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Episode 51 - Freddy Pharkas and Meredith Gran
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This week, Matt and Roses are joined by the first developer we ever talked about on this show, MEREDITH GRAN, the creative force behind Perfect Tides and the upcoming Perfect Tides: Station to Station. We take some time to discuss our feet before discussing art, nostalgia, and the creative decisions by – let’s face it – one of our favorite frickin’ games.
Then, we spend a LOT of time talking about a game that is FAR from our favorite: Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist. And we’re sorry*.
*we aren't
Email Us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Games Mentioned:
- Perfect Tides
- Perfect Tides: Station to Station
- The Dig
- Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist
Recommended
Transcript
Unexpected Foot Stories
00:00:00
Speaker
I dropped a bottle of paint on my foot. Oh. Oh, yeah. And now it's black and blue. I just want to let everyone know that that happened. What part of your foot got the brunt of it?
00:00:11
Speaker
Like the very top. um like Like the vein part? Yes. Yes. The vein. Yes. The vein part. That sucks. So like everything you do, you feel that vein kind of like going over every bone and thin of your body.
00:00:25
Speaker
It's like throbbing. And like, now I, now I hate this tube of paint. Why is it that heavy? What color paint was it? It was white. Okay. All right. So it if it, cause if it had been ah like swirled black and blue paint, I would have been like, actually, that's not that impressive.
00:00:41
Speaker
Like if you dropped black and blue paint and you're like, now my foot's black and blue. know, it's one of those time saver paints. Like you're doing a little bit trim. you know it's one of those timear paints like if you're doing a little bit of scram
00:00:58
Speaker
um That makes me think of, I've been having a weird foot thing. Do you guys want to hear my weird foot thing? Okay. Let's do this. Yeah, let's do it. It is the smallest thing in the world, but it's driving me crazy. It is that my second and third toes on my right feet seem to be rubbing together constantly. like Like they seem to have gotten closer.
00:01:17
Speaker
Like they developed a closer relationship and now they're annoying me at all times. I know exactly what you mean. like Like they're touching in places they didn't touch before. yeah What is happening? Is this something that happens to old How long are we talking?
00:01:33
Speaker
It's been like a week now. That's too long for it to not be true. Like I would say, you know, you were hyper aware of them touching because like you had like an ingrown nail or something before. Now, like there is definitely a physical change in your feet.
00:01:49
Speaker
Is it because we're getting older and our bones are cur like, ah our are our bones curling in together causing toe chafing? You know, old people talk about their backs and they talk about their, ah you know, their digestion. oh Oh, they don't tell you shit because they know you're not going to understand until it happens to you.
00:02:08
Speaker
Old people shut up. Like, considering how much is going on with them, they shut up around us. No one's going to care about my two toes until it happens to them.
00:02:19
Speaker
No. Well, no one. Yeah, we care. i mean, you know, you've got our you've got our captive attention here, but we do care. and Meredith, ya you got any foot issues? Yeah, do you have any like, did you drop some page on your feet? or Issues with my feet.
00:02:34
Speaker
I mean, you know, when when I was pregnant like seven, eight years ago, ah my feet did change, ah which is also like something you only find out if you like carry a baby to term is that things about your body change and sometimes they don't change back. Nothing is guaranteed to go back.
00:02:51
Speaker
um And most most likely the change is at least semi permanent. um So my feet definitely got bigger, but they did get smaller again. um but but I feel like it just helped me build acceptance, you know, that some shit's gonna change and it's probably not going to be better.
00:03:09
Speaker
And nobody's like the world simply won't care. These are my feet.
Podcast Introduction and Anniversary
00:03:14
Speaker
There's no other feet like them. oh my They may be good, they may be bad, but they're my feet. That's right. That's very sweet, Matt.
00:03:21
Speaker
um You know, we didn't have like a punchline here, but I think it's time to start the intro. But I know, this was this is a good moral, feel-good story about feet.
00:03:32
Speaker
ah We're building a philosophy here. it's This is a long-form thing. You know, an hour from now, it will come to fruition. like Guys, guys, guys, guys. Philosophete. Yeah, there you go. Fuck out here.
00:04:07
Speaker
Everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game, um also known as the Philosophete podcast, ah where we are building something about feet. Something feel good. Feet good?
00:04:18
Speaker
Feel good? No, if there's something there. With me as always, yes, Matt? No, I'm just saying, oh, with you as always, your Philosophete.
00:04:29
Speaker
What? I'm sorry. What? There is a website called philosophete.com. Oh, oh It's about feet fitness and fashion shouldn't be painful, it says. which Oh, i didn I thought you said feelussomefeet.com.
00:04:43
Speaker
That's a website, too. Wait, is that available? Because... Let's find out. Oh, no, please. Looking to register some new domains over here. Look, everybody...
00:04:56
Speaker
This is going to be an exciting episode because it's kind of like a full circle moment for the podcast.
Meet Meredith Gran
00:05:04
Speaker
um Our very first episode, we talked about a brilliant, darling little game ah ah called Perfect Tides.
00:05:15
Speaker
And now, here on episode 51, we have with us the creator of said game, artist, writer, comic book creator, video game developer, Meredith Gran. Welcome to Save Your Game. Hi, guys. Thanks for having me. and So it's like a year, like one year full circle. Yeah.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah. We've been going for over a year. We keep forgetting on on ah streaming to tell people that. Like we had our 50th episode last week. Totally didn't even regard it.
00:05:48
Speaker
We've been going over a year. I'm here to help you. But now that we've come full circle, we can go die. yeah oh Now we've fulfilled our mission. we I accept it. I accept death, whatever.
00:06:00
Speaker
we can lay down. ah Meredith, how are you? Oh, I'm doing great. It's, ah you know, spring has sprung to ah put this episode in a timeline context.
00:06:12
Speaker
It's true. i It is literally like spring today, right? and I think yeah yesterday was day one. Yeah, a couple like either yesterday, a couple days ago. Yeah. it's it's It was beautiful over here yesterday. Now it's a little cold. How is it up in Chicago, Rose's?
00:06:29
Speaker
knows honestly like last week it was 70 and then yesterday it was 35 and then the day before it was snowing so i don't know we don't have spring well i will actually be up in chicago in like a week so you better get that weather why is that matt would you like to tell the people why you will be in chicago this is his birthday it's my birthday to birthday and you come to my birth Uh, yeah. ah Can I bring six-year-old child?
00:06:59
Speaker
ah
00:07:02
Speaker
No, no, no. You would not like me to do that. I'm thinking about it. I mean, kids like kids love me. They love the tattoos. Probably get along. yeah, I know.
00:07:13
Speaker
Also a fan of video games. ah Well, that's good. Well, that's perfect. ah But they might not enjoy being around all of our raunchy friends. So, could be a problem. So, uh...
Creating 'Perfect Tides' Sequel
00:07:25
Speaker
Meredith, you've been working hard on ah the sequel to Perfect Tides, Station to Station, huh? Yes, it's intensely hard for close to ah wait, how long has it been?
00:07:41
Speaker
ah three It's been three and a half years, three years and change now. So i' am i'm coming I'm coming to the end, ah but there's there is still so much to do.
00:07:52
Speaker
Did you start working on it like right away? Yeah, like the day after I released the first game. Oh my god. It didn't even take a minute to be like, like bask in the glow. I tried but the response to the first game triggered a manic episode in me and I started writing.
00:08:11
Speaker
I wrote it very quickly and I'm still like, base like everything I'm doing is comes from that one writing session. wow Not to fan out on you too much, but like your game is often this podcast reference for things like autorship in video games. And video games having like a solid message or point to them.
00:08:38
Speaker
Perfect Tides is like this... in its gameplay in its writing in its setting in its art it all has like this cohesive uh like statement to it does that feel when you're when you're working on a sequel do you feel like a ah i know we're not the only ones to think that or to have told you that so is there any sort of uh intimidation that comes with making a sequel like
00:09:09
Speaker
this also like, I can't, I also have to live up to this thing. Or is it just like, I'm just going to make another game. Hopefully people like it. but Well, thank you for saying that. That's really lovely. um What a lovely thought to be so cool and not be tormented over, ah you know, how your game will be regarded.
00:09:30
Speaker
um I will say that, like, when it comes to ah the story, i ah i do feel pretty strongly that I once again have something to say. I'm approaching this with strong intent, like the last game.
