Lord of the Rings Special - The Middle Earth Party Game

In this episode, Matt and Scott discuss the recent Lord of the Rings news, including the release of Rings of Power and the cancellation and revival of an upcoming Lord of the Rings MMO. They then brainstorm a hypothetical party game set in the world of Lord of the Rings, where players compete in a race across Middle Earth. The game would feature co-op gameplay, procedural generation, and different gameplay styles based on the chosen race. The conversation explores the idea of creating a party game set in the world of Lord of the Rings, specifically in the Fourth Age......

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Transcript

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whether you do a glitch out and I'll try and work around it. Let's Cool. Three, two, one. Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Blender. I'm Matt and I'm here with... Sorry, this is the part where I say my name. Yes, hello, I'm Scott, yes. Every single time. Coming in and breaking the audio straight away. Lovely. Just yelling it into the microphone. Yes, I'm Matt and I'm here with Scott and this is your favorite hypothetical gaming podcast where we make brand new hypothetical games every episode. However, today I'm jumping on the bandwagon Scott because do you do you know what I'm doing today? Do you know what I'm doing? I'm going to guess, it's that time of year, something to do with, I don't know, Tolkien, maybe. It's almost like we had a rehearsal! So I want to make this episode Lord of the Rings themed because, for many, many reasons, we'll start off with the biggest and the smallest reasons and we'll approach the middle reasons because this makes logical sense. So the biggest reason is Rings of Power comes out on, I believe, tomorrow if you're listening to this on Wednesday. I believe that is coming out. So that's very exciting. And I'm just gonna say it's now we're not gonna get we've got into this already. It's going to be even better than the first series. There's no way it can fail. I'm fully on board. Most, and now for the smallest reason, is I was in a pub called The Grapes in London earlier today, which is owned by Sirio McKellen and has the actual staff he used when playing Gandalf behind the bar, which was an incredible nerd freak out for me and I absolutely loved it that made me very happy. I can confirm listeners that Matthew sent me a text, photo today with just no explanation, just the staff in its mounting behind the bar. And I texted back saying, that's Gandalf's staff. he said, yes it is. It is the actual Gandalf staff. The best thing about the whole thing, I was able to leave that pub and say, people asked me how was the pub and I say it had great bar staff. Ahhhh It did work. It did work. Right. So there's that. That's the middle. Now there's middling news. There is gaming news for this is a gaming podcast. There is a so war the road and trailer dropped the other day look really good. That's anime. That's film leaving it alone. Nothing to do with it. Leaving alone. Game news. Few years ago, Amazon, as you can imagine, have the Lord of the Rings rights. Amazon in 2021 canceled their upcoming MMO. they did. Lord of the Rings. Now this is separate to Lord of the Rings Online, which is ticking along perfectly nicely in the corner and it's perfectly nice, just don't call it names. That's all cool. That's ticking away. However, Amazon were working on another one. They canceled it in 2021. In 2023, this was reopened and they started working on new MMO for Amazon. This was announced May last year. Very recently, and I mean literally in the last five days, the... Creative director, he's either creative director or he's directing it, I'm not sure which, but he's on board with it. He has come out and said that they are still, this is a year later, they are in the early phase of development. Right, okay, that's not weird. That is completely normal for a game. The bit that concerns me, if you read the interviews, he's come out and said, we're still kind of, you know, looking for that hook to get people to, you know, play it. I saw this as well, I think I read the same article. I saw the same article. You're looking for a book, you? So, okay, right. What's normal is if you get given an IP and told what to do, you will go away and you'll start modeling it. Fine, fine. And you may not have the hook then. We're a year in to a project that has already started and been canceled before. And on attempt two, we still don't have the hook. So here's the question. What have they... I would argue that the hook is probably the first thing. As soon as you decide what you're going to do broad scale... Okay, so you're going to do a Lord of the Rings game. It's going to be an MMO. Great. The next thing you do... Bear in mind they decided this a year ago. The next thing you do is... Right, okay, so what's the story? What's the hook? If after a year they haven't figured that out, my question is... what have they been doing in that year? Because what, how can you do, how can you do the rest of the game development if you don't have that first bit? Do know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean. So it's a bit, I understand the delay in getting a hook because you're given this IP and you get given and you're like, okay, let's get underway. Let's start modeling with Loft. We know we want to do an MMO. I'm just surprised that you'd re -approach an old project. I'd understand it if it was a new project and you were someone, let's say someone gave you a Star Wars license. You go, right, let's make some lightsabers. Let's make, we know these are all going to feature. Let's get some base assets in that we know we're to reuse. This is the second time they've had approaching this. feel like they would have gone, well, we're not going to waste our time here. Let's get the thing that will make people play this. Because they published New World. Is it New World? Yeah, so they designed and published that, which was a not a failure. As far as I heard, it was a perfectly competent game. It's got solid player guys, but I think what happens, it fell away. It burst onto the scene, but didn't really have staying power so it disappeared. So they said they're trying to learn from that. Again, they've had multiple runs at this and I feel like there's no real plan. I would love them to come out and say, we're going to make a Lord of the Rings film, Lord of the Rings game, MMO and the hook is we've decided we want to focus on that's for the sake because it's in the public art at the moment. We want to focus on the second age. Great. Okay, fine. You've got something. I feel like the generic The genericness of the statement is worrying me at this stage. Yeah, I mean, so I can understand if they wanted to steer clear of the original three or let's include the Hobbit, the four books. If they wanted to steer clear of that timeline, I get it. They've got, but I don't, I don't, what do they have the license to? It's, it's very tricky. So token estate has kept loads of character names and bits and bobs. So I think you because there might be a whole section, they might be having to do a bit like the Rings of Power having to do, where they kind of have to use the appendices of the Lord of the Rings and kind of piece stuff together. So yeah, maybe they're just struggling with trying to tell a, especially with an MMO, because the story of an MMO has to be different to that of a single player game because of the way you play it. So maybe they're just struggling marrying up an MMO. with a setting that isn't the books, maybe, I'm not sure. Yeah, that could be the case. think it's a very, it's a very difficult balance because you got such a avid fan base. I mean, we're in a strange situation, and you in terms of fans, because you are an information sponge. So while I am, I think it's fair to say that I am the bigger fan of Lord of the Rings, you'll turn around to me and go, but what about when da da da da da da da? And I'll like, I don't know that. I've got no idea. I, I, I, when I was at university, we once won a pub quiz because I knew all the answers in the star wars section. you know, so, yes, to, to, back you up as to I am in facial, yes, I am. if anyone knows what the tie in tie fighter stands for or doesn't know, come, come to me. I'll let you know. thought they stood for certain cuisines. So you'd have Thai fighter, maybe Italian fighter, and then you didn't see the Chinese fighters. No, didn't see them. They didn't. fighter, which was, it was in a U, so it was really hard to hit. We only have terrible jokes here on the GameBlend Podcast. Always, we always do. this is the gaming blender and we make hypothetical games every episode. So to celebrate this mixture, mixed bag of Lord of the Rings news, it's definitely a mixed bag. It's nowhere near as bad as Lord of the Rings Golem, but it's still a mixed bag. We're going to celebrate by setting a hypothetical game in the world of Lord of the Rings. Now, Scott, I'm going to tell you, you've got entire rights when creating this hypothetical game. I'm not going to... I'm not going to put my legal foot down on you at any stage. However, I have given you a genre, a couple of mechanics, and we will choose narrative later, partly because I forgot to sort that out. So we're professionals, don't you know, I will secretly do that in the background and no one will ever be the Rob Wiser apart from the fact I've said it. So what would you like to set in the world of Lord of the Rings? What would you be or go to? there's some obvious ones, but I don't know, could do... City Builder would work quite well. Obviously Strategy, RPG, Adventure, Action, any of those work well. I think Dating Sim would be difficult. I I'm gonna say to everyone, dating sim, it's not been removed. It's been taken out of genre. decided to, I made an executive decision to take it out of genre earlier. I've moved it, it's still a mechanic. We may see it again, but I just thought as a genre the one time it came up, it did almost curtail the podcast and I did spend three weeks in therapy afterwards. So we're not doing that. Hey, I'm not the one that put it in the genre section, that was you. We all make mistakes. All of us are human and some of us need to date other humans virtually. That's all I'm saying. Right. So yes, Dating Sims out. Yes, which is fair. But but yeah, well, we'll find out. But yeah, I think I think we can make whatever comes up work, he says, honestly. What have we got? all at once or one by one? One by one. Your genre sir, and I'm not going to say numbers because we did the role in advance so I've just got them written down here. You have to create, in the world of Lord of the Rings, a party game. Party Game being a game like Mario Party or just essentially one of these games that has multiple mini games set within it with cooperative features and procedurally generated elements. Take it away. Party game... Co -op and pursue generation is great! You could do lots with that! Party game! You're giving me party game! Why? Fudge the roles, man! Fudge the roles! Okay... For the love of God, fudge the ro No, no, no. We don't do that here. We set ourselves... Horrendous tasks. to my crippling diabetes, there is no fudge. Very good. Okay, party game. Right. That's, that's the, that's the thing that needs to be nailed down. Could you do like a gritty take on a party game? Cause party games are usually quite jovial and quite sort of tame and, and there's low threat. Could you do like a really high threat party game? Well, you could do. You could do one with permadeath, I suppose, which if you failed the mini -game, you jumped back. We did one way, way back, which was essentially a party game for the... is it... No, it was a puzzle game, actually. Slightly different to party game, because party game implies that it's there to be playing against each other and getting points in more than overall. We did a puzzle game where you would lose people if you got the puzzles wrong or whatever it is. So I suppose you could take a different attitude and you could do that with this sort of mini -game approach. I'm trying to think of a good example of a party game that isn't... Mario Party but I suppose maybe a brawler is kind of one but it's a bit it's a bit cheap. I would I will give you anything with if you did like a, like a brawler. I'd give you anything with variety. That's my sort of thing. You just have to mix up the gameplay styles for short sections. Hmm. Okay. Set in the world of Lord of the Rings, which is one thing that I haven't actually written down on my little piece of paper. Okay, Pursuit of Generation, I'm not worried about that. Co -op. Party game. I'm properly stumped. How do you see co -op working? you make it a co -op party game. Simple. in terms of, let's say, what would your overall plot be here? What would you want to do in a co -op game? Would you want to move through the world of Middle Earth bit by bit, or are you... think if you're going to set it all the rings, you have to, you have to travel the whole, one of the whole themes about it is travel. You need, they never stay in one place. it's all about an adventure. So you have to, you have to do something which enables you to, to, to travel. So then the idea is, well obviously Tolkien's great thing was you had all these different cultures. was a sort of middle earth was a mixing pot and they famously didn't get on. So can you build off that in order to get this gameplay variety and this puzzle and this partiness? Yes. Can you re can you like, can you give me like a proper defined version of a party game without saying Mario Party? Because I'm trying to find like a I'm trying to find like an angle that - all I have in my head is Mario Party. What I'm thinking is Mario Party. It's so helpful. No, okay. What I'm seeing is multiple different stages where you have different gameplays. Now these can be standalone little events where you play as, so for example, we did a party game previously where it was, you played as a gladiator and each time you did gladiator, you had a different bout. So one time you were trying to knock your opponent off a thing. Wii Sports, that's a good party game actually. That's a good example of a party game. And then the way you define that is you have these little chunks of gameplay. Now this could be Cuneversive. in terms of you could have RPG mechanics in the sense of your each character gets stronger each time they do a party each time they take part in and win about or you can do them as completely standalone. The way that Mario Party does it obviously it does it as a board game, which you are competing in the way that something like Wii Sports does it it's much more standalone and it's just