396 · Palamedes

• THE ULTIMATE DICE SHOOTING CHALLENGE
• Introduction
• Palamedes was a figure in Greek mythology. He is said to be the inventor of dice, which is why a game revolving around dice is named after him. Still a really obscure reference.
• What it is: A 1990 puzzle game where you choose your next piece on the fly. You hold a die, change its face, and throw it to match dice in a rising wall while banking combos to clear multiple lines.
• Why it matters: Arrives during the 1990 puzzle boom but carves its own lane with the risk-versus-reward combo tray.
• On-air questions to open
• Does the dice-and-hands theme make this feel more like poker
• Release, Credits, and Context
• Arcade origin: Taito, 1990. Home versions the same year.
• NES and Famicom publisher: HOT-B. Development commonly credited to Natsume for the NES home version.
• Where it sits: Launched alongside Dr. Mario. Palamedes is not a falling-block game. You choose what to throw and when to cash out.
• Core Rules and Controls
• Avatar and the held die: Your character stands at the bottom. You always hold one die that you can change.
• Inputs: B cycles the die 1 through 6. “A” throws the held die straight up to remove the topmost matching die above you. Left and Right move. Down cashes in any completed hand in your tray.
• Pressure system: New rows creep upward on a timer. If the stack reaches you, you lose.
• Discuss now
• Do you prioritize survival clears or play greedy to finish a higher-tier hand before pressing Down?
• The Hands System - Multi-line clears and risk management
• How the tray works: Each successful throw also banks that number in a six-slot tray. Cashing in converts hands to line clears and empties only the dice used.
• Hand tiers and line clears
  • Sets: 3-of-a-kind clears 1 line, 4-of-a-kind 2 lines, 5-of-a-kind 3 lines, 6-of-a-kind 4 lines.
  • Runs: 3 in sequence clears 1 line, 4 in sequence 2 lines, 5 in sequence 3 lines.
  • Three pairs: clears 3 lines.
  • Blackjack 21: clears 1 line if the six tray dice sum to 21.
  • 1 through 6 Straight Flush: counts as a run and 21. Clears up to 5 lines and is the biggest swing.
• Timing and routing
  • Press Down to cash in. Waiting for a better hand risks a new row spawning while you hold.
  • Pre-build faces with B while scanning the field. Keep middle numbers 3 and 4 handy so your plan can pivot to runs or sets.
• Discuss now
• Do you prioritize survival clears or play greedy to finish a higher-tier hand before pressing Down?
• Is the six-slot tray the secret sauce that makes this more replayable than a standard match game?
• THROWING A DIE THAT DOESN’T MATCH SHOULD’VE MADE IT STICK
• Modes and Structure
• 1-Player ladder: 20 stages with increasing speed. You can set starting difficulty.
• 2-Player versus: Each line you clear adds the same number of rows to your opponent. Optional handicaps add extra pressure per clear.
• Tournament mode: Solo bracket against four CPU opponents. This is the easiest way to see the ending.
• Discuss now
• Multiplayer
• Listener prompt
• What is your favorite best-of format for tense sets?
• Feel and Presentation
• Readable dice faces with strong color coding. That clarity is why high speed is playable.
• Music is energetic and short-looping. There is a title sound test and simple character flavor in the versus portraits.
• Discuss now
• Does the clean UI hold up or did we need more flair?
• Tips, Tactics, and Skill Ceiling
• Beginner
  • Start on difficulty 1 or 2. Favor 3- and 4-length runs or simple 4-of-a-kind sets. Treat 21 and 1-6 as bonus only.
• Intermediate
  • Plan two throws ahead. Use quick cash-ins when the add-row timer is low. Keep tray flexibility with 3s and 4s.
• Versus
  • Watch your opponent’s tray if visible to predict spikes. Quick 3-line cash-ins during their add-row timing can force a top-out.
• Discuss now
• What is one habit that instantly improves new players?
• Sequel and Follow-ups
• Palamedes II: Star Twinkles (Famicom)
• Availability: Japan only on Famicom.
• Design changes
  • Field rises from the bottom. You stand on the stack and lose if you get pinned at the ceiling.
  • NEW chain rule: you can only take a die equal to, plus one, or minus one from the last die taken, which both players influence.
  • Hands use 4 dice, so cash-outs are frequent and rounds swing faster.
• Feel
  • Plays like a pressure cooker. Some players prefer the deliberate planning in Palamedes 1, others love the chaos in Star Twinkles.
• which game produced the best two-player arguments?
• Other versions
• Game Boy Palamedes: Same core rules with a tighter window that often feels faster. Popular for portable sessions, but harder to read at max speed.
• Microcomputer and Japanese computer ports exist. These are curios outside Japan and do not change the core rules.
• Community chatter and collecting
• Hidden-gem reputation: Frequently recommended in NES puzzle threads for quick two-player sessions.
• Tournament talk: Many players mention that Tournament mode is the path to credits.
• Sequel sentiment: Palamedes II is often called faster and nastier, with CPU swings that can steamroll inattentive players.
• Collecting: NES cart is usually affordable. Famicom sequel is more niche but not rare.
• Wrap-Up
  • What house rules would you add to freshen two-player night?
    • Banning 3 pairs?

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

00:00 Palamedes, the ultimate dice shooting challenge.

00:20 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. Palamedes, a figure in Greek mythology said to be the inventor of dice, which is why a game revolving around dice may be named after him. Still kind of an obscure reference that I'm sure no kid connected with. Oh, you took that from the manual, didn't you?

00:51 Did I? I mean, there is a section in the manual that kind of goes over this and it's all wrong. Okay. So what's right? Palamedes, a lot of people are saying that I guess he's sort of attributed with creating dice, but they say that like just earlier, sorry, like I, this is like my main thing in this episode is that it is believed that dice were in existence. This is as far back as 67 AD, which is like not ancient Greece. Agreed. It's like middle Roman empire. Like people are like measuring their years in like forward numbers. Now. Uh, it's just completely wrong. And that's, that's like the big, that's the big selling point of this episode is that the game's wrong. Yeah. I mean, that's why I did not like this game. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding.

01:44 Well, what is this game? It is a puzzle game where, um, you have to constantly choose your next piece. It doesn't, uh, randomly drop down on the screen. Like most of these puzzle games, uh, you hold a die and you change its face from one through six, like a standard dice. And, uh, you throw that die, uh, up on the screen, upwards, not downwards to match the dice in a, um, slowly descending wall, uh, creating a poker hand. I mean, this sounds crazy, right? There's six, there's dice, there's cards, uh, creating a poker hand that you will then, uh, submit or enter into the, uh, program to clear a certain amount of lines on the, uh,

02:28 puzzle, the descending wall that's coming at you based on the, uh, based on the poker hand that you made. So while you might just make like a simple three of a kind and clear one line, if you did something really cool, like one, two, three, four, five, six in a line, clearing each one of them in order, that would give you, um, a, I think it's four lines, uh, which clears it off a lot because basically it's nine lines and your crush. I think it's five. Five lines. See, so that's the biggest price. It's on the cart, Mike. Damn, you're looking at all the images and I'm just looking over here at my notes.

03:04 Um, but yeah, no, so, you know, that's what I'm saying. So there's, it matters, I think, because right now we're in like a bit of a puzzle boom between Tetris, which we had, believe it or not, earlier this year, but. Oh my God, that was this year? Well, I don't know when we recorded it, but like. No, no, I know. But I mean, it was, it was 1990. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's insane. 1990 is going on forever. So you have Tetris and then like very recently we had Dr. Mario, those kinds of games, puzzle blocks falling down and you have to clear them. This one, they're like, you know what? Big idea. What if it came down at you instead and you had to shoot your pieces upwards?

03:45 Does the. Like a buster move. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Does the dice and hands, like creating hands theme here make this feel more like a poker casino thing? Or is this just like your typical puzzle action game?

04:00 To me, it initially, you know, if first thing you think when you see this game is, okay, this is, this is a Tetris like it looks very like Tetris. It plays very like Tetris. But I think what the poker thing brings to it is not that it makes me feel like, oh, I'm playing, I'm playing a poker like game. It's like knowing the rules of poker helps here. It's not exactly one to one because you got, you got a hand of six and you know, it's just a one through six. There's no like face cards or anything like that. But like what the poker thing brings to it is actually really differentiating it from Tetris to me.

04:32 You know, it's whereas Tetris, you can't choose what piece you have next. This you're only choosing what you have next. And whereas Tetris, like you're trying to, you know, just sort of get those, those straight, whatever those, those straight lines or whatever you want to call them. Like the, what am I saying? Line of blocks in a row like that. This is like, there's a little different type of thinking to it. So I think what the, all that to say, I guess, is that, um, initial, my initial thought on this was like, okay, this is Tetris, but like these, all these little nuances about poker and everything really make it feel like a different game that just happens to look aesthetically like Tetris.

05:10 Yeah, the, you're right. It's, it's pretty superficially Tetris-like. Like it's like, it's got all of the, like the visual, like user interface motifs of something like that. But what you're actually doing is a bit more, yeah, self-guided and kind of simpler too. Like it, like when it's explained, when we tell you the rules, it sounds very complex, but it's really like even more simple than Tetris.

05:41 Right. Because in Tetris, you need to, uh, fill an entire line on the screen in order for anything to clear. And obviously you can clear up to four lines at a time if you plan your Tetris accordingly. But at the most part, you know, like it takes a while, it takes even just a little bit to clear anything off the screen just by creating a successful block, uh, as a line here, the dice are constantly, uh, well not rapidly, but they are slowly coming down at you, descending from the top of the screen. And it's, uh, six dice at a time.

06:16 And when you shoot your die, so let's say there's a, a one-sided die up at the top of the screen and you shoot your one-sided die, which you chose, right? It's not like, oh, I have the one block, right? Like how in Tetris you have the L-shaped block here. It's like, I have the one block, but I could switch to the two block if I need that instead. Once you launch that one block at the other one block, it just disappears. It becomes part of your quote unquote hand at the bottom of the screen. So you're eliminating things off the screen very quickly too.

06:49 Theoretically, if you can just switch through the dice fast enough, you could just play this game without ever clearing a hand. That, that is the, the biggest flaw in the design of this game is just that you can brute force this. There is nothing like forcing you to actually play the game as intended.

07:10 So I hadn't thought of that at all, but like, can you really, when you get to like faster levels where you're playing against it? No, you won't, you won't be really, you know, no, but it's, but it's definitely like weird that it can, it can happen at the beginning of any level that like, you know, you're not encouraged to do this.

07:28 It's also weird that like, you know, I, I use the one, the one sided die shooting it at the one sided die to put an example of how it would clear. But it's very strange that like, if you send the two sided die accidentally at the one sided die, it just like, it just disappears. It doesn't like get added to the wall. Like mistakes should be punished. I thought that was going to happen too. And that would just sort of count in your hand, like which ones you touched or something. And then it would sort of count.

08:01 It would break the wall down from there. But I, I don't know that it's, it's one of those things that it feels very, it feels like it makes sense. And then it, it just feels a lot more simple. Yeah. What I thought was going to happen is I thought it was just going to stick wherever I put it. If I put it in the wrong spot, it sticks. Now my wall is one full block further down than I want it to be. But, uh, I, I agree that it's weird that they don't, that there's not a punishment for hitting the wrong spot. I will not pretend that I wasn't secretly so happy that I didn't get punished for that. Cause that made this game so much easier for me, but it didn't, it still wasn't like, oh, this is too easy of a game depending on what mode you're playing.

08:41 No. Yeah. If it gets fast, it gets harder. Yeah. Uh, and, and also like if you're playing the tournament mode against the computer, like those computers are actually like, they're no joke. They, they, it's hard to get through that whole tournament. That's true. I'm thinking more in the, the single player, which I guess is baby mode because the, the biggest part about the multiplayer is that the, and that's where making hands actually make sense because these hands like these, sorry, these, uh, lines that you're clearing don't just go into the void. Like in single player, they go to your opponent and now they've got all of that to work through. So yeah, I think the real version of this game is multiplayer.

09:22 Yeah. Which is, which is funny because they have it here, uh, early on too, but like Tetris didn't have that yet, but Tetris, Puyo Puyo, all those games would add this sort of idea of like junk blocks going over to your opponent. And that being like the main game mode of any of these, right. Is like this competitive, uh, whether with computers or, or with your friends, this competitive,

09:45 like clear stuff as fast as possible so that it fills up the opposing players, um, lines as well. Because I mean, think about it in Tetris, that could be devastating. You're sending junk blocks over that kind of block their potential Tetris that they were setting up. And now they have to clear these junk blocks before you send more over. That doesn't quite happen here, but there is still a rush in like a, in a game where you only have a, I think nine or 10 lines before it crushes you, uh, sending over four lines is devastating.

10:17 Yeah. It's, and it's crazy in, in multiplayer, how quickly the tide can turn because of that, because it can be, you know, your, your opponent can have like, you know, one or two lines at the top and you can have like six lines and then you just got to get like one really good hand and clear six lines. And suddenly it's like seven to nothing. Like they have seven lines. You have zero, you know? So like it does really change fast.

10:40 Now, Sean, don't be upset, but me and Joe did play multiplayer of this game. Uh, a lot of it actually. Yeah. Uh, and it was funny because I think this is a very interesting story where like we both didn't understand the hands thing at first. We read the manual.

10:57 It's on the cart. No, I know, but we don't have the cart. Come on. Oh, I thought this was one of those games you played like on the heart. It's okay. No, I wish. I, I, I would love to. Wait a minute. Actually, I forgot. We play all the games on the cart. I don't know. Oh, right. What am I talking about? The cart was inside the, it was inside the toaster though. So we couldn't see it. You have the top loader. No, I don't have the top loader. I want the top loader. It's okay. For anybody who's listening out there. Let me look at any of his carts. He wouldn't allow it. Anyone listening out there. I want the top loader. Just, you know, let me know. Let me know. Send him the top loader. I'm not saying for free.

11:30 I'm just throwing it out. I'm not saying I don't want, I want it like free of charge. And just like, it's hard to get all the work. This is prosperity. This is prosperity podcast. Yeah. Fortune finally comes my way.

11:43 No. So what happened is, is we read the rules and, you know, obviously I'm talking about like we played like one round. I just didn't understand what we're supposed to be doing because we like to go into the games blind. So then we read the rules and, you know, like I kind of caught on quickly to like, oh, this particular like hand is really easy to make and also sends a devastating amount of lines over comparatively. And so I was doing that and I was beating Joe pretty handedly.

12:10 And that wasn't fun after a while. It was fun at first to beat him a lot. And then I told him like, oh, well, this is the hand I'm making if you want to give it a try. And then it just became like Joe started crushing me because he was able to do it even faster than I was. It was a three pair.

12:25 Yes. It was three pair. Exactly what it was. And it's that was what that was. The detriment to me was like, well, I'm used to poker. Three pair is not something that ever popped into my head. It's like a poker hand. So I'm like trying to make a straight or like, you know, I got to make something big or I'm just going to, all right, I guess I'll just do like, you know, I'm trying to make like what I think is the equivalent of a full house. They also threw 21 in there for blackjack.

12:47 Which is crazy, right? If you really want to do some math. Yeah. That is the weirdest one because everything else is like three of a kind, four of a kind, one through six, like a straight flush kind of thing. But then blackjack is like, yeah, who's adding?

12:59 Like, yeah, right. That's that's too much. And that's that was the thing. You got to find that balance of is, you know, three pair. I think was at least for our level, but we were playing the perfect balance of like easy enough to find, but still gives you three lines, which is a pretty good reward. Whereas like there are much better ones out there, but, but you're going to, you're going to drive yourself nuts trying to find it and you're going to ruin your chances because you're taking too long trying to find a straight or, or whatever. And admittedly after that, whenever I played again, cause I played a couple more times since, cause that was a while ago. I wanted to be fresh three pair. That's my, my go to.

13:36 Yeah. I really think three pairs is, is the way blackjack, just to show how silly it is. Not only do you have to add the dice to 21. So hopefully you would just do like six, six, six, five. Oh, okay. Yeah. But you know what I mean? Uh, that only clears one line. It's not even worth your time. Wait a second. Really? Sure.

13:56 I'm pretty positive about that. Yeah. That's crazy. That's, that's a stupid part of the game. Meanwhile, just simply doing one, two, three, four, five, six, which granted has to be an order. That's another thing is like, keep in mind that because there's only six blocks in a row, you sometimes have to strategically think about how you're going to clear these blocks to make sure that they create the hand in the order you need it. You can't do, um, like one, three, four, five, six. If, if, if I recall correctly.

14:27 I guess it's also like you can combine hands. Like it's like, if you have, if you had that 21, presumably if you, if you didn't just do like two pairs and, and a single, like you would have something that would add an additional line. So if you did like one, two, three, four, four, four, which is an example from the manual,

14:50 that's a total of three lines. So you can get a little lucky with it if you're not paying attention and it just so happens to do that. But you can also, if you are actually, if you have some forethought and you can kind of think on the fly, you can make some combos like that. Just to show you how bad I am at this. The example I gave earlier wasn't a 21. So, um, disregard building out that it's, it would be six, six, six, six, five. Yeah. That's 23.

15:20 So you have to do six, six, six, three, but here's what's really interesting. The straight flush one, two, three, four, five, six is a natural blackjack that adds up to 21. Oh, so, so the flush just, or the straight flush, just the straight. Straight flush. Yeah. They're calling it a straight flush. But that just supersedes it. Interesting. I wonder what makes it a flush. It's just in order. It's every color as well. Yeah, but the colors are the numbers. I know. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

15:51 See, I got confused a couple of times with the, the ordering of things. Cause I swear sometimes I felt like I could do the, uh, like the three pair thing. I could do that out of order. I could do one, two, two, three, three, one, and it would work. And other times I felt like it wouldn't. So maybe I was, maybe I was accidentally getting something else. I wasn't recognizing when I thought that was happening, but, uh, like it's, it was unclear to me. I'm like, do I need to keep these things in order? Because then also I definitely know I couldn't get like, I could not get like two, two, two,

16:26 two, three, three. That would not count as three pair. That would count as like a full house or something. I don't know. But then if I had, if I had two, two, three, three, two, two, just have the threes splitting up the twos, then it counts as three pairs, even though four of them are the same number. That's definitely not intentional. Intamily. and so i mean like but that that is the game right is like do you pray do you prioritize

17:22 survival clears or do you play like kind of i guess greedy to finish a like bigger hand like that three pairs do you try and like build that while your opponent is sending off like three of a kinds rapidly at you that is the strategy of the game and ultimately it just comes down to play style uh so we we could talk about that but i just feel like that's like the most interesting part of the game is that these different hands and and that there are so many of them makes it so

17:50 that this way whatever situation you're currently in is is how you have to play if you're about to be crushed even if it is a computer opponent if you're about to be crushed you're not going to take the time to build something that clears three four five lines you're going to build a thing that clears some kind of line right away because you don't have another option yeah yeah i guess there isn't really much strategy at that point yeah it's just like the hand yeah the hand you've been dealt

18:16 or you just sort of you just sort of peck away at the whole thing by just shooting individual blocks yeah i'll i'll be honest uh i i played a decent amount of this game after uh mike and i played i played more i played with another friend of mine i played on my own a couple times just in the tournament mode the first time i ever played one player was like a minute ago like during this recording like i never i just didn't play one player i don't know why so like it's not exciting

18:44 it's just a it's just a it's not at all yeah so like i am seeing how you could really brute force it in one player now but uh i i i think that this game shines in multiplayer it it feels like it's completely missing an element of danger in single player right because the six slot tray at the bottom is the secret sauce that makes this more replayable than than a match game right because anything could just make it a match game with dice i i guess i mean i guess like what it needs is just okay i'm just gonna take you there yeah i'll accept that okay i appreciate you

19:23 uh and there are some moments where actually the easiest hand to build you know if you don't have like your whole entire screen filled up is like a six of a kind and that's kind of crazy like sometimes you just see like all of the color because it's color coded too you just see a bunch of blue and you're like oh that's a six of a kind i'm just gonna go for that and it's like

19:42 crazy that something so simple is just like staying on the same die like i feel like the more complicated ones that require you to switch through more often should be the ones that reward more than just like well the game just happened to generate a bunch of blues for me so i can just cash these in right now and send a ton of lines over like in that way sometimes your opponent or you

20:04 are just screwed by the rng yeah and that's why there needs to be like you can't i think a better version of this game would be one in which your your firing at the board does not destroy the piece like because otherwise you can just sort of carve out uh like one of the the only things stopping you from making a six of a kind every time is that you have other blocks in the way that like if you were

20:32 to shoot like a three instead of all the sixes that you're trying to get in a row that's breaking up your hand and that like first six is gonna fall off the edge so you just clear out that that whole thing first and it's really not an issue yeah i think that the way i saw the like knocking away the blocks as you shoot them is that you sometimes have to make a hand by being strategic about what

21:02 you know if there's two sixes on there and i'm and i need to use a six i need to decide which one of those sixes i want to use based on what's behind it sometimes a lot of times i'm using what's behind it but yes i do wish that when you remove um a line like i wish it removed it from the top and everything else scrolled up do you know what i mean because right now you remove a line and the two the two lines closest to you disappear if you if you do two lines oh yeah the two lines at the top disappeared and everything moved up so then i could be thinking the whole time of like what's coming next

21:35 that would add another layer of strategy where i'm like i need to be carving out the right path but at this point every time you get a hand you you kind of delete the path you're working on that makes sense yeah i that's definitely weird too uh good and that's also a part of like like if you get like a big hand and but you already you only have like a line left you gotta wait for it to come down otherwise you're wasting but yeah and that's a strategy sometimes too in in the multiplayer where you're like i know i got something that's gonna give me four lines and i only have two lines here i'm gonna wait for those other two lines so i don't just like

22:11 waste them and then you get some time to think you know it's nice yeah but what are you thinking about because all those lines are gone uh i'm thinking about just like other stuff what else am i gonna do today what am i gonna make for dinner lunch yeah yeah mostly food and so to briefly just cover the modes uh which we talked about the one player mode which i said was just for score technically there is like there's a story thing and there is an ending uh there are 20 stages uh each

22:40 stage just after you clear uh the amount of lines that you need to to progress to the next stage it just increases the speed and uh 20 is uh is a pretty fast speed you would you would definitely not just be able to brute force your way through something like that uh you can set the starting difficulty though so uh i i wonder like what you know like just like in tetris you can start the the speed that

23:05 you want to start on it doesn't like start you with that score what is the advantage to starting faster like in terms of scoring right wouldn't you just want to start at like the slowest possible speed to get the best tetrises over and over and over again like it's going to speed up eventually anyway you would need to have that be a priority that score otherwise it's just kind of boring yeah well in tetris you're definitely just playing for the score i feel like but uh here you know

23:31 20 stages and you get to see i guess you like reunite with your girlfriend or something i don't i don't want to assume that your girlfriend is your sister that gets complicated uh and then there's the two player versus mode which is uh there are um it's basically like the tournament mode for the computers except for the tournament mode creates this little nice bracket too where you kind of see uh you know who won and lost in the other games and who you're going up against the idea of

24:00 working your way up to a champion of some sorts but it's just that like the ai just gets more i guess intelligent as it goes on but it doesn't necessarily mean that like you uh have like oh well this character lost so now like this character is a little easier it doesn't doesn't work like that yeah i i it would be kind of cool if they you know they had different styles or something but it doesn't seem like they they really well one of them is a dog well yeah okay aesthetically they have different styles i mean like yeah what this one's like this guy's the the five of a kind guy he's always making five of a kind that's what they call him there's no one in his hometown for this but uh did you know that you

24:39 have a name in this game what's your name dave pal medies oh you're dave and player two is tammy and then the other tournament players are bobby jane stravinsky isabel gramps who is like the only one not wearing green did i don't know if you know this but like everybody else is wearing well he is wearing green i guess uh in the manual he's not wearing green but he is wearing green in in the game

25:04 uh and then yes the dog is it a dog in the manual it's uh its name is nugget and it looks like a uh like a fox it's a dog okay great that's mystery's been solved those are the characters in two-player mode you get to also choose a best of series whether you want to do best of three best of five or best of seven uh not necessarily for pal medies although feel free to work it into the conversation just in general what is the favorite best of format in order to create like an intense

25:38 uh i don't want to say playoffs because then it's clear i'm talking about sports but just like is is one game the way to go or is best of three or best of five or best of seven if we're not talking sports we're not talking sports we're just talking about in general create the most exciting environment what is like the most tense for like a fighting game or i guess like a a head-to-head game like this it would be best of three why i don't know because i think like you know

26:07 best of seven that's just too much uh i think you get you you you have room to make some mistakes like what one like it's not sudden death elimination you you can have a round where you're just sort of poking and prodding and then you can get to the rubber match hopefully and and take it like i think it's also not going to take forever for a video game i guess now that you're saying that i i agree where it's like it's the it's the lowest number of matches that you can have where you can still have that exciting tiebreaker yeah i'm glad you said it sean i wasn't meaning to be hard on you i just wanted you to put it in your words because i do agree i think best of three is perfect you keep

26:53 apologizing to me mike it's really well because i'm putting you on the spot he's hard on you because he knows you can explain explain the thing i just earlier earlier you were like i'm sorry sean but but joe and i played this game well because it's going to become a recurring theme for the next couple episodes that we played a lot of two-player games that right at night when you had your little tryst yeah so i just want to like get it out of the way now and not have to like every episode apologize all right no it's okay it's okay i don't want the rumors going around online that like you know oh i heard sean's going the way of sam you know like i don't need people talking like that

27:33 uh no but truly i i agree with the best of three thing because best of seven and not even does it also like introduces i don't know some luck some like some some boringness if like if it's like a clear breakaway right if like one team is just superior to the other or players superior to the other it gets kind of boring best of three gives like the winner the advantage right so it's not like the first game doesn't mean anything it means a lot because now they'll be able to play at least two more um or at max two more but like i think that there is something really special about just like being down and knowing they're down and coming back and winning two in a row and then being like

28:15 that's the comeback story not like oh you know like they want a game then we want a game then they want a game then we want a game and it's like how long does that go on for oh so you're you're just kind of venting about tennis right now tennis uh world series yeah hockey hockey especially because hockey does like best of seven from the beginning it's like crazy frustrating for the playoffs yeah i i really like that about hockey but i was thinking more about like not even in a series but more so like you have to beat them by two right oh yes yeah that's true that is a thing in tennis that just you can go on forever right but that's kind of exciting again now then because it's like it's

28:54 not the end of the match like technically it could be but most likely it's just a tiebreak in general uh that is exciting as a way to like cap off what was a really i mean like those guys are playing three four five hours uh i think that that does become then something where it's like you have to prove yourself and get two points in a row because that's like that's the that's the the breaker there is that like the tiebreaker it's first to seven but then like if you have if you both have six the person can't win on seven they have to win on eight or if you both have eight the next person needs ten like now they should keep best of seven in hockey but then also add you have to beat them by

29:33 two i like that a little bit but i also think like best of seven is fine but it's so damn long that it's like don't even have a regular season just put the whole fucking league in the playoffs have everybody play best of sevens against each other in their leagues or whatever seated however you want i don't know salary caps and and then just see who wins it and give that person the stanley cup we don't need 82 games and uh a three month playoffs i disagree but uh i i take your point yeah well i'm glad palamedes is coming back into the conversation uh let's talk about just like the feel and presentation of the game we talked about the mechanics of the game but

30:15 is the is the clarity is the is the presentation there in both a fun and exciting way but also in a way that like doesn't make this hard to read from a puzzle perspective what are your thoughts i just want to note real quick that i know i keep harping on this because it's silly but

30:34 just from product design the fact that the rules of the game are printed on the cart is really useful because not everyone's gonna still have their uh their instruction manual forever so i think just putting it right there i haven't seen anything like that like information on the game itself um so i think that helps out just you know having a little cheat sheet on the device itself

31:06 you And I guess it's just like if you think about, you could say the single player has a UI, but even just in the versus mode, it's just your screen, your puzzle screen, and the opponent's puzzle screen. And that's it. There's no score. There's no timer. It's just the gameplay is the entirety of the screen.

32:13 And just having that clean UI of just these descending dice and your little six-slot tray and your little character who is basically invisible after a while to you. I didn't even remember that there's someone throwing these dice. I'm just kind of in a groove. It's a cursor, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's just enough for a puzzle game where it's a little bit above Tetris, where it's not just falling blocks. There's some sense of character and colorfulness, but it's also not in the way.

32:45 They celebrate a little bit when they clear a line, but it's not like they take up the entire screen to celebrate or it pauses gameplay. I think they found a good balance here. Yeah, I think as far as presentation, as far as sprites and everything, I like the little sprites of you and your opponents a lot. I think because it gives me this nostalgic feel of Pokemon sprites, like Pokemon humans in the old Pokemon game sprites. So it kind of gives me that feel. But also, there was just something about the way that you move where it doesn't feel like you're moving and you're snapping to a grid, but functionally you are.

33:23 You're not going to hit in between two dice, and I'm never confused. I'm like, wait, which one did I hit? So that felt good because theoretically there's only what? How many across? There's six across. Yeah. So theoretically, there's only six squares on this grid, and it should feel kind of like you snap from one to the other, which I think would feel worse. And somehow, it feels smooth, but never gets confusing of like, am I in between these two or am I right on? You always know what you're shooting.

33:48 I get what you mean there. What is one habit or technique that you would recommend to a new player to instantly be better at this game? I guess it's kind of obvious when I say it, but try to get used to cycling through the dice in the order that you need them. You know what I mean? If you need to get a three and then a five and there's a one buried, start with the three, get to that right immediately, and don't go get that one because you've got to cycle back around to the five.

34:21 Does that make sense? Yeah. It sounds like an obvious thing to do, but it's very easy to get kind of caught up in the pressure when you're playing against an opponent where you're like, okay, I know I need that one, and it's the closest thing to me physically, so I'll cycle all the way back around to the one to get it. And you actually lose a lot of time by doing that rather than being as effective as possible by just hitting things as you cycle through.

34:47 Because I don't know if we mentioned, but in order to switch die, you don't use the D-pad or something to go back and forth. You just hit the B button, I believe, and you advance one number. You go from one to two to two to three until you loop back around to one. You can't go backwards. Yeah, there should have been a dice peripheral that you could plug into the NES and you turn it to that side, and the game recognizes what side you're on. Perfect. So you want a habit? Yeah, I want you to give us one of the seven highly effective habits for Palamedes players.

35:24 So basically, yeah, if you want to be a good Palamedes player, you have to make excellence your habit. I need you to work on your Palamedes game three, four hours a day. Then you got to have a balanced breakfast. You can't eat high fructose corn syrup. I want you to stop drinking, stop smoking. I need you to lock in on Palamedes. Make excellence your habit. Why can't Palamedes be at Evo next year?

36:02 Center stage, 250 grand on the line, Palamedes. Let's do it. And then they announce at the event Palamedes 2. What would that entail? They don't have to do that, Sean, because it exists. It actually already came out on the Famicom. So technically, it could be a Bytes episode if we wanted it to be. But I'm going to explain the game because this is, despite how complicated we might make it sound, building hands by throwing dice and changing the dice to be the correct dice to match the dice on screen. It's not that complicated. It's a very straightforward game. What would a sequel be, right?

36:43 Any guesses? Seven across. Is it that or it's not a D6? It's like a D8 or a D12 or something. It's the whole D&D gamut. Yeah. I appreciate both of those answers because I do think that they could have changed this game in a significant way other than what they decided to do for Palamedes 2 with the subtitle Star Twinkles. It's all about constellations in the sky and stuff like that. You go to the Big Dipper and the Bull and all that shit. The Bull. What is it? Taurus. Yeah. I was going to say that. I just didn't want to say that. Say it. I did say it. Technically, if the recording lines up, I should say it at exactly the same time as you so to prove that I know a little something about constellations of which I don't really know anything.

37:35 Yeah. Go on. The big change in Palamedes 2 is that the dice no longer spawn from the top of the screen. That's right. The field rises from the bottom. You stand on that stack and it's like Star Wars A New Hope where the walls are closing in. You are now rising up to a different wall that's going to crush you as the bottom dice start to stack up and push you closer to the ceiling. You have to grab the dice from below you. So you can only grab the immediate line in front of you.

38:12 Grab the dice from below you and throw them up into your slot tray, which is now up at the top to build your hand. But you now have only a hand of four instead of six. So they said, eh, let's just change it to make it smaller hands, which obviously makes it for much less permutations.

38:31 But, and this is crazy, there is a new chain rule. You can only take a die equal to plus one or minus one from the last die taken from either player. What? Wait, say that again? I know it takes a long time to even get it in the game to get the feel. But let's say currently the game has just started. So nobody has taken a die. They will still put a die in the center of the top center of the screen of like what the round will start in. So let's say that is the number three.

39:07 You can only play a three, a four or a two. That is all you can play. If you play something else, it gets rejected and it slowly falls back to the bottom of the screen, which is obviously very punishing to the player. But if your opponent plays four before you play two, the four gets registered, your two gets bumped. And now you either have to play a three, four or five. Oh, so the last die played is the North Star of like what? The North Star, you get it. The Star Twinkles. You have a constellation. It's actually insane that they change the game this much. I don't think it needed it. I really like that. I wish that was a game mode.

39:56 You know what? I think it's like it's kind of like they made a game mode its own game. Like how, you know, like there's poker and there's Texas Hold'em. This is the Texas Hold'em to Palomitas' poker. Five cards done.

40:11 But obviously with four dice to make up a hand, it's obviously like a lot faster too. The swings happen a lot quicker because you're building hands that are a lot smaller.

40:28 It's not as, you know, like you could cash in earlier in the other game. You didn't have to purposely build something of six. But now with four, you can, both players are just playing faster. There's also a Game Boy version of Palomitas. It's the same core rules, but obviously because it's on the Game Boy, it's like much like tighter screen, which makes it feel faster, even though I don't think it's playing any faster.

40:56 And then there's a bunch of like Japanese computer ports of this game, which means that it was obviously a little popular or interesting because there's also an arcade version came out around the same year. It might have been first, but it came out same year as the NES game. But those are all like the same rules, different presentation based on whatever computer they were on or arcade. So the Palomitas as a franchise is really just these two games with the first game seemingly being the more popular thing and maybe two changed up too much that like they couldn't justify a third one.

41:31 Yeah, I'm stuck on the Game Boy version because I am just thinking about how much harder this game would be if it couldn't be color coded. Yeah, because it's just, I mean, you're just like, especially on a small Game Boy screen. I mean, it's probably like not, it's probably pretty easy to get a four confused with a five when you're trying to move that fast and you got, you know, it's just sides of the dice. I mean, I'm just thinking about turning this game into grayscale, which has probably, I don't know the difference in resolution between the NES and Game Boy, but it's probably illegible.

42:07 Well, it's interesting because I think, I think it's actually fine. Like it's, it's pretty boring, colorless, which is funny that took Game Boy so long to have color. But they did do shading on the dice so that at least like not, they all don't have like six shades. No, no, that's what I'm saying. There's like, there's like two shades and it kind of cycles between odds and even numbers.

42:30 Okay. But it still isn't like, it's not like it's more crunched in, you know, it's just like the amount of rows you have is probably less before you get crushed, if that makes sense. Like because they had to tighten it all, but still fit six across. Yeah. So I feel like there's only like five rows instead of nine. So silly. Let's see. Anything else? Anything else to say? I don't think so.

42:58 Would you add like any house rules to your, to your multiplayer? Joe, should we have banned three pairs? No, I think that three pairs, pretty fair. And we were both using it and it was, it was working for both of us. I don't know. Yeah, you couldn't enforce it, but like, would there be a rule where it's like, you can't, you can't play repeat hands back to back. Like you can play three pair, but you have to play something in between. Yeah. I mean, as a house rule, that is hard. I could see that being like a, like a setting, you know, to, to make it more difficult. For the Evo 25 tournament mode.

43:36 If, if somebody, if somebody said to you that one guy invented the alphabet, numbers, weights, measures, and coinage, would you take anything after that that they said seriously?

43:52 Probably not. Why? Well, that's again, the manual for Palamedes. Oh, Palamedes also invented all that shit too on top of the die? Yeah, he invented all of that, um, including dice. But then they also say that primitive people would throw dice. So, uh, you know, take, take what, take from that what you will. I will not let, uh, this game's manual die. Do they still teach this game's manual in, in schools? Yeah. Yeah, actually. Um, at least in, uh, say it.

44:29 Palamedes may have invented a lot of things, may not have invented dice, may not have even existed. But there is one thing that we invented that exists, and that is the essential games list.

44:44 Look, I had a great time on the episode, um, which I mostly spent profusely apologizing to my best friend, Sean. So, hopefully he can find in his heart to forgive me. He talked a lot about the box and the cartridge and the manual, of which I guess I only perused a little bit of. But he never talked about the dice with realistic human legs and toes. I love how your essential vote is all about Sean.

45:12 You're, like, talking about Sean and not the game. So, no, I'm just teeing up for him. I would love to hear. I know, I'm just kidding. I would love to hear as part of his vote, uh, his thoughts on these dice people. And if they, if maybe they could have been a franchise, maybe these could have been the mascots of whatever Hot B, the developer of this game, whatever console they would put out. Because that was all the rage in the 90s was just, put out your own console. Everybody's making them right now. 3DO, Neo Geo.

45:37 The Hot B. I mean, the Hot B was a console. The Hot E B. The Hot B. No, Hot B was the developer. And I think they made a pretty great game here. Um, or, or whatever, whatever that means in the, in the grand scheme of the essential games list. I don't think this game hits any, like, essentialness because it's just, like, it's a very replayable game for the people that enjoy it. And if you don't enjoy, basically, like, the, the action puzzle game they've laid down here, it's not really, like, a puzzle thing to solve.

46:11 It's just kind of, like, a fast-thinking reflexes game. If you don't enjoy that, then there's nothing here. So, this is, like, an all-or-nothing thing. And so, I don't think I can put this on the essential games list. But it's, like, for me, this is, this is a great game. Like, this is, like, something I'm, like, happy I discovered and I will play.

