Episode 016 - Little Nightmares

The speaker discusses their experience playing the video game Little Nightmares. They played it on different platforms such as the Steam Deck and their phone. They mention that the controls on the phone were a bit janky and had some issues, but the game itself was well-liked and received good reviews. They talk about certain parts of the game that were frustrating and mentioned using a visual guide to help them through some puzzles. Overall, they enjoyed the game and recommend it. Yeah, that was on, um, IGN, you got the intro tonight, big dog. Did you get the perfect timing when I was about to ask if he had caffeine, which I knew you did. I just, dude, I had a little bit of a change of heart with this game or talk about it. Welcome back to three, two, one backlog, the podcast where we taught, uh, Oh Lord, what, what, what, what did we say? We welcome back to three, two, one backlog. The podcast where two friends shit talk video games real hard. I'll, I'll, I'll try it again. Welcome back to three, two, one backlog. The podcast where we play and talk about video games from our backlog. My name is Alec and I'm joined by the man who recently had a dick removed from his arm. James. It was the smaller one. If anyone's wondering, we'll call it average. I don't think I, I genuinely didn't go right to deck when I saw it. So, Oh, I thought maybe like just, dude, I actually had no idea what you were talking about. I didn't even realize that we were actually discussing something that happened. I know, dude, but you know what? Once you see it for anybody listening, I got a tattoo worked on my arm and it looks great. But some of the shading, uh, got out of hand. It got, it got in the hand a little bit. I just walked over to the mirror and I swear, dude, it was like a car. A car accident could have happened in front of me and I wouldn't have seen it because all I was looking at was what up here to be a dick and no one else did see it except for me. And I saw every, every single bit of it like detailed. It was like a perfect fucking wiener, dude. So I had it fixed very quickly. They completely understood once they saw it, they were like, Oh my God. Yeah. You know, but video games, Oh yeah, we're talking about video games. Well, I mean, yeah, if you want. Oh man. So how, well, you know, we're still, we're still in spooky season. Yeah. You guys are terrified after hearing that. We're at the end of spooky season, but we're still in it, but this is our last spooky episode. I think for 2023, I think one of our next games should be like a cozy ass game, dude. Like falls coming in and you light a little scented candle. You get a snuggle up with a blanket and a steam deck. Okay. So you pick, you pick this game, correct? I want to get on topic here is that what we haven't even discussed anything about this game made by bandai or bandai bandai. I think that's a bandai. Yeah. They published it or developed it or something. I don't know. Right. April, 2017. And then it came to switch in 2018. Yep. Then stadia, then Android and iOS. It's coming. It, I think it is coming to Android. Oh yeah. It's not here yet. That's actually really cool. And, and at the time of recording, this is actually the third, uh, little nightmares three just got it. Yeah. The trailer is going to be coming out in 2024, but I am more too. I'm excited. I went into little nightmares. Like kind of like so-so and I enjoyed it. The more I played it, uh, the, the, that had some clear issues, but I ended up finishing it immediately paid and downloaded and then played through the DLCs for it. And then immediately paid and played a little nightmares too, which I am almost finished with. I think I've got maybe less than an hour of gameplay left in number two. But we're only talking about number one. Yeah. Cause I'm not putting, I'm not picking up the sticks for that shit. I tell you the issues that we're going to talk about, uh, two, I think cleaned it up. Okay. So, all right. So you played it on what, you played it on your steam deck. Yeah. Steam deck played well on that. You said it's amazing. This, this again, a lot of the platformers we've been playing, this might just be the nature of platformers have been exceptionally designed to perform and play well on mobile devices. And I mean, mobile steam deck, Nintendo switch, cell phones, smartphones, stuff like that. Anything that you consider mobile that has a, you know, 16 by nine aspect ratio screen like that. This is like so perfect for that. Yeah. I, yeah, I agree. I think that a lot of these games don't, they're not graphic intensive. And I think that helps any platformer usually isn't like, especially if it's like a 2d 3d type, like a, you know, it's, this is not a graphically intensive game. So it lends well to mobile. It's more of a puzzle game too and platforming. So it doesn't require super, super tight controls the way that like fucking Ori does. Fucking Ori dude. I just downloaded, I just downloaded, I just downloaded that onto my steam deck today that the sequel. So now that you've got like 20 terabytes of space on your steam, dude, it's there is a 20 terabyte hard drive you can buy. That's like a 20 terabyte solid state. It's only 300 bucks to Sheba solid state. Well, it, cause it's an M dot two that's in this deck, right? Yeah. And then I'm all two 2230. Yeah. But no, there's a solid state a 20 terabyte that would go in your PC and it's like an inch. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. I played it on the steam deck for a little bit, but I initially only played it on the backbone on my phone because I don't have to worry. This was while yours was down. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say, how does it run on your phone? It was good. I thought that the game was janky and I, I blamed some of it on the potential lag cause it was streaming from my computer to my cell phone via the state and steam link app. Right. So I thought some of the jank was coming from maybe a little bit of a delay. Yeah. That was a fucking lie. It was, I had issues with the controls. Yeah. Yeah. So like, like, like right off the bat, I think what it was, because yes, it's platformer, but it, it lets you move in, in fully 360, all three dimensions through all of it. But on, on portions where it should be side scrolling, you have a little bit of wiggle room to do like to, to go into the background or, or, or foreground. And I think with that there was too much leeway and you would easily just like jump off the wrong thing or misjudge the gap or something. It was, it was poorly executed in spots where they should have just taken the, uh, the freedom of, of, of 3d directional moving and made it more 2d in, in some spots, which they fixed in little nightmares too. Oh, nice. Yeah. I will try it. They took the note. Yeah, that's good. I mean, maybe they had more money when the second one came out. This game is pretty well liked by most people. It's like a, at least an eight on every review that I saw. Eight out of 10. Right. I specifically remember a part that I, there was like a part where you're, there's like a light thing that will kill you. And there's like a bucket moving. Cause like everywhere you're at kind of like tends to rock a little bit. And there's like a big bucket on wheels. It's moving left and right. And you have to hide behind it. That part was kind of janky and I did get past it. And then the next room I'm walking down these little stairs and then my character without really having a good sense of whether or not I'm in the like foreground or background part of these stairs just walks off and fucking dies. And then it puts me back. Yeah. I felt like the game was a little bit, uh, haunted on that kind of stuff. There were, there were portions of the portions of the levels or sections, if you will, that it would like walking off this little plank or bridge that there was is certain death. Yeah. But it would give you the option to walk off of it and there would be no reason to do so. Yeah, exactly. So why is it there? And it tried doing something which I think was to get it more of like a cinematic feel. The, the camera would like pan out, um, when you're going from one major section to the next to give you more of like a, um, a wide angle view of those surrounding world that you're in. Yeah. So it would, it would give you more. So, but you would lose kind of like the, the, the detailed view of where you were on that platform or that little bridge and easily just fall off. Yeah. You're also like while you're playing, you're looking around for like the next step or what you're trying to do. So it's easy to kind of lose track of a character in, in the whole game in general. Yeah. I, I wrote in my notes that this is limbo, but 3d, but that is, it's not wrong, but it's not quite true. I'd say it would be in, in the sense of like platforming, platform or puzzle. Yeah. It just, when I first started it, it felt a hundred percent like the way limbo plays. I mean, until you start getting into the nitty gritty. Yeah. Yeah. I would say I probably, I'd probably pivot that to maybe inside. Yeah. From, from the, from the stretches. Okay. Inside is the same thing as limbo. Just more dead boys. This game didn't have very many dead boys. It was implied when you got farther in. So how far did you get? What was your ended gameplay? Like 20 minutes. Did you play more than I played devil may cry? Dude, I gave it an hour and 1.8 hours on steam and I, and I actually fought through that. You, I remember you told me that you used like a little bit of a visual guide to kind of help you through some of the puzzling aspects of it. I think you said use like a, you'll like, you kind of had a YouTube video like in the, like clothes handy to help you if you did. I did. I did. I would, I played, I played through. And then if I got stuck, if I took more than like between five and 10 minutes to like figure out what the hell I was supposed to do, I, I had a video going that I would like play once I saw them climb that little thing I missed. I would then pause the video and then I'd, I'd continue on and then, and then, yeah. So I, I had it available and I was trying not to use it, but I did use it a handful of times that was against my moral code to do that. I think my, my duty as a, as a critique artist for video games. Yeah. But it also really wasn't an option for me when I was pulled the majority of my short play through was on the backbone. So my phone was pretty odd. Your phone was tied up. Yeah. Yeah. And even with the deck, like when I would play it, I would play it in bed. So it's still, it's like you're juggling two devices on my lap or whatever. But I'm going to make you a, a steam deck belly stand with another phone thing on top of it. Can you make it MagSafe compatible so I can really, you know, one thing that, so I went into this game kind of assuming that it was basically a, another limbo type of game. I was kind of pleasantly surprised that there were actually like sort of boss fights. Yeah. That was kind of a boss challenges. Yeah. Well, yeah. Which weren't in, you know, again, comparing it to the other games of this style limbo and inside, there were no boss of any kind. There was a spider that you like, but yeah, yeah. That's pretty much, and a pig, but the pig was not a lethal in my play through. I'm not a lethal monster. The long armed man was the first guy. Yes. Sorry. I picked the worst time to put something in. It's okay. I can ramble if you want. There's guy long arms, short legs. You had to see it. You had to be there. What did you think of the, actually, what did you think of the monster design for these guys? Like, Oh, okay. So that's something I wanted to bring up earlier. Um, about like graphically. So when we're talking about that, though, not graphically intense and we'll, we'll probably perform very well on iOS and Android when that happens. This was a very interesting art style. Yeah. You know that I, that I really enjoyed like, because we keep bringing up platformers that we've recently played limbo, mostly 2d assets inside. It was like low poly 3d. Like it wasn't super, super detailed. It wasn't, and it wasn't super low poly silhouette. Yeah. This one put details in the right places, but had a very unique art style to keep things creepy and almost like, um, like, like, like it was painted. You know what it reminded me of claymation. Yeah. You know how they, even with some of the movements, just kind of like inhuman kind of like grotesque claymation can do that. It can look nasty. Yeah. Because of the like quicker, subtle movements, quicker, subtle, I don't know. And we're playing as a little, I assumed girl playing through the boy. Cause I only, I think that these, I thought it was just limbo 2.5, but it is a girl. I confirmed. It is a girl on accident. I, I, I didn't look any of this up while playing. I did look up a play through just for like backup. Um, but as far as like plot and anything like that, I haven't looked anything up until kind of like as we're recording this, but it's, I, but I assumed it was a girl. I think it was like the basic tape, how it was moving more like the little very few slender legs that were poking out of a raincoat. Anyhow. Um, but it's a little nine year old girl in a yellow raincoat that we get to play through. And we're on this massive ship, a vessel almost, um, on the open sea is called the mall and we are getting through the mall trying to um, either escape or just survive. Yeah. I, I guess maybe I didn't, that would explain why it kind of had the like sway of the ocean feel. Yeah. I, I don't know if I really noticed, like I, I guess, I don't know. Maybe I didn't read the description of the game and I'm an idiot, but I did notice the swing