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Episode 49 - Next Fest 2025
1.1k Plays1 day ago
R. Floppy K., Jr. can’t keep Matt and PushingUpRoses down. These two are gonna push through all the colds, the tiny guacabowli bowls, the loneliness, and the fork-and-knife taco crowd to play some Next Fest Demos!
We warmed you up last week, but this week we dive FULLY IN to some cool demos. But first, we have a long talk about player choice in games and the merits of seeing “everything” in a game, all because Matt misses his ancient robot.
Plus, Matt is sick and WILL HE SURVIVE TIL THE END OF THE EPISODE?! Listen to find out!
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Games Mentioned:
- Night Trap
- Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer
- Rise of the Golden Idols: The Sins of New Wells
- Heaven’s Vault
- Fran Bow
- The Alpinist
- Deck of Haunts
- Do No Harm
- Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping
- Return of the Obra Dinn
- Promise Mascot Agency
- Deliver At All Costs
- Wanderstop
- Isle of Reveries
- Blue Prince
- Disney Dreamlight Valley
- Elroy and the Aliens
- Orion Burger
- Brassheart
- Dr. Priori’s Time Escape
- INAYAH: Life After Gods
- Little Problems
Communal Actions:
- Amazon Boycott March 7-14.
- Nestle Boycott March 21-28.
- Walmart Boycott April 7-14
- Economic Blackout 2 April 18
Recommended
Transcript
Podcasting While Sick
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm really sick. um Yeah, I know. Why are we recording when you're sick? Because what am I going to do? Rest? I already rested. rested yesterday. rested today. And now I'm frigging bored.
00:00:15
Speaker
Why don't you play a game and rest? or like I some did. Now I want to talk about them. Now, look, we've broken our brains. And now half of playing a game is talking about them. For other people, they just play a game and they enjoy it. And they're like, oh, yay, that was fun. Move along.
00:00:31
Speaker
but but for us, it's like ah my game. This is a mission. isn't Yeah, it's not complete until I have been written several pages or talked for an hour about this game.
00:00:47
Speaker
You could have just like text. We could have just texted so you could like rest and like take some medicine and. You can't turn a text into a podcast. Well, one day. wow One day they will. One day we can.
00:01:00
Speaker
You know, I think it's suspicious. You could call me a conspiracy theorist, whatever. Oh, boy. I think it's suspicious. I don't know if I like whatever is going to come out of your mouth.
00:01:12
Speaker
They They swear RFK in as the secretary of health and human services. And one week later, i get a cold. Uh-huh. Something just doesn't add up
Humor Amidst Sickness
00:01:24
Speaker
here, right? Something doesn't add up.
00:01:45
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. i am pushing up roses and I'm here alone today. Matt is sick and had some very ah delusional thinking, so I have kicked him off.
00:01:56
Speaker
And it's just me. It's gonna be weird. Matt! Hey. What did I say? i got in here.
00:02:05
Speaker
It's going to be weird to see what kind of energy comes out of me, right? like Because it's almost shaking up the little we're shaking up the the the crystal ball and and we're going to see what comes up. It's either going to be a manic, frigging sweaty, fevered weirdo.
00:02:25
Speaker
Or it's just going to be a a tired boy who has to keep ah muting the mic to blow his nose. All right. All right. Sexy times. ah Great. Wonderful. Do you remember um when I was sick?
00:02:38
Speaker
Well, I think it was when we were on with um Escape This Podcast. We had Bill and Danny on. And I was like really sick. them And you you edited that episode.
00:02:49
Speaker
There was just like this full 30 minutes where I said nothing. And I'm like, yeah, I was like slumped over, like disassociating into another dimension, just super ill.
00:03:02
Speaker
but Well, thankfully, those two
Pottery and Conspiracies
00:03:04
Speaker
are talkers. Yeah. how How well do you think thatll that you'll do if that happens here and i and it's just you? Oh, I'll do well. I'm pretty much a pro.
00:03:15
Speaker
like Listen, Matt, if you've learned anything about me, it's that I can talk about anything or nothing for a really long time by myself.
00:03:29
Speaker
It's great. um And yeah, i'm i you know I'm used to streaming alone and living alone and doing my YouTube alone. So yeah, I got this. I blame RFK for that.
00:03:43
Speaker
What do you love? RFK or something? What is this? Oh my What you standing up for? just don't think that there's a conspiracy against you to have given you a cold.
00:03:54
Speaker
Robert Floppy Kennedy Jr.
00:04:00
Speaker
Floppy. I think that's what it stands for. Let me Google. I think the F stands for floppy. I'm Googling. Yes, floppy. No, it's not. It says it here, Robert Floppy Kennedy. no that can't be. It says it right here on middlenames.com.
00:04:19
Speaker
You are such a liar, and I hate you. Can we go back to the podcast, please? What does Robert F. Kennedy's middle name stand for?
00:04:32
Speaker
I didn't actually Google it before. I know you didn't, because I did, and it's Francis. Oh, it's Floppy. Yeah, it's Floppy is what I just found out. but um how what How have you been, Roses? have you What have you been up to this week?
00:04:48
Speaker
Pottery. I did some pottery. I'm getting pretty good at it. um I made a teeny tiny bowl.
00:04:57
Speaker
For ants. For ants. ah Well, when you put, I didn't quite realize. Well, okay. They did warn me when I started pottery that when you put your, you know, clay in the kiln, it will shrink about like 12%. And that doesn't sound a lot to to me.
00:05:14
Speaker
So like, it's fine. This size is fine. Look, it's more than you think. Okay. It is way more than you think. I got my bowl back. In its teeny tiny. And so is my salsa dish.
00:05:25
Speaker
but so That's probably fine. Because. um There's. I don't know if you knew this. But ah RFK made it so that it's illegal. To for have any bowls bigger than your own fist. well It is bigger than my own fist.
00:05:44
Speaker
It's not. Oh no. I got to report you. Fine. Report me. Fine, do it. got to report you to the Food and Drug Administration because now they they actually, now they have jurisdiction over what we put our foods into.
00:05:58
Speaker
so like, for example, you're not allowed to eat a taco with a knife and fork anymore.
Gaming Culture and Regulations
00:06:02
Speaker
It's illegal. That's like the one good thing that they Have you been doing that? No, I'm saying that's the one good thing they did.
00:06:10
Speaker
Wait, i I need you to take it back. Mm-hmm. Who eats tacos with a knife and fork? Does somebody do that? Nobody anymore. Nobody anymore. You go to jail. You go right to jail. And you deserve it.
00:06:22
Speaker
Fine. Report me in my guacaboli. it's It's a bowl for guacaboli. Okay. I'm going to have to report that pun to RFK and see what he says.
00:06:33
Speaker
He can't win. He also has jurisdiction about food-related jokes now. But it's funny. um Did you play any games?
00:06:44
Speaker
I played a shit ton of games, actually. Is that illegal, too? No, no, no. The Department of Games has not been... yeah Oh, my God.
00:06:55
Speaker
oh my God. There is so with with Elon Musk, there's like a two like not big chance. Right. But like a two percent chance that there will be a department of games at some point. What they do? And can I be on it?
00:07:09
Speaker
Well, he's about to release his own AI based video game a developer. No, I know, I know, I know. And so when it tanks, you know, he's going to be like, we need to regulate games.
Heaven's Vault: Narrative Choices
00:07:24
Speaker
And then he'll make every other game besides his own illegal.
00:07:29
Speaker
Oh my, if that happens, I have to do videos on it. I have to. I don't want to platform it, but I gotta, like, destroy it. Look. It's such a small chance, but nobody on earth can tell me it's a 0% chance.
00:07:44
Speaker
Right? Nobody can me that it is a 0% chance that he will try to make every game illegal.
00:07:53
Speaker
He'll, like, go back and discover, like, Night Trap and be like, they had a point. Did you hear about that time that he ah hired somebody to level up his character in some fucking trendy video game and so that he could then play it on stream and pretend like, oh, put these hours into it.
00:08:11
Speaker
And people had decided, had like, people like immediately clocked that he didn't even like know how the menus worked. Like, you are not. There's no possible way. Well, thank you, Elon, for making me look good, because I've suffered the whole fake gamer girl thing for many years, but can't get worse than that.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, Elon Musk is the ultimate fake gamer girl. Yeah, can't even open a fucking menu. Come on, dude. Come on. Did you play... so This episode, we're going to be talking about NextFest demos.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yes. We talked about a few of them in our last episode. if you guys I think we'll probably let she at least repeat the titles if um if you didn't hear our last episode.
00:08:56
Speaker
But also, if you didn't hear our last episode... What are you doing, even? What you doing? Like, that last episode was... Well, probably top five, at least.
00:09:09
Speaker
Top five. Yeah, top five. Yep. Top five. If you are listening to this episode, you haven't listened to last episode, you are... I'm calling RFK. Stop reporting everything. ah so Walk a bully. Okay, go on.
00:09:27
Speaker
But did you play anything that's... So we're going to be talking about NextFest demos. do you play anything that wasn't a demo?
00:09:33
Speaker
did play something think that wasn't a demo? No, and that's actually kind of disappointing to me because... I really wanted to, got a little bit, I got a little bit deflated because I kind of often forget that not all demos are, you know, particularly long and involved there and that's fine. They can be whatever the creator wants them to be. Right.
00:09:58
Speaker
um In fact, I talked to a friend today and I said, ah oh, I just played, I played the Kathy rain to demo and it's, it's beautiful. And they said they didn't need, they didn't want to play the demo. They just wanted to play a cold. And now I understand because now I'm left with this feeling of wanting. Not from every demo.
00:10:17
Speaker
Not from all of them because I did play about seven of them. so But some of them I'm like, oh, why did I do that? Yeah. like i mean These are not early access games where there's like 20 hours available to the player. There's like an hour. I'm like, no.
00:10:36
Speaker
I mean, that's how I feel about um any point and click yeah ah podcast or podcast. What am I talking about? It's this frigging cold. It's the cold. Everything that I say wrong, I can blame it on the cold.
