Wide Flank - Video Game Book Club

Alon’s joined by Teddy and Madeline talking about two games we’re playing in the saaaaameish genre: Slay the Spire and Balatro. Comparison may be the thief of joy but also it’s really fun to do bad things (like being really greedy in card games). Let’s dive in. The next episode will be the first in our Majora’s Mask Gameclub! Play along! Join the Wide Flank discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Show Notes:

The game is over and the credits are rolling! This is the grand finale episode of the Ocarina of Time Gameclub and for this one we played from the Fire Temple through beating the entire game. There are a lot of spoilers in this episode, and this game is kinda unhinged. Did we get every heart piece? No. Did we get every skulltula? No. But we had a fun time playing through a great journey and a great game. Not sure yet what’s next, but it might be Majora’s Mask. Stay tuned. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro and how we felt completing the game. 02:16 - What did we remember and game manuals. 05:04 - Fire Temple 11:39 - Volvagia fight and boss fights in general 15:14 - Ice Cavern 19:04 - Water Temple; actually good? 30:25 - Water Temple could have been the first temple 32:20 - Morpha fight 33:48 - Z-targeting and projectile speed 36:43 - Alon got stuck again 38:25 - I’m not supposed to be here yet 40:41 - Coddle me or don’t, time travel paradox, and under the well 44:32 - Iron Boots vs Lens of Truth 47:35 - Shadow Temple 51:20 - Hover boots / worst item in the game 58:06 - Gerudo Valley, Desert Colossus, and Spirit Temple 01:04:32 - Could have been more time travel stuff 01:12:12 - Sheik is Zelda??? 01:19:06 - Secrets (unless it’s mandatory) and exploring 01:25:54 - Ganon’s Castle and boss fights 01:39:05 - Outro Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Thumbnail art from Tom Garden: https://www.artstation.com/tomgardenart

Is this game good or stale or dated? No, it turns out this game still rules. We played all the way through the Forest Temple for this episode and talked about solving the puzzles, the combat, being a kid, the music, time, Navi, technology, and more. Hey, listen! Next episode we’re recording after beating the whole damn game. Dan Bruno article: https://danbruno.net/writing/ocarina/ Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank

How many episodes will there be? Time will tell. We're going with the flow. For this episode Dugan and Alon are a couple of hours into Ocarina of Time and we’re talking about our progress so far, Dark Souls, the difficulty, the vibes, the nostalgia, and more. Next episode we’re recording after the first three dungeons. Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make and end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from" – T. S. Eliot

Special guest Damon coming in hot off the press for this episode. We basically rediscover books and what is good about reading because that's mostly what Citizen Sleeper is, a good old picture book. There are also some dice rolls and currency management but they don’t mean that much after you get rolling ^_^. We forgive the lack of difficulty because this game has style, beautiful descriptions of mushrooms, and a critique of capitalism that hits hard. Next Gameclub we’re doing Hollow Knight. Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://store.steampowered.com/app/367520/Hollow_Knight/https://apps.apple.com/us/app/80-days/id892812659https://store.steampowered.com/app/323190/Frostpunk/https://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/This_War_of_Mine/https://www.gamenerdz.com/sub-terra-core-gamehttps://store.steampowered.com/app/239030/Papers_Please/https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/

This game is about Marissa Marcel. You watch raw footage of three of her movies, and some behind the scenes footage associated with those movies. You can rewind and fast forward. But all the clips are hidden from you, and you can only find these clips by clicking an object in the scene that takes you to another clip with a similar item, and you watch all these scenes out of order. Sounds kinda bad? But it totally rules! We briefly debate whether or not this is a game, and really the answer is immaterial. This “game” is an incredible accomplishment. It was moving, funny, creepy, and dare we say…original? None of us had played anything like it. More games like this please. Next Gameclub we’re doing Citizen Sleeper followed by Hollow Knight Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1578650/Citizen_Sleeper/https://store.steampowered.com/app/367520/Hollow_Knight/

StarCraft (gotta love that one word and double capitalized title). This is a cool game. Even the metallic lettering of the title is cool. The music is good. The voice lines are funny. If not entirely dignified, StarCraft feels mature where other games in the 90s were often irreverent or puerile. The human campaign follows the rise of a terrorist faction in the midst of a galactic race (species) war. The Zerg campaign follows the quest to bring their species to biologic perfection, where the Protoss campaign is somewhat more muddled, and has maybe aged the worst. The Protoss are sort of Roman? Having an honor culture that is a bureaucratic nightmare for those just trying to save the galaxy. But their units are maybe the coolest so there’s that. The campaign is long and it really shows its age. It has almost no tutorials and the beginning of almost every mission is the same: a 15 minute period where you plod along and get your economy up to a point where you can actually build an army. The pathing of the units is also atrocious: marines can fight but pray that they never encounter an elevated path/ramp because that is the ultimate counter. A lot of our StarCraft opinions are informed by and likely inferior to observations made by game designer David Sirlin. Kind of essential listening is his podcast on both StarCraft and Starcraft 2 as we reference it a lot (links below) Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes:

