Eating A Sandwich In A Spiral
Wed, May 10, 2023 Year 2, Spring 19Al and Jonnie talk about Florence
Timings
00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:01:36: What Have We Been Up To
00:14:03: News
00:27:36: Florence
00:34:36: Spoiler Zone
01:01:00: Outro
Links
Sun Haven DLCs
Farming Simulator 23 Gameplay Trailer
Farming Simulator 20 on Apple Arcade
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life Localisation Blog
Contact
Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot
Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot
Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/
Transcript
[00:00.000 –> 00:29.000] G
[00:31.000 –> 00:35.000] Hello farmers and welcome to another episode of The Harvest Season.
[00:35.000 –> 00:37.000] My name is Al.
[00:37.000 –> 00:38.000] And my name is Johnny.
[00:38.000 –> 00:42.000] And we’re here today to talk about Cottagecore Games.
[00:42.000 –> 00:46.000] Hello Johnny, how are you?
[00:46.000 –> 00:50.000] I’m good. I’m tired. I’ve been doing some big hours at work.
[00:50.000 –> 00:53.000] So I’m pleased with the game that we’ve got to talk about today.
[00:53.000 –> 00:55.000] It was not a huge time suck.
[00:56.000 –> 00:57.000] Yeah, yeah.
[00:57.000 –> 01:03.000] So just before we get into that, let you know transcripts are available in the show notes and on the website.
[01:03.000 –> 01:05.000] So if you need them, go for that.
[01:05.000 –> 01:12.000] Yeah, so today we’re going to talk about Florence, which is a very short game.
[01:12.000 –> 01:17.000] It’s so short that I hadn’t actually played it before today.
[01:17.000 –> 01:21.000] So I was like, oh, and I finished it.
[01:21.000 –> 01:24.000] So I was like, oh yeah, I should probably actually play that game.
[01:24.000 –> 01:28.000] I knew it was going to be this short, so that’s why I didn’t play it before today.
[01:28.000 –> 01:31.000] But I was like, I really ought to actually play it.
[01:31.000 –> 01:35.000] But yeah, so it’s all good.
[01:35.000 –> 01:38.000] Before that, we’re going to have some news.
[01:38.000 –> 01:40.000] But first of all, Johnny, what have you been up to?
[01:40.000 –> 01:42.000] What have I been up to?
[01:42.000 –> 01:46.000] As usual, when I’m on the podcast, there’s got to be a little bit of Marvel Snap Talk.
[01:46.000 –> 01:50.000] And I’m just really into the game right now.
[01:50.000 –> 01:53.000] I’m not playing it a lot like I was when I first started.
[01:53.000 –> 01:59.000] But it’s kind of just become a really nice game that I’ll play when I’m on the bus or have a few minutes to do.
[01:59.000 –> 02:03.000] I’ll just jam a game and I feel like it’s in a really good space.
[02:03.000 –> 02:10.000] The monetization is terrible, but that’s actually great because it means I don’t spend money on the game and it’s just a lot of fun.
[02:10.000 –> 02:18.000] Yeah, I’ve still not paid any money, spent any money on the game, but I have been playing on and off.
[02:18.000 –> 02:23.000] I think I didn’t. I basically didn’t play last. Was it last? Not last season. The season before last.
[02:23.000 –> 02:26.000] What was that one? The Modoc one?
[02:26.000 –> 02:27.000] Oh, yeah.
[02:27.000 –> 02:30.000] I think I basically didn’t play the Modoc season.
[02:30.000 –> 02:36.000] And then I got back into it like halfway through last season and just like plunged through everything.
[02:36.000 –> 02:40.000] And I’ve not done a huge amount this season, but I’ve done a wee bit.
[02:40.000 –> 02:52.000] So I’m hoping to try and get into sort of like a rhythm of casualness rather than like either not playing at all or playing it every free second of every free day, which is what I seem to be doing just now.
[02:52.000 –> 02:57.000] Yeah, it can be a little bit like that where you’re just like, oh, I’ve just got two minutes.
[02:57.000 –> 03:20.000] I can probably I could probably fit a game in it. It’s like, oh, this, you know, you need like five for a game, but it just does such a good job of compressing those card game mechanics from, you know, whether it’s Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone or whatever, that sort of feeling into such a small timeframe that it really, you know, it’s a satisfying game to play.
[03:20.000 –> 03:27.000] I think because it’s only introducing a few cards every season, it doesn’t feel like the game completely changes when you pick it back up again.
[03:27.000 –> 03:34.000] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there’s some good consistency to it, which I think is awesome.
[03:34.000 –> 03:35.000] Yeah.
[03:35.000 –> 03:48.000] And other than Marvel Snap, I haven’t really been playing anything, but there’s a new show out on Apple TV called Silo, which is based on the Wool series of books. I don’t know if you’ve ever read those books, Al.
[03:48.000 –> 03:49.000] I have not.
[03:49.000 –> 03:57.000] Generally, if you wonder whether I’ve read a book, the answer is almost certainly no.
[03:57.000 –> 04:06.000] Well, it is it is one of my favorite book series and the premise that it’s about people who are living in a silo underground.
[04:06.000 –> 04:21.000] And it’s the first episode was one of those episodes where I felt like it was a really great reflection of what I was imagining when I read the books, like it felt like a really true to the book translation.
[04:21.000 –> 04:23.000] And it’s been a few years since I’ve read the books.
[04:23.000 –> 04:31.000] I’m sure there’s some things that just, you know, that they have changed that, you know, weren’t important or I don’t remember.
[04:31.000 –> 04:46.000] But for a first episode of a show, I was just blown away by how how true it seemed to the source material, because I know that a lot of shows recently, you know, sometimes for the conceits of TV have to change things quite substantially.
[04:46.000 –> 04:50.000] But it was really nice for a series that I liked to have such a strong start.
[04:50.000 –> 04:55.000] That’s cool. Yeah, that shows on my list, but a lot of things are on my list.
[04:55.000 –> 05:03.000] I would highly recommend on the basis of the one episode and what I know of the story. It’s a very compelling story. Really, really write it.
[05:03.000 –> 05:17.000] Fair enough. Well, I’ve still got, I think, about a month and a half on my Apple TV plus free trial, my net current free trial.
[05:17.000 –> 05:21.000] So, yeah, that’s that’s really what I’ve been up to. What have you been playing?
[05:21.000 –> 05:40.000] Yeah. So interestingly, so normally when I cover a game for the podcast, I’ll like put the game down after the podcast, because I end up just being so engrossed in it for so long or like either for so long or so intently for such a short period of time that I kind of burn out on it.
[05:40.000 –> 05:48.000] But I actually picked Coral Island back up again for a couple of days after recording the last podcast.
[05:48.000 –> 05:57.000] I have now put it down, but I just felt like I’ve wanted to finish a few things before I put it down, which is, I guess, the mark of a good game if I actually want to continue playing it.
[05:57.000 –> 06:13.000] Yeah. And listening to to last week’s episode on Coral Island, it was I feel like, you know, this is the year where I was really down about statue clones and with all of the ones that we’ve sort of covered, I’m actually getting really excited about all of these and want to start getting into some of them.
[06:13.000 –> 06:14.000] Oh, no mistake.
[06:14.000 –> 06:17.000] I know. I know.
[06:17.000 –> 06:29.000] Yeah. I mean, I will. It will be interesting to see what I end up choosing at the end of the year is my my game of the year, because I mean, at this point, I just I just don’t know what it’s going to be because there’s so much.
[06:29.000 –> 06:39.000] There is a lot this year. And I think one of the things that’s probably going to determine it for me over the course of the year is what’s actually in 1.0 versus.
[06:39.000 –> 06:40.000] Yeah.
[06:40.000 –> 06:41.000] You know, still in early access.
[06:41.000 –> 06:54.000] Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. Yeah, I guess there’s this it’s hard. It’s not that we haven’t done it, obviously, but it’s hard to convince yourself to choose an early access as a game of the year.
[06:54.000 –> 07:05.000] And if if the 1.0 isn’t like doesn’t feel bigger than the early access significantly, then also like can struggle to hit that point.
