Episode 4 | New Dad Gaming

[0:08] welcome to new dad gaming a show about gaming fatherhood and new fathers trying to figure out their gaming lives my name is trevor and i have a four month old

[0:17] actually as of yesterday gavin congratulations uh my name is gavin i have a almost two-month-old

[0:27] my name’s jeff and i’m gonna stick to a five-year-old in the two and a half years come on jeff it’s been a couple weeks

[0:33] you haven’t crested past that yet yeah yeah sorry guys i’m going to stop for one thing though the are you noticing i’m only noticing my

[0:40] face popping up but your face is swapping back and forth yeah yeah okay mine never pops up on my own

[0:49] but i’m i’ve never seen mine pop up on my own okay i got it now because it just if i did not want an hour worth of podcasting just to be my face

[0:58] just like and the crowd goes wild that’s the best podcast ever okay

[1:07] all right um welcome to new dad gaming a show about gaming fatherhood and new fathers trying to figure out their gaming lives my name

[1:16] is trevor and i have a just turned four month old my name is gavin i have a seven week old and my name is jeff i have a

[1:25] five-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old so what’s kind of nice is that for those listening and not seeing this we all

[1:32] have a varying degrees of stubble which is probably good probably good indication of how we’re

[1:38] all feeling right now i get get the feeling i’m not the only one who had an awful week so gentlemen how were your weeks from a gaming and baby perspective

[1:48] uh baby perspective was was pretty good we had some solid nights we had some party nights um but all in all uh you know doing well

[1:58] uh gaming wise though uh a little bit here a little bit there but uh not a whole whole bunch okay what uh what are you are you still

[2:05] on lovers in a dangerous space time or what are you into at the moment and dying light i guess you had mentioned yeah planned that some dying light also

[2:12] the uh the metro series slowly working way through that i find the chapter set up on it um quite digestible in size so

[2:22] you know the amount of time i might have usually i can get uh one of those levels done very quick um and yeah they did a lot of uh for the console version they

[2:32] did a lot of updates to it to help with it just kind of feel i don’t know uh maybe it’s a little bit nerfed and that’s why i like it but

[2:40] uh compared to the pc version it’s a little bit less punishing so if the stealth kind of

[2:48] falls out from under itself and you get seen it’s not the end of a level you don’t have to restart you can usually try to

[2:55] frantically get yourself back on top of the winning side um so it’s kind of i’m playing it on easy

[3:03] which is also something i’ve started doing because it i just don’t have time to trial and error i just got i just want to move through i just want to push

[3:10] on through to the end yeah i can kind of remember that with um playing through dishonored where first time that guy’s really adamant to

[3:18] boat i just want to do this like super stealth wise yeah no get the no killing achievement man i wasn’t that bold like oh i tried i tried

[3:27] and that’s why uh it’s still on my shelf because it was really hard because you’d have to like

[3:33] render people unconscious and then hide them up on top of chandeliers so other people couldn’t find them and i’m like how’s this not going to kill oh it

[3:39] doesn’t matter and then one time i had to redo an entire level because i rendered somebody unconscious and then hid them behind a fox but then they got

[3:46] eaten eaten by just random npc rats and that that counted as murder apparently

[3:54] it’s like towards the rats oh i just i sat him down gently next to a dumpster it just happened to be full

[4:00] of rats that were apparently very hungry it’s like all right buddy live and let live you go on your merry way turn around for a second

[4:08] no yeah but now i’d have to restart like i restarted so many times because somebody just randomly saw me or

[4:19] yeah it oh that was like going for styles can be so frustrating like like it was incredibly rewarding

[4:26] and really fun when you pull it off but man the stealth routes always just seem to be such a act of frustration and i think that’s the thing with

[4:34] stealth games especially the newer ones too if you’re playing a newer stealth game chances are if the stealth goes south on

[4:41] you you can usually still play it like the level isn’t restart um but

[4:47] when you grow up playing with the original splinter cell and like these these really really like thief and games like that where stealth

[4:56] is paramount it’s like you can’t break that old habit so like if you get seen even though like technically you didn’t fail the level

[5:04] you could just keep going like there’s that part of us because we’re so used to the old grueling very very punishing stealth games that are

[5:11] like no gotta do it again gotta start all over again i gotta do this entire mission undetected

[5:17] it’s also you against like the game too right so if the stealth fails as the game mechanic that sucks too because

[5:24] playing metal gear now if guys he’s way over on a hill somewhere how did you i’m used to the vision cones remember the vision cones

[5:34] and you could just navigate around the corner because you knew where they were looking that’s what we need back i can feel that i love how near-sighted all

[5:41] the enemies were with those vision cards i know it was great you could crawl underneath them almost no peripheral vision they can’t see past

[5:50] three meters in front of them like all the people who wouldn’t have been drafted in the war like work on this base that’s all there is

[6:01] everybody work here it’ll be okay it’s just a bunch of like near-sighted klutz’s

[6:07] heart murmurs and she’s like okay everybody go on this base it’s all right nothing ever happens here it’s a cushy security job you just

[6:14] off this particular route down this hallway and just repeat for eight hours and then we’ll send you home yeah this is just a

[6:21] cardboard box factory uh i don’t think there’ll be any any issues at all don’t check the lockers don’t check the lockers don’t check the lockers i think

[6:29] the shift has all sorts of weird stuff in those lockers don’t bother looking you don’t want to know what’s in there just keep walking

[6:37] be great i’d love to see a kid like a kid who comes up with this learning it and then he asks his biology teacher like so what so how does a

[6:45] person’s icon get defined

[6:51] what do you mean by icon well you see when they’re walking around they can just see you from this corner just turn on the cone the cone of vision

[7:00] yeah that’d be a fascinating guest at some point it’s probably just a teacher and asking them what what what game

[7:07] related questions are you fielding now i think like now that kids are like so entrenched into it like like geology teachers trying to explain

[7:16] that like mining in minecraft doesn’t work like that like that’s not how you find diamonds and that’s not how you forge steel like

[7:25] it’s a little more complicated yeah trying to ask like what breed of chocolate like where on the evolution tree is at chocobo and yeah

[7:37] you can also ask how to get the gaming then get the ghost or get somebody asking their biology teacher how do you get the golden chocobo

[7:46] it’s like it’s like flashbacks how flashbacks are you talking about he’ll freak out and run out yeah the best way he probably knows how like

[7:53] given his age he probably is like well you see what you got to do is race this the people who are now the teachers in these schools are totally game literate

[8:01] so they they would have like either that or they would have like a really smart alec response and they just say like monsanto

[8:07] or something and then just be done with it or like ask your mom uh yes so jeff sir we uh kind of just launched off there what uh how was your

[8:17] week here from from from fatherhood and gaming ah it was a horrible week horrible anything i mentioned last week that my

[8:26] kids were sick so i was getting a lot of time in well now they made me sick so all that uh when they sleep i sleep so gaming has been uh limited to like the

[8:36] ipad and like games that they can see while they’re awake and i’m awake so some uh final fantasy vii on the ipad and tear away actually on ps4 which is

[8:47] an amazing game that looks really good really uh awesome just the texture in the

[8:53] the creativeness of it it’s absolutely insane it’s nothing i would have normally i guess picked up but there’s a demo out and it’s kind of

[9:02] my taste for it um but it’s really neat and the kids have fun with it i had fun with it

[9:08] and then i i passed out and woke up the next day it’s just worse than before so um we got a ps4 controller and a bottle

[9:18] an empty bottle at night like what happened yeah yeah

[9:24] no uh no crazy uh no crazy gaming sessions this week yeah what’s terra is that like a direct port

[9:32] of the ps vita version or is it like a special how do they do that with the all the various sensors on the vita though

[9:40] well they do it with um well now the dual shock you can like rotate it and with the touchpad it’s got the touchpad in it so a lot of the motion stuff and

[9:49] you actually create little pieces too right so you can draw your own one of them is you have to draw a crown so you draw a little crown on the

[9:55] touchpad and then you can actually link it with their ps app so on your smartphone you can use it as a tablet so a lot of that vita specific stuff has

[10:04] been kind of um kind of taken away and transferred to something else that works and even the dual shock light bar acts as like a little like flashlight that

[10:12] your guy can go through and you can there’s little enemies in the game that change all the textures to newsprint so

[10:19] you flash your flashlight your controller on it and control it and it changes to the right texture so it’s kind of neat how they’ve transferred it

[10:27] from the vita because i never had a vita but that was one game that kind of caught my eye and i lost track of it um but now that it’s

[10:34] on the ps4 it’s really easy to pick up and do it’s all been i don’t know if it’s been remastered but definitely high resolution textures and it runs like

[10:41] butter so it’s really neat game and the fact that it’s all paper and you step over the paper and it bends this is that alone

[10:48] is awesome like a little details like that that kind of kind of sounds like the pixar of gaming in the sense that

[10:56] like pixar movies are great because you bring your kids because it’s fluffy but there’s all this tactile like just stuff that you can

[11:03] enjoy as an adult into it too and it sounds like that’s very much a game that you’d have no issue showing to any kid but as an adult it’s like you’re all

[11:10] about it like it’s still great yeah it’s neat i found the same with like the like rayman

[11:16] yes i find that’s a game where there’s enough is that that the substance in it is enjoyable enough that adults can really

[11:25] get a lot out of it and a lot of appreciation not just for the mechanics but for the art and the animation the movement just that that sense of of uh

[11:33] of weight that everything has and that fun sort of squishiness uh but then it’s also something that’s like completely totally kid-friendly

[11:41] like so kid-friendly that it’s actually kind of designed for kids except for those little pixie fairies they’re a little much

[11:48] a little suggestive believe it but you know french i mean the fairies from ocarina of time although like super polygon

[11:58] yeah or still like it seems like people seem to have a pretty sexualized idea of fairies yeah and i don’t know where that comes

[12:06] it’s not like in mythology they’re like it’s not like sirens or or like mermaids where they’re used to tempt like sailors to their doom like fairies

[12:16] are always just there to hang out and i don’t know point in the right direction like it’s like it’s like siri and an info

[12:24] desk like it’s not it’s not uh alluring by any means yet for some reason uh

[12:31] our the aesthetic that we have put on them is very sultry even though they’re like four inches tall which is also just baffling

[12:42] so i just don’t get it like i don’t know like a teacher just uh ask your mom biology of this fairy how does that work

[12:54] oh the um it’s covered in the new uh sex ed curriculum objectifying fairies objectives the tears and dope

[13:04] it’ll probably just result in don’t yeah it’s really there’s no do’s just don’t do it how do you wonder about um

[13:15] go ahead sir was that no i’m just thinking about burn gully too yeah you can continue i’m stuck on fairies just hold on yeah it’s going to give

[13:24] gavin like five minutes to clear his fairy thoughts and uh we’ll be right back folks the

[13:30] no just thinking about i remember like with movies um especially when you’re growing up there’s kind of a weird especially as

[13:36] you start to get a little bit older but you’re still too young for it if the movie has uh nudity in it like that being a particularly kind of

[13:43] odd part from you know a kid like no you shouldn’t some parents being super strict now you

[13:48] shouldn’t see that you know which is understandable others being like okay like you can see it but like you should really understand a bit more what that

[13:55] is and now i guess like what what’s so slowly starting to come up is some sexual content and nudity and video

[14:03] games so it feels like there’s going to be another affront to us as parents as like what’s the one with playstation that’s

