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Episode 20 - Audience Recommendations Vol. 2
2k Plays5 months ago
After a week off, Matt and Roses are back fresh as... roses, I guess. After the contractually obligated Stardew Valley talk, we discuss four of YOUR AUDIENCE RECCOMENDATIONS! A Space for the Unbound, The Invincible, The Journeyman Project, and The Cat Lady! This leads to a deep discussion of the entire Harvester Games catalogue.
YOUR TAKEAWAYS: 1) If you recommend us a game, guess which one of us it will appeal to more! 2) Email us your opinions on Harvester Games games. 3) Games: They're not just Pac-Man anymore.
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Stardew Valley
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
- The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
- A Space for the Unbound
- Persona series
- The Invincible
- Firewatch
- The Journeyman Project: Legacy of Time
- The Journeyman Project: Project Pegasus
- The Cat Lady
- Downfall
- Burnhouse Lane
- Lorelai
- The Dagger of Amon Ra
- Pac-Man
Recommended
Transcript
Opening Banter and Audience Acknowledgment
00:00:00
Speaker
I've and i' have had no issues and things like just internet's moving so much more smoothly. I can tell. Like I was going to I was going to bring that up a few days ago. I'm like, oh, we didn't have any recording issues this time. It was perfect. um Oh, I didn't even realize we were recording right now. Ha, I tricked you. Damn it. Sneakily hit the record button. while Here I was being here. I was being so goddamn boring.
00:00:30
Speaker
It's like, Oh yeah. You know, Verizon synchronized internet, whatever the fuck it's called. It's synchronized. bird kind of hair in a You could have Prince Alexander dust and talk boring. Like he did to that clam shell and Kings quest six. Oh, put it to sleep. Yeah, with like a boring book. It's like four dos of us equals the... It was it was pretty boring, I gotta admit. I fell asleep. You fell asleep playing. I fell asleep during the game.
00:01:01
Speaker
But yes, we're recording. Feel free to be entertaining now. Damn it. Now, I forget how. You forgot how to... It's been so long since we've... It's been so long since we've done a full episode. I don't know how to be entertaining anymore, do you? I think you like have to you know ah like tell a joke. Okay. A skeleton walks into a bar, says, give me a drink and a mop. I don't like it. What? How can you not like that the best joke that exists? I don't like it. It's the best joke. You tell a joke. No, this always backfires.
00:01:44
Speaker
I don't tell jokes anymore. Okay. yeah I need to hear. I need to hear. You've got one. I know you, you are full of street jokes and I just, and I need to hear one. Okay. What do you call a fish without eyes? I don't know. What do you call a fish without eyes? Call it. Get it. Cause there's no I. It's fish without the eye, see? Do you get it? I'm starting the music.
00:02:41
Speaker
I tried to talk to you sooner and you ignored me. Look, I have a lot going on in my life. I was probably sleeping. I was probably reading an X-Men comic. For both. You do. You love X-Men that much. I wish that would be a fun thing if if we could just like install something in our brains to like while we're sleeping, like instead of just like boring nonsense dreams, just do the X-Men. Just do the X-Men. Yeah, instead of like or or just like that's where we get our game time in, right? So you like live a productive life and then when you're asleep is when you play your adventure games.
00:03:27
Speaker
I am so unproductive at sleeping. like My dreams suck. They're awful. Even the good ones are like, what the fuck was that? About once a year, I'll have a dream that I wake up and I'm like, oh, I'm inspired. But that's that's about the rate at which my dreams are productive. Oh, no. Hey, everybody. This is Save Your Game. I'm Matt Aucamp. Segway. With me is the enigmatic... ah God, I'm just gonna use... I'm using your words. How dare you? The enigmatic, the effervescent, the affable, the...
00:04:11
Speaker
Arganaut. Arganaut? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You went on the- Let me just help you out here. You know, the stunning, the gorgeous- You went on the quest for the Golden Fleece.
00:04:24
Speaker
You're an Arganaut now. ah Anyways, pushing up roses, my friend. How's it going? Hi. I'm doing well. um I am pretty stoked to be talking because ah we played some great games and some new games that we haven't really played yet. Yeah. Yeah. Some games that I think were at least vaguely on my to playlist anyway. And it is you listeners who forced me to finally knock some of these off my list. Yeah. Let's not say forced, let's say inspired. We don't do anything we don't want to. That's true. Held me at review point. They're like, I'll give you a bad iTunes review if if you don't. No, no one said that. No one said that. every all our All our fans are really cool and supportive. That's true. Even you. Me?
00:05:20
Speaker
No, the listener. Oh, the one listener? Yes, you, listener, you.
Stardew Valley Obsession and Gaming Hardware
00:05:27
Speaker
Hey, Dave.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, I go into Zencaster and I just hack and edit it, so it looks like we have a lot of hits, but really, I think Dave's listening. Yeah, just da it's just Dave. And also, well, to be fair, Dave does listen a lot of times. Thank you, Dave. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for like refreshing and making us feel good. But yeah, as Matt said, this is going to be a... ah what What are we calling these? These are... Like a recommendations episode or something? Yeah, suggestions, recommendations, where sometimes we do take those games that that they pop up in a Q and&A you know every now and then. Or just in our email without a question. um And then we play them.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, so before we get into these, have you played anything unrelated to our topic this week? This is gonna sound so like a broken record, but you know this already. I've been playing Stardew a lot. Why? Why, you may ask? Roses, why are you playing? Well, because I'm trying to find somebody an auto-petter. And I can't believe this. I have tried for hours on someone else's game. Now in my game, I found an autopetter in the desert mines pretty quickly. It is random. This is a randomized game. and So like, what would you call that? Not randomized, but like,
00:06:56
Speaker
Yeah, ah orange random number generation. it's yeah like ah you know there is You're always gonna find something, but yeah it is completely randomized as to what you're going to find. Well, not completely randomized. I guess there's percentage chances. yeah But because because statistics ah don't care about history, there is that always that chance that it just never ever happens ever this is ridiculous i don't understand it this seems statistically impossible like we i have looked on this other game so much
00:07:40
Speaker
that the the person playing has so many prismatic shards because that's how much they've been looking for auto-petter. I have two prismatic shards just for reference. just to set the Just to set the scene for people who don't play Stardew Valley, ah there every day you have to go in to keep them happy you have to go in and pet all your animals like your cows and your sheeps and your ducks and your yeah ah and your bunnies and chickens to keep them ah your dinosaur and your ostrich just to keep them happy and so they produce the most like high quality eggs and milk and stuff. yeah
00:08:19
Speaker
um in there's a There's a aspect of Stardew Valley where you go like cave diving yeah um and fight monsters, and you just kind of keep descending ladders further and further into the cave as you go through. And every few... very Actually, it's this is random, too. It depends on your luck for the day. um You occasionally come across these rooms with... ah yeah nothing No monsters, no ah rocks to mine, just a chest. And there is a possibility in that chest will be a device called an auto-petter, so you don't have to pet the animals every day. I guess they all just walk past it and pet themselves.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's meant to be like supplemental. They're just like, you still gotta pet your animals. That's the best way to do it, but this will help. And I'm like brilliant because if you're if you go like more pro, let's say you end up having a million pigs. I mean, you want that truffle oil. Yeah, animals running all over the place. I can't be wasting my time petting every single animal petting. oh Yeah, petting 100 pigs. I've never tried that, by the way. I've never tried to just fill a farm with an animal, just like is like a hundred of all the same animal. That would be very fun. That would be a very fun way to play the game, just drowning in pigs. I know like the pro quote pro players, they'll just, they'll only have pigs in the end. Like as they go, just they try to do it like money quests and stuff, they'll only have pigs and and nothing else.
00:10:01
Speaker
um so I have also been playing Stardew Valley and which's just that is what that we should have named this podcast. I've been playing Stardew Valley. I've been playing Stardew Valley. That's a podcast all on its own. Right. So um I've also been playing Stardew Valley because i ah I said I wouldn't play it until the new update was released on Switch, but yeah then I just started playing and um I got a new Steam Deck and I've just been playing it on my Steam Deck.
00:10:33
Speaker
because I want a steam deck. I really want a steam deck. I've decided this. They're very good. They're very good devices. And they're not the greatest for playing point and click games because they don't have a great simulacrum for a mouse. Like ah there's touch. You can use the touch screen, but then your fingers in front of everything on the on the on the art you can use. um There's like haptic um
00:11:04
Speaker
you know like thumb pads yeah that you can use, yeah often that's how you use a mouse, and it's okay, but takes some getting used to, and it's a little yeah ah jittery. Or you can use your thumb sticks. um which everybody has at least at one time used a thumbstick for a mouse cursor and it's never fun. I mean, I played Hobbs Barrow on the switch and it wasn't too bad. You know, it's it's a slower paced game. So you can kind of, you don't feel rushed to get your mouse cursor.
