How Do I Write a Murder Mystery for a 13th Birthday Party? with Julia Schifini and Brandon Grugle

There are a number of Pokémon that evolve at level 14: Cyndaquil, Chimchar, Starly, Pikipek, Seedot and Lotad! You’re evolving here by listening to Julia Schifini, Brandon Grugle and Eric giving you advice. And this is an Oops! All Teenagers episode, where we do it for the children.


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Credits

- Host, Producer, & Question Keeper: Eric Silver

- Editor & Mixer: Mischa Stanton

- Music by: Jeff Brice

- Art by: Jessica Boyd

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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 and advice show about playing games being human and dealing with the fact that those games involve other humans. I'm your host and question keeper Eric Silver, and the color of board game pieces I gravitate towards is red, though I want to give a special shout out to the white on Settlers of Catan. Julia Schifini what color board game pieces do you like?


Julia:  Green, all day every day, baby.


Eric: Regardless, everything green?


Julia: Always green. 


Eric: Do you, have you shoved a child out of the way to get green before?


Julia: Probably as a child I did that. That sounds like something I would do.


Brandon:  Even on Catan? Do you do green on Catan where you can't see green?


Julia: I haven't played Catan in so long, Brandon, I don't know. Probably.


Eric: The colors of Catan are different though. The colors for Catan are white, blue, red and orange. And then green and brown are from the extension.


Julia: Okay, so I'll go with blue when there's no green, but I'm always green if there is a green available.


Eric: That's fair. And your childhood, Julia, was last week? That's where you're considering? 


Julia: Yeah, yeah. 


Eric: Okay, great. Brandon Grugle, what color do you gravitate towards when you play board games?


Brandon: It's me! Uh, always blue. But I do have - I'm not colorblind. I am color deficient. I think... 


Julia: That sounds like something someone who's colorblind would say, Brandon. [Eric laughs] That sounds like something that my husband says every time I say hey, what color is that? And he says "I'm not colorblind." I'm like, why are you wearing a pink shirt then? And he's like, "Damn, I thought that was grey."


Brandon: I had a scientist tell me I was color deuteranomalous, I think, I can't say the word.


Eric: You're one of the cats from Cats? 


Julia: Old Deuteronomy!


Eric: You tried to go to the jellice space because you can't tell blue for green?


Brandon: I'm a cat from the Bible. [Julia laughs] I would say blue. But if it's like, depending on the board, I usually have to switch or sometimes have to switch to like the brighter colors like yellow or white. Because I can't see my red pieces or my blue pieces too well sometimes.


Eric: Brandon, you're just like Paul Dano in the climax of Little Miss Sunshine.


Brandon: I drank his milkshake. 


Eric: Yes, that's right [Brandon and Eric laugh] He pushed Abigail Breslin out of the way and said "I drink your milk."


Brandon: I did for a long time growing up, because I don't know if like European or non-US listeners know this. But when you turn 18 as a male person, that was in the eyes of the government in the US, you get a piece of paper that says you are now eligible to be drafted, get ready. That's always fun. And so I did hinge my hopes for a long time on the fact that I'm colorblind and not being able to like join the military because of that. But...


Eric: Unfortunately, I will be drafted because it's been a real Ender's Game situation. And I'm such a good gamer that I'm now going to be drafted to the US military. 


Brandon: Honestly, Eric, that might be true.


Eric: I got, guh - they're called drones, Brandon. I know, I was here during the Obama administration. And you can already tell that this is Games and Feelings we're doing, and I'm so happy to have both of you here. Both of my good friends from Join the Party. And people I talked to all the time. 


Brandon: Wee!


Julia: That's true.


Eric: [Mario voice] Wahoo. 


Julia: [Mario voice] Wahoo!


Eric: Before we get started in the "Games Giving Me Feelings." Can everyone give me their Chris Pratt Mario impression.


Julia: [Flat voice] Wahoo. [Brandon laughs]


Eric: Good.


Brandon: [Flat voice] It's me. I am Mario.


Eric: [Regular voice] It's - Hey, I'm from New York, but not from the city, from like upstate.


Julia: From Westchester.


Eric: I'm from Westchester County, Chris Pratt, Mario.


Brandon: [Flat voice] "I live in New York, but I'm from Idaho."


Eric: [Laughs] "I came to New York for college, but I'm actually from Bangor, Maine."


Julia: [Brooklyn Italian accent] "I know what a Koopa is. That's like a Velociraptor, right?" [Brandon laughs]


Eric: Julia, you're doing too good of an Italian accent. 


Julia: I'm sorry, I'm doing my own accent! [Brandon and Eric laugh]


Eric: Alright, let's get to our first segment. As always, let's talk about some games that are giving you feelings. Remember this does not have to be a video game that has come out recently, but you are more than happy to talk about it. What is one game that you've been playing over the last few weeks that have been giving you feelings and please name the feeling like you're doing LiveJournal, which apparently we're all going to after Twitter goes kaput. 


Brandon: Oh, that's a good one.


Eric: Remember on LiveJournal, you got to put the feeling you're feeling alongside your, your post? So yeah, talk about your game and what feeling you're feeling.


Julia: Also, first off, I'm staying on Tumblr where I never left. [Brandon laughs]


Eric: That's fair, that's fair.


Julia: I have been playing a bunch of Okami lately, the remastered version from 2017 because I find it very relaxing and not a difficult game whatsoever. And sometimes I just need that in my life. I'm also feeling a lot of confusion right now because I tried playing Disco Elysium and I got about 10 minutes into it. And I was like, "I don't think this is for me right now" in the mental space that I was in. And then at your wedding, Eric, I was talking to friend of the podcast, Eric Schneider. And he was like, "Oh, you have to retry it. Here's the point of the game." I'm like, "oh, that's all I needed," was someone to explain the point of the game to me, which is there's, you're playing a novel and I'm into that.


Eric: Yes, for sure. And Eric Schneider is not 'friend of the podcast.' He's 'boss at the end of the level.' Eric Schneider because he looks like a hipster version of Dr. Robotnik.


Julia: That's fair.


Brandon: Eric Bowser Schneider. I love it.


Eric: No, I mean, I really like Disco Elysium, it feels like something I want to come back to. Especially because of all the weirdness that's been going on with Disco Elysium 2, if you haven't been following basically like - okay, an Eastern European Arts Collective turned into a game studio, which made Disco Elysium, which is like one of the most emotional and intellectual and smart and fun and weird games that have come out definitely in the 21st century. And then like, it was such a big deal that the people who are giving the funding to the studio were pushing for Disco Elysium 2, but the Arts Collective didn't like it. And then of course, capitalism broke the Arts Collective up, and now they're having a lot of problems about it. So that feels like a game to return to because it's back on everyone's minds because of, you know, there's no such thing as sequels. It's just forced prequels that someone is making you do, you know what I mean?


Julia: Yeah, yeah.


Brandon: I was the forced prequel to my siblings. 


Eric: [Lauhs] Yeah, we've all had these experiences


Julia: Wow! I'm an only child, I'm perfect the way I am.


Eric: Disco Elysium is wild, especially cauuse it's very Eastern European in the way you just find out kind of like, trudge your way through, is like, yeah, I just want this thing to wash over me. I want the words and the struggle and the weirdness to very much wash over me. I love it. But tell me about Okami. I actually don't know a lot about it. 


Julia: Oh, so it's a game that I think originally came out in the mid to late 2000s. You play Amaratsu, who is the sun goddess, but in the form of a wolf. And all of the magical fighting mechanics of the game, you usually are using a celestial paintbrush to use certain magical items by like painting a certain shape or a certain pattern. And it's beautiful and sweet. And you're basically like fighting evil from Japanese folklore. And it's really just like, calming and soothing. And the only thing that I've noticed in my replay is how annoying the voices are. Because it's just like people going like "Ehpapa, rehehpapapapa" over and over again.


Brandon: Animal Crossing-esque, yeah.


Julia: Yeah, it's not really good. Very, yeah, adults in Peanuts.


