[S2 E15] Episode 035 - What Remains of Edith Finch

The podcast "321 Backlog" features two hosts and two guests discussing video games. They discuss their recent experiences with gaming and share their thoughts on various games, including "What Remains of Edith Finch." The hosts and guests also talk about their backlog of games and the ones they are currently playing. Some of the games mentioned include "Ghostwire Tokyo," "Killer Clowns from Outer Space," "My Friendly Neighbor," "Eldest Souls," and "Nine Years of Shadow." One of the hosts mentions a board game called "Wingspan" that they recently bought in digital form. 3...2...1...Dark Lord Welcome back to 321 Backlog, the podcast where two blizzard wow bros are on a mission to count down their video game backlogs. My name is Alec and I'm joined by James, but also... Good day. Oh you calm down sir. We're also joined by the host of Smashing Game Time, Josh and Nick. Gentlemen, thanks for joining. Thanks for having us. Hey, as James said, good day. Yeah, I've been very excited to have you guys on. I selfishly, and I've said this with the last couple guests I have, I want to get more guests on and want to see what real podcasting is like and you guys were so gracious having us on and I just wanted to have you on to get that conversation going again and I've been super excited. So thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, we loved having you on a few weeks back. You guys brought a great energy. I think you guys were actually the first time we had two guests on at the same time and it definitely kicks you in the rear after not having guests for so long where you're like, oh shit, like there are other people out here doing this that aren't like, you know, the people everybody knows and it kind of like, it creates like that community almost. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I'm really looking forward to trying to like edit and manage four voices, which I'm just super, super excited about. So yeah, we are talking today. You guys actually picked a game for us. We wanted to extend what James and I do where we try to like alternate what games we bring. So we had y'all pick and we came up with What Remains of Edith Finch. High energy, absolute banger of a game. Super good. So good. Yeah, high energy game. I'm really excited to talk about it. Like uplifting, very uplifting start of the summer. Yeah, yeah. You know, I never had a game. I've never suggested a game to my wife and then her get like actually upset with me after she played it. Oh no. So it was it was a real good time. I'm glad to hear that because I was thinking about recommending it to my wife and now I'm like, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should hold off on it. So we're gonna go ahead and run through some of the notes. Sorry, our format's changed. You fool. We do this all the time here. You fool. We're gonna go through, we have two segments. We kind of bounce back and forth on which one we do first, but we're gonna do our backlog builders and what we've been playing. So why don't we do our backlog builders since this is a backlog podcast and let's toss it over to our guests here. Let's start with Nick. Nick, how have you been building out your backlog? So it's kind of been a mix of just what I can find on Game Pass and what I'm reviewing. I know I have Ghostwire Tokyo written down here that comes as a result of the Tango Gameworks announcement from a few weeks back with Microsoft shutting them down. I remember when that game came out, I was very like lukewarm on it. Like, you know, it just kind of looks like Ghost Japan, Naruto. It's got, you got all the finger stuff going on. I just, I wasn't feeling it. And now that I've like, I've come out on the other side, I loved Hi-Fi Rush. It was one of my favorite games in 2023. I kind of want to go back and see how much I was hating on it and how much that wasn't warranted. I've got another one that I didn't list here that I actually just got the code for. And by the time this is out, this will be fine for me to say this. I've got a code for Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Oh shit. Again, there we go. I'm doing that with the guys over at Hard Drive. We, uh, every once in a while I'm on a column over there where we're playing games that aren't out yet and kind of writing what we think, like basically a preview. It's a preview column. And, um, I'm excited about that. That's like the first one of the, uh, you know, those like horror movie games that come out where it's like 1v however many. Uh, this is a little more balanced. I think it's a 5v5 or a 5v6. Uh, I'm excited to jump in and be one of those aliens. Uh, Killer Clowns from Outer Space is probably one of my favorite like B horror movies from the eighties. Right. That was an age. Yeah. Childhood movie of mine for sure. I remember being terrified. Like I remember the, uh, the bubblegum hives, like just the, the imagery of someone being all bloodied up in one of those cotton candy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cotton candy, not bubblegum. It's terrifying. Uh, other than that, no, I, I played that. So it's not technically in my backlog. Those are really, those are really the two. I mean, I want to play animal well, but I'm not buying animal well right now. So I've just got so much going on. Right on Josh. What, uh, have you been building that backlog recently? Oh yeah. Unfortunately I had a sale on one of my sites that I frequent, uh, pick up a handful of them. Uh, picked up a, my friendly neighbor. That's the, uh, Muppets meets Bioshock. Okay. Yeah. You heard that right guy Muppets meets Bioshock. So basically you're going around killing a bunch of Muppets. Oh, that's fantastic. I love the, like, I feel like a lot of games that have weird mashups do really well. It's like the premise, you're like, okay, like you're interested enough to at least look into it. You're like, okay, I've never seen the video when they released the alpha of it. And I was like, okay, this looks like my kind of game. And I watched, I think it was Markiplier play the demo of it. And I'm like, okay, that's on my list. And I found it for like, I think it was like $3. I'm like, yeah, we're buying this. It looks so good. I'm ready to kill some Muppets. Awesome. Also at that same sale, I picked up eldest souls. It's a over the top, what they call them basically, like dark souls meets roguelike, basically. Okay, more like a medieval fantasy. I think it's hand drawn looks, it looks really good. I just, I saw it and I was like, no, I want like a roguelike metroidvania. I've been really getting into metametroidvanias lately, which also picked up my next one nine years of shadow. Remember Nick actually reviewed it at the time he was like, he liked it, but it was like lukewarm with it at the time. But I'm like, no one, I, it looked good. It's a metroidvania. I, I, my childhood is filled with nothing but super Metroid. I think that's like the game I have the most hours in. So I'm like, yeah, this is my cup of tea. That looks like that game, the Yoten game that we played a couple, couple of years ago. The art style of it looks extremely similar. It's very hand drawn and kind of like pastel-y looking. Looks cool. Oh yeah, it does. It's a beautiful art style, but I mean, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but it completely drops its premise. It completely dropped its premise at the start of the game. It's like, why am I, why am I playing this? Well, you let me on the premise and the premise isn't even a thing right now. That's okay with me because after, I mean, once they've explained what's going on, as long as the gameplay is decent, I'm not one too much to like to think into it. I'm like, yeah, I just want to be able to go around. I want to be able to, if I can speed run it right off the bat, like find ways to get around something you're not supposed to, and so you get a certain ability or do a certain thing. I'm already in like, walla land. Let me know how many times it crashes for you. Oh, I'll let you know. I don't do very many metroidvanias and stuff like that. Just the ones we've covered here, but just right off the bat, it just from like a very abstract, like, I can't, the word escapes me, but it's giving me vibes of Owlboy a little bit and just like the presentation and, uh, like sprite movements and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see that too. Yeah. I always said that kind of reminds me a little bit of like a little more pixelated, uh, blasphemous almost. What I, what I really liked about it, I'll, I'll say one more thing and then I'll shut up about nine years of shadow. I really liked that it went more towards the metroidvania side of things and less towards the dead cell side of things or the dark soul side of things. I think too many, too many of those games like want to be metroidvanias, but are actually roguelikes and it drives me nuts. Exceedingly difficult. Or what is that? I wouldn't, when I, like, when I think of a metroidvania, I want to, I want to have like one set, like, here's the map. If you die, you die and you revert back to the