We we we did get Buc ee's in Ohio, so that's like the the big thing now. We got one fairly close to my house and it... It's an event. People have been traveling out to to go to Buc ee's.
Aaron:I'm I'm afraid for when Iowa finally gets a Buc ee's because we have Casey's and then we just... We got... Well, we didn't just get Quick Star, but it's kind of expanding. And then we also have the world's largest truck stop, like, maybe an hour and a half away. So I feel like we're gonna have a a full blown gang war on our hands or something and be like, no.
Aaron:I have the best path.
Dave:Yeah, man. It's it's gonna be out here. It's gonna be Casey's versus sheets versus Sheets. Versus pilot versus Bucky's. It's gonna be...
Dave:It's... The the Mad Max future is just the gas stations. The gas station like mobs fighting each other.
Aaron:Pay per view Super Slam gas station showdowners. Yeah. Hey. You're listening to SuperPod Saga, the one and only podcast out there that's dedicated to discussing every little video game topic in existence one episode at a time. I'm your host, Aaron.
Aaron:And, you know, before we get into it, do me a solid. Check out the website, superpodsaga.com. It's all over there. Episodes, socials, links to the show and your favorite player. And you can check out the Patreon or Ko Fi, both two or four dollars a month.
Aaron:You get early access to new episodes, shout outs, monthly bonus episodes, and all that cool stuff. But enough about me, man. Let's get to today's guest and the topic and all that good stuff. Returning from this episode, it's about Metal Gear Solid, PlayStation, and just a rogue like vibes fest. We have Dave Jackson, who you might know from Tales from the Backlog.
Aaron:Dude, what's up?
Dave:Dude, great to be back. Thank you for inviting me back on, and we've got a fun topic. I had fun like researching this and and thinking about these. So hell yeah. I'm real happy to be back on.
Aaron:Nice. I'm glad to have you back on. It's been a real long time. Yeah. Today's topic, we're talking about five buck bangers, you know, those little little goodies that you can find for $5 or under.
Aaron:And, yeah, both Dave and I talked about this. We limited ourselves to games that are $5 or under. Not $5.99, not $5 or under strictly on a sale, but like games that you can find $24.07, you know, anytime at all, $5 or under. So...
Dave:And I don't know about you. I also... I limited, like, no free to play games, like, no fuck... No Fortnite, you know, no Warframe. Like, I love Warframe, but it feels like it goes against the spirit of this.
Dave:Warframe is free. Like, you can go play it, but these are all, like, you know, games that you pay for. They're just not very expensive.
Aaron:Before we get to that, Dave, go ahead and tell the listeners all about yourself and what you do on the Internet and tell us about your favorite diner food, like your favorite greasy diner food.
Dave:Yeah. Hell, yeah. I've been waiting for someone to ask about my my favorite diner food. So I am the host of Tales from the Backlog, which is a video games podcast. It might turn it into a diner food podcast, but every episode is me with a different guest deep diving one game in particular for quite a while.
Dave:It's always no spoiler for a while, so you can listen to any episode with no fear of spoilers until we warn you. Aaron's been on the show a couple of times. We got a Bellatro episode, a Pizza Tower episode.
Aaron:Oh,
Dave:yeah. Yeah, you can you can find us chatting about some cool games over on Tales from the Backlog too. And you can find that everywhere you get podcasts. It's also on YouTube. And diner food, I was thinking about this.
Dave:I love a patty melt and... Mhmm. Mhmm. Specifically, you're... Do you have a steak and shake out there?
Dave:That's nationwide. Right? Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Dave:So I don't know if they still do this because the one near my house closed a long time ago, but they used to have a thing called a Frisco Melt. They probably still have it. It's basically a patty melt with like French dressing on it and it's fucking delicious.
Aaron:Oh, goddamn.
Dave:Yeah. I I love that. Oh, Yeah. Give give me give me a patty melt, but that Frisco melt, something about... It's...
Dave:I think it's French or maybe Thousand Islands, something about that just takes it over the top.
Aaron:One of them orange ones. I don't... Some fucking orange sauce, man. Do... Does Ohio have Quick Star?
Aaron:The the gas station chain Quick Star? Oh.
Dave:Nope, man.
Aaron:Yeah. It's a chain of gas stations, but they have a surprisingly good patty melt.
Dave:Oh, yeah.
Aaron:The the onions aren't very big. They're like the little diced things that you might see on like a like a Big Mac or whatever, but it's good. It's good stuff. Just as greasy.
Dave:We we we did get Buc ee's in Ohio, so that's like the the big thing now. We got one fairly close to my house and it's an event. People have been traveling out to to go to Buc ee's.
Aaron:I'm I'm afraid for when Iowa finally gets the Buc ee's because we have Casey's and then we just... We got... Well, we didn't just get Quick Star, but it's kind of expanding. And then we also have the world's largest truck stop, like, maybe an hour and a half away. So I feel like we're gonna have a a full blown gang war on our hands or something and be like, no.
Aaron:I have them.
Dave:I just Yeah, man. It's it's gonna be out here. It's gonna be Casey's versus Sheets versus Sheets. Versus Pilot versus Bucky's. It's gonna be it's...
Dave:The the Mad Max future is just the gas stations. The gas station like mobs fighting each other.
Aaron:Pay per view Super Slam gas station showdowners. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Let's get to these five buck bangers. Again, we limited ourselves to games that are $5 or under all the time regardless of of sales or whatever.
