Unofficial Controller Podcast
Forever Skies - a chat with Greg Cummings - Far from home Community manager
Venture with us on a journey through the corridors of gaming history, revisiting the immersive world of Bioshock 2 and the innovative charm of quirky titles like Harold Halibut. We tackle the evolution of game controls, relive the triumphs of conquering FromSoftware's masterpieces, and laugh at the quirks of our own gaming habits. Our exploration doesn't stop at reminiscing, as we delve into the latest gaming updates, sharing tales of our recent dives into titles like Planet Crafter and the management intricacies of F1 Manager 23.
But it's not all about us: your voice matters here. Our community takes center stage as we discuss the impact of your feedback on Forever Skies' development, celebrating the creative genius of contributors like Professor and DeLinsey. So, whether you're a hardcore gamer or a casual enthusiast, this episode is a tribute to the collaborative spirit that fuels the gaming world. Prepare to be entertained, enlightened, and perhaps, find yourself a new favorite pastime among the gems we've unearthed.
Could you design a video game?
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Venture with us on a journey through the corridors of gaming history, revisiting the immersive world of Bioshock 2 and the innovative charm of quirky titles like Harold Halibut. We tackle the evolution of game controls, relive the triumphs of conquering FromSoftware's masterpieces, and laugh at the quirks of our own gaming habits. Our exploration doesn't stop at reminiscing, as we delve into the latest gaming updates, sharing tales of our recent dives into titles like Planet Crafter and the management intricacies of F1 Manager 23.
But it's not all about us: your voice matters here. Our community takes center stage as we discuss the impact of your feedback on Forever Skies' development, celebrating the creative genius of contributors like Professor and DeLinsey. So, whether you're a hardcore gamer or a casual enthusiast, this episode is a tribute to the collaborative spirit that fuels the gaming world. Prepare to be entertained, enlightened, and perhaps, find yourself a new favorite pastime among the gems we've unearthed.
Could you design a video game?
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Hello and welcome to the Unofficial Controller Podcast, your weekly gaming podcast, episode 220. Greg Cummings, community Manager, far From Home, and their game Forever Skies, this week joined by the aforementioned Greg and RGT, who are forever young to my forever forever. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-da-da. The words that no one does, but yeah.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:Listen.
Speaker 3:Hello, I wasn't prepared for that introduction.
Speaker 1:This is the mindless singing era. I don't see it lasting long. To be honest with you, RGT, have you got a hidden gem?
Speaker 4:No, you had one last time, don't be spoiled.
Speaker 1:One a month, Move on. Honestly, it's like the fasting diet with these hidden gems. Greg, welcome back. It's been a while since we've had you on. Quite the new world for you. Now you are officially what I would call a gaming celebrity, helped in no part by your appearance on this show in your fledgling years Some would say more harm than good, but still, your shining star and innate talent just kind of bubbled to the surface and now and we'll get into this later on you are a bona fide industry guru, dripping in lanyards from all across the world from your celebrity gaming adventures. How does that? How does that feel to have crossed what I would call the rubicon?
Speaker 3:how does it feel? I feel thankful clearly from the uh, from the help that you obviously gave me all those I was saying no, this did not help in any way it feels.
Speaker 3:It feels it feels good, it feels, uh, it still feels a little surreal. In all seriousness, it's uh, still kind of um bizarre to think that I work in the video game industry. It's always something that I always wanted to do and, yeah, like now that I'm here, I don't think it's ever really ever fully like clicked that I still get to do this front of it. But I think the thing as well is that it's as fun, as good as it is. You know, it is still just a job at the end of the day and it's not the most important thing that sort of defines you know who you are. It's not the most important thing that sort of defines you know who you are. Family friends, you know blah blah, blah video games. You know personal time. That's all the stuff that really I think matters the most, but yeah, it certainly beats what I used to do, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, you're on the UCP not accepting your Oscar, but that is probably one of the most humble intros back to me that I've ever been aware of or been exposed to, and I think that kind of resonates down through you as a man. You are a very humble person, you're very down to earth. Let me say this the game industry hasn't changed you. Let me say this the game industry hasn't changed you. Rgt got one little corner in Retro Gamer magazine and he's letting it redefine his whole soul. Should we move?
Speaker 4:on from that. You're correct, well done.
Speaker 1:Good to hear. Well, you hear, it's probably probably gonna be a little rude of me not to ask you what you've been playing. So within now, this is one question I did have. Now you're on the inside, so let me use the wrestling analogy. Now you know that the power bomb is a little bit of window dressing. When you sit down and watch Undertaker get powerbombed through a table, you kind of go yeah, to be honest, I'll just brush that off. Now you're in the gaming industry, before you indulge us with what you've been playing, do you now see the smoke behind the mirrors, behind the curtain? You know it's a guy pulling levers and dials and switches. Do you find it's affected your ability to fully absorb yourself in a game?
Speaker 3:you do. Actually, it's kind of like I don't think how the sausage is made is probably the right term for it it's, it's, it's truly fascinating when you play a video game.
Speaker 3:Now, uh, compared to before I worked like for a studio you know, you see, literally step by step, how a game is built from the ground up. You know, from sort of um, from prototype into concept, into texturing, into sort of program, everything, everything, everything that makes up a video game. And you sort of see this when you're, uh, when you're then playing games yourself they haven't worked on there you go okay, I see how this was put together. Now I see how this was, I see how this might have been concepted beforehand. I could probably imagine why they did this. Oh, I see why this I you know, like, just like subtle things, like things like, for example I'll give you an example uh, like you know, like in linear games, you know where, like a games want you to go like a specific way, and how they will sort of highlight where you're supposed to go by, sort of like brightening up that section of the, of the, you know of the of the level of the map, and sort of like giving very subtle hints that you don't really notice as a player, like a like, sort of like a general sort of gamer. But when you work in the industry, you notice these tricks that you do that sort of like the people you work with, do you? You see it when you're playing games yourself, go, ah, see what they're doing there. Like, subconsciously, you never notice. You never notice what they're doing, but unless you know, you really do sort of uh, pay attention to this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:I know I certainly did pay attention to this kind of stuff beforehand. So, yeah, that kind of really is fascinating and it's kind of uh, interesting and a way it makes me appreciate video games on a whole other level than what I did before, because I really see how much work actually goes into them. So, yeah, I really like that, especially when I'm playing survival games, which is what Forever Sky is. That's the genre that it falls into. So I kind of see I have a much more deeper appreciation for them and knowing how much work actually goes into them, because we all know it's all like. You know, video games are a lot of work. This is a thing that everyone knows. But just actually how much work is not really known by the general public and yeah, it's truly awesome to see. So, yeah, that answers that question, I guess.
Speaker 1:So, with that in mind, what games have you been ruining for yourself? Right, very good.
Speaker 3:I've been playing quite a lot of things actually On PC. I've just finished Black Mesa, which is the fan-made Half-Life reboot Well, not remake. It's a remake of the original Half-Life, but it's fan-made. Whichlife reboot? Well, not remake. It's a remake of the original Half-Life, but it's fan-made, which was approved by Valve. That was a lot of fun to go through, but it made me remember just actually how bloody long Half-Life is Like. I completely forgot it. I've not played it since I was a kid, going back to it through the Black Mesa. Reboot, not reboot remake. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:I've got a couple of questions for you. When did you switch your Cult Allegiance to the one of the Master Race? And what is this rig? Is it the sort of thing that's going to trouble deep thought on Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Or is it just your day-to-day work rig and you can get it running a pretty decent version of Half-Life Black Mesa?
Speaker 3:It's a pretty good rig actually. It was given to me by my work, so I work in games, so it's a pretty good rig. It's not like sort of top rig.
Speaker 1:It's like a Make a note to send RGT a 286.
Speaker 3:That'll do, that'll do.
Speaker 4:Another Speccy will do.
Speaker 3:It's got a couple of years on it Don't send him a.
Speaker 1:Speccy, it's because it's what he wanted.
Speaker 3:He hasn't earned it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:It's a pretty good rig. It's like a sort of medium tight. It's not like the top top, but it's. It certainly will be good for the next sort of five years or so would it.
Speaker 1:Is it a rig powerful enough to make you feel like you can run Assassin's Creed Black Flag at full spec like an absolute boss? Yeah, I would say so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like an absolute boss. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, at this stage it could probably run Black Flag at absolute tippity-top. It can run Crysis 3 as well.
Speaker 1:The ultimate test. I didn't want to threaten it with the card. I'd like to bring it down.
Speaker 3:I feel like we need a new bar for that. You know at this stage who's Black.
Speaker 1:Flag Fosse.
Speaker 4:How did you find that still hasn't been?
Speaker 3:improved, but I am, I am. I am still playstation at heart I do, but I just. I now have a pc that's complete games, so I might as well make the most of the games that don't make it onto playstation have you indulged yourself with a PC version of a PlayStation recent classic on your system, on your PC system, just to indulge yourself?
Speaker 3:What do you mean? Like a PlayStation first-party title? Yeah, no, no, I don't. I keep that literally to console. The thing is like I don't really, I kind of play just the.
Speaker 3:The PC games that I play on here usually are just only available on like Microsoft, so PC or Xbox, because I don't own an Xbox.
Speaker 3:The PC games that I play on here usually are just only available on like Microsoft, so PC or Xbox, because I don't own an Xbox.
Speaker 3:So everything like usually in my own personal gaming time I will usually still go to PlayStation, because even though I work from home, it kind of feels bizarre to me when I sort of like say, let's say, finish work for the day and then literally remain seated where I've been for the last eight to nine hours and continue playing PC games through the night. So that sort of transition literally into the next room is like enough to sort of say, right, work is finished, now it's time to play games. So yeah, I try and I only I don't play too many on the PC. Mostly I play on the PlayStation. I've been playing a few lately on PlayStation as well and, funnily enough, actually, um, I've been replaying bioshock 2, and I believe that somebody else here has also been doing exactly the same thing wow, look at you, two sexual patriots well, the thing is, it's just one of those I don't know I've been craving to play judas and I won't get to play Judas probably for another year or two.
Speaker 3:So I thought, well, I've replayed Bioshock 1 recently I did Infinite again last year and I realized I've only played Bioshock 2 once and it is seriously an underrated game that should get all the credits that Bioshock 1 does. It's just that Bioshock 1 is more iconic. I that Bioshock 1 does, it's just that Bioshock 1 is more iconic. You know, I think Bioshock 2 is actually a more cleaner experience. And so, yeah, I've basically yeah, I've just.
Speaker 3:I've gone back and I'm replaying that now and the great thing is it's been like what? Maybe 14, 30, 14 years since I last played it. So it's been like I got like a few select memories, memories from back then. So most of it is still kind of new to me again because it's been it's been that long. There are certain key moments that happen throughout the story. There you go. Yes, no, I do remember that that was cool.
Speaker 1:I think for me, bioshock 2. I was able to absorb the story more because the gameplay was cleaner cleaner in its execution I was able to interact with. I felt the world was more interactable because I wasn't being restricted through button Not that Bioshock 1's got bad button inputs or anything like that, but everything just felt as it should do, totally cleaned up and refined for the second one and therefore I had a. Bizarrely, although the feelings of one will stick with me two, the game will probably stick with me more. Is that how you found it? On this second playthrough?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so because, um, yeah, like you say, everything they've just said, it's a cleaner ui, the hood makes more sense, the powers are, you know, constantly uh available, the guns constantly available. And, I think, adding to what I was saying before as well about my deeper appreciation for video game and structure and level and pay, like level design and pacing um, I think it'll make me appreciate a lot more than when I was, like some, you know, 19 year old kid playing this. Um, I think I think I'll have a greater appreciation for it this time around and, uh, I would like to think, yeah, that my memory of this will last one hell a lot longer than it did the first time through, because, yeah, it's honestly such a breath of fresh air, like to play this now. It still holds up, still holds up very well, even visually.
Speaker 3:Like you know, you, you get a bit too close to certain models and you do start to see, uh, as I said before, how the sausage was made. But, you know, when you take the world in as a whole, like, as, like a landscape, it's, it's absolutely stunning. The color palette is insane, from the word go, uh, it really sort of takes your breath away, even still, which is a real testament, especially to games that came up coming out around the same time during the whole, you know, uh he colored era of video games, where everything was just like a grayish green, like throughout the entire ps3 era. Like this, one stands head and shoulders above the rest on just on terms of, uh, art direction, um, visual fidelity.
Speaker 4:It's, yeah, absolutely wonderful that's what I was gonna ask you about the. Um, when you played the you just recently played at half-life, sort of fan made game. How did you find that? Obviously, being in industry now looking at that game from more of a an industry eye, how did you find that that was made? Because I've just recently purchased the two Daymare games and they've got a. I just bought them because of the history of what they were remaking Resident Evil, and then they were already doing Resident Evil 2, so they took them in under their wing and said, well, we'll help you finish the games but make them under a different name, sort of thing. How did you find playing this Half-Life? Was it as good as a studio, did you?
Speaker 3:notice anything? Or did it run smooth? It ran very smoothly actually, and it basically is a studio that now does it. It's a bunch of people who work in game dev who came together just through their love of the original half-life games and they came together and and and built something in the source engine. In fact, I think there's actually a really good uh shout out to noclip a youtube channel. Uh, they did a great documentary on it a few years ago. Um, and yeah, it's like saying like it's like a fan made remake kind of really doesn't do it justice, because this thing took like 10 years to make. I would say it was because it just starts off like as a mod, you know like a little bit of a side project, and then it's all gathered pace and more people join the project and, before you know, you essentially had, like I think about, I think it was like a hundred 250 devs I can't remember working on this in the end, just from all sides. You know, concept art, 3d art I think they're doing this. Yeah, sorry, go on.
Speaker 4:No, I was just going to say. I think they're doing a similar thing with time splitters at the moment. I think there was a load of fans who have been remaking time splitters. They've got to a bit of a level now where they're a bit stuck, so they've been asking for devs to give a bit of their time up and help them literally get it over the line, but it's very, very close to being being done from what I hear. But yeah, I know they've been, uh been doing that and I think that started off as a bit of a mod project. This then just ended up being this full-blown remake, you know hell yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm.
Speaker 3:I was not aware of that, so I'm always down for more time in Splits, yeah. Yeah. That was the original Damn. What's the game that came out? It's one of the most popular games out there right now Axiogen Blizzard Playing as different legends characters in different diablo. No, not diablo. Uh, oh, my god. It begins with oh, I believe I can't remember. I've had a complete much overwatch.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Oh my god, don't, don't, don't bring george's favorite don't bring that name here yeah, but this is what I was saying about TimeSplitters. Right, it was like the original Overwatch, it was like that, but loads of stupid wacky characters, just sort of like Do you think Tom was a big TimeSplitters fan?
Speaker 1:Do you think that's where this Overwatch addiction came from? Possibly, og Tom, that filthy scallywag. Yeah, did you catch him last episode he came back.
Speaker 3:I still haven't forgiven him for saying no when Bart Barlin Was it something how he pronounced it.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't take offence. This is a guy who thinks BST is British Sea Time.
Speaker 3:The guy is a menace, that's a fire team. It's something I remember listening to him trying to pronounce my name like I can't wait to call him out on air about this.
Speaker 4:I think he was trying to be theatrical and got it wrong, I think.
Speaker 3:He is a true man of the arts.
Speaker 1:We're talking of these sort of mods that become way bigger than they should be. Have you seen the fallout london um what they've been producing?
Speaker 3:I have and I kind of feel for them. I was very much looking forward to that mod. Actually I was going to check it out now that I can, and um no, but it's kind of it's's a little bit. It's a little bit rubbish how Bethesda kind of completely sort of pulled the rug from under them by sort of launching the Fallout 4 PS5 update, which was kind of not as good as it should be, but it was certainly within Bethesda's sort of usual standard, shall we say.
Speaker 3:And yeah, I did read something yesterday. I think they actually have found a platform for it. I can't remember where they said it was, but I think they have found a new home for the mod, so it sounds like it will be coming. But yeah, I think Epic Games or something I don't know, don't quote me on that, but I did read that they found somewhere for it. So at least the work isn't going to go to waste. Players will be able to play it. But yeah, like these fan-made mods, man, it's incredible, it's absolutely incredible. And, like I say, calling them that it's kind of like it does it a disservice because, yeah, they, they are just as good as any. They are basically a studio themselves.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it should be a lot of fun and it considering that they've worked in their sort of. I mean, I think a lot of the legwork for that was carried out during covid, so this has been a a long time in the making, for want of a better word, probably same incubation period as a a triple a game that would be based on that engine. One would imagine, it seems, the amount of work that's gone into it in their spare time to create this. I know sort of. I've watched a few videos. I know sort of development has ramped up as we've approached this sort of release date and had something ironed on Again.
Speaker 1:We're sad as gamers, or the audience is sad as a collective. But putting developer hat on for a minute, I know Bethesda have got a lot of stick for this. Bethesda, bethesda, call them what you like, they've had a lot of stick for this. But who there would be the one to say, actually put some brakes on this PS5 reskin we've got coming up off the back of the TV show, put your brakes on it, because these guys have created Fallout London in their spare time. Was that something that you now, as community manager, you're aware of? What things are going on in and around the Forever Skies community. Is this something that would cause you to put brakes on something?
Speaker 3:If there was a fan made, if well.
Speaker 1:There was a fan made.
Speaker 3:It's hard to compare the two because the studio size I'm talking about here are vastly different. You know, we are a team of 30 overall. That's not just production, that's like everyone, that's admin, that's marketing, and at bethesda, as we know, um own about a fifth of the earth. So it's it's really hard to say exactly, uh, we, we, I would say we would. We're very community focused and our development has been very community driven because we're in early access, which means we're constantly listening to the community. And I'd like to think that if you ask pretty much any of our community or any of our play, any of our players in our community, they would say that, far from home, take our opinion on board, they do listen and we make changes accordingly in our game, because we can, because we're in early access.
