How Video Games Learned to Stop Punishing Players and Start Respecting Their Time

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, gamers or not gamers, or whoever watches this
for some reason, I'm RichardArthur John Kivas of Deep Space
and Dragons.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Carl, just Carl, perfect.
That was what I was expectingyou to do.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I nearly tricked you into doxing yourself, but it'd
make the Carl tattoo enthusiastshave too much power.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
If they could actually find me.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm not going to give them hints how to, but if I had
to find you, I'm pretty sure Ihave strategies.
So I mean Deep Space andDragons.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, Welcome to Deep Space and Dragons, which is not
the show where we captureCarl's and and bring them in for
questioning.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
No, that's the other show.
That is for pay-per-viewviewers only.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Also disclaimer.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
This is a comedy show , and nothing we say should ever
be taken seriously.
Just putting that out there.
Ever Except that time, weabsolutely made Dokopunk Kingdom
get remastered on the Switch.
Well, I mean, we have manifesteda few things, right, it's, it's
pretty good although the stgundam game we manifest was very
mid, I think we didn't manifestthat one hard enough like we

(01:12):
manifested it.
But we got like monkey kapod,where it's like you want st
gundam have a bad action shooterworse than capsule fighter.
I'm like how did you managethis?
Capsule fighter wasn't good,I'm just a nerd Capsule.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Fighter but yeah, what's new in the Carlverse?
Well, I mean a little bit of adoozy here, uh-oh.
Well, okay, because, like youknow, last week we didn't post
an episode.
They don't know that we didn'trecord an episode.
I guess they have no way ofknowing that.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
No one is checking our release dates.
Anyways, we could be doingApril 1st right now.
They would never know.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
I have this bit about anti-disestablishmentarianism,
which, okay, correct me if I'mwrong, but my, my understanding
of whatanti-disestablishmentarianism
means is that you are againstpeople who are against a given

(02:19):
establishment, but that doesn'tnecessarily mean that you
support that establishmentyourself huh, that might
actually be me.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I had an interaction establishment, but that doesn't
necessarily mean that yousupport that establishment
yourself.
Huh, that might actually be me.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I had an interaction on social media earlier today
where that may in fact be meAgainst people who are against
the establishment, but notnecessarily supporting the
establishment yourself.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
So I'm going to give a what's new with me quickly and
then go back into your rant,because it's super on point here
.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
So a mutual acquaintance of ours put a
Facebook rant that said copythis rant if you're brave enough
.
And it was a rant about thegovernment and betraying
veterans and yada, yada, yada,and for whatever reason, I
decided to use the full breadthof my five years of training to
write a systematic takedownabout how dumb it was to be like
hey, democratically speaking,51% of our country voted no

(03:07):
candidate.
Mathematically, you can justform a political party.
The Rhinoceros Party had enoughmembers to prove.
You could just organize a localcommunity.
What is the name of youralderman?
What is the name of your mayor?
Have you emailed them?
Have you wrote them?
Have you unionized?
Have you collected a petition?
Before you start going, we needto bring down the government.
Have you bring down the system?
Have you tried using the systemat all?

(03:27):
No, because you're copy pastinga facebook comment and saying
it's brave, the least brave actimaginable, and the original
comment was probably generatedon chat jipita, it probably.
So I'm like, before you starttalking about, we need a ride in
the streets, have you triedcalling your local
representative like?

(03:50):
Or it's like what are we goingto do?
I'm like, have you trieddonating blood?
That has record low numbers andwe need that.
That would help veteransimmediately, instantly it would
literally save one of theirlives, like immediately, and you
don't have to take down a city,you don't have to graffiti a
single building to do it.
It would literally save one oftheir lives, like immediately,
and you don't have to take downa, you don't have to graffiti a

(04:11):
single building to do it.
So, yeah, I think I actually amanti-disatablet materialism
because it's like I don'tactually like a lot of things.
I've complained about politicsat length, but what I don't like
more is people being likebetter throw a brick through an
unrelated window, when when I'mlike you haven't even tried to
use the broken system.
We know it's broken, but likeliterally enough people didn't

(04:33):
vote that they all just wroteKeanu Reeves as Shadow the
Hedgehog that would have won theelection because of how few
people voted, like there wasenough undecided voters for
Keanu Reeves to be PrimeMinister right now.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
That would be wild.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Anywho, back to you.
My segue was fun.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
So I took a liking to this website known as Quora,
which I will describe asdiscount Reddit.
I don't know why I don't justgo on Reddit, but I like to go
through Quora, which I willdescribe as discount Reddit.
I don't know why I don't justgo on Reddit, but I like to go
through Quora.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Fair.
No one should like to go onReddit.
You go on Reddit because chatsearches have been replaced by
AI bots that are just wrongabout Pokemon facts.
Ooh, I was so mad.
So where do you get theEarthquake TM and Pokemon Fire
Red?

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Ooh, I don't actually recall.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
You get it from Giovanni because he used to give
you Fissure in Gen 1, andFissure is stupid, so they gave
him Earthquake instead.
Yeah, okay, so I'm watching aPokemon stream and he's like oh,
I'm doing a Chikorita-only runof Pokemon FireRed Okay, because
Chikorita got announced as anew starter.
I'm doing a Chikorita-only runof Pokemon Fire Red Okay,
because Chikorita got announcedas a new starter and there's a

(05:48):
lot of Chikorita hate.
It's like no, I'm going to beatthis game just using Chikorita.
It makes me think of Carl andButterfree.
I support this decision.
So he's like hey, chat, where'sthe next Earthquake anyway?
And then I look at the chatbotoh, it's in self co.
And I'm like no, it ain't,you're just wrong.

(06:09):
Built-in auto ai responder thatgoes at the top of the search.
That just lies about pokemonfacts.
So bad, I'm like.
This is an obviously clear,documented piece of history.
There's no like subjectivityhere right, right.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
It's been true since 1993, I think so but anyways, I
I used to really like cora, uh,because uh, it would be some
truly off the wall questions andanswers, um and uh,
occasionally it would show me,uh, cute, uh comics like more
akin to like comic strips you'dsee in the newspaper, if you

(06:42):
even remember what that isspecifically yeah, study those
like I guess, uh, a more broadwould be like comics, as in the
same sentiment, as like peanutsor garfield or calvin and hop
yeah the funnies, yeah, thefunnies, I think that's like
actually the socially like thecorrect term is.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
If you refer to them as the newspaper funnies, that
does distinguish them prettyperfectly.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right, right, but there was one in particular that
I really liked.
It was called Petfoolery.
I probably could just find iton Instagram or whatever other
service I might post it on orchat, but I will lie to you and
say it never existed and you'recrazy.
But for whatever reason, I wasgetting it through Cora, but the

(07:25):
algorithm, it has slowlydecided that the Pretty much the
only thing I want to see Isthis Anti-Trump community.
No more magas or something likethat.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Fair, and my sentiment towards Trump as the
president, uh, fairly wellmirrors the rest of canada at
this point I don't want to beannexed I mean, if like yeah
boil down all the subjectivityof it and just go to like
straight politics and then gopast that to straight concept.
Dude said we want to take yourcountry and we said no, it's

(08:05):
really hard.
Like you know, I sometimes takepolitics out of here before I
slip because I'm naturally astanced person.
If you're pro another countrytakes your citizenship away,
you're bad at math, becausethink about it.
If you're like I want to bepart of america, your vote just
got cut in half by 100 times.
You now just have less power toself-dictate your life Because,

(08:29):
by population, you just lostthe ability to sway policy.
So no matter how much of a jerkor not jerk you may be, it is
directly self-defeating to let alarger population base enter
democracy with your smallerpopulation base because you just
have less power as a citizen.
This isn't about politics, it'spure numbers.