Eric: I love this is like, I looked it up because it sounds incredible. Yeah, from like, 2016 and 2017 on the Playstation 2, which is like everyone's safe place was that, that generation. That sounds absolutely incredible. And you can just buy it on Steam right now. 


Julia: Yeah, yeah. 


Eric: Hell yeah. Brandon, what games are you playing and what feeling has it given you?


Brandon: I have two. The first one - and both of them actually are games I'm watching. So I haven't been playing myself recently, because I, I marathoned hard on Pokemon recently, and I got burned out. But I've been watching Lauren play Ghost of Tsushima. And this is my first one because I'm not - the feeling this like confusion. Because I don't understand why the game is popular. Other than like, it's beautiful. Right? Like it's a beautiful gameplay and like, I, It's - the story that's not very tight. It's not very interesting. I don't know. I don't know. It's confusing to me. So, but maybe it was like super novel when it came out and, uh...


Julia: Do you think you don't find it engaging because you're not the one playing, or you think that it's just like from a viewing standpoint, even if you were the person with the controller in your hands, it just wouldn't keep you into it?


Brandon: The combat is cool as hell. So I feel like that would be very fun to control. But I think Lauren also feels and we're only probably like halfway through the game, so maybe it gets better. But Lauren, I think also felt sort of like wishy washy for a bit, although she did click into it recently, so maybe, maybe it did get better as you played it. But like I, it's very, very, very Assassin's Creedy in the terms of how its, gameplay, and I loved watching Assassin's Creed. That was a very interesting story. And like, I don't know, I guess the emotional beats hit stronger for me. I'm not quite sure. So that's why my emotion was confused, my feeling is confused.


Eric: Brandon, I'll tell you running around like you're a samurai in like, kinda sorta the best graphics they can do on the current generation they're on is not an original concept. [Brandon laughs] Like you're fine. I  - running around like saying you're part of the Bushido Code is I, yeah, I mean, it must be fun I guess to like, stand there and being like, "this is my honor." But I can't imagine watching it and enjoy it enjoying that


Brandon: For sure. But a game that I have been watching on streams that is so cool, and I've been really enjoying is Beacon Pines. Have you heard of this?


Julia:  No!


Eric: Nooo.


Brandon: It might just be for PC right now? But it's this beautiful narrative story game. It's one of those like, for lack of a better word like railroady, but super alternate ending right? Super branching pathy. So you go down one path and you play it for like an hour and then like you end up having to go back to like an hour previously and start from there. And so it's like super fun, the illustrations, it's all like 2D-ish. Painted.


Eric: Oh, that's the best.


Brandon: Painted animations and they're beautiful and the characters are really well, and the thing that really, really struck out - stuck out to me is the narrator. Is this - I don't know who it is. I should probably look it up. But this person's voice who is just like the best game Narrator I've ever heard, like, not just tone wise, but like, could read anything with the most amount of feeling and depth I've heard.


Eric: Yeah, it looks like the narrator's name is Kirsten Mize, great last name too, M-I-Z-E. Also, you, Brandon, you're burying the lede. It's your single favorite thing of "upright folks who are animals." 


Julia: You gave us a furry game. I see how it is!


Brandon: A furry game - no, they're children, Julia!


Eric:  Yeah, Julia!


Julia: Furry isn't inherently sexual, guys! [Brandon lauughs]


Eric: Yeah, Brandon!


Brandon: But yeah, really, really, really cool character designs. They all feel super unique. And just like beautiful illustration, so I really recommend that.


Julia: That does look really cute.


Eric: I love this summary. Especially because this will be great for everyone who's listening. "Beacon Pines is a cute and creepy mystery -" 


Julia: That's me! [Eric and Brandon laugh]


Eric: "Beacon Pines is a cute and creepy adventure set within a mysterious book. You play as both the reader of the book and as its main character, Luca." That's fun. And you can get this on Switch Xbox 1, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows and Mac.


Brandon: Oh, sick. Okay. I will warn you Julia the characters also do go, "Blelebebepepepbepl."


Julia: Oh, no. [Brandon laughs] Okay, is there a way I can turn that off? 


Brandon: Probably...? I don't know.


Julia: Ok, Hopefully. Fingers crossed, but a good narrator. So it's like, interesting balance.


Eric: Only 16 bucks on Steam


Brandon: That's a good deal.


Julia: Not bad.


Eric: All right, my game that's given me feelings. The feeling I'm having is thrill and drama and tea sipping because the NBA is back, folks. And as I love the most, I love everything happening not on the court just as much as I like what's happening on the court. Obviously, my beloved Celtics are still doing well. They're in third right now. And I'm just happy that basketball is back. But Jesus Christ, y'all know what's happening in basketball right now?


Julia: Eric, I couldn't possibly know what's happening in basketball right now.


Brandon: Enlighten us.


Eric: Okay, so the Celtics went to the finals last year. Right? And their coach, Ime Udoka was a big part of it. He really kind of like - they were a relatively young team. He really motivated all of them. He got suspended for a year because of an inappropriate relationship he was having in the workplace, because he's kind of a sex pest. 


Julia: Woooo!


Eric: Right? So he was like, he's suspended. But really, he's like, fired. And then this random guy who started to become the coach, and it's like, wow, one of the teams that got to the finals has a totally new coach, it's wild. Then Draymond Green punched his teammate of the Warriors who won the championship last year. So that was wild. And now there is just a total meltdown happening with a bunch of teams, including the Philadelphia 76ers, who has James Harden, you know, the guy with a big beard, who is very curmudgeonly, and doesn't like doing anything that anyone says, and the Brooklyn Nets are absolutely melting down right now. Ben Simmons, the guy who - I don't know if you remember, who also  needed a Kardashian, he, like doesn't like playing basketball, and it's very obvious. He doesn't like playing basketball. He's definitely like, depressed or something, and he does not know how to process it. At the same time, Kevin Durant, as their superstar has incredibly thin skin and likes going on Twitter and bullying people who says mean things about him. But of course, Kyrie Irving, who was not allowed to play last year because he didn't get vaccinated. And he believes in all those conspiracy theories, he's been putting out a lot of anti-semitic stuff lately, especially he tweeted a movie that he found on Amazon Prime that had like a lot of anti-semitic conspiracy theories in it -


Brandon: Cooool.


Eric: - apparently he found after putting into Amazon Prime "Yahweh," the Christianization name of the Jewish God, which is wild, because he's just that kind of guy. And now there's been drama the whole time, their coach Steve Nash just got fired today.


Brandon: Wait, *that* Steve Nash?


Eric: That Steve, yes, the Steve Nash -


Brandon: The point guard for the Mavericks?


Eric: Yes, yes. 


Brandon: Oh wow!


Eric: He was men, their coach because like the players were like, "Yeah, we want like a player's coach to be here." He just got fired. It was a mutual parting of ways. So he also wanted to get the fuck out of there. You know who's probably going to be hired as the coach in the next 48 hours?


Brandon:  You?


Eric: Ime Udoka! [Laughs] The sex pest from the beginning of the whole thing! [Brandon laughs]


Julia: What the fuck?!


Brandon: The NBA is going through some rough times.


Eric: It's absolutely wild. They don't know how to process this. Also, the Knicks are still bad, which is incredible. So honestly, the NBA is perfect. I love the drama and happy to be back, folks, happy to be back. [Brandon laughs]


Julia: You said so many names that I was like, "I've heard that maybe a couple of times before." And I was like, excellent, cool.


Eric: That's fair. They're all progressing. They're really moving forward in this season of the anime.


Brandon: I really relate to James Harden, because we also have beards and don't want to do anything.


Eric: I also relate to James Harden, because sometimes you just don't want to do all the conditioning that makes you skinny and you're just happy about being, being good at the one thing you do and having a big beard. 


Brandon: Exactly. 


Julia: Yeah.


Eric: So I rel, so I definitely relate to him. Yeah, the amount of people who are just like upset at their current situations right now is so high, all time high in NBA history, and I'm enjoying it. And also just like, you know, fuck Kyrie, fuck this whole thing, but I the, the Brooklyn Nets deserve the drama they're putting out into the world? Like they deserve, it's coming back to them. You know what I mean? 


