Things discussed this episode:
- 04:13 Final Fantasy
- 06:01 Breath of Fire 4
- 06:28 The Last Ninja
- 06:40 Simon’s Quest
- 12:33 Dice Invasion
- 12:49 It’s Kind of a Fun Story
- 13:39 Gloomhaven
- 23:57 The Outlast Trials
- 34:40 Resident Evil 4
- 35:22 Diablo 4
- 35:53 Hogwarts Legacy
- 37:26 Jedi Survivor
- 37:51 Final Fantasy XVI
- 38:22 Tears of the Kingdom
- 38:40 Sons of the Forest
- 39:30 Spider-Man 2
Matthew Visyak 0:00
Hi. I’m Matthew Visyak and basically, I play video games as a hobby. It’s been a hobby that I’ve had since a young age. And currently, I’m not sure if I would consider myself a gamer. But I certainly do play my share of video games. And I find my niche in completionist games and trying to find every single thing and up the challenge of the standard game to make it interesting. Like, I’ll try to find some different goal off the beaten path and try to pursue that I originally created my YouTube channel just to kind of share my accomplishments, and to kind of make a forum. So in some videos, people will communicate with me and maybe we’ll propose a different challenge, or a way to make the game harder, I started to become a part of a community to write different guides on different games, I have a couple of guides that I’m writing now I mainly look for older games that aren’t necessarily represented as much as the newer games. So kind of the hidden gems off the beaten path. Or I’ll submit certain things to the community, I find that it’s it’s a very vibrant community. So you really have to have your, your, you know, I’s dotted and T’s crossed whenever you talk to them, because you’re dealing with experts, you’re dealing with people that have actually hacked the game, you know, got the guts of the wrong to support their claims. So it’s more than just simply going out there and, you know, spitting whatever knowledge that you want, you have to make sure that you backup your claim otherwise, people will, you know, call you on it.
Introductory Guy 2:02
It’s time for an adventure in the worlds of user experience and game design. On season three of the design thinking games podcast, join old school UX years and aspiring game designers Michael Scofield, Tim Broadwater, and an array of quirky characters from pixelated heroes to mischievious NPCs in search of the ultimate player experience, design thinking is a process that is applied to different types of games in this podcast, if you’re wondering whether your favorite games have already come up, you can listen through the backlog at design thinking games.com. Now rapid Frodo by fire that design thinking laser.
Tim Broadwater 2:47
This is amazing. So there’s, and you guys are drawn to do this, like you just want to roll Yes, you want to challenge yourself?
Matthew Visyak 2:55
Well, once you once you go through a game, and I’m not gonna say become an expert at it, but you kind of master the game itself, you get all the nitty gritty details. And you start looking into some guides that people have written and you find that there are pieces left out or you found a different strategy that works better against the boss, I am inclined to share with the community. And now I have this forum. Growing up you would have to just write on a piece of paper and have your own little briefcase of maps and all that me it sounds a little obsessive, but we did not have all this knowledge that our hands whenever I started this way back in the 90s
Tim Broadwater 3:42
Yeah, so what is I would say, you know, you have a lot of videos 1000s of subscribers, and then you have tons of views, I would say what is like the most what would you say of any of the videos on your YouTube is that your is the most accomplished or that you’re most proud of?
Matthew Visyak 4:04
Um, I kind of like my no death long plays. I’m particularly happy with the Final Fantasy solo character quests that I’ve completed, in particular, the white mage, which you’re really relying on the luck of the game to make it happen. Now
Tim Broadwater 4:27
This is like for people who most people probably know what Final Fantasy is, but what is it and what is this no def run you’re talking about?
Matthew Visyak 4:36
Well, it’s just a solo character run to where usually you’re able to pick a party of four characters to walk through the game. And here I had chose to just pick one single character no supporting party members and take him throughout the entire game. And through the ending without upgrading As class, there is an option where you can upgrade the class to turn your fighter into a warrior. I chose to forego that just to make it as difficult as possible.
Tim Broadwater 5:10
And this is a nonstop playthrough.
Matthew Visyak 5:13
I just record the ending, because if I did the whole entire thing, people would be probably bored with the grinding. In some cases like the thief, you had to kind of really farm the stats from the level up. If you didn’t get that particular random level on those harder to, you know, harder characters to level up, then you would have to reset the console and try again.
Tim Broadwater 5:40
So how many? How many game guides or facts or wikis or walkthroughs? Have you made and how many challenges do you think you’ve done? Do you know?
Matthew Visyak 5:51
Oh, as far as guides, I’ve drawn a bunch of maps for worth a fire for that was the best because you’re talking about a game that has a three point perspective and the rotating camera. So there’s no way to really screengrab it unless you want to keep the camera situated. But with the angles, I found, it was easier just to hand draw these. But to answer your question I have, I think 20 or so, game maps up there. Mainly for the last ninja, and Breath of Fire for and I have a couple of side quest guides for a breath of fire for and Simon’s Quest. That was actually the first one I made.
Tim Broadwater 6:39
Was it Simon’s Quest? Yep. When did you make it?
Matthew Visyak 6:43
When do I make it? Or? Yeah. Oh, shoot, I would say, maybe a good four or five years ago?
Tim Broadwater 6:51
Yeah, I love Simon’s Quest. I always remember as being like, I’d be in middle school or high school at a friend’s house on the weekend. And we’d be up like late like two in the morning trying to figure out like, what do we do? How do we riddle and like, what’s in this manner? Like, it was always just like, it was like one of the ones to where you needed to have some type of guide or something that says no, you need this object? And then you hold that object over this place, or then you have to go here. And yeah, it’s kind of hard to do, I guess ever since there’s been games, there has been game cards, right?
Matthew Visyak 7:28
Oh, yes and what drew me to that one was the fact that if you remember, right, there was a weird leveling up mechanic to where, after a certain level, only certain enemies will give you experience to the next level. I didn’t try and in trying to locate where those work. So I painstakingly went through to find out what enemies level up. And I even took it to the extreme of saying, Okay, you can hit me this may times with the leather whip, this may times with the chain whip, in order to figure out, you know, how many? What, I guess, pseudo hit point value that they add? Oh, wow, that’s crazy. The weird thing. Most people assume it, it ramped up in binary. But I was able to find out through proof that some of the bosses do not have the amount of hits, think it was 256. They were saying that they had in reality, I think at truncata 255, I would have to look to get the exact number. But it was something that all the guides seem to have gotten wrong. And I was just amazed to learn, wow, if you go through this insanity, you can actually get to the bottom of it.
Tim Broadwater 8:44
This is cool. And so the best way for if people want to like get in contact with you is that through like your website, or through the YouTube,
Matthew Visyak 8:53
Probably for through the YouTube a little bit better. I used to have formed through the website. But that was before I knew how to really protect myself against spam. And I just kind of put out the email in plain text. And obviously that didn’t go well. For anyone that enjoys any type of video game challenges, long plays. I don’t I do not put narrate my own narration on it. That’s gotten me I guess in the trouble with some copyright from time to time, but what are you going to do? But I would encourage them to go ahead and check out my YouTube channel. That’s mev1978 V as in Victor 1978. You’ll find me on there.
Tim Broadwater 9:40
Alright, thanks for being on the show.
Matthew Visyak 9:42
No problem. Thank you for having me.
Tim Broadwater 10:04
What are your thoughts about the season? Like what we did had accomplished for season three?
