We Still Have Each Other

Wed, May 13, 2026 Year 3, Autumn 19

Al and Kevin talk about Little Rocket Lab.

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:02:32: What Have We Been Up To
00:24:37: I Know What You Released Last Month
00:25:27: Game News
00:42:24: Little Rocket Lab
01:39:03: Outro

Links

Fantasy Life i on Mobile
Bubblegum Galaxy Study Mode
Cozy Caravan “An Excess of Accessories” Update
Out and About “Invasives and Sustainable Harvesting” Update
Heartopia “Modular Streets Festival” Pack
Wholesome Direct

Rocket Lab Screenshots:
Layout 1
Layout 2
Layout 3
Toasty
Lighthouse
Broken
Postcard

Contact

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

Transcript

Theme Tune

(0s) Theme Tune:

[Music]

Intro

(30s) Al:

Hello farmers and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Al

(35s) Kevin:

My name is Kevin.

(36s) Al:

And we’re here today to talk about cottishcore games

(38s)

Whoo

(40s)

Although this might be the least cottagecore cottagecore game

(44s)

But also also still being cottagecore. You’ll understand what?

(58s)

Oh, it’s pretty. Yeah, it’s pretty card. Pretty card score. Pretty card.

(1m 2s)

It’s still, I think it’s the least cottagecore, while still actually being cottagecore, I would say.

(1m 6s) Kevin:

Yeah, you’re right.

(1m 7s) Al:

Well, you don’t know what I’m talking about yet.

(1m 9s)

[laughs]

(1m 10s) Kevin:

Yeah, no, I don’t.

(1m 12s)

No, yeah, yeah, that’s a thing.

(1m 14s)

I always said I’m going to do a secret game for this episode and not tell me about it.

(1m 18s) Al:

So I originally said, I was, I originally said secret game because I hadn’t decided what it was and there was a few games that was going to try and play and I was like, I don’t want to commit to a game at this point.

(1m 19s) Kevin:

Yeah.

(1m 28s) Al:

And then when I actually started playing one of them and I was like, this is, this is a great game. I need to, I need to talk about this game.

(1m 34s)

Then I was like, well, no, no, I just need to keep going for the bit, right? But Kevin doesn’t know what game we’re covering. But this episode, I am going to talk about little rocket lab.

(1m 39s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah.

(1m 48s) Al:

I’m pretty, yeah, it’s, it’s what it’s, it’s hopefully yeah, I don’t think it’s an early access. Yeah, it’s out.

(1m 49s) Kevin:

• Whoa, are you playing, how is it, how is it 1.0 or is it’s like beta?

(1m 59s)

I actually remember that one looked interesting. Okay. Oh man. I’m jealous. Okay. I’m very curious. All right. Let’s see. Oh, now I’m excited. Oh

(2m 11s) Al:

I knew it, I knew it.

(2m 12s) Kevin:

Yeah, darn it. I was about to make the joke. He’s playing a game. I really wanted to play it and he actually did it

(2m 19s) Al:

Well, there you go. There you go. And maybe I’ll convince you to play it after this. We’ll see. So I have been playing that this week. I’ve put quite a quite a lot time into it. And yeah, we’ll talk about that later. Before that, we have some game news. But first of all, Kevin, what have you been up to?

(2m 22s) Kevin:

Yeah

What Have We Been Up To

(2m 35s) Kevin:

Working a lot mostly. Yeah. Yeah, good. Not fun times. Anyways, but I’ll joke society

(2m 41s)

Well, actually, I mean that impacts me because then I don’t have that much time for other stuff, right?

(2m 46s)

So obviously I’m sneaking in a copy of where I can

(2m 49s)

I built the sieve side market on my cloud island

(2m 54s)

People on the site who have actually played you see it’s great and I’m building case a little save-life event

(3m 1s)

It’s so ongoing. It’s like another week or so

(3m 5s)

I actually know it’s it’s actually a lot less from the time people are listening to this

(3m 6s) Al:

Oh yes, I’ve still not… I’ve still not booted up that.

(3m 12s) Kevin:

It’s May 14th when it ends heads up for people

(3m 14s) Al:

Okay, in fact, is that not Wednesday?

(3m 16s) Kevin:

Anyways, I mean it’s the same

(3m 19s) Al:

No, it’s Thursday.

(3m 20s)

So if you’re listening to this episode on the least day,

(3m 20s) Kevin:

No

(3m 22s) Al:

you have two day.

(3m 23s) Kevin:

There you go

(3m 27s)

It’s a

(3m 29s)

Anyways, so I don’t know what it is like I’m

(3m 33s)

it starts the same thing as the harp

(3m 35s)

and you can build things, I think it’s just the flavors a little more appealing to me. All the little items you can buy are little explore stuff, a little back pop and a sleeping bag and a camping lantern.

(3m 52s)

I don’t know, it feels like a little more app you can slide it into a few more places. The hot pit best stuff was cute, but it was like, okay, all this hurts together and that’s kind of it. It’s like a little like something like that or whatever.

(4m 3s)

Yeah.

(4m 5s)

Anyway, so this feels like you can throw it in a few more places. It’s a little fun, just decoration-wise.

(4m 10s)

And say, “Bligh is fun.” I like say like.

(4m 13s)

Anyway, so yeah, I’ve just been doing the Pocopia.

(4m 18s)

Actually, I’m also building what I call the Ditto House on my palette. It sounds like my own proper house for Ditto and it’s all purple colored.

(4m 25s)

And I’ve learned so much about interior design and I guess architectural design too.

(4m 33s)

I look at real houses.

(4m 35s)

Now for inspiration, now it’s bad, it’s bad.

(4m 38s)

And it would be a epicopia, it is what it is.

(4m 42s)

But, so yeah, aside from that, I haven’t gotten too much time in anything.

(4m 46s)

But what I do want to talk about some other stuff though, I want to talk about the,

(4m 50s)

I got a double dose this week of what I call anti-hyped, like stuff that came out

(4m 56s)

and I’m excited for but also hurt me badly.

(4m 58s) Al:

Yes, do it. Let’s, let’s do this.

(5m) Kevin:

Yeah, let’s start with the one that I use. I know

(5m 5s)

used so let’s talk about Star Fox, Fantastic Mr. Star Fox.

(5m 7s) Al:

It’s the thing

(5m 11s) Kevin:

Okay, so I don’t know. I’m warming up a little more. Yeah, okay, I’ll say this. I’m probably

(5m 11s) Al:

So your current your current version of this is that you’re currently not tight about this you don’t know. Okay, you’re unsure, right? Okay

(5m 20s) Kevin:

going to get it. How have I not at least is going to get it? That is true. Yeah, okay. So, all right,

(5m 21s) Al:

That’s that is a whole different a whole different debate though, right? Like whether you’re going to get it is not the same as whether or not you’re hyperbitter, right?

(5m 32s) Kevin:

I guess for context. I’m actually not the biggest

(5m 35s)

star fox. I mean, I really enjoy it and I like it but like I’m not, you know, living in dying by it or whatever, but I played a couple of the games. I played a soul to play some of the 64 and so on. I didn’t play adventures, but anyways, so but I liked the series a lot and it was exciting to say, oh, out of nowhere, like shadow dropping a direct star fox, which I do think was a great move.

(6m 3s)

and so obviously we all knew it was coming.

(6m 5s)

because the movie happened in Starbucks and so he’s getting a push and I’m excited for that like I like the franchise I want to see it live.

(6m 12s)

So seeing this announcement very excited and then the direct starts and it is I cannot believe it another remake.

(6m 23s)

Of 64 which itself was to remake reboot whatever you I’m not getting the discussion with above the OG right so at this point we have.

(6m 35s)

So horrifying games that are basically iterations of each other and.

(6m 40s)

Three other games that aren’t so it’s it’s just it’s wild I don’t think of any other franchise that has been like this words.

(6m 49s)

Mostly just iterating on the same game over and over.

(6m 54s)

So like yeah the whole concept is very deflating.

(7m)

But let’s talk about some of the positives.

(7m 5s)

Well, they’ll start with the mixed one. Let’s say that the visuals. I think the levels the environments are actually beautiful

(7m 11s)

I think visually it does look great, but then you get the character design in the

(7m 18s)

Uncanny Valley

(7m 19s)

for real stick furry guys. I don’t know. It’s a

(7m 25s)

Yeah, it’s it’s a big shock, right?

(7m 28s)

I’m warming up a little on the semi realistic animal look

(7m 33s)

But it’s still kind of jarring.

(7m 35s)

Especially with like looking at the movie the movie of design is so good, right?

(7m 40s)

Um, and now we get this and and so it’s

(7m 41s) Al:

Hmm. Yeah. Not, not just, not just the movie design, but also the, the weird little kind of

(7m 48s)

anime thing they have, the little clip that is the great as well. And I thought that’s what they

(7m 49s) Kevin:

Yeah

(7m 52s)

Yeah

(7m 54s) Al:

were going to be doing when they showed that initial clip. And I was like, Oh, this is interesting.

(7m 58s) Kevin:

Yeah

(7m 59s) Al:

No, though.

(8m) Kevin:

Nope, nope, it’s that we get a very moist looking slippy tote.

(8m 5s)

Um, I think Peppy, the hair, the peppy hair, the bunny, the old bunny.

(8m 9s)

He saw his thick eyebrows and I think he looks great actually still even in this style.

(8m 14s)

But the other ones like it’s going to take some adjustment, but uh, oh my gosh, I, I’m just thinking,

(8m 23s)

have you ever played Star Fox or the 60 or anything else?

(8m 27s) Al:

Um, no, I have no.

(8m 28s) Kevin:

Okay, well it’s spoilers for the game that came out in the night and these are whatever 64.

(8m 35s)

So the final boss, Andrew, so you’re familiar with him at all.

(8m 38s) Al:

No, I’m not.

(8m 40s) Kevin:

Okay, uh, to describe him when you bite him, he’s a, uh, he’s, I think he’s supposed to be like a

(8m 46s)

primate of some kind, um, but he still has like a full head. You know, I’m starting the episode,

(8m 51s)

they’re not sure they’re, um, but when you fight him, he’s a literally a giant floating head

(8m 57s)

with hands. Um, uh, and, and so I bet in this arch style, what is

(9m 5s)

that going to look like that’s, that’s crazy. Um, and furthermore, you can actually unlock

(9m 12s)

a second secret boss fight where he turns Justin to, right. I think it’s secret. I can’t remember.

(9m 17s)

It’s been a while since I’ve done it, but, um, uh, because you know, the 64 is all about the

(9m 21s)

repetition and you’re in lucky different routes. Anyways, you can do a separate boss fight where

(9m 26s)

you just literally fight his brain and eyeballs. Um, and so thinking that in this, you know,

(9m 32s)

realistic art style. Um,

(9m 35s)

that’s gonna be crazy looking. Um, but, uh, anyways, um, overall though, like, I’m very torn on, uh, on it because again of the remake, I can’t believe we’re not getting a new one. It kills me, but this looks like probably the best version or best remake of the game.

(9m 56s)

So, you know, like they’re adding the little challenges to it. They’re adding. It looks like I don’t know if it’s gonna be a whole campaign or at least the level with the, the pro level.

(10m 5s)

vlog with the foxes dad. They’re doing stuff. So like, I can’t entirely hate it. Um, it’s, it’s just so depressed thing they did a remake again, but there’s, there’s still.

(10m 16s) Al:

Yeah, so I guess the question is right. So it’s either going to be just another remake and then it’s fine, but then they don’t do anything again for ages.

(10m 27s)

But the other option is doing a remake to like remind people that the games exist, right? And they’re like, oh, you might, you might like this and here’s a game that you already know and then, you know, next year to whatever there’s a brand new game, that’s a possibility.

(10m 35s) Kevin:

• Yeah.

(10m 46s) Al:

And I guess in at that point that will you if they do then come out with another game, you’ll look back on this game more positively than if they hadn’t.

(10m 58s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. And yeah, like, yeah, I mean, clearly, I think that’s, that’s what it is.

(11m 4s)

They’re testing the water. There’s already whispers that they’re going to work on Star Fox movie.

(11m 9s)

So, you know, I think getting the limelight in this movie is start of a big push.

(11m 16s)

But, you know, this will probably affect the direction it goes. And I do want Star Fox, so I will

(11m 22s)

probably try to support it, even with the, you know, all the qualms I have about it.

(11m 28s)

Um, but, uh, I, uh, man, this, you know, are you familiar with the cap contest?

(11m 35s)

Well, it’s, it’s, it’s basically back in the day like it, it was, it came out like,

(11m 36s) Al:

Uh, what’s the capcom?

(11m 44s) Kevin:

Capcom basically would put out remasters or remakes. I think it’s just really remasters of older

(11m 50s)

fighting of, oh, especially fighting games of certain games. Um, and they would use that to gauge

(11m 56s)

interest in the series to determine.

(11m 58s)

But we’ll see I am happy Star Fox is being talked about because wow the last one we got was along to action. We got one of the Wii U but that one was also remake and it was the Wii U so double whammy there.

(12m) Al:

• Okay.

(12m 17s) Kevin:

Anyways yeah we’ll see I will say this I applaud them for trying a different art style. I’m not the biggest fan of it but it is different and it has a style.

(12m 28s)

I don’t want to talk about it so you know so be it.

(12m 31s) Al:

Yeah, that’s not always a good thing, but…

(12m 36s) Kevin:

Oh I do think the little the tober video filters for the game chat that nobody uses is really funny though. It’s encouraged me to use it.

(12m 49s)

Anyway so that’s that’s starting.

(12m 58s)

I can’t really talk about it in the future.

(13m 6s)

Anyways in a similar vein zen lizon zero.

(13m 9s)

They’re coming out with season what they call season three meaning year three soon.

(13m 15s)

That’s that’s a big update where they introduce a new it’s one of the few games where like the update numbers actually mean something.

(13m 23s)

Every time they have a point, whatever, it’s a new character, a new story arc.

(13m 29s)

It’s crazy. It’s actually sensible version naming.

(13m 32s)

Anyways, 3.0 is a big update then.

(13m 34s)

We get a whole new location, a whole new story arc starts.

(13m 38s)

And they do a little season trailer for it.

(13m 41s)

And it’s so weird because the setting is cool.

(13m 46s)

It’s going to be in a sky island with the steam punk European looking city.

(13m 52s)

They’re called bros califer. And it’s got lots of the bang boo bunny robot people.

(13m 58s)

It looks a lot of fun. The setting is cool. The story set up interesting.

(14m 2s)

What isn’t interesting, and it’s very weird.

(14m 7s)

The characters, because obviously that’s, you know, more than half of what they’re showing off.

(14m 12s)

The characters we’re going to pull for.

(14m 15s)

It’s just, it’s very lukewarm reception.

(14m 19s)

The problem is, um, Mohoyo, you know, being across all these different games,

(14m 25s)

games, Genshin, and Hongkai. They…

(14m 28s)

have a tendency to default to some archetypes or very similar design philosophies in their characters throughout their different games.

(14m 36s)

And at first Zenless was not like that at all. We had robots. We had animal people.

(14m 42s)

Like, it was very different and kind of weird, but in a very cool way.

(14m 46s)

But now they’re kind of just going back to generic Chinese anime look, you know, the gacha character design for lack of a better word.

(14m 56s)

And that’s so disheartened.

(14m 58s)

Because that was such a big appeal for so many people. Like these care, they first set of characters were so weird and different and everyone was excited for them. Even now, his character named Billy, he’s a robot.

(15m 11s)

He’s just an android, who’s looking spiky hair and guns. And he’s super popular. They’re releasing a special version of him. And everyone’s so excited for him.

(15m 21s)

Because it’s just very cool and different. And now we’re going away from that. But anyways, I’m still going to play it. So, you know, whatever.

(15m 29s)

But there you go. There’s my mixed feelings on things coming up that I’m excited about kind of sort of.

(15m 36s)

All right. Now, what are you up to? Tell me.

(15m 38s) Al:

Well, obviously, I have been playing a little Rocket Lab.

(15m 44s)

I will talk more about that later on.

(15m 47s)

Also, I was playing Minami lane.

(15m 54s)

I can’t remember how it was meant to be pronounced.

(15m 56s)

So this is the small town builder type thing.

(16m 2s)

It’s not like a city builder or anything.

(16m 5s)

It’s very much on the small scale.

(16m 6s)

you’ve got like here, you’re

(16m 8s)

street to basically. Um, it’s fine. So I think, um, I, I’m not a huge fan of it, but I, I think

(16m 10s) Kevin:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(16m 23s) Al:

that’s partly a me thing, right? Um, it’s, it’s very clearly a management style game and I should

(16m 29s)

know, not going in. Right? Like, um, it’s, uh, I think the thing about it is I feel,

(16m 38s)

so basically how it works is you’ve got like your street and you like buy our shop or you buy

(16m 44s)

a house to like add people to the street and then the people on the street, they’ll go to your

(16m 49s)

shops and they’ll buy things and you have to like balance how much stuff you’re going to put

(16m 54s)

into like the ramen and how much you’re going to charge. Therefore, how much profit you’re going to

(16m 59s)

make, um, and stuff like that. And it’s, it feels like a

(17m 8s)

a spreadsheet kind of game, but in our try having a really hard time trying to figure out how to

(17m 15s)

explain why don’t like other than just like it’s a management game. I don’t like management games,

(17m 19s)

Which is not quite true, right?

(17m 21s) Kevin:

Let me ask you, let me try to maybe help guide there or figure some stuff out, where I look at the screenshots, it feels like garden galaxy, because actually I put this other management games like, you know, rollercoaster tycoon, let’s build a zoo, like it’s about expansion, right, you get big and you get all the different exhibits and you grow and grow, right, and it’s resources and you’re expanding.

(17m 51s)

Is this about that, or is it like more like garden galaxy, which kind of is, when it’s not really management, but it’s, you know, just decorating a nice little piece of land.

(17m 58s) Al:

Yeah

(18m)

You are you are definitely you are definitely expanding it’s not on the same sort of scale as other ones obviously

(18m 6s)

It’s like small expansion

(18m 8s)

But you definitely are making a bigger street and and it’s it’s definitely kind of profit-focused

(18m 11s) Kevin:

Okay, okay, it is still profit-focused, okay.

(18m 16s) Al:

A day of it definitely is because the point is to make money to then expand your street

(18m 23s)

I think the thing is that it it feels a little bit

(18m 28s)

Right like when you go maybe that maybe this is why I’m not a huge fan of them just management games

(18m 32s)

Just now obviously there’s the standard where it’s like I’m not a huge fan of that way of playing because it feels very nice and keyboard driven

(18m 39s)

And even when there are controls controller support, it still can quite often feel not well optimized for that

(18m 47s)

But I also just think that it feels very impersonal and it’s like I am

(18m 53s)

Like for example, you’ll create your ramen place and then you’ll see people go and they’ll like one

(18m 58s)

person will be like, Oh, I wish there was more chicken in this. I wish there were more eggs. I wish there were more noodles. Okay. Well, I’ll increase that. And then it’s like someone comes in and goes, Oh, I wish there was less chicken in this. And you’re like, what are we, what are we doing here? Like, how am I balancing all these things, right? Because you’re, your shops don’t have a bunch of different options. You’re literally saying this is the one option for the shop. And yet you can buy like two of the shops. But then you’ll have one which has

(19m 10s) Kevin:

Ha ha ha!

(19m 28s) Al:

specific things. And then you have one that has different things. And the person will go into one of them and come out complaining that it wasn’t the one that was next door, like I don’t maybe beat the menu before you go in to eat the food. Like what, what are you, what are you doing? I, and yeah, in a way, yeah, in a way. So I didn’t like that that put me off a bit. And then obviously just that like the general like it’s.

(19m 41s) Kevin:

I’m not. It’s not like some Tom adt you are nonsense.

(19m 58s) Al:

You know, it’s management style game. It’s, it’s nice looking, right? Like that’s obviously something that we’ve, we’ve been aware of looking at the game. It’s nice looking. It feels like it’s trying to be casual, cozy, if you will, slow life, whatever you want to call it. But, but also then it is also about making money. And it’s about, um, going as, you know, as much as you can.

(20m 14s) Kevin:

Oh yeah, all our favorite buzz works.

(20m 28s) Al:

like, I don’t think those two things work well together, the cozy and the, or we actually want to make a whole bunch of money to expand. Do you know what I mean? Those don’t feel like the same thing.

(20m 41s) Kevin:

it’s uh yeah yeah no like I get it because um yeah like let’s build the zoo right

(20m 50s)

that’s not a I mean it’s fun and it’s cute or whatever it’s not a cozy game per se

(20m 56s)

because you’re expanding and you know you’re just like just growing and growing

(20m 58s) Al:

Yeah, they’re not trying to be cozy whereas Minami Lane is very definitely trying to be cozy

(21m 2s) Kevin:

no is this is this gentrification core?

(21m 6s) Al:

There is that as well. I was thinking about that a little bit, right? Like there’s something a little bit not

(21m 14s)

fun

(21m 16s)

right

(21m 18s) Kevin:

That’s yeah

(21m 18s) Al:

Maybe or maybe we’re overthinking that I don’t know but it does feel a little bit like that to be to be fair

(21m 22s) Kevin:

I don’t know what he here

(21m 24s) Al:

It’s not like here’s a run-down play sleigh

(21m 28s)

It’s like here’s a place ad stuff, so it’s not the same thing, but yeah, I definitely had that feeling a

(21m 28s) Kevin:

Yeah

(21m 32s)

Yeah

(21m 36s)

It’s such a

(21m 39s)

Think the issue is honestly the art style

(21m 42s)

Because how do they put like he art style itself is very cozy like it’s very soft

(21m 49s)

And like you see a little tanuki shop tanuki over like it looks like a ramen bar

(21m 55s)

It feels like a small town Japanese place, but then you’re expanding and expanding and

(22m 3s)

Yeah, I can get that then you’re right, and then you lose the the I mean magic games are pretty impersonal, right?

(22m 10s)

There’s no name characters or whatever, but like you get bigger you’re zooming out more of the people are smaller

(22m 18s)

I can get what you’re saying

(22m 21s)

Um, I’d be I might give it just to look myself. I didn’t realize this is a

(22m 26s)

Okay, it came out, so I don’t know what else is out anymore, but um

(22m 29s) Al:

I think Manami Lane came out last year, but I think some people will love this and I do not.

(22m 32s) Kevin:

Oh

(22m 34s)

But still I mean

(22m 38s)

Well, yeah, that’s those seem like fair criticism, but like you said, it’s already an uphill battle, right?

(22m 44s)

Because it’s managing a game, and that’s why that doesn’t drive it you

(22m 49s)

Yeah, very very

(22m 51s)

interesting because it is still very like cozy like you said, it has the the flavor of cozy

(23m)

We’re putting it

(23m 3s)

Which doesn’t all like sit there’s some dissonance there with the get always just grow expand more and more

(23m 11s)

Oh curious

(23m 12s)

But it’s not awful so that that’s

(23m 15s) Al:

No, it’s it’s not but like also there’s plenty of not awful games

(23m 21s) Kevin:

Yeah, that’s true.

(23m 23s)

That’s true and there’s also plenty of awful

(23m 25s)

district.

(23m 27s) Al:

Yeah, and I almost I almost feel like

(23m 31s)

Awful’s easier to talk about

(23m 33s) Kevin:

Yeah, it is. It really is.

(23m 34s) Al:

There’s there’s I there’s I love this game

(23m 36s)

And I could talk about this for hours and we’ll probably get into that later with low rocket League

(23m 40s)

low rocket lab

(23m 42s)

So hopefully that’s a very different game.

(23m 44s) Kevin:

[laughing]

(23m 45s) Al:

And then there’s well version of rocket, rocket lead is like the hot wheels cars or something.

(23m 47s) Kevin:

• Oh, I’d like that, it’s cute.

(23m 54s)

• Yeah, when they get the faces,

(23m 56s)

you know, like those preschool shows,

(23m 57s)

like, where’d the kids get the blazer or whatever, yeah.

(24m 2s) Al:

Yeah.

(24m 4s)

So yeah.

(24m 5s) Kevin:

Oh, but yeah, going back to what you’re saying,

(24m 9s)

awful games, ‘cause, you know,

(24m 10s)

we can talk about Star Sand Island, you know,

(24m 13s)

You’re going on on that, right?

(24m 15s)

Or it’s not even awful, but you know, like the bed parts awful is easy to talk about too.

(24m 20s)

Um, good times.

(24m 23s) Al:

So yeah, it’s, it’s, I’m, but not for me.

(24m 28s) Kevin:

Yeah, okay.

(24m 29s)

Well, that’s that’s something.

(24m 31s) Al:

It is, it is something so yeah.

(24m 33s)

All right, that’s what we’ve been up to.

(24m 36s)

Whoo.

I Know What You Released Last Month

(24m 37s) Al:

Next, a week late, because I probably should have done this last week,

(24m 40s)

but I forgot because it’s so little actually last month is I know what you’ve released

(24m 44s)

last month and there’s two things that release last month.

(24m 46s)

That it’s Thomas actually life living the dream and cozy sanctuary.

(24m 50s)

That’s it, it’s a busy, busy month.

(24m 52s) Kevin:

Yeah.

(24m 53s)

Wait, what’s cozy sanctuary?

(24m 53s) Al:

Yeah.

(24m 54s) Kevin:

I don’t remember that I went.

(24m 56s)

Let’s see here.

(24m 56s) Al:

Uh, llamas, I think.

(24m 57s) Kevin:

Oh, okay.

(24m 58s)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(24m 59s)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(25m) Al:

Cozy sanctuary was the, or it was a rusty like.

(25m) Kevin:

Yeah.

(25m 1s)

Yeah.

(25m 2s)

Yeah.

(25m 3s)

Yeah.

(25m 4s)

Yeah.

(25m 5s)

Yeah.

(25m 5s) Al:

So you got your animals living at the bottom of your screen.

(25m 6s) Kevin:

Okay.

(25m 9s) Al:

It looks, it looks fun, but as discussed before,

(25m 12s)

I struggled to run the rusty legs because, you know,

(25m 15s)

work machine and all that.

(25m 17s) Kevin:

Yeah, yeah, I’m it yeah, I’m gonna talk well - I’m not multitasking some of my anyways, but that’s right good for them. They came out

(25m 25s) Al:

All right. Let’s talk about some news. So first stop in the positive mobile game world,

Game News

(25m 34s) Al:

we have Fanta-cell life I. Well, yeah, yeah. Fanta-cell life I have announced that they are coming

(25m 36s) Kevin:

That exists.

Fantasy Life i

(25m 41s) Al:

to mobile. It is the exact same game that’s currently available for PC and consoles. It is available

(25m 49s)

for a single payment. They’ve not announced the price I don’t think, but presumably we’ll just

(25m 55s) Kevin:

Oh, my goodness, the Wow.

(25m 56s) Al:

the same cost as the normal game. There’s no mobile fun around like, you know,

(26m 3s) Kevin:

They’re releasing on a by to play platform.

(26m 4s) Al:

micro micro purchases and all that stuff. I know crazy.

(26m 9s) Kevin:

The rare by to play games.

