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How Do You Play Adventure Games
142 Plays1 month ago
Ben & Jess discuss how they play point and click adventure games to set the tone for their new podcast. I hope you're fine with guys that like walkthroughs!
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
Give us a review, they help people find this show! Unless you hated it, in which case, I recommend New York Times' "The Daily".
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast
00:00:32
Speaker
Hello. That's right. You're listening to quest, quest the adventure game podcast. Uh, my name is Ben. I am one of the hosts of this podcast. Uh, and I am joined as always, uh, bye.
00:00:49
Speaker
Oh, me, it's me, Jess. This is, remember, this is the first one and I've done many podcasts. Yeah. I'm used to listening to podcasts. I was just so listening in that moment that I didn't even think about speaking. Like usually the audio is going the other direction with me in podcasts. So, yeah ah but yeah, I'm Jess. I'm the other guy. You don't talk back to podcasts because I do. I sometimes shout angrily at them.
00:01:18
Speaker
Like I'll, I'll, I'll be on a walk or on a bus and somebody will say like a question or they'll, they'll miss like what is an obvious facts to me. Like they'll be like, Oh, what's that movie with a cylinder cold robot and his best friend, the gold robot. And, uh, there's some guy in a robe.
00:01:41
Speaker
And, and I'm like, I'll be ah saying, uh, name of the rose, name of the rose, name of the rose. And, uh, you know, they never, they never figured it out. You see, I never get like that level of feedback of the podcast. Occasionally I'll just like, sort of like snort to myself and say, this doesn't sound like my American life.
00:02:04
Speaker
around
00:02:07
Speaker
But you have but that you know other than that, no, really not much
Podcast Evolution and Humor
00:02:11
Speaker
not much back and forth. um But ah yeah, so we' well we'll get to this later in the the meat of the podcast, but today we're gonna be talking about ah the remarkably broad question of how do you play adventure games? Uh, uh, but first here in my notes, it says, you know, this is, this is, as you could, as you could tell, this is our, our first podcast, uh, because it's the first one you're listening to, unless you're listening to a later one, you decide to roll back. Uh, and I, I said to Jess before the the podcast started, I was like, you know, uh,
00:02:54
Speaker
the, yeah you know, if if, if, if you're not feeling this one, just, just wait, like, you know, three in three. in is easily three Three in is usually it. And you know, we talked about this, like once we really got on a roll, like by the time we're on an episode like 30, 40, we'll probably go back and rerecord this one. So, you know, if,
Backgrounds in Streaming
00:03:16
Speaker
if like you're checking in kind of early, give us a few more months and maybe we'll go back and redo this one and it'll be like the special edition version. We'll add a sound sound effects and, uh,
00:03:30
Speaker
you know, um licensed music because at that point, we won't care anymore. That's right. i And yeah, just a lot of really exciting stuff. ah Now,
00:03:42
Speaker
Before we, again, before we get to adventure games, what are you playing right now? Are you, are you playing an adventure game, not counting on your stream? We should probably introduce ourselves. Uh, yes. if If you're, if you're unfamiliar, uh, we both, uh, stream adventure games on Twitch. Uh, myself is PS underscore Garrick and Jess. I am
Current Gaming Interests
00:04:04
Speaker
decaf Jedi decaf like the coffee that's bad and Jedi like the, uh, space wizard mux. Uh-huh.
00:04:12
Speaker
And are you playing, here's a question. And this is something I was wondering, do you play, since you started streaming adventure games, do you really, do you play a lot of adventure games? No, not out on the stream. You know, this is tough. Like I feel like these days, you know, I've been streaming now for a few years as you have. And especially with adventure games, I do end up saving most of them for my streams. Like most of the time when I'm playing, I'm playing right with with the gang. You know, it's it's all all our pals out there and in chat and everything.
00:04:43
Speaker
When I'm playing games adventure games rather outside of that, it's usually because I'm trying to like edit together a video or get some footage or some screenshots. like It's very rare that I sit down. You're sucking the marrow oh out of the bone. yeah Yeah, the cream of the crop. um i'm i'm kind of very rarely actually going in and and playing the adventure. So most of my off stream gaming tends to be in completely other genres. Like I don't mind burning through an action game or an RPG or something like that. When, uh, when I'm not on stream, I usually say the adventures for streams. So what, so what are you playing now then? Do you want to hear the, yeah. answer yeah what are you Yeah. What are you, are you ready? Are you ready? I'm ready for the answer. You're ready for the answer. I'm playing of all things that I've been hooked on this lately.
00:05:34
Speaker
Fortnite and not what you think, not Battle Royale. I am playing the original PVE Fortnite save the world thing. The game that launched before it turned into a big battle Royal thing. So I don't even, I didn't even, I don't know very much about Fortnite. So I didn't even know there was another Fortnite within there's this massive sprawling like player versus environment campaign that the game launched with that has like full voice acting storyline, like 900 different kinds of currencies to collect and spin. We smash brothers that has like that huge, like the subspace emissary. played Yes. It's strange, but I've been going back and playing that and it's what those games, I mean,
00:06:23
Speaker
After you've played about an hour, it's exactly the same forever, but the numbers do go up. So it's one of those games where it's like, how the more I play, you know, what it used to be my power ranking of like 13,204 just went up to 13,607. And seven now I'm like, some dar in power yeah. So yeah, it's one of those
First Gaming Experiences
00:06:46
Speaker
games. There's, there's not a lot there, but the numbers do go up.
00:06:49
Speaker
That's good. i I spent most of today, I bought ah the Steam sale persona five because I know a lot of people like persona five. And, uh, I never finished long JRPGs. So this probably will not be the, like the exception. Maybe it will be, maybe this will be the one, maybe I will, uh, I, this is the one I will complete as opposed to play for about 50 hours, which is to say like the first act, uh, invested by that point.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah. And then i I'll just be like, you know, what I'm, I'm full. Like I just, you know, I, I rub my stomach and like the chef is running out after me. And he's like, that that was just a course of appetizers. You're I, you just ate, you know, ah like you just ate some garlic bread. And I'm like, no, sorry. I'm full. I'm done. Oh yeah. 50 hours on jrpg. Isn't that moose? Boosh. Yeah. That's like yeah just a, just a little. Yeah. Like, so I've been playing it.
00:07:50
Speaker
And I haven't played any of the other personas, though. I don't I don't think there's I don't think there's any I think this I don't think there's any narrative kind of tissue like similar to like Final Fantasy, I suppose. I don't know. ah But I didn't know that it was so high on on a content warning ah topics. Oh.
00:08:16
Speaker
Oh, okay. Good, good, good. Which is really like, I'm just playing, like I'm playing and I'm sharing the screen with a couple of my friends and I'm like, Oh yeah, it's like this high school RPG. And like the first thing you see is like something dramatic happening. And I'm like, Oh, sorry.
