The Crate and Crowbar

Latest Episodes:

Episode 420: Don’t Mind My Abominable Horde of Darkness Jun 23, 2023

Show notes

Jamie, Tom S and Marsh emerge from a morass of pod-opposites to deliver belated takes on Not E3, chicken sandwiches, grimdark clicker game Diablo IV and the latest season of Chess.

Nick Cage has been turned into Dead by Daylight DLC
Assassin’s Creed: Mirage
Starfield
Citizen Sleeper 2
Star Wars: Outlaws
Baby Steps
Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess
South of Midnight
World of Horror
Jusant
Cocoon
Oxenfree 2
Fable
Lies of P
Embracer Group are excited to close down the studios they just bought so they can refocus on milking Lord of the Rings.
Diablo IV
Chess links! Main sites: Chess.com and Lichess.org
People to follow: Levy Rozman aka Gothamchess, Daniel Naroditsky,
Hikaru Nakamura.
And the guy Tom wishes he’d mentioned – John Bartholomew. The most chilled Chess. He sips a cup of decaff coffee, has great games, and teaches good chess
The chess photo in our Youtube thumbnail is by Dipesh Shrestha.

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 419: Uberlord Killermaster Type Person Jun 01, 2023

Show notes

Jamie joins Marsh to discuss the imminent game glut, puzzlesome reverse dog-trial Humanity, super-stylish brawler Sifu and clever Counter-Strike-alike Veiled Experts.

Diablo, Street Fighter 6 and Amnesia: The Bunker are all poised for release, while Bungie’s Marathon jangles gaudily on the distant horizon.
Quirky puzzler Humanity has lots of bodies but perhaps fewer brains.
Flee the unfinished quest icon deluge in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Sifu is a kung-fu combat game that cleverly blends arcade, roguelike and cinematic disciplines.
Thirdperson team-shooter Veiled Experts throws a lot of ideas at Counter-Strike’s format and, surprisingly, a lot of them seem to stick.

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 418: Lawless Sausage-Craft May 19, 2023

Show notes

Chris, Jamie and Marsh commit goblin puzzlecrimes in the high-altitude sandbox of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of a Kingdom, and exchange gems for beards in the thoroughly-explained yurts of Jedi: Survivor.

Surefire GOTY for some, intimidating possibility-space for others: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of a Kingdom.
Return me to the reassuring monkey-bars and slippery inclines of STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor.
You’ve never been to Bongar 12?!

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 417: The Sweat Trajectory May 12, 2023

Show notes

Marsh and Jamie’s treason finally consigns them to Darkest Dungeon 2, where they lament what Jedi Survivor means for Marsh’s wallet, unpick The Spider of Lanka’s web of intrigue, have a cold shower in Shadows of Doubt and plunge headfirst into Thumper VR.

Triumphantly grim roguelike roadtrip sequel, Darkest Dungeon 2.
More soon, ish, on STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor.
The Spider of Lanka is the superb DLC for The Case of the Golden Idol.
Shadows of Doubt is a bogglingly ambitious proc-gen murder mystery.
Thumper is a game about an angry music beetle.

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.

TEETH – A Roleplaying Game: A Lock-in at the Crate and Crowbar Apr 19, 2023

Show notes

Marsh is joined by game dev and writer Jim Rossignol to discuss the grotesque tabletop roleplaying game they have made together. It’s called TEETH, it’s about occult criminality in a cursed corner of 18th century England, and it’s Kickstarting right now!

Kickstart TEETH (if you like)!
Watch our Kickstarter trailer at the link above or on Youtube for a quick catch-me-up on the game accompanied by some superb hurdy-gurdy music.
Our last three mini-adventures, Night of the Hogmen, Blood Cotillion and Stranger & Stranger are on itch. Night of the Hogmen is even free.
Symbaroum is the TTRPG set in a horrible forest that partly prompted this creation.
Blades in the Dark is the TTRPG from which our rules are adapted.
We list STALKER, Hound of the Baskervilles, Buffy, Hunt: Showdown, Blackadder, League of Gentlemen and Jane Austen as being among TEETH’s influences.
Sathnam Sanghera’s revelatory Empireland informed some of the revolutionary aspects of the game.