Speaker 3:Um, bethesda, I don't know, I think it would literally just be. It would just be, uh, todd howard, right? I don't know anybody else, who I don't know. I think it would literally just be Todd Howard, right? I? Don't know anybody else who would put the brakes on it?
Speaker 3:I don't think anybody would put the brakes on it.
Speaker 1:What would have been the most sort of non-colorblind thing to do Would it have been to have someone on the periphery say oh, you know that we were going to stealth drop the high-res update. Yes, yes, yes, yes, these guys, because they didn't just come up with that one afternoon off the surprise success of the Fallout TV show. These things were kind of so simultaneously released, or around the same period, that you can imagine that it maybe even slipped past the TV show and they probably should have had it out two weeks before.
Speaker 3:Well, possibly, but the thing is it doesn't matter when they released it, because the code they must have been using whether they had a change in upgraded engine that kind of made everything that was on London.
Speaker 1:Would the least colourblind thing have been to do to have been aware in the periphery that this was happening, which also had a release date around the TV show, which also benefited them, to have gone six months before to them and said we can help you make this pop, but not just pop in the way you thought it was going to pop. I'm talking updated graphics engine, the whole bag of tricks. You can come out. This is very generous of us because, technically, our property and we're giving you free use of it, but you can come out at the same time as this update, as these mods, as all this stuff, you can be running on the latest gizmos. Would that have been a very community-embraced way to do it? Is that the way that you think you would try and attempt to circumnavigate this hurdle?
Speaker 3:you think so, in an ideal world, that is how. That's how they would have done. Like any community work folk like myself, that's certainly how we would have been pushing to do, because we would have been very aware of certain things. People on the production side maybe not as aware of what was going on, but but you know, it's kind of strange in a way, because all the Bethesda higher-ups have ever done is just praise their modding community because you know, a lot of the time they made the games infinitely better. I'm not hating on Bethesda in any real way, because I actually do enjoy a lot of their games, starfield aside, but like I think they would have had more awareness for sure and in the uh, in an ideal world, that is how they should have done it.
Speaker 4:Yes, going back to cap capcom, you know that was a fan made resident evil 2 they were making and rather than saying shutting them down, saying no, they, you know they no. They took them into their studios and said, no, we can't let you release this because we're already remaking Resident Evil 2, but we'll help you finish it. Call it a different name, we'll help you take it. And they helped these fans make their game and even got them a physical release of the game. So they literally took them under their wing, which I know it's not the same. I mean Nintendo, for instance, anyone under their wing, which I know it's not the same. I mean Nintendo, for instance, anyone's making anything related to their IPs and they're shut down. Shut it down, yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, but it's so nice to see that some of these studios will take them under their wings and say look, sorry, you can't do that because of this, but we'll still help you release something. You know and that's good. You know that was brilliant publicity and press for Capcom.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I think any studio just needs to remember that no studio is bigger than its community.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sometimes it's best to work with a community rather than against a community.
Speaker 3:You know, absolutely I mean, a great example of that would have been most recently in the last couple of weeks with Arrowhead and Helldivers, right, no studio can sort of overrule a community, because let me tell you those players, they will let you know how they feel about it and I'm surprised that this actually hasn't blown up more for Bethesda. But yeah, I think everything will work out fine. I think Bethesda probably should have been a little bit more aware of what was going on and they probably might have been aware, but they probably I don't know, I don't know, I don't want to speak for them they might have probably just not have cared because they had their own plans and Fallout London wasn't probably going to benefit them in any kind of way.
Speaker 3:That was my, I mean it would have brought up their concurrent players, because it's still classed as Fallout 4. People playing Fallout 4 on your Steam numbers and every other platform. So it would have helped them, but I guess.
Speaker 1:I guess as well it. Even if it's like a general, the whole brand saw a general uplift. I think what was Fallout 4's sales went up in a measure of 1,000%. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't think that would have been for London, though, would it? That would have just been for people buying the upgrade.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely, but the concurrent players returning to Fallout 4, realizing or 3, or New.
Speaker 1:Vegas, realizing that they've already seen the full turn of the wheel. Doing a little bit of Googling comes up with this full mod. All of a sudden they can't find their physical version of it, so they're buying another version on sale on Steam, ergo, as an example. So they've had a double bubble of the game. Yeah, they're not going to play the main story of that, but they are going to play this new world they're mildly intrigued in in Fallout London. So there is some sort of cross-platform uplift from such things. To think that there's no financial return, I think is a bit short-sighted. But not certainly as much as you'd get if you'd created your own, if it had come from their own creation studios. Or maybe because they've got the Mod Hub Club. Hasn't there where mods of a decent size get at least on the PlayStation platforms, get premiered or light shown on them, because they're kind of authorised. I can't imagine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're supported. Yeah, yeah, Certain mods get supported by the studio so that even the studio will help if something's not working. If it's caused a crash and it's a supported mod by the studio, the studio should help look into it.
Speaker 1:Question your game's based around sort of flying around in airships. To bring it down into its loosest form, yeah, I'm thinking of a film or series that could tie back into that mechanic in a very loose way, and this is why I've had to break it down to its most component parts. Are you aware of the film series well, I say series when there's been only one, but it's not a series the film Slipstream by Mark Hamill.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not familiar with this actually.
Speaker 1:no, okay let's start gathering behind the slipstream mod for Skyrim. There we go. We've got to start Hamill's coming in. He's going to re-voice his work. I've got the glider. I'm working on the glider, the cliff-top sort of base as well. I think this is going to maybe as well Malcolm McDowell coming in I think they were both in it maybe a bit of a wing commander vibe going on there. I don't even know what came first, chicken or the egg, other than I mean, we've been on quite an elaborate loop to come back round to the fact that you've talked about a fan made Half-Life, right to the fact that you've talked about a fan-made Half-Life mod. God knows what the AI is going to make of what we've just talked about. They're going to probably it gets very wordy. You know, talked about the intricacies of fan-made community support and how that impacts AAA games in the modern gaming sphere. Like well done AI. Maybe you could just cut me out and sound awesome.
Speaker 3:We've also been past that as well. We've gone on to Bioshock 2, so I have no idea how we managed to take this sort of like. I don't even know.
Speaker 1:No, we've been on the, I've gone round. I feel like Devo on a roundabout, powered by a scooter.
Speaker 3:There's a niche reference that maybe three people will understand Our three listeners, oh so, 100% yeah also the three people currently creating the episode, so that's hit hard. That's meta, as the cool kids say. It's not even everything I've been playing. I've been sort of playing something else as well, if you're interested.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's where my elaborate wordplay was taking me to what else?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm so sorry, I just took us straight there.
Speaker 1:To be honest, it was that much of a link that it forgot. It was a link about halfway through. It became its own thing. Yeah, it scrabbled for its own survival, then realised it had eaten half its own ecosystem. And then you came along and just gently propped it up.
Speaker 3:Just bulldozed over it, you know, like paving over it.
Speaker 1:I thought you'd saved it but yeah, you turned it into a parking lot. What's this other game you've been playing?
Speaker 3:I've also been playing a very unique game that you might have heard called Harold Halliburton have you heard of this.
Speaker 1:Now my mind, the way it works is very cynical. Looked at Harold the Halliburton. Now I know this. Is that really nicely made Stop motion, stop motion game. Yeah, you put the word in my mouth which I had no idea where it was going to come from. To be honest, I looked up at the universe for the right words. Nothing came but it does sound Provide Wow.
Speaker 4:It does sound.
Speaker 3:You know what?
Speaker 4:I knew you were excited for this show, Greg.
Speaker 3:Consider what my surname is and consider how George in the last episode that I was on. Wow, considering what my surname is and considering how George is my name. In the last episode that I was on, I thought I'd managed to sort of skip that landmine, but apparently I just went there myself Brilliant. You stood on it.
Speaker 1:It's like OG Tom had an episode ago. He led us into a landmine and then had no idea how to get out.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, anyway, where were we.
Speaker 1:I was saying that my brutal sense of irony made me feel like the Harold the Halibut sounds like the little version of Dave the Diver yeah, and they're completely they could not be more different exactly, although my mind was like, oh, oh, that's bad timing because there's a first name aquatic-based job, first name aquatic-based creature.
Speaker 3:But he's not Harold the Halibut, he's Harold Halibut. Halibut is his surname.
Speaker 1:Are you sure much like Jake the Snake, his middle name's not?
Speaker 3:Well, maybe it is, maybe that'll be a big revelation that we'll get at the end of the game. I don't know.
Speaker 1:How does this hold up? Cause this has been intriguing to me, Cause I've thought to myself quite some time, probably since the launch of clay fighters why aren't they doing more of this?
Speaker 3:Because I think the reason why they don't do more of this is because, literally, how long it takes to make it, because every single character, every single location in that game has literally been made from the ground up and recorded in stop motion and obviously, and then partly obviously, animated as well, because it has to be still. But, yeah, I think that's pretty wide. I think it's Slow Bros in the studio. This is their first. This is Little German Studio. It's their first game and it is literally their first game because they have been working on this for 10 years, my God.
Speaker 3:And the thing is as well because it's never going to make huge sums of money. It'll probably sell. Well, it might sell a million copies, I think. Hopefully, if it's lucky, that'll be good, um, but the thing is it just doesn't have the return for how long it takes to create. It's absolutely wonderful, like on terms of story. It's it's so the story and art direction and charm it like is 10 out of 10. Yeah, gameplay is very, very minimal, um, which is why it's nothing like dave the diver, which literally introduces new mechanics to you like every hour.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, do you know what We'll get to that in my what You've Been Playing? But every single time I pop up from the water there's a new speedboat in town giving me another chore. It's like back off, guys. I haven't even mastered the. You know that diving gun. I don't know what it is about holding x and pressing trigger to fire, but I kind of want to. I I find myself seeing a fish thinking, oh yeah, I want a piece of it's uh, eskene quality. I hold down right trigger and then want to press x to fire. I, my brain struggles with that. Is it just me?
Speaker 3:yeah no, I don't think it is. I think that's just it does feel like an unusual. I think it's one of those things you probably have to get used to. But, like in the last sort of 10 years, we've all kind of become accustomed to a universal controller scheme, like on any controller, like on xbox or playstation, you know, even on steam. If you want to use a controller on pc, um, you know, we've all come so used to. You know a certain way how things are. Movements on the analogs, left is sort of aimed outside, right trigger shoot, blah, blah, blah. L1 is I don't have thrown grenades, circle is crouched, x is jump, etc. Right, and I think anything that sort of goes against the grain. Now does take a good legal six months for you to get used to anything different. Howard Halliburton, for example, you run holding square and I'm like how flipping dare you?
Speaker 3:maybe press anything else other than clicking down on L3 to run. You know, it certainly takes a long time to get used to now, because we've just become so. I don't know, I guess we all have become so lazy as gamers, you know.
Speaker 1:Think back to the PS1 days when I was going to say PS1 to me is actually quite a struggle to play these days because they were still working out the buttons, because the twin sticks hadn't really been incorporated in the way that we traditionally know it. That era, especially for 3d movement, is tough you know, because you know it's true.
Speaker 3:but you know what? I think it depends on what you used to play it, because I haven't bought many games this year. I've only bought, uh, harold alibut um pacific drive, which is another good game, I know you played it, um, and the other one is tomb raider. Bought Harold Alibet, pacific Drive, which is another good game, I know you played it, and the other one is Tomb Raider 1, 2, 3 Remastered, right, and I thought it was going to take me forever.
Speaker 1:You were legally obliged to buy that trilogy because of your enigmatic history.
Speaker 3:Exactly you know it's true, but yeah, oh man, I put like easy like 152, 100 hours into that and it was literally like I was. That is just probably the only game that I could switch back to and it just felt instantly comfortable. A lot of my friends were like, no, I had to try the modern controls, and that was hard as well. I tried the modern controls just out of curiosity, but that game is it's grid system. You know it's designed for that old tank control. So that is probably the only gaming series where I can go back. But you're right. Anything else on PS1? Vagrant story L2 and R2 to look left and right? No, thank you. What the hell are you doing?
Speaker 4:As I say, I was always a Pro Evo player and they have different controls to FIFA. So when I eventually went over to FIFA, which is now obviously EAFC, I have to change controls to the Pro Evo controls I cannot use. But they actually have a setting for it, called Alternate, because they knew all the players were coming over. So you just change it to Alternate and the button layout is as you would have had on Pro Evo. But I just cannot get my mind around pressing a different button. It just completely confuses me. You just get programmed into that way of what you expect the buttons to do for certain actions. It's so hard to break it.
Speaker 3:So many people miss goals because they were pressing circle when they should have been pressing square and vice versa. I've not played football games for a while because I don't really follow the sport too much anymore, but I did back around around that time and, yeah, I also went to pro and sort of changed more my all the teams to their correct names etc. And yeah, I do remember it felt so right though, just pressing circle to shoot, and then all of a sudden it being on square felt so unnatural. But yeah, then when you're going back, yeah, you do have to switch those alternate about the dedication of time.
Speaker 1:one finds oneself having to input, through a d-pad and a cursor, the names of all the teams in the Worldwide Football League.
Speaker 3:Gentlemen, Ours, yeah, but it's worth it in the end.
Speaker 4:You got to remember the Pro Evos originally didn't have any licences. No, I know. So we used to go through and change the whole Premier League. So, man Red, you changed to man United.
Speaker 3:you changed all the players' names correctly, I think when I came in it was at Pro 4, so PS2 era. I think they had one. I remember whenever it was they had United and Arsenal, it was when Arsenal had the burgundy kits.
Speaker 4:That's it. Yeah, they were a couple of stars or something weren't they. Yeah, I think they had Henry on the front of the store, I think.
Speaker 3:I think it was them in, weren't they? Yeah, they had. I think they don't really on the front of the store, I think. Yeah, I think I think was it five. I know I remember lucy hart being absolutely incredible and never was in real life. Uh, yeah, I can't really speak too much. I'm not you know what.
Speaker 1:I've not followed the sport for like four years now, so I don't know what's going on with the whole ea24 I tell you what that era of evo box art is very iconic because they were kind of pushing the bus stops hard, the you know, the magazines hard. As soon as I see an Evo of that era, sort of PSP, ps2, it takes me back in time we used to there's.
Speaker 4:You know a lot of me and my friends used to all play pro Evo religiously. We bought the new one every year and we would discuss in you know in depth who was going to be on the cover next year. Nowadays, no one you know. You just go and buy the AFC and that's it. You don't need a box. But there was a big talking point who was who was going to be on the front cover? You know, and sometimes you get a shock. One that was in the Premier League, that was just an okay player, would appear.
Speaker 1:John.
Speaker 4:Barnes no, it's a bit after John Barnes, but no, he's still. Dave Batty. Oh sorry, it's a bit after Dave Batty. John Lukic yeah, you're just shouting random names, the only ones you know because you don't follow football. Bobby Charles.
Speaker 3:He's got a Google tab. It's like his leads have just Googled 80s footballers, 80s footballers, that was that was the 90s Leeds team on it with those characters. Gary Speed yes oh, gary Speed, wow that's the name I've not heard. Yeah, that's the name I've not heard in a long time, a long time a long time my god or your father was born.
Speaker 1:No, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I don't get the same excitement now with the WWE games every year. See who's going to be the cover star Wow.
Speaker 1:I don't think they have anyone on 23, so I don't know what they're going to do for next time. Hey, this is for you, little special one. Thank you very much so you talked about these, these.
Speaker 3:I understood that reference everyone got that reference.
Speaker 1:Even my mum was like don't say it, mum, don't say it, don't say it. You talked about these games that you picked up. Talk me through those. This year so you've had Tomb Raider and that's seemingly ticked a couple of the boxes for you. What was the other one that you mentioned there, pacific Drive? Let's talk about that, because through the lens of this, I want to talk to you about now. Did you enjoy the game?
Speaker 3:I did a lot actually, and it was very eye-opening for me in a way, because it's actually one of the titles that have been heavily compared to our game. Well, we've been compared to Pacific Drive. They're well more popular, you know.
Speaker 1:They're out fully, not round. Oh okay, yeah, well, laughter, phil, edit that. Leave it in Phil oh, george.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, it's very good. I will say one thing I've sort of left it at like 80% complete because it started to get to the point where I was like, okay, it was getting harder and it wasn't getting more enjoyable. And I think it's probably because I feel like, you know, it's one of those things where I feel like I've missed certain mechanics here, because I feel like certain things should make more sense. But I don't think that's necessarily an issue with Ironwood, I think that's just a greg issue, uh, which I I would say I've had a similar experience with it.
Speaker 1:Like the mechanics weren't obvious to me, I really enjoyed the setting. I really enjoyed the premise. I really enjoyed the idea of the car. I really enjoyed the idea of kind of exploring this world and it being a little bit twin peak scene not really making sense as a little bit of science, but Pacific Northwest, you know it's got that vibe to it.
Speaker 1:It's got that days gone wooded vibe to it. It's got that feeling. But yeah, what took me out of it? For me and I'm sure there's lots of people out there that enjoy these games and and probably make more sense of it than I did but I'd really been looking forward to the game. But getting out my car with the pneumatic hammer driver to break some glass uh, to get hang on a minute. I'm using this to break glass. I'll just drive my car into it. I'll just smash it with a hammer. I'll just smash it with a hammer. I don't know why I need the Gdumfka, gdumfka.
Speaker 3:I understand Petition to me. That is actually its official name, gdumfka.
Speaker 1:It's the noise. It's on a matapia.
Speaker 1:The scrapper the scrapper makes sense to me. It's cutting the things down and admittedly they appear in nice boxes of the component parts with theueprints, which I do enjoy. But it kind of felt a little bit too non-sciencey for me within that world. It kind of had a disconnect in the storytelling of its own environmental system that kind of pulled me right out of it, Taking all my kit into a back room of this garage. I kind of wanted it to be more visceral, Let me put it that way. When I was fixing the car I wanted it to be more car mechanic simulator rather than me spraying my car paste.
