Spider Mode

Wed, Dec 11, 2024 Year 2, Winter 24

Al and Jonnie talk about Luma Island

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:03:55: What Have We Been Up To
00:13:53: Game News
00:37:20: Luma Island
01:32:07: Outro

Links

Wholesome Snack
Wholesome Snack Humble Bundle
Wanderstop Release Date
Overthrown Early Access
Snacko Roadmap
Haunted Chocolatier Development Update
Farm Folks Gameplay trailer

Contact

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.
(0:00:34) Al: My name is Al and we’re here today to talk about cut to story games.
(0:00:35) Jonnie: And my name is Jonny.
(0:00:40) Al: Ah, welcome Johnny.
(0:00:44) Jonnie: I am good for reasons that are entirely my fault.
(0:00:48) Jonnie: We were recording at a really convenient time for me today,
(0:00:50) Al: “Yes, I’m the one that’s that’s gone up early, so…
(0:00:50) Jonnie: so I am way more awake than I usually am.
(0:00:53) Jonnie: How are you, Al?
(0:00:54) Jonnie: Thank you.
(0:00:56) Al: Look, I mean, we used to do this occasionally, record early my time, and it just, it feels
(0:01:05) Al: like it’s less, it’s less convenient for me because of your later time zone now, like…
(0:01:12) Jonnie: Yeah, the time zone now works really well actually for me to record early because it’s a good time zone for that.
(0:01:14) Al: Yeah, because if we want to record at 5pm, you’re in.
(0:01:20) Al: time, which on a weekend is fine, probably, but on a weekday is probably the earliest you could do.
(0:01:29) Al: That’s 7am my time, so it kind of basically gets rid of that for weekdays,
(0:01:34) Al: which we used to do a couple of times is record an evening your weekday and morning my weekday,
(0:01:40) Al: because we were exactly 12 hours apart, I think, when you were in New Zealand,
(0:01:44) Jonnie: Yep. Hey, Al.
(0:01:45) Al: which made it perfect. So it could like, we could start at 5am my time and 5pm your time,
(0:01:49) Al: Whereas now it’s like…
(0:01:50) Al: I start work at 8am, so it’s like starting recording at 7am. It’s not ideal, but it’s Sunday, so it doesn’t matter.
(0:01:57) Jonnie: And we are now just going to rebrand to a logistics podcast.
(0:02:01) Jonnie: I’m sure our listeners are very excited to be hearing of that.
(0:02:05) Al: I have this great app from my Mac now where I have everybody’s time zones for the podcast typed into it.
(0:02:12) Al: And I have a slider where I can just choose my time, and it tells me what everybody else’s time is at that point.
(0:02:16) Al: It’s great for organizing stuff.
(0:02:18) Jonnie: Okay, one, I’m gonna need you to send that to me
(0:02:20) Jonnie: after the show, that sounds very convenient.
(0:02:22) Jonnie: I work across like five different time zones,
(0:02:24) Jonnie: so that sounds amazing.
(0:02:26) Jonnie: And two, I’m curious how many time zones we have as folks,
(0:02:29) Jonnie: ‘cause there’s quite a few, I’m guessing.
(0:02:30) Al: So if we just talk about the base team, so we’re not talking about the people that are on a couple times a year, that is four time zones.
(0:02:42) Al: So I’m in one, you’re in one, Kevin is in one, and then Cody, are we counting Bev still? They’ve not been on in a while, but Cody and Bev are in the same time zone.
(0:02:52) Al: So that’s four time zones.
(0:02:54) Al: Obviously, other people then have different ones, but I think Kelly is in a different one, and who else?
(0:03:00) Al: Is that it? Have we covered all the American time zones now?
(0:03:02) Jonnie: What about Micah, where’s Micah?
(0:03:04) Al: Oh, Micah Central, is that the same?
(0:03:09) Jonnie: I think it’s got to be the same as like one of Kiv and/or Cody.
(0:03:12) Al: it’s not the same as Cody. What time is Kevin? Yeah, I think Kevin’s in Central as well. So,
(0:03:20) Al: it’s the same as Kevin. Anyway, moving on. This episode, we’re going to talk about Luma Island.
(0:03:20) Jonnie: We needed like a west coast American to you know really round it out
(0:03:35) Al: Yeah, that was a full stop. We’re going to talk about Luma Island.
(0:03:41) Al: Um…
(0:03:43) Al: Before that we have some news, surprisingly still busy with news considering the time of year,
(0:03:50) Al: and I don’t think it’s about to stop now, and we’ll explain why in our first game news, but
(0:03:56) Al: before that, Jonny, what have you been up to?
(0:03:58) Jonnie: What have I been up to?
(0:04:00) Jonnie: I’ve been up to pocket of all varieties, many varieties,
(0:04:05) Jonnie: all the pockets.
(0:04:06) Jonnie: Pocket TCG, still plugging along with that.
(0:04:06) Al: I haven’t done today’s battles yet. I’ll maybe set them up on auto during this podcast.
(0:04:09) Jonnie: But Al, I really want to know, have you got any Venus yet?
(0:04:19) Al: And maybe I’ll get the Venusaur today. I don’t know. We’ll see.
(0:04:24) Jonnie: I’m not going to lie, I would be very stoked if you got the Venus
(0:04:26) Jonnie: or while we were recording.
(0:04:28) Al: Live on a podcast. Yeah. Let’s do it. I’m setting up.
(0:04:29) Jonnie: Yeah, yeah.
(0:04:32) Jonnie: Just for the listeners, how dry are you at this point?
(0:04:36) Al: I think I’m at 28 promo packs and no Venusaur. So, interestingly, I only have two of the
(0:04:42) Jonnie: Life has not been gone to you at all.
(0:04:45) Al: Greninja. I mean, two’s what I want, right? I don’t want any more than two. But it’s not
(0:04:50) Al: the Greninja that I’m getting lots of. I’ve got two and then it stopped. It’s the Jigglypuff
(0:04:56) Al: and Haunter and Onyx that I’ve got nearly double digits of each of them.
(0:05:01) Jonnie: Although, annoyingly, you kind of do want more of the more rare ones, because you get more Shine Dust for the duplicates, and while Shine Dust is not currently useful for anything worthwhile, number big means good.
(0:05:06) Al: That’s, yeah, true.
(0:05:14) Al: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, right. I said those, I said those battles off. So we’ll see what happens.
(0:05:20) Jonnie: But outside of Pokémon Pocket, I’ve also been playing Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete, whatever it’s called, which…
(0:05:31) Jonnie: …is now fully come out in its complete edition, and there is a lot in this game now. There is so much. It is very overwhelming.
(0:05:39) Al: Well, it is like eight years old at this point, and they’ve just shoved everything into it, so.
(0:05:44) Jonnie: Yep. I feel like it will get to a good place, but at the moment it’s very overwhelming, and I’m just trying to work out what is the limited time stuff that I need to get done, particularly being December with all of the various Christmas events.
(0:05:57) Jonnie: events. So just trying to work.
(0:06:01) Jonnie: That out. But other than both of those Marvel Rivals is this new hero shooter game that came
(0:06:09) Jonnie: out and look, I don’t like shooting games. I played a little bit of Overwatch. I’m terrible
(0:06:15) Jonnie: at them. But there was something fun about being part of a thing that is having a moment. And I
(0:06:20) Jonnie: feel like Marvel Rifles is that. And so while I’m terrible at it, I am having fun playing it in
(0:06:26) Jonnie: these first few days. Well, that’s all it seems everyone is talking about.
(0:06:29) Al: I have not played it, but I don’t want to say too much about it, but on the on the last
(0:06:37) Al: podcast that I recorded, which is coming out in three weeks time, you will hear Kevin convince
(0:06:43) Al: me to try it. So we’ll see, I guess, at some point. I wonder if by the time I next record
(0:06:53) Al: an episode in a week, whether I will have played it or not, whether we have some.
(0:06:59) Al: True out of time podcasting where I talk about the fact that I was convinced to play about
(0:07:05) Al: it, and then I talk about the fact that I’ve played about it, and then you actually hear
(0:07:09) Al: the being convinced to play it. We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see. I was totally not going
(0:07:13) Jonnie: I really hope that that is the case and my prediction for your take on the game, Al,
(0:07:18) Jonnie: is you will play it and you will be like, “I see why people like it and it is not for me.”
(0:07:23) Jonnie: That will be your take. But…
(0:07:26) Al: to play it until one thing in the episode, which I’m not going to spoil…
(0:07:29) Al: There’s one specific thing that Kevin tells me about that I did not realize was the case
(0:07:34) Al: for it, because I hadn’t seen any gameplay. And I had just been assuming based on everything
(0:07:39) Al: that people had been saying, because people are like, “Oh, it’s just Overwatch, but Marvel.”
(0:07:43) Al: And yeah, you’ll hear about that in three weeks’ time, listeners.
(0:07:48) Jonnie: Amazing.
(0:07:52) Jonnie: Yeah, but those are the things…
(0:07:53) Jonnie: I guess just because I feel like it’s something you have to talk about
(0:07:55) Jonnie: if you’re talking about a hero shooter.
(0:07:57) Jonnie: So far, the character that I am liking the most is Hela,
(0:08:02) Jonnie: which is probably not what I would have predicted
(0:08:04) Jonnie: going into playing this game.
(0:08:06) Jonnie: But that’s part of the fun of these sorts of games
(0:08:08) Jonnie: is you find and connect with characters
(0:08:11) Jonnie: that maybe you wouldn’t have otherwise.
(0:08:15) Jonnie: Hela’s gimmick is a movement ability.
(0:08:19) Jonnie: She’s kind of just a standard damage dealer.
(0:08:21) Jonnie: She hits hard and has a relatively slow fire rate.
(0:08:26) Jonnie: She has a stun ability and she throws some knives
(0:08:30) Jonnie: that deal some delayed damage.
(0:08:33) Jonnie: I don’t know how much of it really has anything to do
(0:08:35) Jonnie: with her abilities from the comics and/or movies.
(0:08:40) Jonnie: I know some feel particularly Hela-ry,
(0:08:43) Jonnie: but I’m also not super familiar with her as a character
(0:08:46) Jonnie: outside of that one Thor movie.
(0:08:49) Jonnie: So yeah, she’s a pretty good stand-in sort of DTS-style character.
(0:08:53) Al: I have talked about most of what I’ve been up to in the episode that will be coming in
(0:08:54) Jonnie: And that’s what I’ve been up to. What have you been up to, Al?
(0:09:02) Al: three weeks, but I specifically saved one thing to talk about in this episode, because
(0:09:06) Al: I know that you’re on the same page as me with this game, and that is I have been trying
(0:09:11) Al: to finish Legends of Zelda, Echoes of Wisdom, because I started it when it came out, and
(0:09:18) Al: I enjoyed it to start with, and it’s not like I’m not enjoying it anymore.
(0:09:24) Al: But I just feel like I’m doing the same thing over and over again.
(0:09:29) Al: And I know you’re going to say you don’t need to finish it.
(0:09:31) Al: I know, I know, but I’m like two dungeons away from finishing.
(0:09:35) Al: I feel like I just I want to finish it before I before I stop.
(0:09:40) Al: But the I think the thing that I realised last night
(0:09:46) Al: specifically was that I do not enjoy the boss fights in this game specifically.
(0:09:53) Al: Because they are very passive, right?
(0:10:00) Al: So you’ve got two ways of dealing with enemies in this game.
(0:10:03) Al: You can either you can either turn into, you know, shadow link and attack them
(0:10:11) Al: like you are link, which is kind of, you know, the traditional Zelda way of doing
(0:10:15) Al: things, or you can use the echoes of enemies and they will attack instead.
(0:10:21) Al: and for most…
(0:10:23) Al: For most enemies, I’ve just been using this big floating plant with spikes, which works
(0:10:28) Al: really well. It’s such a good… It’s so good that you… And you get it so early that basically
(0:10:28) Jonnie: Yep, that’s what I used.
(0:10:35) Al: nothing else replaces it. And I’m so close to the end of the game. But the problem is
(0:10:43) Al: that I don’t find that fun for the boss battles, right? Because the whole point of boss battles,
(0:10:48) Al: especially in like a Zelda game and stuff like that are for you’re figuring out what they
(0:10:53) Al: do and you’re trying to figure out their weaknesses and you’re trying to take them
(0:10:56) Al: down when they get to their weak point, right? But that is not possible to do with the echoes,
(0:11:04) Al: right? Because you’re just throwing echoes up and hoping they don’t die,
(0:11:07) Al: right? Because you can’t control them once you set them up. And the problem is you then,
(0:11:12) Al: so then you default to going, “Well, maybe I do need to just be the link and attack them.” But
(0:11:20) Al: Quite often, you just don’t have enough energy because you use
(0:11:23) Al: up the energy while you’re linked. So you can’t be linked all the time,
(0:11:28) Al: deliberately so, which is fair, but you just end up in this situation where
(0:11:33) Al: you run out very quickly because the energy moves really quickly, and if you’re not immediately
(0:11:42) Al: hitting the boss, you’re just dying. Finding it just such a frustrating situation,
(0:11:53) Al: I really like the bosses because you’re having to figure out how to defeat this boss. Here,
(0:11:59) Al: you’re just essentially throwing echoes at it and hoping they don’t die.
