Morning Grind, Midnight Games

What happens when your morning routine is harder than a raid boss and your alarm is literally a mini-game? We pull back the curtain on how we protect time for play, work, and creation—sometimes by snoozing five times, sometimes by grabbing coffee at 4 a.m. You’ll hear how we gamify wake-ups, why stable tech beats flashy plugins, and what it takes to keep streaming when the mental health bar is already low.

Momentum becomes the throughline. A surprise surge past a thousand live viewers on a Fortnite stream proves the pull of evergreen titles, while the heart still reaches for narrative epics that leave us breathless. We talk Claire Obscure: Expedition 33 and its rare blend of emotional storytelling and active turn-based combat that makes every victory feel earned. We swap Elden Ring war stories, debate Ghost of Tsushima’s “first-entry magic,” and ask which mechanics truly change an industry versus those that shine within a niche. Along the way, we get real about GPU ceilings, capture-card pragmatism, and why vertical video matters when you want new listeners to find your name in five seconds.

If you’ve ever felt torn between growth and rest, or between algorithm-friendly games and the stories that feed your soul, this conversation offers a path that’s honest and doable. Shorten the schedule instead of vanishing. Anchor streams with reliable queues like Fortnite, Dead by Daylight, or FFXIV, then carve dedicated space for story nights when you have the energy. Join us for a candid look at sleep, flow, and creative momentum—and tell us what game last moved you. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s chasing the grind, and leave a review to help more players find the journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Banter And Life Updates
• 1:08 Snooze Habits And Morning Routines
• 4:57 Alarm Apps And Gamifying Wake-Ups
• 10:55 Night Owl Vs Early Bird Tradeoffs
• 16:40 Fortnite Wins And Skin Discipline
• 21:40 Streaming Stability And Vertical Video
• 27:15 Hardware Limits And Capture Setup
• 29:35 Elden Ring Detours And Long Fights
• 33:25 The Post-Story Slump And Audience Pull
• 37:36 Viral Fortnite Stream And Strategy
• 41:45 Story-Driven Cravings And Stream Burnout
• 47:20 Sustainable Schedules Over Full Breaks

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to the Gaming Persona Podcast. This is the show that explores who we become when we play games. Whether you're saving kingdoms, leading epic raids, or just vibing in cozy indie worlds, join me, Dr. Gameology, and my good friend Marcus as we search for all the ways gaming and personal growth collide. Grab your controllers and let's continue the journey.

SPEAKER_03: 0:21

Now it's been so long that I've shaved my hair and Doc said I look different.

SPEAKER_01: 0:31

You paid for a token to reskin your entire character mid-season. Yeah, I think between that weight loss, I just look like a different human. You back on a weight loss journey in between episodes, Marcus?

SPEAKER_03: 0:45

No, I just feel like maintaining and like just doing it. Oh good. Playing a shit ton of crap ton, shit ton of hockey, and I think that's the craziest workout ever. If you say so.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

Well, and I think getting out of bed is the craziest workout ever because after I get up.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07

Okay. Real talk. Are you guys the type when your alarm goes so whatever time your alarm goes off, mine goes off at 5.25. Do you hit the snooze button or do you get immediately out of bed? Currently, or like the best.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

He says snooze button once. I have had different strategies over my life, and it really depends what my goals in life are at the time. Okay. So right now I'm not actively writing a book. So I do it very differently. I have an alarm that goes off, and then I have a second alarm that will go off 30 minutes after. So I will snooze that first alarm, meaning that every nine minutes it will attempt to wake me up again. But I know when I get another alarm tone instead of the snooze tone, that's the time I actually need to wake up.

SPEAKER_02: 2:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 2:12

I don't know. I got like what I have alarms going off from five to six in the morning, so one of them actually gets me my butt out of bed.

SPEAKER_03: 2:22

Yeah, I hate in the spring and summer, I have no problem. But as soon as it gets cooler here in New England, like my bed is cozy, I my ass does not want to get up. But it also has like an opposite effect at night. So just for the record, so I answer it, I snooze all the way. Like the snooze button is the greatest thing ever. Because I'll snooze it like I know that I can hit it five times and it gets me to the perfect time to get up. That's funny. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 3:01

Grief.

