# [[MFP44 - "Survey Says Yes" with Phil Summers]] Transcript This transcription was completed on March 4, 2026 with the application MacWhisper on macOS. This was done automatically, without human input during the transcription process. The transcription used the Parakeet v3 model. My hope is that by offering this transcription – however accurate it may be done by a machine learning/AI – will help you, the listener. I’d love to offer full, proper transcription some day, but that is not feasible at this time. Thank you for listening and reading. I hope you enjoy the show and that this document was helpful. Enjoy. --- Hello everybody and welcome to the Max Frequency Podcast. *00:00* I am your host, Max Roberts, and I have the honor and privilege of returning to the show for the third time. *00:03* Phil Summers. *00:11* Hey Phil, how are you? *00:12* Hey good, how are you? *00:13* Oh. *00:15* Thanks for having me for the Trifecta. *00:15* This is it. *00:17* This is the Trifecta. *00:18* Another trend I noticed. *00:20* I pulled up like the the previous episode. *00:22* You were on episode eleven, and then you were on twenty-two, and now you are on forty-four. *00:24* So you're always on a *00:31* Like a double digit a match. *00:33* Like in Mario Party, you would get, you know, ten bonus coins for that, you know, rolling double. *00:35* That would be great. *00:39* Um, Phil, you're back because you've put out a book, another book. *00:43* This is like what is this? *00:49* Your *00:51* Sixth, I suppose, if we count hand drawn gaming guides and then the Kickstarter, we don't talk about that *00:53* And then the Patreon for the um *01:10* I wouldn't call them magazines, but like the newsletter, the monthly m newsletters. *01:14* And then now we've got uh twenty twenty X. *01:19* Is that how you would be saying it? *01:23* Twenty twenty X. *01:24* Yep, yep. *01:25* Video game reflections. *01:26* It's here and hardback on my desk. *01:29* Is the standard like the standard edition is that paperback? *01:33* Is that what that is? *01:37* I don't even know. *01:38* No. *01:39* It's just um I don't know. *01:39* Thank you. *01:42* Uh no, you got all the extra goodies. *01:42* Um stickers. *01:45* You got your name in it. *01:46* I signed it for ya. *01:47* Did um *01:49* See. *01:50* Right, you should have a signature, you should have a number. *01:51* I am number six. *01:53* Do you have a sketch? *01:55* Do you have a sketch? *01:56* I do have a sketch *01:57* Oh, is the sketch uh limited for That was special. *01:58* Oh who do you got? *02:01* I just saw the 'cause I read that entry today. *02:04* It looks like the uh *02:09* Uh to me I think it's the Guardian legend lady. *02:11* Oh yeah, yeah, I did do that. *02:14* Let me see. *02:16* You tell me. *02:17* There she yeah, that's yeah, that's her. *02:17* You got the sketch you're the first sketch that I felt like cause there's so well the first one that I that I know of that I spoke to somebody. *02:19* So I did ten of 'em. *02:26* That was that was part of the special thing was um I was gonna sketch randomly and *02:28* Well, I was gonna sketch in the first ten of them and then that would go out randomly to whoever. *02:34* Um mixed them up in the pile so that like because when I printed out the names are all in alphabetical order, so I didn't want to hit every you know any *02:38* I mean so I mixed everything up in a big pile. *02:44* Um so the sketch is special. *02:46* So if you're listening to this and you got a sketch, you know that was special. *02:48* Um Okay. *02:52* And then I and then I tucked away *02:53* And I I didn't put them in the sketch ones, and then I tucked away five, yeah, five like original art pieces. *02:56* Um the way I did that was I think one of the ones I gave I already forget the ones I gave it. *03:03* Yeah. *03:08* I think I gave out um of the Super Mario Advanced 2 one. *03:08* I think I gave that one. *03:13* But anyway, even if I didn't, anyway, I tucked those in that page. *03:14* So it's *03:19* like a little surprise. *03:19* Yeah. *03:23* You would have that actual page. *03:24* So I did that for five of 'em. *03:26* One of 'em I think I only saw one of them turn up for that too. *03:29* So then I'm *03:32* just like oh man I don't know if anybody got I don't know where they are because usually people are like I got the thing I got the thing and they show it to you on Twitter um and uh *03:33* That's how I know. *03:43* So you're the first one to report a sketch. *03:44* Cool. *03:47* That's awesome. *03:47* I didn't I didn't realize that. *03:48* So that was part you paid for that. *03:50* That was part of your perk. *03:52* Yeah, and then I added I added the names and then um *03:53* I did see that. *03:58* I did see my name. *03:58* That was funny. *03:59* And you got all the you you got all the goodies and all that stuff. *04:00* So that was all part of the that was basically the pre-order campaign. *04:03* So I'm guy I guess I'm kinda getting into it a little bit. *04:08* I don't I I know you have a a plan. *04:11* Sorry if I'm not sure. *04:13* No, we can let's deviate from the plan. *04:14* Just talk to me about it. *04:17* We could do it. *04:18* Alright, yeah, so just to explain like why I I did it that way. *04:21* I didn't want to do a Kickstarter. *04:24* Um, I guess I was scared. *04:26* Um so the way the way I did it is I just opened pre orders just on my horrible gumroad shop 'cause I never c *04:28* came up with a real shop. *04:35* I almost made like a whole shop if I say whatever. *04:36* I don't want to get into all that stuff. *04:38* Everything I got everything functioning there. *04:40* I'm selling one product at a time. *04:42* You know, it's like *04:43* whatever. *04:44* So I just thought like I can't um how do I like how do I crowdfund this thing without crowdfunding it right so *04:45* So I came up with like a pre-order campaign. *04:53* It's like, well, what's the incentive to make anyone pre-order? *04:56* Like, why would anyone pre-order it? *04:58* So then I thought, well, I have to offer something. *04:59* special that they could only get within this time frame. *05:03* So what I did was is I had what you bought, it was the deluxe edition was only available for one month. *05:08* Um so anybody could order it, sign up for it. *05:14* And then one of the perks was I would number those. *05:17* So the number you have is six out of uh two. *05:21* Yeah, I think someone was like that's a weird number. *05:26* Yeah, someone's like, That's a weird number. *05:29* Why'd you pick that? *05:31* And I was like, Well I didn't pick that, that was just the amount of books for that uh yeah, for that edition. *05:31* Um so that was like my pre-order inside and it actually did pretty good. *05:38* So that was nice. *05:43* And then after that month, you could still pre-order, but you couldn't get the um *05:45* Couldn't get the special one while everything was in production and the production took a little a little longer than I than I planned, but uh, you know. *05:51* I think that I think that's the way it always happens. *06:00* It's like I I don't know anything that I've kickstarted, for example, that has come *06:02* out on time. *06:07* You know? *06:08* Yeah. *06:09* I don't think it ever happens that way. *06:09* No. *06:12* That's that's the way the cookie crumbles. *06:12* Um *06:15* It's cool and I do want to dig into all of that, but first. *06:17* Yeah, we'll go. *06:20* Yeah, yeah. *06:21* We're gonna do I want to talk about the whole book thing. *06:21* I'm fascinated by the process of actually, you know, making a real physical object. *06:23* Um *06:30* Especially with you know, the way this has all come together. *06:31* We're gonna talk about it. *06:34* But first, I just uh y October just ended. *06:35* I was on Twitter prepping for the show, doing my thing, and I notice you have a tweet that says you watch a new horror franchise, new to you horror franchise every year. *06:39* Yep. *06:50* And uh this year you just chose like my favorite horror franchise in Alien and I just I I went through your whole thread and just felt like *06:50* We should talk about Alien for a little bit. *06:59* Cool. *07:01* Would you c would you consider Alien a horror franchise? *07:01* Hmm. *07:05* I think it's horrible how it's been *07:05* maintained over the years. *07:09* Um no, I I mean, yes. *07:11* Yeah, I think so. *07:15* I think at the heart of it is always a scary *07:16* There's a scary core to everything. *07:20* Is Aliens a horror movie? *07:22* No. *07:25* Um, yeah, yeah. *07:25* Resurrection? *07:28* I don't know. *07:29* But it's, you know, I think alien is horror. *07:30* Um Yeah. *07:33* There was an alien vs. *07:35* Predator haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights, so it must count. *07:36* Yes. *07:40* Yeah *07:40* Yeah, that would No yeah, 'cause I t when I saw when I told like someone, uh, I think it was my brother in law, he was like, it's a bit of a stretch and I'm like, What is it? *07:41* I don't *07:50* I don't know. *07:50* I don't think so. *07:51* The first movie is Jaws. *07:52* I mean he loves them. *07:53* Yeah, I mean he loves them, but he just was just like, I don't know if that counts as a horror friend. *07:54* I'm like *07:58* Okay, well, I'm not sure. *07:59* Yeah, that's a good point. *08:06* I think he actually has it. *08:07* I saw it at his house, so *08:08* Yeah. *08:12* S what I I mean, I'll put a link to the thread uh for folks in the show notes if you want to see like all of Phil's thoughts on each one of those things. *08:12* of the entries. *08:21* But I in particular, you c you put your ranking in here and I'd uh I agree with your at least yeah, I actually agree with your ranking. *08:22* Um it has been a long time since I've seen Alien 3 *08:32* And I hadn't really cons I haven't really considered I think the last time I saw it, I probably was in high school. *08:35* Okay, wow. *08:41* So I definitely haven't uh thought of the things you pointed out with Alien 3 in particular. *08:42* It's kind of a I'm I'm gonna have to go back and rewatch it and see how I feel about it now. *08:48* I remember I couldn't even get through resurrection. *08:54* It was like this is so bad. *08:56* It I mean it's bad. *08:59* It's bad. *09:00* And I think Covenant is like an ultimate portrayal of the marketing felt so good. *09:01* I lost it when David made out with himself. *09:06* I was like, I give up. *09:10* What are we doing? *09:11* Why is Michael Fastbinder making out with Michael Fastburner? *09:13* But I think Romulus has *09:21* like rebuilt the trust. *09:24* I've I'm it reminds me of how do you how do you want to start going through the list? *09:27* Do you just kind of want to ping ping *09:33* Let's start at the top. *09:36* Let's with the goat. *09:37* The alien. *09:39* Yeah, it is. *09:41* I mean, what a movie, you know? *09:42* Yeah, no, I loved it. *09:45* Um I mentioned in the th in the in the thread, I'm just gonna repeat myself a couple of these things if you had read the thread, whatever. *09:47* But anyway, um *09:54* So I had seen more of this movie than I thought. *09:56* I just never actually sat down and watched it beginning to end, start to finish. *09:59* Always different scenes. *10:04* Maybe I walked maybe I *10:05* I've seen walked in halfway through, you know, whatever. *10:07* But it was the first time I watched the whole thing. *10:10* And um no, it was great. *10:12* I thought it was awesome. *10:14* Um *10:16* Still pretty scary. *10:17* Still looks awesome. *10:20* Um the whole thing. *10:22* I mean, it's just a great movie. *10:24* Um *10:27* So yeah, definitely enjoyed that. *10:28* Now one of the things that stood out to me, um, and I I'm I'm I probably get like I'm actual leader *10:29* I'm not an alien expert. *10:37* I just watched them all, but anyway one of the things that stood out to me when I was watching it is I noticed that um they they I think it was Ripley she's *10:38* says at one point she or one of them is just like they took them away and there was no trace there was no trace of them. *10:48* And then I just thought that was interesting. *10:54* I was like, that's weird. *10:55* Why are they *10:56* Why do they keep well at the end of the movie when nothing was addressed with that, I thought that's weird. *10:58* Why did they make a big deal out of that? *11:02* So I was like, I'm gonna look this up. *11:04* The lore. *11:06* So I look it up. *11:06* Yeah, and there was a deleted scene where *11:08* uh Ripley's