Julia: Yeah.


Brandon: Everyone has, has the right to be dissatisfied with their workplace. And I'm sure you get used to the money. But like, if I were an NBA player making, you know, a million bucks a year minimum, whatever it is, like that would go so far in making my drama go away. [Laughs]


Eric: Yeah. Brandon, I'll tell you, everyone makes more than a million dollars. [Laughs]


Brandon: Well, like - 


Eric: It's so much more than that!


Brandon: I'm thinking of like, you know, maybe there's like some back back back back bencher?


Eric:  Oh, sure. Sure. Sure. Sure.


Julia: I would simply just keep my mouth shut and you know - 


Brandon: Exactly.


Julia: Not say anti-semitic things.


Eric: Yeah, it's wild. It's just like, you know, I really try to compare the NBA to any workplace. Because I think there are things like that, you know, the NBA has a union, which is great. And you know, especially the people at the top, the people who own the teams, plus like Adam Silver, the Commissioner is like literally like the, your manager who does what the manager above him does. He's not actually there for anyone other than like, keeping the stuff afloat. But like the NBA is truly like the Whole Foods of sports. How like, it looks good from the outside, but it has just as bad politics as everything else. 


Brandon: Yeah. 


Eric: Just to put a fine point on this whole thing. It's recently come out as you just look around on like, Indeed, and on Google Jobs that the Brooklyn Nets is looking for a PR coordinator right now. [Eric and Brandon laugh]


Julia: That checks out, that makes sense. 


Eric: Which is really funny to me. 


Julia: Like you know, what would help if we had a PR coordinator right now? It'd probably helped a lot of things.


Brandon: 

Eric, it was really nice to meet your dad, Adam Silver, at your wedding though. That was first time I met him. It was nice.


Eric: Let's who, now who, which is now - who do I want my dad to be? My current dad who's just like incredibly hard to communicate with and really just cares about his other kids more than me, OR Adam Silver who is kicking all this scandal under the rug and just kind of lets China do whatever he wants?


Julia: Both!


Eric:  I don't know. I'm not sure who I want to, I don't know who I'm claiming. I don't. [Brandon laughs] I don't know. Anyway, so I'm having a lot of feelings about it. Do we want to do some games advice questions?


Brandon: We do!


Julia: Heck yeah. Anything to not have to think about basketball. [All laugh]


Eric: That's the most Julia has ever thought about basketball. We need to move on. 


Julia: Please help me.


Eric: Julia is dunking right now, it's critical! We have to go to the question. All right, this one is from Trey, he/him. "I am a teenager that doesn't have a job yet. And I'm really stingy with the money I do make from chores and yard work. I really enjoy playing video games on my PC, like Minecraft, Hades and Warframe. But I hardly ever get the chance or willpower to buy the big expensive game that everyone talks about. I know that these games are getting into but I can't bring myself to spend the money on them. And because of this, a lot of the games I play are free to play are fairly cheap. But I found it difficult for me to find good games that I can play for a long time that won't make a dent in my wallet. How can I find gems in a sea of mediocre cheap video games? Or alternatively, how do I bring myself to buy the triple A games that it seems like everyone else plays." This is, the name I have given Trey is "No Rosebud Cheat In The Rose City." I don't know if he's from Portland, but, you're gonna, I need to make a Sims reference.


Julia: The one I thought of was, "Frugal in San Fernando." [Brandon laughs]


Eric: Oh, that's good. I like that.


Brandon: Is Portland, Oregon or Portland, Maine the Rose City? Which one?


Eric: Portland, Oregon is the Rose City.


Brandon: I didn't know that! There you go.


Eric: I learned that from Top Chef when they had to cook with rose and rose water. [Brandon laughs]


Julia: Fascinating.


Brandon: Well, I have two thoughts right off the bat. Before I actually answer the question. One, I just want to absolve you of any guilt you feel of being quote unquote, stingy with your hard earned money, especially as a teenager like, Yeah, you don't make a lot of money. It's hard to make money as a teenager. So like, yeah, you do you, you don't need to feel bad about not spending money. 


Julia: Yeah.


Eric: Yeah. 


Brandon: And then two, the thing that I think about a lot when I'm buying like a triple A video game, it's like, you know, 60, 65, 70 bucks, or whatever it is. It's like, you can look up online, how many hours of gameplay it might be, and like, divide that by the money and then like, compare it to a movie ticket. And that's why I'm like, is this a good deal? Oh, yeah, it definitely is. [Laughs]


Eric: I would also say to everyone who's not in high school or college and doesn't have a salary, don't do that. But if you have a precious only amount of money to do then do that, but everyone else, if you have a salary, do not compare game developers time for you to play as equal to game, game made, this is only for Trey. Everyone else don't do this. 


Brandon: Yes, only for people under the age of 16 depending on your state who can't get a job.


Eric: Yes. If you don't have a job in college or high school yet, don't do that. Hashtag Treys Only, only for Treys.


Julia: I will also say like, there's nothing wrong with being late to a game like, Brandon, you were just talking about how Lauren is playing Ghosts of Tsushima right now. And that game came out what like two years ago? Something like that. I'm just getting around to playing the Spider-Man: Miles Morales game. And that also came out like two years ago, and I bought it for half the price that it was when it first came out as a triple A game. So there's nothing wrong with being a little late to the party, especially since that gives you time to like, one, they can fix a lot of bugs that there might be like in the game, two, you get like expansions and stuff like that, that they didn't offer when the game first came out. And three, usually that means that buying it secondhand, like from a Gamestop or a perhaps a better, more ethical store where you could buy games from, is going to be like better for you. So I would say it's okay to be late to the party.


Brandon: You can also buy a stock while you're there. 


Julia: Yeah?


Brandon: Don't do that. Don't do that.


Eric:  Yeah, go buy a meme stock. Hey, this is for Treys only: don't buy a meme stock. Adults do whatever you want, but Trey, don't go near that.


Brandon: I can imagine though being a teenager and like having the immense - remember actually, the immense amount of pressure of trying to like be on top of the new games as they come out, you know. 


Eric: That's fair.


Julia: This is also something that I want to stress, because I think a lot of younger people kind of forget, and I was talking to someone about this recently: you should physically own your media that you're playing.


Eric: Oh, yeah.


Julia: Don't just download it from the PlayStation Store, then they decide, you know, two years later being like, "we're not gonna let you play this game anymore on the system, because it's not in our library anymore." Go buy it from a store and have the physical like disc. So you can play whenever.


Brandon: It's usually cheaper too.


Julia: Yeah.


Eric: Yeah, more likely to get pre-owned. Absolutely. And then you can go in the meatspace and see other gamers in the wold. 


Julia: Yeah!


Eric: Great. Yeah, I mean, I think it's funny that we suggested this, it's like all of the things that we were talking about in the "games giving me feelings" segment. Like all that stuff is not 100% sale price. Like it's, it's all on sale, right? The game Brandon suggested is $17. And I think more than ever though, game media for as long as game media exists, going forward, is very plugged in to the best indie games that are less expensive. And I think that you're more likely to find something or have someone write something up about a game you should definitely play. And now you know, there's an entire genre for replayable games now, the roguelike, and you're always gonna be able to pick that up, especially if you're gonna love that.


Julia: I think they mentioned Hades was one of their favorite games, right? So yeah, there's nothing wrong with just playing a game that you love over and over again. It's a good bang for your buck too.


Brandon: I think it's also useful too, if you don't already have like a favorite streamer, like find a streamer who plays different games frequently. And, you know, be aware that you probably need to turn it off halfway through the first episode or first stream, whatever it is, in case you don't wanna get spoiled. But like, you know enough to see if you'd like the gameplay and just see if you like the aesthetic enough to see if you like, want to get dive in more.


Eric: Especially if you're doing this just to like, make it seem like you're up on games media, or like on, on video games right now, you can just watch that on the stream. What's the percentage of you needing to be in tune with a game that you need to be so that you can tell someone else this at school? [Brandon laughs] You know, is it like 25%? Is it just like the memeable parts? 


Brandon: Yeah.


