The Crate and Crowbar

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 260: Wands And Tanks All The Way Down Oct 31, 2018

Tom joins Zack Johnson and Kevin Simmons from Video Games Hot Dog to discuss the games of Fantastic Arcade. Spelunky 2! Noita! Samurai Gunn 2! Additional games besides these!

Note: Patreon backers won’t be charged for this episode.

Zack and Kevin are from Video Games Hot Dog, also Asymmetric. They have created two forms of Loathing: West of and Kingdom of.
These human beings collided at Fantastic Arcade.
They played Spelunky 2, the lucky beggars.
Also, lovely physicsy action roguelike Noita.
Then! Samurai Gunn 2!
The Breakout-style digging game that Tom describes is Hole Down.
Also excellent: Grace Bruxner Presents: The Haunted Island: A Frog Detective Game and Cricket Through The Ages, which proves impossible to Google but you can find a picture here.
Also by Free Lives people: Sticky Cats.
Also also: Faith and Paper Planet Pop.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 259: Yelp At The Moon Oct 27, 2018

Pip, Chris and Alex discuss the return of Hellgate: London, ponder Return of the Obra Dinn, and go for a wander around Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Hellgate: London! It’s back! But why!
Pip’s been playing that Return of the Obra Dinn.
Alex has looked at some things and slid down some things in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 258: The Tragedy Of Protagonistus The Extreme Oct 19, 2018

Both Toms and Chris dig into this week’s developing Rockstar story and then share stories from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, because all we’ve done for two weeks is kick people off boats.

Here’s that story about the Red Dead 2 working conditions, and subsequent coverage of Rockstar‘s reaction. We recorded this podcast on Tuesday, for reference.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. We’ve been playing it! Sorry that we didn’t play anything else.
Tom F’s edit: I am wrong when I say Droqen made Midas – it was by Harry Lee and Jarrel Seah. Thanks to Alan Hazelden for the heads up.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 257: Kick Left, Kick Right Oct 05, 2018

Tom S, Tom F and Chris talk Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Race for the Galaxy and Distance, and then get distracted by literary theory and swearing.

Tom Senior has been kicking his way to friendship in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.
Here is Alice Bell’s excellent article about the same.
Tom Francis has been playing Race for the Galaxy. The GDC talk he mentions is by Theresa Duringer, but it’s not currently publically available.
Chris likes Distance a lot.
We demand to be taken seriously.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Tom Francis
John Roberts
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 256: The Fate of Kale Sep 28, 2018

Chris and Pip embark on another Friday morning podcast, covering the Telltale layoffs and highlights from EGX.

Here’s Wesley Yin-Poole’s article for Eurogamer about remembering that people, not companies, create games.
Pip’s been enjoying Parkasaurus.
Chris’ picks of EGX are Total War: Three Kingdoms, Kine, Yellow Rock Road and Valfaris.
Pip’s picks include Small Talk, Beyond Blue, Willowbrooke Post and The Bradwell Conspiracy.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 255: Kelp Evasion Sep 21, 2018

Pip, Chris, Tom F and guest John R discuss EGX, Frozen Synapse 2, Megaquarium, Streets of Rogue, advanced noodle techniques, and more.

Here’s the Heat Signature Twitter, so you can find out about them sweet updatez.
John and Chris have been playing Frozen Synapse 2.
Pip’s been playing Megaquarium.
Tom’s been playing Streets of Rogue.
On that note, the joke that soured Tom on Streets of Rogue is going to be removed.
The Flashback-like game that Tom can’t remember the name of is Lunark.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 254: Multi Gazebo! Mega Gazebo! SHOPPING CENTRE Sep 14, 2018

Alex, Chris and Tom F discuss game dev authenticity, Industries of Titan, Destiny 2, Dragon Quest XI, and Concrete Jungle.

Plus: automatic toilet theory, figuring out how much we actually know about each other, and winning the trust of the shotgun people.

Here’s Lindsay Ellis’ video essay about manufactured authenticity on YouTube (and elsewhere.)
…and a contemporary Wired article about the Redshell tracking software.
Chris and Alex are both doing stuff at EGX. Alex is talking to the Disco Elysium chaps on the main stage at 1pm on Friday. Chris is doing UNANNOUNCED OTHER STUFF on Friday and Saturday.
Here’s Alex’s interview with Zach Barth for RPS.
Chris has done a Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop video series for PlayStation Access. First one’s up today!
Megaquarium is out now! So is Frozen Synapse 2!
Tom’s been playing Industries of Titan (at PAX. It’s not out yet.)
Alex has been playing Dragon Quest XI.
Chris won’t stop banging on about Destiny 2: Forsaken‘s Gambit mode.
You can find Angel Mapper’s excellent Phase Shift map for UT2004 here.
Tom’s returned to Concrete Jungle for its competitive mode.
The good Shadow of the Tomb Raider review that Chris mentions is this one, by Dia Lacina for Waypoint.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Tom Francis
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 253: If Malfoy Could Ice Skate Sep 07, 2018

Pip and Chris discuss MMO woes, Destiny 2’s new expansion, Two Point Hospital and a bit of Graveyard Keeper.

Find out more about the V&A’s videogames exhibit right here.
Carbine Studios – and their MMO, Wildstar – are shutting down.
CCP has been bought by Black Desert Online devs Pearl Abyss.
Chris is very much enjoying Destiny 2: Forsaken.
We’ve both come down with a case of Two Point Hospital.
Pip’s been tinkering with Graveyard Keeper.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 252: Püpsok Aug 31, 2018

Chris and Tom S sit down for a chat about Spelunky 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 news, Tom’s highlights from Gamescom, and assorted nonsense.

Here’s that Spelunky 2 footage and PlayStation Blog Q&A.
We spend a bunch of time with the Cyberpunk 2077 footage.
Tom S had a strong first impression of Life is Strange 2.
Battlefield V is finally delivering on the timeless promise of levolution.
Destiny 2: Forsaken is close to enough to worry Tom’s Warframe character.
Here’s Chris Bratt’s People Make Games video about Time Commanders.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Tom Senior
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 251: Shrimp Gun Aug 24, 2018

Chris, Tom F and Pip catch up on a bit of Gamescom news before delivering sizzingly fresh takes on recent hits ‘Spore’ and ‘FTL’.

Here’s the trailer for Man of Medan, part of the Dark Pictures anthology.
Also, the Life is Strange 2 trailer.
Here’s Burrito Tim’s Good Tweet.
Pip has returned to Spore, ten years on.
Tom’s been playing something called ‘Eff Tee Ell’.
Chris is still on that Monster Hunter: World, but he promises he’s not going to bang on about it.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Tom Francis
Philippa Warr
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 250: Close Your Eyes And Grind For Boltor Aug 17, 2018

It all goes a bit wrong as Chris, Tom, Tom and Alex return from a week off to talk Red Dead and Doom news, EXAPUNKS, Warframe, Unavowed and Monster Hunter.

Plus: Horse Up Displays, 90s FPS ASMR, Resident Evil 2 by The B-52s, why it’s good when the spaceships do it, sensible missiles, the Mamma Mia cinematic universe, and Kerbal Space Program Royale.

Here’s that Red Dead Redemption 2 footage. Nice horse!
Also, DOOM ETERNAL.
Flotilla 2 is out soon!
So is 7 Billion Humans!
Alex has been jacking in to EXAPUNKS.
Tom S is into Warframe now.
Tom F is an avowed fan of Unavowed.
Chris flippin’ loves Monster Hunter: World.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Tom Francis
Tom Senior
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 249: They Really Pulled It Off Aug 03, 2018

Alex, Tom S, Chris and Marsh (!) convene to discuss many Metroidvanias, Yakuza 0, console games (!), when to move on, Six Ages, and so on.

