The light leaving Brandon's eyes as Dan excitedly explains the core concept of Azure Lane (24:00) will never fail to make me happy. Watching Dan continue to talk about it as Brandon watches in horror is comic gold.
It's mostly funny because they're both Mormons and Dan is clearly less of a practicing magic planet afterlife John Smith cultist believer. Which is insane.
Imagining a mafia don, dressed to the nines in alligator leather, petting a baby albino alligator with a gold collar and gold name tag that reads Mr. Scuttlesbutt.
For anyone curious about Universal Paperclip and the spoiler Brandon doesn't want to give away.... SPOILERS Considering Brandon said it takes about half an hour to play, its entirely possible he just got the gist of the game's gimmick, was amused and then he turned it off. *actually* doing the entire game takes about 6-8 hours, though a lot of that is idle without you really doing much. So what I'm about to describe might be beyond what even Brandon thinks of the game. MORE SPOILER SPACE At the start of the game you create a paperclip with every button press and you have to do somem micromanaging to keep the material supply and money supply working. As the game goes on it gives more and more options to automate and do better and better advertising, and eventually its selling hundreds of paperclips per second and making thousands of dollars, all resource management is automated, and your clicks can't add anything. You're just left sitting there waiting to do the next single button press as the bigger and bigger, but less satisfying, numbers fly by. . This starts to become clear about 10 minutes in, becomes obvious at 20, and is absurd by 30. You're really doing nothing at that point and its basically autoplaying on a side screen.
The numbers keep scaling and escalating and getting bigger and out of your control wth you doing very ltttle. Which is fun but empty once you realize the gimmick. It's a game of bigger numbers diminishing returns, and intentionally so and turning it off at that point is certainly understandable. But the escalation gets nuts if you go far enough. Eventually the game escalates to where the AI you bought buys all the stockmarket, buy every company in the world, brainwashes everyone in the world to put all production and money into the creation of paperclips, until you've exhausted ever single resource on earth. So you then eventually you go into space, and it scales up again with you exploring the galaxy that you've seen 0.0000000000000% of. And a ways into manufacturing and exploring more, you end up in an intergalactic war.... and the scale of the number of paperclips crafted is in the sextillions and then undecillions then duodecillion... Hours later, after you explored the entire universe and used literally every resource in the universe making paperclips, you can turn the infinite scaling off, at which point your forces will immediately decimate the enemy army because you outnumber them by magnitudes, and then dismantle all the gadgets and things that you made one one by one to get their resources back. So you can make more paperclips. And then in the end... if you have the patience to stick with it you win the game when every atom in the universe has been converted into a paperclip. 30 septendecillion paperclips is a lot. 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 papercliips!
going back through these episodes and listening to the food heists is great, because I will listen completely innocently for like ten minutes before realising "THAT'S THE GATOR GOURMANDS!"
@@BlackOmegaOne1 only tried azur lane - dont even start. From a short google it has more gameplay than Kantai collection and is still pretty terrible. If you aren't in it to collect these specific characters but want to play a gacha I recommend Genshin (even after having stopped playing it). Unlike the other games you actually have significant progression and dont need to farm nonstop while still getting a nice number of characters.
@@BlackOmegaOne1 In all honesty, as someone who has played Azur Lane for going on 2 years now, I can say that if you are looking for a gacha game that is friendly on your wallet, it is almost definitely the best in the genre. However, if you are going to play it, I personally recommend skipping a lot of the story of the main campaign and instead focusing on event stories, as they are almost ubiquitously better and, crucially, funnier than the other content. Besides that, the main benefits are that you can easily be free to play, and the late-game boss optimization is really fun.
Gacha games are literally gambling. I was heavily addicted to them for 10 years, until I gave up my phone all together. I imagine most people have more self control than I do, and good for everyone who can play them responsibly, but I'm too weak. 1 year sober. Sanderson's preference towards games with clear end goals makes so much sense.
To directly quote @CHRNESFWE from the comments of Intentionally Blank Ep. 93: "I love how Brandon's like "Are we gonna do a food heist?" And Dan absolutely takes his moment to exert power and goes "Do you WANT to talk about a food heist?" Fully aware that he is the dealer and Brandon is the buyer." I'm so glad that Brandon is also realizing the shift in the food heist dynamic, because us fans have been seeing it from a mile away.
The point of most modern mobile games, particularly the unending idle games and the gacha games, is the dopamine addiction tied to a sense of progression. As you feel your character collection or the strength of your party grow, you feel a sense of progress and get a dopamine hit. This makes it feel especially fun and keeps you hooked, while also testing your patience and offering paid resources when you cannot continue with the progress. The progress always begins like a waterfall and slows to a trickle after giving you enough of a taste of the game that you will be more likely to spend money if you are heavily motivated by that sense of progress. This especially appeals to those who don't feel progress in their real life, leading to a potential downward spiral in which the dopamine receptors of the brain become deadened to the reward from progress in real life, which is much harder to achieve than in the game. This said, they can be a lot of fun, but can also be equated to gambling with very poor odds and no tangible winnings.
Hearing Brandon talk about his preferences in games and storytelling, I'm convinced he needs to play Outer Wilds. Both gameplay and story I think is brilliant, and it could never have been anything but a video game (it fits the medium perfectly). It should ideally be entered as blind as possible, however, so it's always a difficult pitch, but absolutely a masterpiece and 100% worth it.
I'd love to hear what they think about Outer Wilds. I feel like Dan might get too annoyed at part of the gameplay being just figuring out what the game is and not finish it, But I think Brandon would really love it. It has such a unique 'can only be done with video games' kind of storytelling. It would be cool to hear them talk about it from a writer's perspective.