[07:05.000 –> 07:07.000] I don’t think I really explained what I was thinking properly there.
[07:07.000 –> 07:20.000] No, no, I get what you mean. Right. It’s like sometimes particularly I think in farming games, because it’s probably one of the more niche communities in gaming that a lot of people get in on early access.
[07:20.000 –> 07:26.000] So, yes, that’s when a lot of the hype cycle, you know, the traditional release hype cycle for these games sort of takes off.
[07:26.000 –> 07:53.000] And, you know, I think over the last few years, I’ve seen 1.0 releases not be not feel that big, right? They don’t feel like traditional game releases that tends to feel more like when early access opens up, which I think is, you know, something that that, you know, developers need to consider about these games and whether or not that potentially limits the overall upside and, you know, players that they can attract with these games.
[07:53.000 –> 08:04.000] Yeah, it’s definitely difficult. I think the one exception I can think of that actually did manage to do that on both early access and 1.0 was Ooblets.
[08:04.000 –> 08:18.000] Like, I felt like when the early access was first released and when the 1.0 came out, there was quite a big hype cycle around it, which is interesting, because, yeah, that that rare to happen, you know, no matter what you think about the game personally, you know, that like that.
[08:19.000 –> 08:20.000] No, I agree.
[08:20.000 –> 08:28.000] Was interesting to see happen. And I wonder, it’s hard to know, right, but I wonder how much of it was the same people and how much of it was new people.
[08:28.000 –> 08:38.000] Yeah, I’m willing to bet with a game like that, it was a lot of new people because I, you know, personal feelings of the game aside, I think that was a game that, you know, really got that right.
[08:38.000 –> 08:50.000] You know, and I look at some of the more recent releases, one which we’ll talk about in the news cycle that I think have really sort of failed to do that despite looking like really strong games.
[08:50.000 –> 08:57.000] Yeah. Also, it does probably help the Ooblets. I think the Switch version came out with 1.0 relevant afterwards.
[08:58.000 –> 09:12.000] And that can massively help because even with the Steam Deck coming out recently, like the Switch hype is still there, like people still want to on Switch because, you know, most people can’t afford a Steam Deck as well as a Switch and they already have their Switches.
[09:12.000 –> 09:15.000] So, you know, that’s what they want their games on.
[09:15.000 –> 09:32.000] Absolutely. But I think we’ll all be, you know, relieved from the game of the year debate this year because we’ve got Mika and the Witch’s Mountain coming out and we all know that that’s a strong contender, even though none of us have played it.
[09:32.000 –> 09:36.000] No, no, don’t put that into the universe, Al.
[09:37.000 –> 09:48.000] Well, this is the thing, right? You know that something’s going to be delayed to next year because we still have 40 games that are currently scheduled to release this year and there’s no way they all do, right?
[09:48.000 –> 09:50.000] Definitely not.
[09:50.000 –> 10:02.000] Yeah. Well, I mean, interesting. We’re not far off halfway through the year, just a month and a half to go until we’re halfway through the year. So, you know, be interesting to take stock at that point.
[10:03.000 –> 10:13.000] Oh, yes. I never finished talking about what I was up to. So, also, obviously, I played Florence today and, as mentioned, I’ve been doing a bit of Marvel Snap.
[10:13.000 –> 10:20.000] But, you know, what’s also interesting is I have also been playing quite a significant amount of Fall Guys. Remember that game?
[10:20.000 –> 10:28.000] I do remember this game. I played it when it first came out and I sort of ducked back in at some point last year. I’m really curious, like…
[10:28.000 –> 10:31.000] Was it the Switch release when you got back in the second time?
[10:31.000 –> 10:36.000] Yeah, it was around the Switch release because I think that was sort of, you know, a few people were sort of jumping back in.
[10:36.000 –> 10:39.000] That’s when it became free to play.
[10:39.000 –> 10:44.000] Right, right. So, what do you think? Are you enjoying Fall Guys?
[10:44.000 –> 10:56.000] Yeah, I mean, I’ve kind of been playing it on and off and I think I only play it as much as I do because my four-year-old is obsessed with it and all he wants to do just now is watch me play it.
[10:56.000 –> 11:05.000] He doesn’t play it himself. He just loves to watch me play it. So, he’ll be like, oh, can we play Fall Guys while we’re eating tea or whatever.
[11:05.000 –> 11:12.000] He’ll just be constantly wanting to play Fall Guys. So, yeah, that tends to be when I play it.
[11:12.000 –> 11:17.000] And, like, if I play it with him, I’ll then, once he goes to bed, I’ll play it a little bit more. It encourages me to go.
[11:17.000 –> 11:22.000] Like, I do enjoy the game. It is good fun. It certainly helps that I’m not too bad at it either.
[11:22.000 –> 11:27.000] Like, I’m not constantly winning, but I am constantly getting into finals and coming second and third.
[11:27.000 –> 11:32.000] So, that kind of helps when you’re, like, almost winning. It’s like, I can almost get there.
[11:32.000 –> 11:34.000] Just one more. Just one more.
[11:34.000 –> 11:41.000] Exactly. So, no, I still enjoy it. I still really enjoy it. And it has enough people playing that you get into games pretty quickly.
[11:41.000 –> 11:50.000] Yeah, because that was going to be my next question is, are enough people playing for it to still be ticking over?
[11:50.000 –> 11:57.000] And right now I am seven levels away from reaching level 100 on the season pass, the current season pass.
[11:57.000 –> 12:05.000] So, I am probably going to grind to get to that point because I’ve never hit a level 100 on the season pass.
[12:05.000 –> 12:13.000] It does help that they extended the season by four weeks because they delayed the next season. So, that helps.
[12:13.000 –> 12:15.000] But, you know.
[12:15.000 –> 12:16.000] Definitely does.
[12:16.000 –> 12:21.000] Does your four-year-old dress your little bean man?
[12:21.000 –> 12:33.000] So, he wants the guy to be in a duck costume. So, he decided on that, like, eight months ago and hasn’t let me change him since.
[12:33.000 –> 12:44.000] Which, I don’t know. It might be, if I do hit level 100 on the season pass, I may have to pay for the season pass and get the SpongeBob costume.
[12:44.000 –> 12:47.000] And I think he might want it to be dressed as SpongeBob if I do that.
[12:47.000 –> 12:49.000] That is entirely reasonable.
[12:49.000 –> 12:56.000] I’m not promising anything to him yet, right? Because I do not want to get into the situation where I fail to get the season pass and he’s disappointed.
[12:56.000 –> 12:59.000] But, we’ll see where we go with that.
[12:59.000 –> 13:07.000] Cool. That sounds awesome. Maybe I have to get in and try a few more games of Fall Guys because it is fun, right? Like, it’s just good, dumb, sort of silly fun.
[13:07.000 –> 13:14.000] Yeah, yeah. As far as, like, you know, free-to-play games, it’s kind of the most obvious what you need to do.
[13:14.000 –> 13:26.000] And they’re very good at updating it regularly. The new seasons have a bunch of new maps and there’s constantly, like, new costumes and stuff that obviously you have to pay money for.
[13:26.000 –> 13:32.000] Like, it’s an absolute money sink if you’re not careful. But, I haven’t spent any money on it yet.
[13:32.000 –> 13:38.000] And again, it’s the good sort of monetization, right? Where it’s all cosmetic and none of it actually helps you play the game better.
[13:38.000 –> 13:49.000] Exactly, exactly. So, it’s good fun. They do, like, different shows and stuff so you can go, oh, this is the, like, they do, like, an extreme one where instead of, like, respawning you just get eliminated.
[13:49.000 –> 13:57.000] And if you, but, like, there’s higher rewards for that one and stuff like that. So, there’s always stuff to do if you want to play.
[13:57.000 –> 14:03.000] If you have, like, one free-to-play game that you’re going to be playing, like, it’s not a bad one to choose.
[14:03.000 –> 14:04.000] Yeah, absolutely.
[14:04.000 –> 14:06.000] Alright, should we talk about some news?
