Triple Play: Donkey Kong Bananza

OH, BANANA! Kirk, Jason, and Maddy punch through some rocks for Donkey Kong Bananza, the first big single-player Switch 2 exclusive and the latest game from the team behind Super Mario Odyssey. They talk about its delightful design tricks, how much fun it is to smash up the world, and whether it's a worthy successor to Odyssey.

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

• 0:03Kirk Hamilton?

  On this episode, we are pleased to welcome a special guest, Donkey Kong. Oh, I'm being told he's destroyed the podcast and is gone.

• 0:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about Donkey Kong Bonanza, Nintendo's brilliant new Switch 2 exclusive that is much more exuberantly weird than any of us quite expected. There's a lot to talk about, let's get into it.

• 0:30Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:33Jason Schreier?

  And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 0:36Jason Schreier?

  It's nice to see you both on Zoom again after all that excitement in person.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Thank goodness. We're back where we're meant to be.

• 0:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Back in these little boxes where we belong.

• 0:46Jason Schreier?

  Little boxes. Man, that was a whole lot of fun doing a live show with you two. Man, playing music with two actual professional musicians is very intimidating.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Pretty cool.

• 1:10Jason Schreier?

  I hope people out there got to listen to the bonus because hearing Kirk and Maddie sing is a real treat, I gotta say.

• 1:16Kirk Hamilton?

  That was super fun. That was the first time we've ever sung harmony together.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:21Kirk Hamilton?

  I've wanted to do that for years.

• 1:22Jason Schreier?

  And it was awesome. You guys, you guys both sound incredible. It goes click, click, click. That's the sound that brings us here tonight.

• 1:36Jason Schreier?

  It goes click, click, click.

• 1:40Jason Schreier?

  That's the sound that brings us here tonight.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  The only other time we all played a song together was the three of us played the split screen theme song at a New York live show.

• 1:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Many years ago.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Which was pretty short, but we did all play together. So that was how we knew it could be done. But this was

• 1:59Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  far more complex because we played three songs, arguably four songs.

• 2:04Jason Schreier?

  Well, and Kirk had to play some themes also on the saxophone.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. That's true.

• 2:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Now, you might be hearing us talk about all this musical stuff. Me playing saxophone, Jason playing guitar, me and Maddie singing harmony, and thinking, "What? I listened to the live episode."

• 2:35Speaker 01

  I don't remember any of that.

• 2:36Kirk Hamilton?

  "In the main feed, and I didn't hear any of that." Well, the reason for that is that there is an extended cut of the live episode. In fact, the uncut live episode, two hours long, is currently available in the Maximum Fun bonus feed for members, and you should really go listen to it because it was a very special night. We had a great time. The crowd was amazing. The music was super fun. All of the extra bits we did, spinning the Wheel of Games. We had a great time. And you can listen to it, really, you can think of it like paying five bucks for a ticket. You could just be a member for a month, a member of Max Fun, and you'll get to listen to that episode. And it's like, you got to be there, you get to hear the whole thing for $5. A pretty good deal, if you ask me.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  But you could also, like, really quickly mainline, "What else?" Every other episode we've ever recorded.

• 3:21Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true, and then there's nothing stopping you from downloading every other bonus episode, because of course, we do a bonus episode every month, and that is just this month's bonus episode. There's a lot more, a lot more good stuff that you can go and listen to, and there will be much more in the future, if that's any incentive for you to stick around after paying your $5 for this month.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  I think you should stick around. That's just my opinion.

• 3:41Kirk Hamilton?

  So, maximumfun.org/join. That's how you sign up to become a member. And one more thing I wanted to tell people about. If you were at the show, you saw some really fun designs that Deana and Emily were selling at the merch table, and they were on pins and stickers, but now, all of those designs are available in the Maximum Fun stores. So, we have greatly expanded the amount of triple-click merch that is available. There are tank tops, there are hoodies, there are stickers, buttons, there's a, like, beer koozie, there's a notebook, there's so much cool stuff. And we have all these new designs, the Click Click Click design, the Q-Bird Bing, there's the little note design, there's a bunch of different designs. So- Those are all available at the Maximum Fun store. There's a link for that in the show notes.

• 4:24Kirk Hamilton?

  And if you have any requests or anything, if you see there like isn't some type of item that you would like or with a design you'd want, let us know because we're kind of in the process of, of expanding the store and just putting more merch out there because we haven't really pushed that much merch or had that much merch up until now, but now we are adding a whole bunch more. So we're really excited to get some TripleClick merch out there.

• 4:46Jason Schreier?

  I just ordered a sweatshirt. I'm very excited for it.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 4:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, there's, there are a few things that I want to get as well.

• 4:52Jason Schreier?

  And one other thing about the live show that I just want to share is that, so Amanda has asked me before, like, do you ever get nervous going on stage and speaking in front of people? Because I've done it dozens and dozens of times, like on book tour and just like our live shows and speaking on panels and stuff like that. And I'm always like, no, I don't get nervous at all. I'm like, speaking in front of people is something that I feel like I have a decent mastering of, but playing guitar in front of people, I have never-

• 5:17Speaker 01

  It was weird to see you nervous, honestly.

• 5:19Jason Schreier?

  Like, the entire show, I was just like totally fine. And then my fingers are sweating, like they feel like they're soaking in bath water. I'm like screwing up 20 times. This is basically the first time I've played live music in front of people, other than that split screen thing. And it was very intimidating, I've got to say. I'm in awe that you two guys are so good at it.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  You got this, you got this.

• 5:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I love that it's like for this huge crowd.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we're just throwing you in front of audiences of people.

• 5:54Jason Schreier?

  Right into the sharks.

• 5:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's really leveling up.

• 5:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and I didn't think I would biff it that much, but I did. Kirk made it sound really good and like he did some editing wizardry to make it sound better. But I'm in awe of you two at how good you both are at playing and singing, and it was really cool to be part of.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  I mean, you would, if, with practice, you would get better at it if you chose to.

• 6:14Jason Schreier?

  I imagine.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Because for me, I've now done it enough times in my life that it doesn't make me nervous in that way. So it would be the same for you if you chose to. And you could, it could be an opportunity.

• 6:24Jason Schreier?

  I'll be, I'll be playing a set down at Cafe Wha tomorrow night, so go check it, check it out.

• 6:29Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm looking forward to the next time we do a live show, Jason comes in and sort of sandbags us and then pulls out the guitar.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Jason secretly starts hardcore practicing eight hours a day.

• 6:41Kirk Hamilton?

  He like warms up with a little flourish and some harmonics and like tunes it. Oh shit, Jason's been practicing.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Isn't nervous at all anymore, suddenly is fine. Yeah, that would be amazing. It could happen.

• 6:53Kirk Hamilton?

  That would be amazing.

• 6:54Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I don't think, I think the amount of practice doesn't really matter because I practice a ton for this show. It's just that like being, you have to have the reps of actually being in front of people. Yeah, the reps of doing that is.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  You have to practice the emotion exposure.

• 7:07Jason Schreier?

  Get the yips out.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 7:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, like you do it a bunch, you get, you get that in your head and then you can kind of simulate it in your head and you practice performing. And you can kind of remind yourself what it's like, okay, I'm gonna have, have this in my head. I'm gonna, it's gonna feel this way. It's gonna look this way, you know, and it's a little easier to practice it. And then you're kind of ready, or at least sort of ready. Man, that was cool though. I've never quite played for a crowd like that big and that fully there for it before. Everyone who came to the show was so awesome. Thank you. If you're listening to this and you came to the show, like, thanks for coming. You made it as special as it was. It was really, really cool.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:41Jason Schreier?

  And if you didn't, we will do more live shows in other cities in the future.

• 7:46Kirk Hamilton?

  We are already planning the next one.

• 7:48Jason Schreier?

  And hopefully, hopefully one day outside of the country, but for now, at least in the US.

• 7:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Maddie, there's one thing you wanted to tell listeners that they should be maybe getting ready for.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. So our longtime listeners know that we have an annual predictions bet. Basically, we all three make predictions every year and there's one winner, one person who gets most predictions right. It was me this past year and the winner of the bet every year gets to make all three of us play a video game of their choosing. And the game I chose was Ocarina of Time, a really wonderful Zelda game that I've played multiple times. And I'm about to start playing again because we all are, we're getting started. When that episode comes out, we're going to have played up to the Temple of Time. So if you want to play along with us, which I highly recommend, I specifically recommend the 3DS version of the game, actually.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  If you've got a 3DS lying around, there's plenty of other ways to play that game, whatever your preference. So that's, that's the first chunk that we're going to be talking about.

• 8:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, and that'll be sometime in the next couple of weeks. We're a little bit loose on scheduling, but you should start now if you want to be kind of caught up to, to know or remember what we're talking about.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 9:00Kirk Hamilton?

  All right. Well, Jason, we're talking about another Nintendo game today. What are we going to be talking about?

• 9:06Jason Schreier?

  Today, we are punching and smashing our way through Donkey Kong Bonanza, a new game for the Nintendo Switch 2.

• 9:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, banana.

• 9:17Jason Schreier?

  And the first true single player Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. Mario Kart was the first big exclusive game from Nintendo. But this is the first, unless you count Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, which I do.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Which we all do. Yeah, we all count it.

• 9:32Jason Schreier?

  But this is the first killer ape, I would say, for the Switch 2.

• 9:37Kirk Hamilton?

  This is the only time any of us are allowed to make a pun like that on this episode.

• 9:41Jason Schreier?

  Donkey Kong Bonanza is a wild and fascinating game that I am very excited to talk about. I've been playing quite a lot of it. And I will start things off by saying something that I have been telling a lot of people in real life recently, outside of the kind of the gaming world, which is a lot of people have been asking me, hey, should I get a Switch 2? Or like, hey, my kids are asking about a Switch 2. Is it worth getting? And I'm like, Donkey Kong isn't enough to justify the purchase of a Switch 2 right now. But a couple more games like this, and it might have to, you might have to dish out that $450 because it might become a must play. I love this game. I am excited to talk about. Let's go around and give some kind of general thoughts and impressions.

• 10:25Jason Schreier?

  Matty, why don't you start?

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Sure. I also am having a great time with this game. So you play as Donkey Kong. It's 3D. And we'll get to the plot. I guess there's a plot in this game. But perhaps the most important part to me is that you're spending this entire game punching things. And it's a really, really fun mechanic. It feels good. The punching feels good. Everything in this environment is destructible. And if something isn't destructible, you're going to figure out how to destroy it. Later, with a few exceptions, obviously, they have to have things that you can't fall through the map on. But there's kind of some immersive sim elements where you have to destroy things in a certain order to make outcomes happen. 3D puzzle kind of design,

• 11:09Speaker 01

  environmental design. Love all of that stuff. But to just kind of speak to the punching slightly more. I don't think you two ever played Borderlands 1, did you?

• 11:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yes.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Okay, so then you're gonna remember this.

• 11:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Dozens of hours of Borderlands.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  There's a character in that game called Brick, and one of his power ups, I think the main power up he has, it's been years, is simply that he just starts punching wildly, like just swinging both arms. And it felt so good and like powered me through so much of that game. Like, I completionist played that game, and Brick was my favorite character because it's just so fun to just be like, I'm wilding out and I'm like going super Cyan Punch Man mode. And that is this entire game. It's like somebody took the most fun part of Borderlands 1 for me, and they were like, what if that was the whole game and you could destroy all the environments and it felt really good? And I mean, I'm sure we're gonna talk about the soundtrack, but that adds another layer to it. It's just,

• 12:05Speaker 01

  it's super fun to play and I'm really, really enjoying it.

• 12:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Kirk, thoughts? Yeah, I'm having a great time as well. It was a little overwhelming at first. I installed this game and wasn't sure what to expect and started playing it on the TV, which is where I've been mostly playing it. And I found it almost dizzying. I was, I was feeling a little bit motion sick from it. And then I turned off the screen shake, which helped, and also just sort of got used to it. And then, I don't know, got my sea legs under me by the first hour or so. But the opening level, it just drops you into this mine as Kong, and you just start destroying things. And it's, it's so unlike most games in terms of how the camera works and how it looks, that I was just shocked by it. I

• 12:53Kirk Hamilton?

  found it visually shocking, which I would imagine is not an unusual experience. You begin punching the wall, and the camera is just swinging around. It's getting buried in the rock. It's clipping through the level, outside of the level, to show you what you're doing. It's very disorienting until you learn the kind of visual language of the game and figure out how to tell where you are in the level, since every level is just built out of basically destructible peanut brittle that you can smash your way through at any moment. So. I found that very overwhelming. It took me a little while to just get my feet under me, like I said, and then I really started getting into it and sort of discovered the rhythm of the game, which of course is very similar to Mario Odyssey on a macro

• 13:38Kirk Hamilton?

  level, because this is made by the same team and it has that same type of design where there's a big, open level, there's a bunch of hidden bananas, in this case, instead of moons, there's a bunch of hidden, you know, power-ups that you're trying to find. And then there are also these locked doors that lead to these discreet side challenges. So the more you play, the more that you get into that rhythm of, okay, now I'm gonna go do a little combat challenge, now I'm gonna do a platforming challenge, now I'm gonna, you know, explore the map and try to get to this weird hidden banana that I can't figure out. And you just kinda, I kinda got more comfortable with how it all worked and I stopped destroying everything, which made things a little bit easier. But they open with this real, like, sensory overload on purpose, I think, to just, you know, freak

• 14:21Kirk Hamilton?

  you out a little bit. You know, one of the very first things that you do, you're in a room that's just gold, and there's just gold everywhere. The room is made of gold, and you want the gold because the gold is currency that you can spend. So you're very incentivized to just spend your time, basically just clearing out this massive gymnasium-sized cube. And, you know, that is a very overwhelming thing to do at first, but also very fun and very satisfying. So I've, I've been really, really enjoying it. I think it's an unusual game, like a very, almost shockingly strange game.

• 14:50Jason Schreier?

  So a few months ago, I played a demo for this game at the Nintendo Switch 2 big, like, blowout announcement event thing in New York City. And if you guys remember, I came back and I was talking about it and I called it, I described it as kind of like a B-tier game, like something that wasn't gonna hit the heights. And that's in large part because all I really saw was that intro you talked about, Kirk, and then like a little bit into the lagoon, like a little bit of bomb throwing and stuff, but mostly that kind of weird mine intro, where you're just like, okay, is the point of this game just to destroy as much as possible? And then you play a little bit more, and then a little bit more, and then a little bit more, and then you realize, oh yes, the point of this game is to destroy as much as possible, but also it's a lot more clever than that.

• 15:33Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you have kind of directions in mind here. Um, yeah, this is made by the Odyssey team. And I think you can tell that in a lot of ways, not just the macro of like collecting bananas and them being kind of that, that nice balance of like uncommon, but not super rare. And, um, or I guess not, not super rare that it feels like a chore to find them, but also not so common that they feel valueless. Like there's always a little pleasure to finding one of them. But also there's a lot of other stuff. I mean, the way NPCs talk to you, the little jokes that they have or the little kind of comedic flourishes. Um, there is this part at the beginning in the first area where like you'll see these little monkeys who are fishing and they'll talk about fishing and then you can destroy their boat and they'll fall in the water and they'll be like, oh,

• 16:18Jason Schreier?

  I could have, could have used a swim or I'm, I'm now I'm swimming instead of fishing or something like that. He's very supportive of your destructive tendencies. He's the guy who's building his house. And he's like, I love my new house. Yeah, exactly. Which is like exactly what Odyssey did. Like if you were in New Donk City and you like, send a geyser flying, someone would just be like making one comment and then they switch comments. Um, or like in Odyssey, how, um, you would get this framing of the level, like almost you would start at the bottom of this big, massive, like, um, uh, I don't know, grass area to climb or like you would see dinosaurs in the horizon and then you would gradually get over there and you would kind of view it. It had a certain visual language by which the game would give you direction and show you where the interesting points are and tell you what to do. And this

• 17:02Jason Schreier?

  game does that a hundred percent as well. It very much feels like a product of the Odyssey team. Like you can tell that in so many different ways. I mean, the colors, the kind of using purple as an indicator of like certain like, um, uh, like special rare things, the way it did with currencies, even the equivalent fossils in this game are the equivalent of those kind of purple coins or there would be different shapes in Odyssey that you would collect in each world. Very, very similar game. Um, the biggest difference is that instead of jumping, you are smashing things and that creates so many wild and extremely fun possibilities. It feels like you're breaking the game a lot of the time and, and, and the camera is a perfect example of that. Like the, I feel like this is a

• 17:43Jason Schreier?

  Very, I don't know, it's a very post Breath of the Wild incarnation of Nintendo, where it's all about saying yes to the player instead of forcing the player on this kind of roller coaster, this very fun roller coaster, but a roller coaster where you're not allowed to go off the tracks. This time, it's like, we'll let you break the tracks and then climb under them and see what you can find. And if that makes the camera go out of control, we don't care, as long as you're having a good time, which I love. I love that about this.

• 18:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'm just laughing the whole time I'm playing this game. It's so funny. It's so silly. The, the whole vibe between Kong and Pauline, his little friend, who is your sort of, in co-op, it's the other player, but she's just like a girl that Kong winds up going on this adventure with, and she's an amazing singer. That's kind of the plot, is that Pauline is this amazing singer who doesn't like singing in front of crowds, but she has this really powerful voice, and her magic is kind of the key to unlocking things in the world. And then she and Kong roll around. It's a bit like Wreck-It Ralph, actually, which is funny because Wreck-It Ralph was very Donkey Kong, so it's like we've come full circle, I guess. But it, the look and feel sort of reminds me a bit of Wreck-It Ralph. And Kong is just this kind of big dummy, this really silly guy who just

• 18:52Kirk Hamilton?

  is real strong and wants bananas. And that whole vibe is so playful and ridiculous. The whole world, this subterranean series of kingdoms with all different kinds of apes and chimpanzees, and, you know, all of that is all just like really wacky and weird. Then, yeah, this tone of your destruction being cosigned by everyone around you, no one really cares. If you go and punch the friendly NPCs, you just high five them. I don't know if you've noticed this. Yeah.

• 19:19Jason Schreier?

  Well, except for the, the rock ones, you'll destroy them and then they'll regenerate.

• 19:24Kirk Hamilton?

  And they don't really mind. Or even, there are the rock giraffe guys, there's one who's like, man, I got something in my neck. You break him and a fossil comes out and he's like, thanks.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, like sometimes they want you to destroy them. It's great.

• 19:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. So there's this very, you know, like you said, saying yes to the player, Jason. There's very much this even narrative layer of that, where just everything is telling you, yeah, go ahead, destroy stuff. It's, it's totally fine. And that is just really, really wonderful. It's really funny. I mean, all these little cues, that oh banana cue every time you get a banana.

• 19:58Kirk Hamilton?

  The little rhythm, as he eats the banana. Just all the little animations with him and Pauline, these cutscenes where she learns a new song and he goes Bonanza mode. All of it. I mean, it just has such a hilarious vibe. I'm just sitting there just laughing and laughing every time it says, oh, banana. I say it and start laughing and I can't really fault a game where I'm just laughing the entire time I'm playing it.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty great. I mean, the Bonanza mode, it is essentially like a Super Saiyan mode from Dragon Ball, but like an even more ludicrous version of it where it's like, okay, Donkey Kong just becomes like the yellow banana haired version of himself and he's more powerful. I am on the ice level now and there's a zebra version of the mode that I know they showed in the trailer. And I was kind of like, are they really gonna explain why Donkey Kong could become a zebra? No, it's fine. He's just gonna become a zebra because that's gonna be another one of his modes. And I'm like, great, maybe I'm gonna become other ludicrously animated animals as time goes on. Love that. The other thing I wanted to say about the ice level

• 21:08Speaker 01

  that I think is kind of emblematic of what you were saying, Jason, about The Breath of the Wild and also Tears of the Kingdom influences here. I mentioned immersive sims. This is, this is like a kid friendly immersive sim. So far, anyway, maybe it gets more complicated. But like in the ice level, there's these big ice machines. And also ice sometimes falls from stalactites or whatever. And there's also lava that you have to contend with. So you gotta figure out how to redirect the ice from the ice machines at various points by like destroying stuff in its path to have the ice go a certain direction, or just pick up pieces of ice and make your own path through the lava. And just that idea of having multiple ways through a puzzle felt really cool. There were a couple of points where I did it and I was like,

• 21:52Speaker 01

  I'm not sure if this is where I'm supposed to be going. And then it would turn out that, of course, that was where I was supposed to be going and that there would be a reward at the end. Or like even that was where the story was gonna tell me to go eventually. But I felt like I was exploring by throwing ice on the lava and being like, what is this gonna do? Oh, it's creating a path. Oh, that's wild. What, what do I, what do I do? If I redirect the ice machine and like break these blocks here. Oh, cool. The ice cubes are going to go over here. Like that feeling of you discovering it on your own and quote unquote, breaking the game is so pleasurable because then the game rewards you by being like, no, we knew you were going to do that. And also here's a banana or here's a little bit more story or whatever it is that tells you the next thing to do. It's great.

• 22:34Jason Schreier?

  Which is especially apparent in the little shrine areas, which I'll call them shrines just for the sake of this that Kirk was mentioning earlier, because a lot of those, you'll see a little icon when you go in that'll be like three gray bananas signifying that you can find three in there. A lot of the times, if you just follow the normal path, you'll find one or two of them. And you really have to like break the boundaries or like push the game to its limits to find the third one. And those are some really fun and clever challenges that often require you to do things that you wouldn't think that you should be able to do, like dig, like if you're, there's like some, a lot of them are these like Donkey Kong Country inspired side scrolling levels, which are really, really cool. And sometimes it'll be like, you'll be walking up to a platform

• 23:17Jason Schreier?

  and the platform will be like a, a platform that moves up and down and has a giant piece of stone on it. And you're meant to jump on top of it at a certain time and then jump to the next platform or whatever. But because you're Donkey Kong, and this is Donkey Kong Bonanza, you can smash the stone also. And then like get to an area of the platforming that you normally in a normal, like a Donkey Kong Country game, for example, you wouldn't be able to get to. And that will reward you with some coins or an extra banana or something like that. It's really cool. It's such a clever, just fun bit of design where it just is constantly making you feel like a genius who can also smash things really hard.

• 23:54Kirk Hamilton?

  I was finding myself a little disincentivized to try too hard in some of those rooms because of the 500 gold penalty for dying. If you die, you lose a chunk of money that isn't nothing. I mean, you have say 13,000, I have like 13,000 gold. And if I lose 500, you know, I can imagine if I tried something over and over and over again, actually running out of gold. And while there's gold everywhere and you know, I don't know how much of a big deal it would really be to zero out. It still is kind of like, I don't know, it makes me feel a little bit of anxiety.

• 24:27Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, that's a metaphor for tariffs.

• 24:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. It's about capitalism.

• 24:33Kirk Hamilton?

  I found that I would go to the vendors and you can, for 400 gold, you can buy a pack of 10 balloons.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:38Kirk Hamilton?

  So that's basically 10 free falls. And that's cheaper than one death.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 24:43Kirk Hamilton?

  So then I realized, oh, so you're, they're telling me to go and buy this stuff, which I just kinda hadn't been doing. I'd been finding those items, you know, the juice or whatever, the things that heal you or save you from a fall. I'd been finding them in the wild, but you only find a few. You just go buy some if you feel that way, like I do. And then you just don't worry about it because then it does become very fun in those side challenges especially, thinking, okay, where the hell is the middle banana? And eventually figuring out, oh, I have to really break the level and get to the very top of this, you know, this weird platform using this trick jump. And, uh, and it's very rewarding.

• 25:16Jason Schreier?

  It is. So I think that's a good point about the shopping and that's something that you wouldn't think to play around with if you're used to Odyssey. Cause in Odyssey, all you really bought, um, was, I mean, occasionally you could buy moons from a shop, but usually all you were buying is cosmetic stuff. In Donkey Kong Bonanza, this is a big change from this team's last game. Not only can you buy, um, useful items like balloons and like the, the smoothie things that you, that you drink or apple juice or whatever it is that, that, um, restore, restores you, but also you can buy ties and pants that actually have an impact on gameplay. They speed up your swimming or, or your sliding and stuff.

• 25:53Jason Schreier?

  And on top of that, there's also a skill tree where you're unlocking abilities and enhancing your abilities, which really adds a new layer to this that, um, that I think is interesting. I'm still, uh, I, I don't feel like I've played enough to really know like what, how much that means and what, what that does, um, to the overall balance of the game and stuff, but it is interesting to see. And it adds a little bit more reward for collecting the bananas than collecting the moons did in Odyssey. Although in Odyssey, in Odyssey, you had to collect a certain number of moons to make progress, um, to get to the next planet. In this, you don't. All you have to do is kind of get through the level, hit all the main objectives and get to the boss. It doesn't matter how many bananas you have, uh, unless there's some gate at the end that I haven't reached yet.

• 26:37Jason Schreier?

  But, um, in this, instead you're incentivized to collect the bananas because they make you more powerful, which is a little bit, uh, of a different design approach, which I think is interesting.

• 26:47Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a virtuous cycle to some of it, at least the power up that I've found the most useful is expanding my radar range.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Same.

• 26:54Kirk Hamilton?

  And you know, you you upgrade, you get these upgrades and then spend more points to continue to upgrade the same skill. So it isn't just like you unlock an upgrade once, you then can unlock the next level of it and the next level and the next level. And I'm on like level three of the radar. So one of Kong's moves, he doesn't have that many moves, but like Odyssey, it's deceptive where he has more moves than you think. And one of his moves is just a hand slap on the ground that sends out a radar pulse and also collects all the gold nearby. So you're kind of doing it all the time. And now my radar pulse is really wide and it shows you if there's a banana buried somewhere or a fossil buried somewhere. And I'm finding that very helpful for orienting myself and giving myself little mini goals when I'm exploring the world.

• 27:35Kirk Hamilton?

  So I'm really motivated then to get more bananas, to get more skills, so that I can then find more bananas more easily. And I'm, I think that that sort of, that kind of virtuous cycle with upgrades is really cool. That upgrading your character, it doesn't just make you more powerful, have more health. It also makes it easier to keep getting bananas, to keep leveling up.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. The map is also really helpful in this game when it comes to finding stuff. It's pretty kind to the player, again, in a way where I'm like, if you're sort of a younger person and this is one of your first even remotest of RPG style games. It's like, it tells you where anything is that you've kind of passed by and radard. It'll show up on the map as well. And also you can add pings to the map, but mostly I use it if I'm like, okay, there's a tower. I need to climb it. I can't really see what I'm supposed to do to get there exactly. I just want to look around. And you can just zoom around the map and just see where different pathways are and also see, oh, here's a rock that I know how to break or.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  There's this like specific special purple rock that's like always tied to big story moments and like at various points you can just be like, okay, so I know I'm gonna eventually go to there. Like, the game just kind of shows you what you're gonna have to do eventually, which is pretty great, especially because I get lost in games a lot. And at no point have I felt lost in this game, because I can just look at the map immediately and be like, oh, I know exactly where I am. And also does this zooming in and zooming out thing with the map that I don't know if you two have noticed. Like, it literally zooms back in on Donkey Kong as you close the map, so you can see exactly where you were, which again, as a directionally challenged person, so helpful, because I don't have to be like, okay, so when I get out of the map, I need to turn left. It's like, very obvious where

• 29:23Speaker 01

  I am. I just, I really appreciate the camera design and all of that.

• 29:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's not a representative map. It's not, you're looking down at a flat recreation of the world. It is actually the level that you're in, just with a lot of detail removed and kind of zoomed out a little bit, and then you can just look around in it, which is, I think, really helpful. It's actually a difference between this and, say, Metroid Prime, which I've gone back to a little bit on the Switch 2. I want them to release an update for that before I really go back. But a difference with that game, the map in Metroid Prime is really great, and is kind of similar. You can even imagine a version where it does what Donkey Kong does, but of course, that game was made so long ago, they didn't have the capability to do that kind of seamless transition, which even in Donkey Kong, isn't that seamless. There are a lot of moments in this game where you can feel them really pushing up against the limits of what the Switch 2 can do. The

• 30:12Kirk Hamilton?

  framerate chugs quite a bit, even, not even just in moments of chaos, but in moments of, I don't know, when you're buying a new bed, you know, like a new bedroom, just the framerate kind of dips, or when you go out to the map, it gets a little crusty, at least for me, on my TV. I don't really mind, but I do think it's kind of funny that the first big game Nintendo has released for the Switch 2 is like, immediately like, pushing up against everything that this console can do, just because of its sheer ambition. Yeah, bodes well for the next six or seven years. It kind of does, since it's such an absurdly ambitious

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it has like a fully destructible environment, so I'm sure that's taking up a lot of power.

• 30:49Jason Schreier?

  Everything. I found that in handheld mode, I don't really get a lot of frame rate chugs, except for Same.

• 30:54Kirk Hamilton?

  I find it smoother in handheld.

• 30:56Jason Schreier?

  Except for in the map, when in the map, because it's storing, I guess, every single thing you've done to the map. It is chugging a little bit whenever I go into.

• 31:05Kirk Hamilton?

  It's like less noticeable on the smaller screen. I do really think it looks great in handheld.

• 31:09Jason Schreier?

  I do think it's it's helpful for orientation sake that each area is divided into a few different sublayers that themselves are relatively small contained maps that you can kind of try to get your bearing around. Probably useful for a technological standpoint, too, since the game is keeping track of everything you've destroyed and everything you've done to the map. But um, but but I I find that it would be like, imagine if like that first Lagoon Beach area was like, instead of having three sublayers that you could explore in kind of different chunks, if they were all together and as one huge map, that would be a lot harder to orient yourself around, especially because you're doing so much destroying and recreating and playing around with the mechanics.

• 31:53Jason Schreier?

