363 · Kickle Cubicle

• The Kingdom is covered in ice, and it’s likely to stay that way unless Kickle saves the day
• One of the most nonsensical titles we’ve had on the show yet
• Irem’s take on Adventures of Lolo
• One day, Kickle awakens to discover that the Fantasy Kingdom has been frozen by the Wicked Wizard King, who has also trapped its inhabitants inside Dream Bags. Mysteriously unaffected, Kickle embarks on a quest to rescue his homeland, using his unique freezing breath to turn enemies into ice and fight back against the invaders.
• The player journeys through four distinct lands in the Fantasy Kingdom, following a predetermined order as Kickle. Each land culminates in a boss battle, and after completing all four, a "special game" unlocks, featuring 30 more challenging levels.
  • Controlling Kickle, the player must solve puzzles on frozen islands by collecting red Dream Bags.
• Kickle can use his freezing breath to turn certain foes into ice, which can then be used to create walkways over water or eliminate other enemies. Additionally, he can generate an ice pillar in front of him to serve as a barrier.
• Striker - When you're out of time Striker will appear and come after you. It's possible to dodge him for a moment, but not forever
• Death - the manual states “You have two options after you lose your last kickle” kickle is taking the place of what we usually refer to in video games as lives. Are they implying their are multiple kickles?
• Boss descriptions:
  • GARDEN LAND - KОKЕ
    • The big bird is bad, and he's after you. Be careful!
  • FRUIT LAND - PIRO
    • He is the Lord of Fruit Land now. Can you take it back?
  • TOY LAND - WICKED WIZARD KING
    • The Master of Evil himself. He can easily surprise you. Be strong
• Regional Differences
  • The Japanese version features more enemies
  • In Japan, players can tackle levels within each world in any order, whereas the North American and European versions enforce a fixed progression.

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Kickle Cubicle! The kingdom is covered in ice, and it's likely to stay that way unless Kickle saves the day.

00:22 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Gotta be one of the most nonsensical titles we've had on the show yet. Kickle Cubicle? It makes total sense. It's very descriptive. You kick things into cubes to fall into the ground. Sure. I mean, descriptive is one thing, but just call it like Kick the Cubes, right? Well, I mean, his name is Kickle, right? Because he kicks. So they named him Kickle. Because that's how naming conventions work in Kickle's world.

01:02 I mean, sometimes, you know, people can be named like Sandy because they have sandy colored hair. Maybe this kid was kicking on the way out and they're like, oh, let's name him Kickle. Yeah, I was gonna say, do you think that the parents ran like a genetics test with the doctor and they're like, well, he's gonna kick. So I'd suggest naming him Kickle. You don't think people ever experience babies kicking before they're born? I've never heard of such a thing.

01:25 Yeah, they purposely tell you not to put your... It's like the one thing you could know about a baby before they're born. No, no, they tell you not to put your face too close to that woman's belly because you never know what's gonna happen. Who tells you that? Who tells you? The people in my neighborhood.

01:41 They just knock on your door. They're like, hey, you better stop going up to that woman. Oh, wow. Stop going up to my wife and putting your face up to her belly. Yeah. I'm like, that woman? My wife? I think I know why. Yeah. All right. Anyway, this is like another take on that genre of like Adventures of Lolo style games, puzzle games, top-down puzzle games where you have to solve things with a very specific objective through a variety, like I don't even know how many, maybe 70 if not more, levels throughout this game where you play as Kickle.

02:24 He's like a mime. He kind of looks like a little mime thing. Not sure exactly what he is, but maybe that's what everybody looks like in his kingdom. It's a fantasy kingdom. No, no. There's like corn people. There's like pickle people. Yeah, but those are the pickle people. Realistically proportioned human princesses. We don't know that Kickle is like a one-off. We can't say with certainty. We haven't seen everybody because everybody's been frozen. Yeah, and they're like, those princesses, they got like, it's like human proportions. So we don't know what this thing is, but we are him.

03:03 Is Kickle a snowman because of all the frozenness and he like thrives in this frozen environment? I would say maybe, but like his body is too like, it's too perfect of a circle for a head, you know? There's no carrot or anything.