Michael Schofield 11:23
Man. So this season is we’ve talked a lot about a about this kind of like offline. But this is a hands down our most professional season yet. It’s my favorite season to work on is it’s my it’s funny, because I think it demonstrates and this is a UX principle. But it just demonstrates that it doesn’t really matter how long your product has been around, it evolves and take shape. And I I kind of feel like it’s taken us three seasons to figure out what design thinking games feels like and seasons four, or five and six. And so to that end, we began and we’ve joked about this, like, we were going to be not an interview podcast. And then we just did an entire season of interview podcasts. But those interview podcasts, those interviews that we ran, were like fascinating things. They were super good man. And they’re in the collective like umbrella feeling like I get a gift from this. And we talk to different people at all different stages. I’ve been watching you and I have been watching dice invasion with like, like as fans but also in awe of her marketing and her design. And then you have folks like Connor wake, or Dan Scalise, who have produced and published you have folks just kind of like across the gamut. And, you know, kind of a fun story is going to be on like shells, you know, and that’s also fascinating to watch. My big lesson is that, hey, we could make a game you could make a game it’s not that
Tim Broadwater 13:05
You can make a podcast you can make a game you could run a conference we know people
Michael Schofield 13:10
It’s empowering Yeah, it was really cool to see like Hey, I do all this and I just a Forrest Gump to my way into it and, and you know that I forced to come to my way into adulthood, you know, and it’s just one of those things that you you look at people who have produced something that’s like, really high fidelity, whether it’s a video game or like a really dope, like the assets have like a really dope board game something like gloom Haven that’s just kind of like oh like bananas to just like hold and this little starts with just like, you know, a handful of people sometimes just one person like saying I’m gonna make that thing
Tim Broadwater 13:51
I agree my lesson this season is like year one was very much about process and working with each other and seeing trying a lot of different things and to was even more trying a different stuff and then realizing, hey, we don’t have to stick to this long podcast format or schedule we can do short we can do long, whatever and then three I agree. Like I feel like we’ve just like let’s have fun with it. Let’s do a cat drama let’s let’s do some interviews. But then like let’s also focus like I love the ad swapping like some of the cool stuff from like, ghost wax and then
Michael Schofield 14:32
critically stupid there’s
Tim Broadwater 14:36
some really good like cross ad so I think it’s a very happy with how this season turned out. And I think going forward and maybe even smaller, but more Pat punch and I think that’s this season, we went smaller, but had more fidelity, more entertainment, more cool stuff and just put together in a cool way. You know,
Michael Schofield 14:56
Well, we went smaller, but I think we actually produced more content than ever in terms of like length variety of content production of content.
Tim Broadwater 15:05
Because we went modular Yeah,
Michael Schofield 15:07
Yeah, exactly. And then I think I think the other big takeaway is like Design Thinking games as an act of networking, right? I feel closer and more a part of even if I could like I even like updated my blue sky profile to say armor chair guard game designer, you know, remember how design thinking game started and I hope the stays and for our listeners we were like, we we don’t have like game we don’t have like the credibility of like an IGN behind us or whatever to say like, oh, we are awesome game reviewers but what we do have is the credibility of being UX and so we were like, you know, you know Who Plays Games UXers well now that like Design Thinking Daddies I think, like, I think you know who you know who loves game design? Bears?
Tim Broadwater 16:01
Is Design Thinking Daddies, so thing? Is everything like a real thing we’d
Michael Schofield 16:09
like it’s not really I just kind of like
Tim Broadwater 16:12
season two we’ll have an actual play podcast, White Wolf World of Darkness. called design thinking daddy’s just throwing it out. This is our chatGPT Michael, the actual Design Thinking DILF bill and the gay Daddy Bear or muscle Daddy Bear or whatever.
Michael Schofield 16:35
Yeah, and together we make Design Thinking Daddies, like that, like look like, you know, when you and I were like that, like Pax unplugged this is this is now like, Hey, I people I hope you enjoyed our like eight or nine episodes of interviews and an audio drama. This is back to basics here. So when we were in Philadelphia, we basically realized that Tim was like literally like two feet taller than me. But we’re basically that same person if you saw like, like twins with Swartz Nagar and Danny DeVito, or whatever, this is basically us. And like, you know, night like my, my wife calls me Little Bear for a reason. You know, so like I, I’ve got, I’ve got the broad shoulders. So the design thinking daddies, I think is our next marketing ploy.
Tim Broadwater 17:22
Yeah, either a chat TPT drama, another spin off podcast, or actual play podcast, which I’ve heard actually increasingly, since Dungeons & Dragqueens and Real Housewives of Dungeons and Dragons and dungeons and dads, design thinking daddy’s being or even a game studio design thinking daddy’s games or something. Whatever, man. Well,
Michael Schofield 17:43
Look man, we know that we know Nick Fink plays the whackDungeons and Dragons. Oh, please. Look, man, I think the criteria is clear. Right?
