06

Yeah, I just started I didn't have like terrible anxiety around it. I just like started making up names. Then I started feeling dumb that like my names are so boring. It's like ah, so it's like Rob, and here's like whatever. And then so I tried to be a little bit more like fancy with it towards the uh the end, but yeah, but yeah.

Luke: 17:24

I uh named the first one Luke, and it was like a garbage card because I hadn't like unlocked like better cards or gotten far enough. So then whenever I'd run into them, I'd be like, ugh.

Alex: 17:35

Because it sticks around, man. There's some there's some uh elements of the game when you're actually have these encounters, right? So when you're doing the actual gameplay of this card game, you have a map that's rolled down, and then there's in the first act, there's three different areas, right? Three different maps that you have to traverse. And similar, I don't know if I want to compare other other card games at this time, but basically there's this map and there's a layout, and you can choose your path after each encounter. So the encounter is either gonna be a battle or it's gonna be you know one of these other events that you can that you can do, right?

Luke: 18:12

I'll do it for you. It's like slay the spire a little bit if you have a mental map in your head where you're moving vertically up, right? Yep. And then you have like a fight, so you know a fight's coming up, and then after the fight, it's like, do you want to backpack to grab like an item, or do you head to the right, and then you have like a totem. So maybe you have a totem, which is this thing that affects your cards. And we won't get too deep into the nitty-gritty, but it's basically like you know, your deck building, right? It's that rogue. Is it roguelite or like? I think it's roguelite.

Alex: 18:42

It doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure roguelite means that like you bring extra elements from your last run-on with you. So this would be a roguelite.

Luke: 18:50

Right. So, which is pretty cool. And then you just kind of build and you do these little fights. He has a little candle set at the table. So if you ever lose an encounter, he takes off your uh he extinguishes your light. That's per map, by the way. Did you notice that? I did, yeah. So you get reignited for a second map, which is nice.

Alex: 19:07

There's a boss at the end of each act, so to speak, of the first part. And you only get one he extinguishes one of those for a boss battle. So you only get one life against a boss battle. Uh which is also kind of cool. Nice little Actually is also a little maddening, but yeah.

Luke: 19:23

Um tough boss battles, dude. I would agree, except for the stupid minor in the beginning, he gets boring. And I think that alright. I'm gonna have to pause that as far as the brief spoiler that we're gonna come back to with the minor being annoying. And so there is this really cool, like I liked, I really liked the card game feature of it. And I think what's funny is that you seem to actually like getting up from the table, and it's like almost like the meta of being stuck in the cabin and finding out the little environmental clues. And as a turn both, but as it turns out, I think you could probably beat it without doing any of the cabin stuff. But um I think you can advance the game. I know you can advance the game. So to get into the second act of the game where you're not playing this card game anymore, you have to do the environmental stuff. Because I actually did that because I could give a crap about going around in the cabin. Oh, really? I did enjoy that. The game, the game prompts you in different ways. Like some of your cards like tell you to look out for something. Like in the beginning of the game, he's like, Yo, you should check the rule book. Like, someone left some like notes in there, and that leads you to your first thing. What I told you that you never ran into is that if you never dick around in the cabin and you keep losing, there's like this interesting scene of like this green, like leafy monster blob thing, like painting, and he's painting the current thing within the cabin that you need to like go and investigate. And I thought I thought that was a really cool way to kind of like, hey dude, maybe you're losing because you need to advance like the other part, bro, bro. Yeah, right over there. That's kind of like that. I liked how they did that.

Alex: 21:02

Yeah, I think the reason I was so into exploring the cabin was one, I I did enjoy that. I thought it was a cool little aspect of the game. But two, at first I didn't know it was going on with the card game, so I didn't want to be playing it. I was like, I was like, all right, let's see what else I can do. And then if you if you explore around the cabin and you start poking around, there's all these other little like puzzles and whatnot to do. And each of them, when you when you beat them, gives you like a new card or some sort of item that helps you with the game. So it's it's worth poking around and checking out some of the stuff that's going on. And you brought up the rule book, dude. And that's something that I thought was really cool about this game because, like I said, I had no idea what was going on with this card game. And earlier you mentioned the different aspects of the cards, right? So the sigils was something that I didn't really like they don't tell you what's going on with them, but if you open up the rule book and you flip through, you can find whatever sigil it is, and it will give you an explanation of what it does.

Luke: 22:01

You know, you can just click on sigil. Okay. I'm like, I really thought your ass was flipping through, being like, God damn it. I mean, I did both.

Alex: 22:10

I think at first, like I at first I didn't know that you could right-click, or and you know, if I was playing on the deck, it was I have it set up for L2 that's neither here nor there.

Luke: 22:18

Yeah.

Alex: 22:18

Um but uh but yeah, dude, like that was that was a game changer for me when I was like, oh yeah, I can just refer to the rule book for for a little help on some of this shit.

Luke: 22:28

Yeah, and like I mean, if you're sitting here and you haven't played the game and you're like, so like what do you do? Like basically there's your cards in front of you, and you have your turn, and there's like a scale, and when you hit like the other character, so to speak, directly, like your opponent directly, it drops onto the scale, and then when the scale hits the table, that extinguishes that person's light that we talked about earlier. But like when they lay down cards, you either defeat their card or you chip away at them, and then that's where like the sigils come into play. Like, there's one where the card goes quote unquote underwater, so like if it's like a like a beaver or something or a fish, so your card doesn't attack it, so it doesn't get hurt or fly, and then there's ones that defend against those things. There's ones like the I liked the stink. The stink's pretty funny. It's like whatever's attacking you has one less attack because of the stink. I don't know why that makes sense, but it's just kind of funny. Yeah, apparently your spell brings the power down or something, but it is a nice one to have. It is useful. Um, I liked when you can sacrifice your card to take the sigil and put it on a different card. I thought that was always kind of a cool.

Alex: 23:34

That's one of the encounter things that you can do.

Luke: 23:36

Yeah, and I thought it was fun to put the stink on like a really powerful card because then you're just really fucking dudes up. Right. But uh, yeah, the game has nice little elements, and like we'll see when I get into the other acts, but like if it just wanted to be an even more grand, fleshed out version of the first act, like I'd buy that game.

Alex: 23:57

That's like I was telling you, man. Like, I didn't I knew that the like I it's not a big secret that this game has a big shakeup, so I knew something was gonna happen, but it blew my mind when it got shook up because I was I don't know, 12-13 hours into the first act, and I was really digging it. I was like, this game is tight, like I like this card game, the vibes are creepy, this game as a whole, and then it just we'll talk about it a little bit later on, but the it blew my mind still. Oh yeah.

