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Episode 87 - Letter Lost and Crushed in Time
1 Playsin 4 hours
We've got for you, dear listeners, a DOUBLE FEATURE! Matt and Roses played a bizarre game about being trapped in a spooky, mysterious post office. AND THEN they played a point and click (and stretch) game about a Sherlock Holmes and Watson actively destroying the game they're starring in.
Also, the malls are closing :(
Games Mentioned:
- Gilbert Goodmate
- Krabat and the Secret of the Sorbian King
- Mina the Hollower
- Shovel Knight
- Letter Lost
- Strange Horticulture/Antiquities
- Papers Please
- Scratches
- Blue Prince
- There Is No Game
- Crushed in Time
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeV
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/saveyourgamepodcast
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Transcript
Closing Malls and Childhood Memories
00:00:00
Speaker
My mall is closing. My mall is closing too. really big your Is it your childhood mall? It was not, but my childhood mall is in like crisis. It's not going to make it. There's no one there ever. um I used to get my hair cut there up until I like moved more like more into the north side of the city. But yeah. Oh, well, actually, my childhood childhood mall. See, here's the thing, Matt. There's your childhood mall. But then here's that that then there there's like your childhood childhood mall. So my childhood child my childhood squared mall is like my eight like ages one through like seven. And then we moved and then I had like an adolescent like childhood to adolescent. So these are the same mall for me.
00:00:48
Speaker
Okay, the the first mall I went to was Ford City Mall, and that's been like, think that's been pretty dead for a while, but it's devastating. Like, that was my mall. I went to see Santa there. Me and my mom got, like, Mrs. Fields cookies. There were fountains.
00:01:04
Speaker
There were fountains in the mall. Yeah. Yeah, there's a fountain. in ease There was a fountain. Yeah. So, okay. So I had a mall. i Exton Square Mall was my childhood mall and my teenage slacker mall. Man, and the things we used to do as, I remember we used to go and beg for money at the mall and steal change from the fountain and then buy CDs.
00:01:28
Speaker
Wait, which CD store did you have in the mall? It changed a bunch. I remember at one point it was Yeah. i remember. Yeah, yeah. that I think we still have an FYE. I don't remember what it was before that. It was something else before that. And I think it was something else after that. But um we used to go up to people and be like, hey, my mom dropped me off at the mall and she forgot to leave me any money for food.
00:01:51
Speaker
do you think you could eat if you could even spare a dollar, like that would be great. And then we do that to a whole bunch of people. And then buy a CD. I'm surprised. um it did Oh, there was a um there was a Sam Goody.
00:02:06
Speaker
i like now I'm like looking up chains now. Sam Goody. I can't remember ours was a Sam Goody. We had a Hot Topic. We had a KB Toys. Yeah, we had a KB Toys. And then there was a different toy store with a sign that I fucking loved. It was a juggling a juggling clown.
00:02:24
Speaker
ah We had an Auntie Anne's. I have an amazing memory. So I'm just like now remembering all these mundane things. So- ah So this mall, Exiton Square Mall, was ah was a was a pretty big mall, and it was ah and it had a fountain.
00:02:41
Speaker
It had trees in the got in these food court, and there were birds in the rafters. they're Same with mine. There were birds in the rafters, and I loved them.
00:02:53
Speaker
So... where are there, like, what? Was every mall the same? Like, you had trees and birds? When I was in college... just you know a couple years ago. When I was when i went to, ah I had to do an AV, I was doing an AV class and I had to do an AV project that was like, do a do a little documentary. And I did a documentary about dead malls and filmed inside Exton Mall and got chased out as an adult, like as ah as a fucking 36 year old man, like hiding from mall cops to film. that guy who as a kid, like begged for money and stole the change oh from the fountain. Yeah. Yeah, we did worse than that, too, at that mall.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. So it it was a dead mall then. and yeah Yeah, and now it's it's dying for good. Like, it's
Organizing and Skipping Mall Protests
00:03:43
Speaker
closing down. Yeah, shutting down dead. Mm-hmm. Yeah. ah Do you remember Gadzooks?
00:03:50
Speaker
I don't think I had a Gadzooks. Great. I was really excited for, like, two seconds. Ah, fuck. I spilled my drink. Give me one second. Good thing the show hasn't started yet and we're chatting. Yeah, good thing we're not in the cold open and working really hard. What's a cold open?
00:04:08
Speaker
Why were you such like a menace at the mall? Like, what why? i was just a little i was just a little punker. Punk kid. That's so cute. I little punk kid and it caused so much destruction and damage. Well, I don't think I caused damage. I don't know that I caused i don't know that caused damage. I just lived by my own rules.
00:04:30
Speaker
I know that's not supposed to be adorable, but it sounds so cute. Oh, a little Matt with his little mohawk. I did a, um i did ah I staged a protest. Okay, here's a fun Matt punk story.
00:04:45
Speaker
Let me get another paper towel so I can keep cleaning my keyboard off. So, and not that they didn't always have good reasons. Sometimes they did, but sometimes they didn't. We would get harassed by the mall cops pretty much every week, right?
00:05:00
Speaker
um And they never caught us begging or stealing change. So like, it wasn't because of that. It was just because they didn't want weirdos scaring the rest of their customers. And that's what made me mad about it.
00:05:13
Speaker
ah And I remember one time we were in, granted, There was no reason for us to be in this store. It's not a store any of us shopped in. But we were in Abercrombie and Fitch.
00:05:27
Speaker
um Okay. But we hadn't this thing we hadn't done anything wrong. We hadn't caused any trouble. But they called the mall cops on us. And the mall cops were like you have to leave. We were like, wait, like we didn't yeah why We were just walking around.
00:05:43
Speaker
And they were like, you have to leave right now. And they escorted everybody out of the mall. And I got so mad about this, I staged a protest. And so I like organized this whole thing and I got everybody, all the mall kids from multiple schools together to do a big mall protest to the point where one of the other, not my school, but one of the other local schools made like an announcement on that Friday. like If you are going to the mall protest tonight,
00:06:14
Speaker
Be warned, the the the cops are aware of it and you will get in trouble. So don't do it. and so so like it turned into a big thing, like bigger than I intended. Whoopsie.
00:06:30
Speaker
And then there was a girl I liked who was like, hey, hang out with me this Friday. And i was like, well, I organized this whole protest.
00:06:40
Speaker
And she was like, oh, sorry. Well, because like, I won't be able to hang out next weekend. <unk> And I was like, okay, I'll come hang out with you. And I went and hung out with her and I skipped the protest that I organized.
00:06:57
Speaker
What kind of punk is that? That's not punk. That's like Blink-182 punk. How is that? I mean, it i think it's punk to arrange a protest. And then not go to
Online Privacy and Identity Humor
00:07:08
Speaker
it? And I think it is just a teenager thing to do to not go to it because a girl is like...
