Transcript
Speaker: um It was such a good tribute. And yes, I do not know his name. He is Rachel Bloom's husband as far as I'm concerned, ah because when you marry with Rachel Bloom, you are Rachel Bloom's husband. That's all that matters. to it yeah You know what else is all that matters?
Speaker: what's that Hey everybody, welcome back to Pixlet. My name is Kevin. With me as always is Phil. And on today's show, we are doing part three of four of Metro 2033. God, there is so much in this fucking book. There is like- This book keeps going. like We got to the end of the book and then it kept going. And then it kept going. Artyom gets to the place that he gets to his goal and the book is like, you know what? Yeah. We're gonna- 100 more pages. Why not? Why not? 100 more. 100 more. 100 more. more. more.
Speaker: it's Speaking 100 more, oh my gosh, there's there's a munchkin. Hello.
Speaker: What's up, Camilla? you get You got your you got your own sweatshirt on? It's a little Winnie Pooh sweatshirt. as I was going say it's either that or Tails.
Speaker: Oh, it's the crocodile from ah Tiana. What's it? the ah Oh, from Princess the Frog? or Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. That movie rules. I only saw that movie for the first time like a few years ago and I loved it. That was that was a really good one. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: You good? Good. I love you. Right. He left and then came back. That's what he does.
Speaker: Bye bye. Love you. Love you, kid.
Speaker: Oh, man. What I didn't tell her was that ah me and Emily watched that and I was hammered when I watched it to the point that when the a Firefly sang Evangeline, I was like on the verge of weeping.
Speaker: it's It's lovely. And I watched it sober and went, oh, well, yeah, this is pretty nice. This is lovely. But I was like, I was like, it's so beautiful. Like that level of drug. It's the most beautiful thing. You know what else is the most beautiful thing is our patreon.com slash pixel of pie. Just a beautiful thing. yeah i I often find myself weeping in the presence of patreon.com slash pixel of pie. God damn professional. So professional. So good. I could segue from anything to anything.
Speaker: three you Three for three, Kevin. Fucking flawless. Outstanding. Give me this. This would be like my my warm up act. at an improv show and was like, gibby give me a thing and I will segue it into my Patreon. um And you can find that warm-up act at the $1 tier. No, I'm just kidding. I don't actually have any of that posted. That would be funny though.
Speaker: I've never actually done improv. Oh. But yeah, so $1, $5, $10, $10 gets your name shouted out in every episode. So i want to thank and you are hiding. Song 85, Jesus loves you. Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle Thing, Sigma Sal, Sanguine Flatulence, Shilu, Shilu, Shilu, Shilu.
Speaker: Trump Beaks, Dummy Thick and Friendly Friend. Thank you so much for being friend. Patreon.com slash PixelitPod. Do it today. a
Speaker: So, yeah. um Yeah, it's good. yeah It's great. um It's wonderful. at Let's put the body in the marsh before things... When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them the marsh.
Speaker: In the mind. Get too crazy. Chapter 11, titled i Don't Believe. I just realized I didn't write down the chapter names for any of the other chapters. So, fuck it. Artyom encounters brother Timothy, a preacher who claims that Artyom suffers from spiritual blindness and that belief in Jehovah will open his eyes to the true nature of the world.
Speaker: Oh, I've heard that one before. Yeah. Timothy takes him to the watchtower, which is not a tower. Much to Artyom's dismay. It's just just train cars.
Speaker: ah Like, it's like, I guess it's a tower if it's just if you put it on its side or something. Everything is just a big disappointment for poor Artyom. Like, he's i got all these hopes and dreams and so many hopes and dreams. And they're all just going to.
Speaker: Anyway, Artyom is welcomed. He's called brother. They they wash him. They clean him. They give him clothes. They feed him. And they're like, yeah. you're, you're, you're a good dude, RTM. Thanks. Welcome. Um, and you know, and Timothy is like, you know, you only, you only don't believe because of all the bad shit that's happened to you. You know, if, if, if you actually believed things would be better.
Speaker: um And then they're like, hey, come on, we're going to... If if you don't believe after this guy gives you the the sermon of a lifetime, you can walk away.
Speaker: ah no questions asked. So he goes to a sermon that's led by a guy named Elder John, ah who is He's very, ah he's a very by the book preacher. He really breaks it down. He's like, it's it's like if you were, if a PowerPoint was a was a sermon.
Speaker: ah Right. It's, yeah, it's very, it's very no A plus B equals C. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you. And then I'm going to tell you what I told you.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. um So John delivers a series of lessons ah that the bibles contain Bible contains God truth and must be studied. The one true God is named Jehovah and must be worshipped without images. Jesus Christ is God's first creation who came to redeem humanity from Adam's sin and will soon rule the world.
Speaker: ah Satan seeks worship for himself and deceives people through religion, spiritism, and nationalism or false religion, I should say. Uh, and Armageddon actually already happens that we're living through it right now.
Speaker: Uh, meaning well the people that who are totally good. yeah Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it did happen. Armageddon and Armageddon lowercase a, uh, right One of the Armagans. One of them. Not necessarily Ragnarok, not necessarily ah you know the set the Seventh Seal.
Speaker: um The sun might be as black as sackcloth, but yeah but it's it's happening. It's there. It's happening. Yeah. Yeah. ah basically what the guy is saying is the people in the Metro are the chosen ones.
Speaker: um And everybody's going fucking bananas for for this. And our team's like, no.