[14:10] mostly talking

[14:15] well it was metal gear but not oh yeah heck no metal gear is perfect actually like uh yeah with quiet yeah yeah yeah that’s like the suggested like

[14:25] the silly fine silly costume is one thing but it’s like entirely another like the suggestiveness and the costume they try to explain it too i haven’t got

[14:33] to that like i don’t have the game um but i i i’ve heard how they try to explain it and that just makes it worse just the explanation does not make sense

[14:42] it’s so weak like it’s just it’s like the explanation was done afterwards yeah yeah like where they’re like oh we’re gonna get a lot of flack

[14:51] for this aren’t we like the internet’s already starting to rumble and boil about it so all right quickly writer’s room

[14:56] everybody let’s meet up how can we make this non-creepy let’s figure out some speculative science fiction answer

[15:04] as to why she wears exactly 30 grams of clothing yeah and go from there so yeah it’s uh you know i’m not gonna talk too much

[15:14] about it because i don’t want to spoil it for our listeners but uh yeah it’s it’s it’s another one of those weird things because she’s secretly a bear

[15:20] folks it’s because she’s secretly a bear she’s she’s um they they had a growth rate and they shot a fairy

[15:28] there you go it was a fairy i knew it she’s got magical fairy powers magical fairy sniper the clothes didn’t grow with her right it’s just that’s real

[15:37] that’s what would happen she’s just she’s stuck in her fairy clothes that’s it they they didn’t get affected the the expando ray only affects organic

[15:45] material huge sniper rifle so yeah i mean that’s got to be a concern i mean even jeff like you mentioned that like i can’t imagine you

[15:55] play metal gear in front of your kids oh god no no there’s no way like like me and gavin could probably get away with it because baby don’t know nothing

[16:03] you just hang maybe in front of the screen but uh yeah like yours that age now they’d start to comprehend and then

[16:09] you’d have to explain like why she dressed like that you’re like that’s not a lot of good reasons son

[16:17] big old why just pointing it quiet why i don’t i don’t know why that’s a big that’s like a year’s worth of explanation no yeah i won’t even

[16:27] chance that right now it’s all like like tearaway or rocket league or or raymond’s another good one yeah um stuff that’s easy for them to see and

[16:38] they’re used to cartoons and illustrations and stuff so anything with art when it’s more real like even real

[16:43] characters running around they don’t quite understand it yet they’ll have a lot of questions so if it makes somebody like a total character

[16:51] like mario or something not a problem um but even rayman there’s some questions like you know why is that

[16:58] cartoon dragon chasing you and um there’s no violence in it necessarily like when he blows up you just kind of explodes right yeah and it’s curtain pop

[17:07] yeah yeah yeah so they get that but there’s no way i’m gonna show them like uh even the marvel games like the comic ones yeah they’re a little bit too much

[17:16] for them not the lego ones but the other more lifelike ones uh it’s they’re not there yet so i i can see even with you know just violence and

[17:24] unity in general it’s gonna be a little bit harder oh that’s something too oh sorry go ahead no no you go i’ll just say with violence and nudity like

[17:33] sometimes the the faux pas of one is always placed above the other especially in like

[17:40] cinema like you’ll see the the rating of a film um be really really high because there might be like a

[17:48] nipple not even a pair but just like um but like they’ll rate it like r because there’s nudity and ooh nudity

[17:57] like very puritanical western culture like we’re not allowed to see this stuff um but then there’d be another movie which would have like

[18:06] immensely more violence um but that one would wind up with like a pg-13 or something where it would still be rated with like

[18:14] this you know parental advisory and effect sort of thing but it wouldn’t get penalized as hard by the rating system um for the violence as opposed to if it

[18:24] had nudity and i think that’s one thing that is starting to happen in video games as well is that um

[18:31] not that i’m for a whole bunch of nudity in games um but i i i think we’re seeing it as well where when one thing happens like when uh like with the witcher it

[18:40] gets a lot of flack for having like actual like scenes of you know people in uh coitus uh

[18:51] that’s almost like polite like quiet way to say that trying to like you know class it up a bit here

[18:57] i’m trying to counteract all that fairy talk from earlier in a video when a video game man loves a video game woman or another video game man sometimes

[19:06] when two non-player characters engage in consensual acts sex had thought through games perfect yeah part of the new curriculum as i

[19:15] said uh so yeah i know i i find like that game got a lot of a little bit of stink about it in some

[19:22] articles just about like oh well you know like it’s there’s this happening it’s like yeah but it’s not

[19:28] it’s not a violent act it’s just two people engaging in consensual relations it’s fine it’s not that like the same game has the man cleaving another man in

[19:37] half with a sword and nobody’s like nobody bats an eye at that where it’s like yeah he just turned him into like a side of lamb

[19:44] with with a broadsword and it’s like oh we’re used to that but nobody’s seen a nipple in a video game in years it’s it’s it’s it’s very rare

[19:54] to see it it’s like you know like the double rainbow of of uh of game ratings system things it doesn’t come up very often but when it does it

[20:04] gets everybody’s attention what is that talking playstation game though because it had nudity in it it was oh it was a heavy rain heavy rain

[20:13] thank you yeah yeah i think that had some in it but it was kind of it wasn’t it didn’t really feel gratuitous it wasn’t

[20:22] looky looky looky like and everyone’s dancing around like it was part of a storytelling much like a movie would be but you know ultimately again if like

[20:29] somehow that got into jeff’s kids hands and they’re playing through that’s like i don’t think that’s probably quite

[20:36] appropriate just yet for you probably it’s i’ve had it would have some questions but not as many questions or at least questions would be probably

[20:45] i’m assuming easier to answer than if they had gotten a hold of a copy of like duke nukem 3d oh jesus

[20:52] with the mods of course or or worse off the newest duke nukem because then they would just be asking why does this exist and then you’d have

[21:03] to answer that as well and maybe that’s just it though the duke you comes a good point right when we grew up that was the pixelated nudity that we were used to

[21:12] and maybe now because it’s so real and lifelike can you actually play a game where you’re that character and all of a sudden there’s nudity you have that

[21:19] attachment again maybe that’s what makes it a little bit more adult yeah there’s nothing else

[21:26] with but think about um something like legion suit larry which is you know super cartoony um it all that comes back to larry it

[21:34] always goes back to the leisure suit later on that one though that one was pretty high like duke nukem i remember getting

[21:41] i don’t know i don’t know maybe the rating wasn’t the bad as bad as i thought it would i don’t know i can’t i have a hard time

[21:47] believing they rated it r but i think like the nudity was something you had like almost unlocked wasn’t it i don’t think it was built

[21:52] into the game indeed yeah because i think there was like the

[21:57] nudity part of it with the strippers and the money i don’t think was like the default i think you had to enable it somehow like there’s a cheat code or

[22:03] something am i remembering that wrong i think it was straight up you just walked up to them that was it

[22:10] i have a more pure memory of duke nukem i guess i won’t have you besmirch duke’s good name on the show

[22:19] yeah i’ll have to look up larry because i i think he was i think there was a bad rating on that one i i i hate to say it but i think these games both might

[22:27] pre-date the rating system maybe the game ratings didn’t kick in until like the mid to late 90s at least from what i recall

[22:35] yeah but i could be wrong but even with the pixelation it’s just like yeah like i think with it being more realistic it’ll be trickier because

[22:41] it’ll edge more towards just humanity in a movie yeah yeah but then but even with

[22:48] something like laser suit larry where yes it is cartoons and a bit more tongue-in-cheek as funny but like the the context and the aim of the game

[22:56] being what it is it’d be harder to you know you want to be careful yeah and like although you can kind of

[23:02] imagine too like a well-meaning grammar at some point saw a leisure suit larry game in the store like hey my son likes games and look at this old cartoony this

[23:10] is great my grandson sorry i’m gonna i’m gonna get him this like nice nice little video game i bet he loves it yeah and he proceeded to love it

[23:20] he totally made his early adolescence pre-pubescent life that much more confusing

[23:30] it’s like there’s not a mini game and then we just go into the next step or all the new curriculum folks

[23:38] the i mean one thing i guess that makes me think of though is with some of the cartoon violence where it’s almost like in playing to our

[23:46] generation’s nostalgia they’ve now made something seem so infinitely accessible to a younger generation so i’m thinking specifically like uh

[23:54] cuphead i don’t know if you guys have seen big trailers for that yeah and like i i don’t i don’t know

[24:01] that there’s too much blood in that one it’s not quite as bad i think he’d probably be even worse with something like um

[24:06] castle crasher castle crashers yeah like a bunch of blood in that like tongue and cheek it’s not and not overly overly bad even better would probably be binding of

[24:15] isaac yeah all right so it’s a little eerie yeah so you have this entire kind of new genre that almost feels like

[24:22] it’s playing off of our nostalgia to those old graphics and that kind of cartoon aesthetic but which makes it so almost appealing to kids

[24:30] where you could ha you could really imagine well i was going to say binding of isaac but ultimate so pink on the cover it’s

[24:36] like a pink guy crying like i don’t think many grammar is going to be too tuned into that but like cuphead you could see a well-meaning grandma

[24:43] buying that for a grandson like oh look at this like this is one of them video games you like and it’s got these

[24:49] adorable characters without understanding at all like the you know just a narrative that runs through that game

[24:55] i think they’re essentially walking heads full of alcohol yeah are they booze

[25:01] they’re not even like just tea and like no i’m pretty sure they’re full of whiskey you have to be i i could be wrong but i

[25:08] think i saw somewhere that they just they they fill themselves up and then just run on the town and they’re yeah

[25:18] all i know is i’ve been keeping up on the animation because it’s all hand-drawn and it’s so nice it looks like it’s stunning yeah it’s

[25:25] really so different from anything currently done it’ll be really interesting to see that comes out yeah but

[25:32] playing off that too right like um the whole grandma buying that game for the grandson i think as dads now we’re so into the gaming culture that we

[25:42] can kind of read up on it and know what it’s about whereas before i think you know my parents stuck the nintendo in my room

[25:49] and just i went upstairs to play they didn’t know i was they you know bought video games for me or i went out and spent my allowance on them but they

[25:56] didn’t know the content of it necessarily they they appear to be just as innocent as pogs right

[26:04] oh my god so what trouble what trouble could he possibly get into within but you know what i mean like so i think we can kind of better um vouchers we’ll

[26:14] spot the leisure suit larry or like you know yeah the witcher katorian edition being handed to our like six-year-old kid

[26:22] and that’s when we’ll like we’ll grab it out of their hands and be like that’s daddy’s gift and then we that’s like no no that’s we’re dead

[26:32] you’d see this in 20 years or when i beat it let me beat it first kid i don’t want any spoilers on breakfast around

[26:40] breakfast yeah you have a terrible time with secrets son yeah you’re not gonna start asking me questions about the

[26:46] game’s content totally giving away the ending yeah so yeah it’ll be interesting i mean like

[26:53] it’s i mean i don’t want to get into it too much because it’s like a pretty cliche conversation but just around the

[27:00] introduction of violence to kids in video games the classic online scenario of the 13 year old being so amazing at call of duty

[27:08] and just like that absolute unbelievable amount of violence but same time it’s just funny because i think that for me it would feel like a

[27:16] leisure suit larry would be worse to a kid to like a you know relatively young like a 12 year old let’s say than

[27:24] a call of duty because as much as there is like a bunch of like blood and gore and violence like it’s so abstract like not abstract but it’s it’s

[27:33] so gratuitous it’s so bigger than life like just explosions and such like it’s it’d be hard to relay that back into reality where like

[27:40] the leisure suit larry is a very specific specie specific pursuit of a sexual encounter so like

[27:50] yeah yeah you know i just don’t i don’t i think like as we’re coming up because like you said jeff like our

[27:55] understanding of games it’s just going to be a bit of a different approach to how we do introduce it to

[28:02] kids and it’s just like all right i mean this is a little bit violent but you know you you have a good enough understanding of

[28:09] it i’m not too concerned that this is gonna tweak you in any way yeah like the worst game i’ve shown my kids personally is um

[28:19] street fighter so that’s two people fighting it’s kind of cartoony-ish it’s not super real yet

[28:28] and it’s just because like my son is in karate and he wanted to see like my favorite character is ryu so i’ll

[28:35] show you ryu and he he i kept asking him questions i think that’s the

[28:41] point of this conversation is to have communication right with your kid as maybe they’re experiencing these things for the first time so just to you know

[28:48] double check you know this is a game right and it’s not in real life and we don’t use these

[28:54] uh you know hayadukan moves in real life at recess right like so there’s that and goals in the school yard

[29:02] sensei can you teach me yeah you can do a 360 power slam like zangief and by all means

[29:10] but i think he kind of understood it because it was that you know it was sort of real but it was still in the cartoon plane with magical fireballs and

[29:19] whatever but it’d be like watching an episode of like uh avatar you know where there’s cartoon martial

[29:26] arts action that’s nickelodeon and totally geared towards kids or ninja turtles or things like that like i you know we all grew up watching ninja

[29:34] turtles um and they were doing ninja stuff with sharp objects and swords uh ninja implements that are actually

[29:42] designed to kill in maim but they never really never did unless it was a robot like it was a little robot rat creature thing they

[29:49] would cut it in half but if it was a foot soldier then they’d just bonk them on the head and kick him down a well which probably killed him but we didn’t

[29:57] see it happen yeah i think i think both scenarios both explaining uh

[30:05] like a game about relationships among consenting adults like leisure suit larry explaining that type of game

[30:15] i i think something like that is is also you know it would be a game that naturally shouldn’t really fall within a kid’s gaming library like i think

[30:24] something like street fighter would naturally but that’s more of a game that’s tongue-in-cheek for adults um you know it’s a grown-up game because

[30:31] it’s designed it’s based on grown-up humor and situations that grown-ups should hopefully not relate to but could also relate to

[30:39] or at least understand enough like they would by watching an hbo series um but you know i i think making sure that

[30:47] as you said like keeping an open dialogue with your kid and making sure that all questions are are answered and that you’re not just going to do that

[30:55] whole no don’t ask those questions i’m not going to give you answers don’t worry about it you don’t need to know and it

[31:01] that adds like a level of mystique which almost causes them to want to seek it out more yeah to learn more by other methods or if you remove the mystique

[31:10] and just flat out explain it to them and make it as mundane of an answer as possible into the reality of the situation that like oh this is a fantasy

[31:17] scenario like this isn’t how real people should interact there’s no hadoukens there’s no you know um

[31:24] you don’t have to buy x number of martinis at a bar to do this or do that um i think explaining that and removing and

[31:32] demystifying it a little bit i think helps because mystery adds curiosity curiosity adds sometimes the allure of looking for

[31:42] answers in places that might get the wrong answer yeah i was kind of forced to almost not show him violence but he was at camp all summer and

[31:53] um a lot of the fridays was take your own device to camp day i didn’t send them with anything because that’s a huge liability

[32:01] thing for me i’m not setting him with any sort of ipad iphone 3ds whatever i’m not but other kids did and they had fighting games

[32:13] so and they were much worse like they were the um like mortal kombat and stuff well not not that hardcore but they were you know ninja games and they were

[32:22] slicing to people with the touch pad or whatever they split into whatever they might have a little bit of blood or what i found out what the apps were but

[32:31] you can’t control other kids at that point right so you kind of have to introduce violence not nudity but maybe violence

[32:38] and some other things when culture kind of dictates it so people are starting to get this stuff a lot earlier in their hands especially

[32:47] with you know kids going around with their own ipads and and having access to pretty much anything they want yeah

[32:53] so that is really the rub of it like despite however you’d like to guide your kid

[33:00] in his digital exploration especially with games like some parent somewhere has given a 10 year old access to the bloodiest thing

[33:08] you’ve ever seen right so can’t bubble them right it’s yeah it’s you have to be able to kind of roll the punches and be able to

[33:18] answer those questions when they arise because they’re going to arise organically and they’re probably going to arise well before you’re ready to

[33:25] answer them um so like i think it’s good i think you know jeff you made a great point in the

[33:32] sense of sometimes you know you can’t get too attached to your schedule in regards to when you want to expose your children to certain things that this

[33:39] world shows us um because chances are your kid’s gonna jump the cue and

[33:47] have those questions for you well before you’re ready especially given the access to information that children have right now

[33:53] with with devices yeah that like command the internet connected ipad

[33:59] right trying to think about like 9 to 12 year old me without my hands just like jeez like the stuff i would get into

[34:07] like just from a curiosity standpoint like the searches you would do like yeah man and you know you could try to like make

[34:14] them computer illiterate or never allowed to connect to the internet or you know some things and maybe at some point there’s some

[34:21] decent fail-safes you can put in but yeah like it’s we’re kind of going to be under a different type of barrage from this thing that our parents never really

[34:30] had to deal with yeah especially with those devices like um i found with the 3ds actually nintendo’s really good about parental

[34:39] access they will block out um they’ll like separate everything out so do you want him to have access to the internet no but i still want him access to the

[34:46] wi-fi because i want him to watch netflix okay well what kind of netflix the adult netflix or kids kids netflix so it’s like

[34:54] it separates out a lot so i can give them that digital like education without like exposing them to the entire brutality of the internet

[35:03] where he’s got a facebook page and just trickle it in just yeah yeah so they’re really good on that

[35:10] i for every other device it’s kind of like you’re relying on parents for one thing to lock it down and or the device itself the the software

[35:19] that comes with it so i remember when people wouldn’t lock down their credit cards and people were just giving it to their kids and they’re

[35:24] running up you know 3 000 credit card bills and in-app purchases yeah so that’s my fear

[35:32] but i’ve locked all that stuff down so it’s uh spending the money oh geez the um

[35:40] yeah that’s fascinating man just like it’s it’s gonna be so interesting to see what it’s like when

[35:47] like i said because of our history and our enjoyment of games especially as a youth like just as the kid comes up into that

[35:54] age and getting assaulted on all sides from various type of different types of games of different

[36:00] maturity level it’s going to be fascinating like it’s going to be kind of interesting to watch you jeff because you’re

[36:06] kind of getting into that now yeah i’m in the trenches now thanks guys i’ll report back report from the trenches

[36:15] it’s a nightmare don’t let your kid grow up uh your your new nickname is gonna be recon recon jeff like guys just

[36:24] just

[36:29] buy a cabin in the woods get off the grid yeah so the um yeah so just to kind of change gears a little bit so you

[36:37] guys have talked about your week like my week was just an absolute nightmare like just it just so bad like just so so bad

[36:46] like first then before we go any further like jeff remind me how long your kids sleep every night oh yes see it’s usually

[36:54] um seven o’clock and they wake up at six o’clock 11 hours we get 11 hours in there i think once a

[37:01] week yeah just just i’m just gonna let that sink in for a second yeah and enjoy this moment yeah because last week was just

[37:09] the goddess let me guess trevor you got 11 hours total that week oh yeah i wish because the thing that happened so um

[37:19] last week was awful um and then monday was just the peak of it like it was just

[37:26] absolutely terrible i probably slept like one hour in total and he’s like he’s such a happy baby so like he’s keeping me up and i’m so tired

[37:33] he’s smiling having the time of his life and it’s just like man i’m happy you’re happy i’m happy you’re happy but goddamn

[37:41] daddy’s insane but then um yeah we just had a an awful week at work then like some

[37:50] really big things came up that just had to be taken care of and unfortunately i ended up staying up until five in the morning one night and

[37:58] then until two in the morning and this was like compacted on that first night where my son did not drop

[38:04] until like at all just for the one hour and i just and the worst feeling of all of that was like when i went to bed at two and i went to bed at five

[38:14] it was just like the knowledge that the kid was going to be up within like the 20 to 30 minutes like after i go to bed so i’ve reached my finish line from work

[38:22] like all right i did it i can go to bed now the baby’s like hey what are you doing i’m gonna be up let me just wake up and

[38:28] cry for four hours it’ll be great no baby please like there’s no finish there’s no finish line anymore it really drove home the fact like you

[38:37] just can’t you got to be careful with those type of sessions from work or anything in life because a little one is just going to dictate

[38:48] there is no off button you can’t just catch up which still despite four months is still the

[38:54] thing that i struggle with where because before you used to be able to do a big batch of work or you stay up video game marathon and then you could just

[39:02] catch up on sleep and that that does not exist anymore like it’s gone it is dead yep yeah i found the same thing with my work

[39:12] as well and just i’ve had to actually kind of change my expectations as far as output levels and actually go through and

[39:20] uh readjust some of my own personal deadlines and stuff luckily my projects are so far out that

[39:26] i can accommodate it for it um but it still it’s it’s really interesting just the idea of before there’s that

[39:34] like okay i’m going to put my nose with grindstone and just burn all the midnight oil just go for broke get this done

[39:41] and then i’m gonna pass out for 10 hours and it’s like yeah that option’s not there anymore so i can’t

[39:49] for the sake of being able to work the next day or even the day after i don’t have that recovery option

[39:56] anymore so it’s like i have to change my my running pattern so to speak i can’t dead sprint things anymore i have to be

[40:04] at a more even-paced job or maybe one of the like the goofy olympic walk i i i like i like that event a lot actually

[40:16] but yeah it’s like you have to adjust um your expectations from yourself physically and how much uh you can drain your own endurance because you can’t

[40:25] empty the tank because the baby’s always gonna need some uh so if you go in with an if you come home or or leave your desk and and hit the you know hit the

[40:34] pillows uh with a completely empty tank that’s exactly when the baby’s going to fuss and that’s exactly when you’re like i

[40:41] got nothing to to to do to deal with this man just like that in the and there’s the hope like when you go to bed in that exhausted state and

[40:50] you’re just like wish like it’s almost like you wish that i could extend myself somehow and reason with the baby who was just like look

[41:00] i know you’re having a rough night just give me two hours and it’ll totally be there’s just nothing there like there’s no

[41:07] there’s no conduit for us to have any type of understanding and he doesn’t have you know comprehension so it’s just like you know you’re here and then like

[41:14] today i was sick like i wore myself down and understandably and obviously i got sick don’t matter it doesn’t

[41:22] they don’t catch it that’s a shame enjoy enjoy it because you’ve got a lot of responsibilities still yeah yeah it’s in my case it’s it’s in the

[41:32] golden age i would say but when i had uh jude at three years old and then my youngest son elton and he was just born

[41:42] um that was beyond health like that was because

[41:49] i’m not gonna she’s gonna sugarcoat that a little bit i’m gonna say guys that is sugar coating it yes that’s a nice brush

[41:57] it’s a night circle um because the jude would be off the nap right so he would be out of nap

[42:05] he would go all day so let’s say it’s a saturday he would go all day until seven o’clock which is his bedtime so

[42:12] you’re exhausted just from that and now you have a newborn to deal with so you want a couple hours to yourself you don’t and the newborn’s going off

[42:23] and it’s just it’s like kind of what you guys are dealing with just and then you wake up to a little dude that’s ready to go and he wants to go to the park and he

[42:33] wants to ride a bike and he wants to talk to you all the time and you can’t just like just zone out and just kind of that’s

[42:42] not reassuring at all no it’s like what you guys are going through except twice as bad i’m reporting back from the trenches this is

[42:49] the first report just to bring it guys just it reminds me of something this uh a

[42:56] comedian i really like jim gaffigan uh he was talking about when he had his i think fourth kid yeah something like that and i was like what’s it like

[43:05] having like another baby with when you already have a house full of kids and he goes okay imagine you’re drowning

[43:14] someone hands you a baby yeah but it gets good it gets better i’m not

[43:22] saying it’s all bad it gets better guys it’s better it’s better yeah yeah a couple years you know a couple years no sleep that’s okay right and i think you

[43:30] know i think we i don’t know who knows how life goes but i think ultimately we would like a second

[43:37] um not i’ve thought at times even third but at least like we definitely want two and it’s just yeah and my brother unfortunately like

[43:44] he had his first and then he they like okay let’s have another one and they had twins oh see that’s it no surprise extra babies

[43:53] congratulations bonus baby i think the thought of it just made a little gray streak of hair on jeff there

[44:03] i would twins would be wow yeah my friends are having twins but it’s like they’re their first kid um so like they have

[44:14] other responsibilities obviously like yeah and stuff but it’s not like they have a three-year-old and then twins

[44:21] but you know there is always the that school of thought where you space the kids out enough that like the ones old enough to kind of take the burden

[44:30] but you have many kids that way or else you’re going to be right into retirement but like put a good six years between each kid

[44:38] yeah yeah it’s like that whole uh you know farm families and there’s like a dozen of them yeah like i mean that’s my parents like there’s 12

[44:46] of them or so yeah and like just that’s a big family madness man i just thought of having that many that many siblings like that many kids

[44:56] oh they probably want that space that far apart either like probably like a year or two between i think they’re a good catholic folks so probably not

[45:05] good catholic farmers so yeah there’s not a lot of space no the good thing i think the the only kind of funny part about that is that ultimately at some

[45:12] point they start to just take it takes care of itself because as soon as you have a couple 12 year olds it’s like well like there goes

[45:18] half but that goes like a third of the chores perfect yeah and by the end you just have like a minion of kids like serving you and like

[45:26] you control them just go yeah my dinner it’s like pikmin it’s just like just dangle money and they follow it

[45:36] yeah oh so all right so that’s good to know from the trenches like it’s

[45:43] some hope in the sense of how long they sleep a little hope as soon as the second one shows up just like we’ll be able to take

[45:50] screenshots of our like for the those watching we’ll be able to take like screenshots and compare it like here’s how tired they look with one

[45:58] and look now they’re getting slightly better they’re getting slightly better oh they had their second one it’s just like the drop in faces all the

[46:05] extra gray hair or no hair yeah changing gears one more time was um so the game i got to play this week uh

[46:16] still on hearthstone uh still really enjoying that one but uh i decided that you know i need something like i need something with some meat like i wanted

[46:23] to play something enjoy it and beat it so i went to my catalogue and it was uh batman

[46:30] arkham origins arkham city origin so i think i might have discussed this last week now that say it out loud yeah no it’s perfect it’s great because

[46:37] it’s there’s like little missions like the pause works perfectly just pause at any time and get out if you have to um it’s set up in such a way that if you

[46:46] want to hop in solve two crimes or like you know progress the story a little bit leave perfect for sampling like

[46:53] these batman games seem to be great from a new father perspective as far as uh meaty like weighty like really visceral

[47:01] enjoyable and we had a previous episode talking about stress relief and i think like beating up the way batman beats up men

[47:08] in this game it’s really satisfying yeah that that combat system with the uh the rhythm to it is is really nice and when you get a good streak going ah i

[47:19] found the same with the shadow of mordor like that one was also the same combat system fluid right uh yeah it’s just really fluid and you just feel so

[47:29] awesome and yeah the amount of stress release you get when urukai head goes flying through the air in slow motion

[47:38] nothing like a little bit of murder to like release some of them it was some of that baby stress yeah luckily this was pre-baby i think i

[47:46] feel weird cheering like decapitation with the baby at least in the room really would you honestly no no my the zombie game i’m playing right now has

[47:57] plenty of it and it doesn’t bug me at all yeah yeah so there’s been

[48:03] that’s kind of a half interesting one because especially with uh man like just back to the previous conversation if we loop back like

[48:09] there’s a great cartoon series batman was it the brave and the bold no

[48:17] yeah like it’s it’s super it’s it’s much more cartoony and like a lot more like tongue-in-cheek

[48:24] adam west style cartoon stuff so it’s very like light fair yeah i think i know what you’re talking about

[48:30] yeah to the point where you would let your kid watch it because like oh i mean like it’s fighting but it’s like poof and bang and just

[48:38] uh you know slapstick type of stuff but then your kid’s like oh i love batman let’s get this game like yes

[48:45] that’s it’s pretty gritty there’s a lot of a lot of bats to faces in that game i don’t know that uh

[48:54] oh it’s too quite appropriate yeah um yeah gentlemen i we did have a topic this week to discuss

[49:01] but i think we’ve kind of pushed this one out as far as a timing thing how are you feeling for yeah i think we got on uh

