Screw it. I'm doing it. Hey, guys, are you familiar with a little known actress known as Jennifer Love Hewitt?
Sure am.
Yeah.
Well, she's part of the. I think I know what you did last summer days or whatever. Well, this episode might have something to do with a little side gig that she had for a little while. You guys aware what that could possibly be?
I haven't heard.
Hidden gems today on. All right, guys. Welcome in, everybody. My name is Chardmonk. I will be hosting this wonderful episode of press b to cancel. And, of course, I am not alone. No, I am not. I have my dearest friends, sinistar and werewolf. Gentlemen, how are you doing this fine Friday evening?
Double plus good.
Fantastic.
Tis the double plus good.
We got eggnogs, we got shining gems in the background. We got some goodies. We got some goodies and something that rhymes with goodies. I was thrown into the host seat quicker than I thought tonight, so I am completely unprepared. But you know what? I am not unprepared for a discussion about some of the second editions of hidden gems that we have amongst the three of us. I know we did some deep diving to really find some battle worn and earth tested and stashed away gems that are out there in this world. Some great hidden gems we talked about in the past would be none other than the most secret of them all, Final Fantasy tactics that no one has heard of ever.
What's this game final?
I hear it's a series of games with some tactical. I don't know. I've never played it. I couldn't tell you.
Final Sci-Fi tactics.
Psy tactics fi. We love you, GP. Don't worry. We got some good ones for you today.
Strategy, you say?
Yes. The three of us have come up with. We scoured. We did scour, because I was thinking of, like, three hidden gems myself that we were digging around for, and I played them and went, yeah, these are neither a gem nor very hidden. So I shelved them, and upon some further reviewing of my steam library, I went, hey, I think I found one. Gentlemen, do you have as much of a hard time as I did hunting down some of these hidden gems?
I would say I probably didn't.
Yeah, I think out of everybody in the group, you wouldn't.
Well. And I would say, oh, go ahead.
I play a lot of under the radar games as is, I think.
Well, I took a little bit of a different tact, so I actually had a hard time because I specifically wanted to find a hidden gem that I hadn't played.
See, that's good. I was going through the library and I was like, man, I play so much shit that everybody plays. I don't have a lot of secret stuff or obscurities that I either, a, didn't, haven't already talked about in previous episode, or b, Wolf hasn't played 100 times over. So even the one I picked, I was like, I know Wolf has heard of this one. I'm certainly he has, because I think you and I talked about it in the past, but we might as well dive in because we've been very good about not going 2 hours long in our last couple of episodes, and I think we should keep that montage going.
Especially since I have a feeling next week is going to go a little ways.
Yeah, we'll have the Christmas edition next week. That's two hour special, probably kiss saves, press b to cancel.
I'll have to find the 1980s television, like the Rainbow special thing that comes up. Have that one special.
Yeah, it's the Christmas special. All right, guys, so let's go ahead. I'm going to go ahead and go last since I am the host of the episode this time and I can make those kinds of decisions. Who would like to go first within this wonderful tunnel of hidden gems we got here?
There we go. Sinistar has volunteered as tribute.
Volunteered as tribute. So I found a game that was never released in the now, you know, in the world of Roms, it's not hard to find, but it was released in the EU and it was released in Japan. Funny enough, the game takes place in do like you do. So part of the reason I kind of found it is it takes place on Christmas or Christmas Eve. I don't remember which, but it takes place on Christmas or Christmas Eve. And it has a little bit of a similarity to a couple of movies. What was that? Towering Inferno. So a little bit of towering Inferno, but also a little bit of plaza.
Oh, there you go.
Yeah, no backdraft.
Well, there are backdrafts in the game.
I was going to say is this jingle all the way the VR mod?
Well, what's really funny is, if I remember right, backdraft, they kind of anthropomorphize fire a little bit. And this the fire kind of anthropomorphize. I'm talking about a super Nintendo game called the Firemen. And I'm going to pull up, so I'm doing technical hosting. So I'm going to be a little bit slow on the uptake here for just a second.
Mildly hindered.
Yeah, but give me just a second.
I'm going to laugh if this is the game. I think it is, because I have seen this game.
Okay.
Basically, for those listening and not watching, sinister is bringing up footage.
Yeah.
Yes.