[14:06.000 –> 14:08.000] Let’s do it.
[14:08.000 –> 14:25.000] So, I presume this is what you were talking about. Sunhaven, they have announced some DLCs, which is an interesting choice to announce some stuff that you’re going to let people buy when the Switch version still isn’t out. But, there we go.
[14:25.000 –> 14:37.000] That was my immediate reaction is, I guess I’m just a little bit confused with what the Sunhaven, I hesitate to say devs, but the wider company structure is doing.
[14:37.000 –> 14:49.000] Because they released Sunhaven, like, a week after they announced a second game and they still have on their website that the Switch release was supposed to come at the same time as they went to 1.0.
[14:50.000 –> 15:02.000] And we are now probably a month or two past that date. There seems to be no info on a Switch update. The DLCs are small from what I can see. It looks like just a couple of cosmetic packs.
[15:02.000 –> 15:11.000] Yeah, it’s still not good. I mean, it’s the same thing we were talking about. I think it was you that was on the episode where we were talking about the other game, the Sundown that they made.
[15:11.000 –> 15:29.000] Where it’s like, it’s not like we can understand why you would do this. It’s not the same people working on the two things. But it is a bad look. Like, you’re still going, hey, buy more stuff, even though the stuff that we’ve already sold you, you can’t get yet. You know, it just doesn’t feel great.
[15:29.000 –> 15:41.000] No, absolutely. Yeah. And I was on that episode. And, you know, I really like the look of Sunhaven when it first came out, because I couldn’t get it because Switch hadn’t released.
[15:41.000 –> 15:57.000] You know, I was watching a few people play it and it looked like the sort of game that I wanted to get into. But I increasingly find myself not wanting to play games because of the way the wider communication strategy seems to be operating.
[15:57.000 –> 16:12.000] And that’s something I find across the board, you know, that really annoys me is when, you know, I don’t mind if the Switch is going to be delayed, but when it’s not clearly communicated and I was getting excited because Sunhaven was coming up and it looked cool.
[16:12.000 –> 16:21.000] And then to kind of be a month and a half past and there’s not even an idea of when I can play it, it’s just kind of like, well, there’s so many other games, I’m just going to go play one of those.
[16:21.000 –> 16:37.000] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. I don’t like I will probably play well, I will almost certainly play this game at some point. But yeah, it is difficult, especially like the Switch port was like the late so I’m just double checking there.
[16:37.000 –> 16:52.000] They never officially said like, oh, Switch port is no longer coming with 1.0. In the announcement of the 1.0 date, they said they had a coming soon list, essentially the roadmap and at the top was the Nintendo Switch port.
[16:52.000 –> 17:04.000] And so you’re like, oh, okay, right, fine. But like, that’s, that’s literally the last thing I can see that we’ve been told about it. And there’s a bunch of stuff underneath it that has been that has already come out now.
[17:04.000 –> 17:16.000] You know, including the DLCs there that the 1.0 1.1 update that includes most of the stuff that’s in that list. Like, Switch is basically the only thing in that list that hasn’t happened yet.
[17:16.000 –> 17:28.000] We haven’t had any indication as to where or when it’s happening. They haven’t even said, Hey, Luke, something’s come up. It’s taking longer. They’ve just said it’s coming. And everything else they said is coming is come, basically.
[17:28.000 –> 17:52.000] Yeah, so it’s, it’s a little concerning at this point that there’s just no communication on it, right? It could be things like, you know, I know a few game developers, and I know that releasing things on Switch seems to be harder than other platforms, because of some of, you know, Nintendo’s controls. But even just an announcement to say it’s delayed would be would be better than nothing.
[17:53.000 –> 18:15.000] Yeah, yeah, literally, you just need to say, it is still coming. Here’s the issues we’re having. And like, I think that Concerned Ape was always really good to this with Stardew, like the 1.5 update for mobile came out age, like a year after all the other updates. But he was constantly saying, like, I’m really sorry, this is, this is still coming, we are working on it.
[18:15.000 –> 18:28.000] You know, every month or so he was like, just is coming, I promise. It’s just taking time, these things happen. And people are willing to accept that when they when they know that you when you when you communicate, they’re willing to accept that these things happen, you know?
[18:28.000 –> 18:57.000] Yeah, absolutely. And maybe just to talk about the actual DLC of that, because I think I went straight into my wider rant on Sun Haven. So it looks like in the DLC packs, there’s there’s two or no, four DLC packs that they’ve got. So one for two for pets, and two for mounts, it looks like any sort of a theme, one being more spooky, and the other being more cute from the looks of things.
[18:58.000 –> 19:12.000] Um, and I guess also, if you are still interested in Sun Haven on via steam, it’s 20% off until actually, it’s 20% off until today. So if you’re listening to this, it is no longer 20%.
[19:12.000 –> 19:31.000] Yeah, yes. Yeah, all the DLC is already out. And they’re basically a fiver each to presumably similar sort of pricing in different places. So yeah, I’m not gonna buy the DLC, because I don’t have the game yet.
[19:32.000 –> 19:44.000] We’ll be interested to see when we get it if we get the 1.1 update when we get the the 1.0 release on switch or whether we have to wait for the 1.1 update on switch. We’ll see.
[19:44.000 –> 20:00.000] We will. And I’m going to take this next news item because I feel like every time I’m on the show, there is some small part of farming simulator news. And so we’ve got a gameplay trailer for farming simulator 23. And let me tell you, this looks like some farming simulator.
[20:00.000 –> 20:23.000] Yeah, this is the game that like, this is this is the FIFA of the farming world, right? Like it does things in such a like you’re we’re going to release the game every year. And if you really care about the games, you will love the update, you will love the changes that we’ve done. And if you don’t really care about the game, you’ll be like, okay, what’s different here?
[20:23.000 –> 20:52.000] So I was able to pick up on one thing that looked very new from my time with playing farming simulator 22 is it looked like there was some logging or not not quite forestry, but you know, chopping down trees on around the farm and then loading those up that that definitely looked looked new. And one of the things that it got me thinking about, I don’t know if you watched Clark’s video, but I think I watched it.
[20:52.000 –> 20:54.000] You watched Clarkson’s Farm, Al?
[20:55.000 –> 20:57.000] No, no, I did not.
[20:58.000 –> 21:16.000] Jeremy Clarkson is a horrible human being, right? That being said, Clarkson’s Farm is a surprisingly entertaining watch of just, you know, old white dude with no idea what he’s doing tries to run a farm. And it made me wonder because it’s a it’s a wildly popular show.
[21:16.000 –> 21:35.000] It has made me wonder, are the farming simulator devs kind of just looking and watching that show for ideas of what they should be bringing in because that’s sort of what’s at the top of the, you know, people that aren’t on farm sort of mindset because the logging stuff that definitely has happened in on Clarkson’s Farm like the machines were all the same machines.
[21:36.000 –> 21:38.000] Maybe it’s just a standard, I don’t know.
[21:39.000 –> 21:41.000] Yeah, interesting.
[21:43.000 –> 21:44.000] Still not going to play the game.
[21:44.000 –> 21:50.000] I’ve decided though, this is definitely this is a case where this is a farming game, but it’s definitely not a cottagecore game.
[21:51.000 –> 22:04.000] I think that is exactly right. There is nothing cottagecore about it. To me, it’s much closer to a real time strategy game. Not in that it’s, you know, a lot of resource management and those sorts of things.
[22:04.000 –> 22:17.000] But it’s that constant like, I have to go here, do this, pick this thing up, do the next thing, you know, hook this up, like it’s a constant flow of things you just have to be doing.
[22:18.000 –> 22:27.000] And there’s no real time to just pause and sit and enjoy or, you know, chat to villagers or those sorts of things that are really at the heart of the games that we like to cover.
[22:28.000 –> 22:30.000] Yeah, interesting.
[22:30.000 –> 22:34.000] So that’s enough Farming Simulator. Shall we talk about some more? Farming Simulator!
[22:35.000 –> 22:50.000] This is absolutely bizarre to me, right? So this is this is Farming Simulator coming to Apple Arcade. Farming Simulator 20, that is.
