The Gaming Blender
Welcome to the Gaming Blender Podcast, the Game Design podcast where hosts Matt and Scott combine random game genres and elements to create exciting hypothetical games.
Join us on a creative journey as we blend puzzle-solving with action-adventure, strategy with role-playing, and more. Each episode takes you through our process, discussing gameplay mechanics, captivating storylines, and immersive worlds.
Whether you're a gaming enthusiast or a budding developer, our podcast offers endless inspiration. Explore new narratives, intriguing characters, and engaging gameplay dynamics. The Gaming Blender Podcast challenges traditional gaming norms, delivering fresh ideas and thought-provoking concepts.
Join Matt and Scott as imagination meets innovation, forging the future of gaming. Tune in, subscribe, and unlock the gateway to endless possibilities!
The Gaming Blender
The Front Line: Merging Total War and Call of Duty
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Ever wondered how blending genres could create the ultimate gaming experience? This week, we tackle the disappointment surrounding the Lord of the Rings game, Gollum, and discuss how it could have been saved with more interactive choices and better user interfaces. We also debate the best ways to combine shooter, football manager tactics, and FPS style multiplayer to create a truly unique gaming experience.
We dive into our exciting real-time strategy shooter game concept, envisioning a blend of Total War and Call of Duty where players customize units and formations in thrilling scenarios. Get ready for the hilarious outcomes when plans don't go as expected and the satisfaction of watching your grand strategy unfold in real-time.
Lastly, we explore the idea of limiting information in war games to create a more realistic and challenging experience. Discover how combining the strategic elements of Total War with the action of Call of Duty can lead players to make heart-pounding decisions and rely on AI to make tactical decisions in real time. You won't want to miss this genre-blending episode of the Gaming Blender!
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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!
Hello everyone, welcome back to the, the gaming blender, the podcast of hypothetical games. I'm, of course, here with my partner in crime, matthew. Hello, matthew, hello Scott, how are you doing? I'm very good, thank you. Much better than the reviews for the new Lord of the Rings, gollum.
Speaker 1:Snuck that in there, snuck it in. I managed to sneak that in really really well. I'm actually quite disappointed because it was a game I was looking forward to, because I thought this is interesting. I never thought anyone would make a goal. This is almost something that we would make up.
Speaker 2:Well, we've discussed this about. I lose track of total time, now I'm an, now I'm ancient But we discussed it about three episodes ago And I think we both came to the conclusion of interesting Nice to see a different take on it, because it was the. We came out when it was had that weird micro transaction to buy things in Elvish, and it was one of those ones where you went.
Speaker 2:It's not it's not worrying me, but it's a very strange one. But in retrospective it just looks like the whole thing was a bit of a mess.
Speaker 1:I mean I've seen some. I mean I'll preface this now by saying I haven't played it. I don't believe you played it.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I haven't played it either.
Speaker 2:I waited for the reviews.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean game spots, given it two out of 10. And I think the best one I've seen is a four out of 10. From perhaps IGN off the top of my head.
Speaker 2:IGN with four out of 10. Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker 1:But what entertain me the most is the very funny user reviews. One of them simply, simply says we don't want it, we don't need it Which which I, which I really do And one one just says I hate it. So I think what people have done is they've obviously just taken Lord of the Rings quotes and and manipulated them into hilarious, hilarious reviews, and some of them what Lord of the Rings quote do you think you choose?
Speaker 2:if you had to choose, we pretty much know the movies encyclopedically. So Oh, you put me on the spot. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, i don't mean to.
Speaker 2:I just thought something I don't know. I feel like the attitude of the reviewers. After having such a good year with games like tears, the kingdom, dead space, the remake, the residency will for the rematch There's such good games I feel like the reviewers wanted to get their teeth into something that they could review badly. So I imagine all the reviewers standing around going looks like meets back on the menu boys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think I think there was. there was a big sort of bun fight for who can get the best, the best quote quickly. I think I would go for from the developer's perspective, what is PC game precious And just, and I think I think that's that's what I would have gone for.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting, though. I've been tracking what the developers developers owned by I mean the background of myself. I know I have half an hour on the publishers because the publishers also own one of my favorite developers who make sort of indie sports games. So I keep an eye on. But the team who made the game have come out and said we're so sorry, we're going to patch it, we're going to sort out all the technical issues, we're going to sort this all out. But, like the reviews are all saying, yes, there are technical issues, but the game fundamentally is not fun to play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, i've heard pretty much. every single aspect of it is crap.