So I wanted to start out because I actually laughed pretty hard. So the game starts and it has a story to it. You play firemen and the story, I'm pulling up the manual right now. So basically it says the year is 2010. Civilization has progressed little in the last 20 years, so it's accurate. It's winter in New York. The annual Christmas party at the Metro tech chemical company building is underway. So here's your Nakatobi plaza. Right. The time is 06:00 p.m.. A small fire began in the kitchen, which had been left unattended. Flames, fueled by abundant chemicals, spread rapidly. One of my favorite bits is it tells you that you're going to go in, you're going to find this chemical called. What is it? I think they call it MDF, which of course, to me is medium density fiber. But anyway.
But you're supposed to go collect it to everyone.
Yeah, you're supposed to collect it, take it to the roof and blow it up so that it releases the water tower. And what's really funny is this also happens in the game. So it tells you this at the beginning in the story. And then there's a point where they call on the architect of the building, and he's like, well, you don't have access to the water, but there's water on the roof. So if you can get that release. And they're like, but the MDF is. So it's funny that they tell you this, and then they're like, but it's dangerous. I don't know that we want to do it. So the exposition gets a little weird, but the gameplay and the audio or the soundtrack are bangers. This game, I played it for about an hour, and the controls are fantastic. It has that just super Nintendo level jank dialogue, like, do a barrel roll. But imagine that in the firemen. And let me move forward a little bit in this video so that you can see it.
This reminds me of the first episode of the Fall of Usher.
Yeah. So basically, I fast forwarded a little bit because I'm going to show the first area. This is the first area boss. So every single area that you go into has a boss. And what's entertaining is they keep it fresh even though it's just like you're fighting fires. And the manual goes over. Like, you have a team of four. What I love is it talks about you, it talks about your second in command, and then it's like, oh, and there's also these three names. The exposition is great, but the gameplay is absolutely stellar and it does keep it fresh. There are control robots in the chemical factory that the fire makes them freak out and you have to rescue people that are in the fire. And all of this stuff. MDL. Sorry, it's MDL, not MDF. Okay, so it's medium density librar.
Yes. Science.
Yeah. Anyway, I played it for about an hour and it is a blast. You have a couple of states. You have a long range water cannon, but it doesn't actually hit the ground in front of you. And so if there's little bits of fire, you have a ground aiming one. You can actually signal your cohort to launch a fire suppression bomb, which, however, that works cool. And it's just great. You take damage, all of that stuff.
It appears to me it looks a lot like the Jurassic park version on the Super Nintendo. I wouldn't say top down. It's like angled top down kind of feel. And it's got the same kind of map style. I really like the use of Fire as an enemy as opposed to just like a natural event. I have seen this stream before on Twitch some time ago and was interested in playing that. So I'm pretty happy to see this make a resurface on our own show because this is actually something I would not mind giving a shot at some point and seeing if there might even be some retro achievements for it. I think that'd be pretty cool.
Yeah. And honestly, watching the. Because I played it for about an hour and of course my first play, I didn't make it terribly far. I made it through a couple of levels, but the long plays that you see online take about an hour and change. So it's not a super long game, obviously, your first play, and if you're doing retro achievements, I'm sure it would be 17 hours, two weeks, three weeks. Yeah.
It's funny you mentioned this, and the only reason I've heard of this is because I saw a streamer play it on Twitch a few years ago and just as much now as it's. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of a Saturn game called burning Rangers. No, but it very much reminds me of burning Rangers. But it came before burning Rangers. Right, because Super Nintendo game that was Saturn. But burning Rangers is very stylized, high octane firefighting. Right. With badass.
It'S.
It's got some things in common with that, and that's actually one of the reasons I want to play this game. I love how muppety the characters look in.
Yeah, they definitely look like they're like a Jim Hansen mutation of some kind.
And the dialogue is so good because it's just so, you know, I don't know how are we know, it's too dangerous. Don't go. And then, of course, you do go. Right? We've sent up a ladder, so you have to go break out a window and blah, blah. It's great. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that you can also duck and go under some flames.
Yeah, that's pretty wild. That there's the crawling mechanic. Wow.
This game is a lot deeper than what surfaces would say. You know what I mean? You're not just a guy firing, fired, fighting fires with your crew. There seems to be a lot of cool mechanics to it. You were saying how good it felt and how it didn't feel, like, too janky, and it was real smooth. And again, the people that I've seen or the person that I've seen play it also said very similar things about, like, it's not broken, it's not too difficult, but it just feels good. It's an interesting thing because firefighting is such a common career choice for a lot of people, and you don't see a lot of games that are out there that are like that. And I don't know if it's the stipulation of being a firefighter or what. And I'm surprised this didn't get to the United States. This just seems so.
