Game Of The Year 2025
Wed, Dec 31, 2025 Year 3, Summer 25Al, Micah, and Aislinn talk about their favourite farming games of the year.
Timings
00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:01:29: What Have We Been Up To
00:31:24: How This Works
00:33:45: Update Of The Year
01:05:20: Update Of The Year Winner
01:06:01: Early Access Of The Year
01:16:35: Early Access Of The Year Winner
01:17:34: How Has This Year Been
01:29:11: Game Of The Year Honourable Mentions
01:38:29: Game Of The Year Nominations
02:03:41: Poll Responses
02:08:01: Game Of The Year Discussion
02:16:27: Game Of The Year Winner
02:18:10: Outro
Links
Micah on Twitch
Aislinn on Twitch
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, by name is Al
(36s) Aislinn:
My name is Aslan.
(37s) Micah:
And I’m Micah.
(38s) Al:
And we are here today to talk about God’s score games
(42s) Micah:
Yippee.
(44s)
Ooh, wait.
(45s)
Sorry, I meant Yippee.
(49s) Al:
I don’t know. We’ve not talked about the games yet. We’ll see
(51s) Micah:
Yeah, it’s true, true.
(53s) Al:
Because this is our game of the year episode a woo it is this one comes out very satisfyingly
(1m)
On the 31st of December the last day of the year very enjoyable
(1m 6s)
So obviously we will have no news because we are recording this what three weeks early
(1m 11s)
Yeah, three weeks early because nobody because nobody wants to record a podcast on Christmas
(1m 13s) Aislinn:
- Yeah.
(1m 16s)
[laughing]
(1m 17s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1m 19s) Al:
So no news we’re just gonna talk about the games of the year except
(1m 23s)
Because obviously we’ve got Micah on we don’t often have Micah on and Aslan’s been a few weeks
(1m 27s)
We’re gonna talk about what we’d be up to as well
What Have We Been Up To
(1m 30s) Al:
So Micah, what have you been up to?
(1m 32s) Micah:
I can’t do the indie game, but again, I already did it all.
(1m 39s) Al:
Yeah, I know a bit. People would have heard it yet. It’s not. It kind of comes out later.
(1m 39s) Micah:
You know, a little indie game called Pokemon Legends EA primarily is what I’d been up to.
(1m 50s)
I am doing, I very stupidly did a challenge run for my first playthrough of it, and I’m still doing it.
(1m 56s)
So we’ll see if I get to play the DLC when it comes out.
(1m 56s) Al:
Yes, we’re recording this four days before the DLC comes out so just to put that in context, obviously.
(2m 2s) Micah:
[laughter]
(2m 6s)
Stop saying the time.
(2m 7s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(2m 8s) Al:
I’m just giving people context for why we’re talking about it as if we haven’t played it because we haven’t played it.
(2m 9s) Micah:
It’s dressing me out, huh?
(2m 12s)
[laughter]
(2m 18s) Al:
We played the game, but not the DLC.
(2m 20s) Aislinn:
I’m fine with the context to be fair. So as far as I know, it’s only Micah that’s
(2m 22s) Micah:
It’s crazy that you guys would do this to me.
(2m 24s) Aislinn:
opposed. It’s not me. Just putting it out there.
(2m 27s) Al:
Are you trying to carry favor here?
(2m 33s) Aislinn:
We’re talking for the first time. I’m against him. I’m opposed to him.
(2m 37s) Micah:
Yeah, I have actually played quite a bit.
(2m 39s) Al:
Have you played anything else since we’ve last talked to my car?
(2m 47s) Micah:
I’ve been playing a lot of, uh, Yakuza zero.
(2m 51s) Al:
Ooh, is that the new one?
(2m 52s) Micah:
Uh, it is not. It was the first one that they released on the switch to was the Yakuza zero directors cut.
(3m 3s) Al:
Oh, this is, this is a remake, isn’t it?
(3m 3s) Micah:
It is chronologically the first one. It’s not. It’s a port. It’s just a port of, of Yakuza zero.
(3m 10s)
So the, the Yakuza franchise has gone like they did Yakuza one and then two and then three and then four and then five.
(3m 19s)
And then I think six and then zero.
(3m 22s)
So zero is like the, the, the, the, the, the backstory for the main character Kiryu and another main character Majumagoro and they’re kind of like them coming up as young Yakuza and they’re like trials and tribulations and stuff. Very interesting, very well written.
(3m 45s)
If you know anything about the Yakuza franchise, sometimes at least in the like side quest portion of it.
(3m 52s)
A little raunchy, so, um, be, buyer beware, I guess. Uh, but it is, so they, they are some of the most intricately made open world games and in my opinion, there’s so much to do in them. There’s a whole in Yakuza zero, it takes place in the 80s in Japan and there’s a whole side bit where you can just like build.
(4m 19s)
Pocket race cars and race them on like tracks against
(4m 22s)
kids and stuff and it’s it’s awesome.
(4m 25s) Al:
I keep thinking about playing one of these. Um, I think the thing that made me go, oh, interesting
(4m 30s)
was infinite wealth where they had that like random Pokémon game in it. And I’m like, oh, interesting.
(4m 34s) Micah:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, not just an in Pokemon game, but they have an entire animal crossing
(4m 43s)
style game that I’ve heard. I haven’t played it, but
(4m 44s) Al:
Oh, yeah, that was the one that that was the island one, wasn’t it? They’ve got random island you go
(4m 48s) Micah:
Yes, yes, because infinite well takes place in Hawaii. It’s the first time that it doesn’t take place in a Japanese territory and
(4m 57s) Al:
which is ironically not the game that has Hawaii in the title.
(5m) Micah:
Right, correct. That one is a pirate game that’s a spin off.
(5m) Al:
That’s the next one.
(5m 4s) Micah:
It’s an insane experience playing the acting game because it’s like the the core story is very serious and very dramatic and it’s you know about the Japanese mob and all the like horrors that come along with it, but like, and it’s very gritty, but everything else in the game is insane.
(5m 4s) Al:
Obviously.
(5m 4s) Aislinn:
[laughs]
(5m 24s) Micah:
It’s just like goofy, it’s wild. There’s tons of stuff to do. It’s it’s it’s very funny and like doesn’t take itself super.
(5m 34s)
super seriously, which I love, unless you’re in the like core of the story, then for the most part, it takes itself pretty seriously until you get to seven, which is like a dragon and the main character is is very goofy, but also in a really charming way.
(5m 51s)
I highly recommend them their attention to detail for like the areas to the the the the cities that they take place in, which are actual real world Japanese cities, but.
(6m 4s)
They’re just the names are slightly changed or like you know the not the exact businesses, but they still have a lot of like licensing rights for things like if you know donkey hote the like big Japanese.
(6m 18s)
Department store chain that just fully exists in the game like they have the rights to put those in the game for whatever reason.
(6m 27s)
There’s there’s lots of stuff and it’s Sega so they always have, you know, Sega arcades that you can go into.
(6m 34s)
and just play old Sega games and like the arcade. Just there’s lots of stuff to it. It’s it’s a lot of fun and I’ve been playing through zero because they just released one and two the one and two remakes on the switch to and they’re releasing the remake of three in like February and it’s got new story content. So they are I mean they’ve all existed for quite a while now. I think they’re just trying to get as much of the library onto the switch to as they can.
(7m 1s) Al:
Yeah, but the thing is that porting still takes a lot of work, right?
(7m 5s) Micah:
Oh for sure for sure. Right. Right. Right. Right. Totally.
(7m 5s) Al:
It’s not you don’t you don’t just click the big port button right like
(7m 9s)
This is the thing like people talk about porting as if it’s like, oh, just port it to a new console
(7m 13s)
Be like it’s not that simple though, right?
(7m 16s)
Like especially especially if you’re talking about, you know, the first game came out on PS2 PS3 and Wii U and those
(7m 23s)
I mean first of all those three consoles had very different
(7m 27s)
architectures and in all the first place. And then, you know, you’re talking.
(7m 31s)
about moving on to this which, too, which is an arm based
(7m 34s)
processor that sure existed back then. But like, no games were using it. So it’s like, it’s a massive, a massive difference there.
(7m 40s) Micah:
The studio that makes these games is extremely dedicated and very talented, and it’s very worth your time if it’s something that you might be interested in.
(7m 56s) Al:
I’m just worried that I start to like them and then that is like several hundred hours gone.
(8m 3s) Micah:
Oh totally, yep, there’s a whole side, like, mechanic in Yakuza Zero, where you, as part
(8m 6s) Aislinn:
I’m in that same camp.
(8m 14s) Micah:
of the story, you become a real estate agent, and there’s a whole side portion of the
(8m 19s)
game, where you can just run, like, real estate and make a bunch of money that way.
(8m 26s)
And I’ve put probably like 30 or 40 hours of it has been just doing the like, I know,
(8m 30s) Al:
That’s a whole game. That’s a whole game. You’re talking about it there.
(8m 32s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(8m 33s) Micah:
and that’s the thing with infinite wealth is that the Pokemon game and the animal
(8m 39s)
crossing game, I’ve heard because I haven’t played it yet myself, I’ve gotten that far,
(8m 43s)
that they are like full 40 plus hour games that you could, they could just be games themselves,
(8m 50s)
that they just included for no reason other than just to put them in the game.
(8m 53s) Al:
like do I have the time in my life to play a yakuza game? That’s my real worry. Do I have
(8m 54s) Aislinn:
Oh my god.
(9m 1s) Micah:
that’s that’s a valid question so i’m playing that that’s a lot of whatever
(9m 2s) Al:
I don’t, I legitimately don’t know the answer to that question. Fair enough. All right,
(9m 12s)
Aslan, what have you been up to?
(9m 13s) Aislinn:
I have been up to a number of variety of things.
(9m 18s)
I think since I was last on, I don’t think I talked about vampire survivors, I don’t remember.
(9m 24s)
So I finally, for the first time, picked that game up and that was fun.
(9m 27s) Al:
I think you talked about it as you were going to be playing it.
(9m 30s) Aislinn:
Okay, so then post vampire survivors update, I like the game a lot.
(9m 38s) Al:
Because I don’t remember what we talked about it and I was like we talked about how it looks and I had been surprised
(9m 44s)
When I eventually looked at a screenshot of what the game looks like and you were like yummy too because it looks bad
(9m 49s) Aislinn:
Yeah, it’s not aesthetically, it’s not my favorite.
(9m 52s) Micah:
[laughing]
(9m 52s) Al:
That’s what that is a very diplomat that is the that is the description of someone who hates the look of the game, but now likes playing the game
(10m 1s) Micah:
[laughter]
(10m 2s) Aislinn:
Yeah, that’s how I feel.
(10m 3s)
Honestly, that’s how I feel.
(10m 4s)
It’s been fun to pick up the game here and there.
(10m 6s)
So aesthetically, and debatable.
(10m 8s)
But it’s a time, but aesthetically,
(10m 10s) Al:
[laughter]
(10m 15s) Aislinn:
I did enjoy and finish and played one session
(10m 19s)
with care and that was very nice.
(10m 22s) Micah:
Oh, is that the game where you’re like you are putting like electronics together and stuff at like a desk?
(10m 29s) Aislinn:
Yeah, you’re kind of traveling around, I guess you could say in one sense or another, but you are like yes
(10m 33s) Micah:
Oh, okay, okay
(10m 36s) Aislinn:
You’re fixing your disassembling fixing things and then put it things together and then it progresses a story
(10m 39s) Micah:
That looks so fun
(10m 41s) Al:
Oh, it’s us too. They’re the ones who make Monument Valley and they also made Alba.
(10m 48s) Micah:
Ohhh… Yeah.
(10m 48s) Aislinn:
Oh well they made a great game with this one. It was like I think I played it in like maybe
(10m 49s) Al:
Same people.
(10m 55s) Aislinn:
no more than two hours so it was a very bite size game but it was satisfying to play.
(11m) Al:
That sounds, yeah, that sounds like a nice two game.
(11m 2s)
[laughter]
(11m 5s) Micah:
[laughing]
(11m 6s) Al:
I don’t know what to say.
(11m 7s)
It’s currently on sale of minus 75% on Steam.
(11m 11s)
So I can get it for £1.44 as basically free.
(11m 14s) Aislinn:
- I think it’s worth it, that’s super worth it.
(11m 16s) Micah:
Steam Deck verified, or what are we talking about?
(11m 18s) Al:
Let’s have a look.
(11m 19s)
We are Steam Deck verified.
(11m 20s) Micah:
Demo available?
(11m 21s) Aislinn:
- Hello.
(11m 22s) Al:
No demo.
(11m 23s) Micah:
Yeah, that’s okay.
(11m 24s) Al:
But it’s less than £2.
(11m 24s) Micah:
Let’s– you can’t win them all.
(11m 25s) Aislinn:
- It’s…
(11m 27s) Micah:
That’s– yeah, true, true.
(11m 28s) Al:
Bye the game!
(11m 30s) Aislinn:
- I think it’s worth the purchase, I would say.
(11m 33s)
It’s a very bite-sized game.
(11m 36s)
But otherwise, I started playing Snacko two weeks ago
(11m 41s)
and really, really enjoying that.
(11m 44s)
Still working through Persona 3 Reload,
(11m 46s)
that’s nothing new, that’s gonna be
(11m 48s)
for the rest of my life, I guess.
(11m 49s) Micah:
Oh, what a good game. Is this your first time playing Persona 3?
(11m 49s) Aislinn:
And…
(11m 54s)
I’ve never played Persona game period.
(11m 56s) Micah:
Oh, and I’m assuming when you say it’s going to probably going to be the rest of my life you’re enjoying it then.
(11m 58s) Aislinn:
So…
(12m 2s)
Oh yeah, for sure.
(12m 3s)
I’m just, I’m very much so taking my time with it.
(12m 4s) Micah:
I’m so happy to hear that.
(12m 6s) Aislinn:
So it’s just a very long game.
(12m 8s)
So I think after I finished this game,
(12m 9s) Micah:
It is. Yeah.
(12m 10s) Aislinn:
I’m gonna take a step away from a Persona game,
(12m 13s)
like a couple other, like maybe.
(12m 14s)
like shorter games than, than dive into either, I guess, Persona 4 when the remake comes out,
(12m 21s)
or jump over to Persona 5 is what I’m thinking. But I also kind of want to check out metaphor,
(12m 26s)
some a little torn, but I’m not in any particular rush to play any of them after I finish Persona 3,
(12m 31s)
so I’ll assess that when the time comes.
(12m 34s) Al:
Persona is the other the other game series that I’m like I feel like I would probably enjoy it
(12m 38s)
But also like I don’t want my entire life to be consumed by it
(12m 41s) Micah:
time. Yeah. I imagine that we are very much the same in how we put them, especially previous
(12m 42s) Aislinn:
Yeah, it’s definitely a time-sync.
(12m 45s)
I don’t know if it necessarily has to be a time-sync, but the way that I’ve been playing
(12m 49s)
it, I make it a time-sync and I enjoy it, so.
(12m 57s) Micah:
discussions about having stuff up while you’re playing to be able to, you know, get the full
(13m 4s)
experience of whatever, like, I love nothing more than like sitting down with a persona
(13m 7s) Aislinn:
I, yeah.
(13m 11s) Micah:
him and trying to min max the the days, you know, because it’s there’s a like only so much
(13m 15s)
you can do during a day. If you miss something, then you miss it. Okay, that’s good.
(13m 17s) Aislinn:
Yeah, I actually haven’t been playing Persona with a guide.
(13m 21s)
Funny enough.
(13m 22s)
I’ve actually just been made a masking it on my own
(13m 24s)
and it’s been fun.
(13m 24s)
I’ve been enjoying it.
(13m 26s)
But then otherwise I’ve obviously Pokemon Legend ZA.
(13m 29s) Al:
as if that’s not enough games, as if that’s not enough games.
(13m 30s) Aislinn:
That’s no, we said that again.
(13m 32s) Micah:
[laughing]
(13m 32s) Aislinn:
[laughs]
(13m 35s)
I know I’m like cycling through so many different games
(13m 37s)
right now and I’m like, oh, but obviously Legend ZA.
(13m 42s)
We don’t need to rehash that.
(13m 43s)
And then I did purchase finally for the first time.
(13m 48s)
New Leaf, Happy Home Paradise,
(13m 49s) Micah:
Oh, my God, all masterpieces.
(13m 50s) Aislinn:
and Detective Pikachu.
(13m 52s)
So at some point, I don’t think we could close up.
(13m 54s)
[laughs]
(13m 55s) Al:
Is that the original detective Pikachu is that the original detective Pikachu or the the one for switch?
(13m 58s) Aislinn:
Sorry, I said that again, Al.
(13m 58s) Micah:
That is a valid question.
(14m) Aislinn:
What was the question?
(14m 1s)
Sorry.
(14m 4s)
Oh, the original.
(14m 5s) Al:
Okay, cool. Just check him. Just check him.
(14m 7s) Aislinn:
[laughs]
(14m 8s) Al:
I have…
(14m 8s) Aislinn:
I feel like I can’t play the new one
(14m 11s) Micah:
It’s true.
(14m 11s) Al:
I don’t know. I mean, have you watched the film? Like, that’s the story. Except it’s most of the
(14m 17s)
story, but then also some of not the story.
(14m 20s) Aislinn:
Oh, true. Yeah, I forgot that was a thing. But regardless, you know what, it’s fine.
(14m 20s) Micah:
I am so excited that you have, have you never played New Leaf or, well, you don’t have
(14m 21s) Al:
Sorry, I over-conf- I over-conf- I over-conf-
(14m 25s)
I just completed my own point there, I just completely, and the same sentence proved myself wrong.
(14m 32s) Aislinn:
But otherwise, that’s it. Just cycling through a lot of different games.
(14m 41s)
No, my first, unfortunately, my first Animal Crossing game
(14m 44s)
was New Horizons.
(14m 48s) Micah:
Unfortunately, but
(14m 50s)
Yeah, it’s great.
(14m 51s) Aislinn:
Well, that seems to be the consensus.
(14m 53s)
I really love it.
(14m 55s)
But that seems to be the general Animal Crossing community
(14m 56s) Al:
Look.
(14m 57s) Micah:
Mal, enjoy what you enjoy.
(14m 57s) Aislinn:
consensus.
(14m 58s)
So I’m like, I guess I’m supposed to say, unfortunately.
(15m) Al:
Look, it don’t do not do not feel the pressure, right? Like I did not like New Leaf. So, that’s all.
(15m 1s) Aislinn:
But I guess that could tie me, you know.
(15m 8s)
Oh.
(15m 9s) Micah:
newly for new horizons or both oh, okay. I thought you didn’t like new horizons
(15m 10s) Al:
No, I like New Horizons. I didn’t like New Leaf. Wow, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, right. Okay, right.
(15m 12s) Aislinn:
OK.
(15m 17s) Al:
My…
(15m 19s)
I definitely didn’t like New Leaf. I didn’t get into it. Like I spent a few hours
(15m 24s)
unsan-related everything.
(15m 26s)
I think about it. New Horizons, I put in like 100 hours and did I enjoy that game is a complicated answer, but it’s more complicated than new leaf. I definitely didn’t like new leaf. I maybe didn’t like new horizons, but it’s harder to say you don’t like a game when you spent 100 hours playing it and covering it and like probably I like what 30 hours talking about it on podcasts.
(15m 33s) Micah:
[laughing]
(15m 39s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(15m 48s) Micah:
[laughter]
(15m 49s) Al:
So I’m like I’m going to be buying the Switch 2 version when it comes out next year.
(15m 56s)
So like I don’t know what is what is like? How does one define whether one likes a game?
(16m 3s) Aislinn:
I have a great video for you Al for later. It’s called I played Animal Crossing every day for five years.
(16m 10s)
I think you would enjoy that video. I’m going to just, I’m just going to drop it in a group chat and leave it at that.
