The Salmon Album | PWN Call 5

Hello. Hey, thanks for tuning in to the Phone Call. It's just a casual conversation podcast where members and friends. Well, members this time around of the Play Well Network get together to catch up and to talk about, hey, what we've been into lately. There might be some rabbit trails, or we might stay on the straight and narrow the entire time. Who knows? But we're on this call here this evening. I'm Josh. We've got Nate here, and we've got some fellow Play Well Networkers as well.

We do.

Good eye, mate.

There we go. I think I didn't know you could hear upside down, but here we are. Thanks for joining us, Nick.

I want to know what kind of technology they have down there in Australia that you actually look right side up and not upside down. Like that is wild.

It's just just these boomerangs.

It's like it's pretty sweet. Ah, boomerangs.

There you go.

Explains everything.

Boomerangs.

That explains everything.

We do also have our returning champ and third chair, Paul, or maybe first chair. I don't know at this point. You're consistent and we appreciate you being here. So I will outlast you all.

Exactly.

Perhaps.

Exactly.

Perhaps.

Well, you know, we've been here for a while, but Nick, this is your first time and for For a phone call, at least for an official phone call. So how are you doing, man? And what's been going on in your neck of the woods? What?

No, you need to ask him how it's been. It's been—

yeah, that's right.

Since he last spoke to us.

Since he last spoke, which technically not on a phone call.

Well, fellas, it's been good. I have been listening to these phone calls and Just being pretty sad about the fact that I can never join because I think I'm literally always at work when you're recording. So the thing has been, it's like, do I really want to keep my job or do I want to keep these phone calls? I like going on phone calls. And at the end of the day, I've got to look after my family. And so luckily you did this on Friday night. So it's Saturday and no one's here. And I'm on a phone call. And it's great to be here. I've had a lovely morning, went for a little walk down the street with my wife and son who was riding a bike with training wheels. He should be off them by now, but he's just not very confident. And that was fun and painful and tested my patience a lot just because he complains a lot while riding. And so that was fun. Yeah, and that was my experience this morning. And yeah, how, how else would you like to talk about, uh, how I've been? Is that enough? Like, I'm new to these phone calls.

Like, that, that's perfect.

Did I stuff up?

All right, and we're done with the phone call.

Thanks for tuning in.

It's time to land the plane. This is a new format. We just say hi and goodbye.

We told you not to talk about what you did this morning. Well, I, you know, it's going to be with you guys. Yeah, it's great to have it. It's great that, like, it's really cool that we actually managed to make this work. Um, I think the other thing though too is like, you know, it's, it's been really cool. Like, I know that you, uh, and I'm not trying to bag on you too hard here.

I'll just do it.

I'm with nothing new. Of course, it's kind of been like this back and forth thing for a while, but it has been really good. To sort of see you get back into that and embrace it just as sort of a whenever you can, whenever you want to sort of creative outlet.

Yeah.

And, um, yeah.

Thanks. It should just be casual. I shouldn't overthink it. And I'm liking that. So it's just whenever I feel like doing some writing, I do it. And it's just, yeah, tricky to find the time sometimes. And sure, it can't always feel creative when you work full-time and have a couple of kids. So.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, dude.

Facts.

So much weird stuff I can spew out of my head as well with Dude Mons. Like, I've got to give myself a break from that as well, you know?

You were getting into some pretty weird territory, man, with dogs barfing up pizzas. Like, it was like, I was like, I was like, he's just, he's just going for it. I was like, you go, buddy.

It's my type of humor. It's weird.

It was fun.

I enjoyed it. I laughed.

Yeah.

I also think—

But everyone else didn't.

A little bit, but you know.

There you go.

There you go. There you go. Well, Paul, how have you been, sir?

I've been well. Yeah. We had a lull in work for a little bit. Let me catch up a little bit. Now it's over.

It's done. I laugh out loud.

Yeah.

'Cause it sounded like lol.

Yeah.

Sorry.

L-O-L.

Just turn— put me on mute.

I guess I do have the power to do that, if I really wanted to.

Okay, sorry, you keep going. You had a lol at work.

Lol at work, it's done. It's over. It's back to busy, but yeah, I've been pretty good.

It says in the notes you've been editing books and making—

Oh, are we supposed to be? Oh, we're doing that thing. Sorry.

Yes, I have to. Oh, did I miss my opportunity to go through my things?

No.

Well, it's gone.

It's gone.

Look, the topic you put down is not appropriate. Clearly you put that down.

you know.

What?

What?

Um, uh, so yeah, I've been, uh, been— I, I, I, I really thought my next book was, was ready, and I started looking at it. It's not quite there, but, um, I'm gonna do one or two more passes through it, and, uh, it should be soon. I have, uh, have the artwork done for it now all. Um, it is not part of LRT and Gates. This was part of me, uh, after, uh, Kickstarter crashed and burned. Stepping back from that, getting a little breather, doing something else for just a bit, and then I'm going to get back to it.

Nice.

Cool.

Now, the dice that you're making, how are you making them? Because I've seen the process, like the pictures, but how are you making these dice?

Oh, it's just with epoxy. And, and so I got I didn't make them. I bought molds for the dice. And yeah, it's kind of just a matter of having an idea of colors, color combinations, and, you know, how to put the weights in them so that you get the nat 20. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

One thing I have joked about is the number at the top of all of the molds. And I've seen multiple molds and it seems to always be this way, but the number at the top is 1. And which is frustrating because if there's going to be a bubble, you know, that I didn't catch, it's going to be at the top, which means that's the lightest point. And it's like, come on, guys. That's—

don't do that.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's taken some practice, but I feel like I'm getting, getting better at it. We're, um, for those of you who do listen to Dragonlance, um, we have recorded everything except the final battle. Uh, now the podcast itself is a couple of chapters still left to go. So there's gonna be 25 chapters in all. I think chapter 21 was just finished up. And so, um, uh, there's still a few more chapters left to upload, uh, for the podcast, but we're, we're scheduling that. But I'm, um, I, one of, I've made a couple of gifts for the players and one of the gifts is going to be kind of this, uh, dice color combination that I thought of for the game that kind of represents the game.

Oh, sweet.

And, um, uh, going to be sending that set of dice to everybody, um, on that, uh, that played. And, um, and so, uh, we haven't scheduled that final, um, we were going to do it in person, but it just, It did not work out. We're kind of close to one another. Like, um, most of the people are in Houston. We have one person in Austin, and I'm kind of in the middle.

Okay.

And so it was close enough to think about doing an in-person session and far enough away that it's just really hard to do. And, um, I think we got to the point where we kind of gave up on that. So we will be streaming like normal the final the final battle, uh, but I haven't scheduled that yet because I do want to get all, all the gifts in the mail. So if they want to use those dice with the bubbles at the 1, um, in that final battle, they'll be able to.

Excuse me, Paul. Excuse me. Uh, I remember once or twice I joined in on a Twitch stream of you doing the show live, and I redeemed some of the Twitch currency to, um, make it so someone had disadvantage on the next roll. So therefore I was kind It's kind of part of playing. Does that mean I get a set of dice?

I'll be happy to make you a set of dice. I'll do it for free. You got to pay shipping.

Yeah, it's a $50 set of dice.

Yeah.

Ugh.

Ugh.

Yeah, that's a good sentiment. It's a good idea, Paul.

Yeah.

What a guy. Yeah, I've been doing that.

Delivery emus are kind of expensive.

So, right.

Yeah.

And they don't fly really.

Yeah.

Nate, how about you? How you been, dude?

