Why Do Games Cost So Much to Make?

How have video game budgets skyrocketed to the hundreds of millions? What are some good video games for elderly people? And is it possible there's a game as good as Balatro out there, but nobody has found it yet? This week, the Triple Click gang opens up the mailbag and takes some of your questions on all sorts of topics.

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

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Short, interesting, funny? Am I talking about a great TripleClick email? Or myself? Am I right? Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we open up the listener mailbag and answer questions about video game studio budgets, at times when game soundtracks can be too distracting, and then a couple other questions about music.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:32Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:33Kirk Hamilton?

  And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 0:36Jason Schreier?

  One of these days, we should all do that intro where we all just say each other's names. I just think it'd be way funnier.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 0:42Jason Schreier?

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Or I'm like, and he's Jason Schreier, and she's Maddy Myers. That's what they do on Stop Podcasting Yourself at the beginning.

• 0:50Kirk Hamilton?

  That's like, you know, on some podcasts, when they say goodbye? Like, you know how I just have a pre-recorded thing where I say goodbye? They'll say, "For Maddy Myers and Jason Schreier, I'm Kirk Hamilton."

• 1:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01Kirk Hamilton?

  We could do that if we wanted to. It feels kind of classy doing that.

• 1:03Speaker 00

  It is classy.

• 1:04Jason Schreier?

  That feels like an old-school TV broadcast.

• 1:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, right, like a kind of radio broadcaster.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, "Good night and good luck." Well, if you like the old-timey radio broadcast vibes of TripleClick every single week, then have you considered becoming a member and supporting our show? And if you were to do that, you would get access to our bonus episodes. But how might you go about it? Well, you'd go to maximumfun.org/join. That would be how you'd sign up to become a supporter. And once you do, for example, this month, you're going to get what we call a Beans Cast, where we spill the beans, we spoil something. And in this case, it's Metaphor Refentazio. We all played it, really long, wonderful RPG, lots to say about it. That's going to be our bonus episode in the feed this month.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  But there's a big backlog of other bonus episodes that you can listen to, where we spill the beans about Final Fantasy games and Call of Duty. I don't know why those are always the only two I can ever think of.

• 2:07Kirk Hamilton?

  You should go back and read the list sometime.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  I know. But I can't, I'm incapable of doing that. I can only riff off the top of my head. It's a, it's a real sad thing that I have this wrong with me. But hey, you listeners, you could go and check out the full list of bonus episodes on the Maximum Fun website, or you could just go on ahead to maximumfun.org/join, become a member and find all those bonus episodes yourself. And then you wouldn't need me to tell you what they are. I know it's Metaphorie Fantazio this month, though.

• 2:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, that's the important one.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  And we have some other important business to get to before we get to the rest of our episode today. Isn't that right?

• 2:47Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so last week we did our predictions episode and we have to make a couple of notes. First, I have a mea culpa, which is that I had said that an Xbox game was never nominated for Game of the Year at the Game Awards. But alas, I missed. And how could I possibly forget Psychonauts 2, which was nominated in 2021, which was two years after Xbox bought Double Fine. So that certainly counts as an Xbox game. So I was wrong that it hadn't been nominated. That said, I'm keeping that prediction as is. It's still going to be an Xbox Game Studios game. Will be nominated for Game of the Year at the Game Awards. And then Kirk, we got to change one of yours.

• 3:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes. So I predicted that either, I believe it was either one of Jeff Keighley or Conan O'Brien would be in Death Stranding 2. And it turns out it has already been revealed that Conan O'Brien at least will be in Death Stranding 2. So we're going to change that prediction to, I don't know, something. We're going to talk it through right now. And we're going to figure out what this prediction should be.

• 3:49Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. So we think, I mean, if it was just Jeff Keighley, even Jeff Keighley alone is a little bit too obvious. So my suggestion is that we pick like a bunch of celebrities, maybe even based on like who Kojima is tweeting about. And then if even one of them is in the game, you can still win this. So it'll still be pretty easy.

• 4:07Kirk Hamilton?

  But no Keighley's.

• 4:08Jason Schreier?

  The hardest, we're taking Keighley out. We're going to pick some celebrities. The hardest part actually of this prediction will be Death Stranding 2 making it out in 2025.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 4:16Jason Schreier?

  So that's really, that's the real prediction here. But anyway, my suggestion is Is, uh, let's say we make like a list of four or five celebrities and, uh, based on Kojima's tastes, my, my guess is that Sydney Sweeney would be on that list, but Kirk, it's up to you. Well, let's, let's combine a list right now. I think Sydney Sweeney should be on it.

• 4:33Kirk Hamilton?

  A good one. Matty, you got any?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  I, I agree with that. I've, I've got a different tack here. Chris Nolan. What about that? That feels like another Kojima cameo, cause he loves a director.

• 4:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, man, that's good.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  And I mean, it's, it'd be hilarious if Nolan was in there. And I also wrote down Daniel Craig. Kojima also loves a, a older hot actor as well.

• 4:58Kirk Hamilton?

  That's good. Sort of the Mads Mikkelsen pick.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. So those two felt like they could, they could happen and would make sense. Same with Sydney Sweeney. Like all three of them kind of feel like they're on the verge of happening.

• 5:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Uh huh. So three others that come to mind for me, just because I know that he is very drawn to fame and to the like kind of hottest actors are Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 5:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Those three all seem possible.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  All great ideas.

• 5:25Kirk Hamilton?

  So what if we say, okay, so that's one, two, three, that's six.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:30Kirk Hamilton?

  But, um, Nolan and Craig are pretty out there. I don't know. I kind of like that as six. What if we say one of those six is in the game?

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, any one of them.

• 5:37Jason Schreier?

  That's fine. That works.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Any one of them.

• 5:38Jason Schreier?

  Just, just write them down. We'll jot them down.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, write them down.

• 5:40Kirk Hamilton?

  As you said, Jason, the real prediction is Death Stranding 2 comes out in 2021.

• 5:44Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I think so too. But that's a fun one. Also, it'll be fun as like everybody's playing through the game to be like, oh, Sydney Sweeney's there. Oh, Christopher Nolan.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:53Jason Schreier?

  Me and a camera. Yeah. Yeah, that's a fun one to be keeping track of those six. Okay, cool. All right. So that's the new prediction for your Death Stranding 2 one. And it looks like if rumors come true, uh, by the time this episode goes live, you might've already won your, uh, prediction about the Switch 2 having switched in the name.

• 6:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, we'll know one way or the other. I'll have won or lost it if those rumors are correct.

• 6:17Jason Schreier?

  I think it's pretty safely established that it's going to be called Switch 2, but I guess we'll see on Thursday or or whatever it is announced. Um, anyway, let's get to today's episode. This week we are opening up the listener mailbag. And reading some questions from all you fine folks out there. A lot of good ones this week. So before we get started, just a reminder that you can always reach us at [email protected]. You can send in your questions and comments and so on and so forth. Please send in short questions. The shorter your question, the happier I will be as the person who has to read through all of these every time we do one of these. On with the questions. Matty, why don't you read the first one?

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Sure. So this is from Gordon, who writes, mine is not so much a question, but rather a plea to help me understand the economics of video games. Ever since Jason wrote that tweet about the cost of games, you guys have dropped some information and tidbits in the show, latest of which was that DLCs are very expensive to make. Why I found this surprising is because most DLCs are just small extensions of games with not many new mechanics added. And I thought they would be relatively cheap to make compared to the base game. What I would love to understand is how costs are distributed. Is most of the cost spent on engine and mechanics? If so, wouldn't then adding derivative content should be relatively cheap? Sort of weird wording there,

• 7:44Speaker 00

  but I'm with you, Gordon. Is it linear with the world size? The larger the map, the more expensive the game, in which case keeping games smaller would make it cheaper, which I would personally prefer anyways, right? Why are derivative games built on the same engines? Thinking Assassin's Creed year over year iteration, Spider-Man 2 versus 1, the same price as games that reinvent themselves. Thinking The Last of Us Part 2 versus The Last of Us Part 1 here. All great questions. Jason, answer for your crimes, AKA tweet.

