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Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
0 Playsin 8 hours
Ben & Jess talk about the pretty good and sadly unavailable Telltale game, but mostly talk about their history with Homestar Runner in general.
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
Give us a review, they help people find this show! Unless you hated it, in which case, don't.
Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Nostalgia and Adventure Games
00:00:32
Speaker
gonna record about adventure games huh is that uh yeah yeah is that who is that peter lori that's peter lori wait i've been calling him peter lore that's his evil twin i've been
00:00:51
Speaker
oh it's peter data that's right yeah those are the two uh the two you had to choose you know how you tell the difference one never uses contractions which one i'll never tell peter b4
00:01:06
Speaker
boy what a great storytelling decision that was uh at the end of a great movie um just i sell that in theaters i think oh yeah i bought that on dvd the day it came out you bought that on dvd the day it came out yeah i was like i gotta get over to best buy and pick up that dvd nemesis on digital versatile disc yes so i could put it in my digital versatile disc player and watch it again your dvdp yes my dvdp
00:01:38
Speaker
This is Quest Quest.
Family Guy Spin-Off Discussion
00:01:40
Speaker
The Adventure Game podcast. Ben, there is breaking news coming in over the wire. What's up? Did you hear that Fox ordered two seasons of a family guy spin off starring Stewie?
00:01:54
Speaker
Of course I saw that. You're going to be weak old news when... I don't care. Well, yeah, that's, but technically this is one of the first hot takes on it. Um, people will just hear it a week later. So by now, mean, everybody's read all the think pieces and stuff, but realize that Ben and I are approaching this fresh. Like we, we haven't had time to be jaded when all the cultural critics of the day, like when Chuck Klosterman has written his, uh, his short essay telling us about why the Stewie series is important to our culture here in the twenty twenty s
00:02:30
Speaker
This is Ben and I just coming at this fresh. How excited are you as a Stewie fan? Oh, man. love that baby. i love that that that crazy baby. he wants to kill his mom, Lois.
00:02:47
Speaker
All right. So, Jess, when was the last time that you watched Family Guy? I don't think I have ever watched a full episode of Family What?
00:02:59
Speaker
No, I understand it can't stand it. Can't stand Not even like at at a peak family. No, no, no, no, no. Not initial run, not come back. I will tell you this quite frequently in the evenings on adult swim. I watched their little block of Bob's burgers. Right. Just whatever episode they happen to be running. And that ends at like 8 30 PM with a small block of the family guy.
00:03:26
Speaker
Right. And, I have to reach for my remote and mute that theme song so I can find something else to watch. But don't even want to hear the strains of the theme song as Bob's Burgers is fading out because Bob's Burgers going end some adorable song that was, you know, handcrafted for that episode as Bob's Burgers often does. And I can't even, yeah i don't even want to hear it. they hand bar so So you don't actually, you, you've never, okay.
Impact of Family Guy and Revival Trends
00:03:58
Speaker
Because at least like with with me, i watch this is an uninformed hatred, yes. Yeah, i because I watched... ah I watched Family Guy um and like ah during those initial seasons when it felt like I was actually, because I was thinking about this, you know, as this Stewie news came out.
00:04:27
Speaker
and It's the newss of the day. It's probably the most important thing going on around the world today as we record this. For sure. um And... ah I like I so I was I was thinking about this this morning when I was reading all this exciting news and um the like I was thinking about how.
00:04:55
Speaker
When I was watching Family guy ah during those initial years and when it um like, that those couple years that it was off the air and it was, like, a DVD hit before it went on Adult Swim and became a a huge deal.
00:05:16
Speaker
Like, I remember it was kind of like, it's like, here's a little cartoon. only known to like real comedy heads yeah yeah like it had like it's like you know it had a little bit of an air of it's like hey did you know that there's this show it's called family guy it's really funny it has adam's adam west shows up in it sometimes he's pretty yeah and like you know there's this old pervert uh in a couple episodes he's pretty funny and then a younger pervert Yeah, a lot perverts. You're two perverts. Yeah, you got two different perverts. A lot of And then there's a dog pervert.
00:05:51
Speaker
And then just like some regular baseline perverts. Yeah, just it's it's it's oops all perverts. And ah and so i I remember I was just like, man, yeah this is a show.
00:06:06
Speaker
And then when when Fox announced that they're bringing back Family, it's like, oh my God. they're they're doing it and i think that was my first um kind of
Early Internet Communities and Chat Platforms
00:06:20
Speaker
instance of like it something coming back and immediately being disappointed by it because i remember um i got so i was i think this i was like a freshman or sophomore in college and
00:06:37
Speaker
and um they ah before the premiere of the new season of family guy before it restarted to run forever and get a million spinoffs including the stewie family guy spinoff um i like i ah ah went and they they announced that they're going to have the full cast of Family Guy at ah Town Hall Theater in New York City.
00:07:11
Speaker
And they're going to do a reading of one of their episodes, like from the original run. And then they're going to play the the season premiere ah wow of the the new season. The only thing that could make it better is a Seth MacFarlane sang a song.
00:07:28
Speaker
I wouldn't be like straight out of the American songbook. Let's hear it. I don't, I, I don't recall, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. But I remember I was, I was there at town hall and i watched, they ah read like one of the more popular episodes from that original run.
00:07:48
Speaker
and that was, I mean, that's interesting, right? Like to see the full cast, like yeah sit down with scripts and and read it. Like that's always, that's always an interesting thing to see. So that was like, that was entertaining. And I'm still at the level of sophistication that just seeing anyone do a cartoon voice live is like magic to I'm like, it just a kid. I'm just like clapping. It's like, oh my God, there is nothing stranger than seeing Dan Castaneda do Homer.
00:08:14
Speaker
yes like correct i think more somehow nancy cartwright doing bart is less upsetting yeah and julie kavner just talks that way like yeah that's right um but so that was that was fun and then and then they played the premiere uh to the fourth i believe uh season and i remember just sitting there and being like huh
00:08:42
Speaker
See, I don't know this feeling from Family Guy. that Well, yeah, that's the thing. that This was the first time that happened, and then I watched it happen with Futurama. Futurama is the one that yeah the hits for me. like Like so many other things where it's like, can this thing that you really love is back. Like with Arrested Velvet.
00:09:03
Speaker
Like all this stuff where it's just like, oh, I guess i guess we should have done that. You know, i feel like it, we have avoided like a real monkey's paw situation that we have never gotten more of the critic.
00:09:21
Speaker
Because I feel like there was a window. There was a window. yeah Yeah. But like even recently. Yeah. even recently Even recently when it's like, like it's like I guess, John Lovitz, do you need a little more money? Is that the situation here? Yeah. Because it's just like the...
00:09:41
Speaker
No one knows what a television critic is anymore. So you can't do the critic anymore. What if he's now a but YouTube reviewer? He's now a review bro on, on YouTube ah with angry opinions about video games. And it's a shame because it's like, I, you know, I really enjoyed those two seasons of the critic.
Humorous Banter and Drag King Names
00:10:07
Speaker
There's some like I all every now and again, I'll, I'll, I'll get a wild hair and rewatch an episode. And aside from a couple jokes that have not aired well, yeah like age 12, I'll be like, yeah, pretty good job guys. And then if if a genie appeared before you,
00:10:24
Speaker
played by Robin Williams. And he did like some great impression. Like he's like a Jimmy Stewart voice or something. He says to you, he says yeah he says to you, Ben, i can give you right now in the year 2026, eight more episodes of the critic produced in 2026.