  I'm also struck, as I keep playing this game, by the fact that every single new area adds some sort of new mechanic to the game, which again is a very Odyssey thing and a very just smart way to feel, stop things from getting repetitive feeling, because this could be in in the hands of less talented developers. I think this could be a game that wound up feeling very repetitive, because ultimately, if you're just breaking things and trying to find bananas that are like hidden under mountains, it would not, it would wear out its welcome pretty fast. But because this game just keeps switching it up all the time, including by give you, giving you all those new bananas, like you mentioned, Matty, I think the game has something like five of them.

• 32:39Jason Schreier?

  I'm I'm about to get the ostrich one, which I believe is gonna let me fly. Yeah, I'm very excited about that one.

• 32:45Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very different from, it lets you fly. It's very different.

• 32:48Jason Schreier?

  Oh, cool. Which is, which is very exciting. So there, the game does switch things up quite a lot, which is really cool. Because in contrast to Odyssey, which again is the most natural comparison point, that was a game where you Because you had that hat ability, you could really switch up the gameplay by taking over new, new things. And you can kind of use that as your kind of central conceit. In this, your real core ability is punching. So instead, they throw all sorts of new mechanics at you. Like in the forest, you can throw the seed at the, the thing and create a pathway. Or like the bombs that you get in the first level, et cetera, et cetera. Which, again, smart design.

• 33:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's cool because it kind of externalizes the mechanics. I think that's actually something that they did do in Odyssey as well. The hat is cool, but there are plenty of times in Odyssey where the new mechanic is something in the world, not some new ability given to Mario. And that happens here as well. And it's a smart way of always being able to introduce new ideas without giving you whole new moves to do. There's a really cool series of platforming challenges that turn up, you know, a few hours in, where there are pink and blue, I guess they're like sandbars. And so when you punch a blue sandbar, it fills up the pink sandbar. And when you punch the pink sandbar, it fills up the blue sandbar. So suddenly, your destruction is also creation. And you have to think sudden, you're like totally have to change the way that you think about

• 34:09Kirk Hamilton?

  the geometry of the level by like destroying one part to build up another part so that you can climb up to this part, to then maybe destroy something up there that'll build up something on the other side of the room. And that is like Kong is still just punching stuff. The mechanics haven't changed. It's just the level and the mechanic exists outside of him. And so suddenly, there's this whole new mechanical idea that you're wrestling with. That is like very, very smart stuff. And they're doing us a lot of it throughout this game, so far at least.

• 34:34Jason Schreier?

  You know what's so clever about that? Is it's essentially this old, old mechanic from the Mario games where you like flip a switch, or even from Zelda where you flip a switch. In Zelda, it was always the blue and orange. Like you flip a switch and, and some of the, the blue kind of obstacles, pegs go down and the orange ones goes up. And then you flip the switch again and the, the, the reverse happens. Except what's so clever about this is that you can destroy only pieces of it instead of the entire thing. And those games, it was like figuring out how to solve puzzles by alternating between them as you needed to. In this, you can kind of take advantage. If Donkey Kong's jump, like punching ability by like only punching part of it so that part, so you can create steps for yourself without even having to worry about switching back and forth.

• 35:19Jason Schreier?

  It's it's just a total new variation on a very old concept. Super cool.

• 35:23Kirk Hamilton?

  It makes me think of the Mario 3D world and 3D land where there are levels where your jump causes something to happen. So every time you jump, the platforms shift.

• 35:32Jason Schreier?

  That's another variation.

• 35:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Like Mario just kinda just jumps. I mean, I know he gets fireballs and other things, but mostly what he does is jump. So then you externalize the mechanic, right? You put the mechanic in the world. So whenever he jumps, the level changes. And so suddenly you have to think, okay, wait, I can't just jump all the time. I have to think about my jumps. Very similar here to have Donkey Kong's punch change something like he's still just punching, but it's a but it's making you think of the game very differently.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, or like Samus getting different missiles. It's like, that's all she has. She has a gun. She has to shoot at everything. So we need to figure out how to make shooting unlock levels in different ways or do something different. For Donkey Kong, it's punching stuff. It's like it all. It's all of a piece. What I'm saying is this game is Metroidvania, and you unlock different abilities in each level, and then they let you progress in a different way.

• 36:17Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a it's a really good. It's a good. I think it's a good thing to stick on or that we're kind of pointing out here because that is true in Metroid. Samus basically shoots. I know she jumps and morph balls and whatever, but.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  They give her a little more to do.

• 36:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Then the levels are designed around shooting to make it feel as though shooting is accomplishing a bunch of different goals. And that is something that's different from a lot of games made by other developers. I don't know if it's uniquely Nintendo exactly, but a lot of games do tend to just give a bunch more abilities rather than constraining the abilities that you have and changing the world around you. And I hadn't really thought about it before this conversation, but it's like it's they're two very different approaches. And this one is very cool, this one that all these games take.

• 36:56Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, Donkey Kong, I think Mario might be the purest of this because in in Bonanza, I mean, you can punch. You can also jump and there's a lot of jumping kind of challenges. You can also throw bricks, which also are pieces of the ground, rocks, whatever, which is just kind of another mechanic that you have to use quite a bit. So there are there are a few other kind of variations of them. There's the. Jumping and sliding.

• 37:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Same with Metroid. Metroid is much more complex than Mario. Not saying they're all the same, just that that one idea kind of turns up in all three games in different ways.

• 37:28Jason Schreier?

  Well, the, the concept of like taking an idea and just like milking it for all it's worth. And I say that in a good way, even though milking has negative connotations. They're really taking, exploiting an idea. Nope, negative connotations. Taking advantage of an idea. Nope, can't do it. Just taking a concept and just using it in as many ways as possible.

• 37:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Fully exploring.

• 37:48Jason Schreier?

  There we go. There we go. Um, I think is, is classic Nintendo design. A couple of the thoughts. One is that, um, Matty, you were wondering about the zebra and stuff. I don't know if you've played Donkey Kong Country, but in those games, you get an animal companion. Okay. So you know, you get, you get your animal buddy. I think this is, uh, the equivalent of that. It's different animals this time. Although the ostrich, I think you get in.

• 38:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, Cranky and his rhino.

• 38:11Jason Schreier?

  Well, Rambi, yes. Cranky and Rambi turn up. Um, but, uh,

• 38:15Speaker 01

  There's so much Donkey Kong lore in this game.

• 38:18Jason Schreier?

  But the idea is that instead of riding animals this time, you're getting to transform into them, which I think is kind of the.

• 38:23Kirk Hamilton?

  And high five.

• 38:24Jason Schreier?

  Carrying that forward and high five them. Um, and then the other thought was that I really appreciate how interesting and fun and challenging the little shrine areas are. There was one that I really loved. Some of them are hard. Some of them, uh, have you do things within a time limit and then give you an extra banana if you beat, uh, an even harder time limit, which is really fun. There was one that I really loved that gave you this giant house and was like destroy the house. And the, the optimal way to do it is to go after all these concrete pillars. And if you get them fast enough, you get two, two bananas for your hard work.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did that one too.

• 39:00Jason Schreier?

  Extremely enjoyable. Extremely fun.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  It was so fun.

• 39:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, and some of them are Donkey Kong Country. Like some of them are just 2D side scrollers, which are very fun and a clever way for them to work that gameplay in. Similar to how in Odyssey, they worked in that 2D Mario platforming by putting those, you know, those sections on the walls where Mario would go into the wall and, and play a 2D platformer.

• 39:20Jason Schreier?

  But you almost have to turn off your Donkey Kong Country brain because like I mentioned before in this game, because you have that extra layer of like being able to destroy the surfaces and the rocks that you see, you have to think of things a little bit differently than you do in Donkey Kong Country, which is also really cool.

• 39:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's like aesthetically similar, but mechanically pretty different. Can I talk a little bit about the co-op? Yes, please do.

• 39:41Jason Schreier?

  And then, and also I want to hear your take on the music.

• 39:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, well, the music, I don't have actually a super strong take. It's great. It's very fun. I've loved the songs so far that play during the Bonanzas. So good. They remind me of Persona battle music. It just has that same kind of feeling of like J-pop, like synth-y fun dance music as stuff is exploding. But that's, that's my main take on the music. And I like, this is something that I always liked about Wise's music in Donkey Kong Country, that for all the fun, like kind of rambunctious music, there's often a lot of really dreamy, beautiful synth music that plays in these, and this game is very true to that. I think they've stayed true to that part of Donkey Kong's musical identity. So I've really enjoyed the soundtrack so far. I'll probably have a stronger take once I finish it.

• 40:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Co-op, man, the co-op in this game is bananas. Oh no, I made a joke. That wasn't even, it was an accidental joke. You do actually say that normally. The co-op in this game is-

• 40:47Jason Schreier?

  Can you throw in some audio of just like?

• 40:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Of an audience screaming, I can do that. The co-op in this game is bonkers, how about? It is totally wild. Emily and I played a bunch last night and we had a great time. I really wasn't sure what to expect because there have been a lot of people have been talking about it and writing about it. I didn't know what to expect. And, oh my god, so the way it works is you can play this game via game share where you, like if you have an old Switch, you can beam it to the Switch and play together. Emily and I just played on the same screen, so we were playing just with two controllers on the TV. And the second player takes control of Pauline, who, like I said, rides around on Kong's shoulder and is a singer. And basically, all you do- As Pauline is blast vocal, like blasts at things.

• 41:36Kirk Hamilton?

  So what she basically just yells out like, yeah, wow, wow, bam, yeah, wow. And like she shoots out those words. So they go flying out away from her in the shape of whatever word she just said, bam, wow, whatever.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Like comic book on a monopie style.

• 41:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, yeah, like you'll see a kind of glowing word come from her. And then also the projectile launches from her and it's it functions essentially like when Kong rips up a chunk of the ground and throws it. Only it's coming from Pauline and she can run out of ammunition and then reload just by pointing the reticle at anything in the world and holding down the trigger. And then she reloads with whatever that material is. So she can shoot words made out of earth or stone or whatever, like any, any of the items, any of the materials that Kong can pick up and throw. So the game becomes totally unhinged because you just have a machine gunner on your shoulder, just destroying the world around you. While you're also destroying the world, like it is an overwhelming game to begin with, playing as Kong, because he's so destructive.

• 42:39Kirk Hamilton?

  You go into Bonanza mode, you know, and the world is just like crumbling before him. Then suddenly he's also got this, like, I can, I can't describe it any way other than a machine gun. Someone just going bam, wow, wow, bam, bam. And like, everything is blowing up. If you fight a boss with a co-op player, it just is unbelievable. The boss goes down in three seconds.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna say. They're already not that hard as it is.

• 43:02Kirk Hamilton?

  It's so funny. I don't even understand. I mean, I do understand the point. I think the point was let's just do something totally ludicrous that isn't about making a, you know, a coherent challenge. Or even like, I mean, it kind of messes the game up for the single player. Like they can knock you off walls. If you're running across, say, we were in the jungle. Running across those bridges that she built and Emily just shot them because she was just shooting everything. And I like fell into the poison because she shot the ground out from under us. Like it can be a very, it doesn't always mean they're helping you out. It can just be so chaotic that you have to kind of almost dial it down if you actually want to make progress. But it's so funny and so much fun and so endlessly entertaining that I didn't really care.

• 43:46Kirk Hamilton?

  It's sort of my take on this game in general is if I'm just laughing this much and kind of, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing, that a co-op mode worked this way, then I can't really hold it against the game. It was so much fun. So I really recommend trying co-op. Anyone out there who's playing this game, it's such a trip. It's just crazy, just as a co-op mode. I've never seen anything quite like it.

• 44:07Jason Schreier?

  That sounds a lot like the Odyssey co-op mode, which Maddie and I were playing a little bit at your house in Portland.

• 44:13Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I mean, it is like, yeah, having the other player play Cappy is one thing, but what if Cappy blew up the world around you constantly? I mean, it's a huge difference.

• 44:21Jason Schreier?

  It's like a heightened version of it, but it's.

• 44:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Incredibly heightened.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  I mean, we did play it and I eventually stopped because I was like, everything I'm doing is messing Jason up. I'm just going to not do this anymore. But it was funny.

• 44:34Jason Schreier?

  It sounds similar in the way that you could sabotage the main player.

• 44:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's true, but the man, I mean, you can also help so much. I mean, we were going, going through that jungle level, there are like red thorns everywhere and Emily would just destroy them, you know? I would have had to spend a while throwing chunks of earth at them. She just like blasted them out of the way and then a boss would pop them and she would just like machine gun it to death. It was incredibly fun. I mean, it really felt like she was really helping. And then I did all the platforming and jumping around. It was really perfect and very fun. So similar in some ways to Odyssey, but really its own thing. I really have never quite seen anything like it. I recommend you both try it out. It's super fun.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a destructive star collector mode almost because like they're helping you get some extra gold, I would expect if they're destroying all that stuff.

• 45:20Kirk Hamilton?

  In so many games, you know, prototype, Red Faction Gorilla, there are these destroyer games, these Hulk style games that are very much like this, but I've never played one where they have same screen co-op like this and you can just destroy stuff. Together, it makes it even more fun.

• 45:33Jason Schreier?

  That sounds ridiculous. All right. That is all for Bonanza Talk. But yeah, really enjoyable game that I think all three of us are are getting quite a lot out of. Why don't we take a break and then we'll be back for one more thing.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm Alan MacLeod, the host of Walking About, and I'm here with Adam.

• 45:59Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  You know, as a member of the month, you're the member of the month. You'll be getting a $25 gift card to the Maximum Fun store.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  Holy moly.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  I can't wait.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for supporting this show and the network.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  Happy to do it.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  What made you decide to become a member?

• 46:19Speaker 04

  I just said, you know, these people give me so much entertainment and and joy and fun in my life. I gotta, I gotta support them somehow. The outpouring of love and support that these folks, I mean, they made me Maximum Fun Member of the Month, for crying out loud. If you want this stuff to keep going, then support it.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Well, so nice to meet you, Adam.

• 46:41Speaker 04

  Thank you very much, everybody. Keep up the good work. I mean it. I'm not just blowing smoke.

• 46:45Speaker 05

  Become a Max Fun member now at maximumfun.org/join.

• 46:52Speaker 06

  Good evening. Thanks for tuning in to 101.1 Max Fun. It's midnight here on Host to Coast, and we've got Sarah from Michigan on line one.

• 47:02Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm calling in for some help. I used to love reading, but between grad school, having kids, and the general state of the world, I can't seem to pick up a book and stick with it anymore.

• 47:11Speaker 06

  Sarah, this is an easy one. Just listen to Reading Glasses, a podcast designed to help you read better. Bria and Mallory will get all the pressure, shame, and guilt out of your reading life. You'll be finishing books you love in no time.

• 47:23Speaker 07

  Great. That sounds amazing. Also, do you think my husband is cheating on me with Mothman? Can you help me with that one?

• 47:28Speaker 06

  Ooh, I don't think they cover that. Reading Glasses, every Thursday on Maximum Fun.

• 47:35Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. It is time for one more thing. Maddie, why don't you go first?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Sure. So I reviewed a video game called The Drifter for a site called Endless Mode. And I wanted to talk about this game because it's it's so tough when you're playing a game where you're like, all the things I like about this game are being outweighed by the things I don't like. And yet, I do still like a lot of things about it. So I have to recommend it, but with a really specific caveat. So we talk about this a lot on the show because it comes up a lot. You guys know the stereotype of journalists that appears in like every piece of media about them, that they're kind of like an ambulance chaser?

