Triple Play: Star Wars: Zero Company

0:00Focus L, Ganon's got the triforce and you know what that means. Yeah, trouble. Welcome to Trippah Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we're not talking about the Ocarina of Time remake, but we are talking about Star Wars Zero Company, aka Z-Com, a great new game. I'm Jason Shryer. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello. Hello. Hello, hello, hello to both of you. Hello to both of you. Did you guys see the trailer for the documentary that Nathan Fielder is making about Elizabeth Holmes? It looks like a horror movie. I did nothing I'm more excited for than this. So when I initially watched that it was a Twitter link or I guess an x link and there was no sound and I couldn't get it to play sound. So I just watched it like a couple times with no sound.

1:01So it's just Elizabeth Holmes and Nathan Fielder just staring at each other for like a minute and a half. It's scary with sound because this is a sound is so unsettling. It's like a pulsing reverberation. Oh man, I cannot wait for that movie. I hope it is released far and wide and then we can see the theaters because oh my god. And maybe we'll talk about it on a bonus episode. Speaking of which, if you want to hear our bonus episodes, including one we just recorded about the soprano season four and season five, a mega one. It's like three hours long. So lots of lots of stuff for you to listen to. You should become a maximum fun. Remember and support this show go to maximumfun.org slash join triple click and you can sign up directly to our show. Make the show possible and get access to our massive backlog of bonus episodes, including that one, the Sprouts one and then a new one.

2:01We are going to record at the end of September where that were tentatively calling triple cuck. I mean, sorry, triple kiss. We talk about romance and dating and maybe answer some listener questions about dating. We've gotten a ton of good ones so far, but just as a reminder, if you want to know, want to submit your own questions or stories or anything like that, advice requests, go send an email to triple click at maximumfun.org and make sure the title of that email is triple kiss. And we'll consider it for inclusion in that bonus episode. So yeah, once again, to get access to our bonus stuff, go to maximumfun.org slash join triple click and you too can become a maximum fun. Remember, all right, Kurt, what are we talking about this week? We are talking about another video game as the mega video game September spectacular continues. We are still playing lots of games because they're all coming out this month.

3:03And the one we're talking about this week is a little game called Star Wars Zero Company, which is essentially Star Wars Xcom. That is how everyone describes it. And that's because that's kind of what it is. That's a little bit Star Wars midnight sounds, but a lot fewer people get that reference. So I'm going to stick with Star Wars Xcom. Jason, you used the term Zcom since this is Zero Company. And I found that very clever and haven't really seen that around. Is that a Jason Trier original or a lot of people calling it that? I don't know. I don't think I made it up. I think I must have heard someone say it. Yeah, I feel like I've seen it in our triple click discord at the very least, but that doesn't mean Jason didn't make it up, of course. But I've seen it. That would be a place you would see it if you did. I've seen it. I definitely did not make it up. I think I made a first heard it from someone who is like working on the game or like the law of the game and so that's the origin of it. That actually would make sense. That would make sense. So this game is of course a overhead kind of isometric view, tactical game.

4:09It's a turn-based game with a small squad where you play a group of soldiers and you take on a group of enemy soldiers with various abilities and utility items and weapons. You've got everyone ranging from Jedi to clone troopers to scoundrels with pistols and rifles and sniper rifles. There's all kinds of different tactical arrays that you can come up with on the battlefield. That's the bulk of the gameplay. The story is actually pretty cool. It's set during the Clone Wars. That's a time period that I am actually not that familiar with in Star Wars. This is the rise of the Republic and Chancellor Palpatine or maybe he's Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. He's in the midst of grabbing power and trying to unify the Republic into the Galactic Empire. Things are becoming kind of bad and the Republic is pretty shady seeming. Meanwhile the Republic is in a war with separatist forces and a variety of sects just sort of all around the galaxy. They're using their army of clone troopers who look of course like storm troopers to engage

5:12in this war. That's what this show, The Clone Wars, was all about. A show that I gather is quite variable. It has some really great arcs. Ups and downs. It has a lot of downs and kind of like lows. It has a lot of low lows and some high highs. I never watched that show but this game is a pretty interesting setting. Of course then there's also the kind of meta story of Star Wars Zero Company which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit as well. It's being published by EA. EA has just been what bought by the Saudi Royal Fund. Is that right? What are the specifics of that deal? Yeah. Taking private and leveraged by out which essentially means that the company is bought and then some of the debt used by the company is then put on the company itself. Right. Kind of like a toy's RS, right? Isn't this the toy's RS? It's a toy's RS. Barbarians at the gate that book is kind of the famous famous story about what's called JJ Nabisco. But yeah, essentially the Saudi fund bought EA to get private and now owns the majority

6:17of EA. Right. Which of course the Saudi government responsible for murdering journalists and all kinds of human rights abuses. And then there is also the fact that as was reported by our good friend Steven Totillo, our former boss Steven Totillo, most quote most of the staff who worked on this game have been furloughed in the weeks leading up to its release due to what sounds like internal problems at the studio that lead to they're not being enough money to pay everybody. And so everyone has kind of been temporarily question mark laid off pending the successor failure of this game, which is just another thing kind of hanging over it. And all of this stuff, you know, it's kind of outside of the game itself, but it is all kind of unfortunate. Yeah, it's a dark cloud hanging over the game at least for me. And all that stuff makes me sad. So let's talk about the game itself. And I'm sure that those and I'm sure that those subjects will come up and they're worth mentioning at the start of the conversation because they are kind of on my mind as I

7:17play it. You know, it is this, I think, wonderful game that I'm having a great time with. And yet I'm most aware of the fact that a lot of the people who worked on it are not currently working on it. And that's something that I've definitely been aware of as I've played it since there are a thing, you know, normally I'd be playing a game like this and thinking, oh, you know, maybe they'll patch this or maybe they're going to change that or they can update this. And it's kind of a different thing to think about when you're aware that a lot of the people who worked on it might not be working at all. Bing Kirk here as I'm editing the episode, I am pleased to say that bit reactor has released their first patch for the game. It's just some bug fixes, but it's kind of a lot of bug fixes. And it does show that they've got some people working at the very least on patching bugs and hopefully on doing more. So just wanted to add that as an update since I mentioned it in the episode. Let's get back to it. Bing. But anyhow, let's get into the game itself for starters and just talk about it. I've played a bunch of this game. I really love it. I'm curious what the two of you think. Jason, I know that you're pretty into it.

8:18How much have you played and what are you thinking of Zero Company? I love it. I really am enjoying it so much. The only thing I don't love about Zero Company is that it doesn't run on my Steam Deck so I can't play it portably. And especially since I'm about to go traveling for like almost two weeks, I really wish I could take it on the go. That said, I really, really love this game. The kind of the bread and butter of the strategy, the term based strategy elements, of course, mastered with XCOM. And this is no exception. It's got a lot of the same ideas, even overwatches is kind of returning from the XCOM games. And so you have that great strategy aspect of it. But one of the reasons that I never really got super into any of the XCOM games is because I could never really care that much about the characters in a way that I know a lot of people do. A lot of people get into this idea of creating their own narratives with these systemic characters that then they then fall in love with just on their own.

9:20That never really worked for me. I was more, I was always more into strategy games where you have kind of characters that are authored by the games, such as Final Fantasy Tactics, where a lot of your characters are characters you can recruit and have personalities and stuff. So in this, I'm playing with mostly, I think, almost all characters who are authored characters by the game, like your main dudes, like Trick and what's his guy, what's his name, Cab, Upper Cut and the Princess, the Baroness and others. So like that, I've really enjoyed and then I enjoy that I get to have conversations of them outside of battle. So for me, it's kind of like, it's the best of both worlds between XCOM strategy and combat and then Midnight Suns character development and outside storylines and just ongoing getting to know these characters and relationships with them, which I just absolutely love it. Because yeah, for me, Midnight Suns, the weaker part was the card based strategy and XCOM,

10:21the weaker part is the story. So it's really, it's for me, it's just win-win. So yeah, I absolutely love it. I think it's really cool and does a lot to cut into the Star Wars fatigue because it's such a good story and such a good cast of characters and such a good game in general. Nice, Maddie. How about you? How much have you played and what are you thinking of Zero Company? I am also really loving this game. So this is going to be a conversation where all three of us really love the game. We love that. Why not have that be the conversation? I did watch all the Clone Wars cartoon and something that I really like about that cartoon is that it fleshes out things that happen in the prequels, the Star Wars prequels, and unfortunately still don't make me like the Star Wars prequels, but they kind of make that setting richer and add in more character motivations for some of the clone troopers, for example. Those characters all have unique personalities on that show and I thought that was really fascinating and really commendable.

11:22And by the way, all those characters on Clone Wars are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker who returns to voice all the clones in Star Wars Zero Company. And I heard that and I was like, is that the same voice actor and it is? And so this is very much a game that's in conversation with the Clone Wars cartoons in a fun way. And that was very pleasing to me because I think when that cartoon is strong, it's very strong. And that comes out. Are there other characters in this game from the Clone Wars cartoons? There's one other but I won't say who because I'm not sure we are going to spell anything. Jason hasn't yet gotten that far. Oh, well I know. And I mean, they've advertised that Anakin is in the game. All right, fair enough. Anakin is also voiced by the same guy who is in the Clone Wars cartoon and that version of Anakin is a lot more interesting. Unfortunately, then Hayden Christiansen's version, but we don't need to get into that today. My point is, this is a setting that I already really love. I think there's so much cool storytelling that can happen here. And I also really like strategy games. So there was almost no way that I wouldn't have really loved Star Wars Zero Company.

12:25They would have needed to seriously whiff it. But to be fair, to be fair, they had a 95% chance of hitting so they did. Yeah, there was a 5% chance that they weren't going to make it into my heart. And they made it. Don't worry, they made it. I also think this game is quite funny. I think that the characters, especially Runa, who's like this libertarian character who's on your base. I don't think she ever actually comes with you on any missions, but she's like this hardcore libertarian who's constantly talking about finances and being just a real hard ass. She's hilarious as a character. And I just enjoy her so much. The conversations we do to her and Hawks at the Bishin Select screen are ridiculous. They're so funny. And I just love all the sparkling personalities of all the characters. It's really wonderful. It's like all the best parts of what I like about Star Wars, which is kind of stories about every man characters and like kind of the behind the scenes of the grand sweeping epics. Like that's the Clone Wars cartoon in its best.

13:26And this game is really selling those stories. Yeah, Dee Bradley Baker, Fun Fact, also the voice of Apa on Avatar the Last Airband. Oh, really? I think he does the voice of a lot of the Sky Bison on that cartoon. And of course, Apa the namesake of my dog. So I've always thought, finally, of Dee Bradley Baker. And yeah, it's very cool that he's in this, that they got some of the actors from the Clone Wars. And yeah, I like Runa. I mean, Runa's a funny character. It's fun to have this like six foot five econ babe who kind of stresses you all the time on staff. Kirk's ideal life. No, I know you two would agree politically enough to ever get married. Yeah, Emily, not that tall, but. Yeah, some similarities. A fun thing about Runa though is not just that she's sassy and funny, but that she's kind of a separatist sympathizer. And I think that's something that makes the cast and really just the whole of zero company interesting in the narrative framework of this game. So you play as a character named Hawks, named Tesh Hawks. I love Tesh. As a first date, makes me think of John Tesh.

14:28It's a little softer than I would have thought. And Tesh Hawks is a customizable character, right? So you can make Hawks look like anything. I'm curious actually, let's talk about Hawks and then I can get back to my thought on zero company or let's talk about each of our Hawks because I'm just playing the default guy Hawks who is fantastic. And I think a lot of people go with that choice. The character design of that guy really matches with the voice actor who's doing this kind of cowboy, like a little bit Nathan Philly and from Firefly, like this kind of like trouble maker. He got a draw and it really, really fits with the little white, you know, Polly Walnuts, wings on his hair. He just feels like he looks kind of right based on how he sounds. Got a little soyer from Lost in his- Yeah, a little bit of- A little bit of- And so funny, I expected you to be like, I spent an hour carefully customizing my perfect character because I'm the one who is usually like, I don't give a shit about any of the aesthetics. I'm just going to do default, which is what I did here. Yeah, yeah, it's been working so many. Tell me about your Hawks.

15:29Yeah, so I'm playing as a female version of Hawks and I just looked this up. She's voiced by Eric Latrell, who does a fantastic job, is almost like kind of bringing sort of female commander- Shepard type of a sarcasm to the role and that is kind of the energy that I think Hawks has. There is still a cowboy energy as well though, like I don't give a shit what happens except I also kind of do care about all of my guys. A split in this character that is I think is necessary for somebody like this. She has some some Han Solo coding at times. I actually designed her as a twelick character, so she's green and she's got goggles and I just like, I never do this in games, but I was like, I'm in Star Wars. Like why don't I just go ahead and like really think about like a different kind of person that I could be in Star Wars and maybe I'll be an alien and I went with that and it's been really cool. I also have really enjoyed how much they've allowed her facial construction to still

16:31emote in cutscenes because obviously I designed her face and I've been pretty impressed with that too. So good job for load saffers who did that work. So my my Hawks is the default one. I made him a sharpshooter which is also really great. It's so much fun to play as a sniper with it's like cowboy sniper dude who's like like has this ability with a sharpshooter kind of class. You have this ability. I forget what it's called, but it's like basically you stay stationary and you plant yourself and if you move you lose a perk, but if you stay still you get a perk zero in zero and that's it. Yep. You got a perk of upping your critical chance and other upping your upping other stats and planting him and just sniping enemies from far. And then if you get other every turn you get one of your characters gets this ability to call for assistance from another character. And so if I when I have other characters call for assistance from him he like snipes them from afar. It's a really good really good kit combo I found and matches his look. I'm playing Hawks as a medic slash gunslinger because now I've unlocked multi-classing.

17:32Gunslinger is pretty fun because if you has an ability where if you kill an enemy with your shot you get your action point back and it's great for those little droids those those little guys who almost always go down in one hit because you can just play a whole bunch of them out which is pretty fun. But I've got Jay as a sniper because snipers are incredibly good and Jay has that execution ability where she'll kill a guy if you get him to low enough health and she'll just like murk guys from across the board constantly now that I've leveled her up so much. That ability is incredible are you saying Jay like the whole time because I'm very tempted to yeah I'm yeah well to I'm very stuck in my load up we'll talk about that in a little I want to get back to zero company just a little bit to talk a bit more about the story and the writing because we can say on that and anything start to get into the nitty gritty of the tactics a little later. Yeah so in terms of zero companies like political makeup I just find that interesting like that Runa was working with separatist sympathizers she's certainly not a fan of the Republic you've got trick who is a clone soldier who then was discharged I believe for medical reasons

18:35and is joined up with zero company and he and Hawks served together in the Republic Army. And the idea is that Hawks was also in the Republic Army and was part of this like disastrous campaign where a whole bunch of people died and kind of took the blame for it. I was listening to a more civilized age our friends the the Star Wars podcast and they talked some about this game and they of course have done really deep dives on the Clone Wars they know all this stuff really well and they were saying that that campaign that Hawks was a part of is something that's in the Clone Wars and that this is like if you really know this stuff you actually know there's a lot of content there's a lot that the context suggests that maybe Hawks was not the problem and took the fall and really was probably doing a good job and so that comes across I think even so like if you if you don't know that you still kind of get it that Hawks is a good leader and just kind of got screwed over by the system but I think that's like it's interesting that that's the person in charge and then you have these people from just like all across the spectrum

19:37in terms of what they think of separatists what they think of the Republic where they are politically and I think that ambiguity makes for just a really cool setting because in between each mission you just go around and talk to everybody and you get all these different kind of perspectives on what's going on there's a Mandalorian character who like doesn't give a shit about anything is just all about you know the bounties that she results that's all she cares about yeah right there's a droid who is clearly just like kind of focused on the science that he's trying to figure out there's an X what is he is like kind of runs your commissary he kind of procures all your stuff and he's tied him with organized crime and he's always telling Hawks like yeah you know you're becoming more and more of a criminal and I really like it like I think that's pretty cool it's very mass effect it's like this gang of this this ship full of a Motley crew who every is no less it's very mass effect at its best and yeah just the moment to moment dialogue is very strong there's a great line that you're working with this Republic Intelligence Officer who's actually a pretty cool guy I kind of thought he was going to be maybe

20:38the most forgettable character at the beginning but then it turns out he's he's great like every I like to go talk to him because he just he has an interesting backstory he's kind of you know he learn a lot more about him there's a great line where there's this running joke where the commissary the guy in charge of the commissary like the rations that everyone's eating are just terrible and everyone is always complaining about them and there's this line where the operative says to Hawks he's like are you ever going to tell me how old these rations are and Hawks says I could tell you but then you know that's a funny line of dialogue like that's good writing and there's a lot of writing they have a whole conversation then there's even like a callback joke to that a little later clearly whoever wrote this had a lot of fun and put a lot of thought into just not just making the characters believable but like having fun with the writing and making jokes and like delighting the player over and over and I think that really helps this game stand out. Yeah I also like that the little alien character I'm sorry I don't know all the stories alien races but the one who's like his job is to kind of clean up the ship he's sort of like a jammer character and he's into this sort of like clam and I think and like he's in this ongoing

21:43fight with like a space rat that got on to the ship at the outside of the game and he keeps being like when I find it I'm going to eat it and Hawks is like I really don't want to know that like I'm not interested in what's going on with this it's but you the player rewarded by continuing to talk to these characters and like I often feel compelled to like go around and talk to all the characters in any game where I can do that and then I'll be disappointed if everything they have to say is is boring and because I I can't help but click on them if I see that I can talk to them and in this game I I'm almost never bored and I'm always like oh great I actually learned something else interesting about this character or I got rewarded with a little joke about what they're up to. Yeah the conversations kind of they're like tears of conversations sometimes you just talk to them without zooming in at all and you just get like one line sometimes you just overhear them talking to someone else sometimes you zoom in and you get a kind of back-and-forth mass effect style conversation and sometimes in those conversations usually like after you've done a side quest for that character you even get to make a little choice where at the end of the

22:44conversation you'll say it's not a big deal or I totally feel you know you know I feel you and I agree like you'll kind of get a little choice that gives you a kind of feeling of control. Although sometimes he goes like full on like shepherd screaming at someone like when totally unintentionally at least I really don't have some head. I have one time where like I picked an action and like did not expect him to like go all out like I forget what it was it must have been trick or something like that and basically I picked the option that was like oh it's not a big deal and he like flipped a shit it's like bonding level went down it was. Oh no. Yeah and I think a lot of those yeah they either lead to a bond that climbs or a bond that lowers and bonds of course unlock kind of upgrades for your characters like the more they fight together the better they do a little bit like fire emblem in that way. So I think that's all just paste really well like at the start of at the end of each mission you start over in your office there's always a lot of really funny like starting. Yeah you should have sleep. You should have

23:44sleep. You should have sleep. Like hawks will be asleep on this couch yeah or he's just with his head back in his chair that's maybe my favorite one. And then you press a button and he gets up and kind of walks and then there's just this gauntlet where you walk past everybody and so you just have a little chance to stop off on your way to the hollow table to plan your next mission. I'm curious about the custom characters and whether either of you use many of them because we're talking about all of these written kind of bespoke story characters but you can also just fully kid out your whole team with custom characters that you hire through this you know staff computer and those you can then go fully customize the same as you can customize hawks they have distinct back stories and they even like turn up I have one custom character that I just hired I think at the beginning of the game during the tutorial and she's just like talks about stuff you know she has her own perspective like she is a character but she's not as written as all of these characters that we're talking about but given that this game does by default have permadeath and all of these characters can be killed that means you could like lose trick and j and cli and like all of the written characters and have

24:48a whole staff of just custom characters and play the game that way which is interesting and I would guess not what many people do I'm assuming that's not what either of you were doing either but have you experimented with the custom character they can join a relio in the in the hall of the deceased yeah right we got the one guy who died in the tutorial and we really remember every time who I intend to have die I I bet that's really common yeah I I bet there's a mob that lets you save a relio I don't know I I don't think they wrote any more dialogue I would want a mob that changes the memorial to be like the oraleo memorial like it has this name because he's the only one in it ever because I never let anyone yeah I never let anyone else die and I'm like I guess if I wanted to I could turn off permadeath but I'm enjoying the challenge so I that seems silly and I like trying to say I play all these games yeah exactly it's like I have to save everyone but I I guess none of us are far enough to know if there's going to be some mass effect or fire emblem style choice where eventually characters have to die or you

25:48I would be shocked I have not far enough to know but that would hugely surprise me I don't think that that's gonna be the case yeah so hopefully we'll just get to save everyone and have a happy question mark ending with our our zero company pals I like you Kirk I have one we know the Jedi I'll do great all all of the yeah we all know it's gonna work out for Anakin he's gonna be fine I think he's wearing black because he's doing well mentally and emotionally I do have one generated character and she's fine I mean like she does seem a little thinner than the written characters because of course she is she's she's like the same race as Darth Maul and she's a scoundrel so you know I brought her into combat a couple times just to see how it is to like have another character there and I haven't really felt the need to generate that many other reinforcements even though that is a key piece of the games seemingly is that you can continue to recruit more and more and more characters and I'm like but I I already have all my guys so this is another

26:49flaw perhaps with only being 15 hours into the game is that maybe later I'll be like oh my god I need way more reinforcements I need to really diversify my team I don't know I mean I've played 24 hours or something and I'm probably two thirds of the way through this story and like I have a pretty set squad and I'm pretty attached to them I like swapping in Clion Cobb and you know the other story characters but I mostly just roll with Jay and trick and the Astrumek who is basically the R2-D2 robot do either of you play with the Astrum at it I do sometimes yeah he's very cute oh my god so this is an interesting thing okay so I mentioned at the beginning this whole thing about how a lot of the workers are furloughed and there's this sense it's hard to shake the sense that like this game isn't going to be getting balanced patches at least for a while and it might it might be that there are people working on it but it just hasn't seen like there's this really active and responsive dialogue between players and the developers and I wouldn't be surprised if the you know situation behind the scenes is part of why because there are things like the

27:51Astrumek and Clyde the Mandalorian bounty hunter for that matter which are a little seem a little bit broken or at least are so dominant that once you start using them you kind of just can't stop so yeah let's get into the tactics of it all now because so the thing about the Astrumek and this is what I have not been able to quit the Astrumek because of this so you read the Astrumek with and it is not capable of just a regular attack like you don't give it a gun it would be funny if you did if you like taped a little blaster to it and they were older yeah our two D2 should have a gun and that is that is something missing from zero company that would be funny but no it doesn't have its own weapon but it can carry extra of all the utility munitions so from the beginning of the game it's very powerful because you can have two grenades and like two healing items which is more than anybody else can carry at the beginning so already it's this little mobile artillery unit that can just like fire grenades off and grenades are very very useful in this game both because they can one hit so many droids and they blow up cover so if you use grenades properly at the start

28:52of a turn you can like totally expose enemies the dried also can scan the battlefield which is a very useful ability that like dramatically lowers the cover percentage like the you know the percent to hit benefit from cover that enemies have so it becomes much easier to hit enemies but what the Droid can really do and the reason that it's so powerful is it can give your other characters more action points so let me see can I explain the action economy in this game because it's crucial to understanding the whole the all the strategies about movement and the action economy really more than it is about like doing damage or hitting any given shot it's about maximizing the number of turns and actions that you take per turn so you have four characters on your team the opposing force can be anywhere from four to like 12 it can be a lot of different uh make ups it can be a lot of different enemies you have four and every character can have a maximum of three action points which are called AP I guess but you have three action points and you can spend those to like take an attack or move a certain distance and you spend all three action points if you want to move super

29:56far or use a utility item like a healing kid or a throw grenade or activate a special ability that's the basics so you know three is enough to maybe move and shoot or it's a shoot and go into Overwatch as you mentioned Jason where you're kind of covering an area so if the enemy moves in that area during their turn you get to attack them and cancel their movement potentially so you're kind of gauging all of this and trying to think how you spend your points what the astromec allows is that you can use its action points to basically transfer them over to other characters so suddenly your sniper can like take a shot and then take another shot and then go into Overwatch and then because hawks also has an ability that grants an extra action point take another shot then on top of all of that there's what's called the advantage system which is a whole separate system that gives you even more abilities so as you successfully land shots and use your and heal people and do whatever like class abilities you're doing you're like gaining more and more advantage points and the more you play the game the more you realize the special abilities like the

30:59unique abilities that everyone has tend to be tied to advantage so pretty soon you can put together a team at least this is my team with a sniper a kind of you know soldier heavy scout healer and this astromec we can just go and go and go and go and go for one turn like I can just feed J my sniper action points to the point where she just like murders like five guys like on her turn and I'm so hooked now on that on the ability to like move and shoot but then be like well do I want her to move and shoot again I can have her do that because I have the astromec so I'm playing on hard which is a nice way to kind of add challenge to it because yes I felt the same way about the astromec but playing on hard I think makes it a good balance and also makes it he can't use the BAFTA tanks which I believe heal but how did those work I started with the back to the BAFTA tanks would be award winning the BAFTA gets you win in the war he's you get dunked underwater the BAFTA award winning back to take you know what are the back to tanks how

32:02do they work because I haven't actually used them because I was playing on hard the whole time yeah I mean there's two forms of healing there's like the overnight one that like takes an entire cycle to run and there's another one that is instant which one can't use that's the back to tank so the insulin you can't use oh so you're talking about healing injuries yeah a little different that's not healing like when you're on the battlefield injuries were kind of different I'm talking about the back to the yeah playing we should maybe explain how injuries work because we haven't explained playing on hard makes it see I mean basically every time a character is downed for the most part they'll get an injury and then three injuries and then they're permanently dead so that gives you a lot of leeway and flexibility when it comes to your characters kind of quote unquote dying because losing all their hit points aren't going to kill them which makes it pretty forgiving and yeah I found that playing on hard is is the way to go at least for me because of what you just said Kirk it feels like your characters get a lot of advantages and that playing well and playing strategically and thinking about your turn order such

33:06as what you just said where you're blowing up cover before we start attacking or other things that you can kind of do in an optimal way I think playing on hard helps keep that challenging even though your squad is just like a total death machine yeah I switched from medium to hard and I've been finding hard is is pretty good Maddie what difficulty have you been playing I'm still on normal but I certainly have considered changing it over although I will say to circle back on a point that Jason made at the beginning of this discussion I have been playing on my steam deck by streaming it through moonlight which I set up on my steam deck a long time ago basically means my computer is playing the game but it's streaming to my deck and that means that sometimes Dean is watching something on TV while I play and in that scenario I like to maybe watch a little bit and playing on normals like kind of nice in that case and maybe I'm like you know I'm paying attention to the game but I'm maybe not my peak form but yeah there certainly have been some battles where I'm like okay yeah

34:06that was kind of a snap and maybe I could be lying this on hard but I think for the sake of the listeners that might be nice for them to hear especially if they're intimidated by strategy games this one I think is really forgiving the different types of characters are super simple to understand and I think that's refreshing because I don't mind like getting down and dirty with the strategy game and really having to read a bunch of UI screens and I don't understand what's going on but that's not for everyone and I think this game is quite accessible even for a newcomer to this world who might want to be like I don't even know if I like this kind of game let me try it and see yeah to your point Maddie there's definitely some fiddlingness the UI I think could have used some improvement um I mean Kirk to your point it's something that hopefully one day we'll get some sort of patch for a little bit more usability but yeah I mean you kind of you have to go through a bunch of different screens just like between every mission um just to be fair if you want to

35:06optimize everything yeah so it's like every time a mission and so you get into a rhythm of it it's not the end of the world or anything but it's a little fiddly you have to go to your bed bay and put any introduce in there then you have to go to your kind of built base construction and like pick a new thing to build and then you if you want to go to recruit personnel you do that then you go to the armor you go to the black market etc etc and then even between loadouts once you pick your your squad you probably want to check and make sure they're all geared up properly so you have to go through the gear screen and then you have to go through all of this kind of tedious like bonding point upgrading where it'll cycle through like six different people have upgraded their bonds and you just cycle through the mall and it's the type of thing that maybe could have been streamlines smoothed over a little bit but I guess it wouldn't be an XCOM game without a lot of fiddly menus that you have to play around in yeah there are certainly some things that I would love to see added I agree Maddie about normal difficulty that I've played most of the game on normal and it's fun it's a good challenge and like I don't know I don't really play these games to have like a really

36:11stiff challenge because I like making it through the fight with everybody and I find it really engaging to just like optimally destroy my enemies like I find that really fun and the story's cool so like I'm having a good time there's not really much more than I want I was curious about hard and switched over and you can switch difficulty at any point if you want but you know hard is cool like it's harder for sure but not crazy and like I'm at least engaging with the injury system now because it's possible for someone to get injured then again I switched over I'm far enough in that like for example trick my clone trooper can just get downed and then he just gets back up with full health because he's so leveled up and he doesn't even suffer an injury so he's also my tank so I just run him forward and everyone attacks him and even on hard I mean J is murdering everybody trick can essentially unkillable because like even getting downed once doesn't usually happen so I'm still like pretty powerful but it does balance things out one thing I wish this game had if we're gonna complain about a few things one is just an undo button for whatever

37:12you just did just to undo the last thing because I'm playing with a controller and it's really easy to accidentally like just move your guy to out of cover when you meant to move him into cover like it's just really easy to accidentally do the wrong thing it doesn't happen all the time or but it happens maybe once per fight and I always have that thought of just like man sometimes I remember to like save at the beginning of the round because you can quick save and I'll reload just because it's frustrating on normal difficulty that's not a deal specifically is that the the thing you want to undo because it'd be ridiculous if you could undo an attack after seeing if it hit or not like that oh yeah no no no well I mean I think I guess you could counter that by just saying it's gonna be the same percentage every time it's not actually no but then you wouldn't do it if you do is gonna oh yeah no I think undo a move I suppose yeah maybe that's the move yeah that makes sense and like in Final Fantasy Tactics I think that's a good example of this you can't undo once you do it it's ac but you can undo if you move somewhere and you're still on that guy's turned and you you're like yeah I mean really like I guess there was someone in the discord saying I

38:12talk about tactical breech wizards all the time which I don't really but I am about to talk about tactical breech wizards something cool about that game is built into the lore this one character is able to see the future so every turn that you do you're able to fully undo and you actually can just figure them all out that wouldn't work for a game like this yeah to be clear Jason I can see you getting ready to tell me I'm wrong I'm not saying that would work for a game like you're saying you saw the future and you anticipated what I was going to say I did I did Kirk also has that ability of course that wouldn't work for a game like this because for the reasons we've already said you have to commit to your moves because that's the type of game that they're making but it is a nice feeling to be able to undo accidental inputs for god's sake like it's not you shouldn't be able to rebuild your whole strategy around saves coming unless you like really like doing that it's but it's kind of a pain and it's not how the game is designed it's a hive of saves coming in villainy yeah I did I will say I think that is a particular problem with playing on the steam deck I don't

39:12really have that issue of accidentally moving to the wrong spot when I'm playing on my real monitor but on the steam deck because the screen is smaller every now and then I'm like that's not actually quite where I wanted to go but since I'm playing the game as it is not intended to be played I'm much more forgiving of that and and like Maddie you should just be saving more because you've made a decision to play the game in a way that it is not intended to be played on a smaller screen can I just say shout out to this game running on the steam controller because the steam I wouldn't think that a game like this would do so well with the controller but on the steam controller it's fantastic I've been playing the steam controller I'm a desktop too and feels good yeah I like to playing Xcom with a controller actually even though this game is certainly great with a mouse and keyboard and I think has been primarily designed to be played that way and I didn't know this you can actually change the interface so that it's not a radio and instead it's like a hot bar like a PC game that's one of the settings that you can change if you're playing with a mouse you can also go into like mouse and what's it called focus mode or something and move the cursor like

40:15with your joystick kind of like it's a mouse yeah I never think to do that but it's cool yeah I I almost prefer the controller version which I'm so I was so surprised to find that to be the case because I just assume that this kind of game would be better with a mouse where you can just click on things really specifically but I actually I agree I think controllers really really good really good design for this game yeah yeah it works there's a couple of other things you know there's visual bugs that are pretty weird I've been running into more and more of them I think the further I get there are just times where all like a whole action will play out while the camera is just looking somewhere else and it's getting pretty common to where I'm like no but what's happening like it's okay that there's a bug but I do kind of want to know what's happening right now you know a new squad of enemies will come in and my team will murder them with Overwatch but I won't even get to see it because like the camera is pointed in their own direction yeah sometimes I'll get a glitch or it'll be like and Hawks is assisting when he will not be assisting because it's like actually the previous guy he was assisting so yeah a lot of weird visual stuff like that for sure

41:19yeah yeah almost like this game the team behind it ran out of money and had to release it a little bit unpolished yeah there's that feeling and there is also like in a version of this like the perfect version of this game I think there would also be more for those side characters to do in cutscenes this is something I've also been noticing the further I get into the game that like the big cutscenes that play out during story missions they kind of only have Hawks and what's his name the like intelligence operative guy and maybe Bruno's and one like the characters who can't die because obviously like everyone could just be dead like we've said and so even missions that like should involve Jay and have Jay who is to explain who she is she's like this Baroness from this or mining planet and she's been kicked out of her home by the bad guys who are this cult called the coil we haven't even mentioned them it's not that important there's like a group of bad guys yeah I mean I I would say like the villain of this game might be one of the weaker parts

42:21we haven't really gotten in that yeah they make up the phantom menace joke maybe still too soon to make phantom menace jokes it's been it's been 20 years and it's still too soon I feel like it was time to make phantom menace jokes immediately after the phantom menace came out it's my counter action those are the two interpretations of what we can do with the phantom menace you know phantom is funny because it just so happens that phantom looks exactly like my protagonist from Marvel's Midnight Sun so it's like she's coming to kill my Marvel's Midnight Suns character came over from the other game and is dead set undesteroing the the galaxy anyways not that important I mean that's it's fine but whatever it's not the the your teammates are the fun part and I'm definitely finding like there was a storyline that should have had Jay in the cutscenes like talking to Hawks and like it was a thing that would mean a lot to her and she was just kind of absent because she could be dead and that's definitely noticeable like at this point in the game that just it's mostly Hawks talking a phantom and Hawks talking to Anakin or whatever Hawks talking to the the Republic guy instead of like everyone being around a bickering and talking which is something that I hope in a

43:26theoretical sequel for this game I hopefully if Pit reactor gets kind of back on their feet and is able to make it I hope that's something that they will add I can't imagine like the writers who wrote this game are very good it would be shocking to me if they weren't aware of this and that they didn't wish there could be more of that they've built even dynamics and were like sometimes you'll make choices in these little text-based like you know side quests that you do at the holo table and you'll have to make a choice like do we help these refugees or do we charge them for our services and like different members of your crew will like or dislike you know different choices and nothing pleases everyone which is again very bio-aware very dragon age or mass effect and that's really cool and like that dynamic the idea of everyone around the holo table arguing about tactics and the choices you should make with all of these colorful characters from all over the political spectrum like that's such a rich setup and then in truth like the game kind of only gestures added a lot of the time and they weren't able to really add it in substantively which I would

44:27imagine is something that the writers also find frustrating and so I would hope that they're able to take another crack and like make another one of these because they've already done such a good and with a little more time and you know all the lessons that they've learned making this one I can only imagine how much you know how much they could do it could do a mass effect too like they could really they could really blow it out but how do you how do you do that in a game where the characters could all be dead how do you account for that you just have to be optional right like you create scenes that only play if Jay is still alive and like that's the kind of thing that you need the money to pay your writers to write all of these okay if this then that if this then that and oh this scene might not play and we still needed to work I mean it's it's precisely a money problem right I guess that's it I mean there are also like there are other ways you can write that you can have the characters not die but just be like permanently injured and taken out of rotation yeah maybe they still turn up like yeah you could have like there's a lot of solutions it's just it does require kind of more flexibility and then having a little bit more flexibility as well like you know

