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 Labyrinth - The Intricate World of Co-Op Puzzle Gaming
Fancy setting us a gaming challenge? Get in touch here!
Ever found yourself stuck in a digital puzzle game, feeling like you've just been let down by you supposed 'partner'? That's exactly what Matthew and I are here to chat about - the fascinating world of gaming, our favourite moments, and the addictive charm of a hypothetical AI inspired co-op puzzle games that truly test your mettle.
This week we let our imaginations run wild with a concept for an episodic puzzle game with a shock collar mechanic. Picture this - a human maze where players are incentivized to complete puzzles together, with rewards, skins, and perks, even your humanity at stake. Join us for gaming nostalgia, passion, and creativity - you won't want to miss it!
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!
Hello, hello, listeners new and listeners returning Welcome back to the gaming blender, the podcast of hypothetical games. I'm, of course, here with my partner and crime, as always Matthew. Matthew, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm very well, scott, it's lovely to be here.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is a bit like being on a game show. We do appear to be slipping into more game showy tropes as we, as we go on.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure I feel like I need a conveyor belt with, like, a microwave and a yeah, and just just like any of these could be yours.
Speaker 1:What was that show called? I don't know game show it was.
Speaker 2:it was sort of late 90s, early 2000s game shows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember it.
Speaker 2:And it was always they won like a car in a kitchen, but they were an entire family. So you kind of go. So two families. Who gets the kitchen?
Speaker 1:I remember. I don't see those shows anymore.
Speaker 2:No, they're awful, they're terrible. They just filled up the middle of the day.
Speaker 1:You only remember them when you're a kid.
Speaker 2:You only remember them because when you're a kid, you have nothing to do, so you watch it.
Speaker 1:That's exactly why Anyway, back to gaming. Sorry, this is occasionally. We do, of course, fall into nostalgia of mine, of mine and Matthew's minds. Matthew, how's your gaming week or two weeks?
Speaker 2:been. It's good, it's good, it's been a good two weeks. However, I'm looking for the next thing to grab me. I'm still dipping in and out of Zelda, but I decided to back into Skylines, if you sort of creation ones I'm trying to sort of. I'm waiting for something to really make me excited. I've started watching a few Elden Ring let's Plays, which is satisfying and also not satisfying, because I watch it and I go oh, I should have done that. Oh, I missed those, because I played it with you and I could get the sense that we used a mod to make it co-op and I was sort of guiding me. I go now to here, now to this one, now to this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like oh my God, why are they so? This is so hard and horrible. It's like, yes, you've experienced nothing yet, keep going. Yeah, it's very much a guided tour of Elden Ring. It wasn't even able to deserve the starting area, scott, it was a little grave, it was it.
Speaker 1:That's big for me. It is a big starting area. I'll give you that. Listen, I'm not very good with games like the From Software type games, where it's ridiculously hard.
Speaker 2:But how's your gaming been while I wait for something to grab my attention?
Speaker 1:What have I been doing? I have been dipping back into Total War Warhammer, which I'm a very big fan of. They're bringing out another one called Total War Pharaoh, which I'm not. It's interesting.
Speaker 2:I watch an analytical video and it does feel like, as the love of Total War, warhammer has gone up, the historical ones have dropped off, and I haven't played a historical one since Rome 2, I don't think I think that's partly due to Warhammer. I think if you like most of the stuff anyway, you go for the Warhammer one because generally you are interested in that stuff too and the historical chunk is a much smaller audience now, which is interesting. It'll be interesting to see how they treat it going forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but I think everyone is waiting for Medieval 3. And everyone's just waiting for that to come, which hopefully will come at some point. What I was going to ask you, matthew, before we get started, is I was thinking the other day I was chatting to my wife about the best video game moments I've ever had, because you know, listeners, I'm sure most of you will be video game players. One of the reasons we play video games is for those glorious moments where there's this massive surge of emotion because you've achieved something, or the game makes you profoundly feel some emotion, whether that's, you know, fright or sadness, or joy, or wherever it might be. Matthew, you're one of those moments to share.
