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Episode 72 - No I'm Not A Human & Clock Tower
1.1k Plays19 hours ago
Velcome everyone. Earth is Purgatory!
For our FINAL EPISODE OF SPOOKY MONTH, we start off with a spooky folk story, and then a TON of Next Fest demos! Then we talk about a disturbing horror game about answering your door in the apocalypse, and a game about a naughty boy who runs with scissors.
Games Mentioned:
- No I’m Not a Human
- The Berlin Apartment
- Nighthawks
- Servant of the Lake
- Earth Must Die!
- Séance of Blake Manor
- Perfect Tides: Station to Station
- Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club
- Cult Vacui
- The Dark Rites of Arkham
- The Last Case of John Morley
- Father
- Winter Burrow
- Scholar Adventure: Mystery of Silence
- The Tragedy at Deer Creek
- Papers Please
- Myst
- Clock Tower
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeV
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/saveyourgamepodcast
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Transcript
Nostalgia and Halloween Traditions
00:00:00
Speaker
what do you think about trunk or treat? Um, I think it makes me a little sad. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Why does it make you sad? know why. i know, but I need to. Yeah, but I need to. What if it's different than what it makes me sad about it?
00:00:14
Speaker
Because like, yeah, I grew up in the 90s and like a little bit of ah a small Chicago suburb and used to really love going house to house and there's just something very special about it and I have good memories and wait, wait for it.
00:00:31
Speaker
I have scare nostalgia. Yes, I used it. Yes, I said it. Yes, I made it. It's just my thing. It's the new thing, Scarestalgia. Scarestalgia. Yeah, you know why.
00:00:43
Speaker
the ah The prevalence of the word Scarestalgia on the internet is going to show you your influence.
00:00:51
Speaker
i Guys, put it out there. If it shows up nowhere, then you'll be like, oh, okay. Oh, man. No one likes me. If it shows up everywhere, you'll be like, oh, man, I yeah i should book a TV show.
00:01:04
Speaker
ah So, okay. ah here's Here's the thing. Okay. So, Trunk or Treat bums me out for the same reasons bums you out. It's got, like, the the fun thing about trick-or-treating was there were a couple things, right? One was showing off your costume.
00:01:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which I guess you could still do in Trunk or Treat. You can, yeah. Running around like a wild animal with your friends. Yes. Number three, getting to go up to all the weird like people's houses that you've lived next to forever. And you don't know like who the fuck these people are or what's in their houses. And you get to like peek in and be like, oh, this is how other humans live.
00:01:42
Speaker
This is how they're living, wow. And in Trunk or Treat, you don't get any of that. The way I see Trunk or Treat, it's almost like very – it's like transactional. You know what i mean?
00:01:53
Speaker
is. is ah my god. It's like flea market, isn't it? Yes. I keep thinking – I talked to a friend the other day and i was – what it struck me as is it's one step away from like – in in 30 years there will just be a vending machine you go up to and like your neighbors are required to put candy into it all all all month was gonna say all year all month and then on the 31st on halloween you go up you put a picture of yourself in a costume into the machine it reads it with ai and it's like nice costume and then deposits 300 pieces of candy
00:02:33
Speaker
It's all Necco wafers. that thats That is what Trunk or Treat is setting us down the path towards. But here's the thing, though. yeah Now, people like me, who, frankly, is too old to go trick-or-treating or Trunk or Treating, I feel more comfortable if it was just a cold, vacuous machine staring at me, and I put a picture in of my costume, and it's like, great costume! And then I get like free Necco. I mean, I'm not going to be happy with Necco wafers.
00:03:02
Speaker
But it'll give me something. It'll make me feel accepted. Like I'm not too old. say i no Thanks, I'm kidding. Thanks, AI. really helped improve our Halloween.
00:03:15
Speaker
AI, can't help me place a picture in a Word document, but it can offer me pictures of really weird people with too many feet. This is the real jump scare.
00:03:26
Speaker
That Savior game is pro-AI now. Oh, no! ah
00:04:03
Speaker
Hey, everybody, and welcome to Save Your Game. I am your were-host. Wow. By the full moonlight, I turn into a host of Save Your Game. My name's Matt Aukamp. With me is the vampiric pushing up roses.
00:04:21
Speaker
Hey, Rose. Hello. Welcome. Welcome to my podcast. Welcome, everybody. Welcome.
00:04:31
Speaker
It's not doing the accent at all. Just doing the Welcome. Hey, welcome, everyone. Hey, welcome. Welcome. Welcome. I'm a vampire. i' want to suck your blood. It's the most like Chicago thing I've ever heard. Hey, I want to suck your blood. How how are you doing? i We're nearing the end of spooky season where where i think this comes out like the day before Halloween. Yeah, I can't stand it. I'm so upset right now.
00:05:01
Speaker
Because you don't want Halloween to come. No, I want Halloween to come every day. It's just time is passing and I'm getting older. Are you going to sneak around beating up little kids and taking their bags of candy?
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, of course. That's how you do Halloween, isn't it? That's how I do Halloween. I do love Halloween, but it's being kind of a spooky girl. It's not really any different than what I would do anyway.
00:05:27
Speaker
Except with exception of like pumpkin patches and carving pumpkins. That's very seasonal. ah So i do plan on sculpting a pumpkin this year.
00:05:38
Speaker
so I'll always have it. It'll never die. It'll never die. It'll never die. Is it a jack-o'-lantern pumpkin? Like, are you going to put a little face in it or Yeah. And then you just put it over a candle and it'll be spooky. I just learned the story of of Jack O'Lantern and I told it at a at at a show that I did a lecture at last night.
00:05:58
Speaker
And ah do you want to hear it? Yes, I do. Because now I know it. Okay. Okay, so it was like black... This was ah in just Western Europe, right? And there was a ah blacksmith. I don't know why he had to be a blacksmith, but he was a blacksmith in this story.
00:06:14
Speaker
And he had just robbed a bunch of townspeople. He swindled them out of their money and he was on the run. um They were chasing him through the woods and he runs into the devil.
00:06:28
Speaker
And the devil's like, it's time for me to take your soul, buddy. And he's like, wait, I have an idea. i owe these people. There's bunch people coming down the path. iowa owe them money. hu If you turn into a coin, I will pay them back with it.
00:06:48
Speaker
And then you can bewitch all the townspeople. And the devil's like, all right, cool. That sounds good. i'm And I'll turn into a coin. Turns into a silver coin. Drops into the ah blacksmith's hand.
00:07:00
Speaker
Blacksmith's name's Jack. Drops into Jack's hand. He puts it in his wallet next to a cross. And so the devil's soul is trapped. And so... Jack says to the devil, he was like, all right, man, I gotcha.
00:07:14
Speaker
I will let you go if you promise to never take my soul. So the... Devil says, all right, yeah, you got me fair and square. I'll never take your soul.
00:07:25
Speaker
Takes him out of his wallet. He leaves the coin, whatever. Blacksmith goes on living his life. It's about whatever. A dozen years later, blacksmith dies, goes up to heaven. He's turned away from heaven because obvious reasons, right? He's a lying, thieving, you know, trickster.
00:07:42
Speaker
Yeah. So he goes down to hell. And the devil is like, hey, remember our bargain, man? I can't let you in.
00:07:51
Speaker
So the devil gives him an eternal piece of coal, like an eternally burning piece of coal. And he puts it and Jack puts it in a little turnip that he fashioned into a lantern.
00:08:04
Speaker
And he wanders the earth forever. Nice. Looking for a place to finally rest.
00:08:12
Speaker
that's a So he's in purgatory forever. poison With a turnip. But if you consider Earth purgatory, yeah. Which I do. Yeah.
00:08:23
Speaker
yeah I mean, like, if i if i if I had the inclination to believe in something... in the afterlife you go somewhere good, somewhere bad, or somewhere like purgatory, then yes, I consider roaming the earth forever with a turnip purgatory.
00:08:41
Speaker
Well, you also know jack-o'-lanterns used to be carved out of turnips, right? Yes, I do. They're scary looking. Yes. Well, everything about Halloween used to be way scarier looking because it was all like... Even in the 90s, like our our weird little plastic masks, even those were kind of frightening. Those were freaky.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah. So the story of Jack-o'-lantern is actually very similar to like the story of the Will of the Wisps. Like it is considered in that same mythical cycle. Yeah, that's awesome. Because all the, you know, and interesting that you mentioned purgatory because Will of the Wisps in a lot of cultures are, or Will-o'-Wisps, I always say of the, and i don't know why.
00:09:20
Speaker
lot of people do though. A lot of people say Will of the Wisps. I think there was a Marvel character called Will of the Wisp or something. And that's what stuck it in my head. Or i just learned that Marvel character when I was very little and it made more sense to me to say the. like them It's like the Mandela effect. We just always thought that it was that and it's not.
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So Jack O'Lantern is very similar to and ah lot of the Will-O-Wisp's legends were about stillborn children or children who had never been baptized and died.
00:09:55
Speaker
So which, you know, some Christian faiths, I think specifically the Catholic faith, believes that if you don't get baptized, you land in purgatory.
00:10:07
Speaker
Which, again, as i as I've confirmed, is roaming the earth with a
Video Game Discussions and Impressions
00:10:12
Speaker
glowing turnip. With a glowing turnip. But can I just say, I love the idea of, like, an eternal fire.
00:10:19
Speaker
i think that's badass. It is cool. Well, yeah the fact that it's just an ember, I think, is so is what makes it the coolest, right? Yeah. Yes. There's, like, something romantic about that.
00:10:30
Speaker
There's a little spooky story for everybody's Halloween. You're welcome. Did you play any cool video games this week? No, because I'm obsessed. With? Yes.
00:10:42
Speaker
No, I'm not a human. Yes. I'm obsessed. This isn't even that good of a game. What's wrong with me? i i played No, I'm Not a Human, so maybe we should give it its own mini segment after this before we talk about the game that we're here to talk about.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yes. But if all you have to talk about is that, can I tell you some about some demos? Yeah, good hit me. Hit me with the demos. So Next Fest just ended and I played a bunch of demos.
00:11:11
Speaker
um I'll start by telling you about some demos that i didn't and demos that I didn't play because I know I'm going to play. the like I know the games are going to be good and I know I'm going to play the games. So I didn't want to The Berlin apartment looks really cool.