00:10:47
Speaker
with of the original devil would you would you accept this wish or would you think you were being tricked by a genie i think this would be a classic genie trick classic yeah you would say no thank you genie but you would say give me six more seasons of sliders oh yeah oh yeah Yeah. I messed that up.
00:11:10
Speaker
No, it's not. They didn't even mess up with sliders when it was on the air. It was five seasons of perfection. Yeah. Nobody complained about diminishing returns. It's it's not a show that was mostly good during its, its short first season and then slowly got worse every year.
00:11:35
Speaker
And by slowly got worse, it's like the second season, pretty good. But, you know, like there, there, there's some cracks. And bills are seasonally on the yeah third season, a massive drop. And then the fourth season, uh-oh, worse. And then the fifth season, we don't even have most of the cast anymore. You start to realize how little of the cast you need to produce the same low quality of episodes. It's like, why are we paying all these people to make garbage when we can make garbage without them?
00:12:05
Speaker
It's like sliders becomes like a ship of Theseus if the ship of Theseus was made out of toilet paper. It was barely floating. to big it was absorbing all the water and sinking and people are just like getting more toilet paper, like frantically putting it on top of the ship, which is only making it heavier and sinking it faster.
00:12:38
Speaker
Wow. That's, yeah, no, this is the discussion I wanted to have. I thought, you know, I'm i'm recording my adventure game podcast.
Gaming Habits and Preferences
00:12:45
Speaker
I've got to get Ben's take on Stewie. And I'm glad we got to this place because we don't talk enough about sliders on, on this, on this channel, on this podcast, which is to say. Sliders was the first internet community that I was really in.
00:13:05
Speaker
and did did that fan community have a name like the like with fans of it no I don't think did slide rules oh no that would have been funny though I'll have to ask there's one person of all of the internet friends I made at the time there's one person I'm still in touch with and I'm like and I could I could reach out to him but I'm pretty sure um I would have to i'd have to shoot him a message, but I'm pretty sure that we didn't have, like, a cute nickname for ourselves. But, like, the Sliders fan community on the Dominion ah ah boards on sci-fi.com, or, like, the sci-fi channel, like... Mm-hmm.
00:13:56
Speaker
And actually, it's even more complicated than that. But let's let's not let's not sweat the details here. um ah But ah like that community, like, you know, that was my entree on to like, that was the the first one I was really into as like a young teenager. Yeah.
00:14:18
Speaker
Um, and, ah it is so like, I'll always have, I'll always have that. I'll always have the alternate dimension of parents.
00:14:32
Speaker
When you, when you used to use that forum, was there any kind of like, uh, private messaging feature on that forum? Like, were you able to like directly,
00:14:44
Speaker
Um, well, no, but we all had each other's ICQ numbers. Okay. So there was a way to slide into each other's DMs. Slide into each other's ICQs. Do you, do you remember, and maybe I talked about this on the hypnospace, uh, you had an ICQ, right? Oh, absolutely. yeah I was on my webpage, my SpaceQuest webpage. If you need to contact me for like, and I got, this is what's sad, Ben. I would get like on the average day, a couple of ICQ messages like with requests for SpaceQuest hints.
00:15:16
Speaker
Just like randos, just like, I'm quick. I need to know how to beat the data quarter puzzle. um I was on call. I was on retainer 24-7. twenty four seven um uh-oh uh-oh icq for for those of you that don't know that was an early uh internet uh chatting service imagine a daisy yeah it's green but it changes color spin that's right yeah up um but uh icq yeah no that was that got me into icq and um icy wiener that's from futurama very good and uh uh do you remember and again maybe i talked about this during the hypnospace uh podcast um
00:16:07
Speaker
Do you remember getting like strange messages from like just, uh, straight, like just total strangers, just random strangers would just ICQ you. And it would just be a yeah URL.
00:16:21
Speaker
And back in the day, we didn't have like the antibodies, uh, to be like, don't click on just any URL. Nobody sent you a good URL. yeah Like whatever they've sent you is not good. And, but, but what they would, these random messages,
00:16:36
Speaker
websites that they would send to you would just be like a like a Geocities site that was playing a MIDI and had a bunch of like dancing gifs on it and it would just be like welcome to my cool website what why did we leave this behind we left a lot behind I mean, have you seen the internet lately? It's a mess.
00:17:03
Speaker
People say anything on it. Clicking random links from ICQs ah and you click on them and it goes to a website where it's playing the MIDI for Mabo number five and you just see like a bunch of Java script ah or wrote the the Java, like the the animation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like i make gifts. And you know,
00:17:26
Speaker
100% penis free. Oh, not, not a a penis insight. Yeah, that's exactly. That's the ICQ random link promise.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, this was this was before, this was, yeah, you would not. mo you to take a photo of a penis we didn't even We didn't even know about Goatsy. Or penises.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah, we didn't know about Goatsy. We didn't know about Goatsy. We didn't know about penises. We didn't know about any of that stuff. It was it was a much more innocent time. there was That was actually before penises existed.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, you had to go into like your dark room and there'd be a red light and you'd be like dipping some film into a water bath and like holding it up and like pinning it up onto like a clothesline thing. And you'd come back like an hour later and there's your dick pic. It was like serious work. It was your dick daguerreotype.
00:18:29
Speaker
That's not a bad drag king name. i would That would be a great...
00:18:37
Speaker
Man. So, write that down. One drag king that like I'm buddies with already is pretty well, I think, set in ah in his name. So, it's like, all right, well...
00:18:51
Speaker
But like, you know, so I need to to reach out. It's like, hey, do you have any friends that are like kind of, you know, kind of thinking about it? but Because I got want to sell this. I'm willing to sell this. ala there's Their friends are probably broke. like oh I'll give it to you for a drink. Like buy me a beer. Yeah, because I think that one has legs. Yeah, Dick Daggerotype for sure. Oh, man. That is a good.
00:19:19
Speaker
oh man. That's like, oh, man. That's next level, though. Yeah, I'm going to have to reach out. I'm going to have to reach out to my buddy and be like, I got one. I got one. <unk> Ben, you haven't talked to me in like a year. What's of Hey, I've got a drag king name for you. Ben, I have a drag king name.
00:19:42
Speaker
And you haven't spoken to me in a year. Yeah. It's like, why did you start this out with like SOS 911 and then like six sirens before? want to make sure you pick Your drag family.
00:20:06
Speaker
ha Oh, man. You see, we're Gabba like we don't have a great game to talk about. to You have a good game for this episode. Yeah, I mean, and we have a good game to talk about. But you know, we can't talk about that game. huh.
00:20:20
Speaker
Until we talk about the games we've been playing. Ben, what have you been playing? Yes. You know, if there's one thing that anyone knows about me, just one fact, anyone knew one fact about me, it would be that I generally do not play games in early access. I wait.
00:20:43
Speaker
I wait until, I wait until they're baked. I wait until they're all they're all cooked and ready to go. Then we'll play no wine before it's time. That's right.
00:20:55
Speaker
That's right. And so, like, so I, I, but, you know, rules are made to be broken.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yes, yes. And so I picked up a early access game, sadly, I've not been able to put down.
