Transcript
Speaker: Hello?
Speaker: What's going on in here?
Speaker: It's a podcast.
Speaker: She knows that.
Speaker: She's playing coy with you.
Speaker: She always knows.
Speaker: She always knows.
Speaker: Ms.
Speaker: Munch.
Speaker: Yeah, little Ms.
Speaker: Munch.
Speaker: You know who else is coy?
Speaker: Who's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: And today...
Speaker: for a very special episode.
Speaker: We have Pim from Pim's Crypt.
Speaker: Pim, how are you doing?
Speaker: I am doing great.
Speaker: It's so much fun to be a guest on the podcast.
Speaker: And I have to say, before I forget saying this, I'm going to say something to the lovely audience out there, and I'm going to deliberately say it in a way that can be very easily misinterpreted.
Speaker: I have slept with these two fine men so many times, so it feels very good that I can finally give something back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: by being here.
Speaker: Oh, we're, it's, I can't believe it's taking this long to get you on the show.
Speaker: We're going to leave that context list and move right up.
Speaker: Let's not explain that at all.
Speaker: Well, if it helps, most of the people I've slept with have not been on the show.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: It would get a little crowded if you know what I'm saying.
Speaker: We have a good time.
Speaker: I was in Savannah too.
Speaker: I saw what you did.
Speaker: Kevin nude me in my grad school days.
Speaker: It was a different time, a different place.
Speaker: Yeah, you're a married man.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm all settled down and shit.
Speaker: I've hung up my spurs.
Speaker: Most women didn't like the spurs anyway, so.
Speaker: Can't imagine why.
Speaker: It's just, you know, when you start shouting, Sue, wee!
Speaker: In the bedroom, people get... They get offended, and I don't know why.
Speaker: They get frustrated.
Speaker: We are off to a great start, by the way.
Speaker: What is this opening?
Speaker: I don't know what it is.
Speaker: This is like a Jesse episode.
Speaker: This is like Jesse Gratia.
Speaker: Like his spirit has blessed us with, you know, something, something awful.
Speaker: But Pim, why don't you introduce yourself for those out there who might not know your lovely YouTube channel.
Speaker: Well, thank you for the compliment, first of all.
Speaker: But yeah, I have a YouTube channel called Pim's Crypt where I make video essays about, well, most things horror.
Speaker: It's a short description, but that's what it is.
Speaker: But accurate.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's the most important thing.
Speaker: Pim has been a pretty vocal supporter of us since we got started.
Speaker: So I have to thank our favorite non-binary Swede for being such an ardent supporter of the podcast and just the path that we've been on for the past two years now.
Speaker: It's been great.
Speaker: But today...
Speaker: We're talking about something else.
Speaker: We're talking about a book.
Speaker: No, short book.
Speaker: Novella.
Speaker: Not even.
Speaker: Collection.
Speaker: It's a collection of basically notes that didn't make it into amnesia.
Speaker: We're talking about remember.
Speaker: Oh, that's harsh.
Speaker: That is harsh.
Speaker: Third person notes.
Speaker: I mean, you're not wrong.
Speaker: Anybody who's ever played Amnesia, the Dark Descent knows that it's 70% reading anyway, so that's saying a lot.
Speaker: I mean, you're not wrong.
Speaker: We're talking about Remember the Dark Descent by Mikhail Hedberg and illustrations by Rasmus Gunnarsson and Jonas Steinick.
Speaker: So yeah, we're off to a good start here.
Speaker: Yeah, so just a little back story.
Speaker: We decided to do this.
Speaker: I think, Pim, you actually meant, did you mention it to us?
Speaker: I think you're the one who told us about it.
Speaker: Yeah, I think you told us about it.
Speaker: So this is a PDF of notes that came with,
Speaker: Amnesia the Dark Descent it was included after like with the 1.3 patch of amnesia the Dark Descent they gave you a PDF of all these short stories that provide more context for the characters that are in the game which is super confusing to me the only one of us who has not played amnesia the Dark Descent yeah I I
Speaker: gonna be honest with you, didn't know what this any of this was about until I read a Wiki.
Speaker: And that's totally fair.
Speaker: Before we got started, I was actually talking to Pym and I said, you know, this one, this book, it isn't enough that you have played Amnesia of the Dark Descent before you read this.
Speaker: It would help if you had played it like a week ago at most.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Because like I made an entire video
Speaker: talking about all of Frictional Games, because Frictional Games is the development studio behind Amnesia, and I made a whole video discussing all of their games.
Speaker: And even though I made that video, I mean, it was a while back, but I don't think even I would have been able to remember some of these names even after having made that video, like right after.
Speaker: Because some of these names are just, you know, they show up in some document somewhere that you might even miss completely.
Speaker: And also, there's just so many names.
Speaker: And I'm not good with names.
Speaker: I have ADHD.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: This is not adapted to me and my needs.
Speaker: I got to tell you, ever since Kevin and I started this podcast, I have come to realize just how bad.
Speaker: bad with names I am, because Kevin is on it with these characters.
Speaker: And it's not just because he tends to be the one who takes the notes and everything like that.
Speaker: I'll say, which character was that?
Speaker: And he'll go, oh, it was Bob.
Speaker: And I'll say, well, which Bob?
Speaker: It was Bob the second, but on page 34.
Speaker: He's just on it.
Speaker: And that's to say nothing of things like Halo Outcast, which we just finished, which has all of these strange alien names in it that have apostrophes before them.
Speaker: which means that every time they mention one of these aliens by name, I think dialogue is starting.
Speaker: I forgot to mention that.
Speaker: That was very frustrating.
Speaker: Every last one of them had an apostrophe at the beginning of the name.
Speaker: Yeah, the Sangheili, that is, they tend to have apostrophes at the start of their name.
Speaker: Here's the thing is, I did not actually look up how to pronounce any of those names.
Speaker: And I refused to go into the Halo wiki to find out.
Speaker: And because I'm like looking at it, I was like, how do I vocalize an apostrophe before a name?
Speaker: I know there's got to be something there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But do is it is it what it what would it be?
Speaker: So, you know, I just ignored it.
Speaker: And that was that was the ticket.
Speaker: That's that's really the way to go about it, I think.
Speaker: You don't understand it, ignore it.
Speaker: It's the American one.
Speaker: Just like, basically just, that's, and that's why I have to apologize.
Speaker: Normally, you talk me up as normally the guy with the names and the notes.
Speaker: I don't have the names or the notes for this because I didn't understand it and therefore I ignored it.
Speaker: No, I actually read it.
Speaker: I just didn't, I don't, I'm still, I just read the entire wiki explaining it and it's already gone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It disappeared into the ether.
Speaker: The game is called Amnesia, though.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: But also, the short story collection is called Remember.
Speaker: Remember.
Speaker: Remember Amnesia.
Speaker: They've got us at every stop.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: So the first short story in the book is called House of Gerich.
Speaker: And it opens up with a scene between a man named Klaas and another man named Gottschall.
Speaker: And Klaas is like, hey, I'm looking for information.
Speaker: And Gottschall's like, I don't know.
Speaker: That's pretty much the entirety of the scene.
Speaker: In the beginning when you were trying to define this, I set a collection, I hesitate to even call this a short story collection, because that would necessitate this to be filled with stories.
Speaker: And, oh my god.
Speaker: These are scenes, I think.
Speaker: These are scenes.
Speaker: These are the harshest reviews, oh my god.
Speaker: I found some enjoyment out of some of them, I will say.
Speaker: There was one that I really liked.
Speaker: The one that had a beginning, middle, and end was the one I kind of, I really enjoyed.
Speaker: But some of these are just like, that's the problem is they just feel like beginnings and then they end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: So, yeah, we have these...
Speaker: We have class and he's looking for information into a man named Wilhelm, who was from the House of Gerich.
Speaker: And Wilhelm apparently is a person that is.
Speaker: he to the lore of this whole thing.
Speaker: He worked for Alexander of Brennenberg, who is the main antagonist of the Orjon game.
Speaker: Yeah, and Gottschalt says you should ask for an audience with Baron Alexander.
Speaker: And then Klaas is like, all right, well, I'm going to go to the farmstead that used to be owned by someone else, the Stoll family.
Speaker: And he is looking for or the Stas family and he's looking for Stas.
Speaker: There is no Stas there.
Speaker: There's a man named Zimmerman there.
Speaker: And he's trying to figure out what what happened with the fire that burned down the barn at their farm.
Speaker: And he doesn't really get a lot of information because the Zimmerman's.
Speaker: I mean, they're the second owners of this property.
Speaker: It's not like they know a whole lot.
Speaker: But he says, all right, well, you could go talk to, oh no, Zimmerman doesn't even tell him anything.
Speaker: Zimmerman just, they just leave and he goes to talk to a priest.
Speaker: The priest who knew the Stoll family.
Speaker: And the priest is like, okay, well, how about you go talk to the youngest daughter?
Speaker: She might still be alive.
Speaker: he finds the youngest daughter and she married into the Koch family and you know the famous the Kochs that they the right wing the right wing brothers who have financed Republicans for the past 40 years this is where it all begins this is the true lore of this the true evil the true evil fight the real evil
Speaker: Um, so he finds her.
Speaker: Uh, he gets let in.
Speaker: The maid introduces class to, uh, Frau Coke.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: You know, they just talk about Emil, who they thought, they're like, oh, Emil killed your father because he was the one who set the fire or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, and then we get a nice illustration of the farm, the barn on fire.
Speaker: Yeah, there's pretty good illustrations.
Speaker: I like them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then Klaas is like, all right, well, I'm going to go talk to Brandenburg.
Speaker: And the end.
Speaker: I think we skipped some things in between there, but yeah, that is sort of the gist of it.
Speaker: The revelation is basically like, oh, it wasn't Emil who... It wasn't Emil who did the killing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, he was blamed for the killing, though, and that's when Wilhelm...
Speaker: took him in and no one knows what happened to him and Klaus just figures, well, the final stop is gonna be Castle of Brennenberg, I guess, and then he goes there and knocks on the door and then it's over.
Speaker: And it's one of those things where it's like, if you don't have the context, I mean,
Speaker: If you have the short story, you very likely own a copy of The Dark Descent.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: So you'll probably know just how bad of an idea it is to visit Castle Brennenberg.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But as a self-contained story, it's a non-ending.
Speaker: It's like, okay, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I think that's the key right there.
Speaker: It's, you know, and that's the thing.
Speaker: I tease, but the fact of the matter is you're absolutely right.
Speaker: If you're reading this, you have played the games or you're familiar with the games.
Speaker: And that's not like the game.
Speaker: This is less of a tie-in or adaptation.
Speaker: It's more along the lines of supplemental material.
Speaker: Because...
Speaker: The assumption is Klaus is dead.
Speaker: He goes to Castle Brandenburg and the Baron who I was reading all about him and his experiments was, you know, people would come to him and he would experiment on them until they were ghouls or whatever.
Speaker: So the assumption is like the the heart of the horrific ending of this short story is just left unsaid.
Speaker: But like, well, he went to the castle and be like, OK, he went to the castle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like the castle.
Speaker: Oh, that castle.
Speaker: That castle.
Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't really work as a horror story.
Speaker: It's really just... And this is the funny thing, too.
Speaker: If I recall this correctly, what is, like, the worst part of this ending is that Klaus isn't actually even mentioned in the game afterwards.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's even... Like, it's not even the, like, the origin story of, like, oh, this is why this important character came to Castle Brennenberg.
Speaker: It's just, like, a dude came to the castle.
Speaker: Yeah, we don't know what happened.
Speaker: One night, this man came to the castle.
Speaker: I killed him.
Speaker: Yeah, that would be something, at least.
Speaker: That story has a beginning, middle, and an end.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: The next story is Old Friends, which I did...
Speaker: Herbert is more of an important character.
Speaker: He's an actual character mentioned in the game as opposed to class.
Speaker: So this story is about Herbert as he's making his way through the streets of Algiers looking for a friend of his named Farage.
Speaker: And Farage is a local to Algiers.
Speaker: And they meet and, you know, it's been a long time since they've seen each other.
Speaker: The idea is that Herbert is there for an archaeological dig out in the desert and Farage is going to like help him like here's here.
Speaker: Here's where you should be looking.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Meanwhile, while this conversation is going on, there's shit happening out in the streets.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So the French this is a this is a story of colonialism gone wrong because the French had colonized Algiers for for a while at this point.
Speaker: And people in the Casbah were trying to smuggle weapons in so they could continue the rebellion against the French.
Speaker: There is a man who has been who has been stopped by a man named French Army Captain named Captain Ambrose.
Speaker: Ambrose Ambois.
Speaker: I'm not sure which one which would be the correct pronunciation there.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: He finds that the guy trying to get into the casbah has been smuggling rifles through grape containers.
Speaker: So this interrupts the conversation between Herbert and Faraj.
Speaker: Basically, they're still going on, still talking back and forth about the dig and how important the dig is and how it's this like, we're gonna find, this is the tomb of Tin Hinnan.
Speaker: We're gonna find something that could let us
Speaker: talk to gods in this tomb.
Speaker: And he's like, and he's thinking about the Church of England and how he's not a huge fan of religion.
Speaker: And then their conversation.
Speaker: So what happens is Farage gives him a sketch of something to look for.
Speaker: Meanwhile, outside things getting a little bit more tense.
Speaker: Captain Ambrose is like, all right, fucking shoot things.
Speaker: This is what we're here to do.
Speaker: This is what we're here to do.
Speaker: Let's get our colonialism on.
Speaker: Let's get our colonialism on and start and start murdering people.
Speaker: Um, so, uh, uh, the nephew of Farage runs in and is like, you gotta, uh, you gotta get out of here.
Speaker: And then the patrol waits for everybody to come outside and there is a execution line formed up.
Speaker: They kill everybody and everybody gets shot except for Herbert.
Speaker: Herbert is left alive and Faraj is like, ha, the color of your skin saved you.
Speaker: I am dying.
Speaker: It's also written like this.
Speaker: Where's the exact quote?
Speaker: It's like, Herbert, you're unhurt, smiled Farage.
Speaker: Saved by the color of your skin, Herbert hung his head in shame.
Speaker: And I just wrote a note saying, white guilt.
Speaker: That's the moral of this story.
Speaker: That's the moral of this story is the white guilt.
Speaker: When will we learn?
Speaker: When will we learn?
Speaker: That white guilt was even more deadly than the bullet.
Speaker: Not Farage, but other people might.
Speaker: Other people might argue that.
Speaker: So we get Herbert goes back and he meets with his assistant, Daniel.
Speaker: And, you know, Ambrose comes to basically talk to.
Speaker: So Daniel is also an important character.
Speaker: Isn't Daniel the.
Speaker: The main character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's the protagonist of the of Amnesia, the Dark Descent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: That's what I thought.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, Ambrose gives Herbert a star-shaped stone and he's like, why are you giving this to me?
Speaker: And Herbert's like, oh, this has been in my family forever.
Speaker: It has something to do with whatever you're looking into.
Speaker: I don't want it anymore.
Speaker: You take it.
Speaker: Please enjoy.
Speaker: And that's the end of that story.
Speaker: So now that I've read them all, I'm like, oh, OK.
Speaker: The next story is actually a flashback now to how his family got that heart-shaped stone.
Speaker: It takes place.
Speaker: I don't know, nearly 300.
Speaker: Yeah, like basically 300 years prior almost.
Speaker: Yeah, it gets, I mean, I think one of the cool things about this is, you know, it's very Lovecraft-y in the sense that it's that feeling of like, this has been going on for generations and generations and generations.
Speaker: I like that sort of thing, that grand scale.
Speaker: And I think it really starts to kick in at the second story there.
Speaker: Yeah, I think I think the first story was I feel like they could have not started with this for that first story.
Speaker: And it would have been it would have made a little bit more of an intriguing start, you know, because it's the first story has like tension and action and drama and all that stuff.
Speaker: Or the second story, rather the first story is just like this guy just going around asking people questions.
Speaker: And they're like, I don't know.
Speaker: Talk to this person.
Speaker: Get me into the markets of Algiers looking for Pazuzu.
Speaker: Let's just go straight into it.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: I think that would have been a better opening, but yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So, third story is with the blessing of the king, and it follows a man named Johann Weyer.
Speaker: He's a German man who, well, Germany didn't exist then, but he's from that area.
Speaker: From that region.
Speaker: Imperial Dutch.
Speaker: Imperial Dutch.
Speaker: That's what it says, the Duchy of Brabant.
