[MUSIC] Welcome to Random Access Memories. >> Hello. >> The show that's an offshoot of .zip, and I do not remember what Chase normally says when he does this. >> We can talk about whatever the fuck we want. >> Yeah, that's the one where we curse. >> [LAUGH] >> Any of these fuckers have a pop out of the wall. >> [LAUGH] >> I'll try to make anybody have the worst day of work they've ever had in their life. Sorry. >> Do any of these fuckers? >> [LAUGH] >> Okay. >> What do you want to talk about today? >> Yeah, I've gathered us all here to talk a little bit more about exquisite biome. >> Yeah, baby. >> So after it's so funny that ordinarily when I would do something like this, it would be like, oh, I'm going to talk about this on a RAM. I was not even thinking about that when I did this. And then later realized like, oh, this is totally something that we could bring up. But after we played exquisite biome, I, in a separate conversation, volunteered to run a D&D one shot for some friends. And I was trying to think of what would be kind of a fun, gimmicky thing to do for that and had the idea to basically integrate exquisite biome for the creation of the sort of fantasy world that this one shot was set in. >> Very smart, very big brain. >> Thank you. So what I did was I, there were five players and I told all of them to draw three cards from a deck and tell me what they were. I did not tell them what the premise was, didn't give them any information about that. And I just told them to draw those three cards and told them the campaign was about they were going through a portal to a new unknown natural world. Told them you're going to document the floor and fauna there, basically as researchers. But you can come up with whatever creative reason your character wants to be there. And so you don't know what you're going to expect there, what you're going to find. And so then I took the cards that they drew and used them to create the biome that they ended up in. And a bunch of creatures that they would then have to fight or otherwise interact with using exquisite biome. >> Cool. >> Very fun. >> Yeah, turned out very cool. So I used my friend Noah's cards to make the biome that turned out to be a tundra with a waterfall or a fjord with a waterfall, which was rad, totally cool. And so I told them, you've been told that it's very cold there, but that's all you know. And then basically went through the game and created all of the creatures that their cards would create, including like going through. And so like each person made three creatures that I then, I chose one from everybody's thing, decided what it was going to be. And then used other D&D monster stat blocks, which I adapted kind of to fit these creatures. And so for example, my friend Dylan drew like an invertebrate with captivating eyes that's like a burrower and created this like burrowing insect that basically we had played the out of the realm for into the aether and had fought some fairy dragons. And I was like, oh, I will adapt the fairy dragon. Yeah, good stat block like, you know, has this really interesting thing where it can like blow like a, you know, a magic fairy dust in your face essentially that like confuses you and like just causes you to like waste your turn running in a random direction. And so I basically adapted that and said, okay, these bugs come and they look at you with their captivating eyes and create, you know, make you do that. And our burrowers unbeknownst to me. I had also told everyone like, you can take a couple of magic items and like, I did not care to know what they were because I thought it would be funnier. Ain't that just the way? Ain't that just the way and someone, it was Dylan, ironically, had taken like a claw thing like his hands were like claws. And so was immediately like, I'm going to dig my way through this like, you know, the I made it like difficult terrain like it was icy. Sir, talking, just behind me barking, beautiful. Sometimes he'll stand like right near my ear and bark, love my son. And so like immediately, Dylan's like, oh, I'm just going to burrow underneath. And then, you know, I won't have to worry about like slipping on this ice. And I was like, that's extremely clever. I did not even consider that that could happen that, you know, I was like, oh, these bugs are going to like come out at some point in this fight. And then I was like, all right, these bugs are out now. Hello, it's bug time. So yeah, it was, it was very fun just like seeing the different ways that like, you know, these creatures were like ended up interacting with them. And and like it was very fun. I think what made exquisite biome a fun, like way to do that was I thought a lot about like how these animals interact with each other. And so that impacted the combat in interesting ways where like these bugs came out and then the animal that my friend Gabe made was like a reptile that was like an insect eater with powerful legs. And so I was like, okay, this is like a like sort of like weird mix between a rabbit and an alligator that eats these bugs. And so when these bugs come out, these gators like go wild after these bugs. Yeah. And like the the idea was going to be that like if if the characters got like within, you know, like melee distance of both the reptiles and the bugs that like the reptiles would basically attack them in order to like, you know, because they're like defending their food, being like territorial about their food. But because the bugs came out too early, like that never really happened. So like that was very fun. At some point, Noah's character was very like, I love nature and like that's why I'm on this trip and whatever. So he just starts like feeding bugs to one of the lizards. And so I was like, well, now this lizard is your friend, I guess. So yeah, just like it was a very fun, I think it's a great way to like create that kind of like magic D and D chaos that happens in a really good set. You know, like when you just sort of are like, this is how this kind of setting works. Here's like how these creatures interact with each other. And then your your characters being the like, kind of unpredictable variable creates a lot of very fun interaction. So it was a very fun way to to use exquisite biome. Yeah, I think it's so cool that exquisite biome has you create not only the creatures within the ecosystem, but then how they interact with each other. And I think it's exactly what you said, like having this, you know, ecosystems by their very nature are predictable, you know, that's like their whole thing. That's why they work. And so having, like you said, this element of unpredictability that is any D and D party, let alone just like a person is just very, very cool. And I think it's like something I a lot of the time have a hard time with when I'm building encounters or when I'm building like world spaces is like, how do like factions or whatever interact with each other? Like that's that's a thing that I have a hard time conceptualizing sometimes. And I think using something like exquisite biome that like makes this, you know, a ecosystem that is, you know, interacting with itself is just very cool to kind of like take that wary off of your shoulders because it's like, oh, well, that alligator eats that bug period. That's it. That's like, that's that's just what happens. That's just it. So when you, to what level did you reveal to your players, like what their card draws brought? What they meant. So I revealed it when they sort of like stepped through this portal, which by the way, hilarious. Because I said portals, what a lot of the players heard was, this is going to be about portals. And so they got very focused on the portal aspect. I have like Gabe's character was all about teleportation. Like I think there was like in Not Oath of the Watchers. But I think Molly's Ranger subclass was like focused on that to some degree. And it was like, I see now why you were so into the portals. The flora and fauna thing was the important part. But so they stepped through the portal and like I sort of described the scene, which was like this beautiful fjord with like Aurora Borealis. And that's where I revealed like surprise, you were playing two games. You're playing D&D, but you also played this game called exclusive biome. And so I explained like, you know, this place was created from Noah's card draws and like sort of explain how that worked. And I was like, Noah, you get to name this place. And then every time I introduce somebody's creature, I would be like, you know, Molly, you created this bird. So you get to name these birds, which at that point, Molly was like, these birds are named. I don't even remember the names. I'll say Joseph and Robin, because those are the names of fucking characters. So like, and I was like, okay, great, Joseph is going to attack. But that was like a very fun way to to sort of like do that reveal and to get them feeling like ownership over over these little weird little creations. And getting to sort of like go through and be like, you drew this card and this card and this card. And that meant that you created, let's see, in Daniel's case, an apex predator invertebrate with like high with like a protective carapace. And so for that one, I just made a giant flail snail, which if you if you are unaware of the flail snail, look up that stat block. It's crazy. So wild for no reason. Yeah, it's a really it's a really cool stat block. So yeah, that was that was just like a very fun way to to sort of do the reveal. And also to like, I think it's like, if you get if you if you play a lot of D&D and if you like DM a lot, I think it's easy to sort of like, you know, you get you encounter creature like, okay, I know what to expect from this. And so like part of what I hoped would be fun about it was like the novelty of not quite knowing what stat block I was using. Sometimes I like combined them. So that was kind of fun too. Yeah, I hope for the players. Yeah, it's fun for me, not to get too into like the like D and D and D DMing conversation. But I think with one shot specifically, it's very hard to get players invested in whatever world they're playing in, because by the very nature of something being a one shot, it's like, here is like a paragraph I wrote about the town you're going to be in. And that is like all the world building that you're going to have for the