We Played Matthew McConaughey's Exodus! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

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1:14What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Friday, September 4th, 2026. I'm one of your host Greg Miller alongside this scream queen. Madeline Stanley. Hello, Madeline. Hello, Greg. How are you doing? I'm great. It's always great to see you twice in one week. Come on now. What are we talking about? Are you still obsessed with Don Walker? Are you still thinking about Don Walker all the time? I'm always thinking about Don Walker. I'm thinking about Cohen. What's he up to? That's what I like to think. Am I going to start another playthrough? Dissecrated. We are doing the spoiler cast next week. So you'll be in town. You will be here. Very exciting. So don't miss that everybody. Be locked in for that. And then of course, two Madeline's left. It's the Hispanic heartthrob Texas treat. Latino heat. Clicking heads and rip it. Shreds globe shot and head shot and three point shooting. Root and toot and lebertard show and twitch dot TV. Andy Cortez. Hello Greg. Hello. How are you Andy? I'm I've been Don Walker, man. I'm almost done. I'm a Don Walker. I'm getting close. Yeah. You're going to be ready for the spoiler guest.

2:14Oh, yeah. That's why I like to hear. Dude, oh, man. Yes, it is. It's a awesome shit. There's some really great questions. That game is real good, man. It is really good. Of course, our The blood of Don Walker review is live. It's kind of funny. Games cast from back on Monday. You can check it out alongside the Ooty Mouscher review. Alongside the Orbels review. Of course, not next to actually, you know what? Ah! How's it about to say not next to Star Wars Zero company review? But in fact, we just penciled that in in the past. We're in the future. We're recording the son of the lake as I'm going to be, of course, up in Seattle hosting the PAX keynote. But we are doing a Star Wars Zero company review so far alongside big walk tomorrow. Yes, Trin. Tomorrow for us. Yesterday for you. That's two days before. Two days before. Right around there. Yeah. Baron and Mila live in the future. Buddy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to tell you. Damn, who's going to host this keynote? Ah, everybody, of course, this is the kind of funny game. Scaz, each and every week day we come together to talk about the biggest topics in gaming, whether they be reviews, previews or just things we need to talk about.

3:17If you like that, remember be part of the show. Usually YouTube.com slash kind of funny games with your super chats. You can't do it today, but you can chat amongst yourself. You can like, subscribe, share on YouTube, Twitch, podcast services around the globe. Of course, thank you to our Patreon producers. We couldn't do this without you over on patreon.com slash kind of funny. So thank you, Delaney, the son of twining and Omega Buster. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be Top of the show. Andy. Thank you. You and I love a good role playing game. I'm Commander Shepard, and I'm really excited to hear about Exodus. That's right. We have one more for you. I have one more for you. Been working on this for quite some time. Shepard. That's really good. Rex, come on. Do I hurt? Not right now. I'm not going to go here on this very show on this very channel. We did a thing talking about Exodus and was it the mass effect air? It did really well because everybody's really excited about Exodus.

4:17Ourself is included, but more importantly, so is Madeline Stanley, who we sent to Austin, Texas to play Exodus. Madeline, I have a million questions. I have a lot of things I want to dive into, but first I need to explain to everybody what the game is. Before I do that, one question. Did you meet Matthew McConaughey? Alas, he was not there. No. I was wondering if maybe Andy could do a Matthew McConaughey impression and I could feel like I met him. I mean, not a general one. Everybody always says, all right, all right. But I can do C.C. or Lev. My name is C.C. or Lev. Screens time. Exodus is a sci-fi action adventure RPG where you become the traveler, leading humanity's fight for survival against the Celestials. Face our evolution 40,000 years in the future. Explore extraordinary worlds and confront time itself to shape the fate of generations. Step forward into the role of June. A salvager turned traveler, a renegade among the stars and a hunter of ancient secrets.

5:17Embark on interstellar missions to recover celestial remnants that may hold the key to humanity's survival. Return to a changed world where time dilation has amplified your choices in reshape the future of humanity. Developer archetype entertainment, publisher wizards of the coast. We have a release date April 7th, 2027. Of course, we heard about a game. It's calm. Madeline. The floor is yours. How much did you play? Was it great? Was it wherever you want to start? I want to hear all about it. Yeah. So we played about an hour and a half. We played most of a mission. There was some stuff chopped out. But we played like a part of a mission on PC. But I believe it's out for PC series XS PS5 everything. Oh, yeah, it's on everything. On all of the things I really, really liked it. I had a great time. I actually interviewed Chad Robertson who's like the co-founder of the company in the GM. And I was like, yeah, I'm pretty upset and he kind of got worried.

6:19And I was like, because I want to play it right now. I'm just like, oh, my God. Thank you. They got the gun. Man, if only you would reported that interview. Well, I did record that. And we'll be included here on the game. Yes, today everybody. It's a jam packed episode. So yeah, he was a joy to talk to us. We got some some interesting context for this. But yeah, I really liked it. I think as a fan of Mass Effect myself, I got in played all the Mass Effects on the legendary edition when that came out. Yeah. And have been a big fan ever since. And this definitely is scratching that itch for me. I left that that one and a half hours being like, are you sure I can't play a little bit more? Like you don't have an extra half hour for me. I could just do a little bit more. No. The previous curse Andy, we know. Heck yeah. So what did you do in the demo? Where do we find June in this one? Cool. Yeah. So we're with June. We you can be female or male June. We were playing as male June. I am going to play femme June because I was also femme.

7:22Yeah. I was also femme chef. Okay. Yeah. That's the only choice. The only right choice. Yes. Exactly. I disagree. Oh. I was just doing that. I was doing your show. I was doing it. I was doing it. I was doing it. I was doing it. You were doing it. You were doing it. And we are basically kind of plopped in to middle. So for the larger story, I'm a little lost as to where we are for the immediate mission. We are going to this planet that has been taken over by some intense soldier forces. And we're kind of trying to save these people called the K. They are a species of awakened frogs. Nice. So the awakened in the Exodus universe are animals that have awakened and have sort of a sentience. And each awakened has a different personality like a human would be. So we went to this planet, fought a lot of people. We talked to a lot of these different awakened frogs. Every single one of these K frogs. We're so cool and so fun.

8:22They all had wildly different personalities, different voices, different things. And I think I met six or seven of them. And each one was a joyous experience. That's one of the things that I left this preview. Is that even random side. There's a robot who is not really a character. But he's just a side little guy who's like, you can go in that room if you want. There's enemies in there. And he was hysterical to talk to. And so like everything that I interacted with that spoke to me was so well crafted and interesting and joyous. And joy is the best word because I just, I left the whole playthrough just feeling like I had the biggest smile on my face. Oh yeah. How do they get awakened? How do they get awakened? Sorry Andy. How do they get awakened? Was there just like a big kind of like wave of energy that awakened a bunch of different species? Do you know I don't know the answer to that.

9:22I'm not sure how they come awakened. Because we know because we know of salt. The octopus. We know of that wolf in that intro cutscene where they end. The wolf was just sitting next to June talking to him. So there's, we've seen the bear in one of the, you know, fight scenes way early on in combat. When they were sort of leaking gameplay. So yeah, I mean, I wonder what the heck it was in this universe that allowed everybody to just say. And also I wasn't expecting them to be big Greg. I'll say that. Well, I expected, I expected Manel to just be talking to normal size frog. Now I'm just blind jumping into the Exodus game fandom wiki. Okay. Awakened. Genetically engineered animals. Awakened are designed with various ascentuated qualities. Some are made larger or stronger or more intelligent. Most are designed to be to serve in some capacity. Some awaken our bread for military purposes and can be extremely aggressive. Some are as intelligent as humans. Awakened have control control patches that allow them to be controlled through neural induction pads.

10:22It is unknown whether all awakened have control patches. Okay. Okay. You'll accept that answer. Man, not really. That's right. There is a prequel book or two books. I think that you can read if you want to get it all up on the Exodus lore. By like a very notable sci fi author. There's a whole prequel series. Here's what I'm saying. It's always pushing pull the game you're excited for. Do you want to jump in and get a lot of it or do you want to stay away and just you know. So I usually let the trailers come to me. The previews come to me. I've sent to assets a one minute and 30 second trailer from the Exodus channel called Exodus cinematic. The awakened Raven reveal trailer. I can't promise you Andy that this trailer will have any answers as to how this Raven awakened. But I feel like we should dive in. Okay. Bear can we see the Exodus cinematic the awakened Raven reveal trailer. There was a myth back on earth. Fuck it Matthew. Two Ravens sitting upon the shoulders of a god. Feeding him information about the world's below.

11:25No secret safe from there all seeing eyes. Awakened Ravens were engineered to be problem solvers. King curiosity and remarkable memories. But when their arc ships stopped on the wrong planet, that memory became curse. They can't forget what went wrong. Not even all these generations later. Ravens are a part of the world. Ravens are problem solvers. Matthew's killing it. Left to their own devices. Cause problems. They need a guiding end. And all knowing guardian. Uncovering secrets. Pushing things in the right direction. Are these tiny people or big birds? Yes. Ravens are watching us. I think it's just a perspective.

12:27I'm CC or live. Hell yeah, you are. Yesterday. Today. And tomorrow. That was the end of his podcast. You're listening to this courtesy of the project. Okay, so there you go. They were designed for something. Then their arc broke down. Yes, Matthew McConaughey crushed it there. We've been very critical of Mr. McConaughey in the strange times. Vangel times. We find ourselves in. I've, yeah, very critical. But that, I mean, that's kind of awesome. I like that. Madeline. Did you see or hear from Matthew McConaughey inside of this video? Did CC or live show up? CC or live was not involved in this particular. This is some false advertising. Is it a bait and switch? I know. No, we, I, I spent most of the mission with two of the companions. I think there's six. You've seen the salt reveal trailer. We unfortunately also didn't get to hang out with salt. But we were with Solomon and Elise. Okay. Is who we spent most of our time. They were both really interesting. Elise was like in a giant mech suit as well.

13:27I think this is Elise right here that you're seeing now. She's kind of sassy, you know, she's got a sassy vibe. And Solomon's kind of like, I don't know how do I describe him. He's like this. He's like kind of like a sexy, annoying man. Oh, like me. He's like kind of a creep, but you like him. Just like Nick. Where he's like a little rude, but also you kind of like him. Yeah, I was talking to the frog. Yeah, I'm on the the page here. All right. It says for you're saying Solomon is how they pronounce it. Mm hmm. Born into the tension dynasty and orphan young, Solomon was taken in by the mysterious parliament of Ravens and raised as an operative, wealthy, reclusive, and dangerous. He's caught halfway between the worlds of the awakened and humanity. And while Elise is bioreads, a blunt no nonsense sleeper from the 23rd century earth, a seasoned mercenary, weapons expert and former gang member turned salvager. If Elise has your back, it means she's in front of you clearing a path.

