Get Played with Roman Mars and Ben Brock Johnson

In anticipation of the release of Hidden Levels, Roman and Ben join Heather Anne Campbell (Rick and Morty) and Matt Apodaca of Get Played to talk controllers, culture, and why video games might just be running the world.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Roman Mars?

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• 0:43Roman Mars?

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• 1:26Roman Mars?

  engaging, exhilarating, and rewarding experience for drivers. That craft isn't always something you can see, but it's something you'll feel: that flutter in your heart, the engine roars. Every Acura is designed with deliberate intention around how people actually use the vehicles. And that is precision-crafted performance.

• 1:49Roman Mars?

  Hello, beautiful nerds. I am so excited about our new mini-series, Hidden Levels. It's a six-part show about how video games left the arcade and started reshaping the real world. We made it in partnership with WBUR's Endless Thread, and it's co-hosted and created by Ben Brock Johnson. The show launches wide on both the 99 PI and And endless thread feeds on Tuesday, October 7th. But if you're already a serious XM Podcast Plus subscriber, the first two episodes are already waiting for you right now. Ben and I wanted to get the word out about the show to video gamers everywhere. So we went on the great Get Played podcast to talk with hosts Heather Ann Campbell and Matt Apodaca. And it was such a great conversation and they were such gracious hosts

• 2:33Roman Mars?

  that we wanted to share that conversation with 99PI listeners. You'll hear about how Ben came up with the idea for the series and a sneak peek at some of the things that we'll be covering. And as the kids say, a whole lot of new Roman Mars lore gets dropped. So if you're ever curious about what I was doing from around 1997 to 1999 and what it has to do with video games, stay tuned.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  All right, well, Heather, why don't we introduce our guests?

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Okay, Matt, let's do it.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Okay, from the podcast 99% Invisible and WBUR and their new series, Hidden Levels.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Hidden Levels, what could that be about?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Well, I'll tell you, it explores the impact of video games on modern culture. It's Roman Mars and Ben Brock Johnson. What's up, guys?

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Hi, guys.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Hey. Hey.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Welcome.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Nice to see y'all.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Welcome to the show.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Welcome, welcome to Get Played, the show. This is like, we're actually, we're doing the show in a very serious way now.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  We sound so professional.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  And normally, none of this tone is present.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  No, no, everyone is like, this is false.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is not true.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  This is not.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  There's an artifice here.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Matt and Heather have been replaced with AI.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  They've got like just avatars doing the show.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  I was just sitting with my fingers like laced.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  In the hand.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Little, uh, Gendo from Evangelion.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  I was being Gendo from Evangelion, get in the robot.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Roman, get in the robot.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Uh, thanks for being here, you guys. So you guys have a new podcast series that's coming out. You said the street date was October 7th. Why don't you tell us a little bit about Hidden Levels?

• 4:05Roman Mars?

  Go for it, Ben.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  All right. Well, Hidden Levels is something that I started talking to Roman and his team about about a year ago. Wow. And it came out of this thing that I was seeing and look, this is gonna be a statement of the obvious for you and your audience, right? Like, video games impact the world beyond video games. Hell, yeah. And I think it's it's one of those things that people who are in gaming and who play video games, they know, they see it all the time as they walk through the world. They see things that they recognize as coming from their culture and the world that they inhabit when they play games. But I think a lot of people who don't know video gaming as well, or don't play games, don't see that stuff and don't recognize it as easily. And, you know, I've always been a huge fan of Roman's show. I make a show about the internet called

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Endless Thread for WBUR, this public radio station in Boston, and always been a huge fan of Roman's show. And Roman's show, which Roman will introduce better than me, is all about the, you know, the architecture and design in the world that you don't see, but is hugely important and has an impact beyond its creators. So it just kind of felt like a match made in a video game dungeon, and we went from there.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  It's neat to hear you say that, like, video games have become sort of like ubiquitously infused into culture, because there was a time in certainly our lifetimes when that wasn't the case. And now you will see video game language on like a billboard. You'll see things that say like, "Level up your workout." And leveling up was once a thing that was in an instruction booklet for Super Mario Brothers. Like, you would have to be like, you'd have to learn the vocabulary and then understand it on your television and tell your friends at recess. And now these are just, they're sort of like permafrost on reality now.

• 5:58Roman Mars?

  Yeah. I mean, they're really, they're, they're almost mundane and everyday is part of the thing. They're not like notable. And that's sort of what, that's where the bailiwick of 99% invisible. It's about, you know, the design that is part of the built world that becomes so ordinary, doorknobs, sewer.

• 6:15Roman Mars?

