Welcome to Big Game Hunger, a show where me and a guest craft the big next-game every episode.We'll be taking three random ingredients and blending them together into one incredible game.I'm Jenna Stieber, and I crave content.
And I'm joined by Hunter Donaldson.Hunter, who are you, and what do you have a hunger for?
I am Hunter Donaldson.I am the foremost expert on the board game Twilight Imperium by Fantasy Flight Games.I have built a podcasting empire off the back of my love of this one board game.Some people say board game content creator.I say no.
I say Twilight Imperium content creator.No other board games apply to me and my brand.Guess what?If you're a listener of this show and you don't know what Twilight Imperium is, I'm not pitching this to you.Guess what?
You are not invited to my content area because you must love this one game.If you don't, that's it.That's my brand right there.
So many content creators are like, please don't pigeonhole me.I'm not just a pink stuff influencer on TikTok.I've got all these other varied interests.Hunter is like, I know what my pigeonhole is.This is my pigeonhole.Put me in my pigeonhole.
I am joyfully climbing inside of the pigeon hole and like laying a little nest in there and I'm warm and cozy and comfortable.And there's no, if you are a Twilight Imperium freak, you've probably already found me.You know what I mean?
I like just knowing that I have gotten to 100% of the people.Saturation.Yes, my saturation is 100%. I am technically killing it.I just lowered the ceiling.That's what I did.I was like, oh, making stuff on the internet, it's hard.
What if we lower the ceiling all the way down to where now my head's scraping the top of it?There we go.
Yes.Hunter said, this is my pigeonhole.It was made for me.I feel like that's me with the wicker man, but I- Everybody who loves The Wicker Man has already found me because I'm the only one still making content for this decades-old horror movie.
My goal is to raise the ceiling rather than let it crush me like an old-timey trap in a weird dungeon.
I'm trying to raise the ceiling of people who have engaged with The Wicker Man so that more people engage with the thing that I actually want to do, which is make content about The Wicker Man.
You're sort of a missionary on behalf of the wicker man.Preaching the wicker man's values and bringing people into that umbrella, basically.
That's exactly it.Ironically, though, that movie is about luring somebody to your island rather than going to their island and enforcing your religion on them.It's sort of the opposite of missionary work. You know what?It worked.Yeah, proselytizing.
That's what I'm doing out here.
Proselytizing.There we go.The thing about it is that The Wicker Man is a film and it's about a film.I've watched it.Well, I've watched the original.I don't think I've ever watched the Nicolas Cage one.
I should watch it though just because you have to see it.Anything I've seen a clip of, if I know a clip of something, I feel guilty about not having seen the whole thing and I know the bees moment.We all know the bees moment.
But the thing about Twilight Imperium, the strategy board game by Fantasy Flight Games, is that it takes eight to 12 hours to play.So already, at the door, we've just lost a lot of people.You know what I mean?
A lot of people just said, a lot of people listening right now just said to themselves, I will never do that.
A lot of people on this podcast right now just said that.
there you go.And that's, that's why I feel so honest and safe in the pigeonhole.Because I'm like, listen, if you want to come in here, you will, you just will, at some point, if you are that type of freak, you will get in here.
Whereas we all watch movies, you know, and we all might someday watch the Wicker Man.So I think both of our approaches make a lot of sense.
Yes, totally.No, that's true because for every person that heard you say eight to 20 hours of gameplay, for every person that was like, absolutely not, there was somebody who was like, oh, that's me.I have the pigeon hole next to the door.
Maybe I'm a bit of a pigeon, I see.
That's the thing about, I think, the internet is that you've got to find your freak and then you've got to let your freak flag fly and then understand that other people will be like, oh, there's the country of freaks that I belong to and go hang out near there.
That's the whole goal, the whole mission.The only real good thing about it is, yes,
Yeah, it's so true.The community of freaks that grow up everywhere.Hunter, what kind of games other than Twilight Imperium do you like to play?
Lately, I've been trying to finish that dangled Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.I do not know if you have played that.I don't know if the listeners have played that.I don't want to say anything positive or negative, but the game is a long game.
It's very long.It's the type of long game where as you're playing it, you're like, I think I'm almost done. You'll say that too.It's the type of game where you're like, ah, this game's almost over.I've played games before.I know game structure.
This one is letting me know that the game is almost over.Then it goes, nope, not really.No, not really almost over.Oh, did we make you think it was almost over?No, no, no, no, no.In fact, maybe you should play this game a lot longer, actually.
Maybe this game should be 50% longer than you think it's going to be. Yeah.
How long have you been playing it for?For so long?How like, how long is your gameplay this moment?
I was well, so I mean, I'm I'm a Final Fantasy seven, baby.So and I lived in the woods in 1997.And I was seven years old.I was seven years old when Final Fantasy seven came out.I thought it was I thought they were talking about me.
me, you know, basically, and played it and was like, you know, and I know there's a lot there's a lot of people especially like if you're exactly I think if you were seven when you played Final Fantasy seven, I think it resonated with you deeper.
That's just the theory I have.I think we're the children of Final Fantasy seven.But I felt that
it was a game for me and it kind of changed my life and also I lived in the woods so I had no access to culture so basically Final Fantasy 7 was culture when I was a child that's all it was and so now I'm you know I'm 34 and I'm playing this game that is that is celebrating my nostalgia supposedly
and I'm having a very adult moment with it, is what I would say.That's my review of it.Have an adult moment with your childhood self for 80-some-odd, no, 100, 120-some-odd hours, is what it feels like.
