Green Hearts - The FPS Dating Sim

This week we come face to face with a challenge that might well be beyond us. Imagine Call of Duty multiplayer within a dating simulator yes we couldn't either. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 30 Second Intro
• 0:30 Main
• 3:00 30 Second Outro

Transcript

0:01

Three, two, one. Hello and welcome back to the Game & Blender. I'm Matt and I'm here with... Scott, hello. Hello Scott, we are the world of hypothetical video games. Welcome to the podcast where we will be building a brand new hypothetical video game right in front of your very ears. Are you excited Scott? We'll be choosing randomized genres, randomized mechanics and a randomized plot. Maybe we'll get to that in a bit and we'll be meshing them together to make a brand new game. Scott, how are you feeling? I'm feeling a little bit tentative about this one. I don't know why. I feel like I'm due a very generic mechanic with some... No, a very generic genre with some very ropey mechanics. That's my... That's my... That's the feeling that's in my gut. If I'm being perfectly honest. But I might be completely wrong. I know that you've drawn them, so it's... have already drawn them and this will be a historic episode. Why? Because this is the episode Scott's gonna kill me. Anyway, we'll get to that in a bit. So, Scott, one thing I want to chat about today is because we have a friend who is, like you, a fan of Game of Thrones. I'm also a fan of Game of Thrones. And this week you posted the new trailer, which has popped its head on social media platforms, et cetera, et cetera. What's it called again? and nine to the seven kingdoms. Okay, you'd think they could do it in the daytime. so I like that joke. Yeah, I you could see me smiling at myself. So the thing I was wondering is, I looked at that when you posted it, and our other friend looked at it and went, great, watch it straight away. I left it. I am done with the Game of Thrones world. Now I'm not done for the reason that most people are saying they're done, which is the whole Eighth series shenanigans rushed, et cetera. No, no, no, no, no, The Traversee. Take it or leave it. That's fine. It's good or bad. Whatever. Whatever your thoughts are. I don't have any ill feelings towards Game of Thrones. I watched the first season House of Dragon, but then I've come to this point in my life, which is I'll let it go. I don't feel the need to keep up with it. I don't feel any pressure to keep up with it. I'm just going to drop it. And there's no hard feelings. It's a very amicable breakup. It's not them. It's not you. It's me. kind of thing. So I was wondering, do you have anything, because we live in a society where the moment something's successful, they make a second game, or they make a third game, or they make or they make a wider universe? Do you have some sort of universe where you feel like I'm, don't have any old feeling towards it. I did love it. But I just feel like I don't want to keep up with it anymore. God of War. So I never played any of original ones because when the original ones came out I had an Xbox so I never played them on PS3 and never played any PS2 ones. I know roughly, I know what happens, I know the story, I know what he does in those games, what Kratos does in those games but I thought when God of War came out in 2018 I thought, you know what this looks quite cool it's Norse mythology I'll give it a go and I loved it I thought it was great like it was you know the the gameplay and the mechanics I liked the story I liked Kratos I liked Atreus I liked the way that Norse mythology was envisioned and it's great and then Ragnarok came out and I just didn't I just I just didn't I just thought, I looked at it, I think it was because, because God of War... It's not particularly long, but it requires a lot of input. You do have to pay attention. Yeah, but it's 20 hours that you do have to pay attention to. And it drained me. I don't know why, it just, it it drained me. I have a similar feeling and actually this is both TV and game. I have a similar feeling towards The Last of Us series. Now The Last of Us 1 is one of my favorite games of all time. The Last of Us 2, respect. It's like when a friend of yours points out an attractive friend in the bar and you look at the attractive person and you go, I can appreciate they are very attractive. However, nothing to me. Um, that's why I towards last was too, thought this is so well made and it's so well done and clapty clap, lots of, lots of emotions felt, but I will never treasure it the way I will. So another game, I will never feel like it's borrowed its way deep into my heart. And I, and I actually got the same way with the TV series. We, myself and my wife are halfway through the TV series, the second series. And we stopped because we went away, I think, or something along those lines. And we came back and I don't know, I felt like I've seen this done before. And I've got a gut feeling of that. thought that I've probably seen it be done better than the TV series. I'm not, I'm not judging it. It's just, just probably the nature of the beast, just adapting it for a different format. And I don't feel like can go back. And I know that they are developing last of the three. And part of me wants to go, guys, can we just shut it down now? I just feel like I'm done with it. And it's probably a very similar feeling to you and God of War. What's interesting that we got a war is I feel like that very much was, a lot of mysteries in it