How Do I Overcome My Fear of European Beer Pong? with Mike Rugnetta and Bijan Stephen
The 12th world of Mario64 is Tall, Tall Mountain, and this is the 12th episode of Games and Feelings. Don’t worry about a monkey stealing your hat, but you should worry (and by worry I mean, get excited) about this extra-chunky episode with Mike Rugnetta, Bijan Stephen, and Eric!
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- Host, Producer, & Question Keeper: Eric Silver
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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 questions 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 if I was a quest giver and an MMORPG, I would tell you to kill 20 dire rats that have been invading my apple orchard.
Bijan: All right. Hi, I'm Bijan Stephen. If I were a quest giver in an MMO, I think I would probably be introducing the, the flying mechanic.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Bijan: Just tutorial giver.
Eric: I like that. It's a tutorial for people who have been playing the game for 200 hours already.
Bijan: And this is a new mechanic they just dropped it. Yeah.
Eric: Yeah.
Mike: And it's just like a full flight simulator. [Eric laughs]
Bijan: Mmhm, mhmm.
Mike: Like, it's just it's hours and hours of tutorials.
Bijan: Exactly. Yeah, you get it.
Mike: Hi, my name is Mike Rugnetta. I am apparently an NPC on today's episodes of Games and Feelings. If I were a quest giver in an MMO RPG, I think I would just be the guy who stops you on the pathway to wherever you're going and tells you to take it easy. Like it's fine. You can take a day off.
Bijan: Take a break.
Mike: Yeah, like honestly, if there's not a countdown clock next to that quest. Have some you time
Eric: Is this like the mandated thing by the government that video game companies need to like tell you to go outside? Like if you've been playing your Wii for too long. You need to go and do something else.
Mike: Yeah, it's a it's a health and safety violation. If there isn't someone in the game every once in a while, who's like, "Do you need a break?"
Bijan: You know, every time I'm on TikTok too long, and it tells me that it upsets me. I'm like, yes, I know that. That's why I'm here.
Mike: But it's right, it's correct.
Bijan: I know that I'm doing the thing that you're telling me not to do, like, it's intentional.
Eric: TikTok, you're you like a monster in the Resident Evil series. You were a bio engineered to do this to me. I don't know why you're telling me to stop.
Mike: TikTok, the world's foremost trafficker in mixed messages at the moment.
Eric: I'm like, I'm a little concerned that it was definitely made to like, make the West dumber, and I'm like you're doing a great job. Congratulations, everyone.
Bijan: Yeah. you're just showing us to each other optimally. That's what's making us stupid.
Mike: I have talked to my wife several times about how hilarious it would be if TikTok was just a giant Chinese psy-op. Like if that was just all it is, was, yes, to - Yeah, make us, I mean, it's not all making us hate one another. Like there's some legitimately good stuff on TikTok, but it is wasting a lot of time.
Bijan: Yeah, exactly. And if I need to not think for 45 minutes, like, that's the best way to do it.
Mike: Some of those some of those recipes I'm shown are pretty good.
Eric: I'm really trying to settle on the psy-op thing because it's like, if you spend your time like I respect how much time that you've put into TikTok, Bijan, to like, give it, make sure it gives you what you want. And I'm glad that you spend that time doing it. Because like, I don't want anyone to feel bad that they use it. But at the same time, I'm like this was made to take our time and to do it. It's like I'm trying to come out neutral. But also I'm worried it's a psy-op.
Bijan: Okay, so here's the question. Do you think you should always be being productive? Because you should examine that mindset?
Eric: No, I don't think that I just spend that time coming up with games for a podcast instead. I that's the thing. It's like, let's all use our free time, the way we did it, someone's made it. It's like, hey, I want to eat this incredibly delicious ice cream that someone has made for me, because it's been made to do so. And I will keep spending money on it. I'm not, I'm saying you should keep doing the thing you're doing. I'm just afraid of where it came from.
Bijan: Eh. A lot of things come from terrible places.
Mike: Well, it's also it's like the complicated thing of, you know, if you play a video game for a long time, and at the end of playing that video game for hundreds of hours, you're like, "oh, I have wasted so much time I have not been productive," then you can look at that in two ways. Which is, is there a part of your brain that is poisoned by capitalism that says that fun is not productive? And so you should fight against that? Or do you legitimately just wish that you had spent that time reading a book or painting a painting or writing a song? And it's like, man, which one's the real me? How am I, how am I not myself? Why do I feel what I feel? And then you're just standing in a hall of mirrors of the self, not knowing, not knowing which direction to go?
Bijan: That's true. Yeah. And that's fine. You know, it's fine to not know where you're going. I say this as somebody who's put hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours into Fortnite and felt pretty okay about it only because it's like, I think games are interesting because the pursuit of mechanical perfection is its own reward. Like there are a few avenues of modern life as an adult where you have actual concrete feedback that is telling you that you're getting better or you're improving or that you've plateaued and here's how to, you know, change that you know, you're doing you do a lot of little tasks in game. It's all, it's labor, right? It's like work, but it's also non alienated labor. It's like No one is mining that for profit. Although I guess TikTok is
Eric: Yeah, unless someone has put something in Stardew Valley that I have not noticed and you can actually sell your carrots and your stuff.
Bijan: Oh my god what if Stardew Valley is the real psy-op?
Eric: God it might be honestly. [Bijan laughs] One guy making that whole thing that's a lie!
Mike: Suspicious!
Eric: Maybe I'm jealous of you that you've found a perfect time sock while I'm just like getting terrible tweets and it's making me up.
Mike: Yeah, yeah
Bijan: See, yeah, if if I'm ever upset by anything and I want to not be or I want to just get reset back to neutral just TikTok for like 10 minutes.
Eric: Perfect.
Bijan: Because it just it's like a river. It just smooths out the rock of your brain.
Eric: That's wonderful. That is actually wonderful.
Mike: Twitter really is like spinning a plate. Except it's the worst plate that you've ever seen. And you hate the plate and spinning it is not fun.
Eric: Yeah, like the plate saying slurs to you.
Mike: Yeah, also the plate is racist somehow.
Eric: This is all to say I feel bass neutral about TikTok. I'm just worried. I just like you guys are really good at making an app that makes people stay on it forever, just like the Wii, you invented Wii bowling, stopp telling me to leave! But you know...
Bijan: To me, the whole thing is it's just very easy to game the human psyche, like we all have, like we respond similarly to the same inputs. So seeing them, like it triggers everything social in you and also like, it's fundamentally a distribution platform. It's not a social network. So it's one to many broadcasts, and you don't feel the obligation to like post on it, which is, you know, it finally solves the problem of social networks. But TikTok is like, Yeah, you see a person, they tell you something, you can talk to them. That's like that is a simulacra of socialising. And it feels so good to see. And it makes you feel less alone sometimes, which is why it sort of resets my mood. But yeah, probably bad for the world. Net bad for the world, I would say.
Mike: I think you also, I think you get uh, get accustomed to it in a weird way. I usually take like big social media breaks during the year, and I'm currently on one, like not looking at, not posting on social media for like -
Bijan: You're not missing anything, bro.
Mike: Sometimes two or three months. And, but I am a social media professional. So I have to open it up every once in a while to like, do work. And it's wild, how weird it is, all of it. But especially Instagram, for some reason. When you go back after being gone for a little while, it just, I think you like really get used to it when you're in it. And then when you leave it for a little while and you come back, you're very much confronted with how fundamentally strange many of the propositions, many of the premises of these platforms are.
Bijan: Yeah. And not to like, just keep going on about social media. But I do feel like one thing that TikTok specifically, and to a lesser extent, Instagram and Twitter have done for me is like, sort of changed my relationship to video games. Like I consume a lot of like video game content on TikTok, because a lot of people, you know, the incentives for creators being what they are, it's like, you gotta like be on every platform, just in case you get shut down on one, right?
Eric: Yes.
Mike: [Laughs] God.
Bijan: And TikTok is possibly the fastest way to grow an audience. Although how those audiences translate. Not very well.
Eric: I don't think they leave. I totally don't think that they leave.
Bijan: Never leave, because you never have to. It's just interesting, because like, I feel like I used to consume earlier a couple years ago, like early pandemic, it was like, you know, consuming a lot of Twitch, I still watch Twitch to a lesser extent, and like, you know, YouTube to a lesser extent, but like, TikTok is like, the thing I go to, and I'm like, oh, like, I have a little break in, like, in the mornings to watch like the TikToks that my friends send me. And like, I catch up on a lot of like, what the cool meta in like Valorant is because like -
Eric: Yeah.
Bijan: if you're not like looking at it, it will happen to you in game, you'll be like, what the fuck, and it's like, oh, somebody learn that on TikTok and it's like now everywhere. Like the emergence of the meta games of like, competitive multiplayer games are changing very quickly, because of things like TikTok. And it's interesting, because like, you play the game in isolation, you would never know. You'd be like, Oh, this is the new strategy. But like, you log on to TikTok, and it's like, oh, here's what you should do. Here's the cool spot that the developers don't have to patch out in a week.
Eric: Yeah. That's really complicated, because like, you can't get that anywhere else. If you're listening to a video game podcast it's like, "[Sighs] All right, the person who loves destiny to do you want to talk about Destiny 2 this week, so you get the 10 minutes we've allotted for your job so you can talk about Destiny 2." And then like, it's so begrudging, so you don't hear it like that, other than, other than that way. I will say, can we ruin Mike, I know that this is coming out a few weeks from now but do we are we going to ruin Mike's time and tell him that you can Kamehameha in Fortnite right now?
Bijan: Happy Goku-in-Fortnite day, Mike.
Mike: What?
Bijan: They put Goku, Vegeta, Bulma, and Beerus in Fortnite. You get the cloud. I spent I spent $30 on it. I was like, fuck it, I, this is, I have to.