like the little wee the little wheeze no the little me's that used to play used to score various points and it'd be like Gran Granmar Susan's just won the bowling. Woohoo! Okay, could you, could you... So there was a party game on Pierce... I want to say it was Pierce One, might have been Pierce Two, I'm pretty sure it Pierce One though. It was a Crash Bandicoot one, was called Crash Bash. And in Crash Bash, I think the story was the two... For those who aren't familiar with Crash Bandicoot, there are two sort of like totem masks. One represents evil, one represents good. And they kind of like compete against one another. In Crash Bash, they decide to... do a contest of good versus evil. And they take all the crush bandicoot and his friends and they face off against all the villains. And it's a party game where they, they do loads of challenges and whoever, you know, it's all good versus evil to see who's better at these random things. Could you do, let's say, could you do something which is like set in, set in one of the more peaceful times in Middle Earth? Okay. Could you do... I think that's about three months of that, but carry on. No, nonsense, there's... maybe. But let's say... you could set it... Yeah, okay, you could set it after... You could set it after Sauron's defeat. okay, so everyone, the time where everybody didn't wear jewelry. Middle Earth. Just so you could set it. So let's say, let's say some of the elves are still there and you know, obviously humans are there, dwarves are there. Could you do, okay. So let's say, let's say the story could be, or the rough story could be that, you know, King Elisar of Gondor, Aragorn for those who don't know. King Elisar of Gondor wants to... wants to bring the peoples of Middle Earth together after Sauron's defeat. he stages a race across Middle Earth. Now I know, I know, isn't it glorious? Just picture it. But anyway. Around with love in 80 days Do know what? It's not a terrible idea. Okay, so this is how it works. Okay, this is how it works. So that ticks off your travel component. You're traveling around Middle Earth, But the party game element of it is based on how you decide to travel around Middle Earth. So let's say you have, and it's co -op, obviously, so you do this, so you do it in pairs. It's a game you play in pairs, okay? And you can decide which which race you want to be. So the hobbits, the hobbits mounted team, the, you can have the men of, men of the North, the men of the South, the men of Rohan. You can have the elves, you can, whoever hasn't left for the Valinor yet, have the elves, the dwarves. I think this is just like a random descendant of Legolas. Still played by Orlando Bloom probably. obviously still play a lot, but they'll change his eye color again. He'll be like green this time. then, and then, yeah, and then maybe the part of game element of it is how you decide, how you decide travel across mid left. Let's say the men will take a more sort of straight on approach. They'll hammer every single nail. That's how they deal with every single problem. So they'll do, if they encounter enemies, they'll do fighting. Whereas the hobbits will do like sneaky, beaky stuff. The dwarves will like, you know, go underground or something. I'm very much clutching at straws here, but. you're suggesting is you are much more almost to do it a sort of adventure book style where what do you choose to do? Do you choose to go under? But you're limited by your character and your character approach. So what you'll do is you'll have these very specific scenarios that your team will come into contact with, which this is where the procedural generation comes in, where it generates these scenarios. And there's always multiple ways around it. And you approach it from various... ways and you've got to decide based on your race the best way to approach it. but does that, where does So you can approach it in any way you want. You could be hobbits that fight. You could be fighting hobbits. That's fine. But other teams, if you choose the elves or humans or dwarves are more naturally inclined to be able to fight. Let's say the elves, you know, very good at diplomacy. They're very good at talking themselves out of a problem. But the elves can fight, the elves could hide. You can choose any approach you want. The team you choose is better at certain things. So maybe what you could do also is you could slow up the other teams if you're always working as a two. So what you could do is you could make a knot. If you were the hobbits and you're sneaking past, you could throw a rock towards where the men are to distract the orcs over there. And then the men that end up having to fight them or the elves. So the elves have a different power, the dwarves are digging underground. You could sort of put barriers in their way that they couldn't dig through, those kind of things. But how do you keep this game play? variable because at the moment it sounds like you're just going to be hitting the same scenario over and over and over and over again and through with very slightly different tweaks. That's a good point. Potentially what you do is you... you... Could you set... So the race has varying... How about you do it like this? Okay? You do it... You do it a bit like... A bit like a rally. Okay? In that you go to... You go to each stage and you're not racing against each other side by side. You... It's timed. So you have to... You have to get... So each team goes one at a time. and they have to get to a certain point as fast as they can. then, so then, so then it's a little bit more friendly. You can still put, you can still like sabotage other teams. can still say, like, you know, the hobbits can get through there. Let's, let's, let's put something there. when they come past, you know, all that sort of stuff. what you could do is you could also you choose like a rally. The scenario stays the same based on what the previous teams do. So if men go first and kill the orcs, they'll know, well, everyone could just walk through after us. So there's a little bit risk of reward. So if your hobby is like, I'm going to take a really long time and sneak round, but that will slow everybody else up because they'll have to defeat them. So you play that game. But what you also do is the team who are leading the rally get to pick the route through middle earth. So for example, if you are in the lead and you've got the best time overall, then you, if you were the dwarves, you'd choose Moria because you'd be like, right, I know I get a bonus in Moria or something along those lines. And so therefore you're dragging over. because you think, we'll be good at that one so we can keep ourselves in the lead. Yeah. in this sort of element of knowing the grounds and then if you were played as the Rohirrim, then you go across Rohan almost certainly because you know where the passes are. linking Well, not the Earth. Middle Earth is pretty lost. Yes. things that will change each time, the number of enemies, the weather, the time of day, all these sorts of things that will also change how things work. you know, the hob, if it's nighttime, but Hey, the hobbits, the hobbits are going to do really well because nobody's seeing them in the day. So nobody's going to definitely not going to see them in the night. you know, they'll be able to sneak much easier. They won't have to do as much of a roundabout route. They can go straight through the middle, for example. you know, elves see better in the dark than men do. you know, there's that sort of element. do you make that up to choice? Is that one of the things that you, when you say if you're in the lead, do you get to choose also what time of day or do you make it so it's basically random? No, I think you I think you get to choose X amount. I think it's hard to define here without us fully designing the thing and play testing. But I think let's say you choose 80 % of it and then there's 20 % that you don't get to choose that could throw a spanner in the works because you can also can't make it so whoever's in the lead just permanently stays in the lead. So there might be moments in your playthrough where something unexpected happens, say Moria, the Baurach will wake some Moria for this one playthrough. So you go the people play the dwarves go, no, I don't know if I want the risk going down there. And it's a risk and reward thing. or maybe Saruman in this play returns and he blocks off the path to Isengard. So it just varies up the map a little bit, just to keep you on your toes. I was thinking though, what you should do for this to make it more, because I'm sure people message in going, this isn't a party game. In order to make this more like a party game, you've got to make it completable within an hour and a half. An hour and so each time you can sort of get in with a group of your friends, play it and you play through all the way through and then restart. Could you make it so that each individual stage can be done in an hour and a half? I feel like we're describing very different types of parties. My party was, get round, quickly play, and you're like, everybody stay at my house until we next see the sun. What's wrong with that? It's a long -term party game. what I think that what you're describing is more a normal game. And in order to keep it in the party game genre, we've got to make it quickly completable. The dice chose. I don't think what we've got is party -ish enough, but by reducing the length, it makes it feel more like a board game. And therefore you can get away with a party feel to it. So you have like, because if you think about it, a scenario and a time trial, let's say it's five minutes. You could then still, so five minutes, let's say it's three teams, three teams of two, you're playing each one of 15 minutes. So you still get about five or six scenarios in. Yeah. Or, or you can, or, or, here's