NOCLIP Pocket E96 - Dice on the Desk - Pseudoregalia

I can’t just hide here forever and podcast.

Welcome back to the podcast where this week we’re going to be talking about Pseudoregalia! This is a metroidvania platformer that was originally developed as part of a game jam. The game is set in a castle and tasks you with navigating around to discover new abilities and, eventually, keys to end the game. The method by which you do this is some absolutely badass movement tech. I think it’s safe to say that for the majority of people, this movement is the major selling point of the game. You are very fluid, being able to chain different moves together to cover huge distances and scale walls, turning most rooms into something of a puzzle, but one with many interesting solutions. You can string together wall jumps and slides and kicks and et cetera in a number of different ways to traverse the world and it is pretty much always engaging to do. There are certainly ways in which the game doesn’t excel, but it is nonetheless a really fun way to spend a few hours, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to master these kinds of mechanics. We’re going to be talking about the necessity of the map, an addition in an update, to navigate without going completely insane, the game’s interest curve as you progress toward the end, and we codify the misty castle aesthetic.

Thank you for joining us again today as we close out our time doing soulslike games with the least soulslike of all. Still a fun time and one that did become strangely popular. How did you hear about this game, if you had at all? Let us know in the comments below or over in our Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Pentament in our constant struggle to make every non-themed game as different as possible from the one we played before. We hope you’ll be back for that!

Episode 166 - Doctor, I Am Pagliacci - Lies of P

Grand Covenant’s Fourth Law: A podcast cannot lie.

Welcome back to the podcast! Lies of P is definitely a game that turned some heads when it was announced, given that it’s based around Pinnochio. Set in a city overrun by automatons, stylized as puppets, who have broken their safeguards and begun attacking people, Lies of P takes its themes and ideas from Pinnochio, along with some of its characters, but not necessarily its plot. In fact, the way it manages to weave this inspiration into the rest of the game is probably its most impressive narrative feat. This is particularly notable that the thing it’s weaving these elements into is just a Dark Souls game. More so than any other game we’ve played, on- or off-air, this really feels like a FROM designed Souls game, or at least very close to it. The combat takes heavy cues from Sekiro and Bloodborne with the healing mechanics and stats from Dark Souls, you can tell the developers have been taking notes. And this can be both good and bad, because the game feels familiar and also very good to play most of the time, but it does also call attention to elements from the games (upgrade materials, consumable items, a prosthetic) that feel more or less necessary for this game specifically. It’s a strange experience to some extent, but still a very good one if this style of game is something you already enjoyed. Is this game derivative? A little, for sure, but there is still some novelty to be found, particularly in its aesthetics. This and the combat mechanics that combine the weapon variety of Dark Souls (as well as a unique weapon recombination mechanic) with the satisfying defensive options of Sekiro, mean that as much as this makes you think about where its inspirations came from, as weird as the theme of the game is on its face, and as difficult as the game can be at times, it’s still a very good time. We’re going to be talking about the integration of the source material into the mechanical identity of the game, how auxiliary mechanics complicate the game both for good and for bad, and how they really should have just called the game Pinnochio.

Thank you for listening this week! As you can probably tell, we’ve been doing a bit of a Soulslike run recently, which we’ll be finishing up on pocket next time, but I think it’s shown just how diverse this subgenre can be. Lies of P stands out less for its own identity but more for its devotion to the identity of the games that inspired it, and it’s a complicated topic to discuss. Do you think this impressive adherence to FROM’s catalog will be a positive change for these types of games going forward, normalizing the base gameplay and allowing for more diversity in how those mechanics are utilized and twisted to fit the game at hand, or do you think this is just one direction for the genre to go, with the other elements taking center stage as in games like Lunacid? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be sprinting as far as we possibly can in the other direction and talking about Pentiment, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 165 - Sex Henderson and the Boys - Lunacid

Banished into the depths of the Great Podcast.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Lunacid, a game that is in its own words, inspired by old FROMSOFTWARE titles like King’s Field and Shadow Tower. And while you can definitely feel the influence, the game does enough to stand out on its own that it’s definitely worth playing. You play as someone cast into the Great Well, essentially an enormous dungeon, with escape being your only goal. This goal is pretty emblematic of the game, as well, as it is extremely vague and leaves the player mostly just exploring each area in hopes of finding clues to help them progress. This is a massive strength in that it preserves the mystery inherent to a lot of FROM’s catalogue while forcing the game’s exploration elements to the forefront, which the design is obviously very focused around. It also results in the game being a bit aimless, which depending on who you are can be a little frustrating, but with enough meaningful rewards to find to keep you playing. Weapons and spells are extremely plentiful, offering a lot of ways to interact with both combat and the world itself, with some specific interactions like unlocking paths as well as more player-driven things like being able to skip some obstacles and reach strange locations. Lunacid is nostalgic, thanks to its aesthetic design, but it is also a captivating world to explore that folds in more recent design trends to make something more transcendent than just a copy of its inspirations. We’re going to be talking about the games by which Lunacid’s design is influenced, the presentational choices from character designs to the music’s genre and style, and we discuss whether we were or were not in “the know.”

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a game I knew I wanted to do pretty much as soon as I’d heard about it, so while we aren’t exactly day and date with its release, it was one we scheduled as soon as possible. Did you play this game in early access or since it’s been out in full? Did you find it to be more or less similar to Dark Souls? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Discord! We’re sort of continuing on a trend for the next episode and we’re going to be talking about Lies of P, the Soulslike that features Pinocchio for some reason, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

NOCLIP Pocket E95 - Become a Slammurai - Mario Hoops 3 on 3

Hold down and swipe up to podcast.

Welcome back to the podcast! For our last episode in Fanbruary, well into March at this point, we’re going to be talking about Mario Hoops 3 on 3. MHTOT (lol) is a bit of an anomaly in the Mario sports game pantheon, as it is a DS game that makes heavy use of the touch screen in its control scheme. This seemed like a pretty innocuous suggestion when we got it, but playing this game is a whole experience. It is without a doubt the most complicated basketball game I’ve ever played, and it is really interesting, but I’m not sure where this would even fall on the good game-bad game scale. The overall content is pretty limited, but that is partly made up for by just how difficult it is to get a handle on the controls. There isn’t too much preamble for this one, honestly, it’s just mad swiping on a DS for a few hours. We’re going to be talking about the insane control scheme, the insanely lengthy tutorial, and how this game is exactly like The World Ends With You.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This episode was requested multiple times and honestly I’m so glad we finally got to it. It’s such a bizarre time capsule for when new hardware brought innovations, some of which were good and others which were Mario Hoops 3 on 3. Was this a game you had heard about, or enjoyed when it came out? Did you actually play it with other people, and if so how was that experience? Let us know in the Discord or down in the comment section. Next time, we’re going to be playing Pseudoregalia as part of our souls-like themed month we’re trying to do, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 164 - Vietnam Pro Skater - Valheim

You could pod another cast.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, for our second bite at the Fanbruary apple on the main cast, we’re going to be talking about Valheim. Valheim is a survival game that largely captured the audience for this type of game when it released in early access with it’s Norse theming, boss laddering and robust base building mechanics. Since those halcyon days, the updates to the game have slowed down a bit and the player base has dwindled some, but it still remains one of the most popular survival games. Now, we are not the most avid survival game players. You might say that we all but never play these games. But, we gave this the old college try despite being very unfamiliar with the conventions of the genre, and for the most part managed to get by. Valheim is a game about very slow resource accretion with helpfully well defined goals, those being to build a shelter, improve your equipment, find a way to navigate to each boss, and defeat them for powerups, and then proceed down the line. It is compelling to have an extrinsic goal in a game like this, but there are also myriad decisions that place it squarely within its genre and make it lack some appeal outside that audience. We’re going to be talking about chopping down trees, mining copper, and chopping down trees.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Following our stated objective of playing games we wouldn’t normally during Fanbruary, this is squarely outside of our usual comfort zone. That said, the game has its merits and I hope we were able to identify them successfully. And if not? Why, you can let us know down in the comments or over on the discord, from whence this suggestion came! Next time, we’re taking a look at Lunacid, a King’s Field inspired title, so we hope you’ll join us then!

NOCLIP Pocket E94 - I Don't Mean the KY - Wet

We are not enemies, but we are a podcast.

Welcome back to Fanbruary! For our second game of the month (don’t look at the calendar, please), we’re going to be talking about Wet, a third person shooter that iterates on the mechanical innovations of games like Prince of Persia and Max Payne, and takes its title both from a shortened version of the term “wetwork” and also people who are bad at naming things. Wet is honestly a fascinating game just in the sheer difference between its relative obscurity compared to other games from the era and the amount of effort that was clearly put into it. The mechanics are fleshed out, if not always polished, the visuals hold up pretty well for its period, the soundtrack features over a dozen guest artists and that’s not to mention the insane voice cast (and I mean that literally, we entirely forget to mention it in the episode). And yet, if you’re like anyone I’ve talked to about the game, you’ve probably never heard of it. While we may not know exactly what caused this game to fall into obscurity, we can look at it now and see what it brings to the table. We’re going to be talking about the game’s exploitation film theming and aesthetic, how the mechanics come so close to realizing their potential, and the impossibility of asking your parents for a game called Wet.

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP Pocket! We are slowly getting our wheels spinning again after taking most of January off, but Fanbruary is underway with five whole days left in the month! We like to do games we would most likely not do outside of the fan-suggested month, and while Wet fell more into the “we would have never thought about it” category more than the “we would never play that” one, we still wanted to give it a chance because of cool it looked. Was Wet a game you had played, or even heard about? Let us know down in the comments or over on Discord! We’ll be back next time to talk about Mario Hoops 3-on-3, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 163 - I'll Stop Killing Humans - Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

You did not survive the podcast, Raziel.

Welcome to Fanbruary! As we have for the last three years, this month we’re going to be looking at games suggested by members of our community and we’re starting today with Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver! This is an action/adventure Metroidvania title from 1999 and, especially considering the era in which this released, it has a lot going on. The game has full voice acting for all characters, a not insignificant world to explore and a large amount of side content for the player to stumble onto. Over the course of the game you will pick up a few traversal abilities, health and mana upgrades, spells, and an upgrade to your weapon by exploring the world. That said, this game shows its age pretty significantly and has a number of features and design decisions that maybe don’t hold up so well playing them in a modern context. Whether that be controls, enemy design or the mechanics of puzzles and combat, there is always something off about most systems that really put a hinderance on your enjoyment of the game. What are these? Well, tune in to hear us discuss the exploration-focused world that the game presents, the different things the game tries in the Metroidvania genre, and to hear us say what every 90s kid would about water levels and swimming.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We got a lot of great suggestions from you all for this month and it has been genuinely hard to narrow down which games best meet our criteria for great Fanbruary titles, and Soul Reaver felt like a good pick to start us off because it’s fairly well-known, but not one we would likely go back to had it not been suggested. After playing it, it’s fair to say that we understand why the series has the reputation it does, though it’s also a pretty powerful reminder of the effect nostalgia can have on our perception of something. Were we too harsh on the game? Are you a long time fan who is upset we only played this game and skipped Blood Omen? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Valheim, which will be our first episode on a survival game, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 162 - Tingly Brain Feelings - Cocoon

A podcast inside a podcast inside a podcast…

Welcome back to the podcast! For our January episode, which we kind of did so you didn’t forget we exist before Fanbruary begins, we’re going to be talking about Cocoon. Cocoon is a puzzle game developed by Geometric Interactive, a studio formed by members of the developer Playdead, and while this game is something else entirely than Limbo or Inside, the style they bring is definitely present. Cocoon is not a horror game, yet it creates a sense of eerie foreboding all while being saturated with color and without the threat of death to the player hanging over their head. It’s an intriguing world to exist in, and that’s not even getting into the actual puzzle mechanics. These involve ducking in and out of different playable areas which you can physically carry with you and eventually imbue you with additional abilities. It’s almost hard to explain in a way that impresses upon you what makes it interesting, but it’s a great set of mechanics to center the puzzles on, which get progressively more complicated in the ways you might expect and in some ways that you definitely won’t. It’s a very satisfying, but not overly difficult experience and one that is well worth giving a shot. We’re going to be talking about the puzzles that really had an effect on us and the way we see the game, how the sound and visuals work together to create an incredible atmosphere, and we use the word Kafkaesque in what seems like a safe scenario but probably still use it wrong.