00:11:28
Speaker
So the Berlin apartment is like a three d ah first person, really stylized little, it seems like it's going to be a narrative game. ah And it's really, it looks really cozy and interesting.
00:11:43
Speaker
I was just going to say, this looks real cute. ah The other, another demo I didn't play was Nighthawks. It's the new Wajidai game, but developed by a company called the ah Curiosity Engine.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yeah. and i know like I know the dev for that one. Oh. thought that was out already. Well, that's where my brain is Nowhere. It's like a visual novel Yeah.
00:12:09
Speaker
So and it's about vampires, about a vampire nightclub. So that's kind of cool. um Servant of the Lake is the new Rusty Lake game. I don't I don't know why you'd want to play us a Rusty Lake game demo when those games are so short already.
00:12:24
Speaker
but Sure. But I felt that way about Duck Detective. I'm like, why am I even playing this? Yeah, yeah. Okay, Earth Must Die was part of Next Fest. So Earth Must Die is the new Ben and Dan game. um Yeah, yes, that looks insane.
00:12:40
Speaker
It looks like amazingly animated. It's got an incredible voice cast. It looks super fucking funny. It looks like the Venture Brothers. It really does.
00:12:52
Speaker
Like, it looks like it could be, it's that high quality. It looks like it could be just an Adult Swim animated series. It looks like you play, it looks like a kind of like cross between sci-fi and fantasy and you play the villain, I think is what what this game looks like to me.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah. But I'm not to play the demo because I'm going to play the whole fucking game and it's going roll. hear that. Yeah, I hear that. And Seance of Blake Manor. um i I didn't want to play the demo because I'm going to play the game. and Yeah.
00:13:22
Speaker
Kind of thought we'd get codes for it, but it's okay. I'm still going to play the game and I'm still going to love it. So those are the games. So that that's that's the quick ones that I want to do, that the games that I didn't play. Oh, and Perfect Tide Station to Station. I played that that demo a long time ago. So if it's a new demo, I don't want to play it. I want to play the whole game.
00:13:39
Speaker
ah Wait, wait, wait. Did you know that there's a Snoopy game that just came out? I love Snoopy. I was like be vaguely aware of this.
00:13:50
Speaker
Snoopy! Should we do a Snoopy? Snoopy and the Great Mystery Club? What? It's an adventure game! Should we do an episode on the Snoopy game? Yes! It seems like it's a casual adventure game. Like it's all mini games and mini puzzles.
00:14:05
Speaker
I don't care! It's cute! love Snoopy. Alright, here's the games I did play. Uh-huh. I'll just pick a few. i don't want to... I played a bunch, but... Okay.
00:14:18
Speaker
Cult Vacuai. Oh, did you? Okay, I'm super interested. it is a It is a really interesting pixelarty adventure game.
00:14:29
Speaker
It's first person, and in the the demo is its own little self-contained adventure. There's a beginning and the middle ah and an end to this demo. So I'm glad I played it, even if it's going to be part of the game.
00:14:42
Speaker
um You are possessed by a demon at the beginning of this game. And You have to, you're you're renting a room in an inn and you kind of have to go through instructions on how to perform a ritual to banish this demon.
00:14:59
Speaker
And you have to do it. You have to find all the pieces and then do it exactly correct. And there's two endings. One where you do it correct and one where you don't. Okay. And it's timed. Every action you do oh no has a time limit because you are racing this demon to for control of your own body oh man time time restraints fuck me up man yeah each so if the time doesn't continuously tick down it is every action you do takes a piece of time so that makes me a little worried for the full game if that's going to be the case for say ah five hour game i don't know how i'm gonna love it but in a
00:15:42
Speaker
you know, 10 minute den demo. It was amazing. Oh, nice. Great. really, really liked it. It looks really great.
00:15:52
Speaker
Honestly, it's it's that kind of vibe, you know? Yes. Yes, absolutely. um All right. I played the new Postmodern Adventures demo.
00:16:03
Speaker
They are the ones who did an English haunting and nightmare frames. Oh, I'm so excited. they did They're doing a game called The Dark Rites of Arkham, which seems to be a, you know, Lovecraftian. Again?
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, I know. A Lovecraftian story, ah but a very direct Lovecraftian story. Okay. it's like it's it's um Like it's adapted or something. You're right in the world. You're right in Arkham.
00:16:29
Speaker
And you play ah a cop who is investigating... I can't remember at the beginning of the demo what you're investigating. I think maybe um you're investigating something.
00:16:40
Speaker
You go to find your witness. He's ah strung out on heroin. And while you're dealing with that, you notice just kind of like a smell. And you break into the apartment next door and there is a man on the floor missing his head.
00:16:57
Speaker
hate when that happens. of a In the middle of a decorated pentagram. So you're just sort of walking around his room trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle and try to understand what the fuck happened here as a detective.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah. It's really good. Really good. It's the same sort of pixel art as their other games. it's I mean, if you like the postmodern adventure games so far, this one fits right in.
00:17:25
Speaker
I'm really stoked for it. Yeah. I played a demo called The Last Case of John Morley. I was really unimpressed with the first five minutes of this. okay You wake up as a detective in a hospital bed.
00:17:40
Speaker
um it seems to be like 1930s or 40s or whatever. And it's kind of like a cross between horror and noir. Yeah. it Also, it kind kind of looks like LA Noire, actually. as well Yeah, yeah. I don't know if it stays looking like that, but that's just the immediate vibe that I picked up.
00:18:00
Speaker
So here's what I liked about it. so this the first like five minutes of this demo so kind of suck. You're just kind of getting up out of bed, and you're getting dressed, and you're talking to some people, and you can't skip the dialogue, and it's really annoying. And the dialogue's not that great, and it just it just seems like the start of any sort of detective game.
00:18:18
Speaker
But... As soon as you go so you take a case and you go to investigate, you're in a haunted house. And you're stuck in the haunted house. And you are both solving basically like haunted house escape room style mysteries, like puzzles, while trying to piece together bits of a mystery.
00:18:41
Speaker
And the way you do that is you'll find some sort of clue and then the John Morley will start to...
00:18:50
Speaker
recreate the scene in his mind as like these like green ghostly figures around the room and you have to kind of like follow them around the room and find each clue and sort of recreate what he thinks happened um but yeah again in but in the in between these things there's like escape room style puzzles like turn turning statues or solving a little pattern logical puzzle yeah but environmental okay not like You click on a table and suddenly you have to do ah
00:19:23
Speaker
i know you have to do a slider puzzle. Like Seventh Guest. And then the table opens. Three spiders have appeared and we need to get them to each from point A to point B. Exactly. It's not like that. It's more like like the puzzles in the room.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. um So that was really that was really cool. That was called The Last Case of John Morley. It looks good. What should do? I'll do three more. Okay. One was a game called Father. Okay. which is another... It's by Wetbox Team.
00:19:52
Speaker
It's another one of these sort of low-res PS1-style graphics. Yes, it is. um And it's sort of... all right, you start playing, and it is exactly the premise of The Witch, The Witch, The Witch with two Vs, that movie.
00:20:08
Speaker
I love that movie. You are... Like an old timey family who has gone out into the woods because the father of the house, the patriarch, wants to take everybody away from the sin of the city and the the be the the the modern life.
00:20:28
Speaker
And so you're trying to bring your kids up, but there's something sort of nefarious happening in the woods around you. Yeah. Yeah. So again very the witch vibes. And there's a goat or goats, plural.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yes. ah And also very sort of Indica vibes. You keep dropping into these dream sequences that are weirdly modern. Okay. and you And they're very
00:20:59
Speaker
kind Also kind of like mouthwashing in that way. Like you kind of just you're going from real life stuff into really surrealistic ah symbolic scenes.
00:21:10
Speaker
I think we could also say maybe body horror. Huh. I mean, I used in I'm going to be having a mouthwashing review coming up, and I did refer to some of those things as body horror, even though they are surreal.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure that there was body horror. There was some horrific imagery, but I'm not i'm not sure. i can't really remember any body horror besides just sometimes your family has goat heads. Well, that's weird.
00:21:35
Speaker
But there is a twist at the end of this demo that's pretty fucking mind-blowing, and it makes all the weird disjointed shit you experience up till then, it suddenly makes it make sense.
00:21:53
Speaker
Oh, cool. And so, yeah, so i get i get very Indica vibes from this. And I'm i'm really really excited for Father. i think it's going to be a really interesting experience.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah. um My last two. ah One's a game that I think you would really like. Okay. It's a cozy farming sim. Okay. Called Winter Burrow.
00:22:16
Speaker
ah winter That sounds familiar. Probably because you told me about it. I did tell you about it. I did tell you about it when as played the demo. This looks so cute. It's a story-based little farming sim where it's very like hand-drawn illustrations and you are a little mouse.
00:22:36
Speaker
I don't know that they're hand-drawn. They look hand-drawn. um They look incredible. It looks like a ah proper like English children's book. Storybook. Yeah, exactly. and Incredible. And are, your family ah sort of left their farm in the woods to go to the big city, and they struck out hard in the big city. So you alone, after your parents, I think, pass, are returning here to rebuild the farm.
00:23:07
Speaker
And... It felt really good. I don't know. You're just a mouse running around shopping stuff and talking to your aunt who still lives in the in the woods and ah building furniture in your house and building yourself clothes. One of the things that it adds is like there's a cold meter because you're it's like in the middle of winter. It's called winter burrow.
00:23:30
Speaker
So you have to make sure you keep yourself warm so you can only stay outside for a certain length of time. You can't really stay outside at night for very long at all. Okay. Okay. It's really good. It's supposed to come out November 12th.
00:23:42
Speaker
I'm just like, I'm actually quite enamored by I'm on the Steam page, obviously, and I'm quite enamored by the aesthetic. Like when we say illustrative, this is this is what I mean by like an illustrative look.
00:23:57
Speaker
Like it really. do you Do you know that the cartoon like Rupert? Yes. Yes. It's got a Rupert kind of feel. It's, it's, it does. It's, ah, okay. Sorry. I'm getting kidding cute aggression over a video game.
00:24:13
Speaker
All right. The last one I'll talk about is, uh, by developers, iOS Trujillo and making enemies. Okay. Um, It's called, it's shitty name. It's called Scholar Adventure Mystery of Silence. Oh, Jesus Christ.