Aaron:But one of the... You know what, Dave? You're the guest. Go ahead and and and go first with one of your picks. Go ahead.
Dave:Alright. Well, the first game that I thought of when when we got this topic was Downwell, which is Oh. $2.99 full price. Very, very pricey game. Downwell, for those who haven't played, it's a game where you jump into a hole and you're always falling down and you can shoot your gun in mid air, which kinda like stops you in mid air a little bit, stops your momentum, and then like touching the ground refills your ammo.
Dave:And you basically just see how deep you can go. It's a game that you're probably not gonna get very far in the first time you play it. It's really really hard the more you play, but it's really good. It's just rock solid little arcade y game. It's it's got kinda like a Game Boy Color aesthetic to it, and you can switch what color palettes you want.
Dave:There's like fucking dozens of little color palettes you can switch in and out. So, yeah. Downwell is super fun game. $2.99 full price. It's on everything including phones.
Dave:Like, it's it's everywhere. So that's my first pick.
Aaron:That's a... Holy shit. That is a good fucking first pick. I can't believe I missed this one, man. I put I put maybe, like, thirty hours into the game, still haven't beaten it, but I do love this game.
Aaron:I feel like there's just an unlimited flow, like unlimited amount of all the different color palettes you can unlock because it'll change like the backgrounds and the fonts and stuff. And I I always love messing around with a new one that has a like a funny new name like blueberry or like strawberry shortcake or something.
Dave:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Named like the the Earthbound color palettes that you Oh, yeah. Like peanut.
Dave:Like the ice cream flavors and stuff like that. Also... Well, maybe I'll save it. No. Because this...
Dave:The other one's free. Maybe I'll save it for later. That's... There's a $5 banger for you. And it's not a free to play game.
Dave:It's just free. Like straight up free. Maybe I'll talk about that later.
Aaron:Oh, okay. I'm gonna jot down an idea I had for that as well too. You... You've got you've got an idea in my brain. What was the name of it?
Aaron:Boom. There we go. Okay.
Dave:Uh-huh. Yes. Yep. Very different from what I was referring to in But yeah, we'll we'll see.
Aaron:There we go. I've got another one in my brain. Okay. That's a... Yeah.
Aaron:That's a solid first pick. You know what? Any of the any of the Tro games for my first pick, because they're all dirt cheap. They're all pretty goddamn short, like a beanie, I think. Beanie is like a dollar, maybe less, and that a game is maybe like twenty minutes long.
Aaron:And you just... It's just this fat bee that rolls around and you have to... What is it? You can jump and you have to jump to the top of the stage and get to the... All the beehives because you're collecting a bunch of honey for Tory's raft because you're...
Aaron:Or no, for Kiwi's raft or something. Then, of course, there's all the the Tory games where it's like a fast paced three d platformer. You play as a little chick. You just run through stages, collect stars, get to the end, yahoo. There's someone called Tori Saturn that has, like, like a Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast visual style.
Aaron:And there's even, like, an in game little Dreamcast rip off machine that you can play called the the Streamblast, I think it's what it's
Dave:called. And Oh, yeah.
Aaron:I forget if Super Kiwi 64 is $5 or less, but that game and like Macbat 64, those are all cool fun games that you can get a lot of... Quite a bit of game out of for just pocket change, just pulling some some change out of your couch or something.
Dave:Yeah. It looks like Super Kiwi 64 is $3.
Aaron:Yes.
Dave:Full price. So there we go. Yeah. Oh, shit. That does look like a just straight up Banjo Kazooie looking game.
Aaron:And there's there's some very weird shit in Super Kiwi 64. Like, it it looks cutesy and, yeah, Banjo Kazooie, Super Mario 64 y, but there is some very kooky shit in that game. Yeah. I can say any more than that because it's it's good. It's worth playing.
Dave:Hell, yeah. My next one is... Let's see. I I got a bunch. Some of mine are kinda more well known ones, I guess.
Dave:Let me go with Super Hexagon for my next pick.
Aaron:Super Hexagon.
Dave:Which is $3 full price. It's made by Terry Cavanaugh, the the guy behind Dicey Dungeons and another game that fits in the 5 Buck Bangers category. May talk about that. Super Hexagon is this, again, really hard. It's straight up arcade game where you control a little, you know, shape and you have this ever kinda expanding and moving maze almost.
Dave:And you basically have to just navigate your guy through the safe spaces as the level kinda moves around you and try to survive as long as you can. And the soundtrack is like really like pounding and intense, really good, but it really, like, stresses you the fuck out. Like, a normal super hexagon run for me lasts maybe twenty, thirty seconds. Like, there... It's really hard, and and it's really about, like, memorizing the levels and trying to do the best you can.
Dave:But it's a it's a cool game and one that, like, people can... People who like to, like, really master an arcade style game have have gotten a lot out of it. And, like, I boot it up from... It's, like, permanently installed on my Steam Deck. I just boot it up sometimes just because it's it's like, yeah, I'll play Super Hexagon for three minutes and and give it a try.
Dave:So it's it's really cool and it's very cheap.
Aaron:You should... So I remember seeing this post on... I think it was either back in the Twitter days or it was early blue sky. Someone hacked their Steam Deck and set the little opening video for their Steam Deck to the entirety of of Shrek, like the whole movie Shrek. Yeah.
Dave:I did see that. Yeah.
Aaron:Said you your opening video thing to to that game and you have to like complete a a run of that game in order to actually get to your Steam Deck.
Dave:I would never I would never get there. I've... I think I've beaten maybe two levels, like, in all the time I've tried to play that, like hours of playing it. It's really tough. It's one of those games that, like, I played and got the feeling pretty quickly, like, oh, are my Twitch reflexes cooked?
Dave:Like, am I just too old for this? It's one of those games. But I I I really like it. So, yeah.
Aaron:That does sound cool. Yeah. Terry Kabuto does some good shit. Is Dicey Dungeons really less than 5 or $5 or less?
Dave:No. VVVVVVV
Aaron:Oh.
Dave:Is Okay. $4.99, which is another really great game. So, yeah. The... Like, I was looking through there and...
Dave:Yeah. Terry Kavanaugh, great games, not a... Not very expensive. Dicey Dungeons can't be that expensive either.
Aaron:Yeah. Think it's like $10 or... You know, there's no way it's 15. No way. I'm calling it right now.
Dave:Yeah. Great great games though.
Aaron:Speaking of great games, little hidden gem that I don't remember how I discovered, but nobody talks about it. Just King.
Dave:Okay. Tell me about it. I've never heard of this.
Aaron:It's a little bit like like Vampire Survivors. It's one of those kinda auto battling games, but... So you've got your party of... I need to look it up real fast. I forgot how many people there are because you...
Aaron:Your king in the center and then... Oh, yeah. You have five characters or five characters total. Your king in the middle, there's one two three four characters surrounding him
Dave:Mhmm.
Aaron:And it's basically you just keep the king alive. If the king dies, your run is over. If the other characters die, doesn't matter. They'll come back after after this wave that you're currently fighting. And there's all sorts of cool characters that you can unlock and and combine with different types of characters.
Aaron:Because each each each class belongs to a certain, like... What is it? Like, a race or archetype or something like that. And when you have classes of the same archetype, they'll unlock another cool passive bonus. So it's like, okay, I could have two archers just to be safe and then two tanks.
Aaron:But then, like, if I have this Viking guy in there who isn't that great, you know, I'll get a little bit more defense, a little bit... Something like that. Like, there's all sorts of cool, like, just endless amounts of customization and you can you can... In between waves or go to the hub area to the store and you can equip your dudes with rings and gems and and new weapons and stuff like that and upgrade their abilities. Each one has just like a regular attack.
Aaron:They'll have like a spell, an ultimate attack that they'll do from time to time. Yeah. It's just a really fun ass game that is only $4.99. It's on the precipice right there. Real close, but
Dave:Mhmm.
Aaron:It's a real good game.
Dave:Yeah. So there's like strategy in like what classes you bring to surround the king and and stuff like that then? Hell, yeah.
Aaron:Oh, yeah. Yeah. And there's there's just... There's tons of classes. There's your...
Aaron:Holy shit. That's sold out. I accidentally opened the Steam tab and the video immediately started playing.
Dave:Yeah, I got that too in my ear in my earbuds. Dude, that... This genre, this is like the $5 banger genre, because like Vampire Survivors set the template of like not only how these games play, but how expensive they are. Because Vampire Survivors is like... It's still...
Dave:It's like $5 full price and always has been. And so every one of these now... I was looking through the list, and I was like, oh, so many Vampire Survivors likes. I haven't played any of the others, but they're all cheap.
Aaron:Oh, man. Shout out to... I forget the name of this game. It's like thirty minutes to midnight or like...
Dave:Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron:Yeah. That's a good one as well too. Yeah. Those auto battlers are are good stuff.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. Just... I only played Vampire Survivors, but this one looks cool. They also made another game it looks like called Genome Guardian that...
Dave:It looks like a like a Geometry Wars looking roguelike, but you're you're adding up, like, the the building blocks of DNA. Oh. Like the a c g t things. It looks real weird. Oh, it's not the same.
Dave:It's just in a bump... A bundle. Never mind. I'm making shit up. That is a real game.
Dave:Genome Guardian. Not a $5 banger, though. My next $5 banger, I'm looking at my list here. You know what? Fuck it.
Dave:The original Binding of Isaac is $5 full price. I was looking at that earlier. Like, I know that games had a bunch of expansions and stuff like that, but just like the base Binding of Isaac that you can buy on Steam with none of the DLC, none of the expansions is $5, and that's still a really generous game. You can play that game forever without even digging into those expansions and stuff. Like, so I have only played a little bit of it, but I I think it's pretty neat.
Dave:It's definitely unique, like the art style, the the gross outness of it. Have you played it?
Aaron:Oh, yeah. I've put way too much time into it. Shooting little piles of poop and stuff. Yep. I know all Yep.
Aaron:About
Dave:And it's like, if if you look at it on Steam or if you look at it on Switch or something, you're tempted, like, I'll just get, like, the big package with all of it, which is, like, fifty thousand hours of of game. If you wanna just start with, like, the base thing and see what the game is at its very core, $4.99 full price.
Aaron:Yeah. And at one point, that game was on goddamn near everything. It was even on Wii U for a little bit and three d s.
Dave:Yeah. Yep.
Aaron:It was super...
Dave:Everywhere. Yeah. Vita and all the... Basically, everything that's existed that could play video. It's probably on Samsung refrigerators and shit.
