Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection: Dungeon Dice Monsters

Most Yu-Gi-Oh! games are all about the franchise’s card game. Those began appearing early in the manga’s pages, and it only took a few books before the story shifted to focus on tournaments. However, before those, the manga had several tomes in which Yugi’s alter ego played various games, against many opponents. The early days were DARK; Yugi’s first Shadow Game had someone almost stab themselves for a game about picking up bills with a knife. In another, he burned a criminal to death.

As far as game tables go, I think those in the manga (for
Duelist Kingdom and Dungeon Dice Monsters) make more
sense than the giant arenas from the anime.

Then, there was Duel Kingdom. Shortly afterwards, there was Battle City, which ended up with rules much closer to the real card game. However, between the two, a short arc introduced another game of Kazuki Takahashi’s making: Dungeon Dice Monsters (shortened DDM). Created by Duke Devlin (Ryuji Otogi in the original Japanese), an aspiring game maker whose family sets up shop near Yugi’s home, the game features monsters appearing when dice are deployed on a field. I will explain much more in due time.

These odds are looking good!

There was also a whole thing about a disfigured man in a clown mask, an intense desire for revenge, and arson, but that’s because the manga has always been ballsier than the anime.

Dungeon Dice Monsters was eventually adapted into a physical board game. It never quite caught on, probably due to the complexity of the system that demanded a full board to play as well as the associated dice – not quite as simple as just playing with cards! It also got an adaptation on the Game Boy Advance, released in North America on February 11th, 2003 (though it came out two years earlier in Japan), and a rerelease in the Early Days Collection.

What IS Dungeon Dice Monsters Anyway?

Try not to get yourself cornered.

I’ll open by explaining the game, its rules, and its mechanics. As the name indicates, this game trades cards for dice. The board is made of 13X19 squares, with players on opposite sides. Each player has a pool of 15 dice, which will be the ones they roll. Each player has a figurine named the Die Master in front of them; this figurine starts with three hit points.

Dice sides are called Crests. There are six different  types: Summon, Movement, Attack, Defense, Spell and Trap. Every die has a different selection of these Crests – as an example, a die may have one or two Attack Crests, or maybe none! The only Crest guaranteed to be on every die is the Summon type. Dice have levels ranging from 1 to 4, and the lower the level is, the more Summon Crests it will have.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection: Duel Monsters II: Dark Duel Stories

The first Yu-Gi-Oh! dueling simulator was a bit of a mess, but some of that could be excused from the game releasing while the manga’s first tournament arc wasn’t over, the mechanics weren’t set in stone and the card game as we know it now did not exist yet, and being on Game Boy meant much smaller data storage space.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters II: Dark Duel Stories (not to be confused with the next Yu-Gi-Oh! game, also titled Dark Duel Stories) was released on July 8th, 1999 in Japanese only. We get to play it freely and in English thanks to the Early Days Collection released in February 2025. With more space in the cartridge and a stronger system, surely this new installment improves on the first game, right?

...Hey, that box art is just reusing the
Volume 10 cover art!

The New Tournament

Ahhhh! Color!

Just like Duel Monsters I, this game is a dueling simulator split into stages containing multiple duelists. You must defeat every opponent in a stage 5 times to unlock the next. This makes some sense, since you are drip-fed cards to improve your deck; you only receive one card at each victory against a CPU opponent, dropped from that opponent’s pool of rewards. This justifies having to beat every opponent repeatedly, since you wouldn’t otherwise gather enough cards to stand a chance against better opponents.

The plot? Just a different tournament beyond Duelist Kingdom, again helmed by Pegasus. Who cares, really.

The Stage 1 opponents (Yugi, Joey, Bakura and Tristan) are laughable; I went through those 20 duels without editing my deck once. They’re basically a tutorial. None of them ever use monsters with ATK higher than 500. Enemy decks are once again randomized out of their personal card pools, with some cards having higher chances to appear than others. Opponents cannot fuse their own monsters, nor use Magic or Trap cards.

However, they can still destroy your monsters
if they get lucky with Alignments.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection: Duel Monsters I

Back with another themed month, and I return to the well of Yu-Gi-Oh! Except, this time, I’ll be focusing on older games. In February 2025, Konami released the Early Days Collection, which contains 14 (technically 16) games from the earliest of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. I already covered one of these, The Sacred Cards, in the first year of Planned All Along, which leaves 13 games to cover (technically 15; you’ll understand why I say that, but not until next year).

This volume had the duel against PaniK,
also known as the Player Killer of
Darkness in the original Japanese,
because the manga was edgy like that.

I figured that I would start with the shortest games (according to How Long To Beat); but the four I’m planning to cover this month, I’ll do in chronological order. I’m opening today with the first game in the entire collection, the original Duel Monsters, released for the Game Boy on December 16th, 1998. Several of these classics had never been officially released in languages other than Japanese before, so it’s a chance to discover them and experience the start of a legacy.

Technically, it isn’t the first Yu-Gi-Oh! game ever released (the actual first was based on a lesser game from the manga’s history, Monster Capsule), but it is the first to feature the card game that would then take over the anime and be the sole focus of every following series. When it came out, the manga itself was at its tenth volume, in the middle of the Dueling Kingdom tournament arc. Barely halfway in, not even in the finals. The duel against Pegasus is still far. The timeframe in which this game was made explains a lot about it. For starters, the characters we meet and duel are only the ones we have seen in the manga pages up to that point.

However, it’s most notable in gameplay, with duels obeying the, um… elastic rules of Duelist Kingdom. I’ll get there soon enough.

The OG Duel Simulator

Choose your fighter Duelist!

Before the game starts, Yami Yugi tells the player to input their duelist name. It’s not important in the Story Mode, but it is a screen name for dueling and trading with other players using a Link Cable (remember, this was the Game Boy era).

Story? What’s that? When the game begins, your first screen shows the mugs of Yugi Muto, Joey Wheeler, Tristan Taylor and Bakura Ryo. We can surmise, based on the background showing a large boat, that we’re on the ship taking our characters to Duelist Kingdom. Each of these four will say the same thing: If you want to proceed, you’ll have to beat them all five times. Why five? Shouldn’t one be enough? Nah, not here.

Okay, back to that pin about gameplay. The card game as we know it didn’t even exist yet. The cards at the time were the Bandai OCG, a short-lived version that ended in 1999, when the actual Konami card game began and overtook the former in popularity. As a result, early Duel Monsters video games had the bare minimum to base themselves on, gameplay-wise. All they had was the Duelist Kingdom rules (which would later be streamlined for the second tournament arc, Battle City). Also, take into account the hardware limitations: A Game Boy cartridge could only contain a maximum of 4 megabits of data, and the game had to be designed to account for the tiny screen.

Quick Review: Headlander

Talk about a head-ache!

In the future, everything will be plug-and-play.
Even body-critical technology. USBs? Too complicated.

Developed by Double Fine Productions, published by Adult Swim Games and released on July 26th, 2016, Headlander is… well, it’s Double Fine, so it’s weird. Someone awakens on a space station, to realize they are nothing except a head in a space helmet. Bodies are so last millennium. Even worse, they are the last flesh and blood human in the universe, since the rest of mankind has long transferred their consciousnesses into "Impostor" robot bodies to attain immortality. And all the places where these Impostor bodies live are controlled by the all-seeing powerful AI known as Methuselah.

In this screenshot, my character is in the bottom left, using
an orange body - stronger than red. Still gotta deal with
the lasers from the other guards...

Any hopes of saving humanity? In this world inspired by how the ‘60s imagined the future, your helmet can plug ("Headland") into any body without a head (using Q) and take control of it. Can’t find a body without a head? Activate the vacuum (Left-click) and pull the head off a body yourself to steal it! You can use the vacuum feature to pull out all sorts of things, granting access to computers, passageways, and more. It's a Metroidvania, so you gradually unlock abilities that allow you to go further. You can collect multicolored energy that fills up a gauge, granting skill points when full; these can be spent in the menu to unlock or improve abilities. Progress is also locked behind color coding, as many doors are locked unless you control a body of the appropriate color. The armed guards in the second area, as an example, are usually red, and you need to take their bodies to walk through red doors. But then, orange and yellow doors later appear.

Hmm. Orange... Yellow... yeah, let's go for yellow.

When lasers start flying left and right and everywhere - oh
yeah, it gets hard to avoid them all. Good luck moving that
frail robot body around...

