Lost Levels Club – Details, episodes & analysis

Mike and Ting talk about The Case of the Golden Idol.

Contains SPOILERS for The Case of the Golden Idol!

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

What is The Case of the Golden Idol?

• The Case of the Golden Idol OST: 1 - The Watching Eye | Composed by Kyle Misko (2022) (YouTube)
• The Case of the Golden Idol - Metacritic
• The Case of the Golden Idol | Official Game Trailer | Netflix (YouTube)
• The Rise of the Golden Idol on Steam
• YARN | MALE VOICE: Doggone it. I am too old and too rich for this. | The Simpsons (1989) - S15E01 Comedy | Video clips by quotes | 1d008e6c | 紗
• the case of the golden idol is not a detective game (YouTube)

Chapters and Epilogue

• The Case of the Golden Idol OST: 3 - Wine & Cards | Composed by Kyle Misko (2022) (YouTube)
• An Abrupt Termination of Contract | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki
• The Dramatic Departure of an Outsider | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki
• The Intoxicating Dinner Party | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki
• Constraint satisfaction problem - Wikipedia
• The Strange Practices of a Secretive Society | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki
• The Triumph of Order | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki
• The Slight Delay in the Peaceful March to the King's Castle | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki

DLC

• Golden Idol Mysteries: Spider of Lanka OST | Alleyways of Lanka | Composed by Kyle Misko (2023)
• The Overly Enthusiastic Card Game Tournament in the Yellow Lily | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki
• The Unfortunate Accident at the Raja's Court | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki
• The Less than Amicable Departure of Two Explorers | The Case of the Golden Idol Wiki

Summary

• The Case of the Golden Idol OST: 12 - Slight Delay | Composed by Kyle Misko (2022) (YouTube)
• Outer Wilds - Mobius Digital
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Duck Detective: The Secret Salami - Release Trailer (YouTube)
• Moon Logic Puzzle - TV Tropes

Mike and Ting talk about the Paris Olympics and Disney forcing arbitration in a wrongful death case.

NOTE: this is the pre-episode warm up chat for The Case of the Golden Idol.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

Pre-Chat

• An ambitious Olympics opening ceremony showboats French culture on the Seine River
• An Olympics Scene Draws Scorn. Did It Really Parody ‘The Last Supper’? - The New York Times
• Blue man at this year’s Olympics opening ceremony defends memorable scene to CNN
• Celine Dion en la Ceremonia de Apertura de Paris 2024 🎤✨ (YouTube)
• Why no one wants to host the Olympics (YouTube)
• French Olympic pole vaulter, Anthony Ammirati, hit the pole with his oui oui. #olympics2024 - YouTube
• How Raygun made it to the Olympics and divided breaking world
• The Australian Olympian 'Raygun' went viral for her breaking moves. Now she's defending them.
• Top 10 Raygun Breakdance Moves - YouTube
• The Simpsons - I Used To Be With It (Abe Simpson Rant) (YouTube)
• Olympic Shooters Look Like Anime (YouTube)
• Disney+ terms prevent allergy death lawsuit, Disney says
• End-user license agreement - Wikipedia
• Epic Games Store and Fortnite arrive on EU iPhones | Ars Technica

Mike and Ting talk about Cookie Clicker.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

What is Cookie Clicker?

• Hover (YouTube)
• Cookie Clicker
• DashNet | creating video games | Patreon
• Cow Clicker - Wikipedia
• #Gamelab2018 - Jon Blow's Design decisions on creating Jai a new language for game programmers (YouTube)
• Incremental game - Wikipedia
• AdVenture Capitalist - Hyper Hippo Games
• Universal Paperclips decisionproblem.com
• Perfect Tower II
• Ting’s Cookie Clicker stats
• Mike’s Cookie Clicker stats
• Names of large numbers - Wikipedia

