NOCLIP – Details, episodes & analysis

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.

Podcast.Mystery(1); wait(31) Welcome back to the podcast, and to, shamefully, our first episode of Mystery May! Quadrilateral Cowboy is a part heist, part desktop simulation game in which you use a portable “deck” to hack into security systems and use gadgets to get into locations in a cyberpunk dystopia. And the thing that really sets this game apart from most other games in this genre is that you actually have to do all the hacking yourself. It’s not quite complicated on the level of something like Hacker Evolution, but the act of creating code yourself and then needing to execute actions in sync with it creates a really creatively expressive environment in which to solve puzzles. The game may add a few more things than were strictly necessary to be a satisfying collection of systems, but each of them is fun to play around with and get a hang of. On top of the strictly mechanical elements of the game, the game builds its world, one of skyscrapers and autoturrets, bombastically while setting up its characters in an exceedingly subtle way. The minimalist art style and lack of any dialogue betray how well the narrative elements are communicated by way of environments, character behaviors and gameplay setup. This is one of those games that, while definitely not being for everyone, shows how games can be used to communicate weirder concepts in ways few other mediums can. We’re going to be talking about how the crunchy mechanics are used to design novel puzzle concepts, issues we had both technical and skill, and we set you up with a DC 17 vibe check. Thank you for joining us again this week! We know it’s been a long time coming on Mystery May, so much so that it is now June (“Mystery Summer Theater” as Andy has taken to calling it), but appropriately, this game has been on our list to play for seven years so it’s been a long time coming as well. Are you a fan of really finnicky mechanic sets like this, or did you look once at this game and say “maybe I’ll play the next one”? Let us know in the comments section or over on our Discord! Next time, Mystery May gives us one of the most “thing that’s not like the others” games on the list with Ecco the Dolphin, so we hope you’ll join us then, or the suffering will almost definitely not have been worth it.

You’re a podcast? Then why didn’t you attack on sight? Welcome back! This month is Fanbruary, which means that we are playing games suggested to us by our audience, and the very first we’ve chosen to cover is Everspace. This is a space combat game with a rougelite framework, seeing you making runs through six different “Sectors” to explore and collect resources and starting from the beginning each time you die. The “lite” part of the genre title comes in the form of credits, the game’s metacurrency which you can spend to upgrade either yourself or your ship, making subsequent runs a little bit easier. And I really can’t stress “a little bit” enough. This is a difficult game, particularly if you don’t have a lot of experience with this type of combat, but it is helped immensely by the shocking amount of fine control you have over your movement, making the actual experience of playing pretty smooth and the fights feel more strategic. Once the game has its hooks in you, it actually is a really compelling experience and it had us engaging with its narrative mysteries as well as its mechanical ones once we got the hang of it. We’re going to be talking about the many layers of systems in the game and how it might be better off explaining more of them a little earlier, the surprisingly solid presentation in the form of audio and visuals all the way up through writing and voice acting, and all the good, flavorful lasers. This is the first episode to come out for “Fanbruary” but we’re pretty deep into the games already and I gotta say I haven’t been this excited about doing some episodes in a while. We were both kind of expecting to get left in the dust by this game and were pleasantly surprised at how captivating we ended up finding it. Have you played this game? Are you a space games kind of person or someone constantly searching for that new roguelike that’s going to grab you? In either case, this is one to at least give a shot to. Let us know on our Discord or down in the comments if it worked as well for you as it did for us. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Arkane’s Prey, a reboot in the loosest sense of the term that puts the Dishonored developer’s immersive sim trademark back on the genre in which it started, the sci-fi FPS, so check it out then.