Marsh! Has been playing Chasm.
Chris has been catching up with Dead Cells.
Alex’s Castlevania of the moment is La-Mulana 2.
Here is Goro Majima’s introduction from Yakuza 0, which Tom done been playing.
Marsh has been losing tapestry men in Six Ages.
Here’s the article that Marsh mentions about redesigning Vampire: The Masquerade.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Marsh Davies
Tom Senior
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 248: The Lonely Splatching Of A Spaceman Jul 27, 2018

Chris, Tom S and Alex take several trips back to 2016, including but not limited to No Man’s Sky, StarCraft II, DOOM and Battlefield 1.

We’ve all been playing No Man’s Sky‘s NEXT update.
Alex has been teaching valuable lessons in StarCraft II.
Tom’s been revisiting the best of 2016 in DOOM.
Chris is happily surprised by the state of Battlefield 1, two years on.
What did you do in the war, granddad?
Here’s the bit in episode 149 where Chris shames himself in Star Citizen.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Tom Senior
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 247: Throwing Pebbles At A Leopard For Fifteen Years Jul 20, 2018

Chris, Alex and both Toms celebrate the 5th anniversary of the podcast with gin and a digression to The David Cage. Plus: more Mooncrash, Yoku’s Island Express, Warhammer 40K: Gladius, and Objects In Space.

That’s for my nan! And her house!

Tom F’s further explorations of Prey: Mooncrash reveal a few rough edges.
Alex has been playing Yoku’s Island Express.
Tom S laments the lone X that remains in the grim darkness of the far future of Warhammer 40,000: Gladius.
Everybody likes Vermintide II.
Chris has been pootling around in Objects In Space.
Our indie faves, per Hannah Flynn‘s question: Dicey Dungeons, Ghost Of A Tale, Slay The Spire, Dead Cells, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds.
Here’s the brilliant Company of Heroes forum thread that asks: ‘what are the Brits talking about?’
As ever, let’s remember and celebrate Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed.
And finally, Alan Partridge’s World Cup Countdown To ’94.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Tom Francis
Tom Senior
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 246: Tough On Rogues, Tough On The Causes Of Rogues Jul 13, 2018

Chris and Pip discuss The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, The Sims 4: Seasons, and lots more. This is definitely episode 246, and not, as Chris says, episode 247.

Pip’s been playing these videogames:
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
The Sims 4: Seasons
Cognizer
Dr Frank’s Build A Boyfriend
Ashi: Lake Of Light

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 245: You’ve Got Bad Skeleton Jul 06, 2018

Chris, Tom F and Alex consider the lovely Prey: Mooncrash, big Fortnite murders, a bit of Six Ages and why late capitalism is cool, actually.

Here’s a Polygon article about the Fortite murder story, including videos and facts.
We’ve all be playing Prey: Mooncrash, which we like a lot. The video that Tom mentions isthis one.
Alex has been playing King of Dragon Pass successor Six Ages, which isn’t out on PC yet.
Roblox is the biggest game in the world that you don’t play or think about.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Tom Francis
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 244: Impenetrable, Like A Creme Egg Jun 29, 2018

Chris, Tom, Tom and Alex contend with Guilty Gear Xrd, Lumines Remastered, Sword With Sauce, Jurassic World: Evolution, a bit of Vamypr, and get in deep with Big Scorsese.

Tom S has been watching, and sometimes playing, Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-.
Tom S and Alex have been playing Hackmud, which is weird for Chris.
Alex has been enjoying the return of Lumines.
Tom F has been spilling some bolognese in Sword With Sauce.
Chris has spent the last couple of weeks in Jurassic World: Evolution and Vampyr, neither of which he particularly recommends.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can follow us on Twitter thusly:

Tom Francis
Tom Senior
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 243: Frogs Find A Way Jun 22, 2018

Pip and the Toms discuss a surprising amount of news, most of it Steamy, then share thoughts on Jurassic World Evolution, Cryptark, Fortnite, and Assassin’s Creed: Origins.

Chris has been hard at work on the wordy side of hackmud 2.0, which is going live next week and will be 25% off when you read this.
Steam now lets you follow developers, but there’s no general link for that, so gosh we’ll just have to pick a developer at random and link their page.
How much have you spent on Steam in your life? No, wrong, it’s this much.
Here are the secret (public) codes you can type into Slay the Spire to trigger special modes. DRAFT is good.
Buy Far: Lone Sails and play it all the way through. You will be glad you did.
Pip’s pretty pic of Fortnite’s loot lake.
Jurassic World Evolution: a game you could play if you want to deal with a security department that are almost certainly dinosaurs wearing human uniforms.
Cryptark‘s a good idea but much too hard but full of promise but so frustrating but dammit I’m playing it again.
Budget Cuts is finally out and, appropriately, 10% off. It’s that VR game that’s good.
Assassin’s Oranges is drawing Tom S back in.
The accurate tweet about E3 Tom F was thinking of was not by the person he was about to attribute it to, so it’s good he didn’t. It was Chris Person.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Pip’s off Twitter but you can follow the Toms:

Tom Francis
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 242: I Am The Stringman With The Staring Eyes Jun 15, 2018

In which Chris, Alex and Pip promise to avoid overanalysing E3, and to focus on the things we’re excited about, and then do exactly the opposite.

John Shuttleworth’s I Can’t Back To Savoury Now, the soundtrack to this year’s E3, and indeed every year’s E3.
From Bethesda: Fallout 76 (don’t forget to look up the Mothman!), Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and The Elder Scrolls VI: Todd’s High Rocks.
FROM Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Maneater, the game where you wanna be where the people are so you can eat all of them.
Odd Ass, the latest entry in the storied ‘Assassin’s Creed’ computer game franchise.
Also Skull & Bones, the other nice Ubisoft water game.
Ooh, would you just look at Sable.
Rousing on-again, off-again romance sim Halo: Infinite.
Destiny 2’s trailer was a bit spoilery, if you care about that, so you can Google it yourself.
Apologies to Unravel Two.
Funko Gears, Tactics Gears, Regular Gears. In that order.
Good job, Command & Conquer fans! We found its body.
Behold The Quiet Man, E3’s worst trailer.
More like Phwoarza. Horizon Four.
It’s Devil May Cry Five, isn’t it.
Neo Cab: or, reverse Uber.
The Cyberpunk 77 trailer that made the people go ‘this is the computer game’.
The Death Stranding trailer that made the people go ‘this is the computer game?’
Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami are coming to PC.
Remedy’s un-Googleable Control.
Life is Strange spinoff Captain Spirit: a father too far?
Finally, lovely Ooblets.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on social media:

Alex Wiltshire
Philippa Warr
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 241: Tactless Beach Wizards Jun 08, 2018

Chris, Tom F and John R chat Far: Lone Sails, Dicey Dungeons, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and a bit of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire.

Plus: the secret handshakes shared by the kin of the brood-sergeant, top chuffin’, the Haddaway collab we’ve been waiting for, our hottest takes of 2013, an endless sense of Bluth, the Ferris Bueller Escalation Protocol, and Christina Aguilera’s ult.

