GTA VI Delay and More Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Grand Theft Auto VI is delayed to 2026... but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not! This week, the gang talks about both games, starting with some thoughts on the new GTA trailer before moving into some takes on Act 1 of Clair Obscur.

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

• 0:03Jason Schreier?

  This week, we're talking Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Although thanks to Trump's 20% tariff, it's now Expedition 39.6.

• 0:13Jason Schreier?

  Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we're getting into the hot new RPG from France that everyone just can't seem to stop discussing. That's right, GTA 6.

• 0:31Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  And I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:35Jason Schreier?

  Hello. Welcome.

• 0:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Hello, friends.

• 0:37Jason Schreier?

  For another episode of our little old show.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  Little old Triple Click, still going.

• 0:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Little, little five-year-old Triple Click.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  It's so little. It's a toddler, I guess. It's toddling around. It knows, it knows enough to say things that could qualify as jokes at this point.

• 0:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, it's developing a stronger sense of self.

• 1:00Jason Schreier?

  I feel like you guys have your ages all funky here. Five is way more than a toddler.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  I'm only basing it on my niece, who doesn't look like a toddler at all, but she's very tall for her age, so I really never know.

• 1:13Jason Schreier?

  Five is like a proper kid.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  Five is like a kid.

• 1:17Jason Schreier?

  Five is like asking questions. Five is like having feelings. Five is a legitimate child.

• 1:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click is now a legitimate child.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Whereas toddlers aren't legitimate children. You heard it here first. They're not legitimate.

• 1:30Jason Schreier?

  Triple Click just asked what happened to our dog when it died. That's like.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Asking the big questions.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  And what happened to Mario when he died?

• 1:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, which we still haven't answered.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  We haven't, and we never will.

• 1:42Jason Schreier?

  People out there, if you would like to see Triple Click make it all the way through puberty and into old age, then you have to help us make it happen. You can do that by going to maximumfun.org/join and becoming a member of our podcast network. We are entirely listener-supported, so we very much appreciate anyone who makes this show possible. And to show our appreciation, we record a bonus episode for subscribers every single month, including one we just did on 7. And when we are doing this month on a new video game called Blue Prince, we will be talking spoilers. We've been getting into the story and the puzzles and going all the way in depth on that game. So look out for that later this month. If you are a Maximum Fun

• 2:28Jason Schreier?

  member, maximumfun.org/join, become a member today. Yeah. Few things we should talk about before we get into the meat of this week's episode. First of all, we should just real quick, address the Polygon situation. As people might have seen last week, Polygon was sold to a new corporate owner and most of the staff were laid off. Maddie, as the person on this show who works for Polygon, I mean, do you want to add anything?

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Sure. I mean, I still work there. That seems relevant to say. I still have a job at Polygon.com and I still have several coworkers that are remaining there, but not nearly as many as I used to have. From what I understand, it was Vox Media that did the layoff officially, at least in terms of which of the two sides claims credit for it. It's Vox.

• 3:27Jason Schreier?

  The old ones, not the new ones.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  The old, yeah, the old boss laid off the entirety of the union. And then some folks who weren't in the union were also not brought over to the new version of Polygon. But since coming there, I have spoken to Val Net, my new owner, a few times, been trying to get back some of the people that they originally didn't bring over and have managed to get at least one person back. It's work in progress right now. I've, the site's very small at this time, but I'm hoping that it will get bigger again soon. And all I can really say to the listeners is it's me. I'm still going to keep doing the same thing I always did at Polygon before, unless somebody tries to

• 4:10Speaker 02

  stop me. And then who knows? Who knows what would happen if they dared to try?

• 4:17Jason Schreier?

  It sucks, though, of course.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  It sucks. I really miss a huge percentage of people I used to work with. And it's really lonely right now, really weirdly empty slack, very strange.

• 4:26Jason Schreier?

  I think we'll probably, maybe there'll be room in the future for us to get into this and kind of media a little bit more, but now I think it's safe to say that things are still actively happening and we're still, there's still a lot of balls in the air. So I think the three of us will probably avoid just kind of like prognosticating too much because who knows? I mean, a lot of things could be different. Like, we have no idea what's gonna happen in the coming days and weeks. Things could be different by the time this airs. Yeah.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I certainly have very strong feelings about this based on what has happened.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  And they're all positive, right?

• 5:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  You feel really...

• 5:02Kirk Hamilton?

  No, they're, they're very negative.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting, interesting. You should say that.

• 5:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Very, very negative. But you know, this directly affects you in a way that it doesn't me and Jason. And also, yeah, like you said, Jason, it's, it's ongoing and we'll, we'll see when it's time to really talk about it. But I wanted to at least say that, yeah, this is a real shame and I'm, I'm just really bummed out, both because of all the people who lost their jobs and because I really liked Polygon and I liked reading the version of it that existed until last week.

• 5:31Jason Schreier?

  In other news, before we get to the meat of the show, GTA 6, kind of industry shaking news happened, so we should address it real quick. Two things, two things have happened since last week. One is that GTA 6 was delayed on Friday morning, kind of unceremoniously at 7:30 in the morning. Rockstar said, hey, we're moving to May of 2026 from its previous date of fall 2025. And the second thing that happened is they released a hot new trailer and a ton of other info about the game this week on Tuesday morning. So that was fun to see as well. Gonna be a big old video game, gonna be a pretty monumental release.

• 6:16Jason Schreier?

  I think we all enjoyed the trailer. What'd you guys think of the delay on the trailer news?

• 6:21Kirk Hamilton?

  The delay is unsurprising. The trailer was out of control. Man, I just love to hear the Pointer Sisters anywhere I can hear them. I've had so much Pointer Sisters in my life lately. I did an episode of Strong Songs about Muppets music and talked about that Sesame Street Pinball Number Count song that they sang. And then I've just been listening to a lot of the Pointers. They're so freaking good. That song is so good. That trailer was so good. That trailer was so hot. I think that's the best thing about it. It was true to the Pointer Sisters song. It was probably the hottest GTA has ever been for a series that has had a lot of sexual scandals and includes a lot of sexual content. It has maybe never been actually sexy to me, and that trailer was quite sexy. So I thought that was a remarkable thing about it.

• 7:01Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's striking that it's like, GTA has always been associated with like beating up hookers in strip clubs and stuff.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, for the worse.

• 7:09Jason Schreier?

  But those were always so like,

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Childish?

• 7:14Jason Schreier?

  Purel is the word that I was about to say. Yeah, they all felt very sterile also. It's like, yes, this is a hooker who has like, plastic tits and stuff. Whereas this feels like, whoa, this is like a heat story. This is like a Michael Mann, like a steamy romance. And it's also, I appreciate it when a game has sexy characters of every gender, not just like, hot women in skimpy clothing, but also hot men in skimpy clothing. I think it's good to be inclusive in that way.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, equal opportunity sexiness is on display.

• 7:50Kirk Hamilton?

  One important thing about sexiness, this is like, it's actually similar to playing in the pocket. When you're playing in the pocket in music, you have to do it with other people. Pocket is something you do with other people. Sexiness is, it is as well. And like, I remember the original trailer for GTA 6. There was this like, beautiful woman in a bikini, and she wound up being kind of the top image for a lot of articles about that trailer, because people will click on an image with a hot lady in it.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 8:16Kirk Hamilton?

  But like, watching these two characters together, in this clearly affectionate relationship, where they seem to really be into each other, and they're doing all this high adrenaline, exciting stuff together, and it just seems really steamy. That was a new energy for GTA, and I really appreciated it.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you really want to root for them, which I think was something that's kind of different because I talked about this on the show, you know, many months ago when I was replaying GTA V and I was like, uh, these three protagonists, they're sort of noted for being three guys you don't care for, but they're fun to play as because you're embracing your id and you're just like, I'm gonna be an unlikable guy for the next several hours tonight. And that's just the vibe of GTA sometimes. But this really feels like a game where I'm gonna actually like these characters and root for them. And that was just a different, nice feeling to have watching this trailer where I'm like, I actually want to get to know these two and play as them and find out

• 9:14Speaker 02

  what their situation is and run from the cops as these two. I really dug it. I thought the trailer did a great job of capturing those vibes. And I mean, the first trailer was fun. Don't get me wrong. It had a lot of like, kind of comedy beats and like, had all the social media videos in the first trailer, if you two remember that. This trailer was like, no, we're doing character drama. We're introducing you to Jason and Lucia and that's it. We're just gonna let you get to know this couple and kind of fall in love with them, along with them. It was cool.

• 9:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, likable characters. It's important. Nico Bellak, right? I feel like Nico, especially the first part of GTA IV, Nico is a very relatable and likable character. And that's why he's always been one of my favorites.

• 9:54Jason Schreier?

  For a mass murderer, yeah.

• 9:57Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, these two are probably gonna do their share of mass murdering.

• 9:59Jason Schreier?

  I know, I know. It's gonna be, it's gonna be interesting. You see them robbing banks and stealing from people from the get go. Yeah, I'm excited. I think that, so I've said before, I think all of us have agreed that we want to see more Red Dead 2 and less GTA V because Red Dead 2 was such an evolution in the way that Rockstar tells stories and it really just had so much weight and gravitas to it. And very optimistic from what I'm seeing in this trailer. Like, it's still GTA. It's still got like the, all the gags and like billboards in the background with stupid jokes and stuff like that. But it feels like it's got an emotional core to the story. I reported back in 2020.

• 10:42Jason Schreier?

  Two for Bloomberg that this is gonna be a Bonnie and Clyde story and we're seeing a lot of that kind of unfold in these trailers.

• 10:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Hopefully not with a Bonnie and Clyde ending though.

• 10:51Jason Schreier?

  Well, I mean, it's a rock star game. Like, how many rock star games have happy endings? Yeah, I'm very jazzed on it. And yeah, this delay was inevitable. The delay, GTA V slipping, or sorry, GTA VI slipping was so inevitable that like, none of us even made it a prediction for this year, because it would be too late.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  It would have been unfair and boring.

• 11:14Kirk Hamilton?

  It's interesting how big of a hole it leaves and how GTA VI has kind of become the video game industry. That's not exactly what I mean, but do you know what I'm saying? It's so important and so many hopes hang on it that with it gone from this year.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  It's like the sun, everything's revolving around or something?

• 11:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it kind of brings into relief just how weird and kind of broken the video game industry seems right now.

• 11:45Jason Schreier?

  It's, okay, so I'm gonna talk a little bit about this in my newsletter at Bloomberg this week.

• 11:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, give us a preview.

• 11:51Jason Schreier?

  It's so interesting. Well, it has all these ripple effects.

• 11:54Kirk Hamilton?

  I've loved your newsletter lately, by the way.

• 11:55Jason Schreier?

  Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. It has all these ripple effects, right? So there are some games that I know of that actually moved from this fall, partially because all games need extra time, but also to try to avoid GTA. And now suddenly GTA is right next to where they would land. So what happens to those games? And it's like, it's such a, you really have to play this 4D chess with your release date because you also don't know if it's gonna slip again. So if you're Sony or whatever and you have a game planned for spring of next year, nobody at this point knows if GTA is really gonna make it in May of next year, if it's gonna fall to fall. And then if you're a fall 26 game, are you like, oh shit, like, what's gonna happen here? It's really, it's gonna be interesting to

• 12:38Jason Schreier?

  watch. And yeah, that's just the kind of like, everyone wants to stay away because it's gonna vacuum all the attention angle of it, the angle of it just kind of like being the buoy for the rest of the industry and.

• 12:52Jason Schreier?

  Causing growth across the entire industry, that's a whole nother conversation. And I think some industry analysts and watchers are looking at the combination of that and the tariffs and potentially a recession and X plus going to $80 and being like, man, none of these trends are looking good for just kind of overall industry growth this year.

• 13:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. Anytime that many different factors are arrayed against the games industry doing well, it feels increasingly specious, I guess, to pin all your hopes to one thing. Oh, well, but GTA 6 is going to come out and save everything. I mean, really? I don't know. All those things you just listed are pretty significant issues.

• 13:32Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, well, nobody could have known about the tariffs. I mean, the motto for a while last year was survive till 25, a motto both in Hollywood and in the video game industry. But the video game industry's logic was like, Switch 2 is coming, GTA is coming. There's going to be this like surge of renewed interest in gaming from investors, from fans. The console market will grow more in a way it hasn't before. But nobody could have expected the damage Trump would do to the economy when they were talking about that.

• 14:00Kirk Hamilton?

  It's kind of the thing about operating unsustainably, that you plan for the things you can anticipate, but then you get waylaid by things that you didn't see coming. And because you were operating in the red and running so unsustainably, as the games industry has been doing for so long, you're completely unable to deal with that unexpected factor. And that's kind of what we're seeing right now.

• 14:21Jason Schreier?

  Right. Terrifying. Bad times. Bad times.

• 14:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, bad times. Pretty bad times, guys.

• 14:27Jason Schreier?

  Not good.

• 14:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Just in general.

• 14:31Jason Schreier?

  Nope. No. One other thing I'll say is that like, there is a world. So GTA, one of the reasons that this is going to be such a ridiculous like explosion of a launch is because GTA V is such a success. It's now sold 210 million copies. And the main reason GTA V is such a success is because of the online mode. So there's certainly a world in which like a company like Rockstar or Take-Two, its parent company is like, why are we bothering with all this single player shit where you can make an online game that just sells a bazillion copies and makes all this money? And so it's heartening to see all this focus on a single player story that we're all just going to get like to sink our teeth into without having to worry about shark cards and like online heists and stuff like that.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:14Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Love a good single player story. Is that a good transition? I think it is.

• 15:18Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Well, so, um, yeah, speaking of games that are single player and also surprise hits that, uh, kind of like maybe show that not all is dire for the video game industry. There are still some games that can, that can break out.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Come out of nowhere.

• 15:34Jason Schreier?

  What are we talking about today?

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Well, we are doing a triple play of a little game called Claire Obscure Expedition 33. And you know, back when we did our names episode and we talked about this game, we had a rule the top of that episode and it was, "A game's title can break every rule if it's really good." And that is what I would say, at least for me, I mean, I guess I'll hear from the two of you what you think, but this game, I've said the title so many times by now, I don't care about it anymore. It doesn't matter to me and I'm, I'm even kind of into it now. I'm like, this is this game. I'm so into it, but let me just explain what it is, uh, for the folks just now tuning in. Maybe this is your first ever Triple Cloak episode. I don't know.

• 16:19Jason Schreier?

  Welcome.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  What? Welcome. Welcome to the show.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  What is Claire Obscure Expedition 33? It is an RPG made by a brand new studio called Sandfall Interactive. It's got some ex Ubisoft people there. It's got this guy, Guillaume Borch, who came up with this idea during lockdown when he was still working at Ubisoft, just had a weird, cool idea for a video game, ended up leaving, took some of his pals, some of his coworkers with him. There's allegedly like 30 something people there now, but they also hired a bunch of contractors. Yeah, 32, 33, who can say? Expedition something, something. Uh, but yeah, relatively small team plus contractors and they put out a really, really cool story heavy RPG with

• 17:14Speaker 02

  uh, combat that's influenced by Sekiro of all things. It's got turn-based combat, RPG combat, except there's real time. Parrying, dodging, jumping. There's like a sort of more complex version of the parry that gets introduced midway through, like, the first third of the game. I'm trying to remember when they introduced the gradient parry. Like in Act Two. There's like, there's multiple ways to execute realtime parrying mechanics in this game. And the story is really the thing that's keeping me going. I talked about loving the combat the last time we talked about this game, and I do, but I also am really curious where this story's gonna go. It's got great characters, and I'm digging it. So I want

• 17:59Speaker 02

  to hear from you two. I'm 20 hours in, firmly in Act Two by this point, and wondering when that Act Three title card is gonna come up for me. Kirk, how far are you in the game? And what do you think about it at this point?

