I Can Lie To Myself

Wed, Aug 26, 2026 Year 3, Winter 8

Al and Chelsea talk about Moonlight Peaks.

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:02:19: What Have We Been Up To
00:05:35: Game News
00:13:36: New Games
00:31:57: Moonlight Peaks
01:45:43: Outro

Contact

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

Transcript

Theme Tune

(0s) Theme Tune:

[music playing]

Intro

(30s) Al:

Hello farmers and welcome to another episode of The Harvest Season. My name is Al

(36s) Chelsea:

My name is Chelsea.

(37s) Al:

and we’re here today to talk about cottagecore games. Woo!

(41s) Chelsea:

Woo!

(44s) Al:

Hello Chelsea, welcome back. I mean maybe you should be welcoming me back because you were on

(46s) Chelsea:

Welcome back to you.

(50s) Al:

multiple episodes while I was off.

(53s) Chelsea:

Yeah, it’s been a while. Welcome back, Al.

(55s) Al:

Yes, I’m just checking. The last episode I recorded was on the 11th of July.

(1m)

So that is six weeks. So I’ve not podcasted for six weeks. So let’s see if I can remember how to do it.

(1m 7s) Chelsea:

We’ve missed you!

(1m 10s) Al:

Oh dear. Good fun. Well, thank you all for your recordings and episodes for bug month and

(1m 19s)

beyond, I guess, because you did last week’s as well. They were enjoyable to edit and listen to.

(1m 27s)

Great! Well, this episode, we are…

(1m 30s)

We’re going to talk about a game that I’ve been playing for ages and haven’t really played

(1m 35s)

for the last six weeks because I was meant to record it five weeks ago, but then things

(1m 41s)

happened so I ended up not being able to record it sadly. But we’re finally here. Let’s see

(1m 46s)

if I can remember everything about the game before we talk about it. And that is Moonlight

(1m 48s) Chelsea:

[laughter]

(1m 52s) Al:

Peaks. So I have played Moonlight Peaks. Chelsea has played Moonlight Peaks. We’ll get into

(1m 57s)

to the details of that in the main section.

(2m)

That’s the word I’m looking for. Before that, we have some news. Despite there being so

(2m) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(2m 2s)

Yes.

(2m 5s) Al:

much news that you had to cover last week, there is more news. It never ends. It does

(2m 8s) Chelsea:

It never ends.

(2m 12s) Al:

pause sometimes, especially around December. All that happens around December is delays.

(2m 13s) Chelsea:

Hmm.

(2m 17s)

[laughs]

What Have We Been Up To

(2m 19s) Al:

But before all that, Chelsea, what have you been up to?

(2m 21s) Chelsea:

Well, since last week,

(2m 23s)

[laughs]

(2m 25s)

not a whole lot, just been playing some Moonlight Peaks,

(2m 27s)

playing some Neopets,

(2m 30s)

this is our daughter’s birthday,

(2m 32s) Al:

Woo!

(2m 32s) Chelsea:

so my husband was off for the week,

(2m 34s)

so we did museums, water parks,

(2m 36s)

get-togethers,

(2m 38s)

and then it’s my son William’s birthday on Wednesday,

(2m 40s)

so we’re gonna just keep going,

(2m 42s)

and then the week after that is school.

(2m 44s)

[laughs]

(2m 45s) Al:

Wow.

(2m 46s) Chelsea:

So we’re just trying to shove that last little bit of summer

(2m 47s) Al:

Yeah.

(2m 48s) Chelsea:

at the end, because they start on the 2nd of September,

(2m 50s)

which means back to routine, kinda.

(2m 51s) Al:

When, how long, how long is your summer holidays?

(2m 52s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(2m 56s)

So, usually it starts, like, last week of June.

(2m 58s)

June. We went right up to like

(3m)

the 28th I think this year of June and then we start September 2nd. So about two months. Yeah,

(3m 5s) Al:

Wow, that’s very long.

(3m 6s) Chelsea:

how about over there? Okay, I think it’d be beneficial for everybody if they kind of had

(3m 8s) Al:

Yeah, we get six weeks here.

(3m 13s) Chelsea:

shorter summer break with more kind of like March break, Christmas break, pauses throughout the year.

(3m 17s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, that’s nine weeks you get there.

(3m 20s)

That’s a long, a long time.

(3m 22s) Chelsea:

It’s a little long. Yeah, it is.

(3m 25s) Al:

I definitely prefer, I mean,

(3m 26s)

you’ll experience this as well,

(3m 28s)

I definitely prefer shorter holidays

(3m 31s)

because the routine change can be

(3m 33s)

quite difficult for my children.

(3m 36s) Chelsea:

For sure. Yeah, we have one starting 11th grade, 8th grade, 7th grade, and 4th grade.

(3m 42s)

So, three of the four are at one school this year, and one is just on her own for two more years.

(3m 46s) Al:

No, no.

(3m 48s) Chelsea:

But, no, it’s good. They’re not scattered everywhere anymore.

(3m 54s)

Yeah, so that’s parenting. What have you been up to? Well, what I’ve been up to is what my children have been up to.

(3m 56s) Al:

Yeah. Nice. Well, not much longer until you can have some break during the day. Yes, absolutely.

(4m 3s) Chelsea:

But no, it’s been a good summer.

(4m 12s)

Well, more Moonlight Peaks time.

(4m 18s)

My Animal Crossing island’s been neglected too.

(4m 18s) Al:

Shocking. Shocking. I have also been playing Moonlight Peaks since

(4m 26s)

since I was last on the episode but again that’s it’s been quite a while so it’s not really been

(4m 31s)

the last couple of weeks. Although I do have it open next to me just so I can confirm anything

(4m 37s)

that I have to question. What I have been playing is I have picked up Rhythm Heaven Groove.

(4m 45s)

So that’s the new Rhythm Heaven game. I don’t know if you’ve played. Oh here’s a fun thing.

(4m 48s)

I can’t remember which name is which because the name is different here than it is in North America.

(4m 53s)

One of them calls it Rhythm Heaven.

(4m 54s) Chelsea:

Oh.

(4m 56s) Al:

And one of them calls it Rhythm Paradise.

(4m 58s)

And I can never remember which is which.

(4m 59s) Chelsea:

Okay.

(5m)

Oh, I’m not sure.

(5m 2s)

I think, yeah, you’ve mentioned it before.

(5m 2s) Al:

Because the problem is that all of the stuff I see online is one name, but then Craig calls

(5m 6s)

it the other name, because that’s the only name he knows is the name that’s on the thing.

(5m 10s)

And so I’ve got to the point where I just can’t remember what it’s called.

(5m 14s) Chelsea:

Wait a minute. Yeah, you’re enjoying that one?

(5m 15s) Al:

Yes, I am enjoying that.

(5m 19s)

It’s good fun.

(5m 20s)

I haven’t got through as much as I would have liked to, but I’ll get there.

(5m 24s)

And then I also picked up in the last week or.

(5m 26s)

So the POCOPIA DLC so I’m playing through bubbly basin and may or may not have stuff to talk about that in a future episode.

(5m 33s) Chelsea:

Oh, yes, yes, we should.

Game News

(5m 35s) Al:

All right, should we get on with some news then.

Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit

(5m 38s) Al:

First up cozy grove camp spirit, this is the most recent cozy grove game, which was previously on netflix.

(5m 50s)

It is now also out on steam and on switch and I just realized.

(5m 56s) Chelsea:

On Netflix?

(5m 57s) Al:

Yeah, so it was a netflix game originally.

(6m 2s) Chelsea:

Okay, I have not delved into any Netflix games.

(6m 6s) Al:

And it’s not too bad, it’s I guess the main disadvantage is that obviously it’s not on consoles or anything so it’s kind of designed around phone slash TV, I guess, but so it’s yeah.

(6m 25s)

Now, obviously, I’m–

(6m 26s)

I’m never a huge fan of when things are exclusive to a subscription service.

(6m 31s)

That’s not great.

(6m 31s) Chelsea:

I’m not a cheating service.

(6m 34s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

(6m 37s)

It is also on Xbox and PlayStation.

(6m 40s)

I’d just forgotten to check that before.

(6m 41s)

So, yeah, Cozy Grove Camp Spirit is now out on wherever you play games,

(6m 46s)

unless that’s some weird old console.

(6m 49s) Chelsea:

I had to laugh there’s um in Canada we have Rogers TV and in like the mid-2000s

(6m 56s)

you could do picture-in-picture and you could play it like a bubble blast game

(7m)

while you’re watching TV and I’m like this is the future the future is now

(7m) Al:

ah yes yeah we had that yeah we had that as well um on on ours here that was a good fun enjoyed that

(7m 8s) Chelsea:

crazy oh my goodness yeah

Star Birds

(7m 13s) Al:

uh next up star birds um have announced that their 1.0 is coming out in 2027 uh sorry to

(7m 20s)

kevin who had that on his game draft for this year uh you’re not getting points for that one

(7m 22s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(7m 26s) Al:

well not this year because you know so we shall see

(7m 31s)

end up winning but if if kevin it well yeah I mean that’ll be high up on the list won’t it for the

(7m 33s) Chelsea:

You won 2027.

(7m 38s) Al:

2027 draft also coming out in 2027 is Neverway which has been delayed it was meant to be coming

(7m 39s) Chelsea:

Oh, it could still be April.

(7m 41s)

You never know.

Neverway

(7m 47s) Al:

out this year but before that it was meant to be coming out last year so they’re on a run of delaying

(7m 53s)

let’s see if it actually comes out next year

(7m 55s) Chelsea:

We get GTA 6 before, never wait.

(7m 59s) Al:

I BELIEVE THIS GAME WAS-

(8m)

[Continues to talk about the game being released in the UK]

(8m 10s) Chelsea:

Oh my goodness, it’s an urban legend at this point.

(8m 21s)

It gets to the point where you just lower your expectations and then be pleasantly surprised when it does eventually.

(8m 28s) Al:

My bad, I’m talking about a different game. This one was never meant to be coming out in 2025.

(8m 33s)

That would have been Witchbrook. There we go. I’m mixing things up in my head here.

(8m 36s) Chelsea:

Oh, okay.

(8m 38s) Al:

Witchbrook has not as of now been delayed to 2027 but doesn’t have a release date yet. Their most

(8m 44s)

recent update was like “oh we’re still going” and people are like “okay yeah yeah you’re gonna

(8m 47s) Chelsea:

We’re still here.

(8m 50s) Al:

release this year” or because they - yes I think it was Witchbrook that was originally announced

(8m 56s) Chelsea:

they’ll do a silk song and be like, “yep, prepare yourself, it’s ready.”

(9m 2s) Al:

Oh, it’s way worse than I was saying. Witchbrook was originally announced in 2016. It’s even

(9m 8s) Chelsea:

Oh my goodness, is this their first game?

(9m 9s) Al:

changed name since then. It was originally Spellbound and is now Witchbrook. It’s Chucklefish

(9m 19s)

I believe who are actually developing it, because they were originally just a games

(9m 24s)

publisher. They published Stardew before it went self-published. But it looks like it’s

(9m 32s)

their first game? Good question. I don’t think so. No, it is not their first game. This will

(9m 34s) Chelsea:

Not even trying to be rude, like, is this your first game?

(9m 38s)

Not- no sass required.

(9m 44s) Al:

be their fourth game. Oh, they actually developed the Wargroove games. I don’t know if you’re

(9m 52s)

Wargroove 2 came out a couple of years ago. It was like a big, it’s a turn-based tactics

(9m 58s)

game, but it was like.

(10m 2s)

Quite heavily marketed by Nintendo, I think.

(10m 5s) Chelsea:

Okay.

(10m 8s) Al:

But yes, and they also released a game called Starbound, which I had never heard of.

(10m 14s)

So yeah, no, it’s their fourth game, but Starbound, their first game,

(10m 18s)

came out the year they announced this game, Witchbrook.

(10m 22s)

So they’ve released three games since they’ve announced this game.

(10m 23s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(10m 26s)

[laughs]

(10m 28s)

The magnum opus.

(10m 29s) Al:

Yeah, but no, I think their biggest.

(10m 32s)

Thing would have been publishing Stardew Valley looking through the list. I’m not seeing anything even in the publishing. I don’t see anything else. It’s anywhere near as big. So wonder how much money they made from publishing that probably a decent amount.

(10m 43s) Chelsea:

Um, enough to fund this game.

(10m 45s) Al:

Well, exactly. That’s that money won’t last forever, considering they’re no longer the publisher, but it’s clearly enough to let them do some stuff, which is always nice.

Japanese Rural Life Adventure

(10m 56s) Al:

Next up, Japanese Rural Life Adventure have announced their 1.3 point.

(11m 2s)

Yes, yeah, I like the look of it. It’s in the bucket of I sure would like to play this at some point, but I don’t think it’s going to be prioritized above most of the other games I’m playing. So will I ever actually get to it? Who knows?

(11m 12s) Chelsea:

That’s a cute art style.

(11m 17s)

I don’t know a ton about this game.

(11m 30s)

If the circumstances were as such as if we could play this game, would love to do that

(11m 30s) Al:

It has been reviewed

(11m 32s)

Very well, it’s very positive on steam. So

(11m 41s) Chelsea:

one day!

(11m 43s) Al:

Well, I wish I had infinite time to play infinite games, but sadly we do not

Cult Of The Lamb X Two Point Museum

(11m 48s) Al:

Next up cult of the lamb in

(11m 51s)

Possibly their weirdest update yet have released a two-point museum collab

(11m 57s)

This is a free update and they say that’s right

(12m)

The lamb is going on a field trip curate your followers earn devotion and perform rituals for your very own

(12m 7s)

Museum cult in the latest update for two-point museum

(12m 13s)

Follow in the teachings of Ratao the hallowed ground which was was his is now yours build a shrine to demonstrate your faith

(12m 20s)

Gather delicious devotion and gather your followers by your hand

(12m 24s)

Our cult will grow more powerful than any could have imagined

(12m 29s)

And I just realized based on that that makes it sound like the update is actually in

(12m 33s)

Two-point museum, but I was I thought the update was in cult of the lamb

(12m 38s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I don’t- I’m confused, because I’m reading it, and I’m like, “Wait, which one?”

(12m 44s) Al:

Hmm. I think this actually… yeah, okay, so this is not in Cult of the Lamb, this is in Two-Point Museum.

(12m 51s) Chelsea:

Okay, okay, yeah, that, yeah, that’s no clarification there.

(12m 52s) Al:

So, there we go.

(12m 56s) Chelsea:

Side note, they have a board game coming out for Call to the Lamb.

(13m) Al:

They do, yes.

(13m 1s) Chelsea:

Very cool! Oh, Kickstarter, of course. Very cool.

(13m 4s) Al:

Yeah, the Cult of the Lamb stuff in Two Point Museum does look very Cult of the Lamb-y,

(13m 9s)

it’s quite nicely translated to the 3D art style they have,

(13m 13s)

but keeping the kind of, you know, feel of Cult of the Lamb, I feel.

(13m 18s) Chelsea:

I thought it might have been hard to translate over, but maybe not.

(13m 22s) Al:

Well, hard doesn’t mean they can’t succeed.

(13m 23s) Chelsea:

Well, no, maybe. Expectations subverted.

(13m 30s) Al:

Yeah, so if you want your own museum cult, go play Two Point Museum.

New Games

(13m 36s) Al:

We also have four new games to talk about. There are actually more games than this that

(13m 40s)

are on my list of new games because, my goodness, the summer is a long time when you’re

(13m 45s)

away for six weeks, but I’m only going to cover four in this episode because that is,

(13m 50s)

in and of itself, a lot of games to cover in the new games section.

(13m 55s) Chelsea:

Yeah, but me and Kevin might have to do another update news catch-up.

(14m) Al:

Yeah, we’ll see, we’ll see. If I manage to fit all the other ones into the next week and there’s

(14m 3s)

no other new new games, then we’ll be fine, but we shall see. So first up, Focus Grove. Focus Grove

Focus Grove

(14m 9s) Al:

is a work companion that grows with your progress, build your farm, use productivity tools and unlock

(14m 15s)

new content by completing your real-life tasks, improve your focus, well-being and work-life

(14m 22s)

balance. So this is a Rusty-like, as we call it, which is a game that plays on the

(14m 30s)

bottom part of your screen while you do other things.

(14m 33s) Chelsea:

I can’t do it.

