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Alec and Matthew sit down and talk finance manager games!
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Alec and Matthew sit down and talk finance manager games!
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The podcast hosts discuss their recent gaming experiences. They played Metal Gear Solid and talked about the game PAL World. They also talk about a game called Helldivers, which is compared to Starship Troopers. They discuss the gameplay mechanics and the multiplayer aspect of the game. They also mention their personal history with gaming and the consoles they have owned. 3...2...1...Dark Lord Welcome back to 321 Backlog, the podcast where we sit down and play games from our backlog and then talk about them. Today I am joined, not by James, he is out doing God knows what, but today we have my new friend for another project we're working on, Matthew. How are you today, sir? Very well, how are you? I'm great. It's a later recording where we're getting, well for me, you're, you still got sunshine out, I think, at this time of night. That's pretty dark, not my standard time, but by like 20-30 minutes. There you go, all right. So yeah, James is out. He aired the game we were going to be talking about today and just had no interest whatsoever, so I let him take a day off so we could talk about it. So hopefully he's out there learning about his Presidents. Yeah, maybe. He's, what have we been playing recently? We just wrapped up Metal Gear Solid. We went back a number of years. Yeah, well the one for the PS1. Okay. I think, yeah, the first, because I know there were, in that series, yeah, there were ones like in the Nintendo space, I think. We didn't play those, because apparently those are terrible. But like the bulk of the story that everybody knows, the Solid Snake character that everybody is in love with starts with Metal Gear Solid. So that's what we started with. So we're just finishing that up. We just talked about PAL World recently, because that's been in the Zeitgeist everywhere. I'm excited for the next couple updates. I put it down. I feel like I did all the things I wanted and felt like doing. It just felt a little... It needs work. It was missing something. It's not done yet. But I saw the trailer for the next big patch that they have coming out, and it looks freaking dope. Literally every third second of that trailer had my eyes go, oh! I'll have to go check it out. At the time of recording, we are about a month from when it initially released. So we are a bit behind. So who knows what it will be like when this finally comes out. But so is that what you've been playing PAL World? I think you've stepped away from it, just like we have. What are you playing right now? Helldivers, since release night. Yeah, so what is this game? Because I have not really seen anything about it, except for you and Jeremy talking about it. Okay, so Helldivers in a nutshell. We're gonna call it Starship Troopers. Okay. Oh, it is... Have you played Starship Troopers Extermination, the game? I have not. I saw the amazing cinematic film. It's solid. So it is Starship Troopers full-on. And so you know how Starship Troopers kind of played with that, like, imperial propaganda. I'm not sure the word for it. You know, the like, we're waiting on you. I'm doing my part, like that whole fucking thing. Like, now I'm Glendathus. So Helldivers has taken that sort of trope and gone balls deep, dude. Right. It is fantastic. It is about democracy. We now have Super Earth. And it is, sorry, it's not democracy. It is managed democracy, which is just straight up authoritarianism. Like, citizens have a vote, but the vote doesn't matter. And it doesn't change who wins. So, you know, we're talking about a video game. Are we talking about real life? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It is an election year. So who knows? And the points don't matter. Oh, man. So yeah, so it is, yeah, dude, like, meets something like Deep Rock Galactic in the whole point A to point B sort of mission objective thing. But all of that with an overstroking of community, right? Like, as the bugs and the automatons, as the term is in the automatons, like, come in on different sides of the galaxy, every planet that's under siege, if you will, has a liberation percentage. So like, we are as a community working towards liberating these planets. Okay, and it's not going on. And they're like, they're like big bugs and stuff for creatures. Okay, yeah, they're straight up bugs like it is the arachnids from stars from storm fever. Like it's so different sides of the game. There is Starship Troopers, the game, and then Terminators, the game. Those are the two games that are different factions, and the battles are wildly different. And Terminator is much scarier. I think what when I had seen very, very little, I think