[22:50.000 –> 23:11.000] This feels like a constant thing with Farming Simulator because we had that bundle. There was a farming bundle or some bundle. Oh, no, it was a chat. Was it the Ukraine bundle? I think there was a big charity bundle and there was a Farming Simulator in it, but it was Farming Simulator 18.
[23:12.000 –> 23:27.000] You’re like, oh, OK, that’s like a six year old game. Like, so generous of you. OK. Yeah, 20. So 20 was released in 2019. So three and a half year old game.
[23:28.000 –> 23:39.000] Yeah, like watching the trailer for Farming Simulator 20, I was like, if I watched these two trailers more than like 10 minutes apart, I might not be able to tell that they were in fact two different games.
[23:40.000 –> 23:55.000] Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Anyway, now actually moving on from Farming Simulator, Story of Seasons A Wonderful Life, we have the first of their localization blogs. So they’ve done this for the last few games.
[23:56.000 –> 24:08.000] As they’ve been localizing the game, they’ve come out with these blog posts to talk about the challenges and how interesting it is to translate with the different cultural expectations.
[24:09.000 –> 24:23.000] And especially, I think this one seems to be focusing a lot on the names, which is interesting because there’s obviously lots of focus on names. People like to see, oh, this character’s name could be translated in multiple different ways.
[24:23.000 –> 24:30.000] And some of the names were translated differently in this version than they were in the first version of the game.
[24:31.000 –> 24:51.000] So, yeah, I just think this sort of transparency is really cool to see. And I think it’s particularly when you’re remaking a game and they clearly know that people have a lot of affinity for the original translation, but it maybe doesn’t hold true to the vision that they’re trying to create.
[24:51.000 –> 25:09.000] So by getting out ahead of it, it’s, you know, it’s good from a transparency perspective. But for people that feel, you know, would otherwise feel disappointed or sad, it kind of means that hopefully their first experience and actually get to hold the game is not, oh, the character that I like a lot from my first experience has changed massively.
[25:10.000 –> 25:30.000] Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s nice as well, like they’re going into the reasoning behind it. They’re not just like, oh, sorry, we did this. They’re like, this is why we did this. And they actually, they start off by saying, you know, lots of people hold, whereas with many fans having deep attachments to this game, its characters and its world, we felt that it was vital for us to talk about our approach to this localisation.
[25:31.000 –> 25:46.000] So it’s like, they’re aware of why they’re doing it as well. They’re not just doing it because they do it. And it’s, yeah, it’s very detailed on the characters. I think this one’s specifically character based. I haven’t actually read the entirety of it, I’ve kind of just scanned it.
[25:46.000 –> 26:10.000] I’ve read most of it. One thing that I want to call out is that towards the bottom of the blog post, they call out that just a number of character redesigns were necessary after 18 years, there were several designs that did not stand the test of time, which is just undoubtedly going to be true. So it’s good to see again, just being, you know, honest about where games were at from a diversity perspective when this was first released, versus where things were going.
[26:17.000 –> 26:44.000] And updating that, you know, in a way that sort of still respects the original intent of the character, which I think is really important, right? Because for many characters, the original intent is not skin tone or hair colour or any number of those, you know, sort of outward facing features. It’s the personality that they bring. So I just really, you know, impressed with this level of transparency.
[26:44.000 –> 26:50.000] It’s also not just diversity, right? Is this not the game that had like a literal child as a marriage candidate?
[26:50.000 –> 26:52.000] You are potentially correct.
[26:52.000 –> 26:59.000] Because I know there was certainly one that was like that. I feel like it was this one. And I believe they’ve changed that in the in the remake.
[26:59.000 –> 27:08.000] Yeah, so not just to beat up on Sun Haven a little bit more, but this is the sort of communication that I’m looking for that makes me more likely to want to play a game, right?
[27:08.000 –> 27:18.000] You don’t even need to go into this much detail, right? Like this is I think, this is very high above the bar rather than the bar that you need to cross.
[27:18.000 –> 27:19.000] Absolutely.
[27:19.000 –> 27:28.000] But certainly if you do this, we’re not going to complain. Yeah, I’ll have the link to the blog post in the show notes if you want to read it.
[27:28.000 –> 27:36.000] All right, I think that’s all of the news. Pretty light week. That’s okay. These things happen. We’ve blabbered on about other things instead.
[27:36.000 –> 27:39.000] Let’s talk Florence. So I guess…
[27:39.000 –> 27:43.000] I love this game so much, Al.
[27:43.000 –> 27:47.000] How many times have you played this game so far? Is it just the twice?
[27:47.000 –> 28:00.000] No, I think I think I’ve played it four times. So Florence came out, I want to say 2018, maybe originally.
[28:01.000 –> 28:05.000] And I think so I’ve probably played it like once a year since it came out.
[28:05.000 –> 28:06.000] Okay.
[28:06.000 –> 28:14.000] And it came out on iOS. And so, you know, I can just once a year, I probably think about Florence and I download it and I play it and I’m like, that was really satisfying.
[28:14.000 –> 28:23.000] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it does look like it was 2018. And then it came to Mac OS, Windows and Switch in 2020.
[28:23.000 –> 28:30.000] Yeah. And so I guess just talk a little bit about what Florence is. It’s more of an interactive novel than a game, right?
[28:30.000 –> 28:39.000] The gameplay elements are very light touch and ultimately don’t have any real impact on the story that’s being told.
[28:39.000 –> 28:42.000] Yes, there’s no failing.
[28:42.000 –> 28:53.000] Yeah, I guess as a first question, how do you feel about that, you know, sort of that balance between, you know, it’s obviously game like mechanics, but it’s, it’s hard to call it a game.
[28:53.000 –> 28:58.000] So, you know, how do you feel about that as a thing that you interact with?
[28:58.000 –> 29:04.000] I’m going to try really hard not to get into debate about what a game is.
[29:04.000 –> 29:13.000] I mean, so I mean, it’s a storytelling thing. What’s the word I’m looking for? It’s a way of telling a story, right?
[29:13.000 –> 29:22.000] And there are many different ways of telling stories. And it is not, it is not a book. It is not a film. It is not a TV series.
[29:22.000 –> 29:30.000] It is very definitely, if you line them up like that is a game, right? Like, I don’t think you can debate it as being something else.
[29:30.000 –> 29:42.000] Right. I think if we want to differentiate interactive novels or visual novels or whatever from games, then sure, but that feels unnecessary, right?
[29:42.000 –> 29:52.000] Like, if you’re looking for a challenging game, this is not it. If you’re looking for a storytelling experience, there are lots of games that are great storytelling experiences, and this is one of them.
[29:52.000 –> 30:02.000] So if you look in your games for any sort of story, then this is for you. If you’re like, oh, I can’t stand story in games, then this is not for you.
[30:02.000 –> 30:08.000] That’s kind of the key point. But there are many other games that people wouldn’t like if that was the case as well.
[30:08.000 –> 30:14.000] Yeah, I think that’s really well put because it’s, and I think I agree.
[30:15.000 –> 30:30.000] Not fussed on whether or not it’s called a game, but I agree because what I love about it, and I think what I love about games in general is them as storytelling devices, and this is purely a storytelling device.
[30:30.000 –> 30:40.000] This is doing storytelling in ways that nothing else can. And that’s why I think it’s perfectly legitimate to call it a game because that’s what games do. Games tell stories in ways that nothing else can.
[30:40.000 –> 31:01.000] Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that is what makes it right. If you just read the story or scroll through the story because it’s probably more of a visual novel style from that perspective, it would not carry the same weight if you just removed all of the interactive elements.
[31:01.000 –> 31:11.000] Yeah, absolutely. And they use, we’ll get into this later on, but they use it, they use the interactive elements really well in the storytelling as well. They add a lot.
[31:11.000 –> 31:20.000] So I guess I kind of described the mechanics as like WarioWare, but it’s actually telling you a story.