00:10:50
Speaker
um ah But ah on any... point and click game uh i don't i don't like to play the demos i'd rather just wait to play the whole thing because sometimes they're like point click games are really short other times like it takes a while to like really get yourself into the like into the world um And i I'll forget what items I have.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. That's true. I mean, I even feel not great about doing early access for Fields of Mystria. Because i think I've forgotten stuff.
00:11:34
Speaker
And now it's so daunting to play all like 20 hours again. I mean, don't even know what to do. What do I do? I mean, I think I'm going to. I think that's why I waited That's why I'm waiting to the next Mysteria update.
00:11:49
Speaker
um Yeah, which I was too. I didn't play the last one. Which should be out um by the time this episode releases. March 10th is the major update. ah Speaking of games that got updates, um and then I'll tell you what I've i've been playing.
00:12:05
Speaker
ah but rises Rise of the Golden Idol got its new DLC. um The Sins of New Wells. I haven't gotten a chance to boot it up yet. because I've been sick.
00:12:17
Speaker
But I will.
00:12:20
Speaker
Why is it when men get sick, they turn into utter babies? It's so hard to be sick. Yeah, all right. I have a feeling, honestly, honestly have a feeling it's because of ah periods, right?
00:12:36
Speaker
Because a lot of women get various side effects. That's true. Once a month, and sometimes those come with, like, major stomach cramps, and sometimes those come with, like,
00:12:47
Speaker
ah fatigue or like they can come with all sorts of stuff. Yep. People who don't menstruate only get sick when they get sick.
00:12:58
Speaker
so it's way So it's way less often and we're real babies about it. We like we have no um coping strategies. So we just kind of flop around and wait for a competent woman to take care of us.
00:13:10
Speaker
Is your middle name floppy?
00:13:14
Speaker
Matt Floppy. I don't call you Floppy from now on. I like it. i It's cute. You can't call me the same thing that RFK is. It's his legal middle name.
00:13:27
Speaker
If my name was any, had if I had any of those, Robert, Kennedy, Floppy, I would have changed them by now because that man is such an embarrassment. and But yeah, my last period killed me.
00:13:40
Speaker
ah it It's a miracle that I'm alive. ah but Be grateful.
00:13:46
Speaker
Well, I might only be alive until the end of this podcast. We'll have to check in on me. Okay, I'll check on you like i'll check on you later. You want know what I played this week before i played?
00:13:58
Speaker
ah or along with demos, I guess. Yeah, what you play? So I finished Heaven's Vault. Oh, you finished it. Great. Yeah, and it was...
00:14:10
Speaker
There was a point, I think... There is a point of no return that maybe should be a little more obvious. I feel like some people probably see it coming when they get to it. I, i for whatever reason, didn't.
00:14:25
Speaker
um But there's a point of no return where you go to the Heaven's Vault. This isn't a spoiler. It's the first scene in the game. and And then you flash back. So um therere there's a... That is a point of no return in the game.
00:14:38
Speaker
And I wasn't done all my stuff. I wasn't done everything. I've done all my stuff. There was other archaeology sites I hadn't visited. There were a lot of runes that I hadn't translated.
00:14:53
Speaker
and i felt like I hadn't gotten all the way through my storylines with various characters. and And then suddenly I was on this one-way track to the end of the game. And that was frustrating.
00:15:06
Speaker
It would have been more frustrating, except for I had also kind of lost steam. Because there was another unreversible thing that happened. um There is one place that you can visit in the game where the robot companion that follows you around six that you, you know, build a relationship with. And like you, as a player and as a character, you learn to you grow to like and grow to feel. Don't you? um Whatever you're about to say, it better not break my heart.
00:15:35
Speaker
I'm warning you right now. You... replace him or it with another personality. Wow. And you are sort of warned about this.
00:15:50
Speaker
It doesn't say like somebody's like, ah, it might be dangerous. But there's other times in the game where somebody says something might be dangerous and you do it anyway and you're fine. like that It's not a game where you die. um So they were like, it might be dangerous.
00:16:03
Speaker
And was like, okay, that's fine. And then it replaced it with something really interesting. The person the person the personality that it replaced with was ah ah very, very interesting and important to the lore of the game.
00:16:16
Speaker
So then when immediately she was like, well, I can change her ah i can change him back And I was like, well, let's see what it has to say first. And then she was like, well, you know, if we don't, I don't know. They might have said if we don't change it back, they might be stuck that way.
00:16:31
Speaker
But again, like this game had bluffed me before. yeah So I was just kind of like, and the the dialogue options weren't like, no, I'll take that risk or no, I want to keep it this way. Right. The dialogue options were these sort of like, let's give it one more second or let me just ask one more question. Right. And so I, I believe that I would be able to, and then,
00:16:57
Speaker
She just walks away. The robot just walks away from the area and refuses to go back. and Oh, no. Now you're stuck with this other robot. It's the same body, but a completely different robot in it.
00:17:10
Speaker
And the first robot's just gone. Oh, that's sad. Yeah. Supposedly, you can do this pretty early. You can do this like an hour or two hours into the game if you know what where... If you, you know, get unlucky or lucky enough or if you know where you're going.
00:17:25
Speaker
But... um For me, it was like 15 hours into the game. And I was like, don't want to fucking start over. And there's no save slots. it is And it's an Inkle game. So they're very like adamant about when you make your choices, you make your choices. think I got an and into ah a little ah just a little argument with the guy from Inkle on Blue Sky.
00:17:44
Speaker
ah Not that long ago about this. It's like, you know, people do... want to see your whole game and he's like people are obsessed with seeing the whole game they should uh you know it's an art form just to see what like to to to to stick with your choices and I was like yeah I understand but also there's a lot of writing and artistry that you put into this piece of work that of course players are going to want to see Yeah, I agree.
00:18:15
Speaker
ah We kind of talk. This is was my whole my whole stance with Cabernet. It's like if you're going to have a game that's slightly redundant, where it's not breaking off like very significantly to see the other things, then you need i think you really need to have safe slots.
00:18:32
Speaker
Like I get ah get what what they're doing. I get that it's an art form. I think it would be better for the player to have that choice, though.
Artistic Integrity vs. Player Freedom
00:18:43
Speaker
i think I think maybe a great thing would be to make that choice before you even play the game.
00:18:49
Speaker
So you can choose to play and live with your choices. And players will do that. Like maybe they're afraid that players won't do that. I think they will do that, especially like, the like bigger let's players. I think they're going to do that.
00:19:03
Speaker
Or you can give players the, the option to have a few save slots, you know, around. um Cause yeah, I, I do want to see everything that the game has to offer, you know? but So then my, I found my conversation. it was with John Ingold.
00:19:19
Speaker
um And what his original post was, ah what's the point of a medium where your choices matter if you simultaneously want to not miss anything? Those are literally contradictory points.
00:19:30
Speaker
And i was like, well, I don't think players are wrong. I think this is just a design challenge. Yeah. ah Like. Allowing players to revisit story junctures is like a way around this. And he yeah we talk about how Overboard does that.
00:19:48
Speaker
But then he mentions Heaven's Vault doesn't. And 90% of players roll with it, but others do complain quite a lot. And I guess I'm being one of those people who complain because I wanted to see all of Evan's fault. It was cool world. I don't think it's even complaint. I think it's a criticism. And when you're making art, he's saying it is an artistic choice.
00:20:09
Speaker
Then you open yourself up to artistic criticism. Mm-hmm. I would like to see all of your game. And my argument is that if it's too daunting to restart, then I'm not going to replay it to see the and make new choices and live with those. I'm just not. It's too redundant. yeah I would have to wait and a little while and...
00:20:31
Speaker
You know, I think there is merit to games having some replayability, you know, because we we buy this piece of art. We do want to revisit it. It's like rewatching a movie, you know, it's it's revisiting something.
00:20:43
Speaker
So i don't know. I think another i was trying to think about like a good way of going about this when we talked about Cabernet. um And I think, you know, another good option is if you want to do this type of gameplay where there's no saves, you just live with your choices.
00:20:59
Speaker
Perhaps. think Fran Bow does this. it saves in It saves the chapters for you. So while you do have to backtrack a little bit, you don't have to replay the entire game. And then you can make that choice. You can be like, well, I'm going to live with my choice and not replay that chapter.
00:21:18
Speaker
Or you can decide to, I want to see what else this chapter has to offer. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes, um but John Ingold's point, right, is that this is, um that it's, it's but what he said is it's watering down the soup. He says that it is a form of metagaming, and ah he uses the words, it acts as an emotional crutch.
00:21:38
Speaker
um I don't agree. Well, that's what I said. I said I can't see it that way. i think... um ah they're preaching it and on a different level than you think. I assume audiences are smart ah when I, you know...
00:21:54
Speaker
When I see the way, you know, people are ingesting art and and what he says, if people want to appreciate craft, then fine. But the median isn't there for the flow chart. They want the feels. They just really don't want to fuck it up by accident. And that's the root concern.
00:22:11
Speaker
and Basically, i don't see FOMO as a very interesting way to approach or target art. And it's like, but you're creating the FOMO, right? You're creating the FOMO by giving them an interesting path that they now can't reach. Yeah.
00:22:24
Speaker
yeah Yeah, yeah. And I don't i don't know. I can see the merit in living with your choices um and feeling the emotional impact that has.
00:22:37
Speaker
But I don't see the merit in what am I trying to say? Being negative about the fact that people still want to see that stuff.
00:22:48
Speaker
I think you can stick with your stance and not imply that the players don't understand art. i mean I don't know if that is what he is implying, but you have to be careful about that. You know, you can't just...
00:23:03
Speaker
assume everyone approaches and looks at art the same way. I also think it's really interesting that he said, what's the point of making, having a game where you make choices when you can just like go back? Well, then what's the point of putting choices in your game?
00:23:18
Speaker
Do you not want people to see why are they there then? I mean, I believe the idea is that then you have to first live with your, um,
00:23:31
Speaker
You know, like there's an emotional impact to living with what you choose. ah And there I mean, there's a solution to that. And there's a social impact to different people getting different experiences when they play the game.