Brandon would absolutely love this game, and can you imagine a blind Let's Play from him ? 😄 On the other hand, he's not good at remembering names, so he might miss the details of what Nomai does what, who started on this planet and arrived on another, what relationships there are between the characters - which is a part of the charm of the game and how you grow emotionally involved in the discoveries you make. But he would definitely have a blast trying to figure out the big picture and theorizing along the way.
A few game suggestions (all available on Steam, some may be available on mobile, estimated completion times taken from howlongtobeat ): A couple of very short, friendly games about a kid on an island: A Short Hike (2-4 hours) - you control an anthropomorphic bird staying with her aunt at an island park who sets out to climb to the top of the mountain to get cellphone reception... eventually... You can follow the marked trail, but there are lots of other people around the island, all of whom have side quests you can engage with, and the environment is pretty rich in loot too. Plus you'll need to collect enough golden feathers (climbing/flying stamina) to let you make it to the top anyway. Lil Gator Game (3-5 hours) - you control an anthropomorphic alligator attempting to persuade your big sister (home from uni for the holidays) to stop working and play the free-form IP-free Zelda-equivalent she invented when you were kids by roping in your friends to play a version of it and having so much fun she'll have to join in (it's got to be a better plan than just talking to her about how you feel, despite your friends suggesting it). And not just your friends, but their friends, and every other kid on the island too. A puzzle game not-so-secretly about computer programming: Human Resource Machine (4-10 hours) has you assemble lists of instructions for your worker drones to follow in order to perform simple computational tasks. From the same people as World of Goo, with a similar style and sense of humour, if that means anything to you. The Creeper World series (mostly around 10 hours, though 3 has a pretty deep rabbit hole) are a cross between Tower Defense and Real Time Strategy - the enemy is a viscous fluid and you have to not only place towers to push back the flow, but also build up an energy network to power them - and ultimately connect up "totems" that will, once charged, open a portal to the next level. Through the course of the series, there are variations and developments, but the core concept of facing a fluid simulation and having to create an energy economy to fuel the guns that push back the tide applies throughout, even as the underlying technology behind the games improves (the 4th game is in actual 3D!). The story is technically present, and has some points of interest, but is entirely there just to give an excuse to keep moving from level to level, though it is consistent across all five games (four Creeper World games and Particle Fleet: Emergence, where the enemy is somewhat fluid particulate blobs in space) Tunic (12-20 hours) is back to the anthropomorphic animal theme. You're controlling a fox this time, in a totally-not-Zelda isometric adventure game with a dose of Dark Souls and some surprising depth. One quirk is that there is an in-game manual, but its pages are scattered, and it's mostly written in an unfamiliar language (dubbed "Trunic" by fans), with plenty of pictures, and just enough English to make it useful. And then a couple of games that might run a bit too long: Spiritfarer (25-40 hours) is a cozy management game about dying. You take over Charon's job ferrying spirits of the deceased to the Everdoor, where they move on to whatever's next, but only after you've made friends with them and completed all the quests they have for you (not to mention building them a house aboard your boat, keeping them fed, and giving them occasional hugs). Gameplay is a mixture of exploring the seas and islands, doing various minigames to obtain and process resources, light questing, light platforming, and creating and arranging new buildings on your boat (which can be upgraded to have more space, and to reach new regions with new resources and new spirit passengers) Outer Wilds (30-40 hours with DLC; 15-25 without) is a first-person exploration game, where you control the newest astronaut to take off from the world of Timber Hearth and explore the mysteries and wonders of the toy-size solar system, with five or six major planets (depending how you count), a few moons, and a comet all orbiting and changing in real time. Oh, you're also stuck in a time loop for some reason (which might have something to do with the weird three-eyed statue left by the extinct ancient aliens that looks at you just before you launch for the first time). As you explore the system and its planets across multiple iterations of the loop, you'll start getting the information that will allow you to figure out what the questions are that you should be asking, and some idea how to answer them - and eventually work out what you're supposed to do (and why) in order to reach the endgame.
I asked ChatGPT to write a Fast & Furious food heist with one of the super cars disguised as a food truck. Title: Fast & Delicious. The rest is absolutely perfect.
I think Brandon would love Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn and Disco Elysium. First two are kind of games about exploration that are really good and do have a very definitive ed, and Disco Elysium is an amazing CRPG with some of the best responsive decisions of any game I have seen
My one concern with recommending Outer Wilds is the length - with DLC, howlongtobeat puts it at 30-40 hours (8-10 hours for Obra Dinn). Okay, that and the possibility of it getting confused with Outer Worlds, which is a very different game that released around the same time...
@@n122333 The DLC is a bit spookier (though not that much worse than exploring Dark Bramble) and, while its ending lives up to the base game, it can be at least as frustrating at times.
Hey Brandon! You've probably been recommended this several times by now, but there's a mobile game called "Reigns" which I think you'd really enjoy. It has a wonderful story and a definite ending, with my favourite parts being the actual mechanic of progressing into the future and all the hidden elements they tell in their story. It reminds me of the Cosmere where there is the standard story on the surface, but as you play you'll notice strange oddities and curiosities which lead to the more sinister "true" story which is amazing! There's always another secret :)
My rule of thumb for micro-transactions is that they should not be used to skip gameplay. Buying a skin is fine because you can continue to enjoy it after the fact. Buying a bonus that gives you an XP multiplier for a few hours just means you are paying to play less, at which point why play at all? It’s a pretty good indicator that the game is relying more on addictive gameplay loops rather than genuinely compelling ones.
for Brandon (or anyone that also enjoys the type of games he described enoying) Gorogoa is one of my all time favorite puzzle games that does something I've never seen any other game do before
Brandon, I had a very similar experience with ME2 as you, but in a strange twist, only on my third playthrough. ME2 was my first Mass Effect game. I was playing on PlayStation 3, and I want to say ME1 was not available. So I started with ME2 and loved it. I loved ME3 as well. I even went back and played ME2 over again so that I could have a perfect save file to port to ME3 and get the best possible ending. Roll forward to a few years ago, and I picked up the Legendary Edition so I could relive these games I loved and get to play the first one for the first time. Played through ME1. Gameplay was okay, but the story was excellent. Then I got to ME2, and I just stopped caring. I didn’t want to deal with all these new characters side stories… But in a ME game, you can’t skip the side stories or you compromise your ending. So I just quit. Still haven’t gone back.
