What Vegetable Are You

Wed, Feb 14, 2024 Year 2, Autumn 07

Al and Jonnie talk about Turnip Boy Robs a Bank

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:01:30: What Have We Been Up To
00:06:52: News
00:29:43: Turnip Boy Robs A Bank
01:01:06: Outro

Contact

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Transcript

(0:00:30) Al: Hello farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Al,
(0:00:36) Jonnie: And my name is Johnny.
(0:00:37) Al: and we’re here today to talk about Gottagecore Games.
(0:00:43) Al: Before we get going, just a reminder that transcripts for this podcast are available in the show notes and on the website. Today, we, me and Johnny, are going to talk about Turnip Boy robs a bank, because apparently I didn’t write it in the show notes.
(0:01:00) Al: We’re going to talk about Turnip Boy robs a bank, the sequel to Turnip Boy commits tax evasion,
(0:01:09) Al: and we’re not going to talk about it now, we’re going to talk about it later.
(0:01:15) Al: Before that, just because we could easily fall into a discussion about it right now if we’re not careful.
(0:01:20) Jonnie: Yeah, I was already head like in the line of things.
(0:01:22) Jonnie: I was like, oh, I should not say this right now.
(0:01:26) Al: But before that, we’ve got a bunch of news.
(0:01:30) Al: But first of all, Johnny, what have you been up to?
(0:01:34) Jonnie: What have I been up to? There is a game called Skull and Bones and apparently it has been in development since 2013 and it is apparently about to come out, but this weekend it is doing a public demo I guess is what it is where anyone can try the game for free, it will be over by the time you’re listening to this, although the game will be like a day or two from coming out.
(0:02:02) Jonnie: And look I’m a bit of a slut for pirates like I love pirate games even though they’re just like
(0:02:09) Jonnie: Piracy is so hard to do well in games
(0:02:14) Jonnie: And I think in many respects Skull and Bones is kind of a
(0:02:17) Jonnie: Testament to that like there are things that I really like about the game
(0:02:21) Jonnie: But it’s gonna be a pretty hard game to recommend like people
(0:02:26) Jonnie: Spend I think it’s assume is gonna be like a $70 game and I’d be very hard to recommend that anyone spend
(0:02:33) Jonnie: dollars on a game.
(0:02:34) Jonnie: Like this, unless you are super super into pirates.
(0:02:37) Al: I’m not, so. I mean, pirates are fine, but I’ve never been like, “Oh yeah, I love pirates.”
(0:02:43) Al: I’ve enjoyed some pirate-based media, but there’s a difference between, “Oh yeah, I like that,”
(0:02:49) Al: and like, “Oh no, I must consume the pirate-based media.” You know, there’s a big difference there.
(0:02:56) Jonnie: Honestly, I think the biggest problem with pirate-based stuff is ship-to-ship combat is really hard to do and to make fun and engaging.
(0:03:06) Al: Yeah.
(0:03:06) Jonnie: And everyone probably has a slightly different view on what it should be.
(0:03:12) Al: Hmm.
(0:03:12) Jonnie: And, you know, do they want it to be really fun?
(0:03:12) Al: The fun bit, I think, there is key.
(0:03:16) Al: It’s probably, you can probably make up a pretty accurate one, but it’s not going to be fun.
(0:03:20) Jonnie: Correct, yeah. In many respects I think Skull & Bones has gone down how do we try and make it fun?
(0:03:28) Jonnie: And I’m sure a lot of people will find the version fun. For me it’s a little bit too like,
(0:03:32) Jonnie: you and your pirate ship mow down hundreds of other pirate ships which feels like…
(0:03:39) Jonnie: That’s not what I guess I want from a pirate ship experience. I want to engage in one ship in a sort of long drawn out battle rather than mow down a hundred ships.
(0:03:48) Al: Yeah, and I guess the difficulty is like, what are you focusing on? Because when you’ve got a ship, do you focus on the traversal? Do you focus on the combat? Do you try and do both and do both of them badly? There’s a lot to think of there.
(0:04:10) Jonnie: Yeah, and I guess for me, the Skull and Bones, you have a character, but realistically in this one,
(0:04:16) Jonnie: your character is the ship, right? You are controlling the ship, and that is the majority of the gameplay. And I think that’s one of the things that I’m learning about what I like in games over the sort of past few months is a strong narrative element, and in many respects,
(0:04:32) Jonnie: I think that means I need a character that I feel tied to. Because I think my take on Skull and and bones is like I will have fun with it.
(0:04:40) Jonnie: But I after this demo will likely have got what I needed to get out of it, which I had the same experience with
(0:04:46) Jonnie: PowerWorld It’s like I experienced the thing and it was cool, but without that strong
(0:04:53) Jonnie: narrative driven element or hook that I could find I bounce off it pretty quickly
(0:04:58) Al: Yeah, yeah, that’s fair.
(0:05:01) Jonnie: Yeah, but that’s what I’ve been playing. Al, what have you been up to?
(0:05:04) Al: I was racking my brain because I’m like,
(0:05:05) Al: have I played anything other than Turnip Boy?
(0:05:07) Al: And I don’t think I have.
(0:05:10) Al: This week has been quite,
(0:05:11) Al: ‘cause I’m going to America next week.
(0:05:13) Al: Like, as you listen to this,
(0:05:14) Al: I will probably be on my way to America unless you’re listening to it straight away as it comes out.
(0:05:20) Al: So yeah, I’ve not really been playing that much.
(0:05:24) Jonnie: Are you feeling ready for your America trip?
(0:05:26) Al: Are we ever, are we ever truly ready?
(0:05:28) Jonnie: Well, if anyone is gonna like be a person that is ready for a trip, it’s probably gonna be
(0:05:28) Al: Well, ‘cause the problem is that somebody who like,
(0:05:36) Al: am I ready? Probably.
(0:05:37) Al: But does that mean I feel ready?
(0:05:39) Al: Like, those are two different things.
(0:05:40) Al: And like, have I done enough to mean that logically,
(0:05:43) Al: I know I will be fine? Yes.
(0:05:45) Al: Does that mean that I, in my heart,
(0:05:49) Al: feel that I’m going to be fine?
(0:05:50) Al: No, of course not.
(0:05:52) Al: I am convinced that I’m going to die in a fiery plane crash, right?
(0:05:55) Al: So it’s just
(0:05:58) Al: I think that the people who feel ready for the trip aren’t ready.
(0:06:04) Jonnie: That’s fair, that’s fair.
(0:06:05) Jonnie: And you’re going to America to play Pokemon Go, right?
(0:06:08) Al: I am going to America to meet with friends, and I will also be playing Pokemon Go when I’m there.
(0:06:15) Al: Yeah, my next recording I will be back having been to America, and that will be interesting.
(0:06:22) Al: My first transatlantic flight, my first flight longer than two and a half hours, so we’ll see.
(0:06:29) Al: Yeah, I honestly don’t think I’ve played anything else.
(0:06:30) Al: I played some Just Dance, I guess.
(0:06:32) Al: I’ve been doing that.
(0:06:32) Jonnie: At home, or are you going to arcades and playing like just dance in an arcade? What are you?
(0:06:35) Al: Thank you.
(0:06:38) Al: Do they do have Just Dance in arcades?
(0:06:41) Jonnie: I’m sure they do right? It’s gotta be. Oh, maybe I think of DDR
(0:06:46) Al: Yeah, they had, obviously they had dance mats, but like I don’t think they have just dance in an arcade.
