Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that? Well?
Speaker 2: All right, So I was looking up old video games
Speaker 2: and video game systems this week, as we've talked about,
Speaker 2: I know, both of our boys are obsessed with video
Speaker 2: games these days, and William is trying to find every
Speaker 2: game ever made on every system ever made. And they
Speaker 2: of course make these like little computers where you can
Speaker 2: go back and try these games from pretty much every system,
Speaker 2: so it is kind of fun to get into it
Speaker 2: with him. But there's one that he's not familiar with.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you know this, but before
Speaker 2: they were making graphing calculators, Texas Instruments used to make
Speaker 2: a computer for kids. It was actually called the t
Speaker 2: I ninety nine.
Speaker 1: So weirdly, I actually know this because I had one.
Speaker 1: No way, my dad was super into gadgets and early computers,
Speaker 1: and so I had one in my room when I
Speaker 1: was like four, which is crazy.
Speaker 2: That's fun.
Speaker 1: But you know, the weirdest thing about the system is that,
Speaker 1: like the TI definitely had the place for cartridges, but
Speaker 1: it could also hook up to a cassette player and
Speaker 1: it would play games through like tape cassettes essentially, so
Speaker 1: like the cassettes would feed data into the computer, which
Speaker 1: is which is nuts. And I actually like thought about
Speaker 1: this like a few years ago and and had to
Speaker 1: look it up because it felt like a dream, like
Speaker 1: it didn't feel real. But but but the weird thing
Speaker 1: about my t I ninety nine was I had none
Speaker 1: of the fun games. Like everything my parents bought for
Speaker 1: me was educational. So I think like the most fun
Speaker 1: game I had was Chess. It's a little bit.
Speaker 2: Of a relief because I thought I was going to
Speaker 2: tell you everything I knew here and you're gonna be like, sorry,
Speaker 2: I already knew that. But uh So there's a T
Speaker 2: I ninety nine game that's definitely not educational. It's called
Speaker 2: garbage Belly, and it's why I brought the system up
Speaker 2: in the first place. I was reading about it in
Speaker 2: PC mag And this is what the back of the
Speaker 2: Garbage Belly box said. It says, help garbage Belly gobble
Speaker 2: up the ripe garbage in a field of garbage pails.
Speaker 2: But watch out if you make him eat raw garb garbage,
Speaker 2: he will die.
Speaker 1: Garbage Belly. I feel like I've never heard anyone say
Speaker 1: the word garbage so much to like sell a product.
Speaker 1: But isn't it weird that the character dies from raw garbage,
Speaker 1: like he only feasts on the finest garbage, which is
Speaker 1: cooked garbage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he's got to die from something. Plus,
Speaker 2: you know, just because his name is garbage Belly, I
Speaker 2: don't think we can assume like that he wouldn't have
Speaker 2: discerning taste, like some garbage does have to taste better
Speaker 2: than other garbage.
Speaker 1: That is a good point. So what was was this game?
Speaker 1: Any good?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: It's a terrible game. I mean, you're lucky your parents
Speaker 2: brought you the educational games only. But Garbage Belly is
Speaker 2: just the first of nine ridiculous video games that we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about today. So blow the dust off
Speaker 2: that old cartridge, enter the up down updown code, and
Speaker 2: let's hit start. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part
Speaker 2: Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm joined
Speaker 2: by my good friend mangesh Hot Ticketer And on the
Speaker 2: other side of the computer screen cleaning house and a
Speaker 2: ferocious game of pac Man, that's our friend and producer
Speaker 2: loll He is actually guys, he's sharing a screen right now,
Speaker 2: and I Honestly, I wish our listeners could see this
Speaker 2: because he is tearing through those ghosts, just one after another.
Speaker 1: It's a total blood bag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really impressive.
