Episode 195 - You Can Lead a Horse to Fanta - Uma Musume: Pretty Derby
NOCLIP finishes the URA Finale and stands above all other podcasts.
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about… a currently popular gacha game about horse racing anime girls. Uma Musume (or Umamusume depending on who you ask) is a sort of sports management roguelike game where you build stats on characters and then, in combination with a small six-card deck of support cards, use them to run races in hopes they can better build another character in the future. Add to that one of the most duplicate intensive gacha systems I’ve ever seen attached, and you have the bones of what makes up this game. The roguelike mode of this game, the career, is honestly pretty lenient, which is good given the amount of cards and characters you would have to pull to make a top-tier team. However, it is interesting where the game chooses to spend its resources. Runs are bogged down with enormous amounts of text, every race has an optional “concert” you can watch afterward (which will repeat often, understandably as each contains a bespoke song and animation to accompany it), and character costumes, while unique for each horse girl, are locked for the lower tier rarity characters until you either pull enough duplicates or buy one the games many currencies one at a time from limited shops. The result is a game that you can sink a lot of time into without spending a lot of money, but with limited growth unless you start “swiping” or become friends with someone who does. These kinds of things are expected to an extent within the genre, and it isn’t one with which we have a ton of familiarity, so prepare for a bit of an exploration of our interpretations of the model as we go through it. We’re going to be talking about the time commitment required of you to make the most of your time with this game, what parts of the game could be appealing to what kinds of people, and which of our favorite real life horse stories make an appearance in this game.
Thank you for joining us again this week! I want to use this paragraph to note that there is a bit of a companion video to go along with this episode over on our YouTube channel exploring the actual length of the dialogue, so check out like maybe 10 minutes of that if you’re interested. Are you a dedicated gacha player with an understanding of banners and when and how to pull on them, or are you tourists like us coming in with various, but mostly low, levels of understanding of the model? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about last year’s most popular roguelike, Balatro, so I hope you’ll join us then.
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Episode 194 - Bioshock Ruined Society - The Talos Principle 2
There is only you, and the spark of the podcast that is your mind.
Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be looking at The Talos Principle 2, a first person puzzle game developed by Croteam. The game builds on, and stays pretty close to, the mechanics of the first game, using connecting lasers with various tools as the primary method of puzzle solving. Despite this, it does a good job of feeling familiar while also adding novelty with each new area. There are many new puzzle solving tools and they make you approach the puzzle rooms in different ways, with some of my personal favorites being the ones that allow the player to move around in different ways, which really changes your relationship with the space. Narratively, the game picks up where the previous left off, just very far in the future. The plot focuses on the society that has built up around the designs of the characters from the first game, but the philosophical focus has shifted from questions of personhood common in the first game to questions of humanity’s impact on environments and societal responsibility. This feels like a natural evolution and one that is more reactive to current social issues. We’re going to be talking about the pacing of the game and how it’s unusual difficulty curve is actually a boon, what makes the puzzles of this series as enjoyable as they are, and how we like colors and shapes, y’know, like newborn babies.
Thank you for listening to NOCLIP this week! This was a game we knew we wanted to play but took a while to find its spot. I’m glad we did get around to it, because it ended up being a really good time, but also because it provides a complete tonal contrast to the games surrounding it in the schedule. Were you a fan of the original game and waiting for the sequel? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, so we sort of hope you’ll join us then.
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Episode 193 - Super Death - Spiritfarer
Do you know why we’re here? It’s because I have a small podcast.
Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be talking about Spiritfarer, an incremental, management sim, narrative game. Which is a lot of ways to describe what is really a pretty simple game. The core of Spiritfarer is in its characters, spirits who you pick up from various islands and tend to while they come to grips with their own demise and prepare to go to the “Everdoor.” The storylines presented by each are genuinely heartfelt, the characters are expressive and the art used to depict them is beautiful. Some of their dialog might just be meaningful enough to provoke a strong emotional reaction from you. Many different tragedies play out with these characters, but also successes. Some just need a little more time to finish what they barely missed out on in life, while others fall into a state beyond repair and have to move on by their own will or not. And all of these great character moments and fantastic artwork is stapled onto what I would describe as a fairly slow paced farming sim game. Whether the gameplay of Spiritfarer speaks to you is going to be personal preference, but the game may be worth checking out for the other elements alone. We’re going to be talking about the value of spending more time in the game to building character relationships, the lack of value in spending more time in the game just getting from place to place, and, frankly, the value of our own time.
Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve been on a bit of slow pace with releasing episodes, so I’m sorry if you’re someone who does listen week to week and we haven’t been there, but life unfortunately has been fairly busy and our games have been fairly long, this one being no exception. The pacing of this game may have been a little better before expansions were added, but it’s hard to say playing it in its current state. If you were an early adopter, let us know what you thought in comments, or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about The Talos Principle II, so I hope you’ll join us for that.
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Episode 192 - Life Isn't Worth Living - To the Moon
Don’t tell anyone, but I always thought they were podcasts.
Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be talking about To the Moon, a narrative game focused around learning about characters through one’s memory. I imagine this description will be quite short, because there isn’t a lot I can cover without spoiling the plot. While technically a sci-fi story, the game revolves around one character’s past, so those elements fall more into the background during the meat of the gameplay. The result is that despite the fantastical premise, the majority of the game feels very mundane which has the effect of making it easier for the player to relate to the characters in the story, and it’s very effective because the game operates on a personal level. As you learn more about each of the primary characters, you can start to see the depth they have and that characterization and what you think about their actions and motivations will influence the way you perceive the overall story. It kind of sounds like I’m just describing how to read a story, but engaging with this game the way you would a book or a movie will probably do you better than coming into it like it was Chrono Trigger. This is an extremely well written story with very little interactivity, and it’s well worth checking out if you’re in the mood for something simple. We’re going to be talking about what being a game brings to the table for this experience, how the game goes handles its characters, and we speak ill (and not so ill) of the dead.
Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re on the last of our Mystery May games after this, and it’s so far been a year for actually covering the games that have been on our list for a long time. The tragedy of this game, aside from Johnny’s story itself, is that we waited so long to play it that it feels to me almost obsolete as a game, though not as a narrative, which still feels very well written. Did you feel similarly to me, or were you more engaged due to the interactivity? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we ended up rolling a game that is has been on the list for less time than the other games this year, but one we’re excited for anyway, Spiritfarer, so we hope you’ll join us then!
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Episode 191 - That Might Be A Pokémon - Half-Life
Forget about Freeman, we’re abandoning the podcast.
Welcome back to the podcast! We may be into June, but we’re in the ides of Mystery May right now, and the fates have deigned we play Half-Life, and I am not one to argue with the fates. Half-Life is one of the most influential FPS games of all time, and part of that comes down to the way the game builds a really impressive world for you to play through. Black Mesa feels as vast in some places and stifling in others as it needs to in order to create a tone that is full of anxiety as you conserve ammunition while fighting enemies with genuinely great creature design. It’s part FPS, part horror title, like Doom was, but with this added environmental element that really pushes it to the next level. The other part of its influence is really just about how good the game was when it came out. Levels are mostly well paced, even from a modern perspective, movement through them feels fluid and like you’re using all the parts of your toolbox, and the aforementioned ammo conservation feels well thought out. This one is an easy game to go back to despite it’s age, and it’s still just as moody while still having that over-the-top 90s sci-fi edge to it. We’re going to be talking about Source Engine movement, the pros and cons of Xen, and whether we were or were not excited to turn on pumps.
Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve been consistently hitting the games that have been on our list for the longest this year, and Half-Life is one we’ve been dancing around for a little too long. This game still rules, particularly if you are a fan of its descendants, so if you haven’t given it a shot yet, I recommend doing so. And then let us know what it was like over on our Discord, or in the comment section! Next time, we’re going to be talking about To The Moon, which is not about the stock exchange, so we hope you’ll join us then!
WELCOME TO NOCLIP! We are a fortnightly, book club-styled podcast in which we attempt to go in-depth on an individual video game and figure out what makes it unique. Episodes are around an hour to an hour and a half long and primarily feature free form discussion on themes and mechanics present in each episode’s titular game. Bear in mind that we are not reviewers, so as far as we critique the games at hand, our intent is not to convince you to play any particular work. SPOILER WARNING: Given the depth at which we intend to cover the games in question, those which feature a story, plot, mechanical surprises, fun moments you may not have heard about or otherwise will be fully discussed, likely at length. Given this, it is advised that you go into each episode with the understanding that these elements will most likely be spoiled. If you are sensitive to that sort of thing, we recommend that you either play the game before listening to the podcast, or skip the episode altogether. (Though the latter option would make us all very sad!)
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