Balatro

Alex and Luke Talk Balatro

In this episode, Alex and Luke go all-in on Balatro, the breakout roguelike deck-builder that’s equal parts poker, chaos, and obsession. Developed by LocalThunk and released in early 2024, Balatro blends classic card game mechanics with deck-breaking combos, jokers with wild effects, and a vibe that’s one part casino fever dream, one part endless strategy loop.

At the time of this recording, Balatro holds a Metacritic score of 90, and according to HowLongToBeat, you can complete the game in 7 hours—but good luck stopping. This game sinks its teeth in fast and doesn’t let go.

Both Alex and Luke played on their Steam Decks, chasing multipliers, unlocking jokers, and debating the most degenerate combos they could get away with. Join them as they unpack what makes Balatro feel so addicting, how it slots into the growing roguelike canon, and why it's been living rent-free in their brains.

This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by Slides.

Chapters

• 0:00 Balatro
• 30:10 Unsanctioned Sponsor: Slides
• 34:33 Sidequestin'

Transcript

LFG Ep. 043: Balatro

00:00:00 Alex Stahlmann: Start recording in this bad boy. I think we're off to the races, my dude.

00:00:05 luke: All right. Hmm.

00:00:09 Alex Stahlmann: Say that again. Yeah. The deep sighs are being picked up. It sounds like it seems like it's in a good spot.

00:00:20 luke: Then you misread my deep sigh. I'm pissed. I

00:00:23 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, what's your man about brother?

00:00:25 luke: don't really know.

00:00:28 Alex Stahlmann: The state of the world.

00:00:31 luke: Yeah, I'm starting to mute a bunch of my, like, various news sources on Reddit because it's always just like, freak out, panic! And I'm like, you know, probably not the best.

00:00:41 Alex Stahlmann: I feel that. I feel

00:00:43 luke: But,

00:00:43 Alex Stahlmann: that for sure. I

00:00:44 luke: what are you gonna do?

00:00:47 Alex Stahlmann: can, I don't know, buy a Tesla.

00:00:51 luke: Gotta help out, dude.

00:00:56 Alex Stahlmann: Indeed.

00:00:57 luke: Trisha was like, we were driving by the Cybertruck. She's like, would you drive a Cybertruck if somebody gave you one for free? And I was like, free is pretty aggressive, but I have to say yes, but it'd be weird.

00:01:08 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, it'd be one of those folks that like rebrand it. They put like a Toyota like sticker on the back or like, have you seen those? That's it. That's it.

00:01:17 luke: I've seen like the, I bought this before he went crazy, but I feel like the Cybertruck itself is like a next level of like

00:01:23 Alex Stahlmann: That

00:01:23 luke: only.

00:01:24 Alex Stahlmann: one's so obvious,

00:01:24 luke: Yeah.

00:01:25 Alex Stahlmann: yeah.

00:01:25 luke: Well, it's like, I don't feel like you buy a Cybertruck cause you believe in the electric car mission. Let's put it that way.

00:01:33 Alex Stahlmann: Fair enough.

00:01:37 luke: Plus,

00:01:37 Alex Stahlmann: Well,

00:01:38 luke: does

00:01:38 Alex Stahlmann: you

00:01:38 luke: it

00:01:38 Alex Stahlmann: ready?

00:01:38 luke: function

00:01:38 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:01:38 luke: as a truck?

00:01:40 Alex Stahlmann: Uh, not from what I've read about it, really. I mean,

00:01:42 luke: What's

00:01:42 Alex Stahlmann: yes

00:01:42 luke: the point?

00:01:42 Alex Stahlmann: and no.

00:01:44 luke: More

00:01:44 Alex Stahlmann: Like,

00:01:44 luke: of a tank.

00:01:45 Alex Stahlmann: indeed, which even that, like, as it's, dude, I watched this one video a while back. It was like, it pitted a Cybertruck versus like, I don't know. Ford F-150 or I don't know what number. Basically just like one of those crazy videos where they go around and they just like fucking beat the shit out of each truck and to see which one performs better. And the Cybertruck actually won a couple things, but it was outperformed by the Ford. More or less. And then they, uh, tried bringing the Cybertruck back to the dealership being like, it's got all these problems. They're like, what the fuck?

00:02:22 luke: What have you done?

00:02:23 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, pretty much. Oh, are you ready to talk about some Bellatro, bud?

00:02:27 luke: Yeah, dude.

00:02:30 Alex Stahlmann: Should I have the intro? Do you want to give the intro this time?

00:02:32 luke: You should intro it.

00:02:34 Alex Stahlmann: Cool. Yo, what up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Low five Gaming. You got me, your host, Alex, and my co-host and brother, Luke. What up, dude?

00:02:49 luke: Not much, how you doing?

00:02:50 Alex Stahlmann: Doing well. We're recording this in the daytime. We got to bring that daytime energy.

00:02:55 luke: Yeah, yeah, I even got my bubbler over here, dude, because I'm, you know, super cool. Brought

00:03:00 Alex Stahlmann: Dang.

00:03:01 luke: to you by Klarbrunn, so no big deal.

00:03:04 Alex Stahlmann: Clarbrunn's alright. Clarbrunn.

00:03:06 luke: I haven't seen Klarbrunn since college. Uh, my roommate, we used to always make fun of Klarbrunn, but he would just buy all of the Klarbrunn's and it had the most satisfying Can open of all time, famously. It just, it, like, explodes out of the can. Not any fizzing, but you can hear a car run being opened up down

00:03:22 Alex Stahlmann: Where

00:03:22 luke: the street.

00:03:23 Alex Stahlmann: the hell did you get some Clarbrown, dude? I haven't even seen that outside of like northern Minnesota.

00:03:29 luke: Winona, I guess, um, this was almost ten years ago now, cause yikes, uh,

00:03:34 Alex Stahlmann: Wait, how old is this can?

00:03:37 luke: of Clarbrun?

00:03:38 Alex Stahlmann: That you got right now. Oh,

00:03:39 luke: Dude, you've never had Bubblers, brother?

00:03:42 Alex Stahlmann: I thought you were saying you're a drinking Clarbrun right now.

00:03:46 luke: Dude, it's from the makers of Clarbrone.

00:03:49 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, interesting.

00:03:49 luke: Yeah. And

00:03:50 Alex Stahlmann: I see.

00:03:51 luke: if

00:03:51 Alex Stahlmann: I'm

00:03:51 luke: you came

00:03:51 Alex Stahlmann: on,

00:03:52 luke: to this

00:03:52 Alex Stahlmann: we're

00:03:52 luke: podcast

00:03:52 Alex Stahlmann: off track,

00:03:53 luke: for Blatro,

00:03:53 Alex Stahlmann: but I'm on, I'm on the

00:03:54 luke: we're

00:03:54 Alex Stahlmann: same page

00:03:54 luke: going to

00:03:55 Alex Stahlmann: now.

00:03:55 luke: discard the Clarbrunn and Bubbler talk to get to the real hand. See

00:03:58 Alex Stahlmann: Yes,

00:03:58 luke: what I did

00:03:59 Alex Stahlmann: sir.

00:03:59 luke: there, dude? Dude,

00:04:00 Alex Stahlmann: Nice.

00:04:00 luke: I'm so good at this.

00:04:01 Alex Stahlmann: Nice.

00:04:01 luke: Yeah, I'm so good at this now, dude. It's crazy.

00:04:04 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, that's right. We played Bellatro. Bellatro. Bellatro. I

00:04:10 luke: Listen,

00:04:11 Alex Stahlmann: don't know how to pronounce this correct, dude.

00:04:12 luke: I haven't heard anyone say it other than Bellatro and I don't want to learn a new way.

00:04:17 Alex Stahlmann: Uh,

00:04:17 luke: So

00:04:17 Alex Stahlmann: it's

00:04:17 luke: it's Bellatro.

00:04:17 Alex Stahlmann: an Italian word

00:04:18 luke: Sure.

00:04:18 Alex Stahlmann: for Joker. I'm

00:04:19 luke: Okay.

00:04:20 Alex Stahlmann: of the understanding. Um,

00:04:21 luke: Nice.

00:04:22 Alex Stahlmann: but yes, that is, uh, the pronunciation of this game has definitely been discussed on the internet.

00:04:28 luke: Sure.

00:04:29 Alex Stahlmann: And uh, I think there is definitely a Bellatro camp that we clearly land in. What is the other one? Hmm.

00:04:38 luke: If you gotta look it up, is he even a camp? You know what I'm saying, dude?

00:04:41 Alex Stahlmann: Right, oh, Bellatro?

00:04:45 luke: That's saying

00:04:46 Alex Stahlmann: No,

00:04:46 luke: the same thing,

00:04:46 Alex Stahlmann: no,

00:04:46 luke: brother.

00:04:47 Alex Stahlmann: Bellatro.

00:04:48 luke: That's stupid.

00:04:49 Alex Stahlmann: Bellatro. Bellatro.

00:04:51 luke: That's

00:04:51 Alex Stahlmann: I don't

00:04:51 luke: known.

00:04:51 Alex Stahlmann: know, Bella True. I don't

00:04:53 luke: Oh,

00:04:54 Alex Stahlmann: fucking, I don't

00:04:54 luke: okay.

00:04:54 Alex Stahlmann: give a,

00:04:54 luke: Okay.

00:04:54 Alex Stahlmann: you know what, man? If we can come, if we can come with Ocarina of Time energy for like, I don't know, for me, thirty-seven thirty-eight years, like, or I guess that game's not even that old. I'm older than the game. The point is fair.

00:05:07 luke: Did life really start until you played that game though? If you really have to be honest.

00:05:12 Alex Stahlmann: The point is if we're Ocarina boys, we can be Bellatro boys.

00:05:15 luke: I'm

00:05:15 Alex Stahlmann: That's

00:05:15 luke: pretty

00:05:15 Alex Stahlmann: what's

00:05:15 luke: sure

00:05:15 Alex Stahlmann: up.

00:05:15 luke: that's the way to say it.

00:05:19 Alex Stahlmann: I'd have to ask an Italian bra.

00:05:21 luke: Nope.

00:05:22 Alex Stahlmann: Nope.

00:05:23 luke: Cause it's like when they say Mario instead of Mario, it's like, no,

00:05:26 Alex Stahlmann: Oh,

00:05:26 luke: you're

00:05:26 Alex Stahlmann: yeah.

00:05:26 luke: allowed to do that thing, but no.

00:05:28 Alex Stahlmann: Fair.

00:05:29 luke: But

00:05:29 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:05:29 luke: anyway, uh, cool game, dude.

00:05:31 Alex Stahlmann: It is cool. It is cool. Uh, why this game? This game, I guess I kind of selected this one. It was both, uh, on both of our radars. Hard to miss in the zeitgeist of gaming. Um, but it kind of came out of nowhere back in 2024. 2023, end of 2023, something like that.

00:05:50 luke: Yeah, last year,

00:05:52 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:05:52 luke: I

00:05:53 Alex Stahlmann: Right

00:05:53 luke: remember, um,

00:05:53 Alex Stahlmann: on.

00:05:54 luke: it's kind of funny, we were doing Minecraft Club where we're paid to supervise little sweaty sixth graders as they scream and play Minecraft.

00:06:02 Alex Stahlmann: Sure.