Uh, dude, we're good. Byron, uh, had his, uh, pre-K orientation today. Uh, just kind of like getting sort of back into the school daycare sort of routine. Yeah. Took him, we took him to go see the Paw Patrol movie. Uh, that was his first movie. It's a really cute movie. It's fun.

Nice.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's pretty, pretty wild too, like the, the production levels on that, like just the, the animation production quality is really pretty solid. Uh, but yeah, but, um, yeah, we got a haircut, kind of just, uh, yeah, I've been doing a lot of, uh, yeah, I've also been doing a lot of like noodling around with like ChatGPT. You can use it to help me prep documents and do spreadsheets and all sorts of stuff. It's like, it's a really impressive little tool.

So yeah.

It's fun. Dude, it's like, hey, can you do this for me? And it's like, yes, I can.

So yeah. I asked Wes because Wes is better at generating images than I am on it. But I asked Wes today because the family's— we've been watching the first season of Stan Lee's old show from like 15 years ago, Who Wants to Be a Superhero, which is kind of a Survivor-type reality show, except goofy and with superheroes.

Okay.

But I wanted to do a Twitter post where it's like, okay, so since Stan Lee was involved in this, I guess it's technically possible that the Feedback character might show up in Doomsday. And so I had him put, put feedback into a doomsday poster.

There you go.

That was, that was fun. No one on Twitter is going to get it, but no one sees my post anyway, so it works out. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Josh, how have you been?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Been busy. Been busy. I got another audiobook gig that I've been editing, and that was kind of out of the blue and requested quickly. So had that, had evaluations from the elders, pastoral evaluations. So that was fun. Tell you what you're doing well and what you're not doing well. That's, that's always a good motivator.

So you're looking for gold stars?

I'm not in— well, like I said, both what I'm doing well. So sure, some gold stars, but also things that, hey, we need you to get better next time we do this. Which is good too. So I've actually been using some AI to have some conversations about, okay, how can I implement these things? Which is helpful. You were going to say something, Nick. What was that?

It's just like a bit real personal things like we've noticed you don't scrub the toilet after you dirty it up. Could you please?

Could you put the toilet seat down, please? We have women in the building. This is embarrassing.

Can you stop drinking at work?

It's for communion. You've slipped out in the middle of the day saying you're going to see Spider-Man 5 times and you haven't seen the movie yet.

Be a man of your word.

Exactly.

Exactly. But also, just this evening before we started recording, since Nick talked about this morning what he was doing, around that time, which was evening my time, we were at kind of a dinner get-together thing for our homeschool co-op. And so speaking of stars, Nate, I got this certificate. I won the dad competition.

He's pretending like that was at his school. That's actually from the elders. Right, exactly. After you peed in the toilet and the Spider-Man thing, here's what you do well.

Yes.

You're a really good dad. Congratulations. Yeah, I guess, I guess I'm starting to wonder if like requirement for this whole like, this whole like elder thing, it's actually just his kids and like he's just been like duping us the whole time.

He's getting kids around the table. Okay, what have I been doing wrong? Dad, you left the toilet seat up again.

It's like the Calvin from, from the Calvin and Hobbes strips. Well, Dad, here's the thing is that frankly, your ratings are down this quarter because my allowance sucks.

Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, that was fun. We did some— thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Anyways, anyways, don't need to take time with that.

But how many cups did you stack?

So all that you had to do was So 10 cups. Okay, it was just—

Wait, this was a participation trophy?

Speed competition. What? No, I won first place. Okay, that's why I got the certificate. Out of all the dads there, maybe a dozen dads.

No, probably he's not saying that he was the only dad. Like, he— I know he just said there was a dozen.

Look, I do the same competitions for the, for the dads of my homeschool group. And I win every competition since I'm the only one here.

There you go. There you go. Anyways, that's how we've been. But I think outside of those experiences, we do have some other experiences that we'd like to share with one another. I feel like you could totally slam dance to that song if there was enough room, but I feel like I'd knock down everything behind me if I really wanted to. Anyways, um—

I need you to do a short. Like, you know, we've talked about like putting shorts on the YouTube. You need to do a short of you slam dancing to the end of the song.

Yeah, there you go. For our phone calls. Anyways, uh—

I would do breakdancing with it, but my signature move was the kangaroo. And apparently Ray Gun trademarked that move.

Ah.

And she's been, uh— so I won't do it on stream because she'll claim it. Filthy.

She's wanting to try and come back for the next Olympics.

How embarrassing.

I just saw that recently.

They have that— she has this Netflix documentary about her coming out, and it looks like It, yeah, it looks like a puff piece. I'm totally gonna watch it anyways. Uh, I'm really excited about it. I'm curious as to what they say.

Well, let us know how it is. Uh, I'd love for you to share that experience after, after you watch that. But Nick, what experiences do you have to share with everyone?

Uh, so where do I start? Probably at the start of my list, which was—

I was bored.

It was Toy Story 5, I think, was the first thing I had.

Okay.

Yeah. So, yeah, I went to see a kids' movie. I'd like— because that's what dads do. And this one was really special.

I hate to tell you, before Christian was born, I still was going Pixar films.

Yeah.

So, you don't need the excuse, Nick.

Yeah, I know. I, I thought it was a very special experience because it was the first, like, family outing to the movies, and that was really cool because we'd never taken Lucy. So we also took out one of our support workers, Ella, and so if Lucy needed something, then she was able to just deal with it. But yeah, she was fine the whole movie. She was loving it.

Awesome.

Um, and she has like a— she has a Jessie doll that we like She likes, and what was even better is I think like the main focus of the movie was on Jesse pretty much. So yeah, it's even more special. So yeah, Atticus was well behaved too. That was his second movie. Okay. Him to see Super Mario World. Galaxy, whatever it was. But it was just it was just nice to do that as a family, just because there aren't a lot of things we do as a family that is just what other families do, just because you have limitations on things because of having a disabled child. Yeah, for sure.

Also, you're very poorly behaved in public.

Yeah, that's the thing.

The kids are fine, it's just really it's you.

Yeah, it's my kids having to settle me down.

It's like, Dad, could you just—

could you just put the toilet seat down?

For everyone sitting on the fence, um, about whether they should go and see that movie, go and see it. It's really good. It's pretty— yeah, I'd say it again, it's one of the best Toy Stories, I think. And just had a good underlying message about, um, kids using technology and, and how they make friends.

Yeah.

So I think they—

oh, I I probably should see this movie then.

Yeah, well, if you—

I'm on the phone too much and I don't have any friends.

What are we? Are we just chopped liver to you?

We all are.

Y'all are my phone friends.

I don't know.

I know that. I know. I know Josh exists in real life. The other two of you, I have no idea.

Well, at the start of the episode, you got me. Start of the episode, Josh. Josh did say, "Oh, we're here." We're here with some friends. Oh no, we're here with some members. He did correct himself. He didn't— he couldn't have us associated as friends, Paul. We're just members. So listeners, go back, you'll hear it. But Josh can actually edit all this out and give me a stern warning and also edit that out too. You don't know what it's like, guys.

You'll never know.

He treats us horrible.

Just please stop yelling at me.

You thought these episodes were long. We record for like 14, 15 hours straight and he just takes the pieces he likes and edits them all together.

Yeah.

Okay. So if you want to make friends, also learn how to do it by watching Toy Story 5. And now something on the total opposite spectrum of that is, uh, recently, yeah, been playing Bloodborne. Um, finished that up.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's a good, good game. But as I recently said in my latest episode of Nothing New Under the Porch, I've been into them a fair bit lately, and I think it was like my 4th try of Bloodborne.

