Transcript
Speaker: Oh, the guitar. Jess, I told you I just this. just this You know, this idea in my head, and I just had to make it, I just had to make it happen, which was, and and I know that there's a cleaner way to do this, but I did do it in like minute.
Speaker: Ben has his looping pedal out. um He was trying to do this like, you know, all fancy. But I mean, I can't argue with the results. It was magnificent. I just had this idea of just edging people at the beginning without ever getting to the, the bomb bump, bump, bump, like just constantly like just looping it and just looping and looping and looping it.
Speaker: And i bet, you know, and, and if you're listening, if you, you know, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm sure if somebody with, ah you know, actual skill with sound, please ah create ah just just edging the beginning of the Shadows of Darkness theme. Not too much.
Speaker: Yeah. Not too much. A version. Because, yeah, I don't know. It's like, I love hearing that, right? Yeah. get it it did it Now,
Speaker: is that opening I didn't check this. and You might not remember this. But is that like kind of wind up?
Speaker: um Is that an exclusive to the CD version? Because the CD version has that kind of like 3D animation. like oh that's a question as you're flying over like the fractally generated now mordavia and my recollection and i could totally be wrong um is we had quest for glory colon shadows of darkness not question no four yeah um get the iv out like you're at the hospital and they're about to discharge you
Speaker: we We had it on disc at the time. So I don't- Discette? Yeah, we had it on a ah floppy discette. This is Quest Quest.
Speaker: The adventure game podcast. I'm Ben. I am Jess. How you and Jess? Ben, I'm fabulous. i don't know if you knew this. I don't know if you've been keeping- Oh.
Speaker: Yeah, this is spooky here in October.
Speaker: The autumn season. Pumpkin spice. Oh! had my one pumpkin spice of the season. How was it? When it rolls back, I'm always like, you know what?
Speaker: I do want to have like one pumpkin spice. And then I have it I'm just like, I don't like this. You know, I had mine as well, but I had it in M&M form. Have you tried pumpkin spice M&M's?
Speaker: I can't even remember the last... Like, I mean, it's it's probably been like a year. Like, it's not like been, you know, since I was a kid. But I don't remember the last time I i had M&M's. M&M's are not a candy I really ever reach for. They're gutter candy.
Speaker: and i'm not I mean, I think we've discussed before. You and I are both, like, sugary gummy candy people, not as much chocolate candy people, correct? Yeah, but I'm like... the the the The basement of an M&M is just the chocolate M&M's.
Speaker: hey ah Peanuts are a little better, but honestly, I don't even like peanut M&M's. Almonds are a little better than the peanuts. The almonds are better. Yeah. but Do they still make the crispy ones?
Speaker: Oh, those are pretty good. I like those. Yeah. um And I like peanut butter, which are just Reese's Pieces, but I like peanut butter. It's just like... Generally, you're going to get, you know, like envision right now,
Speaker: a orange plastic bowl that has, that is full of fun size candy. And you're, you're looking through and I want to note for the listener, Jess's eyes are actually closed.
Speaker: Um, and you're looking through and you, you see that bag of M&Ms. What does that bag look like? You know exactly what the bag looks like, right? In that orange bowl.
Speaker: Now, it's the the one I'm seeing is the dark brown. Like almost black, but very dark brown. Yes. Like, like half the size of a normal, maybe like a third of the size of a normal one. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. No. And it's possible it's yellow if the peanuts are in there, but nowadays, you know, nobody's given out peanut candy because of allergy as of woke. h um We can't put razor blades in our candy anymore because of that, man. You know, i used to like,
Speaker: like I was a kid with a big beard. What was I supposed to do? Yeah. I don't want my parents to catch me shaving. Like I go trick or treating and I'm, you're not going to give me a fucking razor.
Speaker: Get real. Do you think you'd get in trouble for handing out safety razors? ah Like, do you think people would just be like, this is still wrong? Or at that point, are you being responsible?
Speaker: How many trick or treaters do you get ah you're at your place, Jess? Uncountable. um I would say 100 plus. Really? Yeah. Like we had to buy like sacks of candy.
Speaker: Damn. we I didn't know how I thought you you were in like an area that was a little more spaced out. I didn't know that that there was like you were in a trick or treat circuit. We're like in a subdivision and it's the kind of subdivision that a lot of families drive to to trick or treat. uh so as it's a safe walk around loop that they arent to worry about their kids like getting run over as badly and things like that so i mean we have a lot of people a few kids get run over but not i mean but not badly that yeah i mean that's why i put that part in
Speaker: Not too much. Just, you know, like they aren't standing up like completely flat with a tire tread up their chest. You know it's not that kind of running over there's banged up a little. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, we we have so many. It's like, wow. Halloween sets me back like $900 a year.
Speaker: Ben, what what candy do you what what candy do you get for the trick-or-treaters? What big bags are you picking up from the grocery store? We tend to favor...
Speaker: bags of candy where the variety has shifted a little bit more toward things like Sour Patch Kids and Gummy Style yeah candies. Because I think that's what the kids of today want.
Speaker: They don't want M&Ms and they don't want chocolate bars. And they want... Kids of today and me are aligned. Me too. Absolutely. And that's the other thing. It's like, if we do somehow happen to have leftover, it's like, that's the candy I want sitting around the house. I don't want to like eat a Butterfinger.
Speaker: Yeah. You better never lay a finger on my Butterfinger, first of You don't want to you don't want to act like you're in the writer's room of The Simpsons circa 1993. Yeah. Which full of Butterfingers, famously.
Speaker: but ch Crispity, crunchity, peanut buttery Butterfinger. Yeah. um Yeah. No thanks. But, you know, but I'm sure, because I know exactly the assortment that you have. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: How many banana Laffy Taffys do you end up stuck with? Too many, but let me tell you, Ben, that shit's my jam. I think we've had this discussion. We have had this exact discussion. this Yeah, this is a rerun. this You know, this is a rerun.
Speaker: Because, don't know if you've been keeping track of this. This is our 100th episode. And, you know, listeners, we have some very special stuff planned for tonight. This is a triple-length episode.
Speaker: Yeah. this We have several returning guests from the past and a few new faces that are going to be popping in throughout the throughout the broadcast. Yeah. We got Ken.
Speaker: Not which Ken, though? hard to say i'm just saying we got ken he agreed he said i like your work i've listened to every single one and we said isn't your jeopardy filming schedule very busy and he said absolutely not i can be there and and and i was like what time and he said correct and i was like no i wasn't like because every time he hears a question it just throws him yeah yeah and it's just because he's the host ken jennings i I understand.
Speaker: Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame. A lot of people probably thought you meant Ken Williams. He told us to just absolutely screw off. Yeah, no, he said no way. He said, when are you going to be a video podcast?
Speaker: He listened to our podcast and then turned us down and had some notes. Yeah, well, not the first time that's happened. He. yeah. ah
Speaker: Anyway, um
Speaker: it's Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. And this is our 100th episode. It our 100th episode. The only thing special about it is we're talking about an amazing game. We're talking about a really good game yeah this week.
Speaker: You know, and but but, you know, I do want to keep talking about Halloween. Can't do. Well, we you know the feedback we get says the more we can stretch out the beginning parts of these episodes, the more people like them. Jess, I told you, we're not doing this discussion anymore.
Speaker: Anyway. We're not. I'm going to Tony Soprano. I'm Tony Soprano-ing you. We're not going to this discussion it again. I've never seen The Sopranos. You should. It's great.
Speaker: You know? ah yeah I'm going to wait until some sort of like. major newspaper ranks as one of the best TV shows of the century first. You know, they put Breaking Bad at number one, and I love Breaking Bad, but Sopranos is better. Yeah.
Speaker: They put, like, Girls at number eight. That doesn't belong. Girls is fine. It's fine. I didn't watch you all of Girls. I only saw an episode here and there, so I can't really... It was all right. It was all right. It's not number eight.
Speaker: and But, uh, anyway, um... Yeah, I don't know. I like I have not given out candy to trick or treaters in a very, very, very long time.
Speaker: So pan it's amazing. What's the best costume? Is there are there any costumes that really stick out in your memory? There are a lot of them that to me, like I see how gory or disturbing like some costumes are on very young kids.
Speaker: And I'm just like, what's going on with that family? Like when you see like the three-year-old who's like an ax murderer covered in fake blood and things like that. And you're just like, don't know. i feel like that kid should be like a clown or like Spider-Man or something. Those always stick with me in a bad way. Like the, oh, this is too intense for for a young kid.
Speaker: is is your daughter trick-or-treating or is it is she too old think she's about as a character she's she's the cuss she's trick-or-treating this year ben do you want know who she's uh you're gonna like you're gonna know your favorite pop culture figures mr richard starkey ringo star
Speaker: yes great yes let me tell you um pink sergeant pepper's uniform uh-huh great brown shaggy wig and fake mustache oh drumsticks yeah and you know she's been practicing sane for the past week or so so she'll be ready when uh treat i'd like to have a treat please She's really been working on peace and love.
Speaker: Oh, peace and love, peace and love. Did you show her the no more emails clip? No, I need to. I need to so she can get the character. but or No, no, not no more emails. Just no more mail. Like you no more mail. No more letters.
Speaker: i'm warning you with peace and love anyway. yeah Yeah, she's going as Ringo. yeah You know, this might be, she's what, 13?
Speaker: 13. 12, 13. last year I trick-or-treated, i was, think I was 13. 13. Yeah. yeah Like, I was around there. And it was, like, I remember, like, feeling it that year. It was just like. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, this is it. Yeah. It's tough to watch your childhood slip through your fingers. Yeah. I mean, I'm trick-or-treating this year now. Why not? What are going to do? What to I want the candy.
Speaker: A grown man. Yeah. Can't you buy it? No, I want it. I want it handed to me. Yeah. I'm going to buy a bunch of candy and then, like, hire somebody on Craigslist to come and hand it to me.
Speaker: and But I am going to note in the listing non-sexual. I want to make this very clear. i want to make sure that there's a clear understanding that this isn't some power play thing. This isn't like, you know, candy eater for candy giver or anything of that sort. This is strictly ah just a transactional candy experience. Now this this ah this transactional can candy experience, are you going to, like, is this other person, are they going to be, like, at a door? Are going have to ring the doorbell?
Speaker: ah Like, you know you know, set a scene, please. was thinking would just, like... probably i mean that's gonna be a little weird if i keep opening the door over and over again so i'm thinking because it's like it's gonna break the illusion that it's like so i'm just thinking maybe they stick the candy anonymously out through the mail slot and i just take it from there yeah like just like yeah it's it's more like that i'm thinking
Speaker: that concept would work better so just like i knock on the door i get down on like my hands and knees and then out through the uh through the mail slot comes the candy ah my mouth is open
Speaker: i'm just thinking this i mean again it keeps it it maintains the illusion that i'm not just getting it from the same person over and over again yeah All right, well, speaking of getting the same thing from a person over and over again, jess what have you been playing?
Speaker: Ben, I have been playing, of all things, The Simpsons Tapped Out. That's still going? No, that's the amazing part of it. I was like, i thought I remembered reading that it was over.
Speaker: It shut down last year, but a group of dedicated fans have opened up their own servers for this mobile Simpsons City Builder. It's a Springfield-em-up where you build your own Springfield. Fans have launched a a fan server where you can sideload this onto Android or iPhone.
Speaker: and play Simpsons Tapped Out still here in the year 2026. And what's amazing, Ben, they have a version of it that has everything unlocked and all the currency maxed out to infinity. So you can just play it rather than have to go through all of the horrible freemium mobile stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, but with all the freemium, so like, yeah, because that that answers one of my questions where I'm like, wasn't that just kind of like a put money in or, yeah, run time? But also it's like, was there a lot of meat on that bone? like with Like, especially now, like with everything unlocked, like I would have just thought that like kind of the thrill was like either the little IV drip that you'd get from waiting to accumulate What it? You get donuts or some shit? Yeah, i like that. You have donuts and cash. They're like non-currencies, of course. Oh, good. like Mystery gems and all kinds of things. you know Perfect. yeah That's what you love.
Speaker: But no, I think the appeal, I mean, A, now it plays like a sandbox city builder, which there's always some just like, I'd like to see what kind of cool Springfield I could build a pill to it. But also, like the real appeal for me, I think lies in the...
Speaker: fact that there's so many deep cut references in the game. Like Ben, you have no idea deep these cuts go because there are hundreds and hundreds of buildings and townspeople and landmarks and other things that you can put in. If there is anything you can ever remember from an episode, um like there's one itchy and scratchy cartoon where Scratchy's in a hot tub with like a girl mouse.
Speaker: That girl mouse is in the game. There is... I'm sure the Just Punch the Ticket guy is in there. that's it that's Yes. There's a deleted couch gag where Martin is dressed up as Elsa from like a 2014 episode that didn't make it to air, but that character is in the game. Great. And one of his quests is talking about him missing the couch gag.
Speaker: There are... Just so many ridiculous one second kind of shots. Like, i mean, one of the most famous, I think, Simpsons jokes of all time, Sneed's Feed and Seed is one of the buildings you can build. But that was pretty famous. A lot of them, like there is some creature that I think must be from a Treehouse of Horror episode.
Speaker: It's Lisa, but she's like peak goblin and her name is Libido. which I don't know what's going on with that, but clearly that is a deep enough cut that I've never heard of it. And I've watched a fair amount of new Simpsons.
Speaker: a Fair amount of new. Yeah. Every now and again, I get a little curious and I put this is the way episode of, of new Simpsons on. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: And sometimes it's, it's funny. um Like sometimes like, it's like, oh yeah, you know, it's still pretty funny. And then Marge comes in and you know, Julie Kavner needs to retire. Like, yeah and all of them need to. You've done well. they yeah Like everybody needs to retire. This is like, I'm just kind of like, it just kind of hits a point.
Speaker: Where like I've listened to it and then I remember it's like, oh yeah, this has been going on almost the length of my entire life. Yes. And they were all adults. like yeah he Like it's just like all of these. they were They were already middle-aged people when they started. Right. Like no one, no one's signed up for this thinking, this is just what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.
Speaker: but it is um congratulations no i mean new episodes are fine they're whatever i mean it does it's a little bit weekend at bernie style at this point where it's just like yes this is the the husk of something i loved and you know in many ways it mimics the motions and sounds that this thing i loved once did and you know it also doesn't look as good like it just doesn't look right you know now is that like the post simpsons movie upgrade to like shaded character designs generally don't like that in like as a cartoon upgrade or a comic upgrade in general i like big bold like kind of solid colors usually
Speaker: Yeah, it it is a nice dividing line in case you like just flip to an episode randomly to know right away what you're dealing with. like you know It really helps you pinpoint. It's like, oh, I should lower my expectations now that I see this newer art style.
Speaker: Do you think there have ever been a couple of dudes on a podcast that have complained about The Simpsons before? No, no one. We're the first. We're breaking new ground here. But Simpsons tapped out. I mean, if you like a dumb mobile city builder, which I kind of do, but hate everything that goes into a dumb mobile city builder, um it's not bad. It's pretty good time. I'm playing it on a desktop Android emulator, so I'm using a mouse like a real pro.
Speaker: who What is that dismissive snort? I'm sorry, I have something in my nose and I'm trying to get out. we haven't figured out a snorts.
Speaker: I haven't figured out a VR running with it yet, but as soon as I do. Oh, yeah. hu I'm going to get in there and I'm going to be like swiping at menus like I'm Tony Stark.
Speaker: It's going to be amazing.
Speaker: Ben, why have you been playing? I've been playing, have you ever heard of the game Downwell? No. Downwell is uh, like this, I guess it's like a a platformer where you're, you're falling down a well.
Speaker: No. I see it now. And um it is, you're you're falling down a well and you don't want to die and you want to, I guess, make it all the way to the bottom of the well. I've never actually beaten the game. um It's like you all know Jack the Ride, basically. Yeah.
Speaker: And it's a very, it's a precision um platformer. And like, so when you die, like you immediately just go and you, you start it again and there's like, you,
Speaker: i When you're you're falling down the well, there are various monsters and creatures that attack you and you can either kill them by landing on them or by shooting them. There are different guns that have different abilities that you pick up as you're falling through.
Speaker: Um, and it, this is just, it's a very lightweight game. There's not too much to it. Um, like it, it's very well made. Like that's why it is, it is three bucks, not even on sale.
Speaker: Like it is $3 game. Um, and, i just the funny thing about it was that it was, it's, it's one of those games where like I played it.
Speaker: And I got really into it like, you know, one summer and I was just playing it hard and hard and hard. And recently I had some friends over and we were just kind of going through my steam library. Like, you know, I had like, and we were just looking for, for games to play. And ah like I said, oh and of course, ah you know, like there's down well, of course. And they're like, what's down well.
Speaker: And it's like, well, this game is 41 megabytes, so let me show this to you because it will take like one second to end up on my computer.
Speaker: And ah it was one of those things where like I started to play it and just immediately like it just like clunk, you know, right back in, you know, yeah like the muscle memory. I'm not quite as good as I was, but I was able to get like, you know, deep into the second level um and know what I was doing.
Speaker: And if I could describe this for our listeners, like the vibe is black and white graphics with pops of red. It's kind of a three color affair. um The graphics I would describe as like spectrumy, like I'm getting some like some of those like ZX.
Speaker: Yes. Yes. That spectrum. Yeah. Like that's the, uh, the kind of vibe I'm getting from it. i will, uh, also say like the game, it reminds me most of just looking at some of the gameplay preview on steam is it's evoking a bit of mario 2 to me like those scenes of but you know there's a lot of like you start at the top of some sort of the very start of the game yeah just kind of open the door especially like quit falling yeah or when you go through some of the pipes and start falling down and have to dig through some of the sand to keep going their enemies all around and yeah it's kind got a little bit that it's a classic super mario 2 i'm up now
Speaker: are you pulling up radishes at any point in the game? Oh, constantly. real Oh, then do you think that is like an intentional reference? No. Oh, okay. Just coincidence. I mean, no, I mean, there there are no radishes in the game.
Speaker: Yeah. I really love the joke. I think it's from a teen girl squad. I know it's from Homestar Runner somewhere. I believe it's a teen girl squad where like the line is like, when you fall in a bottomless pit, you die of starvation, which is really, really dark if you think about it, Ben.
Speaker: ah Especially since you probably died dehydration first. I mean, I'm going to be honest here. It's just never been a thing that I've been too worried about. You know, you've never thought about falling to a bottomless pit.
Speaker: You know, it's just one of those things. I'm just really not ah too worried about, but you know what I am worried about? What emails? Oh, we have emails. I bet it's a lot of people emailing to congratulate us on a hundred episodes.
Speaker: First up Jane Jensen, Jane writes, dear quest quest. You guys are the best. I would like to cast Ben in a stage production of Gabriel Knight, The Beast Within as Von Glauer. Does he have a smoking jacket?
Speaker: Signed, JJ.
Speaker: But we also have a real email that we got. I'm sorry. And this ah reading this email is reminding me why when I saw this email, I thought, oh, I should share this with Jess in advance so we have a prepared answer. Oh, good, good, good. Well, I'm looking forward to a cold read of it. Please, please give it to me I'll react as if. there there There's nothing like a question where I'm like, Jess would have a good answer to this, but I didn't give him any answer.
Speaker: Yeah, okay, great. No, please hit me, hit me, hit me. oh this is i like to i'm I'm part of a yes and culture now. So Ben, please give it to me. Man, you're salty today, Jess. I'm so salty. All right, this is from our friend Neil.
Speaker: Hello, Jess and Ben. Thank you for a very solid episode on Freddy Fish. I played through other humongous game entertainment games with my kids, but for some reason, I missed this one.
Speaker: I should probably go back and try it one day. On to my question. In the episode you mentioned on the box for Freddy Fish, it made it seem like an educational game. Quote, build critical thinking skills and learn math from a studious starfish, end quote.
Speaker: But then say there isn't much actual learning that happens in the game. That got me wondering, are there any games that come to mind where the ad copy hardly matched the game at all?
Speaker: Perhaps the studio or the marketing department and designers seem not to play the same game. Thanks as always, Neil. This is definitely one that we should have prepared for. It's a good question.
Speaker: I can think of one or off the top of my head. I have one too. you first You go first. Oh, shit. All right. ah Forbidden. You're bluffing. or for No, Forsaken. Forsaken. Remember this?
Speaker: Do you remember? So Forsaken... the game do you remember the ads for forsaken don't know if i do off the top of my head because it's it's funny so i watch um like uh i i watch every week uh jeff gerstman as he's been playing through every n64 game um and he played forsaken and all i remembered about forsaken was its ads and
Speaker: And when I saw the actual game, I was like, oh, this game has absolutely nothing to do with this fucking. air Wait, and I may be completely off basis. Forsaken the one with like the woman with like a tattoo on her cheek. Yeah. Okay. So there. Okay. Okay. Okay. okay yeah yeah Yeah. Yeah. It's a very memorable add So Jess, what do you think?
Speaker: the game Forsaken because I was quite surprised. ah What do you think Forsaken is And Jess, could you describe, so it's it's it's like ah the the ad for for anyone that that might not have seen it or remembered it. A beautiful model.
Speaker: Is she in front of like the ocean? um let me Let me pull it up because I just typed it. You can type into Google right now, Forsaken Game Ad, and it will just show up right away. And I'm looking at it right now and I'm just like, yep.
Speaker: Yeah, there she is. She's in front of, don't know, like a crater with some lightning and she has a heart tattoo on her cheek that says Forsaken and there's a single tear, a very realistic looking one, dripping down her cheek.
Speaker: So very perfectly teardrop shaped. Yes, two perfectly teardrop shaped. um There's actually, it looks like a different version of that ad where it's zoomed out a little bit to include more like of a couple postage stamps so don't look at that ah the post like those are pretty small it barely gives any space to these tiny little uh screenshots yeah that at most look like just like little flashes of color down the corner like there's there's not much going i mean is it a first person shooter is it is it a descent it's a descent them up it's a descent them up and
Speaker: And it isn't like, and and it doesn't have the vibe of this ad at all. Not even a little bit. Like yeah this is, and and and and maybe I'm not entirely honoring like Neil's question here, um but it's just truly a case where like it it it is,
Speaker: To the ad's credit, a remarkably memorable ad. Because, like, I remember it, and after a little bit, you remembered it right away. yeah But, like...
Speaker: When I watched Jeff play Forsaken and I saw him play a pretty solid descent game, like a pretty solid, you know, was it eight degrees of freedom? Was that what they called those? Yeah, I think so I was like,
Speaker: I didn't know that Forsaken, I didn't know that this is what Forsaken was. I also didn't know that Forsaken could possibly be good or even kind of interesting anyway. Isn't it an acclaimed game? It's an acclaimed game, which is yeah mean right away kind of suspect. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. i mean, the ad has just the look of absolute like nanny slop. and um And that's also apparently the the cover Wow. Interesting.
Speaker: Hold on. I'm looking maybe, maybe now I don't know because like maybe this is somebody's Photoshop that they just put it. But in any case, like this woman with the cheek tattoo that says forsaken. Yeah.
Speaker: Like, I can't remember if that's the one that always pops in my mind. Like if I'm thinking ads, like I'm less familiar with maybe box boxes that mislead. I mean, there's like the, what was it?
Speaker: Balance the, like the super NES game with like the, the old coot with the banjo or whatever on the cover of it. Um, is that what that game was? Oh, I know. i know the one, i don't remember its name, but I know the game that you're talking about. But like for ads, like one that jumps out at me, mean, Forsaken made me think of this one.
Speaker: one of the most infamous ads of that era would be like the battle cruiser 3000 ad of course which is the the the she really wants it ad with a model sitting on stool scantily clad with a copy of battle cruiser 3000 ad held over her bikini zone if you will ah I mean that's a game that don't you think has like human beings or PCs in it it's just a like abstract battlefield space simulator type thing uh that one is big you know a game that popped to mind was uh i feel like the advertising for brutal legend well brutal legend famously no one thought that brutal legend would be what brutal legend was yeah i mean yeah yeah i didn't know until i played it for the first time it's like wait this is like
Speaker: also an RTS. It feels like there was a lot of effort made not to emphasize that in some of its marketing, but you know, another game I feel like really sold itself inaccurately. I don't know if you've heard of a quest for glory shadows of darkness. Hold on. I have one more before we pivot into the game. Wayne, I'm saying Wayne, but I actually, i have a, I have a good one that they, that hit me.
Speaker: And I'll always remember this because it confused the shit out of me as a kid. And here I'll, I'll link this to you. This is, I'm going to link to Jess the back cover of day of the tentacle.
Speaker: Yes. um And I remember, I remember seeing, so, so look at this. The, the, the back cover of day of the tentacle and um is there of like the little like kind of things listed there is there anything that just seems kind of off I mean the game promises romance that's it And also promises two-fisted action, which is a bit of a stretch. Well, at least with the screenshot of it, it has Bernard standing next to the... The clown, which is a good clo Yeah. Like that that that kind of... But romance, I remember seeing that as a kid and being like, there's romance in this game? What? And then I played it.
Speaker: And then, like, I mean, I get, like, somebody is going to be like, well, there's kind of, like... the vibes between Laverne and ah the the the mummy uncle.
Speaker: yeah But no like that's not romance. I just remember seeing that and being like, there's romance. I'm assuming that that is probably a cheeky joke. I think it is. i think But as a kid, I didn't get that.
Speaker: Let me tell you what blows my mind about this box now that I'm looking at the box for Day of the Tentacle. It has basically three sentences of copy on the back. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And it dedicates one of them to really emphasizing the idea that this game has over 100 zany sound effects. Over 100 zany. Of all the things you could say about why people should play Day of the Tentacle, how long do you think it would take you to get down to a rough count of how many zany sound effects there are in Day of the Tentacle? They were selling CDs. They were selling CDs that were like 100 zany ah sound effects.
Speaker: <unk> but This is that and more. This is like 100 zany sound effects and arguably the greatest adventure game of all time. I wouldn't argue that. Now I'm wondering, like I'm just running all the sound effects in my head and I'm going like, were there 100? Were there over 100? Okay, Ben.
Speaker: over one hundred okay ben you know like there's the sound of like uh somebody pulling like like hoagie pulling himself out of the the clock and that's like one that's one there's like when they put something down and it goes like two two That's all of them No, you got at least 98 to go.
Speaker: You know, Ben, when we sat down to plan Quest Quest, we mapped out our first 100 episodes and have no idea what our next episode is going to be.
Speaker: What if it's just us doing a playthrough of day of the Tentacle and you can just hit the little CinemaSins ding every time that there's a zany sound effect?
Speaker: not too much Yeah, there you And we'll see if it gets over 100. Because I don't think it does. I can only... Like, I'm running through the game in my head. It's been little while since played it. We're both running through the game and rotating it in our minds.
Speaker: I can only think of about 14 sound effects. And I wouldn't even say some of them are zany. Some of them are like footfalls or like a door opening. Yeah, i'm I'm thinking that they probably...
Speaker: I think zany is what's growing because I think you and I are both exaggerating a bit. There's probably like there, there, there's definitely a bunch of zany sound effects, but it's probably speaking for all sound effects.
Speaker: Like for for the water, like, you know, ah the the sound of the river at the start of the game. Is it going to call that a zany sound effect? it's a No, it's just I wouldn't call it zany.
Speaker: But the glugging of the sludge is a zany sound effect. Bloop. that's zany i bet there aren't more than 36 zany sound effects in this game so what i'm hearing is because we haven't done day of the tentacle yet have we i don't even know we've only done no we haven't we've been saving that for a special occasion yeah that would have been a good hundredth um people would have loved that ben uh yeah when our lucas arts poll i don't remember any of this shit um But anyway, so you know what? I think we did get an answer here because the the back of the Maniac Mansion, I'm reading, Maniac Mansion colon Day of the Tentacles, how it's listed on Moby Games, which is really funny. That's ridiculous. No one calls it that. no one on Earth.
Speaker: It's like no one on Earth. There is no one on this planet that calls it. If you're calling day of the tentacle maniac mansion, colon day of the tentacle, you need to get a swirly.
Speaker: That same person is like, Oh, have you tried the legend of Robin hood? Colon conquest of the longbow. Come on. Come on. and he Come on.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: It's time for us to come on to Mordoff. yeah I'm sorry, Ben. Would you like to take that again? yeah ah who No.
Speaker: No. No, I wouldn't. You nailed it. Yeah. Because I thought it was perfect. Yeah. That was, I don't know what, I don't know what you're talking about. That was, that was absolutely perfect.
Speaker: you know You can tell we have a 99 of these under our belt. Yeah. ah You know, there's just a a certain smoothness. There's a, I mean, there's an easy playfulness that just pervades the entire affair. We can talk about like, so it I think it is appropriate that, that we're doing like, this is a great game and it is a, a fitting one to talk about on our hundredth. um i And I would say like,
Speaker: the And i said this to you earlier today when we were talking about this, is that, like, but the Quest for Glory 1 episode is, like, I would say one of, like, our first really good, like, our our first solid episodes of this podcast is,
Speaker: Yeah, it only took us 47 episodes. What episode was that? Do we know off the top of my head? I mean, it's early in the run. It is early. It's like first 10 episodes. One, two, three, four, five. It's the sixth.
Speaker: And if I recall correctly, um i believe that ah that was the first one that we recorded after ah like because we we we made a bank of episodes before we started releasing them and i think we recorded those first five i believe we did that sounds right this the first one i think we recorded with the benefit of feedback on those uh initial episodes and kind of like having listened to them and kind of like uh you know kind of
Speaker: you know, uh, gotten a little more comfortable with it. Yes. Cause Ben was a seasoned podcast pro coming into this, but I'd never done this before. And, uh, I was very uncomfortable, uh, at the beginning. and Ben was like, you're doing fine. i was like, Oh, I don't know, Ben.
Speaker: Yeah. and it took me like a good five. e But then, I don't know that I've had a bad episode since we've all been bans all bangers since then and mash um yes absolutely for our British listeners um over in the UK but yes uh today uh we're we're talking about uh Quest for Glory Shadows of Darkness um You know, a pretty good, pretty good game.
Speaker: That's a pretty good game is the thing. But then again, that's going to be the refrain every time we talk about a Quest for Glory game. You and i first of all, i want to establish you and I have correct opinions.
Speaker: And our opinion is that the Quest for Glory games are pretty neat. Yeah. And um the... Like this one is, I mean, you know, the, the thing that I always think about with this game and I, i talked about it kind of, I think one of our earlier episodes was uh, where we talked about sound or songs, music.
Speaker: Um, and, I love, the soundtrack, uh, for this one. I already went at length about how much I like the, ah Adventurers Guild, uh, tune. Uh, so I don't want to, I'm not going to, to, to go on about that because, you know, you could listen to that podcast.
Speaker: um But, you know, this has such a strong soundtrack. It's ah Audrey Hodge, I believe, also did Doom 64 and some other stuff.
Speaker: And one thing that he brought ah to Quest for Glory 4 is there's so much... synth guitar oh and it's lovely it is it is so good like uh it is this really enjoyable constant synth guitar which is i never knew how much i needed like a eastern european synth wave vampire game but this one convinced me Yeah, like, I mean, here, I just i just downloaded a tune. And because like for some of them for like the the opening, which I was kind of teasing ah here, it takes a little while to get to that guitar solo.
Speaker: And then it goes off. And then it's it's really good. and But I don't want to wait too long for it. So here's one that that gives it to us right away.
Speaker: What I really like about this tune... This is, of course, Dr. Cranium's laboratory.
Speaker: One thing I really like about this tune is that this is a considerably batter-ass song than Dr. Cranium deserves.
Speaker: Yes, because he's not that sinister. Not even a little bit. The drumbeat on this is insane. It's like a disincapated rhythm.
Speaker: So good. It is like, I mean, all of all five of the quest for glory games have excellent soundtracks.
Speaker: I love the quest for glory five soundtrack. Yes, beautiful. ah I think this might be my favorite one because there's a certain moodiness.
Speaker: Each of the the vit tunes, even like kind of each kind of elevates the scene that it's in and kind of informs you as a player where you you are, where how you're supposed to feel, what this situation is.
Speaker: And like I said, like this doesn't quite match, you know, i'm I'm contradicting myself right now. Like this doesn't quite match Dr. Cranium's deal, but it it actually serves to make him a little more badass.
Speaker: Yeah. You know, I think what I love about it is there's sort of an expected way that you would score... a horror, a light horror game set in an Eastern European setting. And this soundtrack likes to make nods toward that and then take it in unexpected direction.
Speaker: It of like this one starts off with like almost the Rachmaninoff opening that then turns into synth guitars. Yeah. Like, yeah. And there there are a lot of little variations ah like on tunes like that.
Speaker: Here's This one doesn't bring in my beloved synth guitars, but it is one that that sticks in my mind anyway.
Speaker: ah so let me load it in here. i and it is another one that's very appropriate for this character.
Speaker: This fucking playing little forest tricks on you. This game and it's little freaks.
Speaker: Oh, this is a game full of freaks. Little freaks. should have called this Shadows of Freaks. Yeah. This guy, the, the, the, the Lachie. Lachie.
Speaker: Lachie.
Speaker: Yeah, the leashy, you've got the... It's got a little bird that lives in his head. I hate him. I hate him. You got the Doma boy who's like the Yoda dude who's hanging out in the inn.
Speaker: I don't care. And too many little freaks. Oh, there's big freaks too. You got Toby. He's amazing. He's a lovable freak. He's a lovable freak. But you got like, you've got the chief thief.
Speaker: He's a little freak. He starts out as a little freak and then he becomes a normal freak. Ben, do we always have to go back to Peter Lorre impressions for characters like the chief?
Speaker: What is it about a Peter Lorre? Is it just so easy to do that we can't resist it?
Speaker: You know, I think he's just a shorthand. Yeah, for a very specific archetype. Yeah. He's stock character. The Peter Loriga. Like, you know because they have...
Speaker: Like, obviously they have Peter Lorre here and then like Azugarti in two and five. But then you also have ah ah what's his name that runs the the blue parrot.
Speaker: Yeah. Also. um But yeah, I mean, I don't know. It does have a ton of little freaks. little Too many little freaks. That's the only criticism of this game. Igor is you are a little freak.
Speaker: Igor's a little freak. He's a little freaky too. How do you feel about the voice performance for Igor? Because that one's never worked for me. It sounds like a guy doing a Kermit.
Speaker: And that's not... little bit. That's not... like When you get into the Kermit zone, you always have to, like, stop and reconsider. Maybe they wanted to zag you because they do give you what you expect for most of the voices.
Speaker: Yeah. The Burgomaster couldn't sound more like the distrustful mayor of a small town under siege by supernatural forces. Yeah. When I was playing the the game on disc, originally, I was like those town drunks.
Speaker: One sounds like Rodney Dangerfield. And the other two. And the other two kind of shade in and out. Bad Jack Nicholson.
Speaker: And occasionally one of them is like, seems to be trying a little bit of a Robert De Niro, but never quite gets there. How do you want it? Yeah. We, I mean, we're all over the quest for glory for us, but like, we do have to talk about this. i mean, in the talky version of this game, which Ben, that's the definitive version, right? This is a game where you want the voices, right?
Speaker: We have the townspeople who hang out at the end and there are three guys. Two of them are doing ah Jack Nicholson impression and of really dubious quality i mean ben let's let's get ours let's get first of all we gotta pull back our hair all right okay are you ready okay we both got our hair pulled back we're actually doing it i want to be yeah we're actually actually doing this yeah okay hey i'm jack nicholson hey i'm jack nicholson where's my laundry
Speaker: Hey, it's me, Jack Nicholson from the movie Batman 1989 with... Why am I talking like... No, I don't have a Jack Nicholson either. I definitely, like... I can have a great Jack Nicholson. Birdie.
Speaker: Eagle. um Now... I definitely don't have a Rodney Dangerfield. I, I, you know, like Jack Nicholson is easy to like, you know, was so popular because he has so many ticks. If you give me a little time, i could get you a better Jack.
Speaker: I think you could get a Rodney. I think you have a Rodney in you. Yeah. You know, but i I have so much respect for ro Rodney Dangerfield. ah
Speaker: Yes, oh yes. Would you believe?
Speaker: I do believe. I do believe. I do. I know it wasn't intentional. Oh, God. Ugh.
Speaker: aka
Speaker: oh That's the funniest thing we've ever said on quest quest. I say we having you. oh my God. ah I wasn't even trying. know. Yeah. I just, that's as many times as the Rodney danger film formula has been subverted. And that may be the best version I've ever heard of But i do have too much respect for him to do a like a bad, like I would want to
Speaker: you know, that's a thing that I do. Too much respect. The other day, my wife, she got my slippers in the newspaper. I get too much respect.
Speaker: So I went to that doctor the other day. said you're in terrific health. Of course, you know the name of my doctor. dr Dr. Smith. yeah and And he says to me, Rodney, you're you're in perfect health.
Speaker: I said, I want a second opinion. And then the nurse came in and she gave me a big kiss. ah Too much respect to tell you. Too much respect. Every time I go into a restaurant, you wouldn't believe it. I'm going into a restaurant. The waiter gives me every, every dish for free. at Too much respect.
Speaker: ah When I was little, let me tell you, i was an ugly kid. My parents used to say to me, don't feel bad, Rodney. It's who you are inside that counts. Too much respect.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: It's a bizarre choice. And what I will say as a kid, the first time i played this, like it freaked me out that those guys are improvising. Yeah. And their dialogue doesn't match what actually appears in the text boxes. I didn't know you could do that.
Speaker: I believe, um and now I'm ah like, I believe in the manual, it actually calls it out. But now I've like, I searched the, the, the quest for glory for manual and it's like the, the kind of more in world.
Speaker: Yes. it's Like the spell book and stuff like that. Magazine. Yeah. I swear there was one um Like I, you know, let me know.
Speaker: ah i swear there was one that like who warned you that. Yeah, that that, like, I think it's the the the technical manual, um which I'm on.
Speaker: Wiki Sierra help. Let's see here. Now, this is for the disc version, but let's see if it's the the same across. is Yeah, like, this is a lot more straightforward. It's like, here's how you save a game.
Speaker: Like, you know, um I swear that I saw some sort of warning that, like, there could be where a divergence between the voices and the text boxes. Yeah. And that's amazing. if So maybe this is like, you know, maybe this is like, uh, the, um, you know, Roberta Williams on a funny day. Like maybe this is just some sort of fantastical thing, uh, that I made up, but I,
Speaker: swear ah that like it was referenced in um and see yeah on sierra help it only has the disc version of the technical if you can confirm or disconfirm ben's delusions please email us at quest quest podcast at gmail.com um because yeah my my recollection it says it's like you might notice you know you might notice this uh it's just that they were having so much fun in the recording booth and and we decided to just keep it
Speaker: I know that Corey Cole said that in an interview at some point, m but it wouldn't surprise me. It didn't creep into the manual as well, but Ben bring me up to speed. How does our hero arrive in the land of Mordavia?
Speaker: So, at the conclusion of quest for glory three, as, as you recall, the hero turned blue And the horrible villain, Atavis, and a mysterious cloaked figure were looking through a crystal ball, kind of chuckling as they looked at him in the the the crystal ball.
Speaker: ah We now, ah and Quest for Glory 4 begins, you come to... And you're in a ah terrifying a cave filled with sphincters.
Speaker: Yeah, it's sphincters and skeletons. Sphincters and skeletons. That's the Halloween spirit. ah And ah you, you know, you escape this spooky cave.
Speaker: ah You meet Jennifer Hale ah hanging out outside, voicing Katrina.
Speaker: and she she directs you to the village of Mordavia and it's full of ah like ah universal horror movie ah like slash Eastern European stereotypes of suspicious townspeople.
Speaker: Yes, yes. um And ah the the game is... you know, kind of undoing the, the horrible, like ah curses and ah like awful things that have happened to the people in this town and this land.
Speaker: um As you explore, you find like a lot of ah tragedies, like there's a missing child ah that the, the town like, uh, that, that people are starting to presume may have passed away. There's, uh, like, uh, you know, a sad wandering old man looking for his dead wife.
Speaker: Uh, there's just a lot of like heartbreak. There's, uh, the, uh, chatty gossipy, uh, storekeeper who's constantly discussing her, her husband who, who passed. Um,
Speaker: Oh, what a downer. yeah That, that little plot is one of my favorites. Yeah. It's a little, it's a very it's a very cute little story. between those two And this game's full of cute little stories. No, I mean, it's it's a cast of characters. i mean, this is what you expect but by this point from ah Quest for Glory game. You're going to have an amazing cast of supporting characters. And this one's no exception. And it does something that I think Ben and I both loved about Quest for Glory 1 through 3, if I recall from our discussions of those.
Speaker: And I think this game maybe does it better than any of them. is this process of slowly winning over the locals as you play for the game is really rewarding. Like as you arrive, everyone distrusts you.
Speaker: People will barely give you the time of day. And then little by little, they warm up to you as you begin to solve some of the town's problems. I love this. I found, and again, that structure is there in all three of its predecessors, but i think it's most pronounced here.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, i don't know if it's quite there in one. No, it's not quite. And then you you see it because like two has... The sheriff kind gives you a warning to like be on your best behavior sort of vibe. But it's not like he doesn't change. Like he doesn't say new stuff by the end.
Speaker: um and And there's not...
Speaker: I would say that this is the first to really, really do that. Like there's a little bit of that in two and three. Yeah. Like I think this one's actually making that like the cornerstone of it. That is the whole point of the game is that you enter, you enter the village and everybody is suspicious of you. And they're like, and for good reason, honestly, because they're just like, how do you get here?
Speaker: we yeah We're trapped here. Well, I did this crazy, like, electric boogaloo sort of dance, and that was transported here. And so everybody's very suspicious. Every, like, you know, ah like, people have gone missing. There's, like, all sorts of crazy monsters running around.
Speaker: um Tensions are very high, and they're deeply suspicious of anyone um that is not... a known townsperson.
Speaker: um And yeah, I mean, that's the, the like, you know, especially like when you start to win over the Burgermeister, like as the the game goes on and he, he begins to respect you, especially with the paladin quest, when you ah start to like you, you meet, you know, the, like his, was it his father's ghost? Yeah.
Speaker: ah think so it's been a while since i played as a paladin um i don't know if i've ever successfully played one of these games as a paladin which is also interesting like ah this is one that has like the most fleshed out. This is of, of the, the, the quest for glory thus far.
Speaker: think five has a fair amount of everything for everyone. If I remember right. But this is the one that like, you know, three you know doesn't have a ton for every class no this one goes yeah this one goes out of its way to make sure that everybody gets a special little thing of their own um and ah like so the paladin gets to resolve uh the risulka And the paladin gets to ah do the um like the Burgomeister. never actually seen how the paladin resolves the Rasaka. How does that's our water dwelling, beautiful naked lady spirit. How does he resolve that?
Speaker: um i forget honestly but she becomes a ah terrifying skeleton oh that's better that fixes it i bet that's a she's pretty probably pumped about that yeah she's not happy yeah i mean it's like she was seemed like she's getting along pretty well just being like a damp lady um but uh but anyway like yeah it is ah so yeah over the course and everybody has all these problems like the innkeeper has a problem the bergermeister the uh one of the the residents of the inn has a has a problem uh a gesture that can't tell jokes um yeah uh
Speaker: I love this character, by the way. Oh, yeah. I love this character the same way I love Keep On Laughing. Like the gnomes Quest for Glory games are always a highlight for me. We have a tiny little gnome who's a stand-up comedian with just horrible jokes that don't land because he's cursed. Yeah.
Speaker: And returning is Baba Yaga, yeah i who is a lot of fun. Always good and comes with her companion, Bonehead. Yep.
Speaker: um bobby yaga and this Bobby Yaga is so all over the advertising for this game. Yes, she is. For Bobby Yaga, as well as like, are they goblins or orcs? The guards that are in the castle. I think they're ogres.
Speaker: Ogres. That makes more sense. They show up in a lot of these ads. They really loved the character art for these, for Bobby Yaga and the ogres. let's Let's talk about the character art for a little bit.
Speaker: In the art in general, This is um a game that is like it it's hand drawn and all of that you have these beautiful like large um like ah drawings of all the like close ups of all the characters.
Speaker: And ah they're obviously all hand drawn, but they did a really they got much better. You could tell that this is kind of later.
Speaker: yes for them they got a lot better at figuring out how to like scan hand-drawn art so it doesn't have you know like the like weird dithering or weird yeah like muddy sort of look yeah like everything is very like like you know it's not a wildly colorful game because it is, you know, dark and spooky. Um, but it is like, yeah, it lacks that like sometimes like overly dithered or a little washed out look that some of those hand-drawn, uh, uh, like scans look from that era.
Speaker: Yeah. It looks, it captures more of the painterly fill of the original, art source, I think, than some of the games. Because you see, like, paintings that go into a lot of these Sierra games here and there pop up. you know the original art that was scanned in for backgrounds and things like this.
Speaker: And I feel like this game captures some of that painterly vibe a little bit more effectively. And, I mean, they're gorgeous character des designs. The close-ups of these characters when they're talking, like, across the board.
Speaker: i mean, again, you get some real freaks in there, and that's pretty fun. You have some really evocative faces. i mean, every character... is distinct enough that they are instantly recognizable if you've experienced human pop culture at some point you kind of have a sense of who all these people are within a moment or two of seeing them and hearing them speak i mean it's it's uh it's it's definitely trafficking in some some familiar character archetypes that that's fun and then the backgrounds i mean there's some gorgeous scenes i love i mean one of my favorite sierra
Speaker: screens of all time is um the screen where igor hangs out yep with the crazy perspective on the what what's the building there in the background the monastery yeah the monastery that is i that was what i was thinking of too yes and and they also use that in ads a lot too that's like yeah they knew that they were sitting on like oh this looks really good Yeah, for for a company that a lot of these games end up having very flat presentation, the sort of weird perspective on that scene in particular really works to create this kind of uncomfortable vibe that the monastery is meant to give you since it has some pretty dark, creepy stuff going on inside of it.
Speaker: Yeah, and I want to just roll back a little bit. You were talking about like how incredible like these characters look. I mean, they could have looked a little better if they were modeled in clay first. I think that would have kind of it is we improved if they were like modeled in clay and and drawn and they they kind of you know looked a little melty and upsetting.
Speaker: ah Yeah, I mean, that that would that's, I think, the only way you could fix it. Like the only way you can make it better would be to make this claymation. But, you know, I don't know that Sierra had the money for clay by the time we reached like this point. they probably cashed in their clay budget. I just pulled up. All their clay budget was built to, like, they had to cash that in to make Phantasmagoria. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: And now I'm just looking at that monastery scene. And it is... It's really interesting because this has, as I said, like a like hand-drawn look.
Speaker: And it's a little bit... Like, it's a little bit cartoony. Mm-hmm. Like, you see, like, kind of clouds up above the monastery. And it's obviously, like, it's it's very stylized. Like, they're not trying for realism in any way.
Speaker: um But, you know, they they do it um and it doesn't, like, it's it's cartoony, but it, it ah like, in a way that that doesn't sell it short, if you understand what I'm saying. you know Exactly, yeah.
Speaker: And it is interesting that like this game does like it it kind of um will go back and forth between kind of like a goofy type of horror and like kind of a like a scary type of horror, like kind of back and forth.
Speaker: Yeah. Often close to each other. Now, Ben, I'm curious if this was the case for you. It certainly was for me. You know, part of this story, you know, spoiler alert, just to kind of give away maybe the game's big twist, is that Katrina, this lovely young peasant girl who greets you when you first emerged from the sphincter,
Speaker: um is is there to you know serve not only as a potential love interest, but eventually is revealed as the Dark Master who's working alongside Adavis to summon an eridimensional Cthulhu-adjacent creature by the name of voozle yeah voozle yeah um this was for me my first exposure to anything i kind of lovecraft stuff lovecraftian in any form and it likely lovecraftian I mean, clearly that's the inspiration, but we don't get a lot of it other than being this like unspeakable horror from another dimension. But they tossed a lot of stuff into the blender here. Yeah, there's there's dark cultist ideas being thrown around. And then there's somebody that talks a little bit like Boris Karloff. Like, you know, like it has ah has a lot of everything.
Speaker: Yeah, it does. I mean, it's got a mad scientist. It's got a Boris Karloff. It's got a Cthulhu. It's got vampires. It's got werewolves.
Speaker: I mean, it's kind of touching on every sort of trope that you would expect. or But, you know, mostly I think it works Well, in the same way that, you know, Quest for Glory 2 touching on every single Arabian Nights concept it could come up with, mostly works in a charming sort of way. It's a pastiche of this genre, but it's one that in large part because of just how charming these games are and how well-written they are, that they're able to stick it all together in a way that kind of is better than the sum of its parts, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, um, ah so... You know, i like this. This game feels and even in some ways looks to me kind of similar to Quest for Glory 1, right? Like it's like more intense, more stuff.
Speaker: Quest for Glory 1, right? Like you have a small town. Yeah. A small walled town, except like this one is is's kind of a like a of less welcoming one.
Speaker: Yes, immediately. Yeah. And... um like and And I was wondering when I was revisiting it, ah ah the this game was,
Speaker: um do you think Quest for Glory works better in the two villages that we spend that we spend time in versus the three cities that the the other three games are in?
Speaker: you know, that's a great question. I think of the cities that we go to of Shapir, Tarna, and Silmaria.
Speaker: i think that of those three, Shapir seems the most fully realized, but that could be a product of me just having played Quest for Glory 2 a little bit more. But I do think the settings of a small village in 1 and 4,
Speaker: where you kind of feel like you literally know everybody in town. There's a certain charm to that. I think the, the personal nature of those, of those quests really connects with me. What do you think?
Speaker: You know, it is interesting what you just said, because yeah, Shapir feels the biggest of, I mean, it, I, I think it is the biggest. It probably is. Yeah. Technically. Of, of the, the three cities, but it's also like that. And it sells it the best.
Speaker: Yeah. Even though it probably like they could have done a better job. Like it, it isn't quite there because of like limitations of the, like, you know, those, uh, alleys are such miserable slogs. Um, but like, you know, and that's kind of ameliorated uh, like the, you know, the fan VGA remake. Yeah.
Speaker: But like, you know, Tarna doesn't feel too too big. no And, you know, Silmaria, I mean, is that a city? i mean, it almost feels more like a fishing village than a city itself, right?
Speaker: Because it has, like, I mean, it's kind of like the capital seat of a island that has... uh nameless villain or villages uh in it yeah like but i think so maria like because it has like an arena in a castle and like i think it is supposed to be like i don't think it's supposed to be as big as shapir which shapir i think is supposed to be like
Speaker: like a you know enormous yeah and tarna you know has an entire district we can't enter so it's much bigger than we can tell um but and tarna's walled to i mean actually all other than silmaria is it silmaria walled i don't think it is no i think there might be a gate there might be a gate now that you mention it yeah i think we're going to replay quest for glory five It's not that bad, but I don't want to. I don't really want to. I don't have to try to set it up and get it running. Oh, that's yeah that sucks.
Speaker: But yeah. All right. Anyway, back to the question, which is. Yeah, like, I mean.
Speaker: I think. All things considered, I think I still prefer one to four. I think I still think that quest for glory one is my favorite with four right after.
Speaker: Okay. um And um I do, I do appreciate, i think in both of them that it does feel like you're in these tiny, like that you're kind of on your own. Yeah.
Speaker: I think that's a really, that's a very enjoyable feeling in this type of RPG, in this type of game where like, where you're, you're entirely on your own.
Speaker: The, I think what edges one, a little bit more, and this is a problem that quest for glory just essentially had after one is that like kind of the RPG grind is the most pleasurable and fun. I think in one,
Speaker: Like by the time you get to four, it just feels like an adventure game with stats because the game doesn't really like one has stuff where you're being stat checked constantly. yeah I think they realized really bother with that. By the time you get to four, there's going such a wide range of what sort of stats people have.
Speaker: I think they realized we're going to make this a miserable game experience. If all of a sudden, you have to have like 350 points and something to accomplish anything. If someone didn't start stacking that stat back in their character in quest for glory one before importing it.
Speaker: Yeah. They, they, I think as the series goes on, the stat checks get a little lower. Combat can be more difficult if you haven't grinded out some of those stats, but the characters again, I think that, yeah, they care less about those sorts of things. I think if i were ranking them,
Speaker: I might put two for me slightly ahead of four. I really love quest for glory too. Like there, I think it's only been in recent years that I've decided that I might like quest for glory one a little better than two.
Speaker: i do like their neck and neck for me. I think one has surpassed two, but if you asked me 10 years ago, I think I would have said like without pause was my favorite. So And I don't know what it even was about two. I think that it just was, I think it seemed impossibly sprawling and large to me at the time I played it And somehow that just captured me in, uh, in a really, you know, like gauging way to is such an impressive game.
Speaker: Yes. Um, The scale compared to your average CR game is really something else. It's a really impressive game. I mean, the real stat checks in Quest for Glory 4 are how far will you be able to get into it before the game crashes yeah terribly i bought this game this was my night this is what i was teeing you up for yes i bought this game on a disc on disc form uh the floppy form and played it on discat okay floppy discat okay yeah 3.5 inch uh standard definition um
Speaker: And I played a little ways in before eventually the game crashed. I think it crashed somewhere on that screen where you like have the big pillar outside of you slide down the sphincter towns. um where Where like you, you do well you a little slide down. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That was the screen. I think that it crashed on.
Speaker: And at the time, they were like I didn't have access to the Sierra BBS. I didn't have access to any sort of like way to dial into anything. So to get this patched at the time, it required me sending the first disc of the game by mail back to Sierra.
Speaker: and waiting six to eight weeks for them to mail me a patched copy back, which was just brutal. And I will say, i don't think I ever finished the disc version of it because like by the time it got back, I was just like, I'm over this game. It's frustrating. I lost a bunch of progress. progress The patched version wouldn't use my saved game, so was having to go all the way back to the beginning.
Speaker: i And also, I think I had a slow system at the time that really struggled to run it at some level. Load times were pretty rough for me. I think I just noped out of it. And then eventually, a year or two later, got the CD-ROM version and then played through it start to finish once a lot of those bugs had been patched out.
Speaker: It was... Yeah, but that that that was the patching experience in, like, 1993. It was send away and wait. I seem to recall...
Speaker: that my because we we bought it at release two and i seem to recall that my my brother my older brother improbably completed it and like i'll have to ask him but also he was getting on to bbs's ah so he probably did find the patch or one of the early patches.
Speaker: Now, my understanding is like, it's like, you know, because now when we play, um you know, Quest for Glory 4, you know, generally you're going to play it on ScumVM and generally that's going to, like, I think that has every single,
Speaker: patch fix that there is. official And I think benefit because I think even after the, ah the CD raw version came out, there were still some timing bug errors and that started to crop up as you had faster computers.
Speaker: I mean, this game was always, i think, held together. by like chicken wire it was it was always a a very unstable game even after it was officially patched nowadays you can play it by and straight through and probably have no problems yeah i don't think when when the last time i played it like entirely i don't think i ever ran into any like any big glitches or game ending bugs i don't think i did either let me ask you a question ben
Speaker: And if I can loop all the way back to where I started earlier in that question about sort of a mismatch between marketing of a game and the game itself. And it something that this game really emphasized in a lot of its marketing. This is the game where you make the rules?
Speaker: Yes. That's what it says the box. yeah Which you don't. It's very rule-based and I'm not making any of that's always been something that's kind confused me. But I was thinking more about the combat, which the tagline for a lot of these ads was immortal combat.
Speaker: and The presentation of it is clearly trying to evoke a 2D fighting game at the height of Street Fighter two and Mortal Kombat's popularity.
Speaker: It is giving you a sort of you know, side view 2D of the hero fighting against his enemies. And have to say, the screenshots of this I saw before getting the game, it looks amazing. It literally looks like, it's like, oh my God, they dropped like,
Speaker: street fighter 2 into the middle of this uh this game series that i love this is gonna be amazing i think this is the worst that combat ever was in the quest for glory series yeah i always turned on the assist or whatever yeah like you you do and and like i think only like when i was playing it as a kid did i like try to play it? And even then I was just like, Ooh, yeah, no, it plays horribly. It's not, it feels almost more like a game of luck than skill.
Speaker: Like nothing about the, I was assuming when I saw, know, screenshots of this and that it was being advertised so heavily, once again, like a dope thing.
Speaker: I was like, this mini game that's part of this adventure game is going to be so good. I'll just want to play it on its own. And that is absolutely not the case with this combat. There is very little, other than it being kind of handsome looking, kind of.
Speaker: No, I love how it looks. I think it looks yeah really good. Yeah. But oh it plays like absolute trash. I mean, I would take the Quest for Glory 5 combat over this. i would, yeah, just about anything I think is an improvement. I mean, then again, i love Quest for Glory 2's combat. I think that's the the top of the pile. Let's ah let's talk a little bit about ah one of the, you know, something to me is quite iconic, which is that they brought in the wonderful character actor, John Rhys Davies, Sala himself.
Speaker: Yes. oh Oh, my gosh. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Gimli. into to be the narrator who famously didn't know what he was signing up for. No, he's described him having like a a phone book of a script.
Speaker: If I'm not mistaken, is this one of the Sierra games where they actually trimmed out some lines because of just like, I don't know that. I wanted to think that this game and maybe Freddy Farkas both lost some text between the disc version and the and the eventual CD-ROM release simply because there was too much to include on 650 megabytes. But he is giving, as the narrator,
Speaker: one of the most fascinating performances. mean, it's iconic on the one hand. mean, it is memorable. I think for a lot of people, this may be the most memorable thing about the game.
Speaker: How would you describe his performance at any given moment? I mean, it well, I mean, it jumps all over the place. That's the the best part about it. Yes. So one thing is, is that John Rhys Davies you know, to me, you know, this has been established already on this podcast. I was a big fan of the television show Sliders, which he was on for two and a half seasons. Professor Arturo, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker: and And he was, so like, he he was such a fun character. Yeah, he's wonderful there. Fun, fun performance on that show.
Speaker: He only gives fun performances. And, um And my axe. Remember that? I remember it. And he is like, like in, in sliders. so he's, you know, professor Arturo, you know, this distinguished intellectual man with this, you know, sonorous baritone and this, you know, wonderful accent.
Speaker: You know, he just seems so smart and distinguished. And so that's exactly the type of voice you want for like a very moody piece like this. Oh, yeah. A very rich voice that, you know, it really kind of takes you in.
Speaker: But... As said like he you know, was kind of shocked when he saw how big the fucking script was, you know, probably, you know, had some sharp words with his agent. I was going to say, it feels like there might have been some phone calls exchanged if I had to take a guess.
Speaker: Because I can't imagine. as set Like, you know, how well did Sierra pay him versus, you know, a television show on Fox? Like, yeah. you know, for all that work. And um
Speaker: it is very clear when I did my last full game, you know, full game playthrough that you can really tell um with each line delivery, because obviously, you know, you're not going to hear them in order. Yeah.
Speaker: you can really tell the ones where he's, you know, kind of locked in and he's like, yeah, you know, I'm a professional actor. and I'm going to fucking do this. And the ones where he's just like,
Speaker: looking at the clock and he's yeah like it's is it you can almost tell like oh this was a right before lunch take or right after lunch too yeah yeah this guy's like ready to hit the sandwich cart right now and is uh yeah he's his blood sugar is low and he's really rushing and phoning this one in You can tell, yeah when he's locked in, it's wonderful.
Speaker: He's putting the mustard on some of those lines like you wouldn't believe. He's elevating the material. Having fun with some of the jokes and some of the puns. Yeah, he actually chuckles at them. That's fun. Like, he's, as a narrator, sort of chuckling at the writing that he's reading is really charming. And you can tell that, like, he's <unk>s engaged.
Speaker: And then there are other lines where... It's just like, how can I say these words as quickly as possible to be done with saying this? One gets the sense that the voice direction on this game, whoever was in the room did not have the best control of the actors because however you feel about you know the the drunken townspeople doing you know doing terrible impressions which is like kind of charming and it's kind of not like i'm kind of back and forth on it i love that it's there but if i'd been the director of the game probably wouldn't have let you in there i would be like absolutely not you read the you're i mean one of those guys is jim cummings but like he's he's a for real voice actor
Speaker: um but like they they kind of break the reality of the game because they also talk about like tv and like yes blue light special and like really just go totally off the map and i get it because i think that there's a good chance that cory cole was doing a lot of this direct here I don't know this for sure. But i mean, it is weird when you have people who really aren't in that industry who are now responsible for making these sorts of creative decisions and what's starting to look more like an animation project or by the time you get to, know, Phantasmagoria film project. And is.
Speaker: you can kind of see where, yeah, at some level, as hard as it is to take a beloved, you know, professionally trained, uh, you know, absolute icon of an actor and just say, it's like, I'm going to need you give me that again and really kind of slow down and, you know, enunciate.
Speaker: I, I also don't think, uh, I'm, I'm pretty sure, uh, there was no telling, you know, JRD to do a second take.
Speaker: I mean, I bet that would, again, well, mean, with that power, there I mean, I'm begging you could tell he wasn't thrilled to be there. No. At times. Absolutely not. I mean, this is not based on any kind behind-the-scenes storytelling. Everyone's been very professional about this when talking about what an amazing experience it was. But you get the feeling there definitely times when he would rather be anywhere else on Earth.
Speaker: But, you know, it gives his performance quite a... Texture. it gives it texture. Yeah. like Which is wonderful. And, I mean, it is it is fun to just feel him wheeling back and forth. mean, also, I mean, this game has Jennifer Hale's first ever voice acting in a video game. For those of you unfamiliar, she is ah famous for Fem Shep.
Speaker: mhm basila sean from uh from knights of the old republic uh she has one of my favorite voice performances in all of overwatch she plays uh ash in overwatch who's like a a cowgirl uh bandit uh who's uh who's really wonderful southern accent really just knocks out the park she goes i think me now plays their recently added character jetpack cat it was a cat who flies around a jetpack and makes meowing noises i don't think you need to spell that one out for me
Speaker: Well, it's a cat who flies around a jet pack. He's like, wow, wow, wow, wow. And that's Jennifer Hale. They got her to be the jet pack cat. Yeah. Great.
Speaker: It's wonderful. It's a charm. Ben, you should Google jet pack cat. You will be instantly charmed. All right. Let's see. Let's see. Live react. You're going to love it. You're love it.
Speaker: It's not what you think. Well, I'm pretty sure it's exactly what I think. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not sure. That's Jennifer Hill. Okay. She's she's a jetpack cat. That's fine.
Speaker: you should get into Overwatch. That's not going to happen. can show you the ropes. I don't need them. i can show you the ropes. The ropes are right over here. and i Leave the the ropes coiled.
Speaker: Leave them up ah in whatever you call it. And, you know, above the stage at the opera. Oh, what is that called? The monkey box? Oh, man.
Speaker: Fuck, we were taught that. We were taught that by our friends at Microprose. Oh, man. Maybe we need to do another episode about Return of the Phantom.
Speaker: I mean, i was I was warned that he might be back. Oh, man. Or is he? Yeah, I don't have that clip on the ready, so I'm just not going to play. Or is he?
Speaker: But yeah, um you know, one of the, you know, the this game juggles tones ah so much. Like, you know, the Toby Tanya does get me.
Speaker: like the the toby and tanya plot does get me Oh, it does. I mean, it's incredibly sweet. It's very sweet and very sad. And it's it's heartbreaking, too, when you realize, that you know, ah short version, Katrina has basically lured this little girl to her castle and turned her, she's the daughter of the innkeepers, has turned her into a vampire.
Speaker: She's now basically living there at the castle with her as her adopted daughter. And she's given her a giant monster guy as her playmate, essentially. And when the hero rescues her, i mean, on the one hand, you have, spoiler alert, um her beloved Toby, who's like her best friend, ah ah has to sacrifice his life to return her humanity.
Speaker: But also, Katrina is heartbroken because you've taken away someone that she loved as a daughter to return her to her parents. It is.
Speaker: They're very delicate with it. They're very delicate to make it like that. She's Tanya's sad and misses her parents, but they don't make her a sad little girl, which would have made the game too sad.
Speaker: Yeah, it's two it would be too. cause And she has to talk about all the things she enjoys. Like, she has this great little bit about her and Katrina, how they fly up in the air and dance all over ah the rooms of the castle and everything. And you get this feeling. it's like, yeah, I can see, like, you know, why little child would, you know, not be just totally miserable. But, course, she misses her parents. So it's also a very good little kid voice performance in a world where so many. Taylor. Yeah. Voice of Martin.
Speaker: Yes, that's amazing. In a world where so often you're just going to get someone's voice pitched up to like a horrible, you know, artificial sound. We actually have a really lovely performance that helps sell this character. I mean, Lucy, Lucy Taylor was one of the great voice. Like she, once again, is the voice of Martin on the Simpsons.
Speaker: yeah Speaking of the Simpsons. Yeah. There's, you know... i thought you meant the voice of Martin Lawrence yeah from the show Martin. You know, speaking of all the voice acting, like, there is the uh like the romani encampment they don't use that word uh uh like on the in on the corner of the map that does have one of the funniest voice performances one-line voice performances of the entire game where uh
Speaker: And I wish I had this ready where like apparently I guess they just didn't have the audio. Like they forgot to record something. And so Lori just reads one. Lori Cole reads one line, I believe. Yes. And it sounds insane.
Speaker: they should have just cut it. o me um But, ah but yeah, I don't know. It's a, it's a good game. It,
Speaker: it
Speaker: you know, the, the, the bugginess, I will say like, so a lot of the meat of the game is given to like kind of finding like the, you have to find these rights, right?
Speaker: to uh free a voozle who's trapped in another dimension ya vouzle yeah yeah yeah yeah um and uh so you have to find these rights and they're they're hidden around mordavia and that kind of treasure hunt is actually like kind of the part of the game and this is like the meat of the game right like that that treasure hunt is less interesting to me ah Yeah, honestly, what the game kind treats almost more narratively as side quests, even though i think you have to complete nearly all of them to to complete the game.
Speaker: ah for me, are the more interesting parts of the game, like reuniting, you know, lost lovers and rescuing Tanya and all those sorts and earn and earning the townspeople's trust. All those bits, to me, work a little bit better than the, like, finding all the rights to summon. And then, like, but the the end game... Back to the sphincter zone....is a classic...
Speaker: quest for glory i'm realizing now um up to this point i'm going to have to remember what yeah i mean the quest for glory five ah end game is this tedious and deeply unfun battle with the titular dragon oh awful yeah um but the original four their ending all like you for all four of them you kind of end up in like a extremely like you go from a game that's fairly non-linear ish like kind of a big open space to like just a straight like a like a series of you know kind of difficult adventure game puzzles that you gated ah like linear puzzles at that point yeah and
Speaker: none of them I particularly like some of them. I like more than other ones.
Speaker: um Yeah, I would agree. Like they're bits. Like, don't know. think in quest for glory one, like I found the three stooges.
Speaker: room charming i like it's just a trial and error cut like york's room quite a bit just in terms of like what a fun thing to do with with the game engine of just like doors that pop you out in unexpected places quest for glory ones also has the benefit of being not too long that's right that last sequence not too much like it's not too long whereas like Two's problem, I would say, is that it's just way too much of a parody of Casablanca.
Speaker: Yes. Especially as a kid who hadn't seen Casablanca. It was just like, what's ah what's happening right now? to the point where it's just like, what... Then, so that one, it's just a little too weird. Like, it's just such a swerve in the kingdom.
Speaker: Quest for Glory 3 is mercifully short, and it does have one of the coolest sequences of the game, which is when that your evil mirror version of you fights you, and then you're saved by the thief. That part is actually quite cool.
Speaker: Maybe 3? the one and three might be my favorite four and two are kind of towards the bottom for me because i do not like the the solving the the rights in all like going into the the cave and doing the rights like no and that part is not very fun no and you lose a lot of the like the humor that's been used to lighten the game up to that point. And yeah, that, that part doesn't quite do it for me either. You know, but if we're comparing the games though, Ben, one more thing that I feel like we have to mention.
Speaker: You know, one of the things that I think true Quest for Glory heads love about the early games in this series are the evocative descriptions of the dishes that the hero enjoys um at the hero's tell end. And, you know, imagine how disgusting it must be to eat avocado and garlic on bread.
Speaker: i know as we get to this one yeah now they flip down its head it's like what if the inn is only serving the most disgusting food that you can imagine and the idea that they come up with avocado toast as one of those disgusting foods well it's not at the end that's what uh oh wait that's what the woman the storekeeper what do they have at the end don't remember the dishes at the end i don't either I'm thinking about yeah but yeah the idea that avocado toast is supposed to be a gross out food it's just a sandwich it like likes the crisp so that's true yeah maybe that was it but still I mean I know that you're a millennial so I mean that you're probably eating avocado toast right now right now yeah I've got avocado mouth yeah that's why you can hear it smacking yeah
Speaker: ah All right. Well, we've talked about this for a bit. Is there anything else you want to hit before before we wrap it up and go on to our next hundred episodes? Wow. You know, I can't imagine where we'll go next. I mean, I imagine we'll start to just repeat a lot of these games. yeah So I think we'll probably, I guess maybe we'll probably do Quest for Glory one again before we make it to five.
Speaker: I mean, you know, if it was how I play Quest for Glory games, it would be like five Quest for Glory podcasts of Quest for Glory 1, then one for two, one for three, one for four, and then five more Quest for Glory 1s. Yeah.
Speaker: but But no, i mean, fantastic game. I love it. I think that there's a sizable chunk of our audience for whom this is probably their favorite Quest for Glory game.
Speaker: And I can absolutely get why that's the case. Like, i there's a lot to love about this one. There's still something so perfect about Quest for Glory 1 that it's hard for me to choose any of these games over it.
Speaker: But I see what there is to love about this one. Just the pumpkins turn into jack-o'-lanterns at night. That is one of my favorite parts of this game. I can't believe we didn't mention it until now.
Speaker: The fact that at night, the pumpkins that are out in front of the town at the gate turn into jack-o'-lanterns at night. i really good love this it i mean everything about like that whole fall you know uh halloweeny vibe to the whole affair is just wonderful yeah one wonderful well this has been quest quest the adventure game podcast thank you so much for listening to it uh rate review five stars please you can send us can you believe we did 100 episodes
Speaker: Yeah, I can actually. I mean, you know, I've done a bunch of podcasts. Yeah. I mean, I stormed off like three or four times and like said I was done during that hundred episodes. But you know, you pulled me back in every time. Yeah. You said, Jess, we'll do like a Space Quest game if you'll come back. And i'm like, okay, fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we will. We will next week. ah Really? Yeah. Well, send us an email at questquestpodcast at gmail.com. We love ah love to read those.
Speaker: And join us next week. When we discuss... Episode 101! You know, we're turning a new leaf. When we discuss... Space... Quest... 4.
Speaker: All right, so Jess, would you say that you've played Space Quest 4 100 times? Like, think about this. Like, normally you have a joke here. I'm honestly asking you this.
Speaker: You ran a Space Quest website. Uh-huh. And I know you've played Space Quest 4 many times. You've played Space Quest 4 multiple times on your stream. And I mean, yeah, when you count like the 16 color version and then you figure in like the 256 color disc version, then you think about the CD-ROM version.
Speaker: And all the different times I played this just like personally, privately, on stream to, you know, just like prepare walkthroughs and everything else like that. You guess what I would say has been, I've yet to play Space Request. Space Request. You blew it. do You blew You blew You blew it. I haven't played it yet because you don't get to play Space Quest 4.
