How Do I Fall Back In Love With Games? with Jeffrey Cranor and Julia Schifini
When you’re recommending a game, 10 is the highest number you can give it. 10 means it is a masterpiece. We’re talking Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring, The Last of Us Part 2, Celeste! Just like this episode, it is a 10… like episode ten, with advice from Eric, Jeffrey Cranor, and Julia Schifini!
Sponsors
- Inked Gaming, our go-to shop for gaming supplies of all kinds. Get 10% off your order at inkedgaming.com/gamesandfeelings
- Shaker and Spoon! Get $20 off your first box at shakerandspoon.com/gamesandfeelings!
Find Us Online
- ask questions: gamesandfeelings.com/questions
- patreon: patreon.com/gamesandfeelings
- twitter: twitter.com/gamesnfeelings
- insta: instagram.com/gamesnfeelings
Credits
- Host, Producer, & Question Keeper: Eric Silver
- Editor & Mixer: Mischa Stanton
- Music by: Jeff Brice
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Games and Feelings is an advice podcast about being human and loving all types of games: video games, tabletop games, party games, laser tag, escape rooms, game streams, and anything else that we play for fun. Join Question Keeper Eric Silver and a revolving cast of guests as they answer your questions at the intersection of fun and humanity, since, you know, you gotta play games with other people. Whether you need a game recommendation, need to sort out a dispute at the table, or decide whether an activity is good for a date, we’re your instruction manual. New episodes drop every other Friday.
Transcript
Eric: Hello gamers! Welcome to Games and Feelings, an advice show about playing games being human and dealing with the fact that those games involve other humans. I'm your host and question keeper Eric Silver, and a bar game I am secretly pretty good at is Big Buck Hunter. If I see one of those big plastic guns, I will actually take down a lot of bucks, or a lot of moose and all the various gazelles or whatever thing, and then I get to look at the the ladies who are dressed in Safari gear that probably got paid like 100 bucks to do this for the game.
Julia: And their likenesses in that bar forever now.
Eric: And Charlene is always going to be affiliated with shooting a gazelle.
Julia: Charlene’s legacy, now!
Jeffrey: Hi, I'm Jeffrey Cranor. A bar game I'm secretly pretty good at actually is… trivia?
Eric: Hell yeah.
Jeffrey: Specifically, if it's geography or sports. So I will, I will be on your team for those things. I am not good at other forms of trivia, but those two? Very secretly good at geography.
Eric: I feel like that's one that's always a hole in your trivia team. Like you have three people who know about like, old Christian stuff or know about books. But like, who knows where Hungary is. And apparently, it's Jeffrey. [Julia laughs]
Jeffrey: I got invited to a trivia game night one night by my friend Kate. She said, “I have a person on my team who can't make it and you know, sports. And I need a sports person.” I was like, great. And they actually had a category for sports. And I was like, awesome! And it was really just Mets and Jets trivia and I'm like -
Julia: Oh, New York!
Jeffrey: The two teams I don't know shit about.
Eric: “How cute is Pete Alonso on a scale of one to 10?”
Julia: “An eight!”
Jeffrey: I don't know who that is!
Julia: And hi, I'm Julia Schifini and my favorite bar game is also trivia because it combines my two favorite things which are drinking and being correct. But because Jeffrey took that already -
Eric: Julia, I will say this is ‘a bar game I am secretly good at’ and everyone knows you're good at trivia
Julia: That's also true. Okay, so instead, I'm going to suggest Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.
Eric: Yeah!
Julia: As Eric and I have recently talked about, that is like my sleeper game. I can rock the boat with Marrow and any other like two characters, so long as Marrow is on my team.
Eric: Hell yes. There is like, a - I'm a sleeper cell until that one company, like One Up games puts out like the home arcade games that you can have in your house. And like, whenever that happens, whenever I see a tweet from Wario64, announcing a new like gaming, game thing, and this was announced, I'm just like, “I gotta go, I need to spend $500 right now, don't ask me about it!” We have a small <<Galega>> one that my dad got me off of the Home Shopping Network, [Julia and Eric laugh] which is a very funny thing.
Julia: Of course, where parents shop.
Eric: Where parents shop! ™, ™. And it's not like the full size one. It's just the one that sits on a table. So it's the awkward, it's the most awkward size. But like my dad also bought it for me and got me like a good present, which he's never done in my entire life. So I'm just like, “Oh, I love this horse. I'm not going to look at it in the mouth and check its teeth, I'm not going to do that.”
Jeffrey: I have a, I have a, have a question. Is it ‘Galega’? Or is it ‘Galaga’? I grew up calling it Galaga.
Julia: I also grew up calling it Galaga, so I'm curious.
Eric: I think it's Galaga but I, for some reason, have grown up calling it ‘Galega’ and now I have a tattoo of it on my body. So I'm just gonna hope -
Julia: So I’ll take your advices’ expertise here. [Eric and Jeffrey laugh] It‘s on your body permanently.
Eric: So I'm gonna hope that I'm right. No, like, I think I'm wrong, but I'm also concerned with how wrong I am because I can't, I have a tattoo of the two ships on my body. And then I'm also like, “Oh, here's the game I love so much that I don't know how it's - like you know Merio? That guy?”
Julia: Well Eric is not like the you start up a game of Galaga slash Galega and they say “Galega” or “Galaga.”
Jeffrey: Yeah, they don't
Eric: It's true.
Jeffrey: They don't speak it
Julia: It's like reading a word in a book for the first time and never hearing it out loud and then you say it accidentally and you say ‘urethra’ instead of ‘ethereal’ and then a boy you like judges you. [Jeffrey laughs] That didn't happen to me.
Eric: No, that definitely didn't happen to you, Julia. Well, this is already gonna be, coming to a great start. Thank you so much. Jeffrey Cranor of ‘Welcome to Night Vale’ and also Maverick’s basketball fame.
Jeffrey: Yep. Yep. Former, famous former small forward for the Mavericks, at 5’11”.
Eric: Yeah, you and Dirk Nowitzki fucking rocked it.
Jeffrey: Yep.
Eric: You guys are so great together. And returning conquering guest Julia Schifini, thank you so much for coming back.
Julia: I don’t remember conquering anything last time, but thank you. I was, I was thinking when you asked me back I was like “I feel like I'm Schrodinger’s gamer” where I don't feel like a gamer until I'm put on this podcast, and then I'm just like, I guess I'm a gamer now, I don't know.
Eric: The thing I struggle the most with about this show is whether or not I need to stop or continue or double down on saying ‘Hello gamers!’ at the beginning.
Julia: Double down.
Eric: So now I just say it a little bit louder and a little bit louder every single time. And I'm okay with that. But we have a lot of advice questions for us to get to and a lot of people that we need to help. But first we're gonna do our first segment, which is ‘Games that are giving me feelings,’ which is where we recommend a game that we're enjoying. Again, it doesn't have to be new, it doesn't have to be a video game. It can be a board game, a tabletop game, laser tag, basketball with the boys, anything that you're recommending, that you're enjoying, that's giving you feelings.
Jeffrey: I'll start with one. Actually, this is like one that doesn't really have feelings. There's no narrative to this game. But something I've become really obsessed with lately, going back to my geography thing, I just sort of unlocked this sort of geographyness that I have in me and I have been playing GeoGuessr. That's how, I think. And I, I think the thing that the feelings - like I'll give you like the bigger, high minded feelings that it gives, which is just how tiny the world is. Like how massive Russia is, and the United States and Canada and Brazil, like, how much I know I'm in Russia, but I can't tell if I'm in Vladivostok or in Moscow on this game, but just how tiny the world is. It's really amazing how just, you know, a few rounds of this and you start thinking, “Oh, this is the type of roof tile they have in Austria.” Like how do I know that? I, I've never even been to Austria, like how do I know this about Austria. And I sort of love that. It feels really interesting to kind of see how common the world. Is you see a town in Botswana. And you're like, “this looks like Florida. I've been here before.” And then you realize like, that's the other part of the world. We're all the same. It's a small world after all… which is a phrase I just made up.
Julia: That, can confirm. Never heard it before.