[31:20.000 –> 31:34.000] So like with WarioWare, you’re like, hey, you’ve very quickly got to figure out what you’re meant to do. And it’s like one very small mechanic, and then you move on to the next minigame. It’s kind of like that. Each part of it has like a different way of interacting with the story.
[31:34.000 –> 31:53.000] And initially, it doesn’t necessarily tell you how to do it, although if you wait, it will then give you the indication. But it kind of encourages the exploration of trying to figure out what you’re doing and then giving you hints if you can’t figure that out, which I think is a really interesting way of doing that.
[31:53.000 –> 32:14.000] Yeah, and I think it’s a great way of doing tutorials, not just for games like this, but for games in general, because it encourages that exploration aspect and then gives you the nudge if it seems like you’re not making progress, right? Because it’s always satisfying when you can work things out without help, no matter the sort of game.
[32:14.000 –> 32:39.000] Yeah, yeah. So there’s there’s some which is just like scrolling through and they’ve got kind of panels, kind of comic comic book esque panels. And then there’s other bits where there’s like very small puzzles, like jigsaws and scratch off panels and stuff like that. I mean, puzzle even calling it puzzle is still a little bit of a stretch. But, you know, there’s activities, shall we call it?
[32:39.000 –> 32:55.000] Yeah, I like activities because yeah, you’re right. They, they feel puzzle like, but you’re not going to be sit there stuck on any of them. Maybe other than the there’s one puzzle where you have to bring things into focus. Yes. And it was always a little bit more difficult than everything else.
[32:56.000 –> 33:24.000] Yeah, yeah, that one took me about maybe a quarter of the whole game’s time because I was trying to figure out what I was actually meant to do, because it wasn’t just like doing like one kind of slider to get a focus. It was two sliders and you had to like align them in the right way. But there’s no like visual indication with that other than the picture. So you have to do one of them and like get as focused as you can and then go on to the second one. And then that will be when you can then get it fully focused.
[33:25.000 –> 33:27.000] I was very confused initially.
[33:28.000 –> 33:35.000] I have to say every time I go back and play Florence, that is the one puzzle that I always get stuck on on what I’m meant to be doing and it takes me a few minutes to work it out and remember.
[33:36.000 –> 33:48.000] Cool. So we obviously need to talk about this game and spoil a lot of it. Before we do that, is there anything else you want to talk about? But the mechanics? I think I’ve talked about everything I can without giving story spoilers.
[33:49.000 –> 34:04.000] Yeah, no, I think I’m in the same bucket. But just if you are listening to this and what we’ve said so far is appealing, now is a great time to pause the show, take 40 minutes, go through and play Florence and then come back and listen to the rest of this conversation.
[34:05.000 –> 34:15.000] That is a very good point because this is the rare situation where you can just go and do it and come back. Like when you say go play a game before you listen to the rest of it, normally it would take you multiple weeks.
[34:16.000 –> 34:26.000] It literally will take you maybe half an hour if you’re fast, maybe an hour if you’re doing it very leisurely. But an hour is the absolute longest if you’re actually doing it.
[34:26.000 –> 34:35.000] It is a really nice short thing. And last I checked it was on sale on the eShop on Switch, but it probably isn’t by the time this episode comes out.
[34:36.000 –> 34:37.000] Right, should we get into spoilers?
[34:38.000 –> 34:46.000] Let’s do it. This is your spoiler warning. Do not keep listening if you want to play the game and don’t want to be spoiled. This is your last and final warning.
[34:47.000 –> 34:53.000] I’ve got a bunch of stuff that I want to talk about and I guess it’s all metaphors. There’s so many metaphors in this game.
[34:54.000 –> 35:02.000] I guess the conversations one was the first one that was quite interesting to me and there’s lots of different things in the conversations that I thought was a really interesting way of showing things.
[35:03.000 –> 35:10.000] So obviously when you’re doing the conversations you do have your visual indication of the players. You do see their facial expressions and stuff like that.
[35:10.000 –> 35:13.000] But they do other things as well to kind of give you hints about what’s happening.
[35:14.000 –> 35:26.000] So one thing I found really interesting was when you’re having your first date, the conversation, the way it works for people who haven’t played the game is you’re basically building up a puzzle.
[35:27.000 –> 35:31.000] You’ve got a bunch of puzzle pieces and you have to put them together inside your speech bubble.
[35:31.000 –> 35:39.000] And as the conversation progresses, there are fewer and fewer pieces for the same size of conversation bubble.
[35:40.000 –> 35:46.000] And I don’t know if this is what they meant to do, but it felt to me like what they were saying is the relationship is developing.
[35:47.000 –> 35:58.000] It wasn’t just the first date, sorry, it was the whole start of the relationship. As they got to know each other and as they felt more comfortable, the conversation got easier to make.
[35:58.000 –> 36:04.000] There’s less work, less effort that needs to go in to make that conversation.
[36:05.000 –> 36:18.000] Absolutely, yeah. And I think you’re exactly right. I think that is exactly what they were going for is the difficulty of completing those two puzzles was exactly related to how easy the conversation was to flow.
[36:18.000 –> 36:33.000] And it felt like such a brilliant representation of that. And I’m not sure if we did cover it, but I guess the overarching story of Florence is following the relationship between Florence and, oh my God, his name just walked out of my head.
[36:34.000 –> 36:41.000] Chris, thank you very much. Yeah, so it’s following their relationship, but from Florence’s perspective.
[36:42.000 –> 36:50.000] And so when you’re filling in those conversations, you’re filling it in from her perspective and it gets easier over time.
[36:51.000 –> 37:05.000] And then as their relationship develops and they have their first argument and some of the pieces become hard-edged and then eventually they become pointy and a little bit jagged.
[37:05.000 –> 37:20.000] And I think the thing that I like the most is when they start arguing, there kind of becomes this time pressure element where the conversation sort of leans one way or the other, depending on who’s getting more words in, which I thought was brilliant.
[37:21.000 –> 37:30.000] I thought it was also interesting if you continue the metaphor of how easy it is to say things like when you’re doing that bit, the time pressure bit of like just trying to do it as fast as possible.
[37:30.000 –> 37:40.000] It’s one single piece. There is no puzzle. And so I guess that’s kind of like when you’re in an argument, it’s almost too easy to say things because you end up saying the wrong things.
[37:41.000 –> 37:49.000] You end up saying things that hurt rather than actually things that build up and things that help and that aspect of it’s just a single one. You just throw it in the right place.
[37:50.000 –> 37:56.000] You’re just throwing things out there to say things rather than to actually do something useful.
[37:56.000 –> 38:09.000] Yeah, I think that’s a brilliant point because when the conversation is easy between them, it’s never a single piece. It’s always still a few, which I think absolutely represents that thoughtfulness that you have when you genuinely care about someone.
[38:10.000 –> 38:19.000] And you want to have a meaningful conversation versus what you just said around arguing where you just sort of say the first thing that comes to mind and consequences be damned a little bit.
[38:20.000 –> 38:26.000] And you’re not waiting to listen. You’re not listening to the question. You’re just throwing out those words. You gotta win.
[38:27.000 –> 38:37.000] Exactly. Exactly. So I agree. I think for me, this is probably the strongest point of the game is those conversations and where they sort of happen.
[38:38.000 –> 38:48.000] One of the other things that I really, really liked was when they eventually move in and you unpack and you get to kind of pick what goes where and what gets put in the box.
[38:49.000 –> 38:58.000] And then how that flows through, I guess, to I guess we’ve already given the spoiler warning when they later moved out.
[38:59.000 –> 39:05.000] And I believe I actually can’t remember, but I believe some of your choices persist through that.
[39:06.000 –> 39:15.000] Yeah, you end up when you’re when you’re packing at the end, it’s almost the same as the way you unpacked. But yeah, there’s a few changes, I think.
[39:15.000 –> 39:23.000] Which was it’s just really nice, right, to see that continuity from those decisions that you made and see some of that still there and some of it has changed.
[39:24.000 –> 39:40.000] Yeah. Yeah. No, the unpacking decisions was interesting. It took me a while to figure out whether I was unpacking my stuff or sorry, Florence’s stuff into Chris’s house or the other way around, which I think it was the other way around. It was Chris moving in with Florence.