Speaker 1: It actually reminds me of that scene from thirty Rock,
Speaker 1: just saying the word pac Men, like when someone tells
Speaker 1: Tracy Morgan but that the guy who created pac Men
Speaker 1: just passed away, and he says to put out a
Speaker 1: bowl of cherries and some ghost meat in his honor.
Speaker 2: So funny, pretty fitting tribute there, But unfortunately pac Man
Speaker 2: is way too mainstream for today's show because we are
Speaker 2: on the hunt for some deeper, weirder cuts, and to
Speaker 2: help us find them, we brought along our good pal Gabe. Gabe,
Speaker 2: thanks for joining us again.
Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me back, guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. So I am curious, like I haven't
Speaker 1: played games in forever, and I think Will is the same,
Speaker 1: although both our sons are obsessed. But Gabe, you play
Speaker 1: video games, right, Like, have you spent all your summer
Speaker 1: playing Animal Crossing like everyone else?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I have not.
Speaker 3: I'm the one person who hasn't, I guess, But I
Speaker 3: did play a different kind of simulator game this summer.
Speaker 3: It's called untitled Goose Game. Have you guys heard of it?
Speaker 2: I have seen my son play it.
Speaker 3: Yes, actually, yes, right, it's awesome. It's basically a goose simulator,
Speaker 3: and yeah, you play as a goose wandering around this
Speaker 3: little English village and all you can do is honk, flap,
Speaker 3: grab things with your beak, run, you know, typical goose stuff.
Speaker 3: And so the goal is really to just annoy the
Speaker 3: townspeople and cause as much mischievous possible. It's it's kind
Speaker 3: of amazing, and if you've ever wondered what it's like
Speaker 3: to be a goose, this is probably as close to
Speaker 3: the real thing as you're ever gonna get.
Speaker 1: Wait, I'm sold. I feel like this is the reason
Speaker 1: to play video games again. But what I really like
Speaker 1: about that is, like the concept kind of feels like
Speaker 1: a throwback to the early days of video games, when
Speaker 1: there just weren't as many expectations and you could get
Speaker 1: away with making a game just about anything. So, like,
Speaker 1: you know, my first pick for today is actually a
Speaker 1: great example of that. It was released for the Atari
Speaker 1: twenty six hundred back in nineteen eighty two, and it's
Speaker 1: called Sneak and Peak and it was basically Hide and
Speaker 1: Seek the video game.
Speaker 2: So why didn't they just call it hide and Seek?
Speaker 1: I know, I mean sneak and peak sounds like so
Speaker 1: dirty if I can person that does. But I mean,
Speaker 1: branding is just one of the game's many problems. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a two player game. One player just has to
Speaker 1: look away from the screen while the other player hides.
Speaker 1: And then the player who's hiding doesn't do anything at
Speaker 1: all while the other person looks for them on the screen.
Speaker 1: They just like stay put and hope time runs out
Speaker 1: before the other person finds them. It's it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Wait, so this was a game that required one
Speaker 3: player to not look at the screen at all and
Speaker 3: another player to not touch the controller. I mean, are
Speaker 3: we even sure this qualifies as a video game? I
Speaker 3: know it's kind of like that. I don't know if
Speaker 3: Will remembers this. But when we were like trying to
Speaker 3: brainstorm board games, we came up with this idea for
Speaker 3: Tag the board game where the only thing inside the
Speaker 3: like the box is a cone for base and maybe
Speaker 3: maybe like a pin that says it. You know, like,
Speaker 3: I feel like this is almost as bad, but you know,
Speaker 3: the worst part of the game was there weren't that
Speaker 3: many hiding spots in the game. The games set in
Speaker 3: the house, but you can only go to three rooms
Speaker 3: plus the yard, so finding the hider isn't that much
Speaker 3: of a challenge and you'd actually be better off just
Speaker 3: going outside and playing a real game of hide and
Speaker 3: go seek. Okay, so Sneak and Peek sounds like a
Speaker 3: pretty weak substitute for the real thing, but my first
Speaker 3: pick for today offers a gaming experience you'd be hard
Speaker 3: pressed to find in real life, and in fact, I
Speaker 3: do not recommend trying the game's infamous. Now. It's called
Speaker 3: Takeshi's Challenge and it was only released in Japan back
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty six. The title refers to a real
Speaker 3: life comedian and actor named Takeshi Kitano, and he was
Speaker 3: a pretty big star in Japan at the time from
Speaker 3: what I understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's actually he was a director too, and he
Speaker 1: directed this movie Sonatine and Fireworks, the really beautiful but
Speaker 1: like violent films.
Speaker 3: Oh awesome. Well, according to Legend, the video game company
Speaker 3: behind Space Invaders, they wanted to meet with Takeshi, and
Speaker 3: so he agreed and they got together in a bar
Speaker 3: to see if he'd be willing to make a game
Speaker 3: with them, and Takeshi wasn't all that interested. He didn't
Speaker 3: even like video games, but the company was picking up
Speaker 3: the tab that night, so he's stuck around, and over
Speaker 3: the course of a few hours, Takeshi drank a ton
Speaker 3: of rice wine and he gave the designers his stream
Speaker 3: of consciousness ideas for a video game, and then with
Speaker 3: notes in hand, the designer set to work creating what
Speaker 3: would become one of the most bizarre adventure games ever made.
Speaker 2: That's going to have to be pretty strange to top
Speaker 2: a Goose simulator, because that sounded pretty random if you
Speaker 2: asked me.
Speaker 3: Well, trust me, this was way weirder. The main character
Speaker 3: was an ordinary business man, and while the game didn't
Speaker 3: spell it out for you, the ultimate goal is to
Speaker 3: make it to a distant island where a cave of
Speaker 3: treasure awaits you, and the only way to get there
Speaker 3: is basically to have the most extreme midlife crisis possible.
Speaker 3: So get this. You have to quit your job, divorce
Speaker 3: your wife, get drunk, fight the yakuza, sing karaoke, learn
Speaker 3: to hang glide, travel to the South Pacific, and of
Speaker 3: course blow up some alien spaceships and sounds about right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And because this was all dreampt up by a guy
Speaker 3: who disliked video games, the tasks themselves were not designed
Speaker 3: to be enjoyable. So, for instance, to beat the karaoke section,
Speaker 3: you have to actually sing into the console's built in microphone,
Speaker 3: and then your performance it has to be judged as
Speaker 3: good by the computer. And here's the thing, there's no
Speaker 3: criteria for the performance. So if the game says you're
Speaker 3: singing is lousy, then you just have to do it
Speaker 3: again until you get it right. Oh, if that wasn't yeah,
Speaker 3: and if that wasn't infuriating enough. Once you actually beat
Speaker 3: the challenge, the reward is a treasure map, but it's
Speaker 3: written in invisible ink, so the player has to sit
Speaker 3: there without touching the controller for an entire hour while
Speaker 3: you wait for the map to appear, and if you
Speaker 3: touch a button any sooner than that, you're thrown right
Speaker 3: back to the karaoke challenge. It's sadistic.
Speaker 1: It sounds like such a like big practical joke.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah. Some people think that, you know, the whole
Speaker 3: thing was just Takeshi kind of thumbing his nose at
Speaker 3: people who play video games, and the game's ending actually
Speaker 3: lends some credence to that. You know, spoilers. But if
Speaker 3: you managed to stick with it through all the frustration,
Speaker 3: the only reward is a little drawing of Takeshi's smiling
Speaker 3: face and a message that says, why are you taking
Speaker 3: this game so seriously?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, if you're in the market for something
Speaker 2: a little more relaxing and honestly a bit less soul crushing,
Speaker 2: I have a recommendation for you. It's a little puzzle
Speaker 2: game and it's called Hattrus. And I know what you're thinking.
Speaker 2: You're like, this is just Tetris but with hats. But no,
Speaker 2: my friends, this is Tetris with hats and the severed
Speaker 2: heads of Frankenstein and Abraham Lincoln himself.
Speaker 1: So what was this game? Also designed by a drunk
Speaker 1: Japanese comedian.
Speaker 2: Now this is actually from the creator of the original Tetris.
Speaker 2: So this was back in nineteen ninety. Yeah, this is true.
Speaker 2: He went back to the drawing board and perfected his
Speaker 2: original idea by swapping different shaped blocks for different kinds
Speaker 2: of hats, so the hats would descend the screen two
Speaker 2: at a time, and the goal was to place them
Speaker 2: on one of six heads lined up at the bottom.
Speaker 2: So stack five of the same hat on top of
Speaker 2: one head and they would disappear, just like those lines
Speaker 2: in Tetris.
Speaker 1: So I guess that kind of makes sense. Like how
Speaker 1: does the head of Abe Lincoln fit into this stuff?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the part I'm not quite so sure about.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess they wanted some recognizable heads to
Speaker 2: stack hats on, and of course Lincoln fit the bill.
Speaker 2: We always think of him with a hat on. But
Speaker 2: you know, the better you do, the more new heads
Speaker 2: you unlock. And so in addition to Lincoln and Frankenstein,
Speaker 2: there's also of course Charlie Chaplin and Dracula. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: usual crew.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I like that they picked notable hat wearers like Lincoln
Speaker 3: and Chaplain, but then they just throw in a couple monsters,
Speaker 3: you know, makes sense. There's one thing Dracula is note
Speaker 3: for you, it's his iconic hat.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole concept is a little efusing to me.
Speaker 1: But what type of hats are we talking about? Like
Speaker 1: baseball caps, berets, Like what is in the mix?
Speaker 2: Well, there's Lincoln stove pipe, and of course Chaplain's famous.
Speaker 1: Bowler, which which makes sense.
Speaker 2: But but you're right, there is a baseball cap along
Speaker 2: with a cowboy hat. Let's see what else, a top
Speaker 2: hat and one of those pointy cone hats that like
Speaker 2: wizards wear, and so it's a pretty good mix. But
Speaker 2: the game never actually explains where this endless stream of
Speaker 2: hats is coming from, or of course the severed heads
Speaker 2: for that matter.
Speaker 1: Which I guess is why you've got to have a
Speaker 1: sequel to this, right, But speaking of sequels, my next
Speaker 1: pick is kind of a spiritual sequel to that game.
Speaker 1: Gabe talked about forever ago, about David and Goliath. It
Speaker 1: was we talked about in our Philistine's episode, and I've
Speaker 1: kind of been obsessed with it ever since. It was
Speaker 1: Bible Adventures, right, Gabe, that's what, Oh, that's the one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was, you know, fascinated by it. So I
Speaker 1: looked into other Biblical games and a few years after
Speaker 1: that came out, the same developers released another Bible based
Speaker 1: game called Super three D Noah's Arc. Wow. This one
Speaker 1: was actually for the Super Nintendo and it was built
Speaker 1: using the same game engine as the first person shooter
Speaker 1: game Wolfenstein three D.
Speaker 2: Well, he said, first person shooting, Like, was this actually
Speaker 2: a shooting game?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Does is Noah running around through the arc like gunning
Speaker 2: down animals or something?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Pretty much, except obviously they didn't have guns back then,
Speaker 1: so instead Noah's got this trusty slingshot and an endless
Speaker 1: supply of fruit, and the game storyline is that the
Speaker 1: animals are sick and tired of being cooped up in
Speaker 1: a crowded boat. I guess it kind of feels like quarantine,
Speaker 1: and eventually all the animals go rogue, so Noah has
Speaker 1: to protect his family by launching fruit at the animals
Speaker 1: until they all get full enough to slip into a
Speaker 1: food coma.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, I think it's safe to say the
Speaker 3: designers took a few liberties there. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe it was just my translation, but I don't remember
Speaker 3: an animal ran page and a shooting spree being part
Speaker 3: of the original story.
Speaker 2: Again, Gabe, you just think you forget that part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's some punch, But when I looked it up,
Speaker 1: it feels like the Bible doesn't say anything about what
Speaker 1: actually went down on the arc, Like it covers what
Speaker 1: happened before and it covers what happens after. The Arcs Voyage.
Speaker 1: But you know, maybe this is exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, you just you never know.
Speaker 2: But I feel like we need to take a quick
Speaker 2: break so we can all look this up. This game
Speaker 2: just seems too weird to be true. But we do
Speaker 2: have four more weird games to talk about, so we'll
Speaker 2: be right back. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where
Speaker 2: we're talking about some of the strangest video games you've
Speaker 2: probably never played before. I think it is your turn
Speaker 2: next game, So what's your second pick?
Speaker 3: Okay, So, if you thought Noah's Ark was a strange
Speaker 3: idea for a game, then brace yourself for nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: four Rex Ronan Experimental Surgeon off to a great start.
Speaker 3: So this was a Super Nintendo game as well, and
Speaker 3: weirdly enough, it was designed as an educational game, or
Speaker 3: you know, at least in theory. The game was meant
Speaker 3: to teach kids about the real world danger of smoking,
Speaker 3: and to help deliver this message, the developers came up
Speaker 3: with a pretty out there storyline. So here's the pitch.
Speaker 3: A wealthy tobacco salesman is dying and it's up to
Speaker 3: you Rex Ronan to save his life. Through the miracle
Speaker 3: of experimental surgery. So by shrinking yourself to microscopic size,
Speaker 3: you're able to enter the salesman's body and blast away
Speaker 3: his sickness with a high powered leader.
Speaker 2: Like, I love the detail here. So you basically shrink
Speaker 2: yourself down and then you what do you do, you like,
Speaker 2: clean out the guy's lungs or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and not just his lungs either, Like another level
Speaker 3: has you blasting fatty deposits in his heart. And there's
Speaker 3: even a part we have to enter the guy's brain
Speaker 3: to quote remove the nicotine addiction. That's sounds works, right,
Speaker 3: that's exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, the weirdest part, you know, which is saying something,
Speaker 3: is that the game has a side story where the
Speaker 3: tobacco company finds out about your plan, and then in
Speaker 3: order to keep the salesman from talking bad about the company,
Speaker 3: they send a bunch of tiny evil robots into his
Speaker 3: body to kind of finish him off. So, so not
Speaker 3: only are you fighting disease, you've also got hoords of
Speaker 3: tiny robots to kentuckt with.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's that's what experimental surgery is, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's what they teach in med school. It's so good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that does sound pretty well, but I feel like
Speaker 2: it does kind of work. Like I don't think I
Speaker 2: feel like smoking after that. But all right, well, from
Speaker 2: the exhilarating world of experimental surgery, let's go to my
Speaker 2: next game. This is the equally riveting Sensible Train Spotting.
Speaker 2: That's actually the name Sensible Train Spotting, and it was
Speaker 2: released for Amiga computers in nineteen ninety five, and it
Speaker 2: delivered exactly what it a detailed simulation of what it's
Speaker 2: like to be a man with a thermos sitting on
Speaker 2: a bench and marking down the engine numbers of trains
Speaker 2: that pass him by. Doesn't it sound exciting?
Speaker 3: Wait, that's what train spotting is. Like, I've heard the
Speaker 3: term before, but I honestly never knew what it meant.
Speaker 1: I'm actually more interested in the fact that there were
Speaker 1: Amiga computers in nineteen ninety five. Yeah, but I guess
Speaker 1: you can tackle Gibb's question for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tackle that one first. Then we'll talk about
Speaker 2: my Tandy from back in the early nineties. But yeah, so,
Speaker 2: train spotting is a real hobby for some people. So
Speaker 2: what you do is you go to the different stations
Speaker 2: and you write down the numbers on the trains as
Speaker 2: they pass by, and so people would create lists of
Speaker 2: all different engines that operated in a city and then
Speaker 2: you try to see them all in person. It was
Speaker 2: big in the UK during the mid twentieth century, and
Speaker 2: some devoted fans have carried on the tradition ever since then.
Speaker 1: I mean, it reminds me of those families who used
Speaker 1: to drive out to airports to see planes take off,
Speaker 1: like back in the glamorous era of like air or
Speaker 1: air travel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, and train spotting is still a thing,
Speaker 2: but sometimes you just can't make it down to the
Speaker 2: rail yard, you know. So for days like that, there's
Speaker 2: this game Sensible Train Spotting all of the fun of
Speaker 2: watching trains and marking off numbers from the comfort of
Speaker 2: your own living room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what's more surprising to
Speaker 3: me really, like that this is an activity people actually enjoy,
Speaker 3: or that someone made a video game about it, Like
Speaker 3: both are kind of baffling, to be honest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's not an action packed hobby and
Speaker 2: that's true of the game too, but there's still some
Speaker 2: challenge to it, Like, for example, the longer you play
Speaker 2: the faster the trains move and the more there are
Speaker 2: on the screen, so it does make it tougher to
Speaker 2: cross off all the numbers on your list before the
Speaker 2: time runs out. And so weirdly, the game is actually
Speaker 2: hyper aware of the fact that train spotting is super dull,
Speaker 2: and so if you run out of time before you
Speaker 2: clear a train spotting card, a message pops up that
Speaker 2: says time's up. Sad man, go back one card, which
Speaker 2: you know, of course is pretty depressing, but somehow less
Speaker 2: depressing than the message you get for winning that one
Speaker 2: just says, well done, my sad friend, onto the next card.
Speaker 1: I love that it knows what a sad man you are.
Speaker 1: Either way, that's really what you want for a game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like Tikeshi's Challenge. Really like it
Speaker 3: mocks you just for wanting to play it.
Speaker 1: Well, it is funny because the last game on my
Speaker 1: list also mocks you for just playing it. And this
Speaker 1: one was released in nineteen ninety nine for the sake
Speaker 1: of Dreamcast. It's about raising a digital pet and it's
Speaker 1: called Seamen.
Speaker 2: Okay, and what kind of pet are you raising?
Speaker 1: So in this game Seaman, you're you're basically the caretaker
Speaker 1: of a bizarre fish human hybrid. He basically looks like
Speaker 1: this bass with a human face slapped on the front,
Speaker 1: and the object of the game is to raise this
Speaker 1: creature through like all of its upsetting developmental faces, and
Speaker 1: until he eventually grows legs and leaves the water to
Speaker 1: start a life of his own. But the game does
Speaker 1: not mean this easy. For one thing, the only way
Speaker 1: you can interact with Seman is by giving him voice commands,
Speaker 1: and because the voice detection was pretty spotty, it was
Speaker 1: hard to get him to do what you want. The
Speaker 1: other downside to the game is that Seaman is kind
Speaker 1: of a jerk. Like you're supposed to form a bond
Speaker 1: with them by talking to him more and more, but
Speaker 1: most of the time he just insults you, so you're
Speaker 1: never really rooting for him to make it to adulthood.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, So what we have here is basically a
Speaker 3: bad parent simulator where you neglectfully look after a fish monster.
Speaker 3: Does that sound about right?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's basically my experience of parenting like familiar,
Speaker 1: except I forgot to mention that Leonard Nimoy also chimes
Speaker 1: in sometimes to give advice and cheer you on that's
Speaker 1: the best part.
Speaker 2: Oh, I feel like, actually this is getting better.
Speaker 3: Okay. So we've talked about a lot of weird games today,
Speaker 3: most of which probably don't qualify as good games. But
Speaker 3: the last one I want to talk about fits perfectly
Speaker 3: and both categories. It is a decidedly weird game, but
Speaker 3: it's also a good one. It's called Katamari Dimashi, which
Speaker 3: roughly means soul clump in Japanese. This game came out
Speaker 3: in two thousand and four on the PlayStation two, and
Speaker 3: it's one of the most joyously wacky games I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: The backstory is that the magnificent King of All Cosmos
Speaker 3: goes on a bender one night, drunk on the beauty
Speaker 3: of creation, and during his revelry, he accidentally destroys every
Speaker 3: star in the night sky. Oh man, as you do,
Speaker 3: yeah huh. And that's where the player comes in. So,
Speaker 3: as the son of the King, the Prince of all Cosmos,
Speaker 3: it's your job to roll a big sticky ball called
Speaker 3: a katamari all over the world until enough stuff sticks
Speaker 3: to it that your dad can then launch the whole
Speaker 3: thing into space and turn it into a brand new star.
Speaker 3: So you know, one by one you're gradually rebuilding all
Speaker 3: the constellations using giant balls a junk.
Speaker 1: Which you know kind of sounds like a sweet concept.
Speaker 1: I vaguely remember this game being sort of a phenomena, right,
Speaker 1: But what kind of stuff are you rolling up?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean anything you can really like. Each level
Speaker 3: gives you a certain size that you have to, you know,
Speaker 3: grow your katamari too before the time runs out, So
Speaker 3: you start small. You're making a ten centimeter ball with
Speaker 3: little stuff like erasers and paper clips. But the more
Speaker 3: stuff you roll over, the larger the ball grows, so
Speaker 3: gradually you're able to pick up bigger and bigger stuff,
Speaker 3: you know, books, bowls, furniture, house pets, motorcycles, city buses,
Speaker 3: like you name it. In the later stages, you roll
Speaker 3: a katamaris so big that it starts ripping up buildings
Speaker 3: and bridges, and then eventually natural phenomena too, like you're
Speaker 3: literally ripping clouds and rainbows out of the sky.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nothing goes to waste.
Speaker 2: I do like that you repair damage stars by pretty
Speaker 2: much wrecking the earth and then chucking it all into space.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's about it. And the best part though,
Speaker 3: is it's gotten a amazing soundtrack, so the whole time
Speaker 3: you're rolling up the world, there's this super upbeat Japanese
Speaker 3: pop music playing and yeah, just what you want for
Speaker 3: that kind of mass destruction. And by the way, Kada
Speaker 3: Mari was actually it was published by Namco, which is
Speaker 3: the same developer behind pac Man, you know, another game
Speaker 3: where you play as a big circle and gobble up
Speaker 3: everything in sight. So yeah, I guess they really know
Speaker 3: their brand.
Speaker 1: As strange as that all sounds, I do think Will
Speaker 1: should take home today's trophy. One because sensible train spotting
Speaker 1: is a game I would never force on anyone, but
Speaker 1: I would love to have that like framed on my wall.
Speaker 1: And two because he used the word Amiga computers, which
Speaker 1: which I haven't heard forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can agree with that. I mean, really, all
Speaker 3: of Will's picks were about like mundane things like train
Speaker 3: spotting and stacking hats and garbage eating. Garbage eating very boring.
Speaker 3: It went all in on boring. Yeah, I forget that.
Speaker 3: Well it really paid off for it.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you guys, it is an honor, and thanks
Speaker 2: as always to our listeners for tuning in. That wraps
Speaker 2: it up for today's part time Genius from Mango, Gabe, Loel,
Speaker 2: and myself. Thanks so much for listening. Please stay safe
Speaker 2: and we'll be back soon with another episode. Part Time
Speaker 2: Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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