For this gameclub the Wide Flank gang played “Tunic”. An isometric action game that at first glance looks like The Legend of Zelda, but is really so much more. Spoilers aplenty this episode so if you are considering giving this a go, play it before listening and reading below. What you thought was a cute little Zelda game turns out to be much deeper and darker as you explore the far reaches of its world. You gradually uncover pages of an in-game manual, written in an alien language, and you struggle (in a good way) to use it to decipher the world and the mechanics. Tunic does a great job of being just accessible enough, where nothing is too out of reach, letting you peel back the layers of mystery at a satisfying and challenging pace. Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5A7uoJAOvY

What words describe Bloodborne? Gothic? Victorian? Lovecraftian? Scary? Impossible? Funny? Bloodborne is an enigmatic, genre-defining game. Chat GPT described it best in a haiku: “Bloodborne’s Depths Hidetaka’s Twisted World Challenge Accepted” Its gameplay loop and mechanics are polarizing inside and outside of the Soulsborne fandom; too fast for lovers of Dark Souls, but too slow for high-octane gamers like Alon. We played it to varying levels of success. Is a game that is most fun after 30+ hours of playing a good game? Why do we love facing and defeating impossibility? How can we be friends when we feel so differently about this game? Few games have matched the immersion and setting of Bloodborne. The further your character dives into the world of beasthood and paleblood, the more you depart from the waking world outside of your Playstation. Jump in. Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps:

18 months later, Danny, Alon and Teddy sit down and reflect on the glory of the Wide Flank catalog. Jump in and listen as we discuss our favorite and least favorite Gameclub games, talk about what has aged well, and where we are thinking of going next. It’s been a blast playing games and hanging with you all in discord, and we hope that you’ll stick with us as we keep this train moving in 2023. This is a spoiler-free relaxed episode, and we’ll be back next week to release Bloodborne! Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank

It’s time to take your first journey into space, little Hearthian. Blast off into an alien solar system to uncover the strange physics and mechanics of planets you’ve only dreamed of. Many spoilers in this episode. But if that doesn’t bother you, read on. Awaiting your arrival are the Hourglass Twins, a “double planet” (this is a real term), where two celestial bodies are locked together in their orbit around the sun. One is slowly spraying away the sands on its surface to reveal mysteries buried deep. Ember Twin receives all this sand, and you must explore it quickly before its secrets are buried forever, until of course the sun supernovas and you die…. It’s time to take your first journey into space, little Hearthian. Blast off into an alien solar system to uncover the strange physics and mechanics of planets you’ve only dreamed of….Wait didn’t we say this already? Yep – it’s a time loop. So maybe this time you’ll explore Brittle Hollow with a black hole at it’s center. Or maybe it's volcanic moon? You have 22 minutes before the sun goes bang and we start this all over again. Outer Wilds (the game) believes in you. It knows you will figure out it’s mysteries, even if it takes you a few loops. There is almost no point in beating the game – every little puzzle or planetary quirk is the best victory you could hope for. Outer Wilds' story, on the other hand, doesn't believe in you. It treats you like a kid, and indeed, it seems like all the characters in this game are themselves children. Yet while that’s a miss, nothing could drag down the awe, wonder, and majesty of this solar system. Don’t rush it, enjoy the ride, and roast a marshmallow. Everything will be alright. ==== Our next game for Gameclub is Bloodborne. We would link it, but you know the one. Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

Hades is the latest release from Supergiant Games, a studio that consistently releases some of the slickest and most stylish games of the generation. This is the best yet. You are Zagreus, a son of Hades, determined to break free from the Stygian realm of your birth. A roguelike (roguelite?) that will test your twitch skills with weapons and power ups that make each run unique. Maybe most remarkably it has a nearly endless trough of voice lines and story beats that punctuate each run and unfold over the many deaths that await you. The game can be a little daunting at first, but we loved this game and bet you will to. Check it out. Next game for the gameclub is Outer Wilds: https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/ Join our discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://eggplant.show/58-easing-into-hades-with-supergiant-games

A listener asked us if we prefer the perfect brevity of Portal, or the focused improvements of Portal 2. But that gives it away – perfection wins every time. We often described Portal as a proof of concept, but that isn’t a criticism. What else could you ask of a three hour game? It says everything it needed to say. After Portal was released, the thoughts of a generation of gamers were changed, maybe forever, about what games were and could be. Portal 2 really wrung the rag of what we loved so much about Portal. It tried to be more, and it was in some ways. It was bigger, longer, funnier (or at least tried to be). But it wasn’t more novel or special. That might be too big of an ask to make. Yet with co op Valve proved it had a stone left unturned. That could have been the novelty that the game explored – the proof of concept that was enough to carry us through, but instead they went for…comedy? The moon was cool though. Our next game for Gameclub is Hades. Play it with a controller. Happy gaming. Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://the-besties.simplecast.com/episodes/yall-portal-still-rocks-R0q31a2dhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-QhdzQo66ohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbacular_Drophttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1145360/Hades/

