Eating dots is thirsty work
“Welcome to On The Rocks, the show that pairs video games and other stuff with their perfect drink.”
...don't let that fool you into thinking that this is some kind of drunken review, it's just an excuse to sup some thematically appropriate beverages while they review the games and such.
Hosted by Kyle of On the Tropes fame, and his two co-hosting companions, Dave and Nathan, as well as the occasional guest host. Each week they pick a subject to review, usually a video game, but also sometimes movies, books, TV shows etc.
The first 50 episodes are now available on MixCloud
, allowing newer listeners to get a taste of OTR classic episodes that are no longer on the regular podcast feed.
The typical show:
- Introductory banter where our hosts discuss what else they've been playing or watching recently. You can often pick up hints of future episodes here.
- “So Dave, what are we reviewing this week?” Introduce the weeks subject and a little background
- “And Nathan, what drink will we be pairing with tonight?” The drinks name and ingredients are inspired by the review subject, and while the hosts will make some quick comments as to if the resulting drink is any good, it's mostly not mentioned again.
- “Tonight's drinking game will be every time someone says the word…” with the word in question being something you would expect to come up a lot in the review, like “race” for a racing game or “fun” for a wacky party game. They then go to great lengths to avoid the word so long as they remember, but they're probably still drinking anyway.
- The meat of the show is then the review, broken up into:
- Graphics and sound
- Story
- Gameplay
- After discussing the merits of the game, each host gives a score of 1 to 5 shots. Although half-shots aren't allowed, they'll frequently qualify that their score is “a very full 4… I wanted to give it a 5, but it's not quite there”
- “Now we come to the part of the show where two indie streets meet… At The Indie Corner!” Here each host gives a short review of the indie game they chose the previous week. Games are often available free on PS Plus, kongregate, gamejolt or Ludum Dare entries. No score for these games, just a “Recommended/Not Recommended”
- “Now this weeks quiz is…” Kyle sets a question for the hosts based on the review subject to determine who gets to choose first from the list of indie games to review for next week.
- “This weeks question/trope is…” Again tied to the review subject. It might be asking what your favorite tropes it used were, or asking for your favorite examples of a trope that was features. Sometimes it's something completely different, like upcoming games your most excited about. The team usually post the question to Facebook prior to recording the episode, and will also read out suggestions from fans they received by Facebook or Twitter.
- “Next weeks show we’re going to be reviewing… A surprise!” They rarely actually state outright what they're going to review, but will sometimes will drop hints.
- “That'll do it for episode whatever of On The Rocks, be sure to follow us on Facebook at On The Rocks, we’re also on iTunes at On The Rocks Podcast, you can also email us at Podcast OTR@gmail.com if you have any ideas for future drink and pop-culture pairings. We're also on TV Tropes.org where you can check out all the tropes we've talked about on our show, on Twitter we are @GiantRobotParty.
- “This is Kyle…” “...Nathan…” “Aaaaand Dave…” “SIGNING OFF!”
Not to be confused with the 2020 film with the same title.