00:06:02 luke: And a friend of the pod, sometimes Carter was like, I'm super excited to play this Bellatro game. And he showed it to Tyler and I and we were like, that looks, um, okay, I guess. And then it like, I just remember that conversation. He said he'd been following it for like a decent amount of time and he

00:06:18 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:06:18 luke: was excited

00:06:19 Alex Stahlmann: Totally.

00:06:19 luke: for its release. And then it released and it was like huge. And I was like, oh, that game he was talking about that one time. And then I somehow made like a whole year where I just ignored it, even though it was pretty clearly going to be a game I was going to enjoy. I just ignored it until you bought it for me for Christmas.

00:06:34 Alex Stahlmann: Indeed.

00:06:35 luke: And

00:06:35 Alex Stahlmann: Mm-hmm.

00:06:35 luke: then it was time and then, uh, recently got put on the cellular devices or at least has just become popular on the cell phones. Um, side note, great cell phone game. So a lot of the buddies are playing it too. So it was a fun, it was a fun go.

00:06:49 Alex Stahlmann: Do you end up springing for the cell phone, uh, version?

00:06:52 luke: No, but I probably, I didn't, not because of the, the $10 is actually incredibly affordable. I think it's cheaper on the phone than it is on like Steam. Uh,

00:07:01 Alex Stahlmann: $9.99 or something like that on, at least on Android.

00:07:04 luke: Yeah,

00:07:05 Alex Stahlmann: Uh,

00:07:05 luke: so

00:07:05 Alex Stahlmann: so it's about the same.

00:07:06 luke: it

00:07:06 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah,

00:07:06 luke: runs really well on the phone and it crashes my Steam Deck out of nowhere. It always crashes

00:07:11 Alex Stahlmann: it's

00:07:11 luke: and boots

00:07:12 Alex Stahlmann: kind

00:07:12 luke: me out

00:07:12 Alex Stahlmann: of

00:07:12 luke: of

00:07:12 Alex Stahlmann: wild.

00:07:12 luke: the game, so yeah. Uh, that made me want to buy it on the phone, but I also knew like, would all of my poops extend by ten minutes because I'm too busy playing Bellatro. Would I perhaps miss some nice moment in my child's life as they're playing because I'm too busy trying to saw, you know, multitask Bellatro. So I decided against it, but it was tempting.

00:07:32 Alex Stahlmann: Right on. Yeah, no, you brought up like how we kind of sat on it. I think it was one of those games that like everybody was super into it. And it wasn't even that I was like trying to be super hipster or anything and be like, I'm too good for Bellatro. I think I was just like, I don't know if it's my time. Yeah. And, and so I, I also like sat on it for about a year cause this, this game dropped in February on February 20th of 2024. I think it may have been in early access, but at this point I'm just making shit up. So, you know, podcasting.

00:08:00 luke: Well researched, yep. I appreciate it.

00:08:03 Alex Stahlmann: But it did, it totally exploded though. It kind of took over everything everybody was talking about. Everybody was really into it. And I was like, you know, I just don't know if I need any crack cocaine in my life right now.

00:08:11 luke: Yeah. Yeah. The backlog's already big. And then you see this like, uh, very addicting style game. And I will be honest too, uh, the allure of poker, uh, Didn't do anything for me. And if anything, it was more of a, an inhibitor to me actually playing. Cause I wasn't like craving any side of poker and, As we can get into later, like poker doesn't really play like this isn't real poker by any means. It's

00:08:36 Alex Stahlmann: Sure.

00:08:36 luke: kind of loosely the structure. Um, But that kind of kept me away because I just couldn't really envision a world where that gameplay was super fun because I just kept getting stuck on the poker aspect of it.

00:08:47 Alex Stahlmann: Mm-hmm.

00:08:47 luke: But

00:08:48 Alex Stahlmann: That's

00:08:48 luke: it's

00:08:48 Alex Stahlmann: created

00:08:49 luke: really.

00:08:49 Alex Stahlmann: some complications for the for the game itself, too, and how

00:08:51 luke: Yeah.

00:08:51 Alex Stahlmann: is living on the app stores and whatnot. But before we get too far, I suppose it's a good point just to kind of let the folks who maybe are not familiar with the game know what it is, right? So this is a deck builder, would you say? Poker-like almost? A poker-like, roguelike deck builder?

00:09:06 luke: I wouldn't even say it as anything like poker is so loosely in the framework

00:09:11 Alex Stahlmann: Sir?

00:09:11 luke: that like if you know poker hands, poker hands are involved as a scoring system. So

00:09:16 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:09:16 luke: anything from a high card to pairs to a royal flush and

00:09:20 Alex Stahlmann: But

00:09:20 luke: then

00:09:21 Alex Stahlmann: it

00:09:21 luke: some

00:09:21 Alex Stahlmann: is a deck builder. Mm-hmm.

00:09:22 luke: Yeah. Has depth building elements for sure. The way that you can add cards and do all that. Yeah.

00:09:29 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, developed by a fellow that goes by local thunk and I believe has continued to keep his true identity under wraps like besides like the

00:09:38 luke: Got

00:09:39 Alex Stahlmann: the

00:09:39 luke: to keep

00:09:39 Alex Stahlmann: publishing

00:09:39 luke: all that

00:09:39 Alex Stahlmann: name

00:09:40 luke: Blatro

00:09:40 Alex Stahlmann: local thunk.

00:09:40 luke: money from the hoes, dude. They're going to be trying to have his babies,

00:09:43 Alex Stahlmann: Was

00:09:44 luke: dude.

00:09:44 Alex Stahlmann: it? Right. Cause it's a, it's a, it's a one man team, right? So it's kind of cool that, um, this was developed by just one person. I believe it came out of a COVID project, um, So I mentioned poker, and you said not quite poker, and that makes sense. In truth, I guess some of the inspiration comes from a Cantonese card game called Big Two, I'm going

00:10:07 luke: Heard

00:10:07 Alex Stahlmann: to say.

00:10:08 luke: of it, dude?

00:10:09 Alex Stahlmann: Have you?

00:10:10 luke: No.

00:10:11 Alex Stahlmann: Okay. Me neither. So like when I was like looking up some of this stuff, I came across that and I was like, oh, that's cool. Uh, but I, yeah, I had no, I, I didn't really understand. I was like, oh word. All right.

00:10:21 luke: Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a roguelike deck builder. Uh, the scoring is structured around, um, basically poker hands plus multipliers.

00:10:33 Alex Stahlmann: Mm-hmm.

00:10:33 luke: Those multipliers range in a variety of things. Uh, gives you different targets that add some randomness to each run. Um,

00:10:40 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:10:42 luke: and you have a store you visit in between your battles, similar to a lot of these type of battler roguelike games. And yeah, You just keep beating the little mini bosses until you get to the end and then, and then you defeat it and then it feels really good. You ever beaten it?

00:10:56 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, one, one time.

00:10:58 luke: One time. Oh my

00:10:59 Alex Stahlmann: One

00:10:59 luke: God.

00:11:00 Alex Stahlmann: time. Uh, I mentioned crack cocaine, dude. Uh, I knew, I knew you would love this game, especially because it's kind

00:11:07 luke: I

00:11:07 Alex Stahlmann: of right up

00:11:07 luke: have

00:11:07 Alex Stahlmann: your

00:11:07 luke: a

00:11:07 Alex Stahlmann: alley

00:11:08 luke: more

00:11:08 Alex Stahlmann: with

00:11:08 luke: of

00:11:08 Alex Stahlmann: the,

00:11:08 luke: a weakness

00:11:08 Alex Stahlmann: um,

00:11:08 luke: for these deals than you. Yeah.

00:11:10 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, no, I mean, I like them, but, um, you know, for instance, like I knew that you poured, you know, hundreds and hundreds of hours into, uh, Slay, Slay the Spire. Not

00:11:18 luke: Yeah.

00:11:18 Alex Stahlmann: to say that these games are the same, they are not, uh, but there's similarities.

00:11:22 luke: Yeah, they

00:11:23 Alex Stahlmann: Um,

00:11:23 luke: have

00:11:23 Alex Stahlmann: hmm.

00:11:23 luke: some through lines for sure. Uh, Slay the Spire's better, but that's just my

00:11:27 Alex Stahlmann: Hmm.

00:11:27 luke: baby girl right there.

00:11:29 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah. I, I don't know. That's, that's like, we could spiral into that. Like, I think it's, it's interesting, right? I think that this game, it's a game clearly, but slay like falls into more of your traditional, uh, Like

00:11:39 luke: Yeah.

00:11:40 Alex Stahlmann: video game, I

00:11:41 luke: Yeah.

00:11:41 Alex Stahlmann: would say,

00:11:41 luke: Yeah.

00:11:41 Alex Stahlmann: where this has like very strong, like tabletop card game that is a video game. I don't, you know, like there's no, like when you, when you mentioned like bosses, you don't like see an animated boss or like, it's just another, another hand. Right.

00:11:55 luke: Yeah, and you know, you're tiptoeing around it. I'd say not on X or to avoid anything, but I'd just say it's like very much more appealing for a non-gamer person than usual. So like I wouldn't have as much hesitation to have like Like, our sister doesn't really play video games, but I can oddly enough, like, see her if you gave her, like, ten bucks to, like, buy this game. Like, she'd probably have fun.

00:12:18 Alex Stahlmann: Sure.

00:12:18 luke: Learn it faster than like a slay the spire. Like if I handed, handed slay the spire to my wife, she'd be like, what the fuck? But, uh, she might get blotcher after a few hands.

00:12:30 Alex Stahlmann: Sure. I think it's interesting, too, the way that it's rolled out. Like, it doesn't do a ton of hand-holding. Like, you can read, you know, the different things that your cards are doing. You mentioned earlier the, you know, you've got your typical deck of cards. So you've got all your base cards, number cards, all that kind of stuff. The jokers play an interesting role in this game, so there's not just four jokers or two jokers or how many jokers come with your deck, but the jokers actually impact how your your scoring works, right? And

00:12:55 luke: Yeah,

00:12:56 Alex Stahlmann: there's

00:12:56 luke: they're definitely

00:12:56 Alex Stahlmann: a ton of

00:12:57 luke: the

00:12:57 Alex Stahlmann: different things.

00:12:57 luke: flavor of the game.

00:12:58 Alex Stahlmann: Totally. And then you got your tarot cards, your planet cards, and your vouchers, and those all in turn have effects on your, your hands as well and your point system. Uh, but you know, you can, you can read how each of them affect your hand. And, but you're still, it's still like a. You're like testing it at least the way that I played through it. It's like you test it out. You kind of like put it in there like, oh, okay, I see how this works a little bit. And then it's like you kind of build on, you know, each that each run, you kind of build on your knowledge and you're like, okay, because it's going to be different every time too, right? So

00:13:30 luke: Yeah.

00:13:30 Alex Stahlmann: you're like, oh, that did this for me this time. Then the next time you jump in, it's going to be slightly different because you're getting fully different cards, fully different hand. Uh, and you, you start to like integrate things and it changes your strategy and how you play. Um, So it was interesting because it's not like here's how you play. It's kind of like you're playing now. Here's

00:13:48 luke: Yeah.

00:13:49 Alex Stahlmann: like this extra thing. Figure it out. Try and try and beat it.

00:13:52 luke: You can like, if you put it down and you pick it back up in the middle of a run, it's a little disorienting because

00:13:59 Alex Stahlmann: Mm-hmm.

00:13:59 luke: it can get kind of not necessarily dense, but kind of complex in a way. As you go along your run, you're like, okay, I'm going for straights. I have this joker where a straight can be formed in only four cards instead of five. And then you're like, Ooh, I run into that and that boosts things up. Uh, but it's not like an overly, like I'm playing Elden Ring still. And

00:14:20 Alex Stahlmann: Mm-hmm.

00:14:20 luke: like, I'm trying to figure out systems sometimes and I'm like, I have to do what? And then what? And then what? Whereas this, it's like, it's, it's complex, but it's not overly intense and intricate and out of control, although can be a tad bit disorienting.

00:14:36 Alex Stahlmann: Right. I want to kind of set the table too. So folks, you probably, if you, if you haven't played this, you've picked up the fact that there's these cards in there, but to give you an idea of the visual layout, that's what I really love about it right off the bat is you are, you, You've got this CRT filter. Going on, right? So it's kind of got this old school look to it. Um, little bit fuzzy, the, the corners and edges of the screen are rounded to give you that feel that you're,

00:15:01 luke: Never

00:15:01 Alex Stahlmann: you're playing

00:15:02 luke: noticed

00:15:02 Alex Stahlmann: this game

00:15:02 luke: it.

00:15:02 Alex Stahlmann: on a, ah, dude, it's, it's subtle. Yeah.

00:15:06 luke: Just

00:15:06 Alex Stahlmann: It's

00:15:06 luke: never

00:15:06 Alex Stahlmann: subtle,

00:15:06 luke: noticed

00:15:07 Alex Stahlmann: but cool.

00:15:07 luke: it.

00:15:07 Alex Stahlmann: It's subtle, but cool. I mean, me being a person that like totally F's around with shaders and all that stuff to make my retro games like look retro like I totally appreciated what was going on with the with the look of this game.

00:15:19 luke: It certainly has a gnarly aesthetic, but I guess I never pieced any of those puzzle pieces

00:15:23 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah,

00:15:24 luke: together. No.

00:15:24 Alex Stahlmann: check it out. Check it out next time you're playing. You'll

00:15:26 luke: No.

00:15:26 Alex Stahlmann: notice the CRT buzz. Uh, and then the music too, man, like the music is kind of fun. It's like pretty hypnotic. It's on a repeat.

00:15:36 luke: Yeah.

00:15:36 Alex Stahlmann: Uh, I'm pretty sure. Like, I don't think it is one of those things. Are you listening? You're, you're probably playing on bed, like

00:15:41 luke: Correct.

00:15:41 Alex Stahlmann: volume at 80%, like. Just

00:15:44 luke: Correct.

00:15:44 Alex Stahlmann: vibing out,

00:15:45 luke: Correct.

00:15:45 Alex Stahlmann: driving your wife insane. Nah.

00:15:47 luke: Uh, no, I keep it pretty low except for when you get like a super sick hand like all the crazy multipliers going like the sound of all your points going up is pretty orgasmic so like. I'll have to tickle up the noise a little bit just so it can be like, and I'm just sitting there like, yes. You

00:16:02 Alex Stahlmann: Dude,

00:16:02 luke: get the little

00:16:03 Alex Stahlmann: that

00:16:03 luke: flame

00:16:03 Alex Stahlmann: reminds

00:16:03 luke: thing

00:16:03 Alex Stahlmann: me

00:16:04 luke: going

00:16:04 Alex Stahlmann: of,

00:16:04 luke: on

00:16:04 Alex Stahlmann: uh.

00:16:04 luke: the counter. That's when you know you're going bonkers, dude. Sick, dude.

00:16:07 Alex Stahlmann: Dude, this, this game totally tickles the same part of the brain, like the lizard brain that a game like, um, like Vampire Survivors would.

00:16:15 luke: Yeah, I've almost bought Vampire Survivors again like ten different times.

00:16:19 Alex Stahlmann: Do

00:16:20 luke: No.

00:16:22 Alex Stahlmann: you have that on your phone too?

00:16:23 luke: I

00:16:23 Alex Stahlmann: Or no?

00:16:23 luke: did for the

00:16:24 Alex Stahlmann: That's

00:16:24 luke: longest time,

00:16:25 Alex Stahlmann: right.

00:16:25 luke: yeah. And then it was

00:16:26 Alex Stahlmann: Okay.

00:16:26 luke: a bit too much. And then I had it on Game Pass when I had Game Pass last.

00:16:30 Alex Stahlmann: Sure, sure, sure. Uh, man. Uh, but yeah, so, you know, same, same brain tickle as Vampire Survivor, same tickle as, uh, Slot Machine. Yeah.

00:16:40 luke: Yeah, just, you know, hitting that like, man, that really good itch that feels way too good to itch. A

00:16:46 Alex Stahlmann: Sir.

00:16:47 luke: mosquito bite type like, uh, when your leg twitches a little bit, yeah. When those numbers go crazy, you feel pretty great about it.

00:16:54 Alex Stahlmann: So let's go over the different cards

00:16:56 luke: No.

00:16:56 Alex Stahlmann: that we mentioned earlier. So we got the Joker cards provide unique effects that can significantly alter the gameplay dynamics. Tarot cards, what do those do?

00:17:05 luke: Uh, well, they have a wide variety. Same with the spectral cards. They can do different things, but mostly the tarot cards can, which I read as tarot, and I know that's wrong, but I refuse.

00:17:17 Alex Stahlmann: It's alright. Throw

00:17:18 luke: Yeah,

00:17:18 Alex Stahlmann: it into the chasm, bro.

00:17:20 luke: yeah, throw it right into the chasm. Um, nice. The tarot cards, they, like, usually do something specific to your actual deck of cards, meaning, like, the Joker's Think of it being on the top bar of your screen and they like apply abilities or different rules to whatever you're doing. Whereas your actual deck, what you're playing is like the poker hands. So like you can put a multiplier on your king of hearts.

00:17:44 Alex Stahlmann: Mm-hmm.

00:17:44 luke: Or make your ace of spades, uh, um. Like, a lucky card and, like, you can delete cards and things like that and, like, destroy them. So that's what the tarot cards do. The planet cards increase how many points you get off of scoring a specific hand. So you can upgrade your pair, meaning,

00:18:02 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:18:02 luke: like, If you throw in a pair, it's worth this much more than usual. So if you cheese that you can have like a pair be worth way more than like a Royal flush just by the way you're upgrading as

00:18:12 Alex Stahlmann: Yep.

00:18:12 luke: you go along on that run.

00:18:14 Alex Stahlmann: Planet cards are kind of what opened this game up for me. I was

00:18:17 luke: Yeah.

00:18:17 Alex Stahlmann: like,

00:18:17 luke: Yeah.

00:18:17 Alex Stahlmann: did a whole bunch of runs and then I finally figured out how to use those correctly and I was like, all right, now we're scoring some points.

00:18:22 luke: Or how about like, I like the intricacy of even like with the jokers, they can give you multipliers both plus your malt and

00:18:29 Alex Stahlmann: Yep.

00:18:29 luke: times your malt. So like putting

00:18:31 Alex Stahlmann: Dude,

00:18:31 luke: your, putting

00:18:32 Alex Stahlmann: there's

00:18:32 luke: your

00:18:32 Alex Stahlmann: some

00:18:32 luke: times

00:18:32 Alex Stahlmann: perm DOS

00:18:33 luke: to

00:18:33 Alex Stahlmann: involved

00:18:33 luke: the,

00:18:33 Alex Stahlmann: too.

00:18:34 luke: huh?

00:18:34 Alex Stahlmann: There's some, there's some math involved too to really make that work that, uh, took me a while to learn

00:18:40 luke: Yeah.

00:18:40 Alex Stahlmann: some perm DOS.

00:18:41 luke: Yeah. You know, perm dos is just the times you put that to the right. Cause it's the last thing to get counted.

00:18:46 Alex Stahlmann: Yep.

00:18:46 luke: So like, oh, that's why you said perm dos. I get it now. Shouts out to all my middle school math teacher friends. Um, Yes, this is how they should be teaching math, dude. What the fuck are they on?

00:18:55 Alex Stahlmann: Right? Get some kids

00:18:56 luke: What

00:18:57 Alex Stahlmann: on some

00:18:57 luke: the fuck

00:18:57 Alex Stahlmann: gambling

00:18:57 luke: are they even on,

00:18:58 Alex Stahlmann: adjacent

00:18:58 luke: dude?

00:18:59 Alex Stahlmann: video games.

00:19:00 luke: It's better than what they're playing at home, dude. I got 2k. I know what the casinos these children live in

00:19:06 Alex Stahlmann: Oh,

00:19:06 luke: now.

00:19:07 Alex Stahlmann: for

00:19:07 luke: Oh my

00:19:07 Alex Stahlmann: sure.

00:19:07 luke: god. I've never actually like considered how important an epilepsy warning is before a video game until I play fucking 2k, but that's a story for later. Um, and then vouchers, vouchers will

00:19:20 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:19:20 luke: do perks and that influence their, their

00:19:22 Alex Stahlmann: How

00:19:23 luke: man.

00:19:23 Alex Stahlmann: do you feel about vouchers?

00:19:25 luke: Uh, I don't use them as much as the other ones. Sometimes

00:19:27 Alex Stahlmann: Okay.

00:19:28 luke: if it's a really good one, like it increases the amount of hands you play or the amount of

00:19:31 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:19:31 luke: discards you have or even how many cards you can hold in your hand. I

00:19:34 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, I'm glad

00:19:34 luke: like

00:19:35 Alex Stahlmann: you brought

00:19:35 luke: that.

00:19:35 Alex Stahlmann: those up because we hadn't brought those up yet,

00:19:36 luke: Yeah.

00:19:36 Alex Stahlmann: but.

00:19:38 luke: You get a certain amount of discards. There's the amount of plans that you play. Discarding is life. I hate the jokers that like incentivize you not to discard because I just can't not search for the best hand and discard. But

00:19:50 Alex Stahlmann: Sir.

00:19:51 luke: yeah. Yeah, um, so it's a great,

00:19:54 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:19:55 luke: great game to play if you're like watching something in the background. Like if you're one of those Netflix watchers that just has it on, you need to get this game. You know what I mean?

00:20:03 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah. Dude, I do know what you mean. It's funny. The majority of my time playing this game though has been like on the deck, the steamy D playing with my steamy D in bed

00:20:12 luke: Nice.

00:20:12 Alex Stahlmann: and And then, um, and then there's been like having game choice player, uh, what's that word? I want to say polaris. I don't think that's right.

00:20:25 luke: Paralysis?

00:20:26 Alex Stahlmann: Paralysis,

00:20:26 luke: Keep

00:20:27 Alex Stahlmann: yeah.

00:20:27 luke: it in. Yeah.

00:20:29 Alex Stahlmann: So just having game paralysis and then, um, not being able to decide what to do and just being like, you know what, fuck it. And then, uh,

00:20:34 luke: It's

00:20:35 Alex Stahlmann: just

00:20:35 luke: a palate

00:20:35 Alex Stahlmann: fire

00:20:35 luke: cleanser

00:20:35 Alex Stahlmann: up.

00:20:36 luke: almost, yeah.

00:20:36 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, fire up, fire up Bellatro and then all of a sudden three hours have passed and you're like,

00:20:41 luke: Yeah,

00:20:41 Alex Stahlmann: oh, shit.

00:20:42 luke: yeah. But you know, if your wife decides to rewatch Friends or something awful like that again, and you want to partake in Friends, you could just play ballatro in

00:20:52 Alex Stahlmann: Is

00:20:52 luke: the film.

00:20:52 Alex Stahlmann: this an example or a real life scenario?

00:20:55 luke: I'm sure it's real life for somebody, but

00:20:58 Alex Stahlmann: Okay.

00:20:58 luke: not here. No.

00:20:59 Alex Stahlmann: Right on, right on. Yeah, no, it's uh, I think it's I mean, with all the different card variations, I also don't really use vouchers. The only other thing that I think is worth mentioning is that the setup, right? So the setup of the game. You, and you will unlock these over time as you win, right? So like, or as you gain certain point amounts, I think. Um,

00:21:18 luke: Yeah.

00:21:18 Alex Stahlmann: so you get to choose your deck at the beginning of the game.

00:21:21 luke: Yeah.

00:21:22 Alex Stahlmann: Uh, so you got like different, they have different names, different colors. So like the blue deck does X and the yellow deck does Y, that kind of deal.

00:21:28 luke: Sure.

00:21:28 Alex Stahlmann: Um, and that might set it up so that you have like one less hand per round or one less, uh, Like this is just various different things to like change up the flavor of each run.

00:21:38 luke: Mm-hmm.

00:21:38 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:21:39 luke: Mm-hmm.

00:21:39 Alex Stahlmann: And I'm under the understanding that you've what you've beat it with all the all the decks now.

00:21:43 luke: No, uh,

00:21:44 Alex Stahlmann: Okay.

00:21:44 luke: I beat it cause I beat it with all the ones that unlock a new one. And then I've gotten to the point where I now have to beat it on like the big blind, little blind, like the different chip difficulty settings that

00:21:57 Alex Stahlmann: Hmm.

00:21:57 luke: you unlock

00:21:57 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:21:57 luke: when you beat it. So I've unlocked one of those because I beat it on the, there's the base difficulty and then there's the next one up. I've beaten it once there. So now I'm trying to beat it with the new deck on base difficulty because I just want to do that and it's fun. And you know, it's a roguelike so like you gotta get used to whatever it is that that deck offers best.

00:22:19 Alex Stahlmann: Okay.

00:22:19 luke: So it takes a while. Like it takes a few runs to understand the benefits. Um, there's one that was super easy. It's like all of the. It was like all hearts and spades. So

00:22:31 Alex Stahlmann: Interesting.

00:22:31 luke: like you

00:22:32 Alex Stahlmann: Interesting.

00:22:32 luke: could really synergize with flushes super effectively and like that was a really easy one to beat. Um, so there's stuff like that.

00:22:39 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah. There's, I mean, it's fun. Like it's, there's so many different things, so many different variances, the game of ways you fight. I mean, you're basically trying to break the game to like get your points. You're trying to

00:22:48 luke: Yeah.

00:22:48 Alex Stahlmann: like break it to cheese things. And then, uh, you rack those points up and you eventually win. For me, there was a, there was a joker that worked really well for me. I had my, my malts all set up real nice and from different jokers, like offering different types of malts, but there is one that was like, I can't, and then they compound to some of the, some of the jokers have compounding effects. So

00:23:07 luke: Definitely.

00:23:07 Alex Stahlmann: if you don't like, if you don't use a face card or whatever, uh, it will like for every round, it'll compound the amount of multiplier for you all. And then. And, you know, so you end up, it just, and also that's like interesting stuff because it will make you like, you know, we've mentioned like how it's poker hands, but once you start adding all these different things in there, you have to like. Like all of a sudden, like a pair of two, like you bring up earlier is going to be stronger than like a full house

00:23:34 luke: Yeah.

00:23:34 Alex Stahlmann: because you've added either a bunch of planet cards to it or you've got different malts that are like helping you out there. Um,

00:23:39 luke: Your deck can even get so weird that you can have like a, I think Tyler got like a, Five of a kind flush or a six of a kind flush because he had like,

00:23:51 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:23:51 luke: you know, so you can unlock really weird, crazy combos if you're like getting into that aspect of it. It

00:23:57 Alex Stahlmann: And you

00:23:58 luke: is

00:23:58 Alex Stahlmann: can start

00:23:58 luke: funny

00:23:58 Alex Stahlmann: editing

00:23:58 luke: when you're

00:23:58 Alex Stahlmann: your

00:23:58 luke: like,

00:23:58 Alex Stahlmann: deck too.

00:23:59 luke: it is funny when you're super dependent on one type of hand and then when you're doing like an epic boss battle later on, like they simply just through chance, you just do not get any of the cards you need and you're just so fucked because you can't

00:24:11 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:24:11 luke: use the one. The one strategy you've built up to dominate with.

00:24:15 Alex Stahlmann: And what is, what is that called again? Uh, for the, for the boss hands. It's

00:24:20 luke: Uh.

00:24:20 Alex Stahlmann: like they added basically they've,

00:24:22 luke: Boss

00:24:22 Alex Stahlmann: they nerfed

00:24:22 luke: blind

00:24:22 Alex Stahlmann: like a certain

00:24:23 luke: or

00:24:23 Alex Stahlmann: thing.

00:24:23 luke: whatever.

00:24:23 Alex Stahlmann: Oh,

00:24:23 luke: Yeah.

00:24:23 Alex Stahlmann: that's like, that's what it's called. Yeah.

00:24:24 luke: So

00:24:25 Alex Stahlmann: The boss

00:24:25 luke: small

00:24:25 Alex Stahlmann: blind.

00:24:25 luke: blind, lar blind, lar blind, small blind, large blind, boss blind.

00:24:31 Alex Stahlmann: Yes, right

00:24:32 luke: Saying

00:24:32 Alex Stahlmann: on.

00:24:32 luke: that a few times. Jeez.

00:24:34 Alex Stahlmann: And you can also skip like the earlier runs, right? Like, what's that all about? I haven't really gotten into

00:24:40 luke: That

00:24:40 Alex Stahlmann: that too much. I just play it all now.

00:24:41 luke: took me a little while to figure that out. Uh, you have the option to skip them, but

00:24:45 Alex Stahlmann: And

00:24:46 luke: you don't get

00:24:46 Alex Stahlmann: they'll

00:24:46 luke: to go

00:24:46 Alex Stahlmann: give

00:24:46 luke: to the,

00:24:46 Alex Stahlmann: you a free

00:24:47 luke: you

00:24:47 Alex Stahlmann: thing. Like if

00:24:47 luke: get a thing,

00:24:47 Alex Stahlmann: you use it.

00:24:48 luke: but you don't

00:24:48 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:24:48 luke: get access to the store in between battles.

00:24:51 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:24:51 luke: So like, it's kind of a risk reward thing. Um, On the higher difficulty, you don't earn any money for the small blind.

00:24:57 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:24:57 luke: So

00:24:58 Alex Stahlmann: Okay.

00:24:58 luke: you end up skipping that one and just getting whatever the reward is a lot

00:25:01 Alex Stahlmann: Oh,

00:25:01 luke: of times. Uh,

00:25:01 Alex Stahlmann: all right.

00:25:02 luke: Sometimes you even, like, the joker you get is you get a multiplier based on how many times that you've skipped blinds.

00:25:08 Alex Stahlmann: Interesting.

00:25:09 luke: So,

00:25:09 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah,

00:25:09 luke: yeah.

00:25:10 Alex Stahlmann: yeah, that's true.

00:25:10 luke: So, you know, the game, the replayability is pretty crazy. Like, it's There's really a lot of stuff that I, I've played thirty hours and I honestly feel like I've discovered 15% of the game.

00:25:23 Alex Stahlmann: Sure. And uh, there's, there's rumblings. I think local thunk has gone as far to say that there will eventually doesn't, he didn't like give a timeline or anything, but there will be like a, there'll be like a version update, um, where he adds a whole bunch of, of, uh, joker cards or whatever.

00:25:37 luke: We just got to pay off all those baby mamas.

00:25:40 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, presumably. Presumably.

00:25:42 luke: Secret

00:25:42 Alex Stahlmann: Uh,

00:25:42 luke: identity.

00:25:44 Alex Stahlmann: but yeah, this gave, I mean, critically acclaimed, dude. We mentioned it came out in February 20th, 2024. We sat out for about a year, but a lot of people didn't. Neither did the awards, folks. So,

00:25:53 luke: Yeah.

00:25:54 Alex Stahlmann: they got the Golden Joystick Award in 2024. Also, the Game Awards gave it the Best Indie, Best Debut Indie, and Best Mobile Game.

00:26:03 luke: All right. All seems fair. It was pretty crazy. Like people had the game of the year discussion. They're like, can you really give it to this? And a lot of people were like, yes, you

00:26:11 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah,

00:26:11 luke: should. And

00:26:12 Alex Stahlmann: yeah, yeah.

00:26:12 luke: it wasn't a, you know, I hadn't played it at the time, but it wasn't a crazy argument for people. It was pretty cool.

00:26:18 Alex Stahlmann: Word. Uh, so if you had to give this game how many jokers out of five, bro, and then who would you recommend to? We've teased it, but I'd love to know.

00:26:28 luke: Jokers, dude. I'm going a full four and a half Jokers. I'm Homer Simpson, the critic, food critic. I think I've made that joke, so I'm just going to move on, but it's

00:26:41 Alex Stahlmann: I

00:26:41 luke: really addicting.

00:26:41 Alex Stahlmann: don't know if

00:26:43 luke: Oh,

00:26:43 Alex Stahlmann: you

00:26:43 luke: uh, Homer

00:26:43 Alex Stahlmann: have.

00:26:43 luke: Simpson in an episode becomes a food critic and everybody

00:26:46 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:26:46 luke: in the town gets morbidly obese and hates him because he's too positive about all the food.

00:26:51 Alex Stahlmann: Mm-hmm.

00:26:51 luke: And uh, and then someone makes fun of him. So he starts being like overly cruel. He's like, I give this for only four thumbs up.

00:26:58 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, word.

00:26:59 luke: Um,

00:26:59 Alex Stahlmann: Ha, ha.

00:27:00 luke: yeah, like a four and a half to a four. I think it's really cool. Um, if

00:27:06 Alex Stahlmann: Man,

00:27:06 luke: there's like a real

00:27:07 Alex Stahlmann: for

00:27:07 luke: game,

00:27:08 Alex Stahlmann: you, I would be subtracting points for the fact it crashes on you all the time. That fucking sucks.

00:27:14 luke: Yeah, um, and also sometimes you're playing the game, you're just like, ugh, I can't, these fucking cards, and like, I get this weird feeling where like, I can't play it for a while, like it gets... Not necessarily overwhelming or over, I don't know what it is, but sometimes I just get like caught in a run and I'm like, I fucking hate this. So like, For anyone who's like a big, big old video game player, I'd be like, you haven't bought this yet. It's cheap. You're going to like it. It's worth your time. And then surprisingly there, I would recommend this game to even like maybe someone who's like kind of gamer curious more so than like not full on gamer, but someone, you know. More casual, but someone

00:27:53 Alex Stahlmann: Sure.

00:27:53 luke: who's played like a little bit cause you're going to need a little bit of tech. Like I wouldn't really recommend this for mom and dad. They don't have the tech literacy to really enjoy it, but like someone slightly higher up than them.

