The Gaming Blender

Unforgiving Seas - The Hardcore Simulation MMO

September 06, 2022 Season 1 Episode 21
The Gaming Blender
Unforgiving Seas - The Hardcore Simulation MMO
Show Notes Transcript

This week gets hardcore. Scott and Matt take the MMO video game genre and try to blend together hardcore simulation (e.g Train / Flight Simulator) with extreme difficulty (e.g. Dark Souls). What comes out the other side is a challenging sailing MMO with a narrative based on global warming. 

Hardcore stuff! 

Have a listen and if you like it please leave a review and subscribe. As always thanks for listening! 

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Keep blending!

Speaker 1:

Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the gaming Blender. I'm Matt and I'm here with

Speaker 2:

Scott. Hello?

Speaker 1:

Hello, Scott. How are you doing today?

Speaker 2:

I'm very good. Thank you. How are

Speaker 1:

You? I'm very well, thank you. I'm coming off our little chiverly two spell that we did yesterday. Mm

Speaker 2:

Yes, no it, I, who has not played Shivey before. Uh, it's uh, sort of an online multiplayer Battlefront type, uh, game, uh, but, uh, with swords and axes and swords, and bows and Spears and things, and it's, it's terribly brutal and wonderfully fun.

Speaker 1:

It was very enjoyable in terms, especially when I discovered that if I was a Bowman, no one could ever hurt me cause I'd run away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And I, I, I liked running around with a big pole act.

Speaker 1:

That sounds your

Speaker 2:

People. I could hit people from far away, um, which, which was very fun, sort of sneak up behind people and just, just smashed them in the head. Um, which, which was not cowardly at all.<laugh> um, but it worked quite well as a strategy on

Speaker 1:

You've been axed.

Speaker 2:

Yes. My, my kill death ratio is still 1.5. So

Speaker 1:

Mine is, mine is not 0.9. I feel, but it's not still not bad. It was, it was going up when I discovered the bow though. So maybe, maybe we'll jump into that straight after this recording, who knows, who knows? Oh,

Speaker 2:

I don't see why

Speaker 1:

Not. The day is just sitting around and waiting for the gaming to come in. That's that's our lives. Anyway, welcome to the gaming blender to listeners old and new. This is the podcast where we put together hypothetical video games by picking randomized game genres and mechanics, mushing them all together and throwing in a little sprinkling of narrative to create a wonderful smoothie, like game coming out at the other end. And it'll be completely hypothetical, completely made up this episode. We'll go from a to Z and hopefully have something fully formed at the end. Scott, how are you feeling?

Speaker 2:

I'm feeling very good. Um, although, you know, on, on your note of, of us making smoothies<laugh>, um, some of listeners, some of our games are lovely smoothies. We have excellent ingredients that mix, well, some of them,

Speaker 1:

Some are spinach are

Speaker 2:

Not, yes. Some of them are sort of kale and, um, bricks and things that aren't meant to go in smoothies, but yet somehow make their way into them sometimes. Um, so hopefully today we shall make something that is sort of, uh, straw in banana. That's a nice flavor. Well,

Speaker 1:

Actually I've gotta say if you're gonna go for a straw, if you're gonna go for a smoothie, right? This is my little tip. This is my favorite smoothie. Cause I I'm a, I'm a frequenter of actual smoothies. You

Speaker 2:

Are

Speaker 1:

Archie orange juice, banana handful of raspberries, two peaches, sprinkling of oats. Lovely citrus smoothie. Yeah. That's beautiful.

Speaker 2:

Why, why oats?

Speaker 1:

The oats just thicken it up a bit. Just give it a bit of calm. Oh,

Speaker 2:

I

Speaker 1:

See. So the bananas, the main subject. Anyway, my thing probably getting slightly off topic, but there you go. That's the actual blender for you episode 21. And we're

Speaker 2:

Speaking about, you can take anything from this podcast. It's that particular smoothie recipe. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Anyway then should we jump straight into it? Scott pick pick a genre. So I've got list of genres one to 16 here for long term. Since you might notice, that's an extra number. I've thrown another fun one in one to 16. Scott has to pick one and I'll decide what genre he's doing. He'll then pick two game mechanics. We've got numbers, one to 30, again, extra number being thrown in. He'll pick two of those and I will tell him what he's got. So Scott one to 16.

