PAX East 2017 Wrap-up Episode

hi it's Jenna and Matt here from multiple nerdgasm for our PAX East 2017 wrap-up episode and we're joined by our friend James hey how's it going why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself James so uh my name is James obviously as Jenna said uh huge gamer have been for years uh amateur board game designer in the process actually starting a couple of companies in that vein um so Pax to me is as much a bus bus Venture as it is just kind of learning about all the cool stuff that's out there great sweet yeah PAX East is the the biggest of the paxes and I think it's actually the biggest gaming convention in North America now uh particularly um because it's got tabletop and video games I think it gets like double the numbers because of that

uh and I think the venue is actually physically the biggest is that correct I'm not sure about in the US it's definitely almost double the size of pax Australia which we've done coverage of before yeah the show floor itself is like more than double yeah Luke and I have been to Pax E before that was 3 four years ago I think it was in 2013 we went and I remember thinking it was big like compared to because I've been to PX Prime uh we've been to PX Oz at that point I think uh actually I don't think no paa didn't exist at that point did it no I think that was just before I think that was the first year yeah uh but I've been to P Prime and I remember thinking PAX East was like huge and but this year was even bigger like there was not there was no space anywhere for anything like

it was full they filled up that whole Convention Center which is crazy yeah there was not much space to move around no we attempted at at one point to find a table to just sit down and play some board games and we couldn't find any like there were no tables available like that's never happened at a Pax for me oh that happens at PAX East all the time oh does it yeah no this isn't my first time at PAX East for some reason I get Super Lucky in like 3 days before the con start somebody gives me tickets so it's been awesome for the past couple years um but yeah so this is kind of How We Roll on the East Coast here which I know is new for you guys coming from down in Aussie yeah the convention is always slammed we got there at about 10:30 doors opened at 10:00 and we waited an

hour outside to be able to get into the place um just in line to get through security which is insane yeah but panel start then yeah panels do start then I mean it's it's packed if you want to be in there on time you're showing up at 8: in the morning to be the first one in line you know it's just kind of how it rolls but that's why you want to buy multi-day tickets that's a lot different from PX Australia where everybody lines up inside and then gets ushered in all at once yeah I think in the US um there's a little bit tighter security restrictions that they're trying to run everything through it's not cuz there's a threat out there but it's because we're paranoid as hell that does make it very difficult when you're trying to get several hundred thousand people through

three lines of bag checks yeah I don't think we we don't have metal detectors or anything at odds do we you just walk in no I mean they make you check like if you've got fake weapons they'll make you yeah they do the the weapons check where you actually get a tag for your fake weapon and everything yeah exactly yeah also the it snows outside here uh which is a little different cuz it's freezing and whereas in Australia you just sweat to death while you're waiting right last year Pax e was held at the end of April which I think is probably a better time because it's a bit warmer okay I didn't know they shuffled it around like that I think it's just whenever the convention center is free yeah it wasn't that bad this year eventually we'll become locals and we'll stop complaining about it yeah

guys I mean the temperatures really weren't that bad I don't think it was below freezing it was what like 35 that day no something around there and then with only a slight wind chill for being in Boston on the Friday in the morning when we were waiting outside it was snowing and we had to wait in the snow that was a bit that was cold so I prefer that to the heat I don't know I guess I'm a New Englander it's probably only about like 80 85 when you're in PAX Australia yeah yeah well that's what I'm saying would you rather wait in line and be chilly or wait in line and be sweaty and nasty when you finally get inside but you don't have to wait in line outside I think Pax Australia feels a lot bigger because it's along the river where there are a

bunch of restaurants and other things to do so you don't have to stay within the convention center yeah uh that's pretty cool PAX Prime is like that too because they don't have one venue that's big enough to to contain packs in Seattle so it splits across a number of like there's a Convention Center there and there's also a bunch of hotels in the area that have you know like you have the the panel rooms upstairs say at at PAX East those would be in a hotel next door kind of thing in in Seattle at least that's how it was when I went I don't know if it's moved venues or anything since then but it was pretty different in that sense cuz you you had to leave and cross the road even up the street I think at one point to get to all the different panels is uh kind of

crazy oh wow yeah so they really spread it through a couple of different venues to put it together yeah yeah it's just it's too big to contain within one they've also extended it to 4 days yeah well that was in uh that was in 2011 that I was there so that's six years ago and like I said I P when I was at PAX East I didn't think it was as big as it is was this year so I kind of imagine how big Pack's Prime is now maybe we'll find out in September hopefully fingers crossed oh hopefully Matt you mentioned how busy the tabletop area was were either of you guys able to play any games yeah um I was actually able to demo uh a couple games um one of which I'm super psyched about and the other I don't think is worth talking about so right well maybe we won't mention

that one then that's usually how it goes what was the good one good one is uh Evolution from Northstar games these guys have been around for a while um it's a great company they produce kind of more of that familyfriendly game they do some of the the party games some games a little more focused on slight education you know like learning something out of the game which is kind of cool um Evolution um I kickstarted this game when they first launched [Music] the developers over at Northstar they've always done a great job and they just kind of keep pushing things forward in that direction so it's really neat to see cool is it available now yeah um so Evolution uh the base game is available

now the expansion is available uh this is their second expansion first one was flight so this one actually adds the the temperature control aspect and then their newest one is evolution climate so you can buy Evolution climate as a standalone if you're getting into the game now that's going to be the way to go there's a conversion kit for those of us who have the original Evolution and that will just kind of take the cards we have and shift over to this new experience with the game but if it's your first time getting into the game just it's Northstar games and you want to look up Evolution climate Standalone that one game and you're going to be good to go it is absolutely fantastic cool sounds good we didn't get to play a lot of board games but we did get to see

some pretty badass gaming uh paraphernalia and there's a bunch of these there but my favorite of them was the geek tables badass gaming tables that like have drawers that pull out and you can attach cup holders and it's got a felt lining in it but you can put purse specs over the top so you can draw on they're awesome and you can buy all those elements individual too so you can modify it way after you've bought it yeah yeah so like if you're like oh my table's pretty good but it could you do with a big badass dungeon Masters setup at the end of it well you just buy one and put it on the end you you literally customize your table from the start with these guys um i' I've found Geek Chic I want to say 5 years ago at Boston ComicCon um and I

got to tell you one of the biggest fights at my wedding was trying to get this table put onto the wedding registry and I lost um cuz apparently I wasn't allowed to put a $4,000 gaming table on the registry but whatever that's a fight for another day um when you go to the website I mean you tailor craft what table you want what attributes you want on it the the different accessories it's absolutely amazing um I know these guys are backed up on orders so you do have to wait for it but the product is unbelievable I think they're pretty affordable too they run a bit expensive the more elements you want on it but the base model is pretty inexpensive yeah yeah no the base models are are great but you know I don't I don't go base go big go home what's the biggest table you got