14:27Okay. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Your home your homey looks quite a bit like the male June. But it looks like. Yes. Thank you, Andy, because I thought the same thing. I was like, we're related or something. Yeah. Because we look a little similar. As I spent more time, like you kind of see a little bit of differences, especially their voice acting is quite different. But I do think we look very similar. Like your hair, the hair is doing the same hair. It looks like you, like this character, you started to take more of the sinister renegade path and you started to become more evil. Sure. You know what I mean? It looks like a, oh gosh, what's his name? Evil Jedi. Evil Jedi. Skybreaker. Skytalker. Are you talking about Darth Vader? No, Darth Vader. No, the bad guy in the Palpatine. For Magetta, Kylo Ren. Oh, Starkiller. Starkiller. There you go. Vader's secret apprentice. Yeah. His podcast was Stark Talker. I forgot. I got that wrong. So for these companions, and I guess this is overall, how much did you get to play around

15:31with them in terms of choice dialogue? Did you see differences in or things where the story could have branched? Yeah, so that was something I talked to Chad a little about. We were kind of locked in with these two people, so we couldn't swap them out. Sure. But one of the cool things that we, that you can do is that in the, in, I think there's something from Mass Effect, right? You pick your two people, you go, you do the whole mission together. Something that was interesting here is that you can kind of change who you're with throughout the whole mission at different checkpoints. Like when you check point, you can swap in and out your people. So if you want to see, like I asked, oh, salt might have a different perspective on this mission because they are also an awakened. And this mission has to do a lot with the, the awakened K frogs. But yeah, they interact a lot with each other. You can see when certain, when, when certain people are happy or upset about your choices that you're making. Definitely towards the end, there wasn't a lot throughout the mission itself where, you

16:32know, you were seeing like, Solomon likes that or something like that. But, but towards the end, there was a big choice where one of them really wanted me to do one thing, one of them really wanted me to do the other thing. And kind of how that, that played out. They worked really, I really liked the way that their moves set worked together. Yeah, I was going to say, how does Columbia feel? Yeah, the combat feels really good, really smooth. There, there's like a bunch of different ways you can approach the combat, obviously. You have a ton of different weapons that you can use. But then you also have your gauntlet powers, which have a bunch of different powers in them. And then you also have the powers of your companions. So the, and then you can combine them together to make like specific power ups with different powers that they have to, you know, execute a much, a much stronger impact. So I've played a lot around with, you know, using my gauntlet power, yeah, to freeze there, you can petrify the bear. And then, you know, use one of your other gauntlet powers to do your own sort of synergist power.

17:33And then you can do a synergy power between your companions as well. So there's a lot of different, different combat options that make it feel very like fluid and fun. This battle specifically was really cool because you could also, I can't think of what the word is now, where you like, repel upwards. What is that thing called? Grappled? Yeah, you can like grapple up to the top and, and do combat from the top and the bear will kind of like rush into the column and destroy it while you're up there if you step there too long. Yeah, I see one of the columns being electrified right now. Is that like, would you lower them over there to kind of hurt him or? Yeah, you can. Oh, gotcha. Okay. So is that like a, is it being electrocuted right now, kind of showing like it's almost fully damn, almost fully destructed or destroyed? So that's what I was looking for. Yeah, I think when it run, when the bear runs into it, then it goes into electric state and then you can go back up there again. Yeah, very cool. Jesus. What's he doing on his back right now? Is that just like his like berserk mode where he's going to arm?

18:34That's the armor. Yeah, that's the, the captain, the captain's armor because this is a captain of the armor. Cool. It's a big time bear. Yeah, go bear. This looks graphically awesome. Did it look graphically awesome playing it? It looks really great. That was one of the things I noted. I really think the lighting is really beautiful in the game. Like, there's a lot of dynamic lighting within the game where there's, they play a lot with light and shadows. There's a section of the mission that we played where we like went out onto the outside of the ship and you're kind of seeing the space and the sun's passing by and the ships going over the sun. It's very, yeah, I think graphically the fidelity is really nice. Oh, yeah, very cool. Did you do anything with character customization at all? No, we did not. So I don't, I know that, I don't know if how much customization we, we kind of have just the standard male June. So I'm not sure. As far as like cosmetics as there is like a skill tree, but we didn't spend a ton of time

19:38on that, but that was also very cool. Looks like a constellation. So like a typical RPG, there's different sections. You can kind of put your skills into. But not didn't spend a ton of time in that either. Different pieces of armor at all by any chance. Yes, there you can swap in and out customization for your armor and for your gun. So they, you're constantly picking up new things very like in the kernels there of them in maxing all the different things. I ended up spending most time with the shotgun. So I was picking up all that and putting everything into the shotgun variant, which I think was called a shredder, I think is that one. Good. And they had electric ammo, which you could customize and that sort of thing. And then yeah, different, different armor as well. Did the combat feel, was it, it's something who's played the legendary edition of Mass Effect? Did it just feel like Mass Effect? Did it feel like, oh, they're pulling from it or was it a complete copy or did it feel

20:41good? Like where, when you would talk about what this actually felt like, because it looked so Mass Effect adjacent, I feel like I'm going to drop in. But then I also feel like I'll be either let down if it doesn't nail that or surprised if it does. Yeah. So for me, being off of Mass Effect legendary edition, I feel like there's obviously a lot of similarities with having the two companions and kind of the space and everything. I do feel like this combat feels a lot more fluid to me where I feel like when I would play Mass Effect, it was like, okay, I'm like stopping. I'm setting this thing. I'm doing these two and then watching sort of how these things play out. I feel like because I have all these different options that I mentioned of using the weapon, using the gauntlet powers, using their powers, I just feel like it feels a lot more fluid and in one motion, which I really liked. It felt like an improvement to me on the Mass Effect combat. It definitely looks way more modernized, you know, not as clunky with, with, with,

21:46shepherded in the old Mass Effect. It often felt like you're either sprinting forward and then if you want to turn, you got to just stop running and then turn your whole camera and then sprint now. It was very like, reminds me of Gears of War where it's like you would do the Rody run. It's like you can turn a little bit, but like you want to stop completely if you want to be able to turn. But yeah, I think the combat looks super good so far. Talk to folks. Oh, go ahead. I'll say like you're saying, Andy, like, yeah, it feels, I feel like when Mass Effect, you kind of feel like you're like a tank almost, like you're like, move forward, stop, do a thing, move forward, stop, do a thing. Whereas this, I feel a lot more inclined to move around constantly kind of changing up the ways that I'm doing things. I'm not relying on any specific move over and over again. I'm, there's a lot more room for fluidity, for experimentation and approaching things in like slightly different ways from room to room. Were you doing that slide at all? Yeah. Hell yeah. You like it. It looks so good.