00:21:19
Speaker
And that is, of course, The mega hit, the sequel to the mega hit, which is probably a mega hit, Slay the Spire 2. I've not been able put it down.
00:21:33
Speaker
Excellent. It's like... You've taken it from the video game to the board game to the video game sequel. Yeah. And and the worst... So...
00:21:44
Speaker
You know, the worst here's the worst thing about this. Is that so slate so, so if you are unfamiliar for some reason, Slay the Spire, it is a deck building, like kind roguelite where you're,
00:22:00
Speaker
In a, like, you're climbing up a tower and a go from encounter to encounter. Mostly it's monsters that you're defeating and building your deck. And there's, in the original game, there's four classes. In this new one, I believe that there are five.
00:22:17
Speaker
And you, you know, you get more cards and you get, you know, special power that, like, you know, modify the cards, blah, blah, blah.
00:22:28
Speaker
standard deck builder, Slay of the Spire is kind of like the canonical computer game. It's it's it's least well beloved. And so, yeah, as you mentioned, I have a board game version of it, which I believe I've talked about up here.
00:22:45
Speaker
And I've been playing a lot of it, and the board game is a board game version of the original PC game, except that adds co-op play.
00:23:00
Speaker
And, you know, and some modifications to make it, a you know, to to make it fit on as a board game. But the Slay the Spider 2 has co-op in game itself.
00:23:16
Speaker
Oh, oh. And so I had this fear. I this fear when the game came out and I saw the the trailer for the game where showed that it has co-op.
00:23:29
Speaker
And I was like, I think that's it for the board game. That board game's not cheap. And I I think that might be it for for my board game night.
00:23:41
Speaker
And sure enough, so last night, was my board game night. My buddy that I've been playing Slay the Spire, the board game with, came over. and I have the board game. I have it out. I'm ready to, like, I'm opening it up and setting it up. He's like, hey, you know, I had this idea. And he pulls out his Steam Deck.
00:23:57
Speaker
What if we played Slay the Spire 2 together? We did not play the board game. was like, Slay the Spire, the board game, dead in the ditch. Alas, poor board game.
00:24:09
Speaker
I knew him well. And, um...
00:24:14
Speaker
So don't think we're done with the board game forever. I'm i'm sure we'll we'll come back to it at some point, but like I played it and I was like, oh, ah we're not. Because it was great. It was great co-op.
00:24:28
Speaker
It was a lot of fun. It was fun. Like, you know, my my friend was there with his, like we both had our our Steam decks and we were playing it together. we had a lovely time.
00:24:41
Speaker
Um, and yeah, it is like, so it's in early access and it has very cute, early temp art, which is like very like MS paint.
00:24:51
Speaker
You don't need to use, uh, you know, AI generated images. for temp. But if you want to, MS Paint, I think, can do that now.
00:25:03
Speaker
So, you you, Copilot. It has little doodles in place, which are super cute.
00:25:13
Speaker
And like, there's there's stuff you can tell it's not entirely balanced. There's definitely some stuff that like, you know, that they're going to like, doodle with as they play through it and or people play through it. But like already the like, most of it is there.
00:25:29
Speaker
And there's a lot like, it's like I'm playing it and it does a good job with kind of the, the,
00:25:43
Speaker
the Sid Meier, the sequel rule, you know, the Sid Meier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. so Those of you who don't know it, the Sid Meier, the Meil, and Sid Meil, I'm getting ready for the game.
00:25:55
Speaker
I know. The Sid Meier, the Sequel. Moza Pan. Yeah, sequel rule is rule of thirds. It is a third of the game is the same, a third of we take we took the original game and reworked that, and a third that's completely new.
00:26:15
Speaker
And it feels like they adhered pretty well to that, like, kind of sequel design idea. And the reason, like, you know, not saying that all sequels need to do that, like, but you know what?
00:26:32
Speaker
It worked. I'm playing. I'm at great time. I recommend it. Or wait until the the full 1.0 is be stronger than me.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, Sid Meier left out the important one third of features you take away from the previous game only to reintroduce as DLC and expansion after release. That's an important part of the equation, I think, too.
00:27:01
Speaker
You know, fairness, I don't. people are going to be like, no, man, they they're generally in in a lot of the sim games. They're generally pretty clever in in not fit in doing that, but not doing that.
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah, not exactly. It's not like the sims. It's not. Yeah, it's yes, they don't. It's not the sims. Yeah, of course, now it seems like there's never going to be a sims fab. So this will never be a problem again. Yeah, you just there you go sims 4 here's a question here's a question yes should i buy the re-release of the sims one is that's the only one i have any sort of like fire did this get any like did this get quality of life or like think it got any quality of life i think it's the the trick is that it mostly works on your computer and okay it will crashes
00:27:56
Speaker
I have a feeling it's going to be very clunky feeling in its interface and stuff like that, but it's the only one I spend a significant time with either. and I spent a lot with it. I really enjoyed my time with The Sims.
00:28:09
Speaker
I wonder if you could go back there. i My feeling, I feel pretty strongly that one of these days I'll buy The Sims 1 remake and I'll just play it for like 45 minutes and be like, yeah,
00:28:27
Speaker
And I'll be there. I just want play it long enough to flirt with Bella Goth. And once I'm done, I'll be like, perfect. We we whooped or whatever it is in the sense of the I think it's. Yeah.
00:28:38
Speaker
Yeah, that'll be. That's all i'm looking for. And I'm out. Just in it for for the romance. Well, Jess, what have you been playing?
Streaming The Dagger of Amon Ra
00:28:49
Speaker
You know, Ben, going to keep this short and sweet because this is a game that eventually we will absolutely have an episode about. But as you know, I've been streaming The Dagger of Aminra, Laura 2, a game that I deeply love. it is such...
00:29:08
Speaker
It's charming game to me in every way. just i'm playing the CD-ROM version, some really fun voice performances. just you know Some of the things that we talked about loving in the Conquest games, I think is there as well because a lot of the research that goes into the museum exhibits and the like look and interact options, you can tell there's a lot of homework that went into this game. Just a lot of style, but i think what's really struck me during this playthrough that I don't know if I ever quite connected in the past is...
00:29:43
Speaker
The role played by Leslie Wilson, who would go on to marry one of the developers of this game, Bruce Balfour. yeah And maybe a more familiar name to Space Quest fans, Leslie Balfour, who would be Scott Murphy's design partner on the canceled Space Quest 7 sequel. But all that to say...
00:30:06
Speaker
In Laura Boutou, she voices Laura, your main character. She voices the narrator and she voices Yvette Delacroix, the French temptress in the game.
00:30:23
Speaker
And puts on three absolutely masterful voice performances. Just really impressive work. in a way that I don't think it ever occurred to me until someone pointed out literally on this stream that they're all voiced by the same person. didn't know that either.
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and they are very distinct performances. Like when Laura's dialogue is followed up with lines by the narrator, I don't think I would have ever guessed it was the same voice, especially at time when Sierra's voice acting was oftentimes pretty sketchy. i mean, friend of the podcast, Josh Mandel does some outstanding voice work in this, particularly as Krodfowler, Rhubarb, but also plays Steve Dorian with that crazy pitch down the audio.