Eric: You know? And I think you can get that. Like, I mean,you two didn't play Elden Ring. Like what do you need to know about Elden Ring to like, know that someone's talking about it and then being able to like say something back to them?


Julia: "Yeah man that games real hard." 


Eric: Yeah.


Julia: That's all I know about Elden Ring. 


Eric: Yeah. 


Brandon: Turtles!


Julia: "Man that nun was all fucked up, huh?" [Eric and Brandon laugh] That's it. 


Eric: "You remember the turtle Pope? That was wild." 


Julia: I still don't know what that is, great. Love it.


Eric: Exactly. Yeah, I 100% agree on the streamer. You know, gaming media also burns out really quickly. This is something that I noticed from, as being someone who like, I listen to a ton of podcasts and I follow the streamers who I like, is like the new game - People stop talking about the new game after literally a week. And then the no one remembers anymore, and y'all can kind of move on. So it's like, you can be tuned in and you're gonna be like, "Yeah, I don't really feel like picking it up. It sounds bad." Because a lot of them are bad. I'll tell you that much. Right now. I'm really trying to avoid God of War: Ragnarok, which is something that, Julia, would, you touched on a little bit, is that it's only out for PS5 right now. And I'm waiting for it to come to PC because I was only able to play the first one once it came to PC, but that took like a year and a half afterwards. So it's like you're going to say that you don't have the, the thing that you have and it's like, yo, yeah, you have Xbox, I guess you can't do it because of the way that video games work. I mean, Miles Morales just came out for PC recently, and Miles Morales came out like a bunch of years ago on PlayStation, so it's the same thing, like no one's going to call you out for not having it. Though I think you do need to know about Fortnite dances? [Brandon laughs]


Julia: But I can learn that from streamers! That's the only people that play Fortnite, right?


Eric: Yeah, but then you got to pour all your time - now it becomes like a time question right? Like, am I gonna pour all my time into like following this free thing and then buying this, like the necessity of needing to like, pay for once the wall hits on free to play games?


Julia: Yeah.


Brandon: Can I pitch a curveball as well?


Eric: Are you gonna say go outside, because I can kick you from this podcast.


Brandon: I would never say that, Eric.


Eric: [Laughs] No, that's right. I'm sorry.


Brandon: Trey, here's a life, a life skill that I want you to master - 


Julia: Brandon's giving life hacks!


Brandon: - and it's going to make everyone around you love you. You're going to date better in the future. It's going to be great.


Eric: Oh shit. 


Brandon: Whenever you don't know a thing. And someone starts talking about how much they love Elden Ring or whatever it is. All you got to say is, "wow, that sounds super interesting. Tell me more about it," and ask questions about it. Because not only do you not look like you don't know the current thing, you've turned that into, you flipped it on its head. And now you're like the person who is genuinely interested in what I have to say, this other person is thinking. But also you get to learn about the cool thing without having to pay the money for it. And if you go on dates in the future, that's, that's, that's called active listening, baby. That's just like good, good social skills.


Julia: Brandon, tell me more about that. 


Brandon: Shut up, Julia. [Laughs]


Eric: No, hey, Brandon, I have a question about that. You want to kiss later? [Brandon lauughs] Yeah, you can't kiss your streamer. You might as well do it in person.


Julia: Can't kiss a streamer. Always remember that. 


Eric: Oh, hey, there's another life lesson. No matter how many subs you give, you can't kiss your streamer. 


Julia: Nope.


Eric: Brandon, I really liked that. It's that you really set it up like this was a tool tip that showed up when you're waiting for a video game to load. 


Brandon: Mhm, exactly.


Eric: It's like "Ask questions! People like it when you ask questions."


Julia:  It's true. 


Eric: It's like, "Ooohh, I just want to play the game! I don't want to hear about Brandon's tooltips."


Brandon: And it, look, if when you're an active listener, not only do people like you, but you also get to be the like renaissance person who has lots of knowledge about lots of things.


Eric: I like this. Yeah, so I think I think our advice is clear. One: kiss. [Brandon laughs]


Julia: Sell bathwater. 


Eric: Yeah, two, sell bathwater. And three, yeah, just keep an eye out for the good indie games, and watch streamers and ask questions. 


[Segment Transition Music]


Eric: Hey, it's Eric. And I picked up some snacks for Games and Feelings. I have just a big pile of pepperoni. Is that good for you? Is that what people eat? Do you want that? No. Okay, I'll take it home away. I think you should be a part of the Patreon at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. Listen, this is one of the newest shows here and Multitude. I really need your support. I really want to get up to 100 patrons so we can really start making it cooking. I really want y'all to love The Replay, which is where Amanda and I reply to advice columnists have yore to answer games questions. I think that it's a better podcast than Games and Feelings. I need y'all to come and enjoy it. You saw it in the last episode, I showed you what it was like, I think you'll really like it. Shout out to our newest patrons, Dylan and Kelsey who decided to join The Replay team. It's just $5 a month. I would really love your support. And thank you again to producer level patron Polly Burridge who chooses her golf ball for mini golf last so you can have your favorite color. And it's patreon.com/gamesandfeelings to see what everybody is talking about. 

Check out all the other shows that are part of the multitude collective I think you'd like Next Stop! If you like the stuff that I make, I wrote it! It could be, uh, it's good! Next Stop is an audio sitcom, a show that explores the turbulent time of your mid to late 20s when everyone is changing around you and you worry you might not catch up. Across 10 episodes of the first season, Next Stopp follows three roommates trials through work, relationships, friendships and more. We watch them grow together no matter what life throws at them. Written and created by me, Directed and Edited by Brandon, Executive Produced by Amanda, Casted and Assisted Directed by Julia, if you want a sitcom in audio form this the show for you. Search for Next Stop in your podcast app or go to nextstopshow.com. 

Oooh, you're going to like this gamers. We are sponsored this week by DAndTea! DAndTea has immersive teas for your RPG session. You're going to be playing in a tavern our tavern brawl tea makes you feel like you're in a tavern. If you're in the Underdark our Underdark and Chill with its Earl Grey base like caked up with lavender and vanilla makes it perfect for your session. If you really want to set the mood you got to do it with hot bevs. DAndTea is the perfect gift for the gamer in your life whether for your players whether it for your DM, whether for a friend you should pick this up. Orders of three or more tea is coming it's really cute gift box that also includes a dungeon map on the inside to provide something fun and help save the box from recyclers just for a little bit longer. DAndTea has plenty of flavors like Forest frolic and Palace Elixir with green tea, white tea and oolong as well as Underdark and Chill, Elven Bazaar, and Tavern Brawl for black teas and even Shadowfell slumber which is an all berry infusion that's naturally caffeine free. The teas are gluten free and ethically sourced. DAndTea makes every day a new quest! Sign up for a subscription and get 15% off at DandTea.com. That's D the letter, and (full word), tea like the hot drink, dot com. 

We are also sponsored by Inked Gaming. Looking for a top notch, one stop shop that supplies you with all the premium gaming gear you require. Oh, these tongue twisters? Well, our sponsor Inked Gaming is one of the best in the biz. With a full collection of play mats, mouse pads, and more Inked Gaming gives you a wide selection of high quality gear that can be customized and personalized just for you. Mariah Carey has told us that it's Christmas season apparently because Halloween is over. Apparently it's Christmas starting November 1. So you better start thinking about prezies. Having Inked Gaming as a sponsor means we have access to certain perks that our listening audience can take advantage of. So head over to inkedgaming.com/gamesandfeelings and we will get you a 10% off code if you put 'gamesandfeelings' in the promo code slot. So go to inkedgaming.com/gamesandfeelings, use promo code gamesandfeelings at checkout to get 10% off your order. And now back to the games. 


[Chiptune Chirp]


Eric: Hey, do you want to help another youth? 


Julia: Yeah!


Brandon: Always. 


Eric: Yeah, this was, these questions are "oops, all youth." Thank you all for writing in, I hope that this is actually helping your brain. This is from Avi, who's they/them. Avi just started 12th grade and unfortunately, "the fucked up-edness of schooling means I have had to abandon any curriculars or assorted fun things in favor of study. I used to play a semi regular d&d game with my friends. But that's been put on hold. Games are probably one of my favorite things in life. And I've recently been introduced the idea of gamifying. Duolingo, Zombies Run and other apps are great. My question is, do you have any tips to gamify studying? [Brandon laughs] I am a chronic procrastinator, hence why I'm asking this question instead of doing maths. But I have never been more productive than when I'm playing. Is this possible? And if so, can you give me advice on how?" And the name that I came up for Avi is "All the world's a game and we are but players from Stratford upon Avon." 


Brandon: Very good. I like that.


Julia: Okay, Avi. Hi, my name is Julia, I have ADHD. [Brandon and Eric laugh] So basically, the only way that I can do any task is by gamifying it, because otherwise I don't get the dopamine. And then my brain says "no, I don't want to do that anymore." So absolutely there are ways of gamifying study. Basically, the key number one thing is a like reward system. So it's like, if I finish this chapter, then I get to go play a game of whatever this is for 10 minutes, or I get to give myself a little treat. It could either be like a physical like little treat, like I get a cookie when I finish a chapter, or it can be like, Oh, I get to, I don't know, like watch an episode of Steven Universe. I'm not using that as an example from my life. I don't know why. [Brandon laughs] But -


Eric: Julia, you're sweating so much it's getting in the microphone!


Julia: Did it get hot all of a sudden, what's happening? [All laugh] There are absolutely ways of doing it, you just have to figure out what rewards you actually want for yourself. And figuring out what the best kind of reward-to-task ratio is for you. Because sometimes if the reward is not good enough, you don't want to do the task. And if sometimes the reward is too good, you only want the reward and you don't want to do the task. So it's finding that ratio, you'll find it it - that's the game in and of itself is also like figuring out what the reward-to-situation ratio is.


Brandon: Totally. I forget the name of I think that method has a name, so maybe Google it. But that's like, it's very science backed. And fortunately, I think you're supposed to do like 20 minutes on, ten minutes off or something to be like optimally remembering stuff and your brains.


Eric: I think that's Pomodoro. Is that the Pomodoro method, maybe?


Brandon: Yes.


Julia: So there's also something called the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, which is what the reward system gives benefits to. 


Eric: That sounds like a fantasy series I read in middle school. 


Julia: It truly does. It sounds like a sci fi system similar to Ender's Game.


Eric: Yeah, what's the magic system in the mesolithic - I don't really remember that you said.


Brandon: I did that for editing often, like I'll add it for 20 minutes and then take five or 10 off and then edit for 20 minutes. Take five because - yeah, it gets so monotonous.


Eric: Yeah, Brandon, that's - Brandon sends us a message on Slack that says "Give me a treat!" every 20 minutes. [Brandon laughs] We've been doing this for so long, we have to do gold belly of like the most Instagrammable treat ever. We have to send it to Brandon now, it's unfortunately we got to make the presence better and better. Here's my question because I think that this is where I run into this, is that I personally, it is very difficult for me as the participant in the treat system to give myself the treat system. Do you need to rope someone else in to be your treat master as this is?


Julia: I've been doing this for over 20 years to myself. So now I am the treat master. [Brandon laughs] When I was a child -


Brandon: "Look at me. Look at me. I am the treat master now." [Eric laughs]


Julia: But when I was a child, yeah, it was like I needed an adult to be like, "Okay, you did the test. Good job. Here's your cookie." I keep using cookie as an example. But like, you know, it can be anything.


Eric: Hey, Julia, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say cookies are good. 


Julia: Cookies are good! I'm just saying not everyone's like a sweets person. I'm not a sweet person.


Eric: Hey, hot take, clip this on TikTok: cookies, fucking tight brah.


Julia: For me, it was like, "here's a Cheese Doodle. Thank you."


Brandon: Oh my god, Julia. My friend just made half like, rough puff pastry cheese straws.


Julia: Ooooh, yeah.


Eric: Oh, homemade Cheese Doodle.


Julia: Cheddar Cheese coin with a little bit of cayenne pepper. Fuck yes.


Eric: I would have said this about college. But here's the thing that the kids, the high schoolers are the youths are way more skilled than I was when I was a youth and even as it was in college. So make sure that your friend who makes good treats, such as the person who's making the rough puff pastry cheese doodles, have them study with you, they can be your treat master, and they'll be the one to give it to you. I think that that's, if you're doing this for the first time you need someone to help with you. And also like it's just good gameplay, friends, is that, working with your game master making someone who's accountable to you. Because again, the reason why these gamified apps work is that you can't yell at the app, no matter how much you try, you try to yell at Zombies Run, it's never gonna make you not run a mile. And the Duolingo Owl is gonna come to your house and beat you in the ankles with a bat like Misery if you don't learn your preguntas. [Brandon laughs] You need someone to hold you accountable. So I think try to get a friend in, and also, they're gonna love torturing you, your friend, being your treat master.


Brandon: I would.


Eric:  So I would definitely think that trying to get someone, especially if the treat is very good. And if someone is very good at baking or cooking or whatever.


Julia: Also, if you have an accountability buddy, then you guys can have your treat together at the end of like the study session, you could do maybe a little like one shot D&D session, after you've done studying, like, as a reward for doing the thing that you said you were going to do, now you get to enjoy the thing that you haven't had a chance to do in a long time.


Eric: The only thing that gives me a little bit of pause here that I would love to poke both of your brains about, is like gamifying is bad when it's in the hands of tech companies. 


Julia: Sure. 


Eric: And like I don't know, if I want to promote the gamification that's coming out. Because there's nothing wrong with giving yourself a treat when you're doing something, right. But it's like the putting the gamification like in free to play games, and like turning everything that we do in our lives into a game because it's the only way we know how to like interface with something because we spend so much time on screens. I don't know, the fact that we're doing "oops, all youth" is making me really questioning my own choices. But it's like, Gee, I am I'm a little concerned about like, meaning the game of gamify everything. And if that's not good, necessarily all the time?


Brandon: Well, I think it's important to, in this instance to use precise language because like, when we're talking about gamifying studying, you're not really gamifying you're like using the science backed methods, called the pomodoro method. And then like when you're talking about Twitter or like free to play games, you're not really talking about gamifying you're talking about like, gambling and addictive behaviors, you know?


Julia: Yeah, I think there's a big difference between "Oh, I get a tiny goldfish cracker for every flashcard I got right in this pile" versus a big tech company being like, "we're gonna send this owl to your house to kill you if you don't learn French."


Brandon: Poor Duolingo, and this episode is sponsored by them, so...


Julia: Maybe if they didn't send you such threatening emails, we wouldn't have to like, bring him down like this, Brandon.


Eric: "This podcast is threatened by Duolingo"


Julia: "Learn French bitch! Hoot Hoot!" [Eric and Brandon Laugh]


Eric: "Hoot hoot, motherfucker, bop." Okay, that's fair. Okay, so I think in exchange, maybe we all say something that teaches you how to keep yourself safe in terms of your digital footprint online.


Brandon: Man, if I had that answer then I would not be looking at Twitter as much as I do.


Eric: That's a good point. Get off of one, get off of Twitter. That's a good one.


Julia: Use a VPN. 


Eric: That's good. VPN is good. That's good. And three, don't sign up for Studify which gives you sends you a goldfish cracker to your house every time did you see study a second amount


Julia: Via drone.


Eric: Yeah, via drone.


Julia: The drone is hovering outside of my window right now, with just a full pack of goldfish crackers. Thank you Studify.


Eric: I sent that to you, Julia. That's my Ender's Game. 


Julia: Thank you. 


Eric: [Laughs] Alright, let's do another question, all right?


Brandon: Yeah. 


Julia: Yeah.


Eric: This question is sweet, short and savory. But I think it will have a lot to talk about here. "My 12 year old niece asked me to write a murder mystery for her 13th birthday. The 13th birthday is Animal Crossing themed."


Julia: Oh my god. 


Brandon: Yeeessss!


Eric: "Any advice on running or writing a good murder mystery?" This is from Auntie Isabel.