you know if you're going to do it just do it yeah yeah what's the biggest table you got what's everything I could possibly get for it not only that but they're really pretty tables oh they're and when you have them closed up right when you're not using it as a gaming table it is an absolutely gorgeous dining room table Yeah you can hide your geekiness I don't know why you would but you can exactly just buy two of them use one to eat off and one to play games on you're going to do that you may as well just buy a normal table brilliant don't bother me with logic and then if you're going with a gaming table you got to get all the classy ass stuff um I don't know how long did you guys spend drooling over the warm W stuff the warm word stuff oh a while this was my first time seeing

them in person I picked one of the dice Towers up and it collapsed under pressure I actually thought I broke it because it's held together by magnets but I mean that's awesome because it's they're all totally customizable yeah every time I see them at a convention I I spend at least 20 minutes half hour literally just holding and dreaming about using them wormwood makes dice boxes dice Towers uh DM screens a bunch of stuff for tabletop RPGs they're amazing and then kind of following in that same as Geek Chic it's it's all about customization with these guys as well so um I know recently they had a Kickstarter out for their DM screens and you were able to custom build which aspects you wanted which pieces you're putting into it um there's a dice tower

that connects into your DM screen which is just awesome um so it's this this whole idea that you know geekd has really hit high level when people are custom crafting fine woodwork for us to work with and it's not a generic piece you're going to get you're going to get what it is you want exactly how want it I mean it's it's amazing yeah their stuff is great and you can customize all different types of wood as well they run a bit expensive but you're getting a very high quality product yeah they had a Kickstarter recently for for some of the dice Towers if I recall and I was very interested but then it was very expensive so I was like you know what maybe one day I DM and I was interested in their DM screens yeah they're

beautiful oh I've been dming for a little while and I am in love with their DM screens they're so good but apparently I need to get a job before I'm allowed to buy stuff like that I don't know I know weird rules I know right it's like going into debt for college isn't good enough I have to have a job as well and make money so wormwood if uh if you want to sponsor us yeah I guess we could review them or something we would gladly accept that the three of us actually play tabletop RPGs together I guess we could I guess we could take one if they if they're insistent about it yeah like stop calling us wormwood yeah yeah my my phone's been ringing off the hook I mean these guys know who I am they've been calling me every day they're like hey you DM all these great

games you got to use our stuff I'm like no buddy I really prefer using crappy cardboard it's cool one game we did uh pick up some expansions for while we were there was joking Hazard the S and happiness game and we were also lucky enough to get all our stuff signed by I think everybody involved in the creation of the game like the guys from Sid and happiness and also everybody involved in creating the game itself yeah and one of the guys who does the cartoon his signature looks like a dick so now our card has a little dick on it yep and it's it's a dick signature diat oh that's weird that's yeah that's so out of character for cide and happiness I know right that is a really fun game though listeners if you haven't played it um you should should get on

that mhm I do think there is the potential for this to go a little bit sour kind of in the way that Cards Against Humanity does when you first get it you play it to death and then it just isn't as funny as the first few times yeah yeah yeah I think uh similar with cards there's a period where the the the shock value of some of the cards that you're playing skews the game a little bit to begin with but then once everybody becomes familiar with what the cards are then it becomes more about using them cleverly rather than just putting down card that says Pac-Man uncontrollably goling come and then you win and you can make custom cards in this game too yeah what I loved about that game is that we've added a couple of house rules when I play it um one of

the rules as you guys know the way the game plays is you collect the card that you won so you know it tells you how many cards you've won um the rule that we have is that when you collect those cards they have to you have to create a comic strip with it and it has to be a logical comic strip and you can't win the game if the cards you collected don't create a logical strip so it adds like just another element of total goofiness and Chaos into the game um and it it's one of those games where you really can you know there's a set of rules for it but you can tweak this all you want and it it's got a lot of flexibility um I think it's got a lot more flexibility than cards Up Against Humanity really does just based off the way it plays yeah I agree well from the

from the tabletop side of packs which is really where I spent my majority of time um did you guys find I know you guys were off in the gaming world the video gaming world were you did was there anything else in the tabletop area that you found interesting or you were able to check out I did see the the uh the wizard dice that I backed on Kickstarter oh those are by poly hero yeah no I um I got to check those out and that was one of the things where I was really unhappy that I had zero budget um they were awesome see we got these way back when we uh when we did have a budget yeah so I got uh I got the wizard dice uh so we got two sets of those coming and I also got because because of the kickstarter I got a discount on the The Warrior ones as well so these are like custom

designed in the style of like whatever the class that they're they're of like as in role playing class like wizard uh the the Warrior One they've done before the next one is going to be the Rogue I believe and they've also designed a cleric set so like a lot of the the the Mage ones the wizard ones look like you know like a fireball or a there mag hat yeah like a or a potion bottle and all that kind of stuff and the warrior ones one looks like Shield one looks like a mace they like but they're they're all your standard you know Dungeons and Dragons seven set of seven dice that you would play with normally and uh yeah they come in a range of different colors which also I think uh you can vote on the colors on the kickstarter too when they do them um

they've done two on Kickstarter and the rest of them I believe they plan to do so if you get in when they're doing them you can choose the colors you can choose you know various odds and ends to do with them and they're really awesome now did you guys get to hold the dice at all play with them or do you just kind of see them and passing no they had a set of them uh like like one set out that you could you could actually check and you know like roll and play with it which was cool cuz I I'd backed them on Kickstarter but i' never actually touched them like I just saw them and was like I want those but to actually use them and go oh cool they actually really work and uh they look really awesome I just don't think as heavy as I'm comfortable with that was

my one call out on them is that the dice they made are they're plastic based they're not a resin base and so they're a little bit lighter weight and as awesome as they look it it it didn't quite feel right to me you know I'm not saying I don't want them cuz I want them cuz you know I'm playing an orc fighter and he needs some badass dice but the the weight scale just wasn't I don't know it was just it was missing that little something yeah fair enough I think they 3D printed uh them first so um I don't know whether they'll be able to adjust for that later or like the ones that were there I think were production ones though so I guess they they distill that that format maybe I think they 3D print the final ones as well cuz uh 3D printed stuff is very light so maybe that's why

yeah I don't know how I feel about 3D printing it's always like deceptively light yeah like uh the figurines and stuff that they sell at the conventions that have been 3D printed and used you go to pick it up and like it's way lighter than it should be based on the size of it I think that's all I got for tabletop I mean Saturday was probably the busiest day of the convention and we did try to play some board games um we went over there after the show floor had closed cuz the the tabletop area is open for another what 3 or 4 hours but the lines to rent board games was just like surrounding the full table like it would have taken forever so we were like yeah we could do this or we could just go home play a game yeah so we went and played Mario