Mike: I mean, as someone who's a big fan of things like Mugen, sure. Why not? [Eric and Bijan laugh] Like why not just - I, someone said to me recently that in other media cultures, spectacle still retains its meaning. [Eric laughs] Like large, impressive, expensive, sprawling events, but that in Western culture, it means novel use of IP. And I like, you just yeah.
Bijan: You know, I think you could make the arguement for the machinations of those lawyers. That is spectacle that is big and bold and lots of money. You know?
Mike: I mean, the Chip n' Dale movie, it was a spectacle for this exact reason. They got so many properties all under, all in front of one green screen. That we were all impressed.
Bijan: Yeah. It does make you wish for the return of like, awesome - in the original, in the original sense - like something that inspires 'awe' as opposed to 'something cool.'
Eric: I don't know if y'all have checked in on this. But in Multiversus is coming out in the next pass. They're going to have a sunset. So we can fully exper - we can fully understand awe.
Mike: Eric, I have no idea what you just said.
Bijan: Multiversus is a fighting game from Warner Brothers that like it's like Batman versus the kids from Adventure Time. Like you can do that now. And that's a thing you can do.
Mike: This is the one I saw Adam Conover tweeting about this, because it is technically possible that Adam Conover could be in it.
Bijan: Yes.
Mike: Because he is owned by Warner Brothers.
Bijan: Yeah. It's IP all the way up and all the way down.
Eric: Let me try that joke. One more time. Did you know in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate? They're having an astronaut on the moon looking at the Earth for the first time for us to fully comprehend all.
Bijan: Yes, blue marble. But from a video game? Sure. Yeah, why not?
Eric: Yeah. Good. I'm glad I did that joke again. And you guys both just kind of looked at me. Oh, it's worth it. That was worth it for me to do it twice. Honestly, I want to put a pin on this because we are going to return to this in our final segment. So, but let's let's do some, let's do the podcast, yeah?
Bijan: Yeah.
Eric: And I could literally listen to you two talk about stuff all day -
Mike: We could unfortunately talk all day, so...
Eric: I would, I would love that.
Bijan: That would be why we have a separate chat show called "Fun Chatty" for the patrons. [Mike laughs]
Eric: Well, let me introduce you, Mike and Bijan, I'm so happy you're here. I'm getting even more people from Fun City on. We had Jen, we had Taylor. And now we, I have four of six. And this is, I'm so happy for y'all to come.
Mike: You're gonna collect them all. It's not gonna be long.
Bijan: Oh, you never know. Shannon and Nick have schedules that conflict.
Eric: Oh, no, God, I'm never gonna be able to get them on. But it's gonna be great. I'm so happy. You're here. Let's talk about some games that are giving us feelings. And then we're going to answer some advice questions, and I have something for you all at the end. How does that sound?
Bijan: Great.
Mike: That sounds very fun.
Eric: All right, yeah, we're doing our first segment, "Games that are giving us feelings." This doesn't have to be a video game. It doesn't have to be a board game. It doesn't have to be anything that even came out recently, or has anything to do uuh content that we're creating. Tell me about a game that is giving you feelings that you want to share.
Mike: Not about content? Wait, I don't understand.
Eric: I know.
Bijan: Everything's copy said Joan Didion, or something.
Mike: So I recently had a game playing experience that I feel like delivered to me the full range of human emotion. And it is -
Eric: Hell yeah.
Mike: It is not a game that I normally play. So this is a very isolated game playing experience, a one off, if you will. And I have not really had the time to like think or talk about it since it happened. So if you don't mind, I'm going to tell this whole story. And we'll just play therapy. And maybe you guys can help me catalog all of the feelings that happened in this very compressed amount of time while playing this game.
Eric: Advice shows are just as much about giving therapy to people who are on it as the people who write in. So this is perfect. This is great.
Bijan: I do want to say, I want to stress before we begin, that again, it's not necessarily about finding answers, but it is about figuring out your relationship to the things you've learned about yourself. And secondly, advice is just people giving permission to each other. But also I read this in an interview today that was really good. From Andrea Long to Randy Jensen, two extremely smart people. But like, giving advice is something you do to your friends because it shows that you regard them and you're seeing them as human even if it doesn't, it, the act of advice giving doesn't actually matter. It's the sustained regard that you give another person.
Mike: With that in mind, I just thought I just have these HIPAA forms for you to sign, if you could check your email addresses, there's uh... [Bijan and Eric laugh] Okay, so there's a little bit of a setup, which is I went to Wales recently, in the United Kingdom for a wedding. My wife's best friend got married, we went there. It was amazing. I had never been to or had never spent any significant amount of time in Wales before that. We went, we were like, in the countryside, middle of nowhere, not near Cardiff. Not near I think Birmingham is maybe the closest English city, like rolling hills beautiful. We stayed in a Welsh manor that was built in like the 1830s or something.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Mike: Yeah, it was it was unlike anything I've ever seen. It was wild and very entertaining. We were part of the, since it's my wife's very, very close friend. We were there early. And part of the process, which I feel like this is pretty common when you're close to the people who are getting married. Part of the process of getting ready for the wedding is getting all your friends to do work for you to make sure everything goes right. Like I've had this experience a couple times. You're there, you go a little bit early. You help set things up, you help clean things. Whatever. So I, while there became clear that I was the person that understood the most about sound equipment, and like plugging things in and making sure technology works. Which make sense, I do that for a living. So I spent two days basically making sure that sound works for every portion of the wedding. So making sure that everybody can hear, not the officiant, but the celebrant, which I thought was really interesting. For the wedding, making sure people can hear the music for the cocktail hour that happened after, making sure that the people who are emceeing the speeches, during the dinner have microphones that work, all that other stuff. It was a lot of work. Like it was you know, I'm like carrying speakers getting sweaty, it's in the middle of a heatwave in Wales. So it's like, you know, it's intense. Wedding happens, goes off without a hitch. Or at least from my perspective went off without a hitch. It was beautiful, sunny, very nice. Everybody had a really good time and we're celebrating afterwards, I forget actually, which lets you know how much celebrating we did whether or not it was the night of the wedding or the night after the wedding. I forget which one, we were there for a little bit. And content warning for liquor consumption, I guess. Everybody's drinking, of course, there's a lot of beers, there's a lot of liquor, there's a lot of wine in the manor, right. And I'm walking around, I went, going into this, I was terrified. Because I know how I like maybe appear if you know me, and like know the work that I do. And like all this other stuff, as someone who's an extrovert, and I am not. I, as previously stated, like to be alone, my favorite thing to do is to be left alone with my thoughts. And I was very scared about meeting many, many people all at once and having to be friends with them. There's something that I can do, the way that I describe it to my therapist is that it often feels like picking up a car. It's just like, I can do it. But afterwards, I feel like I have exerted insane amounts of physical effort.
Eric: Right. And your children need to be underneath it.
Mike: Yeah, yes, yes. And I can only do it if my child is trapped.
Bijan: The children are the relationships that you foster. Right? You have to you have to lift the car to get them out.
Mike: Exactly. Yeah, that's a great, I'm gonna I'm going to extend the metaphor that I use to include that.
Eric: There you go. [Laughs]
Mike: So I'm on, I've had a couple I've had a couple drinks, which makes things a little bit easier, but I'm still terrified. Everybody, also, I think it's worth stating very nice. Very cool, like very people who are very easy to get along with. And I turn a corner and I go into one of the rooms of the manor of which there are many, and there are people playing beer pong.
Eric: Sure.
Mike: I had a very non standard college experience. And I also did not drink until I was 26. 25, 26. And so I never played beer pong. And I regard beer pong is something that is difficult to do. Like I'm not very good at. It's like a very strange game that like jocks and fraternity members play. So like my associations with it are stereotypical at best. They're playing and they're playing with all of these rules that I do not know. Like, if the ball bounces off of the rim of a glass and someone catches it, that means that the team who caught it gets to tell you to drink one of your drinks. So it's like they got one in on your side.
Bijan: That's non-standard.
Mike: Ok yeah, you both made -
Eric: No, that's like a thing that like band their friend Banjo made up one night.
Bijan: Yeah, I mean, look, as with all games, you have to collectively agree on the rule set. [Eric laughs]
Mike: So I mean, I think they were all like, they were all on board. I think I was the only one there who was like, What is this? Like I'm watching thinking like, whoa, this is a complicated way to play beer pong, they are playing that you can swat the ball out of the way. Like you can literally just block.
Eric: All the time?
Bijan: All the time?
Mike: From what I understood. Yeah. From what I could tell.
Bijan: That doesn't make any goddamn sense. No, no, nonstandard. Usually it's like you can block it after it bounces because you can try and bounce it in, which is - I don't agree with bouncing -
Mike: But okay, you know what that makes sense. Because the next rule I was going to say that they were playing that was unfamiliar to me was you could bounce the ball, you got one bounce, and it got to go in and I did not see anyone not bounce. So that makes sense that these rules would stack.
Bijan: That's, this, I just want to go ahead and tell you this is not beer pong. What you played a variant that somebody made up and they - were they were very English?
Mike: Yeah.
Bijan: That's why. Because Europeans don't play beer pong like we do. And they're wrong.
Eric: It, it, yeah, that sounds more like a pachinko machine than it does beer pong. I'm very confused.
Mike: Well, so but what happens the the sort of upshot of it seems to be, this went undiscussed, but it seems to be the case that these rules make it so that games end very fast and that people end up drinking more, more quickly. And so I'm standing there watching this quietly with a drink in my hand, like, you know, just watching the game happen. Kind of trying to blend in just like not saying anything. And someone on the, on one of the teams turns to me and they're like, "Mike, you should you should play, our former team member - who I think was like a six year old who was not drinking anything, but was there just having fun throwing the ball - Like, you know, had to go to bed so, we got an empty slot on this team." That was terrifying. My immediate thought was, fuck, like, I should not have come into this room, I should have learned my lesson, I should have stayed in the den like reading a book, or I should have just gone to my room. And like now people are noticing me, which is bad. [Laighs] But, you know, don't want to be a spoilsport want to be down for fun, don't want to make my wife look bad. So I'm like, Sure, I'll play beer pong.