Speaker 2:I think I've got two. I was listening to your description. I think one of them fits it, one of them doesn't. I think one of my. I think one of the moments that sticks with me, despite the fact I jumped off the game and didn't actually enjoy the game, that much was the first time you step out of the prison in Oblivion, yes, and I thought that was just took my breath away phenomenal. I could not believe what I was seeing. And then I tried to hit someone with a combat and hated the combat, but in terms of like stepping out and going, oh my God, I've got all this world I can explore. This looks amazing, this feels fantastic.
Speaker 2:Actually, I've got two other ones, because the other one is very, very specific to us. But then the other one was in a shadow of Mordor, where essentially there is spoilers for Shadow of Mordor coming up. You have the Nemesis system, so you fight against people and then you develop a specific storyline with people and then, right at the end, the or villain that you've had the most amount of fights with which for me, was this random or holding a knife, who was rubbish but for some reason kept back stabbing me and winning, and and just when finishing me off, he appeared as the final boss and I remember that kind of with this moment of absolute glee that I was like, yes, I get to rip you to shreds, because I knew that he was rubbish yeah, it was rubber, he was my nemesis and I was like right time to absolutely wipe the floor with you. And my final one not to rattle on too long Was when we were playing GTA online together in the small period where I actually enjoyed that, where we were playing a level and we tried it about six, seven, eight, nine, ten times. We were saying forever getting wound up by it.
Speaker 2:We had to steal a plane from a hanger. It's one of the heists. It wasn't on the heist, but it's like one. The heist was one of the missions. It was similar to us. We had to steal a plane from a hangar, fly it, land it somewhere else and we tried it. We kept trying it, kept trying it, kept trying it and finally, um, finally, I think we got around. You were trying to cover me while I got in the plane and you'd jump in the plane, jump onto the wing, jump back in and and then we take off. We got away and I remember we took off and we were like yes, we've done it.
Speaker 2:We've got out of there. We've done it, we've done it and then I can try. On the plane suddenly felt the controls go a bit weird. Oh, it's Scott and you like yes, we've done it. Everybody will fail. We've done it, scott. Yeah, scott, I don't think I have any engines anymore.
Speaker 1:Oh no, yeah, I recall we didn't.
Speaker 2:We didn't success with a complete that mission did we gave up after that, because that would then they've just collapsed into the sea. It was very awkward. We just went gca. Obviously, if something's wrong, generally one you guys. Well, bye, bye, I have a parachute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I believe we both died. Oh, that was, that was very funny. But yes, this is, please do. Please do make a note in the comments if you want to. You know, let us know what your favorite gaming moment was what is yours?
Speaker 2:What is yours?
Speaker 1:I think so. For those who haven't played the original Kotor game, that Knights of the Republic game For Star Wars, it is the spoilers. The is the moment where you are revealed as Almost the main. You are the main baddie, you know. It is revealed that basically your character has a sort of space amnesia, star Wars amnesia, and it turns out that you are the big bad from sort of like, almost like the prequely bit of the of the game. Because when I was like, when I first played the game, I was like 13, 12, it my jaw like Fell off.
Speaker 2:I think that is a good way to go now it's overdone and said, said to, like you were really the villain, especially in horror films, with horror games, where you wake up and it's like I have no memory of how I got here. It's like, well, you've definitely caused this then, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, you are the evil doctor that has caused all, the, all, the all the zombies to appear or monsters to appear. Anyway, we'll crack on with the, with the podcast, because that's been eight minutes of us play minutes of fluff. I think that's. I think that's a record Round record fluffing. I've got my pen. Welcome back to our returning listeners. For any new listeners, this is the gaming blender podcast. What we like to do is mix a randomized selection of genres and mechanics and narratives and smush them all together and try and create a game in. We'll probably be slightly over half an hour because we blurt on a bit Slightly under. We might nail it and I think Matthew and I usually do quite well given our very strict time limits. You know, I think we can compete with the best of the gaming industries. Idea people.
Speaker 2:Chump change at this stage compared to what we create.
Speaker 1:I agree. I agree, matthew. I did notice you drop your pen, so don't thank you. You didn't get away with that one.
Speaker 2:We're watching on the YouTube channel. You'll just see me slowly like Smooth to decide dropping out of shot.
Speaker 1:What's like? You're doing that thing where you pretend to pretend you're an elevator Anyway, we should be worth a cotton. So, matthew, what I would like you to do is Select a genre, and we're gonna do this is with a lovely dice roll, as we've started doing. We've started doing dice because we can't be trusted. No, we can't, or at least I can't be trusted to. This is true. Not forget what I've already done. So I'd like you like to know wrong. You're not choosing anything, I'm rolling the day.
Speaker 2:I'm not, I'm just saying roll. I'm just saying roll, baby.
Speaker 1:I am rolling. You have got Number eight.
Speaker 2:Okay, would you know how I like to do it? You know how I like to do it. Do it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do. I need to. I need to take a note. Okay, we also have number for a mechanic. We have number 32 and Number 35. Very interesting. Okay, not there.
Speaker 2:Okay, hit me with your rhythm stick.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what you have to make, matthew, is a puzzler. So puzzle game with a co-op focus, ie it takes two or overcooked. Okay and episodic storytelling. I Love the telltale games okay, hmm, episodic storytelling is.
Speaker 2:I actually suppose that's different. I was thinking of narrative storytelling there, actually, where it's something like until dawn, but it's not episodic storytelling, so in theory, this could get released in chunks.
Speaker 1:It could get released in chunks.
Speaker 2:It's interesting when they're releasing chunks, though, because there are certain ones I thought were really interesting, like that where they released hit man in chunks where they had one map Per um. It was about six or seven maps and they really see each map individually, and I thought it's quite cool. I did, because then you'll really feel like you're getting value and have something anyway. And then obviously, puzzle, puzzle games. I mean, it's not a party game, it's a puzzle game. So puzzle game with some like maybe the journey, and we say what would you say is a good example of a puzzle game?
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm a portal.
Speaker 1:I portals a puzzle game. Yeah, portals a puzzle game. I don't. I'm not typically a puzzle player. I think it's because I'm an idiot, and so puzzle players, puzzle players, make me feel stupid.
Speaker 2:You just have that expression on of the dog, like just staring back at you.
Speaker 1:You have a very simple puzzle going. Oh, I think you know my the sort of my peak of puzzling is the Skyrim puzzles, which are the simplest puzzles in the world Find Leaver, pull Leaver. Basically you know, match animal to animal and pull Leaver. I think I think my daughter, who is, you know, coming up on two, would be able to do the Skyrim puzzles.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna lie, I googled a lot of them. Ah, go on then. Okay, so hang on. So episodic I think the challenge here is finding something that suits episodic without just cheating it and saying, oh, we're releasing chunks. I want to be able to integrate that in, because a co-op co-op actually suits a puzzle game. It does make puzzles designed about two people that could have been on the very basic level. Holds down button over here, and yeah so.
Speaker 1:I have an idea, I have an idea, go hit me with it. So archaeology suits, puzzlers, you've done archaeology.
Speaker 2:We've done archaeology before, Because we did. We did a puzzle game with archaeology that was a rogue like. Do you remember that we did? Yes, it was the one way you it was. Your wife complimented you for how good it was. It was the one way you had to start off with a party and, as a rogue like in each puzzle you saw you could potentially lose people.
Speaker 1:Yes. No, we did do that In the nicest way? No, we can't do that. That's fine. It's good that you're the resident historian, because otherwise we just end up making the same game over and over again. So trains. No, there is, there are. There is no situation which you can play trains to puzzles. Yeah you could just be shunting. No, I'm going to get in the right, and listeners don't enable him by writing anything in the comments that will make him start thinking about trains again. So here's a thought.
Speaker 2:Go on. Do you did say co-op focus rather than two player, because I was about to say do we have to say for the puzzles you're working with each other?