Speaker 3:I always felt that if anything it was more visceral. I felt like we're creatures of habit. You know we're creatures of habit, so I think I always kind of enjoy, I enjoyed that that loop of getting back and like that sort of relief and arrival.
Speaker 3:And then sort of taking it apart, getting my checklist. Okay, I'll do my health, I'll do my fuel. What great can I do with the matter? That I've got Right Fantastic, let's do that. Okay, let's take those parts, recycle that. Then I've got right fantastic, let's do that. Okay, let's take those parts, recycle that. Da da da. I really enjoyed that cycle. Put the music on, you know. Go see what the dumpster's got for me. Yeah, I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:That took me out of it as well. Oh really, if the dumpster hadn't burped like a 2005 wheelie bin from the Doctor episode Rose.
Speaker 3:I could be completely on board with it. Oh my gosh, what a great reference to Doctor who.
Speaker 1:And that's how that bin immediately made me feel. And I'll be honest with you, I don't think they got the vibe right in that episode of Doctor who and I'm not sure they got the vibe right with the burping bin in, because everything else about it felt so real and so kind of twisted and weird.
Speaker 3:A burping bin was a bit like this feels out of place, just a little bit I'm furious because I know when I go, but when I inevitably go back to pacific drive, all I'm going to think about is a stupid burping bin from doctor who episode one rose.
Speaker 1:This was the bad doctor, who, yeah, and, and what a way to relaunch a series, especially because there's mannequins in the game as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah it, they explode, granted, and don't just sort of come alive and walk towards you, but they are terrifying when they have that sort of sort of weeping angel effect the scariest mannequin I think I've ever come across was in Condemned.
Speaker 1:1, Criminal Origin.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, what a fantastic survival horror game.
Speaker 1:What a insert. Nearly said blue word here. Game Ed, you're doing very close, edgelord, that you are right to that. Pg, hard PG, 12 rating.
Speaker 3:What happened to you, George? You used to be so PG. Honestly, I haven't even said anything.
Speaker 1:You've had enough references. I've scared you.
Speaker 3:Even not today, just generally in the podcast these days.
Speaker 1:This is my moment, isn't it? This is where I meet my comeuppance. It's like look what you've become. I'm so sorry You've changed. Don't say that, because that'll stick with me, that'll haunt me.
Speaker 3:I'll say, just before we came online, before we came on air, that you used to be PG, kind of like the Pixar films, and now you're PG like the classic Disney films, always thrown in a knob reference.
Speaker 1:Oh, Well, I'll throw it in there. I don't mind. Okay, Right, Cut that, Phil. Leave it in Phil. Phil's going to cost a fortune isn't he, we're not edgy enough? We're not edgy enough. That's what I'm getting. That's what the data's telling me.
Speaker 3:That's it. We need more attitude here.
Speaker 1:We do what the data's telling me. That's it. We need more attitude. Here we do. I probably need to set our gt up for a verbal. I don't know, I'm gonna set a table on fire and slam him through it because we're still in the what you've been playing section. If you don't mind, I'm going to ask our gt what he's been playing but I'm going to keep it abridged.
Speaker 1:Keep it brief. If we end up talking you've been on holiday, hurt me um talking you've been on holiday hurt me Well, because I've been on holiday.
Speaker 4:you'll be pleased to know it's not very much. I took the Switch on holiday, so Very good, the AFC 24 won't go into that, you know. You don't want me to own just a separate career mode on the Switch. I won't talk about that, you're not interested, so I'll go.
Speaker 3:I'll skirt over it. I understand that the Switch version is like a like for like.
Speaker 1:Get your money for nothing and you bet graphics for free.
Speaker 4:No, it's not even. I mean it's very, very good compared to the old FIFA games that were on the Switch, which were awful. This is actual. Content is identical to the PS5. So if I play career mode, so you've got everything you do on the PS5. Animations are less, they're a bit jittery and your frame rate is obviously less. But graphically obviously it's not as good as the console versions but still looks very good for a Switch and more than playable. So that's nice having you can take that big career I'm doing on the go with you and, yeah, very good. And how much it is as well. It's coming in for less than £20 now, I think, so you can pick that up for us.
Speaker 3:As long as the content's there as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely pummeled in the sales recently, is that since PS gave it away?
Speaker 4:Well, it was obviously going to go on there because it dropped dramatically in price on all platforms just before it came on to Plus. So, yeah, that was probably why Just one last final push before giving it away to the bigger player base for free. I suppose I've also been playing Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
Speaker 1:Is that the one with the car?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's got a car in it. It's odd because I've never really been into Kirby games. Never interested me whatsoever.
Speaker 1:It's a good one, this is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but Mrs RGT picked this up for me for my birthday back last month so I thought, while I was away, I'd have a play on that.
Speaker 1:What game did you play on when being driven down to your holiday by your amazing, talented and beautiful wife?
Speaker 4:I prefer to say chauffeured, but I was playing mostly in the car. I played EAFC, and then I played the other two games, which I'll talk about in a minute, when I was in the holiday home being waited on Champagne in one hand and switch in switching the other. Um, how the other half left.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know now I know where the uh suit of max money went yep, um, yeah.
Speaker 4:So kirby, uh, very good. I've never really been into kirby games, but this was very different. It's odd because it's like Kirby in an apocalyptic world or our world, which is quite strange. But great mechanics, great new mechanics always to find and the things you can do. Almost got that Mario 3D World vibe with the way the maps are and also it's quite an approachable game. It's not too tough.
Speaker 1:I was going to say my takeaway from it was James, the work experience boy got it, he loved it, finishing it the thing that sticks with me, I think, from not only the press at the time but also as a tool within the game. You could hoover up a car and then drive around, is it that one? Because a couple came out around the same time yes, it is that one um I thought that was actually quite fresh yeah, and you get.
Speaker 4:You can go back on your levels and there's bonus levels as well, um, but you can go back on your levels and you'll find, for instance, like there's a guy throwing fireballs at you, so you can eat the guy who's throwing the fireballs. Now you have a fireball weapon, yeah, um, but you can keep that for as long as you want that and you can get rid of a weapon and then get another one, but sometimes a lot. You'd go through a stage and you'd have a list of things to do in that stage rescue a certain amount of, um, the hostages that are taken, you can get them out the cages, beat the boss, blah, blah, blah. But then you'll sometimes see there'll be, for instance, a part you can't get to. But then you realize in the level you could have took over another boss, which would say ice. Then you could use that ice to put a fire out on the door, to then get to those bits. So you can go back and play the levels to unlock the bit. So it's quite addictive.
Speaker 4:Um, it's a great, you know, entry, entry to start on, because I think anyone could play it, from young kids right up. You've got two levels of gameplay. You can play a little bit harder and an easier one, but yeah, just great fun, really relaxed game, really enjoyed that. I didn't think I would, if I'm honest, but yeah, really good. I'm about halfway through, I think, at the moment, and then completely different. The last game I've been playing was signalus um on the switch. I don't know if you've heard of that is this the?
Speaker 3:is this the uh like sort of like overview, like survival horror game?
Speaker 4:it's yeah, if you think, if you think of um, the view of it, it's it's like the original metal gear solid. Yeah. If you think of gameplay, it's like resident evil, very closely to resident evil.
Speaker 3:So you've got this is on switch. Do you mean metal gear or metal gear solid?
Speaker 4:sorry, just uh sorry the, the look of the game from the angle you play from is like metal gear solid right, okay, yeah, yeah yeah, like a top down, not quite isometric, but top down, yeah, um, but the actual gameplay and the game itself and the story is more like Resident Evil. How is it?
Speaker 3:Because this is something that's been on my wish list for a long time and I've never got around to taking the plunge yet.
Speaker 4:So far very good, very good. I think it's quite a short game and it's one of them where it just throws you in. The story is you have to find the story as you go. So you're just going to start with no story base at all to um and you'll be thinking what is going on here? But it'll unravel as you find notes and find bits and there's a it's. It's that very ps1 style of gameplay. So there'll be hidden codes somewhere. So you'll go through the different rooms you think, oh, that code could go back and open that door and you work your way back, go to that door and as the story unfolds, and then you'll get weapons and yeah, it's quite creepy Graphically. I love that style. I think it's gorgeous. I think they've done a fantastic job.
Speaker 4:Runs really well on the switch. It's that almost a lot of polished early 3d. But it's also got a crt filter over it. So when you look at the screen, if you're in handheld mode, it looks like you're playing a crt. It's really really amazing. Yeah, it looks really really good. And then it's got like these sort of pixel art anime cut scenes. Yeah, look really good. So far, brilliant game. Yeah, really really good.
Speaker 4:I was lost for a while, but never was frustrated. Sorry, go on. No, I was just saying I was lost at first, never frustrated with it, because I just wanted to know more about the story. I wanted to find more out. There's even little bits where you you'll have to examine an area that will go into first person mode. Yeah, look around, check some drawers, look some bits, then you'll zoom back out. Um, yeah, I think it's really good it's. It's almost like a love letter to resident evil. The original it's got that vibe, even your menu screen where you have to combine your bullets with your gun how does it compare to the games you mentioned earlier, the Daymares?
Speaker 1:I know it's different, but they're going for a similar vibe.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I haven't played the Daymares yet. I think the Daymares are more of a sort of tongue-in-cheek, sort of a modern retake of those stories, and I know, obviously they've had to have their own sort of story because they couldn't clone Resident Evil 2 for obvious reasons, but I haven't played it yet whereas this is more of, I would say, rather than a remake, it is a. It is a game based in a similar way, in a similar style. It's almost like resident evil fans have made their sort of version of a resident evil game. Um, and I think it's really good to see you, you know, to make it even feel quite creepy, which it does. Got a little jump scare in there. I think it's, yeah, really good. I love the atmosphere. They set the flickering lights as you go through corridors on this sort of smash spaceship Really good, and it just makes you want to learn more about the story. That's cool. I think this is another one. Yeah, mrs Ajitiga, another one she got me for my birthday which I hadn't heard of it until she picked it up.
Speaker 1:Delivering hidden gems? Yeah, I think she might.
Speaker 4:She'd done her research and found this one out and I was like, ooh. So yeah, I sat down and started playing this and was, yeah, really intrigued. Really good, I think, if you're a Resident Evil fan, get it, because you'll really enjoy it Like your own personal Steam curator steam curator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I thought he said is she steam curious? I was like I don't know where this is going. So it was able to scare you in the full daylight on the m4 just outside of gloucester.
Speaker 4:That is a mark of a great game indeed I'll tell you that it's m42 actually, but yeah what an absolute dweeb.
Speaker 3:Birmingham, not Gloucester, get it right.
Speaker 1:I don't know what I was thinking.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I really love that AA Studios and some indie studios are going back and looking more at classical survival horror because they are geek in terms of level design. They are my ultimate favourite. I love original resident evil. I think the resident evil 2002 remake that they did for gamecube is probably one of the best games ever made. I love that people are revisiting this genre because it is classic, especially I don't know if you're aware of a game that's quite recently as well called crow country.
Speaker 4:I've heard of it.
Speaker 1:Can I just intersperse with the fact that that game the remake and the remake of Zero, or the refresh of Zero are so criminally overlooked in the talks. When people they're streaming to I mean Twitch streamers of two and three, ten a penny and the follow on to four again, it all adds into it, but no one goes back and starts with zero and one.
Speaker 3:Exactly this is true. I was in a Discord server the other day and a friend of mine said yeah, they need to remake Resident Evil 1 properly first. And then I went whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, whoa. Whoa, Resident Evil 1 already has a proper remake and it's probably one of the best games ever made. How dare you? But no, I understand where they're coming from. People want it to be modernised, they want it to tip its hat to more the stylings of 2 and 3.
Speaker 1:And the remakes fit what they were going for in 2 and 3, but I feel like the remake of 1 really fits what they were going for with the first game and for that tank controls or the fact they're not there, but they are there, that you have to rely on them sometimes to get yourself out of a corner or a line above an item. You may, god forbid, want to pick up quickly. That is a little frustrating, to be honest with you.
Speaker 4:Well, I think yeah, I think with these modern survivor ones, especially like signalis as well, it's if you remake games, obviously the tank controls, the fixed cameras. That's quite hard for people to stomach nowadays if they're going into it fresh, whereas I think signalers have that. It's got that vibe of resident evil. If you've played resident evil you'll think, oh, this is just like resident evil, yeah, but it's got the controls more you think you're playing an old game. It's sort of right, it's under that illusion. You're playing an old game but you've got the modern control. So it's almost like a twin stick shooter when you've got your gun so you can aim and shoot, but you're on a, you're in a fixed room and through the doors and it will scroll rather than your fixed cameras. So it's, they've almost used a lot. I said to start with, it's almost like that playing an old metal gear solid game, not the original, but you're playing a resident evil within that. Yeah, that gameplay would?
Speaker 1:Would you stomach a re, not a remake, but a remaster of the remake, possibly smoothing up some of the gaps in the controls? What? Do you mean for Resident Evil 1? Yeah, the remake of 1.
Speaker 3:They did that, didn't they? They had a remaster of the remake for PS4.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the control issue still. Still, I think they need to fully commit to tank. Oh, I see, because sometimes I find myself having to tank, use the analog to get to a certain place and then bizarrely have to switch to the d-pad for the tank controls for the final finesse. I feel that would struggle. Now, is that what's holding people back?
Speaker 3:I think if it was going to do it, they'd just full-on remake it in the same vein as they have done 2, 3, and 4.
Speaker 1:I don't think they'd be in the middle of the ground now. Then you're going to lose the nuances of the rooms. I know.
Speaker 3:Is it a sacrifice worth making? Probably not. But let's be honest if they are going to do it, it's probably going to be to that kind of extent. I don't know. I mean, it'd be interesting to see what happens next Quite a short game, I think.
Speaker 1:If you take away the control issues, it would be quite a short game.
Speaker 3:Take away the control issues and make it actually, you know, easy to play.
Speaker 1:Ten minutes in done and out. That that's the way that. Uh, I replayed it, so people like it, and the friction of the controls elevated the difficulty big time. Um, yeah, true, if it wasn't for that, I think it would be. Zero was easy, for the fact that it felt fully committed. One was I don't know, maybe it's not some memory, I don't know all the way I muscle memory, I don't know, or the way I. I remember the first time I played that game, at launch, and because you didn't know anything and no one knew anything about it, there was so much death from misadventure. It was unbelievable, yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 4:And also I think the controls that add that scare factor because you're in a fixed camera, a zombie would get up and come towards you and you're panicking, trying to aim, thinking oh God, he's going to get me, he's going to get me, and that was that fear factor. So, yeah, the tank controls did add. You know, if you fully remade that 3D would that take that fear factor away?
Speaker 1:because you're just straight lined up back. I think it would. Also, the aiming within the 3D environment of an isometric game was insulting the headshot. Where the bullets land on the body, god only knows what's going on there? No control and his hand.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think one that did actually quite well with the tank controls was did you play Tormented Souls from a few years ago? That was like a nice little callback to sort of one PS2 yeah, I never played it, but I heard good things about that, oh yeah, he's feverishly writing it down his hidden gems catalogue oh yes but yeah. I would recommend checking that out as well, especially if you're into See, I've always called it Stellaris, just because I never heard it said out loud until you pronounced it. What is it sorry?
Speaker 4:RGT, I'd just call it Signalis, but I mean I could be wrong.
Speaker 3:I'm talking about the whole of the game. I said Stellaris, which is the whole of the game. That is the game.
Speaker 1:I've been with Stellaris. That's the space overview. God game isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah it is. And here I am getting confused between the two and it turns out they're both games.
Speaker 1:I was initially thinking when he started waffling on about this game he'd been playing. I initially thought he was going to tell me about this deep space tactical RPG game.
Speaker 3:Which is why I had to confirm with him which one he was talking about.
Speaker 1:I had to push the cat back really far on my head because I was like, oh, gt's been playing this in the car on the way. Turns up looking like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs, carried out the car on a flying sledge by Mrs RGT. He's in stasis mode, set to go to the desert.
Speaker 4:Yeah, literally.
Speaker 1:Well, let me regale you with my gaming history. This week there's been a lot of F1 Manager 23.
Speaker 3:Okay, so interesting, because I've only just recently started watching Drive to Survive because my partner is big into F1. Is it worth picking up at this stage to sort of, or is it worth waiting for, like a?
Speaker 1:well, 24s out, because you know I'm always on the white hot edge of cutting cutting edge gaming. Therefore, I'm playing 23. Okay, hear me out, though, because I didn't. I totally forgot about where we were in the release cycle of these games and picked up 23 in a deep sale. I thought I've waited, I'll get this. I think I purchased the original for 15 bucks and this one the same. They've added a few things in that I find adds a little bit of complexity to the racing. Let's answer this first question. Would I recommend it to you? Yes, the racing. Let's answer this first question. Would I recommend it to you? Yes, the f1 driving games are obviously nothing like drive to survive, where this does maybe capture some of the element of the teams working away in the background the management of the pit crew, their training, the management of the car, the development of the car.
Speaker 1:It's football manager, but with a nod to engineering in terms of development of the car, how you're executing the car in the race, yadda, yadda, yadda. If you don't like F1, this is going to kill you stone dead, paralyzed, from the eyebrows down. If you do, yeah, I think it'll interest you down. If you do, yeah, I think it'll, it'll interest you. It's got several different tutorial styles. I would say returning manager, new manager, experience manager, which I've found to be interesting.
Speaker 1:I came back as returning manager and it just sort of light gloss over some things and it was like oh yeah, I do remember this from last time and I do remember this and okay, fair enough, and away I go. It does feel harder. The ai is definitely more challenging. They've cleaned up the way the vehicles race. In the first one you could see the game almost doing paper scissors, uh stone, to work out how you were going to get around as they went into a. You could feel a dice roll in the background as the cars kind of crunched, sort of pixelated, around each other and took the position. That's been very much.
Speaker 1:Say Formula One, Baldur's Gate 3, doing a bit of a crossover there, yeah basically they're very much smooth that interaction out now, so it's a little bit more smooth as you play it. You don't really feel like you're dice rolling for half a lap to work out who had the better engineering stat, team, stat. You've got deep, six sided dice. You've gone all in plus the tire.
Speaker 3:Give me a variable. Yeah, interesting, I will have to check it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think if you can find this one, or maybe the original, it's CEX or on a sale. If you're mildly curious, give it a go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's something I'm starting to look into. Like I said, I don't follow football anymore, but Formula 1 was actually kind of interesting to me. When I was watching it I was like, oh, I'm watching with you, why not? Because I'm watching with you, why not? Because my partner was and I found myself getting into it and then also it was like, oh hello, formula One 2023 is on PlayStation Plus over here. It wasn't really the side that was interesting, it was more the racing which is like, oh, I can't do that, that's rubbish yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, the management side does sound like it. I actually think that the manager game is something that you could couch, co-op together. Obviously she's got an interest and you've got an interest. Pick a team. I would say, if you want to learn the game, you're gonna have to pick, pick red bull well, yeah, my uncle works for red bull instead.
Speaker 3:yeah, the, the formula one, not the, not the sports drink. Just to clarify he actually works for the teams he works for the Soapbox Derby.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's right. Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he actually works on the aerodynamics part of the whole shindig. I don't know, I'm still learning about the sport. So hey, you know I'll probably look into it Again. Me and my partner always like to play some catch-court games.
Speaker 1:You and him streaming F1 Manager and him critiquing the lack of realism. I think would be well. You could retire, couldn't you? I can't believe you haven't utilised such an asset. You could become the F1 manager's twitch guru yeah you could bring him on as a guest spot yeah, yeah yeah, you know expert analysis expert analysis back in the paddock. Yeah, get him breaking down your race afterwards, tell you what you should have done, what should have, would have, would have could have Cheers Uncle Pop, a headset with a mic as well. A team principal.
Speaker 1:A load of TVs on the wall. You could do that. Set your studio up as though it's the pit wall of a track. Use your PC to multi-screen it. Greg, don't let me down. You've got your powers. You've got the power to do this. Man the pressure's on now. The most famous F1 manager. Streamer of one of one.
Speaker 3:One of one, I'd like to think there is somebody else doing this, but who knows?
Speaker 1:maybe probably with a pit wall. The whole bag of tricks set up their mum running by with a car on a board every 1 minute 26 seconds, depending on the circuit.
Speaker 3:Realism is key oh yeah, absolutely truly immersive experience, proper like full on, like shell of a Formula 1 car, just in the living room bam, playing this week as red bull, can't find a suitable girlfriend down the local boozer, so his mum's in his jerry halliwell.
Speaker 1:There's some very awkward, some very awkward looking hugs, but no lip on lip action, at least not that we can see. Um, let me ask you this question have you been bitten by the hell divers bug and if so, why not?
Speaker 3:so I purchased this just before. Uh, so I was in poland last week, um, and I purchased it just before I went, so I bought it, but I actually haven't dove in yet.
Speaker 1:Excuse the pun no, I like it. That's the terminology that the cool kids would use.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I have got it and I do plan to just organizing. I wasn't as brave as you. I understand that you bought it and literally went in with a couple of strangers, and I'm far too millennial to do that.
Speaker 1:So I would say friends, and then I'll go in with friends if you want to get dirty, you've just got to turn up somewhere on your own and be led by a couple of strangers either into or out of your first diving experience this is the way, huh this is the way. Learn it with strangers. Then when you turn up experience of, they're going to be nothing but surprised and maybe a little bit intrigued by this voraciously appetite handsome gentleman that seems to know all the right moves and stratagems.
Speaker 1:We're still talking about Helldivers 120% Now Helldivers I've also been playing Helldivers on divers, on the vita. I spoke about this last week, but I'm going there again. Oh, the first one, yeah, yeah, it's really good. It's kind of like it's like a mars mini between not a full size, not a snack size, a mini. It's like a Mars mini for Helldivers 2. If you've got access to it and it's cheap, I implore you to get it. The storytelling behind the scenes that's in the other one is in this as well, so it's got that RPG element to it. What else have we been playing? Oh, look out, bad boy's in town turned up, wanted to feel like a bigger boy, wanted to get his chest out like a pro gamer. He's installed Elden Ring. Not really got much, much for installing Elden Ring.
Speaker 1:I hope everyone's clapping come on and I had a little poke around and, to be honest with you, it took me maybe half a dungeon before I realised I invoked my Bloodborne experience into this. It's the From Software game that I've had the most longevity with and I started to see some similarities the animations for the hits, the distance needed before your combo starts to take effect, the distance gap that you need to close before being able to get into the combo of taking smaller enemies. It was like actually, do you know what? I've got? This? I can do this.
Speaker 3:So I see the bug has got you. It's got its claws in on you. To be fair, it's always been able to got you. It's got its claws in on you right One thing.
Speaker 1:To be fair, it's always been able to do so. It's just my. I find FromSoftware to be a very unusual house. It's one that I've likened to the emperor's new clothes of gaming studios. Don't forget, they've been a software developer for some time and it's only in the recent sort of pantheon where and it really only felt like it was when IGN kind of made a bit of a misstep on the review with all the I'm a proper gamer's service and, to be honest, elden Ring I found to be probably the most accessible of them all to me so far.
Speaker 1:Maybe Bloodborne is probably slightly more accessible in terms of the controls and the loop of like. Hmm, this it's not accessible in the fact that you've got this big open world and you've got no idea where to go or what to do. You talk of the people. When you were talking of whether games had been had the shine taken off you by the fact that you know how they're put together now and developers shine a little light here just to subtly influence you on where to go. If any of those guys from far from home are a little bit sort of unoccupied one afternoon, maybe send them down from software, just to give me a little clue maybe maybe one flyer just generally buzzing in roughly the right direction of where to go, just an NPC, just going.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying how far it is away, but generally just keep mithering in this direction.
Speaker 3:It does have that, but it's very, very subtle. Unless you know that that's what it's telling you to do, you will completely miss it, because when you look on the map, the certain they're called graces, I think in Dueling Ring, not bonfires. Yeah, they have like a little directional sort of sprite of light heading in, but unless you know what that thing is telling you to do, you don't know that it's guiding you to the.
Speaker 1:That's what I assumed it was trying to tell me yesterday in my brief, very brief playthrough or attempt at playing, and it sent me in the direction. Someone crossed these guards first one Bah bah, bah, bah Down. Elden Ring, shmeldon Ring. See me walk through this bad boy's ear. Oh, death, stand back, hold my cup of tea, mumsy, look at this next guy. Roll button rolled up to him. Wab, dab, dab, dab, done. Yeah, I'm feeling like a pro, mumsy, get the Excel spreadsheet. Let me write a guide for GameFAQs. I want the ASCII art of the lot, mumsy, I want to look like a pro Rolled into this next sort of settlement area. Well, well, well, saw in the distance, in fact, my girlfriend said oh, he's getting out a horn. Before I could come up with a subtle innuendo, he'd blown that bad boy.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about and all his mates turned up and I was like, oh, don't worry though.
Speaker 3:All his mates and his dog, in the very literal sense.
Speaker 1:All his mates and his dog and all his mates who've got proper bigger boys' pocket money because they've got a newspaper round and they've bought the bigger shoulder pads as well. He's there now, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Good timing. Couldn't be any worse, my friend. But don't worry. Before I knew it, blood loss appeared on the screen and I was kind of at the centre of what I can only describe as a little bit of misadventure at the back of the youth centre gone wrong. You know, there was a crowd of guys around me. I thought they were my friends. I let them do things to me. I shouldn't let friends do, at least not in that environment and all of a sudden I was dead Pan out. Local newspaper scandal. No names mentioned, but you know, if you're from the area, you know who it was.
Speaker 4:Familiar sign.
Speaker 3:Oh, this has got Dave written all over it, and it was.
Speaker 1:yeah, it was a harsh welcome to the world of Elden Ring, I have to admit. But you know, if I know anything from Souls-like games or from software games is if you push in one area and you're getting a bit of pushback, don't go that way. Do 180 and go somewhere else. I remember the first time I played one of these games on PS3 and it was like I just don't understand. In any other normal game, going here to fight the skeletons in the graveyard would make sense. Actually, what this game's telling me is you're not at the right level for this. How can someone be so dumb and walk into this literal hell on earth this often and not try, maybe, that door?
Speaker 3:I love that subtle, organic gameplay design by telling you which way you're meant to go, by how effed you're going to get by going that certain way. Like certain games do it so so well. Like that is Dark Souls 1. Yeah, go to the graveyard. Skeletons will wreck you. Go down some steps, some ghosts will wreck you. But some steps, some ghosts will wreck you. But you start walking up the hill and there's like easy enemies placed like very nicely apart. Oh, I assume I'm meant to go this way. I really appreciate, rather than going go this way.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate that sort of thing, and the weird thing is, when you stumble across those enemies, you say, as you say, the spacing, but bizarrely, the spacing enough to learn the execution of the animation into the actual contact of the blow. Yeah, it's. An idiot like me can walk all the way through that, though, and not even realise that's what's happening. I would also say that's Dark Souls. How have modern games watered us down so much to the point where you can spend an hour on Dark Souls and feel like you're not regressing at all, even though actually, in the world of Dark Souls and the way the mechanics work, you are. It's not as rewarding as like into new well-acted cutscene with motion capture. I feel comfortable here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a completely different thing and Dark Souls have always been sort of tagged as this old school experience for the modern audience. That do miss that lack of hand-holding where you do have to figure things out Because you know we were talking about PS1 games earlier. But you go back and play a PS1 game. They were hard, like they really did not care about you know, sort of like welcoming you to a franchise, make you feel comfortable and going through. This is how you jump, this is how you crash, you know it literally just did throw a lot of times to just throw you straight in at the deep end yeah, because it's that whole manual, but it wasn't in the game, which I used to find hilarious about older games.
Speaker 3:I mean, I played through Tomb Raider 3 again recently via the remastered. But I remember playing that back in the day, going how the hell would I have ever figured this out without a manual? Literally, I would never have figured this out without a manual, I think. Now I thought, oh, I'll be interested to see playing again if it's my adult brain can actually figure these things out. I still think a manual would have been necessary. Wow, so yeah. So there, it's just how we are. Now we do Modern gaming, we do need that bit of hand-holding, because time is important and we don't have the time to make a difference at all.
Speaker 1:I think a little bit. I know everyone's going to get on there like I'll never listen to the UCP again. George is an idiot, I don't know what he's talking about. Probably quite rightly level. But one thing that I would say that would help more maybe casuals or maybe even gamers that are maybe intimidated by the whole process, would just be a little bit more of that gentle pull in the right direction, maybe for the first couple of hours, so someone can get not fully conversant with some of the mechanics in the background and maybe not even to fully understand them, at least know generally which direction to kind of mosey on down in with a little more subtlety than a piss trail coming out of a bonfire Be nice.
Speaker 1:Maybe Maybe Maybe, but I'm looking forward to Wrecking House.
Speaker 3:It depends which way you go. Would you prefer that kind of experience or would you prefer the Ubisoft open world experience, where it's like a million markers on your map?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no. I wouldn't want them to change it too much, I wouldn't want them to go too insane, insane, but just some more gentle way of getting to that control refining area that we talked of earlier. You know, actually I can feel myself being, because when you die so harshly, so often, I don't actually feel like you're learning as much as you would do if you'd got a little bit further and then died, because actually I did actually almost get the hang of that before I got killed, right, whereas a lot of the time it's like dead, what did I learn? Don't die, don't die, that's enough, nothing else. Uh, and then it might be another hour before you kind of find the area where the baddies are spaced enough to where you can. Oh right, okay, so he did three, four times with this frequency between the button presses actually makes me feel like a boss.
Speaker 3:I wish that had happened to me at the beginning all I'll say is for now is ignore the big guy on the horse, the big golden guy, fidel. Why put him?
Speaker 1:there. He's the golden beacon of get wrecked, because it's the cutscene. Before you get the woman come on the what's like the Elden Ring the famous Elden Ring steed kind of sniffs at your hand and you come out of that area and you see what looks like a four leg steed with someone on it. Now traditional gaming tells you that'll be my friend. That's just come out of the dungeon that I've been in. Let's go see what they're up to. Barbara, barbara, if you wouldn't mind, let's get reacquainted. As you're halfway across this field shouting Barbara, rummaging in your pocket to see if this strange deer-like creature might enjoy a sugar cube, some badass knight decides he wants to make sure your head's no longer acquainted with your body and he comes at you with full health bar, boss, health bar and everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so welcome to Order. Ring, here's a boss, good luck. It'd be like coming out of the deck.
Speaker 1:It'd be like getting to the deck of three.
Speaker 3:So what people do when people realise people made a mistake is when they see the big giant health bar loading health bar buffering.
Speaker 1:Oh shoot, yeah. It'd be like the Deku Tree wanting to wreck you as a sign of like welcome to the world. It's like welcome in young traveller comes out. L100 ring version of the Deku Tree comes out. He's 400 foot tall. His roots are massive.
Speaker 3:Doesn't skip leg day, legs no my advice would be just skip him for now and don't travel at night that's all I'll say for now and just try and find your way around Lingrave to be honest, I play it with my nightlight on.
Speaker 1:I'm not intimidated.
Speaker 3:I mean. I mean, don't play it at night time in-game. Just to clarify, Maybe, if you are going up against that boss, don't do it at night time.
Speaker 1:My Matt Tracker mask nightlight doing a full shift down there just to make sure I don't get too scared.
Speaker 3:Brilliant.
Speaker 1:I think that's pretty much within reason, covered off the um, what you've been playing, and thank you because I think we've used that as a medium to probe a little bit into you, if I may be so bold, not not more than a couple of knuckles, but maybe just to the tip of the cuticle. Um, but we just to not go to no. No, it wasn't.
Speaker 3:No, it was just to the cuticle, but we Just a knuckle or two.
Speaker 1:No, no, it wasn't. No, it was just to the cuticle. I'm not an absolute animal.
Speaker 4:Wow, not at first.
Speaker 1:Outstairs outside.
Speaker 3:Come on, it's been. Phil's going to need to take some annual leave after this. He's going to be well off. I know that he's going to need to take some annual leave after this.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he's going to be well off, I know that.
Speaker 1:He's going to sew this show back together like the Bayeux tapestry. You'll never see where the bits were that got cut out. Wonderful Greg Cummings. Enough of the innuendo.
Speaker 3:That's genuinely your name yes, yes, it is.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, to be fair, you're either going to get into video games or adult industry entertainment and I think you chose the wrong path. If I'm honest with you, if rumours from the Farmington FC change, rumour to be believed, you chose the wrong path. Debs Babs, she gets PTSD when you rock up at the counter. I tell you that. That's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 3:Well, clearly she hasn't been searching the right name. Who's to say that I only chose the one career path? George, I have many aliases out there. See, you would think Greg Cummings would be the alias I take to the adult industry, but no, that was a red herring.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, okay, all of a sudden I'm seeing the mole placement and I'm thinking my subscription to the OnlyFans of Womb Warrior was a mistake. I now realise it was the best move I ever made. A lot's happened since you were last here. Seemingly you've dipped your toe or certainly more than that into the adult film profession. But let's keep that to one side. Greg Cummins, community Manager, talk to me about how you managed to make that step into the world, because give me a little bit of an overview, because obviously we had you on before as part of the Enigmatic Productions family, where you were heading up their gaming content. If memory serves, I feel like that's such a long time ago. And then all of a sudden you come swinging out of the woodwork with a job at Far From Home as the community manager for Forever Skies, a game, to be honest with you. That certainly wet my whistle along the way, and I actually prefer to think of it as Subnautica meets no Man's Sky meets Slipstream.
Speaker 3:Here we go with more Slipstream and actually, subnautica is actually one of our uh is one of our biggest inspirations for the game. Yes, um, alongside a raft and green hell, but we'll come back. I'll come back to your original question. Yeah, it's, uh, it was a bit of a crazy time, so it happened. I joined the industry in 2021 and that happened completely out of nowhere. I didn't apply for any roles in the industry. I was doing the content creation with enigmatic alongside ed and johan uh, two boys who I absolutely adore. Shout out if they're listening. Um, I'm sure they will be of course they are.
Speaker 1:Harvey retro just jumped up, span around, got down, did a little ditty on his keyboard. He's loving it.
Speaker 3:Heck, yeah, like to hear it. But yeah, I was doing that for the longest time and a friend of mine, sadie Jarvis she was the community manager for Untold Tales, who are a publisher based in Wrocław in Poland. But she was a friend of mine who I'd known through my PlayStation community who are fans of PlayStation UK's YouTube channel, so she was heading up that community. Then she got a job in the industry. She left and I sort of took over, but half enigmatic and half doing the PlayStation Access stuff. So alongside a full-time job at a home base, I was also a dad doing Enigmatic content creation, both streaming and videos, and also doing sort of unofficial community management for them. Anyway, she got a job, like I said, on Tall Tales and far from home.
Speaker 3:In their studio two of their heads were talking to each other and they said that they needed a community manager over at far from home and jarvis, she went oh, I do actually know a guy. Um, that was obviously me. Um, they reached out. She gave my details. She said hope you don't mind, I'll give you these guys my details. They're interested, they're looking for a community manager. I thought, okay, like you know, obviously this must be a scam. You know there's no way. You know I'm going to get in with this, but I looked it up and everything was legit. It looked amazing. Well, forever Skies. It wasn't called Forever Skies at sure okay uh project oxygen very good.
