Can A Game Be Good When It Makes You Feel Bad?

Once you've beaten a game's final mission, it can be hard to go back and polish off side quests, kind of like grabbing some more salad after you've already had dessert. Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. Max FunDrive 2023 is underway and we're answering a bunch of your burning questions on topics like choice or the lack thereof in games like The Last of Us, sticking with games we've beaten, and what a TripleClick should do in a game. Let's go! I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Shire. Hello! Hello there! Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Hello, my friends. Welcome back. We are... We are currently... Kirk and I are currently as you hear this. We are in San Francisco at the Game Developers Conference. Right. As you hear this, but not as we record this. So there's a lot of temporal, conceptual stuff going on. We're recording a little bit of... So this is another... We're recording early, so you know... Yes. And another Metroid game surprise announcement. I'm just going to say this every time because it happened last time, so I feel like if I manifest it, like if they just said anything about... Just summoning the Metroid. Prime 2, 3, and 4. If they announced Silksong... No, wait, we said we don't want Silksong to come out until later. If they still drop a Switch Pro and we aren't talking about it right now, well, that's why. That's why. Because we're recording this a little bit earlier because Jason and I will both be traveling next week, which is going to be a lot of fun. What do we know is happening this week while we record this? What's happening this week is Max FunDrive 2023. It is currently underway. It is all happening. It started, I guess, on Monday and you're hearing this later in the week, it will be going on through Friday, the 31st. And Max FunDrive is an annual drive that we do as part of our network, or everybody does on our network. The maximum fun network. It's our big pledge drive to get new members because, as I'm sure you all know, we are a totally listener supported show. That means that we just make the show for all of you and you pay us all to make it. We don't get paid by any of the ads that we run. We just run ads for other shows on the maximum fun network, which is the network that we're part of a wonderful network that we've been a member of ever since we started TripleClick. We really love them. And Max FunDrive is the sort of annual celebration of maximum fun and a way to kind of goose some of you to become members if you've been thinking about it or to boost your membership. Goose, what a word. Stop splitting it off. Get those eggs out of you. Yeah, we're giving some noogies, some gentle, gentle gooseing is occurring. It's just a little reminder. It's not a little goose thing. It's just a little bit of a push, you know? It's just some light. And there are some fun incentives and some things. That's true, there are incentives. So we'll talk a little bit more about those a little later in the show, though I do want to mention up top that as part of Max FunDrive, we are going to be doing a stream, a live stream of some sort, some sort of video game or something, but it will be taking place the 29th on Wednesday, March 29th, 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. On our Twitch channel. Pacific, on our Twitch channel. Yes, which is Twitch TripleClick Pod. We'll have links and information down in the show notes. And we'll be mentioning it on social media and stuff too. We'll have more details later, but just in case you want to mark your calendars and it will be fun. We've done one of these every year for Max FunDrive and I'm sure it will be fun. This year, so more on Max FunDrive in a little bit. For now though, we've got some burning listener questions to get through. So Jason, why don't you get us going? Yeah, today we are opening up the mail bag answering some questions from our listeners, some fun ones this week. Just a reminder, if you have a burning question that you would like us to read on the show, potentially, send us an email, tripleclick at maximumfun.org. That's where all the questions must go for us to consider reading them. They have to be on fire also. They do, they're automatically converted to being on fire when they land. Oh, cool. So you don't even have to worry about it. They're going to be laid out. No, you don't have to have a fire filter. As soon as you get it, get them in. Wow. As soon as they get here, they light them on fire. Make some toasty questions. All right, let's start with a question from Jane. Matti, why don't you read this one? Okay, so Janearites, hey, team tripleclick. I was enjoying the latest episode. I guess we should note Jane was referring to the episode in which Jason proposed two types of video game, which are thought and flow, thinking and flow. I'll continue. Janearites, I think my experience may be a little different from how Jason's describing it. My most played game of all time is Civilization VI with thousands of hours across multiple platforms. Civ is definitely a thinking game, as Jason says in the episode. But eventually, I accumulated so many hours that my turns go lightning fast and I barely think about what decisions I'm making. Civ is what I play when I need to turn off my brain. And the switch port is my go to second screen game. I think there's a tipping point where you've memorized every critical decision and possibility in the game where thought can turn into flow. There are other games like Ocarina of Time that have puzzles, but once you know the solution, playing them is also a kind of flow. Fun episode, thanks guys. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think that a game can certainly, certainly doesn't have to be static in being one or the other and once you kind of master. And that's true of really all flow games is you do have to give some thought to like understanding the rulesets, understanding even something like Tetris, which is kind of the epitome of a game in which you are just kind of rapidly. Yeah, I mean, that's a game where you have to know the rules and you have to think about them and you have to think about each decision you're making. And then eventually, ideally, you get to this flow state where you're just kind of like moving pieces around. Mm-hmm. I feel like civilization is a perfect example from Jana here because I know exactly what she's talking about and also agree with StarCraft, which we'll see if I think that when we re-up StarCraft 2, thanks to Jason this year. But when I was in my heyday, I remember describing it as meditative. And I think I've even done that on this show at one time or other because I just had so many specific build orders that I'd done so many times that the experience of playing and even in multiplayer was pure flow and not so much thinking anymore. I'd just be like, oh, they're doing this. I'm going to do that. They're doing that. I'm going to do this. And I do think there's a downside that can come of this because sometimes if you get into a flow mode or state or whatever you want to call it, if the decisions aren't interesting enough to actually be thinking about them. And so I feel like it can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the game and your kind of state of mind when you're playing it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really like a qualitative judgment. It's just sort of the way the game works. I really like the idea of a thinking to flow pipeline that a lot of games follow. And I do kind of, I mean, I actually don't think of this as the two kinds of video games. I mentioned this on that episode, but this is like two different modes of play, but a lot of video games contain both of these. Yeah. And I was saying that as well that they're different, but is it like times that you think about both? Right. You just titled the episode the two types of video games, which felt a little bit binary for me just to say. Just to mess with this. This is when I, this is my workshop, Jason's episode. This episode is critiquing episode titles. That's right. We're going to talk about headlines, something Jason and I have been debating for more than a decade. Yeah. Wow. Since 2012. But a thought on this that I, this is a really good observation, I think by Jaina. And yeah, kind of, it kind of underlines that thought, right? That this is a fluid thing and that you can move from the one to the other. And it's kind of like jazz. I say that, I say it actually seriously because I have a lot of experience with that. And the way that you learn jazz, whether you learn to play on a tune or really the way that you learn