All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 in total
#69 Is early access to a game worth extra money?
This ep was recorded right after Gamescom, but we swear it's still timely. For years, publishers have offered buyers a way to play a game early by spending more money....
#68 🫂HOP ON CONCORD🫂
They killed Concord. They didn't even give it two weeks. In this episode, we pay our respect to the video game of all time, hit game Concord. Hop on Concord, fellow ga...
#67 Games that are hard carried by their stories
Typically, we'd urge that gameplay is king in a video game. However, things aren't always so black and white. Sometimes the gameplay is just OK, but we can't help but ...
#66 Can too much balancing ruin a game?
In a world where we're bombarded by patch notes and minor differences when we go to play an online game, when can it become too much? What's acceptable when adjusting ...
#65 Does 2X playback speed ruin media?
Today we're giving our BLISTERING TAKES on 2X (or 3X) playback speed for watching media. Primarily we're focused on television series and movies in this episode, thoug...
#64 What can the MCU do to win us back?
Robert Downey Jr returning to the MCU raised a lot of eyebrows. Some were hyped, some were deflated...and then there's us. We're fancying ourselves representative of t...
#63 Why do we go to gaming conventions?
Gaming conventions like PAX, TooManyGames, and MAGFest have become bigger and bigger over the years. Toss in gaming-adjacent conventions like Momocon and Comic-Con, an...
#62 Debating the list of best games ever
Recently over on reddit, IlmeniAVG sourced more than 100 publication's top game lists and aggregated them all into an incredibly interesting list. For funsies, we deci...
#61 Our favorite games of the year (so far)
2024 has been one of the years of all time for games! A lot have come out, some quickly forgotten, some we're still playing. Today we figured we'd do a little midpoint...
#60 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater: The Musical, and more
We decided to spin a wheel, a wheel that would add modifiers to existing games. Then we hashed out how these would play out in real life. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater: The M...
#59 Games that have too much game
Sometimes a game just has too much game. When it's trying to tell a story it can completely disrupt the flow of the narrative. And even for games that aren't trying to...
#58 Remembering the mixed era of Kickstarter games
Crowdfunded games still happen, but there was a surge of them in the 2010's. For better or worse, many, many notable games were enthusiastically funded by fans. Yooka-...
#57 What makes trading card games fun?
TCGs have been taking over Crub bit by bit over the last couple of years, especially for Pokemon TCG for Nicco and Justin. This week we wanted to tackle what makes the...
#56 The problems with "difficulty" in gaming
This week we wanted to have an easy going talk about difficulty in games. What makes it great, what makes it difficult to design and plan around for, and some cases wh...
#55 The rise of the "meme" game
Who doesn't love a good meme? Even gaming is no stranger to the meme infiltration, today we wanted to discuss games designed to be a meme (for better or worse), games ...
#54 What makes a good collectathon game?
Genres in gaming have become incredibly fluid over time. Is Super Mario Sunshine a collectathon? What about Metroidvanias? Are Metroidvanias even a good name for that ...
#53 Guessing the prices of sold games on eBay - Rate Is Great
Justin made us guess the eBay prices of games, medical equipment, and limited-edition Taylor Swift records this week. If you get that last one right, you get one crub ...
#52 Does gaming have a PR problem?
Week by week there seems to be worse news in the gaming industry. Layoffs, greed, and worse ends of the deal for consumers pile on as games take longer to make and cos...
#51 We're glad E3 is dead (really)
We're not afraid to say it. E3 had its pros, but given some space since its demise we've begun to feel that it may have been a net positive for Gamer Week to go away. ...
#50 What makes good pacing in a game?
What makes good or bad pacing in a video game? Is there a reliable "just right" zone or is it just chance when it happens? We gathered 4 people who have never shipped ...
#49 How do we make time for video games?
Every day there are at least 90 new games that friends, reviews, and content creators are telling you that you HAVE to buy and play. How on earth are you supposed to j...
#48 Second-Annual 2024 Video Game Mascot Draft
Welcome to the second video game mascot draft! Each of our 4 hosts will pick from a (terrible) list of game mascots to round out their team, in addition to one wild ca...
#47 What makes good side content in a video game?
What makes good side content? Bad side content? What makes the difference between welcome variety and bloat in a game? Should you have to bathe when you're a cowboy? A...
#46 Games that finally "clicked" for us
There's something magical about the feeling of finally "getting" a game. Not just purchasing it and getting it, but playing it and really GETTING it. To see the praise...
#45 What happens AFTER a game's story?
On this week's show we talk about what happens NEXT in stories with cataclysmic events. How do you come back from the Thanos snap? What's the point of living in a zomb...
#44 The Crub Dating Show Game
We love our good friend Justin. Perhaps a little too much. So, we put on a dating game show with 3 contestants to earn his undying love (or to at least earn a call bac...
#43 Open world game design versus linear
This week's episode is broadly about linear vs open world game design, but also touches on a lot of other topics along the way (as you'll see in the show notes). Let u...
#42 Games that really didn't need sequels
Gaming really loves its sequels. As soon as a game comes out we're often inclined to start imagining what it's successor will be like. In some cases, however, sometime...
#41 Guessing games based on Steam reviews Round 2
Nicco takes the game show host seat this week with Steam reviews in tow. The objective is simple, read the review and the others have to guess the Steam game with no o...
BONUS: Podcastémon Episode #001
We're watching EVERY non-filter episode of the main Pokémon anime and talking about it on our new Patreon exclusive podcast, Podcastémon! This first episode is free to...