00:28:05 Alex Stahlmann: Sure,

00:28:05 luke: Pretty

00:28:05 Alex Stahlmann: sure,

00:28:05 luke: wide

00:28:05 Alex Stahlmann: sure.

00:28:06 luke: audience is what I'm getting at.

00:28:08 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah. Uh, rewinding slightly just to, to talk about that crashing thing again. Um, I'm also in the impression that, you know, this one man team, local thunk dude, uh, like when this, when this went out there and people started to dig through like the code, uh, Uh, that it was like, apparently the code is super bloated. Like it's not streamlined code. And like a lot of coding people were like, man, look at this shitty code. But it's like, here's the deal. If it fucking works,

00:28:33 luke: Yeah.

00:28:33 Alex Stahlmann: it works. Like who cares if it's bloated? Um, so there, so there's that it's not the cleanest code and that's probably why it has a little bit of a problem on certain versions of the steam deck, but is that a steam deck problem or is that, uh, a blotcher problem? I'm not really sure, but. Well, you know what? I have a Steam Deck as well, and it didn't happen to me, but I know it happens to a lot of folks because I looked it up when you told me

00:28:54 luke: Yeah.

00:28:54 Alex Stahlmann: about it.

00:28:55 luke: And I've done some of the solution things

00:28:57 Alex Stahlmann: Right

00:28:57 luke: and I don't

00:28:58 Alex Stahlmann: on.

00:28:58 luke: know. It's a, it's a little

00:28:59 Alex Stahlmann: Silly.

00:28:59 luke: bit of both, man.

00:29:01 Alex Stahlmann: Indeed. I'm going to give it five jokers, though, or five

00:29:03 luke: Whoa.

00:29:03 Alex Stahlmann: celestial cards

00:29:04 luke: It's in

00:29:04 Alex Stahlmann: or five tarot cards.

00:29:05 luke: your

00:29:05 Alex Stahlmann: I don't

00:29:05 luke: top

00:29:05 Alex Stahlmann: know.

00:29:06 luke: ten of all

00:29:06 Alex Stahlmann: All

00:29:06 luke: time, dude.

00:29:06 Alex Stahlmann: of them. Nah, bro. But like, I can't really, I can't really, aside from the fact that, I

00:29:11 luke: I'm gonna

00:29:12 Alex Stahlmann: mean,

00:29:12 luke: put

00:29:12 Alex Stahlmann: I guess

00:29:12 luke: mine down

00:29:12 Alex Stahlmann: I can

00:29:12 luke: to

00:29:12 Alex Stahlmann: find.

00:29:13 luke: four.

00:29:13 Alex Stahlmann: There

00:29:13 luke: I'm gonna pull it four flat.

00:29:15 Alex Stahlmann: we go.

00:29:15 luke: An eight

00:29:16 Alex Stahlmann: So

00:29:16 luke: out

00:29:16 Alex Stahlmann: we

00:29:16 luke: of

00:29:16 Alex Stahlmann: got

00:29:16 luke: ten,

00:29:16 Alex Stahlmann: a four.

00:29:16 luke: a four out of five. That's a really good ranking. I need to hold firm.

00:29:20 Alex Stahlmann: See, I don't have any notes is a thing. I gotta give it a full five for especially with the type of game it is. Like, I mean, that's just it, you know? When you're rating anything, it's difficult. You put a five, you put like a Some fancy restaurant next to McDonald's, they all get rated in the same Google rating, dude. So that's

00:29:36 luke: Yeah.

00:29:36 Alex Stahlmann: just how it goes sometimes.

00:29:37 luke: Yeah.

00:29:38 Alex Stahlmann: But uh, but this is some really good McDonald's, bro.

00:29:41 luke: You know, this is high-end fast food. I'll give you that.

00:29:45 Alex Stahlmann: Uh, but that's just it. I think the only like, and it's not a knock. The thing is because it's the type of the gaming type of game that it is. So you can't really knock it for this. I, we didn't mention this earlier, but a phenomenal card builder would be, um,

00:29:59 luke: Trying to tell me you don't hear that?

00:30:01 Alex Stahlmann: No, I hear it. I'm waiting.

00:30:03 luke: Said you didn't earlier, that's so loud. I was like, what in the fuck?

00:30:06 Alex Stahlmann: I didn't hear it earlier. A phenomenal card game would be, ah, shit, what we played. It's a deck builder a while back. Kind of got the creepy vibes to it.

00:30:15 luke: Slay the Spire.

00:30:16 Alex Stahlmann: No, no, uh, you know, like, pull your teeth out and put them on the scale, that

00:30:20 luke: Oh

00:30:20 Alex Stahlmann: kind of shit. Mm-hmm.

00:30:21 luke: God. Yeah. Um, there's like three games in one. Um, totally blank. I don't know what that's called. Great podcasting right now.

00:30:33 Alex Stahlmann: We did a whole episode on it.

00:30:36 luke: I know I can see the art in my brain. I'm going to pull it up.

00:30:39 Alex Stahlmann: Inscription.

00:30:40 luke: Inscription. There we go. Great

00:30:42 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, dog.

00:30:42 luke: work, IT.

00:30:42 Alex Stahlmann: So, yeah.

00:30:43 luke: Yep.

00:30:44 Alex Stahlmann: So Inscription, dude, like Inscription is a deck builder where you've got like, like a boss. It's another game that's more video gamey. That's totally different

00:30:52 luke: That

00:30:52 Alex Stahlmann: type

00:30:52 luke: one

00:30:52 Alex Stahlmann: of

00:30:52 luke: had

00:30:52 Alex Stahlmann: stuff.

00:30:52 luke: a whole meta thing going to it too, that was cool.

00:30:56 Alex Stahlmann: Indeed. So, but the thing is, is like, so I don't really, oh, I bring that up though, because like inscription, like you're, you're going somewhere. I think with this game, like you're, you're playing to beat it, dude. It's like your candy crush, you know, like it's not really

00:31:08 luke: It

00:31:08 Alex Stahlmann: like.

00:31:09 luke: is about dopamine hits. There's no

00:31:10 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:31:10 luke: doubt about that.

00:31:11 Alex Stahlmann: Or,

00:31:11 luke: Excellent

00:31:11 Alex Stahlmann: like, even

00:31:12 luke: for

00:31:12 Alex Stahlmann: text.

00:31:12 luke: streaming too. Like I've seen a lot

00:31:13 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:31:14 luke: of YouTube shorts.

00:31:15 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, interesting,

00:31:15 luke: Of different

00:31:16 Alex Stahlmann: yeah.

00:31:16 luke: streamers who are just like putting together crazy combos and I'm like, I don't watch any streamers, but I'm sure if I did, I would have seen a lot of this game in those because

00:31:24 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, see,

00:31:25 luke: I've seen

00:31:25 Alex Stahlmann: see,

00:31:25 luke: little

00:31:25 Alex Stahlmann: whereas,

00:31:25 luke: bite sized.

00:31:27 Alex Stahlmann: whereas Tetris is the goat, same thing,

00:31:29 luke: Like,

00:31:29 Alex Stahlmann: you can't

00:31:30 luke: oh,

00:31:30 Alex Stahlmann: really

00:31:30 luke: brother,

00:31:30 Alex Stahlmann: beat it.

00:31:30 luke: this guy stinks.

00:31:33 Alex Stahlmann: But you can't beat this game, right? So then there's no, and that's not even a spoiler. That's just, I mean, you beat it in the sense that you, like,

00:31:38 luke: Can

00:31:38 Alex Stahlmann: you reach

00:31:39 luke: one

00:31:39 Alex Stahlmann: a certain,

00:31:39 luke: spoil

00:31:39 Alex Stahlmann: like,

00:31:40 luke: Tetris, dude, or have you

00:31:41 Alex Stahlmann: I'm

00:31:41 luke: met this

00:31:41 Alex Stahlmann: talking

00:31:42 luke: game?

00:31:42 Alex Stahlmann: about this game.

00:31:45 luke: It's

00:31:45 Alex Stahlmann: But,

00:31:45 luke: not

00:31:45 Alex Stahlmann: you know,

00:31:46 luke: that, there's

00:31:46 Alex Stahlmann: you

00:31:46 luke: no

00:31:46 Alex Stahlmann: reach

00:31:46 luke: storyline

00:31:46 Alex Stahlmann: your point threshold.

00:31:47 luke: to spoil, it's just,

00:31:48 Alex Stahlmann: Right,

00:31:48 luke: yeah,

00:31:48 Alex Stahlmann: right.

00:31:49 luke: not that I know of, at least, uh,

00:31:51 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, you reach your point threshold and you can even choose to keep playing indefinitely if you

00:31:54 luke: Yeah,

00:31:54 Alex Stahlmann: want.

00:31:55 luke: you do it. You find your own fun in it. I mean, hitting different goals, the unlocking, it's part of the lizard

00:32:00 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:32:00 luke: brain continuum, but that's

00:32:02 Alex Stahlmann: But I gotta give it five, dude. I gotta give it, I gotta give it a

00:32:05 luke: crazy.

00:32:05 Alex Stahlmann: full send.

00:32:05 luke: That's crazy.

00:32:06 Alex Stahlmann: Gotta give it a full send. And uh, let me see, as who's, I'm on board, like I think just about anybody, uh, your Candy Crush folk that need that dopamine, like they're gonna love it. Like, honestly, I do think anybody can really figure out if they give it enough time. So like, you know, even your mom's past, but like, you know, I think it's anybody that's looking for some like lizard brain dopamine hits, like kill some time. Like, you know, this

00:32:29 luke: You're

00:32:29 Alex Stahlmann: isn't an adventure

00:32:30 luke: re-watching

00:32:30 Alex Stahlmann: story.

00:32:31 luke: The Office for the seventh time and you just want it on in the background. You just throw that on and you got Bellatro. I mean,

00:32:37 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:32:38 luke: you know, you're watching The Bachelor like Alex does and then... You just play

00:32:43 Alex Stahlmann: The golden

00:32:43 luke: Blatro,

00:32:43 Alex Stahlmann: bachelor only bro.

00:32:44 luke: only The Golden Bachelor,

00:32:46 Alex Stahlmann: Not.

00:32:46 luke: sure.

00:32:47 Alex Stahlmann: Word. Well, that's it, man. Malatro. With that, let's take a little break. Come back with some side questions. You got something to shill today? I got, I got something in mind that I can riff with if you don't.

00:33:03 luke: You can go with it. I was just going to shout out all my beefy J.

00:33:07 Alex Stahlmann: Word.

00:33:11 luke: See a trend with me, steamy D's and beefy J's. I just

00:33:13 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah,

00:33:13 luke: really love,

00:33:14 Alex Stahlmann: very good,

00:33:14 luke: really

00:33:14 Alex Stahlmann: very

00:33:15 luke: love the

00:33:15 Alex Stahlmann: good.

00:33:15 luke: theme bit over and over again.

00:33:20 Alex Stahlmann: This month, Low Five Gaming is unofficially brought to you in part by Slides. What do you know about slides, brother?

00:33:30 luke: Like at the park, are we talking sandals?

00:33:33 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, shit. I was talking sandals, but you know, slides at the park are dope too.

00:33:37 luke: Sliding into DMs? I don't know. Internet like that, brother.

00:33:41 Alex Stahlmann: Sliding to DM, sliding down the park slide. I'm talking for your feet, though, my man. I'm

00:33:47 luke: I'm

00:33:47 Alex Stahlmann: talking

00:33:47 luke: a Berk

00:33:47 Alex Stahlmann: having

00:33:47 luke: boy. Does

00:33:48 Alex Stahlmann: some

00:33:48 luke: that

00:33:48 Alex Stahlmann: slides.

00:33:48 luke: count as a slide?

00:33:49 Alex Stahlmann: Hey, man, you tell me.

00:33:51 luke: I'm

00:33:51 Alex Stahlmann: I

00:33:51 luke: sliding

00:33:51 Alex Stahlmann: feel

00:33:51 luke: them on,

00:33:51 Alex Stahlmann: like.

00:33:52 luke: but I feel I want to be like slides. There's not as much as a bougie connotation. So I don't know if I fit. I'm

00:33:58 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah,

00:33:58 luke: a Berkey

00:33:58 Alex Stahlmann: I'm gonna,

00:33:59 luke: boy.

00:33:59 Alex Stahlmann: I'm

00:33:59 luke: Okay.

00:33:59 Alex Stahlmann: gonna include it. I'm gonna say Birkenstocks are slides, brother.

00:34:02 luke: Okay. Just, you know, crunchy slides.

00:34:05 Alex Stahlmann: Dude, I mean like elevated leather slides for sure.

00:34:09 luke: German engineered elevated leather slide.

00:34:12 Alex Stahlmann: Indeed. They still go on your feet. They still got the same strap over the top.

00:34:16 luke: Yeah,

00:34:16 Alex Stahlmann: Maybe a little like

00:34:17 luke: I gotta bust mine out. We're in our Minnesota fake, fake spring,

00:34:20 Alex Stahlmann: Dude,

00:34:20 luke: second winter

00:34:21 Alex Stahlmann: that's

00:34:21 luke: phase

00:34:21 Alex Stahlmann: why I

00:34:22 luke: right

00:34:22 Alex Stahlmann: bring

00:34:22 luke: now,

00:34:22 Alex Stahlmann: it

00:34:22 luke: so.

00:34:22 Alex Stahlmann: up. I keep, I keep slides by the door year round though, because I ain't trying to throw my shoes on all the time. I'm wild, brother. I'll, I'll like put on my slides and bring the trash out in the middle of the winter. Like maybe some snow gets on my sock, but I'm like, I don't want to put my shoes on.

00:34:37 luke: Hmm.

00:34:38 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:34:39 luke: Yeah. You know, usually I agree, but with the boys and the boots and all their nonsense, our front door gets packed. So they get tucked away at some point, but I have been thinking about it specifically because, uh, going in and out of the house for the grill. My guy

00:34:53 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, yeah, see, that's

00:34:53 luke: been

00:34:54 Alex Stahlmann: what's up.

00:34:54 luke: getting, getting good mileage on the grill already. So I'm

00:34:56 Alex Stahlmann: Hey,

00:34:56 luke: very happy about that.

00:34:57 Alex Stahlmann: you gotta,

00:34:57 luke: And slides

00:34:58 Alex Stahlmann: gotta

00:34:58 luke: are perfect

00:34:58 Alex Stahlmann: bust

00:34:58 luke: for that.

00:34:58 Alex Stahlmann: up, gotta bust out the slides, gotta bust out the perks. Uh, I recently purchased some new slides, new Nike slides. Um, uh, I end up getting Nike. We don't have to get into why I'm not like shilling Nike out here as whatever. But when you got a size fifteen put certain brands you got to go with,

00:35:17 luke: Dude, the intro

00:35:17 Alex Stahlmann: uh,

00:35:18 luke: to slides is brutal though. Like even the cheapy ones, breaking them in is like a process.

00:35:23 Alex Stahlmann: This is true, I'm learning that right now, relearning that because I've been rocking an old pair of slides since 2019 and the reason I got a new pair is because I'm like, okay, These old ones, you know, they still work. They haven't broken on me yet,

00:35:36 luke: Yeah.

00:35:36 Alex Stahlmann: but they

00:35:36 luke: A

00:35:36 Alex Stahlmann: look, they look like they've, uh, they're on their last

00:35:39 luke: little

00:35:39 Alex Stahlmann: limb. Like,

00:35:39 luke: bit ratty. Um, I

00:35:41 Alex Stahlmann: I'm tired,

00:35:41 luke: like to,

00:35:42 Alex Stahlmann: boss.

00:35:42 luke: once it gets hot enough, I just hate wearing socks. Uh, I

00:35:45 Alex Stahlmann: Dude.

00:35:45 luke: prefer not to wear socks as it is.

00:35:47 Alex Stahlmann: 100%. Oh.

00:35:48 luke: Um, so I'll wear my slides to work and then two stories here. One, if you are a teacher specifically Within the age range I am, if you wear sandals to work in the fall when it's still pretty hot, kids just don't bat an eye. But if you do it in the spring when they know you better, they're like, oh, who brought the dogs out? Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. So there's that, but also I'm old now, so apparently one needs to lotion their toes or else your toe knuckles will get ashy and crusty. And uh, you better believe I have no fucking time in my life. I like put lotion on it like two days in a row. And I was like, this is, this

00:36:25 Alex Stahlmann: Luke

00:36:25 luke: is not

00:36:26 Alex Stahlmann: the,

00:36:26 luke: worth it. My time here. So I have the

00:36:28 Alex Stahlmann: Luke

00:36:28 luke: crust.

00:36:28 Alex Stahlmann: the

00:36:29 luke: Yeah. Yeah.

00:36:29 Alex Stahlmann: KD, Luke the KD of podcasting, KD of teaching.

00:36:33 luke: My crusty, my crusty ass toes. Uh, so I had a girl this year who just immediately saw that and was like, oh, hell no. And then she just, you know, would come into my classroom every day and let everybody know how crusty my toes were. And

00:36:45 Alex Stahlmann: Dog, she does

00:36:46 luke: uh,

00:36:46 Alex Stahlmann: that again. You got to pull up some clips of KD just playing ball and being like, this man don't care about his feet either. Yeah,

00:36:51 luke: No, I just let it ride, dude. I'm like, hell yeah, they're crusty. I told it to my wife and she just laughed and

00:36:56 Alex Stahlmann: KD

00:36:56 luke: she goes,

00:36:57 Alex Stahlmann: too.

00:36:57 luke: they

00:36:57 Alex Stahlmann: You

00:36:57 luke: are

00:36:57 Alex Stahlmann: don't

00:36:57 luke: crusty.

00:36:58 Alex Stahlmann: give a fuck.

00:36:58 luke: Yeah. I got no time to be lotioning toes. So, uh, the slides, you know, I'm, I'm letting it all hang out, dude. Letting them dogs out. So I feel you.

00:37:07 Alex Stahlmann: Fucking dig

00:37:08 luke: I'm

00:37:08 Alex Stahlmann: it, dude. I'm

00:37:09 luke: gonna

00:37:09 Alex Stahlmann: so

00:37:09 luke: dig,

00:37:09 Alex Stahlmann: excited

00:37:09 luke: dig

00:37:09 Alex Stahlmann: that it's

00:37:10 luke: out the Berkey

00:37:10 Alex Stahlmann: officially

00:37:10 luke: boys right now.

00:37:11 Alex Stahlmann: slide weather again.

00:37:12 luke: Yeah.

00:37:12 Alex Stahlmann: That's what's up. Unofficially brought to you. We ain't getting no money from slides. We're paying for slides,

00:37:17 luke: It's

00:37:17 Alex Stahlmann: but that's what's

00:37:17 luke: true.

00:37:17 Alex Stahlmann: up.

00:37:18 luke: I'd take Berk money, dude. I mean, I'd take anyone's money, but if they're like, I'm just gonna send you some Berks, I'm like, shoot, alright?

00:37:25 Alex Stahlmann: Soon.

00:37:26 luke: Although, breaking in Berks is rough on the feet, dude.

00:37:30 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah,

00:37:30 luke: Rough.

00:37:31 Alex Stahlmann: that's, that's fair. That is, that is the, the fallback, but once they're broken in mine,

00:37:35 luke: Hell

00:37:35 Alex Stahlmann: oh,

00:37:36 luke: yeah.

00:37:36 Alex Stahlmann: that's

00:37:36 luke: Hell

00:37:37 Alex Stahlmann: what's

00:37:37 luke: yeah.

00:37:37 Alex Stahlmann: up.

00:37:39 luke: All right, dude. Now that we're sliding back into programming here, back from our unsanctioned sponsor, I'm on a roll here, dude. I'm so fucking good at this. What are you, what are you even playing lately? Anything?

00:37:52 Alex Stahlmann: I'll let you go, man. I re-listened to our last episode the other day. I'm like, shit, like, I'll let Luke go first. So I got some time at the end. He doesn't. Uh-huh.

00:38:01 luke: So I don't get antsy. So the last one I talked about, I held off on talking about foundation, right? And I talked about Prince of Persia. Okay. So foundation super happy about this. Uh, I don't play a ton of early access games, but as you've been listening for a while, you'd know that I'm a, I'm a big city builder guy. I really like to play different simulation games and city building games. And if I can get into it, It's like, it's bad because I'll just get absolutely lost. But I bought the game like in 2001 maybe or like really early on. And uh, loved it. And then would just periodically come back to it and be like, whoa, they changed this up. Oh, they changed that up. So before launch, I had like seventy hours in it. And then, it's pretty funny, a few days before I thought it had launched because I saw, like, different people's stuff on the internet, but I think they were playing, like, an earlier, so, like, I put a good, like, decent amount of time in and I had a pretty bustling thing going and then I woke up the next day and they're like, here's the one and I didn't realize I was playing on like the final, final version of the beta.

00:39:05 Alex Stahlmann: Mm.

00:39:05 luke: So then the final final, like the, some of the new changes that has completely new cosmetic look, which I thought was an interesting choice, but still looks really good. It looks really cool. Plays really well. Um, and then just being in and like being part of the community as far as seeing what longtime players like myself had to say about it and then seeing what a bunch of noobs had to say about it. And then just the rush of different tips and fixes and things that came through in the public community I thought was really cool. Um, so it is a gridless city builder where villagers follow like kind of organic paths and those paths turn into roads more or less. Um, and it's really chill. There's, like, a combat part of it where you send troops off to do missions, but other than that, like, you're not defending against anything. You're not on, like, a huge, like, it can get... Pretty nitty gritty and intricate with supply chains and making sure things are going right. Um, but it is very relaxing in a way or at least passive perhaps is a better way to put it than relaxing because. I get like all hunched up close to my computer like that Mimi you sent me the other day when I'm

00:40:12 Alex Stahlmann: Ha,

00:40:12 luke: playing this game.

00:40:13 Alex Stahlmann: ha, ha.

00:40:13 luke: So to call it relaxing is a little bit out of control. And the last thing I'll mention about it that I think is makes it unique is that, um, a lot of like the bigger buildings. So like you have these, you have like your regular stuff, supply chains, but like you have like a monastery, uh, Like a military fort and like the, what I'll just call like the city administration and then taverns, like those are all modular. So like you, you, Create and adjust sizes and pieces and stick things together, um, which if you watch some gameplay, that's going to make a whole lot more sense as far as like, um, Like, your people need to go to a church so you can build, like, a church and you have, like, a main hall and you need to attach, like, a bell tower. So, like, there's a creative component. Like, you can make things look really cool. And, uh, I constantly want to comment on people's Reddit posts that we're not playing the same game. Cause they can come up with the most beautiful creations and mine looks dope, but nothing like that. So I love that game. It's a, I think it's the first time I've ever been on like a journey of a early access game through launch, like from so long ago to. So I've been playing it almost four or five years. So to see it in an early state and then move all the way through its one launch is pretty, pretty gnar, dude. My little, my little bro grew up, you know?