(26m 14s) Al:

So yeah, and it comes with cross-save. So if you’ve already been playing it and you want to play it on

(26m 20s)

something else, then

(26m 22s) Kevin:

Okay. So, okay. I haven’t played fantasy life. I need to. I heard good things. I enjoy fantasy life a lot, but I’ll joking aside. This is actually awesome.

(26m 32s)

I mean, the fact that, you know, the one time purchase, I mean, I wouldn’t expect it otherwise, but, you know, you can always do worse, I guess, but you never know. Yep.

(26m 40s) Al:

You never know, you never know.

(26m 43s) Kevin:

Uh, it surprises your, there’s no end to the, to the depths of, uh, uh, corporations baking things bad. So, you know, you’re right.

(26m 52s)

But, um, so that’s great, but the cross save. Wow. That’s actually really cool. I didn’t expect that. Um, yeah. Awesome. Good for you, uh, level five doing a good thing. I like that.

(27m 6s)

We like when corporations do good things. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know that they’ve been a little, uh, up in the air in the last couple of years, but they’ve been.

(27m 7s) Al:

Are they becoming one of the better game devs?

(27m 17s)

Oh, they had AI stuff last year, didn’t they?

(27m 19s) Kevin:

Yeah, that’s a big thing, right? But they are historic.

(27m 22s)

Luckily, they’ve been pretty solid, their releases were good, they did you okay watch

(27m 26s)

Layton, but they’re doing this and Layton and I heard not everything is AI, I don’t know,

(27m 33s)

but low fives, I still have fondness for their property, so biased. But hey, but this is good,

(27m 42s)

this is an absolute win, cute though, yep, hold banner jpeg, see this is an absolute win, okay.

(27m 52s)

Good for you, fancy life.

Bubblegum Galaxy

(27m 54s) Al:

Next up, Bubblegum Galaxy have released a study mode update, now I’m fascinated by this.

(28m 2s) Kevin:

What? That’s weird.

(28m 3s) Al:

So, in study mode, Hakko will join you while she’s working on a planet to keep your company.

(28m 12s)

While in this mode, you can use the built-in music player to listen to a game’s high-quality

(28m 18s)

soundtrack and set a Pomodoro style timer to set focus while you work.

(28m 23s) Kevin:

OK, that’s so weird because I get what they’re going for.

(28m 24s) Al:

Weird? Yep.

(28m 33s) Kevin:

It’s the co-working streams, right?

(28m 36s)

Like our friend, aslan does those.

(28m 37s) Al:

Yeah. But yeah.

(28m 41s) Kevin:

And that’s fine, yeah.

(28m 43s)

But doing it with, you know, computer care,

(28m 47s)

like if you didn’t care, because that’s weird.

(28m 50s) Al:

Yeah, well, I mean, it’s not even I don’t think that’s the weird bit. Why I think is the weird bit is like this is in the game

(28m 58s)

Right like it’s not we like here’s our soundtrack in a little a tiny little app that like shows our video game character

(29m 7s)

Working and there’s a pomodor. It’s not like a a study aid set for app. It’s

(29m 9s) Kevin:

Yeah

(29m 12s) Al:

launched the game then go into a

(29m 15s)

version of the game that isn’t the game and is actually this completely different

(29m 18s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, you’re right. That’s that’s not the weird part because people have those right YouTube videos or streams or whatever of just like a background thing. You’re right. That’s not there’s nothing weird about that. But yeah, putting it inside your game and accessing to the end. That is odd. Like they should have just released a separate little thing. I don’t know. It’s weird.

(29m 20s) Al:

thing. Yeah. Yeah.

(29m 41s) Kevin:

Um, okay. Yeah, subgenre of rusty likes.

(29m 41s) Al:

very weird

(29m 47s)

Yeah, I mean in a weird is it’s it’s it’s a rusty like without any progress, right?

(29m 48s) Kevin:

It is. It is. Yeah. Yeah, that is H, H, H, DIE. Let’s go.

Cozy Caravan

(30m) Al:

Next up, what’s a caravan have released their 1.3 update called an excess of accessories

(30m 7s)

Kevin, can you guess what’s in this update?

(30m 8s) Kevin:

But it would there perhaps be accessories. What?

(30m 12s) Al:

There are accessories

(30m 15s)

Also missing packages that you can find around the place and they will include accessories

(30m 21s)

Plus the more goodies are coming to their daily rewards including accessories

(30m 28s) Kevin:

Oh, that’s good, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is, it’s kind of weird when they don’t let you do that,

(30m 30s) Al:

Also, you can change your in-game name. No

(30m 35s)

Interestingly the not a thing that most games actually do and I think in general

(30m 41s)

This is a good thing for many reasons

(30m 48s) Kevin:

but yeah, no, it is a little bit for them. The accessories, you know what? They’re like, yeah, they’re

(30m 53s)

for your third, your little animal characters.

(30m 58s)

Yeah, no, that’s fun. That’s a fun way of framing this excess of excess of excesses.

(31m 2s)

That’s good. Good for you, cozy caravan.

Out And About

(31m 4s) Al:

Next up out and about have released their invasives and sustainable harvesting update

(31m 11s)

So they now have invasive species in the game of plants

(31m 11s) Kevin:

Oh, that’s…

(31m 16s) Al:

They say as you know invasives species are in danger in biodiversity

(31m 19s)

So of course we should include the concept and teach about it as this game has played in all regions of the world

(31m 24s)

We couldn’t use real plants for this one since one invasives might be another’s natives

(31m 29s)

But visually we make it look like Japanese not weed since that’s invasive in the US

(31m 34s)

and Europe. So that’s cool. Yeah.

(31m 36s) Kevin:

Yeah, that’s, that’s very cool, what about, I mean, and that’s, that’s a big thing, right? Like, well, I don’t know if you have any notorious invases up there in Scotland, but.

(31m 52s) Al:

Yeah, Japanese noise, that’s the big one because it’s like, as soon as you see that, like,

(32m)

there’s, oh boy, you’re going to have fun with trying to get it out of the ground. It sticks around a lot.

(32m 8s) Kevin:

Yeah ours ours is also Asian

(32m 11s)

Hudzu is the one down here in the south

(32m 14s)

We literally like the south is covered by kudzu right now

(32m 19s)

So yeah, that’s a real problem very cool for them to you know

(32m 23s)

Make it a mechanic or talk about it. Yeah, that’s that’s a fun one actually

(32m 30s)

Wait, what about the sustainable part because they say invasive is unsustainable, right?

(32m 33s)

What’s what’s this so that I don’t see here they change

(32m 36s) Al:

Ah, oh yes, so they’ve said that there’s going to be penalties for over harvesting things before this patch plants and patches respond after eat after each time slot, meaning you add an endless supply of plants without egg consequences for over harvesting now we have introduced plants last patch saving and a respawn cycle when you harvest a plant and move to the next time slot the plant will become unavailable for unavailable again until the next market instead of going to the same old patches you now get encouraged to try new ones.

(32m 38s) Kevin:

Oh

(33m 6s) Al:

Over harvest a plant take more than 60% of it, you know, get a penalty the penalty consists of 10 to 25 curiosity points per plant part that you over harvest both of these new features are meant to measure sustainable harvesting behaviors this way we gently remind you the nature is not an all you can eat buffet we should always be mindful when harvesting.

(33m 26s) Kevin:

You know what that this is awesome actually I

(33m 30s)

I would like to see this in other games like encourage you to rotate crops and stuff like that

(33m 36s)

That’s awesome good for you out

(33m 39s)

I mean, I know that’s the whole thing. I’m being eco-conscious, but like I think that’s just fun. Yeah, I think that just mechanically that’s really fun - oh

(33m 44s) Al:

Yeah, but they’re going all in on it.

(33m 50s) Kevin:

Cool, these are both radical. I want to see these in other games. Come on in a certain day

(33m 56s)

[laughter]

(33m 57s) Al:

I’m I’m I’m mixed on that and whether I would want it in other games

(34m 1s)

I think it worked was really well in this game because of what it is

(34m 4s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. Yeah. I mean, yes. Yes. Make a miserable. Yes.

(34m 4s) Al:

There is a disadvantage to being in games in it. It does actually make it less fun, right? Because you’re having to change what you’re doing

(34m 16s)

It was like good stop having fun in your games

(34m 22s) Kevin:

Yes. You look, I’m, I’m well known for, well, not well known, but infamously, I, I

(34m 32s)

enjoy Monster Hunter.

(34m 34s)

That’s what I’m about, I like the misery, I like a little pain in my games do it.

(34m 52s)

Anyway, it’s still really cool overall, yeah, good on you, I don’t know about, I like this.

Heartopia

(35m 1s) Al:

Next up we have an update that I’m still not quite sure I understand it because so I just like

(35m 5s) Kevin:

Oh yeah.

(35m 6s) Al:

copied and pasted a bunch of text here. But this is heartopia. Have they released their modular

(35m 14s)

streets festival pack. Grab your friends and dive into the fun of Brick Bazaar. On May the 9th,

(35m 16s) Kevin:

That’s very strange. I don’t think that’s how festivals work.

(35m 26s) Al:

the new modular streets festival is coming. After reaching DG

(35m 31s)

30 members level 7 and completing the main story beginner guide quests. You’ll unlock

(35m 36s)

the festival and can claim a free thank you gift in the festival catalog, including

(35m 41s)

brick station furniture set, building materials and other generous rewards. So this, this

(35m 47s)

bit, I understand it’s I mean, it’s Lego based art style stuff. And I guess explore the

(35m 56s)

festival limited collectibles and raise your collection points to get free time-limited

(36m 1s)

exhibition past in the catalog. So I’m guessing some of it’s also like a lot behind a progression of some kind. Like as the whole thing is locked behind a certain point in this story. Fine. But also I was confused. So when it says purchase any festival pack, I’m guessing that means in game purchase, not like a real life purchase.

(36m 6s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah.

(36m 24s)

I, yeah. Oh, are you sure it’s free to play game? So maybe I don’t know. Oh

(36m 30s) Al:

Oh, maybe. I don’t, yeah, I don’t know. Just, it doesn’t talk about cost or anything like that. And I don’t, I don’t know how you would do that. Like, there’s no DLC listed on the game. Steam doesn’t do in at purchases. It just has DLC, right?

(36m 45s) Kevin:

Yeah, oh, I think yeah, I think so. You’re right. Yeah, I don’t know chance based in game purchases within game purchases. It says on Steam page has in game purchases

(36m 48s) Al:

So how would that work for the Steam version?

(36m 59s)

Yeah, I just don’t know how that works with the steam barrel.

(36m 59s) Kevin:

Okay, this strange the Lego furniture is cute

(37m 5s)

Yeah, I don’t know actually I say looks cute, but those Lego chairs look painful and horrible to sit on

(37m 11s) Al:

All right, there you go.

(37m 12s) Kevin:

So it’s modular.

(37m 15s) Al:

I mean, it’s it’s cool adding some like, you know Lego type art style stuff

(37m 22s)

But it just the whole this whole game has always confused me and this is not this is not changing that

(37m 23s) Kevin:

• Yeah.

(37m 25s)

• Yeah.

(37m 29s)

Yeah.

(37m 30s) Al:

I’m still confused by this game

(37m 32s) Kevin:

You know what confuses me out?

(37m 34s) Al:

Many many things

(37m 35s) Kevin:

• Well, actually you’re right about that,

(37m 37s)

but the next, the next news bit confuses me out.

Sakuna

(37m 43s) Kevin:

What’s wrong with you people?

(37m 45s) Al:

Kevin, I’m so sorry to tell you that the Sakana mobile game has been cancelled.

(37m 47s) Kevin:

• No.

(37m 49s)

• No, I didn’t get a chance.

(37m 51s) Al:

It’s gone. It was the English version never came and the Japanese version is gone.

(37m 58s)

Unfortunately, player feedback has been mixed, leaning more on the negative rather than positive.

(38m 3s)

Despite ongoing adjustments since the service launched on February 5th of this year,

(38m 7s)

exclusive to Japan, the group decided it was not possible to meet player expectations,

(38m 12s)

So it was easier to cancel the whole

(38m 15s) Kevin:

Oh, no. Okay, first of all, this game came up every fifth of this year,

(38m 23s) Al:

Yeah, three months.

(38m 23s) Kevin:

favorite that correctly. That’s bad. That’s really bad. No, no, you’re right. Yeah, yeah, you’re right.

(38m 26s) Al:

It’s bad, but it’s not the worst.

(38m 29s)

There have been games that have been announced to be closing before they even start, right?

(38m 33s)

So it’s but no, not the worst by miles.

(38m 36s) Kevin:

No, you’re right, but it’s bad for me because it’s soccer. No, I need soccer to do well. No.

(38m 43s) Al:

Yeah, but it was a bad game, so people didn’t like it.

(38m 45s) Kevin:

No, no. Oh, we still got another one coming. Don’t we? Yeah, we got the actual game,

(38m 51s)

a sequel or another one. Yeah, we got to come like it just. Yeah, I am genuinely disappointed that I

(38m 51s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(38m 53s)

This is just the mobile game that’s cancelled.

(38m 58s) Kevin:

didn’t get a chance for an English translation. Um, it has hybridization and real-time crop.

(39m) Al:

Yeah.

(39m 5s) Kevin:

Oh, yeah, that sounds like a tough build as well. I like soccer. Okay. I just just want to

(39m 5s) Al:

No, any more, it doesn’t.

(39m 11s) Kevin:

I can have to live.

(39m 12s)

I can have to live.

(39m 13s)

I can have to live.

(39m 16s)

Okay.

(39m 17s)

I’ll live.

(39m 18s)

I’ll live.

(39m 19s)

There’s more coming.