the thing, here's the thing. So you can still, you can still make a party game. Okay. It doesn't have to, it doesn't have to like overall finish within that individual night. You can have, you can have a party game that has individual stages that can be played over a longer period of time, but you do the individual, each individual stage. on games nights. People come around for games night, we'll do the next stage of around Middle Earth in 80 days. I'm not saying it has to be 80 days worth of games nights, obviously that would be ridiculous. So hang on, listeners, this is what's called a compromise. Yes, go on. What is your compromise? this is the compromise. Okay. into stages. So you can say the only thing that actually what would make that kind of interesting though, those stages is you'd unlock possibly places in Middle Earth that people weren't aware of. So you could be aware because I'm sure and again, information sponge correct me if I'm wrong. It's not it's not as simple as what people think the Lord of the Rings is where you've got Rohan there are some men in Rohan, there's dwarves in Moria, there's men in Gondor, like the all the people are there all the time on a much smaller scale. So you have areas like areas of Rohan where there would be dwarves areas where there would be well else so you can really delve into the appendices of the book which might be more interesting for people. Yes. And I think, yeah, and I think you could add a bit of variety with that as well. so I, I, I, I know, I know that I am stretching the idea of parking, but think, think of it this way. Think, think of it this way. The world, the world rally championship, which is kind of what we're basing this on. Okay. That is, that is set over individual stages. They go to Greece, they do a rally, they go to Sweden, they do a rally, Finland, blah, blah, blah. You know, Yeah, but the person who's given the World Rally Championship wasn't given the brief, make it like we sports. Listeners, I know that you love this idea and I know that you will back me that this is what I'm going to coin as a long -term party game. you know, I, do you know what? I think, and I think, know, yes, yes, it is stretching it, but I think it's still just about fits. I also don't think, do we need a narrative? I noticed that we're pushing up to our usual time of where we sum up. So do we actually have time for a narrative? Go on. And you know what? Because you've irritated me. I'm gonna give it to you. You've irritated me. Go on, what is it? The narrative is, and I've rolled a narrative of some generic narratives, just to give people an idea. So there's 19 generic themes which we use and we follow one of them. The narrative you have rolled is transformation. This plot features an inner change instead of changing to an outer form. So it's not a metamorphosis, it's very much a character transformation. it has to be an individual character transformation. Well no, can be multiple character transformation. You know what? How about making it like the World Rally Championships? How about that? Well, you see, now I hear you're salty and you know, there's no need for that. But... But what if... I've already said this. So when I said King Elisar wants to bring together the peoples of Middle Earth, that is a transformation. By the end of the race, the races will be so intertwined with one another. There's good sporting competition. There'll be, you know... hobbits and elves shaking hands and dwarves and men putting any disputes aside and Middle-earth will be bound together. with a checkered flag who will say in his farmer's accent, right, everyone get along now and that'll be it. I hadn't thought about Tom Bombadil, that's a good idea! Let's put him in there. He can be like the race marshal. I'm now imagining Tom Bombadil with a crash helmet on sat next Next to a rally car driver reading out instructions in sing song This sounds fantastic, you can have Legolas and Gimli as the commentators, it'd be wonderful. Yeah, cutting to the expert analysis. I wouldn't have gone in, I wouldn't have gone into the mines a bit late for that Gimli really, isn't it? You could hire in John Rhys Davies and Orlando Bloom to do that. They'd be quids in to do that, I reckon. Let's go let's go into Elven Corner with Legolas. He's just staring back at us. Okay, let's leave Elven Corner. No, in all honesty, transformation is quite a difficult one to shoehorn in there. I think maybe what you do is you can, perhaps what you have is some of the men from the East, just getting my maths right, yeah, East, some of men from the East beyond Gondor, they come and they say, look, we're gonna, obviously more aggressive than this, we feel we should take control of Middle Earth because we need to take control of Middle Earth, you cannot live together, this is pathetic kind of thing, we're gonna come and take your lands. And Aragon diplomatically says, look, to prove to