Gaia's Revenge: Humour Meets Horror in City-Building Nightmares

What would happen if you combined city-building gameplay with horror elements and a dash of humor? Join us on the Gaming Blender as we tackle a listener's challenge and brainstorm our own unique game concept. We'll navigate the post-apocalyptic world of city planning, mutated creatures, and the delicate balance between comedy and tragedy. Will we end up with a game that will make you laugh, cry, or both? Tune in to find out!

Along the way, we also discuss the upcoming Xbox releases, including the highly anticipated Fable game, and explore the idea of Xbox having a cult following. Reminisce with us about the last game we both managed to finish, 2018's God of War, and hear our thoughts on the current state of gaming. Don't miss this epic episode of Gaming Blender, packed with imagination, nostalgia, and plenty of laughs!

Thanks for listening and please leave us a review and subscribe if you enjoyed it. It really helps us out. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gaming-blender/id1597738101

Also please get in touch with us at @gamingblendpod or thegamingblenderpod@gmail.com with your ideas for new games and challenges.

We have begun to update our YouTube channel with video playthroughs and we hope to put more up there soon https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZTPuScm5BTf8DdwvaCj0jQ

Keep blending!

Transcript

Matt: 0:04

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Gaming Blender with me, myself and I. I screwed that up, didn't I? Scott?

Scott: 0:13

I enjoyed that intro. Did you enjoy that intro?

Matt: 0:15

This is the Gaming Blender. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Gaming Blender with me myself and I, Matt, and Scott himself and his Scott.

Scott: 0:23

Hello. Yes, i mean, like you listeners, i found that just as entertaining as you did watching or listening to Matthew struggle to say his opening sentence. I am excellent, matthew. I don't think he actually asked me how I was, but I am excellent. How are you?

Matt: 0:40

I'm ticking along. I'm tickety-boo. I turned 30 this week, so I'm aging and I'm getting ever closer to death, which makes me think how and what am I going to play next, as my time is on this earth is limited.

Scott: 0:54

It's interesting philosophically that the first thing you think of when you're contemplating death is what your next video game is going to be.

Matt: 1:01

I think that is incredibly important, though I think the most important thing to know is how long will I be spending on the next video game? because there's too many. There's too many video games. They recently, with camp, just come out of the summer games fest, which included the game, not the game awards, but is the summer games festival even and it's. Sony had their conference, xbox had their conference. I believe Capcom had a conference. I'm not as aware of what they presented in that one, but apparently, scott, the rumor is Xbox is back. That's what people seem to be acting very well to Xbox and very badly to Sony.

Scott: 1:32

Yeah, which is not the usual trend for that particular Titan versus Titan. Yeah, I mean, I, as you know, and yourself are more sort of Sony PlayStation five.

Matt: 1:46

Well, we've got to be something clear on that, though, because we are PlayStation gamers but have gaming PCs. There is no divide for us between Xbox. Xbox it's available on PC. We can generally get it.

Scott: 1:59

Very true, very true. I had a 360. I can now say I had a 360 back in the day because it was actually a legitimate amount of time ago. I did really like it, but I enjoyed going back to PlayStation. I just, i just preferred the. it's a small thing Like I just prefer the controller. See, i, for me it was.

Matt: 2:24

I think a lot of it's what you grew up with. I know you said you grew up with 360, but I think then the narrative games like the last has stole a lot of people away from Xbox and Xbox never got momentum back. However, now they have fable coming out. Did you see the trailer for fable?

Scott: 2:38

Yeah, so I'm very excited about that.

Matt: 2:40

I was never into fable I, but I saw my brother play on PC looked perfectly entertaining. I don't really know what else I liked the trailer.

Scott: 2:49

I tell you why you, Matthew, would like fable It's because it's very silly.

Matt: 2:54

Yeah.

Scott: 2:54

It's intentionally very silly And so you know you can. You can make a joke character on fable and it's okay because the characters in fable are a bit, are a bit jokey There can be serious undertones within it, but most of it is quite jovial.

Matt: 3:13

What did they say? Comedy and tragedy are linked together forever.

Scott: 3:16

Well, quite So, you know, I think it's a sort of game that you would really like. That being said, i did. I did see the trailer and it was. They didn't give much away. It just kind of showed what the theme was going to be, which was this is a fable game, it's going to be quite funny, but didn't show any gameplay or anything like that.

Matt: 3:33

So I like the look of it. I did like the look of it. It didn't necessarily get me back on board. I'm not. I've got too many games to play to be. I'm not going to be rushing to buy an Xbox tomorrow. What I like, i'll try and get on PC and I'll try, and I don't know, set my PC on fire to try and get it to work with these new games. But yeah, interesting.

Matt: 3:48

Apparently, the new Star Wars games got some good feedback. People are liking the idea. It's essentially no man's sky in Star Wars with jumping and flying straight into the, straight into I was about to say the sun, i don't know why I was about to say the sun. So as players all bounty hunter, game between worlds. But yeah, i think it's got fairly positive vibe. I just think it's got so much ground to make up Xbox. I think what you'll end up is with Xbox having a fairly tight cult following of people who like these, these things that fable, and then everybody else, like myself, who just dips in and out of game pass, dips in out of PC games, not really Xbox players.

Scott: 4:19

I think. I think you're probably right And I think, going back to what you said about them being too many games, i feel a shift in myself, in my ability to finish games has diminished enormously because there's always a different game to play. So I'll you know, i can't remember the last time, genuinely No, the last time I finished a game was the rid, was the God of War 2018. Yeah, that was the last game that I actually finished, and even then, there's loads that I didn't do.

Matt: 4:52

I just finished finishes and invest commas. you sort of finish a game and you sort of wander off into the space time continuum and never worry about it again. I genuinely think this is something I've had and you've actually. we've had discussions about this before. but about different media, i've often said with TV, there's too much telly to watch, so I'll start TV series and not finish them. And you've always said to me I don't get it, i don't understand you starting it. Well, this is it. It's just the fact that you start it and then go Oh, but there's something over there.

Scott: 5:18

And they go over there.

Matt: 5:19

And I haven't finished it. I've got half a season three of Stranger Things. Don't have a bad word to say about it. I just never had the time, And now I'm like I'm so far away.

Scott: 5:26

We're very distractible now because there's so many shiny spangly things around for so much media.

Matt: 5:33

Anyway, we have rambled on for 10 minutes and I'm meant to be hosting. I'm losing control. So this is the gaming blender, the hypothetical gaming podcast, where we will take a randomized genre with some randomized mechanics and we will merge them all together to come up with a hypothetical video game at the end of everything, which will be absolutely lovely. We'll even whack in a beautiful narrative that will make you laugh, it'll make you cry, it'll maybe it'll make you question why we're not professional writers. But this is with a twist this week, scott, a twisty twist. Call me M Night Shyamalan. But we have had a suggestion. Come in, oh, exciting. We had a suggestion on our. We had a suggestion on our YouTube channel. Please go and check out our YouTube channel. It's. It's lovely. It's exactly the same as a podcast, but it's got our faces in. It's also got a video of me trying to drive a car blindfolded. But we had a suggestion coming from Daniel James who said after the streaming.

Scott: 6:24

I think it's not the Daniel James.

Matt: 6:27

No, i don't believe so, otherwise I might have noticed it's a Daniel James, maybe either James, hello Daniel, hello Daniel James. A little shout out, hello Daniel. But is asked, can we make a city builder with horror elements? Now, what we're going to do is we're going to add a little spin on this guy. I think it's too easy. It's too easy to make a city builder spin off of them. So I'm going to make, scott, i'm going to make you pick a couple of mechanics and we're going to have to throw these into the mix. So an extra Junice Qua. So, daniel, if you hate these mechanics, i'm sorry, but we just wanted to spice this up a bit. So, scott, you know the drill. You have between one And 37. What are you gonna go for, my friend?

Scott: 7:10

Okay, i Don't think I choose number four. Very often when we have number four, difficult one because there's so many numbers to choose from.

Matt: 7:32

Uh well, it's 1 to 37. That's quite literally 37 of them.

Scott: 7:36

Thank you. Thank you, i'm going to go for number 34. Okay things that perhaps are not compatible.

Matt: 7:53

We've chosen things That are quite tough. It's number four Yes, it's something that we've done before before, ha ha Which is a career mode. Right, okay, fairly straightforward. So generally what you do is this is something where you have a Alternable goal. I mean, it's very easy to find a career, but just something that we can define into a What career? a job title, something like that doesn't have to be serious, examples being in football games when you're a manager or something like that. We did a previous one where you were you played a poacher. I believe in our Jurassic World one that we did that as a career mode game.