22:47I know we're talking about, you know, companions and these interactions and conversations. How was the writing? Like were you interested? Did they all have, did it seem like it had a unique voice? Was the story they were taking you on somewhere you wanted to go? Yeah, I like, like I was saying about the K, like that was something I was really impressed by. I'm, I'm still not 100% read on June himself because I feel like he didn't, he, he himself didn't talk a ton. I, I feel like during my playthrough, but like everyone else around him, I got a very good grasp of like what their character was, what their motivations were, why they were doing the things that they were doing and they were all very consistent, surprising and interesting. Like, like when you meet six awakened frogs, you're like, how, how different can each of them be, right? Like they're, they're not even, you're just talking to them for like a short period of time, but it's like one is like obsessed with music and like metal music, specifically. Nice. So he's like listening to the radio all the time and he's like, yeah, rock out with me

23:47and you're like, okay, little frog. I will rock out with you. And then, you know, one of the other frogs is like, oh my god, that guy's so annoying. Like he plays this music too loud, blah, blah, blah, and like has a very, then there's like a valley girl frog. Each frog has their own kind of different personality. And then my companions themselves, like they, I feel like when I first got in there, it felt a little stock character. I was like, oh, I was worried, right? Because you got the brash lady, whatever. And then this kind of like, smart, me man who's, you know, from a rich background or whatever. Who's like, you like somebody's a little evil. But I feel like they got a lot more fleshed out as I spent time with them and was finding out why they were here with me. I think not being dropped into the middle of something will help a lot with that as well. Because I'm only getting, you know, a little bit of their personalities, but they do shine through. Very cool. Did they talk at all? And I know you have an interview here playing it. So I'm not trying to get too far. Then they talk about how long they're shooting for.

24:49I know this has been a conversation. Obviously a soft dawn walker ride. I'm like, okay, cool. Well, how long is this RPG going to be? Did they talk at all about that? Ooh, I'm trying to think I don't have it here. I don't know if they did. Fair enough. Gotta keep it. I don't have a sure answer for that. I'm looking in my notebook really quick to see if I just didn't make it over to my notes. And for you, every time I interview developer and I asked that question, which isn't every time, it's not like a stock thing. But when I do, I always do that. I know this is the most annoying question to answer, but how long is this game? Because nobody wants to say, nobody knows. Do you ever start to privacy things with like, I know you get a lot of questions that start off with like, I know this is annoying. Listen, I know you. Madden, what was the enemy variety like? That's a great question. I will say that was one where I don't feel like there was a ton of variety in the enemies. And I don't know if that's just because of this one mission of where we were. Sure. But there were, they were like colloquially called them ghosts.

25:53Some of the people who were left there, but they're like all these mech soldier guys, these robot soldier guys. And then there was like some human soldier guys. But between those, those were kind of the things we were fighting the whole time. So there was slight variations between some of them would like explode if they got too close to you. Most, some of them would run at you and then some of them were kind of more of the standard. But they were all kind of these like, robot-y guys that you're seeing up there now. And then- Kind of even a destiny vibe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which was the white thing in their centers and whatever and pop them. The old broken or the, I don't know. I feel like I ran that a lot. I remember. Sorry. Thank you, man. But there was, there was a couple, there was like a couple little mini bosses along the way that were different. That was like a different awakened animal or just a different type of human. So there were some options. But on the, on the sort of like main part of the mission, it was all the little robot guys. But they were the ones who were supposed to be taking over this planet.

26:54So I'm not sure if that's consistent for the rest of the game or if, if that's just because those were the people trying to take over this planet from the frogs. Were your NPCs useful at all without you telling them exactly what to do? Yeah, they would go on and kind of do their own stuff. I'm very micromanaging though, so I was always telling them to do stuff. Once they're cooled down to roughly, yeah. Yeah, like when the, when the battle is started, they are, they're engaging on their own. So it's not like they're just standing there waiting for me to tell them what to do. I just like telling them what to do because I'm bossy. So I was always, always telling them what to do. But when someone would attack me, yeah, they would start, they would start going in as well. And it's actually in several instances, there would be an enemy ahead. And this might be annoying to some people. I didn't mind, but they would go ahead and start, it's start the fight for them. Oh, yeah. Okay. And I would be like, okay, fine, you guys got it. Was there like an active dodge to get out of the wave? Some of those attacks we were just seeing?

27:56Yes, I think there is a dodge. I'm trying to remember. I'm pretty sure there is, but it looks like some of those attacks could have, you know, maybe there were some opportunities to get the heck out of dodge. And I don't know if, and now I'm just thinking Greg, like, you know, I love a good slow mode during a dodge. Who does it? Feels good. Oh, it feels great. It's like, here's your prize. You're in this slow mode. Like a Don Walker, man. Exactly. Like a Don Walker. It's on the blocker. Mad, what have we asked you about that you want to talk about? Okay. Um, the music. I really want to ring this up. Especially I know Andy's big music guy. The music was awesome. Like I was just had the video up of my gameplay. I was just listening to the music from the game while I was writing my notes. Um, I really, really liked music. It was so atmospheric and haunting when you were by yourself on the space. Um, it was intense and crescendoing when you were fighting like it. I loved the music.