(0:12:04) Jonnie: Yeah, I kind of agree and I feel like I feel like it would be better if there was more of a puzzle mechanic to the bosses where you weren’t just using the enemy echoes, but you were using other echoes that you had picked up in the dungeon to, you know, solve a puzzle that would expose a weak plane tour.
(0:12:22) Jonnie: Like I feel like there was there was more space and it’s kind of my frustration with the whole game where I feel like there was more space to do more interesting things than ultimately what they ended up doing with them.
(0:12:34) Al: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s, that’s about what I am just now with that game. Um, uh, I, as
(0:12:41) Al: I say, I have two, I think two left to go. Um, presumably there’s a final boss after
(0:12:46) Al: those last two dungeons. Um, but I will, I will see how that goes. I’m determined to
(0:12:52) Al: finish it. Um, and I’m, you know, as I say, it’s not that I’m not enjoying it. I just
(0:12:57) Al: kind of wish that it could have been more, um, than it is.
(0:13:00) Jonnie: Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, my take on the game was, you know, it was good.
(0:13:06) Jonnie: It was really fun at the start and then it fell off.
(0:13:08) Jonnie: And I think the fall off rate is probably going to be different for everyone.
(0:13:13) Jonnie: And, you know, as close as you are, I think I would probably also finish the game if I was that close.
(0:13:18) Al: Yeah. I think the thing is that I did fall off. I was just determined to come back and
(0:13:22) Al: finish because of, well, just because that’s who I am. Right. I don’t, I don’t feel the
(0:13:29) Al: need to complete every game, including a game we might talk about this episode, but I do
(0:13:37) Al: with Zelda ones in particular, except the older 3D ones, I do tend to feel like I want
(0:13:43) Al: to complete it just for having completed it, you know?
(0:13:46) Jonnie: Absolutely.
(0:13:48) Al: Anyway, so yeah, that’s, that’s about it. I’ve not been playing a huge amount else.
(0:13:54) Al: Shall we talk about some news? So I think I probably should have talked about this first
(0:13:59) Al: piece of news in the last episode, but I forgot. I’ve been really bad at that recently, apparently.
(0:14:03) Al: This is the second piece of news in three weeks that I’ve forgotten to talk about in
(0:14:07) Al: its, in its first episode. But here we go. Wholesome Games have announced their Wholesome
(0:14:13) Al: knock the game of the wards edition the game of the game awards edition
(0:14:19) Al: and that is happening on the 10th of December which is in the past if you’re listening to this
(0:14:24) Al: episode. So we will cover whatever has happened in that in the next episode, whatever the next
(0:14:31) Al: episode is. I’m so confused. For listeners, I’m recording four episodes of this podcast in two
(0:14:38) Al: weekends, so I’m really confused about what’s happening, but there is an episode being recorded
(0:14:43) Al: next week that will be listened to the week after, and that’s the one that we’ll be talking about
(0:14:46) Al: about this in. So I.
(0:14:48) Al: What makes sense for you when it happens? Yes, it may not make sense until January,
(0:14:50) Jonnie: Let’s just listen to all of the episodes and everything will make sense at some point, except for the stuff that doesn’t.
(0:14:59) Al: but yeah, they’ve also launched a wholesome snack bundle. If you are of the bundle persuasion
(0:15:10) Al: and you like playing games, it includes Fe Farm, Little Kitty Big City.
(0:15:18) Al: The Ranch of Riverside, Minami Lane and Rusty’s Retirement and also Spirit City LoFi Sessions,
(0:15:27) Al: which I guess is a game. It’s calling itself a gamified focus tool, so it’s not really
(0:15:34) Al: game game. But yeah, that is a pretty good bundle for what it is. I already have multiple
(0:15:42) Al: of these games, so I don’t think I’ll be buying the bundle. But if you are interested.
(0:15:48) Al: And these is a very good deal.
(0:15:50) Jonnie: Yeah, I think this is a really cool bundle if you don’t if you don’t have many of these games
(0:15:55) Jonnie: This is a bundle that is definitely worth getting
(0:15:58) Al: - Absolutely.
(0:15:59) Al: - Is there anything you’re hoping for
(0:16:02) Jonnie: I
(0:16:04) Jonnie: would like more information on
(0:16:07) Jonnie: Tales of the Shire like
(0:16:09) Jonnie: Everybody else other than that. I feel like we are in this era of there being so many games
(0:16:17) Jonnie: I want announcements of when things are going.
(0:16:20) Jonnie: They’re coming out and not as early access, but like, yeah, just give us release dates for stuff.
(0:16:24) Al: you want some release dates of 1.0 releases. I know what Kevin’s looking forward to. That
(0:16:25) Jonnie: Make hours scheduling life next year really easy. That’s what I want out of this wholesome stack.
(0:16:33) Jonnie: Correct.
(0:16:36) Al: is whatever the developers of Wildflowers are going to announce, because they have basically
(0:16:42) Al: said they’re going to announce their new game in the Wholesome Snack. And what it could
(0:16:47) Al: be, we don’t know, but that is happening.
(0:16:49) Jonnie: Well, the listeners will have the ability to find out by the time that they are listening to this.
(0:16:54) Jonnie: So, go watch the Wholesome Snack and see if you can find out what Kevin is really excited about.
(0:17:00) Al: Yes, I won’t tell you the developer of the game.
(0:17:03) Al: So you have to guess the other.
(0:17:07) Al: I mean, this is part of the game awards.
(0:17:11) Al: I don’t understand why it’s part of the game awards because it’s announcing new
(0:17:14) Al: stuff and I’m confused about the game awards.
(0:17:17) Al: They seem a bit confused themselves.
(0:17:19) Al: I also here’s my thing, right?
(0:17:22) Al: I don’t particularly care about the I don’t
(0:17:25) Al: particularly have an issue with the game awards.
(0:17:27) Al: It’s fine.
(0:17:27) Al: I think it’s a bit weird that it’s become the one that people like.
(0:17:31) Al: You know what people like their like, they like their Oscars.
(0:17:35) Al: They like all their award ceremonies.
(0:17:37) Al: I don’t particularly feel amazed about one particular awards.
(0:17:42) Al: But hey, what he put in the effort into making a big event and people seem to like
(0:17:47) Al: it, although I do feel like people just complain about it more than anything else.
(0:17:52) Al: But I don’t have an issue with it.
(0:17:54) Al: What I do have an issue is why is it in December?
(0:17:58) Al: I’ve never understood why people do
(0:18:00) Al: their game of the year, so early in December, it’s like the 10th of December, they’re doing
(0:18:07) Al: this. And I’m like, that feels like, do it at the end of December, or do it in January, like all the
(0:18:14) Al: awards seasons for film and TV, they happen in March and April, and they have like a specific
(0:18:19) Jonnie: Yeah but people in games are dumb. So you know we get what we get and I don’t like game awards,
(0:18:19) Al: cutoff date.
(0:18:27) Jonnie: they suck and don’t pay attention to them. What you should pay attention to is the harvest season
(0:18:34) Jonnie: game of the year awards because that is much better and I was gonna say much less controversial
(0:18:40) Jonnie: but that’s definitely not true because last year was very controversial. So yes I don’t know don’t
(0:18:47) Jonnie: Don’t pay attention to them.
(0:18:50) Al: I do aim to be controversial.
(0:18:54) Al: Yes, our Game of the Year episode will be coming out on the last Wednesday of the year,
(0:18:59) Al: as usual.
(0:19:00) Al: This year, the earliest it can possibly happen, because of how the year worked out, the 25th
(0:19:05) Al: of December.
(0:19:06) Al: It cannot happen any earlier than that, because if it were to try and happen a day earlier,
(0:19:11) Al: it would actually happen a week later.
(0:19:13) Al: Fun times.
(0:19:15) Al: Next, we have a release date for Wonderstop.
(0:19:20) Al: It is releasing on the 11th of March 2025 for PS5 and Steam.
(0:19:28) Al: And this is the game, the tea-making game by the creator of the Stanley Paradox.
(0:19:34) Al: So, I’m very intrigued.
(0:19:34) Jonnie: I was I was trying to place why I knew the like why I knew this game and it was the I
(0:19:42) Jonnie: had forgotten about the
(0:19:45) Jonnie: That connection. Yeah this I
(0:19:49) Jonnie: Don’t know. This is gonna be weird, right? Is there any other options?
(0:19:53) Al: Yeah, I think it’s going to be something. I don’t know what it is. I’m not expecting it to be
(0:19:58) Al: necessarily a meta-commentary on games like the Stanley Parable was. I think that would be boring
(0:20:04) Al: if it was just the exact same thing, and I don’t know why they would do a cosy game for that. But
(0:20:08) Al: I could see it addressing some sort of tropes on cosy games in some sort of way, because it talks
(0:20:16) Al: about it being a narrative-driven game, and I think that that is probably very deliberate.
(0:20:23) Al: The way they’re wording that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they upended some of our expectations.
(0:20:32) Jonnie: Yeah, and I think the other thing that’s interesting is like in the about this game
(0:20:36) Jonnie: they say it’s about change and tea like and putting a game about change as sort of your a
(0:20:43) Jonnie: Number one thing that your game is about like if anything my expectation or not my expectations my hopes for this game
(0:20:51) Jonnie: That it’s sort of on a par with
(0:20:54) Jonnie: spirit fear
(0:20:55) Al: - Mm, so you wanted to make it cry.
(0:20:58) Jonnie: Uh, so I thought about a second like spirit fear but like on a par with
(0:21:03) Jonnie: it could be a more pleasant version of a heavily narrative given game like spirit fear. Like I want
(0:21:09) Al: is that possible? Is it possible to make you feel something without it being crying?
(0:21:09) Jonnie: I want this game to make me feel something. Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
(0:21:18) Al: Fair, fair, fair, fair. They’ve also released a new trailer for the game as well. Overthrown,
(0:21:25) Al: I have announced their early access and it’s out now. Yep, so if you’ve been looking forward
(0:21:31) Al: to this game, it’s out now. I’m undecided, I think I might wait for 1.0 for this game
(0:21:37) Al: because I played the d-
(0:21:39) Al: and I enjoyed it, but it definitely felt like I wanted much more than what it was initially
(0:21:45) Al: um
(0:21:46) Jonnie: Did you watch the video that went with the announcement of Early Access?
(0:21:54) Jonnie: The one thing I was curious about was if there was anything in this video that looked like stuff
(0:22:00) Jonnie: that wasn’t in the demo that you played. They did focus quite heavily in the video on multiplayer,
(0:22:08) Jonnie: which seems very smart for this game, the chaos that I think that could bring sounds.
(0:22:15) Al: Yeah, I don’t think the early access starts with multiplayer though, does it?
(0:22:16) Jonnie: Pretty amazing.
(0:22:20) Jonnie: That would be surprising because that felt very prominent in the…
(0:22:22) Al: Well, maybe it does. The demo definitely didn’t have multiplayer,
(0:22:27) Al: but that might have been because it was the demo.
(0:22:27) Jonnie: Yeah, it felt like that was the whole focus of the trailer.
(0:22:32) Al: Yeah, no, you’re right. It does feel like that, and I’m not seeing it in their roadmap anywhere,
(0:22:39) Al: so I guess maybe it does have multiplayer already.
(0:22:43) Al: Anyway, yeah, I’m obviously going to buy.
(0:22:45) Al: this game and play it again at some point.
(0:22:47) Al: I’m just undecided as to when that is.
(0:22:49) Al: It’s not going to be this year because this year is already spoken for.
(0:22:53) Al: I’ve got to finish Zelda and I’ve got to play Sonic.
(0:22:56) Al: So we’ll see when that happens.
(0:22:59) Al: It’s on Steam in early access.
(0:23:01) Al: It’s also on Xbox game preview, apparently they call it,
(0:23:05) Al: because it can’t be called the same thing.
(0:23:09) Al: Next, we have a roadmap for Snacko has been announced
(0:23:15) Al: the remaining updates before 1.0.
(0:23:19) Al: They have four updates left to go down in the mines.
(0:23:23) Al: Slice of life sprites evolution and dress to impress.
(0:23:27) Al: So you can guess on what those might bring to the game.
(0:23:30) Jonnie: Now I’m just going to jump on, you know, your little bandwagon, but on this roadmap,
(0:23:35) Jonnie: why do they list the version numbers? They don’t need to. They could just have town and guild update
(0:23:40) Jonnie: down in the mines, sprites evolution. Putting the numbers next to it doesn’t add anything,
(0:23:46) Jonnie: and if they need to do a 0.9, 0.8, point something else because they’ve got some bug, like I just…
(0:23:53) Jonnie: Anyway, I understand where you’re coming from, or even fit to my brain. I don’t know which, but
(0:24:00) Al: Yeah, Snacko in particular have, um, look, I really like the developers of Snacko, so
(0:24:07) Al: this is not personal. They really picked a weird version number thing in general to do
(0:24:14) Al: for their early access. I feel like they started at zero point, nine point, zero point something.
(0:24:21) Al: I don’t know what the problem is. Like I don’t know why they’ve done that, but it is what
(0:24:27) Al: it is. Yeah, I think that I think
(0:24:30) Al: the game developers should just not focus on version numbers in front of consumers
(0:24:39) Al: at all, right? Consumers don’t care about a version number, they care about are they
(0:24:44) Al: on the most recent update or not. That’s it. And Steam tells you that. Steam tells you
(0:24:47) Jonnie: Sorry.
