Xbox's Week Got Messier & SGF games you missed

0:01Spawn on Me is the premier podcast spotlighting people of color. Every week we talk new, what we've been playing, and tell you who's invited to the cookout. Our show is all about talking about gaming through a prism of blackness because we are the culture. Welcome to Bracago, y 'all. Yo, what's good everybody in Bracago? This is the Spawn on Me podcast with Kahlief Adams. I'm your host, Kahlief Adams. I hope you're doing well, having a wonderful beginning of your summer. I know that I have been having a blast running around doing everything and nothing all at the same time. So it's been a pretty good couple of weeks.

0:37Of course, my New York Knicks are now New York champions and world champions. We are now the best basketball team on the planet. So I've been losing my mind in terms of watching the games and then watching all the fallout, the parades, and everyone freaking out across the planet for coming through and hanging out with the rest of us Knicks fans, which is always a blast and always good to be able to see. But this week we have a really, really dope show where we're going to be talking to the fam. Cam Hawkins is going to be rocking with us this week on the show to be talking about some of the stuff that we didn't get a chance to talk about during Summer Games Fest.

1:14We were both running around, hanging out and getting things done and working out our appointments, but we hadn't got a chance to actually sit down and chat about all the goodies that were there. So if you didn't see some of the coverage that we had on our YouTube channels, please go check that stuff out We've put out stuff. I think it was like almost 11 videos on YouTube covering so many things that we got a chance to check out during the show And get a chance to you know subscribe and hang out with us even more for more updated videos and conversations that we'll be having On the show. So without further ado, I do want to bring the fam the man the myth the legend and Cam Hawking coming through on Spawn on Me this episode.

1:57How you doing, fam? How's things? I'm doing great. Congrats to your Knicks. I was rooting for them, you know, 53 years. That's a long time. I can relate a few years ago with my Kansas City Chiefs. Like, I never thought I would see the day. And, you know, look at us now. So, congrats, fam. Right? Isn't our sports really fun, man? Like, I think a lot of folks who are in the gaming space kind of poo-poo on sports. Like, sports doesn't really have the same kind of vibe that games do. But, like, man, you know, when the Chiefs were getting the chip, you know, the world kind of rallied around them. It's now our turn for folks to get really excited about basketball from a New York perspective again.

2:38So it's always fun to be able to see that. And it's also really fun to see you again because I feel like we were ships in the night at Summer Games Fest. We were so busy. We were always running past each other like, hey, see ya. Like, literally, hi, bye. Because we were just, that was definitely the busiest SGF from a schedule standpoint. I hardly had any breaks to, like, talk to anybody compared to, like, previous years. But, you know, got a lot of cool things to see and talk about. And, you know, I always appreciate you allowing me to join the team during SGF and rock it with you. No, it's always great because I think you bring such a fantastic perspective to all of these conversations, especially fun to be able to do get a chance to cover a show like that together, which is which is great.

3:28So for this episode, I think we wanted to talk about, you know, some of the stuff that we both got a chance to see kind of, you know, in tandem and apart. We talked a little bit about it on the video that we have on the YouTube channel. Make sure you're going to get in checking that out. But I know there were some standout ones that you got a chance to check out afterwards and discuss and look through and play and get some time with. What are the kind of highlights that came across for you at the show this year? Yeah, so some of the ones I unfortunately still can't talk about due to embargoes.