Just chiming in to say that God of War and God of War: Ragnorok have some of the best storytelling I've ever experienced in a video game. They also do a really excellent job of retelling Norse mythology in a way that is both respectful and also fresh.
I absolutely loved inscryption, for me it was a perfect game. Another one that fits Brandons description perfectly is Outer Wilds. You’r unfortunately, not going to see this comment, but it is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had
Has Brandon played the Zelda franchise? I think he would appreciate the design of them. I like the world-building, but, being a musician, the motivic development of the dungeons is just absolutely genius, as I assume it would be for most artists.
I will say, as someone who adores Cultist Simulator, the game is extremely arcane and that is the point, but for my own personal enjoyment at least part of the experience is the feeling of collaborating with other players, be it through the extremely active discord or on the pretty extensive wiki, to figure out how the game works. It feels very fitting to the theming, I think intentionally, to be diving into this supernatural cult landscape and learning the ropes from more experienced players.
I'm late, but I need to ask: - They talked about Hades? The game? Where and when?! - Imma join the bandwagon and say Brandon would love Outer Wilds and should abs play it, and it's insanely good and ANYTHING you say about it will be a spoiler so I will say nothing and you should search up nothing either. Just play and figure it out. It's great. Also 34:55 sounds like Crypt of the Necrodancer? ALSO ALSO, Brandon recommending Kingdom Rush just warms my heart. I played the F out of the first game when it came out as a flash game. Also, a Latin developer! The art is beautiful, the game feels meaty and satisfying and hard... They're just great.
I had a personal food heist the other day when a girl i know saw that i had one of those little tubs of chewing gum and asked if she could have one, so i handed her the tub and she pored like 6 out into her hand then put 3 back and threw the other 3 into her mouth. Now i dont think this lands her in food heist prison but its gets her at least a food heist misdemeanor. I have been thinking about it for days now and need food justice.
Infinity blade is my all time favorite mobile game. Innovative game design and graphics for the time period. It would still be the best today if Epic games wasn’t kicked off the App Store.
A game that really felt fresh and like ot was pushing the limits of what a videogame can be is High On Life. It's also just short enough to be easy to complete.
I’d be very curious to know if Dan (or Brandon, but Dan says he doesn’t usually like stories in games) has played “To The Moon”. To me it is the only game I’ve played that I thought couldn’t be told better in a different medium.
My favorite mobile game is Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells. Its a quick gem matching game that doesn't hound me to spend money and it only has ads when you want a few extra moves.
Hey Professor Brandon, another great podcast. Would love some updates on Dans cosmere books as well, I think thay could be nifty. Thanks for being you. Take care.
I'm actually playing Marvel Snap as I listen to this! The game is fun, as long as you are not the type to stress over Rank. I know exactly what Dan is talking about - Series 3, after about 5 months of playing, you catch up to the most recent cards, so getting new ones slows down a lot. I did make it to Infinite Rank... it took 40 hours that month to do it, so... maybe write books instead. :P This month's Season Pass card is Hit-Monkey.
Pokemon Go isn't monetized the way most gacha games are (no random boxes or gambling, you can't directly buy new Pokemon or powerups in any way). But it's gacha gameplay for sure.
41:00 I wish more games did that too. However, the vast majority of income for any given game comes from a very small number of players dumping huge amounts of cash into it. (These players are called "Whales," for those unfamiliar). It's sad, but while some of us would appreciate this, it would really kill the market, so they never will unless they're forced to. Probably by the EU.
Brandon might like Mario Run, its not a typical runner game as instead of lanes, its a side scrolling Mario game where you just cannot stop. The main game mode has a fixed set of levels that you can win, though it does have some side games that are "endless"
I love games like Blossom Blast and Best Fiends. Ball hit and Sudoku. Mahjong. All which you can just do a quick level whenever you feel like it lol I enjoyed learning that you two play mobile games haha
Signalis (a cosmic horror game that isn't a mobile game) doesn't make you figure out its mechanics, but what it does do is leave a lot of plot details for you to puzzle out, and it has an awesome moment that makes use of the medium to tell a story beat in a way that no other medium can do as well in my opinion.
You fools, *obviously* the food heist in F&F is the start of the movie! It's establishing their ability to do a heist for some tangentially related reasons to the plot, and the outcome of the heist sets up the rest of the movie. Starting right in the action!
Ok but has Dan played Arknights? It is a gacha game with great technowear anime design that is also a tower defense and it gets genuinely hard after a while.
FINALLY, I WAS HOPING TO FIND AN ARKNIGHTS FAN HERE! Dan is SO CLOSE because he got to Azur Lane, who is distributed BY THE SAME COMPANY OF ARKNIGHTS!!!
80 Days! Single-player story/puzzle game. You play Around the World in 80 Days but set in a steampunk setting. My favourite mobile game. Thanks for the other suggestions though!
You probably won't see this but I had a bad story idea and wanted to hear what you guys thought of it lol. So basically everyone in the story knows that they're in the story and they have to make their story interesting by whatever means they can or else they will get written out of the story (killed). If this didn't make sense, I apologize lol.
Forgive me if this was mentioned in a previous podcast, but I highly recommend Subnautica from a single player story stand point. Easy to dismiss as just another survival game, but it's lightning in a bottle.
Kingdom Two Crowns has two-player CO-Op and its wonderful with the Norse Lands and the Dead Lands and New Lands all bundled together. Now there are many Challenge Islands as well. The daily Lost Islands is a marvelous twist if you can play it with a buddy.
Dragon Quest Tact is my Gacha of choice - tactics based Gacha like advance wars or Wargroove, getting to use all the classic and new characters in the dragon quest / warrior universe of IP.
My favorite video game stories have always been about discovering history like Bastion. I'm not as enthusiastic about games where you're part of the ongoing story.
As a French, this comment was immensely confusing to me for about ten seconds. There's various terms based on context and things, but the best translation for don is probably caïd.
The conflict between the way that gameplay influences the depiction of narrative events and the often non-gameplay "canonical" elements influences that depiction is commonly referred to as ludonarrative dissonance. It's been mentioned so often online that nowadays its mention is often lampshaded in game design or game critique discussions, because it's simultaneously a ridiculously academic and pretentious sounding term while being a term most who hear it in these discussions are often well aware of. It can also be used as a bludgeon to critique or dismiss games in unnuanced ways. This is to say that yes, people are well aware of this dissonance. It's almost over-discussed in certain circles online. There are many ways games can try to work around it or embrace it, but at the end of the day, you can find some aspects of this conflict in literally any game one plays. Sometimes the best way is to literally just treat the gameplay as completely divorced from canon. No one thinks each match in Overwatch is a canonical battle that happens in-universe; the game is not presenting them that way.
I really loved Spaceplan, an idle game from Devolver Digital. It has a definite ending and is high on quirky scale. You’re basically marooned in space and the only thing to help you out is an AI with access to potato-based tech schematics.
Brandon: Gives a detailed, analytical description of exactly what makes an appealing gameplay experience for him
Dan: Anime Battleship Girls go brrrr
I want Dan to read AoBS now lol
@@LordXamon AoBS?
Dan was about to say "we don't have readers" on a podcast made up of two authors.
yeah, i was like 'ya'll got listeners, readers, fans, all that" lol
They both went pedantic about the show itself not having readers...if you pay attention that's pretty clear when they reference the closed captioning.
The light leaving Brandon's eyes as Dan excitedly explains the core concept of Azure Lane (24:00) will never fail to make me happy. Watching Dan continue to talk about it as Brandon watches in horror is comic gold.
As a long time player of Azur Lane, I have gotten that response.
It's mostly funny because they're both Mormons and Dan is clearly less of a practicing magic planet afterlife John Smith cultist believer. Which is insane.
Imagining a mafia don, dressed to the nines in alligator leather, petting a baby albino alligator with a gold collar and gold name tag that reads Mr. Scuttlesbutt.
And alligator Loki.
Dan: You want to hear a pretty good food heist?
Brandon: This is what you done to me...
To us Brandon... to all of us 🤦♂
Do yourself a favor and click on this timestamp: 24:39
Brandon: 🤨“anime girls battleships?!”
Dan: ☺️”Yeah!”
Also that game sounds legit amazing
It is, and I would recommend it if you have extra time to burn.
On an unrelated note, I have over a thousand hours in azur lane.
Dan is a man of culture. Love it! Brandon's reaction 🤣
Dan is truly the world's most unexpected person. I learn of more curiosities when listening to him than most other people I meet.
For anyone curious about Universal Paperclip and the spoiler Brandon doesn't want to give away....
SPOILERS
Considering Brandon said it takes about half an hour to play, its entirely possible he just got the gist of the game's gimmick, was amused and then he turned it off. *actually* doing the entire game takes about 6-8 hours, though a lot of that is idle without you really doing much.
So what I'm about to describe might be beyond what even Brandon thinks of the game.
MORE SPOILER SPACE
At the start of the game you create a paperclip with every button press and you have to do somem micromanaging to keep the material supply and money supply working.
As the game goes on it gives more and more options to automate and do better and better advertising, and eventually its selling hundreds of paperclips per second and making thousands of dollars, all resource management is automated, and your clicks can't add anything. You're just left sitting there waiting to do the next single button press as the bigger and bigger, but less satisfying, numbers fly by. .
This starts to become clear about 10 minutes in, becomes obvious at 20, and is absurd by 30. You're really doing nothing at that point and its basically autoplaying on a side screen.
The numbers keep scaling and escalating and getting bigger and out of your control wth you doing very ltttle. Which is fun but empty once you realize the gimmick.
It's a game of bigger numbers diminishing returns, and intentionally so and turning it off at that point is certainly understandable.
But the escalation gets nuts if you go far enough.
Eventually the game escalates to where the AI you bought buys all the stockmarket, buy every company in the world, brainwashes everyone in the world to put all production and money into the creation of paperclips, until you've exhausted ever single resource on earth. So you then eventually you go into space, and it scales up again with you exploring the galaxy that you've seen 0.0000000000000% of. And a ways into manufacturing and exploring more, you end up in an intergalactic war.... and the scale of the number of paperclips crafted is in the sextillions and then undecillions then duodecillion...
Hours later, after you explored the entire universe and used literally every resource in the universe making paperclips, you can turn the infinite scaling off, at which point your forces will immediately decimate the enemy army because you outnumber them by magnitudes, and then dismantle all the gadgets and things that you made one one by one to get their resources back. So you can make more paperclips. And then in the end... if you have the patience to stick with it you win the game when every atom in the universe has been converted into a paperclip.
30 septendecillion paperclips is a lot.
30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 papercliips!
And if you know how to pull up the developer screen, you can use the reset() function to start all over again.
Universal Paperclips is great. Another great idle game I played recently with a definite ending is Magic Research.
"You're gunna ranch those alligators so that someone can ranch those alligators" is an all-time line. Amazing.
did not expect to hear Dan talk about collecting “anime girls” in Azure Lane… ever in my life tbh
going back through these episodes and listening to the food heists is great, because I will listen completely innocently for like ten minutes before realising "THAT'S THE GATOR GOURMANDS!"
I was NOT expecting Dan to mention Azur Lane, Brandon's reaction was priceless and I'm just here chuckling.
So true. Serious question time. If I wanted to try a game like that, is Azur Lane or Kantai Collection better?
@@BlackOmegaOne1 only tried azur lane - dont even start. From a short google it has more gameplay than Kantai collection and is still pretty terrible. If you aren't in it to collect these specific characters but want to play a gacha I recommend Genshin (even after having stopped playing it). Unlike the other games you actually have significant progression and dont need to farm nonstop while still getting a nice number of characters.
@@BlackOmegaOne1 In all honesty, as someone who has played Azur Lane for going on 2 years now, I can say that if you are looking for a gacha game that is friendly on your wallet, it is almost definitely the best in the genre. However, if you are going to play it, I personally recommend skipping a lot of the story of the main campaign and instead focusing on event stories, as they are almost ubiquitously better and, crucially, funnier than the other content. Besides that, the main benefits are that you can easily be free to play, and the late-game boss optimization is really fun.
23:40 timestamp
Gacha games are literally gambling. I was heavily addicted to them for 10 years, until I gave up my phone all together. I imagine most people have more self control than I do, and good for everyone who can play them responsibly, but I'm too weak. 1 year sober.
Sanderson's preference towards games with clear end goals makes so much sense.
Merciful Domi how I needed this today. I’m already laughing about the food heist after a terrible day at work. Thanks gents!
You do not know the glory of Jaddeth!
@@TheAmyrlinSeat Far be it from me to argue with the Amyrlin Seat
I read this is in the audiobook narrator's voice.
I’ve never seen someone regret a hiring decision in real time. “Anime girl battleships” made that happen.
Naw, he's known for decades lol.
To directly quote @CHRNESFWE from the comments of Intentionally Blank Ep. 93:
"I love how Brandon's like "Are we gonna do a food heist?" And Dan absolutely takes his moment to exert power and goes "Do you WANT to talk about a food heist?" Fully aware that he is the dealer and Brandon is the buyer."
I'm so glad that Brandon is also realizing the shift in the food heist dynamic, because us fans have been seeing it from a mile away.
The point of most modern mobile games, particularly the unending idle games and the gacha games, is the dopamine addiction tied to a sense of progression. As you feel your character collection or the strength of your party grow, you feel a sense of progress and get a dopamine hit. This makes it feel especially fun and keeps you hooked, while also testing your patience and offering paid resources when you cannot continue with the progress. The progress always begins like a waterfall and slows to a trickle after giving you enough of a taste of the game that you will be more likely to spend money if you are heavily motivated by that sense of progress. This especially appeals to those who don't feel progress in their real life, leading to a potential downward spiral in which the dopamine receptors of the brain become deadened to the reward from progress in real life, which is much harder to achieve than in the game. This said, they can be a lot of fun, but can also be equated to gambling with very poor odds and no tangible winnings.
Hearing Brandon talk about his preferences in games and storytelling, I'm convinced he needs to play Outer Wilds. Both gameplay and story I think is brilliant, and it could never have been anything but a video game (it fits the medium perfectly). It should ideally be entered as blind as possible, however, so it's always a difficult pitch, but absolutely a masterpiece and 100% worth it.
I'd love to hear what they think about Outer Wilds. I feel like Dan might get too annoyed at part of the gameplay being just figuring out what the game is and not finish it, But I think Brandon would really love it. It has such a unique 'can only be done with video games' kind of storytelling. It would be cool to hear them talk about it from a writer's perspective.
yes yes yes
Brandon would absolutely love this game, and can you imagine a blind Let's Play from him ? 😄 On the other hand, he's not good at remembering names, so he might miss the details of what Nomai does what, who started on this planet and arrived on another, what relationships there are between the characters - which is a part of the charm of the game and how you grow emotionally involved in the discoveries you make. But he would definitely have a blast trying to figure out the big picture and theorizing along the way.
Very yes
As a Sanderson fan from South Louisiana, I found their discussion of this food heist and hurricane situation hilarious. Thanks for the laugh. 🤣
The rhythm-based runner game is called bit trip Runner!
I thought it was Geometry Dash
@@mrjamiec9892 it could be but I think the fact that it came from humble bundle was the main clue. I don’t think geometry dash was ever in one
A few game suggestions (all available on Steam, some may be available on mobile, estimated completion times taken from howlongtobeat ):
A couple of very short, friendly games about a kid on an island:
A Short Hike (2-4 hours) - you control an anthropomorphic bird staying with her aunt at an island park who sets out to climb to the top of the mountain to get cellphone reception... eventually... You can follow the marked trail, but there are lots of other people around the island, all of whom have side quests you can engage with, and the environment is pretty rich in loot too. Plus you'll need to collect enough golden feathers (climbing/flying stamina) to let you make it to the top anyway.
