20: Heart of the Cards

Happy Gaming!

Welcome to Episode 20 of the Game TeaTime Podcast.

After a long break, Ricardo and I are excited to be back, and this time we’re shuffling up a fun conversation all about card games. From digital card games in video games to traditional physical card games, we explore what makes this genre so timeless, strategic, and enjoyable.

Whether you're a gamer, a developer, or someone who just loves talking about game design, there’s plenty here for you.

Thanks for tuning in, and enjoy the episode!

Support the show:
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:33

We were here from back doing a little podcast. As always. Always talking about game dev, AI. When that AI is like blending with everything. I feel like anything you do now is just like everything is AI. Yeah, everything is AI.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

It's funny because like when I joined my current job, we used to say that every company is nowadays a software company. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Now every company is an AI company. I mean it makes sense because when we study AI, you're basically just studying like how things learn over time. And then well, we build a tool that can learn and it can do things better than we can, and then we just pull the tool, like it's gonna definitely be in everything. And then everybody hates it. And I'm like, I get it. Like I get why you hate it, but then like also you you it's like doing things that humans do too. Like when it's like, oh, I don't like all this crap that people are like all this AI slop. And I'm like, there was also like human slop. And you were mad about it. Yeah, but human slop it's weird because like I it's from humans, yeah. But I guess when I say human slop, I mean like acid flips, like when people make something for disingenuous reasons.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Yeah, oh yeah, it this reminds me of another thing that happened the last few weeks that uh was huge, but uh yeah. Alright, let's tell you actually one of the reasons I wanted to have this episode today. Um so last week latest fire two came out. Uh quite interesting. Uh how is it? I've been uh it's great, it's latest fire one, but they balanced some new things, they added a lot of stuff. But I like that they it's basically the same game, but they changed the engines as well. It was built in Unity now they're using Go Do, but uh generally speaking it's the same game, yeah. But um I I like the things that they changed, so like I I think they listened to a lot of feedback. Uh I even saw I noticed and I saw someone else commenting on this the original game has a lot of mods, right? Because it came out on PC they actually implemented a lot of things that were just mods. I'm not sure like if they did it one-to-one, but I recognized like some of the features. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

So they took features people made and actually implemented them.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Exactly. I'm not sure if they like eight or them or something, but uh um so they added like two is it two characters? Yeah, two new characters that are like completely different. They have brand new mechanics and all that. So the game feels like fresh. I really like what they did with the with the the old characters as well. Like they kept it, they kept their essence, but they added more things that you can do, or they fixed some mechanics that were harder to make work because of certain aspects of the character, either because you didn't have enough cards, so you you couldn't consistently get into it, or one interesting one is with the silent characters. So the original game it has a mechanic where you have some cards that like discard cards when you play them, right? Maybe uh draw some cards, discard a card, whatever, right? Yeah, or discard your hand, draw a whole new hand, and then you had cards that would trigger and basically activate when you discarded them, and you could only use them when you discarded them.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

So they were super inconsistent because like you would draw them and no way to discard them, so it was very hard to get into that deck. You had to either pick a lot of discard early and then go for the payoff later, or you get the payoffs and they're dead cards, right? What they did was they make those cards have a cost.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

They have a one.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

If you don't discard them, you can just play them for like uh they're overcosted, but you can play them.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Oh, that's really cool. So they just cost like double or triple amount.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, so they cost a lot more than a card with that effect would, right? Yeah, some some are like like it's just to have a cost, to be honest. Probably be uh a bit because of the the change they made to the engine as well. Like there's a card that says when you discard it, you gain one energy, right? Energy is your mana. It costs three energy to play, like it doesn't do anything, right? But if you happen to have something that lets you play a card for free or whatever, you can still play it, but interacts with that. Now you have synergies with like cards that costs more than a certain amount, maybe like double it or whatever, and they keyworded it. So now like they could add it to other stuff. So, like, there are cards that turn other cards you have into that. So and there's a relic that says, Oh, when you use a skill, it gains this mechanic. It's interesting that they reiterated over the whole basically the whole game, yeah. Even though they're the same characters, but one thing that they did was they changed like 99% of the enemies, right? I've seen like one or two enemies from the original. So um the downside is of course it's in like alpha, right? Or beta or whatever they're calling it, it's like pre-release. Uh I didn't play the the the alpha on the original, so I don't know how much they changed. True.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

They might have changed a lot.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, outside of like seeing videos and things like that. I don't know how much it's likely to change now. Uh I have one oh uh part of part of the way you interact with the game, right? Is uh based on what you know you will encounter, especially for those like roguelike games, right? You're making decisions early because oh, I need to have more damage, cuz otherwise, like there's this elite on like the third act of the game that needs me to kill it really fast, or it just kills me, something like that, right? Not knowing all of them, I I I kind of know them now, but like not knowing what you need, especially in act one, makes the game a lot harder. On the original, like the strategy basically is get a lot of attack early because the first act punishes punishes you really hard. How does it punish you? Just take away your mana. No, so like there's uh one of the elites uh gets stronger when you play a skill, so you want to have more attack, and then it just hits you for a lot of damage, so you want to kill it faster. Yeah. Uh that's on Ascension 20, though. That's like the highest difficulty. Yeah, it gets like that on I think 17 when they on level 17, it changes the uh uh it changes the the moveset of the the enemies. Uh so there's that as well. Like I'm not on that level yet, I'm on ascension five right now. Uh gonna take a while to get there. I got to ascension 20 with all characters like on PC and mobile in the original game.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

That's crazy. You get cracked, like I get cracked on Space Marines.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, then I beat the game on Ascension 20 because all characters heartbreaker, so like there's a secret.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Can you beat the game without getting ascension 20?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yeah, yeah. So basically, it's just difficulty levels, right? So it adds modifiers to your kind of modifiers. Like the first one is like there are more elite. Technically, uh, the first level is easier than the previous one because you want to queue elite because they drop relics. But still, uh, then it starts getting harder. Like you start damage, you start with a curse in your deck. Uh then you have things like harder movesets, less potions, uh, you get less money, things are more expensive. Then the last one is like double boss at the end. You need to think about everything you're gonna face throughout the run.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Wow. That's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Like if you're if you are locked in, it's a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, it's probably really rewarding because you're like thinking about all these things, and if you get it right and win, you're like, damn, I really know what I'm doing. I'm pretty smart.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah, and and it's like you need to. That's something I kind of got better at it after playing Dark Souls, to be honest, like the whole series, which is like just expect to die.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yeah, you want it, like you don't want to die, but yeah. If you're not dying, like you're not you're doing something wrong, you're not learning, you're not going out there and exploring.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Like Ascension 20, like Heartbreaker, which is you get the keys during the run, which means you you need to do some some different things, like skip a rest, skip a chest, and then uh kill the super elite, all of those, like make it even harder, and then you get two extra bosses. That's like heartbreaker, and the heart is like uh ridiculously hard. Like it has a mechanic where whenever you use a cord to take damage, when uh it has a maximum amount of damage can take per turn, so you don't get to go infinite and just kill it. Because it was made after the uh the game came out, right? It's the last thing that they made was uh because Ascension used to go to level 15, they made 16 to 20 and added the heart at the end, and that the everything they learned, because like you you get a lot of ridiculous infinite, because it's uh you get real like there's a combo which they took out of the game because it was oh come on.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Wait, like an insane amount of damage.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

So uh the combo was you had a relic that said when you use a skill, uh when you when you exhaust something, you get a random card. Okay, and then you have a power that says all your uh skills are free, but they exhaust. So just keep getting a bunch of random cards, and all the skills you get to use for free every turn, and like there's more synergy, right? There are powers that you can block when you exhaust something, like all that synergy. Um so and it it used to be uh a uh an uncommon power as well. They turned it into a rare and then they took it out of the game. Man, that sucks. It was broken. It was basically win, like instant win every time. Like it's impossible to lose with that, even with the heart. Like it that level broken. Yeah. Um the issue with the heart kill as well, is like only a few strategies can actually do it. Like that that's something I think they did really well with the the sequel. Like they made they made new things, and a lot of the things that uh that weren't as supported got some nice support. I noticed uh one interesting thing that they did as well. I noticed two cards that were changed. There might have been more, but like two cards that were drastically changed. And uh they they um they would they they made two like two different different they were all it's also included in every deck. Like if you saw it, you would pick it. Yeah, one of them was buffed like about a year after the game came out on the original as well. It was very simple, it was like a uh a skill that would give you three shifts, and three shifts deal four damage, yeah. A shift deals four damage, plus zero exhaust. So it's basically one mana deal twelve damage, right? Your regular attacks deal six or one mana, so it's like double damage, right? Then you have all the shiv synergies, you have powers that increase their damage, you have things that trigger when you use more cards or or when you attack more. Uh and that used to give you two shivs originally, and it fucked. No one picked it. They buffed it to three, and then it became like auto-include. And then eventually, what they did yeah, especially because a lot of the synergies are like when you use three attacks in a turn, gain something. Was instant you get three attacks, you get all the synergy or like everything basically. Uh, and you could get like scaling, but and all all those synergies were scaling synergies, well, like doing freezer damage over time and things like that. It was a common card, so you saw like three or four during a run. You could always reliably get it, and like they changed that to be an exhaust, so like you lose it for the for that uh combat after you use it. But they made a card that is basically the same card, but it costs one more. But every time you use it, it costs less. So it's worse in shorter fight, but it's better over time because it becomes free uh free after two uses, right? So uh it's nice that they and it's uh an uncommon, so you see it like once or twice a run instead. But uh it's really cool, dude.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

I really like the silence.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

They found a balance there, and then the silent is my favorite character. Uh who's your favorite? The silent. They really like the uh the shiv mechanic because it's it's usually a deck where you're using like 10-12 cards a turn, so you're doing a lot of stuff, uh, and then you get all the synergies of like when you use three attack, every time you use three attacks, gain one strength, gain one dexterity, or uh gain block, or deal some damage, right? All of those synergies uh uh work really well with uh with the silence. Uh and then you you you go through like your deck once or twice, and then your blocks that are are originally giving you five blocks, they're like the uh defend is the name of the basic card, they're giving you like 12, right? So it's you get scaling and you need to scale, especially on high uh higher difficulties. You need to scale and you need to scale fast early. Uh you can beat like the base difficulty with no scaling. You can't beat like even ascension four or five without scaling, right? And that that's one thing I like with the new characters as well, because like they made the the two new characters are completely different, which is quite nice because the two original characters are the ironclad and silent, they have no additional mechanics, like it's only things uh on the cards, right? Oh, the silent has parts that say discard or parts that apply poison, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah. Uh the poison that's some of the characters have like special abilities or attributes, just not them.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

You all of them have a base relic, but the other characters have additional mechanics on top of their base relic. Well, their base relic introduces an additional mechanic. So uh the first character that had that is the defect, it has orbs that you like you what do they they call it something like you cast the orb, right? That orb has an effect every turn. Like you have lightning that deals three damage to a random enemy, you have ice that gives you some block. Uh they added a new orb as well, which is worked completely different from the other orbs, which is fun.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Uh they called it the lath, it deals some AoE damage every turn, but the damage goes down every turn as well. It goes down, but it kind of pops after a while. Uh so that that's quite uh that was quite interesting. And then but the new characters like uh they have one where you have a summon. So you summon like uh an undead hand, like every turn it gets more health and it absorbs the damage. So as long as you block it doesn't lose health, and there are cards that like it to have more health. Like there's an attack that deals its max its current HP plus a base amount, right? And then you start seeing some interesting things, like they they follow the mechanics to uh its final consequences like what's the consequence of you having a summon? Like you have a strength mechanic, right? Which increases the damage over your attacks, but you're not attacking, it's your summon attack. So your strength doesn't affect it. Then what they did was they made cards that give you a benefit but reduce your strength, so you get negative strength.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

If you have a deck where your summon is attacking, that doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

That's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

There's a skill that like takes uh I think it gives you minus two strength and then yields minus two to an enemy as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Oh, that's pretty good. So you guys are both like weaker, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

But then like it's very strong against enemies with multi-attacks, right? Because if you're attacking for 12 and you get minus two strength, now you're attacking for 10. But if you're attacking for six times two, or two times six, I never remember what's the order it uses. I think the first one is the number of attacks, and the second one is the the amount, it reduces the amount of damage, right? So damn, so if it does six attacks for two, it becomes a four times two.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

No, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

But there are enemies that do like three times seven.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Then you do minus two instead of it doing 21, it's attacking for seven. It's super strong.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

Yeah, it's broken.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

So it's a and it's a completely different deck, and it also has another mechanic which is reasonably similar to poison. So the way poison works for silent is how you would expect poison to work. It has a number, it deals that much damage at the end of the turn, it goes down by one. Quite straightforward. Like heal six poison, heal six damage this turn, five damage next turn, four damage the following turn, and so on. The nice thing is you can stack it up and then it becomes exponential, not very strong. They did remove a card that people liked, and it was a big noob trap that like doubled the poison on an enemy. Overkill.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah, it's still too much. But hey, uh, you want to win, right? Do the most damage you can.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

They made, yeah, but with the new character, like they created this new mechanic, they called it doom.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

What does it do?

