The Besties - The Besties Podcast 55 - A mouthful of candies

Episode Date: May 3, 2013

I love Candy Box. I'd hate to spoil what Candy Box is. So trust me. Before you press that play button, click this link. Play Candy Box for a few minutes, then leave it open on a browser tab and return for the podcast. Follow these instructions precisely. Fun, right? Confusing, right? Great, let's get to the show. This week, we offend chiropractors, slay mystical beasts, fix the industry's piracy problem and Candy Box, Candy Box, Candy Box, Candy Box, Candy Box, Candy Box, Candy Box, Candy Box, Candy Box, Candy Box. Also, Candy Box. 3:00 - Best use of Blood Dragons (Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon) 9:50 - Best piracy prevention that is also ironic (Game Dev Tycoon) 19:50 - Half time: Chris goes back to school 26:10 - Best value of the week and also of all time (Neverwinter) 33:30 - Best something something Candy Box (Candy Box) 41:00 - The winner is... Theme song by Ian Dorsch Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

remember that time that uh russ made fun of me because i had back pains and then i introduced him to a back doctor that's gonna cure him but he shows no signs of gratitude yeah but the back daughter doctor won't take me for another five days is it like a real doctor is it a chiropractor no it's a it's a wow i don't get complaints about that i don't really know the difference between a chiropractor and a back doctor a back doctor is a real doctor one's a fucking voodoo priest that will work on babies and twist their spines which one is that read a book hey fresh can you do me a favor before we get started yeah read a book oh get on yelp and find out which doctors are assholes.

My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best thing of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best thing of the week. My name is Christopher Plant, and I'm a harvester of your lollipops. My name is Russ Frustik, and I am here to do this podcast now. Oh, the baby is hurt. It hurt the baby. Somebody get the chiropractor and twist his baby's spine. Now, Plant, you know if I could pay someone to twist Russ's spine, I would have done it long ago.

Oh. Russ's spine, I would have done it long ago. Oh. Oh. Poor Russ is not feeling so great, but we're all feeling great about this week. In video games, it's been thrilling, I guess. No studios closed that I know of.

TimeGate actually just filed for bankruptcy. Ah, could, broke the streak. Broke the streak, TimeGate. They, this isn't funny or anything. No, couldn't. Broke the streak. Broke the streak. Time game. This isn't funny or anything. No, it's obviously not. I mean, it's a studio closing down, but on their bankruptcy filing, they listed their top 20 creditors. And I guess they didn't have many creditors, which is why on their list of top 20 creditors,

there was a pizza place like down the street from their place that they owe like 35 bucks stan stan's pizza no it's called like new york pizza which is great because they're in sugarland texas doesn't say all the orders that they kept like did they go extra pepperoni and that's what screwed them yeah then that's why aliens wasn't very good that's the inside story you heard it here first hey if i can't order pizza on credit, why are these guys able to? I don't understand. Well, they're job providers. They're job creators and job providers. And you have that.

So who wants to kick things off this week? Who's got something hot popping off? I'll start. Okay, hit me, Fresh Dick. I'm ready. My pick this week is the best use of a blood dragon for Far Cry 3 blood dragon. A surprise win in the category. Is that something that's actually,

is there a dragon fueled by blood in the game? Well, that's his name. Well, there are several of them, but essentially they're called blood dragons. So yeah, they're a creature. It's not just like a cool 80s sounding name. There are actually beings on this earth. Well, that earth named Blood Dragons.

And let me just do a quick synopsis. Essentially, we're dealing with an alternate history Far Cry 3 standalone game. I'm sure everyone's already heard of it, but set in, what is it, 2007, but it's an alternate 2007, essentially inspired by movies like Escape from New York, et cetera. In this case, you're dealing with a large open expanse, and there's animals still running around, but they're like cyber animals, cyber sharks, devil goats, that sort of thing. But the master of this land, the lion, the apex predator, is known as the blood dragon.

And they sort of look like T-Rexes, but they've drank... You know that stuff that the doctor gives you to, like, see inside barium when it, like, helps the x-rays? Basically, like, they drank a lot of barium, so they glow. Wow. You just managed to make blood dragons so boring. I'm sorry. My monotone delivery today is not up to par. But essentially, so these dragons, they look like T-Rexes.

And they march around and they eat goats and they eat sheep and they eat people. And what's particularly cool, I think some people might remember in Far Cry 3, you could use animals to, like, F up other people's camps. Right. You know, like, there'd be a cage with a tiger in it and you'd shoot open the cage and the tiger would run around and mess up people. Yeah. A lot of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon is about using these blood dragons, which are obviously a lot larger than tigers, to just eviscerate entire squads of guys. eviscerate entire squads of guys um you can essentially uh steal the hearts of your enemies literally the cyber hearts of your enemies and then throw them and apparently cyber hearts are

the best favorite the most favoritest food of the blood dragon because they'll just march after them willy-nilly um and you could essentially just use them as offensive juggernauts to just whip. Can you ride them? Spoiler? I don't know. I haven't gotten that far. Maybe. Yeah, let's not answer that question. Okay. Well, God, now I know that you obviously can. I don't actually know. It's obviously rad.

It's not necessarily that either. I don't actually know. You become one. Fuck! I think the coolest use of blood dragon is when you're taking on um i forget what they're called encampments essentially there's like a bunch of them all across the map and that was in far cry 3 but these encampments have shield barriers surrounding them and you could obviously sneak in and just kill everyone all stealthy like if you want to do that but the way more fun way to take out these encampments is essentially to sneak in and before anyone notices shut off the shield barrier and

then blood dragons just charge in and wreck the place it is fucking awesome is there is there anything that like sort of in entices you to do stealthy stuff because i feel like far cry 3 had a pretty good balance of yeah there are so many different ways that you can do this. Do you want to go stealth? Do you want to go all out attack? It sounds like since you have the option of dinosaurs that stealth is not a very appealing option. Well there's a lot of missions where dinosaurs

aren't unfortunately an option. Like if you're indoors. Is that a bug? Is that a glitch? It might be. I don't think they tested it very well because there are certain missions without dinosaurs, and that seems like folly. I love that there's finally a game acknowledging the truth of the fact that dinosaurs and humans walk the earth at the same time.

I'm glad that somebody's finally brave enough to get that message. There's already a book about that. The good book. A very good book. I haven't played it yet. It's already a book about that. The good book. A very good book. I haven't played it yet. It's hard for me to get... I played the fuck out of that original game. And even with a thick sheen of Estevezian 80s charm on top of it,

I just can't get psyched about it. Guys, I'll be honest with you. I've been playing for... I did, like, the first hour or so. I can't get... I'm having a real hard time with the aesthetics i just really hate them so much like that neon is like so unpleasant to the orbs it's it's it's tough it has a real turrock the dinosaur hunter thing to it which one like the the game because there's so much fog there's like also there's dinosaurs it's just it's not it's such a beautiful island which was what i liked about that game was like driving around this crazy landscape and being able to see somewhere in the distance and go there

and here i like have no desire to go anywhere off the beaten path because it just looks so gross well and also because there's no fucking animals for you to skin and well there are animals but there's no reason you can't take their parts and turn them into bags well there are minor reasons if you kill a bunch of the animals you get like certain weapon unlocks you can only get from killing the animals so there's some benefit uh but yeah i would agree that the visuals are not super great to look at and i do kind of wish it was brighter or if anything it feels a little bit like they went middle middle ground like if anything i would want to would have wanted them to go all the way with it and make it even like tronny or something like all the way neon but this feels like well it's essentially like a night level in far cry 3 with a scan line filter put over it.

Yeah, I just had a harder time identifying the enemies, which was never an issue for me in Far Cry. Yeah. And I don't know. Again, I haven't played much of it, but the visuals did not immediately make me feel like a happy person. It did occur to me, though, that essentially if they made far cry 4

on an island with dinosaurs it would be fucking awesome like why has that not happened already didn't everybody say that like everybody said that initially and this seems like they're sort of their answer to that like yeah they could have gone all i mean there's only one kind of dinosaur here and it's a blood dragon uh you know think compies raptors um pterodactyls there's a lot of room to grow pterodactyls you kill the pterodactyl and then you turn it into a hang glider yep shit that's that one's on the house ubisoft just take that one put it right in the bank no royalties required for this guy i want to tell you guys about my game can i talk about my thing go for it please uh i want to tell you guys about my game. Can I talk about my thing? Go for it. Yeah, please.