• 48:22Jason Schreier?

  Sleep with their sources.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a classic one, especially female journalists who sleeps with their sources. The female journalist in this game doesn't do that. So we're gonna give the developers a round of applause for that. But she is still, this is a major character in the game. You play as like a male character who is like a drifter, titular drifter, and then he realizes that he's been subject to some mysterious science fiction experiments that make it so that he can't die. And anytime he does die, he travels back in time two minutes. And so he's trying to solve the mystery of how this happened to him. It's a point and click adventure. Pretty cool point and click adventure stuff in here, like cool mysteries. Liked that central mystery. Really enjoyed that.

• 49:02Jason Schreier?

  Aesthetically, awesome. Looks like a LucasArts game.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Amazing. Really, really cool pixel art. But one of the other major secondary characters is this female journalist that you meet almost right away. And the whole point of her character is that she's annoying for comedic effect, and that she's like this ambulance chaser type who like gets everything wrong and like breaks ethical bounds constantly and is just terrible at her job and keeps bumbling into situations. And I just couldn't stand it. I just was like, why? Why do I have to play this game and then keep getting waylaid by this other character? It was tough. But I still kind of recommend it because I did. Did have fun in the end and I thought the conclusion to the mystery was really cool.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  And so that made that tough because I was like, this is a really fun science fiction story. But I know we got a lot of writers who listen to our show, so I just figured they should be aware. That's, that's a stereotype of journalists is that we're all, we all only care about like chasing down a salacious crime. And like not even getting the details right and just only caring. Do you guys know what I mean? You're, you're familiar with the stereotype?

• 50:11Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it really disappointed me. I feel like they could have made it a lot better. Like maybe had her seem like that trope and then it turned out that she actually like learned something or knew what she was doing in some way or changed as a character. But yeah, I don't know. Just didn't happen.

• 50:27Jason Schreier?

  I thought ambulance chaser was referring to like lawyers.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  I don't, we, I feel like we need one for journalists. You know what I mean? Like the, the idea that like we only care about like.

• 50:36Jason Schreier?

  But I, an ambulance chaser would be a good thing for a journalist because that's what they're supposed to do. Like a lawyer is going to chase ambulances because they want to get clients and make a bunch of money. A journalist is chasing ambulances because that's where the story is and that's their job.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Right. Cause they care about the truth in theory and like it, this character in the game should care about the truth as much as our main character does. Like he's investigating what happened to him and he's the one who really cares about it. So you'd think the journalist would care just as much.

• 51:06Jason Schreier?

  Tabloid-y journalists.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Just a weird choice.

• 51:11Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, um, I just saw Superman. Pretty good journalism in that movie.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Kind of a surprisingly like solid journalism movie. There's a great scene.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Maybe the most famous example of sleeping with a source that's ever been committed to print.

• 51:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes. Well, there's definitely some ethical, serious ethical lapses. Well, and like Clark Kent is interviewing Superman in that. He's like interviewing himself. But, but in the movie, there is, there is, there is some pretty good journalism and there's a very funny scene where like the climactic moment of the scene is Jimmy Olsen like entering into the Daily Planet CMS and like pressing publish. And you get to see their backend on his laptop and it's pretty good.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  That's amazing. Yeah.

• 51:49Kirk Hamilton?

  A positive depiction of journalism I recently saw.

• 51:51Jason Schreier?

  Is he writing, he's writing directly into the CMS instead of?

• 51:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, they're like, publish it, go. And he like pushes it live and it's like set to live.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've seen so many reporters talking about Jimmy writing into the CMS, but it's gonna make me go see the movie. I'm like, alright, alright. I need to, I need to see some good journalistic portrayals, or at least some fun ones. You can have fun with the stereotypes, too.

• 52:12Kirk Hamilton?

  For sure. And speaking of journalism, you reviewed this game for Endless Mode. Shout out to Endless Mode, the new PACE games. Very cool to see them doing their thing.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Some very, very cool articles over there. A lot of, a lot of cool people. Moises Taveras, Knight Nicole Carpenter, a bunch of people writing over there who used to be gainfully employed elsewhere.

• 52:30Kirk Hamilton?

  And Garrett, of course, who's been running PACE games for a long time.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Yes, and Garrett Martin, the one and only.

• 52:35Jason Schreier?

  I wish they had just called it PACE games.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Oh, well.

• 52:40Jason Schreier?

  Names are tough. Hire, hire triple click consulting for all your gaming needs.

• 52:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Monster Spider Mansion. What is it again?

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, Spider Mansion. Do we have Spider Mansion merch in the story yet?

• 52:51Jason Schreier?

  Spider Mansion. Oh, that's a good one.

• 52:53Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a good request. Our first request has already come in from Matty.

• 52:56Jason Schreier?

  We need to create box art, like a Spider Mansion video game, the box art. Yeah, it's, uh, maybe Jimmy Olsen will become a podcaster, just like Mary Jane in the Spider-Man games.

• 53:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Their take, the take on Jimmy Olsen in Superman is very good. It's an unexpected Jimmy Olsen. He's a lot of fun.

• 53:14Jason Schreier?

  So the Drifter, good despite the character.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Good, just, you know, you're gonna have to understand that that character's never gonna stop annoying you. So just let that be there for you and maybe play it anyway.

• 53:25Kirk Hamilton?

  It looks neat. I'll check it out.

• 53:26Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, what's your one more thing?

• 53:28Kirk Hamilton?

  My one more thing is a book I recently finished that I really, I really enjoyed. My friend Daniel recommended this to me and he is a listener of the show, shout outs to him. It's a book called Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. And man, what an interesting book. I really highly recommend this to anyone out there who likes sci-fi, who likes kind of speculative sci-fi. So this is a 2015 book and the cover is very unremarkable. It's a green planet with a ship. In like, you know, space outside of it. And you look at it and think, boy, okay, a ship and a planet. And the reason for that is very funny, because if they actually put what the book is about

• 54:09Kirk Hamilton?

  on the cover of the book, it would horrify people and nobody would read it, even though it is not actually a horrifying book. And that's because this book is kind of about spiders, but not in a way that is as terrifying as that might sound. So, the premise of this book is killer. It starts out, there's an incredibly advanced version of humanity. Humanity has advanced way beyond where we are now. We are terraforming the galaxy. We have made massive scientific advances. And we don't learn, we don't see a whole lot of that type of humanity. But we basically start with this expedition that has been sent to terraform this planet, and this incredibly egotistical scientist who is in charge of that whole endeavor.

• 54:53Kirk Hamilton?

  She like, totally sees herself as God, because she has this plan where she's gonna seed this planet with a bunch of monkeys. I think apes, you know, like sort of, like, they could evolve into humans eventually, but are totally unevolved. And then this virus that's going to cause their evolution to both speed up and be kind of optimized for a kind of fellow feeling among their, among each ape, so that they can kind of evolve to be this perfect new children of humanity. And she sees herself as basically God, giving this new life to the galaxy, and she's gonna like, totally keep anyone from messing with them, and they're gonna just let them evolve to be something better than we were. And then it all goes wrong, this is all at the very beginning.

• 55:36Kirk Hamilton?