4:09So hopefully I'll be able to talk about those soon. um but one of the ones that i really liked that i really had no tangible knowledge on what it was is erosion erosion is a roguelike open world for lack of a better term so it's not like a roguelike where you're going level to level place to place and trying to get to the boss at the end this is an open world game that just happens to also be a roguelike in this in the sense of its mechanics and uh it's really dope it has a voxel style uh art direction and it's very like running gun all your weapons are like different uh guns like the revolver and the shotgun you have like this um levitating bike for lack of a better term that you use to uh travel around the world and you have quests that you normally kind of have like different choices on how you want to proceed with with those quests so one of the examples is you go to this like chicken cult leader and they basically want you like want you to help make the cult more prominent and things like that but then you go to a bartender in a local town and they're like hey these cult members are a real problem can you please like take care of them so you basically kill them and you don't like go up to them and like have like a dialogue to make those decisions you just do the action so if you want to take out the cult leader you just start shooting you just start you start yelling um there's definitely a bit of humor to the game um and the interesting part of it all is that the whole premise of the game is that you're trying to save your daughter who's been basically been taken but if you die time advances 10 years as well as your daughter so your daughter gets older if you die and so i'm i'm very curious what the narrative elements are going to be like based off of like hey do i if i if i beat this game without her aging what happens or oh i get her to a certain point does she die and i and i lose or is it just like oh she stays at this really old age at this point and you know she basically outlives you or you know you outlive her because you took so long um there's a lot of those type of things that i'm very curious about and the idea of um how many like if you can do a new run and you can carry over the things that you have from your previous run so that the next run is a bit quicker you're able to save her easier those are the kind of questions that I have uh going into it's a you know eventual uh release which is supposed to be oh this is coming soon so we don't have an exact release date um but I'm really excited about this I you know I roguelikes are a hit and miss genre for me there's some that I really love like I think Dead Cells is one of the best games ever made I'm not as high I'm not as high on Hades as most people but I still recognize that they're phenomenally crafted games um but this one just like feels a bit of a bit of a fresh air type deal and so i'm i'm really excited that i got to play this and uh get this put onto my radar do you do do we know if this because i know i'm watching the trailer now and it's like joining the play test and stuff do we know if this thing is still you know like demo form somewhere or is it is like a steam next fest kind of deal yeah so there's a play test that you can request to join on steam i i did that once i got back from sgf so oh okay yeah because i only got 30 minutes with the game yeah uh in reality is more like 20 minutes with the game and so i you know it was a lot to especially with a roguelike there's so many mechanics and stuff it was a lot to take in in 20 minutes um but again i really enjoyed my time with it and i'm very curious as to like what the overarching narrative of this whole thing is going to look like.

8:44Ooh, I'm very excited for this because I hadn't seen this at all. So like getting one and getting a chance to see something new that is new on my radar and speaks to me in multiple ways because I love kind of twin stick shooters. I love those. I love, or it feels like it looks like a twin stick shooter. I love that kind of aging Sifu-esque mechanic that's in there in terms of the time, space and stuff. And like, I like the kind of looking at the, the trailer again, if you're watching this on YouTube or if you're watching this on Spotify, you can see the video versions of the show. It feels like, you know, the genres are also kind of playing around with the timing too.

9:24Like it looks like there's a Dance Dance Revolution kind of esque moment in the trailer too. In terms of the stuff that you got a chance to see in the trailer itself, did they show you like multiple time frames as well? Did they show you like each version of or at least a couple of different versions of, you know, whatever you're in and how those did they play any different in those ways? Yeah, actually, that's something that I kind of forgot to mention. So when it comes to that quest, like where you kind of choose between the cult leader and the bartender of the town, you know, to me, I was just like, oh, of course, I want to kill the cult leader.

10:02So, like, we don't like cults up in here. And so I killed the cult leader, and they basically, for the sake of time, they reloaded a different save after that decision was made. And the bartender enslaved the entire town. So, like, it's not one of those situations where there's an obvious good or bad choice. It's like, hey, which one would you rather do? And there's probably going to be negative ramifications for regardless of what you do. Or maybe it is a good, like, you know, choosing the cult leader is actually the good choice. And there's some good outcome for that. But yeah, so that's kind of like the ramifications of what can possibly happen.

10:51But you don't see those ramifications until you die, which is interesting. Oh, that's even cooler because then, yeah, once you've actually died and not come back because you're not really coming back after that. But, like, that must be really weird because then you're like, well, what did I actually do? And how does that stuff kind of reflect in the overall, you know, playthrough after that, I guess, is the question I have. That's very cool. Because then – go ahead. Oh, and it makes sense, right? Because you're making this open world game, and if you want people to engage with the open world, there needs to be changes that happen as time progresses.

11:35And so I think it's a really smart design decision to do these type of things so that when you do die, it's not like, oh, okay, I've got to just continue what I'm doing. It's like, no, the world has changed. Let's engage with the world. Let's travel around. Let's see what's changed and engage with that. And I think that's really cool. did they say anything about like um you know how many specific areas you're gonna wind up kind of going through or like time frames they didn't know um but there is a like a chart of like basically telling you like oh these are the choices you made these were the outcomes of like what happened that kind of thing which is what what makes me very much think that oh this game is going to encourage multiple playthroughs where you kind of complete the chart all uh like detroit become human right where you could kind of like go back to certain scenes be like oh let's get this question like outcome that i didn't get before and that kind of thing so i think like at first they want you to play it naturally like how you would naturally want to uh engage with things but then it'll hopefully give you the opportunity to go back and do other choices and see what happens there.

12:52Ooh, I'm real excited for this. This might be one of those sleeper hits that people didn't expect to kind of come through and then be like, oh, what was that game that happened in 2026 that everybody slept on and shouldn't have slept on? I love that. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. That's awesome. Yeah, one last thing I want to mention too, which was really cool, as someone who struggles with arachnophobia. I asked them, because there are spiders in the game, I was like, hey, are you doing arachnophobia mode? Because, like, I'm one of those people. I'm one of those people that, like, actually will benefit off of this.

13:28And they were like, oh, like, we were definitely, like, thinking about it. Like, but, you know, they definitely, like, heard my feedback there. And so I just wanted to, like, shout out the team. Like, they may not do it. You know, they may not do it. But the fact that, like, I was able to just, like, tell them directly to their faces, like, hey, like, this would be really cool if you did this um and they were like oh yeah we were already like talking about it but like you know getting to hear it from someone in person like that's you know that's great so that's something that i wanted to shout out as well that's great because i think you know i think sometimes when you get a chance to advocate in person it has that even greater impact of being like no this is this is i'm one of the folks like i love to speculate like no i'm one of these people who will not like that part and to to a certain extent it's like you'd still be able to you know uh you know uh suggest people play it because you've had a good time with it but also then it kind of sucks when you are an advocate for a thing that you want people to play but you can't play it yourself uh so it's cool to be able to see that you you got a chance to talk about that um valor mortis which i think is one of those games that has been pretty much on everyone's radar since uh steam fest and once they got a chance to check it out at summer games fest uh what were your thoughts about about valo mortis yes this game has been uh on my radar since it came out i love the ghost runner games and it's from the same dev one level games and um i just i've had multiple opportunities to play it but then just like some for some reason or another it just didn't pan out and so i never really had the opportunity to play it until uh at sgf and i'm kind of glad i did because i i feel like that this game felt feels like pretty complete you know what i mean it's like it's coming out in uh it's coming out i think in september or october i just got pushed i know that um and so it's coming out soon and um it feels ready uh that being said i'm also not a huge souls like guy i i know that's a pretty unpopular opinion um but i'm very hit and miss with souls likes um i i love a good challenge but i love good challenges in a fast environment not in a slow environment and so i love sekiro like sekiro is in my opinion possibly the best action game ever made because it just like makes me feel so cool and badass um and so when i heard that valor like that Valor Mortis was a first person Souls-like from the Ghostrunner people out I immediately was like oh this I think this will be one of the ones that clicks with me because it'll feel faster it won't feel as um slow and you know through my time of playing it like I had a really great time I really liked it um it has a really nice uh fun uh parry system um I think the level of difficulty is pretty balanced like you know um and it's it's very early you know it was i basically played the beginning of the game it was like the first chapter you know you're basically like learning your abilities um you're learning to get your foothold on things and stuff and you're getting a taste of kind of what the uh narrative of this world is which is uh pretty fascinating uh so basically the idea is you've basically come back to life and you were a soldier in napoleon's army at the time and napoleon is also like talking to you um and the all of the enemy not all the enemies or maybe all the enemies but most of the enemies that you're fighting in this game are also former soldiers whether they be from napoleon's army or i believe it's the british army um that that were also affected by this thing that Napoleon basically unleashed on everybody.

17:31And yeah, it's a very interesting world and narrative. And yeah, the combat is really fun. I love the parry system again. and um i just think that valor not valor mortis but like one level games just has like or one more level sorry one more level is the name of the developer um i think they've done a really great job and uh just they just feel like an underrated studio right like they made ghost runner one and i feel like some people played it but not enough then ghost runner two came out and that got more people involved and i don't know if this was their intention but it just feels like hey like we know we have the talent what's something that can get more people's eyes on us and i think having a first person roguelike which from my knowledge we don't really have one of those yet um be you know be something to really bring uh people to their to them as a studio and potentially go back and play their previous uh titles because again they just continuously have made games that really speak to me like as someone who loves mirror's edge and i saw ghost runner i'm like oh this is this is it this is what i've been waiting for and i think they did both of those games splendidly i think those are both like high quality well-made games that uh were like on my top 10 in both respective years that they came out um and i think that valamortis is not going to be any different and i think it may be like again outside of sekiro i haven't fit like i haven't finished a roguelike uh or not really a souls like and this might be the next one because I just really dig everything that I've experienced so far.

19:23And I think that people, even if the first person stripping you out, like, don't don't let it. It's really cool. It's really dope. And, you know, and you also have weapons and you have magic abilities as well. But I didn't have a whole lot of time to play with those. And I'm very curious to see how that evolves as the game progresses. The funny thing is while I'm watching this, because I've seen it in a couple of different iterations over the time that they've talked about this game coming out. And I think, you know, if you're listening to this show, you know, if we're recording it on a Sunday, I think tomorrow, Monday, will be the last day that it might be up.

20:03Or it might be, today might be the last day it might be up. So make sure you're getting a wish list it. It looks a lot like Dishonored in some ways because of that first person camera, which I love the fact that those two vibes kind of are mashing up together um were there any because I think the thing that has kind of leaned me or weaned me off of Souls-like games that it feels like everything feels very similar in terms of not only aesthetic but mechanics at this point right like you you know you're going to get a good parry you know you're going to get a good um you know you know the third person camera work is usually where things have landed was there anything else in the game that really kind of made this thing feel like it stood apart that you were like huh of those other experiences that i that i know i've had already and maybe were the ones that didn't really kind of give me that space to connect with it like you talked about in those ways and how that you love that one was there anything in this that kind of you know besides setting and some of the usual you know trappings of a of souls like that felt different in some way um i don't know if you have played sekiro but i think that those that that is a better comparison to the overall combat experience uh versus a dark souls or an elden ring um because you know you because you can parry and then when you uh you have moves that are not blockable or parable and so you have to be able to dodge and adapt and be quick on your feet um which i'm not saying that you don't do in souls likes uh like traditional souls likes but it just feels like you're a lot more um consistently moving in a in a very fast-paced way um it part of it is just like vibes you just kind of have to like play it and recognize like oh this is not like i can't approach this exactly like how i would approach like a dark souls um and it's more in line with a sekiro um that being said i do think because i didn't finish the boss when i played i ran out of time but i did get a couple of a few tries on it and i thought i beat it and then there was a second phase and that was when i like was out of gas i was like oh i i've used basically all my resources that type of thing but i think that at least based off this first boss the game does a really good job at like kind of teaching you like the important uh mechanics of of the game and then they're like hey here's everything that you've learned here's a boss beat it and so if that if that speaks more to you because of that then um yeah i think you you might think that this one might click for you a bit better um but when it comes to like an overall experience it's a little or it's too early to tell for me like because i i only got to play the beginning they did have a separate part of the game available but because it was my first time i was like i'm just gonna start from the beginning and get my bearings and that type of thing um but i think that but the boss fight was like super fun like i had a really great time with it and um i was just like i was mad that i i didn't get to beat it before i left um and so that's like that's honestly something that's been kind of stuck in my head since sgf was like man i really wish i had the ability to beat that boss in time but i didn't and so i'm yeah again i'm very excited for for valor mortis and um it's it's coming i know it got pushed back i'm trying to see what the release date is now it got pushed back to october 13th which i think is fine yeah that's not bad at all that's one thing that's interesting about um these all these dates being in september i'm like i understand y 'all are worried about gta but gta comes out at the end of november like you can easily release games in october and i think be okay and so the fact that we're starting to see more and more games pushed to october because everyone initially set release dates in september i think this is a good place for valor mortis especially because it's also coming around halloween time yeah let's have like that kind of halloween vibe to it so yeah i think i think it'll be good i i really hope people uh support this game because uh you know even though their games have gotten like more and more in budget i think that at least from a visual standpoint it looks like that i just feel like that that is a studio that could use all the support that it can get um where it's at and so yeah i love that um does it have the like light the lamp all the enemies come back kind of stuff like sit at the bonfire thing is it doing that yeah so there's a lamp where you uh you rest at and that's where uh it's like the bonfire of the game okay okay okay i i mean every time i see this thing it looks really good it looks i'm gonna try to sneak some time in with it if it's still up today uh after we record okay good because i i i feel like i missed it too like there was a a preview preview event and i was like just doing this at like crazy hours of the morning and i missed it or i just had another appointment and missed it but i want to definitely get a run in on this because i i'm excited for what this is going to wind up being um another game you checked out was out of words i'd love to hear more about that because i remember seeing the the playstation announcement about this and having this kind of really dope stop stop in a stop animation uh kind of aesthetic i'm definitely excited to hear more about that from you yeah so out of words is very similar to like a yosa ferris game it's a co-op adventure game and it's uh done all in stop motion where the this boy and this girl are basically you know they both want to confess to each other but they fail to do so and they are put into this world where they cannot speak to each other.

26:13So all of their cooperation is, like, done through their actions. You know what I mean? And there are a bunch of, like, cut scenes. And, again, it's all, like, it's all stop motion, which is really, really great. I believe the, if I remember correctly, I believe the stop motion team is from Denmark. But I may be misremembering that. but they've been working on it for a while now and it's, you know, it's a really cool adventure. Like I don't think it's done, there was a really fun little puzzle where like they have to, they kind of like flip sides over and over again and you kind of have to like use that as like a bit of a platforming challenge.

27:00But outside of that, it was really just kind of getting introduced to the world and the environments that you're going to be engaging with. um from a gameplay standpoint i feel like it was just you know it was rather light it was rather straightforward and so i think a big part of the um i do think we're gonna get those kind of challenges similar to what i just mentioned but um it was really the story that in the in the art direction that was like keeping me uh and involved with what's going on when i was playing and so yeah i think it's a really great seeing something like that and orbitals as well right that's coming out um in october i believe and so um that's really dope too um you know it just has a lot of personality and i like when we get these very dedicated uh very meticulously crafted artistic games like this where just like so much work is put into like the smallest detail and um that's that's really hard and uh seeing that be translated into a video game is just like so i think it's just such an achievement and so um i really enjoyed my time with this and um i'm very excited to see more it doesn't have a release date it's just supposed to come out sometime early next year um it is gonna come out on consoles but this is an epic game store exclusive title this is through epic publishing um so just wanted to you know mention that for those that primarily play on pc that's going to be interesting to see how they land that because i think one of the the issues has been around folks not necessarily adopting the epic epic game store launcher and being excited about you know playing in those spaces i am happy that it will be coming to console because then i will give them more of a you know ability to get it in front of more people but i i agree with you and i and i and i share the same sentiment like when teams get to make stuff like this that feel bespoke and feel like they're using you know mixed media in in in cool ways like this man those those experiences are so cool because it's like uh you just don't get a chance to see this level of detail and craftsmanship in you know we see it in video games that we could play every day but it's a very different version of it right where like it is all digital you don't get to say you know you're not looking at people play around in the editor and in the engine in the same ways you'd get a chance to see people kind of like moving these these these uh digital not these physical actors uh in in uh stop animation frame by frame to make these things look like this so that's cool i love anytime you can make a thing like this i'm probably going to play it you know absolutely it's one of the it's one of the best examples where that remind me like man there's i really don't know enough about game development than i want to right let's just because i see it's i see things like this i'm just like how do they do this like like how do they do like i don't need i don't need the ins and outs of like i don't need to learn to be a programmer but it's just like how do they do this because they talk about like oh we made all these models and then we scan them into the thing like how right yeah what is the technology that allows you to do that um and so uh i i just you know want to give this team their flowers because it just looks absolutely incredible and um it just seems like a project that's like did this take y 'all 10 years right because it's just like you know what i mean but it's like oh I think they said it was like from just the idea of the game to now, I think that they said it was like four or five years.

30:48I'm like, no, that's crazy. Yeah. I know. I'm like, how'd you do that? So it's just one of those things where, and like, how, how big is that team then? Because they do the paint and they do the, you know, they do the actual like animation stuff. It's like, how, how do you do that? And it just, it's just like, man, there's so many talented people in this world. And I wish I had like, a drop of that talent this makes me this raises my level of excitement for the game and also makes me want to really get them on the show to talk about stuff like that you know like how does how does that process actually come together so out of words i'm i'm very excited for for what this is going to wind up being um yeah you should definitely go check out when when this is going to drop whenever they actually land the the ship and give us a a release date for this thing.

31:39I know we also had two other appointments that we did have, not necessarily together, but we covered the same game. So I talked a little bit about some of the stuff that we checked out at probably Monsters. Shout out to that team. And two of the games that I want to hear your thoughts on are Crimson Moon and Nakome Nazi Hunter. Tell me, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about Souls-Likes again. uh but what what was your your thoughts about crimson moon yeah so crimson moon when it was first shown off i believe that was at a nintendo direct actually um i may be wrong about that but first time i saw it i it didn't really speak to me outside of the art style and so when i saw that there was an opportunity to play it i was like okay let's actually check and see what this is because at first i didn't know if it was a roguelike i didn't know if it was more like an action RPG adventure type title and so but I kind of went in thinking it was going to be a roguelike and that's what it is and but the the big thing about it is that one which I honestly forgot about it until I talked I was talking with my podcast partner Kevin Kenson about it is that this is a two-player co-op game which I think makes me more high on the game than I initially did Walking Out I think this is one of the games that I walked out the lowest on, not particularly that I think it's a bad game.

33:08I just don't think it was for me. And the reason why I think that is, you know, we got a pitch before the game about just kind of like, you know, we've been working on this game for a while. You know, the kind of whole general spiel that you normally get if you have one of these type of events. and um i was playing it initially and i was you know i i enjoyed what i was playing and then i hit my first death and then i immediately got back up and i'm like oh okay so i guess i'm alive again and then i died again i'm like oh i'm back alive again like is there like what what's the system at play here i was i was i was really confused because I don't think we don't you don't see it on the b-roll here for those that are watching but there's not um I don't think the HUD in the game uh is really great um at telling you like oh this is how many lives you have left um and even uh Kevin when because he got to play it he did much better than me because he's more seasoned in the uh Souls-like genre and even he he did not know until like near the end of the demo where someone told him like, oh yeah, this is where it shows how many lives you have.

34:29And it's just like, oh, that does not read, you know, for at all. And so, you know, eventually, um, I got to a checkpoint for lack of a better term. Um, cause it's not really a checkpoint, but it's really just like a place where there There are these three circles that you can choose a boon or a buff. And I was just like, okay, sure. And so I picked that up and it didn't click with me that at that point I was like, oh, I'm playing a roguelite. And so I kept going and then I properly died and lost all my lives and I got sent back to the hub world. and when that happened i was like oh i do not like that this just happened i was just i was like oh i this is this is really upsetting um i did not know that that was what this was because if it was i would have approached the demo differently i would have been a bit more um cautious and selective with how I approach certain enemies and things like that.

35:43And so when I got sent back to the beginning, I'm like, oh, well, I'm not going to see the rest of this level anymore, and I wish I knew that. And if I did know that and I died, then that's on me, sure. But I just wish I was filled in prior that, oh, this is also a roguelike. You have this many lives. If you die, you're going to get sent back to the hub world. I think I would have had less of a bad taste in my mouth if that was the pitch I got which I don't know if that was the pitch that you got but that was not the pitch I got and so that yeah that that was something that I just wasn't a huge fan of but again I think with having the two-player co-op aspect to it I'm a lot more open-minded at the end of the day to give it another shot because I love co-op games I love borderlands I love um games where I get to play with my friends in a you know campaign uh environment and so that's something that speaks to me and I'm more optimistic into giving it another shot and knowing the things I know I can approach it with that information yeah i think you know i came away from it feeling really excited about it um but i but i think i think also like i agree with you that there were elements of it that i was like oh i like i totally didn't know about the resurrection thing until i even yeah i was asking them too i was like oh i was like did this i was like oh is this on like god mode for the demo like for the for the for the event because like that'll happen sometimes when you're going to an event and you're playing a thing for the first time they'll put it on like a debug mode where you can kind of like not really die you can kind of play through it so you can get a better understanding of what it was he's like no that's a part of the game mechanic i was like oh like i totally didn't even understand that that was a part of it in that way from a kind of nuts and bolts perspective though i think outside of the kind of misalignment in the expectation the kind of small pieces of like well how did it feel when you were kind of playing it Did it feel like you liked the aesthetic in how it looked?

37:57What were your thoughts about the kind of nuts and bolts of the game? Yeah, so the art direction is cool. I like the way that it looks. I like the way that it plays. I like the equipment system. Again, it gives very much Borderlands vibes, where it's like you defeat an enemy, see what the enemy has dropped. And sometimes it'll be something that'll be an upgrade for you, and sometimes it's not. I'm curious if that stuff will transfer over between levels. I'm sure it will because if not, how do you really progress in the game? And they did mention, similar to what you were saying previously, they did mention that the demo was easier than what the game is going to be, which is fine.

38:44But yeah, it's just one of those things where there were certain aspects that didn't uh that i wasn't aware of and so i kind of had a assumption as to what the experience was and then that was not true um but yeah i think that's um because i think in the grand scheme of things like i think that these levels seem to be like kind of properly paced um like you'll probably take you um maybe less with a friend like maybe 30 minutes to get through a level like it's not a super strength like strenuous experience um based off the structure of what they made the game to be um so yeah like in general i think it's a well-made game i think it's gonna be a i you know i think it'll be solid my main thing is is that i don't know if they've really been sending the message that this is a roguelike souls like and i'm worried that people are going to get a similar reaction to me when i played the game and on top of that let's say that they do send that message to players that is a niche venn diagram of people that are going to be like, yep, this is what I want.

40:10I want a Souls-like and a Roguelike mixed together. I don't know how many people that's really going to directly interest,

40:22but I don't think it's going to be super large. But then again, the two-player co-op, the Borderlands-type experience, that is the thing that's kind of keeping me interested, right? That's the thing that's like, okay, like that, you know, that's fine. I'm not a huge fan of this, but I love this. And so this is like the thing that might, you know, again, keep me interested in checking it out once it drops later this year. I think alongside those lines too, I think the thing that may be the thing that gives it more legs and, and, you know, ability to kind of get a good space is, you know, with you talking about the difficulty in the demo, I think that'll be the biggest thing for them is if they can make the difficulty approachable in a way that feel, because that was the thing I liked about it a lot was like, Oh, okay.

41:14As a person who's played all of those genres of games, there is a level of souls, like where you're just like, all right, I gotta get, I gotta lock in to, you know what I mean? Like it feels like almost playing like a competitive game where you're like, all right, I got to be kind of sweaty and lock in to make sure I'm having a good time with this. What I loved about this was it didn't feel like that. Like I wanted to feel difficulty. Oh, difficulty. That's not the way you'd say words. I wanted to feel difficult, but I also wanted to have a level of approachability where I don't have to feel like I am spending a ton of mental energy just focusing on all those small things of like the dodge felt approachable, the way that you're kind of using those secondary abilities felt like those are great to be able to clear a room and do some of those things so yeah i i agree with you on some of those elements of like where it might land in terms of the audience but i i feel like that may be a saving grace to find a find a space where people will play or be like oh well i have an expectation for this and if it doesn't meet that these parts are giving me the fun factor in in that in that space so that's that's rad um any last thoughts for Crimson Moon before we go on to our last game of the show that we wanted to talk about?

42:30No, I think that's it. I just wanted to mention that it's coming out in September. We don't have an exact date yet, but they did say September. Okay. Yeah, I'm hyped for it. And shout out to our friends from Probably Monsters for that. And yeah, we had to check out one last game, which was the game that I was the most excited to check out from Probably Monsters, which was Nakome Nazi Hunter, which again in a time frame where we are having the weirdest space with people who are actual nazis of the world it was kind of cool to see them jump head in and head first into making a game where you're just literally taking cats out you're just like i we are not sugarcoating our feelings about this about this uh legacy of people and stuff uh what were your thoughts about the combi nazi hunter so the first thing i want to mention and that they're very clear about uh when we got the pitch and when we played the game is that this is a very early build of what we play this is an alpha built um this is definitely a work in progress you and you could feel that as you were playing through the game uh that being said like i had a lot of fun with this one um um obviously like killing nazis is fun um there's no reality where that's not fun um but i think um in a video game context to be clear i don't want i don't want that to be clipped if people are like oh this guy says you know but but yeah um i think the main thing about it is uh so this is like a revenge story where you're basically just like, you know, you're this character getting revenge, assumingly Nazis killing people close to you.

44:19And we basically get this, not as tight, but we do get this like Arkham, Batman Arkham combat style where you're throwing fisticuffs, you have like some weapons, like a knife, and then you have like a like a counter system that you can use to counter enemy attacks and again it feels early it feels like it needs to get some polishing done for sure but it was fun and I really enjoyed my time with that outside of that I think it's a pretty linear experience you know there are little things that you can do along the way like you can burn nazi posters um when you're like you know a big part of the demo took place in like a nazi headquarter uh or office space and you know you'd see like these um posters on the wall and you could just like light them on fire and uh you know and burn them uh which which is cool um but overall like the i think the big thing is we just got a nice little taste of the combats and the just minute-to-minute gameplay experience.

45:37And I think it has some really solid grounding, some really solid fundamentals, and I'm very curious to see what this game looks like in like a year's time. Yeah, I agree. I think one of the things that did come through was, yes, you could definitely feel the early build parts of it because the combat felt a little bit disjointed in terms of the speed in which you're kind of hitting a button And when, you know, you're kind of stabbing somebody. And I shared that up to the team when I was there and talked to them about that stuff. And, you know, when you remember that it's an alpha build, then you give it a lot more grace in that way.

46:12But I love the fact that not only are they kind of really going all the way on this on this revenge tale, but it also is going to be kind of cool to see where they're going to go from the narrative perspective. You know, you wind up losing some, you know, even in this short clip, when I'm losing somebody who got attacked by the Nazis and seeing how they're going to talk about the Shurer and all these other pieces of it. But it was cool to be able to see them go through and build this world out in a way that felt, you know, unapologetic about what it was trying to convey. I think a lot of times, you know, the last time I've seen something like that is probably in Mafia 3 when they had that moment with the Klan.

46:57And, you know, you roll up on a Klan meeting and they're basically burning a cross in the middle of the bayou. And, you know, the main protagonist literally goes through and almost, you know, COD style goes through and mows everybody down at the Klan rally. um and it's and it was cool to be able to see that you know probably monsters say outright like no we are we are not hiding from the potential smoke here you know like we are you know again if you're rooting for the if you're rooting for the bad guys in this game that's a problem but even even more so seeing that they're just like well why why would we not you know be able to make a spin make a game like this and talk about this kind of story in terms of direction i really also like the art style a lot i think it um i think the aesthetic was cool to be able to see them go into almost uh you know i'm trying to think of a game again also feels a little bit like the kind of world of death loop in that way with the kind of way that the characters were built out and kind of the visual design of that space um and the demo was was short um but it did have some uh you know stealth elements to it you know again i'm curious to see if they're going to add you know uh or if they're going to have guns in this game that you're going to be able to pick up and use uh because a lot of kind of there is i believe you got to use one briefly in the beginning like the very beginning of the demo yeah but i yeah because i remember a lot of it was kind of mostly hand-to-hand combat stuff of you doing parries and stabbing people up in that way um so i'm i it it is high on my my my list i want to see how far they go like this is one of those games where i'm like i want to see how gruesome and how you know how far you will take it and see what the repercussions are going to wind up being for for that for not only the game but for the other folks it's hard it's very rare now to see studios take a stand versus a very specific kind of ideology but Nazis always can get it so that's always great to be able to see that stuff happen in the mix let's take a quick 10 second break and recoup get our brains together and take a quick ad and then after that I want to come back and talk a little bit about what we've seen from our friends over at Xbox and the discussions that we've had over the past couple days about Asha Sharma the new reset and a little bit more.

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50:48Thanks everybody for, for hanging out for a little bit. Uh, thank you so much for our wonderful friends over at infinite, uh, helping us out and getting you fit for the summer and the future of your life. Uh, giving them massive props as always. Uh, Cam, So we had a lot of good information over the Summer Games Fest that turned out to not necessarily be the best information for our friends over at Xbox. I think it was a very mixed bag with that that started off really strong with their Summer Games Showcase that, you know, showed us E-Day and a whole bunch of other games that people really excited for.

51:23fans there for fan fest got you know or will be getting their new xbox series x's in that cool transparent green uh cases that they have there's a lot of good love being brought to the brand that seemed to immediately get washed away with some discussions coming from the new ceo about not only you know uh them not doing well financially in the ways that they want uh having a new kind of routing or direction for the business that will potentially and probably already has started in layoffs and studio closures that we saw in conversations around compulsion and others, you know, Makers of South of Midnight, which won multiple awards and got crazy good reception across the world.

52:14I know you've been also tracking these stories and tracking kind of the vibe of the space. I'd love to hear your thoughts about kind of where all of this is landing for you as the person who you know we're all in the same gaming space we all love and play on on all these platforms um what are your thoughts about the kind of current direction that we're seeing at least from asha's discussion points that came out this past week

52:43uh not to be hyperbolic but i think it's just all bad i i think it's all really bad um i think it's all really uh disturbing um i i think that we are seeing a new xbox leadership that is pivoting to a similar um i'm not going to say it's a one for one um of course but a similar headspace as to what playstation is doing where it feels like that they are in the grand scheme of things wanting to only make games that are going to attract a general audience and on paper that makes sense right but i also think that you bought these studios initially for a reason and these studios like double fine like compulsion they make very specific video games uh they make they have a very specific identity and And I think that hearing that these are the studios that are going, like, honestly, like, when I first heard the list of studios, like, unfortunately, I thought Compulsion would be one of the first ones to go.