SPEAKER_00 20:45

And Doom does nothing. Oh, it just applies a debuff with a number to the enemy. They die at the end of their turn if they have less health than their doom. Oh. We could have a deck theoretically that doesn't do any damage. You just apply Doom and Block. That's probably gonna be very weak on like higher ascension because you need to kill things fast. Yeah, you can apply a lot of doom. I I but uh the deck, the deck where you're you have all the synergies with your summon attacking is a lot of fun because you have things that like get them back to your hand, and then you can reuse them, or there's an attack that attacks the next for time for every time your summon attack. So if you have a bunch of those, you can attack like four or five times, and then you hit them for five five more hits, things like that. So uh was an interesting character, but the other one is like crazy because it has two main mechanics on top of like regular cards, so it has a separate uh kind of mana system. So you have the base mana and it has cars, right? Your mana resets every turn like most modern card games. Yeah. These stars, though they don't. So you have cards that give you stars, and you have cards that use stars. Okay. You have cards that are quote unquote free but require like four stars to use and do a bunch of damage, right? Or apply status effects. So you have a deck where you're just using a bunch of cards that give you stars really fast, and cards that consume those stars. It works really well. Uh like it's very intuitive because like you just run out of it. You have a lot of cards that cost zero, so like there are powers that interact with that. I got uh a relic that uh your fifth card every turn was free, and that does count the stars. So uh what I would do is I had a bunch of things that cost zero that were reasonably weak, and like I had a card that dealt a bunch of damage but required seven stars, which is very hard to get to uh fast, right? I would just use a bunch of cards and then kill everyone with that thing because it dealt seven damage seven times to everyone. Uh so it was quite a quite an interesting thing. Then they also added another mechanic, uh, like kind of another deck that you can go into. Uh well it has two other two others technically, but one of them is like just call uh creating cards during combat. There are some relics that interact that like give you power or something like that when you create a card in combat, so it's very uh it's very random, so you get a bunch of things happening. Uh it's quite a uh quite a fun, uh fun character to play. It is my favorite character actually right now, even more than the silent, which is funny. But uh I'm glad you're enjoying it. The other mechanic is like it has a big sword, and you summon the sword, and you have a bunch of cards that just increase the damage of the sword and it stays in your hand.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

But then when you use it, it goes back into your deck, right? So the idea is you use a bunch of those cards that increase the damage of the sword until you're satisfied and you just hit something. Then, of course, there are additions. So you can really get it like powerful time.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Is it like one like person attack or is it multi- area attack?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

So the so there is a power that makes it an area attack. That'd be great. There's uh and it added a lot of the science base. Like there's a card that's that's called like summoned for just adds it back to your hand. So you you use the sword, like two turns later, you draw this thing, you use it, and you get to use a sword again. It also increases the damage. I think it's like seven.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

That's pretty cool. I like that. So you thought it was gone, it's bad.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

It was quite interesting. Uh one thing I liked as well is that that they changed like the way transitioning between the the acts in the game works. So before you would get to the end of your uh you would kill the boss, you get a card reward, and uh a relic reward, right? You pick the the the relic, and then you pick the card, you get three options for a relic. They changed it, you just get a relic, but the the relic the the boss relics used to have downsides, right? So it was like you get an extra energy, but your enemies have more strength, or you can't gain gold, or most of them were energy relics. Um what they did now is instead you just get a rare relic, and then at the start of the next act, after you see the path you're taking, you get like three or four options. I think it's three. And it's things like you get this relic that has some downside, or uh well, they're all like in the game, they're relics, but like a lot of them just do something uh at that point in time. A lot of them are like replace one of your base cards with an upgraded version, and it's like super powerful and it's very rare, then it's like just a single card, right? But with this guy, uh one of the base cards like cost zero and applies two status effects and deal some damage to single enemy. Uh I got the upgraded version, and it's like deals double the damage, cost zero, zero plus like three stars, right? Twice as much status effect, all enemies. Like super powerful, but you need to go through an event and like you get it instead of something else. There's a lot of uh rate-off when you're in there, and it's nice that you get to see the act ahead as well, especially when you get a little bit better, you start thinking about which boss am I facing? What do I need to kill that? Right? Uh, one thing I found it might be because I was used to play like higher ascension, and now I'm climbing up. You need to beat the previous level to unlock the next one. I'm finding the final bosses quite easy. Like I've died to a final boss like one. That's kind of the final boss all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

You think maybe the final bosses aren't really like the final bosses, like they're secret bosses? Or just too bad.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

I'm I'm assuming that they're that that they will get harder movesets as you get uh uh higher in ascension. Yeah, it makes sense. And that uh they will uh that there will be a secret like boss at the end after you beat them, and you have to do something during the run to unlock it. Right. That that's how it worked in the original game. Another thing that but that the thing I noticed, so uh which makes Ascension 20 the hardest difficulty is the double boss thing. You know at the sort of an act of the boss or facing, right? That means especially on the original game where each boss kind of works in a completely different way, um you need different things to beat different bosses. So, like there are three bosses in the original game, uh, or act three. You have a boss that has two phases on phase one, so it dies, it gains strength whenever you use a power. So if you are relying on powers, you're gonna have a bad time. So you have a whole act to kind of adjust your deck to kind of face that. You have another one that every 12 cards you use, it ends your turn and takes over. And that like over it's not on the same turn, like counts up to 12. Get strength and and so on. Then the other boss, what's the other boss? Oh, yeah, the other one is just two, it's two bosses, and one of them every turn gives them strength, and the other one every turn gives them uh block, and then they alternate. One of them attacks the other one off the other, so you kill the one that gives strength because that scales way too fast and kills you, and then you kill the other one. But the issue with ascension 20 is you get double boss, you only know the first bot. Dang the second one, you have no idea what's gonna be timekeeper. It's uh it's also that you're hoping it's not timekeeper, so it doesn't kill you when you play your 12th card, right? I didn't feel that with this game, and it could be it could easily be just difficulty level. I'm not up there yet, uh, so I don't see the need for anything special when I get to this, like it's just damage.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Yeah, is it easier than the uh first game? You think they made it more accessible for everyone?

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Uh I'll know in about a month when I get to ascension 20. It's harder, you can't compare. Like I'm um on five or twenty level. Yeah, true. It's probably gonna be much harder, right? Especially because the harder ascensions they introduce harder movesets, which means the enemies hit harder and faster. So, like an example from the first game, like the the annoying elite that uh starts gaining strength when you use skills, that basically means you don't pick skills on the first four or five floors. On Ascension 1, or I think it's below five or something like that. I don't remember when it flips, it turns that on on the first one, it hits you for a little bit on the second turn, and then on the third third turn, it hits you for a bit and applies vulnerable. Vulnerable makes you take 50% more damage, right? And then it starts hitching you super hard. Yeah. On higher difficulties, it applies vulnerable the second turn, so it just goes turn the thing on, now you're vulnerable, hit you, hit you, hit you. And it's hitching you for like 24, 30, so it's 24 bays, I think. 24 like at 50 on top. Oh my god, 36. Yeah, that's half your health, and you cannot use skills, and skills are the way you block.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

That's broken. So once it's common, you just can't block it, and you're done.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

It's very hard. So it's a lot easier with the ironclad because you have attacks that give you block. Let's go. Uh as common. Uh the silent has attacks that give you block, but it's uh it's a uh an uncommon. Uh but when you get it, it's very good on app one. Uh but I like that they they kind of redid the game, but not really. Uh that was fun.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Uh that's good though, because like it's still familiar that you know what you're doing, and it's the game you wanted to play. Did we change too much? Like, is this the game I wanted?