The guards are equipped with laser weapons that you can then use against other guards and threats. Lasers bounce off walls, floors and ceilings, and you can use that to your advantage to hit enemies – but they, too, can do it to hit you. Your arsenal expands over time to include melee attacks, greater vacuum pull allowing you to rip the heads off robot bodies from greater distances, a thrust that can transform your flying head into a cannonball, force shields that can be used to bypass lasers, and so much more. As a Metroidvania, the interest is to explore every nook and cranny to find secrets and upgrades, and to return when new abilities (or bodies) are discovered. The plot is split into chapters, with teleporters (sorry, “zap pads”) between areas, so you can go back without having to trek the whole way through. The robot bodies can be frail against enemy lasers, even after upgrades to health regeneration, so those pads are much appreciated.

Found another secret area with a health boost! You bet
I'll take it - the lasers are only getting stronger in every area!

Speaking of the "chess" game,  wait till you see the Queen.
Now THAT's a boss fight I wasn't expecting.

And of course, this is Double Fine we’re talking about, so the absurd concept is delivered with a very tongue-in-cheek writing and a lot of sarcastic characters (especially the doors when they tell you that you’re in the wrong body to move ahead – they're called R.O.O.D., that says it all). The silly concepts somehow lead into an intriguing story that keeps you invested regardless. And they have fun with it, too; one chapter even includes a twisted version of chess with lasers (…don’t question it), and one game of it must be infiltrated to steal sensitive data. the concept lends itself to a lot of special challenges, such as when you’re forced to plug into specific bodies to progress, as an example.

It's a crazy ride, a solid Metroidvania with an excellent eye for aesthetics. It's worth checking out, whether you like the genre or the slightly more comedic tone.

Headlander is available on Steam for …..

Exploring the Switch's Nintendo Classics #2

Outdated image!

I was planning on continuing these articles under the Nintendo Switch Online denomination, but then Nintendo decided to change it due to the upcoming release of the Switch 2; they are now known as the Nintendo Classics (...even though it includes stuff from the SEGA Genesis, and a lot of third-party games released on retro consoles). Oh well! I'll manage. Just a quick name change, right?

I was hoping to cover a different console for the second such article in a row, but as it turns out, the NES section has most of the shortest games among the Nintendo Classics, so – might as well do this again! For the foreseeable future, I might try to release full articles covering the short games from just one console, at least as long as it will be possible. I'll cover games from other consoles soon enough!

Sports

Go Canadians Go! ...Oh wait. Canada isn't one
of the two teams here.

Ice Hockey: Released in January 1988 in Japan and two months later in North America, this title is self-explanatory – you play a hockey team in a match against another. You choose your team (one out of six), then the opponent, the speed of the game, the duration of the match. After which, you can change the layout of your team of five; the goalie never changes, but the other teammates can be slim and weak but fast, average all around, or stocky and slow but strong when brawls happen. Yep, there can be brawls in this game. Aside from when you’re put in control of the goalie, you swing the hockey stick with A, and swap to another teammate with B. It’s a complicated game that requires way more skill than I’m likely to ever have, and I doubt I’ll play it beyond these first few tests. Though, I am told there’s a decent number of extra little programming details, like the crowd noise being louder when the game is a close one.

Quick Review: Panzer Paladin

Ooh, a throwback platformer with modern concepts! And it’s made in Quebec?? I got stars in my eyes here!

A creation of Tribute Games Inc. released on July 21st, 2020, Panzer Paladin is a throwback to the super-tough retro platformers of yore. In this futuristic world, we control Flame, a rescue android who pilots her friendly Paladin mech Grit. Things get strange when monsters from multiple mythologies descend onto Earth from an alien ship, carrying Spirit Weapons built from their Forge, forcing this duo into the battle of their synthetized lives.

Can't come close? Toss your weapon!

Flame pilots Grit most of the time, but she can jump out of or back into the mech whenever necessary, when you press E. You use the arrows to move, Z to jump, X to attack; you can also attack upwards (which grants a jump boost in midair) or downwards. When you press S, Grit backsteps, a move that also grants invincibility while it's being done. Grit also carries a shield that can deflect enemy attacks, when it stands or crouches.

Every level has a section where Grit is too large to pass, forcing Flame to go. She’s not defenseless; she carries a laser whip, a (weak) weapon that also lets her grab and swing on hooks. On her way, Flame can refill her mech’s HP by draining containers of orange liquid, always found in her segments, using the whip. Lastly, teleporters are used to bring Grit's body to her so she can climb back in.

Why yes, it IS an existing self-imposed challenge to beat
the game using only Flame, why do you ask?

And a dragon, too? Hell yeah, I'll slay this thing.

When an enemy is destroyed, it may drop a weapon that Grit can use. Weapons have a durability level, so they’ll break after a certain amount of hits on enemies. You’ll need new weapons regularly. All weapons also have a spell on them – you don’t get to use that spell (which can be an attack or defense boost, an HP heal, or stuff like gaining wings temporarily) unless you break the weapon yourself by holding down D. You can also lose a weapon by tossing it at an opponent for extra damage with A. You can only have four weapons on hand at a time, but you can access your inventory with Esc and change your loadout at any moment; after which, you can cycle between the four weapons with Q and W.

"Spirit Burden" is the total amount of Spirits in the weapons
you collected. At "Normal", you have empty screens at the
halfway point of each level; at "High", you fight a
mini-boss, always the same.

This game takes inspiration from many classics. I sense a Mega Man homage in there; past the tutorial stage (set in Canada), we can play the next 10 stages in any order. However, once they’re all beaten, we unlock the enemy base, a sequence of six stages in a specific order, very “Wily’s Fortress”-esque. Every boss beaten drops a special weapon with extra durability and a good spell. Bosses represent the location where they’re fought; Greece has Medusa, Russia has Baba Yaga, Egypt has Anubis, and so on.

Considering this is Greece, I wouldn't be surprised if that
floating blade was referencing the Sword of Damocles.

If there's a literal virus among these aliens, I'm ready.

The Story Mode is available in Classic and Remixed flavors, with the latter unlocked after beating the game once. The main menu includes a Speedrunning option, a Challenge section, and there’s a Tournament mode to compare your prowess to other players’. The best addition is the Blacksmith, where you can design your own weapons, drawing them with pixels and selecting their stats afterwards. Even better – the weapons created by other players may pop up as rewards after a mini-boss. I fought using a cow-shaped sword, another one had a Mario sprite on a stick. Yes, really.

Look on the left. I wasn't kidding when I said "a Mario
sprite on a stick". It's right there.

See, I did tell you that some weapons, when broken,
gave Grit wings!

Oh, I loved this one. The music is great, and the pixel art is gorgeous. That includes the sprite work during gameplay, but also the ultra-detailed backgrounds, cutscenes and portraits. The characters and scenes have that “80’s anime” vibe to them, very on-point. The game is tough, but overall fair; it’s hard while learning the ropes, but it gets easier once you’ve got all the mechanics down. As an example, once you learn that you can heal by breaking weapons, you keep a few in inventory just in case. And then, once you have the mechanics down, the Inverted Tower comes in with its six stages of intense platforming. It’s got the difficulty alright.

Trust me, 50 units really isn't much. But it does help.

A lot of people who say that the platforming in this game is cheap haven’t played a game that such a critique applies to. It’s tough, but not “the game is actively trying to piss the player off” tough. I’ve seen those, I’ve tried some, and Panzer Paladin is nowhere near that level. However, this game with so many interesting mechanics underutilizes one: The Laboratory, where you can increase Grit’s max HP by destroying many Spirit weapons. This stops at five upgrades; it would have been even better if this feature had allowed the player to sacrifice more weapons for additional upgrades, maybe to Grit’s base attack or speed (as the mech is rather slow), or maybe some very slight upgrades to Flame at a very high cost?

Very small issues aside, I fell in love with this one, I think it’s safely going to find its way among my Favorites at the end of the year. You should try it out if you like retro throwbacks! Panzer Paladin is available on Steam for 19.99$ USD.

Quick Review: Gladiator Trainer

Back to the well of games made on RPG Maker, and... this one’s peculiar. I’ll always approve of those who do something with the program that’s a step beyond a cookie-cutter RPG, and today is an example.

I trust this big tough guy to be good at fighting.
...The Heck? He lost!

Developed by Pilgrim Adventures, published by Senpai Studios (which publishes a lot of RPG Maker games) and released on November 25th, 2016, Gladiator Trainer brings you into a very dark world where slave owners send their property to battle other slaves for the pleasure of the masses. You start the game with two slaves, which are randomly generated, and then put them in low-rank tournaments to start. They gain experience and levels, learn new attacks, and can fight in better tournaments, where the enemies are also stronger. The goal? To beat the highest tournament.

Our land. Where we prepare people so that
they'll fight each other. Yikes.

So, since it’s a game made on a software tailored to RPGs, then we can expect that, right? Well... Not quite. The greater focus is on the management simulator aspect. You manage your slaves by training them in combat, buy them weapons and armor. Hire a personal trainer, a cook and a doctor. You can even hire non-fighting “pleasure slaves” (yikes) of both genders for, ahem, morale boosts, and dance training for HP and agility boosts. Get a scribe who’ll look over your collection of books, which provide passive bonuses. If you don’t manage your money well and cannot pay your employees, they’ll quit, one at a time. And if your slaves have low morale, they’ll run away. If your slaves sustain long-term injuries in a battle, they cannot fight in tournaments while they recover. Oh, and as a final element: Fighting slaves earn their freedom upon winning 75 battles.

Ah, the battling. Of course there would be some.
...Wait, I don't control the character?

Well, I'm still broke, so I can't help. Sorry.

True to the form of management sims, there’s a variety of random events that can happen, and it’s up to you to figure out the best course of action, all based on your finances and status. The game is divided into weeks, with a tournament being the “last” thing you do in a week, as upon return from the tournament (no matter the result), you move on to the next week. You can also opt to skip a week, if the tournament available that week sounds too difficult, or if you feel your characters aren’t ready. You gain reputation as you beat tournaments, and there are additional ways to earn (or lose) more. 

They don't exactly start out great, so it's
your job to make sure they're ready and
can survive.

And, occasionally, we battle
big freaking feral animals.

Where’s the RPG part? The tournament battles, of course. The first tournaments are set against three opponents – two enemies and a “boss” – and I expect these to grow with more opponents over time. Your slaves learn new attacks the higher their level is, and the further in we go, the more often we fight opponents who can inflict status effects. Slaves regain HP between battles, 20% at first, but the amount can be increased up to 50%.

What’s the catch? Your involvement stops at picking the slave that will fight. You do NOT control them in battle. You let the fight play out, and then deal with the results. A victorious slave with high morale will earn you extra money with theatrics, while a loss instantly ends the tournament. You better hope your slave’s AI makes the right decisions. Nor has a streak of bad luck where it keeps missing the opponent. That’s cost me victory often, and there's no way to improve accuracy. In short, victories are down to luck.

For a while, Elison was my go-to fighter. Then, she had some
bad luck, so Sela got to fight and earn experience in her
place. But they're both close to 75 victories, so...

Oh no, Basewin, my worst fighter...
Well, cure him anyway! Just in case he
finally gets good! He's got a freedom to earn!

Oh, and the characters in-game are all portrayed with 3D models... If the anime girl in the header on the game’s Steam page is what brought you to buy it, sorry, you fell prey to false advertisement. There’s also some weird issue with the cursor, where if you move out of the game’s screen, you must go back to a smaller version of the game hidden behind the enlarged screen to go back to interacting with things in mouse mode. Also annoying is that the game frequently springs dialogue options in the middle of conversations. Imagine you're skipping the text, an option box pops up, and in your hurry, you auto-select the first option, and it's the one you don't want. Yep, happened a lot to me. Some way to prevent that would have been nice.

Yeah, we ain't winning that one.
Freaking heal yourself! Dammit, she never does.

I take moral issue with the core concept of the story, but it's not all dark as there's multiple ways to "free" the slaves. Either way, gonna let suspension of disbelief deal with that one. The character models are merely okay; 3D assets repurposed for this game, but at least it’s a change from the usual anime-styled RPG Maker assets. The management simulation is overall fine; it gets more complex as you go up the ranks, but luck can screw you over. The game's balancing is terrible at the beginning, as your opening options are very limited and any misstep means your slaves are unprepared for even the most basic battles; in fact, your odds are much too low unless you know exactly what to do. Guides say, don’t upgrade any of your facilities until after you’ve won a tournament or two, and focus your early cash on equipment. Even then, battles remain completely steered by the characters’ AI, so you can very easily get fucked over by a streak of bad luck, like your slave not healing themselves when they need to, constantly missing the opponent, or being wounded for weeks after a fight. Not to mention it ultimately becomes repetitive once we reach the upper echelons of the competition.

