This week we talk about what game we would make given no barriers, constraints etc. Almost as if we got a wish from a genie.

Greg's friend Shields joins us for our 30th episode! It turns out he's working on his own indie game, leading to some excellent conversations about game design. Besides that, Shields was also a prolific forger in the days of Halo Reach making him a perfect guest star for our podcast (given it's named after our go-to custom game in Halo Reach).

This week we try a new segment: Meme of the week, with this weeks being It just Hit Different

Beyond that we also talk about the newly announced Counter Strike 2 and the Unreal Editor for Fortnite giving Epic a creative pipeline for new game developers.

This week Greg shares his thoughts on Mortal Shell after having completed it. We also talk about the Paradox Announcement Show 2023, and conventions!

Excitingly this week was when Xbox confirmed June 11th as the date for their summer showcase followed by a Starfield direct before the release on September 6th!

James was excited for the latest Destiny 2 expansion, Lightfall, but it sadly fell short of expectations.

This week we largely focus on the topic of VR games given the release of the PSVR2, and touch on how there still needs to be more games, but also reasonably priced, and so a subscription service like PlayStation Plus Extra could help get PSVR2 to take off if something you're already paying for includes multiple either VR specific games (like Beat Saber), or games with the option of VR (like No Mans Sky).

We also touch on subscription services in general, and how they kind of fill the role of free demos or trials.

With no Packy this week James and I keep it brief, mainly talking about upcoming games, and plans for the podcast (topics, guests etc.)

With James back from work we've got lots to talk about! James and Packy talk more about Against the Storm and how they're doing a survey in game to gather community feedback about what new race to introduce to the game. This sparks a longer conversation about how in-game feedback mechanisms are (at least in our opinion) for getting an accurate representation of the entire player-base, and not just die-hard fans who go out of their way to take long surveys on other platforms.

Beyond that, we mention how ChatGPT has been blowing up in the news (set records for fastest growing user-base) and how it doesn't seem to unlikely that we'd see ChatGPT generated text appear in games in the nearish future. We've talked more about this in our previous episode #7 - AI Generated Gaming Traditions.

Lastly, I brought up the CMA's (UK Regulator) provisional findings on the pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, including their objections, and potential remedies.

Packy and I use our regularly scheduled podcast meeting time to catch up since we've both been busy, and of course, with James gone, we talk a little about WoW and Packys mount hunting using Simple Armory.

This week James and I just catch up about what we've been playing (Against the Storm and Hi-Fi Rush).