SPEAKER_00 32:19

I think they changed just enough. And I think it's at a very good level. A lot of it was clearly based on uh well seeing what the modding community did, uh what people wanted to do. Like they added a lot of new events, which is quite interesting as well. That's something I'm really liking, not knowing what the events do. Because when you know everything, because I got to a to a point where I I know all the events, I know all the cards, I know all the relics, I know what to pick and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Yeah, so that kind of gets boring because then you like you know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

It it gets repetitive, yeah. I stopped playing it on my phone uh on flight. That was my go-to game when I was flying.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Uh and I've been playing uh Ballatro, right, for the past Ballatro. But uh now it's well it's not on mobile yet, so I don't get to do this. But I really want to play it on mobile when it comes out because it's gonna be nice to be able to explore with it. Uh the new events are quite interesting because they added they added new mechanics on the events as well. Before it was like take some damage, get a card, maybe get a curse. The new mechanics, like they created a thing where you get a card, but the card is uh the card is like a status card, not really a curse. Like it will eventually be something you can you can trade in for something on the next act. You have something in your deck that does nothing, so you're drawing it's a dead draw for like a few floors, right? But then you trade it in for like a bunch of gold or for a new card or things like that. It was a way to a way to introduce something that you can do with your uh uh with your game, right? Without having to become something completely new. It uses all the same mechanics, but it not really, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yeah, like it's kind of inspired.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

In that case, yeah. It could easily be a mod. Like it's a sequel that could have been a mod, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

It is pretty interesting because you said they pretty much added all the mods, like with their own they made it in the styles.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Yeah, they added multiplayer as well. I I know multiplayer is a bit unbalanced, but again, like people are playing early ascension that are not on high difficulty right now. Like the game came out a week ago. Uh so we'll see how it goes when uh we get to people playing multiplayer on higher ascensions, because multiplayer basically is you play everyone plays their own act, and then you fight together at the end against the boss. That's what I hear. Uh, I haven't tried it at all. I just read it. Um but at the same time, like against bosses, then I think they kind of did it this way, so you couldn't just uh just focus on cooperation, right? You had to have a self-sufficient deck. Uh, because the multiplayer you had with mod or the original game, which I no idea how they managed to do that, because like the game is single player. How do you make make it multiplayer? Um, but um yeah, I don't how it was like like people made versus mode for Bellatro as well recently, right? Or it's oh you play your they call it anties, right? Yeah, you play the anti, uh, and then at the end, like whoever gets the most points at the boss. Uh well, whoever gets the least points loses a life, and you have like three lives, things like that. Um it's interesting that they added multiplayer or operative multiplayer to the game. Uh so that's something that I will be exploring in the future because it looks it looks interesting. Yeah, it's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I'm looking at right now on Steam. I like I like what I'm seeing.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Oh fun. It's like it's one of my favorite games of all time. Of all time, almost up there, almost up there with RuneScape.

unknown 36:47

What?

SPEAKER_02 36:48

No way.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

And it's super cheap, it's like$15. I think I paid it like$15.99 last week. Something like that.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Looks like it's$25 now.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

That makes sense. Yeah, I paid$15,$16.$17.99 actually, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

I can't recommend it enough. But I recommend playing the original as well. That one's only six buttons. At the same time, yeah, it's the type of sequel where realistically you don't need the original. There's one thing that you have in the original that isn't on the sequel, outside of like enemies that they changed and things like that. It is the Watcher, and I'm pretty sure they'll add it in the end. The Watcher is harder to balance, like it has this chance mechanic. Watcher, you you can exemplify how broken the the what the Watcher was by the win rate. So the top players on Ascension 20 they win like 20-25% of their runs. With the Watcher, they win 50%. Twice as good. Interesting. Because you have the stance that you change stances with with it, so you have cars that like apply basically a buff on you, and one of the stances does nothing, but when you exit it, you gain energy, and the other one makes you deal and take double damage. Basically, you want to get into these the stance, attack a bunch of times, go back to the other one, then when you get back to the one that makes you deal double damage, you gain extra energy and you can play more cards, but get too strong way too fast. Uh, and there's a third one that doesn't really like it comes up, but it's harder to get to. The other ones are quite common. Uh so the third stance makes you deal triple damage with no downside. But the ways to get to it are like you get a buff ten times, or you use a card that says at the end of the turn you die. Like those are the ways to die. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

I don't want to die. I mean, unless like it wins out.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

I mean, it it's based card game. That's something people learned on in the late 90s with magic. It doesn't matter if your opponent has seven cards in hand if they're dead.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

It's true. You can have all the powerful cards, but if they die, they're not gonna use them. But also, like you could use all those cards and then use that. Wait, is there a way to like use that death card and then use the other cards after that?

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Yeah, no, yeah. Excellent. You can do like and you deal three triple damage, and I think it draws three cards when you use it, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

So you're kind of risking it all, but you're hoping you'd win.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

So it's kind of like dealing triple damage, it's so much damage. And then it has a random mechanic that's only in one card that makes no sense, and it's the worst thing ever. It's a card that applies a debuff to an enemy, which is already a problem. Any strategy that relies on debuffs needs to be very consistent because there's a mechanic with a lot of enemies where they have this thing where they uh negate the first X number of debuffs you try to apply to them, which is actually something you can apply on yourself and avoid the debuff that kills you at the end of your turn with the thingy that uh gives you the divine pen that they call it. Um it's called artifact in the game. So uh there's that, but uh the issue is like it just it's a single card that applies this debuff. Uh that's something they did well with Doom as well, because Doom is like used by a bunch of cards. There are cards that just say, uh, if you gain Doom, do this. If you gain Doom this turn. The fun thing about Doom, actually, something that that I it took me a few runs to realize there's a free card that applies Doom to you and then like gives you energy, right? One of the best cards ever. If you have three Doom, as long as you're at at least four life, it doesn't do anything. And it interacts with everything that says if you apply Doom. So like there's a card that just gives you block, and if you apply Doom, repeats it twice. Like it goes from six, which is already more than your base defend. Yeah, which is eight million, which is like more block than you can get any turn at the start of your run, right? And um you're just applying Doom to yourself because who cares?

SPEAKER_01 41:35

Yeah, why not?

SPEAKER_00 41:36

There's a power that says when you gain Doom, gain three blocks, or things like that, right? You get a lot of synergy with applying doom to random stuff. Uh I got uh there's a card that just costs zero. Uh, and you target an enemy, and whenever you use a card this turn, give that enemy free doom, right? Doesn't do much, but then it interacts with everything that says when you debuff an enemy, deal damage, or but you have a lot of those mole things that uh add up when you get to like that that getting a bunch of uh uh block from just playing the game is when you get the crazier runs always. The silent has a relic that literally says when you play a card, gain one block, right? Uh that's one of the reasons I love it, because you have that card, you have a bunch of things that cost zero, or that make a bunch of extra cards that cost zero as well. We're casting a bajillion cards every turn, and then you in the original game you face the timekeeper, you can only use 12 cards a turn, and you're dead. Um, so yeah, there's that. But uh yeah, I I've I've been having a ton of fun with the game, and I think that's a good way to go with the sequel. They waited a reasonable amount of time as well. And from the changes they made, I'm pretty sure that if they didn't decide to leave Unity, they would have just made it like a DLC, uh a cheap DLC or something like that. The reason it's a full-blong game is because like they built it from the ground up after the other one came out, right? Uh so yeah, I I'm I'm loving it right now, and it it works in a I think they explored the design space really well. Uh sweet. Yeah, and the other thing I've been doing. Oh, yeah, this is focusing on the usually I I'm in RuneScape, right? I I'm playing a lot of like low intensity things like mining, hunting stuff, sailing, fishing. But I I I've been trying to, especially on weekends. And recently I started getting into what's supposed to be the hardest thing in the game, which is called the Colseum. And uh it's like a way face thing, you got a bunch of enemies coming and so on, right? And uh it made it made me think of Jim, which is quite interesting, which because like it hurts and it feels like it doesn't make sense a lot of the time. But if you do things as they're supposed to, just follow the instructions because like there are some very unintuitive mechanics in RuneScape where uh like damage is calculated when the projectile not even when the projectile leaves the enemy, when they start the animation, the damage has been calculated. That basically means you need to block the attacks before they happen. Uh so there's a lot of strategy because like you got a lot of different enemies spawning, and you need to alternate your blocks between different uh combat styles, right? Because every enemy is a different combat style in that well, every most enemies. And there's an extra enemy that attacks three times in a row, three combat styles, and the order is different, but you get to see it. Um you need to basically align that to the other attack, and that's when you get started, it doesn't make sense at all. You're panicking all the time. But then you trust the process, and that applies to you so much. Just trust the process. Uh if you look at the guys, it will say stand here, take a step out, because you're like hiding behind a pillar, right? Stand in the middle of the pillar, take a step out, pray against the thing in the back, uh, then swap to the thing in the front, and they'll be what's called optic, right? They're attacking at different times. Or if they have the same style, you stand on the corner, take a step up uh to the side, they see you at the same time, they attack you at the same time. There's a lot of those like very small things, and then I learned a new one where you have two in the back that have one style, and the one in the front with a different style, you need to go like three steps back. Uh or or I think it was the two in the front, actually, with a different style and the one with the back. Uh well, the two in the front have the same style, and the one in the back is a different one. Go a few steps back, so the one in the back takes you a little longer to see you. There's a lot of like interesting that yeah, finesse. The fun th the nice thing is like you're hiding behind the pillar, so basically, once you what they call solving the wave, so you get to go behind the pillar, deal with the spawns. There's like three guys that just attack you, and you have to deal with them while uh solving everything. You get to just take a take a breeder, open the 5,000 page document with all the software, and just do what you need to do. But a lot of it is just trusting the process. Like it took me about two weeks trying it to get to the final boss, and the final boss is just nervous. Like it's super easy. Uh, but it's just like you do the thing and it dies. It has a ton of stuff happening at the same time, like it attacked and and uh you cannot block the attacks, so you need to dodge them, and every attack uh it has two types of attacks, and it and then those have two variants, and then every attack will have a different place you need to go to so you don't take damage. Um it it it's basically drink some water, focus and and and execute. And I actually died to it twice this weekend. You died to it twice? A lot of fun because I just never got to it before. I just got to the to the final.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Also you see something new, so yeah, yeah, that explains why you died. You're gonna get it done.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

There's 11 waves before the final uh so you need to focus for and there's another uh similar mini game in the game that um people say is a lot easier, but it's getting hard about on wave like 40 or 50. This one has 10 waves, right? It's the difference between having to take an hour and a half, focusing a bunch, and dying at the end, or take 20 minutes and learn something different. That that's that's the reason I did that one first. Yeah, there's a lot of and a lot of the techniques translate, right? Like the attack attack timers are different, but the the enemies are different, but this one is a lot harder. I have the the thing that switches with textiles that uh gets a lot harder. So uh the fun thing is I I'm trusting the process. Like when I when I switch to the trust the process mentality, just collect it, like it's just working now. Like I'm getting to wave 10 and 11 consistently. Uh I I'm getting to 10 every time, you know. That's pretty good. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

You found a good policy, man. You found a good strategy.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

Yeah. Yeah, there's a massive like spike on wave 10. There's a massive on wave 5 as well. You get an extra enemy until like it condenses into a hard quote unquote harder enemy. And then it builds up again until 10. And on 10 you get an extra. Oh, there's a reinforcement mechanic as well. So after some time, like 10 new enemies spawn and uh you hide behind the pillar, on waves one through four, and then seven through nine, it's just a single melee air. You're behind the pillar, they can't hit you, right? On the other waves, you start getting a major, and the major is a lot harder to deal with because then you're dealing with something else on the other side, and then this major 50% of the time will be in front and hitting you. Uh and I I recently got to a point where I can also deal with the major, but it's crazy because a lot of it isn't the just trust trust the process, trust your strategy. It's like learning something new, just you're not gonna be good right away. And I think Dark Souls got me in a point where I can actually do that because I would have rage quit like two weeks ago. I I I I probably died like 20-25 times doing doing this thing. Right. Dark Souls is special. Every run is like 20 uh 20 or 40 minutes, right? Yeah, so um it's crazy how of course I'm still talking about uh about games here. Oh yeah, this is all yeah, all games, all mechanics, all strategy. Uh it teaches you not to give up. Crazy how a game can do that.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Hey, I mean, people practice, they're not really playing in the game, the real, I guess the real world, the real environment. They're in a simulated environment. So when you're playing games, you're you're kind of practicing in a simulated environment and you're learning not to give up. So you're building skills so that when you face a tough problem in real life, you're like, sucks, but like I'm not gonna give up. We keep trying to beat this problem. So, like when people really love Dark Souls, I'm like, you guys, there's something to it. I think there's even some YouTube videos I haven't watched, but I saw the thumbnail. I was like, Elden Ring got me closer to the Bible, or Elder Ring actually has Bible lessons, or Elder Ring taught me about the Buddha life of suffering.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Yeah, that's like it's crazy because it's true.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

I bet. Did you watch that video?

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Uh I I watched the one where well one of them where the guy talks about uh truth with his depression. It's insane. It's insane how uh it's all about learning to lose, and that's something I wasn't able to do. Like I didn't learn to lose when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

Yeah, that's why I gave up on those games too, because I just didn't want to keep losing.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

You just get used to it and it's just part of the game. No, but I like it now. Black multiple times.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Yeah, black and duke is the one that finally like solidified the deal. I know it's not a dark souls, but it's like pretty similar. It's just fighting tough bosses, and I really loved it. And I was like, okay, I think I can go back to Elden Ring and really enjoy it. I just need to do it slowly because I got carried in Elden Ring and I got to the point where like I'm too underleveled, and so I'm not having fun. So I gotta replay it from the beginning, or just go back to the how I started as well.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

It's crazy to think that my first actual boss encounter in Elden Ring, I just summoned someone and let them solo the boss. Yeah, it's like easy way um, random cave. So if you if you go left after you leave like the farm and go down to the beach, there's a cave down there. Yeah, and it has like it's two bosses as well. Like it was way too much for me. Like now I can probably do that with my yeah, you got this.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

Well, not my eyes closed because I need to see the boss, but um there's some people who do it, they like memorize the visual the audio cues, yeah. And I'm like, that's crazy. I don't know how you do it. And then I've seen someone beat the Elden Ring with just their mind. They connect those things to the head and then it connects it to commands.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

I was like, I can't like what this reminds me of something I I saw on YouTube Shorts. Someone was streaming who streams on YouTube Shorts, but anyway, uh someone was streaming Elden Ring, but they weren't playing normally. Like they had a punching bag with buttons.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

That's crazy to me. Yeah, yeah, why not? Why don't you just make it even harder? Punching bag. I think I've seen some people play guitar or something. Like what? I can't even I can't even meet it. What's that?

SPEAKER_00 54:15

I I've seen people play it with controller, yeah, guitar hero controller, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Those people were special. I'm telling you, people. I mean, hey, if you have nothing else better to do and you want to achieve a goal, like you can do it. Like, I I think when I see all that, I'm like, the human mind like it's capable of doing anything.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Anything one fun thing as well. Uh uh, remember that I said uh that the last time I left home was last week on Friday.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Yeah, but those cover like Elm Ring. You were like, I can't actually. Oh, that's awesome. Hell yeah. Dude, arcade is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

I'll do nowadays. I'm always jamming high scores there.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

You have the high score?

SPEAKER_00 55:05

It's crazy, yeah. Well, uh like third or fourth.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

There's always someone who's just like insane.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

I I mean I was half drunk and uh that's true, that's true. You're right, you're right. We gotta go back and show them. I I need to go back and man, I hadn't played guitar hero for almost a year now. Uh on guitar more than a year. Uh there's that. But uh yeah, it was uh was a great experience. And not just the not just the guitar hero uh machine because like they had they have consoles for free there. Oh, I love that when you can just go play one and n64 Genesis, an SNES, and there might have been others that I didn't notice.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

Yeah, they usually have the retro ones.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

You you know the oh they had a a switch as well. Do you know the the Simpsons arcade game?

SPEAKER_01 56:03

No, uh for some reason all that came to my head was Simpsons. I didn't think it's Simpsons Hot and Run or Hot, whatever the one where they yeah, that one I don't want to play a lot when I was younger. That was a good one, but yeah, no, I haven't played the arcade game.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

I've never played that one. The arcade game is super fun, like Maggie Maggie like gets the piece of plutonium and it's flying on a on a balloon, and you get get to go after her. It's just a random beat-em-up. It's like have you played uh Turtles in Time? Yeah, the four-player co-op game where you guys go it's the same game, but you know, okay, Bart, your Bart, Lisa, Homer, and uh Marge. And everyone has their uh a different attack, it's a a lot of fun, actually. It's very different. Like Lisa has a jumping rope, and you like hit people with the rope. Uh Homer just punches people, Bart has a skateboard, and carries around a vacuum cleaner, and you get people with the vacuum cleaner.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 57:10

Yeah, you have the yeah, the hammer on almost as crazy as the fact that Simpsons is still airing in 2026.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

Yeah, that I I haven't watched Simpson episode in like 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

It's always airing here in the UK, but it's always the old ones. Like when I'm leaving the gym, uh they have a cafeteria, and the cafeteria just leaves channel 4 and on one TV and the BBC and and the other and the other. Channel 4 always airs like two, three episodes of The Simpsons in the afternoons. But it's always the old ones, like no one cares about the new Simpsons. Yeah, I it's I could really care less. I like it though. I like Simpsons.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

The movie.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

But at the same time, no one watched that like people kind of watched that season, but no one watched the following seasons. Yeah, not sure how still there it's like it's there because it's part of culture now. It's like how do you cancel the Simpsons?

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Yeah, you can't cancel if you cancel Simpsons, something's wrong. But also, like, is he gonna keep going?

SPEAKER_00 58:23

It's annoying, like it should just end, like it's never gonna get a proper ending as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

But should it get an ending? What's the ending? They all grow up like the part in um the kids are all chilling in the house with their own families.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Yeah, the characters should be allowed to grow up, like it like the weird thing about the Simpsons is that it it's always happening in the current day. So you have early 90s episodes where you have Homer in going to university in the 80s, or early 2000 episodes where he's like playing in a grunge band in college, right? And then you have episodes nowadays where Homer and Marge have cell phones in high school.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

Yeah, right. They really they should do that. I think once they start getting like tired of ideas, they should just start making them older. Just like every season they get like a year older.

SPEAKER_00 59:21

That that would work, like they should have just done that, but uh it's supposed to like reflect the the nuclear American family that doesn't exist that much anymore, anyway. Yeah, was very common in the 90s, it's not as common nowadays, especially on TV.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Like people don't yeah, every time I watch a show, either like the parents are divorced or like they separated, live in different areas, the the kids hate their parents, the parents are awful.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Even the dynamics there, like especially when like not that divorce wasn't an option, but like wasn't as common. You had a lot more families like that where it doesn't actually click, they kind of love each other, but not they like hate each other at the same time. Nowadays people just get divorced, like divorced like 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

Like you guys like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:24

The other 20% is people don't bother trying.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

Yeah, it's like look, if you don't get married unless you're fully sure. Have all these conversations, wait two years, have more serious conversations. Just gosh, like, don't rush into it, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

Life values, you can't be like a hardcore liberal and marry a hardcore conservative. That's not gonna work. That doesn't work. How do you raise the kids? Like, that's not gonna work. You need to have those conversations, and then you have the other side of it. Both of you really want to, you can make it work. Like that that's something that uh you realize like as long as you have reasonably similar values, and both of you want to be together, and you are actually willing to work on the relationship, you will not spot on if it works. Yeah, because I'm seeing people got everyone into a uh spot where they had to think about these things, and uh yeah, a lot of people just got used to being miserable, and you shouldn't get used to being miserable if it's not working do something. Damn.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

Deep in deep regard. It's sad though, because it's like it's you know your life, you can't really like redo things, so people rush into this now. Now they've I wouldn't say they wasted it, but like maybe they were all going on a different path. They thought the future was gonna be this way, now it's not, so now they have to go through the whole cycle of divorce and find someone new and then get married again, and then I'm like, damn, like now you're old, so it's not gonna be easy for you. You're gonna have to deal with that. Or you might find someone who already has a kid, and that changes the dynamic of everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

So that is a lot harder because then like even to get started, because then you're not just dating the person, you're dating the kid, yeah. Yeah, if you're serious about it, right? If you're if you're there just to like have some casual, then uh maybe you don't care, right? Yeah, you actually want to get to know the person, you you get to know the kids as well, and maybe a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

I agree. Do we uh touch on all your points you wanted to bring up? I know you were yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:50

This is going something else that actually came to my mind, but that's something we should probably invite Callum over again. Invite who? Oh yeah, oh yeah, MMO. So uh have you been following the the recent development? I've not actually gonna send me it. It's been what was it called again? Um I don't remember what it was called. Um did you see recently there was something Ashes of Creation. Ashes of Creation is the name of the game. So it came out and then uh it just shut down. No, no, it did not. It didn't pay the developers for their last month.

unknown 1:03:51

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

Why? Oh don't want that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:55

No, that's a shame, dude. Why do people not pay the developed dude? I saw somewhere it was uh a podcast, some guy worked in Blizzard. He uh someone someone higher up brought him to the room and was like, all right, this is like the bottom line, like this is where Overwatch has to make they have to make this amount of money. If not, everyone is losing their job, and it's gonna be on your head.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:22

Now go out there and make the worst kind of pressure. Like, I I have no like look it's a healthy level of pressure that's not a healthy level of pressure.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:30

That's insane. I'm like, look, that's why games aren't good. Like I get I get they have to make money, we all understand that. But it seems like in the last couple years we've learned that when you make a game out of passion, love, and and for it to be fun, it ends up making the money that you've always been shooting for.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

So stop telling people uh some small group of people comes up with an idea and has passion, it becomes mainstream, and as long as they are reasonably skilled and actually dedicated and trust the process, all that it comes out and people love it, right? And it like that that's another issue. So, like going back to don't make well, right? You there are different levels of success. If you have a multi-million dollar company, like think about a Disney movie nowadays, right? They they spend like a hundred million dollars to make it and like 200 million in marketing. 300 million is their break-even point.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

That's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

You're by yourself, you just need to make a salary, like you don't need to make a million dollars. That's what what I felt with my game as well. Like, when I get back to it, I'm gonna sell it for like five dollars. Who cares? I just wanna say I sold something on team. Like, it's not like especially like especially if you're making it as a hobby and it's not gonna be your actual profession. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Like it's extra income, it's bonus, it's bonus cash. If you need it to make a living, then yeah, like okay, you probably just get freelance work while you do that game and like help other people with their games.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

Yeah, like I'm looking at uh Ashes of Creation on Steam. It said the game, people are pissed.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:30

Of course, like and like the the crazy thing that happened is that they took the game offline. If you didn't refund anyone, no, so it was before Steam had paid them. So Steam just withheld the funds. Oh, so now it's Steam that has that's like stealing. So it's on Steam, they're gonna refund, but like they're giving the devs an opportunity probably to like take the game back online or just click the button that says refund. Right? Basically, Steam hasn't paid them yet, and like they are using that as an excuse to say, oh, that's why we haven't paid our developers. But there was a claw apparently there was a clause in their contract that said no money from Steam can go to pay developers because the guy had a mortgage and had to pay for the mortgage, like crazy things like that. But we'll know a lot more, and like there are 25,000 lawsuits going on, like the devs are suing the makers of the game, like the the makers are suing like their both shareholders. Oh my god, that was supposed to not exist. The guy always said there is no board, I'm doing it on my own, like I don't have to answer to anyone except when things went out, and he said, Oh no, there's a board, they're taking over.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

Oh my god, dude, it's crazy, bro. They said that they would uh refund everyone if the game does not launch.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:02

Oh my god and legally it launched though, came out, you could play it for a month. Was five hundred dollars for our early act.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

What oh my god, everybody's posting it, but yeah, you're right, it did launch. Technically, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

That's where it's like these things will stop when like people get together in a class action. Like you need to have a single person is not gonna sue because like realistically, dude, this is all like 20 days ago, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

It's so soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

Yeah, it just happened. Like, what's gonna happen right now? The issue is Steam is involved, so Valve is gonna sue them. And that's gonna be a different beast. Not gonna be a bunch of random that like got the game on Kickstarter. Gonna be the biggest, realistically, the biggest game comp the most profitable game company ever.

unknown 1:09:03

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:06

Oh my god. On another thing of Lost Lady, did you see that uh yeah, did you see that uh Nintendo is losing their lawsuits against against Power World?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:17

I I I predicted that. I I think I was telling people, I was like, I think what happened was they lost there was something that came up and it was a little bit wonky, and it seemed like it was gonna be uh power was gonna win. It was something I don't even think power was trying to win, but it just came up, and I was like, oh, this is not good. I think Nintendo opened up a can of worms where they like they're attacking power world, and now they're gonna actually lose more than if they just like kept quiet and let powerworld do what they did.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:43

And I think they lost the copyright on like catching monsters with a ball or something like that for the wall.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

Dude, there's another game that's like powerwall, but it's Yu-Gi-Oh! You throw cards and you can catch them with cards. So now it's over.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:56

They wanted to copyright the uh the idea of having summons, but then like you have Final Fantasy that came out ten years earlier.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

Is it crazy that they're losing it? I knew it. I just had a feeling, I was like, Nintendo, I think you're you're reading it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:12

I'm hoping this this uh reopens the can of worms that is the nemesis system. Oh my god, if people need to realize you cannot copyright. You cannot copyright a game mechanic. It's so dumb. If people are doing your thing better than you, it's your fault, just do it better.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:33

I think someone bought it though, right? Somebody bought Warner Brothers. Well it's probably Disney, and so then they could technically pull it out of the uh the grave and make games with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:47

Yeah, because that that's the craziest thing. Like, I think that that's one of the problems like Nintendo was facing with some of those uh copyright claims that they weren't using the copyright, so like yeah, or they and one thing that's crazy about this lawsuit, like, how can you retroactively copyright something? If someone is uh starts making something today, and in two years I copyright that thing, too late.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:17

Yeah, there should also be a rule for that where it's like, hey, if we if you can show what you were developing before the copyright was made, then you can like avoid that clause.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:24

Exactly. Like you you invested millions for years in I I I'm already against like the concept of copyright. That's a different conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:33

Okay, no same. I I mean like I I also think it ruins creativity. Like there are people who want to make Star Wars stories, but because they can't make a little bit of money off of it, they don't they don't end up making it. It's like just let them do it. And like maybe they have a system where they can give you like 10% so you make some money.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

You just don't get to say you're you own Star Wars, you don't get to say you're George Lucas, it already is a thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:59

So and then it was some points become uh open to the public, anyways. I know there's like loopholes around that where companies can keep their butt like once it does become open, then anybody can make it. So why don't you just let it happen now? But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:13

It's like the the the uh the poo became uh public domain like what five years ago or something. And then you had uh what was it called? Something in honey where uh I mean the poo was a killer bear. Did you see that one come out?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:34

Uh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:35

I'm surprised they haven't done that with Mickey as well, because they had like the original design of Mickey became public domain like last year or something like that. Takes a while to to make those, so we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:01

I I can't believe it all. I'm seeing like a bunch of things on the YouTube, and I want to watch it all and see what the hell happens. I'm not following it too closely, but I do listen to some commentaries. Damn, I didn't know there's all that crap going on. Dude, the game can be can get messy, man. People will be doing stupid stuff. Like, how can you dude people were backing it for$150,$270? Like it was a$500 tier. That's ridiculous to me, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

And now it's just five or six million dollars. That was like the biggest six star ever. It's ridiculous, dude. Like their goal was seven hundred and fifty thousand. Yeah, they said the game was already funded, don't worry. The game was already yes, they quote unquote ran out of money. Look at that. I mean, it's quite straightforward. Riot is making it an MMO, and like they're pushing it back, and it's taking a while. Riot Games is like one of the biggest developers. Look at the successful uh MMOs that came out in the past 10 years that haven't been canceled. You have not many. Let's see. Final Fantasy XIV. Oh, yeah. And that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:24

I thought you were gonna say at least two more. I mean, there's I've got where the winds mean out.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:31

I don't know that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:33

Oh, you should definitely try it out. I really like that game a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:36

There's one that's actually very good, uh, and it goes against all of my my life tenants. Uh it's Albion Online. Albion? Wow. Albion Online.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:49