Especially taking place in New York.
Right?
Yeah.
We were going to be offended about 2010. I don't know, but they came over.
Here to film this. Why didn't they just release?
Yeah, I think it's funny that your buddy was just whacking that fire out with his hatchet.
Yeah.
Because that's how that works.
That's how hatchets go.
You know what this also kind of reminds me of is zombies ate my neighbors.
It also reminds me of? Is it alien syndrome?
Yeah, alien syndrome. I can see that.
Yeah. So. Although, honestly, I felt like I love alien syndrome. I think it's a great game, but the controls in this felt better, honestly.
Right?
Oh, I'm sure.
Yeah, no, this looks cool. I'll have to go and find a playable version of this somewhere because I think this would be a pretty fun, pretty fun little route.
I had completely forgotten about this game, honestly.
Yeah.
This is something I'm going to have to get my hands on and play.
And I think once you get the mechanics down and you feel comfortable with it, I think, honestly, like I said, I don't think it's a long game. I think it's doable in an hour and change. Right? So watch on the screen. This is the other cool thing. There's a bridge over you, and they do this, like, circle to cut out so you can see.
Oh, nice. Yeah, I like that. Honestly, I think Soul Blazer had an effect like that at certain points, and that's one of the things I loved about that when I played through it for the first time.
I feel like this was used quite a bit at the beginning of the Super Nintendo life frame, but it wasn't used. But it didn't seem like they used it very often after. Maybe I'm just not playing the right games in it, but it just felt like that was something kind of neat. Like, the mode seven was a great addition, and that was something else that they were using, but you didn't see it a whole lot after so long. So I don't know.
Anyway, as I said, I went and specifically tried to find a hidden gem that I hadn't played, and I found a banger. And the soundtrack. Soundtrack is so good. I mean, it's a Super Nintendo era.
And it's not hard not to have a banger.
And it's not Super Mario RPG with four bars of music.
I want to throw this out there. Apparently, this is the same company that. The same development studio that did Kabuki Quantum fighter monster party. Yeah, there was another one I saw in here. I lost it. But that's pretty interesting because Kabuki Quantum fighter is also kind of out there, but also really cool.
Yeah, Kabuki Quantum fighter is really great. I was hoping they'd make, like, a couple more versions of that specific game. I'm not huge on platformers, but I'll tell you what, that was a classic one when I was a kid.
That's awesome.
Good choice. I like this one. This is a great one.
Yeah, that's a good pick. Yeah. It's not a complex game, which I also like as well, because part of the struggle I think some of us have had with our sisyphian games is all the time it takes to get into them and beat them.
I think GP's got it right because he plays all the games that he knows how to just destroy. And we're over here going like, I want to play something that takes me 28 hours.
But honestly, I don't know how true that is because that guy speedruns silver Surfer. That guy plays metal, whatever it is. He plays the hardest. Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles. Like, that guy plays the hardest games. And just so.
Yeah, he's not the only one with a badge from just.
That's fair. That's fair. We're calling you out, Jake.
Looks like it's going to stay two.
So I do have a second one. I'm going to do my second one, and then somebody else can go. So my second game is a little known game called Chrono Trigger.
Hell yeah.
All right, moving on, moving on.
Never heard of it. I definitely haven't owned it on three different consoles.
Tell me more. Yeah, three different versions.
All right.
Definitely don't have the badge for that one either. All right, so firefighters and time travelers. I love it. Good choices. Good choices there. Strong entry to the secondary hidden gems episode. Wolf, how do you feel about coming in after that showing?
I feel like sinisters is probably a little more hidden than mine, but I still think mine is pretty well hidden. This is a game that came out early this year, so I'm bringing it up to 2023 here. So we're skipping ahead about 30 years.
Well, remember, mine takes place in 2020.
Was it 2010?
No, you're right.
Yeah, bro. Come on. Come on. Yeah. Math is hard with eggnog. Yeah. Speaking of time travelers.
So the game I'm picking is ship of fools.
Don't know anything about this. Good call.
You'll be totally flabbergasted by the fact that this is a rogue light. You never play rogue lights.
Surprise.
Not a single one.
It's actually two players, though. It's kind of designed for two players. So single player feels a lot more chaotic than two player, weirdly enough, because two player is pretty damn chaotic. So I have footage here that I recorded today of single player, and basically, you're finding your way from the starting island with the lighthouse, finding your way across the ocean to fight back the darkness that's encroaching on the lighthouse. And so every time you lose, your ship sinks, you wash ashore back on the island, and your ship finds its way back so that you go on the ship again. Right? You go out again. And so that's how it's randomized every time. And it's called ship of fools because all the player characters are just total dumb dumbs. They get hit with this wall of text from the other npcs who are, like, telling you in great detail about what's going on and your guy's like, okay, or just dot, dot, dot. They have very little to say, or they'll pick up on the smallest detail that doesn't matter and try to ask questions about that instead of getting involved in what's really important. So it's kind of funny in that regard, but it's this wild game where you're just trying to defend your ship as you sail across the sea. So you've got monsters coming from both sides, and you've got two cannons at your disposal, and you can whack things with your paddle if they land on your ship. So you're going back and forth between your cannons, shooting things up, shooting things down, trying to prevent damage to your ship. And if anything lands, you're just beating them with your paddle, trying to destroy them. And sometimes they shoot projectiles that you can actually pinball, like ping pong back at the enemies.
There is a horrifying thing on the screen right now, that giant fly with all the eyes, little flies, and testicles that are hanging way too low.
Unless that's its sucker.
I think those are eggs. Those are supposed to be eggs because.
It lays, like, wavos. Is the term.
Fair?
Well, fair. Jesus.
No, I love the art style. The art style is fantastic.
Oh, yeah. It's super charming looking. This is actually not what the base ship looks like. I think this is because my budy and I had done everything in the game at the time. The base ship only had, like, three or four slots, maybe five slots to put things. By the time we were done, it started with three. And you see here, I've got six slots to just have things that upgrade my ship, or I can store items to move from region to region.
I was going to. Is the ship upgradable as you go through?
Yeah. So you get new types of ammo. You get things that buff your characters or buff aspects of the cannons or defense of the ship or whatever. And then you kind of have to pick and choose what you want to keep. And then you can also hold on to planks that are used for repairing. So you get single planks or triple planks up at the top left, you'll see all those little diamonds that represent the health bar. You can even get shields that go beyond the health bar. And so if you get hit, you just lose a shield instead of taking the damage.
It's like a thieves, but a rogue light.
Yeah, a little bit. And it's just madness. You can accidentally hit your friend if you're playing two player. I can't tell you the amount of times that my friend and I were just trying not to die, and he generally mans the cannons, and I'm generally the one keeping the deck safe, and he'll be shooting at the boss, and all of a sudden, I'm over there trying to whack everything around him. He's just getting knocked silly off the cannon. He's like, why can't I fire? I'm like, hold on, I'm beating you up. Chill for a second.
Chill. Trying to kill you.
You said, boss, I'm going to see if I can find a. I think maybe there's a spider.
Yeah, it's a crab.
Oh, okay, that's better.
It looks better. Well, actually, that is kind of a spider thing.
No, I was thinking of the crab thing.
Yeah. After each region. So there's technically four regions, but there's three regions you actually have to sail across. And then the fourth region is just instantly the final boss. At least that's how it used to be. I'm speaking from my experience at the end of April, so they've added a few patches since then with extra content that my budy and I just haven't gone back to yet.
It looks like the darkness can spread. Can it?
Like, yes. So you've got the full map at your disposal when you first start sailing. And you kind of have to pick and choose where you want to go to try and get the goodies. Like, it shows you what kind of item you'll get if you land on that space. Right, right. And so you have to sail your way to those spaces. But as you progress, the base number is three turns that can be altered. So every three movements, the darkness, or the storm, as they call it, will encroach. And so it'll encroach in a kind of random pattern, so you don't know if you might lose access to what you are headed to or not.
Oh, wow. That's cool.
As soon as you hit the storm, that's the boss. And this is a good example. The first boss here, it's got a bunch of tentacles swimming around your ship that you have to prevent from whacking your ship. So if you don't hit them fast enough, they'll come down and try to hit your ship. And once they're doing that, you have to paddle them away from your ship.
Oh, wow.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
And then get back to it. You'll see. In my gameplay right here, I've got two cannons, but one of them is auto cannon. So it makes the things a little easier. I think that's more for single player than multiplayer, but I generally have an auto cannon anyway because I'm trying to keep the deck safe. And my budy's on his double cannon. There's a lot of different ways to play this.
It just became an Arrakis worm.
Yeah. So it comes up and it's like a seabound sarlacc pit that you just beat the crap out of it. And if you're having a good run, the first time you see that thing come up out, you will kill it.
Oh, really?
If you're not having a good run, you'll take at least two, maybe three. I think our first time killing it was five or six that it came out of the ocean, so it was ridiculous.
Wow, this does look very chaotic, but in a fun way.
Oh, yeah. You just see all these things flying at the ship there. It's like, oh, my God. If you reflect them back at the enemy, they take damage. If you don't, you got to kill all these little slugs that have landed on your deck.
Right.
That's crazy.
This is definitely a fun one.
I was going through today, and I saw streets of rogue was a very decent price today because of your description of it last time I decided to scoop that up. And this is not faring well for me either.
This is the problem with episodes is.
We'Re like, I'm going to go buy, go find them.
I would like to also elaborate the online multiplayer, because that's how I've only played. The Multiplayer is really smooth.
Oh, good.
It had a couple of bugs when it first launched. Those got fixed, so it stopped leaving. And the bugs were never anything game breaking. But sometimes you'd just see an enemy still hovering up in the corner that you had killed a long time ago. If you were second player, not the one hosting, but the one joining, you'd see that from time to time and be like, okay, I have to deal with this crap now. I got to remember that's not there, but they fix that.
Okay.
But it's also intended for couch co op, so you could just play two players on the same screen.
Nice.
So it's a lot of fun.
It's got a lot of little middle miss fortune or something in there, like that kind of artwork throughout the game. Cool. I get that kind of feel for it, so I dig it.
Nice.
I'd sail that ship. I'd float on that barge.
That's right.
That's for damn sure.
This is one I'm eagerly awaiting getting back to with my buddy. Once we can.
Nice.
That's cool. And you said it's two player co op.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's kind of designed with two player in mind. Single player is possible. I actually wasn't having too much trouble. I beat the second boss in this run I did today and I haven't played in eight.
Wow. Well, you do happen to have some hidden talents for these wonderfully hidden gems here, Mr. Wolf. So it doesn't surprise will be this is going on the wish list. I think this is pretty cool.
Watching a gameplay, it's kind of mesmerizing to just look at with the charming art style that it has and all the things constantly happening. Trying to keep track of all that when you're playing is just madness. You see all those damage on my ship right now. I'm missing like seven planks.
Yeah. It kind of reminds me the art style. Yeah, a little misfortune, but I think probably more for me. Don't starve.
Yeah, I guess a little bit of don't starve too. Not in the characters, but in the background art.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Like those waves definitely have that feel to it in the background.
So yeah, it's like little misfortune. Character designs and then don't starve set design, right?
Yeah. This looks like a banger.
I'm into it.
This looks like a banger.
I dig it. Definitely into it. Definitely. We'll check this one out when we're done.
All right, awesome.
Good call, wolf. I like it. I like it. Keep bringing these rogues to me, man. These are too good. They just keep getting better. I'm like, oh, fucking gunjin. And you're like, no, man, I got the good shit here. Perfect. All right.
Like we were talking about. And I'm going to get a little behind the scenes for the audience here. But we were talking about doing this and I was like, my perspective on this is a little skewed because I get fed articles about these little, like I learned about ship of fools just before it came out because an article was pushed at me for it on my phone. And I mean, this is still, it's only got like 2500 reviews on Steam or something, which is not a ton. So this is definitely, I knew about it before it was released and I was ready to jump on it with my budy du. And you guys had never heard of it.
Yeah. When you said ship of fools, I said that's a song by erasure.
