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Discworld
0 Playsin 5 hours
Ben & Jess talk about a fun Anhk-Morpork exploration sim, and a terrible adventure game.
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
Podcast Introduction and Theme Song
00:01:04
Speaker
I paid for this song. going to play the whole song. man it slaps so hard when it gets to that middle part we never make it to. We need to like fade into the theme song like right before that because it is, it's killer. We barely, barely ever make it that far into the theme song from Quest Quest.
00:01:25
Speaker
The Adventure Game podcast. Yeah, that's right. Podcast. Podcast.
Scripted Dialogue and Writing Respect
00:01:34
Speaker
Casting straight to all your pods. Oh, how you doing, Jess? Ben, I'm fantastic.
00:01:45
Speaker
The pregnant pause that follows in like all these podcasts. I feel like that's, you know, the general start. We have this little thing and then it's like, Jess, how you doing?
00:01:55
Speaker
Ben? was i'm great that's to acknowledge the comma in our script uh when you write this dialogue for the beginning like what you list is like uh insipid patter which i always think is a little demeaning you know not just to me but to our listeners as well but when you write up the script they love this swell yeah yeah they can't get enough but you put that comma there and i want to respect the writing uh so it's it's been i'm wonderful i'm
00:02:29
Speaker
Jess, I just like swallowed aha a plate of tacos.
Taco Talk: Al Pastor and Orders
00:02:38
Speaker
Oh man, how many tacos are we talking? or this is This is your taco dinner. We're talking three we're we're taco in three.
00:02:45
Speaker
That's the canonical number of tacos. That's the, you know, three is is exactly the right amount. two Yes. Two is never enough. And one is a snack. One's a joke.
00:02:59
Speaker
One's like a cruel joke. I can't eat one taco unless it's like the size of three tacos. Yeah. And this is, of course, we have the side of rice and refried beans with a little bit of cheese on top of the beans. You know, this is your classic. I went anytime...
00:03:18
Speaker
So where' what's your, so you get the three, the three taco order and typically, you know, they, ah you, you can pick whatever tacos you want. I am always like, unless I'm feeling really strongly, but hu I'm always a one of each guy.
00:03:42
Speaker
Like I generally like, unless this it's like, I'm at the place where, Where they're like, oh, the Al Pastor is just the best. you have to get that Yeah, yeah score yeah, yeah. Even then, I'll just do two Al Pastor and then one of something else. Like, I can't i can't tolerate getting all in one. So this was a chicken, a steak, and an Al Pastor. That's how you have to do it. Well, I will say that I feel like it is incumbent upon the taco eater that one be Al Pastor.
00:04:17
Speaker
I feel like if you don't get Al Pastor, you're really dropping the ball. You see my, my go-to, my threesome that I, that I go with, uh, Al Pastor required. Mm.
00:04:28
Speaker
I'm usually at my favorite taqueria, then I'm going to add a barilla taco. Ooh, yeah. And then for my third, I will typically go with carnitas. ah that's my That's my threesome that I enjoy. Occasionally, I'll swap that out for a carne asada if if I'm feeling especially daring.
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah, the so so this place just had those three options. They have other other, like, meats for, like, other things. This place, this is the place i go, and they have Berea. They have queso berea, which I thought about, and then I was like, how awake do I want to be for the podcast I'm going to record in 30 minutes? And I was like, I'm not...
00:05:18
Speaker
can't have but not berea yeah yeah not that level of uh of not awake yeah it's it's like a heavy stew covered with cheese you see ben i i went out for a fancy dinner tonight Oh, i well, i you are wearing a tux, and I was wondering about
Five Guys: Prices and Inflation Jokes
00:05:37
Speaker
that.
00:05:37
Speaker
I don't know if you've ever been to Five Guys Burgers and Fries, but I dropped a lot of money for a hamburger and French fries there that in hindsight I should have been dressed better for considering how expensive it Have you heard about this inflation?
00:05:52
Speaker
Oh, brother. um We have, brother, you spare a dime? but Here's... Now... here's Here's the thing about Five Guys, which I think we only have one left in Chicago that that I could think of. they used to they're Five Guys is ah main... I mean, honestly, they're they're down to like three guys at this point.
00:06:16
Speaker
I also want to know, i don't know if you just heard that that mic pop, but I have, a i'm both of the cats ah generally do not like to be near me while I'm loudly yelling at the computer. Yeah. But this time, both of them are on top, like, are right here. And one of them just, like, thwapped the mic with his tail.
00:06:40
Speaker
Ben, I'm going to speculate it's because you're wearing, and our listeners can't can't see this, but I can. You're wearing what appears to be a very cozy sweater. I am wearing a very cozy sweater. And and that the, yeah, the cats love my cozy sweater. Anyway, but ah five five guys, which were like three guys, or like ten guys for the amount you pay these days. And the amount of french fries they give you, am I right? Oh, Jesus. It gives you so many fucking fries.
00:07:08
Speaker
Like, the... ah One of the things I... ah I think about with five guys is that they need to get over that. They got a bunch of positive reviews in like the Washington post in like 20, five years ago. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. It's like, where are all these, uh, these more recent reviews you covered your walls and framed reviews from, yeah. Like Northern Virginia magazine. yeah In 2002. Where's the recent one that says in West Virginia, one of the lowest cost of living states in the country, you can charge $14 for a fast food hamburger. I can rent out an entire apple beer.
00:07:53
Speaker
for $14. fourteen dollars That's less than I paid for a taco dinner in the city of Chicago Taxolinoise. That's right. It's been run by socialist mayors for God knows how long.
00:08:09
Speaker
ah Like, i wouldn't call I wouldn't call Brandon a socialist, but... More of a communist. Yeah, that's that's what I was... That's what I bet. And... But um yeah, no, that was, it was, it was 1099
Burger Preferences and Trends
00:08:24
Speaker
$14 just for the hamburger. That doesn't get you a drink or fries. That's just to enjoy what honestly is like slightly better than a Wendy's burger. It was the, you know, five guys is, is a like, it honestly surprises me when a five guys is around because it, it does strike me as a,
00:08:45
Speaker
like an incredible novelty from 20 years ago because for for those of you who are not familiar with five guys and i haven't had a five guys in a very long time you're not missing much ben yeah i is is that they're of that burger type where like the the the burger is is like the size of like you're like ah a balled up fist like it's a big like it's it's a substantive like amount of meat it's a lot of burger which like that was in vogue
00:09:25
Speaker
Because the first time I had five guys was like, I went to school in Virginia. went to college in Virginia. And and so ah like all the the people in Northern Virginia were like, oh, that they just opened up a five guys here. Up here in Nova, we've got we've got five guys. What do you have down here?
00:09:43
Speaker
I'm from Slova. I don't care about Nova. I was in... set I think, actually, by by the time I graduated, Fredericksburg, where i went to school, was kind of Nova-ish. Anyway... um Northern Virginia, for those who aren't familiar with the abbreviation.
00:10:02
Speaker
um But, ah like... That type of like huge burger that makes you feel terrible was really like, I associate that with the end of the George W. Bush administration and the start of Obama's. Yeah. And then like somewhere like, you know, 10, 15 years ago, someone was like, what if we made a burger that didn't make you feel sick?
00:10:30
Speaker
And, uh, like, and then, uh, we all got really into thin and crispy burgers. And yeah honestly, I'm, I'm signed on.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. It's, it's fine. I don't need, don't need the like gut buster. in ah In Chicago, when I first moved here, like the exciting burger of Chicago in 2007, more 2008, was this place called Puma's, which is still around.
00:11:05
Speaker
And it's this heavy heavy metal ah bar that made like those massive, like kind of Five Guys style burgers. And I'm pretty sure that's what they still make. And then they're like,
00:11:17
Speaker
and let's cover it with like 5,000 things. Let's make, like cover this burger. And this was the recession. And so it was just like, food.
00:11:31
Speaker
Lettuce, extra lettuce. I'll take you because Because it was just like, especially like I didn't have very much money at the time. So it's like, oh, i could just ah buy this and have one beer. And that's all the sustenance I need for three days. There you go. What are your go-to burger toppings, Ben?
00:11:50
Speaker
You're topping a burger. What are you doing? I don't even really i don't even really think about that. like You know, like i i feel like the your're yourre your classic.
00:12:01
Speaker
like I just want just the lettuce, tomato, ah a slice of onion. However, like it could be cooked or it could be raw. I'll do it either way. See, I always like the hamburger cooked, but I appreciate that you'll just take a Rob. No, no, I'll just have a, Oh, the i need okay. I'm sorry. I misunderstood you. then Um, I thought it was like a keto thing or something like cheese and, you know, like ketchup and, you know, special something like mayo or, yeah you know, like, you know, yeah whatever. i think you complicated much more than that. And you're making a series of burger mistakes. I don't need pimento cheese on my burger. Yeah. don't need barbecue sauce. No, thanks.