in your description of it, I've learned more than I have known so far about this game. But when I first saw like a very, very brief clip on like TikTok or something, it reminded me of like, EDF, like 20 something. So like Earth Defense Force, or you fight like giant fire ants, and spiders. I mean, that's what it was giving me vibes of. Yeah, but it looks a lot cooler. So I might have to toss this on the old backlog. It's got one aspect I really like is I don't know if you ever played mercenaries two back in the day, one of my all time favorite games, like hands down one of the best games ever made. Ah, mercenaries two had a whole like, throw a grenade for a care package or a bomb or Eagle Strike or an orbital bombardment, etc. That is like your primary fight mechanic is that mechanic, which I really like that aspect of it. It adds a lot of like play. I played a mission the other night because it's like the game is just so popular. There's like 450,000 spots on the servers and 750,000 people trying to log in per day. Like, they're killing it. Yeah, dude, it's ridiculous. Yeah, there's some time and weight and like the matchmaking quick play queue isn't really working very well right now. Is it also PvP? Or is it just you against the aliens? It is you and one to four people against the aliens. But and until like, it's really cool. So as you like go to a planet, so I'm going to you know, like I'm going to level on Creek right and like me in there. And so as you go out to your bridge and you look out over the planet, you can see the thousands of other ships that are also on this planet fighting. And supposedly, what you're seeing is in real time. So you'll see like shit like from the ships down to the planet and orbital bombardments and lasers and shit. That's actually like your team on the planet. Like and you can see so I just in my ship above the planet, not even logged into a mission yet can see you shoot your thing, your you know, your orbital laser or whatever. But then also when you're on the ground, you can look up and see that shit coming. It is a really, really cool aspect of the game. Yeah. It's really neat. I like that I it's fun to see what they're starting to do from like a multiplayer aspect. The thing that the things that we're able to do now because servers are better than they used to be over the last 20 years, bandwidth speeds across the country, that standard has slowly crept up throughout the country and the world. So they're limitless potential on what we can do with some of these games. So very, very exciting. So we are going to be talking about something a little less action packed today. But before we really get into it, what I wanted to just kind of I asked selfishly, I've been inviting guests on outside of to get different voices than James and myself, but also like practice hosting somebody that hasn't been on the podcast before. And I wanted to hear this is my first podcast. There you go. So far, because this will release before our other project that will be announced later on. But we the the the 12 people that have listened to our podcast, know, James and I, and they know our histories with games, but I figured we give you a chance to like what were what was your kind of upbringing with games and stuff? Where'd you start? What was your journey with games? So, man, okay, I'm pushing 40. So I have been around pretty much exactly the same amount of time as video games. There you go. I have had all of them my entire life. I primarily started in Atari. My, like, father figure was a part of the Atari Corp, something or another. And so like, so the Atari Jaguar, Nintendo was my first my first real console that I really got into gaming was the Atari Jaguar 64. And so, yeah, like, and dude, I mean, this was so long ago, I was the second person in the world to be Rayman. And this we practice through an IRC channel, dude, like all of it, like we just like posted updates in an IRC channel to track this. Some some kid from Japan beat it like days. And dude, I remember I skipped school, man, I skipped school to play that damn game. And some Japanese kid beat it a couple of days. It was fun. Yeah. But I mean, that was like, like the pre release, like they sent it out to like 100 people before the game ever hit store shelves. Like that was on the Atari Jaguar, the Atari Jaguar 64. Yeah, I think my dad had an Atari 2800. I don't know where that falls. And I think that's it has a little joystick and the button. Right. That was the first console I ever touched. But we had that for maybe a year before. I don't even know where it went. I think it went to a family member. So no, that was the first one that I really like when I became a gamer, finger close, right. Like prior to that, like we had a Nintendo, but I didn't really like I wasn't old enough or intelligent enough to play Mario intelligently at that point. Like I spent