Tim Broadwater 17:54
What are we comfortable sharing about games, I feel like we’ve learned from our guests in the past that you kind of want to have especially Connor and Breeze and some other guests is like you need to kind of have a couple games that you’re developing, like a library that you’re kind of working on, like products. So think of it as like small products, I would say that comfortably. We have three or four games between the two of us some combined some individual,
Michael Schofield 18:25
I’m actually pretty happy and pretty comfortable to start sharing, you know, like I must, I’m gonna say, like, I think we have the benefit of being in like, whatever the bubble is of not being popular enough that no one’s gonna really come in and like steal our steel, our potatoes. Exactly, you know, we are a fan of horror. And you know what, like, to me, this feels like the kind of game like that that blade brothers and Dracula would like get behind, you know, so, so. So we’re making a vampire game and kind of like an eldritch librarian game that, that both have very different playstyles. And, and one we’ve played tested a few times at a conference. And we have a tabletop virtual tabletop version of it, that we’re going to go back into play testing, we’ve actually iterated on that one that most. And the other, this is the kind of
Tim Broadwater 19:20
tested, like two of them have been tested.
Michael Schofield 19:23
So now what I really love about what Connor said, is like, Hey, you will get to this point with a game and you just put it in the bucket. And at some point we’ll come back to it or whatever but but again, these are these are games that were dovetailing deeply into kind of like our our horror fandom.
Tim Broadwater 19:40
I think I can I would support what you say to these four, even if they’re play tested a lot in play tested the decent amount. And these have been play tested with game developers. And, and then the individual games that we think maybe have some feels that it still plugs into this, maybe just darkcore gothicpunk I feel sorry, I now cannot get it out of my brain Design Thinking Daddies Games, i
Michael Schofield 20:08
Ya, it’s kind of perfect.
Tim Broadwater 20:10
Even though those are in a prototyping stage, I feel like we feel like there’s some stuff here. I’m very positive about it. And I think what we could speak to is the plan is to, you know, kind of play, test some of these, some cons, and get them maybe do remote play testing, refine them, first, do some digital play testing, or doing local with your friends and family, because it sometimes means easier to invite friends over and just do it that way, as opposed to recruiting people online to do digital play test, but I think we’re actually just gonna do it, oh, it’s gonna be a matter of necessity, and then try to get stuff at con soon. And the goal being to like to just get to that first published game, because I feel like it once you do it, you know, it’s possible. And then already, we’re improving our processes. So,
Michael Schofield 20:59
Yeah, well, one thing I might just address is like, well, what does this have to do with like Design Thinking games like the podcast and all that it’s like, Well, I think what we’ve, what we have emerged from is the podcast is providing just basically like a, like a season of research that we are sharing with all of you. We learned, I think, a ton. And we, even before we had him on the podcast, you know, we’ve learned a ton from like Dan Scalise, and Kahnawake a ton from like dice invasions, just watching her process, that kind of a fun story team are, like fascinating to watch. Like all of these folks have, you know, not in the spirit of like I was having actually consulted with them or not, but have by talking to them have inspired changes to our process, given us hope, where we’ve needed hope. And, you know, give us some like ideas that now what we’re going to do is basically a season of the show. And then we’re going to do a season of Game Design, and whether or not a game merges and whole from that season. I don’t think…
Tim Broadwater 22:10
Our library will have advanced.
Michael Schofield 22:11
Yeah, we’re Yeah, exactly. We’re dedicating the time and then we’ll return to a season to kind of, you know, we’re going to consume, and then we’re going to produce, consume, create. And this is kind of like the cycle of what we’re, what we’re doing here. I say,
Tim Broadwater 22:58
This is the way
Michael Schofield 23:03
This is the way.
Tim Broadwater 23:28
We have a season challenge for Outlast trials we both got it. It’s an online version of Outlast. It’s kind of the fourth game in the series. I logged OMO over 20 Some hours into it and got to the point where it’s like, I think I’m good with this game. I’ve played it enough to where but it’s also like not in full release. My understanding is a test or beta or something because at a certain point, the four or five there’s like three levels four or five for each level. But then at some point it just loops and repeats and you’re just doing the same things with added difficulty and then they get in the mega trials are the x trials it’s the same quest again, with even more difficulty.
Michael Schofield 24:36
That’s right. Yeah, it’s technically and technically in like early access when you look at steam at the moment we’re we’re recording this mid July.