Brandon: Okay, here I'm going to say something controversial right off the bat , ready? 13 year olds are pretty much fully thinking as, as like really stupid adults. So like, go all in baby.


Julia: My advice is not a lot of 13 year olds have read Agatha Christie. Just do a Agatha Christie novel! [Eric laughs]


Brandon: That's true. That's a good idea, Julia. 


Julia: Now it's just Murder on the Orient Express. But, they don't know what that is.


Eric: Yeah, there is Detective Hercules Poirot, a donkey with a mustache. [Gal Godot impression] And he has enough champagne to fill the Nile! 


Julia: Yes. Famously. 


Eric: No Julia, that's incredibly good. Yeah, just do like "And Then There Were None," or some of these. I think that's 100%. Or like one of the old Sherlock Holmes, like one of the ones where Sherlock Holmes has emotions. The wild thing about all the new Sherlock Holmes ones is that like a lot of the Sherlock Holmes books were not like - Sherlock Holmes was kind of a good guy. And like had a, was very conflicted about a lot of mysteries. But like the Arthur Conan Doyle estate, the guy who wrote the book, his family said that they have ownership over the character and like his personality, but not - this is why IP is so stupid. So like Sherlock Holmes, the entity, the murder mystery guy who has no emotions, that is just a brain, that's in public domain. 


Brandon: Hmm. 


Julia: Interesting.


Eric: So that's why Sherlock Holmes is such a douche all the time, because that's the only version of Sherlock Holmes who is in public domain, which is wild.


Julia: So they tried to sue the creators of Enola Holmes because they're like "your Sherlock Holmes has emotions. So you know, you're breaking copyright law."


Eric: "That's mine! That's mine! Sherlock Holmes cracking a smile and having a sister is mine." [Brandon laughs]


Brandon: There are also a lot of really good like, buy it in a box murder mysteries right now. Sort of like a bit of a renaissance for lack of a better word of those old... Did you guys have those when you were growing up those like, I can picture them. They're just murder mystery in a box basically, for like, home parties. They like we're always like frames, and they sort of look like an I Spy book sort of thing? Yeah, they were fun. But now there's like tons of really cool ones out there. 


Eric: Yes, I distinctly because it's very much like a escape room in a box. With a boom of, during the pandemic. I think Brandon, I think that's a really good idea. Do that. And then throw an Animal Crossing skin on top. I mean, maybe from the one of the box because like that has so much like typesetting it'd be weird to like rewrite all that stuff. But if there's something that you can find somewhere and then turn that into Animal Crossing, I think it'd be really interesting.


Brandon: Can we real quick, just three of us brainstorm what a fun murder mystery of Animal Crossing would be?


Julia: I have never played Animal Crossing. 


Brandon: [Gasps] Julia!


Julia: This is the one with the the owl who can tell your fossils, right?


Eric: [Laughs] Yeah, that's Blathers.


Julia: Cause I keep hearing people like - Stardew Valley is different from Animal Crossing, right?


Brandon: Yes!


Eric: Yes. Stardew Valley is also so wild. Every time Amanda says to me something she's doing in Stardew Valley. I'm like, what? It's a farming game? [Brandon laughs]


Julia: That's why I'm so confused by it because I thought it was the animal one for so long!


Eric: She's like, "Yeah, I mean, the 100th floor of the dungeon and it's all lava down here. And if I go down far enough, I'll meet the guy who lives here. Now, give me a sword that made out of a moon rock." I'm like, What are you talking about? How are your carrots?


Julia: I thought you just marry people. I thought it was just like a village simulator. 


Eric: So did I! It's wild. There's so much in Stardew Valley. It's very layered. But yes, Animal Crossing is the one with the ani-mules and Blathers stuff.


Brandon: Eric, I don't want to alarm you but what you just described is not in Stardew Valley. I don't know what Amanda is talking about.


Eric: It 100% is, I watched her do it and I helped her do it. I promise. I don't know if you're trolling me, but it definitely happened. I promise.


Brandon: I was trying to make Amanda seem spooky.


Eric: Amanda *is* spooky. 


Julia: "That was a dream!"


Eric: She was a ghost. I've been living with a ghost who's playing my Switch.


Brandon: I think Timmy and Tommy murdered some folks and then the fossils you dig up are the bones of the murder victims. 


Eric: That's good. I like that.


Brandon: And then you have the owl friends identify them and it's like "it was just a velociraptor?" "No, it's Steven!"


Julia: I think Tom Nook - that's a person, right? 


Eric: Yes. 


Julia: Gets murdered. And again it is the plot of Orient Express. And everyone kills him because he's a predatory - 


Brandon: Loan shark, yes.


Eric: [Gal Godot impression] There's enough cham - there's enough champagne to fill Animal Crossing!


Julia: Did we get it? Did we get it?


Brandon: I think we nailed it. 


Eric: That was all good. I actually think, I think killing Tom Nook is the move because you know, it's all British and everything about Britain is about class. I've also been watching a lot of The Crown lately, so I feel very on top of what's going on in the UK during the 20th century. I think that that being tied to like finances and being in debt and him being a landlord very much slots into the stuff that Agatha Christie or Sherlock or Arthur Conan Doyle or any of the British people would write, and there's something like maybe about like the turnips. I don't know if Julia, you don't know what the turnips - 


Julia: Amanda did explain the Stalk Market and turnips to me early on in the pandemic. So I know that much. 


Eric: Yeah, so like the rud, this rudimentary stock market thing I think would apply to a murder mystery very well. And like that being the key to everything.


Brandon: I love that. 


Eric: About where someone is hitting or who did it or what their motive is. I think that you also don't have to go too hard on like the twist necessarily. Like you definitely have a twist, but I think it's like just figure out who's lying and who has a motive and then just go from there.


Brandon: Let me pitch. So you do it like Animal Crossing New Horizons, we're like these 13 year olds, these kids are arriving at their new island where they're about to set up their home and they get there and they're expecting to meet Tom Nook who's going to loan them the money to start a house. Tom Nook is dead. Or just he's not there. He's like disappeared, right? And then yeah, you have like lots of false flags. Like you dig up fossils and have them evaluated by the owl like, Whisp is involved somehow, Timmy and Tommy are suspects and like yeah, you get into this financial loan shark stock market thing and then I think you or maybe like the twist is Timmy and Tommy did it and like the evidence was pointing towards like the financial stuff but then Timmy and Tommy did it because they wanted to like you know, usurp their family, their dad and the, the island game.


Julia: Sure. Sure. That makes sense. 


Eric: I like that a lot. Especially because you need like, quote unquote NPCs in a murder mystery, because like everyone's doing it at the same time. Like there isn't a detective necessarily, I like the idea that there's no like, player human character. Everyone's an ani-mule. And I think that could be fun. Like everyone has a secret to hide. But really it was whoever is playing whoever.


Julia: Everyone has a secret to hide and also one of you is an alligator. [Brandon and Eric laugh] I know a lot about Animal  Crossing guys. Can you tell?


Eric: Julia, you nailed it. It doesn't go much deeper than that.


Julia: Sweet.


Brandon: Can I pitch you a fun other idea too? Plug your switch into the TV and then like map out like in your account like make different environments and different setups put them on the TV as like backdrop and then have the Animal Crossing music in the background as you like do it.


Julia: Interesting...


Brandon: Multimedia!


Eric: That's a good idea. You know, there's also like a whole thing about art theft and art fraud, with Red the Fox, so that's also another thing that would slot perfectly into a murder mystery that already exists.


Brandon: Love that. 


Julia: Doesn't have to be a murder mystery could just be a stolen artifact or something. 


Brandon: That's true.


Eric: I don't know you got to give these 13 year olds the blood, they want the blood.


Julia: I was gonna say, yeah, they're horny for it. So... [Brandon and Eric laugh] they're 13 they just want blood.


Brandon: This is a youth podcast episode, Julia!


Eric: We're helping the children!


Julia: The children are allowed to be horny, Brandon.


Brandon: But far away from us!


Eric: I learned that from Euphoria, that the children are allowed to be horny.


