 Alright, I'm Rym. I'm Scott. We are the hosts of Geeknize. It is a podcast. We've been doing this for a long time We are extensively experts on games or at least we treat someone thinking we are and we're up on this stage Yesterday we did a panel called the 40 tabletop games you should play You might have guessed it's the same people are back here to do the 40 games you must play. Rym is responsible for the clickbaiting panels. I do the non-clickbaiting panels. Clickbait titles get people into the room. No one wants to come to our I do a high-quality panel not complete bait. No one comes. We do like the real harm of games No one wants to hear about the bad things games might be doing. They want this stuff So let's see what this panel is. First off, these are not the best 40 games I do not want to even try to make a list of the best 40 games Also, it's not even possible. We are not the authority on the best 40 games Especially not to my guess. And these are not the most important 40 games We're not going to tell you to go play King's Quest 1. You probably shouldn't go play King's Quest 1 Seeing the screen chart is enough. But just because a game was important to the industry Just because a game did something groundbreaking does not mean it makes this list It only makes this list if you should play it for some reason This is not the clickbait panel where two dudes sit there and tell you about their favorite 40 games Right. I've seen a lot of people out there. They don't have this sort of trouble separating What's good and what's their favorite, right? It's like Aerobids is room's favorite I love that game. That is literally a game where you run board meetings and are the CEO of an airline Aerobids! Oh, I sent my agent to negotiate for slots in Shanghai. I'm going to open up that route This is actually not for Super Nintendo. This is actually Aerobids Super Sonic. There was an Aerobids one. This is Aerobids two Do not play Aerobids! Aerobids is not good So we at least believe that we can separate what we like from what is actually good There are going to be games that we put on this list that we believe are good Even though we personally don't like them And that's just how it is We're not going to talk about a lot of recent games because they haven't stood the test of time Look at anime as an example. You may love Neon Genesis Evangelion You may hate Neon Genesis Evangelion But you got to admit people are still talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion And there's a reason for that Same thing with games But we're not going to talk about games that have come out very recently Because it's very easy to overestimate the importance of a game you like that just came out This list is in a literal random order because I don't care who wins in a fight between Batman And Puerto Rico the board game Right basically what's going to happen is I'm going to see games appearing on this screen And then I'm going to think of what to say I don't know what word we could put the slides in In fact we are also going to miss a lot of games Because I do not need to tell you that Starcraft exists Also we're only here for an hour and I'm not talking anymore than an hour And I do not care if we miss something Do not try to raise your hand and be like No, no, no, you didn't talk about Quest for Glory 3 The battle for Turner whatever that game is called This game the team had before anything It's like yeah, go away Unlike our 40 tabletop games panel Where I think we have a little more authority to make up Put a rigorous list together There are, you might be aware of this, more than 40 games on earth So it is really hard to make a comprehensive list of games Even 40 that would cover a wide variety of genres So this list is completely arbitrary based on our gut intuition There is going to be I guess some amount of overlap with yesterday Because tabletop games are games I actually made a very specific point of not overlapping With the panel we did yesterday So if you were here because you saw us yesterday We're not going to talk about that many of those games More than zero though More than zero This list will change Every time you see us do this panel the list changes radically We really want to get to other patches for free And this panel is really easy to make Look, it's something that all we have to do is change the slides With different games And then it feels like he's not repeating himself It doesn't have to come up with a new panel, which is hard work But there's something very important about this panel Because when we first started putting this together I realized something really sad A lot of the games that I think you should play Are not playable anymore Who here has played Tribes 2? Oh, let's get a game though That was so PC after this We are getting on I get my screen views are ready Tribes 2 was the greatest thing ever And you basically can't play it anymore Who has played Weapons Factory for a quick two mod? Okay, the one guy No LAN party after this one We gotta talk You'll have to learn Tribes 2 instead So the rule is there are a lot of games we would put on this list It cannot be on this list Unless an average attendee of a convention like PAX Could play it with relatively little monetary And informational expenditure Right, we're like I have like a computer science degree So there's a lot more games that I could theoretically make work Than the average person So I have to, you know, those games don't make me Yeah, if you can get it on eBay it counts If you have to like Find a dude who knows a dude We're not You have to install 10 patches Instead of a fake server Yeah, don't download EXEs in Torrents To get these old games to work But the important thing But the whole reason we do panels like this Is that one of our sticks with our podcast geek nights Is that we want people to be like cross pollinated If you're a nerdy like gamer person We want you to also check out anime and comics And computer science and all that stuff And in games it's real easy To just be that person who plays magic You've met a lot of those people There are people who came to the PAX They're hanging out on the top floor of the Regency The 7th floor And they're playing magic all weekend And that's great, magic is cool Alright But that's not really what geek nights is about Alright, so the idea is If you want you to play all kinds of games Games you're not used to All, you know, games that you might hate You should play them anyway Just to see what the deal is You understand them And then when you go to play games you like And you can count on new games You go, ah, this is like that game I played before And slowly you reach the expanding brain And then the galaxy is running You become not just a gamer But a player of games Let's get right into it Dance dancing Is probably one of the best rhythm games ever made And the reason I say that Is that there are a lot of rhythm games That are just tapping or something Yeah There are a lot of rhythm games That try to be real full on dancing And I'm more subjective Dance Dance Revolution is this magic mix Of it is a real skill-based game That you can have tournaments in And it is closer to dancing than you might expect Right, when I first saw this I said, wow, that is the stupidest thing I've ever seen I'll never do that And then I was like, oh wait, I am adult I will be willing to try anything No matter how stupid it looks And then I said, okay, this is really stupid But I'm going to continue doing it For the next five, six years I see Scott doing this And I'm like, Scott, that is really stupid And Scott's like, you should try it And I was like, okay, I'll try your stupid dick Oh, ooh But basically, the DDR is like, you know As far as rhythm games go This is the best way to experience That flow that you have on the game controls you When you first play, you're trying to look at the arrows And you're like, right And then eventually, it's like You didn't even see the arrows It's like reading the matrix And then your legs are just moving Your brain somehow So you, you know, you don't know what that feels like So Super Mario 3 Of all the platformers that have been out there We always fight with each other Whether or not it should be Super Mario World Super Mario 3 was one of the best-selling video games In history And there's a reason for it It is one of the tightest platformers ever made There's a reason Super Meat Boy is SMB Super Mario Brothers Super Meat Boy is a spiritual successor to this craft It's got tight controls To the point that a lot of people that these days In like modern Mario games People complain they feel a little slippery They feel a little loose Mario 3 just has this perfect tightness to it Like the timing, the little details And more importantly, Mario 3 Really pushed the limits of the Nintendo Entertainment System If you play this game And you look at what other Nintendo games look like Like in that era or earlier Nintendo games That really shows you the power of a good programmer So I couldn't just say Tigris and Euphrates again Because we talked about that yesterday Yeah, but the guy who made this game Ranokinissi, one of the best support tabletop game creators ever Who's still making games out there Happened to come out with this like a year or two ago Yellow and Yaxi It's basically 90% the same game as the Great Game Tigris and Euphrates That he made 20-something years ago That we still play to this day He just changed the square map to a hex map And then adjusted the rules as, you know, as appropriate And then additionally made some, you know, little smoothing A little polishing of little quirky rules in the old D&E And there you go Yellow and Yaxi, still in the game again So a lot of you might be primarily video gamers Some of you might be more tabletop-y But if you haven't played one of those like serious-looking German board games that we're all playing in the tabletop area Go try one of them out There's a copy of this in the library Yeah, these games are not as intimidating as you might think These games are why we are good at all games These games, there's a lot to these games And you really do yourself a disservice You can at least try them Skip the Munch games and all those other tabletop games Try one of these meaty ones If you need a meaty one to try Check that game in particular out Play it with four people And you might discover a whole new world of gaming So I like to say that Chrono Trigger was both the height and end of a genre Like people have been trying to make a spiritual successor Or a direct successor, Radical Dreamers, for a long time And no one succeeded No one has been able to capture this Despite an entire industry desperate to make a sequel to this game This game is like the perfect storm of JRPGness You have the curatorial of the artwork going on You have the Super Nintendo Regaining full power finally To make something big like this The different endings, all that kind of stuff But the real reason I think this is up here Is the JRPG to play Is because most JRPG's are like unplayable grind tests You got it, you don't have time for that guy I love you, Final Fantasy IV I love you, Final Fantasy IV Most people seem to be adults here I see some younger people But there's no reason to waste your life Grinding and leveling up some character Whatever, Chrono Trigger You can run past most encounters without having to fight It's just all those quality of life things That nowadays would be seen as a luxury It's like this game had all of them Way before And then there was a regression in JRPG's Going back to grinding afterwards Like did you not realize what made this game so great Was not having to put up with that BS But it also shows something interesting Because part of what made this game so great And there are other games this happened to We'll talk about later on Is that it's really easy to overlook How much human effort it took to make this game The branching stories Like all the little details This game cost way too much to make And took way too long to make And it is not feasible to make games that way It never has been, it never will be This game was a unique product of its time And nothing will ever be like it again Until AIs can just make games for us AIs, make me a Chrono Trigger So ever meet some old people And they're playing like bridge or Uker And then nobody even heard of Uker The card game Okay Okay Okay Lot of nerds at conventions Don't think about card games Like hearts When they're thinking about the games They play at PAX Like when I was a kid And I would watch anime and be like Oh, I don't watch those American cartoons Because I am a proper weeaboo That wasn't even a word when I was a kid So don't overlook these old style trick-taking games If you want to see why they're fun And why people play them And what the deal is Fantasy Wizard is the way to get into that world Right, now you can get regular old wizards Just grab yourself a deck of cards I think you have to add maybe like A few jokers to it To turn it into enough cards You need four Zaubergers Because it's a German game So those Zaubergers are Zaubercrafting I need four gnaws To be like the anti-gestured wizards Or whatever But you need a little two more cards Than 52 to play I think you need 60 cards But if you get that fantasy wizard You get this amazing artwork With Zaubergers on it The best part about this game Is we have a friend His name is Scott Johnson He looks exactly like one of these cards Yeah, the two of humans It might as well be his driver's license But the deal with this game Is like trick-taking is a mechanic That is starting to creep into A lot of indie tabletop games You're seeing trick-taking up here And you're even seeing game designers Designing trick-taking Not knowing it already exists And giving it weird names And doing it in weird ways The best thing about trick-taking games Is one of those genres Where it's like once you learn One trick-taking game And you learn like the rules And the terminology I can teach you a new trick-taking game By just saying oh yeah You pass Guido left And this is Trump And you can also have no Trump And you have to follow suit And this and that And then you know how to play A new trick-taking game And you can just something But once you learn one It's like a snowball You just learn every trick-taking game In the world in like two seconds each And it was funny the first time I was trying to teach our friends this game And I was sort of like okay So here's how we picked Trump And someone's like what's Trump? And I was like oh Oh I actually And it's like I had to teach all these things That I'd never even considered Being in a rule book before I just I knew them when I was born I guess because I was born in Michigan Wizard is like you know The reason we pick wizard Is not only because You can buy this fun deck of cards But because it's just really easy It encompasses all the mechanics And it has a lot of replay value All the trick-taking games They involve cheating And stuff like that you don't want Yeah Yooker is only fun if you cheat So There's a reason There's a reason Counter Strike Is still being talked about And that's because There's a reason Steam exists You may forget Many of you may be too young for this Steam existed solely To patch Counter Strike Why don't a lot of people Raise their hands for Tribes too But yeah Back in the day When you wanted to play Counter Strike You had your Half-Life That you installed from a CD-ROM And you could go to counter-strike.net You click a link And there'd be a list of mirrors That was like five pages long You click on eight of them Until you find one that works You download a file Run it And you would install the Counter Strike mod Into Half-Life And then you know Valve was like Man This is a really awful experience for everyone And they created Steam And all Steam did Was update Counter Strike We didn't do anything It didn't have a store It was just a Counter Strike update We did a panel Back in like 2009-2010 At Pax West Called it Greedlessly Unrealized Potential And we were talking about genres that are forgotten Or things people don't talk about We had this beautiful slide I still have a screenshot of it And it shows The top five games being played on Steam In that year Number one was the new Counter Strike Number two was the old Counter Strike Counter Strike is really important Because it's