Hitman 2 has actually been announced with a trailer, now, rendering our speculation a bit pointless. Sorry!
John and Tom have been enjoying the lovely FAR: Lone Sails.
Tom’s been playing Terry Cavanagh’s work-in-progress, roguelike, Dicey Dungeons.
Chris is happily squatting and beatboxing his way through Totally Accurate Battlegrounds.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Tom Francis
Chris Thursten
John Roberts

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 240: Far Cries To Candlekeep Jun 01, 2018

Pip, Chris and Alex consider the pre-E3 videogame news wasteland, revisit City of Brass, clean up House Flipper, and consider Idle Champions and the specific anxieties of the clicker genre.

Plus: tragedy as volcanic death comes to Emmerdale.

Here’s the trailer for Fallout 76, and Kotaku’s article about what it actually is, maybe.
Here’s the Battlefield V trailer.
Chris and Alex revisit City of Brass, the charming game-where-you-start-over-if-you-die with very wangable hoops.
Pip’s been flipping houses in House Flipper.
Behold as Chris’ best intentions lead him to Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms.
Here’s Chris and Becky T’s analysis of Solo: A Star Wars Story.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on social media:

Alex Wiltshire
Philippa Warr
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 239: Bad Men And Their Funfairs May 25, 2018

Chris, Pip, Tom S and Alex dig deep to yield icy cold takes on Call of Duty: Blops Four, ‘Bio-Shock’, A Quiet Sleep, and assorted nonsense.

Plus: the importance of Little Boots on the ground, the medium’s most lootable subcultures, whether it was or wasn’t all yellow, whether two Ayn Rands do indeed make an Ayn Right, and clampin’ yer old student.

Here are all of the Call of Duty trailers.
…and here’s RAGE 2.
Tom’s been playing RAGE 1, explicably.
Pip has been playing BioShock while listening to Kelly Clarkson.
Alex has been playing The Quiet Sleep, in a vertigo-inducing tonal break from the rest of this episode.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on social media:

Alex Wiltshire
Philippa Warr
Tom Senior
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 238: Lionel Falconboobs May 11, 2018

Chris, Pip, Tom F and – for one night only – Marsh (!) discuss Atomic Heart, more Far Cryin’, more Spire Slayin’, SpyParty, Murderous Pursuits, and City of Brass.

Also: feeling nothing about sunsets, playing with orbs, holding for a moment in the hope position, the struggle of games to be effectively didactic, the history of the IGF, maximal train journey encumbrance limit livin’, and the magic of Paper Samples Day.

Here’s the trailer for Atomic Heart.
Marsh has been playing Iconoclasts, Gorogoa, and Far Cry 5.
Tom’s been digging into Slay The Spire‘s new character.
Chris has been playing City of Brass.
Pip and Chris have been to a couple of SpyParties.
Pip’s also been attempting to murder strangers in Murderous Pursuits.
If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s Childish Gambino’s This Is America video.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Marsh Davies
Philippa Warr
Tom Francis
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 237: Thank You For The Hats, Lore Horse May 04, 2018

Chris and Tom S discuss Red Dead Redemption 2, new Tomb Raider, the state of triple-A development in general, dogs again, and videogame Millibands.

The Red Dead Redemption 2 trailer – a splash? Of musky cowboy… water?
Destiny 2: Warmind – Chris will play it, because he’s already bought it.
Tom was left cold by his first experience of Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Tom Senior
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 236: Doggard Cain and the Time Terrier Apr 27, 2018

Tom, Chris and Tom discuss Campo Santo’s move to Valve, the latest Ludum Dare, things what dogs do, Battletech, and Frostpunk.

Plus: who you actually play as in The Sims, playing games rightly wrong, and legally mandating the ‘woo’ button.

Here’s more on the Campo Santo news.
Tom F’s big list o’ Ludum Dare recommendations includes PE@CE, Turn Based Asteroids Snake Roguelike, Crash Crops, Sheet Music Editor Shoot’Em Up, and Gone Vroom.
Chris and Tom S have been playing Battletech and Frostpunk.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Alex Wiltshire
Tom Francis
Chris Thursten
Graham Smith

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 235: Ready For A Mono-Log? Apr 20, 2018

Live from Rezzed! Chris, Tom F, Graham and Alex discuss their games of the show, and also Crusader Kings II. Plus: real live questions!

Note: we’re still waiting to get the footage of this episode back from the Rezzed guys, so the YouTube version will be a little later than usual. Sorry!

Here’s a PC Gamer article about Introversion’s latest, Order of Magnitude.
Tom’s chosen this moment to attempt to learn Crusader Kings II.
Disco Elysium: it’s really something.
Capybara’s Below: making surprise appearances at games events near you (perhaps.)
Also: What if Skyrim, but real.

Plus: good lord, it’s an actual video version!

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Chats at Rezzed: Hannah Flynn on Sunless Skies Apr 20, 2018

Chris talks to Hannah Flynn from Failbetter about Sunless Skies, life in game development, reaching broader audiences, the myriad flaws of Zoolander 2, and more.

This is the last in our series of chats from Rezzed – hope you’ve enjoyed them! Find out more about Sunless Skies here, and find this episode on YouTube here. As ever, thanks to our Patreon backers.

Chats at Rezzed: Robert Kurvitz on Disco Elysium Apr 18, 2018

At Rezzed we sat down with Disco Elysium design and writing lead Robert Kurvitz to discuss entering the games industry as an artist, the complexities of RPG design, politics, and disco.

Find out more about Disco Elysium here, and you can listen to this episode on YouTube if you prefer. The Crate & Crowbar is supported by our Patreon backers – for more about how that works, click here.

Chats at Rezzed: Julian Gollop and David Kaye on Phoenix Point Apr 17, 2018

Surprise! While we were at Rezzed we recorded a series of short, informal chats with interesting gamespeople. In this first episode, Chris and Alex sit down with X-COM creator Julian Gollop and Snapshot Games co-founder David Kaye to talk Phoenix Point.

You can find out more about Phoenix Point on the game’s official site and, if you prefer, listen to this episode on YouTube. The Crate & Crowbar is supported by our Patreon backers – for more about how that works, click here.

Episode 234: Handspeed Apr 13, 2018

Chris, Alex and Tom S consider the end of SteamSpy, Radical Heights, Jalopy, All Walls Must Fall, and Tom’s daily Slay The Spire tendency.

Plus: too much rum, wonky grammar lessons, and the low hop of the robots.

SteamSpy announces its inability to continue operating via tweet.
Boss Key’s Radical Heights.
Here’s Alice O’Connor being funny about Plunkbat.
Alex has been playing Jalopy.
Chris has been playing All Walls Must Fall incorrectly.
Tom just cant stop Slayin’ That Spire.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Alex ‘Rotationlal’ Wiltshire
Tom Senior
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 233: Low-Hanging Flute Apr 06, 2018

Tom F, Chris and Alex discuss Far Cry 5 (again), Superhot VR, and Minit. Then, a chat about Into The Breach is followed by questions from questions calamity.

Plus: the mystery of the third Tom, the lamentable sacking of the sex helicopter, and – what comes, dangling upon a string? Toot toot, it’s the low-hanging flute!

Tom and Alex dig deeper into their thoughts re: Far Cry 5, its buddies, and its sex helicopter.
Chris’ VR odyssey finds a destination in Superhot VR. Brass Tactics is also nice.
Tom and Alex have also been Minit to win it.
Into The Breach: it’s good. But webby bastards: they’re bad.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Alex Wiltshire
Tom Francis
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 232: Don’t Hate The Flayer Mar 30, 2018

Chris, Pip reunite with Tom Francis to discuss GDC highlights, Sunless Skies, Far Cry 5, and first impressions of All Walls Must Fall.

You can find the full IGF results here.
Everybody love a bit of Wobble Garden.
Rezzed! We’re doing it.
Pip’s been playing Sunless Skies.
Tom has been playing Far Cry 5 and All Walls Must Fall.
Here’s Daniel Solis’ graph of victory arcs.
Chris has found much to like in Tyler Hurd’s VR music videos.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Philippa Warr
Tom Francis
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 231: Spite Horn Mar 23, 2018

Chris and Pip gather in GDC week to discuss basically no news from GDC, many short games you should play, and space mistakes you shouldn’t make in Scavenger SV-4.

Plus: a showcase of Pip’s ability to remember a grudge from four years ago, but not a song from last week.

Jalopy is out next week. Here’s Pip tale of NOTHING BUT SAUSAGE SUCCESS.
Here’s James Davenport’s article about Giant Sparrow’s animal-centric next game.
Pip’s been playing a whole load of short, interesting games:
Skreal
Birdland
Dog of Dracula 2
My Father’s Long Long Legs
A Museum of Dubious Splendors
Stick Shift, via Robert Yang’s radiator 2 collection.
Chyrza
Little Party
Chris as been making space mistakes in Scavenger SV-4, as featured in this excellent Alex Wiltshire venture.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Philippa Warr
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 230: Good Co-op, Bad Co-op Mar 16, 2018

Pip, Chris and Alex discuss Artifact, Deep Rock Galactic, Vermintide II, and the inevitable end of everything.

Plus: π bake it, Garfield’s first name, co-op FOMO, the dings of Catchphrase, Dota Plus, and my libido (an Amiibo.)

Anyone for questions? I’ll pour!

This is Artifact, the Dota 2 card game, from Vlav. And this is Tim Clark’s exhaustive article about it.
Sam Barlow’s new interactive TV thing, #WarGames, is out now.
Alex has been enjoying the dwarves of Deep Rock Galactic…
…while Chris has been enjoying the dwarf of Vermintide II.
Twelve Minutes is the Groundhog Day-style game we discussed way by when.
Here’s a bleak found footage documentary about what became of Blobbyland.
Pip doesn’t buy tat. Also Pip: this.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Philippa Warr
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 229: A Tantalising Omelette Recedes Before Us Mar 09, 2018

Tom S, Chris and Alex check in on VR, consider the gorgeous eggs of Final Fantasy XV, and ponder the literary aspirations of Beckett.

Oculus’ critical Rift whoopsie has now been resolved.
Here’s The Day Today’s remarkable foreshadowing of the experience of using Google Earth VR.
Here’s Final Fantasy XV. And here’s the most important thing about Final Fantasy XV.
Alex has been playing Beckett.
We digress (imagine!) to discuss how great Thirty Flights of Loving is.
Chris doesn’t have a GTX 1080. He has a GTX 980. That’s a hundred fewer graphics points! Sorry for lying.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Tom Senior
Alex Wiltshire
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 228: Don’t Eat Time Pods Mar 02, 2018

Tom, Tom and Chris discuss a range of ways in which one might fail upwards, from Into The Breach to Phoenix Point to the spooky bayou of Hunt: Showdown.

Plus: my dog ate Hunt The Freeman, accent quandries, questionable etymology, and a sad dearth of whale colour options.

Into The Breach is out now and, well, it’s very good.
Phoenix Point is Julian Gollops’ upcoming crab battler.
Hunt: Showdown is a weird multiplayer experiment that Chris quite likes, so good luck to it.
CJKinni’s Brough-Like Turbrough and Odward Frenry’s Ship Reck’ are the fresh fruit of our Discord’s #game-dev channel.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Tom Senior
Tom Francis
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 227: A Unified Theory Of Terrapins Feb 23, 2018

Pip, Alex and Tom F are back to once again tackle the tough topic of turtle taxonomy. Also games about Garys (Legendary Gary), games by Garys (Abandon Ship), and it would round this out nicely if the other two games related to Garys but they don’t. Cypher and Fe.

Also, we’re doing a live show at Rezzed! It’ll be recorded but if you do want to come along, it’s 4.30pm on the Saturday. You’ll need a Rezzed ticket for that day.

Choose which finger to give people in Legendary Gary
Fe is pronounced ‘fay’ and it’s not doing much for Pip yet.
Cypher is a playable museum of cryptography.
Abandon Ship is FTL on an oil painting of the high seas.
A snapping turtle has feets but is not a tortoise.
Pouring boiling maple sap onto snow makes maple taffy.
Being derezzed is indeed dying in Tron, and being rezzed is being digitally instantiated.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Philippa Warr
Tom Francis
Alex Wiltshire

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 226: Notorious Bee OP Feb 16, 2018

Pip, Tom F and Alex discuss knowing your enemy in Slay the Spire, dabbling In Other Waters, Dear Esther Live, and turning your tentacles into chickens and bees in Octogeddon.

Also:

Slay the Spire is in Early Access but already worth it.
In Other Waters is about halfway to its goal on Kickstarter.
Last Man Kicking is a cheap spin-off of the forthcoming Last Man Sitting.
More info on Dear Esther Live.
Octogeddon is the new thing from Plants vs Zombies creator George Fan. It’s £10.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Philippa Warr
Tom Francis
Alex Wiltshire

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 225: It’s What’s Missing Feb 09, 2018

Tom S and Chris are joined by Alex Wiltshire to discuss Into The Breach’s imminent release, why it’s okay to hunt monsters if they’re bastards, RPG combat design and more.

Plus: a brief return to Subnautica and further musings on the ocean willies therein; the secret missing element to Subnautica’s survival formula; toxicity, Dota 2, PUBG, sport, and why the internet is bad perhaps.

Into The Breach is out on the 27th of February!
Tom’s new game is Tactical Breach Wizards.
Everybody’s playing Monster Hunter World, which is out on PC in the Autumn.
Tom has been playing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age.
Alex has been unpicking the fineries of Divinity: Original Sin 2‘s combat design.
Here’s Stephen ‘thecatamites’ Gill-Murphy’s talk at Fantastic Arcade, as discussed in episode 216.
Alex is hosting a panel on the early British games industry in London on the 12th of February.
…and Tom S and Pip will be at the PC Gamer Weekender, also in London, 17th-18th February.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Chris Thursten
Tom Senior
Alex Wiltshire

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 224: Sustained Ocean Willies Feb 02, 2018

Tom F, Chris and John R discuss… ‘computer games’. Including but not limited to Iconoclasts, Celeste, Subnautica and Slay The Spire.

Plus: wrench size considerations, creating modes for Bennett Foddy (to hurt him), and that thing where Chris says ‘I’m not going to go deep on this’ and then does that.

Paragon is no more.
Here’s that GOG tweet about Opus Magnum.
John’s been playing Iconoclasts.
Tom has been playing Celeste.
Here is that video of a platform game that hates you.
Chris has been playing Subnautica.
Tom’s also been playing Slay The Spire.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Chris Thursten
Philippa Warr

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 223: Subnautica With Pip Jan 26, 2018

Join Pip under the sea as she heroically embarks on a one-Pip Subnautica special. Featuring the sounds (and underwater bellows) of the game itself.