Speaker 3:Yes, projects oxygen that was its working title before we revealed the project. He's got it. He's done his homework. You love to see it.
Speaker 4:You have to the listeners aren't seeing the smug face after either do you know what I tried?
Speaker 1:I failed.
Speaker 3:No, you didn't fail. You succeeded with flying colours.
Speaker 1:Phil's going to cut this bit out.
Speaker 3:No, not at all, so yeah there you go Project Oxygen.
Speaker 3:So they reached out to me and I was saying you know what? I'm going to go do the interview. You know, there's no way in hell am I going to get this. This is my first interview. I wasn't even thinking about applying to anything in the industry. I want to do a few more years of content creation. Before I even thought about it and, yeah, I did the interview. I thought, hey, you know what? Nothing's going to come of this. But interview experience in video games is like priceless. I experience for in video games is like priceless. I've got to do this, something I've always wanted to do.
Speaker 3:I was a little bit nervous uh, just was very much myself. Then that went really well, surprisingly. So I was like, okay, they want to show me a bit more of the game, so, besides a few ndas. Then I went off and did a few other little things like I had to do, like a little video, answering a few questions. Well, they sent me some questions they wanted me to answer in our next meeting because I was a content creator and had video editing experience and software. I did it a bit more creatively with a video, then did a few things where I had to meet.
Speaker 3:The team did another presentation and it was a long. It's a long process but I understand it because it was my first job that I was applying for within the industry and yeah, it has been flying colors and I think just content, I think community management just really does suit me. It's that really great entry point from people who did do streaming and content into actually working in game dev and it's been such a great way to enter the industry because it's a smaller studio Stomp Studio Forever Skies is their first title, but the devs that work there they've all had plenty of AAA experience, so had all that experience there. But also the studio Far From Home's ethos is like a very sort of like flat structure, so there's no real hierarchy. Obviously there are bosses there who sort of make the decision, the ultimate decisions, but anyone could sort of influence like the project or how we do things in the studio and you know more cooperative styles yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:It's been like I could not have joined a better starting studio, like in my career in games to that point.
Speaker 1:At the beginning we talked about what you've been playing and you said how you'd obviously seen behind the curtain. Yeah, through the means of that, do you think that community creation or community manager for, as you say, a larger studio would have kept the curtain closed? Because you wouldn't have had this? You would be more of a, a mark than you would have, to use the wrestling terminology more of a mark.
Speaker 3:I love it, uh, 100%. Yeah, absolutely, because people within you know the thing is with. If you're working for, like, say, let's say, another polish game dev studio, say if you're working for a cd project or uh or a tech land, um, you know you are, you're, you're a community manager. You focus just on community stuff, even not not even the social media. They'll probably have separate people to actually operate their social media platforms as well. You know, even tiktok now, like, being a tiktok admin is just like one job. But working for a smaller studio where there are like, say, there's 32, I believe, total, now you do wear a lot of hats. So you know community management is part of my role. Marketing is just as much part of my role. Creating assets, doing streams, uh, creating month, sort of semi-monthly devlogs, but also as well on looking on the other side as well, like I actually have a lot more of a hands-on, creating content and playing the game, more than what people would in a large studio would do. I was at a? Uh. I was at a?
Speaker 3:uh, a summit called digital dragons in krakow last week and I was listening to uh, the marketing team from cd projects and how they went through everything with cyberpunk yeah and like they would say that they were saying like how, if they wanted to create a certain asset for a certain video or a trailer, they would have to send you know the production team a couple of months in advance to say we want this, we want to show off this on this date. For me, I can literally just go into our editor. I can create the asset that I need to record it on obs and and and have it ready that day. Yeah, so you get a lot more of an insight. But as well as that, because we have like that big sort of like the project is like a joint effort being an English native, you know like it's always nice to assist with like narrative design if it's needed, or play testing as well, helping QA find certain bugs or replicate bugs.
Speaker 3:So it's not just community management. I'm community management by title title, but because I work for a smaller studio, you do so many things that I can say I've done this, I've dabbled in that, this, that the other. You know I've got c plus plus. I'm not doing like any like uh, coding. Please do not let me code your game. Any studio that might be listening, that would not go well.
Speaker 1:Please do you get the full Jesus moment where you just start typing you don't know where the code's coming from. It is you, it's just there.
Speaker 3:It's automatic yeah.
Speaker 1:The greatest game ever made is ready to flow from you.
Speaker 3:I mean, apparently you don't have to be an amazing programmer, just need to know some basics. Uh, they're all. You can just bake stuff. It might be terrible, but you can always do that.
Speaker 1:There are ways to do it, um yeah, I think I think, for now, I'm quite happy with just doing what I'm doing in the modern world with ai the way it is, and we've seen that the unreal, the latest unreal engine, is certainly giving people a lot more procedurally generated solutions, graphically, to problems that they may have incurred. Is that something that you can see, allowing someone like you to create a game in the future I'm not saying someone like you, as in you don't have the capability but certainly allows people to maybe take that next evolutionary step that would have taken them maybe have to go and broaden their skills more.
Speaker 3:Do you mean me personally, or do you mean?
Speaker 1:Or you personally or someone at your experience level within games development. They've come in on the fringes. Are these AI and sort of graphics engine creation kits becoming so available and understandable that you could see yourself being able to take another leap into an industry?
Speaker 3:or are you yeah, I mean where you are- I think the term using the term, using ai a bit of a taboo uh phrase term in the industry, and rightfully so, because we're looking at from an art side, it's a lot of the time it's basically just stealing somebody else's work without granting them. Yeah, um. So maybe not necessarily on on an ai side of things, but there are certainly, it's certainly a lot more accessible with sort of open source engines like unity and like unreal engine four and five. Um, because, especially if you use unreal, for example, which is what forever skiesies is built in, it's a lot easier to understand. These days A lot of the stuff is sort of kind of ready to go Epic have you're probably aware of these, because there was a certain game called the Days Before that was full of them where they actually have a marketplace where you can actually literally buy assets to put in your game, like you'll have like an environmental pack or like a map that you can literally it's ready, made, that you can literally just put straight into your engine and you can just literally go from there and all of it is is there's certainly, it's certainly the cheap way of doing things. It's well, not maybe not cheap, but certainly the easy way of doing things.
Speaker 3:I don't think we would necessarily go down that route. Personally, I think overall it is easier to do in the industry. Now I don't see us going that way. We've always tried to create things a lot more original. If you look at forever skies, like just any kind of screenshot, you can go, oh yeah, that's actually kind of, you know, visually, like one screen that I can tell that's what it is. A lot of it is all, um, you know, all made from scratch. We do have some pre-bought packs, like you know the thing, some things that people don't care about, you know, like a locker in the world or like a desk that you want to replicate over and again is a waste, is a bit more of a waste of time trying to create that to your point.
Speaker 1:Actually, I think that the aesthetic that you've chosen every single screenshot and image I've seen come out of about the game has this aesthetic where you fundamentally know you are seeing an image from this game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's kind of a lot what we went for trying to make Visually. There's not many games that look like our game, because if you look at so, our world is kind of separated into two. The general premise is that you yes, you're in, take control of an airship, but you return to an ecologically destroyed earth and the entire surface of the planet is now covered in a toxic dust. Right, so it's literally you can't, you can't see the ground. All that you can see is like buildings, mountains that protrude from this toxic dust that you fly to, and like every, every like location like that are islands that you visit and you gather resources, you know, tackle problems, enemies. Um, there's not many games that kind of look like that visually. Um, so, yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of unique in that way, which is kind of what we always wanted. Um, the world underneath the dust is a lot more linear and hand-built. It's sort of handcrafted, static, a bit more like a dungeon crawler. Yeah, so it kind of has these two different flavours.
Speaker 1:It's like a flying water world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting. Wow, maybe I need to change the Steam description, damn.
Speaker 1:Put that in, see what works out for you. Quote of George UC George yeah, back of the box quote, if ever there was one.
Speaker 3:I actually did. Yeah, I did actually a similar thing. Do you know the streamer, Limmy Scott's, got a streamer. Yeah.
Speaker 3:He did like a stupid not stupid, that's the wrong word he did like a sort of like a summary of our game but in his way, and set that out on social media. People loved that. It was just a very swearing, crazy scottish description of forever skies. It was wonderful, um, and I did want to change the steam description quite quickly with that mine would probably be the embryonic fusion of Slipstream and a flying water world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah sure With a sprinkle of von Zeppelin.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's great. It's not what we went for, but clearly we must be missing a trick here.
Speaker 1:One thing I would say is, bizarrely, I've always had this addiction of interest to flying boats, ie a certain kind, the Imperial flying boat, like you see in Tailspin or Indiana Jones, the long transition one, and just generally airships, and not blimps, but Imperial era, I think they're called the Imperial ships or flying ships. Quite an evocative style of flying device. What made you guys go? Yeah, actually, do you know what? Returning to a ravaged human earth, we're going to get behind an airship simulator almost within reason. What made you pick that as your flying device? Airship's cool. Well, as I've just took the pains to say, but from a gameplay point of view, it was. That's what we're doing, because you could have had hover vessels, you could have had all the different things. What made you? Apart from being cool, what do they add fundamentally to the exploration of the game world?
Speaker 3:So we always knew that we wanted to have a mobile base, because they take a lot of inspiration from Raft and I don't know how familiar you are with Raft on PC. It's a very, very popular base building game. You start with a very basic raft. You go from island to island. That's basically a similar premise to what ours is, but obviously it's in the sky. So we always knew it would have to be a flying base.
Speaker 3:We always knew we wanted to be able to build it from from scratch and be completely, uh, make it your own, completely, uh, unique to yourself and be able to do whatever you wanted to do it. So we always knew, based on our world logic, uh that we would have to create something, uh, that float, that that flew, um, and I think I don't know what, because I don't know why they landed on an airship, specifically because it happened before I joined the studio. The game was well into development when I joined, but a lot of it is just down to knowing that it needs a career flying base that was fully customizable, that players would love. That is kind of unique that you don't see all that often against sort of joints. So I think a few ideas have floated around, but everyone kept coming back to this airship idea. We didn't want it to be steampunk, which kind of you would think, oh well, airship steampunk, right it does lend itself to that it does lend itself to that kind of credence, right.
Speaker 3:But we didn't really necessarily want that because we knew that our game was grounded in post-apocalyptic, but more science-based as opposed to steampunk based. Yeah, so we kind of we knew we wanted an airship, I guess, because it kind of it would, it would lend that ability to sort of be fully customized, uh, but also just be able to drop down and land wherever you know like sort of any other aircraft. Plane you can't do that needs to have a long run. A helicopter you can't do that because you can't really you can't really fully customize.
Speaker 3:It has to be lightweight, really try and keep it grounded in science is a big thing in forever skies, like a lot of the science in our games you play as a scientist is, uh is based a lot on reality.
Speaker 1:No gadunkas here.
Speaker 3:No, gadunkas here, that's for sure. No, although I have to concede, if you fly into a glass of red skies, the same thing will happen. You need to set off the glass again.
Speaker 1:Just keep that between you and me In your world.
Speaker 3:it's acceptable to me exactly, yeah, hey, well, you know it'd be hit by a balloon, it wouldn't break anyway, right, but balloons don't break glass several million ton of inflated balloon has no penetrable ability whatsoever.
Speaker 1:We know this this is cemented in physics facts.
Speaker 3:It's science science, guys, it's science. But yeah, you've already called me out on that one. I didn't mean to you called yourself out and I rocked up to the killing.
Speaker 1:You were the witness. I provided the knife that you knifed yourself in. Yeah exactly, it's called a gdumfka.
Speaker 3:The gdumfka. Such a great name. But yeah, you've completely knocked me off track with that airships.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, they're cool, right, and it kind of just fit everything else in the world. We wanted a cool sort of vehicle and it had to be a flying vehicle. No other kind of flying vehicle made sense and also dude like it. Just a lot of the time it just just comes down to the fact that airships are awesome. Airships are so cool. It's probably good for the pacing as well. Of the time, it just comes down to the fact that airships are awesome.
Speaker 4:Airships are so cool. Airships are probably good for the pacing as well of the game as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's the thing, right. And also they're not really. They're not really like. It's like what in real life now? I think it's like less than 40 of them actually around, right, yeah, and they're probably the most eco-friendly way of flying. So our game is based a lot of it doesn't throw it in your face because we don't want to sort of preach to everyone who plays our game but a lot of it is based like our world ended in forever skies because of an ecological disaster, and a lot of that was down to us. And this is actually based on reality from what is happening right now in Krakow, which is where some of the devs are from.
Speaker 3:So up to a couple of years ago, Krakow and Wrocław actually both in Poland were in the top 10 most polluted cities in the world. Wow, and these are not huge metropolises like places around the world. These are less than a million people in both cities. Right, it got to a point a few years ago where they were saying like they had texts from the government officials saying please stay indoors and keep your windows closed because the air pollution levels are awful. A scientist in Krakow said you needed to be at least 100 meters up in the air to breathe clean oxygen. Now dramatize that and you get forever skies. Right, you have to be at least 100 metres into the air to breathe clean oxygen, and there's just smog below. That's essentially what's happening in the winter months in Krakow.
Speaker 1:So that was the, the big drive influenced by Rose. You're influenced by Gridlocked. I love it. Yeah, essentially, essentially, there you go, it's magic. I actually.
Speaker 1:I actually find that I didn't know anything about that and I shouldn't think many people did, because obviously there's a cross-country, cross-language kind of cross story that we wouldn't even know about. But I find it interesting to see that that is the influence behind the game the, the pollution element, the review, post-apocalyptic ecological disaster, I think is probably the best way to describe it and but the influence of that from their own beginning to be almost poison city, from their own emissions, is a great way of spinning that light round. I also like the ecological side of the airship as well. You're not ramming it down anyone's throat. It was completely lost on me until you made me aware of it, but I like the idea of it. I think the subtlety is nice I was I was trying to get to the point before as well where airships are almost like flying submarines, more than any other craft, because they can hold in a location, you can descend, you can rise, you have that 3d element and the fact that because it's large enough to not only be your sort of support sphere for your own vital oxygen and fluids that you need to survive in this world, but it's your safe space of creation and exploration as well.
Speaker 1:What are the customization options that make this really your own as a player? There's wall decorations, no doubt, but what are some of the other things that you can really use to say this is my area and no one else is quite doing their lab, cockpit, crew rest area as an an example? Exactly this way, what makes my area specific to me?
Speaker 3:anything you want. So we're working towards adding more and more with every update, every patch that we do so. Right now, you know, we've got a variety of different types of rooms, so sort of square rooms, ladder rooms. Uh, soon we'll have different types of rooms with stairs. You've got different wall types, um, so you've got basically like metal, glass walls, you know whatever plastic walls as well, all with different weights to sort of, because you've got to manage your weight of the airship as well, um, but we also have like different variety, different sort of patterns which we're starting to introduce now. We're adding new balloon types very soon. Probably shouldn't say that too out loud because it hasn't been officially announced. But there you go. We will eventually add different balloon types that players can check out.
Speaker 3:We have many different ways to decorate decorate. You can find objects in the world, uh, like different sort of like trinkets, you know, like old plates, old toys, which you can use to decorate around your airship. You can add furniture, you can. You can just lay it out however you want to. You just have to manage the size of your airship balloon as well, because the basic balloon I think I was something like 500 kilograms and you need to add, either make the balloon bigger or add a second balloon so you can add more and make your ship bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 3:But you know wherever you want to place your engines, wherever you want to place your kitchen, wherever you want to catch your food from, wherever you want to get your materials from your extractors, you know we don't put any real restrictions. We put a few restrictions, like certain items can only be placed indoors, certain items can only be placed outside because you can take damage on these items from like the elements, from like thunder or drifting debris can hit this side of your airship and cause damage. So certain items have to be kept indoors. But for the most part we don't really put too many restrictions on.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you speak to our building community, they might say we have too many restrictions. And well, you know we listen to that feedback and we try and work out if it's worth relaxing some restrictions, because obviously that can break certain gameplay elements. But we're constantly improving it because what I base building alongside, uh, scavenging and just survival gameplay is like one of our biggest sort of pillars for the game. So we're constantly improving it. But yeah, different, different room types, different decorations, different layouts soon different balloons, or you know, you can just make it however you want to, and we're just trying to constantly make that as easy as possible for you.
Speaker 4:I've noticed you're on Steam at the moment. That's the early access, isn't it at the moment? Yeah, so do you. Obviously you've got you'll have a certain player base going, but is there certain gamers that you listen to, or is it everyone with the feedback and you try and adjust bits and pieces to that game as you go? Or I mean, is it just the community as a whole?
Speaker 3:it's kind of human as a whole, really like no one holds more weight than others. Um, but we do listen to. The numbers make a big difference how many people are actually saying it, because you with certain, with steam, for example, steam's great, it has a steam has a whole community hub itself where people could can join in foreign discussions. You do see a lot of people talking about what they would like to see added and stuff. But recently we've actually launched a new software Well, actually it's a URL, it's just a website called Feature Upvote, which is basically just a site which I've created, which is dedicated to Forever Skies, which I moderate almost daily where players can go in and send their discussion, send their ideas, and players just simply upvote it.
Speaker 3:Uh, they just right and just. You know they can leave comments or whatever. Um, you do get a few people which try and duplicate the same ones, which always say don't, don't. If there's already a card there that suggested the same thing, just upvote it. So creating your own one. That's a nightmare every day, but apart from that, it's, it's easy, manageable, uh, and yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:Uh, you can see that way as well what's floating towards the surface, what's becoming more and more popular, uh, and really, like, we have our own plans for early access. We have our own plans and know what we want to do with the game and how to make it better. But you know, we're not the only ones with the ideas and sometimes people who actually play in the game we don't, we play the game, we play it constantly. But you know people who are playing the game and actually have something they want to say, like a definitely worth listening to, and sometimes they have fantastic ideas and we have made changes according to the game, according to the feedback that we receive.