And judging by my steam library, I live in a box. So a box that's well promoted apparently. Well, I dig it. I'm all about it. This is great. So I guess that means I'm going to have to dive into mine, my hidden gem. I had thought hogging hard about it and I really wanted to kind of dive into a little hidden gem that not many people have heard about. It was pretty popular a couple of years back amongst the underground crew, but it didn't really make its way to the big headlines. So let's go ahead and let's dive into mine. Mine is Elden ring. Elden Ring is a little known from Softgame. No, I'm just fucking with you guys. That's not true at all. No, I actually have a good one. Many moons ago I was at the EMP museum here in Seattle. In Seattle, in this EMP museum, there was a video game. What is it called? Exhibit. That's what I'm thinking. Exhibit. Not the hip hop artist. No, an actual exhibit of video games. And within this video game exhibit, there was this little game that was sitting off to the corner called Pony Island. I came up to it, I started messing with it and I was like, this game looks dumb as hell and it's hard and I don't know what's going on. Little did I know that upon playing Pony island, my first roundabout into this game on how freaking deep and dark and twisted this game actually began. So as it begins, you are basically playing a side scrolling jumping pony game where your goal is just to jump over fences as a pony and then it stops and it just keeps perpetuating, it keeps going and eventually the system begins to speak to you and little glitches start to show up and just weird looking stuff was popping up. And if you click on it, it'll open up coding in the game or like flowcharts, like a flow map on how a code is written and you can mess with it and you can move around icons that allow the code to continue its progression instead of starting over at the end. And when you start doing that, you start unlocking things in this game and the computer starts to yell at you saying you're breaking everything, stop doing this. And eventually to continue playing, the game asks you to give you its soul. And to continue playing, you have to give the game its soul. And when you say no, because there's a section where you're typing on an Im messenger to something or someone and it responds to you with almost whatever you type. But it's kind of like when you go to a fortune teller and she reads your fortune almost perfectly. But it's super subjective because it's really vague. But it's so close to what you're trying to tell it that it almost sounds like it's meant for you. That's how this game feels like. You'll type in any sentence, but it still means the same thing and it responds to you almost the exact same way. And you could give it your name, it'll start calling you by whatever name you type in. So, obviously I put Chard in there and it kept calling me by my name. Chard. Well, the person talking to you, his name is written in elite writing with the sevens and the ads and stuff. It's Lucifer. It's Lucifer talking to you. And then there's this guy called hopeless lost soul that's talking to you about being trapped in this game. And to not get you trapped in this game, he's trying to help you out. So he starts opening up these portals in the game so that you can bounce around those little. You'll see a little squiggly section, like a little block of whatevers. You click on that and it'll open up like this flow map of how the code works. And you could play all these things and screw it up. And as you continue to do this, the game gets more mad at you and keeps trying to mess with you just to get you trapped in this game. And you're fighting your way to not get sucked into the game. And there's a point where you're actually fighting the Azazel security program. And as you're putting the flow map together to stop it, to unlock whatever you're trying to unlock, to crash the game, or whatever code is written at the end, it is moving stuff around for you. And there's actually me playing it. If you fast forward a little bit more, you'll see me trying to fight, quote unquote, azazel as he's putting my code in the wrong order and then locking it in. So you have to start all over again. And it's super dark and it's really twisted in a game that's called Pony island, that's hot yellow and pinks and purples when you start it up, and then you see all these evil looking ponies and you get, like, a pony laser later because it gets you stuck on something and you have to hack it to get through it. It's incredible. And there's a game called welcome to the game, which apparently this takes a lot. I don't know if it takes from or has given to, but it's essentially the same kind of thing where it's a hacking game where you're trying to hack your way out before something captures you or kills you. But it's so basic when you're watching it or playing it at the first thought, you don't think about it until it just sucks you in. And when we started the podcast today, and sinister was like, hey, come and hang out. And I popped in, he goes, what are you doing? I'm all, I'm addicted to this game again.
I can't stop playing it.
So it's a really cool, very deep story puzzle game that is super entertaining. And I don't think it takes a long time to beat if you're better at it. I was kind of trash. So you see, this is a section here where you got the devil heads floating around and he's saying, now try and beat this game. Now you can't get past it. Now you're stuck here. You go in and you hack the game through the code, and you give your pony lasers to shoot out of its mouth to kill all those devil's heads so you can progress to the next set. It's stupid shit like that. Like the code is breaking while you're trying to click on the different things. And as you see, things will light up and you'll see where it says advanced options in the background here. You could click on the advanced options and put it. And it unlocks a whole new set of things you can do, but you don't notice it. There's no handholding in this game. You're just lost. And really it comes down to just clicking on shit until you're like, oh, I'm in. That's how I figured it out.
Pretty spectacularly cool.
It's a really cool concept.
I honestly feel like this is like a 2d pony side scrolling version of Dokie Doki literature club, pretty much.
I've not played a lot of Dokie Doki, but I know that it starts out very cute and innocent and then turns just fucking dark at the end. I wouldn't say like this game is that dark, but in a religious sense, super dark, super evil.
Actually.
When I first started playing, it stressed me out a little bit because I was like, am I really getting sucked in this game? Is this really happening to me? Being a non religious person whatsoever? I'm like, I'm a little worried about what's going on with this thing. It's kind of spooking me out.
Yeah, I just saw the option that said, allow to die on earth.
Yeah. Free will.
Free will.
And you can't click it. Won't let you click it. So it's great. I think. Wolf, has you played this one before, if I'm not mistaken.
