Thomas joins Frank to remember Eric Bauza, the modern voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and tells the story of meeting him at DreamHack San Diego and running into him again at WonderCon this year. Then the news: Jonathan Hickman is consulting on Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, and EA has shut down BioWare and canceled the next Mass Effect.

Thomas calls Hickman the Christopher Nolan of comics, pointing to House of X/Powers of X, while Frank goes back to the Council of Reeds in Hickman's Fantastic Four. Both want the Reed and Doom friendship at the center of the movie. On BioWare, Frank lays out Andromeda, Anthem, and Veilguard alongside the $55 billion buyout, and the two talk about the mid-budget games that disappeared and the indie studios filling the gap. Frank closes with his Clayface review: a small, dark DC movie with rough CGI late, a big turn from Tom Rhys Harries, and a villain you end up rooting for. Plus picks for Blade Runner 2099 and Prime's Carrie.

Chapters

• 0:00 Remembering Eric Bauza
• 5:30 LA Comic-Con Plans
• 8:45 Jonathan Hickman Joins Doomsday and Secret Wars
• 25:27 EA Shuts Down BioWare
• 32:19 Triple-A Risk vs. Indie Games
• 41:55 Clayface Review (Spoiler Free)
• 43:34 Clayface Spoiler Talk
• 51:29 Around the Geek Freaks Network
• 54:40 Thomas Recommends Blade Runner 2099
• 57:44 Frank Recommends Carrie

Key takeaways

• Thomas spent 20 to 30 minutes talking with Bauza before a WonderCon panel, and Bauza kept the conversation going from the stage as the room filled.
• Frank wants to see how Steve Rogers reacts when someone pulls him out of the life he finally got to live, and wonders if he still feels the same duty to this Earth.
• Frank's theory: Marvel is stretching the multiverse mess on purpose (two Caps, multiple Spider-Men) so the Secret Wars reset lands harder.
• A story-driven Triple-A game takes five to ten years, so one flop can sink a studio. BioWare had three in a row.
• Frank would rather spend ten dollars at a time on Marvel Rivals skins than $70 on a game he finishes in eight hours.
• Clayface's cop love interest could be cut without changing anything, and darker characters like Swamp Thing, Etrigan, and Constantine suit the same mid-budget approach.

Quotes

• "I stand by he's kind of the Christopher Nolan of comic books." (Thomas)

• "That story is so big and yet that question is so small." (Frank)

• "Not everything has to be $200 million." (Frank)

• "He's a man who's lost his identity. He's gaining a new one. He's desperately trying to reach the old one. And when he finally accepts the new one, he's Clayface." (Frank)

• "My peak of high school and social media together was figuring out your top eight in Myspace." (Frank)

Source

All news discussed in this episode comes from GeekFreaksPodcast.com.

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Listener questions

Which BioWare game are you going to miss most? Send that, plus questions and topic ideas, to thegeekfreakspodcast@gmail.com.

Survivor 51 castaway Danny "Kilby" Kilby joins Frank to talk about Noodle Goose Games, the Canadian studio he co-founded with Karen to make games for autistic youth and now games for everyone. He breaks down why a good video game should be fun as a board game first, how Balatro found its audience through a Big Brother streamer, and why he thinks the current wave of industry layoffs opens a door for indie developers.

The studio started over a bowl of noodles and a three-day sprint to incorporate before a funding deadline. From there, Kilby explains how Noodle Goose funds development with profits from live events instead of loans, why social deduction games like Among Us and Mafia help teach kids to spot a scam, and what he learned at game developer conferences about getting people to care. He and Frank also swap notes on Switch 2 versus PlayStation Vita loyalty, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's long road to a publisher, and the studio's next release, a Scribblenauts-inspired word puzzle game headed to Kickstarter.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Danny "Kilby" Kilby
• 0:57 How Noodle Goose Games Started Over Noodles
• 5:36 Designing Games for Autistic Youth
• 10:40 Growing the Team and Funding Games Without Loans
• 13:47 Why Indie Devs Have to Market First
• 19:07 Is It Fun on Paper? Playtesting with Balatro and Breath of the Wild
• 26:45 Switch 2, the PlayStation Vita, and Where Indies Sell
• 33:00 Discoverability Tips for New Developers
• 43:29 Layoffs, A24, and Why Now Is a Good Time for Indies
• 55:55 What's Next for Noodle Goose Games

Key Takeaways

• Noodle Goose Games went from a dinner conversation to a fully incorporated studio in about a week so Kilby and Karen could make a funding deadline.
• Their first game was a crisis-skills escape room for autistic youth, and its life-balance point system now forms the base of a coming-of-age time travel game in development.
• The studio funds games with profits from large live events, like a boat party, plus government grants, so a game that sold zero copies would not sink the company.
• Kilby's playtest rule: strip out the art, sound, and animation, and if the core loop still works as a board game, the game is worth building.
• Indie hits often grow from small, devoted audiences. Balatro took off after its creator kept sending it to Big Brother legend Dan Gheesling, who played it on stream.
• Kilby sees layoffs and big publishers abandoning mid-size games as an opening, since players still want games and fewer studios are serving them.

Quotes

• "If you don't book it, it don't happen." (Danny "Kilby" Kilby)

• "We are funding a game with our profits, rather than hoping the game is the only profit." (Danny "Kilby" Kilby)

• "If the game would make a good board game, it'll make a good game." (Danny "Kilby" Kilby)

• "You can make the best game of all time, and if no one knows about it, no one's gonna buy it." (Danny "Kilby" Kilby)

• "The minute someone stops appealing to a market, that's when you jump in on that market." (Danny "Kilby" Kilby)

Links and Resources

GeekFreaksPodcast.com is the source of all news discussed on Geek Freaks.

• Noodle Goose Games, including the playable prototype of its upcoming word puzzle game
• Arcade Pizza, Kilby's video game podcast
• Watch Kilby on Survivor 51, Wednesdays on CBS

Support the Show

If this one got you thinking about your own game idea, subscribe so you catch the next interview, and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Then send this episode to the friend who has been "about to start" their indie game for three years. #GeekFreaksPodcast

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Send Us Your Questions

Got a question for a future guest, a reaction to Kilby's "fun on paper" rule, or an indie game you think deserves a spotlight? Send it our way at Info@GFPods.com or drop it in the comments, and it might make it onto a future episode.

Phil from Distance NERDing saw the new Street Fighter movie and thinks the critics got it wrong. He makes the case that it plays like a fighting game's story mode, and that the people calling it disjointed are mostly the ones who stopped playing after Street Fighter II.

Episode Summary

After the spoiler warning, Phil breaks down the Ryu and Ken rivalry, Akuma's pull on Ryu through the Satsui no Hado, David Dastmalchian's unhinged Bison, and the one thing he can't forgive: Cody Rhodes' Guile fights Vega off screen. Frank, who hasn't seen it yet, pushes on whether the camp works for casual viewers and lines it up next to James Gunn's Superman.

The second half moves to Vision Quest episodes 1 and 2. Frank and Phil talk about the Jarvis moment, James Spader's return as Ultron, Tommy's two sets of memories, and who could be paying Paladin. They close on Marvel scaling back Disney+ budgets, what's coming up for Distance NERDing and its D&D actual play, and a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 campaign recommendation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Phil from Distance NERDing Joins, Is Vision Quest Rebuilding Marvel Hype?
• 1:30 Street Fighter Spoiler-Free Review: Better Than the Reviews Say
• 3:57 Street Fighter Spoilers: The 1993 Setting, Ryu, Ken, and Akuma
• 15:35 Chun-Li, Bison, Guile, and the Game-Accurate Moves
• 22:34 Embracing Camp: Street Fighter, Gunn's Superman, and Adaptations as New Runs
• 26:12 Street Fighter Verdict: Theaters or Streaming?
• 28:28 Vision Quest Episodes 1 and 2: Jarvis and James Spader's Ultron
• 41:03 Paladin, Tommy, and Who's Pulling the Strings
• 55:13 Is Marvel Pulling Back on Disney+?
• 57:45 What's Next for Distance NERDing
• 1:00:14 Recommendations: Modern Warfare 4 Campaign and a WoW Guild

Key Takeaways

• Phil argues Street Fighter is built like arcade story mode, with separate character arcs that converge on one fight. Viewers who don't know that format read it as disjointed.
• The movie pulls deep from post-Street Fighter V lore: Gouken and Gouki, Ryu and the Satsui no Hado, and Bison draining fighters to fuel his Psycho Power.
• Phil's two gripes are Guile's off-screen fight with Vega and Ken never landing the flaming Shoryuken.
• His verdict is theaters, with a crowd. Moviegoers with no attachment to the games are the most likely to bounce off it.
• Frank found Vision Quest episode 1 slow and episode 2 the payoff, while Phil was hooked from the start. Both rank James Spader's Ultron as the best thing in the show so far.
• Both hosts read Marvel's TV slowdown as a budget decision, since big-budget series didn't pull in enough new Disney+ subscribers. Frank sees Zodiac as a test run for cheaper, Arrow-style shows.

Quotes

• "The way that they did this entire movie was almost the same way that you play a fighting game." (Phil)

• "Every single character in this movie performs something that they're known for in the game." (Phil)

• "If you want the blood and gore, Mortal Kombat. If you want the dude beating up a car in the middle of the street while people cheer, Street Fighter." (Frank)

• "Could it be anybody else but Jarvis? He's just been with us since the beginning." (Frank)

• "I can listen to that dude read the dictionary." (Phil, on James Spader)

Sources

GeekFreaksPodcast.com is the source for all news discussed on the show.

Support the Show

Subscribe wherever you listen and leave a rating or review, since it helps new listeners find us. If you have a friend who skipped Street Fighter because of the reviews, send them this one, and if you disagree with Phil, go tell Distance NERDing. #GeekFreaksPodcast

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Send Us Your Questions

Did Street Fighter work for you, or did it land as disjointed? Who do you think hired Paladin? Send your reactions, questions, and topic ideas to Info@GFPods.com or drop them in the comments, and we may read them on a future episode.