(14m 36s) Al:

Yeah, well, it’s a very specific kind of game for its very specific kind of person.

(14m 37s) Chelsea:

As cute as it looks.

(14m 41s) Al:

Let’s put it that way.

(14m 43s) Chelsea:

I’m an all-in– oh, I see. Okay, I see.

(14m 45s)

Like, you set your own timers and stuff.

(14m 47s) Al:

Yes, yes, so the idea is that this ties in with to-do lists and notepads and I think

(14m 55s)

he’s got a Pomodoro timer and stuff like that and so the idea is you grow things by

(15m)

doing your tasks etc so it’s trying to be a productivity tool. Maybe, maybe you can

(15m 5s) Chelsea:

Oh, okay. Maybe then. Maybe I’m in.

(15m 9s)

Maybe I’m in.

(15m 10s) Al:

just make fake tasks. This is always my problem with these things it’s like oh

(15m 15s)

great so I can just lie to myself.

(15m 19s) Chelsea:

That’s the thing, like, I can- I’m not holding myself accountable.

(15m 21s) Al:

Yeah, yeah. Stand up, tick.

(15m 23s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I totally did that task in this time, to get my reward. What are you talking about?

(15m 30s)

Tick!

(15m 30s) Al:

Scroll tick-tock, tick.

(15m 33s) Chelsea:

Yeah, oh my gosh. Okay, well, yeah, I can see how this could help not me.

(15m 38s) Al:

The list of features Pomodoro Timer, Task Tracker, Ambient Nature Sounds for better focus, Habits Tracker, Notepad with tabs,

(15m 46s)

Relaxing No Stress Farming, Cute Woodly…

(15m 50s)

Woodling? I assumed that would have been Woodland, but it says Woodling. Cute Woodling Companions, Tips from Personal Growth Trainer,

(15m 58s)

Work Statistics, Fishing Album,

(16m 1s)

Adjustable Tools Layout, and

(16m 3s)

Gentle growth reminders my actual real problem with these games

(16m 8s)

Things that integrate with a to-do list is they never integrate with my existing to-do list

(16m 12s)

So why am I going to like?

(16m 14s)

Create my to-do list in a game when I already have my to-do list that is on my phone on all my devices

(16m 20s)

Set up exactly the way I want it

(16m 22s)

You’ve got to integrate with third-party to-do lists if you want me to ever do anything with this

(16m 27s) Chelsea:

You think so, right? But this way you can get your cute woodland companions

(16m 31s)

But yeah, it would be handy to just be able to like export from an app you already use

(16m 35s) Al:

But it doesn’t even need to export these things have APIs right like connect to my existing thing

(16m 39s)

And then when I take off in my existing app it just goes into the game that would be good to please and thanking you

(16m 45s)

I

(16m 46s)

Guess the problem is it’s probably designed towards people who don’t already have to-do lists and stuff like that, but

(16m 51s) Chelsea:

i’m just picturing a government worker like putting their important list on here

(16m 54s)

and then there’s some privacy breach in focus grove whoops

(16m 59s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, there was one way

(17m 1s)

I don’t know whether you listen to this episode or not Chelsea

(17m 3s)

but there was one where.

(17m 5s)

It was based …things grew based on how much you typed on the keyboard.

(17m 10s)

And the problem with that is that it knows exactly which key you’re pressing.

(17m 14s)

So it’s a keylogger.

(17m 15s)

Like it gets your passwords.

(17m 16s) Chelsea:

Oh my gosh…

(17m 19s) Al:

Like, obviously, there’s a high chance that they’re not storing any of that.

(17m 24s)

But like, there’s a lot of trust in that, right?

(17m 27s)

Like I, I don’t really want.

(17m 27s) Chelsea:

Yeah. Here’s my banking info. Cute idea in theory.

(17m 30s) Al:

Yeah, exactly.

(17m 30s)

Like, I don’t really want us to.

(17m 32s)

Yeah, no, thank you.

(17m 35s)

Um, yes, in theory.

Island Farmer

(17m 39s) Al:

Next up, Island Farmer.

(17m 41s)

Arrange the farm islands and see your archipelago expand.

(17m 45s)

Just swap the blocks of a 3D jigsaw puzzle.

(17m 49s)

So this is a little block-based farming game where you put things together to build up

(17m 55s)

an island with crops and trees and water, houses, etc.

(18m 4s) Chelsea:

etc. Yeah.

(18m 5s) Al:

Farms are set up in islands over calm and clear water in this tiny fantasy experience

(18m 12s)

that’s easy to do and very relaxing, just like a 3D jigsaw puzzle.

(18m 16s)

Carefully observe the island, try to memorize it, then shuffle the blocks, swap blocks.

(18m 22s)

Swap blocks to reproduce the desired island and it will compose the archipelago.

(18m 27s)

Yeah, no, I don’t want this.

(18m 28s)

That’s suddenly very much put me off.

(18m 30s)

I don’t want this to be a has to be in a specific.

(18m 35s) Chelsea:

that’s great yeah for oh and turn the camera no no no so i’m

(18m 38s)

watching the trailer turn the camera zoom in and out and memorize the puzzle

(18m 43s)

no i’m not doing that but love that for people who would like that

(18m 46s) Al:

Like, I suspect the early ones are, you know,

(18m 48s)

quite easy to do, right?

(18m 49s)

Because it’s like, oh, well, obviously that needs

(18m 51s)

to go there ‘cause it just needs to be a farm, right?

(18m 54s)

But like, then, yeah, no.

(18m 57s)

There’s gonna be more complicated ones.

(18m 59s)

I can’t memorize all that.

(19m 1s)

Sorry.

(19m 2s) Chelsea:

I’m getting overwhelmed just looking at this trailer.

(19m 6s) Al:

I like the idea of this if it was just like,

(19m 8s)

oh, try and get to like an efficient farm

(19m 12s)

or, you know, try and make it nicely laid out.

(19m 17s)

and then you could do something and be happy with it.

(19m 20s)

But the fact that it’s like,

(19m 21s)

no, you have to get the specific blocks

(19m 24s) Chelsea:

No, yeah, if they were to say like, “3 grass, 2 dirt, like, configure it how you want, maybe?”

(19m 30s) Al:

Yeah

(19m 31s) Chelsea:

Yeah, no.

(19m 33s)

I don’t know, I stru-

(19m 33s) Al:

But that is also out now, if that sounds like your jam

(19m 38s) Chelsea:

We sold it so well!

(19m 39s) Al:

We’d look someone out there is like this is absolutely my jam because I am a jigsaw master

(19m 45s)

And I like farming and therefore this is what I want

(19m 48s) Chelsea:

Yeah, no, there’s someone, something out there for everyone.

(19m 51s) Al:

I also think the problem is that it doesn’t have

(19m 55s)

the fatal flaw this has with

(19m 58s)

compared with jigsaws is

(20m)

It’s not you can’t be certain you put it in the right place until you’ve put everything down

(20m 5s)

Whereas with jigsaws they click together and you’re like, oh, yeah

(20m 8s)

that’s clearly together and like the the image is clearly matching up and stuff like that’s what it’s like here you’re like

(20m 14s)

Oh, well, this farming thing goes next to this farming thing

(20m 17s)

But there’s six different farming things here and they all look identical which one

(20m 21s)

Goes where and like it’s not it’s it doesn’t work the same way as a jigsaw does

(20m 22s) Chelsea:

Yeah

(20m 26s)

Jigsaw like

(20m 29s) Al:

jigsaw a it did say

(20m 30s)

like a jigsaw but yeah I think I think it misses the advantages that jigsaws have

(20m 36s) Chelsea:

Yeah, the instant, “Yes, you did it!” or “No, it’s wrong.”

(20m 39s) Al:

yeah next up

(20m 39s) Chelsea:

See, if you want to force yourself to play that game, you can just put that with your

(20m 44s)

Focus Grove and say, “I played 30 minutes of Island Farmer!”

(20m 48s) Al:

I don’t tend to want to play games because I feel I have to I know that’s complicated because

(20m 53s)

I have this podcast and so certain people would probably debate me on that but generally I like

(20m 59s)

I like to play games because I enjoy it.

(21m 1s)

Generally.

(21m 2s) Chelsea:

I got to lock in on Island Farmer for this podcast.

(21m 5s) Al:

[laughs]

Spiritstead

(21m 7s) Al:

Next up, Spiritstead.

(21m 22s)

That is such a generic thing.

(21m 25s)

[laughs]

(21m 26s)

Description.

(21m 27s)

What I will say is that the…

(21m 30s)

The visuals are very interesting. It almost looks hand-drawn, kind of cartoony hand-drawn

(21m 38s)

type thing. It is quite bright, yeah. Trying to describe this is hard.

(21m 40s) Chelsea:

It is very, very bright.

(21m 47s)

It’s almost like 90s anime, but in a different color scheme? I don’t know how to explain this, but it’s not quite– I don’t know.

(21m 55s)

Google image it, guys.

(21m 57s) Al:

You don’t even need to do that, link’s in the show notes.

(22m) Chelsea:

Well, there you go.

(22m) Al:

However, I can’t decide if I like the look of this game.

(22m 5s)

I think it looks quite pretty,

(22m 8s)

but I don’t know if I want my game to look like this.

(22m 10s)

Everything seems just slightly too small and far away

(22m 16s)

for me to be able to truly enjoy what I’m looking at.

(22m 19s) Chelsea:

that’s true if you don’t have the option to zoom in a little bit you’re kind of looking at the whole page the whole time

(22m 24s) Al:

Yeah, it almost just feels like a

(22m 27s)

painting rather than a game.

(22m 30s) Chelsea:

Yeah, it’d be cute if maybe the cutscenes were this style and then you could manipulate

(22m 36s)

it a bit easier when you’re actually playing it, but I don’t think it changes.

(22m 40s) Al:

No, the trailer doesn’t seem to actually show gameplay, it just shows like a time-lapse of

(22m 49s)

the village being put together. So I can’t be certain exactly how it actually works gameplay-wise.

(22m 56s) Chelsea:

There’s fishing, there’s fishing, yeah.

(22m 56s) Al:

There’s fishing, just what we want.

(22m 59s) Chelsea:

Yeah, looking through the photos, it’s,

(23m 1s)

yeah, it is super zoomed out the whole time.

(23m 3s)

So I think that’s how it just is.

(23m 6s) Al:

Yeah and in terms of like everything else, the graphics is the most interesting thing

(23m 9s)

about this game. Everything else looks kind of pretty generic town builder. With also

(23m 13s) Chelsea:

Yeah, everything. Then you get your- it does, it does.

(23m 15s) Al:

for some reason a first person fishing mini game. I feel so out of place there.

(23m 25s)

Well, there you go. That is also out now. Finally, speaking of city builders,

Neighborhoods

(23m 30s) Al:

neighborhoods, which drove me insane for a while because I kept spelling it wrong because

(23m 36s)

spelling. Neighborhoods is a cozy city sim where you shape streets to help people thrive,

(23m 36s) Chelsea:

I know, there’s a U!

(23m 43s) Al:

gather and develop strong opinions about a particular bench.

(23m 47s)

We are reimagining the city builder as a city fixer.

(23m 50s) Chelsea:

Unreal description.

(23m 53s) Al:

Yes, so this also has an interesting graphics. It almost looks like clay.

(24m 1s) Chelsea:

Yeah, it does, yeah, it does.

(24m 3s) Al:

Like, it’s very interesting looking.

(24m 6s)

And I would love to know how they made it look like this.

(24m 8s)

Because it really does just look like, you know, an Aardman animation.

(24m 13s) Chelsea:

Yeah that’s really- I’m just watching the trailer kind of surprised but yeah you’re right it looks like a- like a almost stop-motion clays

(24m 21s) Al:

But the animations they have down as well, it all looks like it’s stop-motion, which is very interesting.

(24m 27s) Chelsea:

It is.

(24m 28s) Al:

Sadly, I think that’s the most interesting thing about this game.

(24m 31s)

[laughs]

(24m 33s)

I feel like I’ve heard that before!

(24m 35s) Chelsea:

Oh, well, release date to be announced, so we cannot make our verdict just yet.

(24m 40s) Al:

Yeah, to be announced, and it is coming to Early Access, so, you know, insert your opinions about Early Access.

(24m 49s)

Cities are living things, sometimes in desperate need.

(24m 51s)

Desperate need of some life-saving care, design blocks with plants, murals, lights, pocket

(24m 55s)

parks, bike lanes and other small civic miracles. Cultivate local businesses so they can provide

(25m 1s)

groceries, shopping, activities and that tragic necessity of capitalism, jobs.

(25m 7s)

Tend to neighbours so they can be happy where they live. Live somewhere they can afford

(25m 12s)

and afford to stay long enough to put down roots. Make choices and watch as different

(25m 16s)

blocks take on their own identities, from the fun-loving block party host to the member.

(25m 22s)

I do find it funny that they say jobs is the

(25m 29s)

tragic necessity of capitalism. Now, I’m not going to be a defender of capitalism,

(25m 34s)

but other societies and ways of organising your society also generally require jobs.

(25m 40s)

Right, like that’s just a society thing. Like, people doing things is generally needed for

(25m 43s) Chelsea:

The capitalism of hospitals.

(25m 51s) Al:

a society. How you want to describe that does depend on your organisation of that society,

(25m 57s)

but it still generally requires people doing things.

(26m 1s) Chelsea:

Yes, oh

(26m 2s)

My goodness. I feel like the mayor of my city needs to play this game

(26m 7s)

Because they have this idea of 15 minute

(26m 11s)

Like neighborhoods or what? Yeah, so that we don’t need public transit and stuff and it’s just not working

(26m 12s) Al:

Yep, no, that’s not the point of 15-minute cities, is not not needing public transport.

(26m 21s)

That’s not the point.

(26m 23s) Chelsea:

Oh, well, run for mayor of my town, Al, please.

(26m 26s) Al:

I feel like they have completely misunderstood what the point of it is.

(26m 28s)

It’s like we have two different people misunderstanding 15-minute cities.

(26m 32s)

The people who think it’s, for some reason, a communist plot.

(26m 35s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(26m 37s) Al:

Which, I’m just gonna say this, those people are insane.

(26m 41s)

But I’ve never heard this one

(26m 42s)

before. This is an interesting one. So they think that because 50 minute cities, the point

(26m 46s)

generally is that everything that you need on a daily basis is within 15 minutes walk

(26m 51s)

where you live. That doesn’t mean we don’t need public transport.

(26m 53s) Chelsea:

yes i’m gonna i’m gonna add this in the show notes because it’s such a debate in our city

(27m) Al:

What?

(27m) Chelsea:

like well so it’s crazy I can’t even explain the debacle going on

(27m 5s) Al:

I just, I don’t understand that concept. Because like, yeah, just because you live

(27m 9s)

somewhere where you can access all the things you need on a daily

(27m 12s)

basis within 15 minutes, doesn’t mean you never want to go anywhere else.

(27m 17s) Chelsea:

Exactly. So they’re like, oh, well, to discourage parking lots and maximize space, including

(27m 25s)

public transit, let’s just walk everywhere and then you’re good. You need your grocery

(27m 27s) Al:

but okay but okay but like if they’re trying to discourage car parks which I think is a laudable

(27m 28s) Chelsea:

store, your pharmacy, your clinic. That’s it. That’s all you need for society. That’s

(27m 37s) Al:

goal uh you kind of need the public transport for that you know like do they do they think

(27m 42s) Chelsea:

kind of. Yeah, and well, yeah, because we try we have a big LRT

(27m 47s) Al:

that people are just never going to leave their 15-minute area is that what they’re thinking?

(27m 55s) Chelsea:

system that was supposed to be built in 2018. It’s 20 almost

(27m 59s)

2027 and we have one part of one area of the town and it was made

(28m 3s)

by a company that this is such a weird tangent. It was made by a

(28m 7s) Al:

No, no go for it

(28m 8s) Chelsea:

company that only is proficient in warm weather.

(28m 12s)

And so half of our winter. Yeah, in Ottawa, where it’s freezing and wet. So the line is down half the time, and it’s just, oh my I can’t. Yeah, I’m putting this in the show notes, please just look at the infrastructure plan for Ottawa because it’s a disaster.

(28m 14s) Al:

Ah, in Canada.

(28m 28s)

Yes, please do, please do.

(28m 30s)

I will link that in the show notes.

(28m 33s)

It’s just this absolutely fascinating,

(28m 34s)

like it’s such a misunderstanding of the whole concept.