• 8:14Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's funny. This was sent a couple of months ago, but I actually just published a column about why games are so expensive. And I think that, so one of the questions Gordon asked here is, is most of the cost spent on engine and mechanics? So let's try to break that down. I'll just kind of give a brief overview and then I'm curious to hear your two thoughts as well. But no, the answer, or sort of, I guess. Well, the the answer to what a budget is and why a game costs so much is that it's almost entirely the people. You have some overhead costs in there like rent and kind of other like computers and office equipment and stuff. But when you talk about spending money on an engine or spending money on a mechanic, you're really talking about spending money on the

• 8:58Jason Schreier?

  people who are making those, which means that you're paying for X number of months of someone's salary to work on that. And that is what people talk about. That's when people talk about budget, that's what they're talking about is paying people's salaries. So one useful way to think of like this game costs $400 million might actually be, well, a whole lot of people got paid fair wages to work on this game, which might put things in a little bit of a different perspective than like, holy crap, I can't believe Activision spent $700 million on Call of Duty or whatever. So I won't get into all the the math, but I I wrote a piece about this. You can go check that out about the little little bit of the napkin math. My focus of that piece was on the mismanagement that leads to some of these budgets climbing and climbing and climbing.

• 9:42Jason Schreier?

  But oftentimes, it's kind of, it's just top level decisions that lead to these games being really expensive. So there might be kind of a baseline of like, okay, let's say we're gonna, we know this game should take three years and maybe we'll give ourselves an extra six months of time on that to allow for iteration and cancel, cutting stuff and making mistakes and so on. So three years and six months. That means that my budget is paying X amount of people, Y salary for three years and six months. But then there might be mistakes along the way. Let's say there's a global pandemic and it forces everyone to just kind of totally like overhaul their lives as a result.

• 10:23Jason Schreier?

  That might add another year to the schedule, which means it could add another $50 million, depending on how many people I have employed. If I have 300 people employed, I'm paying all those salaries for an extra year as part of that project's budget. And a lot of times, every single game, I mean, he mentioned some specific games here. It all really, I mean, it can differ so drastically depending on the project, but Spider-Man one to Spider-Man two might be a good. Good example because I think those numbers are public and I think if I remember correctly Spider-Man 2 Cost something like 300 million whereas Spider-Man 1 costs a lot less, something closer to 100 million. If those numbers are accurate and you look at that game from, you look at that kind of evolution from Spider-Man 1 to Spider-Man 2, you might be like, how is that possible?

• 11:09Jason Schreier?

  And I think a lot of that is because of the timeframe that was involved. The number of people and the time is the answer generally. If there's more people and more time, the budget is going to be a lot more. There could be all sorts of reasons for that. If you look at the kind of the technological aspects, Spider-Man 1, from Spider-Man 1 to Spider-Man 2, it's not a huge kind of graphical upgrade. There might be some stuff here and there, but it looks pretty similar. It's not significantly different. There is a pretty big scope upgrade from, or scope kind of expansion from Spider-Man 1 to Spider-Man 2. 2 has like two new boroughs, it has a much longer campaign, it has two playable Spider-Man.

• 11:51Jason Schreier?

  So that's a huge expense, all of that, because that's a lot of people that you need to put into that. But also there were likely other issues behind the scenes, maybe kind of visions changing, story changing, things getting cut, things getting overhauled, executives stepping in, who knows? A lot of that can just add to the expense here, which is just kind of one example. So in general, you can say that like if a game costs X amount, that's because of the people times the time that they spent. And having to throw more people at something or having to spend more time on something can be the result of all sorts of factors. Could be the result of scope and it could be the result of, in many cases, mismanagement, executives meddling and,

• 12:35Jason Schreier?

  I don't know, people deciding, hey, we're a single player studio, but we want to make a games as a game as a service, a multiplayer game as a service this time. And oh, okay, it might take an extra three years as we all learn how to make that kind of game, but hey, that's what we're going to do anyway. Or a company saying, hey, we want to use a brand new engine and take years like developing that engine. And then we have all these people who are just sitting around doing nothing because they can't work. On the game because that engine and that toolset isn't actually in a place, a stable place where it can be developed on yet. Again, that's where money comes from. That's why these budgets are growing so, so high is just because of time, times people.

• 13:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 13:14Jason Schreier?

  Hopefully that was a sufficient answer.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  So our DLC is just expensive because it's like, well, tack on another year to the full budget of all of the people who are already employed. You're assuming you're not laying any of them off and it's not like it's expensive because you're suddenly having these new considerations. Like you're buying new computers for them or new tools or software or something. It's just, it's just more salary.

• 13:37Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say, I, I don't know if DLC or is necessarily like that expensive, but if a DLC takes these days, like two or three years seems more likely. And also it's more likely that, well, look at Elden Ring, right? Like that Shadow of the Erdtree came out two and a half years after Elden Ring came out. So that's like, uh, two and a half years of development time. You're paying all those salaries for two and a half years. That could be just as much as like a triple A game was 10 years ago. Like that was a standard development cycle back in the day. So yeah, I mean, it could be just as expensive because of that. But yes, that is entirely the reason. It is not like people, um, need to, and when people put together budgets, I should be very clear.

• 14:16Jason Schreier?

  It's like you pick, you, you have a number that you're working with. Um, and some people just work with estimates, like a, a common number. Back when I was writing Blood, Sweat and Pixels, the common number was $10,000 per person per month. These days it's much higher, especially in expensive cities like LA. It could be closer to $20,000 a person a month. And that includes salary. It includes benefits like healthcare and includes overhead, including like rent of the studio and other kind of miscellaneous costs. So you're typically working with that kind of estimate for your budget that includes everything, but most of it is salary. Salary and, and benefits are, are most of what you're paying for. And you also have to consider that like people take time off, people go on sabbaticals or leaves or mental health days or whatever else.

• 15:00Jason Schreier?

  And all of that is just part of the budget and it's how some of these costs can get so high.

• 15:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Wasn't the consideration with DLC, not just that it costs money to make, but all So that you don't sell as much of it because not as many people buy it.

• 15:13Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's something we had talked about. I remember Elden Ring, that one, I think it sold 5 million copies or something, which is like an astounding attach rate. I remember, I looked into this recently because I was, the Golden Idol people told me that they had like some crazy high attach rate where like 50% of people who bought the main game, like bought the first DLC or something like that. And I think the it's, the average is closer to 20 or less percent of people who buy a main game will buy the DLC. And yeah, I think it was 5 million for Shadow of the Erdtree, which itself was a pretty good percent from what I remember. But yeah, Kirk, that's like why so many people, so many companies, we talked about this in the past, why so many companies have switched to like the Miles Morales model of like,

• 15:58Jason Schreier?

  we're going to make this a standalone instead of attached to the main game.

• 16:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I was mostly mentioning that because Gordon didn't mention it in his email. And it seems like when we're talking about the cost of DLCs, that's a big part of the consideration. It's not just how much they cost to make, it's that you don't make as much selling them. Or at least typically you don't.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, which makes sense. I mean, even for Elden Ring, you can only play that DLC if you're really far in the game. Like, it's, it's pretty unbelievable how well it sold just in light of that.

• 16:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's why Jason's prediction that it would be standalone was a good prediction.

• 16:29Speaker 00

  It was a good prediction.

• 16:30Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you know, it's so funny. I feel like that's the only game that can get away from that because if you're playing Elden Ring and you're into Elden Ring, then chances are you're really into Elden Ring. Like, it's hard. It's not a game that a lot of people will just play five hours of and then like go play something else.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Same for Golden Idol, I feel like. If you play it, you're really into it and you're like, I want another puzzle, please. I'm willing to buy another puzzle for a couple bucks. Those two examples make perfect sense. It's a really specific type of gameplay. And if you want it, you want the exact same thing, but more.

• 17:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and the new one, Rise of the Golden Idol, which came out a couple of months ago, the sequel to the first one, had four DLCs announced that are gonna come out this year. So yeah, I'm stoked about that. Any other thoughts from you guys before we move on?

• 17:14Speaker 00

  It made sense to me.

• 17:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think that that insight, that it's people that you're paying for, that money equals people, and that that's just how you should think about a game budget, is just a helpful one to keep in mind. It's just a good framework, I think.

• 17:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and when you hear someone talk about like, "Oh, that looks expensive, those graphics look expensive," like that incredible set piece in Uncharted 4 where you're driving the truck and all sorts of shenanigans happen, that looks expensive. You're really just talking about the amount of time that it takes to work on that, times the number of people that it takes to work on it. So it could be that we need to take six months out of the timeline just to work on this thing, or it could be we need to hire an entire outsourcing company just to help us fill in all the art for this thing, or it could be that we scrapped this five times and so it turned out to be really expensive along the way. Anyway, let's move on to another question. Kirk, you wanna ask this one?