45:28having something that you only see if everybody makes it or whatever like that's also just kind of a fun special thing you know something that was true of blood of Dawn Walker like that's what may that game cool is there's so much stuff you don't see they were able to kind of scope for that and plan for it it's doable like you don't have to make a ton of content that's all going to be optional and most people won't see like I do think there's a solution and it just feels like with a lot of things with this game they were like we have to ship this thing because like we are like falling apart at the seams and we just got to get it out and start making money on it so they just had to ship it when they shipped it I mean it's really excellent considering what the studio went through I was pretty surprised reading Steven's reporting because I think the game is so wonderful that I was like wow they've shipped something that's so is excellent in my view totally agree and yeah I hope that it's I hope it's successful enough to that they can you know pay everybody with a of them and get all the workers back and start updating the game and really work on this beautiful wonderful thing that they made I can only imagine my heart really goes out

46:28to the developers like what an awful feeling it would be to make something that you know is good that you're you they must be confident in this because it's so good it's a great game to have that feeling you know I know this is good but oh my god like we're just kind of on a knife's edge whether we're going to be able to keep to keep making it and keep working together so we can only really hope yeah we don't have sales figures for the game they haven't released any but um the steam concurrence are pretty impressive it had a peak a couple uh the weekend that it came out so like Sunday August 30th at a peak of 77,800 89 concurrent players not not the best metric but still the only one we have and that's a pretty impressive number I would say for game like this yeah it feels like a game that would have a long tail like it's just so well made and it's so rich and it's like a tactics game like people love these when they get them and a good one of these can you know it'll be good in a year it'll be good a long time from now though obviously the initial sales are very important for this kind of thing but yeah hopefully hopefully

47:32it's enough and they're able to bounce back well that is I was about to say Marvel's Midnight Sun but that's not that's something that is in a way that is Star Wars Zero Company a game that has some things in common with Marvel's Midnight Suns and uh one of those things that it has in common with that game is that we all really like it it's a great game I'm looking forward to finishing it let's take a break and come back for one more thing well gang is that time year again that's right labor day is here which means you can't wear white anymore no well yes but no it's great British Bake Off season oh right and that means it's time to draft your teams and play along there's a new judge in town but the game's the same draft your bakers score points like its fantasy football and talks Mackie and group chats I wonder what Nigella Lawson would think about the script will double so listen to TV chef fantasy league with me Mike Gabelon if you want to wait and Sierra Kato new episodes every week at maximum fun dot org or wherever you get your podcasts

48:37what's more action packed and prestige television with more continuity than comic books a more reality than reality television it's professional wrestling and a better understand wrestling is the ultimate form of entertainment you need the tights and fights podcast this is the perfect wrestling show with a lot of love a lack of toxic masculinity and just the right amount of bots cats and spandex listen to tights and fights every Saturday on maximum fun and we are back for one more thing Maddie how about you kick us off what's you one more thing my one more thing is an update on a game called on together that was my one more thing a few weeks ago and which I think I said I would give an update about as to whether or not it was working for me and so I'll just describe what this game is so that people can remember so

49:40this is a co working game and it has some mini games inside it enough that I would still potentially call it a game although the purpose of on together is that you log into it and you get work done you design a character who looks like you or doesn't mine mine does look like me and I have a little profile card that says I'm editing and writing and that I work in yes-t hours and you sit at a desk in the game or you go to the library in the game or sit on the boardwalk in the game there's all kinds of beautiful places that you can sit and work and it's multiplayer there are a bunch of other people who can join various servers in this game that usually lists their operating hours and what the server is going to do or focus on and I have been playing it a bunch I don't play it every day but it has become sort of an informal thing in the paid subscriber discord for Mothership.blog that every day somebody will post a server link for on

50:43together and people in the discord will join and Jason I remember yeah and Jason I remember you asked way back when I described playing this you were like are you gonna get to know strangers in this game and I will say that hasn't really happened I have joined some servers with strangers but because the game is big enough I haven't really run into the same person twice in any of those contexts. Mark Zuckerberg would be so disappointed. I know I know he would be but the Mothership discord version of this I think is probably the best of both worlds when it comes to that there's certainly people that I would consider strangers and that discord even though they're supporting my website but you know there's in any discord there's kind of names that pop up again and again you kind of feel like you're getting to know people and then when you see them and on together it's kind of fun and you hear what their jobs are and you learn about them and you talk to them in the little chat. The best part of on together is still the Pomodoro timer which I described to you too it's just like a classic Pomodoro timer there's a ton of these on the internet I've used some

51:46I really like this one in part because it has such an unobtrusive gentle ding when it goes off it doesn't like irritate you and also it's kind of like a vibe where you're like okay I hear it ding I could take a break now if I want but maybe I want to continue and what I like about that is also that you can change how long it lasts how long the breaks are and how many times it cycles through there's also some to-do list mechanics in the game that I still just haven't really gotten into so mostly I lug in I use the Pomodoro I take breaks and I chat with people in the game I might walk around and play basketball there's a fishing mini game that's pretty fun it's like a fun way to take a break and hang out with people on the internet so yeah this is just a re-ep of on together and I've actually ended up playing it quite a bit and really enjoying it so if it sounded good to you before I had only played like three days before now this is like a more full-threaded recommendation for an experience that can be pretty fun especially if you have friends that you might like to co-work

52:47with so yeah I'm digging it nice that's cool that is a great update well my one more thing is also kind of an update it's an update on a show that we have actually talked about on triple click in a bonus episode a show called silo that's on apple tv plus and that just wrapped up its third season and I just wanted to say the third season of this show was really good like really really good I was so surprised kind of and impressed by how much fun it was so silo is a post apocalyptic show as I said we talked about it in a bonus episode it's about guess what a silo it's about a bunch of people that live in a huge silo underground the silo is governed by a lot of arcane rules and strange logistical challenges for example there are no elevators and everybody has to communicate from the very bottom level to the top level just by sending runners that take a really long time because there are 10,000 people in the silo and of course this winds up being one of those stories where Juliet the main character is I think at the time she becomes the sheriff she kind of has a

53:50lot of different roles but she begins to uncover the truth behind the silo and what is going on and in the process anger is the powers that be notably Tim Robbins the head of IT and winds up going outside the silo she in season two goes to another silo next door she meets Steve Zahn and a few other survivors of like a horrible rebellion in that silo that led to everyone going outside and dying in the poison air and you know it kind of did the thing you would sort of expect of a show like this or at least there was a point in season two where Juliet is over in the other silo and there's like a lot of machinations happening in the first silo and I was kind of like man I don't know this is fine I'm sort of going through the motions of watching this it's cool it's it's a good show I'd like Rebecca Ferguson I think she's a really cool actress and at the same time I was sort of just like not that excited it just felt like okay this is all kind of arbitrary why is this stupid silo the way that it is I'm sort of over it season three began Emily and I just started

54:50watching it because there's kind of nothing on streaming right now do I either of you feel this way like there's like nothing to watch yeah because we're not weird time period where the fall shows haven't come out yet so I guess there's lots of sopranos there's always more sopranos yeah so like I have a back like I have stuff like I want to start lanterns that a lot of stuff I don't know I do want to start lanterns I'm waiting I've been watching lanterns lanterns is okay it's okay well yeah I will see how it ends anyhow I guess we've been watching that but there hasn't been a ton so we're like all right we'll start it we started it up and I won't spoil anything for season three but like it starts it's like oh yeah right okay Rebecca Ferguson okay this is cool I kind of like this and it begins with a kind of amnesia storyline and I was like oh man an amnesia storyline really I can't believe this the beginning of a video game am I right yeah like really so that's just gonna slow everything down because like this person doesn't remember really important things that they should be telling everyone and like then kind of quickly Emily and I like we finished the first episode and we're like well is there another one I kind of want to watch the next one

55:53I want to know what happens and then we watch the second episode and we're both like man all right I really kind of want to know what happens next and by the third or fourth episode we were really getting excited for each new episode of this season and now the ending oh my gosh like the last two episodes of this season were killer it really feels kind of like lost I gotta say it has a bit of loss energy especially the finale and anyone who has seen this well then kind of know what I'm talking about there's just this like that great feeling of like your eyes being open to really exciting things that are really you know really big and and overwhelming a little bit and you're kind of having your mind blown my things you didn't realize could possibly be true like it really is doing that in a really I mean in a really impressive way I think the this series is based on a series of books my friend Sam actually my definitely fiction co-host Sam has read all of them and he said that his memory is that the third book is also really strong the one that this season is based on and I think there's one more book or at least there's going to be one more season but they're

56:54heading toward the finale I'm totally gonna be watching like this show very much like found its groove again and got me very interested in it and I was really thrilled by the finale like I can't wait for the next season which I was totally not expecting so this is my one more thing to just say a show that was losing me a little bit and if you're like me maybe you're getting you were getting lost a little bit by season two give season three a shot don't let it just kind of slide off because I thought it was really just pretty smashing television very fun to watch so that's silo season three it just concluded it is on apple tv plus madty you're gonna watch it right oh for sure we're excited to get caught up we were waiting for all the ups to be out now they are so yeah it's our next our next all in a row the next time we have several days in a row that we're like this is when we're gonna do this we will get through it all nice yeah I'm looking forward to hearing what you think I think you're gonna have a good time all right well last but certainly not least Jason what is your one more thing my one more thing is also an update I finished a video game called big walk have you

57:55guys played through last week last Friday night the three of us completed the our big walk both literally and figuratively and finished the game and my goodness I still can't stop thinking about that ending and and what we all did together so first I'm gonna I'm gonna offer some kind of broad thoughts and then we'll get a little bit spoilery but I'll I'll give everybody a warning so you can just kind of shut off the episode ahead of the spoilers but big picture man one of my favorite games of the year incredible experience playing it together with you two is just such a joy every time we did it we did it over the course of like four or five sessions something like that and completed the game and the ending is just truly incredible just an emotional experience I was just sitting at my desk just being like holy shit like this is incredible and yeah to get a little

59:00bit more specific okay here's your opportunity spoiler warning this will be the last thing we talk about today yeah go ahead and just stop with you if you have not played big walk and really don't listen like and don't get spoiled if you can help it like if you haven't played the game like do stop listening and go finish it yeah fine to and you know what if you don't have people who you can play with check out the triple click discord where I'm sure you can find some folks to get a group going with so yeah last last chance go turn turn off this episode if you haven't finished big walk because I want to get into the ending okay so for just as a quick refresher and hopefully if you're listed if you're still listening hopefully you've been through this already but essentially this is game that just teaches you about all these different puzzles and teaches you and your team to work together through all sorts of different communication skills and then at the end in the end sequence it takes away your ability to communicate and requires you to just kind of non verbally talk to each other and also makes it so you can't distinguish who each other are and the three of us went through all these puzzles and really I gotta say just nailed it um

1:00:02figuring out the shorthand that we had all used and knew how to communicate with one another our kind of weirdo emotes that we figured out are just like one two three four five kind of jumps and nods and arm raises um at one point there was an amazing moment where at one point we got to this room where it had all the different shapes and you had to kind of communicate the the different shapes to each person and one of us was like went up to them and was like this one's one this one's two this one's three this is four and then uh I remember going up to them and be like no no no no no I was trying to get their attention without talking I was like whichever the two of you it was I was like no no no no no no and then I went to them and I was like no this one should be this emotes this one should be be raising my hands the shapes and the other rooms the shapes the other room and just having that experience of like bonding and communicating without using words was so cool so much better than could possibly like if you had explained the concept of this game to me and then said that to me without me having experienced it I would be like oh

1:01:03okay sounds like whatever I don't care but like going through it was such a special experience that whole ending and then the way it ends the way it actually ends and goes to the where you sit and watch the credits and then you say goodbye to each other just a phenomenal experience overall and I'm going to make my case right now which I've already been kind of hinting to you guys a discord that we should really go back and try to 100% it when when maybe when we're 10 with when I'm done with my traveling for this month maybe we can find some time because everything that I've heard and seen online I haven't seen anything about what you do or anything other than it's just like more advanced puzzles and stuff the hardmorts of the purple like for the purple chords like that we we found one of them I think but other than that I don't know what it is all I know is that like people say that it's worth doing and there's another ending that is just even more cathartic and satisfying and I'm going to make the case that we should do it yeah I'm very proud of us I I thought we did an amazing job and it was surprisingly moving at

1:02:05the end to have all of us doing it together wordlessly and then walking off into the into the white door at the very end of the game so cool so cool yeah I was playing this sitting next to Emily and she was just on the couch and I was like losing my mind like I was trying to explain to her what was happening I was like you don't even understand how cool this is like and she could see and was I think actually did understand how cool it was there were so many moments like we haven't really gone through and debriefed about each of those puzzles because and I kind of hope we never do there are these times where I was like I was the one who cracked this and explained it and I almost like I part of me like wants to take credit like the part of me that likes getting credit for things please did I'm like no it doesn't matter no I'm like not going to I think we shouldn't because it was it's so much cooler not knowing who was doing what and there was one there was one moment in the so in the ending there was a moment where we walked up to it was basically like a checkered line that looked a little like a starting line and then there were three like separated you know kind

1:03:09of out like bowling alley you know lanes that went all the way down to a button and like we each just looked at each other and I just like started running forward and I was running down the lane and I couldn't see you and I was like they're definitely running at the exact same time as me and we're all going to press our buttons at the exact same time and then we did and it was this it was so amazing the fact that over the course of these many nights playing this game we had leveled up our communication to where wordlessly without even pausing really we just looked and we just went and we did it exactly right was amazing like and it's just that feeling over and over and then yeah you get that the good place ending where you say goodbye to one another it's so thoughtful and just man it really does make it clear that these developers who also made Untitled Goose Game know how to end things like Untitled Goose Game it's a much more humble game in general than big walk it's not going for like genuinely like moving and amazing whatever like treat us on human communication like it's just a really beautiful lovely tidy little way to tie the whole game together

1:04:10at the end and you finish it and you're like wow that was lovely and you can just see that they have that they understand how important a conclusion is and how important it is to get an ending that like ties it all together and then they just did that writ large like on this much bigger scale and the other puzzle that I want to mention while we're talking about spoilers that was and remains my favorite puzzle in the game is the puzzle where you just go into every minute you sit together for five minutes which was not part of the end game it's just a regular puzzle so this is just a regular puzzle in the game you know every puzzle or challenge I guess as the developers call it it is different there's one where you open up a room and then and you go inside and there's like a couch and there's a nice couch and a couple chairs and there's a big TV screen and when you close the door a timer starts counting down and one of the gourds you're trying to unlock is right there so you're like okay well what does the timer mean and for a little while we're talking we're like okay what does it mean it's counting down we have to do something before the count down we thought I was like an escape room right yeah or like maybe we have to solve some puzzle but there's really

