23 - Gris (Game Suggestion) w/ Mirifique

A quiet game.
 A big question.

Gris sparks a conversation about accessibility, identity, and why not everyone who plays games feels like a “gamer.”

"Gris," a watercolor-art style game, is highlighted for its intuitive gameplay, atmospheric music, and lack of verbal cues, making it accessible and enjoyable. Juke and Mirifique discuss gaming habits and preferences. They explore the concept of what constitutes a gamer. 

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Art by Arielle:  Instagram @ProphetOPossum
Music: fesliyanstudios.com

Transcript

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Juke: 0:00

Getting gamers. Hello and welcome to getting gamers. Your guide to understanding the gamers in your life. I'm your host Juke, and today I'm joined by my dear friend mirifique. Hello, hi, so mirifique and I met while we were studying horticulture, and this is her very first time on the pod, as you can imagine. So, as per tradition, how about you? Tell us where your gamer tag comes from, how you came up with it, etc.

Unknown: 0:39

Yes, hi. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I'm excited. My game tag is Mirifique. This is like a really old word that I picked. I would think it must have been around 25 years ago,

Juke: 0:58

and when you told me it was a word. I didn't know it's a French word, yes, yeah, but I didn't know it was a word. It's like a not frequent, yeah.

Unknown: 1:07

So at the time, I had a lover who was a Francophile, and he taught me this word mirifique, and it means, like, marvelous, amazing, wonderful, but has kind of a nice, poetic Yeah, fairy tale twist too, yeah? Because when I hear me

Juke: 1:29

fake, I think fair, Rick or fantastic, even, you know,

Unknown: 1:32

yeah, yeah, fantastic. That's good, yeah, yeah, oh,

Juke: 1:36

I love it, and that suits you. Because for those who don't know, most of you don't know my friend, Mary fake, but she is very like fairy vibes, and she goes to renaissance fairs, and it's just, I think it suits you very well. I don't know if 25 years ago, you really you realized how well that gamer tag would suit you.

Unknown: 1:55

Yeah, I was already like a wood Oh, yeah, yeah. Cool, yeah.

Juke: 2:02

So I think my first question here, because, you know, obviously we talk a lot off pod we're friends, is, do you consider yourself a gamer?

Unknown: 2:12

I don't know. I wouldn't say that I consider myself a gamer. I play games, yeah, sometimes, and then I go through long stretches of nothing, and then I obsess about something when I have more time on my hand, where, like, after a big breakup a few years ago, like I I had to get some of the anger out, and I played like Diablo, 345, but I

Juke: 2:42

totally relate to that, because I also don't consider myself a gamer, but I do game more than a non gamer would game, yeah, and I do talk about this for the listeners in Episode 17, so the season two premiere episode I talk about the fact that people are undecided, Right? Some gamers think gamers very like a strict term. And some people are like, Well, if you play games semi regularly, or you enjoy playing games, then you're a gamer. And I don't know, I think it's interesting for people like us, who kind of fall in the middle, yes, to see who does or doesn't identify as a gamer. Yeah, but I totally relate, because I think I probably game as much or more than you do, and I still, I don't consider myself a gamer either. Yeah, you definitely play more.

Unknown: 3:27

Yeah, I feel, for me, like a gamer is someone who's really into it and has sacrificed other parts of their life to to the games, or is really passionate about it, or like, yeah, it's like a next level, a bit like, not just casual, knowing the lingo, knowing the lingo, yeah, just a lot of jargon. I think

Juke: 3:56

that for me, I that part and the lingo decides whether or not someone is a gamer or not. Like, I don't know, like, well, not decides, because I think you decide whether or not you call yourself a gamer. But I think that most people I know who game but don't consider themselves a gamer are people who don't necessarily know the lingo as much, versus people who are maybe casual gamers like us, but are more involved in the like social media, and so they know the terminology more might consider themselves gamers, even though they might play as much as we do. So theory.

Unknown: 4:31

So according to your theory, I'm not a gamer, which I agree with, because I do not. I had to look up before we started this recording, this interview, I had to look up the difference between a third person player and a first person player because I had it backwards.

Juke: 4:52

And in my defense, she's a good friend the FPS versus third person shooter episode. So it's not released yet when we are recording this, because otherwise she would have known,

Unknown: 5:05

I know you need an episode

Juke: 5:07

to Yeah, it's coming out. Actually, it's coming

Unknown: 5:09

out for beginners. Because I yeah, I just remembered when I started playing, like, when the first games, like Tomb Raider came out, I couldn't play because I just kept, I was, like, really enthusiastic, loved and archeology aspects and and doing pirouettes, but I would just, I just kept hitting the walls, like I couldn't go upstairs without just feeling nauseous, like I just never got

Juke: 5:41

the hang of it. Yeah, I totally relate because I played the game I've played the most recently is among us, which is a top down view game. But it's not like, it's not like, I click and the character goes where you click. It's top down, but you still control, yeah, where they go. And still, I would get stuck on walls and door frames, door frames and corners of buildings. I get stuck on them all the time, and then people think I'm an imposter because I'm navigating weird. But I'm like, No, I just suck.

Unknown: 6:12

Yeah. I remember, yeah. Like being able to go through doors, ways and among this was a thing, or like, having to, like, click 10 times on the lever for it to move and be like, What am I doing wrong? I need to be fast about this.

Juke: 6:31

Is that thing of knowing that the problem is me, yes, but not knowing

Unknown: 6:35

what I'm How to know? Yeah, he's like, I do not have this skill. I don't know how it wasn't in the tutorial. Please help me.

Juke: 6:47

Yeah, that feeling of this should have been in the tutorial, but they thought it was so obvious that it's not.

Unknown: 6:53

Yeah, what's up with that?

Juke: 6:57

So on that topic of struggling with games and stuff like that. You were talking to me about a more casual vibes game, which the listeners know about, because it's going to be the title of this episode, but it's called

Unknown: 7:09

Gris. Yes, it's called Gris.

Juke: 7:11

So Gris, for our Anglophone people, is the word gray in French, yes. So tell me a bit about this game. And and, yeah, go for Yeah.

Unknown: 7:21

It's been, the grief has been one of my favorite game ever. It's beautiful, like, the artwork is all watercolor, like, and it's a bit oriental, and you move through these levels, but it's really intuitive. There's no words, there's really atmospheric music, and you have to figure out how to solve the level.

Juke: 7:59

So it's kind of little puzzles.

Unknown: 8:01

It's little puzzles, but

Juke: 8:02

calm puzzles. Calm, okay,

Unknown: 8:05

yeah, like, you have to find a way to swim, to get like a little star, like light, and find like all six of them. Or sometimes you have to, yeah, sometimes you there's like, when that's fun, and that's a little bit more challenging to control, is sometimes you have to go and catch red little birds, and then that allows you to jump super high, because they kind of, like, make you fly up. But, but then, if you don't get it right, you have to go back to where you found them to find them again, and then try to jump again. So it's really intuitive. And the concept of the storyline of gray is a girl who's grieving, and everything is gray, and then each level has like one color. One is like more reds, more blues, more yellows, and at the end you get, like a

Juke: 9:08

full, okay, telling me earlier off pod, when you were saying it kind of feels like stages of brief is that, like, all these levels slowly build up to kind of what feels like, like healing, maybe, like finding color back, yeah, that's so I like the like, the symbolism of that,

Unknown: 9:29

yeah, but it's not, it's not like a sad game, because it's just like the grieving concept is, it's there, but it's Not in your face, in your face. It's like abstract, and it's more like contemplative. It's so beautiful. It's like just walking through an artwork, like, I really loved it. And I started playing on my cell phone, and it was way too small, and so I moved to like the big screen. Oh, but that's good to know.

Juke: 10:00

So it's accessible on mobile, yeah,

Unknown: 10:03

mobile tablets and on PC, it's really affordable. I think that's under 10 bucks. I like the

Juke: 10:10

concept of that, because we talk a lot about on this podcast about initiating, or how to help initiate people to games. And I think these casual, calmer games can sometimes be a great introductory game, because as beginners, I think other gamers forget how stressful games can be, especially when you don't know how to play them. Yes, even for me, I remember when I was playing Hearthstone, which is a card game online, there's a timer, and at some point, there's a rope that starts burning down to tell you that you're at the end of the timer. That rope made me make so many bad decisions because of the panic I would get knowing and hearing that of the rope burning and and it's such a casual game. It's a card game online, but just that,

Unknown: 10:58

but a god your adrenaline every time, and then,

Juke: 11:00

like, you're at the end of your round, you have to make all these quick little decisions. At the end, I'm panicking, and I'm doing all these stupid and I ruin everything. You know, that's so interesting.

Unknown: 11:09

Yeah, and, like, some of the games are, like, dark and gloomy. I remember living with someone who would game in the evening, and I had to get, like, I was, like, you need to get headphones because I cannot fall asleep to this really creepy game music and like this, like, I just, I can't, I can't sleep at all. Like, it's, it's really give me the creeps, you know,

Juke: 11:40

absolutely, yeah. And honestly, I don't understand gamers who game without headphones. I have a friend in our mangas group that we had to kind of bully into putting headphones on because we could hear everything.

Unknown: 11:49

Yeah, I think, I think now everybody understood that it's a must, yeah, if you live with someone, and even if you just have neighbors, you

Juke: 11:56

know, yeah, yeah, especially in Montreal, buildings with the walls are so thin. Yeah, absolutely. Another aspect of this game that I think makes it accessible to initiating beginners is what you mentioned about having starting, started the game on your phone, and then being like, No, this is too beautiful. I need it to be bigger. And I think for certain non gamers, they might not be receptive to the computer right away, like I know for me, it took me a while to be want to play on a PC. I wanted to play with a controller. I wanted to play on the couch in front of the TV with people. It took me a while to get to sitting on the PC to play a game. So maybe a lot of people are way more receptive to their phones. Everybody has a phone, so initiating that person to the game on their phone, and then when they start talking about how beautiful the game is being like, what do you want to have it on bigger I could put on my computer if you want, and then that could be a great way to getting them to be interested in playing on the computer, and naturally them getting used to navigating the controls on A computer versus on a phone and stuff like that. I think, yeah, I haven't played this game, but I'm so interested in playing it, and from everything I hear and from the visuals I saw, because when you talk to me about I went, we went to look at pictures. So beautiful, so beautiful. And yes, the character was female, presenting, from what I remember, but it doesn't look like a super gendered cutesy game. It looks like actually, arts, artsy, beautiful game, versus some games that are cutesy and maybe more marketed towards women or girls or children, this game, I think, is, is more just art, artistic

Unknown: 13:39

and beautiful. Yeah, the main, the main and sole character is wearing a triangular cape. And so you see mostly this triangular drapey silhouette, kind of walking through and swimming and jumping. But they're not very detailed, like everything is sort of more of a suggestion than, like, a detail, yeah, stick, yeah, it's very soft, yeah, and the music is really beautiful

Juke: 14:17

too, yeah. Oh, it's true. I didn't pay attention when I was looking at it online, to the soundtrack, but it must be judging by how, like, they put so much effort into the artistic part of it, like music has to be

Unknown: 14:29

great, yeah. And I've never, I've never played another game like it. When it came out, it won prizes, and it's been and was popular, but the same designers didn't do another one, and I tried to play one, I think it's called Sky, and it was okay, but it was not as fun. Or fluid or something.

Juke: 15:04

Yeah, and you mentioned to me earlier you that you played it twice the game. Yes. How do you feel about the replayability? Does it is it any different the second time around, or is it just that you missed the vibes you wanted to come back to it or, um,

Unknown: 15:19

well, the first time it took me longer to solve the puzzles and to understand how to work the elements in the game, but I but I played with it. I played it through. It took me about a week, and so I was almost disappointed that I played through. Obviously, it was a vacation week, but I played through within a week or so. But then a couple of years later, I played it again. And I don't have a great memory for that sort of things. So or I can just say I don't have a great memory. That's a whole other subject. So I don't have a great memory. So I remembered, like, the basic concepts, and so I didn't get stuck on some of the puzzles as long,

Juke: 16:19

but you still got to enjoy it, because you didn't remember all of it. Yeah, it was

Unknown: 16:22

so beautiful. Like I just I always loved the watercolor esthetics, and I've always wanted to kind of create that sort of landscape and gradients and stuff. So, yeah, it's very Painterly. And I did art school, so I Yeah, it was really appealing visually for me. And it was, I don't think I would replay it, like, right away the next week after I finish it, but definitely a year or two, like, it was really great to revisit. Yeah, yeah, I

Juke: 16:56

get that. And totally understandable that, like, not all games are replayable back to back right away. But because you mentioned that you finished the game in about a week, a vacation week, granted, and not a work week, but a week. How do you feel I saw online that the game is about $20 how did you feel about that? Like, because I that is very new to me, like the concept of the price of a game, and either the quality of the game or how long the game lasts, and how people feel about that. So how did you feel about like$20 granted, a very beautiful game, so maybe it just feels worth it on its own. But did you feel like a week was worth the$20 or,

Unknown: 17:38

I have to admit, I got it on sale and only paid about 10. And 10 was perfect,

Juke: 17:44

because, like, 10 is fine. 10 is less than going out for supper. Well, 20 is also less than going out for supper. Now nowadays, yeah, yeah.

Unknown: 17:53

So I guess the price of the game, either I got it on sale or the price has doubled, like everything else in life these days. But, um, but I feel like $20 still like the price of one dinner. Yeah, I don't think you can even get to a movie theater for 10 bucks, for 20 bucks anymore. I have no

Juke: 18:10

clue not if you want popcorn. That's for sure. No, but yeah, no, I think 20 bucks like an outing. One date night costs more than 20 bucks, and that's one night. So a week for 20 bucks for a beautiful arts, artistic game. Yeah, to me, feels reasonable. It's that's something I'm trying to learn more about, because sometimes I see games, a lot of games are like $80 for me, I'm like, Whoa, every time. And I know for some people, 80 bucks is not a lot. And nowadays, I mean, anything under $100 nowadays, it's like, it's like, it's pennies now because of inflation, yes, but I don't know, for me, $80 is intimidating for a game, especially if it's a game I've never played, or especially if it's like, not something that was suggested to me, if I'm just like, shopping games I've never heard of, and see, I can't, I can't, I'm Not at that point where I'm ready to put $80 on the game. Maybe I'm just a big baby about that.

Unknown: 19:07

I feel the same like and I think that's part of me not identifying as a gamer, because I'm not willing to throw that kind of money on it. Yeah, I'll throw that kind of money on other things without blinking, yeah,

Juke: 19:21

but the amount of money that we've spent on plants compared to, oh my God, what an average gamer spends, like, video games

Unknown: 19:30

and wool and nowadays, Legos. Like, oh my god, yes, Legos, yeah, is so expensive, so expensive. But one of my friend introduced me to this little shop in Montreal, in ashlag, near pinef Metro, called retro Mon, real retro Montreal. And they have a great collection of like they have arcades, old arcades you can play while you're there. But they also kind of. Like, a video store they sell,

Juke: 20:04

like, second hand games, yes, oh yeah, in Montreal, yes, I didn't know you could buy sec. Well, I know that like EB Games, or whatever, you can, like, sell your old games and stuff like that. But I didn't know there was, like, retro, yeah.

Unknown: 20:16

So you get, like, the was actual discs for, like,

Juke: 20:21

for consoles and stuff for consoles.

Unknown: 20:23

So I have a PS four at home these days. So I bought some PS four games. And because they were huge, there was, like, 2530 bucks, maybe, yeah, and like, depending on how popular or how rare they are and they're but they have a fair price, so I really like them. And the good thing is that when you're done playing the game, you can bring them back and they'll offer you some money. Yeah, they'll, we'll go to another gamer who's excited about it.

Juke: 20:52

Yeah, I'm gonna have to check that out. I like knowing the Montreal spots,

Unknown: 20:58

yeah, so I'm new to using stream steam, yeah, steam and discord for playing, because I was not a super PC gamer. I was more of a console. Well, a bit of both, but like more console, yeah and but yeah. So I like having being able to, like, own the game and lend it or give it to a friend so they can play. And recently, I wanted to start playing again, and I was kind of like, I tried to play the Witcher three, and I really like it, and really got into it, and it's hard. It's not a beginner friendly game, but I was motivated, and I love, like, the sort of magic stuff, yeah, so the D and D world, so I understood it enough to be able to play. But then I stopped playing for a bit, and then I forgot how to do magic. And I'm at a point where if you don't do magic on your blade, you cannot beat this boss, so I'm stuck. And I went to my friend's place, and her kid had thrown, like, her whole game collection, like, on the floor. And I was like, Oh, you have all these old PS, four games. And she's like, Yeah, take whatever you want. Oh, my God,

Juke: 22:27

that's so fun. So that was really cool.

