0:04

The days are getting shorter, the goose

0:06

is getting fat, and the last few

0:08

amazing games of 2024 are being delivered

0:10

to our doorstep. Welcome

0:13

to TripleClick, where we bring the games to

0:15

you. This week we do a video game

0:17

grab bag of recent games, Rise of the

0:19

Golden Idol, Stalker 2, Locomotive

0:22

and, yes, we're talking about it

0:24

yet again, Tactical Breach

0:26

Wizards. I'm

0:31

Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Schreier. And

0:33

I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello, friends. Hello.

0:36

We're back again. Happy Thanksgiving. It

0:39

is that time of year when it gets

0:41

really dark, really early in here, and I

0:43

start thinking, should I get another light for

0:45

this room? And I'm looking at myself on

0:47

the screen talking to the two of you,

0:49

and I'm thinking the same thing

0:51

again. I look really dramatic right now. I

0:54

look like Dracula in

0:56

a castle, podcasting at you

0:58

live. But that's mostly because

1:00

of the vampire fangs you're wearing. Yeah,

1:04

all sorts of fangs. I'm celebrating

1:06

Nosferatu. All of it is here.

1:08

Well, we're a listener supported show here,

1:11

and we're part of the Maximum Fun

1:13

Network, which is pretty cool, if you

1:15

ask me. From the supportive

1:18

listeners like you, we're able to do something

1:20

like TripleQuest, which is a Dungeons

1:22

and Dragons campaign that we're currently

1:24

running on our bonus feed, and

1:27

eventually running on our main feed. We

1:29

already have episodes zero and one on

1:31

the main feed, and part two is in

1:34

the bonus feed right now. And

1:36

eventually part three will be out. But I

1:38

will say, once you hear

1:40

part two, I think you're really going to want to

1:43

hear part three. That's my

1:45

opinion, having lived it, folks. But

1:47

also, I guess I buried the lead. Woomst

1:50

is our dungeon master, but the one

1:52

and only Matthew Mercer. And how could

1:54

we do such a thing? Well, of

1:56

course, it was through listener support. We

1:59

were able to hire. him to do that for us.

2:01

And there are so many other things that we're able

2:03

to do because of that. We are able to record

2:05

all these wonderful bonus episodes for everybody once a month.

2:08

And that, for all those

2:11

reasons and more, you should go to maximumfund.org

2:13

join and become a member. And once

2:15

you do that, you'll get to listen

2:18

to those D&D episodes earlier than everybody else. And

2:20

you'll get to support us. You'll get all those

2:22

warm fuzzies and you'll help me buy a new

2:24

light for this room. Really, it is really dark

2:26

in here. So I'll

2:28

keep everybody posted on that week by week.

2:31

But hey, that that's enough of that maximumfund.org join.

2:33

That's the URL. I already said that, but I

2:35

like to say it twice just in case somebody

2:37

wasn't listening the first time. But now I've said

2:40

it twice. But I'm the one

2:42

running the episode. I can't I can't throw it

2:44

to anyone. I'm throwing the ball in the air

2:46

and I'm the one catching it. And

2:48

now we're going to talk

2:50

about some video games. Oh,

2:53

yeah, this isn't just a triple play. We're

2:55

cramming them all in. We played a few

2:57

games here and we're going to talk about

2:59

each of them a little bit. And

3:01

the first of those video games is

3:04

the rise of

3:06

the Golden Idol, a much anticipated release

3:09

for us here on Triple Click. It

3:11

is the sequel to the case of the Golden Idol,

3:14

which was one of our three favorite mystery

3:16

point and click adventure games of 2023. Is

3:18

that is that really true? It only just

3:20

came out last year. Is that right? 2022

3:22

had to be right. Yeah, yeah, that makes

3:24

way more sense. 2022. And

3:27

pretty soon, though, afterward, the sequel

3:29

is out. Rise of the Golden

3:31

Idol, very similar title, but pretty

3:34

different in that it is the same

3:37

kind of point and click adventure style

3:39

where you're dragging and dropping words as

3:41

you discover them in a static scene

3:43

that you're viewing. Usually that scene is

3:45

depicting a murder. Sometimes it's depicting some

3:47

other thing that you have to figure

3:49

out. But most of the time it's

3:51

a murder. And as you drag and

3:53

drop those words around the screen, you're

3:55

filling up a series

3:57

of almost mad libs. And

3:59

once Once you've filled them up, you've discovered

4:02

what really happened in the scene that you

4:04

saw. And I would say the

4:06

main difference is that it is more difficult.

4:09

That's been my experience thus far with Rise of

4:11

the Golden Idol. I really had to crack open

4:13

my notebook earlier on when I was playing this.

4:16

But I want to hear from the two of

4:18

you. Kirk, how far have you gotten into

4:20

Rise of the Golden Idol and what are you thinking about

4:22

it so far? I

4:24

like it because I like these games. I've

4:27

definitely noticed it feels a little different playing

4:29

it compared with Case of the Golden Idol.

4:31

I think that's kind of a trajectory though

4:33

if you played the DLC for Case of

4:35

the Golden Idol up to Rise where I

4:37

think the DLC for Case of the Golden

4:39

Idol was also more complicated

4:41

and sort of required a little

4:43

bit more lateral thinking. And

4:46

for me, like a little bit more guessing, which

4:48

is actually something that I've had to do a

4:50

little bit more of in Rise and has left

4:52

me just feeling a little

4:54

less connected to it even though

4:57

I think it's great and I love it.

5:00

Like overall, I love the aesthetic. I love the writing.

5:02

I love the story. So

5:04

you know, I like it. I'm like

5:06

in the third act I'd say. Same.

5:09

I think it's chapter three. So you know

5:11

this game as we discussed in the past,

5:13

I think Jason, this was your one more

5:15

thing and we talked about it. There are

5:17

these acts which are usually three or four

5:20

of the cases or you

5:22

know, sort of scenes. So

5:24

each scene sort of starts out and you're looking

5:26

at a room and someone's standing there and

5:28

it's in medias, right? So it's like something

5:30

is going on and you need to figure

5:32

out what so you sort of slowly piece

5:34

that together. So when it comes to the

5:36

sequel, for whatever reason, I've just felt that

5:38

the game is more complicated and

5:41

sort of more demanding. I

5:43

started out playing it with a controller

5:45

because I actually played through the Case

5:47

of the Golden Idol entirely with Emily

5:49

and I was on the couch using

5:51

a controller. I got to say I

5:53

do not like the controller, like

5:56

playing this game with the controller. I've been doing that

5:58

too and it's not good. Yeah,

6:00

I don't like dragging the words with the thumbstick

6:02

and once I sat down at the

6:04

PC to just play it with a mouse and keyboard

6:06

I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I'd actually never played

6:09

one of the games in that format, which is sort

6:11

of funny It's way easier It's how I played it

6:13

the first time around with case of the golden idol

6:15

played it all on PC And it

6:17

didn't even occur to me to try it with a

6:19

controller because dragging and dropping with a mouse is The

6:22

most natural behavior in the world to all of us

6:24

who use a mouse and keyboard nowadays But I tried

6:26

it on the steam deck at this time and they've

6:28

created a version of it where you can kind of

6:31

highlight Something and then drag and drop it but it

6:33

it feels I didn't care for it

6:35

I think mouse it works you can do it if you

6:38

have to but I do think playing with a mouse is

6:40

the ideal setup for these two

6:42

games Yeah, I've definitely

6:44

found that to be the case So then I

6:46

played a little bit with a friend of mine

6:48

who is in town using a sort of trackpad

6:50

keyboard Sure that I was plugged into my PC

6:52

and then streaming into the TV that worked Okay,

6:55

but it's really best I think just with the

6:57

snappiness of a mouse and I still find I

6:59

don't know I'm sort of it's it's

7:01

it's a great game I mean like

7:04

it's not it's really similar in terms

7:06

of design and writing and you know

7:08

vibe to Case of

7:10

the golden idol. It's not quite blowing me

7:12

away as much and I'm not blowing

7:15

me away That's the wrong way to put it. I don't think

7:17

the case of the golden idol blew me away it It

7:20

charmed me like I found it just really

7:22

engrossing and I'm enjoying Rise

7:24

but I'm sort of I feel a little held

7:26

at arm's length And I think some of it

7:28

is the complexity a little bit is the UI

7:31

and the act of playing it where I'm I

7:33

Struggle a little bit with all the windows that

7:35

have to be open and I know there are

7:37

keyboard shortcuts I'll let you get from one thing

7:39

to another thing quickly and I haven't learned them

7:41

all yet So some of it's on me, but

7:43

I have this feeling like I wish I could

7:46

use my multi-monitor like work Set

7:48

up to play this game like it'd be

7:50

really nice to just leave all of the

7:52

words open in another on another monitor You

7:54

know and like you know as you unlock

7:56

words in this game So as you explore

7:58

and you you find things you like, it

8:01

kind of adds to the number of words that

8:03

you have available to you that you can then

8:05

use to fill in the blanks on the description

8:07

of what happened. And this game kind of scaffolds

8:09

it a lot more than the first

8:11

game did where there are multiple descriptions

8:15

that you have to fill in. So you'll fill in one and

8:17

it'll unlock another. They've built in a

8:19

lot more sort of

8:21

tiers in the overall mystery

8:23

of the chapter. So you'll start with just

8:25

one thing, who's who? And

8:27

once you do that, it'll give you another thing and it's

8:29

like, okay, so what was the initial

8:33

series of events that led to this happening? And then

8:35

you'll get maybe one more. And the whole time you're

8:37

also trying to fill in the whole chapter story,

8:39

which is like the broader one. And so

8:43

there's kind of a lot to keep track of. There's

8:45

a lot of different windows that you're kind of opening

8:47

and closing. There's a big list of words. There's usually

8:49

a list of names where you've named everybody in the

8:51

scene. And then you also have to

8:53

look at the scene. And a lot of times

8:55

some of the best clues are not

8:57

actually just words and names. You

9:00

have to actually look at the environment and

9:02

realize, oh, I see now. There's an early

9:04

mystery, for example, where a guy

9:07

gets pushed out of a window. One character

9:09

sort of pulls the rug and someone tumbles out of

9:11

a window and you have to sort of figure out

9:13

what happened. And you can only do that by looking at the

9:15

scene. So between looking at the scene, looking

9:17

at the words, looking at all the lists, I sometimes

9:19

feel a little like I'm having to open and close

9:22

so many different windows that I'm not really quite in

9:24

a flow. So I've noticed that a

9:26

little bit. And I guess the last thing that I'll say

9:29

before Maddie and Jason, I know you've talked about it

9:31

a lot. Well, hold on. Just pause

9:33

for one second. I mean, one of the reasons you're

9:35

experiencing that, I think, is that you're trying to play

9:37

this on a TV, which seems a little bonkers to

9:39

me. No, I'm sorry. To be clear,

9:42

I am playing almost the entire game with a mouse and

9:44

keyboard on a computer. Oh, OK.

9:46

Then forgot I said that. Yeah.

9:49

I have two monitors hooked up to my PC,

9:51

and I kind of wish that I could drag

9:53

some things over onto the second one. You wanted on

9:55

two monitors instead of just one. Got it. I

9:58

thought you said you were playing with a friend and you're living with a mouse. I'm

10:00

having room with the trackpad. I played a

10:02

little bit with the trackpad and my friend. I was saying, you

10:04

can play it and share it with someone in that way, which

10:06

I think is a great way to play this kind of mystery.

10:08

It's fun to have two heads looking

10:11

at all the words and kind of bouncing off of

10:13

one another, same as how Emily and I played Obra

10:15

Dinn. But no, I've played the majority of the game

10:17

sitting at my computer. And so

10:19

I'm finding myself just feeling a little

10:21

constrained by the interface. And then,

10:23

so the last thing that I'll say is, I've also

10:25

found myself guessing more than I did in Golden

10:27

Idol. This was something we talked about, or sorry, with

10:30

Case of the Golden Idol. Yeah. This is something

10:32

we talked about with that game, that sometimes the

10:34

game just wants you to make

10:37

a leap that you're just not quite making. And

10:39

so when it tells you, oh, you have

10:41

two or one of these wrong,

10:44

but everything else is right, you can brute force

10:46

it. You can just start dragging in words. And

10:48

if it kicks it over to incorrect, you know

10:50

that that one's right. And then once you start,

10:52

you can kind of narrow in on what you've

10:54

got wrong and then figure it out. And

10:56

then you start yourself doing that more on

10:58

even the last two or three mysteries that

11:01

I've solved. And that doesn't feel great. Like,

11:03

it's not a big deal, but it's

11:05

just been, a lot of times I find myself just, I've

11:08

been staring at it for so long, and I'm sort of

11:10

not making the leap it wants me to make. And I'm

11:12

kind of falling asleep. Sometimes I'm just

11:14

sort of like, maybe it's late or I'm tired and

11:16

I'm like, I don't know, I just want to move

11:18

on to the next one. So I just brute force

11:20

it. And that is not quite as satisfying. So I

11:22

don't know. It could just be a me thing. So,

11:25

okay. So there are a million different things to respond

11:27

to in that monologue. But

11:29

I'll say that, like, I think I agree with

11:31

you having finished the game. I

11:34

agree with you that the complexity,

11:37

it's definitely ramped up in large

11:39

part because of those chapter wide

11:41

summaries. I think, and

11:44

yes, I mean, the guesswork, it really

11:46

kind of your mileage may vary. It's

11:49

like any adventure game or kind of

11:51

deductive game. You may click

11:53

with what the designer is trying to say, or you

11:55

may not. And it could be extremely frustrating when you

11:57

do not. I will say

11:59

that and

14:00

special and unique. And then when you come out

14:02

with this new game and maybe you try to

14:05

go bigger, you try to go more complicated, it

14:07

can fail to resonate with people like Kurt Hamilton

14:09

in the same way that the first one did.

14:11

And that's just

14:14

like natural. It's kind of oil.

14:17

I have to wonder if a little of that exhaustion maybe

14:19

comes through in the game. Yeah, maybe,

14:21

I don't know. I'm curious to hear your take when

14:23

you finish it. Cause one thing I'll say is that

14:25

like, I found the

14:27

overarching story to be absolutely fascinating.

14:30

And once you finish it, well,

14:32

I mean, once you finish it, there's some stuff

14:34

that like you guys don't know about yet, which

14:37

is what I'm referring to, which is that like

14:39

stuff at the very beginning really

14:41

starts to make a lot more sense. Once you've

14:43

finished the game and you kind of, you might

14:45

find yourself as I did going back and playing

14:48

the old cases with a newfound appreciation for what

14:50

they're doing and the little kind

14:52

of hidden secrets in them, which

14:55

I found really cool. And a

14:57

really enjoyable, delightful experience. So maybe

15:00

your opinion will change or maybe it

15:02

won't. I mean, I can't imagine once

15:04

again, just like having that feeling of

15:07

euphoria that at least I had,

15:09

I think all of us had when we first

15:11

played Kiss of the Golden Idol and we're just

15:13

like, holy crap. This is unlike anything else I

15:15

played before that can't

15:17

be recreated with a sequel. Yeah, I

15:20

mean, I will say I think I'm enjoying

15:22

it more because obviously I'm a super genius

15:24

and I haven't had to brute force anything

15:26

and just personally I

15:28

haven't had to, but the thing that

15:30

is happening to me that maybe is

15:32

also happening to you Kirk and I'd

15:34

be curious Jason what happened to you

15:36

is actually that there are more words

15:38

that are synonyms or like very similar

15:40

to each other. And I'm putting them

15:43

in and then realizing,

15:45

oh, even though I was

15:47

correct here technically, or like I know

15:50

what the answer to the mystery is,

15:52

like I've solved it in my own

15:54

mind. I'm struggling to get the game

15:56

to cooperate with me, which

15:58

is sort of like a close. classic mystery game

16:00

problem that I think we kind of talked about

16:02

in our episode about mystery games back in the

16:04

day. As one example, there

16:07

was a kind of fill in the blank situation

16:09

where I was talking about both the parts that

16:12

comprise the Golden Idol and also the Golden Idol

16:14

itself, and those were two different nouns. And

16:16

I was misusing Golden Idol versus the word

16:18

parts at various points. And I was like,

16:21

I understand what happened here. I just was

16:23

using the wrong nouns and I just couldn't

16:25

figure it out. And that was the only

16:27

time where I actually looked up a walkthrough

16:29

and I was like, oh, of course, obviously.

16:31

I didn't even feel bad looking it up

16:33

because I was like, I know I solved

16:35

this. I can tell I figured out what

16:38

happened here. I just am... something's wrong and

16:40

I don't know what it is. And that

16:42

I don't think happened as

16:44

often in the first one. I feel

16:46

like there were far fewer potentially synonymous

16:49

words because it was just less complex

16:51

overall and more minimalist as a game

16:53

because there were just fewer terms per

16:56

mystery. So that's another level that

16:58

just makes the game harder. But personally, that's

17:00

the only true kind

17:02

of problem I've run into. Other than that,

17:04

I've just found like, OK, if I just

17:06

look at everything for a really long time,

17:08

I'll figure it out. But Kirk, I agree.

17:11

I mean, it is difficult. I am spending

17:13

a lot of time just sitting there, which

17:15

is a weird way to play a video

17:17

game where you're just looking at something and

17:19

being like, well, let me really think about

17:21

this. That's the best way to play a

17:23

video game. I guess I should clarify that

17:25

I'm... The thing that's keeping me

17:27

at arm's length isn't exactly the difficulty. It's

17:29

the usability. It's like the experience of playing

17:31

it where I can't sift through the clues

17:34

as easily as I want to. And I'm

17:36

holding a lot of just sort of names.

17:38

There's a ton of names in my head

17:40

while I'm kind of clicking through a variety

17:42

of windows and trying to go back. And

17:44

the interface is like all those little question

17:47

marks. And I'm sort of just going around

17:49

to try to remember to click on the

17:51

one to see the letter that

17:53

has the layout of the thing

17:55

I'm trying to put together. And it's more like

17:57

the feeling of just sort of not wanting to

17:59

go through. everything to figure out

18:01

the one word that I've got wrong. So then I

18:03

just brute force it. It's not exactly feeling like, oh,

18:06

I'm stuck. Because usually, right, you look at the scene

18:08

and you're like, oh, I basically get what's going on.

18:11

This is cool. And you have those moments of joyful

18:13

sort of connection where you're like, oh, that guy isn't

18:15

the guy I thought he was. The actual guy in

18:18

the costume is over here in this car because of

18:20

the way the guy is talking to him. You

18:22

can tell that he thinks he's somebody else.

18:25

And you start to piece together all the deceptions

18:27

and the red herrings. And that's really cool.

18:29

But then getting that final 10% requires

18:32

a lot of memorization and navigation

18:34

of this very

18:36

sort of... The UI

18:39

is just not quite up to keeping all

18:41

of that as organized as I would like.

18:43

And so then I just wind up feeling

18:45

a little tired rather

18:47

than stuck exactly by the difficulty.

18:49

Yeah. Although this game over

18:51

there, as a sequel, it does have

18:53

some UI improvements. And the most notable

18:56

one is that you can move the

18:58

little kind of sub screens around, which

19:00

you cannot do in the first game.