Speaker: Huh? What about, what about the mutants? And they're like, well, um, so RTM runs away.
Speaker: Um, and Timothy is like shouting at him as RTM runs away. He like, yeah, uh, we planted the seed. You're going to be back. I know it. We planted the seed. They all come back.
Speaker: They all come back. R.T.M.' 's alone again. And he's just wearing... and he's He's alone and he's wearing like religious clothes. um And suddenly he realizes he's alone and is very scared.
Speaker: ah He keeps walking and eventually ah gets to Pollyonka Station where he encounters two old men sitting by a bonfire just burning books. ah And they like they talk like you do.
Speaker: ah Why were they burning the books? Because they've already read them.
Speaker: Classic. i can't tell I can't tell you how much that hurts my soul. As a man who owns nearly a thousand books, like that's just like, that's a funny joke.
Speaker: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Woohoo. Woohoo. They talk about ah ah ah the idea of Metro 2, basically, that there's ah there's a metro that surrounds the metro that they're in, and it's occupied by unseen watchers who were basically like these dudes that were the fucking, like, they were higher-ups in the military and in the government, and they were controlling everything, man. and
Speaker: Oh, boy. It's like it's like it's it is the most like flat. It's like the flat earther version of the metro. Right. Yeah. where yeah We have our metro, but then there's another layer to the metro that surrounds our metro.
Speaker: Like a sandwich. This is actually this book is actually kind of a fascinating cultural experience ah in terms of like watching it and going, you know, Russia is is like us in the sense that they are a huge superpower, an enormous country ah filled with all kinds of cultures and that sort of thing.
Speaker: But we really do keep them at an arm's length in terms of how different they must be from us and stuff. And then you read a book like this and it's like, oh, you've got all the same shit we've got. This is, it's just colder over there. Like that's, that's literally it.
Speaker: It's it yeah, it's, ah it's, it's just colder. And that's been basically it. Basically it. ah Russia, you know, ah in in another timeline, things are going much better between all of us and ah things things could be good.
Speaker: but ah Oh, boy. yeah um Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. they're ah the but So basically, the rulers are like mutated beyond humanity or evolved beyond humanity at this point because it's like a divergent path of evolution. it has it's been It's been like fucking 30 years, guys. They haven't...
Speaker: It's true. yeah so this isn't Yeah, it doesn't have to. Yeah, it takes a takess a a little longer. Not a lot longer. Not a lot longer. um Anyway, RTM is like, yeah, I don't believe in any of this, ah in like like the religion or divine or fate or anything. And then one of the guys is like, well, ah maybe life is a series of random events, but through your choices, it turns into a meaningful plot.
Speaker: ah And that freight fate is not predetermined, but created through commitment to one's path. So basically, Artyom is just like. At this point, Artyom recontextualizes his entire journey, realizing that, do I have plot armor?
Speaker: Like literally. Yeah. Literally is like, wait a minute. I have plot armor.
Speaker: oh that's awesome. And then just like um he he he's like, I can I'm just going to go then. And he he steps off in his path. He goes towards ah towards Polis.
Speaker: Now we're in chapter 12.
Speaker: Artyom finally reaches Polis after enduring a terrifying journey through the tunnels where echoes and phantom footsteps seem to stalk him and voices tell him to stop. He's shaken and he emerges at Borodskaya Station where he's detained by border guards and interrogated.
Speaker: ah He has no documents, but he's treated with leniency after explaining that he carries an urgent message message for someone named Melnick. He's told to wait until morning and he's given dark glasses.
Speaker: And I thought this was a nice little detail. Polis is like totally lit up. Like every inch is just lit ah from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, whatever.
Speaker: And ah normal metro dwellers are just not able to process it. So you have to wear sunglasses. Yeah. i Yeah. And they've made a very they've made a point ah to to say constantly how ah dark this whole thing is like yeah for for so many in so many ways and so many different reasons.
Speaker: And so, yeah, this is this is an abrupt shift. Yeah. Yeah. So ah fully illuminate clean. It's orderly. ah They have real apartments, which has been just crazy. There's music. There's bookshelves. There's culture. There's things. RTM start talks to a man named Daniel who belongs to the Brahmin caste who is guardians of knowledge.
Speaker: ah Daniel explains that Polis is ruled by the caste system and inspired by ancient India. ah And then there's basically the Brahmins and the Warriors. And the tattoos that they have identify their cast membership.
Speaker: um At this point, like, ah yeah our team is like, well, where do the librarians feel and fit into all this? And Daniel's like, shut the fuck up. Shut up. um So it's basically just a misunderstanding, I guess, on like a whisper down the lane, game of telephone. ah The Guardians are the people that I think he's he had been thinking of as the librarians and the librarians are actually monsters ah that live in the library.
Speaker: ah um i I love that. That's that's ah that's actually pretty 40 K. Now, I know I know 40 K has a completely different, ah you know, idea of what a librarian is that. But that's I love that naming convention. That's pretty cool. like yeah Yeah, I really like that. And let's face it. That's who I would try to be. I'd be like, all right, we're going to go steal books from horrible monsters. All right. Call the librarians. Sounds worth it.
Speaker: So they ah ah Daniel explains what the great library is, that it was ah it was built to house one single book library. And that is the book that records all of his history from the beginning to the end. And that all the other books are just a distraction ah from from this one book. action ah And ah yeah, so RTM's like, this is fucking weird. Yeah.