save. There's just too many times where I'm getting the, Oh, you died. Now you're starting a new run. I don't want to do that. Ori and the blind forest. If you haven't played it. Oh, I love, I love it. I still need to play a little of the list, but I loved that first one when it came out, like 10 years, 10 years. I don't know. We just played it. So it's very recent to me. Alec, what about, what have you been playing brother? Or what, what have I been playing? What did you add to your backlog? I guess is the right question. I added, so mine's a quick one. Yeah. Uh, we're, we're, we're moving soon. So we're trying to, you know, I, I, whenever we see those sales, I got to like, you know, block my eyes as best I can. Uh, but I did have, um, I like, I don't know how everybody else feels about these, but, uh, board games in digital form don't like to, some work really well. It's some, you know, some of those games like Catan and, and other ones just get really like complicated with what you have to track on, on board and everything. And I found one called wingspan that has been on, um, my wife and I's, uh, list to put in the game closet, but I found a digital version. So I grabbed that. Um, and, uh, I haven't gotten the chance to play it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. So my, that's a quick list for me. That's all it's a video game board game about birds. Yes. It's a fantastic game. I don't want to, I don't want to get any, but like, I don't want to say, I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but they just put out a new version of the board game. I think it's called Wyvern span and it's the same game, but for dragons and wire, is it wire bins? Josh is what's that word? Waverly. I mean, I mean, at this point you're already being ready to go online. So just take the L but I really, I really enjoy wingspan. Uh, I think that's stone Meyer game. So they did a, they did the scythe game right behind me. Um, yeah, they just, they put out a lot of really good games. I think wingspan came out in the middle of COVID haven't played it at all, but like the few times I've watched someone play it, I'm like, I can play this. Yeah. I think, I think we passed it in target one, one day or something. And, uh, yeah, it was just, it was on the list of things we wanted to play, but I found it, it was like 10 bucks or something. So like, let me grab it, you know, so looking forward to playing that. I like birds. So it looks like a fun game to me. It's really cool. I don't know how the digital part of it works, but with the board game itself, even when like you pull out the bird cards to be able to play them, there's actually like a little code that if you can download the app where you scan the card, it'll actually play the sound of what they make. Oh, that's cool. It's really like that. It's beautifully drawn too. So it looks fantastic. It's a fun game to play with the family friends. I mean, I've made a nonstop with friends. It's like our go to get the artwork looks really, really good. Just, I mean, cause it's from what I can tell, they did, did use a lot of the, uh, art from the physical edition. Uh, but they, they went as far as to give a little motions to the birds. So I've seen like AI tricks and things where they, if the birds already outstretched, it'll move them a little bit, you know, just to add some animation to it. That's very cool. Make sure to download the Merlin bird ID app on your phone prior to playing. So that way you can get the sounds. Just to check. Yeah. All right. Timothy James, what, uh, what have you, uh, added to your backlog? I got ghosts of tsunami, uh, spirit fair. And, uh, I don't even know how to say crisis core final fantasy seven. Our word. I don't know. Reunion remake revival. Ghosts of tsunami or. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I got it on PC cause I just got this fancy new PC and it's, it just came out. So I really want to see how it looks on PC and PS five. You know, I send you a copy of it. Yeah. I just want to see it on. I want to see it on the computer. I just want to see it. It looks amazing. I wanted to see how well my PC runs that game. And then I, a friend of mine also got it and he's running at like 120 frames or something or a hundred, 144 locked. But, uh, I wanted to see like what, you know, how they compare because his is a little bit newer than mine, even better stuff. So I just want, I was, it's a really fun game. It seems fun. Like I played like the first 15 or 20 minutes of it and got my, got my sword back and then had to stop playing it. But, uh, yeah. And then I got spirit fair, which I feel like you would like a lot, Alec. It's kind of, uh, you're the, uh, you, you're the boatman of death. Like you, you're the person that brings people to the afterlife, but there's like a little bit of like a management aspect of it. And you learn the stories of the different inhabitants of the boat that you have. Uh, they spend a little bit of time there. You get to learn about like, I don't know their life story and everything like that. Actually ended up getting it for my wife, but I'm going to probably end up playing it as well. So maybe one day we could do that. I feel like it'd be one that you would enjoy. Oh yeah. This is right up my alley. Yeah. A little cozy game about death. I think that's what it says on the back of the back of the game box. Like this is a cozy game about death. So good. So yeah. Oh yeah. And the final fantasy one, I want to play that one. Cause I finished the final fantasy seven remake. I want to play the crisis core one before playing the second part, whatever the fuck that one's called. Thank you. Sure. Yes. Final fantasy. Retrograde to play final fantasy seven, the original copies of it on steam. You can just borrow one ticket from the library. I came, I came in so late. My first one was, was 10 and then I played 10 and 10 too. And that was it. Yeah, that was a really good one, man. Yeah. Right on. So I think I'm going to take us over to what we've been playing. So why don't we go, uh, do you want to go in reverse order, James, you want to hit us up with what you've been playing? Yeah, sure. Uh, so I'll say I was playing vampire survivors a lot. I started kind of like dipping my wiener into a couple of the other similar type of games, like the bullet hell style games. Cause I've gotten a couple of them. So I wanted to just see if there is good. I feel like in my experience, vampire survivors has done it the best out of them. Um, also we watched fallout on Amazon. So I got four and was, have been playing that actually kind of funny. Uh, our friend Ryan and your brother, I think is starting to get into it as well. So we've all kind of been discussing our experience with it. Ryan's first thing he did was just mod infinite ammo. He's like, I just want to enjoy this. I'm tired of scrounging for bullets. So yeah, that was a, that was that. And then obviously, uh, we've been playing the, uh, wow. Retail a little bit. Sure. Alec, we've been, we've been playing. Yeah. Yeah. You want me to play the Fox character? You gotta be weirdo. Yeah. We've all been kind of, that's been the friend group thing that we've all been doing. Like it's, I feel like we have a set group of friends and then whatever one of them gets into, we all always migrate into that game. And then one of them quits and then we all quit eventually. So. Yep. And I, yeah, I was just so surprised that wow. Took, you know, 10 years to get back into the rotation. I hope it doesn't get fucking out because I, that'd be, that'd be nice. That would be nice. My wallet will thank you. I know I should hack that. Get it for free, dude. James, you mentioned playing some vampire survivor, like knockoffs or like some spinoffs, which, uh, were there any, like, which ones have you been playing? I've got like one or two that I really like. Yeah. So, uh, way to call me out, dude. Do you think I'm lying? Uh, bone racer minions was one that I remember hearing was really good in it. I saw it like on pre-release. So I added it in there. I've played that a little bit. It's, I kind of hate the art style of it. It's too. Everything's the same color. And, uh, I think it's called 20 seconds to 20 seconds to die or something like that. Oh, 20, 20 minutes to Don. That's the, that's one of the ones I've played. Yeah. I like that one a lot. Cthulhu, Cthulhu, Cthulhu Lian or whatever, whatever we're calling that. Because you have to actually aim. Lovecraftian there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I like that a lot because it plays really well on the PC as opposed to playing like with joysticks. Just being able to aim with a mouse feels really good. So it's been fun. I like the music of it and everything too. Like the art style is nice. It's kind of got like a cat, not a Castlevania look to it, but a, um, Oh, what it like, cause the, all the backgrounds in that one are like just dark, like it's black and then you see a tree once in a while, but yeah. And all the enemies are kind of like a fluorescent kind of, it's a beautiful game. Is it almost like how blood rain was back in the day? Like it was always