00:12:41
Speaker
No, thanks. I, that, that, that time in my life has passed the, the time in my life where I was crazy about stupid burgers. Yeah. It's in the far off past. don't need a bourbon sauce on my burger.
00:12:57
Speaker
Like want mayonnaise. Yeah. I'm a man. i give me my days.
00:13:09
Speaker
Give me a man's nays, please.
00:13:16
Speaker
ah We have fun here at Quest Quest. um But you know what's more fun than anything?
Listener Email: iPod Todd
00:13:25
Speaker
Getting an email. Oh, man, I do love getting an email. i always think every time open up my email client and see a bunch of emails, how much I enjoy getting emails. But this is different because these are emails actually want to read.
00:13:36
Speaker
This is ah an email from our friend Todd, and and and you can send us an email at questquestpodcast at gmail.com. It begins. Hello, Quest Quest.
00:13:48
Speaker
Hello, Ben and Jess, comma. iPod Todd here.
00:13:54
Speaker
I just listened to your Quest for Glory 3 podcast with a wonderful papaya chemist, and it reminded me of my own experience with the game. I had the game as a kid and enjoyed exploring the bizarre and overworld map, loved the setup.
00:14:06
Speaker
A few years later, when I was definitely old enough to know better, I had an introverted child's game of hacker. Or, in, sorry, in an introverted child's game of hacker, I deleted the main data file from the master disk one of Quest Glory 3,
00:14:25
Speaker
leaving me unable to play it for a long time and growing my nostalgia for it. I also fucked around with discs this way as a child. Oh, no. Terrible. You know how in all the instruction manuals it always says make a backup copy and play from that? I did that with literally every game I ever owned. had like I'd be like, all right, mom, got a new game. Let's head to the store and buy some blank discs so I can play it.
00:14:49
Speaker
No joke. I still have the backup copies of all my Sierra games on three and a half floppy. just I mean, you heard me say under my breath, who is doing that? This is literally me, man.
00:15:01
Speaker
It me. I follow instructions. Yeah. Anyway, for me, Quest for Glory 3 was, quote, the game that got away.
00:15:11
Speaker
i wasn't able to play it again until many years later when it showed up on digital storefronts. Anyways, this inspired two questions. One, do either of you have a game that got away in that you hadn't enjoyed it, but when you went back to play it, you found it was either lost or damaged, or you lost the copyright protection?
00:15:29
Speaker
Maybe your nostalgia overhyped it when you returned. Like everything. Because unlike this, I didn't back up my games. I lost the manuals all the time.
00:15:41
Speaker
This is... This is, I think I've already said this on a past podcast where it's like, I lost my manuals to the frequency of, I'm pretty sure that my dad would just like get frustrated with the mess around the computer area and just toss things away. yeah And that's where the manuals went.
00:15:59
Speaker
Like, I don't have anything like backing that up, but I'm pretty sure that's what happened because I never held onto any manuals. Wow. And I wasn't like eating them. I wasn't throwing them away. Where were they going?
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah. Where were they going? Um, but, uh, I'm trying to think of anything, like, specific.
Nostalgia for Games: Ghostbusters
00:16:21
Speaker
Honestly, I mean, do you have an answer while I'm thinking?
00:16:27
Speaker
You know, I think a game that always fascinated me that kind of got away from me and this way was one of the very first computer games I owned was the 1984 Ghostbusters game, the one by David Crane.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, that was ported to everything. had the Tandy version that, it was on a PC booter disc, so was putting the drive and boot straight to it. And... I always loved that game and I was always obsessed with it and all the management elements of it. And I was terrible at it because its the gameplay is really atrocious other than the driving sim part of it.
00:17:08
Speaker
And one day just quit booting for me. and because it was a PC booter and stuff, I don't know if I could have made a backup. I didn't have a backup of it. I think that's the only game, and now it's still kind of a pain to get running here in the present day because DOSBox kind of fussy with booter disks. You can do it, but I'm too lazy to figure out how to make DOSBox work most of the time.
00:17:32
Speaker
If I can't do it's going to be, it's just like, I don't know, probably never play that again. I've gotten that lazy. But, yeah, that's one that... Just one day I wanted to go play and do no fault of my own. don't think I get like nacho cheese all over the disc or anything like that.
00:17:47
Speaker
But it just didn't work anymore. How about you? Did you think of any of that? I'm going to be honest. Literally like every every game, yeah like I would end up losing the manual. This is why... there ever a manual you wish that you'd held on to that like...
00:18:02
Speaker
you really like looking back that was like a favorite that disappeared mysteriously or anything like that i mean we know that we both held on to our freddie farkas yeah for some reason i that's one i still have yeah it's it's stuck to me all these years comedy gold over 30 years um yeah uh uh a manual i mean i would you know what i would love to have is uh the the map of shapira Yeah. Because that mean, all of those all of those old games, I bought, like, what, 96, 97?
00:18:37
Speaker
Whenever it came out i got...
00:18:43
Speaker
Might Magic 6, The Mandate of Heaven, limited edition, which came not only with a holograph, ah two CDs. So you know what this is what? I want that back because those CDs were beautiful. like They had this hologram on the CDs, which looked really cool. yeah But then also in the box, not only did it come with a cloth map,
00:19:08
Speaker
for Might and Magic 6, but because the limited edition came with all five previous Might Magic games as well, it had like full color paper maps for the other five.
00:19:28
Speaker
Interesting. No, that's pretty nice. You know what? Actually, I'm not even... Was that in there or was that in some other RPG? pet I'm pretty sure... Or maybe it just had one and two. In any case, I remember I had the maps for my Magic one and two. And I'm pretty sure that came with the limited edition six. Don't correct me and I will not issue a correction if that wasn't. Never again. lab We're never, yeah.
00:19:54
Speaker
But I love good map. I think the Shapir maps are great. A great answer, you know. I would love to have that in like a proper poster or cloth form. Because I'd love to frame it, but the folded up creased version that's going to come in the box, I think would be hard to get looking really good. don't know. Maybe you could iron it. I'm not going iron a Shaparian map. No, I'm pretty terrified.
00:20:19
Speaker
It feels like you're going to summon a genie or something.
00:20:23
Speaker
Oh, and also my Lost Treasures of LucasArts disc or whatever, like the one that had Monkey Island and Zach McCracken and all those other games. I constantly, that was also something I was always, I had i had the manual forever. i the The discs stopped working or, you know, at some point. we have There's a second question though.
00:20:46
Speaker
Uh-oh. Uh, in 2026, when buying big boxes is popular again in our small circles, how much does it matter if the files on the disc work
Big Box Games and Original Discs
00:20:55
Speaker
or not? I assure you this purely hypothetical as my copy of Quest Glory 3 is long gone, but would you actually feel burned if the discs were fine physically, but the files were corrupt? Would you ever even find out?
00:21:07
Speaker
Do you think that would affect the price much? Uh, my answer is, like, speaking for myself,
00:21:16
Speaker
want that I want that box. It'd be nice if they worked, but I don't have yeah an old computer. so I want them to be in there. Like, I don't want empty box. I bought an empty box a few months ago. I bought an empty Gabriel Knot one box.
00:21:33
Speaker
Not the cool, funky one. Just the regular, like, rectangular one. I had ah that same box I remember getting for Christmas. the funky box, which was... Yeah, I had it too. i had it too. For... Not for Gabriel Knight, but for The Incredible Machine.
00:21:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah. It had the same funky box, right? had the same funky box. Funky box. Funky box. Um...
00:21:58
Speaker
But anyway, yeah, I mean, think that'd be nice. Like, because, yeah, would want the discs in there. And I actually bought them separately. I was just able to, like, scoop those up and made Frankenstein. You got loose floppies? Got some loose floppies. You know it is when you're online, you're just Googling loose floppies.
00:22:13
Speaker
And you eventually end up on eBay. Um, but, uh, hashtag loose floppies. But, uh, but yeah, I mean, you know, I'm, I'm a big fan of, I watch her on YouTube, uh, LGR, like his, his videos all the time. I really enjoy his videos and like, there's, there's part of that like kind of loves this, this dream of it's like, maybe I'll, you know, maybe one day I'll go and I'll track down like that gateway 2486 that we have and it kind of, you know, recreate or get that like PC junior that I grew up with, like yeah yeah yeah computers like that.
00:22:59
Speaker
And then I'm just like, and then, and I think like, that would be really cool to have, but also in the videos, he like takes them apart and completely cleans them and make sure that every component works, does all that. And that's not who I am. And I'll never be that person. No, like same here. I mean, for me, like I said, for the the old games, like, I want to have the discs. But it's, if those discs are corrupt, if they've been, like, you know, stored in a giant box of magnets for the past 25 years or whatever, that's not...
00:23:34
Speaker
something's going to bump me i i like for them be there for the sense that it's complete but i'll never know i don't have a three and a half inch or five and a quarter drive uh don't even have a cd-rom drive anymore so i'm just going to imagine everything works perfectly anyways love the pod and looking forward to more dinner updates ipod todd there you have it. todd Thank you, Todd. We appreciate it.
00:23:55
Speaker
Have you seen this, uh, like this new, I think they were talking about it on our discord.
Commodore 64 Nostalgia
00:24:04
Speaker
um like the the the the recreation of the commodore 64 uh yes like like that that just came out because there's a lot of stuff like and i think there was like a commodore 64 mini that came out a couple years ago if i remember correctly um that sounds right and but like this is a commodore 64 that is like full size and like apparently the keyboard feels you know kind of
00:24:34
Speaker
accurate to a Commodore 64. And um the like, it it works with the like, you could hook up like a disk drive or a tape drive, we'll play the tapes, we'll like you could hook up an old like joystick, and that will work.
00:24:53
Speaker
And like, you know, that's another thing where I see it. And I'm just like, It does seem kind of cool. And you can also just hook up a USB and like go to, yeah you know, a website and download everything and just, you know. Did you spend a lot of time with the Commodore 64? I never had his Commodore. We didn't have a Commodore 64. That isn't a Commodore 64 didn't enter my vocabulary until like this century. Like I didn't, it was just not a thing.
00:25:24
Speaker
And the only were species the only time I ever messed with one was we had one in my algebra two classroom in high school, like just one in the back of the room that had some like math, like math blasters type games on it. But then I'm like thinking it's like, I would have, that would have been like 1994.
00:25:45
Speaker
So,
00:25:48
Speaker
Or maybe like 1993. So that Commodore was already pretty old in the tooth by the time I was messing around with it, you know? So, yeah, it was never a system that I played with at the time. I do love the aesthetics of a Commodore 64. Yeah, I love the aesthetics. That's a slick-looking machine. It's a cool-looking machine, like, I like...
00:26:11
Speaker
i i have like I, I, I'm intrigued by it, but at the same time, I'm like, you don't have any
Nostalgia for Unexperienced Items
00:26:21
Speaker
nostalgia for this. This isn't like a thing where like people who are getting this are like picking it up and just being like, it's, you know, unlocking an old dusty part of their brain in how, because it like loads into whatever, you know, yeah a Commodore 64 into. Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
And like, I wish, I just wish that I could be nostalgic. Like there's part of me that really wants it, but it's like, ye Ben, you do never had that computer. You can't be nostalgic. I mean, at some level it's like stolen valor. Yeah.
00:26:52
Speaker
You can't be nostalgic for the Commodore 64. You have to be nostalgic for like the Atari Jaguar. I'm sorry. i didn't have a Jaguar either, but I did have a Jaguar. I had four Jaguars.
00:27:04
Speaker
had them networked printer cables, just running from one to the next. Yeah. ah Daisy chain those bad boys. Yeah. yeah be Parallel. only way you could really enjoy Tempest 2000.
00:27:18
Speaker
um But yeah, speaking of Daisy chains, what have you been playing?
Card Game 'Robbery' Mechanics
00:27:24
Speaker
Oh yeah. I forgot. This is a segment. Gosh, I'm still thinking about tacos. Oh, You know, Ben, lately wanted to talk about a ah tabletop game that I've been really enjoying.
00:27:37
Speaker
if If you don't mind me breaking format here. I'm going off script. You know, I've been playing a lot more board games lately, too. I've started to revive a board game night, which is...
00:27:50
Speaker
Like, this is starting to be a breakthrough. You tell yours and then I'll search for fun. Okay, okay. Have you heard the card game Robbery? No, let me look this up.
00:28:02
Speaker
This is a fun, super simple, super quick card game. Essentially, the premise is you and the other players are part of a group of thieves that have just robbed museum.
00:28:15
Speaker
And now the goal is across four different rounds, you have to divvy up all the spoils, all the loot that stole. Oh, have heard about this. Yes. I think my neighbors Yeah, because my neighbors in my building are board game people as well.
00:28:38
Speaker
And I think they were telling me about this. Yeah, so it's a really simple game. Essentially, you play cards almost in like an Uno style to claim these pieces of art in each round.
00:28:51
Speaker
And whoever finishes the game with the most pieces of art claimed is the winner. But along the way, also, you have to balance that against... you have to claim some alibis along the way as well that are worth way fewer points. But if you end the game with the fewest number of alibis, you automatically lose.
00:29:09
Speaker
It turns into a game where basically it's like a no honor among thieves kind of concept. Like someone will take a valuable piece of art from the pile and then other people will proceed to steal that from them and steal that from the next person.
00:29:23
Speaker
And eventually it's sort of like when a round finally ends, it's whoever was the last person to successfully steal some stuff comes out ahead. But what I love about it is it's one those games where you're stealing from one another constantly, so it doesn't get that bad feeling that a game like this can get where it feels like people are getting piled on or you worked forever to put something together and someone yanks it out from under you. Because it's moving so quickly, those losses feel very temporary.
00:29:52
Speaker
And a full game of this usually lasts like 10 to 15 minutes tops, which means even if you have a round where things go pretty poorly, you're right back into the next game. Yeah. right away. It's very simple, very straightforward, to is of what I need out of most tabletop games.
00:30:09
Speaker
Had a lot of success for listeners out there that maybe have younger kids. We played this like ages 10 and up pretty successfully. I think kids can get into it in a pretty fun way.
00:30:21
Speaker
It's a nice, simple, you know, kill a few minutes while we wait for the hot wings to come out of the oven ah sort of tabletop game. You know, that that reminds me with these neighbors, and maybe this is what I was thinking of, I played game recently called Cash and Guns.
00:30:42
Speaker
Oh. Which is you're a band of gangsters splitting up the loot.
00:30:53
Speaker
Interesting. Maybe that's all your neighbors play. What if your neighbors are criminals? well no Well, no, but I don't think so. I don't think they had art robbery. I think I was thinking of Caching Glass. But it's a very similar... What it is you, like... There is no robbery sequence. It's just divvying up. Oh, this is too. There's no robbery in art robbery. You're just divvying up the spoils.
00:31:18
Speaker
And it is,
00:31:22
Speaker
you
00:31:26
Speaker
can shoot at each other. Oh. during it And everybody gets a foam gun. Yeah, this has a lot more moving parts than art robbery, which is basically some cards and just little tokens to represent the art.
00:31:41
Speaker
But anyway, i that's great. yeah that That sounds like a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. It's like a $15 purchase and super simple to play. Ben, why have you been playing?
00:31:52
Speaker
Well, I'll note, so it's it's been very exciting. i've I've recently, I think after many, many years, and this has been a dream of mine, I have been working in Black And I used to have a board game night and then that it kind of fell apart.
00:32:13
Speaker
And that was a while ago.
Starting a Board Game Night
00:32:15
Speaker
And like, I just had my third week board game night with a friend of mine.
00:32:24
Speaker
And at the end of it, he said, you next Wednesday. And I was like, oh. Do have a board game night? Yeah, this is amazing. This is what we all dream of.
00:32:35
Speaker
Do I have a board game night again? Oh, man. And, and like, because that's, that's been a dream. That's been something I've like kind of reached for. Yeah. Like since I lost my board game night and it's just been kind of like fits and starts.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah. You know, we'd play once or maybe it was like once a month or something and then it would just kind of fall apart. but i think we might have a board game that sounds amazing uh so so far it's just uh my friend and i but we're like here's like you should you know invite your friends um anyway this is the most dangerous part of a fledgling board game night all it takes is choosing the one wrong game one time or the wrong one wrong friend One wrong friend. That's right. This is where I would probably like go i online to like somewhere like that and try to hire a ringer to bring to the board game now to make sure I don't mess this up.
00:33:40
Speaker
Well, so this, this friend of mine, like he, he loves the same kind of chewy big board games that I do. Okay. most exciting part. So it's like, oh, thank God. Like I have all of these games that cost like a lot of money. Yeah. Uh, that I've all played like maybe a couple times many years ago, because you know, like that's the other thing about making a board game night is that it's like, you have to, you have to get,
00:34:07
Speaker
You have to get the friends for the, that have a stomach. Yes. Complexity, if that's the type of, because I've had also like party game nights where I go like kind of lighter. Because I do have like, in addition to, usually I'll start with like kind of party games, like kind of, like kind of be clever games, you know, not apples, apples, but games of that genre. You love Cards Against Humanity.
00:34:38
Speaker
Cards Against Humanity was so, like, at peak Cards Against Humanity, which was what, like, 10 years ago? Yeah, I'd say so. Maybe 11 or 12, because they had all that stuff around when, like, Trump got up, if you remember.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. the first time.
00:34:57
Speaker
And so, I'm going to say, like, 12 years ago was like, kind of peak Cards Against Humanity, and at least, like... You know, I couldn't go to a party yeah without someone being like, right, it's time for us to play Cards Against Humanity. And I'd be like, oh!