Golf that's awesome yeah no um at this year's convention I only played a couple of board games um typically that that's my big thing is going there and getting to demo a lot of games uh that's actually where I discovered Sentinels of the Multiverse um which I think I got you guys into as well now um yeah yeah so that came from packs uh you know getting the chance to sit down and play uh and actually experience what the games are like before you you spend some money on it and then because it's me getting addicted and spending way too much money on it is kind of how it works um oh and for those of you who do play senel of the Multiverse they got the foil cards out there for the heroes now and they are absolutely gorgeous um I wanted to buy a set but obviously I kick

started the the full expansion with the box for everything so you know hopefully my Oblivion will be coming in sooner than later but their cards look amazing cool yeah I saw that they had a booth they had a booth I think they've had a booth at most of the paxes it sucks that tabletop was so busy this time because CU it's such a great place to meet other people um like there are always tournaments going on or you can just jump in and join some people playing a game at a table and it's it's a great way to meet people that enjoy playing tabletop games well that's why uh the Philadelphia Convention came into being really uh you know PS unplugged which is coming up in November in Philly and I'm I'm super psyched about that so that's going to be a whole pxs convention

really just focused on the tabletop sector um it's going to be interesting to see how that flows out it's the the first time they're doing it yeah I wonder if they'll they'll split them off uh or if they'll still or just kind of maybe shrink down the tabletop stuff cuz there was I mean this was there was so much video game at at this one like so much they maybe need the space INF future for it at east yeah and um I don't know about you guys but for me personally this year as compared to years past it didn't seem as organized um on the floor itself you know years past there seemed to be a very delineated line here's where tabletop ends here where video game starts and this year it kind of Blended together so it made it a little bit harder to work

the floor trying to check out what you want to see well yeah usually there's a partition between the two areas but this year there wasn't I think because they were just so stuck for space they just had to open up the entire floor right yeah yeah CU there was just so much stuff and like even up the you exit kind of out of the video games into tabletop for a moment and then all of a sudden you're back in video games it's like what the I think that was struggling to fit it all in and there were those two aisles down either on PC and I think PS4 but you play as uh a kind of uh person who died and then taken over the the yeah I think you you die and you take over the role of the Grim Reaper or the Grim Reaper away I think was the

premise and so you have to take over and you flip between the uh the afterlife where you can kind of move around and it's kind of a platform Style game when you're in the afterlife but then you can possess people and then flip and it flips the world around so that you're in the the you know the living world and you control people like you possess people to to solve puzzles and so the the afterlife is more of a platformer and then the real world is is like puzzle problem solving and it's just got really beautiful handrawn Graphics uh and the it was really smooth and it ran really well I'm surprised that it's like so far from complete cuz it just looks so great as it was I love the art style in this it's very bures yeah yeah as soon as we walked as

soon as we saw it I was like oh my goodness I'm going to want to play this so yeah that's uh flipping death by Z games uh and again it's very early so um maybe we'll see them at PACE next year maybe hopefully with the with the the final version now you said that was for the switch right Nintendo switch they were pushing it as a switch game but she did say that it was going to be on other platforms and I'm fairly certain PC and PS4 were amongst them I don't know about Xbox there seems nobody put stuff out for Xbox yeah I don't know what's going on there there were bunch of them that that like well we could talk about it next if you want Jenna your oh yeah okay one of your top tier game developers has a new game coming out it's not coming out in the Xbox oh I'm sorry what I

spoke to one of the guys from the company super giant games who are behind basan and transistor Bastion has recently been ported over to the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 but as of now there are no plans to bring transistor over to the Xbox or to release their newest game p on the Xbox he did say it was because they're a very small team and it is a lot of work to Port them over Matt do you think you could explain that a little bit why is it that it's easier to bring stuff out on the PS4 well I I mean I'm not sure of the specifics it could be because different companies will provide different incentives for you to do that so it could be that where Microsoft uh and I know I know other companies have had I say I'm not a professional when it comes

to this I just know that other companies have had problems with Microsoft's kind of attitude towards independent developers and and they've made a big effort with this you know ID at Xbox to correct that I think it could be a case that Sony's giving them kind of investing some effort in and and potentially money into them releasing the game whereas Microsoft is not like so it's worth it for them to to make the effort does that make sense sure so I know that um the Super Meat Boy guys had a bad experience with Xbox um like I said this is anecdotal I don't I don't know any inside baseball kind of stuff about it I just know that there are a bunch of developers who had a had a bad experience um making Xbox games so they went do but I actually it's also true

that I know uh in the past people have had bad experiences working with Sony so you know I think it's just it's probably just balls down to the specifics of of what those developers were able to arrange well and part of it when you think about it if you've got a small team you've got to focus yeah right right sure when you've got a small team you can only focus on so much and so you're going to pick the developer or the the company that works best for you and push for that and if they're working with PS on one game they're just going to continue through yeah well let's go back to talking about super giant games we got to play their newest game py at pxs yeah totally it's an action-based RPG where you play as somebody who is assisting three Exiles through

Purgatory it's a story based game that brings in an element of sports as well it can be single or multiplayer yeah that was surprising it's a fun little game where you have to get a little orb onto the other player side it's kind of like a reverse Capture the Flag it's a bit like basketball I heard someone someone while we were there comparing it to basketball and I was like you know what it's kind of right it's all about souls and and Mystic rituals and stuff and so it's a neat little wrapping of it it could be a sports game except it's just not because it's not in that context yeah right you know I had a lot of fun with the demo yeah so did I that's coming out later this year but the release date hasn't been announced yet I'm here with uh Darren from super

giant games he is the composer of Bastion and transistor along with the new game p uh so I have a question for you regarding the music um some of the most emotional scenes in both Bastion and transistor kind of like revolve around the music like for instance Red's voice with we all become when she loses her voice it's kind of vital to the game um so like how important a role do you think that music plays in games I I mean I think the potential for uh the incorporation of music is very high it just really depends on how integrated it is into the development process I think and and that's part of why we're able to do things that sort of revolve around musical moments sometimes is because I am involved from the start of the game I'm on team so I'm actually you know I'm

actually part of the development team right so you guys all write it together so it's all yeah it's all sort of done you know in in tandem right uh and so I I think it's it's just as important and just as able to contribute to to that as uh as you know any other aspect of the game the art the design the gameplay I mean it's uh it's yeah it's a critical aspect just like anything else right so you think other games can like could benefit from from that yeah I mean I think there's there's a tendency to just bring in composer at the end and be like here's the game make some music and and then they you know gets put in and and that's totally works and is fine um but there's certainly uh there may be some sort of untapped potential left on the table when you do it like that but I

