The Crate and Crowbar

Latest Episodes:

Episode 448: Découpage That Worm! Jun 13, 2025

Show notes

Jamie and Marsh get pumped, pepped and revved up for the summer games marketing onslaught, and then enjoy the more tangible pleasures of demos in the Steam Next Fest, including: Ball X Pit, Morsels, Bits & Bops, Consume Me, Dispatch and Baby Steps.

In this episode, I, Marsh, misremember Peggle’s mascot as Bookworm Adventures’ mascot, which is a bookworm, despite the fact that only one of these titles has “bookworm” in the name. This is an error for which I do not deserve, and will never earn, your forgiveness—but I acknowledge it now to prepare you for the boiling rage my failure will induce.
Lies of P and The Last Berserker – the best off-brand Soulslikes?
Shout out to Ollie
The games of Summer Game Fest:
Mortal Shell 2
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Chronicles: Medieval
End of Abyss
Mouse: P.I. for Hire
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros
Atomic Heart 2 & The Cube
Felt That: Boxing
Out of Words
Mafia: The Old Country
Resident Evil Requiem
LEGO Voyagers (LEGO Builders, from the same team, and LEGO 2K Drive, by not the same team, suggest that the LEGO brand has a stable of solid talent at their disposal.)
Deadpool VR. So much great work going on in VR. This isn’t it. (Ghost Town, a VR puzzle game by Fireproof Games, developers of The Room series, might be brilliant, though.)
Dying Light: The Beast
Mixtape (the studio’s previous game was The Artful Escape)
Acts of Blood
MindsEye
ILL
Splitgate 2
Games not from Summer Game Fest:
Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement
Lumines Arise (by the developers of people-herding puzzle game Humanity)
Silent Hill F
Militsioner
Sleep Awake
Mewgenics (the Other One Who Isn’t Edmund McMillen is in fact called Tommy Refenes, and is making Super Meatboy 3D)
Games from Steam Next Fest:
Ball X Pit
Morsels
Dispatch
Bits & Bops
Consume Me
Baby Steps
Mina The Hollower
All Living Things
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound
Absolum (the Streets Of Rage 4 people doing fantasy)
Jupiter Hell Classic

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 via the Questions sub-channel on our Discord or email it to questions@crateandcrowbar.com. 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 447: Snoop Dogg’s Degenerate Bush May 30, 2025

Show notes

Jamie and Marsh whoosh blueily through Doom: The Dark Ages, find real big fish in South of Midnight, experience the fraying bonds of marriage in It Takes Two, and feed children to a giant worm in Nidhogg.

Doom: The Dark Ages
South of Midnight
It Takes Two
Nidhogg
Kirby’s Air Ride
Rhythm Heaven Fever
“You go, big guy!”
Counterfeit Monkey
Hadean Lands
Enter the Matrix
Type Help
Sorcery

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 446: Baby’s First Cosmic Horror May 16, 2025

Show notes

Click ‘Use’, then click ‘Pod’. Success! You have unlocked access to an episode of adventure game discussion from the steamy podding lairs of Jamie and Tom!

First we turn our attentions to the fine timeline-twisting futuristic adventure game, Old Skies. We’re enjoying it greatly, along with Unavowed and the rest of Wadjet Eye Games collection.

Also Tom brought along a rough top five adventure games list (that he wishes he’d put Last Express on, or Siberia, or a dozen others). With the addition of Jamie’s suggestions we embark on a bit of time travel ourselves, remembering why these games captured our imaginations in spite of some abslutely honking puzzles.

Games discussed!

The Monkey Island series
The Dig
Day of the Tentacle
Full Throttle
Grim Fandandgo
Dune (1992)
Lost Eden
Rama
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Beneath A Steel Sky
Blade Runner
Kentucky Route Zero
Monkey Island 2
Thimbleweed Park
Ben There, Dan That
Time Gentlemen, Please!
Simon The Sorcerer 2
And More Grim Fandango why not

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 445: 2 King 2 Come Apr 14, 2025

Show notes

Jamie, Tom and Marsh head out into the wild blue yonder (without headphones on like some kind of smug Japanese writer) and talk about 3 open world games, somewhat alike in dignity.

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is the brand new tiny-sword-up-my-sleeve ’em up, has peerless breezes, great killings, but boy is there a lot of it!
Atomfall is a game that Jamie loves more than just about anyone else he can find, listen to him incoherently try and explain why.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is a game in which you play a smelly man who wants to be less smelly and is prepared to save and quit in order to do it.

