PAX East ’18 Repisode

[Music] hi everyone Welcome to our PX East 2018 wrap-up episode I am joined today by Jenna and James hey guys hey hello I don't know why I sound so like fabulous right now maybe it's because I enjoy pack so much I guess I just enjoy pack it's the East Coast mentality starting to get to man living here a couple years and it's just kind of that Val starts slipping in I got to make sure I don't lose my Australian accent do it again but more Australian I'll go to make sure I I lose my Australian accent the whole int int again but more of oh good day how you going uh Welcome to our PAX East wrapup repode repode and [ __ ] repode that's how we talk down under mate nailed it yeah no that was that was

fantastic that's the one so thanks for joining us everyone yeah if you went to PX I guess you can listen to us talk about some games that you would have seen there if you didn't go to PX you can live through us as is you want PAX East is so freaking huge it's just [ __ ] enormous and I don't have many packes have you been to another packs other than East I know you've been to unplugged yeah yeah so I've only done pack East and packs unplugged uh PAX East I think I've done maybe three or four times now okay yeah um size of it it's it stayed the same size but it's just it's massive you know and what kills me is the lines you know if you want to see any of the big games you're waiting in lines for hours to be able to test the stuff out this year too A lot

of the games that those booths say like uh Playstation or Xbox were demoing are games that are already out so you you don't really have to wait in line you could just go home and play them they didn't have yeah well Detroit was there which was which is not out yet and that was kind of like a I guess a you know like a major release that's coming up but there weren't a huge amount of them there's a new World of Warcraft everyone was into but uh I think those were the two biggest games there apparently Telltale announced a new Walking Dead or something um but I didn't see them there did anyone see Telltale there no I didn't I uh I saw the signs up for them but I mean I'm going to be honest at this point Telltale just kind of Blends into all the other ttal for yeah someone

told me afterwards oh did you see the Telltale announcement I was nope guess I was did you looking at all the other stuff I didn't there is a lot happening there though there's no way that you can like ATT packs you can't you can't see and do everything and it's 4 days now and you still can't it flew by for me it same for me too and uh I do feel like I was a little more exhausted at the end of it no definitely and I think the panels have been getting better as well as years have gone on and to me that's that's one of the biggest draws now is you know originally when I started going to packs it was all about the games what I could see what I could test what I could play now I'm enjoying the panels almost more than that preview of the games because in the the gaming world most of

these previews exist already you know you can already see it you can already test it you know if you just want to see the game you can jump on Twitch and see it someone will you know like they they give them out early they you can see people playing it uh if you want to try it out I guess it's worth you know showing up but I don't know but the panels I agree I um uh I'm super into the Acquisitions Inc live panels uh I love that they did a really good job of that this time that was an awesome one this time yeah yeah you guys told me all about that made you watch it later yeah no it was really cool I I've always loved the panels I love listening to people who have made the games talk about them I do feel like there weren't as many of them or the ones this year

were more about the YouTubers playing the games rather than the people who you know rather than the developers coming out and talking about them actually was really missing the gearbox panel this year yeah yeah they didn't do one maybe that's because they're in crunch mode on Borderlands 3 and so they couldn't venture out I'm going to assume that's what it is I'm going to hope that's what it is yeah that better be what it is you guys keep telling me how amazing their panels are in the first year I plan to go they don't have one I know well if I recall last year was where they showed us footage of the mysterious game that they wouldn't say the name of which is was obviously Borderlands 3 right that was last he definitely I mean he came out and said you guys know what game

this is I don't have have to tell you I just not ready to officially release it yeah yeah yeah that was a PS so I guess it kind of fits that maybe maybe they maybe that's what they're doing they're actually literally working on it that seems very feasible given that so we can help cross yes but the penny arcade panels are always great yeah I love them Penny Arcade was really good um a couple of the ones that I went to that you guys didn't go to uh for independent game designers they had a couple really cool panels uh the idea of whether you should find a publisher for your game or whether you go independent um you know publish yourself run a Kickstarter what is that looked like and those conversations were with developers who had gone through the process themselves so it was really

great to hear from a variety of people a variety of experiences and really give you some insight if you want to join this world what does that look like you know what are the challenges you're going to face and how do you overcome them that's excellent you know the reality is when you decide to to make an independent game uh in that tabletop World Kickstarter is kind of known as the go-to path to to get that out and it's huge right now but there's a lot of other ways you can go um and getting in touch with local publishing companies or even some of the major publishing companies can be a hard route but at the end of the day pay off better because it truly is less work at the end of the day to do that than it is to try and run a true full Kickstarter campaign yeah

Kickstarter is tough we ran a small one and I guess I just we've talked about this on the show before like it was just a little thing to make a we wanted to summon the ghost of Steve Jobs you know as you do and you can watch still if you'd like yeah it's on our YouTube channel and it was successful and it got funded but just the I guess the management of it it can be really intense and I and we didn't do a whole lot of research it was kind of just a thing we did in spur of the moment because people suggested it and then but just you basically that kind of thing can be a full-time job pushing a crowdfunding campaign so oh yeah any kind of social media like that yeah you know the the biggest lesson these guys are telling you is if you do decide to

run a Kickstarter the entire time that kickstarters open you know that month that it's running that's it that's all you have time for if you're not 100% on top of it it's not going to be successful yeah yeah I to like I said even our little little shitty one we did for our film was it was uh it was Heavy workload involved with just keeping yeah and there were a lot of out of pocket expenses anyway once we gave out all of the um yeah that's the other thing you're going to do a Kickstarter don't uh don't promise merch that costs more than the kickstarter you usually want to figure out those financials before you set everything up just Lessons Learned Lessons Learned James James just lessons you know yeah Le yeah life life lessons life lessons yeah Financial lessons but

um yeah so moving on from from your own way of publishing games let's take a look at some of the games that were out there today we were looking at you guys got to take a look at one of the the horror games there called a mure um now I didn't I didn't check this one out what was this game all about I had play through the demo of this it is a an adventure game uh by wither Studios it's a video game uh and it's coming to PC and I think they plan to bring it on other platforms at some point if it's successful uh it's like I said it's a s scrolling Adventure game where you're in the demo you're kind of a is it's got a very love crafty feel you're a guy who comes to this old mansion and and he's uncovering a mystery in this horrible creatures and you have to solve puzzles