like dark backgrounds with that game. Well, blood, blood rain had that mode that like she went into where it was like her berserk mode. And then, yeah. So it kind of looks like that. Okay. Do you have any of that style of game that you think is like, what's the best one? I mean, it's vampire survivors, but, uh, other than 20 minutes, so Don, I think the only other one I've really played is brotato just because of the name. All right. I'll put it on my way. I'll put it on my way. I think, I think, I think we already have it. No way. The beauty of all these is that they're like $3 games. So if I could still wait, you're like, well, there's three fucking dollars. Oh yeah. We have bro force, not brotato. Close. Oh, okay. I think it's a spiritual successor. Oh yeah. Thanks for asking. Sorry. Yeah. I just ran away with that. Oh man. So I, uh, I, I, I put some time in on the Xbox, so I did really just hopped into game pass and just take a look at what was, what was on there. And I found quantum break, which has been on my list and gameplay I'm liking and the cutscenes I'm liking the live action side of it. For those that know it a little rough, if it's all, if at all, well, my, my, my wife and I have a hard time. Cause we were, we're both, we both like a lot of the same games and we try to do things together. So the idea was like, what if I play this out in the living room and we could like kind of watch a show slash game and, and do a, you know, communal thing. Um, and we, we, I, I got to the first, what do they call it? Junctions. Um, and we were both like, when's this going to end? It was, it was rough acting. There was some, some people that shined through like Lance Reddick was in it. He's really good in everything he was in. Um, but there were some other like B Ray B list actors and stuff that would just kind of like the character models they use and stuff. They were a little lacking. It was, it, it felt a little like film student project, you know, uh, with like a really good budget, I guess. Um, so I've been playing that a little bit and said, I found and played enough to get upset and then had my son play it and he did really good with it. Another crab's treasure. Yes, it is. Dude. It's like a soul's like souls born. I forget which the, what the term is, but you're a crab like in the ocean. And it's, um, it looks hilarious. It, uh, my son, it's, it's amazing. He's eight years old. It's amazing how these kids can like pick up on mechanics that we might find challenging with no issue. And he is very good at it right off the bat. Uh, so he's been playing with a bit and it's been, uh, some of the jokes go over his head, uh, but it's been fun to watch him play it. And, uh, I played a little bit and, and just got frustrated cause I'm really bad with, with the soul's likes, is it supposed to be a really difficult game? It looks like it's meant for little children. No, right. I mean, it does. I think it's one of the most difficult. There's even, I think if I remember correctly, there's a mode in there where you can actually spawn in a gun as your shell. Well, there you go. That's fantastic. I like that. I think I'm going to, I'm going to, yeah, the gun is a one hit kill. So it's like, Oh, I'm stuck on this boss. All right. I'm just going to, it's Indiana Jones scene where he's doing all that and then he just shoots them. Oh yeah. I'm definitely going to start a second play through that. But yeah, I don't know where it falls on like the list of difficulty for those types of games, but I'm just not good at them in general. So it was just difficult for me. That was developed and published by aggro crab. So they have like a theme going on for sure. Maybe. All right. All right. So then that brings us back to Josh. What do you mean? I've been going through my backlog and I've been working on Spyro reignited. I've already a hundred percented, uh, this first first Spyro. Now I'm on Ripto's Rage. I'm a hundred percent through the whole entire first area. Like I've done it. I literally, I'm trying to complete it as I go through. I don't, I hate going back and having to do this stuff. Like I'm, I already don't have to go back and do the skill points in the game to unlock a couple of the achievements, but I'm like, I'll just get all the collections done right now. So if I have to go back, it's just easy, easy. Go do this task for two minutes and actually. So I think altogether, I think I'm only like 40%, 45% through the game. So we're getting there. And then of course I have to do year of the dragon, which is my least played one of the three. So I'm going to have to learn that all over again, but my one pet did you get, no, it's all right. Did you get the combo with like the crash bandicoot games? Cause I know they bundled them separately. Um, but I do. Okay. Does it play the same as it did on PS one? Like I remember a lot of people were saying crash handled differently. I think of the two crash played better, uh, Spyro, there's just, there's a little couple of things that just really finicky with it. And even my, my biggest pet peeve has been the character design. Spyro looks decent. Like I told those Tom and Nick the other night, I think it looks, Spyro looks really good, but then it looks like Hunter or Ripto or, uh, I forget the goat girl's name. They all look like they were working on redrawing them from the PS one era. Someone spilled the drink. They went to go pick it up with something. They were looking for something to pick it up and their pet monkey at the office decided just to start flinging his shit everywhere. And he threw it all over it. They picked it up. They said, Hey, good enough. Wow. That's good enough. I'm looking at a comparison. I mean, it's definitely better looking than the PS one version. It is, but it's just from my memory as a child. I'm like, it just looks fire. It sounds somewhat similar to what it used to be used to sound like, but when Hunter starts talking and the goat girl, I'm like, uh, and Ripto even, I'm like, what do they do? This is not my Spyro. Ripto on PS one looked like a carrot. Yeah, that's all. I've had a really hard time with, with since doing this podcast of going back to some of the older games that we have so many fond memories of. And since we're in this, this day and age with, you know, God of War and all the Spider-Man games and just the level of these things that how, what gets produced on like a base level now, uh, I feel like I get a lot more harsh, uh, to some of those older games and I, I have a really hard time enjoying it as much as I used to. So I definitely, I wonder if that's in the same kind of the same vein. I mean, they'll, they'll still hold a place in my heart though. Cause like that's what we grew up on. We, of course, I can't say how many times I went back and played like, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Blasto. No. Uh, essentially think, uh, Nick, what would you describe it as? It's like a, uh, it's like a space ghost game, but, um, more comedic. He's looking at it. I've seen this game. Yeah. I look back at that and I go, Oh my God, how did we ever play this game? Cause even as a kid, I remember it was a really hard game to play. I don't think I've ever beat it. Who's the, who's the space captain from Futurama? The one that's always sexualizing least Zach Brannigan. Yep. There it is. It's his own video game. Okay. I got, I got to play it then. Like I said, I go back and look at it. I'm like, man, between that. And then the other one I think of is, uh, uh, breath of fire, dragon quarter for the PS two, those two games always come back to me as the hardest games I've ever played about it. I've never been, I mean, as an adult, I try to go back and play them and I'm like, I can't beat them. I don't know if it's because I'm stupid or if because they're just meant to be difficult. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It looks very, and then I've been going back and doing battlefield 20 42 of my little brother, Matt, uh, our little brother, um, just pretty much playing it, uh, with last season being out and they're not going to be doing any more, uh, updates or releases for it. They're working on the next battlefield, which means I'm assuming at some point this year, we're going to get an announcement for the next one. I, our gaming group got, once we went from Halo onto call of duty, that's where our gaming group went down that Avenue. So I, I have very little exposure to the battlefield of that company franchise back in the day. We play it for a little bit, but I feel like games were coming out. So yeah, if you ask, I believe when we were playing those, we also were like going outside and skateboarding and shit. So like we had, you know, arguably better priorities, but, uh, yeah, I, I, I, but yeah, just the battlefield just never held on to me very well. At least when I was getting really into it when I was younger and Tom, my friend's back. Cause you know, I raised it was in the call of duty. Call of duty was where you were as like, call of duty is a great, Hey, you have maybe 30 minutes an hour and you want to play a few games with some friends. Boom. Call of duty. Yeah. Battlefield is more of the, okay. We don't want a super realistic, uh, military simulator, but we want something a little more realistic than point and click like call of duty. Right. That's where I describe that as the perfect in between it's this, I mean, 2042, it definitely had its downsides. It was not, I personally preordered it cause I love battlefield. I'm always going to love playing them, but I was disappointed and it's hard to disappoint me because I love, I mean, sad company to best campaign I've ever played from battlefield and battlefield four had the best multi brand on. So that brings us over. We're back again to Nick. What have you been trying to turn again? Um, so, uh, you know, playing Edith Finch got me into playing all these walking games and, um, I did gone home a few weeks back. I really liked that one. It was way shorter than I thought it was going to be. I just recently started firewatch, uh, actually a few days ago and I thought I was going to compare it to Edith Finch and gone home, but like, um, it's feeling a lot more like the two oxen free games. There's just a lot of walking and talking. I like, I like the idea of having a companion that I'm continuously talking to as opposed to Edith Finch and gone home where you're basically alone and getting the story through like things in the environment or a narration being played. Uh, so I'm really liking firewatch. I'm only on day two, but I have a feeling stuff's going to get really trippy. Um, I already busted the naked teenagers were shooting fireworks by the lake. You can't do that. It's dry. The country is very dry right now. You can't cause a forest fire. So doing my duty there, I can't wait to beat that. Cause I think I'm really like, I've always thought I was going to like that game. I just never had the opportunity to sit down and play it. Uh, I might actually play it after the show, after this recording, uh, pepper grinder is a 2d side scroller that I've been playing a lot of and playing a lot of it with my son. Uh, think there's, there's like an old game boy game. Everyone compares us to, I forget what that is, but it reminds me a lot of donkey Kong country. Like a lot of the biomes are the same. There's a lot of callbacks to donkey Kong country. There's a world that's like nothing but barrels that you shoot yourself between. There's a level called sticker bush or something along those lines. That's a, that's a nod to sticker bush symphony and donkey Kong country to, uh, the enemies are these little green guys with horns that kind of look like the lizard army from donkey Kong country. It's just, and it's, it's kind of creepy too. It's got its creepy elements. Uh, it's creepy moments. Uh, in donkey Kong country, when you look back, it's also kind of a creepy game. Uh, it's a short game, but it has a lot of replayability. So you can collect coins throughout each level. You can do a time attack for each level and get more collectibles for completing those time attacks. You have like a gold, a silver and a bronze you can achieve. It's just a neat little tightly packaged game that, uh, when we sit down to do game of the year at the end of the year and halfway through the year here, I think it's going to be definitely gonna be in top five just because there's just so much replayability even for it being a super short game. A lot of the movement is you just grinding into the dirt and like jumping back up into another patch of dirt or like you have different things that you can control with your grinder, like a machine gun that you're just mowing down enemies or there's a giant like steampunk mech. It's just a game that is like, it's my quick, Oh, I've got five minutes. All right, let's do a quick attack or let's get coins in this level. And I'm really enjoying it. And I think I'm going to keep playing it for the rest of the year. It kind of reminds me of like, just looking at it, I get like super meat boy kind of feeling from it with a little bit of like puzzle instead. That's funny because super meat boy is one of my all time favorites. And my son loved playing super meat boy until we found this. And now he wants to play this over. He says deep boy, which I miss him saying already. That's the cutest thing. But a pepper grinder is a little less frustrating than meat boy, except for like a few levels. Like you'll, you'll get like a silver on it. Like, how am I supposed to hit gold? Like this is near impossible, but that's my wishlist. Just looking at it. I do love quick little runs like that. And then going back to my roots with this last game, Iron Harvest was a game that I dreamed a lot during COVID. A lot of my early YouTube days were Iron Harvest guides or like multiplayer games. I have a multiplayer game that has 14K videos. It's like a 40 minute match of me just going back and forth with a guy called Erect Penis. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that on your podcast, but here we are. Give us more details. Iron Harvest is an RTS game. Oh, oh, about the about the other guy. Very Oh, yes. I only want to know about his parents. Iron Harvest is a World War I alternate history based off of the, um, the pictures and I'm forgetting the artist's name. I do this every time, but there it's called the 1920 plus or the paintings that have, you know, it's like European country side and then around is like a steam, steampunk or a diesel punk mech. And so this is based on that property. The same property that the scythe board game is based on actually. And, uh, it's RTS. You have three factions, four with the DLC, uh, and it's basically World War I resold with mechs and it's a lot of fun. It's, I'm looking at screenshots. It looks amazing. It looks really, I remember watching a lot of people play it like Starcraft, which is not the way you're not supposed to bunch up your unit. It plays more like Company of Heroes where you're like using cover. It's, it's more about positioning and, you know, having the high ground as opposed to, okay, I need to march my little guys. And okay, we got to march back. Okay. March back in. Okay. March back. Like I was never a Starcraft guy. I tried during my iron harvest days. It didn't work. Uh, so I'm going back through the campaign in the stream. Uh, multiplayer is dead right now, so there's not really much I can do there besides play the AI, but it's a fun game. It's fun to go back to it, but I do see why I shelved it because I was playing the other night during a stream and it crashed. And I was like, I'm not doing any part of that level that just crashed again tonight. So I went and played pepper grinder for the rest of the stream. But, uh, that's, uh, yeah, that's what I've been. That's what I've been up to so many games. I've never even heard of that man. I know there's just, there's too many games out there, man. There's just so many games. Just start a podcast where you try to get the remote at somebody. Not us. All right. And I remember we were supposed to talk about Edith. We were. And so, yeah, why don't we get into the meat of this episode and talk about this week's game or this episode's game rather. What remains of Edith Finch is a first person exploration video game developed by giant sparrow and published by Anna Purna interactive. The game was released in 2017 PlayStation four windows and Xbox one for Nintendo switch in 2019 and iOS in 2021 PlayStation five and Xbox series S received their copies in 2022. The story follows the 17 year old Edith Finch, the last surviving member of her family. As she returns to her ancestral home for the first time in seven years, re-exploring the house, she uncovers her family's mysterious past and learns about the series of deaths that eventually caused the complete collapse of her family structure. The game is presented as an interconnected anthology and utilizing unique mediums of varying perspectives. The story is told through a series of vignettes. However, the player is made to doubt the authenticity of each story being told. What remains of Edith Finch received critical acclaim, receiving praise for its immersive storytelling, characters and presentation, and it's considered an example of video games as an art form. Among other awards and nominations, it won the British Academy Games Award for Best Game in 2017 and the Best Narrative category at both the Game Awards 2017 and the 2018 Game Developers Choice Awards. All right, so we have a couple bullet points we typically go through just to get them out of the way. It's a single-player exploration game. I also think Walking Simulator is pretty accurate. In 2017, initially, it got released on pretty much everything over the next few years past that. Designer Chris Bell, developer Giant Sparrow, publisher Annapurna Interactive. We've been really enjoying games published from Annapurna. Really, really good line. Stray was on there. Cocoon was on there from that publisher. Great games. Scored very well, 8.8 on IGN and between 88 and 92 on Metacritic, depending on which platform. It also got Best Narrative of 2017 in its awards. Let's see, does anybody have any history with Annapurna or these types of games? James