Join Josh and Bryan as they flex their design skills, mostly unsuccessfully, and still manage to create incredibly charming scenes with Townscaper and Tiny Glade. Both of these games offer a different take on the ‘city painting’ or ‘diorama design’ genre of creative game. With little to no direction, and a not insignificant helping hand extended to the player, both of these games interpret the player’s design decisions and render them into utterly gorgeous structures, landscapes, and villages. Townscaper, released in 2021, is the passion project of the developer Oskar Stålberg, who also created Bad North among other projects. It allows the player to create a tiny seaside town with just a few clicks. Tiny Glade was released in 2024 and offers the player the opportunity to create a cozy castle or village diorama set in the variety of seasons with a truly impressive camera mode with which the player can then share and experience their creation. So join Bryan and Josh, and lets get creative!

Three Word Reviews:

Townscaper

Bryan - Needs a Checklist

Josh - Building with Oomph

Tiny Glade

Bryan - Daily Creative Meditation

Josh - Cup of Tea

Show Notes:

Web version of Townscaper

Flurdeh’s Youtube Channel

Josh's Latest Game: Neongarten

Its been a while since Bryan and Josh sat down and recorded a podcast about a good old fashioned Narrative Game… enter 1000xResist, the narrative game that Bryan brought to Josh after being completely blown away by the game’s incredible economy of storytelling and deep, varied themes. Needless to say, both were enthralled with Sunset Visitor’s foray into game development and the lengthy conversation they had is testament to the deep read the game received, and deserves. At its heart 1000xResist is a walking sim about a society of clones existing in a post apocalypse an unknown number of years after an alien invasion. The clones are all descended from a young woman who was immune to the disease that the alien Occupants brought. What makes it unique (among many things) is its attention to cinematography, captivating theming, and frequent narrative swerves. Its an incredible work of storytelling, featuring unique exploration of multiple key topics including: family, immigration, resistance, illness, oppression and more. So join Bryan and Josh in praising the ALLMOTHER that this game graced our PC’s and listen in for an in depth, spoiler-filled discussion of the experience. Hekki Almo, Hekki Grace!

Three Word Reviews:

Bryan - Break the Cycle

Josh - Watch and Remember

Show Notes:

Devised Narratives

In this podcast Bryan and Josh dive into two minimalistic, manic roguelikes: Tiny Rogues and SNKRX! Tiny Rogues by RubyDev a fantasy rogue-lite dungeon crawler that plays in the bullet hell genre, complete with twin-stick controls. It also boasts some lite RPG elements and a cornucopia of classes to choose from. The ability to end up with a completely wild and enjoyably broken build in Tiny Rogues is extremely entertaining, and kept both Bryan and Josh coming back to see how far they could advance in the game’s meta-progression layer. Next up, with SNKRX the guys build a snake out of RPG party classes and sent them to battle against colorful pellet enemies. SNKRX is the more minimalist of the two, sporting only colorful, pill-shaped enemies on a black background for your multi-colored ‘snake’ to defeat, but the depth of build variety and enjoyable synergies to discover were enough to make this a game that was easy to return to over and over. So get ready to give it ‘one more run’ with Josh and Bryan as they talk through Tiny Rogues and SNKRX!

Three Word Reviews:

Tiny Rogues

Bryan - Bountiful Build Variety

Josh - Bite-sized Bullet Ballet

SNKRX

Bryan - Snakes Sneaking Synergies

Josh - Sneaky Snakey Snack

Show Notes:

SNKRX's post-release log - a327ex