(16m 11s) Micah:
[Laughter]
(16m 11s) Al:
Oh, no. Oh, goodness. How long is this gate? Oh, it’s only 20 minutes. Oh,
(16m 23s) Aislinn:
Yeah, it’s a quick video.
(16m 24s) Al:
that’s easy. Easy. Goodness.
(16m 29s) Micah:
No, I think that New Horizons is a great game on its own.
(16m 30s) Aislinn:
I’m just going to leave it there.
(16m 36s) Micah:
I think that New Leaf is also a great game on its own.
(16m 39s)
I think that if you go into New Leaf expecting what you got out of New Horizons, you will
(16m 45s)
probably be disappointed, but I think if you go into it understanding that it’s a completely
(16m 51s)
different game in a lot of ways than you will be able to enjoy it for what it is.
(16m 58s) Aislinn:
That’s definitely how I’m approaching it. No, go ahead.
(17m) Micah:
Yeah, I’m just going to say that New Leaf, I have immense memories tied to New Leaf.
(17m 6s)
I love that game, but I also do to the circumstances of the time really enjoyed New Horizons
(17m 15s)
because of the context of the time that it came out and everything, so I think it depends
(17m 21s)
on there’s different ways that you can enjoy each of them, and I think that they’re both
(17m 29s)
awesome.
(17m 30s)
Don’t let anybody make you feel like you shouldn’t, like you like the wrong Animal Crossing
(17m 34s)
game, that’s a non-fair way to.
(17m 37s) Al:
Yeah, ignore Kevin ignore Kevin. He’s he can he can he can like what he likes, but you can like what you like
(17m 40s) Aislinn:
that this this point feels very, very reminiscent about a conversation we
(17m 49s)
may or may not have just had oh it’s great
(17m 50s) Micah:
[laughing]
(17m 53s) Al:
Is the best thing about recording episodes I have order, right? It’s
(17m 58s)
Speaking of recording episodes of order. I have also been playing snacko and
(18m 4s)
listeners will know that’s because we will have
(18m 7s)
a couple of weeks by the time this episode comes out.
(18m 15s) Aislinn:
Something like that so that the math, the math is somewhere, I haven’t marked down somewhere.
(18m 23s) Al:
But time is an illusion.
(18m 27s)
So I’ve not put in a huge amount of time, maybe a bit 10 hours into that so far.
(18m 31s)
But let’s, I mean, listeners will know by now what my opinion is.
(18m 35s)
So I think it’s probably safe.
(18m 37s)
I have to say it’s a great game, love it.
(18m 39s) Aislinn:
You put it already, you put it in more time than I have, that’s crazy.
(18m 43s) Al:
Yeah, but like that’s not a lot of time for me for a week.
(18m 48s)
Like I did for my tears of the kingdom run through.
(18m 52s)
I did 150 hours and it was three weeks.
(18m 56s)
I only played that game for three weeks.
(18m 58s) Aislinn:
Whoo, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
(18m 59s) Al:
And I put it in 150 hours.
(19m) Micah:
[laughing]
(19m 1s) Al:
Like if I get really, really into a game,
(19m 5s)
It becomes…
(19m 7s)
A problem.
(19m 9s) Micah:
- Oh, for sure, same.
(19m 12s)
I mean, my Legend ZA playtime hit 180 hours
(19m 16s)
and I took like three weeks off after it came out
(19m 20s)
‘cause I hyper fixated and burned myself out.
(19m 24s) Al:
And that’s how you know you were shiny hunting because I finished the game after 80 hours
(19m 27s) Aislinn:
I… Oh…
(19m 33s) Al:
and there’s nothing left to do in the game except that stupid battle the thousand battles
(19m 38s) Micah:
[laughter]
(19m 38s) Al:
and any shiny hunting.
(19m 41s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(19m 42s) Micah:
No, there’s so much more.
(19m 43s)
You know, you got to get all the clothing items.
(19m 46s)
You got to get all the side quests.
(19m 46s) Al:
I think it’s the shiny hunting. I think it’s the fact that you’re like, “I need to have
(19m 49s) Micah:
You got to do all the– OK, well, all right.
(19m 51s)
Maybe I just play slow, Al.
(19m 51s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(19m 55s) Micah:
OK, all right, all right, all right, all right.
(19m 57s)
[laughter]
(19m 57s) Al:
sick, shiny Pokemon for my team.”
(20m 1s) Micah:
The worst part is that it doesn’t count a lot of that,
(20m 3s) Al:
Yes, however, however, your Switch is saving that time, so.
(20m 4s) Micah:
because a lot of it is resetting, so it doesn’t show in the time.
(20m 7s) Aislinn:
Oh my god, yeah.
(20m 8s) Micah:
[laughter]
(20m 13s) Al:
So, so it does.
(20m 16s)
And I have also, well, maybe I should talk about this now, I’ve been playing snackle on my,
(20m 19s) Micah:
I wish that it didn’t.
(20m 20s)
[laughter]
(20m 21s) Aislinn:
I wish that it didn’t.
(20m 23s) Micah:
I don’t want to look at it.
(20m 33s)
Yeah. I have questions and I will save them for the later.
(20m 42s) Al:
know what is the name in this device? ROGXBox
(20m 46s)
I think that’s the official title for it. So that’s the the Xbox handheld made by ROG which is ACES. So it’s actually ACES ROG Xbox
(20m 54s) Micah:
What are they doing over there?
(20m 55s) Al:
LAX. I think it’s its full official title. Look, look, this is the problem with the PC gaming market is they just don’t know
(21m) Aislinn:
I think I just call out the Aces Rogg.
(21m 4s) Al:
how to name things. But this is the thing, like this is the thing, like a calling
(21m 8s) Micah:
Xbox has been on one as far as naming stuff goes for a long time.
(21m 16s) Al:
at the Xbox ally. Would you be fine? But no, they had to like they had to because it’s ROG making it
(21m 21s)
who are owned by ACES. They had to like shovel that on the front as well. Oh, goodness. And also like
(21m 26s) Micah:
[laughs]
(21m 27s) Al:
calling it the Xbox ally X, there is a problem with calling it that because they had the the ACES ROG
(21m 33s)
ally X before, which is basically the same name. It is merger to try and Google anything about this
(21m 39s)
console. Well, yeah, so, so
(21m 40s) Micah:
[laughing]
(21m 44s)
At least you can play a snack on it though.
(21m 47s) Al:
Yeah, I haven’t talked about this here, man, because it came out on the same day the Pokemon did.
(21m 51s)
So I spent a month and a half playing nothing but Pokemon. And so now I’ve spent about week
(22m)
using it for snackle. And what I will say is great handheld. I love the ergonomics. Very nice and
(22m 6s)
powerful. It plays everything I wanted to play. The Xbox Windows interface is terrible and I wish it
(22m 13s)
it would die. (laughs)
(22m 15s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(22m 16s) Al:
And I am seriously considering installing Steam OS on this device.
(22m 20s)
I can’t get rid of Windows because obviously one of the big advantages of this is that you can install game pass games, which you can’t do on Steam OS.
(22m 29s)
So I’ll need to install it in Jubit, which when was the last time I jubited a machine that that is an era of my life I thought I was past, but apparently I am not, I am back to, I’m not just boot jubiting a machine, I’m jubiting a console now, what is happening with my life.
(22m 35s) Micah:
[Laughter]
(22m 36s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(22m 43s) Micah:
[laughing]
(22m 44s) Al:
But yeah, I think I would probably rather…
(22m 46s)
play games that I can play on Steam OS, on Steam OS, because it is just better.
(22m 50s)
It’s like, you’ll be sitting playing, you’ll be sitting doing something on the Xbox interface,
(22m 56s)
and then you click something, and it goes, “Oh, here’s our Windows window.”
(22m 59s)
And you’re like, “Why am I seeing a Windows window? Why are you opening the Windows settings for this?”
(23m 2s) Micah:
[laughs]
(23m 6s) Al:
This is a touch screen handheld console.
(23m 9s)
I want to never see Windows get that away from me, give me the things in it.
(23m 16s)
Never get that with Steam OS, unless you are doing something like, “So niche.”
(23m 21s)
You then go, “I want to see the desktop mode,” but you have to explicitly go to that.
(23m 26s)
When this handheld will just pop up random Windows from Windows.
(23m 31s)
You’re like, “Why am I seeing the Windows terminal right now? I should never be seeing the Windows terminal.
(23m 35s)
Why am I seeing this? This is absolutely dreadful.”
(23m 36s) Micah:
Yeah, that’s kind of wild.
(23m 37s) Aislinn:
That is unusual.
(23m 39s) Al:
So, they need to work a lot on the software on this, but it is a great handheld.
(23m 46s)
It’s basically way too expensive. Do not buy this machine.
(23m 49s) Micah:
[laughter]
(23m 51s) Al:
But I was feeling the limits of the power of the Steam Deck and a few things,
(23m 55s)
and so I wanted to get something, and this felt like a good one with its integration with Game Pass.
(24m 1s) Micah:
- Mm-hmm.
(24m 1s) Al:
And so now, I’m going to get rid of that integration with Game Pass, and it stalls, Steam OS.
(24m 5s) Micah:
[laughing]
(24m 8s)
- I’m sure that the price increase
(24m 8s) Al:
Yeah.
(24m 12s) Micah:
probably helped that decision, too, though.
(24m 13s)
- Mm-hmm.
(24m 14s)
[laughing]
(24m 16s) Al:
OK, I thought it was pre-COVID, but no, it’s post-COVID. OK, sure, fine.
(24m 31s) Aislinn:
It’s really been that long.
(24m 42s) Al:
I got it released basically so three nearly four years because it was five year old
(24m 47s)
four years, I’m feeling the pain of it. I didn’t have the all led version. So I was like
(24m 53s)
feeling some of the, you know, pain aspects of it. So I knew I was going to be upgrading
(24m 56s)
to something. And when they were like, oh, we’re not going to have a new steam deck coming
(25m)
out, you know, in 2026, I was like, okay, let’s try something else then. I could, I can
(25m 9s)
foresee myself going to the steam deck too when it comes out just because of how nice the software
(25m 17s)
and the idea of like manually installing it on my machine is just painful.
(25m 23s) Micah:
Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I still got my launch steam deck too. I granted I’ve done a lot of like upgrading to like, you know,
(25m 30s)
hardware upgrades to it and whatever that like, you probably aren’t doing normally, but I love it. I am a big proponent. Like my primary console consoles at this point are like the switch and the steam deck and this kind of kind of it.
(25m 46s) Al:
the Steam Deck completely changed how I game because I would buy things on the Switch if they
(25m 52s)
were on the Switch and if they weren’t on the Switch I wouldn’t play games. You know it just like
(25m 56s) Micah:
[laughing]
(25m 56s) Aislinn:
Yeah, yeah.
(25m 56s) Al:
that’s just how I was. What else now I have a handheld device that I can use to play basically any game
(25m 58s) Micah:
- Yep.
(26m 3s) Al:
and basically any game works on it and considering how many indie games and especially farming
(26m 8s)
games release on Steam it’s just it’s a complete game changer and I do think having played
(26m 14s)
now with a console that runs.
(26m 16s)
I think most people should just have a steam deck, I don’t think most people should
(26m 30s) Micah:
Right
(26m 35s) Al:
look at anything else because it has the perfect balance, I think of console versus PC.
(26m 42s)
So the advantages of console is, uh, use.
(26m 46s)
You know that if you buy a game, it’s going to work on the thing that you buy it for, right?
(26m 51s)
PC, you don’t get that, right?
(26m 52s)
Like, yeah, you’re probably going to be fine, but like, who knows?
(26m 55s)
Maybe there’s something weird in one of your pieces of hardware that means it’s not going
(26m 59s)
to work.
(27m)
Whereas because it’s like the baseline, the steam deck, you know that if it says on steam, it’s
(27m 4s)
going to work, it’s going to work.
(27m 6s)
And you know that people are testing against it.
(27m 8s)
Every game test against the steam deck now, it just is the default and that is an incredible
(27m 13s)
advantage, the bot.
(27m 16s)
if you want to customize it and you want to do weird stuff to it, you can. But none of that is in your face. None of the weirdness is in your face. You have to go find the weirdness, right? The fact that I can go and install emulators on my steam deck.
(27m 32s)
And I can integrate those emulated games specifically onto the steam interface. So I can have my Pokemon collection on the steam deck is incredible. But you don’t have to, you don’t have to do any of that.
(27m 46s)
And so being able to the, the, the customizability of a PC combined with the reliability of a console makes the steam deck almost the perfect device.
(27m 59s) Micah:
Right. Yeah, I agree.
(28m) Aislinn:
1,000% agree. And that’s why I’m, like, kind of intrigued to see the steam.
(28m 6s)
PC? What are we calling it? Whatever, we’re calling it.
(28m 7s) Al:
Hmm the steam machine is what is called
(28m 7s) Micah:
Oh yeah. Okay.
(28m 11s) Aislinn:
Yeah. I mean, intrigued to see how that pans out.
(28m 12s) Al:
Yeah, no, I
(28m 13s)
Those are gonna be really interesting and also like I’m really excited about the VR that they’ve got because I have a meta
(28m 19s)
Quest and I hate that I’m reliant on meta
(28m 24s)
For that and the fact that I could get a valve one like there is I’ve said to a couple of people like there is no company that is user
(28m 32s)
focused, it does not exist, there is not a single company that can’t.
(28m 37s)
Heres about his users. But in the gaming world, if there is one company that is closest to that, I think it’s clearly Valve at this point.
(28m 48s)
And saying this as a Nintendo Super fan, I think Valve are clearly the closest to a user-focused company.
(28m 55s)
And I would trust them over any other gaming company to provide me with hardware that I know is going to do what it’s meant to do and not feel like they’re going to suck every, every last pound out of me.
(29m 7s)
Hello, Nintendo.
(29m 7s) Micah:
right. I agree. I think just generally there’s a lot of really positive things about
(29m 9s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(29m 10s) Al:
And so, yeah.
(29m 10s) Aislinn:
I agree.
(29m 15s) Micah:
those business that like, you know, it’s still business. So it’s 100%, but like, you know,
(29m 21s) Al:
They’re still an evil capitalist company, but.
(29m 25s) Micah:
just the fact that they have such a wild split for developers too and things like that,
(29m 32s)
you know, they’re doing better than the majority, which is
(29m 37s) Aislinn:
Yes, we can give credit where credit is due, but also still give criticism
(29m 37s) Micah:
you know, totally. Yeah.
(29m 42s) Al:
Yeah, yeah. So my point is being able to replace my meta quest run by one of the most evil
(29m 49s)
companies in the world of all time with a valve run one that we know is going to work
(29m 56s)
with everything, right? You can, you know your games are going to work on it. It’s an incredible
(30m 2s)
idea. And the fact that you can also then plug in your dongle into your more powerful device
(30m 6s)
and play more powerful games that can’t quite run on that is an incredible idea.
(30m 12s)
I absolutely love that. The question is how much it’s going to be. And we don’t know and that’s going to be,
(30m 15s) Micah:
Right.
(30m 16s) Aislinn:
- Yeah.
(30m 17s) Al:
that’s going to be the difference between oh this is a cool thing for hobbyists and this is game change.
(30m 23s) Micah:
Yep. Totally. I am very nervous about that, especially the like, you know, kind of
(30m 28s)
Hemingon hawing. They’ve done so far about like, it’s going to be priced more in
(30m 34s)
the like PC range sort of like, I don’t know, I don’t know, but we’ll see.
(30m 41s) Al:
It’s probably important that they don’t lose money on it because
(30m 45s)
Steam will not make as much money on games as Nintendo or Sony etc. Will make and we want them to be able to continue making a good thing
(30m 57s)
Because it is self-sufficient and making the money, but also if it costs too much money
(31m 2s)
It’s not nobody’s gonna buy it
(31m 3s) Aislinn:
Yeah. Yeah.
(31m 3s) Micah:
Yeah. Right. Exactly.
(31m 5s) Al:
He says having bought an 800 pound the handheld console
(31m 11s)
I’m not a good example of the the standard game buyer. Don’t be like me
(31m 18s) Aislinn:
But also no hate if you are.
(31m 21s) Al:
But also don’t be like me. So all right, that’s what we’ve been up to
How This Works
(31m 26s) Al:
Oh, yeah, I’ve also been played Pokemon, but we talked a lot about that both in this episode and in the other episode
(31m 30s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(31m 30s) Micah:
We did.
(31m 33s) Al:
Oh, what?
(31m 35s)
Okay, so explanation of this episode. We are gonna talk about
(31m 39s)
games that I’ve come out
(31m 41s)
and we’re going to talk a lot about them and hopefully not too long, so that I can go to bed.
(31m 50s)
So, we have three sections in this podcast. We have the update of the year, we have the early access game of the year, and we have the game of the year.
(31m 50s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(31m 51s) Micah:
[laughs]
(32m) Al:
Also this year, I put, so I think last year I had a poll to the other hosts on the podcast, so we got some more input than just the people on the podcast.
(32m 9s)
forecast this year, I extended that poll.
(32m 11s)
just to go through this for the update of the year and the early access of the year, we will just officially nominate every one that came out because those lists are shorter, but I mean, the updates list is still quite long, but we’ll get to that.
(32m 36s)
Then the three of us for those two will take into
(32m 41s)
a position for the game of the year, we will explicitly go through our individual lists of what our games of the year will be, like what our nominations will be, and then I will also add on stuff from the poll and then from those nominations because we’re not just going to nominate every game because there’s far too many, we will make a decision as to what the game of the year is.
(33m 6s)
One of us will probably come out of this angry.
(33m 9s)
And that’s just life and
(33m 11s)
I’m sure someone in this lack will be angry as well. But that is that is just life.
(33m 17s) Aislinn:
I’m flexible, so I’m ready to not be angry.
(33m 17s) Micah:
So goes. Yeah, have a-
(33m 20s) Al:
Well look let’s wait until we actually know what we’re nominating because the three of us don’t know what we’re not each of us is nominating for game of the year. We don’t tell each other that and I have it explicitly hidden in the our show note so that we can’t see until we actually talk about it. So it’s going to be interesting, although I do have a very strong theory for what I think
(33m 21s) Aislinn:
I say now.
(33m 41s) Al:
the two finalists will be, but we’ll we’ll come to that. So first up, we have update of the year and just as a reminder, we started this category last year because we wanted to give starchy a win, so 2024 starchy 1.6 won the update of the year. And of course now we have to continue and actually give a second update of God a reward. So here we go. The nominations for update of the year are
Update Of The Year
(34m 8s) Al:
are Teranelle Heatwave.
(34m 11s)
Mika and the Witch’s Mountain into the mount, gone.
(34m 17s)
I think it’s gone.
(34m 19s)
Luma Island Pirates.
(34m 21s)
Particular Frozen Frontier.
(34m 23s)
Song of the Prairie 1.2.
(34m 25s)
Spirit tea, phantom friends.
(34m 27s)
Ooh, Disney Dreamlight Valley Tales of Agriba.
(34m 30s)
Disney Dreamlight Valley Wonderland, whimsy.
(34m 32s)
Disney Dreamlight Valley the Storybook Vale.
(34m 35s)
Disney Dreamlight Valley Whisplot.
(34m 37s)
Wish Blossom Ranch.
(34m 38s)
I wish Blossom Ranch.
(34m 41s)
Palia Elderwood expansion, ever after falls 2.0, Dave the Diver, Ishiban’s Holiday.
(34m 47s)
Rust user time and cross vampire survivors, Hello Kitty friends furniture and frozen beaks.
(34m 54s)
Hello Kitty sunshine celebration, Ritz of Patcho 1.3, Snacko 1.1, Everdream Valley Family Time,
(35m 1s)
Lens Island 1.1 and Spiritie 2.0.
(35m 5s) Aislinn:
Woo!
(35m 6s) Micah:
You made it. I was a marathon.
(35m 11s) Al:
Let’s go through the opinions from the poll first so we have that and we can discuss if there’s ones that we think should be.
(35m 17s)
So Kevin has said Mika, the Mika update, Mika became a full/finished game with this update.
