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The Netflix Gaming Club is a book club for the best video games that are available right now, for free, on mobile, with a Netflix subscription!
It's our very first episode. So to celebrate, we all made ourselves cry. Today on the Netflix gaming club, Spiritfarer. Welcome to the Netflix Gaming Club, everybody. It's a book club for video games where every week we play a different game that's available right now for free on your phone with your Netflix subscription.
James:I'm James Carlisle.
Lindsay:I'm Lindsay Burak.
Yasmin:And I'm Yasmin Thomas.
James:Welcome to our first episode, everybody.
Yasmin:Hey. Hey.
James:Like we said in the intro, it's a book club for video games, and what that means, to us is that every episode, we're going to be talking about one of the games available on Netflix and discussing what makes it unique or worth your time or maybe just what makes it work really well on a phone. We're not really trying to do reviews, but we'll tell you what we think about it. And if for some reason we play a game we don't like, we'll tell you that. But we're trying to find the ones that seem like they might have something to offer. And with that in mind, we should probably give you guys a better idea of who we are before we just launch into our brilliant opinions.
James:So my name is James. I'm a podcast producer based here in Toronto. I'm on the show because I wanna make something beautiful and accessible, and I love video games. My favorite game of all time is The Outer Wilds.
Yasmin:I'm Yasmin, also based in Toronto. I am the resident office drone and casual gamer representation, and my favorite game of all time is Pokemon Sapphire.
Lindsay:Sapphire. I'm Lindsay, also also based in Toronto. I'm a I'm a published poet and writer, with a particular interest in video game narratives, which is exactly why I'm here. And my favorite game is called 999, 9 hours, 9 persons, 9 doors.
James:And, if you'd like to hear a bit more about why those are our favorite games and what those games mean to us and about us, Check out our previous episode, our episode 0, where we give more full introductions. But today, we're talking about Spiritfarer. So, Yasmin, why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
Yasmin:Spiritfarer is a 2020 two d platformer management sim developed by Montreal based, woo hoo, developer Thunder Lotus, originally released for PC and all consoles in which you manage a ship of the dead. Gameplay is primarily platforming based, free movement in which you feed, farm, fish, build, navigate your ship, and hug your friends. Yeah. Who else's favorite part was the hugging?
Lindsay:That part was pretty great.
James:I love the hugging. It felt like a natural progression from the pet your dog button.
Lindsay:Yeah. Did anybody notice you could pet your cat? Cat. What? You could pet the cat.
Lindsay:Yeah.
Yasmin:Oh my goodness. Okay. Well, I will be continuing to play after we record this episode. Now that I know, I can pet my beautiful animal companion.
James:There are on other platform. Not on okay. So our our our podcast is about Netflix, but on other platforms, on the original platforms, it was really for you can actually play as the cat in, like, a coop.
Yasmin:Oh my god.
James:Yeah. I know. That's so cute. You can help with the farming and with the cooking and all that. The cat farms?
James:Well, you someone has to farm, and it might as well be the cat. Right? This game I gotta tell you guys. I I I played this game once before, on the switch a couple years ago.
Yasmin:You were cheating on us.
James:I yeah. I was pre cheating, and I I was really apprehensive to get back into this game. Like, I was, I was kind of scared to like go through it emotionally again. We'll I guess we'll get more into the the emotional depths this game can get to, but let's talk more about the initial game play at first. This is like a captain simulator.
James:Felt more like a mom simulator to me.
Yasmin:You're managing moods. You're feeding people. You're yeah. This is definitely a little better. Yeah.
Yasmin:You're cooking all the food.
James:There's like a Sims element where, like, all the characters have a mood tracker.
Lindsay:Mhmm.
James:And you have to watch it and figure out if they need a hug or if they need food or if I
Yasmin:did really like that if they were hungry, when you spoke to them, little food icon would go from a full apple to, like, a bitten apple to an apple core to give you an idea of how hungry they were. Like, that was just a nice little design touch.
James:How efficient were you with food? Like, did you let people get really hungry before you gave it to them, or did you keep the I
Yasmin:mean, I just outed myself by saying I saw the apple core, so clearly there were moments. But most of it was that everybody's such a picky eater. I love the uncle because he was like, I eat anything. And I was like, oh, thank god. Because this bitch over here will not take anything I've been giving her.
James:Like, I have stag?
Yasmin:Gwen is so cute. I would fight her in real life. There is no you're a deer. How are you not gonna eat fruit? How is fruit gonna be the thing you draw the line at?
Lindsay:That's fair. I thought that was weird too.
James:I related so much to Gwen as a character. Like, Gwen isn't your older sister. They're like a family friend who
Yasmin:She's yeah. She's your best friend, older than you a little bit. Like, you had that kind of that sibling relationship, but not actually?
James:Well, I got kind of like I used to be a bit of a bully vibe, and like like Gwen talks about how like she used to protect you, and she was the strong one and she was showing you how to do stuff, but there's an aloofness to her and she's like picky when she eats and her special request is that she wants a special house where she can be like alone. Yep. And She's like there's so many people
Yasmin:in this. I'm like there's 2 other people, girl. Like, have you stayed in a hostel in your life?
James:She's picky, and she's talked about being fiercely protective, but she's very vulnerable and moody and, like, clearly wants to be a good friend and a good sibling, but can't always
Yasmin:I I think she's also wrestling I mean, maybe I'm reading way too far into it. But what you've said about, you know, she has the protector role, the backstory that she gives you, all
James:of that, I think she
Yasmin:kind of wrestles with the fact that you're in charge of the ship
James:Yeah.
Lindsay:In a lot of ways.
James:Totally.
Yasmin:She's kind of stressed about not being able to be the person in charge of you in all of those ways, like, in a more loving and caring way, but part of it is relinquishing that control and accepting that, oh, you've grown into your own person.
James:Oh, man. I don't wanna get too into it, but, Gwen's whole arc, like, I don't know how it was in your games, but for me because this is a game where you are helping your friends to die.
