00:00SPEAKER- How many biscuits do you think is too many?
00:02SPEAKER- Two.
00:03SPEAKER- Oh, well.
00:04SPEAKER- Wait, hold on.
00:06SPEAKERLike biscuits with nothing on them
00:07SPEAKERor biscuits with like egg and sausage
00:10SPEAKERor like biscuits with other stuff?
00:12SPEAKER- Let's say there's a lot of protein and fat
00:15SPEAKERin between the biscuit.
00:16SPEAKER- Two.
00:17SPEAKER- Okay, I may have overdone it.
00:19SPEAKER- How many did you eat?
00:21SPEAKER- Two.
00:22SPEAKER- But yeah, okay.
00:24SPEAKER- Yeah, do you have other stuff too?
00:26SPEAKER- This is my first Bojangles run on this trip.
00:28SPEAKER- Oh, the forbidden fruit.
00:30SPEAKER- Cajun filet, biscuits, just a slab of chicken
00:33SPEAKERto be breaded and fried.
00:35SPEAKER- That is the god to your Bojangles biscuit
00:37SPEAKERas far as I'm concerned.
00:38SPEAKER- It's the alpha and omega of Bojangles.
00:40SPEAKERThat's all you need to get there is a Cajun filet biscuit.
00:43SPEAKER- You know, I'll get a steak biscuit occasionally.
00:45SPEAKER- So wait, and a steak biscuit or a steak biscuit?
00:50SPEAKER- That's an or for me, dog.
00:51SPEAKER- Okay, so yeah, so okay.
00:54SPEAKER- You gotta pace yourself, man.
00:55SPEAKERYou're there for a while.
00:56SPEAKERYou go a little bit one and a little bit two, right?
00:59SPEAKER- Cajun filet biscuits, regular size Bo rounds,
01:03SPEAKERwhich thankfully is reduced
01:05SPEAKERfor my normal large size Bo rounds.
01:07SPEAKER- Well, okay, so it used to be that the large size Bo rounds
01:10SPEAKERwas like a sharing family size one.
01:12SPEAKERIt was like it came in a box
01:13SPEAKERthat maybe some fried chicken could come in alternately.
01:15SPEAKER- Really depends on your mindset, let's say.
01:19SPEAKER- Fair.
01:20SPEAKER- So today it was a Cajun filet biscuit,
01:21SPEAKERa regular size Bo rounds and a steak, egg and cheese biscuit.
01:24SPEAKER- What'd you get to drink?
01:25SPEAKERDid you get a diet Pepsi or something to wash that down?
01:27SPEAKER- Just coffee and water.
01:28SPEAKER- Coffee and water, okay.
01:30SPEAKERSo that feels a bit like I've done that.
01:33SPEAKERI've walked that forbidden path
01:35SPEAKERwhen like I'm not gonna be in range of a Bojangles
01:38SPEAKERagain for a while, like I'll dip my toes in there.
01:41SPEAKER- That was exactly my thinking was this is probably
01:42SPEAKERmy one shot and I've got to overdo it.
01:46SPEAKER- Well, I mean, look, this is the benefit.
01:48SPEAKERGina is a big fan of the Bojangles as well.
01:51SPEAKERSo we will often do a split ski.
01:54SPEAKERAnd like one of us will get a steak
01:56SPEAKERand one of us will get a chicken
01:57SPEAKERand then we eat half and then train.
01:58SPEAKER- That's a good idea.
01:59SPEAKERThat's responsible.
02:01SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, that helps.
02:02SPEAKERBut then there's like, where is it cut?
02:05SPEAKERAre we just gonna chew 'cause we're in the car
02:07SPEAKERand then like hand it over and you gotta like,
02:10SPEAKERyou can get some feelings if you're not generous
02:14SPEAKERwith your split there.
02:16SPEAKER- Yes, I get it.
02:17SPEAKERBut this used to be my standard order,
02:19SPEAKERexcept like I said, a large Bo round instead.
02:21SPEAKERI used to take it in my 20s, a red eye out here
02:23SPEAKERbecause it was faster and cheaper.
02:25SPEAKER- I've done that.
02:26SPEAKERIt's horrible every time.
02:27SPEAKER- I would take the red eye.
02:28SPEAKERIt would land at 6 a.m. in Charlotte.
02:31SPEAKERMy cousin would pick me up at the airport.
02:33SPEAKERWe would go straight to Bojangles from the airport
02:35SPEAKERat 6 a.m. after having not slept all day.
02:37SPEAKER- Yeah, I would get that whole sack of food
02:39SPEAKERI just described.
02:40SPEAKER- And then we would go to his house
02:41SPEAKERand sit there and play video games all day
02:43SPEAKERon that stomach full of lead.
02:45SPEAKER- Yeah, that's like a different scenario, right?
02:49SPEAKERLike that's like a drinking.
02:52SPEAKERI've been drinking Bojangles order.
02:54SPEAKER- Sure.
02:55SPEAKER- You know, like maybe I went to the lake,
02:56SPEAKERhad some afternoon beers,
02:57SPEAKERand I need to like put a little base on
03:00SPEAKERbefore I go back out again.
03:02SPEAKER- I mean, like I said, this was less drinking
03:05SPEAKERand more overnight flight, but you know.
03:07SPEAKER- So here's my question though.
03:08SPEAKERIs the Bojangles there,
03:10SPEAKER'cause there's two kinds of Bojangles now,
03:12SPEAKERand this is a new development since I left Tennessee,
03:15SPEAKERbut like there are nice Bojangles now.
03:18SPEAKER- Wait, what?
03:19SPEAKER- Yeah, like there are new,
03:20SPEAKERsomebody in the last like 10, 15 years
03:22SPEAKERhas expanded Bojangles dramatically.
03:24SPEAKERAnd there are like clean, new, not dank Bojangles.
03:30SPEAKER- Not so sure about, look.
03:33SPEAKERIf it looks like the floor has been scrubbed
03:36SPEAKERmore recently than like 15 years ago,
03:37SPEAKERI'm not sure I want it.
03:39SPEAKER- So the ones that are best are the ones with like red tile,
03:42SPEAKERlike dark red tile floors.
03:44SPEAKERThe tiles are like 12 inches and they've got black grout
03:47SPEAKERthat probably used to not be black in between them.
03:50SPEAKER- Exactly it. - Yeah.
03:53SPEAKER- So my thing is that the Bo rounds are fine,
03:57SPEAKERbut I'll go with the seasoned fries all day long.
04:00SPEAKER- Oh my God.
04:01SPEAKER- And you don't like chug a trough of water
04:03SPEAKERafter eating those.
04:04SPEAKER- Oh yeah, those are the saltiest,
04:06SPEAKERmaybe the saltiest food item on the planet.
04:11SPEAKER- They're so good, dude.
04:12SPEAKERThey're so good, they're so greasy.
04:14SPEAKERYou pick one up and it just kind of sags real slow.
04:18SPEAKER- Oh yes. - They're perfect.
04:19SPEAKER- If the little paper sack is not translucent.
04:23SPEAKER- Yeah.
04:23SPEAKER- You're not eating Bojangles.
04:24SPEAKER- It's the Dr. Nick rules to weight gain,
04:27SPEAKERsuccessful weight gain,
04:28SPEAKERyou can see through the bag on those things.
04:30SPEAKERI miss a Bojangles.
04:32SPEAKERI wish Bojangles and Waffle House are the two, and Crystal.
04:36SPEAKERLike if we're talking about real garbage tier food,
04:39SPEAKERlike a Crystal,
04:40SPEAKERI'll go for a little Southern White Castle burger anytime.
04:43SPEAKER- We don't have Crystal around here.
04:44SPEAKER- Wait, really?
04:45SPEAKER- I might have to take a pilgrimage across state lines,
04:48SPEAKERit sounds like.
04:49SPEAKER- Oh man, yeah.
04:50SPEAKERSo Crystal is like little tiny square steamed hamburgers.
04:54SPEAKER- It's like literally White Castle.
04:55SPEAKER- It's a straight up White Castle knockoff,
04:57SPEAKERbut they do chili.
04:59SPEAKERAnd like the secret is you get a cup of chili
05:01SPEAKERwith the Burgs,
05:03SPEAKERand then you do a dunk on the Burgs into the chili.
05:07SPEAKERAnd that's pretty strong.
05:08SPEAKERThey also do a really good chicken.
05:10SPEAKERLike they do a chicken sando
05:12SPEAKERon like the little soft steam buns.
05:14SPEAKERIt's a real crispy chicken with like mayonnaise and a pickle.
05:17SPEAKERIt's delish.
05:17SPEAKER- Oh man, do you remember Chicken Littles?
05:20SPEAKER- Yeah, that's a KFC thing, isn't it?
05:22SPEAKERThey still do that.
05:23SPEAKER- Do they, are you serious?
05:24SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what my wife likes when we,
05:26SPEAKERif we ever taste the forbidden fruit of the kernel.
05:30SPEAKER- I, what, chicken, hang on.
05:32SPEAKEROh my God, hang on.
05:34SPEAKER- I'm gonna go and tell you the Popeyes chicken sandwich
05:36SPEAKERthat went massively viral in 2020
05:38SPEAKERhas done a really good thing for,
05:40SPEAKERif you like a fried chicken fast food sandwich.
05:42SPEAKER- Oh God, they are everywhere.
05:43SPEAKER- Yeah, that Burger King one we had
05:45SPEAKERwhen we were on a road trip a few weeks ago
05:47SPEAKERis fricking incredible.
05:48SPEAKERIt is a really spectacular chicken sandwich
05:51SPEAKERfor like five bucks.
05:52SPEAKER- Based on the indiscretions that occurred this morning,
05:55SPEAKERI should probably close this Google tab
05:57SPEAKERand start this podcast.
05:58SPEAKER(upbeat music)
06:17SPEAKER(upbeat music continues)
06:26SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.
06:28SPEAKERI'm Will.
06:29SPEAKER- I'm Brad, full of biscuits and ready to podcast.
06:32SPEAKER- I mean, I don't, I'd be asleep right now
06:34SPEAKERif I were you, man.
06:35SPEAKER- It was a bad idea.
06:36SPEAKERIt was a little, trust me, it was a bad idea.
06:39SPEAKERAlso, after we're done here, I have to edit this podcast
06:42SPEAKERand then immediately go run around
06:43SPEAKERwith small children for a while.
06:45SPEAKER- So I was, I played some Fortnite
06:48SPEAKERwith a friend of the pod, Abby Russell, last night.
06:51SPEAKERAnd we were talking about hot dogs
06:53SPEAKERand she was espousing her love of a chili cheese dog.
06:56SPEAKERAnd I had to break to her the news
06:57SPEAKERthat there will come a time in your life
06:59SPEAKERwhen eating a chili cheese dog will cause,
07:01SPEAKERrather than joy, pain.
07:04SPEAKER- It's a difficult calculation at some point, at some point.
07:09SPEAKERYou really have to weigh the trade-offs.
07:10SPEAKER- Well, some, like I've learned that if you pre-season
07:13SPEAKERwith a little bit of Tums, then you can kind of,
07:15SPEAKERyou can do more damage.
07:17SPEAKER- Oh man, I discovered a South Hack on this trip.
07:22SPEAKER- Just sweet tea on everything?
07:24SPEAKER- No, this sounds like the most obvious thing in the world,
07:28SPEAKERbut I have started the beginning every day out here
07:31SPEAKERwith a nice big bowl of oatmeal.
07:33SPEAKER- Oh yeah, you're cushioning the system
07:36SPEAKERfor what's about to land on it.
07:37SPEAKER- It has helped dramatically.
07:40SPEAKEREating one thing that is not fried
07:42SPEAKERor drowning in grease every day, it's really helping.
07:45SPEAKER- Oh my, yeah, I just remember those old guys
07:53SPEAKERwho would be sitting at the barbecue place
07:56SPEAKERwith a swig of Pepto Bismol or Maalox,
07:58SPEAKERand then they'd eat some food,
07:59SPEAKERand they'd have a swig of Pepto Bismol or some Maalox,
08:01SPEAKERand I was like, man, that is not a way to live.
08:05SPEAKER- Back in the day around here, they called it like,
08:07SPEAKERwell, like biscuits and gravy, for example,
08:09SPEAKERthe old-timers would refer to as a stick-to-your-ribs
08:11SPEAKERkind of breakfast.
08:13SPEAKER- My father called it that also, yeah.
08:14SPEAKER- Right, but also, all those people
08:17SPEAKERwere working in the sawmill or out in the fields all day.
08:20SPEAKER- Fair.
08:21SPEAKER- So, like they would always say,
08:22SPEAKERlike they burned it all off by lunchtime, right?
08:25SPEAKER- I mean, look, I sit behind this desk
08:27SPEAKER18, 20 hours a day sometimes.
08:30SPEAKER- You know, what it's like to work in the sawmill, I guess.
08:34SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, I'm just out in the internet sawmill,
08:36SPEAKERjust sawing up the pods.
08:38SPEAKER- Yep, yep, all right, what are we doing here?
08:41SPEAKER- Well, okay, so a few, last month, I believe,
08:44SPEAKERwe made an idle suggestion on the patron episode
08:50SPEAKERthat since we both had playdates, maybe we should consider,
08:53SPEAKERand like the barrier to entry on making a playdate game
08:57SPEAKERseemed relatively light.
08:59SPEAKER- Yeah.
08:59SPEAKER- We idly suggested, hey,
09:02SPEAKERmaybe we should make a playdate game.
09:04SPEAKER- Oh, you know, just a casual undertaking.
09:06SPEAKERI'm sure we could crank it out on the weekend.
09:08SPEAKER- I don't, I did not say that.
09:09SPEAKERThat was what you said, and I said,
09:11SPEAKERI don't think that's the case.
09:12SPEAKER- I'm joking.
09:14SPEAKER- But you did say crank, which is good.
09:16SPEAKER- Also, yes, I am both very excited by this idea
09:19SPEAKERand also extremely intimidated by it,
09:21SPEAKERor more to the point,
09:22SPEAKERintimidated by committing to it publicly,
09:25SPEAKERbecause I don't know if we actually know
09:27SPEAKERwhat we're getting into here.
09:29SPEAKER- Well, okay, so I have a pretty good idea
09:30SPEAKERof what we're getting into as I work at a game studio
09:32SPEAKERthat makes real games, and I have realized
09:35SPEAKERthat we should be very,
09:37SPEAKERwe should limit our scope dramatically.
09:39SPEAKER- Okay, yes, that sounds like a good step one.
09:42SPEAKER- Well, and then the other thing I thought was,
09:44SPEAKERwe should do this in public.
09:46SPEAKERSo the plan is to do regular check-ins on the podcast,
09:51SPEAKERbut then also to, when we're doing work on it,
09:55SPEAKERwhere it makes sense, maybe stream it in the Discord
09:58SPEAKERor where people can watch and give suggestions
10:02SPEAKERand feedback and stuff like that.
10:03SPEAKER- Yeah.
10:05SPEAKER- Because I feel like playing Elden Ring,
10:08SPEAKERwhich I would not have finished
10:09SPEAKERhad I not been streaming it on Twitch,
10:11SPEAKERI feel like we will have a better time of this
10:13SPEAKERif we can get the help of the brilliant people
10:17SPEAKERin the TechPod audience to help steer our path.
10:20SPEAKER- Yes, there is no technical thing
10:22SPEAKERthat they can't make easier.
10:24SPEAKER- Yes, 100% true.
10:25SPEAKER- Or provide very useful advice on.
10:27SPEAKER- Yeah, so, but also it seems fun.
10:30SPEAKERThe game that I work on for my job is a 20-person ordeal,
10:35SPEAKERI mean, not ordeal, but it's a lot of work
10:38SPEAKERand it's a lot of moving pieces
10:39SPEAKERand it's a lot of people working together
10:40SPEAKERand something as simple as changing the lighting
10:43SPEAKERon one level requires four people to touch it
10:45SPEAKERat different points along the path.
10:47SPEAKER- Right, I mean, yeah, it's a modern video game
10:49SPEAKERthat works with a lot of sophisticated technology, right?
10:52SPEAKER- Yeah, and there's mad dependencies.
10:53SPEAKER- And this is a tiny lightweight thing that is grayscale
10:57SPEAKERand has extremely limited inputs and yeah.
11:00SPEAKER- Dude, it's not even grayscale, it's just two colors.
11:02SPEAKER- Oh, I guess grayscale implies different shades of gray.
11:05SPEAKER- Yeah, grayscale implies 256 bits worth of color.
11:08SPEAKERThis is just one bit, it's either on or it's off.
11:11SPEAKER- It's monochrome.
11:12SPEAKER- Yeah, so although people do emulate grayscale
11:18SPEAKERby flashing the pixels on and off really fast,
11:20SPEAKERit seems like from what I've seen.
11:20SPEAKER- I don't know, can I figure out how to do that?
11:22SPEAKER- No, look, keep the scope simple, okay?
11:25SPEAKER- Here is the extent of my experience
11:27SPEAKERwith graphics coding ever.
11:30SPEAKER- Okay.
11:31SPEAKER- About 30 minutes looking at a guide for writing
11:36SPEAKERan algorithm to output a dot PPM file.
11:39SPEAKERYou familiar with that image format?
11:41SPEAKER- Dot PPM is the Pixar thing?
11:44SPEAKER- No, no, no, it is an image file described in ASCII text.
11:49SPEAKER- Oh, wow.
11:50SPEAKER- Like you can open up a PPM in a text editor
11:51SPEAKERand it's just text, like it's...
11:53SPEAKERAnd also it was the algorithm did exactly one thing
11:56SPEAKERwhich was just a very smooth gradient image,
11:59SPEAKERlike literally just incrementing
12:01SPEAKERthe color value of each pixel.
12:03SPEAKER- In seventh grade, I wrote a program
12:05SPEAKERthat you controlled a turtle on the screen
12:07SPEAKERand it walked around and it painted behind it.
12:09SPEAKER- See, you've taken input and drawn to the screen
12:13SPEAKERin some kind of real time.
12:15SPEAKERYou've done more than I have.
12:16SPEAKER- 35 years ago, so it's basic.
12:21SPEAKER- Was that basic?
12:22SPEAKER- We did basic, a lot of four loops as I recall.
12:25SPEAKER- Interesting, we did Pascal in middle school.
12:29SPEAKER- Look, I did a lot of if-then jumps
12:33SPEAKERthat would just loop back on each other
12:34SPEAKERin ways that were completely unpredictable.
12:37SPEAKERSo it wasn't good, mistakes were made.
12:39SPEAKER- Yes, sounds like a lot of video games.
12:41SPEAKER- So why are we, so okay, so we're doing this
12:42SPEAKER'cause it seems like it would be fun.
12:44SPEAKERWe might learn something, hopefully.
12:46SPEAKER- Yes.
12:48SPEAKER- Like making something fun seems good
12:51SPEAKERor maybe making something not fun
12:52SPEAKERand then learning how to make it fun is even more useful.
12:55SPEAKER- I don't know if this speaks to where I'm at in my life,
12:57SPEAKERbut I frequently now feel that making things
13:00SPEAKERis more satisfying and entertaining than consuming them.
13:05SPEAKER- I mean, look, coming from tested,
13:07SPEAKERI can tell you that making things is very satisfying.
13:10SPEAKER- Like that, I mean, like that Play Date cover
13:11SPEAKERyou've been working on just to stay on topic here, I guess.
13:14SPEAKERLike that looks, I mean, hey, you've done
13:16SPEAKERlike a really fantastic job with the product,
13:19SPEAKERbut I'm sure that's like immensely satisfying
13:20SPEAKERto dial that thing in and get it as like precise.
13:24SPEAKER- I took it camping last weekend
13:26SPEAKERand showed it to one of the other dads
13:27SPEAKERwho works in like the studio arts
13:30SPEAKERand I handed it to him, let him click it on.
13:34SPEAKER- That's like a, that's a good.
13:38SPEAKER- It just makes such a good clicking sound
13:39SPEAKERwhen you put it on.
13:40SPEAKER- That's almost like a product trailer worthy click.
13:44SPEAKER- But I learned something important there,
13:46SPEAKERwhich is that the magnet in the lower right corner,
13:49SPEAKERI think is interfering with the hall effect sensor
13:51SPEAKERthat tells when the switch, when the crank is in or out.
13:53SPEAKER- Oh no.
13:54SPEAKER- And it's running the battery down.
13:55SPEAKERSo I gotta, I gotta, I think I can just take
13:57SPEAKERthat magnet off and it'll be fine.
14:00SPEAKER- See, when you're making stuff,
14:01SPEAKERthis is the stuff people don't understand,
14:02SPEAKERwhether you're making podcasts or a website
14:04SPEAKERor videos or a play date cover.
14:06SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean.
14:08SPEAKER- The range of things that can come up unexpectedly
14:10SPEAKERthat take time and effort to solve is functionally infinite.
14:14SPEAKER- Well, that's it.
14:15SPEAKERAnd here's the other thing is that you,
14:17SPEAKERyou have made stuff for a really long time,
14:20SPEAKERbut like you had the same problem that I have where
14:23SPEAKERlike when I was working on tested or working on the magazine
14:25SPEAKERor whatever, the stuff we make is kind of ephemeral.
14:27SPEAKERAnd while it hangs around, it's not like,
14:30SPEAKERit doesn't continue to be relevant in a way that like,
14:34SPEAKERI don't know, writing a book does
14:35SPEAKERor something that feels like, yeah.
14:37SPEAKER- And by extension.
14:39SPEAKER- I have maker envy.
14:40SPEAKERI've always been jealous of people who make things that last.
14:42SPEAKER- Yes, absolutely.
14:43SPEAKERAnd by extension, the stuff that we made
14:45SPEAKERdoesn't tend to get preserved very well.
14:48SPEAKERA lot of that stuff is just gone now.
14:50SPEAKER- I remain glad that I uploaded the archive
14:52SPEAKERof Maximum PC to archive.org.
14:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I should archive some of my stuff too.
14:57SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, you have a place for it.
14:59SPEAKER- It's true.
15:00SPEAKER- Yeah.
15:01SPEAKEROkay, so, and you wanted to learn how to code.
15:03SPEAKER- Yeah.
15:04SPEAKER- Like this is C++ is what we use for this, I think.
15:08SPEAKER- C or Lua.
15:09SPEAKERI mean, we would almost certainly be using Lua.
15:11SPEAKERI've written one semester's worth of C.
15:15SPEAKER- I assume we started with Lua.
15:16SPEAKER- I'm sorry, we did C++ in that college course I took.
15:19SPEAKER- Oh, see, I did C in my college course,
15:20SPEAKERbut that was also 25 years ago, so.
15:23SPEAKER- I mean, I'm like, I could probably get up to speed
15:25SPEAKERon writing C if I really needed to,
15:28SPEAKERbut it would be a lot of effort.
15:30SPEAKER- But like the interesting thing for me
15:31SPEAKERis I've not really worked in like the confines of an SDK,
15:35SPEAKERlike there's an interesting framework
15:37SPEAKERthat this kind of device with a limited number
15:40SPEAKERof inputs and outputs and like a pretty well-defined SDK
15:44SPEAKERand easy to use tools gives that is like,
15:48SPEAKERyou know, it's like JAWS, right?
15:49SPEAKERThe robot shark sucking added constraints to that film
15:54SPEAKERthat made the film much better.
15:55SPEAKERSo we're hopeful that the constraints
15:57SPEAKERof this tiny kind of low power indie game handheld
16:02SPEAKERwill add genius to our otherwise tepid first dips
16:07SPEAKERinto game building, so.
16:08SPEAKER- Yeah, the documentation that they provide
16:10SPEAKERfor the development tools is quite robust
16:13SPEAKERfrom what I've seen.
16:14SPEAKER- It's fricking incredible.
16:15SPEAKERTrust panic, man.
16:16SPEAKERThey documented the hell out of this thing.
16:19SPEAKER- So there's some stuff I need to go back
16:20SPEAKERand dig up that they did.
16:21SPEAKERLike one of their developers did,
16:22SPEAKERit's God, I bet it's been like two years now
16:24SPEAKER'cause this thing obviously got delayed a couple of times,
16:26SPEAKERit shipped a couple of years late.
16:28SPEAKER- Yeah.
16:29SPEAKER- One of their programmers was streaming himself
16:31SPEAKERmaking a very simple game for this thing
16:33SPEAKERa couple of years ago
16:34SPEAKERand straight up starting from nothing
16:35SPEAKERand showing how to take input
16:37SPEAKERand like how to draw a box to the screen
16:39SPEAKERand then how to marry the input to the box
16:41SPEAKERto move it around on the screen and all that stuff.
16:43SPEAKERAnd like, I'm sure that stuff would be very instructive.
16:45SPEAKERThe thing I want to avoid is just looking at that
16:48SPEAKERand copying everything,
16:49SPEAKERexcept I bet a lot of working developers would...
16:52SPEAKER- Well, that's kind of how it works.
16:53SPEAKER- Starting out is just copying what other people do
16:56SPEAKERuntil you understand how it works.
16:57SPEAKER- Yeah, and you know, it's funny you say that.
16:59SPEAKERI forgot 'cause I did a bunch of Arduino stuff
17:01SPEAKERwhen I was at Tested, like a ton, which is all C.
17:05SPEAKERAnd like there was something incredibly satisfying
17:08SPEAKERabout writing a little piece of code,
17:11SPEAKERwriting it over to the hardware,
17:13SPEAKERplugging the hardware into the board that you'd build
17:16SPEAKERand then pressing a button and watching a light turn on.
17:18SPEAKERLike the simplest thing when you can,
17:20SPEAKERwhen you, there's something about making something
17:23SPEAKERthat has a physical interaction
17:26SPEAKERand like the possibility space of,
17:29SPEAKERhey, there's two buttons and a D-pad and a crank,
17:31SPEAKERand it has a speaker and a screen,
17:33SPEAKERis constrained in a way that makes it,
17:35SPEAKERI think, easier to approach than like,
17:38SPEAKERhey, we can do anything.
17:39SPEAKERLike when I look at my PC, I'm like,
17:40SPEAKERyeah, I could write code for this, but I could do anything.
17:43SPEAKERI could do anything from making like death stranding
17:48SPEAKERall the way down to the CD library app
17:53SPEAKERthat I built for my CS 100 class
17:56SPEAKERthat everybody did that sucked.
17:58SPEAKERSo, okay, so that's where we're at.
18:01SPEAKER- It's that immediate feedback.
18:02SPEAKERIt's rigging some stuff up and then like hitting a button
18:05SPEAKERand making it do exactly what you wanted it to do.
18:08SPEAKER- Yeah, just copying the ROM over
18:10SPEAKERand plugging it into the thing
18:11SPEAKERand loading it up and seeing how it works.
18:12SPEAKER- Yes, also kind of a corollary
18:14SPEAKERto what we're talking about here.
18:15SPEAKERI've said in a few episodes ago,
18:17SPEAKERI said like my greatest joy in life
18:18SPEAKERis to set up a job on a computer
18:20SPEAKERand then like hit a button and watch it go.
18:22SPEAKER- Yeah.
18:23SPEAKER- Like writing some code and then running it
18:24SPEAKERor compiling it or whatever
18:26SPEAKERis the ultimate expression of that, right?
18:27SPEAKERSo like I'd kind of, and this is a good pathway in.
18:30SPEAKER- Yeah.
18:31SPEAKER- You know, like sometimes I feel like
18:33SPEAKERlearning to do a thing is not the hard part.
18:34SPEAKERIt's learning, how can I put this?
18:36SPEAKERLike figuring out what you want to do is what's hard.
18:39SPEAKEROnce you know exactly what you want to do,
18:40SPEAKERthen you can set about doing it, right?
18:42SPEAKER- Well, I mean, I think that's definitely the case.
18:44SPEAKERLike I know I want to get better at writing code,
18:48SPEAKERbut I need like an objective.
18:49SPEAKERI need something to focus my efforts toward, right?
18:52SPEAKER- Well, this seems like a good version of that.
18:54SPEAKER- It's also nice to have somebody to kind of nudge you.
18:57SPEAKER'Cause like if you do this on your own,
18:58SPEAKERthen often like you'll stall out and stop doing it
19:01SPEAKERand other stuff will distract you.
19:03SPEAKER- Right, and when we even just spitballed about this,
19:05SPEAKERlike you said on the patron episode,
19:08SPEAKERalready a bunch of people on the discord,
19:10SPEAKERlike when I said like, oh, I have our time envisioning
19:13SPEAKERlike how you manage state and update state
19:15SPEAKERand like what the loop looks like internally
19:18SPEAKERin a simple game and like people immediately got in touch
19:21SPEAKERand were like, hey, here's some like pseudo code
19:22SPEAKERthat kind of explains a version of how you would do that.
19:24SPEAKERSo like, it's exciting to like have a purpose.
19:27SPEAKERAnd then once we have that, maybe people can chime in.
19:30SPEAKER- Yeah, so then the other thing is the big thing
19:35SPEAKERthat I've learned from working in professional games
19:39SPEAKERis that you, the loop that we use at Stray Bomb Bay
19:41SPEAKERthat's worked pretty well is to get things into the game
19:45SPEAKERas quickly as possible and then test them internally
19:48SPEAKERand also externally, see what people think
19:50SPEAKERand then iterate based on that feedback
19:53SPEAKERand just keep doing that over and over again
19:54SPEAKERuntil you get to something that's fun.
19:58SPEAKERSo let's see, for people who don't know,
20:01SPEAKERthe play date is a little like, I don't know,
20:03SPEAKERit's like the size of like a credit card and a half.
20:05SPEAKERIt's a tiny little game console.
20:08SPEAKERIt's kind of like a big drink coaster.
20:09SPEAKER- Yeah, it has a D-pad, it has a couple of face buttons,
20:12SPEAKERit has a crank, it has an accelerometer.
20:15SPEAKERI didn't know that.
20:17SPEAKER- Yes, yeah, you can see it.
20:18SPEAKERI knew that from, if there's an input test on there
20:20SPEAKERand if you go in there, you can see it reading position,
20:22SPEAKERbut it sounds like that might not be exposed by the API.
20:27SPEAKER- So I found it.
20:28SPEAKERI found it in the SDK, you have to turn it on.
20:30SPEAKERThey turn it off by default to save power.
20:32SPEAKER- Yeah, so that's one of the interesting things
20:34SPEAKERabout this thing is that it seems like it runs
20:35SPEAKERin as simple a mode as possible at all times
20:37SPEAKERto because it's tiny and does not have a big battery.
20:40SPEAKER- Well, and it's pretty low power too, so.
20:42SPEAKER- Like the Wi-Fi is not active at all times,
20:44SPEAKERfor example, right?
20:45SPEAKER- Yeah, the Wi-Fi is not active at all times.
20:47SPEAKERIt's, the storage is relatively limited.
20:50SPEAKERIt's only like three or four gigs total.
20:53SPEAKERSo like they recommend, I think 150 megs
20:55SPEAKERis a big game for this.
20:57SPEAKERSo we're not gonna have to build a ton of art,
20:59SPEAKERwhich is nice.
21:00SPEAKER- Yeah, so basic D-pad, two face buttons, the crank.
21:04SPEAKER- Yep, which is basically a one-axis analog input
21:08SPEAKERwith infinite endpoints, right?
21:12SPEAKER- At the accelerometer, and then you said
21:13SPEAKERthere is a mic input on the headphone jack.
21:15SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know that that's,
21:16SPEAKERI couldn't find anything about accessing that in the SDK.
21:18SPEAKER- Okay.
21:19SPEAKER- I also assumed with the rule of game peripherals
21:24SPEAKERthat if you start trying to use that,
21:26SPEAKERthen you're gonna cut your audience size down
21:27SPEAKERpretty dramatically, so.
21:29SPEAKER- Yes, yes, for sure.
21:30SPEAKER- I'm gonna say probably we're not prepared
21:31SPEAKERto do audio processing, so I think we should forget
21:33SPEAKERthat there's a mic input on the headphone jack.
21:35SPEAKER- Yes, also the idea of this game having an audience
21:38SPEAKERis charming and quaint to me.
21:42SPEAKER- Look, Gina will play it, I'm pretty sure.
21:43SPEAKER- Sure, significant others will be very excited.
21:47SPEAKER- Yeah, so that's what we have to work with.
21:53SPEAKERIt's surprisingly responsive from playing
21:57SPEAKERthe twitchy games that are available on it.
21:59SPEAKERIt is, I was expecting it to be a little chonky and slow
22:03SPEAKERand it is absolutely not that.
22:05SPEAKERLike the surfing game that's one of the week one games
22:09SPEAKERis super, super sensitive to analog input
22:13SPEAKERand you can go pretty much as fast as you want.
22:15SPEAKER- Yeah, like I started to say too sensitive
22:18SPEAKERwhich is more critical than I mean,
22:19SPEAKERbut it's very easy to overshoot in that game.
22:21SPEAKERIt's very easy to over crank.
22:23SPEAKER- Yeah, you don't wanna crank too hard.
22:25SPEAKEROkay, so.
22:26SPEAKER- Maybe you don't.
22:27SPEAKER- Should we, I'm super interested in the crank, obviously.
22:31SPEAKER- Yeah, it's definitely the one differentiator.
22:33SPEAKEROtherwise this thing is kind of a glorified game boy, right?
22:36SPEAKER- Yeah, with a sideways screen
22:38SPEAKERinstead of a vertical screen, right?
22:39SPEAKER- Right, right.
22:40SPEAKERAlso just since we were talking about the kind of input
22:42SPEAKERand tech stuff, what we've got to work with.
22:44SPEAKERI think that screen tops out at 50 Hertz, is that right?
22:46SPEAKER- It's 50 Hertz and.
22:49SPEAKER- Which is pretty, it's nice and smooth for.
22:51SPEAKER- But it is literally two colors.
22:53SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
22:54SPEAKER- It's either on or off.
22:54SPEAKER- More like to just add to what you said
22:56SPEAKERabout responsiveness, like it is a pretty smooth experience
23:00SPEAKERfor Twitchy arcade games, which is I feel like
23:02SPEAKERthat's something extremely simple and action based
23:05SPEAKERis probably which direction we're going to go first.
23:09SPEAKER- That feels right to me.
23:10SPEAKER- Can I ask a question real quick?
23:11SPEAKER- Yeah, of course.
23:13SPEAKER- Like totally tangential because 50 Hertz
23:16SPEAKERis kind of a strange number.
23:18SPEAKERI assume it like, this is a specific Samsung or Sharp
23:22SPEAKERwho makes this panel.
23:24SPEAKER- I do remember.
23:25SPEAKER- I didn't, I didn't look actually.
23:27SPEAKER- I keep forgetting, but it's like,
23:28SPEAKERit's kind of a well-known display.
23:30SPEAKERI don't know if that 50 Hertz number is like unique
23:32SPEAKERto this panel or whatever, but there's been this big movement
23:36SPEAKERtoward 40 frames per second modes in games.
23:38SPEAKERDo you have any insight into that?
23:39SPEAKERLike, I'm pretty familiar with the basics.
23:42SPEAKER- Hi.
23:43SPEAKER- It's something about even consistent frame time.
23:45SPEAKERLike it's kind of like perceptually,
23:48SPEAKERit is way smoother than 30, even though it's not
23:50SPEAKERthat different in terms of number of frames per second.
23:53SPEAKER- Is it about motion smoothing?
23:55SPEAKER'Cause a lot of that is putting,
23:57SPEAKERone of the things that people are doing
23:58SPEAKERwhen they have lower perf games these days
24:00SPEAKERis turning on motion blur and doing a higher quality
24:02SPEAKERmotion blur, which is relatively inexpensive.
24:04SPEAKER- There may be some motion blur involved,
24:06SPEAKERlike the use case, the practical use case
24:08SPEAKERin console games that I've been seeing,
24:10SPEAKERlike Ratchet and Clank on the PS5 did this
24:12SPEAKERand they just announced that Horizon,
24:14SPEAKERthe new Horizon Forbidden Wisp,
24:15SPEAKERthey're also gonna add a 40 FPS mode.
24:17SPEAKERIt's for like 4K modes.
24:18SPEAKERIt's essentially like, you know,
24:20SPEAKERthe performance needs at 40 are not that much higher
24:22SPEAKERthan at 30, so they can like make some
24:24SPEAKERvery minor adjustments to steadily hit 40,
24:26SPEAKERbut that it is dramatically smoother in practice.
24:30SPEAKERI haven't seen it in person.
24:31SPEAKERI just, I wonder what the math is there.
24:33SPEAKER- My assumption is that it's just,
24:36SPEAKERit's just easier to hit, you know,
24:37SPEAKERit's 20, 30% less than 60, right?
24:41SPEAKER- Well, I mean, so in terms of what's going on
24:42SPEAKERwith the brain or the eyes that makes,
24:44SPEAKER'cause again, like on paper, 40 doesn't seem
24:46SPEAKERlike it would be that much smoother than 30,
24:47SPEAKERbut apparently like it's a night and day difference
24:49SPEAKERaccording to a lot of people who use it.
24:51SPEAKER- So my assumption from doing VR stuff
24:53SPEAKERand doing a lot of like hands-on demos
24:55SPEAKERand testing with people is that ability
24:58SPEAKERto perceive frame rate is probably,
24:59SPEAKERand I don't know that there's any science at all in this.
25:01SPEAKERI'm literally talking out of my ass
25:04SPEAKERabout my observed experience in life.
25:07SPEAKERMy assumption is that there's a spectrum
25:11SPEAKERthat starts with not able to perceive differences
25:14SPEAKERin frame rate and ends up with very sensitive
25:16SPEAKERto perceived frame rate and that the fat part
25:19SPEAKERof the curve ends before you get to 40 frames per second.
25:23SPEAKER- Interesting.
25:24SPEAKER- So like, for example, at Maximum PC,
25:26SPEAKERthere was the hardware editor at PC Gamer, Greg Wiederman,
25:30SPEAKERwas able to look at a thing and be like,
25:31SPEAKER"Oh yeah, that's running about 35 frames a second."
25:33SPEAKERAnd he was fucking right every time.
25:36SPEAKERBut he was very sensitive to frame rates
25:38SPEAKERcompared to everybody else that was
25:40SPEAKERin that relatively small sample size.
25:42SPEAKERAnd like given the people, the different ways
25:45SPEAKERthat people were sensitive to VR
25:48SPEAKERand the range of sensitivity.
25:51SPEAKERFor example, Gina, my partner,
25:54SPEAKERcan do like 10, 15 minutes of VR, but that's it.
25:58SPEAKERNo matter what.
25:59SPEAKERNo matter what frame rate you're running, it doesn't matter.
26:00SPEAKERShe's good for like 15 minutes at the absolute high end.
26:04SPEAKERAnd I know I had several other people that did demos
26:07SPEAKERthat just started feeling motion sick after that.
26:09SPEAKERAnd that would be massively, with Gina especially,
26:13SPEAKERit's massively accelerated if the frame rate's low.
26:15SPEAKERSo like if you were seeing even like,
26:19SPEAKERI would see a sag on the frame rate meter in SteamVR,
26:23SPEAKERand she would be like, "Did something just happen?
26:24SPEAKER"I feel bad."
26:25SPEAKERAnd it was like literally two frames
26:27SPEAKERbeing below the six milliseconds or whatever it was.
26:31SPEAKERSo my guess is that there's a perception
26:33SPEAKERand that's where you get into the good part of the bell curve.
26:35SPEAKER- Interesting.
26:36SPEAKERI'm gonna have to do some more reading on that.
26:38SPEAKER- Yeah, I bet that somebody's done cognitive research.
26:40SPEAKERI have a friend who does cognitive science
26:43SPEAKERaround eye and vision that we can ask about that
26:46SPEAKERif we want maybe.
26:46SPEAKER- That would be actually a fantastic episode.
26:49SPEAKER- Yeah.
26:51SPEAKERBut back to the topic at hand.
26:54SPEAKER- Yes.
26:54SPEAKERReal quick before we move on to the next section.
26:56SPEAKERThe one thing I've omitted in terms of like tools
26:58SPEAKERwe have to work with, there's a home or menu button.
27:01SPEAKERIt's a menu button.
27:02SPEAKERIt's not a home button 'cause it pops out.
27:03SPEAKERIt's almost like the Xbox dashboard kind of pops out
27:06SPEAKERfrom the side of the screen.
27:07SPEAKER- It's like a blade, yeah.
27:07SPEAKER- Yeah, it's obviously kind of a blade,
27:08SPEAKERbut you can put per game unique setting categories
27:13SPEAKERin there, right?
27:14SPEAKERYou can pop that out and tweak the game
27:16SPEAKERwith different stuff.
27:18SPEAKER- Yup.
27:19SPEAKERThere are many, many,
27:20SPEAKERit is a fully extensible console platform.
27:22SPEAKER- Yes, indeed.
27:24SPEAKERAll right, so what are we gonna make?
27:26SPEAKER- Yeah, our homework was to come up with a few ideas.
27:32SPEAKERThe first thing I saw when I started doing the crank
27:35SPEAKERwas that I wanted to make a "Galaga"
27:37SPEAKERor "Space Invaders" kind of game.
27:38SPEAKER- Yeah, I think a classic arcade action game
27:42SPEAKERor a variation on that or something in that vein
27:44SPEAKERis absolutely the natural place to start.
27:46SPEAKER- Yeah, I think starting with an arcade game is a good idea
27:49SPEAKER'cause doing something that's big and story-driven
27:50SPEAKERis gonna involve a lot of time,
27:52SPEAKERand I think it's better to do something
27:53SPEAKERthat we can iterate on and fail fast if it's gonna be bad.
27:56SPEAKER- Yeah, also I think about,
27:58SPEAKERor "Asteroids" I think is another example,
28:00SPEAKERalthough there are at least two or three
28:03SPEAKERasteroid-style games already for this thing.
28:04SPEAKERI'm not saying we would do that,
28:05SPEAKERbut even from my layperson's perspective,
28:10SPEAKERlooking at, say, the acceleration and deceleration
28:12SPEAKERof the ship in "Asteroids," for example,
28:14SPEAKERI can at least pseudo-code,
28:16SPEAKERkind of imagine how you would iterate your way
28:19SPEAKERthrough physics like that and stuff like that.
28:21SPEAKERThat seems like something that is approachable-ish.
28:24SPEAKER- But here's the thing about the "Space Invaders"
28:25SPEAKERor "Galaga" game that I think is fun
28:27SPEAKERbecause, like I said, I'm interested in the crank.
28:31SPEAKERI want to either adjust time with the crank
28:34SPEAKERand go forwards and backwards,
28:36SPEAKERor, alternately, make the crank control a chain gun
28:39SPEAKERand just make the Galaga ship shoot fucking crazy fast.
28:43SPEAKERJust like... (imitates gun firing)
28:45SPEAKER- So I don't think it's available anymore,
28:47SPEAKERbut in the pre-release SDK,
28:48SPEAKERI think it's no longer compatible with the shipping unit,
28:50SPEAKERbut somebody ported actual "Doom" to this thing,
28:53SPEAKERand that's exactly how the chain gun
28:54SPEAKERin their port of "Doom" worked is that you had to crank
28:58SPEAKERto spin up and shoot the chain gun, which is moi.
29:01SPEAKER- That sounds so good.
29:03SPEAKER- But yeah, the name keeps escaping me,
29:06SPEAKERbut the side-scrolling robot puzzle game,
29:08SPEAKERwhich I think is kind of the flagship game.
29:12SPEAKER- "Cranklin's Time Adventure"?
29:13SPEAKER- What is it?
29:14SPEAKER- "Cranklin's Time Adventure"?
29:15SPEAKER- Yes, yes, that's the one.
29:16SPEAKER- Is that the Bennett Foddy one, or is that the...
29:19SPEAKER- No, he made a different...
29:20SPEAKERHe made that isometric samurai action or strategy game.
29:24SPEAKERI can't remember the name of it.
29:25SPEAKER- "Cranklin" is the...
29:31SPEAKERWell, I'm looking.
29:32SPEAKERI think it's the, I think, Keita...
29:36SPEAKER- Takahashi?
29:37SPEAKER- Takahashi game.
29:37SPEAKER- You make that?
29:39SPEAKER- Oh, at any rate, they, I think they used it
29:41SPEAKERto show off the play date early on quite a bit.
29:43SPEAKERLike it was one of their key...
29:45SPEAKERThe reason is because it uses the crank
29:46SPEAKERfor time travel in a really clever way.
29:48SPEAKER- Yeah, and it's "Crankins," not "Cranklin's," sorry.
29:51SPEAKER- Yes, right.
29:52SPEAKER- The fun is hard to read.
29:53SPEAKER- I think that's probably my favorite use
29:54SPEAKERof the crank on that thing.
29:55SPEAKERLike it's got a really tactile feel
29:57SPEAKERbecause you literally are fast-forward
29:58SPEAKERand rewinding this robot through his routine.
30:02SPEAKERYou know, it really hands-on kind of way.
30:05SPEAKERYou know, you move a crank and he moves with it.
30:07SPEAKERLike, it's really satisfying.
30:08SPEAKER- And it ends up, have you beaten it yet?
30:10SPEAKER- No.
30:11SPEAKER- It ends up...
30:11SPEAKER- How long is it?
30:12SPEAKER- I haven't gotten to the end yet.
30:13SPEAKERI'm like, I'm probably on like the 15th level or something.
30:17SPEAKER10th level.
30:18SPEAKER- Oh, wow, okay.
30:18SPEAKER- It seems like I've been doing it for a long time.
30:19SPEAKER- Yeah, I think I got six or seven days in.
30:21SPEAKERIt's a little repetitive.
30:23SPEAKERIt's kind of, each puzzle really builds on the last one.
30:25SPEAKERSo you're kind of repeating a lot of the same actions,
30:27SPEAKERbut it's really clever.
30:28SPEAKER- It gets surprisingly, it gets real puzzly by the end.
30:32SPEAKERLike it's, it becomes a, like a...
30:34SPEAKERAnyway, it's a really neat, like clearly it has been,
30:38SPEAKERthey've spent a lot of time working on it,
30:40SPEAKERbut it's really neat.
30:42SPEAKERBut yeah, so, but my thought is,
30:44SPEAKERGalaga or Space Invaders probably,
30:46SPEAKERso the animation burden is a little bit lower,
30:48SPEAKERplus massive number of bullets, chain gun,
30:52SPEAKERseems like it would be fun.
30:53SPEAKERWith some like stupid power-ups,
30:54SPEAKERwe can do like Vs or like a laser that gets wider
30:57SPEAKERthe more you crank.
30:58SPEAKERIt's still, you know, stuff like that.
30:59SPEAKERLike there's a space, there's space in the weapons there
31:02SPEAKERthat seems like it would be fun to noodle with.
31:04SPEAKER- See, all I can think about here is like,
31:06SPEAKERhow do you handle collision and bounding boxes
31:08SPEAKERon like your player character and a power-up, for example?
31:11SPEAKERLike I'm trying to think like the mechanics of, you know,
31:15SPEAKERdetecting when one intercepts the other, yes.
31:18SPEAKER- X, Y.
31:19SPEAKER- Yeah.
31:20SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know.
31:21SPEAKERLook, I'm just art and design, that's a programming problem.
31:24SPEAKER- Crap.
31:26SPEAKER- Okay, so that's my first one, is Crankin' Invaders.
31:31SPEAKER- Yeah, the first one I wrote down here,
31:33SPEAKERI stole straight from the Discord.
31:34SPEAKERApologies to whoever actually thought of it,
31:36SPEAKERbut it's too good not to.
31:38SPEAKERA crank-based idle game.
31:40SPEAKER- Ooh.
31:41SPEAKER- Although, although.
31:42SPEAKER- It doesn't sound that idle.
31:43SPEAKER- Is that a contradiction in terms?
31:44SPEAKERYeah, there's something oxymoronic about that.
31:46SPEAKER- Do you have to crank to eat the cookie?
31:49SPEAKER- Maybe.
31:50SPEAKER- Well, hmm.
31:52SPEAKERWhat if it's just a fishing thing?
31:55SPEAKER- What's a competing term for idle game
31:57SPEAKERthat does not apply idleness, but.
31:59SPEAKER- I don't, I stopped playing them
32:02SPEAKER'cause it turns out they're bad for my brain.
32:05SPEAKERThey make me kind of sad.
32:06SPEAKER- What was the last one I played a lot?
32:08SPEAKER- Paperclips was the last one I played, probably.
32:10SPEAKER- What was the, I don't think it was Cookie Clicker,
32:13SPEAKERbut there was a web-based, like ASCII text-based one
32:17SPEAKERin the realm.
32:18SPEAKER- That's the Paperclip one, isn't it?
32:19SPEAKER- 2012, 2013, no, it was something about a candy store.
32:22SPEAKERIt was not Cookie Clicker.
32:23SPEAKER- Oh.
32:23SPEAKER- You know what I'm talking about?
32:26SPEAKEROh, I played so much of it.
32:27SPEAKERWhat is it called?
32:28SPEAKER- Yeah, we played it in the,
32:29SPEAKERwe're still in the basement.
32:30SPEAKERWe played it in the basement.
32:30SPEAKER- Yes, it was right around,
32:31SPEAKERit was right before "Whiskey Media" got split up.
32:36SPEAKERGosh.
32:37SPEAKER- It was the one where the Paperclip one.
32:39SPEAKER- That sounds right.
32:40SPEAKERI hope somebody writes in.
32:41SPEAKERI was fascinated by that thing.
32:42SPEAKERThat was very good, one of those.
32:45SPEAKER- I'm into that.
32:46SPEAKERThere's like a text adventuriness to that
32:48SPEAKERthat's kind of appealing.
32:50SPEAKER- Yeah, although that's less hands-on and action-based.
32:53SPEAKERLike, I do like the idea of just figuring out
32:56SPEAKERhow to move a character around the screen,
32:57SPEAKERand this would not really be that.
32:59SPEAKERThis is a little bit more,
33:00SPEAKERthat would be more of like a spreadsheet kind of game.
33:02SPEAKER- Yeah, but I mean, I think there's an argument
33:05SPEAKERthat those kinds of games are interesting
33:06SPEAKERwhen you add other things on top.
33:08SPEAKERLike the roguelike, there's an opportunity
33:11SPEAKERto expand upon the core idle characteristics
33:15SPEAKERwith other mechanics and mash them together
33:17SPEAKERin ways that are weird and interesting.
33:19SPEAKER- For sure.
33:19SPEAKER- And the pockety nature of this is a cool,
33:24SPEAKERlike there's an opportunity,
33:25SPEAKERlike it's surprising to me.
33:27SPEAKERI mean, I know Animal Crossing has had mobile versions,
33:29SPEAKERbut it's surprising to me that there's not more phone games
33:31SPEAKERthat are like, hey, you should play this
33:33SPEAKERfor five minutes a day and some cool shit will happen
33:35SPEAKERin the Nimue Island the next day.
33:37SPEAKER- Sure, it does occur to me as we talk through this
33:41SPEAKERthat I wonder if we should be careful
33:42SPEAKERabout getting too far out over our skis
33:44SPEAKERon the design and idea part,
33:46SPEAKERbecause the implementation is gonna be such a challenge
33:49SPEAKERthat even pulling off a like incredibly well-worn rip off
33:54SPEAKERof an idea is going to be tough for us.
33:56SPEAKERSo I wonder if maybe we should constrain
33:59SPEAKERthe conceptual part.
34:00SPEAKER- So what I would say is once we decide
34:02SPEAKERwhich concept we're gonna do,
34:03SPEAKERwe should MVP it and get to the bare minimum version of that.
34:08SPEAKERSo like if it's Galaga, if it's Space Invaders,
34:12SPEAKERwe have one enemy, every third one shoots down,
34:17SPEAKERone enemy that moves down the screen
34:19SPEAKERand you shoot up at it and then we build that
34:21SPEAKERand then we see what we do next, right?
34:23SPEAKERLike you're making a layer cake here, right?
34:26SPEAKERSo the, so like for the idle game,
34:31SPEAKERit would be something happens when you crank
34:34SPEAKERand then you have to crank and add things
34:37SPEAKERthat scale exponentially, I guess, I don't know.
34:40SPEAKER- Something happens, something different
34:41SPEAKERand possibly reverse happens when you crank the other way.
34:44SPEAKER- Yeah, in my head, that game lives and dies
34:47SPEAKERbased on how well, like how much of it.
34:50SPEAKERSo one of the designers at work,
34:52SPEAKERRyan describes things like that as a toy.
34:56SPEAKERSo like it's like the little, they're not really,
34:58SPEAKERit's not really like the game thing,
34:59SPEAKERbut it's like the fast reload in Gears, right?
35:02SPEAKERIt's like a thing that you do while you're playing the game
35:04SPEAKERthat like makes you, hits you with a little bit of dopamine.
35:07SPEAKER- Oh yeah.
35:08SPEAKER- So you feel good when you land it, right?
35:09SPEAKER- Oh yeah, the active reload to this day is just...
35:13SPEAKER- Yeah.
35:13SPEAKER- Incredibly satisfying.
35:14SPEAKER- So like whatever the toy is of the cranking,
35:17SPEAKERlike in Cookie Clicker, it's the feeling you get
35:20SPEAKERwhen you click and the numbers go up, right?
35:23SPEAKERLike Cookie Clicker is a weird example
35:25SPEAKER'cause it's kind of like a dark pattern for dopamine
35:28SPEAKER'cause it gives you dopamine for doing things
35:29SPEAKERthat are really unhealthy and bad for you ultimately.
35:32SPEAKER- Yes.
35:33SPEAKER- Anyway, so I think that one lives or dies
35:36SPEAKERbased on how we do with the, well, like what the crank does.
35:39SPEAKER- Yeah, I think you're right.
35:41SPEAKER- I wanted, I had like a trampoline stunt game
35:44SPEAKERthat's like a top down.
35:46SPEAKERSo you're looking down from the trampoline on the top
35:49SPEAKERand you use the D-pad to move around and you tap A to bounce
35:52SPEAKERand then you crank to do flips and stuff.
35:54SPEAKERAnd like, you know, it's like a stunt game with scores.
35:58SPEAKERI don't know.
35:59SPEAKER- So it's like Tony Hawk but trampolines.
36:02SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.
36:02SPEAKER- That's not the worst idea.
36:04SPEAKERI mean, that's like, even whether we make it or not,
36:06SPEAKERlike somebody should make that.
36:07SPEAKER- I think the animation's pretty easy for that
36:09SPEAKER'cause it's just the same animations.
36:10SPEAKERThey just get bigger or smaller
36:11SPEAKERbased on how high you're jumping.
36:13SPEAKER- Sure.
36:15SPEAKER- So like...
36:16SPEAKER- Hopefully there is some library in there
36:18SPEAKERfor easy sprite scaling or something.
36:20SPEAKERI don't know.
36:20SPEAKER- Yeah, of course.
36:22SPEAKERBut I just want like wild, on that one,
36:28SPEAKERI think I want wild spinning and like horrific bodily injury
36:30SPEAKERwhen it goes bad.
36:32SPEAKER- Okay.
36:32SPEAKER- Yeah.
36:33SPEAKER- Not bad, not bad.
36:35SPEAKER- I feel like that one didn't land.
36:36SPEAKERSo somebody else can take that one at this point.
36:38SPEAKER- Let's, you know, maybe we'll just have
36:40SPEAKERa server wide game jam going on.
36:42SPEAKER- I would love that.
36:43SPEAKERThat would be amazing.
36:44SPEAKERThe other thing is there is an emulator.
36:45SPEAKERSo even if you can't get a play date right now,
36:47SPEAKERyou can download the SDK, which has the emulator
36:49SPEAKERand try them and see what your, see how your stuff works.
36:52SPEAKERIn fact, I think we mentioned it before,
36:53SPEAKERlike they caution you, it's going to run better
36:55SPEAKERwhen you run that thing.
36:57SPEAKER- Yeah.
36:57SPEAKER- It is going to run better on here
36:58SPEAKERthan it does on the actual hardware, so be careful.
37:00SPEAKER- But yeah, well, so be it.
37:04SPEAKER- I wrote down a variation on Snake.
37:07SPEAKER- Okay.
37:08SPEAKER- And then I remembered that one of the season one games
37:10SPEAKERis exactly that, and in fact, I believe it's made
37:12SPEAKERby a pretty well-known designer.
37:13SPEAKERI can't remember who.
37:16SPEAKER- There are some itch Snake clones as well for it as well.
37:19SPEAKER- That might be Zach Gage's game.
37:21SPEAKER- Oh, that would, that seems like a very,
37:23SPEAKERthat seems like a very, Zach Gage's, Zach Gage,
37:26SPEAKERif you don't know, he did Spell Tower
37:28SPEAKERand he just released Not Words a few months ago.
37:33SPEAKER- Yeah, Alex has been playing a lot of Not Words.
37:36SPEAKER- My brain is bad for Not Words, it turns out.
37:39SPEAKERBut the other one he did is Flip Note, I think, no.
37:43SPEAKERHe did Flip Pop Solitaire, which is fantastic.
37:46SPEAKER- Good Sudoku.
37:48SPEAKER- Good Sudoku is really good, I play that a lot.
37:50SPEAKER- And then there's Tharsis or Tarsis, or Type Shift.
37:53SPEAKER- Type Shift is the other one that's incredible.
37:55SPEAKER- Made a lot of games.
37:56SPEAKER- Yeah, Tharsis is neat too.
37:58SPEAKER- Snak, it is Zach Gage, he made a Snake game
38:02SPEAKERcalled Snak for season one, so.
38:04SPEAKER- Is it S-N-A-K?
38:05SPEAKER- Yes.
38:06SPEAKER- I love it.
38:08SPEAKER- I didn't play a ton of it, but from what I could tell,
38:10SPEAKERthe only change is that you can jump over yourself,
38:12SPEAKERyou can jump.
38:13SPEAKER- Oh.
38:14SPEAKER- Like you can, the head can jump and then you can like,
38:16SPEAKERkind of avoid yourself and avoid, in fact,
38:19SPEAKERI think there are, there are some kind of enemies
38:21SPEAKERthat you have to jump over to neutralize.
38:24SPEAKER- That's a pretty significant upgrade.
38:25SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a pretty tough, challenging,
38:28SPEAKERcomplicated Snake, but I don't know that we can
38:30SPEAKERjust make another Snake, but that seems like a game
38:32SPEAKERthat you could program.
38:35SPEAKER- I mean, we could make a Minesweeper,
38:36SPEAKERcan we make a Minesweeper where the cranking matters?
38:38SPEAKERWhere you like, defuse the mines if you fuck up?
38:41SPEAKER- Okay, in the vein of free games included
38:43SPEAKERwith Microsoft operating systems, I have a better idea.
38:46SPEAKER- Okay.
38:47SPEAKER- Can I add this to the list?
38:47SPEAKER- Are you gonna put SkiFree at the bottom?
38:49SPEAKER- No, better.
38:51SPEAKER- SkiFree's pretty good, dude.
38:52SPEAKER- What if we port or make a clone of gorilla.bas?
38:56SPEAKER- The thing that's in Excel?
38:58SPEAKER- Wait, did they ever put that in it?
39:00SPEAKERHang on.
39:00SPEAKER- I don't know what gorilla.bas is, I don't think.
39:02SPEAKER- Wait, really?
39:03SPEAKER- Yeah.
39:04SPEAKER- Shipped with, I've actually looked this up recently,
39:05SPEAKERI wanna say the first version of DOS that Gorilla came with,
39:10SPEAKERyeah, DOS 5, MS-DOS 5 was the first version of DOS
39:13SPEAKERto ship with gorilla.bas.
39:14SPEAKER- I don't know what gorilla.bas is.
39:16SPEAKER- Have you played Worms?
39:18SPEAKER- I don't like worms.
39:20SPEAKER- Hmm, okay, we may have a problem here then.
39:23SPEAKER- Gorilla, Gorilla is kind of,
39:24SPEAKERit's a two-player worms-ish type game,
39:27SPEAKERexcept your gorilla's on top of skyscrapers
39:29SPEAKERthrowing explosive bananas at each other.
39:32SPEAKER- Wow, really?
39:32SPEAKERHow did I never find out about this?
39:34SPEAKER- Oh my God, you should, I bet it would not be that hard too.
39:37SPEAKERI bet there is a web-based version of Gorilla.bas.
39:39SPEAKER- I mean, I have a Mr. with a 486 core
39:41SPEAKERrunning DOS 5 right here probably.
39:43SPEAKER- You could be playing Gorilla in seconds.
39:46SPEAKER- You could do some interesting stuff with like the crank
39:48SPEAKERto line up the trajectory or to kind of determine
39:53SPEAKERthe strength of your throw or both.
39:56SPEAKER- What about a slingshot or catapult game
39:58SPEAKERwhere you use the crank to wind it?
40:01SPEAKER- Okay.
40:02SPEAKER- And then aim and release.
40:03SPEAKER- Okay.
40:04SPEAKER- I like the idea of using the crank for something
40:06SPEAKERthat is not just duration, but also speed or intensity.
40:09SPEAKER- Oh, I like that, okay.
40:10SPEAKER- That's not just a fixed like drawback speed,
40:14SPEAKERregardless of how fast you're doing it,
40:15SPEAKERthat maybe something, I don't know
40:17SPEAKERwhat the physical metaphor would be there.
40:19SPEAKER- Huh, like you're charging something up maybe?
40:21SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, it's not just you need to do it
40:24SPEAKERfor a certain amount of time, but also harder and faster.
40:27SPEAKER- There's an idea that like everybody you hand that thing
40:32SPEAKERand they look at it and they're like, oh, it has a crank.
40:34SPEAKEROh, is it to charge it?
40:35SPEAKERAnd you're like, no, it's not to charge it.
40:36SPEAKERIt's literally the first thing everybody asks.
40:39SPEAKERSo what if the crank charged the gun in the game?
40:42SPEAKER- Okay, yeah.
40:43SPEAKER- Wouldn't it be like you had to crank it up really hard
40:44SPEAKERand it was like, it's like the Futurama episode
40:47SPEAKERwith the scooty puff blaster and he has to crank it
40:50SPEAKERto charge up the gun and then he shoots one shot
40:52SPEAKERand then he cranks it again.
40:53SPEAKER- Okay, I got another idea.
40:54SPEAKER- Okay.
40:55SPEAKER- We can go even simpler here.
40:57SPEAKERWhat if we just get everybody what they want
40:59SPEAKERand allow them to charge a fake battery with the crank?
41:02SPEAKER- Oh, now that is a really good V1.
41:04SPEAKER- Let's just make a nice full screen,
41:06SPEAKERnicely styled battery meter that you can charge back up
41:09SPEAKERwith the crank because you can't do it
41:10SPEAKERwith the actual hardware.
41:11SPEAKER- That seems like a perfect, hey, let's learn
41:13SPEAKERhow to use the SDK and make something that actually runs.
41:17SPEAKER- We should do that.
41:18SPEAKER- Okay, we should do that and put it on itch
41:21SPEAKERand then retire.
41:22SPEAKER- Billions of dollars.
41:24SPEAKERThis is the beginning of Brad Willsoft.
41:27SPEAKER- But like actually, you know what's weird?
41:29SPEAKERDo you remember iBeer?
41:31SPEAKER- Yeah, people made billions of dollars
41:33SPEAKERwith that stupid thing.
41:34SPEAKER- The guy who made iBeer did an AMA on Reddit
41:37SPEAKERlike some weeks or months ago.
41:39SPEAKERI forget how, pretty recently.
41:41SPEAKER- When was the last time you worked?
41:43SPEAKER- I don't think he, it was tough to tell.
41:45SPEAKERI mean, obviously like people,
41:47SPEAKERactually I saw like the Plague Inc guy
41:49SPEAKERalso just did an AMA recently.
41:50SPEAKERAnd like unsurprisingly, people in that position
41:53SPEAKERdon't exactly want to answer the numerous questions
41:56SPEAKERabout how much money they've made, but.
41:58SPEAKER- Plague Inc is a real thing.
42:00SPEAKER- Oh, Plague Inc is huge, but like.
42:01SPEAKER- Like it's a real game, yeah.
42:03SPEAKER- Right, yeah, I mean, that guy is running a studio
42:05SPEAKERwith like 12 employees.
42:06SPEAKERLike that is completely doing quite well.
42:07SPEAKERBut the iBeer guy reading between the lines,
42:11SPEAKERhe didn't sound like he made an absolute fortune
42:13SPEAKERand is like filthy rich and retired now, but he could be.
42:17SPEAKER- I mean, I would bet he got enough to pay
42:19SPEAKERto get a real good down payment on a really nice house.
42:22SPEAKER- Oh yeah, yeah, I think he's doing just fine.
42:23SPEAKERBut he did make allusions to like,
42:25SPEAKERhe's still working on some stuff.
42:26SPEAKERIt's just not clear if he's doing it for fun or not.
42:28SPEAKERBut anyway, the reason I bring up iBeer
42:30SPEAKERis that he kind of talked about that same thing
42:33SPEAKERI'm thinking about with his battery meter, right?
42:34SPEAKEROf like, here's just a fun, tactile little thing
42:38SPEAKERthat people kind of wish they could do.