actually really fun And it's basically the same game Just being updated slightly As time goes on And it's still a competitive e-sport It's still real You should at least see what the deal is What are the games lasted this long As like a competitive e-sport All the other like quake It's like gone Right And it's also a very pure and focused experience It does one thing very well Like very specific kinds of gun drama So it's a little bit the new hotness But I'm on the stage I'll say this It's not too soon to say In my professional opinion This is the best Zelda game ever made I'm just gonna say it I'm just gonna say it Because this does what they wanted to do with Zelda 1 This evokes the feelings That they were going for with Zelda 1 Technology just limited them Yeah I mean I still like I feel in my heart For like Zelda 1 It's still the real That Zelda But it's like I think back to when I was a kid And I was like yeah I was just burning every bush Plumbing every run I memorized that I know that map better than I know the map of like New York City where I live But I see new people Trying to play Zelda 1 And they like don't even know what to do And it's like That's the problem And it's partly game expectations Like I had very different expectations of games Back in the NES era So in the modern era This game gives kids and just adults And really anyone today The same feeling I got When I was a little kid And I put that gold cartridge in my NES for the first time Not even knowing what to expect This game is a triumph And the other thing about this game Is that it made every other open world game Look like garbage So Metroidvania has been a popular genre for a long time And people really focus on thevania side of that And they kind of forget the Metroid side of that Yeah I mean if you look around You know since a lot of indie games Keep trying to make Metroidvania It's right There's like Hollow Knight Which is pretty good Right What's in some other ones I mean Bloodstained Virtual of the Night Is actually good Yeah that's good But it's more of a Symphony of the Night Than a Super Metroid Right There was a Shadow Complex thing That was really good But really small Right And it's like even after all these years Much like with the Chrono Trigger situation It's like no one's still really Beating Super Metroid in its own game Not even the other Metroid games Super Metroid If you just play it on an emulator today Or you have an SNES It feels like a game That might even be made by an indie developer today Like it's a pretty tight experience That is pretty rare for SNES games But yeah if you you know You've probably seen people play Super Metroid You know you've probably heard of it But it's like It's surprising how many people haven't actually sat down And beaten this thing It's kind of hard actually It's like surprised Like you don't think it's that hard Because you know you just walk around And shoot guys It doesn't seem like too many bad guys But like even professional people Playing this game die a lot Especially at particular bosses But it's not so difficult That you can't level up your skills And beat it And those skills transfer to a lot of other video games So if you get good enough to beat Super Metroid It's not a lot of video games You're not going to be able to beat Except for like the stupidly fake hard ones But it also shows like In the Metroidvania genre Thevania side of it Is a lot about leveling up Giving your character like More capabilities Based on numbers and stats And hitting things And like magic spells and all that The Metroid side is more about the exploration Irrespective of leveling up You don't level up by killing dudes in Metroid You level up by finding an item That gives you a new power More like a Zelda game So they're very distinct genres That got merged into one genre I think we're going to see them separate again In the coming decade of indie development Super Is a way to experience What it feels like to play this old PC game Called Mule Crossed with a German board game Like Yellow and Yangtze On a Nintendo Switch Right So we've beta tested this game It's not like the greatest game In the history of the world But it is super duper unique I've never seen a game do what this does This game's sumer is a indie game Which has been at PAX before I think Yeah In the N.I.S. ball Is basically a board game Except there's a real time component And they've just implemented The real time component as platforming Real time worker placement Run to the spot you need Quickly Right So where it's like you play a board game And it's like maybe like a Gricola If anyone knows that game It's like I choose like you know Get cheap I choose make a baby You take turns Here it's like alright everyone One two three go And you run And one person's running for the meat And another person's coming for the goat And another person's running for the You know bath or whatever it is And then I'm just alone Like oh oh crap Alright and if you stop and it's like I guess I'll go to the bakery It's left I don't know where I'm gonna be though It also does the thing to Mule dude Old PC game But this idea of we have these auctions You're like bidding on a power And the auctions are real time too You just drag your slider Of how much you're willing to bid And you see everyone else's sliders in real time And everyone's just moving their bids like this Constantly You're pushing up pushing up The last second you fall back And the other person pays a lot more The timer runs out And then that's what everyone pays It's real fun There's not currency is good by the way There is nothing else like this There's no other game like that So Let's dig down I wore a dig duck shirt today And I wore a dig duck shirt today We uh We like dig duck shirts I don't have Let me know Dig duck tour is pretty good as well But we're talking about dig dug Here's the deal Most old arcade games Not actually that fun No And a lot of them Not actually that good And a lot of them That are fun Are only fun in like a very short window Right It's like you play Space Invaders There's a missile command Or something like that Right And it's like all right All right this is fun And you level one You level two And it's like it's the same level Over and over And there's not a lot And once you get good at it It's like I saw a guy Creating like an asteroid's world record And it's like you literally would Go and play some asteroids To get a bunch of lives Then like walk away Go to the bathroom Eat lunch Take a break And then come back to it And still be alive It wouldn't be game over And then you place the mark at the score up Right And it's just like this endurance thing With all most of those old games Right How long can you keep going How long can you keep the score going up Dig dug has lots and lots And lots of nuance And there's not a lot of endurance Because you're going to die Yep Even if you're good at this game Like 15, 20 levels then You're going to reach your limit Unless you are a professional And it's like other games You just learn a few techniques And dig dug It's like it's surprising How many higher level techniques You can learn as the game goes on It's like at first You're waiting for a guy To trap him under a rock Then you're pumping guys To pause them underneath the rock And then releasing the rock Right It's it's it's And you're kiting like eight guys At the same time On both sides of you With like You're getting your tricking guys To come to the bottom of the board Because there are more points If you kill them down there So this is the game to play If you want to really experience What old arcade games we're like Without playing all the bad ones So how many of you have played Dungeons and Dragons? Most of them How many of you have played an RPG That is not Dungeons and Dragons And not Palladium And not uh Any D20 type thing Not about Pathfinder Pathfinder goes down Okay I'll get some of the people out there Anyway But basically most RPGs out there Are basically just D&D with some different name on it Pathfinder is D&D Right It's the same freaking game Right You're in Dungeons You have stats It's mostly about Chilling monsters and leveling up And all that stuff Right Burning Whale is the RPG That made me realize Oh that's not what all RPGs have to be Yep This nerdy dude By the name of Luke Crane Was at some dumping convention In New Jersey And I was walking by his table And he's trying to get me to play His indie RPG And I really did not want Anything to do with this guy But I sat down I thought Okay what Is it D&D with D30s Like what have you figured out And then I had an experience So I came back and like Scott there's a game other than D&D and Scott was like Bullshit I was like no I was like I've seen those other games I've seen the Gerps in the riffs So I don't have to go anywhere near those We don't have time to get into Like the deal with this game So we're trying to talk about 40 games But I'll put it this way Here's an example of how this game works You know D&D You're right your backstory My uncle was Kelvin Blackstaff And I am a half elf With gold fleck purple eyes And no one would listen to that That's your backstory That's everyone listen That's a lot of people Someone else writes a backstory like that I know you're out there Yeah I see you I see you And no one cares about that Because that stuff does not translate Into the stats on your sheet Or any of the rules of the game It's just there In Burning Wheel You can say your character's Harry That doesn't mean anything Whatever he's Harry If you spend points on him being Harry He's Harry to the point that it matters You write the word In the trait section of your character sheet You write Harry And then later in the game It's like oh your Yeah uh Snowstorm comes in And you're trapped out in the cave It's getting cold I'm Harry I'm fine I guess you get closer Plus one uh you know dice Here's another example You're writing your backstory Kelvin Blackstaff is my uncle And the DM's like yeah Sure whatever In this game if you spend points Kelvin Blackstaff is your uncle That's it You bought him He's yours You're in a town It's like oh I go into town To find Kelvin Blackstaff In this town And it's like you're the player And you're saying that someone's in the town And you roll the dice And the dice will say Whether he's in the town or not And if you fail Well he's not in the town But maybe someone else is But here's the nuance Here's where you can see why This RPG is so amazing It costs 15 points to buy someone Like Kelvin Blackstaff To be your uncle It costs 14 points If he hates you More fun than success And this is an RPG that embraces them A few years ago And the kids were like All our friends kids started playing tag And we were like oh We'll play tag with you And we started to get a little competitive A little serious Then we scared the kids away And now it's a bunch of 30 year olds Running around playing tag I've seen that like professional tag I'm like you do for something Yeah you don't need to do that I kind of want to get into that That's all you Omegathon finale Just tag on tag That's a little dumb Two people So But you put tag up here But what we really need Is you should play sports Right and you know There tends to be this dividing line Between like nerds and sports But like sports are games Sports are just a subset of games Sports belong at tax Look at a photo of any sporting event Half those dudes are cosplaying But the other thing is We played two games this weekend That were board games That had a mechanic That we both recognized Because we don't let a game design Consulting and stuff Or we're like That's just a no tag backs rule Ooh Tags rules are pretty elegant When you think about it And especially if you look at the advanced No tag back rule And if you understand why that is a rule All right Here's a weird indie Japanese Why don't you put the picture in the middle Of the slide Because I updated these slides Like last night Okay So here's the deal This is a cooperative trick-taking game We're talking about trick-taking games Yeah, but this is a co-op Trick-taking game You're all trying to beat the board But you still can't talk to each other You still can't cheat Like you would in Euker You've got to play tricks And buy the cards you're playing Like in trick-taking games Imply to the other people at the table What they should play So you achieve the correct outcome This game is unique and amazing And the main reason you should play Is not just for all that But because it's a Japanese indie game The Japanese indie tabletop scene Is exploding right now And there is some neat stuff Coming out of there And not just Japan But it's like, you know Obviously Europe for board games But it's like There's a whole world Right that we live on And a lot of people only look at The things that they can find easily In their own language I go through a lot of effort To find out like What music is coming out of Some crazy countries in Africa What board games are being made in Russia It's like Go out and look And whatever you're into Go find what's happening Just in the present But in the past In other parts of the world It's like There are all these hidden gems You've just never been able to see And now we have internet So they don't need to be hidden From you anymore So this is the only good WarioWare game There are a lot So if you don't know This is the GameCube WarioWare There are many other WarioWares This is the one And there's a big reason for this This was the era when Nintendo I think was the most innovative They had been in a long time When they made the game GBA Link controller Connect Game Boy advances Two Game Cubes And they made like Four ultimate gaming experiences And then they just gave up on that For like 15 years I don't know why We can't like have four switches With one TV And have the same thing going on I don't know why either But here's the deal This is the only WarioWare That has actual Real serious good multiplayer And it is amazing Right, the Wii had multiplayer But it is garbage WarioWare multiplayer You don't want that We don't have time to Is where it's at We don't have time to really explain The mechanics of like Why this in particular But what I can say is that This is a party game That does what you expect Modern Mario Parties to do But they never really deliver This is the game That actually delivers that experience And you don't have to spend four hours Like you do in Mario Kart And it is real easy to get a GameCube And find a disc of this game And just make it work It is well worth your effort Alright, so we are like trivia games Anybody? Not too many Okay, some number of people But the thing with trivia games Is that if it's trivia that you know Or the whole group sort of has You know it enough Then it can be fun But if you bust out trivial pursuit And it's like Oh, who acted in this movie In like 1970s something It's like you don't freaking know It's boring and stupid Right, you rather know or you don't So the way to make a good trivia game Is to make it where Anyone can play No matter how much they know Someone who knows everything Can play it and enjoy it And someone who knows nothing Can still play and enjoy And score some points This is a game called America It had trivia about American things But it was actually the mechanics Come from another game called Fauna Which is animal trivia By Friedman Fries The guy who made Power Grid Yeah, Power Grid guy Right But yeah, so either game is the same mechanics One of them is animal trivia One of them is American trivia But the way it works is that You have a card And so say, you know It'll be like there's a card for M&Ms Because that's an American trivia game And it was like, okay What year was M&Ms invented? How many M&Ms do Americans eat every year? And what was the third thing? Like what state was the first M&M? What state is the M&M like invented in, right? So now what everyone does Is you, there's three tracks There's a year track There's a number track And there's a math of the US And you put one marker on the number track One on the year track And one on the state And you're trying to guess, right? Which is the right answer to the three questions More like a German board game Like I think Scott knows about this I see he put his like Cube on Massachusetts I'm gonna go next to Massachusetts And I'll still get some points if he's right