searching the ship and she finds the people that got taken away the two people and it looks like they're turning into the egg *11:12* The alien eggs. *11:22* Oh so like the one guy the one guy he's kinda like go like globed up and it's hard to tell, but the other guy it's literally an egg and like his head's on top of the egg *11:23* So the speculation is that the alien life cycle in this movie is that um *11:35* Yeah, you the face hugger gets you, you birth the alien, alien captures you, turns you into an egg, which will then go *11:44* And make another alien. *11:53* So then when you apply that logic to the ship in the beginning of the movie with the engineer, which well we don't know he's an engineer. *11:55* at that point. *12:04* But the guy, I knew he was an engineer because I just had a lot of people. *12:04* Prometheus and all this stuff. *12:07* Yeah, yeah. *12:08* Yeah. *12:09* Um, so with that logic, he birtheds the alien and the alien turned the whole crew into a bunch of eggs. *12:10* That makes sense. *12:18* I like that. *12:19* So that's like if you self-contain that movie. *12:20* So *12:24* Like now none of that is true. *12:26* No yeah, once we're yeah, yeah, then with aliens obviously that's not how it works. *12:30* They just Yeah *12:35* James Cameron threw that out the window. *12:37* Yes, yes. *12:40* Which is f I mean, it's fine. *12:41* I just thought that was kinda cool and and *12:42* as a self-contained movie y you kinda get the whole picture with that, but they cut that scene out and it's a it's kind of amazing how cutting out one little scene like that can change the course of a whole of a whole thing. *12:45* Yeah. *12:59* I never even knew that as a like a deleted scene. *13:01* That's pretty cool. *13:03* I mean Alien is is uh actually I remember this obviously *13:05* I remember this. *13:12* For my bachelor party. *13:12* So I was the first out of my group of friends to get married. *13:14* And so I was the first bachelor party. *13:17* And so ours was just like one night in Orlando doing a bunch of stuff. *13:20* And I bring that up because the first thing we did was he rented out a movie theater for me and we watched Alien at the theater. *13:25* Oh man. *13:32* Which was *13:32* Great. *13:33* Um, but it was all in one night. *13:34* And then every bachelor party since then has been like some sort of weekend excursion somewhere. *13:36* It's like this logic of like clearly we did mine wrong. *13:42* We should have gone. *13:45* Yeah. *13:46* Out of town. *13:47* Yours sounded yours sounded pretty good. *13:48* Alien. *13:51* No, mine was great. *13:52* It was Alien. *13:53* Yeah. *13:54* There was a fancy bar downtown. *13:55* Then we went to a barcade and like and had chicken wings at some point in there too. *13:56* So that was like that was the thing. *14:00* That was great. *14:02* It was a good night. *14:02* Nice. *14:03* Um so Aliens is uh often touted as one of the great sequels of especially when you take James Cameron and Terminator 2 Judgment Day and you throw that in the loop with it. *14:04* It's just like the great sequel man James Cameron, who now just makes avatar movies until he'll die. *14:18* Technically there's only two of those though. *14:26* And I didn't see the second one, but is that a but *14:28* I do like it. *14:32* I did like the second one. *14:32* Yeah. *14:34* Did you like more than one? *14:35* Yeah, yeah, yeah. *14:37* And we went and saw the re-release in theaters before so we could refresh ourselves. *14:38* I was literally just talking about Avatar tonight with my wife. *14:44* I forget how it came up. *14:47* Something about oh James Cameron was just on screen. *14:49* James Cam like it was like an ad and he was on the screen and I was like, That guy that guy's kind of a genius And my daughter's just like what do you mean? *14:51* mean? *14:57* I said, James Cameron, he just makes he makes the best movies. *14:58* And then they were like, and then my wife was kind of always like, whoa. *15:02* And I said, guy made Titanic and Avatar. *15:05* She's like, well they're not that great. *15:07* And I was like, and I *15:08* Doesn't matter if they're not that great. *15:09* Every everyone saw them. *15:11* Yes. *15:13* Everyone. *15:14* Like, everyone saw them. *15:15* And she's like, Titanic kind of stunk. *15:16* And I'm like, doesn't matter. *15:17* You you're not getting it. *15:19* Like it's made it's like the number one movie of the world even adjusted with all these other movies that are just like not adjusted for inflation. *15:20* Like it's like and and the only one to de like the first one to dethrone *15:26* Titanic was his other. *15:32* Yeah, exactly. *15:34* He like Yeah, so it's like, yeah, he knows how to make movies that people want to go see. *15:35* How many other directors *15:41* or s world creator storytellers get a theme park after one movie. *15:43* Just w a whole theme park dedicated to your one movie. *15:48* Like that doesn't happen. *15:51* Yeah, yeah. *15:54* And then I looked up the top four because I was like, I want to make sure. *15:55* I think number one's still Avatar 1. *15:58* And then it's endgame. *16:01* And then it's uh either Titanic or away of the water. *16:04* So it's of the top four, he's three of 'em. *16:08* Yeah. *16:10* Like the guy he he knows how to make moves *16:11* I don't care if you think they're bad. *16:13* Everybody's watching them. *16:14* And then they always look amazing. *16:15* They're always just, I mean, the best technology would I mean they *16:16* He's like living in the Mariana trench. *16:22* He's filming things underwater. *16:25* He's doing all sorts of wild stuff. *16:27* I'm not gonna get into that. *16:35* The guys make movies forever. *16:37* Whatever. *16:38* Let the man just make the movies. *16:39* Yeah, yeah. *16:42* But aliens *16:42* Pretty good. *16:44* Yeah. *16:46* No the weird thing is, so this is another one where I've I saw that. *16:47* I mean I've seen Ripley fight the *16:50* Queen with the such thing. *16:52* Sure, yeah. *16:53* I mean, if you've played Conquer, you've seen it. *16:54* Yeah. *16:57* So um wow, I forgot that was in Conquer. *16:59* I want to play that again. *17:02* But um *17:04* Yeah, so this when I was watching it this time coming off the first one, like I I knew this one was more action packed or whatever, but like the tonal change. *17:05* I mean you really do feel that. *17:14* And in the first hour I was just like I *17:16* Know if I I don't know if I like this. *17:19* Like, it's so different. *17:20* Um and I know this is gonna sound so stupid, but I don't know. *17:22* When Ripley is just uh she's just talking to like normal people. *17:28* And they're just like in regular suits and stuff. *17:32* I don't it didn't feel like futuristic. *17:34* Mm-hmm. *17:36* I I know that sounds so stupid. *17:37* I was just like, I don't know, the way they're dressed, it just looks like *17:38* They're just like in a regular pl it doesn't seem It doesn't seem like we're in our space. *17:42* Yeah. *17:46* Yeah, yeah. *17:47* It just felt I don't know, too normal, but then like an hour in, then once she they go to the planet and *17:48* everything and they kinda it's almost like um it's a this is a weird comparison but my my initial thought was like this is this is the lost world Jurassic Park in space they're like *17:54* How do we get this person that should have no business going back to this thing? *18:07* Like, how do we rope them into it? *18:12* It almost *18:13* Yeah, like how can we get Jeff Goldblum who like really just sat the first movie out because he got hurt? *18:16* And like how do we rope how do we rope this character back into the movie? *18:22* You know what I mean? *18:27* Like it kind of had that feeling. *18:27* And that was another where I was just like, I don't know if I'm feeling this. *18:29* They're just kind of like coming up with an excuse to get Ripley back into action. *18:32* But anyway, once it started to happen, I was all in and it was awesome. *18:36* ended up ended up loving it. *18:40* Aliens is really aliens is wild. *18:41* Yeah. *18:45* Yeah. *18:45* I want to jump to Prometheus. *18:46* Prometheus was the first alien movie I ever saw *18:49* And I didn't know I didn't know it was an alien movie. *18:53* I just was like, oh, there's this like space movie out. *18:56* I'll go see that um 18 or something, I think. *18:58* Uh at the *19:02* the time. *19:03* And uh yeah, that movie's wild on some parts. *19:04* I like the lore bits a little bit. *19:08* Um *19:11* Mm-hmm. *19:12* It gets a little crazy there at the end, as far as I remember it. *19:13* Uh it's been a minute since I've seen Prometheus. *19:16* I kind of have wanted to go back since Romulus. *19:19* I've wanted to go back and watch it again. *19:21* So I guess seeing that movie not knowing anything about Alien, not even knowing it's related to Alien, like I guess didn't *19:24* Did you like it? *19:33* Like you thought it was cool? *19:34* Yeah, yeah, yeah. *19:35* At the time for sure. *19:35* I was I it was I remember buying it on Blue Right, this is a good movie. *19:36* Um I think well obviously once *19:40* the birth happens and like it comes out, you're like, oh yeah. *19:43* I've seen that thing before, you know, in pop culture or what have you. *19:46* Mm-hmm. *19:50* Mm-hmm. *19:50* It's cool, you know, that idea of it. *19:51* I I like the idea of the whole *19:53* I I think that's there's something pure in that, being able to see Prometheus and having no clue it's an alien movie. *19:56* Like there's just a complete social disconnect for me. *20:01* Um so it's fun. *20:04* I probably actually liked it more because of that. *20:06* Because uh That's what I'm thinking. *20:08* Because when you see when you know it's an alien movie, like in Covenant's case, it like doesn't help *20:11* it at all. *20:16* It's like oh please stop. *20:16* Right, right. *20:19* I guess I didn't hate that one as much as you, but I get we'll get to that one. *20:20* But yeah for Prometheus, I'm kinda torn on it. *20:23* I like some of the lore ideas. *20:27* I think the engineers are pretty cool *20:28* Cool. *20:30* Uh I don't know how I feel about the black goose th I don't Yeah. *20:31* So the scientists roll up *20:41* And they just keep doing dumb things and it's like you guys are so smart. *20:44* Look what you're d you're traveling to other planets and then you show up and you're just making all these dumb mistakes. *20:47* Like It it feels like every alien movie has this moment of like *20:52* Oh, don't let the infected you know, the person with the giant thing on their face into the ship. *20:57* Yeah. *21:04* And they're like, nah, we gotta let him in. *21:04* And it's like, guys. *21:06* Clearly. *21:08* We're in a very dangerous situation. *21:09* Safety of the crew, they gotta stay out. *21:12* But nope, no one ever remembers that. *21:15* Right. *21:18* I don't know. *21:18* No one learns that lesson. *21:19* Even in Romulus it happens. *21:20* Oh yeah. *21:22* So that that's so that I So with Covenant, I'm gonna go I'm gonna connect this to Romulus in a second. *21:24* with c with the crew. *21:30* So with Covenant, the crew is also so dumb in that, but I was kind of okay with that because like they weren't like they w I *21:31* I mean I guess they were kind of experts. *21:43* But they didn't seem like they were like the geniuses that the people in Prometheus were. *21:45* They were just they had a job and they were trying to see do the job. *21:50* Well, I mean I guess you could say that about *21:53* both of them but the Prometheus Person people were actually there they were trying to find signs of or the origin of life or whatever. *21:54* So they were on the super important *22:02* mission, you know. *22:04* Yeah. *22:05* Whereas Covenant they were just trying to colonize some other planet. *22:05* So it's different mindset with these crews. *22:09* Um so but they were so dumb in Covenant. *22:12* But in Romulus they were also dumb, but they're just a bunch of kids. *22:14* Just *22:18* just who had no idea about anything. *22:18* So it's like, it's I'm totally fine with them making dumb mistakes because they're literally just a bunch of kids that are scared and they have no idea what they got themselves. *22:21* into. *22:30* Exactly. *22:30* That that softens the blow on like some of the dumb decisions that everyone makes in that movie. *22:31* It's *22:38* I mean, let's just well yeah, look Alien 3. *22:41* I always in my head, I