42:39SPEAKERWell, granted, I don't think anybody expected
42:41SPEAKERto pour real beer out of their iPhone.
42:43SPEAKERIt's not quite the same thing, but you know what I mean?
42:44SPEAKERLike it's just a, it's a toy, like you said, it's a trinket.
42:47SPEAKER- Yeah.
42:47SPEAKER- It's just a fun, novel use of this thing
42:49SPEAKERthat kind of goes to a, like a desire to use it
42:53SPEAKERin a way that you didn't know you had.
42:55SPEAKER- Can I take, can I take two of our ideas
42:56SPEAKERand jam them together here?
42:58SPEAKER- What do you, yeah, what do you got?
42:59SPEAKER- Okay, so your fake battery charged with a crank
43:02SPEAKERis an idle game.
43:04SPEAKER- Yeah, okay.
43:05SPEAKER- And it's like a check-in every day idle game.
43:08SPEAKER- Yeah.
43:08SPEAKER- You charge up the battery and then some stuff happens
43:11SPEAKERon like day three.
43:12SPEAKER- Maybe, maybe there are some ever increasing demands
43:14SPEAKERon the battery.
43:15SPEAKER- Yeah, and also a tech tree that you have to climb down
43:18SPEAKERthat adds the ability to generate electricity, you know,
43:21SPEAKERmaybe, I don't know, using the accelerometer
43:23SPEAKERinstead of the crank.
43:24SPEAKERSo you can just, you know.
43:27SPEAKER- A high capacity battery upgrade.
43:29SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.
43:30SPEAKERThere's a tree.
43:32SPEAKER- Okay.
43:35SPEAKER- Okay, we have a few more ideas.
43:36SPEAKERDo we want to save them or do we want to keep going?
43:37SPEAKER- No, let's throw them out there.
43:39SPEAKER- Okay, I am surprised that there's not a lock picking game.
43:44SPEAKER- Oh yeah.
43:45SPEAKER- That does like the classic, like, I mean, there's no,
43:47SPEAKERthere's no vibration in it, but you might be able
43:50SPEAKERto simulate that with the speaker making noise.
43:52SPEAKER- Yeah, I bet you could.
43:53SPEAKER- And like, there's no, it seems like you'd be able to do
43:56SPEAKERlike either a safe cracking or a lock picking
44:00SPEAKERor something that's really satisfying and fun.
44:02SPEAKER- Yes, for sure.
44:05SPEAKERThat sounds good.
44:06SPEAKER- Also, I feel like there is room for disruption
44:08SPEAKERin the lock picking mini game space.
44:11SPEAKER- Yeah.
44:11SPEAKER- I feel like it's been a while since we saw
44:13SPEAKERlike a truly novel, like what was it?
44:16SPEAKERI think it was "Dying Light 2" a few months ago came out
44:18SPEAKERand literally just had the Elder Scrolls
44:20SPEAKERlock picking mini game.
44:21SPEAKERI'm like, really?
44:22SPEAKERSkyrim itself, let alone the earlier ones
44:25SPEAKERwas over a decade ago and we're still doing
44:28SPEAKERthis exact same lock picking.
44:29SPEAKER- Yeah, and then "Sniper Elite 5" just came out
44:31SPEAKERand there's not even a game.
44:32SPEAKERYou just press and hold E, which makes me kind of sad.
44:36SPEAKER- Oh, a lock picking game could be cool.
44:39SPEAKER- Yeah, like what was it?
44:39SPEAKERWas it "Splinter Cell" that came out
44:41SPEAKERwith the lock picking game the first time
44:42SPEAKERand you're like, "Oh, this is incredible."
44:44SPEAKERI mean, so the other thing you could do
44:46SPEAKERis do like a code breaking thing where you have like dials
44:48SPEAKERand you're turning the crank to adjust the dials
44:50SPEAKERto different numbers and like there's multiple games
44:53SPEAKERin this sub-genre, I think.
44:55SPEAKER- Oh, wow, dude, like man.
44:58SPEAKERWorld War II era cryptographer game for the PlayStation.
45:01SPEAKERIt's like a game I didn't know I wanted.
45:03SPEAKER- Yeah.
45:04SPEAKER- Like can we make a Bletchley Park game
45:06SPEAKERfor the Play Date?
45:07SPEAKER- I mean, look, we can make it,
45:08SPEAKERit can be an asynchronous multiplayer game
45:10SPEAKERwhere one person is programming "Colossus"
45:12SPEAKERand the other person is a submarine commander and yeah.
45:17SPEAKER- And then someone captures the Enigma machine
45:18SPEAKERhalfway through and...
45:19SPEAKER- Exactly, and you're like, "Hey, all of a sudden
45:21SPEAKER"our submarines keep sinking out of the blue.
45:22SPEAKER"What's happening?
45:23SPEAKER"This is weird."
45:25SPEAKER- Hmm, let's see here.
45:27SPEAKERI wrote down a not a game game.
45:29SPEAKER- I like the idea.
45:30SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know what it would be exactly.
45:32SPEAKERLike probably my favorite thing for the Play Date so far
45:34SPEAKERis somebody made a, we streamed it on Nextlander.
45:38SPEAKEROh God, what is it called?
45:39SPEAKERIt takes the animation files from Flipnote Studio
45:42SPEAKERfor the 3DS and just lets you play them with the crank.
45:45SPEAKER- That's amazing.
45:46SPEAKER- And it's not a game,
45:47SPEAKERbut it's like an art studio project kind of thing.
45:49SPEAKERIt's just a player,
45:51SPEAKERbut it's serving such a cool preservationist kind of role.
45:54SPEAKER- I like the idea of making an animation player
45:56SPEAKERthat lets you show the last,
46:00SPEAKERlike lets you do like flip animation basically.
46:03SPEAKER- Yeah, that's exactly what that was.
46:05SPEAKERLike something in that vein would be cool,
46:06SPEAKERbut I don't know what.
46:09SPEAKER- I wrote down crank the unofficial game of the movie.
46:14SPEAKER- Okay.
46:15SPEAKER- And I assume it's just like
46:18SPEAKERyou electrocuting Jason Statham,
46:19SPEAKERbut I don't know exactly what that is.
46:21SPEAKERIt's, you know, I figured there's just like
46:24SPEAKERa crude representation of Statham's face
46:27SPEAKERand you have to crank really hard
46:28SPEAKERto zap him every two minutes or he dies.
46:32SPEAKER- Yes.
46:32SPEAKER- Or does Amy Smart fit into this whole thing?
46:35SPEAKERI don't know.
46:36SPEAKER- Every once in a while she comes up and is like,
46:37SPEAKERand she, like, if you are not able to crank hard enough,
46:40SPEAKERshe'll come in and occasionally like throw some acid
46:42SPEAKERon you or something.
46:43SPEAKERI don't know.
46:44SPEAKER- Oh boy.
46:45SPEAKER- Well, you know, like those movies are a little thin.
46:47SPEAKERI don't know if you remember, but.
46:48SPEAKER- Yeah, fair.
46:52SPEAKERI really enjoyed what you've written after this.
46:55SPEAKER- Which one?
46:56SPEAKER- Text, did you, I don't, you didn't say this one.
46:57SPEAKER- Oh, I wrote this a minute ago, yeah.
46:58SPEAKER- Text adventure plus crank.
47:01SPEAKER- That is so self-evidently absurd
47:03SPEAKERthat I can't help but enjoy it.
47:05SPEAKER- But like, so I don't know what the plus crank
47:08SPEAKERmeans here, right?
47:09SPEAKERLike is it, is it, is it like a,
47:13SPEAKERyou can flip through the pages?
47:15SPEAKERLike it's like you're doing the thing
47:17SPEAKERwith the choose your own adventure book
47:18SPEAKERwhere you have your fingers in five different places
47:20SPEAKERthroughout the book so you can go back?
47:21SPEAKER- Oh, I, you know what, I think the option here
47:25SPEAKERthat is good vehicle for comedy is to format it
47:28SPEAKERjust like it's Zork or whatever.
47:29SPEAKER- Yeah.
47:30SPEAKER- You can just text scroll with a parser at the bottom,
47:32SPEAKERbut don't let you actually type anything.
47:33SPEAKERJust pre-write all the stuff and the crank scrolls
47:35SPEAKERthrough the possible inputs. - Oh, that's really good.
47:38SPEAKER- And like every scenario has like 10 of them
47:40SPEAKERand they're all dumb.
47:41SPEAKERLike, you know, somebody who was funnier than me
47:43SPEAKERlike an Eric Wolpaw could do something really funny
47:45SPEAKERwith a pre-written text adventure
47:48SPEAKERthat you pick your way through.
47:49SPEAKER- Or what if it's like a, what if it's like a hacking,
47:51SPEAKERlike a cyberpunk kind of hacking,
47:54SPEAKERlike a tense hacker versus hacker thing
47:55SPEAKERwhere you're just one side of it.
47:56SPEAKERInstead of having to type the stuff in on the computer,
47:58SPEAKERyou just crank it and it like,
48:00SPEAKERit's like coming out of the cadence of what you're typing.
48:02SPEAKER- Yeah, actually like a hacking game would be really
48:04SPEAKERsome kind of hacking mini game kind of thing here.
48:08SPEAKERCould also be very cool.
48:11SPEAKER- Like, I just see you turning the crank
48:13SPEAKERto make the text type
48:14SPEAKERand that feels very satisfying to me.
48:16SPEAKER- Yes, yes, for sure.
48:19SPEAKERSome ideas here.
48:20SPEAKER- I think, look, I think we have a clear V1
48:24SPEAKERwith the charge of the fake battery with the crank.
48:27SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess.
48:28SPEAKER- I think we should just set about making the
48:30SPEAKERvery simple version of that.
48:31SPEAKERGet it on itch as fast as possible.
48:33SPEAKERThere's a need, there's a need in the market.
48:35SPEAKER- Yeah, I think once we have that in place,
48:37SPEAKERwe can choose to either expand it
48:39SPEAKERand like go in the idle game direction with that
48:41SPEAKERor maybe make that look like,
48:42SPEAKERmaybe hook it onto a text adventure
48:44SPEAKERand like make charging the battery for your hacking deck
48:48SPEAKERpart of the thing you have to do before you start
48:50SPEAKERand then like once your charge runs out,
48:52SPEAKERyou're done for the day, right?
48:53SPEAKERLike, I don't know, there's stuff around that.
48:56SPEAKER- Yeah, I think that is a pretty solid winner of an idea.
48:59SPEAKERIt does, however, not fulfill my desire
49:03SPEAKERto move a character around the screen.
49:05SPEAKER- Well, look, I think phase one, start simple.
49:08SPEAKERPhase two, move a character around a screen.
49:12SPEAKER- Okay, fair.
49:14SPEAKER- I mean, look, the other one I would totally go down
49:16SPEAKERis the Space Invaders with the crank machine gun
49:19SPEAKER'cause I feel like the crank machine gun
49:21SPEAKERis an underserved market right now.
49:23SPEAKER- Yeah, let's see, I'm thinking manually
49:26SPEAKERin terms of manual dexterity there.