I have. I played it many years ago, so I didn't remember everything about it. I did remember that. It just kind of got really weird that it started off being super cutesy and it got bizarre, and that's all I really remembered. But I know this is the same guy who did inscription last year, and inscription does some similar things to that throughout the game. It's got that same sort of dark what the hell is going on? Feeling to it, where it starts off feeling like a slay. The spire. Rogue light. And it kind of turns that on its head at a point.
So, basically, this guy, we actually can confirm that this guy is Satan brought back to Earth, essentially.
Essentially. I love the buffamet, too. Like, the digitized buffamet in the background. The eight bit buffer met, and it's actually a code. You use that to try and unlock something else that you're locked out of by typing in that code. And there's little hints throughout the game. You'll see, like, old prototype options is written super small in the coding, and you have to be really useless options up at the top of the screen. You have to look all over just to see even the slightest thing that's out of order or out of weirdness to figure this whole thing out. Really makes you think about it. It's cool. And then you try and get the pony laser, and it says, cheater. I won't let you win. Moving the screen so you can't click it, so you hack it to get the screen bigger. So you click on the goddamn button. And when you beat it with the lasers, it calls you a cheater. It says, that's not fair. You can't cheat that way. And then it locks you out of a bunch of other shit, and you have to hack your way back into it. Honestly, with Sinistar's profession, I thought maybe this would be something he would be mildly interested. It's super rudimentary, so it's not like you have to be even close to the intelligence level that you are to do what you do. But I think you would appreciate seeing the coding and the zeros and ones and how the flowchart works. And you probably get through it a lot quicker because you're like, oh, yeah, that goes there. That goes there, goes there. To make it do what it's supposed to do without breaking the code. So it's pretty neat. But once you get to the. I only got as far as the Azazel thing today, but basically you free yourself once you complete all the tasks and you break the game and you crash it, I think you end up actually destroying. The computer blows up after you're done totally crashing and breaking the game. And it's a really interesting game, I think, right there where you had it. Right there. There's the Azazel exe. I had a pause because I was talking to my mom real quick.
Got you.
So you got to break these locks on the four corners here, and you'll click on it, and you'll basically break the coding that he has. And this little finger thing that's next to his face, it moves and grabs shit from you. Like, it won't let you move things where you want it. And it puts stuff in its place. So you have to be faster than it to put the stuff where it needs to be. And eventually it just totally breaks everything while you're playing it. It shakes the whole screen when it's typing to you to tell you that you can't beat. It's the best security system in all of hell or whatever. It's just really well done, super creative, really smart game, and really good. So I would highly recommend this hidden gem to literally anybody. I think anybody would have a good time with this one.
That looks a lot of fun. I don't think I finished it. I got to go back and finish this. It doesn't look like it's a super long game.
No, I can't remember. I think it took me, like a day or two, but I played it for, like, a couple of hours each day I played it. I remember I got it for my birthday with this in alien isolation. And that was like a twofer for my birthday that year. So would recommend everybody give this one a shot and just give it a try and see what you think and give it a whirl. And I think you would really appreciate it. It's a lot more of a puzzle game than one might think starting out, because you're playing it and you're like, I'm a fucking pony, dude. What the hell is this going on?
Yeah, it starts off very endless runner and then turns into something very different from that.
Very different. It really twisted on its head here. So would recommend this? Anybody? So this is my hidden gem that I'm bringing for this year, and I'm proud to actually have one because the ones that I picked earlier today I was like, these are garbage. Think these were going to be very good. Check out Pony island, guys. Pony island is a highly recommended game.
Sounds like three bangers to check.
Absolutely.
And I think Pony island is free, isn't it?
No, it's like $4. It's not even that expensive. Yeah, I looked at it today and I was like, people should go and pick this thing up. I think it's like $5 on Steam right now. It's still fairly inexpensive. When I picked it up, I think that was a couple of years back that I picked it up and it was only $5 then, too. So it's never broken the bank on me. I think it's definitely worth ten for the entertainment value that I got out of it. It's really good.
That's awesome.
No, it's not. Elden ring, guys, but it's still pretty good.
Fantastic.
Great recommendation there.
Yeah.
Short and sweet, guys. Short and sweet. I like it.
Yeah, we're coming up here. We're at 45 minutes. I think that's a good length, especially since I hinted at this at the beginning. If you weren't around, I have a feeling next week's episode is going to be a little long.
There's going to be yelling. It is a Christmas gift, but it's something that we as a team have been sitting on for quite a while and we were just waiting for one domino to fall and it finally has gotten to the point to where it is teetering. It is teetering right now. And as soon as that thing hits the rest of it, you're going to get a press b to cancel Christmas.