I quite like going back and watching movies that I liked in, like, high school and sort of reflecting on the parts of it that I remembered and held on to, and the parts of it I quietly excised from my memory.
Is it that kind of thing where you're just like, wow, there's parts of this that I remember loving and which still hit, and then there are parts of this that are inscrutable to me.
It's like a family reunion where you're like, oh, I love these guys, but then they all start talking and you start getting like,
where you're feeling like you're like, I haven't talked to like, it's like extended family, I guess not like extended family, you haven't seen it a while.And you're like, Oh, I love these guys.
And they start kind of going on and you start getting like some weird like feelings about them.Like you're like, I don't know, did like, did they vote for Trump or something?
Like what happened with like, I'm like, I don't I'm not sure what happened with these guys.And then that's just and then you're just kind of stuck at dinner with them for a long time feeling kind of like hours.
Yeah. I'm feeling this sense of maybe we've drifted apart.That's how I would describe my experience with the game.It's interesting, but it's also been a little heartbreaking, I would say, in some way.Bittersweet.
Bittersweet is a powerful word to use to review a video game.
Are you just like a big fan of JRPGs in general or is Fallout, not Fallout, is Final Fantasy?That was me projecting.It's Final Fantasy.
You're like, I've had this experience.
Yes, it's true.It's genuinely 100% accurate.Do you love JRPGs or is Final Fantasy like a standout?
No, no.I love JRPGs.I like anything kind of wacky and inscrutable.I would say those are two adjectives.If you have a game that's wacky and inscrutable, I'm absolutely down.
I'm very much looking forward to the Dragon Quest III HD 2D remake, which is the official title.I do not like it when people refer to it any other way because in all of the marketing materials, it is called the Dragon Quest III HD 2D remake.
That's the title. It's not Dragon Quest III Remake.Nope, HD 2D.That's an official title now.
The naming conventions for JRPGs that have been remade and rebooted and the sequels for it are so bonkers.I have on at least one occasion just done a deep dive onto the Wikipedia page for the Kingdom Heart variants.
The Kingdom Heart and release variant titles are like, They're just a string of 20 words and a couple of numbers and then some pound signs and some hashtags.
They're just like, if you need a password, pick out one Final Fantasy Remix name and there you're good.It's undefeatable.
Yes, Kingdom Hearts, Birth by Sleep, 2.75.Final mix.Two.Let's get another number in there at the end.
Because it's the remake of the second.Oh, yes, yes.It goes sequentially.
Squared, then two at the end, yes.Let's get Matthew with it.
Incredible.All right.I think that's a good basis.That's good context for going into.I just feel like whatever game we're going to make is going to be epic.
My guess is it's going to be quite a long kind of epic game because that feels like the trend to which you are lured in by games.
Yes. Well, and also it's been on my mind lately.I've been saying to myself over and over for a while, and I know other people are saying it too, is just that, why are games so long?
Are they having some sort of meeting and saying like, are they basically like, ah, games cost like $60 or $70, and the only way they're going to keep buying them is if we make each game be like 100 plus hours.And it's like,
I don't know if this is like bad solidarity, but like if I met like a suit, like if I met Mr. Video Games, who was in charge of all games, and then I went up to him, and I was like, all right, hey, I just want to say, I will give you 60 bucks for 15 hours.
I'll give you 60 bucks for 10 hours.I'll give you 60 bucks. for five hours, dude.Is that bad to tell him that?Will he get too excited?Will his eyes turn into dollar signs and then just be like, we can make 100 games like that.
You ask an important question, which is capitalism is supposed to trend towards the least amount of effort for the most amount of money.It's crazy that video games aren't there.
I do think that's going to change with all the fallout from, what was it, Concord?That game that got released for a week and then pulled because of everything with that.Yeah, it is the state of things now where I do feel like indie games have heard
have heard this and they're like, thank God, thank Christ, we don't have to make a 20 hour game.There's three of us here.And one of them is just the accountant.Like, it's gonna be impossible to make that.
And I feel like indie games have reacted to that.But what you have described, this bloat, the bloat of modern games, because it's not that they're longer and better.It's that they're longer.
There's more game. That is, I would say, my number one concern about the Silent Hill 2 remake.By the time this episode drops, that'll be out and I'll have played it and have formed an opinion about that.Watch this space, listener.
I am so prepared to have a very adult moment with my childhood self playing the Silent Hill 2 remake.I'm not sure it will be a very joyous time.I'm hoping it will be funny though.I love the idea.
There was the trailer they dropped that had all of the combat in it.People were like, this is a lot of combat for Silent Hill 2.I'm hoping that maybe it's Silent Hill 2, basically just as you remember it story-wise,
but there's just a lot of guns now and that might actually be kind of hilarious.
I like the idea that it's like that meme where it's the small book and it's like Baldur's Gate 3 and then a big book and it's Baldur's Gate 3 if Hysterion had a gun.It's like that kind of vibe.That's what I want for Silent Hill 2.
I want it to be that mode in Another Crab's Treasure where you just give him a gun and it's easy mode. I would love to hold up a Tommy gun at Pyramid Head and mow him down and be like, that's Silent Hill.
I want a psychological horror game where you have those chainsaw guns from Gears of War.That's what I want.It's surreal.It's like Junji Ito, but then you've got like, ah.
If I had to design a gun for Silent Hill 2, it would be a normal.No, it would not be a normal gun.It would be like a bear gun and the bullets it would shoot would be little penises.I think that would actually just be perfect.
That's what we need.We need the guns to meet Silent Hill halfway.
All right.Now that I've got my game design juice flowing, are you ready to move to the ingredient list?
Yes, let's get some ingredients out here.Let's cook.
I'm going to roll my 3D20 and we'll pick an adjective, a premise, and a type of gameplay from the prompt list.Let me roll my little dice.
I hope one of the adjectives is 150 plus hours of gameplay.That's not really an adjective.
It could be.You could add that to the list.Hold on to that.
I love that idea of the requirement just being that the game must be excessively long.
I genuinely think that's in the pitch doc for a lot of modern games.
We've got an interesting combination of words. I'll read them to you, and then we can decide if we want to swap any out.
For context, so I've got a sheet.And the stuff at the very top is stuff that I added, basically, when I created the sheet.And then in the middle are prompts mostly from guests.And then below that are prompts from the Patreon.
So sometimes, just because of the dice roll, I roll a lot of my prompts or a lot of Patreon prompts and that sort of thing.So we got a lot of stuff from me.So this is my way of saying, sorry. The adjective is musical.
The premise comes from former guest Jeff Moonen.Thank you, Jeff.It is claustrophobia.The type of gameplay comes from me and it is, and this synergizes so well, takes place on a single screen.
Oh, my God.Okay.Wait, so what was the- It's a musical.What was the middle bit?The premise bit?
The premise is claustrophobia.That's fun because claustrophobic- It's single screens.Yes.Yes, Hunter.
Okay, this screen this screen is gotta like shrink it like it's got to be in a screen that can expand and shrink Basically, it's making whoever our character feel more or less claustrophobic like maybe It's just dance, but you're in a closet.
You know what I mean?It's just dance, but you're scared of- It's a just dance horror game about dancing alone in a dark, scary room.
Let me make one little swap.What if you're not in a room?What if you're in a go-go cage?
Okay, yes, yes, you're in a go-go cage.Depending on how well you dance, you have more or less space.
The go-go cage can kind of... I feel like there must be some sort of... If claustrophobia is going to be a part of it, then that has to be like a track, right?The more claustrophobia we feel, the worse we're doing, right?
Yeah, I think that makes sense.Because it is claustrophobia.It is not like closeness.It is claustrophobia specifically, the fear of the smallness.Yeah.OK.No, I think you're right.I think if it's a single screen, well, OK.
We have two options here, right?So there's the screen and the space that you have on it shrinking and increasing.So you zoom in, you zoom out. We're a creature that zooms in and zooms out like we're a little guy or a big guy.
Oh Here's a context Is that I recorded another episode of the show that hasn't gone live yet that also involves a lot of shrinking and people And stringing things together like this is how people end up thinking you have a weird fetish.
So let me just get out ahead of this boat and say this isn't the thing for me.
It's just appropriate for the prompt.It's just happening.
It's just appropriate to the prompts that I've added to this list.
Okay, so we're in a go-go cage and we are a character that shrinks and gets smaller.It's like the better we're dancing, the more we're shrinking or do we need to lose the dancing?Does dancing even need to be a part of it?
Well, I like the idea that there is a rhythm game element to this. Because when I think about rhythm games, when you think about the Guitar Hero Scroll, it is one screen.You're locked into this one screen.
Also, Just Dance, like you're saying, you're in just one screen moving.I do like the idea that You have to start off with your tightest little, you do have to start off voguing because you've only got so much space to move.
You can't move your hands outside.
It always starts voguing, yes.
Exactly.You're tight, you're compressed.Then once you've cleared the first stage or something, then you can start getting a little fossy with it.You got a little bit more space.Oh, yes. There's something fun about that.
Martha Graham, Martha Graham.Yeah, we're thinking about the birdcage.
Yeah.So, okay, okay.But also, though, it was musical.It wasn't dance.So I'm, I also want to leave room for the idea that it could be
a singing game, a karaoke game, and then also the go-go cage also feels more maybe we are some sort of creature in a kind of bird cage.
next to you know maybe we're like I don't we're like singing for now this is getting now this is actually sounding a bit like fetish but we're singing for our master or something you know our we're like in a bedroom you know and we sing for this this is like the story um and for some reason I guess
The better we sing, the smaller we stay, but if we're not hitting the notes, we get bigger and bigger and we run out of space in these cages.There's not a lot of singing games.People love karaoke.
I feel like the video game industry is leaving karaoke people out and just leaving them to karaoke. Why aren't we out here singing?
I always thought it was weird because if you remember, rock band had a microphone and there was a singing component to that that was actually pretty solid.Yes, people loved it.Technology-wise, yes, I loved it.
I played a lot of that game in college and just after college when I was a wayward youth. That was actually pretty good.It was solid technology.It functioned.It could track where your volume and your pitch was relative to where you needed to be.
It was a good gameplay element.It feels like, if anything, that technology must get better Now, like it must be better technology now than it was then.So you are right.It is sort of weird.
I mean, I feel like just like even making peripherals for games has is a thing that has died because that costs money.And why would you do that when you can just exploit your workers to make a hundred and fifty hour game?
Yeah, that's true.That's a good point.We've got these two options here.We could make a microphone or we could just exploit everybody even more.Hmm.Yeah.Really hard to decide there.
Yes, one of those is almost way more profit than the other.That's the only thing we care about.
I want to buy a stupid little microphone.That's what I want to do.I want to have a stupid toy microphone.I feel like this could be a game for freaky parties.Yes. People are like, oh, we should do karaoke.
And then the one person in the group is like, oh, yeah, we can do karaoke.And then they put on the claustrophobic like birdcage game where you have to get a cage.And if you do it bad, then you get bigger.
And then if you get too big, then I don't know, you start freaking out.There's got to be some sort of almost Cthulhu type like sanity thing here that's happening as the As it builds, we start seeing things that aren't there.
I think this game should be very bright and sweet, but whenever you're losing at it, it's terrifying.I think it should be very scary.You're expected to sing like, let it go or something like that while the monsters creep towards you.
I like that because then there's this added element of like you're starting to get stressed and you're starting to like sing, but you're still trying to sing beautiful.
You're trying to hit that note in I Will Always Love You, but the claws of the shadows are starting to reach out for you.You're watching your bird get bigger and bigger and starting to like, the feathers are starting to brush against the cage.
bars yeah yeah it could it could be cute you're like you're like a big chunky like kind of like uh like a chocobo like the uh yeah like you're just like the chocobo sage you're just like this giant bird fluffy bird and you start poking out through the stuff but also i i definitely want to make sure we're keeping the monsters in there so like it's also
horribly terrifying.I want people to be scared while they are singing songs.Also, here's something I was just thinking about because I was thinking about Typing of the Dead, how it throws out words at you that aren't words.
What if this was a singing game that occasionally throws stuff at you that's not even words?You just got to sing it and it's just going to do it.
It gives you scat prompts.Yes.
It might even be like, I don't know, it's like Hit Me Baby One More Time, but then it starts messing the words up, and it'll be like, Brit Me Boo Boo, Bong Bong Bong.
It starts giving you the words to Toxic and you're like, how do I sing these words to this melody?
To this song.This is real rock.That's the whole thing is because we have to keep the psychological horror, which was not, I don't think, it's not an aspect of this, but I kind of want it to be.The music itself, it kind of mutates.I think
getting the rights to songs that we're going to screw up would be kind of tough.It's kind of the car company thing of like, we don't want to license you a car if it gets hurt in the game or whatever.We aren't going to hurt these songs.
We'll have to be straight up about that.If you give us a song, we're going to hurt it and people are going to sing it wrong.
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Well, I mean, there's common internet knowledge, and therefore it is definitely true, that you can use a certain amount of a song and they won't sue you.Fair use.They can't see you.Yeah.Yeah.
There's this magical spell that the internet has come up with.And the way that you invoke the spell is by saying, fair use.Fair use.And it totally protects you from any legal ramifications for stealing art.Absolutely.
And so I think we could invoke that in the very beginning of the game.And then if we only use like 10 seconds of a song, enough so that people think they know what song it is going to be, then we can do whatever we want with the rest of it.
Because it's like, oh no, this isn't Smooth Criminal.I know we had a lot of weird vocalizations, which I think should also be a part of this.I do think we should make people Michael Jackson scream.
like i think that should be prompts in unrelated non-michael jackson songs yeah yeah it is that's just gonna hit you as text too so you're gonna have no you just gotta know what we what we mean by that when you see he he on the screen you have to know that's not a giggle
I think so.It's like when you start, it's going to be a medley of songs because we have to get in and out of these real fast because of fair use.You get hit with a medley.
I think every fifth song or so though should be a song that you would never karaoke in a million years.It doesn't even make sense for you to karaoke it.
I'm thinking of a time for my birthday one time me and a friend karaoke the theme song to the movie Suspiria. Which is a great, and I don't know, he got the idea.
It wasn't my idea, but he put it on and the lyrics to the song is just a guy whispering, bitches.Which my birthday is, as a lot of people know, October 27th.
and which is near Halloween so generally my birthday is a Halloween birthday so it made sense in that way so I would love if every once in a while we just throw we don't even throw we don't throw a classic song we throw something experimental cinematic or just not you know throw a little uh I don't know throw throw something electronic that some throbbing gristle
throw or something craftwork that doesn't have lyrics, something like that.
Yes.I think that's going to make licensing music for this way easier.
Oh, yes.Once we start on this game, we're going to be like, can we get more of the weird stuff that nobody cares about in here because that doesn't seem to cost so much.
I saw a really good, I have to assume it was a TikTok, I don't remember the context, of somebody, they were playing DDR, it was a custom song, but that song was the voiceover for an allergy medicine commercial.
It was just them rhythmically, oh no, it was Olive Garden, it was an Olive Garden commercial.Yes, it was so touching.It's talked about family and stuff. Yeah, when you're here, your family.Yeah, when you're here, your breadsticks.
And they did the whole DDR song to like the rhythm of this weird Olive Garden commercial.So I think we could really loop in stuff like that, where it's like obscure VHS videos that we rip that you have no way of knowing before you.
to start playing the track.
It's going to sound like you're doing karaoke to a radio that you're just tuning to different.It's going to be like sound collage.It doesn't even.It'll be like you're doing Toxic by Britney Spears and then the medley goes into, get in the zone.
This is a really good game.It's fun.I love a party game too.We need more video games that are made with the idea that you put it on at a party.I want more games like that.
I miss that era of games.
Yes.I'm nostalgic for it and I also feel like it still works.I feel like when I have people over and I'm putting a video game up on the screen, a lot of times I get this reaction where people are like, what are you doing?
