Ep. 323 - Ntscworld

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### Ep. 323 - Ntscworld

Your benevolent Insert Credit panel covers Palworld, video game mysteries, and the birth of a new speedrunning category, the 50% run. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Tim Rogers, and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.

[URL=https://i.imgur.com/xZI7r0j.png][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/xZI7r0j.png[/IMG][/URL]

**Questions this week:**

  • 1. Frank asks: What is the proper nomenclature for the Snatcherlike video game? (13:09)
  • 2. Is Palworld satire? (20:28)
  • 3. Invent a new speedrunning category (28:40)
  • 4. Stephanie asks: What’s a video game unsolved mystery or urban legend want solved or confirmed? (39:35)
  • 5. Which individual video game enemy has killed the greatest number of players globally? (46:47)
  • 6. If you could swap any two video game sound effects between games, which ones would they be? (52:03)
  • 7. Who is the Batman of video games? (56:09)

    • **LIGHTNING ROUND:** GameFAQ&As: Sim City 2000 (01:04:37)

    Recommendations and Outro (01:17:18)

    **A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED:**

  • - [Weetabix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weetabix)
  • - [Uncle O'Grimacey](https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Uncle_O%27Grimacey)
  • - [FITCRUNCH Mint Chocolate Chip](https://fitcrunch.com/product/fitcrunch-mint-chocolate-chip-18ct-snack-size/)
  • - [Keebler Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keebler_Company)
  • - [Trix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trix_(cereal))
  • - [Jason Todd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Todd)
  • - [Honeycomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycomb_(cereal))
  • - [David Cronenberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cronenberg)
  • - [The Noid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Noid)
  • - [Santa Claus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus)
  • - [Tony & Friends: in Kellogg's Land](https://www.mobygames.com/game/161187/tony-friends-in-kelloggs-land/)
  • - [Snatcher](https://www.mobygames.com/game/7524/snatcher/)
  • - [Legend of Zelda series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/596/legend-of-zelda-series/)
  • - [Devil May Cry](https://www.mobygames.com/game/5086/devil-may-cry/)
  • - [Resident Evil](https://www.mobygames.com/game/1195/resident-evil/)
  • - [Shenmue](https://www.mobygames.com/game/3558/shenmue/)
  • - [Super Mario Bros. 3](https://www.mobygames.com/game/7300/super-mario-bros-3/)
  • - [The Secret of Monkey Island](https://www.mobygames.com/game/616/the-secret-of-monkey-island/)
  • - [Policenauts](https://www.mobygames.com/game/10538/policenauts/)
  • - [Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken](https://www.mobygames.com/game/39799/portopia-renzoku-satsujin-jiken/)
  • - [Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom](https://www.mobygames.com/game/13640/princess-tomato-in-the-salad-kingdom/)
  • - [Quake](https://www.mobygames.com/game/374/quake/)
  • - [Call of Duty series](https://www.mobygames.com/game-group/call-of-duty-series)
  • - [Palworld](https://www.mobygames.com/game/215998/palworld/)
  • - [South Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park)
  • - [Alanis Morissette](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alanis_Morissette)
  • - [Pokémon series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/475/pokemon-universe/)
  • - [Videoball](https://www.mobygames.com/game/79738/videoball/)
  • - [Pokémon GO](https://www.mobygames.com/game/79246/pokemon-go/)
  • - [Fortnite](https://www.mobygames.com/game/104208/fortnite/)
  • - [Awesome Games Done Quick’s adorable dog speedrun was just the start](https://www.theverge.com/24040350/awesome-games-done-quick-2024-how-to-watch-twitch)
  • - [Gyromite](https://www.mobygames.com/game/7323/gyromite/)
  • - [Super Mario 64](https://www.mobygames.com/game/3533/super-mario-64/)
  • - [Summoning Salt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summoning_Salt)
  • - [Sonic the Hedgehog series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/584/sonic-the-hedgehog-universe/)
  • - [Tokimeki Memorial](https://www.mobygames.com/game/45812/tokimeki-memorial/)
  • - [Castlevania series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/402/castlevania-akumajo-dracula-series/)
  • - [Animal Crossing: New Horizons](https://www.mobygames.com/game/141533/animal-crossing-new-horizons/)
  • - [Splatterhouse](https://www.mobygames.com/game/16377/splatterhouse/)
  • - [Metroid](https://www.mobygames.com/game/7303/metroid/)
  • - [The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild](https://www.mobygames.com/game/84595/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/)
  • - [Magic: The Gathering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering)
  • - [Red Dead Redemption II](https://www.mobygames.com/game/115902/red-dead-redemption-ii/)
  • - [Study finds bigfoot sightings correlate with black bear populations](https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/study-finds-bigfoot-sightings-correlate-with-black-bear-populations/)
  • - [David Cage](https://kotaku.com/detroit-dev-quantic-dreams-wins-lawsuit-without-actuall-1847716375)
  • - [The Wizard (1989)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_(1989_film))
  • - [Sylvan Tale](https://www.mobygames.com/game/15340/sylvan-tale/)
  • - [Phantom Dust](https://www.mobygames.com/game/19055/phantom-dust/)
  • - [Boundary Break](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Break)
  • - [P.T.](https://www.mobygames.com/game/70757/pt/)
  • - [oddheader](https://www.youtube.com/user/oddheader)
  • - [GameHut](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfVFSjHQ57zyxajhhRc7i0g)
  • - [Goomba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goomba)
  • - [Pac-Man](https://www.mobygames.com/game/138/pac-man/)
  • - [Elden Ring](https://www.mobygames.com/game/174989/elden-ring/)
  • - [Space Invaders](https://www.mobygames.com/game/8806/space-invaders/)
  • - [Donkey Kong](https://www.mobygames.com/game/574/donkey-kong/)
  • - [Tetris](https://www.mobygames.com/game/42121/tetris/)
  • - [Minecraft](https://www.mobygames.com/game/110401/minecraft/)
  • - [Grand Theft Auto series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/167/grand-theft-auto-series/)
  • - [Villager](https://www.ssbwiki.com/Villager)
  • - [Super Smash Brothers series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/508/super-smash-brothers-series/)
  • - [Tom Nook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Nook)
  • - [Impossible Mission](https://www.mobygames.com/game/11254/impossible-mission/)
  • - [The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind](https://www.mobygames.com/game/6280/the-elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind/)
  • - [Tim Allen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Allen)
  • - [Streets of Rage](https://www.mobygames.com/game/6599/streets-of-rage/)
  • - [Earthworm Jim](https://www.mobygames.com/game/2927/earthworm-jim/)
  • - [Batman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman)
  • - [Michael Keaton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Keaton)
  • - [Robert Pattinson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pattinson)
  • - [George Clooney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Clooney)
  • - [Batman Begins (2005)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_Begins)
  • - [Popeye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye)
  • - [Spider-Man licensees](https://www.mobygames.com/group/471/spider-man-licensees/)
  • - [Mortal Kombat series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/87/mortal-kombat-games/)
  • - [Joker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joker_(character))
  • - [Jack Nicholson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Nicholson)
  • - [Batman (1989)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(1989_film))
  • - [The Dark Knight Returns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_Returns)
  • - [Shigeru Miyamoto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto)
  • - [Assassin's Creed series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/8195/assassins-creed-series/)
  • - [Watch_Dogs](https://www.mobygames.com/game/66948/watch_dogs/)
  • - [Gunpei Yokoi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi)
  • - [Blasterhead](https://vgmdb.net/artist/1163)
  • - [Gex](https://www.mobygames.com/game/8333/gex/)
  • - [Bubsy](https://www.mobygames.com/group/794/bubsy-series/)
  • - [Bruce Waynne](https://www.mobygames.com/person/807464/bruce-waynne/)
  • - [Def Jam: Fight for NY](https://www.mobygames.com/game/15047/def-jam-fight-for-ny/)
  • - [MLB](https://www.mobygames.com/game/35056/mlb/)
  • - [Juiced](https://www.mobygames.com/game/18351/juiced/)
  • - [Batman: Arkham series](https://www.mobygames.com/group/9940/batman-arkham-series/)
  • - [Ted Nugent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nugent)
  • - [Wayne Knight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Knight)
  • - [Ted Knight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Knight)
  • - [Super Friends](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Friends)
  • - [SimCity 2000](https://www.mobygames.com/game/657/simcity-2000/)

    • **Recommendations:**
    **Brandon:** [Kantors Office Furniture](https://kantors.com/) if you want to try out office furniture in the Bay Area, use your treat dust to make new dog treats, [Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Suit_and_Machine_Gun_(film))
    **Jaffe:** [52 Pickup](https://aftermath.site/introducing-52-pick-up)

    **Brandon’s “Daddy’s Dusters” Dog Treat Recipe:**

  • - 1 cup flour
  • - 1 egg
  • - 1/2 cup wet ingredient (pumpkin, yogurt, etc)
  • - 1/6th cup peanut butter
  • - Treat dust
    Mix ingredients “all up,” distribute on cookie sheet, bake at “lower medium” heat for 30 minutes “depending on how your oven works”

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    2

    {“sticky”:true}

    3

    A fun start to a boring Monday!

    Very curious to know what Snatcher/Policenauts and the like get named as a genre - as I'm currently playing Policenauts and having to describe it to people who don't know the games, Point-and-Click is as close as I can get.

    >

    Who is the Batman of video games?

    Great question @"Jaffe"#205

    Oh and originally in France he was called "La Chauve-Souris" - The Bald Mouse!

    4

    I‘ve heard a lot of ’dude it‘s Pokemon….with guns!’ a lot this past week.

    alsoitscalledSMTdude
    5

    I'm no Digimon expert, but those mons have some guns AND jorts, so…

    Link is Batman. Mario is Superman. Samus is Wonder Woman.

    6

    Keep'n TwinBee

    7

    Tim‘s comment on anonymous public spaces resonates with my experience of using a lot of mainstream social media in 2024. Twitter in particular feels like an Orwellian construction where mutual monitoring serves to keep in-groups coherent while allowing people to celebrate “victories” (i.e. serving the group’s interest by dunking on an outsider). It's really depressing but not surprising given how behavioral psychology has been weaponized by tech companies to promote reductive hot-takes in the name of engagement metrics.

    8

    Great episode. My favourite food mascot is one of Coco the monkey‘s buddies, Hefty Hippo, who is kinda gormless. When I was a kid I sent off the tokens you get on the back of a cereal box to claim a vinyl figure of Hefty wearing a distinctly red shirt and blue dungarees combo. All of the figures were advertised as being a bit bendy because of their material but because Hefty had short limbs and a big gut he wouldn’t bend at all which made kid-me a bit sad. I still had that toy until last weekend when I finally decided to part ways with it after emptying the last of my childhood stuff from my parents house. Dang.

    I'd highly recommend Sailor Suit and Machine Gun too - is a great film. I watched that film on a first and only date with someone (they chose to watch it!) and maybe showed my hand a bit too early in terms of my dumb tastes in stuff, heh.

    Also a missed opportunity that nobody made a Bigfoot / Beargfoot joke.

    9

    A missed opportunity, in this long cereal introduction, for @“exodus”#3 to slide in his favorite topics of crappy Euro platformers with Factor 5’s Tony & Fr–aaah fuck Frank just mentioned it while I was typing this.

    https://youtu.be/Ix52qkomqN0

    >

    @“esper”#p150444 Frank asks: What is the proper nomenclature for the Snatcherlike video game? (13:09)

    I think @"exodus"#3 is right with his unwavering focus on "menu" as a terminology, especially in opposition to the Western point & click interface. But if you want to go a bit more poetic about the logical structure of the genre, you could maybe call them something more bankable like Arborescence Adventure, or Arborescence-Based Adventure.

    It’s pretty funny that this discussion happens with Snatcher and Policenauts which both have straight shooting segments on top of the more traditional ~~ Japanese Adventure Game~~ Arborescence-Based Adventure experience.

    >

    @“Jaffe”#205 asks: is there a Tokimeki speedrun? (32:23)

    There is a Japanese equivalent to the American _AGDQ_ called _RTA in Japan_ (also set in January). The Summer equivalent to _SGDQ_ is called _RTA in Japan Summer_.

    During last year’s RTA in Japan Summer 2023, there was a local equivalent to "Peanut Butter the dog finishing Gyromite", in terms of the replay video going viral way beyond its original niche of speedrun fans. And that viral speedrun was "speedrunner Kazupoon beating Tokimeki Memorial in just under an hour, getting the game’s toughest romance target (Shiori) to confess to him, while entirely blindfolded".

    https://youtu.be/Mcx4mynLSbc?t=2m19s

    It’s not as fun to watch without understanding his quips but the performance is mightily impressive.

    >

    @“esper”#p150444 Which individual video game enemy has killed the greatest number of players globally? (46:47)

    I have a strange _déjà vu_ about this question. Isn’t it a repeat? Anyway, statistically, it has to be Minecraft’s creeper, right?

    I agree that, if we go for a specific enemy spawning on a specific screen, Donkey Kong on stage one (if he counts as the enemy rather than the barrels), the (likely red) Pac-Man ghost and the first Goomba are all good choices. But the question did not seem to specify an specific enemy in a unique location, moreso than a specific type of enemy, when I first heard it.

    10

    Palworld’s reception has been interesting, to say the least, when looking at how people treated Sonic Frontiers and Pokemon Legends: Arceus as asset flips when Palworld itself very clearly is that. Frontiers and Arceus have more artistic cohesion when compared to that game.

    11

    ah, mon day early

    good morning insert credit

    12

    my thing with batman is, he's guy who has been a goofy fun guy for most of his existence but he is basically not allowed to be that currently. or, at least, the general perception of him from those that know is, at present, skewed heavily to “sad serious punch guy” versus the funny shark repellent guy of yore. is that sonic? is it hideo kojima?

    WAIT maybe it's agent 47???

    13

    >

    unsolved mysteries

    [URL=https://i.imgur.com/Ndw0rKG.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/Ndw0rKG.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

    14

    @“rootfifthoctave”#p150485 hmm, I can't totally agree here because batman in 1939 did kill people no? And in the 40s movie serials he was just a racist anti Japanese mouthpiece. The camp thing was largely surrounding the TV show and subsequent cartoon, and then subverted once again by a variety of people but most significantly Frank Miller in the dark knight returns, which was 1986, and then we had the dark batman movies. So he was goofy and camp for maybe 20 years out of his total 80!

    15

    Fun episode y'all were on to something

    Also very impressed with Brandon's Sonic bwooong noise

    16

    For Snatcher-likes, since Frank‘s main issue with “cinematic” was that Princess Tomato wasn’t cinematic I would propose “Scenic Menuing Game”

    17

    My thought on the Batman of video games is that video games need to be around for at least another 50 years before they have one.

    18

    Speaking of Mascots, a few years ago i found out our mascot from the school anti-drug campaign (and the program itself) was stolen from USA's counterpart.

    Ours is a little beefier tho.
    Also, on speedruns:
    One of the most unique speedruns categories i've ever seen is Child Protection Services on The Sims 4.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha0y2TQAwKw
    19

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1dQTiP0HjEk&pp=ygUVV2VldGFiaXggYWQgc2tpbmhlYWRz

    20

    >

    @“esper”#p150444 Frank asks: What is the proper nomenclature for the Snatcherlike video game? (13:09)

    The long-time nomenclature in Japan has been "command-selection ADV", ie the game plainly states all the verbs and has the player choose them from a menu, rather than manually typing commands, guiding an on-screen avatar, etc (or trivially interacting with the game for the simple purpose of advancing the text a la novel games), with the secondary distinctions that you're playing as an acknowledged protagonist, and that they're basically linear and don't hinge on branching narratives or parallel perspectives or what have you.