My award this week is for the best piracy prevention that is also kind of ironic. And that award goes to GameDev Story. Can I already be intentional? Because it seems like they knew what they were doing. It's not GameDev Story.

It's GameDe Dev Tycoon. I'm giving away my bit. Game Dev Tycoon is a simulator game where you're running a game studio. You're staffing up your studio. You're deciding

on genre topic combinations. This is Game Dev Tycoon we're talking about? This is Game Dev Tycoon. Okay. You are raising money for your studio. You're choosing what platforms you want to develop on. And the hysterical thing that the developers of Game Dev Tycoon did

is they released a version a cracked version quote-unquote on uh torrent sites um but the the uh hitch was that at some point in your game your studio would be absolutely crippled by piracy it's like built into the game is that you uh basically are are broken as a company by by piracy and that's only in the version that was released to pirate uh websites which is entrapment right it's a honeypot entrapment it's a honeypot it's also very very funny um the thing so that's funny and you probably you probably read about that this week the thing that i think is so hysterical about this is that their game is kind of a clone like game dev tycoon is for all... Before you start dropping these heat bombs on them,

have you played the game? I've played hours of the game. You've played hours of Game Dev Tycoon? Yes. And Game Dev Story. I finished Game Dev Story. I've played hours of Game Dev Story. Wait, how do you finish Game Dev Story?

No. Yes. Yeah, you finish it after like three years or something. Oh, really? Yeah. So this goes through a 30-year console cycle. And to give you some perspective of where I am, it starts with the Commodore 64-esque system. And I'm currently the PlayStation has just been released.

So that's about where I am in the chronology things. has just been released so that's about where where i am in in the chronology things and like some of these things are going to be unavoidable um just because if you're doing this idea for a a game you know some of it is just so natural and obvious that it that it's what you'd want to go for but like um fundamentally you're picking combinations you're naming your games you're deciding um game dev tycoon is a lot deeper in that you um can assign certain people from certain people from your studio have uh different rankings um they they have different talents and you can assign them before right well you can assign them to certain aspects of game design it's also got sliders where you can decide like how much of a certain um aspect of of the game design you want to focus

on in in a certain length of time this is for instance this is tycoon sorry this is tycoon because this all sounds like stuff that was in Game Dev Story. I don't think it had this amount of, this much. It looks a little bit deeper. There were definitely rankings and sliders and stuff. There weren't sliders. But there was like, how much do you want to invest in graphics, essentially? This is like, this is deeper

because you could build, like for instance, you can build an engine where that enables you to do different things with your engine that enables you to do different things with your engine that enables you to um have different aspects to your game okay so like the my engine um my first engine had really good 2d graphics my and that's ironic you hate 2d graphics stereo sound what you hate 2d graphics well what's he gonna fucking i know start out with 4d i'm gonna push it to 4d on the should on the uh gameling right on the get-go uh it's still fun to name your games um i still like

i have a whole uh kill killception series and the killception series is of course military strategy but i have an action fantasy version. It's called Killception Legends. And I just couldn't come up with anything other than Killception. So everything is a take on the Killception franchise. That's my favorite thing about the game dev story and why this actually kind of sounds great. Game mechanics aside, it's amazing being somebody who covers this industry for a living that is like man ea is just a fucking it's just a workhouse where they just churn out the same

shit over and over again and then you get put in charge of this digital corporation and you're like all right i will make one shooter i will make a single shooter called soldier boy and then you do it and you release it and it sells a billion copies. And you're like, well, fuck. Okay, four more Soldier Boys. And then I'll be able to afford the fantasy MMORPG that I've always wanted. I had a great, I had a great, I built sequels into the third version of my engine. And I made a sequel.

I think that's how it works. I definitely unlocked sequels. And I made my first sequel to Crawl 2, which was a Game Boy game. And I made Krull 3. And it was a sequel, another fantasy action game in the Krull series. And it was basically like 32 weeks after I released Krull 2. I released Krull 3. And it was released to straight ones.