Eric: That's very good. Jeffrey, are you part of like the - and I'm sure you're not, which is why I've asked him this question. But like, are you aware of like the memification or like the content that has been created because of GeoGuessr? Because I feel like it's like that one of those games that people play on Twitch that like streamers are like, “Yeah, we're gonna play a few rounds of GeoGuessr. And we're gonna look silly,” and it's fun that you're just like, I'm gonna I'm just gonna play a thing I like.
Jeffrey: It really is a thing that I like, I enjoy the heck out of it. I, I've always loved memorization, when I lived in New York City, the thing I did on the, on the train more than anything else, before podcasts were really a big thing was, I would just kind of, I would sit with headphones on, playing nothing. And I would play memorization games. So I would memorize the world capitals. Or I would memorize all the NBA champions, or I would sit there and like, memorize, you know, basically lists of things. And I think that's really sort of fun. So when, when I discovered GeoGuessr, last year, through these memes, through these people who are like, they give themselves half a second, and they can tell by the color of the grass that they're in or near Buenos Aires or something. But I got really into this game because of that, like you would, you know, I knew all the world flags. So if I see a flag, I get really excited, [Laughs] like that is definitely Thailand. I know Thailand.
Julia: Dang!
Eric: I love that. I also love that like now I know all of the like, internet suffixes for all the different countries because sometimes they're on a sign. And it's like, yeah, I do. IL, That's Israel, apparently. Now I know that. It's like the things that you pick up. Just like the standard things you need for society that you find on GeoGuessr really kind of wrinkles, my brain. [Jeffrey chuckles] I watched a video with like a streamer that I really like who did it with, like a professional GeoGuessr who like knew all that stuff? And he's like, he's like this 22 year old and he's like, “hi, yeah, man. You just gotta look at like the batons that are on this, on the road,” or the pylons - what are those called?
Julia: Yeah, no, no, like the dividers or the pylons.
Jeffrey: Yeah, there’s a term for them. I can't remember what those are. Yeah.
Eric: Definitely tweet at me and tell me what the term for that is. I definitely want to know.
Julia: It's definitely different in every country. So you'll get a bunch of answers.
Eric: Yeah, tell me, tell me what language it is in your country, please let me know. And like I didn't even consider the fact that like only one country, like only Chile has white ones with like a little black stripe on it. And I'm like, Why? Why do you need a country specific version of this?
Julia: For GeoGuessr. They planned ahead, they’re like “one day there will be a game where they will put people on a map on Google Maps.” To guess where they are?
Eric: Julia that's the wildest conspiracy theory. I've ever heard in my life. I can't get my head around it.
Julia: You're welcome. That's what I'm here for.
Eric: A really simple strategy. I don't know if you know this is that you can see that jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams, and that's something to do real.
Jeffrey: That's something to keep in mind every time. Yeah.
Eric: Gotta keep that in mind. You gotta. [Laughs] Well, Julia, what have you been playing? What's been given you feeling?
Julia: Oh, man, I have a bunch of different options for you. Jeffrey kind of inspired one that I wasn't going to plan on talking about but I, every day, my husband and I will text each other because we play Framed, which is a little style game, but four frames from movies and you get six guesses to try to guess what the movie is. And you get a different frame each time you don't get it right. So like the first text, I send him in the morning because he leaves the house at like 6am, is like I roll out of bed. I look at the Framed. I'm like, “Alright, I got it in four today. Oh, I got it in two,” you know, it's very cute and very fun. And it's a good way. One because we love watching movies, of creating new lists for ourselves being like, “Oh, you haven't seen Galaxy Quest?” Which is spoiler for today's Framed, I guess but... [Eric laughs] But it's like, if you've never seen Galaxy Quest, we should watch Galaxy Quest like and it just creates a really fun, like backlog of movies that we can watch together. And it's very sweet.
Eric: That's so adorable, Julia. Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and do it like does framed also refresh at like a certain time of the night?
Julia: Yeah, I think it's at like midnight or something like that. No, I usually wait into the morning because I like that being my first like Good morning text of the day to him.
Eric: “Good morning babe. I did it in three.”
Julia: “Good morning, baby. You'll never guess this one. I know you haven't seen this movie.”
Eric: [Laughs] Is there a movie that you have to watch now that you got from Framed?
Julia: Yes, there was one that I added to the list recently where I was like, Oh, I've never heard of this one before. And then I Googled it. And I was like, “This sounds incredibly good.” I think it was some sort of Korean movie. I really have to like, I wrote it down on a list somewhere. And I have to find the list because my life is just a series of lists.
Eric: So fair.
Julia: But yeah, there's been a couple where Jake's like, Oh, I've never seen that. I'm like, you've never seen that. We got to add it to the list.
Jeffrey: I like that as a, as like the game as an inspiration to go do another thing. Right? Like I have that too of like playing GeoGuessr and I’m like, “oh, I want to go to this place. This looks amazing.” [Eric laughs] It's a little bit cheaper to -
Julia: Yeah, I was going to say -
Jeffrey: - to do a movie thing than to be like, “Oh, I haven't seen Galaxy Quest. I'll spend $2.99 on Apple to rent that,” as opposed to like, “Boy, the south of Italy looks gorgeous.”
Julia: Oh, you know, what’s one recently - Baby Driver was one of the things and Jake did not get on, like, “you haven't seen Baby Driver? You love like - we have to see this.”
Jeffrey: “You love driving and babies!”
Julia: “You love driving and a guy named baby, come on!”
Eric: [Laughs] “You love Ansel Elgort. How would you not want to watch -”
Julia: No, canceled!
Eric: “You love it when the music matches up with things that people are doing. That's your favorite.”
Julia: He does love like crime stuff and heists and whatnot. So that was why I was like, “We gotta watch this.”
Eric: Hi, Jake, I hope you're listening to this. I hope you're enjoying this. We're definitely gonna have a question, a relationship question. I'm quickly gonna do mine and the feeling I have, the feeling I have is longing. And it's for my PC, ‘The King of Games.’ Recently, Amanda and I bought a gaming computer. So that one, I could play PC games because I've never had - it was so hard to get an Xbox or a PS5 at the time. So like, I'm just like, fuck it, let's just get a computer instead. And then of course, we started streaming from there. And we were doing like more working from home stuff. But then like, every time it updated, it crashed. And we're like, “I'm sure that's a regular thing that happens to PCs,” because we're just, we've been Mac people for so long, like I didn't know. -
Julia: [Laughs] You sweet summer child!
Eric: I didn't know that was a bad thing! I didn’t know! And I had enjoyed the King of Games so much. And not only because it lit up and and had all the fun lights inside, but also became like, I really liked having a really competent, like powerful computer near me that I could just play games on and fuck around with and use Discord and talk to people and stream with my friends. And then at one time, there was like a mandatory Windows update. And it totally bricked itself. And we couldn't figure out what it was, they sent us a graphics card. And that took a few weeks. And then we had to send it out. And I didn't have it for like, six, eight weeks at a time. And I'm like, “Fuck! I became reliant on my, on the King of Games! I miss him. I miss him so much.” But now the King of Games is finally back and I'm no longer feeling that longing. But I wasn't anticipating how much like playing the games and streaming and being able to do the stuff from my house and being able to like play games on Steam, and how like Mac computers just are not capable of running many games because they're too busy looking pretty. Like I don't know, I finally understood why there were Macs and why there were PCs. And not having a PC for such a long time. I was like “Ah fuck, I want my, I want my boy back. I need my, I've abandoned my boy and I need him, I need him back.”
Julia: He was so sick.
Eric: He was so sick.
Julia: I'm just like, I'm very glad that you kind of got that time away from the King of Games in a lot of sense. [Eric laughs] You know, you got to like understand like, yeah, this was your baby, you know?
Eric: Yeah.
Julia: You didn't take him for granted anymore, man! [Jeffrey laughs]
Eric: Absence made the money motherboard feel stronger? Is that a thing?
Julia: I love it.
Jeffrey: That seems right.
Eric: Did I nail it?
Jeffrey: I don't remember my Bible very well, growing up, but yeah.