00:31:10
Speaker
um But her work on all three of those roles, just fantastic. It's something that leapt out at me that I don't think I'd ever fully pieced together before this playthrough. Is Dagger of Almond Ra the best in-house Sierra voice cast?
00:31:30
Speaker
Ooh, I mean, Freddy Farkas has to be up there, right? But that's not an in-house voice cast. That's all external. Oh, this is true. So I'm saying people that were around the office...
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah, it probably has to be big. Because it's like, Bruce Balfour does a great job. great. And Space Quest 4, I would also say, great. Maybe one day we'll talk about that.
00:31:57
Speaker
Next episode. Yeah, we'll see. And like some others, but like this is another in-
00:32:07
Speaker
in another like, you know, in office performance. And i I was watching your stream and I was kind of thinking like, you know, up they're having, there's a lot more kind of fun to these performances than some those other ones perhaps. Everyone's got a fun... that Yeah.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah. fun I don't know. Yeah, I think it is too. I mean, i'm I'm looking at the voice cast and yeah, this is mostly Sierra folks all the way down to Scott Murphy, who is credited as miscellaneous people, which is my favorite song about Pulp.
00:32:45
Speaker
um But yeah, this is this is ah this a fun cast. I mean, Josh Mandel does some great work. Bruce Balfour does some great work. They're basically your writing design team also for this game.
00:32:59
Speaker
um But yeah, Leslie Wilson, later Balfour, as the narrator, Laura and Yvette, just Just fantastic. But that's what leapt out at me, having played this game a number of times before and just sort of this time really stopping to appreciate that.
Strong Bad's Cool Game and Homestar Runner
00:33:14
Speaker
But I won't belabor that because you know there's a Dagger of Aminrah episode somewhere in our future. yeah did you Did you stream the first game or did you just skip? Yes, I did. streamed the first one a while back, which I also love. I think that 2 is a lot more charming in a lot of ways, but I like the setting and the setup of 1 quite a bit.
00:33:37
Speaker
I was actually trying to think this is, you Ben and I have talked about this a lot and maybe anyone else out there listening, who's ever hosted their own podcast can relate to this. But oftentimes after recording an episode, Ben and I immediately lose all memory of everything we said and talked about. So that when someone later says, oh man, Ben, that joke you made about the beans was hilarious.
00:33:58
Speaker
And Bill would like, did I say something about beans? I don't, yeah I have no memory of this. I spent a good bit of time today trying to figure out if we had done an episode on the Colonel's bequest and came up empty. I was like, it's impossible to know without going to our archive. And I'm just going to not know that answer. I was more comfortable not knowing. but It was just like, I could imagine we did. i could imagine it was a fantastic episode. I can also imagine we have never mentioned the Colonel's bequest before. Impossible to say.
00:34:29
Speaker
Well, there is something that we are going to talk about. What's that? We are going to play. We? we Well, you know, you can play this in on the Wii if you like. We are going to be talking about Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People.
00:34:51
Speaker
Telltale ah Games 2008. two thousand and eight Yes. So if you're not attractive, this podcast is not for you. Yeah. Well, or at least the game isn't.
00:35:06
Speaker
I guess you can hear us talk about it, yeah but don't try to play it yourself. So this is what the third telltale ah game we we spoke about because we talked about Walking Dead and I believe famously spoke about the first season of Sam and Max.
00:35:23
Speaker
Yes. Oh, wait. And tells from the Borderlands. yeah your favorite i guess we did talk about that so now fourth yeah eagle eared listeners will note that ben still has not completed his uh his playthrough of that that he committed himself to but i think nobody's the only think i might be the only the only promise you've ever broken adventure yeah the only game on adventure tuesday that i never completed is that true
00:35:55
Speaker
It might be. It might be. Wow. So like in a six year history, it's the only game bad enough that you're like, nope, can't do It's just, it just wasn't, it was just excessively not to my taste. Yes. Yes. yeah You know, I know that's a game that is absolutely beloved and it has its real fucking writers and,
00:36:22
Speaker
um And it's just one that just did not connect for me. But Strong Bad's cool game for attractive people. I do enjoy. i played, i didn't play all of it. I played three of the episodes um in preparation for this podcast. You've played all of it.
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah, a couple of times. I played it not long after release. And again, a few years ago for my channel. And um so just a little ah context, it is...
00:36:56
Speaker
the I would say of what people kind of canonically consider as the Telltale ah games, it is one of like the first non-Sam and Max ones, of course.
00:37:10
Speaker
They had like a couple CSI games in there and Bone in there, though Bone is before Sam and Max. um And ah so Um, like this.
00:37:28
Speaker
So they, they did the first two seasons of, uh, Sam and Max. And then, ah and then they did this Wallace and Gromit, Tales of Monkey Island, another CSI, and then their final, uh, Sam and Max.
00:37:46
Speaker
I can't believe there's another CSI that late in their run. i I think they might have even... yeah they They did even more cs ah He did a CSI after the the third Sam Max. Let me see if they did I think that was it. The CSI...
00:38:03
Speaker
fatal conspiracy oh that sounds good now this is it's worth noting you know for all the people familiar with telltale out there this is before they had the technology for characters to remember things uh at this point your choices do not matter no you're still solving puzzles with inventory and gross old-fashioned gameplay elements like that So so let's let's talk a little bit first, because it's like, so this game, there's a little bit of like kind of a, like a very loose kind of ah like tying of the the episodes together, but not really. It's like five. Yeah.
00:38:45
Speaker
um it's it's five episodes and they're all kind of you know kind of their own thing yeah they kind of sometimes set up the next episode at the end of one but yeah really they're standalone for the most part there's continuity there's very loose continuity they'll reference the the earlier ones in like in later ones i think like the biggest thing is that like the later episodes expect you to kind of have a sense of place because they all like true to kind of like more straightforward, ah like episodic telltale games. They all kind of build on the same kind of sets. Um,
00:39:30
Speaker
ah like the the the games all have like kind of a variation on Strongbed's house. Yes. And then there's a big field where there's like some stuff in it.
00:39:42
Speaker
um and then And then there's a couple other different scenes. Sometimes you go to the the King of Town's castle and you go to like some other places which they'll redress slightly ah for for other episodes. um But...
00:39:59
Speaker
Yeah, so, I mean, i think the big thing about ah this game is that ah it is a very strong,
00:40:12
Speaker
um like, it is... you know if you like homestar runner these are strong homestar runner they feel like yeah running it's dot com yeah i mean know i'm guessing everyone out there knows i mean homestar runner uh you know famous flash cartoon series uh begins in the early 2000s runs through present day in various forms uh even now and uh there's a good chance if you're of the age group
00:40:44
Speaker
listening to this podcast you know Homestar Runner you know Strong Badge you know the whole whole gang there and this is Telltale working hand in hand with the brothers chaps to put together a game version of those beloved web cartoons and I think in my opinion it feels like a pretty seamless transition to video game form. And of course, Homestar Runner engaged with video games quite a bit already as a webtoon.
00:41:18
Speaker
So it's no surprise that it works here as well. ah But Ben, maybe before we talk about the game, I'm curious, like, what is your experience with Homestar Runner? Like, were you, when did you get into this? Were you a big fan? and Like, yeah. tell Tell me all about that.