Wholesome Direct

(39m 21s) Al:

And our final news update is they’ve announced the wholesome direct for this year, it is happening on the 6th of June at 4 p.m. UTC, which is 6 p.m. Central European time, 12 p.m. Eastern time, 9 a.m. Pacific time. So, if you’re in another time zone, I’m sure you can figure it out.

(39m 42s) Kevin:

Yeah, it’s coming. Are you, you know, I’m amazed that this continues to be a thing.

(39m 49s) Al:

What the wholesome direct or summer game fest?

(39m 50s) Kevin:

Uh, yeah, the whole, well, the wholesome direct summer game fest. I, I get it, like,

(39m 57s)

in general, but just wholesome direct specifically, because it’s not, you know, a specific

(40m 3s)

company. It’s like, is there any others? Really? I guess fighting games have Evo, but that’s an

(40m 4s) Al:

Mm-hmm, there’s quite, there’s a few, there’s a few like that. There’s a few like that. Yeah

(40m 12s) Kevin:

a tight to an event. Um,

(40m 13s) Al:

Yeah, no, there’s more things like for example, um, they, they just, uh,

(40m 19s)

what they got second wind just did one. They’re, they’re just an online, uh, like videos company. They do like games based

(40m 27s)

media and they hosted a two and a half hour showcase of a bunch of games.

(40m 34s)

And then there’s other ones. I mean, most of them are like publishers, but I think, I think there are other ones

(40m 35s) Kevin:

• Wow, okay.

(40m 41s) Al:

that I’ve seen the aren’t specifically publishers or developers. They’re kind of just trying to. I guess it’s one of these things where they’re trying to

(40m 51s)

take the insane number of games at least and give a more curated list of them to people.

(40m 58s) Kevin:

Sure, you’re right. Yeah, wait, but I like that. That makes sense

(41m 3s) Al:

Like realistically, what’s the difference between this?

(41m 4s)

And Nintendo’s indies, nindies showcase.

(41m 8s)

That’s not their games.

(41m 9s) Kevin:

Yeah, you’re right. That’s a good point. That’s a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it’s still going to be on their system, right? Like there’s still a financial incentive.

(41m 12s) Al:

They’re not even publishing all of them, you know?

(41m 20s)

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

(41m 21s) Kevin:

I guess that’s a part that blows me away, right? Like, you know, if it’s tied to a certain corporation or an event, like there’s you see the logic, but like there’s no wholesome work bridge.

(41m 32s) Al:

So here’s a question. What’s the difference between that and this podcast?

(41m 35s) Kevin:

Well, we do it because we’re insane, and that’s…

(41m 38s) Al:

Exactly.

(41m 39s) Kevin:

There you go, that’s the thing!

(41m 41s) Al:

They didn’t say, but they only need to do it twice a year.

(41m 41s) Kevin:

That’s insane, people.

(41m 44s)

Yeah, okay, okay, I’m…

(41m 46s)

Tishay.

(41m 47s)

They should just hand us the keys to the holes in drag.

(41m 50s)

I can make a good one.

(41m 53s) Al:

Dear, no, I prefer to be in the situation where we get to market instead.

(41m 58s) Kevin:

These are not exclusive out.

(42m 2s) Al:

The streamer of cozy games, and here I’m going to tell you.

(42m 6s) Kevin:

See, they should let me on.

(42m 9s)

It’s just like, oh, I don’t know about this one, guys.

(42m 12s)

It looks a little rough.

(42m 14s) Al:

that’s our job. All right, that’s the news. All right, we’re going to talk about well,

(42m 15s) Kevin:

Well, yeah.

Little Rocket Lab

(42m 25s) Al:

I’m going to talk about a little rocket lab and then presumably Kevin will ask me some questions

(42m 29s)

about it. And I’m definitely not playing right now. So a quick intro to before I get into

(42m 31s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah.

(42m 37s) Al:

details. So it is for people who haven’t seen it before. It is…

(42m 44s)

a cottage-core-ish game where you’re creating conveyor belts of automation for crafting items

(42m 56s)

with the aim of building a rocket.

(42m 59s) Kevin:

So it, would you say it’s a factorial like,

(43m 2s)

would you say this fact, actually like,

(43m 3s) Al:

So yes and no. So before, you know, with that description, you might think it’s a management style

(43m 3s) Kevin:

I don’t know if we have a name for that yet.

(43m 12s) Al:

So Gabe.

(43m 14s)

But here’s the thing about it. This does the same thing that what is the one that’s coming out super zoos story does where it is based on the sort of idea of a management game, but you are an individual in the world going around and doing those things.

(43m 32s)

Right. So you’re playing the game as if you are a person trying to set this up rather than management style games where you’re like, here’s a list of menus and here’s the place and you clicky clicky clicky clicky clicky.

(43m 44s)

And you are controlling this person who’s running around the map doing the things.

(43m 48s) Kevin:

Okay, okay, sure, okay. So yeah, I get it the fundamental

(43m 49s) Al:

And that.

(43m 52s)

And that to me makes a massive difference in how much I enjoy this game, I think not least because it means the controls work so much nicer on a on a controller right because it’s not.

(44m 7s)

A lot of clicking and dragging if you were using on the PC but I mean they’ve done the controls quite nicely on.

(44m 15s)

It does take a little bit time getting used to some of them because obviously it was originally designed for most keyboard, but honestly like it is, I think the best controller support I’ve ever played in a game where you are like putting items on a grid.

(44m 33s)

It’s incredibly well for that because so many games are just like, they just basically your analog sticks are controlling a mouse and that’s not that’s not good that’s terrible.

(44m 42s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s sweet.

(44m 45s) Al:

What does this is very much it has support for everything it does everything like your map you can remap all the controls and everything and it works really nicely.

(44m 54s)

And I think part of it is because you are this person running around the world so you’re not always just like looking through menus and click and drag.

(45m 2s)

you are running around interacting with things in the way that you would in a standard cottage cookie.

(45m 8s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I get you. Yeah. That makes. Yeah. You know what? You’re right. Like it’s not just flavor. Like my mind just jumps to flavor, but you’re right. Mechanically, that makes a lot more sense. Um, and I also like as much as I like management games. I, I’m also prefer controller. So that’s good. Yeah. No, I got

(45m 26s) Al:

Yeah, this has actually made me really more excited for Super Soo Story because I think if it can do the same sort of things that this one has for

(45m 34s)

For zoom management style games. I think it’s gonna be great

(45m 38s) Kevin:

Better be it’s on my one my leave. That’s on my draft

(45m 44s) Al:

All right, so to get into a few more or

(45m 44s) Kevin:

Better come out this year

(45m 48s) Al:

specifics about the game some mechanics wise

(45m 53s)

First off, you start up the game and you’re like.

(45m 56s)

Running around with a hammer basically and everything to start with your gathering using the hammer your hammer hammer hammer you can hammer rocks hammer trees hammer coal hammering all these things and getting items just one too I love it is great you know got like acts for the tree and hammer for it’s a love it just hammer everything when I first started typing up these notes I wrote or is.

(46m 9s) Kevin:

Yeah, that’s one does it is

(46m 16s)

No, hammers can break a lot of things, you know, so it’s great

(46m 24s) Al:

Our infinite question mark, they’re not.

(46m 26s)

But like one block of a word gives you hundreds and hundreds of them, which in the early game feels infinite because you’re just hitting it with a hammer, right?

(46m 35s)

But once you’ve got your automation built up, you do run out of them and you have to switch things around, which I’ll get to in a minute.

(46m 43s)

But yeah, it’s interesting because it’s not just like one block gives you one thing, which is nice. There are blocks that give you one thing, but they’re like visually different and they’re kind of littering the place and once you get rid of them.

(46m 56s)

They’re bleeding up and getting better, more space for doing things.

(47m 1s)

But then you have like the blocks, the big stones that you set up drills on and they’ll give you hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, literally hundreds, right?

(47m 10s)

Where at the point, the automation to this degree goes up to quite ridiculous speeds. I got yesterday, I got an achievement for making 5,000 items in one single in game day.

(47m 24s)

So, you know.

(47m 26s)

You do a lot, hundreds, hundreds and hundreds.

(47m 29s) Kevin:

Whoa, yeah, that’s red.

(47m 32s) Al:

The crafting works in two different ways. You can manually craft. I said in these notes, pretty much everything. That’s not true.

(47m 40s)

There are things that later on that you have to use the automated crafting for early game.

(47m 46s)

You can craft things manually, or you can craft them in the automated way, which is actually really useful because it’s things like, you know,

(47m 56s)

if I want to make, if I want to make a drill, right, I don’t want to set up the automation to like automatically make myself a drill because that’s going to take so much more time for what I actually want, especially early game than just having the resources and crafting it manually, right?

(48m 16s)

Sure, there may come a point where you’re wanting to craft hundreds of a specific item, probably not the drill, but like there’s other items that I definitely want to…

(48m 26s)

To create hundreds of this thing. But, certainly early game, the idea of just going, right, okay, I’ll gather some iron or gather some copper. I’ll process them into the copper wire and the iron plates and they’re all manually make myself a drill is really nice.

(48m 40s)

And the more complicated late game things you have to use the automation for, but that’s fine because most of those things you’re doing hundreds of them anyway, so you wouldn’t want to do them manually because that’s incredible.

(48m 53s) Kevin:

door sure okay that’s that okay that sounds like nice pacing or you yeah yeah all the stuff you

(49m 2s) Al:

It definitely does feel it is nice pacing because you start off really kind of

(49m 9s)

Cam and casual and you’re like figuring out how the systems work and there’s not a huge amount you need to do

(49m 16s)

So you can do most of it manually and then you unlock some of the automation

(49m 19s)

You’re like oh yeah, this is going to make things a lot easier

(49m 23s)

But then of course things just get more more complicated as you go

(49m 27s)

So it’s like you’re building up these systems and then

(49m 32s)

You have you reorganize everything so many times, right because you have no idea how many different kinds of items

(49m 40s)

There are and how many different things you have to craft

(49m 43s)

What I will say is that I really like this has it does a really good job of not having too many like

(49m 52s)

Automated different things, right? So for example like if you think about with stargy

(49m 58s)

you’ve got your furnace for yours, you’ve got your

(50m 2s)

your cheese machine, you’ve got like every single thing that you can do, if you’re not manually crafting it, it’s a different

(50m 8s) Kevin:

Darshan? Did it really bad?

(50m 10s) Al:

Yeah, yeah exactly like every single thing is a different a different item to do different things. There are different items, but there’s not

(50m 20s)

tons of them in the all make sense. And then really nice thing is is most things you just use an assembler.

(50m 27s)

So you’ve got an assembler. We’ve actually got two assemblers. I’m sure there’ll be a third one.

(50m 32s)

But currently, I’ve just got two assembler level one and assembler level two.

(50m 36s)

And basically it’s like if you can craft it from one item, then it works in the assembler level one.

(50m 41s)

If you can craft it from two items, then you use the assembler level two.

(50m 44s)

And then because of that, there are so many different things that you can make from just that one building.

(50m 52s)

There are other ones, as I say, you have the furnace for ores.

(50m 56s)

You have, well, since they’re, I think this like chemical relationship.

(51m 2s)

But most of them make sense for what they do, right? Like you wouldn’t use an assembler for recycling something. You’d need a dissembler, the opposite, right?

(51m 14s)

So it makes sense to have those as two different buildings. Each of the buildings that they have make sense to me as, oh, I see why these aren’t exactly the same thing.

(51m 22s)

But like if I’m making, if I’m making lamp posts, or I’m making drills, or I’m making…

(51m 33s)

Computer chips, or I’m making copper wire or steel beams, they all go through assemblers.

(51m 41s)

Every single one of those goes through assemblers. You have to put it through the furnace, your ore goes through the furnace.

(51m 46s)

But then after that, like everything’s just going through an assembler until you’ve assembled it all into the final product.

(51m 53s)

It might have to go through six different assemblers because you need to combine it with that and then combine it with that to make this final thing.

(52m 2s)

But it makes sense because you’re building something, right? Like you’re taking a core thing, the furnace makes sense because it’s like you’re turning it into a different thing, and then the assembler is I’m now going to add things to it and I’m going to change what it is all the way up to its final item.

(52m 20s) Kevin:

Okay. Yeah, no, that, that, that seems, you know, very, uh, well thought out.

(52m 26s)

What a, uh, here’s your right. That, that’s a big problem. Uh, you know,

(52m 30s)

Star San, it was probably the worst example, but a lot of the, a lot of these crafting games,

(52m 31s) Al:

it was pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the thing that that’s what made Minecraft great was the fact

(52m 35s) Kevin:

like even Minecraft over the years, they’ve added a lot of workstations and stuff like that on

(52m 40s)

some of it late game, but um, but yeah, it can be dizzy.

(52m 45s) Al:

that it was like, here’s the crafting table. You you make everything on the crafting table and

(52m 49s)

then it got more complicated. Yeah. And I’m not necessarily saying that’s automatically a bad thing,

(52m 53s)

but I prefer the simplicity of like everything is being made in this one thing. It’s like,

(52m 59s)

Here’s a thing that makes me…

(53m 1s)

and all you’re doing is you’re giving out a blueprint to see this is how you make the thing.

(53m 4s)

It’s like the magic robot thing, right?

(53m 7s) Kevin:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, that’s like even po-copia. Yes, I’ll bring up a copy right like we just have the one work

(53m 17s)

Asian and and that’s it, right? You don’t need a

(53m 20s)

Far and well, yeah, you do a difference for the ores, but like that’s what two or three stations like it’s

(53m 25s) Al:

Well, well, that’s the thing. That’s that’s it though. I’m not saying everything should be just one thing

(53m 29s)

I’m saying you has to be a good reason to give me a different

(53m 30s) Kevin:

Yeah

(53m 32s) Al:

Building, right? And I think none of these have been like oh, I don’t get why this thing exists, right?