Speaker 1:You can make it to play. You can just make it solely one player or two player.
Speaker 2:No, no, but I meant as in working against people, working against each other, rather than co-op. Oh, I see, you said co-op for puzzles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, co-op kind of if it was multiplayer. Yeah, exactly, co-op kind of insinuates that you are sort of working together, but then you get, you get head to head co-op, but that's a, that's a thing. So you could, you could nuance it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is a thing. I think we might be stretching it slightly. I think that there is unless you?
Speaker 1:OK, how about this? Unless you do some sort of puzzle where you can choose to either work together or go against one another? There are ways to solve the puzzles, both together and singularly, and you can decide at any point to either help each other or stab each other in the back. Do you see?
Speaker 2:what I mean, maybe yeah, so I see.
Speaker 1:So it's a betrayal. Yeah, so maybe you, I don't know. You know there's not to be archaeology or something like that, but maybe there are puzzles in which you are two very untrustworthy people who, you know, really are sort of forced together. I have an idea. I can choose to either help each other or not. Go on.
Speaker 2:So this is just based on that co-op focus thing about the untrustworthiness. How about you have a puzzle where you have to work together but you have an end goal, which is money, which is loot, which is something and what it and what you do is you. That will always be split. If you get there together, or obviously one gets it, you get all of it. Now, you know, in Suicide Squad, in both the comics, the films and adaptations, etc. They have a chip in the back of the head. That means that they can be, the head can be exploded, yeah, if they run away. Let's say you have that for each other, but you have to go each other up, you have to gauge whether you can. You have to gauge whether you can get by without the other person.
Speaker 1:In the rest of the puzzles, oh, I see, so you can get all the loot. Okay, so, okay, right, I see what you mean. Yeah, so, so you could. You could have these very intricate puzzles where you never know how close you are to the end. You never know whether you've reached the final goal or not.
Speaker 2:Yes, so there's always lots of twists and turns and lots of forms like false peaks, and if you and if you had puzzles that have multiple solutions, you could have this way say, you have to get somewhere across a river or something like that, and you're like, okay, well, the only way I can see doing it is with two people, and then the other one of you goes yeah, as an idea I've got. I only need one person here and then I can get all the loot for myself.
Speaker 1:And it could. It could lead to a lot of games being very, very short. It could because you but I think maybe you just boom Look around?
Speaker 2:No can solve that, but maybe you start it with a very two player focused, co-op focused puzzles. What if it's not they? They open out to become more like self.
Speaker 1:What if it's not? What if it's not that you kill them? What? What if it's that you disable them for a certain period of time? So then that person isn't then out of the game. That person, then yeah basically one person then basically gets a massive head start.
Speaker 2:So you, that could be it, because then maybe the person goes right okay, I know there are that. I know there's one puzzle left I don't know what it is, but I'm going to back myself that I can solve it. Yeah, so I'm going to disable them in the penultimate puzzle I'm going to charge forward, get into the next puzzle room and hope I can solve it before they can catch up. Because you might have some really awkward moments where your partner catches back up with you like, looks good, what the hell was that about? I'm going to disable you and disables them and then realizes they can't solve the puzzle either and then goes yeah, we kind of need each other. Whoops, yeah, so you've got a window you can disable you kind of. Maybe you get in, you have a minute to sort of zoom around the room and you can move around freely and in that that minute you, after that minute, you get 10, five seconds where that's your opportunity to freeze the op, your partner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could say, maybe there's like a, they've got like a like electrical collar or something, and then you can activate it and then they basically are immobilized for a certain amount of time, while you can then do this.
Speaker 2:This is, but then the puzzle itself. What do you think the puzzle itself is? I see it as like a portal thing of and this might be because I played a lot of Zelda recently of can you cross this area, can you get across, and then you kind of have building elements.
Speaker 1:I think, I think you can do that. I think you make it as wide as possible, you do as many, as many puzzles as physically possible and many different types to keep it fresh and to give you a lot of variation.
Speaker 2:Well then, then let's steal that, let's steal that element of building blocks. You can melt again, sorry, stealing from Zelda, but I can't not, because that's what I'm imagining but you can melt anything to anything. So you go into a room and there's a load of scattered like items and maybe there's a fan. That's in event that you can go. Okay, well, I can use that fan to create something, or I can. So just a load of puzzle pieces that you can whack them all together however you see fit, but in order that you can only maybe you can only use five objects each. Okay, that way, you essentially look at it and you go right. And that means also opens up for not just because you can have four player, five player, six play, whatever it is, because you can look at it and go right, I can only melt five objects together that one, that one, that one. Okay, that leaves me one short. I'm going to need the other one, whereas your partner goes. I can make this work with three, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I mean, how would you we have to police that in some way in the narrative and make a reason for why you can have issues five? You know you can actually five things. I think it would depend on the narrative. I think one way that this could work as if it's a little bit like Squid Game, where it's some sort of competition right and where it's not just do you know. I mean that is in like to build. The reason why I don't mean the same sort of games though as they, like people are kept there against their will, whatever. Some. Perhaps it's a. This is a, because we're not, we're not at this point saying there's a, there's a threat to life for these.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's kind of. It's kind of a bit. It's kind of just, as you say, squid Game, a game show, but without that threat to life. So I think the narrative will define how much we fill in the backstory around it. I mean, it's almost more of a, more of a random fall is closer to full guys at the moment, really, than Squid Game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where do we build in the episodic how I suppose that might be narrative as well, I guess it could be narrative.
Speaker 2:I see it as maybe the puzzle rooms themselves, maybe you have styles and themes, so the base game one is a bit like we hitman, where you said we release it in like this is this is the map. Obviously there are loads and loads of puzzles. Each one released with tons of puzzles so people don't get short. Change within the next episode is like here's the jungle theme or is it a desert themed one? So I think that's that's a way around it. I think the narrative is the next step and then we work out what we can and can't add.
Speaker 1:Okay, should we add a sweetie to the narrative now? Yes, Okay. So I was about to ask you once again to do a to a numbers lecture, they realized it was a dice roll. It's a dice roll. Okay, so you have number seven, which, oh, number seven is the riddle.
Speaker 2:Love. A good mystery. Oh, that's a good one, it's the plot for you the riddle. I think, that, that could work quite well.
Speaker 2:I have an idea. Go on so. Are you familiar with the concept of aliens? Yes, so now what we're saying is to a giant dome lands somewhere on Earth, yes, and people go and investigate it. All they find when they go and investigate it is that there seems to be a hint towards great treasures inside. There are paintings, there are carvings around it. But when you go into it, you start to understand, you start to work out that you're being challenged in order to get these gifts, to get these achievements.
Speaker 2:I've just realised one thing we do need to clarify is what do we get for winning? What's the end goal? Yeah, what's the end goal? But okay, so these domes drop and then what they're doing is they encourage people, who are encouraged, to come in and do their challenges and they win gifts, they win money, they win stuff like that, etc. So, as people are challenging it, then say this is where the episodic bit comes in another dome lands in a different area of the world and another dome, and another dome, and another dome people encourage to come in and take on these challenges, take on these events.
Speaker 2:They're not life threatening. What they are doing is they are aliens, are watching us and watching how we behave and how we interact with each other and gaining information. Much like oh, actually, or it could be AI. This could be an AI thing where AI is watching us. Ai has created these domes and has encouraged us all to come in with promise of untold riches, and then what it's doing is it's slowly learning and gathering information on us and to work out. I mean, it might not have an end goal. The end goal is just maybe that is the way it is learning and adapting and evolving.
Speaker 1:So I like the idea. I think it's good. Do you think it would work better if it was one super dome basically lands, and then what happens is, as you progress through, as you finish, as you complete an area or figure out the puzzles to solve an area, another bit of it, then another chunk of it then opens up, and then that's how you do it. And maybe the way you do the episodic storytelling to differentiate is that you make the areas very unique and sort of themed. That makes sense. So maybe they could replicate certain environments or maybe they could replicate different styles, so, for example, as in almost like different genres, if that makes sense. So one of them could be sci-fi-e, one of them could be sort of like I don't know. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 2:So maybe we do set AI then and then, because AI has taken all stuff from storytelling, from stuff from our history and has melted it all together into puzzle rooms. I think the problem we're now left with what's the story's end and also, what do we get? I mean, there's a classic thing is these puzzles, if we solve them and you get the loot? You can buy skins, you can buy physical appearances, but is there anything else? What's the reason behind wanting all that loot?
Speaker 1:That's a very good question.
Speaker 2:I mean, sometimes you don't need to overthink it, because people do want really nice skins, people do want. But maybe there's a little. You can add little perks in so you could have your character. If you buy a certain perk, you can meld six items together rather than five, or you can, or maybe you get one where you're like the person that your oppositions are frozen for five seconds longer stuff like that. And to keep it fair, everybody has it's a bit like Call of Duty's cards as well has card systems, so it's similar to that. Everyone has card systems which are of similar power, but you can just ask for different ones at the start, so you don't get to the centre of someone who has Uber card. That essentially blows someone's head off.
Speaker 1:So I have a small idea. A small idea. It's just a small one. A small idea. Are you familiar with the mass effect endings?
Speaker 2:Yes, I have a familiar with the fact that everyone's absolutely livid about them all the time.
Speaker 1:Yes, so the main three ending spoilers for anyone who hasn't played them before, but they are quite old, so go and play them. They're great is you either destroy the bad guys, you control the bad guys or you meld with the bad guys. Basically symbiosis it's biological and machine symbiosis. So there's no AI, there's no people, there's just one and the same. What if, at the end of every single segment, the dome gifts you the opportunity to meld in some way the AI that created the dome? So say, for example, one of them could be that they meld your mind with a machine and that then gives you certain bars and certain abilities.
Speaker 2:You become part of the AI. We need to be slightly careful, because we did have a game similar to this with Ultimate Team of Cards, where you essentially assembled your body. What you're saying is this is a narrative way of creating those perks and those buffs, because the AI is giving you a gift of abilities and also, maybe it gives you a gift like here is your gift, this is your skin, and that could be an augmentation because, as we said earlier, perhaps that ability to glue together is a suit that you were given when you entered the dome, so it customizes it for you Dead Space Star where you step in you get a new suit, but then there has to be obviously maybe there's some sort of.
Speaker 1:maybe there's some sort of downside, or maybe the downside is literally the player thinking would I myself want to take away part of my humanity to become?
Speaker 2:better, do you?
Speaker 1:know what I mean, go on.
Speaker 2:So you know, when we were saying that the riches get split or not, depending on if you get there If you get there alone, you get a perk card which which, narratively, as you say, is this augmenting with the machine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you get there as a group, you get cosmetics.
Speaker 2:So there is a clear, defined split and then, narratively, what you can do right the end, when you've completed, when we've gone through all the episodes, you can get a good ending in a bad ending, depended on how much you augmented yourself with the AI and essentially because your character becomes this, becomes the AI and essentially becomes, loses their humanity, becomes overseer, or, if you become, if you get there, just because of ethics odd that it goes what we understand now that you see the humanity is so important. You held your humanity. I'm becoming machine. So it's kind of good and bad ending, maybe less binary than that. You could have more grades of elements of gray, but I like the idea of just sort of going in the going I would the perks being quite good and going for the Then get, giving you the bad ending so we're saying so, saying the idea is that these sort of these gifts are forbidden fruit, as it was yes, very much, but but there's a clear, defined and then obviously the portraying your partner needs to Getting worse ending.
Speaker 2:So, yes, you would. Obviously you don't people don't spoil it, but that I think that's quite a nice you be, because if you were an ass to someone the entire way through and then went, I got the bad and I can't deserve that. Yeah. Nothing that I know work. I think that's good, and we've managed to do that under the half an hour in the end.