00:35:15
Speaker
Whoa! And...
00:35:19
Speaker
And so like when it finally faded away, was like, thank fucking God.
Cards Against Humanity's Decline
00:35:24
Speaker
I am so, so fucking tired this shit. Yeah, Ben, you what you need play? Have you tried Kids Against Humanity?
00:35:32
Speaker
The bootleg kids edition of Cards Against Humanity, because it's great. What makes it fun? is it has a lot more poo-poo pee-pee jokes, but also fully 25% of the cards are compatible with each other. Like the black cards and white cards can't be used to form a complete sentence or thought because they simply don't work together grammatically because it's such a shoddy product.
00:35:59
Speaker
So you need get the Kids Against Humanity train where sometimes it doesn't even form a coherent thought. There, it's, it's, it's funny because it's like, there, there are, there are games that are like kind of modifications of the apples to apples.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah. Cards Against Humanity style, which are like really good and funny. There's this one that I love called Pitch Deck that I, that,
00:36:34
Speaker
This is how I eventually started playing apples to apples with my friend, with my friends anyway, which was that instead of it being an anonymous, you put your card down. It's that you have to defend your card and you have to like, and I, and here, here's a variation. So for those of you at home, if you have apples to apples, this is the, the, the, the Ben modification. Maybe other people have done this, but this is just something I started doing with my friends many years ago is that,
00:37:03
Speaker
The people, it is no longer anonymous. The people who put down the card have to defend, have to make their argument. And then... if you don't, we cock them in the head of an apple. And then I came up with ah another thing to modify this, which is that the person who's the judge gets to make one rule about how the person, like how the people making their pitches can do it. So they can say... you only have
00:37:41
Speaker
Like, you know, just to kind of, because apples to apples, it just needs something else if you've played it a million times. Pitch Deck is essentially that game where you have to defend, like you're making match to investors.
00:37:54
Speaker
Anyway, I didn't even talk about the game I'm playing this week. I'm out today when we record Perfect Tide Station
Tease: Perfect Tide Station to Station
00:38:04
Speaker
to Station.
00:38:04
Speaker
Been playing it. Fucking love it. Yeah. Maybe I'll have more to say about it next week. But who knows? In our Space Quest 4 episode?
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe I'll fit it in to our episode next week on Space Quest 4. Unless some, you know, or maybe not.
00:38:31
Speaker
But let's say odds are that maybe I'll talk about this game next week. Well, you know what? I refuse. Well, I think you're going to have to. um Also, I'm going to say to, in this will ah maybe come up next week, but to those of you also playing ah Perfect Tide Station to Station, ah ah they keep an eye out for someone that looks like me because...
00:39:01
Speaker
Uh, I, did that level of Kickstarter. So if you find actually the protagonist in this one, it's wild. Like I did not expect that. And there's just like, Hey, it's me, Ben. I backed this on any cost. He talks about the Kickstarter, which really takes me out.
00:39:16
Speaker
Like that. That's not one criticism is I wish that it like Ben is the protagonist. Wasn't so self-aware. And then he starts talking about how self-aware he is. And that takes me even further. He's like, no, is he talking about the Kickstarter? He's like, boy, I sure am self-aware protagonist. It's like, you know, he's self-aware about being self-aware. This is too many levels of meta.
00:39:35
Speaker
And then, yeah. And then I, yeah. And then he tried to Tron me into the video game. Yeah. I did try to Tron you into the game. I don't want to be Tron. Yeah. And then, and then even worse than I Tron Ares you.
00:39:48
Speaker
and Out of the video game. Yeah. out of the game and he try And then once you Tron's Aries me out of the video game, then you Jumanji'd me into a board game. You Jumanji'd me. Yeah.
00:40:00
Speaker
it's just been of it's It's just been terrible all around. It's an ordeal. Do you know the toll that takes on a man's body? Anyway, Jess, I believe ah you have a Price is Right for me on the game that we're discussing today.
Trivia: Color of Magic Game
00:40:15
Speaker
Is that correct? Incorrect.
00:40:17
Speaker
Oh. Oh, like our music this go-around, though. yeah Ben, of course, today, as our listeners already know if they read the title of this episode, we're going to be talking about Discworld. ah But rather than quiz you on an eBay auction about the 1995 CD-ROM hit Discworld, we're going to go back a few years to 1985. Ben, i have found a copy of the first commercial Discworld game,
00:40:47
Speaker
That would be the color of magic. ZX. This one, the version that I'm looking at, Ben, that you're going to be taking a guess on is for the Amstrad CPC. Okay.
00:41:00
Speaker
So let me give you the condition. This is nice cassette. version of it. So this is sold on cassette. The version I'm looking at is a standard plastic cassette box. It's not in any sort of cardboard box or anything. Literally the cover art is just printed like the liner notes for a 1980s music cassette would be.
00:41:22
Speaker
This is the 1985 Color of magic For the Amstrad, it looks to be in excellent shape. There's a little bit of yellowing and discoloring, and that's discoloring with a U on the on the cassette itself.
00:41:38
Speaker
Ben, how much is the color of magic?
00:41:46
Speaker
So they couldn't have made a lot of these. They couldn't have made they couldn't of made a lot of these. and got sure let me share with you this is not supposed to be like uh i don't think this game is supposed to be good no i don't think terry pratchett cared for it i've sent you the cover art that's featured here which is very disc world um this is the alternative box art her heart this game is terrible what that's this world
00:42:20
Speaker
right, I'm going to try to... i I don't know if I could... Just go to Moby Games. If you're listening to this, ah pull over your car right now. Or if you're listening to us on an iPod because you don't you can't use ah a connected device, make a note to yourself to look this up later on Moby Games. the z This is the ZX spectrum. and it's also the budget re-release. There is a slightly more normal...
00:42:47
Speaker
Like I'll show you the official one. Like like this is the band I'm going to share with you now. And this is great radio, but I'm going to share with you. I'll just briefly describe. There's like a, like a guy in like the, the feature character on the color of magic.
00:43:06
Speaker
cover is a guy like in a like a robe with a dark cowl like a like Bob and Threadbear and it's green and he's the main one you have a small death right maybe that I don't think that's supposed to be death because because we all know what death looks like you know, he's kind of has like a canonical appearance going back to medieval times. There's, so you have a wizard in, in red robes, which, okay. So that must be rinse wind, but he's old, which is not rinse wind. Yeah. Merlin. Very Merlin. Very Merlin. Then you have, uh, you have the luggage, which to its credit,
00:43:50
Speaker
Gets the luggage right. Luggage is just as disgusting as you imagine it. um ah Then, like, I mean, you know, Color of Magic, which I haven't read in in a while, but my recollection of Color of Magic was it was, like, kind of a, like, more of a ah straightforward parody of...
00:44:12
Speaker
like kind of the fantasy writing at the time yeah so you have like uh there there's like a uh an attractive woman with a like a sword kind of like you know kind of spread on a rock there's like an evil looking amp anyway it's a very funny cover it does not look anything it like if you are familiar with terry pratchett the color of magic it does not yeah All the art of Discworld that you've seen in various editions and releases and art books and stuff, it looks like none of that.
00:44:43
Speaker
It looks like a bad comic book. So is that the is that the the cover that's used on this? It's ugly version that is that you're bidding on right now, Ben. So, okay. So they couldn't have made a lot of these.
00:44:56
Speaker
um Oh, and it now i and I see the... Jess also sent the original cover, which which looks much more appropriate. You have yes rinse wind and two flower, ah like kind of zipping through the sky on the the luggage. It looks...
00:45:14
Speaker
perfectly death looks like death yeah death looks like death that one's all fine yeah that one's good that one's okay it looks fine um so anyway so they could have made a lot of these but it is also not a and it it's not a game that's supposed to be good it's supposed to be poor yes um but it is a ah rare game based like on like this beloved franchise that like you know from a you know absolutely beloved and tragically past uh uh author so there might be is is it shipping out of the uk has to be right okay shipping out of this world itself the uk
00:46:06
Speaker
Um, so there are going be tariffs. We won't, we won't include tariffs. Yeah, we won't. Um, or the, the, the shipping, which I'm sure is terrible. Um, I'm going
00:46:19
Speaker
say $65.
00:46:22
Speaker
Ben, you're over. This is an absolute steal. I'm telling you right now.
00:46:34
Speaker
you want this game just for this cover alone. No, I really do. What if I told you, you could start your own big box collection, which is ultimately with a very small box in this case.
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah. for a mere $22.82. twenty two dollars and eighty two cents I would end up probably spending more on shipping and tariffs. You absolutely would. Shipping $24.12. So shipping is actually like more than the game itself yeah and then tariffs which who knows i mean that could be yeah by the time yeah have it arrives or very little at all podcast comes out the tariffs could be we all talking about tariff policy here on the pod i feel like yeah that's a massive anyway um so this week this week we're uh discussing the the game uh disc world
00:47:34
Speaker
Yes, not Color of Magic.