(53m 32s) Kevin:

Yeah, yeah

(53m 39s) Al:

I understand why we have a drill the drill is forgetting or I understand why we have the furnace, right?

(53m 44s)

Because you’re heating things up. I understand why we have this emblem because you’re putting things together

(53m 49s)

um

(53m 50s)

And then there’s a bunch of other things like

(53m 52s)

So yeah, so one of the things I’ve said is that

(53m 55s)

every time I think, oh, I wish I had this way of doing something, you know, a couple of

(54m 1s)

end-game days later, I’ve unlocked that blueprint for something.

(54m 5s)

So for example, it’s like, oh, I hate how the fact that the end of this process is I’ve got

(54m 10s)

this item, but then I have to like manually pick it up each time it’s made.

(54m 15s)

And so I really wish there was something I could put there that would receive them all.

(54m 18s)

And then the next day I unlocked the item receiver.

(54m 20s)

So you put that down at the end of a conveyor belt and it gathers up the thing.

(54m 25s)

And then you can just go and get them all so you can leave it processing things and go do something else while it’s doing that come back and get your 3000 items. I think it’s about 3000 that each thing can hold.

(54m 27s) Kevin:

about, oh, oh my goodness, that’s, these are ridiculous numbers.

(54m 40s) Al:

And then I was like, oh, you know, that’s great, but now I want now if I’ve then realized I need to use all those items for at the beginning of another process, rather than having to rebuild everything. I’ve got these items here. I wish there was a dispenser.

(54m 55s)

And then I was like, oh, this is I really wish I could have like a combination of the two, right? So like I don’t have to manually move them between items. So I can be like have a process, put something that receives things and then I’m like just extending my conveyor belt after that.

(55m 20s)

unlocked the item buffer, which does exactly that if there’s no way it can send something

(55m 25s)

them there, but then you add on more things or you unblock something it then let’s them go and that’s useful in many different ways. So actually I’m at the point where my current system, there’s a buffer for everything so that if anywhere in the process things stop, it continue everything up to that point still continues working and gathering things for me. It’s really nice.

(55m 46s)

And then I was like, oh, it’s really annoying that the furnace you have to manually put in cool and then unlocked one that actually is a furnace level two and then has a separate thing.

(55m 55s)

And then I was like, Oh, but it’s really annoying that I’ve now got all these items that I don’t really want to use, but I also feel like it’s a waste not using them, I wish there was something I could do with that and then I unlocked the item recycler, which does exactly what you would you would think it was it breaks down items into their component parts.

(56m 17s)

So all of those items that I no longer want the furnace level ones because who cares about them now that I’ve got furnace level two I broke them all down into the.

(56m 25s)

what I built them with and I can use that for other things fantastic. Oh, but you know what I’d really like it really like this one line to be able to split into two so I can do two things with this one thing.

(56m 37s)

And then you unlock this splitter which does that exactly that and you can set it to either do every single item or every one in every two one in every three one in every four so you can do that.

(56m 49s)

But I really wish I could now do it based on what item it is because like sometimes you might have a a conveyor.

(56m 55s)

And I’m going to have a conveyor belt that has multiple different item types because one of the things about this game is that you can pretty much put anything anywhere.

(57m 4s)

And there are items all over the map that you need to get together to do stuff. And the map is quite big it’s it feels bigger than star juice map.

(57m 12s)

Not a huge amount, but a little bit bigger than star juice map and there’s items on the farthest ends of those maps that you want to get together.

(57m 20s)

Well, I want to build a conveyor belt across the map, which you can do.

(57m 23s)

You can do it between the map areas and stuff.

(57m 25s)

But I don’t want to have, like, just one, bringing multiple items from one thing.

(57m 32s)

So I want something to, like, split it up when it gets to where I want it to into the different conveyor belts based on what thing it is.

(57m 40s)

And then I unlocked the filtering splitter, which does that.

(57m 43s)

It moves things based on what thing they are.

(57m 45s)

So again and again and again, you get things that are improving things.

(57m 52s)

And like, it doesn’t throw all these right at this.

(57m 55s)

But as you go, you’re like, oh, I’d like this, I’d like that.

(57m 59s)

And then you’re unlocking all those things as you go.

(58m 4s) Kevin:

that sounds like a, well, I should have put this like,

(58m 9s)

it’s a lot of thought going into the whole automation system.

(58m 13s)

Like, it’s…

(58m 14s) Al:

I don’t want to think what this looks like under the hood.

(58m 18s) Kevin:

[laughing]

(58m 20s) Al:

I’m currently sending three screenshots into the slack of some of the things that I’ve built,

(58m 20s) Kevin:

But like…

(58m 28s) Al:

just to show you the kind of complexity you can get to. And these are just small areas of the map,

(58m 34s)

right? So you can get, you will end up with so many more of these things. And they’re not even

(58m 41s)

even showing the full extent of what I’m working with.

(58m 44s)

I’ve been working on different times, but these are just some examples of the things you can do where you have the items going together and combining and stuff like that and it ends up being quite complicated as you can probably.

(58m 58s) Kevin:

That’s oh my gosh. That’s a lot like it’s oh you have to think about

(59m 4s)

Directional flows and

(59m 7s)

Holy mister are there any tiny oh my gosh are those ears popping out?

(59m 12s)

That’s holy moly

(59m 16s)

That’s so much stuff pulling in and out. Oh

(59m 20s)

That’s crazy and all this stuff’s connected when he was power lines. Holy moly

(59m 24s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah. So that’s another thing to talk about is you have to power

(59m 28s) Kevin:

You

(59m 29s) Al:

everything. Which on every item has a certain amount of energy that

(59m 30s) Kevin:

Yeah, I can tell

(59m 38s) Al:

uses and then the windmills have a certain amount that they generate. And so

(59m 42s)

you have to make sure that it matches because if you overload it, the entire grid

(59m 46s)

goes down. You can overload. Yeah, because if you’re trying to draw too much power,

(59m 48s) Kevin:

You can only load it! Oh snap!

(59m 51s) Al:

there’s not enough power and of course in

(59m 54s)

electrical systems that is not just that an item doesn’t work, it’s just the whole thing goes haywire and also the

(59m 58s) Kevin:

Yeah, yeah, holy moly um

(1h 2s) Al:

windmills generate different amounts of power depending on where they are in the map, but the nice thing is that

(1h 7s) Kevin:

Oh my goodness, that’s awesome. Oh, that’s crazy and awesome

(1h 12s) Al:

because you can connect things between different areas in the map, I’ve just put all of my windmills

(1h 17s)

once I figure it out in the windiest area on the map and then there are just, there are power lines everywhere.

(1h 21s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. Oh. Yeah.

(1h 24s) Al:

These are some older screenshots as well, so it’s like you have no idea what it’s looking like now, it’s just this, I don’t think

(1h 34s)

you can quite see the scale of it from these screenshots, these are small parts of the area and these are from different

(1h 42s)

times from when I was doing things, but I often will have multiple of these going on at different parts of the map at different

(1h 52s)

times doing different things.

(1h 54s)

So, you know, one of these things is generating winches.

(1h 59s)

One of them is generating heavy-duty motors and steel beams.

(1h 1m 5s)

One of them is generating chips, circuit boards and the one, the first one, the one with

(1h 1m 14s)

the orange ground is the newest one, that’s actually what I’m working on right now because

(1h 1m 19s)

the item what is it called a flow meter that’s the other thing. So it’s like

(1h 1m 24s)

generating its recycling computers into computer chips then generating circuit boards which then go into flow meter and then there’s a bunch of other things that you need to do to get to that point as well, which is why there’s that. But like the other thing is that these are all not quite showing the fuel complexity of the systems that are set up.

(1h 1m 45s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine, that’s crazy. Um, yeah, how far out does this zoom? I’m just trying to

(1h 1m 54s)

think of the, the scale. Like,

(1h 1m 55s) Al:

So it doesn’t so in terms of the UI you don’t you’re not able to zoom out

(1h 2m 1s)

you have to move around to see all that you can move the camera you can move the

(1h 2m 3s) Kevin:

Oh, okay, okay.

(1h 2m 4s) Al:

camera a bit without moving your character which is nice just if you want to

(1h 2m 8s)

peek a little bit without moving but I do wish that is one thing I do wish I

(1h 2m 13s)

could zoom out a little bit to get a better view of things but most of the time

(1h 2m 17s)

you’re not like an individual area you’re not going to want a huge a much

(1h 2m 22s)

bigger view of things than this.

(1h 2m 26s)

Because your systems, there’s not going to be enough room in most areas to be much bigger than this.

(1h 2m 32s)

And if there are, you’ve got to treat the different sections like their own little thing, right?

(1h 2m 38s)

So like you’ve got the area that’s doing the mining and smelting.

(1h 2m 43s)

And then you’ve got the area that’s turning into the simple components.

(1h 2m 46s)

And then you’ve got the area that’s turning into the more complex components.

(1h 2m 50s)

It’s just, it’s one of these things where it’s because you keep upgrading things and getting new stuff.

(1h 2m 55s)

And then there’s new stuff to do. I have think I’ve destroyed everything and rebuilt it all about five times because you just you rethink everything, right?

(1h 3m 2s) Kevin:

Holy moly, ha, ha!

(1h 3m 5s) Al:

Like when you suddenly have to add in recycling of computers, you’re like, oh, well, that completely changes everything, right? Like that’s so different to what I’ve been doing before.

(1h 3m 15s)

So I need to scrap it all and start again. And then the first screenshot is at the train station because at one point. So let’s go back to the ores.

(1h 3m 23s)

So you put a drill on it.

(1h 3m 25s)

Eventually runs out, but these ores don’t respawn.

(1h 3m 28s)

So you have to keep moving around the map to find where different ores are.

(1h 3m 32s)

But then at some point you unlock the train station, you fix things and then ores come on the train.

(1h 3m 38s)

And that becomes your main source of ores at that point.

(1h 3m 40s) Kevin:

That’s crazy.

(1h 3m 41s) Al:

Which is really nice because now I’ve set up this system at the train station doing all of this.

(1h 3m 49s)

And the train’s quite long and it’s got two sides so you can like build up on both sides of it all the way down.

(1h 3m 55s)

So I’m looking to create a hopefully a system that means I don’t have to break all down again.

(1h 4m 1s)

Hopefully we’ll see.

(1h 4m 1s) Kevin:

[Laughter]

(1h 4m 4s) Al:

But the other complicated thing is that if you put something across a path, the villagers can’t walk across it.

(1h 4m 12s)

And they’ll just stand there and grumble and not be able to go to where they’re meant to be going.

(1h 4m 16s) Kevin:

Okay, wait, so there’s villagers, it’s not just the one character.

(1h 4m 21s) Al:

Yeah, so this is a, is a fool, you know, village.

(1h 4m 25s)

It’s like stardew, but this instead of farming.

(1h 4m 27s) Kevin:

Okay. Okay.

(1h 4m 29s) Al:

So actually, I mean, I’m going to talk about the characters in the story later on, but yeah, there’s a fool.

(1h 4m 34s)

One of the better ones, I’ve experienced in terms of the characters and stories and your relationships with them and stuff like that.

(1h 4m 41s) Kevin:

Okay, okay, I was gonna ask about that. Okay, but um, but what?

(1h 4m 44s) Al:

But it’s, yeah, it’s a full village, there’s like, there’s a mayor, there’s, you know, a bunch of different shops and stuff like that.

(1h 4m 52s)

like that and you’re helping people out.

(1h 4m 55s)

this stuff for the fun of it, although, I mean, you kind of are, because you’re making

(1h 4m 57s)

a rocket for the fun of it. But everything else is like, as you get to that point, you’re just,

(1h 5m) Kevin:

Oh, yeah. (laughs)

(1h 5m 3s) Al:

you’re, you’re doing things as you go that nothing feels like it’s wasted.

(1h 5m 8s) Kevin:

Okay, it sounds like it like you said out the progression sounds like perfectly natural like or you know like it’s doing all the things

(1h 5m 16s) Al:

Yeah, I think so.

(1h 5m 19s) Kevin:

That’s crazy. Holy. There’s a lot of love into this

(1h 5m 23s) Al:

It is so much more complex and layered than I thought it would be.

(1h 5m 27s)

I thought it would be like, “Oh, it’s fun.

(1h 5m 29s)

You’ll make a little thing and then you’ll be done.”

(1h 5m 31s)

But no, it just keeps getting deeper.

(1h 5m 33s) Kevin:

[laughs]

(1h 5m 34s) Al:

And I think I believe there’s what I did do a little bit of googling for one thing.

(1h 5m 39s)

There are a couple of items later on that you can…

(1h 5m 42s)

So I’ll just use diamond as an example because

(1h 5m 46s)

this is the one that everyone does because it means you can make money. You can break down the diamond into diamond fragments. Put them into another machine which will then grow a diamond from each of the fragments. So you can essentially like grow diamonds or any other kind of like gem.

(1h 5m 59s) Kevin:

Oh my goodness.

(1h 6m 6s) Al:

You can break it down and from each of the fragments make another diamond and then just like create this infinite loop of money in the late game.

(1h 6m 13s) Kevin:

Well, the infinite money glitch is real

(1h 6m 16s) Al:

Pretty much yeah and it’s entirely deliberate. It’s great. I like it’s not available early like it’s really money is actually really hard to come by early game and mid game because you can sell anything theoretically but you have to like go to the shop and sell it there and nothing is hugely profitable except things like diamond which is really hard to get early on.

(1h 6m 19s) Kevin:

Yeah, of course, that’s awesome

(1h 6m 43s) Al:

I’ll talk about the means in a minute, and bye.

(1h 6m 46s)

It means that like I but the good thing is that there’s not a lot you need to buy, right?