half as much time shooting the dog because I was a little kid. My uncle had an Atari, but he only had Pong. But like, no, like, no, I don't really count any of that because I wasn't like when I really got into it. And then from there, dude, I've had every console for my entire life. I'm still today have most of them replaced all the ones that I lost broke or sold through growing up like my 19 year old son's a pretty big nerd. So I have applied him with all of them. So he's getting a chance to see where stuff came from. Yeah, dude. And he loves it. Like, and it's his like I've given like, I've just accepted my imminent demise. Like literally everything is my 19 year old son. I'm just he like comes and asks me, he's like, dude, it's all yours. Like I'm going to die one day and it's all yours. I don't care. Like, you know, whatever the hell you want. But yeah, dude, no, so I'm just like always been a gamer, primarily like PC for the last 15 years. Did you have a genre or a style of game that you gravitated towards the most? Because Jake, I think, did racing games for a while. I would say that the most hours that I have would be in first person shooters. Like I'm a Counter-Strike player. I played Counter-Strike. I mean, I've been playing Counter-Strike since 2001. So early days. Yeah. Since it literally released. Yeah. I played Counter-Strike my entire life. It's yeah. That's my game. I had a tech class in high school and there were like three games that were loaded. I'm pretty sure from students on all the games we had Counter-Strike. Now this would have been in like the early 2000s. I, not to make you feel old, but I graduated in 2007. So I, so we, you know, between 2003 and 2007, those, so that, that brain. So we had Counter-Strike put on those computers. We had the original Starcraft put on there and a couple of other games peppered throughout. And whenever we finished, yeah, whenever we finished the lesson and the teacher was in a good mood, you know who you are. Cause I still know his daughter. We, we, we get to play like a LAN party kind of thing. And like the whole class could play Starcraft or Counter-Strike or something. That's fun. It was, it was actually very, very fun. So, yeah, but yeah, so that's my thing, but I think, so I'm like, I jokingly say I'm ADD AF, right? So while like Counter-Strike has always been my fallback, I just, I play a lot of games. Like I like, like that's my preferred genre. And I think, so, so just as a throw, as a shout out to Counter-Strike, like old school, because it's garbage today. I like, I'm not attracted to games like Call of Duty when I say first person shooters, because I don't like games that you can just play the shit out of and gain an advantage, right? Like in Call of Duty, like you don't like, you can just, you know, like whatever, heartbeat sensor, whatever you get for playing 10,000 hours and hitting level 800 or whatever the hell happens. Like, I don't like, I don't like that in Counter-Strike you and I are on the same exact basis at the start of every single round forever. If I win it's because I was better. Plain and simple. There's no excuses. It's not like, oh, his loadout or blah blah blah. No, dude, no, it's equal footing. And I won one on one. Like that's the appeal of that to me, right? Wasn't, uh, for, for recent games, wasn't, um, the Siege game. What was it? Rainbow? Rainbow Six Siege. It was quicker matches, but everybody kind of had the same shit when you loaded them. Maybe slight variations. I mean, they're not like, there's a ton of different operators. Um, I would say that generally it's the same exact experience. Like there's like, if you watch any high level play of Rainbow Six, it's just the same six to 10 every single time. But there's a lot of, a lot of choices. And the thing, that's another one of those play to win games because you have to pay to unlock your, you have to play to unlock your operators. So like the person with 10,000 hours has the coolest operators unlocked and like, right. And like, that's yeah. Yeah. I don't like, that's just the cap thing. Like that's the appeal of counters. Yeah. So that's, uh, you and I talked to offline when we were trying to figure out what game we would play when I invited you onto the, onto the show. And we talked about shooter games and you were very competitive with those. And that is so far opposite of me and video games. Like I'm not good enough to enjoy a competitive play. It's, it's stressful to be out very much. And it's, it's funny because my cohost really likes some of the competitive stuff that we play less on the, on the shooters. But like when we played world of Warcraft, we would do a lot of arenas. So it was like, you know, two on twos, or we play a lot of MOBAs. Not a lot. We played Hero of the Storm because we both like Blizzard. But you know, we, we liked, he, he really liked that competitive part