(0:24:48) Al: if there’s an update. That’s it. Right, like you don’t need more than
(0:24:53) Jonnie: I totally agree.
(0:24:54) Jonnie: There’s just a silly thing to do.
(0:24:56) Jonnie: And you can market your game better if you just say,
(0:24:59) Jonnie: hey, look at all this exciting stuff
(0:25:01) Jonnie: that we’ve got coming on our roadmap.
(0:25:03) Jonnie: And it’s not 0.9.7 followed by 0–
(0:25:06) Jonnie: because that 0.9.8, because that doesn’t
(0:25:09) Jonnie: make it sound exciting.
(0:25:10) Jonnie: It’s a very small number that it is going up by in the way
(0:25:13) Jonnie: that humans interpret numbers.
(0:25:15) Jonnie: So let’s not be silly.
(0:25:17) Jonnie: I guess.
(0:25:18) Al: Yes. Anyway, this confirms to me that it’s not releasing this year, so we’re safe. A few.
(0:25:29) Al: They can’t get four updates done in December.
(0:25:29) Jonnie: Well, particularly given that all four of the updates have names and then a bunch of
(0:25:35) Jonnie: question marks underneath them, so there’s literally no detail on, well, there is some
(0:25:38) Al: Yeah, I suspect that’s deliberate, that’s not because they don’t know what’s in it,
(0:25:39) Jonnie: detail in the post about what’s coming.
(0:25:44) Al: I think that’s definitely because they just want to keep the suspense and tell you it
(0:25:50) Al: when it comes.
(0:25:51) Al: All right, we now have our development update from Concern Date about Haunted Chocolatier.
(0:25:59) Al: It’s a lot of words and it’s mostly, sorry I haven’t done much, but here’s some screenshots
(0:26:05) Al: to keep you happy.
(0:26:06) Al: Is that fair way to describe it?
(0:26:08) Jonnie: I think it’s, sorry, I haven’t done much, I’ve been busy doing stuff on Stardew Valley.
(0:26:12) Al: Yeah, oh yes, yes, I’m sorry, I thought that bit was obvious.
(0:26:14) Jonnie: Also, in brackets, look, sometimes it might not be, also in brackets, I’ll probably keep
(0:26:22) Jonnie: doing stuff on Stardew Valley.
(0:26:24) Al: Yeah, are we ever getting this game, Johnny?
(0:26:29) Jonnie: So I don’t know, like I found the framing around, the consent I put in the blog post
(0:26:35) Jonnie: around Stardooth very concerning.
(0:26:38) Jonnie: In that they discussed a strong feeling of obligation, I guess towards continuing to add to Stardooth because of, broadly speaking, how successful the game has been.
(0:26:52) Jonnie: Which, to me, feels like someone chasing some idealized version of perfection that will never be achievable.
(0:27:04) Jonnie: And I think we’ve already talked about this on the show.
(0:27:08) Jonnie: But I feel with the most recent update, 1.6, was it good?
(0:27:12) Jonnie: Yeah, it was good. But Staju was finished.
(0:27:16) Jonnie: It is time to move on.
(0:27:20) Jonnie: And I just don’t see what value there is to be achieved by adding more to Staju at this point.
(0:27:28) Jonnie: And I would love to see a focus on anything else.
(0:27:30) Jonnie: It doesn’t even have to be haunted chocolate here.
(0:27:32) Jonnie: that’s not the thing that is, you know, making
(0:27:38) Jonnie: bringing joy or whatever it is like find something else but yeah, I don’t know this blog post did not fill in
(0:27:46) Al: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m hoping that he can find it in his brain to focus on Hunter
(0:27:55) Al: Jugletier until he’s happy with it. But yeah, I think you’re right. I don’t expect that
(0:28:03) Al: most of his expectations on the obligations on him for Stardew are external. I suspect
(0:28:11) Al: they’re internal in that he is, as you said in
(0:28:16) Al: different words, a perfectionist, right? Like he wants it to be something, but
(0:28:21) Al: that, as we all know, is impossible, and therefore he wants to completely keep it
(0:28:27) Al: going. And I do worry a little bit that he might end up with like that with
(0:28:30) Al: Haunted Chocolate here as well, but before it gets released, and so we may
(0:28:34) Al: never get a version of it because he’s never fully happy with it. Well, I guess
(0:28:38) Jonnie: - I agree, and I think you’re right, sure.
(0:28:42) Al: we’ll see. You know, we could get into a situation where in two
(0:28:46) Al: or three years, Hunter Chocolatier is out, and we then just get like one year we get a stardew
(0:28:51) Al: update, the next year we get a Hunter Chocolatier update, and he’s infinitely updating both games
(0:28:56) Al: until he dies. Who knows? Any comments on the screenshots we got? Because obviously there’s
(0:28:58) Jonnie: - Look, it’s certainly possible.
(0:29:04) Al: no context behind them, it’s just here are four screenshots.
(0:29:10) Jonnie: Yeah, and it’s very hard to take anything significant
(0:29:15) Jonnie: from these screenshots because there’s clearly
(0:29:17) Jonnie: a heavy reuse of Stagio assets in them, right?
(0:29:22) Jonnie: So like, and given where the game is at
(0:29:25) Jonnie: and it’s developed in the life cycle,
(0:29:27) Jonnie: largely a lot of that work.
(0:29:28) Jonnie: It would be placeholder, I assume.
(0:29:33) Jonnie: However, there were some things that
(0:29:35) Jonnie: seemed obvious from the screenshots
(0:29:36) Jonnie: that there was farming in the game.
(0:29:40) Jonnie: I guess for me, I didn’t see anything in these screenshots.
(0:29:43) Jonnie: I was like, oh, that’s interesting.
(0:29:45) Jonnie: I wonder what that is.
(0:29:46) Jonnie: It was mostly like, OK, this looks like a game
(0:29:51) Jonnie: from the person who made Stardew.
(0:29:53) Jonnie: And it kind of just looks, feels, has the vibe of–
(0:29:59) Jonnie: Stardew, there is literally a line
(0:30:01) Jonnie: of crops growing in some grass.
(0:30:06) Al: Yeah, I so I looked at that. That’s obviously not your house.
(0:30:11) Al: So I’m wondering if that’s not actually you growing stuff.
(0:30:14) Al: And that is just someone else in the village who’s doing that.
(0:30:19) Al: Right. Because I I don’t know if we know for certain that it has farming and this
(0:30:24) Al: would obviously hint at that, but it wouldn’t be weird if there wasn’t farming.
(0:30:29) Al: But a house in the village had crops because, of course, someone’s going to have crops.
(0:30:35) Jonnie: interesting. How do you know? Do you know for certain that it’s not to get the players house?
(0:30:40) Al: Well, you live in a castle in haunted juggler
(0:30:45) Jonnie: I clearly have forgotten way too much about this game that we
(0:30:50) Al: So if you go into the screenshots link on the web page, the top one is a picture of
(0:30:59) Al: your shop that is attached to the house that you stay in.
(0:31:04) Al: Like you live in a big mansion type house, hence haunted.
(0:31:08) Al: Like it’s an old haunted house type thing.
(0:31:11) Al: So yeah, I’m pretty confident that the picture with those crops is now.
(0:31:16) Jonnie: There we go. The other thing that I’ll say about the screenshots is the second one is the player
(0:31:22) Jonnie: being attacked by a bunch of slimes, and the thing that I’m like, “Oh, I don’t like Stardew
(0:31:27) Jonnie: Combat. It’s very bad.” This looks like more Stardew Valley-style combat, not less,
(0:31:33) Jonnie: so that’s definitely heading in the wrong direction.
(0:31:34) Al: he has he has commented that he’s done a lot of different things with the combat
(0:31:39) Al: whether it addresses your complaints about it I’m not sure but he yeah that
(0:31:45) Al: he’s said that in previous blog posts that it’s he’s done a lot of things to
(0:31:50) Al: the combat that he didn’t do in Stardew so I guess we’ll see what what that
(0:31:54) Jonnie: - Yeah, do you have any takeaways from any of the screenshots?
(0:32:02) Al: I don’t think anything that you’ve not brought up, I guess maybe, maybe I think
(0:32:08) Al: it’s interesting that he’s posted two portraits of characters and I don’t know
(0:32:13) Al: whether this is just a brain pattern match type thing, but my brain looks at
(0:32:17) Al: them and goes, they look very similar to existing stardew characters.
(0:32:22) Al: Like the guy on the right looks a lot like Sam’s dad.
(0:32:27) Al: I can’t remember his name.
(0:32:28) Jonnie: - I can’t, you’re the king.
(0:32:29) Al: Kent, looks a lot like Kent.
(0:32:32) Al: You’re right.
(0:32:33) Al: Um, and the one on the left almost looks like a young, long haired Abigail, but
(0:32:39) Jonnie: Yes. It is not your brain. The Abigail one in particular is very close, I think.
(0:32:39) Al: maybe this is just my brain trying to see things that aren’t there.
(0:32:50) Jonnie: I definitely see both of those characters in those portraits.
(0:32:55) Al: So yeah, I don’t know. I think the thing about Stardew is one of its best things is its characters,
(0:33:00) Al: and that doesn’t mean the characters in this need to look completely different to the characters
(0:33:05) Al: in Stardew. Like if they are characterised well, then it will still be good. Yeah, we’ll see,
(0:33:12) Al: I guess. We’ve got a long time to wait. Maybe we won’t. The last blog post before
(0:33:14) Jonnie: Maybe we won’t see L, maybe we won’t.
(0:33:18) Al: this one was posted three years ago. Christmas Day 2021.
(0:33:23) Jonnie: That cannot be accurate, but I guess I’ll have to believe you.
(0:33:25) Al: I mean, you can check yourself. Go onto the blog link and scroll down. You see this update
(0:33:32) Al: December 4th, 2024, and the next one December 25th, 2021. It’s been over three years since
(0:33:37) Jonnie: I refuse to believe that.
(0:33:41) Al: this game was announced, that’s all. It’s been over three years, and that was over
(0:33:44) Jonnie: It cannot be more than two years, that’s all I’m saying.
(0:33:55) Al: half into Covid. Time means nothing, Johnny.
(0:34:01) Jonnie: I know we’re on a podcast now, but I would really love for you to stop talking.
(0:34:07) Al: OK, the last piece of news is that farm folks have released a new trailer. They’re calling
(0:34:12) Al: it their Reveal Trailer, which is funny because I’m pretty sure they revealed this game a couple
(0:34:17) Al: years ago, so I’m not sure why this is the reveal trailer. But anyway, yeah, here’s a game called
(0:34:25) Al: Farm Folks that we definitely haven’t talked about before. Yes, we have. Scrolling back on Steam,
(0:34:35) Al: their first announcement of the game was in February 2021. So yes, it is not. I don’t know
(0:34:41) Al: why they call it a reveal trailer. This is a thing that lots of people do, is they announce
(0:34:45) Al: these things like they’ve never announced them before. We’ve seen so much gameplay of this game.
(0:34:48) Jonnie: I think it’s because they’re revealing their gameplay, like actual gameplay footage.
(0:34:55) Jonnie: They say they are claiming it is their first gameplay trailer.
(0:34:55) Al: Or maybe a professionally produced full trailer, but I’ve seen almost all of this gameplay before,
(0:35:06) Al: and they keep posting it on Twitter and TikTok. Oh, so it’s Gameplay Reveal Trailer. Interesting.
(0:35:13) Al: Anyway, I’m cautiously optimistic about this. I think what I like about this game is the
(0:35:18) Al: very heavy lean into automation.
(0:35:21) Jonnie: I don’t have a strong feel for this game,
(0:35:24) Jonnie: and that is because it gives me strong Minecraft vibes,
(0:35:30) Jonnie: which is not really my thing,
(0:35:34) Jonnie: but I am with you on the automation side of things,
(0:35:38) Jonnie: seeming like that is, of all of the things in this game,
(0:35:42) Jonnie: that is the one thing that stands out.
(0:35:44) Jonnie: And if it is good, I feel like this is the sort of game
(0:35:47) Jonnie: where I would like to watch YouTube videos
(0:35:50) Jonnie: of all of the.
(0:35:51) Jonnie: Cool and weird automation things that people do in this game.
(0:35:54) Al: Yeah, yeah, I do suspect that that will be a fun way to experience it, but yeah, I get
(0:36:04) Al: that. Personally, I loved Minecraft as well, so I can’t really combat your point about
(0:36:12) Al: it being Minecraft-y. I do think I felt more Sims-y about it than anything else, especially
(0:36:20) Al: with the building, the building of buildings.
(0:36:22) Jonnie: Yeah, I guess for me the building looks more like the modern version of what I would expect
(0:36:26) Jonnie: Minecraft building to be. You know, where they’ve got the roof parts and wall sections
(0:36:31) Jonnie: and things like that. It’s sort of like the level up that has happened in the survival
(0:36:36) Jonnie: game genre in the last five years.
(0:36:40) Al: Yeah, maybe.
(0:36:41) Jonnie: I also really don’t like the word folks. I think it’s such a dumb, lame word. Yeah,
(0:36:45) Al: Hey, folks.