• 18:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Sure, this question comes from Justin, who writes, "Hi all, love the show and I was very happy last week to learn from the show that Rise of the Golden Idol had actually just come out without my knowledge. I marathoned through it over the weekend and loved it, feeling that it was an improvement over the original in most ways with one key exception, the music. I adored the music of the first game, composed by Kyle Misko, and felt that it really helped me lock into the game's vibe. Rise's music with a new composer, Paul Alexander, is fine, but it is much more ambient with no tracks that stood out to me while I was playing. I got to wondering, however, if it might have been a deliberate choice by the creators to have music that stands out less so as not to distract the player while they're completing the puzzles.

• 18:55Kirk Hamilton?

  There were definitely times in case of the Golden Idol, the first game, when I switched off the audio to concentrate better, and I don't think I ever did that in Rise. All that is to ask, do you think that music in puzzle games can be too good or maybe too interesting? What is the right balance to strike in games that require a lot of mental focus from the player?" Return of the Oberdin, which had a banger soundtrack, but lets the music fade out while you're getting into deep thinking mode. Is that the gold standard as always? I'd love to hear your thoughts. This is a great question.

• 19:23Jason Schreier?

  That's an unfair comparison because in Golden Idol, you're always in the same mode. You're not kind of moving back and forth between mentalities the way you are in Oberdin. But man, Oberdin soundtrack is so good.

• 19:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this, actually. I think Justin's on to something when he says that in some ways, the music in Rise of the Golden Idol works better. I definitely found it less remarkable than Misko's music in Case of the Golden Idol. There's a couple of tracks, we talked about this back when the game came out. There's a couple of tracks that are just super crazy. That like sea shanty fiddle one where it's like microtonally like moving through this just like total nightmare soundscape. It's really, really cool. It definitely pulled me out of the game sometimes because I was like, what is happening? But also, it was such a strong vibe that it was like a big part of the game's identity. And I didn't quite feel that from Rise, though I do really like Rise of the Golden Idol's music. I was going through the soundtrack, looking for examples to maybe play behind us while we're talking.

• 20:19Kirk Hamilton?

  And that game also has really cool music, but it takes a very different approach. Bing! Kirk here, as I'm editing the episode. I'm going to explain, you know, in the conversation with Jason and Matty about some thoughts about these two soundtracks. But I wanted to give a couple of examples going in. So first of all, this is Crowning Celebration, one of the most memorable tracks by Kyle Misko from Case of the Golden Idol.

• 20:45Kirk Hamilton?

  It kind of starts here, but then eventually it kind of develops in some very strange harmonic and tonal directions. Like it becomes kind of microtonal in some pretty disorienting ways.

• 21:05Kirk Hamilton?

  So, you know, it's a pretty marked contrast with the music that Paul Alexander did a couple of years later for Rise of the Golden Idol. Here's a track called New Wells of Conformity. It's from one of the early levels in the game. And they're not all this dramatic in terms of the contrast between the very beginning and the rest of the track. But it's a good example of the kind of contour that I'll talk about in a second. So check it out. Here's how it starts.

• 21:36Kirk Hamilton?

  So it's pretty full on and it's an action-packed scene that it's accompanying. But then very quickly,

• 21:47Kirk Hamilton?

  it fades into the background into something more appropriate for just kind of looking at clues and trying to figure out what's going on.

• 21:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, anyways, those are my two examples. Back to the conversation. Bing.

• 22:04Kirk Hamilton?

  I guess the way I'd summarize it, I want to know what the two of you think too. But the way that I would summarize the approach is that Case of the Golden Idol, my memory of it anyways, is that the tracks grow in complexity, or at least in strangeness as you go. And you'll be playing for a while and then they kind of get stranger or more elaborate in some ways. Where Rise of the Golden Idol, each track tends to start with a bang. There's like a big melodic idea and it's kind of like a lot of instruments and maybe a groove as you first take in the scene. And then it kind of fades away, which makes sense to me as a way to structure that kind of music. Because at the beginning of any level in Rise of the Golden Idol, you're always like looking at a TV station that's on fire, a TV studio or whatever.

• 22:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Something crazy is happening and it like sets the scene. But then you need to start thinking. So the music kind of becomes less complex. And that does strike me as a good approach.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  I wonder if they actually got complaints from people being like, I'm getting stressed out the more complex this music gets. Because I do remember us talking about that with Case and how it just elevates and elevates and elevates. And you're like, I don't know what is going on right now.

• 23:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, yes. And I guess, like, I want to disaggregate the idea of that possible feedback from the first game from the fact that there's a new composer. I was just listening to, I don't remember, some podcast where they were complaining about someone not being hired back for like a sequel. And it made me just realize like, we have no idea why Kyle Misco didn't come back. Like, maybe he wasn't available. I believe he's Ukrainian. I mean, there could be all kinds of like personal reasons he wasn't available to do a game. It could be so many things.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  True.

• 23:44Kirk Hamilton?

  So it's, you know, rather than, I guess, like, I don't, I don't really know why they made those decisions. And I would imagine he's a skilled musician. If they had given him that direction, he could have done that.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 23:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Anyone who's worked on a project like this, like, they'll give you feedback and be like, hey, can you actually make it so it starts big and then gets smaller?

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:00Kirk Hamilton?

  And I think that they, I would imagine maybe that they made that change or made that decision in the sequel for that reason.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, and regardless of the composer, I think you're right that it makes more sense for the structure of the puzzles in the game to have it start stressful and frenzied, because that's when you're taking in all the information and you're feeling a little overwhelmed, or at least I am, because I'm like, oh, my God, there's so many clues to collect. I have so many things I can look at in this massive scene. And then as the more you collect, the more in control you feel, rather than spiraling out of control, you're, you're becoming more attuned to what happened. And then you solve it and then that's the end of the level and you progress to the next one. So having a song that accompanies that sensation, I think, works really well, although I'd never thought about it at all until this

• 24:50Speaker 00

  very moment, which I would also say is part of what I like about a good puzzle game accompaniment is something that I don't think about and feel too distracted by.

• 24:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, this is something I've talked with Matthew Burns about, a friend of, of mine who works on Zectronics Games and has written a lot of really great music for these games, which are typically like, if not puzzle games, at least like builder games, where you're kind of in a creative problem solving mode. And he tends to compose with stems where the music layers in complexity, like, it's always kind of a middle tempo electronic kind of a thing. And then the more you get going and the more elaborate your creation, the music kind of mirrors that. So it's kind of doing what you're talking about, Matty. And he definitely has like a distinct approach to that that he uses. And I mean, that's something I found even like writing music for Triple Quest, where you have to write music that kind of keeps out of the way.

• 25:41Kirk Hamilton?

  And you have to work with stems in a way, like stems being the isolated parts that allows you to sort of stack up more and more parts and have it grow more complex. And then less complex, depending on what's going on, you know, in the, in the actual. Nature scoring in a video game is a little more complicated because it's dynamic, right? Like, the player is actually controlling that to some extent. Like, if you're just stuck on a puzzle in Golden Idol, you might be sitting there staring at the same screen for like 20 minutes or something and like, nothing has happened in your mind or in the game. And the music just has to kind of vamp with you there.

• 26:11Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, this is actually a good segue to our next question, which is from Jacob. And he says, "I've loved listening to the use of music in Triple Quest. And I was wondering if you could talk a bit about how you make it. You say you wrote and performed it. Did you perform all the instruments? Or use some sort of software to write and output some of them?"

• 26:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, this is something I could like, make a whole video about and might at some point, just to go into the sessions and show how I made it. I think Jacob is a little bit, like, he's hearing me say, "Oh yeah, I made all the music." And as a musician himself, I think he said in this email that he's, you know, working on music for his own D and D, his friend's campaign. He was like, "Wait a minute, you did all of that? Because there's like, an orchestra and there's all these different instruments." And like, no, I didn't like, play cello and violin for this. I used a lot of samples. So it's like, I performed it in the way that a sort of modern composer performs music and used a lot of modern tools that are very interesting to make this the soundtrack for the show, which, you know, was like, five hours long and required something like, four and a half hours of music, which

• 27:14Kirk Hamilton?

  is a ludicrous amount of music to compose without some of the tools that I used. I mean, it was, it was a ludicrous amount of work, even, even with those tools. It took me weeks to make it, but it wouldn't have even been possible if I hadn't been either repeating a lot more music or using some of the techniques and the tools that I had access to. So it's kind of a mix of live instruments. There are some acoustic instruments, like the penny whistle, some acoustic guitar, flute, some electric guitar. Like, there are instruments that I just played. Like, I just recorded the part, especially for like, a really important part of the, you know, when like, I don't know, a certain character, I guess I won't say, a certain character is giving a kind of like impassioned speech. Like, I like, played that stuff in myself. There's like, a sampled violin solo that

• 27:59Kirk Hamilton?

