Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 81 - King’s Quest VII
202 Plays27 minutes ago
Roses is baffled as to how a weird demo got into her Steam library. Matt discusses a couple Play Date games and Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, followed by absolute gushing (on Roses’s part) about King’s Quest VII.
Games mentioned:
- Sinner’s Landing
- Chance’s Lucky Escape
- Long Puppy
- Grim Fandango
- Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon
- The 100 Line: Last Defense Academy
- King’s Quest VII
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeV
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/saveyourgamepodcast
Recommended
Transcript
Mystery Game on Steam
00:00:01
Speaker
Okay, I have a question. oh okay. It's about Steam. And listen, this might be a little like rated rated R a little bit, but... No!
00:00:12
Speaker
I just need to know if this could happen. Okay, so... Good thing we're not recording right now. Good thing we are... Thank God nobody can hear us right now because that was embarrassing for me. So I was on my my Steam page because I was looking for a game that we had talked about like last month that I was just looking everywhere for it. And so I started looking into my library. Yeah.
00:00:35
Speaker
Because maybe I had bought it. This is all super normal. Yeah, this is all normal so far. So I'm scrolling and I find in my library a demo for Sinner's Landing. And it's exactly what you think it is.
00:00:52
Speaker
it is a very naughty game. I don't remember adding it. I don't even know what it is. I've never heard of it. Listen. Oh, God. All right. No, listen. I know what this is. But yeah, okay. You keep telling me and then I will. But how did it get there?
00:01:07
Speaker
Listen. i I think I know the answer to this. Oh, my God. Did you gift? ah Can you gift a demo? And can it be put in my library? Okay. so Did you do this? No, no, no, no, no. no no you can't Whoa, this is really naughty. This is it's graphic.
00:01:22
Speaker
Okay. So way, way back when we first started this podcast and we covered... um Shit, we covered a that we covered the next... fest like that Some Next Fest. Okay.
00:01:42
Speaker
Sinner's Landing was one of the games in that Next Fest. It was? Yes. And i played the demo, and I think I talked about it on the show, and you must have said, this sounds ridiculous, and added it to your thing.
00:01:58
Speaker
Now, in the demo, there was not full-on...
00:02:04
Speaker
There's a like the demo was like a tease, right? Like there were some there was like a lot of hints of boobs and a lot of like sexual innuendos. But this is just even in like the the preview images. There's like fingers and vaginas and no, it's graphic. Yeah, it is graphic.
00:02:25
Speaker
More graphic than you usually see on these kinds of games. Absolutely it is. Yeah, absolutely it is. Yeah, it was. ew and then like gross, like he's fighting fecal monsters.
00:02:38
Speaker
It's weird. And then there's one screen cap where there's just a guy standing next to a llama. Yeah. like And that's like how I, wrote like, I remember this game being like kind of dumb.
00:02:54
Speaker
Right. But, like, and, but, definite again, not this graphic and, like, interesting enough that I was like, you know, this is almost, this is actually kind of holding my attention.
00:03:07
Speaker
Right, right. And now... No, this is wild. I don't, yeah, this is, I don't think I will, I don't think I ever want to look at this game again. ah Sorry. I just, i don't remember this happening. I don't remember putting it there, but I must have, right?
00:03:26
Speaker
i must have. if i Yeah, because I could see – think simply the fact that I recognize it from this show means that you – like, what else would be the coincidence? Yeah. Like, how could that coincidence happen if it wasn't – if you didn't add this on purpose? Yeah, and I was just like, is somebody, like, pranking me?
00:03:48
Speaker
Like, did somebody put a demo? But no, that can't be. Like, how could that be? and you would be the only one who would do it. yeah So unless you sneakily put this demo on my Steam. I honestly don't think that's possible.
00:04:06
Speaker
ah ah Maybe you were like really frustrated when we were playing Myst because I kept trying to like scale a wall. oh if you like you go to the bathroom and I quickly download this demo. and you're like That would have been a really funny prank. I would be so confused. Anyway, I was just wondering if at all possible if that was possible, if if demos get either put... No, I must have put it there. Welp.
00:04:31
Speaker
Welp. I guess I gotta play it. You friggin' perv. ah
00:04:56
Speaker
Like, I like naughty stuff, but, like, I was not prepared. Yeah, yeah. Let me click on the word naughty first. Yeah, exactly. Like, if it had said if it had said naughty, you want to see naughty stuff, you would have clicked that button. Naughty stuff. just have a folder on my but computer that's naughty stuff inside i i think it's because the name was like sinner's landing like yes i get it but that's that's an adult title but also i thought it could have just been like a hidden object type of title yeah that's i didn't expect to see a full-on like yeah like that was that was pretty graphic Yeah, yeah. sorry I'm so sorry to everyone that I just brought this up to and you ended up looking it up.
00:05:43
Speaker
I'm so Or maybe I'm not sorry. Maybe that's exactly what you wanted.
Podcast Introduction & Burnout Discussion
00:05:48
Speaker
i don't know. Anyway, welcome to Save Your Game. This is not a porn podcast. ah ah You wouldn't have known it from listening to the first 10 minutes of this show. But yeah, this is not a podcast about pornography. Yeah.
00:06:03
Speaker
In a way it is. What is it, Matt? My co-host, Matt Aukamp. What is our podcast about? Our podcast is about narrative games, adventure games and puzzle games and, you know, games with stories, visual novels. i don't know. What else?
00:06:17
Speaker
You love that shit. Yeah. That's what, that's our, that's our favorite thing in the whole world. Games with, games that are based around stories and, uh, and thinking. Sometimes we talk about Stardew Valley, but yeah I know it's controversial, but I consider that somewhat of an adventure game. I still don't get it, but... I know, I know. I know i remember like last time you're like, you're gonna piss people off with what you consider adventure games. like, I don't care.
00:06:47
Speaker
I don't care. I'm 40 years old and I don't care about anything. Yeah, look, anything can be anything at once. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Am I going to go delete Stardew Valley off of every adventure game? Come over and yell at Tag? No, I'm not.
00:07:08
Speaker
I'm going to go to sleep instead, probably. I'm old. Take nap. How are you doing, Roses? Pushing up Roses, my co-host? I'm good. It's been a while. It's been a minute.
00:07:19
Speaker
I know. I know. Well, then we said it at the end of the last episode, right? it'll yeah We'll slowly get back to normal, but it's going to be for a while. It's going to be we're going to be every few weeks. um I don't know about you, but I'm burnt out. I think you're maybe a little burnt out. Yeah.
00:07:35
Speaker
um It's been a rough year. I've gotten sick. I think five different times since November. my God. How can that be? i I don't I don't know. I don't know, man.
00:07:49
Speaker
Right now i'm I'm working under the assumption that i'm I'm just burnt out and not that I have some sort of horrible immunodeficiency disease. i Yeah, I don't – I ah personally, like as your friend that knows you, i think it's burnout. Yes. Because I've had – as like a content creator, I've had burnout and I know how it feels.
00:08:11
Speaker
Everybody in my life seems to think it's burnout. So I'm i'm like, like full because my job got weird is what but I'll just let the audience know that my job got weird in the past, ah like sometime around like October of last year. and yeah um And then, and then like kind of like doubled down on how weird it got in January of this year.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah. So, Yeah. So I have to assume it's that. um If, you know, like I've been to the doctor yeah for a couple of these times that I got sick because I assumed I had like COVID or whatever. And every time it's like, hey, you're fine.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, burnout can do that, though. Yeah. it can It can lead to the colds at the very least. Yeah.
00:09:05
Speaker
And also you say you're tired a lot. And I know you i know that like like historically you like taking naps. So it seems like you're more tired. I think... Well, yeah. So this is what I've been kind of... This is what's made my... Man, we're getting real into it here. um I hope listeners are okay with this. But this is what's... This is what's been getting weird.
00:09:30
Speaker
This is what's been rough about my year I... i got sick and then i got really really tired for a couple weeks my sleep schedule got all like absolutely destroyed um um i like i i had to take days off of work because of lack of sleep oh my god which is pretty wild uh ah Then as I started to recover from that, I got sick again. and then I got tired again, but like less so. And that one I was pretty sure was just um depression.
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah. And again, i got got sick again. So now I'm in this place where right now I'm a little tired, but not more so than usual.
00:10:16
Speaker
That's good. I'm over my last cold. It's starting to get warm out. so So maybe i might be getting through the depression stuff. And I've also decided to plan like a big road trip. like Some time off.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah. Some... just some cool stuff to look to. Change scenery you would do you good. Change of scenery. So I think I'm like, i think I am on the path to, I think I'm pulling out of this whole, whole, this whole hole. I think i'm pulling out of this whole hole. um And yeah.
00:11:03
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And i I mean, I think it's also just like, as I, whether I don't know how much might be five seconds or zero seconds or three minutes of it is in the show. Uh, but as I referenced earlier, like I got out of a relationship sort of towards the end of last year and So I'm sure that had something to do with it too.
00:11:26
Speaker
I'm sure it did. Yeah. As work got worse, I was, you know, I was going through a breakup and then, um you know, and then as I was recovering from work and an illness, I was adjusting to like the loneliness of single life. Right. So like, I'm sure, I'm sure all of this has been compounding. Yeah, I'm sure it has.
00:11:51
Speaker
So all all, that to say, I'm not like,
00:11:56
Speaker
On a bigger, so on the bigger stage of my life, I'm not worried. Yeah. But do keep an eye out on the burnout and how many times you are getting sick. Because that is like a little concerning, my dude. It is. It is concerning that I got sick as much as I did. I agree with that.
00:12:15
Speaker
Yeah. and um And I blame our listeners, actually. Oh, that's not great. so but i just i I decided I needed somebody to blame, and our listeners are right here in front of us. Blame me if you want.
00:12:28
Speaker
yeah Again, I have no fucks to give, so go for it. No, I don't want to blame you. I think I want to blame our listeners. Oh, jeez. I think we we might need them. I don't blame you listeners for anything. Nice going, you fucking assholes. Oh, my God.
00:12:45
Speaker
I'm the nice one now. Yay. Finally. You've been waiting your whole life for. My dream. um how about you? How are you?
00:12:56
Speaker
I actually just got off a really bad cold myself and it was, it's certainly a really nasty, like week long cold. Um, I think I kind of know that I think there was a trigger to it, but I can't prove that. I don't, don't really know. but, But I had a ah PRF treatment, which is a collagen enhancer. So like I've talked about it a little bit before. Super genetic, dark eyes. ah I've had them since I was 10.
00:13:25
Speaker
And then I had an eating disorder for a very, very long time. And that takes a toll on your skin. And so my nurse was like, try this PRF thing. It's when you take blood from your body and you put it back in your body. Yeah. no under Under your eye. Yeah. i feel I felt like a badass. I don't want you to do this. don't like this. already did it. Okay.
00:13:46
Speaker
I look fucking great. So shut your gob. It sounds scary. It's a little scary. It's a little scary. It is. um Because you get bruised, you know, after because, you know, injections and needles and taking your blood and everything. I got sick pretty much that night. And so I looked it up just to see if that's a side effect. And yeah, it can throw your immune system off.
00:14:10
Speaker
It can like throw that and then you might, it wouldn't be abnormal. I think that makes sense that it would throw your immune, like, you know, knocking your immune system down makes, yeah.
00:14:23
Speaker
So yeah, I got like super ill with a cold. When I get a cold, I get it bad. And I'm kind of coming off of that. But um otherwise, I started my new clay term, my new wheel throwing class. I'm super stoked for that.
00:14:41
Speaker
on i threw. Can we try not to be naughty for a second? Not a rhetorical question, Matt. Can we try to do as I say this next thing? Can you like keep it zipped?
00:14:53
Speaker
Okay. Okay. ah So I threw an eight inch cylinder with two pounds of clay. i heard i heard you make a noise. What was that?
00:15:04
Speaker
I ah had to clear my throat because I got a Wawa hoagie stuck in it. A whole Wawa hoagie got stuck in there. Was it eight inches? There's an eight inch Wawa hoagie sitting on my desk and I burned it too heavy. I would like talk about clay. Okay, go ahead. What?
00:15:24
Speaker
Without innuendo, please. Okay, no and no innuendo. i've just I'm just sitting here. Eight inches is bigger than you think.
00:15:34
Speaker
That's all I'm going to say. it's it's taller it's It's taller than you think. But I did it. I threw ah eight inches. So there you go
00:15:46
Speaker
And I'm pretty comfortable with eight inches plus. I just wanted to say that.
00:15:53
Speaker
Anyway, how are you, Matt? I guess already talked about you. Yeah, never mind. Here, do me a favor and go up to go up to the top of the, you know, the top Zencaster.
00:16:08
Speaker
Okay. And click the button that says, i don't know if it still says Theme B. There is a Theme B. Yeah, why don't you click that button? There's a lot of things up here. All right, going click it.
00:16:19
Speaker
Okay. Are you ready? Oh boy.
00:16:30
Speaker
with matt Welcome to Playdate with Matt, the segment in the podcast, Save Your Game, in which I talk about my cute little... Guinea pig?
Playdate Console and Adventure Games
00:16:40
Speaker
No, my cute little handheld console ah by Panic. It's got a little tiny one-bit screen. It's got a crank on it. It's got an A button and a B button and ah a D-pad.
00:16:53
Speaker
a dpad And that's about it. um And I've been playing. i finally, I got my way through season two, play date season two, which play date season one, when you get the play date, you get season one. It's a, it's a, I don't know, like 20, 20 some games all for free.
00:17:15
Speaker
um They, they come with the play date and they are, they, they dole them out to you every, you know, like two a week. So that you can spend some time with them. So you're not just like overwhelmed. um And then you can buy season two. I think it's.