(0:36:50) Jonnie: Just to say, like, I mean, obviously–
(0:36:52) Jonnie: I’d say the name “farm people” would be darn, but if you ever are going to use the word “folks,” just don’t. Just say “people.”
(0:36:57) Al: I like it.
(0:36:58) Al: I like folks.
(0:36:59) Al: It’s generic guys.
(0:37:00) Jonnie: No.
(0:37:00) Al: It’s gender neutral guys, folks.
(0:37:04) Jonnie: Folks is better than guys, but it’s still like a detail way of addressing a group of people.
(0:37:08) Al: It’s folksy.
(0:37:11) Al: No.
(0:37:13) Al: Okay.
(0:37:14) Al: Well, good.
(0:37:15) Al: Now I know another thing to annoy you with.
(0:37:16) Al: Just what I like.
(0:37:18) Al: Okay.
(0:37:19) Al: That’s all the news.
(0:37:21) Al: We are now going to talk about Luma Island.
(0:37:24) Al: And I’m going to try and not make Johnny too disappointed with my opinions on this game.
(0:37:31) Al: So Luma Island.
(0:37:34) Al: Let’s introduce it, I guess.
(0:37:37) Al: It is, uh, I think it’s fair.
(0:37:40) Al: Fair to say that this is a farming game, but I think it’s, it’s less focused on farming
(0:37:45) Al: than most farming games, but I would say it’s, it feels like an evolution of a Stardew-like
(0:37:52) Al: in that it’s, it doesn’t feel like Stardew, but it feels like it takes a lot of the ideas
(0:37:58) Al: and moves them in a different direction. Would that be fair to say?
(0:38:00) Jonnie: Yeah, I can. I completely agree. And like for me, the thing that Luma Island is is it’s kind of like a puzzle exploration game that has strong roots in a Stardew Valley or a core sort of
(0:38:16) Al: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s definitely everything that you would expect in, in, in
(0:38:21) Al: a stardew, like, except maybe characters that you care about. Um, you know, there’s farming,
(0:38:26) Al: there’s mining, there’s fishing, there’s actually, I don’t know. Can you, can you get animals?
(0:38:30) Al: I haven’t actually experienced that you can write. Okay. Um, I’m going to lean on you
(0:38:31) Jonnie: - Yes, you can, you can get animals, yep.
(0:38:35) Al: a lot for this. Cause I think I looked at last episode, I said, I’d played 10 hours
(0:38:40) Al: of this game. I, and then I checked after the episode, I had not played 10 hours of
(0:38:44) Al: this game.
(0:38:46) Al: The big thing about this game that’s different is the job system.
(0:38:58) Jonnie: Yeah, so I guess the the job systems are also questlines,
(0:39:04) Jonnie: there’s seven job systems, you know, there’s cooking, which
(0:39:07) Jonnie: is and brewing, which are very closely tied to farming. There
(0:39:11) Jonnie: is fishing, which is what it says. There’s also, I think
(0:39:17) Jonnie: they call it crafting. But it’s like, or treasure hunters, I
(0:39:21) Jonnie: think it’s treasure hunting, where you’re making pirate
(0:39:24) Jonnie: outfits. That’s also sort of loosely tied.
(0:39:28) Jonnie: To fishing, there is archaeology, which is tied to sort of exploring and going down into the mines.
(0:39:39) Jonnie: There is smithing and jewellery, which are more tied to the sort of mining as gathering mechanics.
(0:39:48) Jonnie: So in some way, all of the job systems are tied to one of the core mechanics that you require
(0:39:55) Jonnie: to gather resources for the game.
(0:39:59) Jonnie: And I think this is probably the thing that most people that are listening to a show like ours
(0:40:08) Jonnie: will… it might be the thing that puts them off the most, right? Because the way
(0:40:13) Jonnie: the job system works is they will say go and craft, you know, a thing, the first version of the thing,
(0:40:20) Jonnie: you make that thing and you sell it for a lot of money. And that is its only purpose. And the job
(0:40:25) Jonnie: system really exists as sort of the, the hems to work.
(0:40:28) Jonnie: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s really important to keep the wheel, that drives you needing to get to new areas and acquire new stuff, but there isn’t anything that you can actually do with the things that you’re making beyond selling them for more money to kind of keep the wheel turning.
(0:40:42) Al: Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. It’s also the the profession as you say, like very much dictates
(0:40:48) Al: what you do in this game. And that can both be a good and a bad thing. I think it doesn’t
(0:40:55) Al: stop you doing other things, but it very much like takes you on a journey through that profession.
(0:41:02) Al: The quest system, I think, has I like a quest system that tells you here are things to do.
(0:41:12) Al: Those need to stop at some point. And I don’t know whether it’s just that I didn’t go on
(0:41:18) Al: far enough, but I felt like I was always dictated. Everything I do in the game was dictated very
(0:41:26) Al: much by a quest that is like a very much immediate quest. It’s not like, oh, now just do more
(0:41:34) Al: of that and explore other things. Right. It’s always like, oh, make a horseshoe. And I went
(0:41:39) Al: with a blacksmithing profession, right? Because I thought that…
(0:41:42) Al: sounded like the most interesting one to me at the start, and you don’t get a huge amount of
(0:41:46) Al: information about what they’re going to do before you pick one. So I picked the blacksmithing one
(0:41:50) Al: because I was like, I like mining. Mining is generally a fun thing in games. Let’s try this,
(0:41:56) Jonnie: Just on your thought about the the direction, I think that continues through the game, but potentially the important thing is you can get multiple professions, so you can purchase additional licenses for additional professions and so I think once I got to the second area,
(0:42:16) Jonnie: I purchased three different professions, so I always felt like I was kind of bouncing from thing to thing based on what I had the reason.
(0:42:26) Jonnie: So I started with the archaeologist profession, then I added the brewing profession, which is the one that I did in the demo, and then I added the treasure hunter profession to that as well, and I think having three made it slightly more varied.
(0:42:46) Jonnie: Equally, there are some quests in the town and I don’t know if you discovered any of those that also had some variety.
(0:42:55) Al: I did not. Yeah, I think it’s a good idea. I like the professions in general as an idea.
(0:43:07) Al: I just felt very pigeonholed after picking one and considering you don’t know truly what the game
(0:43:14) Al: is like when you pick one first, right? Like it’s very early on in the game that you pick a job,
(0:43:19) Al: a profession. Like it’s almost like 15 minutes into the game. You’ve done almost
(0:43:25) Al: nothing and you’re deciding what your next 10 to 20 hours of your game is going to be based on
(0:43:33) Al: not knowing what those are, which I think is part of the problem. I feel like it could have done a
(0:43:37) Al: better job of like giving you examples of each of them in the first hour of the game and then you
(0:43:42) Al: pick a profession, but that may work better for other people. I don’t know.
(0:43:49) Jonnie: Yeah, I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that. And I think the thing that stands out to me
(0:43:55) Jonnie: most about this game, and it’s probably the reason that I like the game is I feel I always felt like
(0:44:01) Jonnie: there was kind of like something to be doing. You know, so in addition to the job system,
(0:44:06) Jonnie: which requires you going around a different area and sort of exploring that area and to get the
(0:44:12) Jonnie: resources that you need, there are so many little puzzles in integrated sort of in the world that
(0:44:20) Jonnie: doing and I really like those sorts of exploration games. And so I what I enjoyed is the fact that
(0:44:26) Jonnie: you’re like, you’re just wandering around, doing lots of little puzzles, you know, getting the
(0:44:31) Jonnie: collecting the resources that you need, and sort of finding stuff that way. I really liked that sort
(0:44:36) Jonnie: of sense of progression that this game gave that is very distinct from pretty much every other
(0:44:43) Jonnie: college core farming.
(0:44:44) Al: Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. I did think… I think my profession led to me not
(0:44:52) Al: exploring as much because the blacksmithing is very much gather as
(0:44:58) Al: much as you can from the mines and craft as much as you can to sell. I didn’t
(0:45:05) Al: really explore the area around the island a huge amount. I did a couple of
(0:45:11) Al: times, and I saw the sort of puzzles that you’re
(0:45:15) Al: talking about, but I didn’t manage to unlock very many of them because of that, if that makes sense.
(0:45:26) Jonnie: It does. And did you make it to the forest area?
(0:45:30) Al: I don’t… Is there a specific area that’s… Because it all feels very foresty.
(0:45:36) Jonnie: Yes, so when you start, you start on the farm and the farm is the first area.
(0:45:36) Al: Like, is there a specific area that’s called forest?
(0:45:49) Jonnie: There is the town that is the second area, but once you have progressed your progression
(0:45:54) Jonnie: far enough in the farm area, you get a short quest to unlock the second area that is the
(0:46:02) Jonnie: forest and there are multiple different areas.
(0:46:08) Al: No, I didn’t. I felt… I think part of the thing why I thought maybe you were talking about just
(0:46:15) Al: an area on the farm is because it feels like a very large area the farm does and I got…
(0:46:21) Jonnie: So the farm feels like a large area. It is the smallest of the areas.
(0:46:27) Al: This game confuses me. I get lost any time I explore away from just the initial area,
(0:46:35) Al: the initial, you know, your, your camper van.
(0:46:38) Al: And the mine and the entrance to the town.
(0:46:41) Al: Anytime I go much further away from that, I cannot figure out where I am.
(0:46:48) Al: I just get completely lost because it’s so massive.
(0:46:51) Jonnie: Yeah, it’s a big end. For me, this is one of the things that I loved about because I definitely
(0:46:58) Jonnie: had that same experience on the farm where I was getting lost. And over time, I explored so much
(0:47:04) Jonnie: off the farm that like now I know my way around that area really well. Then I went onto the forest
(0:47:09) Jonnie: area, got exceptionally lost. Part of the archaeologist profession that I had was you have to go
(0:47:16) Jonnie: through these dungeons without dying, and I was trying to find…
(0:47:21) Jonnie: all of the dungeons because they were sort of spread out, like there was three of them in the
(0:47:25) Jonnie: second area, and they were very spread out. And I got lost a lot in the forest, but I enjoyed…
(0:47:32) Jonnie: I guess I enjoyed the feeling of being lost because like there were so many little puzzles,
(0:47:35) Jonnie: and so I would just stumble across a little puzzle and try and complete it, and then sort of make my
(0:47:40) Jonnie: way around. And then eventually I would come out on a space that I knew and sort of find my way
(0:47:45) Jonnie: back. And so I really enjoyed that side of things. This is the thing.
(0:47:52) Jonnie: That makes me like this game, right? And this is the thing that’s like, would I recommend this game to
(0:47:57) Jonnie: everybody listening to the show? The answer to that is probably no, because I think this game
(0:48:02) Jonnie: does a lot of things that I specifically really, really enjoy, but are not core to the Cottage
(0:48:09) Al: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think before we get into the specific mechanics,
(0:48:18) Al: I want to talk a bit about the controls and stuff like that, which I didn’t write down on the list,
(0:48:23) Al: but I’m now remembering. But before we get into that, let’s talk about the character creator,
(0:48:28) Al: because I feel like whenever we’re going to talk about it, now that we’ve already started talking
(0:48:32) Al: about things, we’re going to end up feeling like it’s a weird jump in time anyway. But we need to
(0:48:38) Al: to talk about the character creators.
(0:48:39) Al: Let’s do that now.
(0:48:41) Al: The character creator, I think, works really well in that it has a lovely
(0:48:45) Al: little random button that will randomly generate something.
(0:48:48) Al: So if you don’t care about what you
(0:48:49) Al: look like, you can just press that a few times and go like, oh, that one looks fine.
(0:48:53) Al: And then continue on.
(0:48:55) Al: I like when things
(0:48:57) Al: customize, things have that it’s like names in Stardew Valley for your animals,
(0:49:01) Al: stuff like that, giving you a way to go, I don’t really care what this is.
(0:49:04) Al: Just give me something.
(0:49:07) Al: But what I really liked is the fact…
(0:49:09) Al: that I pressed it three times, and on the third time, it came up with a guy in a
(0:49:13) Al: kilt with ginger hair, and I was like, “Oh, it’s me!”
(0:49:16) Jonnie: Yeah, it’s it’s a nice little character creator.
(0:49:21) Al: So that was a good start.
(0:49:24) Al: How much time did you spend creating your character?
(0:49:28) Jonnie: Two minutes.
(0:49:29) Al: Yeah, fair enough.
(0:49:30) Jonnie: Look, I.
(0:49:30) Al: I pressed the random man three times and went, “Yeah, that’s me. Let me maybe add a hat.”
(0:49:35) Al: And then I found that there was a stereotypical “Hey Jimmy, Scottish hat” as well.
(0:49:36) Jonnie: Yeah.
(0:49:39) Al: I put that on him and I was done.
(0:49:40) Jonnie: - Yeah, yeah.
(0:49:43) Al: Okay, cool. Well, if we’re done with that, let’s talk about controls.
(0:49:47) Al: I hate the camera in this game.
(0:49:52) Al: I feel I don’t have enough movement in the camera, and I hate it so much.
(0:49:59) Al: And you’re going to be like, “Oh, I don’t… But you can move all… You can move 360.”
(0:50:02) Al: Yeah, but you can’t move up and down very much.