1:05:10nothing to do in the room and at some point Jason I think it was I think Jason was like we just have to wait you're like I think we just have to wait and so then we have to wait and five minutes is just the perfect amount of time it's long enough that you are kind of like all right well how you guys bet and what was so funny was we solved it no problem we just sat down and talked and what I especially appreciated about that puzzle was that we spend time talking every week like we are constantly talking to this like that what we do for money and so we're very good at just sitting there and talking so it was maybe the easiest puzzle for us to solve of any of the puzzles but so clever and so totally big walk that the whole time half of what we were talking about is just how funny is it that this is this puzzle that we just have to sit here for five minutes it was so it was so great when that turned out to be the ending like when we got to the end of five minutes and it does that like thing or like the clown confetti it was great it was very satisfying we truly got what a game what a game what an amazing amazing game I hope everyone listening to this gets to play

1:06:12and going through that same thing except silently and just knowing that all three of us are just kind of cheering to ourselves every time we do it that was so cool I just see the progress far light up and seeing yes I remember having some real nervous moments are like god have I gonna affect the stuff for everybody and not even be able to say anything and god is like when you're afraid of like and making a mistake when you can't talk is scary because it's like oh no will I be able to explain that this is just an executioner and we can start over and it's gonna be fine it's funny I didn't worry about it that much because I felt like we got so or were so patient with each other I don't want to say god because I actually feel like we were always pretty good at that like anytime there was something where the entire green bar would go away right before the end and like the whole thing would be gone we would all be like okay it's it's all good we're here we go we're doing it again now we know how to do it and like it doesn't take away the stress of seeing the green bar filling up filling up and especially if you're the person that has to do the thing but it did give me some comfort when that person was me or we each had moments where we had to like

1:07:18beat the star and like be the one that was getting something correct multiple moments like that we chatted and it was very nice knowing that you two like never got mad at me and I hope you two both felt the same way like I felt like we all were really supportive about it if the green bar would all disappear and we're just like all right let's do this again we got this we got this that was that was I don't think it's a game it kind of like works in contrast to destinies raid where sometimes I would feel frustrated if someone this like instills the opposite opinion because it really feels like we're all in it together I don't know what it is maybe it's because there's no real adversary you can't like die you don't die you don't see a game over screen it's just like okay well we just have to start that one over I don't know something about the way that this design this game is designed just feels like it it doesn't really it encourages patients in in general like it encourages giving people another shot and and like not feeling frustrated about that so no I don't think I ever once felt frustrated at all while playing this game because even there's so much

1:08:23brev there's so much levity and humor to it that like even when you fucks up they go the one the one time I was like oh my god did I just fuck the stuff for everybody was when the most recent session we were doing that giant obstacle course we have to work you have to throw the thing up all the way that each tunnel and that one and a minute time I missed the throw and I was like oh my god is that gonna go all the way to the bottom but it did not and so we were saved we really it only felt like we were all so I was nervous as we were gonna close our closer closer to the top and even at that point I was like saying to you guys I think I was like if it goes to the bottom we're fine it's fine yeah it's really fun maybe you and I were just like it's gonna happen and it's gonna be fine yeah but it's funny I think in Jason right the fact that that one kick this and it dropped a little bit then it was clear oh actually it can't drop all the way to the bottom because of the way this challenge is designed something is probably gonna catch it yeah we won't lose that much progress and that I think speaks to what you're saying where there's a feeling in this game overall that just it's okay man like the designers have got your back and they're not

1:09:25trying to make you feel frustrated they're trying to make failure a funny part of the game which is wonderful and a really great way to design something like this and totally I never felt frustrated a single time the entire time playing the game it was just I was having a great time with my friends solving puzzles that was it yeah and then all the way to the end it was the same and that even when you fell off them out and Kirk and I would have like got there was so funny it was just like this is hilarious like that is a lot from out like this is it was like crazy night because I I think that was the last night we played right and I like fell off multiple war it was how we kicked off the session large tall it was so funny we were we have this plan in place you're like we're gonna go this say eventually it's like or not I was the one that had the plan like I logged in and I was like guys we need to make a plan tonight and we just stick to the plan and then like I fell off the mountain it was like a million miles away from you guys and I was like all right that's fine so good yeah all of the best like plans in big walk are for not it's not yeah and when someone falls

1:10:26of man yeah what a game I wonder if indecent it's because you everybody sees like I you died screen and that just builds up persuasion it feels like you're a finance of it like the feeling of like you're not yeah everything about those raids it feels like if someone isn't pulling their weight you just get really good in this I don't think I I really I legitimately did not feel a single moment of annoyance at all while playing this game it was just pure delight I also think each puzzle like does take advantage of different skills and if you happen to have I feel like we're each good at different kinds of puzzles too and there are certainly puzzles at all three of us are good at and we would just be like okay like Kirk's just gonna be in charge of this and Maddie and Jason are gonna follow or whatever the case may be but then there were other times where we're like okay like so and so is gonna do this one or that one because they can clearly figure it out and one of the best examples of that sorry Maddie but one is that you and I there was a music puzzle Maddie you had to sing melodies to me and then I like remember them and go find that was so much fun

1:11:27that you would just buy it I was just like all right see guys I'm just like I'm just chilling and we totally go get a lot of very validating that was such a fun puzzle and a very fun puzzle to do with you Jason also like did the headphones puzzle where I still am like I have no idea how he was that one was that we're not so like we each had our moments to shine oh absolutely I don't know where I was going with that oh I guess I was saying like because each of the puzzles has so much variation you can do that and you can feel like anyone in theory could have their moment and so it's not like oh one person's dragon is all down where's in destiny it's like people are gonna notice you can't do something just stop it's true because you have to be good at destiny specifically yeah that's true right and more often like if you're the weak link on a raid in destiny you're gonna be the weak link on every single thing and so by the fourth boss you're losing to you're like yeah I know I suck I'm sorry it's just a bad vibe and like big one doesn't have that vibe at all because you can't even really quote unquote be good at big walk I would say not really that kind of game it's just no it's just so

1:12:31man okay we got to play again after a back late September and a back to my traveling we'll figure we're gonna play some some big walk advance mode we're gonna 100% this game we got to we got to get to the real ending I would say we gotta get that true if there is one I don't know I just want to play more big vlog it's so much so to like like a Nick Fury big walk character comes out and is like I'm recruiting for the bigger walk we're starting a new initiative the goose from Untitled goose game comes out and he has a and he's like all right oh god all right that's my one more thing good pick what a game what a what a good one more thing good job good job well that is another episode of triple click in the books a fun a fun time as always another really fun game to talk about we'll be back talking about more games and and maybe answering some of your questions and continuing on through what looks to be a video game fall for the record books for real and remember to send us triple kiss questions we've gotten a lot a lot of them are kind of like about

1:13:38games and stuff I would love to see a few that are about just kind of specific situations I won't I won't like say that we're the most qualified people in the world to be giving romantic advice but I think the three of us all have pretty healthy relationships and we can we can offer a little bit of it the very least will offer some some interesting perspective we can yeah our perspectives that's all we send those in and in the meantime I will see the two of you next week see you next week bye triple click is produced by Jason Shryer Maddie Myers and me Kirk Hamilton I edit next the show and also wrote our theme music our show art is by Tom DJ some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration you can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes triple click is a proud member of the maximum fun podcast network and if you like our show we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfund.org slash join email us at triple click at maximumfund.org and find links to our

1:14:38merch store and our discord server in the show notes thanks for listening see you next time maximum fun a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you