coming in and out of the game and that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So the, after the second set of quote unquote bosses, you end up climbing on the outside of the ship and it was really, really cool. But anyway, so not to go too, too far. We first meet our, we'll call them bosses. The, I think he was named the janitor. Yeah. This, this guy would like ridiculously long arms and I believe he had a like, like he, he, he couldn't see dude. So he like his, his eyes were covered. Do you want to know why he couldn't see? Upon looking at more pictures of him, I just sent a picture. There seemed to be like a little bit of imagery where skin was like a thing with this game. Yes. So it seems like he has almost like a skin suit that is peeling down and it's cut. It's like over like the extra skin is over his eyes. Yes. Kind of. I mean really good monster design. And, and, and most of the, the enemies were like that. Yeah. Where it seems like he used sniffing to kind of get you like you'd hear him sniff. Yeah. And how you got around him was pretty cool because there was like these leather pads and leather, leather areas around. So you would like, you basically have to like move to a spot where he would catch your scent and then wait for him to notice it and then get away really quick. And that he would like try to figure out what happened while you kind of skirt away. It was, it was very, very interesting. That one took me a while to figure out. Um, but yeah, I didn't notice the skin thing initially, uh, with the janitor. I noticed it with the chefs. Yeah. So after, after him, go ahead and lay that down for the, yeah. And this is, and this is where I, I started noticing like how truly creepy it was like, okay, yeah, there's this big gangly fucker that's like trying to get it, get you, get at you and whatever. You know, I, I, it was fine. There was a couple instances where you would see his face or see what kind of his face and it just looked, it looked weird, but I kept moving on. Uh, you get to the chef or chefs like multiple. Yeah. And there, there's this one portion where the chef's there, he's like chopping up something to, he's butchering something and he stops and goes to itch his face and goes underneath the skin mask and scratches whatever the hell is underneath. And then continue. Yes, that, that right. Yeah. It was that right there. I kind of like, I had to stop for a second. I was like, that is fucking gross. The guy's creepy. Yeah. I didn't see him do that in my game. Like I, but I, I know we had talked about it. So I was like, I was actually kind of looking for it, but I didn't see it. But yeah, man, they, they were gruesome, man. They, they did a good job with that. And the janitor, if I remember correctly, I believe the janitor was wrapping up things. I think he was. I don't know if you had seen what they were, but later on you find out that he's like wrapping up children. What? Yeah. To be, well, I guess we don't like children. Cause we keep playing games where they're dying. So someone doesn't like him. I don't know. He's wrapping up. You pick the human body parts, human bodies and whatever to be sent down the line who eventually get to the butcher to then butcher up to be served as meals later on down the, the game. Yeah. And it is wild. Oh, also, were they butchering people? Cause I felt like there was actual foods involved. There was a, there was a mix. Yeah. But like the protein I think was mostly human meat. Love to hear that. Yeah. It was, it was pretty cool. I will say there's two things we haven't mentioned. One, as you start the game, your character sees a woman, like a very slender woman wearing a kimono and a, I don't know if this is pronounced right. A no mask. N O H. It's like the kind of almost like a geisha mask, a very plain, I interpreted it very geisha. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it's a, it's a pale white mask. Very, very little features. Anyway, you see, you see her for like two seconds. Anyway, there's that, we haven't mentioned that. And then there's also there were these bouts of your character becoming hungry. Yeah. Yeah. You would, you would kind of like you'd move on and, and there was like the first thing I think he eats is like a rat. I think it went to, uh, there was a, there was another child in, in the mall, like somewhere else, like behind, behind like some, some barred windows or something that saw us and threw us a piece of whatever they were eating. So we got a snack. Then it was a dead rat. Yeah. Then later on it became a live rat. Yeah. Things are getting out of hand quickly. Yeah. And then I might as well spoil it. Now. Then it became one of the other, uh, things you see little creatures you see along your journey. Yeah. Little gnomes. It, uh, she, uh, grabbed one of the gnomes as well. And then, and there was another thing, uh, you want me to just throw it out there? Well, yeah, go ahead. She eats the geisha woman at the end. Oh yeah. At the end. Yeah. Okay. Geez. Well, no. Okay. So I want, I want to go back one more before the geisha. So the gnome, she ate, this was, and this is going to come up later on that I, this is something I'd love. And I'm trying to set this up for when I talk about it later. Cause you are unaware of this as you've been going through the game through past things we talked about with the chef and everything. Uh, these little gnomes, well, well they kind of like hide from us. And then sometimes we can like, basically if you find this, this one, like the same one enough times, it kind of like, uh, accepts you as not a threat and it like kind of either helps you with whatever the puzzle is or you get like a, like a collectible achievement or something. Anyway. So they become kind of like good little creatures to encounter and interact with. And she's so hungry. And in this point, and there's like a handful of gnomes in this room and there's one that's like holding a, I think a piece of meat or food that had, and it was like, like, Oh, I know that the, the, the, the girl in the raincoat is good. So I'm going to the, this, the gnome turns to like offer it to her and so hungry and, and I don't know, taste for blood or whatever. She attacks the gnome and then eats the gnome. And it's kind of like it was kind of sad and intense, right? It was a lot of emotion in that scene. I want us to remember that scene for later. Okay. Okay. So going back to the bosses, we get through lanky Jim and the fat twins and did you, did you play through the chefs or where, where, about how far did you get to? I didn't play through the chefs. All right. I'm embarrassed, dude. No, I'm sensitive. That's okay. You were in bad conditions. You know, the steam deck was, was on hiatus and yeah, it was, it was on the operating table. Yeah. It was under, after, after the kitchen, you basically get away on a, uh, um, not a conveyor belt, but like a conveyor line of like hooked. It was like basically like, like, like a, like a clothing line, but it was on a, on a little conveyor belt. You would hang meat on kind of. Yes. Yes. So that's what it was. The chefs were hanging up the already butchered children, uh, and sending them onto the next area to be prepared or feasted upon or whatever you escape on one of those. Yeah. Which was pretty cool. Uh, let's see from there where we, I believe that's when she left the mall and you see it as you're, as you, you start climbing outside of the, uh, the mall and going like higher up from the outside, the camera zooms out and you see another step, which is much smaller docked against the mall and like people are walking into it. Okay. Which was, I don't remember that, but it was like a, like a cruise ship or a, a, a shipping vessel of some kind with passengers docked to the mall and they were shuffling in. I do. As your passengers, as you, as you start climbing up, it starts once you get almost to the top, it starts zooming in and you see these people are not walking in. They're like, uh, lumbering in, they are fat, uh, over addiction, grotesque, but yeah, they are, they are most of, of, they've all got my body type and then you're tall dude. Yeah, there it is. It reminded me of like a very nightmarish grotesque version of Wally. Oh yeah. People from Wally, how they like could like if they could walk, it was barely, you know, like if Wally was a Halloween movie. Yeah. Yeah. So you, you see those. So then the next couple of minutes is you walking through this like receiving area of like people coming onto the boat. You see the lady in the kimono again for a brief moment and you start having the, the, the platforming section for this portion of the game is trying to navigate these people who are monstrous in size compared to your character that you move, you're moving around with like eating so ravenously and like so much gluttony is happening. It's, it's, it's a disgusting watching the amount of like things they're shoveling into their face. Yeah. There's something real nasty about that. There were a couple of bits where like you would walk by one and they would notice you, but they were so fat they couldn't move to get to you. But they were like, they were like going into like a fit of rage trying to get to you so they could devour you. Yeah. I liked the one that was like chasing you on its stomach. Yeah. Yeah. It's like slumped down. Yeah. That was the part of the game that I liked the most. I enjoyed that one as well because it was, it was also kind of unlocking like what was kind of happening in this world or you're starting to, there are more questions, but you're kind of seeing maybe what's happening on the ship. I especially liked the part where they all come rushing in and it's just escaping all these like fat things trying to pile over each other. Yeah. It had a real, that was like the stakes were high kind of moment, but not it was, it never really felt that intense leading up to that part, but that was the big chase, you know? Yeah. So I, you know, talking about bosses or quote unquote bosses for this game, the, we had the janitor, a single boss, we had a pair of twin chefs. Yeah. And then the, the boss for this section where it's the guests was kind of the mass of guests themselves. Yeah. Like it was just a massive onslaught puzzle of these, these guests. I did really like how they did that. So it wasn't like, you know, get through the puzzle, do this. Then you find the big thing you gotta, that you gotta figure out how to defeat and then you, then you move on. It was like, it was a continuous kind of thing in, in other terms of games we played recently, a God of War, the, the dragon from the cave that went, that you're going up on the elevator where it was a very, it was like a boss that had stages to it. Right. The people, the guests were like a constant stage of a boss within the section of the game. So I really liked how they were doing that. It was just, it was a nice break from having to do the same thing over again with a different, you know, skinned boss. Ooh, something else. I don't know if you noticed this in any of your playthroughs, every time you were about to get to another section, somewhere in the background, you saw the boss of that section. I don't know. Well, I mean, I'm thinking of that part and I guess that was obvious, but when you first wake up, you see the lady in the kimono. Yeah. You start going through and somewhere in the background you see lanky gym. I saw that guy early. Yeah. And then when you get away from lanky gym, as you're like, when it's like it was stretching away, like the camera's pulling away way, way in the background, like in a corner, you see one of the shafts like leave a room and then go to the next door down. Okay. That's, I don't know. I don't, I think I noticed everyone but that one, but yeah. And then with the people you're on the outside of the ship and then you're seeing them walking the law. Right. And then at the end of that, when you see, and you keep seeing the lady, but she ends up being the last one, but you see her bunch. I really liked that where it was like, huh, that was significant kind of thing. Yeah. It was done, done. I really liked it. Oh, and after, after the onslaught of people, this is where she's named six. Apparently, I don't know where the, the, I don't know what the significance of that is, but the little girl's name apparently is six. Oh, okay. And she's nine years old anyway. But anyway, the sixth one, are we pulling a stranger thing too? Maybe this is at this point, that's when she eats the gnome. Yeah. That's the, I told us to remember that we're still going to be hungry at that point. Right. Yeah. There were also, this is a minor enemy, but the leeches. Those are a very minor. I didn't, they were kind of sprinkled up throughout. I don't know. Yeah. Pretty standard spooky fair. I don't know if you remember this at one point. It might've been earlier on the, I think the janitor actually catches you. Yeah. Yeah. That's also relevant for later. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm getting spoiled. I'm getting spoilers and setups for one of the DLCs. Oh, that's right. I forgot there was DLC. Yeah. Which I played through those as well. And they, they were a lot of fun to play through. Yeah. And they were a lot of fun to play through. Yeah. And they were a lot of fun to play through. Yeah. And they were a lot of fun to play through. Yeah. Which I played through those as well and they were amazing. The DLCs made the game better. Okay. Afterwards. That's good. I did, I guess I, I actually had forgotten that there was DLCs for it. You went and bought them? I did. They were, they were like two bucks a piece. I think I got, I think I got a bundle and it was, it was right at or under 10 bucks for all of them. I really like with just off the record, on the record, when you buy a game on Steam, if you buy the DLC later on and it's bundled, all of it comes out a little bit cheaper sometimes. And I like that a lot that they do that. Yeah. You probably still overpaid for it. Oh yeah. It was for this game. It's fine. I'm just joking. Dude, you know, okay. So this is a game that I think I would have thoroughly enjoyed watching, like on a big, like on a TV, not on a phone, but like on my computer or something like that. I think I really would have enjoyed watching it. I don't think that I enjoyed the gameplay very much of this game. I'm trying to get my wife to play it. Strap in, dude. I think she, I think she would like it. I think a couple, this, this one and Death Stranding, I just want her to see it like fully so I can just get her, I want to see her reaction to it. You want to have a discussion. Yeah, no, I get that. I do. I always talk to my wife about these a little bit too, and I think she's probably gotten tired of me talking about Little Nightmares because I'd be like, oh my God, this game. You know, I think that there was a little bit too much ambiguity with some of the puzzles. I feel like it induces a little bit too much trial and error for my taste for this kind of game because it's not, in this game the challenge comes from a little bit of jank, but a little bit of not really having a good direction for what you do. There's times where you see a lock, you know you're going to need a key, but like, you know, just like when you need to hide or where you need to hide and stuff like that. I feel like that's artificial difficulty, and it's, obviously this is a good game because everybody seems to like it except me. All the issues, the one you just described most recently, in Little Nightmares 2 they corrected, but at the detriment of everything that was good in Little Nightmares 1. So what I mean by that is they corrected the issues with the controls. The puzzles had much less ambiguity to them. They were much easier to deal with. Clear mechanical issues in just the act of playing the game that made it easier to play the game. What Little Nightmares 2 lost was a, I didn't find enough of a variation in their enemies, you'll call them. They went really heavy on a very small amount of enemies. Okay. I feel like the Slanky Jim or whatever, the janitor was very unique and had his strengths and uniqueness, and then he went to the chefs and they had their own unique spin on it. Yeah. And then it just kept, it made every little section feel very nice and different from one another. Different enough from one another. Yeah. I think in Little Nightmares 2 it kind of lost it a little bit for me, or it could have been that I think the sections were a little longer. Right. So I had less bosses, more killing by my character, which was interesting. Which was expected from what I saw. Yeah. The first big boss in Little Nightmares 2 is kind of a constant threat, similar to how the horde of guests were, but it's one single individual. His portion felt so drawn out, and it was the same mechanic every time you ended up encountering him, and it kind of got played out. Okay. But how you went about doing it, like mechanically and how the controls worked, all those issues we had in Little Nightmares 1 were fixed. Right. So it was easier to play through, it was just less interesting to play. Yeah. So I feel like it was almost a lateral move when they went to number two, so I'm hoping that doesn't happen with three. I liked both of them so far, but anyway, I just wanted to call that out. Maybe it'll be more of an enjoyable game for me then. Maybe, yeah. It sounds like I might enjoy it more. You want to shoot somebody in the face with a fucking double-barrel shotgun? Sometimes I do. Okay. And you're running two characters. I thought it was going to be multiplayer, but you just have two people. Six and who? It wasn't six. It was, well, we're talking about Little Nightmares 1. I haven't fully finished it yet, so I don't quite know. Okay. So I'm not done with it yet. But anyway, back to Little Nightmares 1. Where were we? Yeah. And then you have, like, the first kind of real actual, I mean, it felt the most like a boss fight, even though it was very simple. The mirror? Yeah, the mirror. Yeah. I liked it. Like, it was interesting. At the end of it, we alluded to earlier, Six consumes the lady after defeating her. Yeah. And then walks out. But one thing we had, well, hold on. Are you getting mixed up on DLC? No, no. I'm pausing for a second. Before the little, before she gets her powers at the end, did Six show any signs of any, like, supernatural stuff? I don't think she did. No, probably not. No, okay. Okay, so I was thinking it was going to be like a, oh, this has been happening the whole time, but it wasn't. I might have been getting that mixed up with something else. So, yeah, and after she absorbs, she, like, consumes the lady and, like, gets these magic powers or something, you get to do this little, like, leaving the area scene of, like, going back through the guests that are all eating and stuff. Yeah. And, like, there's, like, this aura of, like, magical power coming off of your character and, like, people are coming after her and, like, getting their necks snapped and, like, dying and being pushed away and stuff. It almost looked like they were being absorbed, too. Like their power was being absorbed into her or something. Yeah. It was kind of weird. I don't really know what to make of it. Yeah. And then she leaves. Yeah. You know what, man? That scene alone kind of made me, like, wish that I had played. I mean, I guess it's fine that I didn't play through it, but just the ending of the game, I was, like, felt, it changed my opinion of it. I mean, it was always a little spooky or whatever, but, and, you know, very atmospheric. Right. But the actual ending of it kind of threw me for a loop about how I felt about the game. Yeah. Oh, this is what it was, because I paused a minute ago. There's one thing I meant to ask you about. Do you remember seeing, there was a portion of the level, and I think it was back in janitor times, where you went through, like, an area that had, like, kids on beds and stuff. Remember that? I don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They were, like, old school hospital bed looking things, like those very, like, metal frame. Yeah. And you could see living, we assume children, like sleeping on them and, like, rolling over to continue, you know, getting comfortable and whatever, but they were alive. Right. But anyway, you go through, and there's these beds, and you see people sleeping around and stuff, and then you pass them by. That's also relevant. Okay. So, the thing I've been looking forward to talking to you about was the DLCs. Yeah, give me a little, run it down on me a little bit. I'm interested to know of these DLCs which you speak of. So, it's a trio of DLCs. Yeah. That offer a different perspective on the adventure we just did with Six, with a different character. Okay. So, we've been playing as Six, the little girl in the raincoat. Now we're playing a boy who they just called the runaway kid, and you wake up in one of those bunks that you were crawling through earlier as Six. And he's smaller, normal size. And he's smaller. He's the same size as Six. Pretty pubescent. Yeah. Okay. So, right off the bat, you get to explore areas that Six passed over. Yeah. Rooms that I remember going to and seeing something, and then once we took over as the runaway kid, the room changed slightly. Maybe a piece of furniture was slid out of the way, and you got to go see another part of the level. Would you say that, do you think that they just reused the assets and changed it a little bit? Did it feel like that? To put it in terms of like Ori and the Blind Forest, it was part of the level. We just didn't have that door open. So, now we have it open and we can go. So, it all existed, but we got to go a different way. It wasn't the same area with a stool moved is what I'm, I guess, I'm assuming. No, like one room was to get to the area that was completely new. Okay. So, like there was basically, okay. When we were a six, there was a collectible in a side room. Yeah. And you could go under the bed, and I think, if I remember correctly, like a slug came out, and you got around it, got out, and then you went about your business. In that same room, the slug like ate through the floor or something. Okay. And then you got to drop down and go into a completely different room, and there were slugs. So, it was like that, but it was mostly completely different areas. Gotcha. So, yeah, there was the nursery. That's what they called it. Okay. Oh, you also, so they broke it up into three different DLC sections, the depths, the hideaway, and the residence. So, the first one we go through is the depths, where we get to go find the granny enemy, who was terrifying. This is on the DLC? It was on the DLC. Okay. So, you basically go into a section of the maw that is flooded. Oh, man. Yeah. And about the same amount of time. Each section maybe took 30, 45 minutes. It wasn't super, super long. You get through the granny. It's mostly the main hazard and or puzzle for this section is water and electricity. Okay. Okay. So. We're back in limbo. Yeah, we're back in limbo. The granny is a swimming entity. Oh. So, they're swimming around trying to get at you and stuff. So, you end up defeating her by pushing a TV into the water that's, like, plugged in. Yeah. And it shocks her. And then you go on. And as you, these are going to be pretty quick explanations. As you leave the granny section, you get snatched up by the janitor. Okay. As a little boy and put into a cage. Oh. And in the room with the cage, you see a little girl in a raincoat. That's cool. Okay. And then the character you've been playing as gets snatched by a really long-armed person and pulled away to a different room. So, going back to when we were playing as six, as six, we watched a kid get pulled away in a cage. That's who we're playing right now. Okay. Love it. I love that. It is cool. It seems like they maybe had that, well, they obviously had that planned. Oh, yeah. Like, they had DLC planned, which we're supposed to hate, I think. Yeah. No, we're okay with it in this sense. In this sense, it's okay. You know, with, because I have two more to go through. It reminded me to, I've asked my wife this. Do you do this to your wife? I will have watched something in my life, like a show, and I really liked it, and I want to see if they've watched it. So, I say, oh, have you watched such and such? And then they either give me an answer. She'll tell me yes or no, and then I'll forget about it. And then six months later, that same show will come into my thought and be like, oh, hey, have you watched such and such? Oh, I have. I think I have short-term memory or something like that. I do that all the time. Anyway, I do that constantly. I have asked my wife, and I'm asking you now, have you ever watched Arrested Development? Is that the Banana Stand show? Yes. Yeah. So, it was on, I forget when, but it got canceled or it ended or whatever, and then Netflix picked it back up. Right. I haven't seen any of the new ones. Okay. The Netflix one did something really cool where they had a very short story they were trying to tell, and every episode, they added to the story from the perspective of another character in Arrested Development. Okay. And you would start to see like, oh, this one person is leaving the scene as another one comes in, but they didn't know each other were there. To me, it did a fantastic job of showing a very tiny snippet of the story they're telling from a bunch of different angles, but it was like 12 different characters. Here, it's two characters, six, and the runaway boy, but for Little Nightmares, they did a fantastic job of giving you moments where you know they would have been together or been in the same room, similar to how Arrested Development, once Netflix took it over. Anyway. I'm trying to think if there's other media where that happens, but I'm drawing a blank. There's apparently another show on Netflix. I don't know what it's called. It's like a heist movie or show. It's got, oh, I don't know his name. It's like Gustavo. He's from Breaking Bad. No. Baking Bad, dude. Baking Balls. He was Gus in Breaking Bad. Never watched it. Really? All right. Gus Fring from Breaking Bad, who is played by Giancarlo Esposito. You did great with that. Giancarlo Esposito is in a Netflix show called Kaleidoscope. Okay. Have you heard of this? Never. Apparently, there are six or so episodes of Kaleidoscope, and it is recommended, or let me rephrase that. In Kaleidoscope, you can watch any of the episodes in any order you want, and it will all make sense. That's cool. I believe if you look on there now and you're a Netflix guy like I'm on mine, they're not necessarily going to be in the same order, so everybody gets to see it. Oh, yeah. Okay. How fucking cool of an idea is that? Yeah. I do remember hearing that part sparked a little bit of a memory deep in my skull. Yeah. I do remember hearing some of that. In this realm of a way to tell a story, this game is doing a very simplified version of that with a few key scenes that I think just really hit it home for me. The DLC, playing through the DLC, is why I bought Little Nightmares 2. It just hit it perfectly for me. Okay. The hideaway, after as the runaway kid, you get snatched from that cage, then you end up wrapped up in butcher paper on a hook ascending towards the kitchen like the bodies that you were seeing ascending as you were playing Six. Yeah. You wriggle out and break out, and then you go into an engine room, and this whole section is getting gnomes to help you out and evade the janitor. So a more extended interaction with the janitor with a different character. So they expanded on his whole not being able to see, smelling, all that stuff, but also calling on the aid of the gnomes as secondary characters, as a mass of characters. Okay. Oh, remember in Inside, there was a section of the game where you were hurting people? Yeah. It was almost exactly like that. You were going across the level. Instead of looking for mindless people for Inside, you were looking for gnomes. The exact same thing. Yeah. It's Inside 2, the DLC. But they were throwing in coal into a furnace to help you get to the top of this elevator that was to take you to the last part of the DLC, which is the residence. You were going to the residence of the lady in the kimono. Oh, okay. No, no. So it's going right to where the kimono lady would call home. As I Google that. It goes into more mirror stuff. You actually see her unmasked, and she is grotesque. Who? Deformed? The lady in the kimono. Oh, okay. And has a mask on. You see her looking at the mirror and taking in what she wants to be beauty, and she is just disgusting. You see that, so she freaks out. Basically, you evade her, but also the main enemy, they're called Shadow Kids, I think, or Shadow Children. Basically, you have a flashlight with you, similar to how Six did. Or I think she had a Zippo, didn't she? Anyway, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I think she did have a little Zippo. Yeah. You have to shine your flashlight on the Shadow Kids, and they disapparate and all that. Anyway, at the end of everything, your interaction with this person, because you don't kill the lady, Six does. Yeah. Right? You're just getting away from her. You almost get away, and she turns the runaway kid into a gnome. Oh, no. Then, with your gnome brethren, you try to make it to a safe space, and then see coming in out of the rain- Oh, no. A small girl- Who you've been helping. In a trench coat that looks very hungry, and you go to offer her some food, and she fucking eats you. Damn, dude. Your actual character that you've been playing as a gnome. That's pretty- That's so good. That's good, yeah. That's so good, right? I took a good, I don't know, 30 seconds of silence for myself. It was just good enough. It's not like it was super emotional or anything. It was, but it was just such a good connection. It was so clean, how they connected those dots. Clearly, it was planned way before. It matched too well not to be. You have a little more experience with this series, or a lot more, I guess. What are the gnomes? What are you interpreting? What is the why gnomes? What is gnome? Off the cuff, I would say they are- Are they gnomes? Is that what they're canonically referred to as? They are, without the G. Okay. To me, in the moment, what I'm going to interpret, they are, you see my air quotes? They're spoiled children. Okay. They weren't good enough to eat and feed the guests, so they now get to go around aimlessly trying to protect themselves. I think, because there's so many, and because a little kid gets turned into one on screen, I think all the gnomes were children that are afraid and looking for safety constantly. Okay. Which is, every time you encounter one, they are petrified and they run away. Okay. I don't know if that's ever been canonified or anything like that, but that's how I'm going to interpret it. I like it. I like that too. It sounds appropriate. I've kind of touched on this a little bit. I am interested in the second game, maybe visually, maybe watching it. You obviously don't want to play the second one at all, right? No, I don't because I already played it. Yeah. No, I actually got stuck. I need to- Oh, excuse me. I need to maybe load up a different file because I either glitched the game out or I don't understand the puzzle. Can you pull up a video and do that? I probably will. The second one, I have not had to watch any videos. Oh, that's a good sign. Yeah. Well, it's good, but it also shows how much easier it was, I guess. I don't know. Or maybe I was in a good- I was also playing on a plane, so I had literally nothing else to do. I couldn't pick it up because I didn't have Wi-Fi because airplane Wi-Fi is a fucking joke. It is a joke. It is a joke, actually. It's just a- it's a prank. Yeah. It's the dumbest fucking thing in the world. Anyway. I- dude. Yeah. So, that's- I feel like they probably had to have improved that a little bit because this game wasn't, to me, it wasn't a difficult game. I think it was just problematic in it. So, if you were able to play through the game that far without having to look anything up, they probably had to have taken some kind of feedback and improved it. Yeah. I also learned from the first time around, one of the things that tripped me up in Little Nightmares, one of the things I had to look- watch the video for, I didn't know that I could climb on something that I could climb on. That's all it was. It was a- it was a box or- it was like a stack of boxes that, like, I don't know, there were things inside the boxes that made perfect parallel lines in the shape of, like, a ladder. I could climb on that. I didn't know. So, I'm aimlessly walking around this room, dodging, I think, one of those lights that, like, dissolves your fucking flesh or something. And, yeah, it was just- it was just- I could climb on this box I didn't know I could climb on. Yeah, they don't ever really show what happens if you stay in the light. You kind of, like, start to, like- Disintegrate. Disintegrate. Disintegrate. And then, before you fully go out, it- it- it reloads the game. Are you the little nightmare? I bet you are. You know, that I've been- because we've done this a few times, like, we haven't talked about the name of the games we've been playing. Yeah, I don't think we even- this game- we usually do a little intro about the game and talk about it. Yeah. We did not. No. Uh, you know- I'm so sorry, Molly. What I was going through is- because I had that same thought, too. I was like, oh, are we the nightmare? I think so. By the end of it, I felt like a nightmare. But, I feel like each thing you come across in the game are, like, exaggerated versions of those little things that you kind of grow up being scared of that are, like, tiny little things. Like being afraid of the dark. Or, which- oh, oh, oh, which I hate thinking about this. Uh, how is it phrased? You're not afraid of the dark, you're afraid of not being alone in the dark. Yeah. Yeah. You know? It's- I don't care if it's dark, it's like, what if something's there? That's- That's true. That's- that's the thing that's scary. Anyway. Not for me. I'm gonna- I'm gonna turn the light on tonight. So, yeah, because I had it before. You know, all these- the janitor and the lady with the kimono, and, like, these are all- they're