of it. And I just liked playing. So I would just hop on and he, you know, he'll I'll, I'll make fun of him on this stuff. He's like, Oh, this, this ability or this thing gives you a 5% increase. If this happens, he's like spouting all the numbers and stuff. I'm like, that looks cooler though. I don't like games where I have to min max like that. Like games like wow. Or like MOBAs where I have to min max. Like I don't enjoy that. I do like, like you said, he's a racing fan. Yeah. Like that really breeds to my competitive nature, but not like my perfectionist nature. Cause the best part about racing games, like I play a lot of Trackmania. Like Trackmania is one of my all-time favorite games. And it's just because you can grind to achieve perfection and you shave just tenths of a second off at a time. And it's, it's just so gratifying to just make such a tiny achievement. I feel like racing games right now are making my perception. I could be completely wrong. My perception is like, they're at a tipping point to where using a controller for a racing game is going to be phased out shortly. I feel like they are trying to make them to where you get your, your equipment. Going more into like a simulator type things. So I feel like they are there, but I think they're going to start phasing out like Gran Turismo for PlayStation 6. I don't think it's going to be a thing. Right. I mean, maybe, but I think they're really going to start catering into those simulation rigs. Kind of like how an Xbox branded steering wheel and pedals, right. Cause I know I wholeheartedly agree though. Like I have a Hotas, I have played a lot of elite dangerous. It's the only way to play. If you're going to play like a flight simulator, you should be playing with a $400 or Warthog or else you're not having a good time. Right. I feel like we should probably, at some point, get into the game that we actually, actually played for this. So, uh, yes. So, you know, this, this will be real fun because we was, I played this game. I haven't, it's been a couple of months now. Scheduling is, is, uh, so difficult sometimes. And it's funny because you and I both really like tabletop RPGs, D and D type things. And that's like, uh, such a, such a sore point is like scheduling. So we hang out once a week, but that's a lot like getting a couple of adults to hang out more than once a week is a big fricking ass. It really is. So especially, you know, when you start introducing kids and all that, but so we played, uh, normally I would say we played this week, but we played, uh, rise of industry. Rise of industry is a strategy slash business tycoon game developed by Spanish indie team, Dapper Penguin Studios and published by Casado Games. The game sees players build and manage their industrial empires as they attempt to grow and expand in the early 20th century. Which was really, really, uh, it was, it was a big change from what James and I typically play, like God of War, Far Cry 3, Sea of Stars, a lot of like RPG story driven games, but we went more of like a tycoon strategy type game. So very different for what we typically play. Tycoon strategy type game. So very different for what we typically cover on, on the show. So I, I, uh, yeah, I, I thought it was interesting. We're just, uh, an interesting one to talk about. So I would say it definitely holds a place in the genre and enter like, yeah, it is definitely an interesting topic within the genre. So this, uh, this came out in 2019 by Casado Games. It was developed by Dapper Penguin, mostly for PC. Uh, very, very good. And I, I, we, we don't typically get overscores or we were very inconsistent about it, but on Epic, on the Epic store, which is where I have it, it got a 4.2 out of five, pretty, pretty high score. Uh, but on Metacritic, which is cycling, I think everybody gave it a 62 out of a hundred. And I think that is more appropriate to my play experience. Yeah. How does Steam rate it? Uh, you know, that I didn't really look. I am. Oh, mostly positive. Okay. Mostly positive. I totally forgot how Steam rates it. I get there. I think they give numbers every now and then, but, uh, yeah. So let's see here. So this one I think is going to be mainly about it's game mechanics in, in our discussion. So typically James and I will go through and like say how we liked the, the graphic, the sound design, any voice acting, if applicable, the story, if applicable, not really getting much of a conversation there. I, I liked the art style. It wasn't like super detailed, but detailed enough. And it all felt very parody, like not super serious, but still detailed enough to have some quality to it. Am I making any sense there? Yeah. I mean, I would, I would explain it differently, but I can see what you're saying. Yes. Hey man, what you got? Okay. So my feel for this is I agree. It's very simple, but I don't think it's simple in a parody feel. I think it is simple in that this game. So most tycoon or city builders are pretty thematic, right? Like they all rely heavily on something. This does none of that. It is giving you solely the management aspect of it. And it is detailed and in depth way as possible. So I don't think that it's a parody so much that it is super simplified artistically to delve deeper into that side of it. Like there's no distraction from the management aspect where something like Africa gives you funny accents and dancing girls. I think, I think what, I think why I thought parody initially was when you first start the game, it's got one of those like 1940, 1950, like, like admin type of voices, like, like almost like a quagmire. And he just got like a tone, excuse me. He's got like a tone of like, this is not a serious game, you know, we're just going to see that. So it felt, didn't feel like fun and light. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there, but that didn't carry on, right? Like there was no, there's no social turmoil. There's no comedy. Like after that cut scene, it is just monotony. And that's, and so it's funny. Like I realized with this game, cause I love city building games, but apparently that theme does matter in tycoon and city, city building games. Cause I, I just truly didn't enjoy this game. Like I like all the aspects of it, but it was missing something. And I think it's the quirkiness of Tropico or the unique, I mean, SimCity is just pretty unique, I guess. Like I think that's just nostalgic. I don't know that it's any better. Yeah. I think, I think they, they got in there pretty quick of something that was really polished and accessible to everybody. So niche like things like Frostpunk, right? Like fun or cool, except for where your train goes. They, they thought, you know what, what if we really lean into the need for pen and paper so we can do math? Yeah. I looked, I looked up, we're going to jump right into gameplay. Sound quality was fine. I don't, I, I really think the theme was the big negative part of this, but my God, I was, I, I restarted so many times cause I went bankrupt over and over and over again. I think I maybe put about 25 to 30 hours into this thing. I really gave it a go, right? And it may have actually been more than that. I looked up something cause I was confused at this, the flow of how to do something. And I was looking for like general tips and stuff. And this guide literally went through, okay, you basically need to do math and like, make sure you're writing down like what you're going right for, for this good is, and then you can take that times this by 10, then divide it by how many things you have. I was like, I, I got confused to just trying to read this guide. Like it, it was my goodness. Like I'm okay. There's other things that force you into that. Like satisfactory is amazing. And I've done more min maxing on fricking input and output and production rates and satisfactory that I can shake a damn stick at like is amazing. And I fricking learned literal rocket science to be good at that game. Like, but suddenly, but then you don't get, you don't get the satisfaction of traveling to jewel or the satisfaction of seeing this beautiful world that you've corrupted. You just do it because it's the only thing to do. Yeah. I feel like it's, it's because of the dealing with money. Like, I think that's the thing, which for most people, the theme of like dealing with finances is awful. Right. So like it's, it's fun in like a monopoly sense, which is borderline fun. And yeah. So your, your payout is like, Oh, you know, I have a green number instead of a red one. Cause I'm going bankrupt. Like that, that's, that's kind of it. The animations were fun to watch when you like zoom in and see stuff, but I seeming I, cause I didn't think about it. So you said a theming is so important with these games. I recently have been playing fabled them. Have you seen this? It's an early access one. It's very fun. It's very fantasy driven. So you have elves and, and well, actually, hold on. I'm going to be getting too mixed up. Cause there's another one that I'm wanting to play, but this one, yeah, it's like a little city worker management game, but it has a fantasy spin on it. Like an old timey we're in a, in a little Hamlet with commoners walking around and stuff. And they have some fantasy bits in there, but very cute style, but very fun. Yeah. And you want to know what's funny. I bet if they took fucking rides and industry, sorry, if my language is too, no, this is perfect. If they, uh, if they took rides to industry and skinned it like this, I probably would have enjoyed it more. Yep. Yep. Instead of having money to gold, you know, like that, that really can make a difference, but you know, and just little cute guys, look at this dude in this stupid little head thing. Like, it was just stupid. It's cute. I'm going to laugh at him and then I'm going to enjoy it. The one that I'm really curious about, and I can't remember if I've talked to you about this game, uh, that I have over 200, I think I have more hours on this next game. I'm going to mention that I do on Baldur's gate, which is over 200, um, timber born. I have no, we talked about this. It does look good. It is so good. And they keep playing around with it. It definitely for me, it, I think I got my fill of it and I want them to get maybe some more updates into it and see if they can add a little bit more. They've been adding some stuff in the recent months. I might dive back in, but it's, um, it's definitely one of those where I play it, play it, play it, play it. And then I get my fill and then I step away for a bit and I'm starting to get curious about to have him back in, but that one is super, super fun. Pretty high on my, like my backlog, if you will. It will next time it goes on sale. All right. I will, uh, I'll pick it up. I really like the water mechanic, like the water physics mechanic. That looks fantastic. And I am excited to play with that. So instead of like, um, another one, my wife played was, was called, uh, settlement survival. Um, and she really liked that one, but you know, your, your environmental hazard and timber born is a drought. So your beaver, you're playing beavers. So you need to damn the water flow and make reservoirs and do all this so you can last longer. And that's been the biggest thing. Then your droughts get longer and longer and longer, and it gets more and more difficult. So it's got that frost punk vibe to it. So in their most recent update, they added like corrupted water or like poisoned water. So you've got, you've got a deal with droughts, but then you also have to deal with like chemicals or something leaching into your water supply and doing stuff there. So they're adding like different variations of this, uh, scarce resource and how they, how they mess with it. So very, very fun there. Um, slightly on topic, but not, uh, have you played oxygen not included? No, I highly recommend it plays heavily on that particular mechanic that you just mentioned. Uh, it's probably one of my favorite like city builder games, actually. Like now that I really like, like consider that one amongst all the others we've spoke of, I would say that oxygen not included is probably one of my very most favorite like management sim style games. Oh, interesting. Okay. It has like a, see this, this has such a mobile game feel. Cause I've seen a lot of mobile games that have the same like map layout. It is like, you're thinking like fallout 76, things like that. It's not, it is like, I mean, I can see how it would look that way, but now it's not like it is more similar to maybe, but I think, I think I understand why I thought that it's like with all these, we've been seeing like a top down view or at best an isometric view. This is, I'm going to look at it from the front. So the aspect is different. Yeah. So blocks and cubes and chambers, just like you have to manage your air, like, like oxygen, pollution, water, hot water, like contaminated water, urine, like extra minutes that are like, you have to manage all of that stuff. And so compartmentalization becomes important because when shit literally hits the fan, like it's, you don't want to just fuck everything. So you can compartmentalize and then you only fuck a little pit. There you go. Yeah. That's an amazing game. I highly recommend you throw it on your wishlist because I think you'll like that. That'll definitely, definitely go on there. And it's again, heavy and min maxing, like the same, like a lot of those other games we did. But as you can see, it does it in such a cute, fun little way. And your duplicates, like they're just the very fun and quirky, like it's got a really good atmosphere to the game that makes the heavy management really tolerable. Because literally, like you have to build like radiators and furnaces and stuff to manage this game, like from scratch, like out of pipes, like literally just running, like finding the whole part of the map and running pipes up and down and up and down and the cold part of the map to bring cold water back to your base because everyone is sweating to death because of all the factory equipment, like it's heavy into like physics management, all the different gases, like it has multiple different chemicals and gases that you have to manage, like, like gas and liquid. To bring to bring that complexity back to Rise of Industry. I definitely feel like ROI had it was compared to some of these other games that we've been talking about. It was so complex compared to like a crafting game where you need this material to make this thing that can be used to make this thing. Those like crafting trees or production trees were so extensive. Yeah. And I don't know if you looked at like all the different, you had to like research them. So if you looked at all those it was wow. It was a huge map. Wow. It was too many. Yeah. It was like an overwhelming amount. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't. Yeah. I went down probably 10 or 15% of those trees. Yeah. I ended up doing they had like your story mode or like your regular play kind of thing where you pick a map rather you pick parameters of a map, like how big do you want it? What your like resource scarcity is and all this. So you can kind of like play with how difficult or how involved your game and your map is going to be. So I did that and that was went bankrupt over and over again, but I was getting to a point where I wanted to see some of the stuff that I couldn't get to yet. So they have a free play option where you can basically just have free reign and everything. And that was, that was kind of interesting. So there's a, there's a lot of stuff down those talent trees or research trees that get very, very, very, very complex. Uh, yeah, it goes, like you got to like PR and advertise and stuff like run, like what can, like, what is the word I'm looking for? Aggressive ad campaigns and stuff like that. Yeah. That's awesome. I like that it goes that detailed. Cause the main driving force is you are, you are a company that is trying to be profitable. That's, that's the whole goal of the game is to be profitable. So I'll need that accidentally. Our offscreen conversation was all right. Right back to, to money and red grandmas. So it, you know, it, um, so that that's your whole goal is just to, to keep your, your finances in a positive state and an ever changing capitalistic society with many competitors. And what I started to notice once you actually stay in the map without going bankrupt for a while is there are NPC companies that also start sprouting up and get contracts for other like cities and towns on the map. And so the better you do, you're starting, you're starting town. That's maybe like five or six buildings, uh, start to grow. So then you start having traffic and there's a little bit of like that aspect to it. Um, land starts getting claimed for new development. So like, as your city grows and you're like, Oh, I need to put like a farm or something. It's now going to be really far out. So then it costs more money for your trucks to get your goods in. And it really breaks it down from like an economy standpoint of like, Oh, if I want to take, if I, if I have a farm that's growing wheat and exporting the wheat, if I want to, if I want to like make it easier for me to get all of that product into a central warehouse, I have to pay the trucks to make it go that distance. Or do I want to pay directly? And I think slightly less to have it shipped directly to the market, like the farmer's market to then be sold for a profit and usually get it there quicker. So I get my money, my return on investment back quicker or more quickly. So that's the kind of stuff you're playing with. And it really considers a lot of logistics and production and distribution that you never think of, like using like three different warehouses to get to point A to point B is reality. If you're trying to make the maximum profit in every position. I think, I think I messaged this to you when I, cause I got into it, I think a couple of days before you did, I think I said something like, Hey, when you get in there, don't let all your buildings do things automatically right away. The AI tries to make it better for you and it ends up causing a total show, which was just, it was just crazy. So I, I, after I went back and played after like the 25th hour or something, like I finally quote unquote started to get it, it became more fun, but I definitely could see an end cap to this game where it just becomes more tedious than enjoyable. Yeah. Or you don't want to repeat the tedium. Yeah. I feel, but I do, I do think there were some aspects and I was, um, have you ever played many motorways? You ever seen that? It's a very, very simple concept of a game. Um, and the motorway empty map, it's going to put a house with a set of cars and then a building that they need to travel to, and they just go back and forth. Right. So then they start adding more buildings, more houses, and your maps are getting really convoluted. Blue people need to go to the blue stores and red, they have to go to the red store. It's basic premise, but basically you have to manage the motorways to get the traffic to where they need to go without slowing and making out of gyms. That's the basic thing. This looks cute and fun. If it's a, if you're like, Hey, I need to kill like mentally, I need something to like, think about while I'm like watching a TV show, amazing game to like get in play for 15 minutes and you can just get out. And it's, it's great. So, so all the, all the buildings pop down and you're just in charge of placing. But taking that as a concept, I think they could really add something to rise of industry. They started to in this game, you could have one way roads, so you could kind of force your traffic to go a certain way. So to alleviate some of those real traffic jams. So they did start messing with like improvements to like logistical problems that were built in on top of your production trees that were really nice places that they ignored. Yeah. Which I guess that is an aspect, like the whole traffic management, they didn't really go as heavy as even something like Sim city did on that. Yeah. And it's only traffic from buildings that you're controlling. So there's no commuter traffic that you have to deal with, which is kind of nice. That'd be the next batch. Yeah. Next, which I mean, it came out in 2019. It's probably done. I don't think they're going to do much else with it. If they're smart, they would have taken their money and run by now. That is not a game worth investing more time. I played 36 hours of rise of industry. Yeah. I wrote it off. And then like a week later, I think the first time we tried scheduling stuff, I was like, oh, I'm going to refresh my memory. Let me go back and play again. Oh, that was a horrible idea. But this, this, this developer, or excuse me, publisher, Casado games did city of gangsters. I think it is. Yeah. City of gangsters, which I own and has been on my list to play. I think it basically takes what we just played, but instead of doing a company, you're a mob family and you're running your booze or illegal goods. Yes. You're running boozing contraband instead of. Right. And besides recent reviews on steam, mostly negative, but it came out almost exactly. Oh no, sorry. No, it came out two years after rise of industry. So maybe they're thinking about them being put up by the same people. Maybe it has similar mechanics, but easier to handle. Yeah. It sounds like it's an errand simulator basically. Right. It's similar to turmoil, which is funny. I love turmoil. That's a good game. Yeah. I might give that one a try just to, just to see if, if there's any similarities just, just for me though, I don't think I would. They made a Warhammer game. Warhammer mechanic. Uh, who, uh, who published it? Was it? Casado. Yeah. Oh, they did. I was looking at this earlier and I completely missed that. That's cool. Is it actually like games workshop allowed and all that? It's, it's actually Warhammer. I mean, it's their logo. It's got to be. Cause I know they're very particular. Yeah. You don't know how long has it been at 2018. Yeah. There's no way it's not, it wouldn't be around that long. All right. So any, what, um, so I think we're probably winding down our discussion on rise of industry. Uh, what we've been doing recently is like, you know, Hey, what are your final thoughts? Those things to like wrap up how you found the game good or bad. Uh, what are your, what are your final thoughts on rise of industry? I think that it is by probably any fair consideration, a good management game. I just don't think it's for me. I think that the person who enjoys rise of industry is definitely a huge subset of the people that enjoy management games, but I need something personally that's a little more quirky and entertaining. Like it is just too, it is just too, to the point for me, I'll say that's a great game. I can see why someone would say that it's the best management game ever made, but not for me. No, I think I agree. It, once I, it, it took so long for it to click, but 25 hours before I became comfortable playing, that's a long time to spend in a game to be like, I did it. It's just not doing it for me. I get, you know, and just keep at it. That's, that's a, that's a tough ask. So I do think it's for some people that like the nitty gritty stuff of, of, of those production trees and like the financial side of it, like actually busting out the calculator and writing down notes for different money values and stuff like that to, to manage what things are going to, what your yields are going to be, all that. If you'd like that really crunchy type of like information to, to go through in that mechanic, this game is for you, but I, my mental bandwidth is not there for that. So, but no, it was, it was, it was a fun experience to play just to see what it was like, but not something I would be going back to it back for in any means. If they came out with a rise of industry too, I'd skip that one. So yeah, I can't say I'd play this game on purpose again. All right. Matthew, thank you for coming in and talking video games with me. It was, it was nice to have you on. Anytime, man. Absolutely. Well, that's going to do it here for us. We, as always, you can find us on linktr.ee slash 321backlog. Check us out there. Until next time guys. Thank you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai