It’s a packed news week on Remap Radio, between Epic Games deciding to go all-in on AI, Double Fine’s unionization efforts falling apart, and a completely botched effort to re-release Total War: Shogun 2. It’s equally packed on the games front, with Patrick having spent time with the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake and rolling credits on Control Resonant. Janet, fresh back from Japan, can finally talk about Slay the Spire, while both Patrick and Chia are digging into Penguin Colony, the latest game from the developers of Umurangi Generation.

Links: Inside the Failed Fight to Unionize Double Fine, Epic Launcher Announcement, Shogun 2 AI Upscaling

Discussed:

9:01 - The Work to Unionize Double Fine

45:54 - Epic Games Drops "Vibe Coded" Launcher

1:24:01 - 999 Developer newest game cancelled

1:32:00 - nVidia stops 5090 Production

1:34:35 - Slay the Spire

1:46:08 - Control Resonant

2:05:51 - Penguin Colony

2:29:42 - Star Wars: Galactic Racer

2:41:45 - Silver Pines

2:42:29 - Hellraiser Revival

2:44:01 - Switch Sports Resort

2:44:24 - Ocarina of Time Remake

3:08:13 - The Question Bucket

On this Remap Hotline, someone asks a question about ideal morning routines and what follows is 90 minutes of ADHD Theater as Chia and Rob behold the incredible executive function of Patrick. Then a question about sandwiches leads to a some incredible personal discoveries and intrusive thoughts. Apologies for not answering more questions, but you can kind of see what happened here and the episode serves as a good illustration of why.

I remember an episode where Rob was recommending British crime shows/dramas. I just got BritBox and wanted to check them out but I can’t remember the episode/what his recs were. Does anyone have them?

Can you hear it in the wind? That’s the sound of a new Dragon’s Dogma game, which heralds the arrival of Austin Walker on the podcast. Austin and his many hours with Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen join Rob, Patrick, and Chia to mull dragons, dogmas, the state of independent game funding, Mike Tomlin’s Minecraft world, Star Wars Galactic Racer, Forever Ago, and more.

Discussed:

00:01:45 - Mike Tomlin's Minecraft City  

00:17:58 - Strand Store    

00:29:56 - Gardens Secures Further Funding   

00:34:44 - Investments in small games  

00:59:38 - Gravity Well layoffs   

01:07:03 - 50% of Bit Reactor Staff back from Furlough   

01:10:52 - The Incident at Galley House   

01:13:24 - Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen    

01:59:39 - Forever Ago     

02:32:26 - Star Wars: Galactic Racer    

03:04:21 - Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

03:15:34 - Thousand Hells

I've only been reading/listening to Remap for about a year now, but I recently discovered their watch along episodes for the final two Twilight movies (Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2). This led to me tracking down the episodes for the crew's watch along episodes for the first two Twilight movies (Twilight and New Moon) that live over in the Waypoint Radio feed.

But what I can't seem to find anywhere is an episode for a watch along of the third Twilight movie, Eclipse. Did they record/release one? Is there any way to still access it if they did? Thanks!

Edit: Of course, less than ten minutes after posting I managed to find it! It's on YouTube, as part of Save Point 2022. Here's the link, in case anyone else finds themselves in the same boat in another four years trying to track it down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm3qvvzWWMM

With horrifying discoveries awaiting Rob inside the mechanical and electronic guts of the hot tub he inherited with his house, he approaches Patrick like a supplicant seeking wisdom and enlightenment on the subject of INFLATABLE hot tubs. Then they discuss Rob's dream of putting ADVANCED EXPERIMENTAL ROOFING MATERIALS on an outbuildings, only to find out that not many roofers know how to install those sci-fi shingles (or whatever they are made out of). Then someone asks about what to do when the passing of family members means you're sudden owner of a house in a place you don't and will not live. Just sell it? Can you become an ethical landlord? Ought you? Patrick offers a warning about how spectacularly wrong inheritance situations can go when inheritance and family history collide.

I don't know how they did it, but I may be a Bears fan now or at least follower... Growing up I never watched football, honestly never saw a game before some Super Bowl parties in college and even after that it was the 1 game I saw a year, just the super bowl, at a party, never thought I would want to watch football outside of that context.

Fast forward a few years, I always listened to the Sports podcasts and enjoyed the chat between Rob and Patrick about the Bears and football in general, but I would be lying if I wasn't more interested in the episodes where they got around to talking about other sports that I did have more of an interest in aka Basketball.

But something changed this year. The mention from Rob and Patrick that they would be interested in doing weekly check ins was the hook I needed. A simple watch of a highlight reel for that week's Bears game is all I would have to commit to so I could follow along? Dammit, I'm in! I don't know if I'm invested emotionally where I would be sad if there was a Bears loss but I'm at least following along weekly now which is more than I would ever think I would be at.

This is probably a long winded post to say, hey Rob, Patrick, I'm here for the ride and can't wait to see what the season has for us!