00:41:38
Speaker
So Homestar Runner. so Homestar Runner in, uh, like, I think started in the the year 2000 and 2000.
00:41:49
Speaker
entire two thousand It was these flash web cartoons that were very ah like kooky and silly. And then over time, essentially the star of it went from the character Homestar Runner to the character strong bad a arrest who uh answered emails in a silly way um i mean i don't know either's elevator pitch that's pretty good there' real hard you explain it but um so i think that for me like so ah homestar runner
00:42:32
Speaker
is ah something that has to be observed within the context of the time that it came out, which is that it is a ah decent enough animated Flash cartoon.
00:42:51
Speaker
um And the animation got better as it went along, um which i that that came out with full voice in animation at a time when ah people, at least here in the United States, were ah transitioning to broadband.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yes. And so, you know, to me, in my mind, a lot of the novelty... of Homestar Runner. And this isn't to take away from the quality of the writing and how funny it was, but a lot of the novelty of it was to see ah cartoon in a web browser that had full voice in animation.
00:43:46
Speaker
And wasn't 240 P yeah. Like like the greatest worst thing you're saying. Like this garbage real video file. That was like these garbled pixels. It was like nice clean, like we're like these nice clean flash.
00:44:03
Speaker
Like, are they vector? I don't know. Like how they probably they scale. Yeah. yeah I don't know how those things work. Flash like characters moving around.
00:44:15
Speaker
ah with like a ah good art style and funny voice performances. And that like the the kind of whiz bang value of it was what kind of caught my attention.
00:44:34
Speaker
And then, you know, what kept me in it was how funny ah it was. And it's a very like, you know, it's very kooky and full of non sequiturs. And it like, to me, it is of a piece of early adult swim.
00:44:56
Speaker
Like, yeah you know, you know, if, if you watch a Homestar Runner cartoon and then you watched like an episode of the Brack show, you would just be like, yeah, you know, like they were, they're swimming in the same pool.
00:45:11
Speaker
Absolutely. i think that is a great point of reference. if If a point of reference is ultimately more obscure, probably than the thing you're trying to explain. Things starring characters that are kind of man children that have speech impediments. That's right. Yeah. I mean, but the Brack shows, i mean, I think right in there. Yeah. That early adult swim stuff is a good point comparison. And you know, that that definitely, I think is the vibe you get here with, with Homestar. Like, do you remember,
00:45:41
Speaker
what your entry point was i don't mind i think i probably have the most obvious entry point i had i think seen reference to homestar runner like a lot on fark like i'd constantly see you know because we were all hanging out on fark back in the day fark.com so you know again this is a an age difference uh a thing i remember so i was in high school Yeah.
00:46:06
Speaker
I was in grad school. Yeah. I was in high school. I think I got into Homestar Runner probably in 2001 or two. yeah And i I remember because that was also like at the same time that like was getting into ah like other programs i mean I really think that the adoption of broadband and how, like, web browsers were were kind of developing at that point was kind of an inflection point in in-house stuff.
00:46:44
Speaker
And so it's like... um i would i started hanging out with like a group of nerds that loved adult swim and they loved penny arcade yeah and um and so it's one point i don't remember like i don't remember the specifics of it but i i know that it must have been through one of them that i was hanging out with yeah like these guys that you know that were all big like penny arcade and uh speaking of which have you heard back on your audition no i'm still waiting um and uh uh like and so they're like oh you you gotta check this out it's really funny and and i loved it of course like it was so like as i said it was it was so funny it reminded me like it's it's just so funny because i also remember being like
00:47:37
Speaker
you know, going up to people like, you got to check this out. You got to check this out. and Like older people didn't get it generally like, and, um, and it's, it's funny because it's like, you know, this is kind of now a little bit, I would say like ah a dated reference, but when I finally like sat down and watched some of skibbity toilet, like last year,
00:48:02
Speaker
yeah I watched it and i was like, oh, this is just like, this is just like Homestar Runner or like Yada or like any of the stuff I was really into when I was 13 and on the internet. Like I was just like, this is a bunch of like internet nonsense comedy.
00:48:21
Speaker
And when I was 13, this is exactly what I loved. And so I was like, Oh, I get this. This is just what this is.
Episodic Structure and Humor in Adventure Games
00:48:28
Speaker
I don't need, i don't need to go back to this. Like I, I, I, you know, like Pee Wee Herman at the end of Wee's Big Adventure. I lived it, you know, but you know, I came into it.
00:48:40
Speaker
at maybe the most obvious entry point which is you know yeah i'd seen references to home star i hadn't really figured out what it was i hadn't bothered to look at it or anything and when the trogdor strong bad email came out my friend from college uh that i roomed with as an undergrad uh sent me a probably like an icq message aim message or something like that uh uh says like you really have to watch this video it's the funniest thing i've ever seen So I literally came in at Trogdor, which is probably still. I definitely was in before Trogdor. And I remember, I remember that. I remember seeing Trogdor and being like, it it was just like, my God.
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, that's where it breaks through. I will say what I realized immediately, and this is like a weird experience that I have tried to track down on the internet, and I just don't know if this story exists or if I've hallucinated it, possibly.
00:49:41
Speaker
But, you know, at the time I lived in Georgia, and i would frequently go... Which where theyre they're from. Yes, I would frequently go into Atlanta. Oh, I remember this story, yeah.
00:49:52
Speaker
Yeah, one of my favorite restaurants was a pizza joint called Everybody's Pizza that's just right beside Emory University's campus. And my wife and have been going there for a few years at this time.
00:50:07
Speaker
And What was fascinating to me is when I started tracking down Homestar Runner, I realized this art style is really familiar. And this website is really familiar with this menu where you scroll over a bunch of oval shaped buttons and it says tunes, games, email, and all this sort of stuff. It's like I've seen this somewhere before.
00:50:29
Speaker
everybody's pizza and in Atlanta, Georgia, right across from campus of Emory University. Clearly the brothers chaps had designed their mascots and their website. It was the exact same flash interface. It was the exact same art style instead of the home star and strong bad. You had like an anthropomorphic pepperoni slice and an anthropomorphic breadstick and some vegetables and stuff.
00:50:54
Speaker
And it is bizarre to me that I am a person who saw those characters and was like, Oh, Homestar is made by those pizza place guys. Um, which I now have trouble finding any reference to this on the internet. I would love to, love to learn more about this and the time. Yeah. But so I, that was a weird, I came into this very backwards, but I ended up being like, I became a devoted person.
00:51:21
Speaker
viewer after that. You know, I was trying to think today, like my wife and I both really enjoyed Homestar Runner and frequently like a lot of that language is still in heavy circulation in our family. Like we frequently from one of the marzipans answering machines, there's a bit where Homestar gets mad at marzipan and yells out, this is garbage sister.
00:51:44
Speaker
which we frequently, when we're like upset about some situations, like this is garbage. ah That one comes up a lot. I like to use the phrase y'all biscuit heads, which I believe the rapper PCP in this series throws around a more different S. I like to use the phrase a more different something from Trogdor.
00:52:06
Speaker
I say the Ghiblis a lot. There's a line that I use all the time from one of the, it's like when they go back and redo the original children's storybook that, uh, home stars based on with strong bad, like doing voiceover. There's a bit where a home star says some folk think I'm a terrific athlete and strong bad replies.