Julia: My mom had that cross stitch over her computer room. So…
Eric: That feels like a Futurama gag. I just said that like that's in a robot's house or something like that. That's on me. Alright. Y'all want to help some people out?
Julia: Let's do it.
Jeffrey: Sure!
Eric: Okay, so remember, you all have the, I'm giving you the power. When I read out a question, sometimes people include their names, which I'm very happy about. But also they don't include like a cheesy advice name, as well. So you are very much allowed to come up with a cheesy advice name if someone does not give us one. However, we do have a cheesy advice from Maureen, who is “Gotta Tame The Game Shame,” she/her.
Jeffrey: Pretty good.
Julia: That’s a great one.
Eric: “I've recently been noticing that whenever my coworkers ask about my plans for the evening, or what I did over the weekend, I tend to leave out video games and tabletop RPGs in my response. I work in accounting, which has a reputation for being more conservative than other fields. So my rationale in part is that I think some of my colleagues will judge me. After spending over five years in the field, I've learned that there's a lot of internalized capitalism, in accounting -” and Maureen, and I'm just gonna say, in all jobs. [Jeffrey laughs] So you're not alone.
Julia: But specifically accounting.
Eric: Specifically accounting, but Maureen, I'm just gonna come out and say all jobs have internalized capitalism.
Julia: I mean, it's literally counting numbers, Eric.
Eric: It just depends, like if it's a juicy Krispy Kreme donut of capitalism, or like, like a doughnut hole of capitalism. [Laughs]
Julia: I like that metaphor.
Eric: “After spending over five years in the field, there's a lot of internal capitalism in accounting. So I generally always have a couple teammates who think that one's free time is best spent doing things that meet a narrow definition of ‘productivity,’ quote, unquote. So my question is, Have any of y’all experienced this as well? I know, we all to some extent, present ourselves differently in different environments. But it's been strange to realize that it's very specifically gaming, that I feel the need to hide about myself.” I understand that the three of us all have non-traditional day jobs, and we work in content. But I mean, like, there's also, we got out, so I feel like maybe we can look back at this with a little more clarity and help Maureen or “Gotta Tame The Game Shame.”
Julia: Yeah, I find that I have had this problem speaking to family members about gaming in general. So a lot of times, I have to come up with an excuse as to why I can't come to a dinner or like, go to whatever, you know? Especially like last minute plans. And so a lot of times, I'll be like, “Oh, I have a game night,” which my parents have come to understand that means I am playing Dungeons & Dragons. [Eric laughs] But a lot of times, I don't specify that that's the case because sometimes it's a Twilight Imperium night, or sometimes it's just like, I'm sitting on the couch and I'm playing a video game because that's how I want to spend my time. So I think just the like, in general, “Oh, I did a game night with some friends.” That's something that a like milquetoast accountant in your office will understand. To a certain perspective, they're probably gonna think you were playing Monopoly, it doesn't matter to them if you were playing D&D or not. [Jeffrey laughs]
Eric: Right.
Jeffrey: Yeah, the one where I have about that, Julia, is that it might engage the part of their brain that is like, “oh, what game did you play? Do you play - You know, did you play Monopoly?” then you're gonna have to sort of explain, but you can also, you can also do you know, brushback pitch with that. And be like, “Well, I was, I was playing one of the souls games, I was playing Bloodborne for the 18th time or whatever.” You could drop that on. I do agree, I think you can kind of, it's the same way in which sometimes people are like, “Oh, what do you do for a living?” And I just say, I usually just say like, I am a freelance writer, which is technically true, but it's sort of only the people who are actually interested in writing will sort of, are just interested in knowing about other people will like poke further. But it's a nice, like, I don't want to have to, like go into a lot of detail. But I do think like, if you, you know, like you really like part of your identity, part of who you are, is playing video games. And this is an important thing to you. It's also nice to just say it, and people may judge you for it, but likely, you'll never hear that judgment. Like I think the downside is people just be like, “okay, cool.” But the upside of it, you might run into somebody being like, “Oh, you did? I've played Bloodborne 18 times, like, what do you do? And what's the thing,” you might actually meet somebody else who might surprise you that they also hide this part of themselves because they work in accounting?
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: Right.
Jeffrey: So they realize that no one else around them operates under the same, under the same world.
Eric: I want to drill down on one thing specifically, just because I have the question in front of me, is like the part where Maureen said that she thinks that her teammates think that one's free time is best doing things that meet a narrow definition of productivity. So it's like, so they, we’re talking about some people that are like, “wow, you didn't - play games, you should be out on a hike or going to a community college and doing a course” or something like that. [Jeffrey laughs] And I feel like those are the people who are going to be judgmental, and then will - and I've had a lot of bad work experiences, will then like sell you out to a manager when there's a situation happening because they think that you're a frivolous person. And maybe I'm making a very negative assumption. But I think that like, thinking that only hikes are a good thing to do on a weekend is a precursor to other things that might cause problems in the future. So I can definitely see why she's like, a little more worried about sharing this.
Julia: I have advice that's more ‘ask the manager’ than Games and Feelings, but like - Hey, you don't have to tell your, your coworkers in your corporate office, what you do with your free time, it's none of their goddamn business.
Eric: 100%. I didn't want to come down super hard like that.
Julia: Oh I’ll come down.
Eric: But I appreciate, I 100% agree with you, Julia
Julia: Those coworkers are not your friends, unless you'd like spend time with them outside of work. And so you don't owe them any explanations with how you spend your time outside of work.
Jeffrey: Yeah, hard agree, because you're never going to really explain to somebody how like, going for a hike is absolutely no more productive than playing a video game.
Julia: 100%
Jeffrey: I mean, you could say you're getting some exercise, but I'm like, I don't know, I'm getting a mental workout playing a video game. Like I'm also getting some peace of mind. It's meditative almost for me, you know, it's nice. And it's something enjoyable. I do a lot of Crosswords for that reason. It's just nice. It's time alone, which can be really, really good. And to clear my brain of other things. But yeah, you don't ever have to tell anybody at work. You - I think you can just say “yeah, I just I spent some time with some friends. Nothing exciting. It was really cool. It was a very chill weekend. Thanks for asking, how was yours?”
Julia: There we go.
Eric: The thing that I'm concerned about here is about like a combination of the two things that y'all said, which is like, you know that you have that one aunt who hears that you like one thing and then gets you -
Jeffrey: [Laughs] Yup!
Eric: That thing over and over again is like, “oh, man, I do - Did you see this video of that hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo,” and you show it to her and then she thinks you like hippos for the rest of life, and then only gets you hippo stuff.
Julia: Yeah but Eric, Fiona just had a younger brother born. So…
Eric: Dog, that's what I was thinking about! You know, I'm on that hippo tip. [Laughs]
Julia: I got you.
Eric: But like, the thing that I get worried about is then being the person who does ‘blank,’ if you do a thing that is categorized as different, like, Oh, you're the video game person. And then that's your thing in the office. Like, that's how people think of you. And like that can just be a bad situation. I also can share a personal experience of how I used to work at a media company that was like getting into try to like, podcast discovery, where like, Oh, here's a new podcast you might not have liked. So I spent a lot of time listening to podcasts and kind of like assembling them into good playlists, right? Of course, I was listening to podcasts, so like I needed something to do with my hands. So I started just playing games, like absent minded games, I was playing like cookie clicker and stuff or like a, like a auto game that was like, based off of Dungeons and Dragons, that was nothing. And of course, but like my manager thought that was a bad use of time, came down hard on me and said, “Stop playing games at work.” And I'm like, “that's not a fair assessment of what I was doing at this situation.” Like I was goofing off and playing, like, Final Fantasy 7, instead of working. Instead of doing like my job, I was doing both at the same time. But because then I was like the games guy. And that was used in a way to like, not give me benefits at work. And it really kind of hurt me in the long run. Because I didn't hide it, because I didn't think I needed to hide it because I was young and naive. So like, I'm still like, that's, I think is the hard part is you never want to - if you share anything, because in a capitalist environment, it's just like a bucket of crabs, you know, like people will use, will step on your head to do whatever they think it is to get ahead in a job. That's what I'm really want to, I want to protect you from that, even if that isn't necessarily the case. And your co-workers aren't like terrible job people. Like I feel like I'm being too dark about it. But like that happened to me. And that happens to people all the time.
