The Indie council is in session welcome everyone this is a place for the leading voices from across the industry to gather to talk news titles and everything Indie I’m your Master of Ceremonies Jill Gro the Indie Informer and we have a full house today yay we’re
All together again two times in a row wow this is amazing break the streak next week maybe we’ll all be together like a lot of us will be together there’s one of us perhaps that won’t be uh joining the cool group but I don’t have a response joining the
Council today one week away from starring in the 61 Indie showcase Mike tandro how you feel I have a I have a question for the council okay we’re ready to adjudicate busy time of the year GDC packs I’m sure we’re all thinking about like the fits how we’re
Going to be presenting ourselves to to the masses yep should I get a nose ring I’m always down for a nose ring honestly why not except for the um maybe the healing process is my only light hesitation if you’re worried about that but I also want it to be like bejweled
If you can manage sure you should get it done at the event like like hey I’m going to get my nose pierce who wants to come come with like I would I thought you meant like on the pack floor on the floor no 100% on the floor like make it
A part of your this is how much I love Indies yeah Kelsey has been pushing this for a while and it’s been like it’s been festering my brain yeah thinking about it you can always take it out you can always take it out yeah it’s either going to be septum or the little nostril ring we’ll
See that’s tough yeah I was going to say be good just one quick heal double the the things to heal but half the time somehow I don’t know that’s math checks out continue Jill also joining the council is cozy game quality assurance Janet Garcia how you doing Janet oh hi hello I’m good
You’re like wait wait that was me but I did I I wasn’t expecting it to be me for some reason I caught your um your stream in which there three games were played and only one of which was found acceptable one was perhaps acceptable but not your thing the other one was
Just trash that is a deratization of what I wrote that’s not I put in the thumbnail Jill you’re click baiting the content but yeah I’ll talk about them for what we’ve been plan it’s good content everyone should go check it out I always feel so like seen when you like
Come into the stream like it’s almost like what I feel like when a developer comes into the stream I don’t know why because like I see you all the time but it’s like oh the Indian forers is here I’m like guys be on your p’s and q’s I
Do sometimes slip in like I forget that I’m on the official Channel when I slip into people that I’m like I don’t feel like going through the effort of logging out so this is where I am but sometimes I do slip in under my own personal like secret identity and some people
Know it but then like for the most part it’s fun to just kind of be normal just your burner all right keep an eye out just go in and troll everyone yeah Indie suck uh and keeping secrets about June’s wholesome direct it’s Jenny Windam hi Jenny hello so many Secrets yeah Secrets
We’re try to Weedle them out of you like we’ll go on to our our next silly topic and we’ll be like Jen quick what is the thing just take me off guard yeah 100% um that was a really exciting announcement um things are starting to get announced
For like summer and I’m still in like pre-spring like we talked about GDC impacts and everything I’m like I’m not ready for anyone to talk about anything else right now the only person allowed to share summer stuff is wholesome and Jenny yeah everyone else we’ll chill the
Hell out all right yeah yeah calm down for two weeks okay honestly April I keep forgetting that we’re in March I keep putting down February for all of like work stuff it’s like this is getting ridiculous time has to stop for just a little bit let me let me rest yeah let
The council sleep yeah let the council sleep that would be an interesting topic of the show like we’re here everyone and today’s council is napping enjoy remember nap time back in the day nap time and we would like want to do it like when schedu like when mandated I mandate naps for
Myself like putting yourself to sleep like I’m fussy it’s time to lay down um jumping into an extremely important topic for the Indie Community we touched on this with our boots on the ground expert opinion uh salvere Nelson Jr last episode if you did not see it it was an excellent one
Please go back but we took it to the people the question was is Denny’s or Ihop the better choice um we got like the the process was a roller coaster we have been chatting between us back and forth about what has been happening in this poll
Some of us are very much on one side versus The Other Side some of us might be wrong um but what ended up happening my cat is literally in the process of breaking my keyboard the cat’s trying to vote she’s literally trying to like take over the vote
There’s my my control key is now off of my keyboard so thanks noodles cat literally stepping up to take control that’s wild inspirational um so where we ended up Landing from what I can tell if I’m reading this poll correctly which I think I am Denny’s has
Won correctly but by the slimmest of margins it’s like a% I see you Mike I’m going to choose whether or not you get to speak um but there was a lot of back and forth a lot of surprise this is one of those things where I feel
Like people had never like really looked into their souls as to which of the two they would pick if they had to I don’t know if we started a war but we might have like this might be the Ripple that causes everything else to happen um and in the spirit of War I’m
Gonna let Mike speak go ahead Mike in the spirit of War I love everybody listening I love the Indian former Community I love the six1 Indie Community I love the Indie Council jury I don’t know we got to come up with the people’s name uh 45.1% of you are wrong
And 10.9% of you are [ __ ] cowards I to see results I always tells the SE results in there yeah the SE results if you did not vote you probably should have because well maybe they didn’t haven’t been to either or have only been to one like I respect that
Like don’t just throw your vote into something you know this is just this is just Twitter this isn’t like the political system you don’t just have to just be like I guess I’ll pick this because I have to no I 100% expect people to see the poll run out whatever
They’re doing Drop it it’s not I see what you mean like step your community to do your research and inform is open forever like it will have been open whenever you saw that so you can go and check it out and and vote for it according listen I I get it both
Nominees are old you know maybe they’re against Tik Tok who knows man man anyway but this was um and in moment yes uh for the longest time while the voting was going on both were like neck and neck 100% even by I think midnight of last night when I looked in
On it it was still like a 50/50 split so I’m glad that we came to the right conclusion I’m glad that we all are settled in the fact that Denny is is better than I hope we have a also another poll that came out of last
Week’s um debate which was sort of like a larger Topic in the show but I’m glad this got more kind of kind of bigger is whether or not GDC versus uh PAX East and I believe that one was a 50/50 split so there is no decision on whether or
Not GDC or Pax it’s better just gojoy whatever you like I got distracted I missed my wife is trending on Twitter and just it’s a video of uh Dr Robotnik saying I miss my wife tals anyways IND news yeah was just very important um let’s go ahead and give
Mike something that we know is going to keep his attention oh God 61 Indie showcase is happening next week what do you want to tell us about it man the 61 Indie showcase premieres with a special pre-show kickoff our first ever pre-show at 8:50 a.m. Pacific 11:50 a.m. eastern
On Wednesday March 20th we got 39 games within the span of a 60 Minute show six of those games are part of the pre-show something we’re dubbing PD’s play now pre-show a pre-show highlighting games that have recently released in q1 2024 but maybe have been overlooked uh and
Then yeah main show 33 upcoming Indies World premieres exclusive looks showcase debuts surprises uh and then after the show we have 19 developer interview a handful of um written previews and reviews from my editorial team and then I think like a three plus hour post show
Where part one it’s me and Kyle talking about behind the scenes stuff and the second half uh talking about each individual game in Greater detail big old day big old event it’s been a rough first quarter of the year for your boy a lot of blood s and tears went into this
Thing literally uh so yeah I’m excited to finally share it with everyone shout out to Jeff key for for hitting the button at the same time as me today and totally burying the reann nowc he 100% was waiting for that announcement 100% he was tethered tethered together you
Know in a way that you couldn’t really perceive yeah me and Jeff are a strand game yeah whoa that that’s the new that’s the sequel is you and Jeff like we already knew he was in that game and now it’s like you’re really the protagonist like Norman Reus dies in the
First 30 seconds and you step forward to take his place as I should uh but yeah 61 indy.com showcase youtube.com/ 61 Indy uh yeah come hang out in the chat I will be watching from Boston hang out in the chat I’m excited to I’m excited to see reactions from there’s like a couple
Particular games I’m excited to see reactions for because I feel like they’re going to catch a lot of people off guard um yeah should be a fun time I’m gonna be as tradition on BART zooming into San Francisco spoilers Jill you have access to the show [Laughter]
I no one needs to know that Mike I was going to be excited no actually maybe I won’t watch because I’m not the news editor on on the site that’s the loveely John email John so maybe May well he has it don’t worry about [Laughter]
It um so maybe I’ll just let him watch it and then be surprised because that’s fun super fun Indies are fun speaking of Indies are fun let’s go over release dates very quickly I’m going uh for people who can’t see the dock obviously I’m going out of order so ha just to
Mess with everybody um we have a lot of release dates that recently just popped up so I wanted to shout them out so that people can get excited maybe if you missed some of them maybe uh you’re looking forward to things because I me like we were talking I think about
How I think this was on just now like it doesn’t feel like March right now it does not feel like the date that it is so the fact that we have April and May and June starting to fill out for things is really messing with my brain um so
Keep these in mind we have yellow taxi Go’s room very fun N64 inspired game is coming out April 9th Children Of The Sun which I’m surprised is coming out so soon cuz we just like got a preview for it on steam nextfest uh but that is coming out April also April
9th so they’re gonna fight each other that would be fun what if we did like an Oppenheimer Barbie situation on this like how would we combine those two things Children of the room Children of the room I love it moving into May venture to the vial
Is coming out May 7th and payer trayal which I’ve been keeping track of for a very long time is coming out May 21st so everybody keep those in mind those are all going to be really fun really cool games and I still can’t believe it’s it’s going to be spring but the weather
Is lovely so I love it everybody what’s what are you excited about is everybody excited about basically everything on here do you have one that hits you personally for me it’s the Yellow Taxi goes room I think we were around each other Joe and we played that at uh the mix from
Packs something West East I don’t know it was one of the bestest West I’ve never been to East so it must be West yeah so it has to be West um yeah as you mentioned you know N64 sort of era expires particularly in the art but this
Is kind of this also has the energy of um almost like the chaos of the what the franchise like what the golf what the bat that kind of thing it’s like Crazy Taxi if it was like Crazy Taxi if it was Mario 64 that’s what this game is and
It’s really cool it has a lot of nods to games like Mario 64 with these kind of fake bombs also has invokes a bit of like Wario Weare humor almost and just it’s absurdity definitely like I think if you glance at almost any screenshot of this it feels like almost like if
You’re zoomed down into like a childhood play area almost like the diarama es you know crowded ’90s bedroom esque it has I’m looking at the screenshots now there’s like a pizza king with a pizza cutter in his hand that’s covered in blood like I don’t know what’s going on here but genuinely
Like having just played the demo of it I thought it was really fun you know really like natural easy to pick up I had a good time with it and I’m looking forward to you know what that full build is like and what kind of chaos will
Ensue so that’s probably my highest on my list from this uh release date update that you have yeah I think all you with oh oh I was going to say think like Jill I think paper tril is the one I’ve been following most closely out of all of
Them I love the demo um like basically you’re solving puzzles by bending a sort of like origamy paper-like environment to create paths and some of the puzzles were so truly brain bending for me and I love when a game makes me feel first really really dumb and then really
Really smart like that’s one of my favorite feelings and so it just captured that and it has this like I don’t know kind of children’s story folklor feel to it I can’t remember what the exact story was but just a really gentle puzzle game and I’m very excited
And venture to the vial I am really I was really intrigued by I played the demo they had some sort of demo out for it and it was great atmosphere but the demo didn’t show off some of what they had like talked about in terms of like Dynamic day night cycle or like
Acquiring powers and they they have some of that in their steam page that they didn’t show and so I’m very intrigued like tentatively intrigued for Venture venture to the vile yeah I remember watching I think Mike was on the sticks for venture to the vial for one of the
Demo maybe it was a steam nextfest yeah it was a nextfest thing so watching him go up against the boss of the demo was absolutely a highlight um but yeah I’m kind of with Denny on this one I am interested to see how that comes out I
Think Children Of The Sun might be a real mic game I don’t know if you’ve actually jumped into it though I did I played it I guess it was during xfest during that first public demo yeah it’s a mic ass game it reminds me of um oh
This is going to be a hard PLL but was a counter spy it was like a PlayStation Plus Indie that came out like early PS4 days it reminds me of like a term-based strategy sort of FPS um yeah I love uh just the vibe of
It I love the art I love the aesthetic I love just yeah the gameplay the gameplay is super engaging uh but all four of these games are generally like four of my most anticipated games of the year and it stresses me out that they’re all coming out within like a few weeks of
Each other yeah um but yeah yellow TXI Go’s room is an utter blast yeah Janet nailed the description um Ben to the vial I yeah Jill made it clear that that I had a blast uh playing that demo and boss fight is really chaotic um again
Like it’s just all in the vibe and whatnot uh and paper trail I utterly adore uh the dev’s first game it’s under a different developer name but um he that came out back in 2016 this it’s the same Creator but it’s a different Studio name that was like the first so I don’t
Know if y’all remember they had like an indie box subscription thing a long time ago that was the first Indie box and I still have it like somewhere in my other room um and he oh I love Hugh So Co so this is this is his followup um yeah if you haven’t played
Hugh this is Hugh uh Al Hugh is currently $3 on Steam so like please play it it’s really damn good but the offer ends in like 17 hours so I don’t well I don’t know if yall let’s do it add to your time travel to-do list you know we all have one what
You would do if you had the power if Hugh had the power if Hugh had the power oh yeah this is dangerous so let’s move on um the steam spring sale is happening uh and the Glorious team which is the Indie Council helped to make sure all the information was correct because
I did not have a correct at first but it is happening March 14th which should be the day that you are seeing this um at very least tomorrow yeah right Jesus um and it goes through the 21st which is next Thursday which is like so
Mean right cuz like I I want to go through and check everything out but I’m going to be so busy running through all the things at GDC so I had better get on that this weekend but everybody else has until next Thursday to check everything
Out it is the sort of idea of it being H this is not the first year of it last year was the was the first year that they did this it is a seasonal sale sort of like the winter sale that is very prevalent and everybody kind of knows
About this one’s getting off the ground and I guess it did very well in its year because it is back um lots of things to get on your backlog like if you are it’s a really good thing for like Indie people in general because if you’re
Listening to a show like this or or indeed on the show like this the hazard is you hear about all these amazing games that you just want to pick up and then you add everything up and it’s like I can’t possibly make this happen in my
Wallet so this is the time to make it happen if you’ve heard something from the show that you want to pick up go go back and check that out and we’ll probably maybe see some really good sales and Shout them out but again like the spring events season is about to
Take place so we’ll see how that goes speaking of seeing how things go A very mysterious thing popped up just the other day on socials and it’s really not telling us a lot about anything it’s called the triple ey initiative so it could be about to
Murder us we really don’t know if you go to the website which I will link in whatever dooblydoo down down below um it is counting down there is a countdown it says triple initiative a mysterious teasing Page by the studios behind darkest dungeon risk of rain slay
The Spire vampire survivors V ring and many others um and it says next announcement and it’s counting down it’s currently at 14 days 18 odd hours um so if I’ve done my math correctly which I cannot guarantee I have I think that’s March 28th we should be looking for some
Sort of announcement and then the um Twitter page for triple I initiative just says in the works for months coming to you in days hold on to your butts and that’s it that’s all the information out there in the public what are you all thinking that’s
A lot of good names just right there in in the intro they’re combining to make one game no that’s probably not the a Dungeon Crawler meets a procedurally generated card all of the yeah all of the titles yeah um I don’t know I mean it obviously could just be
Like a number of things but I think the idea of you know we often talk about what Indian initiatives look like and I think what’s most exciting about this is the idea of Studios that are you know really well respected in the Indie space that have produced really incredible
Titles I think the idea of them collaborating on anything is exciting in the sense that they have the knowledge they have the skill and I think that’s a powerful combination for taking on any project yeah these are not like new studio these are all Studios that have a
Lot of clout a lot of experience behind them for them to be coming together to do something it it should make you you know stand up and take notice I I sort of love this um roll out the way that they’re doing it because a lot of the
Times with Indie Games for for me as a journalist like if you are sort of an unknown entity and you try to do this it usually Falls flat it’s like you know you need a little bit more information but when you get these sorts of levels of games like
People are going you all you have to say is like a thing is coming here’s the countdown and it 100% works so I I love it I don’t love that like again we’re in the middle of the like the spring season so my brain isn’t able to like nail down exactly what we
Should be looking forward to but if it’s like I guess we’ll figure figure that out in a couple weeks right did you guys have a reaction to this Mike or you just like soulless dead [Laughter] ey uh cool people doing cool things I’m excited what a lead up I love it did you
Have a reaction or are you just dead inside when you when you look within do you see anything at all related this this yeah everyone knows the answer to that uh no I’m excited to see what this is uh like everybody was saying um big studios with well not big
Studios Indie Studios with a lot of clout clearly care about the the Indie space and see a lot of the issues when it comes to discoverability and whatnot like hopefully this is some sort of initiative to help you know get more eyes on on the scene and whatever it is
I’m excited to see what’s out so what it’s about of course of course I did cool daylight savings is messing up the the bang candle for our recording time no it’s too bright for the bang candle to uh glow into my face to do it thing yeah look forward to
Later soon but yeah we’ll have to check that out and hopefully we will be revitalized with all the Indie things we see at GDC Andor packs and we’ll be excited to see whatever this is um I see that one thing has been snuck onto my duck uh and I was very excited about
This so we’ll shout this out vampire survivors vinyl has been announced I imagine that was Mike who did that so goad I’m gonna spend a lot of money tomorrow on this pre-order oh my gosh I this week has been really bad for my wallet between like vinyl releases and but especially like plushy
Releases or like last chance to get plushies uh and then the Cult of the Lamb uh book thing is also up there so I’m like I I can’t be spending this kind of money y’all we need to spread this out what are you doing if it scares me that it’s vampire
Survivors volume one how many volumes are there so many how many times am i g to give a i a bit 45 44.99 I has a really good SL horrific uh shop usually at GDC yeah I know and I always walk in and it’s like I always
Tell myself I’m not going to get anything I’m just gonna see what’s cool and what’s around and then I walk out with like $500 worth of things I mean there shops I mean they’re not at packs anymore but they shop at packs back in the day pre- lockdown like that’s where
You get all the sold out stuff that’s out of print like I my copy of G Grizz goody uh after sold out online like just randomly found one copy near the the Indie Mega Booth um so yeah you gota look for those gems yeah those things go
For a lot of money for real um so yeah but protect your wallets because there’s a lot of good stuff out there um spend it all it’s like can you imagine Mike is like the little devil and I’m the little angel but like we’re both sort of saying
Go out and buy stuff so it’s not really that less cynical than the other I don’t know how to transfer onto our topic of the show because we’ve just like kind of gone off the rails 100% of the time so speaking of spending money speaking of spending money Indie platforms thank you
Satan you’re welcome with the toss so it’s kind of the niche within the niche that is Indie gaming like there is a mainstream Indie gaming situation and then you have like separate Platforms in there so it’s things like the play dat Apple arcade game pass uh I can’t read
What this one says underneath everybody’s link like thank you for for doing that was that Mike no that wasn’t me that one’s mine utomic as how you pronounced that um yeah and there are a ton of other little things um and this has been a topic we’ve sort of thrown
Around a lot I’d like to do a an expanded version of this topic where we all check out different games from it but let’s just let’s just talk about what they are to begin with um so a lot of people in my community know that I was recently uh I recently received from
Panic their creators a play date just like that uh that mic is holding up for people who can’t visually see him um and it is such a I’m still kind of getting my thoughts together and playing different things legitimately like five minutes before we started recording this
Podcast I put up my review for Mars after midnight and I will talk more about that game as we talk about games we’re playing but the playd date for just my thoughts right now unfinished is such a hard thing look so excited to here
Like like I I Al I I like I love it I love the play date has a playfulness it has a heart that is the core of all things Indie that it’s like it’s little things like when you purchase um when you purchase a game and
I say purchase but like as a journalist I’m getting things for free so disclaimer there um your game shows up on the list and you like literally unwrap it with like little robot arms and you’re like this is so unne necessary it could just show up in a
List but it doesn’t it’s just like T and shiny and happy and it’s like this is the sort of little detail that just makes me so happy with things it is as far as like the actual product Hardware goes like it is so much more solid than I was expecting
I always like when I saw it for the first time I expected to be a little plasticky thing but it’s a really like Hardy little machine it is really thoughtful in the way that the crank is used like it is limited obviously you don’t have a lot of space for huge games
And huge graphics and like all kinds of things going on there but because of the Restriction people get so much more creative and really silly H so that is such a fun combination of things um the other unfortunate downside to that is not only are things limited but like a lot of the
Games that I am running into for this are kind of like Tech demos and not actually games so they’re like little experiences of try pushing as much buttons as you can but we’re not going to communicate a lot to you um sometimes that turns into a thing who like oh
That’s really cool and sometimes it’s like oh cool you know so it is a hard thing to recommend because it is like a $200 piece of equipment um and there aren’t games up until perhaps this week there weren’t any games that was like a system seller so it really depends on whether