00:09:44
Speaker
um I will say that it it causes me more anguish to be making what I see as more a more designed game this time around. i think I was actually a little bit more free from ah from that concern the first time around because...
00:09:59
Speaker
I knew so little about making a game that there really wasn't any pressure to make a good game. I was really just trying to live up to my own expectations. And ah now that I am unfortunately cursed with the knowledge of what makes a game good or bad, i do feel a little bit more pressure to, and you know, to make something that is ah that has intent in that way.
00:10:22
Speaker
And yeah, it remains to be seen how people will receive that. two We were talking to Dave Gilbert ah about ah about Perfect Tides, actually, a couple episodes ago, because we were talking about nostalgia and how it can be a thing that holds art back or it can be a tool that people
Nostalgia in Game Art and Storytelling
00:10:45
Speaker
use. And i think so in Perfect Tides 1, you're talking, you're, you're story was about a very specific time in a person's life and also specific time in history.
00:11:00
Speaker
And that's what made like the pixel art of it all feel so ah relevant. Right. Do you, did you have any thoughts about like the art style as you, as like you're, you're making a sequel that is in the future and she's growing up as a different time period. Did you think about like the art style Um, I gave that some consideration. I mean, I would say like the art style of the first Perfect Tides and then like by extension, the second one.
00:11:31
Speaker
I don't know if it's really in line with the time period I'm writing about ever. um When you know, when we start in the year 2000, feel like the art I'm making is already kind of something from like the early ninety s And ah for me, that is, you know, I suppose that's that's nostalgic in sort of a different way where, um you know, I'm I'm writing about ah I'm writing about myself, but I feel smaller than I am. I feel younger than I am.
00:11:59
Speaker
And ah my my most innocent thoughts are more innocent and more juvenile than they than they were then. Like, I feel like every, every step of it is almost an exaggeration of, of, ah you know, how I feel and how I feel that I felt.
00:12:15
Speaker
And it just reaches back and reaches back. And I think that makes for like something that, you know, aesthetically is a little bit arbitrary. um I think, you know, if I was going to make a game that actually was set ah aesthetically in the year 2000, the characters would be in I was just going to say it would be ugly. It would have to be that very like Gabriel Knight 3, you know, post Grim Fandango.
00:12:42
Speaker
i It was also popular. I mean, I guess Mario 64 was one of the major proponents, but yeah. a welldraw A well-drawn face clumsily wrapped around five hit polygons.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yep. Yes. And and none of the characters speak. um So i you know I don't know that I cherry picked. actually think the first game aesthetically is is quite um ah ah loyal to ah a certain period of time in gaming, but it is not the period of time that that the game is about.
00:13:15
Speaker
i have to say, like i when I played Perfect Tides, I didn't really connect that to the time. just really appreciate the aesthetic because it reminded me of your comic style. It also reminded me a little bit of Willie Beamish, which I like. I have such a soft spot for that kind of cartoony, full color saturation type of artwork. But I feel like I didn't connect it with the year 2000 because mostly I was in my feels about, you know, being on AOL or AIM, whichever one, you know, you were using at the time and ah chat rooms and and little romances online. And that's, yeah, that's, oh, god it makes me makes me sad and wistful.
00:14:02
Speaker
Well, I think maybe that's where i can I connect the two, maybe like you're saying, from ah not necessarily from the time. ah now that um Now that you're saying that, maybe it's more just like if you were a person of that age,
00:14:19
Speaker
at that time, you would have grown up with games like this. But that'll be true of her if you made a game ah when she's 70 in the year 2050.
00:14:31
Speaker
That's true. Maybe I will. I'll have to collect some research first, but that sounds like a good idea. Yeah, I mean, i have the feeling nostalgia is going to come up quite a bit just, ah you know, ah between ah ah this conversation and Freddy Farkas. And, um ah you know, I i think ah there there is something like a little bit insidious about nostalgia and and and then inherently a lie about it.
00:15:01
Speaker
And ah when i you know when I decided to write a period piece about being a certain age and a certain time, i I did not want to lean on the things that I thought was a lie. I actually wanted to um go back and and face those things and and speak about them frankly. um And I feel like that's that actually ends up being sort of an anti-nostalgia, even though it does inspire nostalgia in people.
00:15:28
Speaker
Um, what, what I'm looking to pull out of people is something true about that time, not something, you know, maybe I am looking to pull the lie out, but I'm, I'd like to analyze it. I'd like to examine it a little bit and see its facets. I don't want to just look at, you know, as we have now been seeing more and more as millennials ease into middle age, very recently.
00:15:51
Speaker
um You know, the oil painting of of two children playing in a basement, in a warm basement, and and everything's right and everything makes sense. And, ah you know, if you have any actual, if you if you ah yeah are not totally refusing to confront any actual memories of that time, you know that's not really what it was like.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah. yeah So, ah you know, I kind of like I'm kind of at odds with nostalgia, even as the nostalgia may be something that sent me on this journey to begin with.
00:16:23
Speaker
Well, I love that because nostalgia can for a lot of a lot of people and in a lot of media, unfortunately, be very thoughtless. Right. It can be very much just like, ah oh, this is something you're like relying on old tricks or like this is something that I liked back in the day. And so I'm just going to do that.
00:16:42
Speaker
um Relying on like, ah I'm just going to try to make this as much like the thing that I used to like
Game Reviews in Media
00:16:49
Speaker
as possible. But you are, you know, again, like you said, you're approaching it from the opposite place, like an incredibly thoughtful place.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah. which is And I thought, yeah, I thought it was very ah successful in that way, because when I go back and think about, ah yeah you know, wistfully about being on the computer and and chatting with people, it's not it's not that that made me want to do it again.
00:17:13
Speaker
it didn't. You know, that that is a time in my life that is over. ah But it did make me very thoughtful and. made me think about those times and when my dad was still with us. So I think, you know, Dave Gilbert and I, we talked a lot about like intentional writing and and and being intentional with things. so I think that's intentional nostalgia. It's not nostalgia just because yay, pixel art and yay AOL. well I think there is a ah bigger message there. so There's a quest in that in your game, Meredith, where Mara has to ah like she just like go on a dangerous mission to secretly restore her own internet.
00:17:54
Speaker
And i I did that, right? like i i i At one point, I had like an old-ass computer in my room, and I somehow got my hands on a modem...
00:18:06
Speaker
like an old modem and I installed it stalled I learned how I taught myself how to install a modem into my computer and then I ran a phone like a phone splitter and secret phone line through my basement and up through my floor so that I could get on the internet late at night wow and not knowing and they never knew that's so cool yeah i my mom would like to try to steal like my mouse away But I had extra mice in my drawers. Come now. Get some keyboard shortcuts. yes Yeah. And then they tried to take the keyboard and I also had an extra keyboard. So I would just hook those up. And, you know, before they woke up, I would slide it back into my drawer like nothing happened.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, that was um that was something i I tried to touch on in the game, too, is the idea that, like, during this period ah where the Internet was like this, there was also such a huge gap in understanding between us and our parents that like our parents didn't know what we were doing on there. Not really.
00:19:04
Speaker
And yeah that meant that if they tried to get us away from it, we had ways of figuring out how to get back on that they wouldn't even consider. Yeah. yeah Yeah. oh If they knew what I was doing online, i would be banned forever. ah Fun times, I think.
00:19:23
Speaker
So... ah Greatly looking forward to... um perfect tides uh station to station and um but why don't we talk about okay first before we talk about what we're here to discuss today i mean have uh either of you guys been playing any uh video games lately No, no, because I've been considering, ah this is for, you know, you guys and and the listeners only been considering doing a couple game review videos for YouTube, which is not something I do very often anymore. so I've been having some ideas floating around in my brain, but I will not say what they are. You will just have to wait. That's cool. I, I, I think like,
00:20:14
Speaker
We need more long form considered reviews of games. it It really bums me out kind of looking at the current landscape and wondering if anybody is going to talk at length about what I do or what yeah people I admire do.
00:20:29
Speaker
And I think, you know, videos and reviews are very time consuming and difficult to find any sort of like, you know, a publication that that is willing to pay for that sort of thing.
00:20:45
Speaker
And it really is a labor of love, much like the games that, you know, enjoy modest sales, if that. ah So I think that's wonderful to hear.
00:20:57
Speaker
It's certainly diminished returns. Let's just say that, you know, and that's why I pivoted my channel to doing, you know, other things I love talking about Murder, She Wrote. And I also had, and I've talked about this, I think at length and other episodes, but I had a bad experience in the gaming community that kind of drove me away a little bit, but every now and then, you know, especially if I want to champion, you know, an indie adventure game every now and then something will really hit me and I'll want to, you know, do a deep dive and,
00:21:25
Speaker
That's why we kind of started this podcast, right, Matt? Yeah. Yeah, because I i love doing long form reviews. And I just love talking about video games on a level beyond just like, oh, wasn't that wasn't that cool? yeah um And writing reviews for ah adventure gamers and then adventure game hotspot,
00:21:47
Speaker
It scratched that itch to an extent, but like like you said, Meredith, it's a lot of work, right? It is a lot of work. takes a long time to write those reviews and then edit those reviews and to consider every angle. and ah when i'm writing when I'm writing reviews, I try to avoid any other media about that game.
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah. it affects your life. Like, you're you're you're creating. You're cooking. Yeah. Yeah, and that's why some... Like, my Thousand ah thousand X Resist video review went up roughly nine months after the game taped. Yeah. yeah Like, when you're doing video review, sometimes sometimes the worst part is playing it for work, because you...
00:22:33
Speaker
You try to play it without a walkthrough, you know, to get, ah you know, to get a good sense of it. ah But if the game is hard, you're going to get stuck. And i have hours upon hours, like hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage of just video games on my hard drive. And that makes it tough, you know?
00:22:51
Speaker
And God forbid you miss something because the audience will come at you and be like, can't believe you didn't see that one pixel. yeah But, you know, I think it's it's cool also to review things late. I think, you know, we're all so swept up in this idea that like something comes out and it dies on the vine like a week after it's out.
00:23:12
Speaker
And, ah you know, I've i've ah I've I've struggled with that mentality myself. And I've realized that, you know, when something is made, it's out there and it's made for good. And ah I think, ah you know, there's nothing that makes me happier than seeing people appreciate things later on. um It tells me that.
00:23:32
Speaker
the The work is still potent and and there's still something more to say about it. And, ah you know, it it it doesn't need to be this thing that everybody experiences at the exact same time. That's, ah you know, that's for the that's what the publishers would like. But yeah yeah, I just yeah, it's it's not necessary for for us to enjoy things that way.
00:23:53
Speaker
and Yeah. and talking About them. I reviewed the majority of the games I did review, what, they're from the 90s and 80s. So I'm definitely not, like, these are very old adventure games.
00:24:06
Speaker
Though there is there is that that time in the middle, right, between when something has become a classic or something has become, you know, an old, quote unquote, older game. game, yeah. And when it's a new game, there's this maybe period of what 10 years in the middle where it is kind of gauche to yeah to re like revisit it is like yeah it's not old enough yet and it's not new enough and no one care no one cares like if i if i made I made a video about Pal World now
00:24:39
Speaker
so ah but yeah anyway and it is Meredith what you're saying about ah you You mentioned briefly, that's what the publishers would like. And I do think that is, i think, I complain about this a lot on the show, actually, is this idea of um how deeply capitalism has sort of wormed its way into the culture of people who like art, people who are fans of things.
00:25:11
Speaker
um And there's, so much like it's almost like we all have to be industry monitors rather than just fans of a thing for its artistic merit like uh there's it seems like people feel compelled these days to see like oh will this sell and oh did this like how is this thing doing on the market and i could not care less about that. I care about what a piece of art is saying.
00:25:39
Speaker
is just like this mind rot that is seeped in from, I guess, investor culture or something. I don't know. Sure. Yeah. Oh, go ahead.
00:25:52
Speaker
i was going to say we we kind of touched on that with, you know, Dave Gilbert in our last episode and kind of the pressures and putting out deadlines and, you know, pleasing your higher ups. And it's it's got to be so tough because this is still, especially in the indie world, this is art.
00:26:07
Speaker
You know, I know you're I know you're creating a product, too. I'm an artist, so I create art and I create a product. But man, it's just so the pressure is on sometimes, you know.
00:26:17
Speaker
who Well, I just, you know, i when I when I think higher ups, like, you know, it's just like the guy upstairs, you know, that's the only higher up for me. You know, I, you know, for me, just like my my belief that, you know, ah art is art is worth living for and and it makes life great. And ah ah saying things the way I want to say them is the most important part.
00:26:42
Speaker
And on a daily basis, I don't get to actually ah ah think about that because i i need to make choices that are going to make this game come out so that I can move on with my life. And and i I want to, you know, in that time, I want to make sure as many people as possible know about it so that I can feel like I gave it my best shot.
00:26:59
Speaker
But ah ultimately, when when the dust settles, I would be I would only be disappointed in myself if I didn't do the thing that I wanted that I thought was absent from the world and that I could possibly add to the world.
00:27:15
Speaker
um So, you know, I really do try to like. keep my eyes on that and and remind myself that like any anything else, like when it comes to marketing, you know, I can I can look back and say, like, here's what I did wrong. Here's where I missed the mark or whatever.
00:27:29
Speaker
But ah ah honestly, that stuff like that stuff gets written retroactively, you know, like like nobody is following. Nobody follows the Ballotro playbook expecting their game to be a hit.
00:27:41
Speaker
And it would, you know, it would be ridiculous to do so. um It's, it's a, it's, it's kind of like this mythologizing we do that we look at something that's a hit, and we try to tear down every detail about it and figure out why it succeeded.
00:27:54
Speaker
But ah you can't make anything out of that, like you can't make anything great out of that or worthwhile. So I really try not to focus on that. And I, I think anyone who does is ah they're really fooling themselves. At best, they're going to generate something safe out of that.
00:28:11
Speaker
ah they're They're never going to create this thing that, you know, to me, we were put on earth to create. um And, you know, our weird freak vision that only we can only we can convey.
Adventures with Meredith Gran
00:28:24
Speaker
yeah ah tell me ah Tell me about it. um feel very inspired right now. Oh, man. You hit both of them, Roses. I'm an artist, and I feel very inspired. know. I got both of them in there. You got both of them into this segment. I don't know if you're an artist. don't know if you were aware. also got Chicago in here. So, man, you're batting 1,000 today.
00:28:50
Speaker
I don't want to... Before we... before we um move on to our next segment. i don't i just ah I don't want to um deprive you of the ability to answer if if there's anything you've been playing, Meredith, that you want to wanted to mention.
00:29:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah. um Let's see. Other than Freddy Farkas, I have been playing a little bit of The Dig. oh Oh, the kid! Classic. Yeah. um it's the It's the only LucasArts game that I played as a kid.
00:29:21
Speaker
i think i played it when I was like 12 13. Wait, you played like the hardest LucasArts game as a kid? and the most obscure one. Yeah. Yeah, no. i I mean, every game I had was a game that like, you know, while I was at Caldor with my mom, it would be like discounted. And I, yeah you know, I would grab the cheap adventure game.
00:29:41
Speaker
And ah ah so every every adventure game I played was years old. And, ah you know, ah the world had already left it behind to some extent.
00:29:52
Speaker
um And I became very obsessed with the dig. And in in my house, you know, we didn't we never called the hint lines because like we'd never get permission to do that. but it was mostly like me and my brother would just ah play the game for months or years. And one of us would like make a breakthrough and be like, yo, you can click that.
00:30:11
Speaker
and And that would just, you know, that would just set the whole thing in motion again. And we forget about it again. And it took us probably like two years to beat the dig. And, um, I remember like after I beat The Dig, and i was i was i was a young teenager and I was at the height of obsession with The Dig.
00:30:29
Speaker
And ah I was in a grocery store and I saw the novelization of The Dig there. oh And that was like the greatest day of my life. That was the day when I actually felt like I had made something exist with my mind. was...
00:30:46
Speaker
It has never quite happened like that again. yeah Amazing. Oh, you must have been so excited. ah Yes. Oh, yeah. devoured that. so see yeah I remember banging my head against that turtle puzzle for so, so long.
00:31:01
Speaker
Oh yeah, no, it's it's unbearable. It's tough. Yeah, ah very hard game. It's got like ah it's got like um ah the 2D, look, we can do 2D animation too, kind of like CD-ROM era of adventure game art.