Julia: Corporate culture bad.
Jeffrey: I haven't really worked in this type of environment before, because before I just did full time writing, I worked nine to five jobs at nonprofit organizations, mostly arts and cultural organizations. But, you know, in those places, were less like ‘climb the corporate ladder’ type of Persona, but I do understand that that exists, wherein you have to kind of always be showing off all of the free time activities you have, like, “Oh, I'm with Habitat for Humanity, and we built a house” and then that impresses your boss because you're like, “Oh, they're really active and a go-getter, and they're always being quote productive,” whatever that means.
Eric: Right, exactly
Jeffrey: And I think in an environment like that, I mean, that's super super unfortunate if you feel like that pressure from higher up that you have to be doing extracurriculars in order to get credit like we're still in fucking college or high school here? You know if that's part of it, unfortunately, that's probably a thing you'll have to figure out how to either take those things on or lie about them effectively. But yeah, I'm all for - if you, if you're not looking to make friends at work, you just have to keep it civil. It really is like visiting family to a point where you just like you don't, you don't really get to know about my life. But I will make it seem as pleasant and bland as possible so that you don't ask me any more things.
Julia: Yeah, when in doubt, just pivot away from yourself and be like, “Oh, Diane, how is, how is the kids soccer game” or whatever. Like don't worry about my weekend. You seem like you had a busy baseball tournament. [Jeffrey laughs]
Eric: Having kids is is societally acceptable at work. So Diane is just gonna fucking go off.
Julia: Yeah. Let her.
Eric: A lot of things happen to Diane
Julia: Let her and then you don't have to tell her about like the weird shit your wizard got up to this weekend. [Eric laughs]
Jeffrey: Diane sounds like she yells at the umpires at the Little League game.
Julia: Oh, 100%. 100%. She's been kicked out of so many weekend tournaments. [Jeffrey laughs]
Eric: All right, let's go around and say one of Diane's kid’s names. I'm going to start by saying Braxton.
Jeffrey: I'm going to say ‘Cale’ with a C. C-A-L-E,
Eric: Yeah, that's a good one.
Julia: ‘Justyce’ but with a Y in there. [Jeffrey laughs]
Eric: It’s not where you think it is, it’s a Y at the end!
[Segment transition music]
Eric: Hey, it's Eric. I picked up some snacks for all of you here at Games and Feelings. I got some apple cider donuts. Mmmmm, it’s Fall! So good. I got it from a farmers market. And a one eyed man gave them to me for only two two dubloons. So you know they're delicious. I think all of you should be a part - [Laughs] If you like the ridiculous things that I just said. I'll be even more loose and ridiculous on the Patreon which has the DLC which is the wonderful exclusive podcast where Amanda and I talk about the advice questions from advice columns of yore about games, and we get really off the rails about it. That is at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. You know who just joined our newest patrons? Natalie Stephenson and Paul McHugh, thank you so much! We’re just a podcast out here trying to strive, now you have your very own weekly dose of Games and Feelings, Games and Feelings one week DLC the next week, Games and Feelings, DLC, Games and Feelings, DLC, you should join and special thanks to our producer level patron Polly Burridge who rolled a natural 20!! Does 120 damage to that dragon!!! Let's go. Everyone should join up, patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. I also think you should check out the other shows that are part of the Multitude collective. I think you'd really like Queer Movie Podcast, which is a queer movie watch party hosted by everyone's favorite British people, Rowan Ellis, Jazzy John, and… Dick VanDyke’s cockney accent! No, wait a second it’s just Rowan Ellison and Jazzy John. Join them as they research and rate their way through the Queer Film canon one genre at a time. From romcoms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to black and white classics, Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things gaaaaaay! I think I read that correctly, that had six A's in it. Silverscreen new episodes every other Thursday. I think it's also Multitude’s most like contemporary podcast that cares about the things that are in the news. They've covered a lot of queer shows and movies that have been very popular lately, including - oh, what's the one where everyone's in love with - Heartbreaker? What's it called? A Hearstopper. See, I'm not the, that’s why you gotta listen to Queer Movie, because I don't know about it. But also Fire Island was also incredible and they covered an episode of that. Go listen to Queer Movie, I think you'd have a good time. We are sponsored this week by Shaker and Spoon! It's a subscription cocktail service that helps you learn how to make handcrafted cocktails right at home. Every box comes with enough ingredients to make three different cocktail recipes developed by world class mixologists. All you need to do is buy one bottle of that month’s spirits and you have everything you need to make 12 whole drinks at home. You don't know how to make drinks. What are you, a mixologist? If you are a mixologist, What are you going to do? You're going to take your work home with you? You got to use your brain? No, you need Shaker and Spoon to help you come up with cool cocktails. And at only 40 to $50 a month plus the cost of the bottle, that is an incredibly cost effective way to enjoy craft cocktails. Think about it. You know nutmeg? You've heard of nutmeg? It's, it's a nut. It's just a nut. And you have to microplane it and that by itself is like $10. So if you need someone to send you a full nut nutmeg, because I don't know where you're gonna get full nut nutmeg in the first place. That's like a quarter of it right there. It's all set up for you. I’ve used Shaker and Spoon for years. Shout out to local business right here in Bushwick, Brooklyn, I love you. You guys are the best. My box came in like two hours when I ordered it, they like dropped it off themselves. It was awesome. So invite your friends over, class up your nightcaps or just be the best house guest ever. And bring your Shaker and Spoon box. Games and Feelings listeners get $20 off your first box. If you go to shakerandspoon.com/gamesandfeelings. Think about that. It's wordandword.com/wordandword. Shakerandspoon.com/gamesandfeelings. We’re also sponsored this week by Inked Gaming. Listen, Hey, come on, come over here. If you're listening to the show, you probably don't love going into your local game store. It's probably filled with like guys who want to ask you to name all the Megaman bosses, or if you don't give the bio of Nicol Bolas, they're going to kick you out. And they probably don't have great, you know, hygiene in there. And they're also rude and misogynist. So maybe if you don't want to walk in for a place, maybe e-commerce is what's right for you. And everyone's friendly neighborhood game store can be Inked Gaming! It's the top notch, one-stop shop that supplies you with premium gaming gear you require. Thank you Inked Gaming, you can get play mats, you can get mouse pads, you can get dice, you can get dice bags, you would get all the accessories you might need for your game night, you can get it at Inked Gaming. They've been on this journey for 11 years, and we want them to continue for at least 11 years more, maybe 111 years, maybe 1111 years more, just more ones, keep doing what you're doing Inked Gaming. Please keep existing until the heat death of the universe. And having Inked Gaming as a sponsor means we have access to the beautiful perks they extend to you. So as a Games and Feelings listener, you can go to Inkedgaming.com/gamesandfeelings and use the promo code ‘gamesandfeelings’ for 10% off your order. That is inkedgaming.com/gamesandfeelings, and use promo code ‘gamesandfeelings’ to get 10% off. And now back to games!
[Chiptune chirp]
Eric: All right, I got another question for you. This is the question I wanted to tell both of you because of the strong relationships y'all have, you know, the human experience. This is from “Shouty on Shabbats” - see another, another fun name.
Julia: That’s a good one.
Jeffrey: That’s wonderful.
Eric: “My husband and I, both big nerds, have one fatal flaw to an otherwise awesome relationship. We can't play games together.”
Julia: [Laughing] Oh no!
Eric: “We both love playing them separately. But when we play the same game we become really mean and annoyed. And it's not cute-banter mean, either, it's cutthroat point-out-each-others-flaws kind of mean. Nothing else brings out that side of us, we are trying to find games we can play together. So far simple two player card games work, and Dixit and we've been enjoying Kingdom Builder together.” I don't know that one, I have to look that one up. “Any suggestions as to what kind of games slash specific games that might be good stepping stones, or just general advice we would love to be able to play board games together during long summer Shabbats. I also want to make a note here that if, since it's Shabbat, you can't use electronics.” Shout out to Jews, we’re all over the place, we out here. You probably aren't allowed to use electricity from Friday at sundown to Saturday sundown. So like having board games to play is very crucial to the spending time without having the TV on and stuff like that.
Julia: Gotcha. This is a rude question for me, the most competitive person in the world. [Eric laughs] Eric has heard the stories about how I get extremely mad at my husband when we play the game Twilight Imperium, [Jeffrey laughs] which for people who don't know is a extremely long strategic board game. And I go in, you know, wanting to win, having a strategy. And my husband's like, “I'm just gonna dick around for like eight or nine hours and just like see if I can mess up other people's plans.” I'm like, my guy, you can't do this to me! You can't, like we've gotten into like literal fights about this. So my suggestion for this question asker is, if you are going to be playing games with your partner, find games that are like lower stakes. So one of the games that during the pandemic, my husband I would do, which is a little ironic when I tell you what the game is, is we would play Solitaire against each other. So we would both start a game at the same time, and then see who could finish first or who got stuck and like had to restart first. You know what I mean?
Eric: Sure.
Julia: And that way, we're not like totally competing against each other because we are like trying to do separate tasks and there's no way of like, messing each other's stuff up. But it's still like fun to play and a little bit competitive. Not too competitive. But a little bit competitive.
Jeffrey: I think the competition thing is really tough. My wife and I, we do card games a lot. And card games feel like a nice fallback because it - something about the card game that just… you shuffle like the, it's just at the end of every game, there's just a pile of cards, you put them back together and you start right on over, there is no setup. And there's no extensive rules, depending on what card game you play. So we'll do a lot of like Liverpool Rummy is our kind of go to, which is just a fun variation on Gin Rummy. That's multiple rounds, or something, another fun, like simple plain deck of cards game called Golf, which is fun, just trying to get the lowest score possible. Those I think work really well. And I know we're looking for a board game here. But those are really tough. I think to Julia's point about competitiveness, it can be a problem.
Eric: Sure.
Jeffrey: Jillian and I've tried like buying new games and trying them out. But where that gets us in trouble is particularly my fault. But it's about how you instruct the rules, how you get through the rules, I'm very much like, I want to know the gameplay, I want to know just like the process of the game. But the winning is not as important. It's more a matter of like, I just want to get the mechanics of the game down. And Jillian is definitely the type person who's like, “whatever, I don't know, if we get the game wrong, we'll just make up our own sort of thing.”
Eric: [Laughs] Nooo! Oh my god!
Julia: No, I love that.
Jeffrey: We'll struggle, we'll just kind of figure out what, she just doesn't go with the flow person. And I'm a little bit more likely to have kind of a rigid set of like, how are we getting through this? I want a plan of action. So those can kind of create sort of a struggle. But I have found, strangely enough, that the one, one of the board games that we do really well. And this seems counterintuitive, is Trivial Pursuit, because I find trivia people to be the most aggressive people in the entire world.
Julia: That’s true.
Eric: Confirmed.
Jeffrey: But something about us playing trivia together. It doesn't ever feel super competitive. It just feels like a “Oh, that's fun. That was interesting. What a fun factoid. Oh, we've had this question before. Yeah, let's just read another one, then,” you know, you can kind of play at your own little pace. It doesn't require a ton of thinking, you either know it or you don't. And it's something you can kind of do casually. So maybe finding like a classic game like that, whether it's Chutes and Ladders, [Laughs] you know, or Scrabble or something like that. But yeah, it's figuring out what it is that sets you off, is that the competitiveness? Is it the order of operations, is it the play? Sounds like with this with these people it sounds a little bit more like it's about the competitiveness.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Julia: Are there maybe some good cooperative games that they could be playing instead? I don't know a lot of like, good co-op games off the top of my head where you're like, aiming for a goal together rather than competing against each other. But I feel like that might be a good option.
Eric: Yeah, that's a good one. I think Sentinels of the Multiverse is good. That's the one that's like a fixed card game where you play superheroes who's like fighting, fighting a villain and environment. So yeah, cooperative games, I think would work. I really want to double down on card games. I wonder if the thing here is Jeffrey, the same thing you're saying. Which is like - because like, new board games are so complicated, and like, congratulations, I'm so happy that you've unlocked a new game mechanic for me to play. And then I'm going to spend $60 on your game. I mean that sincerely. But like understanding how to play the game, and then what Shouty said about, like pointing out each other's flaws, I think is part of that, of like, “are you using the rules that we just learned 30 minutes ago to your actual advantage, and to the best of your ability?” It's like, if you're just playing cards, there's only so many rules you can have in a card game, right? Especially one that's like endlessly replayable, whether we're talking about rummy or gin or poker, whatever, whatever you play. I really like the co-op, the co-op solitaire is so funny.
Julia: Thank you.
Eric: It’s still a little bit competitive. But like you can't dunk on someone necessarily.
Julia: It's more like you're not even paying attention to the other person. You're just trying to get it done faster than them. And I feel like there's less opportunities to shout out character flaws when you're just trying to focus on your own game.
Eric: Yeah. I wonder if Bananagrams might help you.
Julia: Ooooh.
Eric: Because by playing Bananagrams at the same time, you're really more, even if you're saying ‘next,’ where you are, when you grab the next tile and you're, you're putting the pressure on the other person. If you spend time dunking on someone else, you're gonna get behind and you're gonna forget how words work.
Jeffrey: I was gonna say that exact same thing, because a game where you're playing at the same time is really good. If you're doing cards too, there is a variation of double solitaire where you sit across from each other. And so you play on the same ace stacks.
Julia: Ooh, interesting.
Jeffrey: So if somebody, if I draw my ace of spades and you, you have a two of spades on your statute. You can be like, well, I played there and you can get to me.
Julia: Oh, that would be too competitive for me, because then I'd be like screaming
Jeffrey: [Laughs] Yeah.
Julia: [Laughs] I’d be like, noo, I had it ready!
Eric: I wonder - Yeah, I wonder if there's, I'm trying to look at this question and being like, is there something else here, is this disguising something else? It really just seems that they have they have a hard time playing games together and like, that's good.
Julia: Yeah, that's kind of fun.
Eric: Like not bad.
Julia: As long as it's not like too intense. You know what I mean? And I feel like that is the issue. So maybe you just need to bring down the intensity of the games that you're playing.
Eric: Sure
Julia: Lower the stakes a little? Another fun game, not a card game, not like anything that you need any sort of materials for, but on like long walks, or if we're doing chores or something like that, Jake and I will play Celebrity, where it's like I have someone in mind, ask me questions until you can figure out who it is. And I think that's a really fun game to play with, like, no materials, and you can just like, take your time and think about the stuff.
Jeffrey: Yeah. And that one also feels less competitive, because that's just, yeah, it's, it's all in the mechanics, you're not versus each other.
Julia: And as long as you're not being like an asshole [Jeffrey laughs] and picking something that's not actually a celebrity, then there's no reason to, like get mad at each other.
Jeffrey: I do Celebrity sometimes, but usually I come up with somebody that there's no way my wife would know, like, “Frank who I used to work with at my first job back in 1997.” [Eric laughs]
Julia: Jeffrey, that’s not a celebrity! That’s not a celebrity.
Jeffrey: But I mean, I liked him. He was a nice dude.
Julia: That doesn't mean - like I can't guess like based on what movies he was in. [Jeffrey and Eric laugh]
Eric: “Yo, Frank was in that movie, which was me, see, the movie I have in my head, which is how the humans process consciousness.”
Jeffrey: Or like a cat my aunt had when I was growing up, Smokey, like -
Eric: [Laughs] Oh.
Jeffrey: My wife totally didn't know that cat at all. She's terrible at Celebrity.
Julia: Well when you play like that, yeah!
Eric: [Imitating Jeffrey] “We, we don't spend a lot of time playing. So it's not very fun for us.” Oh, my God, that's so funny. All right, I have one more question for you. And then we're gonna go to the final round. Jeffrey, I know that you spend time trying to make people better creatives and writers with one of your other, your various podcast - and one of the 25 podcasts that you run, one of the various podcasts you run start with this. But I think that you can help someone who's having a similar issue with their tabletop RPG experiences.
Jeffrey: Oh, sure.