Speaker 2:

Interesting. Um,

Speaker 1:

No, not interesting. You know this you've done it 20 times previously.

Speaker 2:

It's still interesting.

Speaker 1:

<laugh> I still love the setup.

Speaker 2:

Um, I'm I, I might pick your new number. I think 16. I don't actually know what it is, but yes. I'm number 16,

Speaker 1:

16. Isn't well, is it a new number? I mean, this is where I, I, I show my embarrassment by not knowing all of our previous ones. Cause I don't know whether you've picked this before and we had a slight, slightly different interpretation of it because essentially I shuffled up the numbers as well. So this is see number 16 is an MMO, a massively multiplayer online. Now I can't remember if we've done this. I think we might have done a, um, MMO before, but it was less defined because what I've done is I've gone an added hero shooter written because I sort of decided that they were slightly different things and replaced, um, it with MMO. I can't, can you remember doing an MMO?

Speaker 2:

Don't think so.

Speaker 1:

I, I don't think we've done a full blooded MMO. I don't think we, I think we've done like little spins on it, but we've not fully world of Warcraft up to the hilt.

Speaker 2:

No, I, no, I, I don't think, I don't think we have, um, no. Interesting.

Speaker 1:

Should we jump into mechanics then? See what our MMO will, will give us?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, go

Speaker 1:

On then. So we have one to 30 here and you gotta pick two.

Speaker 2:

Okay. I'm gonna number number four. And number eight,

Speaker 1:

You are not gonna go for number four.

Speaker 2:

Why am I not gonna

Speaker 1:

Cause you keep picking four. Oh, okay. I'm not gonna lie. I think you've picked that one five times.

Speaker 2:

<laugh> I'm very sorry. I seem to like the number four.

Speaker 1:

This is I I've long flirted with the idea of mixing up this, um, um, these numbers and every week I think, I

Speaker 2:

Think you may need to

Speaker 1:

Every week, I think. No, no, no. He surely he's gonna pick different numbers and you turn off and you just go four. No, not four. Any other number four? Can I stop it? Four?

Speaker 2:

Can I have number eight? And

Speaker 1:

I thought you were saying eight again. I was like, you picked eight. You just picked eight. You got have two eights.

Speaker 2:

Can I have number eight and number four. Ah,<laugh> 14

Speaker 1:

Number eight and 14. No

Speaker 2:

<laugh>

Speaker 1:

No, no. You've picked 14. Well actually, no, that's not fair on me. You've picked 14. Quite recently. You picked 14, three episodes ago.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

So I'm, I'm being harsh there and picking on you, but I'm just trying to, uh, move you up. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you

Speaker 2:

We'll get 15 go

Speaker 1:

15. Okay. Okay. Um, we can, we can, we can use this. This is quite an interesting combination. So what you've got, you have your MMO, you have pick just, just, just listeners. So he know he has picked this before.<laugh> I tried

Speaker 2:

Apparently, apparently I took everything

Speaker 1:

Before. So he has picked MMO combined with dark souls, que difficulty. So this new, new, tough star genre. I don't, I didn't want to ever put it under a genre. I just think it's fashionable now to have tough games. Yes. Within this MMO. And you also have an assassins target system,

Speaker 2:

Right? I feel like we've done a lot of assassin stuff recently.

Speaker 1:

I do think we have,

Speaker 2:

Should we change that

Speaker 1:

One? We can change that one. We can.

Speaker 2:

Is that, is that 15? That's

Speaker 1:

15

Speaker 2:

<laugh> okay. No, we'll change that case. I do apologize yesterday. This is<laugh>. You're taking a while on this one. Um, on 20.