strangers, right? So, it's like, you can be scared of people you don't know. There's that thing. Uh, the idea of the- are they people or are they not people? Are they eating people? Is it Soylent Green? I don't know. I think- I think if I had fucking written notes like I was supposed to and I was having these thoughts, you know, like, a month ago when I actually played the game, uh, I should- I should have written something down because there was a couple parallels I had similar to being afraid of the dark, and I'm trying to think of them now. I feel like if- at any point, if somebody's ravenously eating food and it's disgusting, like, it just doesn't fit well. Yeah. It shouldn't. Yeah. Unless you're one of those people that's really into that, but I'm not. No, this wasn't- this wasn't mukbang- mukbang quality. This was- this was gross. It was gross, yeah. As it usually is. Food grosses me out in general, man. For a guy that loves to eat, like, the idea of, like, I don't think I could be a server because I don't like- like, I don't want to pick up someone's plate, dude. That grosses me out. And, like, I hate- I feel so bad for a server when they reach and they take my plate and they touch the food on the edge. I'm like, you are a different breed of person not to just fucking slide out of your skin and leave. Quit your job because that happened. Nothing in the nurse world that hits you the same way. I mean, we usually get gloves, dude. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And, yeah, I mean, I do have to pick up people's plates sometimes, and even with gloves, I'm like, oh, man. I don't know. For some reason, body fluids are less nasty. You could feel that gravy through the glove. It always feels wet. I've got a story for you when we end this. Is it- did you tell me about the one with the- this is technically hip, I think, but did you tell me about the one with the bedsore? Did I? Like, years ago. I don't know. Where, like, bones were showing or basically bones were showing through, like, bedsores. Was that you? Oh, I've seen that, yeah, plenty of times. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't think that's hippo. That's fine. Yeah. But you could take that out anyway. Yeah. Go ahead and edit that out, Craig. So, okay, you enjoyed the game. Is there anything else you want to add? What was your favorite boss or favorite enemy thing? I think I liked the chef the most. Okay. I liked the- see, because it's- again, these aren't traditional boss fights. Right. But, I mean, you can still have a favorite enemy or whatever. It's weird because why I liked the chef was more about the reaching under his skin mask to itch himself. Like, the things I was noticing during his section really stood out to me. I liked the- we'll call it level design, but the section design for that area, it was like a really grungy, dirty version of, like, a fantasy kitchen, you know? That's the shit I hate. Yeah. Yeah. So, I liked the look of the area that the chef was in. I think that was the best setting. I would agree that that was the best setting, for sure. For, like, quote-unquote boss fight mechanics, I liked running away from the horde of people the most. Yeah. I would agree with that. I think that was enough, like, adrenaline-inducing kind of thing. I think that did it enough for me. I really liked that. Yeah. It was definitely, like, the most, like, best-paced part of the game, I guess you would say. Yeah. And by then, I think I had really figured out the controls- I figured the controls out a little bit better, and I could, you know, get my running correct and slide when I needed to, and I was actually better at the game by that time. So. Okay. Well, is there anything else you want to say or add in? Are you officially spooked out? I think this was a good one to end our spooky season on. It was, you know, there are clearly, clearly scarier games out there, but I don't have the Constitution score to handle it. Next year. So. Well, next year we'll make our- next year we'll do it right. Yeah. But no, I really- I enjoyed it. I think it was creepy and kind of gross. Yeah. I think some costumes centered around little nightmares would be really cool. I'm wearing one. Show me- if you guys have a costume for any of the October episodes, 321 Backlog, Twitter, or what's Twitter called now? X. X. Send X with an X on X. That's not porn. There it is. X us and X on X, and we'll promote your post. Huh? Come on, Elon. No, that'd be cool. I would love to see some cosplay or second costumes around these games that we've done. Do I dare to look it up? Maybe. I'm sure there is. There's probably- It's all going to be the raincoat girl. Yeah. Yeah. That's the easiest one. Yep. It all is. There's just- it's a raincoat. This is something that we haven't talked about, you and I. Uh-oh. What's the plan in November? What's our next episode going to be? Our November? Do you have one lined up that you had interest in? I want you to pick one. You want me to pick one? I feel like- I'm putting you on the spot, dude. Right now? If you want. I mean, it'd be great. What I wanted to do for this- Or you do. This- Fuck. You just fucking glog out, dude. What I wanted to do with the podcast when we brought games was I genuinely didn't want to know what the game was going to be until you said, or I said, at time of recording, this is what we're playing next. Because I wanted to get the- I wanted to get a real reaction. And this will be, I think, genuinely the first time on air that I will not know what we're going to play next. Okay. Let me look at my- This is rough, man. I wasn't ready for this. You should have- Dammit, boy, you should have texted me. I think the next game we'll do, Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons. It's a shorter game. Ooh, okay. It seems like it might be kind of chill. And I feel like it'll kind of be up your alley. I'm picking this- I wanted to pick a game and a genre that I thought you might enjoy. It's cozy season, bro. Hey, man. Get cozy. That'll work. I already- I already have that. I think it was a free game on Epic a while back, like a year or so ago. So I already had this picked up. I got it on Steam, too. That works out perfect, though. Get a blanket. Maybe brew a nice pot of coffee or some tea. Put some headphones in. Cuddle up with a cat. Meow. Get cozy, dude. Fall time, buddy. Thanks so much for listening. That wraps up our discussion for Little Nightmares. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know with a thumbs up, a comment, or sharing with your friends and family. If you're able to do so, please play along with us. We'll post upcoming games to our socials and what games are up next at the end of each episode. This has been 321 Backlog by Alec and James. You can connect with us on any of our social media pages at 321Backlog and also send us an email at 321Backlog at gmail.com. Until next time.