Eric: All right. This is from “Bringing Back Da Luv” - Da Luv, D-A L-U-V. You are all, you guys are really coming out full force.
Jeffrey: Good names, y’all.
Eric: I don't even have to come up with funny jokes. It's wonderful. “I have fallen out of love with tabletop RPGs. Listening to actual plays that are streamlined and have a story together have ruined my enjoyment of making those choices and playing the games themselves. I think part of the reason might be that the core group I've played with for almost a decade has a tendency to get sidetracked and do very little in a very long session. Any advice for falling back in love with the games?”
Jeffrey: Man. That's a really, really good and deep and hard question. I think about like when as a writer like I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not an RPG guy. But like, there's a similar structure when you get in writers groups, where you find yourself in a writers group, and then you start working on some other stuff, or you start getting interested in other types of writing that this group isn't really helping with, or it's out of the genre, or maybe even out of the medium altogether. I used to be in a playwriting group and then I kind of was pivoting away from playwriting and to fiction writing. And like, this group isn't helpful. So you sometimes have to find a different group in that way - but I would say the other more like, active thing to kind of keep yourself active in this group, than the groups that you're in. It’s to, like, can you make the thing that you want in the world? Right? Like, you know, when, when we started the podcast, Welcome to Night Vale, it was because there wasn't anything like that. And we're like, well, I - this is the thing I wish existed, and I would like it to exist. And so I think it's just like maybe a turning point for you as, maybe as an artist, as a creator to say, Can I DM a game, like, can I become, can I become the leader of these games? Can I start trying my hand at creating something in a way and maybe you know, you start small, it's not a coup, you don't want to take over from whoever's doing it. Now, but just to say, like, “I'd love to try my hand at this and maybe try a couple games” and you know, you’re, if you're listening to some really great, you know, podcast, like Rude Tales of Magic or whatever, like you're getting inspiration from some really great story creators. And it doesn't even have to be other Dungeons and Dragons type games. It could just be like, I don't know, you have fiction writers that you like, you love Stephen King - “I'm gonna create an RPG or from a, you know, an adventure that kind of follows the sorts of rules of Stephen King's universe.” So I don't know. Like, I think it would be fun to play around with the thing you want the game to be rather than telling other people “I don't like the style,” instead of dictating what you don't like, determine what you do like and see if you can create that for other people. That's not easy to do. But it's, it can be fun. If this is, it could rekindle your love for, for RPGs. I think.
Julia: That's great advice. I, in hearing the question had kind of similar advice, but you took it in an entirely different direction, which I appreciate. But listening to these issues that the question asker is raising, I was like “you need to talk to your DM.” Like if you're feeling like your constantly getting sidetracked and your DM is not pushing like the storyline along and it's feeling like it's dragging like that. You need to talk to them and be like, “hey, it sucks that you're really like not taking the reins at all, while we're doing these game sessions and not keeping us on course to like, get towards where we need to be.” And like I know a lot of DMs are concerned about railroading their games, but at the same time, like, it is the DMs job to kind of keep you like focused on what the task is, rather than, you know, putting a quest in front of you. And then you guys spend, you know, four hours just talking to the barmaid at the tavern. You know what I mean? [Jeffrey laughs]
Eric: Who's very interesting, by the way. Shout out to that barmaid.
Julia: I’m sure she is, she’s great. She's a half-orc lady, she's hot, she's got big arms. I love it.
Eric: Def. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because, you know, we spend a lot of time thinking about this on Join the Party, this show that Julia and I are on. And I feel like I spent a lot of time like, listening to and seeing how the tabletop RPG, and Dungeons & Dragons media landscape has changed, how it's like a real thing that people are putting a lot of, like, money and time into, and like moving to LA to pursue. [Laughs] Like it's really becoming like a facet of the entertainment business. And like, the thing that I think people forget, I think that is complicated about D&D media, is that, like, everyone got hired there to tell a story. And you're creating a piece of media, a story. So like, if someone gets sidetracked, then they stop. They're like, “Hey, cut, hey, can we not do this? We need to stay on track. And we only have four episodes to get this done.”
Julia: Yeah.
Eric: And then they edit it out. And then they get back on track, like I think, because that's what they want to demonstrate, and that's the power of post production, that like people think that your game needs to be what is D&D media. And I think that that's harmful. Like, it's obviously incredibly powerful, because like, obviously, it's gotten so many people into the game. That's a really wonderful way to see games that are not yours. But like, never think for one second, that that is like a game that is played at someone's house, especially like the people who are in that thing. Like they don't play like that when they're at someone's house, they go and they fuck around, and they pursue ideas that the DM wasn't prepared for all the time. So I - it's hard for you to wrap your head around. Because the thing that you're seeing you think is, is what it is. But remember that like, you are allowed to be sidetracked. But if you want to have a less sidetracked game, then also do the things that Jeffrey and Julia were saying.
Jeffrey: Yeah, that's such a great point about the way that the indie media is edited.
Julia: Yeah.
Jeffrey: That you know, this, we've had plenty of stops and starts throughout this show today.
Eric: [With False Alarm] Noo, I was perfect! Don’t tell them! Noooo! [Julia laughs]
Jeffrey: We're, you know, doing this, Listen, you guys, I'm an hour five of doing the show.
Eric: Noooo!!
Julia: We've been here so long. Set us free, Eric, set us free!
Jeffrey: He won’t let us take a break even though I'm in my own house. But still. [Eric laughs]
Julia: I have to pee so bad! [Laughs]
Eric: We've answered 20 questions, and I only pick the best three!
Jeffrey: But yeah you cut, you cut it all down and you you take out the the ‘ums’ and the ‘errs’ and the mistaken things that you said, and you - In D&D, you can, you can actually like go through and like take out whole threads of stories if you needed to, to really pare it down. And also even jump ahead, you could actually tell - stop and tell the table, “Hey, for the sake of the show -” I don't know anyone who does this, but it could theoretically be done. “I'm actually going to jump ahead to this part. So we can fit this all in an hour long episode.”
Eric: Yeah.
Jeffrey: And the other thing about that, too, is even if those were done in one take, and they're smooth and whatever else, and everybody's just very good at staying on task. You do have people there facing the story to you, the listener, they're not - it's not about the activity at the table. As you said, Eric, like, we're, they're not doing this at a table with each other. And from the limited experience I have with RPGs as some of the enjoyment of that is, it's a thing you do with your friends.
Julia: Yeah.
Jeffrey: And there's a competitiveness not just to win, but there's a competitiveness to be like, “I want you over here to be funnier with your jokes,” or “I want you over here to take more interest in the mystery that we're solving.” And that's a form of competitiveness to wish people were on your level [Laughs] of what you want the game to be. So I think part of it is also learning to find the things you can relax into with your group because if this is a group of friends, what are the things you like about them? So this isn't about creating the best story. It's about creating the most fun environment you can on your game nights, but it will never be as fun as if you had like… if you had fucking like Paul F Tompkins running - [Laughs] Running a D&D game would be hilarious, but it's just that's not who I am. That's not what I would expect out of my friends at a table either.
Eric: For sure. You can’t expect your table to be like an episode of Dimension20. But there are things that you like about Dimension20 that you want your - that would make your experience at your table be more fun, then you should push on that a little bit and try to do something else. I also hate it when people are sidetracked, like, Hey, I'm also here to do the thing that we said we did! But that's like only because I want to have fun. When I'm not recording, I do it because I want to have fun. And that is fun for me, not because I want to necessarily tell a story that's going to be consumed by an audience. Jeffrey, I feel like that's like similar to writing a book. It must be like, well, I'm going to do the book that people want to read the most. Or am I gonna put out a book that is like, in a nice way, self indulgent, I'm just gonna do whatever the fuck I want.
Jeffrey: [Laughs] I'm gonna keep writing the most self indulgent bullshit I can write until people don't want to buy it anymore.
Julia: Nice! Hell yeah.
Eric: I'm gonna put - I want to put an Invisible Woman in every single one of these fucking houses. And you can't tell me otherwise.
Jeffrey: [Laughs] That’s right!