(35m 24s)
It’s a great reason to go back and even fill heart heart and even fill hearted recommend and all for free.
(35m 32s)
So Kevin said, Kat from the Slack also said Mika, didn’t add any more comment.
(35m 38s)
Nami said Disney dream up.
(35m 41s)
some ranch. I liked talking about the Disney horses. Spencer said Disney Dream lot Valley
(35m 47s)
Storybook Vale with no comment and Cody said Lens Island 1.1 with no comment. So what do you
(35m 53s)
think? Have you got any particular exciting updates that you thought was the update of the year?
(36m) Aislinn:
I personally thought it was pretty sick
(36m 3s)
to see Rusty’s retirement and vampire survivors,
(36m 8s)
especially considering I now like both games very much so.
(36m 14s)
Also from this entire list in regards to the updates,
(36m 17s)
the only two games that I’ve played
(36m 19s)
is Rusty’s retirement, it’s not go to be fair.
(36m 23s) Al:
And you played Snackle not before the 1.1 update, so.
(36m 23s) Aislinn:
So, nope, that’s a note that I made to myself.
(36m 27s) Al:
[laughing]
(36m 28s) Micah:
[laughs]
(36m 28s) Aislinn:
I was like, I don’t even know
(36m 30s)
my experience because as far as I know,
(36m 31s)
this has been my experience.
(36m 32s) Al:
I think it’s the one, I think it added cookie.
(36m 35s) Aislinn:
Yes.
(36m 37s) Al:
Yes, it was the culinary update, correct, yes, cool.
(36m 39s)
I should have added that into the list, I will.
(36m 42s)
Okay, so like, I don’t, I mean, are you saying
(36m 45s)
you don’t have one currently?
(36m 46s)
Or are you saying the rusty’s retirement
(36m 48s)
across vampire survivors is what you think should win?
(36m 52s) Aislinn:
I would say for Mike, for my experience, considering it’s very limited, I would say
(36m 58s)
Rusty’s, but I also recognize that Lens Island was a big one, so I can kind of give something
(37m 5s)
to that.
(37m 6s)
I don’t know, because obviously I’ve never played Disney Dream like Validate Valley.
(37m 10s)
I don’t know if I would say any of them could be updated a year, I only say that because
(37m 16s)
I feel like that game is always getting updates, so it’s like, what can we consider
(37m 22s)
the year if that game is always being updated?
(37m 26s) Al:
I think I would mostly agree with you there. I think that the, I think there is an argument,
(37m 31s)
I’m not, I’m not making this argument, but I think there is an argument for Wish Blossom Ranch,
(37m 35s)
adding the horses, like I do feel like that feels like a significant update. I agree generally
(37m 40s)
that I don’t think any other Disney Dreamlight Valley update ever is going to entice people to come
(37m 46s)
and play the game with they haven’t already been enticed to do it, any more than the base game would.
(37m 52s)
and nor do I think that someone who’s like fallen out of the game and they haven’t
(37m 56s)
played it for the last year is going to look at any of them and go oh it’s
(37m 59s)
time to go back in except maybe wish blossom ranch because adding in the
(38m 4s)
horses does feel like a significant thing I don’t think it it’s not my game it’s
(38m 8s)
not my update of the year I just like like I think if any of them have an
(38m 11s) Aislinn:
that’s fair, that’s fair. I’ll also give credit to Mika, but the only criticism I have
(38m 12s) Al:
argument I think that would be the one that has a
(38m 22s) Aislinn:
to is that I understand it’s an indeed studio indie game, everything, but the fact that
(38m 29s)
it needed an update to feel like a full game is unusual to me. I don’t know if it’s bad,
(38m 34s)
I don’t know if it’s good. It’s just unusual to me, but I am glad that it like fixed the
(38m 41s)
game significantly, so I’d like, I’m very happy to hear that.
(38m 45s) Al:
Have you played, have neither of you played me, alright?
(38m 47s) Micah:
I could totally mesh with that.
(38m 49s)
I played it when it came out, because I backed it on Kickstarter.
(38m 56s)
Uh, but I have not played it.
(39m 1s) Al:
Yeah, yeah. No, that’s fair. So I love Becca, right? Like it was, it was one of my favorite
(39m 1s) Micah:
So take that for what it’s worth.
(39m 3s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(39m 8s) Al:
games of last year. And the update I do think was a, I think I would probably say this is my update
(39m 14s)
of the year. I think that their decision to release some of the features of the game in updates
(39m 23s)
did feel a little bit not great, but those updates were in the
(39m 31s)
previous update that came out last year, not in this one. Right. I think the part, the first update,
(39m 36s)
which I can’t remember the name of, was the one that felt to me like it should have been the
(39m 41s)
first release. The into the month mount gone added stuff that I know Kevin said it makes it feel
(39m 48s)
like a fill game. I think it felt like a fill game after the first update. I think the second update
(39m 54s)
felt like, ooh, some more stuff rather than, okay, now it’s a, now it’s a fill game, you know.
(40m 1s)
So that would be my, I think the mica should win this because I think that update is great.
(40m 6s)
The game was great before it. I think if this hadn’t come, it wouldn’t have felt
(40m 11s)
unfinished personally. I suspect Kevin is merging those two updates together because they did
(40m 16s)
come out like only a couple of months apart. And I think originally the where it just meant to be
(40m 22s)
one update, but they came out as two updates. But I think it was.
(40m 31s)
A good update. I did like dungeons into the game, which didn’t feel like they needed to be there
(40m 36s)
in the first place, but where I’ve fun extra challenge afterwards. And as Kevin says, it
(40m 41s)
it was free update as well. So like there’s only so much you can complain about a free update.
(40m 47s) Aislinn:
Right. I am happy to give it a win. It’s so hard for me to speak on it because I have not
(40m 57s)
really any strong opinions about any of these. A note that I did make though is that the
(41m 4s)
day of the diver update, I heard there was a lot of hype about it. I don’t…
(41m 8s) Al:
If I’m not, if I’m not wrong, I feel like there was hype about it, but ended up being disappointing this one in particular as you, it’s your band’s holiday correct me from wrong. I didn’t play it. She bands holiday and also it was a paid DLC.
(41m 20s)
Um, I, I don’t know, did Micah, did you play it?
(41m 21s) Aislinn:
Oh yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Yeah. I did write that down yet.
(41m 26s) Micah:
I did not. I didn’t actually even know that it existed until I was looking over the like
(41m 31s) Al:
You’ve played, you’ve played Dave the Diver though, right?
(41m 31s) Micah:
show notes for this. And I wrote, I have, yeah. And I wrote in my nominations for update.
(41m 35s) Al:
Yeah.
(41m 41s) Micah:
I wrote Snacco, because that I think, and I think I’ll get to that more later for why
(41m 48s)
I voted Snacco for update of the year, but I also wrote, yeah, because the Dave the Diver
(41m 54s)
across over rules.
(41m 56s)
Because I like the idea of that, but that’s the extent of it.
(42m)
Uh, each bond as a character in the Yakuza franchise is one of my favorites.
(42m 5s)
He’s just, he’s incredible.
(42m 9s)
So I’m, I’m very interested to go back to David.
(42m 13s)
I would be because of that, but I don’t know if it’s enough to like, you know, for me to call
(42m 18s)
it updated the especially having that played it, but also just like a collab being
(42m 26s)
you know, like updated the year, I don’t know if that, that is, is valid for me.
(42m 31s)
A valid enough for me to, to call it updated the
(42m 34s) Al:
I think I, yeah, I agree with it. I don’t think I would, I would strongly fight against the age of
(42m 40s)
anxiety being update of the year for two reasons. One, um, it’s, it’s, it’s a time limited
(42m 47s)
paid DLC, which I really don’t like just as a concept, right? That is really not great. Um,
(42m 54s)
and to having a look at the reviews on Steam, they are very mixed on this. And most people
(43m 1s)
saying it’s really short. Why is this paid compared to the other
(43m 4s)
ones like I think the the Godzilla DLC which was a free DLC but still time limited which I
(43m 10s)
still don’t like it being time limited. There’s not great but at least it was free. That was pretty
(43m 17s)
short as well but it felt fun and it felt good. If I had paid how much is the H. Ben’s Holiday one?
(43m 26s)
Six pounds. If I had paid six pounds for the Godzilla DLC I would not have been happy but having it free I
(43m 33s)
I think was really good.
(43m 34s)
And because of the amount it was, it felt like a fun addition to the story, but from why I can see this seems to be shorter than that and paid, which doesn’t feel good.
(43m 40s) Micah:
Sure
(43m 45s)
Yeah, hey, it makes me wonder what the like what went on behind the scenes to make it so different and it’s I was would assume some sort of rights negotiation
(43m 54s) Al:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s for sure rights. They’re, but, but all of their DLCs, I think are time limited.
(43m 59s) Micah:
That has like you know
(44m 3s)
Oh, I mean as far as like price goes and stuff, you know like charging for it
(44m 4s) Aislinn:
Oh, interesting.
(44m 6s) Al:
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why was this one? Why was this one paid, but why was the dredge in Godzilla one’s free? Yeah. Yeah. Weird.
(44m 10s) Micah:
Right like did they have to pay more for the rights to to each bond and did they you know, which is funny to think about considering that Godzilla is like
(44m 22s) Al:
- Yeah.
(44m 22s) Micah:
You know, but who knows maybe Godzilla is kind of like
(44m 27s)
What is it Winnie the poo that’s like, you know, he can anybody can make whatever out of it?
(44m 29s) Al:
So I think they were doing the Godzilla one for free, because I think it was, they viewed it as advertising, because it was a round, it was just after Godzilla minus one came out.
(44m 30s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(44m 40s) Micah:
I see. Yeah.
(44m 44s) Al:
So I think it was like, no, we want people to go and see our film, please.
(44m 50s) Aislinn:
Yeah, I, well, I guess to to circle back to Snacko, I’m curious to hear your thoughts,
(44m 57s)
Michael, in regards to like, why you would nominate this the update? Or yeah,
(45m 2s) Micah:
And I
(45m 7s)
Guess what I’ll say is you know what it’s there will be plenty of discussion, so I’m just gonna I’m just gonna spit it out now, but I
(45m 16s)
Think snacko is great
(45m 17s)
I did not nominate it for game of the year and this is my kind of compromise is that
(45m 23s)
Giving it update of the year is sort of my like compromise for not nominating it for game of the year
(45m 29s) Aislinn:
Okay.
(45m 30s) Al:
I don’t… I would not want to give it update of the year just now in exchange for not giving
(45m 31s) Micah:
Also, I didn’t play a lot.
(45m 32s)
I’m not a fan of these. So…
(45m 40s) Al:
it game of the year later, right? Like I think those conversations need to be separate.
(45m 46s)
I mean, I guess we could say let’s table the discussion for now. Do the rest of the
(45m 52s) Micah:
What I will say is that because I didn’t play a lot of these updates, I was kind of picking
(45m 53s) Al:
episode and come back depending on what happens out of the game of the year?
(46m 6s) Micah:
and choosing what I have played and what I think I could reasonably, you know, I have
(46m 14s)
played a lot of, like I played a lot of Hellkitty Island event, but like it’s not, I didn’t
(46m 21s)
play a lot of updates. So I don’t.
(46m 22s)
I don’t really know, you know, like, uh, haven’t played any of the
(46m 26s)
paleo update. It haven’t touched dreamlight Valley in a very long time.
(46m 31s)
So as far as updates go, I am very, you know, snacko was kind of my
(46m 35s)
compromise for myself as like, I love that game. And I wish that I had, you
(46m 40s)
know, more to be able to like place it in in game of the year, but I still
(46m 45s)
love that game. And that’s why I was, I kind of put it there. I am not very, I
(46m 52s)
have very strong feelings about update of the year. So I am willing to
(46m 57s) Aislinn:
[laughs]
(46m 57s) Micah:
flex a lot on this one. So, you know, I wouldn’t take this as like, I’m
(47m 3s)
arguing for snacko to be culinary update to be game of the year or
(47m 4s) Al:
Yeah, yeah, no, no, that’s fair.
(47m 7s) Micah:
updated the year. It’s just in the context of what I have played or have not
(47m 12s) Aislinn:
- Yeah, I mean, I got it.
(47m 12s) Al:
So there’s one there’s one more suggestion that I haven’t said that I was in my list of
(47m 18s)
these are the things I’m going to suggest for winning update of the year. My first one was Mika.
(47m 21s) Micah:
Mm-hmm
(47m 23s) Al:
I wasn’t going to suggest 1.1.1 purely because I might discuss it later on in the episode,
(47m 31s) Micah:
[laughter]
(47m 32s) Al:
but also because it is an update that focuses on cooking, which is never my
(47m 38s)
Never a thing that I enjoy in farming games.
(47m 39s) Micah:
and see I do so but that’s okay that’s okay we can we’ll get there
(47m 42s) Al:
But that’s fair, but also I do obviously once and I go to win something, but the other thing I was going to suggest is nothing wins update of the year, because I have not been other than Mika, I’ve not been like super excited by any of the updates this year.
(47m 57s) Micah:
[laughter]
(48m 7s) Al:
Phil stop, like nothing, I, I, it feels like it’s a week.
(48m 9s) Aislinn:
I, yeah.
(48m 12s) Al:
You’re for updates for farming.
(48m 15s) Aislinn:
For-for additional context, a lot of the notes that I took on every game was…
(48m 21s)
Seems like I literally copied and pasted it.
(48m 24s)
Seems like a good free update.
(48m 26s)
Seems like a standard free update.
(48m 28s)
Not interested in the game, but seems like a good free update seems like a good paid update.
(48m 34s)
That’s-I wrote a lot of that for a lot of these updates.
(48m 37s)
I was just like, this seems pretty stan-
(48m 39s)
Standard. This seems pretty good. That’s it!
(48m 44s) Al:
I also hate the idea of giving it to nothing,
(48m 48s)
but also like that is an argument for it.
(48m 49s) Micah:
I need to, but I also don’t love the idea of like, I’m with Hazel and on that, like, I don’t love the idea of it, I will, you know, I will hand it to, to Mika if it goes that route, but like, because it is, you know, a great game, you know, they, that, that team worked very hard on this, I love a lot of stuff that they’ve made, but I, I do feel a little bit weird about giving it to something that like the update.
(49m 19s)
is what made the game finished, you know, kind of, but that’s also coming from the context of like not having actually played set up date. So I, I, I’m going off of what other people are saying the update did for the game rather than my own experience of it. So.
(49m 38s) Aislinn:
I’m not saying this is a direct comparison.
(49m 40s)
So take this with a green assault, but the context of giving Mika the update of the year in my
(49m 47s)
head right now, there’s a slight comparison happening where it’s like, oh, this update helped
(49m 52s)
to finish this game is like giving Pokemon Legends ZA switch to version update of the year,
(50m 1s)
because they made it better or start out Legends ZA, sorry, Scarlett and Violet updated the year.
(50m 8s)
because they finally fixed the graphics relatively speaking in this for the switch too.
(50m 13s) Micah:
Yeah. And again, I don’t know.
(50m 14s) Al:
So, as the only player, a person who has actually played the entire game before the update
(50m 14s) Aislinn:
So again, not a direct comparison, but just something that I just thought about.
(50m 23s) Al:
and then played the update afterwards, that’s not a fair comparison at all.
(50m 28s) Aislinn:
Okay, that’s fair.
(50m 30s) Al:
I think it’s, and as I said, I think it’s totally fair to make an argument about the first
(50m 35s)
Mika update.
(50m 36s)
I do think that is a fair argument.
(50m 38s)
I think that should have been the 1.0, and it’s the same sort of argument that I’ve made
(50m 43s)
about Carl Island one point.
(50m 44s)
One that should be the one point. Oh, but I think that into the
(50m 48s)
mon gone mountain gone. I just to keep saying it the wrong way. I’m
(50m 51s) Micah:
[laughing]
(50m 52s) Al:
sure I think at one point, I think at one point, the rotor is
(50m 55s)
Mont rather than mount because they’re, I think they’re Italian. So it
(50m 59s) Micah:
and it changed forever. I think they’re Spanish. I think they’re from Spain, yeah.
(50m 59s) Al:
was a translation issue is a Spanish not Italian. My bad, that’s a
(51m 5s)
big mistake to make. I.
(51m 6s) Micah:
Uh, you know, I would be a fairer comparison to, because just contextually from what I’m
(51m 7s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(51m 19s) Micah:
hearing and what, you know, people said, like, it would be a fairer comparison to, say,
(51m 26s)
in the same vein as how
(51m 29s)
animal crossing, new horizons, got a lot of updates that added stuff to it that made it feel like everybody kind of argued that the game felt more finished once they had all the updates in it, but they should have included them in the final release anyways, is that kind of there’s that well, you know, I don’t necessarily agree with this because I think that like, you know, I think it’s an unfair way to look at it, especially in the context of,
(51m 59s)
the time, you know, the what was happening with games at the time, right.
(52m) Al:
Yeah, like yeah, exactly like new horizons would not have been what it was if it hadn’t released when it did
(52m 6s)
And so saying like it should have had the next two years worth of updates included when it came out is such a bizarre
(52m 13s)
Argument because it doesn’t mean anything you’re talking about something that doesn’t exist and never would have existed
(52m 15s) Micah:
I think the argument was that it was mechanics that felt like they were patched in after the fact that weren’t finished in time for releases what the like the mentality of
(52m 28s) Al:
Yeah, maybe, but that’s also like, I don’t think it’s fair to say like, that is something
(52m 35s)
that like, whoa, that is not an unusual thing nowadays, and I’m not saying that to
(52m 42s)
mean that like, games should come out broken and fix themselves, but like, do people think
(52m 46s) Micah:
-Mm-hmm.
(52m 48s) Al:
that Fortnite should have been released as it currently is?
(52m 51s) Micah:
[laughs]
(52m 51s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(52m 53s) Al:
You know, like that sort of comparison, like a game releasing and then having updates,
(52m 55s) Micah:
-Sure.
(52m 58s) Al:
feels like such a ’90s view on things.
(53m) Micah:
-Yeah, I think that there are some instances where, like,
(53m 4s)
the corporate hands get in the way of whether or not
(53m 10s)
something is released, like, ready for release,
(53m 15s) Al:
Yeah. Fair.
(53m 16s) Micah:
on the developer side.
(53m 18s)
And I can see where that is, you know,
(53m 21s)
and that I think tends to be more
(53m 23s)
a complaint about, like, the corporation that
(53m 27s)
is in control of that, rather than the developers themselves.
(53m 32s)
And I can understand that frustration.
(53m 36s)
I say this fully as a, like, massive enjoyer of New Horizons,
(53m 41s)
one of my, you know, favorite Switch era games.
(53m 46s)
I loved it, and I still love it.
(53m 48s)
I still play it fairly regularly.
(53m 52s)
But I can’t understand where I think, again, like,
(53m 57s)
we don’t know all the behind-the-scenes,
(53m 59s)
all the inner workings, everything that’s going on.
(54m 1s)
So we don’t know what was planned for release
(54m 4s)
and what wasn’t, I think, that, like, using it
(54m 8s)
as a comparison for things that existed previously
(54m 12s)
in Animal Crossing games that didn’t make it
(54m 14s)
until it was an opportunity.
(54m 16s)
I think it’s a great update later on is a little bit more understandable as a like…
(54m 22s) Al:
I get your part. Okay. I get your point. The comparison is more fair. I just disagree with the
(54m 28s)
starting point of that animal crossing your horizon should have released with
(54m 32s)
all everything that it currently has in the game. Like, I just, I just disagree with that
(54m 34s) Micah:
Sure. Sure. Right.
(54m 36s) Al:
feels stop. And so therefore, as a comparison, it’s fair, but it doesn’t argue against this update
(54m 42s)
being the update of the year, because I don’t think I would say it’s like, I would say multiple
(54m 48s)
of the, I would say the farming update, for example, of, I can’t even remember.