Aaron:That'd be awesome. Let me complete a round of Binding of Isaac before I heat up these pizza rolls and then...
Dave:Yeah. While they're while they're in the air fryer, get a get a little running.
Aaron:Goddamn. I love that so many roguelikes are are $5 or less because... Yeah. Shit like this, Underworld, Just King, another one I'll talk about here in a little bit. You can get just endless, like, yeah, fifty thousand hours plus out of them for just $5.
Dave:Mhmm.
Aaron:It's good shit. But, yeah, the one... Another rogue like, Evolings. I have I have shouted this game's name from the top of every single mountaintop that I possibly can because it is so fucking fun and cool and good. It's basically like Pokemon roguelike, essentially.
Aaron:How the fuck do I explain? So like, it's got...
Dave:I'm looking I'm looking at the the art. So you you just just a bunch of little little guys, like there's a little peppermint candy guy. There's a little star guy. There's a little marshmallow guy, a mushroom guy, a Saturn guy. Just...
Dave:But just a bunch of little guys that you're collecting.
Aaron:Yeah, dude. Oh, it's so good. Like, it's got the the Slay the Spire style map where it's like where you can see exactly where you're going. Like, there's a battle at this spot. There's a a box here, heal spot there, store here, and battles are fucking brutal.
Aaron:Like, you start off with just your one evil lane and I think the base three is just peppermint, slime, and... I forget. But you'll unlock more as you go through the game. I think after you beat your first run, you unlock three more. And then there's other ones you can buy in the shop.
Aaron:There's other ones that you can unlock during little special events. And when you get so many of a certain evilling in your party or, you know, this guy and this guy in your party, you'll have the chance to fuse them together to make one super duper evilling. What is it? I think it's two peppermints and a slime, two cosmos to make a big Saturn and there's just so many cool combinations of them and of course, they all have new abilities and you cook up all sorts of goofy strategies and then just like Slay the Spire, there's items that give you passive abilities too. So you can get like a knife that makes it so every attack does an extra plus 10% damage.
Aaron:There's this and that and this and that. There's all sorts of stuff. But, again, it it is brutal. That is super fucking brutal. Like, you you have to pay attention to what the enemy is gonna do because, again, just like Slay the Spire, you can see above their head, like, what they're gonna do, who they're going to attack, if they're gonna defend or charge up a move or whatever.
Aaron:So you have to make sure that, like, number one, you pay attention to how much health your guys have. Because once an evil link dies, they're they're gone. But, you know, really good game. The Steam version though, that's $4.99. The Switch version is $8.99 for whatever reason.
Aaron:So... I mean, or really, but if you wanna save the most money, go for steam.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. That looks cool. And honestly, like creature collector plus slay the spire seems like something that was bound to be made at some point and Yep. The strategy behind it looks cool.
Dave:Yeah. This is this is neat. And it looks like it could use some more people buying it and leaving reviews because it doesn't have that many on Steam. But it looks cool. Especially the character designs are are very Yeah.
Dave:They're very cute.
Aaron:They get way crazier, dude. Like, I'm... There's there's a little bomb. There's a... Oh my gosh.
Aaron:Where was my guy? There's this little, like, voodoo doll that can link its soul to other evillings. So, like, when when the linked evil link takes damage, he takes damage, or if he takes damage, you know, vice versa, then he can use that in some really cool and wacky ways. It's... Again, just like Slay the Spire, you can break the game pretty easily, and it's nuts.
Aaron:More people need to play this game.
Dave:Oh, yeah. Looks neat. My next one, I'm gonna go away from roguelikes here. Okay. And let's see.
Dave:So I actually have three free games. I'll throw one of these out. This one is called Ascent d x and it is a mini Metroidvania and it's completely free. It's not free to play, it's just free. It's like thirty minutes, forty five minutes long.
Dave:And so that whole loop of playing a Metroidvania, getting upgrades, revisiting old places in the map so you can get secret stuff or the next Mhmm. Like, main path thing, You go through that whole rhythm except instead of, you know, once an hour, it's every five minutes you get one of those upgrades. And it's just... It's really well made. The types of upgrades that you get are neat, and it's one of those games that, like, it's...
Dave:It doesn't stop you to tell story, but it is telling you a story as you go, and it's kind of neat seeing what happens as you play through it. And it's one of those where it's like, you know, it's a well made little game and it's completely free. So... And it's not gonna take up hours and hours of your time. So easy to recommend Ascent d x.
Aaron:This looks really cool. It... Giving me big animal well vibes, but if animal well was like, I guess, chunkier pixels and stuff. Yeah. This is cool.
Dave:Definitely a chunky pixel type thing. And again, it's like all the rhythms of the Metroidvania type thing, but just in about forty five minutes if I remember right.
Aaron:Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. Forty five minutes. Well, Dave, before we get to these next few picks, I think it's time we take a a SuperPod Saga trademark trademark brand ad break.
Dave:Hell, yeah.
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Aaron:And we're back. I'm gonna throw a free game right into this... Right into the pit. Yume Nikki has been free and on the market for... God, I don't know how long it's been out since, like, 2015, I think, maybe earlier.
Aaron:Always been free. Never... There's no DLC. There's no micro transactions. Nothing.
