Transcript
Speaker: From Chicago, the city that brought you edible paperclips and a top-secret style of cheese that will never ever tell you, it's Quest Quest, to the adventure game podcast in front of a live studio audience!
Speaker: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. I'm Ben. This is a solo quest. Jess is on assignment.
Speaker: ah He is ah currently investigating... um
Speaker: You know, sometimes he... Like... ah he He is, i'm I'm sorry to say, ah he is investigating, he's he's stuck inside of a whale with human teeth.
Speaker: That's happened a lot. It's been happening more and more as ah you know, as ah as the climate changes. More whales get human teeth.
Speaker: And our are swallowing people that that swim ah just a couple to too many screens out into the ocean. Yeah, I know. But I trust that I have been in touch with Jess and I have sent him ah specific instructions on how to climb up a whale's tongue in a very specific way that he doesn't slip uh it is it is very persnickety but i will admit i am a whale survivor i have been swallowed by a whale and live to tell the tale the whale's tale
Speaker: Thank you. ah So yeah, it's a quest quest. It's a solo quest today. ah so you know, let's let's get to this. We'll probably be a little shorter.
Speaker: i of course, can banter with myself and of of course, with this incredible live studio audience.
Speaker: But, ah you know, this will this will be, you know, a little shorter. Just a ah couple thoughts to keep the the content flowing like the spice melange.
Speaker: You know, soon all of your eyes will become a beautiful blue from listening to to enough Quest Quest and you will be all able to fold ah time and space.
Speaker: I never quite understood that. Is that like, is that I'm assuming, you know, I've never really given this much thought and I don't know if, you know, ah do Neds quest quest podcast at gmail.com, but, uh, keep your answer to, uh, three sentences or less.
Speaker: Uh, like when they say like full, full space, is it Is that like just kind of a metaphor? Is this something like where in and Star Trek, there's a ah like there's a guy or you know a staff or you know or like the scientific staff or you know whatever person that that their job, whoever this is, is to to kind of give a ah ah science-y enough veneer
Speaker: To what they do. ah You know, that's actually, that's where the idea for the Voyager episode threshold came from, was that a scientist did discover if you break through warp barrier, ah you do start to evolve backwards.
Speaker: I think that was the idea. I think that was Brandon Braga's concept for i Threshold an infamous episode of Star Trek Voyager where they ah the Voyager goes ah too fast because i i think it's Tom Paris it's been a while since we've seen this episode ah but ah it goes too fast and ah the Tom Paris in particular maybe it's not the whole Voyager maybe it's just his his test pilot
Speaker: chip i'm not going to look this up i'm not going to memory alpha that will slow down my entire computer my cpu will go to like five like 500 celsius
Speaker: i'm not going to memory alpha um so you you're just dealing with my memory of this uh but uh tom starts to, ah quote unquote, evolve backwards into like this evil b wizard man or something.
Speaker: And I think that like Bragg is, I remember there was a quote of his of something like, i you know, what if there was evolution, but to but it was bad?
Speaker: Which, you know what? that's you know That's the incredible thing about science fiction is that it really... Good science fiction is ah based on the concept of what if.
Speaker: And ah what if ah there was evolution to a bad place where you became... an evil lizard, and eventually ah salamander that has babies with your captain who's also become a salamander.
Speaker: um Something that happens in Threshold. I hope ah that you're not, everyone's not upset by ah by this All right, I'm sorry I spoiled threshold an episode from a TV show from the 90s. And as we all know, was 30 years Yeah.
Speaker: thirty years ago
Speaker: yeah i So, ah yeah, it's ah that's that's a bummer to call contemplate. ah But ah here we are, just like Threshold, what if science fiction, it's a cornucopia. yeah you You pick up ah that paper-bound, bi-monthly volume of science fiction and fantasy and read those short stories that bring you the the the great what-ifs of the era.
Speaker: So i for those of you ah who who have been, who watch my stream, PS underscore Garrick on Twitch, and you can also find me on YouTube.
Speaker: Jess, of course, well, he's on assignment ah trying to escape from a whale with human teeth. ah He's decaf. Jedi, no underscore. He got on that early. i You know, e he he's not, but PSGarrak, no underscore, was taken.
Speaker: So i have to I have to make that very clear. And also it's Garrak, G-A-R-A-K. For years I spelled Garrak, G-A-R-E-K.
Speaker: but You know, this Decaf Jedi, everyone knows how to spell that. PS underscore Garrak.
Speaker: Poor decision, poor decision, but that's, ah you know, I'm sticking to it and I refuse to move from it.
Speaker: Anyway, ah so for those of you ah who ah watch, how how many of you out there ah watch watch my stream? Teams seems like a ah lot of you.
Speaker: Oh, and and one evil wizard. ae So we were ah streaming Wayne's World, which you you could have ah listened to prior podcasts where Jess and I discussed Wayne's World and also, oh my God. can't,
Speaker: you know what? I can't, I can't become too reliant. I gotta, I gotta lay off. Using ah the the Beverly Hillbillies theme for cheap heat.
Speaker: ah Because, ah you know, like I got to i gotta to save that. I gotta save that in my pocket. You know, like I can't just bring that out. I can't ah can't bring that out. I can't use it all the time. There's a codenamed Iceman theme, of course, as well. Both iconic, beautiful themes if you're if you've been listening to the podcast. This would be a weird one to start with.
Speaker: ah me talking to myself but you know I've lived alone for like eight years so I do a lot of this every day in my home is an incredible live podcast just to my cats Anyway, so I've been ah playing Wayne's World a little more on Wayne's World itself later.
Speaker: But I was saying as I was streaming, I was like, I think I'm coming down with something. I had a bit of a stomach upset this week.
Speaker: And I've been trying. the The thing about it is that you generally can't, like unless it's very obvious, like you're like, I shouldn't have eaten that bad sandwich.
Speaker: ah But it's generally pretty, like, it's it's not obvious, like, you know, I suspected it might have been this pizza I had. But I am going to say one thing I had, which I am pretty sure it didn't, the that didn't cause it.
Speaker: But you'll understand why it's on the suspect list when I start to talk about it, which was that on Sunday evening, I went to a Malort tasting.
Speaker: Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar, and I think at this point, within i the the the United States, i I doubt for any of our, I don't know if any of our international listeners, I know that it is a you know, an international liqueur, but like the specific Chicago Malort thing ah from Jepson's distillery.
Speaker: Yeah. the So Malort is this ah spirit ah that you have in Chicago to kind of like, and it tastes like burning tires. it It opens with like kind of a mild kind of grapefruit, kind of a like digestive type of ah like sipper shot flavor.
Speaker: That's pretty harsh. And then and then you're you're like, you know, everybody says this stuff tastes disgusting. But, you know, this isn't too bad. And then it it gets you on the back end with that burning tire flavor.
Speaker: With, like, it's bad smoke. I enjoy Mezcal, which, or Mezcal? mezcal quest quest podcast at gmail.com or you can just send me a pronunciation guide or i can google it but can you trust google these days uh anyway i i love i love it but uh but this is it's it's evil smoke it's uh the the smoke from a evil wizard
Speaker: that's right um and anyway but the thing is is that with uh malort uh like specifically ah of the the jepson's vintage here in chicago it's a thing that that you uh essentially trick people into ah having a shot of if they're visiting or you have a shot of it you know, kind of as a like a funny, like this is disgusting thing or or whatever. It's got, it's got a bit of a reputation and it was
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: uh they had a ah time in the sun specifically here in chicago and it's still associated with uh chicago but i i think it started to kind of like i've seen now it's it's it's broken into the mainstream as like kind of a meme of a disgusting alcohol um and uh i've made jess have a shot of it with me i'm pretty sure ah and And the thing is, is that if you make someone get a shot of it, you have to have a shot of it with them. So I've had countless, countless shots of Malort in my tenure as a ah citizen of the world city, Chicago, Illinois.
Speaker: And ah so at this point, it really does not faze me. um I don't and don't want to and want to impress you. one of the uh you know several dozen uh uh people that listen to this podcast i don't wanna i don't wanna don't wanna seem like a particularly tough boy to you but i am going to say i've had many shots of it it's fine um
Speaker: But the thing is, is that they've they've been ah distilling this for for decades. And ah over the course of the decades, it's it's tasted different. ah And so a friend of mine had ah a couple different vintages of Malort.
Speaker: And we we all you know shot it together. There was a ah couple of us said together. We all shot it together. And um I got to say, it was nastier in um like ah about 15 years ago.
Speaker: which is what i Which is what I remembered, but I was kind of thinking, um is is it just because that one was when I first had it?
Speaker: And so, you know, my taste buds, which weren't ah so battle-hardened.
Speaker: was it Was it just that? But no, the Malert of 2025, I'm sorry to say, is so not quite as harsh.
Speaker: But the Malert I remember when I came here. Ah, when things were real.
Speaker: uh that malort
Speaker: that uh that is uh that that was that was uh the nastiest some of the older ones they were fine um anyway uh so you know maybe that caused my stomach upset but it's probably not that it's probably i don't know who knows It will remain a mystery unless ah any of you are ah forensic detectives.
Speaker: um In which case, questquestpodcast at gmail.com. Any of you out there good at this?
Speaker: Just you. Okay.
Speaker: Well. ah You know, that's enough ah banter between myself and myself. So let's see what have i been playing.
Speaker: Thank you, Ben. So, know, I have dusted off and started playing a favorite of mine, 2.
Speaker: XCOM 2 by Firaxis. I'm not referring to Terror from the Deep.
Speaker: with its expansion pack, which is great and adds all sorts of delightful Star Trek voices.
Speaker: We got Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis,
Speaker: you got John Delancey.
Speaker: I think my man Frakes, I think he's also in it.
Speaker: All the stars are out. All the stars in the sky. That's kind of a cheat code, right? Kind of a cheat code if you're gonna do like a game for dorks and you have like a ah budget where you could afford good amount of the Star Trek cast. you know we're We're not talking Patrick. Patrick patrick comes at a premium.
Speaker: He's only in like, you know, five minutes of oblivion and I bet he got paid more than everyone in XCOM, just a guess. But Patrick comes at a premium.
Speaker: But for not that much. i Listen, I've gotten cameos from Frakes for a song.
Speaker: Anyway, so...
Speaker: XCOM 2 is, yeah, it's this tactics game where you're fighting off this alien, this entrenched alien occupation. And it is enormous fun.
Speaker: And regular listeners of the Quest Quest podcast know that I'm not quite a systems guy. I'm just, I'm, you know...
Speaker: I enjoy a strategy. I enjoy playing a lot of strategy games. I enjoy playing board games. I have a board game collection. I love crunchy board games. I have all these German economic board games.
Speaker: But like when it comes to when it comes to computer games systems, my brain will just start to like, I'll put an earnest attempt in and then my brain will just start to to slide off.
Speaker: the systems i have a xcom 2 is game i i enjoy i always play it on easy because of the aforementioned system slide i've never beaten
Speaker: Uh, because me, XCOM 2, I've watched a friend beat it, looked fun all the way through in that final mission, looked crazy. Uh, but...
Speaker: XCOM 2 is a muffin top game for me. Like, you know, all the most exciting parts for me or the most fun parts are in that beginning where you're just a little bit ahead of the aliens. And then like once the aliens started get hard, I just go, this is too hard.
Speaker: The aliens are too hard. Man, we gotta bring back using baby voice. People loved that.
Speaker: People loved that.
Speaker: Well, not this crowd. Boo Birds are out. But anyway, it's a real Muppetop. I know, like, I bring out XCOM 2, and I make it about halfway, I would say.
Speaker: I've knocked out two, three,
Speaker: In the expansion pack, like, there are these special, like, hero characters that the aliens have. And I've knocked out all three, I think, on one play. So that's that's a fair amount. That's pretty hard. That's pretty hard, right?
Speaker: are um but yeah, XCOM 2, still great.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Every now and again, Google, is XCOM 3 happening? I know that the main, like the lead designer of XCOM and XCOM 2 left. But that hasn't stopped Firaxis from making great games when a lead designer leaves.
Speaker: It seems like there's no shortage of very smart people over there.
Speaker: But there is that upcoming XCOM, like, I think it's made by some former,
Speaker: let's see. It's made by some former Firaxis folks, I believe.
Speaker: And I believe it's called Star Wars Zero Company.
Speaker: And yeah, it's being developed by X for X's devs at Bit Reactor.
Speaker: And I, you know, I'm kind of Star Wars down.
Speaker: Kinda over Star Wars, but...
Speaker: You know? But I'm not XCOM'd out.
Speaker: Not XCOM'd out. So, for X's please. XCOM 3. I don't care if they fuck it up. Just give it a try.
Speaker: we'll still have We'll still have XCOM 2 if they fuck it up, but give it a try.
Speaker: But this Star Wars XCOM looks pretty interesting. So maybe that will will scratch the itch. But anyway, that has been what I've been playing!
Speaker: So I wanted to to talk just a ah little briefly. As I said, this the solo quest is going to be i is going to be a shorter one, right?
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Banter ah is ah the bread and butter of this. Jess will be back. He'll escape that whale. Jess is short for Jonah.
Speaker: And, uh, but, uh, you know, I'm a court holder, but I don't know if I could, if I could do a a full hour of court holding, but we'll see. Uh, so I wanted to talk about, you know, I've been thinking about that email, uh, that we got last week.
Speaker: Um, let me, uh, pull up, pull up the name here.
Speaker: uh the the email that we got from uh ruben uh last week uh where ruben was asking about uh co-op adventure games and we had a bit of a discussion in um discord
Speaker: um And ah about it. And ah like, so I think we'll, we'll, again, i think that will be something I'll table and we'll, we'll ah discuss ah with Jess next week.
Speaker: But, ah you know, I was kind of thinking about, ah
Speaker: you know, as, as, as we were discussing when we discussed that email, uh, You know, Jess very ah memorably played with his ah good friend ah the, like, ah some of the the old Quest games.
Speaker: And ah I generally played most of the adventure games kind of solo ah that I played. But, i you know, I was kind of thinking about, because if you remember,
Speaker: This was definitely in ah the Sierra manuals. I believe ah that the generic Sierra manual kind of had a ah thing of light that that said, you know, play with a friend.
Speaker: If you're having difficulty, sit down and play this with a friend. Which makes sense, right? Like, you play an adventure game and ah
Speaker: Sometimes you're you're just not going to make that connection that the game wants you to, even though to ah the designer to the people who tested it, like that connection is very is actually quite clear.
Speaker: But, you know, sometimes, like, you know, you've watched me stream games. You've watched other people stream adventure games. where Like, they're they're doing a first play of a game. And you're like, I've cooked a thing!
Speaker: um You know, I'm certainly guilty of this. Of being in both places. um But I also think, like, all... i do a...
Speaker: I do a like a daily a crossword puzzle on Puzmo, as I've mentioned earlier. And ah the like you know just some mornings when I'm doing it, ah my brain is just not screwed on to some of the clues. Especially, there's just some pun clues that...
Speaker: Puzmo has, and I'm sure the New York Times one has as well. I never got into the the New York Times crossword puzzle, but I'm i'm sure sure that's just a regular thing. Pun, clues.
Speaker: But it's it's more like sometimes you're just not going to be on the same wavelength as the person or people ah that that ah designed an adventure game.
Speaker: And two heads are better than one. in that respect. ah So, you know, playing an adventure game ah with with a friend or a family member or an enemy, or if you're ah you were like me in my previous apartment, ah you know, where I was kind of street level ah near Wrigley Field.
Speaker: So sometimes ah people would just scream at me ah through my window. Memorably, sometimes during my streams, And so I could play an adventure game with them. i never i never i never did that. I should ah should have said, come on in, drunk coming from ah Cubs game.
Speaker: But i wanted to share one ah very memorable experience of two-person playing an adventure game ah with ah someone that has like remained in my memory for many, many years.
Speaker: um And, and I invite you, ah the listener, if you have any, any stories of ah memorable ah experiences ah playing an adventure game with, with someone again, quest quest podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: I wanted to talk, and maybe I spoke about this earlier. We have, like, I think this is 32nd episode, somewhere around there. And if you've ever heard a podcaster talk about the,
Speaker: like, if they they remember a podcast, they're going to tell you, generally, no, I've been now doing this or don't know, three years, four years. i don't even remember when I started the Babylon 5 podcast, but I've been doing that. Like I've been doing podcasts for for years and, you know, people will say, hey, you know, about this thing that you said about this. And I'll be like, I have no fucking clue what you're talking about.
Speaker: Anyway, might I might have said this already. Anyway, one of the most memorable co-op adventure game experiences that I had was with Infocom's wish bringer um and it was only one session and it was uh one night i was i think i was like maybe six six or seven years old i could read but you know i'm still pretty young um and uh my sister who at that point was i believe college age
Speaker: Yeah. ah She was college age. She took me up to her room. And ah she she had her college computer with her, which was ah IBM 286.
Speaker: um And ah she pulled out her old copy of Wishbringer.
Speaker: And I remember she she pulled out each of ah the the feelies. ah for Wishbringer, which were all nicely saved in the box.
Speaker: And um the... So if you're unfamiliar, ah Infocom, which was a text adventure, a.k.a.
Speaker: ah interactive fiction company in the 80s, they, in addition to, like, in order to... give these games ah additional texture, since they were just text, they would have feelies in the box, like little props, little tchotchkes
Speaker: that were connected ah to the game. So typically there would be this printed fold-out map which when I was a little kid, was obsessed with maps.
Speaker: I loved looking at maps. um And so, you know, i there was in the Wishbringer map, ah there ah it was ah map of postal zones in Festerton, Antharia, and vicinity, which was pretty neat. It's like this little hand-drawn, like little town.
Speaker: ah leading up to this ah
Speaker: mountain path to this this tall building up at the top of the mountain, much like Manannan's Castle.
Speaker: And so it had this map, this this neat map, and then it had the Legend of the Wishbringer, which... ah my sister ah read to me. They had all these nice little touches on it. Like the, it had a phony ah library ah due date stamps on the, the front page. Like it was, this was a, a library book within the fiction, the game.
Speaker: And it was this,
Speaker: really like kind of children's tale ah story about what the Wishbringer was, which was this magic stone that you could take, I believe, seven different wishes and they were specific wishes. Like there was a rain.
Speaker: I'm looking at it right now. Rain, advice, flight, darkness, foresight, luck, and freedom.
Speaker: I remember my sister reading this ah to me.
Speaker: um There was also ah this letter that I believe it's been a minute since I've played Wishbringer, but there's this letter. i think you're a mailman in Wishbringer.
Speaker: And it is to ye olde magic shop. So you see the letter and then you can open up the letter even though. That's unethical. I don't know what an Infocom was trying to do, but ah Brian Moriarty, ah developer, designer, wishbringer, implementer.
Speaker: You're on notice. ah And theres there's a letter that you're supposed to deliver, and you can see it. It's and written in a scrawl. It says, deliver the magic stone to me before the moon sets, or you will never see your cat again, the evil one.
Speaker: And then also in there was the Wishbringer itself, which was like this little glow-in-the-dark magic stone. So I got to hold that while we were playing.
Speaker: So my sister really, she she really did it. Like, she really brought me in And that's also like, because this was like being read a story.
Speaker: um And ah so ah then we we we played the first section of
Speaker: Wishbringer. i And it's also, it's like, again, like at that age, like that's kind of the ideal age for like this, this kind of fairy tale that you can interact with.
Speaker: um especially with your big sister um who who's kind of captaining it. And I'm kind of, I'm suggesting, and I think she had already played it I think she already ah had beaten it, I would think. But she was, you know, she was sharing this experience with me and kind of letting me like say, oh, do this, try this.
Speaker: um And ah there's this part
Speaker: in wishbringer in the early game where like it kind of switches from like a friendly town to like this this card like the the evil one like uses his evil influence or something like that i remember thinking oh this is so scary uh so that's uh we we played it up till then and then i was just starting to get really i was i was ah very, i was very easily terrified as ah as a little boy.
Speaker: ah i you know, another thing that my my older sister ah gave to me was I remember, and again, this might might have been a story relayed on the podcast. i She showed me the movie, myself my little brother, she showed us Labyrinth, like she rented it from Blockbuster,
Speaker: And ah David Bowie is the Goblin King ah kidnapping the ah the little kid at the beginning. Toby was so terrifying to me that I would not, like, I would not give her a moment's peace until she told me that the baby would be okay.
Speaker: So, you know, it was all very visceral to at that age. at that age
Speaker: So, yeah, ah getting getting to play Wishbringer in that way, you know, maybe parents and big sisters and big brothers out there, maybe that would be, ah you know, give that a try.
Speaker: ah You know, track down the the feelies or print them out or just, you know, say something's a magic stone and show on your your tablet ah the the letter and read the you know, read the legend of the Wishbringer to your kid and and see how that is. Because it we only played it once. We only played it that one time.
Speaker: I don't even know if she remembers it. um And it's stuck with me forever.
Speaker: So that... is ah a tale of a ah very fun co-op adventure game experience ah with ah the excellent game Wishbringer.
Speaker: um I know that Bogus Meat Factory, when he was ah streaming, he played a bunch of the Infocom games and i e he made it ah a lot of fun to watch. And I know Jess also streamed Hitchhikers.
Speaker: Um, so maybe there's something to that. I, I need to, I need to train myself to get into, um, interactive fiction because it it does, it it requires a certain sort of way of, of reading it.
Speaker: I've been, there's a thing that was said on this podcast that, ah that has been sticking with me ah since he said it, which was, and we had ah ah Francisco Gonzalez, designer of Rosewater, which you should check out. um I'm still really enjoying it.
Speaker: um Said, i think he said something like um that, like, you know, people getting stuck is kind of a communication problem.
Speaker: And, and so that, ah that's kind of stuck with me. Like I've, so I've been kind of, if, if I've been like, and i was thinking about that when I was playing in in Rosewater and I got like, kind of like, I was like, Oh, what the, what do do here?
Speaker: What do I do here? And then I was just thought like, this is okay. What is the game trying to communicate to me? And that actually helped.
Speaker: Um, That was actually really good ah for trying to to solve the puzzle. So, you know, there's a very specific way that interactive fiction games ah communicate with you.
Speaker: And of course, you know, we talk about Infocom because that was a big commercial company, but there's this enormous world of... ah
Speaker: fan-made interactive fiction which is spectacular some of which i've played and loved um i am particularly a fan of sam barlow's isle which you can really draw a line from isle uh which is ah game that you can find you i think you just played online and aisle like you know at a store and uh that is a a one move adventure game where uh you're in a aisle at a grocery store and it gives you like a paragraph or two of a description and uh then you you write one instruction and then uh and then it ends and there's all like i think there's hundreds of responses so the game is figuring out all the responses
Speaker: Which, again, you could draw a line from that to her story to
Speaker: immortality and telling lies. ah But, yeah, I recommend checking out Isle. But, I mean, that came out like that came out a long time ago, too. There's all sorts of really great I have coming out every year.
Speaker: i yeah, I should get back to that. I say that every year. All right. I appreciate you coming to to stay with us on this ah shorter i holiday if you're an American.
Speaker: this ah ah you know I'm recording this on the Memorial Day weekend, um which is the real reason ah that ah that Jess is unavailable, because he is enjoying it with his family.
Speaker: And I'm not! So, ah the yeah, no, it's okay. It's okay. umm i'm I'm going to multiple cookouts.
Speaker: So don't don't be don't be upset.
Speaker: But that's gonna do it for this solo Quest Quest The Adventure Game podcast. i have been Ben PS underscore Garrick.
Speaker: ah You can follow ah my my co-host Jess at Decaf Jedi. both ah For both of us, Twitch and YouTube. ah Please rate and review us.
Speaker: That's the only way that more people find us.
Speaker: You know, I'm just posting on Blue Sky. uh that's that's primarily where i'm at uh these days and uh you can also send us a an email at quest quest podcast at gmail.com i have one in the hopper uh that i'm gonna hold on to for for jess if you have another one or of uh like a memory but memorable memorable uh co-op ah adventure game ah experience like the one I just relayed shoot us an email or any of the things I discussed earlier but until then join us next week when we discuss Jess telling us how he found the hidden versus bridal we'll see you then