Speaker 2:I don't know what they're going to do with patch it. I mean, how do you patch up a patch?
Speaker 1:You can't patch something that's you know. It's like if someone, if someone were to fall off a very high building, you can't patch them up, if you know. I mean, they're just, they're just gone. You can't, you can't, you can't resuscitate get the bandages, his heads come off. If it has to be removed in several different bags, you probably can't resuscitate it. You know, and I feel like that's probably what the Gollum game is. Do you think they're?
Speaker 2:just going to essentially release a first person shooter with a Gollum skin now and just be like, yes, that's what the game was all along.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think they're probably going to have to do something. I mean, you get occasional games like this where it's just awful in every single regard, but I think the problem this has is because it's a Lord of the Rings game.
Speaker 2:There are lots of eyes on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so many eyes on it, so you know it was. You know if it wasn't, if it was wasn't even going to be average quality, it was always just going to suffer And clearly this is just absolutely terrible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it just sounds like it's flawed from the outset There were. I did see a little gameplay footage where the way that it works with one thing everybody was interested was how is it going to work with the dichotomy between Smeagol and Gollum? How's that going to work in the gameplay style? Because they they tease it to be sort of narratively important whether you become Smeagol or Gollum. And it actually had a really interesting core idea, which is, if you are choose to be Gollum, as in if you choose Gollum, you have to then convince Smeagol to follow you like. So you make sure that both personalities are aligned or you fit pick Gollum or Smeagol things to do. That's quite interesting.
Speaker 2:I saw a little gameplay segment of this in action. Firstly, the UI is horrendous, some of the worst UI I've ever seen. The text they use sort of Times New Roman, not quite sure why, but the little clip I saw of this bit was it was essentially Gollum had been alarmed by an orc and was having a panic attack saying he was going to be caught. So there were two options appeared on screen of what you could do, and the Gollum option was kill orc and the Smeagol option was continue to panic. Right, that's not a choice, that's just complete common sense. I don't know if they were players still out there who have just tapping, continue to panic and they've just played 40 hours of the game because they can't move on. Their golem's just running around in circles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean, i think, that choice kind of it's not really a choice really, is it No?
Speaker 1:I think, we're going to have to pick up from the bargain bin in a week's time And we get in four hours Exactly And give it a go. But we have been rabbiting on about Lord of the Rings, golem for six minutes now and we should probably start the podcast. So, ladies and gentlemen, if you are new to our podcast, welcome. What we do is we create a hypothetical game using a randomized series of genres and mechanics and narratives And we try and blend them together. See what we did there gaming blender And sort of make something from it. Quite often these mechanics and genres don't necessarily go together stereotypically, but we do make a damn good effort of trying to sort of force them together And actually I think we've done quite well so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, square pegs around holes Straight in.
Speaker 1:We are experts at square, triangular, etc. pegs in the wrong holes. Matthew, are you ready to begin?
Speaker 2:Yes, so you're going to give me some essentially numbers of the genres and then we'll be on to mechanics, so I cannot wait.
Speaker 1:What are the numbers For genre? as always, it's between numbers one and 20.
Speaker 2:Please pick. Don't you dare say as always to me. You forget every time and you actually do forget. So the as always is 100% more relevant to you than it is me.
Speaker 1:You're asking me to remember numbers. I'm beyond the age of 30. I can't do that anymore. What would you like?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go for number three.
Speaker 1:And number three. Okay, we haven't had one of this in a while, but you like to have everything as a one, so can you please choose two game mechanics between one and 37?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go for number three.
Speaker 1:Number three Oh, okay, yep.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was a noise. I'm going to go for number five, three and five. I'm not going to let you have five. I've had that a lot. Okay, If we had that recently. again, this is totally women's scots power as the dictator of this podcast. We're going to go for number 11.
Speaker 1:Dictator I like the word dictator Interesting Yep. Okay, i will allow it.
Speaker 2:You can make me choose another, of course, if you want to spice things up.