  Covers, you know, like, you know, and, and, and all of a sudden, like, looking at them deeply and going, oh, there's a story in that. Like, somebody made that a decision there and they designed something and we're interacting with it every day. And video games are just ripe for this because the way that they've infiltrated, um, you know, real life and, and back and forth. And they communicate and it's just, it's, it's huge and it's rich. And we had, you know, we have six stories in this series, but there's like hundreds more like we could possibly do.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess so. So there's, it's a, it's a six episode mini series, right? And so there's six different stories. Do they all sort of like follow like a similar trajectory? Do they intersect in any sort of way or like, are all these things kind of like on their own island as, as far as like impact?

• 6:59Speaker 03

  I would say like, it's a little bit of both.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  You know, they, they, I think we found in making the series that they, they led into each other really well, you know? We have an episode about a very famous, uh, sports game that I think the sounds of which you will recognize. And, and, you know, the way that story ends, um, with a boom shakalaka, shall we say?

• 7:24Speaker 03

  You know, had us, had us starting to talk about, um, interestingly enough, just joysticks and, and, um, the ways that we control these games. And that leads into a story, for instance, about, uh, about the hardware that we use to control these games. And how that hardware has itself influenced all these other parts of the world that are not specifically or exclusively about gaming. Is that Roman? Would you say that's fair? It's not serialized, but it's.

• 7:48Roman Mars?

  You can, you can listen to each episode on its own, but because the world is so connected, you know, like they, they kind of talk to each other. And it was, it was becoming clear as we were putting them together, like, oh, this is the right order to, to speak, you know, to speak about them. And, you know, just, just because it, you know, like it.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:03Roman Mars?

  It set up those connections kind of nicely.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Right. Like you're, you're talking about controllers. Um, like I think before video games, people used to have to fly planes by pulling these different ropes.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  And then they saw the joysticks and they were like, you know, this could make flying a lot easier.

• 8:21Roman Mars?

  Stay tuned. Episode two, you're going to have the full story because we, we trace Emery likes traces the whole like evolution of a joystick. Part of the plane is involved, you know?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 8:33Roman Mars?

  War games are involved.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Well, I was gonna say it's, it's interesting that airplanes was the thing that you, you, you pegged there because I was just thinking based on. Using a video game controller and like playing games where you have to fly planes or like, you know, flight simulator or even like, you know, the Rogue Squadron, the Star Wars.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, flying game. I kind of think I could fly a plane. I kind of think I could just do it having never tried it.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  Matt, have I ever told you the story of me flying a plane?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Uh, I think you have, but you have to tell, uh, you have to say it now.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  I was in, I was in Wisconsin and they have those like, you know, like roadside, like get in an airplane that a farmer owns and he'll take you on a quick.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  I mean, I've never seen that myself, but I, I understand.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  If you go deep enough into Wisconsin, there's like, you know, the guys who have crop dusters and they're like, you know, 20 bucks for a ride. And so I got into one of these planes and was like flying around. And the guy was like, do you wanna, you wanna fly the plane? And I was like, yes.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  And so he let me fly the plane. And then he was like, hey, you're pretty good at this. Crazy thing to learn while letting somebody else fly a plane. And I was like, yeah, I've played a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator. And he's like, yeah, it's kind of the same thing.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  I mean, those Microsoft Flight Simulator, uh, like folks are for real.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  I feel like that's, that's, that's a very, it's close to the real deal.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. With like a full rig? Yeah.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, the full, the full rig. I hear, I, I will say, as, as much as we like flying, uh, planes with, with sort of like game input. I've heard that, uh, game controllers are really bad at submarines.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I heard something about that too, actually. I can't remember what it was, but I sort of do remember some story. I think if I'm remembering the details correctly, a submarine was involved.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  I'm not sure it was the controller's fault in that situation.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  It certainly wasn't an airtight vessel with no escape.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Couldn't have been the reason.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  There would have been some other science there.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  At all, yeah.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:37Roman Mars?

  But it is fascinating and I love the story that we do about controllers because and there's a couple of other stories that we have in the series that talk about this too. And I think Roman said this earlier. These things are talking to each other, right? Like you have this, you have this piece of hardware that's really created for an actual massive mechanical machine that people use to traverse the real world.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:01Roman Mars?

  And that inspires then a digital world. And then that then again goes back and inspires the real world. And I think that's the thing that's really fascinated us when working on this series.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  That's really cool.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Was there anything, I mean, I guess without spoiling any like sort of particular story?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  No, I mean, just tell us the top five moments of your upcoming series.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Just like, just give us all.

• 11:24Roman Mars?

  I mean, Heather, you sound like you already heard the second episode. So, you know, I don't know. I think somebody leaked it. I don't know.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  I guess, yeah, was anything in particular like particularly revelatory to you? Like where you like upon learning something, you just like never would have even considered like this, like, you know, like a video game being that impactful in the modern sort of world at all?

• 11:45Roman Mars?

  Hmm. Wow, okay. Well, there's a lot for me. I mean, I thought that the, I mean, what I loved about the joystick one, since we were talking about it is I, you know, I cover design a lot. And so I think about the principles of design and there's a, there's this, there's this concept of affordance, like what a device, you know, kind of telegraphs what you're supposed to do with it just by looking at it essentially. And so a joystick has an extremely just grockable affordance. Like you know that when you want to go up, you push up. When you want to go down, you push down. You like, and so there's that, that sort of thing. And then, you know, in the world of flat screen touchscreen games, there, you know, a flat screen has no affordance.

• 12:28Roman Mars?

  Like you can do anything with a screen and it becomes like less fun to me, you know, in many ways. And so there's things like this, like the principles of design that we were able to drill down on that even though I've done a show about design for 15 years, like I've never really had a good example. To describe that to an audience, you know, like,

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:45Roman Mars?

  And so when we were talking about it in editing and it was being reported out by Amory, like, you know, like, we were able to discuss this and, you know, bring, so it's like, it's, it's just like, what was fascinating to me was how fundamental, both like, you know, story and thought and theory and design, all is, is part of all video games. And it should be obvious because, you know, video games, because, I mean, they are completely designed from the ground up. There's no part of it that you're like, there is the earth that I'm going to build on and therefore I have to deal with the earth. The earth is created by somebody's mind. The,

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:17Roman Mars?

  The air is created by somebody's mind. And so everything is thought of. And because of that, there's so many avenues to explore because everyone made a decision about every pixel inside of a video game.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:27Roman Mars?

  And that is really, that was just like lit me up in sort of every story in so many ways, because it just is like, there's like, super smart people making decisions and thinking about things. And you just, and what's great about it, and this is where the 99% invisible part of video games is you don't necessarily have to feel the author. You just feel immersed. And that means that they're doing a good job in a lot of ways.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  This is why I particularly enjoy animation over live action is because there's so few accidents in animation, like so much of it is just curated choices of design and intent. And that's also a lot of video games, although now there's a lot of emergent play that isn't particularly the designed purpose of the game. Right. And that sort of stuff will like float to the surface. I had a side question, which is, you talking about the, um, looking at an object and knowing what its purpose is. Um, and I think this is probably maybe something you've talked about on your podcast before, but if it isn't, I'm super curious. What is, what do you think are like, what is the most, how do I put this?

• 14:35Speaker 02

  What's an object that you think is very poorly, not a touchscreen, but that you look at it and you don't know what it's supposed to do, and it's supposed to do one thing? For example, when I look at a carrot peeler, I am absolutely not thinking.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  That's so that I can scrape it on a carrot.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  I was gonna say pickle picker upper. So like, I feel like we're in the same headspace somehow. You know, those things where you like, you gotta like.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Like it's a tong?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  It's sort of like, it looks like a syringe on the back end and on the front end, it looks like one of those claws in the gaming, in the actual, you know what I'm saying?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  I actually didn't know that that was what that was.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Today we learned.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  I thought that was for like a turkey. I've seen that in a kitchen and I didn't know. I also say.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  They're like scratching her back with it.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Picking my pickles.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  I, I also think, and this is not because this, that our show is for and made by stupid people.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Toilets are not, like, they don't necessarily say what they are.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  You wouldn't necessarily know that you have to do that.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Right. Cause you wouldn't be like, oh, I should go over there and empty into the water.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Like you would, you would look at it and you would think, is this a kind of bathing apparatus? Do I put my foot in here to clean it?

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Or you see water and you, if you had not, if you would just be like, I'm gonna drink this.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, my cat thinks that, my cat thinks that.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Roman is there?

• 16:09Speaker 03

  If the toilet has 40 buttons on it, it's, then it gets really dangerous.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  And you know, I'm gonna push all of them so I can learn exactly what the buttons do and then be horrified by the results every now and then.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Just like the elevator. Yep.

• 16:22Roman Mars?

  I, I think the sort of plurality of smart devices have terrible affordance and you don't know how to use them and you have to read, you know, like instructions on how to get them. And one of the things that makes things, I mean, like, I would argue, not to disagree greatly with the carrot peeler thing. If you had a carrot peeler, I think you'd quickly learn that it peeled, you know, like you would see it and go like, here's one handy. One way or the other. One way or the other.

• 16:51Roman Mars?

  But, but, but like, I like to think about this as like, you know, you know, when you, you know, I think everyone's had this experience when you've lived in a house for maybe 20 years and you still don't know which knob goes to which burner on your stove.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:04Roman Mars?

  Like, that's a type of weird, bad design that is like, it's like, you shouldn't have to think about it, or like, if you have a bank of light switches and you, you have some kind of mnemonic as to which socket it goes to. Like, those represent, you know, design fails and, and I think a lot of us take those things on as like, I'm so dumb, I can't remember what light switch goes to which socket. But really, those are bad design decisions and they, they don't represent, you know, they don't sort of like, exhibit good design that would, that would sort of like, you would normally have to set that up so you wouldn't get confused and that's the way to do that.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  So, would you say that in terms of video game design and then real world design, that your interests lie in more skew-morphic design choices? Or are you, do you find that trying to translate, like, looking at an icon for a tape recorder on a screen doesn't tell you the story that you are supposed to push that button in order to make the recording start? Because also, you're, you have dissociated so much from what a tape recorder is? Like, what, how would you, do you have a way to make game design better?

• 18:11Roman Mars?

  Yeah.

• 18:13Roman Mars?

  Yeah, I honestly don't. But, but I mean, I can tell you, like, you know, I think that these sort of, you know, these, these kind of things like skew-morphisms that, that sort of lead people, because they, because you know the real world analog and therefore you know how to do them inside of a digital space, you know, they have their role, especially during the transitional phase of, of getting used to a digital space. But I think at this point, there is, like, there's no point in putting like, an analog, you know, reel to reel in front of. My kid on Icon and have them have that make sense to them. So like that, I think that design language, you know, just evolves and changes over time for sure.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  And maybe, maybe this is a different kind of thing when we're talking about design. But I, one thing that I'm amazed at, you know, I'm, I'm 45, right? So like I, the first games that I played were arcade games and Nintendo games. And I remember games that were, they took forever and so long to figure out how to use, how to like move the player, how to move the sprite, whatever. And just like, um, you know, I think of a game like, well, this is a new example, but like Cuphead, if you know that game.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:20Speaker 03

  And like that, I don't think, I think I've still not made it past the first level of that game. Like that's a hard, that's a hard game.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  But it's sort of, I feel like it's calling back to some of those games where you, you just really, it didn't sort of push you forward. The game didn't pull you forward in the way that games do now where like you're immediately immersed in the space that you're playing in and you're just getting these directives one at a time. Like, like press X to pick up the gun. You know what I mean? Like there's a, there's a way in which the game is communicating with you as a player that is, I feel much better now than it used to be, where they used to be kind of like esoteric and hard to get into in some ways. And now it's like, it's kind of dummy proof, some of the way that the games communicate with you as you like move into the environment, if that makes sense.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  You, sorry.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  I was gonna say so much literacy for video games in general comes from your, uh, like predetermined knowledge of video, you have to like, I don't think somebody could pick up like The Last of Us 2, for example, having never played a video game before and be like, this is easy to me because there's so many things you'd sort of do have to know, like, uh, that the left joystick moves your person and then the right joystick moves your field of vision. And that's like, you're sort of learning to sort of pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time, kind of with, with some of these things.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, like if you know how to play a video game, chances are you're gonna know how to play a different video game pretty easily, right?

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. There's also a lot of vestigial stuff that has just become the vocabulary of games. Like, for example, there's ammo in barrels.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  And it used to be, well, but, but, but I like, if you look at like that-

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Which is not real life, by the way. That's not how that works in real life. The skeuomorphism there is-

• 21:09Speaker 02

  But it but it comes from a time when you're playing these side scrolling fighting games and there isn't a lot of information on screen and perhaps you're walking through a city and there are trash cans rendered in pixels on the on the screen and so you know, oh, I can punch those trash cans. And when you punch the trash cans, sometimes you'll get a food item that will help your character get their life back. And so you'll punch a trash can and a turkey will come out and you'll be like, oh, I can I now I can get better.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  But all of that legacy has then gone all the way to effectively Last of Us Part Two.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Where you're like smashing shit in the environment to try and find ammunition for your character.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Oh, good medicine.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  In a way that you absolutely never would interact with reality.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  And all of that is sort of um, an assumed knowledge on part of the developers that is then, you know, like, you can't, like, people can watch any movie as their first movie tech, like, generally.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  It.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Sure, some that probably shouldn't be your first movie.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  But you can, you don't have to, like, there's not a ton, like, dogs watch movies now. There's all the TikToks of like, people like dogs watching The Lion King and under and following it. And I'm like, how does that?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Are they following it?

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, because they they.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  They're like getting the, they're getting Simba's arc.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  They are definitely getting Simba's arc because when when, who's the Scar? Scar? Scar's on screen, they'll bark at Scar because he's hurt somebody earlier. So the dog is following it. And I'm like, how does the dog understand what an edit is? How is it? Like, the lion is over there and then the lion's over. Anyway, all this is a digression to say that.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  Nine out of 10 dogs hate Scar. That is true.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  That is true. They don't.

• 22:54Speaker 02

  Well, I got lost.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  He Scar a cat. Scar's a cat.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, they all hate.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Dogs don't like that.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  They hate all the lions.

• 23:05Roman Mars?

  Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see, contact limits for who can contact them, and time management tools like daily time limits and sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts, and teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. This episode is presented by Air France. Air France Business Cabin offers comfort from start to finish. Enjoy priority check-in and boarding, followed by access to peaceful lounges.

• 23:50Roman Mars?

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• 24:34Roman Mars?

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• 24:54Roman Mars?

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• 25:30Speaker 01

  Let's get into like your histories with gaming in general. We got a little bit of Ben's there, but let's get into it just a little bit deeper. Where are you guys at with games like today, I guess is a good jumping off point.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's your rank in Fortnite?

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Man, barely survives five minutes. I mean Fortnite, my experience in Fortnite, Fortnite's one of those games where I can, I think it's gotten better at matching, right? Like I used it when I first started playing Fortnite, and maybe I've gotten better too, hopefully, but when I first started playing, it was like two minutes of me screaming and then starting over. Do you know what I mean? Like I was just like running and hiding and then starting over. I will say that I put, you know, really my gaming is these days about connection. I really like talking to my good friends across the country who I don't see anymore. You know, they have their own lives. I have my own life. They, you know, they're

• 26:29Speaker 03

  parents. I'm a parent. So one of the ways that I connect with them is we play games together and we learn the lore together and we, you know, we spend a couple hours every week doing that. And that's really wonderful. And it's really, it's really less about the grind and more about talking to each other. And, you know, we've basically had group therapy sessions, you know, talking to each other as we've gone through life challenges. And, and a lot of what we do these days is a sort of second screen activity. Are you doing a couple of things at the same time? And, and I don't know if that's bad or good, but I just know that like my buddies and I, we talk every week and that's, that's

• 27:07Speaker 03

  meaningful to me. And so I play Helldivers, I play, we just started playing Diablo 4. We played like every Sniper Elite because one of my buddies is just obsessed with sniping and that's what he loves to do. I played Generation Z. I liked that game a lot because of the crafting and just like moving through that sort of post-apocalyptic fighting robots world, which is, you know, that's a classic trope and it works. But mostly I just do it for fun. I mean, we've tried to play weirder, odder games, but we have a kind of split. Half of the group is like, I just want to shoot guns. And half of the group is like, no, let's do something weird and interesting with, with, with games. And so sometimes we

• 27:52Speaker 03

  fight about that. But generally it's for me, it's just a place to connect and a way to connect and blow off steam.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and Roman, am I correct, you're a bit of a lapsed gamer, would you say?

• 28:02Roman Mars?

  Yeah, I don't know if I was ever really a gamer as such. I mean, I don't do much gaming today. I kind of do passive like tower defense type games when I'm listening. I have to listen to a lot of of audio for my job.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:17Roman Mars?

  And so I need something that doesn't really require good timing, you know, that is something I can do while I'm doing something else. And so I love tower defense games and I play some fitness games like on an Oculus because I like to box and stuff like this.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 28:30Roman Mars?

  And I injured my back boxing for real when I punched stuff like solid things. Oh, sure. Is it a trash can? Were you trying to find a turkey in a trash can? No, I wish, but there are no turkeys anywhere. I've tried.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Just wait a couple of months, there's gonna be turkeys everywhere.

• 28:49Roman Mars?

  That's true, that's true. So I love like supernatural. I love like doing stuff like that. It's pretty, it's pretty fun for me. But my history is strange. You know, I was involved in the development of some of the first voice chat in gaming in the 90s.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:05Roman Mars?

  And so I had a friend who I went to college with and he developed this app called Roger Wilco. It was a standalone application that was behind your Baldur's Gate or your Doom or your Tribes. And it ran on a 288 modem. It was super clean and beautifully done. And I was the first QA tester for the company. And so I played a lot of early multiplayer games like that. And in fact, selling that, it's funny, it's like selling that company is what paid for my three-year internship in public radio that led me into being a podcaster.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:46Roman Mars?

  Wow, I didn't know that. Talk about learning the lore. Cool. So yeah, so early, so I used to test games. So I played games like hours and hours with Roger Wilco running underneath it just to see if it works and if, you know, all the technology works. And that's, so that's what I did for, you know, like mid, late 90s, yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Do you, from that time, do you remember a game? That you were like this, I like, it didn't feel like work, kind of that you were like, I'm actually enjoying this one.

• 30:12Roman Mars?

  It's tribes. I was, I was a sniper in the renegade mod of tribes and I could come on to a, a server and I could clear it. Cause I just killed, I just, I would just annihilate and people would just leave as soon as they saw my name show up. And I began to have to like come in with different names so that they would play longer. But yeah, if anyone knows tribes, that was like, that was, that was totally my game. I would get into that one beyond.

• 30:40Roman Mars?

  Mendel, I was a genetics PhD student, so I went by Mendel, usually men.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  If you're, if you're this good at sniping and you don't come on as Mendel, I love the moment on a server when people are like, oh shit, Raspberry Ghost is Mendel.

• 31:05Roman Mars?

  Excuse me of cheating and stuff like this. It was really like.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  I'm just good.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  You could be Mendel. Uh, I want to, because I also, uh, I love to box. I'm also a boxer. What is your, uh, VR boxing app of choice?

• 31:23Roman Mars?

  I do Supernatural. I like that one. Cause I like, I like the music. It's me. So it's not, and I've done, what is the fight for? I don't know. There's, there's another one that's actually a video game game, like that where you have an opponent. I've played that one too, and it wears me out. That's great. And, um, they're mainly like fitness games. They're not so much like, or fitness apps. They're, they're not so much just like a boxing game so much. Yeah. Yeah. But they're probably gamified, right? Which is another example of how the world changes. Or the video game world changes the, the, the other, the rest of the world, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, it really helped. It really is motivating for, for sure. And you know, teaches you, you know, patterns and stuff like that. And it's, it's good. It mainly just sort of gets me moving. I don't quite have the constitution to sit and play a game anymore. I kind of.

• 32:07Roman Mars?

  I just like, that's just not how I'm wired anymore. Even when I watch TV, I walk on a treadmill most of the time. And so, um, uh, so fitness gaming is sort of my, my version of just like moving and playing games at the same time.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  The, the, to the tower defense aspect of, of your gaming though. I don't play a lot of those games though, but like, I could see like a game like that being a good second thing you're doing while like, you know, listening to, uh, you know, uh, I, uh, have edited my own voice, uh, for a long time too. So like to whatever's getting me focused on not hearing my own voice and, uh, you know, uh, how horrible I sound when I, when I speak, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll enjoy another, uh, activity as well. But I get, I get distracted because the things, the games that I pick are gonna be like, like, like Hollow Knight Silk Song or like Elden Ring or something where I have to be so focused on the actions of what's going on.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  But like a tower defense thing, it's like a set it and forget it type of thing. What's the appeal for your, for you there?

• 33:09Roman Mars?

  Yeah. I mean, it's basically that. It's like you can, you, there's a little bit of timing involved usually as it gets to the upper levels or, or whatever. But, but like your precise sort of, uh, you know, metroid style timing is not required, you know? And so, and so it's just sort of like, you have to kind of be a present. And I just find that it, it actually kind of helps me focus because I can drift listening. I have to listen to hours and hours of people talking like in terms of like raw tape of people talking. I listen to a ton of podcasts and I listen to a lot of books on tape, uh, in quotes for my job to prepare for interviews. And, um, and I used to do this when I, I worked at WBUR, sorry WBUR.

• 33:49Roman Mars?

  I worked at WBEZ in Chicago and, um, and I used to sit at my desk and one of my jobs was listening to audio documentaries all day long. And I sit at my desk to play Solitaire and people would walk by and like, I actually had like a manager sort of make fun of me, like complain that I was playing, playing a game all day instead of doing my job. Um, and it was like, I need this to do my job. Like I am listening to this stuff and if I was just listening, I would doze off. I would not, I would lose focus and I, so I started using games then to sort of like to, to sort of keep my ears open actually.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  I've only ever been able to play video games at one job. I guess if you don't count this one. But we don't play video games when we're doing this. We could, we should. It'd be more interesting for us.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  I mean, people are constantly asking us to do the thing that you're saying right now, which is, why don't you guys livestream your games? And it's, for me, it's that speaking while gaming is almost impossible.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Like, I can't, I can't play a guitar and, and talk. Well, I can't play a guitar.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Another avenue of perception too. I just don't need it.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  Terrible.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  But I, I worked at a, I worked at a restaurant in their office, uh, taking, uh, reservations. Uh, and so it was a, a nice Michelin star restaurant in town. I'll say where it was afterward. Um, and I would-

• 35:07Speaker 02

  Burger King.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  It was at Burger King.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  And, uh, I had just- Yeah, I was with, uh, uh, who was that? The chef's name, I think, is, uh, Peter Pickle or something.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  But I, uh, I would bring my Switch to work and like, I was like, I'm really testing the limits of what I'm allowed to do here, I think. Cause this, I'm very obviously playing a video game, but my job is to answer the phone and put in a reservation on a computer if somebody calls to make the reservation, right?