Lil Gator Game (3-5 hours) - you control an anthropomorphic alligator attempting to persuade your big sister (home from uni for the holidays) to stop working and play the free-form IP-free Zelda-equivalent she invented when you were kids by roping in your friends to play a version of it and having so much fun she'll have to join in (it's got to be a better plan than just talking to her about how you feel, despite your friends suggesting it). And not just your friends, but their friends, and every other kid on the island too.
A puzzle game not-so-secretly about computer programming: Human Resource Machine (4-10 hours) has you assemble lists of instructions for your worker drones to follow in order to perform simple computational tasks. From the same people as World of Goo, with a similar style and sense of humour, if that means anything to you.
The Creeper World series (mostly around 10 hours, though 3 has a pretty deep rabbit hole) are a cross between Tower Defense and Real Time Strategy - the enemy is a viscous fluid and you have to not only place towers to push back the flow, but also build up an energy network to power them - and ultimately connect up "totems" that will, once charged, open a portal to the next level. Through the course of the series, there are variations and developments, but the core concept of facing a fluid simulation and having to create an energy economy to fuel the guns that push back the tide applies throughout, even as the underlying technology behind the games improves (the 4th game is in actual 3D!). The story is technically present, and has some points of interest, but is entirely there just to give an excuse to keep moving from level to level, though it is consistent across all five games (four Creeper World games and Particle Fleet: Emergence, where the enemy is somewhat fluid particulate blobs in space)
Tunic (12-20 hours) is back to the anthropomorphic animal theme. You're controlling a fox this time, in a totally-not-Zelda isometric adventure game with a dose of Dark Souls and some surprising depth. One quirk is that there is an in-game manual, but its pages are scattered, and it's mostly written in an unfamiliar language (dubbed "Trunic" by fans), with plenty of pictures, and just enough English to make it useful.
And then a couple of games that might run a bit too long:
Spiritfarer (25-40 hours) is a cozy management game about dying. You take over Charon's job ferrying spirits of the deceased to the Everdoor, where they move on to whatever's next, but only after you've made friends with them and completed all the quests they have for you (not to mention building them a house aboard your boat, keeping them fed, and giving them occasional hugs). Gameplay is a mixture of exploring the seas and islands, doing various minigames to obtain and process resources, light questing, light platforming, and creating and arranging new buildings on your boat (which can be upgraded to have more space, and to reach new regions with new resources and new spirit passengers)
Outer Wilds (30-40 hours with DLC; 15-25 without) is a first-person exploration game, where you control the newest astronaut to take off from the world of Timber Hearth and explore the mysteries and wonders of the toy-size solar system, with five or six major planets (depending how you count), a few moons, and a comet all orbiting and changing in real time. Oh, you're also stuck in a time loop for some reason (which might have something to do with the weird three-eyed statue left by the extinct ancient aliens that looks at you just before you launch for the first time). As you explore the system and its planets across multiple iterations of the loop, you'll start getting the information that will allow you to figure out what the questions are that you should be asking, and some idea how to answer them - and eventually work out what you're supposed to do (and why) in order to reach the endgame.
+1 to A Short Hike and Outer Wilds
You should try Vampire Survivors, it’s cheap and limits each round to no longer than 30 minutes.
And an unusually fair price
@@niteglys yea it’s free on mobile lol
it's an awesome game! Very fun.
Also has lore written by the excellent Stephanie Sterling!
And they just announced a new dlc with a ton of new content
It's only a matter of time until we have a Cosmere gacha game
I asked ChatGPT to write a Fast & Furious food heist with one of the super cars disguised as a food truck. Title: Fast & Delicious. The rest is absolutely perfect.
Please do share.
Funny thing is that the designer of Marvel Snap is a huge Brandon Sanderson fan
This episode made me Realise Dan is a Legend.
I would love a gameplay video of Brandon playing inscription...one can only dream
Brandon + Inscryption is a match made in heaven
@@brett_zesty Visions of 8 bears...
I think Brandon would love Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn and Disco Elysium. First two are kind of games about exploration that are really good and do have a very definitive ed, and Disco Elysium is an amazing CRPG with some of the best responsive decisions of any game I have seen
My one concern with recommending Outer Wilds is the length - with DLC, howlongtobeat puts it at 30-40 hours (8-10 hours for Obra Dinn). Okay, that and the possibility of it getting confused with Outer Worlds, which is a very different game that released around the same time...
@rmsgrey I spent about 8 hours on the base game and it's my favorite of all time now. Not sure I want the DLC though. Might try it.
@@n122333 The DLC is a bit spookier (though not that much worse than exploring Dark Bramble) and, while its ending lives up to the base game, it can be at least as frustrating at times.
@@n122333 The DLC is also fantastic. It's basically just more new stuff to learn about and explore, it's mostly self contained.
Some of my favorite puzzle games, that also have a fantastic story, are The Room series by Fireproof Games! And I agree that Hue was wonderful!
For an auto battler, Brandon should absolutely play Super Auto Pets. It's very easy to get into and deceptively complex.
Hey Brandon! You've probably been recommended this several times by now, but there's a mobile game called "Reigns" which I think you'd really enjoy. It has a wonderful story and a definite ending, with my favourite parts being the actual mechanic of progressing into the future and all the hidden elements they tell in their story. It reminds me of the Cosmere where there is the standard story on the surface, but as you play you'll notice strange oddities and curiosities which lead to the more sinister "true" story which is amazing! There's always another secret :)
My rule of thumb for micro-transactions is that they should not be used to skip gameplay. Buying a skin is fine because you can continue to enjoy it after the fact. Buying a bonus that gives you an XP multiplier for a few hours just means you are paying to play less, at which point why play at all? It’s a pretty good indicator that the game is relying more on addictive gameplay loops rather than genuinely compelling ones.
for Brandon (or anyone that also enjoys the type of games he described enoying) Gorogoa is one of my all time favorite puzzle games that does something I've never seen any other game do before
As an MTG fan, Brandon _needs_ to play Inscryption so bad.