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 444: Sneers for Tears Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

The distant troglodyte descendants of Jamie and Marsh relive memories of the before-times and the joyous videogames that were once played, namely: 1000xResist, Type Help and Pathologic 3: Quarantine.

Pathologic 3: Quarantine is the demo for a larger forthcoming game, and is harrowing in about every way it can be.
1000xResist is a brilliant game about many things, including generational trauma and big pigeons. Contains mild jumping.
This is a good video deep dive into the game.
Type Help is an information game with a killer discovery mechanic and a wicked mystery. Bloody devil!
Tom Francis, who has the best sheets, and now an IGF Award for Excellence in Design, did a video review of Type Help, here.

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 443: It’s Totally OK to Kill a Lizardman Mar 07, 2025

Show notes

Tom S joins Marsh to be baffled by BAFTA noms, enjoy the chaotic departure from military fiction in Black Ops 6, put on a purple frenzied bone hat in Monster Hunter, and bolster our collection of severed tongues in Avowed like the nimdoots we are.

The BAFTA website has been designed by maniacs. You can just put things in a list! In a text list! There wasn’t a problem to solve there! Why am I expanding subcategories and scrolling horizontally just to see six fucking names, you FIENDS?
Tactical Breach Wizards deserves to win all the categories, but was only nominated for Best Game Design.
Black Ops 6 is the silliest Call of Duty yet, and, not coincidentally, also the best.
Monster Hunter is a series I will never understand, but I will admit that it looks cool to wallop the big lizards in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Fungal fantasy RPG Avowed is a 7/10 (extremely complimentary).

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 442: Universe of Pots Jan 31, 2025

Show notes

Jamie and Marsh wallop their way through a sea of fascists in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and enjoy the peaches, pots and permadeath of Shiren the Wanderer 6.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is made by Machine Games, also known for the Wolfenstein reboot, its sequels and some brilliant level packs for Quake and Quake 2.
Quinns Quest is a cool Youtube channel about TTRPGs
Shiren the Wanderer 6: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island.

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 441: Spaff Doubly With A Vengeance Dec 07, 2024

Show notes

Chris, Jamie, and friend of pod Paul Canavan squat doon in a cundie with a bottle of buckie and some (probably vegan) haggis tae blether aboot Scottish games and games that aren’t Scottish. We talk the excellent thrills, chills, and repeated drops off of oil rigs of fab walking sim Still Wakes The Deep, the hand crafted psychedelia of indie curio Judero, as well as the addictive properties of Xenotilt, the visceral Clinton jump scares of CODBLOPS6 and the ugly, bonkers world of Straftat (Straftat! Straftat!).

Music for today’s episode:
Fiddles McGinty by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-…
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Back Gold Teeth, look at Pale Tides, and buy Chris’ books here.

You can also listen to this episode on 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 (usually) by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 440: Arcane Mark Versus Evil Greg Nov 22, 2024

Show notes

Chris, Senior Tom and Marsh convene to talk Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Diablo 4, Rise Of The Golden Idol, Xenotilt, Destiny 2 and then Chris talks about Dragon Age: Veilguard non-stop for about 45 minutes and it’s kind of incredible.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a game about cutting robots into many bits, or just two bits.
Diablo 4 is a game about killing many things and number go up, but at what cost.
Xenotilt is a pinball game that Jamie is now completely addicted to, thanks Chris.
Rise Of The Golden Idol might be a tad disappointing.
Dragon Age: Veilguard is a game about the Arcane Mark/Evil Greg dichotomy.

Back Gold Teeth, Pale Tides, and buy Chris’ books here.

You can also listen to this episode on 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 439: Druckmannocene Mythmulch Nov 08, 2024

Show notes

In which Tom Senior, Marsh Davies and Jamie Brittain convene on a perfectly normal and entirely non-epoch defining night in early November 2024 to discuss God Of War: Ragnarök at length, as well as providing various witterings about trailers good, names bad, books read and John Wayne movies for some reason. At one point Jamie gleefully imagines Kratos pulling the arms of a sacred deity. A good time is more or less had by all.

God Of War: Ragnarök
Monster Hunter Wild
Caravan SandWitch
Jamie is reading The Great When by Alan Moore, Educated by Tara Westover and In The Days Of Rain by Rebecca Stott
Tom is reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei, Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo
Marsh is reading Maclom Gaskill’s The Ruin Of All Witches.

Back Gold Teeth, Pale Tides, and buy Chris’ books here.

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.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected