A Quick State Of The Podcast OTF

One host, one hotel room, and zero room for pretending everything is perfectly on schedule. Travis checks in solo to share a quick state of Operation Game Night Podcast, give a real update on where Jared’s been, and say thank you to everyone who’s still listening, commenting, and sending messages even when life slows our posting down. If you’ve wondered why the Instagram reels went quiet or whether the crew is still intact, Travis clears it up and keep it honest.

After that, he pivots into pure comfort entertainment, starting with a book series that has completely taken over pop culture: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. It’s litRPG, it’s chaotic, it’s violent, it’s loaded with jokes, and it’s way more immersive than it has any right to be, especially on the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobook narrated by Jeff Hays. Travis talks why the voice work and sound design make it feel like a premium production, why book three can feel like a speed bump, and why it’s worth pushing through if you want the bigger story payoffs.

Then Travis talks a surprise hit, back in reality TV after basically two decades, thanks to The Traitors on Peacock. He breaks down the murder mystery setup, Alan Cumming’s larger-than-life hosting, and the real reason it’s so addictive: you know who the traitors are while everyone else melts down, forming alliances and accusing the wrong people. The ending hits in a way not all will love, but the ride is undeniable.

If you’ve got a dumb fun book rec or a reality show Travis should try next, let him know in the comments. Subscribe, leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and share the episode with a friend who needs something fun right now.

Transcript

Where Jared Has Been

Social Updates And How To Reach Us

Dungeon Crawler Carl Audiobook Pitch

The Traitors And Reality TV Return

Listener Requests And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. I'm alone and better than ever. It is I, your host, Travis. Yeah, as you might have noticed, it's just me today if you're watching the YouTube episode. If you're listening, guess what? Just me. We try not to do this very often. I think I've only done one solo episode before. One, because I hate staring at myself on the screen while I'm talking. Uh, and two, it's just not as fun without uh some friendly banter between me and my fellow co-hosts. But uh that being said, I'm alone. I wanted to give you like a brief state of the podcast. Um, take this opportunity to address you, the listener. Uh if this is your first time listening, this is this is not the typical episode. Uh, if you have been listening from the beginning, first off, thank you for your support. Whether you're new to the show, whether you've been listening for a couple episodes or the whole time, I want to thank you for your support. Um it means the world to me and Clay and Jared. Uh, and speaking of Jared, I wanted to address, you know, he's been away from the podcast for a while. Um, he's taking care of some business, taking care of his family. He's doing big things. So um, still a member of the podcast. I know people have been asking, like, where the heck's this guy been? Um, he's busy, okay? And we we understand that. Clay and I are busy too. Um, but Jared will always have a seat at this podcast. He will always be a member of this podcast. Uh, and Jared, keep doing big things. We love you. I'm gonna go ahead and speak for Clay. We love you, the podcast love you, the fans love you. So uh give Jared some love if uh you happen to be on YouTube or Instagram or whatever, leave him a comment. Um, Instagram has been a little slow lately. We have not been posting the reels that we normally do, the stories that we normally do. Um, not any real fault of anyone, um, but we've just been busy. Life gets in the way. Um, so thank you for your patience. We're gonna treat keep trying to put stuff out there, but you know, life gets in the way. You can see I am you know not around right now. So we've been busy. We're trying to keep up as best we can. We will still answer all of your messages if you send them to the Operation Game Night Podcast Instagram. Uh, I'm on there all the time. Clay's on there all the time. We are happy to get back to you if you want to shoot us a note. Um, if you leave a comment, we'll respond as fast as we can. If you leave us a review or a comment on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever it is, we will get back to you as soon as we can. We are trying to, you know, dig ourselves out from this backlog right now, trying to do big things in the future. So stick with us um and keep sending love. If you're on one of those sites, if you're on YouTube, uh leave us a review, leave us a you know, like and subscribe and all that good stuff. Keep sending love. We appreciate it. Um, but this is not just a state of the podcast. I wanted to do a little OTF just by myself and tell you about some stuff that I've been loving recently. And that first thing is a book or a series of books called Dungeon Crawler Carl. And, you know, this is not anything new, this is not something that I discovered. This is not some low-key thing. Uh, this is like a bestseller right now, and that is because it is really dumb fun. More specifically, I've been listening to the audiobook that is narrated by Jeff Hayes. Uh, really enjoying that. Jeff Hayes does a phenomenal job. He does all the voices like you would expect from the high-end audiobook. It's got special effects, it's got sound effects, super immersive, and uh man, what a what a great production. This book is not for all ages. Uh, lots of curse words, lots of violence, lots of descriptions of viscera and stuff. Not for everyone. Uh, but if you're into the you know, dumb, silly dungeon crawling stuff, aka like Skyrim meets Diablo, meets D D, meets you know, Rick and Morty, this is your thing. Okay, and I mark my words, this will be adapted someday into like an adult animation type show. I can do Rick and Morty or Invincible or something like that. Because it's super popular right now. Um, if you have not read it and you're interested, this sounds interesting to you. Um, go check it out. I will say, if you if you do check it out, you are listening to the audiobooks, you are uh you know reading the physical books, some people do that. Um the third book is widely viewed as like the dip in the series. Uh, it's not because the book is bad, it's because it's ambitious. You know, the uh Matt Dinnerman, the author, takes a big swing in book three, and it is an ambitious world with ambitious rules that he is trying to lay out. Um, they have something called the Iron Tangle. I'm not gonna get too far into it, but it's a bunch of trains, and he's trying to basically explain a train system in a book with all these different lines, gets a little hard to follow, um, but the characters are great. Carl's like this big dumb jock at first, and he is, you know, gets pulled into a dungeon through alien invasion style happenings with his ex-girlfriend's cat donut, and hilarity ensues. It's super immersive, it's super fun. Um, and I I think it's a lot deeper than people initially give it credit for. Um, the first couple chapters, you know, he's trying to figure out what this dungeon is, what's going on. And then as you kind of peel those layers back, there might be some like political intrigue going on, there might be some corporate espionage going on, there might be, you know, a whole bunch of stuff underneath the surface that kind of gets revealed as you go along. So stick with it. If you're on book three and you're taking a dip and you're like, man, I can't stick with this. Numbers four and five are really good, tick right back up, get you immersed again. I am really enjoying the series. I have been flying through the audiobooks. I've listened to the the last three books in the past like week and a half. So they're pretty short, they're digestible, they're easy to get into. Um, so yeah. Stupid, dumb, fun, Dungeon Crawler Carl. Not at all an academic book at all, not at all going to you know expand your aperture for the world. Uh, but if you need a break from you know more serious readings, Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Deniman has been great. Really loving it. The other thing that I wanted to talk about, I took my first dip back into reality TV. I have not watched reality TV in probably 20 years. It's been a long time, probably since like the emergence of Survivor. Have not watched any reality TV in a long time, but I was recommended to watch Traitors on Peacock. Um the premise of the show is that it's like a murder mystery inside this giant castle. All these uh celebrities from other reality TV shows, plus a couple extra stars sprinkled in, get called to this, you know, this mansion in Scotland. And the show is hosted by Alan Cummings, who he is Scottish, but man, his Scottish accent is like way over the top. He is really flourishing his Scottish accent. I don't know if that's how he normally sounds, but man, it is like something extra. Um, anyways, all these reality TV stars and and celebrities and stuff get called to this mansion, and they are in like a murder mystery thing. And uh basically the whole thing is episode one, a couple of people are revealed to be traitors. More specifically, I'm I'm watching season four. Don't need to watch the previous seasons. It's like watching an episode of Survivor or whatever. Jump right in, whatever season you want. Season four, they have a couple of traitors, and they have one secret trader. And the larger population does not know how many traders there are, um, except for those that are revealed to be traders, know who the other traders are. They go out and they do like the games, the quests, the challenges, and there's immunity, and there's a lot of similarities to other reality TV shows there. Um, but then they do a round table where people try and suss out who the traders are, and they basically vote them off the island or they kick them out of the house, like just like any other reality TV show. The hook is the traders then get to, you know, murder someone at this murder mystery party um later that evening. So they have this kind of short list that they're picking from, and they will then vote somebody off. And the next people, the next day, nobody knows who was murdered in the night, and they have to show up to breakfast and figure out who it was. Oh my goodness, it was so-and-so. Like, who did they talk to yesterday? Were they on anybody's bad side? Suspicions fly. It's tons of fun to watch people try and suss this out and be so positive that it's one person, but as the viewer, you know who the traders are, you know what's going on behind the scenes, and it's so great to watch people spin their wheels and and get suspicious over every little thing. I was, you know, first watch, first episode, I was like, okay, I get it. It's kind of like Survivor. But then as people get more and more suspicious and start to form these little tribes, start to form alliances, the traitors are in alliances and they're trying to play their best to be cool and like, you know, not give any signs away that they're traitors. People will slip up and say, like, oh, when we murdered someone last night, and people pick up on it. Oh my god, they slipped up. They know I know that it's them. And uh man, it's so it's a bunch of junk fun to watch uh reality TV show again. I think it's a great show. Great recommendation. I we burned through the entire season four in I don't know, like a week. Each episode is like 45 minutes to an hour. Um, but yeah, if you're into like reality TV shows, um go check this one out because the traitors on Peacock is uh really dumb fun. I was hooked up after episode two, and uh, I will say though, season four, the ending. Oh man, I I don't I'm not gonna spoil the ending or anything, but it did not feel good to watch the end. Uh just like you get to watch somebody like get completely betrayed and heartbroken, and uh you get to watch that play out on their face in real time. Does not feel good. Uh, but it was great to watch that process to get there. So uh that's a caveat, I guess. Anyways, I'm done talking to myself here in this hotel room. Uh, if you're watching this, leave us a review, leave us a comment. Let me know if you've watched any uh reality TV shows lately because I'm back in. I'm hooked. Uh let me know if there's any uh dumb, fun books that you're reading, like Dungeon Crawler Carl, uh, because I'm also hooked on that. Um leave us some love, leave us a review. We hope to have Clay back soon. We hope to have more guests later on. We're trying our best to do big things in the future. Thank you all for your support. I have been Travis. This has been Operation Game Night, and I am out of the way.