Matt: 8:28

And then number 34, which is slightly trickier, interactive movie. So the way I view interactive movie, it's very similar to the branching storytelling path, so it's kind of similar to these until dawn, but it's one these games where very much you get a button prompt And you have to do x, y, it's certain things, and you see it, it's quite cutscene heavy. So you sort of jumping in and out of the action, you're making choices, maybe Naturally plugging into a city builder.

Scott: 8:57

So like the telltale games.

Matt: 8:59

Yes, telltale games are a perfect example. So I'm not saying gameplay light, because they don't have to be, but they're very narrative heavy.

Scott: 9:06

Yeah, that doesn't. Reef doesn't really go, city builder does it. Well, we thought we do, scott, this is what we do. We plug them together, this is what we do. So we do damn the machine that damn the algorithms. so So, city builder with horror elements, a career with a career mode with interactive movie Elements, that is correct sir.

Matt: 9:34

There's a pause for a long time and you say do you have any ideas?

Scott: 9:36

Oh, you know what I was about to do a tactical five second pause and then say Matthew, do you have any ideas?

Matt: 9:45

I City builder. Horror, i feel, is something that is not. You've essentially got to be building defenses. That's the way I end seem to be. You're building a city that is constantly under attack and you've got it. You've seen the mobile games. Almost you know when you've You could you like build up the fences and then they get attacked at night and then you have to rebuild them And then you study upgrades. So the upgrades are the upgrade. That's the way I see it.

Matt: 10:05

I think to an exercise, a horror element, you make that first person. So you have a city builder in the style of almost the way that fallout has a Base building mechanics so they can be quite like touch. The forest is a good example as well, because that has base building mechanics built in, but you just make them more central to the M theme. So that's those two career mode. I Like the idea. You could maybe we could cheat it study and say you're the mayor of the town And that is the career. But then I don't know how you in gameplay wise, you Encourage that and you advance that and you move that, because I, you can't be like I am now super mayor. That doesn't really work. That doesn't work now. No, it doesn't really work, do you see what I mean? So yeah, and then the interactive movie is the, the fly in the ointment. But I'm just working on how to plug the rest together and then I'll come might loop back round to, but what I mean, hmm so It we'd.

Scott: 10:57

I think, to do this, we would have to potentially stretch the definition of city builder, because, you know, when you say city, i think I. I think SimCity. I think there are a few games in the past where you you know like I forgot. I forgot his name. There's a game I played before where you basically get ah, that's the answer the skylines, yeah.

Matt: 11:25

It's just superb.

Scott: 11:26

It is absolutely superb. Those to me, are city builders, and I agree that what I think we'd have to more go down the route that you're suggesting, where the city builder element is slightly more, you're not necessarily building a city, but you are building something that is linked to a city, so okay, So how about?

Matt: 11:47

how about if just rewinding, if we just established a city building thing, the theme, the city building theme, has to be, in my opinion, something like do you remember the survival game The Raft, which we've played together? Yes, So imagine that on a horoscope, that sort of first bezel element right, i'm putting a base in there, right, i'm going to put some something that does fresh water there. You'd have a similar element. You'd be still trying to do these sort of internal processes but for the sake of defending. So you'd be like I'm building this city. Okay, well, we need this power source here in order to power up the electric fence, stuff like that.

Scott: 12:17

Yes, Yes, I think that, yes, I think that's probably the only way you can do it if you're doing horonas In terms of a career mode. So what you could do is you could set it in, you could set it in a. In a world in which there's been a, there's been some sort of horror apocalypse of some sort, Rather than a kind nice apocalypse and fluffy apocalypse.

Scott: 12:44

Thank you. What I mean is that is that there's like a horror element. So you know, you could do zombie apocalypse, you could do general monster apocalypse, something like that. But we can say that the the apocalypse didn't completely destroy society. So society sort of managed to cling on, but you could say is under sort of constant assault from you know, whatever the horror element is. So society's still in taxa. Therefore you can still have a career.

Matt: 13:13

So what you're fundamentally saying is there's still a need for an accountant.

Scott: 13:18

There is still a need for a bureaucrat, there is still a need for a city planner who says, no, you can't build that decking because it doesn't conform to section three. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, all that, all that sort of stuff.