03:22 I just kind of think it's awfully convenient what's happened in Kickle's world here. So one day- Is there a problem and only I have the tools to save everyone? Yeah, but it gets even weirder than that, right? Because you could say that that's like, okay, that's what happens in Super Mario Brothers, right? Like, but anybody theoretically can jump, right? Mario's just really good at it. In this universe, Kickle wakes up one day and everybody's been frozen by this, you know, wizard. And so the only person unaffected by it is Kickle. And he just happens to have the unique power of frost breath where he can turn enemies into ice.

04:03 Well, isn't that what the wizard does? Like the wizard turns people into ice as well. So does the manual somewhere say that he has frost breath? It does. Yes. Oh, okay. Because I just assumed that- Because really there's only like two enemy types that turn into ice when you kick them. So I thought that was like a feature of that enemy type, not a feature of Kickle himself. And like other things sometimes kick- Well, I guess they don't turn them into ice. So never mind. But they get frozen and you can blow them up. Like you can shatter them. Yeah. It's just that a few of them will actually turn into ice cubes that you can then kick around what like a Kickle cubicle might.

04:42 Yeah, I guess that's true. The things that don't turn into cubes do still freeze when you kick them. But Joe, that is an important distinction to make for those that haven't played the game. The kicking isn't what turns them into ice. It is the breath first. And then you just happen to think, well, it would be so much faster if I just kick these pieces, these ice blocks, along these other ice blocks. So this way they slide into place. It wouldn't be beneficial at all if I could just move these ice blocks individually tile by tile. No, that would take too much time. Well, I assume they're very slippery. And that would also be too easy of a puzzle solve for most of these.

05:23 Right. Exactly. That's what I'm getting at, Sean. Okay. Well, you know, I didn't know that. Is that, yes, basically the challenge of the game becomes that, so it's a top-down puzzle game where you basically have a set of tiles that you can walk around on in a map. But there are things that you have to collect on any given stage and enemies that you have to avoid in order to get these items. You have to then turn these enemies into ice, kick them by sliding them across the tiles that are currently available to drop them in the water. And then they create another tile that you can now walk on.

06:07 If you were able to do it any other way other than sliding, you could kind of create your own path. But the challenge, of course, lies in the way that the tilesets are originally designed when you first enter a level. It's not so easy to figure out, how am I going to fill in these gaps? Sure, the beginning levels are, you know, teaching you the mechanics and it's just, well, if I just kick this block straight ahead, it's going to fill in the gap and I'll be able to walk over and collect what I need.

06:36 But that's not true of later levels where you kind of have to think a little outside the box or rather try a lot of kicking and sliding in order to build something that could eventually create a way around the moats that the game has laid out for you. I was avoiding what the item was because I wasn't sure if it was balloons, which it looks like he rides between levels, or if they were just like giant red sacks like Santa Claus has for Christmas. Yeah, they just kind of look like sacks of stuff, but then there is a balloon, but that, it's just not the right image.

07:16 But I would say that, like, yeah, it's not so easy later, but yeah, the whole first world is pretty easy in terms of the puzzles here because they're really just teaching you, like, yeah, these are the surfaces these things can slide on. These are some enemies that can or cannot turn into cubes to then slide.

07:40 But later, once it starts actually introducing new mechanics and new enemies and things like that, then it actually starts to get a little brain teaser-y, which is nice. Yeah, I consider the first world, the vegetable world, garden world, to be more about dodging the enemies. And you kind of see exactly what you got to do right away, and it's more about, yeah, getting used to dodging the enemies, learning, you know, what types of terrain the enemies can walk across is another thing that, like, you learn in the first stage. But also, yeah, the first one feels a little more about the actual quote-unquote action of it, where it's like, dodge the enemies, avoid this to get there.

08:29 And I was worried it was going to stay like that, but it does then start to implement the puzzle elements. And I kind of like the way they do that because then by the time the puzzle elements really start to take off, I don't have that same complaint I've had with other games like this, where I'm like, they designed this great puzzle, but then there's all these enemies around the screen that just make me not think about puzzle. Because now I'm comfortable enough with dealing with the enemies that I can really focus on the puzzle.

08:56 I don't know, I think they found a good balance with it there. Yeah, and it's not always just, you know, slide this block, you know, like freeze the enemy right where the hole is, and then just slide them into it. But it's not as elegant as that, especially in later stages, it starts to become a little bit, you have to think about, okay, well, where do I want to freeze them? And then if I slide them here, that creates like a new way for me to slide the next enemy this way, you know? So it does become a little bit of a, you have to almost visualize the solution before you fill in everything.

09:32 But there's a lot of like, there's a lot of experimentation as well. There isn't necessarily like, oh, the only way to solve this puzzle is by doing this. There are a couple that are like that, but I think that there's even far between, yeah. Yeah, and what I meant was, is even more like, if you, you only have like a set amount of things that you could possibly do, and if you don't do them, you get like soft lock. Like, enemies will always just respawn, so you can just kind of like play around with the idea of like, these are the holes, how do I fill them in? If I fill in a hole that wasn't supposed to be filled in, it doesn't like, it doesn't make it impossible.

10:05 No, yeah. They're well designed enough that you can have that experimentation, and you'll never end up in a situation where you are actually stuck. Was it Adventures of Lolo that has like a built-in, like, kill yourself function? Yeah, suicide button. Yeah, okay. Well, I mean, this does too. Select will automatically kill. Oh. I never pressed that button. Yeah, I discovered that by accident.

10:35 But yeah, I mean, it does. Do you lose a life? I don't know. I think you do, but who cares? You have unlimited continues. So like, I mean, again, unless you care about points, but like there's a level, for example, that's one of my favorites, which is in the fruit land. And granted, I only, I'm right now in the middle of candy lands. So I did not get to the final one, which is toy land. But in fruit land, there is one where there's like a bunch of islands, and the three red bags are just sitting there. They look really easy to get to.

11:09 But because of the way, this is going to be impossible to describe, but because of the way that the islands are positioned, you can only go, you can only put blocks in like straight lines from one island to another. So even though you're right next to the island you need to get to, you have to figure out like the right configuration of how to go from island to island in order to line up properly with that last island so you can make a bridge to it, if that makes any sense.

11:34 But like that, coupled with the fact that like maybe, I mean, I don't know, but maybe like the very next level could be just about like avoiding enemies that are going to get like really close in on you once you open up a path for them. Like there really are a lot of different types of puzzle in this where it's like there's some that are like feel like you're up against the clock. There's some where it's like you have to really scratch your head and figure it out. Yeah, like clockwork kind of stuff. I was, because that first like almost tutorial island is so long, like it's a quarter of the game.

12:09 I was starting to think like, oh, this is a puzzle game for babies. It's just the, it's just that in this game, the curve, the difficulty curve is just much more gradual, I'd say.

12:24 Yeah, and also like you'll be playing for a long time and think you're kind of like at the end of the game. And then like halfway through the game, they'll just drop this like crazy plot on you that like you didn't know was in there. Like it does like take a while to really get into the swing of things in this game. And I don't think it ever gets like, wow, this is like the witness style difficulty. But it's, you know, it is like I feel like a child could play this and have fun. But like, but also I played it as an adult and had fun and it did like exercise my brain a little bit. But it's also very forgiving.

12:57 So like when I fail, it's like I don't have to ever start back at the beginning of the game or even of the world. I can just start on the stage I'm on. And I like that. Yeah, that's a great point, Joe, that like ultimately the lockout system of the game is just that your brain is unable to comprehend how to solve the puzzle. You know, like that, that would be the moment, not you up, you ran out of lives, got to start all the way back at the beginning tutorial levels and play for another hour and a half, two hours to get where you were. It's just more like, okay, I genuinely can't figure out how to move these mallets into the correct positions so that the ice cube hits them and it kicks it to the next area.

13:36 I don't know if you guys style. Yeah, I don't know if you guys know that level, but like that was you. Yeah, that was an insane example of just kind of what Sean was talking about. The first island, even though we're calling it like a tutorial island, it's really, it's only teaching you about different setups for where to fill in blocks. It's not introducing all of the various, you know, items and enemies that you'll encounter in the other worlds.

14:02 Those like springs and the hammers and the bombs, like all those things don't show up in that first world as far as I'm aware or can remember. But the, um, those mechanics are introduced as you get from like, okay, this world has this thing. And I wonder if that's just too slow of a progression for a game where, uh, it would have been better to just kind of experience every kind of small version of these things that the game has to offer. And then the puzzles just get increasingly more difficult with each world.

14:35 So you're, you want less puzzles. Um, and they just like, it's more like just play the hits, right? Yes, exactly. Don't, don't make me beat this level, but then, and then take me to another level that is basically do the same exact thing. But this time it's a different shape.

14:55 Yeah, I guess I just, I think that there's like, that does occur, but I think like it's, there's enough, um, there's enough variety in like the different permutations of different, of, of like different interactions, like enemy interactions. Because enemies aren't just there to chase you down, they also play with the puzzle a bit.

15:16 Like there's like this bird thing that will also kick blocks if it's, if there's a block in front of it. Or, um, there's the bombs that, uh, that if you get close, they'll blow up, but they could also, uh, take out some of the area that you built, that you built a bit for a split second. Like, uh, I think there's enough like different combinations that it could feel like it's all the same puzzle, but it's actually slightly different. It just, you just know the answer already.

15:49 Yeah, I, I think Mike, to your point, I, I, I was starting to feel that way from the, in the first world where I was like, okay, like I was still having a good time, but I was like, I think I get it. I think I'm good with this game. And luckily I continued playing and in the second and third world, I really think that every level in the second and third world that I played, I was like a little excited at the beginning. I was like, all right, what's this one's going to be about? And it did feel like they each kind of brought something different to the table.

16:17 Um, so I, I, yeah, I do think it took them. Maybe they could be accused of taking too long to get into that point, but once they get there, I feel like it's got a, it's got a pretty good flow. Um, and also before we move on, I do want to, uh, mention there's like one core element that we are kind of missing on the gameplay in that, yes, you can kick and use your ice breath, but you can also put down like, yes.

16:40 Little blockers. Pegs, like ice blockers to stop things. And that is a big core of, uh, well, one, you can like trap enemies with it, but two, that's like how you can really manipulate where your ice blocks are going to slide by like putting something for them to hit. Yeah. It took me until at least the second world to even realize that I could do that. Yeah. I realized I could do it in the first row, but it took me until the second world to like understand the utility of it. I was like, well, why would I ever need this? I can just kind of kick these things wherever I want and just freeze the things where I want them to be. But yeah, once the puzzles get more complicated, you do start to need to manipulate the landscape yourself a little more.

17:44 It's funny because it sounds like we're almost saying, well, if they just started this game on the second world, like, uh, we'd have almost no complaints. Cause you would just get right into the variety and yeah, you'd, it'd be hard, but you'd learn by trial. It'd be like saying, you know, Hey, super Mario brothers was great, but they didn't introduce pitfalls until world two one. And I wish they would have just put pitfalls in the first stage. Yeah. I mean, I, I think I'm saying it, if, if anything, I'm saying that maybe the first world should have been shorter, but I didn't mind the, uh, the setup of, um, like a little bit of a setup of like, these are the easy levels. Get you acquainted.

18:21 And, and I played this, uh, at first I was, we were alternating me and my girlfriend who does not play video games like at all. So like, I think for her particularly, it was helpful to get those, like, just to get the feel of like a controller, let alone this game. And I, and I'm assuming, you know, in 1990, there were probably a lot more people that weren't as, you know, versed in video games that would be buying this. Or if it was targeted towards people who like, this is one of their first video games or something, um, you know, really give them a good runway to, to get used to it.

18:53 Yeah. It's funny you say that. Cause it doesn't, it does feel like a, we mentioned it before and, but we also had the caveat that like, well, but this was a brain teaser for me. It does feel like it is more aimed at kids than most puzzle games. Uh, so I, I, I agree with that.

19:14 And that's probably because of the story, uh, the graphical presentation and everything. But I will say though, that the, uh, the talking corn on the cob is a little much for a child. I think that that should have been censored.

19:29 Understood. Uh, I, I was just gonna say that the graphical presentation of the game though, while it might look a bit kiddish because of Kickle and the other, uh, other characters, uh, it's a beautiful looking game. Absolutely. Yeah, it's clean. And, uh, a couple of other things about just the moment to moment gameplay. There are, um, there are time limits for the levels. And when the timer runs out, you don't just automatically die. An enemy comes on the screen and, you know, basically just targeting you and will kill you. But it's possible to like finish the stage while that's still happening. Like you do, you do have the ability to dodge that enemy, but you just can't do it like for infinity. Like I think eventually it would catch up to you.

20:18 Yeah. It's kind of reminds me of like the ghost and Spelunky or just those like hurry up things, uh, where it's a bit more forgiving, where it's not like you're about to touch. And then you just watch that last sack of goodies or whatever those things are supposed to be. And suddenly the game just stops and you drop dead like a Mario. Um, I, I, I like the, the little bit of, again, uh, the word we were using was, uh, what was the word you were using, Joe?

20:50 Uh, forgiveness, forgive, forgiveness. It's like a context. It makes sense though, too, right? Like the timer goes out and your character just dies in Mario and Sonic. But why? Why do they just die when the timer goes out? Because video games. Yeah. But like, did, did they have like, did Bowser shoot like a homing missile at Mario that was like, if it, if it takes him 350 seconds, we'll be able to hit him. You were like canonically, why do they die? Yeah. Right. You know, at least in this one, it's like, oh yeah, it makes sense. Like time's up and now this enemy has arrived that, uh, you can't defeat. I like it. Yeah. I think in Mario it was supposed to be like, it was supposed to be like, he's aging.

21:28 And if you wait too long, you're just going to die. Like in real life, the longer you live, the more likely you are to die. Oh, I don't like that. I don't, I don't like that, uh, interpretation.

21:38 And speaking of death in this game, uh, you guys both mentioned that it's forgiving and that you're able to just continue. But the manual states something a little odd about, uh, the death in this game. It says you have two options after you lose your last kickle. Kickle is taking the place of what we usually refer to in video games as lives. Are they implying that there are multiple kickles? Your last kickle? Yeah, because you've heard this before with like a new, you get a one man or like a new man or whatever. Like, yeah, they just haven't codified.

22:13 Maybe, I don't know. It just sounds like they don't know to use the term lives. Yes, I agree. I think it's like a multiverse thing. Right, that's what I was trying to get to that point. I like that better, but I just think it's funny to point out when the manual says things that are like, huh, we have solutions for that now, but we didn't back then. There are boss fights in this game too, uh, as odd as that sounds, but, uh, that's the one time where like, you know, it's a little different from the puzzle mechanics.

22:40 It's the end of each world, so there's not too many bosses. There's not any like sub bosses or anything like that. Uh, the manual descriptions for these guys are also good. Uh, for the Garden Land boss, Coke, uh, he's a, the, uh, the big bird is bad and he's after you. Be careful. Uh, Pyro in Fruitland, he is the lord of Fruitland now.

23:05 Okay. So who was before? It was the princess. Of Fruitland? Oh yeah, that's true. The curvaceous princess. The way you, the way you said now gives it like a different context. Like, he's the lord of Fruitland now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I don't, it's not, I'm assuming that's not the way it was read. Like, you don't, you don't want to know what he was before.

23:28 Um, and the wicked wizard king, the master of evil himself. Now that seems, you know, a little bit like hyperbole. The master of evil. All he did was like freeze everybody. You can unfreeze them. What would you think of someone that froze everybody? Like, that they're good guys? I don't know if they would be considered the master of evil. They didn't open the gate to hell. Sure, sure. But like, that's still like not a nice thing to do.

23:55 Yes. So, anybody who wrongs you in your day to day, you can, you can call them the master of evil. But I don't know if, I don't know if freezing four entire countries is like equivalent to like wronging you in your day to day. Listen, Kickel is unaffected by the changes, so I don't even understand why he cares. Look, I think we're, we're, we're kind of, you were kind of getting at in the very top of the show. I think he did it. That's what I'm saying. Kickel has no stakes in the game. The world is now better off for him. It's all frozen. He enjoys. He's like the hero now. Exactly. Yeah, I agree. He's the Captain Quark of, uh, of the Kickel universe. Someone will get that. Who's that? He's from Ratchet and Clank. Ah. Spoiler for Ratchet and Clank 1.

24:44 There are, uh, not sequels and spinoffs to this game, but there are regional differences between them. And I thought this was interesting. The Japanese version apparently has more enemies.

24:55 I don't really know if it needed it. Yeah. I think that the. I guess it depends on what the enemies are and if they have some kind of specific, uh, like, gameplay element. Sure, but like, I guess I mean, like, aren't the, aren't the levels, like, designed with these enemies in mind? Like, so now you're just putting more of them on the screen? Well, were there more levels too? Uh, it does not say that, but it does say something really interesting about the levels. I don't want to hear that. Yeah. So, what I'll tell you is, the Japanese version, you don't, you get to choose which land you want to go to first.

25:32 Oh. So, you can go to garden land, fruit land, toy land, any order. See, that seems, that seems very strange because they clearly seem to have a level of progression to them. They just trusted the Japanese to make better decisions.

25:47 But I mean, if you, like, imagine you start on, I don't know, like, cake land and you end up, like, your last one is garden land, which is level three and level one respectively, I believe. Like, isn't that just going to be, like, a boring time?

26:06 Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But also, maybe they were, like, yeah, those Americans are all going to go to cake land immediately if we don't make them start somewhere else. And I mentioned that this is a Adventures of Lolo style game. Did you guys make that comparison at all? How do you feel about that comparison? Were you keeping that in mind as you were playing? Do you have a preference? I absolutely made that comparison. I feel like it's hard to not make that comparison. Because they are two separate companies.

26:38 Yeah. Yeah, weird. I blame Mike incepting that into our brains because he did say it was like Adventures of Lolo. Yeah, but I mean, would you not, like, would you not look at this immediately and say he kind of looks like Lolo? Well, now I'll never know because I didn't get to have that opinion on my own. I don't remember Mike saying this before, so maybe I was incepted. But, I mean, he looks like Lolo. He's doing the same thing kind of as Lolo walking on this top-down thing. It's true. I just, just giving him a hard time.

27:14 Well, I mean, which you should do. I'm not, I'm not discouraging that. But, um, but I think that, uh, what was your question? Would I prefer one? No, I actually asked, like, eight questions to confuse you, to make you say, what's your question? Is Adventures of Lolo an apt comparison? And is that bad? Yes, that's a great question. No, that's what you asked. Yeah, yeah, that's why it's a great question. I thought you also asked, like, do you have a preference? I did say, I did sneak that in there, but then I was hoping you would just ignore it. I'll ignore that for now. My preference is for nothing to be like games I've played before, ever.

28:12 But, so like I said before, this game doles out, like, the plot very, um, conservatively. And it keeps surprising me with, like, more stuff. You know, like, first of all, you beat the first level, you save a bunch of carrots, and then you move on to the second level. And you're like, okay, this is the game. Then you save a bunch of corn, and then one of the pieces of, one of the ears of corn is like, here's all the lore. But the carrots didn't say anything. That's what I'm saying, that corn guy.

28:41 Yeah, yeah. And then that happens again in the fruit world, where it's like, you're like six levels in, and all of a sudden, like, an orange starts talking to you. But nobody was telling you what you're doing in fruit world before that. And then they're like, oh, hey, glad you've been doing this because our princess has been kidnapped or whatever.

28:58 So, so I'm like, okay, this is going to be it. But, but like, you get to that first boss, and you've already been playing the game for a while, because there's a lot of levels in each world. So then I'm like, oh, there are boss battles in this? I thought that was the end of the game. And then it's like, okay, now there's another world. And then you get to like the, to the end, and this is a really long, and I watched this, I didn't get to, I didn't get through the fourth world. But I watched this on YouTube.

29:24 Very long, like, cut scene about, like, the fantasy kingdom, and like the, you know, you've restored it, and the king is there, and all this stuff. And then it, the credits, and then it's like, and now enjoy this new game. This special game. And there's like all these special, like, more, you know, challenging levels. It's like a whole, and in the YouTube video, that's like, it's like a quarter of the YouTube video, if not more, is just the post game. Yeah, like challenge levels.

29:49 Yeah. And they're really hard levels, that's why. They're like long, complicated levels, and I think there's 30 of them. I guess it's like, you know, I know that there's some, like, story modes of, you know, not, not very story forward games that are like, think of it like, like Call of Duty. Like, there's a, there's a campaign, but the campaign doesn't really matter, so it's gonna be pretty short, and all of, like, the high level play is in the not story mode. So that, that's how I'm looking at it.

30:24 I mean, that's kind of what it feels like. Do we know, do this have a battery? Could you save this game? I think it's password function. Okay, well then that's good, yeah. So like, yeah, you get the whole game out of the way, and then like the rest of your enjoyment is like, let's try and solve another puzzle in Kickle Cubicle today. And we have an opportunity to tackle another game on the Essential Games list.

30:48 Kickle Cubicle is pretty darn good and fun game. So why am I starting with that instead of telling you how I really feel about it? Well, because I think Kickle Cubicle is like perfectly serviceable for what it sets out to do. And so if it does everything that it wanted, and it does it well, and it controls great, why shouldn't I put it on the Essential Games list, right? Like, it meets every checkbox for like what makes a good video game, except for the personal part of it. Like the part where it's like, do you like the game?

31:31 And I don't know if I would check that box. I don't know if I personally enjoyed sliding these ice blocks into holes, which is like the entire point of the game. Like, I don't know if I like that kind of puzzle, which is weird, because I liked what Lolo was putting down for puzzles, essentially just finding creative ways to kill all the enemies on screen. And so have I been trained by video games to just be focused on killing things and that being a good enough reward, but building land structures is not rewarding enough for me?

32:03 It's weird, but I don't think in good faith I can put this on the Essential Games list if I personally wasn't loving it. But I think it needs to be mentioned that if this game at all sounded fun to you, it is actually fun. It is something. These puzzles do get more challenging. They get very creative. I wouldn't just label this a kid's game by any means. I do think that it's very impressive to see somebody else kind of tackle this Lolo genre, which we've already said is an essential game, and just kind of nail it doing a completely different thing. Sean? Yeah, I think this is a super charming game. I think it gets off to a slow start in terms of how puzzly it feels.

32:53 But it's got everything a puzzle game should have. It's just the pacing is a little slower than you're used to. So I'm kind of at a crossroads here because I think I do enjoy this better than Lolo. And I think I voted for it, but that could or could not be the case.

33:18 So now I'm thinking, like, does that mean that Lolo's not essential? Does that mean that this is? And for me, at least, I'm going to err on the side of positivity. And you know what? Maybe it doesn't deserve to be on there, but I'm going to vote for it to be an essential game. All right. One vote. Joe, what are you doing? I had a little bit of a journey with this, too. And I noticed that I do often take you through my whole journey of where I landed on these for essential games list, folks.

33:55 But I did start with this thinking, like, yeah, this game's not doing anything wrong. But, like, something about it just didn't feel essential game level. And I was struggling with that for a while. But then I did get to, yeah, some, like, World 2 and World 3. Whereas in World 1, I'm, like, trying to decide why, what's a reason not to put this on the essential games list? Because I really was thinking it was good, but it just didn't feel enough.

34:23 But then by the next two worlds, I was really liking it. And, yeah, I'll also answer your question from earlier about preference. It's been a while since I played Adventure of Lolo. But I think if you asked me between the two of them right now, I'm definitely voting for Kickle Cubicle over Adventures of Lolo.

34:41 So I'd have to replay that one. But, yeah, right now my preference is Kickle Cubicle. I had a lot of fun. I really had fun pushing these ice blocks into the water. And I found a lot of satisfaction from actually solving each of these puzzles.

34:58 And especially just the fact that there's, like, a lot of great game design and charm in this game on top of pretty good puzzle design. The perfect level of, like, forgiving gameplay. I mean, I really like this game. And I have no more doubts about whether to put it on. I want to put it on the essential games list. And I don't think I realized, you know, so obviously I knew I was voting it on. But it wasn't until, Mike, you voted no and, Sean, I was curious if you were voting or not that I was like, wow, I'm going to be really disappointed if this doesn't go on.

35:35 Because I think I was originally coming on and about to say, like, yeah, I'm going to vote this on. But, you know, I could see maybe in the future it coming off. But then, like, once there was that option that, oh, it might not get on, I was like, no, no. This has to get on. So I think that says it all. Like, I really like this game. All right. And, Joe, it is on. That is two votes. And that's enough to get it on the list. We beat Mike. That's how we get it. We beat him. But you didn't beat the big bad boss at the end.

36:03 Mike, you're like the little chicken. You're like the kicking chicken that kicks the blocks around with the sunglasses on. I was just kicking blocks. Wait till you guys run into the master of evil himself.

36:17 That is all the time we have for this week's episode. Next week, we will be playing Little Nemo, the Dream Master, which is based off of a comic strip, but actually based off of a film that was made by both an American studio and a Japanese studio. It gets very complicated, but trust me, whether you know the game or not, you're going to want to hear that episode. We'll be right back.