(1h 6m 52s)

Because most of the stuff you’re just making yourself there’s a few things like you can expand your land and and stuff like that

(1h 6m 58s)

Which I just have no money to do that with like you’ll see on these screenshots

(1h 7m 3s)

Have three thousand three hundred coins in the most recent screenshot. That’s all of the money. I’ve ever made

(1h 7m 10s)

And I um, I’ve played this game for like I don’t know 15 hours at this point

(1h 7m 11s) Kevin:

[laughing]

(1h 7m 16s) Al:

Like that’s the sort of money you make and start you in the first week

(1h 7m 19s) Kevin:

Yeah

(1h 7m 22s) Al:

And I’m definitely kind of late mid-game at this point

(1h 7m 26s) Kevin:

Okay, okay. Yeah, you know, here’s question. I guess I assume the the rocket itself is the

(1h 7m 34s)

Kind of like the the the

(1h 7m 36s)

Fargress

(1h 7m 37s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

(1h 7m 38s) Kevin:

Gage how far are you on the rocket?

(1h 7m 41s) Al:

So I’m I’m working on the third part of the second stage

(1h 7m 49s) Kevin:

Okay, how many parts are the first stage were there?

(1h 7m 51s) Al:

The first stage was three parts the second stage is four parts and I have no idea what happens after that

(1h 7m 57s)

I’m guessing there’s only gonna be a third stage because of how slow it’s all going

(1h 8m) Kevin:

Yeah

(1h 8m 3s) Al:

Because I can’t even I can’t even make the item that’s the fourth part

(1h 8m 7s)

of the second stage yet, and I’ve only just unlocked the third the item for the third one like I haven’t made any of them

(1h 8m 13s)

Yeah, I only just unlocked the blueprint blueprint today as we’re recording

(1h 8m 18s)

So it’s like real like getting that rocket bill is really slow going because it’s clearly like this is that’s the endgame

(1h 8m 25s)

The endgame is to have the the rocket built so it does take a long time

(1h 8m 30s) Kevin:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s what I’d expect. Yeah, okay.

(1h 8m 36s) Al:

Right, where was I my list of things so I yeah, so

(1h 8m 40s)

That’s the automation absolutely love it. It’s it’s so good

(1h 8m 44s)

Like obviously I love automation, but it’s done so well because it’s like the core of the game

(1h 8m 49s)

Right like it’s the point it’s everything to the game without that it would it would be nothing so it

(1h 8m 56s)

Your core game play needs to be good and this one is excellent. I love it. It’s fantastic

(1h 9m 1s)

I suspect some people might feel overwhelmed by it because you do

(1h 9m 6s)

Hand-get messy

(1h 9m 7s)

Especially if you’re building it up, and if you don’t scrap it all and restart it will overwhelm you

(1h 9m 8s) Kevin:

Yeah I do love a game where you can get judged for your cable management.

(1h 9m 21s) Al:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I need to redo my power management my power lines because I’ve unlocked a better power

(1h 9m 27s)

Power line things so it’s like it’s wider so I can have less of them

(1h 9m 31s)

But I’ve just not I’ve not replaced everything yet. That’s gonna take some time because obviously

(1h 9m 36s)

As soon as I take one down my entire my entire grid is gonna go down

(1h 9m 40s)

So I need to like decide like today is the day

(1h 9m 44s)

I’m redoing everything and then just go and kill them all and just accept the fact that I’m not gonna have anything

(1h 9m 49s)

Generated that day. I’ve just not done it yet. So in terms of unlocking blueprints because obviously you start off with

(1h 9m 56s)

Not very much obviously that’s one important because otherwise it would be overwhelming and to that’s the progression of the game is unlocking blueprints

(1h 10m 4s)

You start off with this a year

(1h 10m 6s)

University in the town and you start you start like you provide them items and they unlock new blueprints for you

(1h 10m 12s)

You can kind of choose what ones to do, but it’s very much like it’s linear but

(1h 10m 20s)

Selective linear if that makes sense. It’s like here are three items which of these three items you want?

(1h 10m 25s)

Okay, now which of the which is the next one that you want to do out of those two remaining items?

(1h 10m 32s)

Okay, now you’re doing the third item and then it’s like, okay, now you’ve got

(1h 10m 36s)

four items, which of these four are you gonna do? Okay, which of these three are you gonna?

(1h 10m 40s)

You know, so you’re you have to unlock everything as you go, but you have a little bit of choice in that

(1h 10m 45s)

You’re like, oh focus on that item just now because I’ve already got something that’s doing that

(1h 10m 50s)

But then once you’ve done that the next you have to do the next one before you you get anything else to unlock

(1h 10m 58s)

One interestingly once you finish at the university, there’s then an observatory that does more unlocks

(1h 11m 6s)

Just interesting there’s two different things it’s like obviously you’ve gone past the university the

(1h 11m 11s)

You’ve unlocked everything they can do the observatory is now like a higher level of

(1h 11m 16s)

knowledge to unlock things. I don’t know what the deal is without but

(1h 11m 22s) Kevin:

They see things in space, that’s how it works.

(1h 11m 24s) Al:

None of it’s space related that’s the thing

(1h 11m 28s) Kevin:

Well, they learn from the space civilizations.

(1h 11m 29s) Al:

You have to fix the observatory first which makes sense in what you’re creating to unlock it

(1h 11m 34s)

but like, after that.

(1h 11m 36s)

It’s just like, like currently I’m unlocking chemical related stuff and I’m like, that’s nothing to do is an observatory. What do you do?

(1h 11m 45s) Kevin:

They see the space chemicals. They see that. So that’s.

(1h 11m 50s) Al:

There’s also a mine, which is interesting because I didn’t get to the mine till like 10 hours in the game

(1h 12m 1s)

I didn’t realize it was there until then. There are some items you can only get in the mine

(1h 12m 6s)

like the gems that we’re talking about and also a thing that you make glass from but there’s also

(1h 12m 10s) Kevin:

Yeah. That is.

(1h 12m 12s) Al:

just a whole bunch of other like copper and iron nodes in there that you can use. The interesting

(1h 12m 17s)

thing about it is so there are there are.

(1h 12m 20s)

monsters in the mine, but as far as I can tell if you light up the

(1h 12m 25s)

mine with lights, they don’t spawn anymore, so you can like go through and clear

(1h 12m 30s)

out the mine essentially and then not have any monsters in there anymore. I might

(1h 12m 34s)

be wrong, I might be missing something, but I’m definitely seeing fewer and fewer

(1h 12m 39s)

monsters as I expand my light through the mine.

(1h 12m 44s) Kevin:

that’s actually really cool um it would be nice if you know like start or whatever they

(1h 12m 50s)

they kind of had that right like uh at least one area could carve out where okay I don’t want to do

(1h 12m 54s)

the monsters you want to farm resources um that’s nice that is weird it’s late game that’s always like

(1h 12m 57s) Al:

Yeah, I think you I think I don’t I think that’s just I found it late game

(1h 13m 6s)

I think you could have found it quite early if I noticed it. I just didn’t notice it until I was like

(1h 13m 12s)

Oh, where do I get this thing? I’ve never seen this thing and there was like in the mine. I’m like, where’s the mine?

(1h 13m 17s) Kevin:

Yes, we have a mind!

(1h 13m 18s) Al:

Like I didn’t have I didn’t have to unlock it. I just didn’t know about it

(1h 13m 24s)

Um, and then there’s the train which I mentioned like once

(1h 13m 27s)

you unlock it, it just brings in the wars. So you can get up to 4 carriages. Each

(1h 13m 31s)

carriage can have one type of or in it. So you can have one of each of the oars.

(1h 13m 37s)

Pretty much it’s not, it’s not infinite in so much as it’s only there from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

(1h 13m 43s)

But, um, it’s functionally infinite, right? Because like you’re just constantly using it

(1h 13m 49s)

between 8 a.m. and because I’ve got buffers, like I can get it out of the train quicker than

(1h 13m 55s)

and I can use it and so therefore I actually extend.

(1h 13m 57s)

in the time that I can build things for a little bit.

(1h 13m 59s)

So yeah, functionally infinite.

(1h 14m 1s)

Another fun thing is you have a little robot toaster

(1h 14m 7s)

that you ride around and I’ve just put up a screenshot of it.

(1h 14m 8s) Kevin:

That’s that’s how you up there in the the Mount tier list robot

(1h 14m 16s) Al:

Yeah, so he’s faster than walking quite significantly,

(1h 14m 20s)

but also has a saw on the front that you can turn on

(1h 14m 24s)

to destroy things quicker.

(1h 14m 26s) Kevin:

Awww, that’s so sick!

(1h 14m 28s) Al:

which is excellent.

(1h 14m 29s)

So it’s like, oh, I need to break everything down and rebuild it

(1h 14m 32s)

because I want to redo everything.

(1h 14m 34s)

You just turn on the saw, you just walk through it

(1h 14m 37s)

and it all gets torn up and you can pick it all up.

(1h 14m 40s)

It’s amazing.

(1h 14m 42s)

It is so good.

(1h 14m 43s)

I, I, you feel so powerful riding around on this toaster.

(1h 14m 47s) Kevin:

hahahaha, let me see, what is…

(1h 14m 48s) Al:

The best bit is the toaster explicitly, canonically likes Brad.

(1h 14m 53s) Kevin:

Oh, that’s great, that’s a, okay, that’s a much bigger coaster than I thought.

(1h 14m 53s) Al:

You.

(1h 14m 57s) Kevin:

How do you fit right into that?

(1h 14m 58s) Al:

Big toaster.

(1h 15m) Kevin:

Who’s kind of ready for the huge?

(1h 15m 3s) Al:

All bread fits in it. That’s the point.

(1h 15m 5s) Kevin:

Oh, that’s a good point, you could fit a baguette in there,

(1h 15m 8s)

and just one of the flots, that’s awesome.

(1h 15m 12s) Al:

He’s a good toaster.

(1h 15m 15s)

Just checking a couple of tiny things about controls.

(1h 15m 21s)

The button for using the hammer is the same button as putting items in something.

(1h 15m 26s)

So if you have the wrong, if you have the hammer selected rather than the item, you accidentally

(1h 15m 29s)

destroy the thing you were going to put something in.

(1h 15m 32s)

That’s just a little annoying thing.

(1h 15m 34s)

Like the hammer is an item, but I feel like it shouldn’t be an item that you have because

(1h 15m 37s)

use it so much. I think it should be just like a separate button that

(1h 15m 42s)

you use rather than an item you have to be in your bag of old time.

(1h 15m 46s) Kevin:

Yeah, no, I think that’s fair. I can see how that’d be annoying. Anytime you have inventory and action you use frequently.

(1h 15m 53s) Al:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

(1h 15m 53s) Kevin:

Now, so that’s always a little aggravating.

(1h 15m 58s) Al:

There’s no– so the sorting in the bag and in your chest

(1h 16m 3s)

is really good.

(1h 16m 4s)

There’s a couple of things you can do.

(1h 16m 6s)

You can lock items to specific slots.

(1h 16m 9s)

And the auto sort, then sort everything else, right?

(1h 16m 12s)

So early game, I need– always needed to have coal in my bag,

(1h 16m 17s)

because I had the original furnaces

(1h 16m 18s)

that you have to manually put coal into.

(1h 16m 20s)

by locked call to a specific slot.

(1h 16m 23s)

And I locked the conveyor belt to a specific slot, and then you press sort and everything else gets sorted, but those items always stay in the same place, which I love this fantastic because that’s one of the things that like start doing stuff really annoys me because it’s like, I use the automatic sorting and chests, but not in your bag because I’m like, I want my tools and a specific order, and it’s not going to do that for me.

(1h 16m 40s) Kevin:

Yeah

(1h 16m 42s)

In that yeah

(1h 16m 45s)

We are in 2026 we should have the dedicated tool inventory row like just you know

(1h 16m 51s) Al:

But it’s not even just that. It’s just, there’s items as well that I want in specific areas and this is fantastic way to do this where you can say this item always in this slot, please also.

(1h 16m 55s) Kevin:

Okay, sure

(1h 16m 59s)

That’s true. Yeah, you know what you’re right. That is smart. Just lock it. Yeah

(1h 17m 3s) Al:

It’s great. I think there should be an every game from now on. It’s fantastic. I love it. Also, I lost what I was saying.

(1h 17m 10s)

Oh yeah, if you have, if you’re you, so say, I’m using conveyor belts and I’m putting them down and then my specific stack that I have runs out.

(1h 17m 21s)

If I have another stack in my bag, it will move that stack from where it was to the place where I was using so that if I put an item down and I only have one and then I go to put another one down. It works. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well or not.

(1h 17m 37s) Kevin:

• Wait, yeah, I know, you’re, yeah.

(1h 17m 38s) Al:

So say I’m putting down conveyor belts, right? And I have three conveyor belts and in my slot on my bag that I’m using and I go put one down, put one down, put one down. In most games, you would then just slot the

(1h 17m 51s)

you have selected in your bag, will we empty? And you would have to open your bag, move another slot stack of conveyor belts to that specific slot or you’d have to like move the your selected to a different block, right? Instead, what this does is it just moves an existing stack automatically to where you were selected. So if I have three three conveyor belts, I can put one down, put one down, put one down. It will then

(1h 18m 21s)

else, automatically grab another stack, put it back where I was doing so I can just keep going. I don’t have to do anything. So I put one down, put one down, put one down, put one down. It works. The quality, they’re thought into the quality of life of this game is fantastic. And I need to know who their UX person is because they are so good at this. Having said that, there is no controller button for this.

(1h 18m 31s) Kevin:

This, these people love automating and convenience.

(1h 18m 39s)

Yeah, I could tell like, is it everything?

(1h 18m 45s)

It’s, yeah.

