HomePodcastsGenXGrownUp PodcastBackrooms, Widow’s Bay, & Asteroid 69

Backrooms, Widow’s Bay, & Asteroid 69

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By Mo


About This Episode

We watch a new dark crime comedy with a sci-fi time travel twist, feature a suite of self-hosted solutions for your digital comic book collection, and reflect on that chaotic four-player outer space shooter we live streamed on YouTube just a couple weeks back.

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(May contain some explicit language.)

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Show Notes

Transcript

Jon Welcome back, Gen X Grown Up Podcast listeners, to this episode 2-1-1. That’s 2-11 of the Gen X Grown Up Podcast. I’m John. Joining me as always, of course, my friend George. Hey, man.
George Hey, how’s it going, everybody?
Jon Good. You know, it would not be a show without Mo. Hey, Mo.
Mo Hey, how’s everyone doing?
Jon You know, in this episode, we’re going to watch a new dark crime comedy with a sci-fi time travel twist. Got my attention. Feature a suite of self-hosted solutions for your digital comic book collection and reflect on that chaotic four-player outer space shooter we live-streamed on YouTube just a couple of weeks ago.
Mo she says
Jon We’re going to cover those topics and many more in this episode. But first… it’s time for some fourth listener email here at the top of the show. Now we publish the show on regular podcast feeds all the time, but also we cross post on YouTube and sometimes we get comments from there.
Jon And so this fourth listener came to us from the YouTube publish of the roadside attractions podcast from, I don’t know how long ago that was. Maybe it was a rewind or something.
Jon That’s been years, maybe since, do you remember those?
Mo Yeah.
Jon ah Yeah. Yeah. So this is from user Flack the Wave. And he says we we struck a nerve for Flack. He says, oh, man, I remember Ruby Falls, Rock City, South of the Border, Stuckies and even Spook Hill.
George a while.
Jon I also grew up in the southeast. So all of these were common on road trips. Yep. I know Stuckies was yours, George. I know Spook Hill was down in my neck of the woods.
George Oh, yeah.
Mo she
Jon ah Let’s see. He goes on to say, man, I miss Stucky’s though. I guess Bucky’s is the Stucky’s of this generation.
George Yeah, probably.
Jon No, no.
Mo Sure. don’t know.
Jon I Bucky’s is such an abomination.
George i mean…
Jon It’s far too much. It’s too much.
George Well, yeah, but it’s still… It’s the roadside thing that people try and stop at that’s a convenience store-like thing. I mean, we don’t have Stuckey’s, really. I think there’s two left or something like that, so…
Jon i know. know. Bucky’s is like a gas station that wants to be Disney. It’s just too much. too much. They do make, they do make good sandwiches though. I’ll give them that.
Jon So I had a sandwich there.
George Ah.
Mo don’t know.
Jon Anyway. So he goes on to say a few others. I remember seeing and going to are all the putt, putt courses in Myrtle beach. The Chattanooga Railway Museum.
Mo e
Jon They had a great Orange Julius there. is There’s no such thing as a bad Orange Julius probably, but I get you.
Mo Ooh. Yeah.
Jon And Wonder Works in Orlando, which I know. do you guys know about Wonder Works in Orlando?
Mo yeah
George Upside down building their franchise around the country.
Jon Yes, the Upside Down Building.
George Yeah.
Jon Exactly. Yep, yep.
George Yeah.
Jon There’s one up in like Pigeon Forge, Tennessee as well.
George There’s one in LA too.
Jon There’s one in LA. Okay. Yeah, the one Orlando for sure is the Upside Down Building.
George Yeah.
Jon I don’t if they all do that, but yeah.
George I think they all have the same motif.
Jon Do they?
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah. Do you not know the upside down building Wonderworks Mo? Is that a ring a bell?
Mo No, I mean… No, no, that doesn’t ring a bell.
Jon It’s pretty cool. You got to look it up online sometimes.
Mo All right.
Jon So that’s somewhere, but Flack the Wave remembers it. So he’s on the board with this.
George It’s like Ripley’s.
Jon Yeah, kind of. Yeah, it’s like a Ripley’s.
Mo Oh, okay, okay.
Jon Yeah, except the building, look like they built it to be upside down. Like it’s sitting on the roof structurally.
Mo Gotcha. Gotcha.
Jon It’s really cool looking.
George Right.
Jon So of course inside it’s right side up because otherwise it wouldn’t work.
George Right.
Jon Flack the Wave, we appreciate you listening slash watching over on YouTube. We’re glad you enjoyed that episode. And it brought back some fond memories for you of roadside attractions and road trips. Listen, if you would like your email featured here on the show, it is drop dead easy.
Jon All you have to do is hit us up at podcast at genxgrownup.com. We read every single email that comes through and most of them, like Flack’s, which incidentally was on YouTube, eventually make the show.
Mo Thank you.
Jon Okay, with that good business in the rearview mirror, it’s time to jump into the body of episode 211, after this very quick break.
Jon All right, my men, let’s get the ball rolling talking about media here at the top of the show, as we always do. Now, of course, this could be comics or television or movies or film or books or whatever you have been enjoying in the world of media. And I’m going to start with you, Mo. What have you been watching?
Mo Yeah, I’ve been watching a show called Widow’s Bay. Have you guys heard of it?
Jon Hmm.
Mo Watched it? Anything about that?
George Mm-mm.
Jon Hmm.
Mo um It’s on episode eight.
Jon No.
Mo There’s two more episodes left. And it’s one of those shows that soon as it drops, I’m watching it. So it’s it’s a weird mix of like comedy, horror, mystery kind of deal going on.
Jon Hmm. Okay.
Mo So it’s basically a small new and town that’s on the island. And all the locals think the island’s cursed. And there’s a mayor who’s kind of like a progressive guy.
Mo And he’s starting to think that maybe they’re right. that Maybe the island is cursed, you know.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo um And the way it starts is that basically a New York Times vacation reviewer comes to the island and loves it. So he writes an article. So now they have all these tourists coming.
Mo The mayor is starting to realize that this is not the safest place in the world to be.
George Ah.
Mo but he does But he likes the tourists coming to the island anyway.
Jon It’s good for the bottom line.
Mo and And it’s it’s a weird mix because there’s like um the haunted in, of course. Right. And. The whole he’s like, oh it’s not haunted. And the whole town’s people are like, well, go stay there.
Mo If you think it’s not haunted, go stay there for a night.
Jon Put your money where your mouth is. Yeah.
Mo Yeah. So he does. Bizarre things happen, of course, you know, and.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo um And so he now he started to like, but of course he plays it off like, oh, it was fine. You know, no, no problems, you know. um But he started, he starts to slowly realize that, okay, all this weird superstitious stuff that everyone keeps talking about, like the old fishermen talk about, you know, the lady of the old to see hag and all that stuff. He’s like, maybe it’s all true.
Mo So it’s, it’s a really funny, interesting show.
Jon The question I was going to ask you, which um you might have almost just answered in the last two words you said, you said it’s really funny, interesting show. I hadn’t quite yet divined whether it’s intending to be a comedy or whether it’s just comedic situations.
Jon Because when you mentioned the mayor, I was thinking of the Amityville mayor who’s like nefarious and putting people’s safety behind, ah okay, behind money.
Mo oh Oh, I see.
Mo Oh, no, no, no.
Jon It just, yeah, he’s money financially motivated, but it’s a comedy. It’s not quite so dark.
Mo Right. And he’s financially motivated because he wants the town to grow.
Jon Sure.
Mo he’s trying to He’s trying to help.
Jon Makes sense.
Mo de Genuinely help.
Jon He’s the mayor.
Mo You know, ah yeah, he’s not. and his And his quirky characters, of course, are all kind of funny in their own right. You know, it’s really a great um show. And then when the the scary scenes happen, they’re like some were like very stressful.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo You know, like you’re like, what the hell is going on here?
Jon For comedy.
Mo You know, and every episode is a very different part. But it’s just funny how he just sort of comes around and him and the old fisherman that everyone thought was crazy become friends. Because he’s like, you’re not crazy.