Speaker: The next day, Artyom visits Melnick, who is a very respected stalker. And Melnick tells him that Dark Ones are attacking Vidyanka more fiercely than ever. People are dying and refugees are fleeing.
Speaker: Artyom is brought before the council where he tells everything about his journey. And the council is like, meh, we're not going to do anything. Yeah. And they talk he talks about the thing with the the two old men at Pollyanka. And they're like, ah you probably didn't see anybody at Pollyanka. There's a lot of hallucinogenic gas yeah yeah down there. So, like, whatever you saw was probably not real. Oh.
Speaker: Okay. you mean the two old men smoking a hookah outside of Yeah. A hookah outside of Pollyanka. I didn't see them. Fucking caterpillar up there. Yeah. is No, probably not. That was probably not real.
Speaker: um The council's like, no, ah we're not going to help Vidianka. And Artyom is just like, well, do I have plot armor? And he's about to leave and ah there is one of the Brahmins approaches him and reveals that Pollyonka is believed to be a station of destiny where chosen individuals encounter messengers of providence. And the Brahmins are like, they might believe you, not believe you, they mean to counsel, but the Brahmins believe that Artyom is actually the chosen one.
Speaker: And if we take him to the library, he's going to get the fucking book for us. So... we' Let's let's pack it up. We're going to the library. That's where we get to chapter 13.
Speaker: ah He agrees to go on a secret mission for the Brahmins to go to the surface and search the library for the for an unspecified object. It's the fucking book. um Under strict conditions, he can't tell the military and he must ah immediately hand over anything he finds to the cast.
Speaker: Um, he accepts and offers a, and because it allows him to go back to the surface and a chance to save Vidyenka. Melnick learns of the assignment and is like, uh, tells Artyom, by the way, it deals with the Brahmins are binding and I'm coming with you for protection.
Speaker: ah While they're waiting, while he's waiting, Artyom wanders around Polis, observing its culture and its crowds while feeling constantly watched ah at Bordskaia. ah An elderly sentry recounts memories of the nuclear war, lost radio transmissions, surviving military units, and the possibility that other cities' metros endured along with unknown dangers.
Speaker: ah Melnik arrives with another stalker and Artyom is issued advanced equipment, including a new Kalashnikov rifle. Daniel, ah the Brahmin he befriended, ah reveals that the elders believe Artyom is a prophesied figure destined to find a hidden book in the library that the cast has failed to locate for years.
Speaker: And i forgot to mention, there's like he like earlier Daniel says something like it would take one person 70 years of their life constantly searching through the library in order to find the book that they are looking for or something like that. um Yeah.
Speaker: And like and because of that, because no one can stay up there that long. That's why it's nearly it's like impossible. Right. You can only go up for a few hours at night.
Speaker: um And it's dangerous because librarians are in there. um Let's see. ah So they exit the metro. ah They and he's given a rule to never look at the Kremlin.
Speaker: Don't look at the Kremlin because it will pull your attention into it and you'll be drawn to it. ah I wonder if there's a metaphor hidden in that. Yeah, i wonder. ah So they get up there. Artyom is overwhelmed by the ruined city and sees a winged mutant nesting on a church.
Speaker: And as they get close to the library, Artyom looks at the Kremlin and is drawn towards it until Melnick hits him on the head.
Speaker: yeah Uh, RTM and his companions get to the great library, and they start navigating through it while not there. They're basically not saying anything at all. Uh, they encounter some other stalkers outside and Melnick teaches RTM like the little, like, uh, signal to other stalkers. You rotate your flashlight around three times and don't turn it off and on or something like that. and That tells you, tells the other stalkers that you're a human and you're a stalker.
Speaker: Um, they get, they get inside and Artyom is not hearing anything. He's got no guiding voice. He's got nothing. Um, and then they're attacked by the librarians who, uh, are very violent humanoid creatures that are, uh, react aggressively to noise.
Speaker: Uh, Melnick and 10, uh, 10 is the other stalker, uh, stay behind to hold them off while Artyom and Daniel flee deeper into the building. Daniel leads Artyom through the stairwells and the corridors ah using secret routes that the Brahmins know.
Speaker: They reach the stack archives, but still no sign of the book. And while searching different levels, Daniel's attacked by a librarian. Artyom finds him wounded and realizes that the librarians can mimic human speech.
Speaker: And at Daniel's urging, Artyom kills both Daniel and the librarian and retrieves an envelope that Daniel had and a catalog card from Daniel's pocket. Uh, RTM finds his way back to the main reading room with Melnick and 10 and 10 is badly injured.
Speaker: RTM reports that the book was not found. And Melnick's like, well, you can't come back, uh, because you promised the Brahmins and it's biting and all that. So you have to leave, uh, which means you have to travel alone on the surface, uh, to get to the next closest station entrance into the Metro, which was Smolenskaya, before sunrise.
Speaker: And Melnick gives him directions and says, good luck, fucker. yeah yeah i'm sure this will be fine for you oh wow awesome awesome um chapter 14 rtm is traveling along the surface towards smolenskaya and uh feeling bad about daniel and he's trying to follow melnick's directions and then uh-oh there's a creature is following me and there's just like
Speaker: There's like a group of them and then they start fanning out and kind of like enclosing in a semicircle around him. And then they just begin sprinting after him and he fires his gun around. And suddenly the flying thing that he saw earlier swoops down and attacks one of the the things that's following him.
Speaker: um So basically ah it's like that family guy thing where Spider-Man saves you and then he says you only get one. Everyone gets one. Yeah, everyone gets one. Yeah.
Speaker: Our Jim's plot armor comes into play again. That's it. That's it. it's just not It's just not a bunch of communists who come in and save you this time. It's it's always somebody though.
Speaker: It would be funny if it was the plot, if it was the communists, but um I imagine it can't be the same thing twice. It's always got to be a different thing saving him for it to work. no Like if we're talking about this as an actual superpower, right? Right. It's probably it's probably not unlike, let's say, like Domino in the ah in the Marvel Universe. ah Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: yeah Cause she has, it's like her, her powers basically increased odds. ah Or long shot. If you're going with the or long shot comic book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that sounds about right, but yes, I do agree totally that it it it it would have to be a different person. You can't, write you can't do that twice. That's not going to, that just isn't, that doesn't, that's all of that makes sense right up until you say twice. No, sorry. I don't believe it.
Speaker: The same person saved him again. I'm out. No, no. It has to be a different person each time. Yeah. Yeah. i thought I thought that was obvious. i thought that was obvious. And the, the I mean, we had Chekhov's flying mutant earlier.
Speaker: yeah. um So, Artyom keeps going. He goes through neighborhoods and intersections and all that. ah And he's just like... He's pretty overwhelmed by the fact... He's like thinking about... like you know, people just used to be up here in their cars and the, they were shiny and new and the buildings and all that. Like they, like how do people, he thinks, how do people live life and not worry about staying alive every day?
Speaker: Like how, what, what kind of person, like how does somebody get through life like that and not have to constantly be concerned that you're about to die?
Speaker: Um, like this is, this is around the moment that I, I, ah this has happened to be fair. This has happened several times throughout my reading of it. Um, but this is around the moment, uh, where I really started to go, holy fucking shit. Was this guy really like 19 years old or something when he wrote this? Like, this is actually,
Speaker: It's actually very insightful. like That strikes me as something that and I totally believe that 18 or 19 year old can write a 400 page novel about you know the future and fighting and trying to survive and all that stuff. Sure. Right.
Speaker: But these are some 40 year old man thoughts. Right. Right. This kid doesn't know anything about a life that that doesn't involve that level of struggle, that day to day, moment to moment. I might die at any moment kind of thing. So it's such a foreign idea. to him i i i like this. This is really, really thoughtful, insightful stuff. And I'm like, fuck you, random Russian 20 year old. Like, I don't. Right. God damn it.
Speaker: just too damn good too damn good really i mean he's like our he yeah he is close our age then but yeah i think i think well we what were what the fuck were we doing at the at the in the same time you know getting rejected from grad school uh that's that's what happening to me here did this come out jesus christ um This is like what? 2007 2007. Okay. So that would have been a couple of years after that. I was teaching high school this time. You were teaching high school. i was at SCAD.
Speaker: then You were about to be at SCAD. I was about to be at SCAD. Yeah. Yeah. We're learning how to write screenplays from a guy who worked on the fucking Cosby show.
Speaker: That is really surreal. Looking back on it now. Yeah. ah with how With how innocent and pure that man was on top of everything.
Speaker: Possibly the most Catholic man I'd ever met in my entire life. Possibly is. Yeah. Most Catholic man I've ever met in my entire life. Yeah. Yeah. Just so, so Irish looking. my God. The, it seemed like he would get skin cancer if he looked at the sun.
Speaker: I remember, I remember I, he was my advisor and I remember I, I had a meeting with him, uh, lunchtime a, uh, I don't remember what it, what it doesn't matter what day was, but it was like lunchtime and I was really hung over and I had been at the strip club all night the night before, because that was the life I was leading. And, uh, and I, and he's, he said, are you doing okay? think you You look like you're a little under the weather. And I was just like, uh, I don't give a shit. I'm going to tell him the truth. I'm like, well, I'm really hung over. I spent, I was like at the strip club until like three in the morning or something.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, okay. And he like starts asking me little questions about what that's like. It becomes very clear. He's never been right. Which, which didn't surprise me in the slightest, but near the end of it, he looked at me and went, do you, do you pay them to have sex with you?
Speaker: ah And it was so kind of sweet and charming. This man who was like twice my age asking this quick. And I was like, no, man, I mean, don't go wrong. There are places you can, I'm sure. But not at this particular one. No, no. It's just, just look at them nude. If that's, that's good enough for me at this point. It's pretty much all you do is you do the nudes and hands to myself and watch them shake. touching. No touching. No touching.
Speaker: Um, So where was he? Okay. There we go. Artyom. He, uh, he's, there's more, more monsters and, uh, Artyom runs into a building and he goes upstairs into an apartment and, uh, he explores the apartment and it's like kind of strangely, uh, preserved.
Speaker: And among the things he finds in the bin there is a children's book. And inside the children's book is a photograph of a woman holding a kid. And the kid, he's like, this looks like me.
Speaker: And then he flips it over. And the on the back, it says, little RTM, two years, five months old. And he's like, what the fuck? And he goes to like he goes to the bathroom mirror and he like wipes it off. And he looks himself in the mirror and then back at the kid and back in the mirror. And he's like, what the fuck? Yeah. yeah Bitch.
Speaker: Fair enough. He's like, all right, I'm taking this with me. Yeah, this is going have to come with me. This is going have to come with The sun is rising, though. um And ah he is outside. he runs outside the building, ah shoots several of the monsters that are gathering again, and he ah runs towards Molenskaya. Oh, no. think it happened again, Ken. Oh, there you go. Okay. Okay. Okay. okay youre I panicked. You froze, but i pan but I also panicked. So, yeah. all right. Yeah. It's all good. good So, yeah he he runs out of the building. He shoots a bunch of the monsters, runs towards Smolenskaya.
Speaker: They're running after him. He tries to get the flying monster to to come back. ah he's got no gun ammo left. Hey, they're never twice. Everyone, everyone gets one. Um, gets one and then the second weapon, ah jams. This was the gun that Daniel had been holding, uh, which is why he's like, Oh, well, this is why Daniel died because the gun wasn't working.
Speaker: Um, He yeah reaches the entrance to Molenskaya Station, gets downstairs, pursued by the monsters, and at the door, he pounds desperately until one of the treeers creatures attacks him. He kills at a close range, and the door opens, and a station guard pulls him outside and seals the entrance.
Speaker: And then Artyom is taken the station in for infirmary. He's reunited with Melnick, who's like, you were supposed to be here had two hours ago.
Speaker: um And Melnick is like, we didn't have time earlier, but what the fuck actually happened with Daniel and all that stuff? ah RTM tells him everything and then takes out the envelope that Daniel was carrying.
Speaker: And that's chapter 14. Chapter 15. Artyom examines the contents of the envelope given to him by Daniel and finds hand-drawn maps and technical notes describing secret tunnels and military installations connected to Metro 2. Wait a minute.
Speaker: The flat earther theory was correct.
Speaker: Huh? The papers are stained with Daniel's blood and difficult to read, but Melnick recognizes they're significant. He concludes that the Brahmins deliberately withheld this information from the military.
Speaker: ah The notes described intact missile installations capable of covering a large area. And Melnick explains, yeah, there have been rumors for a long time that missile, there were some missiles that actually survived the war.
Speaker: um And everybody just thought there were rumors. Like, why would any missile station be around? Yeah. But they believe the dark ones originate near the botanical garden, as Hunter believed that the missiles could potentially destroy their nest and save Vidyanka.
Speaker: ah According to the documents, access to Metro 2 begins at Mayaskovskaya Station, ah but the route may involve some trickiness. Melnick brings Artyom to Smolenskaya Station, which is heavily fortified in tents. The station sparsely populated, highly organized, very much a military encampment.
Speaker: ah Residents speak quietly and keep the tunnels under constant surveillance and seem to be waiting for something. Artyom eats, rests and explores the station briefly, noticing that it's very strict and ah not a lot of clutter.
Speaker: ah He falls asleep and he has a nightmare, as Artyom tends to do, that the station is is destroyed and flooded, but wakes to find it was only a dream. Yeah.
Speaker: ah they plan to travel through kevkaa and along the ring line toward ah my yeah coastkaya passing through the guarded tunnels they encounter traders who warned them about kievskaa and the tunnels leaning to park pobboy where people have been disappearing ah The traders describe widespread fear around the surrounding area, despite the tunnels being blocked for many years.
Speaker: Kivskai Station is crowded but dominated by fear. People cluster together. They're avoiding eye contact. All around bad times. ah Melnik meets the station chief, Arkady Semenoyevich, who dismisses that the the rumors as mere superstition.
Speaker: Claims the tunnels to Park Pobody were collapsed long ago and insists that missing people have simply fled the station ah through other connections. ah Nevertheless, patrols continue. Uh, Melnick and Artyom are sent to a tunnel patrol post commanded by Anton, uh, at the post guards maintain a watch near the collapsed tunnels, despite believing there's nothing beyond the blockage stories circulate that park poverty poverty was deliberately sealed off long ago, condemning its inhabitants to die. When the station was cut off, the, no one has seen anything in the tunnels. Fear persists and the duty appears ritualistic rather than practical.
Speaker: Anton's young son, Oleg, secret secretly follows the patrol to the post. He brings a small mechanical music box that plays a simple melody. The boy demonstrates how the sound resonates through the metal pipes embedded in the collapsed tunnel, amplifying the music deep into the darkness.
Speaker: Our team listens as the melody travels through the pipes, and after the music stops, faint distant sounds begin to return from beyond the blockage, suggesting that something might be on the other side of the collapsed tunnels.
Speaker: done done da And that's the end of chapter 15. Phil, what do you think?
Speaker: I think this was the part of the book that fully cemented in my mind how this got made into a video game. Yeah. We talked about this a little bit last week where it's just...
Speaker: there's quests and sub quests and characters and factions and all that stuff. I'm just still kind of gobsmacked at the fact that it became the video game. It did like I can absolutely, I'm waiting. I want a strategy game based on this. You've got all these factions, you've got turf wars, you've got ah different kinds of antagonists and creatures and quests, all that stuff. I don't know how the fuck they said, let's just do a shooter And don't get me wrong, there's there's there's more complexity ah to Metro 2033 as a shooter than like Call of Duty, for example. but But all the same, it still feels like a really weird place for it to have ended up.
Speaker: Right. Having said all that, this is really good. This is really, really good world building. I would love to play a game where this guy was of D&D where this guy was the DM.
Speaker: Yeah. ah The world building is outstanding. The characters are all weird and strange in all the right ways. um Yeah, I'm still I'm really impressed by this. Really, really impressed.
Speaker: Right. Me too. Yeah. I mean, I love the, the, I love the world that he's built. Um, and I think it's fascinating where it's, he, he, he does a really neat job of defanging any like certain, uh, critiques of the, it's not like he's doing it preemptively. It's just like built into, it feels naturally built into the story where it's like, yeah, RTM might be the chosen one.
Speaker: And He's aware of it or he's not. And this is all random happenstance. Who the fuck knows? But some people think he's a chosen one. Right. RTM goes back and forth, it seems on whether he is or not yeah it it is It is funny how they do that. It could be any number of things. We could be going in any number of directions. It's kind of taking the piss in a way. It's it's just messing with you. It's almost like taking the piss of of chosen one narratives or like, there will be a yes there will be a hero. And it's like...
Speaker: When you think about it, RTM's entire thing was, he was just like, go to, go to Polis and tell Melnick this thing. And Melnick's like, I kind already know, buddy. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: ah With her all this shit. for like oh yeah Yeah. I mean, while you're here, ah the Brahmins think you're special. So they want you to yeah go up to this library with scary some good news yeah monsters because they think you can hear books.
Speaker: um So let's give that a shot. Let's let's try that out. it Makes about as much sense as anything else in our lives. I mean, you somehow made it here. So I guess you're not totally useless. Yeah.
Speaker: You got some level of sauce. Let's let's see. god You got some moxie, kid. Yeah. let's Let's see how far we can take this. Oh, God. um Somebody commented, by the way, that I haven't said meanwhile in a little bit, but there's been no meanwhiles because there's no there's only one point of view. ah We're only with Archie the entire time.
Speaker: That's true. We're following him very directly. So there's nowhere there's nowhere to meanwhile to. That's true. No wiles to mean. No wiles to mean. fire Shame, really.
Speaker: Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Phil, ah I have a question for you, though. Oh, please. What are you playing? Oh, okay. did play one demo this week.
Speaker: ah This is a game called Berry, Berry, Berry, as in fruit dig fruit. I guess you could say Berry, Berry, Berry, but I say Berry, Berry, Berry, just to differentiate a little bit. Right.
Speaker: It's by GetColor Games. ah They've done a couple of other weird ass games last year. They did a game called ah Last Tramout of Wormtown ah that apparently was very well received. ah This is like a weird game.
Speaker: it's It's a really weird game. You are in this little room surrounded by like garden gnomes and shit. And your whole task is to take blueberries from one side of the room and throw them into a hole on the other side of the room. I got recommended this, by the way. popped up on my feed as like game. Yeah, I actually still have my queue open ah because I i like...
Speaker: I never clicked the next button. I happened to have Steam open on that page as like, Barry, Barry, Barry. Yeah. I was like, similar to, oh, a game about digging a hole. Okay. Right. Right. I think that's why it got suggested to me as well. It has some stuff in common with that game. It's got less whimsy. It is very, they keep calling it like an incremental game, which makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's like very one piece of sand at a time and in between. And when you run out of time, have to go to sleep.
Speaker: and a disembodied pig floating pig thing stares at you until you fall asleep. Uh, and, and then you can spend money that you earned from dropping berries in the hole to upgrade things and get all kinds of new shit. Uh, it's, it's, uh,
Speaker: Got that VHS analog quality. In fact, ah every day goes by. It's like another minute on the tape, basically. Right. um and And it's weird and unsettling. And then and it takes it's cut it kind of makes me think, ah although not as extreme, ah but it makes me think of Doki Doki Literature Club sure in the sense that there's something horrible there that But it's taking its goddamn sweet time getting there. Okay. And the stuff that they reveal is is is odd. ah
Speaker: Like the hole, for example, at one point, apropos of nothing, I finish my day and the hole just starts growing. I'm growing and growing and I'm backing up towards the bed and it's like just and it's it's slowly enveloping the entire room and I go to sleep and the next day i wake up and it's back to normal again. And it's stuff like that. It's that kind of indie horror Dadaist kind of shit. You know, we're very random. um
Speaker: I played it for about 20 days, not literally ah in game. Right. ah And it's it's it's taking its time. I don't know if it if they sold me on it based on the demo, but knowing ah the kind of people who listen to our podcast, I think. Yeah, it seems like some people might be interested Right.
Speaker: Right. Worth mentioning. and That's the thing is every game like this that is just a little bit weird um and has has has this weird just like ah it's it's fucking odd mate ah kind of aesthetic.
Speaker: um You know, their ne you never know when their next game is mouthwashing. Right. No, exactly. So we have to keep up. We have to keep up with the weird little horror games because there might be a mouthwashing coming after it. That's exactly And also, it's a weird ass game and I don't think it's for me, but it's not a bad game.
Speaker: Right. So very well before, uh, for any number of people, uh, and, and it's gotten overwhelmingly positive rating, uh, on so clearly it's for a lot of people. Uh, it just didn't fully sell me. It just, it took its sweet time. And I was just like, I don't, I don't have time for this. I'm moving on.
Speaker: Um, after that, I, I beat still wakes the deep. Okay. Uh, I, I, I gave my computer a nice, healthy restart. Uh, Shut it down. Let it sit for a few minutes. Shut it down. let it cool off. Let it let it you know have a little R&R. Did you light a cigarette for it?
Speaker: you really I did. i put it i put it wrong buddy yeah yeah i put it right in the fan and it chopped it to shreds. it And I swear to God, I heard the monitor sigh with pleasure.
Speaker: ah and then And then hopped back in there and boom, we were we were good. yeah i was I was annoyed at how easy the part that was really ah hooking me ah was when i when I gave the computer a little chance to rest.
Speaker: Great game. ah Scary as hell. Scratches that ah alien isolation itch. um Certainly the best game the Chinese room has ever made. ah and and i And I think the extra impressive part is the monsters and the creature design is outstanding. The body horror is second to none. It is wonderful stuff. But the stuff that really fucked me up was the heights and the jumping from one ledge to another. ah That is my nightmare.
Speaker: yeah I can be chased by mutant coworkers ah all goddamn day, as it turns out. ah But then when I'm like creeping along the side of an oil rig 100 feet up in the air, then I feel like I'm going to throw up.
Speaker: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So very effective stuff. Very ah sad, sweet ending. Yeah. ah Really very, very well done. ah i liked it a lot. Great game. Easily, very easily would have made it to my ah game of the year list if I had managed to play it in the 2024. 2024. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: um And I'm still playing Valkyria Chronicles on my Switch. up Terrific goddamn game. I think I'm like one or two battles from finishing it. ah I think one of the more interesting things about it is that it's very clearly based on World War II. It's all very World War II-esque. But, you know, it's like the names have been changed to protect the innocent kind of shit. right you know you're You're in Europa. i'm not I'm not Dutch. I'm galleon, you know, or whatever. ryan
Speaker: And they it's probably the first. and the There are other properties and stuff that have done that. But this is the first one I've seen that actually kind of addresses the Holocaust.
Speaker: ah it it doesn't go hard on it, which I think is appropriate. ah It dips its toe in that water. You you find concentration camps, basically. Right.
Speaker: um And there is a people, including one of the characters in the game, that are of a a people that have lies and and slander told about them that a lot of people don't trust and it's very clearly Jew-coded and that sort of thing. Sure. And... ah ah and Honestly, I think they they're doing it pretty well ah for a for a what is ultimately a fantasy anime game with like killer Valkyries on the on the ah on the field, like shooting lightning bolts from their tits, like blowing up the tanks yeah for a game like that.
Speaker: It's actually, you know what, what they do say referencing ah something along those lines. Not bad, really. ah it's just It's just a little. It's just a little. And and it's done gently. And and and ah I was kind of kind of shocked.
Speaker: ah But yeah, yeah, i I'm almost done with it, but so far I'm giving it ah five out of five big titty Valkyrie girlfriends out of out of five. ah Just a lot of fun. Really good strategy element to it. And I fucking dig the aesthetic and I love the tanks. So as ah as a dyed-in-the-wool tread head, fucking sick. Love that shit. yeah ah Kevin, what about you? What are you playing?
Speaker: Okay, ah what am I playing? So I have been playing... um i fired up Stalker the other day just to, you know, just to get it in there and and play it a little bit. it's it's ah It's... I mean, it shows its age, but it's it's a fun little game, you know? You can you can you can see why it was a big deal. um Run Tavern Quest.
Speaker: Ah, yes, yes. I played the entire game. I bought it and played it. ah And it's amazing. And I got to tell you, there is There is a moment and the funny thing is like because there's like diverging paths on what you do, there's like a chance that you don't actually see this moment.
Speaker: But there is there's some moments that I was fucking cackling over. ah Like involving a ah basically your. So you you talked about how Steve is ah is a bit of a dummy.
Speaker: rob And there's there's like a moment where you that he accidentally sets a or orphanage on fire and he tries to put out the fire and he doesn't say put out fire. He types output fire. And so the CPU interprets that as like, oh, he wants more fire.
Speaker: I love that. Okay. I was fucking dying. um So yeah, Run Tavern Quest. It's a it's a little bit like... I'll say the closest thing it in my mind story-wise is ah Slay the Princess. Sure.
Speaker: And ah it's not super long. You can get through it in about three hours, but if if you want to see more of the game, you would probably want to replay it a few times um just to see make different ah decisions.
Speaker: ah But it's all there's no graphics, of course. you know If you go on the on the on the page, it's it's just all text. and they're It's fully voiced.
Speaker: um Though I didn't really get to listen to a lot of the voices because I tend to like just kind of like fast forward the text because I read it a lot faster than I listen to it. True.
Speaker: So, ah yeah, it it was a blast. um i had a feeling you were going to like that one. I i was like, oh, I got to tell Kevin about this one. Yeah. just right to me.
Speaker: It was a blast. So, run Tavern Quest. um Go ahead. It's $13. $13.
Speaker: I think that's ah that's a fair price for what you're getting out of it. I think it's scutting it's good. um Let's see. What else? i So another game that you mentioned, Watertight. I went ahead and I played that.
Speaker: Good little game. i had I'm very interested in whatever this ah this old duo of game designers makes next because it's just a really little locked room There's a few puzzles. There's a neat little story there.
Speaker: um 30 minutes. ah it It didn't, it's not like it blew my mind, like ah Children of Clay. It's not that kind of of horror, but like, okay, there's some skill here.
Speaker: ah I can dig it. I've been playing a game called Lovish. So Lovish is a... um It's a platformer.
Speaker: ah And basically, the concept is it takes a lot of ah inspiration from...
Speaker: old platformers. Everything is is in one screen. um And basically, if you get hit once, you die. ah And after every level, you get like a little cut scene and It's randomly generated what the cut scene you get is like you'll get ah sometimes you'll get a cut scene where the guy is like is like you stumbled upon a ah piece of poop, um but you kicked it.
Speaker: and And instead of or there's a variation is like and you slipped on it, um you know, little shit like that. Or there'll be a random thing where you run into a a monster and it will be it'll bring up at like the JRPG menu of like, fight, magic, item, run. And you just have a- It's covering a lot of ground retro-wise, isn't And then sometimes you'll be going along and like a grabp ah a group of ghouls attack you. And then suddenly you're in Vampire Survivors. Yeah.
Speaker: ah but This is so this I'm looking at the the art style and it is like I'm being touched in my like my nostalgia ah button. Yeah. Like the the level screen is very much Super Mario Brothers 3. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: and uh pokemon shit here yeah like this is crazy okay yeah i definitely want to check this out this looks really yeah it's fun i'm almost at the end of like the main line of of uh of levels. I'm not sure. I know there's more to more to do in it because it's like there's all these crowns that you can collect and then there's these things called dark moons and they all have to do with like finding secret paths and levels and and all that stuff. um So it's it's probably one of those, you know, you you can keep putting more time into it if you want to.
Speaker: um So yeah, lovish, cute little game. i' already I've already put in, it's perfect Steam Deck game. I i i play it at night. They have it they have it ah on the Switch and I'm absolutely going to pick it up for my Switch. That's that's awesome. um Okay, and the another game I've put a lot of time into and it's just absolutely absurd.
Speaker: ah Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator. Okay, I've heard about, i need to I need to learn more. I'm in. I'm in. Yep. All right. It's set in the far off future.
Speaker: um And basically there's these machines that are created where base where people can ah use them to predict future events. And it kind of like solves all war and and poverty and you're in a post-scarcity economy and and medical advances and all that stuff.
Speaker: But some people ah are upset because it's gotten rid of the speculation, the stock markets. Right. So they use those machines ah instead of betting on stocks.
Speaker: ah They use those machines and they focus them on babies. and they look at the, they try to predict the events of a baby's life as they're looking and you're betting, you're investing money on the lives of babies as they get older and grow up and then die.
Speaker: and
Speaker: you have consultants who are able to like tell you things about and what the baby might do. So like, Oh, well this baby is going to live between, you know, 60 and 120 years old.
Speaker: um and you know, maybe 45 of the events in this baby's life are going to be good. and, um, So you have three options, obviously. Buy, you got you can buy stocks in the baby, you can sell those stocks, or you can short it. You can short that baby if you think that baby's gonna have a run of bad luck. You can be like, I'm gonna short that baby.
Speaker: And you hit the short button and you're like, come on, baby. have some terrible, so you want you want them to have a terrible life, but you don't want them to die because when you when they die, it voids the short and then you don't get anything out of it.
Speaker: But if they go through a string of bad things and they come out of it and you're able to move off of that short, Oh, baby, you have you have hit a good short on that baby. um So, you know, you got to learn how to I just I I was about to win.
Speaker: So there's there's a bunch of campaigns in it where you play as a different trader and each of the traders have their own things. And I was about to win on the third third traders campaign and I got greedy on the final day of the campaign.
Speaker: I got a little greedy. I went to a planet that I hadn't really been trading on before. ah Wasn't really familiar with the lifespan of the the babies that I was trading.
Speaker: bought in too much. Baby did not have a good life. the the The strike price on it went, it was below the strike price immediately. So I was like, ah, well, I'll lose money. I'm just going to hold. I'm going to hold. I'm going to hold until it gets back to the strike price. It's going to get back to the strike price. And then guess what?
Speaker: The baby fucking dies at 12. This kid dies at 12. Oh, boy. baby is ah so is's a sucker. That baby really fucked you over dying at 12. This baby fucked me over by dying at 12. Fucking kids.
Speaker: Kevin, I worry that the metaphor they're going for might be too subtle.
Speaker: I worry that they might be really underselling ah the message here. I know authors use subtexts and they're all cowards. They're all cowards.
Speaker: um But this fucking baby just like, you know, so I ended I was, I was, I was, if id if I, if I'd done nothing, I would have won the campaign. If I'd just done nothing, I lost everything on this kid.
Speaker: I completely lost your shirt. I lost my shirt. And because so the trader, this guy, the third trader campaign, ah he's got a bad rap. So you he can't even get money from the loan sharks.
Speaker: Oh, wow. Okay. yeah Can't go to a loan shark. It's rough. um Got to pump those numbers, kid. yeah Anyway, a Space Warlord baby trading simulator. Incredible.
Speaker: ah Incredible. Incredible game. um i I recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a gambling problem. Yes. Yes, for the love of God.
Speaker: Because this is the way you acquire one ah like Oh, this is just like real. I can do this. And then and then you lose your house. You're just sitting there and you're like, oh man, I just need to like fucking hold. I need to hold. And, ah you know, it'll be fine.
Speaker: It'll be And then it wasn't. Super not. Super not fine. Yeah. So anyway, um that's that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, go ahead and follow us on all of our social media platforms if you can. Go to Patreon and the the Discord and and the all that stuff and the Go Birds and Fuck Ice and Free Palestine.
Speaker: Love it.