49:28SPEAKERSo you'd be moving left and right with the D-pad
49:29SPEAKERand shooting with the crank?
49:31SPEAKER- All the shooting is with the crank.
49:32SPEAKER- Do you think, would it be tough to move left and right?
49:36SPEAKERWould you be unbalancing the unit by cranking it a lot?
49:38SPEAKERWould that be tough?
49:39SPEAKERI guess you could try that right now.
49:40SPEAKER- I have been practicing.
49:42SPEAKER- Are there any games that you've seen
49:43SPEAKERthat use the D-pad and the crank at the same time?
49:45SPEAKER- Yeah, there are definitely some games
49:48SPEAKERthat use the D-pad and the crank at the same time.
49:49SPEAKERIt is unusual, but it doesn't seem destabilizing.
49:53SPEAKERAnd so the other thing I was thinking
49:55SPEAKERis that you could do forwards, cranks,
49:57SPEAKERshoots the bullets, and backwards goes back in time.
50:01SPEAKER'Cause I haven't seen a whole lot of,
50:03SPEAKERthis might be the second iteration game
50:05SPEAKERrather than the, this seems like it's more complicated.
50:08SPEAKER'Cause if you're going back in time,
50:09SPEAKERyou have to keep memory,
50:10SPEAKERyou have to keep the game state and memory,
50:12SPEAKERand there's a bunch of nonsense that goes with that.
50:15SPEAKEROr it has to be deterministic
50:16SPEAKERso you can just roll backwards a frame,
50:18SPEAKERwhich is another level of challenge.
50:23SPEAKERSo I don't know.
50:24SPEAKER- You know what I'm realizing here?
50:26SPEAKERPretty easy to think of ideas.
50:28SPEAKERExecuting on them is perhaps going to be a different story.
50:31SPEAKER- Well, I mean, this is why we start
50:33SPEAKERwith the simple one, right?
50:34SPEAKER- It's true, it's true.
50:35SPEAKER- Yeah, I think this is a good place.
50:38SPEAKERI think this is a good place to kind of like,
50:39SPEAKERI would love to hear what people think.
50:40SPEAKERYou can post it in this week's channel in the Discord.
50:42SPEAKERYou can send an email to techpod@content.town.
50:47SPEAKERYou can hit us on Twitter if you want it.
50:48SPEAKERWill Smith or @bradshoemaker.
50:50SPEAKER- Yeah, for sure.
50:51SPEAKERLet us know if we're having delusions of grandeur here
50:53SPEAKERor if you have any advice or--
50:55SPEAKER- Or which ideas you like.
50:56SPEAKERWhich ones do you think are,
50:57SPEAKERwhich ones, you know, hey, you have a play date,
50:59SPEAKERwhich ones would you like to play?
51:00SPEAKERLet us know.
51:01SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, anything you want to take part in?
51:03SPEAKERTips, tricks?
51:04SPEAKER- Yeah.
51:06SPEAKER- I don't know when, I guess no timeline
51:09SPEAKERfor producing any work on this just yet.
51:13SPEAKER- I mean, look, I'm ready to go right now.
51:15SPEAKERI blocked out the whole weekend.
51:16SPEAKERI'm just going to jam out a battery gauge.
51:18SPEAKER- Got nothing else going on, right?
51:20SPEAKER- I'll give you, do you think that, okay,
51:21SPEAKERso here's the thing.
51:22SPEAKERDo you think the battery gauge is an analog,
51:24SPEAKERlike, is it all the way,
51:25SPEAKERis it just a series of like one to 100 pixels high
51:28SPEAKERand you fill it up or do you think it's like bars?
51:31SPEAKER- You know what I'm envisioning is,
51:33SPEAKERyou remember the old original version of iOS
51:35SPEAKERbefore they went to the flat design
51:36SPEAKERthat had the nice green rounded battery?
51:39SPEAKER- Yeah.
51:39SPEAKER- Like the nice, the horizontal battery that had the nice,
51:42SPEAKERit filled up with a nice green rounded gradient looking.
51:46SPEAKER- Uh-huh.
51:46SPEAKER- Thing, that's what I've got in my head.
51:48SPEAKER- See, I was thinking about, I was thinking about,
51:52SPEAKERI'm looking for one.
51:55SPEAKERI was thinking about one that looks like,
51:57SPEAKERlike that has like bars that are like 10 different bars
52:01SPEAKERalong the way.
52:02SPEAKERSo you can get a percentage idea like.
52:05SPEAKER- Yeah, that, okay, that's a good, yeah.
52:07SPEAKERI started to say, I don't,
52:08SPEAKERI feel like bars are not fine-grained enough
52:10SPEAKERto show your progress, but I guess,
52:12SPEAKERI guess being able to see in increments is also useful.
52:14SPEAKER- Here's the thing, you can fill them up from bottom to top,
52:17SPEAKERlike to show the overall level and you can show,
52:19SPEAKERyou can go across as you're filling the bars too.
52:22SPEAKER- So that is thinking like a devious micro transaction,
52:26SPEAKERlike revenue per user type thing of like progression
52:31SPEAKERwithin progression,
52:32SPEAKERlike you've got your overall battery progression,
52:34SPEAKERbut then each bar is its own meter to fill.
52:36SPEAKER- Yeah you can.
52:37SPEAKER- Milestones on, inside of milestones.
52:39SPEAKER- Look, once you get good enough,
52:40SPEAKERand once you charge that battery enough,
52:42SPEAKERwe can sell you a charge accelerator.
52:44SPEAKER- Hmm.
52:45SPEAKER- That will increase the amount of charge
52:46SPEAKERyou can generate per crank.
52:48SPEAKERYou know, it's a more harder, harder power,
52:51SPEAKERbut more energy.
52:53SPEAKER- We have to stop saying these out loud.
52:55SPEAKERWe can't give these away anymore.
52:56SPEAKER- Okay, okay, okay.
52:57SPEAKERI just emailed it myself.
52:57SPEAKERWe own it now, it's ours, patent pending.
53:01SPEAKER- That totally works, right?
53:02SPEAKERI'm sure that's legally binding.
53:04SPEAKER- Yeah, why not?
53:05SPEAKERThat sounds great.
53:07SPEAKERI think that's a good place as anything
53:08SPEAKERto wrap it up for the week.
53:10SPEAKER- This is a fun brainstorming session at least.
53:12SPEAKER- Yeah, so if you liked this episode,
53:15SPEAKERif you didn't like it, please let us know.
53:17SPEAKER'Cause we do love feedback,
53:19SPEAKERand it helps us to know if this is an idea
53:21SPEAKERthat you all are interested in.
53:22SPEAKERLet's thank our patrons,
53:24SPEAKER'cause it's that time of the show.
53:26SPEAKER- Yeah, let's do that.
53:27SPEAKER- If you would like to find out how to support
53:28SPEAKERBrad and Wilma to TechPod,
53:29SPEAKERwhich is 100% listener supported,
53:33SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/techpod,
53:37SPEAKERand for as little as two bucks a month,
53:39SPEAKERsign up to support the show,
53:41SPEAKERwhich we really, really appreciate.
53:44SPEAKERAs always, thank you to our executive producer,
53:46SPEAKERto your patrons, including Paddle Creek Games,
53:48SPEAKERmakers of Fractured Veil, Andrew Solosky,
53:51SPEAKEROcto Thorpe Bunny Crimes.
53:54SPEAKERThe actor who played Wedge is Ewan's uncle,
53:57SPEAKERJacob Chappell, Joel Krauska, The Twinkie Challenge,
54:02SPEAKERDavid Allen, and James Kamik.
54:04SPEAKERI wonder what the Twinkie Challenge is.
54:05SPEAKERIs that how many Twinkies?
54:07SPEAKER- Ooh, I don't know.
54:08SPEAKER- I haven't had a Twinkie since somebody fell
54:12SPEAKERin that box of Twinkies in the basement.
54:13SPEAKER- Oh, God.
54:14SPEAKEROh, why did you remind me of that?
54:16SPEAKER- I ate so many Twinkies when that box
54:17SPEAKERwas between me and Jeff, it was bad.
54:19SPEAKERI would just look to the left and be like,
54:21SPEAKER"Hey," and Jeff would kinda nod at me,
54:23SPEAKERand then we'd both reach in and grab a Twinkie.
54:25SPEAKER- Just Twinkie me.
54:26SPEAKER- I mean, I went from never having had a Twinkie
54:31SPEAKERto never wanting to see a Twinkie again
54:32SPEAKERin my life faster than I thought was possible.
54:35SPEAKER- I mean, they're really just sugar.
54:36SPEAKER- They're delicious.
54:37SPEAKER- There's nothing else in there.
54:39SPEAKER- They're so good.
54:39SPEAKER- Did you eat the smushed ones?
54:41SPEAKER- No, I didn't.
54:41SPEAKERNo, once Ethan's ass went on him,
54:43SPEAKERI didn't want any more to do with him.
54:45SPEAKER- Yeah, that's fair.
54:46SPEAKER- Yeah, no thank you, sir.
54:47SPEAKERDid you?
54:48SPEAKER- No, I didn't really think of those Twinkies
54:50SPEAKERtoo much, honestly.
54:52SPEAKERMy Twinkie, look, my capacity for Bojangles is infinite,
54:56SPEAKERbut for Twinkies, pretty limited.
54:58SPEAKER- Look, if I was eating a little Debbie
54:59SPEAKERor a snack cake thing, I wanted a star cake.
55:01SPEAKERThat's where my wedding was.
55:02SPEAKERA little rice. - Oh, really?
55:03SPEAKEROh, man.
55:04SPEAKER- Some carob.
55:05SPEAKER- It's all about the oatmeal cookies
55:07SPEAKERor the fudge rounds around here.
55:09SPEAKER- Oh, I don't know if I,
55:10SPEAKERit's funny, that was a variety of snack
55:13SPEAKERthat my mom explicitly banned from the house.
55:16SPEAKER- Oh, really?
55:17SPEAKERWell, not here, so then I can tell you
55:19SPEAKERyou were probably better off.
55:20SPEAKER- We would occasionally get Oreos or something like that,
55:22SPEAKERsomething really tragically bad for you,
55:24SPEAKERbut the kind of in-between local bakery type snacks
55:30SPEAKERwere never around.
55:31SPEAKERWe would have occasionally a batch
55:33SPEAKERof chocolate chip cookies or something,
55:34SPEAKERbut anyway, that'll do it for us this week.
55:38SPEAKERIf you, oh, I guess we come up with a name later
55:42SPEAKERfor the game, the battery meter.
55:44SPEAKER- Oh yeah, that's like the last thing.
55:47SPEAKEROh, we need a project name.
55:48SPEAKERThat's something, that's our homework.
55:50SPEAKEROur homework is to come up with a good code name.
55:52SPEAKER- We can do it for the cold open next week.
55:53SPEAKER- Yes, that sounds good.
55:54SPEAKER- Okay, thanks for listening, everybody.
55:56SPEAKERWe will see you all next week and have a wonderful week.
56:01SPEAKER(upbeat music)
56:04SPEAKERyou