[39:41.000 –> 39:43.000] It was Chris’s stuff, yeah, into Florence’s house.
[39:43.000 –> 39:52.000] And so, like, initially I was like, oh, all this stuff in the box because I don’t need any of this stuff. And then I realized, oh, no, I was putting his stuff in the box. Oh, no.
[39:55.000 –> 39:59.000] Yeah. Yeah. No, I thought that was that was really interesting as well.
[40:00.000 –> 40:16.000] My other kind of biggest metaphor that I liked was the this again in two parts, you’ve got the point where when they’re starting the relationship, they’re looking at it’s either mirrors or windows or whatever. It doesn’t massively matter.
[40:16.000 –> 40:29.000] And you do the scratch off minigame, you scratch off the mirror or the window and you’re basically showing their hopes and dreams for them individually and the relationship as a whole.
[40:30.000 –> 40:44.000] And then when you get to the point where they’re clearly struggling, but before they’ve broken up and you’re presented with those hopes and dreams again, and then you scratch off to see the reality underneath, which is not as rosy as they’d hoped it would be.
[40:44.000 –> 41:01.000] And that is really this is a funny thing, because like I was looking through some of my I was doing some tidying up today and I was reading through some stuff that I’d found, which was like letters that my wife wrote to me before we were like when we were just starting our relationship.
[41:01.000 –> 41:12.000] And it’s interesting to kind of look back on that and see how then like think about that person and what their their thoughts and hopes were for the future and what life is.
[41:12.000 –> 41:22.000] And you could you can constantly worry about that and think, well, life is not what I hoped it would be, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not good. It doesn’t mean that it’s not something that you can continue.
[41:22.000 –> 41:33.000] It’s just it’s really easy to to look at those hopes and dreams and go, that is my failure. That’s what we could have had, whereas in reality, it never was.
[41:34.000 –> 41:48.000] And just that that act of scratching away those hopes and dreams and seeing the reality, what is clearly showing at that point as being the sadder reality was quite something.
[41:48.000 –> 41:57.000] Yeah, I don’t really have much to add on that, because I think that was just really well, really well said and just really well done in the game.
[41:57.000 –> 42:02.000] Sort of those, you know, reflection of hopes and then seeing how those progress over the course of the story.
[42:05.000 –> 42:12.000] I was going to ask, maybe you can maybe you can help me with the the job metaphor, because I feel like I’m kind of half there. I’ve just not quite figured it out.
[42:13.000 –> 42:32.000] So, yeah, I’ll talk about the job metaphor where you’re sort of matching numbers and in the background and at the start, it’s very clearly Florence is just not enjoying her job, is very sort of worn out with it.
[42:32.000 –> 42:41.000] And to me, it’s kind of that’s the most difficult. I believe the first time you do it is the most difficult version of the puzzle.
[42:41.000 –> 42:50.000] And you do it sort of, I think, three times over the course of the game and they reflect different stages, technically four times. But yeah, right. Yeah, four times.
[42:50.000 –> 43:04.000] So it reflects different stages of, you know, how Florence feels about her life affects her performance at her job, because the second time you do it, she’s still in the same job, but she’s in the relationship with Krish.
[43:04.000 –> 43:14.000] And it’s easier, right, because she’s happy outside of work, which even though she doesn’t enjoy the job, it’s easier for her to do.
[43:14.000 –> 43:26.000] And then there comes a time where she has her own business and is doing what she loves. And it’s super, you know, it’s super easy for her because she is in a good space.
[43:26.000 –> 43:36.000] Oh, actually, I think the fourth time, which I just remember is in between the second of the ones that I mentioned there when they’re broken up and it goes back to being really difficult for her to do again.
[43:36.000 –> 43:49.000] Yeah, so this is where I’m a little bit confused, right? So, yeah, the first one definitely, it’s like, you know, just starting out, I think she’s just starting out the job at that point, you know, is kind of getting used to figuring out what to do.
[43:49.000 –> 43:57.000] And so obviously things as you start there, they’re kind of slow. The second one, I kind of read it as I didn’t make any connection with the relationship.
[43:57.000 –> 44:09.000] I made it more like she is at the point where she’s good at her job now and, you know, kind of like enthused by the fact that she’s good at it now and just, you know, breezing through stuff.
[44:09.000 –> 44:16.000] But by the time you get to the third one, although, yes, they have broken up by this point, I felt like that bit was more. Oh, no, they hadn’t broken up by that point.
[44:17.000 –> 44:34.000] It was just before the breakup, I think, wasn’t it? I more thought that was like disillusionment with the job rather than necessarily the outside, the other life situations and therefore not putting in as much effort rather than the difficulty.
[44:34.000 –> 44:40.000] Because the second time you as the player don’t actually do anything, like Florence just does it all almost straight away.
[44:40.000 –> 44:52.000] Whereas the third time you have to do it again. And that I kind of read as the lack of enthusiasm and being disillusioned with the job, which then moves into the fourth one of being her own business.
[44:52.000 –> 45:06.000] She’s now chosen to do something else. But that one, presumably, then you have to do that again. So it’s not as easy as the second time you did it because it’s a reasonably new thing at that point, the new business.
[45:06.000 –> 45:19.000] Yeah, I think probably what I took away is a little bit of the outside in and it’s a little bit, you know, to me, I didn’t really associate the job piece with her competence at it.
[45:19.000 –> 45:30.000] For me, it was a little bit of a, you know, when things are going well, it is easier for other things to feel not so bad or to go better.
[45:30.000 –> 45:39.000] So for me, it was kind of a little bit of the story of Florence, I think is, I guess, recognizing that every aspect of your life is interconnected.
[45:39.000 –> 45:49.000] Right. So, you know, personally at the moment, right, work is in a tough spot and part of that flows into my personal life. Right.
[45:49.000 –> 45:58.000] It’s, you know, I’m more tired, I’m probably a little bit more irritable to be around some of those sorts of things. And the reverse is true, right?
[45:58.000 –> 46:07.000] When, you know, sometimes in your personal life is going really good, it’s easier to come into work and to be happy and to let some of those negative things that happen sort of, you know, bounce off you.
[46:07.000 –> 46:27.000] And that was my takeaway of what I thought the work was. And often work was also associated with a call from your mum, which I always found to be a really interesting aspect because it was very much like Florence is meant to be 25 in the story.
[46:27.000 –> 46:38.000] And it’s a little bit of that, you know, not quite out of the adolescent sort of mindset yet being a little bit grumpy with mum who’s calling in the middle of the workday.
[46:38.000 –> 47:07.000] Yeah, I also took that as a little bit like there’s something that a lot of parents will treat their, I guess, unmarried children, their children without children, you know, both of those combined more as children than children that, I’m using the word children too much, more as younger than they are.
[47:07.000 –> 47:28.000] Than their children that are either, you know, married or have kids. Certainly parents of a certain age anyway. That’s anyway my experience. Obviously, I’m not all or the same, not trying to throw all parents under the bus, but that kind of, and I felt that with Florence, I felt like her mum was doing that.
[47:28.000 –> 47:49.000] Like, oh yeah, of course she’ll just answer during the day, right? Because she doesn’t really think of her as an adult with a job, which then changes as she gets her own business. I think her mum develops that way as well and is then really clearly with the picture at the end is really proud of Florence and what she’s done, which is her growth as well as Florence’s growth.
[47:50.000 –> 48:08.000] Absolutely, and I think you see Florence change as well in terms of her approach and recognising that, you know, her mum’s phone calls were not coming from a negative place, even if that was her interpretation of the conversations, they were probably coming more from a place of concern or probably hope.
[48:08.000 –> 48:10.000] Yeah, yeah.
[48:10.000 –> 48:15.000] Okay, why else have we got on the list?
[48:16.000 –> 48:23.000] So you wrote this one down in the show notes, which I totally agree with. Why can’t we make her eat the crusts?
[48:23.000 –> 48:25.000] I’m guessing you’re a crust eater, Al?