Julia: That's right. I also think that it's interesting. Like, I don't want to, like completely push back against this question asker. But at the same time, like, sometimes your DM wants you to play in the space a little bit. Like, for example, last night, I was playing one of my home games. And we had one of those things where it's like, the path goes three different ways. And you can go down either one. And so we chose a path, we went through. And there was like, clearly a scene that was set up that our DM wanted us to interact with. And one of the players goes, “can we just leave? Can we just go down the path and continue out of this, like this clearing?” And she's like, “I mean, there's nothing stopping you.” I'm like, No, I'm gonna sit down at this table and play in the space that you created for us! And it was much more fun and enjoyable when we did, you know what I mean? So sometimes, maybe it's not actually being sidetracked. Maybe it's like, the DM wanted you to spend some time here and get some information and stuff like that.
Eric: That's fair. I think that there is something worthwhile about being able to say a sentence like that out loud being like, “Hey, DM, do you want me to do this?” And then they say yes, and they do it, because you can just do that. And then you don't have to edit it out of post production, because no one's recording! Like, there's nothing wrong with just saying the thing out loud in real time. And then like figuring that out accordingly. Though, it does sound like the other people at the, at, “Bringing Back Da Luv’s” table are real goblins. Because that, she says they do very little in a very long session. So I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and say, that's probably fucking true. It happens a lot.
Julia: I'm sure.
Jeffrey: Yup!
Eric: So I mean, I think that there's a lot of things happening here. But it's like, don't put pressure on yourself to be like Dimension20 or Critical Role, but also tell people what you want. Because you can just say it instead of having a creative meeting about it, because it's not Dimension20 or Critical Role.
Julia: Sure.
Eric: Awesome. All right. Let's go to our final segment here, which is “Stuff from the Internet!” [Imitating echo] Net, net, net, net, net, net net... I have a little game here that I would like to play with you. It's called good thing: “Huh! Good thing I played all those games, mom and dad.” [Jeffrey laughs]
Julia: [Scoffs] Oh, no!
Eric: So you know how like how Ender's Game and all of those like those 90s action movies that were like, “Oh, it's a good thing I spent all those time playing video games,” because now I'm good at this thing.
Julia: Yeah, Eric, I read Ready Player One.
Eric: Yeah, exactly! [All laugh] So I, I would love to - I'm gonna give you a game and I want you to come up with a scenario in which playing that game gave you good skills at that thing and got you out of that scenario. And then at the end you have to say “Huh! Good thing I played that game, mom and dad!” [Jeffrey Laughs]
Julia: Ok, excellent.
Eric: So, I also knew both of - you're going to see from these first two, I knew exactly what you were going to say. The first one is GeoGuessr. What is the situation where you can help yourself if you were playing GeoGuessr?
Jeffrey: Oh, man, I think that's sort of obvious, right? Like if you suddenly - Yeah, like Okay, so let's say you get a new job right? And part of the new job is they inject you with a substance that causes you to randomly teleport.
Julia: Sure, sure.
Jeffrey: All of the time.
Julia: That's my problem every time I start a new job, so…
Jeffrey: Totally is, this is why I did not get the vaccine, because - [Julia and Eric laugh] I knew it could lead to this, but now that I'm good at GeoGuessr, I feel pretty prepared actually to finally get the vaccination. Because yeah, if I, if I pop up in the middle of Ankara, Turkey, I will know that I'm somewhere near Turkey. I will, I'm definitely good enough to know that I'm probably in Turkey.
Julia: Cause of the pylons.
Jeffrey: Yeah. Because, because of the pylons.
Eric: So then as you turn around and you see that you're in Turkey, what do you think you, what would you say?
Jeffrey: Oh, nothing of substance because I only speak English is the only language that I know. [Julia laughs] There -if I'm in Ankara, I'm probably in okay shape. I imagine there's probably a lot of people that are English speaking there. But if I'm somewhere out in a smaller town, I might, might have nothing to say other than you know, you know, - letting my mom and dad know how important it was - [Julia and Eric laugh] that I played GeoGuessr in 1982, when I was 7 years old.
Eric: There it is, there it is! Alright, here's the next one. Twilight Imperium. Again, I included the summary from BoardgameGeek just to -
Julia: Sure, hit us with it.
Eric: “Build an intergalactic empire through trade, research, conquest, and grand politics. It takes at least eight hours to finish.”
Julia: That is true. Yeah, so much like Chris Pratt in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie when I got picked up by that spaceship that one time and then had to maneuver my way through the intergalactic politics of just… the Galactic Commons or whatever. I don't know.
Eric: Mhm, no that's good.
Julia: I managed to eventually take Mecatol Rex, which is the central planet, you get victory points in the game. And then I turned to my parents via the vidchat that was beaming my image through the galaxies, I said, “Hey, Mom and Dad. Good thing I played that Twilight Imperium huh?”
Eric: And they say “What? Is that the dungeons and the dragons?”
Julia: Kinda!
Jeffrey: “Is that is that on the Intendo?”
Julia: [Laughs] The Intendo.
Eric: My mom called it the ‘CrapCub’ regardless of what I was playing. I think it's because I had a GameCube to start, but now she thinks all of it is CrapCube.
Julia: That's very good.
Eric: That’s her knowledge of it, I like her commitment to the bit.
Julia: She’s not wrong.
Eric: No. She really isn't wrong.
Julia: They all are CrapCubes now.
Eric: Damn, well, maybe we were all CrapCubes. Here's the next one - Fruit Ninja. Do you remember Fruit Ninja on, on your phone where you just sliced, you done sliced all the all the fruits?
Julia: Mmhm.
Jeffrey: I don't, but I think I understand the mechanic of the game.
Eric: It's pretty straightforward. Yeah, you swiped it and you sliced fruit as they come -
Jeffrey: Does it just come flying across the screen?
Julia: Yes, it does.
Jeffrey: Like aim to - okay, because I was gonna say if it's just fruit, the still image of fruit on the screen. I find that very easy. [Eric laughs]
Eric: Yeah, I'm doing this, this game called Fruit Ninja 2 where I just put up glossy JPEGs of pomegranates. And you just go across it. [Jeffrey laughs] Oh, god. Yeah. So how, will, How could you? What would you learn from this?
Julia: So Eric, we're actually hosting a housewarming for Jake and his family in a couple of weeks. And I'm a little nervous because like one, they are big drinkers and two, they love sangria. But when Jake brought home an ancient cursed sword, I was able to go out into the backyard and he just threw a bunch of fruit up and then I had a big tub and I cut them up. And now I have sangria for the party. And that's why, mom and dad, playing Fruit Ninja was very good.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Julia: I'm glad I specify that it was a cursed sword too. It didn't have to be, that’s not part of the game mechanics.
Jeffrey: I like the depth of character development that's happening there. Yeah, there's a whole history that I want to know about.
Eric: All right, Jeffrey, this one's for you. What do you learn from playing Candyland? The classic board game where you pull cards, and you go, you see that one guy who's like a living molasses and it makes you feel weird.
Jeffrey: [Laughs] Wait, what, how did Candyland even work? I don't even know.
Eric: Literally just pulled cards and it was colored, the tiles on the, on the board were colored. And you had to go to the next colored tile.
Jeffrey: Honestly, it was, it was when I got that job as a professional Disco dancer in the mid, late 70s. That I could tell my parents be like “see, you can see now that I see the color light up on the floor. I know that that's where to move my foot.” Because that's how disco dancing was, like the light up square board of colors? It's all the different colors tell you when and where to put your foot. So you have to follow. You put your foot over here on the, when it's yellow, but you put your foot over here when it's blue. And when this one flashes red, you move that foot over there. So it's all this coordinated effort. It's a very mathematical form of dance. And that is why, Mom and Dad, it was so good that I played all of that Candyland growing up.
Eric: I love that it's very good. I also would have taken Michael Jackson impersonator, or Alien Ant Farm doing a cover of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” impersonator. Because, because “Annie are you okay?” sounds even more even better when there's a really sick baseline behind us. The final question, [Laughs] final question for this one. Kingdom Hearts! The Kingdom Hearts series, which combines Disney with Final Fantasy and whatever the fuck the heck they're up to in whatever those plots are.