that called for a sequel. Yeah, it, yeah. that none of the mysteries tempted you. I keep thinking, oh do you know what? I put it on my list. I put it on my list. My ever-growing list that rolls out of my house and down the street of games and television shows that I have yet to watch. And it's just, I'm in my 30s now. I've got a family. I don't, I don't, thank you, I don't have the time. I just don't. And for those of you who are listening here in 20s, congratulations, you've still got time. Ha get to your 30s, you'll find when life happens. And I'm not trying to condescend, I'm really not. But you will find genuinely that you run out of time. The days just aren't long enough anymore. also a response, there's also a groove thing. I think you can slot into a groove very easily with games where you go, I am playing X game and that is the game I am playing. So for example, for me, I'm playing my way very slowly through control. I'm playing Vermittide with you and that's kind of my rhythm. We're waiting for Bellvarite to update itself and then that will slot into my rhythm. And it's very hard to introduce new things to your rhythm of games. It's very hard to go today, I'm going to jump on this, today I'm going to jump on this. So actually another one I was going to bring up was AJ, which was slightly older from the past, AJ M. Pars. So the AJ, well kind of, but kind of the whole thing, the whole way that designed, the AJ M. Pars consumed my early teenage years, absolutely lived off those games. I mean, I still play the music of the monk picking up the relic in my head. yeah, yeah, yeah. you send them out to try and get your population up that that lives rent three rent free in my head, but they remastered it. They brought out a jam pass, a gem is four. mean, I played a bit of three, but again, by then I was already moving on and I appreciate that they were approved as good games. Mark. I just went, I'm not really bothered by this anymore. Cheers. Cheers, lads. Thanks for the good times. I'm off. Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition is an absolute masterpiece. So while I understand I don't share your opinions on Age of Empires. No, in fairness to me, I can only really do two now. Four was okay, but it wasn't as good as two. But no, I completely understand. I completely understand what you're saying. My two main worries at the moment for me, I love the Total War series and I love the Elder Scrolls series. Those are my two greatest gaming loves of many. I am worried that when Elder Scrolls 6 comes out and when the next historical Total War comes out, well one, yeah I'll be dead, but two, that I just won't care. as much as I did and that will really upset me. I think it's a really interesting thing. It's about priorities and the way things change. And I actually think it is something for the gaming world to address because of the time it takes for sequels and stuff like that to come out. You are genuinely addressing people in different stages of their life. Now, God of War, interestingly, which you brought up earlier, promises the last point we make till we get into the episode. So God of War came out. hack and slasher, its audience were younger despite it being a nitrogen and they shouldn't have been. And then it matured with the audience and they brought out a game that people like myself who had been far too young, but played the original and were like, haha, death, death, death, death, death. And then they played, you play the one brings out. It's very reflective. That's a really clever way of doing it and making you care by, assessing the people that are buying said game. Um, the problem is, is where you release same game, same game. So if Elden Scrolls. Six. Yes, Six is exactly the same as Skyrim. I think a lot of the audience will go, I have played this. And I've done this when I had more time and I could just wander off. I feel like it, they might need to change what they are. Anyway, so that has been, I feel like a weirdly deep start. Usually we just sort of rant about the state of EA for a bit, but no, no, no, no, no, no, we've gone, we've gone, we've gone deep, deep and heavy, but straight away. However, time to crush Scott's world for I. have drawn his genre mechanics and plot. So Scott, what would you not want? Dating Sim. Excellent. Because you have drawn a puzzle game as your genre. Now puzzle game, for example, anything really where you have to solve puzzle games. mean, Resident Evil could even be described as puzzle, as a puzzle game to an extent. I'm going to talk like this for the rest of the podcast. Resident Evil, yeah, yeah. think what you do is you just isolate that part of it. uh There's a lot of, they're quite popular now for being shorter, more accessible games. ah And then what you have as your mechanics is an FPS style multiplayer. What? So this, if anyone is unsure, so I'll just read out. This is the kind of stuff that you get sort of death matched, King of the Hill, et cetera, stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, I think you know what's coming next. It is dating sim. But how... What? I promise this wasn't rigged. This wasn't rigged. This was a dice roll. So Dating Sim, just to level the playing field for those of who aren't familiar, Dating Sim is just essentially where a game where you build relationships with characters, it's actually, it sounds a lot more crass than it is. It's fundamentally creating visual stories, really. I mean, there's a very famous game and we might've