(28m 39s)

Also, one thing I find that people seem

(28m 42s)

to misunderstand quite often is they think that,

(28m 44s)

they seem to think that the 15-minute cities

(28m 46s)

is like self-contained, like you can only go

(28m 49s)

within your own, like the 15-minute city is not like,

(28m 53s)

here’s this 15-minute city, here’s this 15-minute city,

(28m 55s)

here’s this 15-minute city.

(28m 58s)

It just means that like everyone has the things

(29m)

they need within 15 minutes of themselves,

(29m 3s)

but that doesn’t mean it’s all for like,

(29m 5s)

all the same place, right?

(29m 7s)

Like it doesn’t mean that like, here’s a 15-minute circle,

(29m 10s)

it has all of the things in it,

(29m 12s)

and then everyone on the edges has to go to the middle.

(29m 14s)

It’s like, no, you can go to a different one, right?

(29m 17s)

It just means that everyone can have those things

(29m 21s)

within 15 minutes of themselves.

(29m 23s)

It’s like how the capitalist version of this

(29m 26s)

is how McDonald’s tried to have.

(29m 29s)

like no one within a certain distance

(29m 32s)

farther away from McDonald’s within cities, right?

(29m 35s)

I can’t remember what it is.

(29m 36s)

People say different things, right?

(29m 37s)

But like the idea is that everybody

(29m 38s)

is within a certain distance of a McDonald’s.

(29m 42s)

But it doesn’t mean that there’s a specific McDonald’s

(29m 44s)

that they want you to go to.

(29m 45s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(29m 47s) Al:

You know, that would be insane.

(29m 49s) Chelsea:

Yeah. Oh yeah, no, I’m adding this in the show notes, ‘cause I, yeah.

(29m 52s)

Sorry, neighborhoods, you got me fired up.

(29m 54s) Al:

Bizarre, bizarre. So anyway, back to the game, I think it’s an interesting idea of, because

(29m 56s) Chelsea:

Yes.

(29m 58s)

[laughs]

(30m 3s) Al:

one of the problems, I guess, of city builders is they’re quite, they’re greenfield, right?

(30m 9s)

Like you start off with nothing and then you create a city and it’s very, almost the, like,

(30m 16s)

the capitalist ideal of a city is like, we are going to design a city now. And it’s like,

(30m 22s)

exists and we’re going to make it but that’s not how

(30m 24s)

life works most of the time right you have cities generally even in even in

(30m 30s)

North America cities generally have been built up over a long time some cities

(30m 36s)

longer than others but they’ve still generally been built up over you know

(30m 39s)

hundreds of years and so things just don’t you can’t you can’t just ignore

(30m 46s)

them right it’s like the typical how you know Central Park before it was built in

(30m 50s)

in New York City, before it was built,

(30m 52s)

there were neighborhoods there, right?

(30m 54s)

People lived in those areas and they wanted to make a park,

(30m 57s)

which is a laudable goal.

(30m 59s)

But to do that,

(31m)

they kicked a whole bunch of people out of their houses

(31m 3s)

who generally happened to be non-white people,

(31m 8s)

because of course they did.

(31m 11s)

And so the history of that

(31m 13s)

is a history of people being displaced.

(31m 16s)

And so generally you don’t just get to look at,

(31m 19s)

here’s a fresh area, we need to build something.

(31m 23s)

you generally have to look at an existing.

(31m 24s)

area and say, “How can we improve this?” And I do like the idea that this is trying to focus on that.

(31m 29s)

That’s an interesting idea, and I like the graphics. How it actually ends up doing it

(31m 34s)

in practice is a question that I don’t think we’ll have an answer for just now.

(31m 39s) Chelsea:

I might just play this game out of spite, but no, like it’s a good idea.

(31m 44s)

But yeah, like I said, I living in a, where I live is a personal vendetta

(31m 49s)

against this kind of thing.

(31m 50s) Al:

sniff Fun times.

(31m 52s)

Alright, that’s our news.

(31m 56s) Chelsea:

Woo!

Moonlight Peaks

(31m 57s) Al:

Let’s talk about Moonlight Peaks.

(32m)

So I like to start off talking about these games by giving a quick description of them

(32m 5s)

and then Chelsea can tell me how she thinks I did.

(32m 10s)

So I would describe this game as “Stardew but vampires” and I think that’s all I need

(32m 15s)

to say.

(32m 16s) Chelsea:

Yep. That’s our show.

(32m 16s) Al:

[laughs]

(32m 20s)

[laughs]

(32m 22s)

I mean obviously there’s a lot more to talk about but in terms of like a high level description of a game, I think that is probably the easiest way to sell someone on this game.

(32m 32s)

Have you wanted to play Stardew but be a vampire? And if the answer is yes then I think I play this game.

(32m 39s) Chelsea:

Yes.

(32m 40s) Al:

[laughs]

(32m 42s)

Alright, before we get into the details then, Chelsea what do you think of the game overall?

(32m 48s) Chelsea:

I’m enjoying it, so I’m only 11 hours but I’m a slow player, the thing for me is give

(32m 50s) Al:

First of all, how much have you played etc etc? Where are you in the game? That sort of stuff.

(32m 59s) Chelsea:

me a task, and I’m doing it.

(33m 2s)

So I just, I think I’m 20 some days into the game, and I just unlocked the barn, which

(33m 12s)

is, because I’m so poor in this game, like, I don’t know what I

(33m 18s)

hope it eases up as you go on, but I’ve been making, like, wine and stuff, because apparently

(33m 24s)

that’s the big seller at the start.

(33m 25s)

Anyway, no, I’ve been enjoying it, I find that there is a lot to do at the start but

(33m 31s)

it does stall quite a bit to the point where you’re just kind of, I’m spending my day

(33m 37s)

in the mine, not even, I’m like neglecting everybody.

(33m 38s) Al:

Yeah, yeah. I think you might not be surprised to know that that does continue. I think my

(33m 46s)

biggest thing about this game that I would say to people is the pacing is very weird.

(33m 54s)

Some things go really, really slowly and some things absolutely zoom past. And I’m not saying

(34m 2s)

it’s necessarily a bad thing, but because part of the thing about these games is…

(34m 9s)

The monotony of them is…

(34m 12s)

Well, it’s a benefit, right? It’s why we play these games, because we like the monotony.

(34m 18s) Chelsea:

you know, the predictability of your day.

(34m 18s) Al:

We like the mindless farming. That’s one of the things that people like.

(34m 24s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I honestly thought at the start, I thought I missed a big

(34m 26s)

part of the beginning because I’m like, is this what I’m

(34m 29s)

supposed to do? And that may have just been me, but I think

(34m 30s) Al:

Yeah, yeah.

(34m 33s) Chelsea:

you’re right with the pacing because some of it I’ve done so

(34m 35s)

many character stories already. And then other days, I’m just in

(34m 39s)

the mine, processing iron.

(34m 40s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah

(34m 42s)

Well, I mean, so yeah

(34m 44s)

So there’s I think there’s two examples that I’ll use just now before we get into the details of why I think the pacing is

(34m 49s)

off

(34m 50s)

First up is in the mine

(34m 53s)

You don’t get gold in the mine until very late in the game

(34m 59s)

Like I was nearly done. I was nearly done the story when I unlocked the ability to get gold

(35m 6s)

because the way, and that’s going to be the case.

(35m 10s)

for anyone, because the places in the mine that have gold are unlocked through story progression

(35m 19s)

rather than independent of that story progression. And for some reason they’re quite, well,

(35m 24s)

so there’s a first part that unlocks, I feel like it’s maybe like 60% through the story,

(35m 29s)

you unlock transformations, right? You can, because you, have you unlocked the first transformation?

(35m 34s) Chelsea:

Well, I’m a cat, yeah. I did that, like, really early.

(35m 35s) Al:

yes yeah yeah so you are you you can yeah so you can have three

(35m 41s)

transformations in this game is actually one of the things I really like about this game is the transformation so you

(35m 45s)

can you first of all have the ability to transform into a cat

(35m 50s)

and that allows you to run really fast and there’s like a few areas you can get to because you’re smaller now

(35m 55s)

and stuff like that but then there are two other transformations you get

(36m)

which the first one unlocks an area in the mine that has

(36m 5s)

On most days, maybe one gold.

(36m 11s)

And then the third transformation gets you to an area that has more gold in it, but that is basically the end of the story, what the transformations are.

(36m 21s) Chelsea:

It does. It does.

(36m 34s)

Okay, I’ll ask at the end if you don’t want to spoil it.

(36m 38s)

Yeah, I know. I think I know what the third one is, but I won’t, I won’t say it now.

(36m 41s) Al:

Do you know what the second one is?

(36m 45s) Chelsea:

Is one of them water related?

(36m 46s) Al:

Yes.

(36m 47s) Chelsea:

Okay.

(36m 48s)

Then I don’t know what one of the other one is.

(36m 53s) Al:

I’ll maybe, I’ll put it, let me add it to the show notes. I’ll add it near the end. We’ll have a little spoilers section at the end where we can, we can talk about it.

(36m 56s) Chelsea:

Okay, okay

(37m 2s)

Yeah, cuz I’ve been on that Moonlight Peaks reddit and there’s probably no nothing surprising me anymore

(37m 9s) Al:

Yeah, no you probably are. We’ll get to that, we’ll get to that, we’ll get to that.

(37m 9s) Chelsea:

Cuz I was looking I’m like I have to be missing something. What am I doing? But yeah

(37m 16s) Al:

So that’s one of the things I found really weird is gold is really hard to come by until

(37m 20s)

you’ve basically finished the story. And secondly, there is a greenhouse that you can get in

(37m 26s)

this game, but you get it through completing, by getting the museum to 80% completion. And

(37m 33s)

first up, you probably don’t even know there’s a museum, you probably not even, well you

(37m 37s)

You might know it because you’ve seen it somewhere,

(37m 39s)

but you’ve not unlocked a museum yet.

(37m 40s) Chelsea:

I have not unlocked the museum. I know I saw people raving about the update for that.

(37m 42s) Al:

Because, because you get the museum through the story,

(37m 48s)

and it’s like maybe like 50% of the way through the story

(37m 48s) Chelsea:

Yeah.

(37m 51s) Al:

before you unlock the museum.

(37m 53s)

And then you have to get it to 80%

(37m 55s)

before you unlock the greenhouse,

(37m 57s)

which is just such a bizarre idea.

(37m 58s)

Like, I understand the idea

(38m)

that you don’t get the greenhouse very early on

(38m 1s)

because it’s, you know, a very powerful thing to get,

(38m 4s)

but 80% museum completion?

(38m 6s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I was expecting, like, an Animal Crossing, like, “Oh, Blathers is here!”

(38m 7s) Al:

Mad!

(38m 12s) Chelsea:

I was like, “Ooh, is there going to be a new person to open up this?”

(38m 15s)

I thought maybe it was the, like, Luna?

(38m 18s) Al:

So that does happen, you do get more people and that will lead you to the story part where

(38m 24s)

you open the museum. I just find it really weird that there’s 80%, like I have completed

(38m 28s)

the game and I’m at 60% completion in the museum. Oh definitely shouldn’t be selling

(38m 32s) Chelsea:

So, I shouldn’t have been selling my fish.

(38m 36s) Al:

your fish. Such, I just, some of the pacing is just really weird. I don’t, but I also,

(38m 37s) Chelsea:

Oh no.

(38m 45s) Al:

I got to the point where, and they’ve actually nerfed this in an update, is that I

(38m 48s)

got to a point where I was making a lot of money, very kind of medium game. They nerfed

(38m 52s) Chelsea:

They nerfed it?

(38m 54s) Al:

it. They’ve reduced the price of wine and stuff like that, which is very annoying. And

(39m)

I’m like, I don’t feel like that solves your pacing issues. I know what you’re trying to

(39m 3s)

do. It doesn’t solve your pacing issues and it just makes people annoyed.

(39m 6s) Chelsea:

Yeah, because I find already– I don’t know if– has the update taken place– yeah, I don’t know ‘cause, for me, wine, I sell it at $3.60, I think?

(39m 14s)

Is that after the– no, yeah, that’s after.

(39m 15s) Al:

Yeah, the update came out on Friday,

(39m 19s)

so you’ve probably been selling at the old price.

(39m 19s) Chelsea:

Okay, so, I’m not sure but–

(39m 23s) Al:

I can’t remember the exact prices.

(39m 24s) Chelsea:

yeah.

(39m 25s) Al:

That’s not how my brain works.

(39m 26s) Chelsea:

Yeah, but I’ve been– I feel like I’m so slow because I’m getting all these things and I’m like, “okay, I just got enough to buy the bar.”

(39m 27s) Al:

[laughs]

(39m 34s)

Yeah, it’s an annoying thing for them to do.

(39m 34s) Chelsea:

Damn.

(39m 36s)

Like, oh, wow, okay. Yeah, that’s…

(39m 42s) Al:

I understand the theory of balancing your

(39m 45s)

game after it’s released, but the problem is when it’s a single-player game, it just

(39m 49s)

feels petty when you’re reducing things.

(39m 50s) Chelsea:

well that’s it like who am I comparing myself to I i can’t see anyone I can’t compete with anybody like

(39m 53s) Al:

Yeah. If you want to try and fix your pacing, like, move other things up rather than pulling

(40m 3s)

things down, right? Make other things better. Or make things more expensive if you must,

(40m 4s) Chelsea:

Exactly, yeah, like lower the length of crops or something.

(40m 9s) Al:

right? Like, don’t reduce what people can see. Because it just makes it feel rubbish.

(40m 15s)

Especially as, like, the grapes are repeating crops and the way this game does them is like

(40m 24s)

repeating crops are essentially infinite until the end of the season, which if you have a

(40m 27s)

greenhouse is forever. But we’ll get to that. We’ll get to that.

(40m 30s) Chelsea:

Okay. That’s annoying. That’s just petty for the sake of petty, I think.

(40m 34s) Al:

It is. It is. We’ll get to that because I’ve not had a lot of time to think about that

(40m 39s)

because that only dropped two days ago, that update. But I’m sure we’ll talk about that.

(40m 46s)

Yeah. So I don’t think you’ve answered the question. How do you enjoy the game? I think

(40m 50s)

you got to the point of how far you’ve gotten in. How are you enjoying it so far?

(40m 50s) Chelsea:

I am enjoying it, but yeah, like we’ve said, the pacing is really throwing me off, because I feel like I’m so behind, but other parts I feel ahead, because I feel like I’ve really progressed with some of the characters, but then I’m still waiting for the barn to be built, I’m still getting all these basic tools, I only have the copper, two copper tools, and the rest are still rusty.

(41m 14s)

I am enjoying it, though. Yeah.

(41m 14s) Al:

Yeah

(41m 18s)

Do you know I think actually the I think another issue with the pacing is that

(41m 23s)

In Stardew if you hit a point in your main story where you’re not progressing things

(41m 28s)

You can then go and like progress the mine because the whole point of that mine is you are

(41m 33s)

Trying to get to the bottom, right?

(41m 34s)

so like every day you can go in and do like a five levels and unlock another level on the

(41m 40s)

The lift to get back down to that whereas this mine is just like a single level

(41m 44s)

There’s nowhere to go

(41m 46s) Chelsea:

Okay, I wanted to ask in terms of that, is there a way to fast travel?

(41m 46s) Al:

except

(41m 50s)

Yes, there is but you won’t get it for a long time

(41m 51s) Chelsea:

Okay, not just as a cat, okay.

(41m 55s) Al:

There are two ways of fast travel I’ll get out. I’ll talk about them

(41m 58s)

I will talk about them. I think later on but there are two ways of fast traveling

(42m 2s) Chelsea:

Okay, that gives me some hope, because I’m getting frustrated.

(42m 4s) Al:

But they’re not great fast traveling

(42m 4s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(42m 7s)

Okay.

(42m 7s)

Okay.

(42m 9s) Al:

Just I just want to clarify I do like this game

(42m 9s) Chelsea:

Yes, I- okay.

(42m 11s) Al:

I’m going to complain a lot about this game as we go through

(42m 12s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(42m 14s) Al:

this podcast episode but I do genuinely like this game. This has been a really good Stardew-like.

(42m 14s) Chelsea:

It’s because we care, that we want it.