  I like, wrote and played on the piano. And there's a piano part that I like- Played on the piano, or there's a whole groove that I recorded on the acoustic guitar. However, a lot of the grooves and a lot of the string parts were done using software instruments that can kind of, you can create your own, like, it's almost like an arpeggiator on a synth, but it's more like a sampled string section. So you really easily can get, like, there's a Native Instruments plugin called Action Strings, that if you just like press a button in G, it'll just go like, dun dun, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh dun, dun, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh dun, like that. And so you're kind of just, you got that to work with. And then it's up to you as the musician, like as the composer,

• 28:42Kirk Hamilton?

  to layer on top of that and turn it into something a little bit more remarkable. Sometimes I didn't even need to, because we're talking, people are listening to us in the middle of a fight. They're hearing the dice rolls. That's what is like drawing their attention. And the music can't just be dun dun, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh dun, underneath that, like, that's fine. Other times I would like layer my own parts that I'd maybe play on the keyboard, or like add something on top to like add a layer to it. It's a really weird process. I learned a lot while I was making it. And like I said, this could be like a way longer answer with a bunch of examples, because there's like a whole spectrum from like barely doing anything to doing everything by hand. And then all the places in between are actually where it gets really interesting.

• 29:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, it gave me a new perspective into what it is even to be a composer in the year 2024, 2025, like in this modern age. Like, there are tools that make it so easy to do some things, but then you have to kind of use your training and your musicianship in other ways. Like, it's not as simple as just, you know, I don't know, telling the AI, write me some combat music. Like, I suppose you could do that, but that's not really like, I don't think that would get you as good of a result as doing what I did, which was like this weird mix of, of doing things by hand and doing things with automation and doing things with like pre-recorded stuff and like just layering a bunch of different instruments. So it was a really cool process. And in some ways-

• 30:03Jason Schreier?

  So when are you doing the strong songs on Triple Cross?

• 30:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I don't want to do that, but I might, it would need to be a video. I think it'd be easier to show it to people. I might if I have time. I just have- A lot of other things to do, but anyways, I think to reassure Jacob that it wasn't like, I'm not in here in the studio with like all these instruments, recording everything by myself. There are tools, if you look at like native instruments, complete 14 or 15, there's a ton of instruments in there. Action strings is a big one. And like a lot of these sort of pre-sampled things that really can let you do a lot of really cool sound beds that add a lot of really nice textures. So that's the kind of medium length answer to that question. I hope that's helpful, Jacob.

• 30:42Jason Schreier?

  A lot of music talk. Let's take another question. Maddie, read this next one, please.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  I can't believe this one is in here. Okay, so Max wrote, hey, guys, if TripleClick had to make a YouTube apology video, what instruments would Kirk and Maddie play to sing the apology? Because we're the ones apologizing. Anyway, Max continues, would you guys collab or create separate songs?

• 31:05Jason Schreier?

  I have so many questions about this question. So first of all, I thought YouTube apologies were just like a dude like sighing and looking at the camera and being like, so.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  You don't know the joke this is based on.

• 31:17Jason Schreier?

  No, I do not.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Jealous of you for not knowing. There is a woman.

• 31:22Kirk Hamilton?

  What is her name?

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Colleen something, I want to say. She made a ukulele song and it's very long. And she said her apology to that. Probably got actually covered at the time.

• 31:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Colleen Ballinger, AKA Miranda Sings is her name.

• 31:37Jason Schreier?

  Okay, I do not want to know a single word more about her.

• 31:40Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm sorry, Jason, but you're about to learn.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  You don't need to know any more, really, beyond what we just said.

• 31:45Jason Schreier?

  So this is, has this become a genre of like YouTube apologies by song?

• 31:50Speaker 00

  Well, I don't think anyone else has done it in seriousness, other than this one person.

• 31:55Jason Schreier?

  It's all just parodying.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Roundly mocked afterwards.

• 31:59Jason Schreier?

  Maddie, I think that Max asked what instruments would Kirk and Maddie play? Because you two are the main musicians and I'm just kind of like an amateur guitar.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  But Jason can also play the guitar and has his guitar in the frame every time we record. We all do. We all have our instruments in frames.

• 32:13Jason Schreier?

  So that's the answer to what instrument. Well, maybe he doesn't need to ask what I'm going to play because he already knows that that's all I can play.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  That's true. I have a synthesizer collection behind me and I do actually also play the baritone ukulele, which is a slightly larger ukulele and it sounds a little bit more like a guitar. So I'd probably do that if I was really trying to mimic the form, I'd go ukulele. I mean, if you're gonna make a joke, you gotta, you gotta really go full bore into the parody, I think.

• 32:42Kirk Hamilton?

  I like the baritone ukulele, Jason on the acoustic guitar, Maddie on baritone ukulele. I could either play bass or the just ukulele, ukulele, maybe. Cause I could play any of those.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  Then we'd have the full panoply.

• 32:54Jason Schreier?

  No, you need to play the saxophone, man.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 32:57Kirk Hamilton?

  I think maybe, I think that for a YouTube apology, though, I don't want to bring out the big guns.

• 33:02Jason Schreier?

  But imagine, imagine, imagine the saxophone just punctuating every, every line of the

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Would it be wailing in sadness?

• 33:10Jason Schreier?

  Just can you imagine? Just, just set the scene, right? I am so sorry about the slur.

• 33:20Kirk Hamilton?

  So what I'm, what I'm picturing, I had ukulele, baritone ukulele, acoustic guitar, and then the solo played on just a saxophone mouthpiece, which would be, I think, on a more appropriately horrible sound for the entire cursed nature of the undertaking that we're describing. I don't think it really deserves like a lush saxophone. I think it just needs a saxophone mouthpiece because the whole, you know, anything that led to this moment, it would just all be so awful that we might as well make it the most awful version possible.

• 33:47Jason Schreier?

  God, okay. Um, next time we have to apologize, we'll just keep this in mind. Uh, next question, Kirk.

• 33:54Kirk Hamilton?

  This is from Willie. Willie says, "What modern video games would you recommend to older people, let's say 65 plus, who have never played a modern video game before and are newly curious about the medium? Assume that they don't own any consoles but would feel comfortable playing something on a phone, iPad, or laptop, so long as it's not too fast-paced or otherwise inaccessible to the gaming illiterate."

• 34:17Jason Schreier?

  I, uh, my mom played 80 Days on the phone and really enjoyed that. I think anything that's like a visual, visual novel type of game might be a good fit.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I will say I don't know that the age thing is as much of a factor here as just someone who's never played games before, because learning how to use a controller is really the hard part of what they're asking, which is why I guess it matters that they're saying phone, iPad, or laptop. Something the person already knows how to use is my big tip here. Having recently given my parents a Switch, they're learning how to use it. It's just, there's an uphill climb there. And with my wife, it was the same deal. She learned how to game during COVID, but there was like a climb where she was learning how to use a controller. That's the hard, hard part of that.

• 35:04Jason Schreier?

  That's so fun that you gave your parents a Switch. That's so cool.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  I did. But also, they both like playing games. I've played Rock Band with my dad and Super Smash Brothers. And I've played stuff with both of them in the past. So it's not like they're totally gaming illiterate. My mom loves Pac-Man. She's gonna be embarrassed that I'm saying this on the show.

• 35:26Jason Schreier?

  No, she's gonna call you and be like, I can't believe you didn't get us a Switch too. Like, we wanted to play 60 frames a second.