Speaker 3:You know we had a whole immunity mechanic which, um, I don't know how accustomed you guys are to survival games, but a lot of the time you're managing your oxygen, your food, your water, your um, health and you know various other um metrics, um, but on top of that we had for at the start, we had what was, uh, an immunity level. So the lower your immunity was, the easier it was for you to get sicker in game, right, which we thought was a cool mechanic. And it sounds on paper sounds oh, that's awesome. So if I've got a high immunity, I've got less chance of getting sick and then I don't have to worry about debuffs so much.
Speaker 3:But the thing is, in reality, was that this was becoming too much for players to manage and it made them not be able to focus on other elements of the game, like base building, like survival, like exploration. So it was like another confusing level that didn't make much sense. Like, for example, you got a disease from standing out in the rain too much, right, which we thought, oh, that sounds like a really cool idea. But in reality players were just getting pissed because they were getting sick for literally just walking in the game, right? So of course we.
Speaker 1:I mean it makes sense, because that's where all illness starts, because you got a bit damp and cold one afternoon yeah, you think so.
Speaker 3:On paper and based in reality, which we try and go for, it made sense, but in terms of gameplay it wasn't fun and it was annoying players. So what we did was we didn't scrap the immunity entirely. What we noticed was that players were becoming a lot more interested in the story of the game. There isn't a ton of story in Forever Skies right now because we're adding chapters as we add with content updates, but they were really into the story. So we added immunity into the story. So rather than it be something they had to physically manage, it would just be part of the story, like, as you progress through the story, you're getting sicker. You need to find the cure to stop this illness.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay and can I just say before it slips, appreciate it before it slips from my brain, and you need to write this down for the law of forever skies go ahead. You know, in water world they're trying to find the elusive dry land.
Speaker 3:Right, yes, inworld they're trying to find the elusive dry land Right.
Speaker 1:Yes, In your game they're trying to find the elusive high land, either a skyscraper or a mountain that's still green and fledglingly beautiful. High land that's what they call it, these disparate, apocalyptic rooftop villages and epochs and apocalypse. That's where they hang out, all looking for this. Oh, mate, come on, get me a pen.
Speaker 3:We do. We already have these hanging garden towers in the game.
Speaker 1:It's how they had to be executed, but Highland that's got to be. Maybe it could be set on Ben Nevis as well as a little bit.
Speaker 3:Maybe, See, you know something that's actually something we're trying to avoid now. In our original key art we had a, we had a big bend or the elizabeth tell, whatever you want to call it, actually in our key art. But we had to kind of move away from that direction because, believe it or not, these places, these listed places, these well-known landmarks, they cost you money if you include them in your game. This is why only places like this is people, why only people like ubisoft with assassin's creed, really only go ahead and do it because it's licenses, yeah, a lot of the buildings have had licenses applied to their visual.
Speaker 1:That's why their visual identity. Yeah, spider-man has the cries of the building, but then in the remaster for ps5 it doesn't have the Chrysler building because they didn't pay big money. Yeah, it's true. They had that money when they made it on PS2, but they didn't have that money when it came out the PS2.
Speaker 3:Spider-Man game is clearly superior in every way, regardless.
Speaker 1:Unless you played Spider-Man on the PS Vita, I don't think you've paid Pinnacle Spider-Man the flipbook.
Speaker 3:I have a Vita and I've never played it. So there we go. That's something for me to check out.
Speaker 1:If you want to save yourself for however much it costs that game these days I think it's getting up there like 70 bucks it has to be the most expensive, worst game on Vita and that's saying something. I love the behind the scenes look you're giving us and I'm finding interesting to see how this game is almost reaching its sort of maturation point. But the decisions taken along the way to kind of refine and change it, the the guys obviously most famously your stable mates here have most famously your stablemates here have most famously worked on Dying Light and Dying Light 2. How was that? Have you seen any direct lineage from within their experience of that manifest itself within Forever Skies?
Speaker 3:No, not really because I mean we don't want it. It's not a killing game, right? So we will leave the zombies to tech, to tech land we've uh cultivated, uh following a place there will. There is combat in the game, but it's very minimal. It takes a backseat to a lot of everything else, um, but on terms of what we have taken from it is just in terms of uh, more along the side of world building and programming and how to actually work with the engines to a AAA standard. So that's what we've taken from it, but not in terms of actual, like, gameplay mechanics. You know we've our team have worked on Dying Light, Dying Light 2, but you know they've also worked some of them have worked a lot of more sort of story-driven games over, like, for example, like at Flying Wild Hog, Larian Studios, CD Projekt. So, no, no zombie killing in our game, despite how many people might ask for it. We will leave that to them. But yeah, it's, the experience comes from more of the back end system operation.
Speaker 1:I think that's that's. I wasn't expecting, obviously, for you to rock up and do zombified dying uh, you know, airship dying light or anything like that. It was more those sort of more subtle nuances that they'd learned that you've kind of spoke to there of the within the experience of working on dying light. They've gained this, this and that experience and you're story-driven guys. They're bringing an element of that, forming that all together underneath one banner. You spoke of the cooperative attitude at the studio, which is wonderful, but a wise man once said the fastest decisions get made in a team of three people, two of which are absent. Is there an element where someone does need to step in and say you know, I love all these ideas and if only we had another six months we could just reskin this whole thing and change its direction completely, but at this point we're too far and we've committed to vision a. Let's see it through.
Speaker 3:Yeah that of course. Yeah, yeah, we, we have like the heads in place, we have production. We, you know, first of all there's the the to the um creative vision. You know creative director, who will have that sort of influence, say this is not what the original vision was, so this won't happen. Um, but you know the producers who were sort of like managing like the time frame and how long things will take and how much these things will cost. They're the ones who do have the ultimate say every.
Speaker 3:We take in everyone's opinion, which is the important part. We have a skeleton and a way that we know we're going. It's just all the little extra little details, things and all the uh like, but it might be like a location, it might be like a location, it might be like a little small detail, it might be a mechanic, a quality of life improvement. That's where we take in everybody else's words, but we, roughly speaking on terms of the story, the basis, the core mechanics, we know where we are and that is all in place. It's just all the other stuff that surrounds it. A game isn't, you know, so livia like that. You want to add all these little extra things, things that will make the game easier. Uh, things that might make a bit more enjoyable, like little, even, even just like little easter egg ideas, right like these are the kind of things where you want to take in other people's opinions. But yeah, if you listen to everyone.
Speaker 3:When you come to like making core decisions on your core mechanics or your core story, then it's going to be a whole mess. So you are absolutely right. Yeah, there's all hundred percent that co-op element, but there are it's. It's about what else is being suggested.
Speaker 1:Someone's got to wield the ban hammer and the cut knife, haven't they? That says you know what? I know you've spent weeks on this, but it's it's not going to make it. It's not going to add it in. Put it in the bin box for some ideas for two, um, exactly. So one question I have got.
Speaker 1:It's in early, it's in early access at the moment and obviously some very lucky people around the world are playing and enjoying forever skies. They're having the experience. That is very much an exclusive environment at the minute, but within that exclusive environment of you guys talking on your Discord and in communities between each other about how this game's developing and you're enjoying it and you've all got very adept at playing this game. What's the biggest flex as a player at the moment? You know who's got the biggest base, who's managed to get this farm going, where it generates this and then that and then this, and now they've got more of currency or the bigger base, or they've put things together. Who's that dude out there on the cutting edge of Forever Skies that's making everyone go? Do you know what? If airships were penises, this guy would be hung like a blue whale.
Speaker 4:Another one for the box Buff. Who's that person and what are they doing?
Speaker 1:What's the Manhattan project of the Forever Skies early access players? Who's out there pushing the very ragged edge?
Speaker 3:So we have a lot of players who are very interested in folks like the base building is like the thing for them, right? We have got a good couple of players. We have ran some contests. Well, we've run a contest around base building which we did back in October. That was won by a guy called Professor who made an absolutely incredible sort of three-tier airship. It's something like nine balloons, it had like a bar, it had like a boat. I don't know why. It was absolutely incredible. I implore you to look it up on our socials. But we do have our main I would say our main base builder champion.
Speaker 3:The guy who really shows what is possible in our game. It also shows what's not possible and also gives me a bit of grief about that is a player called DeLinsey who is a content creator. He focuses a lot on base building. He does a lot of star field content, he does a lot of survival game base building content and he's created some absolutely insane airships that we didn't even know were possible to create in our own game. Yes, he's created some insane, he's done all kinds of so he's it must have made something like 30 odd ships or something at this point, but he's also shown like what is possible to do, like it's not possible in our game, for example, to make uh more than one airship. You have the one airship. We're not going down multiple airship routes because you know optimization frame rates would just kill it dead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know he's found ways to create, set like to separate uh sort of modules, to create separate airships and stuff that all follow but are not actually connected. Wow, I found ways to sort of like circumvent the building restrictions we have in place to actually like put like interior items on the exterior or like create like ships that look like they've got like plane wings, using like catwalks and stuff. Or he's created like a under 500 kilo, which is like the minimum weight for an airship, and has created this incredible, uh fully functioning airship that has all like later right, like I say, later items, like later in game items, but in theory it won't be later items because the game's still being built but like the current late, the current latest items. Like you know, he's created so many airships, created quite a lot of videos probably worth checking out. He's called dylan dirt, so lindsey, like the name, like my girlfriend lindsey, uh, but with de at the start de lindsey. He's worth checking out on youtube. He's created some unreal airships, so shout out.
Speaker 4:Does it make your game devs look at, look at some of these things he's created and thinking, how has he done that? We didn't know that was actually possible and is it like confused them? Or are they just in yeah, or of what he's done?
Speaker 3:the thing is it? It's made us realize, oh my, like there are ways to sort of circumvent, there are ways to sort of, uh, get around the restrict, some of the restrictions we put in place for certain reasons. But it kind of makes you go, let's leave it. Yeah, cool, he's found a way to do it Like there's no point in, like patching that out. You know, let's reward them by saying, yeah, cool, you figured a way, brilliant as you were, you know, it does make us go, like you say, like I didn't know that was even possible on quite a few occasions.
Speaker 3:But there's quite a few players Early access is about that anyway Like a lot of like oh, okay, you shouldn't be able to do that, we'll fix that. But when people are finding stuff that's cooler than what you've done, you don't, you don't mess with that. I think like there might be like one occasion where we have where we're like, oh, that needs to go back, we should have fixed that, certain things. There's a reason why devs use the term. It's not a bug, it's a feature, right, it means like that was not meant to happen, but it's flipping cool, let's keep it in, and that's what we're kind of trying to do with it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to try and wrap this up. If I may be so bold. I'm going to do it through the medium of Far From Home themselves, their key tenets as a developer to create a great work environment to allow people to grow, be ambitious and have an impact on the projects and the studio itself. And we've spoken about that. I do believe that they not only preach these tenets, they actually live up to them as well. To serve players.
Speaker 1:Our role is to listen, watch, analyze and bring the best possible experience for the gaming community. They've embraced their community through the discord and the early access and all that good stuff and then and this is the one that goes back to the pollution story on to discard this, to start a discussion about the future of earth and the humankind. We believe that games can be a tool for an acting change in the world and, with this in mind, we want to blend important topics with the joy of gaming. Every single one of those tenets seems to have woven itself into Forever. Sky is the Game, and also what you're achieving over there on the Discord. They're important pillars to build a business on. Are you looking to add to those or are you thinking? This just sums us up for the rest of eternity and we are committed to these, or has anything come from this experience that you will add in as you go?
Speaker 3:That remains to be seen. I think for the most part now, right now, we're thinking of keeping it very simple as is. These are three key pillars that summarize our studio and summarize our project and future projects. Um, we, uh, we are getting, you know, slightly bigger, but we also want to keep that, that smaller studio mindset. You know we have, uh, recently signed sort of uh small deals, but we have signed deals, you know, with craft on who are the guys behind subnautica and PUBG. We've also signed on with PlayStation, so they've also had a part. So we will be releasing, when it comes to console, that will be PlayStation 5 exclusive, as well as Steam.
Speaker 4:Will there be as one more thing I was just going to ask you sorry to jump in will there be a physical release of this game? To be honest, right now it's really hard to say. As one more thing, I was just going to ask you sorry to jump in will there be a physical release of this game or is it going to be?
Speaker 3:To be honest, right now it's really hard to say. I would say probably not, and the reason being is because, again, the size of that undertaking to create an actual physical copy, the cost of it and also the eco effects that has, which kind of might go against what we're trying to say studio very true so, so maybe not.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not going to say no, 100 like nothing's for certain. We're kind of going off what we was asking before as well. Um, I'm going to say I don't see us, we haven't we? We still plan to stick to those, those idea, ideologies, uh, and I think if we try and get any bigger, it kind of would go against those, you know, because that those are things that really matter to us. You know we're making the project we can because we are listening to everyone, we're listening to players. You know we're trying to prove that games can be more than entertainment.
Speaker 3:We've signed with um. We are now charity partners with wdc Whale and Dolphin Conservation. We've actually created an artifact that people can buy for 2.99. That's pounds, no, it's not, 2.99 is dollars, my mistake which is literally just like an artifact with whales and dolphins and like you can change the color of it and it's like a decorative item and 100% of the revenue of that goes to wdc um. So, yeah, we're doing what we can and I don't see that changing anytime soon, even though we have, like, say, signed some of these sort of small stake, uh deals with craft on playstation. That's just to secure our future. So we can remain 100 creative ourselves and without their influence, and so we can support future projects.
Speaker 4:And I suppose as well with being a sports studio embracing the community. You then end up making the game in the community at once. So there, we can step it away and, yeah, rather than being a locked-off studio just releasing a game. This way you can perfect and find what everyone wants to play. So brilliant way of doing it. The Early Access model gives you full ability to do that. This way you can. You can perfect and and find what everyone wants to play.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, the only way doing it the early access model gives you full ability to do that. It's. It's kind of great. I'd never really looked at early access before me. Like working in the industry myself. I was always like a very number one point over guy. You know, that's just me. I'll play when it's finished, um, but it's quite.
Speaker 3:It's so fascinating to see actually how passionate like the some players are like just trying to make the game as great as possible, and they're the ones that are worth listening to. You know, there's obviously plenty players out there who like to complain and will leave negative reviews. You know, the ones who leave negative reviews going mid, probably not worth listening to. But people who are like there, like literally leaving you three or four paragraphs what I loved, what I didn't like. Maybe we could try this. They're doing it. They're not because they. They're literally leaving you three or four paragraphs what I loved, what I didn't like. Maybe we could try this. They're doing it. They're not because they don't like the game. They're doing it because they care and they want to make something better. These are the people that are worth listening to and it's a truly fascinating part of game dev.
Speaker 1:Before we move to the Mighty Ray, is there anything that you want to ask or say? Or is there anyone you want to ask or say?
Speaker 3:or you. Is anyone you want to shout out, or is there any information that you want to leave here for people to discover, uh, that are either interested in far from home or forever skies? Good question, um, on terms of forever skies, uh, I'm gonna say, you know, just check us out. If you like the game on Steam, give it a wish list, you know, it's really greatly appreciated. You don't have to pick it up now. We're constantly updating the game and it might be worth looking at in the future for you, and we're also adding co-op mode, so it might be something great for the community. So, up to four player co-op, that is. So that might be something worth looking into From a creative four players in creative base building cooperatively together. Yes.
Speaker 3:So, you all join your airship. One can fly. One can gather resources. One can prepare food. One can be doing experiments in the lab creating boosters. One can be preparing weapons. You know that was five people. Greg, learn how to count. Uh, yeah, uh you know, that's cool yeah it, and then you go off and explore certain locations together.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that will be the experience that's cool because that's got that starship bridge crew experience of. It'd be nice if, as someone's flying, someone needs to be engineering pulling it, doing something that commits them to their station. So when you're in flight multiplayer a bit like Sea of Thieves this thing needs interactions in each of these different department rooms to keep this thing in the air. That would be not only collaborating on a poster to stick on the wall. You're collaborating on keeping this thing in the air full stop. That would be so much good stuff to come and again it's.
Speaker 3:It's a challenge there because ultimately we don't want to make it just about co-op, you know no we want to make this game completely playable in both single player and co-op, so that is a challenge to try and get that balance right. But it's still in development and heavily in development. So, um, it's looking more and more fleshed out every time.
Speaker 1:I see it Very very cool, Okay, well, I've got a personal indulgence question. If I may be so bold, Could you lean on maybe some of your PlayStation XS compadres to see if you can get me something that may have been in the same room as Rose Caddick at all, possibly, please? Maybe I knew this was coming.
Speaker 3:Is that a Rose Caddick? All possibly, please. Maybe I knew this was coming. Is that a Rose of Caddick, are you?
Speaker 4:Oh jeez.
Speaker 3:She's a ball of fun.
Speaker 1:She's just incredible.
Speaker 3:I have a quote from her on my Twitter account and it's she called me once an awesome bunny, so I have that as a quote on my Twitter profile.
Speaker 1:Stash Roseie caddick do you think she could make some time in a day to listen to the ucp? We've crafted it in her honor. For her it's almost like a, an idol to her I wish I could um.
Speaker 3:I wish I. I love playstation access listen let's go.
Speaker 1:Let's go the soft route. You can either talk her into it or basically me and RGT rocking up in a blacked-out transit van and we're kidnapping her and sticking it in her ear.
Speaker 3:I'll speak to her. I'll speak to her, my God, I'll speak to her. Perfect.
Speaker 1:There's a general way, and then there's the illegal way where the show's over really.
Speaker 4:I like the horrible way I get dragged in the gentle way I'm nothing to do with it but the horrible way I'm in a blacked-out transit.
Speaker 1:You're leading the whole enterprise.
Speaker 3:You need to get your hands dirty.
Speaker 1:You've kind of got to Okay. Well, that would be really kind.
Speaker 3:God forbid she ever listens to this episode, George.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've said anything. You know I ever listens to this episode. George, I don't think I've said anything you know, I threatened a kidnap, but it was, I wasn't involved. Yeah, because that's better. It's the only way I can probably find to get close to that much greatness, if I'm honest with you. So it's all from a place of from Phil. Whatever you can do with this last five minutes of audio, anything you can do to make me sound less the trash, maybe.
Speaker 4:Less awkward.
Speaker 1:The cutting room floor maybe Phil's saved every single section and second of this show, bar two swears. If anyone can save this, he will make me sound.
Speaker 4:Like a two-hour blooper reel, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, be in the Christmas special, won't? It. With that all said and done, one man that knows how to dig his way in and out of danger and problems like no one else and, to be honest with you, it's the only reason Greg put up with any of what we've just talked about to get to this point, and I don't blame him to be honest, because if there was ever a celebrity that crawled out of this show, it's OG Tom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but other than him there's a fan of the law. Bring it in, bring him in. Christmas Island's relinquished its last great secret. I'm intrigued to see how you see him, because a as a I'm gonna say it very loosely a fan of the show, to some degree you're. You're bigger than this show now. So the fact that you even please, it's true, if there was a listener that was hung like a blue whale, it'd be you. Hopefully they've actually got quite large. I don't know if that's. I didn't actually do the biology of the blue whale, um, I should ask my friends at wdc.
Speaker 1:That'd be an awkward email what you'd sign off with hung like a blue whale.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I was gonna ask just how, actually how, I think he wants me to find out how big. Imagine that highest grade. Just a quick question asking for a friend asking for science yeah, pop down.
Speaker 1:We've got one in the tank. Bring a tape measure the the ray has evolved into now. We see him in a different way each time. Um, I don't know when this change happened, because it used to be that he was up to some sort of innocuous stroke, slightly illegal activity, and now he literally has become this almost ethereal being. What do you make of this new version of ray, this almost all things to all men character?
Speaker 3:well, I mean, I think last time I was here, I think I recall him looking like a friend, my friend jeff um. But now he looks like jeff, but he's, he's in, he's in stop motion, he's, he's moving like he's been animated by a stop-motion studio. It's intriguing.
Speaker 1:It's almost heartwarming. Let me get him down here because I want to see this with my. As Yoda would say oh nice, no. Vader would say it.
Speaker 3:Vader said that yeah. Let me look upon you with, you've just angered millions of Star Wars fanatics. To be fair, the fandom's in rioting right now towards the end.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to the reviews this week when he was on the bridge of the Battlestar Galactica.
Speaker 4:Anyway, I wasn't totally convinced by by the way, vader pulled out the one ring, see ya time for a peek and watch what we affectionately call Stingray's boot.
Speaker 1:What's else between some counterfeit nappies and a dodgy copy about a friend of this week? These are new release highlights for the week May 26th to June 2nd 2024. Listeners, these are out in digital physical or will be by the time this podcast is in your feed, but could be. I'm not saying they are, I'm just saying that they could be. Region-dependent Spring stock wow, whoa. Back to what you said earlier. You see him pop out of this vehicle as almost like Morph on a budget, or are we talking more sort of Postman Pat?
Speaker 3:Talking more Wallace and Gromit, I think.
Speaker 1:Wow, handmade, hand-executed, beautiful-looking stop motion.
Speaker 3:He looks like what Wallace would look like, but with more cigarettes. I suddenly now and more and more sort of dirty long hair, you know, in a, in a, in a ponytail I would kill for an art man animation.
Speaker 1:Creation of ray and wayne. Wow, that's how you're seeing it.
Speaker 3:That's the most man, if you're listening the whole show.
Speaker 1:We don't do video anymore. It's recreated by ardman. It takes about. You're seeing it.
Speaker 3:That's the most I can imagine Ardman, if you're listening, hire this man.
Speaker 1:We don't do video anymore. It's recreated by Ardman. It takes about six weeks, so we're six weeks behind the news, the episodes, everything. Nice work, guys. Okay, let me tell you how I'm seeing him this week. I'm seeing him as one of the smokers from Waterworld, but he's on a budget and in fact he's topped it off with a couple of helium balloons he's got from the local market, but they're in the shape of probably what was never going to catch on, really. But he's managed to get hold of an air. I thought it was Airwolf. It's Blue Thunder, the series helium balloon. He's wrapped that round what looks like a fake Darth Vader head and something else, and he's got them attached to the rain gutters of the Bluebird. Except he's got Wayne nailed to the front almost as like bait for a space whale. I don't know exactly what they're up to or quite what universe. Hang on a minute. What's in the boot here? I see what you're doing, ray. I don't know how he comes up with these every week.
Speaker 1:I see what you're doing, Ray I don't know how he comes up with these every week. I see what you're doing, ray, but Eternal Skies. Laughter is the most blatantly popular. I've ever seen in my life Fair play to you with the cosplay and the car and all that, but no-one. What even is this?
Speaker 3:We don't see through your lies.
Speaker 1:Ray, you've not even bothered. We've talked about the three tenants creation, cooperative design, ecological foundation. I look in here. I'm glad people don't like you exist anymore. The case that he's made for this prototype game is made from dolphins' tears right, solidified down into a case. People like you scum. It's even got a bit of. It's not even co-optively farmed, it's got bits of tuna in it Unbelievable.
Speaker 3:Wow, this goes basic range.
Speaker 1:For the sake of everything that's holy, I've burnt it, thank god. Thank you, save us from this, from this copyright nightmare rgt. How are you seeing him?
Speaker 4:um, funnily enough, that's another water world link here, because he's come like a really little version of kevin costner with sort of a damp Lambert and Butler hanging out of his mouth, but he's turned up on what looks like a disused pedalo from Great Yarmouth Rapids. I mean, he's gone in on the look but he's not quite mastered it yet. But then Wayne is a perfect scale. 118th version of Harvey. Retro Looks absolutely stunning. Yeah, I love it. It's a perfect 118th scale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would you do, it's got a beautiful pair, the.
Speaker 4:Lot.
Speaker 1:Greg with a 118th scale perfect replica of Harvey Retro. What would you do with that?
Speaker 3:Well, I'd probably place on my display here that you can see which none of the podcast listeners can listen to, but I have a very nice display of video game memorabilia just behind me and it would take pride of place. I owe a lot to Harvey Retro.
Speaker 1:In a clear plastic case and forever prison him in cardboard, which is too heavy for his tiny frame.
Speaker 3:It's not actually Barbie Reggie, it's just a replica. It's fine, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1:It's Wayne Ray. He's subhuman anyway because he's below three foot tall. We're not against. No, let's not. We're going to move on. What have you got in the boot other than Eternal Skies?
Speaker 4:Drop that, Phil Leave leave it in for a while.
Speaker 1:Just make it sound less. Just do what you can. It's dangerous. I know you're not a miracle worker.
Speaker 2:I know you're not a miracle worker hence you have your own religion.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Make it work. I don't know what we pay you for. The only game I can see in the back here, thankfully, is Multiverses coming out for the PC the PS5 the Series X May 28th 2024. Multiverses coming out for the pc the ps5 the series x may 28th 2024. Multiverses is a free-to-play platformer fighter that brings the iconic depth of just give it here wb stars to life across the nearly endless possibilities of play, by being the only survivor of the current ray boot and therefore ergo contractually obliged that they get the mummy mummy sticker for the front of the box. It's a three-way dance, gentlemen, what film. And I look to you first, greg, if I may be so bold, what? It's only now, really, that the camera has solidified in on rgt, and I mentioned it before how you look like ming the merciless with this new facial hair thank you well, I think thank you.
Speaker 1:Were those great bits there before, or have you put them in while on holiday?
Speaker 4:no, it's been a stressful week on holiday. No, it's always been there.
Speaker 3:Rocky the Salt-N-Pepa. I like it, I like the way he's actually.
Speaker 4:I'm sure my age.
Speaker 1:I think there was a lot more grey going on, but there's been some Grecian 2000 or Sharpie gone on to kind of I don't know, grecian 2000. Yeah, you look like Stuffock's answer to Stone Cold. I'll take that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, I'm happy with that. I'll take that. Can you give me a yes, please? Said in Suffolk.
Speaker 1:Lukewarm Shane Austin. That's next level. What VHS are you taking home?
Speaker 3:I assume you two are okay if I take the WWF WrestleMania X7 VHS. Yeah, we're good, that's mine. I'll take that. Thank you very much, and a copy of Free Willy just out of curiosity.
Speaker 4:Be careful with Ray's films, though, because that might not be the film you're expecting.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I think that's probably Ray version. I think you might be safe because I think that's a three Willys yeah, that involves Dev Babs and Round the Back of the Biffers.
Speaker 1:I heard he made his prototype video game case out of the collapsed dorsal fin of Willy. So you know I'd be careful if I were. You Be careful. He was never the same again after that. Never worked with children and animals. Remember to please be kind, rewind or the UCB yeah. You might have survived it once.
Speaker 3:What the HSTU on.
Speaker 1:God, come to me.
Speaker 4:I can do mine if you want. I've already said what I want out of the boot.
Speaker 1:Go on, then, because I'm wondering what I should pick.
Speaker 4:Well, Ray knows I was in Cornwall for a week, so I'm going to get a copy of Blue Juice out of the boot starring Sean Pertwee. Great film Niche. Yeah, George looks completely lost, like he's never even heard of it.
Speaker 1:I don't know. It sounds like that dodgy vape juice he sells, if I'm honest with you. But you know who am I.
Speaker 4:It's just a bit of an act actors trying to be cool surfers, but based in Cornwall rather than.
Speaker 3:Rather than somewhere. Yeah, they're bodyboarding more than anything else, to be honest with you.
Speaker 4:You'll see them sitting near the beach ready to catch this surf, and then they instantly had this cut in from an Hawaiian movie of these massive blue, perfect waves. That doesn't actually fit the day that they're actually sitting in.
Speaker 1:In the worldwide leagues of surfing, the UK surfers really have to be at the lower end, aren't they really?
Speaker 4:You can't actively pursue an extreme sports lifestyle in Skegness.
Speaker 1:Can you Really?
Speaker 4:No, you'd have to be based in Cornwall, but yeah, you wouldn't do it in Skegness. There's been a few that have been on the circuit.
Speaker 3:I like how you say Skegness. Don't be ridiculous Cornwall, Like that's better.
Speaker 4:It's for surfing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely yeah but when you're trying to surf up surfable locations, and the UK's not really the most surfable location. Anywhere else in the world, Cornwall's waves would be laughed off as the kiddie park.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh, yeah, definitely yeah.
Speaker 3:It's the wave pool where you go to the big water world. It's just like the little thing that all the kids rush to. It's just like the little wave pool.
Speaker 1:I actually think it's more the paddling pool that the drunken fat uncle fell in and you got a little bit of a push to one side.
Speaker 4:You can get some good surf. It's nowhere near as regular as it is around the rest of the world. There was actually a tournament on when we were down there, but that had been postponed from the week before because it looked like a mill farm.
Speaker 1:There's no version of Kelly Slater's based in Cornwall. I mean, what would it be Rick Stein's bodyboarding?
Speaker 4:Oh well, no, there's a lot of big surf shops. There's quite a few well-known people who've done well. There's a guy who owns a bodyboard shop who was world champion. He's from England. There you go, there you go.
Speaker 1:My fundamental lack of understanding of the bodybuilding work body. To be honest, I'm moving on yeah, move on that's your, that's your vhs pick, yes, blue juice. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick, I'm going to pick. Birds of a Feather, series 1. It's an exclusive, limited edition VHS box set. It's only because you fancy, dory Comes with a lock of her hair and a Glade plug-in air freshener.
Speaker 3:That's one great flex, isn't it?
Speaker 1:and it's got the potpourri smell in it. So to be honest, it's not aged well. It's a bit solidified in there, but it's doing something. With that raise gone, all that's left on the floor is what looks like the corner of the WrestleMania X7 case and a picture of Dorian. What's that on it? It's Glade Plug-In Freshener Juice. Thank goodness for that. Gone a little bit cloudy over time but it's not the vape juice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was that called again Blue? What Blue juice? Blue juice, it's beef flavour. That called again blue. What blue juice, blue juice, it's beef flavor.
Speaker 1:That one blue juice he likes to defy expectations with the vape juice. Does our ray oxo flavor? We can't call it that. He can refer to it as oxo tasting, but he can't, he can't put that on the box. Um, with that all done. That all done, all gone, I feel like we've been relatively safe this episode. I must ask you, gentlemen and I'll start with our fine guest and thank you for persevering with us this far you're a glutton for punishment, especially during the attitude era of the show. What are you hoping to play?
Speaker 3:so hoping to play, so hoping to finish off either Harrow and Halibut or Bioshock 2. Nice, and I'm also hoping to finally dive in with Helldivers.
Speaker 1:You were gonna I know you were gonna love that I know.
Speaker 3:I will. I was a big Apex player for many years and I just know that I can lose hundreds of hours to this and I'm not sure I'm ready for it.
Speaker 1:Have you seen anyone else Sorry?
Speaker 3:very quick. I've also got around to playing Baldur's Gate 3, yeah, but I'm going to have to give that some time, I think yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay. Have you seen anyone else playing Helldivers? Are you going to go in fresh?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I've watched quite a bit of it on streams and whatnot. So, yeah, I'm very familiar with what it is and concepts and how the game plays.
Speaker 1:It's a shame because there's no money shot. Quite like getting into the Hellpod yourself for the first time and then shooting down like yeah, I can't wait to actually be the one shooting down for the theme I am.
Speaker 3:This is an incredible epic, so, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I can play this week.
Speaker 1:Make it so, Make it happen. You have to.
Speaker 3:I'll try, I'll give it some time, yeah.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else on the periphery?
Speaker 3:I've also been playing a bit of Planet Crafter on PC, which is like another survival game, which is a very addictive, fantastic game loop. It's a really great game full of content, and it was only made by two people Wow. So check that out, yeah, Worth looking into. It went into 1.04 release like about a month or two ago. I think it was yeah, about a month ago. So, yeah, that's doing really really well.
Speaker 1:When you look at like CDB PC players.
Speaker 3:I believe they've also had a console release, but I'm not 100% sure. But yeah, I mean it's not the most demanding. You could probably get it running on mid-specs, but yeah 486?
Speaker 1:Maybe a bit higher 486 Pentium.
Speaker 3:Pentium processor oh wow, we made it into 2004. Yeah, Just yeah, I would say it's worth looking at if you have sort of like a 1080, let's say RTX. Okay.
Speaker 1:Which is probably a little bit further ahead To me. That's what the face of God could be rendered with RGT. What are you hoping to play?
Speaker 4:Some more Signalis, some more Kirby. Definitely. I've been chomping at the bit to get back on Bioshock 2. As you know, I've completed one and got back halfway through two before I went on holiday, so been absolutely loving it, especially as that's a first time experience for me and I'm playing on the OG PS3. So playing the original version fantastic. So I'm looking forward to getting when are. So playing the original version? Oh nice, yeah, fantastic, so I'm looking forward to getting it when are you at, if you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 4:Oh, I've got to remember where I'm up to now. You've asked me a question now I can't remember. I knew on the spot. Yeah, I remember I'd worked out I was about halfway through the missions, so I quickly looked up the mission list before I left. But yeah, really enjoying that, loving the story, the twist, the different part of the city, really really good. So yeah, I shall be. As of recording this, it's a bank holiday weekend, so I shall be spending my weekend probably mostly playing Bioshock 2 with some crafties.
Speaker 1:Oh, don't weekend so I should be spending my weekend probably mostly playing Bioshock 2. Yeah, oh don't. You've just seduced me through the medium of a video game, bank holiday weekend.
Speaker 3:Talk to me, summon the emperor to me as usual, and the weather's going to be terrible, it's the best time.
Speaker 1:The perfect excuse. Yeah, guilt free.
Speaker 4:Can't do. The garden love rain, and so I better carry on.
Speaker 1:I'm not messing around with cuticles here. I'm going. I'm at the knuckle.
Speaker 3:I knew it'd be a matter of time, yeah, the attitude here is how it works now. Are we not in ruthless aggression here yet? Come on, surely it's any time now. That's not a long ago.
Speaker 4:I don't think.
Speaker 1:We've got a decade in this Wow.
Speaker 3:None of Ruthless Aggression Era was any more PG, but yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it made the attempt.
Speaker 3:It tried.
Speaker 1:I'm going to play some Helldivers. I'm going to venture a little bit further than the animation for Hit Strike of Elden Ring will permit. I shall put my nose everywhere it's not wanted and certainly threaten the bigger boys with absolutely nothing, because I'm a complete baby in that game.
Speaker 3:What are you playing on PS5? Yeah, yeah. I'd happen to jump in with you. I need to re-download it for the DLC anyway.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how that would manifest itself. You might need to give me one of those Helldivers moments where I jump in with a stranger before I permit to peacock in front of you. I don't know you're rolling up Peacock in front of you yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, George, that guy murdered your pieces, but you've got some lovely plumage.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I like the fact that you've levelled up, or equivalent of levelled up, at least once before showing your dirty face around here. I think it's the decent thing to do from an etiquette point of view. If I rock up with my controller upside down and ask you to basically mop up my sick for the past two weeks, you're not going to be very grateful. Exactly so I at least know I need to know how to work the controller. Maybe get maybe one weapon advancement from the one I've got? I think then I can.