00:08:36
Speaker
And it's like, there's a, there's a creep at the high school and it's like, no. Oh yeah. No, yeah this is, this is why I tap out of, uh, of those games quickly to you. I mean, I've, I've like circle. I owned several persona games and make your own several persona.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah. fruit Yes. Um, I have multiple persona disorder. Um, and yeah, I've yet to, um, I've yet to get anywhere and any of that. I really liked the graphic style. I liked the out game. I think it was good. Wouldn't it be fun to sit down and just get immersed in a JRPG and then I consistently do not do it.
00:09:15
Speaker
yeah I don't know. The only JRPG I've ever played is an Acronox, which is not a good start. yeah yeah it's not It's not actually J. um yeah it's It's a faux JRPG.
00:09:27
Speaker
i yeah i mean The I mean, you and I ah ah yeah are both so this this will this is actually a nice segue. Oh, I second. So you and I ah both primarily PC gamers growing up, right?
00:09:49
Speaker
So I think that like, uh, you know, part of the, if you're, if you're not someone, like it's hard to get into JRPGs late. If you didn't grow up like with final fantasy or, or dragon quest or dragon warrior here. And, uh, like just be like, Oh yeah, I'll play this for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. So like, that's just, uh, like that's just not something that I had because so I was playing.
00:10:18
Speaker
adventure games. and Right. Gateway 2000 computer. That's the way to do it. I was playing it on a Tandy 1000, which is half as many. That's half as many. That's half as many. So half the power. Yeah. I mean, was it just like, what was the cow print situation on a on a Tandy 1000? Well, it wasn't so much in my case, cow print as it was like,
00:10:48
Speaker
yellowing from a, uh, you know, as being stored in a family, uh, where both parents smoked at the time. So, yeah, yeah. So the machine did have some discoloration, but you know, not as cool as like a cow print box or anything to go with it. I mean, so, okay. So the, the topic today as, as stated at the top is, uh, how do you play adventure games? Um, and maybe the,
00:11:14
Speaker
The, yeah, the first like most literal answer to that is on what? And so my first one I played was King's quest on King's quest.
00:11:29
Speaker
King's quest played King's quest on, um, our IBM PC junior, which the Tandy 1000 was like of the family of, right? Which is a nice way of saying a cheap knockoff of. Yeah. Uh, that was, that was for me, that was my, my first, it was on a 16 color IBM PC junior. Uh, I think it had a little joystick, a little joystick that you can move King Graham around. Is that how you chose to move King Graham around?
00:12:10
Speaker
i Well, I was a child so I didn't know how to type this is okay. So the first time I played ah adventure games I was yes, I was ah a tiny a tiny little boy and ah playing on our ah PC jr. And I couldn't read or write, so I just would walk Graham around until he died. Yeah, that is a huge disadvantage in a game with the text parser. I feel like that is going to really work against you being unable to read or write. i like Like so many people, ah I definitely helped me learn to read. i ah But yeah, I just pretty much walked Graham around and then walked him into a river
00:12:59
Speaker
or walked him into a pond or walked him into a moat or a wizard would get him or a witch would get him. I mean, ogre. Ogre would get him. ah What are some of the other things that could get him? So when you a staircase could get him. Yeah. Yeah. So when you were playing this, did you have like a parent or a sibling or anything along those lines around that was actually like for real, real play in the game? Or was it just a walk around? Was it a walking simulator for you? And that's it? I mean, for me, yes, it was a walking simulator. It was it was ah the ah gone home of the 80s. My my siblings ah ah played in and beat it. I'm pretty sure. ah But
00:13:54
Speaker
ah For me, it was just like, I, I was just very intrigued by it. Uh, and I was also intrigued by how it colored in every scene when he walked into each scene because that effect is very good. It's not something like if you play it on scum VM, unless there's some setting I'm unfamiliar with, uh,
00:14:21
Speaker
on like the PC jr. It would draw every black line and you would see every black line be drawn by you know, uh, in the screen and then each color would fill in on each of them. And it was, I think if I did that now, if, if that was on scum VM and I did turn it on, I would be bored to tears because it did that for every single scene and because it had to like, that was not, that was ah it wasn an artistic choice. yeah This is how we need to render this stuff. Yeah, I love it did the same thing on the Tandy and at the time, it was just like watching a storybook come to life in front of my young guys.
00:15:07
Speaker
Uh, so, so that was, that was the first time. And that was how I played it. I, I just played it until I was dead, which was quickly. How was the first time? Because, you know, I'm familiar in, in people who know you are familiar with the, your first game is King's quest two on that Tandy, which you got for Christmas. That's right. Jess lore. Yeah. You got to get that deep dress. And now a lot of, a lot of podcasts won't give you.
00:15:37
Speaker
deep personal lore in the first episode. yeah But you already have so much established lore simply by merit of being very old. I think that that's like one way of thinking about growing old is just I am increasingly filling codex after codex with lore.
00:15:56
Speaker
And I'm leaving them scattered around so people can discover them in the world out of order and try to piece together my story. But yeah, King's Quest 2 on the Tandy 1000 EX, five and a quarter inch floppy drive. ah that was That was my first game, Christmas 1986. I was nine years old. And I too played it with a joystick. I had the joystick around. I would steer Graham with the joystick.
00:16:26
Speaker
put the joystick down, type the commands as needed, and then pick the joystick back up and continue steering him around. Sometimes I would play co-op. Now this is what was great about that control scheme. Oh. I could hand my friend the joystick. Oh. Yes, yes, yes. This is. Oh, that's so cool. It was fantastic. Let my friends steer Graham while I ran the keyboard. I mean, because I wasn't awarded any time. Wow. I've talked about that also before. So, you know, clearly I'm um' keyboard boy.
00:16:55
Speaker
while my friend is is doing the steering. But yeah, that that for me, my parents, I think when they bought my computer, the Radio Shack where they bought it, threw in a few free games. And one was Ghostbusters, the the David Crane Ghostbusters game right that was ported to every system on Earth. And and the other was King's Quest II. And I just immediately fell in love with it. I mean, to me, and I've said
Impact of Early Gaming Experiences
00:17:21
Speaker
this before in other venues, to me as a nine-year-old kid playing that game,
00:17:25
Speaker
and just starting out on the beach there. It was like an open world game for me. It is. Yeah, I could go anywhere. I could go do anything. It was amazing. And that might have drawn me to it, too, even though I couldn't do anything. I just died immediately. Was that, ah you know, we had we had an n NES, so I would play Mario one and that has a very specific kind of experience. Whereas in this there's ah like a big, a big world ah to explore and dying. that's right Okay. So you solve, but you beat King's quest too. I did. be How do you do that? How, how did you solve King's quest too? I didn't do that. so Okay. Was go audio
00:18:19
Speaker
go north to screens. yeah all right right cra They go east to screen and wait for the little red, right? No. Um, the way I did it, I mean, this is the answer. If, if, if you were hosting a podcast with nine year old Jess, first of all, you'd be like, what's a podcast? after Um,
00:18:38
Speaker
I was kind of like a radio show. It's called the podcast because it used to be on iPods. um Yeah. And see like nine year old me wouldn't even know on iPod is I'd be like an iPod.