Aaron:It's just a free game, and it's you exploring all of these different little dream worlds. There's, like, there's what? 20 different doors you can go through. I I could be totally wrong. There's so many different doors that'll lead to different little dream worlds to go through and solve puzzles and unlock different items that give you...
Aaron:Like, there's items that don't do anything other than maybe change you into a panda or you can get some helpful ones like a bike or a knife or whatever. But it's been so long since I've played this game. But, yeah, it's 100% free. You can get a lot of time out of this game for paying nothing for it. It's it's a really, really cool game.
Dave:Yeah. It's... I haven't played it, but I do know of it as one of the more influential, like, RPG maker RPGs, basically. Like, think about stuff like Lisa the Painful, stuff like OMORI. The influence of Yume Nikki is, like, very obvious for those games.
Dave:And it's, like very... The story is pretty controversial from what I've what I've heard, like some of the things they depict in So the yeah, I've never played it, but very aware of it. I didn't know it was free though. That's cool.
Aaron:Yeah. 100% free. And I'll throw a little bonus in here too. Lisa the first, it's... I guess, not necessarily a prequel because it's just the first game released in the Lisa series, but also tackles some very heavy subject matter with it.
Aaron:But it's just a little adventure game going through all the shit that's going on in Lisa's mind at the time, which again, very heavy shit. And like, the games that come after it are very, very different because they're RPGs, whereas Lisa the first is more of like a like a walk and talk style adventure game. But... Yeah. It it it...
Aaron:Everything that you learn and experience in Lisa the first, you'll see little bits and pieces of that in the games that follow and it's worth playing that and then the other two. And it's free. Why not?
Dave:Yeah. Hell, yeah. Especially if you're into the world and storytelling style of Lisa the painful. So, yeah. Great.
Dave:I haven't played that one either. But worth a shot if you're really into it. You just want more Lisa. More of the backstory too. My next one is...
Dave:I'm I'm gonna cheat. I'm gonna throw a game out there that I haven't played. I just know it's cool. I I like it. I just haven't played it yet.
Dave:It's called Kabuto Park. Damn. Came out last year, two years ago, something like that. It's $4.99 full price. It's just always been a short cheap game.
Dave:Yeah. And from what I gather, you catch bugs and you make them sumo wrestle.
Aaron:Hell yeah.
Dave:And that is that is the game and it sounds cool as fuck. Look it up on Steam, it looks great and it's $4.99. I haven't played it, but it's just a game that like, I'm cool recommending it because this... That premise. You catch beetles and stuff and have them sumo wrestle each other.
Dave:I don't need to sell the game more than that. I'm already in.
Aaron:Exactly. I'm already hooked based on that, man. Weirdly enough, that's the that's the SuperPod game club game of... Fuck. What month is it?
Aaron:July? August. Next month is August. God damn.
Dave:Oh, sick. You guys are playing it in August?
Aaron:Yep. In August.
Dave:Okay. I'll try and join in because I I own it. I just haven't played it yet. So there we go. Hell, yeah.
Aaron:Yeah. Yeah. I think it was pre order bonus Jake who did a review for, I think, so many games or maybe it was Yeah.
Dave:Jake's Jake's one of the big backers for that game for sure.
Aaron:Yeah. Yeah. That's how I learned all about it from him. Makes it sound so good. You know, I'm gonna throw one in here that I haven't played, but I know...
Aaron:Not like a lot about, but a little bit. The first Hilux is 299, I believe, or 399, one of those two. And it's another RPG maker game, a turn based RPG, but everything's super surreal and trippy and weird. And it's... The visual style is just like claymation stop motion.
Dave:Oh, that looks really cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron:It's it's wild, man. Like, you're... If you're a party of four of... Kinda like Earthbound, each each character excels at something different And you fight just the weirdest fucking enemies. And whenever you do an ability in battle, whether it's your spells or attacks or whatever, you'll see these hands come out and, like, from a first person point of view, like, hands will come out and they'll do, like, goofy, like, hand gestures.
Aaron:And it's just so... I don't wanna... I don't know. It's, like, trippy, I guess. Like, trippy and and surreal and cool.
Aaron:And it... I have a meaning to play this game, but I keep putting it off. But I might need to pull the trigger sometime. And there's a second game now, but that's $10.99, I think. Didn't fit the bill.
Dave:Yeah. This looks this looks cool. Also, overwhelmingly positive on Steam Yep. Like, over 5,000 reviews. I'm just looking at the screenshots and being like, how did this never like catch my eye at some point scrolling through like socials or something like that?
Dave:This looks awesome.
Aaron:Yeah, dude. I pretty much only know about Hylix because of I watch Nitro Rad on YouTube. He covers a lot of these RPG maker ass games and that was one of them and bought it right away. Haven't played it for, god, five plus years.
Dave:Hell, yeah. Let's see. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw out a game I have played for my next one. It is a game that I feel like a lot of people have played, but it's real cheap now. In case you haven't played Pony Island, it's $4.99 full price.
Dave:And I know that Daniel Mullins, like, really hit it big with Inscription a couple years ago, and Pony Island is getting a sequel that's May... Probably gonna come out next year or something like that. But the first Pony Island game is is really neat. Like, I played it for the first time just a couple years ago, and it's four ninety nine, and it does have ponies and unicorns, and... But there's a lot of other there's a lot of other shit going on too.
Dave:Yeah. It's it's neat. It's one of those games that, like, you can play it and be like, oh, it's just like all these other games. And it's like, no, those other games were doing the Pony Island thing. Like, this was one of the trend setting types of things.
Dave:So in case anyone hasn't played it, it's nominally like an endless runner game where you play as a pony jumping over fences and stuff, but, like, you're controlling a guy playing an arcade machine, and the story kinda has some meta stuff going on there. Lot of surprises as Daniel Mullen's games always have. But, yeah, it's cool. It lived up to its reputation when I played it.
Aaron:Nice, dude. I had a game like that ready to rock, but I can't tell if this is free or not. I was gonna bring up Frog Fractions.
Dave:Oh, hell yeah.
Aaron:Another one of those games, yeah, where it's like... It seems like something very, like, tame, but then it slowly devolves into something. I... My steam keeps saying it's free
Dave:Yeah. But then there is the... I think the frog fractions game of the decade edition is free. Yeah.
Aaron:That game's cool. Yeah. It starts off just doing math or whatever the
Dave:fuck. Yeah. And then
Aaron:not one of my picks. Just throwing it out there. You know what? For a good clean chill time, Cookulo is really cool. Two ninety nine on Switch.
Aaron:It's kinda like a cooking puzzle game or puzzle cooking or whatever. You have... You start off with your base ingredients, think like flour, sugar, whatever whatever whatever. You start with just real basic ingredients and you're just mixing things together. Like, do you remember that that game alchemy that was on mobile phones, like, forever ago where you just mix fire, water, earth, and whatever.
Dave:Damn. I don't. Sorry. Damn.
Aaron:It's basically them. Like, you're just mixing ingredients, seeing what you can make with them, and then you'll add it to your to your cookbook, which is basically just your your Pokedex of recipes, which boom, new reference unlocked. The cookbook is just a Pokedex for for food.
Dave:Yes. It is. Yeah.
Aaron:But as as you go... As you... Like, as as you complete more and more recipes, eventually, you'll unlock more ingredients, like like, start off with just basic baking ingredients, but then you'll get... You can unlock some some fruits, some meat, you can unlock like a seasoning or some... I don't know why I'm pointing backwards.
Aaron:You can unlock like some oil or something and make some cool shit like, you you start off with just like tarts and pies and stuff like that. And then eventually, you get, like, beef Wellington or something you've never heard of that I can't remember. But all the while while you're doing that, you have your, like, your your backdrop kitchen and then it's raining in the background or it'll be sunny and birds chirping. It's just a good... Again, good clean chill time, mixed stuff.
Aaron:It's great. It's a good game.
Dave:Hell, yeah. I didn't I didn't really think about mobile too much. The the interesting thing about mobile is, like, usually things are way cheaper there because
Aaron:Yeah.
Dave:For some reason, we've, like decided that I will pay, you know, $15 for this game on Switch, but I will never ever pay $15 for a game on my phone. Like, even if it's exactly So the there's a bunch of stuff that's either just like straight up free on phones or like very cheap. Like you could... For a while, could get like entire ass like Final Fantasy games for like $5 on phones. I'm not surprised that something like this would be really cheap or the other one you were talking about.
Dave:I was looking at at Cookulo though. That that looks neat.
Aaron:Yeah. Like, I remember back in the day on my iPod touch, whatever generation I bought, the the three d remake of Final Fantasy four. Bought it on that for, think, like, 3 or $4 because I got a a gift card from somebody and it was a half used gift card. So it was, like, whatever they had left after they bought an album, which is crazy to think about. But...
Aaron:Yeah. Yeah. I miss those days.
Dave:Yeah. I I gave those a shot. I decided at a certain point, like, my attention span is so fucking cooked. I cannot play an RPG on my phone. It's just...
Dave:Have to turn it on airplane mode in order to, like, focus. And, yeah, I just... I drew that line a long time ago. After, like, the first time I played Chrono Trigger was on my phone and I was like, this kinda sucks. And what I realized was Chrono Trigger doesn't suck.
Dave:Playing RPGs on my phone sucks. Yep. Yeah. Don't worry everyone. I'm fine with Chrono Trigger.
Dave:Don't worry. So my... I got two more free games on my list. Speaking of phones, I guess I'll throw this out there. The person who made Downwell also made a game on phones called Poinpy.
Aaron:Oh, I think I know this.
Dave:Yeah. Downwell, you jump into a hole and you're falling down the whole time. In Poinpy, you're going up the whole time. And
Aaron:Oh. You
Dave:Oh, yeah. Devolver just published this on phones like a couple days ago as we're recording and it's free. Because I think the person who made it like Oh, that's cool. The person who made it was like, I've... I'm done with game development or something like that.
Dave:Please just put this for free. There's like a... There's a tip jar, basically. That's the only money involved in it. And in Poinpy, your client...
Dave:You're going up this vertical shoot and you get the ability to like... So you pull on it to kinda bounce yourself up, and then you can do it again in mid air a couple of times, and it will always give you, like, a target. There's little fruits floating around, and it will say, like, within this time limit, collect a cherry, a blueberry, and a lemon. And then you have to get all those within the time limit in one jump. If you touch the ground, it resets and you have to do it again.
Dave:And it gets harder the the further you go up, but you unlock new upgrades and tools and stuff. The more you play, you get like a currency. You can buy upgrades and stuff. And again, it's completely free and
Aaron:Goddamn.