to play jazz in general is there is a lot of practical direct thought applied to playing through chord progressions where you're learning like, okay, I really got to learn this chord progression for this song and I got to go over it and over it and you drill it in this very methodical, practical and thought kind of way. And the goal is that eventually when you're playing with other people, you can totally let go of that and you can be in the moment and you can kind of improvise. But what you're improvising is still your fingers, kind of that muscle memory I was talking about during one more thing last week. That part of your brain is sort of working its way through all that stuff that you drilled so many times, which is really similar to playing again, like civilization or Tetris or any of these games we've talked about where you start out having to learn the sort of ludic language, whatever the physical language and then your brain kind of smooths it out and eventually you can really relax and get into a flow state, which really is one of the reasons that I really like writing and talking about video games because they are a lot like jazz and yes, Jason, it is all about the games that you don't play. Now I was going to say it's all about the decisions you don't make. It's all about the thoughts you don't have. I was going to say it's all about the pylons you don't construct, which I think I was sure. I tried to head you both off and I didn't work out. I mean, if you're playing civilization, it's all about the nations you don't nuke. Right. It's all about the barbarians you don't fight. Yeah. It's all about the roads you don't build, the spearmen you don't take down. The tech trees you don't fill out. Let's get to the next question. Kirk, take us away. Okay, I love this question. This is from Benjamin. Benjamin writes, triple click is a fun name. If you were in a game, what would triple clicking do? I have a thought on this, but I'm curious if either of you do. Well, okay, when you were thinking about this, when you say when Benjamin says if you were in a game, what did you enter? How did you enter? Yeah, I assumed like a game about the three of us or? No, I see. No, I kind of I think I like skimmed over that part of the sentence and then created my own meaning from a separate arrangement of words, which basically I assumed he was asking if you were making a game with a triple click command where like clicking three times did something unique compared to once or twice. What would it do? That was my interpretation of this question. So I will admit that is not exactly what Benjamin wrote. So maybe I don't love this question. I love the version of this question that I read. Okay, well, give us your answer on the version that you read it. So I think since most games have just a single click and this is assuming you're playing with a mouse, but you could say a button press to, but let's say it for whenever it doesn't matter. So there's kind of a single press and some games have a double press where it does something, but it is very rare that there's a triple press. So what I think it should do, like say you're playing a fighting game where like you press it once and you do a regular attack, you press it twice and you do a fast attack. I think if you do it three times, it's usually because you're like frantically pressing the button. So it should reflect that in some way. Like your player, your character on screen should like look at you and be like, dude, chill out, like there should be some something that tells you to calm down because probably if you've entered the realm of clicking three times, you're clicking a whole bunch of times. And I think the game should reflect that in some way. I like that. I had two responses. One is about perfect dark because we just played it. So it's on my mind. There is a crouch and a prone position in perfect dark. It's like super crouch. It's not even because the little icon doesn't show her lying down. It just shows her like crouched even further. Yeah. And then she can really crouch. Super crouch. Which is great. And you need to click down on the thumbs. Really good squatting. It's like really getting it. Yeah, she's really working on her thighs, that Joanna Dark. That's why they call her perfect. So triple clicking in that game for me is, oh, didn't mean to crouch, need to reset. So the triple click is that third click getting Joanna Dark back up to standing position, which is a funny answer. But just to kind of pile on the fighting game answer, that's more of a real answer. There are certainly fighting games where you do need to press the same button three times. Just to do the same move or chain of move. But I mean, one of my favorite examples of that is Chun Lee's kick where she's got her leg in the air and you got to do the piano fingers on your pad and just hit those buttons in a rhythmic movement. I have always thought that felt extremely satisfying to get right. You guys know what I'm talking about, right? It's like the Matrix kick where she's got her knee in the air and she's like, da, da, da, I don't know. I'm moving my finger around. The list are gonna imagine this. Is that kick, I'm trying to remember the one. You need to keep hitting the buttons at the right rhythm in order for it to work. That's all you need to know. Is that the move the guy does in that bananas match where I think it's E Honda versus Chun Lee? The Daigo Perry. And yes, the Daigo Perry, that's it where he blocks every single one of Honda's attacks and then hits him for the KO. Yeah, it's not that move. It's a parry. He's not doing that. He's just parry. He's got an extremely awesome and needing to hit a button three times video. So, so well taken. More than three times. More than two times. Yeah. Wow. A bunch of times in perfect. So, so a triple click is doing the Daigo Perry. Is that? Is that good? Let's just say that. Sure, yeah. That's the coolest answer ever. My answer is, okay, sticking with the Starcraft theme here. Sure. My answer is that, okay, so clicking it, let's say you select some units and you click somewhere. I'll make a move or you can do a plus click to make them attack move. And let's say you double click. I think they maybe they get a little exasperated. Let's say you triple click. Then they turn around and they're like, what the hell man? Like you already told us once. You don't have to tell us three times. This is of course inspired by what Blizzard actually does or did with their RTS games, which is if you click on a unit, they have like a bark that they say like, hello, yeah, like at your command, whatever. You click them again. They have another one to keep clicking on. And eventually you get to the point where they have like, pissed lines. Right, they get frustrated. They get frustrated. Sometimes they have jokes or like pop culture references. The science vessel in Starcraft and the original Starcraft, the voice sounds a lot like Mr. Burns and he'll start quoting Mr. Burns if you like from the sense that he'll he'll start quoting Mr. Burns if you keep clicking him. So that's my answer is triple clicking pisses off your units and makes them turning into you. Nice. I'm going to be a Starcraft too because I knew we're going to be playing it and I just thought I would mention that. Yeah, I'm excited. Maybe that maybe we could stream. We could stream that play some multiplayer. That'd be a fun story. I don't know if I'm ready. Yeah, but it's a way I guess you guys need to need to practice more. All right. Next question. This is Spencer. Dear triple click has this ever happened to you? I feel like I'm doing an actual where this is. Spencer is staring down the barrel of the camera. I think it's a it's I think you should leave with. It's like like Robinson is like, is this ever happening to you? And it's like the plumbers kit where they come over. Oh, man, that's good. Anyway, back to Spencer's letter. Has this ever happened to you? You're splitting your time between the main and side missions of a game when you reach a boss that's slightly more difficult than some of the others and after beating them, you get a long cinematic and the end credits roll. You say to yourself, I had no idea that was last mission. Do you return to the side missions after seeing the end credits or is the game over for you? And actually, I'm going to take this question a little bit further and say that it applies to like, even if you did know the game was over, do you revisit it to play the side missions and stuff? Right. I'll answer this first because it's actually very relevant to my life right now. So as you guys know, as most listeners know by now, I've been obsessed with Octopath Traveler 2, the new JRPG that just blows its predecessor out of the water. And really, after beating it, I think it's one of the one of the best RPGs I've ever played. After beating it, I still have some side stuff that I haven't done. There's an optional super boss that I was thinking about taking on. And at some point I decided, you know, I kind of have the urge to just replay this whole thing from scratch. So sometimes, I think my answer, at least, is like either waiting for a few years down the road and replaying it all from scratch and then doing some of the side stuff I missed before or just starting right then and there and starting from scratch and doing all the side stuff. So the thing that I'll often do is, I'm not a completionist at all in-game, so I don't tend to just do every side quest just because it's on a list. What I'll often do is I'll Google most interesting side quests and then so if I beat a game and I still feel like I want to keep playing it, I might go look for the more interesting stories or quests to do and take care of those. But it's very rare for me to be like, okay, I'm done with this game now. I'm going to spend another 20 hours just doing all the side stuff. That's very rare for me. Anyway, what about you guys? I don't think I've ever beaten a game by accident the way Spencer described, but that's very funny. Yeah, that's why I wanted to extrapolate it a little bit. I just like the idea of that. I think the closest I've come is the fact that Citizen Sleeper, which is like an indie strategy game that we talked about a bunch, has a lot of credits roll moments, pretty much every time you defeat one of the story arcs and there are several in the game. Like a dozen, it will roll credits and I think some people do stop after the first one, but you really don't have to and the clock and the game keeps ticking forward as well. The next mission that you do when you go back in takes place the following day. It doesn't reset you back in time to like, oh, Ganondorf hasn't ascended yet or whatever. It just time continues on forward. So I always thought that was kind of odd that Citizen Sleeper chose to include the credit roll maneuver there. I think it is a little weird, but nonetheless, that is definitely an example of a time when I completed every single possible mission because I liked that game and I wanted to complete them all. And I also agree with you, Jason. I tend to, after a game is over, just make sure that there aren't any cool side quests I missed. I know I did that for both Horizon games after beating them, just making sure I didn't miss anything cool because there's a lot of side quests in those games for sure. Making sure you didn't miss something like you missed the fact that you could slow down time. Yeah, well, that's not related to side quests, but definitely wasn't going to beat that game by accident in that scenario. No, it's pretty clear when that one's ending. Yeah, I don't think I beat a game by accident, but I have had a similar thing happen where I enter an end game for lack of a better way of putting it where just like the world changes, the sun becomes an eclipse and, you know, everything like some side quests become unavailable or I get that pop up that's like, you are entering end game. Are you sure you don't do any side quests until it's complete? And that sometimes does come, if not unexpectedly, at least earlier than I want. And I do have a problem playing side quests after I've beaten the game. Like I don't like to go back and do them. Like you, Jason, I like to go back on a replay and play them. I'm actually, I'm going to go on a show to talk about Red Dead Redemption 2 at some point, which was, it's been a fun excuse to just revisit a PC playthrough of that game that I had started forever ago and have going. And I really would like to do too, yeah. Yeah, and the way, when I revisited that game in particular, I really enjoyed just taking my time, especially because as that game goes, things get more and more dire narratively. Arthur is sick. It really starts falling apart. Everything is just falling apart and it really becomes a bummer. So, also a game that's fun to know the ending as you're playing it. Yes, yes. It made me want to take my time more during the healthy four relaxed sections at the beginning. Because when you finish that game, everything has really changed. There are still some side quests you can do. It just doesn't narratively feel right doing them. So yeah, I've been really enjoying just taking my time doing all these little things, all those little side quests in that game. And Citizen Sleeper is an interesting one. So yeah, Matty, I've played every single ending in that up through the currently available DLC. So I'm kind of waiting on the next chapter to be released. Yep. I like that choice to run credits because it's different than any game I've ever played. And because the credits play at the end of each of those sections, it's like the game is telling you, you can be done here. This can be an ending. We're even going to make it look like an ending. Here's the credits. You've finished and if you want to keep going, sure you can. Because if you've stayed on the space station, there's more to do and the narrative even folds in the person who left and you chose not to go with them. They're gone and now you can go do other things and then soon maybe there will be another possible ending and then you get the credits again. I think that's kind of cool because it makes me feel like the game is being sort of gently telling me, you know, anytime you want to stop or keep going, whatever, which is a nice and very relaxing feeling considering how sort of stressful that game is when it starts out by the end, you're just sort of cruising along and ending when you choose. Having like the return of the king vibe of the game ending every 40 minutes or so and being like, you can go if you want or you can. The best sequence when you're just bouncing up on the bed with all of your friends. I feel like the same in Frodo. Yeah, it's great. Well, I think the video games are all about the side gris you don't do. That's true. They're like jazz in that way. Oh no. Oh no. All right. Next question, Maddie. Take this away. Okay. Eric writes. Y'all mentioned in your romance show about when you place yourself into the character choices versus making choices as that character. And I'm curious when else you make that distinction, especially in games where there are no choices. Specifically, I've been thinking about the last of us a ton since the show is so good. It made me want to play part two and I really appreciated your review of the game. I assume he means my review. Only me, Maddie. It felt really gross at different points for numerous reasons, but while I can think of a few examples of books and shows that make me feel gross while reading slash watching them, it feels like it's different when a game makes me feel gross for playing it. Because the player, me, is implicated in quote unquote bad behavior. Why do I need to press square to hurt this guy when I don't want to? While this can be mitigated by fantasy slash camp, the example in parentheses is cult of the lamb, it's definitely different in the hyper realism of the last of us. Are there games that are easier to separate yourself from and you can just enjoy the ride of the story? Can a game still succeed artistically while making the player feel bad for participating? Or do people like me just need to take ourselves out of the equation? Man, I love this question. This is something I'm sure that we're going to get into in depth when we talk about the last of us, the TV show. Because the debate is back guys. And I've on its bonus episode for members all. Yeah, the debate, the ending of the show has aired and the polygon slack is a light and debate about Joel's ethics. It's back as the parent. I've become a parent since playing the original last of us. It'll be interesting to discuss. So just to discuss that in the context of the game, because the show has the same ending as the game, but it has been really interesting to watch the debate about the ethics of the ending erupt again on the internet in a fresh way because of the show and because the show has been so popular. And yeah, I think, so I interviewed Neil Druckman and Bruce Strayley after the game came out and went back and read it. It was a pretty cool interview. They were really candid and talked a lot about the process of making the game. I'll link it in the show notes. I think it's interesting to read it in the context of the show since of course Druckman was one of the two show runners and wrote a lot of it. And they talked about how that ending sequence. So Joel does this arguably monstrous or arguably totally defensible thing. Jason, you mentioned being a parent now. He said at the time he was like, so some people were mixed on what Joel did and none of those people were parents. And all the people who were parents were like, no question he did the right thing, which I think is pretty interesting. And I've seen that kind of born out in comment sections. But apparently that was going to not be playable. This isn't the first last of us. It was just a cut scene. And then it was one of their designers who suggested or really adamantly felt, I can't remember the particulars, but basically it was like, we should make this interactive. Bing Kirk here as I had at the episode with the benefit of having the article in front of me. The designer's name was Peter Field who advocated for that segment at the end of the game to be playable per Neil Druckman. At least when I talked to him back in 2013. So hey Peter Field, good on you for advocating for something that I think at least made the ending of that game much more provocative and interesting. Okay, back to the show. Bing. And so they reworked the whole section and made it interactive. And it does raise this question I think that Eric is asking where you don't have a choice in how it plays out, sort of putting down the controller and walking away. So you feel implicated even though the game isn't actually giving you a choice. But, and I think that's just a really interesting place that games can occupy in terms of implicating the audience and bringing them into the moral gray area of whatever choice you want to put them in the middle of. And I'll also mention Spec Ops the line here. Because I think that's a really interesting game that is typically usually brought up in this kind of in terms of this topic. Just because it was so consciously designed to implicate you and to trick you even at times into doing things like there are sequences in that game you're a sort of military unit in the UAE somewhere I think. Kind of increasingly going off the rails and horrible things are happening, you're basically committing war crimes. There are sequences in that game where you believe you are shooting enemy soldiers and then it's revealed to you that you weren't because your character is losing his grip on reality. And so you're committing atrocities without even realizing it. Then the game is pulling the rug out from under you and being like, look at what you did. And then making you ask, well, if you were just shooting enemy combatants, like what even is the difference and is what you're doing moral in any way if you're killing people. And like those questions are super, super interesting. And I think personally that games can ask them and challenge the audience in really interesting and provocative ways that I am totally, I just think is fascinating and I'm very much interested in experiencing more often. Yeah. So I think Laszvas is a really, really good touch point for this conversation, both the first and the second one. Actually Laszvas 2 was one of our first ever beans cast way back in 2010 or sorry, 2020 when it came out. Yeah, we went back in time and recorded it. That's summer. And I think that there's like both of those games ask you to do a big questionable thing and awful thing. And I think the key difference and one of the reasons Laszvas 1 is so successful in Laszvas 2 isn't is that in Laszvas 1, it's really easy for anyone to understand Joel's motives and empathize with them and understand that where he's coming from when he does this. Because even though he's not like a great person by any means, he's someone who is acting out of love, lovers, surrogate daughter, trying to rescue her, making decisions that hurt people for the right reasons. Or these logical reasons. Or these logical reasons. Or yeah, sure. For the right reasons in his mind. Where he's Laszvas 2, it's a lot harder to understand why Ellie is doing the things she's doing and she's doing. And we had a long conversation about this back in 2020 because it was so hard to just kind of grapple with the fact that you're watching this girl, this woman, make so many bad decisions and they don't even make sense because of the way that the ending retroactively makes them do it again. But the internal logic isn't the same. I totally agree. Yeah, so the point that I'm making here is that I think when a game asks you as the player to kind of like reckon with that fact that you're making bad decisions and you're making things that you might not do in real life and confronting real ethical dilemmas, I think the most important part of that is for you to be able to empathize with the character and understand why the character is doing what they're doing. And if you can't understand why the character is doing what they're doing, then it just kind of feels like you're being led on this shitty course of action that you don't want to be doing as opposed to making you really wrestle with the decisions. And then some of the cases I should know here, some of the times your character might be a cipher and you might just be making a decision on your own. But in those cases, usually you're presented with a cost-benefit analysis and kind of like the reasons why you might make either decision, so you're not really forced to make a bad decision. I think in last of a suit, you're forced to make a bad decision, a series of bad decisions and the motivations really make no sense at the end of the game. So that I think is really frustrating and certainly frustrated me and you guys too from what I remember. Mm-hmm. I think it's also been really fascinating to hear from people who didn't play the game and how differently they describe watching that ending. And they're still having the same debate, but I know personally I'm somebody who doesn't agree with what Joel did, but I don't have a daughter, so who's to say, anyway, it doesn't matter. I don't agree with what the decision he makes. We'll talk about this more. Sure. But I do think there's a very different sensation of playing that yourself as opposed to watching characters on a television show act something out. And I haven't finished watching the entirety of The Last of Us Show yet. I do know how it's going to end, of course. And even just in the pilot, I thought it was fascinating to watch Sarah, who's Joel's daughter at the beginning of the game, who you play as at the beginning of the game and how different that feels in the game versus watching a show where you're not playing as her. And then that perspective switched from her to Joel, the fact that much later in The Last of Us, part one, you do play as Ellie and then switch back to Joel again. I thought that those decisions were fascinating at the time and really changed how I felt about the game and what it was trying to say and do. And the show can't do that because it's not a video game. And that's fine. It's a different medium. It has to tell a different story about agency and control and family and what choices you can make. But it's just interesting how different that conversation necessarily has to be because it's about a show that you're sitting on the couch watching as opposed to I, the player, who's forced to make these decisions, which I think does make it feel, at least to me, worse on purpose because you're kind of implicated. You're invited into the head of someone you may or may not agree with. Right. And even if you don't agree, like it is still effective in bringing it into that moment. Yes. Very, very much so. Yeah. There's also stuff that we'll talk more about with spoilers, but a lot of the changes that the show makes are in the service of setting up that final sequence in some, I think, really smart ways, like in some really, in some really consistent ways, there's this running theme throughout it that watching it, knowing how it was going to end was actually really interesting. So what you're saying, Jason, yeah, the whole thing feels like this sort of crucible or like a fulcrum that's heading toward this one moment. And when you look back on it and you know that that's coming, you can see that all happening and it feels very logical whether or not you agree with what happened, what Joel chooses to do, it's all narratively very sound. And that is, yeah, in the sequel, it's just a much more complicated and challenging and kind of all over the place story. And while I do admire a lot of things about the Last of Us part two, I, there is kind of just this feeling of like, man, it's just so much that there's so much going on. And also it just gets so dark and you start to just question, why are we doing any of this, which is not the case in