Eric: Can we put quotes around "beer pong," going forward?
Mike: Sure, I play, I play "Near-Pong."
Eric: It's like it's an early patch. It's like this was a, this was beer pong in -
Bijan: Nope, this was a, this was a fork in the code. And it was - because beer pong is open source. But like, we agree that it's distributed in a certain way, there are rules, you can't just use open source software, in a way it was not intended to be used.
Mike: You got to adhere to the licenses
Bijan: Unauthorized fork. [Eric laughs]
Mike: So I, when I showed up, the game was near the end, there were two cups on our side and one cup on the other side. And in short course, in short order, it's one-one, one on each side, and we're going back and forth. Just missing, people are bouncing balls off of the edges, and the team is missing the catch. And there's lots of uproar, when someone misses a catch. There's lots of uproar when someone gets really close, like all this other stuff. And I think I have like one or two turns and I miss, like I'm pretty far off, trying to play the rules, trying to bounce. It's my turn for the third time. And I'm like, okay, like, let's see what happens. And I bounce it. And it's like, in slow motion, it bounces off the rim of a cup, and someone on the other side catches it. And there's, that's the end of the game, big uproar. I lost the game for our team. So I take the final drink. And I'm thinking to myself, fuck, this is, this is now my, I have come in to this game. I have been confused about their weird rules. I have lost a game for them. You know, everybody's been very nice. Like, no one's mad at me. And like, it's not like they're lying. Like, they're like, Oh, this is fun. We had a good time, don't worry about it, and they mean it. But of course in my mind, I'm like, Well, time to die. And they say, do you wanna play again? And I say, sure, but can we change the rules? Can we just make it so that you drink when someone throws a ball into a cup, and it goes in? And that's it?
Eric: I want to guess - like I'm in a point and click game. I'm gonna like pull my my flashlight out to try to illuminate the rest of the story. They were super pissed, right?
Bijan: I'm sure they agreed to it.
Mike: 1,000% on board.
Bijan: Yeah.
Mike: 1,000% on board.
Bijan: Obviously, because it's like, here's this American in this room with a bunch of people like he sort of knows they sort of know him. He seems cool. He's down to play. Like, why not try this American version of the game?
Eric: I guess I feel like I'm so confused by the amount of rules that I feel like standing on principle about the correct house rules is like part of the reason why you have so many rules. So that's why I'm surprised that they were totally cool with changing the rules. I would have thought that the fact that it was like European bullshit is like, well, we've been playing this, at my college would, that I went to with my eating club that we've been around since -
Mike: Since 10.
Eric: Yeah, since this idea, since this version of English was established. Well, that's how we play it. So I don't know why this American would want to come in and change it. I feel like maybe that's an American idea that like my house rule that one thing I do that's different than I learned at like UC Santa Cruz, like, that's the correct way to play beer pong. So that's why I'm, that's why I was surprised.
Mike: I think that that is probably true, actually. And that, you know, a stereotype of that culture is that they are very accommodating and don't want to cause trouble. And that I wonder, you know, this was the other thing that I was like, Okay, I'm going to take a big risk here. And I'm going to say, Can we change the rules?
Eric: No, which definitely was a bit risk.
Mike: Yeah. Which felt to me, like a, like a brave thing to do. Like, as I was saying it, I was like, I'm shocked that I'm doing this, like I, what am I thinking right now. So I think like, in my mind, this is a big risk. I am saying to this group of people who in my mind, I've just embarrassed myself in front of and who I don't know, and who are very nice, but who still make me very nervous, if we can do something different from what they normally have been doing, ostensibly to increase my comfort level, assuming, or maybe accidentally communicating that if that is the case, I will play the next game, which sort of communicates to them that I view myself as a valuable commodity. That I'm like, if you want this guy in your game, you are going to have to do something different. Which as I was saying it, I was thinking to myself, like what the fuck am I doing? Like, what are you doing? No clue what my plan was there or like what the play was, but maybe it was the few beers that I had had at that point. And you know, I was feeling brave. So I did it and it worked out. They agreed. They were like yeah, we'll play this paired down, Mike rules, American version beer pong. As if I, for some reason was like an expert in playing beer pong? Like, you know, well, the way that I'm used to is this, in all of the hours that I've played.
Eric: Sure.
Mike: So we played it, they tried to figure out other rules, which is like, hey, does it matter how far you lean over the table, and I'm like, I don't care. I don't like, I don't care if you lean over a table is fine. It just means the other team is also going to lean over the table. So that's okay with me. They wanted to know if we could do, I forget what they called it, but it's like one of the drinks is a stronger drink. [Lauughs]
Bijan: Oh my god.
Mike: In my mind, I was like, Fine, like, fine. Like if the thing is no rules like, Sure. Okay. That's all right. I don't mind. So like one of the glasses was a glass of wine on each side.
Bijan: What!?
Eric: Oh, my God. Okay.
Bijan: I mean, sure, why not? This is insane. But like, it's okay. What it sounds like as they were running down, like, like, these are the their standard procedure, right? Yeah. And then we're figuring out where you deviated from the standard procedure?
Mike: Yes, exactly. And so we played and the game went on longer, because it's harder, there are fewer ways to move the game forward, when the only way to move the game forward is "ball goes in cup." That's it. So I started to panic. I was like, Oh, shit, I've ruined the - I've like, I have accidentally changed the tenor of this game. From, we're all hanging out. It's fast paced. We're all getting drunk. Everybody's drinking. We're clearing bottles, we're clearing cups off the table. We're moving along, to like, the more maybe like Brooklyn 2006 version of like, listen, we got six beers in the fridge and we want to have fun. We need to stretch this out as long as humanly possible. We're doing this just to hang out with people. The point is not to get wasted. And I was like shit did I misread the situation is the point to just get as wasted as possible, as quickly as possible. I think everybody had fun. I'm not going to like build up the the final bit as though this is like Tin Cup or whatever - why is that the movie I go to? Why did I immediately go to Tin Cup? Where he loses, because I made the winning shot. I won!
Eric: Yeaaaah, Mike.
Mike: Fully redeemed myself. Big loop of emotional, big, emotional arc. In then having the winning shot big celebration had a great time. And then I was like, Okay, I'm retired. I feel like I've experienced everything I can experience playing this game. And that was my that was my extremely meaningful, very fraught, emotional roller coaster beer pong game in Wales.
Bijan: That makes, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. This is the experience of competitive multiplayer, which I know you were big Halo guy back in the day, like this is, I'm sure it was a very similar feeling. Where I'm coming from is, I think beer pong is like a holy game. I think it's a perfect thing. One of the few. Because it is it's like it is both communal, and competitive. And also like the exhilaration that you get because it's like, it's like it, the stakes are so low that the exhilaration can be so high, you can like really feel like, invest a lot into a win or a loss if you, you know, but like, it's still you lose, you're like whatever. But that feels like a typical sort of experience. Because like I think part of the magic of beer pong is that it is a communal social experience, which is why you said yes to another game, because it's like, you weren't sure if it was like the beer or the social niceties. But you were like, maybe, but, at the base of your mind, you're like, maybe I want to do this again. And maybe I want to do it in a way that I can control a little bit more, despite making the whole thing harder, but I don't know, I think so the history of beer pong, allegedly, I learned this from some frat kids at Dartmouth because my brother went to Dartmouth, but -
Mike: I'm so excited about this.
Bijan: They say that beer pong was invented at Dartmouth -
Mike: Of course they did, of course.
Bijan: A very long time. And they played Pong, they call it Pong. And they play it with paddles, like ping pong paddles with the ends sawed off. And they, they hold that everything else is called Beirut, because Pong is played with paddles, and you use the paddles to hit the balls. And so it's more like ping pong. But these kids were incredibly good. It's very difficult, but I don't know, I was in, so I was in Europe recently. And I played beer pong in two different countries in Denmark in Copenhagen, at a bodega. They called it a bodega but it wasn't like, it was like a it was a bar. But it just stayed open later and had beer pong in the back, you had to buy the beers from the bar to go play beer pong in the back. But like I was playing with these, like these people I just met. And it was, it was really fun. But like, we had to agree on the rules. And they were like, no, they wanted to use their stupid fucking European rules, which didn't make any sense. And they were like leaning over the table like psychos. Because there is, elbows is a real, your elbow can't cross the plane of the table.
Mike: That's what they decided on in Wales was elbow can't cross that. And I was like, that's fine.
Bijan: Yeah, because otherwise, it's like, it's not really a game. But there were some people who like, the people there associated intensely with, like Americanism. Like, there was one guy who was like, "Oh, I could be a good American." And I was like, No, you can't, you have health care. [Eric laughs] Yeah. And then I played in Serbia, I was playing in Belgrade against the people who are really fucking good, because there's a beer pong bar in a basement in Belgrade. That, it seems like, I thought only tourists would go there but it seemed like everyone there was a local and had been like, there's like drunk college kids and then also like, the people who hung out at the bar.
Eric: That's incredible.
Bijan: And it was like it was a lot of fun. I got my ass handed to me, but again, I think, you know, it was like American culture seen from abroad is so weirdly divorced from the reality of what America actually is. And it's funny to be an American in Europe or wherever and experiencing that culture by proxy.
Eric: I guess I'm still reeling from the idea that beer pong is inherently American. When to me it's like, inherently like, like Mike started his story with, bro-y, college-y, I am 100% unsurprised, Bijan, that you got the history of beer pong from a bunch of frat guys at Dartmouth.
Bijan: Yeah.