Dave:It's the... It's it's a nice counterpart to Downwell. Right? You just... This one, you go up and Downwell, you go down.
Dave:And both of them are just really fun games. So I've been tooling around with that one on my phone recently. It's it's pretty fun. There was one of those where, like, I had never heard of this game. Devolver puts it on phones and so many people were like, oh my god, Poinpy is back.
Dave:Hell yeah. And I was like, what? Let me check it out. It it actually is really fun.
Aaron:I I just installed it. Just now installed it. Just... I think, like, last week, they released this this Digimon game for mobile called Digimon Up.
Dave:It was sick.
Aaron:And it's just an just an idle, like, you just tap on shit and keep the adrenaline going, you know. I'm getting kinda burnt out on that because I played it for quite a few days straight, but now I'm gonna I'm gonna break that high or I'm gonna I'm gonna chase that high with with Poinpy. It's gonna be great.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. It's fun. Definitely recommended. You you got me thinking about idle games.
Dave:I just looked up Cookie Clickers $5 for full price on Steam. I've never played it, but I sure as hell know about it. So there's there's a $5 banger. Are you into the clickers or the incremental stuff?
Aaron:It depends. Like, cookie clicker, I did that for quite a while. Because it takes up like it takes up like no resources. You just leave it in the background, just let it go. Yeah.
Aaron:When you you can click and make cookies, but otherwise, like, the more the more grandmas you have in the kitchen, the more factories you have, Yeah. The more like temples and and and other ridiculous shit that you can get, they'll just automatically generate them. But, yeah, those are those are kind of fun for a little bit.
Dave:Yeah. There's there's a couple sickos in my Discord server who just like play all the incremental or idle games and they just like like you said, they just half them up all the time. And like apparently, there's a lot more to those games than just, you know, having them on in the background or clicking a million times. But yeah, I I have a feeling most of those are probably not very expensive either.
Aaron:Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Digimon game is totally free. I mean, if you... If you're Digimon sicko like me, it's it's a must play because, I mean, you know, anything Digimon we can get our hands on.
Aaron:Holy shit. Yeah. Anything Digimon we can get our hands on. Stroke it to death, which I think I think the new Digimon story is on Switch now as of earlier this month. I think so.
Aaron:Forgot about that until just now. Yeah. Yeah. Another good $5 banger, which... Yes.
Aaron:It's basically on everything. Golf Peaks. It's a... I guess, like, a card based golf puzzle game. Like, it's on a little isometric island...
Aaron:Like, from an isometric view, it's this little island or golf course or whatever. And your your objective is to just hit the the ball into the hole. But instead of doing it normal golf style, like, you have your little golf meter, and then you turn the golf club or ball or whatever this way, whatever. Instead of all of that, you just... You play cards and each card will hit the ball a different way or something like that.
Aaron:And it's it's a fun little game that's... Yeah. It's... I think on phones, it's free, but then it's 599 or not 599, 499 on a switch and everywhere else. And I remember playing this like this this came out around the time that Red Dead Redemption two came out.
Aaron:Everybody was playing this and I was over here playing Golf Peaks like like a goddamn murderer. Let
Dave:let... This is one of those where you're like, let everyone else have their fun. The real gamers are playing Golf Peaks right now.
Aaron:Goddamn right. The real the real gamers... I'm over here with my... Like a little smartwatch tracking my pulse. Oh, baby.
Aaron:Everybody watch out. I just got a hole in one on Golf Peaks.
Dave:Okay. I just checked. It's $2.99 on the iPhone app store, but still very cheap. This looks great, a little, like, Marble Madness looking levels.
Aaron:Yeah.
Dave:And I I was... I basically... When I saw it on the outline and I was like, oh, a golf game? I'm gonna have to check that out because I just love... I love golf games.
Dave:But having some sort of like puzzle element, this looks cool.
Aaron:Yeah, dude. Yep. Cheap, chill. I guess that's... I guess that's not my entire theme for this episode, but I do love a good chill cheap ass game.
Dave:Yeah. I've got one more. It's a it's a free game and it's it's like Ascent d x, like I talked about earlier. It's a short free platformer this time, kind of like a precision platformer. It's called Sheepy A Short Adventure.
Dave:Yeah. Sheepy A Short Adventure, and it's a two d platformer. Got some precision stuff. It's... I think it's got some upgrade type moves, and it's just a cool little puzzle platformer.
Dave:Feels great to play, looks awesome. The music is great. It's just like a... It's one of those, like, they put it on Steam for free, and you can buy the soundtrack if you wanna support the person who made it, but it's a really good little platformer. And one of those where you...
Dave:You're kinda like, why is this free? But I don't know, maybe it's it's easier to get your name out there if you release a good little game for free and it catches on with people. So, yeah, this this is cool. So it's another one where you're like, you know, it's completely free. Buy the soundtrack.
Dave:That's the only thing you can buy. But it's just if you like two d platformers, it feels great to play. Looks awesome, music's great. What more do you want? Nice.
Dave:Oh, shit, man. You know what I just remembered is like there's probably a thousand Picross games on phones that are less than $5 or completely free. This is a rabbit hole I can't go down, but I love Picross and I have so many Picross games downloaded on my phone. Most of them are just straight up free, so...
Aaron:Dave, I'm happy to tell you I've got a bunch. Well, not a bunch. I've got two more games that you should download for your phone.
