Chat Betrayal At Club Low with us in RPS Game Club

Testing, testing, one, two... Welcome all, we'll be starting in about 15 minutes, so grab a drink, do some stretches and we'll bust out some liveblog moves very soon.

It's 4 o'clock, which means it's Betrayal at Club Low chat time. Welcome all!

I'd like to kick off with a very important question: what is the best pizza topping? GO.

In real life, I'm pretty boring. I'm usually a ham, mushroom, chicken kinda gal. But in Club Low, it's Truth Peppers and Durian all the way.

I_have_no_nose_but_I_must_sneeze says: Truth Peppers. Crunchy and indispensable.

Truth.

sabby787 says: Flamingo meat, obviously

What does flamingo meat taste of though? Is it one of those many things that just taste like chicken? I would love to know.

Kernel Zanders says: Got a soft spot for basil.

Love a bit of basil. A classic. A staple. Can't have pizza (or pesto) without it.

Durian swapping dice is invaluable! Definitely my clutch topping of choice. Even if I have often then needed a Truth Peppers reroll to save me from the durian. I dedicate my life to hubris and daring the fates.

In terms of real pizza, hand on heart, the only topping I miss as a longtime vegetarian is donner kebab meat. Absolute filth. Beautiful. But I like mushrooms too.

rolloroyce says: I definitely would have failed without durian. Pulled me out of several tight spots

The durian was an absolute lifesaver in a lot of circumstances, for sure. God bless the durian. The most profitable Animal Crossing fruit, and the best Club Low topping. But why does it taste and smell so baaaaaad???

Eight minutes in and civil war has yet to break out over pineapple on pizza? This must be some kind of record-breaking pizza chat.

sabby787 says: Three playthroughs of Club Low and I've never encountered durian. Here I was relying on truth peppers the whole time

You have to win it from yer manager man in the green room. I barely did it the first time. A classic draw of the dice.

If you get it, though, it's so good. If rolled, it swaps your numbers over with your opponents. Which can be terrible if you roll a good hand initially, but can be just the thing to turn an unwinnable situation around.

Rebecca says: Eight minutes in and civil war has yet to break out over pineapple on pizza? This must be some kind of record-breaking pizza chat.

Hey, if you're saying you're a pineapple on pizza person, that civil war can start right now...

I also wish to show off how organised my pizzas are. I have never baked a real pizza this tidy. Now that's what I call a gaming power fantasy.

I_have_no_nose_but_I_must_sneeze says: If we're talking meat-space, then mushrooms, please, closely followed by artichoke. I can take or leave pineapple. I don't hate it.

Artichoke is one of those real marmite choices for me. I'll tolerate it, but I don't love it.

Katharine says: Hey, if you're saying you're a pineapple on pizza person, that civil war can start right now...

Oh well then, it's officially on! The great RPS pizza rift starts here.

Alice O'Connor says:

I also wish to show off how organised my pizzas are. I have never baked a real pizza this tidy. Now that's what I call a gaming power fantasy.

Those are some beautifully organised pizzas. Mine were all over the shop.

I'll just be over here custom-ordering my veggie hot pizza with pineapples, pineapple + jalapeno being a god-tier combo that no one else seems to have hit upon, for some strange reason...

michael.neirinckx says: I haven't played Betrayal at Club Low yet. I was absolutely jazzed with the Norwood Suite and recently played through Tales from Off Peak City. Can't wait to play sometime later this year.

Oh, you'll love Club Low, I think. Very similar deal. Tales From Off Peak City also has the infamous flamingo meat, and lets you make pizzas as well!

I did my best to maximise tips with my pizza dice, but I rarely succeeded.

Just realised you had $106, Alice0! A mad amount of money!

How did folks find getting money in general? I always felt like I was scrimping due to barely succeeding a lot of the time in my dice rolls.

Kernel Zanders says: Curious if anyone here has ever had an actual dessert pizza. Or a more "concept" pizza with sushi ingredients.

I once had a dessert pizza with a cookie base. It was... a lot. I shared it with three other people and 1/4 of one of those things is definitely enough!

You brave soul, Rebecca.

I'm curious: was this anyone's first game in the series? I played from the start, and have been going around telling pals no it's fine you can jump in whenever, the connections between games are not vital to understanding. And I think that's true? An overarching story certainly does develop but I reckon it's fine to start with whichever most appeals, then maybe later enjoy going back and discovering the connections if you dig it? Right? I hope I have not been handing out bad advice.

I think that's pretty solid advice. There's a throughline with Tales From Off-Peak and Club Low with the pizza making and some of the ingredients, but I think they can defo be enjoyed on their own without playing them in order.

Kernel Zanders says: Has anyone here attempted 4AM Mode?

I've done 4am. Honestly, I expected it to be more trouble. But as Katharine's wonder at my wallet might suggest (didn't even mention my dice were half-full of sixes), I have played it through a few times, so I knew where the whack and lean on the game to force advantages. I liked that little test of needing that knowledge.

I_have_no_nose_but_I_must_sneeze says: @Kernel Yes, I attempted 4 AM in conjunction with Iron Chef and died to a door that was also a fire hazard.

On my very first playthrough, I punched the laser door just to see what would happen. Needless to say, it did not end well.

This was my first Cosmo D game I certainly didn't feel left behind by anything. I'm keen to play the rest of the series because I enjoyed this a lot, but not because I feel like I need to in order to get more out of Club Low.

How did everyone balance their dice, by the way? I feel like mine all stayed pretty similar throughout, but did anyone manage to go all-in on one or two skills?

The readers have spoken, Alice0. You can rest easy knowing your advice all these years has been very sound.

Despite going into my second playthrough determined to build up skills like cooking and wit and not the traditional RPG things like deception, those still ended up being the skills I left behind the most.

rolloroyce says: The only other Cosmo D I've played is Off-Peak (the short free one, not Tales From) and I had no difficulty entering the weird world of Club Low

Because it's always worth plugging... for the benefit of everyone: the original Off-Peak is free on Steam and pay-what-you-want (no minimum) on Itch. I replayed it this week and it's still such a striking start to the series. Comes out with such confidence. And then to continue that across another three games...! It probably is my favourite series of games, and it works well in part because it's a series of fragments. I, uh, should technically be finishing a post on that subject right now rather than doing this.

Kernel Zanders says: So often I'd get to like 2 2 2 6 7 7 on a skill, that sort of thing. it was more high risk / high reward, but that felt like a good fit for the experience.

I never quite got to 6s and 7s, but big same on this. Went big on a couple of numbers, but still a lot of 2s all over the place.

I_have_no_nose_but_I_must_sneeze says: Rebecca, mine were pretty similar overall. The main differences were permanent conditions such as the mask, which made me a beast with physical aptitude. That's not the name of that skill, is it? Physical physicality.

Oh, I felt way too powerful once I got hold of that mask. (Apparently the skill it affects is called Physique, but I'll admit I just had to look it up.)

rolloroyce says: I succeeded (barely) with balanced dice. In retrospect I think it would have been smarter to invest in certain skills. But I loved your post, Katherine, about the joy of barely succeeding. That's so often what I like most about games--just eking out the win

Haha, thank you! (and no sweat on the spelling!)

Thanks to everyone who's sharing their dice stats, this is really interesting! By the end of the game all of mine had ranges along the lines of 334556. I felt like I was being too safe but also like I was slaying giants every time I succeeded against Big Mo and his multiple 10s.

Oh man, Big Mo's big 10s were truly terrifying. If I attempt another run, I'll have to find Godwhacker's good grind spots and earn myself some more cash!

Absolutely flummoxed my way through that entire conversation on my first go. Mortified all the way down doesn't even begin to describe it.

How did everyone else's encounters with Big Mo go?

sabby787 says: I saw Big Mo's 10s my first playthrough and immediately resigned myself to getting the worst ending that go

Big same, Sabby787, big same!

rolloroyce says: Big Mo really liked me somehow. It reminded me of real-life situations where someone takes a shine to me and I can't really see why (and therefore feel sort of suspicious)

There was a moment where I'd managed to pull it back from making a terrible stew, and then I instantly upset him again. Though I did manage to say the escape word and have him not notice on a complete fluke, which I'm still quite proud of.

rolloroyce says: Big Mo really liked me somehow. It reminded me of real-life situations where someone takes a shine to me and I can't really see why (and therefore feel sort of suspicious)

Extremely well put, I probably relate to this more than I should. Big Mo was very scary and so I set out to ingratiate myself as shamelessly as possible, and it worked! For the most part.

Kernel Zanders says: Big Mo captured me more than not. But the few times I fooled him, I felt ice cool.

So cool.

I_have_no_nose_but_I_must_sneeze says: Big Mo was not impressed with my lack of DJing skills. He grew to like me eventually, or at least tolerate me.

Oh interesting! He made no comment on the tune I eventually played on the DJ decks, so I didn't know this factored in to whether he liked you or not. Good to know...

rolloroyce says: One thing I especially enjoyed was the application of dice/RPG mechanics to non-combat situations. (Mostly--I did gratuitously take out a couple of security guards.) Anyone have suggestions for games that do something similar?

Citizen Sleeper is real good for this.

I_have_no_nose_but_I_must_sneeze says: Can we conjure a portal into this world somehow? Many of the games I play are set in lethal or inhospitable environments and even the ones that aren't are not places that I would necessarily want to spend much time in in real life. Proteus? It sure is pretty but where's the Wi-Fi and the working toilet? However, I want to live in Cosmo D's city. I want to enter the anthropomorphic buildings, talk about art with the shimmering prodigies and dance with the skull-masked ravers.

I wouldn't mind holidaying in Off-Peak City, but I think I'd go mad living there.

Just a quick note to say it's five minutes to home time for the RPS Treehouse now, so we'll be wrapping up this liveblog discussion shortly. Thank you to everyone who's joined in! It's been good fun! We'll keep the comment chat open for a little while longer, but a big thank you again to all of you here.

sabby787 says: Unrelated - Katharine, you have a wonderful notebook

Thank you! :D

Godwhacker says: Did anyone actually properly laugh at anything though? I enjoyed it, thought it was a bit funny, but in comparison to Hi-Fi Rush or even the funny bits of Disco Elysium there wasn't a point where I thought "this is hilarious", more "this is amusing", like the New Years episodes of Taskmaster where they get "celebrities" rather than "comedians"

I've never found it hilarious but I was often delighted. Delight is underrated. I wish more games would try to delight me than make me laugh. Because, you know, so few games trying to be funny actually are, and that's a painful feeling.

Serious question now that it's home-time: how many people are thinking of sacking off their dinner plans and ordering pizza after this?

sabby787 says: It's 9AM in the western US and I'm thinking about pizza for lunch

I approve.

Although I do now want to mod movie quips into Cosmo D games. Add voiced lines which respond to every unusual item with cynical derision. Constant quipping at every skull and musical instrument and pizza ingredient and bath full of energy drink and canal swimmer and identical people and baby clone and dance and giant and talking building. Monstrous. But that's what I like so much about Off-Peak city! As I've said a few times, these games commit so fully to being what they are that none of it is wacky, it's just how things are.

Godwhacker says: Disappointed that Katherine isn't signing off with "SEE YA..."

SEE YA!