(08:52):
It's just bad.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
But I, based on some of the answers that I've read, I
would qualify this community onQuora as an echo chamber and,
regardless of your politicalleanings, echo chambers are
inherently bad.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Oh, I got a fun algorithm side tangent and I'll
give it back to your maintangent.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
So me and my brother watch drastically different
things and, as a result of that,our algorithms across the
apartment have been invertedpolitically.
So I'll get hate campaigns forone party and he'll get
advertisements for the other.
And it's so funny because, togo Canadian local politics right
now, they wrote these adsbefore the Liberals decided

(09:41):
their new candidate, so I'mgetting these carbon tax carny
ads right that are airing at thesame time that he abolished
said tax.
So they plan this attack onsomeone who, in his third day in
office, already undermined theattack.
And it'd be like saying don'tsupport King Piccolo.
He released all the prisonersand then the next day is like

(10:03):
actually put them all in amaximum security prison.
You can't really go prisonerPiccolo.
He released all the prisonersand then the next day he's like
actually put them all in amaximum security prison.
You can't really go prisonerPiccolo anymore, can you?
You lost Too bad.
You dropped millions of dollarson this Instead of donating to
the local bank.
Oh man, the number of livespolitical party budgets,
advertising budgets, could saveif they're just spent on the
constituents.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
So I mean back to the original point
anti-disestablishmentarianism.
It's like I really really havea strong sentiment of
anti-disestablishmentarianismtowards this core community
because I just don't like echochambers, regardless of their

(10:46):
political leanings.
But that's not actually what Isaid.
This is a doozy because youmight recall that I mentioned
Petfoolery was one of thenewspaper funnies that I like to
find on Quora, one of thenewspaper funnies that I like to
find on Quora.
Now it's published in a Webtoonformat and so, surprisingly,

(11:14):
it's being posted on the Webtoonapp.
Did the internet cut out?

Speaker 1 (11:24):
It was weird because my mic mic cut out, but you came
in fine okay, I don't know howthat works, because I'm the
internet.
But I want to go on, go on, andthen I gasped a couple times
for dramatic effect.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
It was beautiful okay , okay, anyways, um so, uh, that
was when I realized, uh, thatthe webtoon app uh is not, uh,
exclusively korean content.
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
I assumed it was so I've literally like, applied and
interviewed with webtoon aspart of like, my internship, as
like creative writing,publishing yeah and we could
just get published on webtoon ifwe so desired.
Once you go to art school for acouple years I have a lot of
faith, by the way, and theamount of time it would take you
like.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
If current adult carl decided to like learn to write
and draw in a structured format,you'd probably pick it up
pretty quick that's not relatedthat's just me having blind
faith in you so I've been veryhappily reading this petoolery,
which is about this adorablekitten and her older brother, a

(12:33):
retired veteran war dog.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Wait, is that the one with like Brutus the dog?
I think it is.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, Brutus and Pixie.
Oh yeah, I know I'm completelyon board.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Like, okay, I'm right there with you, yes.
I've never looked at the titleof this comic, but it's
definitely worked its way intomy algorithm, Possibly through
your algorithm like some sort ofmonomic virus, Right?

Speaker 2 (12:53):
I mean, it's just like this nice wholesome, beacon
of happiness in what isotherwise a bleak and dark
internet.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
You know what's funny ?
It's like literally I just gooutside the sun shining the
birds singing.
I did like a laundry all dayyesterday.
I'm like you know it's ironicto come for me, but I think I
need less screen time.
Like I literally have a consoleset up in the living room so I
don't open news windows on theother screen.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
But then I slowly I was like, hmm, I've been reading
this Paranoid Mage series onWebtoon and they actually they
just recently posted the seasonfinale on Paranoid Mage on
Webtoon and so I looked it upand apparently it's based on

(13:45):
five books Paranoid Mage,renegade Mage, heretic Mage, and
I don't remember the last two,but I'm currently reading
Heretic Mage because I've readthe first two but I didn't
realize and there were a fewclues, but I didn't realize that
Paranoid Mage was not a Koreanmanhwa.

(14:06):
It's actually written by aNorth American author.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Oh man you're culturally insensitive on this
channel.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah, I know.
Well, see, it's hard for me toarticulate what the difference
actually is.
Most Korean manhwa have verythere's something about the art
style and there's somethingabout the writing style that
make it very clear that they'renot by a North American author.
Like I say, it's hard toarticulate what it is that I'm

(14:35):
sensing, but there's some,there's something there.
So it's like, well, there therewas another series that's on
Webtoon, it's called of swampand sea.
Um, and just looking at it Iwas like, okay, this is north
america, I can tell by the artstyle.
Then I start reading it.
It's like, okay, this is northamerica, I can tell by the

(14:56):
writing style.
Uh, it's just there's somethingthere.
I don't know what it is, butthere's something that that
clearly separates north americanart or authors from korean
authors, from Korean authors,from Japanese authors.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Oh, the Japanese one is a deep hatred of fat people
and such embanked in sexism thateven when you invert it, you
end up still being sexist, butLooking at the new chapter of.
Bort.
It's not going to make it intothe episode.
I just had to just be like thenew chapter of Bort sucks.
That's not going to make it tothe episode.
I just had to be like the newchapter of Bort sucks and I'm
just going to leave that at that.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
But there were a few clues.
You know the North Americannames in Paranoid Mage.
The lack of reference to anyAsian geography like Jeju Island
or Mount Fuji.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
No, ants yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
No, ant monsters.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
I do wonder if that's like a cultural thing or
something, because I'm like I'veseen that happen a few times.
I guess in Terraformers it wascockroaches, but still.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
But still, I was surprised.
And have you ever heard of thewebsite Royal Road?
No, have you ever heard of thewebsite Royal Road?
No, I'm not exactly sure whatits deal is, but all of these
Paranoid Mage books are releasedon Royal Road and you can buy
physical paperback copies, ifyou want from Amazon, which I am
considering doing, but rightnow I Need to buy Canadian

(16:21):
authors because something,something politics.
Right, but in the course ofParanoid Mage, the protagonist,
he doesn't know anything aboutmagical society.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
This is like such a such a tangent.
I mean I stopped a sub tangentbut like your point is like like
a Tesseract, where it's likefolding in on itself and I'm
like I know there's a point, butI just don't know how you would
get there we're almost, almostto the end here I almost believe
you but there's a point inparanoid mage.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Uh, the protagonist doesn't know anything about
magical society, uh, and he'stalking to a healer and she's
like oh, to pass this test, Ineed an offensive attack, an
offensive move, I guess, notattack but offensive move.
And he's like well, I mean,based on mundane biology, if you

(17:17):
apply your healing magic, youcould put neurochemicals out of
whack and just knock someone outby dropping the right chemical
in their brain or whatever.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
So pause, I have to final touch on something because
it's really funny to me.
There's an anime calledDrifters, where each character
is based on a mythological FateStay Night style.
But it was hyper-violentHelsingi.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
And there's an anime called.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Jesus and you just walk up and turn all the blood
in your body into wine, orhealed you so much that you died
of cancer.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, the Jesus murder method.
I'm like, alright, good, we'reon the same page again.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Right, and then she almost gets labeled as a heretic
because the powers that bedon't want anyone to realize
that healing mages can actuallyjust kill anyone by touching
their mana, and just done.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, fair enough, clerics are the most busted
class.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
But you know, quite within the context, that's just
the wrong way to use healingmagic.
It is ridiculous that clericsget heavy armor and martial
weapons and are full spellcasters like how the wizard in
plate mail is some nonsense,anywho but okay, so then the
final tendency to jump on isthat, uh, I was a reading

(18:43):
paranoid mage like oh, the wrongway to use healing magic.
Wasn't there a show onCrunchyroll called the Wrong Way
to Use Healing Magic?
And I was suddenly very curiouswhat exactly this show would
constitute as the wrong way touse healing magic.
Oh no, are you familiar withthe show?

(19:06):
Yes, have you actually, like,watched the significant portion?

Speaker 1 (19:11):
of it.
I think I watched the firstthree episodes before ADHD
kicked in.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Right, Well see, I made it through the whole thing.
I was invested in discoveringwhat it figured was the wrong
way to use healing magic.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
And they reached the conclusion to being balky.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
No see, that's not the wrong way to use healing
magic.
That's a sensible way to usehealing magic To work out until
your muscles are too sore tocontinue and then heal them so
you can work out some more.
That is a sensible way to usehealing magic girl was such
wasted potential.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
I'm sorry, but soccer could just have done that well,
okay.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
So I'm like, okay, well, obviously that's not the
wrong way to use healing magic.
Why, why is this even the theshow?
And then his commander like uh,gets attacked by a demon and
the demon summons blades of windaround her and he's like, ah,
you can't get out of my windprison because you'll get cut to
shreds.
And then she just walks throughbecause she has healing magic
and she just heals herself asshe walks through the blades of

(20:15):
wind.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Best way to play D&D, by the way, is just to heal
yourself, never your partymembers, and just do it to your
ridiculous flexes.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Like you fall off that hundred story cliff, get
back up, snap your legs backtogether and continue on right.
Um, but uh, finally, the 11thepisode.
Uh, and there's only 13episodes in the first season the
11th episode actually comesclear.
Uh, the wrong way that he useshealing magic is, uh, he is
strong enough that he can uhliterally like shatter a boulder
with his fist.
Yeah, uh, which, if you'regoing full strength, uh, you

(20:58):
can't really safely use againstan opponent you don't want to
kill, and he's not exactly apacifist, but he's also a
17-year-old student frommodern-day Japan who doesn't
really want to kill anyone?