Eric: Like that feels like those guys, like that feels like that. But is that America? Is college guys playing beer pong America projected?
Bijan: Oh, yeah, absolutely. College does not exist anywhere else in the same way it does here, like because here there's a peculiar combination of either being sent to war or not being able to drink and then also like having this like space where there's ultimate freedom, as ratified, you know, in recent decades by like, movies that sort of define what a college experience was. Shouts to - what was her name? Who played I think Mrs. Stiffler in the America -
Eric: Oh, Jennifer Coolidge.
Bijan: Jennifer Coolidge. Yeah, she was like, yeah, thanks for making me a milf. I was like, yes, you know what, shout out to you, but like, that's like, you know, they're, I think the conception of college as this like, space where you explore and you do things like play beer pong, and get drunk with frat guys. Like, that's, that's not found anywhere else. Like, they try and pretend. But they have fundamentally more freedoms. And you know, they don't go into crushing debt to like, you know, I have like, I actually I was in a Discord recently. And people were talking about their like, dorms in college. And it was interesting, because all the Europeans were like, Wait, you guys have to have roommates? Because they don't have roommates.
Mike: What? Like, what? [Eric laughs]
Bijan: Like, and it was like, Wait a second, there's a cultural barrier here that we're just not surmounting. You know? So I think beer pong is one of those things that falls into like, it's, it's global. It's fun, and you know it, but it's also like, uniquely American.
Mike: How amazing that I showed it - or not amazing, but just like how sense, sensical that I showed up to the European beer pong game that had multiple safety nets to keep things moving and fun, and was like, No, this should be made harder.
Bijan: Now you were like, you felt uncomfortable, because what you were seeing was a breach of tradition. Like the thing that you knew was not the thing that was being played, you know, they call it the same thing. And like, even if you couldn't, like articulated that, like, that's what you were expressing. Every American knows what beer pong is, it's in you. It's like, it's just like, you know, college tuition. It's just in there.
Eric: Okay, that makes me feel better than when I was confused by every single thing you said next, and I said, What? And then Bijan looked very, like, oh, yeah, I've heard of that before, that makes me feel better, because I have no European beer pong stories to share on this podcast.
Bijan: But I think I think the thing about communal games like bar games, like pool or ping pong, or, you know, beer pong, is that you can take an unrelated group of people and mix them together. And like, and you have a common thing to like, bond over, and like actually talk and stuff and there, but like, it's still like, in this specific stylized environment, which I think I enjoy. It's this high tension environment where you do things, it feels like, it feels archaic, almost like the idea of sportsmanship, it feels like, you know, opening the car door for a lady. It's the same kind of like, stylized, everyone knows the rules here, space that I feel like there's not that much of in modern life, you don't really get like a place to express aggression, or whatever, or competitiveness in a healthy way outside of video games and bar games, right?
Mike: Well, it's also like, you know, in contemporary life, we, you often vacillate between these two really overwhelming scenarios, which is like, the complete collapse of context. And so you have no idea, the context that you're in what it is, that is true, what's happening, like, what the values at play are, or just like a crushing amount of context, and you know too much, and it's very hard to wade through and you don't know where to turn next. But something like a ping pong game, beer pong, air hockey, you know, the game where you throw the tiny basketballs down the lane into the hoop, and it counts it and the red numbers above it. It's like the perfect amount of context, you know exactly what's happening in that, like, bounded gaming zone. And so it's very comfortable in that way.
Bijan: And you get to treat the relationship as disposable if you feel like it. It's not like, it doesn't affect anything in your life. You know, like, if you've, you've met people at a bar, and you're playing darts in their house, it's like, well, it's maybe a little different, but like, the same things apply. Yeah, I don't know. I think Beer Pong is, that's, that's part of the reason why I like it so much. Because like, you get to do all of these things and feel all of these things that you don't normally get to feel in-person with other people. Because again, like I think, for me, like a lot of my experiences, like comes from competitive multiplayer games, right, which I play with my friends and play with strangers, but it's like it's not mediated by a screen.
Eric: Right.
Bijan: And there's, there's almost nothing more satisfying than hitting a game winning shot in beer pong. Like you're a hero for just a second. Like you get to feel like somebody who's accomplished something, even if it's like in this very strange, stilted context, and then somebody buy you a drink, you know, and it's like, hell yeah, let's, do you wanna do it again? Or do you want to? Do you want to like leave? Do you? What do you want to do?
Eric: Yeah, I wonder there's also something about the audience which exists in those games. So that's 100% True. Also, Mike, you're going to respect Papa Shot and say it's needed.
Mike: Papa Shot. Yes.
Eric: I also think that we just ideated like an opinion piece for The New York Times, which is the new church is Dave and Busters. So wait for that coming next week.
Bijan: They would never publish something so sensical. Come on.
Eric: Um I - listen, we have gotten so far in the first segment of thisn Bijan, do you have a game that's giving you feelings? Super quickly.
Bijan: Yeah. So I've been playing I played a couple of games. I've been playing a lot of like Fortnite. Playing Goku in Fortnite, killing people with kamehamehas is amazing. Great, beautiful. Play a lot of Valorant, really bad at it. And I feel like I get tilted really often. And I try I'm working on it. You know, I'm working on myself here. But this weekend, I was up in Connecticut at a friend's parents house and I sat down and I played Thomas Was Alone for the first time.
Eric: Oh.
Bijan: Which just came in on switch. It's a fantastic game. It started as a flash game in 2010.
Mike: It's really good.
Bijan: The other game that I played recently was Omori, which is like an RPG made in RPG Maker it was like a Kickstarter game for a minute. Yeah, both of those games gave me some feelings. I, uh, I was a bigger fan of Thomas Was Alone than Omori. Because I think - so Omori is like it's a game where he plays this kid named Sonny and his alter ego in his like dreams, kind of, but his like his mind space called Omori and so the game is structured as like you start and you're like in this like blank room with a single light bulb and the light bulb is black and it's, you go through, you like look at the items, you pick up a knife then you go through the door and you're in this like brightly colored dream world that is reminiscent of like Earthbound, and pixelated sprites, everyone's you know, you're walking around, you meet up with your friends, you do quests, upgrade your abilities, you kill bosses and there's, there's actually a really interesting battle system that relies on your emotions, which is a hint that this game is not what it seems. And the game essentially is about like this like rich mental life of this kid Sunny and also his like outer life, his home life and so like through the segments outside where Sonny is like interacting with these people who you learn like the friends in his dreams are still in real life but they're just not friends anymore. And it's like, they've grown up while the people in his dream stay the same. It's kind of awful, and what you learn is that there's like he hasn't left his house in three years and he's moving away in three days. So it's structured it's like a three day thing, but like you make up with your friends, you progress through this like dreamworld, then you get to the end, which is maybe four times as long as it needs to be and this is sort of where it lost me. Spoilers for Omori.
Eric: [Laughs] Spoils for the most emotional game that you will ever play.
Bijan: Well, okay, so this is this. I think the ending kind of soured the game for me, because I was like riding with I was like, Yeah, fuck yeah, this is great. It's a game about depression. It's about alienation. It's a game about what happens when you can't touch other people like, either socially, mentally or physically, you're just alone. And I think for me, it was like, remembering sort of the early pandemic, and like, the experience of everyone being at home and trying to connect, but not ever like feeling like it was, I never really felt like it was like, as authentic as it could be. And it was like the idea that the physical space was fraught with danger felt very familiar. Anyway, standing is like, Okay, you learn what happened to his sister. And what you learn is the kid who you're, you've been looking for in your dreams, his name is Basil. And he's like a frail kid in real life. What you learn is basically Omori, or Sonny rather, had, he played violin with his sister, they're supposed to have a recital, and she throws his violin down the stairs. And then he throws her down the stairs. And then she dies. And then he, his friend sees it. He enlists his friend to cover it up to make it look like a hanging. [Eric sighs heavily] And so everyone believes that his sister has died by suicide, when that isn't true. And so part of the end game is like you're talking to Basil. And he's like, eaten alive with grief, which is manifested as this thing and you've been seeing it. It's like this, like, horrifying thing that you have to fight and it's in the room with them when they're together and like they fight each other at the end. And this is, this is like the good ending by the way. There are like, eight endings.
Mike: Oh, no.
Eric: God.
Bijan: And you know, you wake up in a hospital bed after this fight with your friend. He's in another hospital bed, you walk into the room, make the choice to walk into his room, you confess to your friends what has happened and the game presents this as a good thing, which I'm like, you know, I don't think I agree with that. I think you know, if you, if you killed your sister by accident and enlisted your friend to cover it up. You should take that to your grave.
Eric: Yeah. In, that reminds me of the TikToks were like someone's dancing over "I love you. Always forever" and gives a secret that like they were dating their stepdad or something.
Bijan: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: Yes. That, that is what triggers that in my head. Like why do that?
Bijan: And you know, but the other endings are like both characters commit suicide or whatever, which is like, okay, maybe that's a bad ending. Whatever.
Mike: Fucking Jesus.
Eric: Yeah. I have a question just about both of these things. One, what was the button press you had to do for confess? You killed your sister.
Bijan: Just, you just walk, you walk and you make the choice. It's a hallway and you either decide to go in one direction, to somebody else's room, or to the room where your friend is.
Eric: Okay, so I think we've learned a lot from 'press X to pay respects.'
Bijan: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I was like, you know, this game I was, I was really with it, I was like - because the sister also is like in these dreams, she's like the save point like her picnic basket, you save at picnic baskets. And you remember all this beautiful stuff about you and your friends and like this, this sort of sepia tone space. And then you learn this, like revelation. And it's like, Oh, you were a monster all along, you could have picked a different revelation, because the whole story is about like him trying to love himself. And I guess, you know, obviously, creator's intent, I'm sure this was part of it, right? But like, as a person who like makes things I'm like, you know, you kind of maybe pick something a little, just a little different.