next four hours of the game we're playing. So I think it's very cool to be like, hey, you helped make these things and now you get to name them. It invests them in the space in a very cool way that like I think is hard to do with just D&D raw, you know? Yeah, that was my hope. Yeah. Because yeah, that is the thing with one shot. I was like, I could just like come up with something sort of generic, but I wanted it to have like kind of a fun twist. And so that is what I came up with. Yeah. Wow. Cool stuff. Exquisite biome. Good game. Links are in the show notes again. Yeah. If you didn't buy the game four days ago, buy it now. Or if you didn't buy the game today, because if you are, if you're contributing to our Ko-fi, thank you so much. And I hope you are enjoying listening to this RAM a few days early. Yeah. Thank you. Well, before we started recording, we both said we have been playing a little a few more demos from Steam Nextfest. I quickly, well, actually, I guess here's here's a time to address. We have a Twitch account. If you want to follow us on Twitch, it's twitch.tv/dotzip. It's online. It actually might be, but I think it is to dot-zip online. Yeah. And we streamed the three of us. I was playing through some demos, and Chase and Kim were on the horn. And we were all just kind of on a call together watching me play through some demos. Occasionally vamping. Occasionally vamping, because I had to go make sure my dog wasn't eating something. It's a very good time. I want to do it again. Maybe not with demos, but with something else at least. And but yeah, so on that stream, I'll just quickly go through the games that I had played there. I played the 10 dead doves demo, which is shaping up to be a real good one. Yeah. It is this like kind of PS1 aesthetic horror game, but like, it's like very low poly textures, but with like high fidelity. So like, it's a very hard to explain kind of mixture of like low and high quality at the same time. It's very cool. The vibes are extremely weird. And like, the story was getting kind of narrated to me as I was playing a la like Alan Wake, which is a thing I'm a big fan of. And then I saw the person who was, I think allegedly typing the story on like five different typewriters. And it was like this park ranger ass looking person with like really long fingers. It was it was kind of fucked. But that was that was enough for me to be like, yeah, I'm going to buy this when it comes out. So that was, I, I, I moved on to fruit bus. And I guess worth noting Kim and Chase were rolling D 20s to playing. And also for some reason, after the first 33 icons on my desktop, I couldn't click as that was a whole thing that's going on also. But it added to sort of a chaotic energy to their rolling where sometimes we would have to reroll. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I played fruit bus that game is fun. I, I'm going to get it because I was having a good time. I do just like driving around a little island and like setting up shop is fun. I'm curious to see how much I continue to endure. I'm curious to see if the like fruit salad building grows on me. Yeah, I didn't care for the salad. It's yeah, there's just like the, the method in which you have to grab stuff and you have to like grab with the right bumper and in the stuff in your right hand and then grab stuff with the left bumper with your left hand and then bring it over to the place where you have to chop it and then you got to hit the bumper again and then be to drop the thing out of your hand. There's just like too many button inputs. Mm hmm. That felt weird. Maybe I should try and play it on keyboard and maybe that'll be different, but I don't want to, I don't want to drive with my keyboard. I don't know. But the driving felt fun. And there was also like a kind of a jump scare of your grandmother's fate, I guess, that I'll leave for you to find out if you want to play fruit buzz. Yeah. Yeah, that was wild, buck wild decision. And then I played a ranger, a role puzzling adventure, which is very cool. And it's just like, if you took a slide puzzle, like where you're trying to get like the numbers in order or whatever and you're sliding them around. But that is like your main way of navigating the world. That's how you solve puzzles. That is how you communicate with people. That's kind of sometimes how you ruin people's day. And it is like suggested that like maybe that's some sort of either special power you have or a curse. TBD. But that's shaping up to be a very, very fun one. And then I also played deep sleep labyrinth and which is another kind of Silent Hill-ish like that's in more of a pixel art style. Curious about it. Just very curious about it. I don't know. I might have to give the demo more time, I think, to just see if the story grabs me at all. Yeah, the concept is kind of cool. The whole idea is that you're like lucid dreaming, trying to find out what happened to your brother who was very into lucid dreaming. But yeah, I wasn't sure what to make of it. Watching you play it. It's just kind of like, I mean, at least in the very beginning, it just felt very slow paced. And not even in how the story rolls out, but just how quickly you