(0:50:04) Al: and I feel I always like in a game to be able to see
(0:50:09) Al: quite far ahead, rather than, you know, more high up down on me.
(0:50:15) Al: And I cannot get the camera to go far enough down that I feel comfortable.
(0:50:20) Al: And I just I can’t I can’t see around me enough.
(0:50:24) Al: And I think that’s part of the reason I
(0:50:25) Al: got lost is because you can’t bring the camera down enough to actually see far
(0:50:30) Al: away from you and figure out where you are, see landmarks to move around.
(0:50:34) Jonnie: I hadn’t really thought about that
(0:50:35) Jonnie: ‘cause it didn’t stand out for me.
(0:50:38) Jonnie: It does make sense.
(0:50:39) Jonnie: I suspect the reason for that is I think a lot
(0:50:43) Jonnie: of the puzzles would be quite trivial
(0:50:47) Jonnie: in the way that they’ve been designed
(0:50:49) Jonnie: if you had the ability to see further around,
(0:50:52) Jonnie: like it would reduce the need to explore
(0:50:55) Jonnie: because you would see where stuff is,
(0:50:58) Jonnie: which I’m not saying means they made the right decision,
(0:51:00) Al: Yeah, I just, it puts me off. It was immediate like, I don’t like this, you know, and that’s,
(0:51:00) Jonnie: but that would be my guess as to why
(0:51:10) Al: I just, it’s not, I talk about this on, on the upcoming episode a little bit about some other
(0:51:15) Al: things. It’s not, it’s not claustrophobia, but it’s a similar sort, because it’s definitely not
(0:51:22) Al: a phobia, right? I’m not trying to say it’s a phobia. But that’s the best way I can describe it,
(0:51:27) Al: is that it feels claustrophobic. I just feel
(0:51:30) Al: hemmed in. I feel controlled and I feel like I need to be able to see more. And I think
(0:51:36) Al: it’s because when I’m in the real world, that’s not how I view things. And so I want to be
(0:51:43) Al: able to be see, and I want the control to be able to not see like I would see in the
(0:51:49) Al: real world, but I want to be able to see out to the horizon because that’s how I see in
(0:51:55) Al: in real life, and when I cannot do that, it makes me feel off.
(0:52:00) Al: It’s different for something like Stardew, which is a fixed camera angle, and you’re
(0:52:06) Al: seeing things.
(0:52:07) Al: It’s actually why I really disliked Animal Crossing to start with, it’s just because
(0:52:10) Al: I’m not a huge fan of how the camera works in that game, but I think for something like
(0:52:15) Al: Stardew Valley, it’s okay because it’s wide enough, I think.
(0:52:20) Al: It’s hard to explain why that one’s okay, because it’s just a completely different way
(0:52:24) Al: of viewing things, right? Like you’re viewing side on, top down, rather than having a control
(0:52:30) Al: of a camera that’s behind your character.
(0:52:32) Al: I don’t know if I’m explaining that well enough.
(0:52:32) Jonnie: Yeah, and I think with starchy, right, like you don’t get lost, you know, like rotating your camera wouldn’t actually achieve anything and like, look, I played, you know, an hour of this game before I realized you could rotate the camera at all.
(0:52:46) Jonnie: So, you know, clearly, like, camera control was not something that I was really thinking about.
(0:52:52) Jonnie: And probably, like, for me, it was like I got a cool feature that I wasn’t expecting added, whereas you maybe felt like you had something taken away.
(0:52:59) Al: Yeah, I think because it’s I think if it had been a fixed camera
(0:53:03) Al: I probably would have been annoyed less
(0:53:06) Al: But it’s also like I don’t know if you notice this but when you come out of the mines
(0:53:09) Al: It resets the camera angle to a different different act camera than angle than you started that which is also a different camera angle
(0:53:16) Al: Then it starts the game at so I get I get lost every time I come out of the mines because suddenly I’m facing
(0:53:22) Al: Out from the mines, but that is not how the camera starts and it’s so it was not how it was when I went in and it
(0:53:29) Al: The game started and I’m like, why is this the camera angle? They’ve chosen for this point. It’s very weird
(0:53:34) Jonnie: It’s the same when you come back from town.
(0:53:37) Al: Yes, yes it is and I suspect what happened was
(0:53:41) Al: They tried to get this game to have a fixed camera angle
(0:53:45) Al: but they realized the game doesn’t work well with it because there’s so many things that you
(0:53:50) Al: You know you get in between and stuff and like the puzzles wouldn’t work as well if you couldn’t control the camera at least a bit
(0:53:57) Al: Um, and so they,
(0:53:59) Al: ended up having to put in a moveable camera. I suspect that’s what happened. But, um,
(0:54:05) Al: yeah, I think that’s, and that certainly set my tone with this game is I’m already uneasy
(0:54:12) Al: because of not being able to see what I want to see. Um, yeah, I think, yeah. Okay. I think I know
(0:54:19) Al: why I get lost easily this way. If you have a fixed camera angle, no matter where you are on
(0:54:25) Al: the board, you walk the opposite direction from what you started.
(0:54:30) Al: And you’ll get back to where you wanted.
(0:54:31) Al: But the problem is that with a movable camera, you’re constantly moving
(0:54:35) Al: the camera to see around the trees and see, look for the cotton plant or, you
(0:54:40) Al: know, look for the mushrooms or whatever, and you then have no idea which direction
(0:54:46) Al: is which because you’ve moved the camera around.
(0:54:49) Jonnie: Yeah, that makes sense. It’s funny because it’s not something I’ve really thought about at all.
(0:54:55) Al: Yeah, fair. That’s why we’re different.
(0:55:00) Al: OK, cool. I just wanted to quickly talk about the fact that the tutorial in this game is
(0:55:07) Al: basically just the quest line, and I think that’s mostly good. But I think that the initial
(0:55:14) Al: quest line before you get to professions, I think, should give you a sample of all of
(0:55:20) Al: the professions. I think that that is the only thing I’d say about the tutorial. The
(0:55:25) Al: they’re pretty clear about what they’re wanting you to do. And I never felt like I don’t know
(0:55:29) Al: what to do. There was one time where I was like, I don’t know what this means. And I can’t
(0:55:37) Al: remember what it was. And it probably is down to the fact that this game, for me, probably
(0:55:44) Al: because of the profession I chose, felt like infinite crafting. OK, I can’t remember. There
(0:55:48) Jonnie: I mean, there was a lot of crafting in this game, regardless of proficient.
(0:55:52) Al: There was one specific thing that I didn’t write down that I felt I didn’t
(0:55:55) Al: know exactly what it meant when in the quest line and it said, do this thing.
(0:55:59) Al: And I’m like, I don’t know what you mean, but that only happened once.
(0:56:03) Al: And I think after you’d done it the first time, the second time a quest like that
(0:56:07) Al: showed up, I would understand it.
(0:56:09) Al: Can’t remember what it was.
(0:56:10) Al: Anyway, let’s move on to the mechanics.
(0:56:13) Al: So the first two, I think, to talk about are gathering and crafting, um, which are
(0:56:17) Al: kind of like your main, the kind of main game loop, certainly at the beginning is
(0:56:23) Al: There are trees and plants.
(0:56:25) Al: And things together, and there are infinite things to craft.
(0:56:33) Al: This does the thing about crafting that I hate, which is every crafting thing is a different thing.
(0:56:41) Al: So you have to, let’s say you want to make a horseshoe.
(0:56:45) Al: Well, to make a horseshoe, you have to have copper bars and you have to have bronze bars.
(0:56:50) Al: OK, so to get a bronze bar, you have to have.
(0:56:55) Al: To get bronze or you have to get bronze rubble and put it through the rubble machine to get bronze rubble you go into the mine fine that’s that’s that cycle done to get the copper bar you have to melt it down from copper or to get copper or you have to get it from the mine that was not too bad but I just it then it just starts going out and out and out and out like to get another thing you might have to have cloth and copper and bronze and.
(0:57:25) Al: Something else, and you have you end up having this whole line of like 20 different crafting stations that you have to go to and you have to remember which one does which thing it’s like Oh, is this the smelter or is this the.
(0:57:38) Al: The rubble thingy or is this the whatever and they all have different names that you just don’t care about these names and you’re just like I just want to craft the thing just give me a single crafting menu.
(0:57:50) Jonnie: I love you, Al, but you’re wrong.
(0:57:54) Jonnie: So I think this is where the early game throws
(0:57:58) Jonnie: a lot of crafting tables at you.
(0:58:01) Jonnie: And once you get through that initial wave,
(0:58:05) Jonnie: they don’t add more as you progress through the game.
(0:58:10) Jonnie: So that number is there, and they probably
(0:58:13) Jonnie: introduce a few too many too soon.
(0:58:16) Jonnie: But now I’m like very like I know exactly which.
(0:58:21) Jonnie: I have like a setup of like all of my things that are from you know needed from the vines are in a certain spot.
(0:58:28) Jonnie: I have a space like I have spaces for everything and I can very effectively and efficiently run around and do all of the crafting things that I need to do.
(0:58:41) Jonnie: So I totally get where you’re coming from, but I actually think this is a good implementation of the crafting table mechanic.
(0:58:48) Jonnie: Obviously, if you don’t like that mechanic, you–
(0:58:48) Al: Well, no. So I actually do think that it could have been done better, and feel free to disagree
(0:58:51) Jonnie: you’re not going to like another version of it.
(0:58:53) Jonnie: But I think this is a really good version of it.
(0:59:00) Al: with me on this. But I think there’s a nice balance between… I understand why they have
(0:59:05) Al: different crafting things, because different things do different things. I understand that.
(0:59:10) Al: But what I think would be a better way of doing it, rather than like, here are your
(0:59:13) Al: 10 different crafting tables, is you have like a crafting centre.
(0:59:18) Al: And it can only do certain things until you add extra components to it. And so my issue
(0:59:24) Al: is not like, oh, I have these different things that do different things. I think my issue
(0:59:29) Al: is I have to go to a different place to do a different crafting thing. And so if you
(0:59:33) Al: just had like, here’s the crafting station, and you upgrade it by adding these things,
(0:59:37) Al: but there’s still one set of controls for it, I feel like that would be better. So you
(0:59:41) Al: could go, here’s the crafting machine, and I go to it, and then you select what you want
(0:59:45) Al: from it that you’ve upgraded with these other things that I feel
(0:59:48) Al: would be a nice balance of the two.
(0:59:52) Jonnie: Yeah, I don’t agree. I just like the ability, you know, because you can have them all running
(0:59:56) Jonnie: on different things sort of side by side and like I’ll have something in the, you know,
(1:00:00) Jonnie: at the moment I’m breaking down gold for gold ore while I’m smithing some moonstone bars
(1:00:06) Jonnie: in my smelter like it, you know, but I would be kind of…
(1:00:08) Al: could still do that. I’m not talking about them being completely the same thing. It’s just about
(1:00:14) Al: having one set of controls for them. That’s the thing that… Because I have to remember where to go.
(1:00:18) Jonnie: And I like the flexibility.
(1:00:21) Jonnie: If I want to build 10 Rubble machines
(1:00:23) Jonnie: and have them all set up in a little Rubble machine zone,
(1:00:26) Jonnie: I can do that.
(1:00:28) Jonnie: I like the flexibility that the current system offers.
(1:00:30) Al: Yeah, I don’t and it just, it, I just felt overwhelmed.
(1:00:34) Jonnie: But you know what I do really love, Al?
(1:00:36) Jonnie: That I think you will–
(1:00:38) Jonnie: yeah, that’s fair.
(1:00:39) Al: Oh yeah, I love it. Fantastic. More games need to do this. I think this is fantastic.
(1:00:39) Jonnie: But how do you feel about infinite pocket size, Al?
(1:00:48) Al: And it does. When I first did it, I was like, oh my word, am I dreaming here? Like, am I,
(1:00:54) Al: have I really got an infinite, infinite bag? I love it. You can get stuff.
(1:01:01) Al: You can craft storage and put things in it, but I guess I can’t see why you would do that.
(1:01:07) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that the main reason I think you would do storage is like, you know, maybe you want like very
(1:01:13) Jonnie: You know
(1:01:14) Jonnie: You want a clean storage your pockets to be clean and there’s some you know
(1:01:19) Jonnie: Maybe a quest item that you’ve got that you don’t plan on using any time soon
(1:01:22) Jonnie: And so you want to store it there, but yeah, you don’t you don’t need to do it. Oh
(1:01:24) Al: Have you just put it further down in the back so you don’t have to see it like why would you why would you limit yourself.
(1:01:28) Jonnie: I agree
(1:01:29) Jonnie: I
(1:01:30) Jonnie: Agree, but you know if you’re some sort of sicko that wants to put things in storage that is an option that is available to you
(1:01:34) Al: yeah I unlocked it and I was like oh okay does that mean my storage isn’t infinite but nope
(1:01:45) Al: i’ve never gotten close to filling it so um and I think it’s necessary for this game as well
(1:01:53) Al: because this game just has so many different things
(1:01:56) Jonnie: Yes, 100% agree. And the nature of the game, why does it want you to run around and explore and find stuff and if your pockets were constantly getting filled and you had to go back to the farm, that would just ruin the loop of this gameplay, which is so important.
(1:02:11) Al: Well, it’s it’s also not it’s not it’s not just that you’d get you come across a thing and you’re like, Oh, I have that thing that I need to solve this problem. It’s in my bag, not I have to go all the way back to get the thing and then come back and put it in this on this thing.
(1:02:20) Jonnie: Yes. Exactly right. And this leads to the other quality of life thing that I love is this game
(1:02:30) Jonnie: has a day night cycle on, you know, I assume it’s about 20 minutes like every other game,
(1:02:36) Jonnie: but you don’t need to go back and sleep. There is no stamina mechanic. There is no energy mechanic.
(1:02:44) Jonnie: There are certain things that refresh daily. There are some puzzles that are
(1:02:50) Jonnie: only available at night or during the day. There are different monsters that have different
(1:02:56) Jonnie: sleep cycles. There’s a difference between day and night. It’s not a pointless system,
(1:03:02) Jonnie: but you just don’t have to sleep. You can just live your life and just run around and do what
(1:03:08) Jonnie: you want without having to worry about any stupid limiting system. It’s amazing.
(1:03:13) Al: My one confusion about it, and I do agree that it’s generally good.
(1:03:16) Al: My one confusion is why?
(1:03:19) Al: The only thing I can think of to want to sleep is to pass time quickly.
(1:03:26) Al: But you can’t sleep just at any point in the day.
(1:03:30) Al: No, if you go to the bed when it’s daytime, it says you’re not sleepy yet.
(1:03:35) Al: You can’t sleep.
(1:03:36) Al: And I’m like, I don’t understand why you’ve got this arbitrary restriction for
(1:03:40) Al: feature that this is literally the only reason
(1:03:43) Al: you would ever want to use it is to just pass time quickly, let me do it at any point
(1:03:49) Al: in the day.
(1:03:50) Al: In fact, I think they should do the like napping mechanic that was Doraemon Story Seasons had,
(1:03:56) Al: which is like you go to bed and you say how long you want to sleep for. I think that would
(1:03:59) Al: be a good way to do it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Like the Zelda, the Breath of the Wildfires
(1:04:00) Jonnie: Yeah, do you want to sleep till evening or or till morning, that would be that would be good.
(1:04:07) Al: feature. Yeah. Just say, I want to sleep till this point in the day. Like that’s literally
(1:04:11) Al: the entire point of this this thing.
(1:04:13) Al: I don’t like you’re not you can’t even go oh it’s because it’s more realistic
(1:04:17) Al: because you can literally never sleep in this game that’s not realistic.
(1:04:22) Jonnie: Yeah, thankfully there’s not really that many reasons that you would want to accelerate time at least not that I’ve come across the main one is
(1:04:22) Al: » Okay.
(1:04:30) Jonnie: The resource that comes from Loomis
(1:04:32) Al: Yeah, OK, I think that’s all I really had to say about the crafting gathering.
(1:04:38) Al: I just yeah, I don’t I don’t it just feels like forever crafting.
(1:04:42) Al: And I’m not a fan of that.
(1:04:46) Al: Let’s talk about the mining, because that’s the other big thing that I did.
(1:04:49) Al: The mine is really interesting in that it is a fixed mine that doesn’t change between
(1:04:56) Al: you going in so very different to other farming games.
(1:04:59) Al: And I think that is both good and bad.
(1:05:02) Al: So, in good, I quite like being able to go down and you’ve still got all your fire,
(1:05:10) Al: your torches, that you’ve there, although a little bit annoying that they go out after
(1:05:15) Al: a while and you have to run over to them and reset them, but at least it’s nice and quick
(1:05:19) Al: to do that.
(1:05:21) Al: It’s quite cool coming down and having this consistent area that you can go into.
(1:05:26) Al: This is another area I’m building up, essentially, and it’s obviously not the same thing, right?
(1:05:30) Al: They’re not like building in it, but it’s.
(1:05:32) Al: Still feels like it feels like yours.
(1:05:35) Al: It feels like this is your mind that you are mining in and it feels permanent.
(1:05:40) Al: I quite like that.
(1:05:42) Jonnie: I agree. It’s a nice twist, rather than the randomly generated flaws that we’ve had in so many games.
(1:05:51) Al: The negative of it is it makes it much harder to get the stuff that you want over time,
(1:05:57) Al: because you are slowly creating like an area around the entrance where there’s nothing
(1:06:03) Al: left because you’ve already strip-minded and you have to keep going further and further
(1:06:08) Al: to find stuff, whereas in the like Stardew Harvest Moon style mine, you just go to a
(1:06:16) Al: level that you know this item will be on. So it does make that a little bit more difficult.
(1:06:22) Jonnie: So I think the way that they’ve done the mine is really cool.
(1:06:27) Jonnie: And one of the things– so on the edge of each of the mines,
(1:06:32) Jonnie: there are a couple of reset buttons,
(1:06:35) Jonnie: so you can build a path out to that.
(1:06:37) Jonnie: And then you can hit that button,
(1:06:39) Jonnie: and it will reset all of the resources in the mine.
(1:06:42) Al: “A what now?”
(1:06:44) Jonnie: There’s a button that you can hit to basically respawn
(1:06:47) Jonnie: everything in the mine.
(1:06:48) Al: Where is that?
(1:06:49) Jonnie: And they’re very far out.
(1:06:52) Jonnie: And it’s one of those things where I think these are things
(1:06:56) Al: I’ve presumably just not hit that point yet.
(1:06:56) Jonnie: that I encounter– like, the nature of this game
(1:06:58) Jonnie: is it really rewards exploration.
(1:07:00) Jonnie: So I found that button very early on,
(1:07:03) Jonnie: because, Al, you’re describing–
(1:07:05) Jonnie: you build this ring around the center.
(1:07:07) Jonnie: In my head, I was like, what?
(1:07:09) Jonnie: No, I built a path straight out, because I
(1:07:12) Jonnie: wanted to see how far I could go.
(1:07:13) Jonnie: And if there was an edge to it, I was like, what?
(1:07:15) Jonnie: No, I built a path straight out, because I
(1:07:18) Jonnie: wanted to see how far I could go.
(1:07:19) Jonnie: And if there wasn’t an edge to it,
(1:07:22) Jonnie: I would have gone to mine.
(1:07:24) Jonnie: And so I found all of these things very quickly.
(1:07:26) Al: - Oh man.
(1:07:27) Jonnie: It sounds like at your current pace,
(1:07:29) Jonnie: it will take you a long time to find one of these buttons.
(1:07:31) Al: Yeah, probably, probably.
(1:07:32) Al: Well, it won’t ‘cause I’m not gonna continue playing it,
(1:07:34) Al: but that’s a discussion for later on in the episode.
(1:07:37) Al: Um…
(1:07:37) Jonnie: Yeah, but so my mind my minds are full of like these these singular parts of like, you know,
(1:07:42) Jonnie: sort of spider web their way out from the center.
(1:07:44) Al: Well, I’m glad you mentioned spiders, because that’s the other thing about the mine that
(1:07:49) Al: is utterly horrifying, is that there are killer spiders in the mine, and they are coming to
(1:07:55) Al: get you.
(1:07:56) Jonnie: - Yeah, you can kill them, it’s fine.
(1:07:57) Al: Yeah, but they’re also just horrifying.
(1:08:01) Jonnie: - They are horrifying.
(1:08:01) Al: First time you experience one, you’re like, “What?
(1:08:06) Al: What is- what- what?”
(1:08:07) Al: And it’s like when you start up the game, it says, “Do you have arachnophobia?”
(1:08:10) Al: And I probably should have taken that as some sort of assumption for what’s going to happen,
(1:08:14) Al: but yeah, good that they have that option, but yeah, also, they’re horrifying spiders.
(1:08:21) Jonnie: Yeah. And they’re fast.
(1:08:23) Al: They’re the size of you so fast.
(1:08:28) Al: You can just about outrun them, just.
(1:08:29) Jonnie: Yeah. If you move perfectly, you can stay ahead of them,
(1:08:35) Jonnie: but if you bump off of anything, that will probably catch you.
(1:08:38) Al: You have you have a whip that you can use to attack them and to start with it
(1:08:38) Jonnie: But the good thing is, it’s like… Yes.
(1:08:44) Al: just stuns them but I presume once you get to a certain upgrade level it yeah
(1:08:50) Al: it deals enough damage that it kills them. I think I’m maybe like four levels
(1:08:52) Jonnie: - Correct.
(1:08:52) Jonnie: Um.
(1:08:54) Al: up on the upgrading on that which I feel like what I quite like about the
(1:08:59) Al: upgrading is it’s nice and fast if you come to it with a lot of stuff you don’t
(1:09:04) Al: have to, unlike Stardew and Harvest Moon, you don’t have to have like
(1:09:08) Al: specific, you don’t have to have like, oh, this is the steel time, and this is the gold one,
(1:09:15) Al: like you just, it’s the same stuff you use to upgrade it each time, I think.
(1:09:20) Jonnie: So there’s multiple levels, so you upgrade it four times within the bronze tail, which I think it starts on, and then you go to the iron tail.
(1:09:30) Al: Right, okay, so you still have to do that. It’s just it’s just later on right?
(1:09:30) Jonnie: And so you need iron to upgrade.
(1:09:34) Jonnie: Yeah, but there’s no time delay, right? It’s all instantaneous upgrades, which is nice.
(1:09:38) Al: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And the first few upgrades are really cheap and easy to get. Like I upgraded
(1:09:40) Jonnie: The other thing about this…
(1:09:45) Al: all of my tools to the like by two levels as soon as I had that ability, which might have been
(1:09:53) Al: because I was blacksmithing. I don’t know. Maybe I was like, obviously getting a lot of the stuff
(1:09:57) Al: that you need for that quite quickly.
(1:10:00) Jonnie: Yeah, and it depends on the tool, right?
(1:10:01) Jonnie: Because I think your axe and your hat
(1:10:04) Jonnie: should take stuff that you get from the mines,
(1:10:06) Jonnie: but your whip requires leather, which is more from foraging.
(1:10:11) Al: - Mm-hmm.
(1:10:12) Jonnie: Because it requires mushrooms as an input for the leather.
(1:10:15) Jonnie: The other thing about the spiders–
(1:10:16) Jonnie: and it’s kind of just how damage works in the game.
(1:10:19) Jonnie: So if a spider hits you in the mine,
(1:10:21) Jonnie: all that happens is your character passes out
(1:10:23) Jonnie: and you get teleported outside the mine.
(1:10:25) Jonnie: You don’t lose any stuff.
(1:10:28) Jonnie: And later in the game you encounter…
(1:10:30) Jonnie: …the enemies in the overworld, and it’s not a huge number, but the damage mechanic is you drop stuff from your pockets.
(1:10:36) Jonnie: And that’s kind of totally fine because you just drop stuff while you’re killing the monster and then you go around to pick it back up.
(1:10:42) Jonnie: So it kind of feels like there’s a consequence, but there’s not really a consequence to taking damage unless you’re just trying to run past and you get hit.
(1:10:48) Al: organization, organization is the consequence, you have to
(1:10:51) Al: organize things again.
(1:10:53) Jonnie: It is a shame that there is no auto-organize button for the inventory.
(1:10:58) Al: I wouldn’t use it anyway, because it wouldn’t organize things the way I want.
(1:11:01) Al: I’m very particular about these things, but I’ve talked about that in previous episodes,
(1:11:05) Al: so we don’t need to cover that again.
(1:11:06) Jonnie: I should take a photo of my inventory and send it to you while it will give you nightmares.
(1:11:07) Al: Look, I don’t have an issue with people doing what they want to do.
(1:11:14) Al: It’s just that I’m particular about how I want things to be, right?
(1:11:17) Al: That’s fine.
(1:11:18) Al: Those are two different things.
(1:11:20) Jonnie: Yeah, mine’s just ordered in the way I picked things up.
(1:11:20) Al: Anything else on…
(1:11:24) Al: Anything else on mining?
(1:11:27) Al: You have to, okay, uh, I guess.
(1:11:28) Al: The key point, you have to have torches because you cannot be in the dark, you pass out in the
(1:11:34) Al: dark, and the same thing as if you’re attacked by a spider. So you have to like add the torches
(1:11:41) Al: as you go, otherwise you can’t.
(1:11:44) Jonnie: Yeah, and actually, I will say I find the Dark Stones to be a
(1:11:46) Jonnie: little bit unforgiving, where I’m like, I’m in a space that I
(1:11:48) Jonnie: think I should be fine. And the game’s like, no, that’s too dark.
(1:11:52) Al: Well, the good thing is it does it is a few seconds from when it starts going like your your screen starts going dark and you can move back into light and you’re fine.
(1:12:01) Al: But yeah, yeah, there are some areas where I was like, why would that count as the dark?
(1:12:06) Al: Come on.
(1:12:08) Jonnie: The only thing I’m mining is the spiders.
(1:12:10) Jonnie: So the spiders only really appear when you mine gems
(1:12:12) Jonnie: rather than mining ore.
(1:12:14) Jonnie: Occasionally, they will appear, I
(1:12:16) Jonnie: think, if you’ve been in the mine for a long time.
(1:12:19) Jonnie: But you kind of have the rough idea of when a spider is coming.
(1:12:22) Al: “Did you do much farming?”
(1:12:25) Jonnie: Yes, I’ve done a decent amount of farming.
