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Wish Gone Wrong (Jekyll&Hyde - Obsession) · Dice Camera Action!

• Mat Cousineau: ⁓ I wanna play a game. Any plans for this evening? Perhaps a game night? Game over, man. It's game over. Shut up. Play the game. Play it from your heart. Twenty-six years ago, we started playing a little game. Now we're all gonna sit down. Finish it. I've made the arms be ever in your name. Here we go. What's up everybody? Welcome to Dice Camera Action No, that's not the name of the podcast. I might keep that in. What's up everybody? Welcome to Dice Camera Action, a mashup podcast about board games and movies where cardboard meets a silver screen. Each episode we review a movie. ⁓ no, we review a game. I'm really messing this up. We review a game and then if you're a Cinephile you could stick around ⁓ to hear about a conversation about a movie with a similar theme. We're starting off great on this ⁓ on this podcast. so you've already heard a couple of voices laughing. I'll introduce those people. So ⁓ Chris Preston. you know, regular listeners of the show are are familiar with Chris. ⁓ I do want to say, I think this is the first time you've been on since you've started your own podcast, the Oak and Onion podcast. So I wanted to yeah, I wanted to say congratulations on that. ⁓ I've been listening to every episode and ⁓ chirping you guys as much as possible online when I have opportunities. ⁓ so yeah, congrats on that. That's I've really enjoyed it. You guys have done a really good job there with with that. So if you guys like ⁓ board game podcasts and want more content, Jeff definitely check out the oak and onion podcast. And if you just like listening to Matt talk, check out episode five of our podcast where he was a guest on our longest episode yet. Through no fault of my own. yeah, that was a Star Wars special, so I had a lot of fun with that. Yeah, we had a blast. For sure. And ⁓ the the other voice that you've heard laughing in the background there, is a special guest ⁓ who is one half of Dirtle Games with his partner Jason Hager. Dirtle Games is a duo who ⁓ started designing games during the pandemic. Today they have multiple games out in the wild, including Fuego, a fiery team-based trick-taking game, Rowdy Partners, another trick-taking game about tag team wrestling, recently released by Capstone Games. And what they're most known for is their work with restoration games having contributed in no small way to To ⁓ Unmatched Adventures with Tales to Amaze and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Darren Rechner, welcome to Dice Camera Action. I'm super excited to have you on. ⁓ now that we've heard a little bit about your game designing, maybe tell us a little bit more about yourself and if there's anything important I missed about Dirtle Games that you wanna mention. you know, go go ahead and and you can ⁓ talk about some of that stuff as well. You can exclude super collider because we'll get to that in a little bit. We'll get to that. Okay. Hello everybody. I'm Darren Rechner. Like you said, I was one half of durable games I designed with a co designer and we work together as a as a business, essentially. ⁓ we have about a half dozen ish games in the wild. We have another half dozen-ish in the pipe that'll be coming out in the next twelve months or so. And we like to design things that we think are interesting. So we we haven't really like pigeonholed ourselves into a specific genre or anything yet. I mean even what Matt told mentioned was like ⁓ two trick taking games and two games for the unmatched series. We also have two logic and deduction games. We have a rolling right in the way. We have another cooperative game on the way. So We like to dabble everywhere and ⁓ we have we have a good time doing it. So we've been doing it since ⁓ since like you said, since during the p pandemic. And ⁓ we're gonna keep doing it 'cause we think it's fun and you know, people keep buying ⁓ for some reason. I don't know. Yeah, it's I think it's an indication of the quality of the work. So congratulations on the early success in your design career. ⁓ I'm sure it's just ⁓ the tip of the iceberg. ⁓ so ⁓ you know, on this episode, just to kind of line up ⁓ what we're gonna be doing, we're gonna be doing some shout outs. So we're gonna talk about some games, movies, maybe some other stuff that we've been up to. ⁓ then we're going to review Jekyll and Hyde, the trick taking game, as well as Jekyll and Hyde versus Scotland Yard, which are two different trick taking games. They're kind of one is a sequel to the other. We'll get into all that. ⁓ And kind of probably the ⁓ the reason this specific podcast came to be in the first place, ⁓ was I just really wanted to talk about the movie Obsession. ⁓ 'cause it it it's it was a huge, massive hit. And I, you know, I I went in with high expectations and the movie met my expectations for a bunch of different reasons that we'll get into. And it it's just really an interesting movie with a very interesting background. ⁓ so I just wanted to talk about I won't just wanted to talk about it and and chat about it. So ⁓ I just started thinking about what gains would make sense. and ⁓ for whatever reason, I just thought ⁓ Jekyll and Hyde, kind of multiple personalities, evil taking over. There's a bunch of different ways you could kind of frame it to make it work. But ⁓ yeah, that's that's kind of what I ⁓ I came up with. and ⁓ yeah, so I just kind of put it out there to the to the crew to see. Who might be interested and Chris, ⁓ you kind of raised your hand and I guess you're familiar with these games. Did you did you have you played a lot of these games? Like these are brand new to me. we had played the first one, Jekyll versus Hyde, the competitive version, at a convention three years ago, I think it was. It was twenty-three. and really liked it. And then we tried the com the cooperative one, Jekyll and Hyde versus Scotland Yard, last fall at a convention. And then Since I was gonna be on the podcast, we were at Barnes and Noble and they had a copy of the cooperative one versus Scotland Yard and we picked it up and have played it a handful of times over the past couple of weeks. So very cool. and obviously we've both seen Obsession or we've all seen Obsession. D did you guys get to see it more than once? Unfortunately, no. So I was sure it was gonna be on digital by the time we recorded this. Like we set this up like Chris and I set this up weeks and weeks and weeks ago. And then Darren, you came on board like maybe couple of weeks ago and I was sure that it was going to be on digital by now. ⁓ but it just keeps making money at the box office, which we'll we'll talk about again. Sorry, Darren, I cut you off there. Go ahead. ⁓ no, ⁓ no, I unfortunately I only got to see the movie one time. And after I saw it, I was like, I probably need to watch this another time because as we'll talk about, when you get to the second half of the movie, it recontextualizes the first half of the movie. And then you want to see it again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So we'll we'll get into all that. So yeah, I'm just ⁓ really excited about this movie and basically where horror is as a genre ⁓ in general right now is is pretty exciting. So ⁓ I'm excited to ⁓ to to see what happens next because I think this might be a kind of fork in the road for Hollywood and for the movie industry and for horror as a genre in general. So I guess we'll see we'll see what happens and we'll we'll dive into all of that a little bit more ⁓ down the road here in the podcast. So before we do ⁓ just a quick word from Board Game Bliss. I want to take a quick moment to shout out our sponsor, BoardGameBliss.com, which is honestly where I've been buying games for years. This isn't some random ad read. They're literally the only people I reached out to because I already love what they do, and I was relieved when they said yes so I could be fully genuine when endorsing them. They've got a huge inventory of games and are always super competitive price-wise, which is important to me. At Board Game Bliss, we believe in the magic of play. Board games spark joy, forge connections, and create unbelievable moments. We source exceptional titles from around the globe, so your table always has something exciting to offer. Whether you're just starting out or you're a seasoned pro, there's always a new favorite waiting to be found. Go to board game bliss dot com and find out why they're my personal favorite place to buy board games. All right. So ⁓ before we get into all of that, I have a little bit of a surprise game here that we're gonna put. So we're going to play a trivia game. ⁓ no. we're gonna be exposed. That's right. it's it's funny, as I was like, ⁓ Darren and I outside of a couple of conversations on on ⁓ Instagram ⁓ just setting this up don't really know each other. So as I'm like preparing this like trivia game, I'm like, I have no idea if I'm like if I have like a twenty something dude that's coming on or a sixty something dude that's coming on. ⁓ you know, so like I have some older movies here, some newer movies, like, you know, so I'm you know right in the middle. Perfect. The perfect just like just like I planned. Yeah. I think we're all pretty much ⁓ forty something, so that should ⁓ late late thirty thirties. Late thirties, early forties. Yeah, I'm forty one now, but I I every time somebody asks my age I say, I'm late thirties, early forties. ⁓ hanging on thirties by Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, and then f like forever I was saying mid to late thirties. ⁓ But ⁓ yeah, okay. So let's get into it. I'm going to ⁓ basically either give you a quote or a trivia question. And the theme here, it goes along with the theme of our podcast. ⁓ so it's all going to be movies that either have like multiple personalities or shifting personalities for whatever reason, or or like a be careful what you wish for theme or a wish gone wrong, wrong kind of theme. Okay. So these are that is sort of the ⁓ the The ⁓ the theme of these all of the movies will fall into those categories. Okay. So ⁓ Chris, let's go to you first. Okay. ⁓ so this is a quote from a movie, and ⁓ if you don't get it, ⁓ Darren will have a chance to steal so so if you get get it with your first hint, ⁓ you will you will ⁓ get two points. And then if it's a steal, the stealing person will get one point for the steal. Okay. So ⁓ Chris, the quote is his name is Robert Paulson. Darren knows it already. Darren knows it already, I can tell. I feel like I should it because it sounds so familiar, but I can't place it right off the bat. Okay. Do you have a guess or are you giving it to Darren? No, go for it, Darren. I was the prime demographic for this film when it came out because I was in college. And I can't tell you how many long hours were spent talking about this, but that is from Fight Club. ⁓ Absolutely. Two points for Darren. I saw that once and it's been like twenty-five years ago. So I knew I recognized the name, but Robert Paulson, played by Meatloaf. That's right. Okay. Bob. Yep. Yep. Okay. ⁓ so Darren, it's ⁓ over to you. And your quote is phenomenal cosmic powers, itty bitty living space. Well, that's that's the genie from Aladdin, voiced by the legendary Robin Williams. You nailed it. Yeah. I th I thought I was going with two super easy ones to start where you both had like, you know, ⁓ an easy one that you could knock off and get a little confidence, but ⁓ that backfired a little bit. Sorry, Chris. Yeah. No, you're good. That's on me. Okay, so here's one for Chris. You ready? Yep. Somebody stop me. I could I could do an actual impersonation, which would probably completely give it away. Somebody stop me. Thinking it sounds like Jim Carrey in my head. Okay. The way I'm hearing it. But it gives me two options either the mask or liar liar. I'm gonna go with the mask. Nailed it. You got it. Somebody stop me. All right. So two points for Chris. Hey. I don't get scunked. There we go. Moral victory. Okay, ⁓ Darren, this one has This one was a little bit tougher, so I put in two quotes. Okay. Okay. ⁓ so the first quote is, Holy shit, this is so cool. They are gonna believe we exist now, right? Holy shit, this is so cool. They're gonna believe we exist now, right? And then the second quote is, that wasn't me, that was Patricia. I think you've got me on this one. ⁓ I'm trying to think what would be something that would be can they would think they're imaginary, but they're not imaginary. I don't think I get this one. Alright. Kate, Chris, do you have ⁓ you have an idea or something to throw out there? Holy shit, this is so cool. They're gonna believe we exist now, right? And then the second quote is that wasn't me, that was Patricia. it's not ringing a bell for me either. Okay. I'll I'll ⁓ so no points awarded, but I'll throw out another hint here. Darren, you were saying like ⁓ a people being imaginary, not necessarily. Remember the theme of the the types of movies, right? Like multiple personalities or s or ⁓ you know, changing personalities. And then somebody says, ⁓ they're gonna believe we exist now, right? And then the person says the says something to the character and the character says, No, no, that wasn't me. That was Patricia. I mean it's ⁓ it's not multiplicity. ⁓ No. It's is it like ⁓ drop dead Fred or something? No, so it's not an imagin it's not has nothing to do with imaginary people. It has to do with split personalities, multiple people being one person. Okay. I mean, is it split? It is split, yeah. ⁓ damn, it's split, yeah. So the person says, Holy shit, this is so cool. They're gonna believe we exist now, right? Like cause they didn't believe the person they they believe the person was faking it or whatever. Potentially. And then one of my my favorite line from from ⁓ from Split is and my wife and I use this all the time when like we get accused of like, did you, you know, not change the toilet roll or whatever? We always no, that wasn't me, that was Patricia. For some reason that line ⁓ yeah, that line made us laugh and ⁓ and it's just the mainstay in our household now. so it is ⁓ Chris's turn, I believe. Yes. Okay, so this is not a quote. This is a ⁓ kind of a just a trivia question. So the crystal ball juggling villain had to have multiple modesty adjustments to his wardrobe due to the fact that this was a kid's movie. You're you're both giggling, so We definitely did. Yeah. It was David Bowie. Yes. Definitely did. I'm trying to remember the character's name. No, you need the character's name, you need the movie. ⁓ d I need the movie. Okay. It's ⁓ the dum dum dum always get these always get the two movies mixed up in my head. ⁓ It's Dark Crystal, right? It's the other one. ⁓ dang it. I don't know why, but I can wait. I those movies are like the same thing in my mind. What's the other one do? It is Labyrinth. So Labyrinth today. The Hansen Workshop said let's make a kid's movie and let's make that villain as uncomfortably sexy as possible. Let's put David Bowie in there. Trivia note, ⁓ Caitlin likes to talk about this. Caitlin being my wife, for those of you that don't know. he could not figure out how to juggle that crystal ball, and there's behind the scenes footage of how awkward it was for like hands to come up under him doing it, and he's like You know, like holding his arms back and it's super funny and awkward looking and so there's a funny trivia note. That's interesting because I've seen that movie a bunch and I never noticed anything awkward about it. But the behind the scenes video I've seen is it's pretty obvious that it's really editing is the real movie magic. Absolutely. Yeah. And like to go along with the rest of that movie, practical effects, right? Yep. Just kill just killing it with practical effects. Okay, Darren, ⁓ this one's for you. Okay. So two quotes again. ⁓ 'cause again this one I think was a little bit tougher. ⁓ so here they are. Look at that subtle off white coloring, the tasteful thickness of it. ⁓ my god, it even has a watermark. I feel like you have it already. Keep no, is there more? Keep going. Okay, so the second one is ⁓ picked them up at the printer yesterday. Good coloring. That's bone. And the lettering is something called Cillian Grail. I think the lettering was actually just the name they made up for the movie. But the movie was American Psycho. That was Patrick Patrick Bateman. Played by ⁓ got it. Played by Batman. Christian Bateman. Christian Bale. Yeah. Yeah, played by Batman, exactly. ⁓ yeah. Would you did you have that one ⁓ ready to go, Chris, to steal or No. I again I saw that once in college, like twenty years ago. So I would I remember random bits of the movie, but not quotes for sure. Gotcha. yeah, the for some reason the like the business card stuff has always stuck out to me as being hilariously weird. Yeah, he's so intense about it, but it's such a banal subject matter. Yeah, he gets so mad when somebody has a cooler business card than him. I'd say And they they all look the same. Absolutely. From what I remember, the whole movie was just wild. ⁓ yeah. It's it's a great one. Okay, here's one for you, Chris. Okay. ⁓ the quote is parting your soup is not a miracle. Parting your soup is not a miracle. Except Bruce Almighty? Got it. All right. Two points. That's right. I don't know what that says about me, but ⁓ or about Jim Carrey's role choices. I mean there was a a decade where Jim Carrey was in everything and smashing all the box offices. So a lot of references. Yeah. He had that one year where it was Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber all came out in the same year. That's crazy. That's when comedy's and like the first two I might be getting the details slightly wrong here, so don't quote me on exactly this, but it's something along the lines of the first two had come out and he had already been s cast in the third one. And I forget what the third one was. It might have been The Mask. Or no, it was Dumb and Dumber. I Dumb and Dumber was the third one to come out that year. And the other two movies had had already come out. And I think they were just starting to shoot. And basically Jim Carrey or Jim Carrey's agent. said like, hang on a second, hang on a second here. Like Jim Carrey all of a sudden is a massive, massive draw and he needs to get paid more for this movie because he is going to make you guys so much money. ⁓ based on like so basically they the nego renegotiated and Jim Carrey got paid a ton more money for Dumb and Dumber. and it was renegotiated at the last second. So again, don't quote me on the exact details, but it was something along those lines. That's crazy. Yeah. ⁓ imagine having those three hits, like one person being the lead of those three hits in one year. Wild. And I was like twelve years old at the time. Like whoever was picking his scripts, maybe he was picking his scripts. I I don't I don't know, but who's ever giving him scripts, like hopefully they got their commission. Like they aren't. Yes. For sure. Okay. this one is for you, Darren. A boy's best friend is his mother. I'm gonna feel silly when when we actually when we find out what this is, because I feel like I should know this. It's not force gump. It's off the pass. I can't get this one. Chris, do we have a steal? This is your chance to get back in it. You tie it you tie it here. If you steal it, a boy's best friend is his mother. I don't know if it's right, but the only thing I can think of is psycho. Psycho it is. Very nice. Yeah, because Which I think Patrick Bateman was partially named after after this character, right? Yep. Norman Norman Bates. But yeah, he he pretends to be his mother half the time. He's his he's literally a split personality. ⁓ okay, Chris, back to you. All right. The pen is royal blue. The pen is blue, the pen is blue. No clue. I'm not gonna waste time. I ⁓ nothing. The pen is royal blue. The pen is blue. The pen is blue. Obviously, I'm not reading it as a quote. I'm just reading the words here. But Derek, do you have a steal? That sounds like two people talking to each other. ⁓ No, I don't have a steal there. Okay, this is a wish gone wrong movie. Okay. Where the person is trying to say the pen is red. ⁓ is it liar liar? But he's he's incapable of lying. Okay. The pen is the pen is the pen is royal blue. ⁓ yeah, I just want to say I predicted that that was gonna be one of the answers. I just need to go through every question. Just like I immediately need to go through my brain catalog of Jim Carrey moving. We're done, we're done with Jim Carrey now. It's so funny because like I was Googling and looking at lists and like putting this together, and I'm like, ⁓ yeah, liar liar, wish fulfillment gone wrong, perfect. And then I'm like, ⁓ multiple personalities are changing. ⁓ mask, yeah, perfect. You know, and then I'm I I finish the list and I'm looking at it, I'm going, ⁓ my god, there's three Jim Gary movies on this list. I mean, he played two characters in Sonic the Hedgehog three. Like I don't know if anybody here saw that. I honestly have not played Robotnik and he played like Robotnik's dad. Distinctly different personalities. Like that could've worked, yeah, for sure. ⁓ okay, so ⁓ I think we're at Darren here. ⁓ okay, here it is. So this is the two characters. One person says the first line, and then the second person responds. and there are two of those. Okay, because I think this is a ⁓ slightly tougher one. So I think between these two, maybe, maybe we'll get it. Okay, so ⁓ the first one. So I can't sleep with my wife and I can't sleep with other women. What the hell is that? And then the response is marriage. ⁓ I can't sleep with my wife and I can't sleep with other women. What the heck is that? Marriage is what it is, the second person responds. And then the second one is ⁓ the first person says, Is it weird that I miss your penis? And then the second person responds, ⁓ come on. It would be weird if you didn't. Wild. And these sound super weird once you know the context, or once the once the people know the context. It'll make more sense. This feels like ⁓ this feels like a body swap ⁓ kind of movie. Like that's what it feels like. Like I'm trying to think of a movie where like a male and a female protagonist like swap identities. It's definitely not Freaky Friday. I'll just say you're you're on the right track. Yeah. You're not completely right, but you're very much on the right track. It's definitely There's one or two like kids' movies where that's kind of body swap happens, but it's definitely not that. Yeah, but there's talk of like sleeping together and penises here, so this is not a not a kid's one for sure. Fairly recent too. Is it? Okay. Not like not like, you know, last year, but fairly recent. I feel like I've seen this. Like I'll have to pass on. Do have a guest lined up, Chris? I don't. You don't either? Okay. So no points will be awarded, but I'll give another hint. It's with ⁓ Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds. I feel like there's a whole bunch of these kinds of movies, not body swap movies, but this type of comedy that all kind of blend together that even the titles are kind of like whether it's like this is 40 or I don't even I can't even think of of other ones because they're I just feel like they're fairly forgettable. But I watched this one fairly recently and so it stuck out to me. ⁓ it's called The Change Up. Where basically Jason Bateman, who is a famil of like full fledged family man with kids and everything, ⁓ and ⁓ his best friend, I believe, played by Ryan Reynolds, who's like a ladies man and kind of has like a whole bunch of ladies on the go and whatnot, ⁓ they changed bodies. So that's why he said, I can't sleep with my wife and I can't sleep with other women. What the heck is that? And then Jason Bateman Bateman's response is, That's marriage, dude. I think I remember And then that's why he says Is it weird if I miss your penis? And then the other guy says, ⁓ come on, it would be weird if you didn't. I think I remember that from like the movie Standee outside of the theaters. Like that's what I think I remember that from. Well yeah, that was a while ago. That would have been a decade at least. So we we have a tie here, guys. ⁓ six six and ⁓ and I'm out of questions. So we're just gonna have to leave it there, I guess. Or do you guys wanna like rock paper scissors over it? ⁓ we'll we'll say well met. Well met, Chris. Yeah. Well good job. The big comeback by Chris there. Good job. The the Jim Carrey movies saved you. Cause I blew a softball with the labyrinth, clearly. Yeah. And then what was the first one too? The first one I thought was the name is Robert Paulson. Yeah. I'm like, these will be softballs. These will be easy for the first two, but yeah. Should have been. You don't know what you don't know, I guess. Yeah. ⁓ all right. let's let's get into our shutouts. Stop shouting. I'm not deaf. I love that bumper. It gets me every time. All right. So this is part of the episode where we just kind of chat about some of the stuff that we've been playing ⁓ andor watching. Darren, let's let's hear from you. Let's we'll have you start us off with our with your first shoutout. Sure. So ⁓ game I've been playing quite a bit recently is actually Wondrous Creatures. So it's by Bad Comet, I believe, is the is the publisher. I saw it at a local game shop. Thought it was neat. I picked it up. I played it with my wife now a half dozen times and then the last three weeks or so I've introduced it to two other people and they're now very intense into it as well. ⁓ it's on board game arena if you want to get some extra games in there. It is a worker placement game and your workers are are creatures. They're two hexes long. And ⁓ you'll put your workers onto this this board and it'll get you resources or cards or eggs. And then ⁓ as you collect those resources, you cache them in for these like mashup creatures that are not Pokemon but not dissimilar ⁓ from Pokemon. And you essentially build a tableau of these five different styles of cards. So point scoring cards, instant effects, ⁓ re energizing cars, cars that use energy, things like that. And ⁓ it has a lot of fun little mechanisms worked into it. ⁓ having if you're a fan of slightly crunchy, moderate not slightly, Moderately crunchy worker placement games where like the skill ceiling is probably pretty high on it. Cool. Yeah, it looks neat. Chris, sounds like you've played it. Do you have any thoughts? Yeah, it's a great game. We played it at Tantrum Con last year. And then I picked a copy of it up at BG Con last May. And we don't play it as much as we should, but yeah, it's a great game. It's ⁓ it it's one for us that like it has similar vibes to Everdell, kind of, in the worker placement tableau building, but in my opinion, is a much better game, personally. I think interesting. Everdell does it have squishy berries though? It does not. No, it does have against it. But it has one of one of your three creatures has a magnet in it, and you have a clan leader that once you accomplish a goal will come into play and give that specific creature some sort of ongoing rule breaking ability. And it's got a magnet in it, and they magnetize on each other and it's super cool. I got way too excited about that. You have my attention, that's for sure. Yeah. Super cool. Yep. I'm looking at the pictures on BGG, and there's all these like super cute little like meeples, like colored meeples. Are all those included in the base game? ⁓ most of them. There is an expansion with more beasts. Right, but it's not a deluxe. There's a premium bits box. I have the premium bits box, and I cannot remember what is standard and what is premium bits. So Yeah, so there's trophies you're placing on the board and the upgrades, those are metal. The energy pieces you can use on the cards that Darren mentioned that you can re energize, those are wood and the upgraded and the nets. And I think and the nets are wooden. And I wanna say were the eggs cardboard in the original? I I don't or were they? I don't think so, but there's a bunch of ⁓ there's scoring tokens and like ⁓ gear tokens and like the tokens that let you set up the eggs on the board. So I think all those become wood when you get the upgrade. Yeah. And it's not crazy expensive for the amount of upgrade bits you get. Yeah. It does it has such a there's a neat cadence to the game 'cause as you learn it, you start it's a bit like Everdell in the sense that you started your game, it's like real simple. I just put my thing on the board, I get a couple of resources, that's my whole turn. When you get later in the game and you've built out your tableau and maybe you're advanced on some tracks and stuff, like you'll do one thing and you'll trigger, trigger, trigger all these different effects as the game goes on. So like if that scratches that part if you have a part of your brain that needs that scratched, like this will absolutely Yeah, absolutely. They do have a new expansion coming to crowdfunding soon. Really soon. Yeah, I don't remember what the date is and I don't know when this is going to release, but ⁓ I think they'll probably if ⁓ bad comet does what they've done in the past with expansions, they'll have the base game and all the upgrades. I don't know that for sure, but in the past they have done that with expansion content on crowdfunding. So keep an eye on that if that sounds like something you want to back. Cool. And then like the shared map that I see in the center, is there like is there a lot of interaction happening there between the players? ⁓ or is it just kind of a standard worker placement thing? I mean, there's the blocking, obviously. there are some spots on the map you cannot go to. There are some spots that cost extra resources because it's more I think the mountains, they're more difficult terrain. So it can get really tight. if everybody's trying to go for the same stuff and you have three beasts creatures that you're placing and then there's a reset turn. I forget exactly what they call it where you pull them all back. So that is one of the things that Darren mentioned cadence wise, that the timing of that can be really crucial for your benefit, but also for preventing someone else from having a really powerful turn at times. So there you know it's it's it's not going to be like an Ameritrash game. ⁓ Where there's just a ton of interaction. But for a worker placement Euro, there's some there is some interaction there. And there's matters, yeah. There's there's collective goals you're racing towards. And the sooner you get them, the more points you get. And depending on player count, only so many spots on the goals can be claimed. So there's another interactive like race to claim. Cool. Yeah, it sounds like something I'd be interested in for sure. I'll have to check it out. ⁓ all right, Chris, ⁓ you got a game for us? I do. ⁓ I'm gonna shout out Cozy Stickerville. Yeah. Cool. This is something that Joel's talked a decent bit about on our podcast. And we recently did a segment on three, two, one summer, and the one was ⁓ one game we wanna play this summer. And so our youngest is at grandma's house for a couple of weeks, and we've been playing it with our two older kids who are twelve and fifteen. And our fifteen year old really didn't want to try it. ⁓ but like halfway through the first year, I was like, Are you enjoying this? He's Yeah, this is great. And so like the next night he was like, Are we playing that again? I was like, Yes. So we're only three years in. so we've got seven years left because it's ten years. ⁓ and basically if you don't know Cozy Stickerville, it is a cooperative. If you're playing multiplayer, it can be just a solo experience where you start with a bass board. That is empty and there's a grid on it, and you've got a huge book of stickers and a storybook, and you're basically playing through ten scenarios where you're building out your village. And the interesting thing is is there's no winning or losing the game. So I've heard some people say it's not really a game, it's more of an activity, which if you want to claim that, go for it. I think either are accurate, but depending on the decisions you make. Throughout the game, there may be positive effects and there may be negative effects, and you may make your village go hungry and start to make people angry. And I'm not saying we did that, but I'm not saying we didn't do that. It happened real fast. ⁓ and so it's just it's super cool. There's 12 cards in each of the years, and each year has a different deck of 12 cards. And so basically you flip up a card, you read it. Some of them just give you a choice. that'll trigger an effect. Some of them stay on the table that give you actions that you can take. And then you trigger one card and then you choose an action. And those actions can be reading a passage that's listed on the board. It can be triggering an action on one of the cards, which is solving some sort of puzzle, reading through a storyline. Building pieces of your village like the town hall or the school or a playground or one we have right now that nobody's touched yet is we can one of us could run for mayor of the village. You know, get into politics somehow. So it's just either. It has some twists and turns in there. ⁓ are you the mayor of Cozy Stickerville now, Darren? ⁓ that's just the beginning. That's just the beginning. I think it's great too though, like reading the opening passage basically like it's this super defeating leather from Father is his name, basically saying like, here's some land, you're gonna mess it up, but good luck anyway. So we keep joking about we've gotta make the right decisions so we don't disappoint father. It's great. Gotta keep father happy. Yeah. Have you played that one, Matt? No, I haven't. ⁓ I when I went to Canada Plays ⁓ I went by the booth and they gave me an envelope with a sort of self-contained side quest or side thing that kind of is ex is is separate from the main game altogether. But I think it's like somewhat related and ha obviously has the same systems and stuff. So you can just play through this like little mini campaign, I guess. ⁓ and I haven't pulled it out yet, but ⁓ it's something I might do with ⁓ Remy, my six year old. I think he would really enjoy that. It sounds it sounds really cute and it's artism he would like. Yeah. Yeah. They did early copies of it at PAX Unplugged, ⁓ in Philadelphia, and I saw the name of it while I was there and I didn't ask any questions. I just handed him money and walked away with a box. Nice. I I knew I knew that my partner, my wife, would just love the idea of it and we played it and we loved it. And you can play you can play the campaign through twice. And I will tell you that even after two campaign playthroughs, there was still content in the game that we did not get to explore. So That's good. That's good. Because the board's double sided and so you choose what side of the board you play with the first time. So don't don't don't feel like you're missing out when you're playing. Like chase the thing that interests you and then when you play the second time, maybe chase the other thing. That's cool. That's good to know. ⁓ the interesting thing, Matt, and I know I think you'll appreciate this, Darren. You know, we just met like twenty minutes ago. So best friends. ⁓ but is it it's designed by Corey Kanixa, is that how you say his last name? ⁓ who is known for all the fantasy flight Star Wars designs, right? Like he did Star Wars Outer Rim, and then his company has done the Mandalorian adventures. And this is one of his games. that ⁓ unexpected games his company put out. And I think it's wild because everything I've played from him is like, you know, this big Star Wars space adventure. And then here's this just like chill sticker activity game. And it it just seems very, very different from what I've seen from him in the past. I think every designer just like Darren I think every designer it just has like that thing on the back burner that, you know, they're like, here's an idea, it's on the back burner. I'll get to it when I get to it. And then eventually it just becomes like it Critical mass and it's like now it's the thing. Like I finally get to do the thing. So I'd be interested to know how long that was like percolating with them ⁓ when they made that game. Well, in in a legacy campaign game like that, like that's no small simple feat to figure out how all these passages interconnect. And I mean, there's some ongoing storylines that are interwoven even just through the first three years. So like Years. You know, that that had to have taken some time. Very cool. So that's Cozy Stickerville. ⁓ I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna try that that little side campaign thing with ⁓ with Remy, I think, and ⁓ if he digs it then maybe we'll look at at buying the the actual game. ⁓ cooperative campaign ⁓ legacy stuff is not really my jam, but if it's an activity or a thing that I could do with my with my kids and that changes things a little bit. ⁓ yeah, might have to check it out. All right, so the game I want to chat about is Oddland by Allplay. ⁓ yeah, I don't know if you guys have played this one. ⁓ I just picked it up last weekend and have played three times since with ⁓ with my kids. ⁓ and it's a it's a really cool little game. It why it came onto my radar because I was listening to the Fun Problems podcast. Darren, as a game designer, you might be familiar, but ⁓ Peter C. Hayward had mentioned that ⁓ I guess they were talking about or landed on talking about Cascadia. And he had mentioned that Oddland is the better Cascadia. And we are we are huge Cascadia fans here in the house, so much so actually, that ⁓ anytime we make quesadillas, they're not called quesadillas anymore. For some reason, at some point, probably a couple years ago when my kids were like four and like seven, ⁓ somebody called a quesadilla a Cascadia. And then of course my wife and I did not correct them. And we henceforth called ⁓ Quesadia's Cascadias. ⁓ but anyways, ⁓ we're big fans of Cascadia. And when I heard that this this little all play game was the better Cascadia, ⁓ that was ⁓ similar but with a shared shared map instead of like within your own little map, that immediately piqued my interest because as you guys all know, ⁓ I prefer a game with a little bit more ⁓ a little bit more player interaction. And ⁓ I love Cascadia because it's still a really cool puzzle. It's very cozy, it's very, you know, chill. You can chat in between turns and it's not very long. So it's like I still was a huge, huge fan of that game. ⁓ but I wanted to to check out this ⁓ this other one, Oddland. So what Oddland is, if you picture Cascadia, most people will be familiar with that game, ⁓ instead of choosing ⁓ a map piece and an animal piece, basically Everybody has ⁓ one copy of all of the animals in their supply. ⁓ and then ⁓ you build a shared board, and then at the beginning of your turn, ⁓ you'll play a card, ⁓ a map card or a map tile to the board, altering the board a little bit. And then you have to place one of your animals on the map tile that you placed onto the board. And the map tiles, very similar to Cascadia, has like ⁓ multiple different kind of zones or regions. And so there's like ⁓ grasslands, there's water, there's desert, there's mountains, maybe one more. and each tile is basically just a two by two grid of different mixes of these these types of of of land. and so all you do is you just add to the land, expanding it a little bit, and then you choose one of the seven or so different types of animals who all score differently. I think it's six might be, ⁓ who all score differently onto the map tile that you placed. And then the that type of animal might say score two points for every adjacent mountain space or score score through two points for every animal in its ⁓ row or column, whichever has the least. ⁓ and all of these different types of scoring. And so what's r what the thing that really stuck out to me, and I only kind of started realizing this in the second and third games, is that because you're altering the the landscape as you play, ⁓ you can kind of also not only affect other people's, but you can piggyback on other people's stuff that they've got going on. So one great example as I was playing this afternoon with Remy, and he had a massive area of ⁓ with his goat. And goat wants to score five points for every for the region that he's in for every two mountain spaces in his region. And Remy had built this huge, you know, and he's six years old, right? So like it makes total sense for him to get fixated on one thing. And he had built this huge mountainous range and he had put his goat on it. And the way the game works is once an area has has an animal in it, once a region has an animal in it, you can't put an animal in it, right? But one thing you can do, and this is something that I've figured out, is that you can you can place an animal nearby and then in a subsequent turn connect those regions. And so that's what I did. I I'm like now you have my interest. That is ⁓ now you have my interest. That's one of my favorite things from one of my favorite games ever. Of Vegas. So that will Okay. You've got my interest. Cool. Yeah. So it's a brutal dad move. ⁓ yeah. No mercy. You gotta learn son. And so yeah, I placed I placed my a mountain range nearby, and then put my goat in there. And then when I drew my next card, it had a mountain piece in it. I'm like, perfect, as long as that doesn't get messed up by my next turn. I'm gonna connect these regions and now I'm also gonna score the same amount of points as he does because we both have our goats on this massive mountain range. ⁓ and so yeah, this just like those those moves, those like ⁓ opportunities to be tactical and feel really smart are there in a game that is like fairly simple, like my six-year-old played. And maybe he didn't play great, ⁓ but he had a great time and he was able to play, and he was able to. pull off his little strategies and do some stuff and and he had a good time with it. And meanwhile, ⁓ late 30s, early 40s, Matt was able to was able to kind of use his his like brain and his experience and do some stuff and and have some fun at my own level, right? So ⁓ I think when a game can do that, it's it's it's pretty cool. And it's a game that lasts like at two players, I think it lasted like under 20 minutes. And then when I played three players, it was under thirty minutes and it plays up to five, I think. So you're probably looking at forty minutes for a five player game, ⁓ which is really nice for a game that has like that tactical stuff and and the puzzle going on. And each of the animals can score two different ways too, if you just flip it to the A or B side. ⁓ so there's definitely a little bit of ⁓ and I think there's even an expansion ⁓ available for it that that I don't that I don't have. So Yeah, pretty neat little game. Have you either I guess Darren, you already mentioned you had I don't think you've played. ⁓ Chris, have you? Yeah, ⁓ Caitlin and I tried it at a convention earlier this year and I re we really enjoyed it. Some of those that small box all play line, like none of them are bad, but some of them hit better than others for us. And I think that was one that we enjoyed. And the interesting thing about the card play is you can overlap sections of existing cards on the board. So There's a little bit more of the interaction. And now we only blade it at two and you know, it was fine. We enjoyed it. We're glad we tried it. I feel like it would be better with more players. And so I would love to try it at three or four at some point. Yeah. If you like Cascadia, this is a really nice kind of like slightly more competitive, slightly more interactive ⁓ version of that. in in a small, very affordable. It's this it's the all play, you know, twenty, twenty five dollar whatever it is. ⁓ game. So yeah, it's a it's a great little game for sure. Definitely recommend it. ⁓ okay, let's get back to ⁓ Darren. Yes, another game. Yeah. Or or or a movie, whatever you prefer. Yeah. It's up to you. Movie, game, TV. Yeah. I don't wanna and you might do an actual episode about this, but the other movie I saw recently was ⁓ the backrooms. And I don't know if we wanna necessarily talk about the movie on this podcast or you want to save it for a whole episode. I'm I'm happy to to hear about it. To be honest, I I know almost nothing about Mac backrooms. For some reason I miss the whole internet craze about it. ⁓ That's right. That's exactly right. A little b little past our time. Yeah, I'll just I'll give you the I'll give you the the back of the VHS box. ⁓ the the premise of the backrooms is that ⁓ a person can fall through a r ⁓ basically a rip in the dimensions and they end up in this place called backrooms. And the backrooms is considered a liminal space. And if you want to learn what that is, enjoy the internet rabbit hole I just sent you down. essentially it's a space where architecture doesn't exactly make sense. It is pretty empty. Things are not in positions they should be and just everything just does not connect ac the correctly, right? ⁓ so it started from a creepypasta on the internet and then it became ⁓ somebody made a video. They may 3D modeled the backrooms in Blender and they made a video. set in the backrooms. ⁓ which caught on on the internet and it has its fans and now it had a I had a movie several weeks ago. And it actually it was the most recent movie I had seen when you guys contacted me to be on the podcast. And I'm like, what movie are you doing? And you're like, ⁓ we're doing obsession. That was like my 50-50 and I went and saw the back room. ⁓ but yeah so ⁓ it is a very different type of horror from ⁓ from obsession but I think the ⁓ what the horror is communic the subject matter of the horror is it's an introspective into the person who falls into the backrooms. Like what does the backrooms mean and what does it mean to the person who gets back there, right? ⁓ which, you know, this is using like the obsession uses horror to evaluate things about human identity, so does so does the backrooms. But the premise of the movie is a a man in his thirties, ⁓ he is having personal problems, which those were the most terrifying things to me in the whole movie. Because I don't want to have those problems. Please no. This is life situation. No, don't give me life. But he own he ⁓ owns a furniture store in the backrooms he finds in the connected to his furniture store and then the movie proceeds from there. So ⁓ so different people have different reactions to it. Some people find a lot of horror in that liminal space, having that that empty space of indeterminate usage and purpose. It sounds creepy. It sounds like a creepy it is a place of low stimulation. ⁓ until it's suddenly very high stimulation. Then that's just it's bad. ⁓ but yes, he finds this place and ⁓ you know, he has his he he explores it and things happen from there. So if you're a fan of horror or like I I guess the the popular internet term is elevated horror, it is probably worth checking out. ⁓ I'll give ⁓ this. They took a big swing with the movie. They could have been really cooker cookie cutter with it and just gotten a lousy script and just shoveled. Make made shovelware out of the thing and they didn't do that. Mm-hmm. So there was obviously love and attention put into it. And if you're a fan of the ⁓ the idea of the backgrounds of all the content that that has generated on the internet, you owe it to yourself to go see this. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm glad to hear your thoughts. I want to hear somebody else's thoughts. We went and watched it a couple of weeks ago and I was after seeing obsession, I was like, It's another YouTuber getting their first big box office chance and making a ton of money with it as well. And so I was really excited to see it. we kind of briefly read about the backrooms lore, but we didn't really like dive into it too much. And like the first half of the movie had me. I'll just say like him discovering the backrooms. There was so much tension, like just not knowing what was around every corner, not knowing how far he was going to get, if he was going to get out. Like it was just like it it was super creepy and I was really enjoying it. The last like the last act of the movie. It didn't really lose me, but it it just wasn't what I expected to happen. And that's not a bad thing, but it was just kind of I don't know, it ju it kind of the ending fell flat. I think it shifted to some more traditional horror movie in the last third of the movie. Which is different than the first two badges. And it wasn't done bad at all. Yeah, it wasn't bad. They did a good job with it, but it was just It seemed very out of left field. Like it it felt like the movie was going one direction and then it's like, Okay, here's what's going on, here's what happens and I was like, that felt like a really hard turn and I'm glad I watched it. I really enjoyed it. My kids want to see it. I'll probably watch it again with them and hopefully maybe garner a little bit more of appreciation for what they did at the end. But I think that one of the things I took away from it is that that particular horror is not a it's not a scripted story style of horror, right? Like this is closer to a folklore. than it is an artist creating something whole cloth, right? Like this director, this these writers garnered the things that they wanted from the folklore on the internet, put it in the movie and probably added some more of their own that we just aren't knowledgeable enough to to speak about. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah, it's funny 'cause I was listening to a podcast today and They were talking about backrooms and it's something that's been, you know, on my radar for sure since it came out. ⁓ it sounds like it sounds like something I would really personally enjoy. ⁓ but the criticism they said that really kind of stuck out to me as being really interesting is that the movie is really great when it's being quote unquote backrooms and when it's being folklore and when it's being just internet creepypasta, and the movie starts to falter and fail a little bit when it tries to be a movie. Is the way they explained it. So I don't know if that kind of resonates with you guys having seen it. I'm just repeating what I heard, right? ⁓ but I I think you get that a lot, not just n necessarily in horror, but like in a lot of movies, whether it's comedy or whatever, it's like when they focus on ⁓ setup and especially with comedy, I think. When they focus on setup and and things being funny and it's setups and payoffs and whatever. It's great. And then in the last act of the movie, they're like, okay, the story has to go somewhere. Something has to actually happen here. And so they have to like shoehorn something in to actually just move the plot forward. And that's often where the where a movie's vibes, where a movie's like setup that is like fantastic and really well done, kind of like doesn't get paid off because it doesn't it it it's not it It kind of started with something and then that thing was great, but then they were like, We have to move forward and therefore the writers come in and Hollywood comes in and they have to like so I wonder if backrooms kind of fell victim to that a little bit. Possi possibly. ⁓ the thing is, is like you can twiddle your thumbs away learning about backrooms lore and like the mechanics and the things in the backroom and all that on the internet. But in the movie, to drive a story forward, like you I think you need some character progression. progression, right? Like you need a protagonist that starts at A and they end up at the movie at the end of the movie changed, right? And ⁓ I think that's what happens when you do the last act of the movie is like, hey, what's gonna happen to our protagonist here? His name's Clark. Like what happens to Clark? What what happens in his story and how it relates to the back room? So you just can't explore forever. Like something has to happen. Sure. Cool. Right on. Yeah. So that's backrooms. I'm excited for it. ⁓ and definitely ⁓ I I mean, at this point it's probably gonna wait until I don't think it's even playing in my town anymore. ⁓ because I was looking I went to see ⁓ Obsession again last night. I wanted to rewatch it for this because it's been like a month since I've seen I think I saw it on like opening weekend. ⁓ so it's been ⁓ a month since ⁓ since I'd seen it and I was expect again, I was expecting it to be on digital in it. was just doing so well at the box office hasn't and contained so well at the box office. some more on that later. But yeah, so when I went to look up like show times and stuff last night, I don't remember seeing backrooms anywhere at all. So yeah. So ⁓ looking forward to seeing that ⁓ when it comes on on digital. ⁓ Chris, ⁓ what do you got for us? So ⁓ late to the party. But my wife and I have been watching the boys the past couple of weeks. Did you start from the beginning just recently? Yes. ⁓ interesting. Okay. Yes. You're in for a wild ride, my friend. ⁓ yes. We we just started season two this weekend. And so yes. I mean, from the jump, it's just wild. I mean the the opening scene, I was just like, What just happened? And so, ⁓ I have told I'm sorry to cut you off, but I have told multiple people that weren't sure about like, ⁓ should I watch this? Should I not? I just tell them, watch the first scene. Yeah. You'll know immediately if it's for you. You'll know within the first four minutes if this is for you. If you think that it's fascinating and interesting and or hilarious, ⁓ that first scene where he ends up just holding her decapitated hands. And if you're giggling at that the way that I am right now, I mean you'll you'll like the show. I'm pretty sure I had a very audible loud reaction to that. But I won't rip it on air. but yeah, I it's one of those things that I I've wanted to watch. ⁓ we just never have gotten around to it 'cause there's so much to watch, right? There's not enough time in the day to watch everything. And with season five coming out and hearing so much about it, ⁓ It kinda got me and we had finished what we were in the middle of. And so I just asked my wife, Is that hey, do you want to do you have any interest in watching this show? My wife would not. And I Yeah. Well, and what's funny is I showed her, you know, I showed her the trailer and she was like, ⁓ yeah, I keep seeing memes about this. I want to watch it to know what it's about. And so, But there's been a few moments where she was like, I can't with this show. And I was like, is that a like I can't because it's too real and it's just hard to watch, or is that an act I can't like I'm done. I cannot watch this anymore legitimately. And she's like, No, it's just a lot. And so but it's been it's been really good and really interesting. And I'm really you know, like I said, we watched the first episode of season two a couple of days ago, and I'm really excited to see where season two goes. I think I don't know. It's just wild. There's so many thoughts and there's so much you could talk about with it and you know. go ahead. Sorry. I was just saying how real it feels and kind of one of the things that we've talked about and ⁓ Joel and I talked about it on our podcast as well, is like this is what I imagine if superheroes existed in America. Yep. This is what it would be. It would be monetized corporate monetized machine that plays into all of the fears and the nationalism and all of the things happening in our country right now. Like this this is it. Like this is how it would look. And I have no doubt about that, unfortunately. So I think that you're exactly right. I don't think you see that much power without that much money connected to it. No. You know, a it and what's funny is as a kid you grow up seeing DC and Marvel and you're like, ⁓ yeah, I want to see superheroes in real world and then you become an adult and you watch this and it's like maybe I don't want to see superheroes in the real world I mean we'll we'll get we'll probably get into it when we talk about ⁓ Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but like what if what would what would I do if I had a ton of power? Like what aspect of me would come forward? You know? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not gonna pretend I'm I'm righteous here, right? Like I don't know. Like there's a genuine concern. Yeah, they say absol absolute power corrupts absolutely, right? And I don't think that's any different if if we're talking about, you know, super superhumans or super beings, you know. I think it would it would fall in the same way. ⁓ so honestly, probably we pr it's it's the world is probably better for not having superheroes, to be honest. If the boys is any example. Yeah, probably. So all right. ⁓ so the last thing here ⁓ for shoutouts is a move a movie, sort of. have either of you guys heard about Alien Paradise? Okay, so it's not part of the Alien franchise. But wait. It is it? It is I think I've heard about this. This is a recut. This is a fan edit. Okay. Tell tell the audience. Yeah. ⁓ interesting. So ⁓ a couple of weeks ago, ⁓ coming across my Instagram, my my movie filled ⁓ my movie and horror filmed ⁓ filled algorithm on Instagram, ⁓ you know, ⁓ somebody popped up and talked about alien paradise. So alien paradise, and I don't have any of the details in front of me here, is essentially a fan edit. And what they've done is that they've taken Alien Covenant and Prometheus, which sort of ⁓ both both movies, ⁓ I guess I'll start here. Those two movies are two of my least favorite alien movies. And that being said, I still love them both. Okay, I'm a big fan. That's a bold claim after watching three and resurrection. Yeah, three and resurrection are probably ⁓ below those. you know, so at the bottom is probably th resurrection and then three, which I still enjoy those to varying degrees. you know, I'm still somewhat positive on those, but they're they're my least favorite for sure. But then just above that are Covenant and Prometheus, ⁓ in no particular order. And again, I still have a deja vu real bad right now. I just have to say that. ⁓ so I am I am a big fan of both Prometheus and Covenant, and Prometheus more so. I think it it got a bad rap, and I think the horror elements and the visual elements and some of the lore we get in that movie ⁓ confusing as it is. ⁓ is really fascinating and interesting. and same goes for Covenant. And they sort of take place in the same time period in the alien universe. and they're very connected. you know they take place ten years apart, but one of them is directly related and and happens after and includes some of the same characters, etc. so those movies I'm a fan of, though I do think they're They're a little bit flawed and they're a little bit confusing. And the lore, as interesting as it is, doesn't seem very cohesive. It doesn't connect very well. and I think if you really dig into it, you think about it a ton and you maybe, you know, it it makes more sense and you can make sense of it. But the movies don't do that enough for us to really kind of fall in love with those movies. I think that's that ends up being the problem. So there is a an A fan edit. And when I say a fan edit, it is done incredibly well. It is very professional. Okay. So it's not just like some dude at I f I don't and I don't know anything about this guy, but I assume he's a professional editor of some kind. ⁓ but he's taken both those movies and condensed them down into a two hour and forty minute, two hours and thirty minutes, something like that. So it's long, but it cuts out massive parts of both movies. And condenses both movies into one cohesive narrative that does bounce back and forth between the two timelines, but does so in a way that you're very much able to follow. And it connects all of those things and all of the lore and all of the pieces that felt like just floating debris and puts them into something that actually looks and feels like a narrative and a movie. And that you're able to kind of buy into the lore a lot more than you were able to by watching those two movies as their separate entities. ⁓ all that being said, I thought it was fantastic. I think it elevates both movies from like maybe threes or three and a halves to like four. I think the ⁓ Alien Paradise, you know, I went and went on Letterboxd, and although that doesn't exist as its own thing on Letterboxd. I just rated Covenant and Prometheus as like a four with a with a side note saying as Alien Paradise, just for my own kind of like logging purposes, right? ⁓ I don't know if you guys do that yourselves, but like every time I watch a movie, I log it letterbox and give it a a rating. Perfect. Yeah, we'll have to we'll have to follow each other, Darren. but ⁓ yeah, so ⁓ highly recommend checking out Alien Paradise. I'm not the there's no money involved here. Like the person's not there's no like there's no paywall, you don't to pay for it. So I don't n fully know the legalities of it. I know that I own both movies. ⁓ so I didn't feel ⁓ I didn't feel bad going to watch this like on the internet thing. But if you just search Alien Paradise, there's like a Reddit link and you click through a couple of things and then it gives you a password and you can watch the movie. ⁓ so you know, I I won't say too much beyond that. But I I do recommend that if you if you like those movies but feel that they're flawed, highly, highly recommend that you track down Alien Paradise. ⁓ it improves both significantly. and I think that more than anything, the the the pacing of it is really fascinating and really impressive because again, he jumps back and forth between the two narratives. And does an incredible job of setting up a narrative that feels cohesive and the pacing is just like really, really great. and again, it takes like this f weird floating debris of lore and puts it into something that you can kind of watch in one sitting and be like, ⁓ that's cool. That makes sense. And it really elevates those two movies ⁓ massively in my estimation. That's cool. I still have not finished watching all of the Alien movies. Yeah, I know ⁓ so Darren Chris came on and we we did ⁓ Planet Unknown ⁓ with Alien. ⁓ and Chris had never seen Alien ⁓ as of like six months ago watching. Yeah. I know. It was back when one alien was really scary. I was so jealous of Chris watching it for the first time. Yep. Yep. So we we talked and I watched one, two, and three. And so we talked about all that's why I mentioned I had deja vu because I was like, Matt and I've had this conversation before. Yeah. ⁓ so yeah, Alien Paradise, really, really cool. and again, I own both those movies already. ⁓ so I had no moral qualms about going to watch it because you know I I paid my money. and ⁓ so I recommend that if you're gonna go and and find this on the internet that you either own it or just go and purchase ⁓ or rent those movies just to kind of contribute to the craft. I think that's important. ⁓ but ⁓ yeah, Alien Paradise, ⁓ recommend ⁓ you check it out, especially if you're a fan of those movies, those two movies. Or if you're if you're a fan of those those movies but feel like they're they're they're lacking a little bit, this is really a really nice ⁓ a really nice way to to to kind of enjoy them. Good recommendation. Yeah. So so quick question though. If I haven't seen either of those movies, do you recommend watching them first? That's a great question. Do you recommend watching Paradise first? ⁓ that's a great question. ⁓ No, I feel like I feel like you should watch them individually. Watch the their entirety first. Because like, yeah, it does cut out some stuff, but like at the same time, there was some there's there's some moments that I noticed were missing. That I was like, man, that's a cool moment that they cut out there. And then but then like take myself out of it and think about it for a moment. It's like, okay, it makes sense pacing wise or whatever. It didn't need to be there. Especially if you need to cut probably like five ish hours of movie in half. You've got to cut some stuff. And so there's definitely some stuff in there that I was like, you know, that I noticed was missing only because I'm so familiar with the movies. But ⁓ so for that reason I would say like it's probably worth watching both Covenant and Prometheus. And I think they're both good movies. It's not like it's not like you're going in for a slog on those movies. They're both good movies, especially if you enjoy horror and you're a fan of the alien franchise. There's lots of stuff in there that you're gonna dig. you know, but but then if you want to to kind of congeal those into a more concise narrative, yeah, it's d definitely recommended. ⁓ okay, so the one one last shout out that we're gonna do here is for ⁓ Valor Mountain Games. ⁓ so this is where you're gonna come in, Darren. ⁓ so Valor Mountain Games is a new ish publishing company ⁓ run out of ⁓ Cincinnati, Ohio. You can probably talk a little bit more about them in a moment here, Darren. ⁓ but they've got an upcoming Kickstarter for three unique trick taking games Super Collider, the Francisan Diamond. And ⁓ the third one is called Growing Groves. So those first two, Super Lighter and Francis and Diamond, are more for experienced trick taking fans looking for things to explore in the world of trick taking, while Growing Groves is more of a family weight game, accessible to those who enjoy playing trick-taking games like Hearts or Spades with a new twist. ⁓ so each of these games retains the trick-taking as its core elements while pushing the boundaries of the genre in different directions. ⁓ so ⁓ I reached out to ⁓ Valor Mountain Games knowing that Darren, you were gonna be on the podcast. I wanted to get a little bit of an idea of what they're doing and what this Kickstarter was. ⁓ so I wanted to give ⁓ give them a shout out and I'll give you an opportunity maybe to talk a little bit about more about these games if you're familiar. And obviously Super Collider specifically is a game you designed. As part of that trio. So I wanna I wanna hear a little bit ⁓ coming from you here on those games. So the ones I've gotten to actually play would be Franciscan Diamond. ⁓ and that was a while ago. So if my memory my recollection is correct, it is a ⁓ it is a trick taking game with a ⁓ log a deduction element in it. And that's the bit that I remember. So if that if that good sounds enticing to you with a noir theme, I would definitely grab that one. I think it's a it'd be a crowd pleaser for those that are the ⁓ trick taking entrenched would probably be into those. Yeah. Cool. And then super collider, I want to hear about that for sure. So Super Collider is the third dirt old taking game. So we have ⁓ our first one was Fuego, that was with Key Master Games, and our second one ⁓ is Rowdy Partners, which was with ⁓ with Capstone Games, which recently just got a really great review call out from the Dice Tower. So thank you, Tom Vassell. It made his top ten trick taking games of all time. ⁓ very cool. Which is very, very cool to see. So this one is ⁓ taking some of the elements that we liked from our first two games. So in our in our games, low card wins. That's just the thing that some trick taking games do, but not a lot. ⁓ we don't do trumpsuits in our games. So we do wildcards. So we will gently inject wild cards into the games at times. ⁓ we also do counter. So ⁓ counter is essentially when two values are the same, they flip over. And so we kind of we're we were at actually capstone convention and we had a little goal like hey, let's make a new game at Capstone Convention. And so super collider got its birth at Capstone Con last September, and we've been working on it ever since. And the hook of it is is ⁓ you are playing atoms into a super collider. And a super collider is a circular thing that medals with science in ways that when you read the reports about it, you wonder if we should actually be doing that on this planet. But every trick, you're gonna get to play two cards into the trick. But it's a snake draft. So the first player will get to play the first card and the last card. The second player will get to play the second card and the second and last card. And also there is a particle gun that's going to inject some r ⁓ cards off of its own deck into the trick as well, which is going to be a little bit like ⁓ Jekyll and Hyde versus Scout Lanyard, which we'll talk about here in a little bit. And some of the cards that you put into the trick will have modifiers and w they will point at neighboring cards and adjust the values of the neighboring cards. And so as you ⁓ play, you'll get the opportunity to cross counters, flip those cards over, which will get you collisions. Collisions will get you some bonus points ⁓ later in the game. And then ⁓ the lat the lowest card standing at the end of the trick is gonna get you ⁓ an atom. Different cards have different atoms on them, so You wanna win with the highest, lowest card you can or win with the lowest, highest card you can, whatever however you wanna say that. ⁓ but yeah, you play that you play three rounds of that, playing two cards into every trick and ⁓ at the end of the game whoever has the most combined atoms plus ⁓ atoms earned from collisions is gonna be the winner. So I can't say we've seen a lot of trick taking games where you get to play two cards into a trick to get two chances to win. Or just two chances to mess with everybody and flip over all of their cards. So you You play in the way that you like. You can play and try to win every trick, or you can play and just mess up everybody else and lean into the collision aspect of the game. Very cool. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, looking forward to that. I'm I'm a huge fan of trick taking games and any trick taking game that could do something weird and sideways to kind of retrain my brain on how to play. I'm I'm down. That sounds really cool. ⁓ right on just yeah with with Darren on the podcast, I want to make sure we gave him an opportunity to ⁓ to plug his upcoming ⁓ Kickstarter, which I've been told is going to be ⁓ launching at the end of June. At least that's the plan. ⁓ these things are v are moving targets. Having run a Kickstarter myself, ⁓ so no promises, but I I know the target right now is end of June. ⁓ as of as of this as of the time of this recording. ⁓ so hopefully that is the case and ⁓ keep an eye out for Valor Mountain Games publishing a Kickstarter with three unique trick kicking games. ⁓ not a sponsor of the podcast, just ⁓ wanted to not yet. Yeah. Yeah, not yet. Yeah. Exactly. You guys need to go back to Kickstarter so they become a sponsor of the podcast. All right, let's move on to talking about the game of the episode or games of the episode in this case. ⁓ and these two games are ⁓ mechanically extremely similar. ⁓ very, very few differences. So we're going to kind of ⁓ sort of talk about both of these at once. but essentially there is Jekyll versus Hyde and ⁓ Released in 2021. And then two years later in 2023, the sequel was Jekyll and Hyde versus Scotland Yard. And these are two-player only games. The first ⁓ of the two being competitive, so it's a chem competitive two-player ⁓ trick-taking game. And then the ⁓ Jekyll and Hyde versus Scotland Yard is a is a ⁓ cooperative trick-taking game, two players. ⁓ designed by I have no idea how to pronounce this, but go Gonil? Jean Janil? is this a French person? Janil maybe? give it a shot, Darren. I know you're looking at the box right now. What do you think? I'm not I'm not I'm not Canadian. I don't we don't have the French speakers. I don't have to I don't have to do this. Is it French? I d I'm assuming it's French. Yeah, I don't know why. I wanna say Mandu. Which is the original publisher is a French publisher. Okay, so it's probably it's probably Jonathan Yeah. Okay. Anyways, ⁓ art by Vincent Dutre. Vincent Dutre. Just kidding. Mandu is a Korean publisher. Okay. So now now we're really off to the left field. ⁓ plays two players in twenty to thirty minutes. I think that's true for both versions of the game. ⁓ their BGG weight is right around two for both games. And their BGG rating are actually almost identical as well, seven point two and seven point three. ⁓ yeah, really interesting. But I mean I guess the game the two games are so incredibly similar with slight twists to make them competitive or cooperative that it sort of makes sense that they would fall in the same kind of statistics on BGG. ⁓ Chris, the you've only played the com the competitive one very briefly, right? You played more the cooperative one, is that right? maybe. I might have had equal plays. I've played the cooperative ⁓ cooperative one more recently I've had more plays of. Okay. But Okay. And ⁓ I've only played Jekyll versus Hyde one game. And then I played ⁓ I mean the the the versus Scotland Yard is a campaign game where you can play there's like multiple sort of missions or chapters. I think there's ten of them. And I played through the first three with my wife, including a couple of fails along the way. So we probably played for an hour and a half to two hours. but ⁓ yeah so Darren, why don't you kind of run down the basic mechanisms of ⁓ maybe start with the competitive Jekyll versus Hyde. Yeah so ⁓ in Jekyll versus Hyde you ⁓ at two players it's a relatively small deck. ⁓ you have three suits in the game and then you have a fourth suit, which is a wild suit, it's the potion suit, and that's where the shenanigans are going to get injected into the game. I believe the numbers are one through eight. ⁓ and then when we get into the ⁓ into the wild suit, they're the like the middle values. So they're like your two, three, four, and five, which is ⁓ super interesting because like Fuego also Rowdy Partners also does their wild cards as the middle values. So we didn't know that at the time, but that's what it does. ⁓ it does a neat thing with those wild cards where they're not a pure value, they're a plus value. So they're like a three plus or a four plus. So they're they slide in between those values. ⁓ when you play your tricks, it's a must-follow trick taker. ⁓ the first suit to come out into the game becomes the lowest trump suit. The next suit to come out into the game becomes the next highest, and then by default the third one's third one's at the top. One player plays as ⁓ in the original game, one player plays as Jekyll, and one player plays as Hyde. Mr. Hyde wants to ⁓ win as many tricks as possible. Okay. ⁓ Dr. Jekyll wants to have a balance between Jekyll and Hyde. So if at the end of the round it's an even number of tricks, which I think it's ⁓ five and five, that would be perfect. Slight nuance in the explanation there is that ⁓ the ⁓ Mr. Hyde doesn't necessarily want to win all the tricks, but he wants one of the two to win all the tricks. He yeah, exactly. He wants one person to win yeah, exactly. That's important because you can go from all or you can shoot the moon and go for nothing. Yeah. That's right. ⁓ and that's how far you will ⁓ you'll advance down the track, right? So Mr. Hyde, if he gets a d big disparate number, he runs far down the track. And ⁓ Dr. Jekyll's just trying not to reach the end of the track, right? So he's just trying to keep things balanced out. ⁓ the potion cards, when they're played, they trigger based on the other card in the trick. So there's three abilities in the game. There is swap cards, there is reorganize the Trump suit tokens. the hierarchy there and the third one is slipping my mind right now. There's Stealing a trick, I think? That's it. Yeah. You steal a trick from somebody. And so you play those ⁓ potion cards in and you trigger that ability and then you'll be able to do the the special shenanigans in the game, right? So using those at the right time is is very important to really ⁓ you know take advantage of of the situation. And in the original game at least that's kind of it. Like that's that's the rules you have to play with. ⁓ and it creates a really one of the interesting game. And I'm gonna use a a game sorry to cut you off, Christopher. But ⁓ no I just wanna say, game design any term, because I know Matt you're into game design yourself, it has a strong ludonarrative for such a small box. So if you think of the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? There's always there's always been a little bit of evil in Dr. Jekyll, but he always kept it balanced out because he was overall considered a good person. Doesn't mean he was perfect, but he was a good person. So Mr. Hyde wants to go to the extremes of everything, whereas Jekyll just wants to maintain that balance and to achieve that with a trick taking game is really I mean, it's great. There's a reason it's rated as well. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Like ⁓ I'm designing a trick taking game as we speak called Fermi Paradox, and ⁓ the theme is basically almost completely absent because it's a trick taking game. If you can ⁓ inject ⁓ theme into a trick taking game or into a card, into like a sort of a traditional you know, the the roots of these trick taking games are fairly traditional, right? ⁓ if you can inject ⁓ theme that works and actually feeds the mechanics and melds with the mechanics, it's really impressive. And I know you guys did that fairly well with Rowdy Park because I haven't played, but I watched it played ⁓ over the course of a few rounds and I thought, ⁓ that's really neat. And it like the the very the some the theme really comes through, which is impressive for a trick taking game. And they've done a great job of doing that with Jekyll and Hyde as well. And that track that you talked about, basically it's just like it's just a track that goes from left to right. And you're you're there's a like a a a a metal, ⁓ double faced, really cool little piece. the one f one side is Dr Dr. Jekyll's face and the other one is Mr. Hyde's face, back to back kind of thing. And ⁓ it's I think they call it the madness track, right? And the idea is that you're moving further and further towards madness or towards, you know. giving in to the evil, basically. Right. and so yeah, they've done a really great job at like making this track actually feel like it's good like things are getting worse and worse. And that's why the balance, if you if if if Dr. Jekyll manages to make it so that we each win four tricks each or five and three, then you only move the you know the difference between five and three is two. So you only move two down that track. ⁓ so I thought that was really fascinating. ⁓ that that mechanism. ⁓ and you're absolutely right. Like the the narrative that comes through actually does come through, which is fairly rare for a a trick taking. Dr. Jekyll is gonna feel like I'm losing control, like this is running away from me, and Mr. Hyde is gonna be I'm out, like I'm out, I'm not going back. Yeah, in my one game that I played of this, that it that exact thing happened, right? Like my my wife was ⁓ Mr. Hyde and there was one point where she was just winning all the tricks, and I'm like, no, no, no, no. Like I felt like it was getting away from me, right? And I and I was losing control. and then ultimately I think I ended up winning the game because in other rounds I did a lot better. ⁓ but yeah, that one round for sure, like I'm like, man, this the theme is actually coming through. It's pretty cool. ⁓ go ahead, Chris. I was just saying one of the interesting things ⁓ setup wise in the game is after everybody gets their hand, you have to swap two cards between the two of them. Right, I've forgotten about that. And that is that is super interesting and can definitely set you up in a good way or a bad way, depending on how the hand plays out. But that was that was one thing that I just wanted to add as far as the mechanics go. And you do have to send a a potion. So if you have multiple potions you have to send one over. So then Every pla each player is gonna get that opportunity to pop up. Yeah. Yeah, during the game. Getting ⁓ so working on some trick takers, we definitely looked at times where ⁓ opportunities to have players pass cards to one another. And it's hard to get players to understand why they want to pass cards to each other or which cards to pass to one another. So a neat thing the game does is it says send a potion. It gives you a guideline. Of like send the potion. And like at the beginning of the game, if you're told send a potion, like it signals to you, ⁓ potions are important. Like I have to give this away, it must be good. Yeah, that's actually smart. I was gonna say it's an interesting thing. I don't know if you've ever played Sale, which is another two player cooperative, but at the beginning of the hand you swap card and the first few times somebody plays is they're like, I don't have any clue what to swap. Well The your pirate abilities and where you're at in the game and and what you have in your head. Like it the game dictates a strategy when you find it, but it can be hard to uncover for sure. Actually, c we segue real quick into the sequel, Jekyll Hyde and versus Scotland Yard, because you actually set up Scotland Yard. You set up the robot player who's coming after you. So you literally it's like ⁓ you're not getting away clean, you're leaving clues behind. Drop these things, Scotland Yard's gonna use them to chase you. Like, ⁓ which, you know, maybe I'm stretching for that, but that's how I saw it. Yeah, that makes sense. I hadn't thought of but it makes a ton of sense. Yeah. Yeah. And like you mentioned, you had the game dictates you have to do a potion in the first game, and the cooperative win, every eight you have behind your hands has to go to the city deck, which is those become way more important as you progress through the chapters too. And so it's it's interesting that it forces that. Which can create some really interesting moments throughout ⁓ future. Mechanically that's ⁓ so if you're making a trick taking game, you probably experienced this, Matt, that like the what do you do with the highest card? What do you do with the strongest card to make it interesting? Right? ⁓ so in this game they say, ⁓ the highest card, it's just really good for the for the bot that's coming after you. It's good for Scoutanyard. In in rowdy partners, 'cause we wanna win with low cards, ⁓ we said that hey The eight is great. It's the biggest hit that you can do in the game. It's just the hardest thing in the world to pull off. But when you pull it off, it's awesome, right? Feels amazing, yeah. Feels amazing, yeah. So there's ⁓ what do you do with the other issue that can happen in trick taking games, and stop me if I'm talking too much design here. The other thing that can happen with trick taking games is that when you have like a high card, you can have perfunctory tricks where it's just and you see this in traditional trick taking games with hearts and spades. Everybody just throws their cards on the table. We already know the outcome. Throw your cards down. Sometimes you know the two tricks in a row outcome. Just throw your cards on the table. ⁓ this game lets you get you away from that by doing this this change up with the card. Like it's one thing that Jason and I work in our trick taking games. No per no perfunctory tricks. They all matter. And like that throws people off 'cause we've done demos of the game and people just throw their cards on the table and it's like, ⁓ wait, this matters. Like how are you gonna play this? There's tools in your toolbox that you can work with that maybe this card doesn't work exactly the way you think it does. Don't just throw things on the Well, that I feel like that's one thing the modern game hobby has done with trick taking is most trick taking games coming out have that as a feature, right? Like I'm thinking of several that we've played recently where there's not a throwaway trick because there's so many variables that go into play, whether it like vivo from all play where it twists the scoring where If you play the lowest card you score its face value, right? And there are times where you can sneak a high card in. And so I feel like that's that's kind of a common thread mechanically with a lot of modern trick taking games that make them a little deeper of an experience for lack of a better word on my tongue. But I mean you can also ⁓ to your point, I think Nikosu dice, which is very well regarded as well, a lot of trick takers, is a trick taker's trick taker kind of game, right? Like my favorite absolutely sometimes the entire round jockeying for like what's the final thing I'm gonna hold on to because that becomes my bid, right? And so that that way that final trick you throw out really matters, right? ⁓ yeah. Like the the the beginning of Nikosu dice feels like it's ⁓ not perfunctory, but like less there's less weight. ⁓ in the beginning of the of the hand. And as you get closer and closer to that moving target of your bid is like it just that the heat goes up, the tension goes up. And that's such a beautiful yeah, such a beautiful design. So let me throw a question to both of you guys. So this is a ⁓ the two games we're talking about here are no bid trick takers, right? Right. You do pass cards, but there's no bid. you prefer a bid or a no bid trick taking game? That's interesting. I think, I think generally speaking, if I looked at, you know, the whole gamut of all the trick taking games that I've played or whatever, I think the bid s probably slightly outweighs the non bid. Okay. Only because it makes bad hands relevant and it kind of just gives you that balance of like. You know, you play especially games where and more and more these games are shorter and have just, you know, in this case, two rounds to each game, in in the Jekyll and Hyde games. but in most, in a lot of modern trick kicking games, it's three rounds and that's it. And so if you get two bad hands in a row, just the way that things come out, ⁓ and there's no bidding involved. that can potentially sour your experience with that game. ⁓ so that's why I think for the most part the balance of of throwing bidding in there and it's more about evaluating your hand and playing it out perfectly than it is about you know, just just potentially adding a little bit extra layer of luck and like, ⁓ I got the best hand, so I'm gonna win the most points or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I think ⁓ th and you can tell me this is a cop out if you want to, I don't care. ⁓ honestly, I don't care one way or the other. I think it depends on the mechanics wrapped up in how the game plays out. Right. I mentioned Vivo. I don't know if either of you have played that from All Play. ⁓ but it does an interesting thing where it's a must-follow game, but it's not necessarily a follow-the-suit. It's a follow-the-harmony card that's flipped up each trick. And that can be a solo, which means everybody has to play the lead suit. It can be a duet, which means there has to be two colors played, trio, quartet. And the way the scoring works is Whoever has the highest card of the players that played on harmony takes their card back, flips it face down, it's worth two points at the end of the the hand. If you played the lowest card, you keep it face up in front of you and it's worth its face value at the end of the hand. So there's no bidding in it, but there are moments in that that the scoring just becomes so interesting and pivotal. And if someone's not paying attention and they're they just, you know, like what you mentioned, a throwaway trick where they're like, ⁓ this one doesn't matter, I'm just gonna play whatever. Well, then somebody can sneak an eight in as the lowest card in the trick and they're scoring eight points, which is a huge swing in because that one's two rounds as well. So that one works really well without the bidding. Whereas you mentioned Nikosu dice. Matt and I are both huge fans of that game. I don't think that game works if your final die doesn't become your bid, right? And so I I I really I don't care one way or the other as long as what you're presented with mechanically works with or without. The thing, ⁓ so th I have a couple thoughts on bidding. So a lot of very traditional trick takers like spades or hearts or even euchre, if you don't have bidding, you don't have a game. Really? Like there's not much game there. Yeah. Because what are you doing? Like why are you playing tricks, right? It's giving you guidance of like winning or p not winning tricks, right? Like trying to throw them away. ⁓ but also like in traditional card games and you'll see this in families all the time where it's like, Well, I don't play spades because my family won't teach me or they don't have the patience to teach because all of that is front loaded in that game. Like you have to make a bid. What are you bidding? Here's here's eight cards of gibberish, make a decision. Why don't you know the right number to bid? What's wrong with you? This is why this is why your mama's least favorite daughter. Like that's you know, no. Yeah. It's true that I guess bidding adds a touch of complexity, but ⁓ I think again, ⁓ Chris is probably exactly right. It depends on the game, depends on the mechanics, of course. ⁓ but generally speaking, if I had to zoom out to all the trick-taking games, th I you know, it I would slightly prefer if I had to choose if, you know, if a if a new game was coming out or whatever and I knew nothing about it. I don't know like if I'm expressing this properly, but it just it just kind of like ⁓ creates a situation where ⁓ yeah, bad hands bad hands don't don't don't kill you, right? Right. ⁓ so that's that's the only kind of reason I say that. Otherwise, yeah, it j it just boils down to the design and and and ⁓ yeah, so th this Just to get back to Jekyll and Hyde, ⁓ we haven't talked about the mechanics of the Hyde, ⁓ Jekyll and Hyde versus Scotland Yard. So this one is works almost in the exact same way. There's a track. ⁓ and on this track, you have a pawn that represents Jekyll and Hyde, and then there's another pawn that represents Scotland Yard. ⁓ and in the beginning, the Scotland Yard pawn isn't even on the board for the first chapter. but then as you get into, yeah, there they are if you're watching the video. Great visual aid there. And ⁓ there's ⁓ almost an identical track with the same three tokens that represent the three different suits. The deck composition, I believe, is identical, one to eight with the middle cards being wild potions. and ⁓ this game though is is cooperative, and the way that works is you deal ⁓ twelve cards to you and your partner. And then you each choose four cards of your twelve and ⁓ shuffle those eight cards together, and that becomes the city deck, which represents Scotland Yard chasing you. And essentially you just go in clockwise order, and then when it goes to the city, you just flip the top card. And so though though me and my partner, we have to follow suit, Scotland Yard's kind of just a wild card throwing a card out there. That can kind of really really mess things up. ⁓ but that's part of the fun. And then so the way that the chapters work is that in the very first chapter, you have to play two rounds and you start at each chapter tells you where your pawn will start and where the Scotland Yard pawn will start. And in the first chapter you start halfway up and you just have to land on exactly the last space. Yeah. And the way that this one works is that whoever has whoever won the least amount of tricks between the two players, that's how far your pawn will move. And so we had to move ⁓ I think five spaces in chapter one. Mm-hmm. Had to move exactly you have to move exactly five spaces, which means ⁓ between the two rounds, whoever won the least amount of tricks has to win two and three or four and one. ⁓ and that or you know, a combination of five. Yeah. And then ⁓ I forget how the second chapter works, but in the third chapter, that's when Scotland Yard actually gets involved. And then the way this one works is that you know, and I'll stop it, I'll stop stop describing how each of the chapters works, but I just want to give the listeners an idea of the progression, right? But in the third chapter, every ⁓ whoever every trick that we have won ⁓ as players, we look through them and any eights advances you one extra space. So if you won an eight, so if you cut or ⁓ you know played a trump and and took an eight from Scotland Yard, because Scotland Yard will have all the eights, right? ⁓ or they'll be buried. Because I think there's still four cards that don't get dealt. Yeah. So if you manage to win a couple of eights plus ⁓ you know I won two tricks and my opponent won not my opponent but my partner won ⁓ whatever tricks then I would move we would move up the pond for how many tricks that I won ⁓ plus an extra one or two for however many eights that that ⁓ that we won. ⁓ and then the way that this this chapter works is that you can go beyond once you get to the very end any extra spaces you would move instead Scotland Yard moves. And so yes you want to make it to the end. But you don't want Scotland Haird to catch you. So you sort of have to keep it more or less ac you know, accurate. You don't want to go too far over. ⁓ so hopefully that that made sense to people. But basically the idea is that it gets more and more difficult. And I think there's even a component that ⁓ the ones, twos and threes have ⁓ Scotland so Chris, you you've played more of this one. I'll let you kind of take over a little bit on how that how that works. Yeah, so when Scotland Yard comes on the board in the third chapter, the ones, twos, and threes become important as well because they've got a little Scotland Yard helmet on them. And what that does is each of the two rounds you play in the game, one of you is the active player. And so whoever the active player is in the first round, the other player is active in the second round. If the active player has caught any ones, twos or threes in the tricks that they've caught, For each one they have, Scotland Yard moves closer towards you. So you don't want that person to win. That is a bad thing. Yeah, that's a bad thing. ⁓ so if if I'm Mr. Hyde and I'm the active player, I want to make sure Dr. Jekyll catches all the ones, twos, and threes, or the city deck catches all the ones, twos, or threes. And ⁓ you know, you mentioned the potions and the abilities. One of them is ⁓ one of us can take a trick from the city deck or from the the last one, the city one. And that can be really important as to who you give it to because you don't want to give it to the active player if it's all ones, twos and threes. And so ⁓ that's that's how Scotland Yard moves. That's the main way they're gonna move unless you overshoot the end of the track. Have you guys like I've played up until chapter three and and no further than that? ⁓ Yeah, that's as far as I've gotten to the same, yeah. Okay, fair enough. ⁓ so we have no idea how much how much harder it gets. Knowledge I imagine. I am I mean it's hard enough in the beginning. So that's right. Yeah. We failed chapter two twice before I think we got it. And then we failed chapter three once before we got it. and so it gives you a little bit of an idea. And we're only, you know, I assume they get more and more difficult. We're only at the third degree of difficulty out of ten, right? So I assume it would get more and more difficult and you'd spend maybe a lot more time trying to win. ⁓ the chapters ⁓ as you get further on into the game. Yeah. But I think it's probably one of those things that the f the more you play it, the more you uncover some strategy points. Yes. But there's always gonna be an element, like you mentioned, of chaos because you don't know what the city deck's gonna flip up. And and that's that's a really interesting wild card twist that can make or break the game for you, which is one of those things that's a push and pull for me because I really enjoy the way that game plays. But that element of having no control over that city deck can be very frustrating at times. So and ⁓ one interesting caveat I'll just add on to what Matt mentioned about how Jekyll and Hyde moves is it's whoever caught the fewest tricks, but if you both catch the same amount of tricks, w you caught the fewest amount, so you'll move that many as well. So it's not if if you tie, you're not messing yourself over and not moving. Right. Yeah. Which can be really important. Yes, absolutely. You both you both won the least amount of tricks, right? So you just move that much. ⁓ 'cause that may have happened last night when I taught my twelve year old and we won. So nice. We caught the same amount of tricks in the second round and nice and managed to land on the home space. So cool. Yeah, I definitely like this is one where like a lot of times, you know, ⁓ Chris, you'll you'll know this. You do having a podcast now. A lot of times you'll you're playing a game just to like get enough of it to be able to talk about it and review it and discuss discuss it. This is one that ⁓ after playing for, you know, a couple hours with my wife last night, I think, you know, next time her and I are sitting down for a game night, we're probably gonna want to try and get further into this into these chapters. Absolutely. ⁓ which I can't say for every every game. And I and I'm not sure we'll play the the competitive one again. but interesting ⁓ I definitely I'm I definitely want to get the cooperative one back to the table with my wife. 'Cause I feel like we were just starting to get our stride. And figure out some of the stuff. And like with any of with any of these types of games, if you play with the same person, you start to you start to get tendencies, right? You start to get a bit of a meta, especially when it comes to like passing cards or what cards are gonna give to Scotland Yard. You start to learn right how to do how to do these things. and ⁓ Sale was no different when we played Sale from All Play. ⁓ we made sales hard. Like a campaign is good. It'll let you get comfortable and then it'll pull the rug out from under you and then you have to relearn everything. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I know when we went to chapter three and he introduced the ones, twos, and threes moving Scotland Yard, we immediately went, ⁓ my God, how do we how do we do this? You know, and then we'll figure that out, or at least figure it out to an extent before again it introduces something else and makes it more difficult. So I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, but I think what what it does with those first four chapters is brilliant, much like on a on a much larger scale, Gloomaven Jaws of the Lion slowly ramps you into this massive campaign game. I think something like that where it's like, here's the core principle. You're trying to get from where you start to the end of the track. You've got two rounds, here's how the tricks work. And then the next chapter is like, Okay, we're gonna move you back. You've got a little bit further to go, and then the eights matter. Mm-hmm. And then the next chapter, okay, here's the ultimate goal. You've got to not get caught by Scotland Yard. These cards matter. And so I'm excited to see what chapter four does and how it adds just another layer or two on top of that. But I think when even a simple game like this, like it's not complicated, they could have just said, here's the whole kick caboodle, go have fun and try not to lose. But I like that they slowly introduce the concept of how it works and adding some extra layers as you play through the first four chapters. I think it's great. Very cool. I will say too that the it being a two player trick taking game, the competitive one I I enjoyed my single play of it. but it didn't feel th as much like a trick taking game. ⁓ I I I guess it's because only two pe two people are playing cards. And the difference and it's funny because I'm just starting I'm just realizing this now as we're discussing it. But Th just having that third robot player, the city deck, flipping a card over, feels way more like a trick taking game. Just because two people are following, right? There's no partnership in a two player trick taking game. You are your own partner, whereas in the the sequel, you have a partner. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Because a lot of trick taking games and I grew up playing a ton of Euchre, you have a partner. So maybe that's why I felt that trick taking vibe from the cooperative one versus the the one v one that's I was in a game shop and somebody asked me for team ⁓ games where you play as a team and I was like okay well you can play like unmatched you can play as a team in unmatched and ⁓ partners. I'm like ⁓ also like sixty percent of the games on the trick taking shelf are team based. Yeah, absolutely. So I I'm curious Matt then because ⁓ we played a lot of the Fox of the Forest several years ago. Is that not one that you've ever played either? 'Cause it is a two player component. I've never played it in a game. I've never played it. Okay. I do own it, but I haven't played it yet. Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause it's another one that and it was the first hobby trick taking game I found. And and Darren, you don't know this about me. Matt and I have a mutual affection for trick taking games and it sounds like you do as well. ⁓ I grew up playing a ton of spades and pitch and a dominoes trick taking game. And so I love them. And when I found when I got to the hobby and then I found out that there was a trick taking game in the hobby with a theme and cool artwork and no bidding involved which was huge for my wife because she didn't grow up playing trick taking games and bidding just was not something she could comprehend. And so ⁓ I picked up Fox in the Forest and I used that to teach her and help her learn how to play trick taking games. And but Matt, it's another one I'd bring up because it it is strictly two players and I was just curious if you'd ever tried it and what your thoughts were on it because ⁓ I see what you're saying, but I also feel like ⁓ I I enjoy both of those a little bit more than it sounds like you probably do. So I was just kind of curious. That being said, I do think Jekyll versus Hyde I like better than the Fox in the Forest because I feel like it adds a little bit more tension in the game. Yeah, I I I probably will at some point bring that game out, probably just not with my wife, which is my primary two player games person, right? ⁓ so I might play that with my son or with other friends if we end up on a you know, two players. ⁓ but ⁓ my wife, ⁓ you know, we all have different gaming personalities and she doesn't love take that stuff. And so in a two player trick taking game, that's pretty much all it is, right? Is just like ⁓ you're you're trying to to outdo the other person and whatnot. And ⁓ with the amount of games that I play and the amount of trick taking games that I play. you know, I just have an an advantage there that's not as much fun for her and I to play. Yep. ⁓ but ⁓ the cooperative one we we really enjoyed and ⁓ w will probably come out again. ⁓ yeah. That's so that's that's a major It's interesting. There's also ⁓ go ahead, sorry. I was just gonna say it's not it's not because I prefer necessarily ver the versus Scotland Yard, the the co op one. it's just 'cause it makes more sense for my wife and I. ⁓ and that's my primary two player partner. With trick taking games, it is ⁓ possible to play the game poorly. And you get pretty immediate feedback that you're playing the game poorly. Whereas other games, a lot of many other many other Euro games particularly, you don't necessarily know that you're playing poorly. You're just you're just playing. You're doing stuff and you're having fun while you're doing stuff. You're having a good time and trick taking the scoreboard is staring staring at you most of the time. So Yeah it can be rough for ⁓ rough for new players. 'Cause there's Yeah. A good trick taking game has a big skill curve too. So Yeah. That's what's interesting though for us is like like I mentioned, she didn't grow up playing trick taking games. She was very intimidated by them and we kinda had the same like uneven strategy dynamic there, ⁓ when I first started teaching her. But now we've played a bunch of ⁓ and she learned it and she figures it out. The interesting thing is she actually liked the competitive Jekyll versus Hyde better than the cooperative one. And when I bought the cooperative one and we opened it up the first time we played it, she's like, ⁓ I thought this was the other one. I was like, really? I thought you liked this one better because we're working together. And she's No, I think I like the other one better. And we played it last week at a game cafe and she was like, Yeah, I definitely like this one better. I was like, Well, that's interesting. I think I prefer the cooperative one better because I like the puzzle of it. ⁓ but you know, it's interesting that tastes kind of flip and change as you as you play and more and more in the hobby. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to to playing the competitive one again because I that the idea of like one person trying to have an equal amount of tricks versus the other person trying to have that gap between the amount of tricks one. ⁓ I I'm I'm excited to noodle with that idea a little bit more and and play with play in that sandbox. ⁓ this is the first time I've seen that in a game and and I wanna play with that some more. But Yeah, I think I think ⁓ unless you guys have any final thoughts, I think we've ⁓ exhausted the the chat about about these games. Go ahead, Chris. I was gonna add one more thing on the competitive version. I think what makes that one shine though is it is two completely different games depending on which side you're on. Yeah. Right. And I've played primarily as Mr. Hyde, but then one of my kids ⁓ at that game cafe was like, Can we switch? And they absolutely obliterated me because Playing as Dr. Jekyll, I think, is even harder. And it's not necessarily the way I try to approach a trick taking game. I like to either catch everything or I like to catch nothing. Like that's that's kind of what I enjoy about a trick taking game is going nil and trying not to catch anything every time. And so being able to do that as Mr. Hyde, that's the main strategy. But then as Dr. Jekyll, it's you're trying to like push push tricks away from you and catch tricks, and it's just a very different strategy and approach. And so I feel like what makes it shine is it is it feels like two different games depending on which side you're on. Yeah, and I feel like the you're you're probably right that the skill level required to do well as Dr. Jekyll, the person who's trying to keep this the tricks even, is probably it's probably a little bit tougher of a task. And and I specifically gave my wife I said you you can play as as Mr as ⁓ Mr Hyde because you can just like win them all or win nothing. That's your goal. So that's easy to just like ⁓ digest, right? And my wife's a really intelligent woman when she just has not played nearly as many trick taking games as I have. And so I just took the one with the higher skill ceiling required. and ⁓ and that felt fairly well. Like it was a really tight, close game and I ended up winning, but it like there was that definitely that one round where she ran away with it and I was like, whoa no. Yeah. Yeah. And which is a fun moment, right? The game if a game can create a moment like that, it's it's it's achieving something for sure. Yeah. All right, let's move on to our scores. and I I guess I I don't know if we want to do a different score for each of these. for I guess I'll start and then you guys kinda have a moment to think about it here. But I think I have the same score for both of these at this point, and I think it's gonna be a seven point five. ⁓ it's a game that yeah, I I think I think there's definitely some room for it to grow in my estimation if I get it to the table some more. ⁓ I have not played very many games or very few games actually because I'm just not a cooperative player or a campaign. This is just not my preferences. where the games get harder and harder and more difficult, right? I've played a little bit of now I'm blanking on it, ⁓ the crew. as I'm looking over my my trick taking section of my my my ⁓ shelves here. ⁓ I've played a little bit of the crew and I've played a little bit of the Lord of the Rings trick taking games. ⁓ but probably no more than I've played this game. Probably, you know, a couple hours of each at most. ⁓ but I'm really ⁓ interested to like actually go down this path and see it get harder and harder. There's almost a video gamey thing to it, right? Where it's like that you get further and further into the level then it gets harder and harder and that's part of the That's part of the the it the it you know, the attractiveness of of like getting better, right? And and that sort of thing. So ⁓ seven point five with ⁓ I think a little bit of room to grow. I think ⁓ I it could easily grow if I play a little bit more. Nice. Who wants to go next? ⁓ go ahead, dude. Which one? We rating them collectively or individually? As you prefer. ⁓ I more or less have the same score, so I just think I just give it a short. I would give the ⁓ the original one probably a good seven. ⁓ I feel that it's engaging. It has some neat stuff going on there. I don't see that I would go back to it over and over and over again with the same player though. I'd probably set myself playing interesting players. ⁓ I would give the ⁓ I would give the sequel, even though I haven't played it as much, ⁓ I would actually give it probably a whole a whole nother point because there is a campaign in there and that hook, like that'll get me. Like that'll get me in there to come back and get those ten games in, you know. And ⁓ I saw that for the Fellowship of the Ring. game, I saw it for sale. Like there's incentive in the box to get X amount of plays into the game. ⁓ so yeah, that that's I think I'd give them a seven and an eight respectively. Both very good. That not a knock towards either, just thinking about practicalities of how often I would grab grab it off the shelf. Yeah. Well apparently Darren and I need to be friends because that's exactly what I was saying. So there you go. I I think the competitive one, like you said, it offers a lot of fun and a lot of strategy. And I think Matt, I I would love to hear your thoughts after you play it more and try both sides a few times because I think that's what if it didn't have that difference in strategy feel, I think it would probably be a little lower, honestly. I think that w that elevates it. Great. But then like you mentioned, I want to keep coming back to the cooperative one. I don't my wife wished I had bought the competitive one, but I don't know that I want to because I would rather pull out ⁓ the cooperative one because I think it it has that hook. That Darry mentioned that makes you want to keep coming back to it to see how it progresses in difficulty. And and then after you play through all of them, you pick your favorite and play that a ton of time if you want to, you know. Yeah. Awesome. Cool. So yeah, we're we're all fans of I think both of these games. And I think I'm probably close to e to you guys too, in that ⁓ the cooperative one I probably slightly prefer. ⁓ and I think that one has more room to grow in my estimation than the ⁓ than the competitive one. ⁓ all right. We've ⁓ we're going ⁓ a little bit long on this, but I think ⁓ we've had some good discussions and I'm really excited to talk about Obsession. so Obsession was released in twenty twenty six, is written and directed and edited by Curry Barker. I feel like he made he he got his hands on a one wish willow and wished that he would be able to absolutely make this incredible movie. And and he also had a and it's coming for him. He's gonna he's gonna have to pay the piper at some point. It was he was also a featured voice extra in the movie. That's right. So ⁓ that's right. Yeah, well I guess we get to over the yeah. ⁓ it was under a million dollars ⁓ production budget. I just looked it up, which means that is a penny film in Hollywood. Like Absolutely That's about as low as you can go and get a big release in theaters. Yeah. Yeah, so it stars ⁓ Michael Johnston, ⁓ Indian Averett, and Cooper Tomlinson. and after breaking the mysterious one wish willow to win his crush's heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for, but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price. ⁓ so Curry Barker, so just a little bit of background. Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson. Cooper Tomlinson plays his buddy Ian in the movie. ⁓ they left film school. ⁓ to start making comedy shorts on YouTube and TikTok. ⁓ which now I'm blanking on the name of it, but I think it's called like that's a bad idea or something like that. I think that's right. Yeah. Something weird and goofy. Yeah. ⁓ eventually started making short films. They did so they they they made these comedy shorts for about eight years. ⁓ and ⁓ then started making short films. And I think Curry Barker is primarily the creative force behind all of this with kind of Cooper Tomlinson being an actor and also a producer and and and kind of part of the duo. But I think if I'm not mistaken, Curry Burk Barker is more a little bit more of the creative force behind the duo. ⁓ and they did one they did do one low budget indie movie called Milk and Cereal. It's just over an hour long and they did it on an eight hundred dollar budget. Mm serial spelled as in serial killer, not like the cereal that you eat with milk, which is really fucking ⁓ okay. So I haven't seen it. I know nothing about it, but I'm I was super excited to watch it. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen it spelled out though, and so I'm assuming there's maybe a pun buried in there somehow. But yeah, it it's one that I want to see for sure. Yeah. ⁓ so yeah, they made this the short film and then they made a horror short called The Chair, which caught the attention of T Shop Productions. ⁓ Barker secured funding and wrote and directed ⁓ obsession on a strict twenty-day seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar budget and famously edited the entire movie himself in his bedroom. ⁓ so as as part of being able to try to keep this as a ⁓ a low budget ⁓ film. ⁓ and then it was purchased by Focus Features for f a little over fourteen million dollars, I think. and then I'm looking at the box office. and and so this part of it is really, really interesting as well. So right now their ⁓ total where is it now? Did I lose it? Why can't I find it? I know it was over three hundred and thirty last time I saw. And I'm looking at like the weekends here. And so this part of it is really, really interesting. So on its first weekend, it made $17 million. So from $750,000 budget made $17 million in its first weekend. Okay. And I know like this is primarily a board game podcast. So people don't probably don't follow box office and all that that closely. But generally speaking, a movie will make the most money it'll make in its first weekend. And then It will they kind of call it a multiplier for the rest of its run, will make about that much money. Okay. So if it makes 17 million dollars in its first weekend, it'll make 17 more million dollars in the rest of its runtime. And that 34 million dollars will be its is that the right number? Yeah. That 34 million dollars will be. I'm like, is my math mathing? ⁓ it's getting late. Will ⁓ so that is typical, right? So a 17 million dollars on a less than one million dollar budget is incredible. ⁓ but in its second weekend, and usually you'll see like if you see ⁓ a like twenty percent drop, right, from your first weekend to your second weekend, that's considered great. That's considered a really good second weekend, okay? in its second weekend it went plus 39%, plus 39%. It made more money, it made twenty three million dollars. in its second weekend. and then in its third weekend, it made plus 14%. So it sorry, it made $31 million on the following weekend. So the the percentage is not showing here for some reason. But it went from 17 in the first weekend, 23 in the second weekend, 31 in the third weekend. So it kept getting more money. Whereas usually there's a 20, 30, 40% drop off each weekend. Okay. The last time that a movie did this that wasn't a like Christmas, ⁓ because often what happens at Christmas time is that a movie will come out and then because of holidays or whatever, people will like go out to the movies because everybody's off and then a movie will some t will ⁓ movies will see sometimes make more money in their second and third weekends just because of the holiday, right? But the last time a movie ⁓ was able to get more money the second and third weekend. That was not a Christmas release was in 1984 and it was E.T. the extraterrestrial. Mm-hmm. That's insane. Okay. Forty-two years ago. Yeah. ⁓ in its fourth weekend, it's made twenty-seven. So 17, 23, 31, 27. July 5th weekend made another 25. June 2nd weekend made another 19. And this weekend that just passed, it made ⁓ Or I guess that's this current weekend, thirteen thirteen million dollars. So it made more money in every single weekend after its first weekend, up until this last weekend, which is absolutely bonkers. Incredible box office run in the modern era, right? Considering how short timelines are in in theaters anymore. Yeah. Which I mean you even said it in the intro, Matt. You you had asked if we had seen it more than once and you figured it would be on digital by the time we recorded this. That's why we pushed it out a little bit so we'd be able to watch it a second time. Exactly. Nope, it's still in theaters because it won't put making money. It just keeps making money. It's unbelievable. And I'm like I'm happy. I'm like I'm ecstatic for it because ⁓ you know, in the ⁓ I mean we talked about this a little bit in in previous episodes, but like the idea that like The only movies that ever make money, and this is starting to change a little bit, but the only movies that ever made money were IP movies and franchises and Marvel and Absolutely and superheroes and and Fast and Furious movies, right? And it's just so heartening to see an original indie movie destroy the box the box office like this, right? From all appearances of nobody. Right. Like obviously he'd done YouTube stuff and a couple of shorts, but like nobody really knew who he was in the grand scope of things unless you had followed him on YouTube and TikTok and were a fan of No star draw. No stars. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean they're stars now. They're huge now. Yeah, especially yeah, especially Indy Navaret. She Navarre? It's Navarre or Navarre. Naver it's Navarre. Navarre, okay. I I loved seeing her in this role and I was super excited for her to have what should be a breakout for her because she was on a Superman in Lois as ⁓ a recurring ⁓ one of the main recurring characters, kind of a side character, but really important in the storyline. And I really thought she was great in that show. And when I realized that was her an obsession, I was like, This is this is great because I don't know if you're a super nerd like me and fall to DC ⁓ CW Arrowverse shows, but Most of those actors and actresses haven't broken out and done much else ⁓ outside of those shows and she's one that now she has and she's gonna go help. Yeah, like sh surely she has some awards coming her way. Yeah. Although I did see somewhere I saw posted on social media that ⁓ people are petitioning for her to be a best supporting actress and I think that's garbage 'cause she should be In the best actress category. Okay, sure. Let's let's actually talk about the movie and we'll make our points why that is. Because I think we have strong points to make on that. Sorry. I'll put the cart before the horse. For sure. Yeah. So I'm I you know, I I'm just a huge fan of this movie. I think I think there's I mean there's lots to talk about here. ⁓ but just as my general thoughts and maybe we'll maybe we'll say this out front for everybody, like spoilers for obsession. ⁓ if you're one of the three people, if you're one of the three people who hasn't seen Obsession, ⁓ maybe pause this Turn off the podcast and go watch it right now. Go watch it. You won't be disappointed. I mean, even if you're not a horror movie fan, and I think there are there's definitely some horror elements, there's a couple of scenes that are pretty gnarly. ⁓ but for the most part, this movie is not a s a gory, gross out movie. It's it's just unsettling. ⁓ I think is probably what it is more than anything in terms of the horror elements. more than it is than it's like jump scares or disgusting or gory. It's more just unsettling and the vibes are what get to you and the ideas when you really start thinking about the ideas and what happens in this movie, that's what kind of sticks with you. And I remember coming out of that first viewing kind of vibrating, ⁓ thinking like this was something special. And it stayed with me. and ⁓ on second viewing I think it was even better. because Darren, as you alluded to, as you get more information throughout the film of what's actually going on, the the the tone of the movie sort of changes. Not the not the not not the the way that it's presented, but the way that you take the information and then and and who you're rooting for or or or how you perceive the characters changes completely. ⁓ which I think is fascinating and so well done. There are movies that have big reveals at their end, which then recontextualize the whole movie, right? So ⁓ usual suspects, right? Spoiler alert. Yeah. Something big happens at the end, recontextualizes the whole thing. This doesn't have a single big reveal, but as you learn more about the characters in the movie, you see that, ⁓ this is not what we what we thought it was at the Yeah. It's sort of incremental, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that you use the word bread currents because there's definitely some Hansel and Gretel Yeah a little bit. That was not intentional, but well done, Chris. Well done is our subconscious. How do we Yeah that monologue, holy cow, that was it it's funny you mentioned you came out vibrating because you knew it was something special. I walked out of the theater and I looked at my wife and I said, What the hell did we just watch? ⁓ my gosh. Yep. Not in a bad way though, right? Just in a like it it just wrecked my mind and was so unsettling. And I came out of the theater like, I need to go bathe. Like I just need to go sit in the bath for an hour and like c watch I don't know, watch ⁓ d a child's cartoon to just like cleanse my mind palate. For me it it wasn't quite as intense, but I had a similar reaction to watching ⁓ hereditary in theaters. And when I got done with hereditary, like I felt like I'm unsettled at the moment. Right. And this had that same feeling. ⁓ how much of the movie are we spoiling like the whole thing? Well, yeah, yeah. Okay, we're spoiling the whole thing down. Whole thing, whole thing. Okay. So to our to Indy Navaret's credit, there's moments in the movie where I feel she broke the uncanny valley with the way that she was acting, where I was like, ⁓ this thing only appears human. Like there's something Very wrong here. And she's there's no special effects making her like that. She's just like Yeah. I mean I've seen you you see pictures circulating social media with her frown. Like people people have speculated, well, they enhance that. No, absolutely not. Like I've seen pictures of her in real life and she makes that face and it's yeah, it's crazy. Literally I'm getting chills right now just thinking about that frown and her face. ⁓ yeah, she she is incredible and I do hope she does get some award. ⁓ I've got a question for for you guys because I had one earlier. I've got another one. So ⁓ in our Jekyll and Hyde, because that's the theme of of the episode, right? Is this movie a possession movie or is this a duality of one person like Jekyll person? Yeah, so I ⁓ I'm gonna add to that question because it's something that I I I intentionally wrote down here that I wanted to ask you guys. So a s similar frame here. And I'm and I'll answer your question and then I'll kind of reframe it and ask my own. I I don't know. Yeah. I'm not sure. I think the movie, I think Curry Barker does a really good job at not over explaining the logistics. Absolutely. And think that's really important. And I think that a lesser storyteller would like get, you know ⁓ Bear would get the gang together and they would go looking for the company that made the one wish willow and they would find an old lady who had a a story about her and they would pull out a book and they would say, Well, you'll have to go find ⁓ and there would be like a detective detecting thing that happened. Mystery, yeah. Like you don't get the answers in one pat evening, right? That's right. You call you any answer. You call customer service and you get run around and that's it. Like That's exactly yeah, yeah. He nailed it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So the Kerry Barker does a great job at not over explaining things, letting you sort of decide yourself, right? And for a while I did think like possession because because of the way that ⁓ I guess if we can dis distinguish the two, let's call possessed Nikki or like the the messed up Nikki, freaky Nikki of course. And then Nikki being like the original person, right? And so freaky Nikki, is that a possession? Is it some sort of demon? Is it ⁓ is it just what's the the the the husk of what's left after you remove Nikki's soul from the body? Like what are the logistics? What do you guys think? You know? ⁓ I'm not sure. ⁓ at first to exactly. Do you want me to give my cheat answer? ⁓ sure. Yeah, let's he did you Curry Barker has answered that question and did you have an opinion? He's wrong. He's wrong. So I I'm guessing you knew that when you asked. ⁓ I didn't hear He has said he has said emphatically that it is not a possession issue. I love that. That there is no it's not a possession, there's no demon, there's no evil entity. ⁓ so it's ⁓ would be more of like a duality of a character where the wish just takes over her In a non-possessional way. I don't know, that's weird. The logistics are odd. What I think is interesting though is the online discourse, a lot of people have said that they think it's Bear's cat that dies in the opening sequence of the movie. I definitely think it's not that. I don't think so. I'm emphatically against that. I I agree with you, but I think what's interesting is some of the reasoning that I've seen is because if you look at some of Freaky Nikki's behavior and how possessive she gets and how she brings him dead treats. Where she fixes his lunch. Like all of those things are very cat like behavior. So he has said no, that is not accurate, but I think it's an interesting train of thought to follow the people that have given good evidence and reasoning. So I I can buy that as a reading, but I could I don't I don't agree with that. I don't like it either. I will say we get a tip very early, ⁓ after almost immediately after Bear makes his wish. Nikki comes back and she's interested in him and then she breaks for a second. Yeah. She's like, what's happening right now? And then she goes back. So you know. That happens a few more times as yeah. Yeah. So we we know early on that there's two things going on there, right? There's two entities in there, whether it's an outsider entity or whether it's herself or not. ⁓ but let's let's just talk about like Freaky Nikki herself, right? Like one of the things I noticed was is that like Freaky Nikki is indeed obsessed. Bear asked for love, but she's not really it's not love that she's giving. It's an obsession, right? Yeah. Because a true love, like you're gonna want that person to grow and thrive and become their own person, right? And she doesn't even want you want what's best for them. Right. She doesn't even want him to go to work, right? Like to go make a paycheck. So the way the wish was fulfilled, something happened and the way it's interpreted is not a love that is happening there, in my opinion. Right. Yeah. And you even get a hint of that when Bear at one point says, Do you do you like me? And she goes, Of course I love you. And he says, No, no, no, no, no. Do you like me? You know, do you like who I am? Do you like me as a person? Is kind of what he's asking. ⁓ because clearly she loves him. ⁓ you know, w in whatever variation of the word you want to, you know, put in there, as as what you just said, Darren. But ⁓ does she like him? You know, and I think The one scene that tells me that no, she doesn't really like him is when they hard smash cut to them having sex and she's clearly not physically enjoying it. Yeah, it was hard to watch for sure. and even harder to watch the second time around when you know everything. because at that point it's just straight up full out rape, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And and the the the creepiest thing of that is like you can see her face and she's not enjoying it, but there's still s like screams of pleasure, but her mouth isn't moving. And I was just like so unsettling. I can't like Yeah. ⁓ it's crazy. so one of the things that ⁓ so maybe we can back up and talk a little bit more about the plot. So essentially, ⁓ you know, he has a crush on ⁓ on Nikki, which I would say he has an obsession. To be frank personally. Yeah, may maybe. I mean yeah. Just the way he the opening monologue, the way he tries to express his feelings about her. Yeah. Yeah. And the way he makes the wish, I it feels like he also has like it it's not just a crush on her. Yeah. In my opinion. Yeah, you c yeah, you could interpret it as as a as more than a crush, yeah. ⁓ I'm on I An infatuation, perhaps. Hard to argue with Or at least the infatuation of the the idea of The idea, yes. Yeah, and more kudos to Navaretti's performance and to Curry's writing and directing, because in the like three very brief scenes that we get with Nikki, I'm in love with her too. Like you know, ⁓ as much as one can be with a a person on screen or whatever. I mean she's she's fun, she's sociable, she's kind. Like you can tell that she's beautiful, she's quirky, she's interesting, yeah. She's just like you wanted more of Nikki. Yep. And you didn't get it. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. but yeah, so he, you know, at y g goes to this oddities shop and buys a one wish will, a one-a-wim. And then ⁓ kind of like in a moment of like I I and I at that point I don't think he's taking it seriously because if he actually believed if he actually believed it would fully come true, I'm ⁓ my I like to believe that his wording would probably be different, right? Yeah and that he would really think it through and say it in a in a in a way that would maybe avoid what we end up getting in this movie. It was not thoughtfully done. No. Yeah. He just says, like, I wish she would love me more than and I th and he he swears there more than anyone in the F and world or something like that, or Effing love me more than And I think that that F in that that that extra word putting emphasis ⁓ pushes it even further, potentially, right? If you want to talk about we're not gonna get into linguistics and all that, but like I think that's that's part of it. but yeah, he says he wishes she would love him more than anyone in the effing world or s or something along those lines. And then ⁓ we get this one of the iconic shots of the movie, but basically like we get a cut to ⁓ ⁓ you know, a wide shot of the car with the house in the background, and there's a silhouette of her standing there, ⁓ which we already saw her go into the house and all of a sudden she's standing there. You know. And that's the first kind of like ominous, you know, shot of the movie that kind of like starts to unsettle things, you know. ⁓ and then we get this like, you know, she goes, she basically goes from And and I really like the it all ⁓ you mentioned already, Darren, but the fact that like she snaps out of it a few times. Yeah. And she's real Nikki for a moment and goes like, what the heck? What what is where am I? What just happened? ⁓ you know, and then immediately snaps back to freaky Nikki where and then she starts she settles things and ⁓ it's okay. I was just drunk, I was just high, I was just this or that or whatever. ⁓ but I like that it kind of almost like it take it took a little bit of time to fully take. Yep. You know, and then as time goes on, it takes it takes more and it takes more and it takes more to the point where it becomes a full out obsession and she becomes freaky Nikki and can't even stand to have him go to work and can't has stand to have him leave the bed and and all this stuff. And then obviously things escalate. Go ahead. I was gonna say, so we're obviously gonna talk about Nikki a whole lot and we there's still more that to say about that there because that's a super neat supernatural thing. But as three grown men in their late thirties, early forties. Let's talk about Bear for a moment, because we were all young men once, right? And so at the beginning of the movie, Bear opens and he's having this very cons sincere ⁓ opening of his heart to Nikki. ⁓ which then we find out is not Nikki at all, it's Sarah, right? And he's just practicing and Ian's watching him. So he has this moment of sincerity and then he's It wasn't even Sarah, it was the waitress who waits the diner. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So somebody else entirely. And she says, I think that was great. but so he has this absolute moment of sincerity and he absolutely gets smacked down by his friend Ian. He's like, You can't do that. Yes. He's like, You absolutely can't be sincere. Because and may that's I feel that's probably a generational thing, like sincerity. No. Very scared of sincerity, right? Because if you're sincere, you just But also Ian's a terrible friend. Which is another topic of are the are these people even friends? You can argue that no. Yeah. But then like, ⁓ but you know, I can understand where he's coming from of being a young man and trying to get the right words out, and you just can't. Like you just can't get ⁓ out past your teeth, right? And so if in that moment I really felt for him before I knew anything else about the guy, you know? Yeah. But then you learn that he's I I don't want to use too harsh of language here, but selfish and d awful. Well I'll just say that. He's not a great guy. Yeah, I think there's like tons of gray area to mine there and to talk about, I think, with Bear. And I don't wanna I don't my intention here is not to push back on that sentiment because I agree wholeheartedly with you, Chris. But I will play a little bit of Devil's Advocate. because and I'll so I'll r I'll read something here from that I saw it was a post from ⁓ Creepy Catalog it's called and it's a great follow if you're into horror films. It's called Creepy Catalog. You can follow them on Instagram and Facebook. ⁓ and they post a lot of horror movie stuff. They'll post behind the scenes stuff and really interesting things, but they also have a lot of Really great insights and takes on horror movies. ⁓ and so I'll read this ⁓ from the post. Men inflict horror, women experience horror. Filmmaker Goldie Jones says obsession told the wrong character story. Can you imagine what obsession would have felt like if the whole film had been shown through Nikki's eyes as she was trapped inside her own body, robbed of her autonomy? Is it really a feminist horror if it centers on the man who is inflicting horror on the woman he claims to love? People argue about Bear's full culpability precisely because we experience the story from his perspective. We watch him justify all of it because he's a nice guy and he never understands why being with him this way is so horrifying for her. But rewrite the film. Get out of the car with Nikki, walk up to her door with her, then spend the rest of the movie trapped inside her body watching someone she thought was her friend. use her and refuse to help even when she begs. Bear is experiencing the consequences of his action of his actions. Nikki is experiencing the horror. That's exactly why we need more women's voices in horror to understand the difference between inflicting it and living it. ⁓ so when I read that I thought that was fascinating. In fact I saw the the filmmaker Goldie Jones ⁓ had actually posted a video of her explaining this. And then after the fact I I saw this post with with the the text and I thought, ⁓ this is like really interesting perspective. And at one point I even put out a post on Facebook. ⁓ there's like a reviewers and media and board games, and I was hoping to find a female voice to join on the podcast or to give the female perspective. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find somebody, but ⁓ All that being said, I think I I don't disagree at all with what you said, Chris, or any of what ⁓ Goldie Jones said there in that post. What I will say is I'm not a hundred percent sure that that's a better movie or makes the point better. I do believe that we should that we need more women filmmakers telling horror stories from their perspective. I don't disagree with that at all. I'm not sure if this movie would be better for it. Maybe there's a different version of this movie that would be also great. But I think the subtlety ⁓ I think the subtlety of it and how we've talked about already, how like the villainous the villainy of of Bear is slowly dis slowly ⁓ explained to us or shown to us over the course of the movie, right? And it gets worse and worse. Yeah, I think I I don't know exactly at what point in the movie it happens 'cause I I'd have to see it more than once. But at some point you realize that hey, Bear's not our hero here. He's not a nice guy. And not a nice guy. Right. And ⁓ he's just is he even a he's a protagonist, but he's not necessarily somebody that we're cheering for here. Especially I think as soon as honestly for me, it was as soon as I as she was at the car and I realized, ⁓ she's not there. Like something took over. This is this is very wrong now. Yeah, I think it took longer for me to get there, but I I I think what's interesting and and you said you wanted a women woman's voice, so I I remember reading that post as well. And I read it to my wife. And she pretty much disagreed with most of the sentiment. Not the ending where definitely we need more women's voices in the world in general. Right. Like not just in horror, not just in filmmaking. Like we need more women's voices everywhere. But her her main pushback was it's not meant to be a feminist horror movie. So like Goldie's whole argument you could question and push back on that. according to her, right? That was her response to it was she didn't think it was meant to be a feminist war movie. And it's it's speaking to and attacking a problem in our culture from a man's perspective, not from the female perspective. And it wasn't intended to be read like that. So I thought that was interesting that you were reading that and I remembered our conversation about it. So I wanted to share that was kind of her pushback on that. Yeah, I I want to add a note just from the perspective of like ⁓ horror aficionado. ⁓ because I I I watch a lot of horror movies ⁓ every year, ⁓ 50 or 60, something like that. So horror in its own way was always a little ahead of the curve ⁓ when it comes to like feminist icons or like advocates for that. And it's through the the archetype of the final girl, right? The female victory. The final girl. She's the one who survives, she's the one that's left, and then the movie turns when she grabs some power back from this attacker. and fights back and either takes him out forever or you know gets away, right? It's it's the lorry stroke right of that. So like that has that has been represented in different ways, but this story would not be better necessarily if we saw the internal battle, the psychic battle between the two halves of thinking and one over overcoming the other, right? I don't think I think we would lose out on a lot of the societal commentary that we were able to get through the movie that we were that we were given. Yeah. Yeah, if the if the message is like is is given like if the theme and the message is giving to you with ⁓ you know, as subtle as a sledgehammer, I don't think it lands as well. I think if something sits with you and you slowly think about it and then realize that it's a somewhat feminist film or has a feminist approach, I think that that hits a little bit better. The problem is is that not like This movie made $330 million at the box office. And I would I would wager that like ninety, you know, seventy-five between seventy-five and ninety percent of those people won't think about it any ⁓ deeper than that. It'll just be like, ⁓ I had a great time at the theater, yeah, and there was some some scary stuff and some scary elements. Yeah. And maybe for a moment they're like, ⁓ he was actually a bad guy and whatever, but they don't think they probably don't think about it. From Nikki's perspective, very much. I think that was ⁓ that was very subtle. And I think that only the people who really take time to think about it and dissect it to the level that we are, ⁓ you know, would would kind of realize how feminist it actually is. It's just super, super subtle about it. And I had a similar reaction in a very different movie. I mean, it's still a horror movie, but in the substance. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, you know, the substance has obviously ⁓ is way less subtle about its message. No My comment on the substance, I made a post about it when I came when I watched that comment. My comment on the substance is like, what if the subtext was just text? Like Yeah, there's zero subtext. Yeah, except that the movie has a lot to say about the male gaze, right? And it like the but the movie is constantly ⁓ I'm just trying to think of the best way to say this. Like, I catch myself gazing. Right? Right. And I think that's a big part of what the movie's trying to do is that, like, I'm sitting there watching Margaret Quayley nude, and obviously I'm a straight man, and I'm like, this is nice to look at. And then immediately feel like a bag of dirt because I'm I'm ogling this person, right? And I think the movie was very effective, ⁓ for that reason. Like and I think that and I think that Obsession does that in a similar way and a much more subtle way, but it's like introduces Bear as the protagonist, makes him look like a softy and a romantic and whatever, and now I'm on Bear's side because I want Bear to To get what he wants to To get the girl. To get the girl, right? And and and then right up until that moment where she's like, Do you like she's she's like leaning against the car and she's like, Do you like me? Do you have feelings for me? And the coward. I'm like, Yes, just see yes, damn it. Like, tell her, you know? And he could just can't bring himself to do it. and then slowly but surely over the course of the movie, I feel like a bag of dirt because I was rooting for what turns out to be this like, whatever, this like. Dirtbag it was I was a relatable moment because a lot of us have been there when we were young then, right? And we're like, ⁓ I remember how that felt, right? Like yeah, you know, I should have said and I didn't and I couldn't get it out. And then like, you know, the movie goes on from there. So Which I I think as a again, you go back to Curry Barker and his brilliance. I think that was a great way to set the story up, is it made you want to cheer for the guy and be in his corner and then slowly you realize you were wrong. Then you know, go back to Absolutely. And and honestly, I think that's the what what people like Goldie Jones are saying and what a lot of of feminists are saying and I and I I ⁓ for a large part agree with what they're saying is that it's almost too subtle and most people won't get it. Most men especially most toxic men won't get it. Right? No. And you can see that across social media with it with the subtlety. Yeah, and and I'll agree with that. I think you see that on social media because every day I see at least one or two posts of men claiming Bear's the victim. And thankfully most people are arguing and telling them how wrong they are in the comments because if you come out of that movie seeing him as the victim, I have questions for you and who you are as a person. Now, I'll say me personally, I I didn't put it together. I don't I don't tend to analyze movies too much as I watch them the first time. I want to watch them, I want to be engrossed to story, and I don't want to think about it too much. Yep. It wasn't until we got home and I was looking up some, you know, interviews and stuff, and I saw a commentary video from a a YouTuber and the title was just like Bear as the Villain question mark. And I read that out loud to my wife and she was like, ⁓ that's interesting. And it just kinda clicked. I was like, Yes. Yes, it is. It seems so obvious, right? Once you it's think about it, yeah. But I think i there's so many people that aren't getting the message as it is. I think and this isn't ⁓ I don't know, I don't think you have a chance to get the message across if you flip the perspective. Yes, right. I think you lose your audience, like a huge portion of people that may see the movie, because those types of people that already aren't getting the message are not gonna watch a movie from her perspective. Those of us that want to, I think that would have been too hard to watch. ⁓ yeah. Right. And like if if you're someone that has been through any abuse trauma of any kind, mental, emotional, sexual, whatever, I don't think you could stomach that. I think it becomes like I could not have taken my wife to see. I think it becomes just a straight torture movie at that point. Yeah. Yeah. And so I I think that that is one big problem is I think you you lose so much audience on both sides of the equation. Those of us that support the the feminist viewpoint of it still, but I I just I don't I think you lose it if you flip the perspective there. Yep. ⁓ I as I said, I watched this again last night and I went in specifically wanting to pay very close attention to Bear and the choices that he makes. Okay. And ⁓ how often you know, it's like he does a a villainous thing, right? Or like an awful thing. And although like if you want to look at it in a black and white with a black and white perspective of like was he right or was he wrong, he was wrong, right? There's no for me, there's but the world is not like that and people are not like that. People don't think in black and whites. And ⁓ that's just not how the world actually is, right? And so it's a lot more gray than we think. And you know, ⁓ there's there's plenty of moments in the movie and and the the the probably the one time where I was like, ⁓ how could he possibly continue? Right. And then I think but like what what would you do? At this point, you have a supernatural thing that you can't explain to anybody, nobody will believe you, right? you tr he did try to bring her to the hospital, she refused. And the way ⁓ you know, I'm not sure how the how it works, ⁓ you know, in whatever state they are or wherever they are in the in the world, but like a lot of times if a person doesn't want medical attention, how can you give them medical attention, right? You can't, yeah. ⁓ yeah. and so that's a whole gray area. So like what would you do? And then I th you know, I thought about it some more. And like, I don't know how many times in my life I've said Well, if I was in that scenario, I would have done this, you know? And then you actually think about it a little bit deeper and put yourself in those shoes. And nobody is as brave as they think they are. Yeah, for sure. Including myself. You know? And so, you know, like the the the point where I was like, ⁓ I don't know, is like when he when he the cat f the cat eating the cat sandwich thing, right? ⁓ yeah. And he's rehearsing on the way back of like in the mirror in the car, like Mickey, you can't do that. Like, I am very upset. Yeah he's rehearsing. And like, ⁓ you know, and he gets in there, and that's when he finds her ⁓ you know, soiled and a mess and whatever. So, like, obviously, in that moment, you probably don't belittle the person and get all mad at them. Now they're they're like vulnerable and a mess, and you like wanna you have to like take care of them for a moment first, right? And then, you know, so she's in the shower, and then they have the argument and weird thing, and then they smash cut to the party. So, like, and I think that's the brilliance of the script of like not fully showing us what happened there. You just have to sort of justify and imagine that somehow the conversation, he didn't get to have the conversation, and she was a mess and he was worried about her and whatever, and then they end up at the party. And then from then on. It's just madness. He's in full survival mode and doesn't make a whole lot of choices at all. ⁓ you know, ⁓ other than like the point and this is another ⁓ kind of crossroads in the movie where like you say so she's in bed and you hear real Nikki speak through freaky Nikki in her sleep and say, like, kill me. ⁓ the most haunting scene of the movie. Yeah. As like so unsettling. And she says, kill me. And then he says, What's so bad about being with me? And that sounds like a villainous ⁓ sentence. And I agree it is. but then she responds with, I haven't been with you even once, right? And so And if you haven't caught it yet, that is like crystal clear that she has no control over what's at that point Bear absolutely knows that he all his suspicions are should be confirmed by now, right? So he should no longer be treating Nikki as the that the woman he knew. She's not there. Yes. And that is the one moment in the movie where I'm like, there's no turning back here. Bear cannot continue. Mm-hmm. Cannot just like ignore this. And he doesn't, right? And other than the fact that he walks out of the house in that moment, right? Which can we talk about that for a second? ⁓ He knows that she that she watches him when he sleeps, right? Like he had to In his he had to consider for a moment that like this was not going to work. Like him leaving the house was going to be a problem. But he was just like, Yes, I'm out. Like he's like, I just had to go. Yeah, but but Sarah also said, If you don't meet me, I'm coming to the house. So either way it was gonna end So that's that's kind of my point, is like in that moment it's really easy to say like Bear should have just killed her, right? But now think about it again. I would have I would have killed her. I would have grabbed the kitchen knife and I would have just killed her. Would you have like that act of taking a knife or a gun and murdering somebody, even if they're evil, that is a thing that a human being cannot just do. It doesn't come naturally. It's not like making a sandwich or like a bad bad, bad, bad ⁓ analogy. It's an act that is like incredibly difficult to do. Right. And the other option to end this that he knows at this point is to kill himself. Again, an act that is probably impossible for ninety nine point nine of percent of us to actually do, even if we want to, right? And we see that later on, even. Yeah. So while I agree that Bear should have made different choices and done different things, the actual if you actually think about it in reality, all of the actions, all of his options were impossible. Sure. Right. ⁓ and from that moment, he's like, okay, I've got to go meet Sarah. And maybe in his head, he's like, then I've got to like take Nikki out, or I've got to take myself out, or I've got to do something. You know, maybe Bear at that moment actually had the right intentions. We don't know. Right. But from that point on, he's in full survival mode, right? He gets to the car and then Sarah gets brutally murdered. ⁓ and then he's just like in shock and trying to deal with the Sarah situation. And then we get the final scene at the house, where he actually tries to potentially do something about it and end things and do the right thing. Fails, but he tries. He has the moment where he tries to get Ian to help him. And because any ⁓ yeah, there's not maybe my favorite maybe my favorite scene of the movie. But the because the fact of the matter is that this group is not o they're not honest friends with each other, right? Like there's not a that level of trust there that we think there is. ⁓ it seems like they all just work at the same place and that's how they all Yeah are associating with one another. And we also know that the whole group's about to split up, right? Like I believe Nikki talks about getting out, going doing something else. She gave in her two weeks' notice. She gave her two weeks' notice. Sarah finally got accepted to art school. ⁓ Ian, I don't know what he's doing, but you know, he's probably gonna go do something else. So I will say that them working in the music store, very empire-reck. And like the fact that there's like a subcurrent of like, ⁓ they all work in this musical instrument store and the things are about to change for them. And like there's like a soft movie there where this never happens. Yeah. And then you just have this whole other movie that's much closer to Empire Records. Yeah. Yeah. So so my and ⁓ just to wrap up my thought about like about like Bear this is huge monologue for me, but like the whole like Bear's autonomy and Bear being a villain and all that. 100% agree. Bear's the villain did the wrong thing. ⁓ if we look at it in a black and white situation, like you look at this and and Bear was the bad one and and Nikki was a hundred percent the victim. Bear was never the victim. ⁓ but it's just not that simple. and if you really take the time to like watch through the movie, it's just like the script. And the plotting is set up in such a way that like every time he has to make a decision and do the right thing, it is incredibly difficult and almost impossible to actually do it. ⁓ and it's and we've seen him multiple times be a coward. Like he's a coward from the beginning. So you put a coward in that situation and they're just going to melt and do the wrong thing. And I'm not defending Bear. He is the villain. I just want to make that clear. I just I just want to say that it's not a full black and white situation. ⁓ and I think that serves the br I think that's that's it's just the brilliance of the script. It's the brilliance of how it's paced out and how every time he has an opportunity or wants to do the right thing, something happens or the decision he has to make is impossible. And so he's just slow to get to it and eventually does. It escalates in such a way that he gets to a point where he puts a gun in his mouth and then he's just too much of a coward to do it. And then he takes the pills and then he's too much of a coward to actually do it and tries to make himself vomit and then obviously doesn't quite g ⁓ get to the point where he manages. But like, yeah, that's that's kind of the point I wanted to make is just it's very gray and all the points where he has to make it's just impossible. I think what's interesting what Joel and I talked about the movie on a podcast a few episodes ago as well. And it was the day after I saw it. And I did a lot of watching interviews and commentaries and and reviews and thoughts that really kind of helped shape some of my thoughts of the movie because I still was having a hard time processing it because it was just such an unsettling movie. I was just like, ugh I didn't want to keep thinking about it immediately. But, you know, going back to the idea that in the beginning you're presented with this nice guy idea. That is bear and him being a nice guy and trying to do the right thing. And Joel and I were talking about we're kind of going back and forth. And and I said, you know, I think he he he tried to be a nice guy. And Joel, Joel's whole mentality was, I don't think he ever was a nice guy. And we kind of ended the discussion with the thought of if he truly was a nice guy, he never would have made the wish that he made. So I don't disagree with you. There's a lot of gray area. And at some point there's no going back and he doesn't have much choice. He's in survival mode. But if you go back to the idea of if if this wasn't just an infatuation or an obsession, if he really cared about her and he was truly interested in a relationship with her, that's not the wish you make. So I it's just just kind of an interesting idea that Joel and I talked about to kind of piggyback off of what you're I fully subscribe to that. If you go into it buying That Bear believed in the one wish willow from the start. If he believed that making that wish would actually work, right? Sure. But he just did it on a whim. Like he just like just said it like willy nilly and it broke the thing. Right. It's not like an established world where like supernatural things exist and he knows it. Right. Right. Yeah. He didn't I don't think he believed that it would actually work. He was it just like did it cause whatever. Was it that much different for him than throwing a coin in a wishing well? Yeah. Exactly. But the interesting thing is is you the immediate montage when things are going well. Like you don't really see him being that interested in her. Right. And I think that's where some of the problematic behavior becomes, right? Like you've been in a new relationship, right? Darren, you said it. Like we're all late thirties, early forties. We've done the new relationship thing probably more than once in the past. And there's that moment where you're like cuddling on the couch watching a movie and she looks at you. And you're like, ⁓ this is nice. Like you want to enjoy that and savor that. What does he do? He looks at her and he turns her face back to the movie. Yeah. Right? Like what person who actually has thought through wanting to love someone in a relationship is like, You're weird, don't look at me right now. Right? Like that's She wants the Netflix and chill and he just wants the Netflix. Right. Yeah. And so I just I I think, you know, that that's another moment. Like and then as things start to heat up, you don't see him caring. for her, you see him parenting her. Right. Like that conversation he had in the mirror in the car you mentioned. I'm very disappointed in you. You can't that's not how you talk to your romantic partner. That's how you talk to your child. Mm-hmm. And so somebody that you're in charge of or in control of. Right. Which is exactly what I'm And so that's where that's where my thought process of I I think it was more of an infatuation obsession. I don't think he ever really thought about what it meant to be in a romantic relationship with her. He just knew she made her she made him feel good about himself and he wanted her to keep making him feel good about himself. I don't think he wanted to know any more about her as a person. No. Yep. Yeah. Okay, so we're obviously going along here. Maybe Maybe we just ⁓ do a little bit of like our favorite moments. ⁓ because there's so many like fun ⁓ and crazy things that happen. We can just shout out a few of those each. and then wrap things up. I I believe you mentioned it briefly. maybe my favorite one of my favorite moments of the movies where is where ⁓ Bear goes to Ian's place with the new one wish willow and he's trying to convince him. to un to make a wish to un make Bear's wish. Yeah. And you know, is trying to convince him. And that whole that that whole conversation is very ⁓ forgetting the name w do you do do either of you remember the name of their like TikTok or YouTube page what their like their s their comedy sketch thing is. You said it earlier. What was it? I don't know. This is something an idea. Something. Yeah, this is a bad idea, I think. It does feel like a very much like a college humor sketch. Yeah. So that dynamic feels like ⁓ a s that ⁓ felt a lot like 'cause I've seen a lot of their sketches. Not I wouldn't call myself a fan because they obviously I didn't even know the name of their thing, but I had seen probably a dozen or more of their skits just on Instagram and or Facebook. and 'cause I and I thought they were really funny. And I've seen that both their faces a ton before this movie. ⁓ and so yeah, this that scene felt a little bit like one of their sketches. And then when he grabs it and says, I wish he just nonchalantly says I wish for he's like Basically like just saying, F you, I'm not doing your stupid thing, and then I'll believe you. Yeah. I wish for a billion dollars and breaks it, and then money starts to like fall and rain inside the facial expression in that moment. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. And what I'm leading to here is I think Curry Barker's genius comes through here because we switch from hilarious to devastating. And it works in that moment because I'm I laughed out loud in the theater. Even last night, again, I laughed out loud. I thought it was hilarious, all the money falling. And then we like slowly zoom into Bear's devastation on his face and is like, brutal. Brutal. Yeah, that was one of my favorite moments of the movie, followed immediately by Ian knocking on the door. Guys, this is crazy. I have like a billion dollars. Yeah. I love that moment so much. And then gets a bullet in the head. Yeah. The meanwhile. any of your favorite moments you wanna shout out? ⁓ anytime they have to interact with other people about the one wish willow is just like a break for some comedy in the movie, right? So when he calls in the store. When he calls the customer service line, like that's hilarious. Like the guy's just like hello? Yeah. Like the guy can't believe he actually got a phone call and like like he's like, You can do that? No. He can't do that. No. And then he ⁓ I was just guessing your intentions. Just guessing, yeah. And then when he talks to the shopkeeper and he's like, Well, you do it, he's I already use my wish. Which what did he wish for? Like Yeah. It's still w That whole scene though, when he goes in there and the guy's like, What are you talking about? ⁓ yeah, you think it's gonna be one of those like You think it's gonna be one of those things where it like it didn't really exist and it was like it wasn't actually Yeah, that was I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud at that one. That was great. Yeah, but he's like I already I already used my wish. I'm like, he used this wish and he's working at this store. What did he wish for? What did he wish for? A lollipop? Yeah, he's like, ⁓ I really wish I had a I I really wish I had a cheeseburger right now. I'm kinda hungry and it's just like onto the table. Cheeseburger. Yeah. I mean we we talked about all the horrifying things so much. So like yeah it was just I did want to mention that guy, the guy that worked at the store, I saw a clip and I mean I've anybody who's remotely involved with this movie is being like pushed out to the forefront because of how how crazy the reception has been and how popular it's been. But I saw a clip of this guy talking about how ⁓ he was sending in his audition tape. And for on a whim for whatever reason decided and I didn't realize this until I watched it again last night, but he decided that and and this is what he says in the clip. He says, I decided I was gonna send it in channeling the dude from the Big Lebowski. Nice. That's good. And then when I watched the what and I didn't realize it, then I watched it again last night and it's so obvious and clear because he says you you can't just come in here with that energy, man. Like you keep saying that over you're coming in here and you're all like negative and you can't just come in here, you know, with that energy man, and he keeps calling him man like that. And I just like the whole time I was laughing so much. ⁓ yeah, it's so funny. And then he's like spitballing on what he could do at the end as you like kind of fade to the next scene, and you can kind of just sort of hear him in the background saying, like, or you know, you could just kill yourself, you know, you could just like, you know, bite the bullet and yeah, that guy was hilarious. Yeah, that's good. not to give a cheap answer here, but one of my favorite moments is the very end. And part of what caused me to walk out of the movie theater is be like, what in the world has happened? But I think what makes it there there's two things that make it one of my favorite moments, other than the fact that it's just devastating and haunting and super depressing. But I like that she didn't kill herself because That was really obvious. So obvious, and this is the second reason I like it, is it was originally scripted that she did kill herself. Yeah. It was supposed to be a Romeo and Juliet ending. They had talked about it some and Curry was just like, Hey, let's just shoot one where you don't, and we're just gonna linger on you as it hits and you freak out and you panic. And and they even said in one of the interviews, like, you can see where they missed a spot. on the wall of set dressing blood from previous takes where she did so I just like all of that background information makes the ending even more powerful to me. Yeah. And the fact that they said we did one take thinking it wouldn't stick and they saw it and said, Nope, that's it. That's it. And so kind of all of that together, like d not the devastating, depressing awfulness of it, but just the the background and the the filmmaking aspect and some of the like funny Easter egg there. If you look at the specific spot on the wall in the wrong shot, you're gonna see fake blood from a previous take. And so ⁓ so it's good. Yeah, apparently it was Curry Barker's dad who can f finally convinced him to go with that ending. And the reason was it's worse. It is worse. Like it's more devastating to wake up You know, for n for real Nikki to wake up ⁓ after freaky Nikki goes away because Bear died, ⁓ Nikki wakes up and sees the scene and then r has to like imagine being absent for most of that, right? And then you wake up and then your your friend who's been like awful to you, you know, ⁓ for the last couple of weeks or whatever is dead. ⁓ and then you go into the next room. Don't forget, Sarah's there in the nude with her face exploded. Ian's dead on the floor with a bullet in his face. Ian dead on the floor with a bullet hole in his face. And you're wearing Sarah's hair. Right? Like that was something I didn't catch and I saw them talk about in in one of the videos I watched. Like she scalped her to put her hair on because she thought that's what Bear wanted. ⁓ my god. Even on two viewings I did not Catch that. Yeah, yeah. And we don't know if those are prison tattoos that she put on herself. Yeah, she drew Sarah's tattoos on herself too. ⁓ right. That is so massive wild. So she's been through all the horror, her body is scarred now forever because she also hit herself in the face a lot. And yeah, she's not talking her way out of any of the criminal charges. That's the next thing is like what's next for Nikki. Yeah. She's going the interesting she's either going to prison for the rest of the life or she's going to a mental institution, like the trauma. Like it's over for her. I've seen some people be like, She just needs to run to Ian's and grab the money. And I'm like, But if you think about it, if you die, your wish goes away. Is Ian's money still there? Right? Like I don't know. Yeah, his money's probably gone. You're right. But does it depend on the wish how it plays out? Who knows? But yeah. Cool. All right. I think ⁓ I think we've dissected I mean I could go on, but it's been it's been three hours. Yep. I really appreciate you guys ⁓ hanging out for this long. ⁓ but I'm Matt, something about what you and I get together. I I don't know. Maybe we're the problem. Maybe. Derek, I'm sorry. Hopefully Joel's not listening to hopefully you're not in a time zone that's later than mine. I mean it's Easter. It's eleven forty. Yeah. Okay. Eleven forty for as well, yeah. ⁓ yeah, I think you're a little bit earlier, right, Chris? You're ten forty over there. Yep. I'm concentral. Not so bad for you. All right. Well, thanks again. ⁓ what one last thing. ⁓ and I've been doing this on the last handful. Yeah, so two last things. I know you you probably have heard this, ⁓ but Darren, are you familiar with the Wilhelm scream? Yes, I am. You are, okay. ⁓ so I won't go through it again. ⁓ do we think there is a Wilhelm scream in Obsession? Hmm. Did Curry Berker edited this himself, so he would have been the one to put it in. I don't think there were I feel like he probably would have. Who would have I've already looked up the answer, so I'm not gonna spoil it, but I'll let you guys each take a guess. I don't know, it's tricky because I can see him wanting to pay homage and and throw it in there because it's, you know, classic, but I could also see him wanting to break away from it at the same time. ⁓ if it was in there, maybe it was from a Drop inside the novelty store. So I'll say yes. The only place that I thought it might have been in there was when he made the customer service phone call and then the customer service guy's like, Do you want to talk to her? And then all of a sudden, like kind of like I don't know, conferences her in for lack of a better term. And then we hear her do a bunch of screaming. ⁓ no. ⁓ according to according to Google, ⁓ the Wilhelm screen was not an obsession. Okay. Gotcha. All right. So let's let's do our rankings really quickly and we'll wrap this up. ⁓ thanks for sticking it out with us guys. ⁓ Chris, you wanna go first? Sure. ⁓ I'm gonna say ⁓ four point five. Four point five out of five. Nice, very strong. Darren? I think that's a very good rating. having only seen it once, I think I would give it a four point five as well. Nice. Yeah. I had it as a four on my first watch and then after watching it last night bumped it up to a four point five as well. So we ⁓ That's surprising. The way you've talked about it, I figured you had it higher than a four. Yeah. ⁓ I don't I that was just like a snap rating after, you know, sitting in the chair in the in the movie theater. I usually do it right then and there as a first kind of reaction. And then I often will adjust it, you know, ⁓ even days later without seeing it again, with just thinking about it more and ⁓ and then on a second or third watch, you know, it it adjusts from there. But four point five, I think this is easily gonna be on my top ten of the year. you know, as it sits right now, it's in conversation for number one. Bone temple Bone Temple is up there twenty eight years ago. That's why I figured you'd have it at a four or five or higher. It's in the conversation as ⁓ yeah, as a as ⁓ one of the year. And honestly, you know, even after this conversation, I'm tempted to bump it up to five. ⁓ but I'm I'm definitely gonna watch it again before I do anything with my rating. But ⁓ either way, this is a fantastic film. I think it's incredible. I think that just the fact that we can talk about all of this stuff of like Bears' intentions and who's the villain and, you know, and who's the victim and just the fact that we can have those conversations about a film. ⁓ especially of horror film, I think is is a is a s it's a success, you know, in general. Absolutely. And we could have spent the whole three hours just talking about obsession probably. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ and I and I really, really hope that Hollywood takes the right lessons from this and doesn't, you know, decide to do a an obsession cinematic universe, you know, or something stupid like that. and instead maybe try to spend their money in the right ways and invest in in creative people and invest in young talent and let them have some some autonomy and not just like do the typical Holly because I think if Hollywood if this was a a studio film from the beginning, w we would probably have a different movie. We probably would have Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ You know, this the scene that I alluded to a while ago where the like they turns into a mystery and they they get their buddies together and they go down the rabbit hole of like what's a one wish willow and you have to track down the actual original tree and burn it down. Like, you know, whatever. ⁓ I think it would have ended up being that movie. So I think we need to give these these these brilliant filmmakers the autonomy to make the movie that they want to make, 'cause that's when you end up with pure gems. Yeah. And I don't think, you know, with with the success of this and backrooms, I think the future seems bright, taking new younger creators and giving them a chance. Yeah. If Hollywood takes the right lessons from this, you're absolutely right. Hopefully. I hope they do. I hope this is like a I hope this is a you know, like we got in the nineties, we got the like Tarantino burst onto the scene with Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. And then for the next ten years, we got how many clones of those types of movies and we got to see a lot of like and some some some garbage stuff in there but some really cool stuff too. Right. We got some we got a whole genre almost of movies that came out of that and and you know the Robert Rodriguez's and and that kind of thing, right? ⁓ and then, you know, and then in the 2000s we got the Marvel and then like the offshoot of that was I think mostly not great. you know, all the the superhero stuff and the franchises and the part twos and the part threes and you know, ⁓ so hopefully this is another fork in the road and and we see ⁓ Hollywood take the right lessons from from obsession and backrooms and ⁓ some of these other great horror movies that we've seen ⁓ yeah in the last couple of years. Sure. And I I agree with you about not having a one wish willow universe, but I think a series of shorts, like twenty, thirty minutes of like wishes gone wrong could be really cool. Again, but that's all I'll say about it. If it's done well. Yeah, and if Curry Barker is behind it, right? And if we let if we allow these young, talented geniuses to do it as opposed to just like Netflix being like, No, no, no, to sell more toys we have to do it this way. It could easily be a gimmick of a horror anthology that's not very good. Absolutely. That's what I say. If done right. I don't know that I even want a second film, but a series of shorts could be really interesting if they do it right. Yeah. Just showing because there's so many wish gone wrongs that you could do well. Yeah. It could be super fun. But again, I would love to see Curry Barker be at the head of that. You know, so I think that's I think that's the right way to do it. But who knows if ⁓ you know, Focus Features, does Focus Features own one Wish Willow? Does they own Obsession, the rights of that, or does Curry? I'm not sure. But anyways, we got to wrap this up. ⁓ I s ⁓ really appreciate you guys ⁓ sticking around this long. Listeners, if you're listening this long, this far out, I really appreciate you as well. ⁓ if you guys are enjoying the podcast, take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe, whatever platform you're listening on. ⁓ you could follow me on Instagram at dice camera action pod. And if you have any feedbacks or suggestions, email me at dice camera actionpod at gmail.com. ⁓ thanks again, Darren. super appreciate you coming on. Chris, as usual, thank you. Thank you. Take care, folks.