Luke: 24:24

The items did you have a favorite one to use? Yeah, I like squirrel.

Alex: 24:30

I like just getting that little squirrel was solid, so it's a bottle with uh a squirrel card in it. So something that we didn't mention right, yeah. So something we didn't mention about the gameplay is that the in act one, there's two two decks that you draw from each turn. You can either pull from an unlimited stack of squirrels, which are great for sacrificing. They don't have any attack power. I think they maybe have one health, maybe two health. They're basically four sacrificing. Uh, and then the second one is your deck, whatever deck that you, you know, the cards that you've been uh building throughout you know for your deck. Uh so you have to choose, and it kind of depends like on what your hand is. If uh like something costs two sacrifices, uh that's getting into the weeds, but the point is is that you have to choose from each of these decks, and you get strategic about which one you're gonna go with, depending on what you're what you what you got. Uh but I agree as for an items having that squirrel on uh for lack of a better term on deck, so you're deck deck and on deck was really nice. And there's another one that's the goat is uh similar to the squirrel, but it's worth three blood when you sacrifice it instead of one. So that's that's a very similar. So I did like those. There was a there's a pliers that you mentioned earlier where you pull out a tooth, and the teeth are like the weights that use ah, whatever, man.

Luke: 25:47

That's but yeah, it was scroll the first time you pull out a tooth, though. I was like, oh my fucking god, gross.

Alex: 25:53

Oh dude, that and as long as we're in here doing little minor spoilers, there's the dagger as well, where you poke out your own eyeball and you drop that to tip the scales. Yeah, that I think that gives you like three or four.

Luke: 26:05

And then he reaches into a chest of other people's eyeballs for you to select from. Yeah, did you one that gives you the clues? Did you ever do any of the ones that wasn't the like magical one? Did you ever just see that?

Alex: 26:16

Yeah, so I mean, obviously you go with the magical one because it's like got this blue like thing and you're like, well, that's gonna do something, and then it almost it's almost like a like a black light eyeball or something where you see all this weird shit around the around the cabin. Right, right. So I did put that one, I mean I grabbed that one a handful of times, but I did start in different runs picking the other eyeballs just to see if they did anything. I don't think they do. Yeah, I figured this.

Luke: 26:40

I was like, each run is too precious.

Alex: 26:42

Another funny thing about this game, like I said, I was playing a lot of it on the Steam Deck in bed. So like Anna, my wife, would be like looking over. She's like, So tell me what's going on in this game. And here I am like trying to explain just what's going on. Yeah, and it's like, well, now I'm gonna poke out now. I'm gonna poke out my eyeball because my deck's not looking too good, and I need to tip the scales so I can win. It was dude, it's clowning. She's like an Evergret.

Luke: 27:08

Shouldn't you?

Alex: 27:09

I mean, it's obviously it's weird, so I think she was like kind of into it, but it was like it was just super funny. And then trying to explain the card game itself. Like, I don't I think if you were to ask her today, like what's going on with that card game, she wouldn't be it. I think you gotta spend a solid 10 hours to really know what's going on with the card game. Yeah, no, uh Scissors was nice. Scissors was nice, so that cuts up one of the Leshi's cards, one of the opponent's cards.

Luke: 27:34

Save me last twice.

Alex: 27:36

The hook. The fan I never used.

Luke: 27:39

I got a hook you can't be using the hook against the angler. I just want that to be known. Oh, nice.

Alex: 27:44

Yeah, so you get the hook after beating the angler. That's nice because that allows you to uh pull one of his cards over to your side. Um, the green blob bottle that you mentioned earlier. That's uh no you there's something I didn't mention. Right, you can't use it, it just ends up on the shelf and says some weird stuff. He gives you clues, kind of. But totally the uh as far as items go, the the squirrel, I'm on board with the squirrel and the look at the blob on the shelf with the eyeball.

Luke: 28:13

Yeah, yeah.

Alex: 28:22

I tried to, so I don't I don't know if you can or not, but yeah, I kept clicking on him to see if he could. Uh the other thing that's cons I don't know if it'd be I guess it'd be considered an item because you can run into it and it hangs out on the item side, but um the totem. So that was that's pretty big too.

Luke: 28:38

Yeah, and the totems essentially. So you have different types of cards. They're like, you know, we mentioned the squirrels, they count as a rodent, but you have like reptiles and like wolves and like things like that. So there's the top part of the totem, which is which type of card gets affected by this power-up, and there's the bottom part, which is what is the power-up. So it does anything like it, it's essentially uses the different sigils that we talked about. So like the underwater thing, the flying thing, but there's one where if you want to like win at this game, it uh when you when your card dies, it just returns to your hand, and then you attach it to the you have to unlock within the cabin the rodent, the not the scrotum, the rodent totem. You have to unlock your scrotum, the rodent totem, and then you combine that with the death sigil, and then you're actually having a chance to win the game, and it's super fire.

Alex: 29:28

Doug, so with the totems, I would always hold on to the the rodent head because that's would apply to your squirrels. Right. And you so but what I'm so you have the option though, because when you get to when you get to that encounter, you can either choose a different sigil like bottom totem or you can choose a different hit. That's fair. So I always I always rock with the with the rodent because that will apply to your squirrel cards, which you almost always use. But dude, I was chasing the dragon early on in the game before I knew what was going on. I did find a totem with the Sigil's got a little infinity on it and a dagger that allows you to continually sacrifice your cards and they come back like you're just saying. Which would be very helpful. I didn't run into it again, man. Like I don't know what was going on, but I couldn't find it.

Luke: 30:13

It's rare, and it's when I know that the run's actually gonna work. Do you know how do you pronounce that word? The a goggle the man bear pig? Oh, I don't know. A gog a goggle thing of all of the things combined. Oh you know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, the Eru. No, it's like an aglobulation or something like that. I don't know.

Alex: 31:40

U-R-A-Y-U-L-Y.

Luke: 31:43

No.

Alex: 31:43

That's a different that card's dope, though, because that's it takes four buds, or but it's it has an attack power of seven and and a hit point seven.

Luke: 31:53

Looks like a big Yeti. That thing's tight. No, it's like it's like the man bear pig, so it's like part of part. No, it's it's like agglomeration or something like that. It's like if there's a word for when things are combined or it's one of many parts, um, I'm a dumbass and it's late night. So we're just gonna we're just gonna roll with that. But that one's dope because it counts as a rodent, too, so you get that. And he does like three and three, which is pretty powerful. So he gets returned to your hand too, and that's really dope. Nice. So that's when you really be cooking with gases, they say.

Alex: 32:30

Dude, so that so that that sigil, that totem combo is what opened up the game for you.