(42m 21s) Al:

Alright, graphics wise, I guess it’s kind of, I would describe it as kind of chibi-esque

(42m 27s)

characters in a shiny 3D world, obviously based on, you know, like a vampire town,

(42m 38s)

but it’s more than vampires, but we’ll talk about that later, like a mythical creature’s town.

(42m 43s) Chelsea:

Yeah. Yes.

(42m 44s) Al:

What do you think about the graphics?

(42m 47s) Chelsea:

I think they’re pretty good. I know that there’s a way to change the art style.

(42m 50s)

Uh, I have not tried it yet.

(42m 51s) Al:

Oh, oh boy, have you heard the controversy of that?

(42m 52s) Chelsea:

That’s okay. That’s a whole other thing.

(42m 55s)

No. What is it?

(42m 56s) Al:

Okay, so there is, so yeah, so like with most games, there’s the portraits that show up when

(43m 3s)

you’re talking to someone and their art style is a little bit different from the main art style,

(43m 7s)

right, like all of the characters, the models running around the town are chibi-esque

(43m 12s)

and the character portraits are.

(43m 14s)

different. They’re much more kind of not realistic, but like more detailed and stuff like that,

(43m 19s)

less shiny, I would call them. And then there is a second version of the portraits. Now the

(43m 26s)

real problem, the controversy around the second version of the portraits is, so it’s anime style,

(43m 32s)

but the controversy is that every character that has a, you know, a non-white ethnicity,

(43m 39s)

you know, there are, there are black characters, there are Asian characters, etc.

(43m 44s)

All of them, now this is not me saying this because I’m not an expert in these sorts of

(43m 49s)

things, but a lot of people say that the anime style kind of homogenizes the features of those

(43m 55s)

characters and means that like traditionally black facial features are not there anymore.

(44m 2s)

And so it, they all just end up looking kind of anime style, which doesn’t have the most

(44m 11s)

intricacies for, you know, different facial.

(44m 14s)

features and styles and just a lot of those things end up being, “Oh, it just looks like

(44m 19s)

generic anime person.”

(44m 21s) Chelsea:

Right, okay, yeah, I heard it was basically, like, a “yassified” version.

(44m 25s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, that too, that too.

(44m 26s) Chelsea:

But, like, smoothed over and, yeah, not much diversity.

(44m 30s) Al:

Exactly, exactly. Like, the characters are obviously still different ethnicities,

(44m 34s)

it’s just that you can only really tell that because of their skin color,

(44m 38s)

you know, which is not particularly great.

(44m 39s) Chelsea:

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah

(44m 43s)

No

(44m 44s) Al:

And I suspect is probably why that’s kind of hidden away as a setting.

(44m 48s) Chelsea:

Okay, yeah, they’re like, you know what we you can look for it if you want but we’re not yeah, I

(44m 52s) Al:

Yeah, I just, I’m confused as to why they did that at all.

(44m 57s) Chelsea:

Can’t I could not tell you to be honest

(44m 59s) Al:

Like, “Hey, I want my characters to be less human.”

(45m 3s) Chelsea:

I want my vampire to look less human

(45m 6s) Al:

Well, it’s not even that because there are humans in the game as well and

(45m 9s) Chelsea:

Yeah

(45m 9s) Al:

the humans that are in the game are black characters.

(45m 13s) Chelsea:

Yes

(45m 14s) Al:

Uh, yeah, I don’t know.

(45m 16s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I don’t know they could have done it a little better

(45m 19s) Al:

Yeah, it’s just a bit icky, a bit icky.

(45m 24s)

Okay, so yeah, I mean, I think I generally agree with you.

(45m 27s)

I think the overworld graphics are fine.

(45m 32s)

I don’t dislike them, I don’t think they’re particularly amazing.

(45m 35s)

I like a lot of kind of the small touches to these things, but

(45m 38s)

like the character models in the overworld are just kind of fine.

(45m 41s)

I do think that the general, the main

(45m 44s)

portraits are quite good. I think the, you know, as we’ve talked about there is

(45m 50s)

generally a good diversity within the town on those portraits and yeah the

(45m 54s)

anime style ones are particularly not great. But if you want to do that then I

(46m)

guess that’s an option you can do. Yeah, yeah. One thing I would say about graphics

(46m 7s)

is that, so as background for this, one of the things that makes this game unique is

(46m 14s)

empire, your days are actually nights. So instead of being up during the day, you’re

(46m 19s)

up during the night. And that’s an interesting idea, but here’s my problem with it, is that

(46m 26s)

as your day continues, it gets darker and darker, and then it gets lighter and lighter.

(46m 32s)

So in the middle of the day, it’s hardest to see things, which doesn’t feel like the

(46m 38s)

right way around. And I know what’s happening, and I know why it’s happening. And I’m not

(46m 43s)

saying it’s.

(46m 44s)

wrong thematically, it just in terms of gameplay, it’s not ideal that in the middle of the day,

(46m 49s)

it’s hardest to see.

(46m 52s) Chelsea:

Right. No, I agree with that. I also love that you sleep in a coffin.

(46m 57s) Al:

Yes, yes. Well, you’re a vampire. Where else are you going to sleep? Actually, it’s really

(47m)

funny because you can have beds. You can get a bed and you put it in your house, but you

(47m 6s)

can’t sleep in them. If you go to interact with them, they go, “Ew, it looks uncomfy.”

(47m 9s)

I just enjoyed that because I was like, “Oh, can I sleep in a bed rather than there?” No,

(47m 10s) Chelsea:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

(47m 15s) Al:

you cannot. Also, just a thing that you might encounter at some point, see if you ever fall

(47m 21s)

asleep or you go, not go to sleep because you can’t do it. You can’t go to sleep.

(47m 27s)

normally without interacting with your coffin. But if you were to remove your coffin from

(47m 32s)

the house, put it in your inventory, and then wait until the point where you auto-sleep,

(47m 38s)

you wake up confused on the floor because there’s no coffin. Anyway, we’ll get to all

(47m 41s) Chelsea:

Ah, that’s amazing. I love that. Okay, okay.

(47m 43s) Al:

those mechanics in a bit. So, let’s get to the mechanic details then. I debated so long

(47m 50s)

and hard about which order to do these in, but I think we need to go with magic first

(47m 55s)

because the magic.

(47m 57s)

so many different parts of the game and I think if we, if I get to farming and I’m trying to

(48m 2s)

explain the magic part of farming, I don’t think it makes sense unless I’ve described magic in

(48m 7s)

general. Have you unlocked the magic in the game? Okay, good. I presume you just have the

(48m 7s) Chelsea:

That’s a good start. Starting point. Uh, yeah.

(48m 14s) Al:

dodgy wand, I can’t remember what it’s called, like the fixed wand, that’s what it is. Yeah,

(48m 17s) Chelsea:

Yes, I have the fixed wand with one spell.

(48m 20s)

Thank you very much.

(48m 21s) Al:

yeah, cool. So, you are a vampire but you are the child

(48m 27s)

of Dracula and a witch and therefore you are both a vampire and you can also be a magic user,

(48m 37s)

which means that at some point in the game, quite early on, you unlock the ability to get a wand

(48m 42s)

and unlock spells. These are different spells that we’ll talk about as we go through the different

(48m 46s)

sections but essentially they work by you have a mana, which is a different kind of energy

(48m 55s)

than your normal energy.

(48m 57s)

And each spell has a different mana cost.

(49m 3s)

And so to use the spell,

(49m 5s)

you have to have a certain amount of mana.

(49m 7s)

And then when you do the spell, you use it up.

(49m 9s)

I quite like what they did with the casting of the spells.

(49m 11s)

Essentially, it’s a little kind of visual mini game

(49m 15s)

where you, each spell has a specific shape

(49m 18s)

you have to make out in, like, it’s a circle,

(49m 24s)

but there’s like five points on it.

(49m 27s)

And then there’s a point at the top, the bottom,

(49m 29s)

the right, and the left.

(49m 29s)

And you have to make a shape between those ones.

(49m 32s)

So for example, you can fill your watering can

(49m 38s)

by going from the middle to the right,

(49m 40s)

to the bottom, to the left, and then back to the middle.

(49m 43s)

And I think that was it.

(49m 45s)

And that fills your watering can for you.

(49m 46s) Chelsea:

Yeah, it was cool how it set up that way.

(49m 49s) Al:

Yeah, so different spells have different shapes,

(49m 51s)

which is interesting.

(49m 53s)

And when you learn them, the spell goes into your book.

(49m 57s)

So you can always go back and look at what it was, but the ones you use regularly.

(50m 2s) Chelsea:

Yes. So far I just have one, so I know that one.

(50m 5s) Al:

Which one is that is that the the watering one?

(50m 9s) Chelsea:

The watering. Yeah, that’s the first one I got. I think that’s for everybody because you do the magic crops.

(50m 17s) Al:

which we’ll come to in the farming.

(50m 20s)

One thing I really don’t like about the magic,

(50m 23s)

every day when you sleep, you regain one mana

(50m 29s)

and there’s no way to increase that.

(50m 31s)

The only other way to gain mana is making potions

(50m 37s)

and drinking, or potions are specific foods

(50m 40s)

and drinking them to gain back your mana.

(50m 41s)

So you always have to have like a,

(50m 43s)

if you ever want to do any magic,

(50m 47s)

specific consumables.

(50m 49s)

Now there is one that I made that is really nice

(50m 51s)

and I just kept using that one

(50m 52s)

‘cause it was quite an easy one to do,

(50m 55s)

but it just, it doesn’t feel great

(50m 57s)

that there’s no way to increase that.

(50m 59s)

It’s like how if every day you woke up,

(51m 2s)

you only gained a quarter of your stamina,

(51m 6s)

you’d really struggle to do much, especially early game,

(51m 10s)

because you’d have to keep making food

(51m 12s)

to be able to do anything at all,

(51m 14s)

because there’s so little you can do

(51m 15s)

with a quarter of your stamina.

(51m 18s)

It’s the same sort of thing with the mana.

(51m 19s)

I just, I would like it to have increased more,

(51m 22s)

like I feel like, give us less mana,

(51m 25s)

less max mana to start with,

(51m 27s)

but allow us, but fully fill it overnight.

(51m 30s)

Like it just feels weird that it only increases one,

(51m 32s)

no matter how much you increase your max stamina,

(51m 34s)

max mana over time,

(51m 36s)

it still only ever increases one when you sleep.

(51m 39s) Chelsea:

Yeah, it is a very slow regeneration.

(51m 42s) Al:

Especially as, for certain things,

(51m 44s)

it’s the only way of doing automation,

(51m 48s)

blah, blah, blah, you unlock more spells

(51m 52s)

by buying them in the magic shop.

(51m 54s) Chelsea:

Oh, haven’t done that yet.

(51m 54s) Al:

It’s fine.

(51m 55s)

Yeah, you’ll get there.

(51m 58s) Chelsea:

I don’t have spell money, I just have barn money.

(51m 58s) Al:

That’s, yeah, barn money.

(52m 4s)

I will say, if you’re doing the barn for the story,

(52m 6s)

that’s fine.

(52m 7s)

Don’t, I would say don’t invest too much in animals,

(52m 9s)

‘cause they’re not particularly great

(52m 11s)

money-making things in this game.

(52m 14s)

I think that’s most of the magic stuff.

(52m 17s)

How many spells are there?

(52m 18s)

Eight, I think, let me double check.

(52m 21s) Chelsea:

I think it’s 8 or 12.

(52m 23s) Al:

Yeah, it’s 12 different ones, and I.

(52m 24s) Chelsea:

Oh, okay.

(52m 26s)

Ooh, do the casting patterns get more difficult?

(52m 31s) Al:

Not difficult, no, they’re just different shapes. I like, some of them are quite nice,

(52m 35s)

so like the axe one looks, so what, there’s one that you can chop down trees automatically,

(52m 40s)

and it kind of looks like an axe, and there’s a pickaxe one, the same, it looks very much like a

(52m 43s) Chelsea:

Cheers.

(52m 45s) Al:

pickaxe as you’re doing it, which is a bit fun. What I will say, there’s one really nice one

(52m 52s)

for refilling your watering can that I mentioned earlier, which costs no mana to cast, so that’s

(52m 58s)

really nice, so you can use that an infinite number of times.

(53m 1s)

All right, let’s talk about farming then, because that’s what we’re all here for.

(53m 5s)

Farming game, we got farming. So most of this farming is pretty standard. You

(53m 6s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(53m 8s)

In theory.

(53m 14s) Al:

have a seed, you put the seed, you hoe the ground, till the ground, I never

(53m 21s)

remember the word, you till the ground, you put the seed in, you water it, it

(53m 25s)

grows. You have a scarecrow, you have different types of crops that need

(53m 31s)

some crops, you harvest it and that’s gone, some crops you harvest it and it

(53m 34s)

regrows, blah blah blah. All the standard farming game stuff. One thing that’s

(53m 39s)

different is that the watering is not, so if you think about storage watering, you

(53m 45s)

like water a pea, you press A to water, you move, you press A to water that one,

(53m 50s)

you move, you press A to water that one. This one works differently and I both

(53m 53s)

like and dislike it at the same time for different reasons. So the way this works

(53m 59s)

as you have your watch.

(54m 1s)

and it waters within a certain radius of where you are, which includes any blocks within that radius.

(54m 8s)

Which is nice, so you can just hold down the button and keep walking, and it will water everything in front of you as you’re going.

(54m 14s)

So it’s not like start, stop, start, stop. It’s hold the button and walk, and it can water everything. But,

(54m 21s)

but, here’s my problem with it. It’s

(54m 24s)

quite hard to know whether you’ve watered the ground or not, fully.

(54m 27s) Chelsea:

Yep. Yep.

(54m 28s) Al:

and sometimes you will miss it.

(54m 31s)

and not notice that you’ve not fully watered it, you’ve partially watered it,

(54m 34s)

not fully watered it, but you don’t notice that, and so the next day one of your plants hasn’t grown.

(54m 40s) Chelsea:

Yep, and that’s part of the problem of having the peak of the day be the darkest.

(54m 44s) Al:

Yes, absolutely.

(54m 46s) Chelsea:

Also, apparently at the start, rain doesn’t water them?

(54m 51s)

Apparently, there was, like, I don’t know if this is at the very beginning, but I saw someone say that rain doesn’t water your crops, but I don’t know if that was…

(54m 59s) Al:

It doesn’t water magic crops but it does water normal crops.

(55m 1s) Chelsea:

No, okay.

(55m 3s)

Okay, okay, good to know.

(55m 5s)

But yeah, I’ve missed so many, like, “Oh, I’ll be able to harvest this in the next day.” Nope, it wasn’t watered.

(55m 10s) Al:

frustrating especially as you know I will generally do like big blocks of the same crop

(55m 16s)

and so then you have one that’s not growing the rest of the rest of them and then it just looks

(55m 20s)

annoying and out of and I’m like I kind of just want to water that one crop for today and then

(55m 26s) Chelsea:

Yep, fried in your brain.

(55m 26s) Al:

leave the rest of them so they’re all the same but no I don’t do that obviously because that

(55m 31s)

would be stupid but I think about it I consider it because it’s very annoying

(55m 37s)

yeah yeah because my brain is broken that’s why

(55m 40s)

I want to do that so the next thing is there are a different type of crops

(55m 46s)

called magic crops and these are generally not edible crops but you use

(55m 51s)

them for getting mana essence which is what you use to then make potions and

(55m 58s)

stuff like that and either refill your refill your mana stamina or do other

(56m 5s)

things like you can make get one that like uh I can’t even remember any of the

(56m 10s)

potions i’ve got them here let me look at them uh we’ve got uh there’s one that allows you to

(56m 16s)

chop wood without draining your your energy uh there’s one for fish instantly biting

(56m 21s)

uh there’s a few others for um not draining your energy there’s one

(56m 28s)

which is called the sunscreen potion says provides protection from the sun

(56m 32s)

which you might think means that you can stay up later does not mean that

(56m 37s) Chelsea:

Oh, I was gonna say, oh, the day gets longer?

(56m 40s) Al:

not it is for one very specific purpose that is a story related thing maybe i’ll talk about that at

(56m 41s) Chelsea:

Oh.

(56m 45s)

Ah, okay.

(56m 46s) Al:

the end um so yeah the mana is used for those things um and you can also like there are certain

(56m 54s)

kinds of food that you can use like there’s there’s one which is called the what is it the

(56m 58s)

mana cupcake which um if you make that you it’s it gives you two two mana pack per thing and it’s

(57m 8s)

it’s quite easy to make, it just only requires.

(57m 11s)

one of which is the mana essence and one of which is the

(57m 15s)

what’s it called the moon fruit I think it was

(57m 17s) Chelsea:

Yeah, that’s what I have so far. I’ve been making like the moon juice potion.

(57m 21s) Al:

yeah so the the mana cupcake is my go-to because it’s so quick and easy to make

(57m 27s)

um so that’s how the but the interesting thing about the magic

(57m 33s)

there’s two interesting thing about the magic crops one is that you can’t water them normally

(57m 38s)

So rain doesn’t water them and you’re watering.

(57m 40s)

Watering can doesn’t water them. What does water them is the magic watering cans.

(57m 46s)

So that’s the first spell you get is the magic watering cans and that is you run

(57m 50s)

you I think it’s - is it two mana it uses up or is it just one? It’s one and then

(57m 56s)

you will get a watering can that goes out and waters a certain number of spots.

(58m 1s)

As you you can upgrade that spell and eventually and it will give you as I

(58m 8s)

a look at my game.

(58m 10s)

So, I’m going to be talking about the game. I’m going to be talking about the game. I’m

(58m 15s) Chelsea:

Okay, so tell me why I put my well right next to my house and then I look at every other

(58m 20s)

Guide like don’t buy the well

(58m 23s)

So yeah, good to know that I don’t need that right next to there

(58m 39s)

Yeah. So yeah. No. So that’s just taken up a huge spot on my

(58m 40s) Al:

going to be talking about the game. I’m going to be talking about the game. I’m going to

(58m 51s) Chelsea:

life. Where I can put my crops. You can destruct it or destroy

(58m 57s)

it. Yeah, but

(59m 6s) Al:

as well. So this is basically the main automation for the game.

(59m 10s)

the magic for the farming. And there are no sprinklers or anything like that. Well,

(59m 16s) Chelsea:

Well… [laughs]

(59m 20s) Al:

this is where it gets a bit complicated. So some of the magic crops do different things.

(59m 25s)

So the general magic crops, they’re just the same as normal crops, except you have to magic water

(59m 29s)

them. But some of them do different things. So for example, there’s one that when it gets to a

(59m 36s)

certain point, if you want to continue growing it, you have to manually water it.

(59m 40s)

as well. So you have to like fill it with water after it’s watered with the magic watering

(59m 47s)

cans. Because it gives you more mana. The harder to grow magic crops are definitely

(59m 48s) Chelsea:

Why? laughs

(59m 51s)

Oh, okay. laughs

(59m 55s) Al:

worth it. There’s one, and this is the best one in the game, but it’s also the most annoying

(1h)

one. It’s called the Gobbler. And when it gets to a certain point, you have to feed

(1h 5s)

it either a fish or a bug it will say which one so like they’ll it’ll have a little eye

(1h 10s)

that says it has a little bug icon or a little fish icon.

(1h 13s)

And you have to go up to it and give it a fish or a bug

(1h 16s)

and then it’ll close.

(1h 17s)

So it’s like a Venus flytrap, but a fish trap.

(1h 19s) Chelsea:

Oh, interesting.

(1h 21s) Al:

You have to do that two days.

(1h 23s)

And then once you’ve done it the second day,

(1h 24s)

it’s then fully grown.

(1h 26s)

Those are incredible because they give you so much mana.

(1h 29s)

But I did this.

(1h 31s)

I decided, right, I’m gonna do gobblers.

(1h 34s)

And I put out a hundred gobblers.

(1h 37s)

And then I realized when the first one come up,

(1h 38s) Chelsea:

[dog barking]

(1h 40s) Al:

I don’t have a hundred fish and a hundred bugs.

(1h 43s)

[laughing]

(1h 45s)

So I spent like a week hunting for fish and bugs

(1h 45s) Chelsea:

Oh my god

(1h 50s) Al:

to try and get these gobblers done.

(1h 52s)

And I’m like, this was my biggest mistake.

(1h 54s)

Don’t put a hundred gobblers.

(1h 56s)

There’s no need for that.

(1h 57s) Chelsea:

Now you… you’re playing Gobbler Simulator.

(1h 58s) Al:

Well, yeah, that was all I did for a week.

(1h 1m 2s)

The good thing is that once I’d done it all,

(1h 1m 2s) Chelsea:

Oh my goodness.

(1h 1m 4s) Al:

I had more mana than I could ever want.

(1h 1m 8s) Chelsea:

Okay.

(1h 1m 8s) Al:

But, uh, yeah.

(1h 1m 9s) Chelsea:

That’s… I can’t… I can’t even picture that. That’s hilarious.

(1h 1m 11s) Al:

Learn from my mistakes.

(1h 1m 13s)

A hundred gobblers is too many.

(1h 1m 16s) Chelsea:

So it’s like ten, you think?

(1h 1m 16s) Al:

But those ones only grow in one season, so I was like,

(1h 1m 19s)

I better get as many done as I can, and then, whoopsie.

(1h 1m 20s) Chelsea:

Oh.

(1h 1m 23s) Al:

But,

(1h 1m 24s) Chelsea:

The season’s done before I can finish feeding.

(1h 1m 25s) Al:

this is leading me to the point of,

(1h 1m 27s)

when I said there are no sprinklers,

(1h 1m 29s)

that’s not technically true,

(1h 1m 31s)

in that there is a magic crop that acts like a sprinkler.

(1h 1m 35s)

So, you plant this one,

(1h 1m 37s)

and then after a couple of days of watering it,

(1h 1m 40s)

it will then magically water everything around it,

(1h 1m 43s)

in a 3x3 grid.

(1h 1m 45s)

So, like a basic sprinkler in most farming games.

(1h 1m 50s)

Now, this is actually fine.

(1h 1m 53s)

I don’t dislike this.

(1h 1m 55s)

I think it’s actually quite fun,

(1h 1m 57s)

a different way of doing a sprinkler.

(1h 1m 59s)

There’s two negatives to it,

(1h 2m 1s)

one of which is that it doesn’t do it for the first two days.

(1h 2m 4s)

Sure, fine, whatever.

(1h 2m 6s)

That’s not the end of the world.

(1h 2m 8s)

the world. I’ll spend a couple of days

(1h 2m 10s)

watering everything, and then it takes two weeks to grow. So you manually water everything

(1h 2m 17s)

for two days, and then for 12 days it will automatically water everything. Great. I actually

(1h 2m 22s)

quite like that. That’s not bad. And if you stagger it, then it means that every day you’re

(1h 2m 27s)

going to do a little bit of watering, but most things will be automatically watered.

(1h 2m 31s)

And then when they’re fully grown and you have to harvest them, then other ones will

(1h 2m 35s)

do it. It’s, you know, it’s great. Actually, there’s a third thing.

(1h 2m 39s) Chelsea:

Yeah, and a secret third thing.

(1h 2m 40s) Al:

I’ll get to the third thing first. So the third thing is that if you put it next to

(1h 2m 44s)

a specific other type of plant, it won’t water because it’s, it’s called the weeping wiccan.

(1h 2m 50s)

And so if you put it next to a, what was it? Was it a forget-me-not maybe? Then it doesn’t,

(1h 2m 56s)

it’s not sad anymore. It’s happy. And so it won’t cry and water all your crops. So you

(1h 3m)

have to keep it sad. So if you put a specific crop, if you put a specific crop next to it,

(1h 3m 1s) Chelsea:

Oh my god, I keep it sad.

(1h 3m 5s) Al:

it becomes happy and doesn’t water them. But that’s just, that’s just something you learn

(1h 3m 8s)

very quickly that that’s a problem.

(1h 3m 10s)

But the real issue with it is that they only work in one season, they only grow in one season.

(1h 3m 16s) Chelsea:

Uh… okay. I haven’t come across them yet.

(1h 3m 17s) Al:

So they’re a fun idea and I think if they grew in every season I wouldn’t be complaining about

(1h 3m 24s)

the fact there’s no sprinklers but the fact that they exist only for one season is really annoying

(1h 3m 30s)

because you get into this habit of using them and then it’s like oh I’m now in autumn I can’t

(1h 3m 34s)

use them anymore. Ah well. And if you haven’t focused on upgrading your…

(1h 3m 36s) Chelsea:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s a line.

(1h 3m 41s) Al:

your watering spell, which costs a lot of money to upgrade it, right, that it does 144 crops,

(1h 3m 48s)

I think that that last upgrade was like 50,000 or something. It’s expensive. Very expensive.

(1h 3m 53s) Chelsea:

Oh my god

(1h 3m 56s) Al:

So yeah I think that’s another example of their their scaling is just a little bit off.

(1h 4m 3s)

And I think if the Weeping Wiccan worked in every season I would enjoy the…

(1h 4m 11s)

It almost feels like… it almost feels like it was a debate in the team of like

(1h 4m 12s) Chelsea:

yeah this is really weird to have for one season only I don’t know but yeah that’s a weird choice

(1h 4m 19s) Al:

do we actually want this to exist or not and the compromise was

(1h 4m 22s)

we can have it exist but only in one season, you know.

(1h 4m 26s) Chelsea:

Yeah, and they give you an extra task for the rest of the year.

(1h 4m 28s) Al:

Yeah especially as like so many of the magic crops just work in every season. Not all of

(1h 4m 33s)

them but a lot of them do work in every season so it’s not like it it would be the only one.

(1h 4m 36s) Chelsea:

Yeah, that’s a choice.

(1h 4m 38s) Al:

Anyway, it is what it is.

(1h 4m 40s)

So I think overall the farming’s fine.

(1h 4m 43s)

Obviously, as we’ve talked about, there’s scaling issues

(1h 4m 46s)

and there’s a couple of things with the automation

(1h 4m 48s)

that I think could be improved, but overall it’s fine.

(1h 4m 50s)

There’s a lot of, so there’s things like the kegs

(1h 4m 55s)

that make wine and stuff like that.

(1h 4m 57s)

They’re mostly like Stardew,

(1h 4m 58s)

but you can put more than one in at a time.

(1h 5m 1s)

So you can put in up to 10 of anything that’s generating,

(1h 5m 5s)

like you’ve got your kegs,

(1h 5m 6s)

you’ve got the mill for making.

(1h 5m 10s) Chelsea:

The Mel, yeah. Beer. Oh, flowers.

(1h 5m 11s) Al:

to write. Flour, that’s what I’m looking for, flour and stuff like that. So any of these

(1h 5m 18s)

things that are like automated machines you can put in up to 10 at a time rather than just one,

(1h 5m 23s)

which is nice because it’s much, much less babysitting of them than there is in Stardew

(1h 5m 27s)

where you had to live like here’s my 20 different mayonnaise machines and you have to like run up it,

(1h 5m 33s)

put one egg in every machine and then back down. So it feels a lot less, you know, frustrating.

(1h 5m 39s) Chelsea:

Yeah. Is there a way to speed them up a bit as the game progresses? Or no?

(1h 5m 41s) Al:

I don’t think so. I’ve not, not that I’m aware of, but I think as you progress on it’s,

(1h 5m 50s)

it’s less of an issue because just like things end up happening more anyway because you’re,

(1h 5m 56s)

you’re doing more stuff, right? Like I had, I have in my most recent spring and summer I had,

(1h 6m 3s)

oh, how many was it? Let me just do the maths. I had 480 crops.

(1h 6m 12s)

And in summer they were mostly grapes. And so because I staggered them, I just always

(1h 6m 24s)

had my kegs running with wine in them. Yeah, I don’t think it’s, I think because of like the

(1h 6m 27s) Chelsea:

Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m doing, I have the grapes and I’m just making mine.

(1h 6m 34s) Al:

size of your farm and everything, I don’t think you’re ever going to get to the point where you

(1h 6m 37s)

have too many crops for your stuff and if you…

(1h 6m 41s)

end up with too many grapes for your wine then just grow something else instead because

(1h 6m 46s)

like the museum, one of the parts of the museum is having a two-star crop of every… two-star

(1h 6m 53s)

version of every crop, so it’s like you’re always wanting to grow something else. So

(1h 6m 56s)

I don’t think that’s a big problem.

(1h 6m 57s) Chelsea:

Okay. I feel like I just don’t have enough to do. Like, I’m basically just, like I said, I’m in the mines, getting ore, getting iron, getting copper, trying to… yeah, and fishing. Yeah.

(1h 7m 10s)

So yeah, I feel like I’m just trying to, I guess, level everything up now so it’s a little bit easier later on. But you don’t have to play that way, that’s just how I play.

(1h 7m 16s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that’s all the farming stuff. There’s ranching, obviously you’ve

(1h 7m 25s)

not experienced that because you’re building up for your barn. Yeah, so most of the animals

(1h 7m 27s) Chelsea:

I just bought my first chick, sorry, chicken. C H E E K.

(1h 7m 34s) Al:

are like a normal animal but slightly different. So the chickens are chickens and they’re just

(1h 7m 41s)

like they’re black instead of normal chicken.

(1h 7m 45s) Chelsea:

And they have their googly eyes

(1h 7m 46s) Al:

They look a little bit dumb. The cows are, let me, give me a minute, let me get the actual names up.

(1h 7m 57s) Chelsea:

I feel like a drought cowl or something like that.

(1h 7m 59s) Al:

Cowcula, that’s what they were called, yes. So there’s Cowcula, they’re basically just a cow,

(1h 8m 1s) Chelsea:

Okay.

(1h 8m 6s) Al:

but they have wings on, they have little wings on their back. You’ve got Draculambs,

(1h 8m 12s)

which is obviously a sheep, and it works pretty much the same way.

(1h 8m 16s)

You get wool from it.

(1h 8m 18s)

You can also get milk from them as well.

(1h 8m 21s)

So you get different types of milk.

(1h 8m 23s)

But the fun thing about the Draculambs is,

(1h 8m 26s)

oh, maybe I should,

(1h 8m 30s)

they’re quite interested in revolution.

(1h 8m 34s)

They are always, hmm.

(1h 8m 38s)

Wait, are you aware that when you’re in cat form,

(1h 8m 42s)

you can talk to animals?

(1h 8m 43s) Chelsea:

No? Oh my god. Game of the year.

(1h 8m 44s) Al:

Okay, when you’re in cat form,

(1h 8m 46s)

you can talk to animals, which is super fun.

(1h 8m 48s)

So when they’re on your farm,

(1h 8m 52s)

you can talk to them and they will tell you

(1h 8m 54s)

how happy they are.

(1h 8m 55s)

Whereas when you’re a human and talk,

(1h 8m 57s)

or a vampire in human form, and you’re talking to them,

(1h 9m)

you get happy Draculamb noises.

(1h 9m 5s)

So you get an idea that it’s happy,

(1h 9m 6s)

but you’re not quite sure why.

(1h 9m 7s)

Whereas if you go into cat form,

(1h 9m 9s)

they’ll be like, oh, I’m not liking,

(1h 9m 12s)

like, I don’t have any food.

(1h 9m 13s)

or they might be like, “Oh, I don’t like being.”

(1h 9m 16s)

being in the same barn as this other animal

(1h 9m 20s)

or something like that.

(1h 9m 21s)

They’ll give you reasons why they’re unhappy

(1h 9m 21s) Chelsea:

Oh, interesting. It’s amazing.

(1h 9m 23s) Al:

when you’re in cat form, which is really fun.

(1h 9m 25s)

And if you talk to the Draculambs,

(1h 9m 26s)

you will find out that they’re very interested

(1h 9m 29s)

in the concept of revolution

(1h 9m 31s)

and, you know, overthrowing their oppressors

(1h 9m 35s)

and stuff like that.

(1h 9m 36s)

And it’s very interesting.

(1h 9m 38s)

And there’s some story about that that happens as well,

(1h 9m 40s)

which is very fun that maybe I’ll talk about in the spoilers section

(1h 9m 44s) Chelsea:

Yes. Oh, yeah, because I just had my first, I just bought my first chicken, so I haven’t had a chance to even talk to it yet.

(1h 9m 50s) Al:

nice nice nice so then there’s a pig goat which is kind of just like a weird looking

(1h 9m 52s) Chelsea:

That’s cool. I love that.

(1h 9m 59s) Al:

goat with horns and they give you uh they give you milk as well a third type of milk

(1h 10m 7s) Chelsea:

That’s a lot. Oh dear.