00:31:17
Speaker
um You know, not super different from King's Quest 7. And I feel like i kind of I kind of took that with me a little bit when I did my own like cutscene animation and stuff like this idea that like you can have like a slightly cooler looking close-up version of your characters um even though like some of that cutscene artwork is like a bit cringe to me now but i actually love that about it um I I actually love um but Me and my brother talk about like old crappy things like this. And we we use this word Krundus for things like that, where it's like, that's, that's pretty Krundus. But like, what you're saying is like, it's actually kind of good because you know that it was made by like one person. Like, for instance, like, like the echoey voices in King's Quest 5 are really Krundus. They're terrible.
00:32:09
Speaker
oh They went through the office with a microphone were just like, hey, can you do this guy's voice? And they're like, thank you for buying a pie. They're not even consistently the same type of bad.
00:32:21
Speaker
Sometimes you're in like a tin can place. Sometimes it's all crunchy. I love love it. yeah I love it. And I really do think that that instilled a belief in me, even though I didn't understand how games were made.
00:32:34
Speaker
It made me think, okay, well, like nothing has to be like perfect in this. You can just make something with whatever you have and you can convince people that it's real. You can breathe life into it, you know? Yeah. yeah Well, that is, i think that, uh, really,
00:32:52
Speaker
ah is You can see that really strongly in the, especially the humor of the game we're talking about today. oh my God. is It's clearly, it's such an extension of what one guy thinks is funny. yeah and just Maybe two. Maybe two. have some thoughts on that. maybe Oh, interesting. Okay.
00:33:16
Speaker
um But I think, why don't we first, first
00:33:23
Speaker
Since you suggested it, Meredith, why don't you tell everybody what what we what we played, what we're going to be talking about today?
Exploring 'Freddy Farkas'
00:33:30
Speaker
ah All right. So we're playing the DOS classic, Freddy Farkas, Frontier Pharmacist.
00:33:37
Speaker
is It came out in 1993, published by Sierra. And it was written by ah Al Lowe, the humor games writer behind the Leisure Suit Larry series.
00:33:50
Speaker
yeah um And I played this game once again, you know, founded in a bargain bin in Caldor in the in the ninety s And ah it it has remained ah an object of great fascination to me for many, many years. um I would absolutely say that, like, look, I'm not going to recommend that you run out and grab it. But I will say that ah if you like Perfect Tides, you will find some direct lines from that game to my game.
00:34:19
Speaker
um And yeah, I haven't honestly, I haven't played through the whole thing in a while. And ah there're there were places where I was quite surprised with what I saw. yeah And I'm very eager to talk about it. oh Yes. Okay.
00:34:34
Speaker
That's a great little teaser. Why don't we play some? Hold on. Let me bring up my table. Why don't we play some ah Sunky Saucerino? would that even possibly mean? Sunky Saucer. I like it And we'll come back and we'll talk about Freddy Farkas, Frontier Pharmacist.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeehaw!
00:35:14
Speaker
everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. I am one of your hosts, Pushing Up Roses, and with me, as always, the very strong, the very energetic, ah special boy Matt Aukamp. Hi Matt!
00:35:27
Speaker
Hey, i sorry, give me a second, I gotta put down this 700 pound weight. Wow, oh wow, he's touching 700, amazing. Yeah, well I was holding it up the whole intro.
00:35:39
Speaker
You're just doing that because Meredith's here. You're just trying to impress our guests. Yeah, I'm like, man, what what what pull are you doing there, man? Is that deadlift? I yeah and don't know what that means. Oh, God.
00:35:56
Speaker
um Yeah, with us is ah Meredith Gran. Thank you for joining us, Meredith. And thank you for the... ah we When we have guests on our show, we do like to leave it up to them to pick the game that we're talking about.
00:36:10
Speaker
And Meredith chose... There was a couple on board, is as far as I'm aware. You had suggested Freddy Farkas and I think King's Quest V. Is that correct? ah Laura Bow 2 was the other one I suggested.
00:36:23
Speaker
Oh, Dagger. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's what I've I think we've already talked about it in depth, but I'll talk about it more. Okay. It's your favorite. Okay.
00:36:34
Speaker
You're doing anything to not talk about Freddy's like this. I'm sorry. You know, why would you guys do this to me? Why would you bring this back into my life? and Okay.
00:36:47
Speaker
Initial. my Okay. I'm just going to say my initial overall feeling. Okay. kind liked it. I kind of liked this game. kind of enjoyed it. I think that's very fair.
00:36:58
Speaker
i think a lot of people, ah you know, tying back to our conversation prior, it's very nostalgic for a lot of people. And this is also peak Sierra. This is gorgeous artwork.
00:37:10
Speaker
They had their lip sync technology. So all the characters are speaking and, ah The guy who plays Freddy Farkas, amazing voice actor. He played Liquid Snake in Metal Gear Solid. And his his ah list of roles is is very vast.
00:37:25
Speaker
So I can see why people like it. His list of roles is too vast. i was yeah I was, the whole game, i was like, I know this voice. And I know it in this cadence.
00:37:37
Speaker
yeah Like, I know he did this sort of, like, goofy, heroic character somewhere else. And I couldn't piece ah place it. So it's like, oh, when I get to the end of the game, I'll just look him up online and all yeah I'll realize where I know him from.
00:37:54
Speaker
He's got such a long list of credits. Yeah. In every medium, like anime dubbing, movies, television, video games. I couldn't figure it out. I still don't know where I've heard this. Like this voice was so familiar to me and I don't know where it's from. It'll come to you.
00:38:11
Speaker
but I don't know if if I play the game again, which I probably won't. Oh, I'm sorry. ahead. I was just going to say, I'll be no help when it comes to the voice acting. I played this as a text based game when I was a kid and I sort of like insist on keeping it that way. Whenever I revisit it, I, you know, I have, I have their voices in my head and I find that anything, anything else would be a disruption to that.
00:38:37
Speaker
which is you know one of those insidious little nostalgia things we're thinking of. I totally understand and relate to that because I played Callahan's Crosstime Saloon just off of, I downloaded it from Home of the Underdogs. And of course it was not, you know, the CD-ROM version. It was not voiced.
00:38:54
Speaker
and And part of me still likes that because I, you know, yeah i hear their voices. i I made them up myself, you know? Yes. So my copy, I couldn't get the text text, I couldn't get like the text to come up and work.
00:39:08
Speaker
So this is my question for you, Meredith. How... How familiar familiar are you with the racism in this game?
00:39:18
Speaker
All right. If you can't hear voices. Well, I mean, look, it still comes across if you're worried. In case you were worried, it's there. Yeah, no don't worry. um i mean It's subtle, but it's there. It's definitely an extra layer of of racism that I i've realized halfway through playing it, like, Oh, I bet they're playing it with voices and they're getting like, they're just getting it screamed in their faces. Like the wind is blowing on them as they're getting it.
00:39:48
Speaker
um Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of racist caricatures in this game that are totally indefensible. I, yeah you know, I will defend a lot of things. There is nothing to defend in that area with this game. um You know, the game is like, you know, it's it's misogynist in this particular way that like they kind of correctly assume that a woman is never going to play the game. um There are jokes about sheep fucking. oh yeah. Yeah.
00:40:18
Speaker
there And, i you know, I think, like, a lot of the time when people remember Freddy Farkas fondly, as they remember a lot of things fondly, they're not remembering to the full extent these things about it.
00:40:30
Speaker
And, you know, it's like, the it's one of these insidious things about nostalgia where, like, you know, when you when you start to, like, combine nostalgia with, like, ah you know, an academic approach to...
00:40:45
Speaker
to old games and old things in the form that you're interested in. ah You get a lot of people who like, who like to collect racist memorabilia. You know, like you get, you get like people who are like real freaks about stuff like this.
00:40:59
Speaker
um And I think it's like, it's actually important to like confront what these games actually are and, and be clear-eyed about them when we talk about them. um because i will admit that when I suggested this game, I did not know just how much I would be subjecting you guys to suggesting it.
00:41:18
Speaker
You know, I think it's trying really hard to do kind of a Blazing Saddles-esque thing. It's trying to... I think subvert racism by being racist, which we i think we can all agree doesn't work um and it doesn't it doesn't land.
00:41:34
Speaker
And so, ah Meredith, you mentioned that, you know, all Al Lowe was the main writer. He wrote this game and designed this game with Josh Mandel, who I want to say he's the voice of King Graham in King's Quest V. He is the King Graham, as we know King Graham to be.
00:41:50
Speaker
i I have always thought that Josh Mandel was a very good writer, very, very funny. And so there are times in this game where I think the narration is just very funny and it's very cutesy. It's got it kind of wobbles back and forth between kind of this innocent punny humor and and then the humor of Lowe where everything is a fart joke or a boner joke. You know what I mean? Yeah.
00:42:17
Speaker
Al-Lo thinks a couple things are incredibly funny. Like, he cannot get enough of ah
00:42:25
Speaker
accents that are not purely American. Yeah. That's, like, his favorite thing in the whole world. yeah um ah Puns.
00:42:36
Speaker
Everything is a pun. Everyone's name. and Like, let's let's just throw it out there. Helen back. Helen back. Yes. Yes. Yeah. yeah h balance. alex Yes. Which I didn't know. i I don't know they don't say that till the end or I didn't catch it till the end. But that's one of my last things I know. Oh, PH balance. That's kind of. yeah Yeah.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah. and That one struck me as funny for some reason. I don't know why I can't defend it. I do like those. There are funny moments in this game. you know it's it's got that again It's got that old Western thing where it's clearly kind of criticizing some of the things of you know past, or at least how we interpret you know Western things.
00:43:19
Speaker
And I do think there is some clever writing in there. I yeah tribute that yeah yeah i attribute that to to Josh Mandel. I think I do think it's very ah wordy. i I couldn't remember exactly how long-winded the narration is, but i'm I'm like looking at a barrel, right?
00:43:35
Speaker
There's like a five-paragraph essay. um i will say I will say one of my favorite lines in that game is when you like try to touch the barrel and it's like, no, Freddy, Thursday is your day in the barrel. yeah I just like...
00:43:51
Speaker
you know my favorite line is it's so stupid i i laughed out loud it's when the blacksmith goes into the pharmacy and he's like hey farkas my butt hurts and i'm like i don't know why this is very funny the sprite is clinging to his butt which is a nice visual touch um but one of my favorite lines in this game uh you cross this bridge to get to the anthill and every single time you cross no matter which direction you go a piece of wood falls off and it says oh gosh if you do this again you may only have three crossings left
00:44:30
Speaker
Like every single time it says the exact same thing. And, ah you know, i do think like stuff like this was definitely, I think, well, I've read all those design document of this game. So I know that that was his.
00:44:43
Speaker
And ah I think the game does seek to fuck with you in ways that are like specific to like this time period that like games had not really presented you with like these particular subversions before.
00:44:57
Speaker
So it's like if you like, if you like adventure games, if you like puzzles, ah you're going to love this. We're going to really mess with you and give you some things you don't expect. What do you guys think of the... This was an interesting mechanic to me when I first found Freddy Farkas. There's a little bit of ah a, let's call it like a management, where you have to use the pharmacy to actually fill prescriptions. And I'd never seen that in an adventure game prior to playing this.
00:45:25
Speaker
I loved it, right? Like oftentimes when they have this in games, it is simply a copy protection thing. And that might have been how it was sold to Sierra as like, oh, this is just a bit of copy protection. But it is the main thrust of huge chunks of the game and is people will talk about their problems. You have to yeah Or the town will be going through a problem. You have to yeah diagnose it in ah the manual that has all the... Prescription?
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, well, yeah, it has all the prescriptions, like how to make the medicine, but it also has like ah symptoms and what medicines are effective. i I like that a lot. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:11
Speaker
I absolutely love the pharmacy mechanic. um And again, like very formative for me. I i did rip it off in perfect times with the photo development. Okay. Okay. I just, I love, I love the measuring. I love the cross-referencing of a book, which is also very entertaining.
00:46:33
Speaker
Yeah. um Like the book itself, ah they, they put a lot of effort into making something funny that is actually worth reading. And, ah you know, if there's if there's something there that I'm nostalgic for, it's this idea that this book would be a separate part of the game that is also a component of the game.
00:46:49
Speaker
um And I agree with what you say, Matt, that it probably did just originate as a ah copy protection idea. But to me, it is it is so foundational to the enjoyment of that game um to do the pharmacy. Yeah.
00:47:02
Speaker
Even if it was copyright, yeah, this was one of the more enjoyable ways to do copyright. yes i One of my favorite games is King's Quest III. And people don't like that game because of the copyright. It's it's very similar. You get a book of spells you know instead of a book of like symptoms and and medicines.
00:47:21
Speaker
But I found it really novel. Just like it you know like you guys find in Freddy Farkas. It's like going to this book of spells. Yeah. Like looking up the ingredients and typing in exactly what you need to type in and all the incantations. i actually really enjoyed that.
00:47:38
Speaker
It's not as entertaining in King's Quest 3, though, as it is in Freddy Farkas. It ties in, I think, a little bit better. Well, yeah. I mean, I think you would call that part of this game. I think nowadays you would say this is like an adventure and like simulation. Yeah, i like life sim. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It has like a so like has like a simulated...
00:48:00
Speaker
pharmacy mechanic, right? like i think that's like that's I always find that really cool in games where it's almost like you can sort of pretend like you're a detective, pretend like you're
00:48:16
Speaker
But yeah, I do want to go back to, I'm sorry that we're going back to this, but I want to go back to the thing that you said, Rose, is about um whether or not ah Al Lowe's intentions here were to be...
00:48:33
Speaker
you know, anti-racist by being racist, right? Like this idea, this like, think this particularly Gen X. Yeah. it's this particularly Gen X approach where it's like, oh, if we if we give these stereotypes, if we use them, they will it will remove their power, right? And I do think that all of the characters in this game are equally as respectable and equally as dumb, right?
00:49:00
Speaker
And I think that is intentional. I think like, ah Serenity the and this was a pun the Indian sidekick yeah ah voiced by a white man of course it was yeah horrible um Indian accent and anyway it's um Well, actually, Pakistani, right? He eventually says he's Pakistani. he Eventually he does, yeah.
00:49:25
Speaker
um It's... I think there is a thing where... I like i don't think Al Lowe's a racist. I think maybe possibly Al Lowe's not even sexist, right? i think I think he thinks it is...
00:49:39
Speaker
just how you make a joke. Right. And I think, I think Gen X really, I'm sure we could pull many more examples of this. I think Gen X thinks that if they make it funny, that gives it, you know, some levity and, and makes it better. Like, you know, I think. No, I'm just kidding.
00:49:59
Speaker
Yeah. You know i think today, obviously, we know that just because you're trying to make something funny, it doesn't mean that it's not offensive. But I think there was a time, ah you know, you see that in Dagger of Amon Ra, too. I think it's lesser than Freddy Farkas. But it's like if we just kind of make the character funny and maybe even likable, then that kind of makes it OK if we make them stereotypical because it's but it's a quote joke.
00:50:26
Speaker
He thinks what's funny is that you can't speak English good. You think yeah that's what's funny about it. but yeah But I do, i do again, like and I think this was the case in Leisure Suit Larry, too. I think those games are really misogynist, but I think he is trying to make some sort of point about...
00:50:44
Speaker
um oh, and being this way is actually bad, and C will show it to you. And, ah oh, the women in this game, even though they are purely here as sex objects, they all have ah some sort of agency that even Larry doesn't always possess. And it's like, okay, I can kind of see, but, like, also every woman in the game is a sex object. like And yeah it's the same in this game, too, except for maybe, like...
00:51:12
Speaker
one or two women, like the rest are prostitutes or love interests. I think in that way, though they that those games have potential or did have potential. I could see Freddy Farkas being a good game.
00:51:24
Speaker
I'm not saying it's a bad game because it is a good quality game. There's just those problematic elements to it. I don't always like every single puzzle either. got to say, there's a puzzle that I got stuck on it as a kid. It's the horse's flatulence puzzle.
00:51:42
Speaker
I could not believe, and I grew up on Sierra games, that they put in a puzzle trying to stop horse flatulence from poisoning the town. And if you don't get it in time, you just die. i that was for Even for me, you know, a Sierra apologist and defender, I was like, no, I can't.
00:52:02
Speaker
And, you know, as a kid, so I'm just... I don't care about spoilers for older games. Just FYI, we can speak candidly about this. Sure. The solution to the game was pretty clever. You know, you're using charcoal to diffuse kind of the the um the fumes of it. You make like a charcoal mask.
00:52:20
Speaker
But as a kid, I'm like, what? don't know what that is. There is zero way you could have solved that without a walkthrough. i like, okay, maybe, ah well, I guess Meredith did, did you when you were? Yeah. Yeah. Me and my brother puzzled through it. It it took a while.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah. We were stuck on that. Yeah. Did you think it through or just combine everything? Well, we looked in, we looked in the, the, ah the manual and it says, you know, how to deal with flatulence. Oh, And, uh, yeah, no. And I mean, we definitely like somebody figured out that you could put the bag on the the horse's ass and get a fart. And, uh, and then like, you could look up the fart. Well, but that, that part I get like that part I solved, but it's the gas mask that I'm wondering how you guys solved.
00:53:05
Speaker
How did we solve that? I think we might've started. Yeah. How did we get... Well, because you go over to... If you go over to Smithy's, you collect every component you need for it.
00:53:17
Speaker
ah And you've almost certainly already collected the ice pick and the yeah the ah ah the tin can. yeah Right. So, like, you get everything you need in that moment.
00:53:28
Speaker
So, ah you know, right away we... you know we've we at the beginning of the game, you just start trying to combine those items. So you figure out that you can make holes and then you figure out you can, you can put the belt on the, on the can now full of holes.
00:53:41
Speaker
And then you just got the, chart the charcoal. So may as well try putting that in the can. We were definitely not thinking about the gas mask, but we were like, and you know, that's like, but that's the problem with a lot of these games is you basically just kind of have to be somebody who's willing to combine everything and see what happens. Yeah. So it doesn't really feel like you're problem solving in that moment. It feels like you're wasting time. At least, you know, at least with that, it's like you said, you already, you probably already have some of the inventory and now there's only so much inventory you can even use. So you can get there, you know, through just process of elimination.
00:54:16
Speaker
But I just remember being so upset but I was younger. I'm just like, I just don't understand. The time-based puzzles are very stressful. They are stressful. And really didn't like that as kid either.
00:54:27
Speaker
But the one puzzle that I hate in this game that I truly, truly despise is ah lassoing the top of the puzzle. The water supply tank.
00:54:39
Speaker
Yes. I think it is super unfair that they make you retrieve the ladder from a ah spent background that you're not using anymore. ah The ladder, which, by the way, is really it's really annoying that you can just take the ladder from the playground. Yeah.
00:54:56
Speaker
I think, oh yeah. yeah but you like you walk literally across the the entire map to get the ladder you bring it back you put it up there and then you spend like thirty minutes dying trying to lasso the water's supply which by the way like once you if you're going to do that where you have to pull up the ladder and then use it again at least stop the clock because the players already figured out how to fix this Yeah, the timer is still running out as you're standing there after climbing up the ladder, trying to lasso the top, trying to pixel hunt. They did not even take the top bar out. So you hover over the top where you're supposed to click and you're fighting with the menu screen to click the thing that you need to click.
00:55:36
Speaker
That's true. Yeah, unbearable. And then, yeah, you got to pull the ladder up and climb up again and then you can get it. But it is so like I was sitting there doing it the other day. Just like you have to be kidding me. You've got to be kidding me. This is so stupid.
00:55:51
Speaker
You to know what's ridiculous, though? Like there's so much. had to look at a walkthrough for most of this game. I got through the first act without a walkthrough and was like, oh, wow, I think I might be soaring through. And there was zero other act that went through without a walkthrough. Like you had texted me and you're like, kind of like this game. And I'm like, no.
00:56:09
Speaker
But ah I got up the, I did get up the water tower without a walkthrough. Yeah, that's like the one part that i was like, oh, this makes sense to me. It's possible I was remembering it being easier and that messed with my ability to know what to do.
00:56:26
Speaker
I truly, I believe everything that you're saying. Like, I agree with you that it it is unfair. It is annoying. It is ridiculous. And what you said about a spent back, like there are,
00:56:37
Speaker
This is the era of Sierra games where pixel art had improved, but they hadn't yet figured out a way to highlight objects that you need. So there're there's stuff in this game that i had I not had a walkthrough, would not have known to pick up the...
00:56:54
Speaker
ah baking soda. Really? It's just part of the background. it's just Oh, that could have always been there. um The ladder is another one. I'm trying to think of other objects, but there's so many objects in the game that are just very much blend into the background. Yes.
00:57:13
Speaker
I would say they're all blended. And I didn't even like, I wouldn't even know what they were. Right. Yeah. You really do find yourself clicking every, like, I remember clicking every last pixel of this game. I will say just while we're on the baking soda, like the description of you taking the baking soda and putting it in your pocket is so hilarious. It's very funny. And that, that's that sad humor. Once again, that I, I really appreciate it. Is that more, more wholesome kind of snarky humor.
00:57:39
Speaker
ah the The narrator is similar to maybe narrator of um Space Quest 4 or um some of the Leisure Suit games. And yeah, it does it does have those funny moments.
00:57:50
Speaker
And I got to say, i really like the structure of this game where we didn't really touch on it, but you know basically in this town of Corsegold.
00:58:01
Speaker
Somebody is being terrible and trying to run everybody out. We don't know who it is. That's part of the mystery. But somebody is sabotaging this little town and trying to run everybody out.
00:58:12
Speaker
And the ways of sabotage are amazing. I really, i want to shine a light on the um the snail, the slug stampede. Snail stampede. Yeah. How did they get the snails to come? Like, like clearly that was part of it. But how did they...
00:58:28
Speaker
I don't know and I don't care. It's so funny to me. And like, it's it's just one of those things. It's like, up there're they're coming. They're gonna get there. And every time you look at their the screen with the snail stampede, it's like a little bit further, be a little closer.
00:58:43
Speaker
Oh, I appreciate the effort so much they put into that. and And then... And then you get that wonderful little lemmings tribute when you finally take them out. um You know, the kind of thing that is, you know, not necessary, but somebody advocated for it. You need to have this. It's going to be so funny.
00:59:00
Speaker
Yeah. um but And I do like that. Like, hey, like every is it every day? I think like every day there's like a new separate quest that you have to that you have to complete.
00:59:12
Speaker
Some of the chapters have a few different quests within them. And then towards the end of the game, ah the the mechanics change and it becomes like a little bit more of like a puzzle, and a puzzle action game where yeah almost everything is timed and you're not really using your inventory as much as like a couple of key objects.
00:59:34
Speaker
Mm Yeah, I gotta say, I think the end, this section you're talking about, that's where it kind of loses me a little bit in terms of like enjoyment. I feel like I was liking this routine of like gotta fill prescriptions, oh, there's a quest, there's a snail stampede, or the horses are farting, or the water tower is you know contaminated.
00:59:56
Speaker
i liked that routine part of the game. of Freddy Farkas that you don't get in point clicks that often anymore which is like ah you have a quest and then you complete it but you have a quest and then you complete it and you have quest like I really like that ah small little victories yeah who rather than ah just one you know one big overall thing though it can get frustrating because Because you could think you're nearing the end of the game and then have like seven finales.
01:00:26
Speaker
Which is the best chapter of this game feels like. This game has a long ending. Yeah, that's true. That's true. What did you guys think of the story? I mean, it's should pretty simple.
01:00:38
Speaker
I've been thinking, if you're a person listening to this and you don't know anything about it, has Has this just been insufferable? Should we go over the story real quick? Matt, I think people have played it.
01:00:49
Speaker
i don't... I really... Our audience, I really think... I really do think they have played it I think we have a lot of audience members who do not play the old classics, who play more modern games. And that's that's why I'm wondering if we should just, like...
01:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, we can get them. I mean, it's a pretty it's a pretty simple story. Yeah, is why I kind of ah bring it up. And I did say earlier, you know, that the main plot is that you're in this Western town as a pharmacist.
01:01:17
Speaker
You're a pharmacist because you used to be like a gunslinger. But there was an incident where you were in a duel and somebody like shot your ear off. um So you've left that you left that life behind. Freddie has left it behind.
01:01:31
Speaker
is now a pharmacist for this small town of Coors Gold. And we are put in the game when people are are being run out, like businesses are shutting down. We don't really know why you can assume there is a villain, you know, trying to shut down this this town.
01:01:47
Speaker
this town And like I said, they do it in funny sabotage ways. Like somehow they got a bunch of snails and released a snail stampede or they contaminated the water. Or ah what was the what was the other one? Oh, the horse flage.
01:02:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah. They poisoned the horses and then they poisoned all the people. What were some of the other ones? said fires or shut businesses down for fire hazards.
01:02:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. um And you you eventually find out that the and you kind of know this from the beginning that the the sheriff is somehow behind it.
01:02:25
Speaker
Yeah. That trope of like the evil sheriff, you know? Yeah. Then it's the yeah. Then it's the you find out it's the sheriff and the banker. And do we want should we just spoil the ending?
01:02:37
Speaker
I think it's really like i think it puts a really fine point on the period piece ah nature of the whole thing is that um the school mom Penelope, who is like your love interest.
01:02:48
Speaker
She's from the Northeast and she knows all about oil before anybody in Podang, California knows about it. And ah I actually find this really fascinating. There's one background in this game that is not used for anything. There are no items. There are no characters there. The only thing to discern from this background, which shows like a broken down railroad that tells you how how has has been this town is.
01:03:12
Speaker
And ah it shows you a swamp but that has some sort of black substance in it that nobody in town understands what it is. Except for Penelope, who knows that there's money under this town that has not been tapped yet.
01:03:27
Speaker
So the conspiracy really ah gets kicked into overdrive when she gets there and ah and conspires with the sheriff and the and the bank to ah to kick everyone out so they can take the oil for themselves.
01:03:42
Speaker
And, you know, I think that like that really, ah you know, i think there there is a lot of, you know, it's a pastiche and often there are, you know, ah ah very modern explanations for things. But I think they they do legitimately try to write it as a story from like the late 1800s about about, you know, a fictional version of the place where now there are video game studios.
01:04:07
Speaker
And ah I think it's actually a really good story. um i I loved it when I was a kid and I i still really appreciate it. i i think I did not. I don't know if this makes me a dummy or if you guys had the same experience. I did not see the Penelope of it all coming.
01:04:28
Speaker
Oh, OK. I did not clock her as the villain at all. ah When I was a kid, I didn't see it coming. Yeah. Yeah. yeah When I was younger, i didn't understand anything about that game. So I did not see that coming. As an adult, I think you can you can put it together.
01:04:46
Speaker
Maybe not on your first playthrough because you I think, Matt, you went into it very new. You hadn't played the game before, maybe taking it ah at face value as this Western where, oh, you have a romantic interest. That's nice. Yeah.
01:04:59
Speaker
you know Yeah, I don't think the game shows its hand with that at all. I was I was kind of looking for it. And I think like really all you get is that Penelope is ah mostly keeps to herself and ah the school remains locked. But, you know, I just took that as like the NPC has no more dialogue for you and there's no yeah there's no interior of the school.
01:05:19
Speaker
um So so I was you know, it was completely obscured from me. I i did not see any any hint of it. The general store owner. You never see him, right? He like, that's the joke, right? He never comes out. Okay. I just wanted to. feel Until the last chapter, he walks out with us. He's walking around town with a sandwich board on.
01:05:38
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. and gets shut down. But yeah. But yeah, you don't. Yeah. It's the the whole joke with him is he's always in the back and he's like, I'll be out in a minute. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure that that was the case.
01:05:52
Speaker
um Yeah. what do How about you, Roses? What did you think about the story? you Did you enjoy it? I do. i do. Yeah, I did enjoy it. i think I enjoyed it more as a kid because it is such a simple little story, but I did like it because it fit the structure so well.
01:06:08
Speaker
um And it did feel like they did a good job of kind of intentionally writing this Western, you know, with the, with you know, ah a pair. It's a parody. I would call it that. Yeah. Of like a Western stereotype and,
01:06:21
Speaker
i I did like it. I thought it was lighthearted. and you know, that's what you're going to get with Al Lowe and Josh Mandel together. You're going to get something a little, yes, maybe some, well, a lot of toilet humor.
01:06:36
Speaker
But I can always expect it to be a little more lighthearted, even when there's a villain in the game. Yeah, yeah and this is sort of towards the end of the...
01:06:51
Speaker
Sierra Hay Day, right? Yes, and it's actually very very self-referential for for your Sierra game. ah you know it's obviously It takes place in the town that Sierra offices are are located in. um there there is you know The Sierra Mountain is actually visible thats true in the game.
01:07:11
Speaker
And i I figured this out just by reading the design document, but Kenny the Kid, Freddy's rival from childhood, is supposed to be ah he's supposed to look like ken Williams.
01:07:23
Speaker
oh course yeah i I read that too. i didn't I didn't clock that when I was playing. On my own, no. I did did not either. yeah and There's a you know Cedric, the owl reference. They call him Cedric, which kind of upsets me. yeah they're Why are they saying it like that?
01:07:44
Speaker
i really did Did you guys in your version, did you i see Cedric get picked to pieces? Yes. No. Okay. so I saw the vultures looking at him and I saw him sitting there, but they never attacked him.
01:07:56
Speaker
On this playthrough, that's what I saw too. But I remember seeing Cedric getting pecked to bits yeah by the vultures. Yeah, same. I remember that very viscerally and my initial playthrough. It's a terrible image. He looks really unhappy about it.
01:08:11
Speaker
Had you played King's Quest V as a kid before saw that? yeah. Before I saw that, yeah. So I knew what they were talking about. And I mean, they also have, like, Leisure Suit Larry is in the game, like his ancestor.
01:08:23
Speaker
he, like, in the outhouse? Or where was Yeah, he's in the outhouse. He appears in a few places. He's he's in the bar sometimes. And that's actually something I love about this game that, again, I feel like there's a through line to what I like in my games is that the townspeople can be found all over town throughout the game. Like, you go one place and you're going to see them again and they're going to have something relevant to say about what's going on now.
01:08:46
Speaker
And, ah you know, and there are no NPCs in the game that feel totally dead. You're always getting new prompts from each of them. right I do. Yeah. I always appreciate that in a game. I like a character that moves around and, you know, changes on screen.
01:09:01
Speaker
it does It does make, it does make it feel like alive. I would say these characters are very alive and, you know, and there's a lot of that, that like, um sight gags that just like appear sometimes when you walk onto like the Cedric thing every now and then somebody just gets thrown through the ah saloon window yeah and then the next time you enter the room ah guy's fixing the window yes that is a wonderful detail
01:09:31
Speaker
yeah Absolutely. there's There's a lot of stuff like that. And then people just like walk past you in the town. Also, if you and I didn't realize this till way later, if you follow them, they walk into the next screen. i like you know that's such a stupid little thing to be excited about. It's a big deal, though, because like, yeah, this was 1993. I mean, Sierra was always amazing at their tech and design.
01:09:52
Speaker
also really like a lot of the framing of this game. I don't know if you feel this way, Meredith, but I feel like Dagger and this game share a lot of like artistic moments yeah where there's like cutaways and framing.
01:10:06
Speaker
When you enter the the breakfast place, which called Mom's Cafe, it's just beautifully framed. Oh, yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. ah deep foreground elements uh when freddie walks behind this bottle he you actually see a distortion of the sprite uh very impressive stuff yeah um no i'm i'm i'm really uh uh i'm definitely in love with this particular era of sierra art and uh i believe the games were probably being made around the same time right yes
01:10:38
Speaker
i yeah I actually saw a screenshot from a prototy like a prototype ah stage of Freddy Farkas where the ah the action cursors are from Dagger of Amon Ra. Yes. Just making it from the same thing.
01:10:51
Speaker
Gabriel Knight came out the same year. is all 1993, I believe. I was getting this great... i was getting this this right nostalgia. There's a great visceral feeling whenever a door opened. They all use the same like door closing and opening. Yes, they do. It gives me anxiety because think it's going to be like a murderer on the other side. going to witness a murder. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's great.
01:11:15
Speaker
But the Sierra, you know, they were always amazing at that. They were always Ken Williams very much cared about tech. He wrote a lot of very nerdy ah articles about tech and design.
01:11:27
Speaker
And yeah, I don't think people realize that how how important some of those visuals were. And even like I said, the lip sync technology where their whole jaw is moving, not just their lips.
01:11:39
Speaker
You know, they were really on the the front of all of that. Mm hmm.
01:11:45
Speaker
um Yeah, well, do you guys have any closing thoughts? Or, i mean I mean, if anybody has like another huge thing to go on about Freddy Farkas, then please.
01:11:58
Speaker
I wrote a couple things down um that i I just wanted to bring up. ah One thing I thought was really funny is when ah you go to the horror house and every single character in there has a portrait animation.
01:12:11
Speaker
Like they did so much work to make every girl in there, including like the sexy sheep who looks like a woman. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah. Horrifying. Absolutely horrifying.
01:12:23
Speaker
and um I also wrote down under ah favorite things and direct inspirations. ah The player character has sex and it's meaningful to them. Yeah, that's true.
01:12:34
Speaker
Oh, you're right. That, that like, that's to me is so rare in a game. Yeah. That I felt it was worth highlighting. Right. He's, you're talking about when he sleeps with the, um, with Madame Ovary. the Yes. yeah And, and yeah, and the, the narrator, I think at some point says like, oh, he's just, he says something shitty about it. Right. Like, uh,
01:13:02
Speaker
He's using her for some sort of pleasure or whatever. yeah But yeah, but they're like ah affectionately laying in bed chatting. Yeah. I always appreciated. Like they have affection for each other. Yeah. ah Yeah. I appreciate that they portrayed that character in a good way because they didn't have You know, she's kind of this this Blanche, you know, saucy, raunchy type of character. And I thought they were going to pull more jabs at her, you know, maybe.
01:13:28
Speaker
ah They make her a little more heavyset. I thought they were going to jab at that a little bit. But no, Freddie and and her, they have, a like you said, a very affectionate, positive relationship, which is nice. It's intimate. she She knows his secret about being a gunslinger, and she's the only one who does. yeah And then she is the she's the catalyst there for him deciding he wants to, like, take up his his pistols again yeah and and fight.
01:13:53
Speaker
um So, yeah, like the the fact that that scene is so meaningful to the character, um that's just rare in video games. You know, but yeah I appreciate that about And I think I feel like that did stay with me even at a young age.
01:14:09
Speaker
ah Oh, I do want to point out something that made me laugh about this game. Something I thought that was thought was funny, which is when he goes back to be being a gunslinger, when he's a hero at the end of the game.
01:14:23
Speaker
ah He's in disguise because, so Freddy Farkas is missing an ear yeah throughout the whole game. And what makes him in disguise is that he...
01:14:33
Speaker
makes it ear out of silver and puts it on his head and now no one recognizes him because he's the guy with the silver ear they're looking form for a missing ear yeah great great gag i a good gag like a like way funnier than like a Clark Kent set of glasses like yeah basically in that same vein it's like a Hannah Montana type of thing throw a wig and nobody knows that can't be Freddie this guy's got an ear I'm counting one two uh
01:15:07
Speaker
oh did so did you have did you have any anything else in your in your notes I think I let's see. Did I did I say it all? Oh, yeah. There's one more thing that I just absolutely adore about this game ah that that had an impact on me. And it's specifically Freddy Farkas's bedroom.
01:15:24
Speaker
um Every object that you look at in his room gives you a story about how he injured himself getting it. But they all begin as like a little bit of slang like like um my you know the they escalate but like my favorite one is like you're window shopping and in so-and-so town and your eye fell on this nightstand they got your eye back in but the owner didn't want to touch the nightstand anymore so he gave it to you yeah I I just I love like that that room is like you know it is kind of like a sweet thing where like every object in it is so true is so cherished to him but the descriptions are also some of the funniest in the whole game
01:16:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah yeah that that's that that's that other side of the humor, again, that I really appreciate. It's this clever, kind of corny humor, but yeah, I appreciate that.
01:16:17
Speaker
it gets It gets in there and it does not let go
01:16:23
Speaker
Well, that's ah Freddy Farkas, Frontier Pharmacist. came from Graham. sierra ninety ninety three was it you yes yeah so meredith graham Thank you so much for being here with us.
01:16:40
Speaker
This has been so fun. Thank you, guys. Yeah, it's super fun. And we both, ah me and PushingUpRoses, are... champing at the bit to get to play to play uh perfect hide station to station i'm so excited i sure i just love all the settings i've seen so far oh my god i'm so excited i i am desperate for you guys to play it so we will play it hard at work uh i uh i i think i got something good for you though Hell yeah. We're going to, I mean, we're going to dig probably as deep it deep, deeper than maybe like, i wonder sometimes if people listen to some of our deep dives and they're like, okay guys, you didn't need to go that far on this.
01:17:27
Speaker
Yes, we do. i wrong It was just a couple of pixels. you know it wasn't ah um But yeah, i you could expect, I think everybody listeners, you guys can probably expect a full, uh,
01:17:42
Speaker
perfect tides episode in the near future uh well uh meredith is there anything you want to plug before we get out of here Oh, man.
Meredith Gran's Current Projects
01:17:55
Speaker
ah it doesn't even have to be your stuff. if You can plug whatever you want. It doesn't have to be mine.
01:18:00
Speaker
Damn. um ah I don't even know if I can get into it right now. i've I've honestly, I've been so obsessively working on my own things right now that it's it's very hard to take new inputs. You know, it's very hard to get excited about other things right now. Yeah. yeah So ah I guess I want to plug me and my efforts.
01:18:19
Speaker
Please. Is there a place people should go to to go to keep up with ah with your stuff? um Yeah, they can go they can just go to perfecttides.com or meredithgrand.com and find all the all the socials where I talk about the game. i am currently playtesting it and occasionally recruiting for new people. um They can find the links to the Discord where that happens on my website. um But yeah, I'm just going to talk about it as much as I can without working on it. Yeah.
01:18:49
Speaker
which I'm doing constantly until this thing is done. And to you guys, before you know it, it's going to be done to me. I'm staring down the barrel of something very long here, but it's going to get done. Hell yeah.
01:19:01
Speaker
um Well, again, thank you for coming on everybody. You can email us Matt and roses at gmail.com. You can check out our Instagram.
01:19:13
Speaker
Save Your Game podcast. He did it. He got it right this time. I'm so proud of you. ah And yeah, and like always, please remember to go you know, um share and review and all that dumb stuff.
01:19:27
Speaker
You know I haven't I forgot to mention it last week, but I did still want to address the economic blackout dates. Give me a second. I forgot to pull it up. That's why I forgot it last time.
01:19:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Because we have a platform. Might as well use it for something positive. Well, I'm going to use it to talk about feet situations. Okay.
Ethical Consumption Discussion
01:19:54
Speaker
Okay, so this is coming out, I guess, in the midst of the Nestle boycott. um And Nestle owns fucking everything, guys. So if you're ah participating in these boycotts, San Pellegrino,
01:20:09
Speaker
ah Obviously, anything Nesquik, Leslie-related. Blue Bottle Coffee Company. Put down the crunch bar. You don't need it this week. Yeah, exactly. ah Taster's Choice Coffee. start ah Some Starbucks products.
01:20:27
Speaker
Basically, any bottled water. Guys, if you're drinking any bottled water, just take a break from it. You probably shouldn't be anyway. ah Gerber. Gerber is Nestle General Mills.
01:20:39
Speaker
Start lactating now. Get that milk going. Your baby will be happy. um You know, you can find lists all over the place. But anyway, that that boycott is from the 21st to the 28th.
01:20:55
Speaker
And then Walmart boycott, which is super easy. Just don't go to fucking Walmart. but You don't need that crap. of that no what even that April 7th to 14th. And then there's another full on economic blackout, April 18th.
01:21:07
Speaker
Again, I don't know that this is going to do. I don't know how much impact this is going to have, but it's better than doing nothing. And it's probably better for your, you know, just ethical consumption in general, whether or not you're concerned about the current political climate.
01:21:22
Speaker
It's a little refresh just to know what these companies make. Yes. Whether you're buying them to begin with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's probably like at this point very almost no way to ethically buy bottled water. Most of that stuff is stolen from, ah you know, the air, the air and the sea where it's free.
01:21:44
Speaker
yeah
01:21:47
Speaker
um And OK, and we will be back next week with another really really cool guest guys we're on a roll with these guests if this excited you this next guest will also very much excite you i feel like i'm missing something roses am i missing something here um well did you remember that um podcast is art i forgot but i did remember that artist to suffer good job