Speaker 1:

Ooh, I like this. We have done this before, but I like this one. I really, I think it, this one's simulation.

Speaker 2:

Uh, so I, I like simulation.

Speaker 1:

No. Well yes, yes. All farming simulator train simulator. That that's all thing. So hardcore simulation is what I've called it. So it's where you take something and you really, um, do it down to the bare bones in terms of it. It's it's very, I don't wanna say dad games because I feel, I feel like that's harsh, but um, very granular I think.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Um, right under RPG, dark souls, difficulty simulation. Well,

Speaker 1:

I think the, the dark sales difficulty, when we work out what we're simulating dark soul difficulty could go hand in hand with the, um, with the simulation. We've just gotta add way for it to be difficult. So to it's gotta be punishing somehow.

Speaker 2:

Yes. And we're not doing okay. Okay.

Speaker 1:

One thing I'd push maybe is we maybe move away. We don't do base building.

Speaker 2:

Yes, no, we, we done a lot of base building. We, we seem to like base building quite a lot. Um,

Speaker 1:

I have an idea.

Speaker 2:

I would love to hear either.

Speaker 1:

No, you wouldn't. You're lying.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I would.

Speaker 1:

I always do. So this is a little jumping off point, but let's, let's say this our simulation thing we do because previously we've done, um, base building. Um, let's say this one is, movings a vehicle of some sort. So let's say it's driving, flying, whatever. Okay. And you are in this world where everybody in an MMO where everybody has their own vehicle, but it's very, let's say it's mad max style world in terms of, I'm not saying postapocalyptic, I just mean the star where everybody massively cares about their method of transport and that's like the main thing to do up. Um, so you have to fly and you have to go from place to place. Um, was it, and then the dart soul's difficulty comes from the sort of operating very unforgiving your vehicle. And if your, your vehicle blows up, you quite literally need to put it back together, yourself, et cetera. And it's your only way of traveling about, and maybe we had a sort of, maybe you could add survival mechanics. So it's crucial that you actually treat your vehicle well and get from city to city. Cause otherwise you will die or run out of, um, fuel, et cetera.

Speaker 2:

Okay. I feel like need to narrow that down to one form

Speaker 1:

Of transfer. No, no, I, I do. I think, I feel like it's gotta be a certain type of game.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah. Could do. We could do driving.

Speaker 1:

Well, it doesn't have to be driving. I feel like you could even, and hear me out on this, you could do canal boats.

Speaker 2:

What?<laugh>

Speaker 1:

Well here. So hear me out this, this is why I think canal boats, because canal boats have this really interesting thing where you haven't, you have a pre-built network. It's a bit like railway line, um, where you've got to go. Certain places, you can find certain roots, but then there's also things like weirs. So you've got to get outta the canal boat from time to time, which adds a certain, um, you have to get out. Maybe if we, if we did do it. So it's MMO, although you have the hardcore simulation, you've still got those tough elements of maybe there's something trying to attack you in the words, you could almost make this quite horror.

Speaker 2:

Sorry. I'm<laugh> I'm trying to imagine an MMO RPG called canal boat simulator. Yes. Where you what's the goal.

Speaker 1:

I don't look at the goal of survive and keep upgrading your canal boat until it's the best canal boat on those canals.

Speaker 2:

And

Speaker 1:

I feel like your silence is saying, God, he's good

Speaker 2:

Canal, canal, boat, simulator

Speaker 1:

Done. Uh, I think you should add 20, 23 onto the end of it.

Speaker 2:

Sorry. Canal boat simulator. It's 20, 22. Yeah,

Speaker 1:

I know. But they always do that thing where, oh, my voice is going. My voice is gone before I get to the end of the sentence, the canal boat. I see. And I'm back well done. So you, they always had that thing where it's the next year. So it's like FIFA FIFA, 23 canal boat. So it's the canal boat season.<laugh>

Speaker 2:

Do you, do you want to talk about making a game called canal simulator?

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

<laugh> would you, would you play a game called canal Albert

Speaker 1:

Simulator? No, but I think J my, my actual gut instinct, what I was like, this would be really fun and cool is, is to make it trains. And then I tried to back off trains because I know, you know, how much I love trains and I didn't do

Speaker 2:

Like trains the issue with trains and indeed canal boats is that you take away a certain freedom that I think players like from MMO RPGs in that you can go anywhere and do whatever you want. Um, and the problem with that is, is that if canals are very linear

Speaker 1:

Well, yes, but what I would say that also adds to freedom of design. You can keep adding on like set paths and stuff. You say, well, I'm gonna go left here. And as long as you design all the tracks, but that's also why I think you've gotta move around as a person.

Speaker 2:

I have an alternative suggestion. It is similar. I hate it to yours. Its similar to yours. Okay. Okay. It is a variation of yours. So I, I, I, I like the whole vehicle thing and I, I like the idea of water. I think that's a good idea. Um, how about we do it where we can say, okay. Right. So picture this. Okay. Sorry. Um, let's say, let's say global warming has struck and so

Speaker 1:

Water

Speaker 2:

World

Speaker 1:

Water world is gonna be the, uh, the plot here,

Speaker 2:

See sea levels of rise and you, um, you find yourself and this, this could be part of the game, but not all of it. Um, you find yourself in, uh, a sort of think, think, think of like the Bayou in Louisiana, right? Is it Louisiana? Yes, Louisiana. Um, or, or, or in Florida, whether you have the other blades. So you've got all these sort, everything's very swampy and everything's very marshy. Okay. And the, the only way you can get around is by boat. Um,

Speaker 1:

And boat team of both ways.

Speaker 2:

We put it in that setting where there's lots of things to explore. There's lots of things to do. There's lots of dangers, you know, you've got lots of crocs and alligators and alligators, CROs,

Speaker 1:

Sorry. When you said crocs, I thought of the, um,

Speaker 2:

The shoe,

Speaker 1:

The shoe. Yes.

Speaker 2:

Yes. There's lots of horrible plastic issues around that could devalue, um, there's lots of alligators and everything and then, you know, wildlife and all sort of stuff. And that gives you, your, the boat must survive right. Being eaten by crocodiles or whatever. And then you can, you can expand it to, to not just be it all sort of sea based, but not just in that sort of bumpy land. You could have that as a specific biome within the, that you, that you make. So you could then have like, uh, you could then have like the high seas and you could have, um, you know, some, you could have the Amazon or, you know, do, do you know what I mean? Like yeah. Yeah. I see what you mean. And, and you have different different vessels for different places and I dunno it

Speaker 1:

Could work. Yeah. It could work. I see what you, I see what you mean. It makes sense to me. Um, I'm just trying to think, how do you get this sort of hardcore? So hardcore simulation now we, we, we sort of decide on the boat. So maybe you have different options of boats. You can have sail boats, you can have other types of boat. You can have. Um, so sail boats and other types of boats, um, yes, sailing boat,

Speaker 2:

Other boats, other boats do exist.

Speaker 1:

So I'd say maybe it's one of these things where it's, whatever you have to hand, you can make any type of boat. And maybe that's where the hardcore simulation comes in. You can build even up to a motor, but, or, or you can build, um, sales, or you can build this, that and the other. It just completely depends on what your, um, what you want to build slash what you've got available to you.

Speaker 2:

Yes. Yes. Do, do you think that you have one big central boat that sort of act as your sort of Boaty command center and you launch your other boats from

Speaker 1:

Maybe I think what you do is you have one boat, just one that you can constantly modify and you can, and the, the smaller boats are very, very small in comparison.

Speaker 2:

Right? I see. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's what I do personally. Cause I, I think that that, that ownership will bring in some, um, that will wear the hardcore simulation in terms of right. I've decided that I'm going to upgrade that I need to go across a big area of water. My motor's not gonna cut it. I think I'm gonna have to build a sailing boat because it's very windy or whatever, and that's gonna help out. So I'm gonna spend lots of, lots of time getting resources to turn my boat into a sailing boat.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Uh, in terms of, do we, do we do some sort of wacky Naval combat thing? Um, that could be

Speaker 1:

Quite fun. I think it could be fun. I think it should be limited, but feel limited in the sense of it's no one can make a gun and no one can make real proper weapons. So the weapons you use are stuff that you, you pardon me? Pardon me? Pardon me? Pardon me? The weapons you use are weapons that you'd, uh, use for something else. So for example, um, you'd maybe, I dunno, you could throw a net on the opposition. You could fire harpoon at them, these, these things that have another use, but you can still use them for combat, but it just feels unnatural deliberately.

Speaker 2:

So you can hit them with planks and stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yes. Yeah. That sort of thing. So you could quickly raid someone else's ship and get some supplies, but it's difficult and you'd have to be very confident or catch'em unawares. And it sort of almost encourages just sneaking onto someone else's boat when they're not looking<laugh>

Speaker 2:

Okay. And the simulation bit comes with the repair thing,

Speaker 1:

Building the boat, repairing the boating, the

Speaker 2:

Boat, repairing the boat. Okay. And the MMO RPG thing, are we saying, it's sort of like you do this as cruise, so you, you sort of form crews to keep these ships boats going, or is it a solo thing?

Speaker 1:

I think it's more a solo thing, but let's say there's an option. Can

Speaker 2:

You choose to do both?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So let's say that's an option, but what we'll do is I think everybody has to have their own boat. Like I, I want to move away from that sea of thieves thing where you all have a, a, you all have a boat or whatever. So what I think you do, and this is getting slightly sort of messing with the formula slightly is you have a boat, but if you have multiple people in your server and you want to join together for, um, safety is that you can literally bring your boats together and clip them together, using ropes using, um, uh, some sort of mechanic. And when they're clipped together, they link together forever. Sort of definitely not, not, not, not, not forever in terms of you can just stay combined and you can go in a certain direction that maybe the host decides. Yeah. So maybe the host of the party decides which direction you're always gonna go in, but then you can break off and go off sideways. It's just a good way of if you mul, so you don't lose each other.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

But I think it's important that everybody has their own boat. Cause it adds that sort of survival slash this is my land mechanic. Um, but, but then what, what is the goal here? We're obviously working to upgrade bloats. Why? I mean, I've not, I've never played. I well tell lie, I have played an MMO. Um, but that was quite story based. That was the star wars, um, of, um, with the names deserted me Knight of the Republic.

Speaker 2:

Uh, it's just the old,

Speaker 1:

The old Republic, the old Republic MMO.

Speaker 2:

And, but that, that was that, that was very story.

Speaker 1:

Yes. It is very story based. So what is, what is ours gonna be? What's gonna be driving the pair apart from look how good my boat is.

Speaker 2:

Uh, could you do exploration, but make it better than Noman sky originally was

Speaker 1:

Yes. Those precursors were no man sky make it better than no man sky originally was maybe

Speaker 2:

<laugh> well, like, you know what I mean? Like it was a good idea on the face of it. It's just, they didn't realize that they, they made it. It was very lonely.

Speaker 1:

Yes. I, well, it exploration. Yes. Is the goal. But what you get for expiration, what is your, what is your joy there?

Speaker 2:

Um, I suppose you could do it where the more so obviously you could say you are exploring a, um, you're exploring like a, as this a postapocalyptic thing, obviously, you know, you, you you're exploring a, a destroyed world. Yeah. Potentially. So you could say that as you're going around, you find stuff, you salvage stuff. Cause obviously that's that link to the simulation thing. Yeah. You know, while you're fixing your ship, you can also salvage stuff from other, other things that you find. And then maybe you maybe by doing that, you unlock, you find different things that you can use on that you can fabricate yourself and use on your ship.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. That's yeah. I think that works really nicely in terms of you also, if you went to different biomes, different biomes, have different, say different trees that grow there that are sturdier, that you'd be able to use to create a sturdier mast.

Speaker 2:

And you could say, you could say like, you could expand it further. You could say you could, um, you know, your character could find, you say there's like, like loads of different types of clothes in the world that are just like scattered everywhere. Yeah. And you, you find different outfits for your character and lots of stuff from like that you just salvage from, you know, people's houses and all this sort of stuff, you know? Um, potentially like it gives a bit of customization to it. Um, I think so. I think the difficulty will be the dark souls difficulty. Like how, why, how do we make it really difficult, but not so

Speaker 1:

It's, so I have an idea. So essentially one of the beauties of dark souls and breath, the world to never one is you can very much go your own way and disappear off and go, like, I'm going to go and take on this boss and you're going and you can get mulched<laugh> yeah. So what I think you do is you say to the player on the outset, you can go wherever you want, but your ship may not survive. Yeah. And if you die, you get washed up on the, on the shore and you literally have to start fresh. Well, I think if you die a certain way, you can have ways where, because it's a full on simulation, I think, oh, that's a good idea. If you got thrown from your ship or the ship sunk, then you, then you wake up on the shore, right? Yeah. But the ship keeps sailing out into the distance. So you kind of have an option of, do I build a smaller ship to go and save my existing ship? Or do I start a fresh, a bit like in Valheim where you used to, where you get killed and you have, you drop all your materials. Okay. So you have this nice I idea of, oh my God, I've lost my ship miles out in the middle of the ocean. It's not going to, I'm not gonna be able to get back. So it's really unforgiving that way. And then also the unforgiving sailing mechanics is that balance of, I think I say, you can go everywhere at all at once, but you need to be able to master things like, do you remember? It was very basic in the Satan street, black flag all those years ago. But you had that, you had that, um, idea that you had to sail a certain direction into wave. You had to sail straight into the wave rather than on an angle in order to stop yourself capsizing. We take that and we massively expand it to be like the main, one of the main mechanics in mastering the C and mastering the wind. So you can do anything you want, but it's likely that a, your ship might break up if you're not built it from the right things. And B if you decide, if you use the game and you decide to take on crossing the Atlantic by yourself without any player support, then you're screwed. That's another thing we can add to the player support. If you have players that clip to your boat, then you're more stable.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Hmm. Okay. No, that, that, that could

Speaker 1:

Work. I quite like the idea of a Wilson esque when, um, your ship's sailing away and, and you're just like, no Wilson.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Why did you name your ship? Wilson? I just dunno. I feel like you kind of doomed it from the outset. Oh, shut up. You,

Speaker 2:

I feel like to, to make this big enough, you'd have to make the world the size of the world. Well,

Speaker 1:

Have you ever played, uh, Zelda the WindWaker?

Speaker 2:

No. So

Speaker 1:

What they've done is they, in that one, they, um, built, uh, just massive open seas to make it feel like it was exploration, which is something that it can be done. And the good thing about when you say in the sea is, is there's lots of flats, but it builds up to the next event. So it's not necessarily a, a, a big deal also. Then you've got the Microsoft flight simulator, incredible technology where they've they pictured the entire world. So the entire world is in that game. Yeah. Only problem we've got with that is if we're following your idea by saying climate change is a thing, then no one, um, then, then we can't use that world technology. Cause obviously we're not covering, we're not copying the world map. So a suggestion.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You can, you, you can do all you do is you just, you do those sea level rising simulations. Oh, okay. Which just make the whole world like a, an adult basically of like loads and loards of islands.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So yes, maybe we, maybe we use that technology, but for a sea based seafaring game, and then obviously if you sail into certain sections that predefined as stormy or predefined as calm, maybe you could even have something really horrible in the, be mute a triangle section, but either way you, if you went into those set locations, things start happening.

Speaker 2:

Mm yeah.

Speaker 1:

So that's 23 minutes of beautiful

Speaker 2:

Waffle, lots of, lots of boaty mcboat face,

Speaker 1:

Boaty mcboat face. And I feel like we need to come up with a rough narrative. So climate change has happened, right? Yes. Lots of, um, the sea levels risen all over the place. Now, what are we saying is the, is the goal in the story of our character here?

Speaker 2:

Um,

Speaker 1:

Cause we're obviously we're doing exploration as a, as a gaming objective, but why are we doing that from a character based objective?

Speaker 2:

So it's so with MMOs, the, the story is usually quite difficult. The way the public does it is you have different classes that will have their own story. Um, whereas other RMOs leave it very much open in that you, you leave it open to players for players to role play their own, right. Um, that, that, you know, their own story.

Speaker 1:

So maybe what we do is let's write the starting bit to this character. Let's just write the start. Why are they getting on this boat?

Speaker 2:

Um, I mean, you could say that basically their, their home sunk to say that, that their, the last little bit of sea level rise was to swallow their home and they, so they have to move. And the only way they can move is by sea.

Speaker 1:

So when you say they, are we doing an individual character, are, are your family gonna be joining you actually, no, I don't think, I don't think NPC should join you on the boat actually, because, um, I think if they do, then it'll feel a bit weird if you just like, no, that ship's sailing away without me and my mom's on the, it's a bit awkward.

Speaker 2:

So what you, so, so what you can do then is you can say, look, um, say the, the players who play the Mo are all residents of the same town that has just been destroyed. And the towns people decided that everyone's gonna go in opposite directions to try and find new land and try and find a new place to settle. Right. Um, and so everyone goes off on their own individual ships to go and do

Speaker 1:

That, but there's no actual place to settle. There's no real endgame<laugh>

Speaker 2:

Yes.<laugh>

Speaker 1:

We just kind of forget that they were

Speaker 2:

it's it's a difficult one with MMOs are really difficult to write stories for. Yeah. Um, I don't think it's a bad option to just say, you know, it's open ended. This is, this is the situation you find yourself in, make your own story. True. True. Some games do do that. So it doesn't have to be,

Speaker 1:

Do, do,

Speaker 2:

Do do. Yes. We're very, um,

Speaker 1:

Very mature here at the gaming blender.

Speaker 2:

Mature on the Gaming Blender podcast. Um<laugh> so yeah, we could just leave it open

Speaker 1:

You maybe, maybe you just leave it. You don't even have the towns. People want, you just literally have your house has gone and you just have a little precursor going. I have nothing. So I'm, I'm out to find I'm out to find my fortune just as simple as that for,

Speaker 2:

To forge my own story. Um, and you, I mean, you could do it where a bit like in other IPGs where you have, you have background options, so you choose the background of your character. Right. And then you can use that. So that, that either gives you, um, to say, for example, in this, you could say that, um, your character was, um, so he was, he was he, or she was a mechanic for example. And that would mean that,

Speaker 1:

Oh, you have better stats. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Fix their ship a little more. Or you could say that they were, um, they were, you know, some sort of, um, profession that required them to be quite brawny In which case they'd be better at hitting bit with planks. Um, do you know what I mean? So it's

Speaker 1:

Take down be able to take down bigger trees and stuff like that. Yes. So maybe they wouldn't need as good an ax to be able to chop down that big tree. Okay. I see.

