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The Harvest Season

Al and Jonnie talk about Starstruck Vagabond

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:02:07: What Have We Been Up To
00:08:49: Game News
00:29:54: Starstruck Vagabond
01:04:07: Outro

Links

Mika and the Witch’s Mountain Release
Tiny Garden Kickstarter
Terra Nil “Vita Nova” Update
Disney Dreamlight Valley “The Lucky Dragon” Update
Moonstone Island “Pool Party” DLC
Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Screenshots
Bear and Breakfast Information

Farming Simulator 25 Trailer

Contact

Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot
Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot
Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

(0:00:30) Al: Hello farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season.
(0:00:34) Al: My name is Al.
(0:00:36) Jonnie: And my name is Johnny.
(0:00:38) Al: And we are here today to talk about Contachcore games.
(0:00:41) Al: Whoo.
(0:00:44) Al: As always, transcripts are available in the show notes and on the website.
(0:00:48) Al: This episode, me and Johnny will be talking about Starstruck Thagabond,
(0:00:52) Al: the new game by Yatsy Croshaw of zero punctuation fame.
(0:00:57) Al: Although he doesn’t do zero punctuation anymore.
(0:00:58) Jonnie: now fully Ramblimetic thing?
(0:00:59) Al: That’s what it’s called. Yeah.
(0:01:00) Al: No, it’s not fully ramb- is it not? He’s got two, because he’s got fully ramblimatic
(0:01:06) Al: and a different one, which is… Oh, maybe fully- it’s fully ramblimatic than the standard
(0:01:11) Al: one. Yes. Yeah, okay. Yes. Yeah, which is basically just all the video team from the escapist who
(0:01:12) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s the new version under second wind, I think, is their new banner.
(0:01:23) Al: got fired or quit. That worked out well for them.
(0:01:28) Jonnie: But now you can support them much more directly, which is which is you know in some ways preferable
(0:01:31) Al: Yeah. Yes, fewer management. I feel like they’ve been massively increasing the amount of content
(0:01:39) Al: they’re doing. There’s so much stuff now, which, I mean, I don’t do it all because I don’t care
(0:01:48) Al: about their TTRPG stuff, and I don’t care about their Let’s Play stuff, but I really enjoy most
(0:01:55) Al: of their podcasts and a lot of the shorter videos they do. So, it’s good.
(0:02:01) Al: Anyway, so yeah, we’ll be talking about Starstruck Vagabond. Before that, we obviously have some
(0:02:05) Al: news, but first of all, Johnny, what have you been up to?
(0:02:11) Jonnie: I have been up to a hidden game I came up with last year called Chance of Sinar,
(0:02:17) Jonnie: and one of the things that I learned about this game is like, as a name written down, it looks
(0:02:21) Jonnie: great. When you say it out loud, people have no idea what you’ve just said. It’s a confusing
(0:02:27) Jonnie: jumble of terms, but it kind of works for the game because the game is all about translating
(0:02:32) Jonnie: languages, and it’s a really fun game. I kind of completed it over the course of a weekend,
(0:02:40) Jonnie: and I like it was one of those
(0:02:41) Jonnie: games. I had a friend visiting me and just in our like downtime between doing stuff we would
(0:02:45) Jonnie: just play a bit of it and it was a really fun game to play with someone else on the couch because
(0:02:50) Jonnie: it’s a lot of working out stuff a lot of guesses about what you want what you think things mean
(0:02:56) Jonnie: and having a second brain to like that that sees things differently I think was really valuable
(0:03:02) Jonnie: for playing through the game but it was just a really fun experience great puzzles great story
(0:03:09) Jonnie: Like really contained, you know, it was probably five or six
(0:03:12) Jonnie: hours into it and it was just a really, really fun game.
(0:03:15) Jonnie: I would highly, highly recommend Chances.
(0:03:18) Al: Interesting. It has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam, and it’s currently on sale.
(0:03:24) Jonnie: and it’s currently on Game Pass, which is where I played it.
(0:03:25) Al: Fair enough. I do not have Game Pass because I have too many games unplayed anyway.
(0:03:34) Jonnie: Yeah, I feel like you getting game paths would just be like, uh, you know, you would just continually be adding things to a wishlist of or a backlog that you’re never actually going to get to and you would never actually play anything.
(0:03:40) Al: You know the funny thing is like, I’ve literally got my Steam wishlist open just now, right?
(0:03:49) Al: Because obviously everything is on sale just now and I’m like, what am I going to buy?
(0:03:53) Al: The problem is like half of these games, I can’t remember, like death’s door.
(0:04:00) Al: I don’t know what this game is, but apparently I added it to my wishlist and it’s currently
(0:04:04) Al: 75% off.
(0:04:06) Al: When did I add this to my wishlist?
(0:04:07) Al: I have no idea.
(0:04:08) Al: Oh wait, it does tell you, doesn’t it?
(0:04:11) Al: In 2021. Okay. So a while ago, um, yeah, I do feel like it’s one of these things
(0:04:14) Jonnie: Wow, yeah, I feel like it’s time to let that one go
(0:04:20) Al: where some of them when, when they’re like up at like 80, 70% off, if I’m not going to
(0:04:26) Al: buy it when it’s that much off, I’m removing it from my wish list. So, um, yeah, I’ve got
(0:04:32) Al: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven currently on my list that are 70% off and above.
(0:04:39) Jonnie: Well, that could have been a fun new game. Is it buy or remove?
(0:04:40) Al: Oh my.
(0:04:47) Jonnie: It’s good it’s not like we’re under a time crunch this morning.
(0:04:50) Al: let me finish. I have 77 on my wish list on sale just now. That is too many. I have 160
(0:04:58) Jonnie: I don’t think I have 77 on my wish list.
(0:05:02) Al: on my wish list. Part of the problem, right, part of the problem is that I add every single
(0:05:09) Al: farming game that we talk about on the podcast to my wish list to keep track of it, right?
(0:05:14) Jonnie: That makes sense. Yeah, that does make-
(0:05:14) Al: That makes it okay, right? Maybe.
(0:05:20) Al: Okay, cool, great. What have I been up to? I have been playing Go Go Town. More coming
(0:05:29) Al: about that later. I don’t want to talk about that just now, but I’ve been playing it. I’ve
(0:05:33) Al: also been playing Dave the Diver. Have you played Dave the Diver? You have played Dave
(0:05:38) Al: the Diver. I don’t know if you’ve actually started it yet or not. You’ve done it. You
(0:05:40) Jonnie: I have downloaded Dave the Diver and I have done the tutorial of Dave the Diver.
(0:05:48) Al: might want to hurry up.
(0:05:50) Al: You’ve got probably about 10 hours of gameplay
(0:05:52) Al: before you can even play the bit that you need to talk about on the podcast.
(0:05:56) Jonnie: Oh my god.
(0:05:58) Al: Just be thankful you’re not on the Godzilla one.
(0:06:00) Al: You have to finish five chapters, and I’m halfway through chapter two.
(0:06:03) Al: And yeah, it’s taking a while.
(0:06:08) Al: I don’t know why it’s so far through.
(0:06:10) Al: Probably because Godzilla is probably quite hard to do.
(0:06:12) Al: Anyway, blah, blah, blah.
(0:06:14) Al: Dave the Diver.
(0:06:16) Al: I’m enjoying it so far.
(0:06:18) Al: I feel like it’s about to get-
(0:06:20) Al: very grindy where I am, but it’s interesting.
(0:06:24) Al: And yeah, we’ll talk more about that in the future maybe.
(0:06:28) Jonnie: I know you don’t want to talk about go go town, but I also downloaded the
(0:06:32) Jonnie: Early access for go go town and and had a quick play off it and I was very quick
(0:06:36) Jonnie: I maybe played an hour of it
(0:06:39) Jonnie: That game does feel very early access
(0:06:42) Jonnie: and
(0:06:43) Jonnie: I think I see this in the slack, but it’s way more
(0:06:48) Jonnie: Seems like resource management town builder II than it does Animal Crossing II which I don’t know I super loved
(0:06:58) Jonnie: Interested in how that game develops over early access, but my initial take was like oh
(0:07:01) Jonnie: I don’t really want to play this now. I want to put this down and play it
(0:07:05) Jonnie: Play it a bit later, so I’m looking forward to hearing
(0:07:10) Al: Maybe. Yeah, I think the only thing I’ll say just now is that they have posted a big update on
(0:07:19) Al: Steam talking about what they’re going to do and how they’ve changed what they’re going to do based
(0:07:25) Al: on feedback. So might be worth having a look at that. But yeah, I will talk more about that maybe
(0:07:32) Al: in the future. I don’t know. I don’t want to spoil anything.
(0:07:36) Jonnie: I do.
(0:07:38) Jonnie: I love spoiling things.
(0:07:40) Al: And I’ve been continuing playing farm RPG. I don’t know if I’m enjoying it, but I’m playing it.
(0:07:48) Al: I just keep going. I’m at crafting level 95 now. Farming level 82, fishing level 77 and exploring
(0:07:48) Jonnie: of bringing an endorsement.