That's right, it's like horseshoes Just being close, you still get points So like, I know everyone knows the answer is New York Oh my god It's like, well, Rim goes first He took New York I'll just take Connecticut and get my one point Yep This is the first trivia game I've ever actually liked So I want to tell you To play Weapons Factory in Quake 2 Because that's kind of what this game is based on This game is also based on another mod of Quake 2 Called Action Quake Which Action Quake ended up splitting And Action Quake was the inspiration for both Overwatch And for Counter-Strike This game is the only modern game that has taken All of those game design principles For those kinds of old multiplayer team versus FPSs And made a modern game for them This is how to experience That entire era of gaming in one game And I'm not just saying that Because I played this game every goddamn day It plays a game every goddamn day I do play this game every day I've been waiting my entire life since high school To play Weapons Factory for Quake 2 again The only thing that could have prevented this was Tribes 2 Not dying If Tribes 2 still existed, I would never have touched Overwatch But Overwatch, seriously, if you play it You should do your research and like Try to find like people right here talking About all the older games that inspired it Listen to the developers and designers of this game And the talks they've given And the interviews they've given Because they are very open about what inspired this game And this game is like this ultimate expression Of multiple old genres that have died Reinvented for the modern era Don't want to put a lot of VR aims up VR is just now hitting this awesome point Where it's moving from the like niche market Or core market to the expanded market It's not mainstream Grandma's not buying an Oculus anytime soon It's hard to recommend VR games Because even if you know Some people have the money and the space To spy them and set them up It's like okay well that's not a great investment right now It's not too many games There are like 12 good VR games total Right, you know But also some people are unable to play VR games Just because of the accessibility of the thing They may vomit or something Yeah this is so early days of VR But I guess if you're going to play a VR game This is the one You can play this game SuperHunt actually without VR And it's still pretty fun But VR makes it a little bit better Well it makes it The thing is this is a like peak gaming experience Because VR is something entirely new I mean yes there was VR in the 90s It was also known as a turbo vomit machine It was also yeah VR in the 90s is just a TV on your head Alright VR in the 2010s is a little bit different Go find a YouTube video about Sega's attempt To make a VR headset It is terrifying The deal with this game in VR Is that the enemies only move when you move So you're standing there not moving And a guy is there with a gun in your face You start to move a little bit He starts to move a little bit You stop, he stops But it's your whole body It's like being in the matrix You're like And then grab the gun out of his hand and shoot him It is such a weird experience It breaks your brain You take the headset off And it feels weird to be in the real world again Where the people are moving without you moving Yeah He's like that's not gonna stop So I can catch my breath But no you guys keep moving Yeah but if you play on the mouse and keyboard Right it's a little bit less fun Because you just take your hands away from the mouse And keyboard and sit there and think about it Right and you can move But if you play VR it's like You know you have to sort of hold your body in place This game will show you the like Radical potential of VR Even though we're far from fully realizing that So there's a BattleTech video game That's what it is today overlap Yeah there's a BattleTech video game It's really fun you should play it But you're really to appreciate BattleTech And to appreciate what your computer is doing For you when you play a complex game You should fill in all these little dots When your leg gets shot And then roll on a table to find out If the ammo explosion kills you BattleTech Yeah we said this yesterday But most of you were here today BattleTech is like the most complex Table top war age game That you can actually reasonably play It looks scarier than it is Most of the game is just Roll 2D6 Look at a table It tells you If you hit Where you hit And how much you hit And then you have fun filling in bubbles And then the best part Is after you fill in the bubbles Because that's when all the storytelling happens It's like Oh you got hit in the arm Well how much damage to the arm Oh that much Alright let's roll some money Oh your arm fell off It's on the ground And it's like Can I pick my arm up and hit him with it? Yeah roll 2D6 It's a great It's even not There's a bunch of extra rule books But like you don't actually need those The regular old rule book Has the rules For all sorts of ridiculous things Like just about anything you would think You would want to do with the mech I want to kick them Okay I want to jump on a set Okay I want to take the ammo out of my body And like smash them all with it Okay Instead of like that Can I just buy 400 geeks Right yeah You also get the fun of customization I want a mech that's nothing but lasers Okay My mech is overheating I jump in the water It cools y'all It works Your mech wouldn't have overheated If you had more than just a million small lasers Hey it's like Everything is awesome in battle tech So it's worth your time So you gotta play a civilization game And you can't Why is the screenshot Siv 2 When you've written Siv 5 As much as I want you to play Siv 2 That ship has sailed I found my Siv 2 CD around the other day I pirated Siv 2 when I was a kid Because I didn't know you could pirate software Someone just gave me a CD And I was like oh cool like game Civilization 5 was a complete Radical real like redesign of civilization games If you haven't played a Siv game Send Siv 2 Let's never speak of Siv 3 or Siv 4 Siv 4 is okay Yeah Siv 3 Siv 3 is the worst I have no son Right But Siv 5 or Siv 6 They're both really different from each other Like I have a Siv 5 game going on And a Siv 6 game going on Both right now Yup this is what's fascinating Siv 6 did not replace Siv 5 You think of most games Like a game comes out Then there's Call of Duty 2 Call of Duty 3, Call of Duty 4 You kind of replace them as you go on Siv 5 and Siv 6 are both equally fun games That are very different And you play them for different reasons But the game I really want to talk about Is playing these games with other human beings That is a completely different experience Right, so the AIs and all these Siv games Are not the best Even though they've been better or worse over time You really get the game going And you play it against only other human beings And no weird AIs messing up your game Right now In the game They have some built-in mechanisms To let you do this They've always been flaky, garbage, breaky Not good They even just added play by cloud to Siv 6 It doesn't work that way 100% I play a lot of play by male civilization In fact, I have a game I'm in right now This game is in right now And then it says all games 5 I'm in a Siv 5 game that I've been playing for more than two years Because I take a turn every few days And I've just been doing this for a long time I just wake up in the morning and my computer These little top-ups that say it's my turn I take my turn, it takes 5 minutes And then that's it But with a game like this The first point is that When you're playing with human beings You can talk to them Like human beings And have intrigue and politics And our friend freaking Scott Johnson Got the entire world ally against me And then the entire world came upon my shores And destroyed me one day The AI is never gonna pull that off But two You play these games like single player And you kind of blew through turns And you start to get like You don't pay attention that much When you take one turn And that's the only turn you're taking that day You click on all the things You wouldn't normally click on