and I have done the games I just mentioned for the podcast. Nick and Josh, have you guys played anything from Annapurna? Or do you have any walking sims that are near and dear to your heart? It's always surprising when I go back and look at Annapurna's games and realize, like, oh, wait, I've played way more of these games than I thought I did. Like Flower, for instance, or Donut County was another big one on mobile back in 2008. I'm sorry, 2018. So it just always blows my mind, like, oh yeah, oh shit, that was an Annapurna joint. More on the walking side, I played, I think, one of my all-time favorite walking games. It's probably a recent game that I played called Reveal, which, hold on, let me double-check to make sure that wasn't them this year. No, and so yeah, Reveal is like this horror, like, walking game. And going into Edith Finch, I had no idea what to expect. Same with Gone Home. And I was like, okay, like, you're going into an empty house, like, there's gonna be some horror elements, right? And it just, it feels like something that's, like, the normal, the normal thing in these walking sims. Like, they kind of want to set that expectation, but then I think Gone Home has maybe one jump scare, and it's just the light going out on you, and nothing else. Yeah, you know, talking, saying that Edith Finch maybe wasn't necessarily horror, but it definitely had some dark moments, like, through and through. Yeah, I wouldn't want to live in the house alone. At least not with you. Maybe not at all. Not even with my friends. I kept thinking, you know, I kept thinking I was going to turn a corner and there'd be, like, a fake yard or something. A dead body, a dead baby? Yeah, yeah. Whoops. I actually, I booted up, so I booted up this game last night, just to, like, refresh on one or two storylines. And I left off the game in Barbara's room. And when you open up the game in Barbara's room, it starts you in front of that giant cutout stand print of Bigfoot. Scared the shit out of me. Oh, man. So, what I thought we could do is, just real quick, this game is going to be, or excuse me, this discussion, rather, pretty much from this point on, spoilers all the way through. There's no way we can really talk about it without it. So, what I thought would be interesting, because there are, I counted them earlier, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 12, and then the Edith Finch characters. And we get storylines in how they died. Like, their deaths being recounted. We get bits of their personality through a journal that Edith is writing out. So, the whole game, we're walking around this house that she's inherited, which we'll talk about shortly, but she's going into all these rooms and kind of like narrating, very briefly, the life of this person, the family member that had then died. The whole family seems to be cursed, in a way. Everybody seems to die in not great ways or just through, you know, bad times, you know, very young, or through bad circumstances, whatever it may be. But there are a lot to choose from, and we've got four voices to get through. So, there's two main things I really want to focus on this episode is, we can go through and talk about if we have any that are the most memorable to us, or our favorite storylines we got to play through. And because of conversations I've had with my wife about this game, any specific, I don't think it would be considered Easter eggs, but Easter eggs or details in the house that we have kind of come to. So, or that we saw and really wanted to speak on or just call out as like, you know, good game design, whatever it is. So, first I want to talk about memorable storylines. So, I think these can be talked about separate from one another. So, anybody have any that jump out that we really wanted to just talk about? I've got one. So, you don't outright see Sven die. Sven is Edie's husband, I guess you call him the patriarch of the family. And so, he dies. A playground he's building crashes in on him. And, you know, jokingly everyone's like, oh, a dragon killed him. And the whole, once I learned of that, and then you kind of, in that same corner where you find that out, you see like portion of the house like built by Sven. And the whole time I'm like, oh, well, this fucking shoddy fucking builder has built this house that has like all these different layers. Like, how is this house not caved? I was worried the entire time. Like, oh, this is how, this is how Edith dies. This house caves in on her. Yeah, it was, it's just about the house real quick. I don't have any, the screenshots pulled up, but it was wild. I mean, it just, it went on for days. Like, it was, I don't know if it would be, what was that old, old show, like the Robinsons or something? Oh, I'm blanking here. But anyway, it was Wild House that had just story-full stories. I almost thought it was like the kids next door. Yeah. It's like you're at the bottom, you have a tree growing through it, and then it's just a giant tree house. That's essentially what it was. And it's actually, it's impressive because it's very, it not resembles, but it definitely, her, when Edith is following the family tree and writing down the stuff, what you see on the tree is almost exactly how the layout of the house is, where the foundation starts with Odin, and then it gets, you know, you get to everyone else's rooms, Edith at the top, Milton's and all them. You're almost at the very tippy top, and it's gotten, the house has gotten so ridiculously high up and so cramped. You're just like, how? You went up into that bedroom every single day after school? There's no way. No way. There's not even an actual staircase. She had to go onto the landing on the second floor, go up to the attic, which was apparently locked by her mom, and then go up on top of the roof, go around it, and then just spiral up. And it's like, okay, calm down. And you had to cut through your teenage brother's room. Like, yeah, right. Fat chance, girly. There was no used tissue anywhere. Come on. Oh, God. No, they were back in the corner. But I will call out that this family was cursed, and the character that you're walking around the house, Edith, her mother ended up sealing off the rooms as people had passed away. I think there was a breaking point, and then she started sealing off the rooms, so they can't be accessed. So they were kind of, like, preserved on how they were left. That's one of five reasons she's a shitty mom. Right. Oh, man. And I'm about to get to the third one. So because all these rooms are sealed off, right when you get in, you basically have to find and go through all these, a mixture of secret passages, or literally going out of a window, scaling this basically the part of the roof, and then getting in through another window, and then constantly circumventing just the door that you would normally go through. So it ends up being that the character gets forced to explore this house in an extremely weird and inefficient way. But it ends up adding to kind of the, you know, just the exploration part of the game. So I have one right off the bat. If, if, if you'll, if you'll allow me, Gregory. So my favorite, I mean, the most musical death. Oh, my God. Yeah, this one. I was I was back here in the office doing who knows what, probably Wow. And my wife storms in and just stares me down. It's like, what have you made me play? And, you know, it's, you know, ever, ever since, ever since I had kids, anything with kids in any games or any kind of media, just hit different, you know. So Gregory, it actually allows you to, in a very colorful, fun and musical way, you're playing as a one year old, I think, 20, 22 month old, in a bathtub, as, as your parents are having an argument on the phone, and your mother is ignoring you too much. And then you effectively drowned the baby while playing as said baby. And though I say that, as serious as that is, it's portrayed because of what it is, I think is the main reason they did this, it's, you know, your, your toy, the toys that are in the tub are coming to life is like a little toy frog. So then you start controlling the frog to like knock over magnetic letters and knock over other toys back into the bath for for you to play with and stuff. It's very colorful and fantasy. Fantastic. fantastical and all that. And, you know, at one point, the mother comes back in, trying to do her parental duties, and turns the water off and start I can't remember if she drained it or not. Yeah, yeah, and drain the bath. So then, you then have to play through these, like, you know, with as if you're playing with the toys, replugging the bath, and then using the frog to turn the water back on. And slowly the tub fills and you are again playing as this effectively drowning baby. I think it's we are good. It just was no, please say that I'm losing losing the world. I think it's fascinating, because we see that one from we see that one from the perspective of Sam Gregory's father, who we also we also see his twin, like we also see his perspective about how his twin died. Calvin, Calvin is the one of the older children, he falls to his death after swinging off the