28:57It was something that I, one of the first things that I wrote down was like, oh, this score works well for this game. It's, it's the, it's very, very good. I really liked that. They're doing all the right things. They are. But I love, I mean, I just love that shockwave move so much. I mean, it's just my whole cool stab again. Yeah. I've stoked about it. Yeah. Exactly. I love any sort of ability like that. Like, were you messing around with a whole lot of, I know you talked about some of the arsenal where it's like weapons or I saw some of your squad meet out like a, maybe like a missile or something like that. But the, your gauntlet moves. Did it feel like there was maybe more than that ground pound with the wave of rock energy that comes out. So we had three unlocked, but it looked like there were spots for at least two more powers that you would maybe get for your gauntlet. And the fun thing about that that I really liked was I, you have to use, you know, I guess you, you have to use them for puzzles. Like there are traversal puzzles. There's also puzzles to get loot and that sort of thing that you use your gauntlet skills

29:59for. And for me, like when I was first playing for maybe like the first 30 minutes, I was like, oh, that's what my gauntlet powers are for. And then all of a sudden I accidentally triggered one during the, the fighting and I was like, oh, right, I can use these during battle too, I guess. And so that's when I started doing, there's like a petrify one where you can freeze someone and then yeah, you can go to town on them because they're stuck. There's one that you basically, it's like a line area of attack. So you're like smashing the ground and then it's shooting all of this debris right into them and a line. And then the other one is like a, a lance that's kind of like a sword that goes out. That's the goes through armor and stabs them and all those are really cool to play with both in the world as sort of puzzle traversal mechanics and then also within the combat. So I love that they do the sort of double duty there. Oh, yeah. I also wanted to bring up a really fun like little thing that I meant to ask Chad about

31:02but I forgot to or I meant to mention it to him. There was a safe that you could crack and I feel like, you know, we've seen a lot of lock picking mechanics and safe mechanics and they're generally very similar. This one was so fun. It was kind of like wortle with numbers. Whoa. Oh, shit, you know, I love a good hacky slash lock picking game. Well, you may have just brought this podcast like the big breaking news. Yeah. That's exciting. You have a safe and essentially there's a total number at the end and then there's four digits. And so you're trying to figure out what the combination is but the numbers in the in the combination have to equal up whatever that number is. So let's say it's 26. So each of those numbers have to equal up to 26 and then it will show you, you know, yellow if it's the right number in the wrong place or green if it's the right number in the right place. And I found a note before going there that said, I think one of the numbers is nine. And so I had kind of a head start on the safe because I knew what one of the numbers were

32:04and where it was in the thing. So I could use math and, you know, logic and deduction to figure out the other numbers. Then that's tough because like with wortle you're like, all right, it's probably the letter R E. Let me try to fit. But with numbers, it could be anything Greg. It could be seven. Honestly, I feel like most numbers have one in them. Two does have one. I was going to say it could be two. One of them can't get to one. Can't get to do that one. Oh, shit. She broke the argument. What about zero? I guess then closing it out really, Madeline, like so it was what was the most disappointing or the thing on a negative side that caught you off guard? You talked a little bit about enemy variety. Maybe the characters looking a bit similar was there were that was that either was there anything else that stood out to you? I think the only other thing that stood out to me was just one of the big one of the big beats that they've been talking about is the choices. And I feel like you got one big one at the end. And I didn't see a lot of smaller ones. Like there were things I could choose to do or not do, but it didn't seem like there

33:07was just one big implication. And one of the things they're also talking about with the game that I'm like extremely interested in is the time dilation aspect, which if you all are familiar from interstellar, we're like, you know, five years on this planet is 50 years on another planet. And because we're just doing one part of one mission, we don't really get to see the implications of that. I do want to know how does that affect the game? How does that work? And we didn't get to see it. And that was kind of a bummer for me because I want to see some of the larger choice implications. I think that's hard to do in a small one and a half hour section. I will say the choice at the end was very interesting to me. I'm not going to spoil it by any means, but there's sort of two paths. It's not the renegade versus the good version of Mass Effect again versus hairgon. This one is immortal versus paladin. So it's kind of similar. But I felt like the choices were a bit more gray than I have found in Mass Effect.

34:08I feel like in Mass Effect, the renegade choices are generally pretty scumbaggy. No, yeah. It's the dickhead option. And then this one I felt like I was like, oh, I could see why someone would choose the other option. I like that. And that was very intriguing. I just wish I got to see more implications of the action. So that's not like a problem with the game. It's just more of virtue of the amount of time we got to play. But it's like, I just don't know how it's going to play out. And then yeah, that was that was my main point was just I want to feel a little bit more of the choices. But I do feel like the final choice was really interesting. I thought what where they were going with it and the reasoning behind each one was strong enough that I didn't have an immediate decision. I had to stop and think about it, which is what I want from a choice game. Like I don't want it to be an easy obvious. Yes or no? Yeah, I love that. Yeah, when, you know, if you remember, like I, when me and Andy went back and did the

35:08show, whatever, I went and watched everything. And so when McCann Hey came out of Game Wars and talked about it, he was like, it's a game that deals with time dilation, which I have like a, you know, background in, ha, ha, ha. And even the way they describe it, like I was hoping maybe you got to see that. I'm going back to wherever to see two years of past for the one mission you were gone and what that actually led out to. Yeah, it's like in the trailer for salt, you can, they mentioned it too, like salt left her planet and took a certain amount of time. And she left some, some baby octopus eggs there. And it's like, oh, well, it's been 70 years and she left them like, yeah, that'd be pretty devastating if you were a mom leaving your eggs behind for 70 years or whatever the number was. And it's like, I wish we could have seen a little bit about more how that plays out. Well, we will. That's going to hit the feelings. Come. I know. I'm ready to be, I'm ready to feel the big feels. Well, I'm ready to tell all of you about our sponsors. Remember, you can go to kind of funny.com slash Patreon, patreon.com slash kind of funny, youtube.com slash kind of funny games apple Spotify, pick up a kind of funny membership,

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37:11our beautiful faces. So head over to Spotify, rate, comment and follow to keep up with all of our upcoming reviews and daily gaming coverage. FanDool is now available everywhere in the US. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDool. Agent location restrictions apply product availability varies by market. See FanDool dot com for eligibility gambling problem called 1-800-Gemmar. Hey, I like your new Ralph Moore. Thanks yours too. What does Ralph stand for anyway? To me it's the remarkably advanced vehicle. Really? To me it's the runway approved vehicle for its amazing style. But what about remarkably adaptable vehicle because of its versatile cargo space? Or really admired vehicle? Oh, or really awesome vehicle. It really is the recreational activity vehicle.