Julia: Well, Eric, as you know, my family are big Disney family people, and so now whenever I go to like Disney World and stuff like that, and my mom's like, “what character is that?” Because she hasn't watched a Disney movie in about 15 years. I can be like, “Well, mom, as you know, King Mickey got the -”
Eric: [Laughs] You're can just say whatever Julia, you’re probably right.
Julia: King Mickey, you know, he has the - what the, the Keyblade - I was like I can't remember the name of this fucking weapon. [Eric and Jeffrey laugh] Well, King Mickey has the Keyblade and when he opened the heart of Maleficent and went inside, he was surrounded by darkness. And then and then I go, I blacked out for like, 10 hours and my mom's slapping me across the face, she’s like “Julia. Julia, are you okay?” I can be like, “yeah, Mom, it's a really good thing that I played Kingdom Hearts.” [Eric laughs] Is that good? Did I get it?
Eric: It’s very good.
Jeffrey: [Laughs] Perfect for this really intense nap that I just took.
Eric: “Oh, I'm so rested. We - I'll totally go to Epcot now. I'm so ready to go. Thanks, Mom and Dad.”
Julia: Now I can drink around the world!
Jeffrey: I do love it when they, at the, at Disneyland when they do the kind of, they'll have like little stages for reenactments and stuff. And they have the time where Mickey slashed open Maleficent’s heart and climbed inside of it. That was very cool.
Julia: That's the plot of Fantasmic! I don't know what you're talking.
Jeffrey: Yeah. [Laughs]
Julia: That's for the Disney heads out there.
Eric: I recently learned from “Um, actually,” the trivia game show on on DropOut that like, you know, Final Fantasy, it's a JRPG, the most, the absolutely most Japanese roleplaying game that has ever existed in the entire world. And you know, there's like a Flare spell, which kind of just like does fire damage, but like, the, it builds over time, depending on like, what type of flare spell. Iit's like Mega Flare, Giga Flare, Ultra Flare, and there's like a final flare spell. The most powerful Flare is only being leveled to use by one character. There's the second most powerful is used by Bahamut, who shows up in the Final Fantasy games. At some point. The most powerful version of this Flare spell is only used by Donald Duck. In Kingdom Hearts!
Julia: Fuck yeah dude! Fuck yeah! [Jeffrey laughs] He’s a little magician!
Eric: He's just a little magician guy! Donald Duck, he's just Donald Duck, sending out fire damage in all directions. And I feel like that's what you really need to know about Kingdom Hearts.
Julia: He's got a little wand and when he gets hurt in battle - I'm gonna see if I can do the voice. I don't think, I don't know if I can -
Eric: Please!
Julia: He was like - [Inaccurate Donald Duck impression] Weh weh weh weh! It’s very, very funny. And it happens all the time in the game.
Eric: That's good. I think you, you were very close.
Julia: Thank you.
Eric: Jeffry, was this too much for you? Did I break your brain?
Jeffrey: I only learned about Kingdom Hearts like three weeks ago.
Julia: Congratulations!
Jeffrey: Only ever heard of it.
Eric: It's, it's truly, it's truly wild.
Julia: I have to send you some like screenshots of actual like dialogue from the game. Where like in the Toy Story one, like it's just Woody being like, “you'll never understand the true heart of darkness.” And I'm just like, Mickey what? Mickey what?
Eric: Like Buzz Lightyear and Mike Wasowski are talking about Organization 13, whatever that is. Yeah, it's a lot to handle. I feel like your confusion is 100% not only understandable, but encouraged.
Jeffrey: Great.
Julia: Incredible.
Jeffrey: [Laughs] I was just glad when you did bring it up that I had heard about it. If I had recorded this with you a month ago, I would have been like “I don't even know what this is. You're making this up. This was a fever dream.”
Eric: No, that's fair.
Julia: I mean, it was someone's fever dream. Certainly.
Eric: Kingdom Hearts is such a strange amalgam. It's like when you shake oil and water together and you're like, hey, look, it's together for a little bit, it’s that one moment as it's not coming apart. Like when you make a slushy. And like you, you leave it on a table for a second and all the liquid like goes to the bottom and all the ice is on the top.
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Eric: That's what Kingdom Hearts is.
Jeffrey: That makes complete sense.
Julia: It's a truly, it's truly incredible. It is such a, it's such a piece of media. I don't have any other explanation for it other than “that sure is a piece of media.”
Eric: That shit sure, sure done exist. And then there are Keyblades?! It's a blade that's also a key.
Julia: Yeah, because you have to unlock people's hearts.
Eric: Well, it's because Disney didn't want real weapons. So they didn't want to put like a broad sword, so it looks like a key. Jeffrey, like a literal, a key but then it's like stylized, it's wild.
Jeffrey: Oooh.
Julia: But then Leon's in there and has a literal gun sword. It makes no god damn sense. [Jeffrey laughs]
Eric: I don't know man! I don't know. All right, we have to end this episode. Thank you so much for being here!
Jeffrey: Looks like he brought a gun sword to a sword-gun fight.
Eric: Oh my god. Fuck, Shit. Fuck. [Laughs] Thank you so much for both of you for being here. Where can people find you on the internet?
Jeffrey: You can find me on the social medias @happierman, is me personally. You can also go listen to some of my podcasts. Welcome to Night Vale. I do another show I started a couple years ago that I'm really enjoying with Cecil Baldwin, who's also of Welcome to Night Vale, he and I do a horror movie podcast called Random Number Generator Horror Podcast Number Nine, where we review horror movies in kind of a random order. From the point of view of me, who is not a horror movie - I'm very horror movie averse. After two years, I'm getting very good at horror movies. I love them a lot. But yeah, so we try and take the approach if you don't watch horror movies, we'll tell you what happens. And and if you do like horror movies, you know, watch along with us. I think we have some great commentary about it. And it's a lot of fun.
Julia: It's a very good show.
Jeffrey: Oh, thank you Julia.
Julia: One of my favorites.
Eric: Jeffrey, as someone who is also part of the ‘Wikipedia summary horror movie gang,’ I am 100% with you. And honestly, I read over the Wikipedia summary of Nope. And then it was prepared enough to go see it. And it was fucking tight. And I would have been really upset if I didn't see that movie.
Jeffrey: Good for you.
Eric: Thank you! I felt like that genuinely came through even though I'm making you record for 24 hours in a row. [Jeffrey laughs]
Julia: It's been three days, help us, help us!
Eric: No, you won't know that from the power of editing. That won’t stay in, Julia. Julia where can people find you on the internet?
Julia: You can find me on Twitter @JuliaSchifini. It's my name, it is spelled in this episode. Good luck. [Eric laughs] And then you can find me on Instagram @JulesVerneRose like the author and then the flower.
Eric: Oh, that's cool. I like that.
Julia: And then you can check out my show Spirits which is a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. And you could check out a real cool show, fun tabletop RPG kind of show, actual play, called Join the Party. I don't know if anyone's heard of it before but it's pretty cool.
Eric: It's a good show. When Jeffrey said Rude Tales of Magic earlier I replaced it in post with Join the Party.
Jeffrey: That's totally fine. Sorry about that.
Eric: Yeah, like when you were listening to any Join the Party, a great Dungeons and Dragons show. You can find me on Twitter @el_silvero. E-L underscore S-I-L-V-E-R-O. My name if I was a Lucha Libre wrestler, and you can find the show @GamesNFeelings like N, like Linens N’ Things because Twitter wouldn't let us have full one. But everywhere else it is the end like on our website, which is the best place for you to submit questions at gamesandfeelings.com/questions and you can support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings were Amanda McLoughlin, my partner in life, love, and podcasting, we have like another podcast called The DLC where we answer games questions that pop up in classic advice columns. And let me tell you, Dear Abby doesn't know shit about shit about games.
Julia: Damn. [Jeffrey laughs] Sick burn on Dear Abby.
Eric: Yeah, I fucking got her, man. And you can find all the links for all this stuff in the episode description in the dooblydoo. Thank you to our friends Jeffrey and Julia for giving your wonderful advice. And remember, Donald Duck has the most powerful attack in Final Fantasy, and the instruction manual doesn't have anything about feelings.