Speaker 1:I can, but I won't on this occasion. Okay, so what you have chosen, matthew, is a shooter with football manager tactics and FPS style multiplayer. Well, it's quite obvious luck. This is going to be one of those ones where I sort of do a Homer Simpson sort of fade back with the hedge and let you deal with this one. So okay.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously, the shooter and the FPS multiplayer goes together like to death match to you The football manager style tactics. So we are interpreting, interpreting. we are interpreting that as some sort of pre-established setup where you're essentially telling the AI what to do. Now you could go down the route of maybe XCOM, but that's more RTS. We're not real time strategy, that is just strategy, game turn based strategy. But I don't think that really fills in the genre of shooter. So you're going to need what I'm thinking is a more developed. do you remember? is it Band of Brothers? Do you?
Speaker 1:mean Company of Heroes. No, it was a game.
Speaker 2:Not Company of Heroes? no, it was. was it Band of Brothers Band?
Speaker 1:of Brothers. No, that was the American television.
Speaker 2:That was the drama. What was the name of the game? There was a game. It was similar to Call of Duty Medal of Honor, not Medal of Honor, stop this. Not Medal of Honor. It was the one where you could essentially direct your units around the battlefield and you had like an alternate sort of you could call them round, you could shout at them, you could go go flank them, stuff like that. And the name is, uh, bro Brothers Road to Brothers Brothers. Did they try to fill time while?
Speaker 1:I Google.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, the Brothers in Arms, brothers in Arms, right, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:I was saying you know, that. Brothers Road to Brothers is the game title Brothers in.
Speaker 2:Arms. It was a game I played a lot as a kid which I shouldn't have done, but I played a lot. But essentially you had this system where you could, like, you held down the right mouse button and you told the AI to um, you told the AI to like, pin down if you fired at people or if you could, like, set them a little course, a little route. So what I'm thinking is you'd have to do that, but you'd have to have it escalated to a state of absolute madness. Yeah, i feel like you'd have to. You could maybe combine total war with Call of Duty, okay. So instead of having real-time tactics, what you could do is you could go into a sort of overview map and you could go, right, i want to send my infantry in here and send this in here, this in here, this in here, and then you go down and you just play as one of your units. But the moment you play as one of your units, you have to rely on. You know, in football manager, for example, when you, once you're in the match, you're limited by your tactics. You're more reactionary. You're kind of going, you're shouting encouragement or you're going maybe, maybe go slightly wider, but you have that.
Speaker 2:What you do in this game is you'd have that grand plan that you'd have to rely on the AI to sort of um, to react to, yeah, to execute, and if something went wrong and something changed, it was kind of out your hands, because you're now one of the grunts in the unit And you can maybe shout a bit of encouragement and maybe in the tactics you can say, right, if they, if the opponents, come and break us down the middle, we retreat. Or if we break the front, then we do this, or then we do this. You just give these of them, all these tactics that then they react to. It would just, i imagine it'd be quite a cool thing literally watching your tactics. So if you say, and then I want the planes to come down and drop bombs at this point, they'd be really cool seeing your tactic literally come to fruition in front of your eyes. But also kind of hilarious If it all went wrong. You're like, ah, okay, they have anti aircraft guns, so that plan, plan, sky bomby not going to work.
Speaker 1:So I think I like, i like where you're heading And I think what would be what would be even better, rather than being a grunt, is if you changed it, that you were the, you were the commander on the ground, so you were the, let's say, let's say in this FPS style multiplayer, which the mechanic is that you, of course, yes, because you're playing against an opponent's technique. So let's say, for this, what you do is you pitch, it's one person against one person, or you you suppose you can do more, but let's say, as a basis, one person against one person, and you both command a. Let's say it's a one V one. You both have a regiment of soldiers And you can have a variety of different game modes in which one person's on the attack, one person's on the defense. You could do one where it's literally there are that you know you have to do out of. You know there's no, there's no sort of momentum either way. No one's actually attacking or defending. You just have to figure it out yourselves.
Speaker 1:And let's say, each of the players plays the commanding officer on the ground And, just like you've said, you do like, you have a battle strategy. You think right, okay, this is the terrain. This is how I'm going to use it to my advantage. We need to seize this bit of high ground in order to command this view, et cetera, et cetera. And once you've done that plan, you then go into battle. And once you're in battle, you are on the ground as the commanding officer. And let's say that you know a commanding officer would have, you know, a small unit protecting him, but the rest of his companies would be sort of like, out doing their jobs. And as a commanding officer you can drive around the battlefield and sort of get eyes on and figure out what's what's going on and adjust your plans.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love the idea of having a G Accordingly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly So, but and but you can, you can develop, you can put loads of, so you can put loads of different customizations within the game, in that you know there are loads of different types of of sort of units and formations, so in one you could choose to be right.
Speaker 1:okay, we're going to be a a light role infantry company, which means that you, as a commanding officer, would be, you know, in a, in a small jeep, sort of driving around trying to get places. or you could be commanding officer of a tank regiment, in which case you have a tank or all your guys, and you know you can, you can sort of, you can, you can provide, you can be reinforcements when, when it needs to happen, and all that sort of stuff. And so it gives you, as it gives you, onus that you have to sort of, you have to go around, you have to figure out what's going on, because you might get stuff over the radio to say this is happening over here, but you can't actually see what's going on. I like, i like the lack of vision.
Speaker 2:That's a cool idea. How much, how much shooting gets involved, though in terms of this is meant to be a shooter.
Speaker 1:I mean this. I mean you can definitely get involved, right, you know, I think I think it's a new take on a shooter. It's a bit like you would have maps as big as battlefield, but you would. You would take a slightly more of a backseat role than you would normally in battlefield, where you're just a soldier. In this case you're doing a bit more commanding, but by the same token, you know, let's okay, how about this?
Speaker 1:You can say you can, you can do the commanding officer bit on the ground, but you can also jump between, let's say, your company commanders as well. So let's say you could, you could, you're your commanding officer and you go, you hear over the radio, ah, you know, there's something happening, this company's in contact over here, and then you get right, okay, and then you jump into your. You can then right, okay, i'm going to focus on this bit now, and then you can be the company commander of that company, and then you can do a bit more of the fighting. And then, okay, cool, we've won this bit, now let's jump. And that means that you and you know because because that might be the, that might be the decisive bit that's happening at that point The other player might jump in on the other side as well, and sort of. You know, and you see, your, your and your, all your bots are like fighting at fighting against each other. Just you know what I mean. That'd be quite cool.
Speaker 2:I like. I like the idea of limited. If you can find a way of limiting information. Getting back to the commander, that would be. I know. I know some people might say that's a bit frustrating, but say if there's a way of humanity, it's real life though, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's real life. You know, at the end of the day, if you're fighting, you have no idea what's going on, true, unless someone tells you or you can see it. you have no idea. You could build lots of stuff in. you could build. you could build in, let's say, let's say in this, let's say you could do something where you decide, okay, i, i would like some. if, if we set it in the modern day, let's say, i would like some fast jets to fly over and bomb this particular bit at this time, you know you can, you can set that time because you think, right, okay, i think they're going to be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i definitely. I like the idea of setting some because you have again. You have to do that in real life and you might have the horrible situation where you bomb your own men because you pushed too far and forget where you were going.
Speaker 1:It happens. So you know you could definitely. there's a lot of sort of nuance and and real life difficulty you could put into it and I think a lot of people would be interested in that because it's it's harder Do you remember the shooter?
Speaker 2:Do you remember the shooter? Was it? was it Flashpoint? Yes, flashpoint, yes. You remember that, took it for self very seriously, not not necessarily in a bad way, but it did take itself very seriously, and it had the whole. If you got injured, you could bleed out stuff, so it feels like this would be almost a successor to that, in the real tart and the real seriousness of it. What happens, though? this is the question what happens if your commanding officer dies? Do you get thrown to the next command to? is?
Speaker 1:that it? Yes, i think so. The way it would work is then the most the most senior commanding officer would then take over, so, and that person then has to, you know, all bumps up. So if that commanding officer then jumps out to become the commanding officer, then his, his second in command, jumps up to lead that company. So Well, how about?
Speaker 2:this how about you get a have? you have a triangle of X number of people because you need men game. You can't have it like because otherwise people will play it so gung ho, essentially, just keep throwing themselves at walls because they'll keep getting renewed. So that's say you have about 10 commanding officers and this is you say, one dies in the in the triangle, then the next moves up, but you only have that 10. Yeah, you only have that 10. When you run out, you're out and say if you went over to a squad and took over the commanding officer for that squad who was bottom of the ladder, and they died, you wouldn't have anyone in that squad anymore. You have to be careful about when and where you jumped in because it would cause, if you died, in much as you probably be more effective. If you died, you lost control of that unit and not the ability that the a. I would keep fighting but you wouldn't be able to give instructions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you could also say that If say, if said come on off to die is, you can impose some sort of penalty in that you could have, you know, in that sort of brief moment of time where no one's really sure you know The boss is dead, no one's really sure what's happening here, you could have units start doing You know stuff they're not meant to do. They might stop eating.
Speaker 2:Maybe the a i has a built in system of just what it does automatically self preservation system so when it is its command officer, it reverts to that rather than following your plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a, it imposes that penalty. It means that people look after themselves, because, you know, call duty about to just basically throwing yourself in, killing as many people as possible and then dying. Yeah, i'm sorry, i call it for sure. I every time, you know, at least every time i die i don't mean any.
Speaker 2:many and many soldiers with great killed a ratio because they They struggle with the death pot yeah, certainly.
Speaker 1:So you know, it builds a certain, does it really something? i think i think that would. I think that sounds quite good i think it's as well.
Speaker 2:I think the plot is going to be interesting because obviously i am an online game and i don't know about you. I like the idea because the limited communication. I think it's harder to set this in the modern world. I think something like what would suit this, because you have Just enough technology to be communicating but also have, like it be difficult lines of communication.
Speaker 1:That's true. It gives a bit more um ambiguity. Yes, because you know you're dealing with 1940s radios. Yes, and all of the electronics and all of the sort of The nonsense that i imagine when time back then, with people trying to, must be horrendous just appear, the i mean.
Speaker 2:what's your view on them? The film 1917 isn't there, with the send a bloke running to deliver a message.
Speaker 1:I am. Yeah, i mean i would take a while i imagine that still happens when things, when things aren't working jimmy, come here, come here, jimmy.
Speaker 2:What could you just go and tell him?
Speaker 1:please pass me the butters take this and run over there. So it's sixteen miles. Go, go, farewell. See you tomorrow. You heard about chappat, that chappat marathon. He was fine. Go on off, you go he definitely didn't die.
Speaker 2:The instinct of the city.
Speaker 1:But, sir, he died off. You go. Okay, cool, i think now is the time to choose that narrative. Okay, if you're happy, what we're so i'm very happy.
Speaker 2:I think that's quite cool nishi game actually, without being to out of the box.
Speaker 1:And i must ask Hmm, actually you know that, so i'll. The number that you chose, as i said no, was roguelike elements, and this is a little bit roguelike, isn't it a bit roguelike? but? you it's hard, yeah, but i mean i just assume roguelike means it's a bit difficult well, i've been telling you for ages try hades.
Speaker 2:And you haven't tried hades yet, so you have to play.
Speaker 1:Promise i will. I've got. I've told myself i can't buy any more games because i've got too many. To finish what? i do, i get two thirds away through the game and i get me like i move on to the next game.
Speaker 2:I will, you can't get angry with me for not finishing. And last Jedi, jedi for order, whatever it's called.
Speaker 1:I'm up three wine slightly last Jedi, jedi, jedi for an order.
Speaker 2:It's the full title. It's the full title.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is. I'm going to let you silently condemn. Matthew 40 just said. Now moving on. So I would like you to choose a narrative now, and the numbers you have is between one and 19. You know, try not to choose one of them because one of them is forbidden love. I'm not quite sure how we're going to put that in.
Speaker 2:But we did. The two commanders either side is secretly in love and just following out the duty.
Speaker 1:So I did it in seconds. Yeah, I did it in seconds.
Speaker 2:So forbidden love is number four.
Speaker 1:Rescue. Okay, okay, rescue is what we've got Interesting rescue.
Speaker 2:I think that's quite. I mean you could make a. Do we want to set this within the real world? Do we want to go a bit sci-fi or fantasy with it? We didn't even consider the being fantasy units or medieval.
Speaker 1:No, we didn't. No, we didn't. I think it works better if it's firearms.