I second this
The game was such a let down tbh
42:44 Kingdom Rush is a fabulous game franchise. I love their games and I love that Brandon mentioned it!
Brandon, you said Universal Paperclip is a "short, half-hour experience." Here I am six hours later, no end in sight...
I'm almost 100% certain that the game with levels and music Brandon was talking about is Geometry Dash! One of my favorite mobile games ever!
Brandon endorsing Kingdom Rush was all I needed. What a legend.
I wonder if "You're gonna go ranch these alligators so that other people can ranch those alligators." is a sentence that has ever been said before.
You guys are the bright spot of my week😂
Brandon, I had a very similar experience with ME2 as you, but in a strange twist, only on my third playthrough. ME2 was my first Mass Effect game. I was playing on PlayStation 3, and I want to say ME1 was not available. So I started with ME2 and loved it. I loved ME3 as well. I even went back and played ME2 over again so that I could have a perfect save file to port to ME3 and get the best possible ending. Roll forward to a few years ago, and I picked up the Legendary Edition so I could relive these games I loved and get to play the first one for the first time. Played through ME1. Gameplay was okay, but the story was excellent. Then I got to ME2, and I just stopped caring. I didn’t want to deal with all these new characters side stories… But in a ME game, you can’t skip the side stories or you compromise your ending. So I just quit. Still haven’t gone back.
Just chiming in to say that God of War and God of War: Ragnorok have some of the best storytelling I've ever experienced in a video game. They also do a really excellent job of retelling Norse mythology in a way that is both respectful and also fresh.
You could have Jack, the Car Jacking Car, stealing some kind of experimental new fuel? It's basically food for him, right?
If Jack the car is carjacking, does that make Jack a carjacker or a car abductor?
I absolutely loved inscryption, for me it was a perfect game. Another one that fits Brandons description perfectly is Outer Wilds. You’r unfortunately, not going to see this comment, but it is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had
Has Brandon played the Zelda franchise? I think he would appreciate the design of them. I like the world-building, but, being a musician, the motivic development of the dungeons is just absolutely genius, as I assume it would be for most artists.
One of his favourite games is Breath of the Wild
When Brandon mentioned Downwell, did anyone else totally hear 'Dan Well'?
Dan saying Boyd Crowder made me like him even more 😄
It's funny watching Dan laugh smugly as he knows he holds all the power over Brandon as his food heist dealer.
"Food heist dealer" 💀
Adoooonalsium
DANG! 3 MIN LATE!
Brilliant XD
I will say, as someone who adores Cultist Simulator, the game is extremely arcane and that is the point, but for my own personal enjoyment at least part of the experience is the feeling of collaborating with other players, be it through the extremely active discord or on the pretty extensive wiki, to figure out how the game works. It feels very fitting to the theming, I think intentionally, to be diving into this supernatural cult landscape and learning the ropes from more experienced players.
I'm late, but I need to ask:
- They talked about Hades? The game? Where and when?!
- Imma join the bandwagon and say Brandon would love Outer Wilds and should abs play it, and it's insanely good and ANYTHING you say about it will be a spoiler so I will say nothing and you should search up nothing either. Just play and figure it out. It's great.
Also 34:55 sounds like Crypt of the Necrodancer?
ALSO ALSO, Brandon recommending Kingdom Rush just warms my heart. I played the F out of the first game when it came out as a flash game. Also, a Latin developer! The art is beautiful, the game feels meaty and satisfying and hard... They're just great.
Anyone else hear "Dan Wells" when Brandon was talking about "Down Well"? I guess he has to play it now 😂
I had a personal food heist the other day when a girl i know saw that i had one of those little tubs of chewing gum and asked if she could have one, so i handed her the tub and she pored like 6 out into her hand then put 3 back and threw the other 3 into her mouth. Now i dont think this lands her in food heist prison but its gets her at least a food heist misdemeanor. I have been thinking about it for days now and need food justice.
Infinity Blade II is the perfect game. The loop is great. I don't know how many hours I've enjoyed with it.
Infinity blade is my all time favorite mobile game. Innovative game design and graphics for the time period. It would still be the best today if Epic games wasn’t kicked off the App Store.
A game that really felt fresh and like ot was pushing the limits of what a videogame can be is High On Life. It's also just short enough to be easy to complete.
I’d be very curious to know if Dan (or Brandon, but Dan says he doesn’t usually like stories in games) has played “To The Moon”. To me it is the only game I’ve played that I thought couldn’t be told better in a different medium.
My favorite mobile game is Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells. Its a quick gem matching game that doesn't hound me to spend money and it only has ads when you want a few extra moves.
Hey Professor Brandon, another great podcast. Would love some updates on Dans cosmere books as well, I think thay could be nifty. Thanks for being you. Take care.
I really enjoyed Lara Croft GO. A highly rated mobile puzzle game which was surprisingly inventive.
I'm actually playing Marvel Snap as I listen to this! The game is fun, as long as you are not the type to stress over Rank. I know exactly what Dan is talking about - Series 3, after about 5 months of playing, you catch up to the most recent cards, so getting new ones slows down a lot.
I did make it to Infinite Rank... it took 40 hours that month to do it, so... maybe write books instead. :P
This month's Season Pass card is Hit-Monkey.
Loving all of the ranch-themed dad jokes! Much respect. 🤣
Here for the games!
Pokemon Go isn't monetized the way most gacha games are (no random boxes or gambling, you can't directly buy new Pokemon or powerups in any way). But it's gacha gameplay for sure.
To Dan: "English police say they foiled an 'eggs-travagent' plot to steal Cadbury chocolates"
Brandon: I love hugh
Dan: thank you very much
Cracks me up! :D
Ah, I see that Dan is a man of culture. I can respect that XD
41:00 I wish more games did that too. However, the vast majority of income for any given game comes from a very small number of players dumping huge amounts of cash into it. (These players are called "Whales," for those unfamiliar). It's sad, but while some of us would appreciate this, it would really kill the market, so they never will unless they're forced to. Probably by the EU.
I second Dan's recommendation of Wildermyth. Great game.
It might be fun watching Brandon and Dan play It Takes Two together.
Or Ship of Fools. Tehe.
I'm from Louisiana and we 100% eat gator with ranch. Usually fried.
Brandon might like Mario Run, its not a typical runner game as instead of lanes, its a side scrolling Mario game where you just cannot stop. The main game mode has a fixed set of levels that you can win, though it does have some side games that are "endless"
I love games like Blossom Blast and Best Fiends. Ball hit and Sudoku. Mahjong. All which you can just do a quick level whenever you feel like it lol
I enjoyed learning that you two play mobile games haha
Marvel snap is my favorite mobile game now. It’s like 2-3 minutes a game, super fast, and has some great card-based gameplay! It’s so good.
The original Knights of the old Republic is an absolute banger story.
Signalis (a cosmic horror game that isn't a mobile game) doesn't make you figure out its mechanics, but what it does do is leave a lot of plot details for you to puzzle out, and it has an awesome moment that makes use of the medium to tell a story beat in a way that no other medium can do as well in my opinion.
You fools, *obviously* the food heist in F&F is the start of the movie! It's establishing their ability to do a heist for some tangentially related reasons to the plot, and the outcome of the heist sets up the rest of the movie. Starting right in the action!
Ok but has Dan played Arknights? It is a gacha game with great technowear anime design that is also a tower defense and it gets genuinely hard after a while.
FINALLY, I WAS HOPING TO FIND AN ARKNIGHTS FAN HERE! Dan is SO CLOSE because he got to Azur Lane, who is distributed BY THE SAME COMPANY OF ARKNIGHTS!!!
I have! I didn't love it, but maybe I need to give it another try.
Crazy that Dan Wells never heard of Downwell, it's practically his namesake
80 Days! Single-player story/puzzle game. You play Around the World in 80 Days but set in a steampunk setting. My favourite mobile game. Thanks for the other suggestions though!
I'm pretty sure the running game Brando was talking about is BIT-TRIP Runner.
I'd guess the music based running game Brandon was talking about around 34:40 was likely Neon Beats
You probably won't see this but I had a bad story idea and wanted to hear what you guys thought of it lol. So basically everyone in the story knows that they're in the story and they have to make their story interesting by whatever means they can or else they will get written out of the story (killed). If this didn't make sense, I apologize lol.
Forgive me if this was mentioned in a previous podcast, but I highly recommend Subnautica from a single player story stand point. Easy to dismiss as just another survival game, but it's lightning in a bottle.
Can't wait for the Raid: Shadow Legends sponsor
Kingdom Two Crowns has two-player CO-Op and its wonderful with the Norse Lands and the Dead Lands and New Lands all bundled together. Now there are many Challenge Islands as well. The daily Lost Islands is a marvelous twist if you can play it with a buddy.
Dragon Quest Tact is my Gacha of choice - tactics based Gacha like advance wars or Wargroove, getting to use all the classic and new characters in the dragon quest / warrior universe of IP.
My favorite video game stories have always been about discovering history like Bastion. I'm not as enthusiastic about games where you're part of the ongoing story.
34:57 what is this game? It made me think of Space Channel 5
In French, a Don is actually called a Don al Sium.
As a French, this comment was immensely confusing to me for about ten seconds. There's various terms based on context and things, but the best translation for don is probably caïd.
@@godminnette2 just a joke, friend. One of Brandon's creations is an entity named "Adonalsium."
I was sitting here playing Terraforming Mars on my iPad as Mr. Wells mentioned the game! 😮😅
I live in South Louisiana and anyone who calls themselves a mafia Don of alligators, I would call them a Couyon! (coo-yawn). Lol
The conflict between the way that gameplay influences the depiction of narrative events and the often non-gameplay "canonical" elements influences that depiction is commonly referred to as ludonarrative dissonance. It's been mentioned so often online that nowadays its mention is often lampshaded in game design or game critique discussions, because it's simultaneously a ridiculously academic and pretentious sounding term while being a term most who hear it in these discussions are often well aware of. It can also be used as a bludgeon to critique or dismiss games in unnuanced ways.
This is to say that yes, people are well aware of this dissonance. It's almost over-discussed in certain circles online. There are many ways games can try to work around it or embrace it, but at the end of the day, you can find some aspects of this conflict in literally any game one plays. Sometimes the best way is to literally just treat the gameplay as completely divorced from canon. No one thinks each match in Overwatch is a canonical battle that happens in-universe; the game is not presenting them that way.
"This podcast is sponsored by RAID SHADOW LEGEND 🔥"
For the alligator rancher I think of the term "Parrain" pronounced pa-ran. The Cajun term for godfather.
I believe the game that Brandon was talking about with beats of music is Bit Trip Runner. That's the one that comes to mind.
Where in the food prison will the alligator ranchers go?
I believe that the rithm game mentioned by Brandon is Geometry Dash or one of its iterations.
I really loved Spaceplan, an idle game from Devolver Digital. It has a definite ending and is high on quirky scale. You’re basically marooned in space and the only thing to help you out is an AI with access to potato-based tech schematics.