(1h 18m 48s)

Like, I’m just, oh no!

(1h 18m 51s) Al:

or sorting. You have to manually move to the button and press it. There’s the automatic buttons for taking things out of chests, for putting things into chests, but not for sorting. Let me, and you can’t map it. There’s no, I’ve looked through the mapping settings. It’s not an option there. It’s not just that there’s not a default one. There’s no option for it at all. Give me, it’s the only thing I’ve found in the game. The only thing in the entire game I’ve found that I cannot map a button press to is sorting your bag or the chest.

(1h 19m 3s) Kevin:

Uh no.

(1h 19m 21s) Al:

..and I don’t know why this is not the case. And it is so, so annoying because I sort things all the time. Because as I said, the sorting is excellent. It does its job, so I want to use it. But I then have to manually go over and press the button, which can take like so many button presses. Because if I’m at the left-hand side of my bag, I have to

(1h 19m 23s) Kevin:

That’s, that’s a big one too. Like, how do you miss that?

(1h 19m 34s)

Yeah, most well a lot of people do it today

(1h 19m 51s) Al:

open my bag and then go all the way to the right-hand side and press the button. This is the point where you know you love a game when you are complaining for so long about such a tiny thing. If this is the worst that the game is, that there’s no button for sorting and I have to manually go and press the sort button, that’s when you know you love a game.

(1h 20m 6s) Kevin:

Yeah

(1h 20m 16s)

Yeah, they don’t know right they don’t know they’re all right

(1h 20m 21s) Al:

Please, I beg of you. Give me button remapping for sorting. Please. I think that’s all my mechanic stuff. Any questions before I go into kind of, obviously I’m not going to talk a lot about the story, but I feel like I need to at least address it a little bit.

(1h 20m 37s) Kevin:

No, no, I think that’s good. This is yeah, and I’m interested in the flavor stuff tell me about the world

(1h 20m 43s) Al:

I I’m not gonna say that I prefer this these characters to start you because I think that would be too far

(1h 20m 49s)

But I would say it’s up there the characters feel real to me their

(1h 20m 57s)

The reasons for doing things feel real to me

(1h 21m 1s)

The little stories that we have with them feel real they feel

(1h 21m 8s)

Personal they feel I really feel like everyone exists in this game

(1h 21m 13s)

um

(1h 21m 15s) Kevin:

Okay, hold up. You know what? Let’s back up a second first of all. Who are you?

(1h 21m 21s) Al:

Yeah sure let’s let’s talk a little bit about the start of the story then.

(1h 21m 24s)

So it’s a kind of a trophy start like always right like you grew up in this town and then

(1h 21m 31s)

you moved away and now you’re coming back. But the reasonings for it is a little bit different

(1h 21m 37s)

than usual. It makes it a little bit unique. You moved away because so you lived in this town

(1h 21m 43s)

with your mum and your aunt. Your mum dies and your aunt sends your way to live with another family

(1h 21m 51s)

in a city. But she promises that when you come back you will continue building the rocket together.

(1h 21m 53s) Kevin:

Okay, that’s rough, but okay.

(1h 22m 2s)

Okay, who is the who is building the rock your building mom or the answer?

(1h 22m 5s) Al:

So your mum and your aunt were building the rocket together and then of course that all stops

(1h 22m 10s)

when your mum dies and you’re sent away but your aunt promises if you come back when you’re older

(1h 22m 17s)

you will continue building the rocket together.

(1h 22m 19s)

But by the time you come back…

(1h 22m 21s)

she does not want to do it anymore, she’s bitter, she’s hardened by the loss,

(1h 22m 26s)

and she left herself there to become bitter a bit at all, right?

(1h 22m 34s)

Like she sent you away, and I think that was the reason why you end up in this situation.

(1h 22m 40s)

So you come back and it’s not just you get straight into building the rocket,

(1h 22m 44s)

you have to do a bunch of the game and the story to basically convince her

(1h 22m 49s)

that you can start doing that again.

(1h 22m 51s)

So yeah, you are an adult, a young adult who has come back to the time that you grew up in after years away, somewhere else.

(1h 23m 1s)

So you’re some of the people you are re-getting to know and some of the people are new people who moved to the time while you went.

(1h 23m 10s) Kevin:

Okay. Okay. I like this. I like this. You I mean, first of all, you have history with the place. You’re not, you know, stranger to the new. I mean, maybe relatively little, but you have some history with the place. And secondly, you have an objective prior to the game or whatever, right? Like, that’s cool.

(1h 23m 30s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, I think it’s I think it’s fun. I think that’s as far as I’ll go overall story wise because I think it’s I think this game is good enough that I don’t want to spoil it for anyone

(1h 23m 41s) Kevin:

Okay, that’s that’s wild type praise well. Okay. Show me at least a crumb. Tell me about a character that you enjoy

(1h 23m 45s) Al:

Well, I’m gonna tell you a couple of character-based things

(1h 23m 49s) Kevin:

Okay

(1h 23m 49s) Al:

Rather than the story overall. So one of the things

(1h 23m 51s) Kevin:

Sure

(1h 23m 52s) Al:

I’m gonna send you a screenshot of something that the mayor says while you’re doing something which I just think is fantastic

(1h 23m 56s) Kevin:

We got

(1h 23m 57s) Al:

He will, so…

(1h 24m)

for the context for this screenshot, you have fixed the lighthouse that was broken, which you need to get certain items, and you’re standing there having like rebuild this lighthouse and talking to other people, and the mayor comes over and he says to you, “I really need to keep better tabs on what people are up to around here.”

(1h 24m 24s)

We managed to rebuild the lighthouse without noticing.

(1h 24m 24s) Kevin:

[Laughter]

(1h 24m 30s) Al:

Which I just think is fantastic.

(1h 24m 32s) Kevin:

It doesn’t notice all the conveyors dropping all your steel beams that air. [Laughter]

(1h 24m 35s) Al:

Yeah, exactly.

(1h 24m 38s)

So, there’s this funny to it, and then there’s sad to it.

(1h 24m 42s)

So, there’s… I’ll give you one small character based story.

(1h 24m 49s)

There’s a character who is mean to you, standard, right? We all have the mean characters.

(1h 24m 56s)

And you are obviously trying to be nice and trying to help that person.

(1h 25m)

So you are like, tell me what I can do and you notice that they have a radio that seems to be broken.

(1h 25m 5s)

And so you are like, I will fix the radio for you.

(1h 25m 7s)

And so eventually once you’ve done it, when I say radio, it’s like a ham radio.

(1h 25m 12s)

You know, not like a commercial radio.

(1h 25m 15s)

And it turns out that this person is dead, had moved away.

(1h 25m 20s)

And has told her that when he’s on his way back, he will radio her.

(1h 25m 26s)

And so she’s like my radio’s broken. I haven’t heard anything from him.

(1h 25m 30s)

Can you fix it and you build an antenna in the back and she’s like, that’s really nice. You didn’t have to do that. And then

(1h 25m 37s)

A little a little time passes and you go back and you say have you heard anything and she says no

(1h 25m 42s)

I think maybe the antenna’s broken and you go out and you look at her and you’re like, it seems like it’s not broken and

(1h 25m 48s)

Then you’re like, but I can maybe do some things and she looks at you and she says

(1h 25m 53s)

It’s not the antenna is it and you just have that lovely moment. They don’t even need to explain it fully and

(1h 26m)

She said she basically she apologizes for being mean and she’s like

(1h 26m 4s)

When you you went away and you came back and you’ve spent time, you know, you’re aunt has got you back and it’s reminded me of my dad and then

(1h 26m 14s)

The conversation ends

(1h 26m 17s)

With you saying I’m glad I have my aunt, but we are still pretty broken and you finish the conversation with you both accepting the both of you are broken

(1h 26m 22s) Kevin:

Whoa, whoa

(1h 26m 28s)

Yo, that’s

(1h 26m 28s) Al:

But you are, but you aren’t.

(1h 26m 30s)

For now, friends, you’re just broken friends together.

(1h 26m 32s) Kevin:

Yeah, oh, that’s you know, that’s solid. That’s good. I didn’t expect that level of

(1h 26m 39s) Al:

• Yeah, right.

(1h 26m 40s)

[laughing]

(1h 26m 40s) Kevin:

Death and and emotion from the Greek automation game. Well

(1h 26m 48s)

Wow, gosh darn it. I’ll get in this

(1h 26m 52s)

Holy moly. Um, I mean when I

(1h 26m 54s) Al:

And then there’s one other thing to add to this, which is that, after significant story points, they give you these little

(1h 27m 5s)

um, postcards of the moment. So I’ve just sent you one of the one from that, that character moment there,

(1h 27m 7s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(1h 27m 12s) Al:

with the player character on the right and the other character on the left. And it’s just a really nice,

(1h 27m 16s)

and then the card flips over and your player character is like written a little sentence.

(1h 27m 20s)

I’m not gonna spoil anymore, but it’s just like you you gather this collection of

(1h 27m 20s) Kevin:

No.

(1h 27m 24s) Al:

postcard photos as you progress through the story and it’s such a really

(1h 27m 25s) Kevin:

Oh, that’s so good.

(1h 27m 29s) Al:

nice to like go through and you know remember because they’re in an album and

(1h 27m 35s)

you can open one and flip over and the one the one I won’t tell you about the

(1h 27m 42s)

other ones but this card on the back says just scribbled in the bottom we

(1h 27m 47s)

still have each other

(1h 27m 50s) Kevin:

Oh my god, okay. Oh my god. I can already get enough context. I think from that but holy moly

(1h 27m 59s)

What’s the character’s name?

(1h 28m) Al:

The player character’s name.

(1h 28m 1s) Kevin:

Yeah, or is it just your name whenever he was a blank?

(1h 28m 4s) Al:

No, I can’t I’m so bad at remembering names. I can’t remember. That’s really bad

(1h 28m 13s)

Give me a minute at Morgan. Yes, that’s what it is. I just remembered Morgan

(1h 28m 16s) Kevin:

Morgan, okay, because I really like Morgan’s like a lot, you know, they the

(1h 28m 23s)

Resumed out isometric view like they’re you know, it’s hard to see it or

(1h 28m 28s)

Fixily or whatever

(1h 28m 30s)

Like it’s farther zoomed up than Stardew, I would say

(1h 28m 33s) Al:

• Mm-hmm.

(1h 28m 33s) Kevin:

But I love these designs on the the character portraits and this art here

(1h 28m 37s) Al:

• Yeah.

(1h 28m 39s) Kevin:

That’s great style, and I love Morgan’s design with the goggles and the bandana all

(1h 28m 42s) Al:

• Yeah.

(1h 28m 44s)

She’s got a real engineer design.

(1h 28m 44s) Kevin:

Not that

(1h 28m 46s)

Yeah, yeah, she’s a CEO. Oh, and like what you want an engineer to be not not the real life engineering that I do

(1h 28m 55s)

Yeah, she’s I can tell she’s got pluck. She’s got that pluck. I love in characters. Oh, oh man

(1h 29m 2s)

I’m all in. I’m all in now. I mean, I was already kind of excited before I remember we talked first talked about on the film whenever I’m certain

(1h 29m 10s)

As I think building a rocket’s a fun little idea, but this game has

(1h 29m 16s)

Has some death to it. I could suck. That’s stuff going on. Oh, yeah

(1h 29m 21s) Al:

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I’m at the point where I’m a little bit sad that I never played it last year,

(1h 29m 27s)

because it definitely would have been on my list of game of the year for last year.

(1h 29m 31s) Kevin:

Yeah, yeah, I thought that

(1h 29m 33s) Al:

But it was just, it was too late in the year. There was too much that I was dealing with at that

(1h 29m 37s)

point. I wasn’t. I didn’t have the time then. But I’m so glad that I picked it up now. And my thing

(1h 29m 38s) Kevin:

Yeah, no

(1h 29m 43s) Al:

with games is always, “Am I going to continue playing this after the podcast?” And some it’s like,

(1h 29m 49s)

like absolutely not. Some it’s like, oh, me.

(1h 29m 51s)

And then someone’s like, I can’t put this game down. Like, you know, you know, when you get a game and you’ve been playing it and you

(1h 30m)

when you’re not playing it, you spend time thinking about playing it.

(1h 30m 4s) Kevin:

I might have a game like that, yeah.

(1h 30m 6s)

Want to write, yeah.

(1h 30m 7s)

[laughs]

(1h 30m 8s) Al:

Here’s here’s here’s a really here’s a really stupid thing that I

(1h 30m 8s) Kevin:

[inaudible]

(1h 30m 9s)

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 30m 13s) Al:

couple a couple of small things that just shows you the care and love put into this game.

(1h 30m 18s)

one is so you get

(1h 30m 21s)

the dog doesn’t do anything in terms of like you know it doesn’t give you any and normally in a game

(1h 30m 24s) Kevin:

Yeah, I just follow you. I saw them.

(1h 30m 27s) Al:

I’d be like I don’t care about the dog because of that but like there’s so much in the dog the dog will bring you tennis balls

(1h 30m 33s)

And you can throw the tennis balls like just randomly you’ll just have a tennis ball and you’re in your bag and you can throw the tennis ball for the dog

(1h 30m 36s) Kevin:

• Yeah.

(1h 30m 37s)

• Yeah.

(1h 30m 38s)

[laughing]

(1h 30m 41s) Al:

stuff like that and

(1h 30m 43s)

also you

(1h 30m 45s)

You can actually there’s a crane you get in the game that you use for moving things

(1h 30m 51s)

Like you can move people with the crane

(1h 30m 54s) Kevin:

It’s not that bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad!

(1h 30m 54s) Al:

So there’s a thing in and if you if you watch the

(1h 31m)

The main trailer on the steam page you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s let me see where it is in the game

(1h 31m 6s)

Like go to 30 seconds in

(1h 31m 13s) Kevin:

It was a thing called Little Rocket and Lab, okay.

(1h 31m 18s)

Let’s see how I’m going to the Steam page.

(1h 31m 21s) Al:

So the autoplay video, if you skip along to 30 seconds, what you see is you’ve built a conveyor belt over the path and there’s grumpy people and then you’re building more conveyor belts.

(1h 31m 30s) Kevin:

Yeah, they’re gonna be people. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that’s that’s a good engineering

(1h 31m 32s) Al:

And then you put a crane up and the crane just picks up the people and puts them on the other side because now they can continue.

(1h 31m 41s)

So that’s one of the ways you can deal with that. Like the game doesn’t have these are the ways you have to do it.

(1h 31m 43s) Kevin:

You could

(1h 31m 45s)

You don’t need a bridge. Sure. You might think a bridge would be packed. Well, now let’s let’s crane them

(1h 31m 52s) Al:

And you can pretty much build these things anywhere, you can build them inside buildings, you can build them along paths, you can build them in where you’re meant to build them, you can build them in your factory, you can build them in the mine.

(1h 32m 3s) Kevin:

Yeah. Oh, like, oh, man, I love this pixel style when you get close and actually see the details. I love that, um, yeah, there’s a hole. Oh, wow, look, look at the trailer again. There’s a lot going on. Holy moly. Um, yeah. Okay. Um, I’m all in. I’ll, uh, um, the toast are just stomping over all those little, I don’t know, slimes, whatever they were. Uh,

(1h 32m 28s) Al:

This line. Yeah, yeah, they’ll run away from you if you’re on the toaster.

(1h 32m 33s) Kevin:

Yeah, that’s great. Um, oh, my gosh. Oh, the toaster gets death eyes when you put the saw. That’s incredible. Oh, that has turned red. Oh, yeah. Very positive reviews, I can tell. Yeah, it’s only 20 bucks. Yeah.

(1h 32m 49s) Al:

I think if you like any sort of, as you see, can a factorial type game, or you just like any can, I think this is a great game to play.

(1h 33m 5s) Kevin:

I mean, this probably is because it’s crazy because you know, it’s been a good way to tell me

(1h 33m 10s)

about the automation, the systems, and there’s a lot of thought into that. Like, you know, giving

(1h 33m 19s)

bacteria and satisfactory run for their money, to be honest, just from the pacing and whatnot.

(1h 33m 25s)

But, but then you see the flavor, which, you know, those other games don’t have, like those other

(1h 33m 32s)

get into just, you know, morally.

(1h 33m 35s)

Just hyperbolicly like just glorify cookie clickers, right? Just, just get, make number go big, um, but here we got a story. You got characters, actual emotional depth.

(1h 33m 39s) Al:

Yeah

(1h 33m 47s) Kevin:

It sounds like holy moly. This is really impressive. It’s all for $20 USD. That’s crazy. Oh,

(1h 33m 54s) Al:

Yeah, as I said, I don’t think I’m going to go quite as far as saying that this is the characters and story is as good as Stardew, but I think it’s certainly the best

(1h 34m 3s) Kevin:

Sure. Um, yeah. No, I died. Yeah, all right. I’m all in. I’ll play this

(1h 34m 10s)

some point possibly soon. I have time. This time is the thing right now. Like I want to start a game and not have time to play it.

(1h 34m 12s) Al:

[Laughter]

(1h 34m 19s) Kevin:

Uh, this is like a game. I want to sit down and just go ham on it. Um, it’s awesome. Um, all right. Do you have other stuff you want to do with other two?

(1h 34m 27s) Al:

No, I think I think it’s I think that’s everything on my list. I’m just I’m so excited to be playing a game

(1h 34m 37s)

that I’m like loving this much because so often games are like either fine or they don’t live up to

(1h 34m 46s)

your expectations or they’re bad or you think they’re gonna be great and they end up being just you

(1h 34m 51s)

You know, more of the same and it’s super…

(1h 34m 54s) Kevin:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. That’s the, uh, the plight of the, the content creator, I guess,

(1h 35m 2s)

where we pick up games and hope for the best. And it’s just impressive.

(1h 35m 8s)

What that’s, that’s awesome. Good, good job for you.

(1h 35m 14s)

Teenage astronauts. That’s their name.

(1h 35m 17s)

Um, all right. When are we going to do the, uh, wait, no more robots worked on this.

(1h 35m 24s) Al:

They are just the publisher.

(1h 35m 24s) Kevin:

Um, okay. Oh, published. Okay. Um, but, uh, when are we going to? Yeah.

(1h 35m 30s) Al:

As far as I can see, as far as I can see, this is teenage astronauts’ first game.

(1h 35m 34s) Kevin:

Oh, wow. Wow. Just knocked it out of the park. Wow. Good for you guys. No pressure.

(1h 35m 38s) Al:

No pressure.

(1h 35m 42s) Kevin:

I, uh, so when are we going to do the, the revisionist game of the years where we go back

(1h 35m 47s) Al:

[Laughter]

(1h 35m 47s) Kevin:

and argue for games we didn’t play at the time?

(1h 35m 50s) Al:

That sounds like a fun one to do.

(1h 35m 53s)

We’ll do that when we run out of episode topics.

(1h 35m 54s) Kevin:

All this came out. What? Yeah. Yeah. Wait, hold on. What, uh, what year did wildfire? What, what, what, uh,

(1h 35m 56s) Al:

[Laughter]

(1h 36m 5s) Kevin:

well, I mean, we could talk about that, but just 2022.

(1h 36m 6s) Al:

I mean we kind of did that for sp– we– I mean we did that for spinner. we just gave it the

(1h 36m 10s)

game of the year for the year after because we hadn’t played it that year.

(1h 36m 13s) Kevin:

Where did we do that? I don’t remember that.

(1h 36m 15s) Al:

that yeah i’m pretty i’m pretty certain we did that

(1h 36m 17s) Kevin:

What was 2022? That’s amazing. Oh.

(1h 36m 22s) Al:

because I mean it was like maybe the third one or something like that so

(1h 36m 24s) Kevin:

Nobody told me it’s going to pop for wildfires. Anyways, little rocket lab going back to the

(1h 36m 32s)

actual topic. Um, cool. Sounds like a good game. I should play this good game. I wish to play this

(1h 36m 33s) Al:

[laughing]

(1h 36m 37s) Kevin:

good game. Yeah. I think should do it has many things that I like. Oh, all right. Go check it out,

(1h 36m 38s) Al:

I think you should.

(1h 36m 46s) Kevin:

people. It’s affordable. It’s good game. It’s on, is it only steam right now?

(1h 36m 50s) Al:

No, I think it’s on switch as well.

(1h 36m 52s) Kevin:

Well, oh, yeah, now

(1h 36m 54s)

it’s all good. Oh, okay.

(1h 36m 56s) Al:

Yeah, it’s on everything.

(1h 36m 57s)

It’s on Xbox, oh, it’s not on PlayStation.

(1h 37m 1s)

It’s on Xbox, Switch, and obviously PC.

(1h 37m 5s)

It’s also on Game Pass, which is how I got it,

(1h 37m 8s)

‘cause I was like, oh, this is on Game Pass, cool, I’ll try it.

(1h 37m 10s) Kevin:

• Ahhh!

(1h 37m 11s) Al:

It looks like it’s cheaper on Switch.

(1h 37m 13s) Kevin:

• Whoa! Let’s check that out then!

(1h 37m 14s) Al:

I’m seeing 12, oh, no, that was a cash thing.

(1h 37m 17s)

It must have been on sale.

(1h 37m 19s) Kevin:

• Nah.

(1h 37m 20s)

• Well, and the best part is, as we talked about, it’s…

(1h 37m 24s)

• It’s not, or maybe not.

(1h 37m 25s)

• It works well on the controllers, right? So, yeah.

(1h 37m 28s)

• Cool.

(1h 37m 28s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. I know you’re gonna get the same experience that I

(1h 37m 34s) Kevin:

• You don’t have to worry about, let’s build a do-on switch

(1h 37m 38s)

which where you’re controlling a big master.

(1h 37m 40s) Al:

[laughter]

(1h 37m 40s) Kevin:

I wish to know your secrets and we’ll play the game.

(1h 37m 50s) Al:

hahaha well let me know if you do play it we can do like a full spoiler cast spoiler episode for it if you do that

(1h 37m 51s) Kevin:

So I do for that.

(1h 37m 57s)

Yeah, I probably will.

(1h 37m 59s)

I mean, this was one of the games I genuinely was interested in.

(1h 38m 2s)

I didn’t pay too much attention or whatever, but yeah, I mean, from the beginning.

(1h 38m 7s)

And so hearing it’s good, yeah, and now this is a must latering.

(1h 38m 10s) Al:

• Yeah, it’s great.

(1h 38m 12s)

• All right, thank you so much for joining me

(1h 38m 13s)

to talk about a good game.

(1h 38m 17s) Kevin:

[laughing]

(1h 38m 20s)

• Oh, other than Phukopia, yeah, you’re right, it’s not,

(1h 38m 23s)

it just happens less than you think about this.

(1h 38m 26s) Al:

It’s nice to talk about something that’s good, not just good, but great, especially after

(1h 38m 31s) Kevin:

• Is it it?

(1h 38m 33s)

Isn’t it great to talk about some?

(1h 38m 35s) Al:

last week talking about Tomodachi.

(1h 38m 37s) Kevin:

• Yeah, see, I’m sorry, this is actually partially why

(1h 38m 43s)

I’ve sewn to Phukopia after the other years

(1h 38m 47s)

and Phukam on getting this, getting that, right?

(1h 38m 48s) Al:

Yeah, yeah

(1h 38m 50s) Kevin:

Like, finally, you found the oasis.

(1h 38m 52s) Al:

Remind you that it reminds you that you actually do like games

(1h 38m 55s) Kevin:

• Yeah, yeah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

(1h 38m 59s)

Sometimes you need that reminder, it’s true.

(1h 39m 2s) Al:

All right, Kevin is there anything you’d like to tell the audience

Outro

(1h 39m 5s) Kevin:

• Oh, like, like, do you support Little Rocket Lab,

(1h 39m 9s)

support Star Fox?

(1h 39m 11s)

I say, one of those is a lot harder to do

(1h 39m 13s)

so I don’t blame you, but no, I’m, you know,

(1h 39m 17s)

ever, I’m Kukopia, but it’s on, whatever,

(1h 39m 19s)

but I, I, I, I, I’m out there, it’s fine.

(1h 39m 24s)

What about, I’ll tell them things about

(1h 39m 26s)

where to find cool stuff out.

(1h 39m 27s) Al:

You can find the podcast on tumblr and on blue sky at THS pod. You can send us feedback from our website harvest season.club

(1h 39m 35s)

What we’re gonna go for this time?

(1h 39m 38s)

Talos what mobile game would you like?

(1h 39m 43s) Kevin:

[laughing]

(1h 39m 48s) Al:

Also on our website, you can find links to everything to do with the podcast, including our patreon patreon dot com slash G S part. We just today as we’re recording, just released an episode where me and Kevin talked about Batman and Superman, the animated series is

(1h 40m 1s) Kevin:

Yep, it’s a short one

(1h 40m 2s) Al:

Not should have just gone live like two hours ago. I didn’t actually check that it didn’t, but it should have done

(1h 40m 9s)

You also get access to the slack where we post

(1h 40m 12s)

sneak peeks and we talk about stuff

(1h 40m 18s) Kevin:

I wish I can’t I don’t have or very rarely. Let’s say this. No, no, you’re not. Let’s get it. It’s very fun to go into those episode threads and obviously not having the context

(1h 40m 31s)

Because I mean this time you see okay, lots of screenshots I was posting, but just sometimes you see random things and it’s like

(1h 40m 38s) Al:

Yeah

(1h 40m 38s) Kevin:

It’s fun to think about what’s coming up. I don’t know if it’s going up and

(1h 40m 42s) Al:

Which is not what you should do you should go and watch them as you’re

(1h 40m 46s)

Listening and you can see what we’re talking about especially this time with all the screenshots that I posted

(1h 40m 50s)

I

(1h 40m 51s) Kevin:

• That’s true, yeah, this time you shouldn’t.

(1h 40m 52s)

[laughing]

(1h 40m 52s) Al:

Think the screenshots are probably put in the show notes as well because that feels a bit a bit fundamental to the end to the episode if you wanted

(1h 40m 58s) Kevin:

• Yeah, yeah.

(1h 40m 59s) Al:

They should be in the show notes. All right. I think that’s everything. Thank you again for joining me Kevin

(1h 41m 4s) Kevin:

Thank you all for having me on.

(1h 41m 5s) Al:

Thank you listeners for listening and until next time

(1h 41m 8s)

Have a good Harvey

(1h 41m 8s) Kevin:

• Yeah, I’m good, Harvest.

(1h 41m 11s) Theme Tune:

The Harvest Season is created by Alma Henry, with support from our patrons, including our

(1h 41m 11s) Kevin:

• Have a good rocket.

(1h 41m 20s) Theme Tune:

pro farmers, Kevin Stewart and Alisa.

(1h 41m 24s)

Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Virtus.

(1h 41m 28s)

Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club for show notes, and links to things we discussed

(1h 41m 34s)

in this episode.

(1h 41m 44s) Kevin:

I bet Morgan said, I bet she didn’t put co-pilot in her rocket.

(1h 41m 49s) Al:

I’ll let you know.

(1h 41m 58s) Kevin:

They’re still not saying.

(1h 42m 1s) Al:

Is anywhere safe?

(1h 42m 2s) Kevin:

From co-pilot? No. No, I actually sadly know.

(1h 42m 3s) Al:

[laughter]

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