Yogscast

"/give Honeydew 46 1" —Lewis, Shadow of Israphel

Two British gamers, Lewis and Simon (aka Xephos and Honeydew), making gameplay videos, adding funny (and often unrelated) audio commentary and posting them on their YouTube page. They are sometimes joined by their friend Hannah (Lomadia) as well as other World of Warcraft guild mates. Starting their YouTube channel in July 2008, they have celebrated achieving 1 million subscribers on YouTube in October 2011.

After starting with Warcraft, they have expanded into general gaming content, such as reviews and gameplay videos of games such as Fallout 3, Minecraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Portal 2, and The Witcher 2.

Their current flagship content is the Yogscast Minecraft Series, which has its own page.

There is also a podcast (called the YoGPoD) on iTunes.

They have also expanded into several other YouTube channels, with these channels managed members of the Yogscast other than Lewis and Simon. Here are "Lalna's", "Sips'", "Rythian's", and "Sjin's" channels. Hannah has taken over the "yogscast2" channel. Each channel hosts the various gaming content of the respective owners and other content that didn't make it to the main channel. Of special note are the "Yogtrailers", hosted on the yogscast2 channel, which focuses on several MSTs of advertisements of new games coming out but quickly devolves into off topic rambling similar to their YoGPoD.

Sips has his own page.

Another member of The Game Station, introduced there by their fellow Brit, Total Biscuit.

They have attempted to create Yogventures, their own full-fledged game with a developer (details here.), but it was cancelled in 2014 after creative troubles, budget issues and the bankruptcy of Winterkewl Games. (Eurogamer article) The cancelled game is now known as Kickstarter's biggest gaming failure, after the OUYA.

Speaking of games, they publicly support a fan-made platforming game, and the main duo have even met with the developer: its Facebook page is here.

For examples pertaining to the Minecraft series, including Shadow of Israphel, see Yogscast Minecraft Series.

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Yogscast provides examples of the following tropes:

• 20% More Awesome: At the Diablo III launch event Simon claimed to have and ax of +2 Awesomeness that has been corrupted by Diablo to have -3 awesomeness.
• Accentuate the Negative: Their opinion of games that they are not familiar with tend to be negative, especially if they had liked a previous game in a series; see their video series of Dragon Age II and Final Fantasy XIV.
• Adult Child: Simon has his moments.
• Anti-Hero: Both are type II.
• Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: Simon. This also happens to both of them whenever they play Minecraft in the Minecraft series.
• Author Appeal: Dwarves. See Simon's character in the Yogscast Minecraft Series, Honeydew, and the undead dwarven pirate NPC Spacker. Also spreads to the YoGPoD constantly talking about dwarves, their YouTube profile image, and even their way of censoring inappropriate bits being images of dwarves.
  • Taken to ridiculous levels in their Guild Wars 2 preview, where Simon tries to make one of his characters as dwarfy as possible, despite playing a Norn, which are twice the size of humans. With the size slider turned up to max.
  • Also, Jaffa Cakes. When they got the chance to star in their own DLC for Sanctum, the entire point was keeping their horde of "Joffo Cakes" safe.
• Awesome but Impractical: ARSE Mines in their Magicka playthrough with Total Biscuit. During their Christmas livestream when they finally begin playing Magicka again, ARSE-Mines are simultaneously their best weapon against Dwarves, and their worst enemy with Total Party Kills.
  • In their Diablo 3 unboxing, Simon can't get the plastic packaging off...so he uses a Frostmourne. Also serves as a Call Back.
• Better Than a Bare Bulb: Oh so very much.
• Beyond the Impossible: The absolutely ridiculous lengths that Simon supposedly went to to protect his jam from Brian Blessed in one YoGPoD.
• Big Eater: Simon
• Big No: Simon generally just drops these whenever something bad happens to him, Lewis, or a well-liked character during a game.
  • Simon drops one of these in the single-player mode of Portal 2, when he tries to smuggle the Companion Cube with him and it disintegrates.
  • Simon drops 2 giant ones during their playthrough of a Left 4 Dead Map modded to look like Minecraft...When tasked to find a stick and block of cobblestone to make a lever in the Nether Level, Simon first finds Xephos' (Lewis' Minecraft Avatar) corpse holding the stick, and then later Lewis finds Honeydew's (Simon's Avatar) corpse holding the block of cobble.
  • Probably one of Simon's biggest No's comes when Knight Peculier is killed in Shadow of Israphel.
• Bland-Name Product: Crunchy Fried Wings, with its mascot, the General, in YoGPoD 37.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Male Version. The 6th TGS Podcast has Jesse, TB and Simon respectively, BadassBeards and all.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Following the typical loadout, both Simon and Lewis go with this - Simon more often using the Bow, and Lewis more often using the Sword, but they do take turns. How much it helps them out is up for debate.
  • Their LP of Fable 3 has Simon taking a rifle and sword, and Lewis using a pistol and warhammer, further cementing their roles of ranged and melee damage respectively.
• Brick Joke: The crusty old molester from the first Dungeons & Dragons special makes a hilarious comeback in the second campaign:

Mulchie: Does Madewyn recognize the old man? Hannah: Oh, god. Simon: Oh, god.

