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Episode 59 - Ranking Every Adventure Game Ever Again
1.3k Plays2 days ago
Uh oh, everyone. We’re BACK! And we have a pretty strange episode for you all. You’ll just have to hear what happened for yourself. Matt also finished Clair Obscur, and Roses finished her move and little clay worm, so… We talk about that.
Regardless, wish Matt luck on his last week of college and wish Roses luck on her vacating the black mold from her lungs.
Email Us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Instagram: @saveyourgamepodcast
Games Mentioned:
- Fall Guys
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- The Abyssal Zone
- The Abyssal Zone
- Chop Suey
- Magnus Imago
- The Suicide of Rachel Foster
- Corpse Party: Book of Shadows
- Lunar Axe
- Sleuthhounds: The Halloween Deception
- Nancy Drew: Treasure in the Royal Tower
- Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy
- The Room VR: A Dark Matter
Recommended
Transcript
New Office and Relocation
00:00:00
Speaker
testing hello oh fuck
00:00:05
Speaker
sorry got excited hu it's been a while since we've recorded but i didn't know it was this exciting to you i'm in my new office so i'm very excited yeah yeah what do you got what's tell me some substantive differences between your current office and your last office Well, this office is not in the art studio. This office is its own space. Whoa. Okay. So they're different.
00:00:32
Speaker
They're different. yeah So you're like, here's where I get my podcast work done. Correct. Yes. Correct. My artwork done. So now when I'm editing, I don't have to smell paint and like wooden canvas board.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah. But the one where, where will you get your inspiration? From you. Oh, ah
00:00:56
Speaker
yeah, inspired. Also, could just like rub paint on your pillow. Okay. Smell it all night. no. You wake up and be like, I'm inspired. It is not toxic, but every now and then I see i spy Basket drinking paint water.
00:01:13
Speaker
no, no. Basket, you can't have done that. He's an artist too. Yeah, that's true. I think we we both just have gone insane from the mold exposure. So she's like drinking paint water and I am I don't know, I'm making clay worms. We're okay now. Don't worry, everyone.
00:01:32
Speaker
It was just black mold. You're making, who's everyone? This is just me and you right now. this is Don't worry, Matt. It was just the
Return and Rehoming
00:01:40
Speaker
black mold. blackmo
00:02:01
Speaker
Hey everybody and welcome back, probably, to Save Your Game. I and your host Matt Aukamp and with me is the mold infested, the inspired, the newly... The re-homed Pushing Up Roses.
00:02:18
Speaker
orrid in sport the be rehoed pushing up her rosesis Hi, I've been rehomed.
00:02:29
Speaker
It's okay. Everybody's looking for their
Academic Challenges
00:02:32
Speaker
forever home. You're one step closer. Yeah, you know, i yes, I moved um for a few reasons. A, the landlord has lost his mind and b ah there was mold.
00:02:46
Speaker
And apparently that's why I've been so like recurringly sick all the time. Like all that I was saying, you noticed that, right? Like I was getting sick all the time. You were definitely getting sick a lot.
00:02:59
Speaker
I was, yeah. and And well I think the bigger thing is like you would get sick and then kind of like not recover. Yeah. Yeah, not really. You'd be like, I'm still sick.
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah. that's what i would That's what I would hear from you a lot. I'm still sick. It's like the lingering. The lingering. was so bad. So listeners, now you know from now on, she doesn't have an excuse.
00:03:22
Speaker
If we don't release an episode, you can pile on.
Technical Glitches
00:03:28
Speaker
I can't use the mold anymore. Well, we we actually should. We should address. We've been gone for a while. We have. Number one, Rose has moved.
00:03:40
Speaker
Yay. um Congratulations to me. Number two, Matt is in his final semester of ah college, and he is working on his capstone project.
00:03:53
Speaker
And it's fucking killing me. I don't know... I've never had this. It's not even just the complexity of the project. I think it's something psychological where it's just like, I pick up research and I'm just like, I'll just stare at the same page for 20 minutes.
00:04:10
Speaker
Then just get up and walk away. like As if I hadn't been doing anything. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I, I'll get there or I won't but or I won't I'll have yeahll i'll be down like $2,000 and have another semester ahead of me no oh my god we'll see we'll see what happens wish me luck everybody but the third thing that you all don't know because you might have known
Game Rankings Revisited
00:04:40
Speaker
those other two things the third thing that you don't know is that we did manage to record an episode in that break we did
00:04:47
Speaker
And Zencaster ate the entire thing. Yep. It was a sad day. was not a good day. Because like we recorded it right before I had to move. We both made time to like get this done.
00:05:02
Speaker
And we were i was really happy with it because then I could move, like you know feel stress-free. And then you text me, you're like, it's gone like what it's gone yeah i had ah but ill i could just say it it was my audio track is the is the one that got eaten all except for the first like three minutes of it so we could have released an episode that was just roses talking with big gaps of silences is between you would have heard my you would have heard uh you know my cold open
00:05:36
Speaker
that's that would be That would be the most unhinged episode we could release if we, in fact, did that. But yeah, it was sad, you guys. And then I think like we just got... And like I said, wed we recorded that before the move because we knew that I would be yeah very, very busy, which I was and am.
00:05:54
Speaker
And so, Matt, would you like to tell them what we did in this episode? don't we quite... We knew you'd be busy. I don't think we quite reckoned with how rough this semester was going to treat me.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't didn't quite know that either. I think we kind of thought we could get ah another episode out in that time. Yeah. And... Yeah, instead... Yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah. We didn't. so But what we did when we first recorded, well, first, and ah well you'll just have to endure this again, Rose, is is I talked about, i beat Claire Obscure.
Gaming Experiences and Narratives
00:06:32
Speaker
ah you beat it? Nice. who Well, when we last talked about it, I was like... just one boss fight away from beating it. Uh, and now that it's been two more weeks, I've beaten it.
00:06:44
Speaker
Um, so we talked about Claire Obscure and then we did a ranking episode. so the thing is,
00:06:55
Speaker
We ranked 10 games and they're on our list now. And we're not going to just like pretend, right? We're not going to pretend that like, oh, we just pulling these games for the first time. So instead, we're just going to like kind of go through the list um from the bottom up and tell you what games we ranked and why we put them where we put them.
00:07:18
Speaker
We might not even remember why we did what we did. Which will be... even more funny yeah because not only are we claiming to be experts on these games we've never played in order to rank them we are also then claiming to be experts on our own rankings which we don't remember yeah i just before recording you mentioned a game i'm like what's that
00:07:43
Speaker
but you didn't you thought the words i was saying weren't even like you didn't even think it was related to the games yeah
00:07:51
Speaker
So that's great. That's just great. yeah Well, okay. So in all that time. Did you play any games?
00:08:02
Speaker
I lost my Steam Deck or something. can't find it. It has to be here. It has to. It has to. you would not have moved your entire house and then left the steam deck in the middle of a room just sitting on the floor.
00:08:18
Speaker
i i ah I do not know where it is, it's but it's got to be somewhere. And I'm almost fully unpacked at this point. I made a lot of progress real quick because I wanted to feel like at home as quickly as I as i could.
00:08:35
Speaker
So I'm running out of boxes here. I did. There's only so many boxes that it could be in at this point. um I hope I find it soon.
00:08:46
Speaker
Cause I was thinking about it. I'm like, oh I'd like to settle into my my bed and my new bedroom and get the steam deck up and maybe play some final fantasy. Whoa. I know that that I've been, I've had a hankering for like FF seven or FF eight. I don't know why, ah but yeah, I can't find it.
00:09:04
Speaker
I don't know where it is. ah I did set up the PS4, but I honestly, like most people, I only use it for streaming. Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:15
Speaker
I mean, I use it for sometimes I'll play like Fall Guys on there, but. ah What? You're still playing Fall Guys, huh? Little beans. They're little beans. They're just weird little beans and they're so cute. people still, when you log on, ah is it is it like, do you catch people?