You look inside your cities You play the game with a lot more care You understand the game a lot better And the game is a lot more fun Decisions matter a lot more When you're playing slow With other human beings You can also do what I do Which is take your turn Don't push the next turn button Think about it Push load Take the turn again Think about what's going on I refuse to do that Because I am Optimize my turn perfectly By redoing it over and over I have pride and confidence in my abilities Yeah I have pride and so I make sure that But if you want to play I'll play Cid 5 multiplayer Use this tool called Giant multiplayer robots And if you want to play Cid 6 You have to use a different tool called Play your damn turn Which is also the name That's the name of it It's also the name of a panel We're going to probably run it Pack some plugs Teach you how to save your turn Convince you for Cid 6 Because that won't be us So I don't need to play Why did you put the no one can play this Yes they can It's on good old games You just get it This game is really easy to get So There's a lot of adventure games Like I don't need to tell like Seven max games They come back Then All those point and click adventure games Of the old days And the newer telltale ones Yep They cut Those That genre got reinvented A million times They're back You can play them Of all the types of adventure games That were on PCs in the early days The Quest for Glory series Was the weird one It was different It was unique Compared to the scum games Every other kind of adventure game These games were very open world Every problem has multiple solutions The games are shockingly complex And kind of like Chrono Trigger No one has ever made adventure games Again Like Quest for Glories And I say that even knowing That they made Quest for Glory 5 Quest for Glory 1, 2, 3 and 4 Are like this Not a dead end But like an evolution of gaming That just sort of stopped for no reason And I think this is a genre That is right to be brought back That would compete very strongly With the kinds of adventure games We've seen today And just no one's done it yet So we We're probably watching an old Experimental movie From like maybe the 60s And it's like How come no one's made a movie Like that in the last 50, 60 years This is super old And it's like invented something crazy That no one's ever taken on How'd that happen? Of the four of these games That were made That one too Is probably the best one to play It's like You can play it with a modern sensibility It's not like the adventure games You're thinking of Like Where you have to take the banana And shove it through the door And that's how you solve the puzzle To kill the Nazi Like it's weird Everything makes sense in this game And that is kind of amazing For an old PC game Oh, our stuff Our stuff Yes, I mean There's a lot of these, you know Magic-ish games out there, right? You know, you play cards You collect them You customize your deck You follow the meta Things change, right? Hearthstone is A The cheapest Because you can just play for free You don't need to bring in and pay money Unless you want to win Which you don't really need to Because you're only going to play this For like a week or two, right? But the thing that Hearthstone does That none of these other games I've seen do Is that it knows it's a digital game, right? If you play Magic Online Arena, right? That is still based on real magic It's still good It's a great way to play Magic But it's based on real magic So all the cards Are cards that are from the real world They are cards that you can use in the real world Hearthstone is like Yeah, this card in your hand transforms Into a different card every turn This card plays a random card From all the possible cards And all the Hearthstone when you play it, right? Oh, yeah Add 20 cards to your deck Out of nowhere when you play this card It does all sorts of crazy things That are not possible in a physical card game, right? It's only in a digital card game Because these things happen And that's why the Insanity Fun card comes from So it pays zero dollars to play Hearthstone So we got another RBG here This game has been re-released It's a role-playing game by Margate Baker Called Thousand and One Nights And it's like an Arabian Nights theme Where you all play people in the Sultan's court No one's the Sultan You're just all chillin' in the Sultan's court Lounging on some pillows And by the way, when you play the game You have to lounge And you have to get, like, you know Some dinner You have to get some dates You have to get some vays You have to get some vays You have to get some vays You have to get some vays You have to get some vays You have to get some vays Some character Some lines But here's the deal You play a character in the Sultan's court And what do you do in the Sultan's court? You play role-playing games You're insane All right, so I'm in the Sultan's court Right? And I'm, like, a eunuch in the Sultan's court But I'm telling a story about something And now this story that I'm telling All these people who have characters in the Sultan's court Are now acting as characters in my story That I'm telling in the Sultan's court To entertain the Sultan And the Sultan's not knowing the Sultan The Sultan's in the manor and he's in the scene I may have some intrigue, like I don't like the eunuch So I, like, start to tell my story And I'm just making my scene And I tell the story of a dashing Danuan And of course, I'll play the dashing Danuan And I'll make someone else be the eunuch And say the person I asked to play the eunuch Who is not Scott Because Scott is the eunuch in the real world Well, in the real world of the game The person playing the eunuch has a crotch against Scott So he comes into the scene In the game we're playing inside of the game Dirt to dirt, look at me I am the eunuch and I am stupid Because you can't insult people in the court You can insult them in the D&D game You're playing in the court This game is amazing Sounds hard, but once you sit down and do it It'll take five minutes and you'd be like, oh, okay It's amazing how well people As long as you don't add one more inception level Maybe more You can't be like, ah, one time we were playing 1,000 in one night So I say Doom 2 specifically It's better than Doom 1 It is kind of better than Doom 1 But more importantly, what's one of the iconic things of Doom That double barrel shotgun? That wasn't in Doom 1 That's the main reason Doom 2 is better than Doom 1 Doom 2 was made to include the double barrel shotgun Doom 1, one barrel, Doom 2, two barrel But yeah, Doom is, you know, historic It is remembered It is, like, legendary Because it's amazing It's surprising how many people haven't played Doom It's not that hard to play And I guess there was a period of time Where in order to play Doom You had to, like, get a wad file and install a thing But now Doom is on the Switch You know, you go to Steam, double click and play Doom And because it's only 2.5D It's not actually three-dimensional It's fine to play without a mouse and keyboard Like, the controllers were fine You don't actually have to look up and down If the imp is way up high You just shoot at it and the rocket will just sort of go up It's really easy But the best thing about Doom 2 is that It's completely different from all the modern FPSs You may have played in two ways Number one, it's fast Really fast Not quite fast But still crazy fast You'll die fast You'll run fast You'll shoot fast And also, there's bad guys just everywhere It's, like, sea of bad guys It's not like, you know, you're sort of dodging And then trying to shoot one guy It's like, no, you go out of rooms like a hundred demons And you moan them Serious Sam tried to recreate some of those elements But it didn't get all of them Serious Sam was more dodging a hundred guys Or Doom was more shooting a hundred guys Doom 2 is, like, legit worth playing And fun to play today I bought it on the Switch so they could review it And I caught myself kind of just playing it Pretty late into the night Because Doom 2 is a really fun game The other thing that Doom 1 and 2 have That has been lost in more modern FPSs Is the maze-like quality That comes from Wolfenstein 3D Which predated Doom, right? It's like, all those FPSs, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom 1, Doom 2 Were about mazes Trying to find the exit In this crazy, weird, frickin' math that makes no sense And then after that, they tried to make masks Based on, sort of, like, real-world locations That make sense and you don't get lost And also, do you think, like, game modding Is a relatively new thing? This was the first real FPS Because Wolfenstein was more of a puzzle game Than a first-person shooter Shooting was secondary To, like, the other things Wolfenstein 3D was really mostly the maze With a little bit of shooting This was a lot of shooting enemies But there was a huge modding scene Around this game And people were making crazy mods Even back then Also, mazes are fun Maze is So, we were talking about sports Jungle Speed Is a tabletop sport A very dangerous tabletop sport Which has recently become more dangerous Yeah, you flip cards around And eventually a thing happens And then you gotta grab that heavy piece of wood Before someone else grabs that heavy piece of wood And just want to point out This is truly a sport And what I want to point out Is that this is on the story games discussion forum And that is Jason Morningstar The designer of Fiasco In 2006 Jason Morningstar broke his friend's fingers It's friend Adam Sorry Yes Playing a tabletop sports So, yeah, this game There's a lot of copies of this In the tabletop HD live rank But those copies will come with the rubbery Dog toy totem For babies Who don't want to break their finger And you are not a baby You should go and buy a new Jungle Speed Which has recently been re-released With a wooden totem I think also the French version Never got rid of the wooden totem So, go French We have a friend who's an enforcer In Australia And he's a chill dude But he, like, he's a machine worker So he made a metal totem Don't do that He broke his finger the first time they played And then he vowed to never play with it again If you want to have fun You can also mod Jungle Speed a little bit You're supposed to put the totem In the middle of the table With an equal reach of all players But, you know, some people got a long arm The tables over at the Regency are like huge tables Not really good for Jungle Speed Yup Just put the totem in, like, another room or something And then it's just hot Leave the totem somewhere in the expo hall All right, the Cockroach Poker So, who here's... Cockroach Lock and Poker Who here's played, like, some bluffing games Like, say, like, bullshit You ever played that? Like, you know, yeah, all right Cockroach Poker is Cockroach Poker Cockroach Poker Cockroach and Poker Right This is the ultimate bluffing game All you got is a deck of cards With eight different bugs, right Eight copies of each, 64 cards And all you do is you pick one You slide that song and you're like, yo, this is a rat No, it's not It is Crap Now I gotta take it Right Oh, here's a bat That's not a bat Oh, it wasn't a bat Take it back Right And you think, oh, that's really simple No, no, you play this game The best part about this game Is that you do all this bluffing And have a lot of fun Being like, it's a rat, it's a bat It's a toad At the end of the game One person loses and everyone else wins Four of the same bug in front of you You lose and everyone else goes Woooo So if you have a bunch of sore losers You wanna play with or there are some kids Who are all, you know, yacky or whatever And they're getting upset when they lose At least only one person will be upset And you can all join together And like make it fun of them This is the example of one of those games You can use to trick your like Relatives who don't play games Into playing a game that's actually pretty cool My mom played this game right away She got it, right It takes two seconds to explain the rules It just takes cards and characters from anywhere Really good Yup All right, so I don't like Fortnite at all But I understand it I play PUBG though Yeah, Fortnite, PUBG, all these games There's a reason this is the biggest genre in gaming right now And you really need to understand And play these games to see what the deal is Because people, kids especially Are not playing these games the way you may think they are In Fortnite, they're not that competitive They're hardly chewing at each other They like hang out in Fortnite Like it's a chat room You know what they do? They do in Fortnite what we did With Command and Conquer 1 No rush 20 minutes I want to build my base first PUBG is like I was almost going to say the thinking man's Fortnite No, PUBG is the weirdo Fortnite For 19 seconds So PUBG can't be anything for it Yeah But PUBG, like PUBG and Fortnite Ostensibly are the same game All these like Battle Royale games Are ostensibly the same game But design wise They're radically different They have radically different player bases For very interesting reasons And this is a space you need to understand Play Fortnite at least once To see what the deal is Just free at least Then play PUBG And then wonder why people like us play PUBG Because that game is just a nightmare And I love it PUBG, Fortnite is running around Hitting people with baseball bats And screaming and yelling and flying through the sky PUBG is hiding in the corner Trying not to breathe Hoping no one sees you for 40 minutes So here's the deal I played Magic the Gathering And I love the hell out there And the year is 1992, three and four But when Fallen Empires The expansion came out I thought it was kind of weak Compared to the previous expansions Like the Dodge League And I felt like the game was dying And when Fourth Edition came out I quit playing Magic Because I thought it was dead And chose what I know That also shows how old I am One year after you Yup The last tournament I played in Alliances weren't allowed to be used Because it was too new So the deal with Magic Is that love or hate Magic The money, ethics, everything else There's one thing you cannot deny It's still around And it's bigger than ever And there is a reason for that The other thing you cannot deny And this is a very interesting Like game mechanic Like game design, game industry thing I haven't really played Magic much Since 1994, 1995 And yet if I went into the Magic area at this con I sat down I took some random deck from someone I could just play Magic Mostly Mostly You could read some cards And be a little slow I'd have to read the cards There's a couple of rules I'd have to like Learn about a little bit Mess of things up probably You don't want to lose I mean, phasing Phasing appeared I know what that is Yeah, banding did not Banding is something that does not exist Anymore for a reason But Magic's rules are Shockingly consistent From when I was a little kid to today Despite the game having such a Radical evolution There's also so many things that Magic invented game wise That you see like Tons and tons and tons of other games Not just collectible card games But board games And all sorts of other Even non-table top games And it's like All those things were invented by Magic All right The concept of tapping Like that was like People were like How do I like figure out Cards having colors lost In the corner of how much it cost To play the card Was like invented by Magic basically And also many of you Many of you might be too young to remember That Magic was one of many Collectible card games When the genre appeared And the rest of them Are terrible to a degree That's unfathomable I played that D&D one I played Jihad I played the Star Wars CCG I had the Sim City CCG I'm not making that up Star Trek question Oh yeah Street Story 4 is coming out You should place Streets of Rage 1 and 2 Because they have the best soundtracks Who's like almost any video game ever And you know It's a walk sideways beat guys up game Just about as good as every other walk sideways Beat guys up game All right So I mean You just need something to do And push some buttons When you listen to the best soundtrack ever But also Walk sideways and beat dudes up games Are pretty fun But they tend to fall in these very simple patterns Take any walk sideways beat dudes