Yasmin:Well, no. They're already dead. You're helping them to pass on. There's a difference.
James:Yeah. You're in, like, this middle you're like on the river you're like you're Karen. Yeah.
Lindsay:Right?
James:On the river Styx. You're the ferryman, ferry person. And,
Yasmin:Like the souls are already here.
Lindsay:They're not
Yasmin:going back. The only thing for them to do is either suffer here, or not even suffer, but just be in stasis or go on. So
James:Well, what what are you doing? Like, it it it's this interesting thing about the grim reaper. Right? Because you're kind of, like, comforting the souls. You're you're you're easing their passage.
James:You're helping their transition from the world of the living to the world of the dead. You're in, like, this middle ground.
Lindsay:Hence, the hugs.
James:Hence well, yeah. Absolutely. Do you ever ever have a character reject a hug on you?
Lindsay:Yes. Yes. I have.
Yasmin:It hurt me so badly. Oh my god. The funniest one is, Summer. That's her name. I always forget, because I'm just like my snake bestie.
James:Oh, Summer.
Yasmin:The teacher. Real name. Yeah. Your teacher. Yeah.
Yasmin:But she the other ones would just be like, oh, I don't really wanna hug right now. She would be like, sorry. I haven't aligned my chakras. Sorry. Like, the stars aren't quite right.
Yasmin:I was like, bitch, just say you don't wanna hug. This is excessive.
James:So does every character have, like, a kind of a shadow side with kind of a more negative antisocial trait? Like, what about what about your uncle? I can't
Lindsay:remember his name. Atul.
Yasmin:Atul. Yeah. And your aunt Viv who gets referenced, but we
James:never see. Yeah. Does Atul have a have a have a have a darker side as well? Does he have an antisocial side?
Lindsay:I think all of them do in the sense that, it allows the player to have moments where they have to figure out what the character wants as opposed to just being able to blindly hug everybody. So I think everybody has that that aspect to them.
James:Well, that's part of what makes it a mom simulator. Right? It's like, it's not just you have these sims that need work and food and sleep and whatever. It's like
Lindsay:You have to know what they need.
James:They have these personalities, and they're troubled in their ways, and some of them are better communicators than others.
Yasmin:It's Maslow's hierarchy too because it's not just, like, you can hug them and feed them, and you're done. You're trying to find, like, fulfillment for them emotionally and spiritually so that they can move on.
Lindsay:Yeah. Like, their quests are a little bit different from each other. Like, Atul wants you to to build and improve a lot of things. Some other people like Gwen just want their own spaces. I guess all of them want their own spaces, but not all of them have a space that's just like a bedroom.
Lindsay:Like, I think I I hadn't gotten quite to that part, but Atul's maybe I did actually. Atul's room is a
James:Sawmill?
Lindsay:A sawmill, I think.
Yasmin:He likes being useful. His big character trait is that he's like, I'll eat anything. I'll contribute. I'll help build this boat. I'll do all of this stuff.
Yasmin:Like, his thing is that he needs to be useful. So at various points in it too, he'll have, oh, like, these other people in your ship are great, but
Lindsay:what am
Yasmin:I doing here? What can I contribute?
James:He really getting a tool really unlocked the game for me. Mhmm. Because before that, when it was just me and Gwen, I didn't really know what the game like I don't know, this game is all about time management, thematically, right? Like it's about death and so it's about like making the most of every moment and like you get to be at a point in this game when you're in a loop where you're like you got food on, food's cooking, you've got the your garden, you gotta water your garden, you've got your people, you're checking on them, you're fishing, your boat's in transit and you're moving so you're trying to make the most of that time and get everything you can at a much moment. And, I I don't know.
James:I found that, like, when I got a tool and he started saying, oh, I'll help. I can, like, I I don't know if he said he was gonna cook or what he said. Maybe he just said he's gonna eat all the food, but but even that is helpful because you get, like, you know, you have a bunch of corn, you have a bunch of popcorn, and Gwen isn't gonna eat any popcorn because she already had popcorn. She will. She likes comfort food.
Lindsay:Yeah. But she doesn't like food.
Yasmin:But she doesn't like it twice in a row. I was like, girl. Oh my goodness.
James:So having help, having a crew, and having the character start to feel like they contributed, they weren't just taking, it started to really, like
Lindsay:I actually found, like, it really interesting because you'd see Atul, like, working on things every so often, like, he'll be hammering a building. And then you'll go over to Gwen, and you'll notice her mood is worse because she doesn't like the noise from Atul working. Really? Yeah.
James:Could you help by keeping Gwen, like, in a corner of her house in a corner?
Lindsay:I think you just had to improve her mood by, like, either giving her a hug to make her feel better or giving her food that she likes or stuff like that. Just it's just the way it was. The 2 of them, I guess, just didn't mesh very well as pastors.
Yasmin:Also has a really fun little dialogue about being like, oh, you're great. But the other people in the ship are kind of and he doesn't really say stuck up. Oh. But he kinda gets there, and you go, oh, Atul and Gwen, worst personality combo. So then I was like, okay.
James:I gotta figure out what
Yasmin:your quest are and get one of you into the afterlife because my boat is
James:gonna turn into a reality show. Well, so that's the fucked up thing. Like, it's this game where you're so busy with the work of keeping your crew alive. Well, just keep just the the the work of life.
Yasmin:Yep.
James:You know? Growing food, cooking food, you know, making sure you're on
Yasmin:Playing with your guitar to your carrots.
James:I I never fucked with that. I did that once. I I hated that mini game. I'm like, I'm never playing this stupid Guitar Hero again.
Yasmin:Not expecting Guitar Hero to show up in this game. Yeah.
Lindsay:I will be out there.
Yasmin:There were so many things that made sense, and then all of a sudden, she was like, yeah. Play your guitar. And I was like, I was bad at this when I was holding the physical what do you even call it? The console thingy?
James:A guitar?
Yasmin:Well, yes. A real
James:Oh, the plastic guitar the the harmonics.