Luke: 32:35

Yeah, oh no doubt. So the first You know what did it for me?

Alex: 32:39

Uh cheating. No. No. Uh, it was the ringworm card.

Luke: 32:50

I don't think I ever use the ringworm card.

Alex: 32:53

You know the card I'm talking about. It's like pretty wordless.

Luke: 32:56

Yeah.

Alex: 32:56

Right? But if you feed it, like if you go, you know, one of the encounters is like the the fire pit where you when you go to it, there's like a group of um basically cannibals.

Luke: 33:09

And then if you get greedy and lay it down twice, they eat you.

Alex: 33:12

Well, you can go up to four times depending on how greedy you are, right? So like it's got so what that what that encounter allows you to do is either gonna increase your power or it's gonna increase your hit points, depending on whatever signs it shows. But then you so you place what you choose your card that you want to upgrade, you're always gonna get the first upgrade. Then you can you can test fate and you can go for two, and it'll give you some dialogue about how the the folks around the fire are like lick you know licking their lips, and you can tell that they want to eat your card or whatever. Uh so you can go three if you're feeling super greedy and four max. Yeah, but if you if you feed them the ringworm or whatever it is, and you go the four times of the max, they end up eating it, right? And then it's you lose that card. So like if you do that with any other card, you just lose that card. The same with the ringworm, you lose the card. But the next fire pit, if you play that card, the next one that you land on, all the settlers are gone because they died. So that was so that that allows you, and then what you can do is you can set up your runs to hit the fire pits, or whatever they call them, uh, for each encounter. Right. So you can go up to you can go up to four on either the power of the hit puns, depending on which one they're allowing for that that that encounter. So that was that made it so that I was able to have some pretty beefy cards for my uh my my final boss battle.

Luke: 34:34

Hell yeah. That's actually that's fun. I had no idea. And that kind of speaks to the fact that like we'll see how I feel when I beat the other two acts. But as of right now, I'm like, man, I don't know why they didn't just like give me way more of this game, because I would have played so much more of this game and all those deep little things to find out. I really dug it.

Alex: 34:55

Dude, there's so many little little Easter eggs and fun little things. Like uh, I think it was Rick in our in our Discord dropped a little a line. I'll I'll save the I'll save it for anybody that they want to jump in there and check it out on the thread. But uh the point is there's like a certain sigil that you can play on the final boss of act one, and it's like it's just like a something that I never experienced, but it's like it was like a fun joke, dude. Like it's it's just like dialogue.

Luke: 35:20

Yeah. Um, do you want to throw up like a light little spoiler wall for what we can kind of spoil right now? Or is there some other things you want to hit? Because usually we talk about things I don't like about this game, and I've just liked everything so far. Other than when you beat act one and you're just in this dark room, and it doesn't tell you that you just have to quit and start a new game. So I've walked around in that dark room for longer than I'm proud of, very frustrated clicking on nothing constantly.

Alex: 35:45

I did the same thing. I've clicked so many spots.

Luke: 35:55

Right. But anyway, all right, so is it about now a good time, or you got anything else you want to get out before we go to last spoilers?

Alex: 36:02

Uh let's do it. All right, everybody. If you don't want to be spoiled, fast forward to the time that I'll insert right now. Forty-three fifty-five. Forty-three minutes and fifty-five seconds.

Luke: 36:53

You know what I mean? And what's funny is that like once you beat Leshy for the first time, but I did once again, I did not have the camera and all of those things that you need to like actually beat him and move on. You know what I mean? You didn't have the film? I didn't have the film because I wasn't around in the room, but I beat him. So it still gave me like the Blair Witch Project ass found footage. And then, so like you're a card playing like guy, like a card opener, like a pack opener, YouTuber. Right, and you're like opening packs of these different things, and he's like, I got these inscription cards at a garage sale. So, like, you want to talk about Meta Man? Like, you're playing a game in a game, in a game, right? And uh it's funny because on the Discord we have the pets, and when I did have it set up on the computer, I don't know if you know you didn't notice at this at the time because you weren't there, but that little picture of Winston looking over the top of the computer, yeah, and there's just someone digging a hole on the screen. I I'm still thinking it's hilarious that you never questioned what the fuck was going on on my computer screen.

Alex: 38:08

Oh, I was just paying attention to the boy Winston.

Luke: 38:10

Yeah, so like I left that as a nice little Easter egg for you later on. And then Ace had a good laugh because he's like the dog's literally watching you dig a hole, huh? That's very dog-like.

Alex: 38:20

Oh, that's funny. Yeah, I hadn't gotten to that part of the game yet, dude. So I didn't even realize that was from inscription. Like I should I I didn't think it was kind of weird, but that that's funny, dude.

Luke: 38:28

There's a deep Easter egg for our Discord, but uh I think it's really cool that like, so he's this card opener, and then he finds these inscription cards at like a garage sale or something, and then written on one is some coordinates. So like there's video of him going out to the coordinates, and then it's like you're in the woods like digging a hole, like it's super Blair Witch vibes. I'm like, this dude's about to get murdered.

Alex: 38:51

I mean a good it's not like super weird, but uh the real coordinates too. It's in like the Pacific Northwest, right on the edge of uh the US new animals.

Luke: 38:59

Yeah, so looked it up. Must be where the developer would be living. So then in this box, he just finds the old school floppy disk. Now for Gen Zers, Google floppy dick. If you don't know what a floppy disk is, but um, yeah, so like inscription, the game you're playing as him. And I don't know if you experienced this, but like Did you say Google floppy dick? Yeah, yeah, there's a little bit of a joke there. How to make sure. It's a little bit of a joke there. Come on, Al, you lost all subtlety here. Come on. But anyway, when I played after that, because I still needed to get the film to beat him, he like has a huge heavy sigh, and he's like, like, what? Like, I gotta do this again. And like you're as the narrator, he's like, when you'd get to the like the gold miner or whatever, he'd be like, This boss again. And like funny, he'd be saying shit like that, and he'd be like occasionally commenting on what was going on as you were playing the game. So I thought that was a really unique experience I had where I beat it without doing the cabin stuff. So like I found out about the the Blair Witchy like meta-narrative that I'm sure must link the three acts of the game together. Something I'll hopefully be able to comment on later. But then, like, because I needed to still do the thing to advance to the next act, he would be exasperated and I'd hear him like heavy sighing and like being like, All right, like let's beat him this, like just silly shit like that. And I thought that was like interesting, yeah. Kind of unique given the way that like some players like me, just the way that they happened to go about it, would discover that. But like I kind of realized as we were recording earlier when I was like, Well, we'll we'll touch on this later. I'm like, you like I literally got bored of some of those bosses, and I was like, I think it's funny because like the dude you're playing as is actually getting really tired of trying to face off those bosses.