Speaker: Part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: That's about as German as it gets.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Neither holy nor Roman nor an empire.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's my history.
Speaker: That's my history teacher would say.
Speaker: So Johan has permission to do some research in the French town of Calais, which has just been liberated from the English.
Speaker: So the French are on their toes here.
Speaker: And they stop Johan.
Speaker: and ask him to show his documents.
Speaker: And he's like, here we go.
Speaker: I have permission to go to this church and look into some stuff in there.
Speaker: They're like, yeah, OK, that's fine.
Speaker: But we're going to take you.
Speaker: We're not going to just let you go there.
Speaker: When they get there, they find that the priest has been hiding an English soldier.
Speaker: And they just go in there and murder the shit out of them.
Speaker: So much brutality in these stories.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Oh, it's almost like brutality begets brutality.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Put a pin in that.
Speaker: We'll come back to it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not convinced yet.
Speaker: Not convinced yet.
Speaker: So the church is from the 12th century.
Speaker: So it's even 400 years older than the start of this story.
Speaker: And the idea is that there is like a crypt in the back that has something hidden in it.
Speaker: And it kind of switches, suddenly the story, this,
Speaker: This threw me for a loop because the story suddenly switches point of view from Johan to a man named Sokol, who is just one of the French soldiers.
Speaker: I think this definitely works and is one of the reasons why I think this is probably my favorite out of these short stories because it starts off with Johan and...
Speaker: You know, when he is confronted by these French soldiers, he has this inner monologue where he goes like, should I really involve these people?
Speaker: Because, you know, they're going to get fucking screwed later on.
Speaker: I should be careful with my words here.
Speaker: But then you switch to the French soldier...
Speaker: And he's like, I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, he doesn't know anything.
Speaker: He doesn't even know the language that Johan is speaking.
Speaker: So when they actually go down to the crypt, you know just as little as he does.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Except you know that something bad is about to happen.
Speaker: And I think that's pretty neat.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I like the fact that we do follow Sokol.
Speaker: I think my only – the thing that threw me for a loop was because it –
Speaker: It's switched mid dialogue without a normally when they're just like formatting wise, when there's a point of view switch, you at least get like an extra paragraph break or what's the little symbol called when you.
Speaker: that you put in between two paragraphs.
Speaker: I usually use a pound key as the kids call it.
Speaker: A pound or an asterisk to simplify location, time, or point of view shift.
Speaker: I think that was my only thing.
Speaker: But yeah, so we get Sokol's point of view and he's like, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker: I don't even understand what's what the like the captain and Johan are speaking to each other, I assume, in some some middle German or something like that.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: Sokol is being asked to lift to move this stone slab with him, which has a counterweight on it.
Speaker: So they start moving the stone slab to open the door and it's lighter than expected.
Speaker: And then the counterweight breaks and hits Sokol on the shoulder.
Speaker: So he's like injured and has to like stay back.
Speaker: And he's told to walk it off, which I was like, I'm so glad they used that phrase.
Speaker: What am I, in third grade PE again?
Speaker: What the hell?
Speaker: There's another line in there which I really like.
Speaker: It's when the soldiers and Johan go in there and the one French soldier is still left behind and he yells out to them and he says, hey guys!
Speaker: And it's like...
Speaker: It's like when the line being said by this French 1500 soldier could also be said by like Markiplier to open a Let's Play.
Speaker: Maybe the line shouldn't be there is all I'm saying.
Speaker: I'm going to say yes, that actually threw me.
Speaker: I was like, that doesn't seem like a phrase in 1550 Calais.
Speaker: You know, I had a similar instance.
Speaker: It was when one of them sees the soapstone thing for the first time, and they just go, dude.
Speaker: I thought that was really inappropriate for the, oh, Kevin.
Speaker: I missed that.
Speaker: I've forgotten about that.
Speaker: Phil's lying.
Speaker: I'm lying.
Speaker: I'm lying.
Speaker: I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Speaker: No, at that point.
Speaker: And I just want to say as well that I respect Mikael Hedberg as a writer because he is actually the main writer for Soma, which is one of the best horror games ever made.
Speaker: So it's not like we're bashing someone who's lying down.
Speaker: This guy, he knows his stuff.
Speaker: No, yeah, he definitely knows his stuff.
Speaker: I think it's more akin to...
Speaker: And this honestly, all this stuff is like the way it's written, like it's there's good stuff here.
Speaker: I think it's I think all of these segments could have
Speaker: They could have benefited just from like having at least all of them a scene that just buttoned them up.
Speaker: Like the first one just could have like, just tell us about him going into the castle and the Baron killing him.
Speaker: Just like flesh it out just a little bit more.
Speaker: So it has that distinct ending.
Speaker: And obviously all of this stuff, like imagining like all of this and then you pop it into all of the lore and storytelling of Amnesia, The Dark Descent.
Speaker: It's all good.
Speaker: And Soma is probably one of the best written games of all time.
Speaker: That being said, yeah, there's some weird stuff in here.
Speaker: When I realized that it was the same writer, I was like, holy shit.
Speaker: Because he is a very talented writer.
Speaker: That much is clear.
Speaker: I think it's more along the lines of what's his name?
Speaker: Was it JMS, J. Michael Straczynski?
Speaker: Who wrote the Dark Souls book?
Speaker: Oh, no, that was... Oh, crud.
Speaker: Stackpole.
Speaker: Not Straczynski.
Speaker: Stackpole.
Speaker: The other S. Yeah, it's like Stackpole writing Dark Souls.
Speaker: And it's not as bad as Stackpole's Dark Souls.
Speaker: This is worlds above that.
Speaker: Sometimes great authors miss a little.
Speaker: Yeah, they're not.
Speaker: As we all do.
Speaker: As we all do.
Speaker: I think anybody who is able to take
Speaker: the tired storyline of what is being human?
Speaker: What is a soul?
Speaker: And as Mikhail did in Soma and actually make me give a shit, that right there was the biggest, highest compliment I could possibly give him.
Speaker: Yeah, this guy knows his stuff.
Speaker: There's no question about that.
Speaker: And we do tease and make fun of the people we love because it's a part of our things.
Speaker: You didn't play Soma until after Cat,
Speaker: did her video on it, right?
Speaker: Yeah, I literally was a voice in her video before I played the fucking game.
Speaker: And it was like, literally, she was like, could you please read this and do the thing?
Speaker: And I went, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And then I got a notification that it was like 75% off.
Speaker: And I was like, well, that's a sign.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: And I just bought it and played it.
Speaker: And no, no, it was magnificent.
Speaker: Loved it.
Speaker: So one of the things, though, that makes this particular story so good in this book is that it does have like a real, it has a real moment of just pure,
Speaker: Beyond time and space horror because what ends up happening is the soldiers go in and they're in this room and there's and and Sokol is just like watching them go in and there's a sphere in there and as they're like Touching and playing with the sphere.
Speaker: There's this blue light shooting from it and it's causing like
Speaker: the shadows to turn into like literal flesh and close in on the soldiers.
Speaker: And and Johan takes the orb and just runs from there.
Speaker: And Sokol is watching as his friends get swallowed up into a word brooding abomination.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So then Johan comes out and he he kicks the wedges out so that the door shuts.
Speaker: And yeah, it's it's it basically Johan apologizes to Sokol and runs away.
Speaker: And the basically Sokol is just like left with that that limestone or soapstone shard like thing that his descendant gave to Herbert.
Speaker: years later in order to open the tomb of Tin Hanan.
Speaker: Tin Hanan, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, Tin Hanan.
Speaker: which kicks off the events of the game, basically.
Speaker: I think this is probably the strongest story in the collection for that very reason.
Speaker: It accomplishes what clearly Hedberg has set out to do with this, which is to have some Easter eggs, some little prequel bits and that sort of thing.
Speaker: But while doing that, it gives us more context on the game,
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I feel like sometimes we're getting more context on the game, and sometimes the game is giving us more context on the stories, if that makes sense.
Speaker: And this is one of those times that I think it's very strong, and frankly, it could have worked as a standalone story.
Speaker: You wouldn't necessarily have to have played Amnesia.
Speaker: Sorry, Ripley is getting very...
Speaker: She's getting pushy.
Speaker: Ripley is demanding attention.
Speaker: Let's see that chonky cat.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Look at that butt.