edge of a poorly placed swing set. And we can we kind of see in those two how Sam is like, you know, kind of relating to these deaths or how he how he perceives them. And both times, I think those are the only two times we see Sam perceiving someone's death. And they're both like magical. They're both like, this person didn't die. This person had a magical experience on their way out. And yeah, just a kind of like both of those kind of fucked with me in the wrong way. Yeah, that that, yeah, the Gregory one, I think is clearly the most like, I remember that one so vividly through and through the poorly describing it, but it's, it's just because of the nature of what it is. I have a toddler that is right about that age. And, you know, and it's like, it's, it's, it's rough, man. You know, so it's, it's definitely, definitely dark. That's definitely, I think the darkest one of this whole thing. I mean, the Calvin flying off the cliff, you're playing, you're, you know, you're playing as Calvin, when Edith retells that story, swinging on the swing, and then trying to go higher and higher. And then you go out and I think you start flying, or something. So it adds a little bit of fantasy to it. But he swung too far and fell to his death, which is the reality what happened, but we get to see it through a more fun play. I didn't spend with the amazing workmanship, putting the swing right next to the cliff side for his kids to play on. He wasn't cursed. They were very do shitty parenting. From Sven and Edie, I do think there's a darker death. Gregory's death is very dark. Having having a one and a half year old myself. Like now I I checked on them in the bath. Now I double check on them in the bath. I all frog toys have been removed on any any toys that could start bouncing and turning the water back on. I've taken the long noggins off. I think the darkest death in the game has to be has to be Barbara's death just because of what is implied. So Barbara is she's younger than Molly, but Molly died while Barbara was young. So all the ages are kind of skewed all over the place. But Barbara was the young up and coming actress in the 60s, I believe. Let me scroll down and see when she died. She died in 1960. So she was like she was the scream queen of the family. She was like on her way up. And her death is the way we see it is through a comic book that her mother has allowed to be printed. And it's dark because of the things that it first of all, the fact that Edie let that comic book become a thing is just like, what what the fuck are you like? I know you want your daughter to be remembered for this thing that she did. Yeah. But like this is exploitation, like to the nth degree. And then second is so it's implied that Barbara could have been killed by a someone who broke into the house. It's implied she could have been a victim of domestic abuse with her boyfriend. But what I really think happened is that her brother Walter, you know, pulled a prank on her and she ends up the game is very intentional about pointing out like, oh, hey, there's a roller blade on this step. And you play out the attack because you're playing out how the deaths are perceived by somebody else. And at one point, the killer slips on that roller blade and falls down the banister. I think that was what happened to Barbara. I think Barbara died in the most uneventful way, the most unflattering way for a starlet like herself. And then the family just, you know, spun this web. They let Martin I'm sorry, they they let Walt a lot of dead people. They let Walter disappear under the house. Edie goes on to exploit him by exclaiming to a local tabloid that they have a mole man under the house. Like it just really like, yeah, Don is the Don is one of the bad guys of the story. But Edie is just as fucking bad. You have these two you have these two characters that are really mystifying these, these dead people in the family. And they're doing they're like these two extremes and you're kind of finding yourself in the middle. And I just I came away really hating Edie by the end. Edith Edith was kind of the worst of them all because she wrote an entire fucking book and game about it. So I mean, there is a theory that Edie is the reason they're all dead. What's the fear? And I was so frustrated towards the end where we didn't get to see that little bit where you were in the when the tide washed away, like right towards the end and it cut and didn't give you that that story. I was really wanting more of that. What was the theory that Edie killed everybody or what? Well, it's so it started with when Odin died. All the she was still getting all this publicity and she's like, I really like this. So then it's theorized that every time one of the family has died, she used their deaths in some way to basically gain that fame. So with Barbara, she wasn't able to get her death published. And obviously, like Nick said, they she like, oh, they had it framed in this set of like, oh, it was possibly domestic abuse from her boyfriend or, you know, you know, who knows what would happen, but we don't know what actually happened. Same thing with like, Gregory dying. It's not implied that he purposely drowned. It's because we're reading it from Sam's perspective, perspective. It's hinted that she may have drowned Gregory purposely. I got you. When you said that, I, for some reason, my, my brain heard you say Edith and I was like, there was people that died 30, 40 years before Edith was born. How can like one hour before? But no, I get it. I get what you're saying now. Yeah, yeah. Okay, it all makes sense. James, you got any that stand out to you? Dude, this is terrible. So you want to just talk about a difference in household. My favorite one was Gregory. It was fun. It was fun, dude. It was fun. I liked the frog toy. My concern initially was, man, this is, this baby is going to be cold. Like the water is going to get cold eventually. That was my thought process as a non parent. And it was fun. I don't know. I enjoyed the music, beautiful music. It was like, you know, ballet, water ballet with a frog and ducks and everything like that. And then the baby died. And I guess, yeah, that kind of that sucks. But it was the funnest one. I also enjoyed Molly's thing. And again, just to reiterate how shallow and stupid I am. I didn't even know that Molly died. Like you've got it in the show notes here that she died from ingesting toothpaste and holly berries. Yeah, I didn't know that all those from from the Wikipedia. Molly's was the one that I think confused me the most. Because it I think I'm pretty sure I'm looking at all of them. A lot of me could tell you could really heavily imply their death if it wasn't flat out stated. But Molly's confused me at first. Because you know, you play as like her. Which I think if that wiki was correct, she might have been hallucinating or Edie was like embellishing on stuff, whatever it may be. But she was like, she transformed into a cat and was like chasing the squirrels or something. And just like kept transforming and then transform them into like, oh, like a monster or something. Yeah, she's still hungry. It's progressed from her being a cat. Yeah. Yeah. Heard to being an owl chasing rabbits to a shark falling from the top of the hill down to the ocean. That part is so random, like falling is this goat simulator now? I, I do like it when you're still in the room, the game gives you the option to go up to the gold fish, like she's going to eat it. And she's like, No, I wasn't that hungry. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that one. It was the first one you're introduced to. I didn't know what the game was yet. So I was it was just confusing. Because Molly was like she in her mind, she was the monster. So I don't know if she was like tripping from the from from consuming weird foods. I don't know. But she I the weirdest line was like at the end of it. She was like, you know, the monster wants to eat me and I can't get out of the bed because we both know I'd be so delicious. The guy was just strange. I don't know. It was such a weird. All of it was weird. I was like, What the fuck is this game? But that was that was the second most fun one for me. Killing and eating a bunch of sailors on a ship was fun. You it's been established you love dead kids. So moving on. See who haven't we visited? Josh, did you have one any that Barbara's was just, I mean, the fact that they got the IP for the Halloween theme was just perfect. Like, I mean, that was like their whole budget. That had to have been their whole budget. Have you not seen the house, Josh? Well, I say because like they did the rip off of Tales of the Crypt. They did that rip off, but they got that that song. It was like, man, they had to have a nice penny change for that. I mean, there's they just stuck out to that. And I have to admit that Gregory's was one of my favorite ones, too. Yes, it's dark, but just something so magical and calming about is very whimsical. Oh, man, there was one other one I wanted to call out that did stand out to me. It was Louis. You know, he was the he worked in a fish cannery, mental health