Unknown: 22:29

That worked out well for me, yeah? So I got like, a bunch of assassin creeds too. Oh, my god, yeah. That's like a whole those are complicated too.

Juke: 22:37

I think they are, yeah, they're.

Unknown: 22:39

It's the first time that I play an open world is what I would call it.

Juke: 22:44

Game. That's like when a bunch of people online can play with you, right is that? No, no, you use the right term. I just forgot what open world meant. Yeah, open world is, oh my god. I defined this for the Minecraft episode. Oh, my God, I have it in my notes.

Unknown: 23:05

Well, I'll describe it the way I think, what I think it means, and then you'll correct you'll add to it. So open world means that your character can explore worlds, cities, buildings, mountains. Talk to everyone on the board like that you meet, it's kind of feels infinite. It's not infinite, but it's an infinity of possibilities, and there's barely anything to say, Oh, do a, first and B, yeah, second and so I had to cheat and go on YouTube and watch a gameplay of someone like a pro. Didn't be like, Oh my god, I would have never found this, like, third floor of a building that I had to, like, jump from another cliff. I It was just like, really, yeah, really, mind blowing, yeah.

Juke: 24:14

So my notes on open world were the fact that it's, like, not a linear level based game necessarily, yeah. Instead you're like, free roaming. There's huge maps and, like, some side quests, but basically, Mirifique's definition was perfect, and yeah, it is more like hard, because you got to just find things and figure them out on your own, kind of yes, yeah, and,

Unknown: 24:39

but once I understood that I have to rummage through buildings and corners and weird things that I wouldn't have never thought to try to go into like then it makes it fun, but it's also you got to be Snoopy. Yeah. We Snoopy, yeah, and assassin creed, you have to like, because when I play Diablo, it's, I'm a like, I'm a barbarian, and I just slash him, just like in French, we'd say jacal, like, I just like Brawl style, you know, no skills involved. But the assassin creed, like, you need some skills, because you need to sneak in without being seen by the people, and then kill them and then kind of hide that you killed them.

Juke: 25:30

That's exactly the type of things I'm so bad at. I am what you would describe the first time around the brute that just jumps in and needs no skills and just hits things hard. That's what I play well,

Unknown: 25:41

I don't find it relaxing, like I can play Diablo, I can play Gris, I can play Gris to relax and take my mind off of things, and I just follow around. Yeah, and it's relaxing, but access and creed takes all of my attention. Yeah, to me,

Juke: 26:03

would feel like homework, yes?

Unknown: 26:05

So I don't often play, because I'm not often in that Mood. Mood, yeah, to be working like, troubleshooting and working through something like that,

Juke: 26:17

absolutely, yeah, I'm very rarely in that mood. There's so many games and I'm like, they look so interesting, but I'm too lazy. Yeah, that's how I I'm not calling you lazy. I'm calling Yeah,

Unknown: 26:32

too much work. Can't Yeah.

Juke: 26:35

But before we get a little because we're getting off Gris, and there's one thing I was curious about, asking you about Gris. I'm really curious about if Anglophones call it gray or not, but that's not the question I had. I think so, because it's,

Unknown: 26:47

it's universal, right

Juke: 26:49

name, but I see on steam that it is classed under adventure games. Would would that be where you would have classed it like I don't know what all the categories on Steam are, and I'm really not interested in going to look right now. But if you had to category, if you had, like, give it a category, would you categorize it as an adventure game? Or would you categorize something different? Because, like, later in the tags, later on, we see, like, atmospheric, beautiful, indie, relaxing. So those are, like, tags, or popular, yeah, tags that team used. But I don't know. I wasn't expecting, when we were talking about it, that it would be an adventure game.

Unknown: 27:31

I think it's an adventure game in the same sense that Mario Brothers is, in the sense that you go on a journey?

Juke: 27:43

Yeah, yeah. I think what you're saying there, I'm realizing that I was thinking about it the wrong way, because what you described about Gris was definitely a journey and and thinking about it as a journey, I can totally see now why they class it as an adventure game. Yeah. I think when I think of adventure, I think about like, action and grandiose things. That's my bias. You're totally right. I get it now, why it's class, isn't it? Yeah, I said

Unknown: 28:11

that journey, but it's more atmospheric and puzzles, but there's no like, bosses, there's no monsters. I don't remember. There's some birds. Do you

Juke: 28:24

die in this game? No. So if you fail, you just start over,

Unknown: 28:29

yeah, but you start over, like, that two steps, okay? Like you start over that puzzle or that, that jump, yeah? Like, yeah, so you don't that's good too, for

Juke: 28:42

beginners, the frustration of having to start like a whole level over all the time, yeah, I'm really, I'm, I'm definitely gonna give this game a try, especially since it's not an $80 game, and because I'm looking on Steam and the past the reviews, recent reviews, very positive. English reviews overwhelmingly positive. Can someone explain the difference between recent and English reviews for English people living in the past? I don't know, but who cares? British people are random dig and then Chris isn't in Chris's interview. My in my boyfriend's interview. Mistake. He bashes on Quebec gamers. Now you're creating beef with British people. All my guests are creating beef.

Unknown: 29:36

Yeah, overwhelming positive, yeah. Oh, but I like that. There's no language too, so, oh yeah, you did someone who doesn't know how to read, or doesn't read well, or I don't like reading long explanations, like, I think that's more like old retro games. I always skip through those. I don't care. So I like that. It's yeah,

Juke: 30:03

because that's what you mentioned earlier. There's no talking, there's no there's no narration, there's no story. There's no spoken

Unknown: 30:10

story, no spoken stories.

Juke: 30:12

It's all visual, yes, and

Unknown: 30:15

music and stuff, yeah, and there's no so interesting. There's no buttons anywhere like there's no lover leavers. You just have to figure out how to do things. But it sometimes it has like a tiny animation, like we're watching like, kind of a little mini introduction video to it as we talk. And sometimes, like the trees are, the tree tops are very square, and they disappear in a diagonal and so you have to jump at the right time, otherwise you slide back down. But it's just like it keeps doing it at a different like, at this particular rhythm. And so it kind of tells you, like, oh, like, yeah, to land, otherwise you slide. And so you kind of it gives you, like, little cues, but they're never verbal cues so it could be good for, like, children or people that are not very that don't read also mean, makes it like, internationally available. Yeah, true.

Juke: 31:32

There's no need to be translated or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that, yeah. I feel like it's very

Unknown: 31:42

cosmic, bit too, like, very cosmic, yeah, I'm

Juke: 31:45

looking at the, I'm looking at the little video on Steam, and it does have some cosmic key vibes to it. Yeah, it is. It definitely, it's an esthetic. It's an esthetic game, yeah, absolutely. So, before we sign off on this episode. Something I like to do while I'm waiting to get sponsors and stuff like that, is that I like to plug people like businesses and people in my life that you know deserve more attention. So is there any like thing you want to plug for yourself or for people in your life? I think

Unknown: 32:19

retro Montreal deserves a visit. Yeah, online and offline. If you're in their area,

Juke: 32:26

that's absolutely a great idea. Retro Montreal can be found at retro mtl.com and let me see if they have social media. They do have social media. They have an Instagram. Retro MTL, once again, they have Facebook, which is also retro MTL, and they have a Tiktok, which is probably retro MTL, yes, at retro MTL as well. So check those out. Go if you're in the Montreal area, go check them out in person. Mirifique just mentioned that they also have events and stuff like that. So check that out, because maybe you'll you can find community, community over there. Yeah, and yeah, thank you so much for coming

Unknown: 33:11

on the show. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited,

Juke: 33:15

and until next time, Gigi.

Unknown: 33:20

Gigi, because that's a good game. that's jargon, yeah, sorry. So gg.

Juke: 33:27

Our podcast art was made by the wonderful Arielle, who can be found on Instagram at profit opossum, and our intro and outro music was made by David from Best Game studio.com you

Unknown: 33:52

job's done.