On this week’s jam-packed episode of Spawn On Me, host Kahlief Adams discusses the return of Ubisoft Singapore’s Skull and Bones from the murky depths of the sea. Meanwhile, there’s a new game in the Robocop franchise rolling our way, and Jordan is coming back to the cover of NBA 2K.
Kah also shares why he’s so excited for Exoprimal and Rumbleverse to find their respective places in his gaming rotation, and friend Jon Brence gets some love in this week’s cookout segment.
(You can also listen on Spotifyor wherever you get your podcasts!)
Spawn On Me (July 12, 2022): DINOS, ROBOCOP AND BONES Transcript
Transcribed by E. Powers
Kahlief: Spawn On Me is the premier podcast spotlighting people of color. Every week we talk news, what we’ve been playing, and tell you who’s invited to the cookout. Our show is all about talking about gaming through a prism of Blackness, because we are the culture. Welcome to Brookago, y’all.
What up, what up, what up, everybody? This is the Spawn On Me podcast with Kahlief Adams. I’m your host, Kahlief Adams. I hope you’re all doing really, really well out in all the places that you reside. Shoutout to the folks who are coming through on the live show. Shoutout to everybody coming through.
Replay duck??? What up? glennytwoshoes, what up? A lot of first timers coming into the chat, lot of new folks coming to the chat, a lot of returning champions coming to the chat tonight here on twitch.tv/spawnonme. I’m looking extra fluffy.
If you are missing the live show here, you’re listening to this in audio form– first of all, thank you so much for subscribing to the show. Thank you so much for being a part of our collective family. Thank you for being so– thank you for being a part of all of the festivities, all the goodness that is happening here on Spawn On Me, but you are missing right now how my beard is on fluff levels that is unseen right now.
It is, right now, it looks like someone threw like all of the shed that comes from a well groomed dog onto my face. [laughs] It is fluffy. It is beautiful. The grays are looking real good. It is looking real nice.
Shoutout to LordNavarone up in the chat, coming to hang out with us tonight. Massive love to everybody who’s here. Massive love to you all at home for listening. It’s always a pleasure to be able to do the show for all of you, because I love doing this work. I love being a part of this community. I love the video game industry and to get a chance to be my own little part of all of this with the work that I get a chance to do here on Spawn On Me.
It has been a really interesting week. It’s been an actually like pretty kind of long week. You know, I missed you all for the 4th of July holiday. It was like, you know, playing the game of gunshots and fireworks over here in Portland, not knowing what was going on, but it was pretty great. I had a really good holiday. I hope you had a safe holiday as well.
And this week is starting off pretty hot and heavy, lots of stuff kind of coming into the space. A lot of ramp up is happening for the Spawnies. Spawnies stuff is starting to galvanize and starting to move in that space, which is awesome. And it’s just been a really fun and great week so far.
I mean, it’s Monday. Mondays are Mondays. We’re recording this show a little bit late. Usually the show would be out by now, but this one’s gonna come out a little bit later this evening, so you’ll be able to catch it Tuesday morning.
But you know, I think everything has been pretty good. You know, I had the house to myself. My wife went camping. I think there’s a thing that people do when they have a spot for themselves for the first time. Well, not for the first time, but for like, you know, you’re not used to getting the spot for yourself? Like, you’re used to kind of just coming through and hanging out and, you know, everybody’s home, and all the people who you usually live with are just in the spot.
But there’s a freeing moment when you have like the crib to yourself. Walk around buck naked, just be doing things, just be hanging out, putting your legs on things you ain’t got no business putting your legs on, drinking beer in your underwear, like stuff that has no real purpose.
But you know, it’s a thing that you wind up doing in that space. You gotta let yourself live. You gotta give yourself time to kind of do your thing.
In the chat, really quick, I want to give acknowledgement to this. Jmertens says, “Hey, Kahlief, give a little shoutout to Dim @gyfteddim. He’s having a tough time and I bet he could use the love.” Yo! Dim, wherever you may be, wherever you are…I hope that you listen to this episode, too. You know, because there is– you know, we’re having our, we’re bringing back our Welcome to the Cookout segment, and I think the words that’ll be in that segment from somebody who I love and adore and is really important to me will resonate with you.
But if you don’t listen to the show and you just listen to this part, hopefully, you know, jmertens will clip this for you. I want you to know that you are an amazing human being. You are loved. There are people on this planet who care for you. You are trying your best. You are trying to figure out what you can do. We all are. No one is alone in that. That is a part of the human experience, and I want you to understand that we’re giving you love here at Spawn On Me.
I’m sending you love and sending you good vibes. I hope that the tough time turns around for you. I hope that you are finding good space for yourself. And I hope that, you know, the thing I’m learning as being an old fart is that the usual tough times don’t stick around super, super long. And even when they do, there’s always a space to kind of either look at the bright side of a thing, flip that negative into a positive, or find some good energy for yourself.
So Dim, wherever you may be, wherever you are, know that I’m giving you love, sending you good vibes, and hoping that you are doing okay.
ThaWillyB asks, “Can I bring banana pudding to the cookout?” Only if you put vanilla wafers in it. That’s the only way that banana pudding can rock on team Adams is it needs some vanilla wafers in it, because vanilla wafers are mad underrated! People front on vanilla wafers like they’re not one of the best cookies on the planet, but those joints are great because they, one, are a cookie; two, could almost be a biscuit; three, go really good in pudding; and four, you can dip them joints in milk and they still taste good.
So, that’s my thing. My favorite cookie– see, now I’m getting all the cookie questions in the chat. My cookie answer is– ’cause someone was like, “Aww man, no Chessmen cookies?” See, okay. So, this is gonna go down a real bad rabbit hole. My favorite, um…God, ’cause who makes the Chessmen cookies? Ugh, I can’t think of it right now. It’s the same fakes who make Milano cookies. [typing] Milano cookies.
Who is it? Why can’t I think of it? Pepperidge Farm! Wow! Why can’t I think of Pepperidge Farm? I’m a crap person. I forgot.