issues. He was finding more joy and solace in a fake fantasy fantasy world he was creating in his head. And why I wanted to call that one out is how you ended up playing through it. I loved it was unbelievably simple mechanics of him going through his unbelievably monotonous day of bringing in, you know, probably frozen or bringing in the fish in full untouched fish, having the head chopped off, putting on a conveyor belt, and you were just doing one fluid motion of pulling the fish to the right, waiting a moment and then pushing it forward and just doing that repetitive motion over and over again. So it was a very easy joystick movement, making an L shape over and over again, and then it started pulling in L for Louis. And then it started giving out like little, like a like a partial canvas over on the side of him sailing, sailing through his like fantasy world he was creating in his head, while still doing the fish mechanic. So then you're basically, again, very simple mechanics, you're basically playing two games at once, with a very simple L mechanic, and then sailing around with the other joystick through a map that he's coming up with in his head. And as it goes on, that fantasy map world just starts to completely envelop his entire life, and the screen. But they kept that motion going. So you still had to work. And I just I loved how they were able to blend the two together. If you got like, you could just let it pile up as you might do working and just being mindlessly doing whatever it is your your job entails. But there will be a point in the story where like, oh, you had to go through a gate and the gate needs a key, but it's a fish. So it's like, oh, you got to slice another fish, right? So it's like reality snapping him back for just a moment before letting him, you know, go off again. And yeah, I just I love that. I think that was my favorite to actually play through because I think it was, it was one of the longer stretches, I think. And I think they put a lot of time into it, which I looked this up just before. And it was reminding me a little bit, but I believe it was actually part of Milton's. I won't go into Milton's story, but Milton was a painter. And it's, I think it's already established that Milton is the is basically the artist or creator or whatever of one of Anna Perna's other games, The Unfinished Swan. Also on my backlog. Yeah, yeah. So it actually ties into a whole nother game where the mechanic is like painting and stuff, but that the aesthetic of the world that Lewis was creating has a very similar aesthetic. I think if I'm remembering my screenshots properly of The Unfinished Swan. So I thought that was a really cool section. The fascinating thing about Milton and Lewis, I think they both have like game design books in their room. And I want to say Lewis was the math, was the math whiz, and then Milton was the art one. And so you kind of pick up on little vibes like that. I think Lewis is the most depressing just because it's totally told from the point of his therapist in A Letter to Dawn. The further away you get from Edie, the more depressing the stories become. I mean, you've got Gregory and Gus who are like part of the silent generation. So ha ha ha, funny, the silent generation doesn't really have much of a say, especially when you get Dawn in on that. But then you start to get to our generation and we start to have to spin our own tales. Like Edie's not there to spin our tales for us. And Milton, I think Milton's like the wisest of the family. He decidedly is like, well, this is fucked up. I'm getting out of here. You go through so many like hidden crevices in the house. I kept expecting to find like a little skeleton of Milton. But when I didn't, when I didn't, I was very happy. I was like, yes, Milton got the fuck out. Milton's making his own story. And then to see your older brother Lewis kind of doing that in the same way, but him being stuck in the monotonous like nine to five at the fish factory. He's not happy. He doesn't he doesn't really connect with anybody. He's bought into the family curse. There was only I mean, he was going to lose his head eventually. No, no pun intended there. But it's interesting, too, because I believe Milton Milton was the one that disappeared. So it never got confirmed whether he died or not. And when you look at the family tree, that's the that portrait is distinctly different in how it's how it's drawn, more like a cartoon character rather than more realistic. So that's a little detail there. Any any other call out before we maybe look at some some of the world building they did or I guess the I guess the the set design they put put forth, because I've got one example in particular that I thought was really fun to say. I'll go ahead. You go. I'll say so there's one Easter egg that I don't think they outright say it, but I just appreciate that, like, it's there for you to be like, ha ha. It's the fact that Barbara is eaten by her fans and you can kind of kind of a callback to Night of the Living Dead, the famous line. They're coming to get you, Barbara. I always appreciate that. There you go. Yeah, that one for you. That'll probably make you a what you can actually spoil the game, the ending at any time. What you have to do is look down. If you look down, you can see that Edith is pregnant. Yeah, I actually know the part in that where I did look down and my wife watched me play this one and I was like, is she pregnant? And she was like, oh, I don't know, maybe. And I was like, I don't know. Could be I don't want to could be anything could have a bad liver. I don't know. It got stated a lot farther on. And I think I looked down, but I maybe didn't look down enough because I saw like the gloves. She had like gloves on or something. But I either didn't look down far enough or it didn't register to me. I didn't notice it until I got. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say that's something that usually you don't you if you look down in most games, you don't see the characters waste or anything. So I felt like it was semi intentional. Yeah. Yeah. The only reason I know is I think I was looking like trying to see if there's anything interesting in the basement, because after, you know, you find out that the block or the. Ballerina box has actually a key, you have to do a certain thing and then you can actually key out. OK, there's got to be some type cool Easter eggs down here because, you know, it's the basement. And I just happened to look down and I was like, oh, this is really odd. Usually if at most you only see like maybe the knees down. Yeah. But when I was walking up to the house. Yeah, I wasn't paying attention that much at that point. I'm very careful of going up steps. She says that when you're going into Sam's room, I believe like you've just walked through like the makeshift cemetery. She does say something like that. Yeah. Yeah. She's like, I came back for you. I came back for you. I'm 20 weeks pregnant. Yeah. I think I heard it when she made some like off comment to herself of like, oh, it'll probably be me, a pregnant woman climbing this house or something. It was when she was climbing on a very precarious section. I think it was after the cemetery when I noticed it. But I wanted to say with Walter, he's the guy that goes down and like lives in the basement for a really long time. Yeah. Yeah, that was first of all, that was a very long time. Second of all, I thought it was interesting how he thought there was a monster like outside of the basement. And he said, like, eventually, like the growls became like comforting to him or something like that. And it was just like you learned very quickly after that. It was probably just the train going by. Yeah. The monster did get him. I don't know. I liked that. I really, I really liked that. The train, the train was running late. And him with that can over there was driving me nuts. I was like, this man's going to like open this wrong and it's going to slice his throat. The whole time I was sitting there waiting for him to just like start feeling. That would be. Yeah, the one the one that got me where I think I audibly like just started laughing was Sam. When when he got bucked by the deer and fell off the cliff, that that would caught me off guard in such a fight like that, I think it was that I vocalized that I wrote something similar. I said, oh, dear. Yes. So I didn't. OK, so because my wife listens to this religiously, I do have to mention the one that she noticed that I didn't notice. But I really wish I had seen it when I played. So outside of Greg and Gus's room, there are pencil marks of where the parents were keeping track of their height. OK. And at one point, well, who is it? Gregory stops, but they keep doing Gus's that. I mean, come on. The attention to detail on that is just fucking amazing. And I believe you would have seen you could have seen that like right away when you're first exploring the house long before you know what the hell happened. So I missed it, which frustrates me to no end. But I I have since gone back and seen it. But yeah, that I wanted to call out for sure. DCF