[48:25.000 –> 48:30.000] I am a crust eater, but I generally eat the crust first.
[48:31.000 –> 48:37.000] It’s not that I have an issue with people who don’t eat crusts, right? Whatever, like, yeet, wee, yeet. I’m not going to force you to eat things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[48:37.000 –> 48:45.000] But like, I am role playing as Florence, right? And I know that I’m not like making her personality, but I’m making her decisions in many cases.
[48:45.000 –> 48:55.000] And so why is it physically impossible for me to make her eat the crusts, right? Like, even if she is full enough and you don’t need to make the crusts of that, but like, at least let me do it.
[48:55.000 –> 49:05.000] Like, make a thing there. Make me do it and then her, like, regret it or something like that. It just feels, it was just sort of like, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping. Oh, I can’t continue tapping to eat the crust.
[49:05.000 –> 49:15.000] Such a stupid thing. I know it doesn’t matter. I know they’re trying to show Florence’s personality and that she doesn’t like crusts. Blah, blah, blah. It just annoyed me.
[49:15.000 –> 49:20.000] It annoys me too, because people who don’t eat the crusts are horrible people. I will call people out who do.
[49:20.000 –> 49:22.000] Wow.
[49:23.000 –> 49:37.000] No, I go, I’ll eat a sandwich, right? Ignoring the pizza, right? Because like pizza is very different. I will eat a sandwich. I won’t cut up the sandwich, right? I’ll have the whole two slices stuck together without not cut up.
[49:37.000 –> 49:44.000] And then I’ll go and I’ll eat round the crust all the way at the outside. Then you got to love a little sandwich at the crust and then I’ll eat through that.
[49:44.000 –> 49:50.000] I have never thought about that. That sounds insane, but I love it.
[49:51.000 –> 50:05.000] Yeah, well, because then you never have the, you know, if you go round like that eating the crust, you never have the issue of like, this is going to sound so like if people didn’t realize I was, people didn’t realize I was autistic before this, they will now.
[50:05.000 –> 50:19.000] You don’t have the annoying bit where like the sandwich is touching the sides of your face. Like, you know, how have you like eat the middle of a sandwich, right? Like there’s just a bit of sandwich touching either side of your mouth. I really hate that feeling.
[50:19.000 –> 50:21.000] I’ve never thought about this before in my life.
[50:21.000 –> 50:31.000] So you start at a corner and you eat round the crust and then you start continue there and you just keep going round. It’s basically I spiral eat the sandwich, right? Oh, my word.
[50:31.000 –> 50:35.000] I have no idea if I’m going to leave that in the podcast or not. It’s so weird.
[50:35.000 –> 50:42.000] No, this definitely has to stay in. A friend of mine eats burgers the same way and I think that’s the most insane thing in the world.
[50:42.000 –> 50:58.000] Like they spiral round the burger and it’s actually genius, right? Because it needs the bit that they’re left with at the end of this. I think this is what you’re going to get with the sandwich is you’ve kind of got a perfect mini sandwich or mini burger at the very end. And it’s insane, but it totally makes sense.
[50:58.000 –> 51:05.000] It’s also more likely to hold its integrity that way. Whereas if you eat it like kind of going through the middle, it’s more likely to fall apart.
[51:05.000 –> 51:10.000] I hate that this is the right answer, that this is the right way to eat a sandwich or a burger, but it absolutely is.
[51:13.000 –> 51:27.000] I don’t know how we got here, but I think there was a nice little bit of levity before we get to probably two of the most emotionally impactful.
[51:27.000 –> 51:32.000] Yeah. So the ripped up picture, unless you have anything before this bit, the ripped up picture.
[51:32.000 –> 51:34.000] Let’s do the ripped up picture.
[51:34.000 –> 51:45.000] It’s the perfect metaphor and I hate it, right? So like you have this ripped up picture that you have to, it’s a jigsaw, but obviously the worst jigsaw in the world where you’re trying to put it all back together.
[51:45.000 –> 51:50.000] There’s no clear like obvious pieces because it’s like ripped rather than a jigsaw pieces.
[51:50.000 –> 51:56.000] And then as you’re doing that, this chapter was called drifting apart, I think, or just drifting or something like that.
[51:56.000 –> 52:02.000] And it’s obviously about the relationship and the two of them drifting apart, but the pieces literally drift apart as you’re doing it.
[52:02.000 –> 52:08.000] So like you’ve figured out a little bit and then you go and figure out another bit and then the first bit you did have all gone apart.
[52:08.000 –> 52:13.000] And like it’s so frustrating because it’s basically impossible to properly do, right?
[52:13.000 –> 52:18.000] And I think that’s the point they’re trying to say is this is an irreparable relationship. It’s done.
[52:18.000 –> 52:45.000] Yeah. And it’s I think just that moment when you realize that the first piece is, you know, sort of drifting away and what that means for their relationship and the fact, you know, even it’s even one of those, you know, things are coming back to the original conversation about gameplay where this is gameplay where you can’t do the thing perfectly, which is a little bit of a circuit breaker.
[52:45.000 –> 52:53.000] Right. Because pretty much in every game you can always do the thing perfectly. And this is something where you absolutely cannot.
[52:53.000 –> 52:57.000] And even up to this point in this game as well.
[52:57.000 –> 53:04.000] Yeah. Yeah. You can you can kind of cover it all off. And I think that makes it hit even harder.
[53:04.000 –> 53:09.000] Right. Because if you’re just watching someone try and put this together and have it drift away, you sort of be sad.
[53:09.000 –> 53:26.000] But when you’re desperately trying to pull the pieces back in like it just carries that extra. Yeah, it kind of is that extra bit of desperation that you probably sense that Florence’s feeling at the time of holding on to something that is already gone.
[53:26.000 –> 53:36.000] Yeah. And then that flows into the final, well, the second final bit, which is where they break up and you do the unpacking, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[53:36.000 –> 53:52.000] And then there’s a bit of, I guess, anti-gameplay where you’re meant to leave, you’re meant to, you see a little kind of progression of Florence moving on and, well, moving on.
[53:52.000 –> 54:04.000] Continuing, I don’t like the phrase moving on, but you know what I mean by that. And then you eventually get to the point where clearly she is accepting that it’s done.
[54:04.000 –> 54:11.000] Not like obviously it’s done before this, like they move out and then she moves on with a lot of her life.
[54:11.000 –> 54:22.000] But then this is the point where you have to leave him behind mentally and emotionally. And the way the gameplay works in this bit is you could do nothing.
[54:22.000 –> 54:36.000] And if you do something, if you do something, it actively stops the moving on. And like the two of them are walking and clearly Chris is like a memory because he’s like faded, right?
[54:36.000 –> 54:44.000] It’s not actually him. And you’re walking slightly faster than Chris. So if you do nothing, eventually you will go away and leave him behind.
[54:44.000 –> 54:55.000] But if you press any button, you’ll stop and he’ll catch up. And it’s more like the moving on process you can’t do, you can’t make it happen. It has to happen without you trying, right?
[54:55.000 –> 55:04.000] It’s just something that like, just at some point you realise it’s happened. I don’t know, what did you read into that?
[55:04.000 –> 55:20.000] Exactly the same. And I think, again, what makes this so meaningful from a gameplay perspective is it’s breaking that mental pattern of what you normally have to do, which is to interact with something.
[55:20.000 –> 55:33.000] And the fact that it’s coming off the back of the last puzzle where you’re desperately trying to build a puzzle and now the way to do the next thing is to not do anything and to just let it happen.
[55:33.000 –> 55:50.000] There’s something so smart in what they’ve done from a storytelling perspective and thinking about how the gameplay aspects and how you as the player interact with it just adds to the story.
[55:50.000 –> 56:00.000] It’s like some next level metaphor that’s not just the images and the words, there’s not many words in the game used to tell the story, but the actions that you take.
[56:00.000 –> 56:16.000] This is exactly what I’m saying. This is why it can only work as a game in the way that they’ve done it. Obviously you could tell this story in other ways, but it wouldn’t be the same because I don’t know if you had the same feeling when doing it, but I was desperately trying to figure out what I was meant to be doing in this one.
[56:16.000 –> 56:31.000] And I was like, it just seems to be stopped. Am I meant to do it lots? No, no, I just seem to be stopping. Nothing’s happening. Then I realized that, oh, I need to do nothing. I can’t do anything. I can’t make this happen. I just need to let it happen.
[56:31.000 –> 56:46.000] Yeah, absolutely. It’s just so well done. And when I think about the moments of this game that really stick with me, it’s the conversations I think that we talked about at the start, and then it is the ripped up picture and letting go.
[56:46.000 –> 57:08.000] Yeah. I mean, I’ll be honest with you, the final bit got me, which was where I think she starts up her new job and she leaves her old job and you’re packing up as the final thing. You’re packing up the job and then you put the keyboard in the box and there’s a picture of Florence and Krish underneath, which clearly has been there for a while.
[57:08.000 –> 57:28.000] And she takes it and you put it in the box. And that bit kind of got me. I was like, ah, it was kind of the acceptance of like, yeah, just because you’ve moved on, just because this is no longer doesn’t mean that this hasn’t made me who I am. It’s a thing that is part of me. It will always be part of me. And yeah.
[57:29.000 –> 57:50.000] I agree. Right. And I think ultimately that’s the point of the story. Ultimately, the story is not about their relationship specifically. It is about how the things we do and the people we interact with can change and influence our lives, even if they’re no longer part of it. Right.
[57:50.000 –> 58:02.000] Because Florence starting up her business as an artist was the director of her meeting Krish. He was a musician. Yeah, he brought her the paints.
[58:03.000 –> 58:27.000] And she doesn’t use the paints until afterwards. Right. Like she gives her the paints. She’s so thankful for them. And then she puts them on her desk and then life gets in the way and things get put on top. And then not, but that actually saves the paints. Right. Because like, clearly she was tidying away and she was getting rid of things. She was getting rid of the things that would remind her of Krish, but the paints were under things. So didn’t get through that point.
[58:27.000 –> 58:40.000] And she found the paints when she was in a better place to be able to make a better decision about that and didn’t need to get rid of it to help heal herself and got the paints out and use them. And that’s what then got her to that situation.
[58:40.000 –> 59:06.000] And I think it’s just such a great way of talking about relationships. Right. I find, you know, often, you know, people look back on past relationships and it doesn’t have to be, you know, relationships like a life partner style, but it can even be, you know, friendships or, you know, people that you meet through work.
[59:06.000 –> 59:24.000] And sometimes people try and hold on to all of these relationships for so long. And it can be okay to, you know, let relationships and connections with people go. And that doesn’t mean that was a failure or a waste of time or insert any other negative, you know, adjective.
[59:24.000 –> 59:41.000] And it can still have a positive impact on your life, you know, that interaction with the person. It’s more about, you know, when you think about all of the people that you’ve had the chance to interact with and meet, you know, pretty much everybody had some positive aspect.
[59:41.000 –> 59:56.000] And if you can hold on to those, you know, that can change who you are for the better. Right. You know, I think the story of Florence that she goes through this relationship that obviously doesn’t end well and her life is much better off for that.
[59:56.000 –> 01:00:00.000] Yep.
[01:00:00.000 –> 01:00:04.000] Do you ever get irrationally annoyed about how good something is?
[01:00:04.000 –> 01:00:09.000] Yes. This is one of those things that I get irrationally annoyed about how good it is.
[01:00:09.000 –> 01:00:31.000] How dare they? How dare they be so good at this? How dare they make something that makes me care about this? I spent less than an hour. I spent maybe 40 minutes playing this game and I cared so much about it. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s stupid.
[01:00:31.000 –> 01:00:58.000] Look, I agree. And I don’t know if there’s a better way to sort of wrap up the conversation on Florence than that. Like, and even if you haven’t played it and you chose to listen through to what we talked about, I don’t think we’ve done it the full justice that, you know, the only way I think to get the full experience is to play it. And I would just highly encourage anybody to go and play it. It’s, you know, not not an expensive game to buy. And it’s absolutely worth it.
[01:00:58.000 –> 01:01:14.000] Yeah. Agreed. Awesome. Great. Thank you for making me play a game that made me cry. Yeah, no. Cool. Awesome. Where can people find you on the internet? I guess.
[01:01:14.000 –> 01:01:40.000] As usual, I am not on the tweeters or anything, but if you do want to come and, you know, share a little bit of love for Florence or if you know of any other sort of interactive novel style games and you want to share them, the easiest way to do that is to go to patreon.com slash THSPod. Sign up for the Patreon. Support this little endeavor that Al’s brought together that brings this, you know, magic to us every single week and join the Slack.
[01:01:40.000 –> 01:01:51.000] There’s an awesome group of us that, you know, chat about all things cottagecore games and share, you know, what we’re loving and what we’re not loving. So come be a part of that. Awesome.
[01:01:51.000 –> 01:02:14.000] You can find me on Twitter at the Scottbot and also on Mastodon.Scott with the same username. You can find the podcast on Twitter at THSPod. You can find the link to our Patreon as well as other things, including the show notes and I mean everything that’s related to the podcast on the website harvestseason.club.
[01:02:15.000 –> 01:02:37.000] I don’t think I need to say anything else, but the Patreon, you did such a good job of selling it. Oh, I guess we have an upcoming Greenhouse episode. So when’s this one? This is coming out on next Wednesday, isn’t it? The 10th. So this Saturday, this should be a bonus Patreon episode of the podcast about Eurovision.
[01:02:37.000 –> 01:02:43.000] So come listen to me and Cody talk about Eurovision 2023. Apparently, this is becoming a regular thing.
[01:02:43.000 –> 01:02:47.000] I know nothing about Eurovision. I’m excited to find out something about Eurovision.
[01:02:48.000 –> 01:02:52.000] Cool. Awesome. I think that’s everything. Thank you, Johnny, for joining me.
[01:02:52.000 –> 01:02:56.000] Thanks, Al, for having me on and I think I need to go have a good cry.
[01:02:57.000 –> 01:03:03.000] Thank you, listeners, for listening. And until next time, have a good harvest.
[01:03:03.000 –> 01:03:30.000] The Harvest Season is created by Al McKinley with support from our patrons, including our pro farmers, Kevin and Stuart. Our art is done by Micah the Brave and our music is done by Nick Burgess. Feel free to visit our website harvestseason.club for show notes and links to things we discussed in this episode.
[01:03:33.000 –> 01:03:41.000] If more games were this short, I would play a lot more games.
[01:03:42.000 –> 01:03:47.000] Right. But I don’t want all games to be this emotional because I could not handle that.
[01:03:48.000 –> 01:03:54.000] That’s true. That’s true. I think Spirit of Fader was the last one that made me cry. So we don’t need every game making me cry.
[01:03:54.000 –> 01:04:04.000] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it was funny because through the conversation, I was like, oh, this will be, you know, like a fun little check. It’s a cute little game. And then you kind of go back and you think about all of the aspects. You’re like, oh, geez.
[01:04:06.000 –> 01:04:12.000] And we definitely talked for just about the same amount of time as you can play the game in about the game.
[01:04:14.000 –> 01:04:22.000] The whole podcast was longer, but the actual section was you could have played the game while listening to that section.
[01:04:23.000 –> 01:04:26.000] But there’s so many good things to say.
[01:04:27.000 –> 01:04:37.000] It would actually be a fun challenge to see if you could play the game just while listening through to that section. I wonder if there’s a speedrun community for it.
[01:04:38.000 –> 01:04:41.000] There has to be. There’s a speedrun community for everything.
[01:04:41.000 –> 01:04:49.000] Florence. Yes, there is. What’s the wait? 16 minutes and 32 seconds.
[01:04:51.000 –> 01:04:57.000] Wow. That’s ridiculous. That was 12 days ago the record was beat.
[01:04:59.000 –> 01:05:07.000] And that record stood for four months, which the previous ones did for four months as well. Like, that’s ridiculous.
[01:05:07.000 –> 01:05:10.000] People love the internet.