Tim Broadwater 24:45
Yeah, so I will say enough to where I’m keeping my eye on it. I love the game solo or with other players. I’m waiting probably like most people to be like good great love to play it waiting for more levels to drop more story to drop, You know?
Michael Schofield 24:59
Yeah. like so. So let’s talk kind of like talk like about our experience. So the TLDR of Outlast trials of that. And we’ve we’ve did this in episode one of the season, but the TLDR is that it is a prequel to the Outlast games, which were kind of phenomenal because their gameplay was basically that you as an investigator could not fight back you snuck around you had a little video camcorder with limited batteries. And you were in an asylum or like you know, things like this and you had to hide and the hiding in the dark. It was intense, especially when you’re out of batteries. Yeah, well and all this trials is in the same vein, where like you and now like up to like three others I think it’s like a four four party calculator but
Tim Broadwater 25:51
Yeah, and I never had a problem finding a game I always search for a party and I always got into a group so this shows me that’s a decent player base you know,
Michael Schofield 26:00
I think it’s a great player base. The the red is actually pretty alive which is which is pretty cool. And the whole idea is like you you as a team have to complete these like level challenges that are set the Outlast world you don’t want to get caught by the bad guys who are kind of lurking around being crazy. You You sneak Yeah, hide and then you have like some like class based like powers that are limited use that lets you escape and do other stuff.
Tim Broadwater 26:28
I don’t know which one you went for it but I wouldn’t health and maxed out health.
Michael Schofield 26:33
Yeah, so you you got way further than I did. So with that being like the TLDR your review is pretty positive. Like this is like this is up your alley, right? Because you you play a lot of Dead by Daylight. Yeah,
Tim Broadwater 26:46
The Stickler stuff is like what I’ve mentioned, which is basically with it being an early access, which is like really only two three killers crazy character. I love the ones they mother gooseberry. With. That’s a doctor, it has a drill in it. And then the crazy electro cop and heat shock. groin and like crazy. And then the kids and all this. I love it. Yeah, I just want more. I just want more. And so that’s just really loved Early Access, maxed out my health to where I could heal myself. It recharges quickly I heal my whole party and it creates a STEM field. So if I’ve ever done like a boss is on me or about to get beat by the boss but one of the killers I can hit it and it heals me as well as stuns them and lets me get away. So very positive reaction to it. What about you?
Michael Schofield 27:33
Yeah, the Oh, I I enjoyed my experiences with you and the couple of strangers so like, what I hear my inner my positive things. Like the gameplay is like a lot of fun. The the, the the levels and like the the world let’s call it world design or whatever. It’s just like, it’s so good. It’s so batshit and like, disturbing. My favorite is the one where the I don’t know, like you have to like save the kids. Like save it like save the kids in the orphanage or whatever. And I love that because specifically there’s like a thing where they’re like jukebox dancing around like some dude who’s crucified that you have to like saw and half and and it’s just so oh
Tim Broadwater 28:17
Oh my god. It is like Outlast bananas. Yeah,
Michael Schofield 28:20
It’s the story is good. I think the classes are kind of fun. The one I chose was like, I like I wanted to be a sneaker and a rogue. So I have the one that lets me kind of like see through walls, right a little bit. But I found that that’s a thing. Yeah, well, like, from what I understand from like, Reddit is like, that’s the lamest class. My big thing is that I…
Tim Broadwater 28:44
What was your negatives
Michael Schofield 28:46
My chief negative is that I don’t love playing with strangers. So I actually thought the lobby was really quite good. It just throws you in there. You could decorate your room you could like and you could do that. But like I had like some sort of thing and I don’t know how you design for it. And maybe you were like, unless I like was in a party with folks like I wouldn’t do it and so I played a lot on my own and playing solo is too long of a time commitment for me for the kind of player time that I have. Levels are super long.
Tim Broadwater 29:22
I played a bunch of solo it’s usually 45 minutes to 50 minutes to get through each level. I think once I learned how to play like when I was learning I died all the time like okay, that’s the thing I follow the chords I know what I do I need to keep hitting this button so I can see the active quest to do each level with solo within 4050 minutes before that though, yeah, you’re talking like oh shit took me two hours to get through this thing. So but I didn’t know what I was doing. You know?