Dave:Are they Picross games?
Aaron:No. This one... First one, it's on both Steam and your phone, actually. Super Auto Pets. Tommy and I were obsessed with this fucking game for a good long time.
Aaron:It's... So it's an auto battler, but in a different kind of way. So you start a run, and you have this pool of pets that you... Or pool of animals, I guess, that you can choose from. And each animal does something different, like like the the gorilla will have a coconut shield that protects them from one attack or the...
Aaron:Fuck. I forget what a lot of them do. I haven't played it in so long and they keep making more and more and more animals, but it's... There's just so much custom... Or not customization, so much strategy to the game.
Aaron:There's all sorts of different, like, meta strategies that you could do. Like, for the longest time, people were spamming the the the token, I guess, the token ability because there was there was the pony when... I don't know. When one of your guys is knocked out, it'll summon a pony and then they would have pets that... I don't know.
Aaron:There's there's a whole bunch of shit that goes into it. I don't... Don't have time for that right now, but... Yeah. That game is free.
Aaron:It's really fun. Super addictive. Prepare to lose your whole life to this game, Dave. And guess what? There is extra pet packs that you can buy that are like maybe a dollar or 2 or something.
Aaron:But the other game I was gonna bring up is Merge Maestro. It's a... I guess, like a puzzle rogue like where you have this board and when you start off... Kind of a deck builder too, I guess, because you have this, like, deck or whatever of of numbers and you can add different symbols to replace the numbers. And, of course, the symbols have different abilities.
Aaron:But basically, like, you... Oh, what is it? You throw... You you can combine two symbol or two of the same symbol and then that'll go up one to the next one. Like, if you combine two ones, it'll make a two.
Aaron:Mine, two twos, make a three, stuff like that. But once you start getting more and more and more crazier shit, like two ostriches to make a UFO and then two UFOs to make a factory. And then just like Super Auto Pets, there's all sorts of different meta strategies and different ways to break the game, and it's bananas. It is $3.99 on Steam. Mhmm.
Aaron:That's a really good one.
Dave:Yeah. And the other one was free on Steam, Super Auto Pets. Hell, yeah. Maybe free to play, but yeah, free to free to get started. And we'll we'll slide them a little.
Dave:We'll allow Super Auto Pets. It's it's not like, you know, Overwatch or something like that.
Aaron:No. No. There's... You get a whole like, there are other separate packs you can buy for Super Auto Pets, but you you don't need them whatsoever. Like, the pack that it comes with is still...
Aaron:Like, the classic pack, it's still good. Nice. And that was it for me. I'm fresh out of games.
Dave:Yeah. The only one that I don't think I really mentioned that was on my list is Vampire Survivors. Like, just to reiterate, that's Yeah. You know, it's it's almost like it's almost like the poster child for the the cheap game that you'll... You can get a lot out of if you really like it.
Dave:So... And they've just like kept adding to that game the entire time and it's still very cheap. I think they raised the price by like $1 over the course of its lifetime because of all the stuff they added to it. But...
Aaron:As they should. That's... Good.
Dave:Yeah.
Aaron:There you go listeners. There's... I I was not counting, but there's a shit ton of Bangers for $5 or less that you can get. I'm pretty sure I had it up pulled up a minute ago, but I think the... You can buy like a a pack of all of the Torii games for...
Aaron:I think it was like $7 or something. Yeah. That's it for this episode. That's it for this show, everybody. I wanna thank Dave once again.
Aaron:Huge thanks to Dave for coming on, man. It's always a blast talking to you and then hooting and hollering and stuff. Thank you so much.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah, man. Always always fun chatting with you, and this is a fun topic. Just get to talk about... Usually, games that, like, could use a little bit more exposure, you know.
Dave:I mean, vampire survivors, people know that. But, I mean, most of the games that you brought up, hadn't even heard of, let alone, you know, not played. So... And then for for the SuperPod, don't know when this episode's coming out, but for the Games Club, like, you got a $5 banger for the game in August, you said. So hell yeah.
Dave:Synergy, baby.
Aaron:Before we go, wanna... I'm gonna give a quick shout out to everybody who supports the show over there on Patreon. We've got Pimp Pimp, Dean Martin, you can eat that crust. Will, Dave c, Quest 64, well known Nintendo 64 game, Matt aka Stormageddon, Kevin Demo, president and lieutenant Jeff Myers of the Admiral's Club, Trey, Bar Silence, a video game music podcast, and Jared Schrader. Shorten those names, please.
Aaron:God, please stop doing this too.
Dave:Them longer. Everyone's gotta everyone's gotta make it longer. Put all your titles.
Aaron:Do it all in one breath. Try to challenge myself to that. Thank you all for supporting the show like you do. I appreciate it so much. It all goes towards really cool stuff toward the production of the show, like Funyuns, Canva, hosting, energy drinks, all that cool stuff.
Dave:Trips to the gas station to get patty melts.
Aaron:Those those gas state... That's the real five buck banger. The
Dave:the gas station... Patty melt. That's the ultimate one. Yeah.
Aaron:Oh, shit. Thanks again everybody for hanging out. Go to superpodsaga.com. Go to superpodnetwork.com as well too. There's all sorts of cool stuff there, game club, all that cool stuff.
Aaron:Alright. Stay cool. Bye. Say bye, Dave.
Dave:Bye.