This sacred podcast is one of the few untouched spots. Welcome back to NOCLIP pocket! Today, we’re going to be talking about Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, which is the fourth game in the Momodora series, but the first one to really take off. This is a Metroidvania game, but one that is surprisingly compact. It’s fairly rare in the genre to have a game this short, and it brings with it some disadvantages but also some surprising advantages. The smaller map makes backtracking and exploration a lot more clear, and encourages the player to explore more thoroughly, and makes your destination more clear due to it being more fresh in your memory without the need of more obvious signposting. The game falls within the Souls-like subgenre, a boon to its coming to prominence at the time of its release, but even so, feels very at home as a Metroidvania and less like copy-paste of Souls mechanics common in the era. The combat system, while simple, feels very satisfying when you’re engaging with it at face value, though there are ways to exploit it. It’s a mixed bag, but one that feels worth your time, as long as you don’t mind a pretty silly looking boob boss. We’re going to be talking about using new abilities to reach areas in a map small enough for you to remember where you should be using them, the balancing of the combat system and difficulty, and a lot more than could have ever been thought necessary about the Swamp Witch. Thank you for joining us this week! We knew little about this game prior to playing it, but it seemed like a decent go-along with Metroid: Dread, and I’m personally pretty satisfied with the experience. As a short indie Metroidvania, it can sometimes highlight the things that really are cool about the genre even though it doesn’t really strike out in too many new directions itself. What did you think about it? Did it hit the right notes of the Soulslike formula for you, or would you have preferred something longer or more complex? Let us know over in the Discord or in the comments! And while you’re there, in the Discord, doing whatever, keep an eye out on the announcements channel, because we’re going to be announcing all the games we chose for Fanbruary, our audience choice theme month, very soon. So check us out then!

You have been stripped of most abilities. You might call it podcast amnesia. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Metroid Dread, the 5th mainline 2D Metroid game, which is admittedly a lot of qualifiers. Dread picks up following the events of Fusion, a game that was nearly 19 years old at Dread’s release, and carries over its story elements as well as some of the design that made Fusion feel different from the games that preceded it. For example, Dread feels like a more linear experience than previous Metroid games, with less of an emphasis on exploration, but it does so much more with its design, guiding players with a much more invisible hand than Fusion was able to do, and making navigation feel much less daunting than in classic Metroidvanias. Instead, Dread shifts its difficulty more into combat, which is more fluid than its ever been, leaning partially on the newer hardware it’s been released on, but also because you are given a host of new abilities both for movement and combat, chief amongst them being the counter, a mechanic developed in the remake of Metroid II on the 3DS, and put to use again here to great effect. This counter mechanic, as well as the speed and fluidity of the combat, shifts the focus of gameplay from careful exploration and resource management into a more run and gun experience, with the exploration being relegated to uncovering upgrades and hidden paths. While some may lament the loss of a more traditional Metroid experience, it does still provide a mix that keeps the feeling of exploring an unknown planet while smoothing out the frustrating experiences and focusing more on player execution. We’re going to be talking about abstraction in level design and how this can better immerse the player in the game, combat difficulty and boss fights, and we discuss how Samus has over time become a cocktail of genetics. Thank you for joining us again this week! Metroid, being one of the genre naming franchises of “Metroidvania” style games, has largely existed on its classic catalogue, with many years between releases and spinoff games and remakes holding down its presence in the gaming landscape, so to get a new game with comparatively little time between announcement and release was a pretty exciting thing for fans, most notably, me. How do you think Dread handled the franchise’s tropes and design sensibilities? Was it what you were looking for, or do you still pine for another game like Super Metroid? Let us know down in the comments or over on our Discord server where we talk about the games. Next time, we’ll be playing… something. We’re opening up the suggestions to the listeners for next month, so check back in to find out what we were recommended, or drop a suggestion of your own in the comment section!

I hope I was able to prove I’m more handy than the average podcast. Welcome back! Our first game of 2022 is going to be Wandersong, the indie adventure game that refused to just be an indie adventure game. In this game, you play a Bard who is clued in to the forthcoming apocalypse and sets out on an adventure to save the world. Carried by an immutable (literally and figuratively) enthusiasm, the Bard overcomes obstacles using a combination of song and some light platforming mechanics. Tonally, this game is delightful, with the bard meeting all comers with a positive attitude and a desire to make peace over all else. It’s a great way to express the game’s philosophy in a way that manages to be heartfelt and funny while feeling appropriately storybook even if it’s a bit on the nose. Mechanically, it’s more of a mixed bag. If you want to see a developer really try everything, this could be the perfect game for you, and you certainly will never get tired of any one thing. However, you can see a bit of a lack of polish across the game’s many unique mechanics and challenges, although you’ll never engage with one of them for more than a few minutes at a time. Put together, this is a game worth giving a shot to if you’re looking for something colorful that isn’t afraid to experiment. We’re going to be talking about focusing your game on a musician and what that means both in presentation and in mechanics, how a simple narrative can work well when you’re priority is getting across an emotion, and we determine whether this game’s McGuffin is better or worse than the Triforce. Thank you for listening to the podcast this week (and this year)! We should be back to releasing more regularly from here on out, but it was nice to have a bit of extra time on this game for the sake of our other responsibilities over the holidays. Let us know what you think of this game in the comments or over on our Discord. Were the rapidly shifting mechanics and simple story a bit too hard for you to take seriously, or did they come off as amusing, entertaining or just a novel experiment? Next time, we’re going to be talking about Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight to coincide with our main episode on Metroid: Dread, so get your Metroidvania brain in gear because we’re going to be lookin’ at maps for the rest of the month.

We’re rolling out the green carpet, and not just to play executive golf. The NOCLIP Awards are our most important annual tradition, and we’re back again this year with a new crop of categories alongside our old favorites. Find out what game did jumping the worst, which game focused the most on its mechanics and least on anything else, and join us as we figure out which host knows the other the best in our own version of the Newlyweds Game. All this and many (or at least some) more will be debated and judged for the enjoyment of your perfunctory NOCLIP Awards house parties I expect all of you to be hosting. Thanks for listening, and I hope you were on the correct side more than not. Do you think we picked correctly here? Was anyone monstrously robbed of their amazing submissions? Did you have a totally different pick for a category, or could you come up with your own list based on the games you personally have played this year? Let us know over on Discord or in the comments below. We’ll be back next time with NOCLIP Pocket focusing on Wondersong and after that a full episode on Metroid: Dread, so we hope you’ll join us in kicking off the new year.

Bah! What a thankless life! Being a podcaster in the age of monsters! Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Life is Strange: True Colors, because we just can’t quit this series apparently. The third game follows the gameplay precedents the series has adhered to thus far, being an adventure game in the “Telltale style” (a term that seems more and more dated since the studio was closed and then reanimated), that focuses on dialog trees and choice-matters narrative branches as opposed to puzzles. It even maintains a lot of the aesthetic and tone set up in the previous games, though notably the plot is now a lot more grounded barring Alex’s power to read and occasionally feel other’s emotions. And that power is probably the closest the series has come to smoothly integrating new mechanics into its overall structure, given how important emotions are to, you know, interfacing with other human beings. If you don’t know the series, everything revolves around its characters and plot, so we’d recommend playing the game first if you’re interested before listening to the episode and I won’t get into anything more spoiler-y here. We’re going to be talking about character building and how the game chooses to focus its emotional energy this time around, the setting of the game and how it succeeds in setting the groundwork for the game’s tone, but may stifle other aspects, and we spoil the true lore of the game which mixes an eldritch death cult and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Thanks for joining us today! If you’ve been listening for a while, you may have caught our episode on Life is Strange 2, which I would say we had…some issues with. Coming off a series low (in our opinion), we wondered if this third game could recapture what made the first game actually good. And it mostly does! We’d love to hear about your views on the trajectory of the franchise and whether you agree with our assessment on this (or any other LiS game). Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going from a game you can mostly play with one hand to a game that feels like you might need three to competently manage in Metroid Dread, so check us out then.

A new podcast has been added to your HikeLady, Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Toem, a photo-taking adventure game from developer Something We Made, and a game that is, well, frankly, sort of squarely in our wheelhouse. In Toem, you are tasked with going from place to place and fulfilling requests, which you do by using your camera and some limited environmental interaction to solve puzzles and obtain items. The camera is definitely the most noteworthy mechanical part of this game, switching from the game’s isometric perspective into a first person one and allowing you to freely move around and take pictures at whatever angle you choose. This is used to good effect, putting things in locations you can barely see without the on-the-ground viewpoint given to you by the camera. It makes the puzzles feel engaging and occasionally challenging, yet the lenient completion requirements allow you to moderate exactly how chill of an experience you want from it. Combine that with the game’s grayscale art style and varied characters, and you have a short, laid back game that scratches that itch for a do nothing night at home that you can play in a single sitting. We’re going to be talking about the unique way this game approaches puzzles, what it does to encourage completing the game at your own pace, and we try to turn the podcast into a news show for some dumb reason. Thank you for joining us again this week! Toem was, to us, a pretty decent follow up to Ocarina of Time, just because it is so short and laid back. There is functionally no pressure in this game and it makes for a really calm experience to sit down and play. Did you find the slow but dense style of this game to work for you, or were you searching for something a little deeper? How did you feel about the presentation, whether it be the simplistic visuals or the acoustic indie soundtrack? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord, and maybe drop a suggestion for what we should play next. Next time, we’re playing a game that no one requested, in the form of Wandersong, which, debatably, is a pretty similar game to to all the indie adventure games we play, but with a more musical bent. It’s certainly a lot more colorful than Toem, so at least that sets it apart. We hope you’ll come back for it next time.