and make your way through it's uh it was it was really cool the art style was really neat it's got uh like a cool cartoony but also horrific art style and uh yeah I believe it's coming out later this year I watched you play this and I um because I didn't have the headset on I didn't I didn't know what you were listening to but what it appeared to me was that you were kind of in a maze where things kept changing but it was the same location every time is that correct yeah so uh you interact with things either by walking up and you know opening a door but you also have like a uh you acquire abilities as you go along kind of supernatural abilities and and then you use those to interact with other things and you can reveal secret messages on walls and sometimes

when that happens the layout changes as well it's very uh like it's very love crafty very it captures kind of the feel of Madness like a dream where it's like well I went down this Corridor before and there wasn't a door there now there's a door there like I feel like it it captures that very well and yeah like you you can you walk to the left and then you find something and then you walk to the right and then the right doesn't lead back the way came anymore it leads somewhere else if you go to wither studios.com you can see it they got some screenshots and uh and you can watch a video of the gameplay there one game that I wanted to talk about and I have uh since PA I actually did not get to play this at PA but we returned to the booth multiple times and since then

I have been playing it and it's amazing and this is puss from Team coil so we were drawn to this booth with just the big puss over the uh one of the tiny Indie booths and it is a mess of just things floating on the screen um the demo reel had a cat riding a dolphin through a sunset this game like legitimately almost gave me seizures yeah try playing it it's one of those games where you can get intensely frustrated but want to keep going because it's it's so ridiculous and good I had been at work

all day and I tried to play it and I just couldn't do it it's just I haven't made it pass I'm still I mean the Demo's out now it doesn't come out until June um I can't I can't even get to the boss of the demo I think I've gotten two worlds away from it and I still just keep going back so the levels change every time the worlds change so it's totally random what you're going to get some of them are very easy all you do is move a little cat head to a little glitchy part of the screen so drag it with your mouse right yeah yep so some of them are just like an easy path to go you can't hit the sides of it otherwise it'll glitch out and then start you back over um and some of them just have [ __ ]

floating through the screen and everything's happening in the background this game is Bonkers yeah I if you if you go off the path it doesn't it's not like it's I don't even know how to describe it it it because it's like you know when the TV fuzzes and it's it's just oh God it's it's Insanity like every like it goes all fuzzy and and and zaps and and glitches and oh my God please everyone go get this the demo on Steam it'll be out in June but please please go play the demo just experience it at least once yeah um I mean I think one experience is enough to to tell me no on this I didn't even play the game I only watched it but there is no way I could play this game it's very difficult oh it is so trippy like I said I I cuz I I

work with computers I'm using a mouse all day I came home tried to play the game and I was just I was just like oh I can't do it right now I I am going to give it another shot when I when I'm not you know I'm not Mouse fatigued I guess is the right word uh because it's very oh God you got to be yeah so I mean it's this at that that difficulty level of like Super Meat Boy where it's It seems impossible but you know there's a way I actually think that puss is easier than Super Meat Boy I I'm so bad at that game Super Meat Boy yeah well I actually I started replaying uh the original Super Meat Boy on the switch after packs because uh I had the pleasure of experiencing Super Meat Boy forever the new game from uh from Tommy from Team

meet uh it is if you've played Super Meat Boy uh and you're familiar with it it's more of the same sort of uh but it is like an infinite he's constantly moving in this one right yeah it's like an infinite Runner yeah he's constantly moving and um levels are autogenerated right yeah so they're made up of of blocks of of of puzzle I guess so like there's there's kind of like uh I guess Lego pieces of level that contain a little puzzle pieces and then it randomly assembles them into a level oh I didn't realize that yeah every puzzle piece has essentially a difficulty rating attached to it yeah so as you advance in difficulty level you'll be getting more more I mean I guess puzzle piece is a great way to describe it more of these puzzle pieces at that higher difficulty

rating so you're hitting the same you could be doing the same level over and over again but be playing different levels every time do that make sense that that makes it harder because I feel like the way that you get good at Meat Boy is muscle memory yes and kind of like a trial by death thing I think once it's generated and you're playing it it sticks but the next time you play the game it's different so right it's kind of maybe not infinitely replayable but it's certainly quite replayable right and uh and and it feels good like it's got good you know cu the the one of the things about Super Meat Boy is the controls are always really solid like it feels like you're in control and and and when you it always felt like if you if

you [ __ ] up you [ __ ] up it's not like yeah I'm very good at controlling myself into a saw yeah like over and over but it's cuz you didn't react it's not because like the controls are bad or anything like that you know what I mean it always feels like ah I'm just not like I don't know I feel like it's they're very tight games and this feels the same like it's just very responsive and it feels good to play like control wise and it's hilarious because he's a boy made of meat what is the story behind this one you know what I'm not sure I I assume it's similar he seems to have a family now he's got like a kid but he's still still with bandage girl presumably and uh she's still being kidnapped by that [ __ ] in the in the glass Dome thing I hope he's still with her after

everything you went through in the first game well you know things Chang never know never know maybe he got bored uh we saw a really cool um paper folding game it's playable on a laptop and laptop it is definitely playable ex exclusively laptop exclusively laptop it's playable on PC and on iPads this is Koto uh it was actually made by some people uh Studio flip lived not very far from us in Sydney yeah it's weird that we didn't interact with them like stuff in Sydney cuz that's that's yeah it's weird it was a cute cute puzzle game uh kind of the art reminded me of uh do you guys remember a strawberry shortcake yeah yeah I I know

I know of that right well you um you can fold the paper in to to solve puzzles and and by paper you're really talking the screen itself so the game screen is the paper and you can fold Bend twist that and that's how you would solve the puzzles to move really really G um I actually saw a couple of similar style games at East where you're kind of folding paper and manipulating that to solve puzzles but I think quinoto really did the best job um of kind of harnessing that you know making that kind of I know a little bit of a magic to it right yeah at first I thought oh this is kind of weird but it it works like once you once you see it like what what what needs to be done you go oh okay and and it makes sense it's and the puzzles were really well done

like the artwork I guess really needs to be solid to make the puzzles work and and they nailed that I think yeah and it's pretty early on too I think she said that it would be at least next year before it's ready reminds me of one of those Mad Magazine foldings you know the back page of Mad Magazine do you guys have Mad Magazine I don't I know um we sold your horde few years ago you have that over here or is is that like a no you had Mad TV no we had Mad Magazine and Mad TV We we had you guys just magazine I personally did yeah I personally did not okay all right cool so I'm sorry I don't I don't know what you're talking about well hopefully there's a listener out there who knows what I'm talking about right in guys yeah podcast at

multi nasm.com all hail Mad Magazine so did you like did you fold the back cover of that magazine to solve a puzzle and move to the next level move to the next magazine yeah exactly yeah you weren't allowed to read the next one until you solve the the puzzle on the final page of the one before obviously how often did those come out I guess I want to say monthly maybe maybe B monthly or something like that oh so you had you had kind of a while to solve the puzzle yeah I did I did and then uh at a certain point I got stuck and then uh had to stop reading it again had to stop reading it and then they went out of business cuz yeah because no could Sol that cuz apparently I was the only [ __ ] person reading it another paper cutout related game that we saw briefly uh was

flipping death uh which we saw last year at PAX East as well um it they had it on show again this year it's still not ready uh which is disappointing because I really want to play it but uh it's by zoink uh and it's coming out in the switch uh I think maybe next year they weren't they they didn't really know yet so it's it's still uh still in development but it's it's the game I think we talked about this game last year yeah you play a character who uh you can I I think you are the Grim Reaper or you become the Grim Reaper or you get hired to be the Grim Reaper and you can flip between the living world and the dead world and the the the screen kind of flips around and you can see the front and back of the of the uh the backdrop CU you're all kind of paper

cutouts and then you solve puzzles by switching between the walls it's really cool uh and I'm looking forward to it yeah it is it is really cool while we're talking about paper cutting games um I think that we should bring up projection um yes we saw this game at e Expo in 2015 I believe yeah you can see uh a little our video on our YouTube channel about it we our brief St into uh YouTube clips of interviews yeah we interviewed uh Michael Michael the developer and made a little video it's on our YouTube and now he came all the way to PA East and the game like [ __ ] awesome game's looking beautiful it's so cool to see how it's changed in the past three years and it got a shout out from uh Mike From Penny Arcade because uh it's concept is so

clever like you you move a light source around and you can walk on the Shadows that are created by the objects and that's how you move around the levels it's just like it's just a super solid idea it's really clean it's really well done um so the controls you have a shadow puppet kind of a stick puppet that you're moving around you do that with your left stick and then with your right stick you're moving the light source and as that light source moves around the objects it creates Shadows that you use basically as stepping stones so you have to control both at the same time in order to overcome the different obstacles and kind of solve the puzzles throughout the game while you guys were talking with Michael I spent the entire time just playing that

game cuz it was awesome so I have no idea what you talked about I was just intensely trying to figure and play this game out it's amazing well mostly because he's from Sydney as well and uh and so a lot of it was just logistical stuff about you know being in America and all that kind of stuff but we did uh you know like he he got picked up uh Blowfish is publishing the game uh it's going really well he had he had to Port it over from from the previous engine he was on so that took a lot of work and uh and they've just been polishing and polishing it for uh for the last couple of years and uh I guess that's why it looks so good they've they've just really um he said that they with the levels and the puzzles and stuff like that it's quality over

quantity and they're trying not to just pack stuff in there it's it's all quality stuff as far as you know the puzzles and things go so yeah it's looking great um James you played a game that I thought looked really interesting uh Opus Magnum by Zach Tronics yes I did what which game was that that was the game where you were you had to place machine parts and you were giving them instructions oh my God that game yeah okay all right this game is really cool it's also really frustrating I only played like five minutes and I already got frustrated with it and slightly addicted to it which is why I walked away um you sure this is what puss is for me yeah is that

what it is is that puss for you like yeah yeah that I'm like God I can't take this but I I like it a lot and I want to keep going yeah no just basically the same reaction like God I [ __ ] I can't this is horrible I can't stop I need to keep going um so Opus Magnum is all about essentially creating assembly lines is really the easiest way to put it but you need to select the different parts of the machine you're going to use place them where you want on the the map um give them instructions Specific Instructions how far they're going to rotate when they pick something up when they drop something off what they connect to so it's it's a very it's a problem solving game you have to get items from Like A to B but how you get them there you need to essentially

program the machine to do it it is it's really cool um again you know I only played like 5 minutes cuz I knew if I didn't stop I wasn't going to stop but this is this is definitely something to check out just be aware that this is going to be a time suck you're going to sit down to play this for 10 minutes and then an hour or 2 hours is going to go by as you're just going through and building out what's happening do you guys you reminded me of uh did you guys ever play that I'm pretty sure it was a Sierra game the incredible machine and there was there a bunch of sequels to it but it was yeah it reminded me of that a little bit in that you had to build a machine to solve puzzles this one was more instruction based whereas that well well you still

have to build the thing but it had an instruction element seemed like a like a uh kind of progression on that theme anyway yeah it's definitely taken that like that base idea bringing it to that next level yeah you know and adding in almost a programming element to it right yeah yeah yeah it looks really cool yeah I'll check that out Zach Tronics I believe is the developer of that Opus Magnum looks really cool check it out I think it's out on Steam already actually I could be wrong about that you know what I should probably check before I say it you know what [ __ ] it since when are we if it's not just go to steam look for it you can put it on your your list yeah that's you wish list yeah and if it's not there then don't yeah and then email me podcast multip

nasm.com tell them and email zonics and tell them to get it on Steam exactly Jenna you got to play a game where you played as a vacuum cleaner correct yes yeah um rumu it it's so cute you play as a sentin vacuum cleaner that loves everyone and everything so your response to everything is cat as I love cat I love messes I love cleaning and you are being tested uh initially by the the smart house um who keeps telling you that the owners will be back soon but in the demo I never saw them um and you kind of start to think that there might be something up mean the Smart House in that demo you were cleaning up bloody messes well it was

was it was a vague resemblance to blood that could have been Jam that's true there was a piece of toast mhm well I kind of like that ambiguousness really it's like oh maybe it maybe there isn't something going on or maybe there is like that's pretty neat the voice acting is great um and it had a few different puzzles in it it it's just a really cute game and I'm in love with a vacuum cleaner anything in love with you yeah that's a rumu from robot house yeah there this one is on Steam MH that's out now I think right yeah yeah yeah check it out yeah that it looks really cool it's a cool little Adventure mystery game I

think uh definitely worth checking out yeah that one looked really interesting you were down there for a while yeah yeah while you were playing that we were checking out Fred collection that's that's out now on Steam right that's something you can grab immediately I I think the the original two frames are individually The Collection comes out in uh a bit later this year you can check out the original games yeah so this game this is a really cool kind of concept right um easiest way to describe it is that you've got a set of cartoon panels on the screen and they interact with each other as depending on how you place them so you you're starting in one point you need to end at another point and you have to swap and move the tiles around to get your character to interact appropriately

inside of every panel to make it safely from A to B that's a great idea really cool it's really cool um because you know as things connect through you'll suddenly realize like okay I need to have these two panels connected in order for them to make it there but it's got to come before this and after that and it's it's interesting it's a great puzzle setup um and the graphic are really neat I mean I don't know I just thought it was a really fun game yeah I like that it's clever like if you enter the panel from the left then you know he gets shot by a policeman or something like that if you enter it from the right he can run around the corner like it's just yeah it's very cool and each frame is I they actually have all the animations it's not there's nothing

cookie cutter about any of it it's all uh very handcrafted puzzles it's great yeah and every animation you know so for every frame there's an animation for every frame that you could possibly place before it yeah exactly yeah that makes sense right so it's not just like you know you put the two wrong panels together the guy just walks in and waves his hand and goes nope you know you see what happens and how that interaction goes to help you understand what you need to do yeah so it's almost worth doing it wrong just to see what happens in some cases uh we played Jenna and I played against each other in a game uh uh that reminded me of of the old uh halflife 2 mod the ship uh turns out that's because it was made by the guys who made the halflife mod the ship uh

who one of the guys we were chatting to uh it's murderous Pursuits by blazing Griffin and it is a descendant of that game but uh it's got I think more going on it's actually really cool you it's a multiplayer game you are assigned a Target to assassinate uh you you are also assigned as a target for someone else to assassinate and then you have to wander around the environment blending in uh to hide from your assassin while also attempting to find and murder your Target and uh you can if you stand in a position kind of marked then you'll perform the same kind of actions as the the NPCs so you look like a NPC and then as soon as you start walking around and kind of you know hunting it it it's going to become more obvious to the other players that you're not an NPC or

one of the the other players you know what I mean I mean does that make sense yeah yeah it makes total sense how many players can join in in a single match that's a good question I think quite a lot like cuz the the maps were pretty pretty big I think uh you know what let me check how many could in the ship it was it was a lot of people yeah one to one to eight oh and um if you're listening to this episode when it comes out um they are actually having an open Beta this weekend oh very cool and the game uh apparently unlocks on Steam April 26th so uh so it's it's going to be available really soon well that sounds fantastic that game looks really cool it it was fun and I think this would be a good game to um play with friends it's not a very long game you

can kind of jump in for a match or two well we played the ship quite a lot uh back in the day and it's like it's the same kind of thing you you're like oh what are you guys doing you want to play a quick game of motores like absolutely like it's it's a good fun game that's my uh reenactment of what will happen it's a good reenactment absolutely a fun game that's that's just how I speak about things yeah Matt you talked a lot about graveyard keeper while we were there um you know when I took a look at this I just saw it as Farmville for graveyards so maybe you can explain how it's not I see it as stardew Valley for graveyards which cuz stardew Valley I like but it's

not it it doesn't quite hook me because it doesn't have it's not set in a graveyard and I'm not a graveyard keeper uh what graveyard keeper has over stard Val is that it is set in a graveyard and you are a graveyard keeper so um know I think it's uh it's not quite exactly the same thing but it is like a you know top down kind of uh graveyard management simulator uh they call it the the the world's most inaccurate graveyard simulator or something like that I think uh it's by lazy bear games it's coming out uh hopefully later this year I've I've signed up for the alpha just CU I I just really like it it's just cool the Art's cool I like the concept it's like a goofy game of running a graveyard like you you got to you know you craft things

you solve puzzles you meet people do quests it's it looks really cool I think I have a hard time getting into those kinds of games um what was that uh what was the space one I just couldn't do it oh uh Starbound Starbound yeah and Terraria as well H yeah yeah yeah see I love all those games they're it's I love they're cool I like to just kind of chill and explore and have some fun in them and build a house and then live in the house that I built except in this house in this case I guess it's a grave I live in a grave I think if anything was going to get me into that style of game it would be graveyards yeah this one might turn it around for you we'll see we'll see when it comes

out uh we got to revisit a game that we have played played in the past uh well another example of a game we played in the past actually uh and and really enjoyed and actually uh uh they remembered us and uh it was kind of like a fun little reunion we got to play armed and gelatinas again th this game for me wins PX East this year so that's a heavy yeah no they might it's such with how many times we returned and I think I think we dominated that game for like half an hour no man that dude that dude showed up and kicked all our asses definitely wins paxis for multiplayer for me um but for overall

game I would have to go with projection okay but armed in gelatinous was just um it was amazing so much fun to play so I guess we've talked about we talked about on our PX Oz episode from a few years ago um basically you're a blob and you in the in like the primary game mode I guess you're a blob on the screen you collect guns from crates and shoot the other blobs and there's up to four players right yeah up to four players and as you collect guns your blob increases in size yeah it decreases in speed yeah decreases in speed makes it easier to hit but you also increase in health so it's it's very well balanced where you could be the largest blob on the screen and then suddenly just EXP exp and everybody's stealing the guns that you have yeah the guns go flying

everywhere oh man it's it's so much fun it's just go it's I it's you get a bunch of friends over on the couch and and shoot each other as blobs it's great there are a bunch of other competitive games on there too like uh we played the soccer one a lot yeah the soccer one actually makes me a little anxious when I play it cuz I'm bad at it and then it's I compare it to you know uh Foos Bowl tables I hate them they make they actually I get very I get anxious when I play them because I feel like I am not in control of what's Happening even though I am literally in control of what's Happening like I I will I will definitely give you that CU I mean the control is a little you know it's a

little loose which makes the the combat really fun but it does make the soccer a little harder um it's only because you're you have to kind of travel around the ball to push it in a Direction and other everyone else is pushing it and I'm just like ah it's like it's fun it's just uh yeah I just I'm it gives me that that's the same feeling as as fosb well aside from the anxiety I mean one of the benefits there is just that there's there's more replay value with this game you know it's not just a single mode anymore they've added a lot to it um they give you a lot of control the DodgeBall was DodgeBall was mad fun Dodge sick yes it is you know I mean even when you're just going in and you're doing that that free-for all

combat you can go through and pick out which specific weapons are going to be available um things like that right so it's little stuff that really makes the game more replayable a little bit more fun yeah a great potty game I honestly feel like I summed it up best uh when I said bracket pop Q7 in my pocket tweet yeah yeah that definitely that sums up that game yeah definitely definitely unra and uh Twitter posting from don't walk in tweet guys nice I played a a a crazy game that uh

at first I wasn't sure about but it like it won me over it's pixel ripped which is a VR game uh from aore I think I'm I'm probably not pronouncing that correctly Anna is the developer she's um she's from Brazil and she made this game uh for uh it was oculus rift that we that I played it on and you are playing on a handheld console inside the game but then because you're the chosen one the game comes out of the handheld console and into real life and it moves through these different game modes and at first it was it it was odd cuz I was I was in VR playing on like a Game Boy but just in VR and and I was like okay like it's it's a it's a cool concept but it's not

you know I wouldn't want to do this constantly and then as it went on uh there was a mode where you you have to play the game on the Game Boy while you're in class at school and you if the teacher sees you you get in trouble so you have to use a spitball gun to shoot spitballs and distractor and stuff I didn't like that that that part of the game I felt was a little I don't know that wasn't for me but then the game explodes out of the the console and then you're playing like this big like surround VR platform game and that was sick uh so and you have to use a spitball gun to to shoot stuff to get the character to move like in a it just and like it's like I I haven't seen ready play a one yet but I imagine like

it it's they they come from a similar place where it's like Nostalgia yeah it's that 80s throwback references um that's what this game was all about so while you were playing I actually got a chance to to kind of sit down and talk with a developer and a little bit um this game started off as her senior project um this is a woman who's like in her early 40s um I really hope she's in her early 40s because otherwise I just consed damn James we'll say late 30s this is a woman who's in her late 30s who's like probably 25 at most uh no I'm pretty sure she said she was 41 you know what [ __ ] the age yeah this is a woman from Brazil um so she did this as her senior project and then just kind of took it from there and started developing it um

you know what she said one of the things she loved is that because she was working on the solo if she got an idea she just kind of went forward with it just did it and put it into the game which is really cool but watching you play I could see that like maybe that that maybe that was a little overboard um cuz there were definitely times where it looked like you know you were playing one game then suddenly you were playing another game then suddenly you were playing another game and I MH I don't know personally I didn't feel like you had enough time to really get comfortable with any one of those style games before it exploded to the next section yeah I I don't know if that's uh because of the demo was trying to show you the the the overall concept like

that it does shift or whether that's how the game goes but yeah that is the true but then on the one hand it it meant that I got to move on from a that that kind of one section that I wasn't enjoying that much onto something else so that was a positive I guess for me like CU I understand the concept the concept is great it's just that I found I just wanted to play the game I didn't want to do the the metag game aspect of that as such like the the classroom aspect I don't know it's just I felt like there was there was too much going on for me but I mean maybe that maybe that like other people enjoy that the [ __ ] do I know this game had the coolest Booth they literally had the ghost traps from Ghostbusters 2 real on yeah like the legitimate ghost

trap under the desk under the desk too just hidden under there well in case a ghost shows up they found a company that does props for movies and had a bunch of 80s memorabilia stuff that they rent out for for films and TV shows and this is coming out in May so this thing Launches on May 22nd is when it hits yeah so that's you have a yeah Oculus VI and PS PlayStation VR mhm yeah so you you're going to need a VR headset to play it check it out it's a over-the toop Nostalgia crazy game like I don't think there's any other game like it so definitely check it out uh super giant games was there again this year they are my favorite game company they're the ones behind Bastion and transistor which are two of my

favorite games of all time py came out last year and I saw the demo there and I bought it as soon as it came out but I actually haven't gotten to play it until very recently um just like the last few days I was kind of inspired to play it after um hanging out at the booth a little bit and talking to Darren Corb the composer uh who we interviewed last year mhm he's a great guy we talked to him a few times this weekend py is great it's a little different than their previous games in that it's more of a an interactive story and I I know you Matt played the demo last year where it's kind of interpred with a a little sports game called rights yes um so it'll go through this this interactive story where you decide which way to go and you know who you side with on your Caravan

and then you'll go into this Sports thing which I'm actually terrible at but I am really enjoying the game anyone who likes super giant or just wants a game to play I would I would recommend checking this out and if you haven't played their games go back and play Bastion and transistor they are amazing yeah they just make good solid um thought-provoking games there and the the art music uh concept is always just like like I said just really solid they're all it's a very small team so everything is written together so the art style fits with the story and the music slots in to yeah it's all feels considered and intentional it feels like like OT yeah I was going to say before

we move on to talking about tabletop we really should talk about the the one competition that we joined up in yeah this is the first time I've ever done a competition at PS and I thought what better way to do it than a uh a high stress game that we've never played before in a high pressure situation so uh the game keep talking nobody explodes this has been out for quite a while now for for all of us it was basically the first time playing it and we jumped straight in we didn't do a demo uh we we did the the competition yep I'm glad we did it that way actually yeah you know what we did all right well you guys did yeah you two did all right no you did all right too now me the James is we we lost the jameses I forgot about that but we

actually we watched um a little bit like Matt and I stayed back after we got kicked out and watched a few more rounds and there were about five teams that just went on forever until I think it was like another hour and we're like no we can't watch anymore we've got we got somewhere else to go well we had to go play Thorn watch that's right we could talk about Thorn watch as well since since it's literally being printed but uh yeah keep talking nobody explodes you got to disarm a bomb one person has the manual the other person has the bomb and you got to explain to the other person how to disarm it I'm sure listeners are probably familiar with yeah it's been out for years now it's a great game it was great it was great if you haven't played it play it

yeah I don't think I can't it can't be expensive it's like a and I think it's available as a board game too right or am I mistaken about that I've never seen it as a board game yeah I think one of them has to be in some kind of virtual form yeah I don't think it's a board game yeah I think I definitely think you lied about that I mean you can get the uh the manual printed out yeah you can print the manual right off their website podcast at multiple nasm.com tell me I'm a no subject line Matt is wrong yeah again so um so while you guys were finishing watching that I was off learning the rules to Thorn watch so that I could teach you how to play and run you through the G mhm um yeah if we haven't

said this before uh James is our rule guy yeah so anytime we have a game that we don't know how to play or we could easily learn but don't want to we just give it to James yeah and then we play a game while he learns how to play the next game yeah it's uh it's an honor I guess really to to be that guy you know every group should have a James they should every group should have a James I got to tell you I sat down at the table to read the rules and I had like six or seven groups of people come over and be like hey are you going to run a demo every time I was like no guys I'm just here learning the rules for my friends who are off having fun so I could play the game with that but um there is a photo up on our our um Instagram and Twitter of James

learning the rules true yeah element let's speak of the rules to Thorn watch first right um they're they're pretty clean this game did not take me long to to learn uh the mechanics are relatively simple uh it's it's a game that's designed to be run by a player so you'll have a multiplayer game I think it's like up to four players no six you can have up to whatever six or five players look on the website they'll tell you how many players you can have um but one person make the game I definitely did not make this game one person is what's known as the judge so they control the game um and you're you're almost dming in a sense but you're really just helping the story move along you do get to play at the enemy um and you can make it as

difficult or as easy as you want for the players of the game what I really liked was simple clean mechanics um a lot of different Mission types and styles inside of the game but a it's a storyline that really unfolds and it it tells a story which I think a lot of games kind of miss out on you know they'll get that one shot play or that really interesting thing this game tells a story that unfolds as you progress and you can change the direction of where that story goes as a judge as the person running the game that's one of the things that you get to do is kind of direct where these players are going to go and what they're going to encounter this was similar to Apocrypha too that we talked about in the um uh the packs unplugged episode where you

can roleplay this game as much or as little as you'd like because the cards do offer prompts and you can just use that as and play it as a board game or you can really get into it and play it as a tabletop RPG yeah like if you've got friends who want to get in and and kind of be the characters and and kind of roleplay dungeons of dragons style kind of and and and you know quip and carry on you can do that or you can just put the cards down and roll dice and play it like a you know Monopoly or something yeah and this was the what we were playing James's favorite game What U what we were playing with was the very first printed editions of the game and by very first I mean Thursday morning at paxes they unwrapped

the cellophane of these games and that is the first time the Publishers saw the final printed version of the game so it was really cool it was really interesting to see it was a ton of fun to play really really a privilege guys yeah yes it was a privilege my uh my copy arrives soonish I guess since they printed them now uh I backed it on Kickstarter it will be coming to us soon and then we have one more game to add to the stable yeah I know it's going to be cuz we we need more games yeah it's going to arrive and then it's going to sit on a shelf until we're done with all the other games that we've been playing yep speaking of other games that we've been playing we got to play the new release from Atlas games oh cursed Cor yes which that game is really good I

just wish Alex didn't suck at it I am sending this to him yep no you can send that right through hey Alex let your friends listen so we got to they were demoing this at uh at PX unplugged and we sore we didn't get to play it because it was there was you know like a they filled up the demoing it the whole weekend but uh we actually got to challenge them the guys from Atlas to a bunch of games over the Pax East weekend which was fun it like super it was a great group it was great playing with them yeah and it's a fun game like it's really fun like it's it's simple to learn but you difficult

to master yes I actually and I guess that's how I'm going to describe the other board game that we came home with a copy of from fa East but yeah that's uh that is what I like about it like yeah what it's you can learn what you have to do easily it's just it's not as everybody learns to be better at it it just gets harder and harder because yeah you screw each other over so you you bet on uh on whether certain cards are or are not going to appear uh and Bas that's basically the just of the game is that you have to bet this was like poker in board game form kind of yeah that's a good point really sort of James will now give a very eloquent explanation of the game this is honestly a game that you kind of need to watch being played or play itself in

order to fully understand but just know that the game is really fun yes and the guys from Atlas except for tra no Travis was really good Alex was the one who Su geez I'm just saying zero points in the first round come on well I love you Alex I'm sorry Alex we had a great time playing with you I'm just throwing that out there as much as possible so hopefully one of them gets into the podcast now the other game you picked up um cuz you guys only purchased two games right was ilat and this was a game I'm sorry how many did you purchase me zero this is the first time I went to a convention and bought zero games you have no idea how happy my wife was when I got home so uh ilat right this was this is a

game developed by the decemberist the band yes which is interesting um no no that's that's they said that too the the two two together Studios kind of put it put it together as a game in the end and and he even said when he was describing it to us they got the call and said oh you know you know the band of The Decemberists they've come up with a board game and he was like oh great let's he the the board game that the band came up with and then uh yeah it's a [ __ ] excellent game it is really cool apparently they would um they came up with this by playing card games on their tour bus and um wanted some really old Pub