00:09:33
Speaker
the creators of Fall Guys on like a video stream and they go, oh, ah somebody's here. And then they quick throw up. They quick, they quick like put up the scenery and the backgrounds.
00:09:46
Speaker
No, that's a very hilarious vision.
00:09:53
Speaker
I'm sure there's people who still play Fall Guys in 2025, but I've never met one. ah Well, I play it sometimes. I've met one now. Yeah, apparently I've met one. And I didn't know.
00:10:03
Speaker
It was your secret shame. I have no shame for anything. Oh, we all know that. de True. ah So
Creative Clay Creations
00:10:14
Speaker
i can't find it. So i instead, you're going be not shocked at all because I've already told you this. I made a worm out of clay.
00:10:25
Speaker
And he's a business worm. And his name is Nigel. And he's all business. Do you remember like Tom from accounting in the Muppets? I think he's an otter. Huh.
00:10:37
Speaker
Tom from. Oh, oh, ah yes. just yeah yeah And he's like very businessy and has kind of a bad sense of humor. That's like my worm. OK, this is kind of like playing. that That's kind of like playing a game.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah. i mean he's he I mean, he's distance cut distant cousins with Earthworm Jim, but they famously do not get along because his name is Slow Worm Nigel.
00:11:02
Speaker
He has a backstory, okay? has a little briefcase, and people are like, well, how does he carry the briefcase? And the answer is with his tail or his head. I don't really know which which which side is which of the worm, but that's what I did with my time.
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's, I mean, um the listeners were thinking, well, if they're not going to talk about a game, at least I wish they'll talk about um and one animal made of clay.
00:11:37
Speaker
And I got you. I got you, fam. We fulfilled it. We fulfilled your desires, listeners. welcome. freaking perverts. If you would like to go see the worm, it's on my Instagram. He's so cute. he has a little top hat.
00:11:54
Speaker
So, i finished Claire Obscure. How was the ending? It was very interesting. The game... okay.
00:12:05
Speaker
You know, i in... one of ah Probably the last episode we put up, I think I talked about Claire Obscure and I talked about the premise of the game.
00:12:16
Speaker
ah So if if you want to know that, you should just go back and listen to it. But things really take a turn. Yeah, we mentioned that. Well, ah so they take a turn early on in where you think the story's going. It's going somewhere else.
00:12:34
Speaker
And then where you think you know that where the characters are going, they're going somewhere else. And it it's all pretty surprising and shocking. and then the entire sort of theme of the game and the entire premise of the game take a turn.
00:12:49
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So... the it's kind of like the ending you're looking for at the beginning is not the ending you are looking for by the time you reach the end.
00:13:02
Speaker
Okay. Right. You have a completely different set of um questions and expectations and um things you're excited about. So like the second half is a lot more magical and um and metaphysical and ah conceptual.
00:13:21
Speaker
Okay. First half. Does that change your opinion of the game?
00:13:28
Speaker
You know, yes, but I don't think it makes it worse or better. Like, i don't think I don't think it changed my opinion on the quality of the game, but it definitely changed what I thought about it as a piece of art.
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:47
Speaker
I... I struggling with some of the metaphor. it's Okay. But, you know, there's some very basic things, right? Like it is about grief. It's about what it means to ah let go of Let go of your grief. Let go of your um coping mechanisms.
00:14:11
Speaker
um And let go of people that you loved. um It is... Also just really intense. Like that some of these cut scenes are really intense. And all right.
00:14:24
Speaker
So my cut scene was actually a little less intense than it should have been. Because I'll give some advice. If you are a person playing Claire Obscure and you get to act three, I would say continue to just beat the game.
00:14:39
Speaker
Like keep moving through. Do the things that... like Follow the main path and beat the game. and and then when you And then reload your save after you beat the game. You can just click continue. And it'll start you just right outside of the final boss battle.
00:15:01
Speaker
Actually, i think the boss is beaten. i think it's just like... Anyway, you have the chance to explore the whole continent still. Right. I would say do everything else at after you beat the game.
00:15:13
Speaker
Because two things. So number one, two things that that kind of robbed me of the impact of the final ah boss fight. Number one, I was so overpowered I killed him in one hit.
00:15:28
Speaker
And then he had a second form and I killed that second form in one Right. What? How's that possible? So you were grinding to get leveled up? No, no. i was just ah i was just 100% of the game before I beat it.
00:15:43
Speaker
Wow. And so I had gotten so powerful. I'd gotten, you know, All the upgrades I could, I was at, at least some of my characters were at maximum level. I had, you know, I'd actually, this game, you can really using the, what the skills you learn and the abilities you can equip and the weapons you can equip and upgrade.
00:16:10
Speaker
ah In addition to, you know, leveling up your character, you can really break this game wide open, right? You can, you can end up doing, literally just millions of damage in one hit because you have just fucked with the fucked with the numbers that hard. Yeah. And I was having real trouble beating the hardest boss in the game, which is not the final boss.
00:16:37
Speaker
I was having a lot of trouble with it. So um I guess I did grind for a little bit, not long. I... and i looked up some like character build guides on the internet.
00:16:50
Speaker
Like what is the best build for Mael and what's the best build for um Monoko. And yeah, so the this there's this one boss, he is so hard. I can't figure out how you would beat him if you didn't kill him in one hit.
00:17:10
Speaker
yeah Oh, interesting. Yeah. And you have to build that hit up, right? Like you have, if you do it right, you can have a couple turns before he gets his first turn. And you can use your characters to build each other up and then finally do your one big hit and hopefully just clear him out. Because not only are his combos insane, his he has like the ability, if he kills one of your characters, he can wipe them off the battlefield so you can't revive them.
00:17:39
Speaker
Oh, that sucks. I hate that. He's got another ability where um in his second form where he gets, again, just exponentially harder.
00:17:51
Speaker
all of his it's it's He gets a shadow sword that follows his regular sword. So he does the same insane combos, but all of them are like doubled. like Yeah. hits hits hits hit hit hit right like just like that like it's I don't I I I should look it up on YouTube to see if it's possible but I could not I'd gotten really good at this game and I could not figure out how to parry this guy or dodge
Game Strategies and Challenges
00:18:18
Speaker
it was and the things were coming at me that fast do you think you had to do it that way like it's required to do it in one hit and that is the way that you beat this boss um
00:18:32
Speaker
There are people on the internet who claim to have beat him straight up. Okay. Yeah, we'll prove it. know, right? um And there are, but more people are like, you got to do it in one hit.
00:18:44
Speaker
Okay. Which is, you know, what made me decide to make some, like, intense builds of the characters. Yeah. Anyway, one of his abilities in the in his second form, his final form, is he can also wipe your party.
00:19:01
Speaker
And you can't block it. You can't dodge it. You can't resist it. He can just kill you then? So, yes. So you have to lead. If you're going to try and fight him straight up, you have to lead with a party that's not your strongest.
00:19:17
Speaker
You have to beat him with one of your weaker parties and probably you can get... you can there are like five party members that you collect throughout the game. Right. and if your party dies, your main party dies, the others can come in and they call it like as ah the last stand, the others can sub in.
00:19:40
Speaker
So you could, if you can figure out how to beat his final form and take down 70% his health uh, with two of your weaker characters and leave the other three in reserve then when he wipes your party you maybe have your three strongest characters there to finish his again even in his final form he gets even tougher in the last 30 of his health what's the name of the boss i'm look it up simon simon name is simon does sound very badass does it
00:20:17
Speaker
ah So i ended up having to do something like 36 million damage in one hit to take him out. Oh, he's kind of hot. I mean, right? um okay Yeah, I I think he had like a rotting demon face, but... That's fine. Yeah,
00:20:39
Speaker
I'm into it. Okay. All right. It was super intense. But anyway, so I think people should treat him as the final boss. Like, go through, beat the game.
00:20:50
Speaker
So, okay. All the way back to my point here. this is We haven't done a podcast this podcast in, like, over a month, and now I'm just turned into a rambly idiot. Okay, all the way back to my final point. Because i had leveled up all that way, yeah the the final boss of the game was absolute piece of cake.
00:21:10
Speaker
Just beat him immediately, right? Oh, okay. The other thing is because I 100%ed, got everybody's swimsuit outfits. Everybody has a swimsuit that you can unlock. You can find a swimsuit for them.
00:21:21
Speaker
So I put them all in swimsuits. If you do that in the fight the final confrontation, The boss is also wearing a swimsuit for the whole ending, like the entire ending cut scenes.
00:21:37
Speaker
All of them. So this ultimate, like, and it's not even just that he's supposed to be the ultimate villain. He is a sympathetic villain and he is, um...
00:21:49
Speaker
And there's some really heartfelt stuff that happens with them, but everybody's just in bathing suits, including him. ah So, you know, I might have in a couple different ways robbed myself of some of the effects of the film. Because everyone's in a bathing suit. Everyone's in a bathing suit and he died immediately. Like, I didn't even get to see like his moves.
00:22:08
Speaker
I here's how good i was by that point. The way Claire Obscure works turn wise is, you know, there is a running tally of whose turn it is on the left hand side, like whose turn it is now and whose turns coming up.
00:22:24
Speaker
All of my characters had double turns and they were all so fast that the entire progression of turns was my characters and he wasn't even on there. Oh, geez. So all my guys were going, I only needed one turn and all my guys were going to get like four turns before he even had chance to hit me. So again, i have to really, you know, push back.
00:22:51
Speaker
Everybody, please beat the game before you 100% You're not going to have fun of this. no. It's an interesting caveat to have.
00:23:03
Speaker
i do want to play this game on my Steam Deck. I mean, it's awesome. I recommend it very highly. It's very fun. And it's very affecting and... you can put everybody in bathing suits and the gestals are hilarious.
00:23:18
Speaker
Great.
00:23:20
Speaker
I just want myself some RPGs. I'm like hankering for like a JRPG and clear. That's not a JRPG, right? Is this a French studio? It's a French studio. Yeah. Yeah. close It's an FJRPG. It's a French Japanese japanese but role playing game.
00:23:40
Speaker
Oh, great.
00:23:43
Speaker
Anyway, that's clear obscure. I'm sure I had more succinct and insightful things to say about it last time we recorded. So ah listeners, just imagine that. Yeah, just imagine a totally different thing.
00:23:56
Speaker
Imagine a different thing. And you're like, oh, man, matthead Matt had that. Such a good game critic. Yes. yeah Good. So wow that was so good. So concise. You guys can email and be like, man, that was so good. Matt is so good at that.
00:24:10
Speaker
Five stars. Five star. Anyway, Rose, I would say, do you want to go rank some games with me? But that's not what we're doing, is it?
00:24:24
Speaker
No, we're going to revisit the already ranked game. Do you want to go try and figure out why we did but things that we did?
00:24:35
Speaker
Yes, um always. I always want to know why we are doing the things that we are doing. And we've never once figured it out. So... yeah If you want to go put on some spunky slapperino.
00:24:50
Speaker
Oh, spunky. Oh.
00:24:55
Speaker
Then we'll be back and we'll talk about how we ranked every adventure game ever. Oh.
00:25:15
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. I am your host, PushingUpRoses, with me as always my co-host, Matt
Reflecting on Game Rankings
00:25:24
Speaker
Aukamp. Hi Matt! What up?
00:25:25
Speaker
What's up? Are you ready to, uh... Revisit things? Oh my goodness. So i don't I don't even know how this is really going to work.
00:25:36
Speaker
But yeah, let's talk about, let's tell everybody what we What we did here. Let's explain ourselves.
00:25:44
Speaker
Okay, so we rent 10 different games, and this is where we put them. ah Okay, here, do you want to do this? Do you want to so just read off the games from the bottom upwards, and I'll stop you when it's a new one.
00:26:02
Speaker
Oh, so, okay. So like read all of them off. Yeah. and So, yeah. And then, so then people can hear our entire list and I'll stop you when it's a new one. And we'll talk about why we'll try and figure out, I was going to say, we'll tell everybody why we put it there. We don't remember. So we'll just try to figure out why we put it there.
00:26:18
Speaker
ah So starting from the bottom. Yes. All here we go. 110. That's where we're starting. Limbo of the Lost. Secret Doctrine. Weird. Truth is stranger than a fiction.
00:26:31
Speaker
Madness of the arctic our Architect. Enola. Of Light and Darkness. The Prophecy. Mystery of the Nautilus. Free DC. The Crystal Key. Wild Wild West. The Steel... I feel like some of these should be lower.
00:26:44
Speaker
Wild Wild West. The Steel Assassin. And at 100, we have James Paris 2, The Fountain of Eternal Drunkenness. You guys should all know why these are where they are. They know what they did.
00:26:56
Speaker
You know what you did. 99, The Fan, Dallas Quest, Blue Force, somehow at 97, Blue Force holding on, Super Jazzman, Miasmata, The Abyssal Zone. Stop!
00:27:10
Speaker
Oh my god, it's The Abyssal Zone. The Abyssal Zone is brand new. ah So this game 1984. It's early...
00:27:21
Speaker
it's it it By Salty Software. It's just like... ah
00:27:29
Speaker
It's by it developed by a guy named Jeff Gray. Yeah. And you can play it on archive.org and it's just a
00:27:39
Speaker
It's like the early Sierra interact, like the online system. It's like Wizard and the Princess. Yeah. Or Adventures in um si Sierra. si It's not Sierra. It's like Sienna or something like that. Yeah. What is that? It's Adventures in Sienna. Hang on. I got to look this don't know. i don't know what that is. Is that some sort of porn?
00:28:00
Speaker
and Yeah. It's a porn game. It's a sort of porn game. Yeah. I can't fucking find. Maybe I just made up a porn game. I don't i don't know.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's like The Wizard and the Princess by Sierra. I want all of you to know, though, 1984, even though that is very early, King's Quest 1 had come out.
00:28:22
Speaker
So I want you to... like compare the abyssal zone by salty software to king's quest one and you'll see why we put it so low i feel like we we didn't want to put it too low because it has that like early adventure game quality to it yeah yeah it looks like something we would play and not very not enjoy very much right like we'd play it but we might have enjoyed it at the time Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think this is something we would we would see these screenshots and be like, oh, I wonder what it was like to play this game and then just be frustrated the whole time we were playing.
00:28:58
Speaker
Who knows? Maybe it's it's got a four out of five on myabandonware.com. So maybe it's better than we give it credit for. But forget remember, again, we can play any of these games and change. if The only way we can change something's ranking is if we play them.
00:29:16
Speaker
I have really thought hard about playing Amos Green's Final Repose so I can bump it up to number one and just fuck it all up. and Yeah, and if you play it and I don't, then I don't get to argue.
00:29:29
Speaker
That's true. Come on, Amos Green. All right, why don't...
00:29:35
Speaker
all right why Let's keep reading. Let's keep reading. I don't have say about the Abyssal Zone. do want to say there is another game called Abyssal Zone on Steam in 2017, and that's not the game we're talking about. We are talking about, if you want to look this up, the Abyssal Zone by Salty Software.
00:29:51
Speaker
Do you think Abyssal Zone, you think it's related at all? No, it doesn't look it even a little bit. It's a Sokoban game. It's one of those but box pushing games. Yeah, yeah. So it's not that one.
00:30:02
Speaker
So if you're confused about everything we're saying, make sure to type in Salty Software. But we would also probably put that pretty low. Yeah, probably. As an adventure game, maybe. Maybe so.
00:30:14
Speaker
All right. So that was our new 94, the Abyssal Zone. All right. We've got at 93, Batman, Partners in Peril, Five Magical Amulets, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Sober. i don't remember that.