can walk. It's just very slow. Which I can appreciate to an extent, but also I would like to walk a little bit faster through this haunted house. Thank you. And then also played the after love EP demo, which is from the same studio that did Coffee Talk and Coffee Talk to takes place in Jakarta. You play as a guy in a band whose girlfriend passes away, but sticks with you in like a haunting kind of way. Just kind of like- A casual friendly haunt. Casual friendly haunting. Yeah. I'm just like, oh, I'm going to go do this. And then she'll chime in and be like, oh, did you do remember to wash the dishes? I don't know. That's not anything that happened in the game. But like that was just, I think something that's really, really very, very, very cool and interesting about that game is that everything is text-based. Everything comes over. You just like read texts, but you can hear your girlfriend's voice. And she is the only voice acted part so far in the game. And that is like, I think, incredible game design. I think that is an awesome decision. It was like, like really, really stuck with me. I think I'll probably pick that game up. I'm going to play it a little more, I think just to see, I guess for lack of a better phrase, like what the loop is going to be. Because there are like rhythm game moments, which I thought were really nice. It's a very forgiving rhythm game in the fact that like, if you miss a button or like, if you miss something, it doesn't fuck the song up, which is something I always feel so bad about when non-rhythm games do that within their like rhythm mini games. You know, I'm like, if this isn't the thrust of the game, I don't need to know that I played the wrong note, please. Just like, let me move on. But anyway. And then off the stream, actually, I played lock, L-O-K. I also played this today. Okay. Yeah. Tell me about it. Because it's like, it's like a weird little word game. Yeah. If you're not finding words. Yeah. So it's, I think the idea is like, you are growing these little creatures who have their own language. And so you're like learning their language. But the way that it works is you have these like tiles and you're trying to spell the words that you're learning. And each of them has a different effect where like, if you spell the word lock, L-O-K, then you get, you can like, all the tiles are white. And then whenever you spell letter, they turn black. And then like, if you spell lock, then you can turn another like tile black. And then you learn another word, which is T-L-A-K. T-L-A-K. And when you do that, you can turn two adjacent tiles black. And so you're basically figuring out, okay, how do I, you know, what's the order in which I do this and fill in these tiles so that I can fill it out completely? That's as far as I got. I only got to those two letters and then hopped on this call. But yeah, it's a very clever like game play mechanic. And I can see it going a lot of interesting directions. Yeah. There is a third word in the demo that is TA, which lets you, if you choose a letter, it turns all of that letter. Black. So like, TA lets you, like, if you hit K, it turns every K black. So that adds another element of like, what order am I solving the, am I finding these words in? Because I think also another thing that introduces is like, once, for example, if we had a row of like five white tiles and then there's another white tile below that, and you spell L-O-K in the middle of those top five, stick with me. Now the middle three are black and lock lets you make another one black. And let's say we make the bottom middle white one black. Now the two white tiles on either side of the word lock are adjacent to each other, technically. So you also have to think of like, when I'm filling these tiles in, what tiles am I now making adjacent to each other so that I can use TA-L-A-K to then fill those in, even if they're like on opposite sides of the board, they're still technically adjacent as long as every tile between them is black. Or how do I like, spell, you know, one word in between some other letters that once that word is filled in, those letters will be adjacent to each other to make a new word. It's really, really fascinating. Sometimes I play games and I'm like, how did you think of this? It is so like novel and interesting. It's very cool. You can wishlist the game on Steam, of course, but you can also go to the website, which they have a spiral bound paper puzzle book of lock. No way. Oh my God. On the page, it says lock is meant to be played on paper. So I think it was made as like a as a puzzle book first, and now they're making a digital version of it. That's so cool. Yeah, I'm very, I'm really, really curious about how it feels to play on paper, because I feel like there were many times where I fucked up and I would felt really bad. It comes with a like plastic sheet that you can put over the pages so that you can dry erase, which is also very cool. But yeah, I don't know. I'm very, I part of me was very close to buying the puzzle book. I might. Yeah. I'm just so, so interested in how that would work like in physical space. Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah, cool game. Very cool. Yeah. What else were you playing? So I also played a game called Techno banter. Oh, I don't know this one. Yeah. So this is a really stylish game takes place in, I don't know if I would call it like a cyberpunk city necessarily, but it has, I mean, maybe it is a cyberpunk city actually is, but it has that aesthetic. And the idea is like, you are the bouncer at a club and you're responsible for deciding who gets into the club based on like certain criteria where it's like, okay, if someone isn't actually interested in, you know, the DJ who's playing tonight, you know, don't let them in because they're going to bring down the vibe or like someone who's aggressive. And so like you, you are observing these people as they come up to you and asking them questions to try and figure out like, should I let them in or not. And there seems to be like, I don't know if it's like a role playing mechanic necessarily, but there are, there are definitely skills where like if you, because you have to like observe, you know, these people to like see if you can suss out what their deal is. And like, at some point, I saw in like the top corner of the thing, like plus two to observe or something like that. So like there's some kind of like dice rolls or something maybe happening in the background there. So yeah, you do that, you try to figure out, are they right for, you know, are they right for whatever's going on at the club that night? And if you decide not to let them in, then you have to enter combat, but combat is exchanging insults with them. And you have to like pick the right insult, like you sort of like a quick time, like, okay, what is like the best comeback to the thing that they just said. There's another mechanic where, oh, I don't remember what the how it worked, but it's like it's like another thing that you do with the insults that I'm forgetting because I played this game like more than a week ago. But then like once once you've like gone through the whole line, you can go in and like see what the vibe is at the club and like if it's good or whatever. We're noting if if you lose the like, you know, insult combat, then like they go in. So so like it's high stakes because then that can like bring down how good the party is. And if that happens, like at the end of the night, you go into your boss's room, who is this like amazing frog lady, and you sit down and she's like, okay, so like this was like a, you know, four star party, like, you know, she sort of like tabulates it and that determines how much money you make, which I think then goes into like how good you can make the next party. I didn't like get much further than that. But yeah, it was super interesting. It seems like there's a lot going on under the surface, both mechanically with those like skill check type things. And also with the story, there was like sort of like side quests that popped up where it was like a cultist showed up and was like, I need to talk to the coat check girl. And you're like, okay, well, I'll tell her to come in after I'm like done with the line. And I don't know where that goes, because if you go inside and like talk to her, it's like, this is like not, you know, if you buy the full game, you'll get to see where this is. It's just not in the demo. But like, very interesting. Yeah, it seems like there's something interesting going on with the story there. So techno banter was really fascinating. And I will probably pick that up. Yeah, I always love seeing people do less oppressively sad versions of papers, please, because papers, please is a game that I love very, very much. But that our friend Matt has made a either wrote a blog or made a video about like, Hey, why the fuck would anybody play this game? This is like, so real. And so many people have their lives ruined by stuff like this, which is like completely valid. And it's like, yeah, it's a very upsetting game. I've never played papers, please. But from what I've heard of it, I always just assume that it was a game that you only play once, just to like, receive the message of like, how that feels. But like, I don't know. There's a way, I think, to just get caught up to like totally disconnect yourself from the social commentary of it and just get caught up in the like, mechanical puzzle commentary of it, not commentary of like the puzzle, like the mechanics of it, because it is just like a puzzle game of like, you're trying to like, people who are from this country, basically, like, aren't allowed in today for XYZ reason or whatever, which is like, you know, if you think about it for more than one second, it's very, very upsetting. But I had the luxury of being a white guy playing it at 17. So not having to think that hard. Right. Right. I did. I remembered what the the other combat mechanic is, which is you end up like having basically it's like a, what is it called? Your hair, I'm going to share the image with you, but it's like, they're basically like, throwing like projectiles at your little character on the screen, and you have to like, dodge, you're like, dodging there. Yeah, bullet hell. Thank you. You're dodging their insults, essentially, is the way that that goes. It's like, if they get too aggressive, don't engage with them anymore, just dodge until they like, you know, tucker themselves out. So yeah, it's just a really, it's such a very clever, oh, that's my go to bed. Oh my God. Yeah. That was your go to bed. I know. Well, it's like, start getting ready for bed. You dumb bitch. Don't stay up until midnight watching TikToks. It never works. Anyway, yeah, techno banter. Check it out. It is sort of like light and fun and tongue and cheek. Cool. Yeah. And then the last one that I wanted to talk about was Zen Garden, which I thought was going to be just like, sort of like, oh, decorate your little garden. It is not, it's a puzzle game. It's like a tile shifting puzzle, where like, you're trying to basically line up the furrows, the like sort of like grooves in these tiles in the garden. Very cool. Yeah, it's fun. It's a nice, it's just like a very relaxing, like nice music. The, you know, the art is very pretty. Just a nice little vibe. Yeah, I'll have to check that out, because I did, this sounds harsher than I mean it, but I did kind of write it off as like, we talked about it on the last weeks into the Aether Extract Summer of like these diorama games, which are just like, you're presented with like a garden or like a toy, and then you play with the toy for a little bit and like, that's the whole game and there's no like objective really. It's just to like kind of have a good time, you know. I don't want to have a good time. I don't want to have a good time. Yeah, but hearing it be like a puzzle game is actually got me a bit interested, so I'll have to check that one out. Yeah, it's a nice, just like, I don't know if you're listening to a podcast and want something to do. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, how hard do the puzzles get? Are they just kind of... I did not get very far, so like, but like they were, they got challenging. I love that. There was one that like, I had to took me some time. That was sort of the last one I did before I pulled up another demo. Beautiful. Oh, there's also one last one for me. Sorry, there's there's this game called Roboto, R-U-B-A-T-O, where you're like a weird little frog and you move around by like, it's like platforming, but then you can also use your tongue to like swing and grab stuff and it's just so wild. The first level of the tutorial ends with a toilet, a person who is a toilet for a head being like, oh my god, it's Roboto. You're so cool. It's so weird and just like so silly. In the like 10 minutes I played of it, it's so goofy and exactly what I want a game about a frog to be. And also, the icon is looking at me in my desktop right now is a very sassy little frog. I mean, it is Roboto, but he's just like, just kind of staring at me, just kind of like, hey, do you want to play the demo? Anyway, so that's that. And I also played the star talker demo again, of course. Weird that you can't drive and use the walkie-talkie at the same time. That's awesome. It is very strange. Yeah, that was, I played it as well and like was having a great time until that moment and like ran off the road because I was like, how do I drive and also do this? The answer is you can't. You can't. Yeah. It's very interesting that there's also not like an autopilot for like the those specific moments. Like when it introduces the walkie-talkie mechanic, you're like going through like a little highway freeway thing. It's very interesting that there's not like a auto take me through this thing. Yeah. Anyways, cruise control. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that's Star Trek. I'm just going to buy it. I'm going to play it. I'm going to have a good time. Sorry. Yeah. Cool. Anything else today? That's all I've got. Cool. It's past midnight. I'm so sleepy. Go to bed. Random access midnight. Nope. Thank you for listening to this. If you're supporting us on Ko-fi and hearing this early, thank you so, so, so, so much to do that. For doing that, if you want to hear this earlier, you can support us on Ko-fi and you get access to the member feed, which also has the main episodes on it at the normal time they come out. But that way you don't have to be subscribed to two feeds if you don't want to. Yeah. So. Another thing we are doing there is we are going to start having supporters help us choose some of the games. Like, I think once a month, we'll sort of have a poll and you will get to help us select one of the games we're going to play that month. Yeah. So if that sounds fun, do you get on in there? Yeah. That's very fun. And hey, maybe Ko-fi, I'll give us an extra hundred bucks because they said if you use our polls feature, we might give you a hundred bucks. I said, oh, cool. We said, okay. Because apparently that's a new feature. So shout out to Kim for getting on that right on right right when the feature dropped. I did it before I even knew it could make us money. Thank you so much for listening to this. We'll be back next week. If you're listening to this on Friday, we will be back on Monday with Greece. Yeah. Very, very good game, very fun discussion. Hope that you like it as well. And we'll see you when we do that one. See ya. Bye. [Music] P.W.G. The worst garbage to all mine.