Okay.

Um, it took a lot for me to overcome Father G. Um, he's just one of the worst intro bosses you could face. Um, but if you manage to get past him, it's pretty well smooth sailing because they just really try and hurt you to start with.

I was gonna say, I don't, I don't think Father G is— I think he's actually a DLC boss.

Um, no, no, he's the first boss.

No.

Yeah, he's the guy in the, in the graveyard. Yeah, the graveyard turns into a wolf.

I don't know. No, the first boss is, is, uh, the giant dude on the bridge.

No, it's an optional one.

Oh yeah, yeah, that huge wolf. But yeah, even that isn't as much of a skill check. I mean, yeah, that one's—

I thought Papa G was a DLC boss.

No, mate.

No.

Also, I've been listening to the Backlog Breakdown episode on Bloodborne and—

hey, I know those.

Past, past Nate would argue with current Nate. Oh, he'd be like, no, dude, it's not DLC. That's what past Nate would say.

Well, past Nate also had played it a lot more recently than current Nate. True.

Yeah, I believe that episode starts off with me talking about how we had a newborn child and my son had just turned 5. He's turning 11 in a couple weeks. Wow.

It was a long time ago.

It's crazy.

Oh yeah, I wonder if this is a member or a friend coming in.

Oh man, someone— well, let's, let's merge the calls. Let's conference call him in, you know. Let's do this thing.

There you go, Mark, coming in there, mate.

All right, well, we'll give him a second. I have a question though. So you've played obviously Elden Ring because you got the platinum on that one, right?

Yeah, yeah, that was my introduction. But I had tried Bloodborne at least 2 times going into that. I think I tried it in 2017. I'd never played a game like it, didn't even know what a soulslike was.

Gotcha.

I was just like, this is stupid.

Like, I'm just kidding.

Absolutely.

You're stupid.

Yeah, yeah. I will say Bloodborne is by far my favorite of the, the Soulsborne games. I haven't played any of them, but I've watched them all extensively on Twitch.

Yeah.

And I love Bloodborne.

It is, it is very good.

Probably a good time to watch as well.

Is, uh, how do you think they compare? And/or have you played any of the other Dark Souls games?

Uh, I attempted, uh, Sekiro.

Uh, oh, okay, okay.

Yeah, I beat the first boss and then I just got frustrated on the second one and— okay, I threw my hands up and was like, no.

Yeah, I feel like that's the other end of the spectrum, man.

Apparently that game just gets harder and harder. Like, okay, the last boss is just atrociously difficult.

Nice.

Uh, so I don't kind of want to go to— I like the aesthetic, like aesthetic of that.

It's very aesthetic.

It's okay.

Ah, it's okay.

Just the whole, like, samurai-ness, I suppose. I could just play Ghost of Tsushima. I probably wouldn't have as hard a time.

That's also one of my favorite games that I haven't played, but watched extensively.

Okay.

Do Ghost of Tsushima. It's awesome.

Nice.

It's a great game. I really like that game.

And so, Nick, how do, uh, Elden Ring and Bloodborne compare in your mind?

Well, they're not the same game, Josh.

So that's where I'd start.

That's true.

Yeah.

That's why you have to compare them. You don't compare the same thing. You need the contrast.

Whoa! It's like magic. A wild Mark has appeared. Wow.

Yeah, sorry. I've been sitting here quietly the whole time, guys. I'm sorry. I just decided to speak up.

Join in the call.

Do polite for your own good.

Welcome. You're pretty quick there.

Thank you.

Quick join. No one noticed. Welcome. How you been, Mark?

Ah, I've been better, but we're here.

Oh no.

I'm here for this phone call. All right. Oh man. Yeah. We were talking about Bloodburnt. Bloodborne, blood burn. Yes. Burn blood. And then Elden Rings and stuff like that.

Blood burn is what you get when you have too much bourbon.

It's true.

That's damn true.

You're supposed to give a little bit to the kid, not drink half the bottle yourself.

You just said, kid's not, I said, kid's not going down. I will be here as soon as possible. And Paul said, try bourbon. Instructions were unclear. So here we are.

Apparently now we need a blame Paul emoji. Yeah, we need a blame Paul emoji now, right?

There you go, there you go. So I assume, Nick, that you prefer Elden Ring since you platinumed that game.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not planning on going for the plat in Bloodborne. Okay, it's fun, but I just, uh, Elden Ring has the open world and the variety and the Uh, just the exploration is more fun in that. And yeah, but Bloodborne's still a great game, of course, uh, but there's just less to do. So I'm gonna replay it again.

Um, okay.

Yeah, but, uh, when comparing it, totally different sort of playing style compared to what I did in Elden Ring. Um, just by being more vicious, so then you can get health back when you're attacked and Such and such. Um, but I enjoyed the, uh, the parrying mechanic. That was pretty cool. Um, I don't normally think about parrying in games, but yeah, in this it really helps out. Um, just to get the edge.

I remember loving the push and pull in Bloodborne. Like, it's kind of like it rewarded you for being aggressive because like you could, yeah, get health back and stuff like that. Um, I don't know. I think— and just the shotgun parry. Well, what a, what a great feature. It's like, here, let me parry by shooting you with this blunderbuss.

Um, that's how I parry.

That's, that's how I would parry in real life. I'd be like, come at me.

Just shoot him in the face.

Counterpoint.

Yeah, I found it surprising. Like, some of the bosses were really easy, but then there's some of the, well, not bosses. So you'd come across other hunters and they would just be really tough, like surprisingly tough, just because they're all so quick and fought in the same sort of style as you. Whereas I think a lot of the bosses were just stationary boxing bags in a way that would just swing every now and again.

Hmm.

That's how I found them anyway.

You know what? It just sounds like you're really good at these games.

I am.

It does.

I'm— I don't think I am. Like, if you were to watch me play, maybe I'm lucky.

I think Bloodborne is famous for being like really easy.

Oh, good.

So, um, that's true. That's true. That's a good point.

Sure.

I don't want to get—

I've heard that multiple times.

Many people are saying this.

I don't know why there's so much blood. It's, it's an easy one.

Awesome.

All right, well, you got any other experiences besides your burning blood?

Um, no, I did, but I'm fine to keep the ball rolling and let someone else share.

All right, well, how about we let Mark share since, since you're here? What you got to share with us, sir?

Come on, Mark.

Um, Well, I've gotten into, well, back into Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I've had kind of a weird experience with this game where I've been playing it on Luna, which is Amazon Prime's cloud streaming service, which comes with Prime. There's a couple tiers to it, but there's the tier that just goes with Prime and your free shipping. You also get Indiana Jones. So I started playing it back in like December.

Okay.

And with just like on my phone with an Xbox controller Bluetooth to it, and it wasn't great to play that way. I'd probably try on the laptop. I then spent an evening a couple weeks ago to get Luna working on the Steam Deck, kind of like just as an app within Steam. I can use the controls. There's a whole, if you wanna know about that, reach out directly because I don't wanna go into that here 'cause it was a mess to do, but it works now.

Mm-hmm.

It's great. So I jumped back into Indiana Jones kind of thinking like, this will be fun to play on the Steam Deck. And it is a bit of a doozy to try to jump back into because it is just like the controls are all over the place and there's a ton going on here. I was like right in the middle of some stealth section in the catacombs underneath the Vatican. And it was hard to get back into it, but now I've been playing a couple more hours and I think I'm— I think I'm enamored with this game. I think it's really cool.

Nice.