(0:07:57) Al: level 76. It’s quite a grind at this point, but I keep going. I guess the thing is that I’m not
(0:08:08) Al: I’m not actually spending a huge amount.
(0:08:10) Al: of time each day on it, right? Like it’s maybe a total of 10 minutes in a day.
(0:08:15) Al: So we’ll see if I’m still doing it in the next episode.
(0:08:21) Al: The right is a new regular section of the podcast. Is Al still playing farm RPG? Yes.
(0:08:26) Jonnie: Look I feel like this is like when Cody was playing her cult
(0:08:32) Jonnie: What was a cult game that she was playing we’re Tetris that’s
(0:08:33) Al: Tetris.
(0:08:36) Al: yeah but i’m not trying to get out not i’m not trying to win a cruise with my
(0:08:40) Al: time um let’s just not talk about how much money i’ve put into the game so we’re going
(0:08:41) Jonnie: Not yet. Not yet.
(0:08:50) Al: to talk about some game news so first up we have the exciting news uh that uh johnny’s
(0:08:59) Al: leaning on the keyboard in the show notes um oh no I hope this podcast recording works
(0:09:02) Jonnie: I’m not leaning on the keyboard. I’m trying to work out what the hell’s going on with my computer.
(0:09:05) Jonnie: It’s right.
(0:09:10) Al: um we have the exciting news that mica and the witch’s mountain is releasing on the 21st of august
(0:09:16) Al: on steam and switch
(0:09:18) Jonnie: Whoo! Only like a year after their initial release date that they were very confident about hitting.
(0:09:26) Al: Yeah. I think so. Yeah. I’m very excited, not least because it’s happening after my
(0:09:26) Jonnie: No, this is this is very exciting.
(0:09:34) Al: month long not being at home and not having to deal with podcast. Yeah. So I’m very excited
(0:09:39) Al: that it’s not releasing just now because I might have cried.
(0:09:42) Jonnie: And the way they did the announcement because I I don’t know if you follow them on Instagram
(0:09:46) Jonnie: But it was they they posted the day before saying like we’ll answer the most asked question
(0:09:52) Jonnie: Like that we get today tomorrow and I was like
(0:09:54) Jonnie: I really hope they are announcing the release date for me crew the which is now done because that is by far away gonna be
(0:10:00) Jonnie: Their most asked question and and in fact they were so
(0:10:03) Jonnie: No, very exciting news for that game. There was a new trailer that came along
(0:10:08) Jonnie: with
(0:10:10) Jonnie: With the announcement. I don’t know that I picked up anything
(0:10:12) Jonnie: New other than yeah, this game looks like what they’ve promised it’s going to be and it looks pretty fun
(0:10:19) Jonnie: Let’s see how it plays
(0:10:21) Al: Yeah, I think this game very much will come down to how the controls feel. That’s it.
(0:10:26) Al: Like if it feels good to fly, it’ll be a fun game no matter anything else. If it doesn’t
(0:10:31) Al: feel fun to fly, nothing will save it. Even the froggy chair.
(0:10:35) Jonnie: Uh, I could not agree more.
(0:10:38) Al: Next we have Tiny Garden. This is the Polly Pocket farming game. They’ve announced that
(0:10:45) Al: their Kickstarter will launch on the 2nd of July. So, there we go. Another Kickstarter.
(0:10:50) Jonnie: I still think this game looks like this game looks cool right because I’m curious how it is gonna manifest into a game because the the polypockets size of stuff is so small but this one has me like super intrigued because it’s doing the cool nostalgia thing and in a way that I’m very interested how it manifests in gameplay.
(0:11:12) Al: Yeah, I suspect it might feel quite kind of Tamagotchi-esque, right?
(0:11:17) Al: Where the idea is not playing the game for lots of time.
(0:11:23) Al: It’s like dipping it out and, you know, deal with your fart.
(0:11:26) Al: Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was real time.
(0:11:30) Al: But I guess we’ll see.
(0:11:32) Al: I don’t know if I want it to be real time, but we’ll see.
(0:11:35) Al: And, you know, the trailer shows lots of different designs.
(0:11:39) Al: I suspect you’ll be able to.
(0:11:42) Al: I wouldn’t be surprised if you could collect lots of them and like you open up your different ones to see what your gardens are currently doing inside there or something.
(0:11:51) Al: Rather than just changing the design of your of your tiny garden, right? Like it feels like you’re collecting gardens, but we shall see.
(0:12:01) Al: Next we have Terranil. Their new update Vitanova is out now and they’ve posted a bunch of information about it. Have you looked through this at all?
(0:12:10) Jonnie: I have not looked at this one at all, but since we recorded the, like, what did I record that
(0:12:17) Jonnie: episode with? It must have been with Kevin. When we recorded the episode on Terra Nil,
(0:12:22) Jonnie: I hadn’t finished Terra Nil, and I keep intending to go back, and every time I see something about
(0:12:28) Jonnie: Terra Nil, I’m interested in going back. But I think this might be the update that finally
(0:12:34) Jonnie: sort of lures me back in, particularly with Terra Nil being available. I think it’s available
(0:12:39) Jonnie: through Netflix.
(0:12:40) Jonnie: I’ve got some new missions, which I assume means new maps, to play on.
(0:12:42) Al: it is yes that’s a good point I should try it because I have Netflix just now
(0:12:47) Al: I should try it on mobile see what it’s like
(0:12:57) Jonnie: I think there’s about 11 in the initial game, and they’ve overhauled the animal functionality,
(0:13:06) Jonnie: which is really interesting.
(0:13:10) Jonnie: The way the animal system worked in the past is that it was kind of like the last thing
(0:13:15) Jonnie: you would do, and it felt very clunky.
(0:13:18) Jonnie: You would effectively build a special building, and then you would have to ping certain parts
(0:13:24) Jonnie: on the map, and if it met enough of the requirements for a particular animal, that animal would
(0:13:29) Jonnie: show up.
(0:13:30) Jonnie: So it felt like this very clunky thing, where I remember on the first map getting frustrated
(0:13:38) Jonnie: because one animal I couldn’t quite bring
(0:13:40) Jonnie: back because I was like you know half a point off of needing you know a certain
(0:13:46) Jonnie: area in a certain radius to bring back the final animal but equally I had no
(0:13:52) Jonnie: resources at that point to re-terraform anything so I was kind of just like I
(0:13:55) Jonnie: feel stuck in a way this that wasn’t particularly fun and this change
(0:14:01) Al: So, so was it quite binary then where it was like you either have them or you don’t sort
(0:14:07) Al: of thing, you’ve either done the checklist to get the animals back or you haven’t. Right,
(0:14:10) Jonnie: Correct, yeah.
(0:14:12) Al: whereas here it looks like it’s saying so it says the habitat may be sufficient for
(0:14:16) Al: them to survive but not ideal for them to thrive so it’s like you can get them back
(0:14:21) Al: with less work but then you have to work more to get like I guess them to reproduce or something
(0:14:27) Jonnie: yeah so be curious how it works you know um like and it was it was a really there was good bones
(0:14:32) Jonnie: in the system right so it’s like you know one of the requirements on the first map for wolves to
(0:14:36) Jonnie: appear is they had to be deer already in a location nearby right because they need something to eat
(0:14:41) Jonnie: uh which totally makes sense so um I feel like there was good bones so this is actually a really
(0:14:47) Jonnie: exciting change to um uh what was uh it was probably slightly frustrating because it was at
(0:14:52) Jonnie: the end where you were sort of relatively low on resources it was just your ability to sort
(0:14:57) Jonnie: at that point when you didn’t really know what you needed to be building towards um was was a bit
(0:15:03) Jonnie: frustrating so I like the idea of what this is doing uh I know there’s a bunch of other stuff
(0:15:06) Al: Makes sense? Cool. Looks like they’ve added a new world map as well for viewing things.
(0:15:11) Jonnie: yeah yeah I don’t know that that changes much other than I guess making the world feel more like a
(0:15:19) Jonnie: a real world that you are restoring um which is which is kind of cool but um yeah it’s a it’s a
(0:15:22) Al: Cool, and that’s live now, so I guess it’s time for you to play Terranil Journey, again.
(0:15:37) Al: Speaking of updates that we’ve got more information for, for Disney Dreamlight Valley, the Lucky
(0:15:42) Al: Dragon update is now out, and they’ve detailed everything in the update.
(0:15:48) Al: Um, I don’t know, I don’t know if I want to.
(0:15:52) Jonnie: It’s Milan.
(0:15:52) Al: To go through all this stuff because a lot of stuff, well, yeah, it’s Mulan, but we
(0:15:54) Jonnie: It’s Milan.
(0:15:54) Al: already knew Mulan, right?
(0:15:56) Al: But like they detailed a bunch of the stuff around Mulan and it looks like they’ve also
(0:16:01) Al: got some more stuff around Stitch, Lilo and Stitch, um, and there’s a new event around
(0:16:09) Al: Inside Out 2.
(0:16:11) Al: That’s probably enough information, isn’t it?
(0:16:13) Al: Don’t want to go too detailed if people are wanting to play it, but there you go.
(0:16:16) Al: So if you want Mulan, go befriend Mulan now then.
(0:16:22) Al: » Ireland have a new free DLC, which is the pool party DLC.
(0:16:27) Al: That’s it.
(0:16:27) Jonnie: The snorkel floatie looks really dumb and cute.
(0:16:33) Jonnie: I love that he’s wearing a snorkel, I don’t know, there’s something about it that’s very
(0:16:36) Al: Yes yeah that’s funny. Go get it if you’ve been playing the game. Okay Harvest Moon Home
(0:16:47) Al: Sweet Home. Dear goodness I really don’t know what to do with this game. So they’ve posted
(0:16:55) Al: a bunch of screenshots of this game which I will remind you is iOS and Android only.
(0:17:02) Al: So first of all, it looks like it’s going to be a horizontal game.
(0:17:06) Al: Um, because all the screenshots are like widescreen screenshots.
(0:17:13) Al: Interestingly, it looks almost identical to Winds of Anthos, the newest game.
(0:17:20) Al: Um, so I’m starting to worry that it might just be that, but mobile.
(0:17:27) Al: Uh, and they presumably like scaled down in some cases because
(0:17:31) Al: it’s probably too much for phones.
(0:17:34) Al: uh…
(0:17:36) Al: I mean, I like the look of Winzvantos, so I’m not against it looking similar, right? Like, my issue
(0:17:42) Al: with that game was not how it looked. I thought the game looked really nice. I just didn’t enjoy
(0:17:47) Al: playing it, so I’m not particularly enthused about playing this game. We have no idea about gameplay
(0:17:54) Al: because it’s just some screenshots. They do show some fishing, and some animals, and a bunch of
(0:18:01) Al: buildings and characters. I believe there’s one character who was in Harvest Moon One World,
(0:18:07) Al: I’ll be honest, I don’t remember any characters in Harvest Moon One World because they were so
(0:18:11) Al: forgettable.
(0:18:14) Jonnie: I’m gonna be honest, this game looks so ugly I thought it was Pokemon for a second.
(0:18:18) Al: Wow, you don’t like the look of it at all.
(0:18:20) Jonnie: No, it’s terrible. And these screenshots don’t show nothing about the game, like…
(0:18:22) Al: Interesting. Wow.
(0:18:29) Jonnie: This is like when you’re posting screenshots, like, because you think people are excited about,
(0:18:34) Al: yeah yeah it’s yeah it’s like when it’s like when Pokemon post like a new a new Pokemon
(0:18:35) Jonnie: like, just literally anything that you do. And I do not think that is the case of this Harvest Moon
(0:18:40) Jonnie: Home sweet home like yeah, like I say it is that we need to actually see
(0:18:48) Al: and people like wow it’s a new Pokemon expecting that sort of reaction yeah I don’t because
(0:18:52) Jonnie: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
(0:18:57) Al: I was expecting because it’s a mobile game something mobile specific but it’s just without
(0:19:03) Al: any actual idea of what the gameplay is.
(0:19:04) Al: It looks like it might just be Harvest Moon, Winds of Anthos with a different story. That’s
(0:19:10) Al: what it feels like it might be, and I’m really worried if that’s the case because that wasn’t
(0:19:15) Al: fun to play with a controller, never mind with a touchscreen.
(0:19:19) Al: But we’ll see. They have reconfirmed that there will be no in-app purchases, which is
(0:19:24) Al: good, and they are not planning any DLC, which is something that is information, I guess.
(0:19:33) Al: Yeah.
(0:19:35) Al: But no idea about how it plays, what’s happening with this game, what it is, why it exists.
(0:19:42) Al: You know, it is what it is. We’ll see.
(0:19:46) Al: Very weird, I will say, why they announced this game like three weeks ago with no information
(0:19:51) Al: and then three weeks later they post screenshots. Like, are they trying to build the hype up but they don’t know how?
(0:19:58) Jonnie: That’s what it feels like.
(0:20:00) Jonnie: It feels like somebody said,
(0:20:01) Jonnie: hey, we need to start marketing this game
(0:20:04) Jonnie: and then people that have no idea about marketing said,
(0:20:07) Jonnie: okay, and this is what we get.
(0:20:12) Al: Well, it’s going to be fun because I’m probably going to dump a whole bunch of information
(0:20:19) Al: about it while I’m on holiday. So we’re going to be really delayed with that news. It’s
(0:20:22) Jonnie: I mean, you can rest easy in knowing that it probably won’t be very good.
(0:20:28) Al: not like I’m not going to play it though, right? Let’s not pretend. Fair, fair enough,
(0:20:32) Jonnie: Oh, you’re definitely gonna play it, but you know, it’s not like the rest of us will
(0:20:37) Jonnie: be missing out on anything because we’re not hearing the news.
(0:20:41) Al: Fair enough.
(0:20:42) Al: Any excuse for a Micah episode.
(0:20:46) Al: Next, we have an update on Bear and Breakfast.
(0:20:49) Al: So for those who don’t remember or weren’t listening to the episodes when we talked
(0:20:54) Al: about it, there was an update about the health issues in the team.
(0:20:59) Al: So one of the team members was diagnosed with cancer last year, was it?
(0:21:05) Al: The end of last year, I think.
(0:21:08) Al: And that was like just before their console release, I think.
(0:21:13) Al: But they managed to get that out in time, but that has obviously delayed the updates
(0:21:17) Al: that they were planning on bringing out, which obviously almost everybody in the
(0:21:20) Al: replies are, “Get better.
(0:21:22) Al: We hope the update can wait.”
(0:21:26) Al: But they obviously felt like they needed to give some more information.
(0:21:29) Al: So they’ve kind of given some more information about the update that they’re
(0:21:32) Al: working on, but no like details on the update itself, just like they’re still
(0:21:37) Al: going on and they’re hoping to get some other announcements not related.
(0:21:42) Al: To the update coming in about a month, which I’m intrigued by.
(0:21:48) Al: So there we go.
(0:21:50) Al: Um, there’s a bit more information about the update and what’s coming.
(0:21:55) Al: Oh, wait, no, I’ve scrolled down the page.
(0:21:57) Al: It’s, it’s a plushie.
(0:21:59) Al: There’s a plushie of the bear.
(0:22:03) Jonnie: I feel like I’ve scrolled down the page and I miss this plushies of a bear right now
(0:22:07) Jonnie: Cuz it doesn’t remember the beer and breakfast episodes. Hey, go back and listen to them. Oh my god
(0:22:13) Jonnie: Yeah, okay. Oh, it’s a it’s a it’s a good that’s a good tease of a plushie
(0:22:18) Al: Yeah. He’s got the hat and everything. Yeah, whereas I just scroll all the way down and
(0:22:19) Jonnie: Ah
(0:22:20) Jonnie: I think I got to like the end of the paragraph and I just did not scroll down to the image
(0:22:29) Al: saw the image and went, “Oh, there we go.” So presumably it’ll be a makeshift and presumably
(0:22:35) Al: it’ll come up and Johnny will cry over whether he wants to get on. The question is whether
(0:22:40) Jonnie: I would definitely cry.
(0:22:46) Al: whether your world will cry or not as well.
(0:22:48) Al: Next, we have a new game announced.
(0:22:53) Al: The game we’ve all been waiting for, Johnny.
(0:22:55) Al: It’s Farming Simulator 25.
(0:22:59) Jonnie: Is it a new game? Does this count?
(0:23:03) Al: Well, it’s a it’s a game that’s being released that you have to buy separately
(0:23:08) Al: if you didn’t have the previous if you had the previous one and you want to play it.
(0:23:12) Jonnie: I like that answer better.
(0:23:13) Al: So that I think would be the definition of a new game.
(0:23:18) Al: It feels very philosophical, but I feel like it would be incorrect to say this is an update to
(0:23:18) Jonnie: Mmm, I’m not sure. I’m still not convinced.
(0:23:29) Al: a previous game, because that would imply that you would get it without purchasing. And I think
(0:23:33) Al: it would be incorrect to say it’s a DLC, because you don’t have to have a previous game to buy
(0:23:38) Al: this one. So I don’t know what else you would call this.
(0:23:42) Jonnie: I would say they’re re-releasing farming simulator say 2018 with some minor tweaks.
(0:23:49) Al: Look it’s the FIFA of farming games, right? Although we’re gonna have to change that
(0:23:53) Jonnie: Yeah, and I would make that save argument.
(0:23:59) Al: metaphor though because it’s not FIFA anymore. So basically, you don’t have to follow football
(0:24:03) Jonnie: Is it not? I don’t- I don’t follow.
(0:24:09) Al: or football games to have been aware of this, but basically FIFA asked EA for more money
(0:24:16) Al: for the trademark for the games.
(0:24:18) Al: So they wear.
(0:24:20) Al: I think a billion dollars a year and they were asking for two billion a year.
(0:24:26) Al: And so EA said, no, thank you.
(0:24:29) Al: And so they lost the trademark because of that.
(0:24:31) Al: And so now they call it EA Sports FC, as in football club.
(0:24:37) Al: And at first thought I was like, Oh, this sounds interesting.
(0:24:41) Al: That feels like a mistake on EA’s part because like FIFA brand is so big.
(0:24:46) Al: But then I realised, no one else is making a game.
(0:24:49) Al: I don’t think people playing the game care about the name. They go in and look for the new game.
(0:24:54) Al: And therefore, I think FIFA just lost a billion dollars a year.
(0:24:59) Jonnie: That sounds like FIFA being FIFA.
(0:25:02) Al: So, yeah, EA Sports FC is the new name for the games that were previously called FIFA.
(0:25:07) Al: But it doesn’t roll off the tongue as well. It’s not a great name.
(0:25:11) Al: But I don’t think people playing the game care about the name.
(0:25:15) Al: care about the name, they go in and look for the new game.
(0:25:19) Al: There is a football game that has a footballer on the front of it and says EA. If they go
(0:25:26) Al: in and ask for FIFA, the people in the store are going to point to EAFC. They know what
(0:25:33) Al: they’re talking about. It’s not just about being incompetent, it’s about being corrupt.
(0:25:34) Jonnie: Yeah, I always feel like I should go and work for FIFA because it’s just like a place where you can be incompetent and get
(0:25:40) Jonnie: Paid a lot of money and I feel like I would be really good at that
(0:25:48) Jonnie: I mean, I’ll do whatever.
(0:25:51) Jonnie: Cool.
(0:25:52) Jonnie: I’m okay with that.
(0:25:53) Jonnie: Just pay me.
(0:25:56) Al: Anyway, Farming Simulator!
(0:25:59) Al: So they’re releasing Farming Simulator 25, whatever you might call it.
(0:26:04) Al: That’s a thing that exists.
(0:26:07) Al: It’s coming out on the 12th of November on Steam, Mac and PC, and PlayStation and Xbox.
(0:26:14) Al: And there’s rice.
(0:26:16) Al: Right, let me read…
(0:26:20) Al: We’ve got some information on Steam.
(0:26:21) Al: I can probably read it all in about 30 seconds.
(0:26:26) Al: Farming Simulator 25, new crops, animals, productions and more.
(0:26:28) Al: 400+ machines included with enhanced graphics and physics.
(0:26:32) Al: Farming Simulator 25 floods the fields with a host of new machines, gameplay features,
(0:26:37) Al: visual upgrades and even fresh water to grow rice, adding even more agricultural depth
(0:26:42) Al: and diversity to the family-friendly series.
(0:26:45) Al: New crops, animals and other features.
(0:26:48) Al: It says some more.
(0:26:49) Al: I don’t think it gives any more information, but it has some more words.
(0:26:56) Al: Spinach and other new crops.
(0:26:58) Al: I love how they mention two crops, and then they say “and others”.
(0:27:06) Al: And they’ve added mighty buffaloes and other animals.
(0:27:10) Al: Again, that was a list of one.
(0:27:13) Al: I’m not convinced that you have a long list when you say “buffaloes and others”.
(0:27:20) Al: Like I’m not thinking that that’s a long list when you only chose one.
(0:27:24) Jonnie: Yeah, I’m
(0:27:26) Jonnie: It’s what I’m most fascinated by is like how big is the team that’s worth like
(0:27:30) Jonnie: I don’t understand the economics of farming simulator at all because today’s
(0:27:34) Jonnie: There’s just so much art that goes into these games is ridiculous. I don’t know how they do it all
(0:27:42) Al: So yeah, so apparently the games have sold over 25 million copies combined.
(0:27:47) Al: I don’t feel like a lot.
(0:27:52) Al: Farming Simulator 22, which was their last big one, sold 6 million copies.
(0:27:58) Jonnie: It’s not that many.
(0:28:01) Jonnie: You know, like, Pokemon sells tens of millions of copies and they can’t even
(0:28:06) Jonnie: draw good trees.
(0:28:09) Al: the people in this trailer are very uncanny valley, I don’t know.
(0:28:14) Jonnie: Oh, like, okay, and this is all, like, so Farting Simulator does these ridiculous cinematic trailers,
(0:28:19) Jonnie: and it’s not just like they do these trailers, but, like, the game starts with, you know,
(0:28:23) Jonnie: some ridiculous cinematics. They’re very uncanny valley. I’m just like,
(0:28:27) Jonnie: how do they have the budget to make this?
(0:28:30) Al: The buffalo looks great in the trailer. The people look creepy, but the buffalo looks
(0:28:36) Al: great. It looks like his hairs are individually modelled. Why have they done this? This in
(0:28:45) Al: itself probably wiped out their budget for the game, only selling six million copies.
(0:28:51) Jonnie: Why have they done this is just a great, like, all-round question for farming similes.
(0:28:56) Al: Like, it’s not even a very expensive game, right? Like, it’s like 30 or 40 quid, I think,
(0:29:01) Al: brand new? Um, it doesn’t even, it’s not even like 60, 70. And so, like, 6 million.
(0:29:10) Al: What? Are they making money?
(0:29:14) Jonnie: We’ve got to be somewhere. Maybe it’s all the DLC that they do.
(0:29:18) Jonnie: Maybe that’s the real business model.
(0:29:20) Al: Of course. Of course, they have brands in the game. That’s exactly what it is.
(0:29:26) Al: Because every DLC is like, “Oh, here’s a new brand of machine.”
(0:29:30) Jonnie: Ahh, yes, and I did.
(0:29:30) Al: A hundred and fifty brands. The brands are obviously paying to get in the game.
(0:29:34) Al: That’s how they make the money. There we go. Done.
(0:29:39) Al: Anyway, if you want a new farming simulator that has rice, there you go.
(0:29:44) Al: But yes, this feels like a glorified DLC shoved into the game.
(0:29:50) Al: I think that’s all the news. Interesting selection of news.
(0:29:54) Al: Next, we’re going to talk about Starstruck Vagabond.
(0:29:58) Al: OK, so where to start on this? So I guess first of all, just a quick reminder,
(0:30:03) Al: this is the new game by Yatsy Croshaw. It is a delivery-based game, shall we say,
(0:30:12) Al: where you have a ship or you get a ship and then you use that to make deliveries.
(0:30:21) Al: And yeah, that’s it, right?
(0:30:24) Jonnie: Yep, that’s… that’s the game.
(0:30:29) Al: I feel like I’m going to struggle probably like you to explain my feelings about this game.
(0:30:36) Al: I don’t think I dislike it. I think you have said you do dislike it.
(0:30:43) Jonnie: I would like to say that I loathe this game
(0:30:48) Al: Wow! That is quite a-
(0:30:51) Al: Do we want to talk about the mechanics first, or do you want to talk about your feelings about it first?
(0:30:56) Jonnie: Maybe I’ll talk about my feelings first and then we can use that as a segue into the mechanics and like
(0:30:59) Al: Okay. Sure.
(0:31:02) Jonnie: fundamentally
(0:31:04) Jonnie: So I like the vibe of this game
(0:31:06) Jonnie: I think the music in the game is incredible the art style is not for everyone
(0:31:11) Jonnie: But it totally makes sense in terms of like both the scope of the development and and what the game is going for
(0:31:17) Jonnie: This game is so unfun to play. I
(0:31:21) Jonnie: Couldn’t like I have rage quit this game. I tried to play it like three or four times and every session after
(0:31:27) Jonnie: 15 minutes ended up with me just like
(0:31:29) Jonnie: Rage quitting the game and needing to play something else. I just never had fun
(0:31:34) Jonnie: Trying to do anything in this game because mechanically it is so
(0:31:42) Jonnie: clunky
(0:31:43) Jonnie: There was just I couldn’t like it wasn’t like I you know, the first time I played it and I think I rage quit
(0:31:48) Jonnie: I was like, maybe it’s just me right? Like you’ve got to give these things a chance
(0:31:52) Jonnie: But the more I played the less I wanted to be playing this game
(0:31:57) Jonnie: There was nothing enjoyable about it. And it’s it’s shocking to me that a game in this state
(0:32:05) Jonnie: Made it to release. I just don’t see
(0:32:08) Jonnie: Like I struggle to see where someone
(0:32:12) Jonnie: Designing this game thought the fun lived because I cannot see it
(0:32:16) Jonnie: You
(0:32:16) Al: we’re definitely not getting a retweet from Yahtzee. he doesn’t strike me the
(0:32:24) Al: sort of person that wouldn’t listen before he retweets something as some
(0:32:28) Al: developers very clearly do when I post about talking about their game and they
(0:32:33) Al: retweet and I’m like you didn’t listen to this because we just slag off your
(0:32:36) Al: game okay I don’t feel the same as that it’s not that I love the game though
(0:32:46) Al: goodness um I don’t know why I’m struggling so much to explain how I feel
(0:32:52) Al: about this game let’s let’s go through the mechanics and maybe we can talk
(0:32:56) Al: about individual things and maybe that will give me a better idea of how I feel
(0:33:01) Al: about this game overall so the idea is you you have your ship and you go to a
(0:33:08) Al: place and you pick up packages and you take that to another place and as you go
(0:33:13) Al: you upgrade your ship and there’s
(0:33:17) Al: story and things happen. But there are
(0:33:20) Al: basically like four main mechanics and
(0:33:25) Al: that is carrying things to your ship and
(0:33:29) Al: away from your ship and then the three
(0:33:31) Al: mechanics that are basically only ever
(0:33:33) Al: on your ship and that is welding,
(0:33:37) Al: cleaning and I’ve said wrenching because
(0:33:39) Al: I’m not really sure how to describe it
(0:33:42) Al: other than you’ve got a wrench and you
(0:33:44) Al: twist things like things are
(0:33:46) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s how I would describe it.
(0:33:46) Al: out of alignment. And you have to make them in alignment. There’s never really any kind
(0:33:52) Al: of like problem solving with this is very much like you can tell that the idea behind
(0:33:59) Al: this was not to be a puzzler. Obviously it’s meant to be, you know, just doing things to
(0:34:07) Al: upgrade things. Like it looks at Stardew and goes, how do I do that sort of thing, but
(0:34:13) Al: not in farming, and…
(0:34:16) Al: kind of replaces things like watering and mining and stuff with these things instead.
(0:34:24) Al: And so like when you’re… when something happens and you need to use one of these mechanics it’s
(0:34:28) Al: like very clear the icon shows you, right? Like you see a little welder or you see a little cleaner
(0:34:35) Al: thing. I don’t even know what it is we’re using to clean. Is it like a high pressure? It’s not
(0:34:39) Al: like a sponge or anything, it’s like some cleaning device. And there or it shows the wrench.
(0:34:40) Jonnie: Yeah, I thought it was like some sort of like water gun.
(0:34:47) Al: Um, these are always very reactive, I guess. So like if you’re traveling and you hit an asteroid
(0:34:54) Al: your ship will stop and you have to go and fix everything. Or you’ll come across someone who’s
(0:34:59) Al: sent out an SOS and you have to go about their ship and you have to help them. They’re not really
(0:35:05) Al: used as… I guess maybe that’s kind of my issue with these parts is they’re… they’re about getting
(0:35:12) Al: back to the state that you were in, rather than improving the state.
(0:35:16) Al: Everything in a farming game is giving you something, either giving you crops or giving you a resource of some kind to build that up.
(0:35:27) Al: Technically, the welding does give you resources when you go to planets. I forgot about that, but we’ll come back to that in a minute.
(0:35:33) Al: But on your ship, there is no getting things. Your ship is just a way to get between places, and these mechanics are just about,
(0:35:48) Jonnie: Yeah, and I think what you’ve hit on is probably my fundamental issue with the game is that
(0:35:59) Jonnie: these mechanics entirely exist to stop you from moving in the game, and there’s nothing
(0:36:05) Jonnie: particularly fun about them, and I think the insight that all it is is returning your ship
(0:36:10) Jonnie: to a state where it can fly, rather than about making any improvement to it, is exactly right.
(0:36:17) Jonnie: You know one of the times I write
(0:36:18) Jonnie: about this game is my ship got
(0:36:20) Jonnie: damaged flying from planet A to planet B
(0:36:22) Jonnie: and I went to fix it
(0:36:24) Jonnie: and I died while fixing it.
(0:36:26) Jonnie: I have no idea why I was dying
(0:36:26) Al: Oh, I know why you die. I know why you die because I had that issue as well. You were
(0:36:28) Jonnie: I couldn’t work it out
(0:36:33) Al: out of stamina. So, yeah, I think once you’ve done that and you realized it, it then becomes
(0:36:34) Jonnie: Ah, that was super unclear to me.
(0:36:43) Al: more clear. But yeah, I find it a bit confusing when that happens because you’re like, “Oh,
(0:36:48) Al: I’m losing health.” And you’re like, “Oh, is this because I need to do things quicker?”
(0:36:52) Al: like the, the life support system isn’t working. So I need to do it quicker. So you do.
(0:36:56) Jonnie: That’s what I thought it was, yep.
(0:36:57) Al: But that, but that makes you die quicker because it’s your stamina that’s the issue.
(0:37:01) Jonnie: Uh, so like, that stuff, like, and that’s just like, I was already not playing the game,
(0:37:08) Jonnie: and to then die and be told that you’re gonna be charged some amount of money,
(0:37:11) Jonnie: I was just like, I’m straight up not having a good time with this.
(0:37:13) Jonnie: I don’t, I was like, I didn’t want to work it out, I just wanted to not play.
(0:37:16) Jonnie: That was, that was how that experience made me feel,
(0:37:20) Jonnie: ‘cause it didn’t feel like a puzzle.
(0:37:21) Jonnie: I’m already feel like I’m being punished for not being particularly good
(0:37:26) Jonnie: at the kind of terrible piloting mechanics like just nothing nothing
(0:37:31) Jonnie: mechanically about this game was like wow I feel like I’m you know having fun
(0:37:37) Jonnie: being a space delivery man it all felt like I am I’m prevented from being a
(0:37:45) Jonnie: space delivery man because I have to be a mechanic that keeps dying like yeah
(0:37:49) Jonnie: and that was that was a huge point of frustration for me
(0:37:52) Al: Mm hmm. I think it’s probably fairly accurate to how hard space travel is, right? Like just
(0:38:03) Al: constantly things going wrong. Uh, because space travel is hard. That doesn’t necessarily
(0:38:08) Al: mean that it’s fun. Yeah, I think I didn’t, it didn’t make me rage quit the game, but
(0:38:13) Al: I certainly got frustrated when it was like, Oh, you’re going to another planet to do a
(0:38:17) Al: thing and oh no, no, no, I have to spend five minutes.
(0:38:22) Al: Going and clicking on 10 different things in my ship just to continue moving. And you
(0:38:28) Al: get nothing from that. Yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t find that fun. Um, the welding, let’s talk
(0:38:35) Al: about the, the welding on the planets. Did you get to a planet and resource grab, getting
(0:38:40) Al: resources from that? I can’t remember how early that happens, but you do that in the
(0:38:42) Jonnie: And not outside of the tutorial
(0:38:44) Jonnie: There’s the there’s one in the very
(0:38:46) Jonnie: Yeah, you get the what do they call it? That’s the the not worth anything in it’s not called that but it’s
(0:38:52) Al: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that’s the best part of the game personally, because kind of. I dislike
(0:38:53) Jonnie: It’s something like that
(0:39:04) Al: it in some ways as well, but let’s come to that. I like that idea. That’s kind of the thing that
(0:39:10) Al: most I enjoy is the idea of you going to these unexplored planets and getting stuff from them.
(0:39:17) Al: And that was certainly when I was having the most fun. What I didn’t.
(0:39:22) Al: Like about it was how you have no inventory, right? And all you, well, not for those things
(0:39:32) Al: you get on. You technically do have an inventory. Do you? No, I don’t think you ever have like,
(0:39:39) Al: you can’t put things in pockets. You can’t put them in a bag. All you can do is grab something
(0:39:43) Al: and put it on your, your platform. And so that limits you to taking three things from a planet
(0:39:50) Al: at once, which it reminds me of.
(0:39:52) Jonnie: And can we talk about the three things thing?
(0:39:55) Jonnie: ‘Cause my God, that drove me insane.
(0:39:59) Jonnie: Like the movement in this game,
(0:40:01) Jonnie: where I get that like the space on your ship
(0:40:04) Jonnie: is kind of meant to be one of the limiting factors,
(0:40:07) Jonnie: but it’s so restrictive at the start.
(0:40:09) Jonnie: I spent maybe, this is another time I rage quit the game,
(0:40:12) Jonnie: was because I couldn’t work out
(0:40:14) Jonnie: that I had the specific square on the landing platform
(0:40:17) Jonnie: that you need to lower the landing platform,
(0:40:20) Jonnie: blocked off with one of the things
(0:40:22) Jonnie: that I’m delivering.
(0:40:23) Jonnie: And like, that’s not a fun game mechanic.
(0:40:25) Jonnie: That’s just a frustrating user experience, right?
(0:40:27) Jonnie: Like, just let me put four things on the landing platform
(0:40:31) Jonnie: that has the loading platform, that has four spaces on it,
(0:40:34) Jonnie: and let that go up and down.
(0:40:36) Jonnie: Like, just not be able to move around the ship
(0:40:39) Jonnie: like so early on, because I’ve got three or four boxes
(0:40:42) Jonnie: in there.
(0:40:43) Jonnie: Again, nothing fun about that.
(0:40:44) Al: Yeah. Yeah, and you have no real storage space on your ship to start with. And even after you’ve
(0:40:51) Al: upgraded it at least once, because I upgraded it at least once, you still don’t have any storage
(0:40:57) Al: space. You’re like plonking it in random places, blocking you off from getting to places.
(0:41:04) Al: Ehm.
(0:41:05) Jonnie: Yeah and I don’t mind like a bit of a Tetris puzzle to go with storage but again it didn’t
(0:41:12) Jonnie: really feel like a puzzle as much as just like hey the natural place where you want to put the
(0:41:16) Jonnie: stuff is the wrong spot to put the stuff and it’s just going to prevent you from playing more of
(0:41:20) Al: - Hmm.
(0:41:21) Jonnie: the game which is that’s how I feel about most of the mechanics of this game most of the mechanics
(0:41:24) Jonnie: feel like they exist just to make sure that the game actually has some length to it.
(0:41:28) Al: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I found it, it felt a little bit when I was on that planet and I
(0:41:35) Al: was gathering things and I was like, Oh, the realisation that I can only take three things
(0:41:39) Al: from this planet. It felt very much like the first time I played Animal Crossing New Leaf
(0:41:46) Al: where you’re like gathering like apples and stuff and you can only stack up to nine in
(0:41:52) Al: your inventory. And I’m like, why? Why is that so restrictive?
(0:41:58) Al: And I don’t know, maybe there are people that find that sort of thing fun, right? Because
(0:42:02) Al: there are games based around these sorts of things that like strand games where it’s
(0:42:08) Al: like you have to have, you know, very limited space in your bag. So you have to only take
(0:42:13) Al: certain stuff. I don’t find that fun. And having that in this game massively reduced
(0:42:22) Al: my enjoyment of that. I think if that in particular, like if you had an inventory.
(0:42:29) Al: For everything, I guess, other than packages, right? Like I understand why the packages
(0:42:32) Al: would be like physical things, because that’s the whole point of the game is you’re delivering
(0:42:35) Al: things, right? But things like your upgrade units and your rocks and stuff like that,
(0:42:42) Al: they still have to take up the same amount of space as a massive package. Like that doesn’t
(0:42:46) Al: feel right to me and it feels unfun.
(0:42:50) Jonnie: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s a really good point that I think is being missed in a lot of cottagecore genres.
(0:42:56) Jonnie: Like, actually, inventory management is not fun, and I feel like this is something that has persisted, you know, because it probably existed due to technical limitations of games in earlier times.
(0:43:10) Jonnie: That doesn’t need to exist anymore, because the games that I most enjoy that have an inventory management aspect is because there is some associated with it.
(0:43:20) Jonnie: We’re having a limited inventory, kind of, you know, impacts the difficulty of the game, right? There are some games where it’s like, “Well, yeah, if I could take infinite healing potions, of course I could kill the boss.”
(0:43:32) Jonnie: Like, that’s… But, you know, if I can only take three with me, then that becomes much more of a challenge.
(0:43:38) Jonnie: Cottagecore games don’t have any… Like, it’s not like the game gets harder or more difficult because you’ve got limited inventory. It just becomes more frustrating if you’ve got a limited inventory.
(0:43:49) Al: Yeah, and I suspect that the whole point was to be like, yeah, you have a small ship and
(0:43:50) Jonnie: Which is not the same thing.
(0:43:58) Al: you have to deal with that. But yeah, the idea that a rock is going to take up as much
(0:44:02) Al: space as it does in my ship doesn’t make any sense. You can get a lot of rocks in a box,
(0:44:08) Al: you know, I can put rocks in my pocket, but I can only put three of them on my loading
(0:44:12) Al: platform. Silly. Okay, so that I feel…
(0:44:19) Al: moves into the deliveries, right? Because we’ve talked about getting stuff from planets
(0:44:22) Al: and the deliveries. I think I wonder… So your point about not being able to put four
(0:44:30) Al: on the platform that has four slots. Yeah, that’s, that’s very annoying. I get that.
(0:44:36) Al: I completely agree with you on that. And I think that that would make a massive difference
(0:44:39) Al: to the game. I totally understand why the boxes take up space on your ship. And I think
(0:44:45) Al: I would be fine with that if it were for a few changes and one of the
(0:44:49) Al: would be your starting ship actually having somewhere to store stuff that isn’t just the
(0:44:53) Al: corridors, right? Like one small space, like make it four spaces to start with, right? And then if
(0:45:01) Al: you take on a delivery that’s more than four, then you have to deal with that annoyance, right?
(0:45:04) Al: I get that. That’s the kind of not risk, right? Because it’s not really a risk, it’s an annoyance,
(0:45:10) Al: but you’re balancing the annoyance with getting more reward in a shorter period of time. And that,
(0:45:16) Al: I think totally works.
(0:45:18) Jonnie: 100% right because I think the Tetris puzzle aspect of it is kind of fun in the idea that it’s like
(0:45:25) Jonnie: Oh, I now yeah, like you say, I want to carry more
(0:45:28) Jonnie: So I’m gonna overflow from my storage space into my corridors and now I need to build paths and stuff
(0:45:33) Jonnie: So I can make sure I can still get around to everything
(0:45:36) Jonnie: That’s totally fine. Right because at that point it feels like a choice. It was just never a choice
(0:45:40) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it doesn’t even need to necessarily have a new area on the ship.
(0:45:45) Al: Just being able to walk around your storage area when it’s full. That would solve it.
(0:45:50) Al: You’re not your storage area, you’re your loading platform, right? Because you have
(0:45:53) Al: to walk through your loading platform to get to the back of the ship by default, right?
(0:45:58) Al: So if you could just walk around it, that would solve the problem. And then you can
(0:46:04) Al: upgrade your ship later on to have more storage space or whatever.
(0:46:10) Al: I think that’s my only real annoyance about the deliveries part of it. Like, other than
(0:46:15) Al: obviously I know you’re not a huge fan of the ship movement. I didn’t dislike that.
(0:46:20) Al: I thought it was quite fun. I don’t know whether you realized this or not, but you didn’t have
(0:46:24) Al: to do that minigame when you’re traveling. If you just exited out of it, your ship would
(0:46:32) Al: fly itself. But you wouldn’t get any of the advantages of the minigame.
(0:46:36) Jonnie: at their advantages to the minigame?
(0:46:40) Al: You didn’t get to the warp core bit, did you? So basically, there are four things that happen
(0:46:40) Jonnie: No.
(0:46:51) Al: on that miniscreen. So one of them is the meteors that you have to avoid. Two is there’s
(0:46:56) Al: clouds of dirt. And if you go through them, you have to clean your ship. Three is the
(0:47:03) Al: S.O.S. so you can hear S.O.S. calls and go to them. That would be one of the advantages.
(0:47:10) Al: You don’t get them if you don’t do the minigame. And going to the S.O.S. calls allow you to
(0:47:16) Al: get more stuff. You can get money by fixing people’s ships and stuff like that. But the
(0:47:21) Al: other one is the little orange clouds on the minigame screen. Those are actually things
(0:47:28) Al: you can collect to get warp core fuel. So you can get free warp core fuel by flying through
(0:47:38) Jonnie: Oh, I thought that they were… I think I was avoiding them because I assumed that they were bad things.
(0:47:43) Al: It explains that once yeah, so it explains that once you get the warp core that you can fly through them and
(0:47:50) Al: Replenish your warp core fuel. So because otherwise you have to buy warp core fuel, but that gives you that gives you more for free
(0:47:54) Jonnie: Ah, right, so I never got the warp course.
(0:47:58) Al: So like you you need the warp core to move between the planetary systems
(0:48:03) Al: And you start off without warp core so you can only go between was it three planets in the first system?
(0:48:08) Jonnie: Yeah, I think three.
(0:48:09) Al: and then you need a certain amount of warp core fuel to get to
(0:48:13) Al: one system away and a certain amount to get to two away blah blah blah blah
(0:48:18) Al: So I actually quite like the way they do that
(0:48:21) Al: Maybe they didn’t explain it well enough and that you can actually exit out of it and you you don’t I
(0:48:28) Al: Think maybe it slowly builds up dirt that you have to clean off
(0:48:31) Al: But you don’t if you’re on top of things while you’re flying you can go and clean it while you’re flying
(0:48:36) Al: So you don’t end up stopping
(0:48:39) Al: But I again, I do think that is it the game doesn’t really
(0:48:43) Al: explain that. I think the tutorial is half good in that it is, I think is good at naturally
(0:48:53) Al: explaining what all the tools do, which is a thing that some games are really bad at,
(0:48:57) Al: right? It gives you a situation where you have these things to use and I think it’s generally
(0:49:01) Al: good at explaining those. But then the other more complicated things, it just doesn’t really try and
(0:49:07) Al: explain like the, obviously the warp core stuff is later on, it kind of explains that later on,
(0:49:14) Al: because I was doing the same, I was avoiding those to start with, right? Because you’re like,
(0:49:17) Al: those look like another type of meteor, let’s avoid them. But then when you get the warp core,
(0:49:22) Al: it explains they’re not. And it’s like, well, it would have been nice to know so I didn’t have
(0:49:24) Al: to avoid those earlier on. And it’s stuff like that, that I think is not great to explain.
(0:49:32) Jonnie: - Yeah, I think the tutorial,
(0:49:34) Jonnie: I agree that the tutorial being half good is pretty accurate.
(0:49:38) Jonnie: And I think the game would be a lot better
(0:49:41) Jonnie: if the tutorial aspect was more directly connected
(0:49:44) Jonnie: to the delivery side of things.
(0:49:46) Jonnie: And it was almost just like we are walking you
(0:49:48) Jonnie: through your first delivery in a much clearer way.
(0:49:52) Jonnie: I think that would,
(0:49:55) Jonnie: it would change things significantly, right?
(0:49:57) Jonnie: And just, ‘cause I’m sure, say sure,
(0:50:01) Jonnie: I’m clearly certain.
(0:50:02) Jonnie: I’m not sure.
(0:50:18) Al: Yeah, I think the problem is that that sort of thing it tells you, and the problem is
(0:50:28) Al: that telling you that sort of thing without some way of you actually doing it is not a
(0:50:36) Al: good way of remembering things, right? And exactly. Which I think shows very clearly
(0:50:38) Jonnie: No, it’s the tell-over show, right. You remember very little of what you told.
(0:50:44) Jonnie: You’re much more likely to remember something if you’re showing it.
(0:50:48) Al: the fact that we’re very clear on what the tools do, right? And those three tools I
(0:50:53) Al: could just ring out to you without even having them written down. I did have them written
(0:50:57) Al: down just in case, but I could absolutely tell you those three tools because in the
(0:51:01) Al: tutorial it goes through those and you have to experience using them and then on your
(0:51:07) Al: first trip you end up using most of them as well.
(0:51:11) Al: Okay, what is left on my list? Uh, upgrades. I don’t, it’s probably, yes.
(0:51:16) Jonnie: I have a question for you, which I think is kind of related to upgrades, but
(0:51:22) Jonnie: what’s your take on how good the story is of this game? Because to me that’s probably the one thing
(0:51:26) Jonnie: that I didn’t really get into enough, and probably the thing that’s the most interesting.
(0:51:32) Al: So I think, yeah, that’s a good point without obviously giving too many details away. And
(0:51:38) Al: the fact that I’ve not gotten a huge amount through it, but I have touched on some of
(0:51:43) Al: the story. I think that’s definitely the best bit because I do think that Yatsy’s a very
(0:51:47) Al: good storyteller, right? Like he has a number of books and in a way this kind of feels like
(0:51:54) Al: one of his books in a game. And he has a certain type of humour that I think if you don’t like
(0:52:00) Al: is humour, then you’re not going to enjoy it.
(0:52:02) Al: But it’s things like that, you know, the names of things are a bit kind of like, “Oh,
(0:52:09) Al: that’s stupid” sort of thing, and I find that sort of humour quite funny.
(0:52:14) Al: And you know, like, there’s like points where, like, someone, like, kidnaps you on your own
(0:52:21) Al: ship at one point, but you’re still running the ship, and they’re just, like, there the
(0:52:27) Al: whole time telling you that they’ve kidnapped you, and they’re there until you get them
(0:52:32) Al: to their ship.
(0:52:34) Al: And that was the whole point.
(0:52:35) Al: And it doesn’t actually negatively impact you at all, but he’s so confident in the
(0:52:40) Al: fact that he’s kidnapped you, I just find that sort of thing quite funny.
(0:52:44) Al: So, I mean, if you enjoy the kind of mechanics of this game, I think that it leads you into
(0:52:52) Al: some quite fun story.
(0:52:54) Al: It’s probably not worth it if you don’t enjoy the mechanics of the game, you know?
(0:52:59) Al: Yeah, I don’t think there’s a huge amount to talk about in upgrades.
(0:53:02) Al: Right? Like, I think it could probably do a, it’s fine, right?
(0:53:07) Al: Like there are upgrades, you make your ship bigger, you make it more capable.
(0:53:13) Al: It’s, it’s, it’s doing that thing of the, I think a lot of us enjoying Stardew,
(0:53:20) Al: like slowly building up this empire and your ship is that, that version of things.
(0:53:27) Al: Right? Like it gets bigger, therefore you can have more things in it.
(0:53:30) Al: It has bigger warp core engines.
(0:53:32) Al: You can go further and just everything ends up being bigger slowly more over time and I think that works quite well.
(0:53:42) Al: But you have to enjoy playing the game to get to that point, right?
(0:53:46) Jonnie: - Yeah, absolutely.
(0:53:48) Jonnie: And, sorry, you’ve just reminded me
(0:53:51) Jonnie: of one other frustration I had with this game.
(0:53:54) Jonnie: You can’t use a door while you’re holding a tool.
(0:53:56) Al: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
(0:53:58) Jonnie: Why?
(0:53:59) Al: I
(0:54:01) Jonnie: It’s the most baffling decision.
(0:54:01) Al: You
(0:54:03) Jonnie: Why can I not use a door while I’m holding a tool?
(0:54:05) Jonnie: It’s just like your hand is technically,
(0:54:07) Jonnie: and your hand being a tool kind of makes sense
(0:54:08) Jonnie: ‘cause you’re picking things up and whatever.
(0:54:12) Jonnie: But like, come on, let me go through a door.
(0:54:16) Al: Yeah, I agree. It’s very funny. Yeah, I don’t know why. It was an odd decision, certainly.
(0:54:31) Al: So I guess, what is conclusion time? I don’t think I’ve convinced you that you don’t hate
(0:54:39) Al: this game. I think your opinion is probably pretty much the same.
(0:54:42) Jonnie: yeah and look it’s it’s nothing like it’s it’s one of those really
(0:54:47) Jonnie: frustrating things where I feel like it’s a small number of very impactful
(0:54:52) Jonnie: decisions rather than me not liking most of the game it’s the fact that the
(0:54:58) Jonnie: things I didn’t like I encountered so early and found so frustrating I kind of
(0:55:01) Jonnie: didn’t want to experience the rest of the game which is which is really
(0:55:06) Jonnie: unfortunate right because I I am interested in things like the story and
(0:55:12) Jonnie: and and some of the jokes but not at the expense of you know the mechanics of the
(0:55:20) Al: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think this has come about in this way because I think Yahtzee
(0:55:28) Al: has good ideas for what to do in a game and he had some ideas of this is what I want to
(0:55:39) Al: do and I think that those are in general good ideas and could have been a really good game.
(0:55:45) Al: I think that when you are in the weeds of these things, it’s hard to see.
(0:55:50) Al: How they can they’re less intuitive for people and I suspect that most people who have game
(0:56:01) Al: test this are probably unlikely to tell Yahtzee when they don’t like something. Does that make sense?
(0:56:12) Jonnie: It does
(0:56:14) Jonnie: Part of my day job is in doing user testing for products
(0:56:19) Jonnie: And and one of the things that I observe with a lot of people that I work with is
(0:56:23) Jonnie: They have a bias to listen towards the people that agree with their view of the world, right? So
(0:56:29) Jonnie: We often discount people that have different views of the world for a whole range of
(0:56:35) Jonnie: fun reasons when actually those you know, it’s it’s really important to
(0:56:39) Jonnie: listen to your critics, and one of the hard things that I have to co-
(0:56:42) Jonnie: a lot of people on is it’s not what- you don’t listen for what they’re saying the solution is,
(0:56:48) Jonnie: right? Because people say, “Oh, I want this to be this way,” right? Like me saying, “I just want to be
(0:56:53) Jonnie: able to go through a door without holding a tool.” Maybe there’s a really good reason that that choice
(0:56:58) Jonnie: was made, but what is important is to understand that the person giving that feedback is feeling
(0:57:05) Jonnie: something, and what is it that they’re feeling? Well, I’m feeling frustrated, right? And is that
(0:57:08) Jonnie: the emotion that you’re going for when you’re playing a video game? Probably not. So how do you
(0:57:11) Al: Hmm.
(0:57:12) Jonnie: pass some of that stuff? And that is probably what I’d be most curious with in terms of the
(0:57:18) Jonnie: the playtesting of this game, is how much of it was discounted as, you know, “Ah, they don’t get it,”
(0:57:27) Jonnie: or “No, that’s what I’m going for,” rather than actually understanding the emotion behind
(0:57:32) Jonnie: what people were feeling, because I’m sure I’m not the only person that would feel this game
(0:57:36) Jonnie: and feel frustrated.
(0:57:38) Al: Yeah, I wonder whether it’s more a case of just he is surrounded by people who like him and like
(0:57:45) Al: his stuff and like would have liked that anyway sort of thing. I don’t know. I also think there’s
(0:57:51) Al: a possibility that so part he has been a game developer for a long time, but primarily he is
(0:58:00) Al: a reviewer and creator of Fantastic Rants. I really love his.
(0:58:08) Al: His videos and I think they’re great and often I agree with him, not always, but often I agree with
(0:58:12) Al: him, but what comes with that is a very legitimate and totally understandable urge to ignore people
(0:58:24) Al: on the internet who are arguing with you because generally it doesn’t matter. Shut up, right? Like
(0:58:31) Al: when you’re making content like what we’re making right now, if someone comes in and says, no, I
(0:58:32) Jonnie: Yep
(0:58:36) Al: No I disagree, you’re stupid, this game is great.
(0:58:38) Al: What’s the point in me replying to that, right?
(0:58:40) Al: Like it doesn’t improve anything, my opinion is my opinion, our opinions are our opinion,
(0:58:46) Al: his opinion is his opinion and you know, getting into an argument with someone who disagrees with
(0:58:52) Al: you is completely pointless and I 100% agree with that. The problem is that then doesn’t translate
(0:58:57) Al: into game design. I really wanted to like this game.
(0:59:06) Jonnie: me too I did I was so excited about this game right like and I think I said at
(0:59:10) Jonnie: the start I love the vibes of this game
(0:59:14) Al: Yeah. And I do feel like it’s very small things that could make this game much more fun.
(0:59:20) Jonnie: Yeah, I think I agree, because for me, in its current state, like, I played a lot of games on this show that are not great, right?
(0:59:30) Jonnie: I think about one of the, oh my god, the name of it walked out of here, but Kevin and I did the episode on the Tower game.
(0:59:36) Jonnie: Oh, that’s gonna frustrate me. And it was a game that was, yeah, it was like a little foxy.
(0:59:38) Al: The Tower Game. Oh, oh, oh yes. Ah! The Mexican company. Oh, what’s that game called? I can’t
(0:59:54) Al: remember. That’s gonna annoy me. We’re gonna remember as soon as we stop recording.
(0:59:57) Jonnie: But that game, to me, wasn’t great, but I could totally see what they were going for,
(1:00:06) Jonnie: and I had a lot of fun with my time with the game, despite its flaws, and it had a lot
(1:00:11) Jonnie: of potential.
(1:00:13) Jonnie: And I wanted to play more of that game.
(1:00:15) Jonnie: This one, it’s just I wanted to play less of it, which is a really sad place to be.
(1:00:21) Jonnie: I don’t want to be that down on a game, but that’s where I’ve landed on Starstruck Vagabond.
(1:00:27) Jonnie: Do you think you’ll finish this game out?
(1:00:30) Al: I think in its current state, probably not. And that’s not because I don’t think I like,
(1:00:39) Al: I do think I could have more fun with this game, but in the way that it currently is,
(1:00:44) Al: I’m not like, I need to play this, you know, I’m not, not, I don’t feeling that urge to
(1:00:48) Al: play it, right? Like I’ve stopped playing it so that I can play go-go town and Dave
(1:00:52) Al: the Diver. And I’m not like, Oh, I wish I was playing it. You know, whereas I do think
(1:00:57) Al: about Dave the Diver when I’m not playing it just now, right? Because I’m like, oh,
(1:01:01) Al: and that was what I was like with Stardew, right? Like I could never have got to perfection in
(1:01:05) Al: Stardew if I wasn’t constantly like, I need to finish this. This is in my brain and I need to
(1:01:09) Al: fix the urge that it’s not there for this. And I think it could be if a few things would improve
(1:01:17) Al: that we’ve discussed. I think I could absolutely get there, but yeah, I don’t know if, I don’t
(1:01:22) Al: know if those things will ever get there or not. It’s hard to know.
(1:01:27) Al: Thank you.
(1:01:30) Al: And I’ve almost got the name of the game that you’re talking about because I found one by the developer, and the game name is Lonesome Village.
(1:01:40) Jonnie: Long some pillage to recover.
(1:01:44) Al: And now my brain can go to sleep.
(1:01:48) Al: Apparently that was quite a long time ago, because it’s not been since we’ve started doing it on Notion, so I couldn’t see it in the list.
(1:01:56) Jonnie: Yeah, it would have been pre-notion day, so it would have been end of 2022.
(1:02:01) Al: Yes. Yeah. 2023 was when we started doing that. All right. Well, uh, I think that’s
(1:02:08) Al: everything unless there’s anything else you want to talk about.
(1:02:10) Jonnie: Yeah, actually, sorry, one last point. I think with games like this, they’re always going to be
(1:02:17) Jonnie: hidden. So when I say games like this, I mean games from small developers. I think it’s really
(1:02:21) Jonnie: important to support games like this. So if there is something about this game, like go and watch
(1:02:26) Jonnie: a trailer. If you can, buy it because supporting games on the size and the scale is way more
(1:02:32) Jonnie: important than buying the next AAA thing that’s going to sell millions of copies. The way games
(1:02:39) Jonnie: get better is by having things.
(1:02:40) Jonnie: Thanks for watching!
(1:02:50) Al: Yeah, I agree. We were talking in a different slack about when… Like there was a stupid
(1:02:57) Al: article by this someone who was like talking about the shame of having, you know, how much
(1:03:03) Al: money has been spent on games and games that people haven’t played and it was stupid, whatever.
(1:03:07) Al: But the interesting conversation came out of it. Like, when do you feel guilty about
(1:03:11) Al: buying a game and not playing it? And my argument was if I buy a AAA game and I play less than
(1:03:17) Al: in 10 hours of that, because I’ve not enjoyed it.
(1:03:20) Al: I feel really bad about that. If I buy an indie game and I never play it, I’m never
(1:03:26) Al: going to feel bad about that, you know? And if I never put any more time into this game,
(1:03:27) Jonnie: Exactly, exactly.
(1:03:34) Al: I don’t care, right? Like, I had some fun doing it, right? I didn’t hate myself entirely
(1:03:39) Al: and I know that I have helped support the game and, you know, not that Yatsuy needs my support,
(1:03:45) Al: right? Like he’s big enough that he’s gonna make make stuff anyway but…
(1:03:50) Al: It is still an indie, no matter how big an indie is, they’re still an indie and they’re still just a person, you know?
(1:04:00) Al: Just a person making things that they like and that is good, full stop, even if they make a bad version of a game, you know?
(1:04:08) Al: All right, cool. Well, Johnny, where can people find you on the internet?
(1:04:14) Jonnie: As always, you can’t find me on the internet other than going to patreon.com/thspod, support
(1:04:21) Jonnie: the great work that Al does here, and join the Slack where we talk about all of the fun
(1:04:26) Jonnie: games, and a bit more conversation recently with all of the games going into early access
(1:04:32) Jonnie: and stuff.
(1:04:33) Jonnie: I think quite a few people are trying out quite a few different games at the moment,
(1:04:35) Jonnie: so it’s a good time.
(1:04:36) Al: Do we need another episode talking about the concept of early access? I feel like we’ve
(1:04:40) Jonnie: No.
(1:04:41) Al: been talking about it a lot recently. Look, we all love an episode where we don’t have
(1:04:41) Jonnie: No.
(1:04:42) Jonnie: Bad Al.
(1:04:44) Jonnie: No more talking about those sorts of things.
(1:04:45) Jonnie: Only game.
(1:04:51) Al: to actually prepare. Not that I don’t have to because I still have to get the list of
(1:04:56) Al: news and that still takes a long time. I do love how you say you can’t find me on the
(1:05:01) Al: internet that feels like a challenge
(1:05:04) Jonnie: I mean, you absolutely can, it’s just… don’t.
(1:05:08) Al: Please don’t. It’s not a challenge.
(1:05:12) Al: Leave Johnny alone.
(1:05:13) Al: The only way you are allowed to talk to him is if you join the Patreon and go on Slack.
(1:05:19) Al: Me, on the other hand, I will give my opinions on the internet all the time for some reason,
(1:05:24) Al: and you can do find that at my accounts on mastodon.scot and Twitter at thescotbot.
(1:05:32) Al: You can find the podcast on Tumblr and on Twitter at THSPod.
(1:05:36) Al: You can find links to everything to do with the podcast and a feedback form on our website,
(1:05:42) Al: harvestseason.club. One of those links is a link to our Patreon, as mentioned,
(1:05:46) Al: patreon.com/thspod. You can get access to the Slack. You can also get access to our backlog
(1:05:53) Al: of bonus episodes. We’ve got a few upcoming that have… We were meant to have one last week,
(1:06:02) Al: but people got ill. Multiple people got ill, so we couldn’t do it.
(1:06:07) Al: So hopefully we’ll have that soon, and we’ve got other ones coming as well.
(1:06:11) Al: So keep tuned, keep tuned, tuned in, tune in, keep.
(1:06:18) Al: Stay tuned, stay tuned.
(1:06:20) Al: That’s what it is, stay tuned.
(1:06:22) Al: Words are great.
(1:06:23) Al: I think that’s everything.
(1:06:24) Al: Thank you, Johnny, for joining me.
(1:06:26) Jonnie: Thank you all for having me
(1:06:27) Al: Thank you, listeners, for listening.
(1:06:30) Al: And until next time, have a good harvest.
(1:06:31) Jonnie: Have a good harvest
(1:06:32) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinlay, with support from our patrons, including our
(1:06:43) Theme Tune: pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(1:06:47) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(1:06:51) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club, for show notes and links to things we discussed
(1:06:57) Theme Tune: in this episode.
(1:07:08) Al: Okay, happy?
(1:07:10) Jonnie: Oh relatively
(1:07:13) Al: Good to go.
(1:07:14) Jonnie: Yes