19:02

So at least you can organize your

19:04

screen to some degree. Yeah,

19:06

I think that's an improvement. Yeah, I guess it would be

19:09

nice to have a second monitor and just move some stuff

19:11

on the other one. Yeah, you just

19:13

got a full minority report with it and just have a

19:15

million gold medal screens. That's a notebook so

19:17

far. I think if you require that many open

19:19

windows, you actually like you do wind up kind

19:21

of wanting more real estate. Yeah. Using

19:24

a journal also just helped me so much

19:26

with what you're describing, Kirk. But I also

19:28

had the mental hurdle of like, do I

19:30

really need to do this? Like I need

19:32

to write down every single character's name and

19:34

then describe them in a little note

19:36

underneath their name to myself. And once I

19:38

started doing that, the game got easier. But

19:41

it is that mental hurdle of like, I

19:43

got to take out a piece of paper

19:45

at this point. And then once you do

19:47

that, you're just like, well, now I've already

19:49

got paper here. Now I'm already doing this.

19:51

Yeah, I've actually, I've considered screenshotting the game

19:53

and just opening the screenshots up on a

19:55

second monitor, which, you know, it's a workaround.

19:57

Yeah, for sure. Well, I'm really enjoying it.

20:00

I'll definitely check back in when I've finished it.

20:02

I love the story. Yes,

20:05

and for my criticisms, it's great.

20:07

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. And the story

20:10

is so cool. And those moments, we really can't undersell

20:12

them of having that moment of realization of like, oh,

20:15

this guy isn't who I thought, or

20:18

like, oh, this actually played out completely differently

20:21

than what I thought it was. And I even had one where I

20:23

thought I had the solution, filled

20:25

out the entire solution, and got not

20:27

even a two or fewer incorrect. But

20:30

a flat out incorrect. And I was like, really?

20:33

And I was like completely wrong about what happened.

20:35

And I loved that because then I was like,

20:37

oh, I see, it's actually a

20:39

completely different person than I even thought it was. And

20:41

that was very fun for me and is like exactly

20:43

what I enjoyed about Case of the Golden Idol and

20:45

what I'm really liking about this game. And

20:48

just the story is so cool and weird

20:50

and just there's nothing else like the story.

20:52

The art is still second to none. The art

20:55

is wild. The art remains amazing. And

20:57

then there's Eugene. You

20:59

guys have both met Eugene. Eugene is

21:02

MVP. Yeah, oh my God.

21:04

There's always one. I like

21:06

these characters. So let's

21:08

move on. Let's talk about another

21:10

video game for a little bit.

21:12

So this next one, totally different

21:14

game. Also hard,

21:16

also difficult for

21:18

completely different reasons. This game is stalker

21:21

too. So only Kirk and I

21:23

have played this one. I could

21:25

not get my PC to run this game. And

21:27

this was a real moment where I discovered that

21:29

maybe I need to replace some parts of my

21:32

PC. But that's something that maybe I'll talk about

21:34

on a future episode. I

21:37

know it's also stalker two's fault.

21:39

The game launched with some performance

21:41

issues but it wouldn't

21:44

really run it at all for me. And

21:46

I looked at the specs and I was

21:48

like, okay, these are outpacing me. But

21:50

that's my own existential journey to go on. So

21:52

I've actually been playing this via Xbox Game Pass

21:54

and it runs pretty well on the Xbox but

21:58

there are still some problems. with

22:00

it and I'm enjoying it despite

22:02

that. I'm having a great time. This

22:04

is a kind of science fiction post-apocalyptic

22:07

game. It's set in the, in

22:09

Chernobyl. I can't remember what it's called, the exclusion

22:11

zone, but it's like kind of in another

22:14

version, an alt history version of the

22:16

world where there were multiple disasters there

22:19

as opposed to just the one which does

22:21

happen in the world of the game, but

22:23

there was an additional one and there are

22:25

all these other sort of supernatural events happening.

22:27

There's like kind of lightning storms

22:29

all the time and like items float in

22:31

front of your face and it's freaky.

22:34

And also there's a bunch of guys out

22:36

there just trying to survive in the zone

22:39

and steal each other's

22:41

stuff and or work together depending on

22:43

who they decide to trust. And

22:45

yeah, it's a real big vibes game.

22:47

And I really liked the vibe and

22:49

it was also made in Ukraine by

22:51

people who were living through the Russian

22:53

invasion while they were making the video

22:55

game. And the game really

22:57

reflects that sense of urgency at its best

23:00

in its best moments. I think that

23:02

emotion is really palpable in the game in ways that

23:04

are really impressive. And with each patch, I think it's

23:07

really improved. So I'm glad I've been sticking with it,

23:09

but Kirk, what do you think about it so far?

23:12

Yeah, I really like it. And yes,

23:14

it is rough. I'd say it's more of

23:16

a performance thing for me than an

23:19

issue with bugs. And there was kind

23:21

of an interesting review situation with this

23:23

game where I believe, I

23:26

had an early copy that I

23:29

played a little bit of and it was

23:31

quite buggy. Like there were missing gun sound

23:33

effects in the very first firefight I got

23:35

in. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna

23:37

maybe come back to this. And then they

23:39

released this massive day one patch that addressed

23:42

like a thousand bugs or something. And

23:44

I read reviews and it really

23:46

just seemed like reviews were written on that

23:48

version before the patch. And I've played a

23:50

lot of the game now post-patch. And it's,

23:53

I mean, it's not bad. It

23:55

is like rough. It doesn't run great. It's weird.

23:57

It has that stalker feeling, which, you know. I

23:59

know this game of course is a sequel

24:02

to a long overdue sequel to these 2000s

24:04

era games, the

24:07

earlier Stalker games, which were also

24:09

notoriously janky and kind of funny

24:11

and weird and required a lot of mods

24:13

and sort of gave rise to a whole

24:16

modding community that's already on the case with

24:18

Stalker 2. So between the fact that they

24:20

patched a lot of bugs out and

24:23

there are already performance mods and other kinds of

24:25

mods, there's like a mantling mod, there's a mod

24:27

where you can run without running out of stamina

24:29

because this game is huge and you have to

24:31

cover all this ground. So you can really already

24:34

begin to customize your experience on PC at least,

24:36

which is one reason to

24:38

recommend the PC version. So

24:41

I don't know, my experience actually hasn't

24:43

been super buggy. It's a

24:45

little janky in general, the facial animations,

24:47

the AI is pretty weird, enemies just

24:51

sort of appear sometimes. It's very unpredictable.

24:53

But all of it is charming in

24:55

a way that I'm kind of fine

24:57

with. It's been an interesting litmus

24:59

test for the types of bugs and the

25:01

types of jank that I don't actually mind

25:03

and the types of games that I don't

25:05

mind if they're janky versus I don't know

25:08

some other game that would have maybe a

25:10

lesser bug but it would bother me more.

25:12

And yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I mean this game

25:14

has big Far Cry 2

25:17

energy. It's definitely one of those

25:19

weird emergent hostile games. It's

25:22

not dissimilar from the Metro games though

25:25

it is a little

25:27

more systemic. It feels kind of like

25:29

PUBG, you know, like a single player

25:31

unknown's battlegrounds. And yeah, I'm really enjoying

25:34

it. I find it kind of cozy

25:36

actually. I find the vibes to be

25:38

fairly cozy a lot. That's a

25:41

wild statement. I mean I

25:43

guess it's cozy in the sense that

25:45

you're always kind of doing chores in this

25:47

game. I mean they're like survivalist chores

25:49

but like you're guns deteriorate. You need

25:51

to go back to town. You

25:54

have a weight limit in terms of how much

25:56

you can carry. You have to be picking up

25:58

food and paying attention to your food. your radiation

26:00

levels. I mean, it has

26:02

that kind of like survival sim feeling

26:05

to it. And yeah, there's combat, but also

26:07

you can avoid it, or at least I

26:09

do sometimes when I'm like, I really can't

26:11

handle that fight right now. I'm just gonna

26:13

go the other way, or I'm gonna like

26:15

go back and get some repairs done or

26:17

something, do something else. There's a lot of

26:20

that. I've found I can run away from

26:22

a lot of encounters if I am doing

26:24

poorly and I like need to regroup or

26:26

just find some weapons somewhere else. Kind

26:28

of reminds me of like a DayZ when I was

26:30

into that game. And I agree about PUBG in the

26:32

sense that obviously PUBG is about

26:34

a real, you're dealing with other players that

26:37

you happen upon all the time, but the

26:39

enemy AI when it works really well in

26:41

this game has that same sensation of like

26:43

almost running across a group

26:45

of other real people who are engaging

26:47

in a fight that you're not familiar

26:50

with. And you're kind of like, oh,

26:52

sorry guys, like I'm just passing through

26:54

here. Like that kind of energy is

26:57

interesting and it's something that

26:59

you need to live in and makes the world feel more

27:01

realistic in a cool way. And

27:04

like actual other people are there, which is the intent.

27:07

Yeah, there's a kind of a granularity to the

27:09

inventory management. Like when you kill a guy, you

27:11

can unload his gun and take the bullets. There's

27:14

a kind of scarcity and it just

27:16

feels along the lines of those kind

27:18

of ARMA and ARMA mod type games

27:21

where there's just like a little bit

27:23

more detail and micromanagement. But I find

27:25

that stuff kind of pleasing

27:27

in a way because having to actually

27:30

engage with those sorts of things kind

27:32

of centers me in the world

27:34

a little bit more. And yeah, the coziness is

27:36

just, yeah, there are these

27:38

horrifying storms that come through that just murder you

27:41

if you're outside and there's something about having a

27:43

really bad storm coming and then running to a

27:45

town and seeing everybody running inside and you go

27:47

inside and then you're in the store and you're

27:50

waiting while like the red sky outside and the

27:52

storm goes by and you kind of eat like

27:54

some salami and you recover some

27:56

help. And like guys have guitars and they'll

27:59

tell stories. I mean that stuff is really

28:01

cool. Like it really does feel like you're

28:03

hanging out with some other dudes in the

28:05

zone. There are radios that

28:07

are playing all kinds of really cool Ukrainian music.