So it came full circle. Yes, it did. It was just a great full circle, came back around. That is great. People, when it first came out, people were calling it an immersive sim. And I really haven't played many of those. So if I start describing this and it's like, yeah, that's what an immersive sim is. That's just me. I haven't really played many of those. Um, it, but it's like pretty, it's pretty plotting and like kind of slow and pretty methodical, but it, there's this great, uh, balance of friction in, in the game where it's, I've been thinking about it somewhere between like a classic Metroidvania. I'm sorry, I just smacked my microphone. Um, and with, and somewhere between classic Metroidvania and like Red Dead Redemption 2. Kind of, and it's almost like, what is, like, what if the traditional Zelda formula kind of continued? Like, what would that look like? And so it's, so for example, if you come up to a brick wall, you're kind of, what's your solution to get past this brick wall? If it was a Metroidvania, it's like, well, come back when you have missiles and shoot it, explode the wall. Uh, for something other, like more of a sim game, it might be kind of rifle through your satchel till you find some of the, one of the 8 ways to blow down this wall. Uh, for Great Circle, it's kind of like, well, yeah, you got to find a blunt object, and there's usually something around, and it's not hard to find, but it's like something within the environment that you're pulling out, uh, to, to knock it down. Um, and there's— it's kind of like, it is still kind of that lock-and-key progression puzzle solving, but adding that kind of extra layer of like, you're pulling this from the environment, you're kind of look— think— looking around for for something you can use. Uh, and like that kind of just, it just adds this extra layer that's really nice that kind of tickles the brain. Um, but the magic of it too is that you're Indiana Jones and he is maybe the coolest fictional character out there. Um, and so it's even kind of just like, you have to approach this, okay, what would Indiana Jones do? It's like, he would use this giant candlestick to knock down a wall. Um, and it's like a lot of times the obvious path forward is something within the character. Um, and that kind of adds a richness that goes beyond if it was just like an avatar character or it like goes beyond even like when you're Link in a Zelda game where it's like there's, you're supposed to inhabit Link. Like you're supposed to inhabit Indiana Jones, but you're also supposed to act like Indiana Jones, um, and kind of within his character. And so that's kind of the, the, a lot of times it's like the game wants you to solve this puzzle by thinking of how would Indiana Jones solve the puzzle? And that's a ton of fun because then you can really get into it.

So have you been watching the movies alongside it? So then when you get to a problem, you can be like, ah.

Yep, been running the tape, been studying the movements, understanding it well. And so now I'm still pretty early on into it. I'm into Giza now. I've passed the Vatican. I feel like the Vatican is a pretty— maybe the whole game is slow and I'm just kind of coming around to it. The Vatican is kind of a weird place to start because it feels very, I don't know, just, it's a slow start. I mean, the game, very first start, you just play through the first part of Raiders of the Lost Ark and that's your tutorial. And then it kind of jumps you forward in time to past Raiders of the Lost Ark. But yeah, it was a weird game to like, and I don't know if it just now having a controller and the screen altogether has reshaped my experience of it. But something has really clicked for me for this game that's— I'm really excited to kind of keep playing it. Um, and Luna has been surprising too. It's been pretty impressive. I feel like cloud streaming has come a long way. So yeah.

I, I have found having both a controller and a screen helps a lot.

Yeah, especially with video games. You kind of need both of those to, to make it work. Yeah.

Nice.

That's, yeah, that's really cool to come back to something and then enjoy it that much, uh, especially if before you're kind of allowing it to kind of let go and now you're jonesing for more. That's, that's awesome.

I started, I started Hogwarts Legacy on, on Luna months ago.

Oh yeah.

And was, I was impressed at how well things ran and all. It was pretty cool.

Yeah. There's a lot of really bigger stuff on it. Like Dispatch is on Luna and I got my eyes on that.

Yeah, I did see that, yeah. Yeah.

Like Alan Wake 2 and Death Stranding, Fortnite is just there for you. Yeah.

Game about digging a hole?

I think that is in the next tier, but yes.

Oh, really?

Okay. Yeah.

Then it was on there when we were playing it together.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, they really market it more as like, look at all these party games. Like, they've got some like courtroom game with AI Snoop Dogg, whatever. But there's also just a ton of like AAA big deal stuff on there too.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Alan Wake 2. That's crazy. Crazy, man.

Do you—

have you found out what the Great Circle is? Do you know why it's called the Great Circle? Because I, like, full disclosure, I think that's like one of the lamest names you could have thought of for an Indiana Jones adventure.

There is a reason it is called that. It is also still a lame name. Like, there is a Great Circle.

Halo was already taken.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

And even the Great Circle concept itself is cool. It's still just a dumb name.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, sorry. That's the thing that I have against it, but I'm sure it's, it's good. And especially in wake of all the bad Indiana Jones that we've gotten over the past, I don't know, 20 years. Um, good to have some good Indiana Jones. Yeah, awesome, awesome.

Good.

Any other experiences you want to share?

Um, what I'm mentioning briefly because I kind of want— my goal is to get its own dedicated Discord channel and in our Discord.

Okay.

Geohistory.gg.

Okay.

The daily game.

Oh, no.

You're given, it's a, so you're given, there's 5 facts and you have to, you're given a fact, a historical fact, and you have like Google Earth. You have to find on Google Earth, where did this fact occur? And you're given like country outlines and state outlines and like the initials of all the countries, but that's it. So a lot of times it's like, okay, I know that this happened in Berlin. It's like, okay, where in Germany is Berlin? I don't remember. Um, but it's, it's a ton of fun. Like a few different text groups that are going on right now, including my family of like, we just play this every day. It's great. GeoHistory.gg.

Nice. I would be terrible.

If you can, if you can get 3 other, 4 other people to petition me.

Don't look at me.

I'm out.

I don't like history.

I don't I don't like geography.

Paul's just like, there's entirely too many channels.

I don't like extra channels. Like, I'm— that's like, it sounds fun, but the, the, the possibility of a new channel—

Delete, delete one to bring a new one in, right?

Oh, that's true. One in, one out.

Get rid of the, um, weeb channel.

I'm fine with that.

Delete the weebs.

Wait, then you're opening the floodgates to more. You realize what you're doing if you get rid of the Channel. Chuck it all in the weeds. There are no more signs to tap.

Just like lock it down so it's read-only for everyone. And then we'll keep tapping the sign and they'll be like, but I can't talk in there. It's like, no, go to the weeb channel. Sorry, you're out.

It's gone.

Or just make an entirely different server and just call it the Backlog Breakdown Weeb Channel.

It'd be Australia. We just send our outcasts there.

Oh my goodness.

Also, I have participated in the weeb channel. So this is all, this is all tongue in cheek. We have fun. Um, yeah, they're just, there's some places I can't, I can't follow you, Mr. Frodo.

Um, I would have fallen you. I would have followed you to the Black Gates, Mr. Frodo.

There you go.

But not the Weeb Channel. Yeah. That's where I draw the line, Mr. Frodo.

Anakin, you're breaking my heart. Sorry.

Okay.

So, Paul, do you have any experiences to share and any black gates?

We did some, like, just some, like, classic shows and movies this week that I was really excited about, but I got excited about the new thing too. So just kind of quickly hit those. So I showed the kids Rocky for the first time. I was very disappointed that it's, like, leaving Netflix because I'm down for watching the first 4 Over again, and maybe again. You know?

Yeah.

I I watched a snot out of those as a kid, but Rocky One is just so exceptionally well written.

Rocky One.

Oh, that's took me first. Yeah, man. Oh man.

Spoilers. It's not even true.

