Low Five Gaming
Welcome to Low Five Gaming, the book club-style podcast where two brothers, Alex and Luke, share their lifelong love for video games through engaging conversations and friendly debates. If you're a passionate gamer, a casual fan, or just have a soft spot for the classics, our laid-back, conversational approach will make you feel right at home.
Each month, we'll explore the game of the moment or revisit a beloved classic, satisfying your gaming cravings with our unique blend of humor, insight, and personal experiences. Whether it's reminiscing about crunchy classics like Prince of Persia (89), getting hyped about the latest Nintendo Direct, or diving into deep discussions on FPGA consoles (much to Luke's chagrin), Low Five Gaming is your go-to podcast for all things gaming.
As brothers with a lifelong bond, Alex and Luke bring a genuine camaraderie and relatable banter to every episode, making it easy for you to connect with fellow gamers who truly understand your love for the virtual world. So, if you're looking to join a gaming community where you can enjoy thought-provoking conversations about your favorite games, look no further than Low Five Gaming. You're also invited to join the conversation in our Discord server!
Subscribe now and let's embark on this pixel-powered journey together, sharing our gaming adventures and creating lasting memories along the way.
Low Five Gaming
Pine Creek
Alex and Luke talk Pine Creek.
Dive into the eerie world of Pine Creek, where the mysterious disappearance of a young girl in a seemingly tranquil town spirals into a tale of cults and ritualistic mysteries. Developed by Marco of Carmelo Electronics, with significant contributions from David Martínez Canales, Pine Creek is a Game Boy Color adventure that marries classic pixel art with a gripping narrative.
This game challenges players to explore, solve puzzles, and unravel a deep story about life, death, and the shadows lurking in Pine Creek. Enjoy moments of reflection and camaraderie, savor delicious in-game food, and lose yourself in the arcade games that dot this rich pixelated landscape.
Fully playable on original hardware via flashcart or any Game Boy emulator, Pine Creek offers a nostalgic yet fresh experience for veteran and new gamers alike. At the time of this recording, the game is celebrated for its authentic retro feel and compelling storytelling. It takes about three hours to beat.
Luke experienced Pine Creek on his Steam Deck through a ROM, while Alex enjoyed a physical copy on his Analogue Pocket, diving deep into the game's immersive world.
Join us as we dissect Pine Creek's intricate narrative, discuss its gameplay mechanics, and explore how it stands out in the indie gaming scene.
This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by house shoes.
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Theme music is by AJ Norman. Design assets were created by Studio Day Job.
Low Five Gaming is a Studio Low Five Production.
Yo, what up everybody. Welcome to another episode of Low-5 Gaming. It's our monthly backlog book club featuring myself, alex, and my co-host and brother, luke.
Speaker 2:What's up, luke Dude? Not much how you doing man.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm living, I'm doing good, Excited to be coming at the people again. Another Backlog book club Low-5, nighttime, nighttime, nighttime, low-5.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah the low five night vibes, dude. Yeah, the low five night vibes. Yep, babies are asleep can't get can't.
Speaker 1:Can't get too rowdy up in here no, this is dad, just just rowdy enough, man, I gotta say you're looking pretty good today sporting that charlotte hornet starter jacket. La gear kicks blinding lights on the bottom probably why you got those wraparound oakley's bro, making it hard to read that cassio g shock. Either way, the whole fit coming together with those cargo shorts pockets big enough for two game boys fuck yeah, dude, I'm a I'm a pokey trainer, 90s kid ready to go.
Speaker 2:I sort of get the references. It takes me a while, but uh, you know I'm sort of a baby, I'm enough of one to kind of get it to have hand-me-down starter jackets.
Speaker 1:That was like my version of millennial lifestyle dude, I was trying to think of all the like longer cool millennia starter jackets to still pretty bitchin.
Speaker 2:Starter jackets, man we were used to ace had a fresh one mom got me the nog.
Speaker 1:It was like I can't remember what they're called. They were not started jacket, so it was like the poor people started jacket. It was like it was like started with a P or something, I can't even remember, but it was like I picked it out. Those are still tight. It was. I had the Notre Dame fighting Irish was the dude on there, so it's kind of fun, but it wasn't a starter jacket. Aaron, our older brother dude, he had a lakers one that I ended up acquiring, kind of, or I just wore to school a couple times. That one was pretty dope, stole it a few times before it was reclaimed I was pretty young dude.
Speaker 1:I was pretty young at the time and it was funny because aaron, he's older than you know, quite a bit older than we are not quite well, yeah, he dude. Yeah, old man over there, yeah, but dogs. So I was wearing his Lakers starter jacket. This book of matches fell out, dude, and I was like I panicked because Were you smoking cigars dude.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the fuck he was doing, but I was like I was just a little kid bro, so like a pack of matches over at St James School. Oh, I was worried.
Speaker 2:What a bad kid dude.
Speaker 1:I know Fucking psychopath that you were. I know.
Speaker 2:Hoodlum.
Speaker 1:I had a lot of fun thinking of all these 90s apparel references. You probably don't even remember LA Gear kicks, dude, that was a deep reference. You remember the LA Gears.
Speaker 2:The Shining Lights. I had no idea. Casio G-Shocks are still dope, though, so that's not even a reference dog, they're still glorious. The wraparound Oakleys don't know that it was really just the starter jacket and, being specific, charlotte Hornets and the G-Shocks and the Double Game Boys because, of course, yes, I thought about going JNCO, but I didn't feel like that was your vibe man. It's not.
Speaker 1:Although I am married. Married, so all cargo shorts are banned in the house. Dude, I've been told I can't wear cargo shorts either. That's. It's an atrocity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of want to buy a really gaudy pair out of protest get them out, like my guards or some shit, so they're extra practical and shit shout out to the homie severson, dude severson.
Speaker 1:I went to the movies this years ago but he had a pair of cargo shorts on, dude. He put like some chick-fil-a in his pockets and smuggled it into the theater.
Speaker 2:I was like this is fucking awesome I couldn't imagine a delightfully smug face as he takes his chicken sandwich out of his cargo shorts.
Speaker 1:So I like it, yes so what's up with the silly 90s pale references? Dude, we're we're playing game boy, man, we're playing game boy back to silly 90s pale references.
Speaker 2:Dude, we're playing Game Boy. Man. We're playing Game Boy. Back to the 90s I didn't know games other than Pokemon were released on the Game Boy if I'm going to be honest, dude so many.
Speaker 1:You're just playing with me right now, you know.
Speaker 2:It's like partially true, though. It's like 95% of my Game Boy usage is Pokemon and 5% is probably Mario stuff.
Speaker 1:It's a solid game, bro. Pokemon is good, you know it's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Great little RPG they're still making the same one they made for the Game Boy dude, Just somewhat better graphics kind of, but we didn't play Pokemon this time around man, we played Pine Creek and Pine Creek.
Speaker 1:Although it be it for the Game Boy Color, it was made in 2021.
Speaker 2:It's pretty neat. Yeah, there's a nine-buck for you. New old tech Dude.
Speaker 1:I love it, man. There's this whole community of people making new games on old hardware and I'm here for it. Dude, this episode, episode number 33 of Low-5 Gaming. I hope you sickos are ready for Alex Zone. This is for the loyal.
Speaker 2:For sure Is there like a catchy phrase, like metroidvania, would you of, uh, or souls like, or like genre type thing that you would describe the future retro man, future retro is like probably the closest thing you can do.
Speaker 1:There's this whole like a lot of these games that dudes are creating for the game boy are built off of gb studio. So like game boy studio, gb studio, where maybe I just made that up close enough, dude.
Speaker 2:If you google it, you'll get there.
Speaker 1:So that's crap, I'm sure, I'm sure, but dude, they like. It's not just the game boy, though. I haven't dabbled a whole bunch, but like I do, I'm well aware of. Uh, there's some folks that are creating this dude. It looks like I said this is sicko alex our, but there's a shmup that's coming out this year.
Speaker 2:Dude, for the genesis that I'm like salivating over uh, so there's some more chan to hear this shit.
Speaker 1:Dude, just kidding uh, let me see, there's also, like you know, occasionally some, some of these publishers that do, like the you know, physical media stuff or release or do re-releases to super nintendo, sega, genesis. Uh, nintendo, I mean, there's a love for it, man, like, one of the things I love about gaming is that, that physical media aspect. I obviously have a bunch of digital games too and I'll play whatever dude, but but it's fun, it's fun to have, it's fun to have those physical pieces, those relics and uh that you can play it on current tech too totally.
Speaker 1:I played it on my analog pocket, which is another sicko mo game boy hour, yeah, but, uh, you know, that's like the. It's basically this, uh, souped up game boy that came out total 2020, future retro machine. So, exactly, dude it's and it's. It was dude that thing is it's fun. It's fun to play new games on their old games on there, and this game, I mean they have the. The physical cart, which I did purchase and I own as part of my collection, is one of the reasons that I wanted to play this one is to, you know, work through that backlog, uh, but you're able to play it on your steam deck, steamy d yeah, a and b are switched because it has the game boil out.
Speaker 2:So my dumb ass that took me at least like two seconds to three minutes to figure out. But other than that, dude, it was a very smooth and enjoyable experience, except for um. The wife did not love the crunchy game boy tunes at nine o'clock at night, right next to her in bed.
Speaker 1:But other times of the day.
Speaker 2:It sounded great and fun you're buck wild.
Speaker 1:You don't put headphones on, nah dude.
Speaker 2:I was listening to it raw in the atmosphere. My steamy d dude, I whip it out and everyone gets to see and hear it, dude.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm into it, bro, but yeah, you're in bed. You gotta have those headphones on man.
Speaker 2:You gotta, you gotta yeah, follow my only fans for that type of true content. If you want to watch me stream all that, but I cam it. It's not necessarily streaming, but it's just like a different thing.
Speaker 1:But anyway, what's up yeah, so this, this game is available, the physical copy. Like I said, you can also play it in your browser via the publisher, carmelo Electronics HIO or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:It's H-O for fun.
Speaker 1:You can play it there, and you can also purchase the ROM too. And this is your foray into the ROM world. Dude, this is your first time.
Speaker 2:Purchase this ROM, if you like, please. Yeah, you can say that one first time. Purchase this ROM, if you like, please. Yeah, you can say that one more time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but this is the first time you've done any emulation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just learned you set it up for me, because I'm a noob and I don't want to learn.
Speaker 1:I said that. Real nice too. You're benefiting from someone who's fucked around with this shit way too much and has tweaked all the settings to make it look as close to the original experience as possible yeah, yeah no, so you're welcome, yeah this is al's attempt to get me to buy crates with them, but that's where this is leading dude, I'm a big shader boy man.
Speaker 1:I can't believe it. There's these people out here playing game boy and stuff with and they just go like the pure, like vanilla, like clean pixel thing. I'm like no, you got to throw some shaders on there, you got to get the vibe going.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you what this is. What I sound like when I'm lecturing my friends about how fun record collecting is.
Speaker 1:This is it?
Speaker 2:When they're like Spotify and I'm like no, it's not a shame.
Speaker 1:The Pine Creek man, you ready, you ready for my little excerpt?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:Excited. Let's bring it in man and tell the people about Pine Creek. In the quaint town of Pine Creek, tranquility is shattered by a dark mystery the disappearance of a young girl feared to be the latest victim of ritual killings, rumored to be orchestrated by a cult. Embark on a journey to uncover the sinister truth behind the unsettling crimes. Pine Creek is not just an adventure game. It's a narrative rich exploration into life, death and the spaces in between. Released in October of 2021 for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, this game marries nostalgia with contemporary storytelling. Crafted by Carmelo Electronics under the creative direction of Marco and published by Incubate Games, Pine Creek is accessible via any Game Boy emulator and original hardware through a flash cart, and it is developed using GB studio.
Speaker 2:Alex, after not editing that hit that one, take on like some Nas shit but anyway playing his very niche style Game Boy games which are dope, but then it's like mad fucking adult. Surprisingly, like kind of morbid. It was tight, but look at you, strange vibes all over the place, man dude, honestly.
Speaker 1:So this one I've been into like game boy scene for for quite some time I mean since I was a kid, really but I really started to get back into it in like 2017, 2018. I started collecting for it because I heard about that analog pocket. I was reading retro, like retro whatever magazine, and they had a big old article on the analog pocket and that got me interested in digging out some mild stuff and I started like getting into the whole like mod scene. I started digging out some of my like old games and I just started to fall in love with game boy again, dude, and I just was salivating over this analog pocket and in the meantime, I started to learn about these new games that folks were making. And pine creek's been on my shelf for a little bit, so I really was excited to have the opportunity to to give it a whirl and I knew that it was going to be kind of a weird hang dude.
Speaker 1:It's definitely. I mean it's got dark material in it. It opens up with the like. There's basically a disclaimer. I mean it's got dark material in it.
Speaker 2:It opens up with the like there's basically a disclaimer yeah, well, it's funny. I like took that almost as like sarcasm. I didn't take it literally, uh. So then when it did get dark I was like, oh god. But I'm trying to like think of the vocab word. It like uh, the cartoony, like literally I said pokemon earlier, but like it has like the pokemon aesthetic and it's got like the very fun music, although sometimes music is spooky, but it's that fun Game Boy music. It belies, I think is the word I'm looking for. It really belies the fact that it's actually very dark and it gets there and you're like, whoa Right.
Speaker 1:We'll jump into the story a little bit later, but I do think that those dark themes that are happening in this game are I don't want to say offset, because it's not like they are erased or anything, but it's balanced with this like almost Pokemon vibe, and that's part of like GB Studio, like there's a lot of assets that have that Pokemon look for those that are familiar with the original Pokemon games. So you have that kind of like oh woji. It's like that top down it's very cute, for lack of a better you know a better description, but there's like, there's a cuteness to it maybe it's cute, but it's also like it's familiar and the familiarity is attached to cute properties.
Speaker 2:So like, um, you know, and then it's just the lightness of like the music, even though once again it can be kind of like spooky, but it, um, you know, and then it's just the lightness of like the music, even though once again it can be kind of like spooky, but it's, you know, it's hard to be like scary. It's more of like a crunchy little spooky bop going through the town the dialogue in this game is top-notch in my opinion.
Speaker 2:Reader had a lot of fun with it. There's like a lot of goofy moments to laugh at, so it's just like almost like you're taking on this fun little spooky ride. Then it's like no dude, this fuck's serious.
Speaker 1:You're like oh my god, that's odd describe it so this is one of those adventure mystery games that has multiple endings, and I'm and let's talk about the endings, uh, later on but I'm curious how much time did you put into this game and how many playthroughs, how many endings did?
Speaker 2:you get. I want to say I played it in three separate sittings. I'd almost do. It's like a three-day cycle, right, so I?
Speaker 1:do like five days in total.
Speaker 2:But okay, well, I did it in three sittings and the first time I just did a day and then it was like one or two days and then I finished her up because the last one is actually pretty fast. So I feel like last two, three days kind of are all in a intense little pack where the first two days are longer. Uh, but I made two, three hours that's about right.
Speaker 1:I did it, uh, in the same amount of time, but I've I went for three different endings. So that's another thing about these, these little short plays path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can probably rip through it pretty fast once you know the different beats did and when I went around, especially on my first playthrough, it probably took me maybe three plus hours because I was super wrapped up and just poking everything dude, like talking to every npc, uh, seeing what they had to say, going around kind of figuring out what was happening, and, uh, I had a lot of fun doing that. And then exactly the second time I went through you can kind of streamline it because you know where to go, you know what to do, the like more mysterious parts that you're figuring out or the more like you know, I wouldn't even call them puzzles really, but there's it's like more than a fetch quest, but it's like basically a fetch quest in a way, like you have to go, do certain things to be able to unlock the next part or the next part of the journey, right, uh, so once you know what those are, you can do it pretty rapidly. But I was interested to see what some of the different outcomes might be, so I did a couple different playthroughs and and uh, that's another cool thing about these games is there's not like crazy replayability, you know, factor to them. But it's super interesting to me to see those different outcomes and I like to. You know there are games like that.
Speaker 1:You look at your, your Witcher 3 or whatever that has huge game with these. You know you can take different paths, right, but man, you're going to replay Witcher 3 to see what that other ending was going to be? I mean, yes, some people do. Maybe someday I will, but that's a 40-hour commitment, bro. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's cool replayability and it's fast and light enough, so it's a feature. Aren't the endings not radically different though?
Speaker 1:It's just kind of like you get different details about different characters, yeah, and we'll hit the spoiler section later and kind of talk about that a little bit. But yes, this one, this particular game, the endings aren't super, they don't branch off crazily like some of the other games in this little genre and realm that I've played cool.
Speaker 2:The game is definitely. So, to describe the style of game, it's kind of like a little just a quick, little like dialogue adventure. I'd say you have different voice, like choices, but it's more about what type of witty interaction you want to have, because the writing is really sharp in it and really fun and goofy. So you're kind of just like roaming around trying to just like solve a little mystery, talking to people, interacting with a few objects you know, fetching, finding something here to go add over there how else would you describe it? Or just the characters, even.
Speaker 1:No, that's. I mean, that's right on man on man. Like you wake up. It's kind of that uh, that game boy trope of uh. You know you see it in zelda and a lot of different other uh games of the era, but you wake up just like the bedroom and pokemon.
Speaker 2:I feel like it was homage to that, especially because you can go play that little game over there and it's totally, so you yeah that game that's just so funny oh, it's great stuff.
Speaker 1:But you wake up and the first thing you do you start poking around your room right and dude that game. There's so many little super niche and super esoteric inclusions in this game that just blew. That's what really did it for me, Marco, the developer of this game. He interjected a lot of himself into it and I think that's what really elevates this game to the next level. Dude, right off the bat as you're, you wake up as your character in your bedroom and there's like a little uh, super nintendo on the ground and you can go. You can go play it, dude. And what's the name of that game called? Do you remember?
Speaker 2:no, but it's pretty ridiculous, um, and that's why I don't remember it, it's awesome heroes of perestroika dude.
Speaker 1:So it's like this super. It's like this super, like soviet era what game is it?
Speaker 2:it's not gorbachev, is it, or is it? No, it's like uh whoever was before gorbachev it doesn't matter, dude, and it's like, it's like economic reform, and then there's unrest in this region, like attacking you back, and it's, it's very specific.
Speaker 1:I found that so obscure and dude, it was great and it was set up like pokemon, like it was like a pokemon battle, literally. Yeah, dude, that's which was like you know, it's one of those meta, like solid meta jokes. Like you know, I think marco, the developer was was leaning into the fact that he realizes that there's this Pokemon vibe. Going to the game, you don't battle like you do in Pokemon, but the way you traverse the map is very Pokemon-esque. So to have that inclusion was this. So it was like a solid little game and the character at the end he was like this game sucks and I was like, ah well, the game's kind of dope. Yeah, end, he was like this game sucks and I was like kind of dope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I should mention your character. Your character's name is adso, by the way, so the main character is adso, that's as you play as, and you you wake up in adso's room, you kind of go around, head downstairs and your sister down there, I think at the beginning yeah, you can have some aggressive back and forth with, clearly, clearly, some sibling tension, dude, it's great and like, right off the bat, man, that dialogue is just, it's just super good and it's just it's again, it's very like offsetting.
Speaker 1:Almost. It's like you're like, wait a second, this is a game boy game, because they swear, they say silly stuff and you have some choices or whatever to make. Uh, and you head out and then kind of learn about that thing that I mentioned in the our little, uh, our brief little story or whatever, of Pine Creek. You find out that there's been this you don't know if it's a murder or kidnapping but all of a sudden this cool little jaunt that you're having through town goes sour pretty quickly because you find out one of your best friends is fucking missing or dead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, the intro to the game intro I should have taken seriously, because the intro to the game is this, like little cut scene, uh, which is graphic. I don't know if you want to spoil that. I feel like it's graphic enough to to not spoil it just yet, but that's what you started with. So it's like this retro, old school, familiar graphics, but then kind of a lifelike oddly enough, little cut scene. And I was like, okay, the fuck, dude, because I didn't I almost forgot about that horror game, but I, you know, I I guess I didn't know what to expect.
Speaker 1:Then it opened with that and I was like, okay, cool I forgot about that right after the warning it goes and and this isn't super smartly, because it's just the beginning of the game and there's a bunch of there's thumbnails all over the internet of it, but it's basically it's it's a bloody knife and then someone's like cut off finger and then you've got a pentagram, and so that's like what this game starts with and you just kind of like wait what? And then you end up in that room we're describing. It's like this major shift where it's like wait, you just like I even forgot to bring it up because it totally pulls you from that and then places you back into this like quaint little town.
Speaker 2:Do, do, do. But then you end up coming out Having a little adventure time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, before we go into too much of the story, I want to talk a little bit more about you know this, the dialogue that I keep talking about. Then, just kind of the silly things you can do is like go to the go to the arcade I had a lot of fun with that and I want like go to the go to the arcade I had a lot of fun with that and I want to hear about your experience with the arcade. And then this year, your exploration of the actual pine creek and then apricot city, which is this neighboring city that you can take the train to. So I'm curious about, after you left your house, like how did you, how did you go about your gameplay?
Speaker 2:well, you have like some missions in a little notebook which I appreciate it but also there wasn't.
Speaker 2:There wasn't a map, was there? There's not a map, so but it was. So that made me a little nervous. But and then the first place I had to go was like really close. That made it easier. And then I was just kind of booping around, man, right, it's like you're poking at things, like it's like when the gameplay isn't really like, it's not gamey, as much as you go up and you talk to people and you just kind of figure out where to go max. It reminds me a lot of not just like game boy games, actually more so like the old old computer games that you would just like randomly have access to, or like you're just trying to like figure out what the environment has in store for you. So that's just kind of how I was. And then towards the end I actually got super impatient and looked some things up, because I am a child, yeah, that's gone.
Speaker 1:So one of the things is kind of fun. There's a an arcade that the building is arcade on the top floor or something like that, and then there's, um, like it's a photoshop on the the bottom floor. Uh, so one of your buddies he works at the photoshop but upstairs the arcade and you can go in the arcade and there's actually some playable cabinets once again it's like the 90s, so there's a reason for a photoshop, right, right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if we've explicitly mentioned that outside of your nice intro about starter jackets and g-shocks, but yeah, it definitely takes place in the 90s. Yeah, it's funny because it's almost like kind of gives you that kind of campy horror vibe, then tied to an era so similar, similar idea but yeah continue.
Speaker 1:I'm not, I've never been like a big, I've never gone out and like I mean I've go to arcades like barcades and stuff now, but I didn't like grow up in the arc but I still have like a certain sense of nostalgia for them. I think they're really cool and I'm I just like I'm just I'm like kind of semi obsessed with like arcade culture, right, even though I didn't get to partake.
Speaker 2:So like the fact that this game had that in there.
Speaker 1:I got it. Yeah, so it immediately. You go and you talk to you. You don't have any money. So you go to play and they're like oh, you don't have any money, so you go talk to the the arcade like worker, owner, whatever, and he sends you on a fetch quest to the church. Then you have to deliver this letter, right, but he tells you not to open it and then when you leave the arcade, which, right away, I wouldn't know what happens.
Speaker 1:You piece of shit, dude right, dude, I fucking so I did. And then, like long story short, I wasn't able to play any arcade games. So when I did my second replay, I made sure to be a little bit more. Uh, what do you say? Uh, honest, no, there's a better word it's not even true, dude.
Speaker 2:You did it in the first timeline, therefore, you already knew what happened, so you're just a bad person at each timeline even if you made the right decision, continue though.
Speaker 1:Oh man. Well, I'm glad that I did go back and was able to play those games, because there's a silly Pong game that you two players you actually mentioned in the Discord, you were banned from the. Yeah, they banned me from the arcade. I wasn't only able to play it, so I knew that heading in.
Speaker 2:So I was like I'm not going to read this letter, it's going to get me banned. Oh see, I was on my high horse, but piece of shit too, I would have read it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, I totally read it and they wouldn't let me play the games. So the games in there. You can play that Heroes of Pastrokia again, which is fun, but you already did that in your rooms or whatever.
Speaker 2:It's the same joke. There's no new layers to that joke. It's like one excellent joke.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's just there again right, right, uh, you might as well need to reuse an assets.
Speaker 2:It's whatever, but it belongs in the arcade, for sure buddy.
Speaker 1:Then there's a pong so you can play pong. Uh, but it's two player pong so you'd have to like get another person in real life and then use the d-pad and the ab button to go up and down with your pong paddles. Uh, I did not, man. No, I did not. Did you right on the. The other game which I thought was such a great reference dude is my. There is an my dinner with andre cabinet. Did you check that one out?
Speaker 2:I watched it for longer than I should have because I was deeply confused about what movie this was and I feel like it might get used for a meme or maybe I just know that actor, but I was like what's happening here?
Speaker 1:yeah, so the actors are pretty famous, but the it's like a big like art house film which I didn't know anything about prior to this game, but it's also it's a simpsons reference as well. So there's a there's a simpsons episode where martin is like at the arcade or something and it's just like one button and all you can do on this game is just do like keep reading. It's like I had the opportunity to talk to marco the, the publisher this, and I was like what is up with this inclusion, I have to know, and he was like, well, it's like a simpsons thing. I was like, ah, shit, that that makes sense. That's cool, it is cool.
Speaker 1:I love that in there man, it's like those little like weird little things that he's included and so much of that is like. Those are some pretty obvious examples. But then there's so much of like his life and his humor and just different stuff shows up in in the chats you have with the different NPCs, and there's like 50 of them, dude, and I know that GB Studio has like a limit with how many assets you can have, like in certain screens and whatever, but, dude, they have, like they have, you know, 50 sets of dialogue. You know that changes every day. Dude, that took a lot of time god.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you had multiple playthroughs and you'd talk to different people every day. I was just kind of always on my shit like figuring out what was going on next.
Speaker 1:But I guess if you know that, it's pretty respectable to go back and see like different things that change, that's cool yeah, well, the first playthrough I talked to like everybody every single day that I could run into just to see what they had to say. The second, third playthrough, I would skip folks because it's like I kind of knew what I was trying to do. I was more interested in seeing the ending. But yeah, as I just mentioned to you, like I had the opportunity to talk with marco uh, which is super cool. Folks would have been able to have the opportunity to listen to that podcast, uh, if you didn't go check it out.
Speaker 1:Super cool dude and it was great to learn a whole bunch about, uh, his experience making this game. Really it was uh, it was really eye-opening and cool to see. And I think that as I played this game I started to notice there's just different things in it that I just realized that, like this is like totally the publisher coming out and like showing some personal flavor, and I think that's what really elevated this game above. You know where it would have been if it was just a straight up murder mystery kind of vanilla, but he added so much of himself into it and I thought that was pretty cool. So, folks, if you haven't already, go check out that interview with Marco because it's a cool dude and it was a lot of fun for me to learn about his experience making this game.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, the comedy and the skill and the writing definitely helps offset the more intensity of the story. For sure, offset's the wrong word. I like how you said balanced earlier. Right.
Speaker 1:And Offset's the wrong word. I like how you said balanced earlier. Right, and with that dude I think we should give folks who haven't played this the opportunity to skip forward to. I'll insert a little time here 50 minutes, 18 seconds, 50-18. Otherwise you can stick around for some spoilers. But I want to hear about how this game ended for you and how you got there bro okay, so I did most of the mystery edge and figuring things out on my own.
Speaker 2:But when you have to, what's it called the decoding of the pentagram and the symbols you like? Actually wrote that out on a notebook, didn't you? Yeah, dog, I got, I sure did. That's pretty anal and unnecessary, but also pretty nah, dude, it was dude.
Speaker 1:It was pretty necessary for trying to decipher that shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1:Is it cryptography? Is that what that's called?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. It sounds good to me. Dude, I'm in such a video game thing. I just thought that I would be initiated some sort of another screen somewhere by talking to somebody or looking at it in my house or something.
Speaker 2:So I was actually really confused as to where I was supposed to go. And it turns out I was supposed to decode that myself and then go to that place and it tells you exactly where to go. But my dumb ass had to look that up, so shouts out to people who help people out on the internet. That was cool, um, but I was like I kind of felt dumb and then a little bad because that's like cool, it's like cool writing and cool like story design. Right to actually do that. So I knew later when I have to get that book and like all the like words were highlighted. I I knew to put that together and come up with a little code to figure out where I was going. But how about you? You understood it was a notebook assignment, so you did a better job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so as you're going through and talking to folks throughout this game, basically there'll be little problems. So when you start a dialogue with somebody, they'll kind of give you an idea of what the next thing to do is. So you go do that and you end up finding your way into the adjacent town to Pine Creek, which is Apricot City. So you end up like you have to do this whole thing. You end up getting a train pass and you head to Apricot City and you go to the Black Cat Lounge or something like that you deliver pizzas and those dudes stiff you.
Speaker 2:or something like that deliver pizzas and those dudes stiff you read that's right. Ages those cocks, that's right so you end up bad for you and give you money.
Speaker 1:Yeah because you had to earn. You had to earn the money to buy the train pass. You couldn't just get the train pass to your dad, jim, he like, he makes you, he makes you get a job at the new pizzeria that just opened or whatever. So you go around, you like slang your pizzas. When you slang those pizzas, you actually run into an npc. One of them they delivered to I can't remember his name or if he even had a name, but it's this dude that's like out on this. Uh, he's like on this.
Speaker 1:Overlook, looking for ufos yeah apparently when I was talking to marco dude, that's like a big uh I use, like a lot of folks in mexico will catch that reference. It's like a very well-known like UFO searcher dude. Oh really, yeah. So like I mean, I thought the inclusion was fun, I just thought it was weird. But it's again more layers of that, like you talk cool inclusion swing by, so he misses him, dude.
Speaker 1:I know he turns around to like get the pizza and he misses his UFOs, but it's actually that pizza you deliver to the church, which, oh man, fuck that church.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, that pizza you deliver actually sounded pretty good. It was like a weird. It was like some weird flavors, wasn't it? It was like blueberry goat cheese, something, pizza.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't remember everything that's on it, but that was onions I was like man I'll try, there's enough strange but bougie things on a pizza to eat together.
Speaker 2:I was cool with it, but fuck those guys don't care if their pizza is tasty or exquisitely creative they ain't paying.
Speaker 1:No dude, I don't think he got to keep his tips, so he quits right away and then, but you end up getting the. You end up getting the, the train pass and you go to the black cat, which is this like kind of like a cult bookstore, and you're also there. You're, you're sent there by one of your other friends because you're like your friend group. It's Cass, I want to say Kathy maybe, and then Judith, and Judith is the one that's missing, karen, sorry. So Judith, karen Cass, and I think Karen knows somebody at the Blackhead or something, I don't know. But you end up going there to try and figure something out and you have to do a weird little puzzle. I think it's the most like obscure puzzle in the game. You have to go around and and kind of like, do you have to like read the different bookshelves?
Speaker 2:I did that on accident. I like read some of those things and I thought it was just like different cultural references he was going for. So then she asks you for the code and I did it wrong and I was was like what? So then I just did the weirdest answer possible for each one, and that's actually the answer, and it worked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's funny. I didn't know that that was a thing until later.
Speaker 2:On.
Speaker 1:Oh, right on, but you end up, you end up going in there. And then there's like this secret garden where people have their little sex parties or whatever. It's all this weird shit, dude, that you're like. Wait, is this a Game Boy game Like what? The fuck, are they talking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's like luckily later on it helps the fact that you can't see anything, but I wasn't like fully aware it was like a weird sex party thing. Because it's like this top-down Pokemon-looking view, you can't leave it a lot to the imagination.
Speaker 1:We like talked to some up the spoiler wall, but but this whole black cat lounge is a red herring, right. So you end up, you go in in the back part of it. There's, uh, there's another npc that you can talk to. That brings you to that book that you're talking about. So basically, you're trying to decode this, the thing that you found in judah's room, like the pentagram deal and like you needed to read that, so like, and then you're able to, you're able to look back and forth and try and figure out what it is. And if you decoded, it basically tells you to go to the pizzeria.
Speaker 1:But I, I thought I fucked up, dude, because, like, all the places are spelt like a little off, so it's like pizzeria or I don't remember. It was like something weird and I was like, oh man, I think I fucked it up. But pizza, I'm just gonna go to the pizza place. You go to the pizza place and then you end up finding, I think, a note in the uh, in like that plant or something that wasn't there before, planter that has uh, that has a camera roll along with a couple excerpts not excerpts, but um passage like what do they call it?
Speaker 1:from the bible? Like, like, what a passage from the Bible, like a little title for it or whatever. We're born and raised some good Catholic boys. We should be able to figure this out. That's a server dude.
Speaker 2:I thought passages is fine though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it wasn't the passage itself, it was like the reference to it. Yeah, which, like which gives you the idea. Okay, it's like I need to find a Bible and figure out what these are, you know, and that's how the game works, or whatever. But as you go along, dude, there's different things. And then, trying to think, you have to find a Bible. You do have to find a Bible.
Speaker 2:And then it's the wrong edition of the Bible because you bring it to the actual priest, who will get to it in a minute.
Speaker 1:And then you go back to that bookstore to find a bible, don't you? Or where? Yeah, it's the so you need. I can't remember the type of bible it is, but like, if you, it turns out, they like they only have the king james bible or something at the church like, so you need, you need to get a different edition of the bible from uh, your missing friend is the last person to buy it.
Speaker 2:Right so you find that out, go back to her house where the accident happened. You sneak upstairs or talk to her dad or some shit.
Speaker 1:And that's how you find it, and you can poke around on her computer, right yeah?
Speaker 2:Highlighted passages are, and there's also some code or whatever on the computer.
Speaker 1:Where does the clue lead you? That's going to lead you back to the city, the Love Hotel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before the Love Hotel became the scene of grossness, it was really funny to look at the vending machine and be like dildos, lube, condoms, furry handcuffs. I was like what am I playing? Because once again you feel like it's a Pokemon game or a game of that innocent time. To have goofy things like that in there is really funny.
Speaker 1:And then the homie working at the Love Hotel basically has a crush on the girl at the taco joint, right, yeah. So he wants you to go talk to her. And then you find out or no, no, no, she's at the sushi joint. And then you find out that she loves tacos Right, right, right. So then this dude, like, sends you on an errand to get her, like, tacos. Basically he leaves and then you're able to go, cause they don't let you go back into the back room Cause they have you like pick out the sauce and stuff that she mentions.
Speaker 2:I was like, is this gonna matter, that I forgot if she takes just cilantro and onions or just onions and no, like I was, like I know man, I fretted about that too.
Speaker 1:I don't think it matters, it does but it allows you no, and it was annoying.
Speaker 1:I was like what the fuck, dude? So it allows you to go back behind the counter and like into the rooms, man, and this is where this game like there was like little bits in this game where it was like okay, kind of weird, like that intro with knife and the finger and everything creepy, you know, but it's like nothing was like super weird. But then when you punch in the code to go down into the basement of the hotel, dude, I also poked around like upstairs and there's some silly shit going on upstairs, like you know, kind of like oh, you did not there's like closed rooms and then you can just like there's this weird stuff going on, like weird, but like kind of funny, kind of what you'd expect in like basically a sex hotel, yeah, yeah, uh.
Speaker 1:But then you go downstairs, dude, and that was not what I expected. That's like that shit actually like this is a game boy game. That was like fairly light, with some dark themes.
Speaker 2:They're like almost like I want to, like I said I want to call them wash away, but it's like you know it was like acceptable, but then all of a sudden you dude it like it got real dark, real quick yeah, and I mean with the animations, it's kind of hard to tell what's going on with some of them, but, like, basically due to the descriptions that you get like in when you get kidnapped in like a minute, um, it's like a, is it a torture thing? Is it just like? What was this? How would you?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's like a sex trafficking thing for a little bit, like basically abducting little girls and like just doing you know pretty unimaginable stuff with them down, and it's like each room's got a kind of a different thing. They've got a. There's even like a couple of the girls are down there and like there's like a camera down there with one of them, and then there's like one where there's like a bed and there's like a bunch of blood and stuff. It's just like it's not a good scene, it's. It's like this is all of a sudden. You're like playing through this game, like having some cheeky dialogue with a lot of folks. There's some elements of darkness, but then you you kind of like crake this, crack this mystery, find yourself down this basement and it's like it's like the opposite of a scooby-doo ending where you just like roll up and rip off the mask.
Speaker 2:It's like no, you've actually like come to think of it like scooby-doo. They never like encountered anything like gross no, it's always figured out goofy crimes to get off this property so they can sell it or something but it's never like a real real issue as you progress through this basement you enter a room that's completely dark.
Speaker 1:You can tell there's like a little light switch, so you have to kind of navigate through a little maze or whatever a little stress puzzle exactly but then you end up in the final room, light doesn't turn on. But then it does turn on and dude you. It's like another, like it was a twist that I did not expect. Like you get, you get captured. I was like shit man, like I thought I'd be able to fight or something, but they can't.
Speaker 2:Your phone goes off and your that's right developing pictures like as you walked in that's right, that's right yeah, so the camera roll that you found or whatever.
Speaker 1:You get the call and he's like what the this is just fucked up, dude, like because it's like you know a bunch of tied up girls being tortured or whatever. And he's like this is fucking fucked up. And then all of a sudden, you all of a sudden, the fucking police officer pops in on you like the dick police officer there's a bunch of police officers in this game, but the dick one like pops in and basically ties you up and it's like shit, this is gonna end for adso yeah, so it's like a trafficking pedo cult operation not even a cult.
Speaker 2:I guess that was just. Uh, that was a cover from the lady red herring as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um, so it's oddly enough dude, dude, I know that shit was like that got me too, and this is, this is where the uh, the multiple endings, this is where that uh things, for, depending on some of the decisions that you made throughout the game. Uh, so for me, when I walked in, it was the woman who owned, like the owner of the black cat bookstore or whatever it is in in pine city not pine city, apricot city Like she actually, like, for whatever reason, I can't remember how the dialogue exactly went, but she comes in with the lady cop and they busted down Like they, they save you, right. So who saved you? Same, okay, so you, you were. So what that means is you were truthful to the folks at at the black cat bookstore, uh, and you also made, and you also, like, had some other. Basically, you were truthful throughout, and I can't remember what other decisions you had to make. Uh, you didn't talk to tim. That's one thing.
Speaker 2:Tim's like this, like racist, like hillbilly, um, I did talk to him, but I just accused him of doing it and he got really mad at me and stormed off.
Speaker 1:Okay, see, I did that in my first playthrough too. So our first ending, or the ending that you got, is the ending that I got the first time. So I was interested in trying to figure out a different path and I ended up. If you talk to Tim and you don't shut him out throughout and you have to do, you have to do, you have to like lie to the ladies of the black cat and do some other things. But my second playthrough oh, you end up, by the way, the last time that's an opportunity you're hanging out with Tim the racist dude. He's like super, he's on a bender or whatever and he needs some beer. So you go like get him some beer and he passes out and you can go choose one of his weapons. And he's got a grenade, a knife and a gun and I grabbed the, I grabbed the knife.
Speaker 1:So my second, my second ending that I got, uh, basically, tim busted in. He's like hey, you dick, you like stole my knife, I'm going to kill, gonna kill these perverts. But then I think, and then you use the knife to like get out and you actually go and stab. I can't remember if you stabbed the priest or like. I don't think we mentioned that dude. You mentioned the dad. Like judas dad is one of the dudes, the priest is one of the dudes and the dick cop are like the three people in this. Like that are the ringleaders of this thing, right?
Speaker 1:yeah wild, um, so it's like a semi-happy ending, although judith isn't there. So, like you unravel like this mystery of this, of this cult is not actually called, but you unravel this mystery of this like weird sex ring that's going on in town, uh, and then she created the pentagram thing as like a.
Speaker 2:This is like a guise for you to figure it all out, right?
Speaker 1:exactly, so it skips towards like a week.
Speaker 2:We keep calling, but I think they're just like a criminal pedo ring exactly so the the call, the call thing is yep.
Speaker 1:So as you you wake up, you're like kind of you like wake up as as a x amount of days five days, seven days, something like that has passed. Uh. And when you wake up you're kind of poking around town again talking to folks and like some people like oh, you're a hero, and you're like I don't know. I just like I was just trying to find my friend. I almost died. Yeah right, exactly. But then fast forward, there's a couple more things to figure out and you end up.
Speaker 1:You end up finding Judith because she has you meet in the forest by the statue of the, the rape of persepity, or something like that it's like this yeah, greek myth thing right, you can actually check this thing out and has one of those cool cut scenes where the art of it is all done earlier in the game but you end up following that way earlier and I was like, why did he spend all this time making this?
Speaker 1:that's very strange, right the, the statue is the, the rape of prosopina, I believe. But it like it makes sense in whole. Like once you find out, like what happened to judith and like you know, basically being abducted or whatever are these girls being abducted? Like it makes sense to why that inclusion's there, she ends up like meeting you at the statue and kind of is like, yeah, I had to escape, you have an option, because her hair is cut too. So you're like what's up with your hair? And she's like, uh, they, she's. It's like super sad dude. She's like they said they love my hair. So I like I cut it all off. And you're like, and you're like, what about your finger?