00:17:32
Speaker
Again. We've talked about this. I think it's $15, $20. And there are. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. 13 games. Involved season two. think it's 12 games and a bonus thing. That's not really game. And.
00:17:44
Speaker
thirteen games involved in season two well i think it's twelve games and then a bonus thing that's not really a game um and I wanted to talk about a game with art by Julia Minamata.
00:17:59
Speaker
Oh, nice. I you were going to say that. From the Crimson Diamond. um It's a game called Chance's Lucky Escape. It is a point and click adventure game on the play date. So you are controlling with the D. It's, you know.
00:18:20
Speaker
Everybody's probably done this at least once with an older adventure game, had to control a cursor with a D-pad. It's not the best, not the most fun way to control ah to control a cursor, but you know it moves pretty fluidly. The controller moves pretty fast, and the the game moves pretty fluid. um You have an inventory in the bottom. And what you you play a ah dog named Chance, and Chance is the luckiest dog in the world.
00:18:50
Speaker
and
00:18:53
Speaker
you... The game is interestingly written. Because as it starts, you are a bank robber. your're You're, again, you're a dog who's a bank robber. Okay. And you are... you know, chapter one's called luckiest dog in the world. And you're in the middle of a robbery.
00:19:15
Speaker
And it goes wrong. And everything... keeps going wrong for you. You, like, drop your keys down the drain, or you drop your cell phone down the drain. You, like, get, you know, you get, you know, fingered by the cops. You have to, you're you're running. Basically, this game consists of six chapters of you running away from the cops. Okay. And so you don't feel like the luckiest dog in the world. But then, as you're playing it, you're like, man, but the way that...
00:19:45
Speaker
The ways that the his bad luck is working out for him ah actually keep, like, he keeps stumbling backwards into very exes extraordinarily good luck.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah. um So it's very fun and cute and funny. And, like, the character of Chance is really cool. The puzzles are really, ah they're that's that's sort of very logical. Mm-hmm. puzzle where you know it's you know use wrench on there's is there an inventory yes okay and there's occasionally uses usage usage of the crank in silly ways um it's a very it's very cool it's a very fun game you know like people have been trying this whole time
00:20:38
Speaker
as we've we've talked about several times, people have been trying to make adventure games work on this play date, and people have yeah tried a bunch of different ways. And um i think last time I was talking about though the whiteout, or just whiteout, and i was saying, like, I think this is the the the the ideal way to make an adventure game work. um I still, yeah, I don't feel like chance...
00:21:08
Speaker
overwrites that assertion it does still again feel a little weird to control a cursor with a d-pad yeah it always does yeah but even with that it's still like a it's a really charming really fun game and it's definitely definitely worth your time if you if you have a play date or if you have an apk and you can play play date games on your computer um Get chances lucky escape.
00:21:36
Speaker
It looks really cute. It was a really.
00:21:42
Speaker
Really. Yeah, really good. Yeah. This art is definitely like speaking to me. um And then I'll talk about one non adventure game because again, season two of this play date has been incredible. um i played a game called which one do I want to talk about?
00:22:05
Speaker
All right. I want to talk about a game that I should hate. But just like Dig Dig Dino, I got so into this game. It's called Long Puppy. Long Puppy? Mm-hmm. Okay.
00:22:18
Speaker
it is – so you play a little puppy – you play like and And you're with your boy and he throws a ball. And your whole thing is you've got to fetch the ball.
00:22:30
Speaker
And you use the D-pad to stretch in a direction. The footage is making me kind of giggle. It's actually kind of cute. You use your crank to adjust the the direction that your the dog's nose is pointing.
00:22:52
Speaker
Oh, okay. And then you use forward on the D-pad to extend the dog in that direction. Yeah. um So the first thing you'll notice is, oh the ball is in a place I can't reach.
00:23:11
Speaker
So what you learn is you have to go around. You have to, like, search the map. And find food. And every time you eat food, your puppy can become a little longer.
00:23:22
Speaker
and Like Centipede. So you end up with a puppy that can just like – it's not – unlike Centipede, it is not a static background. it is a scrolling background. So you are exploring.
00:23:35
Speaker
um But you – yeah, you roll around. You go around and you can – try and make your puppy as long as possible. And I got, I like, this was another game like, um, dig, dig, Dino where I started playing it one night and I just got hopelessly addicted. And I played the whole thing in one night when I should have been, when I should have been sleeping. All right. we talk about the fact that your dog has become an abomination?
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, like it looks pretty bad. good Especially because so your dog is made of little circles, yeah connected circles. Um, And as you get further into the game, as your dog becomes like 50 feet long, that is when your dog starts, the circles stop overlapping as much. And you just become these like this just like vector of circles that are not that are barely even touching. if yeah And that it it becomes really weird. and then Have you played Mario Odyssey?
00:24:37
Speaker
Yes. Do you remember those little characters? They they they look like centipedes, little worms, and you can yeah outstretch yourself. That is the vibe that I'm getting, or these things that are outstretching to get to places.
00:24:50
Speaker
So the reasons I said I should hate this game are there the the collectible. There's a collectible. There's like ah a secret collectible in each level.
00:25:00
Speaker
Okay. And it is um a it so a pea spot that you have to smell. So in every level, you're looking for one pee spot.
00:25:12
Speaker
Okay. And you're collecting the different scents that the dog identifies as whoever peed there. And then the second reason I should hate this game is- Who the is peeing? Okay, go on.
00:25:27
Speaker
oh hold on. Let me tell you. Let me open this guy up and I can i can try and tell you. ah but Let's look at my pee journal. are they people a wild dog they're not people okay wild dog lazy rat clown nude cat average dog elderly dogs now i'm now gonna jump around so i'm not giving them all away a sticky kid ah a man with a tight belt um a space deer those are some of the people peeing a clo random clown peed apparently That's not great. And the dog can tell that it was a clown by the smell its pee.
00:26:05
Speaker
And then at the end of every level, the way you gauge how well you did is you crank the crank and all the food you ate comes out of the dog's butt into a giant pile of shit. Yeah.
00:26:20
Speaker
What? it's like It's the pooping phase of each level. it's I could have done without that. They could have left that off the game. i like I could maybe deal with the pee, with the scent,
00:26:32
Speaker
type of thing don't know if i can deal with yeah poop it's it sucks it's like here you made this great game you made this really cool game and then your score like your score could just be how long you made the dog true your score doesn't need to need to be the size of the pile of poop that the dog excretes at the end right Like you didn't have to do that. And I like they, you know, whoever made this game, if they're listening to this, it's probably laughing and being like, oh yeah, I didn't have to do it. I did because it was funny. it's yeah It's not. It's not. The rest of your game is funny. That was not funny. It's like really bad. It's like really stupid and childish and boring. And I'm sorry, I'm being mean. um it's But the rest of the game was really good. I just, I hate that kind of like,
00:27:18
Speaker
And I hate that it's like a particularly video game, indie video game creator sense of humor that was big in like the early 2000s with like new grounds and stuff where it was like...
00:27:30
Speaker
wait just people obsessed with just like, I could put poop in my game. Like, fuck off. like It's very like Leisure Suit Larry 7. I don't know why that game was full of poop stuff and fart stuff, but it was.
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, and it's the same. Like, whenever you go to like the AGS forums or something in, ah like when you look at all the AGS games, half of them are just like,
00:27:56
Speaker
boner quest and it's like oh I have a big boner now I have to solve a bunch of point and click puzzles to get rid of my boner and it's like ah try being you know you can try being funny instead of just being gross right I mean nothing will kill a boner more than like a moon logic adventure game yeah more than playing an adventure a point and click a adventure game yeah again like that's that's the thing that bugs me is like yeah would people instead of being funny just be gross Yeah, potty humor.
00:28:26
Speaker
So, I don't know. Anyway, that said, the rest of Long Puppy is really good. It it actually looks really cute, and I just like i like the name Long Puppy.
00:28:38
Speaker
There also is a weird phase before the end phase where when you capture your ball, yeah the the ghost of this guy's last dog starts chasing you around. Yeah.
00:28:51
Speaker
And it can go through walls and stuff. So you have to like quickly and you move around by extending yourself and then dropping your front legs and then pulling your back legs to you.
00:29:01
Speaker
Right. Like that makes sense. Right. Yeah. that makes Yeah. Yeah. so ah
00:29:11
Speaker
ah
00:29:17
Speaker
Sorry, got distracted by something. um Come back, Matt. Come back to us. Long puppy. But so this dog, it's like you don't get a game over. It just takes your ball and puts it back where it was.
00:29:30
Speaker
Okay. And then you got to go get the ball again. So it's almost just like adding. It's not adding challenge. It's adding tedium. Yeah. And that's also a decision I don't love.
00:29:41
Speaker
Sure. um But anyway, that's Playdate with Matt. a Wait, do i replay the theme? Yes. Yeah, i do? Okay, okay. I'm so excited. Here we go
00:30:00
Speaker
go. Playdate with Matt. I couldn't remember if we if we did the theme again, but that makes sense. It's like a sandwich. Yeah, I always love playing a theme twice. Yeah. Because it's like, you have it, and it's fun to listen to. Super professional.
00:30:16
Speaker
Before I tell you some non-Playday games I played, or I'll just tell you about one. What? Did you play anything this week? I didn't. This month? Listen, i I had a hankering, a really big hankering to replay Grim Fandango.
00:30:29
Speaker
It's my favorite game of all time. Okay. ah It's more accessible than ever now since it was you know remastered in 2018. But instead of doing that, actually, i re-found one of my favorite things on YouTube, and that is the ah the live-acted...
00:30:47
Speaker
um The live reading of Grim Pondango that was done in 2018. Yep. i want know about this thats yeah i watched it when it was live. I was so excited. And they have ah they have the original actors ah plus Jack Black.
00:31:03
Speaker
imagine Imagine you're going to E3 to see like a live reading of a video game and there's Jack Black. And Jack Black just walks out and he's reading. And he does he does some of the extra like the extra characters and stuff. But yeah, Tony Plana does Manny. It's it's amazing. It's it's like he didn't he never forgot the inflections of some of these dialogue trees. That's so cool.
00:31:26
Speaker
And I was talking to to someone about it as I was watching it because, you know, you get inspired when you see like your games come to life like that and you see this live reading. By the way, Glottis' voice actor, when you see him come to life is incredible. It's so entertaining. um But I was like, you know what you know what makes adventure games really magical?
00:31:48
Speaker
In a game like Grim Fandango, there are so many dialogue trees and so many ways to interact with things that you don't think you're going to even be able to interact with. And my my example was there's a little tattoo parlor in Grim Fandango and Rubicava. And there's a payphone there. And one ah again, one of the most magical things in an adventure game is finding a thing, looking at it, and wondering if you can interact with that, if that has a response. And it does. You can pick up the phone and say, hey, baby, it's Manny. Like, it's so funny. And then the tattoo artist is like, Manny, I'm trying to work hair. And that just got me thinking of the magic of of that kind of interaction.
Live Reading of Grim Fandango
00:32:33
Speaker
Because if you think about kind of the old, the more graphic adventures, the yeah the text-based ones, you wish you could interact with everything. You're doing look this, look tree, look branch, look floor. look at you know In King's Quest III, I really wanted to interact with like...
00:32:52
Speaker
There's these barrels that say they just have foodstuffs in them. That's it. it ah It says it's full of foodstuffs. And you can't interact with it. I'm like, why? There's foodstuffs in there. I want to know what the foodstuffs is. want to see the foodstuffs. But like, yeah, but like in Grimm, when you try to interact with something.
00:33:09
Speaker
it lets you and it, it, you don't only interact with it. It has a funny response. And I highly, i highly recommend watching the live, ah the live reading, by the way, if you haven't seen it. Yeah. 2018 a Grim Fandango live reading.
00:33:25
Speaker
And that also got me thinking of, ah can you guess which game I think is the most like interactable where you, where everything has and like a description at least.
00:33:37
Speaker
What game? Oh, Freddy Farkas. No, but that's a great guess. That's a great guess, though. That one is very. Okay. What one? I think it's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon. Oh, think you can mouse over. And it's it's not like it has a reaction like Grimm does to everything, like something comical. But you can mouse over anything, and yeah it will have a snarky little little response. You can mouse over the pigeons on the roof. And it has I just think that's so special about adventure games. I think it is so exciting when you wonder if you can if if this item, this thing on the screen, has an interaction, and it does.
00:34:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and it's fun. And ah that's why i love Grim Fandango. And y'all should go play it if you haven't played it. I don't know. i don't know why you're here. If you haven't played Grim Fandango, that'd be wild. But in the case that you haven't. I think no, I think our I think our podcast can serve as a show for people who were not classic adventure game fans. Sure. But who like.
00:34:43
Speaker
modern narrative games and don't mind hearing about us also be nerds about traditional adventure games sometimes yes but yeah but i didn't want to grim finn day goes a long game i didn't i i will replay it i love that game but just listening to the live rating was great because they include some of the uh the dialogue tree like decisions and ah you know like So there's that there's a scene where Manny is talking to Domino and you have your dialogue tree. It pops up in your options and he'll say things like, I want to ask you a question.
00:35:16
Speaker
I want to punch you in the face. Like he goes through all these dialogue trees in the live reading and it's just so good magical. That's such a strange thing to do. is, but it's magical. It's magical. yeah magical it's so good and so like yeah if you're a big grim fandango fan this this this will excite you they have the original composer on stage okay uh so all the music is being played um i don't know if they did swanky maximino or not i can't remember but yeah it's great it's it's it's it's really great and jack
00:35:51
Speaker
Jack Black plays Don Copal and he makes himself like a New Yorker. It's just the wildest thing I've ever seen. Jack Black is unhinged right now and it kind of works. That's so strange. Well, then I realized that Jack Black worked with Tim Schafer on Brutal Legends. So kind of it like kind of made sense. They're buds. He's been in LucasArts games. So like, yeah, but it's great. So yeah, that's what I did. I did not play a game, but I did watch the live reading, the rewatch, the live reading of Gravendi. That's very cool. I will have to. I didn't even know that existed. I'll have to look that up. That's yeah super cool. Super cool.
00:36:35
Speaker
And then did you have did you have one more game? Oh, sure. Yeah. I wanted to talk about... um ah So I've been playing a lot more of the Hundred Line Last Defense Academy.
00:36:46
Speaker
Okay. It is by um one of the writers of Danganronpa games and one of the writers of Steinscape.
00:36:58
Speaker
Right. And it is... You are, i think, 12 kids... who wake up you're you're a kid who's living in this this ah simulation kind of like it's like a it's like an indoor it's clearly something post-apocalyptic post-apocalyptic has happened because you're in this like living okay it's not a simulation but it's like a
00:37:29
Speaker
Like, the sky is a screen. You're in, like, a bubble with like, a dome. And it's, like, the Tokyo Residential Complex is what it's called. The TRC. And you get attacked by these weird, ah I don't know, fucked up, is stuffed animal-looking things. Okay. That is very Danganronpa.
00:37:50
Speaker
And you get pulled away. to this academy where you you wake up and you find that you and several and these other, I think 11 kids,
00:38:04
Speaker
um because more get added later. So I'm trying to think of what the actual number is, but um you, you wake up in this academy and you find out that yet you have been, you have all been pulled away to You've been selected to, for 100 days, defend this school against these invaders. ten It's 10 kids. You're one of 10 kids, and then you meet five later on.
00:38:39
Speaker
Okay. um To defend this school against the invaders, because in the school is something that will... us win the win the war and save the earth and, you know, allow you all back to the surface. Yeah. um So you're just a bunch of kids. And a lot of the game...
00:39:00
Speaker
Is like a visual novel. You are, you're just clicking through dialogue and you're, you're having, you're seeing this mystery unfold. Like, who are these invaders? Who am I? Why did I get chosen? Why did I get kidnapped? Why am I able to do this thing where I can stab myself and then my blood turns, like turns into a battle uniform and a super weapon. Yeah.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's called Hemo Anima. It is your, you can stab yourself and then your blood turns into a weapon and ah and a set of armor. Okay.
00:39:34
Speaker
And each kid has a different weapon. Like you have a big sword. One of your friends has a his Hemo Anima turns into a motorcycle and a spiked baseball bat. A couple other people have guns. One guy has a giant mech suit. Yeah. It's pretty cool. um And you do these little turn-based strategy like you know strategy battles with the invaders.
00:40:02
Speaker
um And that's every you know every dozen days or so you end up fighting these guys. and But there's so many questions. why you Why you guys? What are the invaders? What what happened to the earth to begin with?
00:40:17
Speaker
very like It's very Eastern. It's like very Japanese storytelling to me. Right. And and and also, like what will happen when you get to day 100? Yeah.
00:40:27
Speaker
yeah um So you go through this first 100 days, and there's a lot of twists and turns. the The biggest trick this game plays over and over, and it does it very successfully. And this is a... this is not I'm not giving a story spoiler here, this is a but this is a conceptual spoiler. So if you don't even want your thoughts about the game to be directed in any sort of way, um if you don't even want it sort of some sort of hint about where your mind should be, then skip ahead, I guess. But, I mean, this is ah so high level that...
00:41:10
Speaker
it's not going to It's not going to affect your enjoyment of the game. The game is very successful at telling you, and sort of giving you a really strong clue. Like you as the player, you're like, okay, I think I know what's happening here.
00:41:27
Speaker
And then making you, the player, doubt that so hard that by the time it comes back around and they're like, yeah, it was what you thought.
00:41:38
Speaker
Okay. That you're like, holy shit, it feels like a reveal. It's kind of like in in in a murder mystery where it's so obvious who the killer is. Yeah. But then they they spend the whole thing sowing doubt so well yeah that you're like, okay, that's like it's not the killer. And at the end, it's like, obviously that was the killer. And you're like, fuck! um But but like that's a really fun way to tell stories. And it it does this...
00:42:06
Speaker
in It does this on so many levels that I found it really impressive. But here's the thing. One of your combat powers, and this is a game mechanic thing, the way that some of these visual novels use normal game mechanics, like storeif story-ify normal game mechanics.
00:42:29
Speaker
It allows you to reset the battle at any point that you want. You can redo one wave of the battle or you can reset the whole battle. um And it justifies it by saying who you actually, that is one of your powers. That's what something your hemoanima does. It allows you to kind of turn back time a little bit.
00:42:51
Speaker
And so you get to the end of this 100 days and things do not work out well. Your first ending, quote unquote, is is horrible. And your character talks about this. Like, this was terrible. I can't believe how how badly this was this is not what I wanted.
00:43:12
Speaker
Yeah. And then you learn, hey you know that thing where you turn back? This is a bit of a bigger spoiler, but I'll i'll explain why
00:43:28
Speaker
It's not. It's also not that big of a deal. Okay. you they You learn that you can turn back time all the way to the beginning and do these entire 100 days again.
00:43:38
Speaker
oh wow. But it's not a replay of the whole game, right? So this is probably what we have to talk about now. yeah so you get So basically, your first 100 days, which takes about 20 hours, wow is going to feel like all intro. Yeah. Prologue. Excuse me, sorry.
00:43:59
Speaker
Because again, it's a terrible ending. intro yeah um prologue um excuse me sorry because again this is it's ah it's ah it's a terrible ending And you're going to get to the end and be like, I don't want the people who died to have died. i don't want some of my I do not like some of the decisions my character made. Yeah. I wish I could change some of those things.
00:44:30
Speaker
And then you find out you can. So obviously you're going to play the 100 days again. sure But it is 100 days. again oh ah But you have this new knowledge. And because it's a visual novel, it's like your character is acting on this knowledge, not not just you, the player.
00:44:52
Speaker
Okay. Because, you know, you're not so much in control of a lot of these major story beats because it's a visual novel. um So... The second version of this game is, you know, Last Defense Academy 2. And...
00:45:09
Speaker
and You go through the same 100 days again and everything, you know, supposedly is going to happen the exact same way. But now you have decision points and a story tree.
00:45:23
Speaker
And so it'll come to a thing where it's like, okay, you found out this was the bad guy all along. gonna I'm not going to be any more specific than that. yeah um This was the bad guy all along.
00:45:36
Speaker
do you want to go kill him day one? but but And interestinging then you choose yes or no. And now you have two new 100 day stories, one based on the reality in which you killed this this person and one in the reality in which you didn't kill this person.
00:45:55
Speaker
And then it'll say, but so do you want to tell everybody that you just came from the future and you know everything that just happened? Yeah. So now you have four story trees. The one where you killed this person and you told everybody. The one where you killed this person didn't. The one where you didn't kill this person and both of those options. And now it you it just keeps branching.
00:46:13
Speaker
Yeah. And so, and again, initial game takes about 20 hours to play. I'm now in 101 hours. oh my god And i have endings. That's insane. There are endings to this game. endings? Yes.
00:46:30
Speaker
and a lot of these paths are wildly different than each other some of them have like some of them aren't some of them is just just like every now and then this this this happens rarely but every now and then you'll make a choice and you just die and your story is over yeah um but most of the time it's not most of the time it'll get you to one day 100 um But sometimes you it'll be like, it it'll use tricks. It'll be like, nothing interesting happened for the next 50 days. Suddenly it's day 90, right? or um Or you got knocked unconscious and it took you 20 days to wake up. And so yeah so suddenly you skip from day 50 to day 70.
00:47:14
Speaker
So you you're not having to play. what what's a hundred times a hundred ten ten thousand yeah you don't have to play ten thousand of these in-game days but you do have to play quite a few you have to play several hundred i'm sure yeah um
00:47:34
Speaker
there are there are routes like there's one that was called the comedy route ah shit my my arm is drooping there's one that's called the comedy route and like Where it's it's all kind of slapsticky. Everybody survives till the end. Like, ah just spoil the comedy route, whatever. Everybody survives to the end, but it's so ridiculous that you're like, well, that didn't feel like an ending. And there's one called the, there's like a horror route where there's zomb like a zombie story.
00:48:07
Speaker
There's a mystery route where there's, where somebody is ah like secretly killing everybody. Right. And you find out through some of these routes, you find out that there's you find out new information and you keep uncovering new... there's you The mystery of what the fuck is going on just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper. And there are some... This is something I recently discovered. There are some routes that are locked.
00:48:31
Speaker
Yeah. like you can't go any further in this route until you get endings thirty three fifty and forty five yeah so there is again if you want to put the two hundred fucking hours into it there is an overarching story here that you can slowly unravel by pull by playing all these endings And there are – supposedly there are about two endings that people feel are finite, that people feel are like, if you get to this ending, you will feel satisfied enough to stop if you want.
00:49:05
Speaker
Yeah. Or you can keep going get all 100, but – Oh, yeah, because there's going to be people who want to complete it And I might, you know? like Yeah, I'm one of those people. I get very, like, obsessive when it comes to that.
00:49:20
Speaker
So, yeah, and I really like the combat. I mean, it does get tedious, right? Like, your days consist of either you're locked in a story, which is fine.
00:49:34
Speaker
You know, like like, you do want to find out the story, but it's that sort of thing where you get you do get interested in the loop of...
00:49:46
Speaker
As your day goes on, you can do a couple of things. If you're not locked into story, visual novel stuff, you can go train in the VR room and that'll get you battle points and you can use your battle points to upgrade your attacks. Oh, interesting.
00:50:01
Speaker
You can... go on missions out beyond the academy to gather resources and that's kind of like a board game where you roll a die and you land on certain spaces and you then in each space it gives you usually like three choices do you want to do this this or this and some of the choices will lead to bad outcomes and some will lead to good outcomes and you're just trying to get as many resources as you can before you die yeah And you can use those resources on other – excuse me.
00:50:36
Speaker
You can use those resources on these quote-unquote free time days to –
00:50:43
Speaker
Upgrade your traps that you can use in battle. Upgrade your potions that you can use in battle. or craft gifts for your friends and increase your bond. And with every each one of five stars that you can bond with your teammates, um you get like a special little scene.
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah. That's what I would be like so focused on. Yeah. I love that shit. So you can get caught in that loop.
00:51:12
Speaker
And get really into... oh i want to... i'm Oh, i'm I'm... Like, you can get a goal. You're like, oh, I want to get to five stars with Nozomi.
00:51:25
Speaker
Yeah. And you... then 10 days happens or even maybe it suddenly a story beat happens. And now for the rest of the hundred days, it's all visual novel. That's what I'm in right now. I'm in the mystery route.
00:51:40
Speaker
And the there's no free time. It is all visual novel. And some like there's a, there is a sort of simulation of the trials and Danganronpa.
00:51:55
Speaker
in this route. um There's a couple times in the normal, in the first route, and in the first 100 days, you have to convince somebody of something and you have to basically present them certain arguments and you get a little further and a little further and a little further in convincing them. So you're basically doing that, but you're accusing them of a crime.
00:52:17
Speaker
Okay. you have to present the right evidence. Right. um So,
00:52:25
Speaker
i'm I'm stuck in one of those right now. And, like, the mystery route is pretty cool. Like, I'm really enjoying the mystery. I'm really enjoying solving the cases. But I'm also getting there frustrated because I just passed the comedy route. And the comedy route is almost all free time. almost every Like, the comedy route almost seems there for you to –
00:52:46
Speaker
get all your bonds, collect all your resources, upgrade all your stuff. And then there's some funny scenes in the meantime. Right. yeah Like that almost seems like the whole, the reason it's there. And so it just got off of that and I didn't get through every, all my goals.
00:53:03
Speaker
So now I'm on this route where there's no free time and I keep getting frustrated. I'm like, ah, fuck. Like, yeah, yes. I want to solve this mystery, but fucking just give me, give me a day to,
00:53:15
Speaker
craft gifts for Tagomaro. I want to make him five leather tiger jackets. Please. Five? well because I want to make kaleidoscopes for Nozomi. I want to make a ah ah torture restraints for Yugamu.
00:53:36
Speaker
Please. i want make i want to make ten trash cans for Shuma. wow everybody has gifts everybody has gifts that they prefer like yeah it's like stardew right like yeah i can't even imagine how many fucking amethysts that sebastian has kicking around in his room yeah and it's so funny because if you keep crafting the same thing you're like why would you need like one of them is a limousine why would you need seven limousines and what are you doing with them here
00:54:08
Speaker
I crafted you women's underwear six times. but um Yeah, it's, I don't know. it' It's a lot of fun. And, it but it is, it is one of the more tedious versions of these that I've ever played. And I played. I just going to use that word. I'm like, this sounds a little tedious, actually. i hundred percented Danganronpa and that yeah doing that is tedious um because it's got a lot of stuff like this, but this is, this is way more so. And
00:54:43
Speaker
i'm i'm I'm pot committed now, but like i i don't know. It's hard for me to answer. It's hard for me to answer the question, are the little kernels...
00:55:01
Speaker
of story that you get worth the massive amounts of time you have to spend getting them. Yeah. I mean, I felt that way a little bit about Paranormous Sight, where it was just a lot of, it's just a lot. And in this game you're playing sounds like way, way, way more, but there's parts that are tedious like that, where you're just getting little bites of the story. And it's like, what what am I doing here?