Alex: 40:55

Oh, interesting, yeah. So that that that's cool that you had a different experience there. Yeah. For me, I had the you know, I beat him, I think, the way the game wanted me to, and then I did so I watched all the Blair Witch footage, and then from there you end up leaving that little section, and long story short, that floppy disc that you mentioned is an actual game inscription. So it's again, it's like the game within the game within the game, dude.

Luke: 41:23

Like you're playing the game inscription, like that's what it finds in the box. Yeah.

Alex: 41:27

So so when this happened for me though, when I beat when I beat Leshy in the in the cabin, it it goes to this lost footage, and I was like, Oh, this is the big shakeup. This is what everybody was talking about, and then you know, it progresses a little bit, and you put in you put in this new game disc, and then all of a sudden it was a straight up card like deck building RPG game inscription, and I was like, You gotta be fucking kidding me. This game is wild, it just totally scraps. I mean, like it's connected, but it scraps the original game, which I had just fallen in love with, and it's like gives you this new game, which is essentially, I mean, you can figure it out like way more rapidly than it took me to figure out the rules in act one, but they switch it up a little bit, and there's certain things in act. I mean, that I think the RPG thing is cool, it's definitely a fun twist.

Luke: 42:17

Uh the art style gets talking like a term-based like JRPG style like Pokemon thing.

Alex: 42:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what it looks like. Have you you haven't started, have you?

Luke: 42:26

I got to the art, I thought it was really rad, and then like I had to do something, so I wasn't able to read the things and listen to what the setup was. So I was like, I have to come back to this, and then I haven't been able to.

Alex: 42:37

Okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, so basically, like the art style switches up from this first person, like 3D uh you know, deal.

Luke: 42:45

Very like NES S NES style.

Alex: 42:47

Yeah, it's a top-down Pokemon almost. Like, but it's it's cool and it it changes up the car. The car game still has a lot of the main elements there, but it switches up the card game a little bit, so you kind of gotta you gotta deal with that. Uh but it's it's interesting, dude. It's it's a really it's a really cool shakeup. I've never I don't think I've ever played a game that had that like that big of a shakeup.

Luke: 43:10

I can't even Yeah, I mean other than Blitzball being the real reason anyone play Fantasy 10.

Alex: 43:19

Like the messenger, the messenger, which is another devolver joint goes from 8-bit to 16-bit, but the gameplay's the same, it's just a visual thing.

Luke: 43:27

Yeah, no doubt. Uh yeah, so like it's a pretty it's like a pretty seismic shakeup, and I'm very interested in like that's why I said earlier, like I know it's a little bummed I couldn't get more than like eight, ten hours into it, but like something I very much want to return to because I'm very curious as to what the third one is. Right. I've heard the second isn't the best of the three, it's probably the worst. So all are good, I'm told though. So it's cool. Uh these dead bodies, are they just in the cabin for you to see it any time?

Alex: 43:57

Yeah, I can't remember if it was at the end of the first act or the beginning of the second when I was like moving around the the cabin. But yeah, there's like a heap of dead, like a ton of dead bodies. You can go in there. So that's so you end up having to to defeat, like they give you this little story about this like inscription, this whole like whatever, dude. That's it's like this whole story, but then you have the choice of which of the bosses, like, or which it's like going to different dungeons almost, uh, or different areas to beat those bosses. Uh, and one of the bosses that you can choose is Leshi again, and I decided to go to him again. And you so yeah, you can go into the cab and check shit out.

Luke: 44:35

Hell yeah. I did see that um on the door, and you know how you wake up and you start your run in act one on the door? There was a card of when I beat there was this little badge on the door somewhere that I had beat Leshi before, and I thought that was cool. That is cool. Any other finishing thoughts before we get to the book that you wrote for side quest?

Alex: 44:57

No, man. I think this game is really cool, and I think that it is honestly, I'm not a big deck builder person. Like, I know you put million hours into to slay the spire. And I mean, I guess I love I do got love for Gwent. So I guess there's that. But I'm not usually a deck builder guy, man. And this game really I got really into it, and I think that it is a game that it's it's difficult, but I think that anybody that wants like a really weird, fun experience, it's worth trying out.

Luke: 45:30

Especially now that it's on more than just PC. It'd be a great on Switch. Um, Switch, bro. What?

Alex: 45:39

It's been on Switch.

Luke: 45:40

Ugh, don't even just we're moving on from that fact. I didn't need to.

Alex: 45:43

Well, Ace gifted it to you. It's not like you were gonna, it's not like boy, booing! Um, anyway. Find a sound effect for Ace. But dude, so you wouldn't have bought it anyway. You wouldn't have bought it for Switch.

Luke: 45:54

You would have just a sound effect.

Alex: 45:57

Hardy forgot about his call out.

Luke: 45:59

Oh man. It's definitely not the boy thing.

Alex: 46:04

I think it's everywhere now. So it's PC, Switch, Xbox. It might even be on PS, but uh, I don't know. Fuck them.

Luke: 46:13

Well, that's a wrap. I think it's dope. I look forward to playing some more. And uh great ass game, dude. Sweet, sweet vibes, sweet, sweet vibes.

Alex: 46:19

We're only scraped the surface too. Even on the first act, there's this, it gets so into it. If you guys want to talk, if you guys want to talk more about this game, hit our Discord. We've got a thread for inscription. I will talk to you about inscription.

Luke: 46:30

Yeah, sound design.

Alex: 46:31

Go crazy. All right, man. Let's uh let's take a little break, come back with our unsanctioned sponsor. This episode of Inscription is brought to you unofficially in part by gorillin season.

Luke: 46:53

Or shovel season, because we're in Minnesota, and uh within the same month, you can have a snowball fight and a water balloon fight. This is true, man. We have earlier earlier this month.

Alex: 47:05

We got like what eight, some ridiculous. I was I was in Vegas, dude. I got to skip out on it, but uh, we got a bunch of snow, and then a week later it was gone. And today it was like 80 degrees. Uh crazy. April's crazy.

Luke: 47:17

It was like tickling 90, my guy.

Alex: 47:19

So like well, you know what that means, bro? That's grilling season. Oh, slap some meat on that grill, slap some veggies on that grill. I don't care what you're grilling. As long as it's edible. Throw them on the grill. Throw that shit on the grill, bro. I love it. Dude, I've already been grilling a bunch. I've grilled some steaks. Dude, uh, today I grilled up some stuffed chicken, some potatoes. Ooh, get out of here. I do not. But I do love me some grilling.

Luke: 47:47

Minneapolis grilling eggplant and being a fucking bee. Dude, I would fuck with some why not?

Alex: 47:52

Grilled eggplant, probably delicious.

Luke: 47:54

I've gonna do that. I just wanted to be a dick.

Alex: 47:56

Dude, gas, gas or charcoal.

Luke: 47:59

I'm a propane boy, I ain't gonna lie.

Alex: 48:02

Yeah, I used to be charcoal or nothing, but uh, you know, not anymore.

Luke: 48:06

Yeah.

Alex: 48:07

Now we got uh I live in an apartment complex, so we've got three really nice propane grills up on the roof, and uh, I've been hitting those, dude. We've been doing some steaks, we've been doing some like I said, some stuffed, some uh goat cheese stuffed chicken today. Oh I love it. Just being up there, taking in some sunshine. Um charcoal's lit, though, dude. I do like some charcoal.

Luke: 48:30

Yeah, I haven't had a lot for as much as you know that I like to prepare meats, be it dehydrating, smoking, or grilling. I have very little experience on a charcoal grill. It's actually uh a weak point of mine. It used to be all I did. Yeah, but you haven't grilled the best meats to grill yet. What brats. Come on, dude, brats.

Alex: 48:54

Oh, dude. Love brats so much.

Luke: 48:58

Uh I did some dogs the other day. My dude. All right, brat junior. That's okay.

Alex: 49:04

I'm talking some classic dogs, like with the skin on that kind of shit from uh from uh commercics. Oh, dude, they got good brats too, but we went with some dogs. Oh, I fuck with a classic dog. The homie Keith Gasper of a main quest podcast had a little shout out to Keith, but he was asking the questions that need to be asked on Twitter doing a poll. I didn't select because he wanted to know brats are hot dogs, and I was like, how about both, man? Uh he said can't have both.

Luke: 49:30

The answer is clearly brats. I agree with him.

Alex: 49:32

Uh yeah, see, normally I would, but I had such a delicious hot dog the other day. And what about a Chicago dog, bro? Like, I fuck with Chicago dog.

Luke: 49:39

Dude, they can put all them toppings on a brat. Here's a real question. On your brat, on your brat, do you put ketchup under? Uh, I mean, I've done it, but I'm a mustard guy. Yeah, it's just mustard. Ketchup's not allowed. We're not children.

Alex: 49:56

You know what I if I'm gonna put something ketchup adjacent, I'll put some sriracha on there.

Luke: 50:03

Uh I mean, I put sriracha in my potato salad. I don't know what's going on.

Alex: 50:07

Sriracha's just spicy ketchup, bro.

Luke: 50:10

Touche. Uh, in a way, I don't know. But I put sriracha in my potato salad, and that's like the secret sauce to life. Like any hot sauce and potato salad, yellow potato salad is like oddly pretty good, but the creaminess of sriracha in the yellow potato salad, and don't tell me this isn't part of grilling season. Potato salad is grilling season. It's encompassing. Yeah, it's up, it's up in there. So uh I agree. I have to switch out my propane tanks. But I had a mound of snow on it all winter long because you know the grill has to stay outside, it's got a cover on it, but hopefully too much precipitation did not, you know, sneak up under the skirt. Now I don't have a rusty problem like I did the other year. So I'm I'm excited. I'll, you know, next time I got people like pick up some brands.

Alex: 50:52

We got people like our older brother Aaron with his fancy grill. He got one of those weird egg things.

Luke: 50:57

Oh no, he's got a kimono Joe, but yeah, it's the same deal. That's what you guys same design, it's just red, it's a different brand. Uh green egg is their own thing. Sure, sure. But yes, it's like basically a fucking kiln almost or some shit, dude. It's like insulated and it's like it's it's that wild next level fucking grillin' meats shit.

Alex: 51:18

That's what's up, dude. Unofficially brought to you in part by grillin' season. It is April. And even though our boy Prince did say sometimes it snows in April. Propane, propane. Propane, grilling season. Let's go. Hey Gilly.

Luke: 51:34

Propane, propane. Or was that Randy? Who's free cheeseburger gas? Who was chanting propane propane? That was that was Leahy, right? I don't remember.

Alex: 51:45

For TPB? Uh, all right. I know what you're talking about. I just don't remember. Propane, propane. R.I.P. Leahy, by the way.

Luke: 51:52

Oh, yes, right. All right, word. Moving on. Grillin season. Grillin season. Propane, propane.

Alex: 52:07

Welcome back for some side questing. You've been side questing, bro. I've been side questing. A big side quest month for me.

Luke: 52:17

I want to read what Al's douche ass wrote in the notes, which is that uh Luke probably balls deep in some game that he's about to beat. Said game will be named as next month's pod, creating a dynamic in which Alex has to catch the fuck up and Luke can tease him for either not finishing nor finishing the day before we cut the pod or audio. Uh, which is a great way for me to reveal that next month's game is Skyrim again. We've already done the pod once.

Alex: 52:45

I wouldn't even be that mad, man. I would just pick back up because I never really continued. I like poked her out a little bit. No, because then I just well, Skyrim you could take at a totally different angle. I just wouldn't do the Thief Guild this time.

Luke: 52:58

I'll do my real answer, which is that I'm still be getting uh Minish Cap. Overall thoughts is this is an awesome 2D Zelda game? Like I'm not as into the 2D Zeldas, but now that the NSO is opening up and gonna, you know, drop seasons and Oracle, I'm gonna try to get into more of those. The only one I had ever really played was parts of Link Between Worlds and um what's the one you borrowed? Was that Linked Between Worlds on the 3D? Link Between Worlds, yeah. And then what's the real famous one? Link to the Past or No. What's the one where you get the Dark World and it's like everyone's favorite? SNES Zelda. Yeah, uh Link to the Past. Okay. So I played pieces of those games. 2D Zelda is notoriously obtuse, in my opinion. Um Minish Cap is no different, but it's gorgeous. It's a ton of fun. Some of those boss battles are so much fun. Some of the dungeons are an awesome challenge. It's just been really fire. Top tier Game Boy Advanced game. Yeah, no doubt. I'm glad they had that on release of the NSO. I was very excited for it. Step two, MLB the show dropped. Um, Xbox Game Pass did this weird thing where like a month ago they were like, download MLB the show. So I'm like, bet. And then you click on it and they're like, Yeah, come back when it's out. And I'm like, what are we doing here? And then it's like, yo, you want to play early? Yeah, and I think it just made like the day of download way shorter, which like that's cool. Sure. I just wish it was a little bit more clear for my dumb ass. But uh that's probably a hog of a game, too, taking up your terabyte. Dude, don't even mind. Uh MLB the show, it's it's a pretty cool game this year. I still only play Road to the Show mode. I know you were tickling a little bit of the Negro League.