Like people despised it. And what was super embarrassing about it was that I had just paid, like, I had no idea it was going to tank like that. And I just paid the biggest investment ever in a gigantic E3 booth. And whatever game you're working on right then, during E3, there's a big banner for it. So I had this terrible, this gigantic, this huge banner that said Krull 3, which had just gotten straight ones, and like

no one came, because they hate Krull 3, because I waited 32 weeks in between sequels. Oh. Well, I make them want it. Honestly, Justin, you of all people should know how the hype train works. You can't bring that hype train right back to the station, you know, just half a year. There actually is a hype meter for each game.

I believe it's pronounced hypometer. The word clone is so inflammatory that I feel like it can only really be applicable in really egregious situations. So far... I interviewed... What? I was going to say, so far, everything that he's described

sounds like a straight-up clone to me. It's not. But from writing about the game and looking at trailers and stuff like that, the base mechanics, yes, are very, very similar. And what's distressing is that a lot of the aesthetics are kind of similar. Like it takes place in this isometric cube of a room. And as your game gets better in certain categories,

these little spheres pop out of your computer and go towards these four unique scores, which is like all exactly what Game Dev Story did. And that seems like, unnecessary there is more they could have done to to uh to differentiate it i think right now it makes it it makes it clear stuff like that makes it clear that the game originally was just a framework of let's see if we can recreate game dev story and then as they went along tried to expand it and make it something new. And like that kind of iteration, I think can get you outside of the clone denomination. It's just, I don't know.

There's some stuff in there that yes, definitely, definitely seems cloney, but I'm never one to poo poo a game just because it resembles another game, but goes a lot deeper. I just, I want to know one unique thing that game dev tycoon does that game dev story did not do i mean i told you like there's a bunch of there's a lot more

depth all that stuff was everything that you've mentioned so far was in game dev story there's um i don't think it had as much specificity on like how like the sliders of like i want to spend this there are three stages of development in each one. There's three categories with one development stage is sound, graphics, and level design. And the more time you spend on one, the less time you're going to spend

on the others. That was all in Game Dev Story. No, it wasn't. It totally was. You're just making shit up now. Oh, it absolutely was. When you make a game, there are different categories as you're working on it that fill up. There's a design category. There's a technology category. And each one of them has numbers.

And as you work on your game, those fill up. And that determines how high quality the game is. And you also accrue bugs over time. Oh my, are you fucking kidding me? This is all in Game Dev Story. You guys are smoking crack. You can release the game with bugs. You also earn research that you can use.

I'm going to murder you guys. Here's the thing. Guys, here's how it's different. It's on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and Game Dev Story isn't. Yeah, it actually came out on Windows in 1998. They're both $8. research here's how it's different it's on windows mac and linux and game dem story isn't okay right now based on what i've heard it came out on windows in 1998 yeah they're both eight dollars right now what i've heard is not any less shameless than the thing that happened to

ridiculous fishing then tell me how it earned 4.7 stars from windows store okay good uh best justin well done yes it's halftime yeah it is that just that was the most organic like informative argument to troll i have ever that transition was so buttery soup um guys all i want to talk about is Animal Crossing and I can't no you cannot you have it? yeah bro oh my god I have 16 codes in my inbox

do you really? oh my gosh yes no I don't actually that wasn't like capital F funny it was kind of funny it was really good Chris Blank you want to drop some knowledge on us? That wasn't like capital F funny. It was kind of funny. It was really good. Chris Pine, you want to drop some knowledge on us?

You just taught a bunch of youngsters. Okay. Did you just go full-blown Mr. Cooper? Was he a teacher? Yeah, he was a basketball coach who became a teacher. No, he's a basketball player, I think. And then he gets injured. And then he got injured.

And then he has to teach. Cooper, Cooper. That's not how the song went. How did your tutelage go? You know, it went great. I got to speak with an undergrad game design class at NYU. About sex ed? About, yeah.

And, yeah. And, yeah. They were so curious and kind about the video game press. They wanted to know how to get their game seen. I told them to email. Email Griffin. And I gave them your email address. I'm going to get a bunch of fucking college students Like hey I've got this match 3 game You're really gonna like It's easy

Step 1 find a game you really really like Step 2 copy every part of that game Step 3 make fucking Moolah But also take a stance About an issue like piracy And make people think that you added depth When you didn't actually add depth

There is actually some depth just give it a try I'm going to DL it after this anyway I just knocked match 3 games but they're actually incredibly hard to make do you know I was impressed most of the people in the class

it seemed like weren't I guess they can't be majors because they only offer an undergrad minor so a lot of these people didn't have experience with games and they learned how to make like impressive unity games in one semester yeah and then i was really sad about my capabilities it's um god i wish i had something like that i i was gonna ask like what do you what do you major in when you minor in game design? If it's not a program you can major in, are you a sociology major with a minor in game design?

It seems like a lot of these people are doing it for the love of the game. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I wish I would have totally done that. I have a sociology minor. You know what I'm doing with it? Everything. Chris Platt had that, Griffin. One of the games was so good.

I mean, it was a very rough prototype, but it was capture the flag with the teleport type of move from Dishonored. That's kind of cool. It felt like it was teams of two-on-two, and it was basically 2D top-down playing, and you would have to go across the map to get the flag, but you had the option to shoot with a shotgun type of thing that would stun,

and then you could sword to kill, and that would cause them to get a five-second delay before they respawn on the opposite end of the court. I wonder if I should be talking about this i want anybody stealing their game design i'm just gonna say it sounds a little like unreal where you use a tele fragger i'm actually cloning it right now yeah if you can just give me just like a little bit more like what was the name of it so i can throw it oh man but it was good it was a good game it was really cool did you wear patches on your jacket? Like, why?

Because you're a teacher, and that's what teachers wear. Like elbow. He meant elbow patches. I didn't know if it was like alma mater patches. Like I had, you know, my NYU varsity jacket. Were you on varsity? What sport? Swimming and fencing were number one.

Oh, swim fencing. Swim fencing. Fencing. Oh, swim fencing. Swim, swim, swim fencing. Fwincing. Fwincing is really fun. That's where you, it's like fencing, but it's underwater, so it's even more boring. It's even slower. It's wicked slow. You guys want to hear about my Unity game?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. You got, you roll a dice, and then the other person rolls the dice, and whoever gets higher dice wins. Oh, cool. That's interesting. That's all I've wins. Oh, cool. That's interesting. That's all I've got. Oh, you mean it's like craps. Oh, wait a minute. No, no, no.

Crap. No. It's more like C-low. I should make a C-low game. I can put that on iOS and fucking make a killing. Is there physics? Is there like dice physics? There aren't. I mean, there could be, but I mean, then you get into a lot of different situations. I'm basically building the framework for a board game because I think that there need to be more of those. You know, there could be, but then you get into a lot of different situations. I'm basically building the framework for a board game,

because I think that there need to be more of those. You know, you could make a physical board game out of cardboard. It would probably be easier. I can do that, yeah. But then you have to talk about distribution. I have to work with a partner. Kickstarter. I could kickstart it.

Yep. I could kickstart it, or I could just do this thing that I've been doing for a year. If you would just like get off my balls for like a second. Just for like a second. These kids made amazing, jaw-dropping, wowing Chris Plant games in a semester. Yeah, and they're going to fucking school. I'm teaching myself. It sucks.

No, think of how much dope they're smoking. They're smoking so much dope. And even in the dope smoke haze. I'm smoking a lot of weed, too. So, like, I'm... The handicaps are equal all around, except they have people who are smart telling them what to do. Like me. Like Chris fucking Plant. If I had Chris Plant over my

shoulder, like, you should make it so you have to die, then I would be a mega millionaire by now. But he just doesn't want to collaborate. Chris Plant, did you tell everyone to make that crappy ssx game what did you tell all the kids to make that crappy ssx game you loved no i told them all to beef up the graphics on level eight yeah you guys want to hear my thing of the week yeah sure for sure my best value of the week and also of all time, is Neverwinter.

Which I think I've actually brought... You brought this like four times. No, no, no. I only brought it the once, I think. It was at E3 once. A closed beta. It was an E3 game. Oh, right.

Well, that doesn't count. It's out now. Well, it's in open beta, but all the progress that you make during open beta carries over to the final version, so it's out. It's the same way that we say that Polygon is in beta,, but all the progress that you make during open beta carries over to the final version. So it's out. It's the same way that we say that polygon is in beta, which we all know it's, it's super not. Do we say that?