00:41:31 Alex Stahlmann: Nice. Uh, so you're playing that on your, on your, uh, PC or are you playing that on the Steam Deck?

00:41:37 luke: Uh, PC the whole time. Yeah.

00:41:39 Alex Stahlmann: Okay.

00:41:40 luke: For the last few years. So I haven't tried it on the steam deck, but I don't see that being particularly fun due to the, the smaller screen and all

00:41:48 Alex Stahlmann: Hmm.

00:41:48 luke: that.

00:41:50 Alex Stahlmann: Okay.

00:41:51 luke: So I got that. I'm still playing Elden Ring. Uh, I've hated it and loved it about four more times since we last spoke.

00:41:58 Alex Stahlmann: Nice.

00:41:59 luke: So, um, that's just a whole thing. I finally bought 2k. I'm trying to think of the last time I owned 2k. I've never owned 2k on the Xbox. I'm fairly certain. So like. At least two, three, four years since I've bought 2k and uh, man, what the hell has happened to society and culture? What is life, dude? I hate it. I mean, it's kind of fun. I'll play some more of it, but I hate it. I hate what it has become. If we go back to my fond 2011 NBA 2k, it was the best one ever. And it's just been a, it's been a slope downhill ever since.

00:42:37 Alex Stahlmann: You don't like the gameplay itself? The gameplay proper?

00:42:39 luke: Gameplay itself is pretty good. Uh, there's

00:42:41 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:42:41 luke: some small things that I have grievances with. Um, but for the most part, it's pretty good. Uh, the difficulty is annoying as fuck. Um, I've really struggled with finding something that feels fair where I'm not just winning all the time or losing all the time. Uh,

00:42:54 Alex Stahlmann: Hmm.

00:42:54 luke: it looks beautiful. Um, it's cool, but. Every menu is a nightmare. The amount of times

00:43:02 Alex Stahlmann: That's fair.

00:43:03 luke: that it's slow because an ad wants to or it like makes me go to the home screen from whatever screen I left off in just so I can feed me to new daily ads.

00:43:12 Alex Stahlmann: Not trying to buy your virtual credit or whatever

00:43:14 luke: Dude,

00:43:14 Alex Stahlmann: they call that stuff.

00:43:14 luke: everything is so cluttered because they're trying to pack so much fucking shit in the game. I feel like I'm in the worst casino having a bad time just and then once you get in the game, you're like, this feels good and everything else is so clunky and like just bad. Bad interface and like,

00:43:30 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, that's funny.

00:43:31 luke: whew,

00:43:31 Alex Stahlmann: I've been

00:43:31 luke: and

00:43:32 Alex Stahlmann: playing

00:43:32 luke: they're

00:43:32 Alex Stahlmann: for so

00:43:32 luke: flashing.

00:43:32 Alex Stahlmann: long, I just put

00:43:33 luke: Dude.

00:43:33 Alex Stahlmann: my blinders on. I just put my blinders on and I go

00:43:35 luke: You

00:43:35 Alex Stahlmann: straight to

00:43:35 luke: need

00:43:35 Alex Stahlmann: like,

00:43:36 luke: literal

00:43:36 Alex Stahlmann: uh,

00:43:36 luke: blinders. It's like everything's

00:43:37 Alex Stahlmann: yeah.

00:43:37 luke: neon and flashing and like, and I'm just like, what is, oh my God. Like I feel ancient. Like, I need to take like, I literally like when halftime shows up, you can't just skip halftime and it's like four different load screens. You know what I'm talking about?

00:43:54 Alex Stahlmann: That's funny. Uh, yeah, I guess.

00:43:56 luke: I literally

00:43:56 Alex Stahlmann: Like

00:43:57 luke: look down

00:43:57 Alex Stahlmann: I

00:43:57 luke: because I can't handle all of the different flashing lights that come in and off the screen. I'm like, just give me back to the simulation. It's so bad, dude. Uh, but

00:44:05 Alex Stahlmann: said.

00:44:05 luke: yeah.

00:44:05 Alex Stahlmann: I zone out and I just press A a whole bunch

00:44:07 luke: Dude,

00:44:08 Alex Stahlmann: until

00:44:08 luke: it's, it's,

00:44:08 Alex Stahlmann: it skips

00:44:08 luke: it's

00:44:09 Alex Stahlmann: through.

00:44:09 luke: so bad. Uh, the gameplay is tight though. So buried deep, deep within

00:44:13 Alex Stahlmann: I

00:44:13 luke: this carcass of glut and just shame is a good game buried deep in there. And then Jesus Christ.

00:44:23 Alex Stahlmann: can't wait to whip you up.

00:44:24 luke: Oh, you know, you probably won't still, but

00:44:29 Alex Stahlmann: We'll see.

00:44:30 luke: you'll just get me quitting

00:44:31 Alex Stahlmann: You wanted,

00:44:32 luke: because I

00:44:32 Alex Stahlmann: you

00:44:32 luke: hated

00:44:32 Alex Stahlmann: wanted

00:44:32 luke: all the

00:44:32 Alex Stahlmann: to

00:44:33 luke: flash

00:44:33 Alex Stahlmann: do this digitally today so that I couldn't beat you

00:44:35 luke: to

00:44:35 Alex Stahlmann: in

00:44:35 luke: duck

00:44:35 Alex Stahlmann: 2k.

00:44:35 luke: you.

00:44:36 Alex Stahlmann: That's

00:44:36 luke: This

00:44:36 Alex Stahlmann: why.

00:44:36 luke: is correct. This is correct. Not ready yet. I gotta play as a team other than the wolves.

00:44:42 Alex Stahlmann: Doug, uh, I've

00:44:45 luke: Cause the hardest

00:44:45 Alex Stahlmann: been polishing

00:44:45 luke: part is

00:44:46 Alex Stahlmann: up.

00:44:46 luke: like remembering their, like getting comfortable with their release points.

00:44:50 Alex Stahlmann: Yes.

00:44:50 luke: So I can't imagine playing with a team for the first time. Uh, I do turn off the overlays that like show the little arrow going up to the perfect point.

00:44:59 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, I turned that off right away. I

00:45:01 luke: Cause

00:45:01 Alex Stahlmann: don't

00:45:01 luke: that it's

00:45:01 Alex Stahlmann: even remember

00:45:02 luke: in the

00:45:02 Alex Stahlmann: that

00:45:02 luke: way

00:45:02 Alex Stahlmann: being on

00:45:02 luke: so

00:45:02 Alex Stahlmann: in this version.

00:45:02 luke: much.

00:45:04 Alex Stahlmann: Maybe I turned it off to like

00:45:05 luke: I

00:45:05 Alex Stahlmann: the first time

00:45:05 luke: thought

00:45:05 Alex Stahlmann: I played.

00:45:06 luke: I'd turn it off, but I, it was just right there again. And then I hated being in the menus. Um, someone needs to, we need, you know, Elon Musk to get his chainsaw out to 2k and trim all this fat. You know what I mean?

00:45:18 Alex Stahlmann: Are you ripping packs? You doing all that kind of crazy

00:45:20 luke: Fuck

00:45:20 Alex Stahlmann: shit?

00:45:21 luke: no, dude. I

00:45:23 Alex Stahlmann: No, me

00:45:23 luke: just

00:45:23 Alex Stahlmann: neither.

00:45:23 luke: want to play as the Timberwolves. Even like the My Career thing, like I was instantly kind of annoyed and I was like, this should be a fun mode. I like already hate what they're trying to do with it. I'm like, just let me play as it. Like, they didn't let you get drafted by a team.

00:45:37 Alex Stahlmann: Dude, I don't even mess with any of that stuff. I just go and I play my seasons.

00:45:40 luke: I know, but they're just like, what team do you want to play for? I'm like, bitch, I don't get to choose. That's not part of the fun. Like,

00:45:45 Alex Stahlmann: Oh, they don't, uh,

00:45:46 luke: There's

00:45:46 Alex Stahlmann: they don't

00:45:47 luke: no

00:45:47 Alex Stahlmann: have

00:45:47 luke: like

00:45:47 Alex Stahlmann: a draft

00:45:47 luke: draft.

00:45:47 Alex Stahlmann: anymore?

00:45:47 luke: You're just like

00:45:48 Alex Stahlmann: Interesting.

00:45:48 luke: on whatever fucking team you want to be on. And I'm like, ugh.

00:45:51 Alex Stahlmann: Interesting.

00:45:54 luke: So Foundation, dude. Love that game. Smaller dev team. Probably like a double A game or maybe indie. I don't really know. Uh, super sick though. Love that. Super chill vibes. Just getting my, getting my bread, getting my wheat to my, to my windmill, to my breadsmith, you know, it's

00:46:11 Alex Stahlmann: There you go.

00:46:11 luke: gonna sell it at my markets. So yeah, what have you been playing?

00:46:16 Alex Stahlmann: Man, this and that, I've been, uh, I think the last time that we talked, I was saying that I was about twenty hours deep into Pokemon Emerald. I

00:46:24 luke: Oh.

00:46:24 Alex Stahlmann: played a few more hours of that, but, uh, I've shifted. I shifted over to Final Fantasy, uh, Uh, the original Final Fantasy, the remake of it though, like a remaster of it for the PSP.

00:46:36 luke: Hmm.

00:46:37 Alex Stahlmann: Um,

00:46:37 luke: Hmm.

00:46:37 Alex Stahlmann: but it's still the original game. That's been a lot of fun. I probably poured about fourteen ish hours into that, maybe a little less. I don't know for sure. Uh, But similar to Pokemon, I've like, this is one of those things. It's very similar to what we were saying about both those games. Very similar to what we were saying about Bellatro. It's just been great to be able to rock and roll those while something else is on or while I'm doing something else, a little multitask gaming. But I was really enjoying the, the Final Fantasy and I, I got to A part of the game where things are still trucking along very, I mean, they both are like both Pokemon in the final fantasy, the original final fantasy are super similar in the sense that you've got, uh, your random encounters and the combat is similar, uh, Um, I would say, I would, I would venture to say that Final Fantasy, even though it's an older game, a little bit more complex, there's just different things you can do. You got to party. Um, and all the different stuff, but I mean, whatever, dude, I'm going

00:47:33 luke: Similar to

00:47:33 Alex Stahlmann: to juxtapose

00:47:33 luke: a party

00:47:33 Alex Stahlmann: that

00:47:34 luke: of

00:47:34 Alex Stahlmann: too.

00:47:34 luke: Pokemon.

00:47:35 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, we'll see. That's just it, I guess. Yeah. So maybe they are the same. I don't know. Uh,

00:47:41 luke: Similar edge.