Speaker 1:Dear lord, we have. Yes, I imagine that I should. I do a sum up for you you do something I'll think about.
Speaker 2:Think of thing.
Speaker 1:So what we have there, dear listeners and viewers, is a puzzle game centered around mechanics of what is the focus with episodic storytelling. So the general narrative is that a, an enormous, super sized dome is going to land on earth with no warning and no explanation. People will go and study to look at it and, once in, they will find that there is a series of puzzles, puzzle rooms, puzzle areas in A vast array of variations. Think of any sort of type of puzzle you can think of, whether that's physical or metaphorical, or imaginative. You know they'll be in this, in this dome, each sort of.
Speaker 1:As you finish a segment, another segment will open up which will lead into the sort of the episode story telling.
Speaker 1:Each section will be Theme in some way, potentially by environment or all by sort of general sort of genre type, theme, and what you'll do is you'll you'll travel in pairs. You each have some sort of a shock collar, as it were, and control over each other's. You can choose any point to shock the other person in order to try and complete the puzzle yourself, in order to get to the end of that particular episode, in order to get the reward, which will probably be the AI that created the dome will reward you with a piece of AI technology can use of yourself but lose some of your, some of your humanity. Or you can complete the puzzles together and you can receive certain, certain cosmetic upgrades and certain other potentially tools you can use as you move through the game. And at this point we have no idea what the what the dome is about, and that will be revealed towards the end, and the game is going to be called Matthew. I have three options gone.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna start with my least favorite, which is called just a symbol, just don't do that. Called cooperation, yeah, fine, throughout. Second option machine heart. Okay the first, final option, which is probably my favorite option, which is beyond humanity Beyond humanity.
Speaker 1:Hmm, I thought of the labyrinth yeah, I don't know if that's too focused on or the endless labyrinth or something. I had labyrinth in my head when we were sort of going through it, because it's very sort of the human maze, the human, I mean it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I know what you mean, that sort of like a top bird's eye thing.
Speaker 1:Beyond humanity sounds very spacey, sounds like a life, so I mean, it sounds like a space exploration game.
Speaker 2:I don't know, is that any? It's very hard now because I'm out and out.
Speaker 1:Oh go on, that's your idea, face. You could call it brain.
Speaker 2:Brain B? R dot a I dot n so. I am Well yes, to be certain phonetically.
Speaker 1:You could. It might be a little bit on the nose. Okay, yeah, true, true, true, especially if you're not, if you find out that it's a I at the mortals.
Speaker 2:I suppose, yeah, you might be given. Oh, how did you get?
Speaker 1:that away? What was your second one Machine heart?
Speaker 2:She's hard, so it brings too many robots to mind, though I'm not sure if I like it.
Speaker 1:It does. I like the labyrinth.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, okay, the labyrinth. I'm calling it the lab, the labyrinth. Yet that's true, actually.
Speaker 1:It's quite a it's quite a good name. Do you have a labyrinth?
Speaker 2:We go with the labyrinth, you win.
Speaker 1:It's not a competition, but it is a competition. My one, yes, you won. So listeners, viewers, that is the labyrinth coming to all consoles and PCs at some point in the future, if they ever pull their finger out. Yes, we dearly hope that you enjoyed that particular episode. Again, we managed to waffle over half an hour. We do. Please do like and subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, please do subscribe on any. Wherever you get your podcasts and please do write any comments. If you would like us to take on any particular, if you want to build a certain build, a certain game that you would like to see, just throw in some genres and mechanics and stuff and we will. We will endeavor to make it for you in in slightly over half an hour, but in the meantime, thank you for listening and watching. I have been Scott and I have been Matt. He has, he always is Matt. One day we should, we should swap.
Speaker 2:I think I did. I think I remember I said one day I said I've been Scott to throw you off. Yes, no, you didn't stare to back at me.
Speaker 1:As if everything it was lost, everything was lost. But yes, in the meantime, have have, have a good week and keep on blending. Bye, bye now, farewell.