Julia: With each other but not with us.


Eric: All right. Hey, would you, would you all like to play a game with me? 


Brandon: Yeah! 


Julia: Yeah!


Eric: Let's play a game instead of giving advice because I put a thing together and I want to talk about some stuff. 


Brandon: Oh, hell yeah. 


Julia: Game game game!


Eric: This game is called TTRPG, which stands for TV Tropes Role Playing Game.


Julia: Ooooh!


Brandon: That's fun.


Eric: I went on to TV Tropes. For those of you who don't know, it was kind of like when people tried to Wikipedia everything about creativity, was that was really where it began. TVTropes is a compendium of every single like character, Plot, Setting, trope that's ever been in any media ever. I spent a lot of time on it clicking around in middle school and high school in the computer lab just like seeing what's there. But it's still kicking. It's, it's still kicking and going strong. TVTropes.com was in the beginning of the Wikipedia of every single thing in creative, creative in, every single creative piece of media, how you could break it down just to tropes. And if you knew all of it, you were the ur-nerd and everyone would think you were cool and everything.


Julia: I think, of course.


Brandon: I think there's a JTP TV Tropes too. 


Julia: Is there? 


Eric: Yeah, there might be basically every you can look by trope, or you can look by by piece of media, but basically it lays out all of the different like creative twists that are in any piece of storytelling that we have in our current media right now. So what I did is that I pressed the random button quite a number of times, I thought that we could come up with some games that were based on this particular trope to like illustrate this particular thing for us to tell stories. It can be, I had this in mind that we would do tabletop RPGs. But this can be any sort of game. It can be a video game or a board game or whatever, to kind of flesh this out. 


Julia: Let's do it. 


Brandon: Love it. 


Julia: Hell yeah, dog.


Eric: All right. The first trope that I have is the "intimidating Revenue Service," or IRS. This is - I also have some quotes here that I got from the website. "I'm crazy enough to take on Batman, but the IRS,  no, thank you!" The Joker said that in The New Batman Adventures. Basically, the most powerful thing in the universe, more than the daredevil superheroes and the hardened villains is the tax man. So what do you think is a tabletop RPG with we put one together for you to illustrate that particular story be?


Julia: Oh, it has to be a game called Death or Taxes, which is from the famous, I think it's a Ben Franklin quote, where it's like, you know, the only things that are constant life or the fact that you have either death or taxes. So I think there is like, oh god, I'm trying to think of like, what the actual game is, but it's like, a situation where it's like, if you get too close to one side, you die. Or if you get too close to the other side, you get like, tax fraud. And so you're trying to keep in the balance of the two, so neither can get you.


Eric: Oh, yeah, the Lasers and Feelings game mechanics. Yeah.


Brandon: That's fire. I like that a lot.


Eric: I like the idea of like, if you fail a certain number of times, then you can either choose to pay taxes or die. [Laughs] It's very funny. It's like you just fucking nope out of the game. And I think it's like, one, maybe it's like a one page RPG about like collecting as much loot as possible. You're like, you're bank robbers or you're thieves. And you're trying to get as much as money as possible. And either you need to like pay dues to the Thieves Guild or you just fucking die. [Brandon laughs]


Julia: Yeah.


Eric: You could choose like, again, you have to will it to somebody, and that creates a bunch of drama. That would be fun. 


Julia: Hell yeah. 


Eric: That also feels like a like a party game, too. All right, the next one I have here is "winged soul flies off at death." Remember what happens when when characters die in a cartoon setting? Why their souls leave their bodies. You can see it happening in exact duplicate because of the wing and usually white and translucent. Sometimes with a halo or harp or a trumpet starts flying up from your collapsed body. How can we make this the main feature of a game?


Julia: Alright, you're a character who just died but there are certain obstacles that you have to avoid in order to fly all the way up to heaven. So it's like you know, you have to roll dexterity saves in order to avoid getting hit by an airplane.


Brandon: Just vertical Flappy Bird. [Laughs]


Eric: Yeah, I was gonna say this feels like a Temple Run. 100%. 


Julia: Yeah. 100%, we found it.


Eric: I wonder if there's like a game, there's like a game mode before you die, which gives you certain power ups or things that you get when your, your ghost comes out. Like you for you to have a harp or you have like if you're a really good person, you have like an angel bonus. So you have all halo that blocks things are so as like a shield or something.


Julia: Like you have to go through the process of like a really extensive skill tree before your character dies, and then you get the skill tree, you start the game, and then you immediately die.


Eric: I love - oh, okay, wait, wait, hold on. Wait. So you play a visual novel first. It's like a computer generated visual novel with like 1000 different questions and situations. And by doing that illustrates who you are as a person and that gives you the bonus. And then you do the Temple Run. 


Julia: Disco Elysium! Yeah, we've, we've recreated Disco Elysium, I see what I did. [Brandon laughs]


Eric: You Disco Elysium for like five minutes and then you die. And then you do Temple Run based off the power-up.


Julia: It's such a like - you spend 20 minutes working on that skill tree and then you're like, Alright, I'm ready to start the game. And then you die immediately. [Eric laughs]


Brandon: So funny.


Eric: It's a roguelike, Julia. You do it over and over again.


Julia: And it's a lot of that setup. It's 20 minutes every time, you can't just restart it. 


Eric: No, absolutely not. I like it's like yeah, oh, by being the worst person possible you get devil, you get devil horns and it's a secret level where you go down, and it's harder and it's in reverse so that your controllers are reversed. 


Julia: Gotta fight like dinosaur fossils. 


Eric: Yeah! you - you fight your way. And then you see, and then you realize that you're just going to the center of the earth because hell doesn't exist. 


Julia: Twist!


Eric:  It's, it's a fucking twist. Okay, I have another one. This one is called "cow tipping." So this is a trope of cow tipping, how people in small towns sneak out at night and try to tip a cow over. But you can't actually tip a cow over because, one, cows don't sleep standing up. Two, cows are very heavy. Three, cows can lie down and stand up whenever they want. And four, if you mess with a cow, a cow might charge you. So there's like, they really emphasize in this trope that cow tipping you can't actually do in real life. It's just something you do - it's just a thing people put into stories.


Brandon: Is that true? Can you not do cow tipping?


Julia: I guess not?


Eric: Brandon I read it on TV tropes.com I don't know what kind of - 


Julia: It must be real, Brandon!


Eric: That *must* be real. 


Brandon: That's so weird.


Julia: I think this is a game where you are playing like a bunch of teenagers driving around your small town and you're trying to find a cow to tip, which is a cow who is asleep standing up, which apparently is not a thing. But really the game is about like opening up to your friends about your feelings and your emotional journey.


Brandon: I love that, sort of like a Kids on Bike, going into the town trying to find something to do because you're teenagers. And, yeah.


Eric: That's fun, it's like, the only thing you're doing is like suggesting stuff to do, but you can't do it for one reason or another. And it's really just it you just end up sharing emotional vulnerability about yourself and whoever shared the most vulnerability about yourself wins. 


Julia: Yeah, yeah.


Brandon: Now can I pitch a completely 180 and make an RPG about like a, like a, like diner bros style, like, you run a restaurant game and you're cows and you're tipping and it's cow tipping? And, yeah, it's that kind of game.


Eric: Yeah. You have a restaurant for cows. 100%. 


Brandon: Yeah, exactly. 


Eric: Yeah, I like it, that's very good.


Julia: You play a cow waitress.


Brandon: It's all milkshakes, actually.


Eric: I - that sounds great. It's like, it's like that old school arcade game Tapper, where you're like, you throw beers for people who need it, but it's just cows giving milkshakes?


Brandon: Exactly.


Eric: That's good. And it's free to play, and you have to pay $10 to get a skin that makes you Deadpool cow. [Brandon and Julia laugh] Like, I want to play both of these honestly.


Julia:  Sound fun. 


Eric: All right, this next one is called "What kind of power is heart, anyway?" This refers to a special ability of someone on the team who's so specialized as to seem useless in most situations. Usually, it's because the ability has no direct combat applications, for example, heart in Captain Planet, or Aquaman in the Justice League. 


Brandon: [Laughing] That's so brutal!


Eric: That - I wish I came up with this!


Julia: There was - okay. This reminds me of a X Men mini series, I think it was by Max Bemis, which was called "X Men: Worst X Men ever." And it was about a guy whose mutant power was he can explode one time then he dies. [Brandon laughs] And so the whole thing is about like, well, when is he going to use his power in order to save people. And so the whole game is about like the impending doom that he knows that he's gonna have to use his power one day. And like, the game is about trying to figure out the exact right moment to use your power.


Brandon: That's so funny. How does he know he has that power?


Julia: I don't, I don't know. I simply do not know.


Eric: He went to Professor X's office. And he's like, I would like, I', told I have the mutant gene, but I don't know what it is. And Professor X is like, all right, I'm going to look in your mind.


Brandon: And Professor X was like, Wolverine watch this prank. You can explode one time!


Julia: One time, one time only.


Eric: Sorry, Bub. You're gonna get blown up by your own, you're, your own accord. I like the idea of Professor X going, "Oh, no."


Julia: "Shit."


Eric: No, that's incredible. Julia, I would play that RPG in a second. 


Brandon: Yeah, that's so fun.


Eric: Whether it was like a text based thing or a visual novel. Or it's like a walking simulator where it's just like, you were, it's more about like you interacting with people and then you have a button to explode. I like the idea that x is to explode. [Brandon laughs]


Julia: Try not to touch it the whole time. Yeah.


Eric: And it's like one of the face buttons. I like that. See that form following function, baby. Yeah, yeah, that's tight as hell I actually love that a lot.


Julia: That's real, like accidentally choosing self destruct while doing a Nuzlocke run in Pokemon. Yeah, like why would you even give your Pokemon that option? Don't do it.


Brandon: I love getting a fucking d&d character sheet that just has no everything's blank, except for one skill - "blow up one time."


Julia: You know, every one of your modifiers is at zero or at a negative for that one where you get to use that one power blow up one time.


Eric: I love that. That reminds me of a different tabletop RPG where it's like you have a lot of other non combat skills that you're very good at. But like you don't have any combat skills other than like explode. That seems very fun. I, the final trope I have here is "enemy without" when someone's inner darkness doesn't quite take over someone, but it does escape their body and rampage. You remember those episodes of television, often symbolically representing repression, or their hero's refusal to acknowledge the darkness within themselves, victory is achieved half the time via reintegrating with it the other half of the time it can be seen as representing some kind of inner demon and thus it must be abandoned purge are confronted and conquered. As you can tell Wikipedia people wrote these, wrote these entries.


Julia: This is just a tabletop RPG of the venom sequel where it's like, my roommate is also my inner demon.


Brandon: I think it'd be there's a fun thing in there of like times gameplay of like, you have like, in real time, 20 minutes and every 20 minutes, then the DM like rolls and like destroy something in the world and you have those 20 minutes to like solve the problem or like, block your inner demon from hurting someone or whatever it is, but like, every 20 minutes, something happens.


Julia: And you're just trying to go about your day.


Eric: Yeah, I wonder if there's something of also like, assigning if you're playing with a group of players assigning whose inner demons it is, like them was like, Are you going to spend the time trying to cover it up? And you dealing with it by yourself? Are you going to ask your friends? Even if it's vulnerable? I think there's definitely something there.


Brandon: Yeah. And obviously, you have like a bigger mission. So it's like a push and pull of like, yeah, do you save the city? Or do you stop the inner demon from breaking the bridge or


Eric: Whatever, you know? Yeah. I wonder also if there's like different victory conditions, or like there's different consequences if you quote unquote, reintegrate with your inner demons, or you just kill it. And I wonder if this needs to be campaigned, right? is like, I would want to play this a bunch of times, for the effect that it has on your character going forward, is like, Well, did you purge your inner demons and now you're like a zealot, or like a paladin who like doesn't see things in black and white anymore? Like there has to be effects for whoever dealt with this recently. And if they decided to reintegrate with it, or they destroyed it, like...


Julia: That season of Buffy, where she comes back from the dead, and everyone's like, Oh, poor Buffy. She's traumatized because she went to hell, but no, she was in heaven now Earth just sucks.


Eric: Julia that's exactly what I got you man.


Julia: I'm here. Oh, yeah.


Eric: All right. Those are all the those are all the tropes that I have.


Brandon: Oh, Eric, I had one one more trope. Real quickly. I just want, I, this is a game I call "Can you guess what Julia's trope on TVtropes.org/joinTheparty is for her character Val?" 


Julia: Oh!


Eric: Yeah, I was Brandon. I was literally thinking about this earlier of like, should I go in by saying all of the tropes that we are. I was literally gonna say it's probably one that's like, that's a spicy meatball. 


Brandon: Oh, it's better, baby.


Eric: Oh, it's better than that. Because they always have like quippy names, so I don't, I don't remember what, I don't know what it would be called. Julia. Do you have a guess?


Julia: "Man that Italian's pissed?"


Brandon: Well, there's two of them. My favorite is "rambunctious Italian."


Eric: Yeah! We nailed it! 


Brandon: And then also "Brooklyn rage."


Julia: "Brooklyn rage" is the name of my punk band. So that makes sense.


Eric: I like that a lot, aren't we? Hey, hey, we shared our games. We gave advice and we played a game. I think we're done with Games and Feelings.


Julia: Whoa, we did it. We did it. proud of us.


Eric: Hey, thank you to both of you who came on and hung out with me. Yeah, that was nice.


Julia: Hey, Hey, bud. Thanks for having us.


Brandon: Thanks for having us. 


Eric: No problem. I now, I can give you your shoes back because you wouldn't promise me that you wouldn't take your shoes off.


Julia: You also took my photo ID and my passport. So that I wouldn't leave. 


Eric: Well, yeah, that's because I wanted to scan it so I can make memes of it later.


Brandon: Do we get our deposits back? Or is that just lost?


Eric: No, you don't but you do get to redeem that for a sticky hand and for plugs! Where can people find you on the internet? 


Brandon: Oh, fun.


Eric: Oh, people will find me on the internet. I don't like it's great.


Brandon: I see my plug time just say go vote. 


Eric: Yay!


Brandon: If you're in the US.


Julia:  Absolutely go vote. And also you can find me on Twitter as my name.


Eric: Julia, you can still plug even if Brandon ceded time. 


Julia: Twitter is my name. My Instagram is Jules Verne Rose, like the author and also the flower and go listen to my shows like Spirits and Join the Party. 


Eric: Sounds good. I like those shows. You can check me out at el_silvero on Twitter - 


Brandon: Which is your name if you were a lucha libre wrestler. 


Eric: Yes, that's my name I was a lucha libra wrestler. So thank you, 


Julia: Got em, scooped em!


Eric: And the show at GamesNFeelings, that's an N the middle like Linens N Things because I couldn't do longer and Elon Musk is just going to make things worse, so I can't change it. The best way to submit questions is to go to our website gamesandfeelings.com/questions, some of the questions I read were very contemporary. I am checking the questions I promise or, and you can support the show at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings where you can listen to The Replay where Amanda and I who are now married so we are legally allowed to give snotty advice as much as possible, especially about relationships. Amanda and I answer the games questions that have come from the advice columnists of yore and we get better answers because we know things about games and Dear Abby didn't know shit about Ultima Online. 


Julia: Yo, fuck Dear Abby.


Eric: You can find all the links that I just said and more in the episode description. Thank you again Julia. Thank you again, Brandon. And remember the instruction manual doesn't have anything about feelings. Press X to explode X.


Brandon:  X x x x x x x x x x x x. 


Julia: *Makes explosion noises*


Brandon: This was the moment! This was the moment! 

 

[End credit song]


Eric:   Games and Feelings is produced by Eric Silver, and edited and mixed by Misha Stanton. The theme music is "Return to French Toast Castle by Jeff Brice" and the art was created by Jessica Boyd. Find transcripts for this episode, and all episodes at our website, gamesandfeelings.com. Until next time, press X to enjoy the podcast.

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