• 35:31Speaker 00

  I'm gonna hear about all of this on our weekly phone call. But I will say, I really think it's achievable. And if the person wants to learn, you can learn at any age. And really, my recommendation is if they already know how to use the device in question, then just think about what appeals to them. Like Jason said, if the person likes reading, then they'll probably like something like 80 Days. Or if they're like, my dad, my dad likes playing the guitar, so playing Rock Band wasn't that much of a stretch. Obviously, he doesn't know how to use a plastic guitar, but he learned. And then we had fun conversations about how different that those two things feel. And if, you know, if they like being a competitive person, then they might like Pac-Man, like my mom does, for example. I

• 36:16Speaker 00

  mean, you just have to think about what they like, and then cater the recommendation to them. And everything else doesn't matter. That's, that's what I would say.

• 36:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's all good advice. 80 Days really is a good, a good, a good pick. Yeah, maybe Balatro, like maybe something like that on phones.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  For sure, yeah.

• 36:33Kirk Hamilton?

  It's using a kind of established literacy of poker, which most people People know and also kind of feels like playing Solitaire. But then you start getting into it. That game strikes me as a really good one to introduce people to the mechanics of a kind of run based, you know, game where you build an engine and try to get as far as you can, just because most people already know how a deck of cards works, you know, and how and how poker works.

• 36:56Jason Schreier?

  Although, but yeah, poker hands can be a barrier for entry for some people at least.

• 37:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, maybe. I mean, there'll all be barriers, you know, for anybody, but like if for us, for the right person, that could be good. And actually, I think that the game that's going to be your one more thing, Jason, might be a good recommendation for some people who aren't super gaming literate. So maybe we'll put a pin in that one.

• 37:15Jason Schreier?

  Little bit of a tease. All right, let's get to the next question. This is from Chris. Chris says, I was super hyped after watching the trailer for Intergalactic during the game wars. That's the new game from Naughty Dog. But when I went back and searched for the trailer on YouTube, was caught by surprise by the overwhelming negative deluge of reactions and comments from the capital G gamers that seem to be obsessed with fighting a culture war at every possible opportunity. I tried to write it off as a loud minority of opinion, but then I thought about how Trump just won reelection with a majority. Worth pausing and noting here, a majority of.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, all three of us were like, wait, hold on.

• 37:54Jason Schreier?

  The voting populace, not a majority of the country. Anyway, Chris goes on. I hesitated to write this message as I don't want to give any oxygen to this toxicity, but it left me wondering, how do you engage with the broader gaming audience without getting disillusioned by the level of discourse on display?

• 38:10Speaker 00

  It's so easy, right?

• 38:12Jason Schreier?

  I was thinking about this a lot, actually. I've been thinking about it because like, this might be a little bit depressing, but I also was kind of like writing some of the stuff off over the last year as a loud minority, the Mark Kern crew of the world and the Trump, the Trump election, and then also the kind of like this sea change we're seeing and how people are talking about certain cultural elements has got me thinking, oh, is it really a minority, this kind of anti woke crowd? Then again, if you're. Like, there's kind of a spectrum here and there's people who might be like, well,

• 38:52Jason Schreier?

  woke-ism has gone too far. But if you're, if the entire backlash here is just based on a black woman with a shaved head being a protagonist of a hero, then you're just straight up racism. You're not kind of like someone who feels like culture is shifting too far. So there is a spectrum there. I also, the kind of, to bring some positive spin on this whole thing, I was thinking about the West Wing of all things, a problematic show for many reasons. But one thing that I think it captures really interesting, accurately for the time and in an interesting way, is that there's this one episode where there's this guy and he's a Republican talking about voting against gay marriage and it turns out he's gay. And one of the conclusions he makes about why he's going in this direction

• 39:35Jason Schreier?

  is because he doesn't feel like the country is ready for like to accept gay people. And of course, I think 15, 20 years after that, things would change drastically. And we're now at a point where like, I don't really think, other than kind of fringes, I don't really think gay marriage or like being gay is really up for debate anymore. Now we've kind of moved to transgender issues being this kind of big hot topic and it's cultural social, like cultural button to push. And I think that like, looking back at that, it does feel like sometimes it just takes a while for the cultural discourse to shift. And sometimes along the way, you have these kind of like, the pendulum swings back in the other direction where it's like, oh, people suddenly feel like it's too radical.

• 40:17Jason Schreier?

  Now we're going back in the other direction. But that's kind of speaking more broadly. I think just kind of, I think it's objectively true to say that any backlash against like a game starring a black woman with a shaved head is just straight up racism and poison and like, definitely not worth giving oxygen. But it's depressing to think that there might be a lot of people who think that way.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, we've definitely talked about the pendulum swing on the show before, and that's something that comforts me because I know we've all been doing this long enough that I feel like we've seen some pendulum swings in our industry. And that's part of why I feel confident saying this is that. I don't know how far it's going to go in a direction that I hate,

• 41:02Speaker 00

  but I've seen it before. And I also know that when I was growing up, there were so few games with any content that was even close to this. And then we kind of saw more of it getting added, and then like a backlash to it, and then more of it getting added, and then backlash to it. But to kind of answer Chris's question, which is like, what do you do about this? How do you deal with this? I think about this all the time because of my job. And I also have the luxury of knowing that many, many, many of our readers aren't this way. And I know that because of what they read on our site and what they're interested in and the games they're interested in. And a lot of times I can just look at like, the guides they're reading for

• 41:45Speaker 00

  some of these games, like that, that, you know, the anti woke crowd would be like, no one likes this game. And I'll be like, are you sure? Because I know that thousands and thousands of people are playing it right now and enjoying it and engaging with it and getting this far and this far and this far. And I'm seeing that through our backend. And so I have that kind of positive reinforcement every day. So I can kind of pass on that message to the listeners who don't get that every day of their lives of seeing that kind of baseline sense of normalcy. And it is true, you know, I thinking about the Trump election depresses me because I think about how many people in our country are like really disengaged from politics. And that's

• 42:26Speaker 00

  like a another topic, I guess. But I think that probably reflects many people who don't write YouTube comments and who aren't engaging and maybe don't think this way, but just aren't voicing what they do think. And we just don't hear from those people. The majority of people aren't writing comments at all. And that's what I have to remember. They're just reading it. And then they're moving on with their lives.

• 42:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, I think I don't have a ton to add to that, especially Maddie. I think that's really well put, that, you know, YouTube comments do reflect a minority only because it reflects YouTube commenters. And like, that is not a group of people that you have to engage with. I certainly don't. And, you know, I don't think that that puts me out of touch with the mainstream or anything. Like, it's just, that's just not a great place for thoughtful reactions to games. And then, something that I said back when we were talking about the Game Awards, that I'll just reiterate, is that pre-release discourse is among the worst kind of video game discourse. Like, the worst conversations you can have, even with well-meaning and intelligent people, are the conversations that you have about games that aren't out yet, that were just announced.

• 43:30Kirk Hamilton?

  So, you know, you're already setting the bar really low, or you're setting expectations very low, when you're looking for reactions to a trailer to a game that was just announced. All you're gonna get is like, nonsense, surface-level, like, kind of meaningless reactions. So, to then go somewhere that is kind of predisposed to like, pretty thoughtless stuff, or a certain type of, you know, audience member who's predisposed to leave a certain type, come from a certain place and leave a kind of unpleasant comment, like, of course you're gonna get like, even more of that. Like, you're already kind of down pretty low, when you're reacting to a trailer for a game. So just, you know, it's not all indicative of all of video game culture.

• 44:13Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not all a reflection of like, every single game and the way that people feel about everything. It's like, very, very narrow-casted by the time you're in the YouTube comments for a just-announced Naughty Dog game. So, I would say maybe don't let that get to you too much. And then, just underline everything that Matty just said, about like, how most people just are kind of out there, enjoying cool things, and then living their lives.

• 44:34Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Just reading articles and clicking the X button and moving on. That's what most people are doing.

• 44:41Jason Schreier?

  There was like, there's some people getting mad because The Witcher 4 stars a woman, and The Witcher 4 is gonna sell bazillion copies.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 44:49Kirk Hamilton?

  And it's gonna be great.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  It's gonna be amazing.

• 44:51Kirk Hamilton?

  It's gonna be a great game.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  And the majority of people are gonna probably enjoy it, and we will never hear from them about that, you know? They're just gonna like it.

• 45:00Jason Schreier?

  Let's squeeze in one last question. If you want to read this last one, Manny.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  Sure. This is from Brian who writes, hello, triple click crew. Is there a concern slash consideration among games journalists that games just as good as Bellatro exists out there undiscovered? Is Bellatro really as intrinsically exceptional, one in a million as it seems to be? Or the exceptional part is that it got lucky and caught the zeitgeist? I mean, no disrespect to Bellatro or local funk. I don't want to take anything away from what he's built. My question is more about whether or not you think there are other similarly impressive games lurking out there in the depths of itch.io. Well, Brian, there are.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  That's, that's the plight we face every day.

• 45:43Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 45:44Speaker 00

  And it haunts me in the middle of the night.

• 45:46Jason Schreier?

  Are there?

• 45:48Speaker 00

  I think so.

• 45:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I mean, I feel like The game we're about to talk about in your one more thing was on itch.io and I'd never heard of it.

• 45:55Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I guess. Okay. So I guess it depends what you mean by good, right? I think it's a lot harder for certain types of games to go viral. Like it's especially like, um, single player narrative games, games that aren't as easy to share. I just, I don't think that like, like, I think if Bellatro, Bellatro, Bellatro had a really good marketing strategy. It was published by a publisher, Playstack, and it had like an early, uh, not early access, but like it had betas and stuff and it got a lot of word of mouth before it even came out. But I think if a game like Bellatro had come out and just kind of came out of nowhere, I feel like someone would have discovered it and shared it and it would have taken off in some way or another. Just because it is a game that is like designed to go viral. Um, and I don't mean that in a bad

• 46:38Jason Schreier?

  way. I mean, like, it's so shareable and just kind of like, um, uh, just draws the eye in so many ways. I don't know. I feel like something like that, if that came out of, if that was just kind of buried underneath that I O, I feel like someone might have discovered it. I don't know. I could be wrong.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  I think that's true, but I also think that something that's designed to go viral and is also a good game, isn't the same as a game that's good and just doesn't have that shareable quality.

• 47:03Jason Schreier?

  Oh, yeah. 100%. No, that, well, that's what I'm saying is that like, I'm sure there are a bazillion, the single player narrative games, the type Games that don't get picked up by streamers and stuff buried out there.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  Or just aren't that fun to share a screenshot of and aren't easily encapsulated in that way, or don't have a big ticking number at the top of the screen that makes it clear what's going on, the way that Bellatro does, as confusing as it is at first. It just has a lot of benefits.

• 47:27Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so that's what I mean by when I'm just saying that like it depends on what you mean by good. Cause I think good can mean a lot of different things when you're talking about games. And the other thing is that like a game like Bellatro can be a lot more universally appealing than a lot of single player story games that might be like, um, I don't know. Uh, Case of the Golden Idol is one of my favorite games in recent memory, but that doesn't mean it's going to appeal to everybody. Outer Wilds is very appealing to a certain type of gamer, but certainly not everybody. Whereas Bellatro, I think has a lot more universal appeal. It's very, everybody loves watching numbers go up. Anyway, I guess I, my, my kind of hesitancy to just say, yes, there are, is just in what you kind of consider good.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:09Jason Schreier?

  When you're talking about this, like, cause good can mean so many different things to so many different people.

• 48:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I would only add that I think that as time goes on, it's going to become increasingly true that there are actually games that are, that have every single box checked, that are just incredible, that just kind of don't catch on because there are just so many of them. It still feels like we get games that are like, that are pretty unusual and Bellatro, I think is one of them. Where it just, it really, you play it, you're like, this is, this is like nothing I've ever played before. Like I have to tell people about it. And I don't know, I feel this way with music now where there is so much music, whatever it is, a thousand hours uploaded to Spotify every 30 seconds or whatever. And like, there's so much music, there's so much great music, there are so many great bands just all over the world.

• 48:59Kirk Hamilton?

  And there's like, just this feeling that you know out there that there are dozens of bands probably that would be totally your shit, that you would love, that you'd want to listen to forever. But you just, you'll never find out about them because you don't have time to go and find it all. And you don't even have time to read the blogs of the people who take the time to find it all. And those blogs have all been put out of business anyway. It's all just a Spotify algorithm and the algorithm kinda sucks that it's not actually gonna show those bands to you. So like, you just can't find it. And that's because music has had so much longer to mature and it's become so easy to make. And it does kinda feel possible that games will get easier and easier to make, and this will become even more true, that platforms like itch will just have like, so many great games that you just

• 49:42Kirk Hamilton?

  kinda can't keep up. It already, I mean, it feels more true each year.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  It does. It does.

• 49:47Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Alright, and then now let's take a break and then we'll talk about a game that was, that is little known and we will bring to virality right now on the show.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  Hello?

• 50:03Speaker 04

  Hannah?

• 50:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  It's Clint McElroy. Hi Hannah Redd.

• 50:06Speaker 03

  Oh my god, hello.

• 50:08Speaker 04

  I don't know if you know who I am.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  Oh, I do. I love The Adventure Zone. It is probably my favorite D and D podcast.

• 50:15Speaker 04

  You've been a faithful member of Maximum Fun since March of 2019, and this is them rewarding you as our Maximum Fun Member of the Month.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  It's awesome. I love it.

• 50:30Speaker 04

  So what made you decide to become a member of Max Fun?

• 50:34Speaker 03

  You know, it was so long ago. I'm not sure what the exact moment where I decided was. I think I've kept it up intentionally because a lot of those different podcasts have been there for me when I felt really alone and sad and just needed something to laugh at.

• 50:48Speaker 04

  Oh, well that's... Hannah, thank you so much. Thanks for being a member. Thanks for being a Taz fan. Thanks for all the nice things you had to say about me specifically, and I guess my kids. I guess.

• 51:02Speaker 05

  If you're a Max Fun member, you can become the next Max Fun Member of the Month. Support us at MaximumFun.org/join.

• 51:12Speaker 06

  Jackie Kishen, hi, and welcome to the MaximumFun.org podcast, The Jackie and Lauren Show, where we talk about stand-up comedy and how much we love it and how much it enrages us. We have a lot of experience and a lot of stories and a lot of time on our hands. So, check us out. It's one hour a week and we drop it every Wednesday on MaximumFun.org.

• 51:34Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. Kirk, go first.

• 51:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. So, yeah, I want to talk with you about your one more thing. So, I will just recommend a show really quick that I really enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would, and that's Black Doves on Netflix, which is a new British crime caper starring Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw, and also Sarah Lancashire, who I know from the show Julia, about Julia Child, but who is apparently just like an award-winning star of everything in England forever and is amazing. So, this is a show, it's kind of like The Americans meets Slow Horses and a little bit like Guy Ritchie, a little bit The Gentleman. It stars Keira Knightley as this undercover spy working for a private spy organization, not actually for MI6 or the government. And she's married to a Tory politician and is sort of, you

• 52:21Kirk Hamilton?

  know, really deep into a life with him. And then, stuff just starts to happen. And it starts, I don't know, it starts out like it's going to be this kind of hard-boiled spy show, but then really quickly becomes a very charming and kind of off-the-wall and funny show that's very pulpy and ridiculous. It's very violent. It's very heartfelt. It has a lot of really amazing emotional sequences in it. Ben Whishaw, who I knew as playing Q in the recent Bond movies, but who's been in a bunch of other stuff, he is incredibly great. There are these like long shots of just his face as he's reacting to things. So anyways, I really just, a very quick recommendation of this show. I watched it with Emily's parents when they were in town. I thought it'd just be a kind of forgettable

• 53:03Kirk Hamilton?

  spy thriller like some of the other ones that I've watched recently. No, it is fantastic. Like, the third episode was one of the best episodes of TV I've seen in a long time. So, just a real recommendation for a surprising show that I really loved called Black Doves that is on Netflix.

• 53:19Jason Schreier?

  Maddie, you have one more thing.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  All right. So for Hanukkah, I got Dina a Steam Deck because I'm amazing. And what I'm gonna recommend to everybody is a little thing called Steam Family Sharing. Now, maybe people already know about this, but on the off chance that you don't, you gotta hook up your family with this. So obviously I've accrued, I don't know how many Steam Games. I don't want to talk about it. Too many. Uh, but a lot. There's a lot in there and Dina can play all of them for free. Because I've just added her very, very easily. They've even made it easier than it used to be in the past. They've upgraded it now. It's very simple to add somebody to your account now.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  She can just install all of them on her Steam Deck for free and try them. We can't play them at the same time. That's the only consideration. But most of these I haven't touched ever or in years.

• 54:15Jason Schreier?

  But you can both be locked in at the same time. You can be playing different games at the same time.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  Yes, and both be playing different games on essentially my account. I, I mean, it doesn't matter. They're her games now. It's, it's incredible. So yeah, Steam Family Sharing. If you didn't know, you could be giving all of your Steam Games to anyone. So yeah, check it out. Steam Games. You can just give them to your friends for free.

• 54:35Jason Schreier?

  That's a fun one more thing. Okay, we're gonna talk about this, a game, uh, that I think two of us have played. Maddie, you have not started it yet, correct?

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Not yet, but I'm excited to hear more.

• 54:45Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, we're about to convince you. Okay, so.

• 54:48Speaker 00

  It's good.

• 54:48Jason Schreier?

  I've been, I, I marathon this game last week. I'm obsessed with it. I can't wait to talk about it more. It's called The Root Trees Are Dead. And a little bit of history is that this game came out for free on itch.io, huh? Hmm, interesting, uh, given our last conversation, uh, in 2023, I believe. And that version, that free version, it was the whole game, but it had AI art, um, which I think turned off a few people and, uh, it was free. It was kind of like an amateur, like a side project for this guy, um, who, who made it. Um, I believe, let me just.

• 55:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Jeremy Johnson.

• 55:23Jason Schreier?

  Jeremy Johnson.

• 55:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Is his name.

• 55:25Jason Schreier?

  Yes, Jeremy Johnson. It was a side project for this guy, Jeremy Johnson. I believe he works in games. And so it got some steam, it got some traction. So he decided to do a remade version and sell it on Steam. And the remade version includes human art, so no more AI art. So you can feel, you don't have to feel like weird about purchasing it. And it also includes a whole new kind of sequel or DLC, whatever you want to call it, a whole new section of the game to complete. Now let me talk about this game and why I love it so much.

• 55:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. How does it work? Tell us how it works.

• 56:00Jason Schreier?

  So the root trees are dead. It's very heavily inspired by Return of the Obra Dinn, one of my favorite games of all time. It's that kind of crossed with a her story or like the operator or any of these other kind of like desktop computer based games where you have a web interface and you're typing things in. Because the majority of this game, instead of kind of looking at tableaus, looking at scenes, looking at footage or stuff like that, you are looking things up online. So the premise is, it starts off by telling you that the root trees are dead, that this family of people, five of them, have died.

• 56:39Jason Schreier?

  And it turns out they're part of this insanely rich and popular corporation called the Root Tree Candy Company that has all sorts of offshoots and has a ton of money. And then you are, you, the player, are visited by this person, this shadowy person who doesn't reveal their identity, but says to you, hey, I need you to figure out the entire family tree of the root trees so we can make sure all the money goes to the right places. And you will be like rewarded mightily if you do so. You will get a generous reward if you do so. So then you are given this family tree and it has a whole bunch of question marks that you have to go and fill it out. And sort of like Obra Dinn, you have to use your logic deduction and just piece everything together yourself.

• 57:24Jason Schreier?

  And the game will kind of tell you. Every four entries or so, it goes up over time, but at least at first, every four entries, it'll tell you if you got it right, just like Return of the Obra Dinn was. And so you get that endorphin rush of being like, oh, got this right.

• 57:38Kirk Hamilton?

  A huge part of the rhythm of the game, by the way.

• 57:40Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 57:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Just to add, like, that was something I'd forgotten about Obra Dinn, that you get, you'll click a thing and then it's just like bam, and you're like, yes, I did it. And it tells you all the correct answers.

• 57:49Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you get so excited. You get so happy when that happens.

• 57:52Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a really, it's great.

• 57:53Jason Schreier?

  And so what you have to do, it's set in the 1990s, by the way, so the internet is very primitive. And so you have to use the primitive internet to find out information about these people. And not everybody is online. So you can Google, at first you can be like, okay, Carl Rettree, this is the main guy who died, he was the president of the company. I can look up his name. And then, once you start doing that, you might find all these different kind of like, branches of information that might lead you down rabbit holes that tell you all about other people in the family. So at first, you learn about Carl, and you learn about his daughters who just died. But then, you're gonna start learning about their cousins, and how they're connected, and their parents, and you, you kind of, you start to piece together this entire family tree, which is five generations long and

• 58:34Jason Schreier?

  very wide, because there are like 60 people in it. And there are all sorts of kind of like clues that you'll find along the way. You'll find pictures, you'll find diaries, you'll find conspiracy theory webpages that take you down all sorts of wild, wild journeys and rabbit holes. And you have to piece together, like, sometimes making really tough and really challenging, logical leaps. You have to be like, oh, okay, well, I know these two people are cousins, maybe they would fit over here on this part of the tree. Okay, I know this person was photographed to this person. Oh, I know this person is actually using this name, but it's not their real name. Also, because it's all one family, they use a lot

• 59:17Jason Schreier?

  of names over and over again, and the game jokes about that and kind of references that, but like, there are a lot of people-

• 59:22Kirk Hamilton?

  It feels like Elden Ring.

• 59:23Jason Schreier?

  Uh huh, yeah.

• 59:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Where you're like, are you kidding? Why did they name their kids?

• 59:27Jason Schreier?

  Uh huh, yep, yep.

• 59:28Kirk Hamilton?

  But yeah, it is-

• 59:30Jason Schreier?

  And it's all, it's just such a brilliant ride. And along the way, you're learning all this really interesting information about these characters and their lives. And they're kind of their their relationships. Some of them don't like each other. Some of them have backstabbed one another for the family money or like or fighting over the the heritage. Some of them have cheated on one another. There's all sorts of great just kind of gossip. It feels like you're just kind of prying into um this very rich family's lives, almost like succession in a way, a little less dark than succession, but like it feels like that. And you're just getting such a it's just so fun to deduce it all. If you're into metroid brainies, if you're into games like Overdan or Golden Idol, which I know a lot of our listeners are, you must play this.

• 1:00:14Jason Schreier?

  I waited until now to talk about it. I played it last week, but I wanted to wait till now because it is out on Steam right now. It came out on Wednesday of this week, January 15. So it is out right now. I also I finished this and then gobbled up the second part, the second part, which has not been available. So even if you played the free version, you have not played the second part. It is even more challenging than the first part and reveals information about all these characters in in ways that you you would not expect and would not know before. And it is brilliant and devious and super fun, just as fun as the first part. So altogether, you buy this game and you get just a ton of like narrative and mystery and deductions to do. I wish I could just erase it all from my memory and play it again. It's so good.

• 1:00:57Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, what are your thoughts on The Root Trees Are Dead?

• 1:01:00Kirk Hamilton?

  I really liked it as well. I think it makes a couple of there are a couple of really smart decisions that Johnston made in making the game that I want to shout out. One is, so you do a lot of web browsing in this game, in this kind of, what's it called, spider search or something? It's like an old, you know, AltaVista era, late 90s, uh, search engine. And instead of showing you websites each time you you search for something and find something, you instead just get a text summary of whatever you just read, which I didn't even notice at first. I just, it was so seamless, it just kind of made sense to me. And then I realized, oh, there isn't a ton of

• 1:01:39Kirk Hamilton?

  web design and art and stuff that he had to do to make all of this, like, because there's a ton of information on this games on the in-game internet. Instead, it'll just say You know, you read this site and kind of skim through it. It says some stuff about the candy company and then it mentions this and this and this. And then he published a book called this. And then you're like, oh, okay, cool. Well, that might be useful. And then you can kind of just select the text and right click it and you can just search for that text immediately. Or you can copy it and like paste it into the periodical search or whatever. Like it, it makes it so that the information comes to you in a much more condensed fashion, which is really helpful because you're sorting through so much information. It also probably saved a ton of work on the development side because he didn't have to design all these websites.

• 1:02:22Kirk Hamilton?

  And, you know, risk making the game kind of not so believable as the websites start to look kind of fake or samey. And also it allows his voice to come through just in funny ways. I won't spoil any of them, but there are just some really funny jokes where you'll search for something and it'll just come up and he'll just sort of talk to you for a minute, like the game developer. He'd be like, well, this website doesn't have anything useful, but here's something that a game developer named Jeremy Justin. And like, um, and you know, and then it'll just like have a few of his thoughts.

• 1:02:51Jason Schreier?

  Like a musical he really liked or something like that.

• 1:02:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that one, that's the one.

• 1:02:54Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking of, which is.

• 1:02:56Jason Schreier?

  And the game is very generous. It'll always be like, this is not related to the root trees, but it's just like, it's just.

• 1:03:01Kirk Hamilton?

  And that is something very helpful. There are songs, for example, there will be an album that's a clue because there are also clues that you like at which are art. And they have the clues are in the images. This is also somewhat like Oberdin or Golden Idol where, you know, you'll see that someone is wearing a certain type of uniform and that lets you to do something about their job. Um, but then also there'll be like lyrics and recordings of the songs and it will say, the lyrics of the song contain no clues. So you're not sitting there like performing, you know, Kremlinology on the third verse of like the disco song that one of the cousins wrote. Which is just sort of nice. Like it helps you direct your attention in the right place.

• 1:03:37Jason Schreier?

  Great disco song, hilarious. Oh, the folk song is, is hilarious.

• 1:03:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, the songs are pretty good. I'm, um, I'm curious how they made the songs that a lot of the music in the game is just sort of, uh, musicians who are signed up to like Fiverr or there's another, there are a couple of these sites where you can just like, as a musician be like, I play saxophone and I'll just like. Make you a jazz tune for a hundred bucks. And then it's like that kind of music, which is essentially stock music. Like, it doesn't have a lot of cohesion or personality. And at first, I was like, ah, like, you know, this, this doesn't have like the personality of an Obera Dinn, where Lucas Pope like composed those tracks, you know? Or like we were talking about with the Golden Idol Games, where it's like they got a composer to write this really distinct stuff. But at the same time, it's fine, because this game really clearly is one guy.

• 1:04:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, he, he like focused on what he needed to focus on to make the game.

• 1:04:27Jason Schreier?

  Let me interrupt you there real quick. He actually brought on some help for this remake. He brought on a producer, programmer, and maybe a couple, and an artist also, worth noting.

• 1:04:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, so a small team. Point being that like they, it's not like a really elaborate production. And he kept his scope narrow, as narrow as possible, in a lot of different respects. And that made it a lot easier to make the game. And that, like, I just totally respect that approach. To be like, here are the things we're doing really well. It's like the story, the puzzles, the design of the game, the writing, the whole overall experience. We're not actually gonna spend too much money, like, hiring a composer and like getting a whole ton of original music, because we can just get guys who can like knock us out something pretty easily, and it'll suffice. And it does suffice. Like, it's like having Smokey tenor saxophone solo going while you're sitting there in your apartment on the internet doing sleuth work, like, totally works. So really, in the end, like, they're not really aesthetic gripes.

• 1:05:24Kirk Hamilton?

  It's just sort of an interesting, you can kind of see the, the game's priorities on display. And I think he prioritized the right things. Because, yeah, I think it's really great. I, I finished just the first part. I haven't done the second part, but I really want to. Like, you really get so enmeshed in these people's lives. I don't think, like, there aren't any characters that are really standout characters. It's not that kind of writing. It's a little bit more believable. Like, there are definitely some people you get to know better, because they may be published to tell-all book, so you spend more time reading, you know, their words and getting their perspective. But at the same time, like, it's not really about that. It's not like larger-than-life characters. It's just about the kind of, the broad reach of this family. And over time, the like feeling of-

• 1:06:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, oh, OK, I'm kind of zeroing in around this, you know, second generation child and like their kids and those cousins. And there's kind of these different groups, like it almost feels like a map. I guess it is a map because it's a cork board that you're laying out. And so you kind of see it like over on the left side, there, there's like this one family, the redheads, you know, Jason. Maybe that's a spoiler or whatever. There's like the, the redheaded people or like the, the, the one lady who's in the movies and like her kids. And like, you start to figure out who everybody is and sort of what their deal is. Various conflicts that were kind of almost localized to their part of the map. Because sometimes they're fighting with one another, but people way on the left side are barely aware of people way on the right side. And in the end, you have this kind of a whole.

• 1:06:50Jason Schreier?

  Tapestry.

• 1:06:51Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, you've done a lot of cartography, like you have a whole map of this whole thing put together.

• 1:06:54Jason Schreier?

  Genealogy, that's what you're doing, really.

• 1:06:56Kirk Hamilton?

  It really is a genealogy.

• 1:06:58Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, I will say in the second part, a few characters do become larger than life, so you'll see, you'll see that, because. Couple of things that I just want to note real quick is why is that it never feels unfair or like too hard? In part because pretty much everything in there, other than like a couple of tricky things here and there, but pretty much everything. You can find out like the information you need. So the names of people and what they look like, et cetera. Through multiple ways. So like there are multiple avenues in which you can, you can get to people.

• 1:07:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's true. I got the, um, I like, there's a kind of final challenge where it tells you this at the beginning, actually. You're going to have to guess, I think it's, you have to guess two names by typing them in. And it's not going to tell you. And I got that and felt very proud of myself despite then in the recap scene that I had missed some major clues. Like a book, I think that had a bunch of information because I got it other ways and also used deduction. Like I just kind of figured out what was going on.

• 1:07:53Jason Schreier?

  Did you get the final picture too?

• 1:07:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, I did.

• 1:07:56Jason Schreier?

  Nice, good work.

• 1:07:57Kirk Hamilton?

  So go ahead.

• 1:07:58Jason Schreier?

  And then one, well, so I was gonna, the other thing I was gonna say is that like each of these, both of the two big stories. Lead into this kind of like great narrative twist and like kind of finale, which actually over it in was lacking a little bit. I, I think it had a good ending, but it didn't really have the kind of strong kind of narrative powerhouse moment at the end. Whereas both of these kind of parts of Root Trees are dead, I think have really strong conclusions with kind of like twists that might not be super shocking because you'll probably have figured out what the deal is by the time you got to that point, but still are very satisfying to unveil. The one exception to the kind of like not too difficult thing is actually the, at the end of the second part, the DLC or whatever you want to call it, Root Tree Mania, it's called in the game.

• 1:08:43Jason Schreier?

  You have to fill in some blanks yourself and it's actually a little bit too tough. And also you don't really get a good way of, like a good feedback mechanism for telling you if you're right or wrong at the end of that. But it's not a huge deal and you'll see towards the end that it's still very enjoyable to like see it all kind of unfold. I wound up missing some clues in the second part that I didn't know about. The first part I caught all the clues, but in the second part I didn't. But anyway, I mean, both, it's just like an incredible game. It's already like a game of the year contender for me, like for my top games of the year, and I still can't stop thinking about it. So if you've been convinced, it's called The Root Trees Are Dead. It's out now, I believe, just on Steam, which is where I played it.

• 1:09:28Jason Schreier?

  You need a mouse and keyboard. I think you definitely need a keyboard. It would be very difficult to play on like a Steam Deck or a controller.

• 1:09:34Kirk Hamilton?

  I don't believe there is control, controller support.

• 1:09:37Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. So you need a mouse and keyboard. So you'll have to play it on Steam, but you don't need a graphics card to play it. So don't worry about that.

• 1:09:46Kirk Hamilton?

  No, no, it's not, not super demanding. And I wanted to mention related to the difficulty, there's also a very good hint system.

• 1:09:52Jason Schreier?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:53Kirk Hamilton?

  It layers questions at you. Like it isn't just like, here's where you should look. It starts with like a top layer of like, well, what about what this person said? And then you can just go look in that book and you'll be like, oh duh, obviously they mentioned this magazine. I should just go look that up. So it's really good at kind of giving you those little nudges.

• 1:10:10Jason Schreier?

  It doesn't actually work during the really hard part in Root Tree Mania, the DLC.

• 1:10:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh yeah, sure. I just meant in general for people who might be like turned off of difficulty of puzzles. There's a great hint system.

• 1:10:22Jason Schreier?

  It's very useful because it'll be like, it won't be like, you should know this. It'll be like, have you tried? This thing and this thing.

• 1:10:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:10:29Jason Schreier?

  It's very like old school Infocomm Guide style or like Lucas' Guide style. Yeah, so that's The Root Trees Are Dead. Go check it out. And that's it for this week's episode. Kirk?

• 1:10:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Jason Schreier?

  Matty, next time we see each other, I think the Switch 2 will have been announced.

• 1:10:47Speaker 00

  Fingers crossed.

• 1:10:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Very exciting times.

• 1:10:49Jason Schreier?

  It's very exciting. Rumors, rumors suggest we will be living in the world of Switch 2 next time we see each other.

• 1:10:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I'll see you both then.

• 1:10:56Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 1:10:59Kirk 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 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. 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. For Maddy Myers and Jason Schreier, I'm Kirk Hamilton, signing off.

• 1:11:59Speaker 05

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