• • Also, a letter from "Nick Fuckface" in the podcast: Lewis refuses to read it at first, letting Simon do it in a following episode. It turned out to include the immortal line: "I am Dave ! Yognaut and I have the balls."
  • In YoGPoD, Warwick Davis goes down the drain in Simon's sink. In the next YoGPoD, one of the dividers is "Hello, I'm Warwick Davis and I'm in a sewer."
• Bring My Brown Pants: Simon and Lewis notice the unusual running animation of a character in Dead Island. They theorize that this trope is in effect.

Simon: Well, he was just in a helicopter crash, Lewis...

• Buffy-Speak: Lewis is a master at this.
• Canine Companion: The dogs in Fable 3.
• Catch Phrase:
  • Simon's "Follow me!" and "Cooooome 'eeeeeeere!" ("Come here!")
  • Simon's girlish "Awwww!" along with Lewis' somewhat less girlish one.
  • "That'sss a very nice everything you have there" whenever a Creeper shows up in Minecraft, referencing a popular Me Me.
  • They call each other "Friend" an awful lot.
    • Lampshaded somewhat when they first arrive at the Mistral City graveyard and find their pre-planned graves. The prepared epitaph on Xephos's (Lewis's) grave is, rather touchingly, "Goodbye, Friends!"
    • Any official merchandise is sent with a thank-you card containing the message "Thanks for the support, Friend!"
  • Simon doing a crude rendition of the Yogscast opening theme song with his voice during awkward silences.
  • Humming the chest opening music from The Legend of Zelda whenever they find some rare treasure. The "found a secret" from the same series and a simple angelic choir sound also pops up in a similar fashion.
  • The charming but odd way Simon says "Hellloooooo!"
  • "Balls to it" and variations.
  • Asking/saying that someone's "Ballsed it up" whenever someone severely screws something up.
  • "Hooraaaaaay!" whenever they escape a deadly situation or find something good. Simon tends to say this more, with Lewis sometimes following up with his less-excited one.
  • Simon says "WHOOP" when trying to be cautious or coming very close to danger.
  • The Diggy Diggy Hole song, as well as all of its variations.
  • Lewis' "hup!" when ever he does a jumping puzzle.
  • Fuckin' Hell's bells
  • Nooooooo!!! Why would you do that?!!
  • See you later, shitlord!
  • "It's good, isn't it?" Often heard during mod spotlights.
  • Simon blaming anything that goes wrong even in non-Blizzard games on Blizzard or "Blizz", often along the lines of "Oh come on, Blizz", or "What the hell, Blizz!".
  • In Minecraft Mod spotlights, anytime Lewis is showing something new to Simon, Simon immediately goes "What?". e.g., "So I put a nuclear reactor here in my basement..." "What?"
  • Simon's anxious "Ooo!" whenever he's in jeopardy. Such as repeatedly throughout this video of Magicka: Vietnam.
  • Simon's "[phrase], son!"
• Chastity Couple: Lewis and Hannah almost never show any signs of being in a relationship and never even reference having any kind of physical romance. The only way most people remember that they are even dating is when it is specifically mentioned by other people.
  • Plus, during one YoGPoD, Simon jokingly talks about having a secret "activity" with Hannah and Lewis reacts with mild jealousy.
  • All the while Simon always refers to their relationship as them "living in sin" together.
  • Played for Laughs in Part 5 of their Minecraft XBOX playthrough.

Simon: There'll be all these limbs of hookers strewn around the place, and I'll be like "Lewis, what happened here?" Lewis: Hannah's going to be furious. Simon: Yeah, she'll have to clean it up!

• The Chew Toy: Lewis is sometimes subjected to this.
  • At the end of the third Magicka video, Simon gets a machine gun. He spends the next few minutes killing Lewis, rezzing him, and killing him again.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Both of them, consistently, but Simon tends to be more often.
• Combat Pragmatist: Lewis, according to his description of his own playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas. He has barely any idea who Joe Cobb's character is because, in his own words, as soon as he heard Cobb talking about burning down Goodsprings, he "shot him dead there and then," in order to avoid having difficulty killing him when he was actually supposed to.
• Companion Cube: Simon's is, well, The Companion Cube.
• Continuity Nod: Some of the donator names for the JustGiving fundraiser referenced old YoGPoDs, such as "Nick Fuckface" and "Happy Adjustable Spanners".
• Creepy Child: Lewis' impression of one of these during the second Halloween YoGPoD gave Simon "the opposite of an erection".
• Crossover: The pair appear in the free "Yogscave" DLC level for Sanctum, where they play space miners that comment on the battle in their usual fasion.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Magic: The Gathering: Simon vs Lewis: Round 4, with Simon the stomper and Lewis the stompee.
• Deadpan Snarker: Lewis has his occasional moments.
  • Simon gets downright abusive when Hannah plays Fallout: New Vegas, constantly calling her out on her hoarding and poor gameplay decisions. As a result, it starts feeling like Spoiler Warning. But British.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: When Lewis suggested that Simon's prisoner character's crime in Skyrim was being a video game pirate, Simon responds that he probably deserves to be executed.
• Drop the Hammer: Lewis' starting melee weapon of choice in Fable 3.
• Epic Fail: Referred to as "ballsing it up".
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": In the first episode of the Dungeons & Dragons Yogpod, Lewis refers to a man in an inn as 'barkeep', to which the man replies that he isn't a barkeep, he's an innkeeper. He then reveals that his name is Jeremy Innkeeper.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: Simon apparently once dressed up as Marilyn Monroe's corpse.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: While playing a Left 4 Dead 2 custom map here Simon falls into a hole and requires assistance to get out, when the zombies become too much Lewis and Hannah leave him and proceed to the safe room while Simon shouts "How could you!?" Lewis replies "It's called left 4 dead", Though they do go back and rescue him, eventually.
• Genius Ditz: Both Simon and Lewis are actually competent at things when they're not playing computer games. In at least one YoGPoD, they go off on a tangent and start having a conversation about science in the middle of something silly.
  • Simon is generally seen as the dumb one, but is an astrophysicist and often shows a better understanding of science than Lewis.
  • Lewis himself had jobs as a freelance science journalist, an organic chemist, and a technology scientist.
• Funny Background Event: In one of the Mists of Pandaria videos, there is a chat conversation going on about whether Pandas are bears or raccoons.
• Fun with Acronyms: Simon's anti-robot cruelty society, the Humane Organization of Robotic Social Engineers.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck:
  • Lewis often replaces "fuckin' 'ell" with "flippin' 'eck", though the former is used quite frequently as well. He also sometimes uses "sugar" in lieu of "shit", commonly accompanied with a drawn-out initial s. Most likely more of an attempt to be cheeky than to actually cut down on swearing.
  • On the Worms Reloaded charity livestream on Twitch TV, they try downplaying their swearing with phrases like "For fup's sake" and "Son of a bits!"
• Heterosexual Life Partners: As mentioned above, "friend" is a very commonly used word. "Where have you gone, friend?" "There you are, friend." "What have you found, friend?" "Take a look at this, friend."
  • Lampshaded during their mockery/review of Dragon Age II. When Simon find out that maxing out a female ally's "friend" meter means that you can bang them, Simon says that he acts mean to Lewis sometimes just to prevent this from happening in real life.
• Hit and Run Tactics
• Hollywood Atheist: Lewis is apparently one of these. In one YoGPoD, he started to talk about how religion was bollocks when Simon interrupted him with a speech that every time he goes on a "fucking Dawkins rant" he sounds just as insane as a Christian fundamentalist. Much later, when they met a priest in the Minecraft series, Simon said he was waiting for Lewis to "go all militant atheist" on him, but Lewis declined.

Lewis: No, no don't worry, I worship at the Church of Notch just like everyone else, Simon.

• Hoist by His Own Petard: In part 8 of Magicka, Simon blew himself off a bottomless pit thanks to the ARSE-mines he placed. Later on the Twitch Livestream on 20th of December, Simon gets blocked on a bridge by one of his own ARSE-mines. Simon (the first time), and Total Biscuit (the second time) say this word for word.

"Hoisted by my/your own petard!"

• Ho Yay: Happens in Diablo 3 Launch Event Outtakes when Simon kisses a cut on Lewis's lip.

Simon immediately hanging a lampshade: "That's called Fan Service."