Speaker 2:Because, because it's a shooter which I've just remembered.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, it is a shooter. We have to be fast to be firearms. We're really good at this.
Speaker 2:I suppose you could have had, you could have all been archers, but I don't think.
Speaker 1:I don't think that works very well, does it?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:You know there's only so far. you can do that. you can do archer, crossbowmen and Rock slinger Throwing a rock, Oh and a javelins, you got four.
Speaker 2:Yes but the javelins much, much more useless because it's generally a one and done scenario.
Speaker 1:It's very true.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have. Oh, do you mind if I go get that back Can?
Speaker 1:you throw it back. Can you throw it back?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Rescue. That's interesting, could you? could you, i mean, because that would pigeonhole you a little bit.
Speaker 2:Are you going down the World War Two? then We're doing 1940s.
Speaker 1:I mean we could do, but I don't know. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I like 1940. I think there's enough misogyny, enough technology and enough different styles to make it interesting. The rescue stars. Whether we finish, we decide that we want to create a narrative, where well, just create something completely other blue. I don't know what I'm trying to think through my knowledge of World War Two, to think of any big events. I see you've just made a movement.
Speaker 1:The way we could do it. I see you, i saw you move. So the way we could do this is that we obviously yes, it's an FPS, multiplayer, but the rescue element could be within a single player campaign, where you, you learn, you learn that you, you know, you learn the game in a single player campaign, and the single player campaign is a rescue scenario. So you could do it, as you could choose something from World War Two that was a rescue like pattern in the Battle of the Bulge or Dunkirk or something like that, to help you, to get you to sort of learn the way the game plays, because you know, to me this is going to be a very complicated game. Yes, So perhaps you, perhaps you do something like that. It's a bit shoehorny, though. Is there anything else? It's a little bit shoehorny, i'm just thinking whether you make something, rather than doing something like Dunkirk.
Speaker 2:If you just could, you just do something like that, you just could. You? the rescue does it need to be rescued, or could it literally be liberating a certain town? Hmm, hmm, that's true. I mean, we are loosening the straps there in terms of what what's something called rescuing is, but I think rescue and liberation could be quite similar. It's then just how do you play it in terms of I would like to try and get it into the multiplayer somehow And do you doing that?
Speaker 2:Do you make it so you will play 10 times as the Germans And that way, in those 10 times, like you've got to defend, you've got to stop them from liberating said town, and you get. You always get a different challenger put up against you who will bring their own units. It's a bit like a total war, custom battle, where you're like okay, right, that person thought we were tanks, this person thought is going to, is taking mostly, i don't know, he's got, he's got an aircraft, heavy one, so I'm going to adjust it. And then, if you do those 10 times, you win, you unlock a new unit or something like that. And then, vice versa, you become the allied side, you update, you upgrade your allied side, so you end up having two distinct armies which you consistently are upgrading, And you can expand.
Speaker 2:The scenario is to being a different town, so you can be like right, right, your challenges. You got to liberate Dada. That means winning 10 battles in a row And that means you're the next 10 matches you're playing on a very similar type doesn't have to be exactly the same map, it could be like a very similar region. And then what you can do, you can go right now you moved on to Vici, so you're now, you're now fighting on that sort of map And then you get used to it for 10 and then move on again. So it's a way of keeping it fresh. But also you get to know the terrain, you get to know what's going on.
Speaker 1:And you can change the. You know you've got. You've got the Pacific theaters.
