SPEAKER_2: 2019 is dead, it's dead and we killed it.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, what, like us, personally?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, we did it.
SPEAKER_2: I went out back and I just...
SPEAKER_3: Oh, dang.
SPEAKER_2: I guess it was I did it.
SPEAKER_2: Well, you're complicit now.
SPEAKER_3: Wow, who do I even report this to?
SPEAKER_3: Is it like the new decade squad?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I suppose so.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, you're certainly not gonna report it to the old decade squad.
SPEAKER_2: I killed the whole decade, actually.
SPEAKER_3: Wow, it's all gone?
SPEAKER_2: It's all gone.
SPEAKER_2: We don't have to ever think about the 2010s ever again.
SPEAKER_2: What?
SPEAKER_3: Where are you keeping at?
SPEAKER_2: It's dealt with.
SPEAKER_2: Don't worry.
SPEAKER_2: Listen, they're in a better place now.
SPEAKER_3: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_3: In the 2030s?
SPEAKER_2: No, that would be too easy.
SPEAKER_2: That would be too easy.
SPEAKER_2: That would give you like 10 years.
SPEAKER_2: I've put them in the 3010s.
SPEAKER_2: They're squished together there, kind of.
SPEAKER_3: Squished together with what?
SPEAKER_2: The 3010s.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, so they're gonna happen simultaneously.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's gonna just kind of overlap.
SPEAKER_3: Oh God.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: What is the experience of that like?
SPEAKER_2: Well, the experience of that is like, on the one hand, complete political turmoil and weirdness of new technology and like everything going wrong and also whatever happens in the 3010s.
SPEAKER_2: I'm not psychic, I just can kill decades.
SPEAKER_3: This-
SPEAKER_2: Super normal.
SPEAKER_3: This data will definitely survive a thousand years.
SPEAKER_3: And so anyone listening to this will be like, ah, yes, I understand.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, of course it will.
SPEAKER_2: Even though I've killed it.
SPEAKER_3: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_2: And it's gone now.
SPEAKER_3: Right.
SPEAKER_2: One thing that we did, hi, this is the New Year's episode, by the way.
SPEAKER_2: If you couldn't tell, this is the end of-
SPEAKER_3: Hi, also this is Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_2: Hi, oh, hi, this is Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_2: I'm Brianna.
SPEAKER_3: And I'm Clair.
SPEAKER_2: And we are so good at having a podcast, in fact, that we have been doing the show for over a year, which means that last year, during our New Year's episode, we said what we were craving for the upcoming year.
SPEAKER_3: We sure said words, didn't we?
SPEAKER_2: We sure said some words.
SPEAKER_2: The way that our New Year's episodes work, if you weren't around for the last one, or just listening to this-
SPEAKER_3: Are we just deciding this for every New Year's?
SPEAKER_3: Like, this seems like a lot to commit to.
SPEAKER_2: You're right.
SPEAKER_2: The way that our New Year's episodes have worked so far-
SPEAKER_3: So far as in the only one.
SPEAKER_2: My point is we're doing it again.
SPEAKER_2: I'm laying out for the listener what we're doing today.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, gotta draw the maps.
SPEAKER_2: Gotta draw the maps and leave the blank spaces.
SPEAKER_2: One of the things that we do is we say something that we really enjoy about end of the year or New Year's, or the tradition of ending the year and starting a New Year.
SPEAKER_2: And then we say something that we are craving or excited about for the New Year.
SPEAKER_2: And last year, we were craving some particular things with the New Year.
SPEAKER_2: Clair, you were craving...
SPEAKER_3: I was lied to.
SPEAKER_2: You were lied to in your craving.
SPEAKER_2: You were craving live action.
SPEAKER_2: I wanted Sonic.
SPEAKER_3: I wanted that blue boy.
SPEAKER_2: Specifically Pokemon Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog.
SPEAKER_3: Can we talk about how I was lied to by Hollywood?
SPEAKER_3: Hollywood committed a crime against me personally.
SPEAKER_2: Your not being able to have Sonic in 2019 is absolutely the worst thing that has happened to anyone.
SPEAKER_3: Yes.
SPEAKER_3: They could have given us the worst looking Sonic ever, but instead they were like, oh, we're going to make him look kind of normal even though we're still putting real humans in there and it looks weird anyways.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: We could have made it weird, but we're going to make it kind of semi weird instead.
SPEAKER_2: And we're going to make sure to push people even harder to do this.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, they gave them more time.
SPEAKER_2: They gave them more time.
SPEAKER_3: And it was rude.
SPEAKER_3: It was mean to me personally.
SPEAKER_3: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_2: Are we not going to acknowledge the fact that the Sonic the Hedgehog, the team that helped fix the Sonic the Hedgehog design...
SPEAKER_3: Oh, like has closed down?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, just got...
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, and everyone lost their jobs.
SPEAKER_3: We can acknowledge that.
SPEAKER_2: Cool.
SPEAKER_2: We're going to acknowledge that.
SPEAKER_2: It sucks.
SPEAKER_3: It sucks.
SPEAKER_2: It's shitty.
SPEAKER_3: But more importantly, I didn't get Sonic.
SPEAKER_2: You're going to get Sonic on Valentine's Day.
SPEAKER_2: You're going to get a romantic date with Sonic, as we all want.
SPEAKER_3: We're all dating Sonic.
SPEAKER_2: We're all dating Sonic.
SPEAKER_3: We just don't know it yet.
SPEAKER_2: But you did get Detective Pikachu.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, it was good.
SPEAKER_2: It was good.
SPEAKER_2: It was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_2: I suspect that my personal feeling is that the Sonic movie is not going to be as good as Detective Pikachu.
SPEAKER_2: I just don't think it's going to be as fun.
SPEAKER_3: I feel like the opposite.
SPEAKER_2: Really?
SPEAKER_3: I feel like the Sonic movie is about being funny, and I hope that they're good at it.
SPEAKER_2: I don't think that they're going to nail it though.
SPEAKER_2: I truly don't.
SPEAKER_2: I want to like the Sonic movie probably more than most people want to like the Sonic movie.
SPEAKER_3: You want to make it a Valentine's Day tradition.
SPEAKER_2: Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_3: You want to love Sonic every day of every year.
SPEAKER_2: I want to love Sonic every day.
SPEAKER_2: I already do.
SPEAKER_2: I love him with my heart and soul.
SPEAKER_2: I want to love the Sonic movie.
SPEAKER_3: We'll see.
SPEAKER_2: The trailers have not blown me away in the same way that the Detective Pikachu trailers did, I will say.
SPEAKER_3: They haven't accelerated your heart rate?
SPEAKER_2: I didn't feel the need to rush out and find more information.
SPEAKER_2: But hey, you got half of your cravings saved.
SPEAKER_3: I did.
SPEAKER_2: I also kind of got half of my cravings saved, which...
SPEAKER_2: my cravings saved?
SPEAKER_2: My cravings saved?
SPEAKER_3: Share your cravings, Brianna.
SPEAKER_2: My cravings.
SPEAKER_2: So I got this stuff in crates, right?
SPEAKER_2: And I'm crating it all up, and we're going to send it off, and it's crated.
SPEAKER_3: Where are we sending it to?
SPEAKER_2: The 3010s.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, it's in there, eh?
SPEAKER_3: You fit all of it in there?
SPEAKER_2: Well, you know, this is 2019.
SPEAKER_2: Don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_2: And if you look in 2019, you can see that I really wanted to finish some stuff.
SPEAKER_2: I wanted desperately to be done with things, and that happened partially.
SPEAKER_3: Skeptically?