Mo You actually know what’s happening on this island and have information that can help. um But it’s a very rare place. Like if you’re born the island, you can’t leave. And.
George Like there’s a curse that keeps you from leaving?
Mo Like people who leave, die.
George or Oh.
Mo Or no, if you leave, you die.
Jon oh Oh, oh, you can just not advised because you’d die.
George Ah.
Mo Yeah, so but things like his son was born on the island. And even though he doesn’t believe it, he’s never let his son leave.
Jon Ah, so he’s stuck there.
Jon Sure. Yeah.
Mo yeah it’s like one of those kind of things. And his son’s a teenager, so you can imagine what that’s like.
Jon Don’t tempt fate. Sure.
Mo yeah so he said it’s a great show if you get a chance to watch it.
Jon it.
George You said it’s one of those kind of things. So it’s like, I’m like, that doesn’t sound like anything I know or recognize is ever happening to me.
Jon you know You know, the typical you can’t leave the island or you die.
Mo No, no, a teenager.
Jon That old trope.
Mo Yeah, I tried telling that to a teenage boy. Like, they’re going to really believe you.
George yeah
Mo But anyway, yeah, it’s a great watch.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo They said they’re up to episode eight. So now’s probably a good time if you want to get into it. You can kind of catch up. ah And again, learning what the last two episodes have in store.
Jon Mm. Catch-up time.
Mo So it’d be great. But, you know, I’m not sure.
George What’s it on? What network?
George ah
Jon ah
Mo i just sort of watch it online, so to speak.
Jon ah Oh, ah George, you know all about the public domain.
Mo Yeah.
George Ah. In the public domain. yeah
Mo yeah
Jon ah
Mo So anyway, that’s what I’m watching right now. So how about you, John? What’s on your plate?
Jon Yeah, you know, I probably am going on about four or five episodes in a row that I went and saw horror movie. And eventually it’ll be horror movie season. well We’ll just keep the streak running.
Mo And you have nothing left.
Jon ah So I went and saw a new film called Back Rooms.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Again, it’s in the horror genre. I won’t say they overmarketed as super spooky horror. It’s really more of a thriller mystery. And so do you guys know anything about the back rooms?
Jon It’s like this online creepy pasta thing. Mo knows a little George.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George No, I just know the porn thing, but not…
Jon No.
Jon with The what? No, wait, don’t answer that. Don’t answer that. Moving on with the back rooms.
Jon No, no, it’s oh, and I you misunderstood me. I said back rooms. That’s that’s what you did. Yeah.
Jon How do I go on from there? The Backrooms is a movie that is based on these online mythologies that they call creepypastas that people like like the Slender Man was one of these kind of things.
Jon I think, you know, these these online created mysteries that everyone kind of they know really that it’s not true, but they all enjoy building on the mythology, pretending it’s true and adding more to the story and that sort of thing.
Mo Right.
George like Bigfoot.
Jon No, Bigfoot’s real. That’s the difference.
Mo ah He’s poking the bear.
Jon I know, right? No poking the Bigfoot. The idea of backroom, the idea of backrooms is that there is this labyrinthine sort of
George It was a bear.
Jon area of old empty warehouse looking places. And it’s almost like these rooms are remembering rooms, but somehow misremembering them.
George you
Jon And so sometimes furniture is half stuck in the floor or rooms are askew or just something weird about the rooms.
Mo Yeah.
Jon And they seem to go on and on forever. You can try to map them, but there’s not really a good way. So the guy who created this, or there was the guy that popularized it, not created online, was a YouTube creator and aspiring filmmaker. And so another one of these aspiring filmmaker YouTubers got to build this thing outside of the studio system, although he got backing from A24, which is quite impressive.
Jon um And so this is a film that is… it starts off really unassuming. It’s this guy who runs a furniture store and he’s been divorced and he’s not happy with his life. He’s actually sleeping in the basement of the furniture store because there’s no point going home by himself. And then one night he finds one of these Noise on the other side of the wall or something. and He touches the wall and passes right through the wall. And he’s in these mysterious, cavernous places. Now, initially, he’s able to get out, but he has a psychologist who he explains to. it of course, she thinks he’s crazy, but doesn’t tell him that she thinks he’s crazy. And she ends up embroiled in it because he goes missing and she shows up and ends up showing, you know, ending up in the back rooms with him.
Jon Now I enjoyed everything about this movie until the ending. It’s one of those movies that just doesn’t tell you what happened at the end. And that’s okay in some places. The weird thing about back rooms for me is they almost get a free pass because the whole premise of the back rooms is just we don’t understand it. So it’s almost like there’s not an answer to tell you. It’s just, here’s what it’s like. And maybe you’ll get another story in the back rooms later. And it even was ramping up toward the end. Like, well, who are these people studying it? And there’s more stuff going on, but it is intriguing. Like it will make you think that probably the best thing I can say about it is after I was done at first I was mad, but then a few days later,
Jon I was thinking about it. I was like, Hmm, I wonder what that meant. I wonder what that meant. and That’s, that’s a plus for a movie like that for me.
Mo Yeah, I saw it with you, John. And the funniest part was we’re watching this thing.
Jon Mm hmm.
Mo It’s getting to the end of the movie. slowly It’s about to fade to black. And John’s going, don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. It fades to black and you have no idea what’s going on. ah um and it’s is’s I didn’t know anything about the whole…
Mo YouTube thing before seeing this movie. I looked because i I was so confused.
Jon Yeah.
Mo I looked it up. I like, what the hell is this thing about?
Jon Yeah.
Mo ah And I did find some videos on YouTube that were the basis of all these things.
Jon Yeah.
Mo I watched those and those were very interesting. Like those I thought were really kind of cool to watch.
Jon Oh, really? Okay.
Mo Yeah, because they were short.
Jon yeah I haven’t gone back.
Mo And its whole thing was we don’t know what this is.
Jon Right.
Mo You know, like that’s the whole thing about it is like it’s about people falling to the scene and they don’t know what it is, you know, and there was like six or seven videos they’ve made about it, you know, and they’re pretty well done for YouTube, especially, you know, like you definitely tell us like, know, amateur cinematographers and stuff, but they do a pretty decent job.
Jon Right.
Jon Yeah.
Mo um And that were I thought those were entertaining. The movie I had higher expectations for, I guess, because you expect a movie to go deeper, right?
Jon he he Yeah.
Mo You expect a movie and especially these videos are like 10 minutes. You know, like you watch me falls in 10 minutes, things happen.
Jon Right.
Mo you’re like, OK, I don’t really expect you to resolve things in 10 minutes. You know, two hours. You should answer something.
Jon it was It was quite long. Yeah.
Mo Yeah, something should be answered in there.
Jon Yeah.
Mo I don’t care. Something, you know, because when it ended, I’m like, huh? You know, it’s just just scared the screen. Like, what did we just see? You know, it wasn’t as bad as the lighthouse, which that was terrible.
Jon Yeah. No, no.
Mo But this one was still i was like, you know, I just feel like the whole not answering thing in this case, I think was cover cop out.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Jon It’s not bad. Well produced, well acted, intriguing things happen.
Mo Yes.
Jon I just, I would like a little finality, at least of this storyline, something wrap it up.
Mo hmm.
Jon So yeah, go figure.
Mo Yeah. Yeah.
Jon All right. So, George, let’s wind out this media segment. The one you have listed here, I watched the beginning of. And we were were talking briefly before the show. You’re like, I’m not sure how to even categorize this movie.
Mo Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon So tell us about it.
George Yeah. um Well, I’ll start off with the title and cast. So it’s Mike, Nick, Nick, and Alice. Mike is played by James Marsden.
Jon Hmm.
George Nick is played by Vince Vaughn.
Jon hmm.
George Nick is played again by Vince Vaughn. And then Alice is played by Isa Gonzalez, who is an actress who I hadn’t seen before, but she has a very familiar look to her.
Jon ah
George So you might get her confused with some other actresses around. But it It definitely starts off with the time travel motif.
George um You see us like a young mad scientist kid um who’s actually, um if I’m not mistaken, I have to go and look, but I think it’s the same guy who was ah the like the party coordinator guy from Parks and Rec that had the sister that always, give me money, please, you know to their father.
Jon Oh, yeah.
Mo Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jon Yes. Yes.
George I think he’s the one that’s in this. I could be mistaken because I watched it and then I tried to forget it.
Jon Mm.
George Not to say that I’m not recommending the movie, but, uh, anyway, it starts off with him and his like little self-made laboratory.
Jon Ooh. We’ll try to
Mo so
George He’s, you know, doing a whole bunch stuff. A light shines behind him. A mysterious figure steps out of what looks like some kind of a booth that you immediately assume is like a time travel device or something. And,
George gunfire erupts and flames and everything, and then you get the title and you move into the storyline. I’m trying to think of how to give you more of the story without spoiling it, but essentially, James Marsden and Vince Vaughn
George And the actress, Isa Gonzalez, they’re all part of a group that’s essentially part of a mob, so to speak.
Jon Okay.
George Well, not so to speak.
Jon Like organized crime.
George They’re all part of a mob.
Jon Yeah.
George Yeah.
Jon Got it.
Mo OK.
George um And boy, it I don’t want to spoil anything. But it’s one of these time travel movies that bends back on itself very quickly and from not a crazy distant future.
George That’s why you can have Vince Vaughn playing both characters because he’s not 40 years from the future.
Mo OK. Oh.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George He’s like two months from the future coming back in time.
Jon Okay. Okay. Just right around the corner.
Mo OK.
Jon So he’s really like two versions of the same self just a few weeks apart.
George Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Oh, okay.
George Exactly. And as a matter of fact, they make the, um, they make the, the very quick decision in the storyline that one is future Nick and one is present Nick.
George And they keep those names so that you can kind of keep them separated a little bit.
Jon Okay.
George They also, uh, they give them different outfits and they do the side by side, you know, screen splitting kind of things that you’re used to when you see twin movies or things of that nature.
Mo Okay.
George Um,
George Vince Vaughn’s future self comes back to prevent his present self from making a terrible mistake that will affect the James Marsden and Isa Gonzalez characters.
George And… by coincidence himself. So it’s a little bit self-preservation, but more like self-emotional preservation, like he’s trying not to regret a decision that he made in what is our present as viewing it, but his past, because he’s from the future.
Mo okay
George um There’s a lot of great characters in it. ah what’s the um So there’s David Keith and Keith David. who Which one was in Something About Mary as the Father? I always get confused between those two guys.
George There’s two actors and their names are reversed.
Jon I think it’s David. I think it’s David Keith.
Mo Oh, Keith, um he was in.
George Is that Keith David? One of them’s Keith David.
Mo Yeah, I think it’s Keith.
George The other one’s David Keith, who was in officer and a gentleman.
Jon Oh, okay.
Mo Maybe it’s David Keith.
George Anyway, I know.
Jon That should be illegal.
Mo OK, yeah.
George But anyway, he is the mob um head of the family in this. um He has a son who is completely spoiled and stupid.
George um There are other characters in this, that other actors that play really fun characters. Steven Root, if I remember right, is in this.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George He’s the one from Dodgeball, right?
Jon Yep. Yes, that’s right.
George That’s Steven Root, yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George He’s in this as well. Just… a really motley cast and crew and a movie that is very difficult to describe without spoiling.
Jon Mm-hmm. So I mentioned a second ago, I started to watch this. And again, just how I am. I didn’t stop because I didn’t like it. I stopped because something else came up and i got busy. But what, a and don’t answer this if it spoils something, but I remember watching the trailer.
George Okay.
Jon It looked great. But one of the Knicks was like handcuffed in the trunk of a car or something.
Mo Okay.
Jon I’m like, wait a minute.
George Uh-huh.
Jon He’s come back to help them. Why is he ah like ah a victim? or Why is he? a
George So, yes. So the present Nick is thrown and handcuffed and duct taped in the back of the car by the future Nick and the James Marsden character, Mike, because he’s trying to prevent whatever is going to happen.
Jon Oh, because he’s going to screw stuff up. Got it. he Oh, okay. Oh, I see.
Mo okay
Jon But of course you can’t.
George Which, it’s funny, because the thing that he’s trying to prevent, the present Nick, is actually already set in motion before the movie starts.
Jon Uh-huh.
Jon Make it even more challenging.
George So before the present time starts, present Nick already did the stupid thing to begin with.
Jon Got it.
Jon So they almost have to undo it, not just prevent it.
George Yeah, it’s like you have to prevent the consequences of the dumb thing present Nick did.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George or
Jon Okay.
George The, um, yeah, like, no, like I’m trying to think it wasn’t a dumb thing that he did.
Jon Or pass Nick or wella whatever, Nick.
George It was a malicious thing that he did is a better way to describe it.
Jon Ooh, okay. All right.
Mo So you said that Nick is not that far in a future, right?
George Now it’s just like a month or two, something like that.
Mo So, okay. So all the things that happen are going to happen really soon.
George Maybe three months.
Mo Basically all this stuff.
George That night.
Mo Yeah. Oh, that night.
Jon Oh, oh, okay.
Mo Oh, Oh, Oh, gotcha.
George It’s, it’s all that night. He’s trying to prevent everything from happening that night.
Jon All right.
Jon Mm hmm.
George Yeah. And essentially he just has to get the group.
Jon You gotta think.
George pre Future Nick has to get the group through the next like 14 hours or so. it’s It’s a little bit like the um the movie that just came out the month before.
Mo Hmm.
Jon Wow.
George It’s that same kind of time travel, let’s go back in time, the have fun, good luck, don’t die thing.
Jon Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
George But that was executed in a lot better fashion as far as storytelling, even though that was completely Sam Rockwell crazy to the nth degree.
Jon Oh, yeah.
Jon Okay.
Jon Right.
George This, it feels like, tries to do that, maybe not as successfully.
George but Yeah, I just know when, so I watched this with my wife and my youngest son, and my youngest son is trying to get more interested in movies and trying to, you know, like like pull them apart, pick them apart, dissect them, you know.
George He’s trying to become like a movie critic a little bit.
Jon Analysis. Sure. Yeah.
George And ah when we all three got done watching this movie, and and there were plenty of places when we were laughing, when we probably shouldn’t have been and whatnot.
Mo Backrooms.
George Um, we got done watching the movie. I remember he just looked at me said, what the fuck did we just watch?
Jon ah
Mo rooms
George Yeah, no.
Jon Maybe it was back rooms.
George it
Jon That’s right. Yeah.
George yeah And it, it was just, it was an odd movie experience. It was kind of like one of those watching a train wreck that you can’t turn away from, but you really don’t know if you care about the people inside the train.
George ah
Jon Mm.
George Yeah, just an odd movie.
Jon Okay. Yeah.
George it I suggest that if you love time travel kind of storylines, maybe go watch this.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George If you like to see if Vince Vaughn can play two different characters at the same time in the same scenes, okay, give us a shot. But if you’re going into this with expectations that it’s going to be as good as the Sam Rockwell film, it’s not.
Jon Yeah. Okay.
George So, you know, I don’t think you should go in with high expectations.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Okay.
Jon I’ll tell you, your inability to figure out how to describe it without spoiling it tells me there’s probably enough cool twists and stuff in there that I will enjoy it. So going to go back and give it another try.
George There’s a lot of twists. Are they cool? ah
Jon Okay. All right. wo
George I’m trying to think, because it wasn’t deep, and it wasn’t um wasn’t hard to see coming, if that makes any sense.
Mo Okay.
Jon well We’ll circle back.
Jon Okay. Somewhat predictable. I get you.
George Yeah.
Jon All right.
Jon I’m going to go watch it. um but I mean, I got to, there’s no way now after that description that I can’t. So I got to go back after it.
Mo Let’s get time travel.
Jon Yeah, it does. okay All right. Thanks guys. Stick around. We’ll be right back with some tech and toys.
Mo All right. Let’s jump right into Tekken toys because I have something that’s I don’t know how you guys can feel about it.
Mo So we’ll see. So let’s start with you, John.
Jon Yeah.
Mo What do you got for us?