would have a fucking field day with this family, dude. Save these kids. Come on. What are you doing? How many more need to fall before you step in? At least 12. Man, is that in the vein of like level, I guess level design, however you want to call it. But this particular game, it did a really good job of when it wanted to. It's not forced you, but strongly encouraged you to go in one particular way. Right. What I can think of specifically, I believe you're already way up top. You either like be the painting one. So I think you're leaving Sanjay's area, Sanjay's area, going up to Lewis and Milton, which were really, really high up. And then you have to backtrack. But right when you leave, I think it's Sanjay's room. It the only thing on your screen that you can see is a walkway to another building. But if you just would have turned 90 degrees, there's like a walkway up that you only noticed that when you were on your return trip. So I love when games do that, where it's like they're telling you where you need to go. But if you just look around a little bit, you can see things and experience how you would. But I think it did a really good job of just kind of keeping you on task, I guess. But I thought they were masters at really, I just want to call it level design is all I can really think of for this. With Sanjay's room, like optional, because I don't remember it at all. It's the one, it's either the one right before or the one that has like the legalized marijuana and the very psychedelic posters on the wall. Oh, is that? I think it was Sanjay's room, but I may be wrong. It was more like it had Don's laptop there and it had the family picture. Yeah, I was getting the names mixed up, but yeah, but it's towards the last couple of people when I noticed that. Maybe I saw the portrait that says Don and has Don and Sanjay in it, but I don't remember much else about that room that like I'm googling it. I know that when you when you when you come out, you go across, you see Milton's paintings and everything. And when you come back, you go off to the side and like climb up. I think it was like on part of a boat that they strapped to the top of this damn house that you end up climbing through. So it was in that general area. I just may be mixing up the names. Did they say how Sanjay died? I don't think so, but I think the game's like very intentional that like outside of sin, like anyone that is like not naturally on the family tree, the Finch family is kind of like, fuck off, you're not cursed. Yeah, like K and Sam get divorced after Gregory's death and we don't ever really hear from K again. Sanjay, I don't know, maybe Sanjay died. Yeah, he did. He was he was doing something. I think he was like in the Peace Corps or something and he died. Oh, let's see here. Sorry, I don't have it on here, but I the the ever trusted Wikipedia. So I'll go through this is probably going to be really boring. But in order, I think I have them in the right order. Odin drowned. Molly dies after ingesting fluoride, fluoridated, fluoridated toothpaste and holly berries. Barbara's murder during a home invasion. Calvin falls to his death when he swings off of the edge of a cliff. Sven dies during a construction accident. Walter's hit by a train. Gregory drowns in the bathtub. Gus is crushed by a totem pole during a storm. That was a really fun level to play through, like you're all of it was directing the storm. It had like the flower vibes and how it played, just like moving that around. Let's see. Sam falls to his death after being bucked by a deer. Milton disappeared, so not confirmed as dead. Lewis commits suicide at 21. Edie was found dead at 93 after consuming alcohol and prescription medication. Dawn succumbed to an undisclosed illness, and it's either implied or through stuff I didn't see. Edith died during childbirth to, I think, Christopher is his name. So Sanjay did, but as Sanjay did die, an earthquake struck the relief site he was working at. And there it is. Gotcha. But the house doesn't outright like it doesn't you have to like go out of your way to find it. No one's saying anything. There's no room for Sanjay. He wasn't a proper Finch. Okay. So Edie, man, what a game. Let's see here. I just want to say, I enjoyed the credits of the game, like at the very end where it looked like it was like pictures from probably the producers or creators of the game, like just pictures from their childhood. It really brought back like a lot of memories of like my childhood, you know, just hanging out and like all the stuff with my family or the or my friends, just, I don't know, it was very nostalgic because you don't see those pictures very often of anybody, you know what I mean, like you have to look for them now, so I don't know, I just thought I really enjoyed the credits I'd liked when the game was over, like, well, you know, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's a it's a relatively short game. I think I played two and a half hours. It took about the same for my wife. You know, you can you can play it easily in one setting or sitting and it gives you a lot of information in a short amount of time. And it doesn't feel overwhelming. You know, I've played some games where they try to give you so much in such a little time and it feels confusing and discombobulated. I understand why people love the series. And I'm trying to see the the the the good in it. I had that problem with like Metal Gear Solid. There was a lot of information that they were kind of going off of prior knowledge from other games. A lot. Yeah, that's a good one. But it was just a lot of info in a short amount of time. And this one gave you I feel like more info on more characters in a fraction of the time, but it didn't feel overwhelming at all. I got a story that would have been extremely boring. If you read it, like from front to back, just a book, it would have been it would have been shit. But it worked well as a game because of the interaction of it. Like every bit of it played out well because it had a big visual, like visual part to it, I guess, as well as the interaction. But just read a synopsis of the game and you won't get the picture of it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think about two minutes and then you'll be like, why? Why this part about Gregory? You know, if you just get to experience it, if you can just take in the music, for a moment, you will come to enjoy it. The water and the music will take you. Yes, yes. It'll drown you in emotion. Well, I think that's gonna do it for the conversation, gentlemen. Fantastic. That was great. Thank you for having us. I this one was in this one was in my steam library for the better part of like two years, probably. And so I mean, when you guys said let's play this, I was ready to jump at it. And I mean, I would have played anything to hang out with you guys for a little bit, but it was on my list. It was just lower priority, but it was on there. I've been wanting to get to it. I'm glad we were able to recommend it like two weeks prior to this, too, which was coincidental. Amazing. Hey, it's so good. It all lined up and we're not cursed. We're not all going to die in very fatal, avoidable ways. Yeah. Can you run a bath for me real quick? I'm going to go swing on my swing set that's this cliff adjacent. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow at the bottom of the hill. Meet me down there. All right. So, hey, let's let's get some plugs. Where where can people find you guys? Yeah. So you can find me, Nick and Josh over there. I'm pointing at him. This is audio. So my pointing is really working right now. You can find us at Smashing Game Time dot com. Our episodes go up every Wednesday. Josh and I also write for Game Chronicles. We do reviews over there. And then myself, I can also be found over at Hard Drive dot net, the video game satire site. I do reviews and whatnot. I'm sorry. I do satire pieces and I do interviews. I have an interview with Heather Ann Campbell from Rick and Morty going up here. It'll be up by the time you hear this. So go go listen to it. Really good conversation about physical media. And then, you know, the usual. I'm on Twitter at that Kaufman. I'm on Twitch and YouTube at Nick Fett Night. Josh, you are everywhere at. I'm just saying. I hate that he has that down to a science. You can think you're you're falling for that, Nick. I love it. It's my new favorite name. I love it, guys. Thank you so much for coming on. It was it was a treat to have you. Holy smokes. That is going to do it for us. What an awesome set of guests. I want to just plug the Smashing Game Time one more time. Nick and Josh, thanks again for coming on. It was amazing having you guys on the show. Really appreciate it. That's going to do it for us here for this episode. Next episode, we're going to be doing a top 30 list of Xbox 360 games. We've got another guest for that. It's a fun time. It was recorded a few months ago, but it's still a fun time. Stay tuned for that one. We will see you all next episode. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games. I'm going to be doing a list of Xbox 360 games