I mean, okay, I heard that one. But no, definitely check out where the winds meet, dude. I think you'll really like it. It's a really cool game. Open MMO. Where the winds meet. Yeah, I uh I played a lot of it. I'm waiting for more stuff to come out before I play more.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

I mean, technically, uh, no man's sky is an MMO as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:08

Okay, I put it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:08

That was a problematic when it came out. Uh you said it's very good right now. Oh, yeah, I've seen this one. Yeah. But yeah, it's very fun. It's actually pretty fun. It even has a mobile client. Uh you have a lot of gathering, it's full-on PvP with it has like different tiers. That it did the whole quote unquote hardcore PvP really well. You have like green zones where like people can't attack you, you have yellow zones where you don't lose your stuff, you have red zones when you start losing your stuff. It is very much inspired in uh those old MMOs where you had like pollute pollute pvp. Um polluted death, actually. Like you lose items if you die too. Anything, right? Uh Runescape was like that when I started playing. You had 30 seconds to get back to your stuff before people could get it. That was a very, very thrilling button. Now we have 15 minutes, and if you don't, you just pay some cash and you get your stuff. You're like, oh well, I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:22

Sounds like a mobile game.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:24

Yeah, I mean I don't have enough time to rebuild. Like you disconnect and now you lose your stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:32

Sounds like my Fallout 76 experience when it first came out. I can move the game is still around though. I mean, hey, they added a bunch of contest up. There were people paying$100 a month for their like season pass or whatever, or battle pass. And people were buying it. Right. I have a friend who's like a massive amount of money spent in that game. I was like, bro, what? Fallout 76?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:57

Like I no, but they teach their own. I mean, it's a fun franchise, it's a fun world to be in. I do love Fallout, I do. I do need to catch up on the series, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

Have you seen all the new episodes at all?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:12

I I haven't seen the first season. I saw the first one, but it it it requires a state of mind that I haven't been in a while, which is willing to watch it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:25

Okay. I think you should get in a state of mind and check it out. Well, what kind of state of mind do you need? Like, you need like uh what yeah, like what do you need?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:34

I I I I I I've mainly watched comedies because I just need rest. It's kind of a comedy. I'm watching Scrubs. I had never seen Scrubs, I just finished the first scene on yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

I'm not knocking it, but like, come on, come on, Scrubs, you could do it, you could definitely follow. It is a little bloody and gory, but like I want to re-watch Dexter actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:55

I've been seeing a lot of recommendations on uh on vlogs on like Dexter in general, and there's New Blood and uh follow-up that has a different name as well. Uh you might want to catch up on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:14

Yeah, might as well check it out. I heard it's really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:17

The the first few seasons are great. Uh I realistically, the only season I don't like of the original show is the last one. Hmm, that's a shame. The plot got way too convoluted. Like one of my favorite seasons is season seven, which is like the second to last.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:36

Yeah. Usually the second last is really good. Because they're setting up for the final, and then like the setup is a main thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:44

I love the fourth, but I have uh it well, everyone loves the fourth season, but it's for the same reasons I love the fourth season of How I Met Your Mother. It's the season that was airing when I started catching up to it, so I watch it come out live. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:12

I'll be pissed. I'm like, I caught up just to be stuck in a cliffhanger. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:17

Yeah, that that's uh it's crazy actually, because that that's the issue I had with Naruto. Like I watched like a hundred plus episodes, like multiple a day or a few months. I caught up a a little quite similar to what happened with Walking Dead. Like, I just shouldn't be bothered to go back to it. Like I I couldn't wait an hour or so just a week was enough for me to lose interest. And the first season of The Walking Dead ended. I was like, Oh like these shows are good. Next year there's a new one. I never got back to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:55

These shows are good, but it's just like I guess it wasn't good enough to keep me like coming back. I feel like they have a lot of shows to be honest. Like, I'll actually start some of them. Like, I like it, I just don't really care to finish it. I I watched the first season of a show called Mike and Molly. Okay, sounds like a very adult show. A very like, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:19

With uh what's her name? Um it's her breakout role. Uh sure Melissa McCaffrey. Melissa McCathy. Yeah, with her I think it was her breakout role. It was the first time I saw her.

unknown 1:20:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:39

It was like a sitcom about an overweight couple and like getting to know each other. Yeah, sounds like the American problems. Was like a cop. Uh yeah. But uh not as cute as like uh what is it called? Uh Met About You, for instance. Yeah. Metabout You is fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:59

And they have a dog.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:01

Nice. I haven't seen that one too. I'm assuming these are all the shows you watch for your your wife.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:08

She loves it. Like I I I I watched Met About You on my own and then we watched it with her.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:15

I see you.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:16

Mike and Molly was before I met her. Uh Mike and Molly came out, I wanna say it was the year I started screaming CBS in Brazil. It was the fourth season of Dexter was airing as well, because I would watch that live. Um I wanna say 2008. I was watching everything that was airing Monday night on CBS and then I would watch Dexter on Showtime. That's what I uh I was doing at the time. It was fun. Like but but I get so like you're watching way too many way too many series, like it's a lot to uh keep track of. I it's crazy because I I I used to be very good at just watching everything. Like I watched two and a half men till the end, but like I I saw it with Ashton Kutcher for like two or three seasons and uh I quit on the Big Bang Theory because it got bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:25

Big Bang Theory is really good. Actually, I I've seen that one. I really enjoy that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:28

I can't I I can't watch it now. Like the first of the first few seasons that I like why not? Yeah, it's anymore. I don't know. Uh it it feels like it doesn't know, like it just knows the surface level of the subject matter.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:47

That is true. Like you think you're smart, but like he just it's just all the like the the big buzzwords, and it's like, is he really smart? Are they even like intelligent?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:55

I I I started disliking anything that's supposed to have like genius characters as well, because like it it's either coming out like as not genius at all, it's just like a regular intelligent person.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:08

Like also I've started to realize that people really like intelligence to them is someone who just like knows a lot of facts, it's magic. Or they went through like a good amount of schooling, even if the schooling was all like Sherlock, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:20

Like Sherlock, it's not actual deduction, like it's just magic.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

It is just yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:30

Like it it's a massive plot hole. In truth, it's a bunch of writers that want to pretend they're super smart, so they're quote unquote writing smart characters.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

Dang. Somebody's gonna we might have to make a topic of the next episode. I think we should probably you know close off here. I hate writers, yeah. No, yeah, that'll be the next episode title. But yeah, um, we gotta see a challenge. People make card games, design a card card rule. That'd be pretty cool. What are you thinking, Ricardo?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:04

An interesting thing because yeah, make a card game or just find something that's after making card games, like making well, it's a lot. Yeah, just find something you want to get better at.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:16

Oh, okay. Uh Elder Mink style, the Dark Souls.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:19

Yeah. Don't think you're gonna be good right away. And you won't be enjoying being bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:28

In fact, you might never. And if anything, you always have AI to help you out if you're not good. It'll just supplement your bad skills with your your actual good skills.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:40

Exactly. I never made a one for my game, but uh Chat GBT did.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:46

Yeah, now it's there.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

Yay.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:50

Yeah, do do something. Do I do in fact the most impossible thing you think you can't do, and then see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:57

Don't expect to be good in the start. Don't make well that's off the table.