Or not you as an indie person are interested in this specific experience and the kind of experience that the play date allows um the rest of these a lot of these are sort of well I don’t know maybe Jenny before I say something that is going to be contradicted why don’t you
Tell us about your Indie platform that you want to Champion today sure well I don’t I don’t necessarily know if I’m championing it but it’s one that I thought of I it’s one that she’s stepping back real fast you guys that backpedaling is real yeah it’s well CU it’s like it’s a
Platform where Indies are located full disclaimer I did work it was actually my first job in game like way back in the day so that’s primarily how I know about it but it actually was a predecessor essentially to Game Pass um and maybe there were others it’s the only one I
Knew about that happened before Game Pass was a thing or it was like they wanted to set up some sort of cloud gaming situation for people to play games on like PC Mobile like across you know consoles whatever um and yeah they they did it it was basically game pass
Before Game Pass and their primary focus at the time when I was working there was indie games um but I haven’t super paid attention toomic since I left um admittedly but it looks like I just visited the website just after putting it on the show notes and it looks like
They still are pretty Indie heavy as well as like retro and sort of older game Heavy um but yeah so kind of like a little adjacent to Game Pass situation that I wanted to highlight just because I remembered it with this topic prompt she quickly threw it under the
Bus it’s like no one should check it out no I mean we could play for St stuff this episode know J this game was trash Jenny was like platform’s garbage Mike’s dead inside it’s definitely theat like what’s going on the doll in Black like a doll’s eyes um Janet let’s
See if I can play nice yeah I’m getting on blast too um you seem to be a real advocate for Apple arcade yeah I think I’ll take sure I’ll take that and run with it why not you know what I’m not I’m just gonna Embrace what I’ve been Ling Janna Garcia’s Apple
Arcade’s Number One Gamer yeah um I mean I definitely did hit Apple arcade a lot harder when it first came out um I think part of that is the being there on the ground floor kind of seeing what it has to offer and also when the offerings are
A little smaller it’s easier to play Everything cuz is not as big um but Apple arcade remains to be a pretty fun platform to me um it if you’re not familiar Apple arcade is a subscription service I think it’s about five bucks a month um you get access to 200 plus
Games there’s no ads there’s no inapp purchases that is part of their policy online offline plays supported across Apple devices that means your you know iPhone iPad uh Apple TV I assume maybe your Mac I guess as well sure even I just I think haven’t played on the Mac
So that’s why I was like oh I guess um correction it’s $6.99 a month you can get like a one month free trial depending on whatever um I’m not sure if you can do an annual and if the annual would be cheaper but that’s the situation much like other Apple
Subscription services like through um I don’t know if you’d call it Apple family or like iCloud or what it is you can have like up to five people on it potentially like if they’re in your sort of General Apple ecosystem is what I’ll say so that’s what Apple arcade is in a
Nutshell um and yeah it has a lot of really cool Indie titles I do think part Pro Part con I think as it’s continued um I’m not sure how many years this has been running I think for quite some time I think it launched around either 2018
2019 sort of time um it has gone a little bit more the way of hey this is a game that everyone agrees is really good now an apple arcade version that has you know it’s ad free and you kind of get that perk um I guess just to get the
Other cons out of the way another kind of complaint that I’ve heard from people with apple arcade is sometimes that desire to break free of subscription models I think a lot of users wish there was a way to pay any amount of money to just kind of have them aside from the
Subscription so that is kind of the con if your game is an apple arcade game or if it’s an apple arcade exclusive people can really only engage with it then through that um subscription which is in contrast to something like Game Pass where sure you can play games via game
Pass but those games aren’t limited to Game Pass they are just available on Game Pass so those are kind of the cons in a nutshell the pros I think these games are really high quality obviously we all have different tastes different things we look for I think they have but
I think they have a really wide range of style of games again sometimes you get some new stuff sometimes you get old things revamped I think a lot of them too feel very like wellmade with Mobile in mind I think one of the gripes a lot of Gamers especially hardcore Gamers who
Come from the console space have with mobile games is that feeling of I feel like I’m it’s not really like as fleshed out of an experience or it feels maybe to you know it’s trying to be a console game but on a handheld so you have the controls that are you know
Those are sort of the complaints that I think people often have and I think Apple arcade avoids a lot of that you know part of that is its option for like Bluetooth controller support with the devices part of that is just I think this kind of came out in a great time
With like the popularity of the backbone which is a third-party product you can buy that is meant to give you that handheld console feeling on your phone so like these kind of all worked in harmony together and then of course there’s plenty of touchscreen controls um fantastic games have came
Through here such as grindstone like one of the best games of that year was an apple arcade game and it was like sort of the one of the subscription seller games um of that time of like oh my God this is so incredible and since then it’s become available on other things um
But yeah that’s op arcade and nutshell I think what’s great about it is it has variety and quality so like a lot of the things we’re going to talk about here it’s one of those things where you’re going to get out of it what you put into it so like obviously different things
Have different appeal levels but at the end of the day if you have op arcade and you’re not playing the games maybe not the subscription for you or maybe not the time but if you’re interested in venturing in I think you’ll find that there’s a lot of offerings I honestly
Would be shocked if anyone like any gamer got up arcade and didn’t find at least five if not 10 games that they really genuinely enjoyed um so that’s sort of my elevator pitch for Apple arcade I think two again they since it’s mobile games I think a lot of the titles
Like one compliment I want to give Mobile gaming in general because I think there is a lot of shade thrown to it is mobile gaming has some of the greatest quickest simplest tutorials you will ever encounter I know haters might say oh it’s because the game’s more
Simplistic but I’ve played a lot of simple games in a lot of places and and the speed at which they’re like here’s the game boom now you’re playing it you’re in it is so lovely and fun and refreshing so if you’re open to Mobile gaming I think Apple arcade is a great
Spot to hit up um and of course plenty of Indies there if you’re interested in you know having that which I’m guessing if you’re listening to the show that’s a big passion for you so yeah app arcade is a great place to go yeah and speaking
Of sort of more Mobile gaming I think this was Mike typing this as Jan was talk talking over there um Netflix yeah Netflix if you didn’t know they do the video game thing The Game Pass shows the Game Pass of shows the OG um yeah Netflix is very similar to Apple arcade
And I do I forgot if Janet mentioned this but Apple arcade also if you have an Apple TV you can just hook up a Xbox controller and play Apple arcade stuff on Apple TV as well super cool but yeah Netflix very similar to Apple arcade um
It you just get a a slate of games include it in your Netflix subscription I think everybody has a Netflix nowadays so you just have games available to you um and they nothing as I turn translucent getting this giant white page in my face um The Game’s lineup is
Pretty killer like just doing a quick scroll like death door is on there and I’m just shouting out the Indies death store is on there of of course poy is is on here um hell yeah before your eyes dead cells high water Kentucky Route Zero um oxen free oxf free 2 like uh
Rajie and epic there is a lot of really quality stuff on here um the biggest downside with Netflix is they barely promote it and a lot of the games and and their entire game section is just buried uh the way you have to access the games is going through the Netflix app
On your phone and then there’s like you just scroll down and like eventually you’ll come through like a swipe of like hey play some games uh there is a little cheat code to get around that if you just find like let’s say death store for example go to death store on the App
Store and you click Netflix as the developer whatever it’ll just give you all the Netflix games there much easier to sort through and and search for all the games that are available um but it’s really great it seems like aside from like the way they’re presenting the
Storefront like I I really wish they just like would come out with a dedicated app or something to to help bring more attention to the to the uh their initiative um I just I really appreciate that Netflix is bringing a lot of high-profile Indies to wider subscriber base it’s just a matter of
Making them aware that they’re available that they they exist 100% yeah but super cool and like clearly they have a good eye they it seems like they do care um especially now come like with night schoolers and um a couple other Studios they are starting to become a quote
Unquote Indie publisher uh you know with ox ofree and a couple other games um or a couple other Studios I should say so uh yeah Netflix don’t sleep on it and if you’re not you know if you want something more than Indies the arguably it’s the best place to play the original
GTA Trilogy runs great I’ve been playing Vice City on and off with the backbone it’s killer will you play non-end games shocker controversy yeah exposed um I think I I want to see more from Netflix gaming is additional like categorization as well I think Mikey kind of nailed it with the which you
Know I’m sure they have their reasons for not making a separate app as well you know obviously they have a team that is thinking about that but just being able to kind of sort through it would be really nice um but I am continuously very cautiously optimistic about Netflix’s gaming Venture just because
For me there is that fear of like are you g to like again acquire and then shut down you know like there’s definitely that that’s the fear is always there yeah the fear of such a big company that isn’t known for gaming stepping into the gaming realm but I do
Think things like even just you know seeing them at an event like sgf like there with night school it’s like okay like and I think they could get more stuff under their belt it could become a little bit more of a ground for new stuff coming out because I do think they
Have that like remember that game you like it’s here and it’s like H you know I think they struggle I think in that sense to forge an identity a little bit but you know surely that night school acquisition can take them a bit further yeah it was such a bizarre thingy Fox
Too right oh yeah you’re right yeah the Cozy Grove developers they’re working on a new title and it’s Netflix title to see that they made that bear game right too mhm so yeah not be alpha bear oh alpha bear Al yeah I love that game it’s so good great
Word game like for the amount of great games on this list like that it is not a number one sort of thing you think of in the Indie sphere as like a place to play Indie Games means they’re really not doing their job here like I don’t know
Who they’re trying to attract if they aren’t they don’t they seem like Mike said kind of ashamed of the fact that they’ve got games so like are they trying to attract the like the nor like people who just have Netflix or they trying to attract the gaming audience
Yeah I don’t think it’s like ashamed I just think it they just genuinely don’t know how to Market a video game like aside from like partnering with Jeff and sgf and like obviously night schoolers being at sgf but like that more I equate or credit to night school having that attachment
Um with the pedigree of that studio yeah I think it’s a matter of just like them not knowing how to go about marketing a games platform like I think it is granted I’m sure there’s a lot of technical reasons behind this as well but I’m kind of surprised that you’re
Not able to play this like play Netflix games on a TV or an Apple TV or like a very even if it is just Apple TV like make the app for one dedicated device to make it a little easier I’m surprised it’s just not integrated or it’s not
Integrated in the Netflix app to begin with even if it is streaming um see I I hope uh like like Janet says like I’m I’m cautiously optimistic for this platform and what they could do with it because yeah everybody has a Netflix subscription and a lot of eyes could get
On these Netflix subt or stealing a a lot a lot of eyes a lot of eyes have access to the these games but they uh just do not know they exist yeah I think too like at the risk of um this turning into like one praise like eight dra of like running
Through these services but you know everything has its drawbacks even the categorization is a little bit odd like they have immortality um labeled as interactive story which I agree with but oxenfre is also labels as interactive story and it’s like ah like that’s kind of you know what I mean like you have
Like something else in your mind so but then also again maybe leading into a more General audience but um yeah I’d be I’d be curious to know like what their what their um idea is with that vertical but then if you’re always get a PR answer for
That so it’s like well we really see that so I don’t know I wish I could get the non PR answer for video games are the future of interactive storytelling yeah yeah I don’t know but I wish I wish get an on PR answer from well because
It’s like when so when you think about like the Medias that we spend time on it’s interesting because it’s like there’s the training element of like when I play when for me when I go to Netflix it’s because I want to turn my brain off and so it’s interesting as a
Player because like if I’m going to Netflix I have trained myself to think this is a turn the brain off situation versus play a game turn the brain on situation so I feel like there’s going to be a weird element of like training that’s happening here this is a dumb
Idea but like here’s my dumb idea for NF Netflix go full in like Tik Tok Style on it make it you can play a show on the bottom half is he playing hon right so many people Game and Watch nli put that in one thing doesn’t doesn’t Xbox do that isn’t
There like like an Xbox feature that you could do picture and picture or like PS5 I think one of the consoles do it but I’m saying like lean into it like more you know Netflix like Netflix gaming as Netflix games you know like yeah honestly if they could cuz that’s how
Cuz right now like if I’m going in and playing like actually I’ll play on Apple arcade but I will have Netflix up like in a window on my phone like in a corner so yeah that’s a genius idea so now if Netflix says that they owe Janet like a million dollars
M two let them walk it down let them tell know you know maybe bad an ey at to I don’t know right just walk in there and be like money please I have a question who wrote the the old but new but old Hardware Mike uses to play his old new
Games excuse me that was not me I also added legit do not remember the name Mike I’m sorry um like you’re like it’s like what the analog pocket can do it’s like are you not talking about the analog pocket I think I am right is that
What it is or is it do you have anything else where it’s like do you have anything else Mike yeah come on no I I think you’re talking about the analog pocket yeah the Game Boy the new Game Boy MH yeah so the analog pocket is really cool uh it’s a device primarily
To play Old School retro uh handheld games Game Boy Game Boy Advance you get a um adapter for like Neo Geo pocket stuff like that but the other uh functionality is you could put a little SD card in there and there are a lot of developers and this kind of like Segways
Into another platform another obvious Niche platform we haven’t talked about uh a lot of creators on itch uh create analog pocket specific game so they play wonderfully handheld and it’s like a brand new Game Boy Game Boy Color experiences for the modern day um something I always have like in hands uh
Folks like limit run will even like print out physical copies and physical carts of certain games I’m holding up Phobos deer which is like a really sick survival hor game that came out last year um I towards the end of the year I started a good boy Galaxy as well it’s a
Game Boy events inspired uh platformer where he plays a little space dog it’s like a puzzle platformer it’s super cute so the itch Community is thriving when it comes to both um the analog pocket and the play date a lot most of my play date games come from itch where you just
Easily sideload things um so yeah I do also just want to shout out iio iio is a fascinating platform uh a lot of really cool experimental like usually for for the most part like a lot of like game Jam in progress kind of things that you
Could kind of just jump in and try out and play around with um I recently uh I for whatever reason and it’s just like one of those things like when you see a game break out of itch and like get like a big win you feel like that sense of
Pride like uh Buckshot roulette just got picked up by critical reflex and that was like a hiio darling from around the holidays so like there’s some really dang cool stuff on itch and I feel like a lot of people tend to just like brush
It to the side so big shout out to itch I also feel like it took me a while into my Indie journey to learn that itch existed in a sense like it wasn’t necessarily like it’s interesting I’ll be curious to know and if I guess if you’re listening to this and it’s your
First time hearing about itch you know stand up and be like hello this was me cuz I’m curious to know how many people listening might not know about itch cuz like I didn’t know new poll yeah like did you know it iio existed but yeah genuinely it is it’s like one of the
Best places and I also think if you’re someone that you know we talk about content creation a lot on here you know how to get into the industry things like that comes up in like the you know kind of Indie home brw media scene uh is. iio
It’s like you can’t get game codes okay it’s fine like it’s most of the games are free or pay what you want like there’s so many ways to participate in gaming and like itch.io provides like one of the most affordable ways simply by way of so many of the creators
Posting up their game and either charging nothing or charging pay what you want and again some of my favorite experiences have been on there like I talk all the time about uh Yoma the the story of the girl walking with her grandmother through the woods there’s
Also um a really sick game I played called oh man TR remember the name of it let me know if y’all know it it is um a game where you are sitting at a table and you’re trying to like not die like you’re part of like a
Like a potato cult group like you’ve been like taken and then you have to like try to escape like but you can’t eat the potato salad but you can’t let them see that you threw out the potato salad and genuinely that game is like red as hell I’m scrolling through now to
See if I can figure out what the name of that game even is um but yeah so many cool things there’s like this weirdo horror game called bon bon as well I remember playing on there yeah Halloween forever’s on there like super sick Halloween game that’s like a sort of old
School platformer style yeah there’s just so many great titles um available through that I want to shout out a particular developer um H Wilson so if you go to H wilson. itch.io um they developed my one of my favorite games of 2022 bowling cross um the full title is
Called bowling cross final frame or bowling cross Dark Legacy of the devil bowler it’s an action RPG framed around Bowling like it’s a turnbas bowling battle system it’s so sick it’s so Innovative and they just mid last year they were doing uh they were developing a game called bumpers and broadswords they just
Launched the I guess if you want to call it 1.0 version of bumpers and broadswords it’s called bumpers and broadswords maximum um let me pull up the description really quick uh Tower scaling bumper collecting RPG so it’s kind of like uh Yu-Gi-Oh meets Beyblade so if that does anything for you yeah uh
Go to H wilson. itch.io legitimately one of my favorite creat uh active on itch right now my weird potato salad game is called last meal last meal last meal sounds like a good game I also want to shout out Isa a frosty Glide or skater witch depending
On what time of the development you jumped into this game because it started as like a a game Jam game and is now being fully developed um and I think I gave a little I think on my site I have an impressions of the early game and
It’s just a cool little voxel like witch broom skating deal oh I think I know what game you’re talking about actually yeah it was a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to that so U uh also the game I shout out earlier fobos deer it’s available on
Itch the developer name is appur games uh their page is Apper a p s.h. they also have a really cool like this entire this is a series The I guess if you want call it deer series it’s like weird glitchy meta horror if that’s kind of your thing uh deer vengance is
Another really good one I think it’s a sequel to Phobos uh anyways check out the entire Library really good and also the spring sale currently happening over on um on the note of sales I I forget the name of it so if you all remember
The name of this day I think it happens every year there’s a specific day where the sales on it go more towards the Creator than they normally do yeah all the proed go to itch like itch doesn’t take a cut um I forget the name for that
They have for that but like that drops there’s you know like you mentioned the game jams there’s always like some type of jam going on that you can play so if you’re looking for like a themed moment it is a great spot for that um I think
The last like compliment I want to give to itch or just like the use case of it is which I feel like we haven’t maybe fully unpacked this we kind of talk about it a lot but the idea of like how do you find more indie games or how do
You find your favorite Indie Games definitely like some of these creators to like Mike’s point of like games blowing up to grow outside of it like you may see someone creating in like years down the line they’ll make another game that ends up being like very much
Your jam if you resonated with that early work I remember that happened to me I can’t remember the name of the Creator offand and I want to like misspeak but I used to do a lot of itch content when I first started out and I would post it like on YouTube and it’s
Like and it’s kind of funny when you cover like games like this we talked about that earlier in a few episodes as well about like playing demos and like being perceived and stuff so like when I’ll do content like a lot of developers will end up watching that because they
Don’t have necessarily A lot of people like playing their games like online so they’re like oh man like this is just a demo like like don’t perceive my work kind of vibe a little bit but um I had an interaction with a Creator like years back probably like
2015 or something um 20 years back I’m like dang Janet yeah I was but but a child on my um on my dialup internet just uploading content man if I started on YouTube 20 years ago the background would look a lot better I I’m telling
You right now um but they went on to work on before your eyes and they’re like oh I remember you I’m like I remember you like it was just a really nice moment and um I do think that you can really find great creators that resonate with you like through that kind
Of you know ground up approach yeah it is hio Creator day it’s similar to B Camp Fridays where hiio doesn’t take a cut sweet uh and talking about sort of also someone has listed limited run games and I do want to shout them out because it’s an awesome thing but like a
Lot of these that we have been discussing kind of taking in macro um require some sort of investment in some way either like monetary or like monetary and like investment in an ecosystem so like if you’re not uh an Xbox owner if you don’t have access to
To that ecosystem like it doesn’t matter how good game pass is because you don’t have access to it same thing with like the play date is like a $200 machine like that’s a really hard thing to ask people to do if you are one of those people that are stealing Netflix from
Other people and you don’t necessarily have access to to the games like a lot of these require either a like being in an ecosystem or money which is an interesting like sort of conundrum as the Indie sphere I always think of it as being kind of like We’re All in This
Together Community sort of thing but considering how many of the platforms that are kind of Indie specific or Indie Centric are fracturing in a way it makes me wonder both like is this fostering the the Indie Community or is it fracturing us more or uh are
These is it possible for Indie fans to have all of them is it even something they should aspire to what do you think Jenny I see you looking over there um well I don’t know I think to answer the second question I feel like aspiring to have everything of
Something is probably not a good idea just in general like I think there what do you mean you can’t catch them all Pokemon Li no um I feel like each of these serves like a really different type of community and different purpose so I
Think as a player and if if and who am I to say I guess if you are like I have so much time so much money and so much energy and I want it all like go for it I love that can I be that person enjoy
Your life I do not have the time money or energy to participate in all and engage with all of them in like the fullest capacity so I know for myself I look at what do each of these offer in term of community Vibes what kind of
Games do they like to create like what kind of play experience are they focusing on and just try to focus on that um and so I guess in that sense technically it’s fracturing the community because it’s allowing people to find those specific niches but um at
The same time I feel like there is a wider sort of we’re all trying to find indie games and unique ways of playing and like find things that are these sort of Diamonds in the Rough and so I think that sentiment is one that unifies
People who do try to look for these type of game experiences versus maybe people who are a bit more traditional and like I’m G to just go for PlayStation because I grew up playing PlayStation games and like I want Final Fantasy you know like that’s a little bit of a different
Mentality so I don’t know I think it’s maybe it is fracturing but that’s not necessarily a bad thing um and it just allows for more specific focused communities that can serve those communities better Mike I think it can be incredibly overwhelming to keep track of everything
And try to stay on top of everything uh hence the council being perpetually stressed and anxious and uh yeah yeah it’s hard and and you write you wrote in the notes like is it viable no it’s realistically no it’s not viable unless you’re like really into it like if this is like your
Career if this is your job sure maybe a little bit because like we feel we have our duty to stay on top of Play Day Cog to stay on top of like the Apple arcade updates every month to stay on top of what’s being added to Netflix to Game
Pass to limit what limited run is putting out what is happening on it every day where hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of games are dropping um but no as a player like I I you know whenever I do get asked something like this like find a platform that you vibe
With like I think each one of these platforms has a tone and kind of like a style that can cater to specific personalities I guess um find your Niche and stick with it yeah and it’ll definitely reward you for that I’m really interested about this also not
Just um on the player side but sort of on the industry side of things which Janet can probably speak to a little bit for coverage and Mike and Jenny can kind of speak towards like PR but for me it’s very um I think it’s very telling play
Date just had one of its biggest releases ever was the Lucas Pop’s uh Mars after midnight and the way that not only it rolled out but it is being covered is extremely intriguing for me as uh on the journalist side of things because I am not by and large seeing
Reviews my review just went up anybody wants to check it out um and but my review is even weird it is weird within my own weird sort of uh reviews in that I I couldn’t give it a score and I didn’t know how to kind of score it and
I go into that a little bit um I saw like bigger Outlets talking about the fact that it was releasing but not actually covering the game like I saw Game Informer kind of put out a thing that’s like this game is out and here’s
How to get it which is not a usual thing for Game Informer that is not typically how they cover games so that’s really interesting I think the fact that Lucas Pope for anybody who doesn’t know papers please return of the over dim uh developer is such a big name that this game is
Causing uh sort of ripples throughout that people feel like they have to cover but it does kind of speak to how the playd date specifically works in coverage because you’re not typically going to get like a list of here’s all the playd games that are coming out on
Any sort of large Channel or anything that’s not specifically like play dat focused it’s a like as a person who covers games myself like I often have to kind of triage games because I’m you know kind of a single person working on a website um I
Don’t get a lot of time and I can’t always cover everything so a lot of the times I’m not able to cover things on specific Niche within Niche platforms because they’re not going to get like the kind of views like I don’t typically care that much about views but it does
Matter that people come to my website um and that’s true like on a much grander scale for bigger Outlets um so like you’re not getting those covered but I’m very interested how that reflects in like Janet I don’t know if you want to speak to like the coverage side of
Things but I also want to turn it over to Mike and Jenny in a bit to like talk about what that means for your clients and and that sort of thing so whoever wants to take it go yeah with the coverage aspect um yeah it’s just it’s one of those
Things you know what I mean where it’s like and I like the play date I I admittedly I think I like the play date more in concept than I do in practice um I did score it at the time that it came out I think I gave it I imagine I gave
It like a three out of five on my review scale um but I have to kind of double check that and you know my thoughts have kind of remained mostly unchanged it is a like really cool device but kind of to your point I think the play date more so
Than any other console does kind of back itself a bit into a niche because it is so specific because you do like really need that console because the games usually are not like released you know multiplatform because part of that but part of that’s the cool thing right so
Like I’m not mad at it I get why the play dat is how it is but it also makes it um you know inherently a lot less mainstream to engage with where it’s like I you know I want to be the person that’s covering all the plated stuff and
I’ve thought about like oh this would be such a fun Lane to do like a play dat podcast or a play date only thing but it’s like one of those things where like I’ve yet to dust it off and like the only thing and it’s not the really the
Play’s fault it is rocking its angle really nicely but the only thing that’s going to get me to play the play dat is myself and I’m not probably going to do that you know what I mean and I think a lot of coverage people fall into that as well
Where maybe they’ll be playing it because I do think it’s a big name that people are interested in checking out but at the same time I think I think too like one of the issues with coverage sometimes and I try to avoid this where I can but I think unfortunately for some
Smaller projects the conversation regarding coverage of something so Niche ends up being boiled down to something very very utilitarian which I really hope that we can all try to back away from of like well yeah but like do I need the play it to play this or is it
Just like fine and it’s like and I don’t mind that question because I think that’s a valid question but at the same time I do think when you bring this to the table there’s kind of like a what’s going on here is type of energy that you
Don’t get with more I think mainstreamed games um there’s also like a I think less demand too from the audience where again we’re not necessarily I don’t think anyone at any outlet for the most part is completely bending their coverage solely for the audience like the audience might be in
Mind but there’s plenty of passion projects that happen from the biggest site to the smallest site of things that again don’t do the numbers but the people that created that content wanted to put it out there that being said though like it’s like so you’re telling me that like I’m not getting pressured
By the audience to cover this maybe I don’t really want to cover it to begin with perfect storm to just not you know and I think that is kind of what has ended up happening with like a lot of these play dat titles um I’m happy to
See that doesn’t seem like it’s you know shot the play date down I do want it to keep rocking its Lane but at the same time it’s a lane that I don’t think much kind of like what you see with VR which at least VR is a little
Bit more like part of our ecosystem a lot of those things also get relegated you know people will drop a VR of you be like this is a 10 out of 10 game and I’ll be like really cool and I turn back you know because we only have so much
Time we already Rock within whatever Lanes we have and I guess the question ends up becoming do you have someone on your team who’s like this is my thing right you joked like oh J you’re the app arcade person right like do people on these teams have playd people yeah odds
Are statistically like probably not again not a bad thing it’s a niche but that’s also why the coverage might not happen it’s like okay if we don’t have the desire like if people don’t want to cover it and the audience isn’t asking for us to cover it you know why would we
End up covering it then right because again cont much not necessarily a while it has PR aspects because like PR exists with media me ‘s goal is never like PR related you know outside of like sponsored posts if that’s goes through like the financial department or
Something but it’s like I’m here to do my review like you’re here to Market your game you might be like oh my God the review is good yay but like you’re you’re not necessarily I’m not like man got to help out the team like I’m I’m
Kind of working in my own like Silo where how I affect you is neither here nor there to like my content right and part of that too of the like the audience isn’t asking for it and and you aren’t pressing yourself to do it part of that too is just having resources
Like I saw Mike’s tweet about Mars after midnight after midnight which by the way hilarious love it and I was like that is such a good idea for like it’s no batro in Vegas but it’s pretty good you know what I mean like yeah you know never
Mind um I’m like do not sh with the gun I handed you I wanted to shoot Mike uh an email or a message saying like hey we should actually do this we should like stream Mars after midnight after midnight that’d be great but then I’m like first of all Mike’s like on
Fumes right now because he is working so hard on this showcase that we can’t wait to watch um but like the resources just aren’t there for like time effort like head budget interest yeah budget um to like do that kind of stream because it’s like you that time that
Takes you a lot that takes time away from covering other things that more people might be interested in like it is such an interesting thing that like just in my my life recently I was like oh I don’t even want to suggest coverage to someone who is a friend because it might
Take resources away that otherwise might go to something else um but yeah as PR like how would you guys talk to like clients about making stuff on the play dat or or whatever I’m not a PR person I don’t know how that stuff works Jenny you want to go or you want
Me to start uh you can start hold on my headphones like cutting in and out so I’m trying to Great reason for me to start okay y yep yep um there’s a lot of conversations that happen and obviously it depends on the game depends on the time of year depends on the
Situation whatever it is um a big thing we always try to do at least personally is set proper expectations so let’s say the play dat thing for example like we’ll look at Mars after midnight which is arguably best case scenario it’s a Lucas Pope game Lucas Pope a renowned
Developer in our industry you know historically has put out bangers that has garnered a lot of coverage so we look at that be like okay here is what Mars after midnight did for announcement it did for the launch here’s the people who covered it these are the people we
Know are paying attention to to the play date so we’ll pitch them games but it’s about setting those expectations of like listen and like I just did a quick Google end Gadget Destructoid and I I think you mentioned game inform forer okay those are our tier one targets but aside from that a
Couple other sites dropped reviews but that’s about it and then you look at the the influencer side of things of like you know there are playd influencers out there there is Janet mentioned kind of jokingly the podcast thing there is a not oh no I was totally serious about that like I
Think a good idea there is a a pretty I maybe I’ll use major like a little Loosely but like there is a major playday podcast and a playday community podcast that like puts out their own like playd Awards and all that kind of stuff um so there definitely is that
Niche but yeah again setting the expectations of like okay you’re putting out a playday game you’re not putting out for like a better term or like just for to throw something out there you’re not putting out Cult of the Lamb to for example so setting those expectations
That’s a big thing um the other thing is just trying to properly portray the current state of media bandwidth like we all understand like media bandwidth is at an all-time low inboxes are flooded on The Daily there is way too much happening every single moment of every
Single day there are events there are new game drops there is news there is what ever it may be constantly flooding the Inbox and everybody is fighting for attention we are going to be another person fighting for attention and listen like if it is a good game pitch if it
Has a good game hook if we’re hitting the right people at the right moment we’ll have a chance to break out like great we always promise that we’re going to try our best to break through to people but again expectations like we are just another game trying to fight for retention cuz
That’s it is it’s a big fight and especially nowadays where like there are more games dropping now than ever like every single day like before we started recording we looked at the release calendar for like the the upcoming in Spring it’s filling up real quick and
Even like I personally like we you know I’m I’m already planning summer and potential like June July August releases like the big thing right now I’m having conversations about it’s like okay you could launch on xday but know that Elder ring the DLC is dropping on the 21st so
Like we have to be a little more strategic on when you decide you want to talk about your game when you want to release the demo when you want to do this when you want to do that so long story short it is about expectations of course expectations and a PR person’s
Plan and the ideal strategy doesn’t always line up with the developer strategy like deadlines have to get hit you know sales have to be made the game has to come out at the end of the day um so yeah it’s uh it’s a real balance act
And it does you know it it takes skill it takes patience it takes you know X Y and Z but um there is a a whole lot of luck to it nowadays as well so I think um I do have a quick question and then like I want to hear Jenny’s thoughts on
This as well um just out of curiosity for me if you had someone come to you with a game and the option for some reason is on the table to have the game on all of these would you recommend that what do you mean all of these all the platforms all of these
Platforms the game is viable to release simultaneously on every single platform yeah like it like it doesn’t really make a difference cuz like let’s say it’s only releasing play dat Apple arcade I guess Game Pass is a weird one but like all these Niche platforms outside of steam and the
Consoles like sure you could cast a wide net but I think at the end of the day it’s still the same conversation about only releasing a game on play date where not unfortunately not a lot of people play to pay attention to isio unfortunately not like and I’m talking
About like mainstream tier one media because of course everybody wants a PC Gamer article everybody wants IGN shout out everybody wants a nod from Game Informer um unfortunately hiio doesn’t bring in the clicks like it you know it’s I mean I’m sure you know running Indie and former
Running 61 Indie the editorial stuff like we could see the back end numbers like unless it is a major Indie we ain’t drawing the attention when it comes to like the most Niche unknown weird drop that’s on on a random Tuesday especially compared to you know uh you know let’s
Say the the rise of ronin previews um yeah so yeah like sure we could launch on every single platform as long as of course you know it doesn’t affect performance and and so on so forth to potentially catch these different niches and like collectively they they G great results
But yeah it’s tough you know you really have to be targeted you really have to know your audience um with the play dat in particular I I know I do want to shout out Pap agenda because I think Pap aenda does know Their audience very well and they know their targets very well
And they know how to pitch the play date extremely well so yeah I mean even today we we should have brought it up earlier but um uh play dat is going to be for sale at GDC which is wonderful so another opportunity for it to hopefully catch more of the mainstream wave
Moving forward um yeah there’s there’s a lot of of thought and strategy and again luck that goes into uh the day-to- day thinking about PR campaigns and when to talk when to release when to not talk and fighting your way into a Game Informer piece into a
Showcase it’s a lot 100% Jenny I see you over there shaking your head yeah mostly I mean Mikey did a great job just kind of summarizing all of those elements um thank you in terms of putting putting out a game and trying to get attention
For it on these platforms um one of the things I was also thinking about that’s a factor from maybe more of the developer side in the choice of what platforms to go to um especially within these Niche ones um you know especially like apple arcade and Netflix and Game
Pass actually notably um offered developers like really strong deals to get onto these platforms first and so I think also that was a major factor earlier in the life cycles of these platforms that seems to be a little bit less so now um but I think just thinking
About the ways that devs and you know these made these decisions like whether or not to go onto Apple arcade um whether or not to go on to Game Pass play dat’s a little bit excuse me play dat’s a little bit different because that’s like you build for the play date
But um I think that was early on in the cycle of like Hey we’re releasing relasing a game maybe releasing on PC maybe we’re putting on a more traditional platform so like Game Pass kind of makes sense but then we have this thing that’s I remember when Apple
Arcades started becoming a thing and we were like should we port to mobile is it going to be worth it and there was this element of hey there’s a little bit of incentive that Apple was providing to developers to get games like quality games on the platform um so that was
Another element of that sort of a step before what Mike was talking about in terms of making the choice to even go there but yeah oh real quick also um with Game Pass in particular like a lot of The Game Pass stuff like their their year is usually locked up like way in
Advance like 2024 is usually locked up in like mid 2023 early 2023 so like like Jenny was saying that decision has to be made super far in advance like once you have like an idea of what your target is those conversations with Xbox has to start a year two years in advance yep
Yeah it’s a long process and so it’s like those decisions made so far in advance of and often times it’s it is interesting because I think um I’ve encountered other developers I’ve talked to who’ve made these calls of like hey we want the funding so let’s go onto
These platforms and then it turns out like oh okay now we have to build for this platform which is a whole like mechanical thing and then now we have to also Mark it to the audience on this platform which adds in all of the factors that Mike mentioned and I won’t
Like rehash it completely because he did such a good job of just understanding what the community expectations are what expectations are you setting from your marketing materials and then how are you consistently delivering them and like setting and following up through those expectations not just in like your
Announcement but in any sort of preview or demo you do up through launch so um yeah and like Mike said I think we kind of underplay there is there is a science to it but there is a dash of luck that you cannot discount when doing all of
This work in games so yeah that’s sort of like the game industry in a nutshell like you can work really really hard but you still need that dash of luck yep anybody else want to throw something out about Indie platforms before we move on I think just like C bulb Janet doesn’t
Get talk the time of that could not have been worse I’m like I think you’re like okay no one all right okay good um no I was just going to say um that um so I don’t know m that I should yeah we don’t know if we’re still recording
Hold on yeah it still says we’re recording I I think it’s still going but I was just going to say um you know just pursue whatever you want to I think there’s if you can afford it there’s nothing inherently wrong with like l a subscription kind of ride and like maybe
You’re using it maybe you’re not but you know if it’s something that’s stressing you out whether it’s logistically or financially um you know there’s lots of ways to tackle it I think you know consider picking maybe like a a little themed month for yourself you know like
I sort of like putting myself into a box sometimes to try to like engage with the platform more so maybe it is that you got Apple arcade for a month and you’re going to like spend a lot of time there and then take it from there or whatever
Or maybe it’s like you you know want the play dat you see it you’re interested in it you get it and you like rock with it for a bit like that’s kind of one thing I wrote in my review where I address the like do you think you’re gonna play this
Or is it just gonna sit a drawer now I know for now that I’m here in 2024 I mean it’s not sitting in a drawer it’s on my shelf displayed prominently as it should be but yeah I haven’t really used it but one thing I wrote in that was
That doesn’t mean that I didn’t get gr I got a review copy so it’s like oh I didn’t pay for it but like that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy my time with it like I have a freaking GBA that I bought and mod got a modded version of I
Haven’t really spent I spent more time with the play date than this still fine having both like one I purchased one I received but either way like there’s you don’t always have to necessarily play through the stuff that you have but just kind of like rock the lane in the way
That you want to rock it like if that is bothering you you know review it and reflect but yeah there’s lots of options to pursue um Indies in these different platforms and niches and they’re all really fun and different and they all have like really strong communities too which I think is very
Cool 100% And with that uh I’m not going to cut anybody else off if they have anything to say but I don’t think they do um we’re going to move over to games we’ve been playing um there are some interesting things on here I think a lot of us have
Um similar things so I want to start and they all like start with an S by the way yeah so let’s start with the the S Trio um I want to start with snufkin because I love it so much Janet how are you liking snufkin it’s really nice I
Started it on stream um on so that was the game I liked if you the lore of the earlier in the episode um I thought it was really sweet really quaint um you know fairly simple straightforward gameplay but I think it’s a fun world to
Be part of and I like its sort of take on um you know Jill had talked about the uh game last episode but it’s sort of take on the music aspect kind of activating different parts of the world or being a way that you can interact with animals again having streamed it a
Lot of my chat felt like this had wander song energy to it um yeah it was just nice quaint little time you know we a lot of friend shaped friends in that game yes I think it was sweet like I’d like to continue with it I don’t know I
Don’t know what I’m gonna do with maybe it’ll be my night game instead of batro because snufkin can’t hurt me the way batro has maybe this is the new maybe new the new um zone for it um but yeah it’s also I think you already had mentioned this last week as well Jill
That it’s a fairly short game I think it’s like five hours I’m like I think I could sneak in that amount of time so yeah I like that game a lot it was really really nice uh Jenny I see it on your list as
Well you you think so was like I see you smiling so I already know the answer yeah it’s just a really Pleasant game it’s super relaxing I I love the soundtrack um you know I I love that we’re li like liberating little plots of land from like park ranger police or
Whatever um and yeah I love the sort of just being able to like play the flute and you know walk around and just enjoy like Janet was saying like little friend shaped friends so really Pleasant um yeah actually I didn’t even think about it but I’ve been playing a lot of batro
And I think this did cve my nervous system down a little bit comparatively so that was good yeah it’s the thing that’s keep kept me from like tipping over the edge of anxiety like oh look at this I’m just going to run around and like once you get the
Drum like messing stuff up that’s a lot of fun as well I guess we should say too in case this is People’s First Time hearing about it um it’s an adventure game with very light environmental puzzles that’s the structure of it it’s essentially like for me when I was a kid
I went to the library a lot so it’s basically like the children’s Library section like jumping back to that moment in my life of like everything’s lovely and little cartoon and you’re learning life lessons and Janet still doesn’t know the fate of the friend shaped friend uh
It’s the classic video game thing of like go meet somebody I’m like they’re not there I’m like they’re not going to be there I already know if they didn’t say what time they’d be there life lesson also if if you didn’t set a time you don’t have that plan I’m just so
Sorry that is very true uh moving on to the second s let’s go with summerhouse um we could not talk about this last week but Jenny wanted to so bad so I’m gonna let her go ahead and lead the talk to this yeah so for folks who haven’t encountered this game
Summerhouse is kind of it’s it’s it’s more of a toy box in a lot of ways is how I like to describe it to folks because um if you basically are creating scenes and little houses and Creations uh that are inspired they seem sort of like I don’t know they feel very Grecian
Like very like like if I was in the summer in Greece this is what I imagine it would be like I’ve never been to Greece in the summer or ever but this feels very like I feel like Mama Mia is going to be sung you know somewhere like