SPEAKER_03: 3:02

But today, so I'm I try to be considerate in my house because like my alarm is right, so I make sure my watch is charged and I do the vibration on my wrist. Okay, enough to wake you up. Yeah, yeah, because it startles you. Because it just starts pulsing. It wouldn't wake you up. Nope. Oh, interesting. But I don't want to wake up my wife or the family because I'll let that go for like 25 minutes and not care because I'm just like, I'm not getting up. But anyway, so today, the whole reason there's a video game ending to this, and I'm getting there. So today I shut the snooze off instead of hitting snooze. Oh no. So my Carrie screams down to me, Marcus, it's 620. I'm supposed to leave at 6.15. Are you getting up? Yep, on my way. I made it to work on time, which is great, but like it's totally not my way, right? So last night I re I played hockey and I got home and I was like, I need to play Claire Obscure Expedition 33. And so I was like, I'm gonna just I need to finish this like paperwork for my new job. But I set a timer for 10 minutes and it worked. So I gave 10 minutes to the company and then I dove into Claire. So the moral of the story was that I didn't hit snooze for video games, but I hit snooze five times for waking up in the morning. That was an exhilarating five minutes of conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 4:57

The most gamified way that I've ever been waking up, Marcus, I actually had an app that was called Sleep If You Can. And you would go take a picture with your phone's camera, and I would take a picture of my coffee maker, and then in order to get the song, you pick a song from your Apple Music, not a ringtone, in order to get the song to stop increasing and playing, you have to go snap the same picture, meaning you see a faint silhouette of the original picture, and you have to move the phone, stand in the exact same place, the same angle, the same lighting, and you can turn the discrimination of the picture up so you can make it so it has to be perfect, you can make it so it's a little bit lenient, you can make it super lenient, and the only way to get the alarm to stop if you do not get that picture is to uninstall the app.

SPEAKER_00: 5:59

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

Wow. I've had that app go off when I'm on an airplane, and it's crap. I don't have access to my ninja coffee pot on this airplane, so I gotta uninstall the app and then just re-yeah, just re-download it when you land. They changed the name to Alarmy, and I actually had to uninstall it for good because with some of the iPhone updates, it started to just suck battery. Like I would look at my battery report, and my phone would go from 100 to completely dead in under five hours, and it would say 70% of the battery consumption is that app because it has to be on in the background to work. It's not like a native Apple app that is still doing stuff, even if you don't have it open, like the alarm app. Yeah, so there's a little bit of extra stuff you have to think about to use this for a strategy, but that got me through grad school, that got me through so many years of work. I would wake up at 5 a.m. and start doing my extra work stuff that matters to me before my actual work day starts. The gamer's journey exists because of that app. Sure. I'm a morning guy though, right? Like I would always prefer to wake up at 5 instead of be up at 2 a.m.

SPEAKER_03: 7:28

Okay. I'm thinking about that. Cause I once I'm up, I'm a morning person, right? But I also love being up at night, but I don't know if I'm up at night because this is the only time I get for me.

SPEAKER_01: 7:50

That's me today. Yeah, that's me like 2025. Me is work is taking everything from me. And if I want to play Baldur's Gate or Fortnite or Claire Obscure or whatever, or read my book on my Kindle, then I either go sleep at 1.15 when I got to a point where I give myself permission to stop. Yep. Or I stay up after that and do a thing I wish I would have been able to fit into my afternoon or early evening.

SPEAKER_03: 8:22

So Doritos, morning or night person? Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 8:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 8:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 8:31

All right. I love that answer. Non-committal. I get up, I'm so used to getting up early, I get up 5, 5.30 for work, and I'll game till one in the morning. Get four hours sleep and do it all again the next day.

SPEAKER_03: 8:45

Do you ever have a night where you sleep like seven?

SPEAKER_00: 8:51

Seven what? Seven minutes? Yes. Rarely. I haven't had a I haven't slept eight hours in a night in months. And it doesn't bother me.

SPEAKER_03: 9:06

No. I guess my I guess for me my question is do you do it because you like the nighttime is your time, or do you do it because your body isn't tired? Body's not tired. Sure.

SPEAKER_00: 9:24

So for me, I am so used to when I was in college and university that I would always have to wake up, and my technical engineering classes were always the eight to eleven o'clock classes. So get up, get it done. So I've just that's been carried over to my professional career. I'm up, I'm at work at quarter till six, an hour fifteen, an hour and a half before most of my other technical colleagues. And so by the time they show up, I've already been two cups of coffee in, I've reviewed reports, done checklists and gone through a good chunk of my prioritization for my day and gotten things distributed to people so then I can now go, okay, now let's execute against what we've got to do today. How can I help you guys? Sure. And then depending on what's going on at the at the facilities, I leave anywhere between four and eight o'clock. Because if something's gone terribly sideways, there if we have to commission a new piece of equipment or do some new training or something, no, I'll stay as late as I need to get it done. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 10:40

Yeah, that whole staying late as you need to get it done, that is definitely my situation. I've been pretty open about how I work two jobs, and so it sometimes there is a mental tax on me where I've had to work a lot of focused hours on the first one, then I still have to dig deep and do the second one, and it's not optional. And last night I was so done on Wednesday nights. My class ends at 10 p.m. my time because I'm teaching in the Western time zone, living on the east coast. So my students are done with class at 7 p.m., but it's 10 for me. And I was like, I need to sleep. I cannot do more work. So I watched a show with my wife. I fell asleep at 12 15. I was like, this is good. I don't have to wake up until 6 15. I'm gonna get six hours of sleep, and that's so much more sleep than I'm used to. But you know what my body decided to do? You already know. I see your heads nodding, you know where this is going. My body is thank you, Doc, for giving us three and a half hours sleep. It's 4 a.m. You want to play Fortnite? So then I was like, ugh. So I tried to go back to sleep, and then 4 30 happens. I was just like, okay, I am fully awake. There is no chance I'm going back to sleep right now. So I went and made my coffee. I went and got my book. I read a chapter. So it's 5 20 now. I don't have to wake up my son for high school until 6. So it's like, I will play Fortnite. And I got three ranks this morning, and I'm on the bonus ranks of the season pass. I've gotten to the point where I don't buy characters just because I think the character's cool anymore, because my locker has the things in it that I need in order to play and mix it up every two or three matches. I'm happy with it. So I haven't bought Jason, I haven't bought Art the Clown. All the horror people are cycling through the shop right now, and it's cool, but I have Ghostface, and that's my number one horror franchise. That's my favorite scary movie. I'm happy with that. I know that the two of you exchanged a glance a couple episodes ago that you were worried about my spending in Fortnite. I think I've hit a good spot on that. And I'm having fun with the game too. I got third place in a solo match. That's my best solo match so far. I haven't gotten first on any of the ones except for the like new to the game playing with bots that won't shoot you because they want you to get that dopamine rush of winning. But I did get third, and I make it in the top ten all the time. So I'm having a lot of fun with it. What mode do you play? No build. Have you ever tried Blitz? I tried two matches of Blitz, but I didn't like it as much. I died so fast.

SPEAKER_03: 13:43

Yeah, so if the regular population, I think, is 60 or no, like 100 people, 150 people. The Blitz is half of it, and it's a small map, so it's fast paced.

SPEAKER_01: 13:56

Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Also, I think the weapons start out a little bit better so that you're gonna die faster. Yes. Yeah. I really want to get back into some of the story games that I have at different phases. There's a bonus boss named Simon that people have been talking to me about and showing me clips of from Claire Obscure. And I have not gone deep into Endgame besides finishing the story in Claire Obscure at all. And that really intrigues me of well getting the party all to level 99 and then going after all the really tough stuff that's optional. That's totally my thing. I just have to get motivated to start a stream and do it. And because my computer's been struggling, I figure why not experiment with Streamlabs OBS, see if they can do the vertical output without crashing my stream. Because OBS was crashing with their vertical plugin. And I really am invested in getting vertical streams for the YouTube Shorts feed and also going over to TikTok. I think that's really important for what I do to get some of those people with ADHD that are just gonna see me for five seconds, but learn my name. That's the goal. And I just want to try it. I haven't used it for a stream yet, but tonight my webcam is coming through the the virtual cam for Streamlabs instead of OBS. So everything looks good over here.

SPEAKER_03: 15:39

I love Streamlabs. People say that it's not as good. I don't know. I love Streamlabs. I can't they say it taxes your computer. I've never found it to break my computer with OB regular OBS. You have to you like be careful on what plugins you use because some of them tax your computer.

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

And when I had the vertical plug-in, I had a stream, I did two streams with this plug-in active, and both streams had crashes. And that's a level of stress. Listen, like I have enough stress in work, and I know that my stream connects with work, and it's important for me to keep doing it, and I love doing it. I don't have the mental health bar to deal with the feeling before you go live of what am I gonna do if this crashes, right? I need to know that my stream's gonna be stable because I have so many other things going through my head before I hit go live.

SPEAKER_02: 16:45

Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 16:46

And any little thing hitting your brain at the wrong moment can make you decide to cancel a stream. And I think that's even for people that are professionally streaming, which I guess you know my channel's getting closer to there, but I I just can't I can't deal with the whole stress of OBS laying me down. Yeah. Until you can get yourself a new computer, that's what you have to do. Yeah, that's true. And I've been looking, I've been gathering information. I know that my graphics card, I think, is a very old. I think it's like a 2080 or something. So it's not gonna be doing any modern games. It's just gonna do the capture card from the PS5, and that's about it. Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 17:40

You mentioned Claire Obscure, right? Yeah. So on my uh my typical Elden Ring run. So I do a piece of the story and I get out on the continent, and then I get lost because I'm exploring somewhere and I completely forget what I'm doing. And I always find a beach with a boss there, and I go fight said boss. And said boss always whoops my ass. Always. But I found this one where I was like, man, this boss is not hurting me when the boss hits me, and it just took a long time for me to break the shield, like break the barrier on the boss, because I'm doing like 45 damage per hit, but then as soon as I break the damage meter or like the break bar, whatever, then I'm hitting 3,000, 4,000 up to 9,099.

unknown: 18:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 18:45

And I didn't quit, and it took me like 40 minutes to beat this boss. Because you break the thing and you get one round of hits on it, and then it shields up again. Not shields, like gets the new break bar. But you mentioned something earlier about finding a new story game. They say, because I'm gonna bring this back to Nick all these years ago. Nick always had trouble once he finished a story game that he loved to start the next one.

SPEAKER_01: 19:24

That's true. I feel it as well. I have several games that I've played at different capacities after finishing Expedition 33. And even if they're things that are totally my thing, it feels off. Also, there's stuff about Persona 3 reload. It's not a new game anymore, so it doesn't attract the curious viewers like me playing Fortnite. You're gonna get people clicking in on a Fortnite stream that looks like everything's put together well and there's good numbers, and people be like, Oh, I like this guy. Let me check because Fortnite's my jam. Actually, Marcus, I have no idea why, but two Sundays ago, I was playing Fortnite and I was in trios with two of my former students, and I just looked down about 25 minutes into the stream and said I had 650 people watching. So I commented, I was like, what the heck? They're like, You need to introduce yourself, Doc. Tell them what you do. So I did, and then we won the match that we were in too. I got the final shot, it was a really nice clip, and then I looked down and we're at like 1400 people watching. I have never playing the games that I love love had over a thousand people watching me, except when Twitch put me on the home feed. That's the first time ever. So, like for me, I don't think I'm gonna be a Fortnite streamer in the sense that 99 out of a hundred of my streams are Fortnite. I like it, it's a lot of fun. I'm gonna keep playing it right now. I think it's good for me to have the logic of how to play it because it's such probably the most popular video game of all time in terms of user base, sustained user base over year. So it's good for a person in my position to be able to talk about the community that plays Fortnite and what it's like to be in that game. But I miss stories, I miss the gamer's journey, I miss Hero with a Thousand Faces, but in different fantasy worlds. I'd love to go back and play Final Fantasy 16 because it's such a good hero's journey example. Not on stream.

SPEAKER_03: 21:50

Why don't you play why don't you play Octopath Traveler?

SPEAKER_01: 21:55

The story's incredible. This is the other part of my problem, is if I don't know that I like the game before I stream it, I feel awful streaming it. So do you feel like you're at a prison sentence with streaming? You've asked that 20 episodes ago. Yeah, a little bit. I've been I'm so busy right now with work. I have thought about just going into Discord and just saying, hey guys, give me a month and the stream's not over, but I gotta take a vacation. Because when I take vacations from Twitch, I'm working really hard. Those are not vacations. I'm just somewhere else doing treatment professional stuff.