00:11:45
Speaker
And it's pretty fast. You get used to it. I'll say that like, I prefer a mouse. I prefer playing at basically any game on a computer with a mouse and a keyboard. ah But I will make an exception for like a handheld. You know, I mean, I will say the Steam Deck is really good for first-person games and visual novels. It's really, really great for, um you know, I've heard a lot of people using the Steam Deck and visual novels as like, you just play for 20 minutes before you go to sleep. Instead of reading a book before you go to bed, you just play Ace Attorney for 20 minutes, right? yeah Or, uh, Danganronpa. I'm not gonna play that. That shit's dark.
00:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, it is really, really good. What? My dreams already suck. We're not going to make them worse. I loved the Danganronpa games, by the way. Yeah, they're super popular. Yeah. So I've been playing Stardew also, and right now i' am I'm working on perfection, right? So I just have to get the $10 million dollars for the golden clock you put on your farm that makes your stuff not decay. like That's pretty much all I have to do. Nice, that's a good goal. I just want an auto-petter, just one. Not even for my game. I'm stuck now in this quest for an auto-petter. A quest for the auto-petter. Maybe that's what I should do though. Maybe I should get the pigs, right? Like if I just want to get, I just need $10 million. dollars Yeah. I'll just get a bunch of pigs. Yeah, get a bunch of pigs, do the truffle oil thing. Even if it's sort of like boring to do,
00:13:25
Speaker
that kind of like min-maxing playing of the game. I could just at the end, after I get my $10 million, dollars sell all the pigs and go back to buy like having regular animals. Yeah.
Game Suggestions and Podcast Format Ideas
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah. is It's your farm. You can do Do you theme your animal names? I yeah I think I think last time they were just rhyming like one syllable rhyming so it was like pip and MIPS and like all these yeah random randomly rhyming names yeah I've definitely done that yeah I had one farm where I named every animal Elvis so it's like l and but you can't
00:14:10
Speaker
Yes, but you can't name them the exact same thing. So it's like Elvis won Elvis to walk you walking through and just like Elvis is happy today. Elvis is happyvis is happy. Oh, man. Elvis four isn't a bad move. Yeah, exactly. but And in my current one, they're just all synonyms for but nice. Yeah. But can you give us one? Can you give us this? But ass bottom tush. yeah Anus. What? Anyway.
00:14:48
Speaker
Well, that's what we've been playing. And that's the podcast. We've been playing the anus game. Yeah, the anus game. Stardew Valley. My favorite. getting this It is not my favorite. ah um So what are we talking about today? We're talking about we played four games. I actually played way more. I overshot the assignment. This is what you do. I don't I don't understand. ah you get You get suggested at a game and you're like, well, I got to play all the related games. too yeah Yeah, exactly. like
00:15:25
Speaker
um And then it gets stressed out all week. Like, I don't have time to play all these games. ah not Just play the games they were asked to. um So what did you play? I played ah The Cat Lady, which I think I mentioned on this podcast that I said I had started and then didn't finish. And this was like 10 years ago. ah So I remembered virtually not virtually nothing about the game. I played about five hours of The Cat Lady. And I've been playing A Space for the Unbound. I'm about four hours into that. A Space for the Unbound is a long game. It's about 10 hours.
00:16:03
Speaker
ah Even if you're rushing, it's very long because it's very, it's very dialogue heavy. It's very cinematic. um But I can't wait. I have nothing but good things to say when the time comes for Space for the Unbound. I'm really, really enjoying it. Awesome. Yeah. um So I played a very little bit of Space for the Unbound um
Review of 'Space for the Unbound'
00:16:26
Speaker
because I had all these other games to focus on. So I played the Cat Lady. I finished it, I played The Invincible, and I have played some of The Journeyman Project. um Right. That's definitely more, I feel like The Invincible and Journeyman Project, those are more your type of games. You know, I think what a good idea is, if we get suggestions, we divvy them. Because is it a roses game, or is it a mat game? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? i would
00:16:58
Speaker
i I think this might be a fun thing to do. What if, when you guys write in, ah if there is a suggestion attached to your write-in, I want you to predict whether your game will be a roses game or a mat game. And like we we are the arbiters, like you can't force us to play a game that we feel like isn't in our oeuvre, or oeuvre wheelhouse, but i we, Yeah, guess, guess, I think that'll be fun. How well do you know us listeners? Let's get parasocial up in here. ah All right, so what do we wanna start with? Why don't we, we'll take a little break and then we'll come back with, ah do we wanna save the cat lady since we both played it? So we'll probably have the most to say about it. Do you wanna come back with space for the unbound?
00:17:53
Speaker
Yes, okay that would be good. I have a lot to say about both, ah but yes, we will will start with a space for the Unbound and then we'll go into Cat Lady for my suggestions. And then then I'll just let Matt ramble a little bit.
00:18:10
Speaker
let's do ah Let's play some chunky Racks of Vino. Ooh, chunky Racks of Vino.
00:18:51
Speaker
All right, roses. So as I told you, I have all these chunky racks of vino down here in the canals under Paris. So if you'll just step in this corridor, please. Do not mind the pile of bricks and paving cement. ah it This seems sus. Okay, here I go. ah You got cask of Amontillado'd. Oh my God. Matt, you're fired. Now you're on the other side of this brick wall. Well, you can't fire me because you're on the other side of this brick wall, but we can still do a podcast because we're, uh, I guess we're wearing headsets. Can't I just like somehow take the bricks out with a trowel and then and then look through the bricks? Actually, no, I'm still fucked. I don't know so why I'm trying to reference Phantasmagoria as a great way to do anything.
00:19:47
Speaker
So yeah, imagine you are in like a life or death situation and you're like, okay. Ref, like what would a Sierra game character be here? That's how I live my life and that's why it's not going well. I'll like rub a fish against my shoe. Oh, I found an exit.
00:20:08
Speaker
Okay. So space for the unbound. Yes. Yes. Yes. Uh, I love it. I love, what a great, great suggestion. um So Space for the Unbound is an Indonesian game, which I don't know if I've ever played. ah So it seems to be inspired by Like anime, art style, it's a very whimsical sounding, the music, the score is great. The music is great. Kind of feels like you're in a little bit of ah a persona type of a setting or even final fantasy, but it is set, it is also set in Indonesia in the nineties and the dev wanted to give that feeling of growing up ah in Indonesia in the nineties. That was his experience and he wanted to share that experience.
00:21:01
Speaker
This is Moja Ken Studios. Yeah, and it's, even though it ah kind of resembles almost like an anime, and it's when I saw the screenshots, I'm like, is this an anime like fighting game? Yeah, it just looked really interesting. Because it's side scrolling, yeah. It is side scrolling, yeah. It is a true adventure game in the sense that you are going to have puzzles and dialogue, ah less emphasis on the puzzles. more emphasis on the story, but it's got these really great mechanics. Uh, I can tell that this game is, it's already getting sad. I'm already to the point where it's getting very, it started off more wistful and now it's, it's getting, Oh God, like there's something that's going to gut punch me and I know it. Well, really early. And
00:21:53
Speaker
There's a there's a question of whether or not you start in a ah dream. Yes, it is. It is unclear to me. on I'm only like a half hour in and it's unclear to me whether that was actually a dream or or yeah or what the hell just happened. But big emphasis on dreaming and false memories. and and things like that. There's also a big emphasis on the subconscious. Speaking of dreamings, there's a mechanic where you can what they call space dive. This is actually a mechanic. This is you go into your menu and you can dive into somebody's subconscious into their mind and read their memories and try to help them.
00:22:36
Speaker
by doing stuff in their memories. It's really cool. A lot of parts are very touching and very moving. It also looks beautiful. What a beautiful game. yeah yeah it's It is pixel art, um but very vibrant yeah and very um it's not necessarily a limited palette, but they just do really interesting things with the palette. Like yeah ah shadows and highlights are often different, like it's just slightly different colors than
00:23:09
Speaker
the ah like the base color. right like If you have a white shirt, your the shadows on the shirt might be like maroon for some reason, and like so like it really, really works. Yeah, it's it's really gorgeous. And something else I noticed. So I'm using my keyboard. This is not really your traditional point and click. I've been playing this with my keyboard only. And it is like the smoothest AI. I am not i never miss click anything. I never not know how to interact with something. Never, never. It is yeah so smooth.
00:23:45
Speaker
and easy. And I really commend ah the dev for making making the UI so great. um It's really easy to play. I played it with my ah little bit that I played. I played it with a controller oh on my PC. And yeah, it was it was really great because the way you interact with things is you come across them and it's sort of like a new take on a verb wheel. Yeah. ah You you come across something you can interact with. You sort of press up on it and it'll have like a rotating wheel of anything you can do with it. And that includes your inventory items and exam or talk to or whatever.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, again, it's the smoothest I've ever felt that at that, one of those verb wheels, it are, I've never, I've never never seen one that was that smooth before. And that yeah makes the gameplay so nice. So nice. Like I said, it is, it is sad. It's very story based. Um, I don't want to spoil too much of it. Okay. Uh, with my own theories, cause I have my own theories on what's going on. And if you play it, you will too. You'll start to, uh, to to speculate but just to just in general just to give you guys I guess a little bit of story is you're playing a boy named Atma and you have a girlfriend named Rhea and it starts like very like a very coming of age type of a thing you know you're dating you're doing these adventures, you're saving a cat from a dog, like you're doing all these things and then you realize that you're not the only one that has a power. You still have, even though you dreamed it, you still have this space dive power and you learn that your girlfriend has something interesting going on. It's on the level of telekinesis almost. um She can change settings, she can persuade people
00:25:44
Speaker
to do things, very it's very Star Wars, it's very The Force. ah Right, do you get to control the girlfriend at all? No. Okay, so yeah so those powers aren't powers that you, the player, get to use. Correct, okay it's correct, yeah. um But yeah, it's, i've ah I can't wait to finish this game. I have a feeling I know where it's going, and if it does, it's very Studio Ghibli. But i I really love it, I really love it. I can't say enough good things. That is very astute, right, yeah, it is very Studio Ghibli in what I've played so far because it's got that ah really,
00:26:20
Speaker
um subdued and down to earth kind of i teen, yeah like realistic teenage drama, right? Like, yeah just like the concerns and mind of a ah a teenager and the world that they inhabit. And at the same time, there's these supernatural things sort of just injected into it that heighten, um like I guess, the metaphors of what appears to be sort of a coming of age story, like you said. Yeah. And in it kind of gameplay wise, and even coming of age wise, it's got, it kind of ah reminded me of Perfect Tides a little bit because the the devs are going for that timepiece.
00:27:01
Speaker
experience that they they had, even even a little bit of Willie Beamish, honestly, because you're doing stuff, you know, with your friends, you're confronting bullies, you're in school, right? on It's very relatable, even though it's extremely fantastical, obviously, um, perfect tights in Willy Beamish. it's It's weird to call them grounded, right? But they are there's nothing magical about those games. I can't believe I just called Willy Beamish grounded. ah That's the main thing. Well, in Willy Beamish, you don't have like a magic wand or a magic book or whatever. Right, right. There's no magic in those games. ah This game
00:27:41
Speaker
It is fantastical and whimsical. And I i i can't think, who I don't remember who suggested it, but man, it's super impactful. It is a little bit easier on the puzzles, but I'm not mad at it, honestly, because I'm enjoying it so much that that's fine. I'm fine with the puzzles being ah more accessible to everyone, you know? Right now it has, there are, at least there appears to be fighting sequences. Have you gotten to one of those at all? Yes. And I like them. I like how they're done. They're done. ah I was a little concerned at first. I'm like, Oh no, there's a fighting mechanic. Are you serious? Uh, but no, actually it's quite pleasant. Um, you do get into fights with, uh, with bullies cause you are playing like what? 16, 17 year old kid. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
And you're a little bit of an outcast. So you do come across school bullies or town bullies. And the way you fight is very DDR. ah You're giving a set of things to input on your keyboard. So it's like a dia rhythm. Okay. Yeah, it's like a rhythm a little bit of rhythm a rhythm game. It's pretty simple. I've never died this way. um And it's it is really fun. It's gratifying to It's like, oh, is there is there a Scott Pilgrim aspect to like to this story? Maybe a little bit. Yeah, maybe a little bit because you're kind of your girlfriend is ah very well loved by just about every everyone. There's something enigmatic about her. There's something magnetic about her that everybody seems to be drawn to um ah kind of ah kind of a a Ramona Flowers type of thing. But
00:29:29
Speaker
I am more equated to some of the Studio Ghibli stuff. Okay. Yeah. The thing that's springing to mind, and ah again, I've played very little of this, so I don't know how accurate it is, is like if Studio Ghibli did Scott Pilgrim. That would be That would be so whimsical. Wouldn't that be so good? Yeah. Yeah. um All right. Well, that's Space for the Unbound. Is there anything else you have to say about it before we move on to our next game? No, let's let's move right along. OK, do we want
In-depth Analysis of 'The Invincible'
00:30:01
Speaker
to let me ah should we do a me game? Should we do the invisible? OK, tell me about the invincible. This was one of the ones I did look at that I was like, that's very impressive. It's not a roses game. So I sent that to Matt. We met. That's a mad game. Yeah. Well, I had already started by the time we decided we were divvying these up. I was like 90 percent of the way through it.
00:30:23
Speaker
So um it's developed by Starward Industries is the is the dev. And I think this is their only game. um But it is like it's one of these really involved level of walking simulator with also some like life sim elements. It's like Firewatch, right? Like fire. Exactly. Yeah. So you are exploring an alien planet, but also you have to kind of learn how to use these like sci-fi tools that are on you. So again, very much like Firewatch, you are doing these life sim things like learning how to use ah tools and incorporate them into your exploration, but...
00:31:04
Speaker
mostly it's just like you're walking around and exploring things and talking to a person in your headset and ah this story is just unfolding as you move around. yeah It is first person and it is absolutely gorgeous. um you're just on You're on some random sci-fi planet which has has these like beautiful like vistas and oceans and ah like various ah locations. like It's clearly a dead planet, right? There's no vegetation on it. um But there is there are oceans. And at any point, you can kind of just like look up into the sky and see these beautiful starscapes and moon and, you know,
00:31:53
Speaker
Uh, wait, is it like fire watch meets the Martian? Yeah, it's kind of, I think that would be an apt description. What happens is you wake up on this planet. You don't remember anything, um, at first and you have to put together like, okay, who am I? what mission was I on, there's some flashback sequences where you remember like meetings you had aboard your spaceship. um And then you have to figure out what happened to the rest of the crew. yeah So you're searching this planet trying to yet you know find crew members and at the same time, fulfill the mission that you were sent down for initially. um And every time you find a crew member, there's something strange about what's happened to them, same as there's something strange about what's happened to you.
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah. There are points where choices matter um and affect the ending. A lot of the choices are just superficial yeah until you get to the very end when there's like seven different endings. Really? Yeah. By the time you get to that point, there are some relationships that you would have had to have forged to achieve some of the endings, but I think In most cases, most of the endings are just available depending on the last, you know, 10 choices you make in the whole game. So like the last 10 minutes of the game is where all the branching happens. The concept that starts to unfold, like the story that you start to unravel is very, very hard sci-fi.
00:33:35
Speaker
I yeah, I noticed that which is why I kind of was like I took a little bit of a step back. Yeah, sci fi is not my favorite genre unless unless it's heavily intertwined with horror. Okay, there's some horror elements, there's some adventure elements, and you could get like a mediocre story if you just followed like the characters and what they're reacting to, which I guess that's like sci-fi, right? yeah Where you're in a sci-fi setting, but the story is about the characters or the events. The thing I think you're supposed to get from this game is more unraveling the concepts that you
00:34:15
Speaker
the explorer, to the the scientist on this planet is unraveling. And it's her trying to reckon with the idea of what is ah what is life can life? Does life have to be organic by the way that we define it? Or can it be or can organic mean something different? um What are the different ways that evolution can occur? um How do we classify a living being? um and what is our responsibility to living beings, even if they are living in a way that we can understand their level of consciousness. um So if you're willing to put in the brain power to sort of digest those concepts, um I think the game has some very interesting things to say, yeah but I didn't...
00:35:09
Speaker
I don't think I'll be thinking about this game forever, right? Like, yeah I don't think this is a game, this is based on a novel um by a guy called um S. Lem. Does he have a, is he just go by S. Lem? I don't know. Stanislaw Lem. ah Yeah, it's based on a novel by him called The Invincible. okay And I don't think, like I'm not inspired to go read that novel. Yeah. I'm glad I played the game But I didn't feel so compelled by the ideas that were brought up that I'm like, oh, I want to think about this more. I want to dive into this more. yeah
00:35:50
Speaker
There's also, I'll say this, there's a point where the game sort of diverges and I have a feeling that this is a fake fake choice. There's a game about halfway through, there's a moment where you can choose to, I'll just say, to leave the planet or to stay on the planet and continue your mission. I chose to stay. I didn't go back and see what would happen if I left. But you think you're entering like the third act But really, you're only about halfway through the game at that point. Oh, wow. um Yeah, you had mentioned it's pretty long. and that Yeah, and I think that's what made it feel long. It's like, ah I don't know.
00:36:29
Speaker
ah seven hours like that's not that long but what made it feel long is again when i thought i was entering a third act when it was like i achieved all my goals and then he was like the guy was like all right uh you why don't you come back to the ship and i'm like no i'm staying uh i'm gonna see this mission through you kind of get the feeling that you're at the part where it's like uh I'm gonna make these bastards pay in a thriller movie right or whatever it's like oh now I'm gonna get all the weapons and burst into the bad guys that's not the tenor of this game at all but I'm just saying it felt like I was heading into this like this denouement but then the game went for about four more hours so on it was interesting yeah kind of it like tricked you a little bit
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, and I think if they hadn't had that moment, I might've been you know more, I would've adjusted to the length of this game a little better, but because there was that moment, I was like, oh, finally, we're heading to the third act. Oh wait, there's like most of the game left. And then I just kind of felt a little exhausted. Yeah. I also, because there's so much of the game left at that point, I have a feeling that if you choose to leave, it'll be like, ah just the won't take off. You have to go do the mission anyway. you know mean like yeah I have a feeling it's a fake false choice, but it would be interesting if you can just end the game halfway through like that. That would be pretty funny. I'm kind of interested to know well what in the world would happen, or is that just the illusion of choice? That's what, yeah.
00:38:14
Speaker
That's what I think. I have a feeling it's an illusion of choice. I do too. Because if you're halfway through the game... like Yeah. And there are games that have done that, but it's usually been a joke, right? Like I remember in one of the Far Cry games, I think it's Far Cry 4, there is, you encountered like an evil dictator and he's like, you know, I didn't mean to get you involved in this. If you just wait here for a second, I've gotta go take care of some business. I will be right back and I will, I'll take you home.
00:38:50
Speaker
Yeah. And what you're supposed to do, as soon as you're let go, right, you can, you kind of know this guy's evil and you feel threatened. So you escape and then you go play the game. and But there is a possibility in Far Cry 4 of you just sit there for 10 minutes and the guy comes back and he's like, all right, you ready to go? And he takes you to where you want to go and the game ends. ah which is very funny, that does not feel like the sense of humor that the Invincible has. I don't, that yeah, it doesn't seem like this. It doesn't seem like it's gonna do that. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so that's that's the Invincible. i If you like walking simulators, it is a very interesting version of that. Yeah. um You're not gonna find an experience like this pretty much in any other game, right? Like if you want,
00:39:44
Speaker
this level of hard sci-fi and you wanna explore an alien planet like this, I can't think of a better example than this. yeah um But if you're not a sci-fi fan, it's not like this game is so overwhelmingly good that you have to overcome that and check it out. All right. Well, I'm glad
Exploring 'Journeyman Project' Challenges
00:40:05
Speaker
you played it and I didn't, because I'd probably be like, I'm so frustrated. What is this? Or maybe that's what people want to hear from me. I don't know. People seem to like it when it gets salty, so.
00:40:19
Speaker
ah So do you want to take a quick little break? Sure. And we've done half our games. Yeah. And then come back. I will quickly run through journeyman project. Yeah. And then because this is probably what we're going to spend the majority of our episode on, then we'll talk about Cat Lady. Sounds good. I will put up chunky wine.
00:40:46
Speaker
Chunky wine in coming.
00:41:18
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to you Save Your Game. I'm pushing up roses with me as always. As always. As always. I'm always with you. It's a little weird. Even when you think I'm not... Look at those footprints in the sand. I was riding piggyback on you. I wasn't carrying you. I was riding on your shoulders. Yeah, it's getting annoying. Anyway, here's Madaw Camp, everyone. Hey, everybody. ah How's your break? ah It was good. You should know you were there. Yeah, that was right. That was one of the times I was piggybacking on you. Yeah, and I had to get down because I have to reach the microphone.
00:42:04
Speaker
How was your break? Well, again, you would know because you were there. ah Please tell us about because I'm dying to know about Journeyman Project. Okay, I didn't get that far into Journeyman Project, and I think I'm going to, I think this will come back up on the show, because I think I'm gonna keep playing. Journeyman Project is a first-person, live-acted FMV game, you know, with like, ah
00:42:35
Speaker
sort of ah crudely rendered 3D environments. I'm sure they were beautiful for the time. sure um But there's there's three of these games, and the game, the one we got recommended on our last Q and&A episode was Journeyman Project 3, which is the legacy of time. I started that game and I was like, holy shit, there is so much lore here. so There's so much story. I have no idea what any of this means. None of this is impactful to me. I'm gonna go back to the first game. um Pretty admirable. So I started the first game, Journeyman Project, Pegasus Prime, which is I think the remake of the original Journeyman's Project. um From what I understand, the story just goes straight through.
00:43:28
Speaker
One leads to two, which leads to three. um As far again, as far as I understand it, I haven't played them all, but it is one of those. Do we have a name for these games? Like. um like Like the like the troll games, like the chose method, like a nickname. No, no, no. I mean, a name for these games where this sort of interface where it's like, like mist or something. I just call them first person. I just call them first person adventure games.
00:44:00
Speaker
But you're not, the games where you're not free roaming, right you are, it's basically like a grid, right? And yeah you are always, just you're just standing in a spot, and then you press forward, and then there's a little animation of you moving to the next. Right, like i I know exactly what you're talking about, because I've played, so obviously they're adventure games, I've played several, of those types. I don't know if it has a name specifically, though. I've heard people refer to these as slide shows, but I think that's a little reductive. But I can understand that, right? If you think of each screen as its own slide and your arrow keys are just choosing which slide it pulls up next. Yeah.
00:44:52
Speaker
But yeah, so that's that's the way it is. And it's actually a little frustrating um because it's a little difficult to maneuver through the world and it's slow. Oh, you know what? Callahan's crosstime saloon is like that. It's kind of like you're on a semi-static so semi-static screen. There might be little animations on it. Yeah, exactly. It's first person. And then at the bottom, you have your dialogue and your inventory. And you you know it's one of those things where you can scroll side to side. Callahan's is scrolling, which is nice, right? In those earlier games, you would just click and maybe it would transition to a different screen, depending on directionally. ah Callahan's actually scrolled.
00:45:38
Speaker
okay which was really nice. But again, it's that panorama type of thing. It's static for the most part. ah You're not freely roaming the world. You're just maneuvering the screens. Right. And they it's sort of like it's simulating the idea of 3D by creating a bunch of screens um and then putting videos that look like you're moving from one to screen to the other that play if you press a direction, right? yeah um In Journeyman Project 1, you can't look around, um which is actually pretty frustrating. I'll explain why in a minute, um but you can't you can't look around and there's a lot of things you have to like approach something from the right direction. So there's a lot of like,
00:46:28
Speaker
you know taking these like really slow kind of walks screen by screen like around or like a console until you get to the entrance to the console, then turning towards it and then entering it. okay Is that making sense? So it's it's finicky. Well, it's sort of like, okay, if you enter a room and in the middle is a console that you need to sit at, like ah like a ah futuristic computer console, um and there is one entrance to the console,
00:47:03
Speaker
you have to walk around that whole nine panel grid and then turn to face the console that again was right in front of you when you walked into the room and then go in and it's like that's like adding four screens of transition to just enter the thing that I saw the moment I walked in the room. um So that that can be pretty frustrating. Also, the game so far, and I'm only about an hour into it, there's not really puzzles so much as there is just, you're supposed to just complete complete a series of actions, right? Like it'll be like, um we need you to report to the command center
00:47:45
Speaker
make sure to bring your ID card and your whatever. And so you just have to walk around your apartment picking up your ID card and your whatever, white whatever else that is. It's like Codename Iceman is just following protocol. Yeah. And then there's stuff that there's not, so you have a little AI that often tells you what to do next. And sometimes it doesn't. And then you just kind of don't know. And it's just weird. It's just kind of like, It feels like I am a character who would know all the things he has to do right now. He would know he has to have pick up his ID. He would know he has to pick up his passkey. But I don't know that. So I might just walk out of the apartment and go to the elevator and then it's like, you need your passkey to enter the elevator. So I go back to my apartment and I'm like, oh, gotta get this passkey. And then I go back out
00:48:43
Speaker
And I go down the elevator and I go to the transport and it's like, you need your transport card to use the transporter. So I got to go back up the elevator, back into my apartment. look for You know what I mean? yeah It's just very frustrating in that sort of way. Or like when I got to my, and I'll explain the plot in a minute, but when I got to like my job, right? It was like, you need, before you do this, you need to go do this. And it's like, okay, well, my character would have known that. Like, it's just like, this doesn't feel um justified by the story or the character. And it's not, these aren't puzzles, these are just annoyances. yeah It's just like,
00:49:27
Speaker
Which is weird because it it sounds like that is a lot of the gameplay. So are you just kind of annoyed like the time you're doing those? I am a lot. OK, so the game again, it's like live acted FMV game um and you are you play basically a time cop. You are, you live in the future. It's the first day that humans are making contact with alien beings um and you get to work late. you You find out you're kind of like a shitty employee and you happen to be the only one there, the only one on duty when a time rift opens because somebody fucked with the time strain.
00:50:11
Speaker
So now you have to go like, you know, get in your briefing pod and learn all the things about the thing. And then you have to go ah get your mission chips and your ah journeyman key. And then you have to go into your time pod and then you have to go, this is actually kind of clever. You have to go back to prehistory where they store a master copy of ah like the historical record. Okay. So if somebody alters the time stream, you go back to prehistory before anybody could have, before any time stream could have possibly been altered, and then pick up and ah like a a CD-ROM of, because you know this game was released in the 90s. You pick up a CD-ROM that contains all of human history, you go back to the present,
00:51:05
Speaker
and you load it into your, you know, your computer device and it will scan and be like, did anything change? Yeah. And if it did, then it seeing it like, you know, hones in on what changed and then you got to go fix it, which was really interesting because in this game, so you get back and your ah boss is like, what are you doing playing around in the time jumper? And he's like, he's like, i you go go debrief and then immediately I wanna see you in my office and then you go debrief and then he pops back up and he's like, hey, I yeah just saw your debriefing. um yeah And he's like, apparently this is like,
00:51:52
Speaker
the wrong timeline, but hey, this is the only timeline I've ever known, so I'm gonna have you killed. Cause I don't want to, I don't want to lose my life. Like I don't want to live in a different world that I don't know. um But that's your job. Your job is to put the world back to the way it was. yeah So that was like a really interesting thing. And that's interesting enough. Those ideas, those concepts are interesting enough to make me want to keep playing. Even though the game's, again, pretty obnoxious. um So when you get back to prehistory, and this will just just to wrap up what annoyed me about this game so far. um Remember, I said you couldn't look around.
00:52:33
Speaker
this Yeah, this was particularly frustrating because so you get back to pre history and it's kind of like a maze like you have but you could walk through these jungles. If you walk in the wrong space you get eaten by a dinosaur. um But there's a lot of places where If you, where your AI will pop up and warn you like, oh, you are 2000 feet up in the air. like That's probably the true 200 maybe. You are 200 feet up in the air. Please be careful of your step. And then if you just press the wrong direction, you'll just fall to your death.
00:53:07
Speaker
and it's like well I didn't know I was like on the edge of a cliff and I didn't necessarily know where the cliff was if I was able to like look up and down I would have been able to clearly see oh I wouldn't walk forward here and it's just so stupid because you would know that this character Like, why would he not look down, right? Like, why would he just, why would he just be like, okay, I'll keep walking forward. Oh, that was so deaf. Like, it's the steel it's just that sort of, um I guess, ludonarrative dissonance is what it is, right? It's just, it breaks your suspension of disbelief entirely um just because they didn't have the technology and they couldn't figure out like a clever way around it besides an AI just telling you like,
00:53:58
Speaker
yeah Don't, don't walk forward. or You'll fall to your death and then you can anyway. And then you fall to your death and it's like, oops, should've listened. Like you get like a, like a Sierra style death. Should've listened to your AI companion. And it's like, yeah, but I do step was a doozy. Exactly. Last step was a doozy or the first step. Honestly, if it's King's quest, it is the first step in this. It was the first step. Like it was the first, I, the first thing I did when I got back to prehistory was step off a cliff and die. yeah
00:54:30
Speaker
um And apparently there's a lot like this. This is a game where you learn by dying. So from what I understood, I had to consult a walkthrough a few times. Again, not because these were puzzles that I couldn't understand, but just because like trying to play the game is so weird and specific that I'm like, I don't, I feel like it thinks I should know what to do right now. And I don't. um you're It's kind of reminding me of what you said about like below the route, where you're like you you felt expected to kind of know what to do. Yeah, who knows? Maybe there was a manual about this that would that was tell you like, oh, you have to. And again, there's a lot of characters that sort of tell you what you have to do, but also you don't know what that means. They're like, make sure you get your bio chip before you you know travel through the interstellar, blah, blah, blah.
00:55:25
Speaker
Okay. and Sure. I'll do that. I don't know what any of that fucking means. Yeah. Are you some kind of nostalgia high off of it? Cause it is a game from the nineties. It's an adventure game from the nineties. It seems like no matter what the difficulty level, I always get a little, like excited to, as though i'm I'm trying to get that fix again, like when I would go to Home of the Underdogs, try to get that fix of ah of an adventure game I've never played before. Does it at least give you that? Oh, definitely. Yeah, it's got that in spades. You you you totally get the feeling that you're playing some old ass game and that is ah janky and old and probably at the time would have blown your fucking mind. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:09
Speaker
I'm sure it would have. Yeah. ah So again, that's one of the reasons I also want i want to keep playing. and There's some really interesting concept. The acting is terrible, but it's hilarious. Nice. And there's some really interesting concepts. And I just might need to use a walkthrough because trying to figure out what everybody means when they're talking to me is really confusing. like There was a point, um the last thing I did was I went to the future to solve one of these time riffs. And there was like, It was like sleeping gas has been ah released in the area and then my guy starts breathing heavy. So then I pull out the thing where the sleeping gas was being released. They pull out the tank and it's like, you probably don't want to do that. I'm like, what? Okay. So I put it back and then I've died from sleeping gas or like getting arrested after I fell asleep from sleeping gas. So then I tried again and I like took the thing out and I walked out and then a guy shot me.
00:57:09
Speaker
And it because it was like, oh, you should have left the sleeping gas in. all the All the enemies woke up because you took the sleeping gas out. It's like.
00:57:19
Speaker
but That's so confusing. And this weird computer interface that's like ah next to the sleeping gas canister, that's like intake, outtake or intake dispersal or something like that. And you click intake and it's like intake. And I'm like, I don't know what just happened. And then it's click dispersal or whatever the other button is. And it's like, which chemical would you like to disperse? And it's like, ah it's like carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, argon. And I clicked all of them, cause I have no idea what the fuck it's talking about. And all of them, it was like, not the right canister. I was like, I don't know what's going on. Like if there, I'm sure this, this here is like the first real puzzle, I'm guessing. But I can't even figure out what I'm looking at. Like I don't know the difference yet. There's a manual that that sounds like a manual situation.
00:58:17
Speaker
i don't I don't know. right i mean i have I have no idea. like I think it's there's just all this future tech and future tech words that, again, my character would just know because he lives there. But I, as a human being living in 2024 in a real world and not a fictional world, I don't know any of this. Yeah, he didn't get the memo. I did get didn't get the memo. Yeah, I'm just yelling, I didn't get the memo at my computer over and over again. No. So, yeah, I think maybe playing with a walkthrough might be the way to go. Keep us updated because it sounds like you're going to keep playing. So, yeah, i'm I'm interested to know if this goes anywhere. The last thing I'll say is that the cut scenes are unskippable and that is um almost a deal breaker for me, man.
00:59:17
Speaker
I know, especially because you can die and then you have to reload and then it's like, oh my God, I have to watch this person talk for so long. ah Gross. No, I don't like don't like that. um All right. Yeah, that's that's the journeyman project. Thank you guys for recommending it. It's definitely something that's going to. ah It's going to be entertaining in in a way, even at the same time as being obnoxious and infuriating. I might check it out just to see what in the world you're trying. No, of course. I think you should. Yeah, for sure. Especially with your love of live-acted FMB games and old-school games, I think you will get a real kick out of this. Maybe I'll stream it. It sounds like a streaming game where we can all just be confused. Yeah, exactly. Oh, you thought you were going to backseat game? Well, you're just as clueless as I am. You're just
Thematic Deep Dive into 'The Cat Lady' and Harvester Games
01:00:11
Speaker
as clueless, yeah.
01:00:14
Speaker
Um, all right. Do you want to get into what will probably be the bulk of this episode? I'm guessing because I'm sure it might be the bulk of it. like It's definitely going to be, I mean, I, I'm, I want to talk about the cat lady for sure. Um, but I, you know, the interestingly, the more I played space for the bound. the I think the less I had to say about the Cat Lady, but interesting what I'm about to say is probably more important than the other games we're tackling. But yeah, Cat Lady, ah that came out in 2012, if I'm not mistaken, and I did play it at the time, and it was too depressing for me. It is wildly depressing. Yeah.
01:00:57
Speaker
it it I think it takes a turn I think it goes more into um almost detective type of work and mystery type of work. um And even a little it even gets maybe a little bit B movie cheesy at times, but it does begin your you're playing a character, Susan Ashworth, who is ah approximately 40 years old. And she tries to take her own life, what seems to be successfully in the beginning of the game, she successfully takes her own life. She sent to this kind of
01:01:36
Speaker
purgatory slash hell type of of area where she meets somebody that is akin to akin to the devil. She's the queen of maggots. And those are all synonyms for like death, devil, they all kind of hold hands in this kind of lore. ah And she decides that we're not meant to be dead yet. And I she wants us to because we're the right person to do it. She wants us to take out literally take out these terrible people whom she refers to as parasites that are in the real world just almost like a playing God situation you're taking out. I mean, extremely terrible people.
01:02:18
Speaker
um yeah that are in the real world. And it's ah it's got a unique art style that some people are not gonna like. Yeah, it's it's like sketchy figure drawing combined with i what I think are photo collages. yeah And then all of it is distorted through filters. um And some of it works really well. it and makes it look like you're walking through a real environment. And some of it works really poorly and it looks like you're looking at just like a bunch of jammed together images.
01:02:57
Speaker
interesting It's It is very interesting. I like collage art. i like It's got a very mixed media look. I think that makes it unique. you know right I think the character sketches leave something to be desired. Sometimes they all look the same. Sometimes ah you you kind of pair up you get a roommate later on. You pair up with her. Her name is Mitzi. And they look very similar in character design, right? um it's the old comic book It's the old comic book illustrator problem where ah
01:03:28
Speaker
you can only tell the difference between different women by their hairstyles or their costumes. It's like all women's faces are the same. Yeah. Some of the voice acting is ah interesting, um but maybe that lends itself to being a weird game where sometimes you don't even know what reality you're in. um It appears that you are in back in reality, but you know, some of the parts where you are taking out somebody, they're very, they're very morbid and very dreamlike. And there's this line that you don't really even know. Are we even dead? I'm not even really sure. It's yeah, we are back to reality. I should say that the queen of maggots does grant us with immortality. ah Meaning I was not afraid of anything in this case, because man, if I can't die, I'm just gonna do everything I possibly can.
01:04:22
Speaker
And that leads to, so that leads to, that's like the impetus for many situations in the game is that somebody thinks they killed us um and we are still alive. And thus we are able to investigate them or take them out or save somebody, right? yeah um I think what a lot, graphics aside, I think it is very interesting. I think it's artsy. I was not put off by the graphic style too much, except for, like I said, there's maybe way too similarities between characters and that made it a little confusing. There's a lot of awkward, um but there's also a lot of awkward movements and positioning, right? Like they don't seem to, the the artist doesn't really seem to have um body,
01:05:10
Speaker
Like it doesn't, that it's like they were an okay illustrator, but a really um amateur animator. So a lot of the animation sort of is really awkward. And that works really well with horrifying characters because they kind of move like in human monsters, um but with regular characters or characters you're supposed to like, you still just, they like feel like robots. Yeah, yeah, I will say that, you know, I read a lot of the comments on this and this game really, people seem to really connect with it in a very cathartic way. um It does have themes of grief. And obviously, there's, there's, I mean, your your character tries to unalive themselves. So there's,
01:05:56
Speaker
themes of mental health and mental illness. And and I would even say hope to your character does get hope in in certain spots, especially when she gets a roommate, ah they they seem to connect and become friends and and lament their their life, ah life stuff together. But I think what an interesting combo to have is how we talked about this briefly in private, but how much of that is in earnest. And I don't want to say I don't want to ah say anything bad. but We don't punch down here. We only punch up right. um But I do think an interesting question is how much of this game and the themes are for almost edgy or cool purposes.
01:06:49
Speaker
You know, it's kind of like the American history X effect, right? You're not supposed to like the characters in there. ah You're not supposed to like the story, but the way it was done, the way it was filmed and shot, it almost looks kind of cool, right? It almost looks- Yeah, these these horrible people look heroic. Like they get heroic um cinematic shots. Yeah. when they're doing the most horrible things possible and you're like, well, what am I supposed to get? What's the semiotics of this moment? Because they they don't seem to match the text of the moment. yeah
01:07:32
Speaker
And I will say that this is ah Cat Lady is way more successful at moving me emotionally. um There were some parts that I felt that were not maybe taken seriously enough. And then there are other parts where I truly was was moved. um right ah For example, the the main character, Susan, she has a ah flashback of memory with her and her husband. And it's just this so horrible, horrible argument. And I thought that argument was very realistic in a dramatic sense. But I felt it was very moving. And the cat lady has a very compelling way ah of telling this story. It's done via flashbacks, ah distorted imagery. um Sometimes it's out of order. It's it's really interesting. I found that I found that very compelling. And always, it always kept me interested.
01:08:30
Speaker
but And there's a lot of the the game is very thrilling and shocking, right? And not just that there's shocking material, which I do want to talk about a little more, but but in the sense that there are times that they're really interesting storytelling decisions where they jump you from A to C. yeah you you a scene is ending and then another scene begins in medias rez and You're like, how did I get is this real? What's happening? How did I get here this? How could this be possible?
01:09:07
Speaker
um And it takes a minute to be like, okay, I am say four hours into the future or a day into the future from where the last scene ended. um yeah And it can be very jarring. um And I think in that in a very cool way, in a way that while you're playing sometimes it's like, what the, like you feel very thrown off, but yeah as he as it resolves, you're like, that was really cool. I think that's what makes it compelling. You know, it keeps you interested. It's not a one line. You're just being fed this story or you're just going through the motions. It it is. It has that thrill ah aspect to it. Now, um I do want to I do want to say, OK, so based on thing that you said about about the edginess, right? I'm trying. I'm trying to walk a line here because okay this game is dealing
01:10:01
Speaker
with sensitive topics and serious topics. So I don't want to just be like, Oh, it's just edgelord stuff. It's not it has a lot of earnest stuff going on. I think that just sometimes in art, you know, art is not always safe. And so I think that you might be compelled to take an edgier route. So I don't want to say I'm not I don't want to say that the dev did this on purpose to be an edgelord. Sometimes these topics come off across that way. Even if you don't want it to come across that way. because i Does that does that I hope that makes sense to everybody.
01:10:39
Speaker
Yeah, but also, so I have played this this dev's other games, right? I've played Burnhouse Lane. um And because I was so sort of ah intrigued and maybe even confused a little bit by the Cat Lady and its themes, I ah went back and played Downfall. I played all of Downfall and I played a little bit of Lorelei. And I think this matters a little bit. though the these games were released in order of, Downfall was their first game, then Cat Lady was their second game in 2012. They re-released Downfall um with a lot of updates. The re-release is actually very beautiful, like really well done, and has a lot of Cat Lady references in it, and almost sort of, I don't wanna say destroys the hopeful ending of the Cat Lady, but it,
01:11:33
Speaker
is whatever I thought they were trying to leave me with at the end of the Cat Lady. And the end of Cat Lady does have, it's depressing, but it does have, like you said, a real strong message of hope that I can understand exactly why that resonated with people. Yeah, and it's a realistic situation too. It doesn't- Well, is it? Well- Because this is this is my thing. This is my thing about all their games is like oftentimes when we put gritty or disturbing stuff in in any story, it's either done for shock value, ah it's done to make a point, or it's done for realism. And this game, and so ah when I played Burnhouse Lane, I guess I kind of thought all the the disturbing shit there's, you know, and just, ah we should say what's in these games because I think people deserve a trigger warning before they go into these games. It is cannibalism, rape, torture, serial killing.
01:12:32
Speaker
yeah impulsive murder, suicide, child molestation, child death, animal death, stalking, depression, drug addiction, alcohol related deaths. it is every toxic relationships it is everything you can possibly kidnapping and torture everything you possibly think of and so when i played burn house lane i was like oh man they went really hard to make a point in this game um and then i played cat lady and i was like oh all the same stuff is in here like yeah you bet you would
01:13:07
Speaker
to a T you know there's you think though if you played just the cat lady would you have a more isolated view of the themes because you hadn't seen that they've been reused yet i do think so because i felt that way when i played burnhouse lane and playing cat lady i made it made me sort of revisit burnhouse lane and and think some of the things that i felt like were done as a necessary um artistic choices, I started to think like, Oh, is this just what these devs and like I'm not in these devs heads. And I'm not going to try and censor anybody's art, but it's just just the themes these devs enjoy, which ah sort of affected my view of the art a little bit.
01:13:49
Speaker
um and And so we went back, so in just sort of in an effort to understand this, I went back and I played Downfall. And I do think ah Downfall has so many ties to the Cat Lady. I don't know if you remember, Roses, but in the Cat Lady, do you remember running into that guy, Joe Davis? Yes. And his story was very confusing. There was like a shattered mirror. He had a girlfriend. he was
01:14:20
Speaker
i't I don't even know how to describe it. He that he was keeping in a room full of mirrors and there was some sort of body dysmorphic disorder stuff going on, but they didn't really elaborate on it. Yeah, yeah. That is all just a reference to downfall and OK. And I haven't played downfall, so right. When you play it in Cat Lady, you're like, I don't know what any of this is. Like this did not, you just feel confused. um It's almost like they're trying to hint towards an idea that doesn't fully come together. Yeah.
01:14:57
Speaker
it's because that is just, you are seeing scenes and characters from Downfall. Downfall has a little, is also disturbing, and I'd say Downfall, much more than Burnhouse Lane, much more than the Cat Lady, Downfall is a horror game. It is scary, it is spooky, um the disturbing things that happen serve to add tension and, you know, a series of dis as feeling of dis-ease. And when they all come together, you understand exactly what the point of this game is. And again, the point of downfall is a dive into like a really strong ah symbolic dive into eating disorders and
01:15:50
Speaker
ah body dysmorphic disorder and the idea of um ah the expectations we place on women's bodies. sure um And I thought it really worked. Downfall is now my favorite Harvester Games game. um ah But again, The Cat Lady does appear in Downfall, the remake. And the hope that exists at the end of Cat Lady is absolutely destroyed, I think, i by her cameo in Downfall. ah Downfall contains the ultimate fate of the Cat Lady.
01:16:31
Speaker
Oh, okay. Interesting. I, and I'm obviously, I'm looking at the cat lady as an isolated story. Uh, you've played downfall and burn house lane. So you probably have more insight on at least the lore and world of what a harvester game is doing. And I didn't even know they have this whole big shared universe. It's, it's interesting, but okay. Sorry what you were saying. Oh no, that was it. Okay. Okay. So, but it does. So again, yeah, you can view the cat lady in isolation and I think it'll have a bit more impact. I almost would suggest everybody pick. Pick one harvester game. Yeah. Either pick one harvester game and and just enjoy it or play all of them. I would not, I would not suggest anyone play two harvesters. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I'd say either play one and stop or play all of them, because if you play one and stop, you might get something out of it. And then if you play two, honestly, every single game that I played took away yeah from my feelings about another one of the games. but Even Joe Davis's story in Cat Lady,
01:17:45
Speaker
now that I understand it, takes away from what I thought Downfall was saying. And and Cat Lady's fate in Downfall takes away from what I thought Cat Lady was saying. And again, Cat Lady and Burnhouse Lane contain each contain so many of the same disturbing elements. The stuff that I would have otherwise thought was just like, oh man, yeah, this is they're going really hard to make a point. Now it just feels to me almost like They listened to a lot like this is this is just but like they listened to a lot of new metal and then they were like all this stuff wrong. I don't think that like obviously I'm being I'm being snide. No, i i I totally get it I think that I that poses the question though right because so many
01:18:36
Speaker
I mean, even I playing the cat lady ah definitely related to some of these moments. I have the body dysmorphia and depression and yeah and and have had I'm a suicide survivor. So I did connect with some of those things. But ah it also and I want to say this too, it is okay to be shocking. when i When I write about, ah for example, my overdoses, I do write about them very directly. And it is a little shocking because it is a shocking thing. That's yeah how I felt. And it's very graphic. and And I want people to understand and feel the way I felt, or even scare people away from doing yeah what I did. I'm not afraid to scare you away because it was that shocking. It was that scary. So I'm OK with shock.
01:19:24
Speaker
But I guess I think it begs the question, are the are the writers, what are they trying to say here? Are they trying to move us with these themes or are these themes there for because they're quote, cool, like it like American History X they come across as cool or or edgy. And I'm just posing the question. I'm not like saying that as an absolute, yeah you know? We absolutely absolutely don't know. And I wanna emphasize, I like these games. I've gotten something out of each of these games. yeah um And what I'm getting out of them has changed in an unfortunate way.
01:20:03
Speaker
but has evolved into something else that's kind of cool, which is now understanding the shared universe. And now I'm into them in a different way, um but it does it has sort of taken away what um it Emotionally resonated and now I do I absolutely agree in terms of when this game when these games handled depression and BDD and suicide um and isolation and ah toxic relationships when they handle these things that all of us
01:20:34
Speaker
not all of us deal with, but most of us have come in contact with in some way. yeah um i'm also I also have fairly severe depression, never been suicidal, but I understand the impulse. um yeah And you know people who do feel that way. Absolutely. I've had very, very um i've had very very ah close encounters with people some of these things that I haven't experienced. But ah I think the shocking, like them displaying these things as shocking as they do, in Burnhouse Lane, they force you, the player, to commit the suicide um of the character. It is really jarring. That scene will stick with me for my entire life, I guarantee. um And it's really, really effective.
01:21:30
Speaker
um even get an achievement for trying not to which is very fun if you try to like leave or dig do something else it's like it's like nice try but and and it's it's again really effective and i think that is i think that is very skillful the way they do it i'm very very impressed by the realism they put in those games but then Not many of us encounter serial killers, let alone four in one building. And not many of us encounter kidnapping, let alone twice in a week. so I mean, that being said, it's kind of clear to me then that some of these themes are being used simply as horror. Kind of like, ah have you seen any of the Rob Zombie films? I have not. OK, so it's definitely
01:22:24
Speaker
and very mixed feelings about Rob Zombie's films because I like some of the horror. But as we kind of discussed, and as you kind of rattled off earlier, it has these very edgy elements to it, you know, sexual violence and But i it's not trying to make a point necessarily. I think it's there because it is horror. It is psychological horror. These are things, real things that people are afraid of. So I guess i guess in some ways, yeah if you look at all the games as a whole universe,
01:22:57
Speaker
It's like, is it an earnest? Are these earnest stories of depression slash hope? Or are these the things we we're the most afraid of psychologically, and they're being used just for a horror element, you know, And is that even right? And again, just posing the questions, is it yeah right? And and how do we how do we use the fears of hopelessness and murders and sexual violence and use it, I guess, in an earnest way, in a moving way that connects with people but doesn't put them off, that doesn't trigger them even even more, you know?
01:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, and i ah clearly I think there's earnestness here because, and I think you'll probably agree with this, the characters feel so real, right? um Yeah. And they feel so sympathetic. They feel like um you fall in love with the characters. you you identify with the characters, even though when the characters are doing things that you would never in a million years do, you still identify with what they're doing and why. um And I...
01:24:12
Speaker
I do think, so I do think there's earnestness there and I think that ah there's a lot of artistic merit in these games. um But I think, yeah, it might be mixed with some sort of maybe less sincere and less, um like I've never been a fan of say like the torture porn genre. I don't like the Saw movies. I don't like, like that stuff ah just makes me uncomfortable and, um I don't find it titillating, I don't find it, right I don't find it, I don't have the urge to ban it. Like I'm not, right I'm not tipper gore over here. I respect and defend people's right to make art about whatever they wanna make art about. um But any art that's made is opening itself up to being criticized. And my criticism of this is,
01:25:06
Speaker
is this necessary or do you just think yeah and i and i think that that that'll take away the meaning. I'm not saying, I think we're we're in agreement that we're not saying, is this a moral issue of right or wrong? Because art, yeah, art has the right to exist, and then we have the right to then criticize it. That's art. that's i That's what all art is. I'm an artist, okay? I'm an artist. Oh, really? Wow, that's so cool. Thanks, Matt. um So,
01:25:40
Speaker
ah yeah Yeah, it's interesting, because i I guess... I see. Is what you're saying, then, like that we're not taking away anyone's right to use whatever tool they want to. We're just questioning the idea of does their maybe overuse or does the... because No, that's a judgment. So does the frequency of their use subtract in some way from the...
01:26:12
Speaker
ah the point of their art. Like is it is it becoming, have they made their um message less effective by including these things that maybe feel gratuitous? right? That's and that's my fear. It's not it's not it's almost less of a moral judgment or ooh this is too this is too shocking or too edgy. It's more of a judgment of but now the meanings are are lessened because you're reused same things over and over again. It's kind of what people feel about.
Balancing Shock and Storytelling in Games
01:26:46
Speaker
ah ah Kind of what people feel about like comedy movies slash or drama movies They need to have some things in it to break it up, right? So if you don't have a serious moment in a comedy the comedy doesn't play and vice versa so I'm just wondering if these things are so reused and so Serious all the time that what is the message? What is it lost? You know, it's a little lost in the art and I'll say, you know, I I think
01:27:18
Speaker
um Again, when I played these games in a vacuum, when I played, you know, when I only played Burnhouse Lane, um I didn't feel quite this way. I felt like a little um hesitant to re recommend it to people because there was just so much intensity, but I thought it was really great. And um when my partner played cat lady, she felt the exact same way. She was like, Oh, this is intense, but like, it's really good. Yeah. um So I'll say that and I'll also add
01:27:54
Speaker
even having played these other games, even though there's some things in Downfall that um bummed me out, right? Again, like Cat Lady's story has an arc. And then in Downfall, she's almost just treated like a like a character that the the writer didn't care about. Right, which kind of sucks, because we care so much about the character in Cat Lady. you know And in Downfall, Oh, sorry, in Cat Lady, the characters from Downfall are also treated like, like they mean so much in Downfall. And then in Cat Lady, they're treated like, you know, just sort of, ah it's almost like jokes. It's almost like, oh, remember this person and what they do? Well, check this out. ah Check out what we're doing with them here.
01:28:42
Speaker
and But regardless of if we if we cut that idea out, downfall I think was the most comprehensive everything that was in it, I felt fit. um there wasn't There wasn't a moment in downfall, unlike in Cat Lady and Burnhouse Lane where I was like, well, they could have left this out. yeah um i I could have done without this, said big shit like I could have done without this baby dying or I could have done without this like this like random sexual assault that seems to have no impact on anything like I already hated that I already hated the guy who did the sexual assault I already felt bad for the person who received who is on the other end of the sexual assault I didn't need the sexual assault to see the and I'm sorry I've yelled that phrase seven times in a row but ah I didn't need that
01:29:39
Speaker
to further my understanding of the characters of the plot. um But in Downfall, I felt none of that. There was no point where I was like, ew, why is that there? Yeah. Even though it was full of the same amount of shocking and disturbing things. Yeah, and and there's only so much information we can even handle at at a certain time. like I want all of those things to be moving and shocking. I don't, I don't want to become desensitized to them in the story because they're being, being reused, you know, all the time as normal. Um, so yeah, i totally I totally get what you're saying. I even felt that way a little bit during, during the cat lady, just as an isolated game, but it was extremely compelling in the moment that I'm talking about, or was it somewhere else?
01:30:32
Speaker
ah yeah I just kind of mean in general. okay okay okay just in general um but it it's still i still felt I understand why people relate to it no matter what the writer's and intentions were. If you relate to something, you do, right? It's like if I put out a piece of art and I say it means this, but nobody takes it that way, but they take it in another way that they love, that's great. I'm glad for it. So no matter what the intention of the writer is, whether it's for shock value or they wanted to move people, people really resonated with the themes of this game. And I think that's a positive. And even shocking stuff. I mean, that can resonate with people too. ah
01:31:17
Speaker
and you know i'm not going to I'm not going to judge, right? like I don't get the appeal of the Saw movies, but I'm not gonna judge that people enjoy them. I don't get the appeal of... um yeah i like I don't get the ah appeal of the aesthetics of New Metal, like Slipknot, for example, right? like I don't get the appeal of those aesthetics, but I'm not gonna judge other people for understanding, for like... yeah being being into them. I'm sure plenty of people don't get the appeal of punk rock or the aesthetics of punk rock in the way that I do. ah In fact, I know they don't. That is the point. um so
01:31:57
Speaker
ah and i mean Speaking for like myself, I definitely get the aesthetic of horror. I like a lot of horror and I like a lot of dark macabre and spooky things. I definitely get it. But yeah, there's questions there. There's questions that I think we both have about at least in intention. And the last thing I'll say is Lorelei, I've only played the first chapter of and I am very hopeful about.
01:32:30
Speaker
Oh, good, good. I didn't I thought you were going to go a different direction with that yeah here to yeah yeah out disappointed. No, I'm very, I'm very hopeful. It starts. I mean, it it it has all the same sort of shocking stuff. So far, no serial killers, but it has um a lot of shocking and upsetting material um from the get go. Yeah. But it. it appears to be an, you know, this could change as it goes on, but it appears to be making um what seems to be like a cohesive point, and the shocking, terrible stuff um has an air of realism to it. yeah um Which is what I think when these, when Harvester Games is at its best, ah that is what it's doing, in my opinion.
01:33:20
Speaker
yeah um and but Yeah, and when it gets too horror that loses the realism, i but not necessarily like the weird dreamy gore stuff, I think that stuff's fine, but the, the you know, again, the stuff that we've talked about. yeah That is when it starts to lose me. That's, I think that's totally understandable, especially since you did play multiple games that are in the same universe. ah Yeah. I'm very impressed that they keep a cohesive universe though. Like that, that was not what I was looking for, but it was interesting to find. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I would say then I, you know, I recommend the cat lady. I recommend giving it a shot because it might resonate with you.
01:34:08
Speaker
me too i just say be careful if you've already played burha lane Yeah, yeah yeah um I'm interested to know everyone else's thoughts on these games. If you played one, if you've played all of them, if you've played only two and you're like, what? I'm i'm right interested to know what what other people thought about these games. they're definitely I keep going back to the word compelling, but I think that's the best way to put it. I at least felt compelled um to know what was happening and what was and and if there is hope. you know Absolutely. and i um How about this? We are doing a Q and&A episode soon.
01:34:49
Speaker
You will have time between when you listen to this to get in questions for our next Q and&A episode. We can set aside, if you want, Roses, we can set aside a little segment for people to tell us their interpretations of Cat Lady or other Harvester Games games. Yeah, be perfect. Because this has been a, because I imagine this is going to be a ah thing that a lot of people have very different feelings about. Yeah, I think so, yeah. and I think those, and i I also would be really interested to hear. So um if people want to write in and tell us your feelings about, we we tend to not read those when people, well, sorry, we tend to not read those out loud on the show. We read all your emails, but we tend to not read out loud on the show when you guys have um opinions about games that we've discussed. um We appreciate them.
01:35:42
Speaker
but that's not really what the Q and A episodes are for, but we'll make an exception this time because I think other voices are probably valuable. Yeah, absolutely. I definitely agree with that. Okay, cool. Yeah, let's do that. And just in case you don't listen to the end of the episode, Matt and Rose is at Gmail.com. Matt and Rose is at Gmail.com. Best email handle ever, ever conceived. It's both of us. um All right, do you have anything else to say about the Cat Lady or Harvester games? No. I think we should revisit this, like you said, after people give us our our their thoughts and we can kind of discuss it more then. And maybe by then you'll have finished the Cat Lady and I'll have finished Lorelai.
01:36:31
Speaker
Yeah. and Also, I thought you were, to i i all I almost thought you meant Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. and I'm like, there's another game called Lorelei? What are the odds? Yeah. Yeah. There's another Lorelei game. And it's not a Gilmore Girls licensed game. I was like shocked by that at first. I'm like, oh, did Harvester Games do Lorelei and the Laser Eyes? No, that's not it. They did their own. And at some point, I think in Is it in the cat lady? In one of the games you can ask the the queen of maggots what her name is and she says it's Lorelei.
01:37:12
Speaker
Okay, I don't, you can ask her what her name was. I don't remember her saying Lorelei, and maybe I just didn't get to that point yet, but I have asked her name. It might be in and might be in downfall that okay you can kind of trick her into giving you her giving you her name.
Generational Differences in Gaming Perception
01:37:27
Speaker
ah tri And she says it's Lorelei, so I'm really excited to see how this character who at the beginning of Lorelei seems very sweet and kind. who I'm interested in. I'm gonna play them out of order. Yeah, hey, me too, I did too. I mean, you did, yeah. Yeah, all right, we'll revisit this ah at some point then, and thanks for chatting with me about it, even though this was pretty heavy. Yeah, I assumed it would be, and I know the people that recommend it would would be like, yep, this is gonna be heavier stuff, but it's worth it, you know, it's worth it. That's what art is. that's Yeah, and that's what we're here for.
01:38:08
Speaker
ah diving into these games in a way that treats them like art and not just like, I don't know, the new Pac-Man. Perfect conclusion to this.
01:38:26
Speaker
did i tell you not pacman Did I ever tell you? um that the time i I've been, I recently graduated ah from to community college with a journalism associates degree, right? And I was writing ah a video game review for one of the papers. And the editor had like a strong, because I, you know, because he was also the journalism teacher, um the editor would
01:39:02
Speaker
You know, he had a strong editing hand on all of our stuff. So he would he would write his own things in our stories, which I don't think happens in like an actual newspaper. It doesn't happen on the website I write for. Right. Like the ah the editor will suggest things and say, you know, like. uh, like have me fill in the language. But anyway, so I submitted this video game review and then, um, got my edits back and sent, and, you know, and sent him my revisions. And then when I got the paper, I read my video game review and you know what he added as the first line? What's that? Video games. They're not just Pac-Man anymore.
01:39:59
Speaker
And I was like, I cannot believe you did this to me. I cannot believe you wrote the most cliche, stupidest, most trite, worst, like like you can Google the phrase video games. They're not just Pac-Man anymore. yeah And you will find 10,000 articles. ra by weird funny maybe out of touch boomers oh god uh he was not trying to be he i i was living i was like how could you have done this this is such a betrayal i can't believe you've done this i can't believe you've done this
01:40:41
Speaker
That's the best thing I've ever heard. I'm gonna title a video of that and see what happens. Video games, they're not just Pac-Man anymore. They're not just Pac-Man anymore. They've come a long way since Pac-Man. God.
Podcast Reflection and Future Plans
01:40:53
Speaker
Still hungry. Well, I think we can wrap. ah Dang, we talked about four games on this episode. Yeah. We did a good job. We did do a good job and we didn't talk for three hours. so like Hooray us. We're so good at this. We're getting really good at this now. We were already the best from episode one and now we're like the best best. Yeah, I agree. but Definitely agree. I'm sure Dave does too, our one listener. Yeah, Dave, ah thanks for listening. Tell us your thoughts on the cat lady Dave. All right, do we have anything to say as we sign off?
01:41:38
Speaker
I think we should tell people that we are doing an episode on a Dagger of Amun-Ra next week. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So if you wanna- That'll be four hours long, my friend. If you wanna play, ah if if it's been on your two playlist for a while and you wanna get up to speed before you listen to the episode, you got a week. And I've got, I think, three days to play it. All right. let's Yeah. ah I'm excited. Yeah, me too. We should also say that we are part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. Matt writes for them. So if you want to read his amazing reviews, you should yeah, you should head over there. ah They all start with video games that are not just Pac-Man anymore. They're all titled that. It's really weird.
01:42:32
Speaker
Um, yeah. And, uh, if you have, uh, questions that you want to email us, uh, Matt and roses at gmail dot.com and make sure, you know, you do all this stuff, leave us reviews, share with your friends and, uh, come on back next week. Sounds good. You know what this means, right? No. What does it mean? It means that podcasts is art. Oh, and artists suffer. That is correct.