the first story because of that clarity. And the clarity then makes that moment where you have control, like you're talking about Maddie, all the more impactful. So yeah, I don't know. I think, I mean, I think game, a game can definitely succeed artistically while making the player feel bad for participating. Like I think that to answer Eric's question or to address that question, yes. Like I think actually that can be a great artistic success and that I am really interested in when games do that, even though I totally understand if that's not your kind of game or not the kind of experience you want to have, why you would just avoid it. Like that's also totally understandable. Okay, let's get to the next question. Kirk, you want to read this one? Sure, this comes from Riley. Riley writes, you've talked on the podcast about how the pandemic has affected game development and how it has become especially apparent in the last year, often in the context of delays. I felt like a recent trend in big budget games in the last year has been a lot of very rushed endings to games. So I was curious if that's just the games I'm playing or if others see that as a common trend that may be connected to pandemic related development issues. More broadly, I was wondering if you had insight on how decisions to make cuts in these types of situations are made. I am a writer and I used to think the idea of making cuts on a project. I'm used to the idea of making cuts on a project, but it's usually in the context of cutting things just to make a stronger or more concise story. I imagine the factors involved in a 100 plus person development team's project are more complicated. So I was curious if you had any insight into how those issues get sorted out in game development. Yeah, I always wonder how often. I mean, a lot of games I think are made in a nonlinear way and oftentimes like you might block have this level blocked out, but not fully like modeled or doesn't have all its like graphics and yet, which is kind of a crude way of putting it. But I'll take it to go terms because I don't even know it. I haven't finished sanding down the poll. What is it dial up the graphics haven't tightened up the graphics. I haven't tightened up the graphics. That's right. A point being that games are not made in sequential fashion the way that you might write a book and more of a linear order. You might do a lot of things in a more linear sequence. That said, I think that sometimes certainly like the stuff that's more at the beginning of the game or even the first like 99% of the game gets a lot more attention for a variety of reasons. First of all, because I think most people don't finish games and I think there are these statistics about that. That's true. Unfortunately. Yeah. Well, and so there's not a lot of the incentive is to like make all the good stuff happen like front load all the good stuff because most people aren't going to see your incredible ending. That said, in terms of the pandemic, I don't know. I mean, if you guys noticed a trend of like games feeling a little more rushed towards the end during the pandemic. I don't think it's a pandemic thing. I think this is just a video game. Just a general game thing. Not to correct Riley. This is purely my opinion. I feel like it's such a common thing, especially for like a 30 hour narrative game to feel rushed or like the last 10 hours don't quite hang together. I mean, we've talked about the last was part two a lot, but I had similar problems with God of War Ragnarok. Very recently, similar problems with Horizon Forbidden West. And even, I mean, I actually think the ending of the first horizon is probably its strongest moment, but that's an outlier. And with single player games in that zone of like the 25 to 35 hours, it's those last 10 where I'm like, yeah, this is the pacing is weird or like things are suddenly popping up that were never an issue before or things are getting wrapped up in a way that if it were a season of television, probably wouldn't be quite this situation. Or the final boss is just a bigger version of the anime you've fought before. It does happen in every Marvel movie. So I don't know just to say it's bad or not. That's true. Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, Riley does not list the games that they're talking about here. So it's a little hard to know like specifically what they might be referencing. But yeah, I mean, I noticed the thing that you're all talking about a few games that come to mind where like one game is a game that mechanically ends really strongly, I think is Metroid Dread that we played. So true. I guess it's true. And story wise, freaking cool ending too. Yeah, that's just a really well paced game. And that was one thing I liked about it is just there's a feeling that you are constantly leveling up and getting more powerful. And then there's this point in kind of the final third where you're just cooking with gas, you're cruising, like you have all these cool abilities and weapons. There's always new stuff to do. Every fight feels so dynamic and then you're really getting challenged by the final fights. And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you just like run out of the thing and the timer ticks down and then it ends. And it's like, man, that was great. And then another, another thing to mention is actually Velastivas where I just last night watched the final episode of the show and the ending is exactly the same as the game. And I remember I reviewed the 2013 game. I played it. This was before it had been out before the Last of Us had become this dominant thing. And the ending on that game is so strong and unusual in video games. The whole thing about the way it ends, the way it's shot, the final cut to black, everything. I was like floored by that because like you both say, it's unusual for a game to even end well. Let alone to end so confidently and in a way that is designed to completely contextualize the entire story. It's just very rare to have an ending like that. So then every time a game does and actually Spec Ops the Line is another one that does the first. That's true. It does. Another great ending. So any time there's an ending where they're like the early 2010s. Well, there were people were doing some cool stuff then, right? But anytime someone comes up with an ending where they really, you need to play to the end to understand everything you did in the game. It's pretty cool because it's unusual because more often you kind of get too powerful. There's too much stuff and you kind of keep going. I'm actually thinking now of also in terms of what gets cut to another part of Riley's question, we were talking about Perfect Dark last week and you can just tell like sometimes the cuts just have nothing to do with what would work best. Like narratively or anything. It's just sort of this section of the game isn't fun. We can't make it work. So then you get things like Joanna Dark whispering into her comms and then blasting where it just seems like maybe there was stealth but they couldn't make this help. So they just had to cut it even though I'm sure everyone would have preferred they kept it. It wasn't like an edit like an edit that you make when you're writing a story and you're like, well, let's just cut this paragraph because it's it's needless. It's more just like, oh man, this part of the game is just we can't get it to work. So we have to cut it. And then we just have to kind of like Frankenstein and stretch through us around the hole that it left because what are you going to do? Yeah. And logistically sometimes like if you have a voice actor, you might not be able to get him and so you can't or get him back in the studio once you've made those decisions since he can't actually like get more lines to fit things around. Yeah, I always think of the writer will do something. Tom Bessel and Matthew Burns's twine game where it is a really a really hilarious part of that. Everyone should play that. Well, maybe like it in the show. We've talked about it plenty of times. Yeah. But there's a very funny part of that which is this is a twine game where you are a creative director of a video game meeting with all your team leads about the writer. Yeah, the writer. Oh, no, I'm sorry. You're the writer. The writer is that other guy. You're the writer. The writer will do something which is why it's called that and you and like different department leads come in and at one point the audio guy comes in and he's like, ah, like he's so mad because he's like, everything always comes to us last and we always get screwed which is I think reflective of a truth in video games that audio kind of has to be the last thing to get baked in for that very reason that you can't get actors back and they're like, oh, sorry, we need to re-record on the lines and have her say them loud because she's not seeking anymore and they're like, sorry, she's like on a TV show now. Yeah, she's better. That can happen. Yeah. That can work. Yeah. So yeah, I'm not 100% sure like what those decisions are made in terms of like, like are we going to cut towards the end? But if I were a video game executive decision maker and I saw statistics that were saying only 10% of players were actually finishing the end of the game, I would be inclined to be like, yeah, we should put a lot more effort towards the front of the game. But yeah, I mean, I think that there could be a lot of reasons for bad game endings and bad game last sections. But you know what, as an awesome ending? Octopath traveler, too. Man, talk about an amazing finalize. I want to play more of that. I'm still playing it on Steam Deck. Like I am still playing it just for pleasure. Second, it has eight stories. It has eight stories that seem totally independent and then the final act really ties them on the other. It's amazing. Wow. Let's get through one last quick question. Basically, Paul, I won't read this whole thing. But Paul says, I'm curious about your opinions on video game novelizations. Have you ever read one? Would you like to see more of them? Or should books take a cue from movies and let video games just be video games? And I don't know about you guys, but I have some fond memories of as a kid reading through at least a couple of video game novelizations. I had one on Baldur's Gate that was a story. Just it was part walkthrough, part fictional story. And I always enjoyed video game novelizations when they were like that. And they were actually telling their own versions of the story in the game as opposed to some sort of side canon stuff about a prequel to the game or whatever. I always enjoyed it more when it was actually something because I played the game and I'm like, oh, this is cool. Like, I'm reading this version of the game. It just felt like a novel experience to me. Get it novel experience. I do. I do get it. But yeah, I'm curious to hear. Do you guys, are you guys into video game novels at all? Yeah, I had a missed players guy that was similar to what you're describing, although it was much more of a players guide. It couldn't really just read it. Like a narrative version. Yeah, but it was a narrative style description of how one went through this. I have a couple of those too. Yeah. And then I also liked the missed novels as a kid, although I barely remember them now. I know I read the Halo novel Fall of Reach because I was writing a joke post for Kotaku about Master Chief's suit and whether it jacks them off or not. There's a meme about that that has a fake screenshot from that book. But honestly, I feel like I haven't really read any of them as an adult. And I'm kind of sad I didn't get my act together and read the perfect dark novelization before our episodes. I have them. There's two books. And I might still read them and talk about them as one more thing. Please do. I want to hear about them. Who the heck knows what the stories are? Yeah, maybe that'll shoot. That's what the little built-in-the-like game. And I'll tell you what the stories are. I think it's Greg Ruka who's written some Wonder Woman comics I like. So I feel like they'll probably be pretty good. But yeah, I don't know. I'm in Paul's camp. I think it's kind of fun that these books exist and they should keep existing because it's like a weird piece of media to exist. Yeah. I mean, I think any cross-media adaptation is interesting. Just we've seen so many interesting TV and movie adaptations of video games lately. Like people are finally really kind of getting their heads around it. And that can certainly be true of novels as well. I haven't really read many novelizations of video games. I've talked about this on the show before, but I did use to read guides for games just because I wasn't allowed to have that many video games as a kid. And I think it'd be cool if more guides were written in the kind of, I guess they're usually written in second person where it's like, go here, now you're going to find this. Go do that. Where if instead it was like Joanna Dark arrived in Chicago in the dead of night. The neon lights reflected in the street. And then the whole thing was kind of narrative because I do think that IGN walkthrough that we both read did have a lot of fun. The writer was just having a good time. Yeah, there's a little editorializing in there. It would be like, wait, waste to your enemies. Instead of just saying take out the enemies or whatever things like that. And I'm remembering some of our, it might have been Suikoden or Final Fantasy 6. I think it was that Final Fantasy 6 walkthrough where it was like really wonderfully and playfully written. So actually walkthroughs were a kind of a fertile ground for creative writing. And I'm sure there are some walkthroughs out there that are like that. So yeah, that would be my main thought on this question. Cool. Thank you. As always, everyone who's sending questions. Once again, reminder, you can reach us at triple click at maximumfun.org. Let's take a quick break and then we'll be back with one more thing. All right. Well, this is where you would normally hear an ad for another maximum fun show. But instead you're going to hear me and Maddie and Jason tell you a little bit more about what's going on in maximum fun drive. Max fun drive. I suppose it's not maximum fun. It's max fun. It's max fun. You can pronounce the full name. The full legal name is maximum fun drive. Right. When max fun drive is in trouble, you say maximum fun drive. You come over here to see stuff. You listen to your father. Max fun drive is happening right now through next Friday, the 31st. And it's pretty much just a it's a reason. It's a way for us to reward people for being members and to do some kind of fun extra stuff and to offer some fun rewards for new people who sign up or who boost their membership. So I guess that's the first thing is if you sign up to become a member, $5 a month, you get access to bonus content for the show and you're new. Same as always. Right. Same as always. That's very cool. But if you sign up for $5 more than that for $10 a month or you boost your current $5 membership up to $10 a month, you get a special unique to this year unique to max fun drive bonus. Maddie, what is that bonus? So there are stickers for every show, but you're going to pick the triple click sticker and you know why? Yes, because it's great. It's great. So these are all before even revealing what's on the sticker, I'll just say I'm excited that these are re stickable stickers. They're like those cling stickers. So you could put it on like a car windshield. You can put it on your water bottle, whatever. So you don't have to think to yourself, Oh my God, what if I get rid of this water bottle? What if I replace my laptop? Yes, et cetera. Those are the only two things I can think of those two items, but laptops exist as well. So here's what's going to be on the sticker that you are definitely getting. Can I ask you a question first, Maddie? You seem very excited. Would you say that you are? How would you say that you're feeling to tell people about this sticker? Well, I'm just not sure how to pronounce how I'm feeling, but I would say something about a bit. Yeah, I'm either chomping at the bit or I'm chomping at the bit. And if you the listener also aren't sure whether it's one or the other of those, then you'll enjoy this Wheel of Fortune theme sticker in which the answer to the Wheel of Fortune clue or puzzle, I guess I should say, is chomping at the bit or is it chomping at the bit? Or chomping at the bit. Nobody knows. You could actually get a marker and fill it in. The letter is missing. The letter is missing. I had to explain this very carefully to our artist in order to get the joke because it's the funniest joke that's ever been devised. It's so easy to understand. It's a great figure. It's a great figure. And this of course is a reference to the time that Jason, I think ironically, incorrectly corrected Maddie that actually it was chomping at the bit, which was partly a reference to Billions and partly just a grammar note joke that then led to a lot of people telling Jason how dare he incorrectly correct Maddie. You know what it's not worth it. You get it. You've probably said it wrong and right. And when you look at it, you'll understand. It's great. Even without that context. You know, that's what's great about the sticker is that I feel like anyone who's kind of a grammar nerd will get it. It can just look at it and laugh and be like, wow, where did you get that great hilarious sticker? And you can be like, oh, it's actually from a video game podcast. It is. And it's from Max Fundra. He came to remember. He can say it. He can say it. So we'll have pictures of that sticker on our feed so you can check it out if that lengthy explanation didn't make it make sense, but that's what you get for $10 per month. That's what we're focusing on for now. There are some other really cool rewards that we'll talk about maybe next week, but it goes all the way up. There's like a culinary kit. There's some really good recipes for us. There's a sick apron you can get that they sent us these aprons. It's a maximum. Yum. It's like a professional apron. You'd see that thing on the bear or something. It's a really nice apron. But anyways, right now that sticker, that's the thing you can boost your existing membership up to 10 to get it or you can just start at 10. You'll get a really cool sticker. And yeah, there's a lot of other stuff going on all across the network, all during maximum fund drive. So we're really excited. As always, it's always a fun time of the year. So yeah, that's that maximumfund.org slash join. And yeah, thanks so much. Thanks so much for being a member if you already are one. And if you're considering it, do it. Do it. We believe it now. It's a chance. And we are back. It is time for one more thing. Kirk, Maddie, what you got for us, Maddie, why don't you start? Sure. So I watched a movie called Triangle of Sadness, which is on Hulu, and which upon watching it, Deena and I were like, oh, it's like the menu crossed with Below Deck, which is perfect. That's a fun pitch. The menu being the satirical comedy movie in which Anya Taylor-Joy's character ends up in a restaurant with a bunch of other rich people and has to kind of fight her way out socially and literally. And Below Deck being the wonderful reality show in which we get to know the crew of a luxury yacht. And Triangle of Sadness really is that- Can I just say we started watching Below Deck and it is wonderful. So thanks for the recommendation. You're welcome. Let me just say you're welcome. Greatest show ever, Below Deck. Check it out. But Triangle of Sadness, really strange film. So this is- I do recommend this movie. It is the menu crossed with Below Deck, but I have some important caveats with this movie. I do think people should watch it, but it's a three-part movie and there's like, you know, on the screen, black screen, white text, part one, part two, part three. So part one, it's about a male model who's dating a female model and it's about how the world of male models, they make less than female models. Isn't that weird? Doesn't that pose like an interesting gender quandary that doesn't exist in other industries? So part one is about part two. The two of them are on a luxury yacht together. Everybody gets violently ill and there's extremely graphic vomiting and diarrhea. Like poop is shown. There's a lot of poop. And I would recommend fast-forwarding through a lot of this because it's not actually very good and it doesn't really help the film, I would say. And there's also like a lot of monologuing from the Captain of the Boat about socialism, but I don't think it really works or like helps the plot at all. Part three, amazing movie, probably should be its own entire movie. It's about all the characters, well, the main characters from the boat getting stranded on a desert island where they have to survive. And the person who becomes most powerful instantly is the like lowly toilet cleaner who's like this Asian woman who has English as a second language, who is the only one who can catch fish, the only one who can make a fire, and all these rich people are completely fucking useless and she becomes like the queen of the island instantly and rules over all of them. She's amazing. And part three is fascinating and I was like, I would have watched an entire movie just about this like former toilet cleaner become queen of all these rich people who have to bow down to her for an entire movie's length. So yeah, fast-forward part two, you don't actually need it at all. Just catch a part three, it's fascinating and weird and like a meditation on gender and power and race and class and I don't know, it's really cool and funny and wacky. So yeah, triangle of sadness, cool movie, fast-forward through the diarrhea parts. That's my review. So I'm picking up on something from the movies that you have mentioned over the last couple of months and my question is now that you've watched all of the best picture nominees, do you agree that everything everywhere all at once should have won best picture? What would have been your best picture choice? I agree with that of the lineup, but I haven't actually seen Top Gun Maverick. So I have and it's very fun but should not win best picture. So I think everything everywhere all at once of the list of nominees was perfect, but I will also say women talking. I was really glad to see that win best adapted screenplay, still one of my favorites of the entire year and it's on streaming finally, but I've talked too long. Somebody else go. You're fine. I'll go next. I'll go really quick. I'm reading a book called Unscripted by James Stewart and Rachel Abrams. And boy, if you two ever wanted to read a book that is basically the show's succession, except in real life, this is your book. So Unscripted is a nonfiction journalistic book and it's about Paramount Global, the entertainment company behind CBS and MTV and Nickelodeon and so on and so on and so on. And it's about this guy Sumner Redstone, who's 93 and a super great legend creep. He's dead now, but it's about his time alive and it's about the power struggle about who will replace him and believe it or not, I'm only a third of the way through the book and believe it or not, it's several occasions through even just the first hundred pages. He says that his daughter Shari will be a successor and then rescinds it at least three different times. Wow. So there's like, he has these girlfriends who are like secretly plotting against him to take over the family money and all sorts of fantastic rich politicking, the type that you see on succession except this time it's in real life. Wow. I'm really good reporting from what I've read so far and just really interesting story, well written book. Again, I'm not, have not finished reading again, I'm only about a third of the way through, but if you want real life succession, this book from what I've seen so far does Fizzabelle. I think it's on the, I think Slate Moneys recaps of succession, they talk about this. I mean, I don't know if they've explicitly said this, but that the Murdochs and the Red Stones are kind of the basis families for. That makes sense, yeah, for the family on succession. Yeah, the Murdochs are, I think the most obvious comparison, but this book so far from what I've read is the real clear, definitely an inspiration for it, but really feels like you're reading a version. The entire time I'm picturing the various right kids and situations. So excited for that show to come back. Me too. There's one, I don't remember the specifics, but there's one mention of someone who's living on a ranch in Colorado or something. Oh, really? Oh, it's Connor. Kirk, what's your one more thing? One more thing is a new morning routine that I've been trying that I wanted to share with Listeros, because I like to share this kind of thing from time to time. And where would we watch this? Is this on Roku? Yeah, this is a, it's actually on freebie. It's a new morning routine. You do have to watch ads. But it started as a quibi. It was, it pitched it to quibi, but then, you know, one thing, I'll have to do another. No, this is just a new thing I've been doing in the mornings. So I had been finding, I've been finding, I haven't had enough time to read. This is one of the problems I've, I've run into lately is just feeling like I want to read more books and I haven't had enough time. And also feeling pretty scattered in the morning. Like I wasn't quite, I hadn't locked in my morning routine. Like I kind of lost track of it at some point. And I blamed that largely on the internet. And so as, as usual, as you can blame most things on the internet. So I decided to try changing up my morning routine and I've been doing it for about a week. I've been doing it by more, more time than that by the time people are listening to this. I'm going to do it for a while and see how it goes. And I thought I would just sort of share the details in case anybody likes to kind of try these sorts of little tweaks to their life. So I should say upfront, this is obviously not going to work for everyone. This is really just something that I'm trying that works with my life. But maybe some of these principles might apply. But I don't mean to suggest that this is something that can work for everyone. I know sometimes people take things like this as advice. I don't even really mean it as advice. It's just something that I want to share and you can take whatever you want from it. So I have had a rule for a while that I don't read my phone in bed. I think that's a really good one. In the morning or in the evening, I just put the phone away, read a book or something. The internet is not in bed. Books are in bed, not the internet. So in the morning though I was finding I would get up, I wouldn't read my phone in bed, but then I'd kind of really quickly get up, sort of wash my face, whatever. And then I'd be like waiting for coffee and I'd check my email just immediately on my phone. Then I kind of look at the news maybe a little bit, go walk the dog, go on a walk, put on a podcast maybe. I'd be listening to a podcast and people would be talking in my head. I'd be hearing all these people talking. Right as I was having coffee, sit down, eventually I'd have breakfast, kind of eating breakfast, reading the internet, getting on G-chat and Discord, talking to people. And it just like, I would just lose the thread of the morning. And eventually it would be kind of later in the morning, I'd be like, okay, I'm going to go practice guitar. That's kind of part of my morning routine, but it could be anything. If you're listening to this, go to work, do whatever. So I wasn't happy with that. So what I've tried doing is no internet at all in the morning and no podcasts either. So I only listen to podcasts in the afternoon. So the morning is for listening to music, getting my start to my day, having breakfast and reading my book. So if I want to read something while I'm having breakfast, I'm going to read whatever book I'm reading. And that kind of, it puts the book on both ends of my day in the morning and in the evening. And so far at least I've found that I don't really need the internet in the morning. It's actually totally fine if I just check in with it in the mid-day. Obviously if you're listening to this, you can adjust this for whatever the requirements of your job of your life are. But it's something to think about. Yeah. If you're listening to this, make sure you listen to a triple click of the morning. Right, of course. Other podcasts, not just this. Well, I don't know. I actually like, I mean, listen to us at some point, but I was really finding that listening to podcasts first thing in the morning, it was too much. It was all these voices in my head. It was so much input and it's very nice to just not have that and actually to really re-establish that as a space for music. Because music can be so many different vibes, so many different energies. You can listen to whatever you want. You don't run the risk of like, suddenly you're just hearing like a lengthy argument or debate about like the role of education in the development of young men or something. And you're just like hearing all this interesting scientific stuff and you're like, okay, hang on. You know, there's a little too much input. So that has been the adjustment that I've made. And so far it's been great when reading my book much more consistently, which has been one of the goals has been really nice and just feeling a little more focused. So I thought I would share that. It's of course in progress. You can also try audiobooks if you haven't heard any. I love audiobooks. Yeah, that would be more of a, but that's closer to a podcast. Right. That would be more of an afternoon thing. I do enjoy audiobooks as well. But if you want a real, like if you want a real shake up to your morning routine, try having two small children. Yeah, no time to check your emails in. Well, then your morning routine will be wake up at six 30, see who's crying, see which diaper needs to be changed first. See who needs to be taken to school, see who needs to be fed, clean up after the, there's a lot. See who's presenting you just sort of like a diatribe on the role of education and the development of young men. Yeah, exactly. Like somebody will be voicing your ear about that. If you want voices in your head. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that removing internet from the morning of a parent could also have some beneficial effects and I would, yeah, I would suggest if nothing else to consider how often you need to be reading the internet because the more, the less of it I do and the more I remove it from parts of my day, not all of my day, not totally removing it, nothing like that. Just consciously removing it from parts of my day. The more I realize that it doesn't need to be as omnipresent as it has been. It depends what you're reading. I think that's true. That is such a broad term. I kind of don't think so. I mean, yeah, maybe. But like the way that I think most people, or at least a lot of people engage with the internet is a pretty undirected just stream of information and maybe one morning you read something great and then the next morning you read other things and like removing that and just going into a kind of more conscious thing can be very good. It is at least worth experimenting with and trying. And just to reiterate, this is not me saying that I think the internet is bad, that I'm going to stop using it, you know, full stop. This is just about the mornings and sort of cordoning off that time and reserving my internet usage for other parts of the day. Sure. But I will say one quick counterpoint is that as someone who is very much on the internet, I find that when I'm reading Twitter, I'm usually just like, why am I doing this? I just wasted an hour reading things I don't care about, like miserable things. This is making me less happy. Whereas when I'm reading something like Reddit, Reddit is a good example, I come away from it being like, oh, I just learned something interesting or I just like got an interesting technique for dealing with my toddler or I just like read a new recipe that I'm going to try tonight or things that actually I feel a little more beneficial to my life, especially because I've customized my Reddit homepage to have like a bunch of subreddits that I find really interesting. So I don't know. It really depends. I think what you're reading. But I see your point for sure that it can also be useful to tune out the information. But in terms of if you're going to read the internet, there's some stuff that is more vegetables and some stuff that is more candy. Yeah. And I think just the way that a lot of the way our phones are designed, it's very easy to fall into. Maybe you start with a productive site, but soon you're just kind of bouncing around muscle memory from site to site and reading Vox and what's new? Oh, hey, Biden's new budget is out. Why do I need to be reading this? So it's very easy to get sucked in. And my suggestion is merely that people analyze and sort of reappraise those habits and think about experimenting with changing them and seeing if they like the change or if they don't. So good stuff. I can dig it. All right, folks, it is time to say goodbye for this week. Once again, it is Max Fun Drive. So do not miss it. Do not miss a chance to win cool stuff or earn cool stuff by becoming a member. I guess you won't win it because it's not like a round line. Do it now while you're thinking about it. It's true. It's true. Do it now because it does end on the 31st. Do it now because it does end. Yeah, it ends. Yes, on the 31st. And you don't want to miss it on that sticker. Guys, the sticker. That's true. It's a very good sticker. Got it. Got it. It's actually jumping. It could be jumping. All right, fall through. Is it jumping at the bit? Have we been at it? It's actually chimping. It's actually chimping at the bit. That one. Chimping. It's the new thing that kids are all into. Yeah, we're all chimping. Ask your team about chimping. Chimping is when you pretend you're a monkey and you just run around doing like a lot of noises. All right. I'm that nervous. I'm just going to say goodbye. See you both next week. Yep, see you both next week. Bye. Triple click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I had it in Next The Show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun podcast network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPods and email the TripleClick at maximumfun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. ♪♪♪ Maximumfun.org Comedy and culture. artist-owned audience supported.