00:24:28
Speaker
okay Scholar Adventure. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. Mystery of Silence. This actually, i did see. Okay. A friend of the show, Yakwax Lips, did a trailer talk on some of these.
00:24:40
Speaker
Okay. He did feature, did he feature this one? No. No, he didn't. Sorry. Pivoting. I brought this up because I thought this would be a good thing to do. And maybe you can confirm a little, like a little, maybe let's play demo on. Cause I thought it looked really good. I don't think it's voiced.
00:24:56
Speaker
Right. Correct. Okay. Do you think that's a good idea? Yeah. Yes. i think I think it's great. I, it is, it is a very self-contained, a little puzzle game. Um, the, the, the puzzles aren't logical, but they're not hard either.
00:25:11
Speaker
It's sort of like, um, Oh, I see this thing is shaped like this thing. oh I think I saw something shaped like that out in the hallway. Let me go get it and let me plug it into here. Oh, it opens up a secret passage. Oh, down the secret passage.
00:25:24
Speaker
There's like, you know, that kind of stuff. um So again, it's like not not logical, but makes still makes sense. um And you yeah anyway, you are a writer who comes to an abbey in search of...
00:25:44
Speaker
You're like inspiration for your new novel. And you're a little insufferable. You keep kind of stopping and soliloquizing and stuff. And it's very funny. and But all the monks in the Abbey are completely dead silent.
00:25:58
Speaker
They won't talk at supposed to be, right? Not in all. Okay. but yeah like but There are places where monks take a power of silence. Absolutely. So nobody here will talk.
00:26:10
Speaker
um But you begin to realize there's something... sinister going on here yeah and um i won't say where or how but you come across a message that says help us interesting oh it's giving it's giving like last door vibes like do you remember that part in in the last door where we're at it is like a it's like a an abbey um and it's like weird and ever all the nuns are weird
00:26:42
Speaker
and there's Right, yeah. That's what it's giving to me. So this demo is cool. It's very circular. It's like yeah it's very tight. You know, you, through a series of puzzles, you big kind of end up back where you start, but with a lot more knowledge about what might be like, about about the fact that there's a mystery here.
00:27:06
Speaker
Do you know what i mean? Yeah, yeah. so that was That's really fun for a demo, right? to To feel like you had a complete revolution. like To feel like you went one one circle around the sun.
00:27:20
Speaker
um feels like that's what feels I think that feels really good in a de a demo. not ah not a demo where you're just kind of solving puzzles until it's like, all right, buy the game. But a demo where you feel like you got a little ah singular act of the story.
00:27:35
Speaker
I like that. Yeah. That is how this one felt. That's also felt. That's also how ah Dark Rites of Arkham felt. So this one's called Scholar Adventure Mystery of Silence. Yeah, I'm not calling it that. I'm only going to call it Mystery of Science. Sorry.
00:27:50
Speaker
what ah What are these long titles? Stop it. I don't know if they have like, I don't know if they're like, oh, we're going to do a whole series of Scholar Adventures and this is number one. Yeah, maybe.
00:28:01
Speaker
But. scholar it's like man stop it stop sorry that's what i played for next fest there's a couple more that you can find if you go to find me on mad all camp on blue sky um i made a thread of it so you'll see all these games and some more um especially something like the metroidvanias i played that don't really fit as much in this game but never stopped you before no but But if I'm talking about 10, 15 demos, yeah i got to pick and choose.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, I hear you. and no i'm I'm actually really glad to hear that you played Mystery of Silence. Like I said, it was one that me and Yakback Slips considered maybe showcasing.
00:28:43
Speaker
ah So I'm so glad you liked it because i'm like, oh, no, I asked the opinion and now it's all going to go to crap. Shit, I do have one more that I just have to tell you about. Okay, okay, go ahead.
00:28:53
Speaker
It's a first person point and click style. um you you play a photographer who's trying to document the happenings at an old uh i think logging camp called deer creek that was abandoned and something happened here you don't really know what um and it's very logical sensical puzzles right like oh uh i gotta get across this lake i gotta knock this tree down oh i think i saw an axe back in the shack that i just photographed i gotta go back to the shack and oh the axe is dull so i gotta figure out how to sharpen it like that kind of stuff right yeah um very very logical puzzles but um
00:29:45
Speaker
Also, at the same time, you're sort of finding pieces of this deeper mystery and putting them together. Okay. And seems really cool.
00:29:56
Speaker
It's called The Tragedy at Deer Creek, and it was spooky. I mean, it was ah it was spooky because you're in this abandoned thing. There's a couple little jump scares. Like, maybe there's something to hear with you, and you are in a perpetual night because it is...
00:30:12
Speaker
That is scary. Honestly, yeah It is in the like very north, so morning doesn't come. Yeah. and you are also in the snow and the cold.
00:30:25
Speaker
Yes. Really. Very, very shining-esque. It's cool and spooky, and I liked it. It looks great. Now I'm done really lovely. But i chose I'm most excited about Winterboro, though. but It's like that time of the year.
00:30:40
Speaker
huh I'll probably pick up the demo and then like play it like on the way to the holiday season, because that's what it's... oh man. Yeah, it's like a Thanksgiving-y game, kind of. Yeah, it's like it reminds me of the holidays.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:56
Speaker
So excited. Yeah, there's a couple. There's other games that I kind of wanted to play. I didn't really get the time. Sure. So if you didn't hear your demo mentioned, I'm sorry.
00:31:07
Speaker
We're sorry. We're sorry. We can't play all the games, but we try. or at least Matt tries. I don't try as hard. I try so hard. But Matt really tries. he he he He loves you guys.
00:31:21
Speaker
but I love you guys, and I want you guys to all. ah i want I want the listeners to know what's good. Hell yeah. All right, so if that's it, do you want to play a quick batty mummerino and come back and let's talk about No, I'm Not Human?
Halloween-themed Podcast Introduction
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah. I thought you were going to say Clock Tower, I forgot.
00:31:48
Speaker
That'll be our longer one. we We have a mini one and a long one. We just, yeah, totally fair. Incommerino.
00:32:14
Speaker
everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. I am the very spooky, scaristalgic, trash gremlin, pushing up roses. With me, very special boy, callback, callback to our first few yeah you episodes. Very special boy, good jumper,
00:32:33
Speaker
Thank you. Adequate runner. Matt Offcamp. Hey. What's up?
00:32:41
Speaker
Nothing. You ready to talk about games again? Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of what we do here. i i do want to talk about something just really quick because we discovered it during the break.
00:32:54
Speaker
ah There's some so like bullshit kind of controversy with Winterboro. It's by a developer called Pine Creek Games that I guess has something to do with something called Sweet Baby Ink.
00:33:09
Speaker
And it seems like Sweet Baby Ink is something that gets like
00:33:15
Speaker
cancel's something about getting canceled for diversity for diversity's sake and like, you know, GamerGator shit. So... oh buy Winterboro and support the fuck out of it. Fuck whatever that controversy is. Like, it's ridiculous. Yeah, that sounds insane.
Gaming Diversity and Indie Themes
00:33:31
Speaker
No, I'm going to play this game.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. There are people... there are yeah Listen, listen. Did the dev kill someone?
00:33:40
Speaker
Is the dev like J.K. They killed ethics in video game development. No, no, no, no, no. Did the dev... Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know. No, it's it's ridiculous. Yeah, it is just the dev...
00:33:53
Speaker
made comments online about how ah how much of gaming culture is toxic and misogynistic. And people are like, never buy anything from them again. don't even know if it's the dev. I don't know if it's just like somebody from... Because it seems like people have this list of something they call sweet baby ink games.
00:34:13
Speaker
If somebody wants to write us an email explaining this, I'll read it. I don't fucking understand. All I'm saying is... Seems like they rule. Buy Winterboro. Support Winterboro.
00:34:24
Speaker
This game looks really great. Also, I'm just going to say this, and people already know i feel this way. There is a lot of toxicity in gaming. yeah I still love i games. I talk about them.
00:34:35
Speaker
I talk about adventure games. I play them. But come on. Let's be real. It's why I stopped reviewing games on my YouTube channel. It's because not that toxic.
00:34:47
Speaker
Well, we have to make the distinction between uppercase and lowercase g gamers. Yeah, I know. You guys know what we're talking about. We're lowercase job we're lowercaseg gamers. g gamers.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah. We hate uppercase g gamers. Correct. This is like a passion and an art and like ah a ah great joy of mine. I'm going to take that back. We don't hate uppercase g gamers. I think we, but.
00:35:11
Speaker
I'm concerned about uppercase a lot of toxicity that I don't wanna of uppercase G gamers because there's so much toxicity in that world. I don't either.
00:35:22
Speaker
I want to bring joy and snark and artistry. Yeah. Into my conversations about video games and everyone else can just go away.
00:35:34
Speaker
So support winter borough is what I'm saying. If you, if you, if you think it's going to be cool, buy it. And if you buy it and play it, review it and give it a good review because people are going to review bomb it and people are going to do crazy shit to it. So just like,
00:35:48
Speaker
and If you don't think it's for you, don't worry about this. But if you think it's for you, do do all you can to support it. yeah Because people stood shouldn't still be having to put up with this shit.
00:36:01
Speaker
It's insane. Yeah. No, agree. So, anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about, is it, Roses? It's not. Oh, I guess it was. All right. Bye, everyone.
00:36:12
Speaker
I'll complain. No. ah We are here to talk about... Primarily one adventure game, but we do want to showcase an adventure game that I got particularly interested in especially after playing mouthwashing and finding the publisher Critical Reflex.
00:36:29
Speaker
It's going what I would call viral right now, and that's called No, I'm Not Human. It is a psychological horror game and that is Similar to Papers, Please, and everybody and their brother and there're so and in streamers and Let's Players, they are playing it. You can find video on video on video about No, I'm Not Human.
00:36:49
Speaker
I think it's fascinating. And what's really interesting is it's not that like technologically good of a game. I don't mean that. And I don't even mean that as as an insult. It's just not. It is not the most technically profound game you're ever going to play.
00:37:07
Speaker
But it is fascinating and um ah almost like ah addictive in quality. it's It's by a developer called Trioskas. And it is a very there's There's a big similarity
00:37:29
Speaker
to there's ah to papers please in which you are a person in like a the the final days of civilization it seems if something's happened to the sun where the world is heating up and from below the earth have come these things called visitors that sort of mimic humans and Your neighbor comes, warns you about it, and then is like every night, like there will be survivors. will be humans out trying to survive, and they're looking for houses to stay.