(1:12:26) Al: OK, let’s talk about farming then, because I did no farming, because of the profession
(1:12:33) Al: I chose, it didn’t walk me through that, and so I never figured out how to buy seeds.
(1:12:38) Jonnie: So there is a store in town that sells seats and you buy.
(1:12:42) Al: I presumed so, but I was just following the quest that it gave me, and then at one point
(1:12:48) Al: And I was like, I’ve not done any farming, oh no, on this.
(1:12:51) Jonnie: Yeah, so farming is quite nice in this game in that there are a few things that they do
(1:12:52) Al: This farming game.
(1:12:58) Jonnie: differently, but at the core you buy seeds, you over the land, you plant the seed, you water it,
(1:13:06) Jonnie: there’s no compost mechanic, and then after a certain period of time the plant grows and
(1:13:14) Jonnie: you harvest it and that’s kind of the core loop. The few things that they do differently is
(1:13:20) Jonnie: is.
(1:13:21) Jonnie: As you get to higher level seeds, there are things that can happen that impede their growth.
(1:13:27) Jonnie: Like weeds can sprout up, which stops the plant from growing.
(1:13:30) Jonnie: They can get beetles on them.
(1:13:33) Jonnie: I think there’s a few other things that can happen to the plants.
(1:13:38) Jonnie: And so that stops them from growing.
(1:13:41) Jonnie: But this is where animals come in.
(1:13:44) Jonnie: So the first animal that you get access to is rabbits, and rabbits eat weeds.
(1:13:49) Jonnie: so they go around and they eat the water.
(1:13:51) Jonnie: The other thing that’s cool from a farming perspective is so my character, I would say the way I’m playing, is not a big farmer, so it’s not something I spend a lot of time doing, but there are, you can find rare versions of the seeds as you do puzzles called everseeds.
(1:13:57) Al: Yeah, interesting. I hadn’t, yeah, I hadn’t experienced.
(1:14:09) Jonnie: So if you get the wheat everseed, it just continually…
(1:14:22) Jonnie: The wheat continuously regrows, so I don’t have to go and get new seeds, which is really nice for a farm design perspective. Yeah, it’s so good because I have like…
(1:14:26) Al: Nice, I like that, that’s a good balance of the crops forever needing to buy new seeds
(1:14:37) Al: and crops never needing to buy new seeds that some games have done, it’s a nice balance
(1:14:40) Al: where you have to do the mechanic itself before you get to the infinite seeds.
(1:14:46) Jonnie: Yes, and like it would be different based on your playthrough, right? So like Altheor
(1:14:51) Jonnie: mining playthrough, you could get six of the, or you could get however many of the wheat
(1:14:56) Jonnie: ever seed before, like without ever buying a wheat seed, because you don’t need wheat
(1:15:01) Jonnie: to necessarily progress. So if you wanted to have a little farming patch of wheat because,
(1:15:06) Jonnie: you know, you wanted that for some reason, then you can have access to it. You just don’t
(1:15:11) Jonnie: have to focus in on, you know, growing and buying and doing that sort of core.
(1:15:16) Jonnie: For me is leading to what I’m enjoying about this game in terms of farm design, because for most of the crops, I’m just waiting till I get six of the ever seed and I’m doing, you know, like a nice little patch where I’m sort of like, you know, planting out all of the things with, with the ever seeds, which is, yeah, I know, so I’m just having a lot of having more fun that I thought designing my farm.
(1:15:40) Jonnie: seeds, which is, yeah, I know, I’m just having a lot of having
(1:15:44) Jonnie: more fun than I thought designing my farm.
(1:15:46) Al: Fair enough, fishing is a very different
(1:15:52) Al: mini game than most other farming games.
(1:15:55) Al: So you cast towards a fish.
(1:15:59) Al: So you see the fish in the water, you cast towards a fish and then the fish notices
(1:16:05) Al: and then you have to chase the fish with your fishing rod.
(1:16:10) Al: It is very odd because obviously you can’t control a fishing rod like that.
(1:16:17) Al: Yeah, like it starts swimming away from you
(1:16:19) Al: and you literally have to chase it with your bait and eventually
(1:16:25) Al: you get into a position where it then grabs onto it and then you can pull it out of the water.
(1:16:30) Al: It’s different at least, I guess.
(1:16:32) Jonnie: Yep. It is different.
(1:16:34) Al: I don’t know if I like it, but it’s different.
(1:16:38) Al: It’s not just trying to do the same thing.
(1:16:39) Al: So that’s something.
(1:16:41) Jonnie: - Yeah, I don’t love it, I don’t necessarily hate it.
(1:16:43) Jonnie: I haven’t done much fishing outside of,
(1:16:46) Jonnie: for the treasure hunter profession, you do have to fish,
(1:16:51) Jonnie: but that’s more just about casting into a pool of bubbles
(1:16:54) Jonnie: and then you instantly reel it back in
(1:16:55) Jonnie: and you get the resources.
(1:16:56) Jonnie: So it’s a nice way to get started with fishing
(1:16:59) Jonnie: is if that’s something you want to do,
(1:17:01) Jonnie: but you don’t like the idea of chasing fish,
(1:17:03) Jonnie: maybe look into the treasure hunting profession.
(1:17:06) Al: Yeah, so you’ve added in temples here before the Luma Raising. I guess, yeah, you have
(1:17:10) Al: to do a temple before you can raise a Luma. There are temples, I guess, there’s not a
(1:17:15) Al: huge amount there. There are areas where you go in and you have like a, it’s kind of like
(1:17:21) Al: a Zelda dungeon, I guess, a small Zelda dungeon where you’re kind of going through an area,
(1:17:26) Al: unlocking other areas to get to the end and then you get some treasure.
(1:17:30) Jonnie: Yeah, this is where like the reason I put these on is like they are probably more important for the archaeologist profession.
(1:17:38) Jonnie: So with the archaeologist profession at the start of the dungeon, alternate room opens up where you get two broken relics.
(1:17:48) Jonnie: And you can only take those relics out if you get through the dungeon without dying.
(1:17:52) Jonnie: And then that profession is all about fixing up those relics.
(1:17:56) Jonnie: So it makes the puzzles more interesting because they are
(1:18:00) Jonnie: higher risk. The first dungeon is very easy. I don’t know that I would describe any of the
(1:18:06) Jonnie: dungeons as hard necessarily but you know there’s definitely been like you know like oh I have to
(1:18:11) Jonnie: really think about this or you know there’s a mechanic in one of the dungeons where if you step
(1:18:17) Jonnie: on a certain tile a rock drops from the ceiling and maybe I’m paying attention to something else
(1:18:21) Jonnie: and I step on a rock and and die. So there is a bit more to it particularly if you’re doing
(1:18:28) Al: Yeah. But you have to do it before the next thing, which is get your first Luma. So we’re
(1:18:34) Al: finally figuring out what the name of the game is, and that is Luma. Luma are the, I guess,
(1:18:42) Al: are they all based on animals? So we start off with the one that I’ve got to start with,
(1:18:45) Al: and I don’t know if this is the same as everyone’s first one. It’s a crab, I think.
(1:18:50) Jonnie: No, I think they’re different. I think they’re tied to your initial profession.
(1:18:54) Al: Profession, right? Okay, okay
(1:18:55) Jonnie: Yeah, because my first one was a dragon, I want to say.
(1:18:59) Al: Oh, that’s much more exciting than a crab. I want a dragon.
(1:19:05) Al: So you get Lumet eggs, and then you have to build an incubator to get them, to hatch them.
(1:19:13) Al: And then once you’ve done that, they follow you around,
(1:19:17) Al: and you use them to get more things for crafting.
(1:19:22) Al: It’s just like everything, it is a thing to get more things to craft with.
(1:19:24) Jonnie: So, so when you get your luma, they will follow you around the world and they can point out
(1:19:32) Jonnie: hidden chests that you can dig up and you can feed them and pat them once a day to get
(1:19:38) Jonnie: luma energy, which you do use for crafting. So you can have one luma that’s following you,
(1:19:42) Jonnie: but you can also have luma enclosures, enclosures is the wrong word, but essentially you can have
(1:19:50) Jonnie: the rest of the luma that you get wandering about on your farm and you can feed and pat them as
(1:19:54) Jonnie: for more of the luma energy. I think at this stage, I’ve got about eight or nine different
(1:20:02) Jonnie: luma. My favorite is there’s one that’s based on a worm and it’s literally a worm tied to a balloon.
(1:20:10) Al: I feel like it’s pretty simple other than that right like it’s a creature collection
(1:20:16) Al: type thing and it gives you some energy to craft with. I kind of expected them to be
(1:20:22) Al: maybe a bit more fundamental than that, although I guess they are quite fundamental in that
(1:20:26) Al: you need that energy for a lot of things.
(1:20:29) Jonnie: - Yeah, and it’s not clear to me
(1:20:31) Jonnie: if there is some larger thing that they play,
(1:20:34) Jonnie: ‘cause I would guess I’m maybe,
(1:20:38) Jonnie: like I think I’m in the third era at the moment
(1:20:41) Jonnie: and I know there’s at least a fourth
(1:20:43) Jonnie: and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was like,
(1:20:46) Jonnie: here’s the secret fifth area where we actually reveal
(1:20:48) Jonnie: sort of the final thing of the story.
(1:20:52) Jonnie: So I’m guessing, yeah, I’ve got a bit to go
(1:20:58) Jonnie: from an exploration and maybe the-
(1:20:59) Jonnie: Luma’s will mean something more towards the end.
(1:21:02) Jonnie: You can also get a cat and a dog.
(1:21:04) Al: Oh, didn’t know that. Did they do anything?
(1:21:05) Jonnie: You get them through.
(1:21:07) Jonnie: They basically act like Luma except they don’t produce Luma
(1:21:10) Jonnie: energy. I know the dog, I think you get it through one of the
(1:21:13) Jonnie: professions. Yeah, so it’s I think it’s a way to give you
(1:21:19) Jonnie: kind of the Luma mechanic before you have maybe completed the
(1:21:22) Jonnie: temple. No, it was the crafting.
(1:21:23) Al: Is that the archaeology one perhaps if it’s about
(1:21:30) Jonnie: ‘Cause I think the the buried treasure chests have some of the
(1:21:33) Jonnie: resources that you need for crafting the pirate outfits.
(1:21:36) Jonnie: Oh, there’s also a snail Luma and he writes escape.
(1:21:39) Al: Obviously, is there anything else, mechanics-wise, that we haven’t talked about?
(1:21:45) Al: I feel like that’s a result.
(1:21:47) Jonnie: Um, I don’t think so. I think that’s pretty much everything.
(1:21:53) Al: I guess selling things, we haven’t really talked about that, but you go to the village,
(1:21:57) Al: the town, and there’s people with shops that you can buy and sell from, and that’s how
(1:22:02) Jonnie: Yeah, the game’s quite good in that as you sort of open up more regions like the shops just expand to the inventory to include that stuff.
(1:22:10) Jonnie: So if you’re like, I really don’t want to do mining, for example, I just want to purchase all of the mining stuff, then you can do that.
(1:22:16) Jonnie: It is quite expensive, though, to purchase the purchase resources instead of collecting them yourself.
(1:22:22) Al: Yeah, that’s fine. I’m okay with it being expensive for those things, because I like
(1:22:25) Al: it being an option, because it’s the same in fields of mystery. It’s quite expensive
(1:22:29) Al: to do these things. But I think if you want to focus on a specific thing, that’s the negative
(1:22:36) Al: that you’re going to have to deal with. And that’s fine, because that’s life. But like
(1:22:40) Al: sometimes you just do that, right? Like that’s, I like the option. Okay. Then I guess we also
(1:22:42) Jonnie: Yeah, exactly.
(1:22:46) Al: have to talk about the characters. We’re not really going to talk about the story, I think,
(1:22:50) Al: that’s quite fundamental to the game.
(1:22:52) Jonnie: Agree, yeah, it’s fundamental. And also, like, I feel like I will hold my opinions on the story
(1:23:00) Jonnie: until I finished the story.
(1:23:02) Al: Fair, fair, but we can talk about characters or, as I’ve written in this,
(1:23:08) Al: our lack of interest in the characters.
(1:23:10) Al: I’ve not particularly found anybody I’ve found interesting to talk to.
(1:23:15) Jonnie: No, the characters literally exist as, you know,
(1:23:18) Jonnie: just placeholder fodder for the world.
(1:23:21) Jonnie: You know, you will have a mentor for your profession
(1:23:24) Jonnie: who basically just gives you the quest
(1:23:26) Jonnie: and you check in with them like every five quests
(1:23:28) Jonnie: and they’d be like, you’re doing good.
(1:23:29) Jonnie: Now, try harder versions of the stuff.
(1:23:32) Jonnie: And there is a mayor in the town
(1:23:34) Jonnie: who you can do some quests for.
(1:23:37) Jonnie: This is like the mildest of spoilers,
(1:23:40) Jonnie: ‘cause I’m guessing this is the part
(1:23:41) Jonnie: that you didn’t get to, Al.
(1:23:42) Jonnie: But after some period of time,
(1:23:46) Jonnie: the earthquake that hits the town,
(1:23:46) Jonnie: that breaks a bunch of things that…
(1:23:46) Al: - No, I, no, I hit the earthquake.