Eric: There's a thing about like games as storytelling devices, where it feels really facile, where it's like, whoa, whoa, we needed that big fucking turn at the end. Like, if this was a movie, would you have been just as pissed?
Bijan: Yes. 100%. It's the kind of revelation that makes you dislike all of the characters.
Mike: Yeah.
Bijan: Like, you've created this like, kind of false sense of intimacy. It looks like it will be I think, more vindicating, if this kid because like in the game, he's a cipher, right? He doesn't speak to other characters directly. It would be one thing if he was like, he had these thoughts about being a monster instead of these dreams about this terrifying thing that was like amorphous, when it's like, oh, you know, maybe it might have clicked together better if we like saw journals, where it's like, "I did it. I did it." Like some sort of thing that like hints at this revelation.
Eric:
So it's not like a capital T twist at the end.
Bijan: Yeah, because it wasn't a twist so much as it was like, Oh, like this, this narrative choice doesn't make sense to me.
Mike: It's something you could have never known until being told it. And then you just are forced to grapple with it all at once.
Bijan: And I was confused when I was playing the game, because I was like, oh, like, why would he do this? Like, this doesn't make any sense. And then, you know, my girlfriend, Olivia was sitting beside me. She was like, yeah, he killed his sister. And I was like, Yeah, but like, yeah, it just, it strikes me as sort of like, a narrative choice that made me like, not really believe the rest of the game. And retroactively, I was like, Why did I play this? Like, I feel like I wasted like, eight hours of my life.
Eric: No, I think it's important because it's like, well, it's like, what I was saying is that games are now in their, their own trajectory of stuff. It's like someone watched - I'm not saying that the creator did this. But it's like, we have such a limited canon of games making you feel feelings and tell stories like this, that it's like, did you just play Edith Finch and say, No, I'm gonna go bigger. Like it were a game that's all about death. And it's not their fault if they're just doing this out of context. But it's like we have so little context is, this is what you have to do to say, I'm a game that tells a story in the way that I feel like, The Last of Us is like, How dare you commit all this violence, you asshole?
Bijan: Yeah.
Eric: It's a trap. If just because you're trying to tell this story and make people feel feelings with games.
Bijan: Yeah, I just, I think it was it just felt a bit heavy handed, because the narrative so far had been very sort of abstracted. And again, I mean, you know, Edith Finch is a good example of like, good game storytelling. And the reason it's still cited is just because it's fantastic. Because like, the, the, the twist at the end - spoilers for Edith Finch, if you, if you haven't played it by now. I'm sorry. She's pregnant. Right? Which reframes the, with the next Finch life, which reframes the entire narrative but in a way that's like, productive kind of, it's like, oh, shit, I had no idea. Like, I didn't realize why, like it gave the character motivation more than like the original one and it like it put everything into a new perspective, which is what like the best short stories do, like there's a line in them, three quarters of the way through that, like makes you rethink everything you thought up to that point, and you see it again from a different angle. And I think in a lot of ways games like these, which are like indie games made by a few, like small groups of people are short stories, kind of, you can't really go as big, you're not going for like a 20 or 40 hour experience. You know, you don't have teams of writers and artists and programmers to do this. You work with the tools you're given and memoria was made with RPGmaker, and look, again get the game is good. Like it's a good game. The gameplay is fun, the combat satisfying like weirdly satisfying actually. And the story is really good right up until like that last revelation where it's like, it feels like they jettison the characters kind of, in service of this like big narrative moment, which I really disliked. Anyway, you should play it if you if you feel like you can, if that revelation isn't gonna like put you off of it because it's like it's an interesting game and it's fun and I left a lot out in my summary of it.
But! Thomas Was Alone. Fucking fantastic. Holy shit. Okay, it started as a flash game in 2010 It was released on windows in 2012 and it's been like ported to like iOS and Vita and you know, a bunch of other stuff, it just got to the Switch last year. It's a puzzle platformer, it is a game about a rectangle. Rectangle's name is Thomas. And you jump and you flip the slide around and you - but like the game does a - It has a really beautiful narrative. Thomas is like an AI in a testing environment, we don't know what for we never really learned, and you see like at the beginning of every level there these news clips like that have quotes from like, like people in the media or whatever experts being like, oh, yeah, the emergence, it was like this really interesting thing. And you learn the story over the course of the game, which is basically like Thomas was alone, he starts alone, he meets his friends. He's got an orange square named Chris, a tall rectangle, yellow rectangle named John. And then you got Claire, and you got Laura. And you got all these like characters and they all do different things and you control all of them is the thing. And so the puzzle platforming part is really satisfying because each puzzle is like, how do I use these rectangles that I control to jump on like their heads? Or like use them? Like how do I solve these puzzles with the tools that I've given you, switch between all of them. Midway through the game, this rectangle, Laura shows up, and she's followed by this like, weird pixel cloud. And Laura's like, all of my friends have abandoned me, like, no one loves me, I meet these people, and I don't want to like connect with them. Because what if they leave me, which is like a weirdly human sentiment for a rectangle?
Eric: But I assume because it's Laura. She's a rectangle who has eyelashes and a bow and a mole, Marilyn Monroe.
Mike: I was, I was picturing polka dot skirt. So I see. Yeah,
Bijan: They are single color rectangles. It is a great game. [Laughs] And also, all the rectangles have relationships with each other. Like Chris, the square is in love with Laura. And he's like, Should I call her my girlfriend? Oh, no, is it too soon? But like, they have conversations off screen between levels, and you just like get bits of it through the whole thing. And I was like, I care about these fucking rectangles. [Eric laughs]
Mike: The thing about that game it really it does such a good job of making you care about rectangles in a way that puts so many other like fully rendered games to shame.
Bijan: It was weirdly affecting. So I was in this house with my friends. And I was like, Guys, these fucking rectangles. I got to play this game. And they were like, so what are the rectangles doing? I was like, they're in love. [Laughs] Breaking my heart. Yeah. But yeah, games, games that make you feel, Thomas Was Alone, wholeheartedly recommend. It's like maybe two and a half hours, three hours long. Like, it's really a fun experience. Weekend game.
Eric: I like that. That's great. Listen, I'm gonna say Yooka-Laylee is a good game. And it's funny to think that people who wanted to revive a genre that didn't exist, that I want to make Banjo Kazooie again, and then they did it. And then it was that just with better graphics and, and a little bit and you can run it on PC. That's cool. And I've been really enjoying it.
Bijan: Great. [Laughs]
Eric: Listen, I don't have any stories. or emotional stories about rectangles or nor beer pong. So that was the best I could do.
[Segment Transition Music]
Eric: Hey, it's Eric. And I picked up some snacks for all of you at Games and Feelings. I got apple cider doughnuts. Mmm, they're so cinnamony. Now I'm gonna eat one. [Chomps] Sooo good! Why don't you come have one? What? You, you're an audience on a podcast you can't eat? Aw no, I guess I'm gonna have to eat all these apple cider doughnuts myself. Oh, no. Annnd, scene. That was from my one act play, "Eric (Who loves apple cider doughnuts.)"
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[Chiptune Chirp]
Eric: How much time do you guys have?
Mike: As much as you want.
Bijan: I'm just gonna play, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stream Fortnite after this. Like - [Laughs]
Mike: How irritating is it if we just continue to talk your ear off?
Eric: No, it's great. So this is gonna be extra chunky, I have one question that it will do one advice question. And then I want to do the final thing that I had planned for y'all. I'm going to do one that I was actually saving for the both of you that I'm very interested in. So now we're going to ask advice question, you also have permission to give a goofy advice name to people who didn't submit a goofy advice name. So this is from Liz, she/her. "I'm thinking of tracking down and replaying the first PC game I really fell in love with: Pandemonium, I have great memories playing the game when I was in high school, should I spend time trying to see if I can replay it on a modern system? I think I used to have it on Windows 2000? Or should I let it stay in its near perfect form in my brain? Is it okay to leave games in our past? Or should we dig them up for the sake of nostalgia?"
Bijan: Whoa.
Eric: And I'm going to come up with a funny, funny advice name for Liz as we figure this out. What do you all think?
Bijan: Well, so given the nature of memory, I think we can say I think you should go for it. Because like human memory is inherently faulty every time you remember something like you rewrite the memory with your current feelings and emotions. And also like sometimes you change details. But it's, there's a really good Ted Chang story about this in "Exhalation" about how like you can misremember things but they can still be emotionally true, which is a great moral. But I think, you know, given the nature of human memory, like you'll overlay the new memories that you make playing this game with the old ones that I guarantee you it'll be a more satisfying experience to replay it, you'll realize what you've misremembered and you'll realize sort of like the fullness of the game, you're not going to, you might dislike it, it might feel clunky, because you've played a bunch of other games, right? Like you've, you've interact, you've grown a lot as a person, because what this came out and what 1996. Like -
Eric: Yes.
Bijan: But you'll form new memories, and they won't displace the other ones. They'll just sort of layer on top, they will acrete, like a shell of like a barnacle or something.
Eric: [Laughs] I like that. Mike, what do you think?
Mike: Well, can I call Liz "In Pursuit of Pandemonium?" How's that? Is that a good?
Eric: Absolutely. You 100% can.
Mike: Yes. So, In Pursuit of Pandemonium, I think that Bijan's advice is good. Here's how I would approach this, which is to think about how valuable it is to me to have these memories of a nearly perfect game. Because I think that that has a lot of value. I really do think that that has big, lasting impacts in your life. And I think that it's simultaneously very funny, but also very true, when people who make things are like, "Oh, no, I don't consume anything that's anywhere close to the thing that I make. Lest it sort of like, infect, my idea of the thing that I make," it's like famously, one of the head developers of The Witcher will not watch the TV show, because he just like doesn't want to know, like, or one of the writers. It's like, I don't, I don't think I can keep it separate. And I don't want to test myself, like I don't want to find out. And I think that there is a chance that that could happen. And I like, I think that that's a question for you, right? Like, can you have two versions of this game in your brain? Can you look back and play through and enjoy the perfect one from your childhood? And can you also, in effect, meet your hero? Who you might find out is like a smelly, weird, rude shithead. And then that colors every experience that you've ever had, right, because it's effectively what this is, right? You're like meeting a hero in a way.
Eric: Yeah.
Bijan: But you're also like, I mean, you also find that you finally get to know the fullness of the thing, right? Because like, that's the other side.
Mike: It's okay to not want that. You can you can maybe not want that.
Bijan: Yeah, no, I agree. But me I gotta know, like, [Laughs] and maybe that's where we differ Mike, but like, because I believe in my capacity to like, have another experience that could. I think.
Eric: Yeah.
Bijan: Like, I know that I will form those memories because I believe that there's something out
there, there are things out there that I will like just as much. That said, my first like, serious game was probably, it wasn't even a game it was just the 1995 Encarta Maze, like the puzzle game. [Eric and Mike laugh] That was in, in, yeah. That plus Flight Simulator 1995. Like, sure, you know, I could play those again, I don't think I can, but I would. Or like actually, like Rayman was another one. And I recently watched a playthrough of that. And it was like, Oh, this is exactly what I remember. Holy shit. Like, this is great. This is better than great.
Mike: Maybe that's the thing, you just got to go in open to like, your experience could be completely different, including awful bad. And that's okay. Like, that's a, you are, you're effectively playing something different now. Cuz you're a different person. All media is inherently interactive. Like you're always gonna bring whatever you have to the thing that you're experiencing it and you necessarily are bringing very new, lots and lots of very new things to a game that you haven't played since 1996. I also I just want to say aside here, I don't know what this - Do you guys know this game? I don't know this game.
Bijan: No, I've never played it. [Laughs]
Eric: No, I'm I'm only looking it up now. A lot of the reviews say it's tight as hell.
Mike: Whoa. Okay. Then go play it. Go ahead. Yeah, rescind all previous advice. Go for it.
Eric: I just want to say for specifically about this on a - we're, because you were so kind to give us the name of the game. We can address this on a case by case basis. This game seems to have held up. When you said Rayman, that triggered something in my head about when I played Sonic Adventure, and how I was so confused about it. Like, where was I supposed to go? I - who is Big the Cat? Why do I need to play as him? I don't understand. And when I picked it up again, recently, I played it and the camera was all out of whack. And I still didn't understand how to do anything. So I want to say trust your gut on this, that if you had a really good time, unless there are like really, the really like terrible things about games from that era, specifically the camera. And maybe we all feel this way. Maybe when picking up Mario 64 again, and realizing you can't turn it. Like that's always going to be a thing that gets in the way. But if you thought it was good, it was probably good.
Bijan: Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's true, because I think memories of play, maybe hold up a little better than some others. I don't know, maybe this is just a theory that came up just now.
Mike: But also you can't go home again.
Bijan: Yeah.
Mike: If you're going to try to recreate exactly the same experience. Or if you're hoping for the same experience you had, I think you're going to almost always be disappointed. Or maybe maybe the best way to phrase this is if you are in that scenario, and you are not disappointed, you're very lucky. Congratulations.
Bijan: Yeah, I also just don't, I try not to have heroes because like, it's just like, there's -
Eric: [Laughs] No, oh no.
Bijan: They're just like you, you know, they have different concerns. But they have the same problem, like so, when I was in college, I was writing a piece. I had to talk to some mathematicians. And I was like, So what do you do all day? And this woman looked me in the eye and said, like, I was stupid. She was like, I write emails. And I was like, fuck, all right, like, cool! [Eric laughs] Maybe it's because, you know, I, you know, in my journalism career, I've interviewed and met a ton of really cool people who are some people's heroes and found, you know, like, people are generally pretty fucking pleasant. And they're like, they're the same as you. They just have bigger audiences, but I don't know. I - Yeah, so that's not one of my concerns, which is why I gave the advice I gave.
Mike: But, but I think that, I think that's true. I think you're right. However, I think for a lot of people, that realization is difficult and weird.
Bijan: Hmm. Well, it felt pretty good for me because I was like, Oh, thank God, I can, like let go of this idea of these people is like, like, I don't get starstruck because I'm like, oh, yeah, what's up, dude? Like [Laughs]
Eric: Man, I still got starstruck. I met Richard Kind once and it was really weird.
Bijan: I was five feet from Shania Twain relatively recently, and I was like, sick. [Laughs]
Eric: Guts of steel man. I don't know. That would have been, I would have been overcome. I don't know what, I don't know about that. I feel like we're really hitting on that second question, Is it okay to leave games in our past or should we dig them up for nostalgia's sake? But at the same time, it's like, man, I just looked this up and this game is on Steam for $7 Like...
Bijan: Just fucking play it. Like what's the worst that could happen? You, like, it's not gonna ruin your memories of playing the game as a child, because you were still you, you were, you were doing it then, you have the memories of playing it. So it's not going to overwrite those. You'll just be like, Oh, this game was like, different than I remembered, but maybe it's better or maybe it's worse, but I'm an adult now. You'll realize I am an adult now.
Eric: Yeah. I will also say remember, Liz played this in high school. So it's not like they were 10. And they got taken in by the, what was the Lion King thing? Or those NES games that were like impossibly hard, and you only have nostalgia goggles on them.
Bijan: Man. I was, I got when I was a kid. A little bit younger than high school. I played the Tarzan game for GameCube.
Eric: Oh, yeah yeah yeah.
Bijan: I got pretty good at it. That game, that game sucks. But I watched a speedrun of it recently, I was like, hell yeah, the game rules actually. Like, it's like, it's not a good game, but I have fond memories of playing it. And I would play it again. And I think it'd be fun, but it would like, because it would be like the novelty. I get to play this again. Like I can like relive my past for a second and not have it feel bad.
Eric: Yeah. I really wish and maybe I felt this way, when like the flash was really getting taken out of the world. It was like all those games that used to play on like addictinggames.com, like, oh, that's where the one of like a shooting game where I learned what an RPG was for the first time. It's like, I want to play those. I'm sure it's bad. But I sure did spend a lot of time playing them. And I just want to go back to it. Like I agree with Bijan, I don't even destroy that memory you have. You're just like, Haha, look at this game again. Like he's a totally different situation. I just don't think because a game is not a hero, Mike, it can't deeply disappoint you when it has its whiskey breath. You know what I mean? [Bijan and Mike laugh]
Mike: I think, I think what I'm trying to make room for is the possibility that for certain people, like not knowing Liz, that like it, not knowing just how impactful and important a piece of media is to someone, you cannot say categorically that that is the case. I agree that it is very likely the case. And I agree that it is very likely the case that most people can hold two different experiences of a piece of media in their mind at the same time, and draw inspiration from and design two different levels of like, let's say importance or like significance to each of those things.
Eric: Yeah.
Mike: But it's not, it's not, I don't think it's a given. And I think that it is possible, though I, though, perhaps unlikely that you can ruin something, you can like ruin something that's important to you by experiencing it in a new, like, I don't know, however you want to describe it, like enlightened way.
Bijan: Yeah.
Eric: No, you're right.
Mike: But also like, finding out is maybe the most important thing, right? Like, that's the learning experience of like, having that experience so that it is not foreign.
Bijan: Yeah. Cuz then you definitely have other things that you care about and like, and, you know, now you know, like, oh, shit, I if I ever showed injure, I simply would not open the box, you know, like, I don't need to know whether the cat's alive or dead. It's just there. I know what's in there. And that's good enough. And also I In fairness to Mike, I do think the human capacity for pain is unparalleled. [Mike laughs]
Eric: Yes, that's true. I don't want to Yeah, I don't want to be too glib about this. I guess. Like, the problem is that like, when I looked up Pandemonium, everyone was like, this is so cool! So I feel like I spoiled it by hearing at someone else talk about how good this game is. So I, so I 100% agree with you.
Mike: And I think maybe the other thing is, like, appreciate as objectively as possible, what the stakes are in having pandemonium ruined for, you know, like, if the stakes are very low. Go for, Yeah, hell yeah. Like get in there.
Bijan: Open the box.
Mike: Yeah. Open the box.
Bijan: Open the box.
Mike: Yeah, if the stakes are high. I mean, maybe, maybe that's weird. But that's okay. Just know that.
Eric: Yeah, I agree. And listen, there might be a cat in the box. Go check it out.
Mike: Yeah, you never know what they're gonna send you when you buy something on eBay.
Bijan: That's true. But also either way, like, you're gonna find another game that you love just as much. Like, if you're listening to this podcast, and you've submitted a question, you have chosen a life in video games. You'll be okay.
Eric: Yeah, I agree. Speaking of humans capacity for pain being endless, y'all want to play a game at the end of this?
Mike: I mean, not if it causes me tons of pain, but...
Bijan: Is it a good game?
Eric: Bijan, I'm working on it. And it's the thing that I do to keep my hands occupied. When I want to wipe my brain clean. I make up games for other people that hopefully they'll enjoy. So I hope so. And I'm not going to say whether or not my self-esteem was wrapped up in it. But maybe you can guessss. [Bijan laughs] I'm changing the last segment of this. I'm changing the name of the last segment of this podcast. The last segment is now called "A Game Inside A Game" and maybe I can throw the inception waaah behind it as well. [Inception waaah] No one will know, will notice. So I got a game for you guys. It's called "I'm a LeBron James main, but I'm also pretty good at Steve from Minecraft." And speaking of the thing that we talked about all the way back in the beginning of this episode, in honor of Multiversus, apparently every single piece of IP is in a fighting game now, or maybe not, I would like you to tell me, I'm going to read a character and you are going to tell me if this character is currently in a fighting game that was released widely for video games, we're not counting random Flash games, that maybe someone pulled together and put on the internet. I can't keep track of that. Please ring in by saying your name as if you were a Pokemon, because that is the only way I have figured out how to properly keep track of a game over a podcast.
Mike: Oh my god, Bijan is going to house me on this game.
Bijan: So this is a knowledge game?
Eric: It's more of like an assessment of where we are as a game society of whether or not this IP has been mined and put into a game. It is not, you don't have to, it's not a memorization, it's very much about vibes.
Bijan: Just gonna go ahead and say, judging given the existence of Flash games and Mugen, everything possible is already in a game, in a fighting game. So ... yes. [Laughs]
Eric: Listen, I did say I can't keep track of all of the Flash, of all the games out there. These are in like, very wide video game releases. So if so, for example, here this is an example if I said, is Banjo Kazooie in a fighting game. Someone might say -
Mike: Mike, Mike, Mike.
Eric: Yes.
Mike: Ok.
Eric: Yes. And then Mike gets, Mike gets a point.
Bijan: Okay, but that wasn't a real question. That was just a test. Right?
Eric: That was the fake question. Yes. And so -
Mike: Damnit!
Eric: - so Mike would get that point. You don't have to say the name but if you feel like flexing, feel free to, so feel free to -
Bijan: Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
Eric: Yeah, that was, that was a super easy one. Believe me. That was the easy one.
Bijan: Mike, did you know that?
Mike: No. Oh, shit. [Bijan laughs] I'm, I'm, I'm boned. No, I had no idea. [Eric laughs]
Eric: Incredible. All right. So this is the first question. Is Yoda in a fighting game?
Bijan: Bijan. Bijan. Yes. Multiversus.
Eric: Yoda is not in multiverses but I'm gonna give you the point anyway, because maybe I should put harder difficulty on you. Because you know, there's so much more than Mike, but he was in SoulCalibur 4. So I will give you that point.
Bijan: Oh, I do remember that because he was DLC on GameCube I think.
Mike: Shut up really?
Eric: For the Gamecube specifically, yeah, on the Gamecube version, you're right. [Bijan laughs]
Mike: That's fucked up.
Eric: Welcome to this game. Mike.
Mike: It's fucked up that Yoda is in SoulCalibur, that's mean. [Eric lauughs]
Bijan: He's got a lightsaber. It's fucking fine. I think I used to play him actually. He would like flip around and stuff.
Mike: Sorry. I meant mean to all of the other SoulCalibur characters.
Eric: That game also had like a soul as a, as a sword. And also whatever the fuck Voldo was.
Mike: Oh, yeah.
Bijan: Voldooo!
Eric: So there was a lot going on.
Bijan: Yeah, fucked up little guy.
Eric: Okay, question two. Was Cleveland Brown from the Family Guy series, was he in a fighting game?
Mike: Mike, Mike. I'm gonna say yes.
Eric: Unfortunately Mike, you do not get a point, he was not in the in the game "American Dad vs. Family Guy Kung Fu 2."
Mike: A game that I, at this moment, have learned exists.
Eric: Yeah, I looked into this, it's funny. They could not expand outside of just the regular families. I mean, if you're part of the universe, you're just gonna like it, I don't know why you wouldn't put in a separate character, really put in some of the NPCs, of the, of the Family Guy universe.
Mike: Maybe, maybe they wrote a Cleveland Browns move set and they were just like you know what? We can't publish this we just can't.
Eric: Too OP.
Mike: It's too good, it's too powerful, he's OP and we got to nerf him.
Eric: Bijan is up one-zero, this is question three: is Waluigi in a fighting game?
Bijan: Bijan!
Eric: Bijan.
Bijan: The answer is no, but he is in Super Smash Brothers - not ultimate the one before it, Brawl, as a, as a trophy.
Eric: Yes, Bijan, you have dove all the way down into the trick of this question. Waluigi notoriously not in any Super Smash Bros Game, but he is in as a trophy.
Bijan: As a trophy. So you can, you can like use him as an item and he goes "Bwaah!"
Eric: He hits you, he hits you with racket. All right, that is two for Bijan. Is Hornet in a fighting game? And Hornet is a car from the game Daytona USA. Literally a stock, a NASCAR stock car.
Mike: Mike.
Eric: Mike.
Mike: I'm just gonna say yes, because I really hope so.
Bijan: Yeah, me too. Actually.
Eric: Mike, you're on the board! Hornet was in Fighters Mega Mix, a 1996 fighting game that brought together Sega owned properties into one big brawl.
Mike: So what does that even look like?
Eric: It looks like a stock car standing up like a man. It's really weird. [Bijan laughs]
Mike: That rules.
Eric: It's tight as hell. [Laughs] All right. This is question five: Is Howard the Duck in a fighting game?
Bijan: Bijan.
Eric: Bijan.
Bijan: I'm gonna guess yes.
Eric: Howard the Duck was in, is currently in Marvel Contest of Champions, a 2014 fighting video game that is on iOS and Android, is mobile-only.
Bijan: Mike I'm gonna reveal to you part of my strategy here. Which is just that if it's a given property like Disney, Disney has made a fighting game.
Mike: Yeah.
Bijan: Is one of their obscure pieces of IP that they can't use anywhere else in the fighting game? Maybe.
Mike: Probably.
Eric: I originally thought that Howard the Duck was not in a fighting game. And then I learned about this game and I'm like, oh I outdo myself. I juked myself. I shouldn't have done that. Alright, six, is Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh! in a fighting game.
Bijan: Oh, fuck. Um...
Mike: Mike.
Eric: Mike.
Mike: I'm gonna say no on the guess that this is somehow a trick question.
Eric: Unfortunately I doubled tricked you and Yugi is in a fighting game.
Bijan: Which one?!
Eric: The, the, actually the most recent series other than the developing series on this list, he was in Shounen Jump Force -
Bijan: Oh I played that game!
Eric: - which came out very recently.
Bijan: Yeah!
Eric: Very funny, in the DLC that's coming, Seto Kaiba is going to be in the game as well. I'm very excited.
Bijan: Jump Force was, it's like, it's, it's all of the anime guys together shooting things and doing fighting. It's really fun actually.
Eric: See, I told you, this is all vibes, it's just, it's just vibes, it's not about knowledge.
Bijan: He's right. [Laughs]
Mike: Also very proud to have been doub, double-faked out, it's felt good.
Eric: All right, this is three-one. Question number seven: is Reggie Fils-Aimé, former President and -
Bijan: Bijan!
Eric: Chief Operating Officer of Nintendo America in a fighting game? Bijan.
Bijan: No.
Eric: No, he's not. They wouldn't do that.
Bijan: Imagine if Doug Bowser put Reggie in Super Smash Brothers.
Eric: That would be really funny. I feel like if it was any other company other than Nintendo, like maybe it would have been yes. But no, Reggie Fils-Aimé did not make it. It's really funny. His biography came out recently. And like everyone in games media was trying to interview him. And he was just like, oh, this man is just a businessman. We turned into a meme. He's just a guy who is very conservative in the way that he speaks and the things that he reveals, which I find I find really, really funny.
Bijan: But he genuinely loves the attention, I think, and that was what people were reacting to.
Eric: Yeah. 100% It was like, I heard him on MinMax. And like Ben Hansen really tried to ask him like all these like deep Nintendo questions. And he was just like, I can't say, I was not involved in those meetings, unfortunately. And it's like, "who else would have been, Reggie? Come on, we want you, you wrote a book and youu didn't really say enough about Nintendo. Come on." Alright, question eight. Morty from Rick and Morty. Is he in a fighting game?
Bijan: Bijan. Yes. If you consider Fortnite a fighting game, which you might not.
Eric: I do not consider Fortnite a fighting game. I can - I would let you answer a question again, knowing that Fortnite is not that. Would you like to continue with yes or no?
Bijan: I'm saying yes.
Mike: Mike.
Eric: Mike. I'm gonna give you a chance to steal.
Mike: No.
Eric: Because this is a lopsided game. I'm gonna say no, because Morty is not coming, he's not coming to Multiversus until August 23, which is a week from now!
Bijan: Oh, God, I feel like I hate this feeling. I'm back in college being graded on a curve again.
Mike: This is working out great for me. Things are looking up Mike. [Eric laughs]
Eric: It's four to two. All right. This is number nine: Moses! Was Moses from the Jewish Torah, is he in a fighting game?
Mike: Mike.
Eric: Mike.
Mike: Again same premise as the car, God I hope so. Yes.
Eric: Yes! Yes. I'm gonna give it to you. Notoriously Fight of the Gods was a fighting game developed by Digital Crafter that consisted of a roster of figures pertaining to world religions and mythologies. Jesus was there. The Buddha was there. Santa was there. Lots of folks were there.
Mike: It's funny that Santa was there.
Eric: I know, they just kind of threw it together. All right, that is four to three. Question 10: wasJules, Mike Rugnetta's dog in a fighting game?
Bijan: Bijan.
Mike: Mike.
Eric: Bijan.
Bijan: Haha, eat shit! No.
Eric: No. [Eric and Mike laugh] Mike's dog did not make it in to a fighting game.
Bijan: That's funny, sharked it! Ah!
Eric: [Laughs] There you go. Alright. Question 11: was Fred Durst in a fighting game?
Mike: Mike.
Bijan: Bijan.
Eric: Mike.
Mike: Yes.
Bijan: Was he in Def Jam?
Eric: He was not in Def Jam. He was in the Illustrious Fight Club video game. The actual, yes, it was really bad and gross.
Bijan: Fighting game by definition. [Laughs]
Mike: I will say that that one was not a guess. But it was close to a guess in that I do have very distant memories of the joke of Fred Durst being in a video game. And if I remember correctly, the model is extremely funny.