My favorite cookies are Pepperidge Farm’s Orange Milano cookies. If you ever want– like, people are like, “Hey Kahlief, I hear that y’all as a news journalist be out here, and y’all be getting free stuff all over the place, and people be sending you stuff for free, and they be bribing you with with free gifts and free stuff and da, da, da, da.”
Look, I’ve been in this space for almost 12 years now. There’s no way you can bribe me to give me, you know, points for coverage, all that kind of stuff. The only way you might get through is if you hook a brother up with some Pepper Farm Orange Milano cookies. [laughs] That might be a way to get me on your side in a different way. I come cheap when it comes to sweets, so I don’t know. That might be a thing.
Anyway, we’re gonna get into the show proper. [laughs] Thank you everybody for listening to my nonsensical rant, nonsensical conversations on some of that stuff. We have a lot of stuff to get into. The first thing we’re gonna dig into for this episode — episode 441 of the Spawn On Me podcast — is the 411.
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First up on this episode of Spawn On Me in the 411 is we’re talking about Ubisoft’s not-new games, Skull and Bones.
The game that we thought was dead, the game that we thought was gone forever, the game that we thought was never coming out ever again, their ship combat game Skull and Bones got a full blowout conversation on their Twitch and YouTube channels the other day. Shoutout to the fam Youssef Maguid who hosted it and did a phenomenal job, as usual. Shoutout to you, fam, salute to you, always and every day.
So this game, I had gotten a chance to see this like years ago at E3, got my first hands-on with it. It looked really cool, and then it went dark for a long period of time. There were so many rumors about if the game was ever gonna continue to come out. There was talk about it being in development hell. There were all these conversations about why this game wasn’t flourishing and why this game that should have been in the mix and in the conversation when we were talking about, you know, Assassin’s Creed building in ship combat into their game, and this one not really feeling like it was continuing to get a lot of push and drive from Ubi.
It was a worry that a lot of people were gonna be like, “Yo, I don’t know if this game is gonna come out. I don’t know if this game is still, you know, being developed in a real way.”
So we had this really full, really in-depth, you know, walkthrough of gameplay and of systems and, you know, all the minutiae of how this game is gonna get down and be really, really fun. And I have to say, no joke, no bullshit, I’m actually really excited to see this game again. I’m excited to see where this game potentially can go.
I think it’s something that, you know, when I’m thinking about games that might be, you know, doing something a little bit different, kind of pulling something back from, you know, seeing it pull from other, you know, series and other ideas. I’m just really excited for what this potentially could be in terms of all the systems that you have to kind of employ when you’re playing a game like this, like being able to farm resources for your ship, making sure that your crewmates are gonna be okay. If not, they’ll mutiny, and they’ll put on a mutiny. You know, seeing all these small things happen alongside what looked like pretty comprehensive combat made me really hype for this thing.
It is something in which, you know, I think the proof will be in the pudding in terms of, you know, how many folks jump on this. You know, ship combat, naval combat is something that is not something that really gets a lot of love. I mean, if we’re talking about naval combat in ways that people care about, you know, I think Assassin’s Creed has had a really good play on that.
The only bad naval combat I’ve seen is the, you know, the cooking that Parris Lilly would do, ’cause that’s inside your belly and that’s where your naval resides. You know, that’s a place of naval combat I’ve seen not do well.
But I think in terms of, you know, the ways that we are thinking about this game and how expansive it can be and how big it can be and how wide the kind of experiences could be, that has me really excited. I think that is where we may see some really fun things happen in this game, and it makes me really excited, because if people really pull to this and really come along for the ride in a real way, this could have that Sea of Thieves vibe that I think a lot of people who, you know, were excited about Sea of Thieves but felt that the combat was pretty lacking.
You know, you’re not gonna go off the boat and fight other people in the ways that you usually would. Like, you’ll do the action of taking, you know, taking over another ship, but it won’t be like you are actually doing the fighting. There’ll be some…it looks like, from the way it was shown, is that there’ll be some stat-based things that will determine if you have success versus not.
But those elements are kind of cool. I like the fact that you’re doing a lot of this management within this game and how that is gonna help to play along in terms of, you know, how you build your ship. How do you make your crew better? You know, how are you doing all that stuff?
I think the mutiny stuff was really interesting. They showed some of it in the walkthrough. They showed some of the ship-building stuff. They showed some of the, you know, how do you get more people in your crew? All of those things did really feel interesting in a way that I didn’t expect for when this game was gonna be reintroduced to the community for it to actually kind of land in that way.
So, I am really excited for what this game is gonna wind up being. Fell off the map for a little bit. I’m now back on the train about, you know, poking folks from Ubisoft to see like, hey, can we get more coverage of this? Can we be a part of some of this stuff? ‘Cause I’m really excited for where it can go and where it seems to be going.
So, you know, if you’re excited about this stuff, you know, put comments in the chat here and on YouTube when this goes up to YouTube. But like, I want to hear if people are really excited about this game as much as I am.
The next game that we’re gonna talk about was shown at the Nacon conference, and it is a surprise game that I did not see coming. It is a Robocop game that is going to be coming out called Robocop: Rogue City. First of all, y’all don’t understand how much I love Robocop. I am a huge fan. It’s the only cop I like. [laughs] That cop and the Black cop from Cops, the cartoon way back in the day in the eighties and nineties. That was the only other cop that I like.
But it’s cool to be able to see what this might also be? Well, it’s so early. We don’t know yet. We don’t really know a lot, but it does have a lot of the things you want from a Robocop game. It has that, you know, late eighties, early nineties kind of aesthetic around some of the CRT stuff they do with the screens.
And, you know, Robocop I’m sure is gonna have all of his classic lines. Peter Weller is gonna be the face of Robocop in this game. Shoutout to Peter Weller, who’s gonna come back for his iconic performance in this thing.
It’s coming out in June of next year. It’s gonna be on Steam and PS5. It’s gonna be on everything, it looks like. it’s gonna be on all the podcasts– not the podcast, all the platforms, I should say. And again, it’s hard to know what this game can be, what this game might be yet. It’s, you know, who knows? It could be something that’s really special. It could be something that’s not that special, but it feels like they are gonna potentially nail some of the stuff that you want from a Robocop game.
Jmertens says, “Shoutout to Detroit,” Yo! Shoutout to Detroit. it makes me feel like, and I’m hoping, looks like a first-person shooter, looks like a game in which…you know, again, you’re gonna be doing the uphold the law bits. You’re gonna be going through the prime directives, all those kinds of things. I wonder if we’re gonna have other cameos or facsimiles of some of the folks that we saw from the older games.
Now, because we live in the digital age, I could see them pulling in digital versions of some of the old baddies that we saw. The guy who got, you know, crushed by, you know, the acid barrel, and he turns out to be a mush dude. You know, we see any of the other people who are in that space. Some of those folks are no longer with us, but it would be kind of cool to see, you know, them bring that back in this way.
There was a really interesting layer of the conversation that happened on Twitter where Arthur Gies —shoutout to Arthur Gies — had a gripe about the way the gun sounded in the trailer. And I have to say like, go listen to the trailer, ’cause it didn’t sound as chunky and as iconic as that gun. And that gun, like, it’s very rare to have like a weapon be super iconic. Like, I think things like light sabers are in that space. Like, you know, the Sword of ??? is a thing in that space. Like, you know, there are certain weapons that have– like Excalibur, Thor’s hammer, like those things have their own space in that they live.
And weirdly, I think Robocop’s pistol is also one of those things. Someone in chat said, “the lancer in Gears.” Maybe. I mean, chainsaw guns are kinda, you know, a thing that might be in that echelon too of like iconic and classic things. But Robocop’s gun sounds a certain way, and if you don’t get that sound right, then that’s not gonna be great.
Nacon, you know, I haven’t really tapped into a lot of the games that they’ve made over the years, but they’re making a Robocop game, and they’re making a Terminator game that’s gonna be a survival game, which is also really, really interesting to see how they translate that into a space that we’re gonna care about.
Like, I think Robocop, the newest Robocop version was bad. No one likes that Robocop. That is like cheap bodega Robocop. That’s like the Robocop that you got on the side right when you’re trying to get a bag of chips and a quarter water, and then you see like fake Robocop over there. And you’re like, “Fake Robocop over there, I don’t think that you’re the actual Robocop, because your armor is green. Why is your armor green, fake Robocop?” And he’s like, “I protect the lizzle.” And then you’re like, “No, you’re supposed to say, ‘I protect the law.’ No, that’s wrong, bad fake green Robocop. You are a fake dude. Like, you’re not the guy. That’s not true. That’s not you, fake Robocop.”
So I think it’ll be interesting to see how they get around some of that stuff, how much of the IP they’ve actually gotten, you know, connected to, how much stuff is kind of like Robocop in a fake world, or is it the Robocop world and it’s actually like digging into that stuff. Like, you know, they have the ED-209 in there. All that stuff is in there.
So hoping that they really nail that, ’cause that’s gonna be, you know, really important to be able to make sure that that game actually does well in a way that actually matters and is really gonna pull it through in a way that makes sense. So, excited for a Robocop game. That’s gonna be pretty awesome and dope, and I’m excited to see where that goes, because who the hell knows? What could this be? If it’s good, we can get more Robocop games. We can get more stuff that’s expanding those universes, so I’m very, very hyped for that.
Last story of the show for the 411 is all about my man! My man, my myth, the legend, the best player, the GOAT! Michael Jordan is coming back to NBA 2K23, and they are bringing back the mode where you are living through some of the biggest games of his career.
I am very excited for this. The guy who has ruined my childhood as a Knicks fan is now getting a return to form in this game, NBA 2K23. Even in a really interesting way, it’s like looking at this screenshot– again, if you’re watching on twitch.tv/spawnonme or youtube.com/spawnonme, you can see this. But it’s kind of amazing to be able to see MJ do his thing in this game, and now they’ve gotten to a technology point where it’s just gonna look really good. Like, MJ in 2K– what was it? 2K11? Or was it 2K12? It was 2K11.
So it’s been, God, almost 11, 12 years, 10 plus years since we’ve had MJ on the cover or in the game in that way. I mean, he’s been in the game, but he’s not been, you know, the cover athlete. And now we’re almost a decade later, and the technology has gotten so much better that even when I look at the screenshot, it looks just like MJ.
It is so dope that we’ve gotten to this space to be able to do this kind of stuff, alongside MJ and this mode that is revisiting some of the biggest games of his career. Like, I’m hoping again that they do the visual effects and the commentator effects and stuff like that, where they kind of pulled it in from the nineties and late eighties of all of that stuff.
I’m trying to think now, ’cause I think they did like the flu game. They did a couple of other games in that space that that might be in there too, that I don’t know if those– I forget if those were in 2K11. I gotta redownload 2K11 to go see what those were, but I want to see what the new modes are gonna be, the new memories are gonna be for MJ in this part of the game.
Alongside MJ in MK2 — I’m sorry, “in MK223” — in 2K23, we have a bunch of different covers this year. We also have Devin Booker, is on one of the covers of the game. We have Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi who are also gonna be on a cover for the game.
You know, one of the conversations that I had on Twitter that people were a little bit upset about was I was like, “I don’t know if Devin Booker deserves a cover yet” and somebody humbled me in a reasonable way. They weren’t mad about it or they weren’t mean about it, but they were like, “Well, how do you get mad at Devin Booker being on the cover when Luka Dončić was on the cover in the previous game?”
And I was like, okay, that’s a reasonable point. Like, you know, not everyone who has graced the cover has been, you know, a champion or has won a bunch of games or stuff like that. They’ve been hot for a moment, and then that moment where they were hot felt like that was the thing that thrust them into being on the cover.
The weird thing is Luka had a really good season when he got onto the cover, but he didn’t get like– I don’t know, did he get bumped in the first round too? ‘Cause like, the Suns did a fairly good job this year of playing, but they didn’t do well in the playoffs. I don’t know. I feel– I don’t know. Like, you know…
ThaWillyB in the chat says Tatum could have been the cover. Yeah. Like, Tatum could have definitely been on the cover. Like, got to the finals, did all that stuff. The thing though was like, I don’t think Tatum– like, and I’m happy– ooh, that’s a really good point. Tatum not being on the cover…like, I think Tatum, Jayson Tatum — and clip this — Jason Tatum would have to win an NBA championship to get on the NBA 2K cover. And the reason I think that is because…well, ah shit, that doesn’t even work!
Because like, the thing that I was gonna say was the folks who have made the cover have had some kind of swag, like some kind of swag, and Devin Booker has no swag. Tatum…but he got the cover. So like, Tatum I think has no swag, so that’s the reason why I don’t think he would ever get a cover. Kawhi Leonard never got a cover, because he has negative swag. So like, even if they did that stuff, it’s like, do I want those? Like, do I want those folks to be on the cover so that I can like trot them out in a way? Like, I think–
Wait, hold on, ’cause Dame got a cover, right? [typing] Dame Lillard 2K. Right? Did he get a cover? I thought he got a cover. He did. He got 2K21. So Dame Lillard got a cover, right? He got 2K21. He was on the cover of that game. Dame as a person– and this is as me…and Dame, come on the show. Please come on Spawn On Me.
I’m gonna say this out of love. Dame as a person is swaggerless, but Dame as a rapper is fire! Like, Dame as an MC is probably the best MC in the league as a rapper. But when you see him do press conferences and when you see him do commercials and you see him do things where he has to like talk to people, he doesn’t have swag. He has no swag.
So it’s a hard…it makes me really– I’d love to know what is the process for being the cover athlete for a 2K game at this point, besides having a really monumental season. Dame on the end of his season that he got that cover was really getting into his own. He was really coming out as the superstar that we see him as today. Booker is at the precipice of that, ’cause he’s had a couple of really good seasons, but they haven’t really translated into any playoff success.
There’s a lot of basketball to talk about in that conversation. We’re not gonna do it on this show. You know, Fanbyte, bring back Corner Three! But there’s a lot of conversations about like, how do you get to that space where you can make that leap, can make that jump as to being a cover athlete? And now working through all of that stuff in my mind, I kinda don’t know. I kinda don’t know what it takes to really get into that space, to really be that person, to be able to do it.
Like, Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird, like I get it. They are the best at what they do in the women’s game. Like, they are the top of that game. They are the ambassadors of that game, so they deserve a cover for that kind of stuff. MJ is MJ, so whatever. Devin is gonna be an interesting thing. Like, I don’t think people are gonna rush out to go get the Booker cover for the 2K game. I just don’t think so.
It’s an interesting space, but lots of stuff to think about. Drop your comments below in the chat and in the YouTube video, ‘cause I think that’s gonna be…I want to hear what people are thinking about in terms of that too. Like, what does it take to get into that spot?
Anyway, we got what we’ve been playing after this. We’re gonna take a quick break. We’re gonna talk about what we’ve been playing and also talk about who we’re inviting to the cookout for this episode of Spawn On Me. Thank you so much for being here at episode 441 of the Spawn On Me podcast. It is going.
We’re gonna take a three-minute ad break for all our friends over on Twitch. So please, if you do not want to get the ads, please subscribe to the show. Be able to do that in about three minutes. We’ll be right back after this.
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merritt: Hey, Brookago. merritt k here from Fanbyte. Did you know that Spawn On Me is a part of the Fanbyte podcast network? We produce a ton of other great shows, like Channel F, a podcast where we talked about the games we’re playing:
Nerium: Yeah.
merritt: Can I just say how much I would love for there to be a Hitman game that’s just about making people experience embarrassing social faux pas, trying to like prank people and make it seem like they had farted or like tripped on something? [laughter] That would be like very good!
merritt: Dig up weird finds at thrift stores:
Jordan: So, the listing says bungdoctorV64. [laughter]
merritt: And take your questions about the best jokers:
merritt: ??? Martin asks, “What’s the best or coolest weapon ever given to a mech?”
Nerium: Gundam Gusion Rebake has a really good–
merritt: Sorry?
Jordan: Oh, wait, give me that one more time?
Nerium: Gundam Gusion Rebake.
Niki: Yo, I heard you. [laughter]
Nerium: Gundam. Gusion.
merritt: I personally guarantee you that listening to Channel F will make you a better, smarter, more powerful version of yourself. So go to fanbyte.com/podcasts or search for Channel F on your podcast app of choice today. Improvement not guaranteed. Listening to Channel F may cause jokerfication.
[music]
Kahlief: This week’s show, we are talking about what we have been playing, and I have been playing a lot of stuff. I’ve been playing many, many things. I have been playing lots of different games. I’ve been rocking a whole bunch of stuff, and now I gotta find out where that went.
Playing lots of different things in the space, and the thing I’ve been playing the most has been Exoprimal’s Network Test. It has been ridiculously fun. Yo. A game that I did not see coming that is now at the top of my anticipated list. Again, there’s a new video out on our Spawn On Me YouTube channel that is literally me showing you a full match of Exoprimal.
Let me run through what it is really quick. It’s a weird mix and match. We got a chance to see this during the State of Play from Sony, and everybody was like, “Well, what the hell is this? Is this Dino Crisis? Is this a new Dino Crisis game coming from Capcom?” And it kind of is, but it isn’t.
And what makes it cool is it is a PvP– no, I’m sorry. It is a PvE, PvP game. So is it PvEvP [laughs] game where you have two teams– at least this mode, this mode that I’m showing off here if you’re watching the live show, is one in which you have two teams. You’re in these mechs. There’s a couple of different mechs. They let us play with, I think, three of the kinds that you can play with. I think there’s about six or seven different ones.
