Deep Space and Dragons
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Deep Space and Dragons
Episode 76: Yard Work Fiascos, Mobile Gaming Madness, and Hilarious Signs
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Ever wondered how a simple yard task could turn into a comedy of errors? This episode kicks off with a hilarious recount of winter yard work mishaps that lead to a surprising discovery in the spring. My fight with an electric edger and eventual surrender to manual labor will have you in stitches, and you'll definitely relate to the pains of aging and the unexpected challenges of what should be simple tasks.
From lawn tools to mobile games, we switch gears and dive into our favorite mobile games, quirky shopping insights, and a wild Dungeons & Dragons session. We discuss everything from "Vampire Survivors" to the value disparity between bubble tea and bulk green tea, and even the joy of Costco trips. Plus, you'll learn how mobile gaming can be a lifesaver for managing ADHD during remote classes, and why "Vampire Survivors" is the best budget-friendly game out there.
Finally, we pull no punches critiquing the often misleading world of mobile game advertisements and the evolution of classics like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon. We share our frustrations with deceptive ads, the allure of handheld gaming devices, and the challenges of adapting beloved games to mobile platforms. Wrapping up with some humorous stories about odd public signs and strange rules, this episode promises a mix of laughter, nostalgia, and valuable insights. Tune in and join the fun!
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Zero On our show. Remember anything we say is meant to be satire. Please, please, do not actually go get a Carl tattoo, no matter how much that would fill us with joy, Unless you want to.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean what's new with me and what's new with you? That's not satire, that's just anecdotes from our daily lives.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's satire, especially when you actively see a crime and put it into your what's New With Me? It's definitely satire, probably scripted.
Speaker 2:Or else, like it could just be like a list of testimony, which is probably unwise.
Speaker 1:So, now that this disclaimer's been given, what's new in the Carl-verse?
Speaker 2:I ask hesitatingly Okay, okay, well, so Last winter. That's not new with you, like by definition, but Okay, let's see where you're going.
Speaker 1:I'll follow the pipeline. Last winter you played with my heart Like no, no, no.
Speaker 2:I tried to shovel my sidewalk and, uh, last winter you played with my heart. No, no, no, I tried to shovel my sidewalk and the sidewalk got noticeably more narrow closer to the house, to the point where it was more narrow than the shovel, which is problematic because then you can't really shovel because you're trying to shovel dirt.
Speaker 1:It was a big hassle, so moments like this I wish we had an editor with little talking Carl and Richard like chibis, so someone could just put big hassle. So moments like this I wish we had an editor with little talking carl and richard like chibis, so someone could just put a thought bubble next to me and be like I have no idea where he's going with this because saying it's less fun than if it was animated well.
Speaker 2:So, uh, the snow melted because it is springtime here in saskatchewan, did it well? I mean, saskatchewan has two seasons, and those are winter and construction, so it's currently construction season.
Speaker 1:For context, I made a joke at my last D&D game and it's like I've finally been in Ontario long enough to have thoughts about damp cold versus dry cold, because damp cold's not a real thing and you're all just a bunch of wimps. But now I've gotten soft.
Speaker 2:Anyways, and soft Anyways. So the snow melted, and what it revealed is that the grass from on the other side of my walkway had started to overgrow onto the sidewalk.
Speaker 1:Yes, if only it was a parking lot, you wouldn't have had this problem.
Speaker 2:It was like a good three or four inches overgrown onto the sidewalk as it got closer to the house. But so I decided that I would deal with this, that I'd be able to shovel the walk when the winter returns, because it will return.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised it's not already there.
Speaker 2:I mean it's getting close. Actually, it's raining today, so it can't rain there, that's good. Oh, no, yeah, anyways. But so I had to get rid of all this dirt that was overgrown onto the sidewalk, and so I was like, hey, Dad, I need a weed whacker. And he's like, yeah, and you also have this edger. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to borrow the edger too for edging your lawn. I mean, there's dirty contacts, but that's not what we're going with here.
Speaker 2:Let me just remove that, anyways. But the problem with the electric edger maybe it's a problem with me, maybe I just don't know how to use it but the ground isn't level and I don't know where the edge of the sidewalk is, and so I was trying to edge the sidewalk but sparks were were flying, chunks were flying. It's like man, I'm just gonna like ruin this edger and the sidewalk if I try and use the electric one. So I had to go buy a manual edger, which is basically just, uh, like a semicircle on the end of stick. I see, and you just, and you just ram it into the ground at the edge of your sidewalk and then it cuts the dirt. And you just ram it into the ground at the edge of your sidewalk and then it cuts the dirt and you just pick it up and throw it in the compost.
Speaker 1:I don't know why my first thought when you said that was weed whacker with intensity.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, maybe it could work. I don't know, that would be an interesting. No, that would probably just make a mess. It would just send everything flying everywhere. No, that would probably just make a mess. It would just send everything flying everywhere. In any event, based on my experience, using a manual edger is more time-consuming, but if you don't know what you're doing, it actually works better. But the actual point of the story is that the next day I realized that I don't do enough manual labor because I don't have any calluses on my hands, so my hands were sore. That's the entire point of the story.
Speaker 1:Is your hands sore because you have white collar hands, because you spent too much time being a corporate spy and not enough time hitting the iron?
Speaker 2:Something like that. It's like when you go to a playground and you swing on monkey bars and then, if you don't have calluses, it's like, well, maybe I just have soft palms. I don't know, I don't know how you deal with monkey bars, but the act of swinging actively irritates my hands because I don't know. I don't know how you deal with monkey bars, but the act of swinging it like actively irritates my hands because I don't have calluses from going outside.
Speaker 1:I guess I mean there could be one other factor here. Did you know that you're in your 30s?
Speaker 2:Well, I did not know that. I thought I was born before tiddlywinks came out. It's a good point.
Speaker 1:You could just be in your 1930s. It's like one of my hands are weak from physical labor and callus. I'm like that, or you've hit your quarter life crisis.
Speaker 2:Oh no, no it was definitely, if I had calluses, then my hand, like it was very specifically like right where my on my palms, right where my hands connect to my fingers, where you like do that, like you say, with monkey bars, where you, when you swing on a monkey bar, the part where you grip, right where you your fingers meet your hand. I've always I've actually always had a problem with that part of my hand getting irritated by hanging off things or grabbing things like handles that is hilarious and I enjoy that that.
Speaker 1:that's what's new of you segment. Is you got defeated by garden tools and monkey bars?
Speaker 2:No, no, I defeated the garden tools. The sidewalk is beautifully edged.
Speaker 1:Was that? Sam said he was too strong for tools, because I feel like that's the energy you're giving Beowulf, you're like, yeah, I'm just too strong for tools. Let bitches break it's a problem.
Speaker 2:Well, you know it's. All I'm saying is that I defeated the sidewalk overgrown grass. And my hands are no longer sore because I haven't done any manual labor in a couple days.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. You've hit level two, the least interesting level up for the vast majority of classes.
Speaker 2:So what's new with you there, richard?
Speaker 1:Homework let's see that doesn't sound new Well like I'm volunteering for convocation and I'm writing assignments, working on my masterwork project.
Speaker 2:Volunteering for convocation. What does that entail?
Speaker 1:Mostly handing out the short story compilation written by the year above me and greeting people when they come through the door and building flower ornaments arrangements.
Speaker 2:Like Lego flower arrangements or actual flower arrangements.
Speaker 1:Halfway between plastic flowers, plastic containers, but arranging them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I mean, the Lego ones are cooler. But whatever, teach their own.
Speaker 1:We have a budget crisis on colleges across North America. The Lego flower option is just no longer viable. That is the only reason, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah budget crisis because, well, it's funny because you're talking yard work and ironically I ended up going to my weekend D&D group a couple hours early to help a friend of mine with some yard work. Ie, hey, they'll give me treats if I mow the lawn Because, much like the common corgi, despite wanting to be a cat person, I may in fact be a dog, so happily I go to do yard work. And got rained out and just kind of thoroughly defeated. So instead we went to Costco and then, for $5 I have a 24-pack of green tea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Costco is amazing.
Speaker 1:I did a lot of psychic damage, because we had one for bubble tea recently and it was like $6 each right. And then we get this flat of green tea and I pointed that this flat of tea cost me less than your singular beverage and it was like I think it was, a 48 pack of like 555 milliliter bottles, like it was a lot and I'm just like, yeah, yeah, just sorry for doing the spiritual damage.
Speaker 1:They may never recover from that realization that their single cup beverage was the price of the flat of the same beverage. But that's. What's new with me is D&D yard work, and so I've been running Tomb of Annihilation and running a traditional hexcrawl campaign and I'm actually using random encounter tables. But my big twist is that I try and turn all of them into roleplay optional encounters.
Speaker 1:But, the players put themselves in a situation where they're like, ooh, we're going to cleverly ev. My big twist is that I try and turn all of them into roleplay. Optional encounters, yeah, okay. But the players put themselves in a situation where they're like, ooh, we're going to cleverly evade everything and I'm like a bunch of winged pterodactyl men attack you. Can we clever? Like, nope, they fly at you, they hate you, they're not good people. You see their flaying equipment on their side. One of them is wearing a human intestine as a necklace. Um, can we parlay with them? Nope, can I intimidate them? Probably not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean like they sound pretty intimidating themselves.
Speaker 1:So that was amazing. It was just a good, old-fashioned long D&D session and, like I said, what's new with me isn't so much interesting news, as last week was really intense and this week was very chill, and it was a nice balance.
Speaker 2:Hmm, well, I mean, it's good to have a balance in your life. If you're working too much, then you don't really have time to enjoy life. But if you spend too much time enjoying life, then you'll become sad that you're not accomplishing anything, pretty much.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm turning a barbecue chicken into chili. That's something. Chicken chili Chicken chili is a solid option Chicken bacon chili. So instead of ground beef, I'm going what's left of the barbecue chicken and some nice crispy bacons. That does sound pretty legit. And with that out of the way, let's, in record time, move to our topic, which is funny because we don't have a particular. This is like our most vapid topic we've had and we have, like the most time to tackle it, because we're talking mobile games the thing that's yeah. So I'm going to start with what's number 20 on this arbitrary list that I played a ton of and was worth every penny because of their innovative strategy.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, the list isn't entirely arbitrary. Android Authority is quite clearly the authority on Android devices, and so if they're talking about the best free Android games which I looked up because I have an Android device and I was going to make a bold statement Are they actually?
Speaker 1:the authority I kind of want to call shenanigans, because there's nothing stopping me from making a web domain and paying $50 to be Anime Authority or Pizza Authority. Also, how dope is Pizza Authority for a franchise name?
Speaker 2:Pizza Authority. We're the authority on pizza Right.
Speaker 1:And then you like make your car similar enough to cop cars that people are not sure if it's a bit or not. So that way you can do more crime and love to get the pizzas faster to people anyways, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I I assume that android authority is uh, I know nothing about adequately named, but I gave a full rant in class today that people are so interconnected now that if you click like on a pizza place, you may inadvertently fund an anti-abortion bill oh well, it's true, like some pizza places, will have political stance and make donations to mutual funds that are then used for political parties, my point being that I don't know if Android Authority is good or bad, nor does it matter for the rest of this conversation, because I want to shout out game number 20 on this semi-arbitrary list. I'm going to still state it Vampire Survivors. Have you played Vampire?
Speaker 2:Survivors? I have not, but it's one of those ones where you're like in the middle and surrounded by hordes of zombies and try and hold their vampires.
Speaker 1:So it's a bullet hell kind of game where, like enemies die, you walk around and it attacks automatically based on the weapon pattern. You pick up gems and level up, but they had this super innovative marketing strategy that made me love their product and their company.
Speaker 1:The game cost at the time I bought it $1. You just get the game. There was no DLC, no microtransactions, no pop-ups, no ads nothing. $1 was this full-ups no ads, nothing. $1 was this full-length game that kept getting updates. Eventually they had to raise the price because Steam was dinging them and they weren't actually even making their dollar. So I think it's like $4 now and it has DLC now for like $5, for like that doubles the size of your game. But I have sunk in an impressive amount of hours and it was back when I was doing remote classes that I'd just be playing that on the side screen to keep my ADHD focused. Yeah, my Vampire Survivors on PC is up to 200 hours playtime and they added local co-op to it as well, and they have their newest expansion as a contra crossover somehow well, apparently it's a free game on android oh, on android they do have.
Speaker 1:I will be clear if you don't spend your like four dollars and get the free version, when you die you can pay an advertise. Watch an advertisement play to get back up once. Oh, and it's just like yeah, no, they're like oh, we made our game and it did well and we're happy. I'm like, oh, this seems to be mostly bullshit free. That's all it had to do is be bullshit free and I'm happy. It's such an innovative tactic I just don't see in mobile games.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:But I do find the novelty to novelty funny the idea that I'm playing a game that you just use your finger to drag your character and there's no button presses which I really like that in a phone game when it doesn't expect me to use coordination on what's the worst controller ever developed Other than the Nintendo 64.
Speaker 2:Ah, the Nintendo 64.
Speaker 1:But to segue, since that's my experience of Vampire Survivor, what on this list is something you have an expertise on? Because it's probably not Genshin Impact, which I will rant about soon.
Speaker 2:Well see, the funny thing is, um I uh, when I said I wanted to talk about mobile games, it was because, um the advertisements for mobile games.
Speaker 1:The mobile games that have advertisements that I've seen. Oh, are we talking? Those fake advertisements where you're like this is clearly not even a real game or it's like somehow it's a cutscene of a bad game. And then you'll try the game and it's worse than the cutscene somehow and the cutscene wasn't even for a good game. It'll be like save the princess by dragging the sword, since that's not even the game it leads you to. It'll just lead you to Raid Shadow Legends.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, so there's one game I downloaded. There is an actual full game. It's called Save the Dog and it's a little dog face and then there's beehives on the screen and then you have X amount of time to draw a shape around the dog.
Speaker 1:I have seen that advertisement, yes, I did not believe it was real.
Speaker 2:There is actually a full game. That is just that. Somehow I do not see the potential to make a whole game out of that, but somehow there is a full game. That is just that. Somehow I do not see the potential to make a whole game out of that, but somehow there is a full game of that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to counterpoint with the dumbest mobile game I've played that I've played way too much of, so you know the one with the vials where you have to pour the vials into the other vials in the right order to make all the vials the same color of liquid, and that's the entire mechanic. It's like a super basic puzzle. Too many hours got spent on that for me on transit. I don't know what about. That specific kind of puzzle was soothing, but I remember getting so angry because it's like you played one stage. Here's a two minute advertisement. I'm like your game does not justify a price. I should just make one myself, program some kind of algorithm to randomly make me a solvable puzzle, spilling puzzle and just make it.
Speaker 1:I don't know, maybe put up some ads on Fiverr. This should definitely be doable.
Speaker 2:The reason I bring up the Save the Dog game is because I don't know if they're using open source sprites or something. Probably I would be the advertisement for the game that I actually downloaded. The saving the dog part was maybe 5% of the probably not even 5% of the actual game and the rest of the game was just I don't even remember. It was so generic, just anime art style, dark and gritty and like I was just like man. What even is this? I just wanted to save the dog. How did I click on the ad to save the dog and I can't. And then I try and find that game with the save the dog thing again. It's like, oh, there actually is just a full game with that exact sprite, but it was not that advertisement that I clicked on.
Speaker 1:See, that's super funny because I immediately think of like WarToon and things where it's like, if it was, even if it was the thing they were advertising, the thing they were advertising isn't even good. It's like, hey, look at this awesome edgy thing. It's just like you're not even like, just sell us the garbage. We were willing to give the garbage a chance, but it's like we went to get a cheesy cheeseburger expecting the stomach ache and then you put in it give us a cheesy cheeseburger. What is the cheesy cheeseburger too valuable for this corporation?
Speaker 2:Well so, but then when you play the, the free mobile games, and you get advertising, similar advertisements, like, uh, like, there's the one, this, there's a variety of different styles, but there's the one where it's like you pull the sticks out and like you have to drop water onto lava to be able to make the pathway to you know, if someone actually made that game for real, like made it full of actual puzzles, it could be interesting well, yeah, it could be interesting.
Speaker 2:But again, uh, any game anytime. I've been taunted by that ad and I've actually decided, like you know, maybe I'll check it out. Uh, that portion, the ads are never false. That is somewhere in the game.
Speaker 1:But it's like Somehow not the game Like he'll give you an advertisement for just like a straight-up rope topography puzzle and then not give you a rope topography puzzle game, because it'll somehow be like Mafia Wars where you have to keep clicking buttons to upgrade things to idle clicker things to play your rope puzzle, okay.
Speaker 2:so then there was another one, hero Wars. I remember this one because the advertisement it actually really intrigued me. I can see a lot of potential in the game design of the advertising.
Speaker 1:So I need to pause for a moment for a mini side tangent On an episode of Community. There is a person who went around trying to, like grassroots market, sell cars to people, and then they ran to the dean who would instantly buy anything the person was selling and they're like he's a level seven susceptible and I'm just like Carl looks at phone, Want to try this game. I do. I'm like he's a level seven susceptible.
Speaker 2:I mean, free is the best price.
Speaker 1:No, Firmly disagree.
Speaker 2:No, I firmly disagree On my vacation, specifically on the airplane when I didn't have Wi-Fi because I wasn't going to pay for Wi-Fi on a two hour flight.
Speaker 1:You think being closer? To the satellite would make the Wi-Fi cheaper, but no.
Speaker 2:I realized I don't have. Well, I don't generally have games on my phone anyway, but without internet connection my phone was useless as an entertainment device. It just became a brick. I mean, basically it just sat in the pocket in my seat on the airplane. But so then I've been looking at games. So, like I said, the last one I downloaded was called Hero Wars and the advertisement it always starts with this hero and he faces up against a monster and then somehow he loses all of his power and he's down to level one and then he falls into a dungeon and it's like you pick up a sword, so now you're level two, and then you find a guy that's level one and then he adds this level to you and he goes around clicking on guys that are lower level than him to add their level and then for some reason, they always have him click on someone who's obviously higher level than him and he just dies.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know why. So here's a psychological method they use to advertise these games. This is actually fun. So did you know a human being is most likely to want to help somebody? Humans are actually less vindictive than you think. If they see someone struggling on a puzzle they can solve, they have an instinct a literal instinct to fix it. So if you see someone lose at a winnable game, it'll bug you and that'll actually have more people download the game than if you see someone win at the game because you know you could just fix it. Nintendo's never bothered this marketing, but legitimately.
Speaker 1:If you just saw someone doing a Pokemon battle and just clicking the wrong attacks repeatedly, you'd be compelled to download it and do it right.
Speaker 2:That is interesting. I mean it worked on you. I was actually compelled to download this game. Like I say, I can see a huge amount of potential Because, like, when you're exploring this dungeon, you can see the level you need to get to. But I mean, there aren't that many mechanics actually described in the application.
Speaker 1:Although I find it funny. You sent me a list and don't want to talk about anything on it. That's just hilarious.
Speaker 2:Well, I do want to talk about one game on it, which is the number one, which is Alto's Odyssey, because I downloaded it after realizing that none of the games that I currently downloaded were on the list of best free games.
Speaker 1:Because you click Instagram real games. So it's, funny because I've also played some bad things. But one of the games I here's a really funny one, because it wasn't the game's fault that I quit it, so they made a game called yugioh duel links and what they did is they reduced the number of life points, reduced the number of character slots and started from the very start of yugioh cards right you could manually battle people or you could click the auto battle button so you could like build a deck to auto-battle.
Speaker 1:And then they put in the show characters and gave each one of them a power. So it's like if you had Weevil, it'd power up your bug guys, which meant building a bug deck had a point to it. So it's kind of like Yu-Gi-Oh Commander almost.
Speaker 1:I stopped playing it when the game made it to Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds and they started adding in cards from there. And I'm like I don't like these synchrosummic mechanics because they make each turn take longer and the game feels like it's wasting my time. So ironically, I quit Duel Links around the time they got to the cards where I quit original Yu-Gi-Oh because the game became too long of combo-driven turns because it didn't believe in rotating things out.
Speaker 1:It's like no. This game was pretty much like the perfect version of Yu-Gi-Oh for an app. You could buy packs. You could just fight missions, grind things. When you beat AIs, they drop their signature cards. But they ruined it by going into 5D and card games on motorcycle just isn't a fun game.
Speaker 1:I'm not even joking on the show, it's just like the mechanics weren't as fun because too much sacrifice, this search for this pull out this happened. You just kind of Remember playing Magic against Jeremy and you just kind of have to sit there for five minutes while he took his turn.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't that he was slow, play you just had that many things to do somehow. Yeah, just had too many things to do.
Speaker 1:So that's my mini rant about Yu-Gi-Oh, but back to this game you're about to talk about.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I'm still dancing around the list because, like, so on this, list then you should probably just actually download and play Honkai Star Rail because it made more money than Sony, and play Honkai Star Rail because it made more money than Sony. This year that one game from Hoyoverse made more money than Sony, the company. Huh, it's pretty good I've put. I don't think it tells me how many hours I put into it, because I play it on my computer and my phone. It's probably good that I don't know, because they're like oh yeah, we're just going to do a full-on sci-fi JRPG with a slot machine to get your characters.
Speaker 1:I'm like fuck you, dammit. This is well-written and I'm mad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, that's the one they used up. That actually had a decent compelling story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like they added a new planet where you're like in a dream hotel and it's like they just try way harder than any other mobile game I played. Like imagine you're playing your Final Fantasy game and then it busts into a minigame where you're filming a film reel and you're a gangster mouse on a rail shooting bullets at other gangster mice to earn tokens to try and unlock another character for your JRPG.
Speaker 1:Like there's a bit where you just run around as a gangster puppet for some reason and I'm like that was a mechanic you used like twice that took like God knows how much effort to make. So yeah, like even though it's entire monetization model of hey, if you really want this one character, you can give us money. You don't actually need any of them to play it at all and it's a one-player game so you're not really competing against people. You can borrow other people's characters for certain modes, but like eh, anyway, so Honkai Star Rail I like way more than their other one. They have Genshin Impact, which is just Zelda, breath of the Wild, but with a slot machine for your characters.
Speaker 2:I thought I never really bothered with the anime style games because I thought they were just like sex sells.
Speaker 1:No, no, although I will say so, I'm not going to give them a complete free pass, but the Hoyoverse ones aren't egregious for that. They're mostly, I don't know. It does lead to there being slightly more female characters than male characters, but the newest character they added is a robot cowboy with shark teeth who has a filter that makes him say fudging instead of the F-bomb, and it's a physical filter they installed in his robot body and he's angry about it. And he's just a straight-up cowboy, bounty hunter robot with a gun arm. So I'm like you know it's not just sex sales for those ones. However, I get a lot of advertisements for sex sales games.
Speaker 2:Well, so like one of the advertisements that I saw, I think they're for the same game.
Speaker 1:Probably.
Speaker 2:The first one, the normal one, there's a bunch of sticks and they're screwed to a wall and you're supposed to move the screws to an open screw hole to have all the sticks fall off the wall. Yeah, and I mean it doesn't really seem like a very complex puzzle, but then I'm pretty sure it's the same game, but the sticks are covering some sort of sexy warrior.
Speaker 1:I can safely say, I don't have that downloaded.
Speaker 2:I don't have that downloaded either, because I was just like sex sells doesn't sell. To me it's separation of church and state.
Speaker 1:Because I was just like sex sells doesn't sell to me it's separation of church and state, right Like, go read a book. My legitimate advice to people like I find that so off-putting to be playing a video game and it just being like, do you want this PG-18 scene? And I'm like no, I also get mad at TV shows for that too, where I'll I'll just yell, oh, damn it, Game of Thrones, you could have just faded to black. I'm trying to watch my show. Okay, thanks.
Speaker 2:Also, you would much rather have the sex scenes replaced by CGI dragons.
Speaker 1:That is amazing editing. I stand by that. They were giving it an impossible task and they nailed it or didn't nail it, solving their objective, oh man.
Speaker 2:But the Hero Wars game. I downloaded it because I see a lot of potential in that style of game and that just isn't what the game is. And I was like, well, I haven't found it yet and it's like you're trying to collect heroes to do an auto-fighting against enemies and stuff. And I was like, where's this portion of the game? They even had a section where it was that stupid key puzzle. It was like, yeah, there's this little mini dungeon where you do a stupid key puzzle. Like what? What happened to the part that I actually clicked on the advertisement for?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the worst. There's one I clicked on a while back that was stupid. That was like you're an assassin, you only have one bullet and you have to angle your gun and just fire your one bullet to kill all your targets, as it just bounced off walls and I'm like this is definitely something someone can make as a grad project in college pretty easily.
Speaker 1:And then it started having base building and timers and crystals and three currencies. I'm like I just wanted to, I just wanted to Sakamoto daze this. Why are you doing this to me?
Speaker 2:You know the other thing about the free games, though, and this happened in that Mac battle game that we were playing for a while.
Speaker 1:Oh, the super Mecca champions, I think it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah I still, that game annoys me because it's so cool in concept and so bad. I've never more in my life wanted to be like, hey, can I buy your game and fix it and just gut the nonsense monetization features and just play the game. It's like you guys have spent so much time making skins, maybe make a second map. You guys have spent so much time making skins.
Speaker 2:Maybe make a second map. Free games in general, but this is also really bad on mobile games, especially because the screen is so much smaller and it's just filled when you're on the home screen for your game and it's just filled with different icons and each one has a notification badge. Yep, uh, because you know, there's a separate icon for your, for your daily challenge, there's a second icon for your sign-in challenge, there's a second icon for your season challenge, for your weekly.
Speaker 1:So how much do you think like a developer pays a shop for one of those prefab looks like Overwatch 2, marketplace interfaces you see on literally every game. I hope someone just made that and just outsells that to people. Just the menu screens.
Speaker 2:And it's just kind of ridiculous because the special events will have their own little icon with the notification badge and you're just lost in these notification badges trying to find out what you need to do to get rid of them. It's just annoying me so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fair, Like Star Reel's not too bad for that, although it does have a feature where a random party member will text you when you turn on the game for a random side conversation. It's one of my favorite parts of the game because one of the characters literally.
Speaker 2:It's in-game so it's not on your actual phone.
Speaker 1:It's in your in-game cell phone. Oh, okay, okay so in your in-game cell phone you'll get something like oh, what was it today? It was. Hey, did you download that new gacha game? I know you're not really into those, but I have a friend code and I get points for it. I'm like that meta joke is hilarious. Or there's another one where it's like oops, sorry, I just sent you a receipt by accident. Don't worry about the account number, I'm really not that rich.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm rich. Okay, what do you think about Pokemon Go, because that's still pretty high up on your list.
Speaker 1:I was going to move on the list too. So Pokemon Go is a weird one. So I, as I mentioned before, I don't actually like gesture controls on phone games, so I didn't enjoy flicking Pokeballs at things or tapping Pokemon to battle or just playing a worse version of Pokemon. Right, but I like going for walks. But also I don't know if this is like a meta richard problem or not, but I knew from day one. It's like okay, if they're gonna add like 900 pokemon, I'm never gonna have a complete collection on this thing and they, even though it's like wait, can I use the pokebank to bing my pokemon go things? Sometimes there's like things you can get from going to the real games. But I'm like you know this is weird because I can be entertained enough on the walk with my thoughts or my friends. So I literally only played Pokemon Go to give gifts to my friends because it would make them go on walks with me.
Speaker 1:It's like conceptually I should love it, but it doesn't engage my brain nearly enough to hold my interest and doesn't really fill the niche it does for a lot of other people and I've heard people be like, oh, I'll just go on slow moving street cars to catch pokemon because it moves at a good speed for it.
Speaker 1:I'll be like what, what's the end game? Because I I play games to either get a story from them or to beat Carl at them. So like a lot of these like cozy life sim solo games, if I don't have someone to show off my Pal World base to, I'll get bored of Pal World kind of thing. Like I don't get satisfaction from busy work, I guess, is how it goes. So I need a game that's like story engaging or conversation-starty engaging. So Pokemon Go was just Pokemon Yellow but you could battle people within phone range and I could just go on a bus and see who wants to Pokemon battle and it lit up. Everyone else that was nearby, x and Y kind of did. And then they stopped doing that because Nintendo's special Pokemon games.
Speaker 1:X and Y has a bit of a bad rep, but its online features actually just worked. They just showed you it was online. You could click on them, give them boosts or trade with them or battle them Like it just had actual friend connectivity and they forgot how to do that.
Speaker 2:Wait yeah. So why do you say X and Y has a bad rap, then oh, just a lot of people in the various Pokemon communities.
Speaker 1:No one has ever listed X and Y as their favorite Pokemon game, except for I think it was actually my favorite Pokemon game, and they have some valid criticisms, like it's one of the easier Pokemon games, which is a weird criticism to make with Pokemon, even though it's true and it's like had some uneven pacing.
Speaker 1:It was weird that most of the Mega Evolutions were just rocks in places. It didn't really have a good post game like. People made some decent arguments for it, but I really liked it, but I don't want them to make a remake of it, because there's so much room for improvement that you could make a really good game based off of it, which is why the new Legends game taking place in that region could actually be really cool for me. Fair enough, but I digress. That is my thoughts on Pokemon Go. Is that I'd rather it? Just so I'm going to tie attention to it.
Speaker 1:A friend of mine recently acquired an analog pocket which is effectively a Game Boy emulator that can play actual Game Boy, game Boy Advance games where you can put in your SD card for your backup files of games you've legally obtained, and it just has nice clicky buttons. It's like a metal casing and I'm like this is just a good quality Game Boy. And I thought to myself and it just has nice clicky buttons, it's like a metal casing and I'm like this is just a good quality Game Boy. And I thought to myself I don't play Nintendo Switch on the bus, not because I'm afraid of breaking my Nintendo Switch or but because the games aren't optimized to be played on a moving bus. You're not playing Mario Kart successfully on a moving bus, on a Nintendo Switch it's a large screen your wrist will get sore.
Speaker 1:It's designed to be played when you're laying nearly vertically or on a TV. A lot of Game Boy Advance and DS games and Game Boy Color games were literally deliberately designed to be played in short bursts. That save frequently, that require bussable levels of dexterity, like you're not going to be successfully doing Street Fighter, but you're probably able to jump and pick up mushrooms on the transit Right right, so where.
Speaker 1:I'm going with this is that part of me is like oh man, should I just get a Game Boy and just go through the Pokemon series on my commute, rather than these phone mobile games that have awkward controls unless they're straight-up turn-based, it's like they're not optimizing the game for the device. The game is on.
Speaker 1:So to rant about Genshin Impact a bit it has all the Breath of the Wild mechanics, from cooking to climbing, to using your ice magic to freeze the water to run across it. Like it is a free cost AAA game that inexplicably can run on a cell phone. It's an amazing technological feat. Strings off the board to get the adult anime girl photo game is the same cost as an actual functional breath of the wild on your phone is actually an absurd concept to think about. Like hankai star rails on its third year and it's literally just. Oh, you put a game that's probably equal in quality to final Fantasy X for free on a phone because enough people will spin the slot machine to try and get the pop star who got shot in the throat and has a voice amplifier who uses the power of a song to let you take multiple turns that you can subsidize everyone who doesn't pay for it by the four people who get obsessed with it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and I'm just like a lot of these phone games that expect me to have controls and use them, and not just because of my disability, but also probably because of my disability, turns out that may matter, Might be a factor here. I'm like. I'm not playing Call of Duty on a cell phone.
Speaker 2:I'm not playing an EA Sports game on a cell phone.
Speaker 1:I'm not playing League of Legends on a cell phone.
Speaker 2:I do find it funny that, like how would Call of Duty Mobile even work?
Speaker 1:One thumbstick to move around, another one to shoot.
Speaker 2:And look around. I mean, I guess, if you get one of those super cool gaming phones that have, like air triggers and like, there's some pretty cool gaming phones that are practically like a Nintendo Switch in a phone- but it's kind of funny, like in their effort to make these handhelds better, they're becoming less practical at being handhelds.
Speaker 1:Like I look at the Steam Deck and I'm like, yeah, that's a laptop you hold with the processing power of a laptop. I think it's going to be less effective at being a Game Boy than a Game Boy.
Speaker 2:And apparently they can just create AAA games for free on mobile phones. But I assume you're going in the direction of having poor controls with Genshin Impact.
Speaker 1:So Genshin Impact I can't play on the phone. I play with an Xbox controller on my computer. However, that could just be a me problem, but because Star Rail is a turn-based game where I'm using one analog stick to move around, the other one to open boxes and things and then the actual fights are Well, they're semi-turn-based. I can successfully do that on Transit, which is why I've played so much of it. Another thing that's weird is they have a lot of card games on here, like Marvel, Snap and Runeterra and this, and that the problem with card games on a phone is matches have a set amount of time and commutes don't A lot of these games have completely. Card games have thrown out single player modes completely.
Speaker 1:Right and that's what I would play on a bus and it kind of bugs me. Personally, I don't want to play a phone game against other human beings because on one hand, they'll played more than me and beat me, and the other hand, you can't just pause it and stop. You didn't just have to lose a match and go further down on a ladder right, like I played marvel snap for a while and I'm just like.
Speaker 1:Card games are already predatory by nature having to grind for booster packs and the person with better cards will probably beat you. But also they've like gotten rid of most single player content and it's a weird thing to say, but I'd prefer a single player card game like Pokemon cards for the Game Boy Color, where you actually went around and fought the gym leaders to get more cards, cause I like card games but I don't like human beings. On my cell phone morning commute.
Speaker 2:Marvel Snap you said actually was mechanically pretty interesting, though, right.
Speaker 1:It was. That's why I played it for as long as I did. But first it got really stale after a while, like most card games do, when they don't have card rotations, where people start to settle on their decks. And I ran into that problem of people who played it every day just had better cards than me, right right, like I was. Like you know, when you get high enough mythic ranked in one of those card games and they give you a number to know, like actually how good you are, Right so.
Speaker 1:I got like pretty top tier in that game but I got bored because these digital card games are so and I'm going to use our F-bomb here. Fucking cheap, for no reason. They'll be like want to play virtual magic cards Packs cost the same. They'll be like oh, you want to play Marvel Snap? Do you 20 bucks a trading card? They'll be like what are you on? Just, you're a free game. They just gave me a free Zelda Breath of the Wild versus out here handing out Breath of the Wild, and you won't give out trading cards, pieces of cardboard, for free. Are you insane?
Speaker 2:Uh-oh, but you can't even trade them for free.
Speaker 1:They removed trading from all these games because you'd buy less. So instead they'll just occasionally give you wild cards for too many doubles. It's insane. I hate it so much. Like can I just defeat the entire cell phone card economy by making a game where you get all the cards by playing the game? You just unlock them from doing quest, submissions and things and then you can trade them with people. Do I just defeat them that way? But my card game is free and you don't have to buy the booster packs. Like you know how Kirby Air Ride had that awesome achievement grid.
Speaker 2:Right how sick.
Speaker 1:would that be as a way to unlock cards, For example? To use a magic example, what if you unlocked Androzzis by doing things like win a game with enough to void lands, and each Androzzi you played for quests would then unlock you more Eldrazi stuff?
Speaker 1:Like you unlock Emrakul by having winning a game with 20 mana untapped. So you have to, like, literally, with your starter deck, try to have enough mana in play to then unlock it from the achievements, like that's how I'd go about. It is making a card game, video game that actually cares about being a video game.
Speaker 2:I blame Hearthstone. The number one list, the number one game on the best free Android games on Android Authority is Alto's Odyssey.
Speaker 1:Yes yes, so please tell me what this?
Speaker 2:is I've never heard of this thing in my life I've never heard of it either before I'm seeing this list, but I was like, okay, I'll give it a try because it's number one, aren't? Those, those mint and things old people like no, oh, those are all toys, please continue well, okay, have you ever played or seen Hill Climb Racing?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay. So basically it's kind of like that where it's a procedurally generated side-scrolling map and your goal is to just get as far as you can, except for you're like on a surfboard riding through the desert, and you're like going down the hills in the desert trying to do stunts to build up speed and and, uh, it's pretty, pretty cool because there's no ads while you're actually doing your run. There's occasionally no ads at the end of your run too, but most of the time there's ads after you do a run. That's fine. I don't know as far as mobile games go, like you were saying with card games, um, uh, where your match either has a set amount of time or doesn't, but it can go like you go for too long and make it not very good for actually doing.
Speaker 2:on transit, uh, where something like Alta's Odyssey, where it's like I gotta say we're not playing our phone games on the toilet well, I mean that's true, but uh, a lot of people do play mobile games in their own home when they could be using a pc or a game console instead.
Speaker 1:First there's energy, bandwidth, and then there's the amount of time. I have fallacy. So I had a conversation with a friend of mine, right before our meeting actually. So I got this cool new computer game called Until the Dawn, where you're playing as a Fox journalistic reporter who is thrown in jail by a corrupt mayor and you're trying to find evidence to prove that they're a criminal while escaping prison. And if you don't escape prison in time, you get shot in the face. Wow, so it's a really interesting narrative game.
Speaker 1:It has turn-based combat for like literally. Oh, I paid 50 bucks to get a toothbrush in prison and then taped some glass to it as a shiv. So when the crocodile guy tries to jump me for my money, I can shiv him, and then it breaks into like kind of like For the King combat. Actually.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's a really cool indie game exactly up my alley where, like, each of these prisoners has a big emotional story, yada, yada, yada. So my friend's like, hey, have you tried any more runs? Because when you get game over, it gives you a new game plus where you get to keep your skills you unlocked, so that way you have more powers to break out of prison. Right, it's almost like a not quite like a roguelike, but it's like. It's designed to give you game overs but you'll have better stats going into the next run. And my friend's like, oh, did you play this at all today? I'm like, well, I had a meeting with Carl at 930, which means I didn't. My brain is like, oh, between 7 and 930, I can't do anything serious.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to boot up an actual video game so guess what I did while waiting for you Played crappy Dragon Ball Super cards. I could have played it on my computer because it's not on my phone. But my logic is a lot of times people will play these mobile games or phone games because they don't want to commit themselves to a good game when they don't think they have the time to enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Breath of the Wild was the weirdest one for me for that I need to make sure I've booked out a chunk of my calendar to play Breath of the Wild, so I just play bad games instead, because I'm like oh, I'm not going to bust out Armor Core because I want to enjoy Armor Core, so instead I guess I'll play Honkai Star Rail while sitting on the couch watching Prison Break or something. I honestly think a lot of people probably play phone games while a show that's somewhat okay is going.
Speaker 2:So Alto's Odyssey I don't know if it deserves to be number one because you can jump and then if you hold jump, you do a backflip. So it's like the controls are extremely simple, very easy to pick up, but it's also not really complex at all. There's no story. It's just like see how far you can go, see what kind of new biomes you can discover, if you can get far enough, or what kind of stuff you can unlock from the shop, because you collect coins every time you do a run and then there's some stuff in the shop that is like oh, you can buy this thing for real money.
Speaker 1:Well, it's kind of funny looking at this list.
Speaker 1:So Tower of Fantasy is another game I played on PC which is just it was just sci-fi. Genshin Impact it was just Genshin Impact, but sci-fi Okay. Well, actually no, it was Genshin Impact but Xenoblade Chronicles, but not Xenoblade Chronicles X, because that was too cool for them and no one's on that level yet. Because, like Xenoblade's, like oh, I'm British and everyone's 12 and I have an anime girl turns into a sword and I'm like, yeah, okay. And Xenoblade Chronicles X is like you have a mech suit and you're in volcanic acid fighting a T-Rex. I'm like, wow, why is this so much cooler and why does no one know this game exists?
Speaker 2:Because it came out for the Wii U and everyone thought that was just another Wii.
Speaker 1:It was just the universe balancing right Like best game I played on the worst system makes sense. That's just karma. That's just karma, that's just karma. But yeah, that's my big rant to mobile games is. I definitely prefer story driven games that are strategic enough, like I would love it cause so they love to put mobile bullshit in mobile games. Right like Fire Emblem Heroes is a terrible game, right cause they stripped all the strategy, plot, story and joy out of Fire Emblem and made it a waifu collector or a husbando collector.
Speaker 1:Fire Emblem probably actually has more men. It might be a husbando collector, okay. And I'm like can you just like, instead of that, take those old Fire Emblems right, but instead of having to use a virtual A button, b button and D pad like an emulator, make them work with touch controls and call it no. Okay, it's like how Mario Run. I'm like wait, so you made this, instead of just making Super Mario World work on this phone. You know you own Super Mario World, right Nintendo and like ROMs are so like.
Speaker 2:Modern games are huge, but even N64 ROMs are so like. Modern games are huge, but even N64 ROMs are like tiny.
Speaker 1:Well, also though, like my earlier rant of a lot of games use those like simulated keyboard phone controls where, like one thumb controls a thumbstick and the other one's like, sometimes, buttons, and like I don't like that control setup at all, it's just really gross, hmm.
Speaker 2:Hmm, and like I don't like that control setup at all, it's just really gross. What kind of phone controls do you like then?
Speaker 1:Designed for the phone, like have buttons light up that I push? It's like if you want me to use one stick for camera controls and the other one to move. It's already not an optimally designed mobile game for me. Like I said, I prefer mobile games that are game a game boy advance that I hold and it's just a game boy advance. Fair enough, I'm starting to think to myself.
Speaker 1:I probably should just find my game boy advance to play that go through the entire library of like because they have a lot like oh, I'm pretty sure game boy have like a DS, especially one that can play, like the one that had the slot for Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Classic in it. I'm pretty sure that gives me, like all the Final Fantasies, most of the Pokemon and just a fine collection of games.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not sure you can actually play Game Boy Classic games on the PS. I don't remember, though I don't remember.
Speaker 1:Either You're right, you probably couldn't I know you can with one of those like analog pockets I was talking about because future tech, ah, future tech. So, with that, any more mobile games you'd like to talk about, because I mostly just angry ranted about controllers.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean mostly what else I would like to talk about, Because I'm mostly just angry ranted about controllers. Well, I mean, mostly what else I would have to talk about is how many times have you seen a playable ad?
Speaker 1:They seem to be increasing in commonality.
Speaker 2:They certainly do, and it's like you have to sit there and wait for it to run out for like 30 seconds. Um, that's the screw game I was talking about earlier. The non-sex sells one, yeah, um. Uh, it has a little timer on the top, uh, and I was like, okay, can I actually like solve this, get all these blocks to fall before the timer runs out? Uh, but even if the timer's only at halfway, uh, after you get to a certain point in the puzzle, that is like, oh, you actually played the puzzle. Well then you gotta download the game and they stop letting you play the game.
Speaker 1:So rude, even though the timer, yeah, it's so rude so I immediately turned on my Instagram to see if it advertised something at me. Well, I know it just advertised to me, having spied on us this whole conversation.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:The new Neopets trading card game. And the thing is I'm so offended that I'm probably the target audience for that. Out of everyone we know, I'm probably the most likely person to buy a couple Star Treks of the Neopets card game to try it.
Speaker 2:That's super funny.
Speaker 1:And I'm like okay, algorithm, that was a good try. I'll give you the points you deserve here.
Speaker 2:But there was another playable ad and Whiteout Survival, I think, is the name of the game.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've seen that one.
Speaker 2:Okay. Firstly, they have ads that don't reflect the playable ads, like the playable ad is just completely different than the ad that they actually play. But secondly, I've actually seen two different playable ads for the same game and it's like which one's the actual game.
Speaker 1:Which one's the real?
Speaker 2:Or are neither of them the real game and I'll download it and it'll be something else altogether, like what the heck?
Speaker 1:So I literally Googled playable ads and then I got three companies that are telling me that I can use them to easily make playable ads and I'm like, oh, you didn't list playable ads for me. You just told me that you can turn our leading playable templates into your next successful brand experience. So I think a lot of them probably use this website's like playable ad template to then edit the game into the thing they want to send people. Actually, how funny would it be if I made a Save the Heroes thing with sprites from characters from my book and it just led to a book. Continue it in your brain. Buy the Waltzz of blades now would be actually kind of a sick advertisement. I'm gonna be real.
Speaker 1:I don't think I'd sell a single book that way, but I know I'd anger a bunch of people like I make my playable ad like a top tier JRPG epic music like oh, this is awesome, finish the story here and it's just a book that would be super, super funny all right, and with that we move into our random question time, but which, because we have like ambient music, trying to do like the who wants to be an alien air or the weakest link music, it's not quite working for me.
Speaker 2:Oh, I forgot about the weakest link.
Speaker 1:Goodbye. Okay, a random question. I think it's targeted at you specifically. What is the most embarrassing thing You've ever said to a co-worker or boss?
Speaker 2:Most embarrassing thing I've ever said to a co-worker or boss. Mm-hmm, well, I mean, I so, I um. So I uh was talking to one of my female co-workers red flag and uh, my mom and my sister my sister had hosted this is a sensitive topic but my sister had hosted a sex toy party and my mom and my brother's wife, they tried edible underwear like eating it. They didn't actually try it on, I assume, I don't really know.
Speaker 2:But so I'm at work and I'm talking to a female co-worker and it was just topical in my mind. I asked them if they had ever tried edible underwear and immediately they gave me a somewhat distressed look and I was like, okay, I'm sorry, I apologize if that's too personal. You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. I was just curious, but maybe you don't want me to answer this, but it's just like, oops, oh, so often it's like I want to ask people questions that are like way too personal for work and, uh, that one came pretty close to crossing the line. They actually did answer, uh, and they had not tried edible underwear uh, but I probably would have just been fired on the spot from a college job probably like zero hesitation oh, wow.
Speaker 1:I mean like I guess it is sensitive, but at the same time it's like like it'd be so easy for someone to try and like spin that into like they were trying to proposition me. Yeah, I suppose like I were trying to proposition me.
Speaker 2:Oof, yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Like I'm trying to think of the most embarrassing. See, the problem is I don't have shame right. So I've literally been to like coworkers and been like who wants to come over and play imaginary elves with me? Zero hesitation. In my scandalous youth I've definitely asked out a co-worker or two and I've said some truly wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night cringeworthy things to people. But at the time they're never embarrassing to me because I'm neurodivergent and it wouldn't occur to me to be embarrassed until someone explains what I did wrong. So I honestly have no idea, but I'm sure people around me have lists well, okay, well, what's the most embarrassing thing was?
Speaker 2:yeah, the most embarrassing thing that someone else told you was embarrassing, that you remember I honestly don't recall I think I've spent too long as a student.
Speaker 1:I know I'm fumbling this answer, but I honestly cannot remember.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't really know if, necessarily, I answered the question correctly either, because I wasn't necessarily embarrassed. It was just like oh, I didn't mean to make the other person feel awkward, I was just making conversation.
Speaker 1:Oh, I got it. This one's pretty bad, even for me. So I'm to a co-worker who had a couple sick days. I'm like, oh, how are you feeling? Oh, much better. I'm like, oh good, at least it wasn't cancer. It turned out it was. That would do it.
Speaker 2:That one was repressed.
Speaker 1:At least you don't have cancer is not the right thing to say. They came to work the next day, I didn't know. Oops, so that would be it.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't laugh because that is pretty, genuinely horrible, but wow yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was clearly worse for them. I suppose so. And one last question what is the most ridiculous thing you've worn to work?
Speaker 2:the most ridiculous thing I've worn to work.
Speaker 1:I'll answer this one first. I mean, halloween feels like it's cheating, but it doesn't undo the fact that I show up in a full Akatsuki road with Hitachi Uchiha makeup, sharing gun contact lenses and a straw hat. That is objectively, even by Halloween standards, ridiculous. But in my defense, I was planning to go like take a bunch of coworkers with me to play Naruto Ninja Storm 2, I think, on an IMAX screen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I mean.
Speaker 1:I or the time I wore sunglasses and cat ears and was a cool cat. Well, I mean, I've generally just wear my work uniform to work, so as weird as this sounds, because when I get changed for work, the times I'd show up in like a dress outfit, like what I normally wear now, when I worked at like the keg, and I'd like take off my kitchen uniform and like actually put on a tie that baffled the heck out of people or I'm like oh yeah, I have fancy plans afterward. They're like what, how?
Speaker 2:well, okay, so I mean, the real problem is that I get ready for work before I get to work. I'm already wearing my uniform. I will just commute in my uniform so I never have to change when I get to work, which means I can be exactly on time and not have to waste my first five minutes getting changed.
Speaker 1:You're the opposite of the average employee. On that one, they should pay you to get changed. I genuinely believe that.
Speaker 2:That might be true, but it's just like you know, if I'm scheduled at four o'clock, I will be there at four o'clock, ready to go, but I generally do not like to actually be early. Because I'm scheduled at 4 o'clock, I will be there at 4 o'clock, ready to go, but I generally do not like to actually be early.
Speaker 1:Because the logic of you should punch in 15 minutes before the start of your shift so you're ready to go at the start of your shift, feels illegal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I should just be ready to go when my shift starts. Yeah, that's fair game I wear my work shirt to I personally as a manager genuinely believe it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, okay, you punch an F4, get ready to work by 15. It's like, really, You're going to give everyone 15 minutes buffer. I'm like, yeah, they're humans Also. They'll be less gross if they go wash their hands first.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess that's true.
Speaker 1:People tend to be less gross, if you let them bring their uniform and have time to change into it and, like, use the restroom. I don't know, I just find giving people 50 minutes to start their day makes them less ugh. I mean holistic reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never really thought about, uh, washing your hands as a part of starting your shift, but it's like that's. You know, I go in there, I hang up my coat, I, you know, put my lunch in the cooler, wash my hands. It's not like I'm working right at 4 o'clock, but I don't wear anything unusual to work.
Speaker 1:Where, like one of my kitchen managers, would get so mad when people came dressed already because they'd give this big speech about how it's contamination to wear your uniform outside. But also, if you're going to have that policy, you should probably be the one washing the uniforms. Because if you have, to bring your uniform, to wash it and then bring it back. You've lost that argument already.
Speaker 2:Because you told them to take it home with them. I'm also fairly fortunate in that, apparently, the work shirts are fairly expensive, at about $45 each, but I, our boss, does not charge any employees for the shirts, and so I have a lot of shirts, which means you have a nice rotation going on. I have a nice rotation. I never have to wear a dirty shirt to work. I have enough that I have a clean one for every day.
Speaker 1:I actually have my name stitched into the arm kitchen chef's uniform sitting around somewhere and I'm like, yeah, that one was sweet. So I'm going to actually break tradition and do a third icebreaker question, because I feel like I dropped the ball on number one here, and then we'll wrap it up. Have you ever made a meme? Is the question. Have you made a meme to send to somebody before? Uh, no, I never have. So I've made a couple back when I first started building my internet profile, where I made some D&D memes. I really enjoy taking Magic the Gathering art and putting terrible puns on it, like what's a rogue's favorite material to make armor out of Hide.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So I made some of those. But I also take deep pride in my gif library. I've made for discord, communicating with people like I literally went in on youtube and made gifs of like lucy from disenchantment. For every possible situation. I would need a lucy from disenchantment, quote and that comes up in my day-to-day basis a lot like to do it, do it, do it. Gif I probably send at least once a day to someone made about to make a poor life decision.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:So, if it's not one you've made, what kind of memes do you send? Do you send clips? Do you send memes? Do you send random manga screenshots titled LOL, or are you just like? No, I'm more sophisticated. I use my words to communicate.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it largely depends on who I'm communicating with, but mostly I just send puns if I'm going to send something, or I mean, I guess, if you, I suppose if you consider Snapchat, because, like whenever, whenever I'm walking around, especially in an unfamiliar city, I look for peculiar signs you know, I feel like that counts, I think sending a weird sign out of nowhere is a type of memeing, I think.
Speaker 1:I don't know, our age might be showing here I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's just like, yeah, I see a sign. It's like that's kind of a funny looking sign. Like why did they need to make this sign and put it here?
Speaker 1:I love the logic that whenever someone's made a sign and put it somewhere, it's because someone has justified the existence of that sign well, okay, another, probably not a, uh a, but no, an excellent justification, correct.
Speaker 2:I was in Ontario somewhere and there was a sign that said no laptops or recording devices in the washroom.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 2:It was like you needed to put a sign that's kind of disturbing but also kind of an intriguing sign. So that was one of the signs that I took a picture of.
Speaker 1:ironically, you broke the rule to do it and with that, thank you everyone for tuning in to Carl and Richard present, deep Space and Dragons. Submit your random question to possibly win a mug.
Speaker 2:And, uh, I don't know, I have that mug.
Speaker 1:Something, something buy a book. Bye, Bye.