[49:10] i i think the topic that got unfortunately pushed to another time uh once the

[49:18] once the viewers or listeners uh understand what the topic was it’s very that we didn’t get to it today

[49:30] yes so just saying yeah so i’m too tired to catch that hint are you saying we should talk about it or not i’m saying that we should push it to the

[49:38] next episode your keyboard what’s going on oh man i wish i could have that would have been

[49:46] his it’s just it’s it’s full of like a hot toddy mixed with nyquil there’s so much nyquil no see i couldn’t even do that because like if i i got a

[49:53] baby dude tonight so like like that’s gonna hurt like heck if i have to like oh yeah that’s the thing is the old methods that

[50:02] like we used to be able to do when we did get sick which would just be usually uh dose ourselves with a good lack of medication

[50:11] and then wrap ourselves in blankets and sweat it out and then do laundry um

[50:17] you had me right up until the end there oh well i don’t know if you have enough of a fever dream you’re not going to want to

[50:23] sleep in that bed again but no like that old way of just like okay i’m gonna i need 12 hours to recover myself

[50:32] whether it be from exhaustion or illness or this or that having that luxury of being like okay i’m gonna shut myself in a room

[50:39] in my little fortress of solitude i’m going to take a weird bath

[50:45] thing with like some salt or whatever you put in them i don’t know my wife’s great at making baths that just

[50:52] cure everything um i don’t know what goes in them i don’t ask she just lets me know when the water is ready and i enjoy uh but yeah

[50:59] those opportunities to just be like i just need half of a clock day to just recover my body like

[51:06] you know i have a feeling that those days are gone for for a little while at least um because you know we got some

[51:12] responsibility but you know luckily uh the three of us all also have uh really great partners in our lives that can tag team when things do get rough

[51:21] yeah you know there’s that sort of it sounds like it’s kind of a bit of a thought like constant back my mind about just the

[51:29] the respect that you develop for anybody who’s had to do this alone yeah i thought of not having like

[51:38] somebody else like as you’re going through this like that’s like man that is amazing like that yeah anybody anybody who survived

[51:44] through that is like like heroic like it’s unbelievable to have to be able to do this like on your own

[51:51] because i mean for this like i’m sure you two are the same way but like this is like murdered two people like like this

[51:58] has just destroyed two of us like if there’s only one person at the available for like man like how to it’s it’s remarkable like it is

[52:08] yeah it’s it’s very impressive there’s like a special place in valhalla for them like they’re just like super people i i don’t

[52:17] understand how uh how one person could shoulder all that responsibility like that’s pretty crazy yeah

[52:24] and probably not a lot of video games i mean just like what what a sacrifice yeah

[52:30] there should be like a batman style game about being a single parent where it’s like a like a rhythm combat game but instead of fighting it’s like things

[52:38] like you know take the dog out change a diaper like it’s you have to like you know there’s like a cartwheeling across the kitchen like

[52:46] dishes it’s like that free flow housework uh

[52:51] navigation and it’s like you know you have to respond to an attack so like the baby’s puking so you have to hit the button prompt so that way you can flip

[53:00] in time to use a towel to keep it from being too bad it’s like things like that

[53:06] like i press y to change the diaper oh no you’re too late that’s on the walls now yeah if you build up enough of a combo

[53:12] like you can hit a like a combo button combination that’s like nap time you know it’s just like bonus nap go on a snap

[53:20] should totally do that it should be a text adventure like one of those old school text video games like oregon trail but

[53:28] yeah you walk into the room you see nothing but the walls smeared with something do you investigate it’s funny how it’ll

[53:36] be a text adventure and it will actually have more poop than the textbook

[53:46] like the sounds a little bit like octodad like i never actually yeah i think i own it but i don’t think i’ve ever actually played

[53:52] one of them but from the trailers i’ve ever seen it kind of seems like you’re just this octopus like mangling around the kitchen

[54:00] he’s a regular person yeah he’s not an octopus at all no sorry is that a spoiler we get people riding into the show like

[54:11] i had no idea that was an octopus thanks for ruining it octagon octa dad is actually a scantily clad woman um who’s really good with a sniper rifle

[54:22] quiet octopus love it very mild-mannered soft-spoken doesn’t really talk much that’s actually a good game you should

[54:30] play that game because it kind of feels like the character you’re controlling is what you’re feeling like now

[54:36] yeah it’s kind of semi drunk look at a lot of things and it’s a so it’s a parent simulator that’s perfect yeah so in my off hours

[54:46] from whenever i do play gaming so i get take a take a break from parenting and the first thing i want to do is play a parenting sim

[54:55] it’s like diaper change 2.0 can’t wait to play this game oh thanks the um all right i think let’s uh

[55:03] let’s wrap a bow on it for this week sounds like fun so any everyone thanks for tuning in this week if you’d like to get a hold of

[55:10] us please hop over to our website newdadgaming.com we record this weekly any questions or topics you’d like us to discuss please send them along and

[55:21] yeah rate and subscribe all that other great stuff with the shows my name is trevor and i have a four month old my name is gavin i have an almost

[55:30] two-month-old i’m jeff i’m a five-year-old and two and a half year old i just thought it was now the end of the broadcast neither of

[55:37] you have your bumpers on the bottom and that really makes any bumpers that really makes me look like a arrogant here’s how important i am i got my own

[55:45] bumper yeah get that up next week guys trying to run a tight ship here well

[55:53] i usually have it on but i don’t know why uh it’s not on today let’s take it up with the internet

[56:06] i’m sure you will get sincere honest uh feedback it should be fine i’ll google them a question and see what

[56:12] they say this is the last time we ever saw gavin he disappeared into the matrix that night

[56:19] lesson learned don’t taunt the internet all right everybody we’ll see you next week all right