Matt: 13:30

Well, how about what you did this? just to jump back to the city planner, how about the way you do the career modes? You have this big city and it's kind of it's badly run, so everything's in the wrong place, everything. And you start off as a junior city planner with your own section of the city and you're told by your seniors And it can almost be a not not a bit of black comedy this, this game, because what it can be is your senior goes to you, goes Matt, could you look after the East Wing, because it's been under attack by cyborgs every five minutes or whatever it is. And you say and also, can you make sure that they get enough water and could you improve the library, just like it. So it's an incredibly like dead pan-esque.

Matt: 14:05

So you're constantly under attack, but while also trying to make sure all the bits of your city are working efficiently.

Scott: 14:11

Yeah. So I think the way you do that is that you make it so that, because obviously you need it, you'd need one, you're doing all the city building, but you'd also need access to defenses and stuff that you already said. So maybe you say that this society has been, because of what's happened, has been completely militarized. So you know, everyone is tech, everyone, whatever job you do, you're tech. Even if you're a city planner, you're technically in the, in the military apparatus of some way. So then you have access to all these, all these defenses, you have access to manpower to defend and all that sort of stuff.

Scott: 14:46

So people power, i think, is the correct word now. But you know you, you know you have all those things And then you know, then there is like a career for you to advance through. Like you said, your, your first assignment could be, it could be looking after sector whatever of the, of the sort of the exclusion zone or you know whatever, the, whatever terminology, whatever post-apocalyptic terminology you want to use, and you have to like, try and get stuff back up and running. So it's almost like a city repairer rather than a city builder.

Matt: 15:23

Do you remember when, in the very, very first podcast we ever did, we had, we did the it was a simulation, hardcore sim. And we did a renovation and you were renovating the castle whilst being chased by zombies. So this is kind of that on a on a on a bigger scale.

Scott: 15:37

Yeah, So you got, yeah. So, for example, you could do like you know, say, one of the jobs you've got to do is you have to fix the, the sewer, the sewers, like the sewers are completely jammed up with zombie bodies. But you, you know, you get, you, you get down there with your team and it's oh no, they're, those of them are still alive, you know. And then you've got to. There's a little bit of sort of defensive buildy, sort of almost like combat, if you know what I mean, and then you figure out how to clear it out and all that sort of stuff.

Matt: 16:09

It's quite funny if there's no, no combat at all. What there is is you can only put like, because you're a city builder and let's say that you're not particularly sort of strong fighter, you're like oh no, we're under attack. Quick, build a, build a fence. Build a, build a, try a spike trap, a bit like Orcs must die-esque style. All right, yeah, and I'll show you, yeah, and then you can do.

Matt: 16:27

You can like, you could create these massive death traps in your city because you go right, okay, i know that the freshwater's over there and I got a power source over there, so that's funneled the, the nasties whatever they are, we haven't decided yet into this sort of funnel that's miles away from all of those, and create a big killing zone. So you could do that and that's the way you manage the city. And then, if you're successful, and the longer you last, and if you're sort of, if you have a surplus amount of power, surplus amount, you could be really funny with this, actually say you could be sort of you could have a big wheel, for example, let's say it's zombies. You have a massive wheel and then you channel all the zombies into this one channel And as they're knocking the wheel trying to get through that charges the power source for your city, so you can have these really quite comical abstract ideas and the freshwater you could go. Oh no, do you see that zombie? He died in the freshwater. It's infected all the freshwater. That's all gone.

Scott: 17:20

Yeah, yeah, so you could. yeah, no, i like that. I think that could work quite well, so you'd have to make it, you could get really buddy quite, quite tongue-in-cheek, quite black humor in a way, i Think. I think that one, yeah, how to free tie an interactive movie.

Matt: 17:40

So I have an idea, bon, and you can build on this. But whatever's attacking you, and you could make this right really abstract. You could have Negotiations with them which are almost plot based. So you could go out the city and like, try and haggle and say, leave us alone, can you stop fighting us? and they'll say, well, we'll stop fighting us if you provide us with and we haven't worked out what the villains are. So there might be a bit of if you provide us with 800 bread or whatever or something, and then you have these as well. If you have these big dialogue, things like back and forth and plot wise, and then you can develop the plot between your Relationships, between attacks, and each discussion becomes you have this real mix of oh no, they're going to attack us, why? well, i kind of screwed up the negotiations and made them angry, mmm, well, and then you could have these also in integral plot, things like oh no, don't attack us on the east side, defend the east side, build a big wing.

Scott: 18:31

Yeah, i could work. I'm just trying to think what you, what you could do, sort of horror wise, to make it work.