SPEAKER_2: I did finish my thesis, my honors thesis.
SPEAKER_3: Good, I'm glad since you graduated.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I graduated, I moved houses.
SPEAKER_2: A lot of different things happened this year that could be presented as finishing things.
SPEAKER_2: However, I completely failed to finish anything to do with writing.
SPEAKER_2: I started more writing projects and finished none.
SPEAKER_2: I started a campaign of Blades in the Dark.
SPEAKER_2: I started a short story that I had kind of vaguely planned but actually started writing it.
SPEAKER_2: I started writing some of the books, but I didn't finish anything.
SPEAKER_2: I really, truly didn't.
SPEAKER_2: And that is not the end of the world.
SPEAKER_2: It wasn't the Craving, though.
SPEAKER_3: It wasn't the solution to the Craving.
SPEAKER_2: It wasn't the solution to the Craving.
SPEAKER_2: I don't feel like I'm leaving this decade with everything kind of behind me.
SPEAKER_2: I feel like there's a lot of things that I'm still beholden to.
SPEAKER_3: You haven't sort of reset your life.
SPEAKER_3: You haven't hit the reset button and been like, all right, all right, new me, everything behind me doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_3: 2020, I mean, you still got some baggage to take into 2020.
SPEAKER_3: You're at the airport.
SPEAKER_3: They're like, oh, empty bags.
SPEAKER_3: And you're like, no, sorry.
SPEAKER_3: And you just slam the briefcase on the desk.
SPEAKER_3: And they're like, can you remove that?
SPEAKER_2: And you're like, oh, sorry.
SPEAKER_3: It really didn't have to do.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: So, you know, a mixed bag.
SPEAKER_2: I'm very glad to be done with university.
SPEAKER_2: 2020 is the year I'm going to finish things for sure.
SPEAKER_3: You're going to do all of it?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I'm just going to do all of it.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to write like seven books.
SPEAKER_2: It is not my craving.
SPEAKER_2: It is not my craving this year, but we do have some cravings this year.
SPEAKER_2: Do you want to tell me what you're craving about this end of year time?
SPEAKER_3: I do, very much.
SPEAKER_3: I'm going to tell you.
SPEAKER_3: I'm going to say words, and you're going to hear them, and we're going to solve this craving.
SPEAKER_2: Let's do it.
SPEAKER_3: I recently posted on Twitter that I only have one New Year's Resolution this year because New Year's Resolutions are a great part of the New Year's.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, and they never happen.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, that's what this craving is about.
SPEAKER_3: This New Year's, the thing I'm craving about this New Year's is knowing that I already have my resolution planned out.
SPEAKER_3: It's just one.
SPEAKER_3: It's very simple.
SPEAKER_3: I want a goddamn leather jacket.
SPEAKER_2: Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_2: This is excellent.
SPEAKER_3: I love to see it.
SPEAKER_2: I love to hear about it.
SPEAKER_3: I've wanted a leather jacket for so long.
SPEAKER_2: I understand.
SPEAKER_2: I also don't have a leather jacket.
SPEAKER_2: And I think it'd be cool to own one.
SPEAKER_2: But you, you need it.
SPEAKER_3: I need it.
SPEAKER_3: Look, I got like big stompy boots.
SPEAKER_2: Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_3: And I'm ready to just go be the center of the tension.
SPEAKER_3: Well, I don't think I know enough scenes in Vancouver to be a punk.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know that anyone knows enough scenes in Vancouver to be a punk.
SPEAKER_3: I think even like punks are like, well, I don't know this one very specific scene, so I'm not like a real punk.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, but you can still look extremely cool.
SPEAKER_3: Got that leather jacket, got those big boots.
SPEAKER_3: I just want to like have my hair buzzed with the jacket and be like, hello.
SPEAKER_2: What you're saying is you're moving to some butch, to some butch land.
SPEAKER_3: I want to resonate some butch energy.
SPEAKER_2: You want to resonate some butch energy.
SPEAKER_2: I support it.
SPEAKER_2: I love it.
SPEAKER_3: BBE, big butch energy.
SPEAKER_2: This could be you.
SPEAKER_2: I can absolutely see it.
SPEAKER_2: Let's get you this leather jacket.
SPEAKER_2: Let's just do it today.
SPEAKER_3: It's just a quick in and out.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, this episode is releasing on the 30th, so we can just knock it out even before the year happens.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_3: So I'm going to have it like for New Year's, and then I'll be the New Year's butch.
SPEAKER_2: You can be the New Year's butch.
SPEAKER_2: So tell me about...
SPEAKER_3: New York Biddy.
SPEAKER_2: So I'm just going to pull up my machine at what makes clothes.
SPEAKER_1: A sewing machine?
SPEAKER_2: No, like a full-on...
SPEAKER_2: Well, it's got to be leather or pleather or fake leather or whatever.
SPEAKER_3: Leather is better than pleather.
SPEAKER_2: All right, it's leather.
SPEAKER_2: I've set it to leather.
SPEAKER_2: See, this is like a computer.
SPEAKER_3: What are the other options besides leather?
SPEAKER_3: Like, what are the...
SPEAKER_2: Name of fabric.
SPEAKER_3: Bees.
SPEAKER_2: Not seeing bees here, so clearly I have some bugs to work out.
SPEAKER_3: You have to work the bugs in.
SPEAKER_2: There's leather.
SPEAKER_2: All right, we'll check that box on this here machine.
SPEAKER_2: So tell me about what you want this leather jacket to look like.
SPEAKER_3: Sorry, is there an underwear sitting on this machine?
SPEAKER_3: Can I have leather underwear?
SPEAKER_3: Do they breathe?
SPEAKER_2: They probably don't breathe great.
SPEAKER_2: There's a reason why people typically don't go for leather underwear.
SPEAKER_3: But you could.
SPEAKER_2: It is allowed by the system, but a lot of things are allowed by the system that shouldn't happen.
SPEAKER_3: Are you saying that you're going to try and find a way to outlaw my leather underwear?
SPEAKER_2: No, no, I'll let you have it.
SPEAKER_2: I'll let you have the leather underwear.
SPEAKER_2: Fine, fine, fuck it.
SPEAKER_2: Let's do it.
SPEAKER_2: Leather underwear.
SPEAKER_2: Tell me you have leather underwear.
SPEAKER_3: But wait, not just leather underwear, right?
SPEAKER_3: What if it was just one big bodysuit?
SPEAKER_2: This is a kink thing now.
SPEAKER_2: We've gone into kink territory immediately.
SPEAKER_2: I can't say that I'm all that surprised.
SPEAKER_2: We did start off with talking about leather, and the jump there is really not far.
SPEAKER_2: But we've already gone there.
SPEAKER_2: So, do you want to continue down this path?
SPEAKER_3: I think I'm good.
SPEAKER_3: But I will say, I just want to envision those green bodysuits on Halloween, but leather, that's the whole thing.
SPEAKER_3: I just want to think about that for a second.
SPEAKER_2: That's a choice, and that's a thing that could exist.
SPEAKER_3: They probably don't breathe either.
SPEAKER_3: It's probably a very short-lived outfit.
SPEAKER_2: You have to just cut a mouth hole.
SPEAKER_2: No?
SPEAKER_2: No mouth hole.
SPEAKER_2: All right.
SPEAKER_2: That's wild.
SPEAKER_3: Where can we find this leather jacket?
SPEAKER_3: I guess you have your machine.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, clearly you're not interested in the spirit of the machine.
SPEAKER_2: You just want to ask, what can it do?
SPEAKER_3: The spirit?
SPEAKER_3: I mean, like, what kind of spirit inhabits the machine?
SPEAKER_2: That is for me to know and for you to hopefully never find out.
SPEAKER_2: Listen.
SPEAKER_2: Sometimes a year or a person needs to be dealt with.
SPEAKER_2: I'm not going to say whether it's a year or a person or what it could be.
SPEAKER_3: I hope it's neither.
SPEAKER_2: You know, leather jackets used to be very popular.
SPEAKER_3: What year were they popular in?
SPEAKER_2: You know, I can't think of an era where leather jackets weren't popular.
SPEAKER_3: They're kind of a perfect piece of clothing.
SPEAKER_2: They're great.
SPEAKER_3: That's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_2: They just make you seem cool.
SPEAKER_3: Okay, but what about color?
SPEAKER_3: Like, what color?
SPEAKER_3: I mean, so like a pink leather jacket.
SPEAKER_2: That's super cute.
SPEAKER_3: I want a rainbow of leather jackets and then also black.
SPEAKER_2: I like a rainbow leather jacket.
SPEAKER_2: Do you want a leather jacket that's a rainbow?
SPEAKER_3: I want a leather jacket that like spews rainbows.
SPEAKER_3: And so like when people piss me off or whatever, and like I'm wearing my like black leather jacket, I can just like hit a toggle and then like rainbows shoot out of my chest.
SPEAKER_2: This is basically the gayest thing I can possibly imagine.
SPEAKER_3: It is me, the rainbow leather butch.
SPEAKER_2: The rainbow leather butch.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that sounds about right.
SPEAKER_2: I like this.
SPEAKER_3: So I basically like have Care Bear powers, but like...
SPEAKER_2: But make it butch.
SPEAKER_3: I'm the butch Care Bear.
SPEAKER_2: You know the other Care Bear they would never allow on the TV show because it wasn't...
SPEAKER_3: They said child appropriate.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it has like a buzz cut.
SPEAKER_2: Just like is super cool.
SPEAKER_2: I love this.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, where can we find this leather jacket?
SPEAKER_2: So what if we make it some real antique stuff?
SPEAKER_3: Like old leather?
SPEAKER_2: Like I'm talking like a leather jacket from the 50s or something.
SPEAKER_3: It's kind of dusty.
SPEAKER_2: It's kind of dusty.
SPEAKER_2: Clean it up, get it perfect.
SPEAKER_3: Now, the only thing...
SPEAKER_3: How do you clean leather?
SPEAKER_2: There is absolutely a method to cleaning leather.
SPEAKER_3: Can you cook a leather jacket?
SPEAKER_3: If you put it in the oven at 350 degrees and you sort of like, so it's Thanksgiving, you have your turkey, wrap it in a leather jacket.
SPEAKER_3: Is this like an appropriate sort of skin to the turkey?
SPEAKER_2: Is it appropriate?
SPEAKER_2: No.
SPEAKER_2: Is it possible?
SPEAKER_2: Should I Google this?
SPEAKER_3: No.
SPEAKER_3: Do you really want that in your search history?
SPEAKER_3: How to cook a leather jacket, 10 ways to really marinate your marriage.
SPEAKER_2: Your marriage to your leather jacket.
SPEAKER_2: I appreciate that you tried to find a joke there.
SPEAKER_2: I value that.
SPEAKER_2: I value you.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, describe for me what the ideal leather jacket for you looks like.
SPEAKER_3: So there are leather jackets that are like small in length, where they only go to like your stomach or whatever.
SPEAKER_3: I have a pale leather jacket like that.
SPEAKER_3: I want a biker leather jacket.
SPEAKER_2: Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_3: I don't want like shoulder pads.
SPEAKER_3: I don't necessarily want shoulder pads, but I want sort of the like, I want like the patches on them.
SPEAKER_3: So there isn't more like depth to the shoulders, but the shoulders are accentuated.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: I think you meant patches on the jacket itself.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, I want patches on the jacket.
SPEAKER_3: Which I assume is also going good.
SPEAKER_3: No, don't even get me wrong.
SPEAKER_3: There's gonna be patches on this jacket.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_2: You're gay.
SPEAKER_2: You have to have patches.
SPEAKER_2: What do you think about zippers?
SPEAKER_3: It has to have a zipper, but whether the zipper is ever zipped up is another thing.
SPEAKER_3: So the leather jacket, I do have the zipper sort of diagonal.
SPEAKER_3: It's kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_3: I want sort of the normal vertical zipper, but I love a big tooth zipper.
SPEAKER_3: I want some, not like Roblox sort of.
SPEAKER_3: You know how Legos are small?
SPEAKER_3: You know Legos are small.
SPEAKER_3: You know Roblox are just like, if Legos sort of like got the Ant-Man particle, and then we're like, woof woof woof woof.
SPEAKER_2: I'm super familiar with that way of describing Roblox and super normal way to describe Roblox.
SPEAKER_3: So not that big.
SPEAKER_3: I want sort of like a happy medium between that.
SPEAKER_2: Happy medium.
SPEAKER_2: Slider to happy medium.
SPEAKER_3: They call me happy medium.
SPEAKER_2: That's my new NPC.
SPEAKER_2: I like that.
SPEAKER_2: Anything on the back?
SPEAKER_3: Eventually, I'm going to have a big old patch there.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: I think having a big patch on the back of your leather jacket is sort of the non-committal version of getting a back tattoo.
SPEAKER_3: But I know what it is.
SPEAKER_3: And also I have a back tattoo.
SPEAKER_3: But I know what it is.
SPEAKER_2: You don't have a back tattoo yet.
SPEAKER_3: I have two.
SPEAKER_2: But you don't have like a full back.
SPEAKER_3: No, my back isn't entirely covered, but I have two back tattoos.
SPEAKER_3: So the patch on the leather jacket is two like women with swords crossing the swords.
SPEAKER_3: Kind of like a skull and crossbones, the bones cross, but they're like back to back and they have the swords sort of over their shoulder crossing.
SPEAKER_2: Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_2: That's sick.
SPEAKER_3: Lesbians with swords.
SPEAKER_2: Lesbians with swords.
SPEAKER_2: You've made this gayer and gayer and gayer.
SPEAKER_2: You've made the gayest leather jacket possible.
SPEAKER_2: And here it is.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_2: So, I've just made it in the machine and we're just going to have to wait for it to print.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_2: So, it's just gonna...
SPEAKER_2: It's just gonna...
SPEAKER_3: Why is it smoking?
SPEAKER_3: Is that normal?
SPEAKER_3: Why is the smoke blue?
SPEAKER_2: Hmm.
SPEAKER_2: That...
SPEAKER_2: That doesn't...
SPEAKER_2: That's not quite...
SPEAKER_3: It's because it...
SPEAKER_3: Blew up.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, it sure did.
SPEAKER_3: I'll go find one soon.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Thanks for helping me try and solve this craving.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, no worries.
SPEAKER_2: 1954 got out, and I'm not sure what to do with that fact.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, it's fine.
SPEAKER_2: Anyway, that's probably fine.
SPEAKER_3: Probably fine.
SPEAKER_3: Nothing happened then anyways.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, nothing happened then.
SPEAKER_2: Nothing.
SPEAKER_2: Nothing at all.
SPEAKER_2: Can I give you a craving?
SPEAKER_3: Please.
SPEAKER_2: I just...
SPEAKER_2: I wanted to make sure.
SPEAKER_3: You want to make sure.
SPEAKER_2: So one of the podcasts that I've recently started listening to, recently being like October...
SPEAKER_3: October is recent.
SPEAKER_2: October is recent is Waypoint Radio, which is the podcast that the crew over at Vice Gaming, formerly known as Waypoint, do about video games, basically, and Austin Walker is a part of it, who runs Friends of the Table, which is why I started listening.
SPEAKER_2: But I really, really enjoy it.
SPEAKER_2: And one of the things that I've been enjoying listening to the backlog and one of the things that I did a little bit last year and have been really interested and excited for this year is looking at Game of the Year coverage.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's really interesting to see what games different people put as like they're kind of some of their best games each year.
SPEAKER_2: I'm very bad at knowing when games come out.
SPEAKER_2: Especially when I wasn't listening to a podcast that tells you when games come out.
SPEAKER_2: I'm terrible at knowing when games come out.
SPEAKER_2: And so I usually end up playing things that are just like, oh, this was last year's or the year before's Game of the Year.
SPEAKER_2: I'm playing it now, which has happened with multiple games that I played last year and this year.
SPEAKER_2: And so I get really excited to find out what are the games that were good this year so I can go back and play them and be a year behind.
SPEAKER_2: But only a year behind, which is better than I was.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, do you really have to catch up on games?
SPEAKER_3: Can't you just play games you like whenever you want to play the games?
SPEAKER_2: Unfortunately, you cannot because of systems and because games that are so old, sometimes you can't get any more.
SPEAKER_3: You can download them.
SPEAKER_2: You can.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, usually you can emulate them and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_2: But it is kind of fun to hear what people think about specific games because like often it's critics that you trust or are interested in.
SPEAKER_2: There's a bunch that I follow on Twitter and I'm like, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_2: I started playing a game that you also started playing, Heaven Will Be Mine, because it was Austin Walker's number two game of 2018.
SPEAKER_2: That game rules.
SPEAKER_2: That game is super good.
SPEAKER_3: It was Austin Walker's top five of 2019 as well.
SPEAKER_2: Was it?
SPEAKER_3: He had five indie games that was his favorite this decade.
SPEAKER_3: Oh no.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that game is rad.
SPEAKER_2: I also started playing Celeste this year.
SPEAKER_3: I never finished Celeste.
SPEAKER_2: I have finished it.
SPEAKER_2: I'm going to 100% complete it.
SPEAKER_2: It is so hard.
SPEAKER_2: It is so good.
SPEAKER_2: It is a game that attempts to beat you to death and say you can do it.
SPEAKER_2: And I'm like fully there for it.
SPEAKER_2: I'm like, yes, this is extremely difficult and I'm suffering, but I feel so excited about this.
SPEAKER_2: It is a very weird feeling to have, but it's a really, really good game.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know.
SPEAKER_2: The thing that I'm craving is finding out what games people like in a given year.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, so the craving is knowing a person's favorite game rather than knowing when games come out.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it more has to do with like, oh, I really like hearing what this person really liked this year in games or what their top games of the year were, because it's always really interesting, especially when you're looking at specific people, you find their tastes really influence what it is.
SPEAKER_2: I'm not interested in finding out what the best game of the year was.
SPEAKER_2: I'm interested in finding out what people's favorite games of the year were.
SPEAKER_2: I've played very few 2019 games, but I played a lot of games in 2019.
SPEAKER_2: Celeste is probably my game of the year.
SPEAKER_2: Despite the fact that it came out in 2018, it's fine.
SPEAKER_2: There was a DLC release for it.
SPEAKER_3: If there's a DLC for it, it came out that year.
SPEAKER_2: But sometimes a game gets re-released for the Switch, especially.
SPEAKER_3: Game of the Year Edition.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, Game of the Year Edition, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_2: So, Clair, what are some games that you really enjoyed playing in 2019?
SPEAKER_2: I want to know what games that came out in 2019 that you loved, and what games that you really enjoyed playing this year, if those two answers are different.
SPEAKER_3: Well, they overlap, but I can give different answers.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, give me a couple of ones that were really monumental for you.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, obviously, there's Pokemon.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, Sword and Shield were extremely good.
SPEAKER_3: They were good.
SPEAKER_3: Finish them rather quickly.
SPEAKER_2: I still have not finished Shield because I've been playing Celeste.
SPEAKER_3: Did enjoy Celeste, never finished it.
SPEAKER_2: I know one game you played.
SPEAKER_3: What game did I play?
SPEAKER_2: You played Fire Emblem Three Houses.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, fuck, I never finished Fire Emblem Three Houses.
SPEAKER_2: That's okay, you don't have to have finished it to enjoy the game.
SPEAKER_3: Okay, so the thing with Fire Emblem Three Houses is I've sunk in like 70 hours into it, and I'm like in the last month of the run where you basically let the Empire take over the continent and never finished it because Pokemon came out.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_3: But I did love Fire Emblem Three Houses, and I will return to it eventually.
SPEAKER_3: I think one game that I wasn't expecting to like as much as I have, and I haven't played a whole bunch of it, and it has problems, there's a lot of problems, is Xeno Play 2.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: It did not come out in 2019, but God, just if you do play it, just download the Japanese voice packs.
SPEAKER_3: Don't waste your time listening to it in English.
SPEAKER_3: Oh my God, the voice actors are so bad.
SPEAKER_3: No disrespect, but holy crap, the Japanese voice actors are just better.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, fair.
SPEAKER_3: I feel like I played so many games and I don't remember anything.
SPEAKER_3: One game that I've been playing a lot this year that didn't come out this year was Stardew Valley.
SPEAKER_3: I sort of picked it up again because it came out on the Switch.
SPEAKER_3: And it's just so much better.
SPEAKER_2: It's so much better.
SPEAKER_3: The handheld and the new update is on the Switch now that lets you see everybody's favorite things finally.
SPEAKER_2: Which is great.
SPEAKER_2: It gives you an idea of what stuff needs to go to the community center.
SPEAKER_2: Stuff like that.
SPEAKER_2: Lots of quality of life stuff.
SPEAKER_2: I originally played it last year, but it's a game that I got quite into this year.
SPEAKER_2: What are some of your games?
SPEAKER_2: I got my Switch basically at the beginning of last year, which means that most games that are on my Switch are games that I played this year, which means I have some favorites.
SPEAKER_2: I said that Celeste was my game of the year, but I remembered that I also played Breath of the Wild this year.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, Breath of the Wild was so good.
SPEAKER_2: Breath of the Wild is an incredible, just beautiful...
SPEAKER_3: It really set the standard for the Switch.
SPEAKER_2: It really did.
SPEAKER_2: It's like the first game that I got for the Switch was Super Mario Odyssey, which I believe I completed last year.
SPEAKER_2: It may have gone into this year.
SPEAKER_2: And Odyssey is an incredible game.
SPEAKER_2: And Breath of the Wild is just stunning and gorgeous and beautiful.
SPEAKER_2: And the Switch's lineup is amazing, but Breath of the Wild really kicked it off.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, we're going to be doing stuff different.
SPEAKER_2: I played Dead Cells this year, a game that I originally played when we were living together, but I beat it this year, which was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know that I would say it's my favorite game of the year, but it's a really, really fun roguelike platformer.
SPEAKER_2: I also liked Pokemon.
SPEAKER_2: I played Deltarune this year.
SPEAKER_2: Smash is great.
SPEAKER_2: I played a lot of games this year that ruled.
SPEAKER_2: This year was a very good year for games for me, despite the fact that pretty much none of the games that I played were games that came out this year.
SPEAKER_2: I was mostly playing games of 2017 and 2018, and I was happy with that.
SPEAKER_2: I think Undertale I played this year, there's a lot of extremely good games that I played this year.
SPEAKER_2: I could do a top 10, and none of them would be from 2019, except for Pokemon.
SPEAKER_2: They're all extremely good games.
SPEAKER_3: I think Pokemon is my game of the year.
SPEAKER_3: Making it easy on myself.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, fair.
SPEAKER_2: I'm surprised that it wins over Three Houses for you.
SPEAKER_2: You liked that game a lot.
SPEAKER_3: I liked Three Houses.
SPEAKER_3: I like open world games a little more.
SPEAKER_2: Fair.
SPEAKER_2: Pokemon had an open world flair this year.
SPEAKER_3: It did.
SPEAKER_3: I think the wilds were quite large.
SPEAKER_3: They were large enough for me at least.
SPEAKER_3: I'm sure other people were like, it's tiny after Breath of the Wild.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I definitely was like, okay, this feels like a mini Breath of the Wild, and it's kind of fine.
SPEAKER_2: I liked having Pokemon appear.
SPEAKER_2: That whole mechanic is awesome.
SPEAKER_3: They took the mechanic from Let's Go and refined it.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, they super did.
SPEAKER_3: What's the joke?
SPEAKER_2: There's no joke.
SPEAKER_2: I think there's just...
SPEAKER_2: Listen, Clair, I think there's space for us to just be positive about things that we like, and I like a lot of things.
SPEAKER_3: I guess we can talk about the things that we like once a year.
SPEAKER_3: I suppose there's room for that.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, not just the things that we crave, which are definitely not things that we like.
SPEAKER_3: Sometimes I crave things that I like, and sometimes I like things that I crave.
SPEAKER_3: Can I return us to maybe the world of cravings then?
SPEAKER_2: Of not just things that we like?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, I did have a craving to find out what people liked.
SPEAKER_3: How are we doing it?
SPEAKER_2: We did it.
SPEAKER_3: I guess we asked.
SPEAKER_2: I found out what you liked.
SPEAKER_3: That's true.
SPEAKER_3: Hey, I know how we can solve this craving.
SPEAKER_2: Hey, if you really enjoyed games this year or any media really, like I love hearing about what media people enjoyed in general.
SPEAKER_3: Tell us your favorite game.
SPEAKER_2: Tell us your favorite game.
SPEAKER_2: I'm so curious to hear from people.
SPEAKER_3: Tweet at us.
SPEAKER_2: Tweet at us.
SPEAKER_2: Save my craving.
SPEAKER_2: What's your craving for the next year?
SPEAKER_2: Tell me what you want in the new year, Clair.
SPEAKER_3: So 2019 was a year of growth for me.
SPEAKER_3: And so one thing that I'd really like in 2020, I've been craving spreading the lessons that I've learned this year, the hard way, and making it so that other people can not have to go through it the hard way.
SPEAKER_2: You are like a flower, dripping the water off of your leaves to onto the ground so the flowers around you may grow as well.
SPEAKER_3: Are you saying that the people I know are dirt?
SPEAKER_2: They're also flowers.
SPEAKER_2: It's just the growth is dirt.
SPEAKER_2: The dirt is the water.
SPEAKER_2: No, the growth is the dirt and also the water.
SPEAKER_2: It's both.
SPEAKER_3: So the problem with this...
SPEAKER_2: I was making a really nice metaphor that was really wholesome and good, and I just needed to validate myself on that.
SPEAKER_2: Continue.
SPEAKER_3: So the problem with this is often when you get into the series conversations about what has happened to you, and you try to impart knowledge and whatnot, often it's really hard to understand where that's coming from, and if you don't have the same life experience, then it can be hollow words.
SPEAKER_2: What do you mean exactly?
SPEAKER_3: When you're trying to share an idea with someone about the things that you have learned through hard outcomes, but they do not share these experiences, they will often be like, ah, these are words I do not understand.
SPEAKER_3: So I don't want to just share words this year.
SPEAKER_3: I want to share experiences.
SPEAKER_2: You want to share bad experiences?
SPEAKER_3: But like, so you know, when you get a vaccination, it's like you get injected with the virus, but it's an inert virus.
SPEAKER_3: I want to share inert bad experiences.
SPEAKER_2: I think really amusingly, the thing that you're describing is why I like Celeste.
SPEAKER_2: You want to put someone through an experience that will help them grow, no matter the cost.
SPEAKER_2: You want to force someone to experience something difficult.
SPEAKER_3: No, no, I want to like hand someone a bad experience, be like, don't worry, this is inert.
SPEAKER_3: I've already experienced it.
SPEAKER_2: How do you transfer your own experience?
SPEAKER_1: That's what I need to know.
SPEAKER_3: How are we doing this?
SPEAKER_3: Like, is it just like you just sort of like put your foreheads together and you think real hard?
SPEAKER_3: There's a small little sticker you stick to your forehead.
SPEAKER_2: I have an idea.
SPEAKER_2: You simply enter.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, no.
SPEAKER_2: The Mindscape.
SPEAKER_3: We have to go into inception.
SPEAKER_2: But you have someone step into your memories.
SPEAKER_2: They just get to view.
SPEAKER_3: This just sounds like inception.
SPEAKER_2: No, that was dreams.
SPEAKER_3: Okay, but it sounds like awake inception.
SPEAKER_2: This is woke inception.
SPEAKER_2: And we will put people through things without it harming them.
SPEAKER_3: We need to plant an inert idea.
SPEAKER_2: Because instead of having them go through it, they will get to witness you go through it in your memories.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, so they just like...
SPEAKER_2: They have to be people who care about you also.
SPEAKER_3: So we have this jack that we plug into our heads, and we play our memory in a theater for people.
SPEAKER_2: I don't think that that is immersed enough.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_2: I think they've got to be there.
SPEAKER_3: So we have little cables going from our brains to other brains.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, and it's like a VR situation where they're seeing the memory play out.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know, is it more interesting if it's from your perspective, or is it just they're a third party seeing it and seeing you go through it?
SPEAKER_3: If you want.
SPEAKER_2: If you want them to really feel it, you've got to put it in your seat.
SPEAKER_3: I don't though, it's inert.
SPEAKER_3: I don't want them to experience it.
SPEAKER_2: They're not experiencing it.
SPEAKER_2: It's not real for them.
SPEAKER_2: It's real for you.
SPEAKER_3: But you wanted to make it real.
SPEAKER_2: I'm not making it real.
SPEAKER_2: I'm making it seem real.
SPEAKER_3: I feel like that's almost as bad.
SPEAKER_2: As the person who's scared of horror things, you're right, it is.
SPEAKER_2: I didn't think this through.
SPEAKER_2: And I am no longer helping.
SPEAKER_3: Have fun!
SPEAKER_1: Brianna just sort of left me on my own.
SPEAKER_2: I'm gonna leave, actually.
SPEAKER_2: So you can just...
SPEAKER_2: I just do the podcast by myself.
SPEAKER_2: You can just do the podcast by yourself now.
SPEAKER_3: So I guess the solution to this...
SPEAKER_3: Okay, you know when you're like a teenager and there's a bridge, and you hook a loogie off the bridge at oncoming traffic?
SPEAKER_3: What if...
SPEAKER_2: Sorry, I came back into the room because I was so enticed by what you're talking about here.
SPEAKER_2: Please go on.
SPEAKER_2: So you're hooking a loogie.
SPEAKER_3: So you're hooking a loogie, and you sort of just get the people to line up under you.
SPEAKER_3: And then you sort of transfer your memory into your saliva, and it sort of solidifies into a pill.
SPEAKER_3: And then you spit this pill into their mouth, sort of like a baby bird eating from their mother bird.
SPEAKER_2: This is a really intimate way to share.
SPEAKER_3: Well, yeah, they're intimate memories.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I guess they're intimate.
SPEAKER_3: You think I'm just gonna share these memories with anyone?
SPEAKER_2: You're not going around with the strange spitting pills into people's mouths.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, if you were really wanting to spread this, you would spread it to everyone.
SPEAKER_2: Like a virus.
SPEAKER_2: Like an inert virus.
SPEAKER_3: So can my experiences transfer to you and then transfer to somebody else through you?
SPEAKER_2: That's a good question.
SPEAKER_3: Like, do they take different forms?
SPEAKER_3: Does it get muddled?
SPEAKER_2: I like the idea that it gets muddled like some game of bad experience, memory telephone.
SPEAKER_2: It goes from like...
SPEAKER_3: I really had a bad time, like, visiting this dolphin.
SPEAKER_3: And then like ten memories later, it's like, dolphins are evil.
SPEAKER_2: No, it's like, I had a great time visiting this monkey.
SPEAKER_2: Like, that's where it got to.
SPEAKER_3: I want to know who transferred the dolphin into the monkey.
SPEAKER_3: What does the dolphin-monkey hybrid look like?
SPEAKER_3: Like, there had to be sort of like a transition period.
SPEAKER_2: That's the noise it makes.
SPEAKER_3: So is it just like a dolphin with arms and legs?
SPEAKER_3: Or is it like a furry dolphin?
SPEAKER_3: Or is it like a smooth monkey?
SPEAKER_2: It's a dolphin with a monkey head.
SPEAKER_1: Where is the head attached?
SPEAKER_3: Dolphins don't have necks.
SPEAKER_2: It's attached to the front of the dolphin.
SPEAKER_3: That's it?
SPEAKER_3: That's the whole thing?
SPEAKER_3: It's just a fucking dolphin with a monkey head.
SPEAKER_3: Is the head furry and the dolphin body is so smooth?
SPEAKER_2: And the arms and legs, of course, are also furry.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, and they just like swim like, instead of like gliding through the water.
SPEAKER_3: They sort of just doggy paddle like, but through the water.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, this is perfect.
SPEAKER_2: This is not body horror at all.
SPEAKER_2: But I think it would teach people a whole lot.
SPEAKER_3: I think it would.
SPEAKER_3: I think I would understand, like, yeah, I don't want to go near that thing either.
SPEAKER_2: They'd grow because they'd learn.
SPEAKER_2: Monkey dolphins are bad.
SPEAKER_2: This is a good idea.
SPEAKER_2: I like this.
SPEAKER_2: Is it?
SPEAKER_2: No, but I like it.
SPEAKER_2: I think that there is something to be said for wanting to pass on the growth that you've experienced.
SPEAKER_2: I was about to get really genuine and real, so let's completely scrap what I was going to do, and let's talk about literal growth.
SPEAKER_3: So you know when you get a mole on your neck or whatever, and you scrape a little bit off, and then you can transfer it to the other person?
SPEAKER_2: A, never want to just scrape my mole off.
SPEAKER_3: Not all of them.
SPEAKER_2: B, how do you transfer it to another person?
SPEAKER_2: What the fuck do you mean?
SPEAKER_3: You know when you transplant sort of like a seedling or like a branch to another pot, and then it grows?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I do know that, yeah.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: So, so...
SPEAKER_3: You sort of just like...
SPEAKER_2: So you are, is this a metaphysical thing that you're transferring, or is it a literal physical thing?
SPEAKER_3: Yes, it's like the mole, but the mole contains the experience.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, how do we make it so the experience filters down into the mole?
SPEAKER_3: You know when you're studying for like an exam and you get so anxious that you like sort of break out?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_3: I think it's like memory breakouts, right?
SPEAKER_3: Like when you're just like...
SPEAKER_2: Super normal.
SPEAKER_3: When you're like tossing and turning in bed and you're reliving that like childhood, that time you said like thanks you too to the server when they like said...
SPEAKER_2: The most traumatic memory I have as a child, absolutely.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, and so...
SPEAKER_3: She said enjoy your food.
SPEAKER_2: She said enjoy your food.
SPEAKER_2: And I said it.
SPEAKER_2: I said thanks you too.
SPEAKER_3: And it sort of just turns into like a pimple.
SPEAKER_3: And then you sort of like you pop the pimple, but you keep the juice.
SPEAKER_2: Is this...
SPEAKER_3: This is bad memory pimple juice.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, is this the Harry Potter model of you lose the memory?
SPEAKER_2: Because there's the like thing, I don't even remember what it's called, but it's the play thing.
SPEAKER_2: I think you can, right?
SPEAKER_3: If you pop the pimple, then the bad memory is gone.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_3: You collect the pimple juice.
SPEAKER_2: So does this mean your growth is gone?
SPEAKER_3: You put it in a vat, and you relive with the pimple juicer.
SPEAKER_3: So like in Harry Potter, they have the thing where you can relive a memory any amount of times or whatever.
SPEAKER_2: Hang on.
SPEAKER_2: I have a question about the whole Harry Potter system with memories and stuff.
SPEAKER_2: If you deposit a memory into this thing, and then you relive that memory, and you have a memory of reliving the memory, do you lose that memory of reliving that memory, or do you have the memory of reliving the memory, and therefore still have the memory?
SPEAKER_3: So you've lost the memory, and then you relive that memory, and then you lose the memory of reliving that memory.
SPEAKER_3: I don't think there's a scrap of that memory anymore in your brain, so I think you've lost it all.
SPEAKER_2: That's awful.
SPEAKER_3: So you just have to relive the reliving of the memory.
SPEAKER_2: This is terrible.
SPEAKER_2: Why does this thing exist?
SPEAKER_2: Who wants this?
SPEAKER_2: Especially when bad experiences can be, you know, utilized for growth.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, we want to share that.
SPEAKER_3: We don't want to just get rid of the bad experiences.
SPEAKER_2: But you're also, what you're proposing here gets rid of the bad experience.
SPEAKER_3: No matter how many pimples you pop, you can't get rid of your bad experiences.
SPEAKER_2: Thank God.
SPEAKER_2: This is what I wanted.
SPEAKER_3: You can chug the pimple juice to gain more experiences.
SPEAKER_2: More bad experiences is the specific thing you're saying here.
SPEAKER_2: Which in fairness, I think chugging pimple juice would be a pretty bad experience.
SPEAKER_3: And that's really the downside.
SPEAKER_3: Like getting a shot isn't always the greatest.
SPEAKER_3: Get your vaccines, get vaccinated, chug your pimple juice.
SPEAKER_2: Get vaccinated, chug your pimple juice.
SPEAKER_2: And that's how you'll grow.
SPEAKER_3: You know what they say, a pimple juice a day keeps the memories in the bay.
SPEAKER_3: Come to the bay, we have sweaters for $299.
SPEAKER_2: That's not true.
SPEAKER_2: Maybe $299.
SPEAKER_3: Do you want to give me a craving?
SPEAKER_3: I would love to give you the last craving ever of this year, of 2019.
SPEAKER_3: This is a lot.
SPEAKER_3: It better be good.
SPEAKER_2: The last craving of the decade.
SPEAKER_3: No pressure, but like this is going to define our entire everything going forward.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: If it sucks, I think it's over.
SPEAKER_3: What is happening?
SPEAKER_2: Animal Crossing is happening.
SPEAKER_3: Listen.
SPEAKER_2: Listen to me, Clark.
SPEAKER_3: That could have been so many things.
SPEAKER_2: That is what Animal Crossing noises sound like.
SPEAKER_3: What if, so like in 2020, they're going to give them all real voices now and you're going to sound like a fool.
SPEAKER_2: I would love some voice acting.
SPEAKER_3: I'm a raccoon.
SPEAKER_3: I give you mortgages.
SPEAKER_2: Yo, what's up?
SPEAKER_2: I'm Tom Nook.
SPEAKER_2: I'm a raccoon, and I'm going to give you mortgages.
SPEAKER_3: Yo, pay your mortgage, or I'm going to kick your kneecaps.
SPEAKER_2: Bust your kneecaps?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that's how Animal Crossing works.
SPEAKER_2: Tom Nook is terrible.
SPEAKER_2: I would love to hear what Isabel's voice acting sounds like.
SPEAKER_2: She's the like, hey, what's up?
SPEAKER_2: I'm Isabel.
SPEAKER_2: How you doing?
SPEAKER_3: She's that in the English dub, but then in the Japanese dub, she has the ulu voice.
SPEAKER_1: I sound like a 10 year old.
SPEAKER_3: But then like the English dub is like, and I will save you from the universe.
SPEAKER_3: I am a dog.
SPEAKER_2: I also want to say Tom Nook's voice would be like a CEO voice or something.
SPEAKER_3: What is a CEO voice?
SPEAKER_2: Like he's better than you.
SPEAKER_2: Anyway, Animal Crossing is coming.
SPEAKER_2: 2020.
SPEAKER_3: You might get Sonic'd.
SPEAKER_2: We've already gotten Sonic'd.
SPEAKER_3: I know, and we might get Sonic'd again.
SPEAKER_3: Sonic'd me once, shame on you.
SPEAKER_3: Sonic'd me twice, gotta go fast.
SPEAKER_2: I'm so excited for Animal Crossing.
SPEAKER_2: Every time a new Animal Crossing game comes out, I get obsessed with it for a very long time.
SPEAKER_2: And this one has a lot of things that I'm very excited for.
SPEAKER_3: It's like Minecraft.
SPEAKER_2: Here's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_2: One of the things that I'm thinking about a lot with Animal Crossing is you are going to have the option to have islands with your friends.
SPEAKER_2: I think I've said before that one of the things that I really enjoy is playing games with friends.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: And here's my main thing with Animal Crossing.
SPEAKER_2: You've got one file.
SPEAKER_2: You know, the way that the Switch typically works, at least as far as I know with Animal Crossing, you're going to have one island.
SPEAKER_2: Should I have that island be an individual, just for me, island, or should it be an island with friends?
SPEAKER_2: Here's the hard questions.
SPEAKER_2: Is my 2020 going to be about me deeply loving a specific game that's an individual love, or is it about loving that game with friends and not making sure that every detail of the game is exactly to my particular liking?
SPEAKER_2: It's a hard choice.
SPEAKER_2: And now I have to figure out what to do.
SPEAKER_3: How are we going to make this decision?
SPEAKER_3: Toying costs?
SPEAKER_2: Toying costs?
SPEAKER_1: Toying costs?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, let's do a toying cost.
SPEAKER_2: What's a toying cost?
SPEAKER_2: Tell me what a toying cost is, Clair.
SPEAKER_3: So, okay.
SPEAKER_3: So you have to...
SPEAKER_3: It's a very delicate process.
SPEAKER_3: You have to take your toying.
SPEAKER_2: Right, we all know what a toying is.
SPEAKER_3: And you...
SPEAKER_3: If you're not careful, if you cost it the wrong way, you're gonna get a bad outcome.
SPEAKER_2: Okay.
SPEAKER_3: But if you cost it just right, it'll tell you what you need.
SPEAKER_3: It'll tell you the future.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_2: So we can just toying cost.
SPEAKER_2: So let's toying cost.
SPEAKER_3: I left my toying at home.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, I don't have a toying.
SPEAKER_2: It's fine, we can't toying cost.
SPEAKER_3: We still have the solutions.
SPEAKER_2: We still have to talk about this.
SPEAKER_2: What do you come to games for, Clair?
SPEAKER_2: Do you come to games for the communal friendship experience of sharing it with your friends and like having fun with it together?
SPEAKER_2: Or do you come to it to have a really fun individual experience with the game?
SPEAKER_3: Depends on the game.
SPEAKER_3: I got into New Leaf, but it was by myself.
SPEAKER_3: And then I was really bored with it like a couple hours in and then I never really touched again.
SPEAKER_3: So like, I'm definitely coming to this new Animal Crossing with like, Oh, I actually know people who like Animal Crossing this time.
SPEAKER_2: We have so many friends who like Animal Crossing, this is why it's a choice for me is like, am I gonna have four people living on this island with like more people that we can bring in?
SPEAKER_3: Can't you sort of just like have a corner of the island be for people?
SPEAKER_3: Get the people corner.
SPEAKER_2: So what do you mean for people?
SPEAKER_3: I don't know anything about Animal Crossing, but it's like, so there's villagers, and then there's your friends.
SPEAKER_2: Right.
SPEAKER_2: And the villagers are your friends.
SPEAKER_2: Now, let me be very clear, you're friends with the villagers too.
SPEAKER_2: Everyone's your friend.
SPEAKER_2: Welcome to Animal Crossing.
SPEAKER_2: But I mean the human friends.
SPEAKER_3: Okay, well the human friends get a corner.
SPEAKER_2: And they all have to live in that corner.
SPEAKER_3: Well yeah, because if you have your friend corner, and I have my friend corner, then it just depends like whose island are we on.
SPEAKER_2: So you're not imagining this sort of quadrant system where if we have four people, each person can get a corner.
SPEAKER_2: No, three people are in one corner, and one person has the rest of the island.
SPEAKER_2: I like this.
SPEAKER_2: This is extremely good.
SPEAKER_3: They all share.
SPEAKER_3: Like look, it's your island.
SPEAKER_3: We all have an island.
SPEAKER_2: Animal Crossing Islands are big.
SPEAKER_3: The thing about this game is everybody has an island.
SPEAKER_2: How is Animal Crossing going to work?
SPEAKER_3: We obviously have the game, and this is why we're giving ourselves corners for our friends.
SPEAKER_3: The friend corner, just like when you send your friends to the corner of your place.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, and make them stand there.
SPEAKER_2: One of the beautiful things about Animal Crossing is being able to be like, hey, look at this thing that I made.
SPEAKER_3: It's kind of like Minecraft now, which is why I'm more interested in it.
SPEAKER_2: There's a lot of Minecrafting elements.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, and sardines.
SPEAKER_2: There's no mining, as far as I know.
SPEAKER_2: There could be mining.
SPEAKER_3: Maybe you have an underground island.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, Animal Crossing mining.
SPEAKER_2: That'd be fun.
SPEAKER_3: You just want Minecraft with Animal Crossing characters.
SPEAKER_2: That is exactly what I want.
SPEAKER_2: The worst thing.
SPEAKER_2: Listen, I love Minecraft a whole lot.
SPEAKER_2: I don't like the aesthetics of Minecraft all that much.
SPEAKER_2: I must prefer the aesthetics of Animal Crossing, and I would love a Minecraft with Animal Crossing aesthetics, and that's why I'm so excited for Animal Crossing New Horizons, and also because Animal Crossing is a very good game.
SPEAKER_3: They really like to stick with the new in the title, eh?
SPEAKER_2: First, it's Leaf, now it's Horizons.
SPEAKER_2: Now, first it was...
SPEAKER_3: The next one's gonna be like New...
SPEAKER_2: Well, not the Leaf.
SPEAKER_3: New Dunk City.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, New Dunk City.
SPEAKER_2: Animal Crossing New Dunk City, everyone.
SPEAKER_2: The crossover you never knew you needed.
SPEAKER_2: Urban Animal Crossing was done, that was city folk.
SPEAKER_3: Toad comes into your town and is like, Hello!
SPEAKER_1: I've escaped the monarchy!
SPEAKER_1: Is this island for me?
SPEAKER_1: I'm gonna set up the new monarchy over here!
SPEAKER_2: Toad, I am already queen.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I guess I have to defraud you too!
SPEAKER_1: I already overthrew the last monarchy with all my friends!
SPEAKER_2: Wait, what happened to Princess Peach?
SPEAKER_1: Oh, don't worry about it!
SPEAKER_1: She's in the 30 hundreds with the 2010s!
SPEAKER_1: Super normal.
SPEAKER_1: Long live the Toad Empire!
SPEAKER_2: Oh no, it's an empire?
SPEAKER_2: I can't believe the Toads are colonizers!
SPEAKER_2: Are you really that surprised?
SPEAKER_2: I'm not that surprised.
SPEAKER_2: Toads do give off an imperialist vibe.
SPEAKER_3: That's just a thing they say.
SPEAKER_2: Oh yeah, sounds about right.
SPEAKER_2: New Horizons, new Leaf.
SPEAKER_2: New Toads.
SPEAKER_2: It's a combat game where you have to fight off Toads.
SPEAKER_3: Oh god.
SPEAKER_2: Listen, Animal Crossing, they can fight now.
SPEAKER_2: What if there's an option?
SPEAKER_2: Now this is fully speculation.
SPEAKER_3: This is real leaks.
SPEAKER_2: What if in Animal Crossing, New Horizons, they recognize that since you've been using Villager and Isabel in Smash, what if you can fight your friends in Animal Crossing?
SPEAKER_3: What?
SPEAKER_2: Wait, this is not what I thought this was gonna be.
SPEAKER_2: What if one of the buildings you can build is a boxing ring, and you could just box with your friends?
SPEAKER_2: Villager has boxing gloves in Super Smash Brothers, a thing that they do not have in Animal Crossing until now.
SPEAKER_3: It was predictive.
SPEAKER_2: It was predictive.
SPEAKER_2: And now you can fight your friends in Animal Crossing New Horizons.
SPEAKER_3: Is it real boxing?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think you have to learn real boxing rules.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_2: Like, no, it's a one-to-one.
SPEAKER_3: And there's a whole mythos around it, too.
SPEAKER_3: Just like real boxing.
SPEAKER_2: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_2: People, like, it's broadcasted, of course.
SPEAKER_3: Oh, of course.
SPEAKER_2: It's what Nintendo Online is for.
SPEAKER_3: Villagers, like, wipes away the blood, and it's like, oh, good fight, good fight.
SPEAKER_3: I'm gonna get them next time.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that's extremely good.
SPEAKER_3: Villagers, like, has a concussion, has to go to the hospital.
SPEAKER_2: Because there's a hospital now.
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, on the island.
SPEAKER_2: Wait, have there never been a hospital in an Animal Crossing game before?
SPEAKER_3: That would involve injuries being in Animal Crossing games.
SPEAKER_2: What if?
SPEAKER_3: Look, you can't get injured on an island.
SPEAKER_3: That's just science.
SPEAKER_2: What if Animal Crossing goes full-on survival?
SPEAKER_2: Like, you're not just trying to create a wonderful new island.
SPEAKER_2: You're on a deserted island.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: You need to survive.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, you do.
SPEAKER_2: You need to survive.
SPEAKER_2: You need to eat.
SPEAKER_2: You need to keep track of your hunger.
SPEAKER_2: You need to keep track of your thirst.
SPEAKER_3: Tom Nook might be there, but you're like, I'm so thirsty.
SPEAKER_3: And Tom Nook is like chugging water.
SPEAKER_3: Like, that sucks.
SPEAKER_3: For you.
SPEAKER_2: Tom Nook is like, oh, do you have bells?
SPEAKER_2: And they're like, no, I'm on a deserted island.
SPEAKER_2: Pours water on the ground.
SPEAKER_2: Then I guess you don't get any.
SPEAKER_3: Also, bells is such like a bad currency.
SPEAKER_3: Like where do you keep all your bells?
SPEAKER_3: And it must like sound awful, right?
SPEAKER_3: You just have a vault of bells and you open the door.
SPEAKER_2: Actually, they look like leaves.
SPEAKER_2: They're bags.
SPEAKER_3: So they're gonna deteriorate.
SPEAKER_2: So I mean, there could be bells in the bags.
SPEAKER_2: You're right.
SPEAKER_2: Because it's just a bag with a leaf symbol on it.
SPEAKER_2: So it could be that there are bells in those bags, which would be very noisy.
SPEAKER_2: I'd consider that.
SPEAKER_3: That would be awful.
SPEAKER_3: It would sound terrible.
SPEAKER_3: Tom Nook probably sounds-
SPEAKER_2: This is why there's no full on bank.
SPEAKER_2: There's places where you can put your money in an ATM.
SPEAKER_3: The bank is just the bell tower.
SPEAKER_3: That's what they call it.
SPEAKER_3: It's the bell tower.
SPEAKER_2: It's the bell tower.
SPEAKER_2: And if you ever want your bells, it's just gonna be a horrible experience for you.
SPEAKER_3: You have to wade through them.
SPEAKER_2: All of these and more in Animal Crossing New Horizons 2020.
SPEAKER_3: New Bell.
SPEAKER_3: New Toad.
SPEAKER_2: Come to Animal Crossing!
SPEAKER_2: I'm so fucking excited for this game, dude.
SPEAKER_2: I looked at 2020, like stuff that's coming out in 2020.
SPEAKER_2: There's a lot of stuff that is not, you know, it's not my year, except for Animal Crossing, is absolutely my thing.
SPEAKER_1: It'll be my year too!
SPEAKER_1: 2020 is the year of the total jimdakins!
SPEAKER_2: Toads rise up!
SPEAKER_1: Toads rise up!
SPEAKER_3: This has been Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_2: This has been Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_3: You can find us on social media at Salt Cravings on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
SPEAKER_2: You can donate to our Patreon, patreon.com/saltcravings.
SPEAKER_3: You can also send us submissions, submissions at Salt Cravings, or tweet at us, Facebook at us, or Instagram.
SPEAKER_2: Remember, we want to know, we want to know what did you like in 2019?
SPEAKER_2: What did you like in 2019?
SPEAKER_3: Yeah, what did you like in 2019?
SPEAKER_3: What was your favorite game?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, tell us what your thoughts are, because I would love to know.
SPEAKER_3: Go rate us on iTunes or Stitcher or whatever.
SPEAKER_3: Where do you get your Pong Counts?
SPEAKER_2: Thank you for sharing this year with us.
SPEAKER_3: We're getting rid of the year, but thank you for trying to spend it.
SPEAKER_2: We're gonna get rid of it, but we really appreciate that you were here for it, even though it's not gonna exist anymore.
SPEAKER_3: I hope you enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, as soon as you stop listening to it, you're gonna be like, what did I just listen to?
SPEAKER_3: It's not even there anymore.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's not even there anymore.
SPEAKER_3: This isn't gonna exist anymore.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, as far as you know, Salt Cravings started in 2020.
SPEAKER_3: I mean, our first episode is coming up.
SPEAKER_2: Our first episode is coming up.
SPEAKER_3: I'm so excited to release our first episode next time.
SPEAKER_2: I hope you're excited for Salt Cravings, the first episode.