00:23:45
Speaker
So make it... I don't know. i feel like you could make it a more linear experience and get the exact same effect if you don't, you know, if you don't care if your players get to go back and see those other choices. I just don't understand why they would be there.
00:24:03
Speaker
um Again, i think yeah but I think it's supposed to just like life, right? You could go right or left. and Yeah, but in life, you don't always have to live with your decisions. You can sometimes backtrack and make things better.
00:24:16
Speaker
and Sometimes. course Sometimes, but sometimes you can't. But sometimes you can. And he's saying in this game, you never can. and Well, I don't think he's saying that specifically. I don't think he's saying i don't think what he's saying is that...
00:24:30
Speaker
Because there are plenty of things in um Heaven's Gate that I did out of order, out of the order that it wanted me to. Or I did and then went back and did something and like changed my mind and went back and did something else. Right.
00:24:45
Speaker
So I don't think he's saying anything that extreme. and Yeah. um But. ah Yeah, but I think he is far towards the side of not being.
00:24:59
Speaker
um Yeah, not allowing people to revisit, like, if there are some big decisions that will change your game, that will change a story, just like there's some big decisions that will change life, um irreparably.
00:25:15
Speaker
But in life, somebody didn't write another four hours of art that i'm missing out on.
00:25:26
Speaker
yeah Right? Like, somebody didn't write that other part. It just doesn't exist. So, like, of course I can't go back and see it again. The the the life where I didn't have a baby doesn't exist, right?
00:25:38
Speaker
The life where I, you know, became a priest doesn't yeah exist. Those don't exist. But if if they did and some people were like, oh it's so cool,
00:25:49
Speaker
ah the mat I knew became a priest, I'd want to see what the deal was with that mat. Yeah, yeah i think I think you make a good point where it it you put it out there by choosing this format of storytelling.
00:26:02
Speaker
So you're going to have to accept you know expect people to be curious about those other choices because you put them there. Yeah. you know so i And i sorry i sorry if I'm getting a little like steamed up about it. i just I get very passionate when people bring up, well, this makes it more art. This is the art of it. And to be honest with you, and and I understand that. I i really do because I'm your artist's artist. artist I'm very passionate about it.
00:26:29
Speaker
But also, i guess... I don't want to ever make, I guess when I put art into the world, I hope people see it for what I want it to be seen as, but also I kind of lose
00:26:43
Speaker
ownership of it and people can kind of decipher it how they want to decipher it because that's the point of art you know is to be human and to to experience it how you experience it on a ah unique level i'm getting way too pretentious we need to stop so i think but just to go back to heaven's vault My bigger issue isn't that... ah or Yeah, my big issue was that the game stopped being fun when the when this big change happened. For me, because there was a character that I really enjoyed and liked, and now I'm having to spend, at that point, I didn't know how long. It only ended up being an hour.
00:27:23
Speaker
ok probably should have been longer if I hadn't gone down that path and you know ended up ending my game kind of early. yeah But um it made it made me less... If suddenly Sam and Max, Max turned into like Conroy Bumpus, right? And was following you around and talking. would quit.
00:27:44
Speaker
Talking like Conroy Bumpus and being annoying and and and complaining and hating you like Conroy Bumpus did. You'd be like, I don't like this game anymore. Yeah, i mean, it it reminded me of Beneath the Steel Sky. You do get a robot companion in that game. And I would probably be upset if it changed personalities halfway through, you know? Right. He does change bodies, but not personalities in that game.
00:28:08
Speaker
um Okay. Anyway. Heaven's Vault was very good. yeah i was just a little disappointed with the ending. And it's a little too long to just replay the whole thing. But one day I will.
00:28:20
Speaker
And I will avoid that. Avoid those two choices. um And the the one thing it does is it does save all the translated runes that you have when you play again. Okay. That's nice.
00:28:34
Speaker
But... it does start But it starts you way it starts you all the way over at the beginning. so yeah um And it is a very text long text heavy game where the character walks slow. So it doesn't exactly invite the replays the way that maybe they were hoping it would. I don't know.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, that that and that's my biggest criticism for long games where there is no chance to save. um And the character walks very slow. I just want to keep that. The character walks very slow.
00:29:03
Speaker
is Is there no like run cycle? or No. quick nope No run cycle. And there's a lot of um ancillary conversations. So there's a lot of um you're walking from one place to another and there's either a question or reply or um comment button that comes up.
00:29:22
Speaker
yeah And so you can click one of those and now you're in a discussion with your robot. And again, that's how close you get to this robot at any point. yeah An option can just pop up to talk to him. Aww. So... ah so it It runs into that problem where, you know, you're walking from one place to another and you start a conversation and now you're excited, interested in where the conversation goes. So you just start like walking in circles or something because you don't want to get to the spot and the conversation end.
00:29:46
Speaker
Anyway, um but it is, I do, I do want to say Heaven's Vault is a very good game. I'm also really looking forward to Expelled, their upcoming game.
NextFest Demos
00:29:54
Speaker
Nice. Very good. So anyway, ah do you...
00:30:01
Speaker
I don't have it up, but let's say Sicky Matarino. Sicky Matarino. You want to play Sicky Matarino, Floppy God. And we'll talk about some Next Fest demos.
00:30:17
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:30:36
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm your host, Pushing Up Roses. With me is my somewhat not healthy co-host, Matt Aukamp. Terminally ill.
00:30:50
Speaker
Terminally ill. On his deathbed, Matt Aukamp. Yeah, hi. you doing, Matt? Hi, everybody. yeah I'm sick! He's sick, guys. I'm sick. Sun soup.
00:31:02
Speaker
I think I have everything. Okay. All right. all Every illness. Okay. like Syphilis? Sure. Dysentery?
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah. definite yeah definite value You answered that really quickly. Definitely dysentery, you guys. Definitely dysentery. have syphilis of the elbow.
00:31:24
Speaker
Shit. Sounds awful. like Yeah. ah How about you?
00:31:31
Speaker
ah What do I have? Yeah, you got any syphilis over there? No, I don't have any syphilis at the moment. um Oh, okay. In fact, I'm strangely healthy right now, which is not the norm for me at all.
00:31:45
Speaker
It's RFK. It's RFK, yeah. Okay, so the reason we are gathered here today This is talk about NextFest. Now, when we did our first episode, I don't think I knew that there was like three or four of these a year. I thought they were once a year.
00:32:03
Speaker
Yeah. um But I feel like... It makes sense, though. Yeah? yeah Because like, who's going to wait a year? There's just too many games coming out for it to just be a yearly thing. I'm like, oh, yeah, it makes sense that there's like three or four, like quarterly NextFests.
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah. um I think... I think... And we'll sometimes talk about demos, right? Because it's a big part of playing games. But um I think probably we'll talk about it once a year.
00:32:33
Speaker
i don't think we'll do like a ton of Next to Fest, like three Next Fest episodes a year. That's just a little much. I like playing the demos, even though they make me sad.
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah, because they end too soon. Yeah, I like being sad. i want to hear about what you play, but first let's real quick recap what we talked about last time. Okay.
00:32:57
Speaker
I played a climbing game called The Alpinist that was really cute and had a little hand-drawn art.
00:33:08
Speaker
um I played... What else did i talk about? i played Deck of Haunts, a game where you're a haunted house with cards, and you use those cards to drive the people that come into your house crazy or kill them. um and we both played ah Do No Harm, which I know you had more to talk about. I do. i do.
00:33:31
Speaker
i did i am so middling about what I have played, and well i'll we'll get into it soon. Okay. um what ah Is there any other games that you talked about last time that you wanted to bring up? I think just Duck Detective.
00:33:47
Speaker
And I might mention it again. I tried not to talk about if you recall, I tried actually not to talk about it last time. Because i felt like the demo was short. And I also feel like the games are going to be short.
00:33:59
Speaker
like they're I think that's smart in a way. Because clearly they want this to be a recurring character. Kind of like an anthology type of a series. Yeah. You know, with its own little cases. So it does make sense that the games are shorter, but I would be giving away a lot if I really talked about the demo, you know?
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah. Well... So I'll try to be... I'll try to say some, like, objective things about it if I can. Okay, well, why don't you start with that? Okay. Yeah, we can do that. So, yes, there is going to be a new Duck Detective. It's called...
00:34:32
Speaker
What the fuck? Why the glamping situation? The ghost of glamping? The ghost of glamping. To be fair, I don't remember the first one either, the salami. i These names are silly and they're killing me here. I got to remember it's glamping and salami. You don't have to remember the whole thing.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, just duck it to just type in duck detective glamping and you'll find it And ah it it's basically identical to the first one in style, as you can probably imagine.
00:35:02
Speaker
It picks up slightly from where you left off ah from the first game, which you're kind of going on like an adventure with Freddy Frederson, who is your crocodile friend.
00:35:12
Speaker
um He turns out to be your roommate now. You were living with Freddy. And he like wants to surprise you. i i think you can guess. What does he want to do with Duck Detective? What do you think, Matt?
00:35:28
Speaker
ah I think he wants to go head up the Department of Health and Human Services in the United States. Wow, so close, but not quite. He wants to go glamping. Yeah, okay. In a spooky, at this spooky campsite, he wants to go glamping.
00:35:48
Speaker
And yeah we get there, and something has gone wrong, of course. um Something has been burglarized. and so And we're a detective, so clearly we're going to do all the things.
00:36:01
Speaker
I like the very first challenge. which is find out who Freddy's girlfriend is. And this is just something i think is so funny in these type of games where, and probably ah Rise the Golden Idol too, you can't just ask for people's names.
00:36:19
Speaker
You can't just be like, hey... I'm, I'm roses. What's your, what's your, who are you? What's your name? I'm Rose. You can't do that in these games. You have to like, it's so weird that you can't just ask a name. You have to figure it out. And I don't know why doesn't explain it. In Golden games, you're, you're like a you know, you're a, ah like a supernatural force. That's true. right But in Duck Detective, you are a guy walking around. You should be able to just say, and your name?
00:36:46
Speaker
No, you can't. Yeah, you can't. And I think that was something I brought up last time. It's like, you cannot ask anyone their name. You just have to figure it out with context clues. And it is, of course, beautifully voiced. It's very funny already.
00:37:02
Speaker
um Actually, it it might have been one of the longer demos I played, despite i despite it being, I think, going to be a shorter game like but like its first one. I'm just so stoked with it, though. I'm really...
00:37:15
Speaker
there You guys know that there's a lot of animal detective games out there. It is hard to even keep them in line. I think this one is really special. It just, it looks adorable. I really love these characters.
00:37:29
Speaker
I love that Freddy's back. It gives it some sense of familiarity. And that honestly, they're good, they're good solid like mysteries. But I will say this. and This is something that we both felt ah from the last game.
00:37:43
Speaker
i Even early in the game, I still felt like I was guessing, man. like In Rise and Case, you really have to be sure of what you're saying. yeah And you can get there. I don't know if it's like just ah a slightly like a syntax problem or... not syntax. Like a semantics problem.
00:38:01
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know what it is, but there was a few times where I'm like, am I guessing? I don't... Why am I guessing? I feel like I should have everything, you know? I felt the same way. I felt the same way, at least in the first one, right? Yeah, I know.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah, it... ah In a way... And again, in a way that I never... Almost never did in ah Golden Idol or in... um
00:38:26
Speaker
You know, the original. What's the original of this genre? Yeah. Case? Return... No. Yeah, Return of the Obra Dinn. Oh my god, why do we have to talk about that game? It makes my head hurt.
00:38:39
Speaker
but Why do we have to talk about Golden Idol every episode? Why do we got to talk about King's Quest V? don't know. That's just who I am So, um yeah, I think...
00:38:52
Speaker
there like There are sometimes in those games that I do guess, yeah but I don't need to.
Unique Gameplay Mechanics
00:38:58
Speaker
and Right. And in Duck Detective, you do need to guess.
00:39:02
Speaker
I wonder if I'm just
00:39:07
Speaker
not focused enough because unlike Rise... unlike risee you are heavily talking and interrogating characters because you are in real time. Rise in case is not, it's kind of a retroactive situation.
00:39:21
Speaker
So I'm i'm just wondering if I'm getting things like muddled and confused because I'm trying to do a lot of different things. I'm trying to collect clues. There's visual clues. There's interrogation clues.
00:39:33
Speaker
um I don't know. I don't really know. That is a good point, right? Yeah. Like is it information overload? That is a good point. Yeah. um You might we might just be missing half ah or like one sentence in a, ah you know, a two minute conversation. Yeah. So.
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. I really i don't know the answer to that. Yeah, this is definitely more in line with like the dagger of Amon Ra, where you are in real time getting conversations and clues and then you're doing a quiz.
00:40:07
Speaker
Whereas in I think in the idle games, like I said, you're doing things retroactively and you're more relying on finding information. You're not. I don't think you interrogate really anybody.
00:40:20
Speaker
You can get dialogue, but it's not a conversation. hmm. And like you can't show people things if I'm and if i'm remembering correctly. Right.
00:40:32
Speaker
But yeah, that being said, it's lovely. It's cute. I'm excited. I was sad at the end of the demo. I wanted to play more. Cool. Yeah. So we both played Do No Harm. Should we go on to talk about that?
00:40:46
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Sure. I was the first to play do no harm. And I it's by, it's by darts games. um It actually is. I think it releases tomorrow, right?
00:41:00
Speaker
Does it? so Tomorrow as we're recording this, so it'll be out by the time ok you people are hearing this. um But it is a it's very much like a ah ah strange horticulture like where instead of instead of giving people flowers to cure their ills, you're giving them shots of medicine.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, you're a doctor. You're doctor. ah You're a doctor who's slowly going insane and you have to manage things like your and this to your chagrin you have to manage things like your medicine level um and uh like all the different the happiness of your patients but also all the different medicines and sort of like pre-medicines you have but in your in your stock and then the money you make from your patients but also because you're going insane you have to manage that you have to manage like the laudanum that you have to drink to make your hallucinations go away um
00:41:59
Speaker
I really enjoyed it. It gets more complex each night. They like add little bits of complexity, which I like and wish I kind of wish strange horticulture would have done a little bit more.
00:42:11
Speaker
Yeah. um But there's something that I forgot to complain about last time. And there's something that you really want to complain about this time. Yeah. awesome I think this game, i had a lot of fun with this game.
00:42:26
Speaker
hmm. I liked it so much that even though I screwed up the first time around, because as Matt said, you do have to manage your supplies. And at the end of the day, you get the option to buy more. And it's not clear.
00:42:40
Speaker
It is not clear how you buy more medicine and more supplies. That's... That's the biggest problem with the game. The menus suck. Yeah, it' it's definitely... There's a little bit of a UI problem. It's not always clear.
00:42:52
Speaker
um That being said, I think this game has a lot of potential to be so great and more polished as much as it is fun. I think it gets way too confusing.
00:43:03
Speaker
i don't I don't think the the handbook... makes a lot of sense. I think it was done better in strange horticulture where even though there was some challenge to it, it did make sense.
00:43:14
Speaker
ah Just as a quick example, um in your medical book, ah people have like allergies and reactions to certain things and you have to be aware of that. ah But there was a couple instances where I needed to give somebody a black bile shot, but it said, do not give a black bile shot to Women, avoid that. But I had to. It was the only correct thing. There was no consequences for it.
00:43:39
Speaker
I couldn't tell if it's like, well, do I not give her the shot if she has these allergies? Do I not give her the shot if she is... be it's The handbook is not polished, in my opinion. I think it gets way too confusing. I think the mechanics that they start building make it more confusing. It does not get less confusing.
00:43:58
Speaker
And I think... you can You can read the page about people's allergies yeah before it introduces the allergies mechanic. And I think until it introduces the allergies mechanic, the allergies don't matter.
00:44:13
Speaker
But then why include the page in the in the book? Like, there's other times in the game where they add pages. Yeah, agree.
00:44:24
Speaker
as they add complexity, I don't know why they didn't do that with the allergies. Because you're right. I did the same thing. Immediately, the first time I saw a woman and she needed black bile, I was like, oh, I can't give this to her. Yeah.
00:44:35
Speaker
And then I was like, a they're not giving me anything else. So I did, and it was fine. i'm not sure that that would still be true on night six um after they've introduced allergies. But ah I don't know.
00:44:50
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. i just and there's just like some mechanics that are just they're they're too confusing to me or they just don't work. And if you I kind of I want to see if I was kind of alone in my criticism.
00:45:04
Speaker
And there are comments on this demo that say some of this stuff is ah is kind of confusing or it just doesn't correlate with what you're trying to do. And they don't they don't highlight some things like they don't highlight the...
00:45:20
Speaker
how to re-up your medicine. Right. Also, there was an option that I can never use to buy lamp oil and that never came into play. in I did a whole like night in the dark.
00:45:34
Speaker
I bought lamp oil. I bought it. I actually had it and I could not figure out how to you turn on my lamp. So I had customers coming up with me. I couldn't see them. Just diagnosing people in the shadows. Yeah.
00:45:48
Speaker
Also, I had to, I also need, when I play it for real, I need to learn to trust the game more because at one point a customer came up and they weren't there and nothing, there was nothing there and they were talking.
00:46:00
Speaker
And i was told to look for anomalies, but I thought this was just a bug. So I didn't use my laudanum. And then they were like, that, you missed an anomaly. i was like, oh, okay. I should have put more trust that the game wasn't broken yeah yeah Because all this stuff that we're talking about, except for maybe your lamp oil situation, it's not bugs.
00:46:25
Speaker
It's not bugs. I just think it's confusing. Yeah, it it is it is design choices that are confusing. so Yeah. But anyway it has a lot of potential. This is the kind of game that I would be looking for to play.
00:46:39
Speaker
So i hope that it gets a little bit more polish. um And yeah, I do look forward to seeing where it goes for sure. So... I want to talk about a game that we haven't talked about yet. Okay. And that game is ah Promise Mascot Agency.
00:47:00
Speaker
Did you a chance any time with this? I didn't, but I did when you when you suggested it to me. I did look it up but I'm like, the fuck is this? It is very strange. It does look strange. Yeah.
00:47:12
Speaker
It is by um ka ah Kaizen Gamework. Game... Let me try this again. Kaizen Gameworks Limited.
00:47:22
Speaker
They're the company that did Paradise Killer a few years back. This is very much not like Paradise Killer. There's no mystery here. um You play an ex-Yakuza who lives in a world where mascots are like a race of people, a race of being.
00:47:44
Speaker
um And you come to this small... um sort of down on its luck town to become to to open a mascot agency ah with your friend Pinky, who is a mascot that is a severed pinky toe.
00:48:01
Speaker
um And you basically drive around. Now, it's not... There's a lot of driving, but it's not really like a driving game. The driving is just kind of how you move around. yeah um Like, your car jumps.
00:48:16
Speaker
Your car gets an air dash, I think, at one point. your car... like your car ah It gets like ah a launcher to defeat, to destroy obstacles obstacles. So like Paradise Killer, there's like this very light Metroidvania aspect to it where some things are blocked off until you get other abilities.
00:48:33
Speaker
um That might feel a little out of place in a game that's basically about business managing a mascot agency. Mm-hmm. So you got to go around looking for mascots, looking for ah jobs, places that need mascots, managing your money, managing your your your amount of fans. Like you can do certain things around the town to get more fans.
00:48:55
Speaker
um Like, for example, cleaning up shrines or um smashing ah the signs of the old political regime. um And then...
00:49:09
Speaker
When you get jobs, you have to pick the right mascot for the right job, send them in the job, and almost inevitably the mascots get into trouble. And to save them from trouble, you have to...