Alex: 54:36

I have been, dude. I've been fucking with MLB the show. And it's because I'm it's because I'm tepid, dude. I'm I'm afraid. I don't wanna I don't want to get into the the Road of the Show quite yet, because I know we'll be a time screen. No, so I've been doing I've been doing dingers like uh Horman Derby's and I've been doing the Negro leads, kind of fun.

Luke: 54:53

Yeah, dude. So MLB the show, I did the face scan, and apparently I look like a pigly sown bitch with eyes that are about half an inch from my face or half.

Alex: 55:02

It's not a YouTube channel, just so people can hit the comments and be like, bro, you are the little pigly bitch.

Luke: 55:09

Yeah, I'm beautiful. So like I was like, what is this? And uh, but I'm a shortstop. I wanted to be a shortstop. Last year I did the thing where you're like cool position, and if you're into that, you're into that. But I just like I like to do the pitching and the hitting separately because it just fucks with flow. If you try it, let me know how you feel. But uh drafted by the Yankees, boo boom. I'm just I'm just gonna play them, and that's fine.

Alex: 55:34

I would have restarted, I would have forced a trade.

Luke: 55:36

I thought about it, but I'm gonna shave my beard. We're all my twins fans. We're all my twins fans. Uh wow, that's a very specific deep cut. We are not gonna explain. But anyway, MLB the show, great presentation, cool game. Uh seems to be getting good reviews this year. Seems to I like some of the changes they made. I still am an old man that would like my some of my ways of how you do the attributes to just be back old school way. I'd love to see next month to see if you've given it more time and how you feel about that, because I know for a fact you're gonna be really confused, and I know for a fact you're probably gonna have some opinions and feelings on it, but we'll get there, you know, one week and go back and forth on that. I'm what and then lastly, I get this text from Alex. I've been like saving this text, I'm gonna send it to him. And I just one day I wait, like I'm just checking my phone, and Alex's like, I thought I was gonna be seeing I checked your Xbox, and I thought I was gonna be seeing a bunch of MLB the show. What the fuck's all this Skyrim shit? And I was like, It got me again. I've been scrimming, I'm an orc. I wanted to name him Bork the Orc because I'm a fucking child, but I hit start, I clicked his name before the K registered, so he's Bore the Orc, and I'm not as happy with that.

Alex: 56:51

Uh he's talking like Bork B-O-R-K or like B orc, like the singer. B-O-R-K. Right right on.

Luke: 57:00

And I just, you know, I got all my orc armor, I'd be looking cool. I'm a two-handed battle, uh, not battle axe, but war hammer type man. And I do some sneaking and I just bash, I sneak until I get discovered, and then I just start cracking skulls.

Alex: 57:16

And like that was like my playthrough, dude. That's what I that's what I did. I was like a sneaky two-handed uh sneaky two-handed dude.

Luke: 57:23

Makes no sense.

Alex: 57:24

It doesn't, but it was a great way to play.

Luke: 57:27

Um, and what I really want to talk about when it comes to Skyrim is it's just like, dude, you're always just in a cave somewhere, or in some ruins somewhere, or in a castle somewhere, and you're always just doing dumb shit. Like, it's so mindless and fun. And like, I think the funniest thing about it is like I've never played a game where I cheese it so hard. And what I mean by cheese it in this context is like, oh fuck, that didn't work. Let's save scum. Let's run a let's run away behind a rock, like heal myself, run back out, crush three potions that are gonna help me beat this dude. And then like all the dumb things I do to like get past things that I'm probably not leveled up enough. I turned up the difficulty like a little bit, so like I think I did this to myself a little bit, but like like the game is so open and what it lets you do, which is part of the fun, right? Like, sure, like of all the things to talk about in that game, the coolest thing is building up your character and doing the things and going about it the way you want to go about it. And uh the amount of times I find myself like hiding behind some rock and then shooting some tough enemy with an arrow and then like going back and scurrying behind it and just like taking 10 minutes to do something that I shouldn't just be doing, I should just come back later. Uh it makes me laugh at how stupid the experience is. And um Skyrim, man, comfort food. Scrimming. What a timeless classic of stupidity. I just fucking love it, man. Kind of make me want to play a little bit. Dude, I was tempted when I first started The Witcher. I was like, do I have to replace Skyrim? Like, is this better than Skyrim? And like, I'm here to tell you it's not.

Alex: 59:10

I don't know, man. Witcher is really dope. It's different. I think I think Skyrim is a better roleplay, though. You know, it's like because it's so open, it's more Dungeons and Dragony.

Luke: 59:19

Oh, for sure. But I'm just like, for the pure replayability and freedom and just like the dumb shit I get into, I'm just like, I'm just here for it. It's gonna stay on my line. Because part of me is like, all these games are so similar when you really boil down a lot of these open worlds that maybe do I need to take all of them off and choose something more like artistic for my top 10. But I'm like, no. Scrimming is just like pizza, man. It's like what toppins you want to throw on this time. That's what's up. I'm gonna take a nap and then Al's gonna tell you about playing 17 games and 17 specs.

Alex: 59:55

Yeah, Doug. Like I said, it's been a big side question month for me. Last month I talked about House and Powers of X, the X-Men's comic book series. So I have been diving into that world a little bit more after reading those two uh storylines, but I moved off of the X-Men. I started reading the Vader comics, the 2015 and then the 2018 series. I gotta let people know that I have a wide array of tastes, bro. I'm giving you seven minutes.

Luke: 1:00:31

We're giving you seven minutes. Continue.

Alex: 1:00:33

We're giving you seven Vader comics, they're dope, and I am very tempted to start the new Vader comics because they just keep rebooting them. But I haven't done that yet.

Luke: 1:00:43

I remember the art covers when so that's the era where I was buying comic books 2015. And uh Marvel had just bought Star Wars, I'm fairly certain at this point in time, but that's when I was moving away from the college town where I I was buying the comics from, so that kind of fizzled out for me. But I remember seeing the artwork and being like, that's dope. All right, I have added 20 seconds onto your seven minutes. Go.

Alex: 1:01:05

Cocaine bear, bro. Went to the movies. Saw me some cocaine bear.

Luke: 1:01:10

And it was dope. I tried watching it with Jonah and Trisha, and they were like, That sounds stupid. No. And I was like, but like, aren't stupid movies a good time? So please. Yeah.