(0:06:52) Al: Uh, cool.
(0:06:53) Al: Should we talk about some news?
(0:06:54) Jonnie: Let’s do it.
(0:06:57) Al: Before I fall asleep.
(0:06:58) Al: So our first piece of news is Botany Manor.
(0:07:01) Al: They have announced that their release date is the 9th of April.
(0:07:06) Al: So I don’t think this was out in early access at all.
(0:07:08) Al: So this will be its like proper first release date, but it is a, a non-early access release.
(0:07:15) Al: Rare.
(0:07:16) Al: Rare these days.
(0:07:19) Jonnie: It’s kind of novel, which I like.
(0:07:22) Al: Ironically, you stick out now by not doing early access,
(0:07:26) Al: whereas previously you would stick out by doing early access.
(0:07:30) Al: No interest in this game, Johnny?
(0:07:32) Jonnie: Not really. It’s hard, right? Because I want to be excited about all Cottagecore games. Because,
(0:07:40) Jonnie: you know, you and I remember the time when it was Stardew, and Harvest Moon, and Rune Factory,
(0:07:47) Jonnie: and that was it. And so we would be excited about anything new. And now we are in the opposite time,
(0:07:54) Jonnie: where there is such an abundance of games that there has to be, I guess there’s specific things
(0:08:02) Jonnie: and often I don’t know that I’m looking for it until I see it. And, you know, for me, Botany Manor,
(0:08:10) Jonnie: yeah, this is not it. Botany Manor, kind of, just the visual style is not there for me. And it just,
(0:08:20) Jonnie: I don’t know, it kind of falls into the natural. I’m trying to not be overly negative about a game I have not played. It’s just not kind of rising through everything else to be like,
(0:08:32) Jonnie: that I feel like I’m putting on my list of games I need to do.
(0:08:36) Al: I think it’s interesting because you mentioned the the art style. It’s very simple graphics except the plants which I get what they’re doing there because like the focus is the plants but it also feels a little bit weird that the plants are so detailed when everything else is quite simple textures.
(0:08:54) Jonnie: Yeah, I think what you just said kind of triggered the thought for me that it feels almost like a game that a student would submit for an assignment sort of thing.
(0:09:06) Jonnie: I’m sure there’s way more work that’s gone into this, and building games is very hard, but it’s kind of missing some of that polish that makes it look and feel like a finished product, which in theory it is.
(0:09:23) Al: Yeah, I can see how somebody would like this, but yeah, I’m not, I don’t care about the detail of plants quite, I think, so that’s where it falls down for me. It’s like, it’s really focused on the plants, which would be good if you really care about the plants,
(0:09:37) Al: but I don’t. Next, we have Moonstone Island, have a content update and a DLC. Let’s talk about the DLC first, because the DLC is very small. All of Moonstone Island’s DLCs are basically cosmetics, so it’s the Valentine’s DLC.
(0:09:53) Al: You can get a heart rug, a heart house skin for your, a heart house skin for your house,
(0:09:58) Al: that’s a very bad sentence, a heart box of chocolates, a heart archway brackets or heart way, and a heart lamp as well as a love seat. And that is three dollars ninety nine with a twenty percent launch discount. I will not be buying that DLC because I don’t care
(0:10:23) Al: about those cosmetics. Yeah, they fit on really nicely with the game in general, and they are hearts, and they are detailed hearts. The heart house is not just a heart shaped house, it’s a heart shaped house with a heart shaped windows and a heart shaped hole on the, not the heart shaped door, that would be silly, and a bow on it as well with a little yellow heart as well.
(0:10:25) Jonnie: But if you do care about that style of cosmetic, they are good-looking versions of those.
(0:10:53) Al: It’s very heart-shaped, it is what it says on the tin.
(0:10:59) Al: But it’s also coming along with the content update, the Valentine’s update, which is,
(0:11:05) Al: you may well have guessed, it’s bringing marriage to the game.
(0:11:13) Al: So it’s not bringing relationships, relationships already exist in the game, but they were quite limited in what you could do with them.
(0:11:20) Al: There was no marriage in that.
(0:11:23) Al: Even marriage, the marriage in this game, seems interesting.
(0:11:33) Al: There was a thing, I need to double check in the trailer, because there was a thing that seemed like, so they move into your house, and then there was something about somebody sleeping on a couch, but I can’t remember what it was.
(0:11:48) Jonnie: seeing this.
(0:11:48) Al: Yeah, we’re missing a bunch of the details until it comes.
(0:11:53) Al: I don’t think I can see myself spending much time
(0:12:05) Jonnie: Yeah, that seems fair that it like it’s so one of my things is this game already has so much going on
(0:12:12) Jonnie: Being that you know cosy creature collection, you know
(0:12:18) Jonnie: just it feels like
(0:12:20) Jonnie: marriage is just another another thing in a game that already has a lot of things
(0:12:27) Al: The good the good thing is also comes with other things. So there’s five new spirits,
(0:12:31) Al: including one that looks like a toaster with some bread in it and one that’s a robot dog
(0:12:37) Al: and one that is a weird fish snake and I have a toxic thing. I don’t know what that is and a kiwi.
(0:12:46) Jonnie: Yeah, we all love Kiwis
(0:12:49) Al: There’s also a new taming system, but I have not seen any details about that.
(0:12:56) Al: So…
(0:12:57) Al: I don’t know what to think about that.
(0:13:00) Al: And some more stuff, which is probably too detailed.
(0:13:02) Jonnie: The Kiwi looks very stressed.
(0:13:04) Al: This Kiwi does look very stressed, which is fair enough. Kiwi watch so it’s electric and…
(0:13:16) Al: I feel like that’s an extra syllable than it should have been “key what”.
(0:13:21) Jonnie: But yeah, that sounds much better.
(0:13:21) Al: Hi, I’m Eamon Store Island, I have opinions on your names.
(0:13:28) Jonnie: The toaster one’s very cute as well.
(0:13:32) Al: Iconii Island have a new update as well, which is out now, the Lunar Union Festival update.
(0:13:38) Al: It’s adding a new festival to the game.
(0:13:42) Al: We probably don’t need to go into too much details, we’ve not even covered the game on the podcast yet.
(0:13:45) Al: So.
(0:13:46) Al: Yet that makes it sound like I’m going to. I don’t know whether we will or not.
(0:13:49) Al: “Come celebrate the Lunar Union Festival, whether it’s and collect exclusive items.
(0:13:53) Al: A lunar spirit will appear in the Hamlet. During the Lunar Union event, it will give a quest that will reward you with ribbits and beautiful rewards.” Reading these things when you’ve not played a game
(0:14:04) Jonnie: Yeah. And I don’t really recall much about a Coney Island, like from covering previous stuff on the podcast, but it looks like a cool game.
(0:14:14) Jonnie: And I guess more generally, like I’m pretty anti a lot of festivals in games because I think they’re kind of just boring and played out.
(0:14:21) Jonnie: But one thing that I really like from like the last sort of, I don’t know, five to ten years is I feel like games have done a good job of amplifying festivals from other cultures.