Almost as if you're being really indulgent right now.You think this is all about you right now?This is the look that I feel I get from people.Then once it's up there and I'm just like, does somebody want to do anything with this?
people start they'll they'll start doing it and if we gave them this horrifying surrealist psychological horror karaoke game like people know what karaoke is so if i say i'm putting on karaoke they're gonna be like yes oh i love karaoke
Then I see the bird in the cage and the master, which we haven't really defined the master.I think of the master as being a shrouded character with red eyes.Something spooky.Because they're keeping us in a cage.
It does seem like, also it's, I don't know when this is coming out, but it is October.It seems like everything should have. It's a spooky karaoke sound collage experiment.Honestly, I think we should be given cash money right now.
I think my email should be exploding right now with people saying, we will give you so much money for this idea.
There are so many niches we're fulfilling.Obviously, the party game niche. There aren't enough party games.Jackbox has it covered and that's great.There aren't enough co-op horror games.There's a decent amount.
You've got your Until Dawns, you've got your Dark Picture Anthologies, which are great.They're super fun to sit on a couch and play together.
What we don't have is a game that seems like it's going to be a fun party game that devolves into a horror game that people don't know they've been trapped in.
And I think that really appeals to me as somebody who loves horror and who wants to entrap people in their horror experience.
I also, so there's kind of a more, there's a physical element of this game, because you put this on at a party and you just say karaoke.
And perhaps this game should come with a little card inside that says, like, here's how you tell people to play this game.Like, I don't want anyone doing it wrong, OK?
Yeah, an entrapment plan.Yeah.
Here's how you pitch it to your friends.You put it on, it's karaoke, and as soon as it gets scary, it's going to start bombing out the party, which means those people are either going to navigate to another part of the play.
In an interesting way, the game is going to make it so that you're the only one in the room while you play karaoke.That's the claustrophobia thing is back in. You know?
Oh, OK.See?See, I think it's going to be the opposite.Here's how I think this is going to go.You're going to put this on.The single screen that we're on is just like a normal-sized bird in a normal-sized cage.It all seems very straightforward.
There's a radio nearby that's tuned on.And you pick up the remote, and you start singing into it.It all seems really straightforward. I think people will catch the audio thing very quickly, but we're going to have to seed the tunes.
It will be random, but we're going to have to seed them to be the couple of license-free kumbaya songs that we get that are totally rights-free.Happy birthday.Yes, that are actually fair use.
The karaoke game that starts with happy birthday.
Everyone knows it.It's a perfect place to start.Everyone knows it.Everyone can sing it.
I feel like I would immediately be like, something is up here.If somebody's like, we're going to play this karaoke game and it starts with happy birthday.I also think I'm thinking of like, now I feel like we're in the polishing stage.
We just need to add more fun stuff to this game.What if
your microphone has all of these effects on it that you can, but you don't get to control them, but you get distracted because you'll be singing, and then suddenly, you're like piss shifted down.
Now you're like, happy birthday to me.
Oh my God.It just keeps turning those on and turning them off and it's very distracting.
It's just anything to make it so that the player is having trouble singing these songs because they're already hard because we only get 15 seconds where we switch to a new song.
It's not how karaoke- Some of them are commercials, yes. I think that's going to entrap people.
I think the first time that weird audio effect happens, I mean, okay, people are already going to be trickling into the living room from the kitchen where everybody hangs out because that's where the food is.
They are going to start trickling in once they hear happy birthday because they're going to be like, oh, is this somebody's birthday?I knew it was Hunter's birthday month. But I didn't think this was his birthday party.
But then when those audio takes start coming up, people are going to be like, oh, so it's not like a standard karaoke.OK, I'm interested.I'm going to watch this a little bit more.
And then when it slowly starts becoming full horror, it is a shame that we're a bird in a birdcage.Because what I'm describing is a frog in a pot of water. slowly getting boiled.
And what I think people are going to get so engaged with what is happening in this game, they're not going to realize that they are trapped and that you've locked the doors and that everybody is staying and we are beating this game.
And at the end of the game, when the master comes out and you've defeated it and he pulls back his hood, they realize that you've imported your face to this game because it's going to have that photo feature to import your face.
The master has your face. You were the bird, your guests were the bird the whole time, and you have forced them to sing for your pleasure.
I love this, especially if we don't include, well, okay, actually, no, sorry.I was going the complete opposite direction that I should go.We should include a webcam.
This game comes with its own webcam.
It's really not very good.It's a quite bad web because we had to get the cheapest one.
um and the program so it doesn't really do a great job of importing your face like you can tell it's you but it's very poorly like plastered on to the 3d character which i think also heightens of course the horror which we want to keep up um and also i just think like this is a technology that uh i i don't i actually have an interesting story about this type of tech i was once asked and i don't think i'm i don't think i should talk about this but i was asked to do a focus group one time about
where somebody was like, here's a face scanner that scans your face, and then they put it into Fallout 4, and they were like, look, it's you in Fallout 4.
I had to be in this very weird focus group where I was like, just so you know, this is not something that people want.Really?They're like, why?Wouldn't you want to be the character?I'm like, well, I'm not the character.
Also, the character in Fallout 4 has a story, has a voice.It's not me.It's not me. It was not well done either.It was like, this is actually insulting because I don't think I look like that.I think I'm cuter than that guy.
Was it like a physical, like a hardware? Scanner or software?
No, it was hardware.He did use like a... It was some sort of... Again, it was like a specialized webcam peripheral, basically.I remember he walked around my head and then it imported it into...