Speaker 2:You know the Japanese against the Americans and the Australians and the British, and you can have an army for each of these and be upgrading them the whole time, because the game is going to force you unlike. You know, when you play a multiplayer game and you find a favorite class and you end up playing that class, unlocking everything with them going, i don't want to play any other class as we have a shivery. Yes, you don't want to play any other class because you've unlocked the best weapons for said class. So you keep rotating people through it. So everybody is used to playing with these different armies and has their own distinct, distinct army group types as well that they've also been upgrading. And then you don't upgrade the units as such, you just get access to different types of units. So you might be like I started off with this British army that was very soldiers based And then, because I unlocked the ability to play with more tanks, i've now got more tanks in the army. Not, i'm not upgraded necessarily, necessarily. I've just got a different way of fighting. Hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i like that, and then you can have the Russians and the Germans as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because also what I quite like is the excitement of someone seeing it and going oh my God, that guy has tanks. Not not going, oh my God, i'm going to die. But essentially going, i can't wait to unlock them because I can use them in great effect with my aircraft And I can combine the two. So it's the sort of drive of unlocking different tactics sends you forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean, and there's, there's loads of stuff you can do. I mean, you know, if you, if you're defending a, if you're defending a town or a city, and you see the guys got tanks, be like, okay, great, i'm going to have dismounted blokes with loads of anti tank weapons and just hide in the buildings and pop out and kill their tanks. You know, that's that, you know, because tanks don't do well in towns. So you know, there's, there's a, there's a tactical element there of sort of outwitting or trying to outwit each other. I think, i think, i think it'd be quite a deep, a deep game, i think.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, And I think you've got a second guess as well. you'd be like someone's attacking them And maybe you have limited information at the start. you remember on again on the Total War games, where you you sort of see the attacking army and its question marks over most of the units, but you see about three or four units. That's the way I think you do it, because you'd be thinking okay, right, I know he's got three, at least three units of tanks. Could he have more? I'm going to assume he's got more and I'm going to set up with the anti tank people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it just a doomsack of tanks? Yes, you know, because you you can't actually see it. I know he's got three tanks, but what if he has 20 tanks?
Speaker 2:Or has he got three tanks and a shed load of mirrors?
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean that that wouldn't be good with it. I think we've.
Speaker 2:I think we've got a lot of. I like that game. I think that's a nice game.
Speaker 1:So shall I summarize what you think of a of a narrative. A narrative, a name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think of a narrative that once was a man called is it going to be Keith?
Speaker 1:Yes, of course.
Speaker 1:So listeners that there that we have created is a shooter with football manager tactics combined as sort of FPS style multiplayer.
Speaker 1:So the way we've skinned this is that, rather than using the traditional trope of being a grunt that goes around, kills three people and dies continuously, like in Call of Duty or battlefield, is that you would take command of a unit or regiment or army as the commanding officer and you'd be able to switch between certain certain commanding elements within within that force and you would battle against another player who would be doing the same thing And you would look to we'd set it in a World War Two setting And we'd look to sort of pit it as a game where you could try and sort of you need to look after yourself because if you die, you know there are, there are morale penalties to your side, all of your men are sort of are AI, they're all bots that you can command and control and say go and seize that hill, etc.
Speaker 1:And you'd battle it out in, you know, trying to either liberate or defend certain town, cities, areas of countryside in the World War Two era across across, you know, russia, the Far East, europe, etc. And this would be set alongside a theme of rescue whereby you would be, like I said, trying to liberate these, these towns, from from the quote unquote baddies. But obviously there'd be a player playing the other side And this game, matthew, is going to be called what? the front line? the front line. I like it. Very rarely do we come up with a name in first.
Speaker 2:I came up with it right at the start. It hit me and then I kind of went on just twiddling my thumbs down while waiting for you to describe.
Speaker 1:I did sort of see. You said looking, they're looking quite smart.
Speaker 2:Looking out the window.
Speaker 1:He's either thought of something or he's not thought of anything at all. So, that I like that title. So that, ladies and gentlemen, was the front line And, i believe, definitely a PC game. So, coming to you at Steam, when we get discovered as geniuses, which is never Yeah, yeah, but you never know, you never know. We shouldn't say that, sorry, until someone listen to our podcast and coaches our ideas. But yes, anyway, i hope you have. I hope you've enjoyed that. I certainly have, and I know Matthew always enjoys this.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:I know absolutely. So in the meantime, keep blending and thank you very much for listening. If you have the chance, please do leave us a review and please do wherever you listen to your your podcast. And also, please do send us a comment if you would like us to create something for you. We are very much open to that And I believe we're going to be doing games birthday cards. Yeah, absolutely. I believe we're going to be doing next week, can't we, can't we? Matt.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's been a suggestion. There's been a suggestion for next week, which I'm going to be hosting, so that's going to be very exciting.
Speaker 1:Very delightful. So, in the meantime, i have been Scott and I have been Matt. As always, he has been Matt. Thank you very much for listening and please do keep blending. Bye, bye now, bye, I'll see you there.