Interesting combo of genres, I appreciate the novelty, but the game is only okay at best in my opinion. At least it’s not expensive if you do want to check it out.

Gladiator Trainer is available on Steam for 0.55$ USD.

Also note that I won’t be posting next Friday, as I’ll be on a trip. However, I’m going to resume posting the Friday after that.... and it will be the start of that long-promised 11th anniversary review!

Quick Review: Streamline

A eulogy for another game I took too long to get to.

Once again, these pictures are from the
official Steam store page, which can no longer
be found through research on the platform.

Streamline, as it used to be known, was a creation of Proletariat, Inc., and was “released” on September 30th, 2016. Don’t expect me to actually discuss my experience of playing it, I didn’t get that far. And unlike the previous two cases of this I’ve encountered – Offensive Combat and Wasted Pizza – this one I was looking forward to. All three share a common trait, though; they were multiplayer experiences exclusively, ditched once there was no longer a player base. That’s why I’ll always advocate for single player campaigns, especially for multiplayer games from smaller studios trying to make it big.

Swords and fun costumes, bright world. Okay,
I'll bite: Is there a dark secret under the surface
of the setting? ...We'll never know.

That said, just like in the other two cases, there may have never been an intention here outside of multiplayer. The game even advertised itself on being made for streamers who could play it live with the audience. It sure looks lively and pretty enough. The screenshots on the Steam Store page, which no longer appears in searches since you can no longer purchase the title (which also, for the record, was left in Early Access for the entirety of its shelf life before its devs pulled the plug), boast the possibility to customize the playable characters as we see fit, with a buttload of colorful and fun accessories and clothes. Weapons, too.

Looks like the customization was
great, too. Sigh.

On the plus side, I got that one through a Humble Bundle, so it’s not like I paid much for it. Even then, I paid for what’s more like a pass into the beta, when it was around. It was a part of the Freedom Bundle sold from February 13th to 20th, 2017, so… my best guess is that the game was seeking a larger base, but never quite got sustainable. Sad when it happens. I can’t even say for sure “there was potential here”, it would imply I’ve actually tested it.

From my understanding, the game was about a new sport from the future aided by the developed technology of the times, pitting two types of players against each other: Runners and Hunters. It’s a parkour-heavy competition for up to 16 players that’s all about racking up points, Runners evading the Hunters, or Hunters catching the Runners.

A good day for a swell battle - now, go!

    Not enough assault with a blunt weapon.

I can’t confirm, but it seems like battles would function either like those asymmetric multiplayer games à la Dead by Daylight (lots of Runners, very few Hunters) or with equal players on both sides. Part of the goal for Runners would be to earn points by grabbing score balls, doing stunts, playing mini-game and evading Hunters, while the Hunters likely made most of their points catching the Runners. Apparently, the Hunters would have plenty of impromptu weapons to use; the store page even mentions stop signs. Damn, imagine getting a stop sign to the face. Yeowch. The stream’s audience would be able to make things easier for either side by changing the rules in real time or giving out perks. Part of the interaction could happen through the (also defunct) streamote.tv website.

Nowadays, booting up the game leads to a server error screen. Can’t even get to the main menu.

I can no longer become the next best
supervillain: The Stopman!

Proletariat, Inc. released more games than this; their most famous was Spellbreak, released on September 3rd, 2020. Also a PvP title and available for a few platforms, it shut down on January 10th, 2023. Barely two years. That’s a damn short life for a game if you ask me. Anyhow, it’s my impression that a concept like Streamline may have been a little too ambitious. The game looked great and probably played decent (Heck if I know; again, couldn't test it, and there’s no way I’m pulling my time machine out of the mothballs for this), but it didn’t have a big name backing it and the visibility just wasn’t there. The silver lining is that Spellbreak is what got the studio noticed. They were purchased by Activision Blizzard and went on to make the ninth expansion pack for World of Warcraft, titled Dragonflight and released in late 2022. So… sad life for Streamline, but its makers eventually fared well enough.

An actual review’s coming up next, promise.