SPEAKER_03: 22:52

See, this is the pinnacle point I always bring up. So right now, when you're at this point, if you take a month off, you're throwing away for a period of time what you've built. Right? Your momentum is there. And I'm not talking about the financial side, I'm not talking about anything. People expect you now because you have a rhythm, right? Of your days. If you miss a Wednesday stream because, holy cow, I've got a lot of stuff to do. It's not the end of the world because you're gonna either stream Thursday to make up for it, or you're just gonna be back Sunday or whatever day it is. But you're gonna keep the rhythm. When you stop, the way it goes, is then your viewers will find John Wayne and watch him, and then you know, when you come back, they're gonna be like, Yeah, I could watch John Wayne, but I could watch Doc, but like John Wayne, I've been watching for the last month, and I'm really a part of his community now. And I'm not saying that they people won't come back, I'm just saying that when you talk to big time streamers, the conversation you're having right now is the time to shit or get off the pot. Like you gotta grind through it to get there because the break is never it's good for your mental health, but it's terrible for the growth.

SPEAKER_01: 24:31

In terms of games that have matches or never-ending content, the three that I have streamed in recent memory are Fortnite, Dead by Daylight, and Final Fantasy XIV. Okay. So those are the games where if I don't have a story in mind that I'm working on or a party to level up, I can turn those on, and I know that I'll be able to spend two hours in there. The stream will happen, chat will be there, we'll have good conversations. We might even do a solo quest episode, which I've done three of those now, and I've had a lot of fun. And the feedback I'm getting from our listeners is that they're having lots of fun with both, and they love the three-person format, and then they think it's really neat that the solo quest episodes exist because it's got the vibe of a concentrated version of what it's like to watch my stream in a 15-minute burst. So it's like those old mental health moments, but I think it's the best version of the mental health moments. All the things I've ever done as a content creator are converging in a neat way right now, and that's why I keep finding the energy to show up because of what you're talking about, Marcus. Is I don't want to lose that, but I am tired, and I think it's important to make that a part of the conversation too. Is to be a content creator, you're spending a lot of energy that usually is in that free time category of your life.

SPEAKER_03: 26:14

Yep. Yes. 100%. Listen to what Dorito said earlier. He sleeps four hours because he gets up, goes to work, does his thing, and then he games.

SPEAKER_01: 26:26

Four hours is the amount of sleep for greatness, Marcus. Not for me.

SPEAKER_03: 26:35

Like I can run on four hours, but man, I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_00: 26:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:43

It's I understand what you're saying, but the way I would bounce back is instead of saying I'm gonna take a month off, if you're streaming three days a week or five days a week, cut it down. You know what I mean? Say, hey, Mondays are really crazy busy for me. I'm gonna get rid of my Monday streams, and I'm only gonna do Wednesday and Sunday or whatever, whatever your days are. Yeah. Because you want your presence to be there. But the other thing too is don't be afraid to try a story game on stream. Because if you're locked into your prison sentence, you might as well try the game on stream. There's a game, Doritos. Doritos, what's the name of that game that you played with the bow and arrow and the girl? Zero Dawn? Horizon Zero Dawn? Yes, that was like I watched Doritos play that. That game is incredible, and that story is wild.

SPEAKER_01: 27:47

Yeah, I started that game on stream early this year. I played it one time. Okay, didn't come back. It's not because of the game, the game was great. It just for me, I've tried in small periods of time to post a schedule and to tell people what game I'm gonna play on which day. And it kills my desire to stream. Like I literally, as chaotic as this sound, I wake up in the morning and I just have a vibe, and it's that's why I'm streaming. I have seven games that are possible right now. One of them I bought because it was new and trendy, and it was like Soul Style, you play as a girl. I died a lot. And I don't remember what it's even called. I think Feathers is in the title.

SPEAKER_00: 28:39

Oh, on the Japanese one.

