Demos Are Good

Wed, Nov 6, 2024 Year 2, Winter 19

Al and Jonnie talk about the demos they have tried recently.

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:20:47: Recent Releases
00:24:28: Game News
00:50:46: Demos
00:51:19: Luma Island
01:04:49: Overthrown
01:19:09: Outro

Links

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete
Sun Haven “1.7” Update
Slime Rancher 2 “Into the Labyrinth” Update
Go-Go Town x Dinkum
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain Update 1
Doloc Town

Luma Island
Overthrown

Contact

Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot
Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot
Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

(0:00:30) Al: Hello, farmers and welcome to another episode of the harvest season.
(0:00:35) Al: My name is Al.
(0:00:36) Jonnie: And my name is Johnny, and we’re going back-to-back! Back-to-back, Al!
(0:00:37) Al: Oh, yeah, we’re here to again to talk about cottagecore games.
(0:00:44) Jonnie: Whoo! No spookiness this time. I actually got through the intro without laughing.
(0:00:50) Al: I think we’ve done that.
(0:00:51) Al: So we’ve done back to back.
(0:00:52) Al: I think did me did me and Kevin do back to no Kevin did back to back but not me because Kevin did his his solo one.
(0:00:59) Al: In fact, Kevin…
(0:01:00) Al: We’re recording. We’re going to talk about…
(0:01:08) Al: Johnny and me have both done a demo from the… what do they call it? Nextfest.
(0:01:13) Al: Steam Nextfest October 2024. It’s a thing they do every so often where they get a bunch of games to release demos. So we have each played a demo from a game that we have talked about previously on the podcast and we’re going to talk about them to each other. Before that we have
(0:01:30) Al: lots of news. We also then have a new segment which I will get to. But first of all, Johnny what have you been up to?
(0:01:39) Jonnie: I have been up to pretty much the same thing that everyone has been up to this week I assume and that’s Pokemon Pocket. It’s uh such a good game. I so I am like a big card gamer TCG in general not the Pokemon one because that game’s really bad um but you know I played Magic the Gathering, I played Hearthstone, um, Marvel Snap.
(0:01:45) Al: Oh yeah!
(0:01:47) Al: I definitely had that on my list!
(0:02:00) Al: - Mm-hmm.
(0:02:09) Jonnie: And now Pokémon Pocket.
(0:02:11) Jonnie: And my biggest concern coming into the game is that the actual gameplay
(0:02:17) Jonnie: wouldn’t be that good.
(0:02:19) Jonnie: It’s definitely better than I expected.
(0:02:21) Jonnie: It’s probably not amazing, like it’s not as good as any of those other games that I mentioned, but it is
(0:02:28) Jonnie: a lot stronger than I thought it was going to be.
(0:02:32) Jonnie: And the thing I am maybe enjoying the most is the fact that it isn’t a ladder.
(0:02:38) Jonnie: And I.
(0:02:39) Jonnie: Just find myself playing games because I enjoy playing the games and it’s really nice to not have the pressure of “oh I need to play games so I can hit double triple platinum and unlock you know X of this new currency and do all of these other things” I’m really enjoying that the reason to log in on a consistent basis is to open a pack and to get new cards and I just play the game. I mean, I want to play the game. It’s, it sounds.
(0:03:09) Jonnie: really sad that that is in fact a nice feature to have in the game. Other than that I’ve been I’ve been really enjoying like just opening the packs and seeing the cards like I don’t really care that much about getting a full collection I just care about collecting the good cards that I want to play a deck with but last night I did a 10 pull on the Charizard pack and I got two of the Charizard immersive cards and let me tell you those immersive cards are
(0:03:13) Al: - Interesting.
(0:03:13) Al: Um.
(0:03:36) Al: Ridiculous.
(0:03:38) Al: Mm-hmm.
(0:03:39) Jonnie: really cool they like the level of detail that has gone into the artwork for those is pretty crazy and I think those cards are really cool yes yeah and so it’s really cool to have two of those so now I am like desperately pulling on the Charizard pack to try and get the rest of the cards I would like to flesh out my Charizard deck because I’m in I’m in the fun position where I have two of the immersive Charizards but I only have one
(0:03:48) Al: Yes, you can tell why there’s only three of them.
(0:04:10) Al: Fair enough. I feel like we’re playing pocket completely differently because I don’t care about the battles. I don’t find the battles particularly fun. And I’m just want to complete my collection. I have Yeah, yeah, I’ve not finished all of them. I’ve done. Is it four?
(0:04:23) Jonnie: Interesting. Have you done the solo battles?
(0:04:31) Al: Are there four sets of them? Is that I think I’m halfway through the third tier. And yeah,
(0:04:33) Jonnie: Yeah, there’s four tiers of salt.
(0:04:40) Al: almost exactly. I’m three out of seven in the third tier, and I’ve completed the first and second tier. I’m there. So what I would say is they’re fine. I don’t dislike the battles.
(0:04:52) Al: I do. I like the changes they’ve made like you. I like the changes they’ve made to the game. I think it does make it better. The smaller decks, the energies being separate.
(0:05:06) Al: I like those things about it.
(0:05:10) Al: more to make it more different. I don’t part of the problem, I think is that there are only a few decks that are good enough to be able to, you know, actually win on but they’re okay. We can come back to that in a minute. I granted I haven’t put as much time into it as you so you might be, you might be fair. However, I think part of the problem
(0:05:24) Jonnie: Oh, so I do not think that that is the case at all.
(0:05:40) Al: is there are too many cards for me to be able to feel comfortable doing the battling.
(0:05:47) Al: If we compare it to Marvel snap, which in most cases, I think is bad how people are comparing it to Marvel snap. But the one thing I would say I do compare them in is that with Marvel snap, obviously, there are only a few strategies that work. However, the number of total cards is much smaller, so that when you’re getting
(0:06:10) Al: a card, you’re quite likely for it to be useful to you, whereas there are over 200 cards already in pocket with just the first set. And so I feel like most cards that I get are useless,
(0:06:25) Al: and I’m never going to use them for anything. For battling.
(0:06:28) Jonnie: Yeah there are definitely a, like I don’t disagree I think with anything you said other than you know the number of cards that are useful, but I think that there’s, there is too much filler stuff that’s just there to make up cards when you open packs and like they’re just never close enough to even being useful in a deck, and I do wish that there was maybe slightly more changes from
(0:06:59) Jonnie: I don’t really like how much coin flipping there is in the game, but it also seems necessary based on the way the game is designed because you need that sort of coin flipping to enable certain strategy, like you need that element of randomness because there aren’t many elements of randomness
(0:07:02) Al: Oh, everywhere. I can’t stand it.
(0:07:23) Jonnie: in the way the game plays out otherwise. So it’s…
(0:07:25) Al: Mm-hmm. Do you need randomness?
(0:07:28) Jonnie: The way Pocket and a TCG is designed, I feel like you do. So, and one of the reasons I say that,
(0:07:37) Jonnie: I’ve been playing a lot of Marowak EX deck, and Marowak EX does 80 damage, or you flip two coins and it deals 80 damage for each hit. It’s a very aggressive deck and it’s the sort of deck that couldn’t exist the way the rest of the game is designed without the
(0:07:58) Jonnie: element of randomness that is introduced by flipping coins you would basically have to depower Marowak to like you could have Marowak as just a you know two energy 80 damage first stage card which would be fine but one of the reasons the deck actually works is like if you fall a little bit behind as more powerful decks sort of ramp up and get going with their thing
(0:08:28) Jonnie: you can still just randomly spike two hits and knock out an EX and still win the match so it gives the deck a lot more play otherwise it’d just be a lot of situations where it’s like oh I just instantly lose here like there’s no possible way for me to win and that’s that’s where I think that random like the element of randomness is an important element for the way the TC like the game is currently designed that doesn’t mean it’s good design it doesn’t mean I like it I totally agree I wish they had done more to change it to find
(0:08:58) Jonnie: a way to introduce that randomness but I see why it is necessary
(0:09:02) Al: Yeah, I guess the thing is, right, like, there already is randomness in a TCG, because you have your deck, and you’re drawing cards from it. So you’re never going to get everything you want.
(0:09:14) Jonnie: Yeah Pocket has a lot less of that than most other TCGs, like decks are relatively consistent I find and the other aspect is that like
(0:09:28) Al: if you build your deck well.
(0:09:31) Jonnie: yeah but like pretty much every deck has two professors, research, two pokeballs, like the consistency is pretty high within Pocket but the big difference is actually the way the game plays
(0:09:44) Jonnie: once your Pokemon are on the board the game becomes very deterministic. It’s almost more chess-like than it is like other TCGs and it’s about how you’re then maneuvering the pieces
(0:09:58) Jonnie: on the board in order to win and so you do need some on-board randomness with the way the game plays out in order for it to remain interesting otherwise you would just have a lot of board states where it’s like “oh yeah we’ve seen this before and this player wins”
(0:10:14) Al: You’re not convincing me to enjoy the battles.