think I remember Alien 3 more fondly. *22:46* than it it probably is. *22:51* I mean it g has given us the iconic gif of Sigurian. *22:52* I mean, that is truly a great scene. *22:57* I still don't like fully understand why they *22:59* Alien doesn't like see her there. *23:03* Um he does because he knows she's she's pregnant. *23:05* But yeah, so she won't he won't do it because she's she's got the baby. *23:09* uh interview protect the species. *23:12* It makes sense. *23:15* I don't know. *23:16* It's a great scene. *23:16* And I like the idea of a prison planet, but the the issues you pointed out in your tweet that just it reminds me of like, oh yeah. *23:18* we just like totally throw new under the uh oh yeah proverbial spaceship bus like we just basically like *23:25* disrespect the entire end of aliens and we're like, nope, we gotta similarly, like, how do we get Sigourney Weaver back in trouble with a xenomorph? *23:35* It's like, oh, what if we just everything goes wrong off screen? *23:45* It's like Yeah. *23:49* Yeah. *23:52* We could have done this better. *23:52* Yeah, and it's like kinda depressing because it's like, well, I like Newt. *23:55* I wanted her to survive. *23:59* She did survive this huge ordeal *24:00* And no, at least the cat got to survive. *24:02* He stayed back on before she left for aliens, so that's nice. *24:04* But um, and then Hicks, like, you know, he made it. *24:08* And then they kill both of them. *24:12* And then yeah, the first like twenty minutes of this movie is just Oh man, my friends died. *24:14* And it's depressing. *24:20* This planet sucks. *24:23* a funeral. *24:26* And I'm just like, this is not I mean not that like I they're like kind of fun movies, you know what I mean? *24:27* Like Alien debate well if it's fun. *24:33* like feeling horrible. *24:39* Um and that was just that's kind of the vibe with that movie. *24:41* And I know peop there actually are people that I think really do like Alien 3 kind of because of that. *24:44* reason they like how serious it is um but for me it was just such a like buzzkill that it's at the bottom of my list because I just didn't really find anything reasonable *24:48* Redeeming in it. *24:58* Well, I you this actually kinda reminded me, I haven't actually read this yet, but *25:00* There is an unproduced script for Alien Three that was from William Gibson that was I guess the original run of it, I guess is the story was written by Johnny Christmas. *25:07* Which feels like a fake name. *25:21* Um Johnny Christmas. *25:23* Anyway, I I've heard that this is actually like the version that people like, so maybe that's something to read or look *25:27* I'm curious. *25:38* I'll have to dig into that more. *25:39* I've always heard about it but never like gone back and read it myself. *25:41* Maybe that uh *25:44* fixes some of our issues that we seem to have with it. *25:46* So an uh yeah another thing with alien three two that I mentioned uh in that thread is *25:50* the um the marketing so I was I mean probably sixth seventh grade or whatever when this movie came out just *25:55* guessing. *26:04* Uh marketing was huge. *26:05* And and I feel targeted at kids. *26:06* Like to me it seemed like it was the coolest movie that was coming out. *26:08* That all the video games there was you know *26:11* you know, for Super Nintendo and Genesis and like the tie-ins and toys and stuff. *26:13* So like I couldn't wait to see this movie even though I didn't really s I s you know, I saw parts even at that age, I saw parts of the first two. *26:18* Uh but I couldn't wait to see this movie. *26:25* Um and I I do wonder if the studio expected *26:28* To market I I wonder if they expected to be marketing something that was more like Aliens Aliens 2, 3. *26:35* Like you know, like a sequel to that where it's more action-packed and a little more *26:42* um faster faster pace, a little more fun. *26:47* Little colonial marine action figures and say getting then when you push the button. *26:50* Yeah, I w I wonder if that was what they thought they were getting when they were coming up with all that all that marketing. *26:56* stuff because it's not a kid's movie. *27:01* It's not a movie a kid would like. *27:03* I do remember finally seeing it when it was on like it came on HBO. *27:06* It was on all the time. *27:09* And I remember *27:10* Not really liking it, but almost kind of like forcing myself to like it because it was supposed to be cool. *27:13* You know what I mean? *27:19* So like I'm watching like this is the cool thing, so it's gotta be good. *27:20* But uh yeah, as an adult out of that mindset, I just thought it was depressing. *27:24* Not an uplifting hor Halloween film *27:32* No. *27:36* I mean, from what I remember of Resurrection, it's kind of like another 180 in a way. *27:36* Um, I guess it's what happens when you put Josh Wheat in. *27:43* Yeah, uh yeah that was a that was a surprise. *27:47* So this I I saw this in the movies when it was new, so that puts me probably my junior, senior year *27:50* year of high school, uh hated it, wanted to walk out. *27:58* One of the few movies I wanted to walk out of the first time. *28:02* Yeah. *28:06* Yeah. *28:12* And yeah, and this movie's like the complete opposite of three. *28:14* It's like super silly. *28:17* Like too silly. *28:19* Too fun. *28:20* You know, like just ridiculous. *28:21* So however, now coming back to that as an adult, um I kind of appre it's terr a terrible movie, but like I guess after watching three *28:22* I and I was kind of cracking. *28:34* Like I kind of enjoyed the crew. *28:36* It's got like Ron Perlman and stuff. *28:37* And you know, I was enjoying that crew. *28:39* But yeah, not good. *28:45* But I was cracking up a lot, probably when I wasn't, maybe when I was supposed to, I don't know. *28:47* Who's the guy that does Chucky? *28:52* He's in it. *28:54* uh voice of chuckling dur Brad Durif Durf I think uh he's in it so like you know his scenes are supposed to be kind of like *28:54* you know he's hamming it up he's supposed to be having fun so it's definitely silly I did not realize jos Jos Reedon had written it until I started to watch it saw his name and yeah immediately I was like *29:03* Yeah, of course this guy wrote this movie. *29:15* Like it's it feels like something he would write. *29:17* Yeah. *29:20* But yeah, it's awful. *29:20* Yeah, it's terrible. *29:22* It's a terrible, terrible movie. *29:23* Um I think that brings us to Romulus. *29:27* We talked about Covenant a little bit uh already, but Romulus is it's Alien's greatest hits. *29:30* Which I love. *29:37* Uh you get you get all the good parts. *29:39* Um but I wanted to say, I guess spoiler warning for Romulus, just because that's a newer one. *29:42* It's new. *29:48* Yeah. *29:49* But I uh s when we were leaving the theater, you t you talked about how you didn't like the or *29:50* And until they started looping Prometheus lore into it and the final boss was lame. *29:57* Uh the big gargantuan man-child xenomorph. *30:02* Uh when I was leaving the theater, I I similarly thought it was very Prometheus of them to do that at the end. *30:06* But apparently that creature *30:14* was the origin was one of the original designs for an alien from Geiger. *30:16* Um and so they actually were able to incorporate it. *30:22* So like that's I guess part of the payoff. *30:28* If you if someone had said that when he left. *30:31* So like that made me appreciate that scene more. *30:33* And of course you get that just truly horrific birthing scene and and you know all that stuff. *30:36* And it it that's how they tie the Prometheus like *30:41* like greatest hits part into it, I think, because that is yeah. *30:43* That is scary. *30:47* Um it gave me it ki it gave me flashbacks in a strange way too. *30:48* the birth of my daughter two years ago. *30:54* I was like, oh my gosh. *30:56* Oh god. *30:57* I don't want to be here in the theater right now. *30:58* Uh *31:02* Where are the doctors? *31:03* That birth guy, yeah, that birth guy. *31:05* Wow. *31:08* Well it's it's mind blowing. *31:08* Yeah, it is mind blowing. *31:10* Um *31:11* And so when it's happening with a giant horrific alien, it's like oh, right? *31:12* Like which is pretty cool. *31:19* Yeah, they did practical effects. *31:20* Um about a puppeteer dude in a suit type *31:22* stuff which all for that. *31:25* All for that type of stuff. *31:28* Um I love her amules so much. *31:30* It's it's Yeah, people really love it. *31:34* People really I I liked it a lot. *31:36* I uh when you look at the list number three on the list, so I did like it a lot. *31:38* That's where it belongs. *31:42* You can't dethrone the two. *31:45* Right, right. *31:47* And yeah, I think like the the first the first I don't know forty minutes or so of that movie *31:49* not quite half it felt very original and I uh I found myself getting like pretty invested. *31:57* I was like this is cool. *32:04* I'm enjoying this, especially when they introduced the gravity. *32:05* Um the gravity was cool. *32:08* I could see that instantly as a game mechanic. *32:09* Like my brain was like, oh my gosh, this would be a video game moment. *32:12* Well when it yeah and when it was happening I thought they were gonna take it way f further than they did. *32:17* I was just like I can't believe they're gonna be dealing with this the whole movie. *32:21* I was like, this is gonna be nuts. *32:23* Like no wonder people like this so much. *32:24* And then they just like hit the off button and then I thought, well, they're gonna come back to it *32:25* at the end 'cause they gotta use it. *32:30* And they did, you know, they use it to make the big sand. *32:32* That scene was fun. *32:34* It was cool. *32:35* But I really thought like, oh man, I can't believe they're gonna do a whole movie where like every couple of minutes they're *32:36* thrown off thrown off. *32:41* And then I also then also started getting me thinking, I was like, so the aliens built like a whole hive when they were constantly being *32:44* thrown off grout. *32:51* I mean whatever now like that's when you just start nitpicking it. *32:54* You can do that with any movie. *32:56* But um Yeah yeah. *32:57* But it was fun, but then once like yeah, once it turned into the greatest hits *32:59* You know, remember the pulse rifle, remember like that I started to kind of get a little turned off. *33:03* Maybe mi I can see in your case, or a fan's case, where *33:10* It's been so long since you had this great alien movie. *33:16* We needed a win. *33:19* Yes. *33:21* When they're hitting you with all that stuff, right? *33:22* You're just like, Oh, here it is, here it is. *33:24* But for me watching everything back to back, I was like, I just saw that. *33:26* I just like I don't care. *33:29* It's not doing it for me. *33:30* So I can see what why the long-term fan would be *33:31* In into that. *33:36* Yeah. *33:38* Um I thought even they got some like colonial marine stuff in there. *33:38* I mean when she just goes totally using *33:42* Auto aim. *33:46* Video games again just let me use auto aim in this hallway. *33:47* I'm like, oh wow. *33:50* Yeah. *33:52* You got it all in there. *33:52* Yeah *33:54* They did it all. *33:56* Do you are you familiar with the TV show they're doing? *33:57* I'm I'm back. *34:01* I mean I heard it exists, but uh *34:02* I don't know like anything. *34:04* Similar. *34:05* That's like they're doing it from Noah Hawley who did the Fargo TV show. *34:06* And I just don't know if I want like I don't know. *34:12* I *34:16* I know we just had a win, but I'm like, it's too close. *34:18* I don't know if TV show and alien go together. *34:22* Here's my here's what maybe gonna be my unpopular opinion on *34:25* And a lot of is it I'm assuming it's a streaming show, right? *34:29* It's gonna be a streaming. *34:32* It's on FX, so Oh it's on Hulu, but it's also on cable. *34:34* So it's a real show. *34:40* Is it how many episodes is it gonna be? *34:41* I don't know if they said. *34:43* I'll look it up. *34:44* Um Okay. *34:45* Like it I have like a Because I just feel like a lot of these shows, especially the streaming shows. *34:46* There are eight episodes or whatever. *34:54* And I just feel like they are a two-hour movie. *34:55* There's two hours of content. *34:58* And they sh with at they stretch it to eight hours. *35:00* Every single one of these *35:03* shows that I don't I don't want to watch them. *35:04* I don't I've I barely watch any shows because that's