(0:14:30) Jonnie: and that’s been really cool to see and I think that like so these are the
(0:14:34) Jonnie: sorts of festivals that I like because they often have much wider interpretations of what they are as opposed to like a Christmas Winter Festival which is kind of just like we’re gonna do something with snow and and presents and that’s that’s it so this looks cool and I’m excited and and happy year of the dragon
(0:14:57) Al: Yes, slime Rancher 2 also have a new update out now and this is the gadgets my way update it includes a new gadget system
(0:15:07) Al: So if you if you’ve played the game and you know how the gadgets used to work, it’s changed
(0:15:13) Jonnie: So, I feel like every time you and I are on a show, there’s some sort of Slime Rancher update, and neither of us care about Slime Rancher, and I really, like, I thought this time, like, I’m really gonna try and care, and I was just like, mmm, like, Slime Rancher people, god bless, you do you, I’m sure you love it, or hate it, or whatever, it’s coming.
(0:15:13) Al: There you go I I I I just…
(0:15:34) Al: I feel like I need to play the game sometime but not yet maybe when maybe when Slime Rancher 2 is out of early access
(0:15:44) Jonnie: Yeah.
(0:15:48) Al: potion pyramid is coming to iOS and Android oh no it’s out now it is now on it’s not coming to it has come to it came
(0:15:52) Jonnie: This…
(0:15:56) Jonnie: Yes.
(0:15:58) Jonnie: It did.
(0:16:00) Jonnie: And I…
(0:16:02) Jonnie: I’m curious.
(0:16:04) Jonnie: No, I’m curious, right?
(0:16:04) Al: still don’t care oh interesting
(0:16:06) Jonnie: I like the idea of what Potion Permit was trying to do.
(0:16:10) Jonnie: I was going back through, trying to find the…
(0:16:12) Jonnie: I need to go back and find the episode that was done on Potion Permit.
(0:16:16) Jonnie: I have the same reservation, you know,
(0:16:18) Jonnie: like I think I did.
(0:16:20) Jonnie: I have the same reservation, you know, like I–
(0:16:22) Jonnie: I had full-star true Valley going on mobile, like how easy is it to play?
(0:16:26) Jonnie: But this game has the right visual style for a mobile game, so I am curious.
(0:16:35) Jonnie: I’m kind of in a phase where I don’t really mobile game much outside of Marvel Snap, so I don’t know that I’ll stick with it, but I’m at least curious.
(0:16:40) Al: It is five dollars translate into five US dollars translate into your local currency.
(0:16:51) Jonnie: I feel like that’s a good price point for a, you know, a sizable mobile game.
(0:16:54) Al: It’s surprisingly yeah it’s pretty cheap. I’m surprised it’s that cheap because if it’s the full game ported to mobile that’s that seems suspiciously good.
(0:17:10) Al: Too many tabs. Wildflowers. Two exciting things. One of which you can actually do anything with.
(0:17:21) Al: The other one you probably can’t. So there’s a… they’ve even released what the plushie is.
(0:17:28) Al: So it’s a beans plushie. That’s the flying pig. Both Kevin and Cody predicted that. They were both correct.
(0:17:35) Al: It is up on make ship just now and it is almost finished.
(0:17:40) Al: 50% funded with 16 days to go. So go do that if you want it.
(0:17:54) Jonnie: Nah, I feel like if I’m buying a plush, I’m getting a Junimo plush.
(0:17:59) Jonnie: Yeah.
(0:18:02) Jonnie: And also everything about wildflowers just creeps me out.
(0:18:05) Jonnie: I talked about this last week, but I don’t like their visual style at all. It’s so creepy.
(0:18:06) Al: Well, I tell you what, we’ll definitely not make you like it more, which is the Apple Vision Pro version of the game.
(0:18:19) Al: So this isn’t just the game in a screen.
(0:18:24) Al: It is, but it isn’t.
(0:18:26) Al: In so much as when you first look at it, it looks like it’s just the game with a weird border around it.
(0:18:32) Al: menus and farming and other things like that pop.
(0:18:36) Al: So when you’re in a menu, it will pop out to like one of the sides of the screen as a separate window.
(0:18:46) Al: So it doesn’t like cover up your gameplay, which is an interesting way of doing things.
(0:18:51) Al: And the farming pops up like in front of it, like down below, like an actual 3D farming plot that you can just like go on and grab things and move them and like.
(0:19:04) Al: It’s really in, I think…
(0:19:06) Al: I really like what they’re doing here.
(0:19:09) Al: I think this is an interesting way of…
(0:19:12) Al: They’re not just going, “Oh, let’s just put the game on,” right?
(0:19:16) Al: They’re actually going, “What can we actually do with the new features of this that makes this different?”
(0:19:21) Al: And I really like that.
(0:19:23) Al: But…
(0:19:25) Al: I suspect Apple gave them a lot of money to do this because there’s…
(0:19:31) Al: Is anybody going to buy this and play this?
(0:19:33) Al: because you have to have the headset
(0:19:36) Al: which you can only buy in the U.S. just now and costs three and a half grand and you have to like the game and be willing to put in the time and effort.
(0:19:47) Jonnie: Yeah, I agree. But I think it’s super cool that it’s happening, right? And for me, it’s one of those like, wow, prodigical games are really sort of like in the mainstream, given that this is,
(0:20:00) Jonnie: you know, one of the first games realistically to sort of cross into that boundary. And I think some of the things that it looks like they’re doing in the that Apple Vision Pro space, they they make sense and they show the potential for what could be once a day.
(0:20:17) Jonnie: We get out of the weird expensive prototype phase of this tech.
(0:20:22) Al: Yeah, yeah, I mean this is this is I if I had an Apple Vision Pro I would be I would be playing this game on that right like I would absolutely be doing it to see
(0:20:32) Al: At least to see what it’s like and if if not more than that like if I enjoy it doing more than that
(0:20:38) Al: But yeah, like I can’t for two reasons
(0:20:45) Al: Because of where I live and because of how expensive it is
(0:20:50) Al: So yeah, it’s
(0:20:53) Al: Yeah, I like what they’re doing. I like that they’re pushing different ideas. I think this is a good example of how
(0:21:02) Al: VR gaming doesn’t have to be first person right first of all like I don’t I
(0:21:09) Al: Don’t I don’t like most VR gaming because I don’t want to be
(0:21:15) Al: First person I don’t want to do that. I don’t like that. I always feel claustrophobic going
(0:21:20) Jonnie: Yeah, I get motion sick, so I just can’t do VR at all, and so this sort of gaming is like,
(0:21:29) Jonnie: ah, so this is how I could game in an AR-style environment that would work, and it makes sense.
(0:21:37) Jonnie: And I think the other important thing is this is a less of a step for game development to take than
(0:21:45) Jonnie: into fully realized VR. I think it’s… well, I think…
(0:21:51) Jonnie: In general, people underestimate how difficult game development is, and I imagine VR game development is another step on top of that, whereas this feels like a more reasonable step to take.
(0:22:02) Al: for sure. For sure. Yeah. I think it’s very clever of Apple to have done this, right?
(0:22:10) Al: Because wildflowers have their agreement with Apple, like, “Oh, we pay you money. You’re now on Apple Arcade, and they’ve obviously then gone on top of that. We’ll pay you more money. You will do this.” And I’m guessing they worked together because, like, I think got to have these ideas and…
(0:22:32) Al: And then do them.
(0:22:34) Al: And I think these ideas are really interesting.
(0:22:38) Al: And I’d like that both Apple and Wildflowers were willing to do this and put in the effort and the time, even though this is not going to make its money back at all.
(0:22:49) Jonnie: Yeah. One of the things I started thinking about, like looking at how this implementation went,
(0:22:54) Jonnie: was games like Palia, and you know, where time continues moving in Palia, even when you are menuing, because it’s a MMO game, right? And the ability in this sort of environment to menu while still being able to fully see the world that, you know, or the screen or however you want it, you you know, that your character is in.
(0:23:19) Jonnie: To me it makes a ton of sense, like you can, you’ve got that more seamless transition rather than looking at something different so
(0:23:27) Jonnie: I don’t know, like just some cool, like it’s just cool to see this level of innovation and for it to be happening in the cottage core space
(0:23:37) Al: I also think the farming is a really interesting thing because in my opinion, most of the things I don’t like in farming games is the farming. And that’s not because the farming isn’t fun,
(0:23:48) Al: it’s because of the way that you interact with it. It’s like, oh, you walk a step, you press a button, you walk a step, you press a button. And that’s why I like to automate it as quickly as possible because I don’t enjoy that part of the gameplay. But being able to go like, oh, I am in this environment, here is my plots, and I can just go with my water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water
(0:24:07) Al: or what like it’s that feels much more enjoyable to me because you’re like actively doing the thing rather than like push that button push that button push that you know it feels much more fun to me.
(0:24:23) Al: Uh an equally big update is Disney Dreamlight Valley. Update number nine is coming soon
(0:24:33) Al: And in that, you’ll be able to change your name.
(0:24:37) Al: So, let me explain why I am personally excited about this. And this is because of a bug in the game.
(0:24:38) Jonnie: It has shocked me how excited people have been for changing your name.
(0:24:43) Jonnie: Like…
(0:24:50) Al: So, if you start Disney Dreamlight Valley in Game Pass. Game Pass streaming, I think,
(0:24:58) Al: specifically, you think you have to be doing the X-play or whatever it is, right? They’re streaming
(0:25:04) Al: the game so you’re not downloading it and playing it which is how I play the game initially because I had game pass and I was doing it on my steam deck and the only way you can do that is with X cloud that’s what it’s called X cloud. If you if that’s how you start Disney Dreamlight Valley you cannot set your name it’s a bug in the game I presume it’s fixed by this point but when I started it wasn’t so your your player is called player. So the entire time that I’ve been playing Disney Dreamlight Valley across multiple different platforms now for What is it, a year and a half?
(0:25:35) Al: Is it a year and a half?
(0:25:37) Al: I don’t care about changing names, once I’ve set my name, I’m fine.
(0:25:52) Jonnie: I feel like I didn’t know about that bug, and I don’t think it impacted me, so now this makes way more sense.
(0:26:02) Al: But I never set my name, that’s the problem.
(0:26:04) Al: I was called player.
(0:26:07) Al: Anyway, I’m excited to have my name in the game.
(0:26:16) Al: And our final piece of news is for the fantastically named Garden Life, a Cozy Simulator, which we have talked about before.
(0:26:24) Al: I don’t really want to get into it too much, but they’ve released a trailer for their story.
(0:26:29) Al: Johnny, do you want to complain about the name?
(0:26:32) Al: You can complain about the name if you want.
(0:26:33) Jonnie: No, I complained about the name on a previous episode, yeah.
(0:26:37) Al: Right, fair enough.
(0:26:37) Jonnie: Yeah, I did watch the trailer, and there’s some cool stuff.
(0:26:46) Jonnie: Or like, so the trailer talks about the fact that it’s a community garden,
(0:26:50) Jonnie: and the person that used to look after it passed away early.
(0:26:54) Jonnie: Idea of community garden looked after by one person, you know, kind of doesn’t make sense.
(0:26:58) Al: Well, you say it doesn’t make sense, I think that’s very likely what happens most of the time.
(0:26:59) Jonnie: But you are the… yeah.
(0:27:01) Jonnie: Yeah.
(0:27:06) Jonnie: I mean, you’re probably right.
(0:27:08) Jonnie: And you’re the new person to look after it.
(0:27:11) Jonnie: I just, again, coming back to sort of the visual style,
(0:27:14) Jonnie: I don’t like it.
(0:27:16) Jonnie: This feels like a–
(0:27:18) Jonnie: We talked before about VR games.
(0:27:19) Jonnie: This game looks like a VR game to me, and…
(0:27:22) Jonnie: Yeah.
(0:27:22) Al: It does, doesn’t it? It does. It’s the first person. I don’t want to play first-person games. Like, I just, I don’t find it fun.
(0:27:30) Jonnie: It makes sense in certain genres and certain gameplay styles, and I do not think this is one.
(0:27:38) Al: But this is this is why I don’t play those games because I just don’t I just feel claustrophobic when I’m when I’m it’s a weird feeling but I want to be and normally most games I want to be my camera to be further away than it actually is I will always put the camera out to the furthest point because I want to be able to see as much as possible.
(0:28:00) Al: So I was very happy when Pokemon Scarlet and Violet added the third camera zoom option that was great I loved that.
(0:28:08) Al: I agree I don’t think I mean the the name aside which is just stupid on multiple levels I yeah it doesn’t look like a game I would want to play it feels like it feels a lot like Botany Manor talking about them so close together they feel like the same game it’s almost like two people had the same idea and instead of working together they both did their own take on it.
(0:28:23) Jonnie: It does, yes.
(0:28:34) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that’s uh, I think that’s very fair.
(0:28:38) Al: And both coming out within two months of each other no I don’t think so not this close
(0:28:44) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s like, that’s ages apart now, in, in…
(0:28:48) Jonnie: Well, there’s still a chance one of them gets delayed, right?
(0:28:52) Jonnie: No?
(0:28:56) Jonnie: Right, well, I don’t think we’ll be covering either of these games, so we’ll see.
(0:29:02) Al: Unless somebody suddenly gets really excited about them, we’ll see.
(0:29:06) Jonnie: Well, if it does happen, I bet that my money’s on Kev, that it hits.
(0:29:13) Al: I was gonna say Cody.
(0:29:14) Jonnie: » Oh, yeah, that’s fair.
(0:29:16) Jonnie: So Kevin Cody covering “Garden Life,” “Acoustic Simulator,”
(0:29:19) Jonnie: and– [LAUGHS]
(0:29:20) Al: They need to play both of them and compare them on the same podcast. So that’s the news.
(0:29:25) Jonnie: Oh, yes, yes, there we go.
(0:29:30) Jonnie: » Whoo.
(0:29:32) Al: I can’t even remember when the wooing started. Why do we woo so much? I’m not a woo person.
(0:29:37) Jonnie: » Because it gets over the awkwardness of not knowing how to do good transitions.
(0:29:43) Al: Thank you. We’re going to talk about Turnip Boy Rob’s a bank. So just before.
(0:29:50) Al: Before we get into it, I want to start out with a couple of things. So first of all,
(0:29:55) Al: this is a sequel to Turnip Boy commits tax evasion officially. The first game was not cottage core. We covered it because you grow a plant at the beginning and then there’s no more farming and it is definitely not cottage core. But that’s why we covered it. Whatever.
(0:30:17) Al: We can get past that.
(0:30:18) Al: This game is even less.
(0:30:20) Al: Less Cottagecore, and so I’m just going to put that out there.
(0:30:24) Al: If you don’t want to listen to a game that is not Cottagecore at all, then feel free.
(0:30:30) Al: We’re covering this because it’s a sequel to a game that both me and Johnny liked, and we were both going to play it anyway because we wanted to, and we’re covering it.
(0:30:45) Al: So it turns out this game’s a rogue light.
(0:30:50) Al: Johnny, I’m not crazy, right?
(0:30:54) Al: That seemed to come out of left field, right?
(0:30:56) Jonnie: it definitely did. So here’s the thing. You and I both really like Turnip Boy Commits Tax evasion.
(0:31:06) Jonnie: Very clearly the weakest part of that game was the combat.
(0:31:06) Al: Loved it. Fantastic game.
(0:31:14) Jonnie: And in many respects they took the worst part of their game and said “Let’s make that the game.”
(0:31:23) Al: Yes. Yeah, I think… Yes, you are correct. That is what they did. So listeners wonder why I do not generally like roguelites.
(0:31:24) Jonnie: Which was a choice.
(0:31:44) Al: Um, Johnny, I liked this game. So I was…
(0:31:48) Jonnie: Ow!
(0:31:53) Al: fully, fully expecting, right? I didn’t play this game until like two days ago, and I was fully expecting not to like it, right? I was like, I’m going to just play this for like two hours, and I’m going to hate it, and I’m going to be really disappointed, and I’m going to put it away. And I was mostly like that until I defeated the first boss. And then I realized that this game does things to solve the problems that I have with roguelites.
(0:32:23) Al: And the reason why roguelites is that even though you like build up resources and you build up more skills and blah, blah, blah, every time you run through, it’s a clean slate,
(0:32:33) Al: and you have to start from the beginning. In this game, once you defeat one of the bosses,
(0:32:40) Al: they’re defeated. You don’t have to defeat them again, technically until the end. I’ll get to that.
(0:32:48) Al: And that one thing for me made me like this game.
(0:32:53) Al: If you had to defeat every boss in every run, I would have absolutely hated it,
(0:32:59) Al: and I never would have got close to finishing it. I have been very close to finishing this game.
(0:33:06) Al: I’ve been like one mistake away from finishing it six times now. The same mistake. It’s really frustrating. The last bit really frustrating. Basically, when you get to a point where you’ve you’ve defeated all the bosses and then you have to do one run where you defeat
(0:33:23) Al: four bosses in one go. That wasn’t too hard. What was hard then is there’s like a special fifth thing at the end where like you’re having to run around doing certain things while being chased by another boss and that boss is so powerful that he can like kill you in like two hits. So that’s the frustrating thing. But I agree that the combat is not great in this game, but there’s still something about it that I’m finding very
(0:33:53) Al: fun and I finding it difficult to explain.
(0:33:58) Jonnie: you’re probably finding it difficult because I feel like you’re just on some crazy tools.
(0:34:05) Jonnie: To be fair, I think your point about not having to beat the bosses again is a good one. I was kind of surprised, but it makes sense given the boss fights are significantly bigger than
(0:34:23) Jonnie: the other aspects of the game, and ambiguous kind of the wrong word, but on a run in this game.
(0:34:28) Jonnie: You’ve got a timer, and that time is only a couple of minutes. When you’re in a boss fight,
(0:34:33) Jonnie: that timer pauses, but that boss fight itself takes like a couple of minutes to get through.
(0:34:39) Jonnie: They are not fast fights relative to the length of your run, and not having to do those every single run I think was a really good choice, because that became one of the blockers for me with Hades. I really like Hades. I’m not very good at roguelite combat.
(0:34:58) Jonnie: That being said, the combat in this game is so bad. The movement is terrible,
(0:35:24) Jonnie: The range of the weapons is confusing.
(0:35:28) Jonnie: Particularly the melee ones, where the range is significantly bigger than they look on the screen.
(0:35:34) Jonnie: And so you’re consistently getting hit by these melee weapons when the enemy is not even close to you.
(0:35:41) Jonnie: I just struggle to understand how anyone can like the combat in this game.
(0:35:45) Jonnie: And that’s all this game is, is just the combat.
(0:35:50) Al: So at some point you unlock a chainsaw and that makes every.
(0:35:55) Jonnie: Right, I did not get to the chainsaw, so for reference, I beat the first boss, and I fought the second boss once, and I was like, “That cannot be bolted with this game anymore.”
(0:36:06) Jonnie: That was as far as I got.
(0:36:09) Al: That’s fair. I totally get it. And I totally get why you’re not a huge fan of it. But there’s something about it that just kept me going. I’m so frustrated that I didn’t manage to finish the game because literally like I’ve played, I’ve done that last level three times today and I’ve gotten so close to finishing it each time. And it’s so frustrating. But I know it’s going to be great when I do finish it. I think…
(0:36:40) Jonnie: So, how do you feel about the humour in this game? Because obviously the humour was a huge part of Turnip Boy commits tax evasion.
(0:36:49) Al: Yeah, I think in some ways, in some places, I think it has made me feel the same way as the first game did, but some of it has felt a little bit flat and I’m not quite sure why.
(0:37:07) Al: Like it’s just it’s simple things like I there’s a point where where you come across a specific thing from a previous game, right? And it’s like, it’s one of these things that you tore up.
(0:37:20) Al: Which is like, one of the main things in the last game is you’re tearing up random things.
(0:37:24) Al: And some things it’s like, oh yeah, because you’re tearing up this tax letter and you’re tearing up this, you’re tearing up that. And there’s some random pointless thing that’s like, why did you tear that up? You know, it’s just stupid, it’s pointless, but it’s funny. And you come across one of the things that you tore up in the previous game, but the funny, it just, it then says, oh,
(0:37:42) Al: but it’s laminated. And then the next thing is, they’re learning. It’s just that one comment.
(0:37:49) Al: Like is funnier than most games, right? But then a lot of, especially the early game humor feels a little bit weird to me. And I’m not sure why it didn’t hit in the same way.
(0:38:02) Jonnie: I have the same feeling, right? Like the game definitely still has those moments where it is
(0:38:08) Jonnie: very funny. I think a big part of the reason it doesn’t hit is because it’s now
(0:38:14) Jonnie: expected, right? And the construct of Rob’s a bank, right? Like if you’ve played
(0:38:22) Jonnie: commits tax evasion, you have a good sense of the developers’ feelings on capitalism in general,
(0:38:29) Jonnie: and a lot of it’s expected so so you now you come across
(0:38:32) Jonnie: things and you kind of get where a lot of it is is going where I think and part of it is that the first one had that sort of joy of discovery of what’s the next documents that I’m going to find and rip up and some of them are very funny because not that they’re fully unexpected but they go in different directions right which I think is is one of the the bits of charm of that game that’s kind of lost it and I think early on they try and do a job.
(0:39:02) Jonnie: They do a lot of callbacks to some of the humor from the first game or to significant bits from the first game but it doesn’t land on it. I think one of the downsides is one of the first characters you come across is the the streamer and they kind of just run back the exposure bucks joke and it’s it’s you know it’s just like yeah it’s fine and like they delve into new things like there’s some jokes about NFTs and all of the fun stuff that’s that’s developed in the
(0:39:32) Jonnie: you know con people out of money and they have jokes about it it just is like yeah those are the jokes that I now expect from them and I think this game would have benefited by potentially pushing into a different commentary on society because that’s definitely an element of the game and I just don’t think a lot of them work.
(0:39:57) Jonnie: Oh yeah.
(0:39:58) Al: That’s fair. I think the humor that… kind of. Right, let me… I’m having lots of thoughts.
(0:40:06) Al: So I think that actually there’s two things of the funniest bits in this game. One of them is
(0:40:14) Al: some of the callbacks are very funny. Some of them are not, but some of them are very funny.
(0:40:19) Al: So I don’t think it’s just like, if you don’t do the callbacks, I think you’re missing something.
(0:40:25) Al: I think that’s fun. I think they might-
(0:40:28) Al: I don’t lean into it a bit too much. I think there are too many characters in the game that were in the previous one. Almost every single character is in the game again, except the one you kill. That’s not to say there aren’t new characters, there are new characters,
(0:40:46) Al: but it seems weird to have- it feels contrived why everybody else is in the game. But I also think that some of the funniest bits.
(0:40:50) Jonnie: Mmm. Yes.
(0:40:58) Al: So they start out quite simple, right? We’re going to spoil basically everything in this game listeners, right? So jump out now. If you’ve not if you played the first game and you think you might like this, you can get over the roguelite stuff. Stop now, go play it. You can get it done in a day or two. It’s not a very long game.
(0:41:07) Jonnie: Uh, only a little bit.
(0:41:26) Al: and
(0:41:28) Al: depending on how good you are at the combat. So the lifts start out quite simple. It’s like, oh, here’s a part of the bank and you have to go through and you like jump over the lasers and you destroy the laser box and then you go back and you blah, blah, blah.
(0:41:43) Al: Right. But as you as you defeat bosses and you progress in the game, they become more and more ridiculous. There’s, have you come across the cult? There’s a cult in the bank.
(0:41:58) Al: And you come to the bank and once you’ve once you’ve figured out how to enter the cult,
(0:42:03) Al: you can then enter the cult and then the cult members give you different things for defeating a certain number of enemies. And the stuff in the cult is really funny. And just the concept of having this random room in the bank that happens to have a cult in it is very funny. And there’s another one which is like a portal. There’s a portal to hell in this bank.
(0:42:27) Jonnie: No! See, that’s the thing, I feel like I’ve played a decent chunk of the game and I haven’t come across anything that absurdist, which is one of the misses, right?
(0:42:28) Al: Did you know that?
(0:42:30) Al: Did you know there’s a portal to hell?
(0:42:31) Al: I…
(0:42:38) Al: Yeah. So I think part of the problem is those are the lent into the rogue light stuff of that.
(0:42:45) Al: Those are randomized. So as you unlock, the lift can do more and more things,
(0:42:52) Al: and you’re not guaranteed to see any of them in any run. And I think that’s where it
(0:42:58) Al: falls down for me. I think if these rooms all existed in fixed places in the bank that you could go to. I think that would be better.
(0:43:08) Al: Because then, you know, this is…
(0:43:09) Jonnie: yeah or if there was a small a small pool and you kind of like you can still have some element of randomness but not as not as
(0:43:20) Al: Yeah, maybe, maybe. I mean, yeah, I think, I think making it, the advantage of having a fixed place is when you look on the map, you see there’s a bunch of rooms and you’re like, “Oh, I need to unlock that room at some point then, and there’s going to be something in that room.” The problem is that all of these, you don’t know when you’ve seen all these areas, because they’re randomized with the lifts. There’s like some random underwater one as well, I think.
(0:43:41) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s fair.
(0:43:50) Al: And like, yeah, whatever. That absurdist stuff, I think, is very funny still. And yeah, some of the callbacks have been very funny. Some of the callbacks have felt very contrived, and yeah,
(0:44:06) Al: it’s an interesting mix of those things. I think the problem is that if it wasn’t funny at all,
(0:44:13) Al: I would be like, “Oh, it’s one and done. We’re done with this.” But the problem is, I think,
(0:44:18) Al: they can do more of that.
(0:44:20) Al: the same humour and still surprise me. And that’s where I’m like, don’t lean too hard onto the same jokes. Do the more stuff because I know you can do it. And if it needs to be a smaller game, then make it a smaller game. I’m okay with that. If there are going to be fewer characters in each room, that’s fine. Like, because the second, the room you unlock after the first boss is where, like, most of the previous game’s characters are.
(0:44:50) Al: They’re just there. Why? Because their previous place doesn’t work and it’s like, “OK, you destroyed their previous place by killing Turnip God. OK, fine, sure. That’s mildly amusing.”
(0:45:02) Al: Why are they in the bank? That seems contrived to me. That’s not even absurdist humour. That’s just contrived just so you can get these characters there.
(0:45:14) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that’s fair in life because they do explain the reason for it and even the reason is like that feels like contrite reasoning.
(0:45:26) Al: So, yeah, I think I don’t think any of that would have saved it for you.
(0:45:34) Jonnie: No, I don’t think so
(0:45:35) Al: I think it would have made me have more fun with it.
(0:45:41) Al: But overall, I still enjoyed it.
(0:45:42) Al: Would I have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t a roguelite and it was more like the previous game?
(0:45:47) Al: Probably.
(0:45:50) Al: But they did manage to make a roguelite that I like,
(0:45:53) Al: which is a very rare thing.
(0:45:56) Jonnie: Yeah, I mean, that’s a…
(0:46:00) Jonnie: Honestly, I’m shocked that you like it, because when I started it, it was a rogue life.
(0:46:04) Jonnie: And I was like, “Oh, I was expecting just the same as the previous game, but with guns as weapons now.”
(0:46:12) Jonnie: I was like, “Well, Al’s gonna hate this, so we’re just gonna come out here and rage about this game for 40 minutes.”
(0:46:12) Al: I mean, I do have more complaints. I can bring up more complaints if you want. So there are more weapons in this game than you can actually get in your base, right? So the way it works is like you’ve got your base and you go out to the bank, you do a run, you come back and you’ve got upgrades and, you know, your usual roguelite loop. The problem is…
(0:46:21) Jonnie: Oh.
(0:46:42) Al: that when you go out into the bank, there are quite a wide variety of different weapons that the guys that are making new weapons back at your base, say, are rudimentary, which a lot of them are. But some of them are better in ways that I find frustrating. The chainsaw is an incredible weapon that you unlock later on. But there’s other ones… there’s very, very few…
(0:47:12) Al: I think there’s only… there is only one melee weapon that you can actually get from your base,
(0:47:17) Al: which is very frustrating to me because I much prefer melee to guns because I’m not very good at aiming. Yes, yes, it’s very difficult. So I would have liked to have had more melee weapons that you can unlock. Melee, melee, melee!
(0:47:26) Jonnie: And aiming in this game is bloody annoying.
(0:47:40) Jonnie: Well, hey.
(0:47:42) Jonnie: Yeah.
(0:47:42) Al: Melee, melee… anyway, whatever you know what I mean. I don’t want to hear about my pronunciation,
(0:47:44) Jonnie: Uh…
(0:47:46) Jonnie: Ah.
(0:47:46) Jonnie: Bye.
(0:47:47) Al: please don’t tell me about my pronunciation, thank you listeners. I would have liked more of that because I don’t know whether it’s just something I’ve missed, but there’s almost no
(0:47:56) Al: melee weapons that you can unlock, which I found a bit frustrating.
(0:48:02) Al: So that’s my big thing. There’s no way to like… when you find something in the bank, there’s no No way to get it, except just picking it up.
(0:48:10) Al: And if you die with it, that’s it.
(0:48:12) Al: You’ve lost it.
(0:48:13) Al: It’d be nice if you could recreate those things,
(0:48:16) Al: because some of them are really nice weapons.
(0:48:18) Al: I really like them.
(0:48:19) Al: And this probably leans into the like,
(0:48:21) Al: oh, well, that’s how roguelites work.
(0:48:22) Al: OK, sure, fine.
(0:48:23) Al: But the bits I like about this game are the non-roguelite bits.
(0:48:27) Al: I’ve literally just spent 20 minutes telling you why this game is good, because it doesn’t do roguelite things in the same way that other roguelites do.
(0:48:37) Jonnie: Yeah, I just, yeah, I find this game immensely kind of frustrating, and I think that weapon piece is a good example, where it just kind of feels needlessly difficult, why not just let us unlock all of the weapons at some point, you know, that’s kind of one of those things that’s like, there’s nothing wrong with being able to use all of the weapons, so let us use all the weapons.
(0:48:56) Al: Yeah, maybe not all. There is one you get at the last boss, which is just a ridiculous weapon.
(0:49:11) Al: It’s like four times the size of you. It’s very fun to use. It’s very slow. It actually slows your character down a lot, which is quite interesting. But as lovely video game logic,
(0:49:24) Al: it only slows you down when you’re holding it.
(0:49:26) Al: If you switch the weapons and it’s in your bag, you can run as fast as you normally do, which I just love, but whatever.
(0:49:31) Jonnie: Amazing.
(0:49:32) Jonnie: But see, even that would stand out more if it was the only instance of that, right?
(0:49:37) Al: Yes, yeah, I agree. I think I would keep that one, especially because you can’t–
(0:49:42) Al: although you don’t need to defeat any boss after you’ve defeated them, you can if you want.
(0:49:47) Al: So it would give you a reason to go and do that.
(0:49:50) Al: I would say maybe the four boss weapons, the weapons that the bosses have, those four specifically,
(0:49:56) Al: has a specific weapon, the last one being the most ridiculous.
(0:49:59) Al: But I would understand why those four, if you want that weapon, you have to go defeat the boss in this run.
(0:50:07) Al: It adds an interesting element to that.
(0:50:10) Al: But the problem is that all the other weapons are very random, and it’s hard to know.
(0:50:16) Al: One of them, for example, you get by going through one of the weird lifts into the portal from hell,
(0:50:24) Al: hell and you get up.
(0:50:26) Al: a scythe that you can if you kill somebody with the scythe you can harvest their soul and then those souls are the second currency with which you can use to buy things.
(0:50:38) Al: And.
(0:50:39) Jonnie: Okay, that sounds amazing.
(0:50:41) Al: It is very fun. It is very fun. There’s actually second weapon in this way there as well.
(0:50:47) Al: But it’s it’s a gun. It’s a it’s a record like a vinyl record gun.
(0:50:54) Al: Mmm.
(0:50:58) Al: Which is very funny, but also the way that it works is very different because it’s records and not bullets.
(0:51:05) Al: They bounce off walls, which means you can, if it goes through somebody and then hits a wall and then comes back and hits them,
(0:51:13) Al: so if they don’t die in the first one, they die in the second one.
(0:51:17) Al: I think this is the thing, there’s lots of really fun and creative ideas in the weapons, even if they’re not the best combat system.
(0:51:27) Al: But you were never going to see those because you don’t have the enthusiasm for the type of game and so you miss out on that fun, which is disappointing.
(0:51:36) Jonnie: Yeah and some of it I think speaks to the onboarding right because like even like fundamentally the premise of the game being that you’re robbing a bank and there’s like a huge cutscene that follows on from you know turn a boy commits tax evasion and where that game ended but ultimately it’s kind of like the but why yeah like there isn’t really a compelling reason for why you are even robbing the bank which I find like it’s just one of the things frustrating I did have a question how do you feel about the timer?
(0:52:07) Al: So I don’t hate the timer and that’s because it is not a hard timer. So the way the timer works is once the timer hits the police come, but you it makes it makes everything harder because there’s more enemies, but you can still do everything. So you can infinitely do a run as long as you’re not dying. And I actually really like that way of doing it.
(0:52:37) Al: Where they’re trying to force you to be quick about things, but if you’re like ‘oh I can just grab that one last thing’ and it means that the timer is going to run out, you don’t die, you just have to fight your way out. I quite like that. For what they’re doing,
(0:52:54) Al: for everything that they’re doing, I think it works thematically and mechanically well with what they wanted to do. Is that fair?
(0:53:02) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that’s fair. And for me, it’s another aspect of like, I just don’t like feeling time pressure in games, something that I fundamentally do not enjoy.
(0:53:12) Jonnie: And when the combat is bad, and I would prefer a slower approach to it, like, I get why they did it because they’re wanting to put that sort of heist style pressure on.
(0:53:26) Jonnie: And it’s kind of one of those ways that they can do to force you to do multiple runs, right, without the timer.
(0:53:32) Jonnie: I think the game would be significantly different, and not necessarily better. I just don’t want a timer.
(0:53:42) Al: Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree with you generally. I don’t like timers in games, but I can’t explain why, but I really like this game. I’m going to finish the game. I’m going to do that. I don’t normally, I don’t often do that with games that we talk about. If I’ve not finished it by the time we podcast and it’s not like
(0:53:42) Jonnie: But I think it probably fundamentally speaks to that I just want this game to be a different game.
(0:54:12) Al: one of my favourite games of all time, I’m probably going to stop at that point. But I can’t stop this. I need to finish this game. I’m so close to the end and I think I’m very close to 100% completion because I’ve unlocked everything in the dark web and I’ve unlocked all of the… or what are they called? Yeah, it’s like there’s the… yes, but there’s the word for it.
(0:54:16) Jonnie: Oh, and you’re so close to the end.
(0:54:32) Jonnie: Oh, the power-ups? What are they called?
(0:54:36) Jonnie: The performance enhancers.
(0:54:41) Jonnie: I thought they called it the performance enhancers.
(0:54:42) Al: Oh, maybe they do. Just call it that. The steroids.
(0:54:44) Jonnie: Because it’s the macho onion who’s effectively selling you steroids.
(0:54:50) Al: But one of them is called steroids, so yeah, maybe it is just overall. They’re called performance enhancers.
(0:54:56) Al: RoboRides. That’s what he’s calling them. Or performance enhancers. He calls them both.
(0:55:06) Al: Anyway, so yeah, I’ve unlocked all of them. I don’t think I’ve unlocked all of the weapons.
(0:55:12) Al: But I suspect I’m close because I’ve got live. I’m at level eight. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s 10 levels. So I will. I could easily get that done, I think, after I finish the game.
(0:55:29) Al: So I suspect I’m pretty close to full completion. It’s hard to know because there is a
(0:55:34) Al: there is a statistics thing, a progress that tells you, and I’m at 74% there. But I suspect most of it is pretty small.
(0:55:42) Al: stuff after I’ve finished the game.
(0:55:45) Jonnie: Yeah, and I mean like, you know, the Turnipoid games are never that big.
(0:55:50) Jonnie: You know, they’re just…
(0:55:51) Al: Oh, I have one more one more issue.
(0:55:53) Al: I have one more issue.
(0:55:54) Al: The task list is bugged, so you can’t scroll down the task list.
(0:55:57) Al: You can only see the top task list task on the task list.
(0:56:00) Jonnie: Oh, interesting. I don’t know that I’d look to the task.
(0:56:01) Al: It’s very annoying.
(0:56:05) Al: Yeah, so I know I have more tasks to do.
(0:56:07) Al: I just don’t know what they are until I’ve done the top one.
(0:56:10) Al: And the top one is the top one is the current.
(0:56:14) Al: Well, OK, I’m going to presume you’re happy with me going full spoilers.
(0:56:18) Jonnie: Yep, let’s do it.
(0:56:21) Al: So the task I have on my task list is steal the bank.
(0:56:27) Al: So
(0:56:29) Al: so once you’ve done all of the bosses,
(0:56:32) Al: you for some reason, I can’t remember exactly why you decide that you’re going
(0:56:37) Al: to take the bank into space and so you have to go around and defeat each of the bosses again and when you defeated the boss, you put a rocket booster where they were because you have to put it in this.
(0:56:49) Al: They’re like, oh, you have to put it in the four corners.
(0:56:51) Al: It has to be right in the middle of the room.
(0:56:53) Jonnie: Right.
(0:56:53) Al: And you’re like, oh, funny that that’s where the bosses are.
(0:56:55) Jonnie: Yup.
(0:56:58) Al: So you have to do all the bosses.
(0:56:59) Al: And by this point, it’s actually not too difficult to defeat all the bosses at this
(0:57:03) Al: point, because what I’ve been doing is like go defeat the final boss, get that
(0:57:07) Al: stupid weapon that they have, and then everything else.
(0:57:10) Al: That plus the chainsaw is you can kill them all really easily.
(0:57:14) Al: Like the apple, the toffee apple that you’ve been you did once.
(0:57:20) Al: I like I.
(0:57:21) Al: I just need to avoid it for a few seconds.
(0:57:23) Al: It thumps to the ground.
(0:57:24) Al: I go on the chainsaw on it for 10 seconds and it’s dead.
(0:57:27) Al: So it’s like they’ve they’ve really got the power level enjoyment thing at this point, right, where you’re like, I feel so powerful now because this was really
(0:57:35) Al: difficult to get to and now I can completely destroy it.
(0:57:39) Al: But yeah, so you go around, you put the four rocket boosters on and then you
(0:57:43) Al: shoot up into space and I’ve done that.
(0:57:45) Al: But then when you’re in space, the aliens come, of course,
(0:57:49) Al: because apparently they–
(0:57:51) Al: because they know that you defeated Turnip God, and therefore they need to take you down.
(0:57:58) Al: And so they come and they try and take you down, and then that’s when you need to go and turn off all of the boosters and try and land on the moon, I think, was what they were saying.
(0:58:08) Al: So then you have to run between the four boosters to turn them all off.
(0:58:12) Al: But the problem is that the bank is half destroyed because you literally just tried to take it off–
(0:58:18) Al: You tried to launch it from the Earth, so it’s half destroyed
(0:58:21) Al: So you have to figure out the right way to get between all four of them and the alien that’s trying to kill you is very powerful
(0:58:29) Al: That sounds mad when you explain it
(0:58:31) Jonnie: That sounds like Turnip Boy.
(0:58:34) Al: Yeah, I think that’s the thing is like the more if you can get past or if you enjoy the story
(0:58:43) Al: They’re not the story the gameplay. I think the story is still very fun and
(0:58:48) Al: and still very Turnip Boy and most of the stuff
(0:58:51) Al: that has felt flat or made me roll my eyes has been like a few of the small one-off comments the overall story I think is stupid is very stupid which is what we want don’t think i would be complaining if it wasn’t a if their next game wasn’t a roguelite though
(0:59:10) Jonnie: Cool.
(0:59:10) Al: anything else we need to talk about with this game
(0:59:12) Jonnie: What- what- one more thing.
(0:59:14) Jonnie: If you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?
(0:59:22) Al: “I hate these questions because I never know how to answer them. I always think too literally on them, like, what would be the point of being a vegetable? I wouldn’t want to be a vegetable because they’re not sentient and you’re likely just going to be eaten by someone.”
(0:59:32) Jonnie: Great.
(0:59:40) Jonnie: We- we just play- we just talked about a game where it’s all sentient vegetables, Al.
(0:59:40) Al: Yep, okay, so are we talking about in the Turnip Boy universe then? Well, I would be We Turnip Boy because he’s clearly the most powerful being.
(0:59:46) Jonnie: Oh, I just- if you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?
(0:59:50) Jonnie: No, he’s- he’s- he’s- so would you be a turnip? Is that- is that your-
(0:59:52) Al: In what situation are you asking? Like where? Why am I a vegetable?
(0:59:58) Jonnie: No, that’s not- that’s not a- that’s not an answer.
(1:00:06) Jonnie: look the rest is the question is
(1:00:10) Jonnie: you’re a vegetable what vegetable would you pick good no answer it
(1:00:10) Al: I disagree with the premise of the question.
(1:00:19) Al: Look, if listeners didn’t already think I was artistically, definitely do now.
(1:00:30) Al: What about you, Johnny?
(1:00:31) Al: What vegetable would you be?
(1:00:33) Jonnie: I would be broccoli
(1:00:37) Jonnie: Um, I don’t know, I just I just
(1:00:40) Jonnie: know that I would be broccoli.
(1:00:42) Al: I understand less now. I don’t. I don’t understand. How do you just know? What does it mean to know what vegetable you want to be? Well, a feeling I get when you ask me that question is fear and panic.
(1:00:53) Jonnie: It’s just a feeling you get inside when you think about what vegetable you would be.
(1:01:03) Jonnie: Look, I think you would be a tomato, so we’ll go with that.
(1:01:06) Jonnie: And maybe if listeners wanted to tell you what sort of vegetable they think you are,
(1:01:13) Jonnie: where could they do that?
(1:01:18) Al: thrown me off here. If you want to cause me more pain and anguish you can do that by by finding me on mastodon.scot and twitter I am @thescotbot. Johnny doesn’t care about the internet.
(1:01:38) Al: You can find the podcast on tumblr and twitter @thspod. You can also find all of the links to
(1:01:48) Al: the podcast at our website harvestseason.club where we also have a feedback farm so if you want to give us feedback but you don’t want to do it on social media that’s where you can do it.
(1:01:59) Al: That will come straight to us and I mean if you send us feedback we’ll probably read it out.
(1:02:04) Jonnie: particularly if it’s about vegetables.
(1:02:07) Al: Less likely. You can also find the link to our patreon on the website patreon.com/thspod where you can support the podcast.
(1:02:18) Al: I think that’s everything. Thank you, Johnny, for being with me and talking about this game that you hate.
(1:02:46) Jonnie: Look, I was going to play it anyway, right? So it’s always fun to talk about it and share opinions, so…
(1:02:48) Al: » That’s true.
(1:02:52) Jonnie: Yeah, I’m pleased that I got to play, and to be honest, I played a little bit more of it than I would have otherwise, and…
(1:02:58) Jonnie: You know, I had a decent time with the game, it’s just not for me, so…
(1:03:02) Jonnie: It’s fun to learn, and it’s fun to hear a little bit more about how the game gets later on, so…
(1:03:06) Jonnie: It’s been fun for me.
(1:03:10) Al: Fair enough. Thank you listeners for listening and until next time, have a good harvest.
(1:03:16) Jonnie: Have a good harvest!
(1:03:18) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinlay, with support from our patrons, including our pro farmers Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(1:03:33) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(1:03:38) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website harvestseason.club for show notes and links to things we discussed in this episode.
(1:03:54) Jonnie: So, you can totally blame Steve for that question because while I was sort of like getting my stuff set up, I was like, oh my god, I thought of that question. I was like, “Al’s gonna hate that question. I cannot wait to ask him what vegetable he thinks he is.”
(1:04:12) Jonnie: So the delay is entirely to blame.
(1:04:14) Al: Thank you, Johnny.

The Harvest Season

What Vegetable Are You

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