mean of course you know on the other hand I've played a bunch of games with Spectacular music that do that so I'm not you know I'm not knocking it you know uh but that's just not how we tend to do things um right well one of my favorite things about your games is the ability to give a voice to characters that don't have one and a physical presence to characters that only have a voice uh like how do you how do you achieve that yeah well th those are both tricky things uh you know the physical presence the characters who don't have a voice I mean we struggle with that or with characters who only have a voice we struggle with that a little bit uh figuring out how to do that in transistor specifically because we wanted the character the character is present right who speaking

he's a major part of ma part my favorite character in that game yeah he's so he's very he's definitely present and we wanted to have some sort of physical indication of his presence which is sort of why we made sure to that we were able to have some sort of uh something that corresponded to his speech so we we ended up implementing a sort of the sword flashes when he speaks right uh which was a really critical because before that it was just sort of unclear who was even talking and that he was supposed to be there so so yeah I mean definitely we we have to sort of problem solve for that because we don't have characters with mouths animating and we don't have you know we don't we don't do that so um that we have to be creative with uh trying to find other solutions

to that that problem and and as far as trying to uh give a voice to characters who don't have one is that sort of was that the other part of that because red is such a strong character she never speaks yeah so so part of the trick for that was I mean she she doesn't speak but you get to hear a lot of her sort of internal stuff because she has you're listening to a lot of songs that she has composed and performed you know and so you get to hear you know you get you get an insight into her creative voice at at the very least and her actual voice uh from the singing yeah and then another thing that we we tried to do to pull you inside her head and give her more of a voice was you know the the the thing that happens in turn mode when the music sort of muffles it self and her humming

kicks in uh we did that both to sort of give a a meditative uh state to the turn mode where it's sort of a a respit from the craziness of the the real-time combat and also to kind of pull you in into her uh internal monologue if you will or or what what's going through her mind um uh in those battles right do you I mean so both of these games uh rely heavily on a narrator is that something that moving forward you'll still do well so py is a little different um uh in terms of how we deliver the story there's actually a lot more reading Y in this game and it's a critical part of the narrative the the act of reading uh so and we do have a sort of announcer narrator type character in this game who is also played by Logan Cunningham again this time around great uh so but we're

delivering the bulk of the story in a pretty different way this time than we had did for transist or or Bastion is because I was wondering how do you keep the narration from going stale is that is that a reason that you chose this way instead yeah I mean we we like to try new things and try to keep it fresh for ourselves and interesting and and uh you know even even from Bastion to transistor even though there was someone talking to you the entire time again it's a pretty different story delivery method because instead of an omniscient narrator was somebody who was present with you experiencing all this stuff for the first time with you so it was certainly a different storytelling challenge the second time around and this time you know we're trying to do

something different still and and um some of our decisions for what we do subsequent to the last thing some of it's based on stuff we feel like we wanted to achieve and didn't or some you know I mean everything informs that decision and comments that we've received and and just our own sort of perception of of how it went and and things we want to try differently next time and and uh but mostly what defines a lot about our next project is just sort of what everybody on team is sort of preoccupied with and interested in at the time that we start working on it you know cuz it's not it's not a decision that we make lightly all that stuff because it's a thing you're going to have to be working on for 3 years so you better like what you're doing yeah right

um and so we all spend a lot of time in pre-production and making sure that we're on a path that is interesting to us yep uh for for the next project okay now is there any chance that we recently saw Bastion come out on the Xbox is there any chance that we will see trans or py uh there is a chance I don't know uh you know we're not an initial release uh not not at launch uh we're you know again a really small team and and so we don't have a lot of extra hands to do porting and stuff like that so um we and even if we do a higher out some of the porting stuff it still takes you know attention from from people on team so um you know when stuff CES down after this game I would say would be the the first possible opportunity for anything like that to happen but but but you know I

would love to play transistor on the Xbox these are like two of the only games that I've switched to PC for no I feel you yeah I mean uh you know we haven't announced anything and don't have plans right now for anything but but nothing is out of the question basically we're everything we're open to everything great well I look forward to py thank you so much for speaking with us awesome yeah my my pleasure yeah I'm glad you got a chance to play yeah thank you you excellent we got to speak to a a few Australian developers it was really awesome to have a whole section devoted to all the Aussie games that we've actually seen and played before a bunch of people we knew some of the people we've even spoke to was unexpected there was SMG Studios they were the

masterminds behind one more line yeah uh have you heard of that one James no I haven't heard of that one well you should wait until the end of this episode and then you should download that it's very addictive it's a you mean don't start playing right now so I stop listening to everything yeah okay it's a very simple very addictive mobile game and like I I honestly because I used to catch the train to work in Sydney I used to play my 3DS when I got this game and it's ridiculous because it's so simple but all I did was like on the way to work on the way home from work I was trying to beat 100 cuz they had like a a special CL you get over 100 points you were kind of in the cool Club yeah I got there eventually well they've just recently come out with death squared

which is available now on the PlayStation 4 Xbox One and on PC it's a really cool multiplayer puzzle game yeah with lasers yeah like a party game it's like a party puzzle game yeah it's great all right that's kind of cool you have to work together to move your little colored boxes onto color coordinated uh squares without falling off the edge or running into a laser or something like that so different hazards affect different colors so you're like you might be able to walk through a blue force field because you're blue but somebody like the red character can't go through so you have to work together to navigate these kind of Mazes and things that sounds actually really fun yeah it will boost your communication skills I'm sure as you're yelling at each other you

and your friends highly recommended we also talked to the company house house who are behind push me pull you yes what a terrific game I think we've spoken about it before on the podcast because we love it so much I think we've talked about it too much maybe probably it's just such a such a visceral experience Trent who we spoke to can best explain uh the game itself but it's it's kind of a party game as well so it's a four player game and two people share One controller and each use one of the joysticks like one of one thumb stick yeah watching people who have not played video games before try to play this is is amazing it's it's a good it's good fun as a game anyway but it's especially good for a laugh when you give it to people who don't know how

to play video games but that's uh that's available now on Windows Mac Linux and Playstation 4 uh and we have a short interview uh with Trent I'm joined by Trent and we're going to talk about push me pull you which as you will know is one of our favorite games any games uh from Australia uh can you sum up the amazing nature of this game for us please well yeah I guess I mean it's it's kind of like a wrestling game with your friends right I mean I I can't do the pitch as much justice as the actual house House crew it's it's it's out on PS4 and steam PS4 and steam is any plans to bring it to like Xbox or any other platforms that's it I'm pretty sure we're we're out we're done the house House crew are now moving on to other cool things oh cool all

right all right awesome thanks so much yes welcome uh we talked to the guys from Sleepless Clinic which is uh a kind of independent developer they had a bunch of games there and one that I really enjoyed is a game called symmetry it's a uh a kind of Resource Management game in a way uh SL Adventure SLS Survival game it's uh they described it as similar to this war of mine uh if any of if you guys have played that it's basically your you're part you control a crew of Space Explorers who have crash landed on this planet uh something on the planet is trying to kill them and basically they have to survive long enough to experience enough of the story that because from what he told me they will