Lindsay:Thank you. Yes.
James:Guitar Hero's guitars. Yeah. Yeah.
Yasmin:I was bad at that in real life then. Trying to do it with my thumb on a phone screen was not quite what I was dreaming of.
James:So good time to mention how we all play this. I played this on an iPad mini with an Xbox Bluetooth controller and wireless headphones.
Yasmin:So Jamie's the cool one as you can tell.
James:I don't have any patience for touch controls. It's gonna be a problem on this podcast. But let's give our impressions of the controls.
Yasmin:Because I know we both did have Yeah. And I wanted to hear about yours considering you played it in the most insane way.
James:No. I put it in the most sane way. That's the thing.
Yasmin:Is that like compared to it's, like, Netflix mobile library. Like, they they market it as that, and you're, like, well, actually, me and my Xbox controller.
James:So well, so the reason I played it on the controller was that I remember there was a lot of jumping in the game, and I remember the movement was important, and I just didn't
Yasmin:I touched controls to kill myself with my little thumbs, but
James:I think I'm gonna, in general, always be using a controller, I think, because I just don't I don't wanna be a touch and I think one of us on a controller might give some good perspective.
Yasmin:Gonna say I think that's a good conversation.
James:But, yeah, you I used to play, like, Xbox Game Pass on an iPad with a PlayStation 4 controller, and so I'm playing, like, Xbox original games on an iPad with a PlayStation controller. It's like, fuck you.
Yasmin:That whole sentence, like, my mind is
James:Yeah. Yeah. It did it was very janky. With that Yeah. It was terrible.
James:It was terrible. But that's how I play, like, Starfield and all these Xbox originals. Yeah. I love the movement. I don't love the movement in spirit prayer.
James:I think they put a good amount of effort into it, and it it feels nice. But
Yasmin:The problem is just that the controls are, like, they are optimized for mobile, but when you are trying to use your little tiny thumbs on your little tiny phone screen Oh,
James:it's not gonna work.
Yasmin:There's only so much optimization you can do. And jumping especially. My god.
James:Platforming just doesn't work on mobile. I don't believe it works. The only good platformer I played on mobile was Mario Run, which was a one button game where if you tap the screen anywhere, Mario jumps, and there was the time
Yasmin:Flappy Bird kind
James:of thing. It's like an auto runner only on the ground. It's not flying. Right? But the same kind of, like, one one button, one touch control.
James:And with auto running, platforming works because it's just the timing. But when you're, like, doing the 2, I don't have time for that.
Lindsay:One thing that I struggled with a little bit was that when I was trying to aim for something to select or click on, sometimes I would click on something that was right beside it just because everything was so compressed in the screen. Like, when I was trying to go into the house to go navigate or go to bed, sometimes I'd actually ring the morning bell in the middle of the night and wake people up and they'd get upset. Stuff like that just
James:always never rang the morning bell at night. I always I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to see what would happen, but I couldn't
Lindsay:do it. I can tell you what happens. What happens?
James:Do they get mad?
Lindsay:How how much their mood decreases? Their mood decreases.
James:Does Gwen have something to
Lindsay:say? I don't think they ever said anything to me because I only made that mistake one time, but I was like, oh, that's how I found out that you could, pet the cat actually because I accidentally clicked on the cat instead of whatever I was trying to click. And I was like, oh, that's cute. Wanted to ring the bell so bad, but I would wait for the, like, little bell,
Yasmin:checking the thing because I wanted to ring the bell so bad, but I would wait for the, like, little bell,
James:time slot. Oh.
Yasmin:There's there's a time slot. You know? Like, there's this on, and then there's a bell time slot, and then it's day. And I would anxiously wait for that little pizza piece pizza pie to come up and have the little arrow on it, and then I would be, like, ringing the bell 16 times frantically.
James:I didn't have that problem with the bell, but I had that with cooking. When I first started playing the game,
Yasmin:I was
James:convinced that the minute the cooking is up, you have to pull it out. It's gonna burn.
Lindsay:Yes. I was worried about that too. I did a test with just one, like, fish or something just to see what would happen, and I've discovered early on that you you don't burn stuff, but that was a concern of mine as well.
James:Such a concern.
Yasmin:I was terrified.
James:My first time I sat and I watched the timer. Yes. I watched the gold, and it's slow as hell, man. I was coming 4 herrings. God damn.
James:Anyway, let's get back to the controls. Lindsay, where did you play this game?
Lindsay:I played it on a Galaxy Zed flip 4, which is a foldable phone, so it kind of has a weird aspect ratio.
James:Oh, I'm the cool one.
Lindsay:Yeah. Yeah. But I found that some things were a little bit off. Maybe I just need to play with the resolution settings more, but I don't know. When I was playing the guitar mini game for the plants, did you find the top button was cut off on the screen, or is that just my aspect ratio?
Yasmin:That's your aspect ratio.
Lindsay:Do I need to fiddle around with that when I get back into it?
James:The timing was completely impossible because, like, my controller had a delay. The screen was in time. My headphones had a different delay than my controller.
Lindsay:Oh, no. And, like, so it
James:was just it was just a nightmare. I didn't like so I didn't like Guitar Hero game. It didn't sound like you guys did either, but there were there were, like, a lot of mini games.
Yasmin:Yeah. Which I really really do like. I appreciate
Lindsay:it so much.
Yasmin:There's constant little puzzles popping up, little fun side quests, little fun things.
James:Which ones, which ones are your favorites?
Lindsay:Okay. So my favorite one was either the fishing or the loom one just because they were kind of easy to do. But I thought the most interesting one was the sawmill one.
James:I didn't play the sawmill one this till around. I played it last time, but I don't remember it. You're cutting while
Lindsay:it's out. Like, it had a slider, and, there's, like, arrows running along the log of where you're supposed to cut, and they'll sometimes go up or down. So you have to, like, move the slider with it, but the the, slider is much different, like, sensitivity than the actual log cutter thing. So you you don't you don't, like, line it up with the log. You have to kind of it's its own
James:So is it a game of operation where it's just like a stay hand thing or like
Lindsay:Kind of. But I just I found it a little bit more challenging than the other ones, so I like that about it. But the other ones were easy, so I I liked them being easy.
James:How about you, Yasmin? Did any of the mini games stand out to you?
Yasmin:I really liked and this is one of those things where I'm like, it's not even a proper mini game. It's not like there are fancy controls. I liked the lightning catching. Yeah. It was so good.
Yasmin:That was my favorite. Was that even, like, a full mini game? No. But every single time, I was piloting my shit into a storm just for fun. I was like, I want to be zapped by lightning.
Yasmin:This game is giving me all of my dreams all at once.
Lindsay:Yeah. Very Oh, that was a fun one. Some things
Yasmin:Also cool that your uncle is like, yeah. It won't kill you. Just go like, what?
James:Well, you're right. Yeah.
Yasmin:Shows up in the afterlife and is like, hey. Go get shocked by lightning. Are were we cool in life? Do you want me dead for real?
James:Man, there's something so special about that game because it's basically just the jellyfish catching mini game,
Yasmin:but so much more fun.
Lindsay:Did anybody, dislike the jellyfish catching it?
James:Really?
Yasmin:Lightning catching, perfect. Jellyfish, evil. Yeah.
James:What do you hate about the jellyfish catching game?
Yasmin:And this is probably I mean, I can go into this more depth with, one of 1 or 2 of the side missions. I, as the casual gamer representation, most of the things about this game, great, very easy controls, very easy navigation. I can't jump for shit. Yeah. It does not matter if I am on a computer.
Yasmin:It does not matter if I am on a DS. It does not matter if I'm on a Switch. It does not matter today if I am on my Google Pixel 7 a. I cannot fucking jump. There is no moment in my life.
Yasmin:So jellyfish catching, evil.
Lindsay:Yeah. I found that, for me, part of the problem was that there were so many jellyfish that you missed just because they're kind of coming from everywhere Mhmm. That it feels unsatisfying because of how many you're missing.
James:So I I I agree with that, but I also found it a bit of, a Metroidvania y kind of hook because, like, you'd be playing the jellyfish game, and you get a double jump as like your 1st upgrade, the first like Metroid vein you start to upgrade, and before you get the double jump, there'll be jellyfish that are just like a little bit too high for you to get to, and then after you get the jelly, the double jump, the jellyfish start being like 5 times higher in the sky, and you're like, what? And it's like a promise that you're gonna get there. Right?
Lindsay:Well, for me, I went to one of the jellyfish stages that was, like, I don't know, stage 4 or something before I got the double jump, and they were still way too high up for me to get. Totally. Like, it didn't start I I guess I did the order wrong or something, but but when I did that jellyfish, I was like, how the hell am I supposed to get all the way up there? I didn't have buildings that were tall enough. I couldn't double jump.
Lindsay:I was like, this is just frustrating.
Yasmin:I did save myself in the when they were like, you can build. I was like, great. The guest house is going as high as I can physically make it.
Lindsay:Yep. So I did do that. Yeah.
Yasmin:Just had all of my buildings were really, really tall, and then I started running into trouble when I had to add more. Like, I had to rearrange, I think, 3 times over the course of this because I kept just putting things in absurd places. But I did appreciate that they let you rearrange. You were never locked in. Like, your boat's constantly in flux.
Yasmin:Your passengers are in flux. You're clearly in flux.
James:I I loved how the the roofs would disappear so you could, like, stack them like a like a
Yasmin:a really good
James:high rise. Yeah.
Yasmin:Yeah. But it was also sad because I was like, why can't I shrink any of these so they can all have roofs? What if they just look like a tiny little village?
James:German impression is looking. Exactly. So yeah. So this game is about like the the work of life and it expresses it mostly through like these mini games and these status bars. And then, you know, you're you're farming, you're feeding your animals, you're building your ship and then one of your friends dies.
James:Right? Like, that's the loop of the game. I lost Gwen first. I think you always lose Gwen first.
Lindsay:I guess I also lost Gwen first. Yeah.
James:And my arc with Gwen, like, I I don't know if this is every time, but by the time Gwen died, and I'm just gonna say died for or that is what's happening. Right? Like, maybe she's already dead technically, but whatever, like
Lindsay:She's, like, ready to move on.
Yasmin:Yeah. She passes on.
James:She decides it's time to leave and she did it for me after kind of being like shutting herself up in her house for, like, a long time.
Lindsay:Oh, no.
James:And, like, she didn't come out. She didn't come out. She didn't come out. She didn't come out. And then she did come out said, yeah.
James:It's because she did she does that. Right? She has, like, a period where she goes into her house and doesn't really care.
Lindsay:Yeah. But I'm so sorry. Disappears. You you have to go to her her little mansion from her childhood.
James:Oh, is that what triggers her? So I'm
Lindsay:seeing No. No. No. That's not what triggers her going away, but it's what happens after she disappears into her room for a while. You realize that she's left the ship.
Lindsay:She's missing, and you have to revisit
James:Oh, man.
Lindsay:Her child at home.
James:So it's been about a year since I got that far in the game. But, again, I related a lot to Gwen and, like, I'm a bit of a loner as my friends here know. You have to record a podcast with me to to see me, and, like, something about Gwen just shutting herself off and just being depressive and then dying and then leaving your life, it just spoke to a lot of concerns I have about being there for my friends and time passing and, like, one day there won't be time anymore, and so you need to you need to live while you're in the moment. Right? Like Yeah.
Yasmin:That's the hallway. Connections while you're here.
James:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, this game, it's well, it's like a memento Mori. It's like, I'm not an art history student.
James:I'm gonna butcher this, but, you know, art made to remind you that you're going to die and to encourage you to live your life and to
Yasmin:To find value in life.
James:To walk in death and use that to provide meaning, but it shows up in games a lot. This is a really beautiful example of the Memento Mori game. A game that really exists to tell you to value your life and value your loved ones and, you know, other games like that, Return of the Obra Dinn actually starts with the with the little capsule that says memento mori on it.
Lindsay:I think it's on
James:your little on your wallet, or your little timekeeper stopwatch, pocket watch. Has anybody else played any games like that? Do any do you have you ever played another, not even just games, it's opened up a little bit. Like, where have you come across this trope in your lives?
Yasmin:Well, this is only sort of a moment, but sort of, like, when I was playing Spiritfarer, I kept having these moments where I went, oh, one of my best friends, played all of and I don't even know if I'm remembering the name right, but Omori, I think it was. I'll probably have to double check this, but the gist of it is that you and your close friends are maybe already dead and trying to find a way back to life. So similar and different in a lot of ways, but same, like, traumatic backstory is slowly unlocked. Like, you have to keep people's moods up. You have to interact with them.
Yasmin:You're all working together even though you all have secrets from each other, all of that kind of thing. But same focus, yeah, on, like, death doesn't have to or not that death doesn't have to be the end, but, like, just because it's going to happen doesn't mean that you don't do other things that you don't try and live in other ways. That game, frankly, was very depressing. They would send me screenshots of, like, the most traumatic backstory parts, and I'd be like, why are you doing this to me? I just this is a Tuesday at, like, 3 PM.
James:Well, so so what what sort of feelings did Spiritfarer leave you with in terms of like, Spiritfarer is very naked in its dealing with death. It really, like I said, it interrupts your busy life with it and it takes people away from you and it makes you really it's about death. It's about grieving and loss and it's not about grieving actually. It's about loss, but it's not about grieving. So how did you handle the death in Spiritfarer?
James:What was it like when you lost your first guy?
Lindsay:I I'm not gonna lie. I teared up a bit. It was very sad. Like, I I didn't think I would, but the combination of the atmosphere, the music that was playing, just, Gwen talking about her life and her her stories as you're paddling your little rowboat over to the big door Mhmm. It was just very melancholy.
Lindsay:It was it was sad. It was bittersweet.
James:Let's gobert for it. So one of the reasons I was afraid to play this game again is I played it, a few years back, and I don't quite remember if I I believe I got to a point where I had had 3 people on the ship, and they'd all died, and I hadn't I think I was at a point where I actually had the ship be empty again. I might be wrong
Lindsay:about that,
James:and it was devastating. Yeah. You know, I I was I felt really empty. I I I'm playing Minecraft right now with my girlfriend because she lives very far away right now, and so we just exist in this virtual space together. And I've been working on a house that I originally built, like, during the pandemic with my roommate.
James:And, it's weird that video games can be imbued with this empty house feeling. Like, after my roommate moved out, I stopped working on my house in Minecraft because it was like, well, what's the point? Why am I building this house? And then when me and my girlfriend started playing Minecraft again, suddenly, oh, it was amazing. I wanna rebuild the house.
James:It's full of life again. It's full of flowers and everything. And I can't help but think that, like, if me and my girlfriend were to break up or something, I were to go back to that game, I wouldn't really wanna be there anymore because it's it was our house together. And, like, that was the feeling in Spiritfare. It's like I built this I built this boat.
Yasmin:And you do very much build it to the specifications of, like, I'm building this garden because Summer really likes gardening, and she wants to sing to the carrots. Like, sure, I need carrots, but I'm doing it because Summer really likes this, and also because she's a vegan or whatever. Mhmm. Oh. It's a vegan I think it's a vegan, not vegetarian.
Yasmin:She's like, I don't eat this. I don't
James:eat that. Yeah.
Yasmin:She's vegan. But, yeah, you're building this boat, all of these pieces that are coming together. You unlock them through these people. They're for these people, and then when you're left with 5 buildings and no one to fill them.
James:And with the like, Gwen's house was still there for a long time.
Yasmin:Oh. I couldn't You couldn't bring yourself to salvage it?
James:Yeah. Like, you know, but you do need the space. Yeah. You know? Oh, Oh, this game is a great upgrade tree for the boat and everything.
James:Like, that's all. All the upgrades are super fun, by the way. Like, all the did you guys play any farming simulators like Stardew Valley or,
Lindsay:absolutely? A lot of harvest moon.
James:Harvest moons go by Emerald.
Yasmin:Where's Animal crossing. Crossing.
Lindsay:Yeah. Animal crossing as well.
Yasmin:I was forced to during the pandemic.
James:I missed that one. I was doing Minecraft. How does this how does the the is this a farming game? Like, the way animal are, Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon are?
Lindsay:Not to the same degree. Mhmm. But it does have farming elements to it, I would say. Because you your farmland, you can't really expand it that much. It I I don't know if when you expand it, you have more plots or anything because I don't think I've gotten to the improve garden or field part of the game yet.
Lindsay:But, you you start off with 3 spots at least Mhmm. And, then that might be it. But when in game like Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, you have, like, huge fields and you're you you fill up every plot with different things and you start to build other things that automate the process. And there's just, a a lot more focus on the actual farming and mechanics in those games. Whereas in this game, it's kind of more of a mini game side aspect, like, one of the many small things that that build up the game.
Yasmin:Well, there's also the you were talking before about how this game is about time management, but it's about resource management too. Like, time is a very small ship. You have these small buildings. You're only gonna have 3 plots because the idea, I think, is, okay, if you want to make this particular food or you have this new person, you have to use these plots strategically. Mhmm.
Yasmin:Like, I think a lot of it is very intentional about keeping those things contained and small, and you have to be very mindful all of the time. Absolutely.
James:It it this is not a game that Like, if
Yasmin:they let you expand it too much, you could just build everything for everybody and be totally fine. You're supposed to be scarcity.
James:Well, again, like, to compare it to, like, Minecraft, like, this doesn't get to the point where you're building, like, these crazy machines that are, like, automatically mining and sorting and all. That's what I'm doing in Minecraft right now. It's really confusing.
Lindsay:Speaking of time management, one thing that I really appreciated about this game is that there weren't really timers on things. Like, a lot of, I know this wasn't originally a mobile game, but a lot of mobile games these days, if you try to build a building, it'll be, like, come back in 10 hours when it's built.
James:Oh, yeah.
Lindsay:Or 10 minutes of time. Yes. That too. The only timers that I noticed were cooking the food and Yep. Get in travel, And those were still, like, in the range of minutes as of how long things took.
James:Those were mostly just to provide context to the rest of the game.
Lindsay:Mhmm. Mhmm. And there was lots of things you could be doing while those were happening. Like, you could be cooking. You could be like, while you're cooking, you could be fishing.
Lindsay:You could be picking up your crops in the field or whatever. You could be talking to people. You could be feeding them. There's lots of things you could be doing while those things were going on. It never felt like you just had to sit there.
James:Did you feel a a franticness in the game? Did you feel a need to, like, always be doing things, always be?
Lindsay:I didn't feel super rushed either. There were some times when I was like, okay, I wanna get this stuff done before I reach my destination. But once you reach the destination, you can just sit there for a little bit while you're finishing up what you're doing. Mhmm.
Yasmin:Yeah. There's no, you have to get off of the boat by this time or else.
James:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's everybody else.
Yasmin:I think I started using it. The thing I did like was that the nights, the others go to sleep, and you kind of just get to do stuff. Like, I would kind of during the day or during traveling periods or something like that, I would do stuff like interact with the others, feed them, give them hugs, like, keep an eye on them, maybe plant some crops if I needed to, but most of it was about managing the people resource. And then at night, because they're all asleep, then I would be doing all of the planting and management and fishing stuff.
James:Smart. I would just go immediately to sleep. If my ship wasn't moving, I wasn't playing the game.
Yasmin:If my ship wasn't moving and it was night and I had to be there, I was like, I can just fish 6,000,000 things up and prep myself for the next day. Like, I kind of used it like that.
Lindsay:I mostly did my stuff while I was traveling during the day. At night, if I was in the middle of something, I would finish it, but then usually after that, I would just go to sleep because it was wasting travel time since you can't navigate at night.
James:Yeah. Exactly. I didn't I I felt I really felt the need not to waste travel time.
Yasmin:I used it, like, meal prepping. That was my night, so I was, like, great. All of these annoying chores I don't wanna do during the day, but I can do them now.
James:I I I think this game is really beautiful in the way it maps the work of life Mhmm. Onto a video game and then finds a way to have the specter of of of death come in. And, like, it I think it's a really beautiful, like, celebration of of of of the of the meaning of life. You know? Yeah.
Yasmin:And also like the way that there's so much meaning in mundane tasks as well.
James:That's
Yasmin:Like, it gives you the value in game, but it also kind of makes you look at your life and go, oh, like, no. This thing that I have to do for myself isn't kind of a chore or a drag. Like, it has value. It adds value to my life thinking about those things.
James:Well and also, like, there is no final destination for the boat. Like Mhmm. You're just going through the cycle, and people come in and they leave and, like, you
Lindsay:know I kind of really liked that aspect because it felt like you're literally helping
Yasmin:people along and waiting for them to
Lindsay:be the ones who are ready to move on. Like, you're completing their requests. You're making their last moments happy. You're just going around aimlessly. Well, sort of aimlessly.
Lindsay:You you have small aims such as I need to go buy some more seeds, or I need to pick up some more lumber or something. But for the most part, you're just waiting for the people you're ferrying to be ready to accept their death.
Yasmin:I did also related to accepting their death. I think my favorite thing about Gwen was that, like, the others, you know, you'd kind of get into a conversation or whatever, and then they'd tell you stuff about their backstory. But Gwen would just appear on the deck every so often and be like, so my father. And I was like, what the hell? Like, you were fishing 2 seconds ago.
Yasmin:She would just trauma, like, bomb you every so often. I thought that was really, really funny, frankly.
James:Yeah. That's a pretty game.
Lindsay:I do have one minor complaint about it, and I don't know if this was, my phone specifically, but I my very, very initial impression of this game was kind of iffy because the very first thing I saw when the game started up was there's a close-up of your character Stella and her cat, Daffodil.
James:Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsay:And it was blurry and pixelated. It looked bad, bad. And I was like, is something wrong here? And I later went into the settings and checked what was going on there, and that was the default settings, which I thought was, like, not a great choice. But when I turned it up, it still wasn't perfect.
Lindsay:It still looked a little bit blurry when we got a bit closer, but it was definitely better.
James:I I I do think on a technical side, the optimization was a little a little off.
Yasmin:Mhmm.
James:Like, it seems like they completely cut the multiplayer out of this game, for the Netflix release. I think we mentioned that earlier and yeah. I noticed that too that it started on a super low resolution and the first the first, like, second of the game, it, like, zooms in on the screen. It doesn't even, like, render it bigger. So it just, like, totally, right out the gate highlights the bad resolution, which I thought was a very strange choice.
Lindsay:I didn't think it was a good start for the game because it actually was a lovely game, and and I ended up enjoying it as I played it more. But it wasn't a great first impression for me.
James:I I
Yasmin:think that it's probably like, the Netflix optimization of it is that anyone on any device could be downloading this. Maybe they don't have that much space. Maybe they're running an older device. So, like, from their perspective, it makes sense to I'm assuming all of the Netflix games we play will default to a lower resolution, but they should really check which games they're doing that to. Because for this one, it doesn't work.
Yasmin:For another one where it starts out zoomed out, probably fine. But this one specifically, like, you really notice it.
James:I wonder who's doing these ports. I I never I wonder if Netflix is is helping to port these games to mobile if they're not already mobile games.
Lindsay:Well, I think that's just out of control. I saw that for, the mobile release of this. Netflix published it. Mhmm. So I don't know if they had a hand in doing the port, but when it, like, when it first came to mobile, it was Netflix's publishing.
James:That's interesting. That's something to maybe put a pin in and, look into later. I think we've I think we've pretty much covered Spiritfarer, but I wanna I wanna leave us with with a quote, from your snake teacher. What was what was her name again?
Yasmin:Summer. Summer. Summer. Our vegan snake teacher, please remember.
James:At one point, she says, a garden is a vessel of our love, a mirror we hold to ourselves. And I've never heard that it's a pretty the first half is a pretty obvious statement. The garden is a vessel for love. Right? It's a mirror we hold to ourselves.
James:I've never heard anyone express that before but that's you can't see this dear listener, but, in my apartment where we record, we're surrounded by plants and life. And I used to be a very depressed, cynical I used to be a very depressed and cynical person now. But part of part of getting better and learning to accept life for me, and it really was accepting life, was growing plants and seeing how the way I treated them, the way I nourished them, the amount of love and attention I gave them, you could see it years later. You could look at the plant and you could see times when it was malnourished and times when it was given lots of water and love and attention. And I just started seeing how, like, a body reflects the life it lives.
James:And so a body reflects the love it's given.
Lindsay:Yeah. It's a good reminder that we need to take care of ourselves and the ones we love.
James:And and what that looks like. What love looks like.
Lindsay:Mhmm.
James:You know? I I think Spiritfarer is a game about growing a garden. You know? It's it's a game about about the love you give to the things in your space.
Yasmin:And the way you cultivate it.
James:Yeah. Yeah. So let's take a quick break and move on to, some other recommendations. Battlestar Galactica is the best Star Trek series. I love it.
James:It starts off being Star Trek meets The West Wing. It's like this group of people, they're survivors, their planet got completely wiped out by robots. Every episode starts with a count. It's like there are 50,000 people left alive, and it goes down every episode.
Lindsay:Oh my god.
James:It goes below 50 in the first, and then it just bleeds for the rest of the series, and it's like there are 38,997 characters. There's an episode where somebody kills themself, and and at the end of the episode, they sadly have to erase the 1 on the whiteboard. It's a whiteboard in the president's suite. It's propulsive and gritty. It's Ronald d Moore who was a writer on Star Trek.
James:He now does for all kind on Apple TV. That's why we got back into battle, sorry. It's his first solo show, first one he developed his show run. It's so good. There's even a podcast about it from 2,003.
James:My favorite thing about it is that it starts off being a super hard sci fi gritty military thing about survival and hope and what you do if you're on a convoy of people going away from a burning planet into deep space. Because this
Yasmin:is something we all, you know, have questions about. It's something that happens.
James:Well, they're like a caravan. Right? But as time goes on, as the first season ends, god becomes a presence and faith becomes a huge part of the series. It starts becoming like a Mormon story and as faith enters the equation, it goes from being star trek meets the west wing to being like survivor meets Evangelion. Like, it just the stakes get huge.
Yasmin:So so should the tagline for this be white people do Evangelion?
James:The tagline, should this be Mormon Evangelion? Yeah. Yeah.
Yasmin:Okay. I I
James:just I love it. I love it. It's so good. It's so good. It's completely insane.
James:How about you, Lindsay? What have, what have you been, doing
Lindsay:doing this week? So I watched Nimona, a 2023 science fantasy adventure film, which was nominated for an Oscar in best animated feature film, but lost to the boy in the heron.
James:Sure.
Lindsay:Still a great movie. Basically, what the movie is about is this commoner kid wants to become a knight of the realm with the rest of the royal bloodline knights in training. The queen vouches for him and he gets put in training with the rest of them. And when he's all grown up during the knighting ceremony, the queen is murdered and he's framed for it. So he has to make his escape.
Lindsay:He runs into the titular character, Nimona, who helps him with his escape, although in slightly more violent ways than he would appreciate.
James:But The knights of pacifist.
Lindsay:Kind I mean, she's very anarchist, very edgy. And and I think that's who this film would appeal to the most is
James:Anarchist. Kind
Lindsay:of edgy no. Like, edgy, quirky, pre teen girls who, see themselves in pneumonia, see themselves as being kind of an outcast type person.
Yasmin:Does she also just, like you said, in more violent ways, I know that most not that we're still there, but most, like, young girl characters don't get to be the aggressor. Does she get to do that in a lot of situations? Because that was something I wanted as a little kid.
Lindsay:She she does. She does get to be the aggressor. She she's a hero in her own right, honestly, and and there's a lot of crazy stuff that happens that, kind of helps see that through. But I I don't wanna give away too much. But I found that the first half of the movie was a little bit cliche for me.
Lindsay:The writing was a bit cliche. It got better in the second half. I definitely think this could be a good, like, classic coming of age film for a lot of young girls. I also really liked that there was a lot of LGBTQ representation in the movie. It didn't feel too pandering.
Lindsay:It just felt like it was naturally in there. Like, the main character, for example, our friend, the knight Baluster, his, romantic lead his romantic interest, which which I I really, really liked the the name of because it felt like they were very self aware when they were they were naming him. What was
James:his, name?
Lindsay:His his name was Ambrosius Goldilmoin.
James:Nice. Nice.
Yasmin:I still can't believe they did that in a kid's movie. I mean, like, I know that kids movies are partly for the parents and all of that stuff, but Goldinloin.
James:I feel like loin is like a is like a word you use to get around, like, the kids in the room. You know
Lindsay:what I mean? That during the movie too. Like, they had some jokes for adults in the movie. Like, there was one joke when they were kind of crashing through various rooms. They run into a bathroom and a guy is, taking a piss.
Lindsay:Nice. And Nimona comments, oh, cold in here?
James:Is, is this explicitly a kids movie? Like
Lindsay:It felt it felt like a kids' movie to me.
James:Interesting.
Lindsay:It definitely like I said, it had some things in there for the adults watching it, but I felt like it wasn't for the adults.
Yasmin:How old are the main characters?
Lindsay:Nimona doesn't actually say her age, but, Baluster guesses that she's around 10. And she's like, come on. Do I look 10? To me, she looks more like maybe 13, 14, 15, somewhere around there.
James:Yeah. Hard to tell in animation. Right?
Lindsay:It's hard to tell with animation.
James:But, like, is the violence inappropriate for kids? Like, is it too is it, like, very violent?
Lindsay:I wouldn't I would say that there are some moments where people are definitely dead, and you're like, okay, those guys died for sure. But it's not, like, bloody and gory or anything like that.
Yasmin:Okay. So, like, 10 to 12 kind of Yeah. Vibes.
Lindsay:I also really like the setting of it because it was very futuristic. Like, there were flying cars, stuff like that. But also, there are knights of the realm, like, very middle ages fantasy aspects to it. So it was kind of this cool clash of past and future.
James:Trying to think of other movies that had a cool, like, that did that that did that, like, future night thing. I know it's not a good movie, but I know that, the gun slinger, the Stephen King, remake.
Lindsay:Dark tower?
James:The dark the dark tower. That was the name of the movie. Right?
Lindsay:Oh, oh, I've got
Yasmin:an example. Also not technically good, but fantastic. Man with the iron fist. Oh, yeah? Have you ever seen it?
Yasmin:So it's samurai movie, except the main character is a black guy with a rocket powered iron fist. Lucy Liu is one of the samurai characters because
Lindsay:of
Yasmin:course she is. Makes no sense. But same, like, weird blend of, like, that's definitely sci fi, but also they're technically kind of in ancient Japan. Like, no one knows what's going on.
James:Very cool. Very cool. But, Yasmin, what did you do this week?
Yasmin:Not rewatch man with the iron fist, which now I'm gonna go home and do. I attended a concert for a band I've been a fan of for over a decade. They're called the Staves. They're a UK based singer songwriter, formerly trio, now duo. Oh.
Yasmin:It not no one died. They're sisters. The eldest sister has, I think, 2 kids now, and she was like, I am not touring this time, y'all. I have 2 kids under 5. So it's just Camilla and Jess now.
Yasmin:But what I'm here to recommend since, you know, the concert has passed and none of you dear listeners can attend, is their 5th studio album, all now. It is so their whole thing is harmonies. A lot of their stuff is very vocal based. It's very folk based. Like, some of their earlier hits were kind of reworkings of traditional folk songs from, around their area in the UK.
Yasmin:They're from Wofford. Mhmm. Why do I know this? I this is what a decade of fandom does to you.
James:I thought I knew every little English Hamlet.
Yasmin:No. This is what fandom does to you. But this one was a little bit more pop, a little bit more rock. They have been adding more and more guitar over the albums kind of as Jess gets more into it.
James:Hell, yeah.
Yasmin:Nice. Which I really, really loved, especially seeing on stage where she got bring out her electric guitar and was, like, so excited about it. And, also, their music has never been upbeat because folk songs are kind of never upbeat. They're like, I'm dying, and my husband everything kinda sucks, and there's a famine. But this one is angry, which I've really, really enjoyed.
Yasmin:A lot of it is just about the ways that, modern society like, you aren't fully satisfied with, you know, engaging with people digitally or at a distance. You aren't fully satisfied with, like, the social, like, kind of rote, patterns that you fall into, all of that, but you have to act like you do. You have to act like you're having the best time, like that kind of veneer that we all put on. So a lot of it is just angry about that.
James:Cool.
Lindsay:And, you
Yasmin:know, beautifully sung.
Lindsay:So for people who, might wanna catch their next concert, did they put on a good show?
Yasmin:Oh my god. So good. So good. And they have 3 backup guys. 1 of whom was just playing, like, every instrument.
Yasmin:Like, at one point, he comes out and he has a trombone, and I'm like, I don't even know how this is gonna work out for us. But fantastic show. They've been to Toronto. I think this was their 3rd or 4th time. I've been at every show because, of course, I have.
Yasmin:But they've finally learned what Toronto residents are called because the last two shows, Millie called us Torontons, and she finally said Torontonians this time. So we got there. We got there.
Lindsay:Torontons. Yeah. I know. Like,
Yasmin:Toronto. Especially in, like, a very pleasant
James:I know we smelled that on the outside.
Yasmin:Especially in a very pleasant, like, light English accent being called Torontons. I was like, oh, yeah. Like, Twirl's hair, maybe I could be for you.
James:Alright. Well, on that note, I think, that's gonna do it for us, here on the Netflix gaming club. To recap, this week we all played Spiritfarer. I watched Battlestar Galactica. Lindsay watched Nimona, and Yasmin listened to All Now by the Staves.
James:Yasmin, do you have a do you have a song you could recommend by them if you can only listen to one song by the Staves?
Yasmin:Do you mean if their entire catalog? Because I will have a mental breakdown right now in front of you. Good. Oh,
James:cool. Come to mind?
Yasmin:Mexico.
James:Mexico.
Yasmin:It was their first big hit of sorts. It has very good, like, 3 part layered choral harmonies, all of that. Cool. 2012, I think. Dead and Born and Grown.
Yasmin:Again, I've been a fan for too long. I'm gonna shut up now.
James:Cool. Very cool. Alright. So make sure to catch us next week when we'll be playing Moonlighter. We'll be here, and we hope you are too.
James:See you next week.
Yasmin:The Netflix gaming club is produced by Big Bad Audio and engineered by Andrew Blythe. The show is hosted by Lindsay Burack, James Carlyle, and myself, Yasmin Thomas. We'd like to thank the high loves for the use of our theme song, Sure of It. Check them out wherever you listen to music. As always, if you like what you hear and wanna help us grow, please rate us on Apple or Spotify, the higher the better.
Yasmin:And if you're not into public declarations of affection, you can always tell a friend or find someone to play these games together with, and we'll be here for you guys after you do. Special thanks to Wendy Pretty, Rob Schulte, and the Netflix gamer's Discord community.
James:Hey, guys.
Yasmin:Hey.
James:Welcome. It's our first episode. We're doing it. We're doing it for real. Woah.
James:Can't say that. That sounds so bad. Alright. I'm don't worry about it. I'm just gonna keep going.