Matt: 18:39

Guys, and you know, to fit that, Well, i think you need to have a big bad who you're negotiating with them. When we move on to plot, maybe we can sort out the relationship you have with that person, but I think they have legions of horrific monsters.

Scott: 18:52

So some sort of like hive mind and you have to negotiate with the hive queen or they're the hive.

Matt: 18:56

That'd be quite funny that I've mine, but I like the idea more so maybe it's a single person. That person sends Their monsters and said maybe there's some sort of ruler of the wasteland and they've, they've united the monsters because the only What they keep the monsters fed or something like that, so that they fight for them. Oh, i see. Yeah, i mean I could work, because the thing that I've mind is it does get a little bit not. Just imagine tried to tactically outsmart a hive mind because you'd whisper something for miles away and someone else would hear you Be like, oh okay, well, that's screwed, couldn't really keep a secret. That's a good point.

Scott: 19:28

I mean you could do. I think there was a. There was a Netflix TV show recently, obviously recently, last few years, called owners of film. Actually I think it's called love and monsters and the idea.

Scott: 19:39

Yes, the idea was that There was an asteroid coming at us. They sent loads of nukes up to destroy it, manage to destroy it, but then all the nuclear fallout came back on them. I'm basically mutated. Every living creature apart from people, so like ants, were just enormous and, you know, crocodiles were just like, basically like dinosaurs. So you know, you could do something like that. You could do where the things you're facing are actually just monstrous versions of things on Earth. What's the process of depends. If you wanted to set on earth, i guess.

Matt: 20:12

It's it. Maybe we decide what the plot is and we can sort of build on what the monster narrative.

Scott: 20:18

I forgot about this. No, no.

Matt: 20:20

Yeah, so I'm. I'm tempted to. Just before we move on to narrative, i just want to define Are we just doing this interactive movie as the interactions between you and the villain in between the tax, or do we want to build on that anymore?

Scott: 20:32

I think you can, i think you can do more With it. Perhaps you, you build in, perhaps you build in certain choice elements and you build it into. So say, for example, you know you go back to the sewer, sewer Thing, that you've got to clear a web, or you, you figure out the fresh water source. Perhaps you can build in a choice-based system where you, you know, as you, as you go along figuring out this problem, it branches out into various pathways that you can either be successful or not and You, you just have to make your best judgment based on what you can see in front of you.

Matt: 21:14

Rather than good option, baddy option, you know, i mean like Maybe, and also depends, maybe depends on what else you built, because it might be they might say, oh, my god, maybe, maybe it kind of you go down to the sewers, as you say, to do something.

Matt: 21:27

We have all these inbuilt cutscenes within the city, so there'd be hundreds and hundreds of these fixed events. You go down and then all of a sudden your assistant is It's gonna get stuck and get attacked, and you have this moment of like do I sacrifice some of my building materials and build Further up, or do I continue my plan in blocking further down? now you, as knowing your city, might might be like you know what I don't need to build either. I know I've got defenses further back That's just run back and we'll abandon this entirely, or you can go actually I know that we're really not fortified the priorities getting this built screw my assistant, i'm just gonna get it sorted so. But maybe you could build that in and it could really define. So your choice is based in the narrative and in these little episodic moments come, based on how well your city has already built up and how will your city is defended.

Scott: 22:13

Yeah, that makes sense, i think. I think that would build out that that mechanic a little bit more.

Matt: 22:18

Yeah, that's how it meshes together as well conversations with the hive mind, However however, whatever ends up being Jumping into a narrative, really doing, i feel like we've made a. We made a lot of progress, so I'm gonna pull up. We've got a lot of generic narratives here. Ladies and gentlemen, we have 19 generic plots that Scott will pick from this order. Generic, as you were, just general plot threads. Scott's gonna pick one of them and we're gonna build it in. So, scott, what are you thinking? feeling One to 19, i'm going to go for six. Revenge.

Matt: 22:54

Ooh, revenge Have we done revenge recently, so I don't know if we've done it recently, but I feel like it would. The nice thing about plots is they plug in completely differently. So with revenge I feel like is someone wanting revenge on you or is someone wanting revenge in general? Is someone ice cream being stolen? Is someone a bit perturbed? Please stop me.

Scott: 23:15

I like the idea that someone's a bit perturbed. The entire apocalypse has been caused because someone was slightly inconvenienced.

Matt: 23:22

That's very British, isn't it? You could have a Oh. That sounds like a hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy S thing, doesn't it? Where it says imagine if there was a secret monster in the world and the reason it attacked humanity was because global warming messed with its air-con temperature. Yeah, That would be the kind of thing.

Scott: 23:40

Yeah Well, it's a bit like Have you seen Cloverfield?

Matt: 23:44

No, but I know of it.

Scott: 23:46

So I think there's a bit of. I think there's two potential origins for the monster, but the first one is that it plummets down. You kind of see it in the pre-credits or the post-credits scene, like plunging into the ocean, or the idea is that that's a satellite that's crashed to Earth and the satellite goes down and then wakes the monster, which is asleep on the seafloor, I think at sidebar, Matt Reeves thinks it's the latter, The director of the Cloverfield.

Matt: 24:12

He came out and said he thinks it's the latter, So it's obviously, but you know what I mean.

Scott: 24:17

It's kind of like satellite lands next to it and he goes And then just starts to go. so on massive rampage. How dare you disturb my slumber?

Matt: 24:26

I think you'd have to play it so carefully for it to be both a comedy and a horror, because what you'd have to do is you'd have to. The monster would genuinely have to be scary. I don't know if you've seen Have you seen the new Into the Spider-Verse movie?

Scott: 24:37

I haven't yet no.

Matt: 24:38

No, well, one thing I would say about the villain in that is not spoilers, it's not, there's nothing. It's a good job of the villain being very entertaining but also really quite threatening. So I think there is a line you can walk. It's got to be along the lines of the villains, it's got to be so. The villain slash monster is going to be so threatening. I've had my day. Okay, I'm just going to finish my sentence, but thanks so much. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. The villain's got to be so threatening, with its disregard for human life, which is both funny and threatening in the same course. Are you finished? Yeah, i'm done. I'm done Full stop.

Scott: 25:14

So I Full stop. So I think what would work really well, if you're going to try and do it slightly humorous but also quite scary at the same time is you could do it. Okay, so bear with me on this, something that humans completely normally hate. Okay, and you say there is big daddy of this. So let's say I'm thinking like spiders, wasps snakes You always go down the insect route.

Matt: 25:44

You always go down some sort of creepy crawly insecty route.

Scott: 25:47

Spiders are terrifying.

Matt: 25:50

Yeah, stop living through the game.

Scott: 25:52

Okay, so it doesn't have to be spiders or wasps or A meb. I said snakes, that's a reptile.

Matt: 25:59

I know I'm terrified of snakes as well, and I'm going to give them a break this week.

Scott: 26:04

So my point is is that what you say is that you can say that potentially that there is, The spiders are fed up by being balled up in tissues and thrown down toilets, and they finally risen up against humanity and decided right, screw you, humanity And just some. I don't know how they sort of get to massive size that they threaten you, but you could do something like that.

Matt: 26:30

There's a big gap there in the storytelling and then bad things.

Matt: 26:35

I feel like you. Maybe you could do it in quite a clever way with every species that humanity, oh, actually, okay, so the center of the earth. we think it's molten lava. actually it's the origin of life. So all life gets mutated from that centerpiece and it's kind of the. That's where the theory of evolution comes from, because every time a species evolved, actually it's just getting remade and perfected by this giant monster in the center, by this essential big bad. Now, what the monster does as revenge is all the species that humanity has had a hand in extincting, that bad example, dodo's.

Scott: 27:14

But it creates. I knew you were going to say dodo.

Matt: 27:17

But it creates a mutated, horrifying form of these creatures as revenge. So anything that the mankind has destroyed. This is the time where they take mankind out.

Scott: 27:26

They send an army of killer dodo's. I like your idea and you have like mammoths and saber-tief tigers and Yeah, yeah, i'd say stuff like just mutated versions of those, because they've been turned into perfect killing machines.

Matt: 27:38

This monster's been lying and waiting to take revenge from mankind, killing its children.

Scott: 27:43

So when I got a, guy so when my character, when my character is clearing the sewer, it's infested with woolly mammoths and saber saber tube Tigers. What are you doing? How do you even fit? How did you get down here? A manhole?

Matt: 27:59

cover is a very small ladder.

Scott: 28:03

I mean, that could be quite entertaining.

Matt: 28:05

I feel like, no, you do that, but obviously you do not just stick to do those or I say things. Or maybe, like you have a mutated white rhino. That'd be freaky because obviously that's the first in real life and stuff like that. So it'd be quite an ecologically pro game. And then I like the fact you have this massive hive mind your, let's say your settlement, the one you're in is the last remnants of humanity. Now Everything else the guy is just. So every time you're going out and negotiating with guy And, but guy, ah, ah.

Matt: 28:33

This works narratively, because what's happened is these mutated creatures aren't fit to work, to live on the earth, though, because they're just designed to kill. So guy needs certain types of. I'm calling a guy So the mother of earth. This is my idea. So guy, the or the embodiment guy, whatever it is, is she is needs a certain type of resource to keep them alive, which only you can farm in your cities. She doesn't have the technology being mother, because you need to be manually processed.

Matt: 29:02

So that's the negotiating tactic you have in that interactive movie direct like saying, well, we have this much is like no, i'll come and steal it from you, i'll go and kill you all those revenge or so. So you have this back and forth. You have something they need, but she's out for revenge. So you can, you can go right. Okay, next negotiating session. We don't have the defenses to stand another night. That's make a hell of a lot of the resources they want. Send them away with the resources, keep them busy, and then we'll, and then we can put, and so essentially it leads to a back and forth. But how does this end, scott, as I see our time ticking away from above? our half an hour episode, that's a good point, i don't know.

Scott: 29:41

I don't know actually that it seems like almost like an endless, an endless game.

Matt: 29:46

I think the end point is when you realize how to poison the resources. you have a moment in the interactive movie in these pockets, the interactive movies. you have a moment. you go I can poison their food before I give it to them And then that comes into the interactive movie. if you can convince guy to keep taking the food And you've got a good relationship with guy in a weird way I know it's a very sort block Like if you've got the decent relationship that she trusts you enough to keep taking the resource, she will poison her army, lean to you to win. However, obviously, if she finds out she poisoned you, she can send the entire world and then you're on a hiding to nothing, essentially.

Scott: 30:21

Can you make it slightly entertain, like like it's potatoes or something, something like really menial and not actually that's like broccoli or you know, i mean curly kale.

Matt: 30:33

Broccoli. broccoli has mutated to the stage where it's bad taste warns off humans, as the great Simpsons line always said Yeah. Yeah no, I think that's work. Yeah, I quite like that I think mechanics that wouldn't go together.

Matt: 30:49

Yeah, i think that worked. I think we've done quite well there And I think that will. That will mesh. So I'm going to sum it up, scott, as we have reached our general half an hour time, and then you're going to come up with a name right at the end of my summary Delightful, right. So we have a city build, a horror game with a career mode, with an interactive movie element.

Matt: 31:07

Now, in this, this horrific world where the world has been destroyed by the mutated, extinct creatures as revenge by Gaia for mankind killing off some wonderful creatures she has created, these monstrosities which have attacked mankind, will always attack at night.

Matt: 31:20

You play a city builder in the last remnants of mankind's final city and you're working your way up through your career, up the ladder, by completing challenges, completing tasks, making the city better, making the city more efficient, as you look after more and more the city, whilst also jumping into these specific authored scenarios happening within the city, where you have narrative choices defining which you can use your city defenses to influence your choices there and that will in feedback on the game. In between these attacks, you have the ability to negotiate with Gaia, because she needs your potatoes, because they're the only thing that keep her monsters going, otherwise they'll all die out. And with potatoes, we went with potatoes. And then the ending of the game. As you manage, you unlock a resource or something that gives you this to poison the potatoes, to kill off all the mutants and allow mankind to reign again, or, if I get very angry and just kills you all out. And this game is called Gaia's vengeance. Gaia's vengeance SimCity 6.

Scott: 32:23

Gaia's vengeance? Well, i thought no, gaia's vengeance is a bit more Jeunesse Qua about it.

Matt: 32:29

I like it. Well, this is the SimCity times. Until dawn equals Gaia's vengeance. Well, I'm pretty pleased with that, Scott.

Scott: 32:37

Yes, I think that went a much better than I thought it would when we drew out the choices.

Matt: 32:46

You know what, scott? you were great, i was awesome, and you at home were even better. So thank you so much for listening to the Gaming Blender. Please check out all the other episodes and please, please, leave us a review if you enjoyed it. If you didn't enjoy it, then please, please, send the review via post. I'll keep doing that joke, but anyway, in the meantime, please subscribe and visit all the other episodes. But I have been Matt and I have been Scott. Thanks so much again and keep blending. Bye, bye now. Bye bye.