Speaker 1:Because at the beginning, that scene that we talked about, and she was like, yeah, I made like a rash decision. It's like, um, but that was it. So like she did that whole like scene in a room to herself and then she ran away. So you find out that she ran away, but, um, she ends up getting help from the lady cop or the fbi whoever it is that came in to help and basically things are okay. It's not like a happy ending, but you find out that she's alive and things will be all right, you disrupted a criminal enterprise, that's true.
Speaker 2:That's true, you helped the world. It was just kind of gross, that's all.
Speaker 1:Indeed, and that is the down and dirty of how the game works. There's different routes, but all the endings are going to be pretty similar, with just some different flavors. Like I said, I did a three different endings, so there's a slightly different endings that you can have, but it all ends up being about the same ending, just with some different flavor. But it's really about the journey.
Speaker 2:In my opinion, this game yeah, it's the style of game of dialogue it's. It's an experience. It's dialogue, it's adventure, a little puzzle solving and then kind of pacing your way through a story, just a quick little jump.
Speaker 1:It's cool if you had to give a rating out of five pentagram points, what are you giving this one?
Speaker 2:well, um, as a good catholic boy, I can't go to full five. Um, I'd say four. Yeah, I'd say there's times where, when I was figuring out what the game is and like how to properly interact with it if that makes sense I found it frustrating. But once I kind of understood what I was, what kind of game it was and what I was supposed to be doing, uh I enjoyed it and I thought, uh, I mean, the story is disturbing, but but it's a good, well-told story, it's a good little twist and I like that. The Game Boy game graphics are crude, so I don't have to have anything weird in my imagery, so it made a heavy story like that easier to take in, I guess. So I just thought it was well done and it was really cool. And yeah, it was really cool, but it's also a pretty obscure, niche type of game, dude, totally. So therefore it doesn't get that full five.
Speaker 1:I would. I think you're about right man. I also give it about four, four to five pentagram points there we go.
Speaker 1:And I say that like it's. It's a game that it really grew on me as I continued to play through it, like I fell in love with it more and more because I was really like falling into like the cool stuff that I thought the developer was interjecting bits of himself into the game and I really appreciated that. I really appreciated, like, all of the discussion with the NPCs and whatnot. And I talked to Marco dude. He said that took four months, bro, like you could see that, yeah, you could just rip it with the npcs and whatnot. And I talked to marco dude.
Speaker 1:He said that took four months, bro, like, and you could see that, yeah, you could just rip it, you'd have to know about different things people are doing and saying so yeah, it's cool right so it's one of those things where, as I was playing it, I was able to give some of its like shortcomings a break, because one I knew it was an indie game. I knew it was made by one person. I think he he had some help on a couple things with one of his buddies or whatever, but basically it's a one-man shop and I have a lot of respect for that and I thought the story was good. I thought it ended pretty abruptly, but I was okay with that, and I also thought that there was a couple things in there that were just like they weren't broken, and I wouldn't even go as far as to call them bugs or whatever, but it was just like certain.
Speaker 1:There's certain things I did because I was doing so much poking around that like, for instance, when I did that, uh, you, when we mentioned the, the fetch quest, where you like, deliver the letter or whatever, you deliver the letter to the dude that's apprenticing at the church and that you're supposed to deliver a letter back or something, and you just aren't able to do that. And every time you go back and talk to that dude, he's like are you going to deliver the letter or what? And you just can't. So like that kind of thing in there is like it doesn't, like it's not. It doesn't really affect the game that much, but it's one of those things where it's like I wish that would have been. Just, they could just use a little bit more polish there. But overall, dude, four out of five, that's a lot, that's. That's good points right there, that's great.
Speaker 2:The only point I'm taking off is just, it's very niche, totally, and I think that kind of, but it was still like once I understood. Once again, once I understood the assignment, it was a lot easier to enjoy and a lot easier to notice, uh, what it was going for and appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And with that dude, I think, my recommendation, then you got my rating. My recommendation is games for the Game Boy. Sickos bro, it's for the folks that love Game Boy.
Speaker 1:And it's also like I think it's like I mean, you nailed it right there and I also think that it's like for folks it's not a heavy lift. That's something that I really love about. You know, I love my big like immersive game, but being able to place through something and then three hours two to three hours dude like that hits it for me sometimes. I really love that. So if you're looking for a little jaunt, like through Pine Creek, check it out. Hell yeah, right on man, let's take a little break. Come back here from our unsanctioned sponsor. This month's episode is brought to you unofficially in part by House Shoes.
Speaker 2:House Shoes, bro. No, they got so ratty that they couldn't justify themselves. It's like that pair of socks that you hold on for too long. These house shoes, I believe. Yeah, dude, I had them for so long. They were so sad and pathetic, but I I'm a fan of some house shoes and I'll wear them out the house. I'm wild like that oh, dog, you monster. They're called house shoes for a reason, bro, I know, I know and I should keep it sacred.
Speaker 2:But sometimes I love them so much I hit them out in the streets and I'm dirty, I'm not a pants in public guy, but I will house shoes in public. There's, there's a fine line and that's that's about it actually, dude holler at my boy, al lauer.
Speaker 1:I had a pair of house shoes slippies, mind you. So these are slippers, little gum soles on them, Nice, Great house shoes Fucking. I made it a point not to let them touch the outdoors. They were purely for the house, right? This is when I was living at Beast Manor and this kid with Al, this kid puts on my slippies and goes outside to grab the paper and I was like dog. You have no idea. I cannot believe you did spoil my house shoes.
Speaker 2:Dude, he spoiled them on the fresh morning, Dude that's pretty rough.
Speaker 1:I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I was like dog. What did you just do? I keep my house shoes in the house. I try to at least those are RIP. Why? Because I didn't wear them out nearly as much as you did to yours that you're talking about. But when my boy, murph RIP, got a hold of those house shoes when he was just a little pup and he tore those laces right off, Because they're leather bro.
Speaker 2:I have some relics of some things that were destroyed when my dog was a hooligan.
Speaker 1:That's funny, yeah uh, but those have since been replaced by a new pair of house shoes. They don't go outside, they're in the house and they're just cozy dude. I love it in the winter time when you're, when your feet kind of cold, slip on some house shoes, wear some yeah, you got.
Speaker 2:You got hard surfaces at your house now, so you're're going to have to get yourself a new pair, because I'm all carpet here, I got it.
Speaker 1:That's what I was saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm all carpet here so it's too warm in general to really rock the house shoes like that. So it's the hard surfaces that really make the house shoes next level yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm also big into life in house shoes. If I'm wearing shoes tennis shoes or whatever dude I'm a socks person. I'm also big into life and house shoes. If I'm wearing shoes tennis shoes or whatever dude I'm a socks person. I'm going to be wearing socks. I'm not going to just go willy-nilly putting my bare-ass foot into some shoes, right.
Speaker 2:But house shoes. Yeah Well, house shoes are crazy, they're all the time dude.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. So that's just what's up. House shoes are made for that. You slip right in there. I hate socks. You go over there.
Speaker 2:I hate socks. If I don't have to wear socks, I'm not going to Dude.
Speaker 1:That leads me to summertime. I love being sockless as well, just riding clean. You know, no Shrek feet.
Speaker 2:But what do you do about house shoes in the summer? Those?
Speaker 1:are feet right up in your swamp dude, but what do you?
Speaker 2:do about house shoes in the summer? This Continue. Avoid my Shrek jokes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, flippy floppies, bro, you gotta put on the flippy floppies. Nah, I'm gonna give you some.
Speaker 2:Crocs, though, because you're too cool for Crocs and I'm finally not too cool for Crocs and I've liberated myself, I'm gonna give you some Crocs, dude, alright, alright, you little boy's got some Crocs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the baby's got them and they're cute and jealous right on. Well, that's what's up, dude, some house shoes, hell yeah, not giving us any money for this podcast.
Speaker 2:Unofficially supporting us, though, in our hearts so do you actually have eight side quests, man, or is this a troll?
Speaker 1:no, I got them lord. Like some of them are together, though it's more like okay, let's see your library. My guy, you ready for me to go? We're gonna hit me with a side quest intro that was it me trolling?
Speaker 2:try again. Give me something better. Dude. Your side quest queue looks like skyrim, where you have like 50 unplayed message or missions. So what's up with that? What are we checking off of our uh to-do list here, man?
Speaker 1:yes, sir. Well, we played a game boy game that we mentioned didn't take too long to beat, even though I played a couple times, so I had some opportunities to get my side quest on this month. Brother, all right.
Speaker 2:All right, hulk, let's see what you got.
Speaker 1:I'm going to kick off my side quest with NBA 2K. Yes, I've been playing, but not as much as you might think. I finished my season and I finished the playoffs. The T-Pups, they took it all, man, and I haven't played since. I fucking won the finals. But here's what happened, bro. First of all, the West, I feel, is way stronger than the East, so the games leading up to the finals were a lot harder for me. I had to take down Denver. I had to take down the Grizzlies. Is that who's out there? Who's Joplin for Grizzlies?
Speaker 2:yeah, he's hurt, so I guess In a video game he's not. So yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I know Denver was tough, but anyways, I ended up playing against the Phillies, bro. So in the finals I played Against the Phillies, which I was like why the Philadelphia? Like why the 76ers so fucking good in this game? They're not that good.
Speaker 2:The finals were kind of a breeze.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. I mean he is good, but like dude. Here's why I bring this up though. So here's why I bring this up I win the finals finally.
Speaker 1:You put all this time and you play through a season, you play through the harris brother yeah, I know the fucking seven features are good, but like, here's the deal, like it was just that the games leading up to it were tougher, like I, I just like you mop the floor with them. But here's the deal. Fucking this game. You put all this time into playing out the season, even though I do a shortened season and in the playoffs I only do three game series, but nonetheless you had to play all those games. I fucking win the finals and is doing the celebration cut scenes and everything. And then the 76ers, kj Martin gets interjected into my like, into my cut scenes and he's. Then the 76ers kj martin gets interjected into my like, into my cut scenes, and he's celebrating with the t-wolves and he's holding the fucking championship trophy. Like get over here, you loser, hold our trophy while we party dude. And not only did he get to like party with the t-wolves, and he, he's just doing this whole thing.
Speaker 2:He's not even a huge player for them. I know that's why it's obscure.
Speaker 1:And they give him finals MVP. Dude, this game has him. They give him the finals MVP, even though I fucking killed it with Ant, killed it with Carl Dude, my team, I just couldn't believe it. And then, KJ Martin.
Speaker 2:People say these games have gone downhill. What are you talking?
Speaker 1:about man. Kj Martin runs off with my trophy and then they gave him finals MVP. I was like you've got to be fucking kidding me. That's cool 2024. Great game, huh? So, dude, the game itself was great. I just couldn't believe it. I put all that time into it. It's not like a story game where you're expecting some crazy ending. But come on, man, give me a fucking cutscene that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 1:That's Major SideQuest number one. I'm done with 2K for a while now. Hell Divers 2,. Man, I caught the fever. I got to jump in and play with some homies over in the List Off podcast. They got a thread over in their discord seat to carry.
Speaker 1:Alex dude, I heard you suck dude, I do, but they, I did, I'm better now. Man, I'm pretty good. Now I'm not. I shouldn't say that I'm not that good, but like, I figured the game out. So those, those dudes like good ups, they, uh, they, they definitely. You know, they show me the ropes, but I've been playing, I've been playing. I think I probably got 10 hours tops, probably 10 hours in that game. You're playing with Randall's dude. Yeah and uh, it's cool playing with Randall's dude.
Speaker 2:It's a fun game, but it's not as fun Star trip starship troopers, guy Jesus Back in the day or no?
Speaker 1:I back in the day or no. I mean it's a cool movie and like it was fun, but I'm I'm not like a die hard. I haven't watched it, but it's like I do love the, I do love those references and like that vibe is definitely present in hell divers too. But I'm not like dude, like the whole, like uh, service games like not usually my thing. This is the first service game that I think has ever like actually grabbed me and like had me like wanting to play more of it. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I cleared that side quest off my Skyrim list. Next I got Ultra Street Fighter 4, bro. And why? Because I was listening to the homie Mikey who's got 0 and 2 Heroes podcast and the homie Rick who's got Pixel Project Radio, and they were talking about different fighting games. I was like man, I haven't played a fighting game in a long ass time and luke hates him, so I'm not gonna be able to rope you into one for the pod, but I'm already pushing, dude, I'm already, I'm already pushing my boundaries making you play crunchy game boy games. So I'm like maybe I'll wait on the fighter, but I was like I want to get good at a fucking fighting game. So I was like street fighter.
Speaker 1:I got a little bit of a background. I was gonna going to give Street Fighter a try, but I didn't want to do Street Fighter 2 because I want to play something newer, but not the newest. I think they're up to Street Fighter 6. So I bought Street Fighter 4 for pretty darn cheap and it's been fun, man. I got my arcade stick and I've been like getting really good with Ken, who's not like a top tier character, like he's like go, he's, he's all right, uh, but I'm learning all his moves. That's a lot of fun. I'm getting better against the computer. But that got me thinking about, like other street fighter games and like I do have, like dude, I don't even know how many renditions of street fighter 2 online or what hell?
Speaker 2:yeah, fuck me up, dude I like how you're like, yeah, I'm getting pretty good at this computer. Uh, I could finish a match or two, and I'm like, dude, are you gonna play online and get owned or?
Speaker 1:what? No, I get. Here's the deal, though, so I've been playing I would I would never.
Speaker 1:So I'm getting pretty decent at at uh ken's moveset. So, and those cross over to the. So all the different street fighter games, like the movesets, are more or less the same. So, like you, now that I've learned that I can go play street fighter 2 or street fighter 3, whatever, and I have so many different versions of street fighter 2 and it's mind-boggling to me I'll fire up like street fighter 2 for sega, genesis, dude, and the computer fucks me right up, but then you play like. You play like street fighter uh 2 on the nintendo switch, like the ultimate edition or whatever it is, and it's super easy oh.
Speaker 2:So when you played street fighter as a kid, did you get your ass whooped by the computer or like?
Speaker 1:uh, I was okay against the computer, not great. I mostly played with friends, though we mostly play, just play two players and I never like. I definitely learned some movesets, but like I never like learned full movesets.
Speaker 2:It was always just you're the guy that knows it or you're the guy that's just trying to play along. It gets destroyed. So yeah, they never really had a good relationship with, like somebody who either was not going to get creamed by me or not going to cream me. There was never. There was never an equal fight. That's part of the reason I never got into it.
Speaker 1:We didn't really play. We didn't really have fighting games in our house, even when we'd started getting our systems and stuff. We didn't really have fighting games in our house even when we started getting our systems and stuff. You and I didn't play against each other. We played sports games against each other. When I played these fighters, I would play at other homies' houses and they owned the game. They were doing what I'm doing now. They would learn movesets and they would usually just fuck me up. I'm trying to learn a couple characters. I got them in my back pocket when people try, I think, street fighter.
Speaker 2:I don't even think I know the street fighter people uh, you recognize them, dude. They're such part of the culture, but like if you told me street fighter versus mortal combat, versus a virtual fighter, versus what's the other one we might have to explore this down the road, dude, uh.
Speaker 1:But let's keep checking off these side quests, bro. I got a couple more. I think we may have known that we gave up game pass, man, we're back off that shit, uh. But there was a couple games that, as a collector and owner of the xbox series x, I was like these are quintessential games that I want on my xbox and for me, that starfield, halo infinite and horizon are horizon, forza, horizon 5. I ended up buying those three games on all really nice discounts, physical copies, except for Forza, because that is cross-play on my PC and my Xbox. I've got that wheelbarrow so I needed to have that game.
Speaker 1:I've been playing all those games. It's interesting because even though I enjoyed little bits of those games that I've played, I never put super much time in them because there's so many other games. When you're doing game pass, I've been having a lot of fun like playing a bunch of Halo Infinite and playing a bunch of like just doing some racing, and I haven't. I haven't put a bunch more time into Starfield yet, but like I'm looking forward to it, dude, it's. It's interesting when you remove game pass and you're able to start to focus on some of these other games yeah, I feel that never been a car guy either.
Speaker 2:Racing games is just as just as bad as my fighting game blind spot.