like feel yeah it's very very old it looks like tarot cards it's really cool yeah it yeah it feels very old world and I I love that the the box is part of the game like it's it comes in a box that you require to play the game like it's a feature of the game I love that and the board itself is great um because the box is very small so you it is portable it comes with a fabric board that unfolds you you don't have to carry around this big game like so many other games yeah I mean when you described that as a game that that you would think you could find in an old bar it like legitimately you could take this game to a bar and play it it is it's small it's compact it's fun it's really easy to play it's really easy to set up and the Box being part of the game means that

you don't have something you need to push to the side it's it's all right there it's great it's really really well done and it's deep too like it's like again it's the more you play it the more strategies you come up with I suck at this game yes you do except I won when we played it here so it it's yeah no you can't really say you suck cuz you did win I don't suck at this game podcast at multiple ner gm.com wait wait did you know you were winning no maybe you do suck yeah I think I do he sucks I accidentally won I I definitely thought I was sucking at it and uh and then towards the end I realized what I was doing wrong but apparently I should have just stuck with whatever it was I was doing in the first place so because it

worked yeah yeah you guys I'm looking at how many albums The Decemberists have and it's blowing my mind i' had not heard of them before this I'm not a huge fan like I I have won from apparently from 2002 uh and I I really haven't listened to them since and they've they have a whole world of albums now I should I mentioned that we the reason we checked out this game in particular uh was because Patrick rothus mentioned it during his excellent panel and uh gave it a good rap so that's one of the things that led us to to try it out um that was a really good panel and if you don't know who Patrick rothus is Google him and then read his books and then enjoy him like I enjoy him that sounds weird that did sound a little weird yeah yeah but I don't I feel like he wouldn't

dislike that so well I mean I don't know if he would like that but you're right he wouldn't dislike it yeah I think I think he'd be okay with that now one of those games that that I don't think was super indepth but was a ton of fun was organ attack from awkward Yeti mhm that was a fantastic game so we got to test play that um now I've heard of this a couple of times one of my cousins has it he loves the game he was telling me about it so I was pretty excited to sit down and actually play it and we played with Ryan from Awkward Yeti yeah it's like a another I guess kind of party quick uh card game where you basically try to destroy each other's organs with disease and what I love about the game is that these diseases are not like the designer didn't just sit down and

make up these diseases like the guy who designed this game took medical books out researched diseases that would actually kill these specific organs and created a game using real diseases yes yes it's very cool and it comes in a uh a box that looks like a medical book yeah it looks like um The Merc manual for anyone familiar with with medical books no idea what that is yeah what is The Merc manual it's a medical book sounds like something the medical book of illnesses and diagnoses diagnoses that makes a lot of sense now H it looks like a cool book yeah yeah no that's a fun game um yeah check it out it reminds me of uh uh

there was a game we played at PX unplugged uh that I've forgotten the name of oh that game that was really good I have no idea what it's called yeah not not the same but similar in theme where you're playing to to to knock out uh your opponents was it super fight no no no wasn't this one where you were trying to get diseases and kill yourself oh yeah oh you're absolutely right you're absolutely right yeah it was it was almost like an inverse of listen to the Pax East episode and we'll tell you all about that game yeah podcast at multipl nerd.com let us know what [ __ ] game we played we'll tell you how great it was what the name was everything you need to know on that Death Wish yeah it is was it Death Wish No Death Wish is a movie no oh both it's both did you look

that up on the multiple NM website where we could have easily just looked that information up absolutely did yeah podcast TW mm.com there's some Star Wars games that we played cuz you have to play Star Wars games and they're from f FY flight because when you play a Star Wars game it has to be from Fantasy Flight yes exactly it's required these days actually I think it literally is required I think yeah I'm not joking about that that was it has to yeah you played Destiny right yeah so I got to play uh Star Wars Destiny which is their card SL dice collecting um game um this has been out for a while now so it's no big surprise if you if you've heard about it but this was my first chance to

sit down and play it um overall I'll I'll just start off with a couple things one I really do not like player vers player games or single player vers single player just because when I play games I like to sit down with a group of people and it's I don't have that one person that I'll sit down with and want to combat with like that just doesn't happen um but I wanted to play this game so I could get an idea of the mechanics the feel the balance uh see how well they did with it and I loved it I think they did a fantastic job um it is another collectible card game except now you also have dice thrown into the mix on top of the cards and the the fun part about that versus something like magic the Gathering you know if you're playing Magic you know what your

cards are going to do and they're going to have that same impact every single time there's no real luck to what the card does it's just whether you draw that card or not whereas in this game you now have that dice element so you could have an amazing setup and have a shitty roll and it just Falls to your opponent or you know that Vice first could happen you you know your opponent could have something amazing set up with cards have a couple of shitty roles and suddenly the whole thing is switched to your side so I I like that I think it adds that little bit of element of risk surprise um you it just it was a really fun game well balanced great to play I'm never going to own it I actually I didn't realize that it was a like a collectible game cod game I

thought you kind of just bought the game and then you played it but it's it's more like magic where you kind of buy boo booster packs and all that kind of stuff yeah exactly yep so you get the you get the core game um every booster pack is going to come with one card that has a die with it and then a bunch of other cards so every time you get a booster pack you're adding dice to your collection and the dice are associated with specific cards and you know as traditional Star Wars you can go light side or you can go dark side you know you can go Empire or Rebels with it yeah you can go Empire or you can suck pretty pretty much yeah that's that's how it works I didn't realize this was a collectible I that actually makes me glad that we never got into it yeah me

too I was just thinking that like oh that was that was close there I almost bought it a couple times a bullet yeah speaking of dodging a bullet I so far I've managed to avoid getting sucked into this next game we're going to discuss but I man this game is like the bane of my existence and I've never played it because you want it so badly I want it so bad Star Wars Legion it's beautiful yeah the figure the figures are so [ __ ] cool it's it's I mean if you've played X-Wing you know it's the same thing but it's the you know ground troops and stuff basically oh and vehicles it's like uh land battles I guess is that how you would describe them yeah