all they are. *35:06* They're just too like just give me the movie. *35:10* I don't want the I don't want all these episodes. *35:13* So IMDB says it is eight episodes. *35:16* I'm telling you it's gonna be uh mark mark my words. *35:22* You're getting a two-hour movie. *35:25* You're in a two-hour movie stretched out to eight hours. *35:27* That's what they did. *35:31* I'm just I don't know. *35:33* I'm I'm nervous about it. *35:35* Romulus made me hopeful, but this one apparently is set three decades before the original film. *35:38* So we'll see. *35:45* So that'll definitely have some covenant *35:47* Prometheus ties. *35:50* I imagine, yeah. *35:53* So we'll see. *35:54* But I I do remain skeptical of that. *35:56* The best alien news since Romulus was that Isolation is getting a sequel from Creative. *35:58* Uh maybe, you know, a whole eight to seven years too late because the gre sequel should have been greenlit immediately. *36:04* But I'm excited to see where they take that. *36:11* And I guess there is an alien VR game coming out. *36:13* Next month. *36:17* Oh. *36:19* I might look at that. *36:19* Oh wow. *36:20* That would be spooky. *36:21* Um But I'm very glad that you watched Alien like all the way through for the first time. *36:23* I'm that made me happy to see that. *36:27* So cool. *36:30* I'm glad. *36:31* More alien people in the fold. *36:32* So we'll see. *36:34* Did you watch Alien vs. *36:35* Predator? *36:37* I know you were you were hoping you could fit it in *36:37* Uh yeah, I wanted to. *36:39* I didn't have time. *36:41* I wanted to do both of them and I didn't have time and I have a weird thing where like I'm out of oc it ain't happening, I'm out of October. *36:42* Yeah I'm not watching them. *36:48* You you can watch them eventually again na you know in a future October, but *36:49* Yeah. *36:53* It's gotta be in October, so I um I was originally supposed to see Romulus. *36:54* I'll say this story and then we'll go we'll get back to it. *37:00* I was supposed to see Romulus, you know, opening weekend with my wife, who's also an alien fan. *37:03* We were very pumped. *37:08* But then she got sick, and so she couldn't go. *37:09* And I was like, well, I mean I'll go see it by myself, but you know, who wants to go see it with me? *37:13* And so my dad went and saw it with me. *37:18* Okay. *37:20* And my dad *37:21* I don't think has ever seen Alien before in his life. *37:23* Oh really? *37:27* Alien. *37:32* I don't know. *37:32* He's not really a horror movie guy, is the point. *37:33* I'm like, you sure you want to see this? *37:36* It's gonna be pretty serious. *37:38* And he was like, I'll go with you, whatever. *37:40* And I think his words out of the theater were *37:42* Well that was horrific. *37:45* Oh, oh, so he did not enjoy it. *37:49* Uh I think he was disturbed. *37:51* Really? *37:55* I think the birth really got him. *37:56* Because that's, you know, right at the end. *37:59* It's very tense. *38:01* People are dying very rapidly. *38:02* Tuck 'em right out of it. *38:05* Yeah, I think so. *38:07* So I don't know if you'd ever watch that again. *38:08* But then like a week or two later, I took Abby and she loved it. *38:10* And it was fun to see it a second time and know everything that was coming. *38:13* I was like, oh. *38:17* Yeah. *38:18* This is fun still, so it was a good time. *38:18* It's a good time. *38:21* I'm glad you joined the club. *38:21* Someday I'll share it with my kids. *38:23* I assume you will too. *38:27* I assume they didn't watch it with you. *38:28* Yeah. *38:29* Or at least I don't know. *38:29* It will not be shared with my kids because they don't like anything like spooky. *38:32* Or gross, or they're just they're not. *38:40* That may happen to me too. *38:43* I don't know. *38:44* And I thought maybe at this age, I mean they're freshman in high school. *38:45* Um, I thought at this age maybe they'd start to come around. *38:49* Uh like my one daughter, I took her to her first like uh haunted you know, big haunted house, haunted attraction at like a farm. *38:52* last Halloween. *38:59* My other daughter didn't want to go. *39:00* She loved it. *39:02* So then we tried to convince my other daughter she's still too scared. *39:03* She don't want to *39:06* do it fine uh my other daughter wanted to go my daughter that liked it last year she still wanted so we went back this year whatever so after I was just like if you you love this I I see *39:07* Said, watch like a horror movie. *39:17* I was like, well, let's watch Halloween. *39:18* I was like, Halloween's not that bad. *39:19* No, absolutely, absolutely not. *39:21* Like just flat out refused. *39:24* I'm like, all right. *39:26* I said, I think you could I think you would enjoy it. *39:26* So *39:29* I think I might be able to start getting her. *39:30* Okay. *39:33* Just gotta like get the claws in it a little bit. *39:33* Yeah, yeah, yeah. *39:36* It'll be good, but we'll see how it all shakes out. *39:38* We'll see. *39:41* Maybe they'll become the some of the biggest horror fans eventually someday, and that'll be ironic. *39:41* I don't know. *39:45* Yeah. *39:46* Alright. *39:50* Speaking of horrific, I is is the process of making a book horrific? *39:50* I don't know, you tell me. *39:56* It seems like it'd be stressful at least. *39:58* So this wasn't too stressful because a lot of it was done. *40:02* So a lot of it, so the book, uh or *40:06* We're we're on 2020x now. *40:09* We are on. *40:11* We are on 2020 video game reflections by Phil Summers. *40:12* Yeah. *40:16* So uh so like I mean yeah, a lot of this was kind of done. *40:17* Um *40:22* It was a whole bunch of my these reviews that I did with like an illustration. *40:23* I did them over the course of two years. *40:28* So it's like a compilation book. *40:30* Um and of course *40:32* to I I added a whole bunch of stuff. *40:34* But uh yeah, so for the most part a lot of this was finished, which was that made it easy. *40:36* It wasn't *40:42* like you know what I mean it was a different approach uh I made it because I had a lot of people saying that they would like to get a book like this. *40:42* I wasn't sure if anyone would go for it. *40:50* I conducted a survey. *40:52* uh a few months before I started um to get some feedback and people were into it so I thought okay I guess this is gonna maybe be worth my time *40:54* Um so yeah, I started putting it together and it I worked on it, I would say *41:04* Mmm for about five months, four months, like pretty steady. *41:13* Um and it wasn't too bad. *41:21* So one of the things that was hard, the hardest part actually *41:23* I had I included screenshots with uh all the games and I wanted to I didn't want to just like grab just photos off the internet or *41:27* whatever or like direct capture footage or screens. *41:39* I wanted to manually take all the the photos. *41:42* So um I would set up all the games on all the original consoles, you know, on on the console and on a TV. *41:46* So I took a lot of these screens off all my pictures off CR. *41:53* That took forever just taking photos of all the different games. *41:56* I didn't think it was going to take that long, uh, but it did. *41:59* So that was kind of hard. *42:03* But other than that, I added like new thoughts to each of the little entries, little passages, and it kind of came together pretty well. *42:05* I had uh my friend Randy was the editor on it. *42:14* it and he did a great job giving me feedback he and I think improved all my writing. *42:16* Um yeah so it wasn't it wasn't too bad. *42:23* It was pretty straightforward process. *42:26* Yeah, it's so for a little a little bit more context on the book, like you said, these are it's a compilation of all your video game reflections that you did in 22 and *42:29* in 23. *42:40* Um some of them were Patreon posts, others were like the blog post on the hand-drawn gaming website and they kind of just all culminated and they're they're all brought together. *42:42* Hence *42:51* the word compilation. *42:51* We actually talked about it last time you were on the show, not the book, but the reflections themselves. *42:53* And I remember being uh *42:57* really hooked and engaged right because they were so short and sweet and the art obviously compelling uh love fills art over here. *43:01* Here in this in the Roberts House, Phil's art. *43:10* Big thumbs up. *43:13* Uh oh cool. *43:15* Thank you. *43:16* All around here. *43:16* So it seemed like the logical like when I saw that you were making the book, and I may even filled out the survey, I'm not sure. *43:17* I was like, yep, that that's that's an Instagrab for me. *43:25* Because I didn't read all of your reflections, but when they would come in or on the Patreon, I'd read *43:29* them. *43:33* Yeah. *43:34* And it was cool to then come to the ones that I remember reading and be like, I remember this story, because they're also personal. *43:34* It's not just, oh, X game is good, you know *43:42* Oh, here's Contra Arcade version of, you know, I play this all the time. *43:46* No, it's more like you were I think the Contra one you were at uh *43:49* an arcade or something. *43:54* It's like, well, why isn't Phil over at the cabinet? *43:55* It's like, ah, I already beat it. *43:57* You know? *43:59* And so that sticks out way more than, oh, Contra's a good game. *43:59* You shoot a lot of bullets and go to the right. *44:04* So I think that's what's so fun. *44:07* But I kinda wanna I guess start with the actual inception of making the book. *44:10* And we actually talked about this like a tiny bit the other day, but *44:16* Producing this five months of your time plus technically all the time before you end to make all the reflections, not that you were gonna do that. *44:22* Yeah. *44:30* And it's like, well, is this going to be worth my time? *44:31* And you have to get feedback from your audience, which you've you've grown over the years. *44:33* And in that episode you said you're like, I think people like them. *44:38* And so it's like, how do you go from I think people like them to all right, well let's make this a book. *44:42* So is that survey? *44:49* Like what *44:50* Yeah, the survey was key. *44:52* So how many how many yeses does a survey do you need on a survey? *44:55* Survey says yes, you know, how many do you need to feel confident in the the push? *44:58* Survey was close to a thousand people saying yes. *45:04* I did not sell anywhere near a thousand. *45:09* Okay. *45:11* Which I knew of course you're gonna it's it's very easy to get a survey and be like, yeah sure I'd buy that. *45:12* And then when the thing happens, you're like, well, money's tight. *45:17* Or eh, maybe I don't, maybe I really don't want that after all. *45:20* You know what I mean? *45:23* So of course there's gonna be a drop-off. *45:23* Um *45:25* So I did not come close to a thousand. *45:26* But that was enough to be like, okay, there's people people like people like the idea of this. *45:30* So if I can do that and I can move a couple of these things, then hopefully it's worth my time. *45:36* That's really the *45:42* how it started. *45:46* Because as far as like I I feel like I never got um I never got too much traction with with them. *45:48* So the main posting place was well I *45:56* I used them on the Patreon for hand-drawn gaming. *45:59* It was like a supplemental feature of that. *46:02* Have everybody had them like a week in advance before I posted them around on social media. *46:04* And people liked them. *46:10* And I think people that were fans of the work I was doing *46:12* um enjoyed them because it kind of ties into that. *46:17* I don't think they were very good at making like a new audience. *46:23* Um when I would post them like on Twitter, I'm just gonna call it Twitter. *46:28* It's Twitter. *46:32* When I would post Yeah. *46:33* When I would post them on that, um *46:35* You know, the ones that you would expect to be read would be read and and shared, you know, Super Mario, Metroid Prime, that kind of thing, of course, like people click those and and they're gonna *46:38* They'll get a fair amount of like likes. *46:49* But they never really did too much. *46:52* They didn't really help me grow my audience. *46:54* At one point, in a way, they actually kind of hurt me. *46:56* So *47:00* At one point, the way I was originally doing them is because you can't tweet a lot of words. *47:02* So I would include the art and then I would write the words on a separate image. *47:06* So