• Identical Stranger: A rare Real Life example. It was discussed in the 6th TGS podcast that Jesse Cox and Simon are eerily similar in looks.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Simon tries to one-up himself at how many baaad sheep jokes he can inflict on Lewis in "Cataclysm Easter Egg Sheep Farm".
  • More recently from their Hack/Mine series, when Simon accidentally blows up a ladder leading to the next bit of the tower.

Simon: "It's coladderal damage!"

• Kleptomaniac Hero: Taken to almost an art form; the only thing stopping Simon and Lewis from mining out entire buildings for loot in the Minecraft series is a combination of a watchful NPC and their own incompetence.
  • Hannah in the Fallout: New Vegas LP. Stealing from the doctor that saves her life, stealing from a chest she's using for cover in a firefight, stealing from a guarded vault, pickpocketing said guards from across the room...
• Large Ham: Simon often does this at the beginning of videos.
• Leitmotif: I'M A DWARF AND I'M DIGGING A HOLE!! DIGGY DIGGY HOLE!! DIGGING A HOLE!! Simon has done several variations of the song depending on the situation, from sleeping to swimming to destroying nether portals, even for non-Minecraft videos.
• Let's Play: Sometimes a hybrid with machinima, as with the Yogscast Minecraft Series.
• Live Streaming
• Man of a Thousand Voices: Simon voices nearly every character in their Minecraft series. He also habitually imitates other voices in other videos, such as Boone in the Fallout: New Vegas LP.
  • Simon and Lewis admit that this is the main reason why Simon's such a big part of the Yogscast compared to the other members. Paraphrased from a YoGPoD interview, Simon makes funny voices while Lewis does 90% of the work.
• Mermaid Problem: Discussed in YoGPoD 21. According to Simon, Mermaids do have vaginas, but scaly ones.
• Metaphor Is My Middle Name: While on board the aircraft carrier the USS Hornet for a massive LAN party, Simon told the tale of a boy turned into a plane.

So this is Duncan. His real name is Jet Intake, right? His real name is Jet Intake, but his middle name is "Danger".

• MSTing: Yogtrailers, on newly released or soon to be released video game advertisements and promos.
• Name McAdjective: While Lewis rambles about altered maps in World of Warcraft, Simon dismissively goes "Sure thing, Mumbly McWhisperstein".
• Nerdgasm: Simon has one over The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in YoGPoD 36.
• No, You Hang Up First: In YoGPoD 2, Simon does this to himself while hanging up a phone call.
• Only Sane Man: Lewis is sometimes subjected to this whenever Simon starts making impulsive decisions.
  • Lewis is doubly the Only Sane Man when the Yogscast play with Total Biscuit in their Magicka playthrough; Simon is off being The Load and The Fool while TotalBiscuit becomes a Large Ham and Deadpan Snarker, somehow.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:
  • Simon's Mr. Miyagi voice somehow turning into a stereotypical Jewish accent.
  • Simon's occasional lapses into his "Professor Grizwald" voice when narrating.
    • Lampshaded in a story Simon told where forgot how he actually spoke in Real Life and yelled out things like orders for food in his Grizwald voice for a couple of weeks.
  • Lewis' voice for Fulgrim the ex-pirate half-orc in the Dungeons & Dragons podcasts.

Mulchie: Can I walk away from the man with the strange Irish-Scottish-Welsh accent, please?