Alex: 1:01:21

That's what's up, dude. That's I mean, you go into it knowing it's gonna be a silly ass experience. And if you go in there with that mindset, it's phenomenal. Phenomenal. Plug for cocaine bear, dude, because that shit was cool. But you ready for the gaming side quests? Because I got them. About a month ago. About a month ago, the homie Tyler, my my home, not not your homie Tyler, who's also my homie, I guess, but my boy Tyler Peterson hooked it up. Right, right. My boy Tyler Peterson hooks it up with the Logitech G920 racing wheel, man. You can actually see it here at the back of this video screen.

Luke: 1:01:59

I've been avoiding because I knew you wanted to talk about it. I've been avoiding mentioning the wheel in Alex's background this whole time, but he just got a steering wheel surface now. And I'm not sure noises, like he turns off the sound of his games and then makes the car noises. This man's a psychopath. Continue. Get out of here.

Alex: 1:02:15

The wheel's fun though, man. It's got the pedals, of course. But I'm not like a he, I'm not like a person, like I don't love racing games so much where I wouldn't like just go out and get this wheel, but it was an offer I couldn't refuse. I I had to get it. I had to help Tyler out buy his wheel off of him.

Luke: 1:02:30

He got Gran Turismo as his first game on the PS2, and he'd be like, look at the trees reflecting off the cars, mom.

Alex: 1:02:37

That's a nice segue. But I'm not gonna take it because I have been playing some Gran Turismo.

Luke: 1:02:42

Three shave those minutes down.

Alex: 1:02:45

But yeah, with the wheel, dudes. I'm not like a big racer, but Tyler, my boy Tyler, was trying to get me to play some to join his F1 uh 22 or whatever the fuck they're on right now. The F1 league that he does with his fam. And I'm honored, but dude, that game's boring. Dude, you just you just drive around the fucking the track 30 times or whatever, and you have to be all technical about it.

Luke: 1:03:08

It's just fancy.

Alex: 1:03:09

Yeah, Formula One Racing.

Luke: 1:03:10

No, it's fancy NASCAR.

Alex: 1:03:11

That's what it stands for. It's fancy NARS. No, exactly. It's it's totally. And what do they do in NASCAR? They go around the fucking circle 30 times and it's fucking boring.

Luke: 1:03:20

F1 is to Target as Walmart is to NASCAR.

Alex: 1:03:25

So maybe if I become a better driver, I'll be about it, but I'm I'm not about it right now. But Knee for Speed Heat, been fucking with that. Verizon Horizon 5, probably the best game that I play for it. It's super arcady. Same with Ne for Speed. I like those arcadey car games. And then I also just started Dirt 5, which is another arcadic dirt racing game. All those games, dude, with the wheel. This is so much fun. It's fun true childlike pleasure. And you can't even play, dude, because I got you on the fucking wheel and you're having a good ass time.

Luke: 1:03:53

No doubt. It was more difficult than I would have thought. It is. It's uh Alex, you won't let me drive responsibly at 35 miles per hour in a 40, like I do in real life.

Alex: 1:04:02

I'm just good enough with a with like an actual controller to be a little dangerous in racing games. With the actual wheel, though, I'm I gotta put in some work.

Luke: 1:04:10

You'll get there.

Alex: 1:04:10

But um around the same time, dude, I picked up a Sega Dreamcast. I've always wanted a Dreamcast, and finally I found a super good deal on one on eBay and I went for it, dude. And that system is ahead of its time, and it's a sad story because it's the death of Sega. They would have just put a DVD player in there, bro, but they didn't. PS2 took over the world. But nonetheless, great library. Great library for the Dreamcast. I've been playing a few different Dreamcast games. Namely, I want to shout out NFL 2K, dude. The sports games on Dreamcast were lit, and they hold up today, man. Like you don't even need the new Madden, you just play the old games. But NFL 2K, super great on Dreamcast. And dude, it's got Randy Moss on the cover, Minnesota Boys. Let's go. Randy Moss was on the cover NFL 2K three years in a row. It's ridiculous. And I love it. I love it so much.

Luke: 1:05:01

Alex playing old sports games because it brings him back to an era when he could beat me in a sports game.

Alex: 1:05:07

I can't even front, dude. That's part of that's true. I'm so good at him. I know like my muscle memory is there. Like, I know what buttons to press, like I know all the hot routes and shit. Like, I don't even know what's going on with the new men. I fuck with the new men's, but I don't know what's going on with them. Anyways, last Dreamcast game I want to say is not a game. It's actually Slow Magic's Triangle for the 10-year anniversary of his album. Slow Magic's super cool artist. Check him out. But he released the album on a bunch of dead media, the Dreamcast being one of them. So it's super fun to pop that in and it plays all the music videos from that game.

Luke: 1:05:38

What system was it that you previously did?

Alex: 1:05:40

I have it on the Game Boy Advance as well. Yeah, so it's a lot, that's a lot of fun. Shout out to Slow Magic. PS2, bro. You brought up Grand Turismo. I have in the show notes. And I don't know if this is part of the low five gaming lore yet. I don't know if we put it out there in the ether. But for years, I was under the impression that you lost our PS2 games.

Luke: 1:06:04

And they were impression is a nice way of saying viciously attacked me and my father.

Alex: 1:06:08

Uh dude, I was pretty fucking nice to you guys for the fact that you had lost all of our PS2 games.

Luke: 1:06:14

This is a strange way to apologize for falsely accusing and persecuted.

Alex: 1:06:18

That's because it's not an apology. It has a question mark. Does Luke deserve an apology in our outline? No, no, he does not because he did lose them. They were gone for they were gone for so long. And I looked so many times in the basement. I could not find them. He could not find them. I don't even think he looked for them.

Luke: 1:06:34

There's so many miss you're getting a minute shaved off if you don't give me an apology.