but Space Battles are cooler space are really cool yeah but Darth Vader this say Darth Vader uh you can get a tie advanced in X-Wing yeah but then I got to pretend that Darth Vader's in there with this one right there he's right there no he's only in it when you use Darth Vader pilot card CU all the ships have pilot cards that come with them yeah with this he's like right there on the board yeah he's an actual miniature that you get to play with and like kill Luke with yeah yeah yeah so it's yeah you you it have you ever played like Warhammer James I I haven't have you no that's and I was goingon to ask right because no no I I cuz I it reminds me of what I think

that's probably like do they measure like 100% yeah this game reminds me of what I feel like Warhammer 40K is yes know if that's true good well as long as I'm not the only one but no cuz I wanted is because with with Legion right so it's Star Wars miniatures you put the Miniatures on the board uh you have cards that dictate what the Miniatures can do and how much health they have and you roll dice to see damage uh it's it it can get quite involved so I don't think we're going to be able to cover all the rules here but that's the general concept but when you move them around you have to measure the distances with like these little sticks like like you do in X-wing miniatures and I just wondered in cuz I know in war hammer and

stuff I think they just measure with like a ruler right and move stuff yeah so they measure with ruler tape measure things like that I mean it's at the end of the day it's the same thing right it's measuring how far it can shoot what that range is or what that movement's going to be um one of the things that I like about Star Wars Legion which is identical in uh X-Wing uh Miniatures is that when you have ships they have basically little preset flight paths right like you choose what that path is going to be and it's always going to turn on this angle type of deal yeah um so it adds just kind of a an element of strategy to the game mhm yeah and at the end of the day it's Star Wars It's prepainted Star Wars

miniatures painted guys and once again everyone the email is info@ multipl nerdgasm tocom and you can tell Matt how Warhammer is played yeah actually some do that for us or Matt at multiple nerd gm.com there's there's a lot of ways to get in touch with me m nerdgasm on Twitter multiple nerdgasm on Facebook multiple nasm Instagram uh go to multipl nasm.com go to multip nasm.com merch buy some merch support us on patreon patreon.com Multi nerdgasm uh there's one other board game we tried out that I believe uh you were you were pretty Keen to to try it out Jenna I was um this was The Buffy Legendary game um we have played James you actually own the Marvel

one and as much as I like Marvel I like Buffy better I wanted to see how this one played it is very similar to that one yeah honestly I don't think I would buy it it's a good game but I would probably go with a different just not Buffy on this one what up so I remember you telling me there were a couple of issues like with with characters or something there were a few things um one of which is that they're kind of spread through every season the cards that you get so you can build up things like Xander from season six to fight uh the big bad from season 1 which just doesn't you just can't can't get there mentally exactly um um the thing I honestly the thing that I personally had

the biggest problem with um you know that card that you can just if you have like two monies you can just buy the cheap card that like does nothing really and is like counts for like one little fight yeah I know what you're gonna say I know what you're gonna say I feel like there are so many characters that they could have used for this card that's just hey let me assist you in a fight I'm not going to be very useful but at least I'll be something and they they chose Felicia Day who is in like a couple of episodes as a useless potential Slayer and also I hate her so wow don't hold back podcast at multipl nerd.com if you're listening Felicia

Day he's not listening so no so your issues with the game where one fici is in it fici is in it period yeah that fici is in it at all that the whole yeah totally but I I also feel like it wasn't as immersive as a buffy story it just felt like a buffy skin on an already established game right um because you're still playing on the purple playmat it's it doesn't it doesn't really feel like it's so bringing anything Buffy to to life yeah so it didn't improve the game any and it and it the way it handled The Buffy stuff was a little weird mhm yeah fair for True Buffy fan definitely not the way to go no but if you want a legendary card game because essentially all the legendary card games whether it's alien firsts president sorry alien

vers I would play that alien firsts president is a really good Independence Day um alien verse Predator uh Firefly Marvel Buffy you know they're all all legendary games they all use the same core mechanic so it's it's picking kind of the theme that you enjoy the most uh Marvel has by far the most expansions for it so if you want to get a game that has continuation and more variability in it probably that'd be the Marvel game but if you're not if you love Buffy but maybe not Jenna love Buffy that could be the way to go sure look if you love Buffy I have another Buffy board game or if you Felicia Day it is much much better oh yeah if you love Felicia Day maybe both is the way to go there's like a 100 cards with her face on them I feel like if you love Felicia Day this

podcast is not for you all right Luke loves Felicia Day he's he's literally on this podcast most of the time I I like Felicia Day o oh [ __ ] was it do I need to take that back no all right I I've met Felicia Day I got trouble off Luke for talking to her because he told me I wasn't allowed to talk I guess it's just me [Laughter] guys Jenna at multipl nerd.com so that concludes our uh a Felicia Day episode of uh theer podcast and also the PX East wrap up for this year I believe we saw a lot of stuff like so much stuff and I'm sure we've left little things out here and

there you know we saw performance by Darren Corb and uh and a string quartet which was really fantastic an amazing Warrior Waluigi cosplay uh that was you see that on the Instagram that was fantastic uh it's a great weekend Oh speaking of the cosplay I'm going to be honest I was I was not overly impressed like I normally am with the cosplay yeah I liked that Indiana Jones that we saw when there was Indiana Jones and dressed as the boulder following her around that's Indiana Jones well guys if you're listening to this send us an email let us know info@ multiple nerdgasm what do you want to hear more about do you want to know more about the games do you want us to bring interviews back do you want to know more about the panels um if you want take a look at what's going on at

PS when they appear what's happening shoot us an email and tell us what you want us to go to and check out and if we can make it happen we will unless it's a YouTuber we're not going to do that if there's a convention that uh that you know of that you think we should check out let us know cuz we uh we go to a bunch but we're always looking for cool new things to to check out thanks for listening and uh and if you were at PAX East uh we hope you had a good show A++ wood packs again well always always yeah y contractually obliged

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