Ep. 417 - Large Mangle

Frank, Ash, and Brandon hang out and talk about Steam’s censorship, friendslop, and the Never Gonna Give You Up of video games.

Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Ash Parrish, and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.

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SHOW NOTES:

• “I may be damp, but I have a cheerful character!”
• Tootsie Roll
• Half Price Books
• Spider-Man: Spirits of the Earth
• Fireball Cinnamon Whisky
• Jeppson’s Malört
• Carly Rae Jepsen
• New car smell
• Autoeroticism

1: How, if at all, should video game distribution services be screening submissions of video games? (05:15)

• Game Developer: Santa Ragione co-founder Pietro Righi Riva on Horses, Steam, and possible closure of the studio
• Horses
• Steam
• South Park: The Stick of Truth
• Hyperdimension Neptunia
• ESRB
• Epic Games Store
• itch.io

2: Where is the line between inspiration and plagarism? (11:40)

• Critter Crunch
• Money Idol Exchanger
• AstroPop
• Magical Drop
• ChatGPT
• Steve Engelhart
• Batman: the Animated Series
• Green Lantern
• Batman: Dark Detective
• The Dark Knight (2008)
• Guy Gardner
• Superman (2025)
• Legends of the DC Universe

3: What are the best video game tiles? (16:43)

• Chaos Engine
• Vid Grid
• News Tower
• Loop Hero
• Mahjong
• Lucky That Way by Brad Fregger

4: What is the newest kind of video game? (22:36)

• Extraction shooter
• Friendslop
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Second Life
• Ultima
• Habitat
• Habbo Hotel
• Demon’s Souls
• Soulslike
• Rogue
• Roguelike
• Metroidvania
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
• Metroid
• Castlevania
• God Hand
• Bushido Blade
• Battle royale
• PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
• Minecraft
• DayZ
• Motoroader MC
• Battle Royale
• The Hunger Games
• Tommy Tallarico

A Statement from Frank Cifaldi (30:01)

• Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

5: Esper Quinn asks, who is the best game developer in literature? (32:33)

• Ready Player One
• Diamond Age
• Gandalf
• Dragon Quest series
• Akira Toriyama
• Yuji Horii
• Shigesato Itoi
• Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
• The Riddler
• Mary Shelley
• Death Stranding
• Hideo Kojima
• Frankenstein
• The Adventures of Batman & Robin
• Batman licensees
• Macaw45
• Batman (1989)
• The Bat Signal lights up the sky. It must be… Bat-Octoberfest.

6: Should every roleplaying game have romance options? (39:56)

• Fire Emblem series
• Fable
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

7: What is the Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up of video games? (45:44)

• Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up
• Bugs Bunny
• Among Us
• Call of Duty series
• Fortnite
• 9gag
• Bored Panda
• Ebaumsworld
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Dizzy series
• Grand Theft Auto series
• Akira slide
• Cloud Strife
• Legend of Zelda series
• Chris Person
• Aftermath
• Indiana Jones
• the image Frank shared in chat (53:30)
• National Treasure series
• Nicholas Cage

LIGHTNING ROUND: Jaffe didn’t come up with a name for this one but he’s asking the panel to name games from a specific year and they’re knocked out if they can’t (54:12)

Recommendations and Outro (01:19:29):

• Brandon: Please review Demonschool on Steam if you’ve bought it, Doritos has three levels of spiciness now
• Ash: News Tower
• Frank: Lucky That Way by Brad Fregger

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