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah. I did. Actually, I had a zoom. I was. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Timehole. That was the coolest. There's no way to sync it or put music on it, but it was very cool to just carry around. No, how did I, I mean, if you'd asked me when I was nine years old, how do you play adventure games? The answer is absolute brute force. Just, I was able to dedicate hours a day if necessary, to tapping every word I could think of into every screen I could travel to until my number of points increased by one or more. That's how I played Envision, because I beat so many of these Sierra games. Inexplicably, games I can't even remember how to beat today after having played them five or six times.
00:19:43
Speaker
And it just had to be simply as a child, I could pour. And these are text parser games for, if, if, for anyone that's bafflingly listening to this podcast, unfamiliar with those games has a ah text parser at the bottom and you move a little guy around, but you have to type in everything. Yeah. So eventually, you know, both the parser.
00:20:08
Speaker
And I have a limited number of words we know. And you just have to assume I know more than it does. And eventually I will exhaust it through sheer relentless gameplay. is that so And like, did your friend being there, did that help? like That helped him immensely. like You know, I don't know any of the puzzles in King's Quest. Yeah. No, he he was like my corner man. You know, he would, you know, tell me off. I'd spit in a bucket. the whole yeah Cut my cut me if I needed it. But no,
Adventure Games Appeal and Challenges
00:20:43
Speaker
that helped immensely, like to be able to bounce things off of my friends um and and play collaboratively like that. I mean, it's actually what I love about streaming games today is, you know, I grew up playing most of these games
00:20:58
Speaker
with one or two friends in the room. So having chat there who is kind of experiencing them with me, it feels like how I played these games when I first discovered them. I think it's a lot of the appeal of trying to stream adventure games to me. But yeah, definitely having a partner helped a lot. ah So because yeah, I mean, it wasn't like, I mean,
00:21:21
Speaker
I'm not a puzzle guy. I'm not good at adventure. It's not like I was a prodigy at nine years old. I promise you. Well, it's, it's really funny. It's funny for me to think about this because it's like even once I became literate and could like do all this, I still never, I,
00:21:42
Speaker
I never solved to those games as a kid. i I never did. Like even once I i started to buy like ah the the literal point and click ones, I never, I never solved.
00:22:00
Speaker
yeah Yeah, i'm I'm a fake gamer. I knew it. I i beat the. I got for, um I think my ninth birthday, ah actually, ah a collection of LucasArts games that contained Loom, Maniac Mansion, Zach McCracken and Monkey Island and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Wow. is i per I completed.
00:22:33
Speaker
Zach, which is a game you can brute force. That is a brute forcible game. If you're an adult, that's exhausting. As a child, I could just sit there and wander through a maze without mapping it for hours, because I am a child. So I have i I just I will just do this. I will just click on every door.
00:23:02
Speaker
until I end up in a different place because I know eventually I will. Yeah. I think this is the important part to pause and say we were both incredibly popular children. I mean, I want to get this twisted, you know, like, yeah, sure. It sounds like we've just holed up in our rooms, you know, trying to be Zach McCracken and stuff, but we were yeah the life of the party. Absolutely. yeah you You know what was great as a child and all of the sad people listening to this are going to sadly nod. It's being into adventure games with literally no one else on the planet was. Absolutely. Like no one else at school. and And you just go and you're like, Hey, if you've heard of this monkey Island game, I'm like, no, I play Mario like a normal child. I'm playing Contra, you idiot. What's wrong with you? Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
yeah going up to other children to being like, yeah, this is, you know, we're getting into the trauma. I don't know. Are you playing Sonic the Hedgehog? Cause that's a game people like. I'm playing quest for glory. I'm playing as a thief. What are you talking about? I'm like we're i i like, what do you play games on? We have a Nintendo. Oh, I play them on my PC. What?
00:24:21
Speaker
my My dad has one of those. we don't play like He just does stuff for work on it. like What are you talking about? a See, this is funny. i mean Our listeners may or may not know this, but I teach classes about video games at a university. um and When I try to occasionally, like when I'm here, do see myself, I talk about sort of my journey as a gamer and my students are still, my journey as a
00:25:10
Speaker
My journey as a gamer. Let me tell you about my journey as a gamer, how I started it. And to explain adventure games to them, first of all, of course, they've never heard of a game like King's Quest. And to explain what that is, there is nothing that sounds as bizarre and unfun as an adventure game.
00:25:32
Speaker
than when you try to explain it to someone who has no idea what it is. I feel like it's a genre that defies. Perfect for podcasts is what you're saying. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this is great. I mean, if there are people who are searching for information on quest bars or something like that and ended up in this podcast, now we've really- You're about to have to power in, and they're like, what are they? Got to talk about energy bars. Yeah, and I'm sure you sold them on this genre.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe that could be a segment. Mark that down on our show notes. We sample quest bars and maybe we get a sponsorship. Ooh. I don't think there anyway, so sorry, your, your gamer's journey before I was just perplexed by it too. Yeah. I mean, that yeah it be I feel just like I did back in the day when, you know, I'm like, and one of my friends is like, what'd you do this weekend? And I say, I tried to film a King's quest three fan movie in my backyard, you know, like a normal again, like a popular normal kid. Uh, can't stress that enough. Uh, yeah, that's, that's still how I felt. Like.
00:26:40
Speaker
You know, you know, one of the, one of the things, uh, about being a child is he have parents that are like, even if they're strange, thoroughly themselves, they're, they're, they're kind of concerned about you having like at least one or two normal child hobbies. ah And
Current Gaming and Streaming Habits
00:26:58
Speaker
so it's like, you know, why don't you play an instrument? Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? I'm like, I want to play.
00:27:04
Speaker
I want to play on our PC. I want to find out more about Daventry and Chirandia. And it is just remarkably funny to me. Just the idea of like on the The podcast I just wrapped up doing ah ah with the Last Best Babylon 5 podcast ah about the but television show Babylon 5, one of the last things, ah like on our our last episode, I was given a child's Halloween mask of one of the characters, one of the characters, Londo Mallari, and then we just launched into making fun of like, what little child
00:27:56
Speaker
in 1994 is going door-to-door. And who are you? I'm Wanda Mallari. I'm an ambassador on a space station. Not to just reiterate ah a joke from another podcast, it's just like, very, it it just makes me think of it's like, oh, when you're like a little kid, and then somehow you get an esoteric a hobby. The nice thing about being adult is that ah ah almost all I no longer have ah but um not being pushed by my parents have normal hobbies anymore. And so ah it's like,
00:28:38
Speaker
You know, I go on a date and it's like, well, what do you do? Well, I, uh, I stream it, uh, on Twitch. Oh, that's cool. Like, what do you play? Nothing you've ever heard of. Call of duty.