SPEAKER_01: 28:42

Yeah. And I have never once, the entire time since that day it came out, woke up feeling like I want to play that game. And actually, let's talk about Silent Hill F. All right. Can we talk about this game? It was brand new in October. It was brand new in October. I loved Silent Hill 2 last year. It was life-changing for me. So I I'm all in with Silent Hill, right? But you play as a high school girl, no guns, because apparently it's okay for high school girls to stab demonic horses but not shoot them. Nice. And I hate the combat. I hate it so much. I could care less what's happening in the story because it is so frustrating for me to play it, and I'm on easy, and this combat makes me look like I've never played a video game in my life. Like it's so embarrassing. It's not like Elden Ring, it's not like I it's not free flowing like Devil May Cry or Final Fantasy XVI or Kingdom Hearts. It's just it's if you have the kind of combat in Elden Ring, but everything is slower, meaning that your vulnerability frames are like off the charts. You swing and miss, you're gonna get punished using fighting game terminology there. Yeah, it's just I'm not good at it. I don't think the way that I should think in order to thrive in a game like that. It's very frustrating to me. Now that being said, I'll probably finish it on the stream. It's a short game. They also made it so you can't get the real ending until you've beaten the game three times.

SPEAKER_03: 30:26

It's a short game, and they that's the way to that's a way to get you to play the game.

SPEAKER_01: 30:31

It's inflating engagement. Yeah, I'm drinking my coffee very slowly and feeling very smug about that. I see what you did there, Silent Hill team. But you know what? There's always Silent Hill 2.

SPEAKER_03: 30:49

Okay, so just thinking, have you ever played the game Ghost of Tsushima?

SPEAKER_01: 30:55

Not yet.

SPEAKER_03: 30:57

The first one?

SPEAKER_01: 30:58

I haven't, not yet.

SPEAKER_03: 31:00

There you go. They say that game is incredible. That's an incredible story-based game.

SPEAKER_01: 31:07

Yeah, and I would love it. I have access to it. It's in my library. I was thinking about Ghost of Yote, but play the first one first. Some people have told me that the stories are not related. Assassin's Creed-ish, they're not related.

SPEAKER_03: 31:26

My friend, who's an avid PlayStation guy, he said Shushima is like top 10 ever.

SPEAKER_01: 31:36

There we go. I need to play games like that because for him.

SPEAKER_03: 31:40

He played, he's playing Yotai, and he said that you gotta the first one is better.

SPEAKER_01: 31:47

The heart that games that make it like that have in their first entry, it's really hard for sequels to recapture that.

SPEAKER_03: 31:58

Yeah, it makes me think about the Claire thing. Because their next game, obviously, they're gonna make something around the same, but I how can you ever recreate that?

SPEAKER_01: 32:08

You can't. It's so amazing. And actually, I was watching a clip of Andy Circus delivering a line in the booth. I did not realize the villain of that game was voiced by Andy Circus, but watching that, it it elevated my love for it even higher. Like seeing the passion and the line delivery and that moment, I'm not gonna say which moment in particular, but that game just has so many moments. It's it really is a life-changing game.

SPEAKER_03: 32:42

The moment you go into this axiom area, and it's called Sirene or something like that, and you come in, and all these like NPCs are just floating and oh, the journey temple, and they're all dancing, and they're all in this trance, and you as the party walk through the doors, and everybody starts to get sucked into this trance, and I'm like, what is going on here? And then they all snap out of it and they're going through, but the whole time you can see this being, which is the axioms, in the center of the room dancing and flowing, but fast forward to the entrance area. When you get to the entrance area and you walk through the tunnel, and that fight starts, I was mesmerized by the graphics, the gameplay, and the sheer amount of detail that was put into that, and the music on top of it. But that's not even what got me. I remember doing raiding with Doritos. What happens to bosses at the end? The final standard they kill everybody, but there's the final stand. And this was the first time in this game that a boss had a final stand, like shit got crazy. And I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna win. Like, I still got like this much of the bar left, and like I'm getting told your party, this party member is gonna die after this round, and I'm like, uh oh. Because I would get cursed, all these different things. And when I beat the boss, I literally took the best controller ever, which is the Xbox, and I put it down, and I was just like, Holy shit, what just happened? Like the last hour of my life was completely I don't even know what how I can describe it. I was there and then it was over, and it was like, I need to put this down and I need to catch my breath. Like how when we beat the tanks in nightmare mode in Swotor, like after I was done screaming and yelling, but like I like left my keyboard and mouse there, and I was like, okay, I'm in a very good place today.

SPEAKER_04: 35:31

I'm done.

SPEAKER_03: 35:33

And I proceeded to not sleep. Yeah. Doritos, what was the last game you played that did that to you?

SPEAKER_00: 35:44

Elden Ring, probably. Still playing Swot. It's I don't have I don't have that same level of euphoria when clearing some content anymore. I did have I did have good the feel goods for I want to clear Ori. That was a simpler game, but it's very satisfying. The ending's good. It's a well-rounded game. I enjoyed it. As far as like the whole, oh my gosh, I want to put things down and just walk away like I'm in a good spot. I'm gonna go, I'm good for the night. Probably I'd have to say Elden Ring was the last game I did that with.

SPEAKER_03: 36:23

Which boss off the top of your head that did that? Millania.

SPEAKER_01: 36:32

I think Elden Ring manufactures that reaction though, because every victory, the first time you down a new boss for you is a surprise.

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 36:46

Yeah, like it you have it's so easy in that game because you know that no matter how good you're doing, it can be over in an instant, and you'll have to try again.

SPEAKER_03: 36:59

Especially Millania with that thing, the sword thing.

SPEAKER_00: 37:04

Yeah, you're just like how's that?

SPEAKER_01: 37:07

But even if you depending on how much you've leveled up and what your equipment is, all the bosses once you get to the capital city can give you that feeling, like the main bosses for that story. Like the one that Horalu has, you know, not super hard to beat compared to other bosses, but he has that jumping up in the air 50 feet, power bombing you into the concrete that ends up being multiple hits, and you probably will die if that hits you, no matter how good you're doing previous to that move being selected. And he will pick that move several times during the fight. So that's how Elden Ring does it is every boss has a unfair, oh, you thought you were doing good move that it can throw at you.

SPEAKER_04: 38:07

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 38:11

But Lania's different.

SPEAKER_01: 38:17

Lania sucks. She's right there. I know. She's so beautiful. Standing right next to the best book about video games ever. What book is that? Not doing that this episode, Marcus. It's okay. They know.

SPEAKER_03: 38:37

Doritos. Marcus. Have you ever heard of this book by Dr. Daniel Kaufman?

SPEAKER_00: 38:45

I I've heard of an audiobook, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 38:48

What's the name of it? I can't think of it. The Gamer Showdown?

SPEAKER_01: 38:55

No, that's probably a sequel. It's The Gamer's Journey.

SPEAKER_03: 38:59

Oh, I thought he wasn't gonna talk about it tonight.

SPEAKER_01: 39:03

All right. I was trying to be serious, but yes, The Gamer's Journey is available on Kindle Unlimited, Audible. You can buy it at my store. It sold very well at New York Comic-Con since the last time we had an episode. We're doing good. Lots of people have messaged me since our last episode. Some people cry when they read it, and that's so touching to find out and gang the story about why. That's why I wrote it, honestly. It's just I wanted to share those ideas with as many people as I could and people I've never met.

SPEAKER_03: 39:34

When does the journey strike back?

SPEAKER_01: 39:38

If I download sleep if you can, I could start writing it tomorrow at 5 a.m. That's fine. Yeah, I I have some ideas of what's next, but I haven't started writing it yet. But when I do, I'll let the listeners for the podcast know and I'll talk about it on the Twitch stream. I think the coolest thing that I can do is get back in touch with games that missed the cutoff point. God of War Ragnarok came out when I had one month left in writing the first draft, so it's not mentioned, but obviously it matters a lot to me. Final Fantasy 16 came out after it's not mentioned, and that is one for one the hero's journey distilled into a video game experience. Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Like those three games getting added into the core idea of what it is I'm always talking about. It's game changing.

SPEAKER_04: 40:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 40:48

I don't even know what comes in this Claire game. Because I'm not I don't even know how far I am in the game. Like I know how many hours, I think I'm 20-something hours in, but I don't know how actually far I am in the game, but man, the game pulls on your heartstrings.

SPEAKER_01: 41:09

I want to tell you something for you to notice because I had not noticed it during my first playthrough. It's a party system game, right? You have five core characters in your party.

SPEAKER_04: 41:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:22

And one or two of those characters, depending on what you notice the most, you would argue is the main character. So, Marcus, who's the main character of Expedition 33?

SPEAKER_03: 41:33

For me?

SPEAKER_01: 41:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 41:35

I definitely think it's Mayel.

SPEAKER_01: 41:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 41:39

But yeah, but my main character is Lune.

SPEAKER_01: 41:44

Okay. Alright. So Mael is one of the ones that I'm arguing like is the obvious main character of the game. There is there are periods of time where you could argue somebody else, but we're not gonna get into spoilers here. That's a touchy subject, but maybe in 2026.

SPEAKER_03: 42:05

Yeah, but I no, I believe the game's been out long enough to where you can talk about stuff, but I believe that everybody spoiler alert, we are going no holds barred into Expedition 33 for at least five minutes. What I'm gonna say is at least every character has a piece of the main story, right?

SPEAKER_01: 42:25

And that's my point. When you were in that temple and everyone is getting lured in by the sirens, one of the characters saves the day because the song is not affecting her the way it's affecting everyone else. And that really caught my attention the second time I played the game, and there's moments like that where the whole party's dead, except lucky for them, one person's in the party. And in so many games, there are party members where someone's in the background, they might get their little moment, they might get their little side quest, but on the main quest of this game, every character gets their moment, and there is no victory without the specific five people that are doing this, and that's such a cool hero's journey thing to see how they pull it off because it's not boring. Oh, this is this character's chance to shine. It's like perfectly well done, it's not contrived, and that's the thing about this game that is amazing is they nailed the story, and everything else just shines so bright because of it. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 43:50

Yeah, the yeah, my heart is just fucked because of that game.

SPEAKER_03: 44:02

At the same time, though, something else about this game that I love is that during turn-based combat, you have an opportunity to maneuver your body to avoid damage. I'm terrible at parrying, good at the jump and the attack and dodging. I'm terrible at parrying. And that's okay. Like, I don't need to give it the extra hit. And the combat is what really changed everything because when I go play like Octopath Traveler that I spoke about earlier, that's your traditional RPG, like turn-based combat. And it almost feels like the story is so good in that game, but it almost feels boring after playing Claire. Like every turn-based RPG game is gonna now have to adapt the Claire model to be able to be the best.

SPEAKER_00: 45:13

Not necessarily. Except for Pokemon, right? What did you say, Joseph? No, the the whole Claire model, they hit on a niche piece on the interactiveness for dodging and parrying. And that's probably gonna be their the expect public's expectation for that team if and when they make another one of those style games. But it's not necessarily gonna raise the bar for all of that genre of gaming. So for you personally, probably, yeah, because that's that was a piece that was so integral into the enjoyment of it all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 46:05

For me, turn-based combat is synonymous with Pokemon and Persona. And I can't imagine the games I've played in that those franchises having parrying and dodging in active time with the moves coming your way, it would really change the feeling of the game. I don't think Nintendo or whoever, the studio that makes Pokemon, I don't think that they would tamper with it because it's just 30 years of Pokemon. But I can see Persona dabbling in something like that. I really can. I think it would be very interesting. I don't think it's gonna happen in Persona 6, though, because I think it's just such a unique idea, and that game's already in whatever state of progress that it's in.

SPEAKER_03: 47:05

So in 1997, there was a game that came out that changed now. First person shooters were around before, but in 97 they allowed aiming down the sights of a game, which was Goldeneye. And after the Doom Doom, da-da-do, you know, but our job is for cheaters. But yes, the but my point is once aim down sight mechanic happened, it changed revolutionized first person shooters, and now nobody will go back to the standard not aiming down sight as an industry standard. You have your CS goes and stuff like that, only a couple of the guns zoom, like aim down a sight. I think it's just a sniper rifle. But my point is stuff like this changes the industry. That's true, and I believe it through and through, if you're gonna come out with a first turn-based RPG, you're gonna think about what Claire just did and try to adapt something to that.

SPEAKER_01: 48:23

It would be smart if you did, because it's a really compelling gameplay. It helps you enter into psychological flow while you're playing, and that maximizes the success feeling when you end a fight victoriously. Yeah. We continue.

SPEAKER_03: 48:51

I I'm trying to think of the way to respond to that.

SPEAKER_01: 48:59

The phrase that they are raised with is when one falls, we continue. Correct. Yes. And all you have to do is say the journey.