We reveal the winners and runner-ups for our '23 Community Awards, go over some exciting Toronto indie game dev news and cap off with a long conversation about good (?!) microtransactions and lax technical standards in recent AAA games- and why Spider-Man 2 didn't give us the immediate fatigue Ragnarok did.

LISTEN HERE:

CANADIAN GAMING NEWS:

• Toronto, ON: friend-of-the-site indie dev Devon Taking Beta Sing-ups for Upcoming FPS (closes Feb 16!)

• Toronto, ON: DrinkBox Gives First Teaser of Future Project (very bottom of post, concept art)

WISHLIST THIS:

Captain Soda by @Poe_Flower in BC

Spring in Summer by @LORENINEstudios in Canada

DEEP DOWN by Devil Studios in Montréal, QC. Releasing TBD, Wishlist on Steam

EPISODE CREDITS:

HOSTED BY: @StephanReilly (London, ON) & @StephenLCrane (Owen Sound, ON)

PRODUCED BY: Stephan “there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO” Reilly

PODCAST ART BY: @Poltergust234! (Ko-fi - Alberta)

TIMESTAMPS:

• 00:00 - Producer's Note (sorry its late)

• 00:45 - Intro Music by @jakebutineau (Toronto, ON)

• 00:15 - '23 Community Awards Poll Winners Revealed/Discussed (apologies for Stephan's bad audio through most of it)

• 10:07 - 'The Shroud of the Deep' from the Darkest Dungeon II OST by @chatwood (Vancouver, BC)

• 18:41 - 'Another Year' from Dwarf Fortress OST by @simonswerwer (Barcelona)

• 19:20 - Wishlist This (these? lol)

• 31:10 - Spring in Summer Trailer song by @LORENINE (Canada)

• 31:46 - Sports Talk

• 37:08 - Stephan finished Spider-Man 2 

• 44:18 - you get next gen Hotline Miami free?!

• 47:33 - more like Pokemon Scar-bleh

• 49:14 - Bridge Theme from Final Fantasy

• 49:40 - Steve Enjoys Final Fantasy

• 54:38 - "Get Helldivers" begs Steve

• 01:01:01 - Wrap & Credits

• 01:02:11 - Outro Music by @Composingdan (Toronto, ON)