Fiveish minutes from the latest Patreon epsiode.

Listen to the full episode at: https://www.patreon.com/wideflank

Sean and Alon feel safe in the hands of game designer Lucas Pope and his whodunit ghostship of corpses and bones mystery game.

You’re an insurance appraiser playing sudoku by time-traveling (sorta) and transforming (sorta) into a fly on the wall. Discover the stories of the dead crew and passengers through the intense moments of their deaths.

It may not make sense now but it’s going to make sense by the end of this journey.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:18 - Admin stuff

00:01:48 - Game overview

00:03:16 - Beginning of the game

00:06:36 - Simple inputs, complex game

00:07:28 - More of the game’s beginning

00:10:46 - Fly on the wall effect

00:12:49 - Emotional moments of death

00:14:58 - Death snapshots

00:17:58 - The book

00:20:24 - Continuing chronologically

00:21:51 - On-rails in the mid-game

00:25:16 - It’s like a book

00:27:52 - How open or linear is this game?

00:32:06 - Fates and boat knowledge

00:34:37 - SPOILERS from here on

00:34:46 - Knowable vs unknowable information

00:37:03 - Whodunit logic & eureka moments

00:46:47 - Lucas Pope’s “data addiction”

00:53:42 - I’m the insurance appraiser and detachment

00:57:46 - Cascading puzzles & relationships

01:03:35 - Eureka moments outside the game

01:11:38 - Rolling credits before solving all of the fates

01:14:06 - Safe in Lucas Pope’s hands

01:21:16 - Game as a book + the art and aesthetic

01:25:54 - Uninvited and what is the game about?

01:35:38 - Tip of the iceberg game design

01:38:34 - A deluge of information

01:41:33 - “One guy” game design question

Show notes:

Introducing New Cool, the Wide Flank show where Alon and Sean bring each other a New and/or Cool gaming-adjacent topic to talk about!

This month, we thread the history of Fantasy Sports with an exploration of "Fantasy" (not that kind) as a genre unto itself and use Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver to discuss the career of Amy Hennig and what draws us to games in the first place.

Show Notes:

Strat-O-Matic

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver instruction booklet

Amy Hennig

3D Baseball

Kurt Harland

Michael Bell

Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City

Electrocop

In our inaugural Dev Talk, David Hellman, Art Lead and Co-Director of Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, joins Sean and Alon to chat about making art for video games, subjectivity in creativity, and David’s work on the game.

----

Get a lil taste of the new Patreon-exclusive "GLHF" episode format as Sean and Alon dive into their raw first impressions of Return of the Obra Dinn.

Plus, welcome Sean as Wide Flank official co-host as we shift to weekly episodes!

Support the pod, help us pay for games and stuff, and get future GLHF episodes at: https://www.patreon.com/wideflank

Join the Wide Flank discord: https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ

All Wide Flank links: https://linktr.ee/wideflank

It’s not about the destination it’s about the journey. Join us on the mask quests, the good deeds, and the yearning for connection.

Hac is comradeHac on the Wide Flank discord

Check out Dugan’s game company: https://mostnights.com/

Follow Sean on bluesky @magicplayer164 and visit their website at seanpetell.com.

Support us and help us pay for games and stuff at: https://www.patreon.com/wideflank

Join the Wide Flank discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ

All links: https://linktr.ee/wideflank

Timestamps:

Show notes:

It’s the penultimate episode in the Majora’s Mask Gameclub series! Alon and Sean saved the world and beat the game. Incredible narrative meets sometimes good / sometimes bad game stuff. Let’s talk about it.

For the fourth and final episode in the series everyone is coming back on – Dugan, HAC, and Sean join Alon to go macro on Majora’s Mask and talk about finding all the masks.

Follow Sean on bluesky @magicplayer164 and visit their website at seanpetell.com.

This episode of Wide Flank was edited & co-produced by Sean Petell.

Play along!

Support us and help us pay for games and stuff at: https://www.patreon.com/wideflank

Join the Wide Flank discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ

Timestamps:

Show notes:

A bite-sized terrific game, and also a very large very deep game, and also a game of the year contender all in one. Join us and see what Animal Well’s all about.

Up next is episode 3/4 in the Majora’s Mask series!

Timestamps:

Show Notes:

Episode two in the Majora’s Mask Gameclub series and Alon and HAC played through the Great Bay Temple with a lot of complaints about it.

For the next and penultimate episode Alon and Sean will be playing through the Stone Tower and the endgame. And for the fourth and final episode Alon will be joined by Sean again as well as HAC and Dugan returning to talk about the game as a whole and collecting all of the masks.

Also in the Wide Flank queue is a Now Playing episode on Animal Well: https://store.steampowered.com/app/813230/ANIMAL_WELL/

If you missed episode one on Majora’s Mask you can find all of our links here: https://linktr.ee/wideflank

Play along!

Support us and help us pay for games and stuff at: https://www.patreon.com/wideflank

Join the Wide Flank discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ

Timestamps:

00:00 - Majora’s Mask intro

00:51 - Podcast intro and admin

01:59 - Remembering what is going on and resetting the loop

07:34 - HAC responses to episode 1 and Majora’s Mask as a mod

10:53 - HAC’s favorite Zelda game and comparing to Ocarina

12:19 - Mountain Village

16:19 - Lens of Truth

18:21 - The dark side of the masks

20:14 - A better action game than Ocarina

23:36 - Back to the darkness of the masks

25:34 - Getting into Snowhead

29;42 - Snowhead Temple

31:49 - Fairy collecting / secrets

37:52 - GOHT

40:54 - The Guardians

43:23 - Snowhead aftermath

46:18 - Powder keg / action button

47:16 - Goron racetrack

48:26 - Get Epona / alien invasion / waiting sucks

51:58 - Great Bay and Mikau’s Cry

54:14 - Zora Link

55:57 - Equipment management

58:19 - Pirate Fortress

01:00:38 - Band practice / jamming

01:02:31 - Great Bay Temple

01:04:55 - Z-targeting

01:06:29 - HAC last fairy story

01:15:40 - Temple bad but timeloop good

01:16:56 - Great Bay Temple aftermath

01:18:01 - Getting and finding more masks / what masks do we currently have?

Fresh off of the Ocarina of Time it’s time to enter the uncanny, Lynchian, and freaky sister-world of Majora’s Mask.

For this, the first episode in the series, Alon and Dugan played through the Woodfall Temple. For the next episode Alon and Hayden (HAC) are playing through the Great Bay Temple and it’s aftermath.

Play along!

Join the Wide Flank discord!!! https://discord.gg/ACbDjNhMpJ

Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank

Timestamps:

00:00 - Title sequence

00:50 - Podcast intro

02:59 - Intro to the game vs. Ocarina

08:53 - Nightmare version of Ocarina

13:01 - Leveraging the two main characters from Ocarina

15:50 - First time playing the game

17:20 - Pressure, narrative, and environment created by the timer

20:03 - What is the loop

22:53 - The first cycle

29:57 - New kit

34:28 - Termina Field

40:23 - Woodfall area

45:30 - Alon’s “Zelda logic”

47:56 - Not enough time to stop bad things / Deku Palace

51:48 - Woodfall Temple

57:23 - Respecting your time

58:57 - Is golf a roguelike?

01:01:08 - Back to Woodfall Temple

01:06:58 - Odolwa (boss fight)

01:10:16 - Going back to the fairies

01:12:02 - Woodfall aftermath

01:17:52 - You gotta get all the masks

01:20:48 - Upcoming episodes and goodbye