Discworld Game Introduction
00:47:36
Speaker
Discworld. Psygnosis' 1995 CD-ROM extravaganza. So,
00:47:45
Speaker
i when let's before we even talk about the game, where are you on Discworld? the I am a fan of Discworld I I not I don't think I've probably read half of Discworld yet yeah I feel like I kind of jump around to you know ones that seem interesting to me and then ones I find in like a random used bookstore and just can't resist buying for a couple of bucks you know that's sort my metric it's like either it's one that's like oh that one really really catches my eye or
00:48:22
Speaker
It was so cheap. I have to buy it now that i have to read it Cause I mean, I will say, I love all the disc world. I read Terry Pratchett, amazing author. of course, I'm not telling anyone who's familiar with his work, anything they don't already know.
00:48:36
Speaker
i am very much a, a city watch guy and a moist Von Lipwig guy. Those are my, those are my guys. think we talked about this with Richard. I think, I think we did way back when, yeah way back when. Yeah, those are my Discworld stories. I'm not a big, I'm not big witches guy. I'm not really a big Rincewind guy. No, I don't, I don't, I don't care for the Rincewind books.
00:49:01
Speaker
My favorite, I have a couple favorites. Like, Obviously, i think my my favorite is like Nightwatch. I think that's just straightforwardly like of all of all the books that I read where I was like, and even at the time, like I have, I think, I'll to check like the first American edition of Nightwatch. Like I think i like I bought that at release and I still have that copy. And I even remember reading it as like a teenager, however old I was when it it came out and being like, oh, this book is really special.
00:49:37
Speaker
Yeah. Like, I like reading and being like, oh, there there's something like, you know, he's he's doing something really special with this book. um My other favorite of his is Small Gods. I've always loved Small Gods. I think Small... That's that's another... Those are the the the two, and I haven't read everything either.
00:50:01
Speaker
seems a lot of them. Oh, yeah. ah But of The ones that I've read, which I read them sequentially when I was a teenager up to, i don't know, like a dozen and a half, like, and then like started jumping around. um Yeah. Uh, uh,
00:50:22
Speaker
i ah like the small gods was another one where I was reading and I was like, Oh, there's something really special happening ah in this book. Like it, it, it kind of reached into me and, and made me feel things. um I, this world is one of those things where like, I, I keep thinking like,
00:50:47
Speaker
you know, I kind of want to go and just buy all of them and just kind of just go for it. I don't know if... unpro I have a feeling that I would probably... First off, the first couple books...
00:51:01
Speaker
i I remember even at the like as a kid reading them, or a teenager, I didn't particularly care for. um But um like I have a feeling I'd kind of burn out, even like on the really good ones, because it's just like, you know, reading...
00:51:18
Speaker
all of those books, uh, like in a row, even from like a really great and talented author, like Terry Pratchett, I think at a certain point I would just be kind of like, okay, I think, I think I'm done here. Um, uh, but, um, you know, I was recently at a used bookstore and I have been on kind of the lookout for, Discworld books because I do want to rebuild my collection.
00:51:46
Speaker
Because I have like like a ah chunk of them that I've like kind of carried with me since you know since being a teenager and really getting into them. I've shed a lot of them, but they're like you know like that copy of Nightwatch and some other ones. A really dog-eared copy of Small Gods. Yeah.
00:52:06
Speaker
some other ones. ah Like, I kind of want to rebuild that collection, but ah ah I was at a used bookstore and I was looking. couldn't find a single...
00:52:16
Speaker
ah actually I've been having a lot of trouble at any used bookstore finding copies but I was at one in particular I'm digging I'm digging I'm digging I'm like they don't have a single fucking Discworld book this is crazy and then I get up and right next to the register there's a bunch of Discworld books and I say to the I say to the guy I'm like Why why are all the, like, I just spent like 15 minutes going all the way through the the fantasy section. I couldn't find a single Discworld book.
00:52:46
Speaker
And the the the guy at the used bookstore was like, those are the ones that people always steal. Really? Yep. Wow. You see, I ran into the problem at some of our local stores where that's something I'm always looking for. I'm like, maybe they'll just be like a Discworld novel that I've never thought about picking up and they'll be there. So I'm at the used bookstore and occasionally some of them around here, you'll see them occasionally drift out of the fantasy section into the literature or just fiction section.
00:53:16
Speaker
And that always throws me. I feel like they are at home in the genre. category as opposed to just like I get why you'd want to do that because especially what you like as it as it goes like the you know, he's a very talented writer. He's more literary in his work than the average person who's like churning out a random Star Wars novel or something like that. Yeah. Like for such a prodigious writer, he was like someone, you know, of, of quite remarkable skill. Um, and, um, he, uh,
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah, so, ah like, I could see it, but at the same time, it's like a lot of it is, like, parody and, like, satire. yeah Sometimes it's not, like, parody and satire of of genre conventions. Sometimes it's parody and satire of... Modernity.
00:54:15
Speaker
Yeah, of, like, ah the the concept of money. ah yes Yes. Yeah. Or the existence of a printing press or something like that. Yeah. um Like the the idea of ah like what makes it ah some something ah a person. Is this Gollum a real? Yeah. I haven't read the Feet of Clay in forever. I remember really liking that one. i You know, i am almost certain.
00:54:48
Speaker
And for some reason I have like really fuzzy memory around this. I'm almost certain feet of clay was my first disc world novel. I remember, i know where I read my first disc world novel. I taught abroad for a semester in Italy when I was in grad school, I was in Verona, Italy. And If you to know what kind of nerd I am, I packed a suitcase full of clothes and a second suitcase full of books I checked out for my university's library before leaving the country.
00:55:21
Speaker
And I probably wasn't supposed to take those abroad. but I wouldn't think so. I would need something to do I'm holed up in Italy for a few months and I'll just take a suitcase full of books and read them all. And i had, i don't know if I'd ever even heard of Discworld at the time. I just grabbed feet of clay at my university. That's an interesting one to to start with, but I think it's a fine one to start with. yeah I mean, you're diving right into like, you know, the city watch is already well-established and, you know so a lot of these characters i'm supposed to know but doesn't i mean it's not bad i can't jump in you can jump in it's not bad uh but you know i think that you know in the case of like the game it's an interesting blend in that it's taking guards guards which is a city watch novel of course 1909 i believe yeah and replacing
00:56:21
Speaker
yeah Sam Vimes, who is the sort of detective who's trying to uncover this secret conspiracy to summon a dragon upon Ankh-Morpork and replaces him with Renswund, which I think makes sense. Renswund makes a lot of sense as a as a adventure game protagonist let's let's do a little bit of of table setting you know an hour into this podcast um so the disc world obviously it's established it's based on the series of books these fantasy like how many of the how many books were there a lot of fucking books
00:57:01
Speaker
yeah i mean uh it's a lot of books it's uh it's a whole bunch and and and also there were like turtle spin-offs and like like there was like a a couple like children's books and like illustrated books and stuff like that but anyway um it like It's this whole fantasy universe created by this ah author, Terry Pratchett.
Rincewind as a Protagonist
00:57:25
Speaker
um And ah within the series of Discworld books, there were a bunch of disparate mini-series.
00:57:36
Speaker
Yes. um And the the first... ah like the The initial protagonist... of, um, of, of disc world, like the, the protagonist of the very first book and the second book, um, is, uh, this incompetent coward wizard rinse wind.
00:58:04
Speaker
Yes. And, um, but as, and, and like the first couple, but like the first two books are with rinse wind and then rinse wind kind of shows up in,
00:58:17
Speaker
Like in the the, like the first bunch of books, he's, he, he kind of makes a bunch of appearances, but as the series goes on, like he shows up kind of less and less um until like, it's very clear, like these, these other kinds of character sets of characters and like series kind of supplant him.
00:58:42
Speaker
Right? would Would that be fair to say? i think that's a fair way to put it. Yeah, you have, like, as you said, sort mini-series within this. You have some that follow the City Watch, which is basically the police force of Discworld. So you get lots of crime stories and sort of the seedy underbelly of this world. You have some that follow ah Death, the personification of Death, which tend to be some of the ones that are a little bit more...
00:59:07
Speaker
metaphysical, spiritual in nature. You have some that are following a group, a coven of witches. So you get to see this world of Discworld from a lot of different perspectives throughout this. And usually they're hopping from genre to genre a little bit as these different miniseries within the overarching Discworld oeuvre unfold.
00:59:30
Speaker
and And so, yeah, so as Jess was saying, like, so one of... Probably the, with like the most popular, I would say, ah like kind of miniseries within his series the City Watch.
00:59:45
Speaker
the the the city watch um uh and uh like sort of like my favorite i think your favorite right too yeah i would say so yeah very interesting like and i and i still think about i think guards guards is maybe which is the first watch book it's probably the one that i've read the most like i i think i've reread that one a whole bunch of times yeah um And i so, yeah, so the Discworld game, as you were saying, takes the plot of Guardsguards, which um is that enough people in Ankh-Morpork, which is like kind of the the big city, like the London of Discworld, like this massive, it's it's where all roads lead to or all roads lead away from,
01:00:41
Speaker
ah ah like this this massive city, this conglomeration of everybody from all over Discworld lives.
Discworld Game Plot and Dragon Conspiracy
01:00:48
Speaker
and ah the ah in in Guards Guards, there's a conspiracy to like kind of conjure up a dragon, which...
01:01:00
Speaker
ah like kind of ah becomes a massive problem if it's enormous as dragons are wont to do yeah and so they loosely adapt like that book sort of like the the concept of there's a dragon and the broad strokes are there But instead of, as you were saying, yeah, like just now repeating, but now instead of stirring the guards, which maybe they weren't as popular at that point, I don't know. It's it's now stirring Rincewind.
01:01:31
Speaker
And I think this works because Rincewind, I mean, personality-wise, and here in the game, he's going voiced by Eric Idle, which, yeah know, that's not bad casting if if you can lock him down, Yeah.
01:01:43
Speaker
That was such a thrill to me the very first time I played this. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, that's terrific. I mean, it's spot on. And Grincewind is a character who by nature is incompetent, which is a good starting point for a comedy adventure game hero. He also is a character who it feels natural for him to constantly be doing sort of running comedy on the ridiculous things happening around him, which again, not a bad trait in the adventure game character. I can see where the impetus to swap him in here makes sense. He's sort of ready-made for this task. He's a regular Simon the Sorcerer. And also, yeah, like a...
01:02:23
Speaker
A wizard is more of a adventure game. Like just, just a, a wizard. And yeah, like, and, and yeah, exactly what you're saying. Like, since he's kind of like a schmuck, he's kind of like a bum. That's a very, like, it's like, like guy brush or like raja brushy yeah or like a lot of comedy adventure game protagonists are schlubs.
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You kind of want that. ah Whereas, yeah, you know, Sam Vimes, who would presumably have been the lead if you had stuck closer to guards guards um is not that character. No, he's not sort of a, he's competent, but he's brooding and, and and a little more cynical in some ways that, yeah, i mean that I think that's what works. I mean, and what's,
01:03:13
Speaker
really I think the strength of this game, and in some ways maybe we'll talk about if it's a weakness too, is Terry Pratchett is going to be closely involved in its development ah down to the level of consulting pretty extensively on it, right? yeah I think he consulted on it. like yeah Yeah. I don't know how closely. I don't know how closely.
01:03:34
Speaker
i mean, I don't know. I honestly don't know. so yeah that's like It certainly wasn't it wasn't done without him. Yeah, that's right. the I kind of get the feeling there's a little bit of that like double-edged sword you got a game like Hitchhiker's Guide from Infocom where it's like, oh boy, what makes this game great is the source material it's inspired by bringing in that author to help, you know, consult on ads to that, but also maybe is to its detriment as a game separate from the source material it's built on. Yeah.
01:04:09
Speaker
So when did you first play this
Initial Discworld Game Experiences
01:04:12
Speaker
game? Very recently. I mean, this one, I think I played like, I streamed it a couple of years ago. Right. And that was the first time.
01:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. First time I've ever played it. Okay. Yeah. Because I played it for the first time, probably within like the, the peak of my disc world obsession. Like I played it. Ah,
01:04:36
Speaker
in like the early aughts it was on ah the the website like the abandoned where website home of the under under the underdogs oh my gosh yeah have we ever talked about home of the underdogs on this podcast Well, I've never pirated software, so I'm not familiar with it. No, no, no. i'm like I'm just, and I'm just repeating what I've been told. Well, you've heard, yeah, from other people who did. Yeah. No, I don't think we have. And I think that still exists. I think it's a shadow of its former self. Yeah, yeah I have it.
01:05:07
Speaker
Home of the underdogs was like the... ve abandoned where like the, the website where you could download like essentially DOS games that were no longer for sale anywhere.
01:05:22
Speaker
Um, in an era long before digital storefronts yeah brought a lot of those back. And yeah, In a time where essentially it was just kind of considered like, oh, they that just, those things will never be available again.
01:05:37
Speaker
um Like, you know, I just, eat you you just couldn't, you couldn't buy them anywhere. Like, and the only legal way, and this is still true of some, some games, like, you know, no one lives forever, for example. It's a famous example of a game where it's just like,
01:05:55
Speaker
in some sort of legal never be released zone. One of my absolute all time favorites, but, um, like every game that came out like on like on DOS in the year 2002 was just not available for sale anywhere and the only place that you could find them is on eBay and you would just have to buy and then like you know for for what it's worth Home of the Underdogs didn't
01:06:26
Speaker
like they, they would ah like, I don't know if DOS box existed then I forget. Like, you know, they it would, it would point out like some tools on how to get it working. yeah and you Like you, you would still have to do some work to to get. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. These weren't like ready to go like a Gog version or something like that. Yeah. No, I mean, these were pretty slapped together, but it was a website that had a reputation of being virus free, which was important for downloading. Very important. today uh you know you want go in some random irc channel and just take your chances with what somebody's going to send you yeah you know this is uh there's a website that was reliable and yeah i mean it at a time when like you're just knowing this coming from like the space quest fan community copies of the space quest collection at the time were selling on ebay for like 300 bucks just because that was the only way legally for
01:07:20
Speaker
Actually, I think they're cheaper now than they were then. Because for a brief period of time, that was the only way to legally play these games if you didn't happen to already own a physical copy. So those discs better have been working. um That's right. Back then, it's like, yeah, you needed that to work. yeah Those better have been verified functioning. But yeah, so you you picked this one up on Home of the Underdogs? So they had it on Home of the Underdogs, and what was crazy to me about it at the time was not only did they have it on there, but like also you got
01:07:57
Speaker
um if you ah got it it like they ah compressed the the the voice audio in with it, which was also like an insane novelty to be able to download like you know at the time.
01:08:16
Speaker
Generally, if you were getting ah ah something like that from then, you would get the game and like the the largest whatever the file would be whatever the resource file was with all the the voice, ah like with all the voice work in it.
01:08:37
Speaker
and And so usually, like if if you were getting something like that from Home of the Underdogs or a shady IRC, they would just get rid of that resource file. The game would work. It would just have text.
01:08:51
Speaker
yeah Like a, you know, like a, yeah. A older adventure game. And this came with the voices too. And so I was just like, priestly whoa, whoa. Oh my God. Wow.
01:09:07
Speaker
and um, And so, ah yeah, like, and it was like, wait, so there was an adventure game, the the the genre that I love that they don't make anymore. um Because it's dead. On this new, like, ah or not new, like, on this, like, new to me, like, series, i like, and and the the star,
01:09:37
Speaker
is eric idol from monty python like i was national lampoons european vacation yeah i i've i've not i've not familiar with that at all um i was i was ecstatic i was just like holy shit and Like it was, it was like a thing where like, I didn't even know about the game.
01:10:05
Speaker
And then like the same time that I found out about it was when I was getting it. That's the, that's a good feeling. That's a wonderful feeling. I mean, yeah, that you can't beat that. Yeah. I think, yeah, I was completely unaware of disc world when this came out, but I was like religiously reading
01:10:26
Speaker
magazines, video game magazines at the time. So I would see like ads and reviews of Discworld. And I think my brain just said, oh, that's the British wizard game. And I feel like for the better part of 20 years, you thought I just conflated completely Simon the Sorcerer. I was like, maybe it's called Simon the Sorcerer in the US s before I knew anything about what Discworld was. So this one like flew completely under my radar.
01:10:55
Speaker
It didn't register for me. And then it's curious to return to it years later. Uh, because again, someone who now is aware of disc world and enjoys disc world quite a bit and comes into this and, you know, it's, uh, it's got everybody. It's got Eric Adel. It's got Dr. Who it's got black Adder.
01:11:14
Speaker
it probably has a beetle or two for all it. It's got everybody. breath Yeah. It's got, it's got John Pertwee, the third doctor. Yeah. Uh, in it, who I love John Pertwee. He's great. He's,
01:11:28
Speaker
uh rob bryden who was he in black black adder or probably i he's not doctor who probably well i know him i've never seen black adder and i know don't don't send me any emails be like oh yeah you know just skip the first i i know it's probably got like six red dwarf uh actors in it i don't know you know i don't know british tv but um but i rob rob bryden i know from hours the the the trip If you're familiar, have you ever seen any You just said that you don't want to spread your own trip. The trip is really funny. um either i like ah have you Have you heard of this? The the trip with ah Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan?
01:12:14
Speaker
they They made four seasons slash movies.
01:12:23
Speaker
they're pretty good i think you would it jess i honestly i think you didn't enjoy the trip you have that hesitancy toward british humor i know um the the the trip with the u is yeah i know uh the the the trip is a tv show that was ah adapted into like I think when they they did American releases they just ah like cut it because they were like six episode seasons and maybe maybe more i anyway if they were short seasons and I'm just I have to keep censoring myself because I had to correct myself I'm never doing that again um yeah but when they got a ah re-release they re-cut them into just movies
01:13:11
Speaker
um And so ah that's how i i watched the first one as a movie. And i'm I'm kind of like, I feel like this is exactly enough.
01:13:24
Speaker
for me like i i asked a friend of mine and again don't send if if you prefer the tv show to the movies i don't need to know um uh if like me you've never heard of this we would like to hear from you quest quest podcast at gmail.com but uh it's it's this travelogue show of and it's just these two uh middle-aged men going to nice restaurants the first one is is set in uh the uk like then there's one in italy and then there's one somewhere else and it's just these two funny uh kind of ornery uh middle-aged men going and having nice meals and like busting each other's balls it's honestly it's delightful
01:14:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's really like I i watched it ah with my parents when i i've like ah we had a movie night and they're like, what do you want to watch? And I was like, what's something that is is nice and cozy for the parents? And I was like two like, two pretty funny British guys just making fun of each other for like two hours is is a nice way to spend an evening.
01:14:40
Speaker
last time I had a movie night with my parents, I made them watch Scott Pilgrim versus the world. I was my daughter's favorite movie. And I just wanted to watch them have to try to like process that. See, I, you have a very different relationship.
01:14:54
Speaker
<unk> i Oh, they hated everything about it. Like it was, it was sheer misery for them. um the The worst thing that my mom could say about a movie is it's weird.
01:15:07
Speaker
That's her saying, I hated everything about this. If my mom says- mom's review of Scott Pilgrim was, there was a lot going on. Yeah, see, that's is that's ah that's how moms talk. yeah is is It's like, if my mom says- it It was weird. That means that she was like, you know, like she would rather have like a ah ah poker stuffed in her eye. Like my parents have never been like movie goers. Like they never go to the theater. And like the first time in 10 years they went to the theater was to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
01:15:42
Speaker
And my dad's review of that was too much running around. It's an Indiana Jones movie.
01:15:50
Speaker
too Ben, I don't know if you've seen Dial of Destiny. i saw it and I know you loved it. and I don't care for it, but why I didn't like it was related to running around. Too much running around. A thing that's featured in... Why didn't they stand still more?
01:16:06
Speaker
it' Do you think your dad was looking at old, decrepit Harrison Ford and going like... No way he'd get around like that. yeah Yeah. I suspect my own father's vision is so poor. All he could see was just shapes moving around the screen. It probably was very confusing for him, but, uh, too much, too much, you know, like, ah what he meant to say was where's mutt.
01:16:33
Speaker
first he You know, he was a bit, that was the last movie he went to see. Like he he was like, okay, I've seen Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I'm not going to a movie again until Mutt is back. That scene where he almost picks up the hat at the end of the movie and maybe you're like, is the is the torch being passed? Or should I say, is the fedora being passed? My dad was like, yes, yes.
01:16:56
Speaker
yes get it mu get and then like Harrison Ford just swoops in he's like nah kid it's still me I'm Indiana Jones you get off my nuts get off my nuts but that famous slide he had from Air Force One Harrison Ford so long story short Discworld isn't a very good game Yeah. i just I'm just going to to to lay it lay it out here.
01:17:30
Speaker
if If the sequel to to your game in ah in in the manual has ah like a paragraph at the start that's like, we we heard you. This game isn't as hard.
01:17:50
Speaker
Something went wrong. Bad side. Yeah. but If you're apologizing your first game and the manual for your sequel. you have been even terry pratchett talked about this like from understand terry pratchett like was on usenet after this came out like trying to help people i have not where did you see that yes i can't remember where i read that i was reading it earlier today when i was reading about like doing and and joking also about like here's all the puzzles you have to solve to open up the walkthrough Uh, like joking around about like, we know, i know this is a
Critique of Discworld's Puzzles
01:18:26
Speaker
convoluted game. I know it's frustrating people. I cannot imagine even in a world of infinite time of a young child, click everything on everything else.
01:18:37
Speaker
I can't imagine solving this without a walkthrough. It is, i think of all the like high profile classics. and because I think this a game that gets thrown around as a classic sometimes, whether it deserves that or not. i mean, i think it's one the best point in click adventure games for the PlayStation one.
01:18:55
Speaker
Uh, but that's our damning with faint praise, I suppose. Um, As far as like a high budget, high profile kind of point click adventure game, I think more moon logic may be in this game than almost. And then lots of like pixel hunt and the most literal, we're talking nearly one pixel kind of pixel hunt. There's some nasty pixel hunting.
01:19:20
Speaker
there's really terrible feedback. Like, yes. Rincewind is just constantly telling you that he can't do something. Yeah. Or no, no, no. yeah He says that doesn't work.
01:19:32
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Is what he says. think, I think, Francisco, Gonzalez, uh, in a talk that he gave at like me, like maybe one of the adventure game, kind like at a adventure game conference or something like that, that I watched, like he prompted the audience Like he was talking about like video, like adventure game feedback and just talking about like how frustrating, like everybody hears this when they play disc world. He prompted the audience to say, what does disc world like? What do you hear all the time?
01:20:08
Speaker
I mean, and yeah, no i mean and Yeah, a lot of it is like moon logic based somewhat in the unique sense of humor of Discworld. So you have like a bizarre puzzle. There's time travel in this and like all time travel adventure game puzzles. Eventually you have to go to the past to make it rain in the future.
01:20:31
Speaker
or whatever because that's just you know that's how you do it in a time travel game there's like this crazy butterfly effect puzzle where you go to the past to make a butterfly flap its wings to make it rain in the present to get a character to move out of the way of something it gets very convoluted and very difficult to follow it's definitely that You know, those sorts of puzzles where you feel like you need to be able to read the mind of the developer get kind of person. Because the game isn't going signpost you in the right direction necessarily. It takes a game that's charming. It's a great looking game.
01:21:11
Speaker
It's, you know, the voice work really is outstanding. Yeah, you know, when i when I got it, and by when I, I mean the person I talked to who used Home and the Underdogs. um ah e What's really cool about the game is that it's beautiful um that it has this great voice work, that it's funny.
01:21:40
Speaker
um And after like a couple introductory puzzles, which aren't very hard, no it pretty much just opens up Ankh-Morpork. Like most of the screens, not all of them, but a lot of the game just opens up to you pretty early. so didn't,
01:22:02
Speaker
so i didn't Like once I realized that I wasn't going to get anywhere with the game itself, and I didn't even bother with a ah walkthrough.
01:22:14
Speaker
Like once I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere with the game, i was just like, I'm just going to use this as, and and I suspect a lot of people did this. Okay. Okay. This is just, I'm going to get to walk around and in one of my favorite little fantasy worlds and talk to, because a lot of the characters from all the disc world books are in it and so it's like oh i get to talk to like you know ah like all these you know crazy wizards i get to meet the patrician i get to like go to all these places and that's an unnamed captain carrot over there exactly uh exactly i was just thinking the same thing like i was gonna say before before you brought this up
01:23:02
Speaker
i would be happier with this game if it was like the virtual Springfield of Discworld. I don't need puzzles or even a story.
01:23:13
Speaker
i would just love to be able to wander around this world, interacting with things and talking. I think that would be a more satisfying experience than
Exploring Discworld's Fantasy World
01:23:24
Speaker
the really horrid adventure game that they put together in service of this wonderfully immersive and charming world.
01:23:33
Speaker
Yeah. And the, the, the world is made with such care and love for disc world that like, you know, if, if, if you get this game today and you're a fan of disc, like if you're a fan of disc world, you should, you should poke around this game because I think it's, it's, it's a fun game.
01:23:55
Speaker
It's a funny afternoon. like I'm glad I played it and I'm glad I just started with the walkthrough and chugged ahead from there. I think that it saved me. a It's still it's one of those games even with the walkthrough still a little frustrating at times. Yeah.
01:24:09
Speaker
Yeah. which That's always a bummer, but i think there's a lot to get. Again, if you love Discworld already or, you know, if just sort of ah a little bit of fun British humor is your style. If you want fun British humor and an incompetent wizard protagonist and... Watch the trip movies.
01:24:27
Speaker
Yeah, you can't stand the thought of playing Simon the Sorcerer. i mean, this is... I think this is an important baseline to establish. We're saying a lot of bad things about Discworld.
01:24:40
Speaker
significantly better than Simon the Sorcerer yeah I you know it's it's ah it's an interesting game because like and I I think I I said this on like the New Year's resolution is it's like I would absolutely not call it a great game but I would call it a something worth checking out I don't think like a real underdog yeah I think it was it was a top dog on Home of the Underdogs. There were top dogs and real dogs because that was one of the cool things about that website was that it had like little like ah cri critique capsules for everyone.
01:25:24
Speaker
And ah her favorites were top dogs and and the worst the worst dogs. real dogs The main real dog I remember was this really terrible DOS sex game.
01:25:39
Speaker
Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Ben, on scale of 1 to 10, to what degree would you say you've got that dog in you?
01:25:50
Speaker
I barely have that dog in me. Yeah, you see, I wouldn't think of myself if someone's got that dog in me. you That's D-A-W-G. No. You got that dog in you. I don't have that dog.
01:26:01
Speaker
now that's that's like the jerk. I'm thinking like Georgia a Bulldog. Like, go dogs. You got that dog in you. Dog. do like they and You have to understand I'm i'm from ah from the Northeast.
01:26:15
Speaker
Hey, Ben, do you remember this great meme? Would you mind if I pet your dog? You know, Jess, this is crazy, but you know what? I always check whenever I get a video game to see if I can pet the dog.
01:26:27
Speaker
Yeah? Yes, of course. Do you think, I mean, do any of them let you? No. no event No, not even an adventure game. No game allows you to pet the dog ever.
01:26:41
Speaker
That's good. Yeah, because I'm kind like all this like, oh, pupo, doggo. kind of Come on. We're adults. Yeah, puppers. Oh, it's a pu... Oh, they give you scritches. no.
01:26:53
Speaker
Come on. You know, i like the... You know, am i always great hey what say you what you will...
01:27:04
Speaker
but I would definitely say that the world was a better place, not connected to this, but the world was a better place when we were all a little bit more earnest and less cynical, but that shit was tiresome.
01:27:19
Speaker
The Puppery Doggo. Like now that we're all making fun of it in the year 2026,
01:27:25
Speaker
I mean, at the same time, I'd rather be in 2012, I guess. Yeah, I mean, yes. Not to say that that world was perfect either. Yeah. There were, let's say, significant flaws.
01:27:40
Speaker
but but But. But. But. I think I would i would rather i think i would rather live in a world... where people were saying would dog go and pupper and heckin oh that's a heckin good dog 11 out of 10 yeah uh you know honestly too as a data scientist the numbers on that we rate dogs thing make no sense really that true i mean first of all There's some real great inflation on this. I see. I mean, the mean should be way closer to five.
01:28:17
Speaker
And i don't know if I ever saw five. don't know. What kind of dog would you have to have to be a five on? We rate dogs like Muttley from wacky races. Oh, he's great. Oh, no, he's evil.
01:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, but he's an evil dog.
Mutley and Podcast Format Comparison
01:28:31
Speaker
wonderful He wants to see harm done to people. He would wreck cars if he could.
01:28:42
Speaker
I think we've mentioned Mutley before. Oh yeah. Well, I love talking about Mutley. Is this the least we've talked to? No, this is probably not the least we've talked about a game on, on this podcast. Well, we did vamp on the eBay thing for like a good 10 minutes. I feel like, so that was almost like talking about the game. Yeah.
01:28:57
Speaker
i mean, what else does there say about this? I mean, it's, it's an interesting game, but not a good one, you know, got it check it out. which is better. Like the adventure game. Part of it is not particularly good. Yeah.
01:29:10
Speaker
but the like, uh, the, the kind of getting to inhabit disc world, uh, in a, in a, a game that, you know, Terry Pratchett had some involvement in.
Discworld Game Sequels
01:29:24
Speaker
Yeah. Now have you played the sequel? No. um And I hear that the sequel, i've I've heard it was better. If I recall correctly, was it was it Richard when we spoke with him ah what like ah a year ago? he was he was kind of lukewarm. I'm trying to remember where I heard like kind of a, it's ah it's a better game, but it's not a better Discworld game.
01:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, and then I guess ah for most aficionados out there, they would say the third game, Discworld Noir, is the best of the bunch, but it's also notoriously hard to get the PC version running in our modern age.
Discworld Noir and Emulation
01:30:03
Speaker
I, I, yeah, I, when I've looked at people trying to get it running, they, some people just go ahead and it was also, ah ported to the PlayStation. And so they'll just emulate the PlayStation version, but I've heard that Discworld Noir is, is actually excellent.
01:30:23
Speaker
Um, but I, I have never played it. Um, and I'm quite intrigued to, I'll have to, Maybe I'll emulate the the PlayStation version. don't know.
01:30:35
Speaker
Yeah. I'll just play it on my little handheld device. I'll just PlayStation. I bet it looks great on a two-by-two screen or whatever. It's the only way to play adventure games.
01:30:48
Speaker
Well... This has been a lot of fun talking about Discworld. um Thinking about how things... That doesn't work. Did anyone get the number of that donkey cart? um Oh, that's a classic. Yeah, i get that one in there.
01:31:04
Speaker
um But it's fine. It's a game that like...
01:31:12
Speaker
it's one of
American vs. British Discworld Covers
01:31:13
Speaker
those that you look back and it's like, I think people for a while maybe considered this like a undiscovered gem. And I think it's more of a it was curiosity than a, than a gem. I would, I would say probably it's more of a quote undiscovered gem. If you're an American, I'm pretty sure it was yeah very popular in the United Kingdom.
01:31:36
Speaker
Like, yeah. Like, because also, I mean, in 1995,
01:31:42
Speaker
Discworld books were over here, but I think their big push was in the 2000s. Their big American push yeah was the 2000s.
01:31:55
Speaker
the two thousand s Yeah, i would agree. I would agree. They were over here. But I think when you get like the terrible American covers. Awful covers.
01:32:05
Speaker
Those. The ones are all just like generic graphic design. Like it's like this. like Like a little piece of like. It's not clip art, but it's like this little bespoke little.
01:32:17
Speaker
graphic piece like um yeah some sort of icon of what the story's about that is like completely devoid of personality and they they're also too like the
Desire for Re-released Discworld Books
01:32:30
Speaker
because they did publish them in in the u.s like kind of early on and they did have like very lush kind of fantasy art yes and not i think a different artist than the the british artist uh who who did it um and but uh i mean i think those like lousy covers
01:32:59
Speaker
Like those, those lousy covers, I believe that those did sell better. So it was probably better and cannier marketing move, but like at the same time, like, well, I'm like, oh, I want to buy all the Discworld books. There's also a part of me that's like, if I'm going to, you know, buy the Discworld books, I want to buy like the ones with like the good covers.
01:33:24
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder if there's been an American re-release. Like, I need a box set with not ugly covers.
01:33:33
Speaker
I think you gotta buy them on eBay and they're unbelievably expensive. I've already spent all my eBay budget for this month on The Color of Magic. And all the tariffs I'm going to to pay on it. Yeah. Tariffs.
Connecting with Listeners
01:33:47
Speaker
Well, this has been Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. You can always... I hate you. You can always catch up with Jess and I ah on our Twitch streams. I'm PS underscore Garrick. He's Decaf Jedi. You can get the links in the show notes instead of us spelling it out. But yeah, it's right there. You can also join our our Discord or you can send us an email at questquestpodcast at gmail.com.
Teaser: Next Week's Space Quest 4
01:34:11
Speaker
uh and uh you can join us next week whereas i was alluding heavily yes next week uh-huh i'm gonna talk about space quest four
01:34:41
Speaker
Okay, so Jess, this is one of my problems with Space Quest 4. Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers? Yeah. is So one of my problems with Space Quest 4, Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers is that I don't buy the sequels being Space Quest sequels.
01:35:02
Speaker
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. This is, I think, a very fair criticism that gets overlooked by a lot of people who talk about Space Quest 4.
Critique of Space Quest 4's Plot
01:35:12
Speaker
Are you making fun of me?
01:35:13
Speaker
no yeah No. I wasn't sure if that was making fun of her or not. No, no. I was like, are you putting me... Because... Oh, no, this is a really original insight, Ben. Please, no. Please continue. Because I feel like... No, i don't know what you mean. It might be funnier.
01:35:32
Speaker
And, you know, listen, you know, i'm not I'm not going to write the game I would rather it be. It's it's it's it's the game that it is. It's just that I think... Like Latex Babes of Estros is not, it would never be ah Space Quest sequel, even that many iterations.
01:35:52
Speaker
Or if it is one, then we should see the sequel where Space Quest becomes a a series about tracking down like babes on the babe planets.
01:36:04
Speaker
Like, watch how good that would be. You know, like, it's like, we go there and like Roger's like, wait, this is what my future adventures are like. Like I go to the sexy girl planet. This is, you know, like it, it just kind of like, that doesn't feel like a, like a space quest sequel to me. And I want to,
01:36:25
Speaker
Like it is late latex babes of estros is like a ah a parody of a parody. Yeah. And because it's a reference to the source. yeah infocomp game Yeah. Yeah.
01:36:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, what bothers me about it is that it implies maybe that Roger is not a virgin. And i don't know if I want to play that game at that point.