• Orphaned Series:
  • Simon stopped his Portal 2 single player Let's Play because he was tired of getting comments about his inability to solve the puzzles.
  • The Yogcast's Fable 3 Co-Op Let's Play crash and burned after Simon got stuck in a tree due to a glitch the developers didn't bother to fix after porting it to the PC. Also resulted in Simon Rage Quiting.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Santa Claus looked rather suspicious in Day 1 of the 2011 Christmas Advent Calender. Especially with his inability to drink with his beard.
  • Same with the goat Lewis interviewed during his Goat Giving Report.
• Perfectly Cromulent Word:
  • "Excitingest". It's a word.
  • Simon says meece/meeces is the plural of moose, and don't you let anyone ever tell you different!
• Podcast
• Pyromaniac: Simon.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Simon is red, eager to cause damage and wreak havoc and clearly the most spirited about this experiment. Lewis is blue, thinking things through sometimes too carefully, and hardly unnerved. During Planetoids in the Minecraft series, while Simon was loudly crying over mobs spawning, at night, left alone, and having died earlier, Lewis ignored him and commented on how the clouds were "causing some trouble for him."
• Refuge in Audacity: Simon walking around on a US aircraft carrier, wearing a hat he'd stolen from the Captain's quarters.
• Running Gag:
  • Throughout the entire Yogscast, the Diggy Diggy Hole Song and its many spinoffs.
  • Ditto for Simon spontaneously breaking out into his trademark "Professor Grizwald" voice.
  • "Noooo Bill it's not your time!" during The Sacrifice campaign of Left 4 Dead 2. Doubly funny because the crew had played The Passing campaign first.
  • Lewis demonstrates a very unusual game, and Simon comments on how he doesn't seem to realize how weird it is.
  • The washing machine heard in the background of Hannah's L.A. Noire Let's Play. Especially Egregious because of how even Simon and Lewis, who just happen to be in the background of Hannah's playthrough, complain about the damn machine.
  • The word "Spacker". Mentioned multiple times in the YoGPoD as a made-up nickname for an illegal substance, and is the name of a character in Shadow of Israphel.
  • Simon and Lewis's love of Tina Barrett. Especially prevelant in the YoGPoD, where they mention that they regularly check her Myspace.
  • For copyright reasons, all songs must be out of tune.
  • Similarly, Sjin likes to call Rythian's character Pontius in their Trine 2 playthrough "Fatty" or "Pie Lord".
• Scandalgate: The second YoGPoD, Sipsgate, in which Lewis randomly calls his internet friend Sips (who said to never, ever call him in real life except in emergencies related to their website, which he upkeeps) three times for no reason other than entertainment. Luckily, the potential scandal and defriending is averted, and Sips is cool with it... as long as they don't call him again.
• Schedule Slip: In regards to their Magicka co-op with Total Biscuit; the three had increasingly busy schedules starting after Part 8, and Part 14, a 40+ minute episode, had audio issues that TotalBiscuit still hadn't edited out yet when it was finally released two months after recording.
• Serious Business: Simon protecting his jam.
• Shout-Out:
  • Simon yelling Oliver!! whilst playing Dead Island.
  • In YoGPoD 36, Simon mentioned that it would take a parsec to find his lost jam, especially if he used the Kessel Run.
• Solemn Ending Theme: This operatic rendition of the Yogscast theme performed by Simon.
• Sophisticated As Hell: During their Portal 2 co-op, seen here.

Simon: I know, I know. You don't need to fling yourself, you just need to be moving really quickly, because momentum is conserved... Lewis: Ohhh. Simon: And the way to do that is to make sure that there's loads of fucking gel everywhere. Lewis: (laughs)

• Sound Effect Bleep: In The Lord of the Rings Online review, Simon's potentially slanderous comments about Turbine's CEO is censored.
• Spot of Tea: This is one of Lewis' favorite drinks.
• Squee: Lewis, on occasion. For example, his reaction to kittens.
• A Storm Is Coming: The metaphorical version of this is mocked in their YoGPoD interview with Hodor's actor, Kristian Naire: [1]

Simon, as Sean Bean: Winter is coming. And so am I. Urrggh.

• Strongly Worded Letter: In the YoGPoD, Lewis recounts that his father is so un-tech savvy that he sends these to then-prime minister Gordon Brown.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: They make great use of this during to cover some of their... less heroic actions - with good intentions and mild (at most) consequences, of course!
• Trademark Favorite Food: Simon LOVES his Jaffa Cakes.
  • Brian Blessed has jam sandwiches.
• Verbal Tic: "The thing is..." While it seems that Lewis says this phrase most often, both Simon and Hannah use it, as infamously pointed out by a fan who edited together several minutes of them saying the phrase without consciously knowing it in a YoGPoD.
• Waxing Lyrical: While closing off the World of Warcraft archaeology video, Simon says "I believe in angels. Something good in everyone I see. And I also believe that I can fly. That I can touch the sky".
• Wimp Fight: In a video where Simon and Hannah are trying out Total Miner, Hannah comes across a Giant Spider in an underground cavern, and she constantly tries to attack it with her pickaxe while she's way too far to actually hit anything. Even when she gets up close enough that the spider takes up the entire game screen, she still can't attack it and is too terrified to get closer to see if the pickaxe can even be used to attack spiders.
• The Wiki Rule: Here. The Wiki is just as informal as TV Tropes, fittingly enough.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The "yogs" part of the name stands for "Ye Olde Goone Squade", the name of their WoW guild when they started making videos.
• Your Mom: In one of the YoGPoDs, Simon makes a World of Warcraft-themed one of these, realises that the mechanic was revamped, and makes another one related to World of Warcraft.