Speaker 1:But for the force is pretty cool, dude, and it's like it's also like I'm not very good at it yet, so it's like it's just a beautiful game too, so it's just kind of fun to drive around in. And, uh, the last side quest that I'll mention second to last, because then I'll kick it off to you, but I got myself a new toy, bro. It's the, the fp gbc kit. So that's funny playing's gbc kit. I mentioned earlier the analog pocket, which is this cool like modern game boy, so funny playing is a company that does ips screens or basically these backlit screens. I mentioned earlier the analog pocket, which is this cool, like modern Game Boy, so Funny Playing is a company that does IPS screens or basically these backlit screens that you can mod your Game Boys with. But they came out with the FPGA, hence the well, we won't go into the weeds, but if you guys want to talk about the.
Speaker 1:Frenchy shit. Hit up that Discord.
Speaker 1:And I will talk about fpga technology, but uh, dude funny playing put out this kit, so it's a, it's a dyi like do it yourself, like build your own game boy, essentially.
Speaker 1:So it's all their hardware. It's not actual nintendo hardware, but it's fpga, so it's made to like hardware, made to emulate the actual game boy or whatever, and you put it together yourself and like I got stories about that, but I won't get into it I'll tell you that the final product is pretty cool, dude, it's like it's and it costs 70 bucks all day like. You end up buying it for 70 bucks and then another 10 to get the shell and stuff. So 80 for a machine that is basically a one-to-one game boy color like. That's a pretty good deal these days, because if you're about to draw money into have someone to mod a game boy color for you, like air upwards of like depends on where you get it, but you can end up spending anywhere between 200 300. That's great, and the analog pocket that I mentioned, I think, goes for like 220 or something like that. So this is a very like, affordable uh, affordable way to to get your game boy on if folks are interested let's go play pine creek on it, dude fuck, yeah, yes, sir.
Speaker 1:And then the last side quest is a little myth for us, dude. I'll kick it off to your side quest, but I want to bring up that we've been getting our, our, multi. It's my, it's my multiplayer era, dude. It's my online gaming era. Little myth for us.
Speaker 2:It'll never be my multiplayer era, dude it's my online gaming era, little myth force. It'll never be my multiplayer era, because that goes to battlefront 2 and all the couch co-op back in the day. But I got what you're saying uh, myth, online era then right, myth force is tight.
Speaker 2:Uh, I just wanted to be so much more polished. But you know what, when it's not dropping us from our match, uh, yeah, we are the worst and it's hilarious. And I remember some rando came in and carried us and was like, who are these clowns? And uh, it's us. Hi, hopefully you're a fan. Um, myth wars is cool, though I like the saturday morning cartoons. I'm gonna kick off, though I've been in the my own.
Speaker 2:I can't make fun of your crunchy shit, because I've been playing this game called foundation and it's still in early access and I bought it when I like somewhere around when I got my pc, so like three, four years ago. You've had this for a while. Yeah, um, I came back to it because that's kind of the fun of early access games is sometimes you come back a few years later and they've got all this quality of life stuff or like different systems. So in this one you start as this little medieval, I guess, township, but you're like five, six people and it's an organic city builder. So it's not on, it's a gridless, organic city builder. Um, it's not on, it's a gridless, organic city builder. So you paint areas like if you want them to take down these trees. You paint the extraction area and you build like a lumber camp and then you assign people the job.
Speaker 2:Uh, so, long story short dude, is that you get all these production chains going, you're growing your village, you're building these cool structures. They kind of have this cool like free build thing for like certain key buildings like taverns, churches, monasteries, uh, military forts and your manor, and so you have like some design stuff. So I should actually post some screenshots or at least send you some. Uh, I built a pretty gnarly little community on a hilltop right now overlooking a river gorge, and it looks pretty fucking dope dude. And we got a pretty gnarly little community on a hilltop right now overlooking a river gorge, and it looks pretty fucking dope dude. And we got a pretty large population and it's scary because I'll start at like seven o'clock and I'll look over and it's like 10 and I've been sitting hunched over like a foot and a half from my screen, like for three hours straight uninterrupted. Uh, it's bad, you're back on your pc gaming life.
Speaker 1:Dude, you haven't given that laptop any love for a while yeah.
Speaker 2:So like this is the type of game this is the reason I even have a pc is for games like that. So that's been fucking sick. Uh, I recently, if it's on sale, um, still go grab it, but if it's not, go wish list it. But suzerain or suzerain or I don't know how you pronounce it actually, but it's like a social studies term. So it's actually embarrassing that I don't know how to pronounce it. Uh, fuck it.
Speaker 2:It's like this cold war soviet area. You're like this small country and you got like these different. You're like become the president. And it is the only game I've ever played. Like it.
Speaker 2:It is like a role-playing narrative, politics, visual novel, decisions game and it's fucking. I was gonna take a crack. I'd say suzerain. I think that's right. The only other place I've run into it is in civ.
Speaker 2:So I know it's like an actual term, okay, um, but it's, it's engrossing and I like I've been trying to read more this year because you know it's still early in the year so I still feel guilty about my new year's resolutions. So like this has been a really fun like new type of game for me where I'm like making all these weird decisions that are like I got these factions trying to get me to like have like a communist planned economy, and I got like the military who's like super worried about like one of my aggressive neighbors encroaching on my space and they want me and everyone wants me to give them a fucking shit to the budget and there's all these things going on. It's really fucking cool and it's really fucking nerdy and, yeah, a social studies teacher would play this fucking game. So it's cool. I'd like to do a little bit more on it, but I think but you said it's graphic novelty or is it like how many?
Speaker 1:how much decisions are you making like visual novelty?
Speaker 2:it's a lot of decisions, um, okay, and I would like to do some research once I see how a full playthrough works out as far as like the different branches and how impactful it is. But I think it's very impactful, those choices you're making, that's cool, maybe I'll check it out. Dude, when you told me it was like a visual novel, I was like no thanks yeah, uh, it's like a lot of reading, though, and it's a lot of like setting the scene and it gets hard playing on your steamy d yeah, and it's like all these different made-up countries like you know.
Speaker 2:It's like all these different made up countries like you know. It's pretty obvious like one country is pretty much a facsimile of like america, one's a soviet union, I think, one might be like china or something like that, and you just have all these factors and it's hard to like for a while, it's hard to pick up because it's all fake names of stuff. So, like new proper nouns are always very confusing when you're playing a game. That's a little disorienting, but I think it's really really cool. I've been really into that and I've been really into Foundation and those are two to point out.
Speaker 2:I had to match your niche grubby all the way in the weeds and the bushes in the jungle perhaps. I guess no one wants to hear what we have to say. It's like here's my old, new Game Boy games and I'm like, no, I own my social science games.
Speaker 1:That's what I got for you, man, I can dig it. I don't know. I think you might have sold me on Caesarian dude, caesarian Caesarian.
Speaker 2:Yeah, caesarian, I know I'm not the only one that likes it. It's cool and I'm going to look up the meaning A superior feudal lord who fealty is due. All right, or overlord. But yes, it's really cool and it's really unique.
Speaker 1:Well, I've got you roped into. Gave a couple hours to a game called Dadeus, another game that I'm not sure how that's pronounced. It's another Game Boy joint, so we're going to try and knock that one out this month. But do you have anything lined up for next month? Nope Mysteries. Oh, I better hit that Discord then to find out what we're playing for in June better hit that discord then to find out what we're playing for in june.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's always so disorienting because we but yes, it would be for june, or it'd be may.
Speaker 1:No, it'd be may, because we're in april now.
Speaker 2:Yes, so it's may it's always so disorienting right.
Speaker 1:so the so hit that discord for the bay game. You can access the discord by heading to our website, that's low5gamingcom. There's also a bunch of links to our social medias etc. Holler at us. You can also email us. Send us some email. Ain't nobody sending me any email lately, and I want to answer some emails.
Speaker 2:Please let us know how you would run my little struggling economy up from the ashes of the recession.
Speaker 1:Uh, thanks so much for listening to everybody. Big virtual hugs to y'all. Give us that rating if your podcatcher allows ratings helps for our, our reach also gives me a nice little, nice little, uh serotonin boost when I see that you gave a little five star rating. If you don't like the podcast, I'm not sure why you stuck around this long, but don't tell us about it in the ratings put on some shoes.
Speaker 2:You could, if you really want to, I guess put on some house shoes and listen to our pod and enjoy yourself man till next time.
Speaker 1:Peace, bro Peace.