Speaker 1:Is that a new weapon? You know? Just a something I pulled out the cupboard. It's not my best weapon, don't get me wrong, but it's something I picked up along the way that Helldivers happy to hold your hand in that. Although I'm not an expert, to be honest with you, I'm dangerous, to say the least, bit more F1, and I think that might be dangerous, to say the least, a bit more F1. And I think that might be. I keep wanting to. I've got Alan Wake 2 on the go, but I kind of lost my bubble with it and it's kind of been a back burner.
Speaker 3:Best game from last year that I played, because I didn't play Bonskate 3, but best game from last year for me.
Speaker 1:We could do a whole other podcast just on alan wake too I love the first, alan wake, and I love the lore, I love the extended universe. Playing through the remake of that again, you know it's like, yeah, this is well put together. Certainly a game of its time. Certainly a game of its time. Yeah, but the second one, I don't know quite why, but it hasn't grabbed me as hard as the first game did.
Speaker 1:I don't know whether it's I've got a bit of nostalgia for the first one, whether the fact that the mind palace is the mind palace is like a completely weird and bizarre experience to me. That I don't know if it adds anything really. It might do later on, but for now I find it like quite an odd. I feel like I'm smashing my head against a brick wall in the mind palace as much as I am sometimes the actual game world. So, wow, the hell do you want me to do with this picture? And I just end up holding it everywhere until the game goes yeah, it's part of this bit like oh, yeah, okay, I don't feel like a detective, I feel like a kid that's got a star shape, that's been trying to smash it into the square hole for 10 hours and now I've just tried it over everything and it's gone in the star shape hole, much to my surprise.
Speaker 3:Uh, I don't feel like a detective. I found the opposite. I I don't know. I finished both of them. I finished alan wake. One really really struggled to keep with that, because it's just another level of okay, okay, go to the Dark Woods. Okay, kill these enemies.
Speaker 1:Go to this area. Oh, it's Dark Woods again.
Speaker 3:Okay, kill all the enemies.
Speaker 1:The B2B minute-to-minute gameplay of one admittedly absolutely nowhere near as strong I will hold my hand up and say that but the actual story narrative and the introduction is, I think, very capable, and I actually wonder if they went far enough with the remake, because they probably could have waited and then used the two-engine, and that would have been seriously sexually exciting to me, and I think I've gotten charted four on the burner on the PS4 as well. Why don't we ask questions, questions, just smile and nod. Yes, I want a bit more Dave the dive, because I'm finding that quite intriguing, to be honest with you yeah stick with it.
Speaker 1:And to anyone who's mildly interested in Dave the diver, if they've got it, the DLC is a get it downloaded now because it's around but won't be forever kind of scenario. But if you've got it it's yours forever, but if you don't get it it might not be obtainable. So I think if you're having fun with Dave the Diver and you grab that DLC now because it's free I don't know if this show's known for its advice, but there's some Do with it what you will. We've now got to the point in time where we do our tier level support of things shout out. I've been trying not to mention it because I'm wondering if people are just a bit sick of hearing about it. Greg, you're on the outside looking in, on the outside looking out. What do you make of all this community advancements that we've been making recently? You're a community manager, so speak your mind.
Speaker 3:It's good. It means you and your community are moving in the right direction. It's looking like it's becoming more and more established and it's great to see that you've got such a huge list of insiders. Almost, I think it's. I think it's great. You're doing the right thing. You're, you're growing that audience and it's amazing to see so many people are willing to part with their you know hard earned money to support the show Clearly shows that you embrace them. I want to say you know it's great.
Speaker 1:Embrace.
Speaker 3:It's not a word you should use loosely around me Embrace the show, embrace the ways that we have around here, you know.
Speaker 1:It's good, embrace the ways we have around here.
Speaker 3:you know it's good Race the ways we have around here. You know that's to be said like Badda Bingster, but yeah, yeah, I mean I don't know what else to do with it.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's like, oh, you've edged into this area, have you, george? Now what are you going to do? And I wasn't sure, rgt, you sent me the list, but I cannot find for the life of me where it might be. I've got it.
Speaker 4:You've got it yeah.
Speaker 1:What's the point of having an official messaging service in the show and not use it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I just thought I'd send it to the logical one. That obviously isn't logical to you.
Speaker 1:Is this a backlog of shame episode? It was like it, yeah.
Speaker 4:Do I need to storm off?
Speaker 1:No, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4:Cool Right. Well, tatted Turn said read that they're great. Don't believe it. It's just an attention seeker. Do you want me to start us?
Speaker 3:off? You certainly can. Okay, trestles.
Speaker 4:New York. Then we've got Bada Bingster, tingle Tuna. You got it right. We always say that wrong, bless him. Then we've got Digital Monkery.
Speaker 1:I'll be, I'm going to.
Speaker 4:Sorry, we're doing a list here who are you?
Speaker 1:No, hang on, we need to break the fourth wall. Whose name have I interrupted?
Speaker 3:The next one would be Rose Space Monk.
Speaker 4:I was into digital monkery and then we were getting on to Rose Space Monk.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'm really sorry, but this whole episode I want you to know that I've been fighting what can only be described as a torrent of snot. I'm not ill, I feel fine, but there's been this almost well. I think the Niagara Falls has probably produced less liquid than my face has, for some reason. I thought I had a nosebleed. Wow, you're okay. I don't know. I don't know where to go with that.
Speaker 4:But I mean thanks for letting us know.
Speaker 1:The show needed that. Yeah, it did, yeah, yeah. Those breaks in the fourth wall are important. You know the show needed that. Yeah, it did, yeah, yeah. So how those breaks?
Speaker 3:those breaks, breaks in the fourth wall, are important. You know, you can almost call you. Call you Kojima.
Speaker 1:I just want, I, yeah, you know podcast or tours go.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm right up there, right if you'd like to, if you'd like to take part. The next one is Rose Space Monk, whose name we've said twice now.
Speaker 1:This is why he pays the big bucks. Rose Space Monk I don't know how many times that it's said the Gaming Gram. Are we doing a roundabout each?
Speaker 4:We've worked out the turns, but you've just come back and took over.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to make up for the fact I've been sick note for the last 30 seconds. I thought.
Speaker 4:I'd do an extra shift. Well, I'll go with Bald Border.
Speaker 1:Boba, Does that mean I get Marathon Gaming?
Speaker 4:Scotty Boy yeah, then we've got Seal, master Elliot, then we've got Ginge.
Speaker 1:I've got Emma Sharp. Any clarification on whether she's on the apps or no? Rgt.
Speaker 4:I've said no originally and I'll continue to say that.
Speaker 1:Thanks OG Tom for that one. Og Tom just wondered if she'd maybe downloaded a couple of the apps.
Speaker 4:I'm just happy that she's still a member.
Speaker 1:Mickey T. Thank you for your support.
Speaker 2:Harvey, Retro Nowhere near Berlin Retro's video, by the way, brilliant nowhere near Berlin Retro's video, by the way. Did you see that I felt like I'd unboxed?
Speaker 1:the unboxing live at the time. It was brilliant it he took a bag of skips and made it look like fine dining by the way I bought too many skips. I've been feeding on the leftovers for the record sets two packs the leftovers from the multi-pack or the leftovers from when harvey retro shoveled them into his mouth, obviously in a very organic way.
Speaker 4:Obviously, the amount of boxes I sent to skip. Ratio was out, so I ended up with and also I didn't count very well, I just bought them in a rush and ended up buying two packets too many, so I've just been gorging my way through them. So a pack for you and a pack for no. Not for you, no, no, no, just for me. Oh yeah, and funnily enough, nowhere near Burnley. There we go, hello.
Speaker 1:What do people think when they get to this part of a podcast and hear their name read out?
Speaker 4:Why does George keep getting nice and cold-faced kicks?
Speaker 3:I guess from personal experience. It's like, yeah, cool Anyway.
Speaker 1:You contributed to this sub-average pile. I mean all genuinely joking aside. I know that the show's got a specific lore and humour around it, but every week I'm literally blown away by this list. Yeah. Having a moment outside of the law, which is hard now because it's so confusing. I don't even know, I don't even I'll let me tell you where the law's at, and I'm honestly bringing the banhammer down on the law. I'm so confused about even who I am anymore within your own within my not only within my own law, but the, the whole, the whole show.
Speaker 1:I I literally no idea who I am anymore. I'm, but I'm very humbled by the fact that people are still rocking up. The shows evolve from I don't. It's such a bizarre show. I don't even think he even knows what it is anymore. Um, up next mumsy. We wouldn't be here without her in more ways than one and then unfortunates fell on me.
Speaker 4:For the rgt fan club it was almost like we timed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, p brocklehurst nice, okay, that means I get billy marmite and then I get my good friend simon preick, okay, but greg.
Speaker 4:And then I get my good friend Simon Pryke.
Speaker 1:Okay, but, greg, you've got to do this in your most sexually provocative way. It's what he asked for on this subscriber tier. I would normally do it, but since you're the guest, he deserves only the very best. So I want to feel like I am your prey, sexual prey, fat Zangief.
Speaker 1:That was deep, the way he came into it as well, that muscular masculine role of the first word, and then kind of delicately showed his way around Fat Zangief's body with the way he tiptoed across the vowels from the next one. I mean absolutely unbelievable. I feel absolutely unbelievable.
Speaker 3:I feel like I need a cigarette after that.
Speaker 4:Yep, I'm no lighter.
Speaker 1:I'm beyond it. I'm covered head to toe like Mr Blobby in Nicorette patches. I've got a couple of the pouches lodged under my gums and I've got a couple of Marlborough Reds in me socks. These people have subscribed to get access to some tiers. What's the first tier and how much does it cost? Rgt?
Speaker 4:Also I'm going to. It's my fault, I should have got this done earlier. I'm going to get Boba, our obviously community manager, he's going to. I'll get him to put this as a separate section on there. So if you're ever interested and you're on the Discord, you can have a quick look, see what the T is.
Speaker 1:We're not mentioning the Discord anymore.
Speaker 4:No, but I will for that one, yeah. So do you want me to just quickly read through them? I can quickly read through them if you like like, yeah, you bash one out, uh, oh dear.
Speaker 4:Um. Three dollars, um, you get read out on every show, which is what we've just done. Um, five dollars, you'll get read out on every show and you also get your yearly art merch when we change our artwork um album art, something like that fridge magnet, whatever we we decide to launch that year, we'll send you a piece of that. Eight dollars you get read out on every show. Yearly art merch, plus you get access to the own glorious chat, which is the locked off chat in the discord. Um, and then the final one is the ten dollars which you get read out on every show, yearly art merch, plus access to the own glorious chat and you get a quarterly zoom chat with hosts stroke, host rivers on that time, which we will hopefully, by the end of next week, launch the date when we're doing the first one of those. So that is the tiers, but, like I say, we'll get that added to Discord in the section.
Speaker 1:Maybe have a vote as well, because I realise now I'm almost like the Stonehenge of the show. No one really knows what I am, no one really knows what purpose I serve anymore. True, they want to get down with the cool kids. They want to get down with the Shard, aka you. They want to get down with the walkie-talkie building, aka Bobby. They want to get down with some other size. Triple S, triple S, yeah, he's Canary Wharf. Canary Wharf. Okay, very true, yeah. So maybe if it makes the environment better, I won't even turn up.
Speaker 4:Cool, okay, yeah, so we'll hopefully.
Speaker 1:It's the future of this show that is.
Speaker 4:No, don't be stupid, you'll be the number one name they'll be asking for.
Speaker 1:I think you listen to a different show to me. I'm just trying to make you feel good.
Speaker 4:I don't fit well in the Attitude Era.
Speaker 3:I think you fit quite well, actually, the.
Speaker 1:Attitude Era changed you? No, I feel, if anything, I'm almost a pastiche of myself. I feel like I'm the Val Venus of the Attitude Era of the show. Where did these come from? Rgt is like the lukewarm stone-cold Steve Austin Lukewarm. Stone Cold, Steve Austin Lukewarm. You're basically Sting Me yeah.
Speaker 3:I can see myself dropping down from the rafters For tea time or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1:Nwo Wolfpack Sting coming down Red and black, wcw's little version of Kane. What can we do? Paint him red and black, that'll do it, sort it. Stop him on the ice. Kick him out there. It's exactly the same thing. Nwo Wolfpack Sting Kane on the shelf. You can't tell them apart. It's the same toy. It's the same freaking toy. Think how much more.
Speaker 3:It's like I want Kane. We've got Kane at home and it's Wolfpack Sting.
Speaker 4:Outland's version of NWA Wolfpack Sting. He's done him now.
Speaker 1:His head's not even on properly.
Speaker 4:Okay, he's called Bing Bing. Oh no, not back to Ming the Merciless again wow, but we can go with Ming, it's fine no, we can't do that.
Speaker 1:We can't do that. We can't go down that road with all that said and done. You've honoured us with your gracious presence and I'm very grateful for that said and done. You've honoured us with your gracious presence and I'm very grateful for that. The show, as you say, has quite obviously changed a lot since its first incarnation. You've been with us, listening and ably being part of the community, which we love you for along the way. But your own success story has literally gone vertical takeoff and you're now in the industry. You're doing your thing.
Speaker 1:We're very grateful for you taking the time out. We know you're a dedicated family man. Time is precious at all times and you've given it to us at the weekend as well. I don't know what you were going to do with it, but you certainly gave it to us, which is a very generous gift to give. Before we let you back out there in the wild, uh, before we open the back door of farmton and let slip the, the dogs of war, can you tell everyone a where they can find you? B probably direct them to maybe the discord for the forever skies and any other places you want them to go? If there's anything you want to impart before you leave um?
Speaker 3:now's your time to do so yeah, sure, um, you can find me mostly on uh twitter. For my personal account, that's greg j underscore cummings one. Um, that's where I as much as twitter sucks. I still hate it and I still use it almost daily. So, yeah, you can find me there.
Speaker 3:Or you can find us on the Forever Skies Discord. If you check out our socials, you can find us. You can find our Discord link everywhere. We have it in every place on our social media on our Steam page, wherever you might look, even on our PlayStation page, playstation page. Um, I believe it's there. I think maybe maybe not, I'm not sure, but you can search forever skies discord. You'll definitely find it there, um. So, yeah, I'm there almost daily, hanging out, even at weekends, speaking to the community, and check out forever skies on the on steam, see what you think you know it might be, for you might be just something a bit different, um, from what you usually play, but, yeah, uh would definitely definitely appreciate you checking it out at some point. But, yeah, that's it. I'm not going to self-promote anymore.
Speaker 1:No good umpires here.
Speaker 3:No, no good umpires here. I try and avoid self-promotion as much as possible, believe it or not, as a former content creator Well, I say former, the door is always open for me, and Edomatic, to do something else, but yeah.
Speaker 1:A one-off special, I think hey we still talk quite regularly.
Speaker 3:The only reason why I don't make so much stuff is just because I'm so busy with my day job. But yeah, that door's always open.
Speaker 1:I would just love to see the three of you just one time throw down. I think probably the most universal place for you three to throw down would be some video game content.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or again, movie related to video game. I think that we did on your podcast last time.
Speaker 3:Johan and I this podcast might be a bit of a giveaway to it, but I'm a big wrestling fan as well. Johan and I we went to All In last year in London together. We still talk almost daily just about video games and wrestling and just general nonsense. So, yeah, for sure we could definitely do something in the future, and it's also being into sort of more Attitude Era and before wrestling uh eras. Um, so, yeah, we would probably do something along those lines. But, yeah, that that door is always open. I love working with them. I owe a lot to those guys. Without them, I probably wouldn't be doing what I do now. So that cannot be underestimated. That cannot be understated. Um, they taught me how to edit videos and learn about framing and graphics etc. So I learned a lot from them, uh.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, kind of understate that very beautiful giving men, and I mean that with all sincerity. I genuinely you have been, I've had the glorious experience of knowing them, or getting to know them, or I don't want to say too much loosely associated with them. I don't want them implicated in any of my court cases, so I know them loosely, very loosely, very, very loosely. You see how.
Speaker 3:I don't even know what's real anymore?
Speaker 1:I just don't know. With all that said and done, again genuinely, thank you so much yeah thank you, Greg.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Thank you for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure. I know it's something we've wanted to do for a while and I'm so, so happy that we've been able to finally get around to it. So thank you. Yeah, it's been brilliant.
Speaker 1:Well, my great aunt can breathe a sigh of relief. Now she's probably safe to go outside her house now that you've been on, because every time before she threw herself on the floor, every time you were coming on. So yeah. You can take off the danger list now, can't you?
Speaker 4:You can't even tie it to the chair to be safe.
Speaker 1:Attached to an airship. Wow, I think that in the first DLC pack there needs to be a woman dangling from chair beneath their ship Like five people will get it and it'll be so worth it it would Dude.
Speaker 1:Thank you genuinely so much for supporting the show, for doing us the honour of a man of your calibre being, you know, even on the periphery of the community. But the way that you're involved is the way you are. Thank you so much. You got in on an early adopter box. We're very grateful. The love and support that you've given us just on the periphery is very heartwarming. Thank you so much. Stay in contact. Thank you so much. Stay in contact. Even if we were to grip very loosely onto your coattails, as you saw through the gaming industry as a superhero, would be enough for me to say I've made it, if I'm honest with you. So thank you for that honour. Please stay in touch. Stay around. Stay that humble, beautiful, beautiful, sexy human man.
Speaker 3:Where is this going? Thank you, no, I appreciate the kind words. He used to speak to me like that. Sorry, mate. He's upgraded now. Yeah, With the big voice apparently Wow, definitely, that's all.
Speaker 1:We have time for this boys.
Speaker 4:apparently Wow, definitely, that's all we have time for this week listeners.
Speaker 1:We look forward to the pleasure of speaking to you again next week. Until then, happy game. There's nothing wrong with being given the unofficial control. It's what you do with it that counts. Thank you again. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:See you, guys, see you later. See you guys, bye-bye, see you guys, see you later. See you guys, bye you.