• 18:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Well.

• 18:25Kirk Hamilton?

  I'll first just say that I'm really loving this game, especially the last couple of sessions that I've played. So I am very on board. And yeah, the name has grown on me as well. I'm very invested in the fate of Expedition 33. I'm about 12 or 13 hours in, maybe something like that. I'm into Act Two. There are some big narrative twists, and maybe at the end of this conversation, we can give a little spoiler warning, and I can give a timestamp, and we can just briefly talk about, you know, one of them.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, we can do that.

• 18:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Just since I think a lot of people listening to this will have played past that point. But I will keep it pretty spoiler-free here. And yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I'm so impressed with so many things about this game. I binged into last week's episode to talk about Laureen Testard, the composer. And I am just, like, blown away by the music to this game. I know I'm not alone in this. There's so much of it. You can stream the whole soundtrack online. There's something, seven or eight hours of music. He composed so much, and he's not an established video game composer. I believe he, I think I've seen this anyways, that he was just making music and putting it on SoundCloud.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 19:28Kirk Hamilton?

  He's kind of just a guitarist composer who got this shot and was just super up for it and created an incredible amount of unbelievably beautiful music.

• 19:49Kirk Hamilton?

  And the music for me, just throughout, is the whole experience is just encapsulated and held by this music. The music is so, so beautiful. So I'm really impressed with that part of it. I think it's gorgeous looking. I am really enjoying the combat. I just fought a boss called, I believe, the Dulist. Yes. And it was, it kicked so much ass. It was the first time in the game, not only have I gotten my head around all the different combat systems, but it was the first fight that I got really pumped up in the middle of. A combination of the narrative beats, the cutscenes that would play during the fight, just the whole experience of it got me really excited. By the end of it, I was like, what? Like, I was, I was visibly agitated and animated during the fight, which doesn't happen that often in games. So I'm having

• 20:34Kirk Hamilton?

  a great time with the combat. And then I'm finding the story to just be absolutely terrific. I think these performances are remarkable. The technology that they're using, the facial animations, their performance capture, and also the script and the moments that they've chosen to highlight are just beautiful. So we can talk some more about those later. But anyways, those are some general thoughts. I think this game is phenomenal. Jason, what about you?

• 20:59Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I just finished up Act One, so I guess almost caught up to you guys. I'm just starting Act Two. And yeah, I like it. I wouldn't say I love it, or I'm as enamored as you two are, because there are some things about it that are annoying me, that I'll get into in a sec.

• 21:22Kirk Hamilton?

  That's fair.

• 21:22Jason Schreier?

  But I do, I do really enjoy it. I mean, I really enjoyed the combat. I really enjoyed this boss I just fought at the end of Act One, where you have to like follow his lantern patterns and shoot them out in order.

• 21:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that is a cool boss fight.

• 21:35Jason Schreier?

  It was a fun, very fun fight. I am enjoying how overpowered some of the characters are, although it makes me... Beg some questions about the balance of this game.

• 21:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Mail does not fuck around.

• 21:48Jason Schreier?

  Well, it's so, it's like, some of my characters will be, some of my characters will be doing like a tiny sliver of the health bar of a boss. And then, uh, SCL will come in and just destroy them in two hits. It's, it's very, very, which actually, I mean, I think is, is one of the flaws of this game is that is the balance of it all just feels pretty off to me. Um, and yeah, I mean, I, I like it. I don't love it. I'm not sure if I'm going to finish it is, is what I would say. Um, the story I think is interesting. It's very Final Fantasy X. As I said last week, it's definitely well done. I agree with you, Kirk, that the performances and the writing or, and the music obviously are all, are all well done.

• 22:30Jason Schreier?

  There are just so many like, kind of little bits of friction that are making me feel like, man, this is kind of feeling like a chore to play. And I'll give you guys a couple of examples, just to be specific about what I'm talking about. Um, one is, uh, the, the picto and skill and stat management, which never doesn't feel like a chore.

• 22:51Jason Schreier?

  It's like, oh no, I, I get this, I keep getting this feeling like, oh no, I found a new picto. I have to go through the inventory and figure out, sort through these dozens of, um, stat modifying pictos. Try to like wrap my head around the incremental changes that they're all going to make like plus 25% to whatever. Try to figure out where like, which ones I've learned and which ones I haven't. And just do this kind of like inventory organizing that just feels to me like a chore. And it feels like if I don't do it, I'm too far behind. Like my characters are too weak because it's a noticeable difference if you don't do all this stuff. And then on top of that, you're doing the skill management and you're doing the, the, you're adding points to stats for no reason, which like there's,

• 23:31Jason Schreier?

  there's really no reason like that that needed to be a system in this game. They needed to be able to modify stats.

• 23:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, we talked about that last week and my opinion hasn't really changed.

• 23:40Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, same. It's really, it's just such a clutter, just kind of tedious thing. And it really, it's kind of that combined with the fact that I find maneuvering and exploring in this game to be so unpleasant that it really just. Kind of drags it for me like a large part of me is wishing that it was just boss fight, boss fight story, boss fight, boss fight story without having to move around the world. And there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that I find the kind of overall aesthetic to be a little flat and boring. It all feels very slick and kind of generic. I can't really tell much of a difference between a lot of these different places. There's some cool art in the backgrounds, but it's not like visually arresting enough. They're all very similar to

• 24:24Jason Schreier?

  the, to me and I was dazzled at first, but it's gone kind of seamy. I would not be able to tell you the differences between any of these different locations, between the cave location and the, like the other cave location. But the more, more importantly, the level design is not good enough to justify not having a mini map. And there are way too many times when I've been roaming around an area and just trying to poke through every crevasse or like a side path and then found myself like accidentally going back the way I came because there's just no, like you don't have any bearings when you're walking around and everything kind of looks the same. So there's

• 25:05Jason Schreier?

  no real landmarks for you to be like, oh, okay, I came from over here. The way you would in another game and a lot of other games without mini maps, like a Souls game or something where it's very easy to just kind of remember, oh, I fought this guy over here. Oh, this is the shortcut I unlocked earlier. Oh, this is a location that I remember from earlier. In this game, it doesn't have any of that. And so while in general, I am not opposed to ditching mini maps and kind of letting you explore and see things for yourself. The level design is just not good enough in this game for me to feel like that was a smart decision. I just feel like I, several times, I just felt like my time was wasted because I, I was walking in a certain direction and then accidentally turned myself around and did not notice that I was going back the way I came because it all just

• 25:50Jason Schreier?

  kind of looks the same to me. So yeah, it's, it's those combinations of things that are just like making me feel like it's wasting my time a lot, which is, is making me kind of, again, like it, but not love it.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 26:04Kirk Hamilton?

  That's so funny. I, you know, I don't disagree with anything that you said, but I love this game. Like, none of those things have cooled me on it at all.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  That's fair.

• 26:13Kirk Hamilton?