die eventually like they will all die but you want to find out enough about it that you can replay it with with different characters because you have a set of characters to choose from you replay it a bunch of times and eventually you figure out what's going on it kind of reminds me of a visual version of Lifeline yeah exactly like I don't know that you you can actually finish the game technically like the finishing the game means you you you know what the story is now because you've played through it with the different characters you've experienced all their little pieces of the puzzle to figure out what's going on um it was really cool and you know you you kind of you've assigned them to do certain tasks

throughout the day and then at night time it gets cold so they have to do different things like someone has to grow plants in the base someone has to go collect junk outside but throughout it all they have conversations with each other and interact and you can even he made me wait till the end of the demo to do this but and and but there are very good reasons why you would do it apparently as part of the story you can just kill them like you can say okay this character dies now and then because what happens is part of the story it's it's it's really neat it's called symmetry um it's it's they don't have a release date for it yet but uh check out their website Sleepless clinic.com and have a look it it's really cool I'm definitely going to

check it out when it's out one other game that want to talk about as pit people by the Behemoth they were nice enough to invite us over to their press breakfast on Friday morning they're a great company I loved their other games Castle Crashers and battle block theater they have a great mix of humor and a fun gameplay element I laugh out loud playing them many times oh yeah yeah when I made you play battle block theater you're laughing your head off I know we got to play a little bit of their new game pit people unfortunately our headsets weren't working so I think we lost a little bit of the game with that uh cuz as I I said they're they're very heavily based in humor sure yeah so it ended up kind of just being a turn-based game but I I didn't really

know what I was supposed to be doing or why I would like to play it again under a different setting because I do really love their games yeah I know what you mean like I I understood how the game worked but I didn't know why I was doing things which I think detracted a lot for like I was able to progress but I just didn't understand why things were happening so yeah I was a disappointed on that in that sense too but that's no fault of the developers that's just I mean it was first thing on Friday morning before pack even opened noce first first thing Friday morning at PX technical issues yeah one other thing I want to mention was uh James do you like motohead I do like motohead do you like Dia Diablo I am obsessed with Diablo 3 well

have I got a game for you a game called Victor ran and it's like a action RPG kind of Diablo Style game it's an isometric yeah isometric and I mean and it's a good game on its own however it also has a new expansion which is uh a motohead expansion basically and it's got motohead music and you play as lemie and it was all done in conjunction with with them I think they they started it before Lamy passed away I believe he said so like it's all licensed official and you you it's the story of of motohead in a video game that plays like Diablo II that's kind of amazing yeah so uh definitely check that out that's uh the the game itself Victor vanan is available now I think it has been for quite a while uh and the motohead expansion is out now on

PC and I think he said it's coming to consoles in fall this year James did you get to try out the switch at all or have you used one yet I haven't used one yet um I've been really interested in that I've got a a friend who works at GameStop who was sending me photos the night it was released of her playing the Nintendo switch and how amazing it was um and then an hour later was posting how she couldn't connect to the internet with it so you know I've kind of got that that mixed review but uh if I remember correctly you guys actually got into the Nintendo Cafe right so what were your thoughts after get actually getting that thing in your hands Nintendo had a booth set up where part of it was a cafe part of was an airplane part of it was a van it was

just to demonstrate all the different areas that you could play the switch but I I'm pretty undecided about it yeah it's in handheld mode it's pretty cool it's like a very powerful console I'll give you this but yeah it's if if I had a commute where I was on a bus or a train it'd be worth it would it though cuz if you have a 3DS is it worth it to buy a switch I don't know I I think the idea of being able to take that game I was playing on the commute and just plug it right into my TV when I get home and continue ignoring my wife and playing a video game that's worth something you know like that's kind of cool I agree I agree that the idea of that is very appealing except I worry that like cuz I I drive like to work every day and and then I'm at work and

then I come home so I there's no kind of place in between where I would stop and play it in portable mode and then when I get home I've got an Xbox so I just don't know that I would use it you know I like my 3DS I love my 3DS it's it's down there in a case that I don't take it out of you know and I love it but I it's just it's packed away so I'm I'm I I think the switch would end up the same where it's like oh man there's my switch that thing's great anyway going play an Xbox game I don't think the buttons were very comfortable in portable mode they're too close together I don't think I would enjoy playing a game unless I was using the Pro Controller and in that case I may as well just use the console yeah also I want to kill Nintendo for switching the functionality of the

buttons yeah wait what do you mean switching the functionality so say you wanted to jump off something what button would you press yeah instinctively based on every other video game yeah you press a where would you find a where would you find a on the controller a is the bottom of the pyramid m is it your it's it's your thumb button now if you wanted to cancel out of something what would you press you press B yeah right and where is that that's right next to well I mean logically that's right next to a but yeah still a thumb button right next to a yeah it's on the right correct yeah yeah that's all on the right side yeah now switch those around it's on the left I'm saying the the buttons of f no just switch those two buttons around but why why would you

why would you do that I don't know because Nintendo because they wanted to make it impossible for anyone who's ever played a video game to remember which but does what so like looking at an Xbox right where the green button is and the red button is just swap them yeah for no for no no very good reason other than just to be different just to quickly press a and I'm like which one's a yeah why is a not where a should be on a controller and cuz it's it's I mean with the PlayStation right it doesn't they're different right the but the placement is still the same like it's x on a PlayStation controller but it's still the bottom button yeah it's still the same button so now they've they just totally switch that up on you ah it's the Nintendo switch

no no not liking that yeah so we played a little bit of breath of the wild and there were times that I would just kind of take a plunge off the side of a building to my death because I was trying to climb down something or I would open a menu and just keep closing it while trying to equip something just S I mean maybe there's a way to remap it in the controls I didn't look cuz we didn't have time for me to around with that cuz we only had a time demo of it but just so weird like and frustrating for I mean surely they know they they've played other consoles they know yeah right someone someone we're not the first there's got to be a way to remap that yeah we're not the first people to to bring that up I'm sure it's like

inverted look you know old school Gamers use inverted look newer kids don't use inverted look and so you've got to have the way to switch it over yep I had to switch mine over to inverted look yeah too me too so I can confirm that Nintendo does let you do inverted look yeah breath of the wild seems nice uh but I can get it on the Wii U so I probably will just do that for now will yeah and then I'll wait and see was actually developed for the Wii U right so breath of the wild was developed for the Wii U and then when they had the switch they started to P it over and from everything I've heard the graphics and the gameplay is actually better on Wii U than getting it on the switch Yeah I it's well it's weird in that too cuz I heard that there's there's some slowdown

