Some of our landings were desperate adventures. We are now prepared to meet the inevitable counter-attacks with power and with confidence. Thank you. I'm. I'm. My name is Gary Butterfield.

My name is Cole Ross.

And you're listening to Bonfire Side Chat, a contractually obligated favorite.

And this week, we are beginning our conversation about Death's Gambit, which is a 2D platformer

Soulslike, developed by White Rabbit and published by Adult Swim for the PC and PS4 in 2018.

I know we've made this observation before, but 10 years ago, would anyone have predicted

that Adult Swim would be a source of really good video games?

No, and it still surprises me when I see it, even though it has been the case for many years. Yeah. Yeah. It's really bizarre. And for a while, it was just kind of, you know, it was like unicorn, you know, it's like unicorn, you know, or something like that. But now they do games that are not explicitly comedy games. And just like, we're just a game publisher. Yeah. also we do still robot chicken for some reason, but we're also a game publisher. If you've ever wanted to see an action figure fart, or if you want to play a really good 2D souls, like, we're your people. We're the ones to come to. Yeah. We got the markets cornered. Yeah. It's great. I don't know. If they have the money and they're willing to go to lend their name to something and do the work, it's creating a lot of opportunities for smaller teams.

Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Including this team, why rob it. So our plan for this game is to divide this up into three episodes. We don't have exact splits. I have played it. Cole is playing it. So we have

the, uh, the knowledge of that, but it is, uh, it doesn't lend itself to area by area. And whenever that's true, it's a little tricky. Yeah. You know, we kind of have to make guesses. Um, so we are making guesses. Uh, the plan, again, though, is on three. Uh, we will put out a call for responses. We'll either do a response episode if a lot of people have things to say or we'll append that on to the third episode. A few people have things to say. But it will be three or four episodes on this game, which we think supports it. Yeah. You know, it is, you know, generally like the bonfire side chat hour to hour plus length. And there is a lot going on in this game. Yeah. the story, at least as far as I've seen, and I'm like 80% of the way through the game now.

Where did you say you were again? I am at Journey's End. Yes. Yeah, yeah. You've got, you are getting there.

Yeah. But yeah. The story is really interesting. the, the, the, the story is really interesting, really interesting.

It handles lore in the way that we enjoy handling lore. And mechanically, there are lots of very good boss fights, uh, that I, uh, I am looking forward to talking about. Yeah, yeah. This is, um, you know, just to get out of the way, like, I kind of love this game. It has so many good ideas, Gary.

Yeah, it's really, it's really good.

It is not, you know, just to get out of the way, like, I kind of love this game. Like, it's so many good ideas, Gary.

Yeah. It's really, it's really good. It is not, um, you know, it is not a huge sprawling masterwork. Mm-hmm. It's not, uh, you know, the comparison, the thing I've kept saying about this game is that like, um, and I, and I feel like the people who made this might take it insult to this. I don't want them to.

No.

But it feels like a Hollow Knight, aimed for an A and got an A. And this aimed for like a B minus and got like a B plus. Yeah. Or like it has this weird sense of being better than it has a right to be, which is, you know, kind of a mean thing to say when people definitely worked hard on it, right? Yes. But it's two people. It's a modest product. And I just, I got more than a modest amount of enjoyment out of it. Yeah. You know, it didn't, it didn't feel like a seven out of ten to me. I'm like, oh, this is actually really good. You know, especially on the scale of offseason stuff we've done for the show. Yeah.

This is, this is, this is all the near the top half to me. This is closer to the Hollow Knight side of things. I have no, I have no, like, hesitation to recommend this to somebody who has enjoyed a Souls game. Yeah, me too. There are, you know, a couple things where it falls down, we're going to talk about that. But, like, generally, I think that there is enough, even just at the base level mechanics generalities, that would be like, oh, wow, that is very, very inventive. Like, that is a choice that I would not have thought to have made if I was like planning this. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's going to have a joy.

It's really breezy. You know, it goes by comparatively quickly.

Like we need more 13 hour souls likes.

Yes.

...