Are we in beta? Technically, right? No. Or an alpha. We're in Delta. We're in Delta Burke. We're accepting paid subscribers.

Like all the, all the polygon complete people are poly platinum platinum it is called oligon you get the whole thing you get all of it i played maybe six or seven hours of the beta and i play that's probably probably actually closer to five i played a lot of the closed beta weekends. I participated in two of those. So I actually played more of that than the open beta. But it's so good. I haven't spent a red goddamn cent on the thing so far,

and I'm having a blast with it. Are you an elf? Half elf. Well, I mean. Mud blood. Okay. This seems a little unnecessary. I can't remember what I've talked about.

I feel like most of the time I've just focused on the user-generated stuff, which is sort of off and on. It seems like the servers aren't primo yet. But it's just, like, it's just fun to play. It doesn't reinvent the wheel as far as, like, MMO logic and, you know straightforward quests and go hunt this thing and collect this much of this thing but it's just fun to play like it captures that dnd feel really really well like the the party mechanics of the actual tabletop D&D, even though it is not in a turn-based, isometric perspective point of view,

which I didn't think was possible. Yeah, I was going to say, is it still, I enjoy MMOs by myself. Yeah, no, I mean, I have been playing mostly by myself, but you can, it's pretty easy to find a party for. Really? For jumping into a, yeah, sure.

That's what's always kept me away from it is i felt like i would never have my my schedule wouldn't line up with all of my friends oh i haven't been playing with anybody i know you play with randoms that's horrible i grew up with randos how no i said wow yeah no i mean i wish that there were more people playing it that i that i know because like i'm having a lot of fun playing with people that I don't know and literally don't exchange word one with, except for like, buffs, please. Do you, is there an integrated system for, like, is there some sort of social network behind it?

Or is it just like, to be friends with somebody, you just have to know their username and game? Oh, right, right, right. It's not like, I don't think, no, it's not like a Battle.net thing, as far as I know. Literally, I don't have any friends. I got zero friends. I'll get it and be your friend. Like, do you want to give your warrior alias?

Oh, you'll get slammed. I'll get it off air, because, man, I've fucking slid down that muddy hill before, dropped my eq tag in the in the joystick comments and then i just get slammed with friend requests from folks like i want to party with you they don't want to party with you though they just want to they just want to be close to you you know what i mean because it's like i'm still avatar it's like they almost are interested in heightening your experience. They just want a taste of fame. That's exactly it. All they want to do is get a sew from Griffin McRoy.

They want clarity from Griffin McRoy. These are all really great. These are all great. Griffin, will you come Camp Dillon Star Sign with me? These are some great EverQuest deep cuts that I don't think anybody's going to get. Nope. Nope. Anyway. It sounds like it.

So that's a pretty good deal for a notifi. How can people get it, Griffin? Where can they go? Just go to Neverwinter and download it. It's free. It's fucking totally free. Free to death. I will say my favorite thing about it is that as far as I know,

every other MMO ever has canned death animations so when you kill a monster just falls right down yeah in neverwinter it's like ragdoll so like when you use your daily power that you charge up and and just drop it on somebody they go fucking flying and it's totally awesome is it literally daily no No, no, no. No, it's just, so you have your Atwell powers. It's really, a lot of the terminology comes from 4th edition. I know, that's confusing to say daily when it's not daily. Right, but the powers in D&D 4th edition aren't daily, if you think about it.

I won't think about it. That sounds like a good deal deal though i uh i'm interested can i play as drizzit droden the mighty elf warrior you can actually that was actually a pre-order i'm not making this up oh my god it was a pre-order bonus thing they had these different founders packs and one of the founders packs was two hundred $200. Oh, my God. And it got you a shit ton of in-game loot and money and stuff and early access and close beta access and all that. But it also unlocks an exclusive race, which is the Drow. The Drizzt Drowden race.

Yeah. Well, that's some dirty-ass shit right there. Yeah. It's pretty deep. That kind of scared me away. It's genuinely very, very fun. It's like one of those games. Huh?