(0:10:20) Jonnie: My intent was not to convince you to enjoy the battles. I don’t think they will be universally appealing from a competitive way in the way that something like Marvel Snap is because it’s a lot more straightforward. I think the way the TCG is designed, and this is my experience from playing where at the moment I would say I’m winning quite a lot because people simply don’t understand how to effectively use their board in order to…
(0:10:50) Jonnie: win and you just get tons of free knockouts because people don’t understand how to retreat,
(0:10:56) Jonnie: what to put in the front, you know, what to make their active Pokemon,
(0:11:00) Jonnie: when to sacrifice something, like people are very bad.
(0:11:02) Al: Yeah, that, I mean, that that presumably there’s no skill based match matching, right? So like,
(0:11:08) Al: because there’s no ladder, you’re not going to end up in that situation, where you’re mostly battling people who are on a similar level to you. So, you know, that’s, I guess,
(0:11:17) Al: the disadvantage of that, because you, well, the disadvantage for other people, not for you, the advantage for you, the disadvantage to new people, is that you just end up getting thrown into battles with people who are good.
(0:11:22) Jonnie: Yes.
(0:11:24) Jonnie: Yes.
(0:11:32) Al: Straight away.
(0:11:32) Jonnie: Yeah, yeah I would like a form of competitive that isn’t a ladder, you know, if it was a,
(0:11:41) Jonnie: you know, try and win five games without losing against other people that are also trying to do the same thing or like something like that I think would be quite appealing.
(0:11:51) Al: I suspect they’re doing - I would be very - because they’ve obviously not got something just now, and I don’t think that’s purely development time based, right? Like both this and the trading, I don’t think they’re not in the game because they didn’t have enough time to do it. I think they’re both deliberate choices to get people to focus on what they want to focus initially, because if they had trading straight away people would like immediately - like people who poured in gold would just immediately get everything because they’d they’d have enough other things to trade for what they’re missing.
(0:12:21) Al: I suspect they don’t want people to just immediately do that and with the ladder I think they’re trying to think up some new better ways of doing competitive than just a ladder. Like I think if they were just doing a ladder they would have just put it in because that’s not a difficult thing to do.
(0:12:37) Jonnie: yeah I tend to agree i’m really like I believe that they’re watching to see like how are people enjoying the battles what are they playing you know how much are they playing all those sorts of things so they can make a really intentional decision around whatever they choose to implement from a more ranked form of of play within the game um the the last point i’ll make on on poco we could we could move on is uh just I think the state of the game
(0:13:07) Jonnie: at the moment is a lot of people are attracted to the ex decks in particular you see a lot of pikachu ex and mewtwo ex as kind of the the decks that everyone I think as default assumed are sort of the best decks they are the most linear like they are very linear they have low randomness and they are very powerful I think there are a range of strategies that have not been fully explored yet that are very good.
(0:13:37) Jonnie: Like I’ve had very good success with my aggressive Marowaki EX and Sandslash are kind of the two
(0:13:46) Jonnie: main Pokemon. It’s just very aggressive, it really punishes like the bad draws for those Dex can even beat their good draws. I think there’s a lot of non-EX Pokemon that are also very good and I think there’s a lot of like Dex that just don’t use EXs that haven’t been
(0:14:04) Jonnie: properly explored. I’ve been, one of the reasons I’ve been pulling on…
(0:14:07) Jonnie: Charizard is I want to get the Greninja line. I think there’s a, like, I’m really interested in like a Greninja Dragonite deck, some of those sorts of things. So I think a lot more of the cards are playable than you currently see if you play the game. The other deck you see a ton of is like this Articuno deck that’s just horrendous. They try and use Misty to, like, spike doing something powerful in turn one. Even when they get it, like, I just don’t think it’s very good.
(0:14:33) Jonnie: There’s just other Pokemon that do more with more consistency
(0:14:37) Jonnie: Um, so…
(0:14:38) Al: all I see is people complaining about not getting any heads on Misty. Maybe you should be doing something else then. Yeah, I do think that this is probably just one of those things where you’re going to end up like it’s only been out for people who weren’t pretending to be in New Zealand. It’s only been out for a few days, right? Less than a week. I think You’re just going to see a lot of people realising different things.
(0:14:39) Jonnie: Yeah, like…
(0:14:43) Jonnie: I…
(0:14:45) Jonnie: Correct, correct.
(0:14:47) Jonnie: Correct, correct.
(0:15:08) Al: things over the next few weeks and thinking up new strategies, right? Like that’s just part of how it goes. Fair enough. Yeah, I think I just point - I’m not against the idea of trying to get more interested in the battles. I just - it’s - yeah, I just - I’ve not had a huge - like you can tell by the fact that I’ve not really done all of the solos yet and I was pretending to be in New Zealand, so I’ve been playing it for a month and I’m I’m still not finished all of them.
(0:15:38) Al: Right. Like that. I’m just, I’ve just not been particularly interested in that and I’m just enjoying…
(0:15:44) Jonnie: Meanwhile, I’ve done all of the solo battles and all of the challenges other than the challenges on the final phase, because they are quite difficult challenges that I will need to work
(0:15:54) Al: Yeah, I’ll probably I’ll get there right and maybe I’ll enjoy them by the end I don’t know but I think I’m just exhausted with the idea of trying to figure out a deck is part of the problem and yeah What I can’t imagine wanting to use that because surely you want to battle because you want
(0:16:08) Jonnie: I’ll send you some decks because I got through pretty much all of the solo battles with the auto battle mechanic
(0:16:22) Jonnie: So I like battling other people right, like for me I kind of just enjoy the challenge of like can I build a deck that’s good enough to get through these solo battles without me having to play And like occasionally I’ll look over and see what the auto battle is doing and I’m like oh Jesus, what a terrible system, it’s not very good
(0:16:43) Al: Yeah, I don’t. None of that sounds interesting to me. Like it just like with like if we compare it to snap again for the last time, I enjoy. I enjoy getting a good deck that works. But I don’t want to do it multiple times. Right? Like I have, like three decks that I’ve built realistically that I’ve used properly in Marvel snap in the is two years it’s been out right.
(0:16:47) Jonnie: But the reward’s hell.
(0:17:10) Al: In the two years it’s been out, I have a lot more decks than that.
(0:17:13) Al: But I don’t use most of them, and most of them are just like copied from the internet and I didn’t find that interesting.
(0:17:18) Al: I don’t enjoy going, like, regularly “here’s, let me figure out a new deck with this strategy.”
(0:17:25) Al: I just, yeah, I don’t know.
(0:17:28) Al: I’m enjoying Snap still, because, yeah, I’m still really bad this season for some reason.
(0:17:39) Al: I’ve still not even hit 80 but maybe one day I’ll have to
(0:17:43) Al: 79 now so maybe I’ll finally get to 80 this season
(0:17:48) Jonnie: uh I feel like I bounced off snap as soon as pocket came out like it’s just and I think i’ve just enjoyed not having the pressure to log in and do dailies that take so much time oh because that’s sorry that’s the other thing I enjoy about pocket is the fact that you can complete your dailies without having to do a battle yes
(0:18:04) Al: Oh, yeah, yeah, you don’t there are so many things you can do to do the dailies, right?
(0:18:08) Al: The dailies is like, three, three or four, four, I think four dailies you have to do,
(0:18:15) Al: but there’s like eight options or something like that.
(0:18:17) Al: So yeah, like you log on, that’s one of them.
(0:18:22) Al: You open a pack, that’s another one.
(0:18:24) Al: You do a wonder pick, that’s another one.
(0:18:26) Al: And then you open a second pack or you do a battle or you do another wonder pick or there’s something else I can’t remember what it was and that
(0:18:34) Al: that’s it. You’ve done all you need to do. Yeah. I’m still on the symbiote Black Panther deck. I’ve changed a few couple of things around because obviously they made it more difficult to do that one because Black Panthers now five power so you can before you combine it with symbiote. So I’ve done a couple things to try and improve that.
(0:18:36) Jonnie: Yeah, yeah, what are you playing a mobile snap to the season?
(0:19:04) Al: I’ve added in Agent Venom, so I’ve tried to, if I don’t have Black Panther out, I’ll play an Agent Venom to put it down to 4 power.
(0:19:10) Al: I have Mr. Negative, who has been useful in some cases, where he obviously is not helpful for Black Panther, because he just switches 5 with 5.
(0:19:24) Al: But has allowed me to do other things, like obviously Arnim then becomes a 0 cost, 6 power card.
(0:19:32) Al: I have, uh, what’s…
(0:19:34) Jonnie: Jane? Are you playing Jane Foster?
(0:19:34) Al: her name? I am not, no. What’s her name? Why can’t I remember her name? Oh, dreadful!
(0:19:39) Jonnie: I’ll send you my list down.
(0:19:46) Jonnie: What’d you do?
(0:19:46) Al: Ironheart, Ironheart. There we go, got there. Ironheart obviously is in a 0 cost 3 power.
(0:19:55) Al: Yeah, I think if the person I’m playing doesn’t have Shang-Chi, then most of the time I’ll win,
(0:20:04) Al: a lot of people have Shang-Chi just now and that’s annoying.
(0:20:10) Jonnie: Yeah, and it’s probably only going to increase because I think the next season pass card is like a chonkster as well.
(0:20:18) Al: All right, yeah.
(0:20:20) Al: So we’ll see. I’ll keep going. Hopefully I’ll get there.
(0:20:22) Al: I don’t think I’ll get to Infinite, but I’m hoping to at least get into the 80s.
(0:20:26) Jonnie: well good luck it’s always frustrating when you can’t quite find a deck that’s like working for
(0:20:34) Al: But I’ve not been going down, so that’s something.
(0:20:38) Al: One way of thinking about it.
(0:20:40) Al: Yeah, I think that’s what I’ve been playing as well, just Pocket and Marvel Snap.
(0:20:44) Al: But we’ve been playing Pocket very differently.
(0:20:48) Al: That’s what we’ve been up to. Our new section we’re going to get into, which is the recent releases section.
(0:20:54) Al: We’re not going to do this every episode because there’s not a game release every week.
(0:20:58) Al: Although sometimes it does feel like it.
(0:20:59) Jonnie: Yes, hey sure about that
(0:21:04) Al: But we’ve got about two months worth of game releases that I noticed in my list when I was updating it.
(0:21:12) Al: I thought let’s talk about them because I thought it may be useful for people if…
(0:21:18) Al: They have heard about a game that we’ve talked about, but they’ve not managed to actually play it.
(0:21:24) Al: And they had, you know, forgot about it or whatever.
(0:21:28) Al: I’m sure people hear about it and then they go, “Oh, I want to play that game.”
(0:21:30) Al: But they never actually do anything about it because it’s not out at that point.
(0:21:34) Al: They’ve not gone and wishlisted it or whatever.
(0:21:36) Al: So we’re just going to mention these. We’re not going to talk a huge amount about them, just a little bit.
(0:21:42) Al: We’re probably not going to give much opinion about it because they are…
(0:21:48) Al: We’ve not played, I think, any of these games. You’ve not played any of these games, have you?
(0:21:51) Jonnie: No, I have not.
(0:21:53) Al: No. So we probably don’t have enough to have proper opinions on them.
(0:22:00) Al: It’s probably enough nonsense to talk about. So yeah, we’ve got the first one is Melobot,
(0:22:06) Al: a last song, which was the game where you’re a little robot going around and trying to
(0:22:14) Al: heal plants of some evil thing and that one is
(0:22:18) Al: now if you were interested in that one. We have Garden Witch Life which I probably don’t need to explain. Garden Witch Life. There you go, done. Amber Isle, a reminder though the Switch version of this was delayed. I think it’s coming out this month but it is out on Steam if you were wanting that. Orange Season, finally out of early access. How long was it in early access for? A long time,
(0:22:43) Al: In 2017, April 2017 was when it started in early access and it even changed…
(0:22:48) Al: name in that time. The Last Farmer, which is the post-apocalyptic… I don’t know is this less cozy than Pumpkin Panic? Okay, fair enough. And the newest one which only came out on Friday, if you’re listening to this less than a week ago,
(0:22:51) Jonnie: The least cozy game that you’ve ever mentioned on this show
(0:23:05) Al: if you’re listening to this on release day, it was less than a week ago, is Farmagia, the marvellous, the new marvellous, it’s not Rune Factory, honestly.
(0:23:18) Jonnie: of all of these uh the one that i’m most looking at is is mellowbot uh i’ve just kind of I think over the past sort of year or so i’ve found enjoying more structured games you know with a narrative um uh kevin I covered was it kevin I who covered mushy um comes home whatever that game was called the one where you’re the mushroom that goes around and and adventures and smooshy
(0:23:45) Al: Oh smooshy smooshy
(0:23:48) Jonnie: and uh mellowbot has similar-ish vibes to it so that’s the one that’s sort of standing out
(0:23:56) Al: was you and Kevin. Yeah, I agree. I’m also kind of interested in trying Farmagia just because I want to see how it actually feels playing. Having seen gameplay of it since it’s released, I’m less interested in it now, but I’m still keeping my options open. I’m not going to buy it at full price. 50 quid is a lot for a game I’m not sure if I’m going to enjoy. Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s by Marvelous, so they don’t…
(0:24:19) Jonnie: Yeah, it seems like an expensive game.
(0:24:26) Al: do indie cost game. Alright, well, next we’ve got the news. We’ve got the big news, Johnny.
(0:24:34) Al: We finally got information about Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete. Before we get into the news about this, how are you feeling about this?
(0:24:38) Jonnie: yeah
(0:24:41) Jonnie: uh conflicted because it seems really good and i’m not sure if I want to
(0:24:44) Al: Okay. Oh. Did you play Pocket Camp?
(0:24:48) Jonnie: get back into animal crossing pocket camp
(0:24:54) Jonnie: yeah I played it when it first came out maybe for a couple of months and you know I enjoyed it for
(0:25:02) Jonnie: what it was um but you know it was a mobile game with microtransaction sort of
(0:25:08) Jonnie: problems and that was a bit of a off-putting feature to me and I kind of eventually just got sick of it and deleted it but you know it’s animal crossing yeah
(0:25:17) Al: Well, have I got news for you? There are no there are no
(0:25:22) Al: micro micro payment. What was it? I can’t. Microtransactions.
(0:25:25) Jonnie: microtransactions [laughing]
(0:25:27) Al: I was like, micro payments? It’s not there. What’s the term that we use?
(0:25:30) Al: Yes, there are no microtransactions in the new version Pocket Camp complete.
(0:25:35) Al: So we knew that it was coming out. I think we knew it was coming in December,
(0:25:41) Al: but we now know it’s coming on the 3rd of December. That is
(0:25:45) Al: six days after pocketcap goes…
(0:25:48) Al: which I initially thought huh that’s weird why have they got it so close to it going down but not
(0:25:54) Al: like straight after but then of course I realized that they’ll probably want some time between pocket camp going down and people starting to transfer their save data in to make sure that the save data transferring server is working fine with all the latest because like people will be able to change things in their save data up till the second that the game goes down and so that will probably take a long time to back up that data and make sure that it’s
(0:26:17) Al: all right before the transferring starts so
(0:26:21) Jonnie: Yeah, and just smart to give yourself a couple of days to be like, “Who knows what could go wrong?”
(0:26:26) Al: exactly exactly so it’s the Thursday the 28th of November it goes down and then Tuesday the 3rd that the new game launches its base price will be 20 US dollars but until the end of January it will be half price so that’s cool I like that. I suspect that means, you know, 90…
(0:26:47) Al: 99% of people will buy it at half price.
(0:26:50) Jonnie: I imagine so, like it feels like it’s like it it’s more like it’s the normal price is ten dollars unless you decide to get in late and then you get the dumb dumb tax of an additional ten dollars.
(0:26:57) Al: Yeah, you got the you weren’t paying attention tax. So confirmation that it adds almost all past items. They have said, little asterisk, some events and items will not be available,
(0:27:05) Jonnie: Correct.
(0:27:18) Al: but they haven’t said what? I suspect there’s like, oh, that’s true. It did say may not.
(0:27:20) Jonnie: I think a lot of it said, “may not be available”
(0:27:25) Al: So I wonder what’s happening there, like how?
(0:27:27) Jonnie: I just wonder if it’s kind of a… it could be licensing or I was just wondering if it’s kind of like cover because maybe there was some random item that was in you know very briefly but like didn’t actually do anything and that’s like you know games just developed weird things that like not everything’s going to transfer and someone’s like I managed to get my hands on an item that is
(0:27:28) Al: Is it licensing of something?
(0:27:50) Jonnie: filled food that’s not in the game why isn’t that transferred over and they’re like we said some items may not go away please please stop harassing us
(0:27:51) Al: Yeah, or there’s an item from an event seven years ago that actually breaks the game.
(0:28:02) Jonnie: yes yeah so uh my my reading of it is all of the items you would actually want
(0:28:10) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they’ve announced that all of the previous events will come back in a four-year cycle. I’m sure…
(0:28:18) Jonnie: This is the thing that like terrifies me about this game.
(0:28:23) Al: Well, the good thing is that there will be a new currency called Leaf Tickets, which will allow you to buy items outside of their events and seasons. How we get those Leaf Tickets, I do not, but that
(0:28:38) Jonnie: My assumption, and this is entirely speculation, is that where you used to generate the leaf tickets,
(0:28:49) Jonnie: which are no longer in the game they were the paid currency, you will now generate
(0:28:54) Al: they weren’t they were called something else leaf coins or something
(0:28:56) Jonnie: the… yeah you will now generate this instead and be able to use it that way.
(0:29:01) Al: right I can’t find the name initially but yeah there was a I think they were a coin the the the one in non uh yeah yeah maybe we’ll see um and they’ve announced that there will be new events that will all happen by the end of september 2025 so as part of the four-year cycle of events. There will be new-
(0:29:24) Al: to events, but they’re all in the first okay.
(0:29:26) Jonnie: sorry I found the answer so they were called leaf tickets they’re now called complete tickets and you get them from working in events so yeah I assume it’s just the sort of director like it’s basically just replacing the paid currency with an unpaid one and now that unpaid one is used to purchase stuff that you may have missed
(0:29:48) Al: thought the new one was called leaf tokens leaf tokens and the old one was leaf ticket I will also say I suspect that this will be time travel a bowl all of these events because I don’t think there’s going to be any real there’s not going to be any online other than the transfer
(0:29:50) Jonnie: leave tokens yes okay - Yes.
(0:30:12) Jonnie: Uh, what about the whistle pass where you can see your friends?
(0:30:18) Al: So the friends stuff, as far as I can tell, is just your data is encoded in a QR code,
(0:30:27) Al: which the game then interprets as your character that’s not connected to the internet.
(0:30:31) Jonnie: Ah yes, that looks like, yep, yep, that looks like you are correct.
(0:30:36) Al: So I don’t think the game will connect to the internet at all, except the initial transfer.
(0:30:43) Al: So I suspect if you change your calendar, you’ll be able to get whatever event.
(0:30:48) Al: So if you really care about a specific event, and you’ve missed it, or you don’t want to wait four years, you could probably do that.
(0:30:55) Al: But we’ll find out when it launched.
(0:30:56) Jonnie: I mean, this is just very hard to criticize, right?
(0:30:57) Al: Another I have something to criticize it.
(0:31:00) Jonnie: Like, it just looks so good.
(0:31:04) Al: I so I need to double check.
(0:31:05) Al: I need to find out when this launches, what the case is with this, but they have a note on the press release that says, please note that if you delete the app, save data will also be deleted.
(0:31:18) Al: And that’s entirely saved on your device.
(0:31:20) Al: And I understand that from a sake of they’re saying it’s a game.
(0:31:24) Al: It’s a local game is not on the line on the line.
(0:31:28) Al: It’s not online.
(0:31:29) Al: So we can’t save your data to our cloud.
(0:31:33) Al: However, especially on Apple devices, they have cloud save.
(0:31:37) Al: And if they’ve turned off cloud save, which is an active thing they have to do, I will be very annoyed just saying like, you don’t need to create your own server and make sure that you keep our…
(0:31:48) Al: …accounts data up-to-date, I don’t care about that.
(0:31:51) Al: But Apple has a way for you to do cloud save, please do that so I can play it across multiple devices.
(0:31:58) Jonnie: so you have a hypothetical criticism
(0:32:00) Al: I have a…well no, they’ve said if you delete the app, save data will also be deleted.
(0:32:06) Al: That would not be the case if they used cloud save.
(0:32:10) Jonnie: Yeah, but Nintendo doesn’t know how the internet works, Al.
(0:32:13) Jonnie: That’s not definitive enough.
(0:32:15) Jonnie: Any other company, I would agree, but Nintendo doesn’t know.
(0:32:18) Al: Well this is the thing, I am not going to say that I am 100% sure that that means they don’t have cloud save.
(0:32:23) Al: But it definitely makes it feel like they don’t have cloud save.
(0:32:26) Al: Anyway, we’ll find out. I’ll definitely be buying this game.
(0:32:30) Jonnie: Yeah, I think I will buy it as well because like I don’t want to pay the sucker tax if it turns out that I do want to play it so
(0:32:39) Jonnie: Yeah, I mean it looks looks good
(0:32:40) Al: Yeah well and if nothing else if I’m never going to play this I at least want to encourage them doing this again so I’m going to give them the money to say yes this was worth doing please do it for future apps.
(0:32:54) Jonnie: The one thing I’m curious about, and you and I won’t be able to answer is, but I’m curious if anyone has been playing Animal Crossing Pocket Camp this whole time, how they feel about now having to pay to keep playing. Because, you know, it’s nice from yours and mine perspective where we’ve put no time, effort, or money into this game in the last four or five years and now there is a thing that you
(0:33:24) Jonnie: can purchase that is a complete experience. I do wonder if someone who has been playing full-time feels like maybe there should have been some way to,
(0:33:31) Jonnie: you know, earn it for free if you’ve been actively playing for the last couple of years or something like that. Like, I just am a little bit curious about that side.
(0:33:39) Al: Yeah, I would understand that. I do think that if you’ve been putting in loads of money into the game, probably $10 is not much for you. If you’re someone who’s not been plowing lots of money into it, you’re probably quite happy with paying to not have to deal with that. I don’t know, maybe I’m assuming a lot of things.
(0:34:00) Jonnie: We may never know, but listeners, if you are one of those people, get in contact.
(0:34:05) Jonnie: This is howasseason.club, there’s a little form right there on the page.
(0:34:09) Al: Yes, yes, I think, oh yes, just to, I was going to talk about the friends feature, so I kind of talked about that, but basically there is a new friends feature.
(0:34:22) Al: If you have friends currently in the game, when you do your save transfer, those friends cards, assuming that both you and they have logged into the game since the update was released, like two days ago.
(0:34:37) Al: If you’ve done that, you will-
(0:34:39) Al: -get their camper card automatically.
(0:34:41) Al: If you haven’t, then you’ll have to scan their QR code to get it.
(0:34:45) Al: Um, I think the camper card thing is cool.
(0:34:47) Al: The fact that you can use the-
(0:34:49) Al: Because they didn’t need to do that, right?
(0:34:51) Al: They could have just not had any friends features in it.
(0:34:53) Al: But the fact that they’ve built in a new feature to have your friends’ camper cards and even be able to see their characters in a specific place in the game,
(0:35:04) Al: I feel like goes above and beyond.
(0:35:06) Jonnie: yeah I think that’s that’s how a lot of this feels like yes they are creating a new product that they are hoping to sell and to make money off of but they could have done a much lazier job of this and probably sold it for the same price and probably sold a very similar amount but this feels more like they want people to have a really good experience with this and have been very intentional about how this has been designed as an experience to continue on from the
(0:35:36) Jonnie: online mobile sort of experience.
(0:35:38) Al: for sure. And my final point was just, if you want to transfer your saved data,
(0:35:44) Al: make sure you’ve connected your Nintendo account before the servers go down.
(0:35:49) Al: If you’ve been playing the game, and you have it on your phone, and you’ve been actively playing it,
(0:35:54) Al: I suspect you’ve probably already connected your Nintendo account, because I think when they released that feature, there was bonuses and stuff like that. But, and if you haven’t been actively playing the game you either have already connected…
(0:36:08) Al: it and that’s fine or you don’t have your saved data anymore because they only I think you can only get it on multiple devices if you connected your Nintendo account but just saying if you do if you are one of the people that’s been actively playing it and you have it on your phone and you haven’t connected your Nintendo account you need to go do that before the 28th of November go do it now all right I think that’s everything there is a 12-minute video if you want to watch it to get more information but I feel like I’ve pulled out all this stuff that actually matters and but it will be in the show notes as Well, the link next.
(0:36:38) Al: We have Sunhaven have released a new update 1.7 which doesn’t really feel like much of an update and I’m not sure why they’re calling it 1.7 but it is what it is. They have released a bunch of new items and get this 25 new DLCs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 25 is…
(0:37:00) Jonnie: This game is just like a DLC machine.
(0:37:08) Al: wild to just come out all at once. I just, yeah, I don’t know what to say.
(0:37:10) Jonnie: Yeah, it’s uh, it’s a lot.
(0:37:14) Al: They’re now up to 30 DLCs so they only had four before this.
(0:37:22) Jonnie: crazy crazy uh like every time I see sun heaven it’s kind of fallen into the category of games I feel like I would like to play but I just realistically do not see myself ever having the time to play it because this game looks big and very in depth and yeah like I would love to have the time to play through this because I think the game looks awesome but realistically
(0:37:46) Al: Most of the comments on Steam are just complaining about how many DLCs.
(0:37:51) Al: 25 new DLCs, huh? That’s like Christmas for the developers.
(0:37:57) Jonnie: to be fair they’re all relatively cheap you know they’re a couple of dollars for new furniture so like to me this is the good side of dlc you know if you want to do a certain theme you can buy some extra furniture and skins and I think they do mounts and stuff and most of them and if you don’t it’s not like you’re really missing out on anything like I don’t know this is to be a very good way of doing DLC. I mean 25 is a lot it’s kind of crazy but you know.
(0:38:28) Al: Yeah, I agree. I don’t actually have an issue with the DLC. I think the main issue people have is that they’re releasing DLCs while still not releasing the Switch version, which that’s not how this works. The same people aren’t doing those two things. I just understand their frustration with the… what’s the word I’m looking for? How they’re framing it, right? And they’re still not really talking about the Switch version. They are continuing to say that they’re not going going to release another major update until the switch version.
(0:38:58) Al: Great, but they did call this 1.7, which is what they’ve been doing with all their other major updates.
(0:39:06) Al: Feels a little bit disingenuous to be like, “Oh, no more major updates!”
(0:39:10) Al: “Oh, but here’s an update 1.7, which doesn’t have anything major in it, so that’s what makes it not a major update.”
(0:39:12) Jonnie: and on well interestingly on the steam page uh there is a type field and under type this is labeled major update so but I feel like a number of games have increasingly be going silent on uh switch ports for games and it just feels like you know the switch is at the end of its life cycle a lot of
(0:39:42) Jonnie: Games with you know
(0:39:45) Jonnie: more financially
(0:39:47) Jonnie: Strong backing by struggling to produce games that run on switch and I just wonder if a lot of these studios are struggling to get their games running on switch when I look at something like Sun Haven and What that’s trying to do. I just imagine it’s tough to port in a way that is actually
(0:40:04) Jonnie: Makes the game workable at this stage
(0:40:07) Al: Yeah, I mean, I’ve said for a long time that I don’t think any Kickstarter should promise any consoles at all.