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 415: Null and Void Dance Mat Apr 13, 2023

Show notes

In which Tom Senior and Jamie Brittain convene in the past to talk about a lot of games to be released in the next year or so, and beyond! Part 2 hopefully to be recorded soon!

Here’s a Youtube playlist of trailers for the games mentioned.
Super Mario Galaxy
Monster Hunter Rise
Destiny 2
Elden Ring
UFO 50
Skin Deep
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Darkest Dungeon 2
Alan Wake 2
Suicide Squad
Destiny 2: Lightfall
The Wolf Among Us 2
Hyper Light Breaker 2
Cook Serve Forever
Overcooked 2
Skate Story
The Plucky Squire
Tactical Breach Wizards
Somerville
Cocoon
Skull & Bones
Slay The Princess
The Wolf Of Dervenia
Mask Of The Rose
Thirsty Suitors
Atlas Fallen
Rift Of The Necrodancer
Wo Long Fallen Dynasty
Company Of Heroes 3
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
Final Fantasy XVI
Chained Echoes

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 414: Bob Never Made It To The Tournament Feb 17, 2023

Show notes

It’s a laid-back one this week as Jamie and Tom S convene to admire the gentle art of booting a panda through a wall in Tekken 7. There’s more spectacular booting to be had in DmC: Devil May Cry and the stompy Dead Space remake, but can any of this compare to the thrill of an old console whirring up a CD Rom to play a 10-second cutscene in 1997? Join us for additional nostalgia, open world discussion, sad dads in space, and more.

Hit random on the character select screen and enjoy the consistently entertaining nonsense of Tekken 7.
The IP-mangling Warner Brothers brawler we couldn’t quite recall is Multiversus.
Soul Calibur 6 is also good fun, and has lots of bonkers customisation.
We mention Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, available on PC as part of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary package. Here’s the extraordinary Justin vs. Daigo parry sequence from Evo 2004.
Tom is still trying to get halfway good at Guilty Gear: Strive. Bring back Bedman!
DmC: Devil May Cry is still a gem. Devil May Cry 5 expands the combat sandbox across three characters to superb effect.
Open world chat: Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Skyrim, Shadow of the Colossus, and Elden Ring. Also Forspoken, briefly.
Ghost of Tsushima has a lovely, whooshy wind guidance system.
Hyper Light Breaker is the new game from Heart Machine.
Below is difficult, mysterious, and has great music.
The venerable sad dad in space tradition continues with the intriguing Deliver Us Mars.
What makes a good remake? Dead Space and Final Fantasy 7 get a mention, before we reminisce about the days when tiny cutscenes felt like an incredible reward.

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.

Episode 413: Smart-Bomb Nugget Destruction Jan 27, 2023

Show notes

Separate children, Jamie and Chris, de-schism to become a single mass with opinions on lying down, class-traitor sandwich praxis, the tragic dynamics of a friendship defined by Sonic/Batman, the Steam Deck, Hi-Fi RUSH, Burnhouse Lane and Marvel Snap.

Why not pair The Sonic Movie with the lavish mediocrity of Death on the Nile? There are many reasons. So many.
X-Men: the full-fat theatre kids of Marvel.
Hi-Fi RUSH is a rhythm-action combo-brawler that has dropped out of nowhere from Evil Within developer, Tango Gameworks.
Elite Beat Agents is a beloved rhythm game of yore.
Thumper: also a brilliant rhythm action game, with a darker narcotic vibe.
Burnhouse Lane is a dark psychological horror point-n-click by Harvester Games.
The Cat Lady is a previous and similarly bleak game by Harvester Games.
Uh oh! There’s been a discourse!
“Sometimes its dramaturgy is- woah, here we go!”
Mike Flanagan’s brilliant Netflix show Midnight Mass and our pod about it. Flanagan followed up with The Midnight Club.
The other side of the darkness sandwich: Marvel Snap, a machine-cut slice of perfectly square American bread.

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.

Reality TV: A Lock-in at the Crate and Crowbar Jan 20, 2023

Show notes

Tom S and Marsh climb into a big bin of telly trash and wallow in the sugary delights of nutrient-free reality TV from Big Brother through Bake-Off to The Traitors.