The Gaming Blender

The Art of the Kill - First Battle Royal for a While...

• Season 1 • Episode 84

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In this first episode for a while we dive into GTA and all things that caused Matt's PC to explode. From there we create a unique Battle Royale game which will truly knock your socks off!

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 and welcome to The Gaming Blender, the home of the hypothetical video game. I'm Matt and I'm here with... Hello Matthew, how are you? I'm well, I'm bad as well as well as could be expected due to my horrendous week. have no, you may notice, listen, if you're a clean, clean, if you're a clean follower of the podcast, you're showering regularly. you're a keen, no, no, clearly not, nearly not. But you know why I'm Scott? I'm clean. If you're, if you're a clean follower of the podcast and a keen follower of the podcast, you will notice this is our first episode in a few weeks and it's coming out on the wrong day. It's coming out on Wednesday instead of the intended Monday. There is a reason for this. And I've had a very upsetting few weeks. Don't worry before anyone's rushing to their aid to buy me a card. It's nothing serious, but I was going to record the, uh, the previous episode with Scott, last week, last Sunday, in fact, and I left the room. turned the PC on, I left the room and I went downstairs for about an hour. I came back on to get straight on the PC and then the PC was off and I thought that's a weird thing. I don't think I would have set the PC to restart after a while and start on hibernate. I'll turn it back on and I turned it back on the PC went, no. And that was it. That was it. In my computer, the power supply unit died. Entirely died, entirely cocked out to the extent of I took it out and it smelled of fire. And why, why, why was that? What had you recently done to your computer that could possibly have caused the PSU to, let's be honest, explode? well, let me, let me, the peer, the Matthew's wheel of news, I reckon caused it to explode because I was just about to Google that and that is what killed it. reckon. So I reckon we should kill that segment. Um, and it's definitely not my fault at all. And it's definitely nothing to do with the fact that I never actually did it. Um, no, obviously not. Obviously not. It's a hundred percent because of the will of the gods is clearly the Matthew's wheel of news should not exist. So farewell, will the news may you spin out somewhere else. I think nothing to do with the fact that you upgraded your PC and forgot to maybe upgrade the power supply. There is that. when I was upgrading it with my mate, he pulled out, well actually when I replaced the power supply unit, he took out the power supply units there and bear in mind, he's worked in computers for about 30 years. He pulled it out and went, right, I think I know what the problem is. I've never heard of this company called Anuk. I looked, obviously I've not heard of it. So I feel like, it's six years old to be fair. But those of you who will know, when something dies in your computer, it's very upsetting. But it's got new power supply unit. It's up and running. I will have a new graphics card shortly as well. It's all looking up Matt, apart from for you poor listener who's getting this podcast a week and a half late. So we do apologize for that, don't we? We do. I I'm not taking any blame for it. This is entirely your fault You know, I am sorry But you're more sorry, I think No, I'm very sorry. And as well, I'm the one, I'm the one as well who does, so I edit this podcast. So if there's any ever editing issues, and I know there was one a while back and I feel awful and I'm so sorry for that, but it's my fault. And also anytime anything goes wrong in the recording or you hear us Muffle or Scott swear, I have to edit that. And that drives me round the wall and makes me very sad. So just, just, just understand this. If there's ever anything wrong, I'm more upset than you are. Okay. I really want to swear now. I won't! I will drop one in later just for you. Somewhere right in the middle. Somewhere right in the middle. Somewhere right in the middle you're gonna fuck me. oh OOOOH! Listeners, listeners, please send in some fan mail to this man and tell him to wash his mouth, was so dear, dearie me. for swearing in the middle. Here's the fan mail. Yeah, please do get in touch and tell me to swear more. Anyway, so this is the hypothetical gaming podcast, as you may not have, you may not have gleaned that from the opening segment where we pick a random genre, random mechanics and a random narrative and we swirled them all together to spit out what kind of game we would make in this, in this beautiful world. But firstly, Scott, we must jump into Matthew spoke of news. uh The news that Matthew wishes to speak about. The Spoke of News. Good. Good. spoke on a wheel, but you thought I literally just meant spoke as in I spoke at it. You just thought I couldn't conjugate a verb. So Matthew spoke news. The GTA trailer. Have you seen it? For they released a new trailer last week, and I got a text again from the same friend who replaced my PSU who works in CGI, and who said I might as well stop now. Yeah. It was quite impressive, was it not? Yeah, I... A number of uh streamers that I saw sort of react to it and I agreed with what they were saying, they basically said, look, yes it's delayed but if it looks like this and yes it's locked to, what is it, 30 frames per second which doesn't really bother me but yes it's locked to that but if it looks that good if it looks that good I think bring it on. So I've never really had an issue, other than FootManager, I've never really had an issue with companies delaying games because usually, usually it's because they want to make the game as good as possible and I would prefer to have a good game late than a flawed game early. So... What? cyberpunk. I feel like we have to say that every time a delayed game. probably the... Cyberpunk now is excellent because, you know, yeah, No Man's Sky for example, is another good one that they should have released later. So, at end of the day, it's probably going to be the biggest game of this decade. I'm gonna... biggest, it'll be the biggest and I say this in the nicest way. It's the last game of our lives because, and this says there's, there's, substance behind this. So we are in our early thirties. Um, and we look great for it. Uh, that's all right. It's a, it's a podcast. We can pretend, don't go to the YouTube channel. Um, it is, if you think about the, the staying power, the previous one had, I remember the previous one, we've got a remaster on PS4 at uni. I mean, what's the original date? it 2011? uh I can't actually remember but yeah, it's around that time. Yeah. So this is going to be similar. It's going to have that sort of similar staying power. They're not going to be able to churn out another game as quickly. So let's say the next GTA is not going to be till 2030s in theory, if you go by and will be much older and in theory have less free time. I know it's all sad and people don't give up gaming when they're older generally now, but it is, it does feel like our gaming generation's big hurrah to me. Yeah, no, I'd agree with that. I mean, I'm already approaching the point where gaming for me is a nice to have rather than something that happens every week. Which is sad. that wanted regular podcasts, that's out the window due to Scott. Apparently so. Apparently so. No, no, I do see what you mean. was 2013 with GTA 5, so you when the next Elder Scrolls comes out, think. I think that is another one that is another bookend. It's gonna be like, we're finishing off now. This is sort of, it sounds really sad to say, and I am kind of making these moments up in our lives, but it does feel like that because you're gonna play a game and you're gonna go, right, I'm not gonna get this for years and years and years. This might be me done. This might be over to my kids next time they play it. I might be just dipping in and watching them play. Yeah, which does sadden me. And it worries me as well because I will be critical of the way that my daughter plays the game because she won't be playing it correctly! I'm like, no! You do it this way! And she will undoubtedly be better at it than me and actually I know nothing. Which will be a sad, sad moment. done our roughly between eight and 10 minutes ramble on, which is always excellent, always, always. Would you like to hear what game you're going to be attempting to make today? For I have rolled the dice of... Dites? Oh, for goodness sake, this is getting ridiculous. No, I don't know. I don't know. It's warm. It's warm. The Dites of that sounds like a villain. That sounds like a villain, doesn't it? I am the Dites of Fate. I have rolled the dice of fate. And the dice of fate have given you... A genre. I'm glad they have. What is it? the genre is. Now the genre that is dying quickly, might be Battle Royale, aka Fortnite or Call of Duty Warzone. Now I'm about to get shot for saying Fortnite is dying. However, all I meant was it's not getting released in every single game like it was about five years ago would have a Battle Royale. had it today, but... We'll wait and see. becoming more and more last man standing, don't you think, in that sector? Right, what's my mechanics? anyone if anyone didn't know what Battle Royale was, it's Last Man Standing. So it was a great joke. And the two mechanics you got are RPG. So RPG mechanics, so leveling up your character or rocket propelled grenade, depending on what you choose. One day you're just going to do that, you're going to go, and we put in a rocket RPG. Okay, fine. I can't really argue with that. And the other one is episodic storytelling. And by that, mean, but the, the walking dead to the classic ones where you have plenty of, you had different episodes where you could sort of plug in. would remember your choices from previous ones. Now I don't, I'm not necessarily saying that you have to create something with choices in this that are