Speaker: Show me your butt, Ripley.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Very impressive.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: In our family, we like a little more meat in your seat.
Speaker: That's all there is to it.
Speaker: But yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I do agree that I get a sort of
Speaker: the statement of Randall, uh, Randall Carter vibes from this story.
Speaker: I don't really know why, but, like, it feels like a proper Lovecraft story, and Lovecraft obviously is, like, the main influence for, well, a whole lot of, of Frictional's games, so... I absolutely believe it works on its own, and also that it's, it sort of... It works both to inform other short stories, but also...
Speaker: the game, because Johan is, well, not a prominent character in the actual game, but he is responsible.
Speaker: Him, Agrippa, and Alexander of Brennenberg, they are, like, the three who are sort of responsible for creating this sort of
Speaker: tincture or whatever that is supposed to be used for the ritual that will send Alexander home to his home planet.
Speaker: Home dimension or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker: Yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker: I think this is, it's strong.
Speaker: And on top of that, the scope, you know, sending us back some 500 years.
Speaker: I want to say about 300 years before the events of the game.
Speaker: It's just about 300 before the events of the game.
Speaker: I mean, I like that.
Speaker: I love a nice epic kind of tale like that.
Speaker: And I think that really works with...
Speaker: the cosmic horror level of it and it works with the gothic horror level of the game.
Speaker: And yeah, I thought this one, this one was, I think, the strongest of the bunch.
Speaker: You know, what's funny is you bring up because you bring bring up Lovecraft and so like the statement of Randolph Carter and and some of his other stories.
Speaker: And I noticed like something that
Speaker: That Hedberg fell into falls into a little bit in here.
Speaker: And it's a criticism I have of Lovecraft as well as abruptness where like there will be like a really big build up.
Speaker: And then the end that there's there's little to no falling action that's just like.
Speaker: Sort of like, what is it?
Speaker: The Mountains of Madness.
Speaker: It's, you know, this epic book of, I write to you, fair readers, to warn you of the Mountains of Madness.
Speaker: What we saw there, and then they get there, and they're like, we saw the things, and then we ran, and that's the end.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's like someone was gearing up to tell you a really cool story, and in the last five minutes, they were like, I am starving.
Speaker: I've got to make a sit.
Speaker: Cthulhu was there, and he chased us.
Speaker: We got the boat.
Speaker: We left.
Speaker: Anyway, is that roast beef?
Speaker: Because I could go.
Speaker: You don't have horseradish on hand, do you?
Speaker: I could go for a proper schmear right about now.
Speaker: No, I agree.
Speaker: It is a very old fashioned kind of way of writing.
Speaker: And you see it in a lot of those old pulp kind of things.
Speaker: Robert E. Howard, who I'm a big fan of, does that too.
Speaker: Yeah, so the pre-1950s, I'd say 50s and like 1900 to 1950s, that pulp era of writer, especially the horror sci-fi writer, did have that vibe.
Speaker: And obviously, I think there are
Speaker: clearly huge inspirations on Ed Berg's work, you know, especially Soma is like, Soma is basically like, what if I took Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury and like all these, these, these, these sci-fi writers from the fifties and sixties and just jammed them together.
Speaker: It's, and you know, comes up with something that is, I would even wager to say,
Speaker: Soma is better than a lot of their works in terms of questioning what makes a person a person.
Speaker: I think it's a good capitalization on all that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's clearly inspired by that entire era.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it reflects.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I totally get what you're saying there.
Speaker: Waiting for the rain is the biggest bummer in the book.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Even more so when you know the full context of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I did not get it.
Speaker: And then I read it afterwards and I'm like, oh, oh.
Speaker: yeah it's um want to ruin your day read this one yeah so elise uh is watching uh it's the funeral for her brother uh friedrich and she's watching uh the gravedigger uh fill in the grave and her uh dad uh gustav is a real asshole uh
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Literally, literally says, why couldn't have been one of the girls instead?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One of his first lines, too.
Speaker: It's like, whoa, okay.
Speaker: Right off the bat, worst dad of the year.
Speaker: Just not, not have, do I have my dad of the year mug up here?
Speaker: I do not.
Speaker: So my daughter and wife gave me a mug that says, okayest dad ever.
Speaker: C plus.
Speaker: Inside it says, JK, you're the greatest.
Speaker: But, you know, it's just a funny, yeah.
Speaker: It is a funny mug.
Speaker: So Gustav is like, why couldn't the girls have died?
Speaker: And Elise is like,
Speaker: Oh, I'm gonna go talk to my male best friend Jacob and his cat Tinker and...
Speaker: Jacob is burying a apple seed, which places this before or places this after the next story, because we'll get to it.
Speaker: But yeah, this is chronologically.
Speaker: This is right immediately before the events of the game, from what I understand, like the day before or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So she's hanging out with Jacob and she's talking about talking about his plan, her plans to run away.
Speaker: She's like, I'm tired of my old man.
Speaker: And she's always saying, smoke up, Johnny.
Speaker: I don't know why I went breakfast club, but I did.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: So they are going back to the farm and she could see her home.
Speaker: It's Gustav Zimmerman's farm, which is, this is the farm from the first story.
Speaker: This is the Zimmerman farm that Kloss was talking to people at.
Speaker: From the first story.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: It was important.
Speaker: It loops back around.
Speaker: So Gustav continues to be abusive and decides a good use of his energy is to flip the dining table over with all the plates and utensils flying everywhere.
Speaker: I mean, you got to remember, this is the 1830s.
Speaker: So, I mean, that's basically him telling them he loves them.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: It was just a different time.
Speaker: It was just a different time, you know.
Speaker: This is an 1830 Germanic man, you know.
Speaker: Yeah, that was when men were men.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: For all the, you take that any way you want.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was a simple time back then.
Speaker: You said to throw a plate of lovingly prepared food against the wall to say I love you.
Speaker: And wish your child dead to say I'm sad.
Speaker: That's actually what the song More Than Words is referring to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of people don't know, but Tears in Heaven, there was a verse that was cut out where he actually talks about wishing the daughter died instead.
Speaker: So it's, Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Yeah, you see, this is actually not a bummer story.
Speaker: We're just reading it wrong.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: This is a really happy family.
Speaker: We're looking at the wrong side of the coin here.
Speaker: It's all about perspective.
Speaker: It's perspective, baby.
Speaker: It's all perspective, baby.
Speaker: More than words is all you have to do to throw that plate.
Speaker: If I had known this episode was going to get so dark.
Speaker: I don't, Pim, I don't know what it is.
Speaker: Whenever we have a guest on, that is when we get our darkest.
Speaker: We, I don't know what it is.
Speaker: Like, it's not that we have, you know, spotless reputations in terms of our senses of humor when it's just the two of us, but there's something about having a third where we just want to act out.
Speaker: And I don't know what it is.
Speaker: It's like, it's like the babysitter's gone.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Babysitters ourselves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's me.
Speaker: I'm 13.
Speaker: I can take care of myself.
Speaker: I don't need a babysitter, mom.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: So Elise runs outside during the kerfuffle and grabs her bug-out bag.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's prepped, man.
Speaker: She's prepped.
Speaker: It's got burned wood, a button carrying a decorative insignia, and a broken gun.
Speaker: No, wait, wasn't that what she left behind?
Speaker: That's what she left behind.
Speaker: Yeah, I think she got another sack and she filled it with like a half loaf of bread and like potatoes.
Speaker: Oh, got it.
Speaker: So she, yes, you're right.
Speaker: She does grab food, a half loaf of bread and a potato, a couple of potatoes and starts running and her dad catches up with her because he is a fully grown farmer man.
Speaker: He sprints after her.
Speaker: That's a lot of cardio, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah, and he gets very abusive physically.
Speaker: He tries to choke her to death.
Speaker: Yes, he does.
Speaker: Then he steps out of it because...
Speaker: Thank God.
Speaker: Because it's the 1830s, not the 1820s.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Those days are behind us.
Speaker: Those days are behind us.
Speaker: Choking your kid out in a field.
Speaker: That's so 1824.
Speaker: Because she tried to run away from you for throwing the dinner out.
Speaker: I don't see the irony of this at all.
Speaker: So he Homer Simpsons her for a little bit and then lets her go.
Speaker: And then she starts running again.
Speaker: And he's he's actually about to kill her with an axe.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: She runs away and she sees a carriage coming down the road towards her her her towards the farm.
Speaker: And she's like, this is going to be great.
Speaker: This is somebody to help us.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: Ron Howard voice.
Speaker: It wasn't.
Speaker: It wasn't.
Speaker: Next time on Arrested Development.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: Let's see how Elise is doing.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Turn off the cameras right now.
Speaker: We can't show this.
Speaker: We can't show this.
Speaker: No, we can't do this.
Speaker: What are we doing?
Speaker: For context, the carriage approaching her is actually Daniel, the protagonist of the game.
Speaker: And this is when he is still working for Alexander.
Speaker: And his task was basically get him a bunch of people so he could...
Speaker: torture them, give them amnesia potions, and then torture them some more.
Speaker: And Elise is Daniel's last victim before he realizes, am I the baddie?
Speaker: And so he takes the amnesia drink, and that sets off the events of the game.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: I'm glad he got there, but this isn't a small family.
Speaker: It took him a while to get there.
Speaker: This is a pretty decent-sized family.
Speaker: He went through a mother, a father, and two other daughters, I believe, before he got to...
Speaker: whew, Daniel, yeah.
Speaker: You know what they say, you know, kill one member of the family, shame on you.
Speaker: Kill two, three, four, five members of the family, shame on me.
Speaker: I'm just kidding.
Speaker: Two through five are the real shame sandwich.
Speaker: That's on me.
Speaker: I'm going to take full responsibility for that.
Speaker: And I am sorry.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Killed a lot of people, Pim.
Speaker: I love you.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: It's about time you confess.
Speaker: I almost grabbed the spoon again from the episode from a couple weeks ago.
Speaker: The spoon's just been sitting here.
Speaker: Just been hanging out.
Speaker: Have not brought it back down to the kitchen.
Speaker: Don't even remember why I had a spoon in the first place.
Speaker: There's nothing on it.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Just a lucky spoon.
Speaker: Just a lucky spoon at this point.
Speaker: It's his sidekick.
Speaker: It's my sidekick.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The last story is The Outrider.
Speaker: And it is from the point of view of a man named Gabriel who is, you know, he... So The Outrider, from what I gather, is...
Speaker: is on horseback separate from a carriage and just goes ahead of the carriage to make sure there's nothing going on up the road because the carriage is slow.
Speaker: Single horse horse rider is going to be faster.
Speaker: So he goes up.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, things are fine.
Speaker: There's a there's a town up there.
Speaker: We're going to we're going to be all good.
Speaker: And so he's escorting an English man named Daniel to an inn.
Speaker: Gabriel is... What?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Jacob... Gabriel goes and he talks to Jacob, who we just met in the previous story.
Speaker: And this is where Gabriel is like, hey...
Speaker: Let's let's let's talk out.
Speaker: Yeah, you're you have a cute cat.
Speaker: That's a that's a cute cat.
Speaker: Hey, it's Tinker.
Speaker: They listen to the stories of whatever Daniel is talking about inside.
Speaker: They get some food.
Speaker: And I think at this point they give he's like, you should actually plant the the apple seed.
Speaker: And that's a few weeks later.
Speaker: He's planting the apple seed on the day that Elise and her family are kidnapped.
Speaker: And then there's like some creature, a dark figure kidnapping Tinker, the cat.
Speaker: And y'all know a quick way to get somebody over in a story is to save the cat, you know.
Speaker: And in this case, it's literally saving the cat.
Speaker: Literally saving the cat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what's his name?
Speaker: Gabriel chases after the creature.
Speaker: He has his rifle with him.
Speaker: And he shoots the creature.
Speaker: The creature drops the cat.
Speaker: Tinker gets out, climbs up a tree to safety.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: A man named Harazel comes out and he's like, what's what's going on out here?
Speaker: And Gabriel's like, yeah, there's a there's a thing.
Speaker: And Harazel is like, oh, yeah, I know those things.
Speaker: Oh, those.
Speaker: Those things.
Speaker: Those damn things.
Speaker: And Gabriel's like, yeah, I saw them when I was a kid.
Speaker: The monsters that come out from the forest.
Speaker: So basically Gabriel's like, I can't let this thing live.
Speaker: He is...
Speaker: He follows the thing and it's referred to as the thing several times in the story.
Speaker: He follows it to a cave and Gabriel is about to shoot it.
Speaker: And then he noticed that there is a bunch of these creatures hiding in this cave.
Speaker: And he he just gets the F out of there.
Speaker: And the thing that he encountered is one of the grunt.
Speaker: Creatures, that's like the thing that's like following you throughout the game.
Speaker: I believe it's, you know, with the jaw that's like, eh.
Speaker: He describes the appearance of one of these creatures as if like melted wax kind of looked to the face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like the bones are overgrown or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Gabriel gets out of there and he realizes that this is like basically one of his father's jobs in town was just like,
Speaker: might have been chasing after these things.
Speaker: Oh, no, no.
Speaker: His father might have been killed by one of these things or killed himself after running into one of these things.
Speaker: And so Gabriel considers killing himself, but then does not after looking up at Orion the Hunter.
Speaker: And he just drinks some cold water from a stream.
Speaker: I think if more people would just look at Orion the Hunter and drink cold water from the stream, I think most of their depression and anxiety would be cured.
Speaker: Exactly, Phil.
Speaker: I think that's the message.
Speaker: That's what my therapist keeps saying.
Speaker: That's the miracle cure.
Speaker: It's not medication.
Speaker: It's exercise.
Speaker: Why do you refuse to look at Orion?
Speaker: Look at Orion.
Speaker: He's right there.
Speaker: He's right there.
Speaker: The epilogue is from Jacob's diary.
Speaker: And he's like, hey, I hope the Englishman enjoys himself so much that he never leaves the castle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah, because he wants Gabriel to still be there.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Because he loves hanging out with his boy Gabriel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're my boy, Gabriel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's so good at saving cats.
Speaker: He's very good at saving cats.
Speaker: He did do us that favor.
Speaker: I don't have to complain about them murdering a cat.
Speaker: So what's what's overall opinions?
Speaker: Pim, we'll start with you.
Speaker: Overall thoughts on this guy.
Speaker: Well, we have definitely touched upon most of our general opinions, but mine as well.
Speaker: But yeah, I think as supplementary material, it's all right.
Speaker: I... Like, knowing that he has written better things?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a bit of a shame to see, like... Because you see the potential here.
Speaker: There are these moments where you're like, oh, this is where he gets to shine as a writer, but...
Speaker: Yeah, it really does feel like this could have been... If you had shortened them a bit, these could have been, like, summarized in notes in the game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I do think it's kind of funny, though.
Speaker: Like, my first impression of this made me laugh out loud when... Because... Because, as I said in my video, I... Because of my ADHD, I...
Speaker: I have a really hard time reading the notes in horror games in general.
Speaker: So, I admit that there's a lot of story that I miss, but luckily there are people who can summarize that for me and, you know, the wikis and all of that.
Speaker: But... It just was so funny to me that, like, such a huge part of Frictional's games are about finding these notes and reading them, and not, like, two pages into the first short story,
Speaker: the story is interrupted with a literal fucking note that you have to read in order to progress.
Speaker: It just made me laugh out loud.
Speaker: I heard you like notes, so we put notes in your notes.
Speaker: Exactly like that.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, this most definitely is a frictional games production, this short story collection, like for sure.
Speaker: I find that pretty funny, but yeah, it's all right.
Speaker: I did enjoy With the Blessing of the King a lot.
Speaker: Well, not a lot, but, you know, like more than I expected after having read the previous two.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm happy for that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Phil, what'd you think?
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think...
Speaker: I think the thing that saves this is the context of knowing that this came with a patch.
Speaker: This was never... They never put this out for people to buy.
Speaker: It was just like a matter of like, here it is, it's free.
Speaker: If you're playing the game, here's a little something extra.
Speaker: They never marketed this as just some sort of tie-in text, which would have been kind of...
Speaker: They knew what they were doing with this, and I think that's respectable.
Speaker: I totally agree with you, Pim, in the sense that this is one of those instances where, as writers, different writers are good at different things, and when you are largely a video game writer, you are...
Speaker: working within a visual medium.
Speaker: So when you find these letters, for example, in the castle, you are in the dark, surrounded by creepy music and creepy art and possibly being stalked.
Speaker: And then you add into it this weird esoteric letter and you go, what the, and it just blows.
Speaker: Boom, it sends all of your fight or flight, you know, synapses firing, and it's super fun in that sense.
Speaker: But when he was given, when he had to set the scene himself and do all of the lifting, it wasn't quite as effective.
Speaker: And does that mean I don't think he could?
Speaker: No, no, it just means that mostly what he does is write for video games.
Speaker: And that makes a difference because you don't have the soundtrack and the graphics and everything else.
Speaker: I think the same, basically it's similar critiques between this and Alan Wake, to be honest, because as we all know, Rick Burroughs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Rick Burroughs is Sam Lake.
Speaker: There's no way that that's just not Sam Lake writing under a double assumed pen name.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: You know, it's interesting you said it because I was thinking at one point when we were reading Alan Wake, we actually said, we both said that it would be cool if instead of this novelization, what we got was the book, the actual book that they were writing.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember you saying that.
Speaker: But the thing is, I think if we got that, it would be a lot more like this.
Speaker: It would be so much more esoteric.
Speaker: It would be so much more high context and difficult to delve into.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It depends.
Speaker: But yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I'd say my critiques for, you know, are both for Hedberg and Sam Lake is similar in that they know what they're doing in the context of
Speaker: interactive medium and that it's just a little bit more difficult to pull off with that.
Speaker: Like you were saying, Phil, it's just a tad more difficult to pull off without everything else being considered.
Speaker: And like some screenplay writers, for example, don't necessarily translate to novel writers.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Because a screenplay, somebody who's writing a screenplay knows that it's being supported by visuals, right?
Speaker: So I think there is something to be said where the different mediums present their own challenges.
Speaker: And I think I would love to see if Hedberg has written anything else in prose.
Speaker: I found some short films.
Speaker: I think one of the, honestly, I didn't know this, but I think his involvement in the upcoming remake of Alone in the Dark might be one of the most promising things about that game.
Speaker: Aside from David Hoover being in it.
Speaker: But yeah, he, let's see, Depth, that seems to be a film.
Speaker: So he's primarily worked in visual media, like video games and film.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: I checked out his LinkedIn, and that's sort of the whole thing.
Speaker: That's what I got from it, yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, he is the creative director and writer for The Alone in the Dark remake.
Speaker: That is fantastic.
Speaker: So that is very promising.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: It's so funny, too, because the studio, Pieces Interactive, they're located in a town that I've been to more than a couple of times.
Speaker: It's like the game devs capital of Sweden, basically, where they educate future game developers.
Speaker: It's like that place called Skövde, and then there's this small island called Gotland, which also has a bunch of...
Speaker: game dev education stuff.
Speaker: So it's pretty cool to know that the future of the Alone in the Dark franchise is being made in a town so close to me personally.
Speaker: It's strange, especially considering that I have a very personal relationship with that franchise to the point that I'm actually making a video about that very fact.
Speaker: So yeah, very excited for that project.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: That's really cool.
Speaker: That's really cool.
Speaker: Yeah, you got to get out there and see if you can't find some memorabilia or something like that just to hang on to.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: My intention is to somehow get into that office and get a sneak peek or something.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: That'd be awesome.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to that video.
Speaker: That'll be great.
Speaker: So the one that's coming out is a remake of the first one?
Speaker: It's not a remake?
Speaker: It's a sort of remake of like, from what I understand, it's like a remake of...
Speaker: like concepts from the first three.
Speaker: Like it's like a melting pot of all three or maybe it's just the first two.
Speaker: But they've sort of borrowed elements from several.
Speaker: The term I keep hearing is love letter.
Speaker: It's like it's a love letter to those original.
Speaker: What I hope is they get the influences of the Christian Slater film in there too.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: If you want to get a full round adaptation in, you can't forget Christian.
Speaker: But you can.
Speaker: I mean, there is an alternative skin for like the original Edward Carnby from the 1992 game in the remake.
Speaker: So maybe they could just throw in like an alternative skin where it's Christian Slater's face instead of David Harbour.
Speaker: I'm just saying it's a possibility.
Speaker: I'd play that.
Speaker: That'd be amazing.
Speaker: I do enjoy the fact that David Harbour is going to be the voice for the character.
Speaker: The only cast listed on the IMDb is David Harbour and Jodie Comer.
Speaker: who she's been, she looks familiar.
Speaker: She was in Killing Eve and... A bunch of stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: She's one of those faces.
Speaker: You just know her.
Speaker: Yeah, she's just been in a lot of things.
Speaker: So yeah, that was Remember Amnesia, The Dark Descent.
Speaker: Remember that game?
Speaker: I think we forgot to say it, but I want to say it.
Speaker: Have we put the body in the marsh?
Speaker: Oh, god damn!
Speaker: Have we officially put the body in the marsh?
Speaker: We've put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them
Speaker: In the marsh.
Speaker: I wouldn't be surprised if Alexander, the Baron, put some bodies in some marshes.
Speaker: Goddamn.
Speaker: You can't see the marsh anymore.
Speaker: There's just bodies everywhere.
Speaker: There's just bodies everywhere.
Speaker: Put the body in the... Well, pile of bodies.
Speaker: Put the body in the body.
Speaker: There's less marsh, more pile.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Guys, the marsh to body ratio is just way off.
Speaker: What are we doing here?
Speaker: The guy from John Hancock is not out there getting a blowjob anymore because there's too many bodies.
Speaker: Too many bodies.
Speaker: You want a blowjob when you're smelling rotting flesh and swamp farts?
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: One or the other, please.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: I can't fucking believe it.
Speaker: Spends all night putting it out there.
Speaker: I'm embarrassed.
Speaker: I'm embarrassed.
Speaker: What can't you fucking believe?
Speaker: Mr. French is my spirit animal.
Speaker: I just...
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: All right, well, I have one question left.
Speaker: We'll start with Phil.
Speaker: Phil.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, well, it's funny.
Speaker: Since we spoke last, I actually, I'm trying something new.
Speaker: I stopped playing video games.
Speaker: I've been running 5K.
Speaker: I haven't eaten meat or drunk alcohol in that time.
Speaker: So a little different.
Speaker: Who are you and what have you done with Phil?
Speaker: It's been Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: It's nothing but Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: I'm trying to get my girlfriend.
Speaker: I've hurt so many people in this game.
Speaker: I don't mean to be a sex machine.
Speaker: But I've just been... I had Shadowheart as my girlfriend because...
Speaker: If you've got an opening collection of characters and one of them is the hot goth chick, I'm gonna do that.
Speaker: I'm going for that.
Speaker: And then I found out that we would have the option of a broad-beamed fucking infernal engine heart-having barbarian horned heavy metal monstrosity.
Speaker: And I want her.
Speaker: I want her instead.
Speaker: And somewhere along the way, I accidentally seduced Will.
Speaker: I thought we were just dancing.
Speaker: Ha!
Speaker: And he became my boyfriend.
Speaker: And Shadowheart was like weirdly cool with it.
Speaker: Like, you know, I'm sad, but I'm happy you're happy and all that stuff.
Speaker: And then I had to break up with Will because I didn't have the heart to tell neither of them are the one.
Speaker: I want crazy heavy metal devil lady.
Speaker: Carlack.
Speaker: Carlack is my girlfriend.
Speaker: It's meant to be.
Speaker: So I'm gonna, I'm working on that.
Speaker: I'm currently in the process of, as Kevin put it when we were chatting about this, I believe we're talking about the same scene in the game, some light Githyanki genocide.
Speaker: It's just the goblin camp all over again.
Speaker: I'm just murdering my way in, murdering my way out.
Speaker: Goblin camp all over again.
Speaker: Baldur's Gate 3 is the most murder hobo-y session of D&D I have ever played, and I've been playing since I was 12.
Speaker: So that's saying so many times.
Speaker: Phil has been playing Dungeons & Dragons for nearly 30 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is as murder-hobo-y as I've ever been.
Speaker: I usually, these games, I'm like, I like playing the charismatic characters, the persuasion, the deception.
Speaker: I go hard thief, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker: And that has worked out.
Speaker: But I'm killing a lot of people.
Speaker: It is shocking.
Speaker: I also...
Speaker: Got drunk the other night and continued on my... In the game or you?
Speaker: Me, just me.
Speaker: Just me.
Speaker: Oh, thank God.
Speaker: I was worried there for a second.
Speaker: And decided I needed to continue my quest for more of the Vampire Survivors DLC achievements.
Speaker: and found my hero, Fat Squirrel Guy.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: He's a big squirrel with a giant belly and a big sack, and he's got bocce balls that he throws all over the place.
Speaker: And I went, that's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's my guy.
Speaker: And that's who I am now, a big fat squirrel with a sack.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not going to re-engineer any of that.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: That's just perfect as it is.
Speaker: I have found the character I identify with the most, and I'm leaning into it.
Speaker: I'm leaning into it.
Speaker: It's a rodent with a gut.
Speaker: That's all I... I'm playing a dwarf thief on one game and a fat squirrel monster on the other.
Speaker: I'm living my best life, and no one can tell me otherwise.
Speaker: You know, moisturized, in your lane, you know, you're not stressing.
Speaker: Nah, man, I feel good.
Speaker: I feel good.
Speaker: All my stress headaches have left.
Speaker: It's just life is good.
Speaker: So this is the best game ever made then, right?
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: It's pretty good.
Speaker: What is funny, Pim, is we were talking about how, and you and I have talked about this as well, this has been a hell of a year for horror games.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Just constant.
Speaker: And me and Kevin like to do our little games of the year list at the end of the year.
Speaker: And I've been keeping an eye on stuff and trying.
Speaker: And I thought, man, I've got to shake things up if I don't want my games of the year list to be 10 horror games, basically.
Speaker: And I said, you know what?
Speaker: Baldur's Gate is going to steal my soul.
Speaker: But a nice high fantasy epic adventure
Speaker: might be just the thing to just shake things up a little bit.
Speaker: And within five minutes, gore and horror and mayhem.
Speaker: It is a graphic game.
Speaker: It is really fucked up.
Speaker: But when mind flayers are your basic main high level antagonist, I guess that kind of makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah, the mind flayers are gonna be, are gonna make a mess of things.
Speaker: Oh, they always do.
Speaker: To be honest, it's like a little baby Cthulhu's, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, they're adorable.
Speaker: Running around, tentacles everywhere.
Speaker: Yeah, whipping you with your towel.
Speaker: Just playful kids, really.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Speaking of horror games, Pym.
Speaker: Pym, what have you been playing?
Speaker: Well, actually, just today, because of the project that I talked about before, I just started playing the original Alone in the Dark for the first time since, I want to say, 1998.
Speaker: Or something like that.
Speaker: It was the first horror game that I experienced.
Speaker: I don't remember if I actually played it myself.
Speaker: I think it was my dad who sat with me and he played it.
Speaker: I'm not sure if we got past the attic.
Speaker: And I mean, that is a really short section, so maybe he got scared, or I don't know.
Speaker: But it is a lovely time so far.
Speaker: I haven't played that long.
Speaker: It is a lovely time, but it's also just a reminder of how mean this game can be.
Speaker: It's like, you can lock yourself out of finishing the game like 15 minutes into it.
Speaker: There is this part where you unlock
Speaker: like a drawer and it contains two small mirrors that you have to set up in order to eliminate two, like, purple, almost dragon-like demons guarding the stairs.
Speaker: And if you're carrying these mirrors and you are attacked by an enemy, there is a risk, allegedly, that these mirrors can break.
Speaker: And if they do, well, you can't use them and you just have to start over from the beginning.
Speaker: The game won't tell you this, obviously, but...
Speaker: Yeah, and then there's also like this part where there is this room where you have to pick up like a box of matchsticks, and there's a ghost sitting in a chair, like a transparent reddish ghost just sitting, chilling, as ghosts do.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And if you come too close to the ghost, it just stands up and it evaporates and is replaced by like a swarm of colorful orbs that follow you around.
Speaker: And if they get close to you, you die instantly.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: And there was also like a book in this game that if you read it, you die.
Speaker: Oh yeah, there you go.
Speaker: That was games in the 80s and 90s.
Speaker: It was like video game designers to their public.
Speaker: We hate you.
Speaker: Enjoy the game.
Speaker: It's like, oh yeah, you hard-locked yourself out of ever finishing the game an hour ago.
Speaker: We didn't want to tell you that.
Speaker: You seem to be having fun.
Speaker: We want you to be stuck with this game for months.
Speaker: It is actually like, it takes one hour.
Speaker: I actually think it takes a literal hour to complete this game if you know what you're doing.
Speaker: But the devs want you to be afraid of every decision you make or every item that you pick up, everything you...
Speaker: Every room, like, it is... Like, it gets credit for influencing Resident Evil, but I think it should get a lot of credit for just how much dread it creates by just... I think the... God, what is his name?
Speaker: Frederick something.
Speaker: Like, the head of Infogrames back in the day.
Speaker: He said something along the lines of, well, there is this part where if you walk across the floor, it will just...
Speaker: the floor will break and you will die instantly, and that will make you be afraid of wherever you're walking.
Speaker: And like the example with a book, it's like, well, now you're going to be afraid of reading literature, which I already am in real life.
Speaker: So, you know, I don't need that.
Speaker: But yeah, it really is a game that... Like, it doesn't look threatening by today's standards, but it definitely wants to put you in a mindset where you're afraid of everything.
Speaker: And that it deserves so much credit for, for being a game that came out in 1992.
Speaker: That it accomplishes all of these things.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm playing it with a guide because...
Speaker: I don't want to die from reading a book.
Speaker: Like, that's a fear I have in my regular life.
Speaker: I don't need that while I'm enjoying escapist media.
Speaker: But I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: I'm enjoying the vibes of it.
Speaker: Like, the aesthetics, I love it.
Speaker: I love the music.
Speaker: I just randomly stumble upon the sort of end credits song, and it's just this sort of 80s banger.
Speaker: And I listened to it on repeat.
Speaker: It's so, the soundtrack is so good.
Speaker: It's pretty basic by today's standards once again, but I mean, it is a great game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it holds up well all this time later.
Speaker: I mean, some things I'd say, like, if you go back and play Resident Evil, you can sort of get into it fairly quickly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But there are these, like, minor details that makes it slightly harder to go back to Alone in the Dark.
Speaker: Like, for example, there is no dedicated run button.
Speaker: You have to, like, double tap the up key.
Speaker: And that can be really finicky at times.
Speaker: And also just the fact that you don't have...
Speaker: Like, as, again, like in Resident Evil, if you want to interact with something, there's just the one button.
Speaker: In Alone in the Dark, if you want to, like, rummage around a drawer, you have to go into a menu and then select Action, and then, like, Search, and then you can do that.
Speaker: So it's more like... It's leaning more towards the traditional, like, adventure games in that regard.
Speaker: So it can take some getting used to and the combat system as well, but the trick there is just always kick.
Speaker: Just do kicks.
Speaker: The kick is your main weapon in this game, unless you have ammo for your shotgun, then...
Speaker: Kicking.
Speaker: Always kick.
Speaker: Always kick.
Speaker: Do the high kicks all over and over again like you're doing a dance number.
Speaker: High kick that ghost.
Speaker: It's like when you're playing fighting games and you do the leg sweep over and over again in order to win.
Speaker: That's what you do in Alone in the Dark but it's just high kicks.
Speaker: Cheese to win.
Speaker: You want to win or you want to not win?
Speaker: Cheese in the dark.
Speaker: Dear God, there it is.
Speaker: Gosh.
Speaker: The illuminated cheese is coming to haunt me.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, yeah, I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still going at it.
Speaker: I feel like I should be doing the same.
Speaker: That's still going to town.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: I don't know how far I am through it.
Speaker: I'm looking at my Steam library page for it, and it says, you've played for 30 hours.
Speaker: Would you recommend this game to others?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, like, well, I can't do that yet.
Speaker: I haven't beaten it or gotten close to the ending.
Speaker: But it was funny.
Speaker: I was looking at the Reddit for Baldur's Gate 3 and somebody there's a post where people were like, they thought act one was like the entire game.
Speaker: And they weren't saying they weren't saying that as a slight.
Speaker: They were like, oh, it just asked me if I want to move on to act two.
Speaker: I've already been playing for 40 hours.
Speaker: And there are three acts.
Speaker: That's how long it took for me to beat like Mass Effect 3 recently.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: It's dense.
Speaker: And I didn't, I mean, it didn't take me that long to get through Act 1.
Speaker: I think I'm in this, on my save file, I'm into Act 2 at about 18 hours.
Speaker: And that makes me think I missed something in Act 1.
Speaker: People are like 40 hours on act one, they're like, oh God, did I miss something?
Speaker: Did I miss an area or something like that?
Speaker: Yeah, I keep circling back.
Speaker: I find myself circling back and just like, I could be, I theoretically could be out of the Underdark by now, or out of the Shadowlands by now.
Speaker: But I got a wild hair and was like, there was something back there that I, let's do that, let's do that instead.
Speaker: Let's do that instead.
Speaker: Let's do all the side quests.
Speaker: Well, that's the thing is it doesn't necessarily position them as side quests.
Speaker: No, that's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: These are all main quests, kind of.
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: The only thing it's basically Baldur's Gate 3, you know, during the day and then Halls of Torment while I'm sitting watching TV at night and Halls of Torment Pym is basically a vampire survivors style game, but it's art style is Diablo.
Speaker: It's like Diablo 1 art style, but Vampire Survivors mechanics.
Speaker: And it's fun.
Speaker: Sounds neat.
Speaker: It is neat.
Speaker: It's a lot slower than Vampire Survivors, and it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles of vampires, the addictive bells and whistles of Vampire Survivors, but it's cool.
Speaker: You know, it's a neat little game.
Speaker: You just walk around bashing skeletons.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: What else could you ask for?
Speaker: That's not much.
Speaker: What else could you ask for?
Speaker: Yeah, so that's about it.
Speaker: I think you've covered everything, Phil, on Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: I'm not going to get too far into it.
Speaker: I just need to beat it before the end of the month because there's two games coming out that I am looking forward to, and that is going to be Armored Core 6,
Speaker: is coming out, and Blasphemous 2.
Speaker: Yeah, Blasphemous 2 is the one I have to be ready for that.
Speaker: Blasphemous, the first Blasphemous caused me to dust off my YouTube channel, which I had not updated in nearly a year to make a video about the metaphors in Blasphemous, so it's personal.
Speaker: Catholic simulator.
Speaker: Every once in a while Phil's like, fine, write a fucking essay.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: I was so frustrated.
Speaker: I was like, I thought I was done with this shit.
Speaker: And I did it.
Speaker: And I still get, it did okay.
Speaker: And I still get comments from people being like, you know, it doesn't mean that.
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: I hate YouTube.
Speaker: This sucks.
Speaker: Why did I do that?
Speaker: I literally got comments like that, like today, on my Saw video.
Speaker: Like, for some reason, I guess it's because Saw 10 is coming out.
Speaker: That video that I made on the Saw films got a boost.
Speaker: And it's gotten a lot more views because of that.
Speaker: A lot of good comments, but also a whole lot of like...
Speaker: well actually why do you do like a political reading of this because that doesn't work with this and and no jigsaw is not a like a right-wing vigilante type like he's actually leftist and it's like i'm not gonna engage i i i can't i i want to because i a part of me thinks it's gonna be fun but then it's just gonna keep going and going and going and
Speaker: Like some comments I will reply to but then there is just a whole lot that I just know that this is gonna be a rabbit hole that will swallow the rest of my day if I allow it to.
Speaker: You are correct sir.
Speaker: That's absurd because like Jigsaw is literally the poster child for
Speaker: retributive justice as opposed to restorative justice.
Speaker: Like, he is the poster child for... He's like, if Jerry Seinfeld was a fucking serial killer, he's like, he takes these things people did and Jerry Seinfeld, on Seinfeld, he would dump people over the dumbest little thing.
Speaker: You know, he's like, well, you know, she's a close talker.
Speaker: You're like...
Speaker: Well, Jigsaw would put them in like a thing where they have to stare into a mirror and the mirror's fucking daggers.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Don't give him any ideas, Kevin.
Speaker: You're gonna eat this up.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: I mean, I would like to see that trap.
Speaker: I would like to see that trap.
Speaker: That sounds kind of fun.
Speaker: But yeah, I don't... You know, fucking fuckers get down there and they're YouTubes and they're arguing.
Speaker: The right wing dick bags and Dennis Prager's.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't actually have a fully show.
Speaker: I don't have a fully formed rant.
Speaker: Wait, what?
Speaker: I don't have a fully formed rant.
Speaker: How do I leave the call?
Speaker: I'm a militant centrist.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: That's why we brought you on, to keep things nice and balanced.
Speaker: Nice, fair, and balanced.
Speaker: I think a centrist in Sweden is still a liberal in America, though, if it helps.
Speaker: I think that's actually true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that is very valid, actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still to the left in the US, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it's, there's a reason they call us Communist Sweden.
Speaker: For the record, we're not.
Speaker: We could be way more left-leaning and the actual most popular red party here, red here, actually meaning left.
Speaker: Like they're just going more and more to like the conservative side because they're seeing what's going on and they're like, well, we're still cool.
Speaker: Yeah, we want to win, so we'd better hedge our bets.
Speaker: It's like, hey, the Italians are loving fascism again.
Speaker: That train's never late.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: You know, the trains were never late.
Speaker: You know, he made those trains.
Speaker: God damn it just keeps getting dark right on time.
Speaker: I did not mean to do that.
Speaker: I just threw the door open on that one.
Speaker: I've never been to blame it myself.
Speaker: You know, you could say a lot of things about Mussolini.
Speaker: I mean, that is true.
Speaker: You can say a lot of things.
Speaker: You sure can.
Speaker: You sure can.
Speaker: Not finishing that statement.
Speaker: Pim, do you got anything you want to plug before we go?
Speaker: Well, I just have to call myself after all this.
Speaker: Understandable.
Speaker: Hold on a minute.
Speaker: Yeah, give yourself... Just take a little breath, little breath.
Speaker: Okay, so yeah, I have a YouTube channel called Pim's Crypt where I discuss, again, most things horror.
Speaker: I have a video coming out.
Speaker: I don't know when, maybe it's even out by the time this episode airs, but I'm gonna be talking about... Just the name of the video is How the Internet Changed Found Footage Horror.
Speaker: So I'm very much looking forward to that.
Speaker: And again, I'm making a Alone in the Dark retrospective type video as well.
Speaker: So check that out when those are out.
Speaker: I'm on Patreon.
Speaker: Pimpscrypt there as well.
Speaker: I was about to say I'm on Twitter, but I'm thinking of leaving Twitter for good considering...
Speaker: Things?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Happening there?
Speaker: Yeah, we're on Blue Sky now, so go find us there.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, same.
Speaker: I'm on Blue Sky.
Speaker: I'm on Tumblr now as well.
Speaker: I feel sort of like maybe I'm not the person who should be here.
Speaker: It feels like this is the cool kids area.
Speaker: Maybe it's like a sort of younger demographic as well.
Speaker: They started letting porn back on Tumblr, right?
Speaker: Yeah, and my work basically counts as porn, so, you know.
Speaker: So you're fine.
Speaker: So you're good.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: No, I agree.
Speaker: It's porn for the eyes.
Speaker: I agree with Tumblr.
Speaker: I'm like, every time I go on Tumblr, I'm like, I don't know what you all are talking about.
Speaker: And at this point, I'm scared to ask.
Speaker: It is a whole other language there, definitely.
Speaker: It's one of those sites where you're really going to go like...
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not hip with the kids anymore.
Speaker: I'm not hip.
Speaker: I am Principal Skinner right now.
Speaker: Is it me or is it the Tumblers who are wrong?
Speaker: It actually is me.
Speaker: It's me.
Speaker: Well, thanks so much for joining us, Pim.
Speaker: If you want to find out more about us, follow us on social media at Pixlet Pod.
Speaker: Basically, wherever you look, there we are at Pixlet Pod.
Speaker: Go to our website, PixletPod.com, where you can sign up for our newsletter or join our Discord or do both.
Speaker: You don't have to do one or the other.
Speaker: Or if you're not into the whole social media thing,
Speaker: but you are into, let's say, Patreon, go to Patreon dot com slash pixel pod.
Speaker: And from there you can you can become a patron of our fine arts or you don't have to be a patron.
Speaker: You can just be a follower.
Speaker: You can follow us on Patreon now free of charge gratis.
Speaker: And use that to get the updates that you want.
Speaker: If you don't want to be in social media and you still want updates, you can use Patreon.com to do that.
Speaker: That will do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: And thank you so much, everybody, for listening.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