00:55:26
Speaker
And you do, I'll say this, you do get to skip stuff. That's good. That's nice. You can't skip in Paranormal Cite as far as I can tell. There's a skip dialogue button, so there's certain scenes where you can kind of tell, like, oh, I think I've kind of seen all of this before.
00:55:44
Speaker
And there's other scenes where maybe you haven't seen this exact dialogue, but you kind of get the gist from the shit that you have seen. Yeah. yeah
00:55:57
Speaker
I...
00:56:01
Speaker
Yeah, so that and you can skip any and any battle that you've already played, you can skip um any exploration missions.
00:56:13
Speaker
that you've already done you can skip because there's there's sometimes you have to, like, the story calls for you to go explore, not just to explore to collect resources. Now, I always do the exploration missions because usually if the story is calling you to explore, you're still on that same map so you can collect resources yeah while you're doing your story mission.
00:56:34
Speaker
And it's like I don't want to, like, pass that up that opportunity because otherwise you have to wait for free time. And like I said, like... it can be a little frustrating when some routes have very little free time.
00:56:47
Speaker
Yeah. um So i
00:56:54
Speaker
so yeah so you can you can skip a good deal of stuff and then with the story chart you can jump to usually right before the decision is made when there's multiple just like when there's a branching there's a story branch it'll say do you want to go to the beginning of the day or do you want to go to immediately before the decision so that's good um but yeah it is it is pretty tedious and it is a long fucking game ah But it sounds like you're intent on completing it. Yeah, because there's just a lot about it that's charming. And I'm i'm hooked on the mystery. I want to know...
00:57:31
Speaker
I want to play just that part. I love a good, like, mystery game. And I think you would start this game and you would immediately be be compelled about, like, who are these weird people? Why are they here? Why does this girl look exactly like his childhood friend but doesn't but has a different name and doesn't seem to know who he is? Why...
00:57:53
Speaker
Like, there's a lot of mystery at the beginning of this game. Yeah. um And then again, later, there's more mystery either mike in the microcosm, um like the mystery route where somebody's being killed.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah. Or people are being killed. There's a serial killer. Or in the macrocosm, like, what is... What the fuck are we doing here? Why are we here?
00:58:18
Speaker
That's like every JRPG I've ever played. Like, why are we? That's the plot of Final Fantasy VIII. Why are we here? Why are we here? um ah Yeah, that's actually a good point because in Final Fantasy VIII is also about like a shady university, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like, um yeah, kind of. There's like things going on behind it. And you're with this group of people. And it's kind of, there's like a fate element, like a destiny element to it. It's, it's please play it. Please play it. It's so funny.
00:58:50
Speaker
And these characters are so charming. There's one girl, Darumi, who thinks she's in, what like it's very meta. she's She thinks she's in a visual novel killing game. yeah fucking stoked for everybody to start killing each other all the kids was like durumi it is not a killing game we are here to fight the invaders and it's like refuses to believe it she keeps thinking like we're definitely in a killing game durumi's great there's a uh there's a girl who wears a tomato on her head
00:59:28
Speaker
Okay. Like a real tomato or. From a royal family. And she doesn't believe that you. Anybody is worthy of seeing her face. Okay. Tomato on her head. Like a big. Maybe it's a mask. But yeah. It's a big tomato. Yeah.
00:59:44
Speaker
Yeah, there's a, there's a, you have to convince, so some people like immediately refuse to fight. you have to convince some people to do it. One woman, one girl will not fight because anytime she gets nervous, she just, she can't help it. She pukes all over the place nonstop.
01:00:04
Speaker
ah So you have to like convince her that it's okay. Like, no, what, like not to be embarrassed to puke in front of everybody. You have to make her like a special puke bag. Oh my God. Thankfully her, you know, hemo anima is like, she's in a car. So you actually never see, you have to see this character puke. But anyway, that's a hundred line last defense Academy. It's really, it's a really interesting game.
01:00:28
Speaker
um If you like this sort of thing, it's cool. um i don't think the strategy... The strategy game's fun. it's like <unk> It's fine, the turn-based strategy battles. But I don't think that's strong enough to play the game if you don't like visual novels. Right. And...
01:00:47
Speaker
um And if you're just a regular adventure game fan who sometimes makes exceptions for visual novels, like maybe you'll make an exception for Danganronpa or... um ah what what's What's the... The games or... um Or... Like Steins Gate. st or Well, Steins Gate's very visual novel, but like Paranorma Sight. Yeah, yeah.
01:01:15
Speaker
This isn't going to have enough... gameplay if you don't like visual novels to like distract you from the fact that it's a visual novel. so okay So only play this if you like them.
01:01:28
Speaker
um But... Yeah, but if you're into that genre, especially if you liked the Danganronpa games, it's got a lot of that charm. um Just, yeah, again, know you're in for something really fucking long. Yeah.
01:01:43
Speaker
Because you are not going to be happy. Like, if you think to yourself, well, yeah, fine, I'll just play the first 100 days and stop, you're going to get you're going to be really disappointed. You're not going to, you could not get to the end of that first 100 days and be like, all right, that's a satisfying ending.
01:01:59
Speaker
Yeah. right. Should we play it? Should we play a thing? Should we play a music? Oh, God. i don't even have my chart up. um well but You have to make one up. Go. um
01:02:11
Speaker
Darumi, I'm a Mimo.
01:02:16
Speaker
that your final answer? That's my final answer. Yeah.
01:02:37
Speaker
everyone, welcome back to Save Your
Introduction to King's Quest VII
01:02:39
Speaker
Game. I'm one of your hosts, Pushing Up Roses, with me, as always, the greatest jumper, the greatest runner, the man himself, the myth, Matt Aukamp. Hey Matt.
01:02:52
Speaker
I've been six, so I haven't been running that fast, and so like, just the other day, i was running, I mean, still I was like running faster than the cars on the street, obviously. And, ah i The thing is, I ran past a cop.
01:03:13
Speaker
Okay. And he didn't pull me over because i was like I was going faster than the cars, obviously, but I was not going faster than the speed limit. Were you like a blur? He just didn't see you? It was actually embarrassing. No, he saw me.
01:03:24
Speaker
He saw me, he waved, and that was the most embarrassing because like usually I get pulled over. They say, no running. that You can't run this fast, sir. And this time, he was like,
01:03:37
Speaker
Have a good run. It's really embarrassing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that ah for these hard times. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, again, I'm my my sinuses are clearing up. The weather's clearing up so soon.
01:03:51
Speaker
I'm going to be back to I'm to be back to running at illegal speeds, getting tickets. hmm. i'm happy i'm I'm happy for you, question mark.
01:04:02
Speaker
What are we talking about? We are talking about personal favorite of mine. ah i think that is underrated and underappreciated. The amazingly different King's Quest 7.
01:04:18
Speaker
And I have many thoughts because I really like this game. Now, I don't have a lot of this information, but I'm going to guess you do. What is the background of this game? How did this game come to be?
01:04:30
Speaker
don't fucking know. Okay. i You know what? I do have a video on it. um So I probably did go or or maybe I just made fun of it. I might have just made fun of it, actually, because it's so insane. but um This is some late- we so We'll just cobble together based on our our knowledge. This is some late Sierra.
01:04:55
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's it's considered late Sierra, even though when we look at the year, like it's not that late, right? It's 1994. So it sure is late Sierra, but like when we think about 1994, doesn't feel that way.
01:05:11
Speaker
But yeah, it it is. But Sierra's sierra's adventure games stopped when? In like... Let's see. I mean, Phantasmagoria was 95.
01:05:22
Speaker
They did try with like, um you know, with like a King's Quest VIII. I don't know. it It kind of like softly like went away, didn't it? I feel i feel like there were some some attempts.
01:05:34
Speaker
But this was after, you know, this was after almost all of their classics had already happened by this point. Yeah. yeah So when i so we say late Sierra, like the the company still existed, I think until 2008.
01:05:48
Speaker
2008. But they they were publishing for a lot. But they got. so Yeah. They got sold in 1998. So it was pretty. So this was pretty much towards the end of their development.
01:06:00
Speaker
Yeah. um That their life as developers. Yeah, but I mean, but honestly, though, it's still like it was still at least directed by Roberta Williams and Lorelai Shannon. Lorelai Shannon ah worked on games like ah Dagger of Amon Ra and Gabriel or not Gabriel Knight. Sorry, Phantasmagoria 2. That's what Lorelai is mostly known for.
01:06:22
Speaker
ah The writer was Lorelai Shannon. um So it does have the the the usual suspects in terms of who worked on the game. yeah But yes, it is extremely different, ah both in structure and UI and an animation style. It looks completely different. um and And I think Sierra was kind of going for that because they also did Torrin's Passage.
01:06:48
Speaker
which did this same structure. It did the same weird animation. ah It's a little bit better in Torrin's Passage. It's a little janky in King's Quest VII. And but no dead ends.
01:07:00
Speaker
Right. no No soft locks, no dead ends. um You can die. You can die a decision a fucking lot in game. Oh, yeah, and it's hilarious. Because is it a Sierra game if you're just not dying in ah in a strange way? i don't if it is. And for doing stuff that is...
01:07:16
Speaker
eminently reasonable not like like you're like so yeah i'll just um you know like ill i'll click on the stick on the ground dead yeah that's not one of them but that's the sort of example yeah it always seems like this is this is the era when sierra started finally paying attention to lucas arts and trying to compete with lucas arts on lucas arts's level Yeah, yeah.
01:07:42
Speaker
Very, very... ah Obviously so. But what I think what makes it really stand out is I think this is a beautiful game. I think that if you if you... Listen, if you kind of ignore the janky animation of the characters... Which let's let's be a little forgiving because this is somewhat new for computer games. um'll I'll give it a little bit of forgiveness for that. It is a it is a frame every three seconds. Yeah. that's how that's know People argue now about, oh, does this game look good in 60 frames a second or 120 frames a second? Yeah. I mean, King's Quest 7 is one frame every two seconds. Yeah.
01:08:24
Speaker
Yeah, and all the backgrounds are hand-painted and scanned in. Yes, backgrounds are great. And they are traditionally animated. So do give it some props for that. I think this game is gorgeous, and that's kind of what drew me into buying it. This is the first computer game I bought with my own money, on my own. As in, I saw it in the store, I wanted it, and I saved up my money, and I bought it.
01:08:52
Speaker
And it didn't work on my computer. ah most Just disappointing things of of just all time. Can you imagine that would never happen today? Whereas like you buy a game. i know.
01:09:04
Speaker
And it just doesn't work. It doesn't work. And there's nobody there to help you out. Like nobody cares and nobody will help you out with it. It's just like something you can expect sometimes is that sometimes a game, sometimes you buy, sometimes you spend all your entire allowance on a game and that game won't work. Oh, well.
01:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, it was like 50 bucks. That's computers. $50. But I just remember seeing it in the store. And this is at an age where... Like, I wasn't, I knew that it was a King's Quest title. I knew it was it was tied in into the other King's Quest, but it was also kind of confusing because the structure was so different. um It looks like Sleeping Beauty, if you want, like, a comparison. And I think even one of the art directors said that they used, like, ah like Disney movies, like Aladdin for... okay
01:09:49
Speaker
for inspiration for the for the art. I think it looks like Sleeping Beauty, especially with the with the antagonist that we have this theme. Yeah, I think that the themes are a lot more Sleeping Beauty also. Yeah. like I think it's, i think a yeah.
01:10:03
Speaker
Yeah. um And I. And there's a. You say. You say. Yeah. It reminds me of Sleeping Beauty. Because of one of the antagonists. antagonist. Well also because of the hand painted. The antagonist is a straight up rip off. Of Sleeping Beauty. That's.
01:10:20
Speaker
There's a character in Sleeping Beauty. The bad guy in Sleeping Beauty is named Maleficent. This character's name is Malevola. Malisha. Malisha. And she looks exactly- But Malisha's a great name. i think that I might have gotten that from somewhere else, but I think they might have- I think like, I think she looks exactly the same too. She does. Yeah. So they were very obviously very inspired by um Aladdin. I think even i think even Malisha kind of resembles a bit of a Jafar character as well. Kind of like with the coloring and and that villain, what she's wearing. Definitely Maleficent. Definitely Jafar for me.
01:10:57
Speaker
But yeah, I saw this game and I did tie it to King's Quest, but it was so different. And I just remember I bought it while I was on vacation in Oklahoma. I was so stoked when I saw it in the store and I bought it with my money, with my savings, my allowance. And we drove, it we typically drove up there. So like on the way back home, I just kept looking at the box and rereading the back of the box and looking at the screen. I was so excited because it did look cartoony and fun yeah and fun. I eventually had to play it on my Aunt Carol's computer. Aunt Carol. and carol host the the The third secret host of this podcast. She never actually appears, but she's on every episode. Her spirit lives in each episode. I played it on her computer, and I love i've i i truly love this game. I know it's really different. I know it's such a departure,
01:11:52
Speaker
um especially in the gameplay itself. But i I truly love it. It is in chapters. And unlike the other King's Quest games, you get to play two female characters, Princess Rosella and Queen Valenice, and you get to alternate between them. so Not at will. Yeah, I know. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I know you know. I'm just for the listener.
01:12:21
Speaker
But, like, man, I just... it it i I was talking about how, like, adventure games are, like, very magical and, like, very special. This this is a magical game to me.
01:12:31
Speaker
This is... When you talk about... um what what was the What was the category of games that you used to look for on Home of Underdogs? A grand adventure. Grand adventure. This is a grand adventure. This takes you to some wild places and places that are very different from each other. Yes, this is a grand adventure, and that's why I fucking loved it. yeah And of course, it does that that that kind of fairy tale thing where it'll take from ah take inspiration from fairy tale characters and Greek greek mythology and Yeah, i just, I fucking fell in love with it. And so I was quite surprised yeah the girl as an adult that no one likes it.
01:13:08
Speaker
The Greek fates direct you to ah the unseely queen, Queen Mab, Queen of Dreams. Who I love. It is a mishmash of mythologies. That is such a, it's so funny the way that they take such wildly different sets of mythology and they jam them together.
01:13:29
Speaker
that's I think that's why I liked it, because it was grand and and diverse in its settings. It wasn't... ah it's anything but one note. Let's just say that it's a lot of notes and sometimes they're dissonant and that that's just how it'd be.
01:13:44
Speaker
And there's definitely some, I feel that there's nightmare before Christmas inspiration. i think it's on purpose. I'm not I mean, i would even say to the point where much like I think militia militia militia is, I think,
01:14:05
Speaker
I think I would have to say is a rip, like not just inspired by, but a rip off of my level of her level of maleficent maleficent. I think there are two characters in this game that are,
01:14:25
Speaker
Nightmare Before Christmas ripoffs. Because Nightmare Before Christmas came out in 1993 was huge. Yes. And there were these three characters ah played by, I think, Paul Reubens, Whoopi Goldberg? no and No. Was it Whoopi Goldberg? it's No, it's Paul Reubens, Catherine O'Hara, and Dan Nelson. Catherine O'Hara.
01:14:43
Speaker
Yeah. And who? a Danny Elfman. Danny Elfman. Okay. So there are these three characters, Lock, Stock, and Barrel, who are these three mischief-making kids ah who work for Oogie Boogie, Oogie Boogie Man, and they...
01:14:59
Speaker
wear Halloween masks and they run around doing like terrible things. Yeah. i think they, they even live, I think, you like a little, i think they do. Yeah. I think, yeah. They, uh, lock, stock, shock, lock, shock and barrel.
01:15:16
Speaker
I know they live like like, I know they like have a police system that like brings them up to wherever they are. They're there. They're there. They're a little fort. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Um, yeah.
01:15:28
Speaker
Yeah, i can't I can't find the outside of it, but it they live in a little like tree fort like this. And in this game, there are two characters who look exactly like Lock and Shock. Yeah. And they live in a tree fort with a pulley system, um and they spend the whole game running around making mischief. Yeah.
01:15:51
Speaker
that is a That looks like a jack-o'-lantern. That looks like the pumpkin king. Yeah. It is just – and and yeah in the land of Ooga Booga. Ooga Booga. Yeah. Ooga Booga land. So, it is – I don't think it's – I think it would be – think it would be difficult to just call this yeah inspired by or homage. I think this is ripoff. I think this is fair trying to catch it cash in on a very popular property at the time. That's fair. like But like keep in mind, as a kid, I fucking loved it. Oh, yeah. No, no. As a kid, it wouldn't have bothered me at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's only now that I'm like, okay, this was a kind of crass commercial. Commercial No, I agree. –
01:16:31
Speaker
decision but it still that did not it didn't There are things that took away from my enjoyment. Like, I didn't, I didn't, I liked this game. I didn't love it.
01:16:45
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I don't know. Bordering. A border between like and love. is a think else but i When you texted me, you said it was like, you're like, that was very cute. Yes. yeah I think bordered between like and love. like I really, really enjoyed this game. But there the things that took away from it, there are things that took away from it. And these things that I'm complaining about now are not.
01:17:06
Speaker
are not among them. Like, it doesn't actually bother me that they ripped it off. I just think I have to acknowledge that that is the case. And it's kind of funny that yeah that they did that. I do. I do talk about that more in my video. Okay. um I think it's a very funny video on King's Quest 7 because it does point out kind of these weird things that happen. One of my favorite, one of my favorite things in the world, just in the world is Not even in in this game. Not even in this game, just in the world itself. um
01:17:38
Speaker
You're playing Valanise in the first chapter and you have to like you have to pick up a pot and literally every single pot you pick up breaks except to the last pot.
01:17:50
Speaker
it doesn't matter and It doesn't matter. It's not like there's one of the pots that doesn't break. It's like, yeah, the game will break every pot except for the last one. Correct. Yes, correct. And it's just like, why? and it's Because everything is animated. She has to like react to every pot breaking.
01:18:09
Speaker
Yeah, that is the level of humor that this game goes for. it is it is trying to do kind of a Don Bluthy. Heavy, like. slapsticky type of humor that you see. like The game is full of that. There's a room of um funhouse mirrors.
01:18:28
Speaker
and yeah yeah That's the joke there. It's just like you keep looking silly in each of the mirrors. it is clearly ah To me, it's clearly the they discovered this new animation so style for their games and they were just having fucking fun with it. They were just like, if we are doing a cartoon, let's do cartoon shit.
01:18:48
Speaker
Yeah. I think i in that way, i think it's successful. I think it is really fun. and and it's i don't know that it's funny, but it is fun. don't know if it's funny, but ah yeah but if I'm really honest, I don't know if any of the King's Quest games were ever funny. Correct. I think they had some maybe amusing moments and quips you know from characters, but they're certainly not they're not comedy games, and I think this one is also not a comedy game. Yeah. And this is one of the only games where...
01:19:19
Speaker
It's very like, it's very just like pro-female. Like you are, let let's get, can we get into the plot a little bit? is that' all yeah love I would love that.
01:19:30
Speaker
ah First of all, it starts out with a song and like little wee roses. fucking loved it. I bet she did. We Roses loved Disney. She loved singing. She loved high fantasy. She loved all that. And I i loved it. i thought it was great. um And we get a little story. go ahead. Unfortunately, it's actually a
King's Quest VII: Story and Gameplay
01:19:50
Speaker
very bad song. So like...
01:19:52
Speaker
You shut your mouth. So like, I, I, I, yeah, I bet little wee roses loved it. And yeah, it's something that, you know, if I were a little kid, meant but unfortunately folks at home, it's a bad song. How dare you? Unbelievable. ah But like, yeah, it's kind of ah a very like sound of music, like Maria frolicking and enjoying her freedom of of nature. and If it was written by somebody who didn't know how to write lyrics. Yeah. Rosella only has four fingers. i don't i don't really understand it, but she does. She's a Simpson.
01:20:30
Speaker
ah Yeah. And um I guess at at this point in time, at this point in the King's Quest lore, Rosella is still unmarried. um If you recall in King's Quest 4, Edgar, who was Lelote's son, ah proposed to her and she's like, nah.
01:20:49
Speaker
I don't know you. Like, it was a very good ending, actually. was a very good ending. She's like, I don't know you. I'm very flattered. You're kind of a hot human, but let's not. gotta go, yeah. I gotta go. I gotta go back to my dying dad. I've got a dad to hang gotta...
01:21:04
Speaker
i mean I'm a video game protagonist. You're a little, I'm a little out of your league. You were once a small green little man. i just don't know. Just don't know.
01:21:15
Speaker
So um that's where Princess Rosella is. And in this intro, which I love, I love the intro. I love a cinematic intro. She's talking to Valenice and Valenice is like, oh, but you should get married because Prince Throckmorton is quite the catch. Rosella has one of the best responses of Prince Throckmorton, a mother. He's so boring. She just whines and whines about everything. And, you know, she's kind of this ah mischievous kind of young woman who doesn't want to get married. And for some reason, ah she jumps into a pool of water in which a flying seahorse, that's what it looks like, a flying seahorse kind of lures her in.
01:22:04
Speaker
she She looks into this pool and she sees like the reflection of a different world of like Etheria. And she was very intrigued. So she just jumps in the water. And i this her poor mom.
01:22:14
Speaker
Like, what is happening? What would you do if your child just, like, is refusing a future just jumps into a pool of water? Like, that's horrifying, right? Yeah, I get it.
01:22:29
Speaker
Yeah. But Valenice is a badass. We know this. But, I mean, she's from a family who does shit like this all the time. That's true. that is That is true. So that makes it, I think, even more charming. Because, I mean, you know King Graham would have been like, hey, what's that?
01:22:44
Speaker
Just jump to ah a mysterious pool of water. ah Turns out that this pool of water is a portal. Valenice jumps in after her to save her daughter. Now they're both in this this little whirlpool. Unfortunately, the whirlpool gets intercepted. no Yes, by a hand. By green, weird-looking hand. He takes Rosella. Not a hand. And now Rosella's gone. And so they're kind of put in different worlds because she got intercepted and Valenice ends up in the fucking desert. And we start and that's where you start. You start as Valenice.
01:23:21
Speaker
And ah if you you have one inventory item that will make you sit through a 10 second animation. Yeah. Of ah watching Valenice cry. There's so much crying. If you touch this. There's a comb. If you touch this comb. use this comb If you try to use this comb on unlike anything. She'll just cry. And it's a 10 second animation. I timed it.
01:23:51
Speaker
Look there's a lot of crying in this game. And i like I feel like I need to forgive it. Because like that's her daughter. So I don't know. She's a little emotional. She's in the desert. i'm not one I'm not faulting her for being emotional. I'm faulting a game designer for making me sit through a woman crying for ah several minutes of my actual human life.
01:24:17
Speaker
It's a lot. It's a lot. But man, this I don't know about you, but this game grabbed me immediately. as soon as I was put into that setting, into the desert setting, with these kind of interesting characters and interesting puzzles. These puzzles are not the same as other King's Quest puzzles. I think they're actually there are some easier than... I agree. And i think the very the start of this game is a lot of very...
01:24:47
Speaker
um I'll say it again. LucasArts style. Sure. More inspired puzzles. um Yeah, I like them. I would say there are some very Sierra-y puzzles. there's a There's a mouse who... um he will trade you oddities. He'll trade you any inventory item for an inventory item that rhymes with it. um So...
01:25:09
Speaker
That ends up being a very Sierra-style puzzle where it's like, oh, what rhymes with this? And you usually – you don't know until you – you couldn't possibly guess. And it's also a very inventory object puzzle, right? Is going through all of your inventory to see what you might trade with this little mouse.
01:25:29
Speaker
And – and The latter half of this game, so like the first three or four chapters are very, you know, LucasArtsy inventory item, kind of logical, but also a little absurd puzzles. the sec like the The last two chapters become a lot more traditional Sierra puzzles where it's just like, what the fuck? It's just doing nonsense things that don't make any sense. that It only makes sense in retrospect, you know? Yeah, yeah. I wonder, i think I've just played this game so much that it just all makes sense to me
01:26:06
Speaker
When you play, when you play i think it's chapter... Chapter 5. If you're trying to play Chapter 5 without ever having played it before or or without a walkthrough, 80% of it eighty percent of it um is Just absurd. Just absurd. Yeah. Like, absurd moon logic that you would not intuit.
01:26:33
Speaker
Yeah. I can, yeah, I can understand that. I still, at it at least there's no dead ends. So at least you have a chance. You can keep going. You can keep doing it forever. Yeah. Yeah. And you you don't have to worry about if you did something wrong or not. Yeah.
01:26:49
Speaker
you have Did you have any... Go ahead. The only way I would say that there are, and these aren't actual dead ends, because like you said, you can't you can't get into an unwinnable situation. You can keep trying and trying and trying different... You keep trying different stuff as long for as long as you fucking want. But it simulates the idea of dead ends a little bit.
01:27:10
Speaker
Yeah. um by Some puzzles can only be solved by remembering a thing that a character told you. Right. And... A lot of that dialogue, if you talk to the character again, they won't repeat it. They'll say something like that. That dialogue is gone. Whereas in LucasArts, if there's a clue that is in a line of dialogue, that dialogue is infinitely repeatable. Yeah, don't think I ever I don't think I clocked that.
01:27:37
Speaker
actually Anytime you talk to the kid there's a trying to get there's one there's a clue at some point where somebody says, remember to take that thing with a grain of salt.
01:27:48
Speaker
yeah And if you don't remember it, if you don't remember that, there would be absolutely no way that you could figure out how to solve a puzzle later in the game, except for again. You're right. and That is a tough one. And even trying every inventory item with everything else wouldn't have done it because you need to use an inventory item with yourself with yourself yeah at the right time. So it's the sort of thing you have to know what you're doing before you do it.
01:28:11
Speaker
Yeah. um And
01:28:17
Speaker
if So if you don't remember that m and that, and he says that, the character says that roughly boof ah half an hour, maybe an hour, ah before you actually, you can go into that, you can solve that puzzle immediately after this character says it. If you yeah if if if if that's how you choose to do it. But you don't need to.
01:28:47
Speaker
like when where When you actually end up needing to go into this place, solve this puzzle, ends up being like an hour or so later after the character says this line. That's true.
01:28:59
Speaker
The character will never repeat that line. There's a couple things like that, but that's that's the... I feel like I know why that happened, too. I think it happened because that was a cutscene, right? So you get into this area and he and there's this it's it's Fifi Lil Yip Yap is the name of the i love I just love I love this game so much. He's very annoying, but ah he, yeah, it's in a cut scene. You enter a new area and you were greeted by Fifi. And it's not ah like a controlled conversation that doesn't have dialogue trees. So that is actually part of the cut scene. So unfortunately, yeah, you don't get to hear that line. You don't hear that clue again, which is unfortunate. Yeah. Yeah.
01:29:44
Speaker
And the way a a game in this era I think would handle that is it would be written in a piece of paper. They'd hand you a piece of paper that says it or, yeah or or you'd have a diary or what's that?
01:30:02
Speaker
Or it would be on the door. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And in this case, no, you just, if you don't remember it, you can't. So anyway, back to the story you, so you're Valenice, you're in the desert.
01:30:17
Speaker
ah You're somewhat alone in the desert. ah There is a ghost that you need to help. There's a little mouse that talks. There's a mischievous jackalope that you see sometimes.
01:30:29
Speaker
um And your your goal is to ultimately find your daughter and figure a way out. So what would you compare this desert to? It's kind of Aladdin-y, I guess. It's it's kind of an Aladdin thing where you have to like do an offering and...
01:30:46
Speaker
You know that that that scene that never actually made it to Toonstruck? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It looks like that desert. Oh, interesting. sort of like orange, just a orange rocks yeah and sand everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.
01:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, and you just, ah it's it's pretty, i think the first chapter is probably the easiest chapter. It's pretty straightforward. You just need to, you find kind of this door, this sealed door, and you just need to find a way out, any way out, really. You don't know where your daughter is, but you need to kind of move forward.
01:31:21
Speaker
And as soon as you find a way out, ah it cuts, actually, to where Rosella ended up. Yeah. And um very unfortunately, ah she ended up in the land of trolls.
01:31:34
Speaker
underneath a volcano and she has been turned into a troll. She a troll now. She a troll. um And so you've got to figure out ah kind of that storyline that's happening. And I think that what's really interesting is there are kind of multiple storylines happening here. There's a lot of quests that are their own storyline. Like, why are you a troll? You're also engaged suddenly to the troll king.
01:31:59
Speaker
Like it moves it moves fast, you guys. ah So now you need to work with another troll who thinks that is suspicious, who thinks the troll king has been acting strange to move that story forward. Yeah.
01:32:12
Speaker
And meanwhile, you are going through a completely different part of the universe with Valenice. And i think, I think as a kid, I found it very novel when you would like not cross paths with your character, but with the other character, but you would like visit a place that maybe Rosella already was.
01:32:33
Speaker
or let's, I, you could, you could maybe phrase it as you, you do cross paths, but you don't see each other. But you don't see each other. Which is wild. You bump into each other. Now,
01:32:46
Speaker
ah so I'll toss it. this is all very fun and very adventurous. I'm going to toss some cold water. Excuse me. On some of the things that were annoying. go ahead. Yeah. ahead. The,
01:32:58
Speaker
ah Walk speed is very slow. You can turn it up. You can turn it up, but you have to turn it up ah over and over every scene. If you change, if you really walk from one scene to the, like one screen to the next, you have to turn the walking speed up again. There's not, it's not like in the menu. You have to press like control plus. Could you double click and then just go across the screen?
01:33:21
Speaker
ah No. Okay. Interesting. um At least not in the Windows version, which is what I played. Okay. I'll have to look into that. um I tried to play the DOS version. i but i bought the DOS version and it crashed. So I had to play a pirated copy of the Windows version. Okay.
01:33:40
Speaker
But ah there is... so there's So it's very slow. The dialogue's slow. The cutscenes are slow. The animation's slow. There's also no subtitles. um So you can't you can skip lines of dialogue, but you can't see... So you can...
01:33:56
Speaker
Kind of, if you're playing with ScumVM, you can force subtitles on, right but they're not exactly accurate. And the game will warn you, like, this is not a game with subtitles. There is subtitle, there are dialogue lines in the, like, files. So we can turn these on, but they're not going to be great. yeah um And that's true in certain scenarios. Instead of whatever line a person says, it's more it's something like, I can't do that.
01:34:25
Speaker
right And then they will be saying something, like an actual line out loud, but the di the then the text on the screen just says something very basic. It's very funny. But... um There are some horrible, horrible sound effects in this game. That's true. um That's true.
01:34:41
Speaker
There's a scene where you have to solve an entire puzzle about like combining different gems to make different colored lights. And in the background, the entire time, a scorpion is screaming. Screeching, yeah. Screeching so loud. And it doesn't stop. And it's just a loop over and over and over. And whoever...
01:35:02
Speaker
programmed that should have lost i hope they i hope they no i don't hope anyone loses hope they stepped on a lego i hope they stepped on a lego and they almost lost their job and then they were like you know what you can keep your job but you know what that's not a fireable offense you can but it's close ah um there's some really bad pixel hunt stuff here yeah and some of it is has to do with the fact that they're doing uh ah for the first, this might be the first time that they have 3D models of their
01:35:36
Speaker
um
01:35:39
Speaker
inventory items. Potentially. I feel like they kind of did that in King's Quest VI, though. I thought that was pretty. okay yeah Yeah. So you can open any inventory item and turn around the 3D model. Oh, sorry. I see what you mean. 3D models in which you look at and you can spin it?
01:35:55
Speaker
You can spin it, yeah. Okay. And sometimes you will have to, in order to find like certain inventory items, it's like a pixel hunt, but in 3D. You have to spin the thing around, and and it's just the merest hint of a thing.
01:36:09
Speaker
And you're like, oh, okay, I think there's something there and you click on it and it's right what you were what you were looking for. Right. And then there's some scenes where, like, there's a point where you need to get a golden bowl and it's very pixel-hunting.
01:36:23
Speaker
Right. Yeah. ah also Yeah, I remember in the kitchen, right? Yes. yeah Also, this part didn't bother me that much.
01:36:33
Speaker
um But I will say, because we always talk about this sort of thing, there is ah there are a lot of adventure game tropes here. There is the a chef chasing you from his kitchen.
01:36:49
Speaker
Classic. There's a cart missing its wheel. Yep. ah There is a ingredient hunt.
01:36:58
Speaker
um That's all I wrote down, but I'm i'm sure there's more. Oh, absolutely there is. Yeah. But like just, you know, the sort of things where, as we always talk about, there are some adventure game puzzles.
01:37:12
Speaker
and adventure game scenarios that just pop up 1000 times in these old adventure games. And a chef chasing you out of his kitchen has been in...
01:37:24
Speaker
yeah i'm I'm going to say upwards of 50 different point and click games. That we can probably name if we really thought about it. Exactly. I can think of 10 off the top of my head. Doesn't it happen in like multiple Monkey Island games? Happens in two different Monkey Island games.
01:37:42
Speaker
Two or three different Monkey Island games. Could be three, yeah. It happens in an upcoming game. What was that? The... that we covered the demo of. I can't remember the name of it. um Shit.
01:37:54
Speaker
It'll come back to me. ah It happens in... Now that I can't think of the one, I'm blanking on everything else. But it'll... Yeah. they'll so If you hear me just randomly shout out the name of a game, it's because I thought of a yeah ah get chased out of the kitchen puzzle. man Chefs do not want you in their kitchen. They don't want you in there. get out of Locomotive.
01:38:18
Speaker
oh yeah yeah locomotive's a good one yeah people are still doing this puzzle today i wonder if that's just because it's it's very realistic like if you go into somebody's random kitchen like my mom would always usher me out of the kitchen out of here get out of here don't be in here think there's secret stuff going on in there i don't know Well, yeah, yeah. I guess kitchens keep so many valuable things in them and that's why you always need to get in them. and Or like secret recipes. You don't, you know, don't want share your secret recipes.
01:38:54
Speaker
Yeah. Stop trying to steal my recipes. Yeah. Adventure. Stop taking all my stuff and putting it in your pockets. All right. So, yeah. so where are we at in the story?
01:39:07
Speaker
So, uh, chapter two, you are Rosella as a troll and you are engaged to the troll king, but people think that, or at least one particular person thinks the troll king is acting strange. And he is also, he's also kind of working alongside who we meet, Milisha, who is the, I guess the main antagonist, um, And they have ulterior motives. But our goal for Chapter 2 is to turn ourselves back into a human. And that that is the the ah the ingredient list yeah ah quest that you were talking about. You have to get certain ingredients. You can make a little potion and then boom, you're back.
01:39:50
Speaker
It made me so mad trying to find that golden bowl. Oh, yeah. ah I just I really i just I very much love that chapter though i like the dragon there's a cool looking like crystal dragon there's a 3D modeled crystal dragon yeah it's very love dragon Even though it took way too long to walk to that setting.
01:40:13
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. They can't fucking help themselves. They do this several times in this game where they just, there's a screen where what you need to, and it's it's a screen that you have to, you have to revisit a so a part of the screen several times throughout the story. Yeah.
01:40:31
Speaker
And they make it. So you have to walk. Like you just have to like walk. For so long. There's a scene where you have to climb a mountain. It's bad. And they make you click every individual part of the mountain. Like you can't just click the top and she'll go.
01:40:50
Speaker
You have to click every individual part of the mountain. And so you also. Yeah. You can't. but It's so frustrating. they came I played i played a version that you double click and she just walks really quick. So I don't know if I don't know what version you played where you could not do that. But like I know that i walked fast throughout the entire game.
01:41:13
Speaker
So I don't know what happened there. But i think I do think in the original like release, it was pretty fucking slow. Yeah, I mean, ah so much of this game is slow. And again, it's it's Sierra, so they put in these...
01:41:26
Speaker
They put in these. Yeah, no, I'm. Yeah, um' I'm. I just pulled it open. No, she's. If you double click on where like an arrow. i ah She just slowly walks there. You can. Yikes.
01:41:39
Speaker
You can double click on a space. Oh, OK. So she will speed up if you have turned on the fast walk for that screen. OK. But again, if I walk to a screen that I didn't turn the fast walk on.
01:41:56
Speaker
She'll start walking slow again, and I have to click the plus arrow three times. Yikes. But then whenever I come back to that screen, she will be fast walking again. yeah But I'm going to say, the ex exiting and entering and exiting the screen is still super slow. And like just every animation, everything that's animated is way slow.
01:42:21
Speaker
It is. It's slow and it's it takes a long time. It's like long. Yeah. I think as a kid I had probably more patience for it. You could probably cut about 25% off of this game if just the animations were faster. Honestly. Yeah.
01:42:37
Speaker
Yeah, maybe so. About the time that you spend, I mean. I don't remember like in so in the troll in the troll chapter chapter two. Do we learn Malisha's?
01:42:49
Speaker
Do we learn her like motivations?
01:42:53
Speaker
I don't I don't I don't know that I ever fully grasped her motivations. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She wanted to like blow up the whole world. Yeah. Set up a volcano to blow world. She wants to start over again or some junk.
01:43:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those it's one of those ones where it's just like, I'm a bad guy and I want to i want to do but all the bad the baddest thing. yeah but it's pretty villainy, honestly. It's pretty it's it's pretty rough. um And we also find out that this antagonist, and I think it kind of makes sense, she is, there is a There is a connection to Lelote somewhere in this game. and and And several characters from King's Quest IV actually come back. Well, not several. I guess one. One character comes
01:43:45
Speaker
Well, to I mean, and Rosella. yeah True. Yes. So two. But like, yeah. And so you you basically you have to turn yourself back human. And you are also you're yes, you're looking for your mom, I guess. I don't think you know that your mom has necessarily tried to follow you.
01:44:03
Speaker
i think you saw her in the in the whirlpool, but you kind of discover it over time. And but it's more like. Even then, you now have a different goal. Your goal is to stop the volcano. Right. Rosella's goal is to stop Milisha. Valenice's goal is to find Rosella. So at that point, when you learn that your mom is here...
01:44:26
Speaker
you're kind of like, oh, um all right, i like I really got to go solve this volcano thing. Yeah. so like It's pressing, yeah. You find that it like your character is almost... Rosella is interested that her mom's there and kind of concerned about her mom, but...
01:44:44
Speaker
Not in such a way that she's going to abandon her mission to. Yeah. Well, i mean, if she abandons the mission, then we're all fucked. Yeah. then Yeah. And she'll never see Valenice like ever again. ah but do you want do you want to do you to.
01:45:00
Speaker
So bad. What? ponder that for a minute. Oh but my God. Do you want to say what happens after you, after as Rosella in chapter two, we get out of the troll land and we're kind of given a a little teaser. I didn't. end up In my version, I stayed there forever. Forever? but You were married to the Troll King. Wow, what a great game. Yeah, so you end up getting out. And ah so meanwhile, yeah, Valenice is exploring. She gets out of the desert and she's in like a mystical forest and also a weird town full of animals. And and what's it called?
01:45:44
Speaker
I don't know. It's called Falderall. Falderall. I thought it was Assworld.
01:45:51
Speaker
No, i I didn't remember. and And then... ah
01:45:58
Speaker
The kind of the coolest setting, I think, of the game. um Rosella gets out of the Troll World into Ooga Booga, which is like this Nightmare Before Christmas world. it is It's my favorite. I'm between, I guess, Valderall and Ooga Booga Land. I really like those settings a whole lot. They're super quirky looking.
01:46:23
Speaker
It's just kind of like everything there is dead and zombies. Yeah. everything there can kill you. But everyone's nice. Just like Nightmare Before Christmas. Let me give you a list of some of the deaths. Oh, boy. There's a lady. If you talk to her, you die. There's bones. That's true.
01:46:38
Speaker
There's bones. If you go near them twice, you die. There's a grave. An open grave. If you click on it, you die. There's a closed grave. If you click on it, you die. There's a spider web. If you click on that twice, you die. If you... There's a There's a plant monster that appears if you don't run away from it immediately or if you use any inventory item on it besides there's the one specific inventory item, you die. There's a jack-in-the-box. If you click on it, you die. That's true. If you go into the pumpkin fort,
01:47:12
Speaker
um every time you leave... There is one correct way to leave and two wrong ways to leave, and you don't know which one it is. So if you do the wrong one at that specific time, you die. um If you stand still in a place for too long, a zombie comes out and you die. ah If you blow, you get a horn at some point, and if you blow it in the wrong spot, you die. um There's a gargoyle. If you click on it, you die. There's some man-eating plants. you click on them, you die. There's a werewolf if you don't have the right thing die.
01:47:44
Speaker
to use on the werewolf at that moment, you die. Yeah. So that, that whole area, so Ooga Booga and the weird forest to the swamp and the forest area, you can die the most, I think, in that area. And you don't really see it coming. Like you said, you can just stand somewhere.
01:48:04
Speaker
And die. Unless. Yeah, if you're like, I'm going to go refresh my water. Hold on. I'm going walk away from the game for a second. Oh, yeah. No, you can't do that. Yeah, you can't be doing that. I do think, like, when you are in costume in the fourth chapter, there's less chance of you dying.
01:48:24
Speaker
or Yeah, about five or six of those that I listed. And remember, I listed about a dozen. About five or six of those go away if you're wearing your costume.
01:48:36
Speaker
I do love that setting, though. i love the doctor's office. doctor Also, if you if you go into a building when a dog is barking, you die. That's true. Wait, you die there? Yeah. Dang. I don't remember that. Okay, that you...
01:48:53
Speaker
don't remember dying there is now making me second guess it. Something bad happens. Maybe you don't die. I don't know. Okay. Okay. Fair. um I still love that setting though. I love Dr. Mort cadaver. You you help him with like, it's very adventure. Like you said, in the way that everybody seems to have a problem and like a little quest for you. yeah um And I love the individual quests. Like I love helping these characters and,
01:49:20
Speaker
Falderall I really loved as well, except for, again, with the sound design, Fifi Leupyap, maybe more annoying than Cedric the Owl in terms of voice acting.
01:49:31
Speaker
Yes, it is it is a it is a poodle with a bad French accent and yeah and like a human trying to... like imitate a poodle. So yeah like high register, like very shrill. Yeah. A little known fact in, in leisure suit, Larry seven, i think it's seven.
01:49:53
Speaker
You can see a weird, yeahp yeah you can see like Fifi's corpse. Like, Oh my God. Really? Yeah. That's so funny. I was just joking and it turned out I was right. Yeah. And the narrator, the narrator, the narrator goes, Oh no, not Fifi. Yeah.
01:50:12
Speaker
So there you go. There you go. There you go um Yeah, this chapter was pretty cool. this This did have just like that series of interconnecting. Everybody needs something. When you get somebody something, they give you something that you can use to
Challenges and Charm of King's Quest VII
01:50:30
Speaker
help somebody else. Everything kind of like falls into a logical cascade. um That's what I've always loved about adventure games is the cascade. Yeah. When...
01:50:41
Speaker
You have a series of puzzles all dependent on each other and you kind of figure out, okay, I need this so I can do this so I can do this so I can do this. And then you get one of those things and then all all the sort of dominoes knock each other over. Yeah. This chapter is very much like that.
01:50:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I love, i love, God, I love the design of once you get out of the dess desertt desert where those huge statues are, where you where you have to like fix the bridge and like everywhere from there into Falderall, I think is so beautiful and so magical. And it again, it feels like a grand adventure. That is this genre to a And here's something kind of funny.
01:51:23
Speaker
um This game was... was made around the time that they were making The Realm Online.
01:51:33
Speaker
and Yeah. And they use some sound effects and I think some sprites. Oh, interesting. In both games.
01:51:47
Speaker
there' was there's a There's a moment in towards the end where there's like a battle and somebody goes, and somebody, like, there's like ah ah an injury noise. Somebody's like, ugh!
01:51:57
Speaker
Yep. And it is the exact ugh that happens when you get hit in the realm. Yeah. And i was at like it was like a ah visceral sort of, it was just like...
01:52:09
Speaker
it's transporting me back in time. Yeah. I mean, the the Sierra games definitely do that. The opening door click effect you hear in, like, Dagger is the same one in Gabriel Knight.
01:52:22
Speaker
And the same one in King's Quest VI. They definitely, like, reuse sound effects. This is the fun thing. So Valenice is in um this...
01:52:33
Speaker
ah garden, that or this, like, beautiful garden world and this silly animal town. Yeah. And Rosella is in this creepy nightmare town.
01:52:48
Speaker
Yeah. And they fucking switch places. Yeah. They cross paths. They kind of cross paths, yeah, but they they make an excuse as to why, like, you can't. Yeah. Why you don't see each other. now yeah It is the continuity is poorly done. is. You as you're playing, it will become very obvious. Like, OK, wait, if yeah if if Valenice was here, this would not have looked like this. Correct. Like, yeah, correct. There's no there's no the timelines do not line match up at all. But no.
01:53:27
Speaker
it's But it's still it's still kind of – it's still like a cute thing that they did. Yeah, I can i can suspend my disbelief enough. It's cute that they tried. Yeah, yeah. I think so. But I love that. I love that the – like, I love that you can travel between these settings and actually get to the next place via travel. It is connected. You you can – as Rosella, you can go all the way back to where Valenice started.
01:53:55
Speaker
Yeah, you can. And I love that. i think that's so cool. and It is. it's really It's really cool that they did that. and Yeah, the map is really neat. i like You can even bring all her inventory.
01:54:07
Speaker
Wait, is this true?
01:54:11
Speaker
Go ahead. Can you bring her inventory all the way back to the mouse? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, you can. and you will get new yeah And you will get new reactions with the mouse. It's fun. It's so fun. i love i absolutely love that shit.
01:54:27
Speaker
I love that they let you do that. Again, it's it's kind of the Grim Fandango thing where I'm like, can I interact with that phone? Because if I could, that'd be great. And yeah, you can go to the mouse as Rosella and try to trade. And it's very fun. yeah And it doesn't solve any puzzles. I don't think you can get anything by doing that. No, you can't, but I just love that it exists. But you can just for fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can visit you know Uga Booga as both Valanice and Rosella, and you can both talk to the doctor and get different interactions.
01:54:58
Speaker
And a lot of that stuff is stuff you do have to do yeah to proceed in the game, um which is is cool by itself, but I think the other thing we're saying that's that strikes us as even cooler is that there's stuff that you they didn't need to put in the game.
01:55:18
Speaker
Right, right. They could have made it for some reason. You know, there's like a... The thing that blocks your path at the end of chapter one is like a weird salamander, a giant salamander thing.
01:55:30
Speaker
Yeah. and they could They could have easily had... Rosella just say, I hear a weird creature in that cave. I'm not going there and block off the desert from Rosella.
01:55:41
Speaker
um But they didn't. Yeah. And then you can still interact with stuff. You don't need to solve any puzzles in the desert as Rosella. But you can go there just for fun.
01:55:53
Speaker
Yeah. And that, that, again, that is like the magic of adventure games for me. It's not always solving every puzzle. It's how does the map work and can I interact with things as a different character? Cause that, that's what makes it real. That's what makes the, right the, the setting real.
01:56:11
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I love, i love like, revisiting areas in adventure games. It's one of my favorite things. Yeah, same, same, where things are either as a different character or just things are different. Or you just have different inventory items. Everything's the same, but you have different inventory items. you can just, like, think of some new interactions. Yeah, it's very cool to do. It's it's like in Grimm where you go back to Rubik's Cava later.
01:56:35
Speaker
i love revisiting stuff. I just, I love that shit. That's awesome. yes Yeah. Yeah. I'm on board. um I feel the same way. So let's see. like so Rosella ends up...
01:56:50
Speaker
Solving things in Oogabuga. Valanice keeps looking for her daughter in Falderall while solving people's problems. There's a lot of problems that people have and you have to solve them. um And then let's see, where do we end up? i Oh, this is this is the switch. So this is where you kind of, you would cross paths, but you don't. um Because Rosella ends up in Falderall.
01:57:13
Speaker
and yes that's what Yes, this is the switch. We're passing through Falderall, and then Valenice ends up... In Oogabooga. In Oogabooga, just for yeah for a little while. For some crucial moments, um like her relationship with Mort Cadaver is important.
01:57:32
Speaker
Yes, I love that whole thing. She needs that to get... Because this is where Valenice starts exploring... like other realms yeah she starts exploring like this is where she meets the the the the greek fates and she yeah has to well that's that's in uh etheria she meets the fates in etheria well that's what i'm saying this is where she starts going to other realms like yeah a place called etheria this is where she meets the fates this is where she um meets queen mab in the dream realm
01:58:07
Speaker
I so wish there were more of the dream realm. i was really intrigued by it. I wish that was its own little setting. It's really just a cutscene, really. Yeah, it's fast.
01:58:18
Speaker
yeah And I don't... I didn't love those scenes, to be honest. like this This part of the game... um Is where I started feeling. i mean And maybe if i's if I wasn't playing it for a podcast and I was just playing it at my own pace.
01:58:34
Speaker
um But this is where I started to get tired of the game. Okay, that's fair. The puzzles the puzzle started to get a little more obtuse. yeah um The backtracking started to get even worse. Yeah.
01:58:47
Speaker
i so This is where I stopped liking. This is where I stopped really enjoying my time. And I pulled up a walkthrough and I was just like, okay, what next? Okay, what next? Yeah. I mean, keep in mind when play this as a kid, it took a long time. It was an adventure.
01:59:01
Speaker
Yeah. Because I wasn't looking it up. And at that point, I could either call the hotline or write in. And you want to write in it's free. i am sure we talked about this. There's no way we haven't. I haven't asked you this before, but I don't remember your answer.
01:59:14
Speaker
ever call the hotline? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. oh yeah. My parents were pissed. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God. It's like $75 for like a call on the Sierra hotline. I absolutely knew that that was off limits. I don't like, i my i my parents, I don't think even had to tell me. I just like, I knew like, no, I'm not, I am not allowed to do this. Here's something kind of sweet though. If you write in, that's a free. And if you write in for a hint, they'll write back to you as like a character.
01:59:44
Speaker
So I had gotten a letter from Queen Valenice. Yeah. Isn't that cute? That said, ah when I was on my adventure, a thing that i I was thinking at that time was this. That's cute.
01:59:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It is cute. It is cute. Do you still have the letter? i wish I did. I wish I did. I wish I still had it. But like as a kid, I'm not thinking, like oh, maybe adult roses would love to reflect on this cool like official letter. But yeah, no, I didn't. But I was so excited ah to have gotten it. And i remember what game it was for, too. It was for King's Quest VI. I had gotten stuck. I had the King's Quest Collection.
02:00:25
Speaker
when I was young. And you would you had already gotten in trouble for yeah he calling. i didn't know it would be that expensive. so so this So you're like, wonder what happens if I write. yeah yeah Yeah, I think that's really cool. And yeah, I wrote in for King's Quest VI because I had the collection that my collection came with.
02:00:46
Speaker
ah it also came I already had the game but by this point, but it also came with an extra copy of King's Quest VII, which is wild. ah So I have like the two copies of this game. um But yeah, it's super sweet. um That is sweet. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
02:01:02
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, I don't blame you for using the walkthrough. It does get a little dicey. um i think though, i I felt like super excited when we finally got to Etheria though, because it's so pretty and the music is so like magical. I use that music a lot in my videos is from Etheria.
02:01:22
Speaker
There is a scene in Etheria, there's an animation, whenever you walk into a certain screen, some fairies come dance around you. Yeah. You never use them for any puzzle or anything in the game. They have no purpose.
02:01:34
Speaker
It is just to slow you down. but Are you sure they don't give you the musical sting? Oh, is that where you find out what the musical, how how to play the harp? Yep. Okay.
02:01:47
Speaker
Yep. Okay. At that point, I was already in walkthrough mode. and i I was going to say, like, if you were using a walkthrough, you probably didn't clock it. But yeah, I know it's annoying and it's a little distracting. but when And they keep doing it even after you've... Even after, Yeah. yeah But yeah, they give you the musical sting for the Okay. All right.
02:02:05
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. To get to the fates, you have to play a harp. Yeah. in the And you have to play the notes in the right order. I like that like there are zephyrs in this world, like little wind monsters. Yeah, it really is. that It's like you said, it this is a mishmash of different fantasy things. You also have to catch a horse by like being in the exact right spot of the screen. There's another point where you have to um you you have a horn that you blow that gets a guy to dig ah thing. Yes. And you have to be in the you have to be on the only screen where if you blow the horn, you will die. Mm-hmm.
02:02:40
Speaker
You have to be, and there's no clue as to why you would have to be in this specific spot. It is, yeah. You have to stand in the exact right spot of the screen. There are definitely some kind of technical difficulties.
02:02:53
Speaker
um I remember in my original game, there's ah there's a part where you need to go into Malisha's house through the back as Rosella, and she has a dog, and the dog can catch you.
02:03:06
Speaker
But it's like very – I don't know if it was broken. i have to re-look into this. But every time I went, every time yes I got hit by this dog. Correct. i wrote could i I wrote it down. i ah Okay. So I tried walking – Into.
02:03:25
Speaker
So you have to you can only go through this secret entrance when the dog is not barking. So if you walk into the screen and the dog is barking, you got to leave and come back. Correct. So yeah I left and came back 12 times and the dog was still barking. At that point, I decided, OK, I'm going to walk two screens away and come back.
02:03:43
Speaker
I had to do that four times. Before I finally walked into the screen and the dog wasn't barking and I could go into the house. Oh, I had, I had done it so many times back in the day. It feels broken because it feels like you're doing something wrong. There's no indication that, ah do you have to do something to get the dog to stop? No, it's random. It's completely random.
02:04:06
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Sierra. Sierra shit, man. Yeah. So there's definitely these weird, like, technical difficulty weird things where, yeah, if you blow the horn at the wrong part. yeah I was even on the right screen. I blew the horn and I still got.
02:04:23
Speaker
But that's what I'm saying. Yeah. That is the only screen where if you blow the horn, you die. Yeah. And. it is the screen that you have to blow the horn on.
02:04:33
Speaker
Correct. yeah so So it's like they expected you to – and there's no clue as to figuring out where. Right. Well, I guess sort of it's like – There's like a branch that like changes that changes direction. Okay.
02:04:49
Speaker
okay Okay, I see. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. no Not really, but I can kind of – I know that there's – Okay, here's ah this is kind of spoiler territory, but this is how this is how pick like nitpicky this game is about being like in the right section at the right time. There's there's these bones you have to dig up.
02:05:09
Speaker
Use your horn and the gravedigger will come and dig up dig them up for you. Unfortunately, this this bone area is the like burial site slash home of the boogeyman.
02:05:21
Speaker
So sometimes he's there and if he's there, he will kill you. So there's a tree in the background of that screen. And if the branch is like up, he's there. And if it's like down, he's not there. It's that it's that Nick picky. and that There's no reason.
02:05:36
Speaker
There's no reason to know that that's the case. There's there's nothing. It's not like anybody's like and keep an eye out for that branch. Yeah, nobody nobody has told you this. It's just kind of trial by fire. Or even like, when the boogeyman is here, yeah the the the trees wilt and the animals cower, right? Like, even if they had done some shit like that, yeah and then you would and and then they expected you to remember that, and like we would have been like, ah, that was a little bullshit, but I get it. yeah Nothing.
02:06:06
Speaker
Not even a slight indication. A little too much guesswork that borders on, is this broken? Like, for me, it was bordering on, is this broken or not? I can't tell. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. absolutely ah yeah This was a... Yeah, I think that is... That part is...
02:06:28
Speaker
Sort of like the the thing that makes Sierra games that gives Sierra games the bad name that they sometimes get yeah is for sure shit like exactly this.
02:06:39
Speaker
Yeah. It's weird, though, because even as we're talking about it, I like just get excited. summit And you know some of it is timing. Some of it is when I played it. It's the first game I bought with my own money. this i played this game po or sorry pre my father's death.
02:06:58
Speaker
And so I actually do. Maybe this is a good like episode to have one day. But I do have different reactions to games I've played post his death and pre his death.
02:07:09
Speaker
So like I played this pre my father dying. And so I am like bonded with this game. Yeah. Bonded with it. um So even at the broken stuff, I'm like, oh, it's broken. Oh, it's my favorite little broken guy. oh my little broken game.
02:07:26
Speaker
I love you so much. What's it? The whoobie? Is that what they call that? When there's a a broken character in a in a i don't know is a piece of fiction. So there's a broken character, but you love them kind of because they're broken. um That is just my entire but life perspective. I love things that are broken. I i i think I think there's a lot that's charming about this game. And I don't think... I think we can probably stop the story there because yeah we have gotten... Yeah, absolutely. We've gotten all... We've taken you all the way up to the ending. And the ending is is silly and it has some ties back to King's Quest IV.
02:08:12
Speaker
and um
02:08:17
Speaker
And a character... yeah I'll just say this. A character turns into a baby and it's that's very... um Magneto coded. Sure. and Yeah. there's ah There's a, there's there's there's a very famous X-Men story where Magneto gets turned into a little baby. A baby. And ah something similar happens in this game that i that made me yeah feel very X-Men-y. Interesting.
02:08:47
Speaker
It's like early X-Men before it was before the comic was good, but still, it's a very funny. And it's funny because that scene, written in like the nineteen sixty s ends up having consequences that last until like the 90s. That's funny. So it's like very funny that just like dumb old comic stuff just like continued on. but But so if they kept making King's Quest games, the fact that this one character turns into a little baby may have ended up being a universe threatening story. i wanted that I wanted that to happen. i wanted that to continue on into into the story because I thought that was kind of cool.
02:09:29
Speaker
um Yeah, so...
02:09:37
Speaker
i don't know. Yeah, i don't know that I don't know what my final thoughts... see I think we have shared a lot of my thoughts here. I think it was a very sweet game. it was very nice to look at. um The first maybe 60%, 70% I was really, really enjoying. Maybe the last...
02:09:55
Speaker
40 30 to 40 percent i i started to feel really kind of annoyed more annoyed than i was feeling more and annoyance than enjoyment um but i'm glad that i played it i'm glad that i replayed it i like i i did enjoy myself I'm glad. I'm glad you enjoyed it because I do think this game for ah for a long time got a bad reputation because it was such a departure from the rest of the series. But I think if you really sit down with it and play it and give it a chance, it is very charming. It is very grand. You feel like you're on a big adventure.
02:10:36
Speaker
And yeah, it's beautiful. These backgrounds are are some of the most beautiful and inventive I've seen in a fantasy game like this. And I agree. Yeah. And yeah, I have. Mm-hmm.
02:10:47
Speaker
No, you you first. i apologize Oh, I was just going to say this is a game that I if somebody gets really close to me in my real life, I share this game with them. Yeah, because it's so like special to me and looks just beautiful and fun and easier than other Kings Quest games. I know it does get a bit to be a bit much, but because there's no dead ends, I feel more confident giving this to someone and being like, just just try some stuff to try.
02:11:14
Speaker
This game sort of feels like it fulfills the promise of the King's Quest games, where you do feel like you're traveling through all these different... mish yeah this mishmash of different uh fantasy worlds yeah you do feel like you're in very different fantasy worlds oh like which they didn't really pull off that well in the early king's quest games just because they didn't have the graphical fidelity they didn't have the technology this is almost like them finally getting to like finally fully figuring it out yeah yeah yeah loved it um
02:11:53
Speaker
So, you know what I should have done? What's that? I should have We should have started this segment, and I should have pretended like I accidentally played King's Quest VIII.
02:12:06
Speaker
I would have been i thought i for Look, for a brief moment, I was like, I hope the fuck he didn't play King's Quest VIII instead. Yeah. i do get the I do get the later numbers mixed up. I get the i get seven six, seven, and eight confused of which were the right, you know which were the right which which is which number. Yeah. yeah um It would have been very funny if we started this segment, and I was like, okay, so you start the game um as ah Alexander. You're in a little village. You're like a 3D model, and you have to get your sword and start hitting weird troll things, and you have to go find your armor.
02:12:47
Speaker
And you're not even Alexander. You're fucking Connor. You're some guy. Oh, you're Connor. You start this game as a character named Connor. And you... You're just some guy. walking around your village. You see a dragon in the distance. Yeah.
02:13:01
Speaker
I would have been pissed. I would been like, what Luckily, I knew you were playing it because we had texted. We had texted, textton yeah. Yeah, I would have been i would have been pretty deep peeved. Pretty angry. Pretty peeved. No, I'm glad you played it I'm glad you got some enjoyment out of it.
02:13:19
Speaker
Me too. Listen, everybody. Thank you for listening. Yeah, thank you.
Podcast Conclusion and Light-hearted Banter
02:13:25
Speaker
Thank you for listening. I hope, you know, if you do if you've if you've played this game, I hope you got some enjoyment out of it. If not, you know, it's it's worth checking out. and Oldie but a goodie. Yeah.
02:13:35
Speaker
yeah Yeah, if you if you want to know what really amused Small Roses as a kid, this is it. This is this was very important to me. Yeah, I think it's i think it's time to wrap up. Thank you thank you guys for listening. um Again, we're still we still haven't sort of like ah solved all of our scheduling issues yet. So yeah it's still going to be a little catch-as-catch-can for a while, I think.
02:14:03
Speaker
We'll do our best, though. But we'll do our best. We'll do our best. We're always doing our best because we like we love this show. We love you guys. must We love this show. We love you guys. We love video games.
02:14:14
Speaker
So yeah we're not going to give up on any of those things. I just gave up. I'm not doing video games anymore. i give up on them.
02:14:28
Speaker
yeah ah If you want to get in touch with us, you can always email us at mattandroses at gmail.com. You can also go to our Discord. There will be a link in the show notes. We have a Discord that we share with the Mutant Menace podcast. um You find us on...
02:14:45
Speaker
Instagram at Save Your Game Podcast. Yes. Or we're both on Blue Sky. find Yeah, you can find us there individually talking about dumbly dumb stuff probably.
02:14:58
Speaker
Dumb shit. Yeah, I don't know. I haven't been posting on social media a lot because, yeah you know, every time you go to social media, it reminds you of how bad things are in the world right now I try to post nice things on my Instagram. So if you want to follow me there, I post a lot of pottery. i post some some cat stuff. Like I try to keep it welcoming and for everybody. So i maybe that lighten your day. Huh? and All I'm doing, I'm just going to start. All I do on the internet now is wiener pics.
02:15:28
Speaker
Just wiener picks. Not even of my wiener. Just any wiener I see. wow. That seems um illegal. Just any wiener I see, it's going on the internet. I hope you mean hot dogs. And it better not have ketchup on it or we're going to have a problem here. Well, I'm a vegetarian, so it's mostly veggie dogs. And it's fine to put ketchup on hog hot dogs as long as you also put mustard and rallied. It's not. It's actually not okay.
02:15:50
Speaker
As a Chicagoan, we do not put ketchup on our hot dogs. Yeah, you guys didn't invent the hot dog. And we will yell at people who guys just claim it. um ah ah Yeah, no. All three condiments. You go ketchup, relish, and mustard. No, what? All three.
02:16:06
Speaker
no Yeah, that's when a hot dog tastes good. Have you had a Chicago-style dog? Yeah, with a weird fucking, like, a pickle and shit. Hell yeah, pickle spear. Pickle and mayonnaise or mustard is all it is, right?
02:16:20
Speaker
no No. There's like seven components. Okay. Before we go, let's see if I can do this super quickly. We got a poppy seed bun. We got celery salt. Poppy seed?
02:16:30
Speaker
Yes. Why would you want that fucking texture with your hot? Okay. Because it's good. Poppy seed bun, celery salt, pickles beer, tomato. Ew, ew. ra mustard and onions that is ah that is horrible it's not it's so good and i'm gonna get you one they have them vegan you can get a vegan chicago style dog um i when i was in new orleans i went to a hot dog place that was that had a bunch of like special hot dogs and they had crazy shit like this too
02:17:03
Speaker
It's not crazy. It's but classic. But here's the thing. Their crazy shit, most of their crazy shit was like, oh, that all sounds like it'd be good on a hot dog. This is good on a hot dog. What you just said does not.
02:17:17
Speaker
I don't understand. Do you not want a garden on your hot dog? Because I do. The addition of a tomato is insane. But you put ketchup on your hot dog. So why is a tomato insane? Yeah.
02:17:31
Speaker
Okay, so you believe that ketchup tastes like tomatoes? I'm not having this debate with you, Matt, okay? Chicago-style hot dogs are an institution, and they're a classic, and that's what it is, and you're going to have one. Pittsburgh puts chili on spaghetti. every Every city has a weird fucking thing that they do. It's not weird! It's not weird!
02:17:59
Speaker
it's not weird What is it? I mean, yeah, in in Philly, we put cheese whiz on our cheesesteaks. Sounds kind of good. People really love it.
02:18:10
Speaker
Everybody, every every city has some weird shit. that It's not weird. People outside are like, what the fuck are you doing? This is normal stuff. this very We're very normal.
02:18:22
Speaker
I'm going to look it up. Where were hot dogs invented? You know what we did invent? Not hot dog, but what we did invent. You might have. I don't know. I don't think you did, but. I don't think we did, but we did invent the brownie. The brownie was invented in Chicago.
02:18:39
Speaker
um did you do you do the thing when you have a hot dog? Do you do the thing where you cut it down the middle so that you can cook it a little faster? oh That was a thing that I discovered. I think at the cafe at my, my work used to have a cafe back when they cared about their employees. And, ah there was, that's how they would cook their hot dogs. They would cut them down the middle and then put them like, excuse me.
02:19:05
Speaker
I don't know which one of us is editing, ah editing this, but I apologize about all the coughs we have to edit out. It is okay.
02:19:13
Speaker
Uh, They would cut the hot dog like lengthwise down the middle and then put it upside down on the grill. ah Okay. So it was invented in like kind of like sausage.
02:19:31
Speaker
It was like a type of sausage in Germany. Right. But the hot dog that we know is New York. That makes sense. That makes sense to me. Mm-hmm.
02:19:42
Speaker
Yeah. But I think we win because we invented the brownie. a be You can still get the original brownie recipe at the Palmer House in Chicago.
02:19:53
Speaker
It's not that good, you guys. Look, just because something was the first at something does not mean it was the best. So just keep that in mind. i'd say what I live near Amish country. We invented all sorts of fucking foods. The quilt rack. Oh, food? Yeah. We did invent the cheese steak. We invented the hoagie. We invented the soft pretzel.
02:20:18
Speaker
That's pretty good. And we have tasty cakes. Oh, I like tasty. I like tasty cakes. tasty I'm hungry. We got to end this. I am so hungry. do you remember when ah they used to make like sweet goldfish?
02:20:32
Speaker
I don't know. I don't remember. you would have like chocolate and vanilla. They were kind of like Teddy Grahams and they'd have chocolate and vanilla. goldfish and you could go and just like like eat them at the factory like fresh ruled ruled wow that that sounds great i wish i hadn't grown up in chicago now ah um oh they still make them goldfish grahams i don't know i'll just stick with teddy grahams
02:21:05
Speaker
Teddy Grahams is cereal that we we don't eat as a cereal, you know? I do. It's a mistake, you eat it? You put it in – yeah, yeah. Yeah, I put it milk, and it just turns to to mush. I eat it anyway.
02:21:19
Speaker
It does get mushy pretty fast, but it is – Yeah, it does. When you're eating dry Teddy Grahams, you're like, this is cereal. What am I doing? This is cereal. And then you put it in a bowl with milk, and you're like, oh, this isn't cereal. This is soup. Yeah.
02:21:32
Speaker
What are we doing? Let's end the show ah Thank you guys again for listening. I think we've done it. I think we've done. I think we said all our goodbyes. So ah listen, podcast is art.
02:21:45
Speaker
And artists suffer.