  It all goes wrong, the ship is destroyed, the monkeys don't make it, but the virus crashes onto this terraformed planet. So, that's just the setup. So what happens basically is, there are two parallel storylines in this book. One of them is the story of a group of humans who many thousands of years later are the surviving remnants of that advanced humanity, who is like, they've killed themselves with wars and horrible advanced weaponries, to the point where like, humanity is much regressed and doesn't have all of the same technology. And they make this arc- Ship on Earth, which has like 100,000 people, they're the last remnants of humanity. They set off into space, looking for maybe some of these terraformed planets, if they can find them, hoping,

• 56:18Kirk Hamilton?

  I don't know, where the Earth is dead, you know, we've killed the planet, there's nothing left for us, we have to find somewhere to settle. So that's one of the storylines is some of the characters on that arc ship. The other storyline, and the thing that makes this book so interesting, is that on that terraformed planet, the virus has gone and infected the spiders, and actually, some of the other insects as well. It wasn't really designed for this, but there's this virus that then causes this advanced evolution, and a kind of a weird, unexpected series of evolutionary steps in the spiders. And so, you begin to follow the spiders as they evolve and grow, and their whole society undergoes all these changes. And they're spiders, so they're very different from humans, they're not what the virus was designed for,

• 57:03Kirk Hamilton?

  so they grow in really different ways, they communicate in different ways, but it's totally fascinating. And Tchaikovsky has like, really smartly approached this storyline by, it's a many generational story. And the arc ship is also like, a story that's told over thousands of years. On the humanity ship, they're all cryofrozen, so a lot of that story is the main character waking up, and it's like hundreds of years later, and lots has changed, you know, some people are much older than they were, the people who were younger than him are older than him now, or have died. And it's this like, time becomes really dilated and messed up, because he's like covering thousands of years, but he's frozen for so much of it.

• 57:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Where on the spider planet, Portia is the name of the main spider, Portia and Bianca, it's like kind of a reference to their species. There's always a new Portia, because it's, you know, hundreds of years later, but there's always a Portia, and there's always a Bianca, and Portia is always like, the spider who's pushing some boundary, or exploring, or, you know, trying some new thing. And Bianca is like, a brilliant priestess in one life, and then she's this brilliant scientist. And then eventually there's Fabian, the male spider, because the males are like, very sort of subjugated, and kept down, because in the spider world, the female spiders are way bigger, and they're like, important and powerful. And the males are little and kind of weak. So there's also this whole like interesting, there's a lot of gender politics among the spiders, especially as their society becomes more advanced.

• 58:27Kirk Hamilton?

  I could go on and on. It's totally not, it's totally wild. It's playing with ideas that I think are fairly common in this kind of speculative fiction. Cryosleep and its effect on people, time and what that means. Even the evolution of non-human creatures and the ways that they might grow. Like, I think these are all things that have been in other books. This is Tchaikovsky's first sci-fi book. I really just thought it was cool. It was a great recommendation and I loved, I loved how it ended. I thought it had a really neat ending that was kind of of a piece with the whole story and totally made sense. I really just enjoyed it and it actually has made me a little bit less creeped out by spiders. I've never had a, I've never had a huge problem with spiders. But right now in Portland, they are everywhere.

• 59:10Kirk Hamilton?

  This summer has been like a big spider summer for some reason. They're just-

• 59:13Speaker 01

  So you might say you're living in a spider mansion right now?

• 59:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Kind of, kind of, I guess. And every time you go outside in the morning, there are like spider webs everywhere. And I'll be out, you know, in the yard doing something and I'm kind of making my way by a spider web and I'm like, okay, Portia. All right, you stay up there and don't mess with me and I won't mess with you. Okay, I see you over there, Bianca. And I kind of have names for the spiders now. And I, you know, I understand their complexity and what neat little creatures they are. So anyways, I really recommend this book. It's super cool. It's not really like a story I've read before, but it is a really neat one. So it's Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 59:52Jason Schreier?

  Spider Summer is my favorite indie rock band.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Spider Summer.

• 59:57Jason Schreier?

  My one more thing is a video game called Noori Kabe World. And this is a little known game. It was released like six months ago, but our old boss, Steven Totillo, texted me about it last week and was like, hey, you should check this out. It seems pretty cool. And I did, and I've been addicted to it ever since. This is a game that is best described, I think, as a cross between Minesweeper and Sudoku. And it is a game where you are kind of like, you are presented with a- A grid of tiles and some of them have numbers on them and you have to carve out islands from them and they can only be carved following very specific rules.

• 1:00:38Jason Schreier?

  You are, they, they can't touch each other. There has to be, when you carve them out, you create water between them. So like basically you click on a tile and it turns into water or it turns back into island. And the water all has to be touching, so they all have to be separate from each other. And also the water has to be connected in some way. And as you keep playing, the rules get, or the, the, the boards get more complicated and harder and it is delightful. It is a truly serene, meditative, yet at the same time addictive, like, oh my God, one more turn. Yeah. Trans-like experience that I love to death. I have beaten all 300 of the game's main puzzles and Wow.

• 1:01:21Jason Schreier?

  I'm doing the daily puzzle challenges and playing through user submitted and user created puzzles. I am hooked. It is the perfect game for the Steam Deck. It's only on Steam right now, I believe. It's a perfect game for playing on the Steam Deck. I'm surprised this isn't on Apple. I think this is, I mean, it has like 70 reviews on Steam, so I don't think anyone has ever, like, I think barely anyone knows about it or has played it or seen it or anything. But yeah, so I'm playing it on my Steam Deck in bed while watching stuff. Actually, Matt, we were watching The Resonance. We just finished that. Yeah. Which was your one more thing a few months ago. Really enjoyable show. But yeah, that very, very addictive, super fun, super chill, hits my brain just right.

• 1:02:05Jason Schreier?

  Aesthetically lovely. I'm watching it in action right now. Yes, it is gorgeous. It's very pleasing looking, which is, I'm sure, part of the appeal. That helps a lot. Yes, that is definitely part of the appeal. But the other part of the appeal is just kind of that brain teasy, like Sudoku way, where you're just like, all right, just one more, just one more before bed. And soon enough, you've beaten the entire game. Extremely enjoyable. I love it and thoroughly recommend it to people. It's called, once again, Nuri Kabe World. And if you're looking for a lo-fi, like, relaxing puzzle game. Especially if you're also playing Donkey Kong and all you're doing is just like what

• 1:02:42Jason Schreier?

  like a caramel corn of like sensations, like a just complete like rocking you visually and audibly. And you want something a little more serene before bed, Nekkabi World is a good, a good kind of like change in pace.

• 1:03:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's funny. I'm still replaying Tears of the Kingdom and I've definitely found switching back and forth between those two has been important. Where I'm like, ah, and now I will stand on a hill and look at the sunset for a little while and not just have like everything on the screen explode. I could see this being a good, a good pairing as well. This looks lovely.

• 1:03:18Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fewer, fewer particles effects in Nekkabi World. Yeah, it's really cool. Um, yes, I don't think it's on phones, but it would be perfect on phones. I think it's just on Steam right now. Um, but yes, it would be lovely on the phone. Uh, I know that I think some of the puzzles, the boards are too big to like really fit on the phone.

• 1:03:37Kirk Hamilton?

  I wonder a tablet maybe would.

• 1:03:38Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Kirk Hamilton?

  It does really just kind of cry out for a touchscreen.

• 1:03:42Jason Schreier?

  Uh, yes, but um, on the Steam Deck, you can also use that as a touchscreen. So it works just as well. Um, cool. And that's my one more thing. And that is it for this week's episode.

• 1:03:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Kirk sure is.

• 1:03:53Jason Schreier?

  Maddie, I'll see you two gorillas next week.

• 1:03:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I will go have a banana and I'll see you both next week.

• 1:04:02Jason Schreier?

  Bye.

• 1:04:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom G. J. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at MaximumFun.org/join. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPod, send email to [email protected], and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:05:03Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.