00:30:31
Speaker
Minecraft Story Mode at 90. Why is that so low? That's my favorite game. You talk about it all the time. um long Long Count, Violet.
00:30:42
Speaker
Archangel, The House of Seven Stars, Chop Suey. All right, you got to stop there. We got to talk about Chop Suey. It's new on the list. And it's a it's by Magnet Interactive Studios from 1995. It's like... This thing. It's like an interactive storybook.
00:31:05
Speaker
This thing is real. That artsy and stylized. Mm-hmm. It reminds me of the artwork of Linda Barry, who did, um yeah, Linda Barry, B-A-R-R-Y, who did 1,000 demons, or sorry, 100 demons.
Game Aesthetics and Nostalgia
00:31:24
Speaker
Got my hopes up. I thought it was 1,000. It's only 100. only 100. it's the difficulty of creative process. it's only a hundred it's only a hundred but it's about ah but the difficulty of the creative process I think you'd actually really like it, but it reminds me of her artwork a little bit. It's like, help me describe it.
00:31:43
Speaker
It's a very rudimentary. And I don't want to say that in ah in ah in a bad way. It's almost very children's illustration. It's super colorful. It's rough.
00:31:53
Speaker
And it's obviously meant to look rough. But yeah, the the best way I could describe it really is ah very highly colorful like children's book. And I don't know if that's... We don't quite know if that's how the gameplay is, but we do know that it was narrated by David Sedaris.
00:32:13
Speaker
Unbelievable. Yeah. That's so wild. ah The plot is interesting. Do you want to hear it? Also, the ah the ah music was And at this point, ah we're just reading from the Wikipedia page. So sorry, everybody, that we didn't do any deeper research than this. But the the um the music was made by ah Brendan Canty, who is the original, um the near original drummer of Fugazi.
00:32:44
Speaker
Right, right, right. don't know if we brought that up last time. We didn't. um Okay, but yeah, let's let's hear the plot. By the way, one of the screenshots reminds me of, do you know how kids had those play mats that had like the road on it and like different like little houses? It was like a little rug that you could like play on and it had a street.
00:33:04
Speaker
Do you know what i'm talking about? Yes. One of the screenshots reminds me of that. Just to like give it idea. Yeah, I could see that. But but like that only somebody had scribbled on it.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yes, it is very scribbly. it It's pretty rough, um very illustrative, and deliberately like that. Deliberately stylized like that. So this is the plot. ok Lily and Junebug eat too much chop suey at the Ping Ping Palace, then daydream while staring at the clouds, which turn into different shapes.
00:33:39
Speaker
While exploring the town, they meet the black dog, Mudpup, and visit their favorite aunt's bedroom. Because we all have favorite bedroom. God, this should be higher. ah try And try on her clothes and makeup, where items tell of her past as a Rockette on Broadway.
00:33:56
Speaker
So it's a lot of like these girls are like playing pretend and going to different ah pretend locations. And and so it also sounds very much like it's for kids, but...
00:34:08
Speaker
I think we put it where it is because ah it it's more be less because it sounds bad and more because it doesn't sound like it's for us.
00:34:20
Speaker
Right. I think if this list was objective, was fully objective and not our opinions, I think this would probably be a little higher at least from what we've ranked so far.
00:34:35
Speaker
But I don't think either of us felt very compelled to even try this game. Right. I mean, it is it it does appear to be for children. It was heavily, heavily based on Harriet the Spy.
00:34:47
Speaker
um And apparently the creators, they're quoted as saying, we looked at a lot of kids' products. There wasn't anything that had a sort of strong story or character development or the kind of luminous, beautiful art you would truly find in a children's book.
00:35:02
Speaker
That is what it looks like. It looks like a children's book. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to give it a try. oh interesting. Okay. Yeah, why not? Speaking of games, we're going to give a try. Why don't you start reading upwards and and I'll stop you very soon.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah. At 85, we've got Hans Christian Andersen, the ugly prince duckling. 84, we've got Magnus Imago. Stop! Stop! This is the one where you're like, Magnus Imago. I'm like, what's that?
00:35:32
Speaker
don't even remember
Exploring Unique Games
00:35:35
Speaker
this game. Magnus Imago is like a... ah You can buy it on Steam, and I did. nice. You bought it.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah, it seems like one of those... um yeah yeah ah Like a point-and-click, hidden object, escape room-style puzzle-y game.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah. um Where, you know, you're you're hopping from room to room and all the, like, doing little ah self-contained puzzles throughout what looks like some kind of some kind of castle. It also looks very dreamy and, um or nightmary, maybe.
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah, I would say definitely it's got a it's got a vibe. It's got a, it's a lot of black and white coloring with splashes of red. It's one of those. ah Right. And then theyre ah It's unique in that there are, there seem to be 3D video sequences.
00:36:34
Speaker
There also seem to be ah full motion video sequences. Right. It seems like a real hodgepodge of stuff. um Oh, it's February, released in 2022 by Sons of Welder,
00:36:52
Speaker
um who mostly do hidden object games. Mm-hmm.
00:36:57
Speaker
I don't know why we put this so low. I find it intriguing. But then again, we run into games like this a lot. Like, yeah it's it's kind of got similar vibes as, through of as like, Through Abandoned did. Or even, like, The Cat Lady.
00:37:14
Speaker
Oh, just by the fact that it's... It has, like, an aesthetic vibe. Yeah. Just by the fact that it's, like... um A little horrifying and looks kind of sketchy. Yeah. And like, I think the genre of adventure game lends itself to that kind of art.
00:37:31
Speaker
So we do. Yeah, you're right. We do run into it. a lot And like we do, I mean, bear in mind, we do have 110 games on this list. So 84, it is low, but it's certainly not Blue Force or, you know, the fan.
00:37:46
Speaker
I don't just mean we run into these sorts of games in art style alone. We run into these sorts of games where it's like you move...
00:37:58
Speaker
using arrows from room to room and pick up one, ah like solve a puzzle that gives you an object. And then you move to another room to use that. And it opens a panel where there's another self-contained puzzle, right? Like the cube escape games are like that.
00:38:13
Speaker
And again, through abandoned was very much like that. um So that that's what this game looks like. i Find it intriguing. It seems like something I do want to play. In fact, they went and bought it the moment we wrapped up that episode.
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah. um But I think we have it down at 80 yeah, 84, just because, Again, we see these so often and some of them are fucking garbage.
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. It's kind of like how we used to all see Myst likes everywhere. Right. And we rank those very low when we see like a Myst clone. Yeah.
00:38:52
Speaker
And so I think these like escape room clone or like these Cube Escape clones, we tend to rank a little lower just again because of how
00:39:04
Speaker
many there are. And also there's going to be like, ah there's how many games on our list? Like 4,000? Like they might end up higher than you think. You never know.
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Right. And I think, again, this is a game that I might play and then we'll revisit, but it It has about as much chance of being horrible as it does of being good.
00:39:28
Speaker
It's true. And like, but you look at it and you're intrigued. I look at it and I'm like, it's not my thing. yeah So I think that's why we kind of were like, let's put it somewhat low, you know? or Sure, sure.
00:39:40
Speaker
But that was our 84. That was 84. You want to keep going? Yeah, let's do it. ah So continuing with 83. Secret missions. Mata Hari and the Kaiser submarines.
00:39:51
Speaker
good Voyage, inspired by Jules Verne. I really like it when a game tells us like what it's inspired by right in the title. This is our storybook block.
00:40:03
Speaker
ah Moons of Madness, Astronomica, the quest for the edge of the universe. Elena, Displaced Reality, the suicide of Rachel Foster.
00:40:14
Speaker
You gotta stop right there, Missy! my god!
Critique of The Suicide of Rachel Foster
00:40:18
Speaker
I remember our conversation on this one because this is such a polarizing game.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah, well, yeah, you said you uncovered some stuff about it that was supposedly problematic. um Some people find it problematic because of the way the story was told. it basically, you can probably tell by the title, you know, the suicide of Rachel Foster, yeah that this might be dealing with with sensitive or heavier topics.
00:40:47
Speaker
And there are topics in this game that weren't portrayed well, weren't dealt with, with maybe the sensitivity they deserve. um i think I think that's fair enough.
00:41:03
Speaker
Here's something I hadn't found last time that I just found now. I apparently back in 2021. So, okay. Cards on the table. I played this game. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:14
Speaker
I have some fond memories of it, but overall, I remember being disappointed with it. And since last episode, I found my review, my Steam review for this game that I wrote back in 2021. Do you want to to of me to read it?
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great idea. Okay, so I give it a thumbs down. Oh. This game was an absolute slog, says Matt Aucamp of Steam.
00:41:39
Speaker
Oh boy. It's almost like it wants to merge the idea of a free-roaming first-person adventure game or walking simulator with an environmental narrative. um this works really well in a game like Firewatch by giving you an amazing story, a beautiful landscape, and interesting things to find at every turn.
00:41:58
Speaker
It works in a game like What Remains of Edith Finch by giving you a fairly straightforward critical path and interesting dialogue and flashbacks at every turn, right? The suicide of Rachel Foster instead serves you up janky dialogue, albeit well acted.
00:42:14
Speaker
that pops up intermittently as you wander around this giant labyrinthine mansion with very little direction. The story seems so almost non-existent until, spoiler, day nine when it just comes spilling out all at once.
00:42:28
Speaker
I'll admit the twist ending and the jump scares in the final chapter were enough to ah give me a scare and a jolt of excitement, which I sorely needed after a completely aimless and long-winded game. For only four hours, I felt like I was playing that forever.
00:42:42
Speaker
This game isn't without its merits. The 3D environments are beautifully rendered. The sound design really makes you feel like you're in a creaky, creepy old house. It drives home the loneliness and the eeriness that the game wants you to feel. Its voice acting ranges from pretty good to great, depending on which weird lines of dialogue the actors have to work with. And again, the ending is really quite exciting. But I just don't think, unless you're an avid collector of first-person narrative game, that it's worth slogging through the first three hours of this game to get to the last.
00:43:12
Speaker
Do you agree with yourself? As far as I remember, I think it's worth saying that that last hour that I enjoyed, some people found problematic. So you can add that onto this.
00:43:29
Speaker
So again, there's things about it clearly that I enjoyed and that's why it's not further down this list. But mostly I was disappointed by that game.
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It, I can see why it's not further down. um It's got a very mixed a mixed reception as as far as the the reviews go.
00:43:51
Speaker
This is not my favorite type of game. I don't play a lot of walking simulator games. I don't hate them by any means. like My favorite one was, as you mentioned, Firewatch. I thought that game was brilliant.
00:44:03
Speaker
I loved it. actually really loved Gone Home, too. That was maybe the first one I played in terms of like story and and uncovering a story. yeah um But this one, yeah, it just seems to have such polarizing opinions while being, like, certainly being an adventure game.
00:44:21
Speaker
You know, because we have we have things on this list for it that we're like, what are these mechanics, though? You know? Right. Oh, and we didn't say it's, um it was released in 2020. It's by 101 Games. It was published by DataLick.
00:44:35
Speaker
Right, right. And I'm not going to say, since I haven't played it, I can't say for certain whether it is problematic or not, but I will say that in reading the reviews, it does deal with very, very, very heavy, mature themes.
00:44:51
Speaker
Right. so you know. i Yeah, I think...
00:44:58
Speaker
There are some interesting things that happen in the plot of the game that I think I wished had more there. to that Like, I wish there was more to them.
00:45:09
Speaker
Sure. um And apparently I liked the twist ending enough to say that the last hour was was was fairly good.
00:45:20
Speaker
But yeah um I also remember it being a little wacky, too. Right. And you shouldn't have to slog to get to, no you know, enjoyment, you know?
00:45:33
Speaker
So, all right. That's number 78. The Suicide of Rachel Foster. All right. So 78. got 77. Nancy Drew, midnight in salem seventy six again i'm sorry i didn't name it that's the name of the game uh ankh heart of osiris the dark crystal randall's monday oh no how do we i think it's just cosmonauts cosmonauts yeah cosmonauts escape reality
00:46:07
Speaker
Oh, Krabat and the secret of the Sorbian Peas. Our first true love. It's nice to see some familiarity. nice to see an old friend on the list.
00:46:18
Speaker
see an old friend on the list Come on, the secret of the Sormian King. At number 70, we have Missing Since January. oh I love saying it just like that. Missing Since January.
00:46:31
Speaker
I don't know why. It's almost flirty the when you say it like that. Missing Since since January.
00:46:41
Speaker
um Let's see. them is The Mazovian Adventure. Lifeless Moon. Lunar Axe. I'm going to need you to stop right there. I'd rather not. I think this game, I bought this one too. I think this game looks pretty cool. Yeah. um ah It has a very interesting art style.
00:47:02
Speaker
That it does. Yes, that it does. Yeah. It looks like, um I think it's probably digital watercolor. Would you say that's probably the case? Yeah. got some yeah It's got some washy elements to it. It also has a very like um ah very starry night kind of an aesthetic.
00:47:19
Speaker
um um Yeah, it's got a little bit of ah a Van Gogh aesthetic. It's very illustrative, yeah but not in the way that Chop Suey was illustrated. ah This is more mature.
00:47:31
Speaker
um Yeah, it does look... No, not that kind of mature. Not that kind of mature. it does look really nice. Steam listed as point and click and hidden object. And it it looks, again, like it falls into that, you know, ah cube escape through abandoned, you know, yeah that kind of genre.
00:48:00
Speaker
And yeah the Steam shows some puzzles that Like ah individual puzzles. And one is like literally a puzzle, like putting together a puzzle. Right. The ones you would see among, you know, slider puzzles and.
00:48:14
Speaker
ah Yeah. hidden ahking Even the, even the F but the old FMV games had those kinds of puzzles in them. and Another one looks like. um but Just the. ah lockpicking mechanic from which what's the which game had, I think it was like, I think Morrowind or Oblivion.
00:48:36
Speaker
a lot of games have like a lockpicking something. This wasn't the Skyrim lockpick mechanic. But anyway, yeah, like ah aligning tumblers.
00:48:47
Speaker
um So I don't know. It's very pretty looking. It's got a really, really interesting color palette. and Very earthy. which is why we Which is why we put it a little bit higher.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah. then we you know Then we put some of these types of games. But anyway, that's Lunar Axe from 2022 Ops Game Studios. Yeah. And honestly, it's got a very positive.
00:49:13
Speaker
It doesn't have a lot of reviews. It's very indie, it looks like. But the reviews the reviews it does have is very positive. So, man, if you like if you work on vibes, if you like a vibe, this is a vibe.
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah, this has some serious vibe.
00:49:30
Speaker
Okay, so that was Lunar Axe. Now, and that was 67. We've got Frank and Drake, Deponia Doomsday, A Whisper in the Twilight, The Seventh Gust. Ugh.
00:49:44
Speaker
Sentient. We were so right to put the seventh guest down at number 63. I think it was like there. I think it was like number 50 when we put it there and it just keeps dropping down further. Keeps dropping.
00:49:56
Speaker
Let's see. ah ah Baker Street Breakouts, a Sherlockian escape adventure. why do you all make this so hard? Yeah. uh sleuth hounds the valentine's vendetta sleuth hounds the the halloween deception stop that is a new one that'll be friendly going we got another sleuth hounds guys yeah we have another sleuth hounds how how exciting this is like when we add this is like how we have two ben jordans on the list uh these games look cute and they're clearly a um passion project by uh
00:50:37
Speaker
ah You know, another, a person who, this is a guy that moves in some of the same circles as we do because he's, ah he he writes adventure game reviews. He's a big adventure game fan. ah Richard Hoover, you might know his reviews from adventure game hotspot.
00:50:52
Speaker
um And, you know, it looks like a fan made point and click game. Yeah. With some interesting, mechanics that and like beyond just point andc click puzzles.
00:51:09
Speaker
So, you know, that's why Liam's kind of here in the middle of our list. It doesn't look like anything groundbreaking, but it's so cute, but it definitely looks cute and it looks like a labor of love.
00:51:23
Speaker
So, yeah. And we appreciate those here at the savior game podcast. Absolutely. So that's sleuth hounds, the Halloween deception. Let's keep going. All right. That was number 59.
00:51:35
Speaker
At 58, we have Dark Grim Mariupolis. 57, we've got Corpse Party, Book of Shadows. Stop. Dang, we got but some really close together. okay we got them close together.
00:51:46
Speaker
So that's by Team Grigri 5 from 2013. Corpse Party, Book of Shadows. Now, people speak very highly of Corpse Party, right? They do? Yeah.
00:51:58
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you're right
00:52:02
Speaker
you're right. Were you thinking of a different game? Yeah, I think I will. I don't know what I was thinking of, but then I reopened it and I'm like, oh, right, because it's the kind of the anime inspired. ah what what What do you what you call it? What do we call these?
00:52:16
Speaker
Interactive fiction? Visual novels. Yeah. And now but so of all the Corpse Party games that people speak highly of and Book of Shadows does not appear to be one of them. And neither of us have played Corpse Party Game, correct?
00:52:30
Speaker
Correct. Yeah. So we don't know. This is also a PSP only release, I think. Well, that's weird. What the heck?
00:52:41
Speaker
ah No. Okay. Now it is out for other... Now it is out for other things. It looks like it may, I might be wrong about this. So ah it, but it, it might've come out at first only for the PSP and then later come out on steam.
00:52:57
Speaker
um Cause the steam release date is 2018 when this thing came out in 2013. It's giving me the Paranormacite vibes, although I think I i would say that Paranormacite is better than this specific ah game in the Corpse Party franchise.
00:53:13
Speaker
It still has a very positive like yeah amount of reviews. It has positive reviews. I guess it's just not as popular as the other Corpse Party games.
00:53:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think if we were to And it that that works against it a little bit. Like, we've played some the of the games that are inspired yeah by Corpse Party that were better.
00:53:40
Speaker
That were better, yeah. um and But mostly, i think why we put it here is I think what we said at the time was...
00:53:51
Speaker
um
00:53:54
Speaker
If we had gotten one of the main line Corpse Party games, we might have put it a little higher. Yeah. Yeah, possibly. Or is this one, this one is the main line? It's it's hard to tell.
00:54:09
Speaker
There's even like a, um there's even like a Reddit thread where somebody's confused about what the difference is between Corpse Party and Corpse Party Book Shadows.
00:54:21
Speaker
But yeah,
00:54:25
Speaker
Corpse Party is a top-down RPG maker game which serves as the canonical telling of events. Book of Shadows is a point-and-click adventure that serves partially as a non-canon what-if scenario following following on from one of Corpse Party's endings where a Groundhog Day loop is created and the characters have to relive the events and partially as a series of canonical side stories following some background character.
00:54:45
Speaker
yeah Oh, got it. Well, that explains everything. So I don't know. um Yeah, we don't know. So it ended up at 57. What do you want from us?
00:54:57
Speaker
Sometimes it just that just happens. Sometimes it just aint lands at 57. What are you going to do? What are you going to So we've got quite a long span. ah we I guess we kind of um ignored the mediocre block last time. I don't know why.
00:55:13
Speaker
um oh no, this is not the mediocre block. Really? Oh, okay, yeah. It's getting into it. We're in the middle of the mediocre block. I consider Randall's Monday. i can see i could so I consider Randall's Monday kind of bad.
00:55:28
Speaker
Like that's bad mediocre and where we're about to read is like good mediocre. Right, right. right so just want See how fast you can read up to our next one. Okay. um him Here we go. That what was that? 57. That was 57 Corpse Party. right, 56. 56.
00:55:44
Speaker
all right fifty six Art of Murder, Cards of Destiny, Hell, a cyberpunk thriller, Mission Critical, Anachronist, Many Happy Returns, The Will of Arthur Flabbington, We Were Here Forever, Through Abandoned the Underground City, Pine Hearts, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Ben Jordan, Paranormal Oblustigator, Case One, In Search of the Skunk Ape.
00:56:04
Speaker
Ben Jordan, Paranormal Investigator, Case 7, The Cardinal Sins, Valiant Hearts, The Great War, Legend of Hand, Murder, She Wrote, Byzantine, The Betrayal, Last Half of Darkness, Beyond the Spirit's Eye, Vlad Circus, Descendant of Madness, Amos Green, Final Repose, Nancy Drew, Ghost of Thornton Hall, Nancy Drew, Treasure in the Royal Tower. Stop!
00:56:21
Speaker
That was so good, Roses. You get a clap for that. Thank you. Thank you. I can read. Holy cow. um All right. Yeah. Like this is another one where we're not going to have that much to say about it. Right. It's just another Nancy Drew game. And what we had to do was.
00:56:40
Speaker
Because we haven't really played many of these. Yeah. We have to just like when Nancy Drew games come up. We know some people love them. Yeah. Yeah. They're very beloved. na They're very beloved.
00:56:54
Speaker
We know we would like some of them. I liked ah Blackmore Manor. That's the werewolf one. It's actually so good. And we know that yeah they are, there's an inconsistent level of quality.
00:57:08
Speaker
There is. So whenever we get a Nancy Drew game, we pretty much pull up, like what I do, I don't know what you do, but what I do is I pull up like five or six different Definitive rankings of all the Nancy Drew games that like fans have made. Right.
00:57:23
Speaker
And i kind of see where the game that we're discussing sort of ended up. Right. yeah And that's how.
00:57:36
Speaker
How many Nancy Drew games do we have on here? Just these two? Just these two right now. But there's a ton. So expect more and expect them all in the same place. Probably. There's another one. We have a third. Oh, we do? We just didn't put it in the... Midnight in Salem is all the way down at 77. Oh, okay.
00:57:52
Speaker
While Ghost of Thornton Hall and Treasure in the Royal Tower, which are some both of which are some people's favorite Nancy Drew games. True. Yeah, true. And there are other people's like middling ones. So yeah that's that's how they ended up where they are. i you know I think even if there was a Nancy Drew game that was everyone's favorite, I i have a hard time believing it would crack the top 20.
00:58:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough. Even the the really good ones, even Blackmore Manor. i did a whole review on it on my channel and has its problems. It it suffers from overly complicated puzzles, to be honest. Still a great game, though. And the vibe was there. it was a little bit scary. like I definitely recommend it. But you're right. There is an inconsistency in the quality of these games. And maybe that's because We are essentially, people are growing up with them as technology grows up too.
00:58:52
Speaker
So I'm sure they're constantly making changes and trying to figure out the best way to make the aesthetic right. um But yeah, probably the most well-known games that came out of Her Interactive.
00:59:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think you're definitely right about that. Yeah. All right. Shall we continue? That was 37. Yeah. Wow. Okay. yeah why Almost done.
00:59:16
Speaker
um We've almost gotten through it. 36, Agatha Christie, and then there were none. The Pawn. Related. Chapter one. Everything is back. My favorite one. That's my favorite one. My favorite chapter.
00:59:28
Speaker
a Lily Looking Through, Midnight Girl, Shady Part of Me, Wavetail, Chinatown Detective Agency, Orion Burger, which like gives me the feels and the nostalgia. Yeah, yeah. Obelins Quest III, Professor Layton, and the Azran Legacy.
00:59:43
Speaker
You wait a minute. wait we i't We didn't talk about that one before. Nope. And that's our 26th Professor Layton. It's our first Professor Layton game. So I'm going to do something.
00:59:56
Speaker
That I did last time. Okay.
01:00:02
Speaker
I'm going to read you. So we talked about Professor Layton and how they're these like, they they the look of them is a little Studio Ghibli inspired.
Brain Teasers and Game Mechanics
01:00:11
Speaker
And it is, um they have these cute little narratives and a very, very,
01:00:18
Speaker
ah
01:00:21
Speaker
a very specific type of puzzle that you don't really see in other kinds of games. Right. um So. I remember this. You gave me one of the puzzles and I got it And I was so proud of myself. And now I'm going to sound like an idiot.
01:00:34
Speaker
I'm going to pull up a random puzzle. Okay. From this game to just kind of give you and our listeners sort of a ah sort of idea of what these games are like.
01:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, what the puzzles are like. um Now, a lot of them come equipped with a, well, all of them have some picture with them, but not all of them depend on the picture. So I'm just trying to find a puzzle that depends on the words without the pictures.
01:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. You might want to have a piece of paper handy for this. I'm i'm right. i'm I'm typing it out. Ladies Ladies a to D, so A, B, C, D, are on a two-day holiday. sorry, A through D or A D? It's A to D. You're right. You're right. Sometimes, as the one that we did last time, the wording really mattered.
01:01:26
Speaker
Yeah. so Yeah, it really mattered. I'm glad you clarified that. Ladies A to D are on a two-day holiday with gentlemen E to H. Each day, they visit a different tourist spot in male-female pairs.
01:01:41
Speaker
On the first day, a and E explore the jungle. B and F go to the prairie. C and G visit the seaside. And D and H enjoy the canyon.
01:01:56
Speaker
The next day, everyone chooses a different location with a different partner.
01:02:03
Speaker
B and E go to the seaside together. And C sets off to the canyon with someone.
01:02:13
Speaker
Where does G go and with whom? Ew! I don't like this puzzle. so this is the sort of thing that Professor Layton puzzles are. Like they are basically brain teasers.
01:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, they're brain teasers. But the the one you gave me last time was more of a clever... like there's a something like you're missing this one does sound like a brain teaser yes you're still gonna solve it okay um
01:02:48
Speaker
there uh so uh professor leighton um uh puzzles come with three hints so If you want me to give you hints and I hope people at home are playing along. Otherwise um they might just want to skip forward a minute.
01:03:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You may want to skip or I'll, or I'll edit it to sound so good. Okay. So so good. have like a little drawing here. Okay. So it's not B or E.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, so it couldn't be. Because it's not because it's just not. I don't know the answer yet. Oh, okay. So it couldn't be B or E because they're together. It couldn't be C because G was already with C. Right, right. It can't be C. I'm guessing it's probably not.
01:03:50
Speaker
So they can't go to the seaside because they've already. Because they've already been to the seaside. And they can't go to the canyon. Why not? Because C is going to the canyon and they've already been with C. No, C is going to the seaside.
01:04:06
Speaker
Oh, no, sorry. You're go you're right. You're right. C. Okay, right. So. Canyon. And G is a gentleman. So they they would have to go with A
01:04:24
Speaker
or D.
01:04:27
Speaker
D has already been to the canyon.
01:04:32
Speaker
But that's not a deal breaker. Well, they have to go to a different location with a different partner. You're right. so So we know G can't go to the canyon.
01:04:45
Speaker
I think G
01:04:49
Speaker
is going to... G can't go to the jungle with A because was already at the jungle. G can go to the jungle with d G could go to the jungle with D. But G could also go to the prairie with A. Why could G not go to the prairie with A?
01:05:05
Speaker
i mean, why can't they go to the prairie? It's a good question.
01:05:14
Speaker
Because...
01:05:19
Speaker
I don't know why they can't go to the prairie. Why can't they go to the prairie? Because that then then that would leave F to go to the jungle with D.
01:05:35
Speaker
But who goes with C? F would have to go with C.
01:05:41
Speaker
I still, I think G is going to the jungle. G is going to the jungle with hay. All right. I'm going to reveal the first hint. with With D. G is going to the jungle. D. Sorry. G is going to the jungle with D. D. Or no D probably. All right. I'm just going to.
01:06:02
Speaker
Yep. We're right. Really? You were right. But I. Yeah. but we We both guessed it. And then I second guessed it. And you ran with it. Yep. G goes to the jungle with D. I was just kind of spitballing there. i i found the other I found the other puzzle and you might remember it. So I'm just going to read it quick because you might remember the answer and be able to say it very quickly. For sure. Yeah.
01:06:24
Speaker
Ten candles stand burning in a dining room. A strong breeze blows in through an open window and extinguishes two of them. Checking back in on the candles later, you see that one more candle has gone out.
01:06:36
Speaker
To make sure no more flames go out, you shut the window. Assuming the wind doesn't extinguish any more candles, how many candles do you have left in the end? So this one, I think it's like three, right? Because the others melted and the ones that went out are still standing. Right. So it's meant to make you think, oh, how many are burning?
01:06:57
Speaker
yeah But the truth, but it says how many are left in the end. So it's, yes yeah. That's the one I got pretty quickly last time. So there's other sorts of kind of puzzles in Professor Layton games, like, ah yeah like that matchstick puzzle of like, oh, turn this from nine to 15 by moving only one matchstick or whatever, like that kind of stuff. Or like untangle this, you know, like there's a bunch of ropes tangled together and you have to figure out who's a,
01:07:27
Speaker
you know yeah who on one end is attached to the other end right whatever whatever that kind of shit so but that's what it is you're solving brain teasers and going through an interesting cute little story um and hopefully uh listener we edited that edited that into a listenable two minutes or so I'm going to be, I'm going sound so smart.
01:07:50
Speaker
We're just going to edit out all of the speculation and it's just going to sound like me saying like, yeah, she goes with D to the jungle. That's what it is because I'm smart like that.
01:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. um All right. So yeah. So why ah the the question is, I guess, why did we put it where we put it? Because 26 like,
01:08:15
Speaker
Cool, cool games. Games that are cool, high but wouldn't be our favorite. And I think that's what defines Professor Layton, like games that we would enjoy and think are cool, but wouldn't be our favorite games.
01:08:29
Speaker
Yeah, and they're also very beloved and they have like solidified their place, I think, in and the gaming world. And I think the one real big knock against Professor Layton Games is that they were Nintendo only.
01:08:44
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that what is it? DS or something? Yes. And because Nintendo only and Nintendo is so terrible at game preservation, there was a long time where you couldn't really get Professor Layton games.
01:08:55
Speaker
You would have to go on eBay or something and pay $300 for a cartridge. yeah um But that's that's changed a little bit. ah I played Professor Layton and the Curious Village.
01:09:11
Speaker
on android it's just on the games uh their um play store yeah so that's changing a little bit so we're not going to punish professor layton for yeah we're reviewing the game only that does suck that it has limited platforms but we are trying to focus on the game yeah yeah yeah okay shall we i think we only got one more left why don't you crawl upwards So that was our 26. We're continuing with- Top 25. Yeah, top 25. Top 25 best adventure games of all time. Oh, God.
01:09:47
Speaker
Amnesia, Rebirth, Clam Man, somehow is at 24. mean, nothing. That's great. i mean nothing that's great ah The Book of Unwritten Tales, The Critter Chronicles, Erica, Been There, Dan That, Twilight Oracle, Dreamfall Chapters, Scratches, Phantasmagoria, The Slaughter, Act One, Cube Escape, The Lake.
01:10:11
Speaker
and Bracelet. That's a neat name. Lamplight City. Pajama twojama Sam 2. Pajama Sam 2. Pajama Sam 2. The sequels to Pajamas. Pajamating.
01:10:25
Speaker
Pajama Sam 2. Thunder and Lightning aren't so frightening. King's Quest 2. Romancing the Throne. And now we are in the top 10. ten This is the top 10. Can you believe it? Everybody, we put a new game in the top 10.
01:10:39
Speaker
That's wild. Yeah, that's wild. Okay, so at number 10, Papers, Please. Fran Bow, The Cat Lady, Tell Me Why. The Room of VR, Dark Matter. Hey, wait a minute.
01:10:53
Speaker
yeah That sounds like something we've talked about, but then lost the footage of and have to revisit.
VR Immersion in The Room VR: Dark Matter
01:11:01
Speaker
So this game rules. That's how it ended up at number six. It fucking rules. I have played this on VR. a few different times.
01:11:13
Speaker
um It's one of the first games I actually ever played on VR. yeah If you've never played a The Room game, they are these, ah you know, combination escape room puzzle box games. They kind of set off that whole genre.
01:11:31
Speaker
um And, you know, other games followed it, like Mechanica Museum the...
01:11:39
Speaker
the ah what were those got the da Vinci games the house of da Vinci games um yeah but this was I think the fourth game in the series okay and it was in VR and it was really the atmosphere was really incredible and spooky and fantastical And it it really, really, it was, you know, I think of any VR game I've ever played, this is maybe the one that I got lost in the most. Oh, wow. um
01:12:16
Speaker
You know, like, there's other games. That's quite feat. Right. Yeah. I mean, there's other games, VR games that, like, I've i've really loved. For example, the Fisherman's Tale games or Superhot yeah um that had great narratives and cool puzzles.
01:12:32
Speaker
But I think this is the first game that like, I i could have forgotten I was wearing a VR helmet. Yeah. That's how good it was. That's awesome. And yeah, that that is quite a feat. of VR games are not always known for their quality.
01:12:48
Speaker
There's like a handful of like, yeah great. And yeah, the challenge of making an adventure game into VR is I think quite high. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, the ah ah like some standout examples of that are like the I Think You Should Die, or I Expect You to Die, sorry, yeah games, um which are also a escape rooms. I think escape rooms lend themselves well to ah VR games.
01:13:17
Speaker
The cool thing about this game is that it follows sort of They are kind of escape rooms, but they follow a narrative. And you go from to like ah really, really cool locations. You start out in like a turn-of-the-century London detective office.
01:13:38
Speaker
where um Where suddenly ah you get this... um
01:13:49
Speaker
ocular thing this little you know like eyeglass yeah ah that allows you to see this all of a sudden the room is full of these like spooky runes and that leads you on an adventure through time and space and you end up in you know a a spooky chapel with hidden you know, hidden doors and hidden secrets in it.
01:14:13
Speaker
You end up in a Egypt, like an Egyptology museum that has a sarcophagus that you like have to discover the secrets of and things like that. And you end up in witch's cabin, and which is really cool because it takes these really mechanical puzzles that the room is known for and yeah turns them into naturalistic.
01:14:39
Speaker
puzzles so it's like the same sort of you're solving puzzles that are very similar yeah but you're doing it with sort of naturalistic things rather than machines yeah and I think very it's very cool it's just a really great game and I highly recommend it so that's why that ended up at number six Yeah. And again, for me, just bringing this into a VR setting and making it seamless and smooth and not getting people sick, I think is a great feat.
01:15:08
Speaker
um We've come a long way with VR. And how fun is it to have an adventure in virtual reality? Yeah, yeah. It's like all we wanted as kids. I know, right? Just to experience an a adventure game like that with with different senses is just very cool.
01:15:24
Speaker
And I think that is the last one that we did. I'm going to finish this out with our top five, obviously. but ah But that was number six, The Room VR Dark Matter.
01:15:35
Speaker
And now our top five, starting with five, Tangle Tower, Chance of Sinar, The Last Door, Season 1. And our top two, Portal 2 and Portal.
01:15:47
Speaker
Yeah! and Nothing's unseated them yet. and They will be unseated. I'm sure they'll be unseated one day. they' Those are not the two best adventure games of all time. No, they're not.
01:16:00
Speaker
But for now, nothing nothing's really come that close to knocking those two out, to be honest. Yeah, I know. i mean... They're incredible games.
01:16:10
Speaker
I thought The Last Door was going to be very close for me, but I understand. yeah The Last Door is pretty close. You're right. We did have a discussion about whether that should have...
01:16:21
Speaker
But no, like, I totally understand why, you know, yeah why Portal 1. But they they will get overtaken. We're just not sure when. I mean, again, all it takes is one Monkey Island game and they're gone. They're gone. Yep, that's true. There you go. They dropped to two and three. Yeah.
01:16:38
Speaker
Okay. Well, so that's what we did last episode, folks. I think we covered most of the ground that we covered in ah in the original recording and anything else.
01:16:49
Speaker
Fuck, it probably didn't matter. I think we sound even smarter now. so I bet. we You know, that's the thing they say about us, Roses, is every episode we just get smarter.
01:17:01
Speaker
Wow, they do? They say that? They've always said that. Wow.
01:17:08
Speaker
Incredible. So we're to 110 games on our list. That's wild. Oh my gosh. That's incredible. All right. Well, everybody, thank you for listening. Sorry about our big, long break. um This is what we said at the end of the last episode, and it didn't come true because ah we had to we had to solve this problem, is that the next time when we come back, we will be discussing a game.
01:17:33
Speaker
We're not quite sure which one yet. yeah You could listen to the last episode of this podcast, the last episode that we did before this one, and get... some ideas of what, what we're choosing between.
01:17:47
Speaker
Yeah. um But we're not sure what, what game we're playing, but yeah, next, next episode should be next week. Don't hold us to that if it's not. You know what?
01:17:59
Speaker
We're so busy because we're so ah full of dreams. but we're so We have too many dreams. They spill out of us. Yeah, it's true. And they ruin our microphones. And we have to go buy new microphones. I'm making worms and moving and demolding. And yeah.
01:18:17
Speaker
I'm pretty sure we'll be, i'm pretty sure, um because we're recording this a little bit in advance of when it comes out, I'm pretty sure we will be back. We'll be back on track. Yeah, I think so too. And I'll feel probably even better.
01:18:31
Speaker
don't know if anyone can tell, but I am coughing less. I am doing better. I'm not 100%. But it's it's going to get there. It's going to get there. I'm going to be de-sported.
01:18:43
Speaker
And whether or not I have failed out of school, Or ah got my degree. Yeah, please. but Within two weeks, I will be done. You're not going to fail. Get out of here.
01:18:56
Speaker
You don't know how late I am on my project. Okay. Follow us at mutant. Whoa, Jesus Christ. that's Oh, I see. I see. No, no, no, no. That's okay, Matt.
01:19:07
Speaker
I see how it is. Follow us at save your game podcast on
Podcast Rankings and Listener Engagement
01:19:12
Speaker
Instagram. Email us Matt and roses at gmail.com. um Leave us reviews. Do all that fun stuff.
01:19:19
Speaker
um Tell us you like us. Yeah. Tell us we're pretty. Tell us we're both pretty. Tell us we get smarter every episode. And that all our rankings were correct. objective Objectively. Objectively correct. Yes. We're very objective podcast. I think people don't realize that about us is that we speak objectively.
01:19:42
Speaker
Yeah. We run it by scientists and researchers. And they always say we before we record anything, we run it by the scientists and the researchers. And they always come back and say, you got it. Nailed it.
01:19:54
Speaker
100%.
Improv Humor and Podcasting as Art
01:19:55
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. They've only corrected us one time, and and that was um that was when I failed this improv but improv prompt that I gave myself one second ago.
01:20:15
Speaker
I thought Hanson Swanson was going to come in and... and wreck you but no it's just a bad it's just a failed improv no no it's just i gave myself an improv prompt and then did not follow it up that's what happened best improv ever
01:20:35
Speaker
well i mean that that's predictable because you know what they say they say that were you gonna guess i was gonna and it doesn't it doesn't make sense with the context, but I was gonna say podcast is art.
01:20:51
Speaker
But it does make sense because art is suffer just like your improv. Oh, you're right, that does make sense.