Miracle that you might say is timeless.
It is timeless.
Yeah.
It's going to be freaking amazing. And I am so excited to finally be able to be part of this discussion coming up here in the near future. It's something very dear, near and dear to my heart and can't wait to have that discussion with all you guys. Jake says, jake, how wrong he is.
Yelling because you all olay it wrong. Look, I use oil of Olay just fine.
I have ashy elbows. Leave me alone. Yeah, but no, it's going to be good. It's going to be a good time and Jake's going to be called out and we're all going to say how wrong he is and he's going to get mad at us again. So it's going to be Circus Charlie all over again. Fight.
That's actually what the episode is. Next week we're talking circus Charlie legitimately.
Circus Charlie. That's all we were waiting on. We were waiting for the domino to fall just so we could talk about Circus Charlie. Or the bar. The bar to lower. I think that's more like. Right?
No, it is not. Circus Charlie. Please come back. Please come back. We know that if it was actually Circus Charlie, you'd leave.
I'm actually watching the subs drop. Come back, please. The numbers look good. No, you'll enjoy next week's. I think you guys are going to really like it because I know a lot of you are big fans of the discussion that we will be having and you'll be able to chime in with your own opinions about how wrong Jake is. And I actually know there's a few people out there that will support. And, you know, even a broken clock is right twice a day, so things happen. All right, guys, well, short, sweet. Is there anything else that we would like to add to this wonderful episode? Guys, first of all, I'd like to thank both of you for taking time out of your evenings to come and sit down and have this discussion with me and the rest of the viewers and the crew, Jake and GP, we know you're busy, but wish you guys very well, and we look forward to having GP back here in a couple more days, I think a couple more weeks. So that's going to be awesome. We'll have the five Amigos back in one screen. We're super, super excited about it. We've got bring the cage back, the six amigos.
He hasn't made an appearance in a while.
No, he hasn't. He hasn't. What a better time. What, not a better time than the hidden Gems episode?
No, we actually. We actually have kind of a lot of great episodes lined up between now and kind of the beginning of the year. Yeah. So stick around with us. Tell your friends. Subscribe. Like, ring that bell. So, you know, when we go live, we're streaming on Twitch simultaneously. Go give us a follow on Twitch.
Yeah, they both look great, by the way. I have both of the screens up and we haven't had a single issue during the dual screen, so GG's on that. Thank you. Thank you, everybody who has followed us in the last couple of months and episodes, we've had, we've had a huge uptick in subscribers and viewers. So thank you for all the new friends and faces and listeners on the podcast through Spotify and Apple Music and Google and all that stuff that's out there.
Oscar William fucking Shahatner will be back.
He will be back.
Good.
Might need him for next episode. All right, guys, anything else we would like to add? Anything sinister you got coming up or anything you'd like to add to the pile here?
No, I'm just excited about the episodes we have between now and sometime in early January. I'm excited for them.
I think we can share that. We've got our game of the year episode coming up where we all share our picks of games for the year. Not necessarily that came out in 2023, but that we fell in love with this year. The other one. Yes.
Follow up or the report and then our picks for 2024.
Yes.
It's going to be good. It's going to be good. Yeah. Don't forget that the game of the year for us is just the game that we found in 2023, not necessarily, like Wolf said, was made or released in 2023. Some of them may be, but some of them may have been made in 1989 and we just so happened to fall upon it and went, yo, I've been playing this literally all year. So, yeah, don't call us out for that one. We're going to get called out for that one. I'm sure of it. Excellent.
I don't think we ever have wolf.
Other than the excitement coming up, you got anything around the corner you want to escalate or bring up to?
No, not at the moment. I don't know if I'm going to keep doing the streaming, but I might just start putting some recordings up.
Cool, good. We like those. We miss those. Speaking of streaming, I have a new job. That's right. I have left my current very lengthy job and now I have a better time schedule that will actually bring back my stream consistently. So next Friday you can catch my dumb ass on Twitch playing. I haven't decided yet, but it may have something to do with what we'll talk about next week. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. We'll see. But you will see me back on twitch consistently towards the end of the year and during my Christmas break and just doing our thing. So, guys, thank you so much. I appreciate every single one of you. I appreciate all the viewers, listeners, and of course, my wonderful co host family that keeps on keeping on. So until next time, this is presspy to cancel.
I got nothing this week. Sorry.
Just like Jennifer love Hewitt, this has been another hidden enjoy.