Fallout 4, I guess like, I mean, somehow it like just got that data in there.And yeah, it's sort of looked like me, but there were all these glitches with it too.Like it was like, like my cheeks weren't properly captured.
So they just had like, they were just kind of empty, like they had like little holes in it.Anyways, I'm thinking the master has got to have stuff like that.It's got to look like, got to look like that to keep, to keep the horror up.Yes.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of inherent horror in what you've described, but also the personal horror of seeing your face warp.I once had... I once had a boyfriend who we were going to start, I think, Dark Souls 2 or 3 together.
He was like, I'm going to design the character after you.Hey, if your partner offers to do this, for your relationship, don't let them.
Not only are the Dark Souls games not a great way of sculpting a human face, but you're going to learn things about what they think about your face that are going to make you feel bad.That relationship is going poorly anyway.
That was not like a killing blow, but it is a remarkably terrible thing.It was just sort of like, oh, that's what you think I look like.I don't think I look like that, and that's fine.
There's no way to do that right though.They did not make, and to be fair to Dark Souls, they did not make it being like, everybody's going to be making their girlfriend of this.
I have to assume that that was not part of the structure that they were designing the game from, but it did give me insight into why portrait makers, you always hear when people painted portraits, like oral portraits of royalty, they always made them look nicer.
I'm like, I get it now why you don't want to, you want to blend some of those edges out.
Of course.Otherwise, what's the point?
Their royalty, if they are upset with how you have depicted them, they're going to be pissed.Just scan your face in and slap it on.We don't care if you'd hate us.
That is exactly the way to do it and I think it will be such a beautiful reveal for the end.I love that this game has an ending where it's just kind of like there's the big reveal and then the game is over, I think.
I think you play through and you never know.I think you should never know what you can't.There's no song selection.I just want to go ahead and say that's not an option.
You get the medley you get, and I think since there's only 15 seconds of each song, it should be an enormous amount of music and sound.Honestly, one I just came up with is I really want there to just be garbage truck noises in there.
I just want you to have to do like...
There should be one where it's just like, make the sound of an internet modem from the 90s.
Or just like a warm, or 15 seconds of a movie.Just like Titanic or something like, don't let go, don't let go. That's really good.It sounds really chunky.It sounds like we just recorded that off of a television.
That's how we did it.This is a bargain basement game.
Yes.A sound engineer would hear this and be like, this is the worst game I've ever played.That's what I want.I want everything really compressed and bad sounding.
Low quality.Yes. I think there will be party modes.When you start the game, I think it'll be like one hour, two hour, three hour, endless.You decide how long this game is going to monopolize your party.
Three hours.Three hours of karaoke in 15-second increments.That's so many songs. That's such an insane amount of music.
15-hour, 15-second clips.Endless mode is every single clip in the game played at random, but back-to-back-to-back.We're going to have to get so many clips.That's going to be the majority of our dev.
Yes, we'll be getting these clips, which this will be fun work because at a certain point, I think we're just going to start walking around with field recorders, just getting literally anything.It doesn't matter.
Yes.This is how we segue to that John Travolta movie.What was it, Blowout?This is how this video game development becomes the next Blowout.
Oh, my God.One of the 15-second clips is of a murder we witnessed.
When you get to the clip and the subtitle text that you need to follow along with just says the assassination of JFK, you're like, oh, no.It starts playing the text of that guy live reporting the crash of the Hindenburg.
Oh, wow.This is. This game's got a lot of legs on it.
I think, honestly, at this point, all of the non-music options are so interesting that I think most of the time, there's going to be like two songs, and then it's just going to get into the weird stuff, and it's never coming back.
Then it's like three hours of just strange noises that you have to vocalize.That's the best you can. Yes, this is a great game.I actually, it's funny, I'm realizing I wanted to do this as an event.
I wanted to do an event called Impossible Karaoke that was just going to be stuff like this.This is basically, we were basically inventing that.
I actually think this is a silly, this is a podcast where we are making, these are comedy jokes, but I also think there is a nugget in here of something that would actually, that should exist, like really.
I think it's fun to watch people do something that is impossible to do.It's just fun.And everyone knows like, oh, you can't do this.It doesn't make sense.So there we go.
I've always wanted a low-key thing that if I had more free time in my life, I always want to do is edit famous songs so that the most famous part of them repeats for just slightly longer than you think it's going to, and then upload those tracks as karaoke tracks on YouTube, fully edited.
You spin me right round, baby, right round.It just does, but it does that for a solid minute.When you start playing the song, it's like, this is a normal version of this song.
Then when you get to a certain point, it lapsed longer than you think it is going to be.
That's so good.Actually, so the 15 second limit, maybe there should be like a handful of like, okay, okay, we have the main modes that are all like the horror stuff.And then we'll we'll have a kind of fake out mode.
Or like, hey, for the normies, we have a few like a handful of songs that we got that we actually paid for in full for regular karaoke.And that's it's like labeled like regular karaoke. then every song has been altered.Every song.
So no matter what, we're getting you.But yeah, altered in such a way as to where people are like, is this it?Like, is this the song?It's like one too many choruses.You know what I mean?Like, we just added another chorus, you know?
Or we've just extended, you know, like one week, like, it's been.And then, but with the been is like, it's been. And then it just keeps each time it comes, it's Ben.And that's it.
And so people are just like, I feel like it sounds kind of weird at the beginning.
Yeah, we could get that.There's that one version of that song where it starts, she was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. That much was true, but then it just repeats those lyrics over and over again for the rest of the melody of the song.
I think that would be a really good one to get in there.There's so many people doing so many weird fucked up little internet music stuff that we could license.
We could also get on TikTok and get, because those are all 10-second clips of audio, we could just get all the most popular TikTok sounds and just use those.
was that one that they that that Weezer there was that Weezer one where people were actually wait did I make this is I don't I don't remember if this was actually on tik tok or if my friend just made this up because I don't look I try not to look at tik tok but there was I think is it the sweater song or is it
Oh, it's Say It Ain't So.You take all of the lyrics and instead you just say, wrestle with Jimmy, which is just that one lyric from Say It Ain't So.So you're just like, wrestle with Jimmy.
And then when you get to the chorus, it's like, wrestle with Jimmy.And that could be one. But I think for that one, it's a little more noticeable what's going on.
I think it's going to be a slow build.We are going to have to spend most of our MacArthur Genius Grant money on the licensing of a couple absolute bangers, like Since You've Been Gone.We'll get Since You've Been Gone.That'll be the first song.
Everyone will be like, oh, okay, I get it.It's a karaoke game.We're singing normal karaoke.
We'll have a couple songs like that, but then there will be one where it's been one week, but the one week is held just a little bit longer and you're like, that was probably just me.All the other songs have been so normal.
Then that is the de-evolution.Amongst all of this, obviously, you're a little bird getting bigger or smaller depending on how well you do.Don't forget about that part.
That's a big part of it, okay?That's still in there.That's still in there.
I want in the regular karaoke tracks, I would like for the theme from the film Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass to be one of the... So I at least want there to be still a little bit of flavor of like, well, you shouldn't do this one.
This wouldn't be good to do, but... I just always want there to be an option to pick a song that is not karaoke, that you should never do for karaoke, but there it is, just in case, so that they get that flavor.
Speaking of Philip Glass, there should be a track where it is just 40 seconds of dead silence.
The microphone of this is going to be so sensitive, so everybody is going to have to be so quiet.
That's so good.Yeah, if it picks up any noise, then your bird immediately starts getting bigger.
It's an instant double.It's a multiplier.
Yeah, honestly, that should even just be in the regular modes too.It should be in the three hour mode.Sometimes no music comes out and it just says absolute silence.
That is something you, the host, can implement when you're tired and the party is done, but you don't want to tell people that.You're just like, the bird's going to get bigger and bigger until you fuckers leave.
Yes.There's that song, Closing Time, for closing down the bar.
another one we will legitimately license yes we'll legitimately not license that one and at any point the host of the party can select closing time and then it just does that song and it won't switch to any other song it just does that one over and over and you can't all of the menu options just change the closing time and that's it no other thing you can select
I love that.I love a party game that also informs your audience in the most passive-aggressive way possible that the party is over.
Yes.I like even more peripherals.I think that this closing time option should be a little button that you get that the host can have in their pocket that they can click and then bam, closing time mode activated.
The only option is closing time until you get out of here.Shuttered.
Really good. Hunter, what are we calling this incredible game?
Let me pitch just something really out of box.Michael Winslow's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
I was about to say it's got to be I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Yes, okay. We can take or leave the Michael Winslow.It captures something important about the game.
I think it does, but I want the horror stuff or the closing in stuff.I know why the caged bird sings.Karaoke.It's scary.In parenthesis.I know why the caged bird sings, in parenthesis, and it's scary.
Let me type that out and just look at it and get a gut check on how that feels visually.
I just like the idea of giving that original title a little bit of a horror bent to it.Because I know why the cage bird sings.That's very suggestive.We can inflect that in a million different ways.
I'm looking at it, it looks really good.I'm looking at this title and I'm like, yes.Does it get the party aspect in?Maybe we don't need that.This gets the singing and the bird and the scary part.Those are really important.
Yeah, yeah.I mean, yeah, it's hard to get all of these elements into one snappy title.With the party part, I almost just want to add an exclamation point.What about that?
I know why the caged bird sings, parenthesis, and it's scary, exclamation point, close parenthesis.
Oh, interesting.I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out where you were going to slap an exclamation point here.
It can be like, and it's scary in a macabre way, or it can be almost excited, like, and it's scary.
The exclamation point is doing a lot to convince me that it's going to be fun scary.As a person buying the game and forcing my party goers to play it, I am the audience for the fun, so I do think that makes a lot of sense.
We could brand it as being part of the Just Dance oeuvre and call it Just Caged Birds.
And where's that going?Are you saying... No, read it out for me how you're imagining that.
Just caged birds!Exclamation point. 2022. Just Caged Birds, 2022.Bam.I mean, that's worse, but if we're looking for options.
I don't think we need to look for options.I think I know why the caged bird sings, and it's scary.There we go.Is it.
There's something so Dadaist about this that I'm really, really into.Really into this.
I like that you said that because like a week or two ago, I was doing stand-up and a guy got really, sometimes I was doing stand-up at like an open mic. And this guy really wanted to talk to me a lot afterwards.
We can kind of go either way as far as like had that as an experience.But he kept saying that I was a Dadaist, which as a stand-up comedian, I found quite offensive because I was like, no, man, I actually thought that those were funny jokes, not...
He was like, this is a great compliment, you know, but that's the thing is like, well, you got to remember a stand-up comedy is not art, okay?It is, do not get confused.It is not art at all.
It has a particular purpose, which is just to make people laugh.It's basically just, I mean, it's just laffy taffy jokes, people.
Unfortunately, what you've just said is extraordinarily Dadaist. Oh, no.I'm such a Dadaist.Dadaism was pretty anti-art.It was directly against art and pro-funny.It was all about like, art's dumb.
We're just going to make weird collages and jokes and this is a kind of a joie de vivre.Unfortunately, Hunter, I do think you're a little Dadaist.
Oh, no.I think that guy maybe was just me from the future too.He looked like me but older.Oh, my God, warning you?
Yes.Was he saying it like, you're Adonis or was he saying like, you're Adonis Hunter?
He was.He said it frantically and then he ran out and then some time cops came through chasing him.
One last pitch and then we'll go to plugs.I think this game should record audio from your parties
And 15 minute clips, there should be a virus like a subject in this, where it is recording audio from, like when you're setting up the game, from your parties, auto-clipping it, incorporating it into the game so that you will eventually hear your own voices in it.
Wow.It's just y'all, the people just talking at the party, and you just have to talk through it.Incredible.
You hear somebody say your name in the karaoke track, and you're like, wait a minute.How did that get there?
Wow.It's got all the ambient noise of just chatter behind it.It completely throws off any like, which I mean, the 15-second clips, there will be no musical momentum to this game whatsoever.I mean, it's just,
It's just slamming you with various sounds, but yes, I love that.That is, I think, the ultimate one right there, is for you to be the game.
You are.Hunter, do you have anything you would like to plug?
Well, you know what?How about this?This game's called Big Game Hunger, or sorry, this podcast is called Big Game Hunger.Follow me on Instagram.How about that?My Instagram handle is HungryHunty.
The reason I tell you to follow me on Instagram is because I'm a stand-up comedian and I've been told that I need to start making clips, and I don't want to, okay?I'm too da-da, I guess, for that.
But I'm trying to start, so if you follow me, then you'll see.I have some stand-up clips up there, you can watch them.I dare say that I'm a funny guy.I don't know when this comes out, but if... About two weeks.In about two weeks?What day of the week?
Mondays.Anyways, I'll say this, congratulations to myself.I just participated in the 10,000 Laughs Comedy Festival in Minneapolis, Minnesota.If you're listening to this, you just missed it.That's why you should follow me because you just missed it.
You don't want to miss my next comedy festival, do you?No, you don't.
I can tell you right now. You should also listen to Old Gamer's Almanac because I was on it recently.You should listen to other episodes, but I was on it and we talked about Crow Country.It was super fun.
If this whetted your appetite for discussion of horror games, you can sup deeply from the cup over at Old Gamer's Almanac.I'll have a link to that and to Hunter's Instagram in the show notes of this episode, so you can just click through.
Big Game Hunger is a part of the Multitude Collective of podcasts created and hosted by me, Jenna Steber.If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and also spread the word so other people can enjoy it as well.
You can visit my merch store at bit.ly slash Jenna merch, all lowercase.But to support the show directly, you can subscribe at patreon.com slash the Jenna.Every month, subscribers can submit prompts that get added to the ingredient list.
Help guide the podcast and our brainstorming at patreon.com slash the Jenna. Hunter, what's one word, adjective, gameplay type, premise, et cetera, that you want to add to the ingredient list?
Yes.Thematically, like the energy that I came into this show with, I really think it has to be something about gameplay length.
I want to know how you want me to phrase it, but I want in the future someone to have to come up with a game where one of the first things they have is that it must be 200 plus hours.
200 plus hour game.That's what I want.
Like just exhort, maybe even that's not long enough.Maybe like a 500 plus hour game, but it also has to be a single player experience.It can't be, cause you know what I mean?
Cause they could just be come up with Slay the Spire or Bellatro or whatever these games are.
Or a living game, right?Where it's getting updated all the time.None of that.
Okay.500 plus hour single player experience.Okay.However we want to, however we want to, wherever we want to put that basically.
I think what you're describing is an adjective.
Yes, I think that makes sense.
That's going to be so fucking challenging.I'm already, this is sometimes when I get prompts, I'm already like trying to formulate in my mind how I'm going to tackle it and I need to crush that instinct.Right.
I will cross that rainbow bridge when I get there.
500 hour game, single player, Jesus God Almighty.Okay.I'm going to ask you one thing, which is what game do you think you've played 500 plus hours on?
Ooh.Well, so, uh, Twilight Imperium has a digital component, which is called Tabletop Playground.And I refuse to look at my game time for it because it is horrifying.It is like it would burn me eyeballs out.Just not good. to see.
I really don't know what it is.I see this every day.I have to open this program for various reasons.And I really don't even know what it is.It could be like an impossible amount of time.It could be like five billion hours.
And I'd be like, have I been alive that long?I'm like, not even sure what that means, you know.But yeah, that is absolutely a tabletop playground.
Yeah, and I mean, 500 hours of Twilight Imperium is probably like 10 full playthroughs, right?So it's like, you could get that easy.Easy.
Yeah, yeah.I'm just getting into it.I'm still a beginner, I would say.At 500 hours, I mean, it's a Malcolm Gladwell situation, but it's like not.At 10,000 hours, you just started, basically.
Yeah, that's how I feel about watching The Wicker Man.
Yeah, at 10,000 hours, you're like, I think I'm starting to get it.
Starting to understand.Starting to get it, yeah.Thank you for joining me, Hunter.
Yeah, yeah, this has been really fun.Thank you for having me, Jenna.
Thank you for listening to Big Game Hunger, and don't forget to wishlist I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and It's Scary on Steam.Release date, TBD.
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