on the Wii U but there's also some slowdown on the switch and it's in different areas so I guess they're just better at different things the two consoles which is I don't know it's kind of weird but the graphics aren't better on the switch it maybe runs a few frames better most of the time I think is the consensus so and the game is exactly the same they took the touchcreen functionality out of the game because they knew that the switch wouldn't have a touchcreen they do some some weird things Nintendo yeah you know the whole Nintendo online thing I don't know if you guys have talked about this on the podcast but it's like a subscription service where you get a game for a month and then they take it away yeah that's right I'm sorry what yeah so you know

how Xbox or Playstation Works uh if you have a gold account or whatever it is on Playstation you get a game a month or a couple of games a month for free and you get to keep them I think with Xbox it's for as long as you have a subscription or the 360 games are just free forever but the Nintendo you lose it after a month and if you haven't finished it then you have to buy it so they don't give you a free game they give you a demo for a month yeah yeah or like a like a monthong rental Microsoft is talking about doing that too uh as like an extra thing so but and in both cases I think that's really strange but that's in addition to the free games oh correct yeah so Microsoft's going to do a thing where you can subscribe and then you get like uh a bunch of games and they don't

rotate every month so but it's still a little bit bit random from what I understand so like if they put it's mostly going to be a problem I think with with longer games like say they put Red Dead Redemption on there right and that's the kind of game that I don't have time to finish in a month right but if it's on there for six months that's fine and then they rotate it out maybe I'll get to it I'll have I'll have time but still such a weird concept like I wouldn't think that they would put games like that on there though it's just weird yeah well that would be weird except to entice you to buy them right I'm kind of I kind of like that though so you know personally situation I'm in I I don't have money for video games it just doesn't happen

anymore but if I can play a small fee and get a couple of exra games every month have them switch out I'd probably be totally down for that you know this uh I just downloaded evolve which is a game I always wanted but never wanted to pay for and I'm super psyched with Microsoft and the free games they've been doing it's not always a stellar game but once every 3 months you're going to get something that you love out of it so it's totally worth it they give out some pretty good games on there yeah they really do they do a lot that I'm like damn I just bought that game months ago yeah I bought the new Tomb Raider and then it was just free and I was like God damn it or a Murdered Soul Suspect oh yeah yeah I likeed that game I love that game I tried to play that game

couldn't do it a um the other thing we tested out on the Wii U the Wii U sorry on the Nintendo switch was Mario Kart and it's kind of the same game except it has this weird little feature that that the game for you yeah and I except Luke right Luke I said this to Luke and he goes oh thank God finally what and I was like I was like what and you know what he said he goes to that gaming bar in camber all the time and he plays Mario Kart there all the time and he said all always somebody gets up and leaves in the middle of a race right and then the race can't end cuz they just sat there and he was like like his his use case it's the only example I can think of but but I was like oh all right fine then do you remember when we tried to get our

niece to play it it was like 45 minutes of her just slamming into walls and US ripping our hair out yeah so there you go Luke's I think figured out what that's for so basically it it it like you probably won't you won't win the race unless everybody just puts the controllers down but you don't just stop if you don't hold down the accelerator he'll your character will just well there is no accelerator right you just uh use the drifting to pick up speed and stuff like that but you uh you will just complete the circuit in at a safe speed if you just sit the controller on the desk or whatever which yeah I thought it was weird luk said that and I went oh all right I guess that makes sense but are we really gearing games towards playing in

bars I don't know what Nintendo's up to wouldn't surprise me we tried some VR you want to talk about that oh yeah James have you played any VR yeah buddy mine has got uh both the Vive and the Oculus um so I've played quite a bit of VR uh absolutely love it um I think there's only one time when I've really gotten motion sickness out of it and that was yeah that was an interesting time but yeah I mean so far the games I've played have been fantastic what game was that um I wish I could remember the name of it uh piloting a spaceship um so you were a starf fighter um and it it was like the game was absolutely killer or like Elite dangerous or something maybe I'll uh I'll see if I can pull that up real quick and confirm that for you um but

yeah like after like 5 minutes of that game I was ready to toss my lunch that is something that I was worried about playing VR cuz I do get motion sickness uh mostly with uh fpss I haven't really found that VR does that to me though I think because I have peripheral vision and because I know where I'm about to look it just doesn't affect me as much as I thought it would right but watching other people play yeah I only get motion sickness when there's extreme movement happening all around me but the body's not doing it you know it's not right um if it's a first person shooter it's not an issue if it's a puzzle game it's not an issue you know it's only when the I'm in is doing barrel rolls and loops and my body is not that's where it gets to me yeah

yeah we played a couple of excellent VR games one of my favorites was Dick wild cuz it's called Dick wild P starters and uh and also it was great it's a a shooter basically I'm joined by Yim the uh the Mind behind dick wild which is uh VR shooting experience uh what can you tell us about the game so right now it's it's an arcade shooter uh about this this guy called dig wild who is the guy who takes care of of your Lake if if it's invaded by by sea monsters um so yeah you call this guy and then he shows up and then he takes care of it yeah um so what you do is you're standing on this raft and a lot of a lot of sea monsters like alligators and all all other stuff is like coming

against you and then what you have to do is you have to use whatever in his of weapons to to destroy them before they destroy you yeah yeah that's that's basically it so you got there's a a number of weapons you can choose from uh like was the revolvers are kind of standard is that right yeah so we have uh the revolvers which is like it's the easiest one to get it's the easiest one to understand it's uh it's it's like Aim Shoot to Kill uh and then we have uh the grenade launcher which just like you launch out a grenade and you can explode it midair with the other hand and you can change it into you change mode on a lot of the weapons for this one you can change it into a uh missile launcher oh cool which you can also explode in the air uh what do you have more we have uh

we have the bow I use the bow the bow is fun yeah so the bow you can you can take it back and then you can uh it's like a it's like a chain lightning gun at the same time um what do we have more we have uh we have the nail guns yeah which is uh you have two different modes we have like the like the sniping mode where it goes into single fire they shot slower and then the other one is like full automatic where it has a lot of recoil so you have to like kind of aim against that okay uh then you have the paintball guns which is like burst fire mode right and if you shoot too fast with them like the g g meter like the air meter goes down and then it starts shooting less less yeah exactly so have a lot of different kind of weapons seven seven different weapons so far it's it

feels really good to to play like did you how did you spend a lot of time like kind of achieving that like how difficult is it's very responsive and it feels very natural thank you like we we used a lot of time doing that like uh we used 3 months of of getting up the the prototype for the game and in the start we had a lot of stuff that he were throwing around it right and it was fun but it wasn't really that good so we we kind of like okay we needed to get some some weapons to shoot and we tried out like a ton of different I don't know how many like hundreds of different things and then reiterate every day we have been working on this game so far for like three months after the the period of that 3 months so it's 6 month in total yeah but the first three months

was uh me and and two other uh two interns right just getting the the Prototype up and then 3 months after that of of getting uh yeah until here awesome uh which is pretty fast but it's we were really really like a lot of testing and our game designer has been really really good at at getting the weapons up there so it's nice so is the game available now it's available at March 30 okay it will be available for Ulus and Vive on Steam store any plans I see PlayStation VR any plans for like I this wouldn't run on like an Xbox One or anything right you need like a Scorpio or whatever the next thing is yeah probably yeah yeah and then we need to like make the version of it and all that stuff as well um which is also the ver the reason why PlayStation VR is is

going to be later on right okay uh I don't know when but okay but this year okay so PC with oculus and and Vive yes cool indeed all right thanks so much and and I really love this game and I'm going to buy it nice cool cool thanks I played rock band in VR at the alien wear Booth oh yeah and at first I was like oh man this is not going to be rock band I don't know what this is going to be and when I put the headset on I'm not going to be able to see my guitar or where the buttons are and I don't know why it surprised me to look down and see that the guitar was there and when I press the buttons they light up it was really cool it just puts a virtual guitar there that you can look at yeah and you're on stage and you can turn around and see the drummer and the

rest of the band next to you and the singer and you look out and the audience is all screaming for you it is so cool yeah it looks pretty good and I think they've tried to make it a little more realistic as well it's it functionally a bit different right I only played a little demo but I think it gives you a little bit more freedom so it doesn't matter how you strum as long as you stay in time right and the chords are a little bit different to play okay it was pretty cool and it's coming out very soon um just this week it's coming out on the Oculus and it's only $70 which is not bad I think it comes with the guitar right so you just have to have an Oculus I just can't believe they're still making rock band games I know right I felt bad cuz the guy was

like oh do you do you like these games and I was like ah no actually I don't and he was like oh that's okay I work for alien wear not not harmonics so how good so that's not insulting at all don't worry no did you guys check out uh Samurai Punk at all while you were there of course yeah we actually know them from Australia so I I walked past it but I didn't get a chance to really do anything with it can what is that game all about yeah Samurai Punk well Nick we know from Australia they've been at a bunch of conventions in Sydney showing off the game screen sheet uh they once challenge sorry Luke challenged Nick once to a game of screen sheet and uh it got a bit got a bit tense in there cuz uh it seemed like Luke was going to beat him this time

they were showing their new VR experience it was called the American dream uh it's about guns and we interviewed Nick about it h it's probably best if he explains it himself I'm here with Nicholas from Samurai Punk and I've just had the extreme pleasure of experiencing the American dream thanks man I'm glad you enjoyed it I really enjoyed it it's hilarious uh it's basically about how to how to enjoy your guns as an American now as an Australian uh what inspired you to to experience or to help others experience the American drink so it's actually came out of a lot of introspection playing and making FPS games uh through our production on screen sheet and then moving into our next project we were like thinking a lot about FPS games that

we could make not that we want to make an FPS game just that like we would come up with designs and we like why why are we discussing an FPS game with such manua and like the fetishism around the mechanics was very surreal to us as we sort of became self-aware so we're like wouldn't it be interesting to make a game about what the Call of Duty die does when he goes home at night right you know yeah so he has he interacts with the world through guns uh and never talks so what what do they do how do they express themselves in the world right cuz your hands are just literally guns yeah you don't even have hands in our game you you like unlike most VR Shooters you don't have like a ghost representation of the hand holding the gun you just have the gun

yeah you do have a nose which was a nice touch well that's actually an experimental test to improve motion sickness right yeah yeah as soon as I put it on I I actually I was like oh that's weet I'm not used to that like when I when I do these things it's no it's nice it's a nice touch um the controls feel really good it's very responsive um the uh it's the final game we can we have more cuz it's kind of a series of mini games sort of uh yeah so every level kind of has the spoke mechanics uh but most we start to try to reuse mechanics uh or introduce like specific Mechanics for specific guns like the rifle the assault rifle or shotgun or pistols uh so they let us explore different territories most of them are basically like constructing

jokes around these guns or um telling a narrative element so this the demo we're showing is very high level and doesn't any of the narrative oh okay cool so it's just setting the tone and space and the ideal is that over the 2 and 1 half hours of game play you sort of get a feel for what we're trying to do with the game okay yeah awesome so there will be more guns more more things to shoot more experiences yes yeah um what uh just coming out later this year yeah we're aiming for Q3 cool and what platforms will that be on uh Playstation VR Oculus and VI awesome all right thank you very much for your time and letting us play the game yeah thanks for playing that's Nick from Samurai Punk he's a cool dude say hi to him at a

convention tell them multiple nasm sent you and we tried one other VR experience uh which was It's actually an experience it's not necessarily really a game uh it was made by a company called cypop and it was called Kismet cypop isn't even a game company actually they are a commercial company and they've won a lot of awards for companies like Coke of the solar system that kind of rotates and you can like again you can lean in and check out all the detail on that like this thing beautiful yeah it is my only problem with VR is that it kind of takes away all of your senses and you forget where you are yeah it's a good thing but also a weird yeah but why is that a problem it's just a little weird to be at a convention when that happens

yeah I feel very self-conscious uh a couple times playing these games I'll have to get you guys to my Budd house so that we can set up a couple of them um because he's got multiple VR sets we're actually able to play a lot of the games together um like Arizona desert it's a zombie first person shooter so you can be in two rooms right next to each other on VR shooting zombies in the heads um and it's really cool but you know for us it's um the danger with VR is not that your senses are blocked off but it's setting up the area so that when your senses are blocked off you don't things like do things like walk downstairs or trip over chairs rightt right you need like a guide and it ex I mean in the VR headsets it exists you know

you've got when you get to the edge of the mapped out area it shows you what's going on so it's not a danger you know for people who haven't tried it it's not like you're going to walk into this thing and you're just you're walking around blind totally blacked out you know it actually Maps out where you are sets up a perimeter and when you get close to the perimeter it shows up on the screen so you know what's going on that's cool well we checked out a bunch of panels as well while we were there um we didn't actually get to to go to all the panels we wanted to I know but we did get to watch the ones that we missed on Twitch yeah you guys made it to the gearbox panel right yeah we did that is a great panel so what's going on with them cuz I'm I'm obsessed with gearbox

listeners if you're at packs or any other convention and gearbox is having a panel go to it even if you don't like gearbox just go it's the best panel just do it every panel I've been to they've given out something that is like some ridiculous thing that you wouldn't expect to be given just for turning up to a panel like we've gotten um the full first season of tales of the Borderlands in the past we've gotten the C the psycho expansion for Borderlands 2 in the past this time they were handing out the deluxe edition of battleborn and a key for the new Bullet Storm remake I mean if that's not enough incentive to get along to a gearbox panel next time I don't know what is but not only that um Randy gave a he actually gave it at GDC just earlier and he decided to to do it

