Episode 28: The Estate of a Fairy

Episode 28: The Estate of a Fairy

It’s SUBSTITUTE GAMES MONTH, where SURVEY_PROGRAM talks about new games that aren’t Deltarune before Chapter 5 snipes us! Kate and Nillin kick off festivities by breaking down AP Thomson’s Titanium Court, modern fae stories, and metatexuality. Within, Kate grapples with the question: can you love a game to death? Topics: Fairies and ferries. The Mountain Goats. Games that don’t want you to play them. Inspirations from Shakespeare. Self-insert characters and gender. The legacy of mobile games. Kane Parsons’ Backrooms and The Oldest View as fairy stories. Cars aren’t real. Kinds of Kindness. Games made by musicians. The only choice a player really has. A Series of Unfortunate Events. Do you really need to see it all? Get Titanium Court and its soundtrack on Steam! [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2364580/Titanium_Court/] References: Post Games interview with AP Thomson [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT-OSp8E9go] and bonus Patreon episode [https://www.patreon.com/posts/156586955?collection=1506142] SCP-1733 [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1733] – Season Opener Episode 25 [https://gruppeshrike.net/surveyprogram/25] – Millenial Art Episode 12 [https://gruppeshrike.net/surveyprogram/12] – Halloween Hack Support SURVEY_PROGRAM’s Green Room for bonus episodes! [https://gruppeshrike.net/greenroom] Join the SURVEY_PROGRAM Discord [https://discord.gg/d4KbT8NJX3] or follow on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/surveyprogram.gruppeshrike.net]. SURVEY_PROGRAM theme music by hywell, now on Bandcamp! [https://cristata.bandcamp.com/track/dont-forget-hywell-remix] Subscribe on YouTube [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVndFHcu3gonvgQt7hf5mHay6J-vFFNsa&si=reFD4cPEVZVaHdjC] / Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5PVlpgS8PzhyasPEmykdV4?si=Uonow98BSNy8p6fL-vzXEw] / Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/survey_program-a-podcast-about-deltarune/id1831396877] / RSS [https://gruppeshrike.net/surveyprogram?format=rss].

Episode 27: Chapter 1, the March of the Dark King

BQ rejoins the show after discussing playing Undertale but not Deltarune in Episode 19 [https://gruppeshrike.net/surveyprogram/19] to react to playing Chapter 1 for the first time. Reactions include gonermaker, religious ska, gender, Greenster, divorce, school experience, the symbolism in the Dark World, and first encounters with every new character, and checking back in with Undertale favorites, immediately picking up on Kris-player dichotomy, and more. We’ll return again with Chapter 2 in the future! Support SURVEY_PROGRAM’s Green Room for bonus episodes! [https://gruppeshrike.net/greenroom] Join the SURVEY_PROGRAM Discord [https://discord.gg/d4KbT8NJX3] or follow on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/surveyprogram.gruppeshrike.net]. SURVEY_PROGRAM theme music by hywell, now on Bandcamp! [https://cristata.bandcamp.com/track/dont-forget-hywell-remix] Subscribe on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5PVlpgS8PzhyasPEmykdV4?si=Uonow98BSNy8p6fL-vzXEw] / Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/survey_program-a-podcast-about-deltarune/id1831396877] / RSS [https://gruppeshrike.net/surveyprogram?format=rss].

Episode 26: The COOKING CHANNEL!

Kate interviews Shadow of Roserade about Undertale: Cooking with Kindness [https://gamejolt.com/games/cooking_with_kindness/900285], a new Undertale fangame about the green Kindness soul, with cooking minigame mechanics. Can you make the greatest restaurant the Underground has ever seen? Topics: What makes a prequel or sequel worth it? Indie dev timelines. Fate and death. Luna!!!! Why climb the Mountain of Dying? Minigame design and conveyance. Kate is bad at slicing bread. Cozycore indie games. An RPG with no fighting at all. Why to not create different routes. Games set in single neighborhoods. The 10th anniversary stream. Game engine choice. How to write NPCs Toby-style. The surprise character! Download Undertale: Cooking with Kindness [https://gamejolt.com/games/cooking_with_kindness/900285] and its soundtrack, or join the game’s community Discord [https://discord.com/invite/c5NZyWMHCq]. Support SURVEY_PROGRAM’s Green Room for bonus episodes! [https://gruppeshrike.net/greenroom] Join the SURVEY_PROGRAM Discord [https://discord.gg/d4KbT8NJX3] or follow on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/surveyprogram.gruppeshrike.net]. SURVEY_PROGRAM theme music by hywell, available on Bandcamp! [https://cristata.bandcamp.com/track/dont-forget-hywell-remix] Check out Hywell’s “BLACK KNIFE (Vocal Breakcore Remix)” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8ZYuRA7-so], now released! Subscribe on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5PVlpgS8PzhyasPEmykdV4?si=Uonow98BSNy8p6fL-vzXEw] / Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/survey_program-a-podcast-about-deltarune/id1831396877] / RSS [https://gruppeshrike.net/surveyprogram?format=rss].

Episode 25: The Pen Was Lying There for Them to Pick Up

Kate and Valerie discuss Undertale and Deltarune as art made by a millennial and ask “what defines millennial art?” For this, they define what a generation means as an analytic context, what experiences millennials share that go into their art, and the indie game as the modern equivalent to the personal film. Topics: Other generations flippantly characterized by Friends, Tung Tung Tung Sahur, Buddenbrooks, sex, lies and videotape, and Woodstock, Steven Universe and Fionna and Cake as parallels, economic stagnation and the Great Recession, video games as the eighth art and Toby Fox as one of the first wave of game developers raised on games, The Amazing Digital Circus, and millennials breaking into film and deploying genre with I Saw the TV Glow, Sinners, and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. We talk about our expectations for Deltarune’s ending and our own futures in the context of the generational approach to sincerity. Support SURVEY_PROGRAM’s Green Room for bonus episodes! [https://gruppeshrike.net/greenroom] Join the SURVEY_PROGRAM Discord [https://discord.gg/d4KbT8NJX3] or follow on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/surveyprogram.gruppeshrike.net]. SURVEY_PROGRAM theme music by hywell, available on Bandcamp! [https://cristata.bandcamp.com/track/dont-forget-hywell-remix] Check out show musician Hywell’s “BLACK KNIFE (Vocal Breakcore Remix)” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8ZYuRA7-so], now released! Subscribe on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5PVlpgS8PzhyasPEmykdV4?si=Uonow98BSNy8p6fL-vzXEw] / Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/survey_program-a-podcast-about-deltarune/id1831396877] / RSS [https://gruppeshrike.net/surveyprogram?format=rss].

Episode 24: Your MOTHER on the other hand...! Whoo!

Jackie tells Kate about playing Earthbound for the first time in 2026. They discuss the game’s influence on Undertale, Deltarune and the genre at large. We talk about coming-of-age stories and what looking through the eyes of children in our narratives tell us. Topics: RPG mechanics, grinding, the recent translation and tour controversies, Kate learns a distressing fact about Chick Corea and shares an embarrassing drug story, Weird America, what we learn about Ness indirectly (and how that compares to Frisk and Kris), influence on the genre, parallels between Noelle and Paula, and more. We share our predictions and fears about Chapter 5. Check out show musician Hywell’s “BLACK KNIFE (Vocal Breakcore Remix)” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8ZYuRA7-so], now released! Support SURVEY_PROGRAM’s Green Room for bonus episodes! [https://gruppeshrike.net/greenroom] Join the SURVEY_PROGRAM Discord [https://discord.gg/d4KbT8NJX3] or follow on Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/surveyprogram.gruppeshrike.net]. SURVEY_PROGRAM theme music by hywell, available on Bandcamp! [https://cristata.bandcamp.com/track/dont-forget-hywell-remix] Subscribe on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/5PVlpgS8PzhyasPEmykdV4?si=Uonow98BSNy8p6fL-vzXEw] / Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/survey_program-a-podcast-about-deltarune/id1831396877] / RSS [https://gruppeshrike.net/surveyprogram?format=rss].