How's the combat? That's the best thing about it. It's all free pointer. Like, where you aim is, there's sort of a hybrid of where you aim is where you attack, but it also sort of is a little bit forgiving. Is there a dance you can do for people i don't know well that's the slash dance um i don't know that i've actually chatted at all so probably i feel like that's that's a prerequisite for the genre yeah um it really is oh the best

thing about it the shift button does a dodge roll or if you're like the fighter class who's really their only job is to soak up damage it does a block so like it's all context like you will see an attack coming and you have to like do something about it you know just like fucking stand there and take it and watch the numbers go down if you're a writer class that makes letters big no it's good thank you um that's never when i get it and if you want i'm on the beholder um shard that's a big eye with more eyes around it i'm on the beholder shard if you want to um if you want to get down but they can't find you you're not you will not find me if you find someone who talks like me then you can just suss out the mystery. Just follow the clues. Just start calling him Griffin.

Russ Freshstick. No. I'm ready. You are not because Chris Plant is going. Chris Plant. Yeah. Okay. Are you ready for this?

No. America's ready. I got a game called Candies. Is that really what the game is called? I don't know. I don't know either. People keep calling it Candy Box, but I don't think that's the name of the game because the game is called i don't know i don't know either people keep calling it candy box but i don't think that's the name of the game because the site is called candies

but the first thing you see on the site is the word candy box also the title of this site if you favorite it is candy box exclamation point so maybe it's candy box i think it's Candy Box. Let's call it Candy Box. It's Candy Box space exclamation point. Well, yeah. That's the favorite. I played this game. I went to this game on your recommendation, and here's what you can do. You watch as you accrue candies, and you can eat all the candies. Wait, wait, wait.

No, no, no. Don't say anything else. Okay, so here's the deal. Here's the deal. We saved this for the end for a reason, because you can walk away right now, wait. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no. Don't say anything else. Okay, so here's the deal. Here's the deal. We saved this for the end for a reason. Because you can walk away right now, baby. I was going to do a joke, but... No, I know, but I don't want you spoiling anything.

Well, the joke was going to be that I didn't see any of the stuff. That would have been pretty funny. Yeah. Well. You know, I didn't... I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. Well. I'm sorry. Okay sorry okay well here's the thing

i don't i want you to walk away if you haven't played the game pause the podcast stop it go and play the game we're gonna link it on the website uh and then come back for the end of the podcast because we are going we're not going to spoil the whole thing by any means but we're going to spoil enough because to talk about the game is to spoil the game. Okay. Okay. I hope somebody doesn't make a joke. That most certainly is not.

It's probably the best lead-in for jokes. We're all being pretty serious here. I hope no jokes come down the pike. No, but so when you do first load up the game, you see your occurring candies. It's just text, though. It's not just text. You're occurring candies and you can eat all the candies or throw 10 candies on the ground. And that's it.

Yeah, it's the whole game. Right? Yep. Oh, yuckster oh god was that an orgasm i don't know no that's not actually the whole thing so yeah it's a game it is a game that you leave open in another tab in your browser. It feels like a game designed to be ignored, allowing it to evolve and reveal itself to you. Because as you collect more and more candies, you get additional options. I actually don't remember which order they came in because I'm looking at my current page, and there are so many options I'm

having trouble remembering. But you gradually gain the ability to find objects and buy objects with these candies and ultimately go on quests. And it becomes an RPG

in which the grind is taking care of you by time, which is kind of like a Facebook game. It's not that dissimilar in principle, I think. Russ, you had a good description of it today on Twitter. Yes. Okay. So essentially, and this, again, is a big spoiler, so this doesn't really become apparent

until you've probably spent about a half hour or 40 minutes with the game, but essentially the game breaks down into two major parts one of them is farming lollipops you can plant lollipops in the ground and then the more lollipops you plant will cause more lollipops to grow eventually coming to the point where you're farming hundreds and hundreds of lollipops within every minute lovely so that's happening you can then use those lollipops i can't believe i'm even saying these words you can then use these lollipops to upgrade your gear and to buy health potions and to buy maps and stuff like that which will you will then use on quests, which play out in really crudely animated ASCII art graphics, essentially where you fight goblins and knights and such, using your skills and health potions and spells,