Jon So I am the least likely of the three of us to be talking about comic books on this show, but I’m about to talk about comic books on this show.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George Okay.
Jon Not that I don’t enjoy them, but I am notoriously of the three of us, the least interested in comic books typically.
George okay
Jon So, We all have Unraid servers where we store all of our media. And it occurred to me that I had this stack, by stack I mean digital folder full of, digital comic books that I have collected over the years. Some of my favorite, some Star Trek ones, some old pulp characters like the Shadow and Doc Savage and stuff like that. Very eclectic collection of comics that I have. But I have no easy way to read them.
Jon And so I went, started thinking, there maybe there’s some kind of ah a Docker app or something that Unraid can help me with. And I’m going to skip the story of all the failed starts that I made and jump right to the solution that I have.
Jon So the end result that it got me to is I now have an acquisition tool on Unraid that helps me find comic books. More importantly,
George Okay. Okay.
Jon I have an application that is a comic book server that runs on my Unraid that, like Plex or Jellyfin, serves up comics outside of my house to any device where I want to read comic books, remembers my progress, tells me what’s up next, reading lists, categories and stuff like that.
Jon that was the That was the gold standard I was trying to accomplish.
George okay
Jon So the two apps I found, and these, you do not have to have Unraid for these, I should say. these These run on standard computers or they can run on a Linux box or whatever.
Jon It’s just that Unraid is nice because they can run Dockers natively. So the first one I found is called Mylar. Now it used to be part of the ARR family.
Mo Oh, you see mylar. Yeah.
George Right, yeah.
Jon And now they’ve just changed it to, yeah, it’s not part of that anymore, although it’s very similar. it’s called Mylar 3. The setup is somewhat different, but like those other applications, its intent is scour folders, pull in metadata, tell you what you have, what you’re missing, you know, all the the dates and years and covers and all that stuff we can extract from your, you know, what, are like CBR, CBZ files or whatever the comic books come in.
George Right, CBR, CBZ, yep.
Jon Exactly, right.
George EPUB, I’m assuming.
Jon Uh, I, yes, it can handle, uh, yeah. EPUB. Yeah. All other non it good point. It can handle non comic book books. I think, um, the other end of that though, is a way to read them because once you have them, that doesn’t let you read them.
Jon It just tells you what you’ve got.
George Right.
Jon So I, I auditioned a couple of applications. The one I ended up with is called Kavita K A V I T A. And for all the world
Mo Okay.
Jon for all the world, it both looks and behaves like any other media server, but for comic books. So you can pick what you want to read. It shows you like a list of recently added, you know, pick up where you left off, things like that.
Jon And the reader itself, you click into and you can configure. i I’ve never really had to spend much time with comic book readers, but you can configure. You want it to be as wide as the screen? What happens? Where do you touch on the screen to go to the next page?
Jon Or but how do you scroll?
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Or what happens when you get to the bottom? All that. But more importantly, Utilizing a Cloudflare account that I’m already using for overseer slash seer to allow people outside of my house to access media.
Jon More importantly, I can point to this and with an account, I can be on my phone or my tablet anywhere, not just at home, see all of my comic books and read them just like I was sitting at home. Plus download them locally to I think it uses C Display EX or whatever. There’s an app on Android and and iPhone that has hooks directly into Kavita. And in the end, I now have been starting to read digital comic books that I’ve been sitting on for years and never looked at.
Jon And now I’m going back and starting to read them and enjoy them for what the hell they were meant to be enjoyed.
George So I took a look at some images while you were talking about it of this Kavita front end. And you’re right, it looks exactly like Plex or any of those others, which is a little odd because most comic book front ends, they they make them look like kind of like a bookshelf sort of motif usually.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon Right.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon I’ve seen those.
George which is fine. I don’t care one way or the other, but you talked about, you know, once you click in and being able to configure, you know, whether it’s as wide as the screen that you’re on, because most comic books are vertical format.
Jon Yep.
George And of course your TV in your room is going to be horizontal format, but your phone is likely going to be vertical format, so on and so forth.
Jon Right.
Jon Exactly.
George So I’m guessing that it’ll fit to whatever device you’re on. Like you’re saying, I’m curious, there is a particular, feature that’s in the Amazon Kindle system that has made comic book reading very fun for a lot of people.
George It’s why a lot of people stick with the whole Amazon stuff when it comes to comic books. And that’s going from a panel to a panel natively, like following the story.
Jon Panel to panel. Yeah.
Mo here
George That’s a very nice feature that no other readers really bothered to do.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Do you know if Kavita does that? And if so, is it something you had to configure or does it just read one page and go to the next?
Jon Yeah. So ah the answer is somewhere between the answer you’re probably looking for. So the first is that I know you’re talking about, like you tap and it’ll go just to that panel and and fit your screen just perfectly and then move to the next one.
Mo Yeah, just ju ju ju ju, yeah
George Right.
Jon And if it’s a very complex page at the end, it’ll pull back and show you the whole picture and then move on.
George Right. Mm-hmm.
Jon It’s really cool. That has a particular type of metadata that I don’t know if Kavita or C Display X, the the the phone app, whether or not it knows how to read those. But everything I’m downloading right now, all the things in my collection are not that.
Jon So I can’t tell you if these handle it properly because CBR, CBZ, as I understand it, are literally archived JPEGs.
Mo Yeah, they’re just to zip the zip files, I think.
Jon like they’re Like you can use Unrar to extract them.
George Pretty much, yep.
Mo Yeah, or RARs, yeah.
George Yeah.
Jon that Yeah, exactly.
George Yeah.
Jon So it might support that. I don’t have any books to test it on. But the flip side of that, to answer your question, is that what it will do is I found a really good method of when you tap on the right hand side of the screen, like what normally be turned pages, it will scroll down a little, like a third of the page will scroll and you tap it again, it’ll scroll another third of the page if you’re extra wide.
George Gotcha.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon And then we get to the bottom and you tap it. Well, then it knows to flip the page and it scrolls up and does that for you. So it It doesn’t have that exact feature you’re talking about that’s aware of the panels, but it does have several configurable and somewhat intuitive and fun ways to read comics that don’t require that.
George Gotcha. gotcha
Jon So it’s a middle ground, I guess, is the answer to your question.
Mo So yeah, if look at is there a charge for any of these?
Jon Mylar, no. Kavita, no. the The reader, and and and the reader that, so Kavita has its own native reader, but not on mobile devices.
Jon So I paid for, I think it’s C Display EX or like comic book display, whatever. It is like a one-time $4.99 charge for Android or iOS.
Mo hmm.
Jon And then beyond that, no charge. Cloudflare is a free account. Both these pieces of software free account. I only paid once $5 for the reader. And I figured part of me was like five bucks for a reader. i’m like to read 8,000 comic books. Pretty good deal.
Jon I’m okay with that.
George That’s okay. So the thing that you said right there threw me off completely. So you’re saying that Convita doesn’t have a native reader, which what do you mean locally?
Jon Oh, locally it does.
Jon if If you were on the network and you open up Kavita, it has an excellent a reader built into it. But when you’re accessing it outside, the way it feeds data is just streams of data.
Jon That reader is not remote. So you need an application that’s a client, like a Plex client versus a Plex server.
George Okay, yeah, that’s, well, no, but if I’m on, if I’m outside of my network, I can watch my Plex server. My kids use my Plex server all the time. They’re not on my network. They’re in their own houses. So yeah it’s it’s a little confusing that it doesn’t, because each one of those other older ones that I was talking about, the front ends for the comic book library, when you click a comic book, you’re reading the book.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George No matter, you know, they it would it just sounded odd that a front end doesn’t have its built-in display system.
Jon Yeah. the thing is So it’s a really good ah distinction. Plex has a Plex player, Kavita doesn’t have a separate application that’s a player.
Jon It has its server, which has a dedicated viewer. If you want to view somewhere that isn’t connected directly to the server, they don’t make a client that plays, but they support other clients that do. So that’s the extra piece that I had to have because they don’t have a remote client that does the reading.
Jon So that that was the only fee, the $5 fee that Moe was talking about.
Mo Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jon It’s cool. I know, I know both of you probably have digital comics. It’s worth looking into because it didn’t take much effort. If you want to take a look at mine, I’ll give you a login. You can check out mine and see if you like it. It’s pretty, it’s pretty spiffy.
George I mean, I like the Mylar part. i don’t I don’t know that the Kavita would do anything above what i already have because all the other front ends that I was using previous were, they have the library, i can scroll through all my comic books and they just pull from wherever the comic books are housed and they have their own built-in reader.
Jon Maybe not. Yep.
Jon Okay.
George So sounds like maybe that part I don’t need, but the Mylar part is very cool.
Jon Yeah, I got that running. Got it cooking. All right. So that’s that’s me talking about comic books. That’s a rare first.
Mo Wow, that was different.
Jon So, all right.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon So, Mo, you really teed yours up like you didn’t know what we think about it. So what do you have in tech this time?
Mo Yeah. So, you know, you have a house and I have dogs. So you open doors, let dogs in and out. And my wife likes working yard in and out. So invariably, you’re going to get some flies in your house, right? It’s just inevitable. It’s going to happen.
Mo um That if there’s one thing in the world that will annoy me. more than anything else is there a fly in the house that especially ones that just sort of appear out of nowhere that disappear.
Jon Okay.
Mo You can’t find it. So anyway, um I went out and I saw I got this thing is it basically it’s an electric fly swatter. But yeah.
George Like the tennis racket things?
Mo And let me tell you something.
George Oh, Lord.
Mo There’s something satisfying. About hitting a fly and watching a spark.
Mo There is no doubt that you got it when you hit this thing. There’s no question anymore. um It was funny because I bought this thing and I told my wife about She’s like, all right, whatever.
Mo There was a fly in the bathroom, so she tried it out. And she’s like, it’s horrible. She’s like, it’s just the poor thing. like It was like struggling after I hit I’m like, didn’t hit it again.
Mo That way it’s gone. It’s horrible.
Jon Spark it once more.
Mo Yeah, what’s the problem? um They’re actually relatively inexpensive. I mean, it’s i the one I got was like $30. You get a pair because I’m going to give one to one of the kids. um So it’s for two, basically.
Mo um But the cool thing is, though, it’s this particular one actually has a UV light in it and a stand. So you could set it up like out in your backyard as just like a general bug zapper.
Mo yeah know, you just you just stand it up, you turn the UV light, bugs fly into it.
Jon Mm-hmm. Oh, oh, oh, to attract the flies. Well, then you don’t get to swat them.
Mo Right. ah Well, that’s outside. Lightning Spies outside just seems a little overkill.
Jon That’s no fun.
Mo Inside the house, though, it’s totally not. ah
George They haven’t transgressed against you yet when they’re outside.
Mo Exactly. Exactly. What’s…
Jon They’re just in your area.
Mo when When bugs are outside, that’s their domain. I have no problem with it. They come in my house, they’re going to die. It’s just there’s no two other ways about it because I cannot stand bugs for any reason.
George What?
Mo It’s just an is thing. So this was so anyways, like I said, it’s it’s I was right, guess feel about this one. um It’s actually, like said, it’s kind of like the horrible thing is like my grandkids like really look like with hitting bugs with it.
Jon a
Mo I’m not sure what that’s doing to their psyche, but, you know what the hell?
Jon They’re bugs.
George I’m just curious, like, why choose this device and not say, like, one of the things that have been around for a while now, like three or four years, where you it’s the blue light emitting thing that you plug into the wall and has a little sticky insert and it attracts the flies.
Mo Mm hmm. Oh, yeah, yeah.
George Why not just get one of those? It sounds like it would do the same thing, but without the extra arm work, I guess, of swatting.
Mo Okay, well…
George And they’re usually a little bit more affordable than the thing you bought, I think, but maybe not.
Mo well um Well, I don’t think flies are attracted to UV, flies specifically. I think those are good for fruit flies and some other things, but I don’t think flies are attracted to UV.
George Oh.
Jon Oh.
Mo But is it as satisfying? I don’t think so.
George Why not just get an air curtain for your door?
Mo still…
Jon Again, not as satisfying.
Mo Exactly.
Jon No sparking.
Mo Then I wouldn’t have to get an electric fly swatter.
George No, but then they don’t get, they can’t come in then. Yeah.
Jon You’re missing the part where Mo likes to kill. That’s the part you’re not getting, George.
George ah
Mo Just bugs in my house.
Jon You know what this reminds me of? There was something that I wanted desperately and my wife vetoed some years ago. do you remember the the fly assault shotgun?
Mo This shoots like salt at it or something.
George The one that shoots salt?
Jon You pour salt in it and then you pump it up like ah and it has like bursts of air and the salt is like the buckshot and you can shoot a fly from across.
George Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
George Mm-hmm.
Mo It’s like a shotgun.
Jon I wanted one of those. my But my wife was certain that I would shoot my daughter and said no. And I mean,
George Why is that a no still?
Mo Wait a minute. What was that?
George I don’t get…
Mo oh Why would she be?
George That seems like the more fun aspect of it.
Jon apparently Apparently she didn’t want me to shoot her. Apparently she didn’t want me to I guess.
George Ha ha ha ha ha.
Jon I mean, it makes you tough, but I mean, cause I probably would.
Mo Why does she think you’d shoot your daughter?
Jon Cause it’d be funny. Maybe, you know, it’s, it, it makes a spark.
Mo yeah, that’s true.
George I’d shoot my wife.
Jon That’s why. Cause it’s fun. Cause you, yeah, you’d swap things, but.
George If my wife told me I couldn’t have the, the insect shotgun with salt thing, I just buy it anyway and shoot her. That would be take care of both problems.
Mo ah
Jon but Are you done resisting? Stop resisting. Stop resisting.
Mo I just remember the video for those though. You see like a fly there and also it’s just gone.
Jon Yep. It’s gone.
Mo He shoots with the salt.
Jon All
Mo It’s just gone. So yeah, I thought about that one, but those, you know,
George he
Mo I don’t know This is pretty satisfying, like I said.
Jon right.
Mo So again, if it’s something you want to do in your house, just kill time, kill flies. Hey, there’s worse things to do.
Jon Time and flash.
George I understand the whole, like the tennis racket shape of them because you want a wide surface area with a lot of holes and everything.
Mo yes
George But I just wonder why nobody has invented a Star Wars lightsaber version where it’s a little bit thinner with the whole. Yeah, I could just see like a nerd loving killing flies with that.
Mo Yeah, you probably miss more often, though, but…
George Yeah.
Jon I think hunting flies is beneath a Jedi.
Mo Is it?
George Who said you had to be a Jedi?
Mo Exactly.
George Let’s get into this game segment real quick. John, game you want to talk about is one that you just got a key for and did a live stream.
Jon Yes, sir.
George I got a key for it. Now I can’t do a live stream and submit it to the service because it’s already got your live stream. I have to do my own live stream. It wouldn’t let me submit that as proof that we covered this product, but I am interested in this game.
Jon Oh, really? Oh, really? All right. Well, Hot 2.
George So I want to hear what you thought about it.
Jon Yeah, yeah. So the game is called Node, the last favor of the Antari. And this is not a brand new game. It came out like August of last year, so it’s relatively new.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon The reason it came across my radar, probably yours as well, George, is because I got an email that said, hey new update. We’ve updated this cool game. And I saw the artwork is what grabbed me at first.
George Mm
Jon It has that look of a post-apocalyptic, super dark, creepy movie.
George Yep.
Jon limbo inside kind of exploration of a world sort of thing that I’ve looked at tons of games for. And your character is like a little brown robot that kind of looks like WALL-E.
George Right.
Jon Not exactly, but he’s cute like WALL-E. Not the design, but… And the premise, so I did, I went and got a key through Press Engine. They said, yeah, if you want to give us some coverage. So yeah, I’ll do a live stream on it.
Jon i’m gonna give you the link to the live stream oh if you want to throw that down in the show notes.
Mo Sure.
Jon So I fired it up last week and said, let’s give it a try. And sight unseen, literally I had not played the game until I went live, trying for the first time. This is an award-winning game. It won like best indie game of early 2026 or late 2025. It has, you know, you look at the site, it has all those those little maple leafs or whatever they are, the little ah award things that they’ve won.
Jon And they just expanded it because it used to be you programmed this robot how to get through things, you know, move forward like a big track, move forward X amount, then jump, then turn around, like you give it a programming to get over obstacles.
Jon And they just recently added a new feature where you can play it like a regular platform. You have direct control of your little robot.
Mo Oh,
Jon Then the premise is that it’s ah its it’s ah it’s a Russian nuclear facility that’s had a terrible accident. So they can only send in this robot because he’s mostly immune to radiation. Because people have all been evacuated. They need to stop it from having a big Chernobyl-esque meltdown. i think they even mentioned you know it’s going to be much worse than Chernobyl if it melts down.
Jon Everything so far, I really liked about this game. I like the design. I like the premise. I like the story. i like the character. I like the idea of two different kinds of control, either programmed or platformer.
Jon But throughout playing this game, I was continually reminded of good game design and areas where this one just kind of strayed outside of good game design.
Jon Like there are areas of a game that I call ponts, P-O-N-T, point of no return. Like you’re walking along, you fall down this big cliff, you don’t get hurt, but you’re not going back, right?
Mo Right.
Jon It’s this point in the map where I’m not going to be going back the other way, so I’m here.
George What was that acronym?
Jon Pont, P-O-N-T, point of no return.
George Isn’t that an R?
Jon Point, pont, pont, ponner.
Mo Return.
Jon but Point of no, what?
George was going to say, shouldn’t that be P-O-N-R?
Jon Point of no
Mo Yeah.
Jon Oh, return. What did i Oh, the I’m using the T for return, whatever it is. point George is looking at me funny. I’m like, does he not understand the concept? No, he’s double checking my acronyms.
George I’m just flabbergasted that the grammar Nazi got an acronym out of whack.
Jon it’s a
Mo ah
Jon it’s it’s it’s It’s a lowercase R-E capital T, right? So that’s the… no
Jon Maybe it’s point of no transgressive. don’t know I’ve heard it called that before. i guess. You know what I’m talking about, though? Yes, maybe you can’t go backwards.
Mo Yes. Yeah, yeah. with you.
Jon OK, so there’s a point there that happened to me and i had not yet acquired the skill to have a map like what. I was able to miss important parts of the game. The first obstacle I ran into, I got stuck on the obstacle.
Jon There’s several times and the the camera is really cool and the angles and the look, but sometimes the camera will whip you in a place that the entire screen blanks out because the position of the camera is like on the next level or something. You can’t see your character. It’s just lots of little design issues.
Jon Here’s the thing. I think the design is tremendous, but it reminds me of so many other games that you play the game and you go oh, that’s good design. Oh, that’s really cool. Look how they forced me to do this without forcing me. They led you like with breadcrumbs to a place or something a little glowy on the right-hand side to push you to that side.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon One time, my my preponderance to explore the map very thoroughly, if they drop me somewhere facing to the right, I always walk left and see what’s over there. Limbo taught me that because one of the eggs was over there you had to go get.
George Right.
Jon So I started that level, I walked to the left, I fell down one of those cliffs and I couldn’t go back and I couldn’t proceed in the other direction. And I missed part of the map. I didn’t find that out so I went back and tried to play it the other way. And I missed all of this before.
Mo Oh, wow. ah wow
Jon it’s not It’s not a criticism. It is a criticism. It is not a lack of enjoyment of the game, but I’ll tell you, it has not made me want to go back and play it again, which you know we talked about the movie before. A good mark of a movie, you think about it later.
Jon good mark of a game, you’re thinking about what could I have done differently in the game? And I was more frustrated than I was enchanted with the world just because of the game design. I know it’s an award-winning game.
Jon I don’t know what i was up against, but I’m curious to see. So if you have a key, George, and you play it, I’m curious to see if you run into, um now you know they’re coming, but if you run into similar problems with camera and maps and function and stuff like that.
George I mean, you know, my live stream sounds like playing that game. It’s going to be a lot of cussing. So.
Jon Probably, yeah. Yeah. Or maybe you’ll have a different experience. I wish you luck with it.
George Yeah.
Jon I don’t know that I’ll come back to it, but it’s also not super expensive. It comes in up ah on a bundle. It’s worth playing to see the cool design, the artwork, honestly. So node, the last favor of Antari.
George Gotcha. Gotcha.
Jon That’s what I played. What have you got in the game segment, Mr.
Mo Okay.
Jon Games?
George Well, you know, just like you talked about in the tease, I just wanted to take a little bit of time here at the end of the episode to kind of go back to a game that we talked about in a previous episode and then finally got to do the live stream on, and that’s Asteroid 69.
Mo see
Jon Oh, right. Yeah.
George So… This game was ah brought to me by the game developer themselves.
Jon Mm
George They reached out to me through our Discord server. So if there’s any game developers out there, join our Discord server, send me a message. We’ll likely end up ah you know promoting your game and playing it on a live stream at some point.
George This was… Four-player Asteroids Like Mayhem. And just kind of wanted to know what everybody’s thoughts were.
Mo Yeah.
George Is this the type of game, because you mentioned in the last one, John, that you might not go back to Node.
Jon Right.
George But is this the type of game that you go back to as a single-player game?
Jon Yeah.
George Or is this one you kind of really only want to play as multiplayer? Or do you just not care to go back to it?
Mo Hmm.
George Because it was very frantic.
Jon Mm hmm.
Mo Hmm.
George It was…
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Yep.
George difficult to get used to. I felt like once I got about a third of the way through the levels that we played, because we did complete the game, which was fun.
Mo Yes.
Jon Mm hmm.
George But once I got through about a third of the levels, that’s when I finally started to figure it out and get into a little bit of rhythm and a little bit of flow state and whatnot.
Jon Yep.
George It didn’t prevent me from dying, but still it was a more enjoyable experience.
Jon e Especially the back third. It got crazy difficult.
Mo Oh my God.
George Oh yeah.
Mo It ramped up.
George The back third, it just got nuts.
Jon Yeah.
Mo It ramped up crazy.
George Well, and I think it ramped up because a couple of us died because we weren’t necessarily being looked out for by some of the others. And then when we died and lost all the enhancements that we had built up, that made it harder for the team to stay alive because not everybody had triple shots or the bar defense systems or any of those kind of things that were necessary in those later levels.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Right.
Jon Yep.
Jon What’d you think, Mo?
George So just what do you guys think?
Mo So um it was fun playing with the group. It was definitely a fun game. I had i enjoyed our time playing it. um There were things about the game that bothered me a little bit. Like i was using my Xbox controller and and you can’t turn and thrust at the same time.
George Yeah, me too.
George Okay.
Mo you know, which, yeah, the diagonal didn’t do anything.
Jon Yeah. The diagonal wouldn’t. Yeah.
George Right.
Mo So, and which I’m very used to, like when I play these games, like I’m a big Asteroids fan.
Jon Yeah.
Mo I’m used to like doing that, you know whipping around and turning and doing all this stuff to maneuver.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo So the maneuvering and moving was a little bit weird to me. Like I had to turn and then thrust and turn the thrust. um And some of the visuals got so crazy. I couldn’t, I had no idea where I was or what was happening.
George Right.
Mo Like, because there’s all these ripple effects and but bombs blowing off.
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
George And bombs going off and yeah.
Mo And I’m like, and I stood still next, you know, i’m dead.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo I’m like, I no idea even what killed me, you know?
Jon Yep.
Mo um But, you know I think that that franticness was part of what they were going for. Like they I think they wanted that like yeah kind of feeling out of you, which they definitely succeeded.
George Sure.
Mo So, yep.
Jon They got it.
Mo So I don’t know if I would go back to it and play a single player, to be honest, but I definitely enjoy playing it as a group.
Jon Yeah. So I had two reactions to it. My initial reaction was I enjoyed playing with everybody. And at the end, I’m like, whew, I’m glad that’s over. But then after a couple of days, I’m like, you know what I could have done differently.
Mo Hmm.