Each one of these maps is being overrun by dinosaurs, and these dinosaurs are coming to you in waves. So think of it as something akin to like a Earth Defense Force kind of game. All these dinosaurs are coming at you, and they have variations on the dinosaurs, right? They have raptors who kind of come in and crowd you and bum rush you, kind of try to overwhelm you with numbers.
Then they have ones that are called snipers, and the snipers will pop these weird little bubbles over their head, and they will like, the bubbles will pop, and then those bubbles that pop, they will shoot directly at you. And you know, the class that I was using in the playtest, the first class, was a kind of like tank character. So I like have a big shield like you would see in Overwatch with Reinhardt. You’re keeping damage away from your teammates. You’re knocking folks away. You’re stunning folks in that way.
And while you’re playing on your end of the map, a whole other team of four people, of five people, are playing on their side of the map. And they’re doing the same exact thing that you’re doing in terms of, you know, trying to clear the waves, get to the next part of the map. And it does it in these segments, so you’re going from one segment to another segment to another.
And in between those segments, they will sometimes be like in the third part of the, you know, six parts of the entire map, you’ll go from just clearing waves to, oh, there’s a ship that you have to defend and the dinosaurs are trying to break it. So the dinosaurs will try to rush at you. You’re defending the ship, making sure it doesn’t get damaged and that it doesn’t break and doesn’t die.
So the thing that’s cool about that is that you’re racing the other team. You’re not only just shooting the dinosaurs and trying not to die and get a good score for your points, but you’re literally in a race between your part of your team and the other team. So what happens is when you get to the end of a section, this AI character that is persistent, and you see them in the beginning of the game, right when you spawn in, when you’re picking your teams, when you’re matchmaking.
They will say, “The other team is behind,” or “You are doing this task faster than the other team.” And it’s dope, because what it means is like you have this constant push to be like, yo, we can beat the other team to this section to get to this other thing. And you’ll see, you know, that there’ll be these surprises that’ll happen during parts of the match, where usually the team that is behind will have the ability to spawn something on your side of the map that’s supposed to keep you from progressing.
In the case of a game like this, it’s a dinosaur, and in the case of what we played during the network test, one of the dinosaurs that comes to try to mess with you is a triceratops. So literally, the other team is spawning a triceratops to try to take you out during your race to get to the end of the match.
What’s wild is there is a certain power that you can get. I forget how it wound up spawning, but the way you wind up pulling it in is you get to a certain spot. You get a certain amount of points, you get a certain amount of energy, and, you know, I could be saying this wrong, but the end result was we basically could take a, you know, a dinosaur that we recruit, and our recruit was a dinosaurs Rex, and we basically can take that T-Rex, summon it, control it, and then control that T-Rex to go on the other end of the map and go mess with the other folks who are on the other team.
Yo, it is chaotic. I thought it was gonna be easy and weird and kind of stupid and boring. It is some of the most fun that I’ve had in a very long time. It feeds that co-op level stuff. It feeds that competition layer. It feeds that you’re in a race against the clock and a race against the other team layer. You have to really play smart.
And the cool thing about it is when you pick a mech to be in the game in that round, you’re not just stuck with the one mech that you picked. What’s dope is you can change your mech out at any time in the round.
So you’re like, oh, we don’t have a tank. Oh, ’cause everybody went to be more offensive. Oh, let me swap out of my offensive thing and go be a tank. Oh, there’s a healer class. Oh, we have no healers. Let me go switch to be a healer. Oh, we have one character who like is really good at kind of running across the field, you know, putting up some defenses. You can put up these walls that you can shoot through but the animals can’t get through and the other teams can’t get through. Oh, let me do that.
There are so many ways that you can, on the fly, change your tactics and the way that you play. It just makes it so that all those things that used to piss you off when you would play in team-based games like this, of like, oh, that person took my character. I’m really good at it, and now I’m not good at the other character. You can have multiple versions of the same class on your team, and that makes it so dope. You can do so many fun things in this game.
The kicker is…so, there’s two basically like guide the thing moments. So there’s like the first one is, you know, guarding the ship that I just talked about. The last section that you wind up going to is like an escort mission. So, there’s this cube that comes up. You have to escort the cube to this section on the map. The more people who are around the cube at the time, the faster it goes, a la Destiny, a la Overwatch, ’cause you’re basically on the payload.
And you’re moving together into this space and trying to move this payload. Dinosaurs are coming. The other team is spawning other things to try to kill you. You’re doing all this stuff. And at the end of that part of the section, both teams come to the middle of the map, and you fight it out at the end of the round.
It is one of the dopest things on the planet, because you’re like, oh, you can see them. You can see the progress that they’re in. You can see some of that stuff, but you can’t really do anything. But at the end, you wind up fighting each other to get your cube into the spot first, and you can literally go fight them to try to keep their cube from getting into the spot. So you can kill them or you can blow up the cube.
So, I had one scenario that I was playing in yesterday, and it was dope. The first round that we see, that you’re watching here, I had a really good team. People were smart. Like, you can tell people really played in a way that let people know that they were like used to playing co-op games, all that stuff. So we wrecked the other team. Like, we played them really, really well, beat them up, got our cube into the spot. We win; game over.
Second round, no one picks a tank. We had a lot of folks who were not picking the right classes for the moment. We were losing a lot. And if you miss on like the one section where you have to defend the ship and they blow up the ship, you have to start that whole section over again, so that means you’re really far behind in the race, because now the other team has either defended their ship and they’re moving on to the next section and you can’t do anything, but you have to do that section over again.
So what wound up happening, which was really dope, was…’cause at that point, I was like, “Oh, we’re gonna lose. Like, we’re definitely gonna lose. This is over. Why am I gonna continue playing this round? This is dumb.” I was cursing them out in my brain. I was like, “Yo, y’all suck. I hate y’all. You must like Parris’s food.” I was mad.
We get to the section where they beat that section before us, so they have successfully defended their ship. It then cuts and says, all right, now, because they have done that part of the race, we’re all gonna do the cube section, which is the last part of the match. It’s nuts. We are running up against them. They are demolishing us in terms of doing all the stuff they need to do. We get to the end of the section, and we go to the cube part, and we’re pushing our cubes, and they’re pushing their cube, and we’re pushing. It’s a back and forth thing.
Our team decides to just bum rush their team. We decide that we are not gonna worry about moving our cube. We’re gonna try to make it as hard as possible for them to not move their cube, and we’re gonna try to play this as like a PvP match and just try to kill them. We’re doing that, and I’m in the back.
So, I’m in the back playing a healer. I got everybody else playing offensive stuff. I’m in the back playing a healer. So what I’m doing is I’m running up, healing my team, putting on an AOE heal, doing some other heals, and then I’m running back to the cube, so I can start to incrementally move it up as small as I can while helping my team go and kill the other team so that they can’t move their cube up. They’re playing in an offensive space and they’re not around their cube, and they’re not pushing anybody back, and they’re dying enough that they can’t move their cube up.
So all that to say, we missed the ship part three times. We had three times where we failed that part of the match, and they were way ahead of us. We successfully won that match, because we came back. I was pushing forward and pulling back, pushing forward and pulling back. And we wind up still winning that match, after I swore we were gonna lose.
That moment told me that this game is really balanced. That told me that the game, that the folks from Capcom really have thought about multiple scenarios for the way that you win and you lose.
It also made me feel like if you have a smart team that’s really paying attention and really is communicating– and mind you, none of us were on comms. None of us were on mic, none of that stuff. But I saw what they were doing, and I was like, oh, I could actually help support them if I go heal them, let them kill people, while I try to pull the payload forward. And that moment sold me on the game.
That was the moment that I was like, this is a game that I want to find people to play with. That’s a game that I want to spend time with. This is a game that I know is gonna be really, really good because of that kind of balancing and the fact that you’re not really out of it if you play smart.
I love games that you can outwit your opponent, even when you feel like you’re not gonna win. Games like that are the things that make me really excited because it tells me that all you really need is to play smart. I love games where you can play smart, and this is a game where you can play smart. Looks really good on the RE engine.
The humor in the game is actually really interesting too, because it feels like they have this tongue-in-cheek thing that they’re doing about the dinosaurs being in there. You know, the training mission that you do in the beginning of the game is really funny and smart, really well done. They have these like news snippets about, you know, you being a recruit. It feels a little bit like Starship Troopers in that way, which I am a huge fan of.
Again, go watch the video on our YouTube channel. It is up right now. It has now moved into this space where this game is definitely one of the games that is very high on my list for games that I’m very excited for moving forward into, you know, when this game is gonna wind up dropping. Shoutout to Capcom for pulling this out of their hat and making a game that has gotten me really hyped and has come out of nowhere.
So, shoutout to Exoprimal. I think the network test is still going. I have to double-check. I’m gonna try to stream it the next time it comes up, ’cause I think they’re gonna be doing a couple more, but I would love for you to all check this out when it drops.
Last game of the show for what we’ve been playing is Rumbleverse from our wonderful friends over at Iron Galaxy. They have made a wrestling battle royale, and it is so good. I got a chance to play this a while ago. It was me and a whole bunch of other streamers, some folks you might have known like DrLupo and ??? in third, and you know, Kitana Prime, and you know, all these other folks.
We were playing really early to go get a check and see like what the gauge was for this game. And then they had a couple of network tests, and then they just had their most recent and last one this past weekend. And this is like one of the– this is like such a fun and smart, interesting, and just really well-made game. I can tell already that if people give this game a chance, they’re gonna have a blast playing it.
It is hectic. It is wild. It really digs into the fun kind of Fortnite visual aesthetic while also doing some really interesting and kind of compelling and fun things in terms of the way that you play and the systems that kind of go along with it. The kind of rock, paper, scissors level of the way you battle in this game is the thing that really makes it go from, “Hey, this thing looks kind of fun and goofy,” to oh, no, there’s strategy here.
Oh, no, there’s tactics you can employ. Oh, no, you can be good at this in a way that you can’t be as good in a shooter battle royale as you can in this, because there are certain things in there that are just like OP, right? So like, oh, I didn’t get a good drop. Oh, I didn’t get a good weapon. Oh, this weapon’s permutation isn’t the one that I like. Oh, I have to build. Oh, I have to do like– there’s so many different things if you’re talking about Fortnite.
But if I’m talking about like most battle royale games where you have to go loot and shoot, that loot and shoot part can work to your benefit or work to your detriment. Sometimes it’s just not in your favor to have the things that you wanted to get to be able to feel like you can be competitive in that game.
Rumbleverse changes that, because the moves are kind of universal. Like you can…there are different tiers of certain moves and certain moves do feel better than others. Like, there are some that have become my go-to moves and some that I just hate, when I was like, “Oh, that’s the one that I got? Dammit.” So basically you open up a crate, you read a book, and you learn a move. And when you learn that move, that then becomes a part of your move set.
You get two moves that you have that you can use as your kind of super moves, and you have one that’s like a grab, that is a dedicated grab called a vicious move, and then you have your normal slaps and punches and stuff. Shoutout to SweatyMagic. I also believe in love. Thank you for being here.
And the thing that I’ve learned over the past couple of weekends has been: this is a game that is not about rushing into a fight. This game is more about how can I juke you into messing up so that I can counter you and snatch you up? This is a battle royale that feels more like a fighting game than it does like a battle royale, and that is really interesting, because it then becomes about tactics. It then becomes about, again, playing smart. It then becomes about, you know, the idea of like, how do you use height in a game like this?
You know, check out my Twitter. There’s a clip that I got of me literally jumping off a 17-story building and hitting somebody with an elbow drop for like 900 damage and knocking them out.