  I agree that the exploration is the weakest point of the game. The level design is circular and confusing. I frequently find myself wanting to find a map. I like what they're doing with the world map, where the game zooms out for the world map and shows you this kind of diorama, which is neat, especially now that I have SGA in my party, who, side note, is the best. And I love him. He is adorable. But now that I have him in my party, he's kind of the airship of this game in that you're kind of upgrading him.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  He's a living airship.

• 26:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, he's a kind of ancestral mischievous, unknowable god that also is helping you out. And you ride around on his back, but he can be a boat. And I'm assuming at some point, maybe he'll be able to fly or go underwater, or he'll get various stones that upgrade him. But now that I have him, it's easier to get around. I'm finding myself going back to collect, you know, little, uh, some of the pictos that I missed earlier, because I'll look at a guide, just, oh, where can I get one that gives me more AP or whatever? And then just go find it. I find that to be pleasant enough. But once I'm in one of the regions in the game, I totally agree, I get lost. I find that just some of the animations and the locomotion, like the animations for moving around, are just not great. It just doesn't feel really good. Like, running doesn't quite feel great.

• 27:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Especially considering how snappy and well-made the combat is, the exploration is weak. But the thing is, this game just lives on its combat and on its story. And the story is so well-told. These cutscenes I was referring to, when you're in camp and these characters just get moments together that are so well-written and so well-acted, every one of them so far has been great. And I love that as kind of downtime in between, either walking around and just grinding, fighting regular enemies, and getting really good at recognizing their patterns and nailing my counters and dodges, or these incredibly exciting boss fights, like the one I was just talking about against the Dulis, that was the most fun I've had in a boss fight in a video game in a long time and was exhilarating. And so that's been more than enough for me.

• 28:07Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I don't disagree. And to just kind of shine a light on something I really enjoyed in the game, I really enjoyed getting to the gestural village and doing the combat arena.

• 28:19Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, they're hilarious. I mean, there's so many like creative ideas in this game that I really love. The gestrals as a concept are just so fun. And what a good idea for like these characters that just like have brushes for heads and are cute, but love to fight and get really loud and angry about things. It's brilliant idea.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that juxtaposition never stops being funny for the entire game, like, or at least as far as I've gotten. Maybe act three, they just get rid of all the gestrals. But so far, I'm like, every time I run into one of these guys, I'm thrilled that he's there. And I'm like, yeah, good comic relief, comic relief. But yeah, I agree, Jason. I just feel like I've gotten used to the stuff I don't like about the game. I feel like I'm notorious for getting lost in games. I do all the time. And that was something I hated about the game early on was the fact that there's no mini map. I kept getting turned around. There's kind of like a maze like part of the gestural section where I feel like you're almost intentionally supposed to get lost.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  And that part was very frustrating for me. It just, it wasn't fun, but I've just kind of gotten used to it. And one of the ways I've gotten used to it is there's no stamina bar in this game. You can just run forever. And some of the characters. Yeah, you can actually.

• 29:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Where you just run.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Where you just run all the time. And that I think helps kind of solve for this problem. It doesn't fix it. It's just kind of a way to Band-Aid it, if you will, where it's like, okay, maybe you got turned around. You can get back where you were really quickly. And some of the characters run faster than others. And you can just toggle between whatever character you like their run speed the best or feels the best to you. And just go with them and run all the way back to wherever you were trying to get. And I've done that more than a few times and it's kind of helped me forgive the fact that there's no mini map. But there should be. It would help so much if they just had a map in the game.

• 30:12Kirk Hamilton?

  You can imagine a version of this game where the level design is, if not on par with the Souls game, at least closer. I mean, we compared this in terms of vibe to Lies of P. Lies of P does not match from soft's level design, but it does have some pretty cool, twisty, interesting and memorable levels. If this game had had that, it would just be yet another point in its favor. So it's maybe a missed opportunity, but the other two things, the things that it does well are so good that it certainly outweighs it for me. Like you're saying, Matty, I just kind of got used to and don't really mind those downsides. Can I call out two specific things that I really like? One about the story and one about the combat?

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:47Kirk Hamilton?

  So a thing that I really like about the combat is that combat is generally quite difficult in that if you take a hit, you you take a lot of damage. It's possible to level yourself up to where that becomes less of an issue. I'm finding myself less challenged by it now than I was earlier on. But against bosses, I still have to be really careful. And I really like what that does narratively, because a fight in this game isn't like a fight in a lot of other turn-based RPGs where you're kind of just absorbing damage and healing yourself. It it kind of reinforces the stakes of each fight, that your characters, who are so vulnerable, and that's such a big part of the narrative, that these characters are all doomed, right? The Gomage comes and kills everybody. They've lost so many along the way.

• 31:31Kirk Hamilton?

  You're constantly walking past the discarded corpses of previous expeditions. And so you you feel your mortality at every turn. And in every fight, you're fighting some giant hulking thing with swords that are made out of flame, and and it's smashing you. And if it hits you, it does a ton of damage. And so you're empowered to dodge and parry those attacks rather than just absorbing them and healing like in another turn-based game. And I think that I've never quite played a game that does this outside of, you know, Mario and Luigi or Mario RPG, which isn't really going for the same thing tonally.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 32:02Kirk Hamilton?

  And I think that that is really cool, because it reinforces how dramatic and dangerous this world is in a way that I hadn't expected and have been finding really neat.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally agree. And I I really love the themes of the game. I mean, I guess maybe you're going to get into that when you highlight whatever story piece you like. But I kind of talked about it last week with the idea of playing a rogue-like game, except it's the story version of that, where now the characters, you're Getting to know them on one of the runs, as it were. And the more the story goes on, the more I really feel that. And I love that the combat also leans into that sense where it's like every moment, everybody's really working hard. And even in those moments where they're overpowered, sometimes the characters after the fight will talk to each other about it and be like, that one was pretty easy and I appreciate that too. And I'm like, that's cool. Like the characters are sort of acknowledging the reality that we're all living in,

• 32:56Speaker 02

  but also like they're repeating these kind of dire mantras to each other. Like we continue is like one of their things that they say. And I really, I dig the vibe. I dig the doomed vibe.

• 33:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I do like the way that the game incorporates the language of the expeditions into the game. I mentioned last week that when you press an X button to keep going after a fight.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 33:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Just the sort of on to the next thing. The prompt says, we continue, which is cute. But I also like if three of your party go down in a fight, you can call in the reserves. So any additional party members come in and this dialogue box comes up that says, the final stand of Expedition 33. And it's so dramatic and it's, you know, it's reinforcing what is happening in this story in this moment. Of course, if they die, somehow time just rewinds and you, they all come back to life and you try again. But in that moment, it does feel like-

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Luna casts her revive spell afterwards and it's all fine.

• 33:48Kirk Hamilton?

  And we don't talk too much about revival shards and how those work. Why we can't use them on all the bodies we found. But you know, it works sort of along with that kind of doomed tone of the game. The other thing I was going to say that I like, it's a little thing. It's more of an art character design element, but I really like how these characters are just covered in mud and blood.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:07Kirk Hamilton?

  The entire game. And it makes it, it's such a little thing. It's kind of like battle damage, you know? It's John McClane cutting his feet in Die Hard. It's the thing that ties you into the world and reminds you that the story that you're watching is one contiguous story. And that all of these characters have headed to the continent on this doomed pilgrimage and that they've just been going through it this whole time. And so much of the story is focused on that. It's focused on their journey and- And the damage they're taking and the trauma they're leaving behind and how they're trying to get through it together.

• 34:43Kirk Hamilton?

  And it really just underlines it when you have these scenes playing out where they're like horribly splattered in blood and like, you know, just gore and it's and then mud is all over them like they all look exhausted. And so beaten down and it's, it seems obvious, I guess, but so many games just don't do this. They don't do persistent effects on the characters' actual bodies in this way. And I find it to be a very effective storytelling technique. It's subtle. Some people might not even think about it. But when you're watching it, it really reminds you that this is all happening in real time.

• 35:13Jason Schreier?

  It reminds me of Baldur's Gate 3, which was hilarious and how you were constantly covered in blood.

• 35:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. It's one in a lot of games or in Dragon Age, right? Where you'd be covered like splattered in blood and then having a like

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Like a normal conversation.

• 35:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Where it's more procedural in other games, because this game is so much more linear and the story is so much more controlled. It's more, it more just fits. It never really feels out of place. And also, as much as there are some funny moments, like with gestures, most of the time, these characters are pretty downtrodden and sad. And so it kind of keeps the tone consistent.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I also really, I mean, we kind of talked about this last week too, but I've continued to like how little characters explain what's going on. And I think it's continued to really work for me. There's at least like the moment in the changeover from act one to act two where a couple key things get explained to you that hitherto hadn't been. And I was relieved for them because I was like, okay, great. Now I understand two things. But they take hours to get you there. And even after that, there's still a lot that I'm like, I don't really know what's going on. And like, you would think that would be a complaint that I was having about the game, but I'm really appreciating that I'm just picking things up almost from conversations that it feels like I'm overhearing.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Where the characters don't define proper nouns to you. You just hear them have a conversation about something and you're like, okay, from context clues, I'm now understanding that that's what they meant by this. And why it matters to them or why it's funny to them or doesn't matter to them. And I just Just can't emphasize enough, I don't play games that do this enough. I don't know why, but it's like, this is a gift to just have the characters not stop and explain things to you.

• 36:58Kirk Hamilton?

  It's nice, and it's not even just lore stuff. I don't know, in a recent conversation, Ciel was made reference to her husband in the past tense, and I actually don't remember if I was explained what that means, if she did explain what that means, but I didn't really need her to explain it. I understood from context. There's a few things this could mean. Each of them is probably fairly sad. I'll probably learn more, but it was just a nice little character note that spoke volumes without over explaining itself.

• 37:23Jason Schreier?

  I just want to chime in, Kirk. I was meaning to respond to this a little bit earlier, but you were talking a little bit about the rhythm of combat and how it kind of redirects the focus from absorbing, healing, to like parrying, dodging, and that becomes your kind of your lynch point for the combat. That's what you want to focus on. It's interesting because as the one among us who has played and enjoyed the most turn-based RPGs, there's kind of, I think, a few different ways in which a turn-based RPG can approach combat and tell you as a player what to focus on. One of them, the kind of the most old-school way, was resource management, and that's why healing and absorbing became a certain kind of

• 38:05Jason Schreier?

  that's why it became a mechanic. It's not because you were just meant to sit there passively and just kind of like on autopilot heal your characters, but you're meant to think, oh, okay, like, do I have enough healing potions here? Do I have enough, should I use my magic now, or should I save it for like a boss down the road? Do I have enough resources to make it through the end of the dungeon? Or do I have to bail and go back to town and then come back later? And those were kind of the decisions you had to make. As the edges got sanded off on a lot of JRPGs and turn-based RPGs, a lot of that resource management got done away with, and you were kind of given ample healing potions and healing resources, and it became more of a matter of vibes. Like, you're just kind of vibing through this dungeon and just fighting enemies, and you're not really thinking too much about it.

• 38:48Jason Schreier?

  Maybe the boss you have to think about because it has some unique mechanic, but really, you're just chilling to the music and enjoying the characters, and you're just kind of going on autopilot the whole time. Time. It was, yeah, Mario RPG and then Super Mario RPG on the Super Nintendo. And then the games that kind of were offshoots from it, Mario, Luigi, and then Paper Mario, those two series that introduced this idea of like rhythm is combat, which this is a direct descendant of. And those games all, even though, to your point, yes, they had a different five and they were easier, they all required you to master the rhythm. Like you could not beat those games if you weren't getting the timed attacks just right. So this is very much in that lineage of like, if you, if you want to master this turn-based combat,

• 39:32Jason Schreier?

  you have to learn how the parrying and dodging work. And if you don't, you will be bad at it, like straight up. I think there's a toggle in the game, like you can set it easier for yourself or even do away with it. But like, that's the way it's meant to be played is by using that. And that is kind of a direct descendant of that, like offshoot of turn-based combat. Which, yes, I think is really exciting and fun because it adds a lot of just kind of interesting tactile excitement to each combat, like each battle. It makes it a lot more fun to fight random battles when you are actively engaged in it and trying to learn something new each time.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's what I love about it.

• 40:09Jason Schreier?

  Rather than just mashing buttons. Yeah.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And to build on that just a little bit, I think it also takes some lessons from Demon Souls and Dark Souls, which were a shot in the arm to action RPGs in that the enemies did so much damage and the attacks were so dangerous. The bosses were so huge. And for the first time in a while, after years of Devil May Cry and, and character action games where you were performing these unbelievable feats, you know, fighting a bayonetta boss where you're literally killing a building-sized creature just by kind of flying around and kicking it in the face. Now you're fighting a giant knight that towers above you and it feels like you're fighting a giant knight that's, you know, weighs 7,000 tons and each hit could just totally kill you.

• 40:51Kirk Hamilton?

  And that excitement, I think it was kind of a shot in the arm to a lot of combat game designers. And Claire Obscure has some elements of that. It does also have that feeling of this huge enemy that will just wreck your shit if it hits you and you have to pull this dodge off, especially, you know, if you're down to low health and they're down to low health and you've only got, you're out of revives and you've only got male left. And, you know, I've had some fights like this and they're thrilling in that same way that, you know, by the skin of your teeth, Dark Souls' victory feels thrilling.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I complain about turn-based games on this podcast sometimes, and this one I love because it has these elements.

• 41:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Where I'm like, this is exciting. And I'm like, really engaged with every single moment.

• 41:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  But I do feel like we should take a little pause here and talk about some of the story stuff that happens right at the end of act one.

• 41:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna, I'm gonna leave a spot and then I'm gonna remember to go back. And I'm gonna say a timestamp. If you don't want to hear what happens at the end of act one, you can skip to this timestamp to get to one more thing. So here is the timestamp. Fifty-one minutes and twenty-five seconds. Skip to fifty-one minutes and twenty-five seconds. Okay, and we're not gonna say it immediately because we've also gotten in trouble for that.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  We're not gonna do that.

• 42:06Kirk Hamilton?

  For a second here. We're gonna, we still haven't spoiled it.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Well, how about?

• 42:10Kirk Hamilton?

  We're gonna talk about a big thing that happens.

• 42:11Jason Schreier?

  Wait, I have a story to tell.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 42:14Kirk Hamilton?

  So I wanted to- Helping us vamp.

• 42:16Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I wanted to finish up act one before we had this conversation because I felt like a good, like, alright, I've played a good chunk of the game. And so I went on the IGN guide for Claire Obscure Expedition Thirty-Three, which by the way, I disagree with you guys. It's still a mouthful. They just should have just called it Claire Obscure. Would have been great.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Well, you don't like the game as much as we do, so I get it.

• 42:44Jason Schreier?

  So I went to the IGN walkthrough for Claire Obscure, and now this is your last chance to avoid spoilers, so turn it on, like, skip ahead, turn it off now.

• 42:52Kirk Hamilton?

  They've had enough time. They've had enough time.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  And also, don't read the IGN guide, according to Jason.

• 42:56Jason Schreier?

  Don't read the IGN guide, because the IGN guide, I was looking, I was going to be a guy just to see like how many areas I had left. So I just wanted to look at like the sub-headlines, and I see act one dash Gustav, Gustav. And I was like, why would it be called act one Gustav? Or is it saying that Gustav is going to die at the end of act one and then you play someone else? And then, of course, that's what happened.

• 43:17Kirk Hamilton?

  Quite a deduction by you.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I thought this was a pretty wild deduction, incidentally.

• 43:22Jason Schreier?

  I don't know.

• 43:22Kirk Hamilton?

  It could just mean here's an act guide for Gustav builds for act one. I've seen a lot of them.

• 43:27Jason Schreier?

  No, my, my, my gut was that like- Oh, well, if Act One is just named after a character, then Act Two must be named after another character that you then switch to. I don't know, maybe part of it is just me just like having played so many RPGs that like.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Or maybe you kind of had a feeling like, hmm, Gustav's kind of mopey and doesn't seem like he has a lot going on.

• 43:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Mayel keeps saying, Gustav, don't die in combat.

• 43:48Jason Schreier?

  That's true. Well, I thought she was just imitating you during Destiny, Kirk, but no.

• 43:52Kirk Hamilton?

  I knew that you would enjoy that because she stole my line.

• 43:55Jason Schreier?

  I actually, I was thinking, and also Charlie Cox is probably expensive to get for an entire game as the lead role. Like, that seems unlikely. And I knew that Ben Star was in there somewhere. So I was like, is he gonna take over?

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, you were waiting for him to show up.

• 44:09Kirk Hamilton?

  I've seen so many interviews with Ben Star, and I kept wondering where he was.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, where is he?

• 44:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Initially, I thought that maybe he was Gustav, and then I realized that it was Charlie Cox.

• 44:15Jason Schreier?

  But yeah, clearly, they decided, you know what, Charlie Cox, you got a lot of shit to do. You're really expensive. You gotta go be Daredevil. All right, we're bailing. Goodbye, Gustav. Yeah, that was, that was an interesting plot twist.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  I'm sorry you were spoiled, though, on it, Jason.

• 44:31Jason Schreier?

  I mean, whatever. It's not a big deal. I'm used to like.

• 44:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Can I say, I think this is a fantastic decision.

• 44:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:38Kirk Hamilton?

  I really found it remarkable.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Same. I wasn't spoiled on it at all.

• 44:42Kirk Hamilton?

  It's still surprising and unusual for a game like this to kill a major party member. Gustav, of course, was introduced as if he was the main character, and they didn't really, you know, what's the word? They didn't hold anything back. They made him an appealing protagonist. They gave him this, you know, older brother relationship with Mayel. They gave him a dead girlfriend.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  A girlfriend that dies.

• 45:06Kirk Hamilton?

  They gave him a girlfriend who dies. He's got real main characters.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  He's supposed to be a video game protagonist. Come on.

• 45:11Kirk Hamilton?

  So he was, I really thought he was gonna be the main character. By killing him, I think they've, they really shift the narrative in a number of positive directions. For starters, his death underlines the themes of the game. It just wouldn't be that believable for these survivors of that initial doomed beach landing to just make it all the way to the end the way that video game protagonists usually do. And I appreciate that I don't feel like I wasted time leveling up Gustav, since, of course, They introduce, you know, a new character, Verso, and he kind of, he's, he kind of, they're like, "Hey, can you just like use Gustav's sword?"

• 45:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Can you just be like- Maybe we'll just call you Gustav sometimes. Really similar in a lot of gameplay respects. He just looks a little more like Robert Pattinson and kind of make Pattinson expression.

• 45:55Jason Schreier?

  Can I, can I just say, that's like, okay, so there's a game, there's an old school PS1 game called Legend of Dragoon. And early in the game, one of the characters dies and then like his son or bodyguard or someone comes in and has literally the exact same abilities and takes it. Actually, no way.

• 46:14Kirk Hamilton?

  The classic move.

• 46:14Jason Schreier?

  This goes way back to Final Fantasy V where an old dude dies and then his granddaughter comes in and has all of his powers and jobs and classes and abilities. So this is an RPG trope that has been, been around for many years.

• 46:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, and a soap opera trope as well, right? You know, it's my twin brother and now we want to get rid of this actor, so he's here.

• 46:32Jason Schreier?

  Well, really, it's all, it all comes down to beer fest. It's really the beer fest of it all.

• 46:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Sure.

• 46:38Jason Schreier?

  Where, what's-his-name dies and then his twin brother comes in and it's like, "Now we'll never talk about this again."

• 46:44Kirk Hamilton?

  So the other thing I like about Verso, the last thing I want to mention, is just that I think he adds a really nice element to the narrative and to the party because he is an outsider. Yes. He knows the continent, he knows what's going on. That, I love. He is clearly mysterious. But yeah, it's just really great that now suddenly he doesn't have any history with these characters and he has to get to know them. And this is where the game introduces its social links as well, which so far I've thought are wonderfully handled, that you control him in camp and then you get to go talk to different characters. One thing I like is that you don't have to pick one. You could just talk to everybody, at least so far, which is just nice. But also, he is getting to know each of these characters. This is where that conversation with Ciel, where she referenced her husband

• 47:24Kirk Hamilton?

  and talked about her backstory. That's where that took place. And I really like the way it's a mix of specific written lines of dialogue that then transitions into a persona style. You know, Ciel and Verso talked a little bit about their backstories, you know? She asked him some questions. He was evasive. It made her mad. This also was, this is very funny to me, the little write-ups, yeah. So anyways, I really like that he is coming from the outside and it adds a really nice dynamic to the group.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I also like the rogue-like thing I mentioned earlier, which I think Verso super works with because he's like the guy who's almost beaten Hades or whatever. And he's like, okay, so I made it all the way to here and then we need to get this object. And like, all the other characters are like, we're still shell-shocked from Gustav dying. Like, what is happening right now? And like, he's in such gamer mode that I like, was very charmed by it. But he's like, I've already done this with like, a million other expeditions, guys. Like, we just need to get it together. And I was like, this guy's energy is actually unintentionally hilarious, but also, he has done it with a billion expeditions, and that's very fun.

• 48:29Jason Schreier?

  I haven't gotten through, I literally just stopped after Act One ended, so I haven't even seen the social stuff, but yeah, looking forward to it. I'll definitely play more.

• 48:36Kirk Hamilton?

  He's, he's great, and he also, I think, further solidifies Maël as the game's protagonist.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:44Kirk Hamilton?

  She seemed already like the main character of the game, and, what's her name, Jennifer English? Is that the voice actor who plays her?

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know.

• 48:50Kirk Hamilton?

  I think that's it. I'll bing in if I'm wrong. I think she's wonderful. She played Shadowheart in Baldur's Gate 3. She's really, really good here. And Maël is a great protagonist for this game in a lot of ways, and I actually think it's refreshing just to have a gender swap on what would happen in nine out of 10 games before this one.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Where Gustav would say the main character and Maël would die at the end of Act One. So even that is just cool, that she's younger than he is, that she has to accept losing this father-brother figure as she describes him. I think that's just really cool, and I'm, I'm really looking forward to Maël's journey through the rest of this game.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've really enjoyed it thus far through Act Two, just having her be the character that you kind of look to in cutscenes, who, whose reactions are the ones that you, as the audience member, are kind of like, okay, this is clearly the protagonist now. And that adjustment has worked a lot better than I thought it would, so...

• 49:40Kirk Hamilton?

  She fights like a protagonist, too.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's, she's very fun to play.

• 49:44Kirk Hamilton?

  She's just bodying everyone that they put up against.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm gonna keep playing this game, and it sounds like we all are, at least for now. But hey, maybe we'll talk about it in the future. For now, though, let's take a break and then come back with one more thing.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  Hey, we're the Eurovangelists and it's the most wonderful time of the year because the Eurovision Song Contest is next week.

• 50:09Speaker 05

  Thirty-seven countries will face off in Basel, Switzerland, to determine who has the best song in Europe. On our show, we've argued about all the songs and we are heading to Europe to bring you our reactions straight from Switzerland.

• 50:19Speaker 04

  And on our next episode, we're going to predict who's going to survive the semifinals, compete in the grand final, and ultimately win Eurovision 2025.

• 50:27Speaker 05

  Albania, baby! It's Malta.

• 50:29Speaker 04

  Latvia!

• 50:30Speaker 05

  But we won't be alone. Glenn Walden of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour will be with us, sharing his own predictions and telling us why we're wrong. So make sure you're ready for Eurovision by listening to Eurovangelists on Maximum Fun, available everywhere you get podcasts.

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  Like the time we met an actual celebrity cow.

• 51:16Speaker 07

  So listen to Go Fact Yourself twice a month, every month, on Maximum Fun.

• 51:21Speaker 06

  Do it for the cow!

• 51:26Speaker 02

  And we are back with one more thing. I'm going to go first. I played a video game called Consume Me, and I debated not talking about this because this game's not out yet, it's not under embargo or anything, but I decided I wanted to because I think people should wish list it on Steam, and it's a little indie game, and I feel like it's probably not going to get as much heat as it deserves otherwise, even though it really should, because it just won a bunch of awards. Without the triple-click bump. Yeah, I am giving it the triple-click bump, okay? I just want people to pay attention to this game. Yeah, I saw this at IGF at GDC. Yeah, it won a bunch of awards at the IGF Awards, and it's really, really good, and if you're a reporter, you could get a code for it, but if you're not, then you're going to have to wait until they put it out. I

• 52:11Jason Schreier?

  Wait, so Maddie, well, to ground us here, so on Steam, it just says coming soon, but you have a final code, but there's no release date?

• 52:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. So here's the situation there. So it's made by a really small team and I emailed a little bit with the kind of lead director of the game, Jenny Zhao Hisia. And the game is done. She's just kind of polishing it for now. And I asked her like, hey, when are you going to put this out? I really want to write about it. And she basically was like, soon, I'm still deciding. And so I just kind of want to make sure people know about it, but it's small enough that it doesn't have a core release date yet. She made this as part of a college project and it's, the main character's name is Jenny. It's definitely semi-autobiographical, but it's also about disordered eating. And I feel like I really got to warn the listeners about this because that is the plot of the game.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  If that's something that you don't feel like you can handle, consume me, not the game for you. But if you think you can handle it and you want to engage with a game that I think is doing something really interesting with that subject matter, I recommend it for sure. So it's kind of, it's Jenny as like a much younger teen girl. And there's like this Tetris style way that you play with picking out your meals every day. But like actually getting it correct becomes increasingly almost impossible. So it's kind of like a WarioWare style eating game where you're like trying to pick your meals, but you're getting punished by the game. If you do it incorrectly and you have these things where you also have to get your homework done, you have to exercise enough times. You unlock different kinds of exercise to do.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  And she has a crush on a boy and eventually that like becomes a relationship and she has to deal with like going on dates and trying to eat while on dates. And those have WarioWare Mario Party style, almost unwinnable games as well. So there's a lot of like dark comedy on top of the idea of like the larger themes of the game that I think is really effective and cool. And I like the writing. I like the idea of like, just being able to have like a dark comedic lens into something that is upsetting as a topic because. That's how I cope with trauma in my own life. So I could like really connect with the way that Jenny was portrayed and like just the idea of being like,

• 54:29Speaker 02

  these are some bad things that I went through, but I'm gonna try to make a game that's weirdly funny about it. So I just wanted to let people know this game exists. I know sometimes indie games fall under the radar, but as soon as Jenny puts it out, I think people should really check it out. So wishlist it on Steam. It's called Consume Me and it's worth it. It's really, really good.

• 54:49Jason Schreier?

  Maddie, give it a shout out when it comes out.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  I will. I'll, I'll re-up it when it actually, when it actually has a real release date for sure. Um, Jason, why don't you go next?

• 54:58Jason Schreier?

  My number thing is a book called Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, which I read a couple of weeks ago and it's a really interesting book. So R.F. Kuang, um, you guys might remember, I've talked about her books in the past. Uh, Babel was the most recent one I read, but also The Poppy War, which is a really interesting series. Um, I think I only read the first one. I don't remember, but, um, yeah, she's a really good writer. Um, and this book is really interesting. Uh, Kirk, this plot is going to sound familiar to you when I explain it, uh, cause it's one that has been done before. I've heard about it in this context, but go ahead. Okay. It's, it's funny. So there's this girl named June Hayward is the main character of our book and she is this aspiring author,

• 55:39Jason Schreier?

  kind of unsuccessful. And she has this friend named Athena Liu, a Chinese-American woman who is very successful. And one day they're hanging out and Athena unexpectedly dies. She like chokes on something and dies. And, um, uh, June decides to take her, uh, manuscript and slap her own name on it. Uh, and it turns out this manuscript is about like Chinese labors in World War I. And so in order to, uh, make herself seem a little bit more racially ambiguous, she uses her first and middle name. Her, she goes Juniper Song, um, which is her, her first and middle name, which, uh, makes her seem kind of, um,

• 56:19Jason Schreier?

  vaguely Asian in some way or another, which is, becomes a plot point. Um, it is called Yellowface, the book after all. And then, uh, a lot of things happen from there. She gets Called out for cultural appropriation. She becomes haunted by a Twitter account claiming to be Athena's ghost and saying that she knew she knows what Juniper did and so on and so on. And we see a whole Juniper gets kind of like has to navigate the publishing industry and all the ups and downs along the way. Juniper is a very unlikable protagonist and she makes worse and worse decisions as the novel goes on. It's a really interesting book and the story is very similar ironically to a book called

• 57:03Jason Schreier?

  The Plot, which came out in 2021. Yeah, and all about it's been a one more thing for both me and Kirk before and it's all about someone who steals his dead student's manuscript and puts his own name on it.

• 57:17Kirk Hamilton?

  I read an article, I think it was in the New York Times about the rise of the plagiarism plot and it was about these two books and I think maybe even another couple. This is definitely something that is percolating among authors today.

• 57:28Jason Schreier?

  It's in the air, yes. And that's not to say that this book is plagiarizing at all. It's exploring completely different themes from the first book, but the beats are very similar. It's like the manuscript is stolen by a dead person, like the alive person steals it from the dead person, someone else starts calling them out. They're like, how could anyone possibly know? And then kind of shit unfolds from there and eventually, of course, they get called out in some way or another. And yeah, it's it's an interesting book. I wouldn't say I loved it to death, but I enjoyed it. It was a fun read. The end gets a little bit silly, but I, just as a someone who has published three books in the traditional publishing world, I always enjoy reading books that are like going in depth on publishing.

• 58:12Jason Schreier?

  And I'm sure anyone who reads books enjoys the kind of inside baseball of it all in the same way that we all enjoy like reading and watching things about video game development. It's always fun to see that kind of like insiders look at how the sausage is made. So that part of it was really fun. And yeah, it's a fun book to read and explore some interesting things. There's some stuff that is pretty heavy handed and feels like it's the author trying to kind of get get some some thoughts down about Twitter and.

• 58:41Jason Schreier?

  People tut tutting on it and all that other stuff. But, um, but yeah, it was interesting. It's a fun read. I, I, I recommend it just because it's so fun to read. And, um, it was just very entertaining and enjoyable. Um, and R. F. Kuang, I, I really enjoy her work overall. I've really enjoyed pretty much everything I've read from her. Um, which is now, I believe, three books, three or four that I've read from her. So, uh, yeah, really, uh, great author. And yeah, Yellowface is, is this book. It's pretty cool.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  All right. Sounds cool. Kirk, you're last. Take it away.