you that we have the ability to get along, I'm going to set this challenge. Now, originally, it completely backfires because all of the groups group off into their own groups of two. But you can have this ongoing narrative with these characters that are chosen that throughout, they sort of befriend each other and work together. The men of rune and the men of Haradrim become Harad. they're characters that come with you, they're almost the ones and you start sabotaging them, but by the end there's a bit of narrative where you actually care for them. Because the idea is perhaps all of these groups, much like in a rally car championship, they actually camp together at night. I see. Very good. So you can converse. You can converse. yeah, so there's Yeah, you could you could have a little set of things where you go and talk to maybe I think you probably do them as set cutscenes or whatever. And you could vary them up a bit depending on which characters everyone chose to be the ones interacting with each other. So just a little bit of fun. But I think it's, it's gonna be it's gonna be a game. I can see it being a cell shaded aimed at younger generation games, nothing too complex. So I don't think the story needs to be Citizen Kane. No, and I think that's, I think that's fair. Are we ready for a sum up? Right. Here we go. I'm going to sum this up. I'm going to sum up this party game. So what we have, we have a party game with procedural procedural elements slash generation. This is set in the world Lord of the Rings, but in the fourth age, and it's featuring a transformational narrative. What happens in this game is the men of Rune come over to the King Aragorn, whose name is something of a very good. Okay. And they say, look, you're terrible, you split up the world is divided, this is poor, we're coming to take your world. And as a sort of trying to encourage everyone to work together, Aragon sets this challenge to get everyone to cross to the far side of Middle Earth as quickly as possible. From there, you will group up with your race, whoever it is, so you play in twos. And then each one of you does these challenges. Now the order you do these challenges in is determined by whoever's ahead and also the challenges stay the same for the next people coming through so you can try and sabotage them for the next people or if you do something in those challenges you can accidentally make it easier for the people and whoever gets the best time leads and chooses the route through Middle Earth because they will get various buffs if they choose the correct areas and they get to go through areas that good for that race. In terms of plot as you're traveling through this you're going with these men at Rune and you have these little cutscenes interplaying at camp overnight where the teams will chat and essentially come close together. before crossing the finish line where Tom Bombadil waves his chequered flag and everybody shakes hands and gets on and it's genuinely not the best plot we've ever come up with but an interesting game. And Scott, this game will be called... I mean, there's only one name it can be called and that's around with love in 80 days. not calling it that partly because I will run out of characters in the podcast naming area. Come on, has to be around Middle -Earth in 80 days. Middle Earth in 80 days. Yes. Round Middle Earth. My child is dying before my eyes. Round... mean, I don't understand what your problem is. I think I think that's perfectly - so many. Do we have another half hour? I'll sit you down and chat you through them. How about that? Why are you so grumpy today? I am very... I seem to have broken up on the wrong side of the Misty Mountains. I'm very sorry. You've been out, you've been to the pub, you've seen Gandalf's staff, I don't know what your problem is. there was a middle bit which might be the problem that happened before staff. Anyway, so that is Around the Middle Earth in 80 Days, co -written by Scott and his co-driver. So that was the Gaming Blender podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this, please drop us a review, check out all the other episodes and get in touch and leave us some challenges if you would like us to create a game before your very ears. We will literally take on any challenge whatsoever. Contact details are in the episode description. Go and check out some other episodes and listen to more of our wonderful voices. In the meantime, I have been Matt. And I have been Scott. keep blending everyone and we will see you next time or not see you listen to, I don't know, does it listen to you? We will project to you next time. There we go. We will... I tried to throw a little bit of je ne sais quoi into the ending and it failed. So hang on. throw any je ne sais or quoi. Just none of that. We will project to you next time. We have no qualms with you. Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye. Sleep well. saying things.