Thanks for bearing with us listeners! After various real life events necessitated we take a month-long hiatus, we’re happy to be back with a new episode, and what better way to kick off season whatever-we’re-on-now than with a visit to the prestigious Indieventure Vault?
The theme this time around is extremely simple: all three of us got a free pick of whatever favourite indie game we felt was the Vault’s biggest outstanding omission to date. For Rebecca, that was archaeological adventure/hieroglyphic decryption puzzle game Heaven’s Vault; for Liam, it was that surprisingly upbeat soulslike about reapers, aptly named Death’s Door; and for Rachel, it was of course Cocoon — I mean, she literally wrote the book on it. (Pssst, go pre-order Rachel’s upcoming book about Cocoon if you haven’t already!).
We end, as always, with our latest hyperfixations, and since we’ve been away for a month, it’s a… diverse bunch for sure. Rachel has spent her recent holiday wisely by getting very into WWE (scandal noted), and in particular has identified her favourite wrestler as everyman Mick Foley (no scandals to note, turns out he’s just lovely??). Liam has been playing a lot of AAAs recently, but neither Overwatch nor Pokémon Pokopia nor even Resident Evil Requiem have been enough to overshadow his newfound love for 2017 Canadian mockumentary sitcom Nirvanna The Band The Show. And Rebecca has belatedly been captivated by the strangely bland allure of Love & Deepspace’s player housing update.
Comments:
Since y’all said you sometimes struggled with remembering games you’ve played across different platforms, I think it might be worth checking out Infinite Backlog! I only recently started using it, but it’s a pretty convenient way you can track games you’ve played or own across different platforms. You can link your Steam, Xbox and PSN accounts, so at least for those platforms you don’t have to manually update things you’re playing!
I really dug the deeper analysis of Death’s Doors themes. I totally agree that the game is just incredibly fun to play and super polished, but yeah, it actually has some surprising depth. I also thought the comparison to Tunic was an interesting discussion. For me personally, Tunic won out. Just the sense of exploration and uncovering mysteries was a lot stronger there, and I absolutely love that in games (Fez, Animal Well, The Witness) – where Death’s Door felt more focused on delivering satisfying combat and also had more interesting character designs.
If Liam ever wanted to talk about Overwatch on the pod, I would not complain, even if it’s the furthest thing from indie, haha. I actually jumped back into the game out of nostalgia at the end of last year. I still like it!
Rachel talking about wrestling came at a funny time – as I’d just finished reading fellow RPS in peace-er Alice Bell’s newest book, Grapples of Wrath. If you’re not familiar with her book series, it’s about a medium who can see and commune with ghosts stumbling her way through solving murders. And this latest one was set at a wrestling studio, so I also ended up learning a bit about the sport through the book. Also, I recently came across some wrestler that’s dressed like a pizza chef and attacks people by throwing pizza dough at them, and I guess that’s probably *my* favorite wrestler, just for the concept alone.