TWIG JR: Gen Alpha's Honest Take on Roblox, Brain Rot & Growing Up as a Gamer

Eric Cress, Resident Evil is not that scary. I am 12 and I'm not scared of it. My heart has never pounded. I've never screamed at the game. It is not scary. I just describe it.
Okay, Eric Cress is a wussy old man who can't take the jump scares of Resident Evil 5. Got it. Hello everyone and welcome to Deconstructor of Fun this week in games junior. Actually, this is a very special recording. We're doing what I like to call as Twig junior. And back on the podcast today, we have the little Lowenfells. We have Rocky and Mickey are joining us. Hi guys, good to see you again.
Hi. Hi. If you might remember, this is probably our third podcast now. We've we've had these guys on. Rocky, remind everyone how old are you? I am 12. Almost 13? Are we getting to Bat Mitzvah age soon? Oh, sorry, bar mitzvah. I was bar mitzvah, yeah. My bad.

I've been practicing for my bar mitzvah every night, but
Okay. All right, so you're close. And then Mickey, how old are you? 10. I'm close to 11. I'm about 5 months away. Got it. Got it. Almost almost there. So, what I really wanted to do in today's episode is talk from a again a Gen Alpha perspective like two guys that are living and breathing and playing games in this space. Dad is in the game industry. Henry Lowenfels, you and I used to work together at Scopely is now at Stash. And so always love to bring you guys in. Thanks for coming. All right, first, they informed me that they wanted to come with some corrections. So, oh, let me just do a quick disclaimer. They have parental approval to curse if it is necessary to make a specific point. So, please do not call me or Henry and say we are bad parents or adult supervisors if that happens to happen. So, we have approval everybody, okay? All right, so Rocky, I think you have a correction. Go for it.

All right, I actually have two corrections. The first one is a little bit more important, but a little while ago when when we did the last one in December, I believe, Eric Cress and Mickey and my dad were all very confident that there was going to be a new Mario game that would come out with the movie. And I didn't think that was going to happen. I just had a hunch that they weren't going to do that just because the Switch 2 had just come out and they were going to wait till the cycle and they're making an Ocarina of Time remake. I I just I didn't feel like they were going to do that. And I ended up being the one who was right. And then my second correction is so Mishka, you have to stop calling Roblox Roblox. It is not Roblox. It is Roblox with a row, not a raw.
[laughter]
I think Eric Cress agrees with you on that point and it gets This just happens

when you don't grow up and natively speak English. I'll just defend Mishka on that point, but yes. Every time he says Roblox, we're like uh okay. All right. All right, anything else? Any other corrections? That was a good one. No new Mario game. It was a I do think they refreshed Mario Galaxy and offered it as a new skew, but it was just a refresh. It wasn't a brand new title if I remember, right, Rocky? Yeah, it was just a bundle that was on the Switch, too.
Yes. Yes. Yes. All right, so let's get into our questions. I gave the guys a little bit of homework and I told them the kinds of games I wanted their feedback on, so we're going to dig into it. I got like seven questions we're going to go through, but but first, I just want to reconnect and talk to you a little bit about yourselves as gamers. What are you playing the most right now and on what devices? So, Mickey, why don't you go first? So, right now I'm playing a lot of Roblox, which can be played on, I think, three or four different devices.

Although I play it on mobile. Mm. And I play normally on weekends, but I play some Peak with Rocky. And Peak can be played on mobile, although we play it on PC. Okay, got it. So, when you play on Are you on iPhone or Android? Uh I'm on iPad. On iPad, so you actually play on iPad. Okay, got it. All right, Rocky, what about you? What are you What games are you playing? What devices? I have not played any mobile games or any anything on mobile. I've played very little Roblox in the past few months. I've only played a little bit of Roblox with my friends. I've mostly been playing a lot of Geometry Dash, if you've ever heard of that. It's kind of simple, but I really like the difficulty and the leveling and the soundtrack. I've also been playing a lot of Minecraft. Mm. And I just started this. I'm only like a few hours in, but I've been playing a lot of Have you Have you heard of Detroit: Become Human?

Yes. I've been playing that. On console? What are you playing it on? On computer. PC, okay. Yeah. I've also been playing a decent amount of like sandbox games. I've almost beaten the game on Peak. I I beat it in easy mode with my friends when they were helping me, but I got kind of close to beating the game on normal mode. Like pretty close. I made it to the final level with like the volcano. But yeah, I've been playing a variety of games, but not Roblox. So, when you guys play on PC, on computer, are you playing on Steam? Is that how you're playing the game?
Steam is by far the the best game launcher, I think.
And Rocky, last time we talked, I think you were playing a lot more mobile games. Although, is that because your dad used to be at Huoma? No, I I I was just playing mobile games cuz my friends were playing them, but we kind of lost interest in Clash. Clash Royale, right? Yeah. Okay. What's Why did Why did you lose interest? What happened? It just gets

boring after a while and I don't like the difficulty scaling and I wouldn't consider myself bad at video games, but I wouldn't consider myself good at video games either. Cuz I'm I'm good at Geometry Dash. When I was eight, I beat Breath of the Wild in master mode, which I think is kind of hard to do. Yeah. Yeah.
like the hard It's like new game plus kind of. When I was eight, so I think I'm decent at video games, but I just didn't like Clash Royale. Did you ever spend money? Were you allowed to spend money? I spent a singular dollar on coins one time.
Okay. Okay.
zero dollars on Clash. Have you ever gotten like gift cards for any games? Like any Roblox or Fortnite gift cards? Wait, Rocky, I forgot. Did you hate Fortnite or did you hate Roblox? I forgot which one you didn't like back in the day.
to be playing a lot of Roblox back in the day, but I hated Fortnite. I played a lot of Fortnite last year with my friend. Okay. But yeah, not that much Fortnite now and I'm not even that much Roblox either. I've just been playing a lot of other single player games. I

don't know if you've heard of this. It's kind of niche. It was made, I believe, with only $5,000 as a budget, which is really impressive for an indie game. It's called Clone Drone Danger Zone. Mm. I haven't heard of that. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. I played it with my friends. I've also been playing One Armed Cook.
[laughter]
That's a funny name. And I played a little bit of Counter-Strike, too, but I I it's I'm not a big fan of shooters. Okay. So, it sounds like Rocky, you graduated from Fortnite and Roblox to playing games on Steam. What Why did you end up kind of leaving those other games? Well, I still play Roblox every once in a while. There are some still There are still some good games on Roblox, but Roblox has gone to Same with Fortnite. That's not true. But yes, both games have gone to I don't like them at all. I used to love them a few years ago. They had amazing events. The games weren't brand new. I I enjoyed Roblox. There are some games made before 2020 that I played a ton in

Roblox.
like we started playing Roblox in like 2023 or 2022. I thought that was actually a good game. Because it was it was engaged. But now the entire point of Roblox for every creator is just microtransaction after microtransaction. And Mickey's going to make a point soon where it compares Roblox games to Friends Slop. I I don't agree with that. Okay. Friends Slop is I I feel like there's actual effort put into Friends Slop. They're premium games, even though they're pretty cheap. They're Most of them have no microtransactions and the goal of the game is is to have fun, not for the other people to make money. I really like the Peak developers. They I've played some of their other one of their other games. I really like Peak and I really like their other games.
Got it. All right, so you said Friends Slop. I know what it means, but but Mickey, why don't you go first? What do you think Friends Slop means? And then Rocky, I'll I'll I'll hit you up. I think it means a lower quality type of game from other games, but still not

terribly low quality game like some garbage Roblox games. And personally, I think it should be called something different. I think Rocky might agree because they're not [clears throat] actually slop like a ton of Roblox games. Although, some Roblox games are good. Okay. What do you think it means, Rocky, when you hear Friends Slop? From my experience, Clone Drone Danger Zone multiplayer is kind of Friends Sloppy. ish. I think it shouldn't be called Friends Slop. It's not slop. Peak is a very well-made game. The mechanics are amazing. It gets boring after a while. I'll admit that, but it's really fun to play with friends, especially with proximity chat. Just we normally turn the proximity chat down cuz we normally call on Discord. But I think Friends Slop is anything that is a experience with friends that is jointed with a premium experience with friends, in my opinion. Because I don't think Roblox

games should be considered friend slop, cuz they're just not high higher qual- they're just not high qual, you know. Yeah, what I've noticed about those kinds of games, number one is they tend to involve friends, right? It's and they tend to be co-op, so you're playing together. They tend to be a lower price point, so like five or ten dollars on Steam to get into. And they tend to be something that you kind of like do to hang out with your friends. I think the word friend slop comes from I'm surprised to hear you think slop is bad. A lot of Gen Alpha people I talk to, like got you know, guys in your age think that slop is actually kind of cool. It doesn't mean that it's like bad, it means that it's like kind of I don't know if you know the word like disposable. Like, "Hey, we're going to come and do this for a couple weekends, have a lot of fun doing it, and it's really fun, but we're going to like play that and move on." Is that Does that make sense to you? Does that resonate? Is that how people talk about it?
yeah, it does. I saw a chart that

compared to the returning players for Counter-Strike 2, and the returning players for Peak, and it's kind of interesting, cuz you see that Peak, I was like like only 5% returning players every month. But, Counter-Strike 2 has like over like 45. Yes. And it's I think it's just interesting, cuz in my opinion, Peak's a better game. I think Peak's a better game. I know I'm the technically the target audience, so I'm not really maybe not a target audience for Counter-Strike 2. But, Counter-Strike 2, it's a good game. I like the mechanics. And I'm just not a big fan of shooters, so you shouldn't be asking me this, but a lot of people would agree with me that Peak's fan base and all that is just better than Counter-Strike 2's. Got it. Well, they are very different games, and that's fair. So, let me take a step back and ask you a little bit about You said you guys like to play some games by yourself, but let me talk to you about When do you play games with your friends? And when you're playing games with your friends, how do you communicate? You said something a little bit about Discord, so let me ask you Rocky, why don't you go first? Like,

when do you play with your friends, and then how do you communicate with your friends when you're playing? I communicate mostly through Discord, but pretty much only through through Discord. Um we create these like little mini group chats on Discord, and I have a group chat from my fifth grade, and then my current grade, sixth grade. Um and what I really like about Discord is that I went to a sleepover in December, a little bit after we did that last podcast, and it was with the kids from that group chat. Okay. And in the fifth grade one, you would think it would be awkward, cuz I hadn't seen them in so long, but it wasn't, because I had I had called them on Discord, I I chatted with them on Discord, I had played games with them. And something that I don't really like, this is kind of off topic, is the stereotype that Discord isn't that safe. Cuz I feel like Roblox is a lot less safe than Discord is. That's true.
I think that's true.
Cuz I've ran into more people asking for my information on Roblox than I have for

Discord. And I feel like for Discord, there's spam on Discord as there is for Gmail and all that, but you used to just ignore the spam, it's not that hard. And as long as you're only talking to your friends, and you're not joining any malicious servers, you're not going to run into any hackers or any bad people on Discord. It's pretty hard to run into like actually bad people if you're only talking to your friends. Oh, interesting. Okay. Eiffel Tower, iconic. Tower of London, historic. The two towers, simply epic. But, none of them tell you anything about mobile app intelligence, downloads, revenue, active users, and my personal favorite, weekly cohort of retention. Get the real story, get the real data, get Sensor Tower today. Web stores, you see what good looks like, but have you experienced great? AppCharge is the direct-to-consumer platform that powers over half a billion dollars in transactions each year for top studios. They're not just another

vendor, they're backed by Supercell and built by monetization veterans from Moon Active, Plarium, Playtika, and other industry giants who understand the difference between merely functional and the truly exceptional. What sets them apart? Deeply personalized web stores with custom design offers, industry-leading monetization features, seamless in-game payment integration, and a robust SDK. While 70% of top-grossing games already have web stores, the ones scaling the fastest are doing it with AppCharge. Ready to transform good into great? Learn more at appcharge.com. So, tell me You mentioned you didn't think Roblox was as safe. What What was your experience that makes you say that? Probably a year and a half ago, there was this guy trying to trick me into giving my address. Oh.
And there were multiple Roblox live streams that I've ran into doing free Robux, and they always ask for your

address, and most of the streams are with an AI voice, and you can kind of with common like sense, just they're asking for your name, your address, all of that. They sometimes even ask for a credit card number if you're stupid enough to give that. Oof. So, we should just common sense it. So, I don't know if you guys know this, I happen to know this because we follow it, is there's a new age verification inside of Roblox. And in fact, this week on the podcast tomorrow, I'm going to cover a lot of the new age verification. It used to be done just with voice chat, now they're rolling it out differently. Have you encountered that? Have you verified yourself using your picture to verify your age? Oh, yeah. I have a really funny story about this.
You can go for it. Um this didn't happen for me. I got verified through 9 through 12 age group, which is my technical age group. Mickey, on the other hand, got age They sent out 8 years old. He said he was It said he was 8 years He said he was 8 years old, even though he was 10. Well, say he was 5 through 8, because they didn't say anything specifically. It

said it was like this camera angle or something. And our dad had to like go into Roblox and like get an appeal to verify him to get another age. But, so one of my friends, like multiple of my friends, they got verified as like 16 and like 14. Like, one of my friends wore like a fake mustache, and they thought he was 16. Why should you do that?
[laughter]
No. No, we are not condoning faking behavior on this podcast, just to be clear. But, have have you heard of other friends, like what are are your other friends doing to get around the age verification? What stories do they tell you, allegedly? Some of my friends, they take pictures online of like a photo of men, and then they normally have two devices. So, on their mobile device, they have their face scan, and then on their other device, they have the picture, and then they scan that, and they kind of bypass it, because it just says 21 and plus.

Got it. Uh we we don't condone that here, but I mean, it's a point that I make is when my step kids were younger, they would the face verification, but they would like verify using each other's emails to get around some of the email verification. Got it. I tried to do that on Roblox. Yeah. So, Mickey, back to you on Tell me about when you, you know, you said you were, you know, 10, 11, in the in that age range, when are you playing with your friends, and then how are you talking to them? Is it Discord? Is it through Roblox? Is it other stuff? So, tell me a little more.
Uh we do it through iMessage, because we have a group chat. Mhm. Normally, how it works, normally, someone calls at from 4 to 6, and then two to three people join the call and play for a few hours. Mhm. And then sometimes I have to go eat dinner or like take shower or something, and then I go back and join the call and keep playing. Yeah, when you got homework, you're not going to be able to

do that. My homework isn't too bad, it's easy. My homework is. Are you not allowed to be on Discord? Why aren't you using Discord?
I'm not allowed to until I'm 13. Even though he's allowed to.
No, you you are allowed to, you just Wait, I'm not allowed to. I don't know. Like, I'm not the one who decides that.
[laughter]
Most of your friends use iMessage, and some of them use Discord. I didn't use Discord until I was 11 and a half, so. Okay, you you get on iMessage, did you call your friends inside of Roblox, do you use the chat inside of Roblox, or not?
Yes, sometimes if someone if they're playing on their computer and their iPad died, then they just tell me through the chat, and when it's recharged, they join the call again. Okay, got it. So, with the new age verification, it sounds like you're in the right age group now. What is that, 8 to 9 to 12. 9 to 12. So, are you allowed to talk to on voice with your friends? I think that's We have to. We have to. Which is dumb.

Oh, so you can't even use voice with your approved friends right now?
No. I think our dad should change it so we're both 13. Yeah, but
What? It It doesn't really matter, cuz you wouldn't achieve anything. You just be A lot of my friends A lot of my friends are. But, you would be able to talk to them through iMessage, so what would be the point of that? It's kind of useless to have that if you have Discord or iMessage, but it's a cool feature to just have. When you're playing with your friends, is there any time where you guys are actually in the same room as your friends anymore? Rocky, what about you? Or is everything you're at home, and you just happen to be, for you, on Discord, right? Really not in the same room as my friends anymore, and it's kind of sad. I I was talking about this with my dad. When he was our age, he would play Zelda and Mario, but now Mickey and his friends are playing these Roblox slop games. You Yes, you play those games, don't defend yourself.
No, I don't. You do. It's okay. Hey, no judgement. No judgement.
I don't. There's nothing It's not their fault, but it's just kind of sad to me that we

went from playing the classic Mario games and the classic Zelda and the classic Pokémon games to just Roblox brain rot games. I am sometimes in the same room as my friends. Okay.
Like sometimes I have sleepovers. And then only one of us has to be on the call. And sometimes my friend, he comes over sometimes because we are on the same baseball team. And if he's going to practice with me we might do MLB The Show 26, which I've also been on playing a lot of. And then we're in the same room. Mm, got it. Are you playing MLB The Show on console, right? Or Or do they have a Do they have a mobile game coming out if I remember correctly?
Otherwise, not good. Oh, it's not good? There's a lot of MLB games, by the way,
as good. I don't I haven't tried it. But the graphics don't look as good. Okay, interesting. So, when you're

getting together with your group in person or not, who decides like what game you're going to play? Like how do you make those decisions? Ro- Rocky, why don't you go first? Um my friend and his little brother who just got banned from Discord yesterday cuz he admitted he was 10 on Discord and one of my friends reported him. Oh, that's some drama. This is like Real Housewives of like the game industry. I love it. Real Housewives.
him, but like he kind of deserved it because I didn't go on Discord until I was 11 and a half. I kind of was close to 13 when I went on Discord. He went He joined Discord when he was like eight. So, like that's kind of absurd. That's kind of absurd to me cuz my sister's eight and I cannot imagine her going on Discord. My friend, sometimes their mom just buys games for them and then they gift the games to to us. So, that's what happened to Clone Drone Danger Zone. They kind of decide what games, but I've been playing a lot of Minecraft with them. And this just happened. I think this might have been because of me, but

I bought Geometry Dash in an insane sale. It's normally like It's normally only like a $5 on PC, but I got it for like half a dollar, which is insane. And a bunch of my friends used to play it. And then once they found out that I was playing it, they just started playing it again. And some of my friends just started playing it again. And I used to do this before I realized we could get banned. I used to pirate games, which I don't I don't feel bad for. And Steam only gives you a license to play their games. So, pirating games, I don't feel bad for at all. Perhaps we don't condone this
[laughter]
on on this pod. But how did you pirate games? I I guess I have that question.
leak anything, but there's this You sure? There's this YouTuber and a Discord server. They give you like the code for the games and you can download them, but they can give you viruses, so I just stopped doing it and it could get you banned.
Yeah, all right. So, they're giving out Steam keys, but yes, I would encourage you to be careful of getting getting it from a YouTuber like that

versus like You you can actually get Steam keys from, you know, people who want you to play your game. Like that is a legitimate It's not pirated. But yeah, okay. Be careful. Obviously, just be careful. Dad, Dad, you might want to take note of this part of the conversation. Anyway. So, all right. Mickey, when you get together with your friends, who decides what game you're going to play? How does that work? Sometimes me, but someone just says, "Do you want to play this?" And then we're all like, "Sure." And then we all play that game.
Got it. Got it. How many other people are in your chat? In your group? Let me count. Five. Five or six? Five or six, okay. With pirating games my brother Rocky So Retro Bowl is one of my favorite mobile games. And he thought I pirated it. You do pirate it on computer. You play it on school computer. You used to play it on school computer.
Yeah, but
That's pirating. They did not make any profit. Although, right now I play it on my iPad and it's unpirated.

And yeah. Maybe I should ask you what What do you think pirated means? It means stealing a game, getting it for free, stealing the code. I used to pirate anime. I don't feel bad for that either. Pirating is pretty impressive to me. I wouldn't do it myself cuz I could get in trouble for it, but I kind of support it, but I don't admire the people who do it, but I think it's I think that's nice that they're going out of their way to help people who don't want to spend money on like I pirated like Minecraft Legends. I did not like that game and I knew I wasn't going to like it, but I just wanted to try it see how bad it was. Mm, okay. Let me talk a little bit about some other games hopefully you haven't pirated. So, I'm going to throw out some names. Among Us, Lethal Company, Peak You You guys mentioned Peak, Gorilla Tag, Animal Company, Schedule One, Content Warning. Have you guys played any of these games? You already talked a

little bit about Peak. And And how would you describe this grouping of games? Well, first, how would you describe these games? So, Rocky, why don't you go first? Quite literally, they're fun games. They're very fun. They're very fun. And they're friend slop. Okay. And then what of those games have you played or been playing? Um some of my friends play Gorilla Tag. I don't have VR and I'm not really interested in it, so I don't really like Gorilla Tag. But I've seen the gameplay of it. Looks all right. My friend who got banned from Discord, he's scared of a lot of games really easily, so we don't play Lethal Company or Repo or any of those games.
Oh, got it. He doesn't like the scary the jump scares.
Content Warning. But we have I've played Peak with them. We beat the game in easy mode and we almost beat the game in hard mode. It's just he kind of sucks at the game cuz he's he just turned 10. And Mickey's not the best at it either, but we played Peak together and it was pretty fun. I suck. Yeah, we we I was just bad. It was our

first time playing.
Yeah. I mean, there is suck and there's just bad. I mean, Rocky, you got to get the tiering of
couldn't figure out the easiest mechanic in the game. So. That's not my fault. I was doing the cur- control. Yeah, okay.
But I tried to cling on. Yeah, you're bad, not suck. I'm not What other games would you kind of qualify as as friend slop? Like what did I miss? Oh, you missed Repo. I don't think Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. I didn't I didn't have Repo on my list that I just said. But yeah, Repo is like one of the quintessential like it is absolutely friend slop and how that's described. Anything else that you guys are playing? And these you you play these on Steam, right? Mhm. I haven't played it, but I've seen gameplay of Are We There Yet? Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. I played the original Resident Evil. I think Donkey Kong Banana. It's almost as Mario Odyssey in my opinion. I think it's a really good game. Another thing I want to say. Eric Crest Resident Evil is not that scary. I am 12

and I'm not scared of it. I mean, there are a few jump scares that got me from YouTube play throughs I've seen in the newest game, but like it's not as scary as you're saying. My heart has never pounded. I've never screamed at the game. It is not scary at all. Describe it. Okay, Eric Crest is a wussy old man who can't take the jump scares of Resident Evil 5. Got it. All right.
Evil 9. It was not that scary. Jeez, getting my I had to get my numbers wrong. So, so you played that or you just watched videos?
videos of it. 70 bucks and it's pretty short game, so I didn't I didn't want to Tears of the Kingdom is 70 bucks, too, but I remember that game took me like over 200 hours to beat. And it It took me like over a year to finish, like completely finish, so. Oh, got it. Okay. So, we talked a little bit about friend slop. You guys mentioned brain rot. What does brain rot games mean to you? Games that have like Italian brain rot. Yeah, and brain rot characters, which are taking over Roblox. Because if you add a natural disaster that you have to

get past to get brain rots, it's going to get 50,000 active players. And it's really stupid. I think it's so stupid. How do you think about brain rot games versus friend slop? Are they Are they similar at all or are they very different?
Friend slop, just cuz it has Like I said, just cuz it has slop in the name. I think friend slop most friend slop games, for the most part, from what I've played of Peak and from what I've heard of and seen gameplay of friend slop are somewhat premium games that you pay for and that's it and then you get to play an amazing game for a good few hours and then you drop it. On the other hand, brain rot games are games that are designed to get you addicted, not designed to have good gameplay, and are just completely reliant on microtransactions and AFK, which I think is stupid. I think it's a really stupid thing. And they're not even on the same league. They're not even close. Okay. So, when you think of brain rot games, are they only on Roblox or are they other places? There are some

brain rot games on Fortnite, but it's it's mostly on Roblox. I will admit there are a few brain rot games on Steam, but I'm not I haven't played any of them. They're They're not Okay. So, when you say there's some on Fortnite, do you mean like some of the other islands that are made by creators? Yeah. And they're making a 67 island by the official Fortnite, which to me To me, yeah, they are. You can look it up. Yeah, they are. That's a leak. It's a leak. Leakers are [clears throat] fun.
I think that's really stupid. I don't like 67 at all. Mickey and Mary like 67. Yeah, you do. Yes, you do. I used to like 67. Your friend's DAD IS GOING TO KILL FORTNITE. You and your friends all the time you're like 67. I know You're like 67 67 No, no, it wasn't. I One of my friends said 67 and I said 67 once. No, and you whenever you whenever someone says 67 you're like Yeah, you are. But isn't 67 over? I mean, once they made a South Park episode on 67, I thought like it's it had Do you know that the term jump the shark or is that another like old people thing? That's for old people. It's for old people. Yeah, so 67 isn't it done

because they already did the South Park episode on it? Like once it is like on South Park, The most of the target audience for 67 shouldn't be watching South Park to be honest. I don't care about 67 and I'm not allowed to watch South Park. Wait, yes we are. No, we're not.
We probably are. Probably not. Probably not. I've been 3 years again. But I got So I guess my point is like once adults know about a meme like 67, isn't it not cool anymore because now the adults know it?
adults knew. Yeah, they've known it since the summer. If in school there was like a math problem that had 67 in it, they would really see. Yeah, I I don't like 67. I think it's a very stupid meme. I miss old memes. I don't like 67. Doge is actually cool, not 67. Got it? Is there a a new meme that I should know about that makes me cool that adults don't know about yet?
really like any of the 2026 memes, so. Oh, nothing's good? All right.
No. All right, so let me ask you a little bit more about like the social features.

So you talked about using Discord or iMessage calling. What other social features do you use like inside of the games? Like emotes or lobbies or clubs or even like private servers? Like what have you used inside of some of the games? And maybe Minecraft have some of these or like emotes in Fortnite? Like what do you find that you use that isn't just talking with your voice? I don't know if this really counts and I haven't really used it cuz it overlaps with Discord. Proximity voice chat. Um Okay. It's cool, but it overlaps with Discord. I prefer Discord more. Discord could have a cool feature where like syncs with games and does proximity voice chat. I think that would be cool. But it'd be pretty hard to pull off.
It doesn't do that today though, right? No, it doesn't. But I like emotes. There are some pretty cool emotes in games. And then private lobbies are really cool, especially when you friend people on Steam and then you can invite them. But yeah, that's pretty much it for me. What

kind of games have emotes that you use? Fortnite, I used to spend a lot of money on emotes. I spent like my entire I got a bunch of V-bucks for my birthday. I spent like half of that on emotes one time. Okay. Like like a year ago. But Minecraft, I have one emote and then Peak comes with emotes cuz that's what I admire about Peak. They don't make you pay for anything. You just get the game and it's done.
Yeah, and then you have everything in the And have you heard of Totally Accurate Battle Simulator? No. It's made by the same people who made Peak and it's this really cool battle simulation game and I personally like it more than Peak, but I it's not friend slot, so we shouldn't talk about it. Is that a a solo game or is that a co-op game? It's multiplayer, but it's so what you do is you like have a set amount of budget where you can spend on troops and then you like can't see the other people's side and then you it's like an online game, but I like it personally more single player and then the mods for it are amazing. I've gotten into mods a lot over the past month.

I've been playing a lot of Minecraft mods and I've been playing a lot of Geometry Dash mods. I think mods are really cool. Okay. All right, Mickey, question to you about like what social features do you use? Emotes or hang out in lobbies? What else do you do? I use a ton of emotes. And I also have loved private servers. The only place I've heard of them is Roblox. But if it costs any Robux, I'm not buying it. I just get private servers on games that don't require Robux. So when you guys use emotes, tell me a little bit about how you use them. Are you trying to communicate with your friends that you're playing with at the same time? Like how do you know what each other is saying with the emotes? Most of the time I just emote like I just emote for fun. I sometimes emote in online games just to like troll people. It's kind of fun. They do that to me, so I do that to them. I enjoy that. It's not the end of the world cuz they they're like I'd say a good 60% of

the Roblox fan base does that, so.
Okay. Taunting like emotes or But when you're playing like a co-op, like a friend slot game when you're trying to do something together, don't you need to say like, "Hey, like party up over here" or "Attack that" or I mean, I don't I don't really use emotes too much in those games. I just use them for fun cuz Okay.
Discord, so we don't really need any Oh, cuz you're talking. Yeah, you're already talking on the phone with them.
I use emotes a lot to troll people and then also to flex on people because I have some emotes that are like 2 years old that never seen anyone else have. You were playing Brawl Stars like the year before and then you moved to Clash Royale. Yeah. Are you playing any You said you're not playing any Supercell games now, right? Yeah, Supercell isn't that good anymore. Well, I think they're a cool company, but I don't I haven't played any mobile games and I've played PC games that are similar to mobile games, but if Geometry Dash originally came out as a mobile game, but I've played Geometry Dash with layers to it and it's

not just a simple microtransaction game like Homeless game. Okay. Back to the Supercell games, Brawl Stars, Clash Royale. Do you How did you use emotes in those games, if at all? Normally to show the embarrassment of someone. Okay. Did you buy any of the emotes or you they just you just kind of get them, right?
With the in-game like I didn't buy the in-game currency, but with the in-game currency I would buy some emotes. Okay. Guessing where your users come from? That's so 2010. AppsFlyer is like having a cheat code for mobile marketing. Pinpoint attribution, real-time insights, and analytics that actually make sense. Stop flying blind and start flying smart. AppsFlyer, because your data is your best co-op partner. Let's be honest, you're tired of chasing installs across the same crowded networks. We all are. That's why Wybs

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battle-tested meta-game features that are quick to implement, letting [music] you spend more time on the core gameplay experience. Ready to ship fully featured engaging games? Check out Hero today at heroiclabs.com. All right, so let me get to this question is about you know, some of the games that you you play, I want you to pretend that you work at a game company for a minute. What would you do to fix anything about some of your favorite games that you know, you love playing with your friends? Like you know, what would you do to make some of these things better? You get to be an armchair game developer right now. Rocky, why don't you go first? So something that I hate about Minecraft, there are two things I hate about the multiplayer for Minecraft. It's a it's a a beautiful game. It's one of the best games of all time. I think when the debate is Minecraft, Roblox, or Fortnite, it's always Minecraft in my opinion. Minecraft is probably the best out of the top three best online games of all time. I think the multiplayer is awful. You have to

have mods to make the multiplayer fun. And then the other thing is the backwards compatibility for most servers is also really bad. Like you have to use different mod packs for different servers. So if you want to play one server, you can't have one mod pack for every single server. You have to have like different mod packs for each servers cuz there are certain servers that that need older versions and certain servers that need newer versions. It's not I mean, I can imagine it would be hard to fix cuz those are third-party servers, but Minecraft should make it so you kind of have to do that because it's a really annoying feature. And another thing, Steam level up system, I hate the Steam level up system. It's kind of pay-to-win. You can buy cards with current with like real money and then like fuse them for like these things that level you up. I think levels should be based on how many achievements you have in game. That would make it a lot better or how long you've played or stuff like that. Mhm. But another and this is probably the final thing I'll have to say. Like

a lot of games just they don't have good social elements like emotes or clubs or anything like that. Just like Minecraft and just like Clone Drone Danger Zone, it's just really hard to communicate in Clone Drone Danger Zone. Tabs is also really hard to communicate in. Also, some games, I don't know if there's a glitch with Steam, but you have to close the game if you're if the game's open and you get invite, it just says invalid. So you have to close the game and then wait for the invite, which is just kind of annoying. Mhm. Yeah, that's weird. All right, Mickey, what what would you fix in any of your favorite games? So what Roblox did with only age groups can talk with the with the same age group. I would do that. But I would make proximity chat. So you can only proximity chat to people in your age group. And I think that would be really fun. Oh, interesting. Well, not easy to make, but it would be fun.
Any any other changes for Roblox? Have

Cuz you said you still play a lot of Roblox. So what What do you like and not like about playing on games on Roblox right now? I really hate the brain rot games. Okay.
they just took it over because they're just trying to get Robux. Like the creators want money. And [clears throat] they want all the money from you. And then want you to get addicted so they can get more money.
Well, that's every Roblox game developer. Well, not all. Yeah, it it is. Majority of the some I don't know about that.
Hey, you don't You don't do that. And technically you're a game developer. I've made one Roblox game. All right. So you don't like the fact that they're trying to get you addicted and get you to spend more money. What else
make money. What else do you not like about the brain rot games? There's low effort put into them. Yeah, they just make it and then never update it other than like seasonal holidays and stuff. Okay. What do you like about what's going on with Roblox? I mean, you keep going back. You're playing right now. What is it that brings you back? He plays the brain rot games. He's a

consumer of them. It's a It's because my friends play them. Oh.
nothing wrong with that. So you you hate play them because your friends are playing, right?
and then I ask them, do you want to play this game? So what keeps bringing me back to Roblox is there's a lot of just fun games that are older. Like there's this game that was made in I think 2017 that I love to play. No, it's Terrific Calton. Murder Mystery 2. What's the name of it? No, the Mur-
It's called Terrific Calton. Okay. There used to be a game I played that was like it, except it was way less popular.
Murder Mystery 2 was made in 2017. The Murder
No, it wasn't. The game How are there out of Let me explain this. Let me explain. So Murder Mystery 2 was never a different game. They just made a major update and then renamed it Murder Mystery 2. I know. So there's things from 20 Murder Mystery Murder Mystery 1 came out 2015. But then Murder Mystery 2 came out in 2017. 2015. Yes, I know, but it's the same game.

Murder Mystery 2 didn't come out in 2017. Yes, it's the same game, but Murder Mystery 2 didn't technically come out until 2017 because the game was updated to Murder Mystery 2 until 2017. So it's technically I could listen to this all day long. Oh my god. Henry, how do you How do you do this? This is fantastic. Like do you just like throw a hand grenade question and let them argue back and forth?
Yeah, I just drop something in there and Yeah. see what happens. No, it's I'm just like over here loving the magic of
[laughter]
of them arguing about the origin It's like It's like Cress and Mishka. It's really It's just like I You know, I don't even need the podcast. I just listen to these guys go back and forth. It's great.
I know. I This is why you know, we do Twig Junior with these guys is now we get we get the drama of like regular Twig. I just I see I have This is perfect casting. It's great. This is great. Then I have to come in and play mediator again of like, well, you know, technically I think you both have some valid points in what you're saying. Well, my flying's better than this. Well, we'll call this We'll call this one a truce. But I did Okay, I do want

to ask you about Rocky. You said that Mickey doesn't like the scary parts of the games. A lot of the friend swap games have some kind of like spooky like scary jump scare features in them. Does that make you not like some of these games?
Oh, I I like them all because I like them all.
Okay. It's just And I'm not really scared at all. I've seen multiple horror movies. I've seen Blair Witch Project. Oof. That just makes me nauseous. That's old school. Guys, you've seen Blair Witch Project? I haven't. He's scared of horror movies.
I don't watch horror movies.
I saw The Ring. I've seen both It movies. I've seen first two Scream movies. Wow. Yeah, I don't like horror movies. All right. So I got another probably one of my final questions for you guys is So when you're playing games and you are thinking about a new game that you want to try when you see a game that has like really good graphics or really high fidelity When I say high fidelity, you know what that means? Like

really really good graphics.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like Resident Evil like the newest Resident Evil. Like looks really really nice. When you see those kinds of games, how do you think about like choosing to play those games versus choosing to play maybe a Roblox games that's like not as high fidelity. Like what do you think about those when you look at each of those games? To be honest I don't care about the game's graphics. I care about style. I feel like from what I've seen of clips from YouTube, graphics peaked in 2018 with Red Dead Redemption 2. With the style of Red Dead Redemption 2 graphics have been higher quality with Unreal Engine 5 and all of that. The God of War games have really good graphics, but I don't care about. I care about the game's style of the graphics. I don't care about how high how high resolution the graphics are cuz that's just going to be more laggy. I care more about the game's style. My top three favorite stylized good graphics games probably original Spider-Man the God of War games and then Red Dead Redemption 2. Those

Those games have amazing really good styles while still having really good graphics. Now games nowadays they're just trying to look as realistic as possible and I don't care for that. When you see a game with really good graphics, do you think that's going to be very difficult to learn or not that difficult to learn? I think it's going to be difficult to learn. I mean, it looks complex. I like complex games. But graphics and game quality they're two different things and I don't think our graphics connect to how hard the game is. Undertale has has like '90s and '80s level graphics, but it's one of the hardest video games of all time. And it was Terrific Calton. It can be the hardest video game of all time.
Got it. Got it. Got it. So I I But Mickey, I think for you when you see games with really really good graphics versus maybe games that aren't as good graphics, especially on Roblox you said that they are more difficult if they have higher graphics.
And complex. Other than Madden and like

MLB Show Yeah. was start a little bit complex to me. So do you want to play those kinds of games? Because Do you think it would take a lot of time to get to learn how to play those games or do you prefer to play other games? Although sometimes it could be too high graphics and it could crash Roblox or Mhm. device and then
crash Roblox? You What game has crashed Roblox? So I've played this game and there was this game mode that had over 100 people. Oh.
And it basically It's not optimized. It's crashed multiple times. But it's not like my whole iPad just turns off. It just resets the app. Which is still annoying. Got it. Okay.
join again. Well, Rocky, Mickey, you were awesome awesome awesome as usual and thank you for wearing the Deconstructor Fun t-shirt. Very excited to see you sporting that and sorry I didn't have another one that was small enough for you, Mickey. My bad. I didn't I didn't get kid sizes It's like

12 bucks. when I got them. Any Do you guys have any questions for me at all before I let you go? No offense. You're probably tied with Eric Cress. But next time could Eric Cress please be on cuz he might be my favorite person on here. Of course. Of course. No offense taken. Next time I'll bring him. Um my sister's Our sister's coming.
Oh, Mary. Lady Mary. I like to call her Lady Mary because it reminds me of Downton Abbey. Hi, Lady Mary. Are you playing video games yet? No. She might play on the She's playing garbage mobile games. She's playing garbage mobile games. BUT RETRO BOWL IS A GOOD mobile game. Yeah. The game she plays is is garbage slow. We're trying to convince her to play Animal Crossing though. She won't.
I think Animal Crossing would be a fantastic game on the Switch for you, Mary. Yeah. I love your haircut, too. Well done.
but it was too hard for her. Even though it was designed for It was designed for Except the boss. You couldn't beat it. EXCEPT THE BOSS. BUT WITH USING one hand I think we beat I beat it with these two hands. I beat that without taking damage

on hard mode. So I don't want to hear it. You just play on hard video games. All right, guys. Um the your second favorite Deconstructor of Fun host will now sign off and thank you again and I didn't say you were second favorite. I said you were tied. Oh, I was tied. I was tied. Okay. Eric Cress just is slightly more interesting sometimes. Like cuz
Yes. That is because he yells and screams and I have to like And you don't yell and scream. say smart things. Or else if I yell and scream, I won't get any work in the real life, which is what I have to do. In any event, you guys were awesome. I would love to bring you on again in a few more months. I'll give you some other games to play. I'll ask our audience to maybe send in like what do they want questions for you all to answer and we'll check back in in a few months. Henry, thank you as always for letting your glorious children come on and curse and tell us fun things. We really appreciate it. Such an honor. Such an honor. Thank you for having them

as always. And you know, we'll remain big fans and and wear Deconstructor Fun shirts around town.
[laughter and gasps]
I love it. I love that you're promoting the pod. But people are like, "That's a cool shirt. What is that?"
any comments at school today, Rocky? Yeah. Really? My friend knew who it was though. Didn't know who it was? No. Yeah, there's like there's like 50 in the world, by the way. I When I've I've made some of them, I've not made that many. So So I could sell it on eBay for a ton of money. Uh I doubt it, but you could [laughter] try. I've heard prices auction start at $50. I'm going to say there are less than 100 in the world. Extra t-shirt, there never going to be more of them. Well, there there could be more of them, but for sure.
I will sell for higher. Yeah, I'll make a I'll make another I'll I'll change the logo or make a different color or something.
black? So, if I sold it on eBay, it would be first edition and it could sell for $500. We'll give it a shot. All right, I'm going to end here. Thank you and see you all next time. Thank you. You did it.

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