NOCLIP

What did you say? Podcast? We’re not going to drop everything and do that.

Welcome back to the podcast. We’re still playing a bit of catchup this month, and to continue with our Halloween picks, we’re talking about Cryptmaster! This is a dungeon crawler in the typing game subgenre, where you solve puzzles and fight enemies using abilities you type out. To gain the abilities, you need to find letters, which you can come across in a variety of ways, which fill out a series of blanks for each of your four characters, and then guess what the full word is, similar to a Wordle or a crossword puzzle style. This, objectively, is a weird and really cool system. And it feeds into the other elements of the game, encouraging you to engage in combat and explore the world, complete sidequests and play the in-universe card game. On the other hand, many of the things you have to do can become a bit tedious, especially relating to the soul resource you have to manage in order to engage in combat effectively, not to mention the huge number of riddles you have to solve with no artifice really over top of them. That being said, the end product is still extremely cool, builds an effective tone which walks the line between being funny and building the feeling of an underworld in a serious way, and is probably worth looking past the irritants if you’re looking for something novel and interesting. We’re going to be talking about how we responded to the challenge the combat posed, the different mechanical choices that did and did not work for us, and how mastering the combat requires the memorization of an educational curriculum in vocabulary.

Thank you for joining us this week! Cryptmaster generated some light buzz when it came out earlier this year, and it was clear it was a game that fit into our preferred level of weirdness. The overall idea here is so cool and I think it’s still great even with some of its contents working against your ability to have fun with it. Did this game overcome its flaws for you as well, or are you just a huge fan of riddles? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time we’re finally finishing up our October games and preparing to move on to greener, less horror-themed pastures, but we’re closing out the theme with Amnesia: The Bunker, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Welcome to cast space.

Welcome back (finally!) to the podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about Omori, a turn-based RPG with a unique art style and dark themes. Though, as we discuss in the episode, don’t think too much of Omori based on its genre, because it’s really putting its worst foot forward. Omori has rich characters, relatable themes and effective comedy. It’s a silly game in the same vein as Earthbound where you fight cartoon sharks and your happy characters will deal more damage against angry foes, but it’s real strength is in making you learn more and more about your party members and their associated friends before stabbing you right in the heart. The game is billed as having psychological horror elements, and those are there, but the game is also profoundly sad and surprisingly moving. And on top of that, it has a combat system that has some depth to it, but takes a long time to come into its own and adds a level of tedium to a game that otherwise keeps you wanting to move forward. We’re going to be talking about the slow build of the combat and where it shines, the tonal differences and how much of it we think was intentional, and we tell you how not to discuss Chrono Trigger.

We’ve been pretty busy, so we apologize for the extremely long delay between episodes. Omori is at least a bit of a gem, so hopefully you enjoy the episode. We still have two more games for Halloween to cover, so we’ll be staying in the genre over the next couple weeks despite the scheduling issues. Did you participate in the Omori Kickstarter? Is it a game you heard about later and checked out based on the art style or the themes? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Cryptmaster, so we hope you’ll join us then!

We’re old enough.

Welcome back to NOCLIP, and beware, for it is Halloween! To kick off October, we’re talking about Crow Country, a throwback survival horror game that does a lot to stand out in its field. The game is set in an amusement park and has a unique polygonal graphic style that gives an oddly whimsical aesthetic. It makes good use of this with its environments: haunted houses, underwater exhibits and fantasy fairy forests. Each new area feels a little quirky, but always with that chunky, blocky texture that sells the disheveled feel of the park itself. All of this is in service of a short but tightly executed survival horror game with disempowered combat, save rooms without checkpoints, item collection and puzzles to solve. It has the hallmarks of the genre, but each mechanic is implemented in a well thought out way. We’re going to be talking about how the one location setting helps teach the player the layout while hiding surprises, how the simplicity of some mechanics shine light on progression and storytelling, and we make the tough call to shoot everything in sight.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re excited as always to start talking about horror titles, and Crow Country is the perfect first game to play in a month like this. It feels like a nostalgic throwback, but obviously brings with it the lessons learned over decades of innovation in the genre. How did you feel about this relatively short entry into the genre? Let us know over on the Discord server or in the comments! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Omori, which is a more different kind of horror game, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Happy NOCLIP day, everyone, and welcome to our celebration of nine years of doing the podcast! Nine years is such a long time to do anything, but I feel like it gets overshadowed sometimes with ten years looming around the corner. Which makes sense, so rather than argue you should be celebrating an odd numbered year like this, I’m going to reframe this as the beginning of year ten. It’s our decade celebration, which will last for one year until the tenth anniversary, so make sure you tune into every episode because it’s a special time for us at NOCLIP. We’ll really wow you by doing exactly the same kind of content we normally do, shock you with opinions that fall in line with what you would expect given our now extensive history, and thrill you by bringing on special tenth-year guests like probably no one, or just one of our friends you’ve already heard from before. And the best part is, once the clock ticks over to October 3rd 2025, we get to reframe it again as a big milestone. You are all eating out of the palms of our hands and we wouldn’t have it any other way, you suckers.

Seriously though, thank you all for listening to us, no matter how long you’ve been here. We actually have been slowly making changes over the last year, with a new theme song, our switch to remote recording and the process that has been getting us to consistent quality, and merging pocket back into the main show to try and streamline our lives and your experience. We’re honestly very happy with where we are as far as content goes at the moment, but let us know if you have any suggestions for things because we take what little feedback we get seriously. We hope you’ve been enjoying the show and we have a bunch of exciting episodes planned on games both big and small, so we hope you’ll play along where you can and we’ll see you again next year!

I would recommend podcasters to rob banks instead because gambling is immoral.

Welcome back to the podcast and to our very important series on games titled after women’s names that begin with the letter L. Today, we’re talking about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes a puzzle game from Simogo, developer of games like Year Walk and Sayonara Wild Hearts. Taking the form of an enormous escape room, where solving number puzzles and unlocking doors is the name of the game, you progress through an ever growing list of goals to uncover the “truth” as it is quantified in the menu. The game has a few consistent motifs that pop up to anchor you into the narratives main themes and provide clues to the puzzles, and combined with a story that has real concrete answers you can figure out yourself with the information provided, it really meshes a mechanical satisfaction with a narrative one. In the same vein, the difficulty of the puzzles really lands in a spot that will likely be satisfying for most people, if a bit easy for people who are diehard fans of the genre. Mostly more simple than you would think at first glance, recognizing patterns and identifying a pool of answers to choose from will serve you better than raw enigmatology in this case. The game isn’t perfect, a bit too long, and if you’re not a fan of puzzle games generally this likely won’t change your mind, but it’s a stylish package put together by a developer that really knows how to nail a tone. We’re going to be talking about the interconnectivity of puzzles, the stylish execution of a visual style and we determine that person we often most agree with is ourselves.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Not know what this game was going into it may have not been the best idea from a scheduling perspective, and maybe had something to do with us thinking it was bit overlong, but in the end it was still a good time. Do you think our devotion to Simogo’s games is unhealthy? Do you just agree and enjoy their output? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re actually interrupting the GTAWNTBWTLL theme as we enter October and will be talking about Crow Country, so we hope you’ll stay tuned for that.

What’s the definition of imaginary? A Podcast that only exists in your mind.

Welcome back to the podcast! Our second game titled after a woman’s name that begins with the letter L is Who’s Lila, a pretty bizarre adventure game in which you control your character’s face. The object of the game, at the outset, is to sell your responses in conversations by molding your face, Mario 64 stye, into an expression that will go over well. This adds a layer of complication into an already unsure situation which means that any conversation can have a lot of different possible outcomes. This makes more sense when you realize that the game is meant to be played repeatedly, with many short narrative branches that conclude and intend for you to restart after. Beyond that, there are puzzles to solve that step outside the bounds of the conversation mechanics and, in fact, other bounds, and these might be the highlight of the game for some people. As a complete package, this is a strange and experiential game with a surprisingly intriguing narrative that has a lot to grab onto. We’re going to be talking about the hurdles and strengths of having an unprecedented mechanic set, the complicated nature of exploring the different paths in the game, and the benefits of an eyebrows first approach.

Thank you for joining us again this week. There are days when I wish that if every game we talk about could be something like this. I love what this game does to innovate even if the complete package has its issues. Did the theming and odd concept sell you on this game? Let us know in the comments or over on the Discord! Next time, we’re talking about the most recent of the games we’re playing this month with Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

The Queen of Podcasts is weak to fire.

Welcome back to the podcast, and to the very special “games titled after women's names that start with the letter L” theme! To start us off, we’re going to be talking about Lorelai, a 2D side-scrolling adventure game. Lorelai is the third game in a series that began with Downfall and the Cat Lady, the latter of which is by far the most noted. Not least of which is because we did an episode on it, trendsetters that we are. Lorelai is a not insignificant visual upgrade from Harvester’s previous games, but the themes and narrative beats between the Cat Lady and Lorelai are very similar, just focusing on a different character in the same world. Otherwise the games play about as you’d expect. You collect inventory items to be used in puzzle solving, talk to people and largely just experience the story. The result is two very comparable games and one of them unfortunately comes out on top by most metrics. We’re going to be talking about the narrative and character writing, the big swings taken visually and how they generally made the game more atmospheric and interesting, and we really step up to the plate for step dads for some reason.

Thank you for joining us again this week! I’ve been unreasonably excited about this stupid theme, but with one exception: Lorelai was the only game in it that was a known quantity to me. That being said, as a big fan of the previous games by Harvester Games, maybe my expectations were somewhat too high. What did you guys think about this one? Are you a fan of the series and have thoughts on this game, or are you new and wondering why we care so much? Let us know in the comments or over on our discord. Next time, we’re going to talk about Who’s Lila, a mystery game and a game with a mysteriously weird method of interaction, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Please consider supporting our planned podcast expansion.

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, in our last episode of our DLC theme, we’re talking about Echoes of the Eye, Outer Wild’s expansion that adds a new explorable area into the base game. Describing it like that, you can maybe see why we had originally planned this for Pocket, but this is Outer Wilds, so the exploration and puzzles in this expansion are dense and complicated. So our decision to end Pocket is already paying dividends, I suppose. Echoes contains one new celestial body to fly to, yes, but within it there are new areas, a clever use of old mechanics to create new interactions and, slight spoiler, many new subareas full of clues and puzzles to uncover. Similarly to the base game, talking about much in specificity would be a bit of a spoiler, but the thing to take away from that is that this feels very much like the base game. If you enjoyed the self-directed gameplay of Outer Wilds this is largely more of the same, but tonally and environmentally it does have enough to make it feel fresh. We’re going to be talking about the difficulty we each had actually getting to the DLC in the first place, the satisfaction and frustration the new puzzles bring, and we talk about which of my actions were free of consequences.

Thank you for joining us again this week! As we discussed on the episode, we may not have come back to play this DLC for a while, or possibly ever, had we not done this theme so it’s exciting to jump back into a game that inspired such strong emotions when we last talked about it. Much like the original, this DLC can be tough to get into and tough to finish, but the journey is really the point in this game and the journey is extremely good. Did you play this right away when it came out or are you just now being reminded it exists? Let us know in the comments or over in our Discord server! Next time, we’re starting the extremely catchy “Games Titled With Women’s Names That Start With the Letter L” theme, which begins with Lorelai, so strap in for that!

I’m feeling full of beans.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about the DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Future Redeemed. This is an expansion type DLC which gives you a full new party of characters, starts you at level one and makes subtle but meaningful changes to the mechanics and has you set out on an entirely new story set in the same world as the base game. This is probably for the best given how long it’s been since we’ve played the original, so we don’t have to deal with high level enemies while forgetting all of the mechanics, but as is usually true with Xenoblade games, what is probably the most interesting development in the DLC concerns the story. The DLC features characters from far flung parts of Monolith’s trilogy, and the ways and reasons they interact with your party take a focus in the narrative. Because of this the DLC focuses a bit more on the overarching narrative, which is on the more complicated side, but it still puts a decent focus on character stories, just maybe in a less impactful way than the base game. Mechanically, the new classes are largely fun and well designed, with some hitches here and there, and the new systems give you something novel to sink your teeth into if you are so inclined. All that said, the game plays mostly very similar to the base game so if you were a fan of that, you’ll probably enjoy another 20-30 hours of this as well. We’re going to be talking about how the mechanical changes affected our play, the characters and what archetypes they fill both in the story and as narrative devices, and we realize that maybe we’ve been the dumb guy all along.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a game that we really liked originally and probably wouldn’t have gone back to for the expansion for a long while if we hadn’t done this DLC theme, so I’m happy we got the chance. If you’ve been through it, how did you feel about the changes from the base game? Did you feel compelled to fill out your affinity goals to level everyone up? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to finish out DLC by talking about Echoes of the Eye, the DLC for Outer Wilds, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Oh, podcast.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket…for the last time! We’re interrupting our DLC theme because of the episode 100 milestone, and we’re talking about Super Mario Land. If you’ve been following for a while, you know that we started Pocket with an episode on Super Mario Land 2, so we felt it was appropriate to end it with the original Super Mario Land. This is a platformer and one of the earliest games in the Mario series. Released on the Game Boy, the limitations of the platform, and the age of the game, are both apparent in how it affected visuals and design, and impressive in how they were overcome. This feels very quaint to come back to, but compared to how simple the majority of Game Boy games were, this feels like a real accomplishment. With 12 levels over 4 worlds that explore different themes, this feels more like a Mario game than you might expect, and one that has some meat on its bones, even if it isn’t very long. We’re going to be talking about the level design in comparison to Super Mario Bros. and how much we think was hardware versus the state of game design in 1989, how the music carries the presentation despite the simple visuals distracting from some surprisingly detailed sprites, and we call for Mario to be restored to his former vehicle-driving glory.

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP Pocket this week! To be clear, the podcast itself is going to continue on after today, but we think Pocket specifically has outlived its necessity. Moving forward, we’re going to hold on to the same release schedule and cadence of games we talk about, but will be doing away with Pocket as a sub-show and incorporating the shorter, weirder titles into the main show instead. So basically we’re making a big deal out of nothing. Pocket held some of our biggest surprises, so let us know, what was your favorite episode of Pocket? Did you try any games you wouldn’t have otherwise? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! There won’t be a next game in this case, so we’ll catch you on the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 DLC episode next time!