Playing Cookie Clicker

• Click (YouTube)
• Building | Cookie Clicker Wiki
• Heavenly Chips | Cookie Clicker Wiki
• Sugar Lump | Cookie Clicker Wiki
• Minigame | Cookie Clicker Wiki
• Golden Cookie | Cookie Clicker Wiki | Fandom
• Dopamine - Wikipedia
• Use Mouse Keys to move the mouse pointer - Microsoft Support
• Achievement | Cookie Clicker Wiki
• Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs | Psychology Today
• Grandmapocalypse | Cookie Clicker Wiki

Summary

• Ascend (YouTube)
• News Ticker | Cookie Clicker Wiki
• Stellaris - Paradox Interactive
• Idle Champions
• Diablo (series) - Wikipedia
• BigDecimal (Java Platform SE 8 )
• Fortnite Bird Is The Word (Peter Griffin Emote) (YouTube)

Mike and Ting talk about what they're looking forward to in 2021, holiday gaming and new year's resolutions.

The “book club” game is: Cyberpunk 2077.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

2021 Games

• Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury - Announcement Trailer - Nintendo Switch (YouTube)
• 2021 in video games
• Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
• Mass Effect Legendary Edition
• Garrus Vakarian
• 2021 Preview: God of War: Ragnarök teases an epic Norse battle
• Gran Tourismo 7
• Breath Of The Wild 2, Metroid Prime 4, & More Coming In 2021 Says Leaker
• Retro Studios Is Remodelling Its HQ In 2021 To Aid Development Of Metroid Prime 4
• It Takes Two
• Hogwarts Legacy
• Why I’m not buying the Harry Potter game
• Bully (video game)
• Witchbrook
• Deathloop
• Dishonored Co-Creator Is Working on a New Arkane Game With Dishonored and Prey Developers
• Back 4 Blood
• Left 4 Dead 2 gets its first major DLC in eight years today
• Twelve Minutes
• Omori
• Phantom Brigade

Holiday Gaming

• ReMix: Super Mario World "Super Mario's Sleigh Ride" By The OneUps (OC ReMix)
• Razer Core X
• Razer Core X vs suitcase...
• Call of Duty: Warzone patch nerfs the most powerful gun, but it may not be enough
• Region Restrictions on Steam
• Announcing the 2020 Steam Winter Sale
• The Epic Games Store Holiday Sale is back on December 17, bringing you the gift of great discounts and 15 Days of FREE Games!
• Superliminal
• Subnautica
• My Summer Car
• Dicey Dungeons
• Paradise Killer
• 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel
• Griftlands
• Manifold Garden
• Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark
• Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch Remastered
• NieR:Automata
• There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
• Lair of the Clockwork God
• Persona 4 Golden
• WHAT THE GOLF?

New Year’s Resolutions

• Free Music Archive: Princes Band - Auld Lang Syne
• How Long PS5 & Xbox Series X Shortages Will Last
• This crypto-mining farm with 78 GeForce RTX 3080 GPUs likely rakes in $154,000 per year
• Application-specific integrated circuit
• Monolith (Space Odyssey)
• Best & Worst CPUs of 2020 (Gaming, Workstation, Coding, Overclocking, & Disappointment) (YouTube)
• A.I. Expert: RTX 3080 Reviews “Don’t Do It Justice”
• Machine Learning | Coursera
• AlphaZero: Shedding new light on chess, shogi, and Go
• Kickstarter Pitches (podcast episode)
• Covid-19: Gov’t barring Hongkongers returning from UK, despite earlier stance on returnees from China
• The Minimalists: Less Is Now | Netflix
• Marie Kondo
• Beeminder
• @bmndr - Oh my goodness we got brutally roasted on this @lostlevelsclub podcast (starts ~3m14s). So unfair yet so funny!

Mike is stranded in the UK. Ting is trying to get to the UK. Also, katsu chicken nuggets.

NOTE: this is the pre-episode warm up chat for 2020 Wrap Up - Part 2.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

Pre-Chat

• Winnersh
• European robin
• Prime Minister announces national lockdown
• Covid-19: More than 40 countries ban UK arrivals
• Coronavirus: anger as travel plans thrown into disarray by Hong Kong’s move to raise Covid-19 quarantine to 21 days
• Undercover Boss (British TV series)
• Capitol riots: Congress certifies Joe Biden's victory after chaotic scenes
• Call of Duty: Warzone DMR 14 and Mac-10 combo is as popular as it is overpowered
• McDonald’s to launch katsu chicken nuggets
• McDonald’s closes to takeaway customers for third national lockdown

Mike and Ting look back on 2020.

The “book club” game is: Cyberpunk 2077.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

Our Year of Games

• Undertale - Snowdin Remix (YouTube)
• 2020 Stats Spreadsheet
• Katsew's Warzone Overview - COD Warzone Tracker
• Call of Duty: Warzone is currently riddled with Juggernauts
• Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War
• Aim Lab
• KovaaK 2.0
• Divinity: Original Sin II for PC Reviews - Metacritic
• What exactly is a “murder hobo”?
• Baldur’s Gate 3
• A Short Hike
• Crafting A Tiny Open World: A Short Hike Postmortem (YouTube)
• Control
• SCP Foundation
• Factorio
• Satisfactory
• Shapez.io
• Phoenix Point

2020 in Review

• Among Us Remix - Dead Body Reported (YouTube)
• COVID-19 pandemic
• Ring Fit Adventure
• Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Boxing Day
• Escape from Tarkov
• Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
• Devolverland Expo
• Among Us
• Phasmophobia
• Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition
• PS5 and Xbox Series X stock shortages have killed the console war
• Nvidia CEO anticipates supply shortages for the RTX 3080 and 3090 to last until 2021
• Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 and Xbox One seems to have major problems
• Cyberpunk 2077 Xbox One/X vs PS4/Pro Tested - Can Any Last-Gen Console Cut It? (YouTube)

Meaningless Awards - Best Multiplayer

• Call of Duty: Warzone (Mike and Ting)

Meaningless Awards - Best Game

• Monster Train (Mike)
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Ting)
• Disco Elysium (Game Ting already picked last year)

Meaningless Awards - Missed in 2020

• The Last of Us Part II (Mike)
• Ghost of Tsushima (Game Mike heard should have won more awards)
• Persona 5 Royal (Ting)

Meaningless Awards - Honourable Mention

• Half-Life: Alyx (Mike)
• Noita (Mike - Bonus Roguelike)
• Spelunky 2 (Mike - Bonus Roguelike)
• Hades (Mike - Bonus Roguelike)
• Filament (Mike - Bonus Non-Roguelike)
• Microsoft Flight Simulator (Ting)
• Outer Wilds (Ting - Bonus)

Mike and Ting talk about VTubers, 2020 as an annus horribilis and Airpods Max.

NOTE: this is the pre-episode warm up chat for 2020 Wrap Up.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

Pre-Chat

• Virtual YouTuber
• Korone dropping the F Bomb in Mario Classic (YouTube)
• FaceRig
• Annus horribilis
• Prince Andrew's links to Jeffrey Epstein
• Lèse-majesté
• AirPods Max
• QuietComfort 35 II Noise Cancelling Smart Headphones | Bose
• WH-1000XM4 Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones | Sony US
• PSA: How to switch off AirPods Max without Apple ‘bra’ case
• Here’s what the early reviews say about Apple’s bizarre AirPods Max Smart Case
• Market Manipulation

Mike and Ting talk about Marvel's Avengers, game awards and rapid fire some topics.

The “book club” game is: Cyberpunk 2077.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

Marvel's Avengers

• Marvel's Avengers | Launch Trailer (YouTube)
• Marvel's Avengers Hasn't Recouped Its Development Costs Yet
• Marvel’s Avengers looks...bad?
• One Month Later, Avengers Still Doesn't Have A Multiplayer Pinnacle Activity
• Banner blindness
• How Naoki Yoshida’s team saved Final Fantasy XIV, in his own words
• 'Beyond’ delivers the ‘No Man’s Sky’ experience I was waiting for
• BioWare’s Hudson and Darrah are leaving the Anthem and Dragon Age maker
• Anthem Update – Javelin Gameplay & Builds
• How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong
• The Messy, True Story Behind The Making Of Destiny
• Here’s How Microtransactions Work In Marvel’s Avengers
• How long is Warframe

Game Awards

• The Game Awards
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Awards
• 10 Times Leonardo DiCaprio Didn’t Win An Oscar
• How Does Oscar Voting Work?
• Voting Jury | The Game Awards
• Grammys drop 'urban' from major award category
• You can only have one Animal Crossing: New Horizons island per Nintendo Switch system
• Frequently Asked Questions - Metacritic
• Game of the Year 2019: Day One Deliberations (YouTube)

Rapid Fire

• Watch Dogs: Legion
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Immortals Fenyx Rising
• Watch Dogs: Legion map - London landmark locations, plus map accuracy and boundaries explained
• Insert Coin, the arcade documentary worth feeding all your quarters into
• High Score
• Indie Game: The Movie (2012)
• Is the Demon's Souls remake coming to PC? Here's what we know
• SUPER NINTENDO WORLD | Universal Studios Japan
• Nintendo’s Mario Cafe — and its food — looks fantastic
• Drifloon (Pokémon)
• The PS5’s DualSense controller is a literal game changer

Mike and Ting talk about Beeminder, Microsoft's creepy office productivity score and "revenge bedtime procrastination".

NOTE: this is the pre-episode warm up chat for Avengers, Awards and Alacritous Fire.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

Pre-Chat

• Dildos are everywhere in Cyberpunk 2077
• Jollibee
• COVID-19 Thematic Website (Hong Kong) - Early Testing and Detection
• Beeminder
• Microsoft's Creepy New 'Productivity Score' Gamifies Workplace Surveillance
• Bees Kill A Giant Hornet With Heat | Buddha Bees and The Giant Hornet Queen | BBC Earth (YouTube)
• Mythbusters Bees Lift Laptop (YouTube)
• The psychology behind ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’

Mike and Ting talk about Super Mario 3D All-Stars.

Contact us: @lostlevelsclub or mike.and.ting@lostlevels.club

What is 3D All-Stars?

• Super Mario 3D All-Stars
• Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition
• Nintendo 2nd Quarter Results for Fiscal Year Ending March 2021
• All Super Mario 3d All-Stars Games Are Emulated; Galaxy Code Has Been Recompiled to Run Natively on the Switch CPU

Super Mario 64

• Bob-Omb Battlefield - Super Mario 64 (YouTube)
• Super Mario 64
• Mips Clip Beginner Tutorial 2020 (YouTube)
• For reference, I think he says “So long-ay Bowser”
• Internet pours one out for Super Mario 64’s ‘Gay Bowser,’ who is dead now
• Lethal Lava Land
• Lakitu Bros.
• Vanish Cap Under the Moat
• The Mario 64 PC port looks like a full-blown remaster with new 4K texture pack

Super Mario Sunshine

• Isle Delfino - Super Mario Sunshine (YouTube)
• Super Mario Sunshine
• Corona Mountain
• Super Mario Sunshine on Metacritic
• Gelato Beach
• F.L.U.D.D.
• Four frustrating takeaways from the reissued Super Mario Sunshine
• The Sand Bird is Born
• New Super Mario 3D All-Stars Update 1.1.0 Allows Players to Invert Camera Controls and Adds GameCube Controller Support for Mario Sunshine
• Ricco Harbor
• Hotel Delfino
• Delfino Plaza
• Pachinko Game
• Gooper Blooper
• Super Mario Sunshine: How To Unlock Corona Mountain

Super Mario Galaxy

• Super Mario Galaxy OST - Gusty Garden Galaxy (YouTube)
• Super Mario Galaxy
• How Many Power Stars Are in Super Mario Galaxy?
• Screen | Wii | Support | Nintendo
• Anybody Experience Color Banding on the Switch in Dock Mode?
• Spring Mushroom
• Bee Mushroom
• Cappy
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Super Mario 3D All-Stars: Here's How Motion Controls Work In Galaxy
• Rolling Green Galaxy
• Loopdeeloop Galaxy
• Star Bit

Summary

• Cyberpunk 2077
• Daikatana

Post-Chat

• Divinity: Original Sin II