(0:40:15) Al: Like I just think there’s no positive to that.
(0:40:18) Al: I think you could say we hope to do this, but do not allow people to back based on that and do not make a stretch goal because you will come across problems.
(0:40:29) Al: If you are not a console developer, you do not know what it is like to port to console.
(0:40:35) Al: You do not know if you’re going to have to do it yourself.
(0:40:37) Al: You’re going to be able to find someone else to do it.
(0:40:39) Al: You don’t know if they’re going to be, you know, shut down randomly while you’re doing it looking at you humble games.
(0:40:45) Al: Like there are just so many possibilities.
(0:40:47) Al: The only thing you as our developer have to control is the stuff that you are doing, which is probably just the steam game.
(0:40:56) Jonnie: Yep, I agree.
(0:40:58) Al: Like is there any game recently that has come out on everything that it said and has had no issues and nobody’s complained about how long it’s taking?
(0:41:04) Al: Even Stardew gets complaints about how long it takes.
(0:41:07) Al: for the updates to come to console.
(0:41:10) Al: Do you think you’re going to do better than Stardew?
(0:41:12) Jonnie: Yes, I always assume I’m going to do it.
(0:41:16) Jonnie: Mika came out on everything at the same time, right?
(0:41:19) Al: Nope.
(0:41:19) Jonnie: Did it not?
(0:41:20) Al: Nope.
(0:41:21) Al: Don’t think it’s out on Xbox yet.
(0:41:22) Jonnie: Oh, that doesn’t count.
(0:41:28) Al: So I think it just came out on Steam and Switch at the same time.
(0:41:32) Al: But they had to delay for the Switch version.
(0:41:34) Al: And they decided to delay everything.
(0:41:35) Al: Which I do think is probably the sense-
(0:41:38) Al: But only works if it’s a short-term delay, you know you don’t want to delay for years.
(0:41:44) Jonnie: Yeah.
(0:41:45) Al: Like imagine if Coral Island had delayed until their Switch version was out, they’d still not be out.
(0:41:50) Jonnie: Uh, yes.
(0:41:51) Al: Which one could argue would be a good thing. I’m not, I wouldn’t argue that but one could.
(0:41:57) Al: Good, I’m glad we’re agreed.
(0:42:00) Al: Anyway, that was a long time for such a small update.
(0:42:03) Al: Next we have Slime Rancher 2 have announced their next.
(0:42:07) Al: update into the labyrinth it is coming december 12th this year and we don’t know anything about it other than players will finally be able to enter the gray labyrinth and begin to unveil the mysteries of rainbow island there you go johnny you will finally be able to enter the gray labyrinth just what you’ve always wanted
(0:42:28) Jonnie: finally yep I’ve been I’ve been hanging out to do whatever that is and learn about the thing yep cool good job
(0:42:38) Al: the mysteries of rainbow island i’m sure for people who are playing this game they’re excited to finally be able to enter the gray labyrinth um I just it’s yeah it’s very funny when when an update is like that very funny wording next we have an exciting update for gogo town are you excited about this johnny the dinkum gogo town crossover
(0:43:01) Jonnie: I mean it’s hard to not be excited and like I haven’t loved my time with gogo town but
(0:43:08) Jonnie: I mean you can ride a wallaby um and like calling it the dinkum update uh I guess
(0:43:16) Jonnie: dinkum Australian word so it’s Australian update and uh
(0:43:20) Al: Well it’s not just that, Dinkum is also an Australian game, another game.
(0:43:23) Jonnie: ah is it a game
(0:43:25) Al: It’s a game, so it’s a crossover.
(0:43:27) Jonnie: ah I had not heard of this game I just assumed it was like we’re just putting a bunch of
(0:43:32) Jonnie: gogo town
(0:43:32) Al: because they’re they’re both they’re both Australian games by Australian um so I think that’s the idea and dinkum so it’s kind of like Minecraft but farming is probably a simple way of putting it um but they obviously have a lot of Australian animals in it hence the wallaby
(0:43:51) Al: so yeah if you were waiting for the ability to ride a wallaby or uh what is that what is that is a bear of some kind? What’s that?
(0:44:02) Al: What’s a bear in the bottom of this?
(0:44:04) Jonnie: that’s the wallaby surely that’s a wallaby maybe it’s a kowaka kowaka yeah q-u-o-k-k
(0:44:05) Al: That’s not a wallaby.
(0:44:09) Al: A what?
(0:44:10) Al: A quacka.
(0:44:15) Al: Oh, it might be that, yeah.
(0:44:17) Al: Yeah, it looks more like that.
(0:44:18) Al: It definitely looks like a - is this a rodent, the quacka?
(0:44:20) Al: It definitely looks like a large rodent, rather than a…
(0:44:26) Jonnie: it could be it could be a no it’s not filthy it doesn’t have the right nose we’ll go with clock
(0:44:30) Al: It looks, yeah, yeah, I’d go with Cuaca. It’s definitely, if it’s a wallaby, it’s a very badly designed wallaby.
(0:44:36) Jonnie: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people poorly design a lot of things, but.
(0:44:44) Al: Yeah, it’s cool. I like, I feel like, I think this game is going to pull me back in eventually,
(0:44:50) Al: after there’s like, six updates, or something like that, and there’s enough more content for me to want to get back in.
(0:44:57) Jonnie: Yeah, I feel the same like this is a game that I will check in on
(0:45:01) Jonnie: Every once in a while to see like does it have enough for me to actually
(0:45:06) Al: And finally, we have the first update for Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is now out.
(0:45:14) Al: We have a bit more information about the minigames.
(0:45:18) Al: So one of them, the Churro Express minigame, you are helping deliver churros.
(0:45:24) Al: And the Save the Kitties minigame, can you guess what this is?
(0:45:27) Jonnie: You’re going to put kittens up really high for other people to then have to save.
(0:45:32) Al: Yeah.
(0:45:34) Al: Exactly.
(0:45:34) Al: And there’s our new pet companion.
(0:45:39) Al: I don’t know what the point of this is.
(0:45:42) Al: One of the first rewards you’ve earned is the companion Edgar the crow, who will now fly with you every time you get on your broom.
(0:45:48) Al: That’s all it says.
(0:45:49) Al: Does he do anything or just fly around with you?
(0:45:52) Al: And so is it just a cosmetic?
(0:45:54) Jonnie: I hope, there is nothing that indicates that this actually is what happens is that Edgar might start to like point out like secrets or collectibles that would be a really nice thing for them to do and I feel like it must do something because it says you have to have like a keychain equipped for Edgar to appear so presumably that means there is like some feature attached to it but like I would
(0:46:24) Jonnie: really like it if he was pointing out collectibles because I still have a few to get in the game and I don’t really don’t want to look them up and it would be really nice if there was like a little in-game hint system and I think
(0:46:34) Al: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Again, Johnny’s just making this up. We don’t know that this is the case. There’s nothing that suggests it’s the case. This is just that we would we would like that, please. All right. That’s all of the game news. We also have one new game to talk about. And that is now how do you think this is pronounced doloch town or doloch time?
(0:46:57) Jonnie: Yeah, I would say don’t walk down, yeah.
(0:46:59) Al: Let’s go with ‘Dolochtown’.
(0:47:04) Al: ‘Dolochtown’ is a cosy pixel art farm simulation game set in a post-apocalyptic world.
(0:47:09) Al: Is your bingo card full yet? Build your dream farm from scratch and explore this mysterious wasteland. Harvest, plant, build and battle against ferocious creatures while discovering the untold stories of this forgotten land. Did it capture your interest, Johnny?
(0:47:26) Jonnie: uh no which like I don’t want to sound down on it but like the this is just not the style of game that appeals to me particularly um like I think I think this game will appeal to a lot of people
(0:47:42) Jonnie: I am just not one of those people um you know it has a very strong sort of 2d platformer
(0:47:50) Jonnie: adventure look from the gameplay the the town building
(0:47:56) Jonnie: does feel reminiscent of the way that you kind of build up the boat in spirit pharaoh with like things stacked on top of each other and like that that side I do quite like the look of
(0:48:06) Jonnie: it’s more just the sort of core gameplay adventure loop is it’s just not really
(0:48:13) Al: Yeah I’m quite interested in this one, as you say the building feels very Spiritfarer and I really like how they did that in Spiritfarer and so doing more of that I think would be really fun.
(0:48:25) Al: It definitely seems more farming focused than that whereas Spiritfarer was like here is your one farming block, this is much more like here’s a bunch of area you can use for farming which I like how they’ve, it’s 2D but they still allow you to have quite a lot area for farming?
(0:48:43) Al: building up that like that I think is really clever I really like the graphics it’s pixel art but it feels not just it doesn’t feel like it’s just trying to be stardew
(0:48:53) Jonnie: does have a very distinct style I agree I think this art style is really cool and innovative which is it’s very hard I think to do something different in pixel art in 2024 but this is this is doing it.
(0:49:05) Al: Yeah, I’m definitely going to keep an eye on this one.
(0:49:10) Al: We don’t have any release date announced.
(0:49:13) Al: As far as I can see, it’s just planned for Steam.
(0:49:15) Al: There is a Steam page with a bunch of information on it.
(0:49:20) Al: And a demo.
(0:49:21) Al: Oh, I should have.
(0:49:23) Al: Wish we’d known before I’d played my other demo and I could have played this one instead.
(0:49:26) Al: Not that that says anything bad about the demo.
(0:49:29) Al: Yeah, no, this is definitely on my, I’ve added it to my wishlist and I’ll keep an eye on it.
(0:49:33) Al: I think that’s all the news.
(0:49:36) Jonnie: Whoo
(0:49:36) Al: What does dinkum mean?
(0:49:38) Jonnie: As you say like fear dinkum, which is just like
(0:49:42) Jonnie: Like I was gonna say it’s kind of just like saying yeah, I don’t know it’s
(0:49:46) Al: Don’t you just love trying to explain slang? It is the best!
(0:49:48) Jonnie: Yeah
(0:49:51) Jonnie: Look I’m now trying to google like
(0:49:54) Jonnie: the definition so I can provide something that’s
(0:49:58) Al: A genuine, honest, true.
(0:49:59) Jonnie: Yeah, so
(0:50:01) Jonnie: Yeah Although the search result that I got was saying
(0:50:06) Jonnie: It’s Australian and New Zealand. It’s definitely not a New Zealand slang term. It is just an
(0:50:10) Al: Well, interestingly, my web search is trying to imply that it’s English and I have literally claims that it’s possibly from Lincolnshire. Okey dokey. But that is a different so that their definition is doing one’s fair share of work, which feels different. It feels like yeah, yeah, if it feels similar enough that they could be related, but
(0:50:16) Jonnie: well that’s definitely wrong
(0:50:22) Jonnie: interesting
(0:50:28) Jonnie: uh that no that that that that I can see that as an origin but that is not how it would be
(0:50:40) Al: not, you wouldn’t use it in that context. Is that fair? Okay, cool. Let’s talk about some demos. So Johnny has played the Luma Island demo, and I have played the overthrown demo, both on steam next. And I thought we could talk about that because we did that in the last neckfest was that in May or something, or maybe earlier than that. And you played Light your frontier!
(0:50:44) Jonnie: Yes.
(0:51:08) Jonnie: - I did. - Correct.
(0:51:10) Al: Southfield, is that correct? Cool. So, we’re going to do a similar thing.
(0:51:17) Al: Do you want to talk about Luma Island first? Talk about yours?
(0:51:20) Jonnie: Yeah let’s let’s talk about Luma Island. So Luma Island feels Stardew-esque in the sort of core gameplay loop. Where it is different is it is 3D and it has a movable camera which confused me for the first two days because I didn’t realize the camera was movable because that’s just how my brain works.
(0:51:43) Al: Why is that not the first thing you do?
(0:51:50) Jonnie: But I’m so used to it now that you can’t move the camera that I didn’t even occur to me to do it until I changed zones and I came back and I was like where am I?
(0:51:51) Al: The first thing I do in any game is see if I can move the camera!
(0:52:03) Jonnie: And I realized I was on my farm but the camera was facing a different direction that was how I found out I could turn the camera. Yes which would have made it a lot easier if I had had realized that sooner. So I really like
(0:52:20) Jonnie: what I played of the demo and the demo was five days and I probably wasted a lot of those five days so I didn’t get to experience everything that I think was in the demo but yeah yes what I really liked that this game is doing, one the onboarding experience was very good which I normally don’t expect in demos but it had a really nice cadence of like the quests were telling you to do you
(0:52:31) Al: I think that’s pretty standard for demos, is not being able to access everything with one playthrough.
(0:52:50) Jonnie: it started off very specific things and walking you through all of the steps that you needed to do in order to craft something and and build it and then they sort of were progressing to you know the next quest is do like you’ve got the chain of actions and we’ve taken you through how to do them all so the next quest is just here’s the end result you need to get to and it was a really sort of nice onboarding experience but the thing that really sort of stood out to me is early on in the game you go to the town
(0:53:20) Jonnie: hall to get a permit to you know basically start making money and there were I think five different professions there was cook, brewer, like a crafter,
(0:53:32) Jonnie: artifact one and I’m forgetting the fifth one now but the purpose of the professions is they were sort of difficulty so there was a difficulty associated with each of them which I really liked and I assume the difficulty was.
(0:53:50) Jonnie: more attached to like how hard it was going to be to make money and progress rather than like a combat difficulty or or anything like that and yeah it kind of just to me this game has the vibe of yes it has its roots in the the games that we love that have caused us to you know be on or listening to a show like this one but it was doing enough that was different that feels like yes this This is a game I would really like.
(0:54:20) Jonnie: I really like to play more of and see more of because it’s doing enough things that feel different, right?
(0:54:27) Jonnie: And so the profession I picked was the brewer because it was like, I was like, yes, this is interesting because this is like a thing that exists in a lot of games and that you can ferment your crops in a keg.
(0:54:40) Jonnie: But usually that’s about as far as it goes and this was very much like for the brewing it was you had to harvest some crops.
(0:54:50) Jonnie: You had the keg but you also had to make the glass bottles for things to go in and it just all made sense and like it just had a really good feeling to it.
(0:54:58) Jonnie: So yeah, I was a really big fan of my time.
(0:55:02) Al: Okay, so my thoughts about this game when I see it are that I really like how it looks except the character models.
(0:55:15) Al: How does it feel to you when you’re playing it graphically?
(0:55:18) Jonnie: fine. I would say yeah like I’m not big on the character models either but I don’t know that that was something that I really thought about that much in my time playing the game. And one of the things that I think and I’ve just been sort of looking through the Steam page as I’ve been talking to remind myself of things is a lot of what they seem to show online is you know like going towards playing in multiplayer where there’s a lot of the characters
(0:55:49) Jonnie: models on the screen and when you’re playing by yourself I think that’s a lot less obvious and a lot less present. I will say though the one thing I didn’t do was the you know the more adventuring side of the game with the dungeons and and some of those sorts of things that I didn’t get a chance to do and so it might that might feel slightly different because that is very much about where your character is and what they are doing. I was more doing the farming and
(0:56:19) Jonnie: and actually this is just another thing that I liked so there was a mine on your farm that is just a mine like it I get the sense that the monster fighting and the mine are separate areas. Which again I am a fan of because I think combat in these games can be very hit or miss and I get frustrated with the idea that that often in order to do the mining which is always a critical
(0:56:48) Jonnie: component of these games you then have to do the combat which not everyone wants to do so I would be a big fan of all of the mining you can do without
(0:56:54) Al: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, interesting. So it definitely feels how you’re describing it like it is basically a good 3D stardew like, and it’s doing some things different, but it’s not trying to completely reinvent the wheel. Is that fair?
(0:57:16) Jonnie: Yeah, very fair. The one other thing I will say which I think might be, I think it will change for a lot of people how they feel about the game is it to me the area by where your house is is very hilly and you know one of the things that I think is often appealing is you’ve usually got your farm with a big sort of flat area where you can do what you want so I don’t know that this will be a great game if you’re into
(0:57:46) Jonnie: designing farms this this probably doesn’t feel like that sort of game like I’m you’ll be able to do some right because you still build stuff and put things down but nothing like some of the you know beautiful farms that you see in something like a coral island or a star
(0:58:04) Al: it’s probably harder to even if you could do that it would be harder to show off in this in a 3d game anyway right because on 2d games you just like you zoom out and you got a screenshot right and they quite often even have a feature designed to to to do the full zoom out to take the the picture of all whereas on 3d it’s much more focused on the you know more curated areas it’s just it’s harder to do that in 3d than it is in 2d.
(0:58:34) Jonnie: yes I agree so yeah um trying to think of anything else that really stood out to me about this game there was something interesting um that was going on where you would do like you know chopping a tree and you would get nature essence or something like that so there was definitely hints that like something more going on in relation to the island and like and things to explore that seemed
(0:58:35) Al: hmm okay
(0:59:00) Jonnie: again interesting and like they were trying to do something different it wasn’t clear.
(0:59:04) Jonnie: like what were these essences like that I assume they were probably just another form of
(0:59:09) Jonnie: currency or something like that but there was um it felt like there was a decent amount going on in this game and uh it comes out relatively soon and like this this demo made me really excited to
(0:59:22) Jonnie: um to to play this game.
(0:59:25) Al: Yeah, yeah, I think it comes out on the 20th of November, I think.
(0:59:28) Jonnie: uh 21st it’s saying for me but that might be time since.
(0:59:32) Al: So close.
(0:59:33) Al: Yeah, that’s almost certainly a timezone thing.
(0:59:35) Jonnie: I am. Actually so um I’m really pleased you said that because it reminded me of um when I was done with the demo uh how I felt was like I have been very bored of Stardew likes and I was not bored of
(0:59:36) Al: Okay, interesting.
