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EIC of Polygon and co-host of The Besties Chris Plante fills in for Frank on topics like the Cyberpunk anime, Anthem, and a Republican poet’s paradise. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Tim Rogers, Brandon Sheffield, and Chris Plante. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.

Questions this week:

  • How can game companies draw attention back to their titles after a botched release? (07:07)
  • How do you make collecting treasure in a game feel significant? (14:14)
  • What would you put in The Orange Box 2? (20:12)
  • How would you quantify an experience point? (26:07)
  • Design a game based on a White House press conference. (32:59)
  • From PAX 2022: An interview with Starbucks Workers United organizer (37:59)
  • MoxBagel re-asks: What’s the ideal video game to play over dinner? (41:11)
  • Has a plot hole in a game’s story ever ruined the game for you? (48:37)
  • What is the Avengers: Endgame of video games? (58:14)

LIGHTNING ROUND: Name Design – Panic! At The Disco songs (01:05:38)

Recommendations and Outro (01:18:57)

A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED:

Recommendations:

Jaffe: Watch One Piece

Brandon: hold the up and down buttons to control those barrels in the Carnival Zone in Sonic 3, don’t watch Austin Powers, don’t watch any of the Bill & Ted movies, Mom and Dad Save the World (1992)

Tim: Check out Star Trek: Discovery if you want to see David Cronenberg be weird and Michelle Yeoh be weird

Chris: Subscribe to Shudder or The Criterion Channel

DIRTBAGS: You can submit your questions to the show using this form. And, thanks!

Comments

George 'Kid' Oldman

Great Ep! Nice to hear team fortress 2 discussion. In some ways its my favorite game - and I often try and find ways to answer every question in an episode of IC with something related to TF2. I do have a strong opinion about Orange Box 2 - I think they should have some kind of a surfing game in there. There's a community mod called Momentum Mod that is trying to make a standalone surfing game. I do think it is one of the most fun things to do with that Source engine / Hammer tool. Of course it would not work very easily on console so I guess its a moot point. Surfing maps can be super fun to play once you pick up on how to surf and the easy ones are quite relaxing / meditative to playthrough imo. "Mavis Biano Teaches Piano" should have had a standing ovation too, nice one Brandon.

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BTW any of you who listened to this right away may have missed that there was a segment about Starbucks Workers United in the middle-ish of the episode. Give it a listen if you missed it! It's at 37:59.

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(brandon:) I don't know why that made so much sense to me, beacon doesn't rhyme with typing... but it felt like what it needed to be. if it makes sense to you as well it probably means you have the insert credit podcast brain worms real deep in there!!

George 'Kid' Oldman

Haha yeah the fact it was incongruously rhyming was a point in it's favour, comedically However I definitely have a couple b.worms up top as well!

Branwen Shoop

Fun note: as of March 2021, all Color Out of Space revenue is being sent to domestic violence charities instead of the director.

Dustin Reno

The orange box v2 question was cracking me up I'm glad Alex asked the about games getting a second wind from other media tie-ins. CDPR seems to have done really well with this between Edgerunners and the Witcher netflix series. Curious to see if/how that ripples out in the future for others. Honestly forgot the podcast was wrapping up for so long until Alex had to remind everyone, haha Good conversations are easy to listen to. Nice episode, everyone!