and slowly but surely, more and more mechanics of the game get introduced to you, like upgrading your gear at a forge or stuff like that. Yeah, I wouldn't say much more than that. How many degrees of people do you want to kick off the podcast? Like, okay, we've already got the people that don't want any spoilers. If you play the game for 20 minutes... I just don't think we need to go much further

because you can just say that it continues to expand beyond. But what's interesting about it? So what I find interesting, and the reason, so the way I described it was essentially Harvest Moon meets Dark Souls. So obviously the lollipop harvest thing is the Harvest Moon part. And then the Dark Souls part is that it's surprisingly, well, a little bit punishing in terms of difficulty to the point where you'll go on a quest and you'll die having, like, used a bunch of health potions and wasted a bunch of time and money.

And you're sort of at the, not starting from scratch, but starting pretty far back from where you were before the quest. So it takes a lot of trial and error to like figure out how to master each quest uh it's just like a surprising level of depth to a game that is super crude and starts out with you just eating candy can i just do like the rest of the shit that you just described sounds really exhausting can it not just be a game about just fucking hanging out and eating candy you can actually just do that yeah that's that's always an option yeah you why would anybody do anything else because if you if you dig deep you'll discover mysteries like a talking frog yeah also we should mention that the only candy they have is licorice jujubes so oh god why do you even

bother i know yeah like jujubes jujubes are passable when they're a good flavor yeah but oh and then later on it's just spearmint oh that's not bad like gum no spearmint jujubes i don't so like you're in the movie theater and it's dark and you're eating the jujubes and then you get a spearmint one after an orange and then a strawberry after the spearmint. Imagine that. That's your whole day at that point. If you are interested in playing this, you can go to candies.aniwey.net.

Good URL, guys. Or just Google candies box. Will that work? Oh, no. No, it won't. Don't do that. That thing you said. What I find so surprising about this game is

I don't normally like role-playing games, especially ones that get really weighed down with complex quest systems and mixing potions and stuff like that and it's amazing how much more complicated the game gets but because it was so simple at the beginning and i'm so hooked on just that core mechanic that i'm learning how to play a game that i would never have wanted to play. Yeah. It's pretty good. Next.

That is Candy Box. People are going to be talking about it for a while and then they're going to forget. Make sure you catch that zeitgeist. Just ride it. What won? I think Candy Box. Are we just picking the best thing or the best delivery of that thing?

I think Griffin won. I mean, I haven't taken one home in a while, so, like, it would be good to fucking win every. Yeah, you know what? Griffin did win. I agree with you. Yeah, yeah. God damn it. I'm going to have to get a shelf built in my den to put all these accolades on.

I've been putting them on my desk, but now it's like, where am I going to put my keyboard? Where am I going to put my mouse? The shipping expense is getting really, really pricey. I don't know. I know. Fake post office. We have this website. It's polygon.com.

You can go there, and we have this cool video feature called Human Angle. You can go there and meet the people behind the games, and it's neat. And if you like this show, please go to iTunes and subscribe to it and put a review of it and maybe tell your friends to do that, just as a way of saying, you are all like our lollipop farm, and all are like our lollipop farm and your reviews are a lollipop so we just want to harvest them from you so if you could review us on itunes and subscribe and tell your dad about our show i want to thank everybody that took part in the erudite discussion in the uh comments of last week's episode. Oh, my word.

Shit got super, super, super real in that joint. And it's just great that people want to have these material discussions about the important things. And, like, the fact that, I don't know, I always worry that the things that we say on this show will be misconstrued in some way or somebody will take it the wrong way. And it's just like, just read all the things about the things that people were saying that we said and just like seeing it. Everybody got it. Everybody got it.

Perfect. There's no confusion. There's zero confusion. It was no, uh, uh, no, nobody is being willfully obtuse there was none of that which i really like no no all kidding aside like compared to other discussions on this subject that have taken place on the internet well i'm bad it was measured we only had we only had did you see it after people yeah no it got like it got like 80 comments deep it got it got real but there wasn't i feel like it wasn't too too raw huh i don't know my my metric may be off perspectives and that's gonna

do it for us this week on the besties make sure to join us again next friday for this program the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best things? Besties!