38:14This stylish 2026 Toyota Rav4 limited. What's your Rav4? Nice to sit down and talk to you. I just finished playing like an hour and a half. I think it goes a full mission I guess. I'm not a full mission. Not a full mission. A full mission. Yeah, cool. That sucks. Okay, good. Right. Good to know. Really, really enjoyed that. Oh my gosh. Thank you. I think that when that, you know, we talked, you talked earlier today about kind of the insposed being, um, being, why am I blanking on the name? Dune. Well definitely one of them. Interstellar and Star Wars. Right. And I definitely feel the vibes of all of those. Nice. And the sort of lived in world building what I think it's. Yeah. Nice. That's my favorite thing. But one of the things I wanted to ask you about because it's the thing that I really care about, um, is you spoke a lot about emotion and, and really connecting and making these

39:17big choices and feeling in the world. And we got some of those today, but I'd love for you to speak a little bit on how you're doing that and, and what does that look like? Um, that's a deep question. That's, um, starting with my hard hitters. It's a deep question, not because it's tough to answer, but without being able to, you know, unfortunately, it can't give you more examples today. Yeah. Like there's some moments in the game we hope for players are just, you know, taking it back by what happens. And, um, and the emotional gravity of it, I hope to win. Yeah. Every individual with trip or stuff like that differently. But I think the coolest thing for us in terms of having chosen to use this science fiction background with time, at least, she was part of it is, we talked about this a lot. But I think we mentioned the intro is like, we can play with, um, the, the stakes of those choices are so much higher because of the time in fact, um, being, you know, something that you can't control entirely. And without spoiling things, there are some moments where you realize as you can't control

40:22the things entirely. Um, and, and so that opens up this playing field of well, how do we tie connections to family and connections with these campaigns that you've already been just, you know, a home that you live in that you've, you know, without, again, spoiling too much, you've finally gotten established yourself in and you're a critical person there. And now there's, now you're going to be gone for a while. And what does that mean? Um, and so I, you know, for every player or person that, you know, lives this story, I think they're all hopefully I'll take it and interpret it a little bit different way for their, you know, based on their own preferences and everything else. But, um, I know we're excited about that aspect of it just because it gives us, you know, a, a, a means to tell a story at a greater scale, but also make the player feel like they're part of something really big where it is impactful. I mean, the, the core of the story of, you know, saving your home world isn't necessarily unique, but some of the things that June has to do and the way we tell that story, we think are pretty special.

41:23Um, and, you know, I hope the Nantes players. Yeah, I think that's something that's so interesting about telling a sort of, not even global, but interplanetary, intergalaxy story is that like, I think you connect a lot with a story that's close to you, but a lot of times something that you're going to do to like benefit yourself might have great, great, great implications to the rest of the world. And you kind of have to decide how selfish you want to be. Well, you saw, like the, that's a great threat. Like you saw with that choice at the end of the mission where, you know, your, what you decide is going to impact an entire species in that case. And, um, I mean, I hope the player stops and thinks about that. I mean, you know, every, every, you know, some people are going to click through it, some people are going to sit there and act with our controller down. Um, which is what I did. Yeah. I mean, in emotion, I, you know, I love those moments. And I think the team, you know, in general loves those moments. Like we talk a lot about, you know, weekly team meetings, um, and design meetings like,

42:26how can we, you know, how can we make the gravity of this, we can be special to the player? Um, you know, we love the controller down the angst of that and all that stuff. I said that before, but, um, yeah, if, if we deliver on that, you know, and I'm optimistic that we are, uh, I think it'll be, it'll be cool experience with others. Yeah, that last choice, I'm not going to spoil what it is or like that, but they're, you know, you have this sort of paladin and then the other immortal, immortal. But I, what I loved and I hope to see more choices like this, um, in the game, which is that I didn't really find like, sometimes I feel like choices can be very like black and white. You're like, okay, like, kill 50, 100 people and save a little squirrel. You know, you're like, okay, these are, these are very black and my choices. Whereas like, I felt like the choice that was brought up, like there was one that was a more than one was, um, paladin. But I didn't feel like either of them were like the clearly right thing to do, which I

43:28love. I love having some nuance and like what I mean. A little bit of, a little bit of moral ambiguity to them because everybody's going to interpret them differently. Yeah. Um, again, without spoiling it for anybody that hasn't seen it yet, I don't play until the game comes out. Um, that choice you're referring to at the end, if you actually paid really close attention to the way Solomon responds to you, he's actually, I don't know, a choice you made, but, um, on the access where you choose against him initially, he actually understands why, you know, because he accepts it because he recognizes the position the earth as the player or as the leader, I should say. And so, but, you know, but it does add some tension to the relationship and that's kind of, there's a cool dynamic there that kind of evolves as well. So, yeah, it's cool that you picked up on that. Yeah. Speaking of the companions, we got to spend a lot of time with Solomon and then I'm flaking on her name, the other character. That makes me, yeah. Yeah, yeah, in the next step. Yeah. And we spent a lot more time with Solomon, I think than her kind of in the face to face talking, but, um, how important were companions to you making the game and, yeah.