But I forgot how that movie ends. I've seen it. I've seen Rocky. I swear. He won in our hearts.

Yeah. There's a— I don't know if y'all saw the preview, but there's a new movie about the making of Rocky called— I think it's called I Play Rocky. And I don't know the actor who's playing Sylvester Stallone. He looks and sounds amazing in it.

Okay.

We watched the preview right after watching the movie. It's like, dude, this guy's dead on. It's really cool. AUI has come a long way.

This guy rocks.

Just the story of how that movie got made in the first place is inspiring and very, very, very cool movie. But then yesterday, we're watching through Next Generation with the kids for the first time. We got to Measure of the Man. Measure of a Man, which I remember watching when it aired the first time. And if y'all haven't seen it, the basic idea of it is they want to do some experiments on Data. Data says no, and Starfleet basically asserts that Data is property and not a crew member, and therefore he doesn't have the right to say no. or to resign his commission. And so they have a trial on essentially whether, uh, Data is a sentient being or is he property. And, um, they force Riker to, uh, you know, to, to, to prosecute. And, um, and, uh, it's a little gimmicky on how they do it, but it's effective. Um, but there's, there's one part where He's trying to prove that Data's nothing more than a machine, and he disconnects Data's arm and puts it on the desk in front of him, and then he turns Data off and he just slumps there. And I remember like when I was like 11 seeing that, and it just like, whoa, that was crazy. And remember that moment to this day. But that movie, that show, that episode is Awesome.

I didn't know Star Wars could bring that out in people.

Did I say Star Wars? Oh, I may have. But the thing Wes turned me on to, and he hasn't even gotten yet, so I don't know why I'm giving him credit for anything. He found this website, Tambourne Manor. they have this monthly thing. They have several different products. A lot of it is about bookbinding and Celtic bookmaking and scripts and all. But there's one part in particular that's a monthly thing where each month you get a short story in the Arthurian legend. And you can either get that printed out and bind it yourself, or you can wait and get them all together and then bind it as a larger leather-bound book. And I brought one of the pages here that I got printed today.

Ooh.

But it's in like full medieval illuminated style. And so they have images on there that you paint and the text they have on there, but they have it in very light gray. So you actually write out all the text as well.

Huh.

And so like, it's really designed for 11 by 17 paper. So I went down to Kwik Copy today and got all these pages printed for $8. But I was excited. The kids are like really excited about this. And this one, One of the kids started tracing the letters already at the top. But, you know, by the time we finish at the end of the year, we'll have like a full-color painted and handwritten manuscript that we're going to bind ourselves in leather.

Wow.

It's going to be super cool. Anybody interested in that? It's Tambour Manor. Uh, it's the Arthuriad is the, the, the one that, uh, uh, that I got. And we just started today. Um, but it's, uh, I'm really pumped about it.

Nice. That's awesome.

All right.

So Nate, what experiences do you have to share?

Uh, not tons, although even though on the forum it looks way bigger Still watching Haikyuu. It's kind of cool. Recommend it. Yeah, it's an anime about volleyball, and it's a lot of fun. Did see Spidey Brand New Day. Spider-Man Brand New Day.

Nice.

And it's dude, it's pretty stinking excellent. Josh, we were kind of like giving you grief about it before, but like man, there's like no excuses, bud. Like that movie.

I mainly give Josh grief about it because we we have like a dedicated pretty much movie chat, and Wesley. And I have been wanting to send spoilers. He's like, don't send any spoilers. Well, you have to make an effort too. I can make an effort, but you make an effort.

Because it's been out for like a month at this point.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's easily the best Tom Holland Spider-Man so far. Mark, your comments last phone call actually kind of were the tipping point. Well, actually, that whole conversation. was kind of like the tipping point. Um, no, I'll take Tom Holland. Definitely had a second puberty, and it's wild. It is absolutely buck wild because he's like in his 20s and he looks like he's 12 in the first 3, and this one he looks like a grown man. Um, just insane. Um, but yeah, his performance I think is really great. I think the casting is really— it's Obviously Zendaya's best role, but again, low bar. I actually liked her. I liked her role in this one.

Kind of did too. I hate saying that.

That's big of you, bro. Her exchange with Frank Castle was a lot of fun. Like there was some back and forth there though. Like dude. Just yeah, the Punisher in this movie. Oh, it dude, it's it's great. It's great. So yeah, go see it, people.

I unless you hate fun in in our movie chat, I put I put now weeks ago because Josh has been just terrible for a long time.

Yes, this is not.

I put I put I can't stand it. I've got to put spoilers down here. I have to say this one thing. I'm sorry, Josh. There's nothing I can do about it, but I'll put it in this little spoiler thing. And I did so. And— Did you actually look at it?

No, I did not look at it. I mean, it was clear bait, but I was like, no, I'm not even going to do that.

So the spoiler I put, you're going to get it now anyways, is Punisher cries.

And there you go.

Punisher. I hardly even know him.

Anyways, um, dude, I wish you would just stop being so lame, both in Spider-Man and in puns.

Come on.

Yes, 2 counts, 2 counts of lameness, sir. Um, but yeah, it's, it's pretty great, you know, full send recommend kind of thing. Uh, I also started reading a book I picked up a while ago called How a Game Lives by Jacob Geller. He's a YouTube essayist. And dude, like, I really like some of his videos, but the essay that he chose to sort of transcribe as his first essay in the book was really pretty disheartening.

Oh.

He's a pretty avowed leftist, and he kind of like in this first essay, he basically— yeah, shocker, shocker.

Shocker, I hardly even— no, I'm sorry.

Shocked.

Pop. But the sort of like the TL;DR on it is that like the first episode is these like sort of games as art sort of argument. He's sort of laying out like even a definition and a case for art. And just like his dismissiveness of people who I think we would ideologically sort of line up with and how they view art and how art has a function. He's really kind of like, almost like he's kind of nasty about some of it, like how art is meant to communicate beauty and truth and how it needs to, like, serve a purpose. And just some of that essay, again, it was just, uh, it was kind of like, uh, bud, like, I, I'm the— it's just the first book or the first chapter of the book. So I don't know. It was just like, if this is how you're starting off the book, um, and it was just like, it was really disappointing because it's like, it is this thing where it's like, it's like, oh cool. Like your politics is your identity. that sucks for you and everybody around you.

Yeah.

Like, you know, um, but I'm hoping that it won't all be that, um, because like I said, I've watched some of his other essays and I really appreciate— like, I think he's one of those, those people that like has some really interesting things to say in the space. It's just like, for whatever reason, he just is like This is going to be his, like, his, uh, anti-conservative screed, you know, like, kind of like, um, but yeah, so I was reading— I've been reading that a little bit. But dude, and this is the one that's kind of been like the biggest surprise and kind of a delight, is I sat down and listened to the Gold album a few times, uh, the new album from Weezer. And I think it's kind of great, maybe.

Okay.

Like, the new single CEO is really good, but there's, there's a couple other really outstanding. And it's kind of weird because, like, my cousin, who is also a Weezer fan, he sent me a text. He's like, yeah, the new Weezer album, Weezer album is definitely not a purchase. And I was like, I was like, really? No, you shut up, you idiot.

Weezer, I hardly even knew her.

Oh, shut up.

Just shut up.

Um, but, but yeah, I, you know, he was, he was telling me that he didn't really care for it, that he didn't think it was a purchase. But I was listening to it and I listened to it like 2 or 3 times, like just sort of like, you know, on repeat. And I was like, I think it's pretty great. Like, okay, it's— there's a lot of, uh, I don't know if I would call it jadedness or like almost like sort of like bittersweet nostalgia kind of in it. Um, and CEO Rivers— and, and it's kind of weird because like we, we were talking, you know, pre-recording, Paul, about how like Uh, just Weezer is super prolific. And I've, I've often said that I think Rivers Cuomo is like one of the last great American rock stars in the sense that he's just weird. He does a lot of really weird stuff and takes a lot of like weird turns. And he's kind of obsessed with like pop rock and alt rock. And so he's done a lot of COVID albums. They've done a lot of concept albums, and a lot of those haven't landed. And so, but like, there's a way that I think that that single can be interpreted as sort of, he's sort of like biting at people who are just saying like, hey, just give us the things that we want. But there's also like a line in there where he talks about like, he's like, I remember when I was a kid in Connecticut, just fooling around on my guitar and with some equipment and how much fun. And he's like, and I just wish I could go back there. And so I think there's actually like a lot of like bittersweet sort of like it is very like '90s alt-rock coded.

Okay.

And so like sound-wise, I think it's the best one. But I do think there's sort of like, there's kind of this like, oh yeah, there's like no room for me to experiment anymore. Like people don't want— they want me to kind of do the same thing. But there's also like, again, like the bittersweet nostalgia where he's like, yeah, he's like, we were just— it was like me and 3 of my friends and we were having fun and we're just writing jams and And it just— there, it feels to me when I'm listening to that album that like, there's sort of like, there's, there's just a lot of, again, like, kind of like, um, I can't think of the word, but like, he's almost like a little verklempt over it, right?

Yeah.

Just like the, the sort of like the days gone by and like, it's like all the, the years have just sort of like Escaped him and and the band in a lot of ways, and there's just like there's sort of a really a lot of longing. And so I like the album a lot more than I thought I would. I think it's got some great singles. He does a collaboration with a female vocalist.

I think she just goes by the Supercomics. Oh well, as long as he They did a well she joined them on Jimmy Fallon recently. I didn't watch it; I was just a clip on Facebook. But yeah, the the female singer from Silver Sun Pickups.

I don't know if I was yeah yeah I think that's one and um it's it's a really it's a I forget the name of that one uh give me a second I'm gonna do some googling um but like that's a really great single too um.

Okay.

So I don't know. I think it's kind of one of those things where I think it's, it's, it's kind of like their best album in a long time. Like, and like, obviously Blue and Pinkerton are the high watermarks, but I think Green is pretty good. I think Red is pretty good. I think, you know, Make Believe is, is absolute trash. You know, but yeah, I don't know.

It's he seems like a kind of nostalgic guy anyway because like on the Blue Album, the In the Garage song, it's just yeah.

I was thinking about the same thing, especially when you're talking about like the longing for the days that have been him being the last the last rock star. One of the thing one of the things I loved about Blue Album and you. talked about, you know, guys making their whole identity out of being liberal. I make my whole identity about complaining that Weezer sucks since the Blue Album. Uh, but, but one thing I love about the Blue Album is like, he— it felt like Rivers was your next-door neighbor that you played D&D with who, you know, uh, suddenly got a record contract and didn't know what to do with it. And so he sang about surfing and playing D&D, and it was awesome.

And girls he couldn't have.

Yeah, it comes naturally.

I know.

And then he got pretentious and started like, oh, I'm gonna do Madame Butterfly and stupid crap like that. And, uh, but I love Pinkerton though, man. Like, I know you do. I— Pinkerton has a big following. It— I'm just not part of it. Um, but I, I saw— I, I watched the video for CEO because of the cameo in it. I wanted to see that, and I was sitting there look the whole time going, which which one?

There's like twenty.

Are there? I only know shit.

Oh, okay. Shit shit was in there. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they replaced the whole band.

Yeah, yeah. There's okay.

I only recognize one person. Oh, dude. There's like out of the loop. I'm old.

Everybody they replaced them with in that video is like famous on their own. On their okay. So yeah, Tony Hawk's in it, dude.

Yeah.

Oh, I completely missed that.

Yeah. The only thing I have against their second album, like, I think it's really cool that they continued with the colors, you know, that this latest album is gold. I think they should have just called their second album Salmon. You know, if they couldn't decide between pink or tan, like, just go with salmon.

I hate you so much.

Pinkerton, I hardly knew— oh no, that doesn't work.

I hate you so much right now. So much.

Okay, but as I'm listening to CEO, I was like, dang, I love this. This is great. Like, if they had put this on the Blue Album, it wouldn't have missed a step. And so I'm, for the first time in a very long time, I'm Really interested in hearing a Weezer album.

I think that, like I said, CEO is is definitely a standout track. Okay. We might as well be strangers with Wednesday and I guess is that yeah Carly Hertzman Hartzman is. The, the front person for Wednesday. So they do that with them. The L.A. Sound is, is a real— I think a really great— I don't know. I think the whole album is pretty, pretty good.

It's not very long. 32 minutes.

That's long for Weezer, dude.

It's, it's 10 tracks, 32 minutes. Like, but I mean, I listened to it like like 3 or 4 times in a row, and I just think it— I think it's the best. I think it's the best album they've, they've made in a while.

Um, okay, I'll listen.

Like, I liked Red Album. I liked, I liked, uh, I thought White was fine. Um, I don't know, but yeah, just like, as long as it's better than Make Believe, I'm good. Like, Make Believe was just such a low bar. Um, but yeah, I think it's a good album. I think if you're even sort of like Weezer friendly or like curious, like, yeah, dude, it's a good album. Uh, so because it— yeah, the whole, the whole album very much sounds— does have like this sort of like, to me at least, like a '90s throwback vibe. And I just, I very much appreciated that. Yeah. Like, I, I do think, like, you know, like I said, I do think, like, Rivers does sort of communicate some frustration for being shoehorned because, like, but it's also like, dude, it's just, this is where you're best, man. Like, like, you're— a lot of your other albums aren't that good, dude. Sorry. Like, you have some great singles on a couple of them, but like, yeah.

Anyways, so nice.

Weezer's Gold Album, their new one. I, I like it. I like it a lot. As far as other things like, you know, Nick, you and I were sort of talking a little bit, sort of even before recording. I've been— I did download the Mortal Shell 2 demo, demo slash beta. I actually fired it up, Nick, a little bit before we started recording, like a couple of hours.

Oh yeah.

Got through like the first hour of the game. Um, it's kind of excellent so far. Cool. Uh, it's very like, it's, I think so, like I've, I've heard some coverage of it that has left me really curious about the game. Um, but yeah, I, I think the concept's really cool.

That's cool. I'll fire it up tonight and I was just stuffed last night.

Yeah. Um, playing Returnal still. I did make some headway on Returnal. I had kind of been struggling with it because like there's like 3 biomes and I— so for the like the first act of the game or whatever, and I couldn't beat the third boss for like the longest time. So I finally did that and then the game starts you over again. Uh, only the biomes are adjusted now. So, and now it's even harder. Um, which is cool. I don't know, I like that too. Also, just—

This is Bravely Default? What is this?

No, it's, it's Returnal. It's a, it's a real video game. Um, uh, also just, uh, sort of plugging away at Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology. That game is sort of like my bedtime routine. I play that for like 15, 20 minutes at night before I go to bed. It's pretty great. It's a, you know, it's a really competent sort of like '90s SNES JRPG kind of vibes. Uh, and lastly, with much shame, gentlemen, I come to you and I confess that I have, I have fallen. Uh, Marvel Snap introduced a draft mode and I have been playing it and it's okay.

Boo.

It's enough to tell me that like, I don't need to go back to that game anytime soon.

Good.

Uh, there's just like, there's a bunch of new cards and the draft mode is just like, you kind of get like a, uh, like they just like different picks and they add weird like upgrades and all this. And it's fun, but like there's, there's a whole bunch of new cards and that game is just like oppressive at this point. Like I got in and I played a little bit and I was like, uh, yeah, I can't do this. Like it's Not worth it. It's just like, hey, do you want to be punched in the mouth? Which was funny because I was playing— I did play it for about a week and made Infinite in that week.

Whoa.

And then it— oh yeah, dude. Like, I, I crushed that game for a little bit and I was like, oh, hey, maybe I'm coming back. And then I played a little bit more and I was like, no, no, I'm not. I'm good. Deuces. Um, it's cool. It's still a great game, but it's just like, I'm done with it. So, yeah. Nice. Yeah.

What a good arc! Here you are. You've grown so much.

So proud. I'm like a dog that returns its own vomit just to be like, "No, that sucks." Why are you doing this to yourself?

And I did really enjoy Marvel Snap, but I've been so long gone from it that's like every time I think about. Like, I hear about some new updates, like, I should try that again. Like, there's so much new stuff. Like, I'm just not gonna— like, I know it's not gonna be enjoyable. Don't even try.

Dude, it's like, it's, it's wild because like the game is literally probably in the best state it's ever been. They're giving away entire like competent decks. Like they just, they're like, hey, hey, would you like to get like a free deck? It's like, sick. Yeah. Like, but I just—

First one's free.

That's— it's pretty much exactly that, dude. And then there's just like, there's like always like there's one card that sort of like the new hotness gets released and then the meta just gets completely oppressive. And I was like, I'm glad that like I sort of got in, tasted and saw like, oh, like, hey, this is still kind of like interesting. And then immediately it was like, But I'm out. Like, yeah. Yeah.

So I feel like this is like, like, you know, Snap Anonymous and they— Nate's relapsed, but he came out of it. We're proud of you.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Well, and it's definitely like my wife saw that I was playing it the one night and she's like, you're playing that stupid game again. Um, so, but yeah, I mean, um, it's— I don't know, man, just, um, it's a really great game. It's just not a great game for me. So, gotcha. But what about you, Josh? What have you been into lately, my guy?

Oh man, uh, so one thing I did forget to mention when I talked about things that have happened over the past couple weeks earlier, you know, how it's been Um, is that I was actually invited out to the Iowa State Fair, which is kind of a big deal here. We've got a huge state fair. I think it's like the 2nd largest in the nation, something like that. Um, never been because we have kids and trying to take kids to that is insane. Uh, but anyways, we were invited out. We were given tickets to see the, the Red Clay Strays, if you know who they are.

Mm-hmm.

Um, they played the grandstand, and so that was a lot of fun. We, we are old and actually did not stay for the entire show, but it's because I was preaching the next morning and my wife was, was leading music. So we just didn't stay out super late because we still need to drive back and then, you know, take babysitter home and all that stuff. So anyways, that was fun. It was, it was cool to see them. Yeah. Yeah, they're good. They're fun. It was a good time. But you were talking about Weezer, so I was like, oh yeah, I saw a band here recently. So that's cool. So some of the stuff I've been into, I listened through the, the first— I actually went to, um, the internet and asked what order should I read, uh, the Sherlock Holmes mysteries in. And so I, uh, I listened to A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Um, and nice. It's not really a spoiler, but I'm just gonna say this kind of spoiler, not really. It's not really a spoiler, but But I was surprised at how much Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dislikes Mormons. I'll just say that. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, no, these are bad guys. Like, these are very bad guys threatening people. I'm going to take your wife and add her to my wives. Okay. Like, no beating around the bush here. That is something else. But yeah, it's fun. I'm sure I'll continue. It is fun to also just sometimes, you know, kind of disconnect from some to to just listen to some fiction, you know, and just have a good time with something. So so that was exactly what it is. It's a good time. What were you gonna say?

That's who?

Oh, I was that you were saying something, Paul. But Nate, were you gonna say?

I don't know. So Nate, I'll go there.

Whoever was gonna talk, dude.

I just, I always like— there's A Study in Scarlet, but I do just, even though he's a complete degenerate, like Neil Gaiman's Study in Emerald is like one of my favorite sort of like pastiches of that book.

Okay. Okay.

I love Sir Conan Doyle though. Like, those are great books.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm sure I will continue But it's not Warlock Holmes, which—

It is not.

You fail.

That it is not. Well, I figure I'll at least go to the original before I go back, before I try the stuff that's written on it.

Pre-upgrade it.

I don't know.

I was going to mention, I was like, I'm going to try to watch some Sherlock Holmes films or something. in the next couple of weeks, just because I don't know if y'all have heard or played the Call of Cthulhu tabletop game.

No, I haven't.

It's, it's, it's, it's a tabletop role-playing game like D&D. It's played very differently than D&D. And it's all based on like Lovecraft stuff. And so cosmic horror, you normally end up insane or dead. in these games are pretty great.

So Warlock Holmes.

Right. Yeah. But I got— this is not a new product, but I just got it because I want to run some for our streaming team of Cthulhu by Gaslight, which reframes all of the Call of Cthulhu stuff into Victorian England. And so I wanted to go kind of Look at some like Sherlock Holmes stuff because it's same era, and just to get a feel for get a feel for things. And it's an excuse to watch Sherlock Holmes stuff because it's awesome.

Yeah. What what adaptation is your favorite?

Oh goodness! So the one I grew up on, and I can't remember the actor's name, is the guy with the slick back. black hair, uh, that was always on, um, on Channel 8 here in Houston. It was PBS.

Okay.

Um, but yeah, it was, it, you know, it was a British production. That's what I grew up on. I— so when I went to England when I was like 12 or 13, we went to 221B Baker Street.

Whoa.

And it's, it is set up like a museum there, you know, for them, and a gift shop. And, um, Uh, and, and so I got, I got a little picture of, of that, of that actor. Um, nice. Holding that. I'm also really, really weird, and I like stuff like, um, which was the— what was it called? Was it Young Sherlock Holmes? Um, really trippy, very cool movie. Uh, or Without a Clue. Um, uh, which is a, a, a comedy that Sherlock Holmes is actually an actor and Watson is the, uh, is the real brains. I, I, if I'm remembering right, Michael Caine's in that one. Um, but, um, uh, but you know, I was gonna try to find the PBS, my old, the old PBS stuff I grew up on because that, that was just my era. Yeah.

Um, of it.

Uh, it was, uh, a lot of fun and really like that stuff.

Nice, nice. Cool, cool. Good to know. Uh, yeah, I've I think I've— I'm trying to think if I've seen any older stuff. The stuff that I've seen has been more of the modern stuff. And I know— I knew obviously the, um, uh, what's-his-face, uh, the Doomsday guy, uh, Robert Downey Jr. I knew those, those kind of strayed from the source material. Uh, characters and stuff like that. Right. I wish they would make a third one.

I, I like both films a lot.

And I did like the the BBC ones with with Blunderbuss. I can't. Those were good. Vandersnatch. Yes. Cumberbatch. Yes. Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch. Cumbersome name, man.

Apparently there was a cut joke from Avengers Infinity War where Doctor Strange and or and Tony Stark were gonna say like no. Crap Sherlock, and but they decided it was a little bit too on the nose. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, okay.

Watched a rehash of Young Sherlock, the BBC one. It was pretty good.

Okay, nice. It's just had one season so far. Okay, awesome, awesome. Um, well, other stuff that I have been into— I'll just jump into video games real quick because there's not much to say. I actually haven't had very very much time with video games. But since we're talking cosmic horror, since we're talking, um, Bloodborne— which, it's hilarious you're talking about Victorian England and cosmic horror because, hey, Bloodborne, there we are. Um, I participated in the network test for The Duskbloods for Switch 2.

Oh.

And, uh, it is an interesting take on the formula. It feels very much like A, a— well, it feels— it definitely takes a lot of the motifs from Bloodborne. It is very bloody and feels like it's set in the same kind of universe, but it is very different. Well, so the moment-to-moment gameplay feels very similar to a Soulsborne game. However, the overall arc of what you're doing is interesting. And I heard that Miyazaki got the idea for this game from tabletop, like board games, which I thought was a very— like that kind of filtered my thinking about it because not the way the game is structured is, well, you eventually can. You couldn't in the network test. You started off as one character. You can eventually choose from 8 different characters. And they all have like different play styles. And then you have like basically 3 phases that you're trying to do, gather different resources. But there's like 15 different resource possibilities all throughout the map. You kind of choose how many of what kind of resource do you want? Do you just want to go all in on this or that or this? And you can power up your character and not get very many resources, which might help you later. but your lack of resources might also bite you in the butt. And it ends— the last, the last kind of phase is where you all face off against each other. So it is a very interesting take, even though, again, the moment-to-moment, it definitely feels like a Soulsborne-type game. But the overall arc of it is very different. And, and this was a network test. And so this is like introducing you to the game, which gets complex really quickly. So it's, so it's interesting to even try and kind of like dip your toe into it. I could definitely see, you know, people going hard on different builds and different ways of kind of min-maxing within the game, different strategies and things you can go for. But yeah, so it's an interesting take on the formula and it was, it was fun. It is not something that me personally, I'm going to rush out and buy immediately because I'm just, just multiplayer games in general. Um, I don't feel like I need to pick them up day and date. Uh, but it was a lot of fun to participate in that. So it's, yeah, it's a cool take on the formula, I think. And I'm, I'm sure it'll do well. What were you gonna say?

Did you have any trouble getting in? Because I know that was a huge dynamic kind of early on where people just couldn't play it.

So the very first, uh, the very first network test failed completely. Uh, there were, there were, I did hear there were a few people that could get in. Um, however, I, I was actually up. I had a sick kid. And so I was up when they opened the, um, opened the floodgates. And funny enough, like, I didn't even realize it just because of the time difference between Japan and here. And, uh, so I did try and get in and it did not allow me to get in. And so it would retry. And I think within like 30, 40 minutes, uh, the, they announced like FromSoft just announced, hey, we're shutting this down. Like, we're not like servers are bad. You know, we can't get people in. So we're calling this one off. However, there were other times like after that first initial one that just completely soiled the beds. Um, every other one worked fine for me. I had no, no trouble at all. So whatever, whatever that initial problem was, I don't know. I don't know. I'm also not good, so I didn't, I didn't play that much, you know. I wasn't on every single time, and I didn't win, but I had a fun time with it. It was, it was cool, and it's just fun to play something that hasn't been released yet. That's the other thing, is that I imagine, you know, this was a network test. I imagine there's gonna be a lot more to the game than what was released on the network test, and more story is what Miyazaki has said. So it's not just like, oh, just have all these PvP battles kind of a thing. Like, I'm sure there's a progression system. I'm sure there's a story that goes along with that. I'm sure it's gonna be sort of like Bloodborne where you go to your, your Your place to level up that's kind of like a like a hub, you know, and then you go out into the world and go do stuff in your in your little. I'm sure there's something like that. There's more to the game. I don't think they'd release just a pure multiplayer kind of a deal. But anyways, we'll see. The Dusk Bloods. It's a good time. Yeah.

Just randomly, if the if the audience was wondering, I I looked it up. up and is the, uh, the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series. Okay. Out of 60 Sherlock Holmes stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle, they adapted 43 of them.

Wow.

Over 10 years. And so it's— and of course it's on BritBox, which I don't have. Yeah, but it's, uh, for anybody who has that, that's a, uh, he's really good in that role.

Okay. I'll have to take your word on it because I generally just don't trust people with 2 first names. But that's just— it's just a policy, you know? It freaks me out a little bit. It's weird. Anyways, um, suspicious. The last thing that I'll mention is another game that, Paul, you turned me on to. It is Push-Up RPG. It's a dinky little app. That you turn on and your phone watches you do pushups. And depending on like every pushup that you do, it does an attack against a monster. And so you fight waves of enemies and it actually like pushes me to do more than I would do otherwise. Not only is there a reminder on my phone, hey, do some pushups, but on top of that, um, I've There have been multiple times throughout the past week where I'm like, I think I'm done, but if I do 6 more, I'll defeat this enemy. So let's go. And I end up—

For the kingdom.

Okay, so I deleted it. It is because like, I was pumped about this. Pun intended. Yeah, I like it. Get it to read a push-up. And, and I think it— I, I, I, I don't know if it was the, the shirts I was wearing or because I'm hugely fat. It's just like, you don't— you're not shaped like a real person, sir. Uh, I— it could— it did— it could not read me. And so like, I was trying, I was like doing multiple push-ups, and they're like, great, you've done one. I'm like, I've done 10. Yeah, why are you doing this to me? I'm in pain. I'm not in shape. And, uh, and so it was— is— and I'm frustrated about it because it's like, okay, I like— I, I get obsessive about these sorts of things, and this is the sort of thing that I would have— like, I, I, I, I would have been ripped tonight. Tonight. Yeah. Except the thing didn't work, so I blame it for me being still fat.

Well, I will say I just found out this afternoon that you can also do squats. And so that might help also.

Okay.

You can switch it. I don't know. I don't know if you'll still be able— it actually, it's like parallel lines because I turned it on and I'm like, oh, I'm defeating these monsters with only like a few squats. This is easy. And so I went through a few waves just because I was at the beginning of squats, whereas, you know, I've been playing push-ups for a week now. So anyways, I don't know how long I'm gonna continue with it, but it, it has helped me. stay motivated. So it's, it's fun. I don't really—

Depends on how ripped you want to be.

That's true. I mean, it's— yeah, I guess it's not that great because I'm not— I'm not— didn't work. It didn't work yet. But hopefully this, this episode worked. This phone call has, has worked for you, listener. Hopefully you've gotten everything you wanted out of us and out of this call this evening.

If not, we're sorry.

Yeah, then—

Sorry we couldn't live up to your expectations.

Yeah, maybe next time.

You can, you can ask for a refund at the end.

Hmm. Yeah.

I will give you your $0 back.

Well, guys, thank, thank you guys for making the time, for coming. You fellow Play Well Network friends and members. Okay, both. Both. If I could hug you with my non-ripped arms, I would. But no, thanks. Thanks for making the time. Thanks for tuning in. And till next time, here's a word from one of us.

Do you think that this is like a really close-up Shot of 2 small crabs, or were those really big crabs?

How do you know they're even real?

They're imaginary crabs.

Jimbleton, please tell me we can go look for imaginary crabs. Can we?

How would you look for something that's imaginary?

Oh, that's the best thing to look for. War has come to Krynn, a war building for centuries. as dragons and gods drift into myth and legend. This is the war that will bring an end to it all or restore what was lost for good. Dragonlance: The Thorns of War is an actual play Dungeons Dragons podcast available everywhere in May.

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