Ep. 386 - Trapped in the Question Hole

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Ep. 386 - Trapped in the Question Hole

Frank, Ash, and Brandon begin an endless and inescapable descent into our listener-submitted Question Hole, and in the process learn to run an inn, make Ash crack up at Metafore ReFantazio again, and mention the same four guys that get mentioned every episode. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Ash Parrish, and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.

SHOW NOTES:

1: What are your all-time favorite single performances on a game soundtrack? (02:52)

2: Whywhy asks, what is the Megalopolis (2024) of video games? (04:40)

3: Spencer asks, what are the trademarks of your favorite game designer’s styles? (05:33)

4: Seth asks, how would you develop a game that portrays publishers negatively? (06:30)

5: Fruinblacksberk asks, if you could bring one person in the video game industry back to life who died a premature death, who would it be? (08:49)

6: Chopemon asks, what game should get a remaster with a good/dumb name? (09:40)

7: Riley asks, who is the tallest character in video games? (10:37)

8: Gaagaagiins asks, have we already seen the service game with the shortest lifespan, and the service game with the longest lifespan? (11:32)

9: LeFish asks, which video games are most likely or best suited to a Broadway musical adaptation? (12:48)

10: BreadyToDie asks, has a video game ever affected your real life ideological bent? (13:18)

11: Is Officer Zuffle from Ooblets copaganda? (14:14)

12: XCT asks, what are some of the panel’s favorite video game sequels in a different genre? (14:44)

13: Cheapy asks, who drives the coolest motorcycle in video games? (16:59)

14: Gaagaagiins asks, what are some of the best games you can play for $0? (17:46)

15: Anatoliu asks, what game would you send to all of Nintendo Power’s 1990 subscribers? (19:01)

16: connorr asks, who is the PS3 of human beings? (20:17)

17: Kiko B asks, what aspect of game design is most commonly misunderstood? (21:55)

18: Suda 68.999 asks, what two or more games would best compliment each other if stitched together with mods? (24:27)

19: Kyle asks, how would you implement skateboarding in modern games? (26:03)

20: Cole asks, which video game sounds could also serve as great text message tones? (27:42)

21: SpencerGifs asks, if a game has multiple versions, how do you decide which to play? (29:14)

22: Classic Anonymous asks, who is the William Randolph Hearst of video games? (30:09)

23: Dark Saikan asks, do you know what Neal Stephenson’s blockchain thing is? (31:24)

24: Rice9 asks, do good critics make good designers? (32:16)

25: Camillo asks, what is the cane from Citizen Kane of video games? (34:21)

26: Propellher asks, what is the most dad game of all time? (34:52)

27: What’s the most daddy game of all time? (36:38)

28: Chopemon asks, what is your Gamer forum signature? (36:53)

29: SpencerGifs asks, what should a Nintendo baby play to grow out of Nintendo babydom? (38:16)

30: Yeso asks, what is the tucking in your shirt of video games? (39:18)

31: LeFish asks, who is the Sister Rosetta Tharpe of video games? (41:04)

32: Bebedor asks, what steps are you taking to get John Carpenter on the show? (44:34)

33: Yuji asks, what video game will still be played 5,000 years from now? (45:35)

34: SpencerGifs asks, how do the video game generations break down if you go by design innovation? (47:08)

35: ASmallRabbite asks, what is the most finally making it to an inn with 1hp and no potions moment in your real life? (48:32)

36: Nemoid asks, how can public institutions like libraries foster positive relationships with game enthusiasts? (51:38)

37: Spencer asks, why did so many companies throw their hat in the console ring in the fifth generation? (55:07)

38: Gaagaagiins asks, what is the best and worst default jump button? (58:44)

39: Anonymous asks, what is the Ween of video games? (01:01:31)

40: Gruntin’ Gary asks, in what ways have video games become more and less accessible over the years? (01:02:56)

41: RepelHer asks, does the panel just generally never cry, or is there something about video games specifically? (01:04:24)

42: Spencer asks, is video game marketing different from other marketing? (01:08:20)

43: SecretBilly asks, what niche types of game player would historical figures have been? (01:12:13)

Recommendations and Outro (01:14:33):

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I kinda enjoyed Megalopolis. I would not dare recommend it to anyone unless I knew that person intimately film-wise, but I am glad I saw it and I am glad this kind of bonkers project exists.

It’s not a very good movie, but Adam Driver is a talented actor that always dives in 100% whatever stupid script or character he’s given without a shred of irony (he’ll probably get an amazing late stage comedic career as the next Leslie Nielsen), the costume department did an amazing job with the “mix decadent New York and decadent Rome” concept (Aubrey Plaza is smashing hot in that last piece), and those couple split screen triptych-style scenes were genuinely great moment of cinema – I was watching the movie in the plane and rewinded that big one two or three times!

Fucking tariffs, man…

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it’s not that i hate the Mario iris out sound, it’s that the structure of the show is cold open, intro, show proper, outro (including Game Over Yeah, which is already an outro noise jingle that predates the iris in-show by years and years), cold out, and then another weird video game noise?! it knocks off the balance of the whole structure and devalues the Game Over Yeah.

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I like the double exit. Makes it more silly and interesting in a small way.

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Hearing that the act of writing one of the endings of Demonschool moved Brandon to tears is pretty exciting

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Whenever @adashtra loses her shit over Frank’s 100% correct pronunciation of Metaphor: ReFantazio, it makes my day.

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As a child of the 80s from the U.K., I certainly didn’t expect to hear classic Sunday evening comfort tv favourite Lovejoy get a recommendation. :rofl:

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One thing my local library does is host a little expo for local game developers to show off what they’re doing. It’s annual, but I think it’s popular enough where it could be more frequent. This year’s was few weeks ago and it brought out a lot of people and some really cool things I’m looking forward to.

Also, in terms of video games to take out, I find it very interesting that my local library has all current consoles (Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series), but also Wii games… No older PS or Xbox consoles, no Wii U, but Wii specifically. And hey, it allowed me to introduce Boom Blox to my kids and they loved that!

Thanks to all for being real here for a bit, especially Frank and Ash for stories of the grinding, unfulfilling jobs. Also @adashtra - Hello from the Lake Ontario shoreline. That lake and I have had some similar moments to what you described with yourself and Lake Erie, especially while far out on a pier at night. (I’m good now. This is during my moody high school and early college years. I’m 18 years out from that time now.)

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lmao the worst question I’ve probably ever submitted, I can’t wait to hear this

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That’s a lot of questions in this episode! Some amount of cents divisible by 2 on what I’ve listened so far:

1: Please don’t hit me, but I liked David Bowie in The Nomad Soul back then (I guess he shows up more than once though)/

5: My Frankenstein’s game developer would be Kenji Eno, probably.

6: Dunno if I just missed that or really no one thought of Remaster Blaster? Seems like the obvious pick for that one to me. Earthbound remake should be Earthbound: Remother, but there’s already a series called Remothered which is baffingly not a remaster of itself.

7: My mind immediately went to The King of All Cosmos within a split second as well.

8: Might stretch your definition of “in service”, but there’s games that disappeared after a week or so of closed beta.

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I’m pretty sure that Spencer’s question about the fifth generation of video games was already asked, about a year or two ago? Not sure when exactly but the question and answer both sounded familiar. Funny to imagine a time with 11 consoles vying for shelf space.

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Here’s my Chinese period drama suggestion, Ash. “The Story of the Pearl Girl”.

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Oh also cool to hear Brandon Sheffield’s enjoying Flying Saucer Video! I try to shill for Cam Marshall’s webcomics where I can and I’m glad the setting got his attention. Matchmaker is their other major work, mostly set and written during lockdown, with just as much queer relationship drama.

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YES! Thank you so much!

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I recall this too, as I’ve recently been listening to older episodes. I think at the time, one of the big reasons was the sudden availability of cheap storage in the form of the CD (which pretty much everyone but Nintendo adopted).

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OK so I know this is my third separate post regarding things in the podcast but this one was important to me and I wanted to talk about it in a bit more length. Everyone approached it slightly differently: Ash took the immediate perspective of the somewhat deadbeat dad desperate to be relevant in their kids’ lives; Frank tried to approach it with seeing what a “dad joke” is and translating it over to video games; Brandon was literally about dads within video games. I think they all miss an important point.

What I don’t want discounted here is the existence of dads who are good parents and good partners who enjoy games. There are plenty of fathers I know who are like this.

I believe I’m firmly in this camp, validated by my wife and outside observers. I tend to play a lot of games across the spectrum and I don’t think many fit what I think is a “dad game.”

Overall I would put “dad games” into three categories:

  1. Older games the dad used to play and wants to showcase to his kids. (For me, this means things from old generations that are classics in their own way, such as Wind Waker, Sly Cooper 2, Mario Paint, Mario RPG, and more.) These are definitely hit-or-miss with kids.

  2. Current trending games that kids in the schools are playing that a dad’s own kids are interested in. This isn’t a “how do you do, fellow kids?” kind of moment, but more about learning what kids are into and dads helping their own kids connect socially by giving them tips and talking about the game with them. These games are played either with the kids or not. Minecraft and Pokemon are still huge in the 6th grade and younger crowd. (So is Fortnite, unfortunately.)

  3. Finally, for the dads themselves, a game that’s easy to start and easy to stop. Dads like gaming and like their own games, but kids’ schedules make it hard for long gaming sessions to occur, so games that can be satisfying to play in a short session are amazing. It’s kind of why I’ve gravitated towards rogue-likes since I became a dad.

Anyway, thanks for reading if you got this far. TL;DR: Dad games are a variety of things, and aren’t monopolized to bad dads and partners, nor are they all typical AAA garbage. Good dads like games, too.

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@adashtra my Chinese period drama recommendation is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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It’s not what you asked for, but you’d love it.

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Somehow i both did and did not expect this

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I appreciated the South of Midnight chatter. I LOVED it!

It’s the kind of game I think many in this community would like. Very unique setting, music, and aesthetic. I also feel the gameplay is more solid than some give it credit for. I found the combat to be fun and engaging, especially as you go and get more abilities.

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We said a lot of varieties of master blaster remaster, blaster remaster, etc - possible we didn’t hit that specific one.

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