00:38:09
Speaker
And so throughout the night, you'll get knocks on your door, and you have to decide. Is this person a human or are they not a human? There's some other weird little mechanics like there's a day and night cycle.
00:38:24
Speaker
During the day, you get to go sort of talk to the people in your house and test them. People that you've let in, you get to like perform tests on them. And if you decide that they are not human, you can shoot them in the head.
00:38:36
Speaker
ah um Another thing is if you don't have anybody in your house, there is a special visitor that can come and he'll ask you if you're alone.
00:38:51
Speaker
And if you are, if you are alone, he'll burst in and kill you. yeah um So you don't ever want to be alone. That's like a thing you have to control for in this game is even if, even if the only person in your house is another visitor that keeps you from getting killed. Correct. Yeah.
00:39:08
Speaker
And you kind of know you you know you have a visitor in your house because that visitor will kill other people that are staying and If you have a visitor in your house, more often than not, when you wake up in the morning, somebody bud else in your house is dead.
00:39:23
Speaker
Yeah. The other thing is that the FEMA is wandering around in hazmat suits and... trying to get this thing under control, but they keep abducting people from your house and not returning them. So you get the sense that maybe FEMA is also not the good guys here.
00:39:41
Speaker
There are a couple people who knock on your door who will always be in every every playthrough of the game, will always be visitors, couple people who will always be human, but a lot of the rest is randomized. Right, yes.
00:39:56
Speaker
And... There's several endings. that's That's about it for how like the very the basic premise of this game. Yeah. And and like I think we're making it sound fairly simple. And it is.
00:40:08
Speaker
In mechanic, it is. But there's like something about it, much in the way there was something about mouthwashing, that I feel compelled to just keep playing and keep checking and getting this little rhythm going of...
00:40:25
Speaker
How can I get a good ending? By which there are, much like a lot of these games, there's a lot of bad endings and one less bad ending. You know what I mean? i have only gotten bad endings in this game. Yeah, it's easy to get a bad ending, that's for sure. I am no good at this game. So there's, you know, the one way that you can tell, they'll say weird things, but so will all the humans.
00:40:48
Speaker
All the humans say weird things. Yep, they're weird too. Yep. And then you can... perform only a limited number of tests per day. Yeah. So you have five people in your house and you only have three tests.
00:41:01
Speaker
Yeah. It's like your energy meter. Like testing people takes up energy. Even though the tests are like, show me your teeth. Your tummy that took up all of your energy, sir?
00:41:13
Speaker
No. And those aren't easy either, right? Like there's a red, like there's one is like visitors will have red eyes, will have like bloodshot eyes. And there's a difference between somebody having bloodshot eyes and just kind of reddish eyes.
00:41:26
Speaker
yeah And like, so that'll fuck you up. And then another one is that they have perfect teeth. But then you look at some people and you're like, I don't know. Are those teeth perfect or not? you can't fucking tell. Yeah. and Yeah. It's hard. It's actually pretty challenging.
00:41:38
Speaker
I'm terrible at this game. I played it all the way through twice and I got the same ending both times. The first game, I think I did worse because I also kept having these horrible nightmares.
00:41:49
Speaker
And I get get the sense that you have more nightmares, the more visitors are in your house. The more you fail, the more nightmares you have. Because I was doing a lot better the second time. Nobody was dying. In the middle of the night.
00:42:01
Speaker
Nobody died in the middle of the night at all. Okay. throughou Throughout the whole playthrough. Wow. But somehow, still at the end, had a visitor in my house. Amazing. Which learned by getting the bad ending.
00:42:13
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, that fucking sucks. did But there is one good thing. There's a cat. There's a very cute, well, cute? Cute? Question mark? Weird. Okay, weird looking cat that I just in love with.
00:42:28
Speaker
But the person who brings you the cat is probably the weirdest person in the entire game. yeah And I don't. So weird. And I think she's not a human, but I don't know.
00:42:41
Speaker
She's not. Yeah. That's well known. That's pretty well known. But the at the same time, it's really interesting. As a visitor, she seems know that. Yeah. And she brings you this cat to almost help you out while acknowledging that I... i ah Why aren't you killing me? I am a visitor. It's okay.
00:43:01
Speaker
I accept it. That's what I took away from that. So it's that the idea of the visitors okay are interesting because they don't necessarily have malintention. It just kind of is what it is is. That's what they turned into and they can either lean into it or bring you a cat.
00:43:19
Speaker
Interesting. So you have this feeling that the visitors... Well, that the visitors aren't exclusively evil. Correct. I think they'll still kill because they are they are programmed to do that.
00:43:32
Speaker
But I also think some are aware, ah but especially that character, is aware that they are a visitor and their life is not going to be so great. Yeah.
00:43:44
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. The game's just... It's just hard. I think you have to develop a strategy and I never really developed like ah a good strategy because I think if you're just trying to go based on instinct, if you're trying to go based on intellect, like, okay, I can suss this out. I can deduce who's human and who's not.
00:44:05
Speaker
You can't. You can't. I think you have to have a strategy and that strategy has to be based around using your few tests per day correct in the right ways. Correct.
00:44:17
Speaker
we should like play We should stream it and play it together. Maybe. Yeah, that'd So noggins are better than one unless we super fuck it up worse. Yeah, I think so. I'd like to see some more endings. And this game doesn't take very long to play. No, its it doesn't. the The replayability is pretty good, but it's a pretty short, you know, set time game.
00:44:36
Speaker
I think I went a little faster than I should have. Okay. Because I didn't know how long it was going to be. And also... i We pushed back this recording, so I played it first on a day that we were recording, and so was trying to get through it.
00:44:49
Speaker
ah but Okay. So I played it pretty fast, and then the second time I played it was after I knew we weren't recording that day, so I had a little more time, but still, that i like there's enough... ah A lot of stuff doesn't repeat, but there was enough that repeats.
00:45:04
Speaker
Right. That I was like, oh, I want to see what happens when I get to this part. Yeah. And so I also played it really fast. Okay. Anyway, so... Each of those playthroughs was about an hour.
00:45:15
Speaker
I think. Oh, that's really short. Yeah. I think you expect to, if you're not rushing, take about 90 minutes to two hours to play this game.
00:45:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. And expect to play it three to five times, I guess. Yeah. I also watched all of these like video essays on it because I'm like, I want to know more about the lore.
00:45:40
Speaker
Yeah. There's like, there's clearly the the metaphors here are clearly just like the environmentalism, right? Like the, like an environmental disaster leading to the end of humanity. And when,
00:45:53
Speaker
um When those sorts of disasters happen, it starts to erode humans' trust in one another. But that metaphor doesn't totally hold up because literally you can't trust some of these people.
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah. I think also, ah you know, discrimination is a big part of it. It's like we've got these big – these news outlets telling us – what to look for in a person it seems very discriminatory, right? Yeah.
00:46:19
Speaker
Especially when things are so random and you don't really know. Like, yeah, okay, so someone has bad teeth. We can't just discriminate against someone just because of their teeth. That's insane. Yes.
00:46:30
Speaker
So though, again, um not a perfect metaphor because you have to do that to win the game, right? So like, um so yeah, I think you're right. And Also, this idea of like the government isn't always your friend.
00:46:45
Speaker
oh yeah. So that's a big one. these themes are there. But I don't think there's a solid metaphor that holds up to scrutiny in this game. Yeah. um Because every point that it's making, the gameplay kind of undermines.
00:47:03
Speaker
Which is fine, right? like that doesn't That doesn't make it a bad piece of art. It's just it just it's just something to keep in mind. I kind of played it as though like my character also wasn't ah like the perfect person, like a good, solid person. So the the theme of discriminating kind of made sense to me.
00:47:26
Speaker
also considered that I might be a visitor. You can do self tests on yourself. Yeah. ah So, like, it's kind of like when we were playing Jimmy in Mouthwashing. Like, we're not playing the best characters, so the themes make a little bit more sense.
00:47:39
Speaker
Would this make sense if we played Anya? Probably not. ah But, like, and I don't know that for sure. The character is kind of what you make of it. Maybe he is a good guy, but, like, I was kind of like, yeah, guy doesn't seem...
00:47:53
Speaker
Maybe it's meant to show that we also discriminate or we're forced to discriminate under pressure. So, yeah, but it it is mostly, i think, more leaning on the side of of just horror, you know, to be to have a frightening, yeah a frightening premise.
00:48:10
Speaker
And all the, you know, all the characters are.
00:48:17
Speaker
Scary looking. there Yeah, i like I like it, personally. I think it's it's a cool, um disturbing style. Something's not quite right with these people's faces.
00:48:31
Speaker
So, that's No, I'm Not a Human. It's a interesting little horror game. It'll push your brain in some interesting ways. It'll make you think about it. Again, even if...
00:48:42
Speaker
They don't hold up to scrutiny. It'll at least make you think about these themes. Yeah. And that's important. There's also some mysteries in the game that I don't know if certain playthroughs you can solve them.
00:48:55
Speaker
But there are some. I ended this game with a lot of questions. For example, you can never look out of your bedroom window. Yeah, that's true. If you click.
00:49:07
Speaker
on your bedroom window you can look out of every window and usually the story of the world is developing outside your window if you click on your bedroom window he says something like um i'm not looking that way ever again yeah i don't look that way anymore i don't look that way anymore yes yes and i never i never gained any understanding about what the hell that meant yeah i did not either there's got to be something more to that yeah you're right I assume it has something to do with like the characters.
00:49:38
Speaker
The character implies that he has a traumatic upbringing with his father. Okay. So maybe something outside happened to him. And now he doesn't want to look out the window. And he lives alone.
00:49:49
Speaker
i don't know if that's supposed to tell us something. Yeah. Yeah. um He's got a pretty a fairly big house for a guy who lives all
Classic Horror Game: Clock Tower
00:49:56
Speaker
alone. That's true. A couple things I hated about this game. Didn't hate.
00:50:01
Speaker
couple things I didn't like. couple things that frustrated me consistently. Number one was the ambiguity in some of these tests. Sure. The game felt hard in an unfair way sometimes. yeah Which anytime a game feels unfair, it's frustrating. yeah even if it's Even if that's part of the point, I always feel frustrating.
00:50:22
Speaker
Another thing that felt frustrating to me is sometimes when somebody comes to your door, you can have a human in your house.
00:50:35
Speaker
And need one to invite somebody else in who also is a human. And they will kick out a person who is in the spot that they normally.
00:50:47
Speaker
Oh, that's right. That they normally occupy. so Yes. There's like four rooms in the house where you're your guests will hang out. And they'll hang out in specific spots. Like, oh, this guy always sits on the left side of the couch anytime you invite him in your house. Or this person always sits at the kitchen table.
00:51:06
Speaker
If you try to invite somebody in that normally sits at the kitchen table, they'll say, i don't like the look of that guy. i won't come in here unless he's unless you kick him out. And you have to kick him out. Or let's set the person in. But because the game is randomized to an extent, sometimes that's a human kicking out a human.
00:51:22
Speaker
So you can't do this perfectly. And that's frustrating. Yeah. Which I'm sure is by design you know to be to add that little extra hint of frustration or difficulty.
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. and seems There are a lot of things in this game that seem designed to specifically frustrate you. Yeah. and And I don't love that. but Yeah, no, I hear that.
00:51:46
Speaker
All right, well, that's that's no, I'm not a human. um do you have any other thoughts? No, I don't think so. I do recommend it, though. Me too. Yeah, no, absolutely I do. And if you don't want to play it yourself, check us check us out on ah on Twitch.
00:52:01
Speaker
we'll play we me and Me and Roses will play it sometime, probably in this upcoming week. It'll be hilarious. i i' it'll it'll It'll bring back memories of when we tried to play Myst together and i so I tried like five times to scale an unscalable wall.
00:52:18
Speaker
Yes. but the And the last time I did it, I looked over at you and you're just like, ah
00:52:25
Speaker
I was being very patient. Look, in my defense, I should have been able to scale that wall. That's all i'm going to say about that. All right.
00:52:38
Speaker
Why don't we put on Sizzy Manorino and we'll come back and talk about Clocktower. All right. Let's talk about Clocktower. Yeah.
00:53:08
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to Save Your Game for the final segment of Spooky Month! Aww. What the heck? Aww. ah It's over.
00:53:20
Speaker
Yeah, i but how does a horror a horror movie usually ends with either everybody dying, or... Or like the final girl. I could be the final girl. But can can I be ah the final girl's...
00:53:33
Speaker
Sometimes she pulls like the least problematic man out of the situation. and he's like, he's like bleeding and he's like half dead. But she's like, I got you.
00:53:45
Speaker
It's one of those things where like you thought he was dead, like in Scream, but he's not. He's not dead. Right. And the audience is like, yay, non-problematic king. So either I show up and I bash the bad guy in the head right before right you're about to get killed by him or you discover me and you're like, he's still alive. I can get him out of here. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:08
Speaker
No, I'm just going to leave you actually. Hey. I'm women. i don't really need i don't really need a big old man. So you just take care of yourself. ah See ya. You're such a strong woman. You want all other men to die in a horror scenario.
00:54:28
Speaker
It's not just you don't need a man. It's you will you like to watch them. I'll actively suffer. Yeah. Actively suffer. Yeah. I'll be final girl and you can be non-problematic king. All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. So.
00:54:41
Speaker
As the final two survivors of this, ah the massacre of, of save your game spooky months. We want to talk to you guys about a game that was released way back.
00:54:55
Speaker
in the year The year 1995. Bill Clinton is president. the The O.J. Simpson murder trial is beginning. yeah um did so It's... Oh, Microsoft released Windows 95.
00:55:17
Speaker
That's pretty good. So we finally have the little start menu down in the corner. ah Calvin and Hobbes ends. Oh. Pocahontas came out.
00:55:30
Speaker
Pocahontas anyone? Pocahontas. No? Okay. Pocahontas is out. So put yourself back in that world and but sit your seat yourself down in front of a super Famicom.
00:55:43
Speaker
ah Basically an SNES. But... This is the Japan version. Yeah. and Human Entertainment with director Hifumi Kono makes a slasher point and click game that you play on a console.
00:56:02
Speaker
You know this place takes place in Norway? ah Yeah, I think I did know that. Yeah. What the fuck? The fuck? Why does it take place in Norway? Why is this in Norway?
00:56:13
Speaker
know. I don't think there's any particular reason for it. It doesn't really... This is a closed circle game. You don't really go outside much. Yeah, i mean, like, it was developed in Japan. Yeah. The biggest videogo video game market at the time, I think, was the US. Yeah.
00:56:29
Speaker
You'd think it would have taken place... could it This game easily could have taken place in Japan or the US, like, super easily. Do you think, they're just like, Norway is like, exotic to other countries,
00:56:40
Speaker
I mean, it's it's Norway, but maybe, maybe. There's absolutely nothing in this game that signifies this is Norway. does not. Or that it to be Norway. You're just stuck in an orphanage the whole time. That's so funny.
00:56:57
Speaker
So tell us tell us what the plot of... Well, okay. No. First, I want to tell you to tell us about how you discovered Clock Tower. Oh, good Lord. So I discovered Clocktower. ah think I was like an adolescent. I might have been in my either like late preteens or early teens.
00:57:13
Speaker
Yeah. So in the grips of puberty.
00:57:19
Speaker
Or maybe even like, I'm trying to remember. Like I tried to time. think I was like 14. let's Let's place me at 14. Because I did play this like on a computer emulating it. I found it.
00:57:31
Speaker
probably. Huh? You're a 14 year old emulator. Absolutely. That's me. I was very unpopular. Anyway. I think I, you know, honestly, I think I was playing Pokemon emulated at this time, but I don't know that I would have known how to do super famicom games from Japan.
00:57:52
Speaker
i used something and you know what? I probably found it. Like on Home of the Underdogs or a bandone something. Yeah. Because it looks... It's a point-and-click adventure game.
00:58:03
Speaker
It has that look about it. I was very drawn to it. Unfortunately, ah poor adolescent Roses was afraid of everything. Everything. This is the first game that truly, truly scared me. Okay.
00:58:18
Speaker
I was so frightened. I had never... I had like watched my brother play Alone in the Dark, but it's different when you're watching a game versus actually interacting with a game. Yeah, because you're not getting like, but something's chasing me. Fuck.
00:58:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yes. So i was so I had never personally played a game that was like survival horror where you could go into a room and there might be ah the enemy there. The villain is going to chase you. You know, he he pops up out of nowhere. Suddenly a music sting starts revving up and you you suddenly have to.
00:58:54
Speaker
Stay calm and like try to either hide or do a little trick to to get yourself safe. Yeah, it's a funny thing to say. Stay calm. That is a for people who haven't played this. there That is a mechanic in this game. it is. There is a button to calm yourself down.
00:59:11
Speaker
And if you if you are less calm, you you like trip and fall more. Yeah. And it's so frustrating. I'm just like, girl, Jennifer.
00:59:24
Speaker
So if you are on the other side of the screen from scissor the villain in this game is Scissorman. He's a deformed little freak ah with with a giant, giant pair of scissors who chases you around.
00:59:37
Speaker
And if you're on the opposite side of the screen as Scissorman, oftentimes it is a better idea to just pause calm yourself down she'll kneel on the ground and collect herself ah and then start running than it is to just fucking run away Yeah.
00:59:53
Speaker
And so this game, ah kind of, I mean, it is. It's inspired by a couple of the Dario Argento films. A lot of people think it takes more inspiration from Suspiria. Yeah, Suspiria. I think they're wrong.
01:00:07
Speaker
um There is a scene, absolutely. And there is this setting that aligns with Suspiria. But I think it mostly takes from Phenomenon. Phenomenon.
01:00:18
Speaker
Phenomenon? Phenomenon. Phenomenon. Phenomenon. and and No, it is Phenomenon. With John Travolta. you were right. It is Phenomenon. It's Phenomenon. Yeah, because Phenomenon is that weird movie with John Travolta. Anyway. and Which is a movie, a horror movie starring Jennifer Connelly, whose likeness is used in the game.
01:00:39
Speaker
yeah The main character, Jennifer. Yes. Looks exactly like Jennifer Connelly and wears basically one of the what of her outfits from Phenomenon. Yeah, I think that is the the prime ah inspiration here.
01:00:55
Speaker
ah The Scissorman is the villain in Phenomena. ah There is you know this this this womanly leader who is kind of puppeting pupeting everything. That's the same. um but So did you did you watch the film that it was based on? I did not. It was on my agenda before this episode, but...
01:01:15
Speaker
Y'all, you should know. i had a fucking week from absolute hell this week. Yeah. So, hey, I can also use this. And don't watch Phenomena if you've had a hellish week. You know, you hear this, if you're listening to this part of the episode, hey, just give like give me a, say something, a nice word.
01:01:36
Speaker
What do you like about Yeah. me Maybe that'll help. but No, sorry. ah Go ahead. So, yeah, I didn't watch Phenomenon. Have you seen it? Yeah, yeah. That's fine. I just want to reiterate that is the main inspiration here.
01:01:51
Speaker
um You are playing as Jennifer. ah You are an orphan with a set of ah other orphans, all all female. And you've been, quote, like adopted by this rich guy. He owns like this, this Mr. Mr. Barrows. He owns this man. I mean, it's a it's an orphanage, but it's like a mansion um that you are now traveling to.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yes. And so you are being led by ah the wife, Mary Barrows or Mrs. Barrows, whatever you want to call her. And, you know, she gets everyone to the orphanage and it's pretty cozy and you're all just sitting around and she's like, OK, I'm going to go get Mr. Barrows.
01:02:31
Speaker
And you're like, OK. And so she leaves. Mary, Mrs. Barrows leaves and you're just sitting around these other girls. And then the lights go out and you're in the fucking dark and that's awful.
01:02:43
Speaker
And when they come back on. All the girls are gone. Just gone. You're the only one in this basically silent game for most of the time.
01:02:55
Speaker
Obviously, there's our stings when, you know, music stings when ah the the villain is on screen. You find so quickly, you find out so quickly that and these other girls are in trouble.
01:03:09
Speaker
Right. Yeah. It's slightly randomized in that, um I mean, there's a million endings to this game. um Yeah. And so your choices will dictate kind of what you see in the game. So ah the girls have different circumstances of death sometimes. Yeah.
01:03:32
Speaker
And a couple of them can survive. Yeah. Maybe just one. One can survive. One can survive. But one can make it to the end. Correct. And then die. And then die. a fucking so mad at that character.
01:03:46
Speaker
Two can make it to the last like five minutes of the game. Right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's it's weird. ah This is certainly a game where the story is unhinged.
01:04:00
Speaker
yeah it just It's just, what what is this weird story? It's much like Phenomena, where the story is is kind of unhinged. And yeah, you are just trying to survive. That's the mechanic here. You are being you're finding your friends dead.
01:04:14
Speaker
um There's a great, really great, well-known cinematic scene where a girl falls through the stained glass and ceiling And that is from Suspiria.
01:04:25
Speaker
That does happen. And I don't know how this villain survives what we put him through, but like he also falls through, but as he just kind of like bounces off the floor and he's fine.
01:04:38
Speaker
And he's, yeah, he starts quote chasing us. And when I say chasing, I mean, he very slowly walks towards you. Snipping his little scissors. Yeah.
01:04:50
Speaker
I don't know why that was horrifying to me as a kid, but it was. I still get a little freaked out by this game. I think looking at Scissorman when I was a kid, because I didn't know about this game, right? All I knew about was... So many of you might know Clock Tower from the 1996 game. a year later, they remade this game for the PlayStation 1 into Mm-hmm.
01:05:21
Speaker
Game that is, it is a sequel. and it's more action-y. I played the beginning of it, and it is a sequel. You are a woman.
01:05:33
Speaker
but First you play a professor who is trying to hypnotize Jennifer to get to find out what happened in the mansion and on that night.
01:05:44
Speaker
And then you're trying to hypnotize a little boy who also survived but is nonverbal. from that night. Yeah. and um And then the lights go out and you are you you know, you're running around also in Norway. this Yeah. This research lab that has dorms attached to it.
01:06:07
Speaker
in Again, in 3D being chased by Scissorman. And it also is, i mean, it also is point and click. Yeah, it is. The 3D game. um Yeah. Yeah.
01:06:18
Speaker
But so anyway, that's... But it's just it's just a lot clumsier. It's a lot... It's kind of less scary. It's... There's a lot of stuff that's like... I had pepper spray and I couldn't... Like, there was no way to use it him. Like, weird stuff. Like, there I came across a fire extinguisher and she said...
01:06:35
Speaker
Oh, I should use that on the Scissorman if he comes after me. And then the Scissorman came after me. And so I ran to where the fire extinguisher was. I couldn't click on it. Yeah. And then the Scissorman got close to me and killed me.
01:06:46
Speaker
And that's when I turned the game off. Yeah. No, I don't. I do not recommend the PlayStation version. I do. I do think the Super Famicom Clock Tower is very much an adventure game. wait ah Survival horror. So it's kind of in that in that subgenre.
01:07:04
Speaker
And I think it's I thought it was terrifying. We should also talk about the mechanics and how kind of how clumsy they are, too. They are clumsy. Yeah, I agree. The way that you play this game is you it is point and click. You have a cursor, but it is a console game.
01:07:21
Speaker
you're controlling that cursor with like a D pad. Yeah. You can, there's a, there's a version now on steam called clock tower rewind, which is kind of cool. It has some bug fixes and some quality of life updates and ah it has a rewind button.
01:07:37
Speaker
So if you die in a dumb way, you can just kind of like rewind a little bit and try the scene over again, which I thought was nice. What the other cool thing about the steam game is steam allows you to map controls onto a controller, right?
01:07:50
Speaker
So What I did was I mapped the D-pad controls for the cursor onto my thumbstick.
01:08:03
Speaker
And I could just control the cursor with the thumbstick. So like there there are easier ways to play it now than there used to be. Yeah. I mapped it to, I emulated it and mapped it to my mouse and played it as you know a computer game, essentially.
01:08:17
Speaker
Right. Which is still – that's still a little clumsy too just because – you know, there's – you have this calming mechanic we talked about. It doesn't always work. No. You're tripping all the time. Like it's – it can be a little sloggish, I guess.
01:08:35
Speaker
and that And that calm button you also sometimes use – in Like so scenarios where like there's button mashing scenarios. Yeah, there's button mashing.
01:08:45
Speaker
Where it's like, oh, if you don't hit these buttons fast enough, you'll die. And you have to use the calm button. And it like you're saying, sometimes that it just doesn't work. And you're hitting it so fucking hard, so fucking fast.
01:08:58
Speaker
And it's just not working. And you have to like rewind and try that several times for it to work. And I don't know why. don't know why that is. Yeah, um i don't either. Yeah. but that I guess this is another design to make it harder, I guess, or unpredictable.
01:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's maybe. Maybe it's intentional. Maybe it's ah maybe it's a bug, like a design flaw. um But yeah, maybe they want you to just fail sometimes because it makes the game scarier.
01:09:28
Speaker
Yeah. If you just get really good at clicking really fast, then you're going through knowing you can't die. Yeah. um So the way this, so the the basic controls here. So you have a like I said, you have a ah cursor that you control with buttons.
01:09:43
Speaker
Yeah. You have walk buttons. you go You walk left and right, which is interesting. it's It's rare that you see both point and click and walk left and right yeah in the same game. and Yes, that's true.
01:09:56
Speaker
And you're walking around this mansion and there's a bunch of there's just rooms everywhere. And some of them are locked. Some of them are open. There's usually something interesting in each room.
01:10:08
Speaker
just scary. Yeah. Sometimes there's stuff in the rooms that'll just kill you. Yep. Or attack you. And then there's other stuff that you run into that's like, like sometimes you'll find helpful items that you can use in another room to solve a little puzzle.
01:10:25
Speaker
And there's usually space or an object in every room and that can fight off the Scissorman. Right. So if you're being chased by the Scissorman or if the Scissorman pops out while you're in that room, there's usually something in the room, if you think quickly enough and act quickly enough, that will help you defend yourself.
01:10:49
Speaker
Yes. And that's the game. You're just kind of wandering room to room and ah put piecing together pieces of this story while you're also maybe trying to escape and maybe trying to, to, and definitely trying to survive.
01:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, there's there's also some of the things that make this game scary beyond the being chased and you never know when this is her man who is going to jump out at you.
01:11:15
Speaker
There is these like weird little spooky things that always kind of got to me when I was younger. They're like supernatural things. And I don't i don't know if they were just supernatural or if like Mary Barrows was puppeting that, but sometimes you'll hear the phone ring.
01:11:32
Speaker
and and And there's no background music, guys. Like I said, it's pretty silent. You hear your footsteps, which can be a little intimidating. Sometimes the phone will ring, but the phone was disconnected. And you're just hearing it ring.
01:11:44
Speaker
And there's there's just something unsettling about that. And that's rough, too, because you hear the phone ring in a in and kind of a big hallway.
01:11:54
Speaker
Yeah. So there's a lot of rooms to check. Mm-hmm. And... You keep going into room after room and there's no phone in any of them. Yeah. And the phone keeps ringing. It's disconcerting, right? You start to feel a little little alarmed. Yeah. and Eventually, the phone is in a room that actually like you have to do some work to get into.
01:12:16
Speaker
Yeah. um but so that So it's designed that way. It's designed for you to keep trying to find this ringing phone and failing, which is... ah Yeah, like you're saying, it's unsettling.
01:12:28
Speaker
And then again, it's like you said, eventually when you finally find the phone, it's been disconnected this whole time. Yeah, there's something about it. room that it's in is also a bit of ah bit of a trap, and that's also scary.
01:12:41
Speaker
I think the villain of this game is very scary. the bill Well, we can just say it. The villain of this game is primarily Mary Barrows. Yes. You come to find out that there is no Mr. Barrows. he is Well, there is, but he's not this was not planned.
01:12:58
Speaker
He did not adopt you. Yeah, they you were not being adopted. You were there, essentially. For your death. Yeah, for your sacrifice. And it's there's basically a big kind of cult situation going on.
01:13:11
Speaker
What do you think about the supernatural parts? Because like, yes, there there is a cult. And yes, there are deformed ah children involved in the storyline. But there's that phone. And there's also a part where a doll rises up and starts spinning around. And you do get the sense that there is...
01:13:32
Speaker
a little bit of of a supernatural vibe. Do you think that it is supernatural or is it a trick? I think, I think it has to, well, there's also another point where the, uh, there, a hand reaches through the mirror and kills you. Yes.
01:13:45
Speaker
Yes. I was going to, yeah, absolutely. Um, so I think, I think it's implying there's something supernatural here. Um,
01:13:57
Speaker
Like, there's something wrong with this mansion, either yeah its own or it is it manifested because it is now being, you know... And the way that Scissorman's brother is deformed is impossible.
01:14:15
Speaker
this isn Yeah. That's true. So... So even that by itself would have to be supernatural, right? So I do think there is something supernatural here.
01:14:26
Speaker
I hadn't even considered it could be Mary Barrows puppeting the events, but that is interesting. it Right? I think that is an interesting thought because like she is kind of a puppet master.
01:14:40
Speaker
is certainly implied in the movie that she is under control of all these things. Okay. But you're right. You are right about the other brother. ah One of the brothers has deformities that definitely go beyond medical mystery. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:14:57
Speaker
And like yeah, there could be something, I guess even within the cult, if she's, you know, kind of trying to start this cult or using people for sacrifices, she may have manifested something supernatural. Yeah, it's and it's interesting. But I always thought...
01:15:13
Speaker
That the hand going through the mirror and the the phone ringing, I'm like, I wonder if the place is also haunted because the mansion, it like, it senses that there's something bad happening on top it all, you know?
01:15:30
Speaker
Yeah, I honestly, yet who who knows? um i On some level, I wonder, I mean, who knows what the developers were inspired by at this time, right? this is ah This is a time when a lot of video games weren't, there was a lot of video games that weren't made with basically any story in mind, right?
01:15:52
Speaker
So there is a chance that The devs don't. The devs didn't even know. Right. They just threw it in there to scare you. yeah Right. It is a horror game. it is meant to scare you. Yeah. Hey, was there something supernatural going on? They'd be like, I don't know.
01:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. No, I could definitely, especially like the hand through the mirror. What? Yeah. yeah Besides just being frightening, right? What does that have to do with anything? And it's one of those mirrors where like, yeah, sometimes you can look into it and nothing will happen.
01:16:22
Speaker
And then other times you will get killed. And it's its it's scary. And I assume there's stuff I didn't find, right? like i assume Probably, yeah. I assume that there's other weird supernatural things that can attack you that I just didn't run into.
01:16:36
Speaker
um Fighting the doll was weird. That was weird. Yep. That was strange. a And again, I wasn't quite sure if somebody was puppeting that or if there, you know, again, if there is a presence in this house, because i think, I think because we were invited there to be sacrificed, I'm sure there were other girls that died.
01:16:58
Speaker
So I'm wondering if if it is being haunted because there are other girls that have been used by Mary Barrows that died in this mansion. i also There's also something about the end that I don't understand that maybe you do.
01:17:13
Speaker
Okay. You find it sort of a note early on that you need to stop the clock at the top of the clock tower that's attached to the mansion.
01:17:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:29
Speaker
And when you do, it like rings real loud. Yes. And the scissor man can't take it. a falls off the cow walk and dies.
01:17:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:43
Speaker
Why did... what What was the significance of the clock tower? Why? What? Um, I think the way the the way i kind of read it and take away from it is that because of Bobby's deformities that he is just more sensitive to loud.
01:18:05
Speaker
Okay. Just to loud things. I don't know why. i don't know why that is the thing. But yeah, i that's how I take it. If he hadn't been with you up there.
01:18:17
Speaker
You know what i mean? it hadn't been with you at the top of the clock tower, you would have rang the clock to clock and everything would have been the same. Nothing would have changed. So it's just it's just a strange, I don't know.
01:18:28
Speaker
There's a lot in this game that doesn't seem fully considered plot wise, but also that's kind of fine. Yeah, yeah. i just That's how I take it is this this this villain is, he's just a little boy, he's deformed, and that he might be like really sensitive to the clock tower chimes. like i don't know It almost was implied that it's not even a loud sound thing, it's almost like um like a traumatic thing, so we don't quite know what happened.
01:19:00
Speaker
um like you know previously or how mary mary barrows trained this boy to do this stuff i'm not really sure um but it did seem like there was like ah he was like conditioned to react to these i mean in that case maybe don't live somewhere where there's like a loud black tower i don't know Yeah, if you yeah if if you are just, like, fated to be killed by a clock yeah chiming. me Yeah, there's plenty of mansions that don't have a clock tower on top of them.
01:19:33
Speaker
Because, like, he certainly doesn't die in the various other ways. Like, he'll fall into a chasm. He won't die. He'll fall into the and the glass ceiling and he won't die. like i But these bells. But this, the bells, they kill him.
01:19:47
Speaker
Yeah. In the sequel, the PlayStation 2 game, it's also implied that he's wearing a mask the whole time and that he's not deformed.
01:19:59
Speaker
Oh, that's weird. Yeah. I only played one of the ah following Clock Tower sequels. And it was like, it was like Clock Tower 3. And it wasn't anything Clock Tower. It was like, oh, okay. Oh, yes is yeah. You know, this is, it was kind of fun in that like action-y kind of mindless way. But.
01:20:20
Speaker
Oh. Yeah. Clock Tower 2, a.k.a. Clock Tower for PlayStation 1, was not fun. There was nothing fun about that game. Yeah.
01:20:32
Speaker
Again, I played it for maybe a half hour, and I was like, this this sucks. i would I wouldn't, if I wasn't, there's no re no way I would play this game.
01:20:46
Speaker
I just found the one I played. I found i played Clock Tower 3. yeah ah Do not recommend. It was for the PlayStation 2. Don't do it. Clock Tower 3 kind of looks like... um Like a Resident Evil or something. Yes, and it plays like that too.
01:21:03
Speaker
Okay. I think you even get guns, right? Yes. Like I said, these these PlayStation games are a little bit more action-oriented, whereas ah Clock Tower for the Super Famicom was more in line with a true survival horror, which you are using like stealth or hiding to to evade your enemy.
01:21:25
Speaker
Now, I don't... I think maybe that is true of Clocktower's... Man, it's hard to say. It's hard to say this because Clocktower... The first PlayStation Clocktower in America is called Clocktower, and Japan is called Clocktower 2.
01:21:42
Speaker
So the American Clocktower 2 from 3 from 2002... and clock tower three from two thousand and two Those seem a little more action-y.
01:21:54
Speaker
I think maybe Clock Tower, the American Clock Tower 1, the PlayStation 1 one from 1996, I think maybe it's not action-y.
01:22:05
Speaker
Okay. Maybe more in line with like Alone in the Dark or something. it feels a lot It felt a lot more just like 3D version of Clocktower, but more boring.
01:22:17
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I mean, the first and there's something special about that first Clocktower for the Super Famicom because it is very quiet and like... I know you probably weren't scared. I mean, playing it in your much later adulthood, I'm sure is a different experience. But for me, the lack of action, the quietness of it all. you're what You can run away, obviously, but you're walking most of the time. You're slowly walking. You're hearing your own footsteps.
01:22:50
Speaker
Yeah. um It should also be said that not only are there many endings, depending on your choices, but the rooms of the mansion will change. So you could restart this game and you think you know where that one room is. You pull out your map, little hand-drawn map that you made. And wait, wait, none of this is right.
01:23:11
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's it's a little... And also the mansion is... Yes, maybe too felt like I was walking. Yes, I agree. There's a little bit of an outside area. you can't You cannot go outside the gates, but there's like a garden area, you know, a pool area.
01:23:27
Speaker
It's huge. Like i felt a little overwhelmed. There was a minute where I thought this game... so there is there comes a point fairly early on where I was collecting a bunch of stuff.
01:23:41
Speaker
And I was like, oh here comes a how much do my pants weigh. Yeah. yeah But besides the fact that you carry around a ham for a really long time. it Definitely carry around a ham.
01:23:54
Speaker
It's mostly very small things. It's mostly like keys and rope and yeah perfume and stuff. So not not really a how much do my pants waste. ah A weirdly sensical inventory Yeah.
01:24:11
Speaker
Point good game. And almost a sensical point of view, too. Because, like, I think I said this in one of our previous Spooky Month episodes. It's like, yeah, a character like this wouldn't be overpowered. In real life, they would be scared as shit. Are you kidding me?
01:24:26
Speaker
I would be tripping everywhere. I don't want to go into the bathroom. I i hate yeah adventure game bathrooms. They're the worst. Oh, that makes me think of something else. Yes, you continue. i just thought of something.
01:24:37
Speaker
No, go ahead, please. i There's another thing in this game that is smart, which is, ah like I said, almost every room has a way to beat the Scissorman if he chases you into that room. And a couple rooms have two.
01:24:53
Speaker
But if a room only has one way and you try to use it twice... It won't work. And you'll just die. Right. So like if you hide in the same bathroom twice, he will stab his scissors through the wall.
01:25:07
Speaker
Yeah. Into your, and through and then out through your chest. Yeah. Yeah. Also, um Bobby, being ah child, ah likes to do a little dance on your body after he kills you.
01:25:22
Speaker
It's little jig.
01:25:25
Speaker
As kids do. you You guys were all children You know. You know what it's like. When you kill someone and you do a little jig on their body because you're little baby kid. They're just like, yay, did it.
01:25:39
Speaker
um So this game is hard to play a little bit, but yeah I was really glad to play it. i thought I thought there was something really special about it. And it's got great, you know, ah retro pixel artwork.
01:25:54
Speaker
yeah The character, like, I don't know. There's not much character in this game. Like, a lot not a lot of personality comes through. But I grew an affection for jenny Jennifer really quickly.
01:26:08
Speaker
um And I thought Mary Barrows was was frightening in some of those scenes. um So when the characters speak, and it's not voiced, but there is text boxes, like sometimes their portrait will change.
01:26:21
Speaker
And like I had found Mary Barrows and her portrait looked like evil. And I'm like, oh my God. this isn't right. And I like ran away. didn't know. I never saw that. Yeah, little like little details like that make it pretty scary. And like, yeah, the stories, here's what I think. i There's a moment where you figure out a lot of lore at once and that feels really good.
01:26:48
Speaker
to me like when you figure out because otherwise it certainly is a slasher where you're just in a bad situation you know like so like scream or something and yeah just someone's chasing you there is a greater story and it felt really like satisfying to find it right you can miss it by the way and get different endings but if you do find it it's satisfying that's kind of what happened to me i came across i came across the weird um ah did
01:27:19
Speaker
Dan Barrows, the brother of Bobby. He's a blob. And he's just a big, fat blob thing. He's just, like, giant. He's, like, ah yeah he's just, like, a Jabba the Hutt, kind of.
01:27:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. He's, like, hidden behind a curtain. And he starts chasing you. And i got away. Mm-hmm. And but unbeknownst to me, that was the end of the game. Like I was like, then you were on a straight path to the end.
01:27:53
Speaker
Yes. um You can't go back. You're, you're, you're locked in. and And like, who the fuck was that guy? Yeah. Yeah. I knew that Mary, Ms. Mary, who I so didn't know her name was Mary Barrows. Yeah, Mary Barrows. So i knew I knew she was evil. So when I saw her again, like that, that made sense.
01:28:15
Speaker
um But I didn't know that she was like the mother i Scissor Man and Bobby Barrows. Yeah. Yeah. yeah And that Mr. Barrows met a kind of terrible fate.
01:28:27
Speaker
You don't want be the husband of ah of Mary Barrows. Let's just put it that way. That I knew. i knew Mr. Barrows meant met a terrible fate. yeah um When I met him, i guess i like there's something that I somehow missed. Yeah.
01:28:42
Speaker
fed him the ham. Yeah. and It's somehow a choice thing. Yeah. Somehow ah when I fed him the ham, I didn't get the thing that he is supposed to. I think he's supposed to. He's supposed to then leave the jail cell you are you guys are in. like He gives you the key to the jail cell you guys are in and he leaves behind a note.
01:29:02
Speaker
If he doesn't do that, if you don't have the ham, Lottie comes in and saves you from the jail cell. Right. And the only way and there's another place in the game where you go to get the the information that was in the note.
01:29:17
Speaker
Yeah. I gave him the ham. and He didn't give me the note. I didn't get the note. And then later i found in the room and the room didn't have anything in it. I sent you screenshots. I know. I saw. I'm like, oh, no he was just got to get this lore, man. You got to go back. Yeah.
01:29:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I had to watch a YouTube video. um Yeah. So I knew. So again, so I knew he was locked in a jail cell. I knew Mary was Miss Mary was evil, but I didn't know she was her.
01:29:46
Speaker
She was his wife. right And I had no idea that those were her kids. So it's like, why does she care ah about Scissorman and Blob Guy? Right. Why did they lock up my ah my man, what was his name? Simon.
01:30:05
Speaker
My man, Simon Barrows. Yeah. like i just I didn't know any of it. So it was very, very weird. And she also and i will I won't spoil this, but she also has kind of a personal vendetta against Jennifer as well ah for reasons. So it's kind of implied that ah Mary sought you out specifically because she does have a specific problem with you.
01:30:29
Speaker
ah But yeah, if you don't get that lore, it's so confusing. I can't even imagine now getting to the end and knowing nothing. Yeah. You know what?
01:30:39
Speaker
In that way, it kind of reminds me of the very first time i played colonel ah Colonel's Bequest because you can get through that game not finding a lot. You could just get through it.
01:30:50
Speaker
Yeah. and it's so And it's so confusing. i did. i Yeah, that happened to me. Yeah, yeah. i didn't know you could go. it and When I played Colonel's Request, I didn't know you could like go in the walls. Yes, too. missed almost everything.
01:31:02
Speaker
Yeah, me too. My very first playthrough, I missed. So I was so confused. I'm like, I don't know what I did. i think I got a bad ending. My very first playthrough, i got crushed by the chandelier and I was like, I'm never playing this game again.
01:31:16
Speaker
but eventually I did. Yeah. Yeah.
01:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So it does kind of remind me that you can get through the game without finding out the story. yep And you know I think that's also by design. it's It's like it gives you a chance to beat it, but also maybe piques your interest in being like, well, what did miss here?
01:31:37
Speaker
Like, what what am I missing? What didn't I do? um It also shows you at the end that which ending you got like if it's like you know ending s would be the best ending right and then b c d whatever it shows you which one you got and then you realize how many endings there are you're just like ending e what i got b i got b oh nice good job good job but was your first do you Do you remember what your first ending was ever? Yes.
01:32:05
Speaker
Okay. Yes, I do. i This game is just very tricky, very tricky. It let me leave the premises. I found the garage, and I found a car key, and I found a car, and I tried to leave.
01:32:19
Speaker
That didn't work. And that was the very, and like, and I knew that like deep inside. I'm like, no, this is an adventure game. It's not, it cannot be. That's interesting. So it let you drive away.
01:32:31
Speaker
it did. When I tried to use the car key in the car, she said, i can't leave without the other girls. You know why? Why?
01:32:41
Speaker
I found all the girls dead first. i Oh, I did wonder what what happens if I find the girls dead and then I go try to leave. If you have a reason to leave, like, you you know, you find somebody murdered, one of your friends, she'll just leave. She'll get ah the the keys out there.
01:32:58
Speaker
She'll hop in the car. She'll start to drive. And in your rear view mirror, you see Scissorman. Yep. I knew that because I saw the screenshot. Yeah. But tricky, tricky. Yeah.
01:33:10
Speaker
What is that ending? f it's It's a bad one. Yeah, it's a pretty bad one. And like I like playing it just to see it. you know that That would be interesting if it ah awarded the player for and doing the worst thing. just yeah But yeah, it might even be like you find one person had been killed and you're just like, nope, nope, nope, nope. Interesting. Okay. All right.
01:33:37
Speaker
ah to look into that. But yeah, there is a way to just drive off. And that was the very first ending that I got. And the second ending I got ah had to do with I had found caged bird, ah crow, that was clearly being used for sacrificial reasons. And I let it escape. I freed it.
01:33:54
Speaker
And just like in real life, if you are nice to a crow or a raven, they'll remember and tell all of their friends. And so if you do that, they will help you. in endgame this little oh that's why it happened yep got it okay yeah that's how i got ending b nice nice and yeah like i said there's there's a lot of endings And some are just really minor changes, so I don't know how you know worthwhile it is to strive for every single ending. But some are significant. Some are like yours. like that you know You said you had gone into a room that would have had stuff in it, but didn't because of the choice you made. I think that's significant enough. And I'm still not sure what that choice is.
01:34:39
Speaker
ha ha ha! ah Because again, ham i don't it was supposed to be about not giving, if you give him the ham, the room is empty. If you don't give him the ham, the room has stuff in it. has stuff in it I gave him the ham, but the thing that was supposed to happen we give them the ham didn't happen. Didn't happen. Oh my gosh.
01:34:57
Speaker
How are you like, listen, how are you going to see a starving emaciated dude and not give him the ham? Yeah. You're like, I got the ham and I don't know. I did write down in my notebook, what happened if I didn't have the ham? Yeah.
01:35:10
Speaker
And guess that's, yeah. Maybe, yeah, maybe you just simply, you're not even supposed to take the ham.
01:35:17
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you in order to get the ham, you have to solve a puzzle too. Yeah, that's true. Like, that like giving him the ham is like a three-step puzzle. It is, yeah.
01:35:29
Speaker
But it's like the game takes away something really important just for being a good person and feeding a starving man. like I just don't... I don't know. Some of these puzzle designs are a little arbitrary to me.
01:35:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right. Did it scare you? um Okay, so like I had a few little jump scares. like There were some times he jumped out and i was like, ah! But very, very minor.
01:35:53
Speaker
I was never at any point scared, no. But imagine if you're me, and this is the first like intentionally frightening game you've ever played.
01:36:04
Speaker
Yeah. and adult You didn't even know these kind of games existed, right? Yeah. If I had even been 12, maybe even 15, I might have been scared. yeah maybe even fifteen i might have been scared Yeah, absolutely.
01:36:16
Speaker
Dude, I was scared at like 14, 13 when I played Colonel's Bequest with my best friend. We're just like, what the fuck? This is fucked up. There's a lot of... Yeah, there's a lot. I i was this i was a kind of a scaredy cat about horror movies and horror games and horror everything yeah for a long a long time in my life. I might still be. I don't like i don't watch a lot of horror movies, but...
01:36:40
Speaker
but Well, I know what we're doing at Adventure X now. I'm bringing my anthologies with Yeah, we'll just sit. We'll get a portable DVD player. We're going sit in the middle of a convention.
01:36:53
Speaker
ah We're going to watch horror movies. It's performance art. You come up and watch us. Watch movies. um Well... i I don't know that I have much else to say about Clocktower, to be honest. How about you?
01:37:06
Speaker
No, I really don't. I do love this game, though. I really do. like it There's just something there something about it. it's It's ridiculous. It's way too hard, I think.
01:37:16
Speaker
But, then it's impactful. and I mean, if it yeah wasn't impactful, it wouldn't have made sequels or anything like that, you know? Because it's so tedious to play, i'm just I'm not sure I'll ever play it again. Yeah.
01:37:29
Speaker
tedious I'm glad I did. I liked it. I have i will have fond memories of it. I will feel... I will think fondly of this game. Yeah, I think it's a very interesting adventure game ah for what it is. and Yeah, I recommend it. Play in the dark by yourself. See what you think. I think all horror games are worth playing in the dark by yourself.
01:37:56
Speaker
right like I think it really adds to the... Ambiance. Ambiance. Yeah. the The experience. Maybe light a jack-o'-lantern. Maybe fashion one. um Yeah. Fashion one out of a turnip.
01:38:07
Speaker
Yeah. Put an ever-burning coal in it. Sit it next to you. Yeah. And, uh, you know, wander to the earth forever.
01:38:17
Speaker
Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening to Save Your Game. ah This has been a fun, spooky month. We've covered a lot of really interesting, scary games. Yeah, different types of horror, too.
01:38:30
Speaker
yeah Yeah, psychological horror, ah slasher horror. um Sexy horror. Sexy horror. i still can't believe episode 69 fell in the middle of spooky month.
01:38:43
Speaker
Perfect. It's meant to Thank you all for hanging out with us. We might have mentioned we were going to take a break, but i think we're just going to do, since we have Adventure X coming up, there will be a break later in November.
01:38:59
Speaker
But I think we're just going to do a couple of fun, um like sort of like less work intensive episodes. Yeah. um At the very least, we're going to do a ranking.
01:39:12
Speaker
Yes, we'll do. Yes, there will be a ranking episode coming up. Yeah. um so i don't So I don't know. if if we dis I think we'll have two more episodes before our break. But if we disappear, just know we're coming back in December.
01:39:24
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. regardless of ah Regardless of when our November break starts. yeah We'll be back in December, we promise. We have guests lined up and everything. And we'll definitely have, I'm sure, a lot to say about Adventure X as well.
01:39:37
Speaker
Yeah, yes, absolutely. yeah So um where where should the people – what do you want to tell the people to do, Roses? ah I would like to tell the people to go to youtube.com slash pushing up roses.
01:39:50
Speaker
ah Okay, cool. No, ah you don't have to go there. Obviously, you probably already know that. You can find us on Instagram at Save Your Game Podcast. We post updates. We post fan art. We post – Whatever the heck we want to boast.
01:40:03
Speaker
Yeah. so we have got a hop in discord of adventure game fans. Please join. We have a lot of fun there. You know, please consider joining. We'll have the permanent link in the show notes.
01:40:15
Speaker
Or if you if that that's too intimidating. should I understand nerds. ah Look, it's very nerdy. Okay. You want to deal with that? You can just send us an email at mattandroses at gmail.com.
01:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And, um um do we even have anything else? That's everything, right? No, I did. Are you proud of me? Look at me. Yeah, I'm proud of you. I was expecting there to be something that I had to do, and there isn't. That's the real, that's the new, the next, that was a jump scare.
01:40:42
Speaker
i got it all right. Rose has got it all right. All right. Well, we'll see you next week, everybody. And as we say at the end of every podcast, podcast is- Always a lot of foliage.
01:40:57
Speaker
What? What? but oh Roughage in your diet? No? It's not what we say? That's important. I mean, i've been I've been a real good salad boy lately. Yeah, good boy. I've been doing real good at salads lately. Stay hydrated and get plenty of roughage.
01:41:14
Speaker
Podcast is art. And art is supper.