Apologies for the shaky schedule of late: we’ve had extensive holiday-and-illness-related scheduling problems over the last couple of weeks. Expect regular service to resume next week, and Patreon backers should note that they won’t be charged for anything short of a full pod.

Pip’s been playing Subnautica. You might be able to tell.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us (Pip) on Twitter dot com:

Philippa Warr

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 222: PRAISE MY BUM Jan 12, 2018

Dark Souls. Is it news? Chris and Pip ponder this and other subjects, including Subnautica’s imminent release, Paladins’ imminent Battlegrounds mode, and Bennett Foddy’s imminent Getting Over It.

Here’s info about Dark Souls Remastered.
Also, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, which is a thing.
As is Total War: Three Kingdoms.
And Subnautica.
Pip reports back from Atlanta about Paladins: Battlegrounds.
Chris has been having a surprisingly relaxed time with Getting Over It.
Finally, Dark Souls gets a Funky New Mode.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 221: Horses Don’t Roll Jan 04, 2018

Both Toms join Chris to discuss Recursed, Bridge Constructor Portal, Gorogoa, GTA Online, PUBG, and the games we’re looking forward to in 2018.

Plus: a games-from-books jam idea that actually works, things horses don’t do, a bit of Mad Max, a whole lot of boats, and more. Boats.

Here’s the IGF shortlist! Congrats, Tom!
Baba Is You has a good trailer.
Tom F has been playing the mind-bending Recursed.
Chris has been playing Bridge Constructor Portal. He calls it ‘Bridge Simulator Portal’ for the duration of this episode, because he’s an idiot.
Awesome Games Done Quick starts this weekend!
Tom F and Chris have played Gorogoa.
Tom S has been enjoying Mad Max, which is inexplicably a fiver.
He’s also been working through GTA Online‘s excellent new heist.
Chris has, like apparently everybody, been spending time in now-actually-out Plunkbag.
Here are the games we discuss in our look forward to 2018:
- Into The Breach
- Spelunky 2
- Death Stranding (maybe)
- Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia
- BattleTech
- Frozen Synapse 2
- Wandersong
- Age of Empires: Definitive Edition
- Nimbatus
- Untitled Goose Game
- Sea of Thieves
- HK (Untitled Cyberpunk Cat Game)
- Ooblets
- Skull & Bones
- Abandon Ship
- Pillars of Eternity II: D(r)eadfire
- Sunless Skies
- Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance
- Project Tingler
- Museum of Simulation Technology
- #Wargames
- Far Cry 5 (and the associated owning of James Davenport)
- A Place for the Unwilling
- A Way Out
- No Truce With The Furies
- Hunt: Showdown

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Chris Thursten
Tom Francis
Philippa Warr

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

C&C D&D: The Miracle At Grey Home, Part 4 Dec 25, 2017

All things must end. Or must they? Yes. But sometimes: no. That’s right: it’s the final part of THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME!

You can listen this episode on YouTube here. If you’ve taken the time to listen to the entirety of this nonsense, thank you: we hope you enjoyed it. We’ll be back in the new year with the medium to hot takes you’re used to, along with more Miniatures Monthly, Little Grey Cells, Bloodborne, and so on. Merry Christmas!

Many thanks to Mike Debenham for his fabulous contribution to this series. Our music is based on Clambake by The Mandibles. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

C&C D&D: The Miracle At Grey Home, Part 3 Dec 24, 2017

Confrontation leads to new adventure as Chris attempts to write… a spoiler-free description of part three of C&C D&D!

You can listen this episode on YouTube here. Tune in tomorrow for the FINALE of THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME. I mean, it’s only Christmas. You don’t have anything else to do, right?

Many thanks to Mike Debenham for his fabulous contribution to this series. Our music is based on Clambake by The Mandibles. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

C&C D&D: The Miracle At Grey Home, Part 2 Dec 23, 2017

Our Dungeons & Dragons roleplay adventure continues as our heroes take their quest to the streets of Grey Home.

If you prefer, you can listen this episode on YouTube here. Come back tomorrow for part three of THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME.

Many thanks to Mike Debenham for his fabulous contribution to this series. Our music is based on Clambake by The Mandibles. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

**C&C D&D: The Miracle At Grey Home, Part 1** Dec 22, 2017

It’s time for something a little different. In the run-up to Christmas, we’ll be posting our first-ever Dungeons & Dragons live play podcast: a magical mystery murder adventure called THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME. This is part one.

Expect part two tomorrow, part three after that, and so on. You can listen on YouTube if you prefer, or receive your MP3s via the regular C&C podcast feed.

THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME is an adventure that Chris wrote, played using D&D 5e rules. Our characters began life at level 1 in a warm-up session, and begin this adventure at level 2. This is Chris’ first time DMing 5th edition D&D, so don’t be surprised if he gets the rules wrong. If you’re the sort of person who gets annoyed when people get the rules wrong: Chris says sorry. In the third person, apparently.

Many thanks to Mike Debenham for his fabulous contribution to this series. Our music is based on Clambake by The Mandibles. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 220: Between Space And Space Space Dec 22, 2017

Chris, Tom and Pip came here to round up our games of the year and eat praline chocolates… and we’ve got a whole lot of praline chocolates. Also, Pip hates pralines.

This is the last regular C&C episode of 2017! As such, you might want to check out the YouTube version: it’s that time again when we do a video of our faces and mouth parts doing the podcast! Look at them flap!

Discussed in this episode:

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 219: Everybody’s Gone To A Party Dec 15, 2017

Get ready for a visceral Christmas experience as Chris, by himself, talks about Hello Neighbour and Hellblade. By himself.

This is, needless to say, a bit of a stopgap episode before we gather for this year’s annual roundup special. As such, Patreon backers will not be charged for it.

There’s a lot more C&C coming over the course of the next week. Hold on for our D&D special, Miniatures Monthly, Bloodborne, a video podcast special, and so on.

If nothing else, I hope you find some use for this episode as a kind of bearded man videogames ASMR experience. Or something.

Chris has been playing Hello Neighbour.
Chris has also been playing Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
You can find the C&C community GOTY vote right here.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here. We’re sorry that Patreon’s recently-announced changes may result in you being charged more: as we say in this episode, we’re going to see what happens over the next few days and then start considering alternatives, and we completely understand if the extra processing fee means you’re unable to continue your support.

You can also follow “us” on Twitter dot com:

Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 218: In The Aftermath Of The Asset Wars Dec 08, 2017

Chris, Tom F and John Roberts discuss indie news, Seven: The Days Long Gone, Destiny 2’s first expansion, Sorcery!, Shadowhand, and more.

‘More’ in this case includes the opportunity horse, the verb ‘to suchet’, a bit of Warhammer, the changes to Patreon, our upcoming Christmas specials, and so on.

Joakim Sandberg’s Iconoclasts has a release date!
As does Gorogoa!
Davy Wreden is hiring programmers.
Bennett Foddy’s Getting Over It is out.
Bridge Constructor Portal is a thing.
HUMANITY(tm). A videogame.
Here’s Patreon’s blog post about the changes, which we unpack a bit in this episode.
John’s been playing Seven: The Days Long Gone.
Here’s Shacknews’ Quake making-of, shamefully not called ‘The quaking of’.
Chris has been having an okay time with Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris.
Tom fell down a big hill in Sorcery!.
Ponder the opportunity horse in Shadowhand.
How many jokes can we wring out of Deus Ex and the City? The answer: less than you’d think.
Finally, Chris’ terrible case of generic videogame man face strikes again, this time in XCOM 2

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here. We’re sorry that Patreon’s recently-announced changes may result in you being charged more: as we say in this episode, we’re going to see what happens over the next few days and then start considering alternatives, and we completely understand if the extra processing fee means you’re unable to continue your support.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Chris Thursten
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 217: Sean Bean’s Luxury Resources Dec 01, 2017

Chris and Tom S discuss Destiny 2 changes, Civ VI’s new expansion, the horizontal lifestyle enabled by the Steam Link, and all of the things that Chris likes about Battlefront II.

Plus: the cultural benefits of expending one (1) Sean Bean, why you probably should try to fight a crocodile, games-as-toys, C&C D&D, returning to the early noughties, and why we’re all Bossk sometimes.

Here’s that update on the future of Destiny 2.
In Civilizaiton VI: Rise and Fall, it’s not looking good for Sean Bean.
Despite everything, Battlefront II has meaningfully improved Chris’ life over the last few weeks.
Here’s a gif of dramatic spaceship fun.
Steam Link! Be the sideways you that you’ve always wanted to be.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 216: Videocrates Crowdog Nov 24, 2017

Tom F is joined by Zack and Kevin from Asymmetric for a Crate & Crowbar/Videogames Hotdog crossover episode recorded at Fantastic Arcade in Austin, Texas.

Discussed: the explosive appeal of Untitled Goose Game, Wilmot’s Warehouse, Bennett Foddy’s Getting Over It, Minute, Into The Breach, and loads more. It’s all in the shownotes below.

Patreon backers will not be charged for this episode. It’s a bit of a departure from normal podcast procedure, and we didn’t want to risk double-charging people who back both The Crate & Crowbar and Videogames Hotdog. So we’re not charging at all!

Here’s the computer website for Fantastic Arcade.
Zack and Kevin made West of Loathing, incidentally.
Tom’s just released a new update for Heat Signature. He doesn’t talk about this on the podcast, but I, Chris, am mentioning it in these show notes.
Here’s Dick Hogg and Ricky Haggett’s Wilmot’s Warehouse.
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy is difficult and funny and Tom won’t play it.
Minit is incredibly hard to Google if you’ve only heard it described on a podcast, let me tell you.
Jordan Mechner’s Journals cover the making of Prince of Persia.
10 Mississippi: also difficult to Google, pals.
Everybody’s very excited about Into The Breach.
Here are thecatamite’s videogames and here is his Fantastic Arcade talk.
And here is Genesis Noir and associated talk.
Also, Capy’s BELOW and talk.
Forest Cup brought out the rare competitive side of Tom F (and is also impossible to Google.)
The other tournament game was Jar Wars.
Here’s Hypnospace Outlaw.
Also, the talk about Blind Drive.
Finally, Pipsqueak by Jenny Jiao Hsia.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Tom Francis

and

Zack Johnson
Kevin Simmons

…who collectively form Asymmetric and do Videogames Hotdog.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 215: Eye For An Eye, Finger For A Guy Nov 16, 2017

Chris and both Toms dig into the Battlefront II microtransactions thing, momentarily become a film podcast while talking about Injustice 2, and rewind back to Shadwen for a chat about parenthood.

Plus: a voice from the past returns, the importance of the trudge AND the squeak, Superman’s uncanny lips, and Ian M. Banks’ Play of the Game.

Here’s a weird thing: we originally thought this week’s episode was going to have to go up on Saturday. It’s not! It’s out on Thursday! That means that the intro doesn’t make a lot of sense! Unless you’re listening to it after Saturday! Thanks! Sorry! Bye!

Here’s Chris’ tweet about the BBC News front page.
There’s a good assessment of how Battlefront II’s progression/loot crate system actually works on GamesRadar. And here’s the response from the EA man.
Here’s Blizzard’s pop at EA/pay-to-win via the StarCraft II free to play announcement.
Here’s Dan Cook’s tweets about the way that microtransactions confront players with the reality of the real-world wage gap.
Tom S has been having a great time with Superman’s uncanny lips in Injustice 2.
(The Wonder Woman movie theme is by Tina Guo. This music video is not particularly safe for work.)
Tom F has been avoiding disappointing kids in the ambitious Shadwen.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Chris Thursten
Alex Wiltshire
Tom Francis

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 214: The End of Reliable Horse Delivery Nov 10, 2017

Tom, Chris and Alex have medium takes on Call of Duty: World War II, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Dota 2 Turbo, and the industry’s latest travails.

Plus: getting the better of Satan, hopes for a hairy new Hitman, co-op jobs, Tuesday, impressing kids with chicken, bud motivation, and more.

Chris talks a bit about Dota 2 in this episode! If you’re one of the people who hate it when this happens, skip from 1:21:20 to 1:34:50. There are also spoilers for quite old PlayStation game Shadow of the Colossus from 1:50:25 to 1:51:20.

Alex has been playing Call of Duty: World War II, an omnidirectional box of shoot war.
Here’s that article about algorithmically-generated distrubing children’s YouTube cartoons.
Tom is living his best life in Assassin’s Creed: Orangina.
Oh boy you better believe that Chris is back on his Dota 2. You can also find Pip’s article about Dota 2 Turbo here.
Listener Rahul emailed about rat maps, linking to this PC Gamer one: video here, file here.
Here is Patrick Lenton’s Twitter thread about trying to do right by a dog in Skyrim.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 213: Auto Camel, Psychic Eagle Nov 03, 2017

Chris, Tom F and John Roberts discuss Spelunky 2, Dota 2’s update, Wolfenstein II, Divinity: Original Sin, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, and other oranges besides.

Plus: the faulty UX of life, dancemat Tinder, internet things forever lost to time, and diminishing takeout returns.

Spelunky 2 has been announced! Here’s the trailer.
Dota 2 has been updated! Here is the nonsense.
Here’s the trailer for Destiny 2’s first expansion. Minor campaign spoilers!
Wolfenstein II continues to divide them hot takes. Who wants half a take?
However, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is almost universally lovely.
…and Assassin’s Creed: Origins is a surprisingly meditative eagle-based exploration experience.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Chris Thursten
John Roberts
Tom Francis

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 212: Amazing Raids That Don’t Exist Oct 27, 2017

Tom, Chris and Tom discuss Steam’s new curator system, Wolfenstein II, Destiny 2, and Opus Magnum.

Plus: an episode of 999 featuring a rogue X-Wing CD-ROM, the New Game+ of your life, and the machinations of the hated foe, Alex Wiltshire.

The Halloween Steam Sale is on. Stories Untold is good, and cheap!
Here’s Valve’s blog post about the new Steam Curators system.
Manveer Heir spoke about EA on the Waypoint podcast.
Chris has been unpacking his complex relationship with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
Tom S has been playing Destiny 2 on PC, at last! Here’s his review in progress.
Tom F is deep into Opus Magnum. Here’s his Twitter thread full of gifs.
You can find the first entry in Chris and Pip’s series of fuzzy Star Wars recollections here.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Chris Thursten
Philippa Warr
Tom Francis

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 211: An Etch A Sketch’s Dream Of Itself Oct 20, 2017

Chris, Pip and Tom discuss the new Zachtronics game, the closure of Visceral, A Mortician’s Tale, Shadow of War, and more.

Plus: Babe Runner: Pig In The City, the midpoint between The Raid and Watership Down, hot cauliflower facts, inadvisable waffle digressions, and some videogame questions maybe? Jury’s out on that one.

Here’s the trailer for Zachtronics’ very pretty Opus Magnum.
Team Fortress 2’s new update comes with the first new animated short in ages.
Overgrowth is out! Chris didn’t know that Overgrowth wasn’t out.
The closure of Visceral means an end to Amy Hennig and co’s Star Wars project.
Pip’s been playing A Mortician’s Tale. Here’s her review for PC Gamer, where she works now!
Tom F is still making headway in Shadow of War, while Tom S has simply been looking at Talion’s face.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 210: It’s Captain Flippin’ Good Oct 13, 2017

Chris, Tom and Tom discuss the 10 year anniversary of The Orange Box, Universal Paperclips, Middle-earth (TM) Shadow of War, and EVE Valkyrie: Warzone.

Plus: explaining your game in fifty words or less, Chris’ worst idea, games fit for an Oxbridge application, rum, and more.

The Orange Box is 10 years old this week! Here’s PC Gamer’s coverage, including Tom F’s republished reviews.
Here’s the Guardian article about the attention-sapping consequences of modern app design.
Universal Paperclips unmakes an apple pie, destroys the universe.
Middle-earth (TM) Shadow of War invites you to have big ol’ piss on some orc’s chips.
Chris has been playing EVE Valkyrie: Warzone (and still is.)

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter dot com:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 209: Orange In Story Oct 06, 2017

Chris and the Toms discuss Assassin’s Creed: Oranges, Divinity: Oranges Sin 2, and the hunt for a missing crate of origins. Also: Cuphead’s accessibility, Skaven’s terrifying ‘shitty rats anywhere’ power in Total War: Warhammer 2, and Battlegrounds’ Chinese review bomb.

Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds has had 70,000 Steam reviews in the last 30 days and its score is now officially ‘Mixed’.
Cuphead’s brutal but you’ll probably buy it anyway because a) it’s gorgeous and b) everyone else did.
Assassin’s Creed Origins will have a Discovery Tour mode where you learn history with no combat. Here’s the tamest evisceration screenshot in videogames.
Here’s that remarkable and unnecessary guide to how to get out of Heat Signature’s practice mode the hard way: by drifting so far you find the real world.
Here’s Tom F’s Divinity character transforming from a lizard wearing a bucket to a barrel with a tail.
Total War: Warhammer II has treacherous rats with invisible cities and dinosaurs who want paying, dammit.
Tom S wants to see a game inspired by the art of Sergio Toppi rather than Francesco Toppi, who is someone else.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. This episode is on YouTube here, and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Philippa Warr
Tom Francis

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 208: Sid Meier Is Not A Pirate Sep 29, 2017

Pip, Tom F, and some refreshing glasses of gin and tonic assemble to reflect upon the release of Heat Signature before moving on to other hip and happening PC games of the moment, including: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Also! Your questions regarding community controversies and one of like a million reasons why Facebook is bullshit. We’re on a single mic again this week, but hopefully some post processing magic means it sounds okay.

Heat Signature is out wooo!
Tom F wrote this post about how the launch has gone on the Heat Signature site.
Pip is deputy editor of PC Gamer now wooo! Graham did a nice farewell on RPS.
Enjoy the mild PUBG/Epic/Fortnite beef, clarified here by Chris Livingston on PCG.
Pip has been playing PUBG with Alice on RPS.
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen campaigns are loooong now, but the tactical additions are exciting. Yep.
What happened when a man signed emails using a female name for two weeks, at HuffPo.
Jeff Kaplan’s interview at Eurogamer regarding toxicity in Overwatch. and the resources required to combat shitty behaviour online.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 207: ANY% ALL DOGS NO PEOPLE Sep 22, 2017

Tom, Chris and Tom gather on the eve of Heat Signature’s release to talk Divinity: Original Sin 2, which they haven’t actually played, and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, which they have.

Plus: character name conventions, systems with character, the secrets of a Twitter drafts folder, and the number of action points consumed by making love and listening to Death From Above in the same turn.

Heat Signature is out! Tom has made an entire game again! Congratulations, Tom!
Hackmud is one year old today! Chris has written a puzzle event again!
Divinity: Original Sin 2 is out! It’s good, apparently!
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is good! Also, it’s out!
This is Summoning Salt’s video about the changing face of Half-Life 2 speedruns.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Chris Thursten
Tom Francis
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 206: Promoted To Death Sep 15, 2017

Chris, Tom, Pip and Tom discuss Heat Signature’s impending release, FUGL, XCOM 2, Tooth and Tail, and loads of questions.

Plus: top Chris Pip tips, one-handed Final Fantasy, the problem of being both extremely fast and extremely poisoned, and bums. Again.

Find out more about Heat Signature, the game what Tom done, here.
Here’s a bit more on EVE’s space station heist.
Pip has been flapping about in FUGL and lolling around in League of Legends.
Chris is waving a flag for Tooth and Tail.
Tom’s been playing XCOM 2: War of the Chosen and maintaining a long Twitter thread full of posters.
Here’s Matt Lees’ talk from Gamescom Congress 2017.
Talking about charity in games is another excuse to link to roBurky’s Sims 3 diary, Alice and Kev.
The episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 that Tom is trying to remember the name of is, indeed, Whispers.
Pip’s article about neuroscience and game skill is going up later today, and will be added to these show notes when it is..

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Philippa Warr
Chris Thursten
Tom Francis
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 205: An Ever Shrinking Park Sep 08, 2017

Chris and Pip convene in a post-Tom world to discuss PUBG’s popularity, new Life is Strange, and Absolver. Also Chris says he won’t talk about Destiny 2, and then does.

We’ve skipped the questions section this week due to our (temporarily) reduced headcount – we’d like to dig into them properly when we’ve got at least one more Tom. If you’ve sent a question in the last week, don’t fret: we’ve received it.

That there Plunkbag sure has sold a lot of videogames.
Pip’s been playing Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
Chris really loves Destiny 2, guys, like, a lot a lot.
For a few more post-pod thoughts on Destiny 2’s microtransaction drama, see this Twitter thread.
Absolver has also won Chris’ heart. He’s having a big month. And writing this in the third person.
Alexis Kennedy’s Cultist Simulator has been Kickstarted up real nice.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Philippa Warr
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 204: Slug In A Hurricane Sep 02, 2017

Notorious hobbledehoys Pip, Tom F and Tom S gather to discuss gaming matters of the day, including the plot of Half-Life 2: Episode 3, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, Destiny 2, Dead Cells and bums.

Plus! Your questions and finest game name substitutions. Show notes:

BIG NEWS OF THE WEEK. Vermintide 2.
ALSO Dontnod are doing something narrative next year.
Marc Laidlaw laid out the plot of Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is hard work but great.
Here’s Pip’s review of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth (chapters 1-7)
Destiny 2 is comiiiing aaaaaah!
The Dead Cells daily challenge has some issues.
IKEA VR Pancake Kitchen is supposed to be good??
Before Quern, there was the game Tom S could not remember the name of. It’s Valley.
Games to learn controllers with: Batman: Arkham challenge rooms, Crypt of the Necrodancer (though you need to do some rebinding to get it working, details in this FAQ), Portal.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Philippa Warr
Tom Francis
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 203: Off-Tanking The Teen Snake Aug 25, 2017

Chris, Tom F and returning guest John Roberts talk Gamescom news, Technomancers, West of Loathing, snakes and Flotillas.