In the distance and all you’re doing is just building lovely scenes I personally it took me a little time to warm up to this game to be honest cuz at F there’s no missions there’s no goals you just have like assets essentially you get to place them how you want and I
Saw the trailer and I saw so much beautiful detail and Whimsy and just like I was like I want to build all this stuff and I hopped in and I was like none of my stuff looks this good yeah that was kind of humbling um but
I’ve I’ve taken a bit more time with it and I feel like slowly um again kind of like like snufkin it’s allowing my brain to sort of unwind and I feel like I’m getting better at being creative which is kind of an interesting phrase but uh it’s
Allowing me just to sort of genuinely play and experiment and uh so there’s a learning curve if you are not naturally a creative person you may feel a little bit like is this going the way it’s supposed to go um but I think it’s trying to push people to like just be a
Little bit more playful in sort of the ways that they work with things but so I’m enjoying it even though it’s challenging me a little bit in that respect Janet how did this fall on your scale yeah this is is a this is a not
For me game which I want to you know draw attention to that because I think a lot of you know hopefully not people in our lovely Indie Council Community but being online talking about games for a lot a lot of times when I’m when I’m not
Into a game people will say well why do you have to say like it’s not good why can’t you just say it’s not for you um and usually if I if I’m critiquing it it’s because it is for me and I just don’t think it’s quite up to Snuff and
Then there’s games that I’m like I think the game is fine I it just doesn’t click with me and this is summerhouse like you know Jenny you nailed it like this is a toy box creativity create for creation sake which is something that I want to um I
Want to flex that muscle a little bit more as a player I feel like I sort of often recoil from that like concept and I want to explore it a little bit more and Sommer house felt like you know the opportunity to do that I love your story
Jenny about the you see what they’re building and then you look at what you make because that’s absolutely what happened to me where I think the gifts of this game shat to you know the pr the social media managers because like this game looks awesome and I’m not saying
It’s not but you know it’s it takes time to like invest in in all of that aspect of it I think the thing that I was hoping to find with this game that I thought might be kind of the happy medium for easing myself into letting go
And just being is the fact that so there is like an aspect of the game where you can put down specific assets that then unlock more assets sets so I an example I’ll use is I put down like a sort of the house structure and a roof and when
I did that for the first time they’re like you unlock some birds and I’m like oh hell yeah cool I see the kind of loop and I like that idea and that is part of the game but because as Jenny mentioned that’s very much under the hood and you
Cannot pop that hood you’re kind of just left like you’re going to experiment and as you go like things will happen but I didn’t feel like and I did make a couple structures but I’m like they didn’t give me anything else so that I left which is
Like that’s totally a me thing I’m like I need a little like I I thought I would get a little bit more and that’s kind of when you look at again the assets that they show in like give format it’s like oh there’s like you know uh an ice cream
Stand and there’s like a grandma and she’s like high-fiving a child and I’m like yeah I want to make that come to life and then I look at what I make and it’s like you know it’s just like a big door and like two windows so yeah it just wasn’t something that
I felt like there was maybe enough to trick myself into letting go I think I need just like a little bit more structure to kind of get lost in it but like I think the art is very pretty and I did have some fun like having streamed
It taking stuff from my community like kind of facilitate that creativity of oh build like a hobbit house build like this thing and I kind of like that I think I also maybe wish there were maybe more assets at the jump but I do think
If they you know I don’t know it’s just kind of it didn’t work for me but that is set up it is like a place to play and I do like that it has the discovery aspect I was just bad at discovering so I’m like look I can’t I can’t plop the
Grma down in mine so I’m not as interested as I thought I’d be I wonder if this is one of those games that just really doesn’t translate well for for streaming um I think for me what was sort of my pathway into this game is first the fact that the weather is
Changing in lovely California Bay Area it is becoming time for me to open my doors and windows The Breeze is coming in the sun is on on my face and I do just kind of want to sit down and like Revel in that but like my job is to be
At the computer all day so like the fact that this is a great excuse to be at my computer but also Revel in the sunshine and the beauty because this game is beautiful absolutely gorgeous you have like four or five different landscapes kind of choose from when you start to
Build your house and of course I’m building in like the the Rivery Meadow or like the Lakeside Mediterranean you know areas but there are also like cityscape kind of outskirts of cityscape and also um desert kind of desert Escape which can both be really cool too but
Like I was just sort of putting things together and I started out where everybody was like it is sort of a like you feel like you’ve been thrown out into a void without a net and like I don’t really know I guess I’ll put a
Wall here and I put a a little roof on it and I’m like I did it what else am I supposed to do but then like as I continued to sort of play through and I’m like oh I can put things together to make bigger houses and then I started
Like building like okay I’m going to make a convenience store because if my person is living next door they’re going to want to be able to buy like like Ramen or something you’re like making a community see I was just like slabbing some cement together it took me a while
To get there but then I’m like okay so what is what is the convenience store needs it needs to sign it needs to have like maybe it’s got like a post sign outside so that people who are hiking nearby are going to stop in and get their power bars or something and they
Can see like hiking trails or whatever now I’ve got obviously you’re going to get like the um vending machines and then you’ll want a phone because the phone like there aren’t a lot of phones out here as you’re hiking and that’s going to be like you want to call people
So what do you need for a phone you’re going to need uh electrical wires so I’m building electrical wires and as I’m doing that then all of a sudden electrical wire next to phone now there’s a person there who’s chatting away I’m like okay what else do I need I
Need uh if people want to sit outside and eat their their rice balls or whatever you bought at the convenience store like I’m putting all these things together and those are the things that sort of like as you sort of make those connections to like what would really be
Here those are the times when like Janet said you are starting to unlock new assets I think one of my favorites was like I was building a Mediterranean house uh and I put a balcony on there and I can’t remember exactly what triggered it but like it triggered to
Have a balcony with a person playing like the loot so now I have like music that’s ongoing in my background at all times and like it’s a really cool and I found at one point like the stairs and something gives you a dog so I’m like of course
I’m putting the dog in every single situation I can possibly put it in um and that is really what kind of triggers you onward it is a very self-led experience you do have to have your own goals and try to meet those goals Like It Is Well initially was thinking like
This might be one of those games like um like valheim or enshrouded where like you can build things and you’re really excited to see what other people build because they’re smart but I may not be as much um but it is one of those games that is just unwinding and just letting you
Experience happiness and joy in a very light-hearted situation that’s not a lot of stress so uh yeah I really liked it uh very opposite to this I think the last s that I have on on my list but I don’t know if anybody else has it
Sulfur is uh I played a lot more of it I know I talked a little bit of it uh last week but I I have such a dichotomy of feelings as regards sulfur because I love the way it plays I love the way it looks I love its attitude I love its
Atmosphere like there are so many things the loop is really hard to stop drop playing um but it is a very very old school like kind of experience where it is a rogue like not a light you do not get a lot of progression even if you’ve made
It like I made it to level seven and there only like eight levels and died and now I’m all the way back to just having like one basic pistol and no armor now I have to get all the way back and it took me so much it took so much
Of my heart and soul to get to level seven you know and there’s no shortcuts you can’t get back to level seven without it there’s no like I think you can leave stuff in a box but for the most part if you’re doing well in a run
Why would you leave to go back to leave stuff in that box so that you can start out at level one again sort of thing um so I really kind of hope but maybe not maybe this is what they’re going for it like I sort of Hope as a player selfishly that
They decide to bend a little bit on that to make it a little more like progression in between things um because yeah I I can’t see myself finishing this game which is a hard thing to say when you really like the game uh Mike did you
Play a little bit more of this I haven’t had time to play one video game in like a month no all I played was that like I think 15 minutes of that demo um I still love the Gunplay I still love the vibe I love the narrative setup I love the
Characters but um yeah I I definitely reflect your fears on uh Rog like versus light I am not a Rog like person you know I have very little patience when it comes to not feeling progression so that does give me a bit of pause um but we’ll
See it might be one of those things that the vibe and the Gunplay really carries it for me because that that has happened for me before where if the gamep playay is strong enough I’ll get over the like stuff uh I know Janet you had this on
Your list but I don’t know if you actually got to jump into it um potions a curious tale I think Jen and you are also familiar with this one yeah I played it go for it Janet um yeah potions a curious tale is a um sort of another like witchy Adventure game but
Also a potion crafting game um so you’re essentially like going on an adventure collecting um ingredients creating potions those potions can allow you to um take on different quests and challenges you know one simple one that you start out with is like learning how to make an explosive potion and then you
Use it to like break down these rocks and then like travel to like another area um ultimately this is the one that um I feel like wasn’t you know it’s not going to get the recommendation from me I think there’s some really cool ideas in here uh this is also I believe this
Developer’s I think first game question mark that’s kind of the vibe I got from it um in terms of like how they’ve been talking about it um um that they’ve been working on for like quite a number of years and finally were able to put out but yeah it definitely has for starters
Aesthetically and functionally like how it moves it definitely has like that flash game feeling it is a little bit rougher the you know the animations aren’t smooth things like that but I I sort of jumped into this knowing that because I wanted to see what those other
Ideas were and I think again there are some solid ones there I think the general potion crafting is fun I think the writing is really funny I think like a lot of humor in the dialogue which I want to you know shut out the Creator for really Conjuring together but
Ultimately the top two reasons that like this doesn’t really get my recommendation is one I think there’s other games that scratch this itch a lot better the idea of adventuring and collecting um I feel like this just doesn’t quite do it for me and then
Number two is I do think aspects of the game are a bit in congruous like they don’t really match up together well even just the opening of it I thought was really like whoa what’s going on and it’s like you start on the ship and then
You’re like fighting like a kraken and I was like really taken back by I’m like oh I didn’t think I’d do this in this game and that’s that’s not to say that you’re not allowed to surprise your player but I feel like the surprise came immediately and I was like
Who wait what’s the game and the game kind of stumbled into like what I expected it to be so I think even just something like that felt like really jarring for me but I think like the general concepts it’s like okay I can see what’s going on here but
Unfortunately for me I don’t feel like the all of it came together in like the current package but it’s one where I’m like all right maybe stumbling cat the developer might keep an eye out maybe I think down the line I could see them popping off with something that I do end
Up connecting with but yeah that’s kind of where I landed on it but uh Jenny I don’t know if you had time to uh check this check this one out as well no I’ve been following it for quite some time but I haven’t played it yet so I’ll
Probably hop into it I have a bunch of games download for my plane rides um so I’ll probably be playing it next week um I want to shout out or I want to talk a little bit about Mars after midnight and it’s uh I think I’ve said this several times throughout the show
But review is up right now it is a really confounding game for me to talk about as a Critic um it is a Lucas Pope like known for kind of in interesting creative narrative games um this is a Lucas Pope light game like it is like you put Lucas Pope
In a jar and adds some water to it you know so like you get all the like yeah this kind of tastes like Lucas Pope um but it is by and far the greatest game I have played on the play date it plays with all those mechanics
So well it is thoughtful about all those it has really like the loop is hard to put down you are essentially if you don’t know about this game um playing as sort of like a bouncer slash refreshment provider SL host of a community center and you are trying your goal is to help
All the Martians that you possibly can and to that end you plan for what the topic of that night is going to be you make sure that the people who are invited are actually like the people who come in uh provide Refreshments that will actually be good for those people
And you have to kind of balance all of that with how much money you are bringing in and how much money you’re bringing in depends on how satisfied everybody is with like what you’ve put out and what you’re offering and if it was helpful so like if
You one of my favorite like there all very silly things one of my favorite seminars was like gnats with knives so like every time I’d open the door I’d see a little like like a little Buzzy guy and I had to use like a telescope to
Actually zoom in on the net to see if it was wielding a knife or not to like know that it was okay to let them in but if I’d let one unarmed n in there I would get less money because they wouldn’t be helped by the seminar so like it’s sort of matters
That you do this and then um it’s just like the humor is so good that is such a stupid idea but it’s so fantastic and it is very creative in the way that it has you interact with people so like that zooming lens is really cool there are
Situations where like you have to discover whether or not the people have a certain injury in which case you buy a like x-ray machine so you can see like Yep they’re definitely injured so they can come in uh because like you know martians just be coming up they hear
That you’ve got free food and they’re knocking on your door like let me in so I have to be like bouncing people out yeah um another one of my like absolute favorites include things that like physically harm the people who are coming to your door so like there’s one
Where it’s like an Acme sort of like glove punch automatic thing and it’s like for a boxing get together or something so like they have to prove they have some boxing ability and if they don’t they just get knocked out like you I’m like okay I guess you
Weren’t coming in you weren’t really like you’re not getting any of this pie like um so it is as far as the playd DAT goes it is one of the most F fun games it is so well communicated this is obviously a game from a developer who knows how to
Make games who who knows how to engage people oh Mike Mike has actually like I just discovered a new feature oh my gosh for anybody who can’t see Mike screen is actually jumping up and down and I didn’t mean to interrupt you I’m so sorry so you lied when said Mike has
Something to say that was no I I had I had a thing say your thing say your thing is this the play dates killer app yes but also I don’t think it’s a system seller Fair like if you have playd this game is something you should get
Like there is no reason to have it play dat and not get this game if you’re a person on the fence about getting a play date and you needed that one thing to play this might be the reason for you to get a play date if you’re someone who’s like I don’t really
Know if play dat is for me this is not going to convince you to get it and you will not get it and be like I’m So Satisfied I got the play dat you know like it covered every sector of humanity congratulations um like that it that’s why it’s so hard
For me uh like when I am critiquing a game or doing a review and giving a number to that game my my sort of initial things I’m trying to look at is like what was the purpose of this game and did they achieve that purpose and I
Think 100% goal was met this game was supposed to be a sort of paper please light game and that’s 100% what this is is if you’re going into it looking for anything deeper if you’re looking for some kind of underlying narrative like there are tiny tiny hints of things and
Like you know if if you like robots that dream of teddy bears like very cute I love it um but like it’s not it doesn’t like I was sort of hoping it would turn into something else is happening what’s going on sort of game but it is very
Much a showcase for you can open the door with the l you can do these silly things you can you play like a like a miname that’s basically the Tower of Hanoi and like try to clean up and like that’s literally what this game is even
Though it’s really fun to play um that brings me to a hard thing of like the game does what it intended to do but is this a game that is substantial in a way that deserves of a a nine a 10 and eight or whatever like that is such a hard
Dichotomy and like they clash in that way so it’s like I didn’t know how to approach actually rating this so I have a review up right now with no no number attached um but yeah that’s sort of where I am on this this is a
Great this is a great play dat game is it a great game I think it would be hard for me to recommend I’m excites to jump in I bought it last night I booted up the menu for a photo you’ll see next next week Mike is going to or we won’t be
Doing next week because that’s UDC but the week after that like Mike’s going to be in like Jill was totally wrong Mars after midnight it’s the killer thing you need to get lat now it is interesting like despite the conversation earlier like yes it it didn’t get too much
Attention so far as far as like media shout outs reviews whatever but it did get more than most playd games and aside from maybe root bear which went uh pretty viral over Tik Tok maybe like couple months back at this point few months back um this is the first game
That I’ve seen Make some noise on socials yeah with in terms of the playday catalog so it’s exciting and I you know I think it’s a good um it’s a good sign of life for the play I mean everything the pl’s doing is a great sign of life like I’m still I
Wouldn’t think like how many years now down the line we’d still be talking about play dat and new games on the Play dat yeah um so I’m just really happy there’s still some really cool weird experimental digital toys to play with on the on the the little powerful square
That could Jill do you think this is gonna like have a long-standing impact on how you do reviews in terms of numbers is this the first game that you didn’t give a score to no I started out that way and I I typically don’t like scoring games because it is so
Derivative of something that someone has worked so much time and effort in I think a lot of the reason why I do um I I try kind of to like minimize it as much as possible that there is a scoring mechanism in my reviews um but it is a requirement for
Um Metacritic you have to have a score attached yeah so and like I’ve done that in the past and and it’s something that I I know how to do and I know how to like play through a game and like this feels like a a general disc game um
You could uh kind of fake it on Open critic like 61 doesn’t do numbered scores but you kind of be like yeah I guess I recommend the game when you input it in open critic yeah um so yeah just running quickly through the rest of the games everybody
Wants to shout out Jenny you’re continuing gree it looks like GIS yep yeah gree Gris gree uh enjoying it playing it slowly just with the rest of the community and just talking about it um and also I played in finished cuz it was only an hour which was awesome um
Please touch the artwork too listening like only an hour yes it’s so funny and silly um what was the I think procession to Calvary you know do you all remember that where it was like such silly goofy artwork and like just like the almost mixed media style um this has a similar
Style where um basically you’re encouraged and brought into the paintings I think James enor enor um is this famous painter uh you are going into his paintings and you’re like a hand and you’re guiding the skeleton and you’re chasing another skeleton it’s a little bit unhinged but um just a really
Thoroughly enjoyable game and it’s free yeah so the kind of game we like around here un free no excuse not to play and if you really like it um it is a sequel to a game called please touch the artwork that was also wonderful um and
That one I don’t remember how much it is but I don’t think it was very much um and yeah yeah it’s a sub1 it’s $9.99 on Steam right now and I’m sure it goes on sale so like wish list it if you like the first one or the second one played
It for free go back and play the first one um really fun I think as far as excuses not to play I have this on my like I need to play this list but like I think a lot of people may or may not know that I worked in museums for 10
Years and that phrase really triggers me yeah so what did you do at the Museum um various things like a lot of the times just wandering around telling people like please don’t touch this uh was a part of it or like taking were you security were you like I was not
Security roughing people up no I was one of those people who like politely like hey if you could think about like not ruining 500y old pieces of architecture I’d really appreciate that it’s like menaces like me as a child um I but I did like a lot of like stuff
Like taking tickets behind the scenes like I I told you guys a little bit about like my call experiences um oh yeah right right yeah you kind of floated around and did that I did a lot of things I went through membership I went through um
Like uh marketing is not the word you use development is actually the word you use in a museum when you’re talking about getting money from rich people if if you’re interested to know same uh from my uh nonprofit film organization days development y development I feel
Like we’ve all lived a lot of lives which is kind of interesting we’re very wise for better or worse I also had a brief Museum era it wasn’t like super professional though I was like a intern you ran around touching artwork and I had to yell at
You well we actually did have a section where you were allowed to touch the artwork at the art for oh my gosh you already he first every who would have thought um you know for people that were interested or maybe you know part of seeing just to be able to have a
Section to interact but museums uh homework for you guys uh please go check out the MoMA thing because I’m very curious to see what that’s like and hear about it I’m set to go do that so I will tell you about it I do love SF Moma um what is the MoMA
Thing uh it’s day of the devs oh uh the mix is it the mix it’s the mix yeah it’s one of them one of those is happening and I’m going to it and um um I love SF Moma in general like it is literally you can look across the street
And see it from the San Francisco Convention Center I like people are going to steal this now because I keep saying it on public things but like I almost always use it as like a meeting space because it is so lovely and I
Don’t get a uh go to it a lot so like GDC is a great time for that um so yeah everybody go check out m who cares about all these Indie Games go play Indie Games in museums go take your play dates and check that out zir mentions that
Um wow what’s the game he just launched El Paso elsewhere will be uh will be a part of uh the MoMA experience with the mix that’s excit yeah excited to see what it’s about so with that unveiling some of our secret lives telling people to cause Mayhem in museums
That is the end of this week’s Council thank you to everybody for joining us thank you to everybody on the council for coming and being together and a part of everything even though we had some technical difficulties thank you to everybody who is viewing and watching we really love and appreciate that you’re
Here just hanging out with us talking about indie games you can follow us on Spotify Apple podcast and Google until April which is coming up real close Indie Council has its own socials where now we post controversial polls yeah Jan I need you to put up a poll
Asking people if I should get a nose piercing oh yeah sure this is just every week we’ll have a poll but yeah uh we’re the Indie Council pretty much everywhere except for Twitter where we’re Indie councilor shout to whoever took the Indie Council and is hand back and with
That this session is closed go play some Indies
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