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Have you seen the new season of Invincible, or any
season of Invincible?

Speaker 2 (21:12):
I watched the first season.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
I haven't watched any of the subsequent seasons, so
not to spoil too much, butthere's a scene in Invincible
where he punches someone so hardhe breaks his arm.
Okay, it was the most hardcorething I've ever seen.
Like cast punch is cool.
Shattering your fist into bonefragments to embed the bone

(21:35):
fragments in someone is coolerfair, um.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
So I don't know if I would necessarily say this is
cool, but it turns out the wrongway to use healing magic is you
imbue your fist with healingmagic so that when you punch
someone with enough strength toshatter stone, uh, they get the
feeling of all the impact andall the pain, but you
immediately heal their wounds,so they don't actually have any
lasting damage you know that'ssuch a richard ass way to fight

(22:03):
like, could you not picture medoing that where I'm like, yeah,
I hit you as hard I can butheal you at the same time so you
just pass out from the pain?

Speaker 1 (22:11):
That's such a me move .
Like I got game, respect, gameyeah.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
So I mean that's like a sack of oranges logic.
I don't really.
The isekai is a worthlessframing device in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
I don't think it added any to the story.
It's not that hard, yeahframing device.
In my opinion.
I don't think it added anythingto the story.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
It's not that hard, yeah, but when it finally almost
an entire season through got tohim using magic, healing magic
in the quote-unquote wrong way,it was actually moderately
interesting.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, that's kind of my entire angry rant with the
genre.
Is that, like Free Run forexample, you could just draw a
map like pour some coffee on thepaper and outline it with a pen
, name some things, and not havepeople bring in their high
school drama?

Speaker 2 (22:57):
You could just set your series there.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Like Delicious in the Dungeon is great.
It could have been a uniqueaside had it come from the real
world and be a monster eater,but it gains nothing from that.
I think that's my problem withthe genre as a whole Is you gain
nothing from characterdevelopment, plot or setting
from Ikasai as a high schoolstudent, because they're not
ever bringing anything with it.

(23:21):
There was one Ikasai that wascalled Tokyo Gate, where a
portal just opens in Tokyo andthe military goes in.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
That Ikasai was great because they killed a dragon
with a rocket launcher and we'relike giving rations to like the
peasants and then at some pointthey have like elven archers
holding rpgs to shoot down adragon and I'm like, yes, you
brought the premise.
You can say it's onlyinteresting if what you're
bringing from the mundane worlddoes something right, like being
a normal person wasn't helpfulto the plot in wrong way to

(23:53):
healing magic.
If he was just a dude from thatsetting, it would have worked
just as well yeah that's myentire problem with it.
Like soul leveling, you canargue that yeah, well, solo
leveling isn't an ecocidebecause, like yeah, instead it's
just for some reason theirworld's running on D&D rules,
not D&D rules, wow rules, forsome reason, meh.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
I mean there's a bit more nuance than that.
They do eventually explain thesystem and it's a reasonable
explanation, but regardless, Idon't want to spoil it for
anyone.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Anywho, the topic of this week's episode that was
like two weeks ago's episode, Idon't know.
Find it, use Google.
We believe in you.
Remember when we used the promothings on this podcast?
Ah, what a time.
But now I'm like nah, mywriting's got too much better.
I don't want people to read myfirst novel, then they'll hold
me to that standard.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Anyways, what's new with me is that I've been doing
a lot of reading of ParanoidMage, because I highly recommend
the series.
The special thing is you canget it on Royal Road for free.
That is good advice and thenalso that I uh watched the

(25:11):
entire first season of the wrongway to use healing magic, and
the isekai portion doesn'treally do it for me, but so I
also kind of recently watched aterrible, even though this is
not our episode.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
So I watched the red power ranger reincarnated in
another world for a few episodes, okay, and it's literally you
watch an episode of PowerRangers at the start like
they're fighting the evil Empire.
They make their Megazord, theyblast the guy, kill the evil
Empire and guy falls in a portal.
He's in this new world but hegotta keep his Power Ranger
stuff.
So, like an evil golem appears,he just morphers himself into a

(25:42):
Power Ranger and lightningpunches them and everyone's just
like what is happening.
And I'm like it's funny.
Because it's like, yeah, thered power ranger would be great
at being in a fantasy setting.
And he's like, yeah, I kind oflow-key, love it here.
And I'm just like, oh man, thesheer peppiness of a power
ranger, instead being adepressed high school student,

(26:03):
was enough to be like I'll givethis a few episodes because this
is fun.
It's like trying to explain tothe wizard.
You have to do the dramaticpose to make the thing work.
And it was like that makesliterally no sense.
And I'm like, oh man, this issuch a dumb mashup that I'll
allow it.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Do you think that time I was reincarnated as
Yamcha was a decent series?

Speaker 1 (26:23):
So that might have been one of the strongest Dragon
Ball series, but it alsorequires so much meta knowledge
that it's practically useless.
So like I'm playing Dragon BallSparky Zero, for example, where
literally the game mechanic wasbranching plot point, timeline
things, right, mm-hmm.
The best thing they could havedid but they didn't is they
should have put in a Yamchacampaign.

(26:44):
That was that manga Like.
That would have been such a gooduse of that To open with like
with like the yeah, you'reyamsha and then to go through
all the yamsha story missionsand like where the story
branches have a branch, like themanga did, and then end with
the beerus cut scene, like itwas fun and it would make a
great side story in a video game.
But you know my rule like I capthings at like a 7 out of 10.

(27:07):
If you had to read anotherseries to read this one, you
lose points.
It's like, yeah, this was thebest Dragon Ball Z spinoff
Because it's fighting againstBojack or the Dragon Ball Super
manga, and I'm like, yeah, thiswas probably better.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
But speaking of reincarnation, I believe our
actual topic for this episode islives in mini in video games
yes, man, we so could have eekaside this entire episode.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
We're like at the halfway point and I like had
other things about the what'snew with me, but we just didn't
really get to them well, okay, Iguess.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Sorry, I did kind of skip over what's new with you
because you inserted a rant intoin the midst of mine.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Well yeah, my rant was great, so instead of giving
what's new with you, because youinserted a rant into the midst
of mine.
Well, yeah, my rant was great.
So, instead of giving what'snew with me, because our
audience just doesn't get thatinformation now, I said I'm
going to quote a conversationthat happened three minutes
before this podcast started.
Okay, so I'm sitting in myliving room drinking some water,
hanging out with Mr Meeks, likeyou do, and then, I'm talking
about Carl to my roommate, likeI do, and he's like you know,

(28:10):
carl doesn't exist, right, he'simaginary.
And I just think to myself and Isay to him Carl is literally
the person that I have the mostevidence of existing of anyone
on this planet.
Or people have listened to 90plus episodes of a podcast where
I talk and then there's puresilence and then I'm like talk
again and the idea that there isno Carl and the idea that there

(28:30):
is no Carl.
What a wild trip this podcastwould be, with its massive, long
, uninterrupted moments ofsilence followed by me making a
quip or two.
Like if my life was imaginary,you would be by far the most
entertaining for this contextalone.
I mean assumably you'respeaking my lines, but I mean no

(28:52):
, it's silence, it's just menodding my head right now.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
I can't even see you nodding your head.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Exactly all I hear is me nodding my head blank.
Noise exactly Like that is atruly funny bit uh-huh,
hopefully I actually exist yeah,for me it's like graduate soon,

(29:21):
master's programs, chattingwith profs, preparing for future
stuff, but like it's really-ythings because I don't like to
gloat about things until Iactually have them in writing,
so I'm just going to be vagueand sneaky about it.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Okay, but I do have a question for you, since you
didn't actually directly answermy question when we were texting
back and forth Nice Can youtake electives that would
directly apply towards a futuremaster's program?

Speaker 1 (29:51):
So what's interesting is I was talking with my prof
about it and how it would workis you can get electives
swatched with other schoolthings if you have like the
permission of programcoordinator level person.
But it's not that it wouldreduce or affect my course load,
because the master's is prettylocked in of like three courses

(30:11):
and then a big scale project andthen like a thesis, da, da, da,
da da.
But what you can do is say Ihad an elective that was
literature and I'm like,actually, I really want to take
this grant writing class becauseI'm a horribly boring person.
It's possible for the person tobe like okay, I'll let you take
that in place of an elective,but the other option is I just

(30:35):
do one master's program and thenthe other afterward.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Right, right, right.
I mean that kind of just makessense.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
But I was literally talking about it to a professor
that, oh yeah, if you reallywanted specific courses, you
could just ask to take thosecourses as your electives.
And, at the end of the day, ifyou have a master's in something
, let's use fake ones.
If you have a master in bakingversus a master's in cooking and
you lose your job because youwent with baking instead of

(31:02):
cooking, that's almost on you atthat point for being bad at
selling yourself, because it'slike you should be able to be
like, but it's a master's in aculinary art, right?
So yeah, I can't go intoparticulars because I'm still
like in limbo, accepting offers,negotiating, playing coy right,

(31:23):
right, but I do fully intend togo into a master's program in
the fall.
I think I could show that onthis podcast and they can
congratulate me for my successand I'm not going to give any
further information until Istart dotted and T's are crossed
and what have you.
But yeah, that's pretty much.
All that was new with me wasweighing various program options
writing a book, doing schoolassignments, having to teach a

(31:45):
class as part of a class, whichis a whole thing, having to
teach a class as part of a class, which is a whole thing, having
to teach a class as part of aclass.
So one of the classes I'm doingright now which I can talk about
is pedagogy of creative writing, which is learning to teach
creative writing to people.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Our assignment is.
They put us in a group, wewrite a lesson plan and then we
have to go find a group ofpeople and then teach them
something.
So, like, a bunch of peoplewent to their like former high
school classrooms to teach acreative writing lecture, my
group has booked a thing at alibrary to do like an adult
learner's lesson, becausethere's less chance I'll get
myself cancelled there, right,because my one F-bomb in episode

(32:22):
rule doesn't apply to sixthgraders, turns out.
I see how that works and it'slike I wonder how that works.
I see how that works.
I wonder if that's anintimidating ass assignment.
Go find a group of people andteach them a thing, good luck.
But also for, like the kind oflike master's program, teaching
assisting things you typicallyend up doing, it's like
extremely relevant practice forme, right?

Speaker 2 (32:47):
So I welcome the challenge but also it's like
then there's logistics.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Because they're not going to let you come teach when
you would normally have class,because life just isn't that
easy.
I mean they might, but that'snot how it worked out.
So it's like, with my finalfour weeks of my degree left,
what's new with me?
School work, yeah, that's aboutright.
And some game stuff that'llcome up when we get back to our
actual topic.
So lives and gamings.

(33:11):
I've prepared a statement, butI refuse to do research because
that's my day job.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
So it's like today I literally went through like 10
academic articles and wrotesummaries.
So for my podcast I'm justgoing to pull random crap and
see what happens.
I'm going to say the firstvideo game to use quarters in
place of lives was Pinball.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Was Pinball.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Pinball.
You didn't need electricityreally for a pinball machine,
but the idea was you turned acoin into a number of stocks and
then, when those stocks died,you lost the stock and that was
probably the first life ingaming, Because most sports use
a timer for points.
Instead of when you run out ofpoints, you lose because they
want the game to last longenough.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Where any game that has a coin slot, you want the
game to last exactly long enoughthat they give you more money,
right, right, I was going to saythat, or I am going to say that
old school arcades, which havemostly fallen out of style, are

(34:13):
probably the source of lives incontemporary games, because,
like you say, you turn a quarterinto a certain number of lives
and then your goal is to get ahigh score before you lose all
your lives.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
It's interesting, so I was watching a good friend of
mine do a Dragon's Lairplaythrough on Wii.
Are you familiar with Dragon'sLair at all?

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Sounds familiar, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
So Dragon's Lair was early laser disc technology and
the idea was the game playedanimation cutscenes and gave you
a quick time event of you hadto push one of four directions
or the sword button and if yousuccessfully completed it, you
either played a video clip ofyou moving to the next room or,
you like, being squished by anooze, or your flying horse
flying into a wall or what haveyou?

(35:00):
The game was literally, you gaveit money and then the game
would just be like push theright button or die Haha, you
don't get more story and buttonor die Ha ha, you don't get more
story.
And that was like its entirebusiness model.
Huh, it was literally like itwas just one quick time event
and you had to do enoughconsecutive quick time events
before you had to give some moremoney.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Hmm Interesting.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
So, like on the notion of lives is, personally I
believe lives are charatingtime for progress and some games
just do it badly and othergames do it well.
But I do think like there is aplace in modern gaming for lives
in some games, but it's changedshape a lot.
So one thing I was prepared totalk about this episode was

(35:45):
Hades.
You only get one life and whenyou die you get more story, you
get more power-ups, youroguelike, and then you go
through it again, which theroguelike is like the modern
arcade game of it's an arcadegame, but you get to actually
keep progress between each play.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Makes sense.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
But Hades still has lives.
They just have a you know deathdefiance and you keep going
from the spot.
You don't respawn from a screenbecause a lot of games are
lives.
Let you retry within areasonable distance and then a
game over puts you back to likethe start of the game, like your
mario games are the life.
Lets you retry from acheckpoint and then the game
over game overs you and thenthey're like actually not just

(36:24):
gonna say here we go again andgive you a timer to taunt you.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Well see, what actually inspired this episode
was that, relatively recently,the Nintendo Switch added Donkey
Kong Land 1, 2, and 3 to theGame Boy emulator for the Switch
Online.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Do I have you on my family plan?
I feel like I should youdefinitely have me on my family
plan.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I feel like I should.
You definitely have me on yourfamily plan.
I think you might have kickedAaron off the family plan or he
lost it somehow.
He was saying he doesn't haveaccess anymore, but I'm fine
with that.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
One of the two of you buys me things once in a while.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
That's true, because I did kick off some like random
co-workers and things off thefamily plan and I think I like
didn't know which one was hisemail address and I'm like whose
email address is this?
And I'll clean it up.
My logic was, if anyone caredabout it, they would message me
fair enough and I'd just addthem back on if there was space
anyways, um, because I don'tknow.
I need to be clear.
I need all eight slots alwaysfilled on that.

(37:32):
So I'm getting maximum dollarvalue from nintendo most it's
like I have to use every pennyof my student benefits every
term, even if I don't need moreglasses.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
It's a concept thing right, uh, but so donkey kong
land, um, you can easily find isexactly what you described,
where you have a certain numberof lives.
If you die, you can restartfrom a checkpoint.
If you get a game over, youhave to restart from the last
time that you saved, whichsaving modern modern games

(38:06):
basically hardly even use thesave function.
It's like there, everythingjust auto saves all the time.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
So on that note, like so, I've recently picked up
like every Mega man game evermade for five bucks on a sale.
It was like the X Collection,the Classic Collection, mega man
11, and the ZX Collection.
No Battle Networks, sadly, butlike the old Mega man games were
interesting because they usedlives for something really
specific and I don't know if itwas deliberate.

(38:32):
So Mega man games like to killyou to the point where on the
recent collections they quickkey map the rewind button In
Mega man 1, they're like, yeah,no, you can just use a bumper to
rewind time if you're playingthe collection on collection
mode, because who's beating Megaman?
But like how it worked out inpractice for, like Mega man X, a

(38:54):
game I really liked is if youmake it to the boss with a life
left, the boss kills you onceand the life lets you respawn at
the boss.
So it's like if you getrespawned halfway through the
level, that's kind of handy, butreally the goal is I want to
make it to this level with atleast one extra life.
So when I fight the boss and hekicks my ass, I know his
pattern for the rematch.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Right.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
So for those games it's like okay, the point of the
lives are like, how manyretries do you get against the
boss after beating the stage?
And the Mega man X ones arelike no, we're not giving you
like infinite rewind, we alreadygave you a dash button and a
charge gun, you don't need morepitting from us.
But like it's funny because theearly Mega man games I have no

(39:37):
problem using the time rewind,because I hit a Melville in
original Mega man where I gotlike softlocked myself when,
even though I could rewind timefreely, I still couldn't beat
the stage.
Yeah yeah, I needed ammo for aspecific special weapon to make
a jump and I didn't.
I had used that weapon earlier.
It's like hell sucks to be you.
You just can't beat the stagenow because we don't care, we're
normal Nintendo, get good Scrub.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
But so, like the concept of lives, I think Mario,
like the concept of lives, Ithink Mario, like Super Mario,
games are almost the only gamethat actually use lives as we've
described here.
Where it's you have a setnumber of lives, you can restart
from a checkpoint.
If you die, if you lose themall, you have to restart from

(40:26):
the beginning of the level.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
So it's like it's changed shape a lot over the
years.
So to kind of give like adifferent example is for lives
in.
Like the classic way forsomething like let's take.
Let's take dark souls.
Yeah, dark souls is when youdie your max hp is cut in path
and you have to go pick up yourcorpse.

(40:51):
But their actual life systemisn't lives, it's you get three
flasks you get to use to heal up.
So it's like instead of yougetting lives, they super
limited your healing.
And then, like Armored Core forexample, you get one life when
you die, you replay your stageit blew you up, but they'll let
you resp one life.
When you die, you replay yourstage it blew you up, but
they'll let you like respawnfrom where a life would normally

(41:13):
bring you to a checkpoint.
You just get to keep respawningat the checkpoint.
Rebuild your mech in the newArmored Cores, because new games
be like that.
But also, if a game has nolives at all, it loses a lot of
its intensity, like, even if itonly just makes you restart the

(41:37):
fight you're in, mortality iskind of important, like monster
hunter, for example, is its lifesystem is mean, because your
party has a shared pool of lives.
When you run out, you lose andthe game calls you bad.
And then you get wheeled awayon a corpse board because you
suck.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Okay, but so, like Yoshi's Woolly World and the
other Yoshi games, do you thinkthey benefit from not having
lives then, or do you think thatthey become too easy?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Wally World and a lot of Kirby games too, have a
weird thing is action platformerand collector platformer or
cozy platformer have differentgoals.
So a cozy platformer your goalis to find the secrets right and
Yoshi's Wally World.
Kirby Epic Yarn do aparticularly good job of you.
Feel smart.
They're like, sometimes they'repuzzles and some, and sometimes
they're blowing the mic to haveKirby blow on a flower to then

(42:34):
spin a gem.
But you're not really caringabout the intensity in that
situation, because the theory ofdeath isn't where you're
getting the adrenaline.
You're instead getting dopamine, not adrenaline from woohoo.
I used fire on the vines to getthe cake.
Yay'm great.
But then later stages of kirbylike actually no, your lives
matter because we're gonna haveyou fight the god of the

(42:55):
multiverse and you will suffer.
Kirby has a weird blend, soright so lives, I think, only
matter if the punishment isproportional.
I don't think games shouldreally have lives anymore at all
, like for that Monster Hunterexample where you blocked the
death laser with your shield andI died from the cold air from

(43:16):
standing behind you.
Right, the live system didn'tmake us feel good Because it's
like we're already getting lessrewards, but it's like, no,
you've just lost your time.
That may have prevented us fromcontinuing to play that game at
all.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that that was the end of our
time trying to play throughMonster Hunter 3 Ultimate
together.
Because in that game At least Ithink so yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, because that game we lost lives not because
of skill but because of gearscore.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
So it didn't feel like the worst thing was that
that was an extremely high skillmove to put up my shield, block
the ice laser and have youbehind it, and then it just
failed.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, the game was just not at our level Would have
worked in Sword Art and we'dboth still be alive and not dead
in Sword Art.
But yeah, like so for Modern.
Like I think I was telling inour geometry episode, that
triangle strategy put in themechanic where when you lose a
fight you keep your experience.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Right.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Where Fire Emblem, you just get game overed.
Fire Emblem, three Houses kindof have lives, because you can
rewind time five times in afight.
So if you lost you got torewind the number of turns.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Which is like, oh, you added lives to a game where
it was, if your main characterdied, game over.
But really in Fire Emblem, ifsomeone you like died, it was
game over because you just softreset like a little punk.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
I mean that's definitely true Super Nintendo
Fire Emblem is.
I definitely had a fewcharacter versions where I was
like no, I gotta save Scum thisbecause I like this character
too much and also like youinvest a lot of time and energy
into the relationships betweenthe characters for the second
half of the game and then if oneof them dies, it's like all for

(45:07):
naught.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
And then you need to get them to the end, to actually
see their ending with theirlike, dialogue and such.
So they added lives to it.
And it's like between trianglestrategies.
You get experience every timeor fire emblem.
You get five rewinds, becauseif you get an unlucky roll and
get crit twice and die, youwould scave scum.
So instead of having you savescum, you can use one of your

(45:29):
five retries to rewind as manyturns as you like.
It's actually like cutting downthe time boot up effort of the
save scumming you would normallydo.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
And it's also like if you use up all five and the
character still dies, I foundthat I was less willing to save
scum at that point, like, okay,I already tried this five times,
they're just dead to me.
I'm sorry.
The lore has determined thatthey don't get to live through
today and I think that was good.
But then you get to the Megaman collections, or the Sonic
Origin collection did this.

(46:00):
So the Sonic Origin collectionjust removed lives completely,
right, and wherever a life was,you instead got a coin box that
gave you coins to spend on, likebackground music and artwork
and things okay, and they justgot rid of lives because, like
no, you just restarted acheckpoint, they do.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
You think that improved the overall experience
then?

Speaker 1 (46:20):
it did because the game was hard enough that the
game was still hard, so it'slike if you die.
You went back to a checkpoint,which was already relatively
punishing, and, like the boss ofthe game, took me like 30 tries
because you had to beat twostages on the one go.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
And.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
I absolutely wouldn't have gained anything having to
occasionally, after five losses,give me a title screen and put
me back even earlier.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Right.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
So it's like not having the game over screen
meant the game could be harder,but I could practice the part I
was bad at more.
So, like Mega man, zeroCollection as well, did away
with the lives in a checkpointsystem where instead, you went
to the last checkpoint and atany time you can push a button
to warp to the checkpoint.
What was really cool about thatgame specifically is the game

(47:07):
had a system where it countedhow many times you got hit, how
many enemies you killed and howfast you beat the stage to give
you a letter grade right and ona max letter grade is the only
time you got this special weaponfrom the boss.
So the game became a differentgame.
My first time playing that as akid it was like I need to beat
this, and this is desperate andhard.
I'll use every resource I havein the collection it was.

(47:28):
I need a flawless every roombecause I get to just retry the
section until I beat it like anabsolute badass.
No, I'm getting these s ranksthat I never would have got in
the original design because Ijust wasn't that good.
Because I'm like, oh, I canmake sure to get this buzz
jumping puzzle down perfect andliterally jump, slash back, flip
, catch in the air and then dothe next chunk.

(47:50):
I'm like, yeah, no, I feelawesome in this game because I
got a like you hit points orlike I beat this boss, but if I
click the button to rewind I canbeat it better to get the bonus
thing.
So it's like that specificdesign of we give you a letter
grade based on how well you do,paired better with infinite
lives, because if you get gameovered when you die you're not

(48:12):
going to willingly die to makesure you clear the room better.
So for that game, lives were adownside that makes sense.
Because, even as I was saying,when I was playing through the
classic Mega man games, thedesign note of the lives are
like oh, you have to repeat thestage if you don't do, it was

(48:33):
only a good design note when youhad one game with eight stages
to last you a year.
Now I want to beat a Mega mangame in one sitting.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
So because I have 20 of them.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
I don't need it to be a three-day endeavor because I
have 20 of them for 20 bucks soessentially, you know what.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
What you're saying is that lives were uh artificial
way to increase replayabilitybecause, uh, you basically had
to replace stages more often ifyou got that game over.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Correct.
It's weird.
I'm not so much against livesas I'm against game overs.
So in a recent game I wasplaying Metaphor, rotefanzio,
something or other, which wasthe new Persona-type game.
That wasn't Persona, it wasMedieval, and you're on an
election tour bus that had legs.
It's a sweet RPG, great game.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
So Pokemon never had game overs.
You lost some cash and thenwent back to the Pokemon Center.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Pokemon caught on really well.
If Pokemon actually gamed youover, I don't think it would
have caught on well.
I think if you died to thatfirst badge and it sent you back
to Pallet Town and you had lostany Pokemon.
You caught between that andyour last save because in theory
, pokemon is the most save,scummable game of all time,

(50:02):
because you can save atliterally any point and just
reload people picked up on thatpretty early into the franchise
of oh, I'll just save in frontof Moltres.
You never expect to die inPokemon.
So if Pokemon had permadeath,where you just got game overed
and you had to reload your lastsave and you just died to a
random Graveler in the cave?

Speaker 2 (50:23):
you would stop that game.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
If you were halfway through Mt Moon and game over,
you'd never play that game again.
But it sends you back to thePokemon Center and you keep your
experience and you keepanything you caught.
If you had lost every Pokemonyou caught from that lap before
you died, that only has tohappen once before you give up
on that game.
So the Persona games have alwaysbeen dick move games where

(50:50):
enemies will literally haveattacks that just kill you and
then you just get game over andhave to load your last save and
the first time it happens you'renever prepared for it I was
like three hours in the middleof like the fourth dungeon,
persona 5, and an enemy justcast charm on all of my party
members, so I didn't get anyturns and I just died before I
could do anything.

(51:14):
And then it gamed me over andsent me back two hours of my
life and I never beat that gamebecause I'm like no, screw you
game.
Why, in 2024, would I need tomanually save?
So this metaphor game, whichwas like a runner up for game of
the year and most things areone game of the year for some
things I think accidentallyfixed this problem, yeah so it
looks like it was designed tonot have auto saving because

(51:37):
there's physical save points butthe game auto saved whenever
you picked an item up off theground.
Oh and auto saved like before,bosses and I think it was to
stop like a duping, glitch orsomething like.
I don't think they meant to dothis, so the game would still
occasionally just kill you frombad luck persona style.
But in a game where there'sitems in every room on the

(51:58):
ground, it would only put youback one fight at most.
Right, and I think that savedthe game, because in a jrpg now,

(52:20):
if you Right playing it.
If its original design was, youcan only save at these save
points, I don't think it wouldhave won any awards and I don't
even think they realized thatthey accidentally fixed this
Because it doesn't feel like adeveloper thought we should make
sure it saves every item so yourespawn more frequently.
To me anyway, if it auto-savesbecause you picked an iobomb off
the ground, it tells me thatwas more about not duplicating

(52:42):
the item than a deliberatedesign choice.
Right, and it made the gameimmensely better for it.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
So then, are you against replacing lives with the
save point system?
Because, I mean, it does seemlike most games have, in fact,
done away with the save points.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
I agree within reason .
So most games now justauto-save on you, which the
trick is if your game auto-saves, you can't also have save
points like if you're good atcreating an auto-saving game.
Auto-save it like Baldur's Gate.
Sometimes will be like oh, whenwas my last auto-save?
I only really save this gamewhen I go to turn it off.
Not great, baldur's Gate wasjust good at literally

(53:26):
everything else, so whatever.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Right right.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
But you have to space it and you have to understand
what's time-consuming in yourgame.
So, for example, the final bossof Metaphor, refuntazio, had
three phases After losingbecause it has a bullshit
instant kill.
Attack in the third phase, likeJRPGs are one to do for some
reason, which, by the way, justhave tech say in two turns, an

(53:51):
attack's coming, or something.
Don't just kill your entire guyoff.
That's some bullshit.
It sent me back far enough thatI ended up dropping the
difficulty to just see theending.
That's bad game design to belike oh, you fought this entire
game on this difficulty, but weare so annoying at the end that,
for the sake of time, I'm likeno, just put a save point

(54:11):
between the two phases of theboss.
Right, if you're going to givehim an instant kill, you attack
after 20 minutes of fighting him, don't.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Right.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
It's also weird game design Note.
I don't like bosses and gamesgetting stronger as the fight
goes.
It's a weird JRPG trope whereit's like no, you don't have to
get stronger as you fight, youhave to get weaker as they fight
Because then you're winning.
Like let's take Pokemon, whichis the most successful JRPG of
all time, by like a lot whenyou're fighting Lance, yeah, his

(54:46):
Pokemon get higher level, buthe has less of them because
you're winning.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
If you're fighting.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Lance and you beat him.
So instead his Dragonite getsan attack that attacks all of
your bench Pokemon and dropsthem to 1 HP for some reason.
You would just call bullshit.
Pokemon's big design note is itwas fair.
Anything the enemies could doto you, you could do to them.
That's just good game design,although most Digimon games were

(55:15):
in fact better than Pokemongames, but that's a whole other
debate.
Pokemon's put out some garbagerecently.
I don't reject my statement.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
I guess the other question is do you think that
lives do have a place in modernvideo games?

Speaker 1 (55:32):
I think they do as death's defiance perks.
So, for someone who plays gameslike Armored Core and
occasional Dark Souls typethings, and Monster Hunter
specifically.
I'm going to give you need tobe able to lose or else you're
just matching X till you win.
Like as we bring up in D&D alot, you have to have the fear

(55:53):
of death to hit that sweet spotwhere you get invested.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Right.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
And that fear of death is important, but I think
that lives have changed.
Instead of it being a life,once you retry from 10 minutes
ago and a game over restartsyour entire game.
It's moving more towards deathdefiances Like Hades' death
defiance of hey.
When you drop to zero, you getback up twice.
I think it's a better way tolives to go Right now it's still

(56:21):
you have to manually heal theEstus flask mechanic of you.
get three or four healings, thegame just gives you as a
substitute life system is flawedbecause you can still get
cheap-shotted and lose.
But having three lives whilehunting a Rathalos, for example,
means that you can screw upthree times before you lose-lose

(56:44):
and then your blood pressuregets really high near the end of
the fight.
But I'm not a fan of wastedtime To be completely wasted in
my ripe old age of 35approaching, I don't have enough
lifespan left to just waste mytime.
So the compromise now is I likegames that still give you

(57:06):
prizes when you lose.
So, some of the newer Mega mangames.
Things drop little bolts whenyou're fighting through the
stage and when you lose you keepyour bolts.
You can use those to buy extrahealth or extra lives or extra
whatever to be like.
Oh, next time I fight this boss, I now have a full heal or two
as a result of losing the stagea bunch of times.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
For Monster Hunter.
You should keep anything youpicked up in that fight every
time Because it's like, yeah, no, you almost killed Arathalos,
you should get some stuff Right,because then it kind of
undercuts it.
So my thoughts for lives islives should be instant.
Now your one-up just gets youright back up when you die and

(57:48):
your game over brings you backlike 15 minutes or so, but you
get half the stuff you wouldhave got normally had you won.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
It's kind of where I'm at.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Like in Pokemon, for example, if I were to update it
to my modern thoughts on lives,you would keep all the
experience.
If you killed five of Lance'sPokemon.
At the sixth, you would keepall the experience.
If you killed five of Lance'sPokemon but the sixth, you'd
keep all your experience andit'd bring you back to Lance,
not back to the start of theElite Four Although the boss of
the game can be a little moretricky with it and the thing is.
Gen 1 Pokemon did that, I think.

(58:20):
I think when you whited out,you still kept any experience
for any Pokemon you knocked out.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you kept any experience.
You kept any items, but youjust have to travel back from
the Pokemon Center to whereverit was that you were going to.
Then all the trainers that youran across would also still be
defeated.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah, and it wasn't that far between these points.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Not usually no.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
I think in modern game design I wouldn't really
change Pokemons.
I think Pokemon had it.
Although this Monster Sanctuarygame I was playing recently,
your punishment for losing afight is you lose the fight and
then you'd have to refight them.
You just heal the full outsideof fights and you can switch out
your roster whenever you want.
Right, and they're like we madethese fights hard.

(59:05):
But what happens if I lose thefight?
Literally nothing.
You just exit the fightanimation and you can just leave
, Go do something else, or youcan try again if you want and
I'm like yeah, that's prettymuch perfect design.
They also have platforming withno punishment other than you
fell and you have to try and dothe platforming again, which I
think is the perfect punishmentfor a platformer again, which I

(59:26):
think is the perfect punishmentfor a platformer, I suppose so.
Well, like even modernplatformers like let's take
Donkey Kong or Mario Falling ina pit being instant death almost
goes against some of their gamedesign.
I would have it like if youfall in a pit, I would have you
respawn next to the pit and likelose some HP or shrink to
little Mario, because instantdeath just isn't really a thing

(59:47):
in games anymore.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Well, yeah, but then, like you say, with cozy
platformers, it's like there'sno.
I mean, I guess you're lookingfor a different rush because,
like you say, you're looking forsecrets rather than for
precision platforming andfeeling awesome that you

(01:00:10):
completed a difficult task, butalso then it becomes like when
something is difficult, how doyou reward the player?

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Well, that's the trick, though, is it's about
making the difficulty come inbursts now.
The trick, though, is it'sabout making the difficulty come
in bursts now.
So if we look at some of thesemodern platforms that did really
well, like Super Meat Boy orCeleste or even Metroid Dread,
to a certain extent, is you'reonly clearing one screen or one
room, or like four rooms linkedtogether at a time, and those

(01:00:41):
rooms are hard as fuck.
It might take you a hundredtimes to clear that room, but
once you're through it, it'sdone, it gets.
That is a much betterdifficulty curve than you clear
a hundred rooms and you die inroom 99 and have to go back
through all a hundred of them.
So, you can absolutely givesomeone infinite lives in a
platformer and give them thatrush of intensity.
You just have to make the thingthey have to do match the

(01:01:03):
challenge.
Like you make it that the bossis a big enough badass and
you're like yeah, I get infinitetries to do this, but if he
hits me three times I'm justdead and I have a butter knife
and he's Sephiroth, I betterbring my A game.
It's funny because the hardgames, like the Mega man ones, I

(01:01:24):
like to reference becausethey're recent, fresh on the
memory.
I was fighting the second lastboss on Mega man 11.
And I'm like okay, I have like10 lives stocked up, like 10
full heals.
He's like cool, I turn intobricks, fly across the screen,
fall down from the screen, grabyou and throw you into lava.
I'm like okay, all right,you're not going to make me

(01:01:48):
replay the stage because Ibought a bunch of items from
like giving me things.
Nor should you have to becauseI have to fight.
Like I think it's Mega man Zero.
Infinite lives is fair whenyou're fighting a falling space
colony and the boss merges withit and you're fighting him
during atmospheric reentry asthe space colonies trying to
punch you to death.
Like you're like okay, duringatmospheric re-entry, as the
space colony's trying to punchyou to death.

(01:02:08):
Like you're like okay, eventhough he has to hit me ten
times, he has so much weaponagegoing on.
It's the Dark Souls tactic.
Like Dark Souls, youtechnically have infinite tries,
you just lose stuff, Right.
And the newer Dark Soulsactually have, like the save
spots more frequently placed.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
That makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
I think Citation needed.
So yeah, that's where I'm at.
The idea of the old-schoolplatformer getting game over and
replaying everything justdoesn't vibe with me anymore and
like save states just aren'taesthetically pleasing Like.
I'd rather just the game, justhave sensibly placed checkpoints
.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
But as a side side note I'd mention that the game
that that put me onto this topicwas donkey kong land.
Um, I, uh, I, just I reallylike donkey kong land, nostalgia
from when I was younger.
I, I think I probably played itwhen it came out, which was
like 1994, 1995 you know I lovethe classic game boy graphics.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
By the way, before they got colored, just the green
on black, I don't know why, itjust makes me happy well, I had
the game boy pocket which hadthe uh, the darker black and
then the lighter background.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
I kind of like the game boy pocket personally, more
nostalgic, uh, but both reasons.
The original game boy had moreaccessories.
So I I traded my game boy to mybrother for for my game boy
pocket to my brother for hisgame boy because he had the
accessories.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
And then years later he told me that he traded it
because he accidentally peed onit you know, I'm not even gonna
follow that up with a comment,I'm going to just let that go.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Anyways, I beat original Donkey Kong Land 100%
without using any internet FAQsor walkthroughs.
I knew I could do it.
I did it as a kid.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
That's me with Mega man X.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
I was a little bit disappointed because that game
in particular, apparentlyexcluding game overs, it only
took me like just under threehours to complete.
I was like, hmm, I really likethis game and lives are supposed
to artificially increaseplaytime.
But, dang, I didn't realize itwas that short.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Well, that's the thing.
Like Mega man, games are liketwo hours long, if you're good
at what you do.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
But also like it's weird because you know I love to
give rants that video game devshave gotten lazy in a lot of
ways and a lot of games justaren't actually that much better
because they don't try and upthe scope, much Like Mario
Wonder's.
Like look how fancy this is.
I'm like why does it have lessstages than Super Mario World
and why don't they branch andwhy does it have less power-ups?

(01:04:58):
It's like, well, no, it hasmore.
It really doesn't, though, andthat's like the thing is yeah
every Mega man game is eightstages, unless they feel like
being saucy with it and maybethey'll throw in some
intermission stages, Right, andI'm like yeah they just kept

(01:05:21):
making the same game because itwas doing good.
Fair enough If I were to make anew Donkey.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Kong game.
If I'm like make Donkey.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Kong Land 4, you mad lad.
I would definitely switch outlives with checkpoints.
I would absolutely have bananashops more prevalent where you
could buy power-ups and upgrades, so if you fail a stage you can
exit and get new stuff, and I'dmake it have more levels than 1
through 3 combined.
I'd probably include as bonusstages every level from 1 to 3

(01:05:47):
as hidden unlockables.
It's like you could put theentirety of every Donkey Kong
Country game in a new DonkeyKong Country game if you wanted
to okay, well, just random sidetangent it is what we do here.
when I talk to the silence, whenBye tangent, it is what we do

(01:06:09):
here when I talk to the silence.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Firstly, maybe you actually know games that have
done this.
But what if, instead ofdistinct stages, you actually
had one large stage that wasencompassing every other
distinct area?
That would have been a stagebefore.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Yeah, they're called Metroidvanias.
What are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Is that really?

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
You don't have distinct stages.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Oh yeah, okay, metroid Dread.
Metroid Dread was pretty fun,so I always have.
I was just imagining a DonkeyKong game that would use a
Metroidvania-style app.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
I guess I have mixed feelings on Metroidvanias, so
the last Metroidvania I reallyliked was that Monster Sanctuary
that broke into Pokemon fightsinstead of actual Metroidvania
fights.
The problem I found withMetroidvanias is they usually
design them to have a lot ofbacktracking.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Like by design.
But also, what I like about theMega man game stages is each
stage is distinct and, as I waskind of saying, where I'm like,
I like the perfection of jump inthe air, cut a thing in half
dash, shoot it, kick up the walland throw a lightning bolt at
an armadillo.
The run-based of oh we do theseeight separate stages has a

(01:07:32):
certain perfectionism quality toit, where the Metroidvania is a
more methodic, slow and steadystyle game, just kind of by
design.
Say, we made a MarioMetroidvania which I'm sure
people have in the moddingcommunity Billion percent chance
.
Part of the novelty of SuperMario 3D World and what made it
so sweet is each stage was sodistinct that it was like, oh, I

(01:07:57):
liked Super Mario 3D World morethan I liked Odyssey Odyssey.
It would have been really easyto make it the 3D Metrovania,
aka the open world, breath ofthe wild all you'd have to do is
link all those zones togetheraround a globe right right
like it wouldn't have actuallybeen hard and I'd bet money that
the switch 2 is going to havethe first open world mario game

(01:08:20):
just feels obvious at this point.
But there's a certain value tolike doing the stages in a
vacuum that I like.
So it's like if you want DonkeyKong Metroidvania, you
absolutely could.
I don't know if it wouldscratch the itch for me.
I think I'd rather like goDonkey Kong ton of stages,

(01:08:43):
branching exits and make it likejust a massive web of stages
branching exits and make it likejust a massive web of stages
that's true.
That is one thing that DonkeyKong doesn't have a lot of,
which is branching stages orlike like the Metroidvania
Donkey Kong game would beinteresting, don't get me wrong,
but I think for that to work Iwould need characters to be what
you unlock and set powerupslike a normal Metroidvania, like

(01:09:04):
you'd like.
Find the Diddy barrel and justhave Diddy and be able to swap
to him for the rest of the gameand go through your gas that way
.
Because, the Metroidvania designis to reuse areas on the map.
You have to have new abilitiesto come back to them.
If you wanted to more pull afire on them.
Each stage is just attached.
You'd have to either make themopen swirl, like you'd have to
either make them open world,like you'd either have to make

(01:09:25):
them Metroidvania, where youdouble back with new power-ups,
or it'd just be like one really,really big stage, because if
you weren't going back to oldareas and it weren't non-linear,
then you're just making onesuper huge stage.
I don't know how I feel aboutthat.
I don't think I'm against it,but I do find that breaking up

(01:09:46):
gameplay styles is my personalvibe, like in.
Mega man Zero.
Between the stages you'd goaround the base.
Talk to the mooks for a bit,upgrade your stuff.
I think the camp is animportant part of Monster Hunter
.
Like a Monster Hunter, that wasjust.
Oh, you go out here and yourgoal is to kill all 50 monsters
while you're out here at once.
I think it doesn't vary thegameplay enough.

(01:10:07):
I kind of like the catanimation of cooking the meal
and breaking up.
I love the painting of thegunpla.
It'd be a way to break up theaction stages, although the last
Gun to Breakers.
Stages themselves are mediocre,but that's just a different
thing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
Well, I mean, I think we've gone on enough tangents.
Maybe it's time to find out.
The random question of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
If the concept of left suddenly ceased to exist in
all forms directional,political, metaphorical what is
an unexpected consequence thatwould ripple through your life?

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
The concept of left.
Hmm, so you would be unable toturn left.
Hmm, so you would be unable toturn left.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
Thankfully, three rights is a U-turn.
Hmm, Well so I'll start with mea bit, if it's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
So I can't do Eft and Rive anyway.
Directionally, stay the same.
I would love it politicallybecause the analogy is too
fucking simplistic, because thenpeople would actually have to
list their platforms instead ofjust putting it on an
arbitrary-ass axis.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Right right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
As an unintended ripple.
We just lost axes.
We can go X and Y accesses.
We can go x and y but we can'tlike.
We oh man, that's rough humanslove putting things into grids
and we've lost the ability.
We have curves but we can'tlike sort as arbitrarily left
and right things.
I hope it would just make usmore complex.

(01:11:45):
Life forms like we'd evolvebetter, even if we have to do
three right turns to actually gothe other direction from now
till the end of time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Hmm, the concept of left, but not the ability to.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
Thankfully the Earth's, so we're fine.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Well, no, I'm just like thinking like uh, we in in
English, we read from right toleft yeah, so we're switching to
kanji well, yeah, like are wegonna have to start reading up
and down?
Does that mean, yes, that, uh,each page can only contain one,
one line.

(01:12:27):
Because you can't go right withthe, we're going to do the
arrival thing with theseptipoids where it's a circle
and you read it non-linearly.
Ooh, you read it in a spiral.
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Oh man, controllers.
The Wiimote becomes a superiorcontroller yet again.
You know, I think Mario is fineas a game.
Somehow in this scenariothere's no reason to ever go the
other direction.
A surprising number of games.
You would just play them asnormal.
That's kind of shocking howmany games from the Super

(01:13:05):
Nintendo era are fine.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Okay, so a surprising ripple of not the concept of
left disappearing, or maybe notsurprising, but lefty loosey,
righty tighty.
We wouldn't be able to open anyof our sauce bottles at work.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
So I love the visual where you have to like stab the
top of it with a knife to likebreak the seal.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
Either the bottles are no longer resealable or we
just can't open them.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
I'm loving that we've replaced all bottles with soda
tadpoles All of them Just andthen start pouring out your
pineapple.
That's the exact kind of dumbconsequence I'm sure they were
looking for.
Oh, this last one.

(01:13:57):
Remember this question, andthere's a disclaimer here don't
be racist.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
If colors had legal representation and could sue for
how they've been historicallyused or misrepresented, which
color would have the strongestcase and what would its argument
be?
Note we're talking primaryrainbow colors.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
Which color would have the strongest case for how
it's been misrepresented?

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Yeah, so immediately, immediately.
I am representing red Becausepeople are like anger, stop
displeasure, blood.
And I'm like tomatoes,strawberries, fun Christmas.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
Nah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
Red is like such a soothing, cinnamon, happy color
that has been co-opted by thewarmongers of the world.
They're like red is intense.
I'm like pink isn't even acolor, it's just chill red just
chill, red, it's like pink.
You just have to move thesaturation slider, you get light

(01:15:05):
, blue and blue.
You don't just go from blue toblink.
Man, this law case, I'm like Igot Red's back here.
We are suing.
So much for slander and damages.
Although, because it's you, Icould just be like representing
Orange and suing the crap out ofyou for just hate crimes.
You're like pumpkin is somebullshit.

(01:15:27):
Both the fruit and the pie Beapple or be nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
I do have a disdain for the color orange, but colors
could sue, hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
I feel like purple has a pretty good case against
the French.
Laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs,laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs,
laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs,laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs,
laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs,laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs,
laughs, laughs, laughs laughs,laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs,
laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs,laughs.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
The color white and the color black, both because
when you're looking at colortheory, you can have additive
color theory or you can havesubtractive color theory.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
You're on such a thin razor's edge right now.
We don't need lives to makethis exciting.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
The point is that black as a color isn't really a
color, it's just the absence ofcolor.
It's a placeholder for amonumental placeholder for a
lack of information, visuallylike light information, but then

(01:16:47):
you know, in additive colortheory it's the combination of
all colors, and so I thinkthere's a lot of legal merc
there about what exactly blackis and what does it actually
represent Because it's.
Is it nothing or is iteverything?

(01:17:08):
And if it's I don't know whatkind of legal.
And then the same thing forwhite, where it's like, in
additive color theory, white isthe absence of color, uh, where
in subtractive color theory, uh,white is the presence of all
colors, right, like.
So it's like I think there's a,there's a lot of I don't know

(01:17:28):
exactly what you would sue for,uh, but the misrepresentation of
what they actually are, I think, would have lots of legal
repercussions if they could sueto go the exact unintended
direction where whoever sent usthis question did not want me to
go.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
White has such legal grounds to sue because human
beings are not white.
No person born on this earthcan you hold up the color swatch
of Snow White 00000 hex code oris it FFFFFFF hex code and have
it match up human being.
That person is dead.
They are deceased.

(01:18:03):
They're either deceased or havea podcast.
Either way, they're not aperson so like in the color
ceiling.
It's like nuh, uh, you're beige, fuck right off.
That is my use of the F-bombfor this episode.
I stand by it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
I think that's your second one, actually, but that
doesn't really matter.

Speaker 1 (01:18:30):
I just thought I'd get away with it.
I really hope at least onelistener and possibly Aaron
after I reinstate him to thefamily plan, after we update
that information goes through itand counts the F-bombs to see
if it was one or two or three,because at some point I just
ranted about Bort for no reasonand it's entirely possible I
snuck one in there.

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
Ooh yeah, it might be three.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
Oh man, do I hate Bort.
They're doing a Final Fantasyfight where three people are
standing in a line on each sideand bouncing.
And with that, thank you fortuning in to Richard and Carl.
Percent deep space and dragons,where we talked about lives and
gaming, we talked about brunothe dog, which I don't actually
know if that went anywhere uh,brutus, brutus, thank you is the

(01:19:18):
dog brutus and pixie.
I don't think we actually wentanywhere with that.
I think you're like and on thatnote, webtoon, I'm like it's
funny because we did a fullepisode of.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Webtoon.
That was the segue.
It was anti-disastroushumanitarianism to Korra, to
Brutus and Pixie, pet foolery,to Webtoon, to Paranoid Mage, to
Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
It's just so funny on our podcast to take that route
when we were already at webtoon.
Right, because you're like,that's how I ended up on webtoon
, that website.
You guys did a two-hour episodeon two weeks ago and it's like,
yeah, but you also just havethat tab saved, like yeah, no,
no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
The.
The actual point was theadmission that I don't use this
for facts, because I said thatParanoid Mage, which I read on
Webtoon, was a manhwa, when infact it is just an adaptation of
a North American book seriespower on his sword to then prove
to his mother, to then smashthe sword against Inuash's sword
to give Inuash a better swordso he can then get his actual

(01:20:31):
sword in his arm back.

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):
It's like such a journey for nothing to have
actually accomplished anything.
Such a journey.
But yes tune in, follow us.
I don't know, maybe buy my book.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
I'm kind of hesitant now I don't know any books or
anything to plug, so, uh, ifyou're gonna buy a, buy a book,
you should probably buy hisalthough also you can check out
my globe and mail piece.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
That was actually pretty good bye, that's true.
I get nothing for that,literally nothing, nothing.
In fact the Globe and Mail mayget something, so I made
negative dollars.
But whatever, I thinknewspapers should exist so we
can continue to get the funniesat least.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Newspaper funnies.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
Honestly, maybe that's when I should have got my
master's in just newspaperfunnies and brought them back.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
That'd be pretty funny.
That's literally where I cutbrought them back.
That'd be pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
That's literally where I cut off the episode is?
It'd be pretty funny.

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