again at PX cuz he thought people would be interested he basically presented Borderlands 3 but since they haven't announced it yet he wasn't allow he couldn't say that it was Borderlands 3 so he did say you know what game this is I'm not going to say it but you know what this is uh so that's I think that's that's what they're working on or one of the things they're working on so how do you present a game without presenting the game well he was actually presenting the technology like that was that was the kind of the basis of the talk was the advances that they've made on top of Unreal Engine 4 to allow them to do you know the kind of cell shaded look of Borderlands in a much more advanced and sophisticated way so he showed us a bunch of test stuff and was like yeah

yeah yeah you know what it is let's just pretend that you don't know what that is and it's just a demo of the tech but it was Borderlands it's Borderlands 3 and uh yeah so he was displaying the tech but in doing so he also showed is what the game's going to look like and it looks awesome it's just going to it's beautiful he said it's no secret that they're working on it he's just not ready to officially announce the game yet yeah which is weird but you know I really hope bunkers and badasses makes a return that was the hands down the best expansion for any game I've ever played Yeah we actually just bought it in the Xbox sale so that we can get to that expansion yeah I bought the expansion yeah I mean ages ago but I never actually got around to playing it so as

D and D players I can't believe you guys haven't played that one before yeah I know ridiculous uh speaking of D and D we went to the Acquisitions Incorporated live D and panel at PS the players are Mike and Jerry from Penny Arcade they're the guys who write the comic and started the whole convention there is Morgan web who's kind of an online gamer yeah she's like a presenter she's a former host from G4 and lastly Chris stra Who Matt you're familiar with Chris dra is a is a comic artist he wor he did a chainsaw suit and he's done uh he's he's a been a guest artist on Penny Arcade a bunch of times uh he's kind of a comedian slash comic artist he's a very funny cool guy the game is DMD by Chris Perkins who actually works for Wizards of the Coast he's an amazing DM he's so good at

keeping them focused without railroading them yeah it's a group of comedians so they get off topic pretty easily yeah he keeps them focused because they had like a two and a half hour slot right to kind of get from the beginning to the end of this chunk of game and he's very good at making sure that they get there you know what I mean yeah but doing it in a way where the players don't feel as they're being pushed through they're getting to do what they want to do yeah it doesn't seem like he's yeah no he's not saying hurry up hurry up hurry up but he is but he's doing it in a clever dungeon Mastery way yeah it's it's uh dming is probably one of the hardest things you can do you know you offhandedly mention that maybe there's a spelling be and suddenly your players want to spend 3

hours at the spelling be yeah you got be careful crazy things can happen jok like that listeners if you're wondering what that's about multiple nasm has a Star Wars RPG available on Twitch yeah if you're interested in hearing that disaster oh come on yeah the acquisition Inc panels great if you're I think even if you don't you're not that familiar with Dungeons and Dragons It's it's good for a laugh anyway because those guys are just so funny and and the story is interesting like Perkin is a great DM it's [Laughter] end but overall I was really disappointed in the panel they didn't

really do anything they just I mean they showed the game they played the game and people and you could watch them play the game but I mean you can do that in a couple days anyway the CD project red gwent panel was excellent uh I know that's definitely up on Twitch because I that's where I I watched it because we couldn't get into it um and it was a really really good panel it's really interesting and very funny as well those guys have a really good sense of humor I would recommend you check that out check out the Gbox panel uh check out acquisition Inc and uh the omegathon final round uh the omegathon for those who don't know every packs uh when you buy a badge they ask you do you want to be considered for entry in the omegathon they pick uh a bunch of attendees at

random and you compete in a ladder of various video game related challenges not necessarily even video games themselves and sometimes it's tabletop too actually just game channel challenges uh you compete and then at the on the final day the last thing is the omegathon final round where the um the last two teams this time actually they've been doing teams lately um well now that we know what the final game was they needed teams for that right exactly yeah the final this time was keep talking and nobody explodes which is if you're not familiar with it it's a great game such a good game amazing it was so tense to watch and everybody in the audience can see what's happening but they want help but they can't and they're like oh I'll just cut

the yellow wire so the game basically one person is uh in this case it was done with virtual reality but I don't think it it doesn't have to be you could just be at a computer as well one person is playing the game I guess uh and the other person who can't see the screen and shouldn't be able to see the screen has a manual on how to disarm a bomb and so the person controlling the game has to describe the bomb to the other person who then has to tell the how to disarm it that's that's basically it and uh it gets increasingly more difficult and with more advanced elaborate bombs and uh I think it's on it's on mobile and and VR and and everything right this game yeah you just get it anywhere yeah it's a great game and it was a really good final round it was

very tense uh and very funny so I would check that out on the uh twitch stream as well I do want to thank Asylum gaming and Esports for inviting us along to the after party on Friday night at laugh Boston they had an open bar which was awesome they had some beer pong tables set up and a bunch of consoles with emulators on them yeah so we got to play a bunch of old games we played some life force which my favorite game on the Nintendo and some Mario Golf and we met a few people it was a great time yeah it was a good night yeah big thanks to them we appreciate it that was fun and a huge thank you to Penny Arcade for sending us the media passes yeah we've been covering paa for a bit and uh and Luke will continue that uh and we're happy to be covering packs here and big thanks to

them for letting us uh big thanks again to our sponsors as always tuu uh if you head to multipl nerdgasm tocom merch you can check out our t-shirts they do our merch for us uh and I say T-shirts they do T-shirts they do hoodies they do laptop sleeves they do notebooks they do all sorts of stuff uh and they do our stuff and if you go to our store we also curate a collection of other designs that they have as well they've got all sorts of nerdy designs they've got Witcher stuff they've got uh probably some Borderland stuff they've got they've got old arcade stuff yeah uh anything you can think of really type it into the search box uh and you'll probably find a cool shirt uh and they've also having a sale this week so uh if if you get in quickly when you

hear this um I think t-shirts are going to be down to $14 from 20 and everything everything else is reduced as well definitely check that out multipl nerdgasm tocom merch if you go through that URL they'll know we sent you and they'll help support the show so we really appreciate it and if you want to get in touch with us you can find us on Facebook at multiple nerdgasm Twitter at M nerdgasm Instagram at multip nerdgasm or you can email us podcast multipl nerdgasm docomo 401 thanks I appreciate that last plug thank you James for coming on the show and thank you guys for listening go and check out multiple nerdgasm weekly podcast that Matt does with our other hosts Luke and Dan or you can

listen to our horror movie podcast necron nomon that Matt and I do that comes out once a month or check back here because we do lots of coverage of Live Events thank you for listening and thank you PS