Michael Schofield 29:51
That’s where I think I am I don’t think I’m like super good. The other thing is like I play the game like my favorite like first person sneakers like the original fee. fineness remake and desoldered and stuff where I’m trying to ghost it right and like, so I sneak from shadow to shadow. And so with my particular like gameplay, and I guess like my aversion to, like my kind of like stranger danger. Like I like for me, it was never, I always had more anxiety, like playing the game than not, and not from the game itself from like the act of like, oh, like I want a party, but like I don’t really know anyone who’s playing. And so that was my big, which I found was an interesting, like, social commentary on me. But I logged you log some 20 hours, I think I logged about, like 10 hours like playing 10 to 15 hours. It’s totally awesome. And it’s definitely somebody’s cup of tea. But it’s not mine. It’s not like, it’s funny. I love playing with strangers and like shooters like how that loose or whatever. But like there’s something about like this particular that yeah, I don’t
Tim Broadwater 30:55
That’s interesting, because as you know, I play DBD as I play Alien Fireteam Elite, I played Predator Hunting Grounds. I’ve played this I played Friday the 13th. So I play a lot of online MOBAs games that are like this that are horror themed, right? We’re even ACS or so I just think I, I get it’s, we’re in software, I guess it’s kind of hard to think about, like, when we’re feature releases, where’s the content? Like, come on, come on in, you’re like, we just got it out the door, you gotta give us a second. There’s only 10 devs on our team. You know what I mean? So that’s it was mine. I loved everything else about it, though.
As the listeners may know, last year, you know, we were doing a Patreon and if you support us on Patreon, you got the episodes ad free and early, which was cool.
Michael Schofield 32:01
Anyone who has been like listening with us from season one, and who will enjoy season three, know that we are iterating a lot. And one of the big things we’re iterating on is like what we’re spending time on was really like a whole interesting episode or like side thing about like why we chose to back off Patreon. But we backed off Patreon. We love it. If people would donate to us,
Tim Broadwater 32:24
please head over there and support us and be like, we’re going to put some content stuff there, but it’s not going to be exclusive.
One of the things we always talk about is Game of the Year. We have kind of a low F which makes me wonder total tangent. There has to be a board game of the year right? Because I know that there’s a TT RPG of the Year because starfinder When When it its first year it came out. So we should probably expand this going forward to where it’s like not just best video game of the year, but then also board game and TTRPG. But speaking to video games, the big ones that I’m aware of, like kind of Zelda tears of the kingdom. Final Fantasy 16 Resident Evil four remake Star Wars Jedi survivor Hogwarts legacy. Those are the ones that I Diablo four. Those are the ones that are the big ones that I see. Do you have any thoughts or and and stuff as there still could be stuff that comes out?
Michael Schofield 33:44
Yeah, I, I find that it’s funny. Like I was looking at this list. So. So I’ve actually put here’s, here’s what I’ve played. That’s actually that’s actually finding that’s actually on these lists that I’m kind of like surprised. So I haven’t played any of the ones that you’re that like the world has been playing. I’ve been I’ve been playing I’ve been kind of going back into my library, but that’s not totally true. So So of the ones that I’m seeing I’m just waiting I’m looking at IGN as best reviewed games of 2023 as like kind of like a list and I’ve read a lot of these just I’ve never heard of any of them and contention for Game of the Year
Tim Broadwater 34:21
It’s very much a year of sequels and remakes sequels Straight Street Fighter six legend himself yeah evil for I’ve heard nothing but good stuff everyone’s like if you don’t play any Resident Evil Remake play Resident
Michael Schofield 34:38
I want to play four. Yeah, so So I was I was just confirming that System Shock was originally made now this is back in like the late 90s I think by Looking Glass Studios and Looking Glass Studios is my favorite game developer of all time, because they made Thief. Thief The Dark Project thief. Metal age thief three you nonsense and things like that before they were able to dissolve so I played System Shock and it was like it’s truly like a sound a remaster. It is a a remake, like all like all new graphics, you know, like they fixed a lot of the voice acting and it was like phenomenal.
Tim Broadwater 35:14
There’s so many good sequels coming out like Diablo four, you know?
Michael Schofield 35:20
Well Diablo four like yeah
Tim Broadwater 35:22
resonable four remake Street Fighter six sequel, sort of Jedi survivor. I don’t know much if I played any original games and the only original game aware of is Hogwarts legacy, which everyone lost their shit about like Elden rings level lost their shit about because everywhere it came out there were hacks and people were like, I got the killing curse and this is how you do this is how you can transform into an animal and other people like and I get the IP the fandom right?
Michael Schofield 35:52
Right and Hogwarts Legacy is going you know is going to make game news of the year right because there was this whole boycott and then it just kind of show like the success of the game just sort of demands a demonstrated the the utility of that boycott.
Tim Broadwater 36:06
Can you separate the artists from the person? I mean that whole conversation…
Michael Schofield 36:10
The perinial you know, the perennial or existential question. I played Hogwarts legacy because I’m a fan of the IP I played it on the quiet I didn’t support or review it.
Tim Broadwater 36:21
Game of the year nominee?
Michael Schofield 36:22
Hell no, I mean, like Hogwarts legacy is not a great game. And then anyone who says otherwise is like batshit crazy and they haven’t played enough. Hogwarts legacy is fine. The story is fine. The customers the customizability of like this large open world is fine. The openness of the world is fine. What it is, is a lot of wood, the wizarding world IP and you can and you can cast spells and, and it’s fun.
Tim Broadwater 36:51
I wondered that about survivor it is the Star Wars fandom but it’s also a new story that takes place kind of after six but before well after three but before for now. Right? I my criteria is kind of this. I only have two criteria. That is I guess the last thing I want to say about it is if I keep playing the game, meaning I don’t actually put it down that it’s enjoyable and I play it I want to play it. That’s the best criteria for me. The second one is did I cry? Those are my video game criteria.
Michael Schofield 37:29
That it’s narratively powerful?
Tim Broadwater 37:31
Yeah, I cried during stray when that poor cat at the end. It’s just really good. It’s good. And then I cried Legend of Zelda tears of the kingdom. It is a beautiful game. But I also cried at Star Wars Jedi survivor and Final Fantasy 16 Amazing Stories like really good Final Fantasy 16 is so guttural and raw and blood. It reminds me more like of Walking Dead than it does of the final fantasy genre. Because how they’re punching and the tragedy and then does and that’s you keep going and that kind of feels. So I don’t know. But I would say I would say I’ve everything I’ve played so far. To me. It’s gonna come down between Star Wars Jedi survivor and Legend of Zelda Legend of Zelda tears in the kingdom. And I had to vote now I would say tiers of the kingdom. Not because of the hype, but because it’s good. It’s really good.
Michael Schofield 38:34
So the game that came out this year, I guess other than Outlast trials that like I played a lot. I played a ton of like Sons of the Forest. But that was so buggy. I can’t I can’t recommend it that like like I played when
Tim Broadwater 38:46
That’s a pretty popular game that came out. I know some people who play again, I see it but
Michael Schofield 38:51
I and I enjoyed building a fortress and then then I got tired of it after about like 15 hours, 20 hours. And then I know they have a ton of updates. And I’m kind of done. So this is sort of for me it’s the bane of early access. Like I played it too early. I got my feel I’m done. Maybe it’s a whole lot better. But until then, like you know did I care about the story now? Like did the bugs irritate me?
Tim Broadwater 39:16
The last grenade I’m gonna roll in under the door right before it closes like right in the crack. And I hope it does because I played the first one and it is amazing. What comes out in October is Spider-Man 2 and Spider Man one game of the year. The Miles Morales it’s amazing. It’s it’s super hot right now. And I did see like at Comic Con. They just did another trailer drop. I don’t know if you played Spider Man.
Michael Schofield 39:47
I played Spider-Man Yeah, yeah, just recently. Yeah,
Tim Broadwater 39:52
So Spider Man two drops in October and it’s part of me secretly hopes and it kicks everyone’s ass. You know?
Michael Schofield 39:57
Well, that’s what happened with like, I don’t know Like with with a movie that came out i i want more Spider Man I want more spider verse maybe then I want like spider man or whatever but like the IP is refreshed for me because of the movie
Introductory Guy 40:16
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