(0:59:38) Al: I feel like I would expect that you’re bored of Stardew.
(0:59:59) Jonnie: this one and like I’ve tried in the past year I tried Roots of Pacha.
(1:00:05) Jonnie: and a couple of others where it just felt like you’re kind of going through
(1:00:10) Jonnie: the same start for every game. This game did not give me that vibe at all and I think because the onboarding was pushing much more towards your profession in the time I was playing I never got a quest that was to go and talk to 10 000 villagers and do a bunch of boring nonsense that that I don’t really want to do.
(1:00:33) Jonnie: Like I feel like this game really.
(1:00:34) Jonnie: It was like encouraging me to one explore the profession that you’ve picked but to kind of just do what you want to do.
(1:00:46) Jonnie: I’m not sure if there are any social mechanics in the game.
(1:00:52) Jonnie: The impression I got is that there’s not which I’m totally fine with like I just like this game does not have the vibe of like yeah we are building this game around strong characters and doing romance and like I’m kind of hoping it’s not in the game because
(1:01:04) Jonnie: it just didn’t feel necessary or needed like this is game that feels more about
(1:01:14) Jonnie: doing farming, exploring you know like picking a profession and really sort of following that through like this game feels much more about you and your adventure in relation to the island not in relation to the other characters on the island which I think was part of what was appealing to me
(1:01:34) Jonnie: I’m very bored with you know just romancing random NPCs because that’s part of the game and even though they have you know all bland sort of stereotypical personalities
(1:01:41) Al: Yeah, yes, as an aside, I’m not gonna put this into the podcast because it’s apparently still meant to be secret, but they are about to announce that the reason that they’ve delayed Sugardew Island is because of adding romance and they added it to Kickstarter, but they’re They’re like, “We’re not announcing it for two weeks.”
(1:02:02) Jonnie: Oh my god.
(1:02:03) Jonnie: No.
(1:02:04) Jonnie: Okay.
(1:02:11) Al: Fine, I’m not going to talk about it on the podcast till it’s officially public just because it’s easier.
(1:02:18) Al: But yeah, it’s literally they’re saying, “We’re doing this because of romance.”
(1:02:24) Al: The grant allowed them the money to add romance in and I’m like, “No, really?”
(1:02:31) Al: So stupid.
(1:02:33) Al: Okay, so any last thoughts about this demo?
(1:02:37) Al: And what’s your one, what should be people’s one takeaway?
(1:02:41) Jonnie: Um, my last thought about the demo is I think if anything I’ve said has interested you like download it and give the demo a
(1:02:49) Jonnie: Go this game comes out soon And I think I think it will appeal to a lot of people particularly if you’re found a lot of stuff lately hasn’t been
(1:02:59) Jonnie: Quite hitting the mark for you. I think this is doing something different enough
(1:03:03) Jonnie: And then there was a second question and I talked too long that I forgot what you’re saying
(1:03:08) Al: Mmm-hmm. What’s the one takeaway?
(1:03:12) Jonnie: I think for me the takeaway is about the professions you know one of the things that I really enjoyed listening to in the early days of the harvest season was when you would do the challenge episodes around you know we’re gonna do Stardew but animal farming or there was the the mining challenge you know some yes some of those sorts of things I really enjoyed and what I liked about this is like kind of just having that directional off.
(1:03:34) Al: The mining one, yeah.
(1:03:42) Jonnie: I’m going to do a play through and this time I’m going to be a brewer or this time I’m going to be a chef to kind of push you to maybe do some of those, like I am interested in doing a play through as a cook because I often don’t engage with the cooking mechanics much in these games because cooking food just doesn’t do that much, but that being your profession totally changes that narrative.
(1:04:08) Jonnie: that that is the thing that really sort of just was like this is something
(1:04:12) Jonnie: that I didn’t know I wanted in these sorts of games
(1:04:15) Al: Yeah, yeah, no, you’re right, that does sound really-
(1:04:17) Jonnie: and sorry I’ve just looked in the steam page so there was only five professions I recall seeing in the demo but the steam page says pick from seven unique in-depth professions
(1:04:26) Al: So well, you don’t expect them to put everything in the demo
(1:04:29) Jonnie: no no but just just to the answer and like seven feels like the right amount because I’m assuming they’ll be like a fishing you know you’ll be able to be a fisherman for one of them and probably a few other things so yeah
(1:04:42) Jonnie: really big fan of what this demo showed and very excited to give this a go so what did you try
(1:04:47) Al: Interesting. So I tried - let me just double check the name because I keep calling it the wrong thing - I tried Overthrone. So this is - you are - you find a magic relic that gives you powers basically and you’re building a town, you know, bringing people into your town to help you
(1:05:14) Al: fight other bandits and animals and stuff.
(1:05:17) Al: like that.
(1:05:19) Al: That’s the basic idea that the thing that really drew me to this game is how, very much like Southfield, how different it feels to play physics-wise and just like general, right?
(1:05:33) Al: You’re not just kind of walking around and occasionally jumping at most.
(1:05:36) Al: You are running and you can run like so fast you run across water, you can, you know, jump up cliffs, you are grabbing things…
(1:05:47) Al: You have a sawmill for making planks from trees and you can either cut down a tree and throw it at the the sawmill or you can pick up the sawmill and throw it at the trees and it will do the exact same thing and I just really like that silliness to it and the playfulness of we’re just going to do weird stuff.
(1:06:16) Al: I will see.
(1:06:17) Al: That part of it felt great.
(1:06:20) Al: The movement, I feel like there’s a little bit of tweaking they need to do,
(1:06:24) Al: especially for like controllers, because obviously I was playing this on my steam deck.
(1:06:29) Al: But in general, the movement, the fluidity of that felt pretty great.
(1:06:37) Al: I really liked it.
(1:06:40) Al: The demo felt pretty bare bones and it felt kind of more like a tech demo than anything else.
(1:06:47) Al: So it’s hard to know how this would feel as a full game like what is your end goal and how do you stay interested because obviously there is a bit of a thing and with some games in their uniqueness is it’s just a gimmick and I don’t and I feel like this could either end up being just a bunch of gimmicks smooshed together or it could feel like a really nice fulfilling game. I like how they kind of they separate.
(1:07:17) Al: Your standard moving around and interacting with the world and the building there’s like a build menu and that you know you kind of choose something and then you’re still moving around but you are moving around in a slightly different way like you’re not kind of like running around
(1:07:39) Al: in that area but it’s not the only time you can move things like if you’re just if you’re not in in the build menu you can still go up and pick something up, pick up a build menu.
(1:07:47) Al: and that’s how you do the the weirdness with the you know moving buildings around and throwing them at trees or you know simple things like if you’ve got a bandit who comes to try and get stuff you can pick up a building and throw at them for example and kill them like that I really like that sort of stuff
(1:08:08) Jonnie: Yeah unfortunately you didn’t answer, you answered but not in the way I was hoping the one question that I had about this game because you know it has very strong Minecraft vibes to the game and my question for this has been what is the gameplay loop what is the you know narrative because the the vibe that it’s giving off is very much like no you just build stuff for the sake of of building it and it’s silly, which you know for me would not be a…
(1:08:39) Jonnie: you know it’s almost like it very much at the moment to me has the vibe of like a game that I would happily have on like a second screen while I’m playing something else. Well you know I’m watching someone play this game but I’m not sure I’m seeing like a strong desire to actually play it myself.
(1:08:52) Al: Yeah, it definitely feels like a city builder rather than, you know, it doesn’t feel like there’s a huge amount of narrative and it might just be that they’re saving that for the game but it doesn’t feel like that kind of really exists and maybe it will at some point but yeah, I don’t know. It’s difficult to know. I love how it…
(1:09:22) Al: feels to play so much that I’m not willing to ignore anything else but it’s hard to explain
(1:09:34) Jonnie: is this the sort of game where there are some games where there’s like almost a joy of movement and it’s just a fun world to be in and to explore and sometimes that can be
(1:09:46) Jonnie: enough for a game is that like would you say that’s how your time
(1:09:50) Al: It kind of, insomuch as like I’ve definitely had fun in my playing of the game and in that movement.
(1:10:00) Al: The movement is definitely enough to have fun.
(1:10:03) Al: But I guess the question is how long can you have that fun?
(1:10:06) Jonnie: Yep and like I’ve actually a certain amount of that comes down to how many of these silly interactions are there like the idea of throwing the sawmill at the trees is a very good one right it’s very a very funny idea a very good idea and as we’ve been talking I open the steam page where they’ve got the developer playing the game and the thing that is standing out to me the most is there is literally just trees.
(1:10:36) Jonnie: You know so I’m curious how deep do those silly things go because if they kind of really lean into that side of the game and the mechanics you can imagine lots of weird combinations of stuff where you could be there could be that kind of constant sense of discovery that would be awesome to keep going through right so did you other than throwing sawmills at trees? Did you come across other biomes or other sort of fun?
(1:10:58) Al: I think the simple answer is probably no to that.
(1:11:12) Al: It feels like, as I said, it feels more like a tech demo than a game demo, and I feel like there could be more like that eventually, but I don’t feel like it’s ready for that.
(1:11:28) Al: I don’t know how much of this is a demo, therefore they didn’t put everything in, and how much of it is they just don’t have the other stuff.
(1:11:35) Al: It’s difficult to know.
(1:11:36) Al: I’m going to keep my eye on this no matter what.
(1:11:40) Al: The movement is - I feel with the movement like I felt with Fae Farm, where there’s something here and it may not be enough for me to - it’s definitely not going to be enough for me to plough a hundred hours into a game, but there’s something here that I would like in general,
(1:11:56) Al: and there’s maybe…
(1:11:58) Al: something that people could learn from this in other games as well?
(1:12:02) Jonnie: Yeah, even things like with the sword, you know, you can do like a super jump almost
(1:12:10) Jonnie: like
(1:12:12) Al: Yeah, it’s like a helicopter jump.
(1:12:13) Jonnie: Yeah, yeah, I think those sorts of things seem good and yeah movement in
(1:12:20) Jonnie: The sorts of games we like to play has been pretty bad or basic for a long time. So I feel like
(1:12:27) Jonnie: Even if nothing else this this game could produce some cool ideas
(1:12:32) Jonnie: Hopefully make their way into other other games
(1:12:34) Al: Yeah, it’s not even just farming games. Games in general, movement has stayed pretty static for 10 years, right? Not to say that other games are bad in their movement, but they’ve not really tried to do a huge amount different. Yeah, I think there’s a lot happening here and I’m hopeful for this. But it’s definitely not the same as your experience with Luma out where it’s this feels
(1:13:05) Al: deliberately limited demo of a really great game that’s coming out soon. Instead, this feels like a really interesting tech demo that could lead to a really detailed and deep game but also might not.
(1:13:21) Jonnie: Do we have any indication on when Overthrawn is planning on coming out?
(1:13:25) Al: So they’ve said they’ve said 2014
(1:13:29) Jonnie: 2014, wow, time travel!
(1:13:31) Al: Sorry, 2024.
(1:13:34) Al: I presume that’s for Early Access because they’ve said it’s going to be Early Access and I feel like that’s probably deliberate. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see whether the Early Access game is just the demo but slightly further on or whether it would make it clear that the demo was less than the Early Access game and just a demo of how the game might feel in certain situations.
(1:14:02) Jonnie: So based on what you played of this game and let’s just put “assume no early access”
(1:14:10) Jonnie: what release date would you hope to hear that would like be yeah that’s a that’s an exciting release date because it means that they are hopefully taking the time to flesh this out into the game I think it could
(1:14:19) Al: Yeah, I feel like that’s 2026, which would be feasible for a game coming out in early access this year to be like, because they have the core stuff down, right?
(1:14:33) Al: Like they have the interesting idea, they have the movement down, they have me hooked on that idea.
(1:14:39) Al: But now they need to have a reason to keep playing it past the first day and a year and and a half to two years I suspect would be enough time for that.
(1:14:49) Al: Because that’s much easier than creating the very core concept.
(1:14:53) Al: Well not easier, it’s faster to create quests and create storylines.
(1:14:59) Al: It’s faster to do that than to create physics in a game.
(1:15:03) Al: I’m also, there’s, there feels like there’s a lot of polish needed in this game as well.
(1:15:08) Al: Like the menus feel a little bit flaky and as I said the controller support is there.
(1:15:13) Al: They’ve done the thing that I keep telling developers to do,
(1:15:17) Al: which is build in controller support from the start.
(1:15:19) Al: On the Steam Deck it will show you the right things but there’s a few bits and pieces that feel like they’re missing from controllers and there’s a few bits that definitely feel like they’re more focused for a mouse. You can do everything with the Steam Deck but it just feels a little bit janky. I’m hopeful, I’m hopeful but I want to see where they go with it.
(1:15:34) Jonnie: Yeah, so, yeah, it sounds like some good bones, but it’s really going to be and what I really hope and I don’t know who the developers of this game are, but this I’m hoping that they have sufficient runaway to turn this into the game that it could be.
(1:15:52) Al: Yes, yes, yeah I hope they’re not going “oh we need to get this released next year” or something like that and and it not be enough. They do seem to have done a couple games,
(1:16:05) Al: so they’ve done one called Lance A Lot from 2016 and then they redid it in 2017. And they’ve got one called Bonsai Royale, which looks interesting, a top-down on…
(1:16:19) Jonnie: That’s a great name, okay.
(1:16:22) Al: Yeah, a top-down online shooter where contestants scavenge the map for weapons. They definitely seem to have made games.
(1:16:28) Jonnie: no that is that is I was expecting I was sorry I think you were saying like bonsai I said bonsai tree royale and I was like is this just like trying to grow bonsai trees in a competitive
(1:16:38) Al: No, I think, yeah, no, it’s not that, but I think that’s where they’re trying,
(1:16:43) Al: they’re using the same word deliberately, because the whole point of Ponzi is like cutting it,
(1:16:49) Al: right, in specific ways to shape it in a specific way. I suspect that’s what they’re doing here,
(1:16:53) Al: is that it’s focused on swords and focused on cutting people down. I don’t know, maybe I’m overthinking it. Yeah, it’s not their first game. They have successfully created games
(1:17:06) Al: that have, um…
(1:17:08) Al: Very positive reviews in the case of Lancelot and positive reviews in the case of Bonsai.
(1:17:13) Al: Oh, it’s not Bonsai, it’s Banzai Royale!
(1:17:15) Al: God, I’m an idiot.
(1:17:16) Jonnie: Yeah, but that’s why that’s why we love you.
(1:17:21) Jonnie: Okay, I’ll ask you the same question. What’s the one thing that people should take away from
(1:17:25) Jonnie: the demo of Overthrown?
(1:17:26) Al: I think if you are, if you enjoy 3D action adventure games, but you feel like none of them are doing interesting things, this is the one that’s at least trying to do something interesting.
(1:17:41) Al: And even if it ends up failing it, the industry as a whole could learn a lot.
(1:17:46) Al: So I’d say at least go try the demo because I feel like there’s something.
(1:17:50) Al: It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this, either of these because, well…
(1:17:56) Al: Alright, well, thank you for joining me to talk about our October 2024 demos episode.
(1:18:04) Jonnie: Yeah, they’re putting out stuff.
(1:18:15) Al: See how many more we can get of this.
(1:18:17) Jonnie: Look I think it’s always fun and I kind of feel like in the last sort of couple years the return to demos, I much prefer demos to early access and like the Loom Island one like it did what a demo was supposed to do, it gave me a taste of the game, it got me excited and now I’m gonna buy the scan and it was not even on my radar before Al suggested we do this episode so you know like maybe that’s the other thing to take away is like demos are good early access is
(1:18:47) Jonnie: bad
(1:18:48) Al: I’m not sure if that’s my takeaway, but I’m sure it is.
(1:18:52) Jonnie: it’s my takeaway because Loom Island didn’t do an early access I’m liking these devs for Loom Island more and more they just they just understand how things are supposed to work in the world
(1:19:05) Al: You mean they agree with you?
(1:19:06) Jonnie: correct
(1:19:07) Al: All right, well, on that note, thank you, Jonny, for joining me.
(1:19:12) Jonnie: thanks Al! Ahh!
(1:19:15) Al: What do you want to tell people?
(1:19:17) Jonnie: look as always we love to hear from listeners whether that’s sending an email, I’ll give the email address I don’t remember it but you can there is a form on the website at harvestseason.club that you can use to give us feedback ask a question and if you want to provide a bit of extra support patreon.com/thspod you can join the slack and talk about all of these games talk about Pokemon Pocket I guess talk about Loom Island because I’ll be
(1:19:47) Jonnie: playing that when it comes out like and it comes out on really convenient time I go on holiday for a bit over a week and I come back and then like two days later Loom Island comes out so like I mean the devs just really nailed it they really nailed it yeah [laugh]
(1:19:57) Al: I don’t think there is any any convenient time for me for games coming out because it’s just everything is too busy all the time now um yeah cool uh yeah uh people can find me as @thescotbot on mastodon.scot you can find the podcast on tumblr as @thspod.
(1:20:12) Jonnie: Where can people find you on the internet?
(1:20:27) Al: said send us feedback from our website harvestseason.club where you will also find links to everything we talk about and a link to our patreon as Johnny mentioned yeah I think that’s everything oh yeah no that I wouldn’t say if you do come into the slack tell us what game you have been playing from the next fest steam next fest because there’s lots so what have you been playing listener alright thank you Johnny again for joining me Thank you, listeners, for listening.
(1:20:54) Jonnie: That’s all.
(1:20:57) Al: And until next time, have a good harvest.
(1:20:59) Jonnie: Have a good harvest.
(1:21:01) Al: Wooooo!
(1:21:02) Theme tune: The Harvest Season is created by Al McKinley with support from our Patrons, including our pro farmers Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(1:21:03) Jonnie: Woo.
(1:21:15) Theme tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(1:21:19) Theme tune: Feel free to visit our website harvestseason.club for show notes and links to things we discussed in this episode.
(1:21:34) Jonnie: I don’t know how we managed to turn the friggin Sunhaven nothingness into like a 15-minute conversation