Alon is joined by Neil and Chris to talk about the fast, hyper, and hardcore game that is Neon White. We love it and it kicks ass, check it out. Neil is on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/clineil_ Chris recently made a game called Silly Seance: http://sillyseance.com/ Happy gaming. Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://youtu.be/r86NLwCYXfkhttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLALwcCNEIG0azLsP6LJ-jNw8iauuTr6Cahttps://eggplant.show/94-neon-whitehttps://machinegirl.bandcamp.com/album/neon-white-ost-1-the-wicked-hearthttps://machinegirl.bandcamp.com/album/neon-white-ost-2-the-burn-that-cures

Another classic that really held up. Released in 1995 for the SNES, Chrono Trigger continues to top “Best Of” video game lists. None of us had played it, so we played it! The combat sort of sucked but there was so much that made up for that. It looked great, the world was compelling, some weird good NPC dialogue and a soundtrack that rocked. Next Gameclub is Portal + Portal 2: https://store.steampowered.com/app/620/Portal_2/ Two months from now we are doing Hades, so start whenever is convenient and don’t save it until the day before the show: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1145360/Hades/ Happy gaming. Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://killscreen.com/previously/articles/final-fantasy-xii-and-the-glory-of-the-grind/

Play the game, then come back and listen to this podcast. How to talk about one of the more peculiar games of the last decade… Inscryption is a lot and it’s hard to describe it without spoiling it. It’s a deck-builder, it’s an escape room, it’s a roller coaster of a roguelike (sort of). You can approximate this game’s vibe by combining the strategy of Slay the Spire, the wonder of Myst, the adventure of Jumanji, and the weirdness of Adaptation. Perhaps it’s best to say Inscryption could not be experienced any other way than as a video game. It is a testament to what the medium is capable of. Play it! The great transcendence awaits. Our next game for the gameclub is going to be Chrono Trigger from 1995: https://store.steampowered.com/app/613830/CHRONO_TRIGGER/ Happy gaming. Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/https://eggplant.show/84-digging-the-rabbit-hole-with-daniel-mullins-inscryptionhttps://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/a-circular-wall-reformulating-the-fourth-wall-for-video-gameshttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1194840/Frog_Fractions_Game_of_the_Decade_Edition/

This is the story of a man, John-117, the Master Chief. This is the story of America. Of Bungie. This is the story of developer crunch, of sleeping in the office, of grandiose expectations, and of delivering on them (albeit imperfectly). The name itself “Halo: Combat Evolved” is a corporate compromise between Bungie artists and Microsoft marketing shills. This is the story of multiplayer so good that it made mothers across America weep. It’s the story of staying up all night at your friend's house because nothing besides this moment matters. We present this podcast to you as incomplete as any analysis of a seminal game is bound to be. “Halo – it’s finished” “No. I think we’re just getting started” For the next Gameclub we are going to be playing Inscryption - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092790/Inscryption/ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riJdsvaLS8whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2RMHeMGDDUhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1092790/Inscryption/

For this gameclub the Wide Flank gang played “Prey” (2017). The Typhon have broken containment and are running amok on the space station Talos 1. But this is an immersive sim so as much as it is your job to blast these aliens to bits, you also need to read a lot of emails between HR and disgruntled office workers. The game is a little messy, but that's kind of the point. Unfortunately Prey doesn’t communicate the broadness or possibility of its systems early on so your mileage may vary. Space, however, has never looked this good. For the next Gameclub we are going to be playing Halo: Combat Evolved, so get that going: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1064221/Halo_Combat_Evolved_Anniversary/ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXLxaKrcFZ0https://youtu.be/Y2B78qD4hGU?t=122https://www.bulletpointspodcast.com/post/161359592822/episode-41-preyhttps://www.vice.com/en/article/7xxxvg/prey-might-have-a-terrible-ending-but-thats-what-makes-it-great

This month the gang played Mega Man X. Was it good? Yes. Could it have been better? Yes. It's a blast from the past with a killer soundtrack and a half-assed attempt at a Blade Runner plot line. What's not to love? How about enemies respawning immediately after killing them just because the camera moved. We spend a lot of time comparing MMX to other games trying to pinpoint what about the mechanics feel so good. We also try to nail down what makes boss fights fun -- if they are ever fun. For the next Gameclub we are going to be playing Prey, so get that going: https://store.steampowered.com/app/480490/Prey/ Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: Show Notes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Jacksonhttps://telemelt.com/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM