Tag Archives: !FALcast

!FALcast

Ep. 32: Mysterious Grandpa

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  • Quick hits! (sort of kind of not really)
  • Dead Cells is great, but is it a Metroidvania?
  • Deck assembly vs. dice rolling in Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons
  • Void Bastards is great, full stop
  • Days Gone was better than people acted
  • (Deacon St. John is a worse name than people acted, and people acted like Deacon St. John is a terrible name)
  • The various slight but satisfying mechanics of Ni No Kuni 2
  • The *roundness* makes Frostpunk special
  • Puppeting a body along the ocean floor in In Other Waters
  • “Two sentences” about Yakuza turns into 15 minutes
  • You know what we could talk about, though? Puss
  • The mechanical improvements (and narrative disappointments) of Doom Eternal

!FALcast

Ep. 31: My Eagle is a Horse

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  • “What are we gonna talk about?”
  • Is pinball a video game? (No, it very much is not)
  • Holes
  • Farming, comedy clubs and flesh reanimation: the high-stress days and unholy nights of Graveyard Keeper
  • Where does YOUR meat come from?
  • The judgment-free zone of Stardew Valley
  • Making townsfolk your friends/undead ranchhands
  • Who wields the true power in Animal Crossing?
  • Tom Nook does; that was actually kind of a dumb question
  • But is he a dirtbag? (Yes, he very much is)
  • Isabelle starts early, and who could blame her
  • A crown of melted iPhones atop a throne of skulls

!FALcast

Ep. 30: No Good at Learning

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  • Matt is hungry
  • Musings on a graveyard; butt
  • A rash of Neverland poisonings
  • Will Adam ever get to talk about Persona 5?
  • [PERSONA CONTENT REDACTED]
  • The thought-provoking, generous, occasionally pointless brilliance of NieR: Automata
  • Seriously though, play Binary Domain
  • Celeste shows kindness through challenge
  • (The mountain is a metaphor you guys)
  • Nintendo Switch as perfect indie warehouse
  • Matt continues to pretend Nintendo isn’t great
  • A eulogy for (online) Demons’ Souls
  • Skye’s Reading Corner
  • Learning in Souls games vs. fighters
  • A Souls preservationist gets a sizeable homework assignment
!FALcast

Ep. 29: Video Games Should Stop

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  • Destiny 2: Why is it like that?
  • Matt has recording troubles (and a phone call)
  • An attempted intervention for a Destiny addict
  • The need for variation within repetition
  • The gauntlet is thrown at Eminem, hastily withdrawn, and thrown again
  • Binary Domain vs. Gears of War
  • Destiny 2 vs. Borderlands/Titanfall 2/The Division
  • No, seriously, Skye, your continued patronage of Destiny hurts us, and we’ve gathered together to tell you about it
  • Is Prey the best Bioshock (or System Shock?)
  • Curse of Osiris: great (except for the bad parts)
  • Consumable shaders: realistic, garbage, or realistic garbage?
  • Destiny as roguelike
  • In fact, Skye, this entire podcast is just a pretense to confront you about your problematic game choices
  • The need for games to stop
  • We only want what’s best for you
  • Will Adam ever get to talk about Persona 5?
  • (What’s best for you is to play better games)
!FALcast

Ep. 28: Flavor Trash

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  • Does Prey spoil its own ending?
  • Mimics and organic jump scares
  • Another interesting crafting system for Adam to hate
  • Inventory management and compulsive leveling
  • Do Bethesda games have a random crap problem?
  • Quest logs and adaptive nonlinearity
  • Dynamic diamond-chasing
  • Pre-order bonus cheat packs
!FALcast

Ep. 27: A Beige Room

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  • The surprising success of Horizon Zero Dawn’s apocalypse
  • Strong world and setting design sets it apart from other open world games
  • Dynamic, tactically improvisational combat
  • But the game should be harder in a few ways
  • We discover a crafting system that Adam can tolerate
  • The implied sense of resource economy fails to come through in game mechanics
  • RPG merchants and their contrived progressive inventories
  • Horizon’s civilizations and their distinct identities
!FALcast

Ep. 26: Take Disease to the Next Level

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  • Oxygen Not Included is Spacebase DF-9 but better
  • A required build order stifles creativity
  • Complexity turns us on and turns us off
  • “Who among us does not love infrastructure?”
  • Adam’s PixelJunk bias returns
  • Nom Nom Galaxy and the problem with soup
  • How to identify (and avoid) strategy games
  • Space tomato farming tips for budding soup entrepreneurs
  • The importance of home decor in preserving bodily function
  • The pleasures of optimization and problem solving
  • How Klei uses Early Access
!FALcast

Ep. 25: I Am Something More Now

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  • The Last Guardian: A great and terrible videogame
  • …that we spoil a little
  • Classification of a monster
  • An indirect experience
  • Has development limbo left its mark?
  • Should a remake strive for preservation or improvement?
!FALcast

Ep. 24: That Was Badly Done, Friend

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  • Matt returns to Dark Souls
  • Killing friendly NPCs in Souls games
  • Adam is a dirty FAQ user
  • Is equipment in Dark Souls too complex?
  • Is equipment in Bloodborne too simple?
  • Quest-givers and combat allies
  • Time progression and Insight
  • Mechanically encouraging aggressive play
  • Speculation about Chalice Dungeons
  • Old news: Bloodborne is great