(54m 52s)
One that one was, but the one that I did farming into the, into Animal Crossing, I could argue would be the update of that year.
(54m 57s) Micah:
Mm-hmm.
(54m 59s) Al:
Like I think that is, that was a good update and I like, does it make the original game any less than it was?
(55m 5s)
Like the, the fundamental problems that some people have with Animal Crossing, your horizons were never fixed.
(55m 12s) Micah:
- Right.
(55m 12s) Al:
And so if, if it had better conversations with and felt like the villagers were more real people at the beginning,
(55m 22s)
complained about the other things that were added, well, you know, obviously some people would because there’s always going to be someone to complain, but like, it would feel, it would feel less fair to argue about those things because these are just new things coming into the game.
(55m 25s) Micah:
I mean, yeah, everybody’s gonna complain about something eventually, but…
(55m 35s) Al:
We, we got two years worth of updates for that game and then people complained when they didn’t add more, you know, like, I, I think.
(55m 35s) Micah:
Yeah Oh, well totally, absolutely I and as someone who is very laid back about a lot of this stuff like I am very much like taken as it comes
(55m 41s) Aislinn:
[laughs]
(55m 50s) Micah:
I do whatever they decide they want to do even at the you know
(55m 54s)
At the behest of like the corporation who’s got their hands in it and is dictating how it goes
(56m 1s)
I’m still pretty laid back about a lot of stuff.
(56m 5s)
But I can see we’re Animal Crossing New Horizons, some of the things like as an example, the museum not having a top floor and it just goes to know where until they, you know, patching what was supposed to be there, things like that where there are like little things where you can see they probably ran out of time on some of this stuff.
(56m 25s) Al:
But how much of that is running out of time and how much of that is
(56m 30s) Micah:
I mean, for some of that stuff, I can agree with, but for things.
(56m 35s)
That feel much more egregious like a top floor that goes nowhere. I think it’s a little less like, you know, and maybe it was. Maybe it was. I don’t know, but
(56m 40s) Al:
I don’t know. I like, I actually, I thought that was one of the examples of like, oh, there’s
(56m 46s)
cli, like when they fit released the first update, you go back and you look at things differently,
(56m 50s)
and you’re like, oh, this clearly going to be something here in the museum. We were all talking
(56m 54s) Micah:
Sure. Yeah.
(56m 54s) Al:
about that. There’s clearly going to be something in the museum. We didn’t know what it would be,
(56m 58s)
but we was clearly going to be something.
(57m) Micah:
Right. Yeah. And I think especially because the game didn’t like, you know, adding that stuff
(57m 7s)
didn’t change the like end game for anybody. It didn’t change like the the the full experience of
(57m 16s)
of the game. I think that that’s understandable too and changes, you know, the argument about like
(57m 24s)
what I’m quote unfinished. I think and again, I think that it’s totally reasonable that they’re to
(57m 30s)
expect that there are things just like with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet like probably a lot of stuff
(57m 37s)
behind the scenes that included the Switch 2 development cycle and the and how the pandemic impacted
(57m 44s)
that and how the Pokemon merch machine needs to keep moving and, but you know, that that probably
(57m 51s)
hindered a lot of what happened behind the scenes.
(57m 54s)
And so I think it’s fair to say that, like, expect that probably there are things that they just ran out of time on and I think there are certainly things that felt like that in Animal Crossing New Horizons, but to say that it’s a like detriment to the game is unfair for sure, but you know, I think if it’s if it’s something that does wind up being this is what completes the game, this is what makes the game complete and it’s you know.
(58m 24s)
Two years or whatever after the release, then I think it there’s a little bit more of like a question about like for me at least if like, okay, well, does that, does that, you know, does that make it the the like definitive experience then or is the like pre update the defeat, you know, I don’t know, but again, this is also coming from someone who has not played this specific me go update I’m just trying to get a little bit more understanding of how.
(58m 54s)
Hopefully the update impacts the how the game turned out after the fact, sorry, it’s going to go ahead.
(59m) Aislinn:
Yeah, that was going to be my question.
(59m 1s)
No, that was pretty much exactly my question.
(59m 3s)
I was like, this update with Mika, how did it affect the end game at all?
(59m 9s) Al:
No, no, it was it’s it’s not something you realistically could have done before and game
(59m 16s) Micah:
Okay, well, yeah, then that that changes it for sure
(59m 17s) Aislinn:
So then in that case, there’s a lot of winded conversations.
(59m 17s) Al:
It’s definitely postgame stuff
(59m 23s) Aislinn:
I think then that I’m happy to give it to Mika.
(59m 25s) Al:
Again the the first update the first update absolutely is and should have been the 1.0 release
(59m 30s)
I well it was the 1.0 release
(59m 32s)
They’ve released it in early access for some reason and then release two updates within three months and suddenly it wasn’t in early access
(59m 38s)
I will never understand.
(59m 39s)
And that decision they should have just released the first update as the 1.0 that’s when you release it and then mount gone as an update later on I think should have been the decision I don’t know why they made the decision they made.
(59m 51s)
But be that as it made that update added a bunch of stuff that did change how you play the game as you go through and I think should have been the first version.
(1h 2s)
But the said the the the manga on is basically post game dungeons which.
(1h 9s)
The other the other thing to say is that I think there is as Kevin says in his his comment it’s a great reason to go back and I do think there is something to do that and it’s a hard balance to make.
(1h 22s)
I do think that sometimes updates to games are a good reason to go back in. Would I have gone back to stardew last year without 1.6 coming out probably not some people do but I probably wouldn’t have.
(1h 26s) Micah:
Sure. I agree.
(1h 35s) Al:
But I went back and spent another 150 hours in that game.
(1h 36s) Micah:
Yeah. [laughs]
(1h 39s) Al:
Because that update came out.
(1h 41s)
It was the first time I perfected the game.
(1h 43s)
The first time I did everything in the game.
(1h 45s)
So, like, it’s a hard balance to make.
(1h 49s)
I do think the start you probably has the right balance of any game of doing it.
(1h 54s)
Disney Dreamlight Valley has completely the wrong direction.
(1h 58s)
Right?
(1h 59s)
They have really too many updates with too little content.
(1h 1m 2s)
You’re like, oh, here’s another update.
(1h 1m 4s)
It’s got two new characters.
(1h 1m 6s)
Cool.
(1h 1m 7s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 1m 7s) Al:
All right, what am I going to do?
(1h 1m 9s)
I’m going to go back next year to the jungle.
(1h 1m 26s)
I can’t remember the jungle update, I can’t remember what it’s called.
(1h 1m 29s)
Am I going to go back and play that? Maybe? Maybe it’s been long enough now,
(1h 1m 33s)
but had I completed the game and then three months later, the Godzilla one came out,
(1h 1m 37s)
Would I go back just to play the game?
(1h 1m 39s)
I’m going to contradict myself here because it was a small update. It just added a bunch of postgame dungeons and nothing else, but also that game isn’t a massive game in and of itself. Right? Like you can complete that game in about 10 hours I think.
(1h 2m 2s)
It just adds a couple more hours into an already great game and it probably came about the right sort of time that hadn’t completely forgotten.
(1h 2m 9s)
about the game and if it came out now, would I go back?
(1h 2m 15s) Aislinn:
I think with that with that context in mind
(1h 2m 17s)
of like, this is not necessarily a strict criteria
(1h 2m 20s)
but keeping cutting in the back of our heads
(1h 2m 23s)
with updates or trying to decide on the update of the year.
(1h 2m 27s)
Knowing or yeah, keeping and keeping the context of
(1h 2m 31s)
would I go back to this game and either replay the game
(1h 2m 37s)
or sink in however many more hours into the game.
(1h 2m 40s)
I think that’s a general criteria
(1h 2m 42s)
that’s good to kind of keep in mind
(1h 2m 43s)
with the update of the year?
(1h 2m 45s)
And from what it sounds like with Snacko, it’s hard for me to say, because I didn’t play it before, but for what it sounds like a Snacko, I think while cooking can be really cool for people, I don’t know if that’s necessarily an update that would bring people back to the game.
(1h 3m 2s)
The DLC for Day the Diver, I don’t know if that’s something that would bring people back to the game. Lens Island? I don’t know either. Horses maybe?
(1h 3m 12s) Al:
Again, I played Lens Island after the 1.0 came out, so I can’t, I’m not even sure what was in the 1.1 update because I, yeah, I played it. I didn’t play it. Pre 1.1.
(1h 3m 24s)
Oh, that was a community feedback update.
(1h 3m 24s) Aislinn:
Right, I mean, it’s great that they are very involved with their community. That’s a really awesome
(1h 3m 27s) Al:
It, I don’t, yeah, yeah, I know it was like there was camera settings and chunk loading settings and a sorting button for storage items.
(1h 3m 29s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 3m 40s) Al:
I don’t, they added a bunch of stuff.
(1h 3m 42s)
Stuff that is good, but also I, if we’re going to go back to the like argument of what should be in a 1.0, a lot of these things are like, you can now move items, whereas previously you had to delete and recreate them.
(1h 3m 57s) Micah:
Mmm, I’d see.
(1h 4m)
Yeah…
(1h 4m) Aislinn:
Yeah, I feel that sentiment. I feel that sentiment as well. Whatever that sound is, I get it. I agree.
(1h 4m 6s) Al:
I don’t think it should be lines island 1.1, and I agree with you, I don’t think it should be snack a 1.1 because, yeah, cooking is not.
(1h 4m 12s)
what I want to go back and take aim for.
(1h 4m 14s) Aislinn:
It might be for some people, but I feel like for me, I’m the same way.
(1h 4m 18s) Micah:
I think also especially after so soon after.
(1h 4m 28s)
Maybe that it’s it’s not it doesn’t really it who knows maybe like people are coming coming back to it because of the cooking
(1h 4m 36s)
But like you probably if you’re playing snack, oh, you probably maybe you still playing it or like it’s still pretty fresh to you
(1h 4m 43s)
So there’s not really much of a need to come back, but I don’t know I am very prepared to
(1h 4m 51s)
default to what the consensus is
(1h 4m 56s)
for update of the year.
(1h 4m 58s) Al:
Well, and we did have two people on the pole saying Mika and nothing else got to two votes so
(1h 4m 59s) Micah:
Just to clarify.
(1h 5m 2s)
I did hear it quite a bit.
(1h 5m 4s)
Did Disney dream live on it?
(1h 5m 6s)
Valley not have to.
(1h 5m 6s) Al:
It had for two different updates and we are we are not doing
(1h 5m 7s) Micah:
I thought I’d heard it at you, but.
(1h 5m 9s)
Oh, got it.
(1h 5m 15s) Al:
Rank choice voting here. Sorry
Update Of The Year Winner
(1h 5m 19s) Al:
Okay, I mean it sounds like we’re giving it sounds like nobody’s really got an argument against it being Mika anymore
(1h 5m 25s) Micah:
Yeah.
(1h 5m 25s) Aislinn:
enough I am pretty I feel comfortable about that and after tube if it helps too
(1h 5m 26s) Micah:
- No.
(1h 5m 28s)
I had questions, you answered them,
(1h 5m 34s) Aislinn:
after like looking through all of these and everything considering I haven’t
(1h 5m 38s)
played a lot of these games Mika was a game that shot up and like oh I would
(1h 5m 42s)
like to play the student rather than later this update also added to me
(1h 5m 46s)
wanted to check out the game more so
(1h 5m 48s) Al:
I think Chibi Games might be the first people to win two of the years from our podcast,
(1h 5m 55s)
because they of course won 2020 with Summer in Mara. So there we go, a first.
(1h 5m 58s) Micah:
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
(1h 6m) Al:
All right, let’s go slightly faster for this next section, because we’ve only got 45 minutes left
Early Access Of The Year
(1h 6m 6s) Al:
before Mike needs to leave. Early access of the year. So this was also added last year,
(1h 6m 11s)
and we gave it last year to fields of mystery. I’ve only, I’ve
(1h 6m 18s)
limited it to games that have released in early access this year. So we’re not including games that
(1h 6m 22s)
were released in early access before and are still in early access. They can get another shot
(1h 6m 27s)
at a game when they released a 1.0. So the nominations list are Abyss, New Dawn, Artisan Story,
(1h 6m 33s)
Chronomon, Dolok Town, Galactic Getaway, Grimshire, Honeymancer, Hotel Galactic, Out and
(1h 6m 39s)
About, Seeds of Calamity, Starbirds, Superforming By, Tales of Sake You, Voyages of Nara.
(1h 6m 48s)
Our opinions from the poll are Kevin says, “Despite clearly lacking a lot, including a reason to keep
(1h 6m 55s)
playing, Starbirds works technically well, has a delightful art style and has lots of potential.”
(1h 7m)
And then everyone else said nothing, except Cat gave a reason why they were saying nothing.
(1h 7m 3s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 7m 10s) Al:
I’m basically abstaining from this because I only have anti-votes against Tales of Sake You,
(1h 7m 15s)
and ran so poorly my perfectly good PC could barely.
(1h 7m 18s)
And hotel galactic sounded like a nightmare launch.
(1h 7m 22s)
No early access really grabbed me this year.
(1h 7m 24s) Aislinn:
I agree with those two anti-votes. Obviously haven’t played either of those, but only early
(1h 7m 25s) Al:
Disguss!
(1h 7m 32s) Aislinn:
access game out of this list that I played, and I only played the demo was to look down.
(1h 7m 36s)
But I also heard about the poor. I read about the poor reception.
(1h 7m 41s)
Well, in the sense of the bug-iness of Tales of Sake-U and Hotel Galaxy, go Galactic. Oh, no, no, no.
(1h 7m 42s) Al:
I wanted to get a pre-reception, I missed that.
(1h 7m 47s)
Oh, sorry, I thought you meant doll looked down, doll looked down.
(1h 7m 50s)
Doll looked down has overwhelmingly positive reviews.
(1h 7m 50s) Aislinn:
That’s all.
(1h 7m 51s)
That’s all.
(1h 7m 51s)
That’s all.
(1h 7m 52s)
That’s all.
(1h 7m 53s) Al:
It has a 90% on Steam DB.
(1h 7m 55s) Aislinn:
Yes, Grimshire does as well.
(1h 7m 57s) Al:
I really should, I really should play this game.
(1h 7m 59s)
I really should. Maybe I’ll wait to 1.0.
(1h 8m 1s) Aislinn:
I really enjoyed it.
(1h 8m 2s)
I will say I only played the demo, really enjoyed it.
(1h 8m 5s) Al:
I will say I disagree with Kevin. I don’t want, I don’t want Starbucks to win it.
(1h 8m 10s)
Like, yes, it looks great.
(1h 8m 12s)
And it has a lot of potential, but that’s all it has.
(1h 8m 15s)
It has potential.
(1h 8m 16s)
It has a core gameplay loop that you spend five minutes playing and go,
(1h 8m 20s)
cool, why? And that’s, that’s it.
(1h 8m 23s) Micah:
- Mm-hmm.
(1h 8m 25s) Al:
And it’s, it’s cool arts, it’s delightful art style, while delightful is
(1h 8m 29s)
just the same art style as Kurtzka’s that uses in their videos, which is why
(1h 8m 34s)
they’ve done it, right? But like, it’s not like it’s new and inventive.
(1h 8m 38s)
It’s just what they have in their videos that they’ve then put in a game.
(1h 8m 41s) Aislinn:
Yeah, I mean I marked it down as a game that I’m not interested in so take that as you will
(1h 8m 47s) Micah:
[laughter]
(1h 8m 48s) Al:
I would be happy with giving it to Dool-Octone based on
(1h 8m 52s)
Aslan having played it and enjoyed it and it having very good reviews
(1h 8m 55s)
and I actively don’t want to give it to anything else.
(1h 9m) Micah:
- I mean the only things that I really thought were like interesting and like a super
(1h 9m) Al:
Unless mica can convince us of something else.
(1h 9m 13s) Micah:
farming boy has a really cool art style and like I like the concept of the you know switching
(1h 9m 20s)
up the the farming genre to be a little bit more like active and combo-based and stuff.
(1h 9m 27s)
And it’s not something that…
(1h 9m 30s)
I think it’s super, like, life-changing to me, you know?
(1h 9m 36s)
I really love games that do things that, like, out and about did as far as, like, forging goes and real-world identifiers and stuff like that.
(1h 9m 47s)
Also, still stuff that has kind of been done before, but I think in the package that it’s in…
(1h 9m 53s)
It’s a little more interesting and enticing.
(1h 10m)
I have not played it, and I will say that, oh, this is my, you know, my one chance to gripe about early access, very briefly, if you are releasing an early access game, and it’s not done yet, maybe put out a demo, because it’s hard to justify buying into a game that is incomplete, and you don’t really know what you’re getting out of it.
(1h 10m 30s)
So, you know, I don’t know, I think everything should have demos, but I also think that early access should, for sure, have demos, because I think you’re…
(1h 10m 32s) Al:
that’s fair yeah I think that is a very fair point and I do think there is
(1h 10m 44s)
possibly an argument that we shouldn’t be giving an early access award I mean
(1h 10m 49s)
I did it last year because I really wanted to give fields of mystery
(1h 10m 52s)
award and award let’s be honest absolutely absolutely and I’m so excited for
(1h 10m 52s) Micah:
[laughs]
(1h 10m 53s) Aislinn:
Which deservedly deserved it?
(1h 10m 57s) Al:
1.0, which presumably is coming out next year. I don’t think they’ve
(1h 11m 2s)
said anything, but goodness. I, yeah, it’s difficult. There’s always going to be issues
(1h 11m 8s) Micah:
I just think that if you’re right, and I think, oh, sorry, go ahead.
(1h 11m 9s) Al:
with early access games and the question, you know, you go for
(1h 11m 16s) Micah:
I was just going to say that I think an easy way to justify, you know, there’s, there
(1h 11m 23s)
is justification for early access for, you know, indie studios that it’s generating income
(1h 11m 29s)
well.
(1h 11m 30s)
There’s still working on the game and so on.
(1h 11m 32s)
I think, you know, if, if you’re going to do that, though, putting out a demo so that people
(1h 11m 39s)
for it, because there’s been so many games over the years that like, maybe I’m just
(1h 11m 45s)
jaded at this point that I’m like, I wish that I had known a little bit more about what
(1h 11m 50s)
this game was going to feel like before I bought into the early access.
(1h 11m 53s)
And then the, by the time the game releases at 1.0, I don’t really care about it as much
(1h 11m 59s)
and I don’t really, you know, it’s, it’s too late.
(1h 12m 2s)
I already own it, you know, like, I think it, I think having a demo is, is great.
(1h 12m 8s)
I’m not going to play dole at town, but I, I’m, I’m not ready yet to, to throw $15 at something
(1h 12m 14s)
that I don’t know, really how it’s going to play or what it’s, you know, going to wind
(1h 12m 19s)
up being.
(1h 12m 20s)
So, but the art style looks awesome.
(1h 12m 22s)
I love the, the pixel art that they did for it.
(1h 12m 25s)
It’s very like unique looking pixel art, lots of like jagged edges and sharp, like the,
(1h 12m 35s)
the sharp grass and sharp angles and stuff.
(1h 12m 37s)
I think it’s very good.
(1h 12m 38s)
But yeah, I don’t know beyond that.
(1h 12m 41s) Aislinn:
I like the post-apocalyptic world, too.
(1h 12m 45s)
I think how I’m looking at this, again, to be fair,
(1h 12m 49s)
I didn’t play the early axes.
(1h 12m 50s)
I’ve only played the demo, so I’m coming from that context.
(1h 12m 52s)
But I think, out of all the games on this list,
(1h 12m 56s)
in regards to just purely something that looks
(1h 13m 1s)
like it has some future promise, I think
(1h 13m 4s)
Deloque Town caught my interest the most.
(1h 13m 9s)
Ronomon, seem very interesting.
(1h 13m 11s)
Because you can play it on a smart watch apparently.
(1h 13m 15s)
So that also is very intriguing.
(1h 13m 17s)
But I don’t know, I have to relook at it.
(1h 13m 21s)
But I also want to take into consideration when picking early access of the year is how did people receive it as well.
(1h 13m 27s)
Because like, tails of sake, you looks very interesting to me.
(1h 13m 30s)
But if it’s so buggy, then I don’t think it should be winning early access of the year.
(1h 13m 35s)
Because it’s like, why is it out then?
(1h 13m 38s)
It should be a consistent, promising
(1h 13m 41s)
look into what the full game is going to be. Doesn’t have to be perfect, but…
(1h 13m 44s) Micah:
When I was looking through this, yeah. No, I totally agree. When I was looking through this
(1h 13m 49s)
list, because a lot of these I hadn’t really heard of too. I had looked at, you know, I wrote
(1h 13m 57s)
down the ones that I thought looked cool and interesting to me. And Tales of Sekhi was definitely
(1h 14m 2s)
in there, but I guess I didn’t realize that it was running as poorly as it was. I mean, it’s got
(1h 14m 9s)
like pretty positive reviews on Steam, but I, you know,
(1h 14m 14s)
that’s also the, like, the, some of the woes of early access is like the optimization is not there. The, you know, I don’t know. It’s, it’s in a lot of ways,
(1h 14m 28s)
probably not ready for, uh, consumer eyes, but I.
(1h 14m 35s) Al:
I think this is the thing is like an early access for a game to win early access. It doesn’t it doesn’t need to be perfect because it’s obviously is an early access. It will have missing things.
(1h 14m 46s)
I think I agree in that it needs to run well.
(1h 14m 49s) Aislinn:
At least half with you soon.
(1h 14m 49s) Al:
I think I think I think run well on a half decent computer. I think it I think that’s a fair thing. It needs to be playable.
(1h 14m 50s) Micah:
Yeah, totally.
(1h 14m 57s) Al:
I also think that people’s reaction to it is an important part.
(1h 14m 57s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(1h 15m 5s) Al:
There are a few others that have very positive, but there’s only two that have overwhelmingly.
(1h 15m 19s)
And I guess part of the problem is like we’re competing massively different games, right? There’s always the issue with games of the year, and especially with early access because we’re talking about things that could be almost finished with things that are like barely started, right?
(1h 15m 35s)
Oh, goodness. Which which of these are your most exciting?
(1h 15m 37s) Aislinn:
I’m happy to give it to D’Loctown.
(1h 15m 41s)
D’Loctown.
(1h 15m 43s) Micah:
I mean, I do. I do like the concept of Cronomon for sure. Again, no demo, so I wasn’t
(1h 15m 49s)
really ready to commit to it, but I like the idea of crossing boundaries for tech and stuff
(1h 15m 58s)
the same way that like Rusty’s retirement did and in creating a genre of like desktop
(1h 16m 5s)
functioning games, but again, I haven’t played it so I can’t really, you know, I think
(1h 16m 11s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(1h 16m 13s) Micah:
a dull look down looks interesting. Is it the most like interesting of these to me? Not
(1h 16m 17s)
necessarily, but also, you know, it’s slim pickings for me. I hate to say two times in a row,
(1h 16m 23s) Al:
No, that’s fair
(1h 16m 25s) Micah:
like I’m willing to default to others opinions, but I, you know, it’s hard not to when
(1h 16m 33s) Al:
I think if I look at all of these games and I think I can only play one of them, I think it’s
Early Access Of The Year Winner
(1h 16m 40s) Al:
going to do a lot of time. There’s quite a few games of these that I do want to play at some point,
(1h 16m 42s) Micah:
Yeah, and I’m okay with that.
(1h 16m 44s)
It’s definitely.
(1h 16m 45s) Al:
but it does seem to be that. It looks like it runs well. It looks like people like it. And also,
(1h 16m 50s)
I just love the look of it. I like what it’s doing. I like its differences, but also how it’s similar.
(1h 16m 52s) Micah:
Yeah, totally.
(1h 16m 57s) Al:
I like the, there’s something really fun about the kind of like 2D spirit fairter style farm.
(1h 17m 3s)
I’m really excited to play in another game. Not many games do it. It’s funny that we’re talking about
(1h 17m 10s)
spirit fairter again. Listeners won’t know that we’ve talked about it already, but we talk about it in
(1h 17m 15s)
the greenhouse episode. I’m not about to talk about it again, but yeah, I’m good with it being
(1h 17m 22s) Micah:
Yeah, I can comfortably accept that.
(1h 17m 26s) Aislinn:
Woo! (laughs)
(1h 17m 27s) Al:
Whoo, congratulations to all of the uptown early access game of the year 2025
(1h 17m 34s) Micah:
Huge. Yeah.
How Has This Year Been
(1h 17m 34s) Al:
So we’re gonna come into game of the year. I wanted to have a quick discussion about how people feel
(1h 17m 39s)
Without talking about specifics how they feel the year compares to previous years
(1h 17m 44s)
We have more more games released this year than any other game year in this genre
(1h 17m 49s)
But does it feel like that’s good or bad?
(1h 17m 51s)
I’m like is there other things that you’re like these are amazing games or does it feel?
(1h 17m 57s)
Like you’ve just are you farming game doubt etc etc. Cool. It’s on first
(1h 18m 4s) Aislinn:
Yes. I’m farming game doubt. That’s my one sentence. I, it’s, it’s a great year if you love farming
(1h 18m 6s) Micah:
[laughs]
(1h 18m 11s) Aislinn:
games. If you are farming game doubt, it is very overwhelming.
(1h 18m 16s) Al:
So are you farming gained out because there are so many?
(1h 18m 19s)
So is it a great year if you’re like farming games or is it too much?
(1h 18m 24s) Aislinn:
I think it’s too much. For me, it’s too much. I don’t know. There are some strong contenders
(1h 18m 31s)
that catch my interest, which I do appreciate. But like, it’s the oversaturation is kind of like
(1h 18m 38s)
getting to me personally. I’m just like, I am happy with my two or three farming games,
(1h 18m 43s)
and then that’s like it. I don’t even want to look at too many more.
(1h 18m 48s) Al:
This is the problem, right? There are games that generally ask so much of you.
(1h 18m 53s)
Like, I, when I start a farming game, I’m generally, unless there’s a game that I’m specifically
(1h 18m 58s)
picking up because it’s short, which there were, where a few that I did in September and October
(1h 19m 4s)
that I picked up because I knew they were short. And I was like, let’s get up my number of games
(1h 19m 8s)
that played this year. Unless you’re specifically doing that, so many farming games you go in,
(1h 19m 14s)
expecting to sink in, you know, 10
(1h 19m 18s)
of if not hundreds of hours, you know, like rpgs like we’ve been talking about in the the green
(1h 19m 24s)
house episode we were talking about. What’s it called? Yeah, the Yakuza games or no, was that that
(1h 19m 30s)
wasn’t the green house? This was in this game this episode. I’m so confused. We were talking about
(1h 19m 31s) Micah:
That was a simple story.
(1h 19m 32s)
We were talking about oblivion and stuff.
(1h 19m 34s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(1h 19m 34s) Al:
Yakuza and we’re talking about persona. It’s the same sort of thing you expect to sink in a lot of time
(1h 19m 39s)
into those games. And so therefore, and part of this maybe because obviously you guys not as much as me
(1h 19m 46s)
but still to some
(1h 19m 48s)
I physically can’t play every game. There were I think it’s 65 games released this year in the farming games genre. And there are probably ones I’ve missed. It’s impossible. It’s just physically, if you played one a week, you still wouldn’t get through them all. And a week is not a long time to play through
(1h 20m 2s) Micah:
Holy cow, yeah.
(1h 20m 13s)
Yeah, I was trying to think about this question when you, when you should present it earlier
(1h 20m 20s)
and like prior to recording and I guess the most succinct way that I can like put how I feel
(1h 20m 26s)
about it is that I feel like we are at a point where we have surpassed the like boom of farming
(1h 20m 33s)
games and we’re at a point now where creators need to really like figure out what they want to
(1h 20m 43s)
because I feel like there’s a lot of repetition in the space creatively you know as I was
(1h 20m 52s)
going through some of this stuff and looking at some of the games that were released this year
(1h 20m 57s)
or even just the early access I’m like okay this looks like you know it so and so I’m not that
(1h 21m 4s)
interested in it moving on to the next one and like okay this looks like the same thing so I’m
(1h 21m 9s)
I’m moving on to the next thing and I think we’re out of kind of like
(1h 21m 13s)
awkward growth stage in it where it the last couple years the last few years have been so
(1h 21m 20s)
successful for farming games and college core games in general that like we’ve seen so much of
(1h 21m 26s)
everything that now the creativity really needs to like shine through in in how you approach them
(1h 21m 35s)
rather than just making the same thing with a different skin you know.
(1h 21m 41s) Aislinn:
Yeah. I agree. I definitely agree. Sometimes that works for some people because maybe like,
(1h 21m 46s)
like if you told me there was a magical girl farming sim, I’d be like, signed me up.
(1h 21m 51s) Micah:
I was going to say, I have a great game for you.
(1h 21m 52s) Aislinn:
But that’s also kind of already feels a mystery on a way, at least just like Sailor Moon all the way.
(1h 21m 57s) Al:
But but this is the thing, there’s also there’s also this 10 of them already, you know, like this is this is the problem is every every hook that every farming game has is also been done by someone else.
(1h 21m 58s) Aislinn:
Which is why I picked it up.
(1h 22m 8s) Al:
Right, and so like they also then need to be good and they also need to be a reason to do it. I think I’m I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit over the last few weeks because like I don’t know is it fair to say I’ve been feeling burn out a little bit with farming games.
(1h 22m 22s)
And like seriously considered stopping the podcast after this episode. Um,
(1h 22m 27s)
But I’m not going to don’t worry listeners. I’m going to continue into next year, but I’m changing how I’m thinking about things and changing how I’m going to keep going forwards because I can’t just keep going in the same way I am, I will die.
(1h 22m 40s) Micah:
Sure. (laughs)
(1h 22m 41s) Al:
Right, there’s there’s too many. I’m trying to play too many games and I looked back on my list and I talk about this in the greenhouse episode.
(1h 22m 42s) Aislinn:
Yeah, 100%.
(1h 22m 48s) Al:
There’s almost no games. I’ve played the aren’t farming games. There’s this this three. That’s it. There are well, except like I did play a bunch of old Pokemon games earlier in the year.
(1h 22m 57s)
Because I wanted to get the home decks is done for for the stuff and in Pokemon home, but other like other than that, I didn’t play any other games that weren’t farming games.
(1h 23m 8s)
I played I think 13 farming games this year averages out just over one a month and I played five games that weren’t farming games.
(1h 23m 21s)
And so yeah, I need I need I need to rethink how I go forward and I think the problem is that
(1h 23m 27s)
like, I’m like, oh, well, we need someone to decide what are the good games and tell people these are the ones you should play and then I realized wait, that’s me.
(1h 23m 34s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 23m 35s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(1h 23m 37s) Al:
So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what that means going forward. I just it’s interesting because like there are more games now, the their more games are less year than there have been farming games basically every year, except last year combined.
(1h 23m 52s)
Right, like there are just it’s insane how many games have released this year that it’s just impossible to keep up and
(1h 23m 57s)
I think I’ve missed out on games that I think I should have played and because it’s just so hard to decide which ones to play.
(1h 24m 5s) Micah:
Totally. I completely agree.
(1h 24m 5s) Aislinn:
- Right, yeah, I could.
(1h 24m 6s) Al:
On that note, what is the game that you most wish you had played you’d managed to make or find the time to play this year that you haven’t.
(1h 24m 17s) Aislinn:
Do you want to go, Micah?
(1h 24m 17s) Micah:
well, I’ve got a fun one. Uh, well, I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve got two technically one that I think
(1h 24m 20s) Al:
Go for it a fun game. What a crazy idea.
(1h 24m 27s) Micah:
will be a fun thing for Al. I wish that I, I genuinely wish that I had more time to be able to
(1h 24m 36s)
play Corel Island this year because I have heard you rave about it for so long and I finally
(1h 24m 43s)
bit the bullet got the game and I just didn’t have time to touch
(1h 24m 48s)
and I wish that I would have, especially with updates and stuff that happened
(1h 24m 52s)
and I was hopeful to be able to like talk about it, but I just did not get
(1h 24m 59s)
an opportunity to play it. maybe next year maybe game of the year 2026 will be when we
(1h 25m 3s) Al:
It’s always maybe next year, do you, do you need me, do you need me to schedule an episode
(1h 25m 5s) Micah:
finally get to talk about coral island, but again just too much stuff came out this year
(1h 25m 7s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(1h 25m 11s) Micah:
too many things that you know
(1h 25m 14s) Al:
where we talk about it, even though I’ve talked about it twice already.
(1h 25m 17s)
Uh, just so you actually play it.
(1h 25m 17s) Aislinn:
[laughs]
(1h 25m 17s) Micah:
that does force me to play games, but and then the more serious answer I guess is a bugaboo pocket which
(1h 25m 21s) Aislinn:
That’s true.
(1h 25m 29s) Micah:
again didn’t really know that this existed until I was looking through show notes and looking through some of this stuff
(1h 25m 37s)
um I after I looked into it and looked at the store page and looked at the trailer and so on I just I just bought it
(1h 25m 45s)
bought it ‘cause it, it.
(1h 25m 47s)
It really speaks to me the, like, bug collecting aspect in a little, like,
(1h 25m 56s)
virtual pet sort of style presentation seems very cool to me. I, I think bugs are very cute.
(1h 26m 5s)
I love the idea of this. So I wish that I had gotten a chance to play it so that I could talk about it
(1h 26m 13s)
in time for this episode, but unfortunately I didn’t.
(1h 26m 16s) Aislinn:
good news for you. I have the game and I played the game and he recorded an episode about the game.
(1h 26m 17s) Micah:
[laughs]
(1h 26m 20s) Aislinn:
But so I can give some some takes on that, but I will say you made a good purchase.
(1h 26m 26s) Micah:
Cool, that’s good to hear.
(1h 26m 28s) Aislinn:
I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I guess since I’m already talking, you want me to
(1h 26m 29s) Micah:
What about you, isn’t it?
(1h 26m 31s) Al:
Yes, please.
(1h 26m 34s) Aislinn:
since I started talking about Bugaboo Pocket. I’ll say because I wasn’t, I was like, I figured
(1h 26m 41s)
this would be a like a cottagecore game or like farming game conversation.
(1h 26m 46s)
So I was like, if we’re talking cottagecore game or farming game, that I would say
(1h 26m 52s)
the game that I wish that I played was spirit fair. Even though it wasn’t released this year,
(1h 26m 56s)
it’s, I literally had the game in my library for a hot minute and I just haven’t worked my way to the
(1h 27m 3s) Al:
I cannot say that you’re wrong because we gave Spidot Fader a game of the year and a year it didn’t come out so
(1h 27m 9s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(1h 27m 10s) Micah:
I also just said Corel Island and that didn’t come out this year, so that’s you know, I think we’re all on the same page.
(1h 27m 15s) Al:
Yeah, look Spidot Fader is a game. I think anybody who plays games should play
(1h 27m 16s) Aislinn:
Okay, so we’re good.
(1h 27m 22s) Al:
Spidot Fader it is
(1h 27m 24s)
An amazing game like it is it is one of my favorite games of all time full stop like it is just it is so good if you like games
(1h 27m 33s)
You should play this game. Like it’s just any if you like any games
(1h 27m 37s)
You should play this game except maybe maybe don’t
(1h 27m 39s) Aislinn:
You know, you don’t got to convince me more. I’ve had it. I’ve owned it.
(1h 27m 40s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 27m 41s) Al:
Maybe don’t play it like the week after a family member dies give it a couple months
(1h 27m 47s) Aislinn:
Fair.
(1h 27m 47s) Al:
That’s that’s all that is that is all I would say like don’t
(1h 27m 48s) Micah:
Very very very fair
(1h 27m 52s) Al:
Like don’t give it years, right? You got a you got a you got to process these things
(1h 27m 57s)
But like maybe give yourself a couple months after a family member dies. That’s all I’m saying
(1h 28m 1s) Aislinn:
Fair
(1h 28m 1s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 28m 3s) Aislinn:
So I’ve heard so I’ve heard
(1h 28m 5s)
But I also listed it. I was like just in case we want a game that released this year
(1h 28m 9s)
I don’t know if this is necessarily
(1h 28m 11s)
Consid I feel like it’s considered cottagecore but a game that I still really really really want to pick up this tiny bookshop as well
(1h 28m 17s)
I’ve heard a lot of good things about that game, too
(1h 28m 18s) Micah:
I think it totally counts as cottagecore.
(1h 28m 23s) Al:
It’s not on my list, but like I mean my list is
(1h 28m 29s)
Loose shall we see
(1h 28m 30s) Micah:
[laughter]
(1h 28m 30s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(1h 28m 32s) Micah:
Definitely, definitely recommend.
(1h 28m 36s)
I think it’s a very cute game.
(1h 28m 38s)
I stumbled onto it from a friend’s recommendation.
(1h 28m 42s)
And it’s a very cute and comfy game.
(1h 28m 48s) Aislinn:
Okay, sweet. I will definitely pick it up at some point.
(1h 28m 48s) Micah:
I highly recommend it.
(1h 28m 51s) Al:
All right let’s decide on whoo we love a demo.
(1h 28m 52s) Micah:
And it’s kind of demo.
(1h 28m 53s) Aislinn:
Ah, I love that. No, I love it.
(1h 28m 53s) Micah:
Sorry, I got to just call out the demos when they show up,
(1h 28m 57s)
So. (laughs)
(1h 28m 59s) Aislinn:
You’re the devil person. Got it.
(1h 29m) Micah:
[laughs]
(1h 29m 1s) Al:
I’m not going to play that demo because I already know I’m not going to enjoy playing the game
(1h 29m 4s)
because it’s a management style game. All right let’s decide on a game of the year we can do this
(1h 29m 5s) Aislinn:
That’s fair. That’s fair.
(1h 29m 10s) Al:
we’re nearly there I’m going to change up how I’m doing this a little bit in that I’m not
Game Of The Year Honourable Mentions
(1h 29m 14s) Al:
going to announce all of the previous winners because now that list is getting quite long
(1h 29m 19s)
I’ll just say that last year, Russell.
(1h 29m 20s) Aislinn:
[Woo]
(1h 29m 21s) Al:
I’m not going to go through the list of all the games released this year because this list has 50 games in it.
(1h 29m 32s)
The 65 was because of the 1.0 releases as well, but this really, this, or not, early access, that’s what I’m talking about.
(1h 29m 40s)
This list of games that came out in 1.0 is 50 games long. I am not going to read out 50 games in a row to use.
(1h 29m 48s)
I think we go straight into nominations so just to remind
(1h 29m 51s)
you guys can do it however you want and should we go in the order that we’ve got there, Michael, you can go first.
(1h 30m 12s) Micah:
- Yeah.
(1h 30m 16s)
- Uh, yeah.
(1h 30m 19s)
I put runners up on here and I don’t really know why.
(1h 30m 22s)
There’s just were a lot of games that I played that I liked.
(1h 30m 22s) Al:
Oh, okay. If we’ve got, no, that’s fine. That’s fine. We’ll do that first then. So if you’ve got, if you’ve got games that you’re not actually nominating,
(1h 30m 28s)
you’re just saying these are ones that you want to say that were great. And in any other year might have gotten nomination, then go for it.
(1h 30m 35s) Micah:
I will say that I listed these as runners up because I like them. I know that they are not going to win
(1h 30m 42s)
That’s that’s the that’s the premise that I’ll set except for one of them. Tomigachi Plaza
(1h 30m 48s)
as a Tomigachi fan absolutely loved the game. It was a switch
(1h 30m 56s)
It was a like switch version of the DS corner shop games, which I loved and grew up with it’s great
(1h 31m 3s)
Is it gonna win? Absolutely.
(1h 31m 5s)
We’re not. Did people really not like it? Absolutely. They didn’t like it. Case in point, Alice speaking right now.
(1h 31m 5s) Al:
No, ‘cause it was a terrible game.
(1h 31m 9s)
I absolutely hate that game with an absolute passion.
(1h 31m 14s) Aislinn:
I’m like Slack John right now.
(1h 31m 14s) Al:
There are only, there are only two games
(1h 31m 17s)
that I have ever said are bad on this podcast.
(1h 31m 19s)
Most games, it’s not for me.
(1h 31m 21s)
There are only two games that I’ve said are bad,
(1h 31m 23s)
both released this year.
(1h 31m 24s)
Sugar Jew Island and Tamagotcha Plaza is a bad game.
(1h 31m 29s) Micah:
It’s okay listeners. He just doesn’t get it and that’s okay
(1h 31m 32s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(1h 31m 33s) Al:
No, you are just blinded by nostalgia.
(1h 31m 35s)
is what it is and you are never going to say anything negative of it, Tamagotchi, mica.
(1h 31m 42s) Micah:
Now that’s not necessarily true, but it’s not necessarily wrong either
(1h 31m 48s) Aislinn:
Whew! This is crazy. I thought that was like, because all I know is Al’s opinion, I thought that was like, you were like, coming in with like sarcasm. I was like, oh, and then I realized how much I was like, no, you’re serious. Oh!
(1h 31m 59s) Micah:
No, I loved it. I fully 100% of it. I think it got a lot more hate than it deserved,
(1h 32m 7s)
given what it was supposed to be. And they still have like regularly little updates and things
(1h 32m 17s)
to like scenery as the seasons change and so on. I think it’s great and I love it and I love
(1h 32m 23s)
playing it. Did I think it was going to win? Absolutely not. That’s why it’s where it is.
(1h 32m 28s) Al:
[laughing]
(1h 32m 29s) Micah:
Tales of the Shire. I also got a lot of dislike from what I had seen. I loved it because I love
(1h 32m 39s)
Lord of the Rings. I love Tolkien. I love the Hobbit aesthetic. I thought it did some really,
(1h 32m 46s)
really cool things with like the social aspects of it and inviting people to dinner and
(1h 32m 56s)
I just thought it was really good.
(1h 32m 59s)
I understand that people don’t agree.
(1h 33m 3s)
I don’t think it was game of the year material, for sure, but I thought it was good.
(1h 33m 9s)
And if you like toking, then yeah, it’s probably for you.
(1h 33m 14s) Al:
I think it’s problem is people’s expectations.
(1h 33m 18s)
They heard, “Oh, it’s a Hobbit stargie.”
(1h 33m 22s)
And they went in expecting a Hobbit stargie.
(1h 33m 25s)
And like, it’s not what people expected.
(1h 33m 28s)
And that is hard to say that people are wrong about that.
(1h 33m 33s)
But it’s also hard to manage those expectations.
(1h 33m 38s)
The game didn’t do itself any favors
(1h 33m 41s)
by just announcing themselves.
(1h 33m 44s)
But you’re still going to get people going in with their expectations and it’s also like if you compare it to other lord of the ring stuff, it is obviously there are some similarities but like it’s it’s kind of anti a lot of token stuff.
(1h 34m 14s)
Because it is the bits that you don’t see, right? Like you don’t you don’t see the shy or living its life because that’s not interesting film or book, right? And although I’m sure if given enough life that token probably would have done that. But if anybody would he would. But it’s it’s just it’s a hard hard thing to live up to people’s expectations.
(1h 34m 18s) Micah:
Right. Yeah, sure, of course. Yeah.
(1h 34m 30s)
Hey
(1h 34m 32s)
Right 100% he would have uh
(1h 34m 44s)
totally. And I think that they already, unfortunately, sort of
(1h 34m 49s)
blew it out of the gate because of the delays, I think that immediately set off red flags to
(1h 34m 55s)
people who were already maybe on the fence about it to say, like, oh, this is something’s going wrong.
(1h 35m 1s)
So, um, I, you know, I don’t think that that’s necessarily always fair, because we don’t know
(1h 35m 9s)
what goes like it. Like we’ve said, for other things, we don’t really know what goes on behind the
(1h 35m 14s)
for why things get delayed and why they don’t. Uh, but I, having played it, having avoided that,
(1h 35m 21s)
you know, um, kind of frustration or that like, you know, negativity about it and having played it
(1h 35m 28s)
myself, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a really cozy game and a lot of what I was expecting
(1h 35m 35s)
out of a, uh, hobbit life sim, I guess. Um, but again, don’t think it’s going to win game game with
(1h 35m 44s)
the year. I don’t, you know, uh, yeah, yeah. It’s true. And then my last, I, the one of them,
(1h 35m 47s) Al:
Which is weird because like a year ago, I would have said it it was in for a chance, but
(1h 35m 52s)
That’s just how these things happen sometimes
(1h 35m 57s) Micah:
I’ll save, because I know this discussion is probably going to come up some point, but
(1h 36m 1s) Al:
[laughing]
(1h 36m 1s) Micah:
squeak cross. I, I was shocked that it wasn’t on your list, uh, but I understand that there’s a
(1h 36m 6s)
lot of stuff as a die hard pick cross defender squeak cross was a beautiful combination of
(1h 36m 14s)
pick cross and, uh, animal crossing, happy home designer, uh, house decorating. Uh, and it
(1h 36m 24s)
was another thing that I 100% had happily run factory pixel cross was, it was on the list.
(1h 36m 27s) Al:
Maybe maybe next year you can on your own do our which is the best pakras came of the year
(1h 36m 34s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(1h 36m 36s) Al:
We did have we also was it was uh
(1h 36m 40s)
The Rune Factory one came out this year, didn’t it? Yeah, couldn’t this me? What a what a year?
(1h 36m 44s) Aislinn:
Yeah, I was like, isn’t there one?
(1h 36m 44s) Micah:
There is squeak cross. However, was not on the list. And in my opinion is maybe the better game,
(1h 36m 46s) Al:
It was it
(1h 36m 52s) Micah:
but that’s, you know,
(1h 36m 53s) Al:
look, Renfak tree was bought.
(1h 36m 57s)
This is both better and worse than the story of season’s one.
(1h 36m 59s) Micah:
Absolutely. I am shocked how much content is in that game, though. I’ve put a lot of time into it,
(1h 37m 9s)
and it’s someone who like barrels through pick-cross games. I’m like not even 50% of the way through,
(1h 37m 14s)
and I’ve just, it’s, there’s holes. They put a lot into it, and that is both a positive and a negative,
(1h 37m 21s)
I think. But those are my, those are my runner-up.
(1h 37m 24s) Al:
Aslan, do you have any runners up that you want to mention?
(1h 37m 27s) Aislinn:
I will say so it’s so it’s so hard for me to talk on this because there are so many games that I have not played because time is limited for me, but my I know, so
(1h 37m 33s) Al:
[Laughing]
(1h 37m 37s) Micah:
We also didn’t play them.
(1h 37m 38s) Al:
There are 50 games in this list,
(1h 37m 40s)
Eslin. You don’t have to keep saying there are lots of games you didn’t play.
(1h 37m 44s)
We know that. [Laughing]
(1h 37m 46s)
There are lots of games nobody played.
(1h 37m 51s) Aislinn:
It seems like I’m just gonna give a big old list of games that I think from just
(1h 37m 57s)
general knowledge are like games that I think are contenders for like game of the year just purely from reception. I’m sorry. I hate giving context, but I’m going to keep giving context.
(1h 38m 9s)
So my quick speedrun list is Binkum, Discounty, Fantasy Life, Hello Kitty, Lens Island, Slime Adventure 2, Story of Seasons, Hail the Shire. Those are my speedrun!
(1h 38m 19s) Micah:
Yeah, I played some of those.
(1h 38m 22s) Al:
Oh, okay, fine, great.
(1h 38m 23s) Micah:
Hey, that’s a way to minute now.
(1h 38m 24s) Aislinn:
I’m breaking Al down.
(1h 38m 25s) Micah:
That’s two tails of the Shire mentions.
(1h 38m 28s) Aislinn:
[Laughter]
(1h 38m 28s) Micah:
We might be honest, nothing here.
(1h 38m 28s) Al:
Fantastic, Mike, Mike, what’s your first nomination?
Game Of The Year Nominations
(1h 38m 32s) Micah:
Uh, my first nomination is going to be Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
(1h 38m 37s) Al:
Amazing. Cool. This is probably where I see that’s also my first nomination.
(1h 38m 38s) Aislinn:
[Laughing]
(1h 38m 44s) Micah:
Oh, okay.
(1h 38m 44s) Aislinn:
Oh…
(1h 38m 45s) Al:
Hello Kitty Island Adventure is a fantastic game. I did not play it very much this year
(1h 38m 46s) Aislinn:
[Laughing]
(1h 38m 52s) Al:
because I played it a lot when it came out on Apple Arcade but most people will have
(1h 38m 56s)
played it this year and so that’s I’m counting it as a new release because like 90% of
(1h 39m 3s)
people who’ve played the game have probably played it on Switch, right? Let’s not let’s let’s not
(1h 39m 8s)
pretend that many people are on Apple Arcade. It’s a fantastic game. It is better than it had any
(1h 39m 14s)
right to be. It is amazing because the coincidence of it being called the same thing as the South Park
(1h 39m 20s)
joke and they have confirmed it was a coincidence. They did not know about the South Park joke when
(1h 39m 25s)
they named the game just makes it even better. I never would have expected it was 2023 I think
(1h 39m 33s)
Kiritima and Apple Arcade.
(1h 39m 35s)
Before that game was announced, I never would have existed.
(1h 39m 37s)
I just expected that I would ever actively enjoy a Hello Kitty game.
(1h 39m 42s)
And then this comes out and it’s so deep and fun and everything.
(1h 39m 47s)
And like also, and this sounds like such a silly thing, but like the movement in the game is actively enjoyable.
(1h 39m 57s) Micah:
Yeah.
(1h 39m 57s) Al:
I will always enjoy jumping in a game.
(1h 40m 1s)
Again, I think every one of my games on my list, you can jump.
(1h 40m 2s) Micah:
They did a great job with the movement.
(1h 40m 5s)
And it translated really well from what it was in Apple.
(1h 40m 7s) Al:
And just saying.
(1h 40m 13s) Micah:
Because I also played it what it launched in Apple Arcade.
(1h 40m 17s)
And with everything that launches on Apple Arcade, I go,
(1h 40m 21s)
I wish this was on Switch, or I wish this was on console,
(1h 40m 25s)
or something, so I’m not playing on my phone.
(1h 40m 27s)
But I did play quite a bit of it, and then I kind of waited to see if it was going to come to this switch.
(1h 40m 35s)
And I’m happy that I did, because then I played much more of it on the switch.
(1h 40m 39s)
And this year, it’s just so good.
(1h 40m 43s)
Such a good experience. Very fun. It’s very task-driven, which I had heard some people had gripes about it in that way.
(1h 40m 51s)
That it was just, it just felt like fetch quest sort of, but I…
(1h 40m 57s)
I liked it because of that.
(1h 41m) Al:
I agree. I love how it’s like, you know exactly what you would need to do to continue going like so many games are like
(1h 41m 6s)
Oh, we’re not gonna tell you what you need to do to get to the next friendship level or to get to the next story beat
(1h 41m 11s)
And it’s like no no here are the like five things you can do to progress your friendship here are the two things you need to do to get to the next
(1h 41m 19s)
Anything and you can you can do and also this is what you need to do to get the next quest for this person is also like mind-blowing
(1h 41m 30s)
The fact that they can go you can’t currently get a quest for this one because you need to raise your friendship level with this other person like you can say
(1h 41m 36s)
It’s fetch quest all you want, but that’s all games are games are just fetch quest. They’re go here do that
(1h 41m 41s)
That’s the entire game
(1h 41m 42s)
Right, and you can ignore the quest if you want you can just do things and talk to people and naturally get those things or you can look at the list and do them if you want and I want
(1h 41m 53s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 41m 56s) Aislinn:
I can’t argue with any of this because if I had played Harlow Calo Kitty, I would probably agree.
(1h 42m 1s)
It’s been on my wishlist for like a really long time. It’s just my only hesitation is I fear that
(1h 42m 9s)
when I download it, it will take all of my time, which is what exactly what it sounds like.
(1h 42m 16s)
And initially, initially, $40 felt like a lot. But, but it sounds like it’s worth its value.
(1h 42m 21s) Micah:
It is a steep entry point for sure, I will agree.
(1h 42m 26s) Aislinn:
And I would probably get good value out of it for the $40. And it goes on sale like someone
(1h 42m 30s)
regularly, like maybe $5, $10 off or something like that. So I feel like it’s worth it.
(1h 42m 36s)
It’s got overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam. It’s constantly, I feel like being updated.
(1h 42m 42s)
So while I’ve never played it from what y’all have said, my general interest in it over many,
(1h 42m 48s)
many, however long it’s been out since Apple Arcade. And just, yeah, the general consensus,
(1h 42m 54s)
I would be happy to also
(1h 42m 56s)
nominate it and also it doesn’t there’s been for whatever reason I’m not a
(1h 43m)
huge Sam Rio person but like I have like generally notice that there for
(1h 43m 6s)
whatever reason has been like a slow erasure of Tuxedo Sam and I don’t know why
(1h 43m 12s)
because he is my boy and I love that little dude and he’s in the game so the
(1h 43m 18s)
fact that he’s not a race from the game makes me happy.
(1h 43m 20s) Micah:
Yes, completely as a karopi stand. I feel the same way, so
(1h 43m 24s) Aislinn:
Oh.
(1h 43m 26s)
Good, good pick.
(1h 43m 28s)
Robbie still exists though, Tuxedo Sam is tough to find, very tough to find.
(1h 43m 31s) Micah:
Yes, I have noticed that a lot of the like
(1h 43m 35s)
Western stuff they tend to not include karopi for whatever reason
(1h 43m 38s)
It makes me very sad because he’s such a good character. He’s such a good good little boy, but
(1h 43m 40s) Aislinn:
He’s such a good
(1h 43m 44s)
Agreed
(1h 43m 48s) Micah:
if this helps you in any way.
(1h 43m 50s)
Or one way or another, I agree that the entry point is pretty pricey for it.
(1h 43m 57s)
It was my wife’s main point of contention with it, because I knew that she would love it.
(1h 44m 4s)
I played it on Apple.
(1h 44m 5s)
So I was like, it’s for sure your type of game.
(1h 44m 8s)
You will love it.
(1h 44m 9s)
She was like, yeah, I’m at that price.
(1h 44m 11s)
And I eventually just bought it for her.
(1h 44m 13s)
I was like, you just got to play it.
(1h 44m 15s)
I know that you’re going to like it.
(1h 44m 17s)
You have to play it.
(1h 44m 18s)
it was that the game that
(1h 44m 20s)
she has spent the most time playing this year like she’s put hundreds of hours into it which
(1h 44m 25s)
is tends to be like a rare thing for her so it’s always interesting to me when a game gets her to do that so
(1h 44m 34s)
it is well worth the $40 price point but yes if you can get it for sale, get it for sale for sure.
(1h 44m 42s) Al:
Um, I don’t think Aslan, you understand what nominee thing works. You don’t, you don’t nominate
(1h 44m 46s)
something that has already been just because other people, we will discuss at the end what we think
(1h 44m 52s)
wins based on the nominations. So, Aslan was your first nomination.
(1h 44m 53s) Aislinn:
Uhh…
(1h 44m 58s)
My… one of my nominations is Snacko.
(1h 45m 2s) Al:
So this is where I say this, not always another one of my nominations. Am I going to be
(1h 45m 3s) Aislinn:
Just because I…
(1h 45m 6s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 45m 6s) Al:
here to announce anything myself. Goodness me.
(1h 45m 6s) Aislinn:
What?
(1h 45m 10s)
Didn’t this happen last year?
(1h 45m 12s) Al:
I don’t think this much, but anyway, we’ll get, well, it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. I get to go next,
(1h 45m 16s)
so I can get to announce my third game. Continue. Snack. Go.
(1h 45m 20s) Aislinn:
So yes, Snacko.
(1h 45m 21s)
I, while I haven’t, so.
(1h 45m 23s)
A lot of time into it is one of the few games that I have played on this list, and between
(1h 45m 28s)
the, definitely the music, the art style, the colors, the characters so far are very silly, cute,
(1h 45m 37s)
quirky, all that sort of stuff. The character designs are all really cute, and just the gameplay loop
(1h 45m 43s)
is so good. Like, all I want to do as of recently is just pick up the game, and just, I love,
(1h 45m 49s)
I love the quest love the quest love playing it with the wiki
(1h 45m 53s)
side by side. I have been really really really enjoying snacko so I that’s my that’s my spiel. It’s hard for me to speak say too much more because I haven’t done the full time sink in but like my desire to sink time into it is very strong.
(1h 46m 1s) Al:
know that’s fine yes we we’re also at this point where a week away from
(1h 46m 12s)
recording a detailed episode on the game but people will have already
(1h 46m 14s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 46m 17s) Al:
heard that by the time this comes out I agree I think it’s great the I mean
(1h 46m 24s)
I’ve been excited but it’s not cool for literally years I interviewed the
(1h 46m 28s)
developers I think in
(1h 46m 31s)
was a 2020 or maybe 21 it was certainly quite a few years ago and I played the alpha of the game back then and when it wasn’t even publicly available that point they somehow managed to get an interview with them and they were like hey here’s the the alpha if you want to play it before the interview and it was 2020 January of 2020 that I interviewed them and even back then I adored the
(1h 47m 1s)
the game I didn’t put a lot of time into it then but like I said in the interview that it’s the first game that I have actively enjoyed decorating in because it’s so easy and flexible at the same time the the way you can just like pop things up and you can rotate them and it’s not just like not it’s kind of grid based but not really grid based.
(1h 47m 10s) Aislinn:
Ooh.
(1h 47m 25s)
Yeah
(1h 47m 25s) Al:
The one thing I would I’d find frustrating in the decorating is paths paths are.
(1h 47m 31s)
It’s hard to get me to enjoy decorating and the world is great the graphics are really fun the the controls are good I’ve been playing it as I say on my my ally and.
(1h 48m 1s)
The has like proper controller support none of this fake controller support you can jump again jumping is a big thing for me in these games you will see as we continue on I like that you can jump it’s fun it’s fun to jump alright.
(1h 48m 18s) Aislinn:
Yeah, you know what? That’s a very good point too. It is actually very fun to jump and like the movement system
(1h 48m 23s)
Like you can go as slow as you want
(1h 48m 25s)
But if you want to like jump over hills and houses and stuff
(1h 48m 30s)
It’s pretty accessible to do that. So you can like kind of speed through the game if you want to it’s it’s quite nice
(1h 48m 37s) Micah:
I’ve got some words to say about snake how if I’m allowed.
(1h 48m 42s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(1h 48m 42s) Micah:
I put snacco as one of my runners up and I waited to talk about it because I knew that
(1h 48m 47s)
it probably was going to come up. The only reason, the only reason I have it as a runner up,
(1h 48m 52s)
I want to say like Al, I have been waiting for this game for a very, very long time.
(1h 48m 57s)
I played the alpha, I played the beta, I am mutuals with the developers, they’re great people,
(1h 49m 4s)
I love them, they’re very funny, they’re very…
(1h 49m 7s)
enjoyable people. Um, I
(1h 49m 11s)
somehow, after backing it on Kickstarter and playing it, all the, like, pre-releases for it and
(1h 49m 17s)
stuff, missed that it fully released, that the 1.0 released. And that is the only reason that I don’t
(1h 49m 24s)
have it as much, because I did not get a chance to play like the 1.0 yet. Now that I know it’s, it’s out,
(1h 49m 30s)
I, I’m very excited to, uh, sink a lot of time into it. Um, I think just…
(1h 49m 37s)
the madness of Pokemon release and everything else that’s been going on is just
(1h 49m 44s)
trip me up and in, in, it’s, uh, in the news of its 1.0 release, but, you know, yeah,
(1h 49m 50s) Al:
Micah, Micah, the 1.0 came out in me.
(1h 49m 53s) Micah:
uh, you know, there was a lot going on in May for me. Okay.
(1h 49m 56s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(1h 49m 57s) Al:
Yeah, but you can’t use Pokemon as an English kiss.
(1h 49m 59s) Micah:
Uh, I can’t use, uh, Legend Zier as an excuse.
(1h 50m 7s)
Uh, but yeah, I, I couldn’t justifiably put it as like my game of the year just because I haven’t
(1h 50m 14s)
played the 1.0 yet. So, um, but what I have played of it, I agree with everything that’s been said,
(1h 50m 18s) Al:
Okay. So. All right. So onto my final one because YouTube both picked ones that I’ve
(1h 50m 22s) Aislinn:
[Laughter]
(1h 50m 29s) Al:
already picked, but my final nomination is Story of Seasons grand bizarre. I look, it wouldn’t
(1h 50m 38s)
be the first time that a story of seasons game has won if it were to win, to Raymon one
(1h 50m 41s)
in 2019. A lot of the more recent story of seasons have felt.
(1h 50m 48s)
Black Luster, is that fair to say, Micah? But this one, but this one, look, I mean, it’s,
(1h 50m 51s) Micah:
Yeah, I mean, I think they just felt like faithful remakes.
(1h 50m 58s)
I think where this felt like much more innovative remake.
(1h 50m 58s) Al:
yes, but yeah, not even just, just if he makes it, but like pioneers of all of town.
(1h 51m 6s)
It was fine. It was fine. What is this? I love this game so much. It is one of my, one of
(1h 51m 6s) Micah:
Yeah, yeah, it definitely was just fine.
(1h 51m 15s) Al:
favorite. I hate to say the term start.
(1h 51m 18s)
But it’s one of my favorite like fully rounded farming games where you are like life simulating rather than anything else like you are a person and you are inheriting this farm and it’s in this village and your aim is to build up this farm and to find someone to marry and to progress this town and build it up and blah blah blah.
(1h 51m 23s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 51m 49s) Al:
The story the overall story. So I would say that I think Stardew still definitely wins in terms of like individual characters stories. I think I don’t think anything will ever surpass that.
(1h 52m)
Maybe we’ll see but it is incredible. But I think the overall story for the game as a whole, I think this is my favorite of any of the farming games.
(1h 52m 12s)
Like the building up of the bizarre and like it’s such a silly story. I don’t want to talk too much about it because.
(1h 52m 19s)
Like there’s a silliness to it while also being a seriousness to it that I think is a really nice balance of things and I was really not excited about the idea of the bizarre because I was like I don’t like the idea of having to wait a week to sell stuff but they did it so well.
(1h 52m 37s)
It feels so balanced. I feel like I get to focus through the week on doing what I want to do and then sell on sell on Saturday.
(1h 52m 48s)
To think about the money very much because that’s when you’re buying your seeds as well. Right. You’ve got one day to focus on the money and then you go the other days to focus on the farming and the villagers and all of these other things.
(1h 53m)
I think it’s a really nice balance of things. I think it’s the best story of seasons game, which is saying something because tree of tones was great. I love tree of tones but I think this I think this tree of tones I think has better characters.
(1h 53m 15s) Micah:
Hmm. That’s interesting. Uh, it’s good to take into consideration since, you know,
(1h 53m 21s) Al:
What?
(1h 53m 22s) Micah:
I also have it on my list. And we also recorded an episode about it. Uh, it is a second on my
(1h 53m 25s) Aislinn:
Mmm.
(1h 53m 29s) Micah:
list. Or if season’s grand bazaar, uh, for a lot of the same reasons that you said, it feels so
(1h 53m 35s)
polished. It feels well rounded and like, uh, expanding on the experience of just being a farming
(1h 53m 43s)
games so much more.
(1h 53m 45s)
But the gameplay loop is comfortable and doesn’t feel incredibly intrusive.
(1h 53m 51s)
I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of things.
(1h 53m 55s)
Once I really get the cycle going and it just feels more polished.
(1h 54m 4s) Al:
Oh and and it has jumping
(1h 54m 7s) Micah:
It does have jumping.
(1h 54m 8s)
Not only does it have jumping, it has jumping barrels and it has gliding, so there’s
(1h 54m 12s) Al:
The gliding is so good. The only complaint I have is the invisible walls that you have
(1h 54m 15s) Micah:
facets to the jumping.
(1h 54m 18s) Al:
I don’t like the invisible walls especially in the mountains, but other than that jumping is great
(1h 54m 20s) Micah:
I agree.
(1h 54m 23s) Al:
The gliding is great. The barrels are great. It’s I love jumping in games. Sue me
(1h 54m 29s) Micah:
[laughing]
(1h 54m 29s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(1h 54m 29s) Al:
see. I think trio of towns was the first. I think trio of towns were the first. I think
(1h 54m 32s) Aislinn:
That might be the biggest takeaway this year.
(1h 54m 34s) Al:
of towns was the first farming game I played that had jumping and I just jumped everywhere.
(1h 54m 40s)
Every farming game should have jumping now. Please jump in your game. Please and thank you.
(1h 54m 45s) Aislinn:
I mean, I thought I figured this was going to happen, I’m not opposed to it.
(1h 54m 51s)
It sounds great.
(1h 54m 52s)
I’ve only heard great things about it, so that’s my little spiel on it.
(1h 54m 56s) Al:
All right, who has how many do each of you have left because I have none left
(1h 54m 57s) Micah:
I think it’s I got one.
(1h 55m 3s) Al:
Okay, well Micah you go for yours first then and then easily and you can do your others your other one
(1h 55m 8s) Micah:
My game of the year number one nomination is fantasy life I
(1h 55m 15s) Al:
I was worried this was gonna happen because I’ve not played the game and I really wish because I realized in the last section
(1h 55m 16s) Aislinn:
Ahhhhhh
(1h 55m 21s) Al:
Where we’re talking about what game we most wish we should have played. I didn’t actually say mine and I was trying to say life. I
(1h 55m 28s) Micah:
I, I saw that in the doc, uh, when I opened it before recording and I thought to myself,
(1h 55m 28s) Al:
Really wish I’d played it
(1h 55m 36s) Micah:
Oh, no, it pretty much, it’s such a good game.
(1h 55m 37s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(1h 55m 37s) Al:
Was that the moment you realized that wasn’t gonna win when
(1h 55m 42s)
I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. It’s it’s my
(1h 55m 45s)
biggest it’s my biggest failure this year. I think I’ve heard so much good about it and it just I just I just
(1h 55m 51s)
I just didn’t and I can’t give you a reason why I just didn’t
(1h 55m 54s) Micah:
- Yeah.
(1h 55m 56s)
Too many games, too many games, Elle.
(1h 56m 1s)
I was a very, very big fan of the original fantasy life.
(1h 56m 5s)
I am a very big fan of a lot of the things
(1h 56m 8s)
that level five does leaning into generative AI
(1h 56m 15s)
and not included.
(1h 56m 17s)
And it seems like they have dialed that back since I just,
(1h 56m 22s)
I was so excited.
(1h 56m 24s)
for this game to come out because of what I liked about the original fantasy life and it just didn’t
(1h 56m 31s)
like exceed the expectation. It just absolutely blew it away. There’s so much to do in this game.
(1h 56m 39s)
There’s three different maps. There’s, you know, animal crossing style like island,
(1h 56m 47s)
not really an island, but like your village that you build up you can rescue.
(1h 56m 54s)
New characters that become villagers and they give, they can come along with you on your adventures.
(1h 57m 2s)
They, there’s, each class has really, really straightforward and easy to follow tasks in order to,
(1h 57m 9s)
to upgrade those classes. They’ve just like, not just like streamlined it, but just made it a better
(1h 57m 17s)
experience overall. The story is fun and interesting. It’s
(1h 57m 24s)
it’s a very, it’s just a very addictive game and it’s a really enjoyable game. I’m very happy
(1h 57m 31s)
with how it turned out. I was very nervous about it. And I was blown away. I highly, highly recommend it.
(1h 57m 38s) Aislinn:
I’ll add on that if I had to pick between fantasy life and story of seasons it
(1h 57m 45s)
Like looking through both of those because I was like, oh if I wanted to play I actually had this thought of like if I wanted to pick between the two
(1h 57m 51s)
What would I pick and it feels like I would pick?
(1h 57m 55s)
fantasy life as well
(1h 57m 57s) Al:
We’re going to do all that discussion in a minute.
(1h 57m 57s) Micah:
it’s so good. But neither of you have played it. So I, I’m, it’s already doing it, but that’s
(1h 57m 58s) Al:
Let’s, we’re doing the nominations just now.
(1h 57m 59s) Aislinn:
Okay
(1h 58m) Al:
Get Aislin, Aislin.
(1h 58m 4s)
Let’s, Micah, let’s get, we’ll get to that in a minute because there’s more to come.
(1h 58m 6s) Micah:
okay. Go right ahead.
(1h 58m 8s) Aislinn:
I
(1h 58m 9s) Al:
Aislin, your final nomination, please.
(1h 58m 11s) Aislinn:
Final nomination should not come as a surprise, but it’s won or stop
(1h 58m 18s)
um, I
(1h 58m 20s)
Really really really enjoyed that game. That’s this this this game is probably like
(1h 58m 26s)
I would say top like out of all the games that I played this year
(1h 58m 29s)
I would say it’s like top. I don’t know where it would fall but top five
(1h 58m 33s)
in
(1h 58m 34s)
Game of the year for me like overall
(1h 58m 38s)
It left a very good and big impact on me in the sense of just the theme of just learning
(1h 58m 46s)
patience and
(1h 58m 48s)
Taking my time as someone that struggles sometimes with that and just like taking a step back and like just
(1h 58m 55s)
slowing down
(1h 58m 56s)
so
(1h 58m 57s)
While that theme is not a very uncommon theme in regards to storytelling the way that this game told that story
(1h 59m 4s)
I think was very touching to me, and I really enjoyed the game.
(1h 59m 8s)
I played a lot. The music was fun, the characters were silly. I personally love the characters,
(1h 59m 14s)
I know sometimes those type of characters in this game, I feel like can be all putting for some people,
(1h 59m 19s)
and some people may not particularly care, but I personally found a lot of the characters to be quite
(1h 59m 23s) Al:
- Yes, some people, yes.
(1h 59m 29s) Aislinn:
charming, and just I felt initially it took a little bit of work to get into, but once I got
(1h 59m 38s)
into it, I really enjoyed it, but I think the reason it took a little bit of work to kind of get into
(1h 59m 44s)
the game and figure out if I liked it or not was because of just going in with the mindset of not
(1h 59m 51s)
having patience, and I felt like I, as the story progressed, I kind of slowed down with the main
(2h)
character, and really while the main character and I are very different personality-wise, I felt like
(2h 8s)
I found ways to relate to her, and found that to be very special as she is, again, someone very
(2h 14s)
different from how I am, so the fact that I could relate to someone that was very different,
(2h 19s)
I found to be very special too, so I really liked it.
(2h 23s) Al:
I find that I find that really funny because, um, I, I, I understand why people like this game,
(2h 29s)
I, not a fan at all. Um, and I find it funny that you’re like, you’re saying that you’re
(2h 36s)
not like the main character, but you find ways to, um, understand her. And I’m like,
(2h 42s)
I am that character that is me. And that’s why I couldn’t play the game. Like, I, I just,
(2h 47s)
I, I know what it’s trying to do. I get what it’s going with story. I see what it’s
(2h 53s)
her. Um, and it wants me to go along the journey, but I just, I hate the characters so
(2h 59s)
much that I cannot deal with them. I cannot keep playing the game because the characters are just
(2h 1m 6s)
actively annoying me. Um, that’s, and that’s, and that’s the thing I know. I know what it’s trying
(2h 1m 8s) Micah:
I don’t know, it sounds like you gotta slow down, I don’t know.
(2h 1m 11s) Aislinn:
[laughs]
(2h 1m 14s) Al:
to do. I know that it’s trying to tell me that, but I, I just can’t do it. And I actively didn’t
(2h 1m 23s)
making, which is like the core aspect of the game. It’s too complicated, it’s too long-winded,
(2h 1m 25s) Aislinn:
Oh, I love that it was great!
(2h 1m 30s) Al:
it’s too, dare I say slow. I just, I get why people like it, but I can’t, I just can’t.
(2h 1m 34s) Micah:
[laughter]
(2h 1m 42s) Aislinn:
Hey, that’s fair. That’s totally fair. I’m not going to argue against it. I’m not going to argue against that. I understand.
(2h 1m 49s) Micah:
I didn’t play this game. I don’t really know what it is, but this conversation has
(2h 1m 55s)
Immediately made me want to play it
(2h 1m 57s) Al:
have fascinated that you’ve not even heard of it. So it’s the it’s the newest game from the
(2h 2m 1s)
developer of the Stanley Parable. We’ve probably talked, we probably talked about it on a previous
(2h 2m 3s) Micah:
Oh, you know what? It it’s in my wish like
(2h 2m 7s) Aislinn:
[laugh]
(2h 2m 8s) Micah:
Let’s you know
(2h 2m 11s) Al:
episode and you’ve been like oh it sounds good. It’s a gorgeous, it’s a gorgeous looking game and
(2h 2m 14s) Micah:
That’s usually how things wind up on my
(2h 2m 19s) Al:
I love what it’s trying to do, I just can’t.
(2h 2m 23s) Micah:
- Oh, it’s Annapurna.
(2h 2m 24s)
- Huh.
(2h 2m 26s)
It looks beautiful.
(2h 2m 27s)
And it is when you’re storied, really sold me on it.
(2h 2m 28s) Al:
Yeah.
(2h 2m 31s) Aislinn:
Heck yeah, let’s go!
(2h 2m 31s) Micah:
So, I mean, I also have a pretty hard time
(2h 2m 37s)
like slowing down on things.
(2h 2m 39s)
And I’ve noticed more and more as time has gone on
(2h 2m 42s)
that then as we’ve been like,
(2h 2m 45s)
I’m not trying to, I’m not trying to do social commentary,
(2h 2m 48s)
but you know, like as we’ve been trained to accept.
(2h 2m 49s) Al:
Oh yeah, ‘cause we never do social commentary on this podcast.
(2h 2m 52s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(2h 2m 54s) Micah:
as we’ve been trained to, you know, be more interested
(2h 2m 58s)
and excited about quick, you know, immediate satisfaction.
(2h 3m 3s)
And I’ve found myself struggling with that.
(2h 3m 6s)
And the internal struggle of wanting to slow down,
(2h 3m 9s)
but not feeling like I’m able to.
(2h 3m 11s)
So, I’m very interested in this based on your experience
(2h 3m 15s)
with it.
(2h 3m 16s) Aislinn:
Yeah, I think from that perspective you would like the game.
(2h 3m 19s) Micah:
Cool.
(2h 3m 20s)
I’m also interested in it because I’ll seem to hate it so much.
(2h 3m 22s) Al:
[Laughter]
(2h 3m 23s) Aislinn:
I mean clearly we have some differing opinions about Tamagotchi Plaza, so…
(2h 3m 23s) Micah:
[laughing]
(2h 3m 25s) Al:
Look, look, look, it is not, it is no Tamagotchi Plaza, it is no Sugar Jew Island, I understand
(2h 3m 32s)
why people like this game, it is not actively a bad game, it’s just not for me, the other
(2h 3m 37s)
two are bad games.
(2h 3m 37s) Micah:
And that’s totally fair.
(2h 3m 39s)
Yeah.
(2h 3m 39s)
Oh, wow, okay.
(2h 3m 40s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
Poll Responses
(2h 3m 41s) Al:
So when are we going to go through, let’s go quickly through the opinions from the poll.
(2h 3m 45s)
So first up, we had a entry entrance on the poll and we had an exact eight…
(2h 3m 52s)
way Thai for a game of the year on the poll, eight people voted for different games.
(2h 3m 54s) Micah:
[laughing]
(2h 3m 55s) Aislinn:
Okay.
(2h 3m 59s) Al:
So we’re going to go through them.
(2h 4m 1s)
First we have three silly answers, Cody voted soaksong, which is not a Cogico game.
(2h 4m 7s) Micah:
No, that’s that’s valid though, so we should consider it
(2h 4m 9s) Al:
Stuart voted for Legends ZA, which all I’m going to say, Stuart is obviously that’s
(2h 4m 17s)
not going to win the game of the year on this episode, but like maybe listen to the greenhouse
(2h 4m 22s)
episode coming out soon.
(2h 4m 24s)
And we do argue about it a lot.
(2h 4m 24s) Micah:
- Just gonna be argue about it the whole time.
(2h 4m 27s) Aislinn:
we all have differing opinions
(2h 4m 29s) Micah:
- Yeah.
(2h 4m 34s) Al:
Come back to this after you’ve listened, you might find it funny.
(2h 4m 37s) Micah:
[laughing]
(2h 4m 38s) Al:
And Vincent voted for Expedition 33, which was the full name for that, I can’t remember.
(2h 4m 42s) Aislinn:
Ooooh.
(2h 4m 45s) Micah:
Player obscure.
(2h 4m 45s) Aislinn:
Clear Obscura.
(2h 4m 46s) Al:
There we go, there we go, obviously also not a Cogico game.
(2h 4m 50s)
where we’re moving on.
(2h 4m 52s)
There we go.
(2h 5m 6s) Micah:
[laughter]
(2h 5m 7s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(2h 5m 10s) Al:
Nami has said, “I haven’t actually played hairdling, but it’s been on my wishlist forever and I’ve seen gameplay of it, and I know people that have beaten it. I cannot wait to play it.”
(2h 5m 19s)
fantasy life I use a strong contender as well so now me actually voted
(2h 5m 21s) Micah:
Oh.
(2h 5m 22s) Al:
for hardling. Next we have Kevin who says quite a long paragraph, he’s done a
(2h 5m 30s)
journey because Johnny did this really long paragraph last year for what was it, Rusty’s
(2h 5m 35s)
retirement. Here is Kevin’s long paragraph. In a space where cozy has been underused
(2h 5m 40s)
to the point of almost holding no weight, one to stop does in fact manage to capture
(2h 5m 44s)
the essence of cozy through its gameplay and setting. While still aggressively confronting
(2h 5m 44s) Micah:
Oh. No way.
(2h 5m 45s) Aislinn:
Yes! Yes! Sorry.
(2h 5m 50s) Al:
us with the existential horrors.
(2h 5m 52s)
of anxiety burnout and search for purpose so many people in this day and age can relate to.
(2h 5m 57s)
It manages to blend the whimsy and almost absurdity of changing the color of birds and
(2h 6m 2s)
brewing tea in a multi-story contraption, which with the grim images of injured warriors and
(2h 6m 8s)
inner parts of ourselves we fear.
(2h 6m 10s)
Wonderstop is a story for the times and for the ages, cottagecore games these days often travel
(2h 6m 15s)
the well-traded ground of seeking escape from a carpet, capitalistic world of overworking
(2h 6m 20s)
and overachieving.
(2h 6m 22s)
games have managed to follow through with that to the degree Wonderstop has. Clearly I’m biased
(2h 6m 26s)
because it’s playing off personal issues I know all too well, but at the same time it’s hard to
(2h 6m 30s)
say that any game we have ever covered has ever managed to speak directly to me like this. And
(2h 6m 36s)
also yes, the fastest bullet alive, the second Dirk Warhard novel we get to read from, is deserving
(2h 6m 43s)
of a Pulitzer all in its own. Kevin, I think a Pulitzer is a journalism reward, isn’t it? It’s not a
(2h 6m 44s) Aislinn:
Yeah.
(2h 6m 48s) Al:
novel the word. I know that’s not
(2h 6m 50s) Micah:
I love that that’s what you pulled out of the head.
(2h 6m 52s) Al:
a word. I don’t. Okay, so that’s a vote for one to stop.
(2h 6m 56s) Micah:
So funny.
(2h 6m 57s) Aislinn:
Of…
(2h 7m 3s) Micah:
It is an award in journalism arts and letters so you know, not just journalism but…
(2h 7m 8s) Al:
Okay, so it’s not just journalism fair enough. My bad. My bad. So that’s Kevin’s vote for one to stop
(2h 7m 14s)
next we have cat
(2h 7m 15s) Aislinn:
I second everything he said, just just as a heads up.
(2h 7m 17s) Al:
That’s fine next we have cat who said research story and rune factory were also great
(2h 7m 22s)
But story of seasons grand bazaar was just so incredible
(2h 7m 25s)
Absolutely the best game in the series including harvest moon honestly
(2h 7m 29s) Micah:
- Oh.
(2h 7m 29s) Al:
I feel like I am the only person who really disliked
(2h 7m 32s)
Hello kitty island adventure even though I like Sanrio characters and obviously I like this style of game
(2h 7m 34s) Aislinn:
Oh. Oh.
(2h 7m 38s) Al:
It was just so boring and flat
(2h 7m 40s)
So that’s a positive vote for story seasons grand bazaar and a negative vote
(2h 7m 45s)
Kitty island adventure. I don’t know. Do we do negative votes?
(2h 7m 49s)
And then Spencer has just said hello kitty
(2h 7m 52s)
so
(2h 7m 53s)
There we go
(2h 7m 55s)
And Chris and Chris has voted for fantasy life. I the girl who steals time
(2h 7m 56s) Micah:
uh-oh the cancel each other out huge
Game Of The Year Discussion
(2h 8m 2s) Al:
So we are in a bit of a pickle
(2h 8m 5s)
I feel like this is this is the
(2h 8m 8s)
narrowed it down to five games for the
(2h 8m 12s)
We have a snackle who has two point five votes. I feel like you’re you kind of gave it half of all in your
(2h 8m 20s)
runner-ups
(2h 8m 22s)
Micah
(2h 8m 22s) Micah:
Yeah. Yeah. I was very ready if you recall in our discussions
(2h 8m 24s) Al:
Hello
(2h 8m 26s)
Yeah
(2h 8m 28s)
Yeah
(2h 8m 28s) Micah:
out previously about Snacko. I was very ready for Snacko to be my game of the year.
(2h 8m 32s) Al:
Yep
(2h 8m 33s) Micah:
I unfortunately just blank. I don’t know what happened.
(2h 8m 35s) Al:
Didn’t play it
(2h 8m 37s) Aislinn:
[laughter]
(2h 8m 38s) Al:
We then have Hello kitty which has two votes from us plus one from the polls
(2h 8m 44s)
So that’s three votes for Hello kitty
(2h 8m 46s)
We have story of seasons grand bazaar
(2h 8m 48s)
Which again has two votes from us and one from the polls so three in total
(2h 8m 52s)
We then have fantasy life
(2h 8m 53s)
I which has one vote from us and one from the polls so two and one to stop
(2h 8m 57s)
Which also has one from us and one from the polls so that’s two
(2h 9m)
So we have five games that have two two and a half or three
(2h 9m 6s) Micah:
And I will say for what it’s worth.
(2h 9m 7s)
The ticker has moved.
(2h 9m 9s)
I have gone from adding wanders up to my wishlist to now.
(2h 9m 13s)
I doubt just downloaded the demo.
(2h 9m 14s)
So it’s, you know, for whatever that’s worth.
(2h 9m 15s) Aislinn:
I’ll take these, I’ll take these wins, so that’s it.
(2h 9m 16s) Al:
I’m gonna start off by saying I think Snacko should win because it’s the only one that
(2h 9m 18s) Micah:
I just want to…
(2h 9m 28s) Al:
all three of us mentioned even if nobody in the poll voted for it. That’s my that’s
(2h 9m 34s)
my opening gambit response.
(2h 9m 36s) Micah:
That is a very fair and valid opening gambit and
(2h 9m 42s) Al:
[laughing]
(2h 9m 43s) Micah:
I’m prepared for fantasy life. I tend to not make it through. I’m very sad that that’s the case, but I also
(2h 9m 53s)
Am prepared for that eventuality so
(2h 9m 56s) Al:
fantasy life, I is probably going to go the way of Cartel Island, where if one other person had played it, it probably would win, and there’s probably going to be an angry person in Slack, who says it should have won, but I think it’s hard to justify winning in its current.
(2h 10m 15s) Micah:
Sure, I think so too and that’s that’s I that’s okay with
(2h 10m 21s) Al:
I’m gonna say no to Hello Kitty even though I nominated it. I think if we have to strike an extra one off
(2h 10m 26s)
I think it’s gonna be Hello Kitty because it didn’t actually come out
(2h 10m 30s) Micah:
Yeah, I think that’s fair to I I think most of our game play of it between the the two of us who did play it
(2h 10m 31s) Aislinn:
Bye! Yeah!
(2h 10m 40s) Micah:
Did not take place during this year anyways, so I’m also okay with that
(2h 10m 45s) Aislinn:
Yeah, I’m not, I’m not opposed to it.
(2h 10m 46s) Micah:
It is a great game though and you should play it and I can’t remember who it was that voted against it, but
(2h 10m 49s) Al:
Yeah, well. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I think
(2h 10m 51s) Aislinn:
Oh, yeah, 100%.
(2h 10m 54s) Micah:
Don’t listen to that
(2h 10m 54s) Al:
It was cat I think yeah, it was cat
(2h 10m 57s) Aislinn:
No, I’m still, I’m still going to check it out.
(2h 10m 59s)
I am 100% still going to check it out.
(2h 11m 1s) Al:
Look I I I I suspect cat would just I say it’s it’s just not for them, right? Like it did I don’t think they’re saying it’s actively bad
(2h 11m 8s) Micah:
Sure. Yeah, totally.
(2h 11m 12s) Al:
They do explicitly say I feel like I’m the only person who disliked it. So you know that that’s
(2h 11m 17s) Micah:
[laughing]
(2h 11m 19s) Al:
Sometimes we are sometimes games. Just don’t grab us and that’s
(2h 11m 22s) Micah:
- Well Kat, if it makes you feel any better,
(2h 11m 24s)
you are not the first person that I’ve heard say
(2h 11m 26s)
that they didn’t like it.
(2h 11m 27s)
So in that regard also, I will yield.
(2h 11m 30s) Al:
Okay, so we’re down to three we’ve got Snacko, Story of Seasons, Grand Bazaar, and Wonderstop.
(2h 11m 34s)
I don’t want to strike off Story of Seasons, but if I’m choosing between Story of Seasons and Snacko…
(2h 11m 41s)
I’d probably picking Snacko Story of Seasons have one, one before.
(2h 11m 42s) Aislinn:
I’m picking Snacko, but again.
(2h 11m 48s) Al:
I…
(2h 11m 48s) Aislinn:
I don’t think that should be a arguing point.
(2h 11m 51s) Al:
Sure, yeah, I’m not saying they shouldn’t win, I’m just like, I’ve just, it’s a thing to consider.
(2h 11m 51s) Aislinn:
I think it’s OK for them to win again.
(2h 11m 53s)
But I think–
(2h 11m 58s) Micah:
As someone who has story of seasons on their list and did not play Snacko this year in its 1.0 finish state,
(2h 12m 7s)
it feels more right to me spiritually maybe to give it to Snacko over story of seasons,
(2h 12m 15s)
especially because, and again, I don’t know that this necessarily needs to be a point of argument, but it is also a remake of an existing game.
(2h 12m 28s)
Which did an incredible job with it, but it is not necessarily completely new in the ways that Snacko is, I guess.
(2h 12m 40s) Al:
So I understand what you’re saying, but also I think that grandpa’s art does the things that
(2h 12m 46s)
Remakes should do it took a game that people might have missed a game that people didn’t really play a game that could use a lot of improvement and
(2h 12m 55s)
It did all of that remakes far too often take here’s a really popular game
(2h 12m 59s)
Let’s just do it again and this did not do that at all
(2h 13m 2s)
It took a game that people hadn’t really played and gave them an opportunity to play it much better than it had been before
(2h 13m 3s) Micah:
Yeah, that’s true.
(2h 13m 9s)
No, I can understand that. I just it just feel I don’t know I don’t know how else to describe it other than it feels right for
(2h 13m 10s) Al:
I
(2h 13m 15s)
Know that’s fair. I’m fine. I’m I’m I’m not fine to strike off
(2h 13m 20s)
I do think I do think it’s my favorite game of the year
(2h 13m 23s)
Studies seasons grandpa’s art. I think personally I prefer it to snackle
(2h 13m 27s)
But I think in terms of our collective one
(2h 13m 30s)
Probably snackle wins over story of seasons grandpa’s art, but we still have the wonder stop of all to discuss. I don’t want to give it to wonder stop
(2h 13m 40s)
There’s a very
(2h 13m 42s)
Persuasive argument
(2h 13m 44s)
But also I still just don’t like the game. Sorry
(2h 13m 48s) Aislinn:
I mean, that’s fair. That’s, I, I understand that you just don’t like the game.
(2h 13m 56s) Micah:
just hate bond and whimsy and that’s understandable.
(2h 13m 56s) Al:
[laughter]
(2h 13m 56s) Aislinn:
I, I just, the, the, the problem is I love the game. I love, it’s not, it’s not necessarily doing
(2h 14m 6s)
anything revolutionary, but at the same time it’s doing something revolutionary during this time.
(2h 14m 11s)
I think this game coming out during this specific period and like snapshot of time,
(2h 14m 16s)
I think it’s doing something great.
(2h 14m 18s)
It’s very special to me with, again, encouraging.
(2h 14m 20s) Al:
But also what is, what it’s, but what it’s saying is, hey, capitalism bad by the such an original idea. It’s not really, right? Like, I get, I get.
(2h 14m 28s) Micah:
But it’s very true, so…
(2h 14m 29s) Aislinn:
No, it’s not. It’s but the thing is I
(2h 14m 31s) Al:
Sure, sure, sure. I get the point and I get Kevin’s point about it doing it best, but it’s also like not that original. And also it’s doing it in our, I don’t have a fully formed sentence.
(2h 14m 47s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(2h 14m 48s) Micah:
I can’t say one way or another because I did not play it and I mostly just learned about it here.
(2h 14m 50s) Al:
So I stopped on a comma.
(2h 14m 57s) Micah:
But, you know, and in that way I have a hard time pushing it through to the game of the year because my compromise is a game that I have played just in its alpha and beta stages.
(2h 15m 15s)
And I am willing to, you know, accept that as.
(2h 15m 18s)
It’s a game of the year. I just can’t do that with Wonderstop personally because I just haven’t played it.
(2h 15m 24s)
I think it sounds incredible and I am very excited to play it now based on everything that I’ve heard, but it’s it’s it just doesn’t make sense for me to to say it’s my game of the year if I haven’t played it and I just learned about it so.
(2h 15m 36s) Aislinn:
Yeah, no, that’s, I got it.
(2h 15m 37s) Al:
well yeah and just just a reminder it’s not individual games of the years is the
(2h 15m 41s)
podcasts game of the year so that’s fair but yeah I think selfishly I would
(2h 15m 47s)
say that I think it’s hard for us to say that the podcast game of the year is
(2h 15m 51s)
a game that one of the three of
(2h 15m 54s) Aislinn:
Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, I’m not, I, I, yeah, no, I, I can agree, I can agree with that.
(2h 15m 54s) Micah:
Yeah, I agree.
(2h 15m 58s) Aislinn:
I mean, we all kind of collectively like snacko and one sense or another in
(2h 16m 4s)
regardless of the stage that it was in.
(2h 16m 6s) Al:
Yeah well I mean I get the reasons why you like it I just yeah I think it’s hard
(2h 16m 6s) Aislinn:
So I know going for Wanderstop is like a selfish pick.
(2h 16m 16s) Al:
to justify it as being the podcast game of the year and Kevin’s going to kill me.
(2h 16m 20s) Micah:
[laughing]
(2h 16m 20s) Aislinn:
Yeah, probably. Probably. Kevin might also kill me for not pushing for it harder.
(2h 16m 25s) Al:
yet, oh yeah, absolutely. So, Snacko is the harvest season’s game of the year,
Game Of The Year Winner
(2h 16m 33s) Al:
- Congratulations to Snacko. I can’t believe we got there, especially considering
(2h 16m 35s) Aislinn:
Yeah. Hey.
(2h 16m 39s) Al:
Michael was saying it’s not going to win right at the beginning.
(2h 16m 42s) Aislinn:
[laughing]
(2h 16m 44s) Micah:
No, wait, when did I say that?
(2h 16m 45s) Al:
During the update, you said you wanted to give it update because you knew it wouldn’t get
(2h 16m 49s)
game of the year.
(2h 16m 50s) Micah:
No, no, no, no, what I said was I wanted to give it update because I didn’t nominate it as one of my options for game of the year and
(2h 16m 55s) Al:
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
(2h 16m 57s) Aislinn:
- Okay, yeah, that’s fair.
(2h 16m 57s) Micah:
And I said it I would wait because I figured it was going to get nominated and that would be a
(2h 17m 5s)
deeper discussion from that point
(2h 17m 7s) Al:
All right. Okay, uh, I think
(2h 17m 11s) Micah:
I’m very happy with that though. I’m very happy with that as well.
(2h 17m 13s) Aislinn:
I’m happy with the two.
(2h 17m 13s) Al:
good. We’re all happy with the winner. It might not be anybody’s
(2h 17m 18s)
top game, but collectively it is our average to best game. It is a great game. And also,
(2h 17m 25s)
it’s how this is not the reason for doing it.
(2h 17m 30s) Aislinn:
Yeah, I think too, it also encapsulates the theme of the podcast well.
(2h 17m 38s)
It meshes well with this podcast, awesome that it’s indie.
(2h 17m 44s)
And even though we live in a society, we’re farming games, our over-saturated,
(2h 17m 50s) Micah:
We do.
(2h 17m 55s) Aislinn:
Snacko feels like a farming game that stands out amongst the rest of them.
(2h 18m) Micah:
Totally and also you place cats and they’re based on the developers cats and that’s really all you need to know and that’s why you should play it because it’s so cute so
(2h 18m 7s) Aislinn:
Oh. (laughs)
Outro
(2h 18m 10s) Al:
All right, I think we’re going to wrap things up there because we’re two and a half hours a total of four and a half hours regarding today.
(2h 18m 17s)
I guess we’ll see you all next year when Pocopia wins.
(2h 18m 21s) Aislinn:
No, guys! Daaah!
(2h 18m 21s) Micah:
uh, you can follow me on most socials unfortunately at Mike of the brave. Um, I have been
(2h 18m 24s) Al:
My car is there anything you would like to share with the audience before we go.
(2h 18m 38s) Micah:
leading more towards Instagram as the social did for it. It used to be Twitter, but it’s a
(2h 18m 44s)
nightmare on there. So, uh, but I’m pretty much everywhere. I’ve also been streaming more again
(2h 18m 51s)
uh, if you want to come by and hang out. Uh, and that’s also Mike’s a brave. That’s pretty much it.
(2h 18m 59s) Al:
uh, Azeland, why about you?
(2h 19m 1s) Aislinn:
Pretty much also on just about all socials, AIDS trainer, or AIS trainer, is what I usually
(2h 19m 10s)
go for, everything, I mean I technically have a Twitter, don’t bother with it, it’s dead
(2h 19m 16s) Micah:
[laughing]
(2h 19m 17s) Aislinn:
in the water, don’t even bother.
(2h 19m 18s) Al:
We don’t like the Nazi site, that’s all.
(2h 19m 22s) Aislinn:
I primarily also use Instagram in regards to being relatively social, although I am currently
(2h 19m 29s)
on a little bit of a break, so…
(2h 19m 31s)
just to kind of re-center myself, but otherwise I also stream on Twitch, also Asetrainer.
(2h 19m 41s)
And that’s pretty much it.
(2h 19m 42s)
Oh, I guess I’m moo-n-koo.
(2h 19m 43s)
Let me do a moo-n-koo plug, check out moo-n-koo, actually.
(2h 19m 46s) Al:
Ooh, it’s nearly, it’s a nearly time.
(2h 19m 52s) Aislinn:
Oh, yeah, very, as of this episode coming out, we will be dropping very soon.
(2h 19m 58s)
our K-pop top.
(2h 20m 1s)
Top 10 K-pop songs of 20/25, it’s going to be a time.
(2h 20m 3s) Al:
I’m so excited.
(2h 20m 4s)
This is the only the second time you’ve done this episode
(2h 20m 7s)
where I have opinions.
(2h 20m 9s)
[laughing]
(2h 20m 10s) Micah:
[laughing]
(2h 20m 12s) Aislinn:
I’m very excited for especially the conversations that Chris and I are going to have for this one.
(2h 20m 18s) Al:
There’s going to be some fun conversations. I’m sure of it. You can
(2h 20m 20s) Aislinn:
Oh, it’s going to be some fun and spicy conversations.
(2h 20m 25s) Al:
Oh, oh, I look forward to the hot takes
(2h 20m 25s) Aislinn:
A lot of hot takes.
(2h 20m 31s) Al:
Perfect you can find the podcast on Tumblr and on blue sky at THS pod and don’t look for us on the Nazi site
(2h 20m 38s)
We don’t post there anymore
(2h 20m 41s)
I think the codes still exists, but I honestly don’t know
(2h 20m 46s)
You can send us feedback.
(2h 20m 48s)
Tell us why we’re wrong about the game of the year and why you think something else should have won.
(2h 20m 55s)
You can do that from our website harviseason.club.
(2h 20m 58s)
You can also find there all the links to everything to do with the podcast, including our patreon patreon.com/thspod
(2h 21m 4s)
where you can access to the slack and talk to us about this.
(2h 21m 7s)
You can tell us why I’m wrong there.
(2h 21m 9s)
You can tell me why I’m wrong in lots of different places.
(2h 21m 12s) Micah:
[laughs]
(2h 21m 12s) Al:
Only one of those places, only one of those places that you have to pay for, and that’s the place where I can then
(2h 21m 18s)
spawn to you and tell you why I don’t care.
(2h 21m 21s) Micah:
[laughter]
(2h 21m 23s) Aislinn:
It’s also the place where you can also hear more hot takes in the greenhouse episode.
(2h 21m 26s) Al:
Yes, yes.
(2h 21m 28s)
You can get access to our bonus podcast episodes where we have an hour and a half long, I think, episode on our other games of the year.
(2h 21m 35s) Micah:
Yeah, maybe.
(2h 21m 35s) Aislinn:
[Music]
(2h 21m 38s) Al:
I don’t know how we’ve spent so much time talking today, but there we are.
(2h 21m 46s)
Yes, so you can do that for me.
(2h 21m 48s)
Thank you for listening, and until next year, listeners, have a good harvest.
(2h 21m 58s) Aislinn:
Yeah, this was super, super fun.
(2h 22m 6s) Micah:
Have a good harvest
(2h 22m 6s) Aislinn:
Have a good harvest.
(2h 22m 7s) Theme Tune:
The Harvest Season is created by Alma Henry with support from our patrons, including our
(2h 22m 18s)
pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart, Analisa.
(2h 22m 22s)
Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Brutus.
(2h 22m 26s)
Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club for show notes and links to things we
(2h 22m 32s)
discussed in this episode.
(2h 22m 37s)
[Music]
(2h 22m 42s) Al:
[laughing]
(2h 22m 42s) Micah:
I, for once was ready this time, usually I’m not.
(2h 22m 42s) Aislinn:
I don’t know why I just wasn’t ready. I think brain brain is fried is what’s happening.
(2h 22m 50s) Al:
Uh, I think, four and a half hours, not even, yes.
(2h 22m 53s) Micah:
That’s family, you know, four and a half hours.
(2h 23m 3s) Al:
This call has been going on for four and a half hours.
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