00:28:55
Speaker
Cool.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah. I'm actually a pretty big name in the Madden community. yeah I'm actually, I'm actually Joe Madden. and John Madden's beloved son. oh yeah Joe Madden. Jesus Christ. Yeah. You see, you aren't selling it. That's why I mess you up. Yeah. That's what it's like.
00:29:20
Speaker
You're lying. What do you really play? It's like, it's embarrassing. That's what you just run out of the restaurant. Yeah. Just like, like, like, yeah. Just leave like a bin shaped hole in the wall when you're just like, yeah, sprint through it. No, fortunately I go to the same restaurant. So they just leave that hole in the wall. So I don't even have to break it through. Is it hard? Like positioning yourself though, to like get in your arms, a Kimbo. Yeah.
00:29:48
Speaker
I practice, but, um, all right. So now we we've talked about our traumatic childhoods. Oh, I beat those games though. I beat Zach and monkey Island and loom. Loom being the easiest one. I think I beat loom immediately because it's very short. Uh, is that that Uh, came with like a semi walkthrough that was like little nudges. It was like, uh, the manual had like all of these narratives of the game written in first person. And it was like, uh, Oh man, what a day I've had. Oh, I had to deal with this. Good thing. I thought about, you know, uh, stepping on this, uh, loose plank a couple of times so I could pick up a fish. Like.
00:30:44
Speaker
It was, it was written in that way, like a little, little nudges and things. And so those are the ones I, as a child, I was hopelessly reliant on a walkthroughs and I still am. Uh, but I guess, yeah, like now let's, let's talk about how, how do you play an adventure game now as a grownup? Okay. This is is a wonderful question. Yeah. You want to hear my grownup perspective. i want Yeah. Uh, it's, it's now time for, uh, after dark.
00:31:17
Speaker
I have to build out like since this is the first one I have to build out like ah to the soundboard what clips and sound clips I just threw a couple that I just have on my hard drive on to the soundboard.
00:31:32
Speaker
Uh, uh, we'll, we'll get there once again by
Puzzle Complexity and Personal Struggles
00:31:35
Speaker
like, you know, episode three. Yeah. I mean, listeners, I'm looking at Ben soundboard right now and literally it's just all wolf house. It's very strange. Like it's just
00:31:57
Speaker
Now, Ben, that doesn't even sound like a wolf. What breed is that? That's ah that's obviously for there. There's a. and Many adventure fans listening to this ah sagely, uh, you know, uh, chuckling to themselves as they identify that that's Graham's scream and King's quest five. And they're like, Oh, this might be the type of podcast for me with a reference to Graham's scream. Let me see if they have a Patreon. Yeah. That's what they're thinking right now. Um, how do I play adventure games as an adult for me? Like you'd think.
00:32:34
Speaker
You think I've done this a lot and I've played hundreds of hours in this specific genre and I've written about this genre and run websites about it and I stream it every week. I am still very bad at venture games and I'll be completely honest with you. The way I play adventure games as an adult is usually embarrassingly with a walkthrough close at hand. I am 100% a walkthrough boy nowadays. I cannot solve puzzles to save my life. When I occasionally do, it really is this moment of triumph and pride. But yeah, I am a lazy adventure gamer as an adult. How about you Ben? How do you play?
00:33:16
Speaker
adventure games as an adult. And, and this is why I felt, you know, i this is why we had to have this be the first one. So, so anyone that's like listening to this and and they're, you know, trying to triangulate, you know, if, if they agree with our opinions or not, this is, this is a real easy way to triangulate because they'll be like, Oh, they didn't respect the puzzle.
00:33:43
Speaker
they They didn't respect the serpent Rouge. Oh, I'm sorry. Do we get rid of that in post? They respect the serpent Rouge sacred
00:34:07
Speaker
because it's it's funny, like you, you know, um ah there, there are a lot of different types of ways that people ah interface with adventure games and why they play them. ah And there, there are people that that love ah intensely,
00:34:26
Speaker
ah puzzly ones. ah And in ones with like, so The serpent Rouge is, uh, like, uh, that's a very complex, like it's a graph. Like you have to like draw a graph on paper. You have to write like, I, I don't find it on night three. We should say in case anyone's not familiar with it. Yeah, it is. Uh, yeah, you're, you're like graphing over a map. You're just suffering lots of clues. You are. It is.
00:34:58
Speaker
Considered by some one of the greatest adventure game puzzles of all time it has its own Wikipedia page it has its own Wikipedia page and the amount of design and thought that went into it is unquestionably oppressive, but for me Trying to figure that out for the first time a couple of years ago when I played Gabriel not three for the first time I I felt like my soul was going to leave my body. And that would just never come back. That would be the end. Let's serve cause of death. Let's serve. Uh, well, uh, yeah, Jess, I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, fight, but like, I'm just reading the reception on this. wicked the The Wikipedia page for this has a whole two paragraphs on reception.
00:35:47
Speaker
The serpent Rouge puzzle has received generally positive reception. And that's the best you can get identified as both a quote renowned and quote and a quote revered and quote puzzle by incubator games, CEO, uh, uh, I've not, uh, radic, uh, kinds wick, sorry, his name and writer Jack Allen respectively.
00:36:15
Speaker
So well, they're wrong. I'm sorry, man. You heard here first the incubator game CEO. Yeah. and Writer Jack Allen. Yes, both of them. I mean, I'll, I'll challenge them to a celebrity boxing match over this and games. They, they, they published, uh, the CO2 connection.
00:36:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah. it Really? Block star party. It's a Facebook game. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's I don't forget about the the the iOS game feeding time.
00:36:58
Speaker
ah and that's incubator game i take it Okay, you know what, Ben? you've changed my mind. That's right. Yeah, that's I mean, yeah, with a Yeah, no. but Yeah, I mean, that is a great example of the kind of puzzle that for someone who loves puzzles, like I know there are folks in the chat. Hey, there are a lot of folks in my chat when I was playing that who were just like, why can't you figure this out? You absolute dummy. Yeah. And And they were right. um But also, I think there are people who just outright love that stuff. I play adventure games for, I think, largely story and character. That's that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for just a story I can vibe with more so than the, I mean, I don't mind the intellectual challenge of a puzzle for about the first, I would say 45 seconds or so of it. Yeah.