you would have these two images and the art was kind of small. *47:12* And that was driving me nuts. *47:15* Because I was like, I don't think people, first off, they can't see the art. *47:16* And *47:21* Then they gotta click this other image to read the words, which I know a lot of people post the image and they'll read it, whatever, but seeing the two things together like it bothered me. *47:22* Elon had already bought Twitter at this point. *47:30* So now the blue check you could buy. *47:33* But the feature for me, the thing I wanted. *47:36* for that was like well I wanna try and grow this thing like I they're not they're not really hitting outside of my audience right so I'm just gonna buy the I'm gonna buy the check for a year. *47:40* I mean well it's not gonna hurt, right? *47:51* I'm just gonna *47:53* gonna do it and then I can post the whole thing, the image will be nice and big, maybe that would increase engagement. *47:53* Sure. *48:00* Um so that did not work. *48:00* It made people *48:04* So literally a couple days after I bought the stupid blue check, um That was when uh they announced something and people I forget *48:07* what it was. *48:19* It was one of the many things that has happened over the last like year and a half on that platform that people just like got mad. *48:20* There's like waves. *48:26* Like something happens and people *48:27* leave. *48:28* They're like, we're leaving. *48:29* We're out of here. *48:29* And they take off. *48:30* Yeah. *48:31* Settles down. *48:32* Settles down. *48:33* Some people come back. *48:34* The new thing happens. *48:35* We're leaving. *48:36* So it was right when that, whatever that was, we're leaving happened. *48:37* Oh, I know what it was. *48:40* All the real blue checks lost their blue check and it just became the pay people. *48:42* That's what it was. *48:46* That was the big event. *48:47* Oh, so then you're it's like a big spotlight on oh Phil gave them money. *48:48* Yes, and now I'm the bad guy. *48:54* All of a sudden, in that moment, I'm um like dude I had um I had a whole bunch of people unfollow me. *48:57* I had people say, you know, I can't believe *49:05* you did this. *49:08* I had um the I had p all these I I was the the the funniest thing is when you start realizing all these people block you because you're going through conversations *49:08* And it's like, why can't I read that? *49:20* And then you click it like you're blocked. *49:21* It's like, I don't even know who this person is. *49:23* I don't even know who this is. *49:24* And I'm blocked. *49:25* I didn't even do it. *49:26* You didn't want those people following you anyway, Phil, is what I'm gonna *49:27* Well, I know, but it's still like it's crazy. *49:31* And a lot of the some of them uh some of them are like pretty like well-known game people. *49:34* Because they get retweeted a lot, right? *49:40* Sure, yeah. *49:42* And all of us all of a sudden I'm not seeing posts that are being read and I'm like, why am I not seeing this? *49:43* I'm like, I can't believe this person like I even do I never even interacted with this person *49:46* So it it was a very weird um thing to go through when it's like I just really wanted to promote my work and now no one's now it's just like because this platform is so out of control, like *49:51* This is not doing what I hoped it would do. *50:05* And it didn't really even if it had increased, like uh if I knew it was helping me build something, I would have been like, well, this is worth it. *50:08* it to me because even though I'm like you said it you're losing those people whatever who cares at least I would be building something I didn't build anything I like stagnated for that whole time um *50:18* And you know, for me it was actually a big turnoff um to where I was like, I don't really want to use this too much anymore. *50:30* So I wrote out the rest of that year. *50:38* I still used it to post the game *50:41* reflections I didn't post nearly as much as I used to on there and then um I hid my blue check as in *50:43* Oh wow. *50:55* Yeah, they know you got it. *51:03* Yeah. *51:04* So like you you *51:04* can kinda hide it. *51:05* Uh th they find out. *51:07* And then uh I let it ride out. *51:08* I didn't renew it. *51:11* And uh Yeah, I was like whatever. *51:13* I guess that exp that fail taught me a lot of things. *51:16* But like that failed and also just it's just unbelievable to me how *51:19* I understand being angry at that platform and everything that's happened to it and how much it's changed. *51:28* Like I completely get that. *51:34* But it's just so strange to me how like. *51:35* A lot of people are so addicted to it that they still stick around on it. *51:38* Yeah. *51:44* But they're just gonna like block everybody that's just because somebody wants to *51:44* to buy the stupid blue like I don't care if you buy the blue do whatever you want with your money you know what I mean like it's just strange it's very strange thing uh but whatever I it it is over now that *51:48* Sort of. *52:00* But uh yeah, so that's that's that. *52:00* Sorry, that was a whole tangent. *52:02* But anyway, so that I never really built anything with it. *52:04* Like the game guides, when I'm working on a game guide or whatever, you you're posting the work and you're kind of *52:06* cultivating this audience and you're building this audience and then that did not happen with this uh whole project for those two years but uh people still felt strongly enough about them and then that survey feedback was encouraging so I *52:11* I was like, well, I'll give it a go and I'll make this into something. *52:24* Okay. *52:29* That's probably more than you bargain for there with that. *52:29* response I guess. *52:33* No, that's I mean it is more than I bargained for, but I that is it is fascinating and sad that *52:34* that seemed to be it that's the response that stuck with you, uh, clearly, and that is Oh yeah. *52:43* That's like so *52:50* unfortunate because the the use case of why even you purchased it is so obvious and apparent. *52:53* It was to their benefit, actually. *53:01* Um, but they just looked at one thing and decided to throw that all away. *53:04* And they're they're the ones missing out, uh, overall. *53:09* Um *53:12* And I'm I'm uh I guess there's no way to know it, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of them bought the book as well. *53:13* Uh *53:21* Which, you know, you win in the end anyway, I suppose. *53:22* I mean that's like I think of like the people who are like, Oh, I'm not gonna buy the Last of Us Part Two after that game leaked early, and they most surely did and played it and all that stuff. *53:25* Um same sort of mindset, I think. *53:35* So it's just sad. *53:38* The internet is a very especially Twitter can be a very loud and angry place *53:39* Uh oh they don't do uh their usually their words don't end up meaning anything. *53:44* So I'm glad that you *53:50* Stuck through it and obviously went on to make the book. *53:53* I'm so I kind of had this like divided up into two things. *53:56* The design of the book and the like just the book overall itself. *54:01* And *54:05* Uh I've only made a book once, and that was a fairly easy process for me, because I just made one copy for for Max. *54:07* Um Barnes and Noble will let you like *54:14* upload, you know, formatted PDFs and and print a book. *54:17* Okay. *54:21* You know, sure, why not Barnes and Noble? *54:21* Um *54:23* And so I did that for my big naughty dog piece, Chasing the Stick. *54:25* And just like wanted my own copy of that. *54:31* And that was fun. *54:33* Yeah. *54:34* Uh but you obviously have gone through kind of this production flow a couple of different times in ways, mostly *54:34* By yourself. *54:43* We talked about that in the first episode. *54:44* The thousand labels falling on the floor. *54:46* Um, you're mailing these things out. *54:48* And then with the Kickstarter, you partnered with you were partnering with, what was it, Dream Something, right? *54:51* As a as a Dream Prison Press. *54:57* Dream Prison Press. *55:00* So I feel like you've you've learned a lot about the *55:01* print production book design process. *55:06* And so I'm kinda I wrote out the flow, at least how I imagine it goes. *55:09* You correct me if I'm wrong, but like *55:13* So step one is just like assemble all of the reflections and put them in order. *55:15* Is that a fairly accurate step one? *55:21* Yeah, just a Google Doc. *55:24* Yep. *55:25* Yeah. *55:26* So then *55:26* Are you uh besides the editing process that that Randy would have done to like just clean up grammar, words, writing and things like that, are you touching up the art? *55:28* Are you or uh the art was the art that you posted a year or two ago? *55:36* Or like what's that like for you to watch outside? *55:42* So little touch-ups. *55:46* Um so *55:47* Uh yeah, so with the art, that that piece of it, so most of them are exactly the same. *55:50* Um maybe little edits here and there. *55:57* Um like the Ninja Turtle the Turtles in Time one. *56:01* I got my book right here. *56:04* It has a red background. *56:06* So that was like a I think when I posted that it was just like white. *56:07* I don't think *56:10* think I use so like little things like that where I just touched it up in the case of the arcade contra game yeah and actually 13 sentinels so the *56:10* arcade contra um I didn't like the art that I had for that I just drew a picture of the the they looked terrible it was just the two Contra guys shooting *56:20* Um one of the things I like to do with this series is like um how can I draw a picture that's kind of reflecting *56:29* Reflect reflecting what I'm talking about, right? *56:39* I can't it's not just like I'm not just drawing some random picture of the game. *56:42* I like I want it to kind of link to the *56:45* to the passage the best that I can. *56:47* Sometimes I don't, sometimes I do. *56:50* It all depends. *56:52* Uh so the Concharon I I replaced completely. *56:53* Um and I *56:56* mentioned in that how I prefer the NE version um and I saw the one day someone posted a a a flyer from the arcade version and it's this woman standing at the machine she's *56:57* like you know wearing like camo but she's like all sexy wearing her camo. *57:08* Sure. *57:12* Um and she's enjoying the contra machine. *57:12* So I just turned it into that meme with the with the person looking over their shoulder basically and she's looking at the Nest version. *57:14* So I thought that was a little funnier and worked better. *57:20* So stuff like that. *57:24* I did redo a few of them. *57:25* Not too many of them. *57:27* Okay. *57:29* And then *57:30* uh lots of new art. *57:31* I've made a little tip to go when I say tips that's sometimes that's a stretch. *57:33* Sometimes it's just like an additional thought or whatever. *57:37* Sometimes I actually did use an exact screenshot of like a password for the game I was *57:39* playing or whatever. *57:43* Well that one that password's crazy. *57:44* It's like super combo. *57:47* Probably River City Ransom. *57:48* Yeah that one I literally included. *57:50* Yeah, I just took a picture of my screen, my TV. *57:52* for that one. *57:55* Um yeah, so those I just drew a whole bunch of little spot art to go along with those. *57:56* Um *58:03* Yeah, and then I just added a little some little pieces here and there like the contents page, the introduction page where I *58:05* I kind of reference my old work, um that kind of thing. *58:15* But yeah, I love I love uh the little s uh you call it I guess spa art. *58:20* Yeah, the little tips down at the bottom or just little excerpts and stuff. *58:26* They're really fun. *58:29* I like them a lot. *58:30* They would make some of these would make good like emotes in a chat. *58:32* or something or you know like in on like I'm sure in other messaging apps but like in an iMessage you can like pull out an image and make it a sticker like *58:37* You could probably like slap that on a bus. *58:47* That'd be fun. *58:49* Cool little sticker pad. *58:50* And I did make them stickers. *58:51* I did make them stickers. *58:52* You have to do that. *58:53* Well in real life, yes, yes. *58:53* Yeah, yeah, yeah. *58:55* Yeah, real stickers, real life stickers. *58:57* They're gonna go on a water a little sheet. *58:59* I'm gonna put uh I'm gonna put Mario and Luigi on my water bottle, I think. *59:01* I have *59:06* uh this very big Yoshi sticker. *59:07* Yeah. *59:10* So