00:52:29
Speaker
I folk think you're a terrific liar, which I don't know why I'd use opportunities. Anytime I get to say that I would say maybe, like one of the biggest impacts, you know, we said this is a ah web series that ends up referencing a lot of retro games and referencing a lot of retro adventure games specifically. um Peasants Quest is a huge inspiration on me when I would go on to create StairQuest when I was part of i was coming with that idea, like the idea of so closely aping the style of those old AGI games. I don't know if
00:53:06
Speaker
StairQuest would have come together if I hadn't played Peasants Quest, which was their attempt to play around with this King's Quest formula. Like in my head, StairQuest was Peasants Quest plus Papers, Please.
00:53:18
Speaker
right I was like, I want to look like Peasants Quest, but i want it be a frustrating game loop in the way that Papers, Please is, which is a weird melange of ideas, but that's what i was going for. But yeah, huge fan of this too. And as I said, i feel like these games...
00:53:34
Speaker
really do a great job of capturing this and something it's nice i mean these games like a lot of early telltale games come out for the we wear the we wear wear wear we wear
00:53:50
Speaker
but um they come out for the we wear unlike say the monkey on games where you can really see where they had to cut corners on some of the models and things like that to fit them onto the Wii where the simpler graphical style of Homestar Runner makes them and smaller cast and, you know, sort of flat vector style and everything makes for a much smoother translation to this engine and this format and this distribution platform in that it really feels like the Homestar Runner games come to life and ah in a really fun way, in a way that was very satisfying at the peak of Homestar Runner mania to get to play i these games. So here's the thing. i didn't play this game when it came out because...
00:54:42
Speaker
I, it it was, it was past. I was, i was, I was done with home, our home star runner at that point. Wow. You moved on from it. I moved on. I was home star runner was something i really enjoyed from, I would say probably 2002 like the time like five or six and so by the time Kind of like Americans enjoyed the Iraq war. yes same Yeah. Same, same short period. yeah um
00:55:15
Speaker
And by the time that ah like this came out, I was, i was just kind of like, ah, that's old hat. Like I was just kind of like, all right. Like I've, I've been home star runnered out.
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah. um And yeah, like So the so it was it was fun revisiting these games because visiting these games
00:55:49
Speaker
um you know well i've never played them it was visiting like old friends and also like to your point it it looked and felt like you were playing just a a Homestar Runner animation because yeah like the capabilities of the telltale tool ah and we're about on par with the capabilities of Adobe flash.
00:56:28
Speaker
That's right. Cause already like, early telltale games were pushing the limits of the telltale tool. Like I'll read by tells of my count. It's like, Oh, don't think this thing can handle much more than they strap so much more on it. And subsequent years, this game is one of the few games that ever feels like it runs beautifully in this, uh, in this, hitch and it's, it's right on target.
00:56:48
Speaker
And, and so in, it does feel like, you know, I don't, i don't I don't quite know. I don't know the the history of all of the like all of the various Telltale games, but um it does feel like this is the one of the most, if not the most, integrated with the original property.
00:57:15
Speaker
of any telltale game is as i said it just feels like you're in the home star universe like it does not yeah feel like it's like oh it's like a batman game and it's made by people that like batman and they're they're writing a batman story it just feels like no this is this Yeah, this is part of the Homestar Runner universe. It feels canonical as you're playing It it doesn't feel like... Yeah. Yeah. As canonical as, you know, like a silly Flash cartoon can can be. It is the... Over the five episodes, I played one, four, and five. ah
00:57:59
Speaker
Like the the first episode is very like kind of straightforward, kind of just setting the table, normal, like kind of a, like as plain as Homestar Runner short would be. It's just, it's like, oh, ah you want to ah ah beat Homestar in a race. And in order to do so, you have to discuss, like you want to ruin his day.
00:58:28
Speaker
And by doing so, you disguise yourself as him and. ah Oh, i'm I'm screwing up the story. It's it's no youage him in a race. have a night He's so sad about that.
00:58:43
Speaker
Yeah, he's so despondent that then you go win the race dressed up as him. because the idea is he has been disgraced as part of this and is despondent and living on Strong Bad's couch.
00:58:55
Speaker
And to get him out of his house, Strong Bad has to redeem his reputation. So it's very much a do these three things to get this problem solved. I mean, it feels...
00:59:10
Speaker
you know, very much like paint by numbers sort of adventure game in a good way. I don't think this is a criticism. I suspect for a lot of people playing this, this is the first narrative adventure that many, if not most had probably ever played. I'm guessing that this brought in a lot of fans to the genre that maybe had never played a game before, maybe never played another game after this. I don't know. I wonder because it's also, it's like,
00:59:34
Speaker
the, the, the world of home like the, the reference level of Homestar Runner includes like adventure games and AGI games and King's Quest. And so I wonder part of it. Like there's, there's, there's part of it.
00:59:48
Speaker
Like there's a lot of Atari 2600 in the DNA of Homestar, which these games all reference, especially the last one, 8-bit is enough. um But ah like in the first game, you you know, in the first episode, ah you can play Snake Boxer 5.
01:00:07
Speaker
ah and Which is very much the Atari 2600, like top-down boxing game with the wild swinging arms and everything. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, yeah, like it's, it's, it's funny because like the, the, the first one is very, that first episode is also, as you said, very kind of paint by numbers, a telltale episode, which is like, there's ah a first section with a couple puzzles. And then you have a big open world where you have to solve three puzzles that are kind of bigger. And then you have a final, uh, you know, ah string linear string. um
01:00:48
Speaker
Which is like, that's how a lot of their episodic. Yeah. Like Tales of Monkey Island did that. Sam and Max did that. they And then like as the episodes went on, they would get weirder and often kind of play with that. And then, but but kind of not play with that. Like they they would, um you know, kind of break from form a little bit.
01:01:13
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's that's a good way to think about this. I mean, yeah, you can see a lot of the patterns. And I mean, as always, you know, in a five episode season, um as is the telltale norm, I think episode four is probably the strongest of the bunch. ah But all of these are fun. They're all playing with different aspects. Episode four is really funny.
01:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, episode four is it's it's strong bads. Cool game for attractive people. Episode four dangerous three colon the criminal projective. So dangerous is is strong bads.
01:01:55
Speaker
a cop who doesn't play by the rules. um He is wearing aviator shades and jumping out of windows and other it's like the Beastie Boys sabotage video in strong bad form is essentially what dangerous is all about. It's like a lethal weapon style cop.
01:02:14
Speaker
um And this one is really fun. You're essentially playing through a dangerous movie. So every, so every Homestar character is playing a character within this movie, within a game.
01:02:27
Speaker
hu and And also, like, you are watching the movie, and so you see, like, kind of, like, the camera being handheld, and also you'll see, like, ah vxs VHS artifacting, and you'll see, like, bad edits and, like, poor stunt photography, and you'll see, like, you know, someone going, like, oh, am I supposed to go? Oh, go.
01:02:54
Speaker
um like you know that kind of thing they coach z not sure what to do i mean ah i is it coach z that calls him danger skew this is okay this is everything And if if anyone knows anything about, ah like, my, like, type humor, there's a lot of in Homestar Runner mispronouncing words, and it makes me laugh every time.
01:03:27
Speaker
And maybe, like you know, I've always kind of thought that that was a thing where I was just like, oh, that's something... ah that Matt Barry does a lot, which he does. Yes. Like, that's a lot of his humor. But now replaying these games, I was like, oh, but I, it they mispronounce words constantly. They constantly, melt like, do malpropisms and stuff like that in in in this game.
01:03:56
Speaker
And so I'm like, oh, maybe... ah you know, maybe it it it came from this him coach Z going dangerous. You know, it's wonderful. And I mean, ah for me going back now, it's like, gosh, I have so much affection for these characters to go back and replay these games. It's like, ah, I like spending time with coach Z coach Z as he's called for, our for our listeners over the pond. There's a,
01:04:31
Speaker
A lot of also, and the they they they kind of index heavily on this in the first episode, and then kind of it becomes less a ah big deal. But they they they play around with some, they they have some interesting ideas that they play around with. One is is that you create the map.
01:04:50
Speaker
as you play there's a world map and you just get stickers and you can point them anywhere on the map as to it's like all right well strong beds house is in this corner and then all of this is in other corners and it's like that's kind of fun like i i it's just a cute little thing there are collectibles that you can get in little like the the episodes try to i you know I think it's two things. The episodes try to give you a little bit of like each, each one has like a little like counter of little things that you can collect, like in dangerous. It's like find all the references to famous actors and it will count up as you find them.
01:05:36
Speaker
Yes. Um, And, uh, like, you know, I, I think that's both like them, you know, just kind of having fun and it it's like, Oh, what's an interesting thing we could do. And I think it's also maybe, and you know, maybe I'm just, you know, maybe I'm just, uh, throwing something on this. Maybe I'm, I'm wrong here, but there's part of me. It's just kind of like, are they like, is this also kind of representative of like kind of a reaction to,
01:06:07
Speaker
ah you know, people that that felt that those... um like telltale games, especially then we're a little too, you know, ah too light, you know, not enough meat on the bone. So it's like, well, yes, you can solve all of these puzzles and we're going to make it a little easier because this is made for like an audience, which is to Jess's point might not have played a lot of adventure games, but if you're a true adventure person, ah you're going to have to find all of the, like all of this extra stuff.
01:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, and it might add some replayability to a genre that's known for lacking replayability. I mean, these games don't have really branching paths or anything like that that would allow you like, see lot of different No one's remembering anything, as he said. No, again, they haven't invented that technology yet for characters to remember things.
01:06:58
Speaker
So instead, yeah, I feel like this is a way to get some of that replay value. You go back and you find all the hidden Teen Girl Squad comic panels and some things like that. All these...
01:07:09
Speaker
All these episodes have mini games that are oftentimes sort of like Atari 2600 8-bit style games. None of them are fun to play. None of them are great, but big-end games back then weren't. You know, those Atari games aren't very fun to play either. But they're, yeah, take that. I just gave Jess a look. Take that. Atari. No, they aren't, Ben. They're all garbage.
01:07:30
Speaker
They're garbage, Missy. um No, no, no, no way. um Nothing on that platform is good except E.T.
01:07:42
Speaker
Come at me. I dare our listeners to tell me that E.T. isn't a fantastic game, which I owned, Ben. I owned a copy of E.T. I don't think, you know, we had a lot of 2,600 games, but i don't think we had...
01:07:58
Speaker
think we had et we were we were very much a activision like because those i mean don't know river raid come on you can't yeah i mean activision was pretty good i mean river raid was really pitfall both yeah yeah no i mean yeah activision was too bad yeah yeah yeah that's not bad keystone capers kaboom you're gonna you're gonna look me in the eye tell me that kaboom is bad i've only played boom blocks it's spiritual successor Excuse me. That's I don't recognize. Oh, oh I'm sorry. I thought you rephrased that. Steven Spielberg's boom block. Oh, that game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah I'm sorry. i misspoke originally. um
01:08:41
Speaker
I'm curious. Do you think it would be possible for a human being who is not steeped in Homestar Runner and Strong Bad and the gang to come into this game and enjoy it still?
01:08:56
Speaker
That's a great question. I have no idea. I don't either. I really can't imagine. Like I can see it's like somebody. learned I was, what is this? Why is there a big round guy bouncing around and making bubble sounds? I mean, I think they could figure that out. I think they like, I don't think people are just going to be perplexed.
01:09:15
Speaker
I, but I think the, the game definitively like the game assumes that you are fond of every character and you know who they are. Like the, the, the game assumes that, you know, ah oh What's the name of it that weird guy that ah Strong Bad has play his father? Senior card catch? Yeah, like the the game expects you to know. Hello, Melendez.
01:09:47
Speaker
Congratulations. The game expects you to know senior card catch. Oh, man. ah I'll hit you on the slant. ah Like the the game just kind of assumes like, I mean, it's a, it's a game made for, it's a game makeer for the, the, the fans.
01:10:11
Speaker
But like, I think you could probably like, you know, I think you could probably play it and just, you know, I, I don't, because it's, it's funny. Eight bit is enough, which I like literally was just playing right before.
01:10:27
Speaker
this, like we started recording, like begins with, uh, the, I'm going to say a pretty good joke, uh, which is, that like the, the Trog door arcade cabinet that strong dad has breaks and, uh, strong sad looks at it and goes like, uh, it looks like, uh, the, the fan in it is defective. it It needs to be serviced.
01:10:54
Speaker
And, uh, like, Strong bad just hammers the line. Are you saying that this needs fan service? And then like, it's all like your references and stuff. Like the game knows what it is. Who's playing it.
Reflections on Strong Bad's Cool Game
01:11:11
Speaker
Like it just, yeah like in the, the, the, you know, it's funny. Like eight bit is enough. That last one, which I just, as I said, just finished playing. It's not only oh Like, it's like, all right, well, now you get Trogdor, the most popular.
01:11:26
Speaker
and if you don't know Trogdor. Teen Girl Squad or like yeah probably the two most popular things, right? Yeah. mean, yeah, Trogdor was a man. No, he was a dragon man. All right. no Okay.
01:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it it is the fan service. I mean, all of these are somewhat meta, like strong bad will comment on tropes of the adventure game genre, as he is enacting those tropes, not the annoying way you see sometimes where, you know, a video game character in a very meta game is like, this sucks, but you have to do it anyway. But there's many and I think this really gets like dialed up to 11 in 8-bit is enough this final episode where it really is just like we're yeah get ready for fan service we're bringing out all of our most popular concepts there's probably never going to be a uh like a high profile to this level uh uh homestar runner video game so here's just something for you the fans that's right like
01:12:28
Speaker
Because it's like they they did make, and I know you want to talk about this a little bit, like they did make a peasant quest game that you can play on their their website that is in the style of like a full text parser, King's Quest 1 AGI game, which is pretty cool.
01:12:45
Speaker
pretty cool. It is. It's pretty awesome. I mean, it's a decent little game. It's it's fairly long. It's pretty you pretty clever. it is It's a game I really love. and Like I said, for me, it was a huge inspiration. me I don't know why it never occurred to me that you could do really fun things just by copying the technical presentation of these games and then, you know, adding in some of that twisted humor, uh, that, that I love. Uh, but yeah, I mean,
01:13:17
Speaker
I adored it. And also it's like, it's speaking to my childhood. I think we've talked before on this podcast about how weird it is to be the kid who's like pop culture. Touchstone is the Sierra games that everyone else at your school is busy playing, whatever the cool console game is or whatever. It's always fun to be like, Oh my God, you're somebody who like, this is a cultural reference for as well. But I fell in love with that. You know, later on they would do, um,
01:13:44
Speaker
I mean, they did some other like short point and clicky type things on the on the website. They would release what what they called roomisodes, which were basically like short one room 2D adventures that are all quite good. Those are available on Steam now.
01:14:01
Speaker
They have a Halloween point and click adventure. yeah like they There are a number of smaller... strong bad Homestar Runner and click adventures out there or in the case of Peasants Quest a parser driven game but this is yeah this is the most ambitious like you said I think you get the feeling they felt you we're gonna one swing at this one let's just give give everybody everything we can give give them all the fan service they could ever want And that's charming because this is the sort of property.
01:14:30
Speaker
That's what you want out of it. You don't want a subtle deconstruction of the Homestar Runner mythos. You want to see your favorite characters doing wacky stuff. Yeah. And it's also, it's like, you know, like this is the type of, this was the only the only moment that Telltale would make a type of game like this because you know, pretty soon after, like, you know, not, not soon after, but like, you know you have Jurassic Park in 2011. Fantastic game. pat You have a back to the future in 2010, which is fine. I seem to recall watching you play. It's fine. It's fine. It's pretty charming.
01:15:11
Speaker
Like there, they, they start going after bigger licenses, pretty, pretty soon after. And so it's like, you can't imagine the, the company, you know, making the walking dead and the game of Thrones games, uh, making another Homestar runner, like as popular as Homestar runner was. He's no Batman.
01:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, he's no Batman. he's not He's not a Guardian of the Galaxy. and No, not a not even like any of the bad sequels. Not even by the time you get to Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and they're letting anybody in there. Homestar Runner is still not a member.
01:15:52
Speaker
But like, so it's i don't know. It's such a it's such an odd duck of a game. There's also like some stuff in there that, that feels like, you know, an eight bit is enough. There's a, like a section where like strong beds house is haunted by ghosts and you control like the, like ah ah flashlight.
01:16:14
Speaker
as you look around, it's very obviously a Wiimote thing. Like it's just like, let's, let's do, did you play this on the Wii?
01:16:24
Speaker
I think I may have played the first episode on the Wii and then followed up and played the rest originally on PC and then replayed again on PC. So I think I did. The first episode was probably free. Does that sound right? Is that when Telltale was still giving away? i think it might have been. I think it might have been a free sample first episode or maybe it was pretty cheap. I played that one. And like a lot of things, I was like, you know, this is great. It'd be better without Waggle.
01:16:48
Speaker
I wonder did it i wonder if it had like it if if they did anything fun on the Wiimote speaker. That's a good question. It seems like something they would have done. It does. And a feature that was underutilized. I could see that being something like so fuzzy and crappy. yeahing Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:05
Speaker
I mean, though though the the game I remember on the Wii that did had the most like ah that did kind of the most fun with it was if you ever played No More Heroes, you would get phone calls on it sometimes. Oh, Nate. Yeah, I think.
01:17:18
Speaker
Dead Space Extraction, which was like a really cool rail shooter based on the Dead Space games, which I love. Love that game. Like my one of my favorite Wii games of all time. Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:31
Speaker
It's surprisingly decent for a rail shooter, which isn't a genre I'm like drawn to, but you know, the Wiimote does those sorts of games very beautifully. That's sort of ah a perfect marriage of tech and and game design.
01:17:43
Speaker
And if I recall, that one did some comms stuff through the speaker as well, which added nicely to the spooky survival horror atmosphere of it all. But yeah.
01:17:53
Speaker
I wonder too. I don't remember from the first episode I played if it had anything there, but it does feel like the cat game that might have fun playing with that. Yeah.
01:18:04
Speaker
So that's our segment on a feature that may or may not exist in this game. We don't know. Um, you know, their next game was the Wallace and Gromit one, which you don't really hear that much about.
01:18:15
Speaker
I haven't played. um I mean, I know of Wallace and Gromit, but it's not like a property that, um, like hooked into necessarily i think i own that one i'd like wallace and gromit i never played these games though uh yeah i have very little to say moving on from a hypothetical thing to a game i've never played well i don't know do you have anything or you love games with clay characters we have established this before yeah that's uh i love uh clay fighter Now you did. Outer 64. That's right. And the blockbuster video exclusive special edition of clay fighter 64. Do, do you have any other thoughts on home star runner or strong beds? Cool game for attractive people.
01:19:01
Speaker
really charming fantastic game i mean i think that this is one that uh they have really fond memories of i enjoy a lot of the telltale catalog and this i think i'm at the time they came out i missed the sam and max games i didn't play any of those i believe that Ooh, I can't can't recall if I played this or Tales of Mike Allen first, but this is one that that really sold me on Telltale. Like, I just felt like a yeah this is one that really woke me up to that. It's like, okay, they're doing some pretty neat stuff. And, you know, it really set me up to enjoy what came down the road from there.
01:19:45
Speaker
That's, yeah, you know, it's funny. Yeah, this is just one I did not play until now, and I will probably, like I was talking with with Grayson, we'll probably stream this at some point um soon, because I was just having fun, and I feel like it might be little...
01:20:06
Speaker
little I think it might be a fun little ah game for for us to to play because it it will we'll we'll get to... reve it will be fun to revisit.
01:20:18
Speaker
It will unlock good memories with viewers. I think, yeah, i mean, when I've streamed it, it was definitely a feel-good game. Like, people loved coming in and quoting their favorite bits and just, you know, talking about Homestar and where it fit in their lives. And, yeah, I think that, yeah, it's it's definitely a great streaming game in that regard. Yeah.
01:20:40
Speaker
All right. Well, there you have it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. You can send us an email at questquestpodcast at gmail.com. Leave us a five-star review. Thank you. That helps people find this podcast.
01:20:56
Speaker
Or at least, you know, tell a friend. And join us. ah You know what? I think, you know, maybe, like you know what? Let's do a podcast next week, too. You know what? Okay. Yeah. this is You know what? same Same time? Same time to record? Same I'm available, but what are we going to talk about?
01:21:15
Speaker
Well, I, you know, I just want to make sure, uh, same time to record. You know what? I think next week when we record a podcast of quest quest, the adventure game podcast, uh, the podcast, these microphones with the microphones, uh, using this recording system that we record our podcast podcast into, I think, uh, we should probably talk about, we should finally get around to it. i don't know. Uh, four space quest four.
01:21:48
Speaker
All right. So, Jess, I have an important Space Quest 4 question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know I like to talk Space Quest 4. Yeah. So here's a question. Why would Sludge Vohal go into the past if Roger Wilco has already been dealt with?
01:22:03
Speaker
Does that mean that by the time of Space Quest 12 that Roger's already gone and Vohal's rage is unquenched and needs an outlet?
01:22:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is absolutely a situation where if Roger's already dead by Space Quest 12 and you're a ruler of time and space or whatever Vo Hall claims to be, i think this is just a classic revenge story. It's Vo Hall's revenge. Who is he revenging against?
01:22:36
Speaker
Because he's revenging. If Roger's gone.
01:22:42
Speaker
Everybody who loves Roger, like all of us. Yeah.