• 35:45Speaker 01

  And then I'm calling people, confirming reservations. But apart from that, I'm sitting at a desk for hours. There's, there's not another facet to that job. So I was like, I have to do something or I'm just never gonna come back here. It's just, then you're just trapped not doing anything. And so I started to bring my Switch to work. And also I'm working at night, right? The restaurant closes at 11. So from like nine to like 11 o'clock, nobody's calling to make a dinner reservation. I'm just chilling and getting paid and playing Breath of the Wild. It was like, actually, I think about that time a lot.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  I had, I had, I had less going for me. You had it good. But that was, that was good. That was really, really nice.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  Isn't it funny how memories like that can just, of playing games can just be so powerful and, and, and sort of like remind you of a time in your life? I, I feel like that's, I don't know. I just would like, when you were describing that, I was, I know exactly what you mean. Where you were like, maybe it wasn't the best job or the best situation, but like 9pm to 11pm and you were free to, you know.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  I was just hanging out, but I couldn't leave in case somebody called, right? They couldn't call me off because what if somebody? Does call. Did want to call or something. They couldn't, they can't have somebody else doing that. Yeah. They're already, they're doing something more important. Uh, but.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  If you were VR boxing, maybe that would not fly, but I feel like switch, switch. Take the thing off and it's just like you're sweaty.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. If I had brought my, uh, Dance Dance Revolution rig to the office, probably not, probably not a good idea. Play, are you, are you familiar with the, the VR game Superhot?

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  It's a game where you're like John Wick, basically like dodging, uh, like, or you know, I guess Neo more like in the, you're, you're a Keanu Reeves type character in this game. And you're like dodging bullets and like throwing knives and stuff. That would not be great for, uh.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Right. That was, that's a very fun game. I played that one for sure.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  It rules. It is so, so fun. Um, uh, Ben, we do have to talk about this. Your name on the, on the chat right now is Battletoads Ben. Battletoads Ben. And we did talk about this a little bit. I did ask you who your favorite Battletoad is and you did say Zit. And that's the only correct answer, I think. Wart's tough. What's the other one? I don't remember what, I remember Wart. What's that? Isn't it wart rash? Rash. And Zit. I was about to say one of them was piss and it's not piss. Well, like if it was piss, you'd buy it. You're sort of like, I guess one of them is piss.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  You would, you would not buy it because you were the child.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  They're all skin conditions.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  And your, and your parents definitely wouldn't buy you a game where it's like zit and rash and piss.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, Battle Toads much more, yeah, yeah.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  They should, this is a free idea to anybody making a video game then. As soon as you name your character piss, I'm buying the game. Doesn't matter what kind of game it is. I'm there.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  But I was so excited when, when I was, you know, I, I've, I've recently discovered the show and have become a listener. So

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  I love what y'all do and, and the joy with which you do it. And I, but I, but you have like a, you have like a deep, you, you got a deep catalog and I discovered that you have a Battle Toads episode, I think, or the show has a Battle Toads episode.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'll send it to you. I think it's behind the paywall, but I'll get that over to you.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Oh my God. I would love to listen to it because that was one of those games that again, like there was a period of, and I should say like, I tell a lot of people, I've told a lot of people, I think I've said this to Roman, when I was growing up, my parents wouldn't let me have a Nintendo. They wouldn't let me play video games until I was, you know, maybe 12, 14 years old. So I was always, I was the kid who would come over to your house and you'd be like, hey, let's play outside. And I'd be like, hey, man, take me to the basement, show me the Nintendo. And like, if you have snacks, that's cool. And if you want to leave me there, that's also cool. I just need, please, I gotta have it. So.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Your hands gripping tighter and tighter around his neck.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Show me where it is, man, please. But like, but Battle Toads was one of those early games that I played and, and I recently, I, I guess I was like poking around about this and realized it's, it's also like connected to Double Dragon, right? Like there was a combo version of the game, I think.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  There was Battle Toads versus Double Dragon where they all teamed up or Battle Toads X Double Dragon. Yes. You're, you're not incorrect. This is a game.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Fair. And, and, and, and so like, but what, what I remember of Battle Toads was it was a super hard game. I mean, I was, you know, I was maybe nine, but like it, it was such a hard game. And it was again, one of those games where you, you, you, I never progressed past, there was like a, there's a level where you're, you're like on a surfboard or maybe it's more like, it's like you're, you're, you're jumping over the, the, the walls.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  And the walls flash for like a half second before they arrive on screen.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Yes, and, and I just, that's one of those games that has like a sense memory for me, where I just, I, I can, I can, I can remember the, you know, the Doritos dust on my fingertips and the sweat of like trying to get past that level. And I don't know if I ever did, but I, I loved that game. It was a great game.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  It's, it's funny that, uh, talking about your parents not letting you play video games reminds me of a very sort of semi-famous, uh, in gaming circles, Far Side comic from the 90s, or like, maybe it was late 80s, where it's a kid playing video games and the parents are daydreaming of a career in video games. And the joke is, that'll never happen because, like, that's what the Far Side is saying, is, oh, that'll never happen. These guys are all idiots. And now, you can make so much money

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  playing video games, that the comic doesn't make sense

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  to, like, it doesn't, the joke doesn't work.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  You can make a lot of, uh, money, you can, uh, affect politics in a very, uh, particular way.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  It's all very interesting.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. Sometimes too interesting.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a little too interesting. Like, actually, everybody calm down. Stop, actually.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Well, guys, before we get you out of here, I guess, I, I don't, I don't know if this is necessarily spoiling, or could spoil, but I have, I guess, another question, uh, just about video games and their impact on society at large.

• 42:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Good or bad?

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Uh, one word answer, bye.

• 42:20Speaker 03

  No, no, I think like, I, I, well, what I would say is, um, so my son, I have twins who are eight years old. My son is eight years old. Uh, he is, uh, he's, he's, he loves Minecraft.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  He loves, um, uh, he, he loves, um, the Harry Potter game. I, I have mixed feelings about, I don't know, I have a mixed, mixed feelings about the creator of Harry Potter, but my son loves that game.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  I think that games like Dungeons and Dragons, for instance, which, you know, inspired a lot of video games, they do teach you to, number one, solve problems. And number two, like, have a safe space to try to solve problems and fail and try again. And I think that they can lead you, especially in the case of of things like Minecraft, they can lead you to be really creative, right? I also think that they are, you know, I mean, this is gonna maybe sound ridiculous to some of your listeners because who, you know, whoever bought the latest, you know, PS5 Pro or whatever, but like, they are also like relatively cheap, like you can,

• 43:32Speaker 03

  you can access games relatively cheaply. And and I think having an interactive form of entertainment that you can, that is, you know, relatively democratized, both in terms of playing, but also in terms of building now, like the fact that you can build games more easily. That's, that's a good thing. I think where it gets problematic is when we, you know, I think, when we allow any sort of tech company to, to not have any kind of consequences for, you know, whatever, like fomenting hate or, you know, and I think, you know, game companies have gotten

• 44:17Speaker 03

  better at policing this stuff, I guess. And me, you know, maybe I shouldn't even use the word policing. I think it's complicated.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  No, for sure, yeah.

• 44:25Speaker 03

  But I think like, you know, it's, it can be addicting to you and like, that's a dangerous zone. And so, you know, limiting your, limiting your time, I think is, for me, that's an important thing. But ultimately, it's like so much of the technology we use, it can, it can be a positive thing, it can be a negative thing, it's just a tool and it's a technology and we just have to be intentional and careful and thoughtful and caring in the way that we use it and in the way that we use it together.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Wow, that is the most thoughtful thing ever said on this show.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  Public radio, what are you gonna do, Isaiah?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  I don't know, I did, I did think one of the frogs was called piss.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And my favorite battle to the zit, thank you.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  Same show where we're like, toilets look like you should drink them.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  But I'm curious, like Roman, what do you think? I feel like...

• 45:26Roman Mars?

  Oh, I think good. I don't know, I don't really have... I, I, I feel exactly the same as you, but I think the dial is more towards good. I also just think that you can't sort of argue that the world be a better or worse place without video games. You just could argue, it's just gonna, it would be a completely different world without them.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:42Roman Mars?

  And, and that's really the, the sort of, the, sort of the end of it, you know? Like, it's just like, um, they're a huge part. And I think that in addition to, you know, you mentioning like, like there actually are, you know, careers in video games, as evidenced by like us being on a podcast now, is like, it kind of trains you to think in ways that, you know, are, are perfect for the modern world in terms of problem solving, in terms of, you know, just like quick thinking and dexterity and the sort of idea of if then, you know, decisions and complex decisions. And I, you know, I, I think they're great. I, I, I, I don't know, I have a hard time thinking, I do think that the social aspect of them that can sort of cause issues is the same social aspect that makes social media a problem,

• 46:25Roman Mars?

  that makes, you know, tabloids a problem, like everything.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:29Roman Mars?

  When you get a bunch of people together, they can get together for nefarious ends as, as well as, you know, great ends. And so that's just part of it all.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Well, guys, that was, I, I really enjoyed talking to you guys. Thank you so much for, uh, for being here with us today. Uh, why don't you guys plug the show again real quick and then we'll get you out of here?

• 46:46Roman Mars?

  Sure. The six-part series is called Hidden Levels. It's about how video games affect the world and it's a co-production of 99% Invisible, which is my podcast, and Endless Thread, which is Ben Brock Johnson's podcast. And it's gonna come out, uh, wide on October 7th.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:02Roman Mars?

  We hope you'll listen. Let us know, uh, how much, uh, how much we got wrong. Just kidding.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Guys, thanks so much.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you.

• 47:09Roman Mars?

  Thank you. I really appreciate it.

• 47:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, thanks y'all. It was great to be with you.

• 47:18Speaker 03

  You can find Get Played wherever you get podcasts and there's a link in the show notes. We'll see you Tuesday for episode one of Hidden Levels.

• 47:34Speaker 04

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• 48:04Speaker 05

  Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app. At participating McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up Inc.

• 48:29Speaker 06

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