You’re thinking about the game in a lot of different ways, and the ways that you have to think about your tactics not only move from your player kit and the moves that you pick, but how you get these buffs on the map. There are three different kinds of statistics that you would have, or kind of– eh, I’m not gonna say. It’s kind of stats, basically.
So it’s like, how much more damage can you do? You get a damage buff, you get a health buff, or you get a stamina buff. Stamina is super, super important, because it’s how you kind of get away from fights. You can run away from those. You know, if you get your shield, you can charge it up and then, you know, get more of your shield back.
Of course, the more damage you can do, the better. And your health, of course, it’s the more damage you can take. What I didn’t know until yesterday—because I wasn’t really paying attention to it—was there’s a meter on the bottom of the screen, and if you get too many of a thing or you fill out that meter, you just can’t take any more buffs, which is smart. But it changed the way I played the game, because at a certain point, I was like, oh, I’m doing this wrong because I’m getting whatever I see and I’m taking it.
So I’m like, oh, there was a health buff? Let me just take it. Oh, there’s a stamina buff? Let me just take it. And I wind up finding out that if you balance that out, you can basically have a couple different kinds of a fighter based on what things you pick up during the match.
So you’re like, oh, I want someone who’s really tanky. I’m gonna pick nothing but health up. Oh, I want someone who’s gonna be able to run away from fights and get away really quickly. Oh, let me kind of index higher on stamina. Oh, I want to make sure that if I grab somebody and do a move, they’re gonna get bombed real hard and they’re gonna get hit with a whole bunch of damage. Oh, let me do the damage buff.
Changed the entire way that you think about playing that game, because then you are now thinking about it from a tactical perspective. You’re thinking about it from a way in which you’re balancing out your character to be the most comprehensive or kind of, you know, do the most damage, or kind of be in the way that you want to play it the most.
Super fun and super dope. I love Rumbleverse. I am so excited for that game to come out. We’re trying to find a way to get them on the show for an episode of Som-Thing Epic, ’cause it’ll be in the Epic Store. Go hit us up and use our Epic code, SPAWNONME at checkout in the Epic game store, ’cause we’re an Epic partner. So do that. That’s really good. That helps out Brookago.
But this game is fun! This game is super cool! I love that they’re digging into the wrestling aesthetic. I love that they’re going just really wacky with the art style. I love that there are multiple kinds of body shapes and all those things in there. Like, those things are really great. I love the fact that those are in that space too. I love the fact that there are also so many different kinds of, you know, of characters and kits and costumes and all that stuff, so your character’s gonna look very different than everybody else’s.
I know they’re gonna have a battle pass, so that’s also gonna make it really cool to be able to get really interesting ways your character’s gonna look.
Man, this game is good. This game is so dope. And I think that people are gonna front on it because they’re like, “Oh, this looks like Fortnite.” And they’re gonna be like, “I don’t know if I want it.” All I know is I choke slammed a person from the ground– no, from the top of a building onto a car, which gives me an extra bounce. You know, ’cause you can bounce off cars. You can basically throw people off cars. You can like bounce them off them to do more damage. You can splat them up against walls and do combos.
There’s so many things that are in this game that I think people who are the ones who are really gonna take the time to learn the tactics are gonna be really good. And the folks who are just casual about it, they’re gonna also be good, but they won’t be as good. And this thing I love too, is like, this game is something that casual fans can play and still be good at and have fun with.
So good! So good. So, we’re trying to get the folks from Rumbleverse on, the folks from Iron Galaxy to come on the show to talk about it at some point. I’m dying to play this thing. If they have some like Rumbleverse invitational, I think some streamer did one the other night ’cause they opened up private matches, and it was dope to watch that thing.
Like, if there’s a way to be like, Spawn On Me gets some shirt in there or they do a “Kah Kah Beware” shirt in the game? Oh, it’d be so fire to be able to do some content creator stuff like the way that Fortnite is doing. I would do whatever I need to do to get into that program to make that happen, ’cause I want Brookago to have some dope stuff that they can rep all of us with.
Before we get up out of here– and thank you to everybody who’s been listening to the show here on twitch.tv/spawnonme and everybody else who’s listening in audio form and everywhere else. Massive love to everybody who’s been hanging. We’re gonna end out the show with a little trip back out to the cookout.
[music]
On this week’s episode of the cookout, I’m gonna talk to you about someone who I really enjoy, someone who has been in my life for not super long. You know, probably maybe like four or five years, I think, at this point.
And you know, this week has been really interesting in terms of how I’ve been feeling about my work, about Spawn On Me, about the growth of the show, or sometimes lack of growth from the show. You know, we’ve missed some weeks in terms of shows being out, because it’s just like, I’ve just been tired from trying to go to work and do all this other stuff, and life just gets in the way sometimes when you’re trying to be a content creator.
But I remember seeing my friend, who we’re showing on the screen right now. His* name is Jon Brence. He works for Twitch. We met some years ago, when they had their first creator ambassador summit, and Jon has changed my life in so many different ways.
And I want to give them their flowers today, because Jon has started this fantastic new podcast called Start With You, and he is just brilliant. And what I say by he has changed my life in a real way, one of the things that we learned during that process, during that content creator summit, was a really dope…it was a really dope activity that we did where the premise was about building your brand, was about talking about your brand, was about understanding what your elevator pitch was about, who you are as a creator and what you make in the space.
So we sat down for like an hour. He went through a lot of the conversations about how he’s helped all of these content creators become, you know, well-known, and he’s, you know, had all these– so many different strategies he’s learned over the years, having worked with so many folks. And he was really talking to us about the ethos of our brand, the ethos of what we do, and the ethos of who we are as creators.
And one of the things that stuck with me is he made me learn how to pitch myself. He made me learn to sit down with all of the stuff that you see when people are like, “Yo, Kah, your branding is really tight. How did you do that? Oh, Kah, your public speaking stuff is really good. How did you start that? Oh, Kah, how did you learn how to pitch yourself so that when people are like, oh, we’re working with these folks now, or we’ve gotten brand support from other people, how did you learn how to do that?”
And in that hour, he broke me down and built me up in a way that I have never had before from being a creative. I went– I left that seminar and didn’t have all the pieces right. I left that seminar still confused and still a little bit scared to be able to like learn how to tell people what I do in a way that felt confident, in a way that felt smart, in a way that felt pointed, in a way that felt empowered. And over the years, Jon and I have become friends.
Jon is continuing to work with so many creators, and Jon has been blossoming throughout his career, who is someone who has had some pretty big successes and then is, you know, continuing to go down his journey in that space. And I just have to give Jon props, because– he goes as KawaiiGuy. That’s the reason why KawaiiGuy is on his lower third.
But the reason I bring up Jon today is because I was feeling really down this week about missing shows or not putting out YouTube content, or if you’re a creator not getting into the mix, you know, I want to be a host. I want to be Erin Ashley Simon. I want to be Parris Lilly. I want to be the folks who are doing these things on the biggest of stages, and sometimes you don’t get there yet. Sometimes it’s not your time, right?
And you take that, you take that idea sometimes, and you apply that to yourself as like, am I doing something wrong? Am I not connecting with my audience? Our audience here at Spawn On Me is very, very quiet. You know, we have 20 folks here in chat tonight, which is great, which is fantastic. He has a really great YouTube short about like what audience size means in that way and why you should think about it in a different way. But if that stuff doesn’t mess with you, you’re also, you know, trying to figure out good ways to be competitive in a really competitive space.
So, I heard Jon do his show the other day. I sat in his chat. He was talking. He was just vibing out. He had gone to therapy that day and was sharing some learnings and had this really just beautiful, amazingly kind chat with his audience about things he was thinking about, things he was thinking about in terms of his content, things he was thinking about in terms of his life, things he was thinking about in terms of how to connect with the world around him.
And it was such a beautiful moment. It was one of those things that like, go back, and if you can, you know, it’s one of the most recent VODs on this Twitch channel. And I would say everyone needs to watch that. It wasn’t just folks who are a creative or folks like Dim that we talked about earlier in the show who might be going through a rough time.
But it was a moment in which you see someone who is so brilliant, so amazing at what they do, so giving of his time and of his knowledge, be able to share that with all these other folks in the world. It was beautiful to see that quiet kind of moment and those moments of introspection and those moments of humility and those moments of reflection come through on his stream the other day that it made me want to give him some flowers today, as the person who’s coming to the cookout, for this week’s part of Spawn On Me.
And I want to run the audio that’s playing for this video, because I want that to be the last thing that we leave you with for this episode, because I think it really fits.
I think it’s really smart. I think it really pulls home why we all do this, why this is important, and why this is a thing in which we should really be paying attention to not only who we are as creators and why we are the people we are, but also, hopefully this will give you something to think about if you’re on that journey, you’re not feeling like you’re putting your best foot forward or you’re feeling down, you’re feeling behind, you’re feeling not seen in the ways that you hope to be seen as a creator or as a human or as one of those people. So, we’re gonna end out this episode of Spawn On Me with the wise words of Jon Brence.
I’m gonna give you all some love. I’m gonna also say, really quickly before we go, shoutout to the man, the myth, the legend, Shidosha, chilling in the chat, gave out five subs. Massive love to you, who’s also a brilliant person in this space. We gotta get the fam on the show very soon to talk about his experiences in the fighting game community and all that kind of stuff, ’cause he’s dope.
But before we go, I want to say I love y’all. Thank you so much for being here with me this week and every week. We have a lot of cool stuff that’s coming up very, very soon around what we’re trying to do in the space for Spawnies and other things that are happening, and there’s a lot of goodness coming for all of you, and you are all a part of that goodness for here.
So, we’re gonna end out on the words of Jon, and we’re gonna get up out of here for this episode of Spawn On Me. Much love to you. Expect the show tomorrow. Much love for the hype train that just came through here on Twitch, and Jon, take it away.
Jon: Fourth, you’re more than the number of views you receive. Once again, most of these services are algorithm-driven. You don’t have any control, ultimately, over your audience distribution, aside from the relationships which you form directly with your community.
That’s why I personally celebrate Twitch, because I have an opportunity to connect with my community, and from what I understand, I know many of my audience members are actually watching me right now who catch me in my regular broadcasts. Celebrate those personal connections versus the total aggregate number.
And finally, and this is something that can get us caught into a moment of despair at times. It can get us really downtrodden. You are more than somebody else’s opinion. Separate from the fact of– if a person is coming into your space and they’re saying, “Oh, I’d much prefer you do this or do that,” it’s always coming down to your decision that drives it forward.
There’s a great creator, Brené Brown, I don’t know if any of you ever happened to read. Okay, there we go. We got some people who are really excited by her. What she does is she keeps in her wallet a list of names of people she truly respects, that if they were to give her feedback, that’s who she values. That’s who she listens to.
For myself, that is my community on Twitch. If they say I preferred that show, or I saw you really enjoying it, I trust them because they are my direct supporters. If a lurker or a random passerby says, “Ehh, don’t like your hair color.” Okay. You don’t have to like my hair color, because you’re not my audience. So separate those opinions that you hear in the space.
So take these to heart as we go. One of my favorite comedians of all time, Steve Martin, obviously very well established, started as a magician working at Disneyland and worked his way through the circuit. And a lot of times when comedians walk up to him, they say, “Well, how did you establish yourself? How do you get a manager? How do you get an agent? How do you find success?” and he always responds to it with, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
There’s a reason why he’d wear a white suit on stage in his early career. Nobody else was. Everybody else was wearing different outfits. He wanted to stand out. He wanted to present himself in an aesthetic that commanded attention. Prince, David Bowie, other folks have this It factor that when you see them perform, you know they’re so in tune with their craft that they can’t separate from it and you can’t separate from them.
So when you go to create, don’t roll out of bed wearing your casual wear or whatever. Own yourself. Establish yourself. What is that presence that you want to bring to the space? And create that together.