Here’s the Age of Empires IV trailer.
Also, Jurassic Thingy.
Overwatch’s latest short, which Chris doesn’t like, the tiresome arsehole.
Here’s that interview where EA’s Patrick Soderlund talks about the possibility of Mass Effect coming back.
John’s been playing Ian, The Technomancer.
Tom has returned to both No Man’s Sky and Shadow Tactics and possibly accidentally announced Flotilla 2, which doesn’t have a website yet?!
Chris has been playing West of Loathing.
The game for people who are blind that Chris is trying to think of is Three Monkeys, whose site appears to be down. However, it’s listed in this article about the same subject.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

John Roberts
Tom Francis
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 202: Shoot Toast At My Face, Table Neighbour Aug 18, 2017

Pip, Chris and Tom discuss No Man’s Sky’s latest update, 868-HACK’s latest expansion, and The Long Dark’s latest aurorae. Plus middle names, questions, and wat.

Here are some of those XCOM 2 propaganda posters. Snake people? Don’t fuck them.
Here’s the Prey demo.
Also, West of Loathing.
Everybody’s been playing that No Man’s Sky.
Tom’s been playing 868-HACK‘s first expansion, PLAN.B.
Pip’s got bear trouble in The Long Dark.
Blue mosquitos, via Caroline.
Let’s take a moment to revisit I Am A Mechanical Man vs. I Am A Medieval Man.
Here is Kane’s comprehensive list of games where the words ‘dark’ and ‘space’ have been replaced with ‘dork’ and ‘spice’, a fabulous use of time.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Philippa Warr
Tom Francis
Chris Thursten

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 201: The Seven Gun And Knife People You’ll Meet In Heaven Aug 11, 2017

Chris, Tom and Tom discuss Artifact, the Dota 2 International, Hellblade, Shadow Tactics, The Shrouded Isle, Lawbreakers and more.

Please note: we discuss the recent Hellblade debate, including some mechanical spoilers, from around the 28 minute mark to the 49 minute mark. After that, there’s a less-potentially-spoilery chat about the game itself.

Here’s the announcement trailer for Artifact.
…and this is the reaction it got. Contrast with this trailer for a patch number from last year.
Here’s the other side of Valve, as represented by the International 2017 intro.
Ninja Theory’s Hellblade has much to recommend it, including a brave willingness to play with your expectations.
‘neil degrasse tyson watches a movie’ by ProZD.
Tom S has been playing All Walls Must Fall, a pre-nuclear tactics game set in Berlin clubs in 2089.
Tom F has been playing Shadow Tactics.
Chris has been playing The Shrouded Isle and Lawbreakers.
Here are links to our last two Christmas episodes: 2015 and 2016.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Tom Francis
Chris Thursten
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 200: You Think I’m A Lake, But I’m Just A Bunch More Sand Aug 04, 2017

Pip, Chris, Tom and Tom celebrate 200 episodes the only way they know how: by doing another episode. Featuring The Long Dark, Tacoma, ducks, rum and time.

Plus: looking forward to Guild Wars 2’s next expansion, the future of esports and VR and dancing and stuff as experienced at ChinaJoy, hastily abandoned segue ambitions, meditations upon the nature of change, meditations upon the nature of Captain Morgan’s, Pyre, Blernsball, ducks, the price of Tom Francis, Tom Francis’ strangest noise, Shepard’s gummiest rusks, and Babe: Pip In The City.

It’s a long one, folks. It’s also rather a drunk one. Thank you for supporting us for 200 episodes! Sorry that you had to support us for 200 episodes.

Let’s remember episode 1, particularly all the names for this podcast we didn’t use.
Dota 2’s International 2017 begins this week. Here’s the official feed. Valve say they’re doing new newbie-friendly stuff, but it doesn’t look like it’s available yet.
Telling Lies is Sam Barlow’s spiritual successor to Her Story.
Pip’s still plorting away at Slime Rancher.
The Long Dark left Early Access this week.
Tacoma is the game of the moment.
Chris sent a smaller Chris to ChinaJoy: here’s a Twitter thread with some of his pictures.
Guild Wars 2’s new expansion is Path of Fire.
And thus, Blernsball.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Tom Francis
Pip Warr
Chris Thursten
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 199: The Sum of Everything is Quern Jul 29, 2017

Two Toms and a Pip gather to discuss the death of everything, Unity’s rep, Pyre, Walden, and QUERN.

Also, mad clunking noises! We had to record on a table with the old mic this week, so apologies for the dip in sound quality. Normal services will resume shortly.

Show notes:

Contrary to what we thought on the podcast this week, MS Paint lives! MS are just moving it to their store as a free app.
Flash is well dead though. Or soon to be.
Desktop Tower Defense will still destroy your spare time.
There is pleasant puzzling to be had in Quern: Undying Thoughts.
The New York Times Popcast about streaming services.
Music for Alarm Apps.
Walden, a game! Pip made a video about it on RPS.
The beautiful, bemusing Pyre.
Here is the Steam Microtrailers feed that Tom F mentioned.
Good Souls vids. Why, the Crate and Crowbar plays Dark Souls, of course!
VaatiVidya’s lore series is also good.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. Watch this episode on YouTube right here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Pip Warr
Tom Senior
Tom Francis

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 198: Crying On The Shoulder Of A Ryan Jul 21, 2017

Chris and Tom S are joined by PC Gamer editor-in-chief Samuel Roberts to discuss The Sexy Brutale, GTA Online and open world co-op. Then, suddenly, Pip!

Plus: CBeebies on fire near the Sennheiser Gate, pulling out of Everything, old Dota grudges, the mysteries of the Sweaty Brutale, and an encounter with Kelvin in The David Cage.

Play Hitman backwards in The Sexy Brutale.
Tom and Sam have been on a long journey with GTA Online.
Pip has specific problems with Walden, a game.
Is this the egg that Pip is talking about? Who can say.
Here’s Cool Ghosts’ video about Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Here’s Chris reacting to Pip explaining Everything, the game that Sam pulled out of.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Samuel Roberts
Pip Warr
Chris Thursten
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 197: Turd Act Plort Twist Jul 14, 2017

Pip, Tom and Chris discuss VR, Hollow Knight, Slime Rancher, a little PUBG, esports, whether or not we should have more wine, and puns.

Plus: quadges from quadges, bodily censure, the 7/10 fallacy, and loads more. Be summoned by the hot takes bell, be repelled by the heady tang of fresh plort.

when you go dark souls with your best mates in VR perhaps???
Tom’s been playing the lovely Hollow Knight.
Pip’s true monstrosity has been revealed via Slime Rancher.
Chris is still plunkin’ away at that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and has dipped into that Zombie Night Terror.
BUYING THE WARDS, BUYING THE WARDS

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us:

Pip Warr
Chris Thursten
Tom Senior

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 196: Ten Thousand Agility To France Jul 07, 2017

Chris, Tom F and John R discuss Tyranny, Zombie Night Terror, Diablo III, Everspace, and so on.

Also: a fate worse than Bejewelled Infinite, things gravity can’t do, and a briefcase full of snakes.

New Overwatch man, Doomfist.
Evil Genius 2 is being worked on by Rebellion. The first one was made by Elixir.
John’s been playing Tyranny and Zombie Night Terror.
Follow Bonetom’s further boneadventures in Diablo III: Bone of Bones.
Tom has failed to extract the Dark Horse from a mine in West of Loathing.
Chris has been playing Everspace, which is by Rockfish, the other dev whose name we forgot.
Here is the Soyuz Chair weightlessness experience.

You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

You can also follow us: