Stray Souls: A Bad Game Made By Bad People (The Jimquisition) 

I love that we've reached a point where the most vicious form of criticism you can throw at a game is just... showing the gameplay and describing what's happening.

That first boss approached you with all the hesitant awkwardness of an emotionally damaged bear trying to work up the nerve to ask if you are his grindr hookup with the Bigfoot fetish.

"I tried it (...) enthralling (...) literally (...) incredible, amazing, outstanding (...) Has all the quality hallmarks..." -Steph Sterling on Stray Souls

Stray Souls also almost certainly had its title picked solely to try to show up on the same page as searches for more popular games.

It’s genuinely tragic that the golden era of sitcoms ended long before civilians had any understanding of HRT because that opening story had me HOOTING on a public bus

The best framing of AI art I've ever seen is - if you didn't think it was worth paying an artist to make your product, why should I consider it worth spending money to buy it?

It's entirely likely that Yamaoka didn't actually compose any music for Stray Souls. More likely, he sold peices he'd already composed and rejected, scraps from the "cutting room floor." It lets the composer make some money with minimal effort, and low-budget producers and developers get to attach a big name to their work and also get better-quality music than they normally would for that price point.

That “creepy” animation looks like they were going for the legendary hallway scene from Pulse. They swung. They missed. They missed to such a degree we need the Hubble to see how far they missed by.

When you said he liked racist tweets, I was expecting the sort of things a dishonest person could handwring about not really being racist or "just a joke." Holy fuck my jaw dropped when I saw that first one. That's something you'd hear at a Klan rally. The transphobic tweets were par for the course with what I expected.

You made today really frightening. Because I was afraid you were going to miss Monday. Thank god for James Stephanie Sterling.

Honestly, with the amount of subjectively good art made by objectively bad people out there, it's nice to have a piece of objectively bad art that's also made by objectively bad people that we can collectively piss on before setting alight (well, piss around anyway. Don't wanna get a water infection or parasites).

9:13 - Is... is the player character fucking yawning? A sasquatch the size of a house is in front of you, and you're open-mouth yawning? Fuck, even the game itself thinks it's boring. Edit: And a few seconds later, Steph confirms that he's yawning. Unbelievable.

"it's fucking grim that we have to research games to make sure they're not made by abusers or people that wanna see ya murdered" This is what it's been like in the metal scene for a decade now. We feel your pain.

I saw a really funny article recently about a program called Nightshade that can be used to taint a picture such that it will corrupt AI models trained on it. Enough such images could result in the created model being completely useless, generating wildly out of context gibberish. You know, like how AI used to generate back when it was fun and not an attack on real artists. The researches estimated it would take 'thousands' to corrupt a large model like dall-e (which, given that that was trained on billions of images is a drop in the bucket), but smaller models take significantly fewer, showing noticeable artifacts after only a handful of poisoned images. And the best part is, there's no way to 'fix' a broken model, since they don't work in ways that you can debug like a traditional program. AI models are giant intricate black boxes that you can't really fine tune outside of providing further training. So once a model is poisoned, it's poisoned forever.

Based on the title, I assume this is a game where you play as an alley cat and fight gigantic demon bosses, correct? How do you mess THAT up?

Oh, its absolutely an asset flip. The Five armed thing is also a mummy in Forwarned, and the fat armless thing that vomits on you (?) was in another indie game I saw a few weeks back.

years ago when ai art meant "this person does not exist" I used to say that it had excellent horror potential and the folks that kept using the same damn five images from a google search result of "scary picture" in their games should just use slightly fucked up ai images instead. I was wrong as hell, I'll take yet another goddamn inexplicable framed painting of saturn eating his son any day over that

Can we all just talk about how that boss fight was the combat equivalent of "no you hang up first", "no you hang up first"? Shipped.

I started hrt about a month ago and felt better almost immediately. following your transition and seeing how much of a difference it made for you helped me build up the courage to make the step myself and I have never regretted it. So for that i thank god for you.

Loving the little flirty wink during "Thank God for me!" That should be a recurring thing in my opinion

It feels like the marketing team heard the saying "there's no such thing as bad publicity" but they never could understand what it means.

Maybe it's just me since I have 115 hours and 30 full playthroughs of Resident Evil 2 Remake, but I could swear the protagonist of Stray Souls uses the exact same running animation while holding the pistol that Leon uses. Same step pacing, same pistol hold, and same torso twist while running.

"It's fucking grim" took a moment, but holy shit that visual gag was good. I know it's not an important part of the video, but I loved it.

saw this title and thought "oh no, I thought that game looked nice" but I've now realized I was thinking of Stray Gods

Can confirm, the forest troll boss or whatever it's supposed to be is definitely from the store. Source: saw it in a vid for a game called Zombie Girl, as a "Werewolf". Pity too, because I quite like the creature design (I also liked that head-spider thing that showed up in every shitty Greenlight asset flip too), and I actually like the monsters that were shown in this vid. If it were ONLY being a shitty game I'd consider it on sale or something, but this dev doesn't deserve the support.

"Shit's more rough than Elizabethan neck wear" got me right in my fashion history funny bone. Brilliant writing. Edit to add: Steph's looking cute as all get out in this vid!

Can't personally relate to the experience because I'm a-spec, but as someone who was struggling with a migraine and feeling nauseated to all heck this morning, OOF, I can empathise with how ROTTEN nausea feels. Hope you get the HRT sorted soon! EDIT: Speaking of nausea, OH GOD THE COMBAT ROLLS ARE NOT HELPING MINE. SOS. MAYDAY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

"It's grim that I have to check if developers are fascist or bigots before buying a game." Oh Steph, sweet, naive Steph. I'm a black metal fan, vetting shit is now hard coded into me haha. (I do get your point though, it's a sad reflection of how much those pernicious ideologies have penetrated the mainstream)

The Cousin It and Ben Grimm gag... There are no words... Whoever's editing these videos... You deserve all the praise, you beautiful bastard, you...

I can get not wanting to use the abused "Spooktacular," but you missed a golden opportunity to call it your "Halloween Spunktacular."

Your makeuo skills have gotten really legit

The difference between AI Art and NFTs is that the general population understands neither of them but finds AI Art hilarious. Its going to be significantly harder to get rid of AI Art because it can have a practical use to people.

“Shit more ruff than Elizabethan neckwear” I LOVE YOU 😂❤

As an artist we see a lot of peoples loving AI images one way or another, governments doing nothing about it, peoples making money from it, to the point it's already a lost battle. But it is always nice to hear someone calling it out in public for what it is. They definitely got a double "Go fuck yourself" from me, for both the Tweets and AI stuff. I can excuse a bad game, but not those two.

People who buy things out of spite are just incomprehensible to me, I would never buy anything to piss off someone else, much less a game which only I will actually experience. I really don't understand, you can be a bigot for free, doing this just proves to some people they can sell bad products by just doing the bare minimum but generating enough controversy.

Acapella Skeleton Warriors? What a lovely treat! Thank you, James Stephanie!

WOW. I did not know that HRT could do that. I mean... I guess congratulations??? Also HELL YES Thank you for showcasing "Sorry We're Closed". Saw a bit of it on IndieLand this weekend and WOW what a game.

just because you bagged an OG team silent member who's probably struggling for work anyway does not make your shitty game any more legitimate. akira yamaoka oversaw the release of the worst silent hill games to date and dude didn't care. dude wants that 💰

"backing up into the house"... c'mon! "went cottaging arse-first" was right there!

That story about Steph throwing up all over their crush's bathroom because they had literal morning sickness is hilarious, grotesque and oddly beautiful. Which I suppose is the whole Commander Sterling brand.

As an illustrator (whose work is in the databases) I very much appreciated that AI segment, made that October day a little brighter. Thank god for you!

Don't care who you are. Steph rocks a corset in the best way possible.

I see bashing of so-called "AI art", I immediately click thumbs up! Simple!

12:44 A clear sign a boss encounter is crap when the player character's attention starts to wander away. What is he looking at??

Ah, watching a Monday Halloween video while living ahead in time on Tuesday here in Middle Earth so that it actually is Halloween when this video drops. Thank you so much for this, James Stephanie Sterling.

*Former employee of Bloober*. My hopes of the SH2 remake being good were already low...

The cryptocurrency to NFT to AI pipeline seems to share significant overlap with the pipeline that leads to fascism. Probably just a coincidence though, right?

Not me thinking that Stray Souls would be a Souls like where to play a cat lol.

Its been too long since we got another glorious review like this. Praise James-Stephanie-Fucking-Sterling-Son!!

as nice as it is to imagine fascists losing money on hot garbage, i don't believe for a second that anyone who says "gonna buy this now" (or similar) in response to bigotry *actually* buys the game in question. they're just assholes trying to hurt people.

"Silent hill would be better if it was worse." This line made me laugh more than it had any right to. Good delivery. Thank you.

It's at least cool to get a preview of Bloober's "Silent Hill 2."

Almost thought you skipped a week! Great video, as always!

Tear lord that "creepy" witch thing at the top of the stairs looks like me standing up when I've had a bit too much to drink lol. Are they sure they were going for scary and not relatable?

As an artist and animator, I find myself saying “Ai ArT” (and “LiVe AcTiOn ReMaKe”) in the same voice you say “tRiPLe A gAmE”

Hair's on point today, Steph.

Holy 30 buckeroos? Damn, what an expensive waste of shite.

Between Shadows of the Damned, The Medium, and now this, i think Yamaoka REALLY needs to get himself a better agent. I think you also put the issue with AI art perfectly. As I was just discussing with a friend a couple days ago, even if it's "placeholders", even if it's an solo dev who "can't afford" otherwise, even if the art is good and "passes" as real art, it's still all something created using stolen work from real artists. The issue isn't quality, and it isn't a matter of how it's being used, it's fundamentally being created through plagiarism and exploitation by using the work of others as data without their consent. In other words, regardless of the quality of the art or the context in which it's being used, AI art as it stands now is universally theft. Also, gold star for the villain tweets, I'd watch an entire video of those.

I don't understand queer hate at all. I'm a straight cis man and I don't think I've ever played a straight cis man in any game that I've ever played where there was a choice. I play games to escape the real world, not simulate it.

I was getting worried there, wondering where your Monday vid was. Have a good halloween.

I love it when steph puts on the wresling glows an delivers a smack down.

Are the rumors true that Commander Sterling will dethrone Roman Reigns at next year's WrestleMania? I certainly hope so!

A capella skeleton warriors? My, how you SPOIL us.

The possessed boglin on top of the pinball machine, wiggling it's thumb. It truly is Halloween.

Ngl, that initial story made me feel so seen

Phew, the episode is out! I was worried this might be the first Monday ever that Steph misses…

Steph even without the costume you slayed the hair and makeup! Bathroom shenanigans aside I hope you are having a nice Halloween 🎃

I KNEW Monday was coming! And Jesus Christ this turned out to be worse than I thought. Y'know, I "joked" that the dev of Stray Souls sounded like it could have done with an old-fashioned fixin', but the miserable little creature has already tucked its tail and fled. Which is kinda disappointing, and frustrating. After all, if some transphobic brute was stomping and snarling openly, they'd be a lot easier to bag than some scurrying, cowardly, verminous little plague-bringer. If there's anything we need most in this war, it's an easy target.

Ok I saw that the title said "Stray Souls", but my brain processed it as "Stray Gods" and I was about to be mad

Cowardice is an inherent trait of fascism.

I look forward to Mondays, almost exclusively because of your videos. What other reason is there to like such a God-awful day of the week?

Friendly advice: If you want to play some good Horror games, look no further then the Indie Horror scene. There have been some really good ones this year like: My Friendly Neighberhood, Bunny Graveyard and Amanda the Adventurer. That last one just got it's sequel announced last week, so it's worth looking into. They're all better then this. Edit: And Slay the Princess is also a great one. And not Indie, but Alan Wake 2 too.

When you said the game was made to be Silent Hill but bad I find it very telling it looks like a game made by someone who was aspiring to reach the "heights" of SH Homecoming and Downpour.

Hmm, Steam are very strict on their no AI generated content policy, with many small indie devs I've seen posting about their games being rejected for AI art (sometimes correctly, sometimes claimed in error). I see that Stray Souls is on Steam, there must be some where we can bring to Valve's attention they are using banned AI art in the game..?

Glad to see you are ok. Was worried when it wasn't out sooner

That Bride of Bot pinball machine is looking good! Glad to see you finally got it!

Christ, this game (Stray Souls) is painful to look at. I Often roll my eyes at people complaining about frame rates, but....good GOD. Glad to hear the director is a piece of shit, because normally I'd feel bad for developers who failed this hard.

I don't know if I ever heard of Stray Souls. I know there's the cat game Stray, the comedy movie with Will Ferrell as a dog called Strays, then there's the Souls-like sub-genre, but never Stray Souls. I'm genuinely curious on how so many hack developers can get Akira Yamaoka to make music for them and not by bigger publishers for games like Tekken or Resident Evil. He did music for Konami's Tekken clone Kensei: Sacred Fist.

Love the use of Richard O'Brien stills posting a video the day before Halloween. Thanks for the giggle!

Okay wow, first time a game's bad animation has actually made me physically ill. After like a minute in to that boss fight I've got a splitting headache out of nowhere and had to stop watching because I was genuinely starting to feel nauseous. Did manage to notice that, on top of seeing under the map when you roll, both your character's weapon and the boss kept randomly blinking out of existence for a split-second.

Pretty nice that Sea of Stars was the game that knew how to be a good game first and THEN get a high quality composer on board too.

This game is broken in ways that I've never even knew were possible. I've NEVER seen a game that appears to literally just have a design document describing the story in more depth than ever shows up elsewhere in the game. Also the giant gold gun the protagonist uses is canonically the gun used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln that's been infused with mystical power.

You really got me scared today, Steph, glad i got my weekly fix 😅

Wonder if you heard about the statement then "apology" by the devs on Warhammer 3 with a statement of "“The right to discuss is a privilege-it is not an entitlement you earn by playing the game" while talking about people coming into forums and wanting to stop boycotts among other things. it happened recently though lol

Classic and brilliant rant on what the term "AI" has risibly come to mean.

Oh man I was starting to worry wasn’t gonna get my weekly fix of James Stefanie sterling

Thank you for using the standard-issue creepypasta narration piano solo in the intro.

Steph giving the man(boy) permission to call her a slur is just too funny.

You may not call it a spooktacular but it’ll always be one in my impossibly skeletal heart 🖤

7:53 to 13:53 - pinnacle of design right there XD Sterling you champ, goddamn that looks horrendous - no idea how you play asset flips like that without going mad

What on earth is that shooting animation! Edit: I thought my computer was acting up, but that's just the frame rate. Wow. Edit 2: !!! That DND cartoon! That's the cartoon I saw as a kid!! That's where the unicorn is from! I thought I dreamed that!!

The dancing alien at the beginning needs to come back for every video

Love the pinball machines. My favorite part of the set up!

Steph looks like such a cool gothic Auntie in this intro. Also I think the spooky sombre piano music at the beginning was made by Myuuji.

Is "Big hairy bloke in the forest" a euphemism?

If youtube doesnt stop turning off my notifications to you i swear i am going to frown and shake my head but will continue watching things on youtube because youre here.

If anything, I respect Stephanie Sterling's sick more than Stray Souls. At least you can say the former was the product of an actual person.

This video is nice to see because I played their demo and gave them some lengthy feedback on their server, and I was the only person they never responded to. THIS IS VENGEANCE!!!!!!!!!!

It looks like only every third frame is shown while in control. Then the cutscenes are totally fluid! Often, when I am pulled to the floor, and dragged feet first towards the door, I often get up and wonder how I tripped the fuse box.🤔

Where is that Astrofunk song from?!