Speaker 2:

Do you know what I mean? So maybe, maybe you make it a bit more like that, where you choose a basic background, a bit more about yourself,

Speaker 1:

You set up your, and then, and then from there it's complete free

Speaker 2:

Need to go from there. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Well, I like that. So what we've got is that is an MMO where you sail around on a ship, which hardcore simulation wise, you need to repair the ship, redesign the ship if needed, travel to distant lands. And as you travel to distant lands, you unlock, um, different types of material that therefore can upgrade your ship. And the sort of cycle continues. And then the hardcore difficulty is if your ship sinks or you lose your ship and that's it, you have to start again, or you wash up on shore and you decide to build little ships, try and reclaim your ship. That's just floating out there somewhere. So that's quite unforgiving that way. And you, the calls you make define how much your ship survives and the story wise, you it's climate change, all the seas risen. And you just decide to set out your fortune and with the character at the start, you decide what you specialize in and what your kind of background is. And you make your own story from there, which saves us some massive, uh,<laugh> saves, saves us something to do. Yeah. So what, what would we call this?

Speaker 2:

The watery world?

Speaker 1:

No. Yes. Are you aware of what I'm saying when I'm saying water world? No, no, you're not. Are you so water world was an infamous failed box office, uh, film back from the, uh, either late nineties or early two thousands where the world was covered with water and everybody traveled on ships and see, so exactly what we're describing. And I'm very impressed that you didn't know, know it when you were saying it. So that's why we can't call it water. The watery world. Cause it sounds like a spoof.

Speaker 2:

The

Speaker 1:

Wet world. No, no, no stuff. No more worlds.

Speaker 2:

H two O world

Speaker 1:

H two O world H two O um, the high seas.

Speaker 2:

There's a bitty pirate.,

Speaker 1:

True. Um, sail to survive.

Speaker 2:

Canal boat simulator 23

Speaker 1:

Survival on the seas. It still sounds maybe a bit part. The seas just sounds

Speaker 2:

The seas,

Speaker 1:

The greats blue

Speaker 2:

Sounds a bit Sharky. Oh, okay. Do you want mean, that sounds like a shark attack

Speaker 1:

Though. Shark?

Speaker 2:

Um, I don't know. Large bodies of water.

Speaker 1:

<laugh> global lake. No, I wet, wet, wet.

Speaker 2:

I spy my other life. I'm the beginning with w

Speaker 1:

I thought you gonna say the beginning with C. I thought I joke would've worked better.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, actually I missed a trick.

Speaker 1:

You did miss a trick there. Um, I, I think

Speaker 2:

The, the Savage seas,

Speaker 1:

The Savage seas,

Speaker 2:

Or just Savage seeds.

Speaker 1:

What's another word for like lonely or the, the UN or, or, or UN the unforgiving seas.

Speaker 2:

I think unforgiving seas works better.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So unforgiving seas, you happy with that?

Speaker 2:

Yes. Why

Speaker 1:

Not? So the UN no unforgiving seats, unforgiving seas will be coming to a console near you as soon as PS or Microsoft pull their finger out and get in touch. So I like that. I think that'd be quite a nice date because it reminds me of when we used to sail together on Valheim before we got attacked by the sea serpent.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah. That was terrifying.<laugh>

Speaker 1:

This would be very similar without the serpent with more engine mechanics. Sounds perfect. Yes,

Speaker 2:

Listeners, if you ever play Valheim, you, you get your boat, you think? Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Don't, don't ruin it for don't ruin it for them. Scott, just go on a, just go. If you get it, if you get it, kids just say outta straight across the sea and see what happens. That's all I'm gonna say.

Speaker 2:

Yes. Yes. Mm. And just, don't be scared. Don't be scared, but also do be scared.

Speaker 1:

Don't be scared. Okay. Well, that's, that has been the gaming blender. I hope very much. You enjoyed it. That was our 21st episode and our 21st game created. Woo.

Speaker 2:

Yay. Yay.

Speaker 1:

Well, that was great. Thank you so much for listening. Uh, if you have any suggestions for us or anything you'd like us to include in next episode, such as, uh, if you want to challenge us by sending, um, your, a couple of mechanics, you'd like us put together, or if you have just a generic idea for a plot you'd like us to see work into again, we can do that for you. Please get in touch with us on Twitter. In the meantime, I've been Matt

Speaker 2:

And I have been scott.

Speaker 1:

Thanks again, keep blending.

Speaker 2:

Bye Now.