00:49:22
Speaker
ah send a mascot hero their gig. What the fuck is this game? So for example, like one time the tofu got stuck in a normal sized door because it's a big, that mascot's a big crying tofu and gets stuck in a normal sized door.
00:49:37
Speaker
So you have to send a hero to help defeat the door.
00:49:43
Speaker
What is, what is going, i'm i'm I'm sorry, I'm right looking at screenshots and trailers and yeah so I got nothing. I got no words for this.
00:49:54
Speaker
You have to negotiate the mascots' contracts. You have to manage their jobs. You have to go explore the town and find a bunch of, like, there's a bunch of collectibles in the town. Some upgrades to either your um business or your car or new costumes for the mascots. It's really, really fun.
00:50:14
Speaker
like I like the sad tofu mascot. yeah He's my favorite. um i By the end of it, I didn't have enough mascots that, like, I wanted more mascots, I guess is what I'm saying. Okay. But it was still very cute, very fun, very silly. yeah um And, yeah, it's promised mascot agency.
00:50:38
Speaker
ah That comes out, actually comes out April 10th, so not that long. Okay, yeah, just about a month away. Nice. What else did you play? So I got a chance today to play the Kathy Rain 2 demo.
00:50:54
Speaker
I just got to say, what a fucking gorgeous game. I'm blown away, honestly. Who's that by? think it's Clifftop Games. Okay. Yeah. I'm just, I'm blown away. It's so beautiful.
00:51:08
Speaker
ah So in our last episode, you and Dave talked about Kathy Rain's voice, voice, new voice. i good Same voice. Same voice actor. okay Just a slightly different...
00:51:23
Speaker
Like cadence. Yeah. caence yeah I like it a lot. She sounds ah to me really confident. She doesn't sound softer to me. And I think that was the word that you guys had maybe used to describe it.
00:51:36
Speaker
Just a little softer. yeah I think she sounds more confident and almost kind of seductive. I really like it. i really like her, her tone. Um,
00:51:48
Speaker
Well, it's, I mean, the quality is so high. It's so high. I don't know if there's going to be full voice acting, but for the time being, it seems that there is some narration.
00:52:00
Speaker
And then at least in this demo, um you know, the speaking boxes are not, are not fully voiced. I think I'm not sure. I'm not sure where it's going. I wouldn't mind if it wasn't fully voiced, like fully, fully voiced. Cause I actually like reading it.
00:52:15
Speaker
Um, It feels, once again, very Gabriel Knight, but in a more updated way, I suppose. i did the first ah I did the first challenge. Now, it is kind of similar to the last Kathy Rayne in that there you are investigating a murder. Yeah.
00:52:37
Speaker
And it's very, i can tell it's going to be like one of those research heavy games. So, you know, in like a Jane Jensen game, you have to like, there's always like a library and you have to be like, I got to go fucking look up the books.
00:52:50
Speaker
One of the first challenges and and in this game is to look up something on the computer. And I saw to like the left of the screen, there was like a microfilm viewer. So I can tell that where the inspiration is going to come from.
00:53:02
Speaker
and Once again, I think I compared the original Kathy Rain a lot to Gabriel Knight. I really like it. i really, really like it. It's so beautiful. I'm already invested you know in the plot, in the murder, and I just i can't wait. And I think this comes out... Actually, no. I don't know when it comes out. I was about i was invited to tell a fib. Yeah, yeah. I don't either.
00:53:27
Speaker
I think it'll be a little while if what if I could glean from what Dave was saying in are, you know, in that, in last episode, it sounds like it'll, it'll still be, it's still a bit away, but.
00:53:41
Speaker
Okay. It's going to be worth it though. It's, it's called Kathy rain to soothsayer. um It very much reminds me of, you know, a collection of mystery books that's following like a serial killer and you're finding all these clues and just go look at the trailer.
00:53:58
Speaker
yeah don't know if I recommend playing the demo. It might leave you feeling like, Oh man. Yeah. I really wanted to play more. ah it was a very short demo. But yeah, if you get a chance, take a look at the trailer and the artwork.
00:54:14
Speaker
It's really gorgeous. I'm so excited.
00:54:19
Speaker
and did you say you had a chance to play that or no? I played just like two minutes of it. I just wanted to see, i just wanted to get the vibes.
00:54:30
Speaker
um yeah Like I said, with point and click games, I don't really love playing demos unless I'm just like so damn excited for them that I can't wait. um yeah But I this one I think I can wait for. Yeah.
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm glad I played it. And okay. I I'm so glad there's another one of these games. I mean, and I'm I'm gonna be excited when it comes out. Like I'm I'm gonna play it probably day one. Right. But yeah.
00:54:57
Speaker
ah Yeah. I really love the upgrade in in the art style. it's It still looks like Kathy Rain, but it's it just, you know, it looks more modern. ah Kathy. How old is Kathy right now? It's like we so seven years?
00:55:11
Speaker
It's been a while. i don't remember. Yeah, it's it it really has been a while. First game ah came out in 2016. that's so oh that's even long. Nine years ago. Yeah, yeah. Wow.
00:55:28
Speaker
So yeah, a long time to wait, but yeah, I i got nothing more to say. i'm just The demo was short. I want more of it, and I'm excited. That's awesome.
Gaming Preferences and Nostalgia
00:55:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:39
Speaker
It's Kathy Rain 2. Kathy Rain 2. What is it? Soul something. Soothsayer. Soothsayer. I'm sick! I'm sick!
00:55:51
Speaker
Alright, what is your next? Alright, let me talk ah about a game called... Let's talk about Deliver at All Costs. It's a Konami game. and And it is...
00:56:06
Speaker
How do I describe this game? It is very, it's published by Konami. It's developer Studio Far Out Games. It is also a game where you drive all the time. And you are like a ah ah dude in 1959 named Winston Green. You're kind of like down and out on your luck. You're down and out on your luck inventor.
00:56:28
Speaker
ah who wants to work in, like, rocket science. yeah in You know, in the 50s, when rocket science was all the rage. yeah And in order to raise money,
00:56:41
Speaker
i guess, to pay your bills and also to, like, buy parts to invent shit, you take up a job as a delivery boy. um Like, with a delivery agency.
00:56:52
Speaker
And, like okay, your first... ah Your first... um thing that you deliver is a box of fireworks that later you find out was supposed to be put in like a protective case but they didn't so as you drive the fireworks just shoot off and blow stuff up all around you uh your second thing that you deliver is a guy wants to sell rotten watermelons and
00:57:23
Speaker
So we put 70 some rotten watermelons in the back of your open pickup truck. And as you drive, they're all falling out everywhere. And you have to go get them spray painted green. You have to get them sprayed with ah perfume so they don't smell bad. And then bring them back.
00:57:40
Speaker
And you have to try and keep the amount of watermelons over. quote Like lose. You have to try and return with at least 20 watermelons. Yeah.
00:57:53
Speaker
It's got little bit of a a crazy taxi vibe going on ah Even one of the user-defined tags is destruction. So everything in the game pretty much is destroyable. You can smash your car into everything.
00:58:08
Speaker
yeah You can...
00:58:13
Speaker
yeah ah it's it's So it's kind of got... You can run around outside of your car and you can climb up buildings and there's some like collectibles that you get by parkouring your way across stuff.
00:58:26
Speaker
yeah But mostly you're in your car. It's kind of like if Grand Theft Auto happened in... like hi what's What's that movie based in the where... where um I think Kirsten Dunst was in it.
00:58:42
Speaker
Pleasantville. No, no, no. and Really? Yes. Yes. Okay. I don't think she's in that. I think um Reese Witherspoon is in that. All right. Cut where I said Kirsten. It's weird that we got to that.
00:58:53
Speaker
It's weird that you got it, even though I said Kirsten Dunst. Yeah, I'm sick. um ah So, yeah, it's it's like it's like if Grand Theft Auto took place there after it was all colored.
00:59:06
Speaker
Yeah. um It's an interesting, it's definitely an interesting game. It seems like it has a really in-depth story that the demo only just brushes up against.
00:59:18
Speaker
And it's stupid and fun. um It's called Deliver at All Costs. I like the premise. I like the premise a lot. Yeah. No, it makes me laugh and thinking about it.
00:59:29
Speaker
The setting is incredible. Yeah, the setting is incredible. Yeah. right, so I would like to talk about a game that um you said that I might like, and you were right on the money.
00:59:41
Speaker
Usually you are. i think usually you get you you get me. um It's called Wanderstop by Ivy Road. And I think this is the most disappointing cutoff in a demo. Yeah, yeah.
00:59:58
Speaker
It's unfortunate, but ah I really, really appreciate the ah tone and meaning of this game. You know, you are playing as a warrior.
01:00:09
Speaker
it might might sound very generic, but when you play the demo, you'll understand. And her goal is to be this number one warrior who wins at fights, but she just can't do it. She's just not winning any. She's losing over and over again.
01:00:24
Speaker
And she is now considering herself to be a failure. ah But that doesn't stop her necessarily. She decides that she's going to go find this master who's going to make it all better. She's going to train under her She's going to have a mentor and then she'll get to her goal, you know, of being this ultimate warrior.
01:00:43
Speaker
And while you're you know traveling through the woods to find this warrior, you are just exhausted. And it gets to the point where you can't even carry your sword. And you end up collapsing.
01:00:55
Speaker
And thisque this cute little man named Borough finds you and rescues you. And he brings you to his ah his tea shop in Wanderstop.
01:01:06
Speaker
Or it's called Wanderstop. It's a tea shop called Wanderstop. It's just cute little area. It's very like Zelda villagey. There's these cute little birds called pluffins. You can't do anything with them yet, but I'm sure you will as the game gets released.
01:01:21
Speaker
And it's a really nice game about changing course. and that it's It's pretty heavy-handed, right? It's very much in your face that this is what the theme is.
01:01:33
Speaker
It is okay to not do this path that you thought that you were going to take. It's okay to do something and be good at something else. You end the demo with the character still not wanting to change course.
01:01:49
Speaker
But yeah, I think you're right that it is very... bit it would It would take a lot of cognitive dissonance to not to not believe that that's where this game is going.
01:02:01
Speaker
It's told very beautifully and very relatably. it is To me, it was like playing a Pixar game. Yeah. it was like It was very... The animation's very Pixar. The character...
01:02:20
Speaker
ah development is very Pixar. Yeah. Yeah. It, it felt like a playable Pixar movie. Yeah, and in that way, it was very accessible and and kind of meaningful. I think people will really resonate with what this game is about and some of the statements you know made. And something that really resonated with me is it's very clear that this is going to be a tea shop management game.
01:02:46
Speaker
What's some gardening and stuff like that? The demo kind of teaches you how to garden and how to collect tea. It unfortunately does not go into the tea management. No, ends right there. Yeah. yeah So you agree to do the, you know, run the tea shop and that is where it cuts off. And I kind of wanted at least a day of that just to see, but that, you know, that's okay. It's got, it got me, you got me game. I will play. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah They, they, they unfortunately knew what they were doing here. yeah um But like one of the statements that Boro said that really resonated with me as a team management game is that there's, you know, there's just take your time. There's no schedule.
01:03:25
Speaker
There's no pressure. We just do stuff. I'm like, really? Really? i I think so. You do get to make one cup of tea. And I i have the feeling people at home are imagining um This game being like, you're oh, you're behind a counter and you're making... No, there is a giant, just crazy machine that you have to climb ladders and go up and down and watch and like fill this massive jug with water and watch it like spin through all these curly... thick
01:04:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's cute. It is a two-story process. Yeah. And they kind of give you a little bit of ah of gameplay. You're clearly going to be making your own like flavors of tea and like types of tea, maybe colors of tea.
01:04:18
Speaker
So it does show you how to like garden a little bit and make hybrids. So I made like a chip chip fruit, which obviously these are all going be made up. um and i put that in my tea and i made green chip chip tea and so i think that's going to be part of it is knowing how to make hybrid fruits and and plants and i can't wait to do more with those pluffins though with those birds maybe they'll let you put a pluffin in your tea oh matt um yeah yeah wander stop it looks really good and very cozy
01:04:51
Speaker
It comes out on ah March 11th. So it'll be out ah the day before this episode releases.
01:05:01
Speaker
Thank God. Because, again, that is the most disappointing cutoff in a demo I've ive ever seen. I can't believe. Guys, I can't believe you're advertising a T-Shop management game.
01:05:14
Speaker
And you didn't give me, like, 20 minutes of T-Shop management. I'm... I feel bamboozled over here. um but there's a There's a big game that me and you both played, but before we talk about that, I want to talk about a game called, ah if you're if you're done with Wanderstop, sorry.
01:05:32
Speaker
Oh yeah, I'm done. ah There's a game called Isles of Reveries. of reverie Okay. Singular Isle, multiple reveries.
01:05:44
Speaker
um It's by, i think it's, it seems like it might be by a so ah a single developer called a Desert Cuckoo. Cuckoo? Cuckoo.
01:05:55
Speaker
C-U-C-C-O. it's like a, it's very, it's kind of like a i Game Boy era Zelda-like. Mm-hmm.
01:06:08
Speaker
Game Boy Color era Zelda like where you're you're going around as you're a little owl. You have a bunch of ah animal friends and you find some stuff like you find a sword, you find a lamp, you can cut grass, you can set stuff on fire and It's a, it was a fairly short demo, but ah the first dungeon was really interesting. i felt very confused.
01:06:35
Speaker
Like it was, it was definitely a done, it was definitely like heavy on the puzzles and light on the combat, which I kind of like in one in these in early Zelda kind of games.
01:06:47
Speaker
Yeah. um The, One thing that I found in this, I think is similar to the most recent top-down Zelda game, which is you can go up to an object and duplicate it.
01:07:01
Speaker
You can keep it in your, like, yeah you know... ah I think it like assigned to the left trigger button. You go up to an object, you have your little fairy scan it, and then it stays in your left trigger. And then you can create one copy of that object. So there'll be puzzles that are solved by like, um, uh, Oh, there's this explosive plant, but I can't reach the explosive plant to the thing I need to explode. So I'll copy the plant or there'll be things like, uh,
01:07:36
Speaker
I, one torch is blocked by another torch. I can't reach it. So I can't get my, use my lamp to light it.
01:07:47
Speaker
So I'll copy a ah statue that shoots arrows and put it in line with the torches. So it uses one torch to light the other, if that makes sense. Yeah. That feels very Zelda to me.
01:08:01
Speaker
Yes, it is very, again, it's just like, it's just a, it's a little Zelda, like again, top town Zelda Game Boy Color era game that is way heavier on the puzzles than on the combat. And I got a little stumped by some of these puzzles. i had a, I had a rough time. That's not like you at all.
01:08:24
Speaker
That made me like it more. Okay.
01:08:28
Speaker
um So that's called Isle of Reveries. Now, by Desert Cuckoo, do you want to now talk about
01:08:41
Speaker
ah the game that we both played? Yeah, sure. Sure. The game that you're like texting me about? Yeah. So it's called Blue Prince. And this game is going to just confuse the fuck out of you when you start playing it.
01:08:59
Speaker
It doesn't, I promise it makes sense. Yes, it it does. And now I understand basically the whole thing, but they do not, it's, I don't know if they do do a bad job of tutorializing, or I don't know if there's just no way you could tutorialize this that would yeah make it make sense until you've played a couple in-game days. I don't, I honestly don't know.
01:09:21
Speaker
I don't know because like, it is one of those things where are you just kind of have to play it get it. get it you know And it took, the game only lets you play four days. The demo only lets you play four days.
01:09:34
Speaker
And it took me till my fourth day to understand what I was doing. ah So it's called, yeah, it's called Blue Prince, like, ah like Prince, like the son of a king. But ah as Rose has pointed out right before we started this recording,
01:09:52
Speaker
ah blueprints blueprints yeah because you are relevant yeah it is very relevant so I've never played a game like this before it's like a okay do you want to describe how you play this game I'll try. okay and i and I'll fill in the caps.
01:10:09
Speaker
So um you're given kind very little story, but you are put in this manor. Let's call it call it a manor. um ah Do you think the manor is called Mount Holly, or do you think this the town is called Mount Holly?
01:10:24
Speaker
Or the estate is called Mount Holly. I think the estate is Mount Holly. Okay. So you're at this estate called mont ah Mount Holly. And you enter it. It is empty. But you find a letter saying, you know, open this in the case of my death. It's very Knives Out. It's very ah kind of whodunity.
01:10:41
Speaker
yeah And it kind of goes on to explain a little bit about the house. And some of the rules of exploring the house. And you are to explore this ever-changing house.
01:10:54
Speaker
And that's where the blueprints come up. So this is how I very first like played it, right? I get in there. i find I find these rules. He's like, okay, you only get this many steps. ah The house changes. And I hope you like it.
01:11:08
Speaker
I'm like, all right, cool. So I go through a door. and I find a room. ah Well, actually, you go through a door and it gives you an option of what room do you want to open right now?
01:11:22
Speaker
And these rooms could be like, oh, you could open the guest bedroom. You could open the the closet, the maintenance closet. You could open the ah conservatory. Right. It's very clue like in that way. But once you open that, that is the room you're going to get.
01:11:37
Speaker
And then you can go to another door. And again, which room do you want to open? And it kind of creates this little ah you know blueprint for you that you're navigating. However, once you decide to end the day, like if you're done ah done exploring for that day, you can't open any more rooms, you're done.
01:11:56
Speaker
What was I going to say? I had a thought and I lost it. Matt, help me out here. Oh, it's it's totally reese it totally resets it. That's what I was going to say. Yes. So it it's kind of.
01:12:08
Speaker
it kind of Again, it reminded me of a clue ah game board a little bit, except your choosing, or this mechanic they use in Clock Tower where rooms change to scare you.
01:12:21
Speaker
i don't think that's what it's doing here. yeah It's more for strategy reasons. Which rooms do you want to explore? rooms will you know They have items in them. They have clues in them. okay These are strategy puzzles.
01:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, go go ahead. Let me try that. Let me now let me try now. I'm going to start from the beginning. I have no idea what I just said, but it was something. No, no, no. I think that was pretty good. And I think if if both of us try, they can put it together and understand it.
01:12:44
Speaker
Okay. So you start out, you're told that you have to find the missing mysterious room 46. Like there's 45 rooms in this house and then a room 46 no one's ever been to.
01:12:55
Speaker
So you start in this lobby where there's three doors. a door to your left, right, and center. And when you go through a door, there's not a room there. You pick the room yeah out of pick three different rooms.
01:13:08
Speaker
um And you sort of have to, and there's like a grid. The house is made out of a grid. So you have to try kind of try and pick the rooms that will keep the grid open enough that you can get to the end of the grid, which I never did.
01:13:24
Speaker
either. I think that's probably going to take you like, 100 in game days or something like it seems hard really hard yeah and um so some of these rooms contain gems and some of these rooms contain keys and some of these rooms contain items and some of these rooms contain puzzles um And it'll tell you, and some of them have like bonuses.
01:13:44
Speaker
And it'll tell you which one which thing is in which room before you even build it. yeah And some of them are bad. like Red rooms are bad. They can write do bad things to you.
01:13:55
Speaker
like Or like green rooms have more chances of items being in there. Right. So then you create a room, you go into it, say it's like the bedroom. oh there's no way out. I made a dead end.
01:14:08
Speaker
Or, oh, it's a hallway. and Now you go... a lot of rooms... Some rooms cost gems, so that's why you got to collect gems.
01:14:19
Speaker
Some ah rooms are locked, that's you've got to collect keys. And um some... And, oh, yeah, and if you try to build, if you build a doorway to a place where there already is a room, like, on the grid, then that doorway is just blocked.
01:14:37
Speaker
Right. So yeah that's why you kind of want to, like, keep it open. um And some puzzles, so, like, this isn't just the strategy game, right? There are puzzles in rooms, and there are inventory items that you use to solve puzzles in other rooms. Like, there's this one thing where I got to a security room.
01:14:57
Speaker
Okay. And... There's a puzzle in that room, but in order to activate the puzzle, you have to also have built a garage and turned it turned on something in the garage. yeah Right. So did you find the breaker room?
01:15:15
Speaker
Yes. Okay. I never got the two on the same playthrough, though. Oh, okay. Because the rooms that appear, it's always three random rooms. Yep. um And yeah, and there's the there's just there's a lot of puzzles, and some of the puzzles are inter-rooms, some of the puzzles are...
01:15:33
Speaker
you know, only in the one room that like take place entirely in the room. All right. Between the two of those things, do you think we've described this game? No. Yeah. No, it's really hard.
01:15:43
Speaker
It's like I said, I've, I've never played a game like this before. It is, it is strategy. It is kind of like a do over type of game. Let's see if I can get something on this, this day, you know, it's like a strategy board game. Yeah.
01:15:58
Speaker
Also, it's kind of like a roguelike game. and there's And there's logic puzzles. um like and yeah Yeah, and then like escape room style logic puzzles. It's all first person. And there's a story.
01:16:11
Speaker
So yeah do I think this probably qualifies as an adventure game. This game is so fucking weird, y'all. Like this is such a weird game. You gotta try it. You just gotta try it. You gotta try it.
01:16:24
Speaker
um Yeah, I got a text from you one night that's just like, I'm playing this game and it doesn't make any sense. I don't get it. Yeah, I don't get it. I'm like, all right, I'm going to boot it up. And yeah, it's super unique. it's it's It's unique in the way that it has all of these elements that it's like that they've taken from other games.
01:16:46
Speaker
I don't know how to describe this game. Just go look at the trailer or play the demo. Yeah, yeah. it hopefully Hopefully we've explained enough that you'll be able to at least get started because it is really rough to start. but It is. It's intriguing though. it it's because yeah it has the same amount of intrigue that it made me feel as when I first booted up Myst.
01:17:08
Speaker
When I booted up Myst for the first time and I saw this world that I was in and there was like no clues really. And you can go out. I want to say you can go outside the manor. You can go outside and the estate. And I was like getting that same like feeling of like, oh, this is very appealing. Where am I?
01:17:26
Speaker
Where's everyone else? but We forgot one thing, which is that you have 50 steps a day. Okay, I still don't get that. took long time to figure out what a step is. step is entering a room.
01:17:37
Speaker
Is that it? it is and Yeah, if you enter a room, even a room you've already been in, you use a step. Okay. And there are some, like, rooms will subtract multiple steps.
01:17:48
Speaker
Or add, yeah. itll yeah It'll tell you that on the map. And some rooms will add steps. Some rooms will add steps every time you walk into them, while other rooms will add steps. just to your overall steps for the day.
01:18:00
Speaker
And again, it completely resets. So at the beginning of the next day, all the items that you had found are gone. All the puzzles you solved are unsolved. All the rooms that you opened are missing, but you have information now.
01:18:13
Speaker
Yeah. And you can use that too help you. so that's Blue Prince by U Bomb Games. It's interesting, man. Like i I don't, I will probably play a little bit more. I know you are going to play it and I can't wait hear your thoughts. I'm going the living shit out of this game. know you are. No, I know you are.
01:18:35
Speaker
ah Yeah. I mean, there's, so of the games that we played, like Alpinest is definitely going to be my, I'm doing other stuff game. Like I'm doing something else. My attention is focused elsewhere, but just like playing it in the background. I'm probably going to play, I'm,
01:18:53
Speaker
the shit out of Do No Harm. I'll probably play the shit out Deck of Haunts, Blueprints. Wander Stop, I'm not sure. It seems like it's going to take a lot of time. I really liked it, but I don't know how much.
01:19:06
Speaker
We'll see. But remember what Boros said. There's no pressure. You do things at your own pace. Yeah, maybe it'll just be like my... Oh, it'll be... It'll take the place of what I used to... When I used to play... um ah What he call it? Disney Dreamlight Valley. Yeah.
01:19:23
Speaker
It was just to kind of like chill my brain out. Yeah, does a good job that. play it like an hour at a time or something. I'd like play it for a half hour even some days and then just move on to whatever was on my to-do list.
01:19:35
Speaker
Maybe Wanderstop will be like that. Yeah. Do you have any other games that you played that you want to talk about? Just one more that I want to briefly mention. I think that you've already talked about it, but it's Elroy and the Aliens.
01:19:48
Speaker
I booted that up earlier by Modaviti. I don't think I have talked about Oh, you haven't. Okay. i thought I swear I thought you did. um Elroy and the Aliens, it gave me a very specific vibe, a very specific point in time.
01:20:04
Speaker
type of vibe of your kind of early to mid nineties adventure games. This is ah very lighthearted game. It reminds me of broken sword or maybe Orion burger.
01:20:15
Speaker
i didn't get very far in it because I think, I think this kind of proves one of my other statements from a previous episode where I said, what I'm looking for in an adventure game these days has changed severely.
01:20:28
Speaker
I, when I was growing up, I would want to play Elroy and the aliens. I would see this on home of the underdogs. It would remind me of like, again, Orion burger, broken sword, ah maybe, maybe a Lucas arts game.
01:20:42
Speaker
And I'd be very thing over and over. Right. Yeah. We wanted to play the same mechanics, just in different settings with different writing stories, different settings. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it does give me that vibe. Like it says, i think it even says somewhere in on the page that it's going to remind you of these, these other games.
01:20:59
Speaker
And, and it And it does. um I'm not far along into it to really determine whether this is going to be my jam story-wise, right? Because everything is super lighthearted.
01:21:12
Speaker
it almost has a vibe of... like for kids a little bit, almost. But again again, that might not be being fair to it because it it really is only a demo.
01:21:25
Speaker
um According to the screenshots, you are gonna go, it is a grand adventure type of game. There's going to be travel outside of you know your closed circle. But yeah, it definitely, can see people really enjoying it.
01:21:38
Speaker
It's hand drawn, so it looks really neat. It is fully voiced. And it does remind me, in fact, the game is, takes it takes place in 1993. So it's kind of like feeding you a little bit of nostalgia in multiple ways, you know, not just you the style of art and the point and clickiness of it.
01:21:57
Speaker
um But also the setting, you know, the time that it that it's set in. ah So I do recommend the demo. I do think you should get, and I'm actually really interested in your thoughts on it too, Matt. I do think you should play the demo and see if you feel the same way.
01:22:12
Speaker
now Here's my question, and this is what this is how I feel when I see any of these sort of cartoony, ah retro-style point-and-click games.
01:22:27
Speaker
Is it fucking annoying?
01:22:33
Speaker
I know exactly what you're asking. There's so many of these that are just fucking annoying. It's... Veering there. Yeah. Okay. It's veering there because it is, it has a certain energy to it.
01:22:46
Speaker
Right. Will it be annoying to other people? Maybe not. Uh, but considering the type of games that I have been playing, which are very like a little more serious, um,
01:22:59
Speaker
Oh, hi, Basket. don't know if I might pick that up, but she's like, I agree. um i understand what you're asking. i think it could be annoying to certain people like us.
01:23:12
Speaker
Yeah. i don't I mean, I don't mind lighthearted or silly games. Oh, yeah. you know And I still play a point and click for for like here and there. But what what I have grown to love about the genre is just how diverse it is and how much experimentation goes into adventure games that doesn't seem to go as much into other genres. and ah so it takes me a bit to just say, okay, I'm going to sit down and do some point and click puzzles in a point and click game with point and click ass shit in it. yeah um
01:23:51
Speaker
And like, ah you know, obviously I'm going to play Old Skies. I'm going to play Rosewater. I'm going to play Perfect Tides. These all have like you know, when things are done expertly, ah like top of their craft, right?
01:24:06
Speaker
Yeah. It's hard to feel that, like, oh, it's just a point and click game. and But there's, unfortunately, so many of these middling point and click games that are released every single year, and i don't
01:24:25
Speaker
I wish I still had the patience for them that I used to. Well, or do i There's so many good games that come out every year. Like yeah maybe, maybe it's good that I've gotten past that inclination so that I can play more interesting and artistic stuff.
01:24:41
Speaker
I also think it's hard when we see things that harken back to these games that we've already played. Because it's like you said earlier, we wanted to play the same things over and over again. But that's because there was not many. You know what I mean? Right, right. Back in the day, I was really searching for new adventure games to to play that would fit my...
01:25:04
Speaker
ah you know, my style and my tastes. Now we have so many, we don't need, we don't need to do this guys. We don't need to play the same games over and over again.
01:25:15
Speaker
and I also want to say there was a feeling that there was an itch that those scratched, right? Like there was a feeling that those gave us that um we didn't get from other video games.
01:25:28
Speaker
Yeah. um that Like, we didn't have all these other options for games that gave us ah really deep. like We didn't have all these story first games, for example, right?
01:25:43
Speaker
That weren't point and click adventure games. And we didn't have games that really tested your brain besides puzzle games and point and click games. Yeah.
01:25:54
Speaker
So there wasn't as many, like, so there wasn't the sort of options that there are now where there's just so many of that now. Like, I can get that, those itches scratched, story and thinking.
Blending Lighthearted and Serious Games
01:26:13
Speaker
Yeah. um I can get both of those itches scratched by playing a game that is not point and click. But i also i I feel bad at the same time because i don't I also don't want to shove out these lighthearted, good quality games because and there's room for it. you know There's room for every type of game. you know we want I like a lighthearted game. Yeah, yeah.
01:26:39
Speaker
It does look like, to this game's credit, it does look like there is going to be kind of a touching story that unfolds. So I'm i'm curious to see where it goes. Yeah. I mean, Wanderstop is a lighthearted game.
01:26:51
Speaker
It is. Yeah, it is. yeah It's interesting, though, because Elroy and the Aliens starts out really, really lighthearted in gameplay. But Wanderstop doesn't. Wanderstop starts with really intense. Some some intense moments. so I think that's an an interesting choice. Right. I think that might give me might be why I get some of those Pixar vibes.
01:27:13
Speaker
Yeah. Because like so many Pixar movies are silly. Yeah. Up. I mean, WALL-E, right? Yeah. Like there's so many of these Pixar movies that are like,
01:27:24
Speaker
Oh, it's just a silly movie about a... And I guess Disney did this before them. Like, oh, just a silly movie about a fish or a silly movie about a deer. um oh ah everybody dies first, though.
01:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Everybody's dead. yeah Oh, look at all these cute characters that are all dead. Anyway, now we're doing a silly movie about a... a robot.
01:27:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um...
01:27:53
Speaker
So, okay, that was Elroy and the aliens. are There's some that I'm going to... I have a few... um How many more? how many ah What else do you have left? Because I have a few also. really That's really it. I did open up a game called Brass Heart, but it was giving me... And again, this is not me and you know demeaning these games. It's just my taste of change.
01:28:15
Speaker
Brass Heart was giving me Elroy and the Aliens vibes. Again, it's very cartoony, very hand-drawn, and very like traditional point and click. You click on the thing, and you use the thing, and you talk to the characters.
01:28:27
Speaker
But it does it does look nice, so... um i ah so my I have a couple like ah what do you call them rapid fire ones here that I played and I don't have that much to say about.
01:28:42
Speaker
so Dr. Priori's Time Escape was in escape like kind of a normal escape room game. It says there's going to have co-op, but the one thing that changes it from being just an escape room game is like you open these time bubbles and Uh, certain aspects of the room are different, right? So like if this button is broken, oh, I can't activate this thing. Cause the button is broken.
01:29:07
Speaker
oh I found this time bubble that takes me back to a moment when this button was not broken or, you know, things like that. So that was, yeah that's Dr. Priori's time escape. It looks like it's just going to be a really well-made, ah escape room.
01:29:25
Speaker
Like, first person logic puzzle kind of game. um I played... This is the worst title for a video game a person could possibly imagine.
01:29:37
Speaker
It is called Inaya Life After... i can't even read my fucking handwriting here. Oh no! He's sick, guys.
01:29:48
Speaker
I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm sick. um
01:29:53
Speaker
Inaya Life After Gods. Okay. And it's just a Metroidvania where it it seems like a pretty, it seems like it's going to be a really well-made Metroidvania.
01:30:04
Speaker
Okay. Where do you play some, i don't know, some lady, go around, do some stuff. Oh, man. Unlock your powers, that sort of thing. The one, i guess, hook is that you have three different kind of like elements of power that you switch between, which a lot of Metroidvanias are doing these days, to be honest. But yeah.
01:30:26
Speaker
Yeah, you have you have three different elements of power and each have their own sets of abilities. yeah So, I don't know. That looks like it's going to be kind of good and kind of cute. And then Lil Problems, which is a ah ah Golden Idol-like that is not based around murders. No, no. It's it's more like lighthearted than that.
01:30:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's not based around anything heavy. It is basically like, oh, who what happened to my homework? Yeah, these are little problems, not astronomically terrible problems. Right, like, who oh who spilled the milk, who knocked the milk over, and then you're looking around your house to see what clues there are as to who knocked the milk over.
01:31:14
Speaker
Very, very cute. um I think... i I
Podcast Banter and Listener Engagement
01:31:20
Speaker
don't know. This will be interesting because, um, what, what, uh, Duck Detective was a lighthearted version of this kind of game and we really loved it.
01:31:29
Speaker
yeah Um, and so how are we going to feel as this genre expands and then there becomes these sub genres of it, this cozy, um, uh,
01:31:41
Speaker
deduction kind of detective game yeah i don't know how i'm gonna feel about it i'm definitely gonna play it because i like this style of game so much yeah but i could see myself going either way i could see myself going yeah this ruled or i could see myself going okay um i don't need to play every deduction game that comes out sure yeah yeah it might explode in popularity Right. So i guess we'll see.
01:32:08
Speaker
And those are, think those are all my rapid fires. Nice. Yeah, we did it. We talked about demos. We did it. And I am still alive.
01:32:20
Speaker
I thought you were going to be dead by the end. So I am shocked right now. Me too. I hope people are celebrating. I hope nobody is. I mean, it would have been. Okay. If they're not celebrating, I get that it would have been a really interesting podcast.
01:32:35
Speaker
Died mid podcast. It would have been really interesting. And we would have just my luck. We would have made all the charts. It would have been like, oh, did you hear that podcast? And they still released it.
01:32:47
Speaker
The guy died on it. And they still released it. Like a normal episode. It's not even like the death episode. It's just like.
01:32:57
Speaker
And Rose has acted like the next episode was coming up. It was really weird. It'd be great. So, yeah, I think.
01:33:10
Speaker
ah that's ah Yeah, I think that does it for our episode, right? Yeah. I would love to hear from you guys on what demos that you're looking forward to. um Yeah.
01:33:21
Speaker
If you want to leave us a comment on our Instagram page, which is Save Your Game Podcast, ah you can. we love We love our Instagram.
01:33:32
Speaker
Matt goes a little crazy with the art on the Instagram. I love it. I think it's hilarious. I try to make them all themed. And sometimes that's like so weird and impossible. like gets away from him. Yeah, gets like, I'm not a graphic designer at all.
01:33:47
Speaker
And you can really tell that in our episode artwork. And I am an artist. And yet I'm not the one doing them. It makes no sense. It's still kind of fun. Some of them are, I'll say some of them are really fucking good. Some of them are great. Some them you're like, damn, this guy's got some chops. And other ones you're like, what the fuck is Matt doing?
01:34:06
Speaker
No, I love it. Please go visit our Instagram page. um We do post episode updates there and you can leave us a comment or... You can send us an email at mattandroses at gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.
01:34:19
Speaker
on Questions, pet peeves, ah raves, tips, money tips. I think, like, you know, we haven't done a a question and answer episode in a while. We probably will do one soon.
01:34:37
Speaker
But... but The thing that we really love from question and answer type games, like we like to, we like questions that you just, you kind of wouldn't expect.
01:34:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um so you know i as as much as it's fun to be like oh which character would you want to be from sam and max sam or max like as much as that stuff is kind of cute sometimes i think it's always more interesting when it's like a question that nobody's heard before and that is uh that you've put some thought into and um Yeah. yeah we're We're very deep people. We're very deep feeling people. And we want to get deep with your questions.
01:35:22
Speaker
We're deep as hell, actually. Deep as fuck over here. they can get They can go get, you can report them to RFK.
01:35:32
Speaker
floppy Robert Robert Floppy Kenny. I can't with that. yeah yeah with that We are an independent podcast brought to you by ourselves and only ourselves. We also want to quick highlight um the political actions going on.
01:35:52
Speaker
um We're still in the middle of this economic blackout tour, as they call it. So let me just quick call out some dates, if that's cool. Yeah, go for it.
01:36:02
Speaker
I like how you were like sniffling and like clearly dying of a cold. I know. But that does not stop Matt from being an after this, ladies and gentlemen. I've gotten worse throughout.
01:36:14
Speaker
There's supposed to be a protest, pro-science protest action on Friday. And I don't think I could go because I'm sick. But man, I just have him like wheel me out and cover my face. Okay.
01:36:27
Speaker
um Right now, as this episode is released, we are in the middle of the Amazon boycott, the 7th through the 14th. You can do it. I know some of us have gotten really reliant on our Amazon, but you can turn off your Echoes. You can turn off your Dots, right? You can turn off your Alexas.
01:36:44
Speaker
You can cancel your Amazon subscription if you really cannot live without it, which some people I know say that they can't for various reasons. Maybe you live in the middle of nowhere and it's your only option to get certain goods.
01:36:59
Speaker
Turn it off for a month, right? Turn it off for two weeks. Turn it off for an amount of time that Amazon knows you're paying attention and that they feel it. um <unk> you know You can cancel your subscription and buy it again and in a couple weeks if you again if you really need to. But I think a lot of us are going to find out that when we start boycotting these things, we didn't really need them as bad as we thought we did to begin with.
01:37:21
Speaker
So... your amazon apps goodreads this is a this hurts me abe books which is kind of like the best place to get rare and um like older used volumes of books like abe books is amazon unfortunately okay i didn't know that me neither until very recently bummed me out anyway so that's amazon 7th to the 14th then nestle uh i so keep telling you guys i'm gonna have a list of nestle products that i keep not having yet i'm sorry i'm sick he's sick you guys um march the 21st to the 28th is the nestle boycott and then again the easy one walmart don't go to walmart from april 7th to 14th super easy um and uh
01:38:09
Speaker
Then there's another economic blackout, April 18th, but we'll talk about that more when we get to it. That's after my birthday. My birthday is next month.
01:38:20
Speaker
I'm not going to say happy birthday until it's the month. Okay, I thought you were going to say until it's the day, but I'm like, no, you're not. Because I know that you're coming to my birthday party before my birthday.
01:38:35
Speaker
Maybe I'll refuse to say happy birthday that whole time. Everyone will be singing it, and I'll be in the corner just with my arms folded. It's not her birthday yet!
01:38:47
Speaker
Matt, I'm getting complaints from my friends that you're scaring them. Matt, we know this happens with, this is everybody's birthday. This is unique. It's not her birthday! It's not her birthday yet!
01:39:00
Speaker
Why do we even have cake here? Knock the cake over. Happy birthday to the crowd!
01:39:08
Speaker
All right. I think that's everything. um i Also, I know we haven't done a ah fucking, what do you call it? ranking ranking in a while that maybe we'll knock both out same episode we'll do some ranking we'll they answer some questions he's sick but he's smart and uh i i don't know what else ah do you have anything else to say i have one thing to say and that rfk
01:39:42
Speaker
Damn it! Stop ruining my lines! No, of course not. Of course it is podcast is art. And art, much like the ah Department of Health and Human Services under ah RFK, is suffer.
01:39:58
Speaker
s Floppy!