up game From all of history And they're all pretty much the same Yeah you can play Remember Stingy Ransom's a little different Yeah Because that was an RPG element But it's like You know you can play this Or Final Fight Or you know Ninja Turtles X-Men Or The Simpsons 1 It's like This you know You can see how old we are But it's like Any of them are just about the same Just playing the one with the best music Which is Streets of Rage 1 and 2 And Streets of Rage 4 is coming soon So that's looking good too Yep but also it's an interesting It's sort of a continuity Like these games are 80% style Like the style And the characters and the music Are what make us love some of these games And hate some of these other games The mechanics usually don't even matter that much They just have to be good enough Oh there was a Scott Pilgrim one in 2000 The Scott Pilgrim one was really good And it's gone Like it's almost impossible to play that game Is it? Yeah I wouldn't like DuckTales You can't buy DuckTales anymore Oh they took it off Steam Yeah They had the remaster I would tell you to play the Scott Pilgrim game But it's really hard to get a hold of Alright So you might have played Devinian A deck builder game Well what if a deck builder was made one player And what if a deck builder was actually A roguelike video game on the Switch That's like 20 bucks Well you can get on Steam Steam first right But yeah they actually did come out with this on Switch I think iOS is gonna come eventually But yeah this is a roguelike game So it's like you start the game You pick a character And you're trying to get from To the beginning to the end in one shot If you die it's over You gotta start again Right And it's stateful Right you've got this deck of cards And after every fight you add a card to your deck And when you get to a shop You can spend your money It's like remove cards from your deck Or buy items Or you know buy potions And things of that nature And when you beat certain bosses You get items and relics and things And you enter all of these different fights In every fight you draw cards from your deck And when you shuffle up your deck draw some cards And you get a certain amount of energy each turn So you gotta create a creative feeling And try to kill all the bad guys before you die It leaves you with some same feelings It's like FTL Like a very similar game In terms of like how you engage with it But instead of the mechanic being Build a spaceship and manage it The mechanic is Just play this card game While you fight monsters This game is really addictive Right and you don't level up You just improve your deck You get rid of the crappy cards You put in the good cards You put in cards that are stronger More powerful Have combos with each other Right have nice synergies Like the ship deck And the poison deck All poison cards I got 780 block the other night Yeah you're basically invincible with that The thing is it's a one player game A lot of people worry about game balance In a one player game You don't need any balance Just let it be crazy Sure that's awesome Are you cheating the computer? All right We'll go real quick on this Eat book you can as a game You can all play You just take a bunch of pieces of paper These are some pictures of us playing the game You everyone writes a sentence You pass the paper to left You read the sentence You draw what it is Fold the paper over Pass it to the left The next person looks at the picture Writes a sentence Fold it over Pass it to the left Look at the sentence Draw a picture Just keep going Right so somehow I started by in my bad handwriting Writing two people eating a cactus Emily drew a really cute picture Of two people eating a cactus And then eventually somehow at the end That ended up being someone murdered the chair puppies No these are two These are two different games Those are those chair puppies Sometimes simple games are real fun This is like analog jack box Right well I mean if you've played telephone right When you whisper in someone's ear Around the circle This is just bats machine You just have to alternate between words and pictures All right we got four minutes left So we're going to go a little quicker On the last few games All right Undertale Is a I told you Scouts doesn't even like all these things I don't like this game You know what I would say about Undertale It's important for a lot of reasons But it has the best score Not soundtrack But the best score Of any video game in recent history And I will stand by that That's the hill I will die on All right you're dead Advance Wars Is something I want to tell you to play But it's kind of hard to play Unless you got some old If it was a world champion of Advance Wars It might be I've S-ranked everything You can S-rank in every Advance Wars Has ever been released If you want to experience a like Game that is like Fire Emblem But actually a strategy and tactics game As opposed to a dating simulator Move on the switch Or on Steam Will give you the same feelings I get playing Advance Wars All right so there are a lot of Mario Kart So I'm sure you've played Whatever your favorite Mario Kart is GBA Super Circuit Mario Kart Is the one I played the most And it's also the best one And the reason it's the best one Is because it's the only skill based Mario Kart There it is If you'll drive perfectly If you drive Absolutely perfectly You drift around every corner All right you don't mess up You don't go in the dirt You don't do anything stupid The blue shell will pound your ass And never touch you As soon as you mess up All that blue shell comes But as long as you drive perfectly If you're the best driver No number of blue The red shell will just give up You're like ah fuck So if you want a real racing game With still having the fun of Mario Kart Get the GBA one All right three minutes left Speed around This is an NES game Remade with modern sensibilities It's amazing and unique And there's nothing else like it And pretend there are no sequels It's an actual scary game It is a horror game That says you know what Jump scares scare people We're just gonna make jump scares We're gonna do jump scares In a really interesting mechanical way Where the jump scare is almost the goal So you can startle yourself as an adult Who isn't afraid to haunt at houses This game is like a master class In limited player interaction design Street Fighter 2 I was gonna say it's the first one It's the second one But really it's the first one There were fighting games Before Street Fighter 2 This is actually super duper Street Fighter 2 with all kinds of characters The first one only had like You know eight or whatever character But the point is it was the first fighting game That actually had different characters to choose from That were all different That's why Street Fighter is still a big deal After all this time This is poker designed by a game designer As opposed to history Also with pandas in fun Puzzle games like this Where it's versus puzzle That is still to this day The best one other than battle balls But there's no way you can play battle balls Out of the non-tetris puzzle games Too many of them are just paneled in time Magical drop is the real shit For the hardcore puzzle people Backgammon Yeah Play backgammon Backgammon by itself The way a lot of people play it is a terrible game You have to play backgammon With the doubling cube for points There's no time to talk about why The doubling cube is how old men gamble in backgammon The best reason to play backgammon Is that you can make friends with old men Anywhere on the earth That's the picture That's the picture on this table You see some old guys Boom you're in The doubling cube The way you gamble in backgammon Was invented in the United States Learn all the time Not that long ago Learn the name for backgammon In the language of the place you are going And last at least If you want to go back to basics You want to play an Atari game Atari games are hot garbage That is one of four Really, really good Atari games Fretzel Cowboy Fretzel Cowboy One of the best like two player Direct person video games On earth I legit love this game And will play it this day We are out of time I hope this was enjoyable