• 59:13Kirk Hamilton?

  All right. My one more thing is Blueprints. Uh, just to give a kind of brief update on where I'm at, since I've played so much since the last time we talked about it. And I know we are soon to record a spoiler cast about this game where we will talk about the many, many, many discoveries that this game has hidden, uh, with no, you know, no heed for, uh, spoiling anything for anyone. And I won't do that here, but I just wanted to say I have gone really far into this game. I'm at 120 hours or so, uh, significantly under Jason Schreier's playtime. But that is only because Jason Schreier's playtime was kind of, uh, bankrolling me in a way. Because I could rely on him to give me nudges.

• 59:53Jason Schreier?

  That I'm here for.

• 59:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Which I would say is a terrific way to work through the end game of Blueprints. We have talked so much about this game. I don't need to get into too many particulars, I don't think. But this is a game that you roll credits on after somewhere between 10 and 20 hours. And then it really kind of begins.

• 1:00:11Jason Schreier?

  Unless you're Maddie, then it's 60 hours.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  You're very unlucky, but I am a far outlier.

• 1:00:16Jason Schreier?

  I know, I think your count is inflated by idle playtime. Cause I don't really think you've, I don't believe that you've played 60 hours.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  I made it all the way to day 89. There's no disputing that.

• 1:00:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, everyone will have a different experience and that is important to acknowledge. But in general, on average, I think you roll credits kind of early on and then the real work begins. And this game continues and continues and continues and continues as it unfolds and expands and grows deeper and ever more complex. After the credits, there are kind of three or four, I haven't done a count, major. Milestones, kind of targets that you're shooting for, different collections of puzzles that you're trying to solve that feel like really tangible goals that you have. There's kind of one big one that becomes very clear once you reach room 46. There's also another fairly clear big one that appears early-ish. But then there are some that are hidden.

• 1:01:11Kirk Hamilton?

  And that's really, that's kind of the interesting thing about this game is that two or three of the biggest goals, the most surprising and exciting things are hidden incredibly well to the point that you could just finish. You could get to one of those other, you know, complete one of those other collections of puzzles and just decide, eh, all right, I'm done. I saw it was, I think it was Chris Kohler who tweeted, "Most people are very excited to roll credits because the real game begins." And when I rolled credits, I said, "I'm free."

• 1:01:43Kirk Hamilton?

  I think it's, I think it's cool how the game gives you these off ramps. It gives you these points at which if you are, if you've had enough blueprints, you can decide to get off. However, I will say it is a very cool thing to work through those final few puzzles with someone who knows what to do, giving you guidance. I've seen a lot of this happening in the TripleClick Discord. I think that's actually a really great place to get little nudges along the way. And of course, being able to text with Jason Shire is, is a rare luxury, but that was also really fun. So if anyone wants to do that, my number is... So who's Jason's phone number?

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  Only about blueprints, though. That's the only thing he'll get texts about these days.

• 1:02:19Kirk Hamilton?

  And the reason that I mention that is there were a couple of points, in particular, there was one point where I finished and I was done. I would say I, that a critique I have of this game, or a criticism, is that a couple too many times in the end, you will solve a really major puzzle that you've been working on for dozens of hours, and you won't really get a reward that quite feels as satisfying as it could. Or at the very least for me, I felt like I wanted something a little bit more, and instead I was given clues for an additional puzzle. And so that reward, hey, you get more puzzles. It's not a bad thing. This is a puzzle game. If you're that deep in the game, you're probably psyched to get more puzzles to solve. There were a couple of points where I felt a little like, wow, I did all of that only to reach a closed door that I can't open without solving a bunch more puzzles.

• 1:03:02Kirk Hamilton?

  And I found that a little bit frustrating, and I could see someone getting dispirited. However, our friend Jason Shire here talked me into sticking with it because, as he said, there are things that you are going to want to see. And he was right. There are some... Truly mind blowing things in this game. Very, very deep, especially the very last one that you find, which is the one that the fewest people will find, and perhaps that makes it the most mind blowing. So I want to mention that to anyone who's at this point in the game where they've lost momentum, they've maybe been frustrated by a couple of those instances of the game rewarding you with more puzzles where you're just like, can you please just give me a new book or something cool, like some revelation instead of just a clue? If you've had that feeling, if you can find someone who can give you advice, or if you

• 1:03:47Kirk Hamilton?

  can pop into the TripleClick Discord, there are people in there who will be glad to give you advice. I do recommend making your way to those final puzzles, at least the final puzzles that people have discovered, because they are very, very neat, as we will discuss in our Beans Cast when we record that, I think just in a week or so. So yeah, that's my, that's my Blueprints update for everyone. Yeah, a really, a really exceptional game with some pretty wild stuff buried very, very deep within it.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, cool. I'm excited to talk about it more. And you know, I agree with the recommendation for the TripleClick Discord. Not all of us have, you know, friends who are guides, writers, or Jason Trier in our lives to ask for help with things.

• 1:04:26Kirk Hamilton?

  We're really the poorer for it.

• 1:04:28Jason Schreier?

  Well, I think anyone who listens to TripleClick does have Jason Trier in their lives.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:04:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Whether they want it or not.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  And in a way you will, if you join the Discord, in an important way you still will. And with that, we come to a close on yet another TripleClick episode. We are five years old and another day, another day down. I was trying to go back to the age thing, didn't really work, couldn't figure it out.

• 1:04:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Podcast kind of age, like dog years or something? I don't know if we're really five, it feels more like we're maybe 15, maybe one year or three years for, yeah, we're kind of adolescents.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Another day older, another ep older, and of course...

• 1:05:05Jason Schreier?

  Well, my, my daughter is five years old and every morning she's like, I'm really feeling my age this morning. And she like cracks her back, she wakes up, stretches, yeah.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what happens when you're five.

• 1:05:16Kirk Hamilton?

  I really want to make another episode about Blueprints. So maybe we have more in common with her than you think.

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  And then she's like, no, we did too many of those. We can't do another one. Maybe a Beans Cast.

• 1:05:27Jason Schreier?

  I actually, you guys will get a kick out of this, we actually have been playing Mario Party with her and my son.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 1:05:33Jason Schreier?

  She loves it, she's so entertained, but she gets so upset whenever something bad happens to her in the game.

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  Oh, I bet.

• 1:05:40Jason Schreier?

  Like if she runs into Bowser or something, she gets very...

• 1:05:42Kirk Hamilton?

  No one gets tilted like a five year old.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Or she just gets upset?

• 1:05:45Jason Schreier?

  She gets very upset.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  She gets very tilted. Okay.

• 1:05:48Jason Schreier?

  And so the past couple of times, my wife is, keeps glaring at me because I'm like actually trying to win instead of letting my five year old win.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:05:57Kirk Hamilton?

  So he will learn.

• 1:05:58Jason Schreier?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  She has to learn. I mean, I feel like that is an inherent tension. I like remember my dad doing that when I was learning how to play chess as a child and like kind of him still not letting me win for an extremely long time. But hey, that's what part of what being, part of what being a parent is. Can't let them win.

• 1:06:15Jason Schreier?

  Making that decision.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  That's how they learn. That's how they learn. Anyway, I don't have a way to end this show. We'll be back again next week, though, because it's TripleClick and that's what we do.

• 1:06:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. See you both next week.

• 1:06:26Jason Schreier?

  See you next week.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:06:30Kirk Hamilton?

  TripleClick 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 DJ. 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. TripleClick 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.

• 1:07:28Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun, a worker owned network of artist owned shows supported directly by you.