brought this up when the only other time we'd done Dating Sim called Scott's Face is a picture right now. It's one of pure terror. There is a game that called Doki Doki Literature Club, for example, which starts off as a traditional dating sim, but in has, and I can't say it here because it's a plot spoiler, but it infuses elements from another genre entirely to create a brand new game. also I would include Scott, didn't say this last time. So Mass Effect. I would include that as dating sim elements. It's not a dating sim, it's an RPG where you can romance the companions. It's not a dating sim. elements. And this is only one mechanic, remember? So you wouldn't describe this is dating sim. do have listed on our hang on there with me caller dating dating sim. no, it was deleted. It was deleted from our genre list. I think I think that was the compromise we came to. It was deleted from our genre list. It is now it's now mechanics. It's now only in mechanics. I'm going to purge that from the wheel. Okay. Join the flow? right, okay. I might need the plot. I might need the narrative. the narrative is one of underdog. So self-explanatory really, but you are the underdog. I mean, what you're going to apply, to be honest, isn't all dating a puzzle? No, so the issue that I'm having at the moment is the multiplayer. No, the multiplayer is the thing that I can't make work because, okay, puzzle game with FPS, I can do that, you can... they always are. And you can add data to that, but the multiplayer is properly screwing me. because you can't make players date each other on a game. make them date each other. What you do is you set up love triangles with AI members. what you are doing is have you seen the film Pearl Harbor? Yes. That's what you do. You have you playing against a friend of yours for the affections of a single person, of a single NPC, and you're essentially rival combatants. That's the way you do it. This sounds absolutely horrifying. So hang on, hang on, hang on. So it's 1942. I live in Hawaii. think that was quite a good setting, to be honest, where you have an enclosed space, where you're in there for a limited time. Why is that what you're concerned about at this stage when Pearl Harbor was? If there was a straight line, Scott draws dating sim, Scott checks date of Pearl Harbor, that's the linear graph you're working on. 1941. I was nearly right. Do you not think that's actually quite amusing? I think it's terrifying. I think what you suggest is you get two players in an FPS multiplayer puzzle game and you present to them an NPC that is, as you say, AI. Well no no no, sorry AI, when I meant AI I meant the AI within the game, so a traditional game with AI. I'm not suggesting putting chat GPT in it. right. So it be a traditional sort of NPC with dialogue options, that kind of thing. I'm trying to help. I cannot emphasize this enough that I am on your side. Blame the dice. No, I blame you! so... Okay. uh Okay. um Right. Puzzle game. How can we unpack puzzle game into something that is interesting and something that works with the nonsense that is FPS-style multiplayer and dating sim? You could make you doesn't have to be humans falling in love. You could make it like the Tetris blocks falling in love. As the puzzles are solved. I am spitballing here. And all I'm meeting is walls of rejection. Much like the dating sim. just don't think these three things... We have done it many times over things that don't go together. We've done it. I think we might have found something that genuinely doesn't go together. Genuinely. I'm looking at this now. I always usually have one or two ideas and usually they're a bit rubbish and then we find something. I have absolutely nothing. when it comes to puzzle game, FPS multiplayer and dating sim. If you have any ideas, listeners call in if you have any ideas. It's not that you can. Yeah, if you can call in life, if we don't get phone call now, that'd be terrifying. I have another idea. FPS teams combating, combating, they're living this, this sort of, I have this sort of image in my mind of it being more of a joke. I think to do something like this, you've to make it a joke or you got to make it a bit of a joke thing. So maybe you have a two rival forces of toy soldiers fighting for ownership of the house. And as they claim more and more of the house, they get the affections of the Queen, which is essentially a Queen doll. I'm playing this very Toy Story-esque, which is the Queen doll, who sort of her affections will sway to the Colonel that's leading the more successful army. Okay. as you stop. Okay. This is 100 % a collaborative effort because don't give me the first bullet point and then expect me to do the rest. uh and thought, okay, let's bounce some ideas off each other. And you went, you deflated my ball. multiplayer is more one person leading a team of bots against another person leading a team of bots, is that what we're saying? was it Band of Brothers? What was it called, that game? No, it wasn't Company of Heroes, it had some, Brothers in Arms, Brothers in Arms. Yeah, no, I always used to get them confused. Let us not get hung up on set details. We have work to do. On semantics. So, Brothers in Arms, right. Okay, so, right. Okay, fine, fine. Let's take that as a starting point. What does, as you say, the affections of Queen Doll... What does that bring you? What do you gain from this? And where is the dating in this? Are we taking Queen Doll out for dinner? You don't have to do a physical date, you can do affection maybe and do relationship management. take it to the Easy Bake Oven uh could be some really funny things though in there because what you could do, maybe you have this character, which is the doll, queen doll or, or king doll. Maybe it's queen or maybe you could, maybe you could select the doll that you are essentially fighting for. But what happens is that this person is like managing playing teams off against each other saying, and then you get these sort of cut scenes. as you take more territory, you get buffs and you get incentives that are given to you by her. And you get these funny cut scenes that are played in between, which are essentially as you said, your Colonel who takes life very seriously. Going on these mini dates with the Queen. But actually what happens is you get so you go to the Easy Bake Oven together. What that does is it unlocks a flamethrower for your squad. So they get to use it. But it turns out plot wise, What's actually happening is the this doll is playing everybody off against each other because she enjoys the spectacle of the fight and being fought over. And actually what happens at the end, if you, you fight enough battles is you turn on them in a sort of slightly cynical display of what loving and dating is in the modern world. It's just one big trick. Hang on. I've forgotten the puzzles. I had an idea about the puzzles. Okay, if we're doing this as a bit Toy Story, so this is, do all this like inside a kids room or inside the entire house. So can move from room to room. There are toys everywhere. Sometimes you have to put those toys back together. So where you are, where you are, obviously, you can use the toys that come in different parts, obviously. put those toys together and that can help you get onto higher points, can help you unlock doors, all these sorts of things. so you traverse the map via building the toys or activating them. Yes, yeah, it could be you need to go and find the batteries to put into this specific toy which will allow you to do this, for example. Let's say you need to open a door, but the door knob is relatively like hundreds of feet in the air in comparison to you. So what you have to do is find a toy that is basically like a wind-up and that can pull like a piece of string. You have to get the piece of string around the door knob. And then you have to find the batteries, put it in the toy, wind it, set the toy off. The toy will then walk off, pull down the door handle and you open the door. Things, things like that. So you can, so you can, you can be, um, what's the word inventive. There's not just one way to solve each problem. yeah, maybe the way you do it then is you have this open world where you and a few other people have been dropped into your squad, your squads, and you're all fighting to get to the end of like the rooms and there's multiple different ways you can go and you've got to get through various rooms to get there. And what happens is a bit like, it's a bit like, what was the name of it? of Thieves, Sea of the Thieves, where you're heading around Sea of Thieves and you only encounter the opposite squad very rarely. So the focus is more the traversal. And then ever so often you'll be like, quick, down there over there. And if you die, you kind of go back to the start. So you have a lot of way to sort of catch up so you can sort of set traps. And every so often as you're doing well, you'll get visited by this em queen or king or whatever who will say, don't worry, you're my favorite. Here's this buff, here's this perk. And then it will show this and it will show this really cheesy sort of scene of this Colonel just going, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, I'm delighted I'm your favorite. I don't know why. I don't know why it sounds like that. The toy soldiers that sort of really over exaggerated. Yeah, really over exaggerated sense of it. And then you'll you'll use these perks to get through and then right at the end when you and your squad mates reach the final room, then there's this plot twist that actually she's been playing you off against each other. and you're all receiving the perks. So the dating sims more built into the narrative rather than actually being a full on mechanic. Okay. This is very strange game. smirking. I feel like it could work. feel like it could have a thing. I'm just wondering whether the dating sim element has been pushed asunder as it were. good. I wish it would be swept under the carpet, burnt at the stake. I'm trying to think if there's any way we can make the FPS multiplayer a little bit different. I suppose traversal is just the way to do that. Because you're so small you can get through air ducts and you can go, you might be able to get under some of the doors, like if the doors don't align properly in the frame. might even be able to shimmy under the doors. You can maybe jump out the window and go along the window sills and stuff. also because you lose your- because you're gonna lose some squad members. As long as you remain alive, your squad members will get parachuted in. You know the old way that toy soldiers used to get parachuted in? You'd get replacements parachuted in. Obviously if you die, you go back to the start, but as long as you can survive, you can go away and heal and sort yourselves out. do you do it like you get a certain number of reinforcements? Yeah, and then eventually you run out of reinforcements. Okay. So essentially the dating sim element is a perk system. That's the way we're going to play it. So every so often you'll get given new perks. So did you ever play Hades? So Hades had this system in it, was, to me, it's not mild off what we're saying here, because you get visited by various gods. And as the gods would give you perks based on their abilities, can't remember who it was, but one god, might have been Zeus, had this massively overpowered ability, which essentially meant if you attacked someone, everybody around in the map got attacked. So you just needed to level that up the entire way to make sure we survive. But that's a similar what we're doing to our dating character is every so often you'll get visited and given perks that mesh with the game somehow. Hmm, where are we getting the underdog elements from? underdog fact of the story is the fact that you guys, everybody in this FPS has been pitted against each other for their amusement. And it turns out the end, they have this entire army of toy soldiers that they've just been building up and under attack. So right at the very end of the mission, it turns out that you are just a small pawn in this big scheme of this beautiful man slash woman. is in either or. I'm not making up random characters here as in like that thing you selected, whatever at the start. You know what I mean, you know what I mean. Before we get cancelled, I'm gonna stop talking. I about to say, do want to take your spade out of the hole mate before you dig yourself any deep? Just stop! Just stop saying words! uh It just kept getting worse! Okay, I'm not sure I have much else. more to add on that. No I don't. No I don't. What do I... you mean the name. Yes. em As I will summarize it as best I can. So we have a puzzle game with FPS style multiplayer, which is also a dating sim. So the dating sim has been thrown to one side. the FPS is you are playing as a squadron of toy soldiers where you get to command your little squadron around. send them to various places and use them as a little battalion where you can command them and essentially run them around. You are dropped into a room as a toy soldiers and you can rebuild various parts of using toys, building the toys or activating the toys to traverse the rooms, get to the final goal is in you're trying to reach this person at the end. Now you're obviously coming to contact with other teams as you do, you can shoot them and as long as you don't die, your squad will keep respawning eventually, but if you die, you go back to the start. Now what will happen is you'll keep having these little skirmishes all the way through till you finally reach the end. And it turns out actually, you have been just mere pawns or toys, as I suppose, uh pitted against one another for the amusement of this person. And it turns out that they were just doing it for fun. So you turn on them right at the end and their large army. They the dating sim element is going to be light, very light dating sim element. All it's going to be, it's going to be, are offering perks to you throughout based on their affection and little play, amusing cut scenes where they pretend that you're their favorite, et cetera, et And then it turns out at the end, obviously you're just being used. So at this game, Scott is going to be called. I only have one. I only have one. It's called Hearts of Green. Yeah, no, no, no, I got it. m came up with. That's all I came up with. Because I thought, Dating Sim, Hearts, Soldiers, Green. That's what I came up with. That's where my brain went. I'm very tired. Give me a break. I thought you can do Mary to the Force or something like that. married to the force. Yeah, that's what they say when someone's married to the army, isn't They're not police officers. What? wasn't a force. Sorry. Married to the... No, it doesn't really work. Shush, shush. Neither of us has come out well from this episode. I've come out a lot better on this episode than you, I think, my friend. dare you? How dare you? Can you hear me from my from from the hole I dug? No, no. Yes, yes. Okay, fine. Fine. Well, that that was the episode that we lost control of that we lost control of entirely. And we shall never speak of again. But that was hearts of green. That was hearts of green, which is coming maybe, probably for the first time in a while, we doubt it's coming to you anytime soon. Um I'm going to scorch dating sim from the archives, it's never going to return. It's going to be like Rome with Carthage, I'm going to salt the earth so it never grows again. m you'll never date again. I- no, ever, never ever. You'll never do anyway. So that was hearts of green. Thank you so much for getting this far. Yes! If you're still here! Hello! Well done! Please get in with us using the contact details that are in the episode description and also important announcement. Unfortunately, there will be no episode for the second half. I think it's the early second half November in two weeks, essentially, there will be a slight gap as I'm away on holiday in Japan. So we'll be unable but we will be back with a vengeance as soon as possible. In the meantime, please. Stay safe, stay happy and keep blending. Bye bye now. No, no, no, I messed it up. No, no, no, no, I was so so c-fuddled. I've been Matt. I've been Scott. We could have just ended, it was fine! ended. I would have got away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling kids. Keep lending again. Bye! Do wanna stop again or is there anything else you need to say? it. I'll edit this. I'll no, no, it's funny this way. Bye. Goodbye.