Alex: 1:06:38

And and some of the games are missing. So there's that. There are missing games. And Grand Theft Auto's broken right in half. What's that all about when that happened? That's what happened. I'm pretty sure there's actually a door to Narnia down in mom dad's basement that like these games were missing, man. I can't believe they showed up. But so they did show up. So you know what? That's dope. And I'm so happy that we do have them still. But here's the problem: our PS2, our old fat PS2 that I got when I was like, I don't know, 13, 15, something like that. I think it was 15. I think it was my golden birthday. Which is dope, dude. But that thing's putting work, man. We put hours into that beast. The disc drives shot. Like it barely works. So every once in a while, like if you let it sit long enough, a game will load up. You gotta be real nice to it, tell her she's beautiful, all that kind of thing. But the disc drives tired. So like so I started doing some digging, dude, and I'm I soft modded the PS2. I added, so I guess it's a bit of a hard mod, but it's pretty easy to do. So I added a one-terabyte hard drive and I soft modded it with a Freebick boot, which basically just when it boots up, uh, there's a memory card in there and it gets some other software going. So it allows you to make ISOs of your games, or you know, you can get a hold of ISOs nefariously on the internet. I'm not your fucking, I can't tell you what to do. It's just that PlayStation wouldn't like you to do that. So you can make ISOs of your own, of your own games, and you can load them to the hard drive and it plays them off the hard drive, dude. And it's been so much fun going back and playing some of this PS2 games. I know like PS2 is like this weird area. It's like this, it's definitely a bump up from the from Nintendo 64 as far as 3D graphic goes. And it does have that DVD player, so you get some really cool cutscenes that are basically DVD quality. But I've mostly been playing Madden 05, bro. And it's been so much fun running slot cross, man, just over and over and over again. You're talking about cheesing games, playbook in that. You just run slot cross, you can beat anybody that you want. Well, the computer, anyways, human might figure it out.

Luke: 1:08:45

Oh, I got that aren't able to be sold on like Steam or anything anymore. So this is really the only way to play a true classic.

Alex: 1:08:51

That's that's fire, and we got that game, dude, and it's playable again. I love it. So those are the main side quests, aside from the one I mentioned earlier was Death's Door. So I talk about Death's Door on Pixel Project Radio. You can check that out over on their pod. But I beat it, dude. I finally beat it. Nice. Congrats. Sick game, beautiful art. Super cool. You can hear me talk more about it there. You can hit the Discord and talk to me about it there as you want as well. I'm just gonna say that the reason that I chose that game because it was recommended by you and you played on your PC. And you also play with a mouse keyboard, and I think you're wild for that.

Luke: 1:09:24

You know, different time, man. Pre-baby, pre-baby loop was out here crushing.

Alex: 1:09:29

WASD to move around. What was the role? Was it shit bar? Spacebar.

Luke: 1:09:35

I think, dude.

Alex: 1:09:37

And what was the attack? You click the mouse?

Luke: 1:09:40

Mouse, I think, man. It hurt my hand after night grooves.

Alex: 1:09:45

That's a tough game, dude. It's like it's super fun, but that's a tough game.

Luke: 1:09:49

So I can do like Zelda roguelike. Or not 2D Zelda roguelike, it's like a 2D Zelda Souls-like. Right. Yep. Zelda Clown Souls like. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, let me uh let me hit you with the little teaser for next month and then you can get a sign-off, right, champ? Right on. Next month for the month of May, we will be playing drum roll Skyrim. No, I'm just fucking with you. Uh we will be paying Deathloop. Because it's on Game Pass.

Alex: 1:10:20

Oh, right on, I don't know.

Luke: 1:10:21

We've got to get a hold of Devolver.

Alex: 1:10:23

Hey, give us some of that Devolver money.

Luke: 1:10:25

What up, though? No, uh Deathloop. I've wanted to play for a long time. It's the perfect podcast game for passive playing. I have it free through Epic Games, and it's on sale a decent amount, but I've just been waiting for it to get it either for on the cheap for the Switch or something like that. But then they dropped it on Game Pass stealthily. Do you know what the game was gonna be if it wasn't Deathloop though? No. Fucking like Toad Treasure Tracker. And I'm one of these days I'm gonna hit you with the Toad Treasure Tracker, and no one wants to listen to that but me. But you know what? Some for you guys, one for me, and it's gonna be Toad Treasure Tracker.

Alex: 1:11:04

Yeah, I've been done. I've been I've been needing an excuse to pick that game up.

Luke: 1:11:08

So if you want us to play Toad Treasure Tracker, I need you to harass Alex on all social medias with pictures of uh phallic looking mushrooms, and then he will uh he'll know that means Toad Treasure Tracker.

Alex: 1:11:19

It's been another fun one. Go check out inscription. Great game. Thanks for listening. If you made it this far and you haven't already, please leave us a rating on your podcatcher of choice if they allow it. That helps with our reach, it helps with podcast growth, and it makes me feel cool when I see that we got a five-star rating.

Luke: 1:11:39

Don't sit there and ask us to play portal. We already did that.

Alex: 1:11:43

And we played portal too, so I don't really know what to tell you. I've even played desk job. I've like hit the whole portal universe. Shoot. But you can find more low5 gaming goodness at low5gaming.com, including a link to our Discord. Discord's the best way to interact with the both of us. That's where we officially announce our game in the month, unless Luke jumps a gun and does it at the end of the episode, like he just did. But if he decides to change his mind, Alex is always juggling seven games. He's like, Oh, I'll let you know what I decide. That's true. We'll mill out a format to this podcast eventually. Uh, but we keep a thread going for each of those games, right? That's phase three. Yeah, whatever uh whatever game we're focusing on for that month, we've got a thread for it. We drop our thoughts of tidbits of whatever's happening while we play, and we invite folks to join us and do the same. And if you're listening to this podcast well after the month that we covered, what game are we playing? Deathloop. If you come across this podcast well after the month that we're covering Deathloop, that is okay because I archive these threads, but I keep them open for comments. So if you want to talk about something like Deathloop, if you want to talk about an inscription, just jump over to the archive section and drop a comment in there. We will chat you up. Are we talking about the right game? Oh fuck, no, it's not Deathloop, it's uh Loop Hero. Fuck me. Deathloop's gone. Not bad. Play Alexander. Yeah, it's on there too. Everybody's gonna like, oh, they're gonna play that first person shooter Deathloop. We're playing Loop Hero, bro.

Luke: 1:13:11

I want Alex to leave this in specifically because we've had this entire conversation via text as well, and we did the exact same thing.

Alex: 1:13:19

Uh, loop hero is so much more exciting to me. That's just gonna be so much better than Death Loop's kind of cool, man. I've played a little bit of that game, but loop hero is gonna be lit. Loop hero's dope.

Luke: 1:13:28

We're here for loop hero. All right, developer digital. If you stuck with us past that, you'll know that we're morons and that we're talking about loop hero.

Alex: 1:13:38

That's right. That is right. Thanks again, y'all. Take it easy. Much love. Lo5Gaming.com. Holler at us. Late night radio. Yeah, what up, what up? Welcome to Late Night Low Five Part 2. Did you read? Uh did you read? Did you listen to by chance? Did you listen to the Pixel Project Radio thing that I guess it on?

Luke: 1:14:24

No, not yet. Make me say that at the beginning of the podcast. It's basketball season. I've been getting to this playoff hype. Don't make me this is like I don't want to listen to you cheating on me. Like, just edit all this out. How could you?

Alex: 1:14:36

This isn't the start of pot. I was just curious.