Jon You know what would have been cool. You know what I realize now in hindsight. And it’s like a hundred levels to go through. Each one is like two, or three minutes or whatever, you know, to go through.
Mo Yeah.
George Right.
Jon yeah, I made the leaderboard. You can make the leaderboard multiple times because every time you die, it starts your score over. So some of us were like two or three spots on the leaderboard, which is really cool.
Mo Right.
George Right. Yep.
Jon I think I could get higher in the leaderboard. But I think I would only play this a game with a squad.
Mo Yeah.
Jon I don’t see myself ever firing it up single player because it’s interesting, but it doesn’t add enough to the asteroids, blasteroids kind of shoot things in space and pickups that I can’t get with other games.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George Gotcha.
Jon What it does great is…
Mo Right.
Jon what you kind of alluded to George is that if you will pick a class and like, okay, you guys only pick up these weapons. You guys only pick up these, you have these specials.
George right
Jon We need somebody to carry this smart bomb and somebody to carry these blades and whatever. I think you could build out a squad with special tasks and, that could really min-max this game and get crazy high scores if you work together.
Jon That’s the part playing with the mechanics of the game I think would be fun to do again. And hopefully they fix the little glitches and bugs that, where am I? I got lost and things like that.
George right
Jon They could tune that and, you know, your thrust and turn.
Mo Yeah. Yeah, that’s easy.
Jon I’d like to see that.
Mo I think it’s pretty easy to fix.
Jon So I would love to revisit it, in you know, maybe in a couple of months and go, where are we at now?
Mo Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Let’s see if we can better our score. Now you posed the question, what are your thoughts after the fact?
George I mean, so I played the game single player a little bit before a live stream just to get a little used to the mechanics and the controls and whatnot. um I was okay with it, but I didn’t get into the upper levels. Like, I think I played at like level 10 or something.
George And I’m not mistaken. I can’t remember for sure, but I thought that I got to some challenge stage kind of places. Yeah. in the single player.
George Maybe they’re not in the multiplayer or maybe I’m just misremembering.
Jon Oh, maybe it’s structured differently. Okay.
George Um, but I remember it kind of felt like Jairus or Galaga, you know, where you go through a few levels and then you get a challenge stage to rack up some points and stuff and then you go back.
Mo Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Um, so I don’t know if the single player is different in that way. Uh, It’s interesting to note that this is one of these independent created games. It’s a husband and wife team, apparently.
George Right, John? You talk to them, I think, or chat with them little bit.
Jon Mm-hmm. That’s right. Yeah.
George i just think that that aspect is always very cool. I love independent games because the AAA games, they they hire and they employ so many people that those games have to cost $50, $60, $70, $80, $90, $100, whatever.
Mo $70 now. Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo It’s crazy.
George I, I, I’m not into that scene because half the time the games come out with the same amount of bugs as this little independently developed game.
Jon Right. Yeah.
Mo Mm hmm. Or more.
George And i don’t know, these games just feel like, if I don’t like it, no big deal. Or if I do like it, great. That’s a, it’s a treasure to find. Like when GTA comes out, if it doesn’t blow my socks off, I’m like, this is bullshit.
Jon Right. you You found a hidden gem.
Mo Mm hmm.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George But if asteroid 69 doesn’t blow me away, I’m like, well, it’s still kind of fun. Who cares?
Mo Yeah, I enjoyed it.
George It’s like, you know,
Jon Yep.
George um I think I enjoyed playing with the team. um I think you definitely need to have a cooperative group. If you have a bunch of people just doing their own thing, it’s not going to be a good time.
George You’re going to get frustrated because, yeah, everybody’s going to die.
Jon that is e It’s going to be constantly continuing, continuing, continuing. You’re going to lose over and over. You won’t get a high score.
George And that continue process, is that could be done a little bit differently.
Jon Nope.
George Like, why do I need to put my initials in every time?
Mo Mm-hmm.
Mo Oh, right.
George that I was like, can I just put my initials in at the beginning? I understand the need to choose the ship or the weapon type, those kind of things, but there were little things like Mo’s talking about with the thrust that I think they could tweak and do better.
George So I’m with you, John, that in a few months, I’d love to go back and see what improvements or enhancements they’ve made.
Mo Sure.
Jon Right.
Jon And they are working on some updates. They even talked about it in the stream.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon They have some new things coming.
George Yeah.
Mo Yeah. I think we also had a bit of a advantage that we had a developer on watching us play.
Jon Giving us tips.
Mo and giving us tip And giving us tips, which, so I think the fact that we had we needed him to give tips means that something wasn’t obvious.
George That helped. Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Like, which he may want a better tutorial or something.
Jon A better tutorial is in line. Yeah.
George Yeah.
Mo Like, we didn’t know that if you have to pick the same power-ups every single time to get the multiplier.
George You know,
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon Yep. Not obvious.
Mo you know, that wasn’t obvious thing.
George you know I, you’re not wrong on that, but at the same time, the games that we loved back in the day didn’t give you tutorials like that. We just had to put another quarter in and figure it out as we went.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George You know, Donkey Kong didn’t tell you what you had to do, and Galaga sure as hell didn’t. You just figured it out from playing and watching. I mean, I kind of like that it doesn’t tell you every little thing, because…
George Sometimes discovery, even though it might be frustrating in a game like this, sometimes that can lead to a better experience.
Jon Well, and going back to Node that I just talked about, it comes back to game design. It’s not that they have to tell you. Like, I don’t need a pop-up or some dialogue that explains, by the way, pick up three of the same one in a row, blah, blah.
Mo Yeah.
George Right.
Jon You don’t to do that, but do something visually to hint to me. Remember I said, like, maybe there’s a glowy thing.
Mo right
George Fair.
Jon Maybe if I pick up one, the next one drops and my ship flashes or it shows me I need that one more…
George Right.
Jon give me an idea like, oh, maybe I should investigate this direction. I think those are the kinds of things that could make this a more mature game without having to have a you know, hyper in-depth tutorial thing. But there’s there’s there’s a good middle ground.
George Yeah, fair enough.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah, for sure.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. I would play again. When there’s a new update coming, I’d be willing to set it up and do it again.
Mo but Absolutely. I’m in.
Jon I think we and I enjoyed it.
Jon All right. Asteroid 69. Of course, link to that live stream is and down in the show notes. Stick around. We’ll be right back.
Jon Now, as we wind out the back end of the show here, where we always like to take just a moment here to talk about the things we’re either looking at right now or looking forward to between now and the next time we get together.
Mo Sure.
Jon And I want to start with you, Mo. I want to know what you have on the horizon.
Mo Let’s see. ah So the Vampire Lesta is coming out on AMC. It’s a second part to the interview of the vampire kind of modernization they did.
Jon Hmm.
Mo So it’s the next book. Really enjoyed what they did with the first one. So really looking forward to this one. um Something that actually already came out, but I’m looking forward to actually starting to watch it is Star City.
Mo um That show for all mankind that i love, which is the alternate history.
George Oh, yeah, right.
Mo This is the same story, but from the Russian point of view.
Jon Really?
George hello
Mo Yes.
George Oh.
Jon That’s interesting.
Mo Oh, very interesting. So it starts, you’re in the Soviet Union, you know, it has the same thing with like, but you see the backstory behind the first man that goes up behind the first woman that goes up and, and how it’s pure Soviet Russia.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo You know, there’s a thing where somebody, they arrest somebody who’s actually innocent and they have to, they basically, you know, they’re like, we don’t arrest innocent people. know, it’s like one of those kind of things.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Like, know, we don’t make mistakes like that, which makes it kind of terrifying.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo But you can see how they’re competing against United States. And and it’s just an interesting point of view because now the whole United States thing is sort of background, you know, and you see how that background stuff is affecting this story.
Jon Yeah.
Mo So it’s very cool.
Jon It’s just the ah other side of the same coin.
Mo So. Yeah, exactly.
Jon That’s interesting.
Mo And the last thing i’m really looking forward to is a Disclosure Day, which comes out ah June 12th. I have no idea what this thing’s about. Some of the aliens. um It’s Spielberg.
Mo So sure I’ll give it a shot. Weird croaking noises. um Animals?
Jon They really haven’t told us.
Mo I have no idea.
Jon Yeah, we really don’t know.
Mo um But ah story Spielberg is a great storyteller, so I feel pretty confident that the story will be there. Now, is it going to be a great movie or bad? I have no idea, but at least I know it won’t be a back rooms.
Mo So I’ll be happy with that.
Jon be back rooms. You hope.
Mo So that’s what I’m looking forward to. How you, John?
Jon Yeah, a few things. So the day that this episode drops on June 11th is a new series. I think eight episodes all drop at the same time on NBC called Surviving Earth. And this is one of those.
Jon You know, we have like the dinosaur documentaries.
Mo Right.
Jon I’m using air quotes you can’t see on the podcast, but… And they make up what we know of history, what we know about dinosaurs. This isn’t dinosaurs. This is a similar thing about now other more modern um extinct animals and how what led, we believe, to their extinction. So we kind of get to see animals that, you know, um i’m I’m envisioning, I think, from the poster, there was like a woolly mammoth, you know, like more modern, ah not prehistoric, but I guess i don’t know how far back it goes. But I like those kind of
Jon scientific based postulative sort of documentaries and that surviving earth is about extinct animals. So, uh, the next one is a movie that I’m not sure I needed to see, or we needed to happen, but toy story five is coming out June 15th.
Mo Yeah.
George Right.
Mo o oh
Jon No matter how many you make, there’s still toy story movies. They’re still going have a good heart to them. Even if, even, even if we had plenty after three, don’t know. We have a four now and a five. I’m going to see it. I want to see it. I want to know.
Jon Yeah. And then June 22nd, next week after the show drops, I’m making my first trip to Walt Disney World in about 10 years or so since I’ve been there.
Jon The special occasion is one of my favorite rides at Walt Disney World is the Carousel of Progress. And they’re redesigning it. They’re shutting it down early in July.
Mo Oh. Yeah.
George Hmm.
Jon and they’re revamping every scene. Right now, it starts the turn of the century, like the 1890s. The first scene is going to be 1969. Yeah. And so…
George Wow.
Jon yeah yeah and so
George Going to the moon, probably.
Jon Yeah, I think it’s like they put them around holidays. There’s like the summer of 69. And then there’s like a 1980s Halloween night. Then there’s ah the turn of the millennium, 1999, New Year’s Eve. And then the fourth one is going to be some whatever is modern now. So 2020 is where and they can evolve that one over time.
Jon That all sounds great, but my daughter and I love that ride. And we don’t, we’re going to go and overdose on the Carousel of Progress. Maybe go three or four times, however many times we can get in, just to kind of get our fill of it before it’s gone.
Jon And then we’ll go back after it’s revamped and check it out then. but So, George, how about you? What do you have on the horizon, my friend?
George Yeah, a game that came out about a week ago. I’m looking forward to it.
Jon Oh.
George might live stream it tonight right after this podcast drops. Seventh Guest Remake.
Jon Hmm.
Mo Oh, they remade that.
George So yeah, a whole new remake of the original game from the…
Jon Oh.
Mo Oh.
George When that first one come out? Like late 80s, early 90s?
Mo Oh, geez.
Jon Nineties, early nineties, 92, 93.
Mo Yeah.
George Something like that? Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
George So it looks to be fun. i got a key from the developer, so I’m looking at giving that one a try.
Jon Nice.
George um On June 19th, there’s another Robin Hood story. This one’s coming to theaters.
Mo Yeah.
George It’s called The Death of Robin Hood because, you know, he he died.
Mo ah Surprise!
Jon At some point.
George It’s so… right
Jon spoiler alert
George It stars Russell Crowe as Robin Hood this time. So we’ll see, you know, anytime they’re going to put out a Robin Hood movie or TV show, I’m going to go check it out.
George It’s kind of one of my like guilty pleasures, I guess.
Jon sure
George But the thing I’m looking forward to most, and ah this is further out than normally I would go, but I’m really looking forward to it. And we have a great time at it every year.
George So might as well start the promotions now. SFGE 2026.
George Atlanta, Georgia over at the hotel, the conventions all there. You just roll out of bed and you’re playing video games or board games or whatever you want to do.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George it’s great people that run the show this year. We’re even going to help them with part of the show. We’re setting up a special, uh, creator corner where other podcasters and YouTubers can come and equipment will already be set up for them that they can use to record the live from the event.
George So that should be a lot of fun.
Mo Right.
Jon Yep.
George And I don’t SFGE, it’s, we’ve termed it the last several years as kind of our fun convention. It’s the one we don’t go to work. Like we’ll do a panel or two and maybe host or something like that.
Jon Yeah.
Mo right
Jon Sure. Yep.
George We always do a meet and greet the last few, several years and we’ll have one this year, but that’s the convention that we get to go to and unwind and just have a good time.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George So if you have an opportunity to be in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s the last weekend of July or first weekend of August, depending upon how you look at it this year.
Jon Yeah.
George Um, but if you’re, if you have the opportunity to be in Atlanta, stop by, come see us. We’ll be milling around and having a good time. So I’m looking forward to that one for sure.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Absolutely.
Jon Yeah. well all All of us are.
Mo Yeah, big time.
Jon I know. Yeah. Okay. That plenty to fill a show, plenty to fill our calendars coming up before we let you go for this episode. I do want to thank another returning Patreon supporter over on patreon.com slash Gen X grown up. And I want to shout out Rick L. Now, Rick L is a longtime supporter of ours. He’s He follows our videos.
Jon He’s commenting all the time. He listens to the podcast. He watches my vlog, everything.
Mo Yeah.
Jon I’ve known Rick in real life, in past lives. We worked together decades ago, and we just kind of stayed connected a little bit, and he’s a huge supporter of what we do and our our ah our venture here at Gen X Grown Up.
Jon Rick has medical issues, has ever since he retired. And for a while he had to stop being a patron. He even wrote and said, Hey, I just let you know, like, do you not to tell us? It’s no problem.
Mo Yeah, we get it.
Jon And then as things are a little better for him financially, he came right back. No requirement to, he still has benefit of seeing everything that we do and listening to it. Rick wants to support what we do.
Jon Everyone who visits us over at patreon.com slash Gen X grown up has a huge heart like Rick and wants to see us continue and support the arts. Rick, thank you so much for coming back. We’re so glad that your situation improved. If you would like to join this tremendous cavalcade of human beings that Rick is a part of, please do pop over to patreon.com slash gen X grownup.
Jon You can set up a regular recurring pledge for as little as a dollar a month to get access to all kinds of stuff you wouldn’t otherwise get access to. And you’ll be supporting the show that you enjoy. So we hope you’ll do that. That is going to wrap it up for this edition of the show.
Jon Don’t worry, though. We back in two weeks with another one. But next week, that’s our backtrack. We pick a single nostalgic topic to dig in deep on. And George, would you be so kind as to share with the fourth listener what’s coming up next week in the backtrack?
George ah Yeah, so imagine, if you will, your average all-American family, the nuclear family, so to speak, from the 1950s, and into their backyard crashes a furry, pun-wielding,
George crazy cat-eating alien. Well, that was the TV show ALF that we grew up with in the middle 80s, ladies and gentlemen.
Mo Yeah. Allegedly.
George We’re going to do a deep dive onto that show. I don’t know how deep the dive can be considering it’s ALF, but we’re going to take a stab at it and see what we can do.
Jon right yeah You
George It seems like something that, yeah, eventually we were going to have to talk about, so might as well make it next time.
Jon got to cover Alf. You got to do it. yeah You do not want to miss that one. Until then, i am John. George, thank you so much for being here.
George Yes, sir.
Jon Mo, you know i appreciate you, sir.
Mo Always fun, man.
Jon Fourth listener, it’s you. We all three appreciate. Fourth listener, it’s you. We all three appreciate most of all. And we cannot wait to talk to you again next time. Bye-bye.
George See you guys.
Mo Take care, everybody.

L

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About The Author

Mo As someone who barely manages to squeeze in as a GenXer my memories include more of the 70's than those younger GenXers. Reading and movies are my passions with some video gaming thrown in there for good measure!

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