00:37:55
Speaker
mean Right. Yeah. Yeah. Now I know exactly what you mean. and Like you're, you're like, Oh, puzzle. I will try to solve this today. I'll simply use logic and reason. which
Appreciation for Adventure Game Narratives
00:38:09
Speaker
ah I'll put two, two together this time for sure. but's right ah ah So here, yeah, I'll, I'll answer. Yeah. It's the same. I, I enter.
00:38:21
Speaker
every time I start like a new game of, of something, uh, I, I try to give an honest attempt at solving a puzzle. And then like, I, I think that if I put my like Uh, because for, for some of them, it's just, it's best solved by you you, you do it. You kind of think about it. Maybe you put the game down and then like the next day you wake up and go like, Oh, I'll try this. Uh, but I know that if I do that, I'm putting the game down. Yes. So I, I, I'm like, all right, I, I'm going to attempt to solve this in my head within about a couple, like a minute.
00:39:16
Speaker
And if I don't, I will, i I'll look over or like I do like a nudge. I i should, I should seek out more nudges. Um, you know, I think I'll ask them a view, the question that I'm sure all of our listeners are asking themselves right now. If we are both walkthrough boys that yeah are bad at puzzles, um,
00:39:43
Speaker
Does that make us bad adventure gamers? And if so, what business do we have hosting an adventure game podcast? Well, I, I, well, first off, I mean, I had to do something with my time. That's true. That answers the question. Uh, but. Well, I love, I mean, in, in you started to to say this, I love adventure games and I love, uh, I, I, love.
00:40:13
Speaker
big weird worlds. And I especially love ah what people have been doing with adventure games lately. ah Because I think a lot of them are, I think,
00:40:27
Speaker
Even though it's very, they're the people that ah feel that way about puzzles are very loud. Uh, I think majority of people are are in our, but there's a Nixonian silent majority of adventure game players that are exactly as lazy as we are. And, uh, like I think.
00:40:55
Speaker
that like a lot of a lot of modern ah games are kind of developed with with that in mind. um And if you play Like a game, a King's Quest made in 1985 or... i ah if If you play one of those, like you get this big wide world and a big text, like a text parser you can type anything into and all of this. There's all sorts of possibility and a lot of, not all, but a lot of recent adventure games are about like kind of limiting
00:41:32
Speaker
those and and limiting the amount of like inputs that you have. So it's like, it doesn't take 10 hours to rub but every single inventory that you have on every single other inventory item. Like it, you know, the, the puzzle space makes a little more sense. Uh, and, and there are good and bad things about that, but it's like, have you played something like, uh, have you played a case of the golden idol?
00:42:02
Speaker
No. So case of the golden idol isn't an adventure game. It is a puzzle game and I love it and I love the puzzles of it. Uh, and, and I like being perplexed and I haven't used a walkthrough, uh, on it. Like, I think there are like a little hint tokens on it. It's been a minute since I played it, but it's a, it's a game where you get these very specific type of narrative puzzles and you have a very limited tool, like.
00:42:33
Speaker
uh, set of tools. And that is very interesting to me. Um, whereas like an adventure game, part of it is it's like, well, it's the puzzles, but it's also characters and it's also art and it's also, uh, like a narrative. And it's also like, even if it doesn't have like stats role playing, it's role playing in that you are playing a character, you're inhabiting a character and a lot of them.
00:43:01
Speaker
And like so that's and i that's why like it's good for us to start out with this discussion because it's like all of those things are really appealing to me.
00:43:15
Speaker
ah you like embodying like a a character yes and and stuff like that. And that's like, or or in a game where I'm not like a character necessarily. Like if I'm playing like mist or something, like, which is very, very puzzle-y, but it's like, it's a cool space to explore. It's a cool place to be. um And So that is a lot of why like what I look for in a in a game. And puzzles are very secondary. but some like i
00:43:52
Speaker
But oddly enough, I appreciate a good puzzle, even if I don't solve it. that' Absolutely. Yeah. Same way, you know, I can see the work that goes into that. I mean, and sometimes I have that like kicking myself, Oh, how in the world did I not see this solution? But when you come across a good puzzle, there, there's something to be said for it. But yeah, for me, the puzzles are at some level kind of just part of what makes it.
00:44:22
Speaker
a game to some degree more so than what I'm there for you. I mean, I want to, you know, I think I once read a description of adventure games suggesting that like the reward structure that's built into them is seeing a new screen you haven't seen before. I've read the same thing and I also don't know what that's from.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's horrible that we both. Yeah. Or, you know, the reading guy being like, they're right. Whoever it is that said this is correct. Yeah. Hearing a new piece of dialogue that you couldn't get before, you know, hearing a little bit of music that plays because you aired a new scene. And, and that's what has always jazzed me. I think, yeah, when you talked about this idea of like being able to embody a character, you know, I think in the adventure genre, especially when you go back to the eighties, when you think like 1984, when either King's Quest came out. It's like, yeah, it was really hard for me to embody Pac-Man or like the kangaroo from kangaroo. What about Mr. Do?
00:45:21
Speaker
Now I could inhabit Mr. Do absolutely. Cause I do run around inflating. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No way. I'm thinking of dig dug. I was dig dug and you're Mr. Doing. Yeah, I was, I'm, I, yeah, I dig dug and you dude. Um, you're, you're always walking around with your pump and blowing up the monsters. and Yeah. i right My little magic ball, uh, around.
00:45:44
Speaker
Yes, sorry, my mistake. ah But yeah, that that for me, you know, compared to the sorts of games I was playing is I think I went straight from Atari 2600 to playing adventure games on the PC. And that ability to really ah embody and ah identify with a character and yeah, you know even even see it in magazines from the era, where oftentimes they would use You know, the word role playing game almost synonymously with adventure game, because yeah, you are ultimately playing some kind of role, even if it's not stats based and D and D inspired sort of RPG game play. Yeah. The, the notion that you're inhabiting a role I think is, is what's more important to me. And then, you know, I want the puzzles to.
00:46:32
Speaker
support and uplift that and make sense in the context of the story and the character and the ratty and everything else more so than seeing those as the focus of what I'm playing for. Yeah.
00:46:45
Speaker
All right. Well, uh, so we, we asked ah people, uh, to, uh, this same question and, uh, I'm going to read some of those responses. And if you have anything that you would like to say to us, uh, you can send us an email at quest, quest podcast at gmail dot.com. That's quest, quest, pod cast. Quest, quest pod was taken. Quest, quest was taken.
00:47:11
Speaker
So this is like, I, I'm just adding things until I'm like, all right, well, so it's quest quest podcast, four to six, six underscore C.
00:47:22
Speaker
and she
00:47:26
Speaker
Uh, so, but, uh, we, we did ask, uh, some, some folks here, some of the, uh, answers, one of them is, uh, from, uh, night warbler. I like to explore the whole area, not even trying to solve a puzzle at first, just feeling out the world and how I, uh, how much I can do in it. Once I know where the lock doors, the security checkpoints, the impass, impassable gorges are. That's when I started thinking about how to explore past those.
00:47:53
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting. Now, wouldn't you say that's how you play these sorts of games about, are you an explorer first solve later? Explore first, unless like a solve is very obvious, but I like to, because the thing is, is that you're probably not going to, like, you might not necessarily. Like if you see a puzzle, you might not necessarily have all of the required things. So it's worth going into every possible room.
00:48:20
Speaker
that is available and identifying. I got something that like ah like returned from ah return Monkey Island ah did and some other adventure games are doing, or it gives you like the checklist.
00:48:35
Speaker
Yes, which I love. That's really helpful. no As you were saying that too, I was just thinking of your recent playthrough of Toonstruck, which I think was a fascinating game in that, you know, it was sort of every room presented one puzzle.
00:48:50
Speaker
And at least in your playthrough, it really was like, well, I'm going to explore every room, basically figure out the 10 or 12 puzzles it has for me to solve, then set about doing each of them along the way, which, yeah, that that felt like very much that kind of exploration based model. I think it's hard for me to tease apart. um yeah I will say, ah I think that you probably on your Twitch channel at least play ah quite a few more contemporary adventure games than I do.
00:49:20
Speaker
And a lot of the ones I'm playing, I'm revisiting, which lends me to really going with like a very linear, how do I knock this out efficiently? Because I know how to get to the end of Space Quest 2. So the exploration kind of drops away. And it's something I do like about when I pick up a newer adventure game is being able to go back to that, like, I just want to wander around and figure out what's going on here and see, see how these pieces start to fall into place as I go.
00:49:50
Speaker
Uh,
Game Design and Player Interaction
00:49:51
Speaker
so another response here from bogus meat factory. It's also a streamer of the same name. Uh, my approach typically changes based on the style of adventure game. First, I recognize how the game is designed, our clues to puzzles in dialogue through experimentation, death. From there, I get my bearings and start to map out and explore the areas around me to help identify where the puzzles are. That way I.
00:50:19
Speaker
I'm able to see the path the game wants me to take and to see how the puzzles relate to the rest of the world. Adventure games vary so much in design, making it tough to nail down a single universal approach. So the most important thing to do is to keep an open mind and try to listen to the game's feedback on how it expects you to play. That's interesting. So when ah when when you were nine and you're playing ah King's Quest,
00:50:48
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I don't know why. Like I'm like Matt burying. Uh, uh, saying King's quest. Uh, I don't know why that is, but I am it's, it's, and it's unconscious. It's unconscious. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to do a bit here. It's very funny. King's quest. Uh, but, um, like I remember like having the paper out and drawing like the square and then like the little lines and writing like the name of you through, like, did you do that? I did in a limited fashion. Again, oftentimes that would be something like.
00:51:25
Speaker
Again, the advantage of having a friend or two in the room, like I would occasionally have someone mapping while I'm doing so. I kind of delegated those tasks occasionally, but I would do simple maps, mostly because the instruction manual told me to. And I'm a rule follower. You know this about me, Ben. You know, above all else, I follow rules. And in the manual for King's Quest 2, it says draw a map and then gives a little example of what such a map would look like.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah and then i just yeah i did i did exactly what it told me to do so yeah that you know i think some of the interesting and bogus is. Response there is that. You know sometimes i think the difference between.
00:52:10
Speaker
a well-designed adventure game and a poorly designed adventure game is whether that feedback element exists. Like I think games that signal, you said maybe you find it in the world, maybe you find it in the dialogue, but it's pointing you toward what the puzzles are, where to find them, how to solve them, et cetera. I feel like it's bad adventure games that fail to do that. Like I'm thinking about the capstone adventure games, right? Like when we get into the world of Beverly hillbillies and Wayne's world and like bottom of the barrel tap and point and click adventure games games. ah Those are great games. I'll just go ahead and promise now they'll eventually be an episode on capstone. I have to play them.
00:52:54
Speaker
Yes, that you do have to play them. Absolutely. But so I think of those games. And I mean, what makes them so bad is that in no way do they signal what is a puzzle or give you any sense of where a solution might lie. And then you throw in enough moon logic and other things like that. And yeah, you end up with a game that isn't speaking to you in a way that presents solutions, which yeah, I think that's that's when the genre begins to break down. Yeah, and I mean, you know, to focus his point, ah like, it it really, ah it really kind of depends on what, what the game is on how it provides the clues, like,
00:53:42
Speaker
You know, uh, is it providing clues through deaths? Do you think, did Sierra games, what do you say they were providing clues through deaths or that were they just being jerks? Uh, I think it depends on the games. Some of them, you know, will give you like the little hint on what you could have done differently. Like I'm wanting to think.
00:54:02
Speaker
quest for glory occasionally did a good job of saying, you know, Oh, you should have done that a little faster. You know, maybe if there's just a way to interrupt this ritual before it got complete or Lara bow to did a little bit of that too. Like, especially like in the awful chase scene at the end doesn't have some hands along the way. It's been a while since I played that one, but I think that death can be a good teacher.
00:54:25
Speaker
But I don't think it's not my go-to. I mean, I'm sure this is something we'll talk about in future episodes at some point, but I am a fan of deaths and adventure games. Ron Gilbert, come at me, bro. ah and yeah that To me, if done well, it can be a source of entertainment and possibly something that points you in the right direction.
00:54:50
Speaker
Uh, so, uh, uh, Clill says, uh, I think I'm the opposite. I try to take as much as I can out of what's in front of me, then start expanding out a kind of toy with what's in front of me, then try to reason, then try more and more outlandish stuff. Uh, so.
00:55:13
Speaker
This is this is a another thing that's interesting to me is that pretty much, yeah you know, it's it's like a there's a it's like a Reese's peanut butter cup. You know, unless you're a foreign listener and they unfamiliar with those commercials, where which said that there is no wrong way to eat a Reese's.
00:55:34
Speaker
ah But yes, did I agree. i i Am I like is am I the only one that remembers this? I'm just looking around. um Yeah. No, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. I wasn't sure where you're going at first, ah but but now I'm on target and what you're doing is this brand integration. I get it, Ben. You're trying to mention as yeah many brands as possible and trying to name all of our friends at Reese's Nestle. And Ben, I was wondering where do you get your steaks?
00:56:06
Speaker
Uh, where do I have you tried to Omaha sticks? I mean ship straight to your home. Um, dry aged and just to me. Yeah. I mean, you can't beat them. The worst thing about this is I did have steak for dinner and I purchased it at Whole Foods. Um, I had it too. Yeah. like Did we both have steak for dinner? Why do you go eat before you record a podcast? You need protein, you know, and yeah, you got Austin. Yeah, I know.
00:56:35
Speaker
uh custard uh said is reluctantly an acceptable answer i grew up always playing them with my brother and sister so playing them solo as an adult feels bad man uh I get that. Yeah. I mean, nostalgia cuts both ways, right? Like, you know, I think for me, it transports me back to childhood and a good way to play an old adventure game. And even a new one when I feel, you know, the elements of the genre shining through, but yeah, I can get the the opposite as well.
00:57:11
Speaker
I think
Personal Gaming Stories and Reflections
00:57:13
Speaker
ah for me, when I was a kid, I was always playing them alone and I was looking in the manual and all the manual said, it's better to play with a friend and I can never convince anyone. Like everyone was just like the boring.
00:57:27
Speaker
yeah I do look back and I wonder sometimes was I forcing my friends to play adventure games. Now this is like a dark, this is the dark recesses of the mind of a man with social anxiety who is thinking like 40 years down the road where my friends just being nice to me. Did they really like me?
00:57:49
Speaker
ah Well, we'll, we'll, we'll plumb these, uh, you know, if, uh, if you have their numbers, uh, we can have them as guests finally get that answer.
00:58:02
Speaker
Perhaps, uh, you know, unlike in King's quest to you, this is a ah layered door. You do not want to open. Uh, but what if like, well, my friends has a podcast. It's like James, my friend made me play. Yeah.
00:58:19
Speaker
and You have another, like you have a friend that's in therapy for, uh, having to play these boring games. We're talking to a therapist about like, Oh, did he, did he like it? Was I just humoring him? And then meanwhile, the same therapist is hearing from the, the, your friend like.
00:58:40
Speaker
Uh, he made me play these horrible games. What a, what a terrible, i'm i'm I'm sympathetic for the therapist at this point. Have you ever seen a police quest? He made me play a police quest. The therapist is like now I'm a normal person. Yeah.
00:58:57
Speaker
is that is that like a Mario? Like, is it one of the Mario types? Like, does he have a gun? Like, is it like a police Mario? Like a Mario with a gun and a hat? A different hat? Is it like Shadow? Oh, sorry. I have a big Sonic guy.
00:59:13
Speaker
ah
00:59:17
Speaker
Can this be a recurring character, the therapist who's a big sign? Oh, yeah, the therapy is really going to come up here. It does say here on my checklist for the episode, it says create four recurring characters in the first episode, which honestly, Ben, you drew up these show notes. So that seems like a lot. That is a lot, but it will pay ah dividends. Yeah, the merch alone. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:59:39
Speaker
Uh, all right. Next, uh, dr. Mario Diaz, uh, W said new adventure games. I like to explore and take my time. Click through everything for everyone is so much better, more thoughtful about this than I am. Uh, uh, click through everything, explore all the dialogue trees, et cetera, old ones. I use a walkthrough 80% of the time.
01:00:03
Speaker
The possibility of a soft lock, especially in Sierra titles is high. LucasArts titles are a bit better and I'm willing to explore more in them. that I mean, you know, like, as like in Codename Iceman, one of my favorite adventure games, you know, if you forget to ask a guy to hand you your driver's license back, you'll ride an airplane halfway across the country and then like need it in a complete, like it'll be soft locked because you lost your driver's license. And when you ask for a back, if I recall correctly, the text is like, Oh, it's always good to ask. It's true. I mean like it's i feel that like Jim has like Jim walls, he designed that game. Uh, like something happened once. Uh,
01:00:56
Speaker
I feel like that is honestly the genesis of every game he worked on, whether it was Codename Iceman or Police Quest, or Legend of the Black Cat or whatever that pirate game he did that was, you know, um all of them were just, you know, something happened to him once. You know, he was on that flight at that time and had to stop a terrorist bombing. And then he just, then he sat down at his computer and just programmed it right in. And to be clear, that is in Police Quest 2.
01:01:25
Speaker
um
01:01:30
Speaker
How many, Ben, I don't want to sound impatient. How many of these do we have to do until we can just talk about Jim Wells for an episode? Oh, we have to do a baker's 20. A baker's 12. Okay. we yeah We can get to it sooner. We can get to it sooner. We can get, we can get to the gym walls.
01:01:49
Speaker
u Uh, Jim walls of it all. Yeah. The gym walls of it all. Uh, uh, soon. Um, next, uh, this is from Michael or friend Michael. I guess for me, I try to explore everything first because I'm not really patient enough. Me too. Uh, pour over everything and want to see as much as I can. If I solve puzzles, neat.
01:02:12
Speaker
But once I've explored it all, then I make an effort to solve puzzles depends on the game. I'm also okay using a walkthrough after being stuck for like 15, 20 minutes. That's right. Yeah, that's the correct answer so far. that's That's the most correct. I don't want to make this about winners and losers, but Michael is i a winner. yeah yeah Uh, if it's a game that has sort of, uh, uh, that I love or feel the puzzle design is very solid and reasonable, then I'll spend more time before using a walkthrough. Yeah. Yeah. It was a game that sort of lost my trust in it. Uh, like in, like in its puzzle design or as soft locks and I'm more likely to use a walkthrough early on kind of kills my enjoyment of the game. Um,
01:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with most of this. ah you kind like you Do you feel like using a walkthrough spoils your enjoyment? Like has there ever been a game that at the end you just like really regretted using the walkthrough on? Are you unrepentant? You know, I think every I I feel bad if I feel bad if it's a puzzle that I felt like the tickle of the solution in my head. yeah yeah yeah i felt if i like if i If I succumb and I look at the walkthrough and it's like, do this, and I'm like, I was i was i was so close to that. like It was like the the pieces, and then I'm frustrated with myself.
01:03:51
Speaker
and so so that Uh, but like, if it's, if it's something where I look at and be like, I would not have put these things together. Um, then, then I don't, I don't feel bad. And that's not necessarily saying that it's bad that I didn't want to put it together. It's generally because I'm impatient and I don't do the things like that you're supposed to do, which is look at every single thing in the room, then examine every inventory item and then ah complete every single dialogue.
01:04:21
Speaker
do all of that and then cross-reference all of the facts and then see what fits with what. You're a busy man. I'm a busy man. I'm i'm i'm a stock trader. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that. I I'm playing perfect tides and I'm standing on Wall Street. I don't have time to solve this.
01:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, we don't have a video component here. But I'm looking at Ben right now. And he's holding one of those little pieces of paper in his hand and kind of just like shaking it up in the air. i I'm also on the floor right now. Yeah, it's what yeah just doesn't have time. I mean, like suspenders and like, i you know, yeah, I look like Michael Douglas ah in the 80s. And that's, that's me. I'm a a real bonfire of the vanities.
01:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. yeah That's exactly what I said before we started filming and recording today i was ah you you're a total bonfire of the vanities. Yeah. ah And finally, our our last one here is ah from her.
01:05:30
Speaker
ah ah friend ah Paul and by last one I mean there was one I'm the kind of weirdo that will probably try to get every single response in a given room if it's that kind of game but if I because if I get stuck I become to try every single inventory item on itself then on every NPC that in every notable object the puzzles are well designed you should never resort to that but sometimes we logic forces your hand this is mostly because I would rather spend an hour stuck than bring up a walkthrough and
01:06:03
Speaker
Wow. He's made of sterner stuff than me. he's doing Yeah, well, I know that Paul's not on the I've never seen him on Wall Street ah buying and selling.
01:06:16
Speaker
Uh, you know, everybody there, you know, everybody on the floor, as you always call it. Yeah. On the floor. If I absolutely need a hint, then chances are I'm going to, uh, end up justifying another hint and another and and another. So try my hardest not to look at all. But sometimes when you've seen every available room, 20 times enough is enough. Uh, so yeah. Uh,
Conclusion and Future Engagement
01:06:39
Speaker
you know, but Paul's a ah stronger man than either of us.
01:06:44
Speaker
Are you a completionist? Like, oh, when Paul mentions, like, I want to hear every line of dialogue. I want to know. No, no, I'm not a completionist on any game in any way. I know. No, absolutely not. Nope. I think there are games where I have edged in that direction. I think that.
01:07:04
Speaker
If there's a game I truly love, like I want to milk every little bit of you know of gaming goodness out of it. This may come as a surprise to you, Ben, but I was a big fan of the Space Quest series growing up. Oh.
01:07:20
Speaker
And the I liked those enough. I was obsessed enough with Space Quest where I really did want to try to get that. Like I want to see every single thing I can in this game. I want to experience every death. I want to get every little joke. I want the whole thing. That is though not my typical approach. I am Typically, I want to get to the end of this game relatively directly. Now, can I get lost to LucasArts dialogue tree? Absolutely. like And let myself just go down a Curse of Monkey Island conversation that never ends. But generally speaking, yeah i'm ah um ah let's head toward the finish line on this thing.
01:08:01
Speaker
I, I just don't think most people are as good as the writing on, on those respective games. Uh, but you know, and then that could itself be its own topic. Uh, next, our, our actual finest final one, uh, from Wilco web for exploration. First games like Mr. Riven, I'll typically do exploration note-taking, try to collect as much information, uh, before I increase my scope of movement by solving puzzles.
01:08:28
Speaker
then I'll usually try to see all the dialogue for games that have it, but I don't try to use items in places that you wouldn't, except for small games that have funny responses, like the Homestar or Dangerous games.
01:08:41
Speaker
ah actual retro games, I try to approach it on their own. I'm more likely to reach for guidance. Uh, but I think it's because a lot of them I'm trying to learn, uh, about them or experienced them in a different way. Uh, like I've bounced off of code name ice, man, and lead you suit Larry a couple of times because I know there's bullshit incoming, but I kind of still kind of want to experience them without guidance. hu What's interesting about these is I feel that we got a very.
01:09:11
Speaker
varied a bunch of responses here. And also no one plays them like us. We're very soft other than I feel we're probably closest to Michael. Yes, who said, Oh, I'm okay using a walkthrough after 15 to 20. Then we're just built different, which is to say worse. Yeah. ah Well,
01:09:36
Speaker
i I believe that ah that does it. Do you have ah any any further things to say on this theme? You know, i think what i I think we've learned a lot here today. First of all, let me say that. um There's been a lot of learning. There's been a lot of listening. There's been a lot of talking. And I feel like that's what podcasts mean.
01:10:04
Speaker
That's what the podcast medium is all about. But um you know I think that what is great about the adventure game genre is I think it does inspire among its fans. I think it may not it's esoteric enough that you know it doesn't attract everyone, but I think those who get sucked into its web but get sucked into it in a big way. like I feel like once you're a little bit hooked on adventure games, you end up very hooked on them. It's hard to find a casual fan ah necessarily. I managed to run in the wrong circles. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I ran a lot of adventure game freaks like myself.
01:10:44
Speaker
But yeah, I mean you did run a massive adventure game website for the half of the 90s. That's true. And the good half of the 90s for the record. Um, the good half. Yeah. But no, I mean, maybe the, yeah, maybe let me walk that back. Um, I think the, maybe what I want to say is.
01:11:06
Speaker
It's a genre that I think opens itself up to being enjoyed in a lot of different ways. And I think that, yeah, hearing some of this feedback from um some of our our hopefully future listeners out there. It's hard to imagine they gave us feedback before they've listened, but that's how the timeline works here. It's it's almost like magic. But yeah, Ben, what do you think? What are your final thoughts here? I have no final thoughts. I've just been talking. ah Yeah. i i I just think it's, it's very, I, as I, as I've said a couple times, I think I really wanted to have this discussion first. Uh, so people know that they don't need to listen to us. Uh, that's very important to me because I think, well, I think that.
01:11:52
Speaker
for for like all read on like forums posts or like in discords or whatever it like people be like like a very very ah strong puzzle opinions and puzzle solving opinions and I too have very strong puzzle opinions and I noticed that and most of the time I don't agree with other people's puzzle opinions because they're they solve them and they play the games. Like I believe that they're meant to be played. Uh, but, uh, I opt not to play them that way. Uh, and I've been doing this my whole life, so you can't stop me. Yeah. And you have a podcast. Who are who are they to try? Yeah. Some forum poster. I don't Some Johnny come lightly. Can I tell you a podcast host how to play adventure games? This is how I play adventure games. I take King Graham and I walk him into a pond and then he dies. And that's how I play the game. Yeah. That is a solution. It's not the solution, but it's a solution. that That's the end of the game. As far as I'm concerned, then just type matching things into DOS 2.0 is the rest of the fun.
01:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that if if adventure gaming isn't drowning future monarchs, I don't know what it is. Yeah. So, so this has been ah Quest Quest.
01:13:22
Speaker
an adventure game podcast. Uh, you can send us an email at quest quest podcast at gmail.com. You could watch us respectively on our Twitch streams. I am PS underscore Garrick G a R a K. And I am yeah decaf Jedi.
01:13:45
Speaker
And, uh, uh, you can catch us there and catch us next week when we're discovering something we're discovering, we're discussing, uh, something that we haven't determined yet, but, uh, we'll discover it soon. Yeah. It all, it all ties in anyway. Uh, thank you so much for listening to our first episode and, uh, we'll hear you next week.