28:10

They have like this massive playlist of I believe

28:12

all the music or at least a lot of

28:14

it is are different Ukrainian artists Which is just

28:16

cool because it's all stuff I've never heard before

28:19

there's a really strong sense of place in this

28:21

game that I enjoy and yeah I mean There's

28:23

the same annoying stuff from the earlier stalker games

28:25

is here like there are mutants kind of monsters

28:27

that you have To fight yeah, and they're mostly

28:30

all a bummer at least all the ones I

28:32

fought are like not fun to fight and I

28:34

just run away from them. Like the invisible

28:36

guys I don't know what they're called, but those

28:38

guys aren't good to me. You just waste all

28:40

your bullets on them And you can usually just kind

28:43

of run around them and like grab whatever you want

28:45

and then get out of there and I've started Playing

28:47

that way. I've started doing that for sure. Dark soul

28:49

style Yeah, so there's there's

28:51

kind of a joy in this game I guess to

28:53

feeling like you're getting one over on the game, which

28:55

is like it's not a bad Sort

28:59

of second prize compared to a game where it's

29:01

really fun to fight the monsters and so you

29:03

do it voluntarily This is a

29:05

game where like it's not fun to fight the monsters really and

29:07

you waste like a bullet So you instead find a clever

29:09

way to just run around it and then feel I still

29:12

feel good at the end because I'm like ha ha I

29:14

got away and I didn't even have to shoot that thing

29:16

at all. So I don't know I find that sort of

29:18

satisfying That reminds me

29:20

of what playing Resident Evil 2 is like Mm-hmm.

29:23

I mean there are some horror elements in

29:25

soccer too. Oh sure I just mean

29:28

in the sense that like you Encounter

29:30

and it's better for you to avoid it because

29:32

there's no reason to fight it Yeah And you're

29:34

running out of bullets like in Resident Evil 2

29:36

like you also have to think about Every

29:39

single thing you're picking up and where it

29:41

is and so in that sense it is

29:43

like a survival horror experience But I don't

29:45

think it's that scary exactly No,

29:47

not really. It's not that Jason thought RE2 was scary.

29:49

He didn't so I guess it was a good comparison

29:52

for it But there's no like real jump scares even

29:54

when they're kind of been trying to engineer one the

29:56

game is I would say Rough enough

29:58

that there just isn't quite the smooth for the

30:00

timing to work for a jump scare. It's

30:03

more like, you know, that invisible doodle show up from

30:05

time to time. But like, those guys are kind of

30:07

everywhere. Like, any time you're- or

30:09

not, genuinely. It's just annoying. Right, I

30:11

don't- Yeah, I don't really know if it

30:13

is. But it's like a sort of

30:16

a scary situation. Right, a tense situation for sure.

30:18

But it still feels kind of janky and so

30:20

not that, not that scary. This

30:22

game has a really funny vibe. I've been kind of

30:24

alternating back and forth between the Ukrainian

30:26

voiceover and the English voiceover. Yeah. Which

30:29

I know, Maddie, you wrote an article about. I really

30:31

like the Ukrainian one. I think it's really cool. Yeah.

30:34

I think it's a cool way to experience the game,

30:36

for sure. It is. There are times where I find

30:39

I can't take on all of the dialogue.

30:41

I get that. Because it's just a little

30:43

too much to read it all, especially if

30:45

I'm playing and someone's talking. Yeah. But

30:48

I think generally the Ukrainian voice actors seem stronger.

30:51

It might be that like, I don't detect the shortcomings

30:53

in their performances because like, I don't speak Ukrainian, so

30:55

I don't know. Same. I

30:57

could also be just experiencing that. It's like

30:59

kind of the classic, oh, just like play

31:01

with the Japanese voice acting and then you

31:03

won't notice whether or not you like the

31:05

voice actors. It's like the equivalent of that.

31:07

The English voice acting is all over the

31:09

place. It's like a variety of accents. The

31:11

guy who plays, is his name? It's,

31:14

Skiff's voice is way better in Ukrainian than

31:16

in English. For sure. Some

31:19

of the other voices are kind of, you know, hit

31:21

or miss or there's a variety of accents and like

31:23

quality levels to the performance. I

31:25

got to tell you though, I just had this cutscene with a guy. It

31:28

was like the strangest sequence where you

31:30

come in, is

31:32

this guy's solder that you're looking for in the beginning.

31:34

And it goes into this cutscene where you're kind of

31:36

walking up to the door that he's behind and then,

31:39

you know, it goes into cutscene

31:41

mode so like you can't just go in and shoot him basically.

31:45

And in first person perspective, this cutscene plays out

31:47

where you go in there and he's

31:49

there and he sold you out early so you're pissed

31:51

at him and he has a gun and you're like

31:53

trading barbs about the gun and then you fight for

31:55

a while, you like wrestle over the gun and you're

31:57

trying to get to the gun and get it and

31:59

you point it at him and you're like, haha, now

32:02

I have the gun. And he's like, oh, whatever. And

32:04

he grabs a loaf of bread and he

32:06

is holding the bread and then you shoot

32:08

the bread. And he's like, ah. And

32:11

then he bites into the bread while talking

32:13

to you while you're interrogating him. And

32:16

he's shooting on the bread and then he starts to choke. And

32:19

so then in the middle of this cutscene,

32:21

he's choking and then your character hits him

32:23

on the back because there's bread crumbs flying

32:26

out of his mouth. And then he stops

32:28

choking and he's like, ah, this goddamn bread,

32:30

thanks. Like no problem anyway.

32:32

Tell me who sent you. And then he walks over

32:34

and he starts pouring some tea and then he throws

32:37

the tea kettle at you. This

32:39

cutscene is more involved and

32:41

bizarre than anything I was

32:43

expecting, especially anything that I'd seen

32:45

in the game up to that point. And I have no

32:48

idea who is responsible for it, but it's actually delightful. It

32:50

sounds great. I'm excited to get to it. It's seeing a

32:52

thing like that in this game. I was like, oh, is

32:54

there going to be more stuff like this? Because I really

32:56

hope there is. This type of strangeness was

32:58

not a type of strangeness that I was prepared

33:01

for and I really loved it. So

33:03

hopefully there's more of that in the game. It

33:05

made me want to keep playing to see more.

33:07

Yeah, I think there is kind of a general

33:09

energy of like, you never know who you can

33:11

trust. And even when you do trust someone, they're

33:13

always kind of on the verge of killing you

33:15

with that, which that cutscene, it's a designed one

33:18

to give you that sensation. I mean, at the

33:20

end of the conversation, you can choose to kill

33:22

him or not kill him. Right, of course. Yeah.

33:25

By accident or maybe on purpose a couple

33:27

of times, not in cutscene form where like

33:29

I sometimes just walk around without my gun

33:32

out because then people will still talk to

33:34

you sometimes and like you aren't considered a

33:36

threat, basically, if you just hide your weapons.

33:39

And so I like was just walking around and

33:41

found a quest that I had agreed to with

33:43

a bunch of guys that I was supposed to

33:45

kill. But I didn't know that. So I just

33:47

was like walking around having conversations with them. And

33:49

then eventually I was like, how am I supposed

33:51

to advance this quest? And then I was like,

33:53

oh, I'm supposed to just kill these guys. And

33:55

then I like took out

33:57

my gun and I was like, oh, well. Anyway,

34:00

it's been nice. I had to

34:02

just kill them all and then advance the quest line. Yeah,

34:04

I'm not really, I'm not sure how some of it works.

34:06

I've had that in like a bandit camp where I'm talking

34:08

to people, but I always have the dialogue option of like,

34:11

enough of that attack, you know. And then- For

34:14

whatever reason this time I didn't have that. And

34:16

I don't know why that was, because it took

34:18

me, I had to like look at my journal

34:20

and be like, so what am I supposed to

34:22

be doing here? Oh, killing all of you. I

34:24

see now. That was very funny to me. Yeah,

34:26

and it seems like there are repercussions for killing

34:28

some people. There are definitely factions. There's like a

34:30

tool tip or whatever, a tip at the loading

34:32

screen about like, you have to pay off faction

34:34

bosses. I haven't really interacted with that that much.

34:36

Me either. And I don't know how well it

34:38

works, but I guess we'll see. And

34:40

I think I'm sure I'm gonna screw up and kill

34:42

the wrong person. I'm sure I already have. I'm just

34:44

kinda winging it. And I

34:46

know there's also a thing where, and I

34:49

am not even trying with this. I've died

34:51

a million times in this game and I

34:53

don't care. But I know that if you

34:55

die fewer times, you get a different ending.

34:57

Or so I hear from previous Stalker games,

34:59

but I've already accepted it. I've accepted that

35:01

I'm not gonna get whatever that is. I've

35:03

just died a lot of times that I'm

35:05

moving on. Seven deaths, Hamilton is not showing

35:08

up for Stalker. No, absolutely not. We're like

35:10

20 something deaths, Hamilton. We're

35:12

in the dozens for sure.

35:15

We're 27 deaths, Maddie over here. So yeah,

35:17

it's not gonna work out, but I'm having

35:20

a good time and I'm really enjoying like

35:22

the kinda classic jank. And I think the

35:24

Xbox will continue to get patches.

35:27

So will my PC in a different form, in

35:29

a more physical form in the future. Yeah, I

35:32

would say to close out, just as a recommendation

35:34

for this game, that if this stuff sounds good,

35:36

like if you're already into this kinda game, you'll

35:38

probably enjoy it as it is. I do think

35:40

this game will get better and better over time.

35:42

Agreed. Especially because it seems like Microsoft

35:45

is actually like really supporting it and helping them patch

35:47

it. And then like I was saying earlier, I think

35:49

there will be more and more mods as time goes

35:51

by. And I bet that in a few months, this

35:53

game will be a much better version of itself. So

35:55

you could also wait. I think you could kinda go

35:57

either way, but I'm actually, yeah, I'm having. plenty of

36:00

fun with it now. Yeah, same. And the fact

36:02

that it's on Game Pass, I mean, if you already have

36:04

that, it costs nothing to try it, other than what you're

36:06

already paying for Game Pass, which is kind of like it

36:08

costing nothing. So there you go. All

36:10

right, so Jason, you have a game here

36:13

that only you played called Locomotive. You want

36:15

to tell us about it? Yeah,

36:18

so Locomotive is this new game that

36:20

just came out. It's from this British

36:23

studio founded by a couple of

36:25

brothers. And it's a

36:27

kind of old school point

36:29

and click adventure, very

36:32

reminiscent of Monkey Island and Day of the

36:34

Tentacle and such. It's set on this

36:36

train. It's a murder mystery. You play, at least in

36:38

the first part, you play as multiple characters. But in

36:40

the first part, you play as this

36:43

estate lawyer who

36:45

is on this train to

36:47

help do some

36:50

amendments to the will of this elderly

36:52

rich woman. And the woman dies. She

36:54

is killed. And you

36:56

have to figure out exactly what happened. And

37:00

in true point and click adventure style, that means

37:02

going around and talking to people and clicking on

37:04

things and putting them in your pockets and then

37:06

taking them out and using them to solve puzzles.

37:08

Heck yeah. And it's very charming. It's a very

37:10

charming game. And I

37:13

am really enjoying the writing and

37:15

the characters and the animations, which

37:18

are very silly, very old school LucasArts

37:20

style silly of you just taking a

37:22

massive object and putting it in your

37:24

pants, that sort of Guy Burstein type

37:28

stuff and other kind of silly animations

37:30

and other silly, just

37:32

funny happenings. The

37:35

thing that is annoying about it is the

37:38

thing that is annoying about all point and

37:40

click adventures, which is that sometimes the logic

37:42

doesn't actually make any sense. And you find

37:44

yourself kind of frustrated looking things up. It's

37:46

unlike Rise of the Golden Idol. You

37:49

can't brute force some of

37:51

these puzzles. You have to really just go and look

37:53

up what the fuck to do, which

37:55

can be pretty frustrating. But it's

37:57

a solid adventure if you like point and click You'll

38:00

probably like this one too. I'm enjoying it.

38:02

Yeah, sounds great. How's the story? The story,

38:05

I don't know. I haven't finished it yet.

38:07

I'm like in through the first act, you

38:09

kind of it changes characters after you get

38:11

through this first big chunk. I'm

38:15

playing this annoying, this very delightful

38:17

portion where like you, the

38:20

second character you play as is

38:23

this detective fiction writer. And

38:25

his chapter starts off with him

38:27

in the publishing office, pitching a

38:30

manuscript to three editors, but

38:32

the editors use this giant machine called

38:34

the board that uses algorithms to determine

38:36

whether a manuscript should be accepted or

38:38

not. The Docker Big Board. And you

38:40

have to, it's not, no, it's like

38:42

an AI. It's like

38:45

a big, like spinning AI thing that

38:47

is like, oh, this does not have

38:49

this, this and this. Like it goes

38:51

through like bullet points of like, so

38:53

it's like an AI thing. It's

38:56

very silly and you have to figure out how to

38:58

disable it in some way and get your manuscript approved.

39:00

So it's just a very funny game. The

39:02

overall story, I mean, I don't know. I don't really have

39:05

thoughts on that yet because you

39:07

kind of have to see where the murder mystery is

39:10

going and who the culprit is. But

39:12

yeah, very charming. Cool. And

39:15

you're also playing something else, Jason, if

39:17

you want to introduce us as well.

39:20

I've been playing also a bunch

39:22

of tactical breach wizards, which is

39:25

which rules just like you guys

39:27

said it did. And

39:30

that game I'm also really enjoying.

39:34

I don't remember if either of you made the

39:36

comparison, but my immediate reaction is like, oh, this

39:38

is like a more elaborate version of Into the

39:40

Breach, which is a game that we all really

39:42

enjoyed a few years ago. I think it's kind

39:44

of make that comparison. Oh, you did. Okay. Who's

39:48

counting? Who's going back? Who's going back to old

39:50

footage? No one said this. I think Jason came

39:53

up with this. It's like Into the Breach. I

39:55

did. I was the first to make that comparison

39:57

point. Because the reason I bring that up is

39:59

because it seems on its face, you look at

40:02

it and you look at the way it functions

40:04

and the camera angle and the conceit

40:06

of it all and you think of XCOM because it's kind

40:08

of like an isometric grid based like you

40:11

have three shooting characters, you can like upgrade

40:13

their abilities and so on and so forth.

40:15

But it's really nothing like XCOM, it's really

40:18

a lot more of a puzzle solving game

40:20

than it is kind of like a tactical

40:22

RPG where you're like customizing characters and figuring

40:24

out the best loadouts and stuff. This is

40:26

more, you have pretty, pretty strict suite of

40:29

abilities, you can do some upgrades and customization

40:31

but they're pretty limited. Mostly you're just kind

40:33

of figuring out how to ideally

40:36

solve each puzzle and if

40:38

you really want to go all the way you

40:40

solve the optional objectives too. Anyway, I'm really loving

40:42

it, it's a really cool game. I'm

40:46

about halfway through I guess and I

40:48

just finished the second kind of act

40:50

and it's like a four act structure. Got it.

40:53

Anyway, that's it, I mean it's really cool. Yeah,

40:55

it's really good, I'm glad you're playing it.

40:57

Kirk, was it you who was sharing the

40:59

FAQ in our chat about all the different

41:01

things that the game is not? I thought

41:04

that was really funny and I was thinking

41:06

about it as Jason was saying the game

41:08

looks like XCOM and it's not XCOM and

41:10

people being like well is this game a

41:12

roguelike and it seems almost like it would

41:14

be when you start playing it but it's

41:16

not a roguelike at all and they have

41:18

a funny answer to that where they're like

41:20

we don't know why people are saying this

41:22

but it's like each level is because every

41:24

indie game is a roguelike in

41:27

the 20th. Each level is really discreetly designed

41:29

to be a very specific puzzle that

41:31

can be solved but also to kind

41:34

of tell you something about the characters

41:36

who are in the puzzle as well

41:38

because it's ultimately a story game

41:40

like in addition to being a strategy game it's

41:42

a story and I just think that's so cool.

41:45

That part of it also isn't really like Into

41:47

the Breach or really like anything else I've ever

41:50

played and is something that I really love about

41:52

that game. It's cool. I'm glad you're playing it

41:54

Jason. We bullied you effectively. Good

41:57

job. I think the Steam page and

41:59

really all of the

42:01

meta-textual stuff around this game,

42:04

all of which I would imagine is written by

42:06

Tom Francis. It all has that Tom Francis enemy.

42:08

Just as a PC gamer reporter, he understands the

42:11

language of a Steam game and of how to

42:19

describe a game. There's just something a little

42:21

self-aware about it. In the

42:23

marketing materials, yeah, that they're like, it's not

42:25

actually like XCOM. It looks like XCOM, but

42:27

XCOM is this, like Jason just described, and

42:30

this game is actually very different. And then

42:32

also, well, yes, it has Breach in the

42:34

title, and it is somewhat likened to the

42:36

Breach because both games are grid-based and have

42:38

a time mechanic where you can rewind turns,

42:40

which is actually a pretty significant mechanical similarity.

42:42

But then he actually very clearly articulates

42:44

the difference, which I can't remember the

42:47

exact language, but basically that in Tactical

42:49

Breach Wizards, there's a far greater suite

42:52

of options available to you, especially as your

42:54

team expands on any given turn. And where

42:56

Into the Breach is a much more linear

42:58

or much more rigid kind of design. And

43:00

I do think that's something you'll find as

43:02

you play more, Jason, is that it becomes

43:04

less and less of a puzzle game as

43:07

it goes. I actually heard some people disappointedly

43:09

describing the game as, oh, it's actually just

43:11

a puzzle game. And I really wouldn't, I

43:13

know you weren't saying that, but I really

43:15

wouldn't say that, especially the more I've played

43:17

because once you have a full team and

43:20

you've kind of customized all of your different

43:23

team members, there is a variety of different

43:25

approaches you can take depending on how you

43:27

do your builds. And

43:29

then you have all these different options for taking

43:31

people out. And then the only time it really

43:33

gets puzzle-y is when you start trying to do

43:36

those side objectives, which are such a great little

43:38

idea. Like Ubisoft games used to do

43:40

this, I guess maybe some of them

43:42

still do, but I love this approach

43:44

where there are these optional objectives that

43:46

both give you a fun challenge and

43:49

it's usually very rigid. Like a lot

43:51

of times it'll be knock out five

43:53

people with Jen on the first move

43:55

or only go twice. A lot of

43:57

times it's like only take two turns

43:59

and then come complete this scenario. What's

44:01

cool about that optional objective is both that it

44:04

gives you a fun challenge to try to do,

44:06

and it also tells you that it's

44:08

possible to figure out a way to

44:10

do this. It's kind of a

44:12

double-edged sword in that I find myself sometimes chasing

44:15

that a little too hard, and the game really

44:18

tries to remind you over and over, these are

44:20

optional. These are for people who are finding the

44:22

game too easy. You definitely don't have to do

44:24

them. You're not going to unlock anything right. You

44:26

unlock outfits or something if you do that. But

44:29

I still found myself sometimes chasing them, but I kind

44:31

of liked that and thought it was fine. And I

44:34

just like when a game tells you some really difficult

44:36

thing that you can pull off. And I think this

44:38

game communicates with the player very well. Yeah,

44:40

same. I'm also very capable of just giving up

44:42

if I'm like, I tried this a few times

44:45

and I'm not having fun. I'm going to continue

44:47

on so I can see the story and have

44:49

a good time. But I also like knowing, like,

44:51

oh, I could have done this in two moves

44:53

or whatever if I had figured it

44:56

out. And I'm sure somebody out there is really good at

44:58

this kind of thing and they know how to do it. Plus

45:00

there are those like optional challenge rooms that unlock each

45:02

chapter and there are more and more and more of

45:04

them as you go. And I didn't even do all

45:06

of them. Some of them are really hard and they're

45:08

all really distinct. Those

45:10

are very puzzle-y. Like one room with an

45:12

extremely specific scenario that you have to figure

45:14

out. Those are fun in a kind of

45:16

different way than the more open-ended campaign missions.

45:19

Yeah, yeah. So I feel

45:21

like I should list all the games we

45:23

just said just in case somebody wants to

45:25

hear them again. I'll just run them down.

45:27

It's only four games. So we talked about

45:29

Rise of the Golden Idol at the beginning.

45:31

That's the one that's the sequel, the point

45:33

and click adventure sequel to Case of the

45:36

Golden Idol. And then we talked about Stalker

45:38

2. That's our Eurojank, FBS, sci-fi post-apocalyptic game.

45:40

I saw someone call it Slavjank, which I

45:42

felt was kind of funny. Very

45:44

good. Very good. It would be

45:46

a little more specific regionally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

45:48

Let's be specific with it. And then Jason talked

45:50

about Locomotive, which is like

45:52

a mystery game that he's playing. And

45:54

then last but not least, Tactical Breach

45:57

Wizards. One of our faves. Probably going to come

45:59

up when we talk about that. talk about our Godis.

46:01

We'll see. We're getting to that time

46:03

of year. And so with that,

46:05

we've discussed some video games. Let's take a break

46:07

and then we'll be back for one more thing.

46:13

Dr. Game shows a podcast where we play games

46:15

submitted by listeners with colors from all around the

46:18

world. And this is a game to get you

46:20

to listen. Name three reasons

46:22

to listen to Dr. Game Show.

46:24

Kyla and Lunar from Freedom! Main.

46:27

Dishes. Folding the laundry. Doing

46:30

cat grooming. Okay,

46:32

thank you. Great. Oh,

46:34

things you could do while listening. Yeah. I

46:38

love that the read, I'm like, why do you listen

46:40

to this show? And Lunar's like, dishes. Fantastic.

46:43

Manolo. Number one is

46:45

that it will inspire you.

46:47

You're going to be like,

46:49

oh, I could do that. That's all we have

46:52

time for, but you'll just have to find Dr.

46:54

Game Show on Maximum Fun to find out for

46:56

yourself. Do

46:59

you like stuff? Things? Items?

47:02

Because maxfunstore.com has tons of stuff

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You deserve it. maxfunstore.com.

47:32

Go get something special or

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kinda dumb. We've got it

47:37

all. And

47:42

we are back for one more thing. Kirk, why don't

47:44

you go first? Sure. So my

47:46

one more thing quite a while back was

47:49

the Apple TV show Slow Horses, which has

47:52

continued to be great. And they just finished, what,

47:54

their fourth season or something? And every season the

47:56

show has been great. It's really gotten better as

47:58

it's gone. My one more

48:01

thing is actually the Slough House

48:03

books by McCarran, which the show

48:05

is based on. I

48:07

actually found the first book, which is called Slow Horses.

48:09

It was published in 2010. I

48:11

found it among my dad's stuff when we were clearing

48:13

out my parents' stuff over the summer. And I was like,

48:15

oh, that's cool. I didn't even know he was reading

48:18

this. It was kind of a very, kind of a sad

48:20

moment of like, oh, I watched the show and it

48:22

would have been nice to talk to him about it. So

48:24

I was like, well, I'm going to take this book

48:26

with me. I'll take it home and read it. So

48:28

now I have his copy of Slow Horses. And

48:31

I read it even though I had already watched

48:33

the season, the first season of the show, because

48:36

the show does follow the books in order. And there are

48:38

like 12 books or something. And they've

48:40

just gone straight up in order. Every single one

48:42

is a pretty faithful adaptation of the book. So

48:44

I'd already seen the season. I knew what was

48:47

going to happen. And I actually found that I

48:49

enjoyed the book even more as a result. I

48:51

knew where we were going. I knew what kind

48:53

of a story to expect, like what kind of

48:56

a spy story, I guess, because there are a

48:58

lot of different kinds of spy stories. So from

49:00

there, I just kind of kept reading the books.

49:02

I started checking them out from the library. And

49:05

I read the first three. And now I'm

49:07

reading the fourth book after having finished

49:09

the fourth season, which just aired. The

49:12

fourth book is called, I think it's called

49:14

Spook Street. See, Joes are spies. And

49:16

Spook Street is like where the spies have to go.

49:20

So these books are like the

49:22

show based on the

49:24

sort of MI5, like British spy stuff. But

49:26

with a slightly comedic bent, I would say

49:29

like a dark comedic bent. It's not really

49:31

a comedy. The books are very funny. I'd

49:33

say the books are almost funnier than the

49:35

show. Though the show is also often quite

49:38

funny. It's about a group of spies assigned

49:41

to an outfit called Slough House, which is the

49:43

house that they all work out of. They're

49:45

MI5 agents who have screwed up in some way or another.

49:47

So they're like one is a drug addict, one is a

49:49

gambling addict. One like made a huge mistake

49:51

during his training, even though he was supposed to do

49:54

well, and also kind of got sold out by some

49:56

people. So all of them have been screwed over in

49:58

some way. And then. Lamb,

50:00

who is the kind of, that's the name

50:02

of the guy who's in charge of everyone.

50:05

He is kind of the worst of all.

50:07

He's like an old Cold War spy who's

50:09

this kind of horrible, unkempt,

50:11

smelly, farting, belching asshole

50:14

who's in charge of them all. But also,

50:16

of course, he is an incredible spy. And

50:19

you always, you get the sense that on some

50:21

level he cares about his people, even though he'd

50:23

never really let you know. He's played by Gary

50:26

Oldman on the show

50:28

and is a really incredible performance.

50:30

Jackson Lamb is his full name. So

50:32

it's kind of all about all of these

50:34

different misfits who work for Jackson Lamb. They

50:37

keep winding up getting sucked into some

50:40

kind of shenanigans or another. A

50:42

lot of times it's like a problem

50:44

of MI5's own making, where they're just

50:46

caught up in some internal politics, where

50:48

their adversaries are also members of MI5.

50:51

Occasionally it gets a little more international, but it's not

50:53

quite like a spy story. There are spies from another

50:55

country. Most of the time it's like, oh, our chickens

50:58

are coming home to roost because of some shit we

51:00

did during the Cold War or whatever. Anyways,

51:03

the books are really funny. Mick Herron is a

51:05

very, very funny writer, even

51:07

though in the end they're really

51:09

like these hard-boiled, kind of well put together

51:11

spy capers. He writes with a

51:13

great amount of momentum. He does a lot

51:15

of editing where he cuts in between multiple

51:17

scenes that are happening at the same time.

51:20

And the show feels that way too. It's

51:22

pretty breathless, especially, I think it's

51:24

season three. Once things get cooking,

51:26

it almost unfolds in real time. And most

51:29

of the books are that way too, so they're super

51:31

readable. You just get started, and once it

51:33

gets cooking, which doesn't take long, you really kind of just

51:35

go through to the end. So anyways, for anyone out there

51:37

who likes the show, I just thought I'd recommend the books.

51:40

They're really fun, and actually reading the books after

51:42

watching the show has been a really rewarding experience

51:45

and has made me appreciate the show even more.

51:47

When there's a new season, I feel like I

51:49

just have more insight into the characters and appreciate

51:51

them even more. So yeah, they're great books, and

51:53

I recommend them. So are you not

51:55

going to continue because you don't want to spoil the

51:58

show? Or you're kind of at a start. That is

52:00

a question that I actually have the next

52:02

book on my Kindle from the library and

52:04

when I finish the one I'm reading I'm

52:06

going to have to make that decision. They

52:08

shoot them really far ahead of time. I

52:10

think they've got the next season in the

52:12

can but I'm guessing it won't hit Apple

52:14

TV for a while. So I don't know,

52:16

I'm going to have to make that decision and I'm not sure what I'm going to

52:18

do. Yeah, because I feel like that

52:20

would change the paradigm for you where then you'd be

52:23

watching the show already knowing what's going to happen. And

52:25

that's happened. I think I did that with Game of

52:27

Thrones. That would be okay. Of course, yeah. I'm going

52:29

to try it the other way around and see how

52:31

it is. But I haven't decided. Yeah, that's always a

52:33

tough one. When it's like all the books are out

52:36

but the show is only now coming out. I mean,

52:38

at least they're all done. I think the books are

52:40

all done. That's unlike Game of Thrones. Sure,

52:42

there are so many. I'm not sure if he

52:45

and because there hasn't been one since 22. Yeah,

52:47

it's not that kind of thing, right? It's like

52:49

a serial. It's not like there's going

52:51

to be nothing. No, it's an ongoing story. Especially

52:53

now he's introducing more and more stuff that's

52:55

probably going to come back in future books.

52:58

Each book stand each story stands alone. Okay,

53:00

fair enough. All right. People get

53:02

killed. There's like things change and then the

53:04

story kind of unfolds. There's things that could

53:06

be maybe spoiled that you would be like,

53:08

okay, well, now I know this is going

53:10

to happen. But whatever that's books. That's shows.

53:12

You got to make your decisions. All right,

53:14

I'll go next. So

53:16

I watched a movie, the movie

53:18

adaptation of the musical Les Miserables from

53:21

2012. It's a very controversial movie.

53:23

I don't know if you two know this. I'm really showing

53:25

my theater kid. I've never seen that.

53:27

Pride here. So this

53:29

movie is really hated

53:31

by people who love Les

53:33

Miserables because it made

53:36

the controversial choice to have all

53:38

of the actors sing live. And

53:41

you can really tell like it's not like,

53:43

oh, you know, they're bad singers or something.

53:45

Some of them are excellent singers, but you

53:48

can definitely tell that they're really singing live

53:50

on a soundstage and they're being miked as

53:52

such. And sometimes there's a lot

53:54

of variability in volume because of that.

53:57

And also the other controversial choice is

53:59

that the orchestra. follows the

54:01

singers. So and this is

54:03

very unusual across the board for a musical

54:05

is that the singer could set the pace

54:07

of a song and kind of like take

54:09

dramatic pauses when they choose to and the

54:11

orchestra would follow them. And it's

54:14

really strange, but I thought it was fascinating. I

54:16

expected to dislike it. So then I liked it

54:18

more than I thought I would just because I

54:21

expected to not like it. And because I had

54:23

heard from so many people that it was terrible.

54:25

And if you hear something's bad and then it's

54:27

okay, you kind of are like, all right, well,

54:29

I'm going to like kind of see what's what's

54:31

interesting about this. And I do

54:33

think it's it's a fascinating project. And I

54:35

was glad I finally got around to watching

54:38

it. Huge Ackman stars in it as Valjean.

54:40

I don't think he I

54:43

actually really like his performance, but his

54:45

singing voice, he really struggles with some

54:47

of the range of that role. It's

54:49

a really, really hard role to sing.

54:51

It's like a huge range of high

54:53

notes that he doesn't really have. And

54:55

Russell Crowe plays Javert and famously doesn't

54:58

have the right. I mean,

55:00

people say Russell Crowe can't sing. He can sing

55:02

fine. It's just he's not performing the role the

55:04

way that I feel

55:06

like Javert's normally performed. And that's really

55:09

weird to watch. He's a really understated

55:11

performance and it's like he's giving nothing.

55:14

But I enjoyed it anyway.

55:16

And I thought some of the moments of

55:18

the live singing were really moving like

55:21

Anne Hathaway's performance. I thought was amazing.

55:23

And I don't know if you two

55:25

are familiar with Les Mis at all,

55:27

but it's like an extremely sad musical.

55:29

It's very, very melodramatic. Like to say

55:31

the very least about it. It's not

55:34

called Les Joyous. It's

55:36

so melodramatic. This is the kind of thing

55:38

I liked as a teenager because who doesn't

55:40

love melodrama when they're a teenager. So all

55:42

of these songs are the kinds of songs

55:44

where if somebody was saying these words to

55:46

you, you could picture them sobbing while

55:48

saying them like pretty much every song kind

55:51

of works that way where you're like someone

55:53

would be crying while doing this. And a

55:55

lot of times the actors are crying while

55:57

they're singing and that's part of why the

55:59

performances are so unusual. because when you're crying,

56:01

it's really hard to sing, obviously.

56:03

And so, like, this live performance of

56:05

it is kind of moving in a

56:07

very different way because the actors are

56:09

really bringing it in that way. And

56:12

Anne Hathaway is sobbing

56:14

throughout I Dreamed a Dream. Like, just

56:16

full-on, raw, sobbing, like, drool coming out

56:18

of her mouth, just really bringing it

56:21

in this. And, like, I

56:23

liked it. I couldn't believe I liked it,

56:25

but I was like, this is really working.

56:27

I do think she's kind of a genius,

56:29

though, and I don't know that it works

56:31

when everyone else does it. And I also

56:33

read, you know, some people hate that performance

56:35

because she chooses to do that,

56:38

but I thought it really worked. So, if you're

56:40

like me and you were kind of putting off

56:42

watching this because you were like,

56:44

I don't know what I'll think of

56:46

it, I'm glad I watched it finally.

56:48

I did palette cleanse afterwards by watching

56:50

my favorite version of Les Mis, which

56:52

is called, quote, The Dreamcast. It has

56:54

Lea Salonga's Eponine and Colm Wilkinson.

56:57

As Jean-Ruelle Jean and I watched it, I was

56:59

like, this is just taking me back. I just

57:01

love this shit. I could watch this a million

57:03

times. So, like, I did kind of, like, you

57:05

know, double feature Les Mis for myself.

57:07

But I do recommend it if you're

57:10

hesitant. I think there's something interesting about it,

57:12

even though it doesn't always work. And I

57:14

feel like after this movie failed in that

57:16

way with people, the whole

57:18

idea was thrown out. But I think there's

57:21

something to it for certain songs, if that

57:23

makes sense, and it could work. Doesn't Wicked

57:25

do this, though? Does it? Oh, interesting.

57:27

I feel like I've thought of Wicked having some

57:30

live singing in it. That's cool. I wonder if

57:32

they do some live singing and some not. Because

57:34

I feel like that's a better way to approach

57:36

something like this. I assure you, we're

57:38

in thinking of people talking about singing

57:40

in the movie. No, I believe. I

57:43

believe I saw this all being in if I'm wrong, but

57:45

I believe I saw that some of the performances in Wicked

57:48

are sung on set. But then there's also live singing

57:50

of people who just can't help but sing in the

57:52

movie theater. Then also in the movie theater, unfortunately.

57:57

Yeah, so that's Les Mis from 2012. Jason,

58:00

why don't you go last? My one

58:03

more thing is Thanksgiving. Yay!

58:05

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving.

58:07

It's so good. You got your family, you

58:09

got your football, and you got your food.

58:11

And every year for Thanksgiving, I cook. And

58:14

so I wanted to give you guys and our

58:16

listeners a couple of useful tips in case you

58:18

are hosting Thanksgiving or would like to one day

58:21

host Thanksgiving. So I'm going to give you guys

58:23

a couple of tips. And

58:25

number one is, Kirk, you know what's coming.

58:27

Oh, boy. Gotta spatchcock that turkey. You got

58:29

to. Seth, who said it? Every year. You

58:31

got to take that turkey and you get

58:34

some good kitchen shears, like a good knife,

58:36

and cut out the backbone, and then just

58:38

kind of flatten it as much as you

58:40

can. Crack the wishbone, flatten it as much

58:42

as you can. Put it on a wire rack over some veggies. And

58:46

you stick that thing in the oven at 450 degrees. It'll be done in

58:48

80 minutes, 90 minutes stops, depending on

58:50

how big your turkey is. And your guests will

58:52

be like, wait a minute, you made the turkey

58:54

in an hour and a half? I've been sitting

58:57

here doing a four-hour basting every 20 minutes,

58:59

like ritual. And Thanksgiving is miserable because of

59:02

that. But no, there is an easier way.

59:04

And a couple other things you can do

59:06

to make the turkey even better, you can

59:08

dry brine it, which is

59:10

another kind of key tip. And here is

59:12

the real pro tip is you take it and

59:15

you use your spatchcock again, and you put it on the

59:17

wire rack and stuff. And you put

59:19

it in the fridge for 24 hours uncovered before

59:22

you cook it. And that dries

59:24

out the skin and makes it super, super crispy. You

59:26

can do this with a chicken, by the way.

59:29

Every time I make chicken or something, I do

59:31

the same thing, spatchcocking. And I don't always have

59:33

time to do like drying into the fridge, but

59:35

that also helps make for like crispier skin and

59:38

much better bird. So

59:40

that's tip number one. If you want to make

59:42

your Thanksgiving hosting experience like less miserable because the

59:44

turkey is so hard to cook, this is what

59:46

you do. And it'll make things so simple and

59:48

easy. Well, you're freeing up the oven for most

59:50

of the day, too. So you're freeing up the

59:52

oven for most of the day. You can work

59:54

on other stuff. Yeah. A lot of people have

59:56

to do like all their stuffing and pies and

59:58

sweet potatoes or whatever else before. hand because like

1:00:00

they need to reserve the oven for the turkey

1:00:02

all day. But nope, you don't have to do

1:00:04

that. You can cook everything

1:00:06

like that morning of my

1:00:10

prep. I have some other prep. My

1:00:12

Thanksgiving is a little

1:00:14

bit unique because my

1:00:17

some of my family keeps kosher so we

1:00:19

do non-dairy side so I can't do like

1:00:21

mac and cheese or like mashed potatoes smothered

1:00:23

in butter. But I do do a couple

1:00:25

of things that I think are really key

1:00:27

to like making a really good Thanksgiving meal

1:00:29

or making a good meal in general. And

1:00:31

they're all really easy. None of this is

1:00:34

like difficult to pull off. One of them

1:00:36

is making homemade chicken stock or turkey stock

1:00:38

for like as like a base

1:00:40

for your gravy. You got to make homemade gravy.

1:00:42

You can't do that mixed stuff. And

1:00:44

chicken stock is really like surprisingly easy to

1:00:46

make at home and tastes like exponentially better

1:00:49

than the canned stuff. It's one of those

1:00:51

things. They're like a few things you learn

1:00:53

as a home cook that like really elevate

1:00:55

your cooking that are actually surprised like deceptively

1:00:57

easy and making homemade chicken stock is one

1:01:00

of them. You just need time. So like

1:01:02

basically you take your chicken cut

1:01:04

the skin off if you want it to be healthy

1:01:06

or just take some chicken breasts like boneless chicken or

1:01:09

not boneless but skinless chicken breasts. You want the bones

1:01:11

in there too or even just bones. You can do

1:01:13

it with a lot of different types of chicken. Stick

1:01:15

it in a pot with some water a bunch of

1:01:17

vegetables onions carrots celeries like leeks potatoes I sometimes put

1:01:19

in there. You can do this with like the gross

1:01:22

like the vegetables that are like on their way towards

1:01:24

rotten on the bottom of your fridge.

1:01:26

And it's totally fine as long as they're not like

1:01:28

actually rotten and you just

1:01:30

let it simmer for about a few hours and

1:01:32

it turns into delicious stock that you can then

1:01:34

use for your gravy and for your to moisten

1:01:37

your stuffing and stuff like that. And

1:01:39

then if you're like me and you have to

1:01:41

cook a Thanksgiving meal without butter something

1:01:44

else that I do is I make what's called schmaltz.

1:01:46

And so we do that is you take your chicken

1:01:48

skins and this is where you can do two things

1:01:50

at once you could cut the you had a big

1:01:52

chicken cut the skin off use

1:01:54

the chicken itself the carcass itself for the stock

1:01:57

and then the skins for this which is you

1:01:59

take these skins. a bunch of skins and you

1:02:01

put them in a saute pan and you cook

1:02:03

them on like low heat for like a solid

1:02:05

45 minutes you just let them sweat out and

1:02:07

all the fat will render out. At some point

1:02:10

you can put in an onion in there for

1:02:12

flavor too but the fat will run out and

1:02:14

it'll just kind of sit there and the skins

1:02:16

themselves will like turn into these crispy delicious treats.

1:02:18

You take the fat you pour it into a

1:02:20

container or something and you can use that essentially

1:02:23

as butter or as oil or anything and add

1:02:25

all this flavor to something. So like what I

1:02:27

do is I'll take a bunch of chicken sticks

1:02:29

make the skins make those I'll serve the

1:02:31

skins as like a little bit of an

1:02:33

appetizer for guests because they're delicious especially with

1:02:36

some onions or like you

1:02:38

can you can do a bunch of stuff with

1:02:40

them. You can kind of use them as a

1:02:42

topping on like green beans and have that nice

1:02:44

crispy flavoring on green beans and then use the

1:02:46

schmaltz to just flavor add a shitload of flavor

1:02:48

to anything you're making. So I'll use it in

1:02:52

as the base for the gravy instead of butter

1:02:54

use the schmaltz and then some flour and make

1:02:56

a little roux again super easy add your chicken

1:02:59

stock or turkey stock and mix it up and

1:03:01

make some gravy. I also

1:03:04

use it instead of butter for my stuffing. I'll just

1:03:06

stick a bunch of schmaltz in there and it adds

1:03:08

all this flavor to it. Not

1:03:10

quite butter, but you can't use schmaltz

1:03:12

for pies unfortunately if you're doing dessert

1:03:14

you really gotta go butter unless you're

1:03:16

gonna go like vegan butter or shortening

1:03:18

or something like that. Yeah there's some

1:03:21

ways around it, but it's very hard to not

1:03:23

use butter. It's hard. So if you're making

1:03:25

a pie, I feel like you really gotta

1:03:27

use butter. Is this

1:03:29

where the word schmaltz comes from like malzi

1:03:31

performance does one precede the other really so

1:03:33

schmaltz was first the cooking? A

1:03:36

Yiddish word I assume? Well, I don't

1:03:38

know which was first, but they're both Yiddish or just the

1:03:40

same word schmaltz. Wherever the origin

1:03:42

is. Amazing. Yeah, I'm not sure why

1:03:44

it also means like sappy but

1:03:47

yeah schmaltz is like dripping in glee I guess.

1:03:50

Kinda gooey I guess. Yeah, I can see that.

1:03:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's rich. It's too much. Yeah,

1:03:54

I kind of feel the connection. It kind of

1:03:56

makes a sort of sense. Yeah, I can see it. One

1:03:59

more thing. is that everyone, when they hear about

1:04:01

spatchcocking, there is like, okay, interesting. Like I'm intrigued

1:04:03

at this idea of like only having to cook

1:04:05

a bird for 90 minutes and it seems like

1:04:07

you gotta, especially if you see my pictures, I

1:04:10

just posted one on Blue Sky. If you see

1:04:12

my pictures, it looks incredible. Like

1:04:15

it looks so crispy and delicious. And the

1:04:17

inside is so moist because one of the

1:04:19

things spatchcocking does is that it

1:04:21

allows, it makes it so you're

1:04:23

not overcooking the white meat while you're trying to get

1:04:25

the dark meat to the proper temperature. Cause usually the

1:04:27

dark meat needs to be at a higher internal temperature

1:04:30

and the white meat overcooks the growth. Which is

1:04:32

why everyone has all these memories of like dry,

1:04:35

like Thanksgiving turkey that just tastes gross. And you

1:04:37

need to cover it with gravy and cranberry sauce

1:04:39

just to like make it taste like anything. But

1:04:41

no, this makes it all cook perfectly.

1:04:44

A lot of people are like, but then

1:04:46

you can't stick stuffing in the middle of

1:04:48

the bird, which is true. But what you

1:04:50

can do is you cook it over some

1:04:52

like carrots and celery and onions and stuff.

1:04:54

And at the end of the process, not

1:04:56

only will you get these vegetables that are

1:04:59

delicious and turkey flavored and fatty and incredible,

1:05:01

you can use those in your stuffing or

1:05:03

in something else. Or you could just take

1:05:05

the turkey drippings themselves. Like there will be

1:05:07

a layer of liquid under the vegetables too.

1:05:09

You could pour that into your stuffing and

1:05:11

then before you cook it and then throw

1:05:13

it in the oven and it'll taste just

1:05:15

as good as if it was inside of

1:05:17

a turkey. So there's really no downsides to

1:05:20

spatchcocking the turkey. I would say, unless you

1:05:22

really want to show off to your guests

1:05:24

like a giant fat turkey, but like whatever,

1:05:26

you just carve it and put it on

1:05:28

a plate and it'll be just as cool,

1:05:30

just as good looking. So

1:05:32

those are my Thanksgiving tips. I

1:05:35

like how every year this is your,

1:05:37

this is like you're trying to slowly convert

1:05:39

everyone on the world to spatchcocking their turkey.

1:05:41

It's a good mission. It's worth it. It's

1:05:44

worth it. It's like so, it's such a, the

1:05:47

reward for the amount of like effort. I'm

1:05:49

a big fan of things that are very

1:05:51

low effort for very high reward. Yeah, what's

1:05:54

better than that? The tips I just described

1:05:56

are some of them. You

1:05:58

really, if you're hosting Thanksgiving, which... I

1:06:00

recommend you can really do it in like

1:06:02

a low effort way that does not require

1:06:04

any sort of fancy cooking like Techniques or

1:06:07

anything like that. I mean a lot of

1:06:09

the Thanksgiving classics are really easy to make

1:06:11

which is why they're so great It's because

1:06:13

they're just really simple and comforting and they're

1:06:15

like a special once a year Like we

1:06:17

could be making stuffing all year round, but

1:06:19

we don't it's for Thanksgiving. There's just something

1:06:22

about it. It's funny We're we're not hosting

1:06:24

this year. We're going to a friend's house

1:06:26

and I think we're gonna have brisket But

1:06:29

I think Emily I think there was like a

1:06:31

turkey that was super cheap or something and so

1:06:33

she just bought it anyways So we have a

1:06:35

turkey and so we will at some point I

1:06:37

think we're gonna have some friends over and do

1:06:39

a kind of week after Thanksgiving Let

1:06:45

me know if you need I'll

1:06:48

send you some pictures of me shop cutting

1:06:50

out the spine of my I can't wait

1:06:54

Mine is 20 pounds. So I'm looking

1:06:57

forward to missing that tomorrow morning. Yeah,

1:06:59

it's a real weightlifting situation 20 pounds

1:07:02

Okay. Wow. All right Obviously,

1:07:04

this is coming out on Thanksgiving So everybody's listening while

1:07:06

they're having some turkey or they live in another country

1:07:08

and they're just having a nice day And

1:07:12

it's just a regular Thursday for you and that's fine.

1:07:14

Well if they live in another country, it might be

1:07:16

Friday That's a great point. It

1:07:18

could you can actually listen to triple click on any day

1:07:20

you Can't stop you We're

1:07:29

gonna keep it the same way it has when it'll

1:07:32

come out on Thursdays You can listen whenever you want

1:07:34

and we'll be back again next Thursday with

1:07:36

another one of these. Yeah, see you then

1:07:39

See you both next week. Bye I

1:07:44

Triple click is produced by Jason Schreier of

1:07:46

Mattie Meyers and me Kirk Hamilton I had

1:07:48

it mixed the show and also wrote our

1:07:50

theme music our show art is by Tom

1:07:52

DJ Some of the games and products

1:07:54

we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us

1:07:56

for free for review consideration You can find a link to our

1:07:59

ethics policy in the show show notes. TripleClick

1:08:01

is a proud member of the Maximum

1:08:03

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1:08:05

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1:08:12

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1:08:16

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