(1h 10m 7s) Al:

and then there then there’s a bumpkin which is a sentient pumpkin which is very expensive they cost

(1h 10m 15s)

$12,000 and they give you what’s called

(1h 10m 20s)

plops which very much looks like a poo and it has exactly one usage and that is

(1h 10m 28s)

to turn wheat into moonshine and then the next one is possibly my

(1h 10m 32s) Chelsea:

[laughs] Amazing.

(1h 10m 36s) Al:

favorite animal it’s the stony it is a giant stone with lots of eyes and they

(1h 10m 42s) Chelsea:

Okay.

(1h 10m 43s) Al:

give you heart stones which I think the only point of them is

(1h 10m 50s)

just giving you stone so you can in the refiner you can turn one heart stone

(1h 10m 54s)

into 20 stone I think that’s the whole point but they are very fun to talk to I

(1h 10m 59s)

won’t spoil everything but they’re they’re fun to talk to in cat form

(1h 11m 3s) Chelsea:

Awesome.

(1h 11m 4s)

I’m excited.

(1h 11m 5s)

See, my thing with the pumpkin is like, can you carve it?

(1h 11m 7s)

And it’s like screaming the whole time.

(1h 11m 10s) Al:

No, no you cannot

(1h 11m 11s) Chelsea:

Probably not.

(1h 11m 12s)

Oh, good.

(1h 11m 12s) Al:

There is also apparently there’s also apparently a

(1h 11m 13s) Chelsea:

Okay.

(1h 11m 14s)

Feel free to cut that out of the show.

(1h 11m 17s) Al:

Rubicula, I have never encountered these in game. I didn’t realize until

(1h 11m 22s)

Now that they were a thing you could do which is interesting

(1h 11m 26s)

So there you go

(1h 11m 28s)

They will give you luck dust apparently, which is a potion ingredient

(1h 11m 36s)

So you can use that in the love potion

(1h 11m 40s)

but apparently the the Rubicula’s will also eat your crops if you let them so you gotta

(1h 11m 45s)

You’ve got a fence them in which reminds me

(1h 11m 49s)

Fences are fun in this game, but there are no

(1h 11m 53s)

Gates, there are no gates to put into the fences in this game

(1h 11m 57s) Chelsea:

Yeah, no, I just have the haystack so far.

(1h 12m) Al:

It’s very annoying because you can create a nice long fence with no gate in it

(1h 12m 5s)

It’s not a problem now because I have the final form that I can use to

(1h 12m 10s)

bypass gates but it’s very annoying early on and having a fence that you

(1h 12m 14s)

then have to like manually take down to move past or like it’s just it just it’s

(1h 12m 20s)

such a bizarre decision that there’s no gates in this game

(1h 12m 24s) Chelsea:

I wonder if they just couldn’t get the physics of it or something.

(1h 12m 26s) Al:

I don’t care don’t release the game until that it’s not a difficult

(1h 12m 30s) Chelsea:

Give me gates, gates, gate.

(1h 12m 33s) Al:

all right that’s mostly ranching that kind of work the same way you give them

(1h 12m 38s)

crop, you give them fodder, they…

(1h 12m 40s)

give you stuff. You pet them, they get happy, they give you bigger stuff. Great, fine.

(1h 12m 44s)

Fishing! Let’s talk about fishing. What do you think about the fishing?

(1h 12m 46s) Chelsea:

mm-hmm I don’t mind it I only have the first rod because the second one is 16 000 gold

(1h 12m 53s)

um so i’m catching the smaller stuff but I see the bigger figures in the water

(1h 12m 57s)

but yeah I don’t mind it like you can reel it in I think two or three times um I like it what about

(1h 13m 5s) Al:

Yeah, so I guess just to give a quick explanation of how it works, it’s kind of like the Animal

(1h 13m 15s)

Crossing one but slightly different. So you have, you throw or you cast your line into

(1h 13m 21s)

the water and then you see some shadows and if the shadow notices it, then it will go

(1h 13m 29s)

for it and then after a certain number of times it’ll grab onto it and then you just

(1h 13m 35s)

it comes to you. The couple of things that make it, you can, so instead of just pressing

(1h 13m 43s)

the button to fully reel it in, if you don’t have a fish on it, you just like tap it and

(1h 13m 47s)

it will move slightly. So it’s like sometimes if the fish hasn’t noticed the line, you can

(1h 13m 52s)

like tap it, tap the button and it’ll pull it slightly and then they’ll be like, the

(1h 13m 56s)

fish will notice you and come and be like “oh hello” and then it’ll grab on, which you

(1h 14m 1s)

you kind of have to do. And then the bigger ones, there are two different

(1h 14m 5s)

size shadow sizes and you can only get the big shadow size with the more

(1h 14m 9s)

expensive rod. So it’s not particularly difficult. Say again.

(1h 14m 11s) Chelsea:

Yeah that seems like a late unlock. That seems like a late unlock though with the price of it.

(1h 14m 16s) Al:

Yeah yeah yeah. Certainly medium game. It’s not it’s not insane. You can build

(1h 14m 23s)

up the money reasonably quickly mid game but yeah. There’s not really a huge

(1h 14m 28s)

amount of skill to the fishing. Like if you if you hold down the button it will

(1h 14m 32s)

come and you’re done, there’s nothing.

(1h 14m 35s)

It’s not particularly difficult.

(1h 14m 37s) Chelsea:

Yeah, no, I don’t think I’ve had anything let go or anything.

(1h 14m 39s) Al:

Yeah, if you just don’t press the button then it doesn’t come but then like

(1h 14m 43s)

press the button. What’s next on my list because I don’t have my list in front of

(1h 14m 51s)

me because I’m an idiot. Mining! So mining, it’s pretty self-explanatory. You have

(1h 14m 53s) Chelsea:

Catching up mining

(1h 15m 1s) Al:

the pickaxe, you see a rock, you hit it, you get something. Done.

(1h 15m 3s) Chelsea:

That is a task and a half at the start.

(1h 15m 6s) Al:

[laughing]

(1h 15m 7s)

Yes, yeah, it takes a lot of energy to start with.

(1h 15m 12s)

But over time, you can decrease that

(1h 15m 16s)

with the higher pickaxes.

(1h 15m 19s) Chelsea:

Yeah I think I’m just at the, I have two copper tools right now and I don’t see a huge difference

(1h 15m 22s) Al:

Nice.

(1h 15m 23s) Chelsea:

but I see the upgrades.

(1h 15m 24s) Al:

No, no, no.

(1h 15m 25s)

To start with, again, with the scaling,

(1h 15m 29s)

like I don’t think until the final one

(1h 15m 30s)

you really notice that you’re taking fewer hits.

(1h 15m 35s)

At that point, you’ve got a lot of mana

(1h 15m 36s)

and you just use the ethereal pickaxes

(1h 15m 40s)

to automatically do it.

(1h 15m 42s)

So by the time you’ve maxed that one out,

(1h 15m 46s)

two mana will break 48 rocks, that’s a lot.

(1h 15m 51s) Chelsea:

wow okay that’s something to look forward to

(1h 15m 54s) Al:

You can just walk through the mine and it kills everything

(1h 15m 56s)

and you just grab everything up, it’s great.

(1h 15m 57s) Chelsea:

perfect because i’m spending days and days and days in that mind

(1h 16m 1s) Al:

Yeah.

(1h 16m 3s)

This is the real advantage of the magic being

(1h 16m 5s)

the automation is that you can then expand that to other areas in the same way, in that

(1h 16m 10s)

the same way you automatically water is also the same way you automatically get rocks and

(1h 16m 16s)

gold and stuff, and the same way that you can cut down trees, and the same way you move

(1h 16m 22s)

buildings because there’s a spell for moving buildings, and the same way you can make it

(1h 16m 27s)

rain tomorrow, right? There’s quite a few different spells that are quite good.

(1h 16m 35s)

Although, we’re still limited by the mana, which I still think is very limited. I would have liked to have done more magic early on in the game, and even mid-game. It wasn’t until late-game that I felt like I had enough mana to do everything that I wanted.

(1h 16m 51s) Chelsea:

Oh, okay. Well, there’s hope on the horizon then, ‘cause I’m- I’m wasting away in that mine, honest to God.

(1h 16m 56s) Al:

Next we have catching so there’s bugs around and you can catch the bugs. This is not like

(1h 17m 3s)

your standard catching where you have to like sneak up on bugs and then press the button

(1h 17m 7s)

to catch them without them noticing you. You walk towards a bug it runs away from you and

(1h 17m 12s)

you have to chase it. Nope nope nope.

(1h 17m 14s) Chelsea:

See, I didn’t know if I was doing it wrong because I thought there was a way to be stealth about it

(1h 17m 18s)

and then every time I run away and I’m like, “well, I guess I’m just racing it now!”

(1h 17m 22s)

Okay, I thought, yeah, I thought I was doing it wrong.

(1h 17m 25s)

Okay, good to know.

(1h 17m 26s) Al:

There is no subtlety to it. You walk towards it, it runs away from you, you chase it, you

(1h 17m 31s)

chase it into a corner and you grab it. Done. The other thing you can catch is… have you

(1h 17m 33s) Chelsea:

Yep, yep, yep.

(1h 17m 41s) Al:

unlocked the soul blobs yet? So one of the characters in the game is death and yeah well

(1h 17m 42s) Chelsea:

Yes, yes.

(1h 17m 46s)

On vacation!

(1h 17m 49s) Al:

how long is a vacation if you’re there forever. One of the things…

(1h 17m 52s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(1h 17m 53s)

He’s got his Hawaiian shirt on!

(1h 17m 56s) Al:

that death will do is ask you to get the soul blobs. Basically they are little skulls flying

(1h 18m 3s)

around with a little kind of like flame behind them and they are the souls of dead people

(1h 18m 9s)

and you have to catch them the same way you catch bugs and when you catch one it will

(1h 18m 14s)

give you a little bit very quick story as to how this person died. I will give you some

(1h 18m 19s)

examples because they are very fun. Playful tester died… cause of death…

(1h 18m 26s)

fell down the stairs… um… laughs

(1h 18m 30s) Chelsea:

there’s an animal crossing one I haven’t caught it myself but there’s one it’s like thomas nook it’s

(1h 18m 33s)

like something about a landlord

(1h 18m 36s) Al:

Oh, yeah, yeah, Yasmine Timely, cause of death, lost at poker against the Grim Reaper.

(1h 18m 42s) Chelsea:

yeah

(1h 18m 44s) Al:

Tom Finn, cause of death, they took his dog.

(1h 18m 47s) Chelsea:

oh here it is thomas nook um cause of death evicted the wrong tenant

(1h 18m 53s) Al:

Yeah, so there’s quite a few good fun ones. Maria Doolong hugged a cactus.

(1h 18m 54s) Chelsea:

I love that yeah all the blurbs are funny died setting an example

(1h 19m 2s)

yeah

(1h 19m 6s) Al:

So they’re quite fun. I’ve got 92 of 100 of the soul blobs, so I’m actually nearly done that one.

(1h 19m 11s)

Maybe I’ll finish that, we’ll see. But it’s just a fun little collectible, that’s really all.

(1h 19m 18s)

I think after you get certain numbers of them you unlock certain things.

(1h 19m 22s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I think I’ve done 10 or 15, and I got something at 10. I can’t remember what it was.

(1h 19m 23s) Al:

I think that’s what it is. Weird thing to lock behind story progression, but you get

(1h 19m 33s) Chelsea:

Oh yeah, you get the clock, the antique clock.

(1h 19m 37s)

Yeah, that’s what I’ve got so far.

(1h 19m 41s) Al:

it quite quickly. So I’m not, it’s not the same as like when Pokemon locked behind, you

(1h 19m 48s)

story progression, the ability to change the volume of the game.

(1h 19m 53s)

It’s not as bad as that. So I don’t know. I honestly don’t know how I feel about it

(1h 19m 59s)

because I personally have never changed the speed of the days in these games because I’ve never felt

(1h 20m 5s)

like I need more time and I don’t care about them going faster because I can just go to sleep.

(1h 20m 11s) Chelsea:

See, I don’t know if I ever- I thought I just kind of automatically applied it

(1h 20m 15s)

because I haven’t interacted with the clock. I put it out of my room, but I haven’t activated it if you-

(1h 20m 19s) Al:

don’t interact, it just shows up in your settings after you have the clock. You don’t even need

(1h 20m 22s) Chelsea:

Oh, oh my god. Okay, because I was looking at this thing like, how do I turn it on?

(1h 20m 24s) Al:

to put it out. No, it’s literally, it just adds a setting in your settings.

(1h 20m 30s) Chelsea:

Oh, okay. Okay, okay. But yeah, you’re not like in an enormous rush unless you’re traveling across the map.

(1h 20m 37s) Al:

No. And even then, you speed up and you have other ways to do it. It’s not, I don’t, I’ve

(1h 20m 43s)

never really cared. I mean, some people do care, and that’s fine. And so I don’t know

(1h 20m 46s)

how they would feel about this being locked behind story progression. Because it’s not

(1h 20m 54s)

an accessibility thing, right? You just get more time in the day to do stuff. So I don’t

(1h 21m)

think I care about it from that aspect. But also, why is it locked behind? I don’t know.

(1h 21m 4s)

I don’t care, I think.

(1h 21m 5s) Chelsea:

Yeah, and then you also don’t get penalized for like the amount of days you sleep and the amount of days that you start over, there’s no penalty. Well, I guess it makes your season shorter.

(1h 21m 14s) Al:

that’s it yeah that’s an interesting point to I haven’t figured out where this goes in the

(1h 21m 20s)

in the discussion but two seconds I’m going to sneeze but one thing that’s interesting is

(1h 21m 27s)

so in Stardew and most other farming games if you get to the end of the day and you haven’t

(1h 21m 32s)

gone to bed you will wake up in the morning with less than your full stamina if you get to

(1h 21m 39s) Chelsea:

Okay, yeah, it’s 6 a.m.

(1h 21m 39s) Al:

is it 6 a.m I think when you you just

(1h 21m 44s)

you just you turn it you turn into bats you fly to your bed and then the next day

(1h 21m 45s) Chelsea:

You turn into bats and fly to your bed.

(1h 21m 50s) Al:

you just have your full stamina there’s no disadvantage to it and you know what I really

(1h 21m 54s)

like that because this is meant to be a cozy game give me more cozy like that like don’t

(1h 22m)

penalize me for staying out too late I i like this I really like this especially especially

(1h 22m 5s)

because of the like the story behind all this like you’re a vampire and so like it doesn’t

(1h 22m 10s)

really matter. You’re not sleeping because you need to sleep, you’re sleeping because

(1h 22m 14s)

you don’t want to be awake when it’s sunlight hours. And so it’s like thematically, it makes

(1h 22m 17s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I like that you’re not penalized for that.

(1h 22m 19s)

Yeah, ‘cause I don’t like when you, in other games, yeah, like you said Stardew, or I think Harvest Moon, if you collapse

(1h 22m 25s) Al:

Take basically all of them.

(1h 22m 25s) Chelsea:

at the end of the day, yeah, you wake up less energized, and I thought that was what was gonna happen, so I was racing at 5am, racing back to my bed,

(1h 22m 33s)

and then I missed it, and you just kind of fly into your little room,

(1h 22m 37s)

and you wake up in your coffin, and there’s no penalty for that, that I’ve noticed, I don’t think there is.

(1h 22m 42s) Al:

There is yeah, there’s nothing there’s nothing

(1h 22m 45s)

The other collectible in the game is called vampsters. Have you encountered the vampsters?

(1h 22m 50s) Chelsea:

Yeah.

(1h 22m 51s) Al:

They’re they’re just little creatures that sit around the map doing a little dance and

(1h 22m 57s)

They’re kind of cute. They all have like different costumes and stuff like that

(1h 23m 1s)

but the I

(1h 23m 5s)

Don’t dislike them in concept, but my problem with them is they become very

(1h 23m 12s)

And they’re still annoying at endgame so I

(1h 23m 15s) Chelsea:

Oh no.

(1h 23m 16s) Al:

Can feel I’m I’m getting more and more stuffed up as this podcast goes on

(1h 23m 20s) Chelsea:

Oh no, my allergies have been sending your way.

(1h 23m 21s) Al:

so

(1h 23m 22s)

I’m saying I’m probably sounding worse and worse as the podcast goes on, but I’m gonna keep going. We’re getting there. We’re nearly there

(1h 23m 30s)

um

(1h 23m 31s)

So the the thing about them that makes them annoying but also makes them an interesting

(1h 23m 35s)

Thing is that you can’t put them in the bag. You have to like pick them up and take them to where they live

(1h 23m 42s)

from one side of the map to the other

(1h 23m 44s)

Without putting them down because if you put them down

(1h 23m 47s)

They’ve run away and they go back to where they were. So it’s it’s a

(1h 23m 51s)

Challenging collectible. It’s not just like collect a thing. It’s you have to get them to a specific place

(1h 23m 57s) Chelsea:

I was so hoping that there would have been a spell where you can just drop them in the m- like, you like, summon them away.

(1h 24m 3s) Al:

Yeah, so there’s not. It does get easier, but there’s one real thing that I dislike.

(1h 24m 11s)

Okay, so a little bit of a spoiler, very small spoiler for fast travel in this game. There

(1h 24m 16s)

are two kinds of fast travel. One is witch’s circles, which are, there are certain areas

(1h 24m 22s)

that are like a circle of mushrooms and you can turn them into, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they’re

(1h 24m 25s) Chelsea:

Oh, I knew they did something!

(1h 24m 27s) Al:

essentially like portals. They’re fast travel. You go to one and you can teleport to a different

(1h 24m 33s)

Now, they have a little flaw in that there’s not a huge number of them and there are awkward

(1h 24m 37s)

places, but you know what? It’s fine. It is what it is. They’re useful for certain things,

(1h 24m 42s)

but you cannot travel through them with a vampster.

(1h 24m 46s)

So that’s, that’s one thing. There is a second kind of fast travel, which is a better fast

(1h 24m 50s)

travel that you get later on in the game. I think it’s 50% museum completion. And that

(1h 24m 56s)

is the catacombs. Catacombs. So there is a series of catacombs underneath the entire

(1h 25m 3s)

map. One of them is in your crypt, in your farm. And then there are various other parts

(1h 25m 10s)

throughout, including there is an entrance in the mines. So it’s actually how the mines

(1h 25m 15s)

are, there’s actually two mines. They’re both connected through the catacombs. Now this

(1h 25m 21s)

is much better because you can just run through the catacombs with a vampster. And it’s almost,

(1h 25m 30s)

It almost makes it not annoying in post game to do the

(1h 25m 34s)

The entrance to the mines is where you have to get them to the little cave in the mines right at the start of the mines, which is where you take the vampsters to is there is the other side of the mine from the entrance to the catacombs

(1h 25m 53s)

So if you find a vampster in the town, you go to the entrance to the catacombs, I won’t spoil where that is, you go to the entrance of the catacombs, it didn’t take you long, you get into the catacombs

(1h 26m 3s)

It didn’t take you long, you run to the mines in the catacombs, didn’t take you long, you are now on the other side of the mines from where you need to be and you have to run all the way from one end of the mines to the others, which takes longer than the rest of the journey you just did with your vampster

(1h 26m 20s)

Why is it so far away from this place? I am at the post game, I have done almost everything in this game, I have so many vampsters to get, they are deliberately annoying

(1h 26m 33s)

But right at the end of the game you would expect things to get easier and they do a little bit, but not enough because the thing is, see if I was just running across the map and going into the mines to put my vampsters away, it’s right at the start of the mines

(1h 26m 49s)

So you are actually making it harder to get the vampsters to there by using that because you are the other side of the mines, now it speeds up everything else but it massively increases the time in the mines

(1h 26m 50s) Chelsea:

Yep

(1h 27m 4s) Al:

And the problem with the mines compared to everything else is there are so many obstacles because there’s just rocks everywhere so it can take a huge amount of time

(1h 27m 15s)

And so I think the thing is that like, I get that they are meant to be a challenge and I don’t dislike that but I feel like by the time you get to the end of the game and you’ve done the entire story and you’ve done everything else

(1h 27m 25s)

You’ve unlocked all of the catacombs, you’re like more than 50% of the museum, you’ve done so much of this game

(1h 27m 33s)

So far away from where the vampsters are, it’s bizarre to me, it’s so close to being, yes, well that’s the thing, that’s exactly it, like finding them all and moving them there, I get that’s a challenge

(1h 27m 38s) Chelsea:

Yeah, tedious doesn’t mean difficult.

(1h 27m 46s) Al:

And like early on you don’t want it to be too easy, I get that, but when I’ve done everything else, make the entrance to the catacombs in the mines closer to where the vampsters go

(1h 27m 57s) Chelsea:

That needs to be the episode title of this episode. Why are the catacombs so- or why is the cave so far away?

(1h 28m 5s)

Okay, yeah, ‘cause I was thinking, “Oh, maybe- maybe you get a spell to just send them back in.”

(1h 28m 12s) Al:

Nope

(1h 28m 12s) Chelsea:

Glad to hear you don’t!

(1h 28m 14s) Al:

So close so close

(1h 28m 15s) Chelsea:

So close. I wonder if that’s, like, an oversight on their part. Like, “Oh my god, we didn’t put another entrance.”

(1h 28m 21s) Al:

I think it’s I think it’s just that they wanted

(1h 28m 24s)

The Vamsters to be difficult

(1h 28m 27s)

Full stop and never be easy and it’s like but that kind of defeats the purpose of progression in games is the things generally are

(1h 28m 30s) Chelsea:

It is easy, it’s just a no-

(1h 28m 34s) Al:

Meant to get easier unless it’s specific about skill and this is not about skill

(1h 28m 36s) Chelsea:

Yeah, that’s the frustration.

(1h 28m 39s)

No, ‘cause you can bump into stuff, right? You just can’t drop them.

(1h 28m 39s) Al:

right

(1h 28m 42s)

Yeah, no, absolutely it just takes ages it just takes so long

(1h 28m 44s) Chelsea:

Yeah.

(1h 28m 46s)

‘Cause I was worried at the start, like, “Oh, if I bump into something, it’s gonna escape from my arms and run away.”

(1h 28m 52s)

But no, you can bump into stuff, so it’s not even a skill of your, like, uh, movement or anything.

(1h 28m 58s)

But yeah, side note, I am glad to hear that-

(1h 29m 1s)

‘Cause I remember going through them and my husband was sitting next to me and I’m like,

(1h 29m 4s)

“Oh, there’s fairy rings! I bet they do something!”

(1h 29m 6s)

So I tried to do a whole bunch of stuff in them and they did nothing.

(1h 29m 9s)

So I’m glad that they do something in the future.

(1h 29m 9s) Al:

Yeah, you unlock a spell to open them. So that’s that’s how you get to them.

(1h 29m 14s) Chelsea:

Yeah, okay, that’s good to know.

(1h 29m 16s)

But yeah, they don’t- they seem really in really weird places to put them though.

(1h 29m 20s) Al:

They are, they are, they’re quite, they’re awkward. They’re not as you, like there’s not

(1h 29m 24s)

one on your farm. You have to go to the forest to get to the closest one and it’s like the one in

(1h 29m 30s)

the town is like far away from everything else. It’s just, they’re just, they’re just at annoying

(1h 29m 35s)

places, which is fine because it’s not the only fast travel and it does

(1h 29m 39s)

speed you up in most cases. So I don’t, I’m not going to complain about them

(1h 29m 44s)

too much. I’m fine.

(1h 29m 45s) Chelsea:

Okay.

(1h 29m 48s)

The Vampsters, however.

(1h 29m 49s) Al:

The hamsters, goodness me. Alright, so I think that’s most of the mechanics.

(1h 29m 53s)

Unless you’re going to correct me and say that I’ve missed a mechanic. I

(1h 29m 56s)

think the only other mechanic to talk about is relationships.

(1h 29m 59s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I think that’s about it.

(1h 30m 1s) Al:

Alright, relationships is mostly kind of your standard Stardew Lake feature

(1h 30m 7s)

where you give people gifts.

(1h 30m 9s)

You talk to them, and that increases their friendship.

(1h 30m 12s)

And then eventually, you end up in a relationship with them.

(1h 30m 16s)

And then eventually, at some point, you get married.

(1h 30m 19s)

That’s kind of generally how it works.

(1h 30m 21s) Chelsea:

Yeah.

(1h 30m 21s) Al:

With a couple of changes.

(1h 30m 23s)

So, have you done any of this?

(1h 30m 23s) Chelsea:

Yes.

(1h 30m 25s)

Yeah, I had the first, like, Valentine’s Day festival, I guess.

(1h 30m 31s)

Yeah, yeah, there’s one that I think I’ll choose.

(1h 30m 36s) Al:

You’ll choose I think they have a good. I think they have a good balance of

(1h 30m 37s) Chelsea:

Yeah, if they choose me back!

(1h 30m 41s) Al:

Younger and older characters, I think in this game. We’re

(1h 30m 45s) Chelsea:

Yeah, some of them I’m like, “You’re a child.”

(1h 30m 46s) Al:

Yeah, but they also have some some ones that are clearly old like there’s some that are the age of your parents in game

(1h 30m 52s)

Which means that people who are playing it have someone who’s older

(1h 30m 56s)

I have seen a lot of people now, obviously my opinion is obviously very

(1h 31m 1s)

Kind of based on the fact that I am not generally attracted to men at all

(1h 31m 6s)

But I have generally found that

(1h 31m 9s)

the women are more

(1h 31m 11s)

Interesting and attractive but the internet seems to generally agree with me as well

(1h 31m 15s)

Which is why I don’t think it’s just that I’m not generally interested in men

(1h 31m 19s)

I think that the internet generally seems to agree with me

(1h 31m 21s) Chelsea:

No, the women, yeah, ‘cause the women have more, yeah, they’re definitely more mythical looking, I’ll say.

(1h 31m 29s) Al:

But also every every man

(1h 31m 31s)

Every man that is in our that is really

(1h 31m 36s)

romanceable

(1h 31m 37s)

pines for a woman in the game

(1h 31m 40s)

Which like imagine if everyone was Clint, right?

(1h 31m 44s)

Like all of them are if you talk to because like I’ve obviously not romanced any of them

(1h 31m 48s)

But I’ve noticed they’re clearly pining for the women in the game and I’m like if I was interested in them

(1h 31m 55s)

I would find that very frustrating

(1h 31m 57s) Chelsea:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair.

(1h 31m 59s)

Have you, so you haven’t thought of anyone that you wanna…

(1h 32m 1s) Al:

Oh, yeah, you know, so I I have

(1h 32m 6s)

so I

(1h 32m 8s)

Got to the point where I had let’s double-check. I’ve got it’s been so long since I played this game. I have one two three

(1h 32m 16s)

four

(1h 32m 17s)

Four different characters that I’d gotten to the point where I could marry them

(1h 32m 21s)

Because you can date multiple people at the same time

(1h 32m 25s)

And I’ll come back to that in a minute

(1h 32m 27s)

But what a really nice thing about this game is you can like duplicate a save

(1h 32m 31s)

So what I did was I finished the story

(1h 32m 33s)

I had everyone at the point where I could marry them.

(1h 32m 36s)

And then I saved and I duplicated that save so I can now go into each of those saves and marry

(1h 32m 41s)

each of those characters, which is fun. So I can see how they all are as spouses.

(1h 32m 50s)

One thing I really like about this is that if you do date multiple people, so obviously there’s a

(1h 32m 56s)

thing in Stardew where if you date all of the datables of one gender that they will all come

(1h 33m 1s)

together and there’s like a scene where they’re all like “why are you dating us all?”

(1h 33m 6s)

But that’s the only thing in Stardew about that. You can still date, you can date all bar one of

(1h 33m 10s)

them and nothing will ever come of that. What I really like about this game, yeah yeah, what I

(1h 33m 14s) Chelsea:

We have to have a meeting about you.

(1h 33m 17s) Al:

really like about this is the moment you start dating two characters they will both start

(1h 33m 23s)

mentioning the fact that you’re dating other people. They won’t do too much about it, it

(1h 33m 27s)

doesn’t actually negatively impact, it’s just like they will talk about it, right? So one of the

(1h 33m 33s)

characters was talking about it in a very…

(1h 33m 36s)

almost derogatory way, like, “I can’t believe you’re also dating them,” sort of thing, like,

(1h 33m 41s)

“How could you consider them?” sort of thing. One of them was, “Oh, I’m a little bit upset,

(1h 33m 48s)

but I’m just going to have to learn to live with it if that’s what you want,” sort of

(1h 33m 52s)

thing. Like, they all had different ways of talking about it, and, you know, I thought

(1h 33m 59s)

that they all fit with their personalities. Like, one of them was just, like, completely

(1h 34m 3s)

upset, how I can’t believe you would do this, I want you.

(1h 34m 6s)

which it doesn’t actually affect the relationship, it just happens in conversation, you’ll just be

(1h 34m 12s)

talking to them and they’ll suddenly say that and you’re like oh goodness okay.

(1h 34m 16s) Chelsea:

Get coffee.

(1h 34m 18s) Al:

So I thought that was really interesting and then when you choose to marry one of them,

(1h 34m 24s)

the rest of them are upset and they turn into a specific relationship status called hurt

(1h 34m 31s)

and they will drop back down to four hearts and all the hearts are broken.

(1h 34m 32s) Chelsea:

Oh.

(1h 34m 35s)

Oh, no.

(1h 34m 36s) Al:

And they will not talk to you for a certain period of time including the ones that run shops

(1h 34m 39s) Chelsea:

Oh, oh, my God.

(1h 34m 43s) Al:

will not sell you anything until you recover the relationship to be friends again.

(1h 34m 44s) Chelsea:

Oh, you can’t get your stuff.

(1h 34m 51s)

Wow, that’s an interest, that’s really interesting, I was

(1h 34m 53s)

wondering if that was going to happen, like if there was any

(1h 34m 55s)

negative effects.

(1h 34m 57s)

Wow.

(1h 34m 58s) Al:

And so the different ones will do different things,

(1h 34m 59s)

and some of them recover quicker than others

(1h 35m 1s)

and stuff like that.

(1h 35m 2s)

So I’m kind of going through my four different saves

(1h 35m 5s)

to see how they all react to that,

(1h 35m 7s)

which is, in my opinion.

(1h 35m 8s) Chelsea:

Yeah, yeah, like to me the dating part’s the least interesting aspect for me.

(1h 35m 16s)

Yeah, I know who I’m gonna pick though, I don’t know if I can say it here.

(1h 35m 19s) Al:

Tell me.

(1h 35m 19s) Chelsea:

Ridge!

(1h 35m 21s) Al:

Okay, fair enough.

(1h 35m 21s) Chelsea:

The lumberjack, the lumberjack!

(1h 35m 23s) Al:

Fair enough, yeah, no, that’s fair enough.

(1h 35m 24s) Chelsea:

He’s so nice! He fixes your house for you, your roof for you, and seems like overall positive D.

(1h 35m 27s) Al:

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 35m 30s)

Fair enough.

(1h 35m 31s) Chelsea:

I almost did Luna though. Is that the the garden girl?

(1h 35m 34s) Al:

Yeah, I like Luna, I just,

(1h 35m 36s)

I didn’t quite gel with her as much

(1h 35m 39s)

as some of the other ones, but she was,

(1h 35m 41s)

I think if there hadn’t been anyone

(1h 35m 44s)

I had liked more than her,

(1h 35m 46s)

then I definitely could have seen something there,

(1h 35m 48s)

but I wasn’t.

(1h 35m 49s)

And I already had four people on the go. I was like, there’s a lot here. Like, I don’t

(1h 35m 52s)

think I need a fifth one sort of thing. So the four that I have been dating are Sabrina,

(1h 35m 55s) Chelsea:

Okay. Right.

(1h 36m 2s) Al:

Mina, Fiona, which is really awkward. Turns out Fiona is actually Sabrina’s aunt. So that’s

(1h 36m 12s)

a little bit awkward. Yeah.

(1h 36m 13s) Chelsea:

What?!

(1h 36m 14s)

Really?!

(1h 36m 18s)

Ugh!

(1h 36m 19s) Al:

Also Kim, but you won’t have met Kim yet. No, that would be weird. That would be your

(1h 36m 21s) Chelsea:

No, not yet.

(1h 36m 23s)

Is it Kim Dracula?

(1h 36m 26s)

No, okay.

(1h 36m 28s)

Little bit.

(1h 36m 29s) Al:

own family. Because you’re a Dracula, remember? No, she is of a different type of character

(1h 36m 31s) Chelsea:

Oh, okay, never mind.

(1h 36m 34s)

Yes, okay, disregard.

(1h 36m 36s)

Feel free to crop that out there.

(1h 36m 40s) Al:

that you’ve not met yet that you might have theorized might exist. Although I’m just about

(1h 36m 44s) Chelsea:

Okay, okay, okay, yeah, yes, okay.

(1h 36m 46s) Al:

to talk about the fact that those characters exist in a second.

(1h 36m 49s)

uh so yeah it’s fine it’s not there’s nothing humongously interesting I think the relationship

(1h 36m 55s)

between them is the most interesting thing but um overall it’s kind of just pretty standard uh

(1h 37m 2s)

so obviously story-wise we don’t want to talk about a lot of story because a lot of this is

(1h 37m 7s)

kind of like just as you go um but i’ve i’ve generally found the story quite interesting

(1h 37m 12s)

and fun it’s not like overwhelmingly interesting but it is at least it makes me want

(1h 37m 19s)

continue doing things to find out and like you you know you learn through relationship building

(1h 37m 25s)

you get to know people and there’s a lot of different characters that have different types

(1h 37m 31s)

archetypes and some of them feel a little bit kind of stereotypical but some of them actually

(1h 37m 37s)

find quite interesting like uh for the listeners one of the characters is alcoholic and him being

(1h 37m 46s)

an alcoholic actively…

(1h 37m 49s)

It impacts the story and people’s relationships and is very interesting in ways that are hard

(1h 37m 58s)

to explain without explaining the story, but you really feel like his alcoholism affects

(1h 38m 4s)

everyone in the town.

(1h 38m 5s) Chelsea:

Yeah. Yeah, even from the– I haven’t played nearly as much as you, but yeah, it has quite the impact already.

(1h 38m 11s)

Like, you can see with his children and stuff.

(1h 38m 13s) Al:

There’s a bunch of different types of characters, so obviously we talked about vampires and

(1h 38m 20s)

witches, there’s also werewolves. Ridges is a werewolf, I think, isn’t he? Yeah. And then

(1h 38m 28s)

there’s seers, and then the one that you unlock later on is there are merpeople that you will

(1h 38m 34s)

meet at some point, but I suspect you’d theorize that they existed. Yeah. And then there’s

(1h 38m 41s)

also human characters that come later on.

(1h 38m 44s)

And then there’s obviously kind of events that happen. There’s like story events that happen where you kind of like how Stardew Works where you go to a certain area on a specific time and things happen. What I really like is the map shows you when there’s an event going to happen if you go to a specific area, which is not, not all of these games do that.

(1h 39m 10s)

And I really like the fact that you can look in the map and say “Oh, that’s a good map”

(1h 39m 13s)

if I go anywhere right now, will a thing happen, right?

(1h 39m 16s)

Because some things need very specific things to happen.

(1h 39m 19s)

So, like, for example, Kim, her 4Heart event had to happen at a specific time in a specific space.

(1h 39m 27s)

And if I hadn’t been looking at the map at a specific time, I wouldn’t have known that it was going to happen then.

(1h 39m 33s)

And I saw “Oh, there’s a little sparkle on that map, let me go and see what happens”

(1h 39m 36s)

and it was Kim’s 4Heart event, which was fun.

(1h 39m 39s) Chelsea:

Oh, okay. Interesting.

(1h 39m 41s) Al:

A couple of other things I found interesting but not.

(1h 39m 43s)

To a, not to a degree that I think would be great,

(1h 39m 48s)

there is one relationship that you do break up

(1h 39m 50s)

during the story, which is something I have asked for

(1h 39m 52s)

for ages, but is a specific one that you have to break up.

(1h 39m 56s)

So it’s not like you’re choosing to break up

(1h 39m 58s)

specific relationships to date someone,

(1h 40m)

it’s just, it’s a thing that happens in the story.

(1h 40m 3s)

There, someone dies in this game, like properly dies.

(1h 40m 8s)

I’m not gonna tell you who,

(1h 40m 9s)

I’m not gonna give you any hints who,

(1h 40m 10s)

but someone dies in this game

(1h 40m 12s)

And I think it’s–

(1h 40m 13s)

really well done what they do. They deal with grief in a very interesting way. I think it’s very well done.

(1h 40m 19s) Chelsea:

So I’m asking you after though.

(1h 40m 21s) Al:

That’s fine, you can ask me after.

(1h 40m 24s)

And then there’s like, you know, festivals that happen. So that’s a thing that happens.

(1h 40m 33s)

They’re kind of standard. I don’t think there’s anything interesting to talk about them. If you

(1h 40m 37s)

know Stardew or you know any other kind of Stardew like, the festivals are exactly what you’d expect.

(1h 40m 42s) Chelsea:

right. I’m pretty far behind. So no, I think no, I’m excited to

(1h 40m 42s) Al:

Oh.

(1h 40m 43s)

Is there anything you want to talk about story and character wise that I’ve not talked about?

(1h 40m 49s)

Yeah, I know.

(1h 40m 51s) Chelsea:

keep going, though, for sure. Yeah.

(1h 40m 53s) Al:

I think the story was interesting enough. I don’t think it quite hits the level of Stardew,

(1h 40m 58s)

but I think there are points where it does. Like the grief aspect that I was talking about I think

(1h 41m 2s)

is really, really well done. I think it’s as well done as any Stardew story. But most of it is kind

(1h 41m 8s)

of pretty kind of cookie cutter. Like, it’s fine. It’s it’s

(1h 41m 13s)

serviceable, it’s enjoyable, but you’re not going to, like, give it an Oscar sort of thing.

(1h 41m 19s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I know. Yeah, we picked the busiest time of year to play the fifth game because I feel like I have a lot I want to say, and I’m excited to play a lot more of it, which is good.

(1h 41m 31s)

Because I find, you know, where I’m at in the game is where I’d be able to choose if I want to continue or not. So yeah, it’s promising to see what else comes ahead of it.

(1h 41m 36s) Al:

We can always do a follow-up episode if you’ve got more thoughts once you’ve done more of the game.

(1h 41m 41s) Chelsea:

Oh yes, please. Yes, please.

(1h 41m 44s) Al:

That is always an easy episode for me because I don’t need to do anything except talk.

(1h 41m 49s)

All right I think that’s everything in the game then let’s do a quick, before the spoiler section,

(1h 41m 54s)

let’s do a quick summary of how we feel about the game and whether we’d recommend it.

(1h 42m)

I mean I’ve already done that right like I said at the beginning if you like the idea of

(1h 42m 4s)

stardew but you’re a vampire, I think play the game.

(1h 42m 7s)

It’s very well made and it’s very enjoyable. It’s nothing super special but it’s good. I enjoy it.

(1h 42m 16s) Chelsea:

I agree yeah I don’t have anything else to add at that point but yeah no it’s I’m enjoying it like I

(1h 42m 23s)

I play a lot of Animal Crossing and this feels different enough that it’s not Animal Crossing

(1h 42m 27s)

but enough similar features that I don’t feel like a complete stranger to this kind of game

(1h 42m 32s)

so yeah I do enjoy it and I would recommend it.

(1h 42m 35s) Al:

Nice all right well that is basically the entire podcast the only thing that

(1h 42m 40s)

we’re gonna it’s gonna be after this is a few spoilers that we mentioned

(1h 42m 43s)

throughout the episode so if you don’t want to be spoiled for this then you can

(1h 42m 46s)

head out now there’s nothing else after this go away spoiler warnings by the

Spoilers!

(1h 42m 51s) Al:

warning all right so I wrote the list as we were going you want to know who dies

(1h 42m 52s) Chelsea:

[dog barking]

(1h 42m 58s) Al:

we’ll go with that first it’s not Brooke dies Brooke

(1h 43m) Chelsea:

Sure, is it Orlok? No? Who does? No! Oh god. Yeah. Okay. Oh.

(1h 43m 5s) Al:

the mayor

(1h 43m 8s)

it’s actually a really touching story I won’t spoil everything but he dies but

(1h 43m 14s)

the really funny thing is because he dies you then have to elect a new mayor

(1h 43m 18s)

and I won’t tell you who wins but I will tell you one of the one of the candidates

(1h 43m 24s)

is a vampster

(1h 43m 25s) Chelsea:

I got my vote. Wow, that’s interesting.

(1h 43m 27s) Al:

I bet you could probably guess who becomes mayor but I will neither confirm

(1h 43m 29s) Chelsea:

I don’t know. Okay, no, I’m not even gonna guess.

(1h 43m 31s) Al:

nor deny. Yes, go on, guess, guess, guess, guess.

(1h 43m 34s) Chelsea:

Is it Orlok? No, it’s not.

(1h 43m 36s) Al:

I’ve told you now they’re going to confirm nor deny.

(1h 43m 38s) Chelsea:

Okay, okay, I’ll get to that myself.

(1h 43m 41s) Al:

The transformation, so obviously the cat was the one you’ve had,

(1h 43m 44s)

what were you guessing was one of them? Because you had a theory. It is, yeah, yeah, correct.

(1h 43m 47s) Chelsea:

It’s, uh, is it a mermaid that can go in the water? Yeah, okay.

(1h 43m 53s)

Yes, okay, I was like, there’s way too much to explore out there to not have that ability.

(1h 43m 58s)

Like, it…

(1h 43m 59s) Al:

And the final one is a bat, which kind of makes sense.

(1h 44m 2s) Chelsea:

Okay, yeah, I figured at some point you would eventually get your, like,

(1h 44m 6s)

your wings and be able to just do that yourself. I do like the cat, though.

(1h 44m 11s) Al:

Yeah, no, I actually, yeah, I think they’re really good.

(1h 44m 13s) Chelsea:

Yeah, I love being, I see, I thought.

(1h 44m 17s)

I thought that when I turned into a cat,

(1h 44m 19s)

I could talk to my cat,

(1h 44m 20s)

but he only talks to you like a person.

(1h 44m 22s)

I thought he’d be like, I don’t know.

(1h 44m 24s)

That makes no sense because I realized

(1h 44m 26s)

that he still talks to you even as a cat.

(1h 44m 28s)

Disregard, disregard.

(1h 44m 30s) Al:

and the bat is really fun because you’re flying so you can fly over things.

(1h 44m 31s) Chelsea:

He can talk to you either way.

(1h 44m 35s)

Oh, is that how you get to the second level of the mind?

(1h 44m 38s)

Okay, okay.

(1h 44m 39s)

I was like, there must be a ladder recipe or something.

(1h 44m 42s) Al:

The sunscreen potion. This is so stupid. The only purpose of this potion is so that you can talk to the sun god.

(1h 44m 51s) Chelsea:

What? I thought it would just make you be able to lengthen your day.

(1h 44m 54s) Al:

Nope, nope, it doesn’t do that. So there’s a character in the game called the sun god

(1h 44m 59s)

and there’s a whole bunch of story stuff around that but basically to talk to him.

(1h 45m 11s)

That’s it. That’s it. That’s the whole thing

(1h 45m 12s) Chelsea:

I like my idea better. Make the day longer!

(1h 45m 15s) Al:

Yeah, I also thought it would be that as well but it’s not

(1h 45m 17s)

and the draculaams

(1h 45m 20s)

They do ferment a revolution in the game

(1h 45m 23s) Chelsea:

Oh my god, I can’t wait.

(1h 45m 26s) Al:

It is I love the draculaam

(1h 45m 29s)

Revolution, I will not tell you what happens. I won’t spoil it all but the revolution is super super fun

(1h 45m 35s) Chelsea:

Okay. Is that way, way late in the game?

(1h 45m 38s) Al:

No, no, it’s kind of made it’s kind of mid game

(1h 45m 38s) Chelsea:

Oh, okay!

(1h 45m 40s)

Perfect. I have all these things to look forward to now.

(1h 45m 41s) Al:

So yeah, that’s it. I think that’s it. I think that’s all the time we have for this episode

Outro

(1h 45m 48s) Al:

Thank you for tuning in to the show

(1h 45m 50s) Chelsea:

Thanks for having me, and we’re glad you’re back.

(1h 45m 52s) Al:

Thank you for tuning in to the show

(1h 45m 55s) Chelsea:

What? It’s your show!

(1h 45m 57s) Al:

All right, well, I think that’s everything then thank you chelsea for joining me for this episode

(1h 46m 1s) Chelsea:

Uh, play Moonlight Peaks.

(1h 46m 4s)

Simple, just keeping it at that.

(1h 46m 6s) Al:

Alright, you can find the podcast on Tumblr and on BlueSky at THSPod. You can also find

(1h 46m 12s)

us on YouTube where I am sharing a bunch of clips from the podcast. I’m trying to do one

(1h 46m 17s)

a day and some of them are gaining traction and interesting and if you enjoy that then

(1h 46m 24s)

that’s there if you want to go and look at it. You can also send us feedback from our

(1h 46m 27s)

website HarvestSeason.Club where you can also find links to everything to do with the podcast

(1h 46m 32s)

including our Patreon, patreon.com/thspod, where you can…

(1h 46m 36s)

…support the podcast monetarily, if you wish, and in return for some money on a monthly basis,

(1h 46m 42s)

you can get access to our Slack, where we talk about a bunch of things,

(1h 46m 46s)

what we’ve been talking about recently on there.

(1h 46m 50s)

Chelsea, you shared your picture of the bedazzled goose lamp.

(1h 46m 55s) Chelsea:

If that’s worth the money right there, to see that thing.

(1h 46m 57s) Al:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

(1h 47m)

You can try and convince me to play games that are clearly bad,

(1h 47m 4s)

and I can’t decide whether I want to play or not.

(1h 47m 6s)

for the podcast that’s a thing you can do.

(1h 47m 8s) Chelsea:

Yes, because right now you’re debating Harvest Moon port.

(1h 47m 11s) Al:

Yes the terrible looking ports of terrible games that are on mobile

(1h 47m 15s)

and who knows why they’ve decided to do that.

(1h 47m 20s) Chelsea:

Come bully Al into playing the Harvest Moonports.

(1h 47m 25s) Al:

Please do.

(1h 47m 28s)

You also get access to bonus episodes of the podcast and now that I’m back

(1h 47m 32s)

from my holiday we should be getting a bunch of them up.

(1h 47m 34s)

I know Codey promised about 10…

(1h 47m 36s)

in their last episode. So…

(1h 47m 37s) Chelsea:

Yes.

(1h 47m 41s)

Yeah, me and Kevin have a list, too.

(1h 47m 43s) Al:

I mean, you just need to actually start recording them then. Come on.

(1h 47m 46s)

Like, you people keep promising greenhouses and not actually doing them. So…

(1h 47m 50s) Chelsea:

Oh, me and Kevin have a date set for one. Thank you. Yes.

(1h 47m 53s) Al:

Good. Good. Get it done.

(1h 47m 57s)

So there will be, hopefully, quite a few over the next couple of months as I

(1h 48m 1s)

try and get to an arbitrary number that I want to do within a calendar year.

(1h 48m 6s)

Woo!

(1h 48m 8s)

All right. That’s everything. Thank you, Chelsea, for joining me.

(1h 48m 12s)

Thank you, listeners, for listening. And until next time, have a good harvest.

(1h 48m 16s) Chelsea:

Have a good harvest.

(1h 48m 17s) Theme Tune:

The Harvest Season is created by Al McKinley with support from our Patrons including our

(1h 48m 27s)

Pro Farmers Kevin, Stuart and Elisa. Our art is done by Micah the Brave and our music is

(1h 48m 34s)

done by Nick Burgess. Feel free to visit our website HarvestSeason.club for show notes

(1h 48m 40s)

and links to things we discussed in this episode.

(1h 48m 51s) Al:

seconds. Hey Google, turn on the light. I didn’t realize I was sitting without lights

(1h 48m 55s)

on and it’s starting to get dark. So I was like, I can’t see things anymore.

(1h 48m 57s) Chelsea:

[laughs]

(1h 49m)

Wait, I can’t see anything.

(1h 49m 2s) Al:

Um, fair.

Made with Transcriptionist

The Harvest Season

I Can Lie To Myself

Timings

Links

Contact

Transcript

Theme Tune

Intro

What Have We Been Up To

Game News

Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit

Star Birds

Neverway

Japanese Rural Life Adventure

Cult Of The Lamb X Two Point Museum

New Games

Focus Grove

Island Farmer

Spiritstead

Neighborhoods

Moonlight Peaks

Spoilers!

Outro