(1:23:49) Al: I hit the earthquake.
(1:23:50) Jonnie: Ah, so the earthquake breaks a bunch of things
(1:23:53) Jonnie: around town and it opens up quest lines
(1:23:56) Al: uh see I didn’t I didn’t actually go into town after the earthquake I did the earthquake and went
(1:24:01) Jonnie: Well, and to be fair, there is nothing that prompts you to find and fix those things,
(1:24:02) Al: oh okay I don’t know what that means
(1:24:09) Jonnie: like there’s no quest that automatically generates you only get it by sort of almost
(1:24:12) Jonnie: accidentally stumbling across and interacting with something broken.
(1:24:16) Al: which you would have to have known
(1:24:18) Al: that it wasn’t broken beforehand,
(1:24:19) Al: ‘cause you can very easily spend almost no time in town
(1:24:23) Al: in this game, up to the point that I’ve.
(1:24:25) Jonnie: Yeah, they’re like so to get to some of the later regions you do have to walk through town
(1:24:29) Jonnie: So that was like so it’s probably introduced to you at the right time
(1:24:34) Jonnie: Because you need resources from those later areas in order to fix some of the things around around town
(1:24:40) Al: that makes sense. But yeah, you have to go into town to get your profession and then
(1:24:46) Al: you also have to go to buy and sell things and that’s it. I never found any pull towards
(1:24:54) Al: going in other than that, which I guess it feels like its weakest point. One of the things
(1:24:59) Al: that I really like about farming games is getting to know the characters and I just
(1:25:03) Al: felt no interest in them whatsoever, which is a bit of a shame.
(1:25:06) Jonnie: But I think that’s the intent, right? They have not put any effort into making the characters.
(1:25:09) Al: Sure.
(1:25:11) Jonnie: There’s no relationship system. To me, it’s one of the things I like about this game,
(1:25:16) Jonnie: because that’s not part of the game that they’re selling.
(1:25:18) Al: can have interesting characters without having a romance system. Those two things don’t have to–
(1:25:24) Jonnie: Oh, 100%, right? But that is not a feature of this game that they are aiming for. For me,
(1:25:31) Jonnie: this game is very much about… The game that they are selling is like, “Do you like farming games?”
(1:25:36) Jonnie: “Do you like exploration and puzzle?” “If yes, this game has that stuff.”
(1:25:41) Jonnie: “If you are looking for something else, go play a different game, because this game is not that.”
(1:25:44) Al: Yeah, and I think that’s my point. That’s my point is like, I’m just trying to make
(1:25:45) Jonnie: like.
(1:25:48) Al: it clear to people, if that’s what you like about these games, it’s not here for you.
(1:25:54) Al: Like at all. It’s not even just like it doesn’t talk about it. There’s nothing. They are husks
(1:26:02) Al: of people.
(1:26:04) Jonnie: They’re not husks of people, because that would make this game Fei Farm, because Fei Farm is trying to give them personality and failing.
(1:26:10) Jonnie: This game is very clear that these characters are not there for you to get invested in.
(1:26:16) Jonnie: So they’re not husks, they are just regular-ass game NPCs.
(1:26:23) Al: Yeah, yeah, fair. No, I get, no, no, I get that, I get that, I get that. I’m just, I’m
(1:26:26) Jonnie: Because for me, there’s a difference between trying to do it and failing really badly.
(1:26:32) Al: saying like they’re not, there’s nothing really there in them. That’s why I was meaning by husks,
(1:26:38) Al: right? They’re just, they’re not, they’re absolute bare minimum of, to be able to be called a
(1:26:44) Al: character. OK, so, let’s conclude then. I’ll start off because mine is more negative.
(1:26:53) Al: And then we can go back to yours and get more positive take on it. I like that it’s doing
(1:26:59) Al: some different things and I like that it exists. I don’t particularly enjoy playing the game.
(1:27:08) Al: And it was a real struggle to actually get the amount of time into it that I did.
(1:27:13) Al: I think that there’s lots of little things that frustrate me specifically.
(1:27:18) Al: And I guess I guess I’m not an exploration.
(1:27:23) Al: I don’t think I’m an exploration game kind of person is what I’ve learnt from this.
(1:27:26) Jonnie: I would agree, Al, based on this conversation,
(1:27:28) Jonnie: I would say you are not an exploration game, this.
(1:27:33) Jonnie: And I feel like that’s what I love about this game,
(1:27:36) Jonnie: because I have had so much fun playing this game.
(1:27:40) Jonnie: I will continue to play it.
(1:27:44) Jonnie: I will very likely complete every single profession
(1:27:47) Jonnie: on this playthrough.
(1:27:49) Jonnie: And the thing that I like most about this game
(1:27:52) Jonnie: is that it is very clear…
(1:27:56) Jonnie: about what it is, which is, you know, as we talked about, this exploration puzzle game with strong sort of farming and crafting mechanics.
(1:28:03) Jonnie: And if that’s appealing to you, this game is unapologetically being that.
(1:28:08) Jonnie: It is not overloaded with mechanics and other features just because they are in other farming games.
(1:28:17) Jonnie: Like, some of the professions are weird, right?
(1:28:19) Jonnie: Like the treasure hunter profession where you are crafting pirate outfits.
(1:28:22) Jonnie: it makes almost no sense whatsoever.
(1:28:26) Jonnie: Does that change my enjoyment of the game at all?
(1:28:29) Jonnie: Absolutely not.
(1:28:30) Jonnie: Like, it’s dumb and it’s silly, but I don’t really care.
(1:28:35) Jonnie: And the other thing that I love about Luma Island
(1:28:37) Jonnie: is all of the little quality of life things
(1:28:40) Jonnie: that I want from these sorts of games, it has done them.
(1:28:45) Jonnie: So for me, like, I want to say this is like a perfect game
(1:28:49) Jonnie: because it’s not.
(1:28:51) Jonnie: But this is pretty close to like what I most want
(1:28:55) Jonnie: from
(1:28:56) Jonnie: from a game like I am this might be the peak of me on the show of ever liking a game
(1:29:00) Al: Fair enough. I love that. I’m like, I really don’t like this game. And you’re like, is
(1:29:06) Al: this a perfect game? I think that’s the thing. It’s just an example of how different people
(1:29:08) Jonnie: But that’s what I like about it, right?
(1:29:10) Jonnie: Because I know that this game is perfect for me, right?
(1:29:17) Al: like different things. And I’m not saying that this makes it a bad game. I just, it
(1:29:21) Al: definitely hasn’t clicked with me. It’s not one of these games where I’m like, I don’t
(1:29:24) Al: like this and it’s because it’s bad. It’s I don’t like this because it’s not designed
(1:29:30) Jonnie: Yeah, and it’s funny because like, as I was thinking about like sort of in the lead up to recording this, my second episode on the show was an episode I did with Kev on a game called The Lost Tower.
(1:29:44) Jonnie: I wish I could remember.
(1:29:46) Al: Oh, oh yeah, is that the, um, the, uh, what’s it called?
(1:29:52) Al: Oh, goodness.
(1:29:53) Al: I know the game you’re talking about, I think.
(1:29:54) Jonnie: Yes, it’s from the the group of developers are Mexican. Yeah.
(1:29:57) Al: The Mexican dev team.
(1:30:00) Al: Yeah, what is it called?
(1:30:03) Al: This is going to drive me insane now.
(1:30:03) Jonnie: Anyway, yeah, it’s like Kevin and I were both on the episode
(1:30:07) Jonnie: and we both couldn’t remember the name of this game, so Lonesome Village.
(1:30:11) Jonnie: Thank you. Thank you.
(1:30:12) Jonnie: So Kevin and I were on an episode about Lonesome Village,
(1:30:15) Jonnie: which was a very puzzle heavy game.
(1:30:18) Jonnie: And for both of us, that game like missed the mark quite substantially
(1:30:21) Jonnie: because it just felt a little bit unfocused and not really sure what it was.
(1:30:24) Jonnie: It was trying to do too much.
(1:30:27) Jonnie: And I after this, I’m going to go back and listen to that episode
(1:30:30) Jonnie: because I feel like a lot of the things that I was wanting out of that experience.
(1:30:35) Jonnie: I feel like I am getting from Luma Island and maybe just to sort of
(1:30:40) Jonnie: sum up my my thoughts and like a little story.
(1:30:42) Jonnie: I’ve been exploring the forest area, which is the the second region.
(1:30:46) Jonnie: And I was chopping down some trees to get some resources.
(1:30:50) Jonnie: And I uncovered a puzzle.
(1:30:52) Jonnie: And like this puzzle was not difficult, right?
(1:30:54) Jonnie: I chopped down some trees, there’s some lights on the ground
(1:30:56) Jonnie: and you have to stick on all of the lights in a certain amount of time.
(1:31:00) Jonnie: So you’re just sort of carving out a path.
(1:31:01) Jonnie: And I was like, that’s really cool.
(1:31:03) Jonnie: I didn’t like it’s cool that they’re introducing puzzles in the second area
(1:31:06) Jonnie: because I hadn’t, you know, like I was I hadn’t encountered that puzzle in the farm.
(1:31:12) Jonnie: And then I was back exploring the farm and I saw a little light poking out
(1:31:15) Jonnie: from one of the trees and I was like, oh, my God, this puzzle is on the farm.
(1:31:18) Jonnie: I just didn’t encounter it.
(1:31:19) Jonnie: So I got that like reverse exploration where I had this fun moment,
(1:31:23) Jonnie: discovered a puzzle like
(1:31:24) Jonnie: it was cool. And then as I was doing something that I had already thought I had completed in
(1:31:29) Jonnie: the game, I uncovered another little puzzle to do that I had missed the first time. That was,
(1:31:35) Jonnie: it’s just like, for me, that is just such a fun experience. And that’s what I love about.
(1:31:40) Al: I find it funny that you didn’t find that one on the farm because I found that very early on.
(1:31:45) Al: It’s actually really, really close to the start. It’s like the first area that I started cutting
(1:31:46) Jonnie: Yeah, like it’s it’s really close to the start, yep, it’s it’s yeah, and I completely.
(1:31:51) Al: trees down. And that’s probably just coincidence that I chose that bit because there’s still quite
(1:31:56) Al: a lot of areas around there that you could. But yeah, that’s funny.
(1:31:58) Jonnie: Yeah, so I yeah, I like Alan, you need to shut me up because I otherwise would just keep talking about how much I really like scare.
(1:32:08) Al: All right, well, thank you, Johnny, for joining me to talk about Luma Island.
(1:32:08) Jonnie: Yeah.
(1:32:12) Al: Yeah, because we do need to shut it down there, because I have children to look after.
(1:32:17) Al: Where can people find you on the internet?
(1:32:20) Jonnie: As always, in the Slack, get to your render now.
(1:32:25) Al: You can find me on maston.scot and other social media at thescotbot.
(1:32:30) Al: You can find the podcast on Tumblr and other social media at THSPod.
(1:32:36) Al: You can send us feedback from our website.
(1:32:38) Al: We read all the feedback that’s submitted from there because there’s not very much that’s submitted there, and you can also find links to other things to do with the podcast, including our Patreon, patreon.com/dhsbod, where you can get access to our Slack, where there are lots of people to talk to and get bonus episodes of the podcast, including upcoming ones such as our game of the year, game of the non-farming year.
(1:33:08) Al: episode and what we’re looking forward to in 2025 that isn’t farming games. I really need to get a better name for that because it’s been six years now, and I still don’t have a good name for that episode.
(1:33:24) Jonnie: just give up. Venus will check, did you get it?
(1:33:27) Al: No, I did not. I got a Haunter and an Onyx.
(1:33:33) Al: I swear this game is gonna, it’s trying to make me crack.
(1:33:38) Al: Thank you again for joining me.
(1:33:42) Al: Thank you listeners for listening, and until next time, have a good harvest!
(1:33:47) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinlay, with support from our patrons, including our
(1:33:48) Jonnie: Have a good Venusaur.
(1:33:50) Al: I tried, I tried to have a good one.
(1:33:58) Theme Tune: pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(1:34:02) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(1:34:06) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club, for show notes and links to things we discussed
(1:34:12) Theme Tune: in this episode.
(1:34:22) Al: Uh, the last piece of news is that, for some reason, my computer stopped recording.
(1:34:31) Al: Well, it’s a good thing that Zoom is still recording.
(1:34:34) Al: I have no idea how long that’s not been going for,
(1:34:36) Al: because I just looked over to see how long we’ve been recording for, and it’s not recording.
(1:34:41) Al: Weird.
(1:34:43) Al: OK, I’m definitely using the Zoom recordings this time.
(1:34:46) Al: I presume my, uh, my mic did, like, I didn’t cut it at all.
(1:34:52) Al: I didn’t see how long that comes in, did I?
(1:34:54) Jonnie: Nope. It’s been clean the whole way through.
(1:34:56) Al: Hmm.
(1:34:57) Al: Weird.
(1:34:58) Jonnie: Um, can we just get, like, you know, checked for ghosts?
(1:34:59) Al: OK, fine, I’m just gonna go with it.
(1:35:02) Jonnie: ‘Cause I feel like, I feel like this show, these episodes,
(1:35:06) Jonnie: I feel like we’re haunted or cursed or…