Thank you for joining us! Cocoon was a game that we were both excited for given its pedigree and one that feels thematically appropriate as the first of a new year. What was your experience with Cocoon? Did you find the puzzles as satisfying as we did? Were you able to create a more satisfying interpretation of the themes? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re heading into Fanbruary, the month where you the listener chooses what games we play. We’ve gotten some great suggestions so far, but it’s still open for the next couple weeks if you want to give us any further games to consider. Our first full episode is going to be on The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

The NOCLIP Awards 2023 - Like, Comment and Scribe

The awards show least likely to be compared to Dark Souls

What a year it has been! We played some comical old PC games, overrepresented horror, had some unnecessary and frankly inscrutable themed months and most of the good games we played came as suggestions from you guys. Okay, so maybe it was exactly the same as every other year, but it’s all about the content variety, really. This year had a good amount of that, at least. And of course, as has been said for untold past millennia, variety in games played means excellent choices for the NOCLIP Awards. Today, we’re bringing back some old favorites as well as new categories. From Best Soundtrack and Smashiest Balls to Coolest Ancient Artefact and the Another Man’s Treasure award (in which we find the most worthless collectibles), we’re recapping the truly standout moments of the year and reflecting upon the games we played and talked about. We hope you can use this opportunity to join us in celebration, or at least get drunk and yell at our bad decisions.

Thank you for listening this week, and for your continued support over the last year! Contrary to the joke in the beginning of this description, things have changed a decent amount for us. We crossed 100 YouTube subscribers this year, which is funny, but still a milestone. The podcast is also being recorded mostly fully remote at this point, which was a learning curve (that we’re still climbing, so thank you for bearing with us). All that in addition to the usual time spent and decision making we do to try to make the show as entertaining as possible means that we put forth some effort to make this thing. That said, we as always had a great amount of fun even with the worst games we played, and continue to love doing it. Thank you to everyone who listens and we hope we continue to be, at minimum, satisfactory in 2024.

NOCLIP Pocket E93 - Yule Ladsona - Cthulhu Saves Christmas

This early in the game, I doubt you have the podcast to back that up.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and the final episode of the year! We decided to try to do holiday themes this year and based on our success rate, I doubt we’ll go for it again. Cthulhu Saves Christmas is a novelty follow up to another comedy RPG by this developer, Cthulhu Saves the World, but this time it is obviously themed around Christmas. The game is a throwback RPG with turn-based combat and (kind of) random encounters, where you lead Cthulhu and a party of festive followers around locations from different Christmas mythologies to defeat an evil league of ne’er-do-wells. On top of that, the combat has numerous systems, including a character specific mechanic involving building and spending chicken power as well as shifting the moves available to you based on your use of yet another recharge system. If that all seems like a lot for an indie game as short as this one is, well, you’d be right. There are a lot of good ideas present here, but it lacks the focus that’s necessary to really bring it all together into a game that is both novel and fun. That being said, if the game’s particular brand of humor speaks to you and you can appreciate the presentation, with a particular highlight on the music, this could still be worth the pretty low asking price.

Thank you for joining us again this week and this year for NOCLIP Pocket! We hope your holidays are going well (or at least better than the games we chose for this month, lol). I want to spotlight the upcoming Fanbruary event we’re doing here, so if you have suggestions of games we’d like to play, let us know over on our Discord or in the comments (or an email, or wherever else you’re comfortable doing so) and we’ll put those games in the running for an episode. Check out the last two Februarys for some examples of what we chose if you’re looking for inspiration. Thank you for listening this week, and next time we post a pocket, it will be one of the games we chose, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 161 - Combo On Joe Pesci - Trapt

I will podcast unfulfilled!

Happy holidays! To celebrate the season, we’re talking about a game that has at least one time on the internet been compared to Home Alone, and that game is Trapt! Trapt is a game in which you prepare and trigger traps within a 3D environment to attack and kill your enemies. Unlike what you are probably imagining, the game plays nothing like a tower defense game or even a puzzle game. It is instead the clunkiest action game you’ve ever played. As you have to trigger traps manually with most of them affecting only a single tile or a row of tiles, most of the game consists of meticulously leading the pretty manipulable AI into specific parts of the map where all of your traps are set up to trigger them all at once. But this isn’t all bad! Well, the gameplay is kind of a wash, but there is more to the game than that: the narrative and character work are also really bad! But in this case it is a major boon for the game, because if there is a reason to play it, it’s likely for this absolute camp. Every enemy you kill has a backstory and unique entry and death dialogue, with some levels having up to ten enemies, and each stage begins and ends (at least) with a cutscene. There is a lot of story content to enjoy, and while the plot itself is pretty basic, and character’s motivations seem very easily swayed, the melodrama of it all is very worth it. We’re going to be talking about how the game itself plays and what we expected from it, the dialogue we found especially hilarious, and we defend our choice to make this a holiday episode.

Thank you for listening to the podcast this week! We talk a bit of trash on this one, but the game is still doing something unique (even though it’s the fourth in a series, technically) and deserves some flowers for that. We didn’t have a bad time or anything, it’s just a fairly basic execution of the concept. Have you played other games in the “Deception” series? Is the first one you’ve even heard of? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comment section! Next time, we’re going to be rolling out the green carpet for the NOCLIP Awards, so get your bingo cards ready and start making predictions! We hope you’ve had a good year and we’ll see you in 2024 for more episodes!

NOCLIP Pocket E92 - Mash Your Body - The Fall

My intentions are podcast.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about The Fall. Despite being almost ten years old, I’d consider this to be part of the new wave of adventure games, ones that seek to capture some of the elements of the classic games but without the more obtuse elements. The Fall mostly manages this, using a 2D sidescrolling style which limits the amount of screen searching and navigation you have to do to find all the pieces to each of the puzzles. It’s not without its stumbling points, but for the most part the puzzles are well designed and placed very smoothly into the difficulty curve. Slightly more questionably, it also includes combat mechanics and some exceedingly light platforming, but the mechanic set is well rounded and it’s easy to overlook some of the less polished aspects. The kicker, though, is that what you didn’t know you were actually here for is the narrative. The game is shockingly well written, both for the genre and medium as well as the time period, doing a great job of communicating its themes without dumbing them down for the player to understand. It’s a sci-fi narrative focused around AI that feels very focused, and honestly ahead of its time, and it’s well worth playing just for the story alone. We’re going to be talking about the more misguided elements of the puzzles and mechanic systems, how impressed we are that we cared about the characters at all, and ways to improve coffee…puzzles.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This is a game that had made it onto the Mystery May list for how long we’ve known about it, but having now played it, it’s surprising how little it shows its age. Certainly in some mechanical ways it feels old, but we were impressed by its maturity. Let us know what you thought in the comments section or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re doing what may be our first ever Christmas special, and talking about Cthulhu Saves Christmas, so we hope you’re in the spirit for it then.

Episode 160 - Like a Christmas Scarf - Super Mario Bros. Wonder

I’ve got some oomph in my bloom.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Super Mario Bros. Wonder, a new 2D Mario platformer, which in a weird way kind of feels like part of a trend of Nintendo making more nostalgic releases, like Pikmin or Metroid Dread and remaking Link’s Awakening and Mario RPG. Mario Wonder is a classic 2D Mario game like we haven’t seen since the New Super Mario Bros. games, but unlike those games, Wonder has a direct goal of making more innovations and changing the basic gameplay of Mario. This is a AAA video game, though, so don’t expect something so radically different and risky, but with a more whimsical aesthetic and a surprising mechanical section in each level, it certainly feels much different than past games. And this is definitely a good thing, Wonder lives up to its name by giving you something new to discover in each course and encourages you to explore to ensure you see as much of it as you can. In addition, the game contains new powerups, a badge system that can change your moveset and the layouts of the world as well. All this to say, this game isn’t the next best thing in the history of platformers or even just Mario. It is refreshing, and fun, and well designed and it looks and sounds very pretty, but it isn’t going to stress your abilities, it isn’t jam-packed with content and much of the gameplay is straight out of previous titles in the series. This makes up the bulk of our conversation: in a very mechanically driven genre, is what Mario Wonder provides different enough to be recommended despite the polish that comes with being a first party Nintendo title, is it too different, with differences in kind appearing partway through every single level while not giving the base platforming room to shine? We’ll discuss this and also be talking about the importance of collectibles and how they influence you as you play, the difficulty management present in the badge and character systems, and we take a hard stance on how Toads are treated in the Mario canon.

Thank you for listening again this week! As one of the more anticipated Nintendo releases this year, we were excited to get into it and it is interesting to see how it compared to each of our expectations. Or maybe it was very boring to see and I’m just trying to drum up excitement to try to convince you to listen to our podcast, who’s to say? Either way, what did you think of Mario Wonder? Are we just extremely old and have been playing platformers for too long, or was this game easier than you would have expected? Let us know in the comments or over in our Discord! We are getting into the holiday season and so next time, we’re going to be getting into the spirit by talking about that classic Christmastime game: Trapt on the PS2. We hope you’ll join us then, if only to figure out how that makes sense.

NOCLIP Pocket E91 - Seventy Percent Gamer - Rollerdrome

The podcast is watching.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Rollerdrome, a game that mixes the extreme sports of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with the extreme crime of gun violence. In Rollerdrome, you are tasked with eliminating all the enemies that spawn in waves within a level while performing tricks to reload your guns, and doing so quickly to maintain combos and end up with a high score. Maybe the concept doesn’t sound simple at first, because it isn’t, but even so the game is still much harder than you might expect at the outset. The game’s short length means that compared to the amount of time you have to practice for it, the challenge ramps up quickly, with levels in the first round of the game being able to kill you repeatedly if you aren’t careful, and probably still a few times even if you are. Is the game worth learning well enough to push through these difficult stages? I’d say yes. The act of getting better at this game is incredibly satisfying because the mechanics all play so well into each other. Your weapons all serve very distinct purposes and each contain different mechanics to get used to, like timing or charge-up mechanics, but all feed off of the same ammo pool, meaning that managing your resources by sprinkling tricks in wherever possible is a major part of keeping combos up and even just surviving. This means that when it clicks, your runs look very fluid, improvisational, but controlled. We’re going to be talking about, yes, the difficulty and how we each felt it handled it, the game’s light narrative, and we discuss the pros and even better pros of being able to skate on a huge monster’s ass.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Rollerdrome is one of the rare video game ass video games done for Pocket, and one that didn’t really take me by surprise. But just because I got exactly what I expected from it doesn’t mean it isn’t great. Did you feel that Rollerdrome was a satisfying challenge, or are we babies? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord! Next time we’re going to be talking about The Fall, which is an ancient (by today’s standards) indie adventure game, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 159 - Frog Zone - Tunic

Use the Holy Pod to follow the Golden Cast

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Tunic, a game styled very much after the classic 2D Zelda titles, but with some other influences that will become apparent as you play through the game. Tunic is a colorful, cute game, with a fox wearing a shirt as a protagonist and bushes that squish and bounce when you cut them down. This seems to be to lure you into a false sense of security because the game itself is actually much more difficult than its aesthetics would lead you to believe. The combat in this game is simple in terms of your actions, but has depth in execution. Regular enemies can pose a threat early on, some much more than others, but the bosses of the game are all tests of your abilities. Beyond that, the game primarily focuses around navigation puzzles and exploration, rewarding the player with upgrades and items they can use to get stronger, make fights easier or open up further paths for traversal. And you can’t forget what is essentially the selling feature of the game, the instruction manual. There is a booklet programmed into the game itself that you pick up pages from over the course of your adventure. The book mostly isn’t written in a readable language (though it can be deciphered with some dedication), but it gives hints on everything from what you should be doing to how to perform basic actions like the dodge roll, explaining invincibility frames, and what the different parts of the UI mean. Collecting pieces of this manual is a driving force for a lot of reasons, and we’ll get into all the things it means for the experience in the episode. We’ll also be talking about the accessibility of certain features and how much the average player should be accommodated, the ups and downs of the combat and our experience with the bosses, and Dark Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls.

Thank you for listening to the podcast again today! This one was always going to happen eventually, and now that it’s done we’re left with some complicated feelings, but this game is genuinely incredible in a lot of ways. How did you get along with Tunic? Was the difficulty on par with what you look for in games, or were you taken aback by the level of challenge? Were you able to solve the end game puzzles or did you leave that for the more cryptographically-minded out there? Let us know down in the comments, or over on our Discord (where you can also suggest games for us to play)! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Super Mario Wonder, the newest Mario platformer, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E90 - The Most Famous Windmill Ever Built - Anodyne

I’m just podcasting my Wares.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Anodyne, a Zelda-like indie game from ten years ago, which, boy does that just feel like forever these days. Anodyne doesn’t so much have a shtick as it just tries to be a solid action adventure game while exploring its mechanics and themes, and realistically that’s all it needs to be. This is a decently well focused game that understands its own scope very well, and because of that it manages to hold up incredibly against the passing of time. Anodyne takes place within a dream and explores a variety of settings from apartment buildings and hotels to fantasy forests and abstract representations of “place,” which keeps each new area feeling fresh which does wonders for keeping the player engaged as they go through it. Its mechanics are mostly simple, as it doesn’t port over the item collection aspects of a Zelda game, but it does have depth in the mechanics it does have, which are both a little surprising and largely unexplained. It manages to hold a bit of mystery all while being a focused, unassuming little game, and is definitely worth playing if you haven’t already. We’re going to be talking about balancing tone in a game with so many different aesthetic elements within it, what areas we felt were most well executed and most unexpected, and we no joke read a definition out of a dictionary, so get absolutely pumped for that.

Thank you again for joining us this week! It’s been a couple months since we’ve done an entirely unthemed pocket, and Anodyne has been on our list for a while (it was relatively new when the podcast started, unbelievably), so we finally got to bring it out. If you played Anodyne, were you early enough to have played before the remaster? If not, do you think the game holds up after so many years? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Rollerdrome, and for no other reason than we wanted to. Which changes the tone of the end of these descriptions, I’m realizing. I got very used to being able to just sort of follow a formula. But it’s not “Retrovember” where we’re talking about all the games featuring 90’s trends like rollerblading or something, so this will just have to do. We hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 158 - Lowbrow Johnny - Dredge

I’m as podcast as you are.

Welcome back! For our final episode of Halloween, we’re talking about Dredge, the fishing game that takes its aesthetic inspiration from cosmic horror, and of course, H.P. Lovecraft. In Dredge you play as a fisherman and you catch fish to pay for upgrades to your ship, repairs, etc., all while working toward the goal of collecting several relics for a mysterious man who lives on an island by himself. Which isn’t weird at all. The fishing itself is engaging enough, but the atmosphere of the game is where it really shines. There is a sense of foreboding as day turns to night and things start becoming more dangerous. This ends up being the main point of contention as far as how successful the game is, because while the aberrant catches and mysterious strangers are all very interesting, and the darkness always hides an unknown threat, the other half of the game is inventory management and resource collection. The more mechanical half of the game can be satisfying, but the tension is broken during extended periods of supplying metal and wood to upgrade your ship, making sure your fish are perfectly tetris’d in your storage, and managing net catches. The game is pulled in two directions, with one wanting to be an atmospheric, dread inducing horror title and the other wanting to be a pretty decent management sim. None of it is quite enough to make the game bad, or not worth playing, and the narrative makes up for it by being just mysterious enough to lead the player along and make them want to learn more about the characters, but it does feel like a weak spot in an otherwise good game. We’re going to be talking about the curse that is trying to do cosmic horror in a video game, how we engaged with the story of the game and our expectations, and we redesign the Pokemon games to make them better, just as a free bonus. You’re welcome, Game Freak.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and for the month of spooky games that we look forward to all year. And we even kinda did it twice this time. How was everyone’s Halloween? Did you play anything particularly scary, or do anything else to get in the mood of the season? Let us know in the comment section or over on our Discord server! Next time, we’re going to be shifting gears a fair bit, and talking about Tunic, so we hope you’ll join us then.

NOCLIP Pocket E89 - A Weird Skin Disease - Midnight Manor

Welcome home.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Midnight Manor, a late entry suggestion for Pocket this Halloween that ended up probably saving our schedule. Midnight Manor is a short horror-themed platformer from a solo developer that encourages players to play the game multiple times in different ways to see all the narrative possibilities it has to offer. Mechanically speaking, the game is simple, revolving around carrying items necessary for progression from place to place and navigating the titular manor. This simple gameplay lends itself, in a way, to the multiple ending-based design of the game, encouraging you to make small optimizations to make each successive run a bit faster, but admittedly does very little to make the game more engaging to go through each time. With no enemies, and therefore no fail state, to speak of, what is left to really engage with lies in its atmosphere, music, art and narrative content. All of these things are subjective, but given the short time investment to actually complete the game, and even seeing all the endings isn’t going to add all that much to your total playtime, it is likely worth the low barrier to entry to playing. We’re going to be talking about how character design can raise questions and eyebrows and our thoughts on the intentionality of it, what vibes the presentational aspects of the game put off, and we theorize on what this game may be a sequel to.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Midnight Manor was a strangely nostalgic experience that harked back to indie games during our more experimental years when we were just trying anything we could find. That said, it’s a mixed bag, though still more polished and with more thought than you might expect from a project that was this tiny. Did Midnight Manor send you back to a simpler time? Did it get you to play through it more than once? Let us know in the comments, or over in the Discord, where the suggestion for this game came from. As I said at the beginning, our time was rather tight this month, and our last Halloween game is going to bleed over into November a little bit, but we’re always happy to try weird things for October and this certainly qualifies. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Anodyne for a bit more of an adventure-y feel for November, so be sure to check back with us then!

Episode 157 - A Big Weed Whacker - Dead Space

Dismember their podcast.

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be talking about our first horror title for the Halloween season with Dead Space. Specifically, we’re talking about the 2023 remake of the game with only a limited understanding of the original. That said, this is a game that makes a pretty brutal impression very quickly, so we did pick it up quickly. Dead Space is an action survival horror game in the same vein as Resident Evil 4, with an over the shoulder camera. The game’s hook is centered around its enemies, the necromorphs, forcing the player to cut off their limbs to dispatch them efficiently, and this is accomplished in about the most inelegant way imaginable: with power tools and a phenomenally heavy boot. The game is gory and over the top, and while it stumbles over some of the more nuanced elements of the artform, like character development and story, sometimes an extremely raucous horror title is exactly what you want. Which isn’t to say this game goes full Doom. The violence is extreme, yes, but it has scary moments, sometimes maintaining something resembling quiet for seconds to even minutes at a time. It builds and releases tension in quick bursts, and uniquely handles its music cues so as to allow the player to jump scare themselves at times, making it a perfect game for that mid-October horror kick. We’re going to be talking about the arsenal and how the game’s take on weapons sells its premise and mechanical hook, how the remake’s expanded take on Isaac Clarke impacts its narrative and storytelling, and we produce two extremely professional box quotes for them to use on any future physical releases of the remake.

Thank you for joining us again this week! The remake of this game re-sparked our interest in doing it for Halloween, despite continually putting it off for other things, and honestly I’m pretty glad we waited. The visual spectacle of this game is one of its major selling points and the more modern version of it probably helped it take effect. That said, have you played the original version of the game? Do you think we should have played the original over the remake? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comments! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Dredge, the Lovecraftian fishing game that released earlier this year and took the world by storm. Or at least, by drizzle. By squall? Some people liked it, for sure.

NOCLIP Pocket E88 - Incinerators Hate Him - Signalis

I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep my podcast.

Welcome to Halloween! Our favorite month of year for being our birthday month, it’s also time for us to play just so many, many horror games, starting today with Signalis. Signalis is an indie survival horror game, set in a dystopian sci-fi world in which you play as a “Replika,” a robotic servant, assigned to a pilot of a spacecraft. When laid out like that, a lot about the game’s setting and plot don’t really seem that remarkable. It’s part of the reason I think it’s pretty difficult to really “spoil” this game in the traditional sense, because Signalis is much more of a tone piece than it is a straightforward narrative experience. Yes it has a plot, one that has development and changes and satisfies in its own ways, but the visuals, the cutscenes, the sound, all play into what really makes this game special, in that it creates this eerie, uneasy sense of not really knowing what is and isn’t real. And the other thing that makes this game special is just how well it manages to pull off the classic survival horror style. Limited inventory spaces, enemies that reanimate if you haven’t burned them and specific save rooms are likely pretty familiar to you at this point, but it hasn’t been done this well in a long time. The game isn’t exceptionally difficult, per se, but that classic Resident Evil feeling is definitely there, as you make progress through zones you need to plan routes through as you begin to memorize them, solving puzzles and making tactical decisions about which enemies to kill and which to run away from. It really hits both of its points of focus dead on and is a horror experience I’d recommend to nearly anyone. We’re going to be talking about the game’s clear inspirations and what it does to mimic or improve on their systems, the plot of the game and how it gives you enough to make a certain type of person really want to engage further with it, and we put our belief in the eternal universality of waifus.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We know our output has been somewhat diminished recently, but we will get through four horror titles this year even if we need to leak into November a bit. Signalis came pretty highly recommended from a number of people, so it’s good to see y’all have good taste (please save some of that for Fanbruary!). If you haven’t played Signalis yet, I do highly recommend, it’s a perfect game to get in the mood for the season, likely more so than the other games we’ve got coming up this month, so get on it and let us know what you think down in the comments or over in our Discord, which is actually where our next Pocket game is coming from. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Midnight Manor, so we hope you’ll join us then.