46:29 That's kind of similar to something I, like, might have said about Balloon Fight way back when. Of how it's just, like, it's so replayable. It's so pick-up and, and ready to go. But, like, that one is offering something that, like, mechanics-wise, like, can be enjoyed and can have, like, a longer stay than just the, the five-minute cycle of, like, well, I figured out what this game is. Like, you can't just, like, figure out what Balloon Fight is right away. This game, you can play, build a few hands, and figure out if it's for you or not.

46:59 So, even though it's highly replayable from someone who enjoys it, I don't think it has, like, the kind of replayability that a game like Balloon Fight, which is going to be an essential game for as long as I can hold it on the list, it's not reaching that bar. So, I really enjoyed it. I look forward to hearing what everybody who played this game either growing up or because of this episode thought of it.

47:23 So, please let us know. But it's a no from me. Sean? Yeah, I'll first note and acknowledge that the, like, dice people on the front of the manual, and I think on the front of the box of the game, are off-putting. They have very human-looking naked legs. They do wear gloves, though. Like, they don't wear socks. They don't wear shoes. They are, you see their toes, but they do wear white gloves, so it's okay.

47:57 Um, anyway, for the game itself, I did find, like, you know, the core loop is, uh, it's satisfying. Uh, I think the game itself, though, and I was only playing against computer opponents, and I wasn't playing against, uh, my real human friends. Uh, but, I think that there's a pretty low skill ceiling. And, that means that I don't know how much enjoyment I would get out of this over time. Maybe if I did have human friends to play with, uh, I would have a different opinion.

48:35 But, I do come to the same conclusion that it is not an essential game. Joe? I like this game more than I like Tetris. Um, I think that, again, having mostly experienced this in a two-player mode, when I think of something like Tetris, uh, Mike, I know you're pretty good at Tetris. I'm not very good at Tetris. If you and I played Tetris, you would destroy me.

48:58 Partially because you're, you're so good at Tetris, and partially because I'm so bad at Tetris. You know what I mean? It's like, I'm playing against you, and I'm playing against the game. So, like, I think me playing against the game already hurts me if we're playing Tetris. Like, this game, that lower skill barrier means in a two-player setting, it's more, like, pure I'm playing against you.

49:21 Does that make sense? Where it feels more like our skills are, it's like, we're going head-to-head, and, like, it's not as much about, like, who's good at the game. Because, like, anyone could be kind of good at the game, you know, if you're playing single-player in this. Um, I also just found, I don't love this, like, the Tetris style of game, personally. I just found this a little more interesting.

49:42 But, yeah, overall, it's like, I enjoyed this game as I played it, but, like, it's, it's too, it's too simple for me. It doesn't hold my interest. These types of games never do. Um, if, if I didn't have to play it, I would never seek it out. Granted, I did surprisingly, like, I did surprisingly, like, want to go back to it a couple times after playing it, but that's already kind of worn off for me. So, I'm not going to vote it essential. Part of that, I think, is, uh, just my own, uh, preferences. But, I don't think I, I don't think I voted Tetris essential. Uh, so, even though I like a little more than Tetris, uh, still not up there for an essential game.

50:19 I like your answer there about, you know, playing against the game and against the person. Because, you know, you're right, that, like, this game may just be simple enough that it's not, like, not as bare bones as, like, rock, paper, scissors, right? Like, anybody can play that. And so, we're just, I'm always playing against just you, not the game.

50:36 Right? Like, there's a little more to it than that, but it's not as complicated as, they didn't figure out how to add T-spins yet to Palamedes. But, once they do, uh, the whole, the whole thing will be opened. Uh, you know, it's a good question, Joe. I don't know who voted, uh, for Tetris on the essential games list. I don't, I don't know if that happened. Did, did you? I wouldn't have. I think, uh, we didn't.

50:57 No, no, it's not on there, right? I don't think it's on there. But, but I'm saying, like, did anybody even vote for it? Like, that's controversial. I think we all kind of just, uh, admitted that there were probably better ways to play Tetris. Right, now, now. I think, I do remember that, yeah, being, like, the NES version is not the best. But, I don't know if I would vote any version of Tetris essential.

51:16 It's funny because, so, so, the NES version of Tetris, just to get into it for saying, because I'm sure our audience is still mad at us for not even considering it. The NES version of Tetris is definitely its own thing, too. Like, they just never made another Tetris like that one. But, I don't think that that means that its uniqueness also makes it stand out. Like, I, I, I saw the, the NASA spaceship take off, uh, for the final ending of the game. And I was like, cool.

51:41 Never need to go back and see that again. Like, it's just like, there's, they're not offering anything compared to, like, what modern Tetris offers, which is so exciting. It's kind of like Pac-Man. Once I played Pac-Man Championship Edition, why would I ever play regular Pac-Man again? Ever. Whoops.

51:57 Uh, Palamedes, right? Once I see it coming from the bottom, why would I ever want to play it on the top? Now that I've seen, now that I've seen that the dice can come up from the ground? Yeah. Now that the technology is there for the dice to come from the ground. It's a slippery slope, guys. Yeah. So, you guys are going to be doing, like, some, like, amphetamine version of Palamedes?

52:18 And just, you know. Well, we can't do anything with amphetamines because the Punisher would surely come after us if he caught us doing drugs on the street. True. Oh, yeah. And think of how much danger everyone around us would be in. Right, right. Yeah, the Punisher just brings a lot of danger wherever he goes. And he is next week. So, just, I don't know. Look out for us. Look out for the Punisher. Tell me what the Punisher means to you. And, yeah. Bye. All right.

52:57 Bye. Thank you.