44:34And making them feel connected to each other to you and the dynamic and, and kind of their personalities. Yeah. Drew, Drew, our narrative director who's with us today, um, for these interviews. Uh, he, yeah, I've been fortunate to work with him for a long time on my career. Um, like that's like, that's a cornerstone for us, you know, and with him and driving the narrative the way that he does, understanding the criticality of both those companions to gameplay, but also those companions to your emotional connection to it, to carry about. I mean, you know, pick an RPG that you love, you know, whether it's something from scene product red or bio, or, as the, you know, like, like, there's always some connection with the, the people you go on the journey as well. And those are the things that I remember the most, I'm speaking. Um, and I don't know if we get this, you know, if we get right, which, you know, I'm optimistic from your feedback that we're doing some things right here today, which is great to hear. Um, like you remember some of these companions and you want to go on another journey with them,

45:37maybe not all of them will be available to you on the next time around, but that's part of it. You know, it's part of life and part of what you've got to go through these experiences. So, yeah, I mean, deeply critical for us, but like so much so that I'd say, um, the fun of building something like this from scratch very early on was like, okay, what, what is our companion's say? And then we've got everything from, and we haven't introduced them all in detail yet, but, you know, um, you've met all these, you've met Solomon, we've talked about salt. Um, yeah, and so that's just sort of the, the, the tip of the iceberg, if you will. Um, I, I love it. I love talking to players and then finding out who their favorite is and if it's not yours, then it's always an interesting story as to why. So yeah, it is always fun talking like, oh, you, you know, you always brought Garris and they're like, oh, I never brought Garris or, um, one of my favorite companions is like Boone from Fallout, New Vegas. Like he's so serious and intense, but you're just like, I just connected with him in

46:37a minute, but it's so funny because everyone has different touch points for everything. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, I think that's, I mean, isn't that what we love in the opening games? Yeah, let's be honest. It's like you get to make this story around and, um, I mean, within the limits of what we've built into the game. But yeah, I hope, I hope the players can resonate with, um, our companions resonate with, like, the players that engage with them and they find their favorites in that, you know, do their own fan art and fan stories about them and all the wonderful things that come creatively from the player base. So yeah, I love to when you can swap out commands or like, this combo together has this type of vibe and this combo together has this type of vibe. Absolutely. Yeah, so the, um, the, you know, we, little inside story, like we debated what you saw at the way stations you can change commands that the demo, this demo doesn't didn't fully let you exercise that, but you do have the freedom to do that in the game within reason. Um, but that was something we debated. Like, do you want to be able to refit?

47:38But when you, you know, Chris, Chris King, the game director, he uses this for a lot. Like the companions are an extension of the player kit, meaning like the tools that you can use to get this role. And if you can do it that way, then of course you want to be able to swap them. And not all the missions can you do that, but on the ones where you've got all of them with you and then they've come on the journey, they're at least available to, they've able to do you make that decision. And then, you know, it's in their access where you can make a choice of their access where you can find to them and, you know, if you phone with them or, you know, whatever you want to do on this journey. Yeah, is there, are there romance options in this? There are romance options. Um, the one thing we give a very clear upfront on is that, uh, there, you cannot romance salt, but it's because salt doesn't have to miss. That's very, very. Yeah. That makes complete sense as salt is the awakened octopus, and that's it, which is very cool. Um, and that's one of the things like going back to companions that I was thinking about when we were doing submission today, we encountered another awakened animal and I was like,

48:40oh, I would have loved to see what salt had thought about this mission. I brought salt with us. Like would they have, would she have a different opinion? Because she's meeting other people for kind. Maybe the, the mission has to do kind of along with that. Right. And those are, those are the things in, you know, really good RPGs that I'm always thinking, oh, how can I, next time maybe I'll bring salt with me or let's see how that changes things. Yeah, there's, um, uh, I can't spoil too much, but there's, uh, there's some cool areas in your home world where the awakened take center stage. And it'll be interesting to see how players respond to that because, you know, you got to meet a lot of the kids at 42C is that first K from that you met today. Um, and I don't know if you saw some of the ones in the side. I tried to find them all. Yeah. So, I mean, they all have their own personalities, you know, take that across species and across, you know, some other mechanics, the gameplay. And it's like for some cool things that I think players will find some surprises for. So you did say there's like a hub world and that's more like an open section of it.

49:42It's like, it's really where, you know, like anything, it's your home between missions, it's where you're going to, you know, you're going to go back and kind of regroup and, you know, a lot of what you're trying to save your home world is the core part of the narrative journey that you're on. Um, and your home, your home city is on that, that home planet. Um, and so after your mission, after all your missions, you return home and kind of regroup and you actually have to re-equip and kind of, you know, do the things necessary to prepare yourself for the next journey out. Uh, the exodus missions that you go on the ones that are in your, in your life speed, uh, travel where you're traveling over star systems, uh, or to a, uh, the distant place from you is, uh, are the ones that are going to take even more preparation, if you will. And so there's some things you have to do in your home world that sets you up for that. And without spoiling too much, um, it's where a lot of your interactions with companions will happen. You'll get to do a lot of interesting side activities and some other things that we think fill in the game really nicely and we could feel like really true and media in terms of a liberal face.

50:42So, yeah, taking for that. Yeah, to kind of circle back to the time dilation thing, because that's something I feel like we didn't really get a big taste of, but it seems like it's a big part of the sort of overarching story in the world. Um, if people are unfamiliar, I always like, you, I think y'all mentioned it as well. Like if you've seen interstellar, you know, there, there is a, a point in the movie, spoilers for a long, long, long, uh, movie, but it's an awful lot. Um, you know, Mapping on a and then halfway go to a planet, they get stuff on it for a little bit longer. For them, it's like 40 minutes for the person on the spaceship. It's like seven years. Yeah. So in this game, you have all said you're respecting actual light speed, a speed of like travel. Right. And so how, I'm so curious how that's going to affect, I can imagine in my mind how that might affect some relationships if you, you know, leave someone back at your home planet and go to really far, it might be 40 years or something like that. There's a few, there's a few twists and we think it'll be a little bit of emotional

51:42for players. Um, the, it, this is a related cycle share of things that you brought up in the stellar when we, um, when we first talked to Matthew McConaughey, it, uh, to see if you be interested in being part of the game. Um, and I won't, I won't what you try to talk to Matthew McConaughey, but you could imagine that he said it in his true, true, yes. Um, he, you know, we were in a Zoom call with him and he, and he said, why me? Uh, and the, we gave him the, the most truthful and honest answer we could have because it was actually exactly what we felt, which was because you, to us, you represent this very complex topic of, of time dilation in a way that had made it relatable to viewers and, and carried with an emotional weight and all these things. And so if we can carry some of that understanding into players adoption and awareness of Exodus, it's a wonderful thing for us, which is a bunch of the reasons to, because the, the, the, the connections with them that worked out, but like going back to your point about

52:46time dilation, like there's a, that is a, it's a very complex topic. But at the end of the day, the emotional weight from it is what really matters the most. And, you know, he represents that through the stellar, you know, he plays a really cool role in the game as CC Orlov, um, who has experience with time dilation because of his prior, uh, journey as a traveler. And so June looks to him for advice, but it all kind of comes together and this nice kind of scenario, what we believe it comes together in a very synergistic way where all these things come together and it kind of makes it feel like, you know, real to you as a player. So time dilation isn't this abstract concept, even though it is a real physical phenomenon for us. I don't know, open-ended players. Yeah. I'm excited. Yeah. Um, so I'm very, I'm very sad because I don't get to play this anymore. Like now I have to wait for excellence to come up. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. That's a very nice compliment. Thank you. Um, I really want to keep playing it. So my last question for you is,

53:48what should I, like, reading watching, um, playing to, like, give myself an extra move? Yeah, yeah. So there's, um, one of our favorite science fiction authors is Peter Hamilton. And we are fortunate to have had two novels now written in the Exodus universe with Peter. There are, there, you've got to be a series science fiction fan to adopt these books, but they're, they're amazing. Peter, Peter is, he's a prolific writer and his ideas have helped us in so many ways expand the universe, but there are really core parts of the game that, um, Peter helped us define that you will find threads through. Yeah, including, including things that tie into the even basic stuff, like, you, you want to understand it till you start playing the game fully, but there's pieces that tie into, like, June's heritage and June's genetic, like, my makeup that Peter touches on those books. So if you really want to, you know, really want to go deep on it. Okay. Okay. Then I've got to,

54:48yeah, deep into the thick side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the first book I believe is called Our Community's Engine. The Cyclone's called Healymcy and just came out a couple months ago. I think also. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They'll, they'll occupy, they're, they're, I don't call them life summer reading, but they're, they're, they're, uh, they're fun science fiction stuff. Perfect. So, yeah. Cool. That's a great question. Yeah. Yeah. And we're back. What a great interview, Madeline. Thank you for doing it. No problem. I had so much fun talking to Chad and I really want to commit to reading the prequel books, but they're really thick. So I don't know. Maybe audiobook, maybe audiobook. Very cool. Oh, yeah. Get on there. Get on there. Nothing better than reading a book with your ears. You know, it just flies by. I'm why do people make this so tough? It's not that tough. Almost dealt with my winter audio book. Oh, but Geralt. But Geralt. Geralt. God, dammit. One more time, say it. Geralt. Geralt. Geralt. River. Geralt. Geralt. Geralt. Geralt. It's Geralt. It's like Geralt with a hard G.

55:52Geralt, but and it T Geralt. Geralt. Geralt. Like Gary. Saying Geralt so many times I just, it's lost all meaning. Pretending you're going to start with Gary. Gary. Geralt. Geralt. See, that's the thing is again, if you're just joining this, ongoing debate since 2015, I feel like I'm saying it right. And so then when I do it wrong, it's just like, Ruff, I think I'm saying Ruff, right? And then you're nailing it with Geralt. But I, here's the thing I want you to know, the bit starts and stops with when I say the wrong version, I don't know what I'm saying wrong. I don't care. The wrong version is when you go Geralt. Geralt. Geralt. Geralt. Geralt. Sometimes. Yeah, you're putting up this was on the second part of the word versus the first. But I would even say Geralt. I would even say Geralt is better than Geralt. I say that sometimes when you were doing the first time. Yeah, you did it. No, I mean, damn, you know, it's all Greek to me. Sometimes it gets you. And I've played like 50 hours of this game. I watch season one of the show. I adored it. I can't

56:54fucking say the words. Geralt. Geralt. Madeline, where can everybody keep up with you? Yeah, you can find me at twitch.tv slash mad exposure or on Instagram over there too for some fun photos. And yeah, those are the places or maybe here. I don't know. You can find Madeline all over. Kind of funny. Of course, yesterday Madeline put up her Halloween review so far as a Gregway. Today she put up Madeline went to Texas for kind of funny as her Gregway, a 15-minute vlog. She did there in Austin doing all sorts of stuff. And most importantly, next week, Madeline is in the office Wednesday and Thursday. To be on all sorts of content, most importantly, two Halloween streams we're very excited for. So yeah, follow Madeline here. Don't support her on Twitch. No, no, damn. No support. Maybe on Twitch either. Oh, say that. Damn. Hey, I'm sorry guys. He's getting cutthroat out there. All right. For time chief, you just gotta make something snowing around it. Of course, support everyone on other Twitch and other projects and other personal things. And of course, like, subscribe, share, ring the bell. If you got am is on prime, you got to wish prime. Give it to one of us three.

57:56It doesn't matter. Maybe the guy you know, 20 years doesn't matter. It doesn't, you know what I mean. And of course, pick up a membership patreon.com slash kind of funny YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Apple Spotify. Get everything we do. Add free. Get your daily dose of me. And of course, really get your daily dose of Madeline. Two for two here. Back to back. And of course, get good karma first one. That's what they want. Next week you can take the whole thing over. Do it. You can of course get good karma supporting us. But for now, until next time, it's not a pleasure to serve you. Bandool is now available everywhere in the US. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are. Including these places. May this year, most rewarding season ever with fan dual agent location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. See fan dual.com for eligibility gambling problem called 1-800-Gemmar.