00:47:43 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah, no, for sure. And, but it's, it's interesting. Like I reached a point where I was kind of trucking, trucking on that game. And then it's, it's Peter. It has petered out, but not like, not that I'm not going to return to it. It's just kind of, Both of them have been I've actually gone back to Pokemon recently to pick it up because they're pretty easy to pick up. Once you like get oriented over to where you are on the map, you can like kind of continue the flow. Um, but that's been a lot of fun, dude. Like, I've never played that game. I hope that I push through to the end of it. I think I'm probably about a quarter to halfway through. Uh, so my hope is I get that knocked out of the, you know, checked out the list in the next couple months here. Um, to keep it as a slow burn. But other than that, I, too, have played some 2K. I know you picked it up, and I know I'm not supposed to talk about it on the pod anymore, but because you picked it up, that gives me an excuse. And I haven't been, uh, but I haven't been getting into it like I had in the past where I'm going through my seasons or whatever. You were, you mentioned earlier, you got to play as different teams. I'm like, well, Luke's playing this game now. I'm going to have to whoop him up. And I know that we're not going to both play as the Timberwolves.

00:48:42 luke: Right.

00:48:42 Alex Stahlmann: So,

00:48:43 luke: Can't

00:48:43 Alex Stahlmann: so

00:48:44 luke: hear

00:48:44 Alex Stahlmann: I'm

00:48:44 luke: that.

00:48:44 Alex Stahlmann: just gonna play uh, they have the bird like a play now and then I play uh, I just look at the games of the day and then I tell Google to pick a random number between Five, one and five.

00:48:55 luke: Mm-hmm.

00:48:55 Alex Stahlmann: And then, and then whatever number that is on the list of the games of the day, uh, I'll play as one of those two teams. Uh, and again, I just randomly choose the, uh, you know, whatever it tells me. So I've been, I've been brushing up my skills with other teams. Uh, but it's tricky, man. Like, like you mentioned, like, you can, like, I'm really good with the Timberwolves because I'm so comfortable with their release points and all that kind of stuff. You know, I was playing as the Pacers and I'm decent with the Pacers now, but the thing is, is like, um, um, Halliburton, dude, Hallie should have a decent three point, but I haven't got his release right. So like I put up bricks. Yeah.

00:49:30 luke: Yeah, it's brutal. I feel bad. Um, Nas Ring just like, excuse me, Nas Reed just flings the ball out of his hand

00:49:37 Alex Stahlmann: Right.

00:49:38 luke: and like, I cannot get it down. I mean, I hit him sometimes, especially when I turned down the difficulty finally. Uh, just a side rant. Uh, if you have eight difficulty settings, that's inherently annoying because

00:49:51 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah.

00:49:51 luke: that means there's not a true middle and I just don't understand who's in the room. That's like, let's have eight.

00:49:55 Alex Stahlmann: Are there sliders too? I can't remember.

00:49:57 luke: Probably,

00:49:57 Alex Stahlmann: I think there is.

00:49:58 luke: yeah.

00:49:58 Alex Stahlmann: Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

00:49:59 luke: So, I guess I could look up custom sliders, but I think I just gotta... It's got to play shockingly. And then, uh, when I eventually get good enough where I can go in the next one up and not lose every single time, that'd be pretty sweet.

00:50:15 Alex Stahlmann: Nice. Yeah. Uh, but that's just a minor one for me. Another big one that's been a lot of fun is I ended up getting this thing called a retro tink. And what that is, is it's this box, it's this fancy box that upscales uh, retro hardware to a modern television. Right?

00:50:33 luke: Yeah.

00:50:34 Alex Stahlmann: So basically I have connected my PS2 and my Dreamcast to this RetroTINK and soon, dude, I'm still on my eBay shit, I picked up a Nintendo Wii for fifty bucks.

00:50:48 luke: Sure.

00:50:49 Alex Stahlmann: Uh, I've got that coming soon, so that will be connected to it as well, but it's fun because I've got this, you know, a nice new TV that I got around Black Friday times. Uh, but the thing is, you know, I've got my little, my little, uh, CRT in the background for No one because we are not going to share, we don't like share out our video all the time. But anyways, like that's the thing with my retro, my retro setup is like, it can be really charming to play on and like my small little retro like CRT TV. Uh, but a lot of the times it's like, man, I'd much rather just be sitting on the couch, like playing video games there, right?

00:51:21 luke: Yeah.

00:51:21 Alex Stahlmann: Or, you know, taking advantage of this big screen. But that doesn't really make sense for your PS2, your sixty-four and all these other, like, Because if you connect those, even if you, well, first of all, there's, uh, the cable system set up. So you've got like component cables. If you're lucky, those are pretty nice. Otherwise you've got like different, they're all these different cable setups, but yeah, When you connect those, you might need to get a converter, like a little dongle that will convert those into an HDMI signal. Um, if your TV, cause the TVs don't have like opponent inputs anymore. Uh, but when it does that, like, it just gets degraded so bad, you connect a, you connect a PS2 to a new TV, dude, it looks like garbage.

00:52:01 luke: Mm.

00:52:01 Alex Stahlmann: But this RetroTINK makes it so it looks absolutely stunning, dude. It's awesome. And it runs that and it also gets it going. So it runs at, uh, you know, full fifty sixty uh, sixty frames per second. So it's running smooth as well. So you got like a nice picture and then it's got all these profiles, you know, all these nerds have like figured out essentially if shaders, if you're familiar with shaders, but, um, there's different profiles you can add to them to make, uh, two different flavors of different types of PVMs, different types of like, CRTs, all these different, uh, you know, to get, to get, to recapture the look that you would get from, from like an older television. And you can also just do pixel perfect, you know, and then Uh, so that's been super fun, dude. I've been playing a whole bunch of PS2 games, a little bit of Dreamcast and, uh, and it's kind of, uh, it's breathed a whole bunch of new life into especially PS2, uh, for me because my Dreamcast library, not that big. But PS2, I got a lot of great games, so it's, uh, it's been super fun, man. Um,

00:53:00 luke: Well,

00:53:00 Alex Stahlmann: big

00:53:00 luke: that was shop

00:53:01 Alex Stahlmann: sad

00:53:01 luke: talk.

00:53:01 Alex Stahlmann: quest.

00:53:01 luke: That was shop talk, Val. Back of the shop, dude.

00:53:04 Alex Stahlmann: Dude, I've been tinkering. You made a joke last episode about motorcycle maintenance.

00:53:08 luke: Yeah.

00:53:09 Alex Stahlmann: And I was like, yeah, 100%, dude. I love that stuff. Like, uh, just getting these things to work, setting things up. Like, it's kind of fun because I've reached a point with the With the, with the PS2 where it's like, it's all set up and it's rocking and rolling. I, I gotta do some things right to clean up some file names and whatnot. But like a lot of times I'll spend a bunch of time, like getting a device to work the way I want it to. And then I'm like, no. I don't really feel like playing anything. I don't know right now,

00:53:33 luke: Yeah.

00:53:34 Alex Stahlmann: you know, but it's like, but I've gotten, I've gotten to the point with my PS2 though, where it's like, this is dope, man. It like, it looks, it's like running great. It's purring and I can play these games. So I've been playing, uh, I played a little bit of dark cloud up to the point where It got difficult. And then I was like, oh, shit, this isn't, like, I mean, it's fine. Like, I just wasn't, like, I wasn't quite ready to, like, pour a bunch of time in there. But I was like, all right, I'm good on this for now. But I've been playing. Dude, I love the time capsule of Old Men's.

00:54:02 luke: Yeah.

00:54:02 Alex Stahlmann: One, because,

00:54:03 luke: There's

00:54:03 Alex Stahlmann: one,

00:54:03 luke: like

00:54:03 Alex Stahlmann: because,

00:54:04 luke: a weird

00:54:04 Alex Stahlmann: like,

00:54:04 luke: point where like two, three years, that's too soon. But once you get to a certain point, it's like the perfect, perfect deal where you remember the names or you're just like, whoa.

00:54:15 Alex Stahlmann: Totally,

00:54:16 luke: Dante

00:54:16 Alex Stahlmann: so like,

00:54:17 luke: Culpepper.

00:54:17 Alex Stahlmann: uh.

00:54:17 luke: Mm-hmm.

00:54:18 Alex Stahlmann: Dude, uh, yeah, and he got a fucking cannon on him, let me tell you. And

00:54:23 luke: Somebody

00:54:23 Alex Stahlmann: he's fast.

00:54:23 luke: had to chuck it to Randy.

00:54:25 Alex Stahlmann: Yep, no, for sure, dude. So, like, and then NFL 2K on the Dreamcast, I was playing a game of that, like, uh, the other night. Um, just, like, loading up those, uh, those Viking teams around that pocket were just so good. We didn't, like, win any fucking championships, but. But the teams are real nice. Uh, so fun to play with, fun to play like that. Dude, I'm playing some, uh, from like Need for Speed Underground two if you remember that one.

00:54:46 luke: Mm-hmm.

00:54:47 Alex Stahlmann: Uh, man, just like, uh, just having a ton of fun with it, man. Like, and it's, uh. I'm excited to show you the next time you come through because like it's like I said, it's like it's breathing a whole bunch of new life into my PS2 and it's been fun to play.

00:55:01 luke: Gotta play Lord of the Rings Two Towers, dude.

00:55:04 Alex Stahlmann: Got that game and

00:55:05 luke: Gotta play

00:55:05 Alex Stahlmann: it

00:55:05 luke: it.

00:55:05 Alex Stahlmann: can be done.

00:55:07 luke: It's the only, the only one.

00:55:11 Alex Stahlmann: Word. And I think that's good, man. I think that's one of the things I got going for side quests. Still reading. Still reading books.

00:55:20 luke: Nice.

00:55:21 Alex Stahlmann: It was nice.

00:55:22 luke: Nice.

00:55:23 Alex Stahlmann: But yeah, but with that, dude, and with all you listening, thank you. Thank

00:55:27 luke: Thank

00:55:28 Alex Stahlmann: you,

00:55:28 luke: you.

00:55:28 Alex Stahlmann: brother.

00:55:29 luke: Thank

00:55:29 Alex Stahlmann: Thank you

00:55:29 luke: you.

00:55:29 Alex Stahlmann: for

00:55:30 luke: Yeah.

00:55:30 Alex Stahlmann: listening, folks. Ah, head to low5gaming.com and click on that Discord invite. Invite.

00:55:40 luke: Invoi?

00:55:40 Alex Stahlmann: Invite.

00:55:42 luke: You're

00:55:42 Alex Stahlmann: And you can,

00:55:42 luke: invoided

00:55:42 Alex Stahlmann: uh, you can holler

00:55:43 luke: to our

00:55:43 Alex Stahlmann: me in the

00:55:43 luke: discord.

00:55:43 Alex Stahlmann: Discord. You are invited to our discord. Get on over there or follow us on the socials. Do whatever. Just keep on listening to us. Do whatever you want. I don't give a shit.

00:55:51 luke: Ooh,

00:55:52 Alex Stahlmann: Uh, well,

00:55:52 luke: wow,

00:55:52 Alex Stahlmann: I kind of care. I

00:55:53 luke: edgy.

00:55:54 Alex Stahlmann: care that you're happy. Stay happy. And if you're not happy, Here's a big virtual hug for y'all.

00:56:01 luke: All right.

00:56:02 Alex Stahlmann: All right, man. Take it easy.

00:56:08 luke: Peace. Get a haircut, you hippie.

00:56:10 Alex Stahlmann: Dude, I fucking wish. I, uh, it's obviously Mama Barber. See how gallivanting around California right now.

00:56:21 luke: What about like the two months before that?

00:56:24 Alex Stahlmann: Dude, so that's just it.