I want to put it next to Yoshi, I think. *59:11* But yeah, that does uh I love the little art there. *59:15* The expansion pack part, so you added not just pictures, but words as well. *59:19* What was it like to go back and revisit so *59:25* Was it just you looking at the game was like, oh yeah, I played conduit on the Wii. *59:29* Here's some more thoughts about it. *59:34* Or was it I don't know, do you just are you reflecting on the reflections? *59:35* Basically, yeah, there it wasn't like I'm gonna play the game again. *59:41* There was not that. *59:44* It was just how am I feeling about this thing a year or two removed? *59:45* What's my takeaway? *59:49* Um, so in the case of *59:51* I think Mega Man 2 for Game Boy I just mentioned and it was kind of blah, right? *59:53* And then my I have barely any expansion pack for that. *59:57* It's yeah, it's literally just like, yeah, I don't remember anything about this game. *01:00:01* Like I called it. *01:00:04* So there you know and there I have nothing else to write. *01:00:08* So some of them are short, some of them are a little longer. *01:00:11* Uh in some cases I used it as a means to kind of slip in like an extra little review. *01:00:13* So like on the Goonies 2, I mentioned the Goonies 1, and the expansion pack of that is basically a a review of the Goonies 1, which I did play. *01:00:18* in in that case. *01:00:30* So uh all depends on the game, really. *01:00:32* But they're fun, they're little treats. *01:00:35* Like, you know, like the little *01:00:36* uh i i like something that would have been uh back of a cereal box or um you know included as like just this tiny little ek I love 'em. *01:00:39* They're just they're the little pieces of delight at the end of a page that's already *01:00:49* I had an I I had an idea for like a code book forever ago. *01:00:58* So this was my way of like kinda getting that out of my system *01:01:01* Just like incorporating that idea into this. *01:01:05* Yeah, and some of them are handy codes. *01:01:08* I like how you credit game facts where you pull the code from game facts. *01:01:09* Yeah, that's fun. *01:01:15* I like that a lot. *01:01:16* Um and then there probably could be like a Konami code counter of like how many times the Konami code is used. *01:01:17* I had no idea it was in uh Metal Gear, Rising Revenge. *01:01:24* That's cool though, that makes sense. *01:01:28* Yeah. *01:01:30* You actually was like, dang, I should play that game because I bought it *01:01:31* Uh I have I think I have two copies of that game and uh I have yet to play it. *01:01:35* I I think one's digital on Xbox and then one on physical on PlayStation. *01:01:40* So *01:01:45* I think that was the that's the rub there. *01:01:45* Uh but I haven't played it. *01:01:48* And then you know what sold me? *01:01:49* And this is I'll use this as the segue here. *01:01:51* You wrote it was like a four or five hour game. *01:01:54* I was like, oh, that sounds incredible. *01:01:56* And a trend that I noticed through the book is you play a lot of old games for the mo I'd say for the most part. *01:02:00* Sometimes you're like, oh yeah, and I beat it in 40 minutes. *01:02:09* Or I beat it in 20 minutes. *01:02:11* Or I'm like, oh my gosh. *01:02:13* That sounds *01:02:15* Incredible. *01:02:17* That's why I love the sh that's why I love short. *01:02:19* I think that's one of the reasons I love old games. *01:02:21* It's because yeah, sometimes it's like I can just throw this game in and even if I don't win *01:02:23* I can play through most of it in like an hour and I'm like satisfied. *01:02:29* Feel good. *01:02:32* Yeah. *01:02:33* I it sounds so it made me want to play a lot of the games you wrote about just 'cause I was like, ah, that sounds like something I can accomplish. *01:02:33* You know, and like a nice victory sense of accomplishment. *01:02:42* Yeah. *01:02:46* It's good. *01:02:47* The pictures, the CRT pictures or the TV screen pictures, I guess some of the games don't actually *01:02:48* unless you have a lot of complicated video gear aren't on your CRTs. *01:02:54* Where'd that idea come from? *01:02:59* And then how did you take the pictures of them? *01:03:01* Cause you said earlier they this was the part that took surprisingly long. *01:03:05* Yeah, so uh I wanted to include the screenshots just to give some context to the game, right? *01:03:10* Because I wanted uh *01:03:16* Um maybe you never heard of the game. *01:03:18* Like you actually said it to me. *01:03:20* You're like, I never even heard of some of these games. *01:03:21* I kind of want to try them. *01:03:22* So I expected that, right? *01:03:24* So I need there needs to be context. *01:03:26* You need to understand, I think, what the game kind of looks like. *01:03:28* looks like. *01:03:31* So I thought, okay, I'm gonna include screenshots. *01:03:33* Because one of the one of the hand-drawn game guides thing is I never use screenshots. *01:03:36* But I felt like in this case to add context to a game to understand *01:03:39* Because I feel like alright, so hand-drawn gaming, right? *01:03:44* Or Zelda, whatever. *01:03:47* You know what you're getting. *01:03:49* Okay, I'm buying Zelda. *01:03:50* I'm familiar with Zelda. *01:03:51* I know what Zelda is. *01:03:52* I know *01:03:53* what Castlevania is so you don't need that well what is I don't know what this is right so I I need to have something there to like show this is the kind of game you're looking at. *01:03:54* Um *01:04:04* Um now the reason I decided to take all the shots with a camera, uh, and I am not a photographer. *01:04:04* As you can tell by some of these pictures. *01:04:12* Um, the reason I decided to do that is I kind of wanted to have that vibe of an old video game magazine. *01:04:14* So especially like an old EGM. *01:04:20* I would I loved in old issues of uh EGM they would do uh like when there was the summer CES like pre *01:04:24* E3 stuff. *01:04:33* They would do these big um features where it was like a single screenshot with a little blurb about what they learned about this game and they would have like I don't know *01:04:34* ten ten games per page or whatever flood it and the screenshots were just you know it was just a guy just standing there with a camera on a show floor *01:04:45* just taking, you know, and then the screenshots were some of them, sometimes they were so bad, but I kind of liked that because I was kind of like got the mind going. *01:04:53* It's like, what does this really look like? *01:05:01* you know. *01:05:03* Um so I kind of wanted to recreate that feel of bad photography. *01:05:03* And I was like, well I'm not a great photographer, so I can definitely nail the bad photography. *01:05:08* Um so I decided decided to give that a shot and and go with it. *01:05:13* And that way I could also just kind of crop them a little weird. *01:05:18* I didn't want to do uh you see a lot of books and magazines when they show like current books and magazines. *01:05:21* uh when they have especially retro games they'll do this direct feed like shot and they blow it's pixel perfect right they blow it up and everything's so sh *01:05:27* sharp and perfect. *01:05:37* I didn't want that. *01:05:38* I just wanted it to kind of look like how you think it might look on on the screen. *01:05:39* I talked about this with Chris Johnston who worked at EGM way back. *01:05:43* back in the day. *01:05:47* He he's the guy that wrote, um, are you familiar with the PlayStation uh skeleton producing mind-boggling effects? *01:05:48* And the the skeleton. *01:05:56* That's him. *01:05:58* Oh wow. *01:05:59* He's the guy who also did the uh infamous Melee April Fool's joke where you showing you how to unlock Sonic. *01:06:00* Um that was also him. *01:06:08* So I Yes. *01:06:09* I got to meet the maker of of a man who caused me great agony as a child in my friend's basement as we tried to do what he *01:06:11* wrote. *01:06:18* Um that's great. *01:06:18* Yeah we f I think we actually we follow each other. *01:06:19* It's CJ, right? *01:06:21* Yeah yeah CJ CJ Yes, yes. *01:06:22* He's great. *01:06:25* Um but I you're right, like those pictures just add texture. *01:06:26* I think. *01:06:31* And I think it pairs well with your art because your art obviously has texture with it as well, the way you're *01:06:32* Um, I don't know what tools you're using, but there is texture. *01:06:39* I can at least tell there's texture. *01:06:43* Like it just in the shading and the color, it *01:06:44* There's something tangible to it. *01:06:48* And I think especially with the older games that *01:06:50* that's almost necessary to pull you back because this is all through your lens and you grew up. *01:06:58* A lot of these games are games that you played as a kid or you played at a neighbor's house, which is just *01:07:07* instantly takes me back to playing games at my neighbor's house like Tarzan on the N64. *01:07:13* That for some reason is ingrained in my brain. *01:07:19* at five years old going down the street in Ohio to play that game at a ki at k kids' house. *01:07:22* Yeah. *01:07:30* But Tarzan not a ter I maybe it is a great game. *01:07:31* I don't know. *01:07:36* I don't I don't know. *01:07:37* I think people like I I have not played it, but I think that I think that game is is well liked. *01:07:37* Maybe I think actually *01:07:42* I think my in-laws have it. *01:07:45* So they kinda kept everything. *01:07:46* Um cool. *01:07:48* So they have a lot of they have an Intellivision up in their uh up in the closet upstairs with a bunch of games. *01:07:50* games and stuff that I've busted out a couple times. *01:07:56* I think the aftars in maybe I should nab it from them and like r reacquaint myself with it. *01:07:58* But I just I love the little the pictures. *01:08:05* And the thought behind it. *01:08:09* Was it so why did it take so long? *01:08:10* Is it just two pictures per game? *01:08:15* So it just took a while to get diverse *01:08:17* Screenshot? *01:08:20* Yeah. *01:08:21* Yeah that and I mean I see you said why did it take so long? *01:08:21* Well that's what I would have thought. *01:08:26* But it just yeah, to set up well now I need to set up the nests. *01:08:27* Now I gotta go collect all the how many nest games *01:08:31* that I play or which ones what which ones that I play on switch which ones you know whatever and I put them all in and it's like I'm trying to take pictures I'm playing I want to play the game a little bit so I have some variety on where I'm where I'm at. *01:08:33* And I mean I guess you'd just be surprised at how long it takes to take pictures of what however many games are in there. *01:08:47* Like 85 *01:08:54* five games or whatever um across all these different consoles sort through all the photos you took um adjust all the photos you took yeah so *01:08:55* Yeah, that one was a secret time sink. *01:09:06* It took a while. *01:09:09* I'd say it like took a month of work. *01:09:10* Like not nonstop, but Yeah. *01:09:12* It was a dedicated task. *01:09:16* Yeah, yeah. *01:09:18* Were you using your phone or like a dedicated camera? *01:09:19* I used the yeah, I used a camera. *01:09:22* Okay. *01:09:24* Was the how how tricky was the CR were the CRT shots? *01:09:25* I mean with the rolling bar, but I guess you didn't it didn't matter because you th the bar was in the shot, the bar was in the shot. *01:09:31* Yeah. *01:09:40* Yeah, yeah. *01:09:40* And I they're they're kinda a lot of them are kind of zoomed. *01:09:41* And then like the one the one PS2 game, uh the Rhygar that I did, that was really hard to take pictures of. *01:09:43* Like that, I don't know. *01:09:50* There was something about it. *01:09:51* Like some of them work better than others. *01:09:52* Um *01:09:54* Flipping through. *01:09:56* Do you think you would do this again? *01:09:57* Like take pictures like this again for a future project? *01:09:59* Um, maybe. *01:10:03* Probably. *01:10:04* I don't know what I would do it for. *01:10:05* But yeah. *01:10:07* I mean if I was doing like something like this, uh yeah, it'd be fun. *01:10:08* But I don't know if I'll do with this again. *01:10:12* The Phil Summers magazine. *01:10:14* Yeah. *01:10:17* Welcome to CES everybody. *01:10:17* I'm Phil Summers. *01:10:19* Here I am with my camera. *01:10:20* I'm gonna go up to every 8K television and take pictures. *01:10:22* Yeah, yeah. *01:10:26* This close to the screen. *01:10:27* Oh my goodness. *01:10:29* With the perfect full res images. *01:10:34* Yep. *01:10:38* Yeah. *01:10:38* What lessons, if any, what lessons did you get learn and bring into this project from hand-drawn gaming um, you know, and the Kickstarter and the the the news *01:10:40* that are out in the mail. *01:10:51* Like what did you learn from those and bring into designing the the book of it? *01:10:53* Because you've been you've been making physical printed layout, you know, books and magazines. *01:10:58* magazines and that sort of stuff for a while now, so now it's it's all being applied into this I don't want to say magnum opus, but like a cul a culmination of uh Yeah, you know, all the work up to this point. *01:11:04* Like Candron gaming led to the *01:11:16* So, uh, I mean, I I guess just the experience of just, especially with hand-drawn gaming, the experience of just handling *01:11:20* all these orders and shipping things. *01:11:29* I mean that's the trickiest part. *01:11:31* The book itself, um, because I had never done a I didn't do a hardcover for anything before. *01:11:32* It's the first hardcover book I've made. *01:11:37* So *01:11:39* I was in uh I I speak with um with uh Lucas from Nintendo Force magazine. *01:11:40* Um he did an I Wata book. *01:11:49* And *01:11:52* And I basically said to him, hey, what company did you use for your water book? *01:11:52* And he told me. *01:11:56* And I said, okay, what kind of book did you get for your water book? *01:11:57* And he told me. *01:11:59* And the reason I *01:12:00* did that because when I I was working on this when my copy came in and I was like I was like this is the perfect size and I had his box shipping is like impossible shipping's ridiculous like *01:12:01* Like as far as guessing how much is something gonna weigh? *01:12:13* Like how much how am I gonna charge somebody when I don't have a product, right? *01:12:16* So look at his wada book. *01:12:21* So how many pages it was. *01:12:23* I was like, my book's probably about half that, half that for the for what I'll do. *01:12:25* And then I thought, well, I have his book. *01:12:30* And I'm gonna run off the same book, basically. *01:12:34* I'm gonna I'm gonna use that printer. *01:12:37* I'm gonna use that printer and I have all the material I have as packaging. *01:12:39* I asked him, I was like, what'd you do if you're packed? *01:12:43* He told me it was packed. *01:12:44* I was like, all right, I'm gonna copy all this. *01:12:45* So he knows this is not a secret. *01:12:47* Sure, yeah. *01:12:49* Um and I was like, 'cause this is just gonna help me out so much. *01:12:50* And that way when I came to figuring out shipping, I used *01:12:53* I uh I packaged it all up. *01:12:57* I repackaged it the way it came. *01:12:59* I weighed it, I figured out all the shipping prices. *01:13:01* Um so I and it was like spot on, like it worked. *01:13:05* So once everything came to me. *01:13:08* Um I had everything going. *01:13:11* I already had all the material ordered. *01:13:14* Um, so I was as soon as they arrived, I was able to start packing and shipping. *01:13:15* And *01:13:19* it went pretty well. *01:13:20* And the shipping, one of the things I was annoyed with um with um the book being delayed a couple weeks was we're officially in *01:13:22* uh the price hike time for the holidays yeah for shipping so my shipping costs went up so I'm losing on shipping but well I mean whatever um *01:13:34* Um I figured I would. *01:13:44* Yeah. *01:13:47* Um, but it is what it is. *01:13:48* And the shipping's horrible. *01:13:50* I feel terrible for anybody international that ordered this book. *01:13:51* I just feel horrible. *01:13:55* I wasn't gonna offer it. *01:13:57* Uh the shipping cost more than the book itself. *01:13:59* Yeah, that's never fun. *01:14:02* It's awful. *01:14:04* I so the way I figured that out too was since I had this *01:14:05* big mailing list from Hand Drawn Gaming. *01:14:08* I um I figured those people were most likely the audience for this book, right? *01:14:11* So I grabbed I grabbed my whole mailing list from that. *01:14:16* And I took all the different international, well the different countries it came from, and I I found like the top five or ten, whatever it was, countries. *01:14:21* And uh I just started plugging them all into the shipping thing that I use, pirate pirate ship. *01:14:30* And it was just giving me all these ridiculous prices and they're all *01:14:37* all so much money some of them are a little cheaper than others and then I was just like it just has to be this this is the average price I averaged it all out I was like the average price is the freaking thirty five dollars like that *01:14:40* I I don't know what else to do. *01:14:50* Um so I did have people that are just like, we're used to paying ridiculous shipping. *01:14:51* Just make it available to us. *01:14:54* I was like, all right, I mean if you say so. *01:14:56* And I had I did get a fair amount of orders from *01:14:58* internationally which is incredible. *01:15:01* Um so thank you for that if if you happen to to be listening. *01:15:03* Um but I man I felt terrible and but I'll say like I can *01:15:06* I you know I I've been adding up all my shipping costs and comparing them to what I charge everybody and they're pr for the international they're pretty close. *01:15:12* For the US, because of the price hike, I'm losing *01:15:22* a lot but sorry if I'm getting like too into the weeds here with this kind of stuff but that's the part of the that's the part of the the production part the actual shipping and getting this to people that's *01:15:25* To me the part I don't under like I know how to I've been the designer forever. *01:15:36* I know how to draw pictures, I know how to make a booklet. *01:15:40* You know, I can I can do that stuff. *01:15:43* That's easy. *01:15:45* It's this part of it is the hard part. *01:15:46* that like I've learned mainly through hand-drawn gaming and was able to just kind of apply that to this. *01:15:50* Yeah. *01:15:57* I I like the packaging a lot. *01:15:58* My book came in super clean. *01:16:00* Uh I think you've definitely the uh the newsletter, the Patreon, I think *01:16:04* Definitely taught not taught you a packaging lesson, but probably and reinforced one uh for some pe I would never complain. *01:16:11* I understood what you were sh *01:16:21* And you know. *01:16:23* My my father-in-law is a was a mailman. *01:16:24* He's he's retired now. *01:16:26* But I I know what the the Postal Service deals with, and I know what you were dealing with. *01:16:27* I I get it. *01:16:32* Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, and it was unfortunate. *01:16:34* I really thought well, I don't want to get into that, but I thought it would work out differently and it it it was a bummer when yeah *01:16:38* Yeah. *01:16:45* Yeah. *01:16:46* I I gotta say shipping is one of the big reasons why I one of the big reasons why I bailed on that project. *01:16:46* It was *01:16:55* just too much. *01:16:55* Yeah, I can imagine. *01:16:56* Like just the admin work for that was turning into a full time job. *01:16:58* And I was just like, I can't like I can't keep *01:17:02* up with this. *01:17:04* Yeah. *01:17:05* Did your did your girls help pack these books at all? *01:17:06* I know we talked to no. *01:17:09* Yeah I did it all myself. *01:17:11* Thanks ladies. *01:17:13* But I got through it. *01:17:20* Yeah. *01:17:22* Talk to me about the cover of this book. *01:17:23* It is it's got a big dog on it. *01:17:26* I mean the dog is what I *01:17:30* I see right away. *01:17:32* And for some I'm well not for some reason, I know the reason. *01:17:33* It makes me think of The Last Guardian. *01:17:36* I could see that. *01:17:39* So the the dog is the bird dog. *01:17:41* Sorry. *01:17:43* Yes. *01:17:44* Oh it's a d is a is no, that's a dog, but there's a dragon ahead of it. *01:17:45* Right? *01:17:49* There is a dragon. *01:17:49* Yeah. *01:17:50* Dragon spirit. *01:17:51* I was just saying, yeah, talk talk me through this because it's it's very captivating. *01:17:52* I love it. *01:17:58* And then the use of *01:17:58* the empty space where you put the you know, the title of the book and the the logo of it. *01:18:00* I it's very captivating. *01:18:04* So this is one of the only pieces in this book that's digital. *01:18:10* I wanted to draw everything is everything else is physical. *01:18:14* I wanted to do this uh by hand uh with paper and I started to do it, started to figure out *01:18:22* it out and all that but I knew I wanted to make a poster. *01:18:29* I knew it was gonna be all these different sizes. *01:18:31* Um so I just thought I'm just gonna do it digitally. *01:18:34* It's it's fine. *01:18:37* I don't think anybody'll mind. *01:18:38* As long as I make it appear like it *01:18:40* is actual ink or whatever, uh, I think that'll be okay. *01:18:42* So that was the first thing. *01:18:48* Um and then *01:18:49* Yeah, I just wanted to I I I I scribbled tons of ideas uh like in a notebook how can I how can I bring all these characters together without them being the characters I can't *01:18:52* show I don't want to show I don't want to get into trouble so I don't want to show link even though link is clearly on here it's not that clear but you know they're all there so how can I show these *01:19:04* Uh he's right under the dragon. *01:19:15* He's got a sword. *01:19:16* Um these characters in a way where *01:19:18* It's them and they're familiar, but um it's not them. *01:19:29* So that was kind of the uh the thing *01:19:35* there. *01:19:37* I mean my favorite are the turtles. *01:19:38* Yes, because I had to include the turtles on there, but I thought I can't draw a Ninja Turtle on here *01:19:41* Oh you'll get especially in the black and white. *01:19:47* You can't draw Ninja Turtles in black and white like that. *01:19:49* Uh yeah. *01:19:52* Tiny little turtles. *01:19:56* I love them. *01:19:57* But thank you. *01:19:58* But yeah, so that was it. *01:20:00* And I wanted to keep it pretty clean. *01:20:01* I wanted it to not be um *01:20:03* uh I don't know too noisy? *01:20:06* I wanted you I wanted people to like want to pick through it and look through it, not get too lost, you know? *01:20:09* So *01:20:15* That was the that was the thought there. *01:20:15* My favorite thing about it is it makes me curious. *01:20:18* about what's inside the book. *01:20:25* Because, again, you see Link, like, oh, he's gonna talk about a Zelda game, which by the way, is the only one I skipped because I'm not done with Tears of the Kingdom yet, and I just *01:20:28* Okay. *01:20:38* I've just avoided everything about that game, as is to my best of my ability. *01:20:38* So that is the only one I've skipped in your book. *01:20:42* Um I'm excited to go back to it and read it when I'm done. *01:20:44* Uh but it made me curious to look at the cover and go, I wonder what like that car is or that the you know the gunship. *01:20:48* Actually there's a couple *01:20:58* But it's just you know, what kind of games did Phil play over these two years? *01:21:01* And I think that to me, and I'm I'm *01:21:08* not a designer in that sense but like that's the mark of like a a good cover like it pulls you in it entices you to look inside and answer that question um *01:21:13* I guess you're judging a book by its cover in that way, supposedly on some level, I go. *01:21:26* Yeah I guess. *01:21:32* I like it though. *01:21:33* Um *01:21:34* Cool. *01:21:34* But the other thing I love about the book, cover-wise, uh is this shade of red you chose. *01:21:35* Just how did you pick this shade of red? *01:21:41* Because it's so good. *01:21:42* I don't I mean I just I I don't know. *01:21:44* I just thought it looked I just wanted something bold and I kinda had this red I have like this well I think I came up with the uh the little gradient for the look *01:21:48* logo um where it goes to the red to the orange. *01:21:57* So I came up with that the orange. *01:22:00* Daughters always get me on that word. *01:22:02* Which really is from the kind of a take on the hands-drawn game guides *01:22:05* logo itself right yeah and then I started um I just kind of started pulling those colors and then I thought well maybe the red will be cool on the cover if it's just all red *01:22:09* And the back's all red. *01:22:20* Originally on the inside, here's a little secret where it's black, which I actually don't mind that it's black, but it was supposed to be *01:22:22* to be the orange color. *01:22:28* But that costs extra money. *01:22:30* So I put the extra money. *01:22:33* Yeah, I actually like the black too. *01:22:35* But I just pencil strokes. *01:22:36* Yeah, yeah, it works. *01:22:40* Yeah, it works. *01:22:43* I actually like it. *01:22:44* Um I used the orange on the uh 2022 like post. *01:22:45* the uh little that main image before the gear. *01:22:50* Yeah. *01:22:54* So I used it there. *01:22:55* I think I used red on the other one. *01:22:56* But uh yeah so I just I like no I used *01:22:58* there too. *01:23:02* So yeah, it was just I like those two colors. *01:23:03* I just wanted to kind of use them throughout and I just thought the red was the red was nice. *01:23:05* So the red is good. *01:23:10* I could also see this if you this is *01:23:12* purely hypothetical. *01:23:16* If you did th th three more of them, you could do like the Super Nintendo, the Fammy Super Famicom button colors. *01:23:17* You know, you get your reds, your yellows, and then all lined up on the shelf. *01:23:23* That would look so good. *01:23:27* Um I probably won't make another one I'm going to do. *01:23:29* No, but yeah, don't that I that is not me projecting or asking for that. *01:23:32* I just like when I see that and then think of lining them up on the shelf, I'm like ah, the other colors would be yellow. *01:23:36* Green and blue. *01:23:43* Yeah. *01:23:43* Like that would be the logical ones. *01:23:44* Yeah, definitely won't be another one. *01:23:47* I'm already first off, I'm already a year behind on *01:23:49* games that I haven't covered and I already forget half of them. *01:23:52* So I can't I wouldn't be able to do it. *01:23:55* It would have been fun though. *01:23:58* I have a lot of TurboGraphics 16 ones. *01:23:59* I have like pretty good variety this year of games I play. *01:24:00* Um so it would have been fun, but yeah, it it I just probably wouldn't have been worth. *01:24:03* worth all that. *01:24:12* Yeah. *01:24:13* So you haven't like personally been keeping up with I know you keep up with your spreadsheet. *01:24:13* That's a ten year habit. *01:24:18* You're not going to drop that. *01:24:19* Yeah, the spreadsheet's happening. *01:24:21* But I'm not like art and writing and all that stuff. *01:24:22* No, yeah. *01:24:26* Which I I kinda miss it a little bit. *01:24:27* There's a couple of games where I'm like, oh I'd like to write about this one and then I don't. *01:24:30* I mean other things going on. *01:24:34* I think just personally uh I *01:24:37* I mean, speaking for you personally, I think there's some value there 'cause then I think part of the reason you started the reflections, like what we w talked about last time, was you you know, you had more of a memory tied to the game and like *01:24:39* like that experience with it and stuff. *01:24:53* And I think I would encourage you maybe to pick it up in some fashion just for yourself, not to make another book or not for me or sub social media post where people will get mad that you paid for a blue check. *01:24:55* Um but you know, just for Phil. *01:25:06* And and I think the the truly beyond the art and the games and *01:25:08* and and you know everything else. *01:25:15* I think the like and maybe this is just, you know, two year old dad brain. *01:25:17* But I think the the special thing about this is when your family weaves through the book and your daughters in particular. *01:25:21* Um *01:25:29* Like those are the real memories, I think, of like the Kirby or Splatoon and your salmon run with your daughters. *01:25:32* Uh Final Fantasy V is just I you wrote down I wrote the quote in my notes is it was nice playing through this with her as my guide and our roles being reversed. *01:25:40* Where has the time gone? *01:25:51* And I'm like, so I think like that is the thing that you would want to hold on to. *01:25:52* I I would encourage you at least. *01:25:56* I think that's what's special is is the is those through lines. *01:25:58* And *01:26:02* And I would I would at least encourage you to keep up with that because that's something you can look back on, you know, in five, ten, twenty years, and uh and then your kids can look back and *01:26:02* If they have kids then they'll be like, oh grandpa Phil played weird games. *01:26:14* Yeah. *01:26:20* What a weeb. *01:26:20* What a weeb. *01:26:21* Yeah, and Celeste really liked it. *01:26:24* I think she *01:26:26* She appreciated it more than uh than Helena did. *01:26:27* But she liked it too. *01:26:30* But uh um, you know, when I showed her when the book came in, I was like, look, here's your here's your picture, here's your stuff. *01:26:31* She was *01:26:37* Uh pretty excited about it. *01:26:38* So Yeah. *01:26:39* That's cool, man. *01:26:40* I love it. *01:26:42* I I got I was excited when I saw that. *01:26:42* Uh at first I was like, oh, this must have been like an extra tier or something that I missed, where like if you paid X amount, you could contribute a review or something. *01:26:51* But then I read the authors. *01:27:01* I was like, oh *01:27:03* This is way cooler. *01:27:04* Okay. *01:27:07* Yeah, I had a couple extra pages. *01:27:08* So I was like, what can I do here with these pages? *01:27:10* And Randy came up with the idea. *01:27:12* He's like, why don't you let one of them write something? *01:27:13* And I thought, oh *01:27:15* Yeah, that's actually fun. *01:27:16* So they get mentioned a lot. *01:27:18* They get mentioned a lot. *01:27:21* It's very, very cool to see that. *01:27:22* Um *01:27:24* I wanted to ask you how your piano lessons are going. *01:27:26* I see your piano over there. *01:27:28* There is a piano. *01:27:30* Yes. *01:27:31* Uh they're going well, I think. *01:27:32* I've been doing that for for over a year now. *01:27:34* It's it's tricky because when I was done hand-drawn gaming, I wanted to do something different for myself. *01:27:38* Um *01:27:47* I wanted to take some time off of the grind. *01:27:48* I've always wanted to learn an instrument. *01:27:51* I mentioned it in the one passage I was playing the five *01:27:53* fantasy uh theater rhythm and i thought i'm finally gonna do this so i had time signed up for the lessons been going to the lessons i played it for a long time there i was playing it for at least a half hour every night *01:27:57* Uh it's very hard. *01:28:09* I'm not the I'm still not very good, but now things are ramping up in life again. *01:28:10* And the last oh man, last two months. *01:28:16* I mean I'm still doing my lessons, but I'm not *01:28:18* playing nearly as much and I am falling behind but my teacher is telling me not to stress out it's just supposed to be a uh relaxing thing *01:28:21* Um but it's hard because I wanna maximize my I want to maximize my my teaching time with her. *01:28:32* Because I say to her, uh, you know, I only go a half hour a week or whatever. *01:28:40* She's like, yeah, you you're one of my best students because you you do this and that. *01:28:44* And I was like, look, I said, look, I don't wanna come here once a week, and that's the only time I play this thing, and then I don't remember anything from the week before. *01:28:47* Like I w *01:28:56* want to show you that like I I worked at this and I want to move on to the next thing. *01:28:56* I want to keep building. *01:29:01* I want to level up. *01:29:01* Yeah, I want to level up. *01:29:03* I don't want to like *01:29:04* I and I was like, I don't want to waste your time, I don't want to waste my time. *01:29:05* So like I want to do this thing. *01:29:08* So now I have a lot going on. *01:29:09* Um So it's starting to cut into it a little bit, but it's still going going well. *01:29:12* So I am trying not to stress about it, but I am also stressing about it. *01:29:18* Well, the only thing I remember from piano lessons as a kid was how to play the beginning of the Imperial March. *01:29:24* Um that one is not too terrible. *01:29:30* I'm sure you could uh you could learn that one pretty quick, I think. *01:29:35* It's pretty straightforward, I think. *01:29:38* So *01:29:39* Yeah. *01:29:40* I think that does it. *01:29:41* The book is great. *01:29:42* I want to tell everyone that. *01:29:44* Can people still buy the book? *01:29:45* Is that uh is that possible? *01:29:46* Okay. *01:29:48* Yep. *01:29:48* Yep. *01:29:49* There will be is that on your gumroad page? *01:29:49* Is that what the where people get it? *01:29:52* Yep. *01:29:53* Okay. *01:29:54* Yeah, yeah. *01:29:54* You can just go to handrawn game guides dot com. *01:29:55* Well, that'll take you to the website. *01:29:58* Yeah, well, I'll put up androidgame guides dot gumroad dot com. *01:30:01* There you go. *01:30:05* Okay. *01:30:05* There will be a link to the book in the show notes, which you can *01:30:06* Can check out. *01:30:09* I cannot recommend it enough. *01:30:10* Uh and while you know you're poking around, you could probably download all of Phil's guides as well. *01:30:12* I believe those are up for free to avoid the mighty fierce legal hand of a couple dollars. *01:30:18* A couple dollars. *01:30:23* Well the guides are free, yeah. *01:30:25* The hand drawn gaming I have like as like a bundle of the Castlevania, the Mega Man Turtles. *01:30:26* Um *01:30:33* Oh, it starts with the G, the little gumball green gimmick. *01:30:35* Gimmick. *01:30:39* Um, and then I see the art, the spy one. *01:30:40* It was a top secret dossier. *01:30:44* Yes, the uh Bionic Commando issue. *01:30:47* Bionic Commando and uh Double Dragon. *01:30:49* Yes. *01:30:52* Did I get 'em all? *01:30:53* That's it. *01:30:54* Got 'em. *01:30:55* Yeah. *01:30:56* I remember. *01:30:57* So six of those. *01:30:58* You can buy those as well. *01:30:59* Everyone should buy those. *01:31:01* It is they're all great. *01:31:02* I highly encourage *01:31:05* people to check it out. *01:31:06* Check out your s the rest of your work on I guess you you tweet every now and then blue check mark free so you can follow him again everybody. *01:31:08* Yeah everyone can follow Phil again. *01:31:15* Uh well I'm still the bad guy though because I paid for it once. *01:31:18* That's the that's the mindset. *01:31:21* It'll hold it's gonna follow you forever. *01:31:22* It yeah. *01:31:25* I mean well anybody that remembers it it will, yeah, for sure. *01:31:26* No one's gonna remember it, Phil *01:31:30* No, nothing it's not important. *01:31:32* I know it's not, but you'd be I don't know, you'd be surprised, I guess. *01:31:34* Um *01:31:38* Yeah. *01:31:40* Do you have I know you've done a couple of other guides for other games. *01:31:40* P you know developers have hired you to make you have anything else like that in the pipe or what were those games? *01:31:45* There was a wizard one. *01:31:51* uh witch and I did I did a uh poster for uh Witch and Whiz which is a a Nest game uh like a homebrew one of course uh that *01:31:52* It's actually a really cool game. *01:32:03* I don't think you can buy a physical NES one anymore, but you can get a hold of the game. *01:32:05* There's a whole bunch of ways. *01:32:09* Uh so that was cool. *01:32:10* I did a guide for *01:32:12* the other game another game cathedral so it's like uh it's kind of like a starter guide it gets you through like the first two areas of the game um and then *01:32:13* Those were like the two uh official ones I did before I moved on to Handron Gaming. *01:32:23* And I've done like a little a few little little side things here and there. *01:32:27* Um *01:32:31* Um but I am working on I'm working on a big one. *01:32:31* Ooh. *01:32:36* Uh that's all I can say. *01:32:36* And it is it's a big one. *01:32:38* So the pr *01:32:40* Pressure is on. *01:32:41* Uh but it'll be very exciting. *01:32:42* Um I I believe uh uh *01:32:45* I'm not allowed to say anything really, but I believe I will be able to it will be revealed uh next month. *01:32:50* Okay *01:32:57* So a game came to mind. *01:32:58* I might bring it up to you after the call. *01:33:00* And you don't have to confirm or deny, but I'm gonna I'll tell you at least to get the guests out there. *01:33:02* Um so everyone check that out. *01:33:07* Follow Phil on Twitter. *01:33:09* Uh links to all that will be in the show notes, which you can check out over at uh maxfrequency. *01:33:11* net forward slash mfp-44. *01:33:17* If you'd like, you can check out the rest of my work over on maxfrequency. *01:33:22* net uh or you know subscribe here in the podcast feed or over on YouTube. *01:33:26* Uh but thank you all so much for listening and until next time, adios. *01:33:31*