Eric: It is extremely funny. You're right. Now Mike, are you going to return to this model for nostalgia's sake? Or are you just going to keep it in your head?
Mike: No, I need to keep it just in the pristine version that it is in my memory.
Bijan: I bet you anything it's funnier. I was just watching my friend Nina stream Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, which has an option for you to use the PS1 Tomb Raider sprite -
Eric: Oh, right.
Bijan: - as your character model with like the bullet pointy, and the face -
Mike: Oh, yeah.
Bijan: - the face that doesn't move. It rules.
Mike: Okay, I'm looking, I am looking at it and it is hilarious. [Bijan and Eric laugh]
Eric: You have looked in the box and it is Fred Durst as a polygon.
Mike: Yeah, the cat, the cat is alive. And it's also a shirtless Fred Durst wearing jeans with underwear poking out off the top.
Bijan: Oh, this fucks dude.
Mike: It's just so, it's just so exactly like a PS2 era design.
Bijan: Can I just go ahead and tell you Mike, that John Cena is in Fortnite now. And he, he does have jorts, we have the technology to render jorts accurately.
Eric: Alright, number 12: is PaRappa the Rapper in a fighting game?
Bijan: Bijan, yes.
Eric: Bijan, you're absolutely correct. PaRappa the Rapper was in PlayStation's All Star Battle Royale for the PS3 in 2012. Now question 13: was Enzio from Assassin's Creed in a fighting game?
Mike: Mike.
Eric: Mike.
Mike: No, the answer is no.
Eric: I will give you the points. So it's, I think the reason why is that he should have been in one of those all star places and also one, but they were actually developing a fighting game for Assassin's Creed. It was called Assassin's Creed Duel, and apparently it was going to have a bunch of different Assassin's Creed assassins in it, plus also other Ubisoft protagonists such as Sam Fischer from Splinter Cell and Rayman, which is wild.
Mike: That is wild.
Bijan: Rayman is great.
Eric: All right, two more questions left. It is now six to five Bijan. Number 14: is Vice President Kamala Harris in a fighting game?
Bijan: Bijan, no.
Mike: Mike.
Eric: Bijan. And the answer is no. I just thought that was a funny, that would have been a funny thing. If that like, she was a revealed and like, the, that DC fighting game, could have been kind of funny.
Bijan: Or we could put her in Mugen dude, we could, we could do it.
Eric: [Laughs] We have the technology!
Bijan: We could do it.
Eric: And question 15: Is Walter White in a fighting game?
Bijan: Bijan, no.
Eric: Bijan is correct. Running away with it. Mike, Mike didn't even have his pants on yet. Eight to five, Bijan, you win. Well, first of all, I want to say Walter White is - I included this one specifically because apparently, people are pushing to have Walter White in Multiversus.
Mike: Sure.
Eric: And again, the whole thing about Multiversus is that it's all IP owned by WB. Breaking Bad is in no way, shape, or form owned by WB.
Mike: But imagine the spectacle that they managed to acquire it and then put him into the game.
Eric: Exactly.
Bijan: I just think about his moveset, that could be insane.
Mike: It would be throwing a pizza, blowing up a trailer...
Bijan: You cook it, you have to like, you charge it by cooking in an RV, like you like get out of sidekick for your special like, I don't know.
Eric: It would be really wild because he'd be one of those characters in a cartoon game who has a real actual gun. And that always freaks me out.
Mike: It's always terrifying.
Eric: Yeah, like, like Joker in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has like actual, or Bayonetta, has guns. And I'm like, that's Kirby! Don't you have a gun near Kirby.
Mike: Would part of the Walter White moveset be a dramatic transformation into Heisenberg?
Eric: Oh, probably yeah. Or, no, no, I feel like he would have to start as like, or the first skin would have to have the man the guy with the hat. Right? I mean that that makes a lot of sense for what we're saying here. But if WB somehow acquired this IP, the, but like, no, that bald man is wearing a hat. And that is a skin and we're gonna have a different skin of him wearing, having hair. Like I can't imagine them doing a cosmetic thing that would be tied to that. Unless like he had a dark aura around him and was like, Oh, he's more likely to poison someone's girlfriend or not save someone's girlfriend or something. [Mike laughs]
Bijan: I'm gonna be honest with you and say that I dropped off with Breaking Bad in season two, because I was like, it's not for me.
Eric: That, listen, I respect that and Bijan, I also respect you because you're the winner of "I'm a LeBron James main." So congratulations.
Mike: Good game. Good game.
Bijan: GG, Mike. GG.
Eric: Good game. Good game. You don't win anything. Because again, games are not about winning. It's about the communal experience we have with each other.
Bijan: Are you saying thatgames are about feelings?
Eric: That's the title of the podcast!
Mike: I get it. Now. I get it now.
Bijan: Damn, I got psy-op'd.
Eric: [Laughs] It's like in movies. We'll be setting the title of the movie. It's like that, we did it.
Bijan: That's Chappie! [Mike and Eric laugh]
Eric: All right, thank you. Y'all have been here for a supersized episode. Thank you so much for coming and talking about games with me. I really appreciate it. And I very, very much want to do this again.
Bijan: Yeah, this is, this is very fun. Mike, do you want to play beer pong some time?
Eric: I mean, no, but I will. I will face down the, the, the huge bear of fear that is continuing my beer pong career. I'll do it for you, Bijan.
Bijan: Well, at least we can demystify it. We can play on the same team, we'll probably lose, but that's fine.
Mike: I just, I have the perfect emotional beer pong arc in my history in my memory, and I do not want to experience it again and ruin it. [Eric laughs]
Bijan: Compelling argument.
Eric: All right. Hey, where can people find you online where you talk about things on your own platforms and people will enjoy them?
Bijan: Yeah, I'm bijanstephen on Twitch and Twitter, Twitter and Twitch. I would rather you follow me on Twitch than Twitter to be, if we're being totally honest. Like Twitter is like a hellscape, man. But also you find me on Instagram. I'm around I do Fun City with Mike.
Eric: Hell yeah.
Bijan: Oh, wait. Also my job. I have a podcast called Eclipse. You can listen to me there. [All laugh]
Mike: Be me every Monday morning.
Eric: Hey, Mike. Even though you're not on socials, can people find you on social?
Mike: Yeah, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube at mikerugnetta. And yeah, you can also find the podcasts that I make with Bijan Stephen, Shannon Odell, Jenn de la Vega, Nick Guercio and Taylor Moore at funcityventures. And also Fun City Ventures wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you listen to podcast somewhere, and it's not there, tell me, because something went wrong.
Bijan: Also, Eric, I'm gonna do this for you as well. Hey, if you like a podcast, fucking review it on Apple or Spotify,
Eric: Uh, well, I usually don't say that because it doesn't actually do anything. What are you - what did you get from it?
Bijan: A bunch of reviews.
Eric: Oh, no, what happened when you got the review? Did anything happen because of it? Because I don't think any has happened.
Bijan: I read them and I felt good. What are you talking - there's no other endgame! [Eric laughs] I read all of the reviews. That's the only thing. Like, what are you saying?
Eric: No, that's a good point. That's a good point. I tell people not to do it because it's like, remember the whole scam that somehow Apple convinced people that like it got people in the algorithm.
Bijan: I don't give a fuck about that. I read every review, and it makes me feel good when they're good and not bad. That is the entire logic of this exchange, like review a podcast because you like it, because you should tell people that you like their work if you like their work, because holy shit, it makes them keep wanting to do that.
Eric: No, I want them to tell me in various ways, I don't rely on Apple Podcast's bullshit saying that like they're somehow Apple's gonna see it more when you review it more and put it on like the front page of whatever their thing is.
Mike: No, you do write a review of a podcast because it increases your SEO and then when more people find your podcast via Google and listen to it, Joe Biden mails you a dollar.
Bijan: Yeah, every dollar you get from Joe Biden is actually worth two times the American, the normal American dollar because it's specifically from the president, it's, there's a, it's an in letterhead on the envelope.
Mike: But you do have to trade it in to Apple who will only take it if your podcast has a certain number of reviews.
Bijan: And that number is 500. For whatever reason.
Eric: And you know it's funny Joe Biden actually was in Marvel vs Capcom 3.
Bijan: Damn. That game was good.
Mike: That guy is everywhere.
Eric: That's a good fucking game. That's the one with Phoenix Wright in it? Now, that's a good, that's good shit. You can - Hey, if you, if you ever made it to the end of this podcast, you can follow me on Twitter at el_silvero, E-L underscore S-I-L-V-E-R-O, my name if I was a Lucha Libre wrestler. You can also follow Games and Feelings at, on Twitter at gamesnfeelings, like Linens n' Things, because we couldn't get the whole thing. We just had to do that. If you want to submit a question, go to the website gamesandfeelings.com/questions. I would love your questions. We did a bunch of these ahead of time, so I used a ton of them. And now I need more questions. Please give me questions. And you can go check out our Patreon patreon.com/gamesandfeelings where Amanda and I do the DLC, where we answer all of the questions that were written into actual advice columns and, boy do they not know what they're talking about. It's very fun. We're having a lot of fun.
Mike: Do not under any circumstances write a podcast review for Games and Feelings.
Eric: No you can if you want to!
Mike: It will make Eric very mad if you do.
Eric: Tell me, tell me, just tweet at me or or send me an email or something. You two are looking at me like I am telling you a whole new set of beer pong. I don't know what you're talking about.
Bijan: Stop using European rules, just be a normal podcast for like the rest of us.
Eric: Thank you so much for this is ridiculousness. Mike, Bijan. I am so happy you are here. And remember the instruction manual doesn't have anything about feelings.
Mike: Byeeee.
Eric: Get ouut of here.
Bijan: [Laughing] Bye.
Eric: Stop listening to this show.
[End Music]