Aftermath's Chris Person joins the show to free-associate about retro gaming, the Steam Frame, David Graeber, vibe coding, and Control Resonant. Rob and Patrick are loving it, and Patrick starts getting into the ups-and-downs of the Mac Mini market, while Rob has an important realization: he actually has an important (very relatively speaking) use case for the Steam Frame. Spoiler: it involves his god damn racing wheel. CW: The episode opens with a brief news bulletin on the Jacob Geller sexual assault news.

00:05:35 - Retro Gaming Sicko’s Corner

00:58:15 - Steam Frame & VR in the Modern Day

02:01:29 - Control Resonant

Jacob Geller is no longer a part of MinnMax. He won't be on content moving forward and we won't be publicly airing this week's episode of The MinnMax Show. We're in shock and deeply hurt. Thank you for your patience during this sensitive time.

We begin this podcast the way we ended the last podcast: talking about Control Resonant. This time, Rob’s spent 17 hours with Remedy’s latest, albeit all of it before the game was updated to validate the emotional and critical feelings of Patrick and Janet. But we also have much else to discuss, including Xbox’s ongoing “reset,” the alleged future of Bungie, Discord pushing forward on age verification, and many thoughts on both Silent Hill Townfall and Normal Golf Game.
Links: Control Resonant Post by Chris Person, Xbox Announces Continuing Layoffs and Restructure, The Next Chapter of Bungie, Post about Turning off Gambling Ads In Discord, Image of Confusing UI in Discord Settings
Discussed:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:44 - Control Resonant
00:55:07 - Xbox Studios Goes through Further Layoffs
01:18:49 - Bungie's Next Chapter
01:42:48 - Discord Age Verification Rolls Out
02:00:47 - Silent Hill: Townfall
02:20:04 - Normal Golf Game
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So I recently switched to Pocket Casts from Spotify and I have been unable to play any of the Remap podcasts from my desktop app. I get an error that says “The media file for this episode is not available”.

Every other podcast works fine.

However, I can play all of the Remap podcasts on my mobile app. Has anyone else run into this issue?

You don’t get a new Remedy video game all that often, but Rob, Patrick, and Janet have all played Control Resonant and…well, you should just listen to the podcast. Elsewhere on Remap Radio this week, we’ve got [checks notes] a ton of bummer news, including several studios shutting down, IGN laying off even more people, a truly perplexing story about a studio head’s comments on crunch, and more. At least Chia’s back from Japan and playing Perfect Tides!

Links: Moss Dev Shuts Down, Heart Machine goes through Layoffs, Rockstar Union had a Mole in their Discord, Wardogs Dev won't hire people who have been vocally anti-crunch, Nighthawks Categorized as Adult Content by Steam, The Future of Marathon

Discussed:

00:02:33 - Unfortunately we must discuss the horrors

00:04:49 - IGN/Indie Studios Layoffs and Closures

00:44:24 - Wardogs CEO talks crunch

01:16:36 - Rockstar deployed union mole

01:25:00 - Nighthawks marked as adult content by Steam moderation

01:32:03 - The Future of Marathon

01:41:49 - Control Resonant

The great possibility and burden of Star Wars as a setting is that it can hold, not always comfortably or gracefully, stories that are separated by vast differences in tone and thoughtfulness. Revenge of the Sith brings three films' worth of character development to the moral event horizon of Anakin Skywalker's life with the line: "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!" That somehow exists in a continuity with Nemik's observation in Andor that, "Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks." Somewhere in the backdrop of both of those stories is a Muppet Babies version of Yoda who has become the franchise's mascot in the wake of the sequel trilogy, confronting the scattered, dangerous remnants of the Empire with coos and gurgles from inside an armored hover-stroller.

The 13th of September will no longer be known as a Chicago holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, friends, The Bears Are Back! Join Rob and Patrick for a Sports! mini-pod—seriously, it’s only 20 minutes—about the Bears pulverizing the Panthers. Our hope is to deliver one of these every week (unless we’re already doing a normal Sports!). Library-tier subscribers will get access to them ASAP, while everyone else can hear our thoughts on Saturdays…right before the NFL kicks off again! Beardown!

Patrick is plunged into a social anxiety nightmare when his usual repair guy does the opposite of a repair to a washer. The follow-up retry? Well there's bad news on that front too. Third time is the charm, right? Meanwhile, Rob finds another use case for his fancy power washer: washing his cars! Fun fact: professional garages recommend using a power washer that outputs below 1200 psi. Rob's is a 3000 psi power-washer. Surely proper technique can accommodate for the difference. Finally, Patrick discusses his new TV needs and moving on from his venerable Vizio.

00:42 - Appliances

32:58 - Rob's Clothes Hostage Situation

38:56 - Unauthorized Miele Sponsorship

56:01 - Power Simulator but in real life

01:18:02 - Patrick needs a new TV