remembered. However, I am, I would like you to find an interesting spin on having that as an element. or you're setting me a special task. No, no, no, no, I'm just saying that should be our goal. You know, sometimes where we have something that's fairly generic, I episodic storytelling could be just breaking up into chapters, but I feel like we can play with the, we can play with the world more. We can introduce the world to itself. trying to think of... Don't do that. I'm trying to think of an interesting way of doing this because the first two are pretty generic and you could do a lot with that. The third one, the episodic storytelling, sort of narrows it. I would say there is an interesting question regarding RPG and Battle Royale, because in theory everybody on a Battle Royale stands and starts on a level playing field. RPG, by nature, you're leveling your character up. How do you intertwine the two? So, I think perhaps what you do is you make the Battle Royale very very large. And what I mean by that is it lasts a long time. And in this case, a Battle Royale does not have to be a multiplayer game. You can have a single player Battle Royale. Okay. Isn't a single player battle royale just a game? Yes. But in this case, the genre is tied into... Listen, the genre is tied into the narrative rather than this case the gameplay. So what we're saying is that the battle royale... You are participating in a battle royale in the story. So it will still play a bit like a battle royale. But you won't be doing it for other people. what you're saying is you're almost making a single player version of the Hunger Games, if the Hunger Games had a game version, that is fundamentally what you're doing. Now, would you like to integrate maybe making it a roguelite in order to actually make it feel more battle royale for the single player? I think you introduced not roguelike I think you introduced permadeath Oh, and start the narrative again, because I thought you might use this as an opportunity for each time you went into the zone to use that as an opportunity for your episodic storytelling and split each attempt into an episode. Oh, yeah, that could work, you could do that. Yeah. Yeah, that could work. So this is what I'm envisioning, okay? This is what I'm envisioning. Is... No, no. So I think it would be quite interesting to do this in a sense of it's modern day, okay? And this is a bit like... a little bit like the concept behind Squid Game in that it happens in the background, you don't know it's happening, it's this sort of horrific uh tournament that sort of happens in everyday life. Okay. It is, what I'm envisioning is almost like an assassin tournament. And what I mean by that is, is they get, you get a group of assassins, let's say 12 of them, 24 of them, whatever, whatever number you want to pick. And they get put in a metropolis, you could say New Delhi or New York or something like that. And they have to remain within the bounds of the city. but they have a certain time limit so you could say something like a month and within that time they have to be the last man standing so they have to find all the other assassins and kill them I actually really liked the idea of making this single player rather than multiplayer, because I liked the idea that you can control the pace. You can do as you want. You can set traps. You can trace people. You can do everything and you can kind of play the narrative. So how do you build your episodic storytelling into that? So I think the episodic parts, potentially what you do is you split the tournament into rounds. What I mean by that is, yes you start off with say 24 people but they're divided into groups of say 4 or 6. aren't they divided? They could be divided into suburbs. You could split them up into suburbs of the city and then as you get closer, you actually end up getting pushed towards the CBD. So you find your overlapping on people's territory. Correct. then, so then, so what you have is you, get given, let's say Brooklyn or Queens or the, or the Bronx or whatever. Let's say if it was New York and I was just I was just saying, are we just sticking with New York? No, I know. So you got you got the old deli and the new deli. That's that's about Shut up. Okay, London, you get the West End. There you go, happy? And then you're given dossiers on the other assassins that are in your, let's call it a quarterfinal. Let's keep it nice and simple. We all understand what a quarterfinal means. And you have to be, to progress to the next round... you either have to be the last person standing in that quarterfinal. And so you've got choice. You either hunt or choose to be hunted and you get to basically line, wait, set traps. So it's a little bit of cat and mouse. Which I think would be quite interesting because then what you can then do is you can bring in the RPG mechanics whereby at the start you decide what sort of assassin you want. to be. You can decide what your play style at the start is going to be and you can and you can and you yeah. Are you an assassin, sir? No, no, you're mistaken this for my handbag. It's just in the shape of- you're just not, you you can just be incredibly unsubtle. And I think this is where you can build another part into it. So where you are, you're not necessarily stuck with your play style at beginning. So let's say you decide you want to be a proper hunter and you want to hunt people down. So let's say you can put skills into like investigation, you know, tracking people, following people in maybe into your long range weapons, that sort of thing. But you're not tied to that. As you progress through, And you you can level up and put skills elsewhere to sort of balance yourself out and you can do vice versa as well Yeah and he stops. No, no, no, I had another idea but it's left my head. Go on. just to add a little thing in. I know we might come back to whether it's multiplayer or not. But one thing I'm going to insist on is you have there is no cars in this game that you can drive, you have to take public transport. And the reason I'm saying this is because can you imagine it'd be quite cool to be oh, we're now getting called into the central business district, I need to get a train or I need to get a bus and being aware that other players, well, I keep saying other players, we're not decided on single multiplayer, but other targets could be floating around you because everyone's going to be doing the same thing, but also trying to blend in. Yeah, no, I like that and my other thought has just popped back into my head which is linked to yours. Which is, so you know in the Hitman games you get rewarded for novel ways of achieving the kill or perhaps, you know, getting out of anyone noticing you've done it and all that sort of stuff. I think each phase has a... each episode, indeed. has a theme and the themes obviously change every time you sort of play through and so you could have a theme where it's you can't use any firearms or you could have a theme where you can't be caught like no one can find this body quite nice, so you can play it through, but then how does that, I suppose that becomes more sandbox and narrative. So I'm wondering, do you want your narrative now to work out how we, because it's going to be crucial to the game play this. Cause if you're one of your mechanics is episodic storytelling, you're to need to know what your tale is. And I do have a slight idea of this. So come back to me once you've heard it, but your theme is... Rivalry. I mean, that works quite well. It does work quite well, but I had an idea for ways to work this into the gameplay more interestingly, and then we could decide if it works. At the start, no, no, but I was thinking of the Nemesis system when I came up with this. Don't get me started. It does upset me. God rest my life and praise them. My concept is, do you know in the members start of Pokemon games, you got to name your rival. Yes. And I remember, I'm diabetic, I remember, my rival was called Harrybo, I remember. So it was like, Harrybo appears. But I had this idea, just as a little fun gameplay thing. Imagine if you could define your rival and their style of playing, who they are. And they always start, like you have once, obviously you're hunting loads of people, there's loads of people in the game, but you have one specific rival that you're trying to get to. And they will always start miles away from you to ensure you're working your way to them. but you can define who they are, characteristics. It doesn't necessarily mean you know how they play. then it almost does a bit of generation to work out what kind of person they're gonna be. And then you meet your rival at the end and you can kind of see what your definitions are. It just might be a fun thing. I kind of like the idea that you're hunting someone and you have a little bit of tidbit. You go, well, from my knowledge about them, they're this, this, and this. So I reckon they might turn out to be quite an aggressive assassin. So maybe I'll look out for some aggressive. Or no, or maybe I designed them m to be more subtle. So I reckon they're gonna be hiding somewhere. That's my theme. So it kind of gives you a weird lead, but also is quite fun. I like it. I like it. No, it adds a good dimension. think it also will give Pokemon players some nice nostalgia. It's like, I remember doing this on my Game Boy Color! I remember this. I remember them parallaxing across. But I feel like you've got to take this rival thing and turn it into a story. And also how are we going to work out this episodic thing? Because all you said for episodic things so far is we just move through the city. It's not really a story. no, no, right, so, right, there will be uh each of the, a bit like in the Telltale games, each of the rounds will be very clearly defined and there will be short interludes between them where you can, let's say, uh and part of the story, let's say you have a manager, let's say each person has a manager, a bit like in the Hunger Games where you have, they're not sponsors, are they? No, they are called managers, they are called managers. I think, might have called something else. Yeah, they might have called something else. so bit like Kat and Severdeen has Hey Mitch, for example, and that person can perhaps maybe give you hints and tips uh about certain... story, the episodic story. They react to your round. So if you've killed no one, your manager, manager, will be shown in his cut scene and might be approached by other people going, can't, your guy's not gonna make it. He's all weak. He's just hiding underneath that subway car and stuff like that. And then he reacts to that and then we'll react depending on your thing. And then they play out the story, as in they call into you and go, I need to do this. what's, so what's that character? character's intention then? What is your guy? What's he trying to do your manager? So I think there's an interesting way playing it, potentially, and it depends on maybe the personal interactions you have with them. Maybe if you follow their advice, then they stay on your side, but perhaps if you begin to sort veer away from them and their advice, then maybe there's a bit where they turn on you, perhaps, and they intentionally don't help you, or they feed you poor information. They could feed you tips maybe about where players are. And so you're looking for someone in a purple hat and it turns out it's actually not someone in a purple hat and you get in trouble and they throw. And maybe the story is... Maybe this, maybe it's interesting what you could do. And this is difficult. This is difficult. I'm not saying this will be able to be done really easily. You could do the same thing for your manager as you do for your rival in terms of you define the manager yourself, you create a rough generation. And the way the game will work is that we have to have these set storylines in mind in terms of maybe your manager, maybe your manager is really supportive and won't. won't turn on you no matter what. Like he's always really, really, really supportive. And you could make him incredibly irritated, but he'll still support you. Or your random number generator could create a very angry person who will turn on you very quickly. And you have to judge round to round what kind of personality your manager is, because you want to keep them on side. And the plot essentially is he's just a manager, he just wants to win, but you define the story is gonna be between you, your rival and your manager. maybe your manager manages both of you. Because then essentially what happens is he starts giving the AI starts giving the other AI tips about where you are if he turns on you, or vice versa and he stops talking to you, but all depends on how you treat your manager whether you listen to his So maybe the rules say that as managers you get to hedge your bets and you get to have two, you have maximum of two assassins and let's say that the rules specifically, yeah, you could say that the rules specifically say that they cannot work together as in like the two assassins you have are not allowed to team up for it. maybe the rules say that they have to start in opposite areas of the map or something like that. And then by the time, but I like the idea of, yeah, just generation. This, character generates these characters generate and the way that they interact depends on you and the way you treat others and the way you treat them. And if you misjudge who they are and you're like, I'm not quite sure who this is. And maybe you don't listen to them completely. They get irritated and they, you start being hunted. Yeah, so you could have say managers who are... uh Some of them are perfectly fine with you with collateral damage but then you have another that is wholly against that, another one who has their own family or something and finds, you know, collateral damage abhorrent and so if you're RPG man and you're just firing RPGs into windows and just murdering people to also kill the assassin then maybe, you know... against you for that. Well, yeah, they could turn against you for any clash or jam. If you kill the wrong person, they could be like, well, why are you doing that? Or maybe you get a manager. Maybe the managers are stock creations. Maybe there's like 20 possible managers you can get, but either way, I feel like it's a really fun way. Could keep it fresh. because it adds an interesting dimension into it as a player because you might know when your second run through Right this guy this guy's a maniac and he actually wants me to commit atrocities But I don't feel comfortable doing that as the player and I want to be like a professional assassin I don't want to just murder everyone. I want to just kill the target and that's it and So because you're not fulfilling his bloodlust you- you- you- but but you're making that choice that you- I know this guy is gonna start doing bad things, I know he's gonna turn on me, but I choose to do that because I'm the player and I want my assassin to be- if I, if I annoy my manager, he's going to start giving my rival tips and that will draw my rival out. Because I know, because I know I've picked a really angry manager and a really angry rival. So then there's going to be no subtlety whatsoever there. I like it. I think there's a few layers there that are quite interesting. like a good birthday cake. There's some layers there. there are some, or like an onion according to Shrek. According to Shrek, yes. Shrek 5, terrifying. Yeah, do you know what was also terrifying? It's completely off topic. There are so many people alive today now, in teenagers who were not alive when Shrek came out. And it makes me sad because it's our childhood. Which is terrifying. aah If there's any youngsters out there who haven't seen Shrek, watch Shrek because it's... 1, Shrek 2, stop, then start watching the Puss in Boots once. Yes, actually, that's actually true. Three's not great. Two is brilliant. Two is two is one of the best sequels ever made. I would argue I would argue that two is funnier than one, although one has a special place in my heart. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think. I mean, you've got Jennifer Saunders singing, holding out for a hero, which is, you it's all you require. No, no, no, let's, let's, let's just... I'm saying the fact the guy who does the voice of the gingerbread man was an animator who was just doing, just a stand in for John Lithgow when they were doing the torturacy. And they liked his voice so much they kept him. And has the immortal line of, not the gun drop buttons. Anyway, so we now need to come up with a name for this game. Shrek 3. So we have got, let me do a summary quickly while you think of names and then look at me after a while blankly. We have your battle royale game with episodic storytelling and RPG mechanics. By that I don't mean rocket propelled grenade. uh With a rival storyline. So what we have is we have an assassin system within a city, large city where you'll split up into suburbs. And you have to essentially it's long form, it's only single player and you have to work through killing off your targets and you slowly survive and you move closer and closer to the CBD. You have a rival who is on the far side of the map, who is managed by the same managers as you. You can pick the rival's personality, whether it's generated or just one of a number, and you can pick your manager's personality, again, whether it's random or one of a number, depending on the way you interact with your manager, whether you listen to their tips or you follow their advice, their tips and the way they treat you will change episode. as per round to episode. So if you ignore them telling you who to kill, then they might still start giving you bogus facts and giving your rival, who they also manage, the good information about where you are. And that will lead to more and more tension as it goes on. And Scott, this game is going to be called... I've got one, it's called The Art of the Kill. Mmm. I came up with a good one. The art. Listeners he approved of my name you you can't see but I'm raising my hands I'm Well quite quite So that was that was lovely. And it was a lovely game. Yeah, if you enjoyed that, please check out all the other episodes. Leave us a review on wherever you get your podcast. And please also get in touch. You'll see various links in the in the description about how to get in touch with us and set us a challenge or just say hello. And if you do just say hello, then hi. ah you will receive a hello back. You'll receive a hello back. That's maybe that should be what our thing is. I think it's just people just go, hi, and we go, hi, and that's it. There's no other interaction. And then an RPG comes out of nowhere. Hi, British, British head nod. You're right. Don't know who you are. All right, mate. All right, mate, in Britain, by the way, if you ever get an all right mate, it means the person doesn't remember your name. It means we've forgotten your name and we get too embarrassed to ask now. Anyway. That has been the Gaming Blender Podcast. We very much hope you enjoyed it. I have been Matt. You had to think then for a minute, didn't you? And I've been Scott. That's excellent news, isn't it? Thanks so much for listening and well, I will speak at you next time. Keep blending. Bye bye. Bye bye. Should we do the intro? Go on then. We left the intro on one podcast, Beth pointed it out. We had one podcast where I said, all good, good to go. And you were like, just a shuffle of papers. Yeah, I think I'm okay. And then when, rello! I know, I know, I know. Right, so we'll do the intro. just say, I know. Who's the editor that generally just lifts the tracks, drops them into audition and goes, they'll do. Apart from three minutes, 40 minutes into that. So I think what we'll do is I'll say, we had a good one today, Scott. And you go, yes, I came up with a name you liked. Maybe we'd use that as a go-to. Hello and welcome to the gaming blender, the world of hypothetical podcast. In today's episode, Scott, what do we do? I managed a herculean task and I came up with a name you liked! Yeeees. You... You did. I did. Nice. Very good. There we go.