00:07:13
Speaker
Hey, want to make out? I did make out. Yeah, we did make out. This is not punk at all. I'm disappointed. They did get kicked out.
00:07:24
Speaker
The protest did get kicked out of them all.
00:07:47
Speaker
Hey, everybody, welcome to Save Your Game. I am your host, Matt Alkamp, and with me, the T-H-E, and only, Pushing Up Roses. How are you doing, Roses? Hi, it's me what if That would be such a bad nickname.
00:08:06
Speaker
I'm unique. Wait, Pushing Up Roses a bad nickname? T-H-E, if that was your nickname before you heard it. Hey, it's the T-H-E Jeffrey. Yeah, like quotes.
00:08:20
Speaker
I'm changing my name to that. but Tomorrow people go to Pushing Up Roses YouTube channel and it's just T-H-E. Yeah. and then you play And then your real first name.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's my real first name quotes T-H-E and quote my last name. That's your real last name too. ah People are like, what is this? I had to use my real first name and last name on everything. I decided really early on in the internet, like, Matt, you're going to have to use your real first and last name on everything or you're going to be such an asshole.
00:08:57
Speaker
You're holding yourself accountable? Exactly. If I didn't, was like, if I use a fake name, if I start using a pseudonym everywhere, like a screen name, I'm going to be such a piece of shit. I'm going to be so mean. going to be so snotty. And I'm going to be so, and I was like, but if I use my real name, it's going to keep me honest. And yet it didn't.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm such. You're such a snot anyway. This is what everyone says about me. He's such asshole on the internet. You're snot to me time. Oh, well, yeah, that's different. We're friends. Here's the thing. I obviously have a username slash channel name, an artist name, ah but it doesn't matter. like My name is out there anyway. like I try not to say, but that's not that's not really because of privacy reasons. i just like and When I'm on the internet, I just like to be known as my internet slash artist name. It just makes me feel a little more professional. I get real pissed when people me my real name. And i'm like, no, I'm not my artist name.
00:10:03
Speaker
I'm not going to I'm not going to reveal any details here. But there was one time we did get an email where somebody was like, no. Hi, Pushing Up Roses, or should I say? And then your real name, and both me and you are like, what the fuck is this person doing? Are they like, hey, I figured you out. Oh my god, the way I raged. because I got you. like yeah but Listen, I'm a nice person until I'm not, and then I'm just a ball of feisty rageness. Are they saying like,
00:10:34
Speaker
me and you were in on this secret, your real name together. Or like, is that like. I think they're trying to flirt with me, which is um not welcome. Yeah. The way, the best way to flirt with somebody is to do your research and find out some detail they don't make public and then reveal it to them. So like usually. going big mad.
00:10:58
Speaker
If I'm in a bar and I see ah a pretty woman across the ah across the the the bar and I'm like, ooh, that person, i want to go talk to her. I'll sneak up behind her. I'll steal her wallet. I'll look up her name. i will go to her. I'll go to i leave the bar. I'll go to the police office. and I'll sneak into the back and I'll run her name through their database and get all the details I can, print out a dossier, go back to the bar, walk up to her and just start reading off of it. You'll find out that she's like a murderer and there's this like a cold case file. And then you like, this is an adventure game. This is how you know that we're adventure gamers. Cause we have to do all this shit just to like live.
00:11:39
Speaker
I'll be like, excuse me, ma'am. Or should I say Deborah Johnson who lives at one, four, six, three North Brooklyn. I think you mean Deborah quote, t the the Johnson debor Deborah, Deborah, the Johnson Johnson.
00:11:57
Speaker
And look, if that person who wrote that email is listening, we are, that was inappropriate, but we're not mad at you. I'm not Don't be doing that. It's just such a weird thing to do. and Like, go ahead and interrogate.
00:12:12
Speaker
your Your motives in writing that as the intro to your email and decide, like, what were you trying to communicate? And then and then when you figure it out, don't tell us. We don't need we don't need to be part of this process. This ist this is an internal auditory.
00:12:33
Speaker
That's also just not the best way to flirt with me specifically. like what Matt, what do you think the best way to flirt with me specifically would be? Compliment if you guessed, you'll get it right. What?
00:12:44
Speaker
Compliment you. Effusively compliment you. Oh, i will always I will always take a compliment from fucking anybody. But like there's a better way. There's a better way.
00:12:55
Speaker
um Mention something that you're passionate about. Such as? video games. That's correct. Like, yeah, if you start, like, talking to me, you want to know what I know about, like, King's Quest? i'm ah ah That'll get me hot and bothered. Let's go!
00:13:14
Speaker
ah ah You spend every one of these podcasts so horned up. Oh, get every time. our guests ah that's Our guests often have to send an email like, ah please never invite me back. The process was so inappropriate. She tried to get on me afterwards. No, We're talking about Leisure Suit Larry. was real weird. No, I don't. Of course, I don't do that. But yeah, if you bring up like art and video games, let's go. I'm on it.
00:13:39
Speaker
Which is harder than you think because the adventure gaming like fan base is pretty small yeah like nobody ever comes up to me and it's like hey did you play uh did you play Sam and Max like never nobody Of course, though, the next time you're at Adventure X, now you're going to get a line of men and women going, hey, tell me what know about King's Quest. You know That's fine. If you're British and you want to flirt with me, please. And I don't know your real name. don't know it. I've never heard it before in my life. It doesn't start with an S. What? So speaking of video games and art,
00:14:18
Speaker
What have been enjoying lately? Oh, are you trying to flirt with me? God damn it. This part this podcast is going to be impossible if this is the president.
00:14:31
Speaker
um ah You're not going to believe this, but you are because I told you off recording. i The listeners won't believe it. They're not going to believe it.
00:14:42
Speaker
I'm playing Krabat in The Secret of the Starman King. Listen, I have great news for you and everyone listening. Yeah. Krabat has an app.
00:14:53
Speaker
Did you know this? I did. You can get it on. ah do you have iPhone or Android?
Exploring 'Krabat and the Secret of the Starman King'
00:14:59
Speaker
iPhone. I have Android. You can get it on Android, too. You can absolutely get it on ah on iOS as well. That's so it's so funny.
00:15:07
Speaker
That's very awesome. And like, I haven't played a lot of it. I just was like, I just, I don't know why this happened. I think it's because I got really sick of Gilbert Goodmate, which I did try to play and I'm stuck. Gilly Goodgrape.
00:15:21
Speaker
Gilly Goodgrape. Can't stop calling it that. um yeah i but in So just a quick update here. I'm stuck in Gilbert Goodmate. I haven't made any progress, but my inventory is over fucking flowing. I have so much shit.
00:15:36
Speaker
You sent me a picture. Maybe we talked about this last episode, but you sent me a picture two minutes into playing and you said, this is my inventory. Two minutes in. Two minutes after I collected like five more things. Yeah, there was like 10 things. And then you texted me.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yeah, like five minutes after we stopped recording the last episode. and you're like, this is my inventory now. Like what? It's the most mundane shit you've ever seen in your life.
00:16:03
Speaker
God, i I don't know what to do. like i'm stuck There might be a bug because i i tried to look up what I'm supposed to be doing and a character is not responding the way he's supposed to.
00:16:15
Speaker
And if that's the case, then I'm softlocked in this horrible, horrible like setting, location where everyone's awful. oh This is Gilbert Good Grape. Good Grape, yeah. Not... Okay, tell it tell me about Krabat. Krabat is interesting. Krabat? Krabat. That's a different name. Krabat is a Russian game. It is narrated in Russian, and I'm i'm having to read the ah the subtitles to go anywhere. It's...
00:16:47
Speaker
Not polished. I'm going to be real fucking honest here. We may have rated it too high. And I feel the same way about Gilbert Goodmate. Like, man, we, you know what I've learned? We have got to try to play some of these ranked games because we're going to find we're either like super impressed or Or we're going to be really disappointed. Or really need to re-rank.
00:17:12
Speaker
true Okay. Should we revisit it right now that you've just played it? Or should we wait till our next ranking episode and you'll just have... Okay. All right. Yeah. We'll wait till our next ranking. But it's it is interesting, though, because it is based on Sorbian folklore. Sorry. I guess it's not Russian. It's Sorbian. My bad.
00:17:31
Speaker
And it's like, this is one of the, this is a game where um the setting is like super old. I think it's like one of the oldest settings I've played. It's like 1702 or something. Sorry. Seven. I've looked it up. 1714.
00:17:45
Speaker
um And yeah, it's kind of this, this, I haven't played a lot of it. I just wanted to see it. It is clearly hand-drawn. It is spoken, i guess, in, is it it in a Slavic language? um So I'm reading it comes. Don't worry. It does come with the closed captions and it's, yeah, it's about a Sorbian wizard and it's about like challenging this like King,
00:18:12
Speaker
It's like about like historical war and stuff. It's pretty ah for for something as cartoony looking as Krabat and the secret of the Sorbian King. It's actually pretty serious. um That sounds good. What's bad about it? I hate how it plays, man. Okay, yeah. here's It's inconsistent. So sometimes, and this could be a language barrier as well, but sometimes i sometimes the voice acting is really squeaky and bad. Sometimes it's good. It's hand-drawn.
00:18:43
Speaker
The characters are clashing against the backgrounds, like hard. and Kind of like King's Quest VII, honestly. They look... Gosh, they look so strange. I don't know what it is about this art that I just really don't like.
00:18:57
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. I mean, the art. Yeah. The art looked very mediocre when we. yeah Yeah. But like sometimes it's not like sometimes the backgrounds are really beautiful and sometimes it just looks disheveled and the characters are clashing and the characters are like big headed and like anime. i It's weird. It's not working for me, guys. It's not working. Okay. Okay.
00:19:21
Speaker
And like in the intro, right, because you're, this is really interesting. So you're playing a wizard. it's it's It's easy to forget that because you're kind of just dressed as a dude. You do not look like a a wizard. You're not dressed as wizard. That guy's a wizard?
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah. Krabat a wizard. Krabat is a wizard. Okay. And the way you like enter this town to like talk to the king or whatever is you're in a carriage with a horse and you're flying. It's flying. And like, I thought that was a bug at first because I don't look like a wizard. I look like some guy He's just flying this thing in the air. Interesting.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah. So it's. I don't know. i Like I said, I haven't played a lot of it. I do plan to play more since it's it's pretty easy to play on iOS. I get to play it on my tablet, which is kind of neat. I never get to play anything on my tablet. Yeah, Krabat is a Sorbian folk hero. Yes, correct.
00:20:17
Speaker
The story of... Oh, it's in the Arden Thompson Uther Index as number 325, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Oh, interesting. Okay, so it is it is a it is a cataloged...
00:20:29
Speaker
it is a Yeah, it's a catalog ah classification of folktale. Yeah, and like, yeah, it's it's about like ah political unrest and 1714, I don't think i've ever played a game quite...
00:20:44
Speaker
I mean, i I guess we don't really know the dates of like the King's Quest games. they're not They're not named, right? They're just kind of high fantasy whatever. This is particularly set in 1714. So this is one of the older like time settings I think I've played. I know so little about Slavic folklore. I feel like I should learn. and This is ah this is like such an intriguing... I've got to close this Wikipedia page so I can focus on the podcast. Isn't Baba Yaga Slavic?
00:21:15
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know about Baba Yaga. Well, some Slavic stuff passes into just like into Western European folklore. That's true. um There's like the the Domavoy and the there's a Rusulka. That's a Slavic folktale. We're just naming everything from Quest for Glory 4. Oh, you're right. Those are both in Quest for Glory 5. Because that was Slavic. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Well,
Ending Analysis in Games
00:21:43
Speaker
okay. I know the stuff in Quest for Glory 5. Or the stuff that like ah the Decemberists sing about.
00:21:50
Speaker
Great. See, we're smart. We know stuff. we're so We're so smart is the thing. And people don't give us enough credit for smart we are. Somebody should compliment me.
00:22:03
Speaker
That's your cue. Hello. Waiting. Waiting for a compliment. Yeah, she's talking to you, listeners. Nope. Nope. That's not. but ah What was that? You want to know how ah what I've been enjoying lately?
00:22:18
Speaker
No, but go ahead. i actually don't. i The one thing. OK. Wait, you can't. talk Well, yeah, here's the problem. You've been enjoying. can Here's the problem. Yeah.
00:22:30
Speaker
The first thing I've been enjoying lately. ah You started playing. And so I think we're going to do a segment about it. Yeah, we definitely have enough. ah Yeah, I think it makes sense, too. The second thing I've been enjoying, i am not allowed to talk about until, like, two episodes from now.
00:22:49
Speaker
Right. um Because of an embargo. And the third thing I've been enjoying, i guess, is i finished... Okay, I'll just talk about this. I finished Widow's Bay.
00:23:00
Speaker
The ending, the TV show, the ending was... I could see why some people were disappointed with it, but I really liked it. And I think it sets it up. I think it sets up but now that we know it's renewed for season two. I think it's in a really good place to keep going. um And i'm I'm really excited about the future of that show. ah There's some damage that has been done to the characters that are going to make them a little harder to like in the next season. But I think it withs i think it it it holds its tone really well, and it managed to find comedy in a in a situation i would have found I would have thought impossible to find comedy in in the season finale. So um really liked the way that wrapped up. The other thing that I finished is Mina the Hollower.
00:23:50
Speaker
ah you finished it. Yay. And I can imagine as people finish this game, which should be, people should, I imagine people will be finishing it like, somewhere this month right like last week or this week or next week right as people start getting to the end of Mina the Hollower and having thoughts about it um I imagine it's going to be a controversial ending it is
00:24:18
Speaker
this will be a vibe spoiler it is really depressing it is a really bummer ending okay uh it is it is It is, yeah. And I don't know. So if if if everybody remembers, when Yacht Club Games did Shovel Knight, they did like a thousand DLCs for it. And that's not true. I think they did like five, but they were huge. They were like they're and an entirely new game each time they released a dlc and grant And granted, those were Kickstarter goals, stretch goals.
00:24:58
Speaker
So i don't know if we can expect the same thing from Mina the Hollower. Yeah. But... It feels like they left it in a place to pick up with either DLC or a sequel because they, it it they really lean into this idea of, this is what I was thinking of as I was, I was thinking of the ending is there's a difference between ends justify the means and the like Kantian moral imperative. Right. And both,
00:25:33
Speaker
involve sometimes doing things that are going to harm people. But like, ends justify the means is sort of like inflicting suffering because you think that there's going to be a good outcome at the end, right? Like you are doing something you are morally opposed to. and Obviously, the big example of ends justify the means is Holocaust, right? But ah a moral imperative That makes... the Sometimes following a moral imperative can sometimes make some people's lives worse in the short term to make them better in the long term. And I think there's something... Mina the Hollower is kind of getting in that at that. And a good example of that might be like environmentalism, right? Where because you believe in this thing, you might need to dismantle things that...
00:26:33
Speaker
help people and make people's lives better because in the end, it's going to save the earth, right? Sure. And I think Mina the Hollower is kind of getting it.
00:26:45
Speaker
That sort of idea is like at the end of the game, the world is the people in this world are doing worse than they were before Mina showed up.
00:26:58
Speaker
hm But it is for an ultimately, Yeah. yeah it is to save them in the long run and i think i think they are really i think this is a very i think this is very it says a lot about say like ai and internet and social media and stuff these things that might be making people's lives better in the short term but are ultimately going to destroy the earth
00:27:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's just ah it's a really interesting ending. i'm It's a hard game. So I imagine, again, it's going to be a little, you know, people aren't, a lot of people haven't finished it yet. And a lot of people are finishing it around the time that I did. and So I'm interested to hear the discourse about it as as people start finishing the game. But it's, yeah, it's a bummer ending.
00:27:53
Speaker
That sucks. That's hard because... um Yeah, I don't know. i think ah I think in video games, people have like trouble with like difficult difficult choices and bummer endings, especially when the game looks cute and kind of uplifting, you know?
00:28:08
Speaker
Yes. And it's it's a hard game as well, so you want to be rewarded for like all this time and energy you put in. Right. i um I guess... Maybe you can tell. i think the ending is really smart and thoughtful. So I guess intellectually I'm happy with it.
00:28:27
Speaker
yeah But emotionally I wasn't. Emotionally I was like, that's it? That's yeah the end of the game? that's That is what all my efforts like kiss added up to yeah So I wouldn't have wanted them to do it any other way. right Because it it is making the point it's making. And it is making it really well. Like, I don't think they've made a mistake here.
00:28:50
Speaker
Sure. I just got to the end and was like, oh. right So anyway, I didn't think I'd had that much to say about me to the hollowers ending, but apparently I had a lot of thoughts.
00:29:03
Speaker
So those podcasts always go. we have we have a lot of thoughts.
Introduction to 'Letter Lost'
00:29:07
Speaker
Speaking of shit, I didn't think I had a ton to say about, but turns out I have a lot of thoughts. hmm. Do you want to put on some um some music to flip your Victrola around to?
00:29:22
Speaker
and What? What? Put on some old ass music and then come back and talk about Roses, want to talk about the game Letter Lost with me?
00:29:34
Speaker
Let's do it! Letter Lost
00:29:57
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. am Fishing Up Roses with me, as always, the enigmatic, punky, menace goblin, Madocamp.
00:30:08
Speaker
Huh, so the... Those were all compliments because I'm nice like that. Sure. I give my friends compliments, you know? But it did sound like you said enigmatic. No, I said it Which would be like, i he is he is not...
00:30:26
Speaker
he is the least he is the least he the least is the least person i've ever met whoops i don't what i'm at a slip igmatic doesn't i don't think that means anything so
00:30:45
Speaker
what are okay what are we talking about We are talking about a new game called Letter Lost, which is a hybrid game of puzzles, adventure, simulation, and escape room.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's by Flat Nine Games. It just came out in June. It came out a couple weeks ago. yeah This is an interesting one. yeah it is. It's like stupid
00:31:12
Speaker
It's a simulation game that has more going on under the surface. It's like... Yeah. You know I'm going to say it wears its influences on its sleeve really hard. Sure. and Yeah, sure.
00:31:24
Speaker
But I don't know that it quite lives up to any of them. So why don't you tell people what they're doing and then I'll i'll explain what I mean by that. Okay, so in this game, you wake up in a dungeon. Nothing is explained.
00:31:40
Speaker
You're just in a dungeon. You're a character that you need to kind of figure out. This is a tutorial, but you will wake up in the dungeon more times than once. It's very disorienting because you think you're about to turn on a game a cozy game about opening letters. It is. Yeah, that's true. it was a little jarring. I opened this game and I'm like, what?
00:31:58
Speaker
um So you wake up in this this dungeon. it It serves as a tutorial right away. Shows you how to move and it gives you a couple puzzles on how to, quote, escape the dungeon. And once you do, you are in a post office, a post office in Karnam. And you are the new like postmaster. Yeah. And ah for the first week, every day, you get a call from a woman named Liv, who is like in charge of this branch, I guess, of the post office. And i you have some dialogue trees, which are fun. ah So when you talk to Liv, you can be like sarcastic or you can be nice. I don't know if they influence the story, but I like flirting with Liv.
00:32:39
Speaker
ah i like flirting with the the other branch person. I tried to be really realistic and be like, what the fuck is happening? I just woke up in a dungeon. Yeah, yeah. What? I don't want to work at a post office. What is this? I started that. i start Eventually, I started kind of going that way. So you're working at this post office, and that's where kind of the simulation mechanics come in. They show you how to...
00:33:05
Speaker
stamp letters, process, you know, put the letters through the mail slots, like ah an old timey post office. And you, at some point you get to package, not package, but send out packages. And there's different little mechanics to that. You're basically running a post office, but also it's weird. um You're talking to,
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah, so you're talking to characters as well. Think about strange Strange Horticulture, Strange Antiquities, very similar mechanic. People come up to your window, they ring a bell, and you talk to them, and they're all fucking weird, because I think this is another Lovecraftian game, so everyone is really weird. Yeah.
00:33:46
Speaker
Nobody seems to know what's going on ah Nobody recognizes you, ah but people seem to think that they've seen you before. or they or they they're feeling There's a lot of feelings of like deja vu in this game right away. Yes. you're doing your tasks and a week goes by, Right.
00:34:04
Speaker
And I get like a little performance thing. Man, I fucked up the first time because I wasn't paying attention. So one of the mechanics is loading the truck and you have to scan the packages to see if there's like volatile ah things or fragile things. Man, I just put all the packages together next to each other and I was docked like $200. Wow. Wow. Okay. ah Yeah. Let's talk about these. Let's talk about these sim mechanics real quick before we move on to the end of the first week. So what will happen is people come up to you and and every morning you have a stack of letters when you get down to the post office and people will come up and hand you letters and the letters you have to look at the address and
00:34:47
Speaker
And then grab the correct stamp and stamp them and then put them in the correct slot. And there's only three. So it's not, you know, it's not that hard. You will get into a rhythm. um Yeah. Doloth Hills, Dragshallow Bay, and Whistvale. And each of them have their own stamp. But as you go along, you find, like, there will be very much like Papers, Please. There will be little exceptions to the rules. And it'll be like, hey, Whistvale.
00:35:18
Speaker
Wistvale mail today, so you have to stamp return to sender. Right, or have to shred it. Yeah, all drag shallow mail today gets shredded, or all Doloth Hills mail gets mailed via the sewer grate next to your desk. Wait, does that happen?
00:35:35
Speaker
but Yeah, and then there's other... What's that? There's other districts that appear, and I don't want to spoil anything, but there's other districts that appear that in order to send things in that district, you have to do things yeah in very weird ways. Yeah. Very, almost like super natural ways. Like, how would the letters possibly get there? But- um And then you start getting packages and like you said, you have to put them on a scale. you have to There's a way button and a scan button and you stamp those and then you put them in a chute and then eventually the truck opens up and the truck and all the packages are different shapes and you have to arrange them like you know like Resident Evil inventory or something, like a like fitting shapes on a grid. Yeah, um they're like little Tetra shapes, little boxes, and like little L's, and some of them are volatile, so you can't put those next to a specific thing. and They can't touch your other packages. Yeah, they can't touch other packages.
00:36:37
Speaker
Pallets are old, so they have holes in them, so not everything's always going to fit, and there are certain types of fragile packages can't touch holes in the pallet. Yeah.
00:36:48
Speaker
So...
00:36:51
Speaker
it's It's like that. It's like doing these simple tasks, but with these added... complexities yeah and and then you you do get paid for these tasks you are getting money and part of this simulation and i'll just go over like really quickly cause there's more to it than this but there's a catalog that you can use your money in ah you can actually redecorate your whole office if you wanted to i chose the ocean well oh wow you spent money you spent five hundred dollars on the ocean
00:37:22
Speaker
You know what? It was $2.50 and I don't regret it. ah The catalog has different... The catalog can be used later for actually puzzles. it It gets very deep. But there is a catalog and you can... Like you're not doing these menial tasks for no reason. There is kind of ah an escalation there. You're trying to save money to get things from the catalog to help you. you know And the catalog... will there's like ah If you save up $2,000, you can get wax seals for your envelopes and then yeah you get a dollar more per...
00:37:52
Speaker
per envelope and per package. If you get, um there's upgrades like the stamps will fly to your hands a little faster or the envelopes will move across your desk faster or yeah little things like that, which make it sound like idle game level, but it does yeah it's not quite that. it's It's just, it's a sim that,
00:38:19
Speaker
but What you can do, there there is a helpline that you can call at any point and you can ask for more mail. Right. so Or less mail if you're getting stressed out. So, you know, when you can start speeding up your movements and then you can ask for more mail and then get a little bit more done per day and then earn more money, that kind of Yeah, it's certainly a game of balance because you can't really forego these tasks. Like you have to manage the post office and you have to greet the customers in in order to move forward with the more puzzly, you know, escape and story stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So what happens when you get to the end of the week?
00:39:01
Speaker
So yeah, at the end of the week, which I guess are called loops, at the end of the week, you talk to Liv and she gives you just a little report on how you were doing. And if you don't mess up the truck like I did, hopefully you'll get a little bit more money for doing You get a bonus, yeah. And then you wake up in the dungeon again.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yes. And it's the same dungeon you woke up in as before, except this time you already have like solved these puzzles. So you know how to get out. but like You have your inventory with you. You have your like flashlight and letter opener. And and like the key you found yeah to get out of your cell. You actually wake up in a cell. Yeah. um And then and then so you wake up and that's kind of weird. Right. But, you know, you go back into the post office and Liv calls you and it's like nothing ever happened. She's like, welcome to your first day. It's like Groundhog Day. Right. You wake up and it's it's the same day. But nobody remembers you. Liv doesn't remember you. She's she's trying to tell you how to process the mail again.
00:40:01
Speaker
um and then you. Yeah. And then you go to your second week. And you want to take it from there. Sure. So you start to notice certain things like customers are coming back on the same exact days and you're you start to realize like, okay, these are weird customers and I kind of remember what happened with them last week.
00:40:21
Speaker
Right. So how do – so maybe I can – Maybe I can actually change the outcome here. There's like a woman who comes every week and tells you to mail a package or mail a letter to her husband. And when you look up her husband in the the address book, he's dead. Yeah.
00:40:37
Speaker
It says deceased. ah And you're like, what? and There's another woman who comes and her daughter is missing. Yes. I haven't figured that out like at all. I don't know what I'm doing with that yet.
00:40:48
Speaker
I had to look up a hint for that and it was far easier than I thought it was. Oh, interesting. Okay. I have a couple of ideas on how to... Yeah, I'm just not there yet. So what I'll say is if you are if you start playing Letter Lost...
00:41:04
Speaker
This is my advice, and then we'll talk a little bit more deeply about it. my My advice is play through the first week just getting a hang of the simulation and getting a hang of who the customers are and just like play it like it is, like a post office simulator um with a little bit of weirdness to it.
00:41:21
Speaker
Don't try to solve any big puzzles. And then on your second week, You're going to want to do two things. Number one, you're going to want to start listening to the radio.
00:41:33
Speaker
There's a yeah radio in the post office, and it plays. It's got a couple stations, but the two most important ones are the news station. Mm-hmm.
00:41:49
Speaker
And the psychic station. Right. So I'd spend... So you're going to keep looping over and over. So I'd spend one week listening to the news station all day, every day, and one week listening to the psychic station all day, every day.
00:42:04
Speaker
yeah and Maybe take some notes. Yeah. and you'll start noticing that there will names and situations in those broadcasts that are similar to the situations and names of the people who are appearing at your window. Yes. um A lot changes throughout this game.
00:42:27
Speaker
A lot of the things that we've said already turn out not to be true. The things that we and Roses have just told you about this game turn out to be untrue and the character doesn't know it and we don't know it when we start. When I said this game wears its influences on its sleeve, like first obviously is Papers, Please.
00:42:47
Speaker
It's got that simulation and the rules changing and that stuff. Second is Strange... Antiquities and strange horticultures. Like it's got the characters, still portraits appearing at your window and asking you for weird stuff. And they have unfold like stories that unfold throughout the week.
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah. And you can influence them. Right.
00:43:13
Speaker
The next big influence is the podcast. Welcome to Night Vale. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I read about that. but You read about it. Okay. I read somebody saying this is like Night Vale. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. The radio station, if you've ever listened to Welcome to Night Vale, the radio station is basically a, it is, it it is doing an impression of Welcome to Night Vale. I clocked that pretty immediately. and if
00:43:45
Speaker
Since it's like a lower quality Night Vale, if you're a Night Vale fan, you just kind of got to get past that. Sure. Because there is a lot to love about this game.
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, there's something special. And yeah like we're saying it has its influences,
Horror Themes and Player Frustrations
00:44:01
Speaker
right? But there's actually something really special about the first person like 3D setting you're in.
00:44:07
Speaker
it's It's just giving that kind of old school first person adventure game vibe to me. um a little bit of scratches even because you need to, you do need to investigate your setting, you know, like on top of balancing kind of the simulation portion and You do need to look around kind of like you would in an escape room. You need to look for clues and find letters and find ah things you can open. And yeah, i which there's something i really like about that particular aspect. I like the kind of exploratory aspect.
00:44:41
Speaker
I would really say like it during your first week or two, don't worry about that stuff. If you stumble across it, give it a shot, but yeah don't worry too much about that stuff because it'll take you away from, it'll take your focus away from the more interesting things like what's going on with the customers.
00:44:59
Speaker
um I do wonder if the, if in in, in us talking about this, is this game doing too much? Yes. that why we're getting frustrated? Yeah.
00:45:10
Speaker
You know? So i I will have a host of criticisms for this game, but I do want to talk. So hold on to that. Put a pin in that. yeah Because I do want to talk about when the horror starts coming in. So not only do you wake up in a dungeon the first day, so rewinding back to your very first day,
00:45:29
Speaker
You will be told that there's a there's a mandatory break at the end of the day, like your quitting time is at a mandatory time and you can't work past your quitting time. And you find when it's time to quit a mysterious force will compel you up the stairs. Yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
into your bedroom and you will find out that you live here you live here now you live here yeah you live in the post office and you can't escape and your post office is decorated with whatever like there's an there's an application process at the beginning and your post ah your your bedroom is decorated with whatever you told the uh them on your application you most fear um
00:46:10
Speaker
There is, you'll find mysterious letters. You'll find there's like a, at some point, if you're looking around the ceiling, you'll find like a mysterious creature lives here. um There's a guy named Indrik who will interrupt...
00:46:30
Speaker
the flow of your day every now and then and ask you to do something wild. And that's what will really tip you towards. Okay. There's puzzles I have to solve, like bigger puzzles I have to solve. Um, also if you sleep with the lights off at any time, you wake up with a man standing over your bed in shadows with a bowler. That's Indric, right? It might be Indric.
00:46:54
Speaker
Because he has like a little, ah but I don't know. i don't, I don't really know. But it the first time I did that, I was so freaked out. Yeah. Like this is not, I think I texted you yesterday. Like I'm too terrified to keep playing this game.
00:47:07
Speaker
That's because that happened. Yes. And I wasn't sure what else. There's some, there's some scary moments. There's some startling moments. Yes. In this game. um But you can select no ghosts at the beginning also. I want to know what that actually... Me too. Would that get rid of the guy that looks over here? What does that even do? I don't know.
00:47:29
Speaker
I don't Because I'm on loop... I'm on week five or loop five. Or like I'm into it. or like I'm halfway through that. And I don't know if I... find anything ghostly scary yet, but maybe. Besides the man over your bed, maybe. And so I got to loop 14 and weird stuff starts happening. And I didn't, I gotta say, I didn't like it because I was starting to save money and thinking that I was getting close to solving puzzles. And then everything sort of starts changing in a way that I'm like, it feels like it's heading towards the,
00:48:05
Speaker
a pre-scripted ending. Okay. And I'm like, wait, wait, hold on. I was, I was working towards something here. I mean, but we don't know that yet. Cause we're not, it could still not disappoint you in that way. Maybe i will say that everything does change around the place that I'm at.
00:48:24
Speaker
um Some very, very major things that happen every single day stop happening. Are are you finding yourself scared? No, but I could see it being a little creeped out if um if I hadn't been getting so frustrated. with So let's get into.
00:48:43
Speaker
Okay, well, ah first, let's say, well, what what do we like about this game? Yeah, I think I like this game more than you do, like based on our chats. Like I agree with you on everything. I think there's just something special about the vibe that I feel like I really do need to keep playing this, even though i do think the game is trying to do and be a little too much. um Like I said, it is a time loop. It is an escape room. It is puzzles. It is a simulation game.
00:49:12
Speaker
It is a mystery. you know what I mean? So like it is really doing a lot. And I find that I am getting a little overwhelmed um because I have fucking OCD. So once it's true. I have leg legitimate OCD. So once I start like doing the menial tasks,
00:49:29
Speaker
I need to get this done. And you in in a game like this, you really need to kind of prioritize what you want to do. yeah like I said, because the game is doing a lot um and you can't forego one thing. You at least have to balance these things you're doing. You have to do the simulations. You have to you know interact with the customers. You have to look at your settings. All these things are important. But I do...
00:49:56
Speaker
And yes, it does get very tedious. Like the way I was going through stamping letters, I was like possessed. I'm like, I gotta stamp all these fucking letters, even though I feel like I'm losing my mind. Maybe that's by design. Maybe you're supposed to feel the tedium, which could be argued as that fun. And then we get into the whole argument, our two games have to be fun, which we're not doing today. so all right. So I like, I agree. I like the setting. I like some of the writing. i like, um, yeah, I like the writing. Yeah.
00:50:25
Speaker
i like ah I like this game in concept, but the the execution is so off to me. And I think when you bring up fun, I think that's one part of it. I think one part of it is um games that have tedium to them.
00:50:46
Speaker
Stardew Valley, for example, um or a Strange Horticulture, Strange Antiquity, right? They have a loop that is fun to do. I'm going to argue real quick, though, that sometimes even those games get exhausting. But I think what you're saying is this game is on a different tier of exhausting you. Yes. level of tedium.
00:51:10
Speaker
Yes. So when I am So, yeah, like it it adds to the atmosphere, right? And the there's some artistic merit to it, right? When it's just, when you are trapped here at this post office and this is what you have to do. There might even be some commentary about like capitalism there, right?
00:51:32
Speaker
But when I actually have to save up $2,000 and that takes up, that takes like two to three weeks of nonstop stamping letters and mailing packages,
00:51:48
Speaker
It's like, okay, then you you don't, it doesn't feel like you're making your point anymore. It feels like you're just wasting my time as a human being, my time on this earth. Because you have focus on that and not focus on maybe some of the more interesting parts of this game, the mysteries and the character arcs and things like that. Now I'm wasting my time, now but I have to, I got to get the money.
00:52:11
Speaker
If it took three in-game days to save up enough money to buy these things, I think that would fix it, right? Not fix it, but that would make it a lot easier, right? Like, okay, if I want this to go a little easier, if I want to make a little bit more money a little faster, I can save up for a couple days and then buy this thing.
00:52:33
Speaker
But again, you're you're doing this for so long. And it's like, what what am I doing? and again, when I start getting to what feels like hurtling towards the end of this game, and I'm like...
00:52:46
Speaker
Well, what the fuck? i didn't get to save up enough money to buy all these things. Right. So what was I supposed to have been prioritizing? yes And I'm struggling with that, too. I am not quite sure what to prioritize. And this is a slightly nonlinear game in that we have found different things throughout our playthrough. And we're like, I don't. What? You found what code? What is that for?
00:53:09
Speaker
And so I don't. Yeah, you're right. I don't know what to prioritize. I don't really quite know what I'm working on. The only consistent thing I have are these damn like menial tasks. you know Yes. That stop being fun on like loop five or six. Yeah, and yeah I'm getting there. I agree.
00:53:25
Speaker
And even the complexity that they introduce feels more frustrating than it is. then it Then it does fun or even or even challenging. It's not even that challenging. The other thing, it's it's made in F mod. So there there are some like graphical or mechanical things that feel a little wonky, that feel a little amateurish. And it's like, okay, whatever. I mean, sometimes you can make a masterpiece with limited tools. That's fine. Absolutely.
00:53:55
Speaker
Mouthwashing is like that. That's not a published name, but it's a masterpiece. Right. But you really feel it in this game, i think. and that's a problem. um Same with the holes in the writing.
00:54:09
Speaker
You really feel those where somebody says something or somebody repeats something and you're like, wait, what? What is this? ah Is this a clue or is this a um or as we and you were talking about just before we got on the call, there is one puzzle.
00:54:24
Speaker
That.
00:54:27
Speaker
there's like five or six different ways to get this special number that leads to another mystery, possibly the solution to a puzzle. And you could be working On this idea, this puzzle, like you could be listening to say the psychic station for an entire week, taking notes every day and being like, okay, I'm slowly figuring out what this code that they're there, that is kind of hidden in these broadcasts is. And then you get to the end of it and you're like oh, it's that fucking number that I just read by shining my black light on the floor. Right.
00:55:02
Speaker
I already have this. yeah And that is bad writing. That's bad design. It seems like they played blueprints and got the wrong lessons from it. Because there are there are multiple ways to solve puzzles and blueprints, but kind of like you know when you've solved them. and you know what you have to put your efforts towards and you're constantly in blueprints running into revelations and it's, it's super exciting at in letter lost.
00:55:33
Speaker
Sometimes you hit what they, what seems like they want to be a revelation for you. And you're like Oh, i already know that. Right. Right. And it's just frustrating and kind of boring.
00:55:45
Speaker
The last thing I'll say is in a game like this, you need to really be able to trust it. Because if you don't have a clue yet, you have to be able to trust, okay, it'll come.
00:56:00
Speaker
I'll find it. Or either either i will find either it's right in front of me and I will find it eventually, or it's going appear over time. And there's so many puzzles. There's a lot of bugs in this game. And there's so many puzzles that are broken. Or, like I said, puzzles that are redundant.
00:56:21
Speaker
Yeah. yeah That I don't trust the game. And so when I'm working on so on something and I'm running into dead ends, I start to think, like, is it even here?
00:56:33
Speaker
v Did am I in am I in a playthrough of the game where this is working or is it bugged or is this something that I should even be spending my time on because am I going to get to it and it's going to be that fucking number again that I found five different places.
00:56:50
Speaker
I think, yeah, and I think like we compared some notes and we confirmed we're experiencing the same bug on the same puzzle. Yes. And like, yeah, I don't quite, I was really upset because I figured out the puzzle, but it's not working. Same. Same.
00:57:06
Speaker
So yeah, I went on to like Steam to look at a, just ah like a gentle guide and I was right. And I, and that's so frustrating. We both did the same thing. We, we, we both had that exact same experience where there was a puzzle. We were working on it. We thought we figured it out. It wasn't happening.
00:57:23
Speaker
Yeah. And so we both went to guides. Turned out we were both right. And the more frustrating thing ah is me and you are stuck on different, our game broke on different parts of the puzzle. of the puzzle So I have something that you don't have. Yeah.
00:57:37
Speaker
You got a step further than me. and Yeah, I can't get any further. I started a new game because I thought I was running into so many bugs because I thought it's because I'd done things out of order. Like oftentimes when a game is starting to break, I blame myself.
00:57:52
Speaker
um I'm like, I fucked something up because I played it weird. And then I started a new game. And now the puzzle, this puzzle that we're talking about, the sequence of puzzles we're talking about, won't even start for me.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah, you can't even get to where I am again. I tried to start a second game, and everything in my second game is broken. There's a point at which you need to change a light bulb, and there's like a black light, and it's it's really it's a really cool scene. um I'm not going to say anything more about it.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, I like it. It's effective. But... it's It's broken where you're supposed to be able to do something with that black light that I can't do in my... I could in my first game. I can't my second game. That's wild. second of all, this area where there's a where you have to change the light bulb and there's a black light, there's a light switch. When the light switch is off, the black light is on. When the light switch is on, the regular light is on. That's not supposed to happen.
00:58:52
Speaker
Oh, no. What the... um I've gotten letters stuck in places. Yep, I have too. There's a letter stuck in the window. Yeah, for several days. You know what? um I got a letter handed to me on a counter that was addressed to you. y o Y-O-U.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah. um They handed it to me on the counter. I picked up the letter. why oh Y-O-U stayed on the counter. And it has stayed on the counter ever since, even in my new game. i loaded and i start but When I started a new game, why o Y-O-U is still stuck on the counter.
00:59:26
Speaker
Yeah, it is it is unfortunately very buggy. And I do have faith that the developers are looking at at that and are going to patch the bugs. What gives you that faith?
00:59:39
Speaker
Because mine had already had a patch on it. Oh, okay. All right So like, I've already seen a patch go through. So I think it's well known that this is a buggy game. They've already, I've, I already had a patch. um I ah hope that these things get fixed because i to be really honest with you, i do like this game.
00:59:59
Speaker
Like, yes, it's doing a ton, but there is something about the vibe that I like. And obviously a vibe can't carry the whole game. It needs to work. It can't be buggy. It can't be tedious, but there's, there's something, I feel like it's just has so much potential. I like the weirdness about it. I like the creepiness about it.
01:00:18
Speaker
um i like the cozy setting. And if these puzzles were a little more polished, I would like them too. yeah um i don't yeah And maybe that's because I don't play a lot of games like this. You play more games like this than I do. So like let's say if i did play Blueprints and I'm like, oh, I see what you're talking about now. It could have been so much better. But considering this is kind of a new experience for me,
01:00:42
Speaker
I'm just like, oh, that's clever. Like, I don't really play escape room games. I don't play time loop games. And it's got that vibe of of strange horticulture. So there is something I like about it. And there are a few characters I enjoy seeing pop up at the window.
01:00:57
Speaker
i think the the biggest problem here is um it's just a lack of polish everywhere. Right. i I have it's like we said, it's buggy.
01:01:12
Speaker
There's some graphical issues. There's some writing issues. There's some... um There's just... And even in its best form, in its top form, it feels sort of like a a slightly cheaper version of a game like Blueprints um or even of a game like Strange Horticulture. It's just... It's lacking polish.
01:01:38
Speaker
yeah I feel like this is a game that could have used... you know i don't know enough about game development, but let's say, let's just throw a random number out there. I'm going to use six more months of development. yeah it Yes, i think I think it definitely needed more time. Hammer out the bugs to do some play testing, to have people say, hey, this part isn't fun, to have other people say, hey, I don't.
01:02:04
Speaker
I got this clue five different times. but It's not like this. That sucks. Or like, yeah, I understand. Just to have a nut or, or even just to say things like, like, Hey, the solution to this puzzle is what is so obtuse.
01:02:22
Speaker
Right. That I can't imagine how you, you would have thought I would figure this out. Yeah. Um, And that being said, i still i I keep playing it, though. i keep Even though I'm having these frustrations, I want to play this game. i Yeah, I played 14 hours. like I played a lot of this game. um But I'll say this.
01:02:46
Speaker
i kind of think i put that much time into this game because I kept i my i kept letting my expectations be high. And I think I kept being let down. Okay. Okay.
01:02:59
Speaker
this game is missing polish and it's missing thought that I think based on what I have seen, they could have done. They had the skill to they just didn't give it enough time. Yeah. I think it definitely would benefit from more time. um i still, I still really like this game though. I don't know. Like the frustrations aren't deterring me from playing it. And I don't really know why I can't really explain that. I think it's just a vibe thing.
01:03:28
Speaker
I also wonder if it's the difference between you be having four loop five loops and me having 14, right? Yes, that could absolutely be. By the time you get to where I am, you might be like, yeah, this game is not as good as I wanted it to be. Yeah. But the fact that, I think the fact that we want it to be good and there's something we want from it is a good sign. Yes. Meaning that this is a good concept. There's something special here, yes. actually really like this concept. Yeah. Yeah.
01:03:55
Speaker
Yes, I agree with that. It's a good concept. There's something special here. It's it more than anything. i'm I'm just disappointed that it's not.
01:04:06
Speaker
It's not living up to. What it what it feels like it could have been. Yeah, for sure. And I will give you guys an update when I'm more loops in to see.
01:04:16
Speaker
Sure. If my if the vibe changes, if it doesn't pass the vibe check anymore. And I'll finish my playthrough of that one and see what this yeah ending thing might be. And maybe it's not an ending. You're right. But yeah it feels like there's no place for it to go. So I don't know how it wouldn't be. Yeah. They definitely have to fix these bugs, though, because,
01:04:38
Speaker
yeah they We can't even criticize it properly because the bugs get in the way. Yeah, exactly. like the but i I know that if this drawer bug worked, I'd be having a better time with it. And we wouldn't have had that conversation, you know? Well, that's letter lost. I i don't.
01:04:55
Speaker
I apologize for being bad. apologize for being a little negative. I'm just like, oh, no. apologize for getting so negative about it towards the end there. Hopefully you guys all realize that, like, again, based on the way we talked about it at the beginning.
01:05:10
Speaker
And our little caveats here, there's enough here to like. If it sounds intriguing to you, i would... and you know and it's not And cost isn't a problem for you. I would say give it a shot. yeah there's There's a lot here that's interesting and yeah worth worth your time.
01:05:29
Speaker
um i Yes, I would say give it a shot. I would say it is worth playing because it is such an interesting experience. But i I think I am... You know, this...
01:05:43
Speaker
This game will stay in the B minus C plus rank you know for me until I see some development on it. and If it stays where it is, it it might you know never rise higher than that. And we've said this before, but like when we're critiquing art like this, I don't waste my time critiquing something that I think has zero potential. I just won't really pay attention to it at all. you know The fact that this this media, this piece of art is giving me so much thought means it does have something. It's it's it's ultimately a good thing. At least it's... my Did you know I'm an artist? I just realized we're caveating so much because we feel guilty. But no, this is ah this is what we're here for. so look Okay. People yell at me, though, Matt. When I'm an angry woman on the internet, people get real upset. I'll all fist fight them for you. Thank you. so
01:06:43
Speaker
that's letter lost. There's another game we played this week, though, right? There is.
Criticisms and Praise of 'Letter Lost'
01:06:48
Speaker
I'm so glad we played a Me too. Yeah, it's a game I think we were both way, way more positive on. um So do we want to play something old and weird?
01:07:01
Speaker
ah Like us? Old and weird. And then come back and talk about Crushed in Time. Yes.
01:07:31
Speaker
Hey, everybody, welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm Matt Allcamp. This is the allowed to say negative things on the internet pushing up roses. Hi. and You can't tell her otherwise. Sorry.
01:07:49
Speaker
There's two sides of me, and that's the like extreme, chaotic, feisty side. And then there's this like sad side that it's like, I'm sad that I criticized a thing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean so sorry. Yeah, I think we all feel that. yeah Well, here's a game that I think we're going to have far fewer criticisms of.
'Crushed in Time' and Game Evolution
01:08:13
Speaker
I believe. I believe. We haven't talked much about it. But... We both played a game called Crushed in Time. Yes. Crushed in Time is the third game in a series of games by Draw Me a Pixel.
01:08:29
Speaker
Yes. ah The first game called it was a was an old game jam game called There Is No Game from 2015. And then they expanded on that.
01:08:40
Speaker
with no There is no game wrong dimension in 2020. I think we have an episode about it. or we have a We talked about it on the show. i think during one of our. Recommendations episodes. One of the episodes where we were playing your recommendations. We talked about it.
01:08:56
Speaker
okay okay In that game. ah so there is no game. Was about. Being in. an Like an operating system.
01:09:09
Speaker
that you were actively breaking. There would be like, the title would be there and you would like take the letters off of it and use them to solve puzzles or whatever. And all the while there'd be a narrator saying, hey, stop that. there This is, i close this game. There's no game here, right?
01:09:25
Speaker
yeah And that game had a bunch of like critiques of different video game genres. that were done very comedically um where you would you would play like ah an RPG with a bunch of microtransactions or um relevant to art interests here.
01:09:49
Speaker
You played a LucasArts style point and click adventure. Yeah. Which was so fun. was so delighted. And it was super it was super cute and super funny in There Is No Game Wrong Dimension. That was back in 2020.
01:10:08
Speaker
And then just this year, in June, they released a full version of the Sherlock holme game Holmes game, Sherlock Holmes and Watson game.
01:10:19
Speaker
called Crushed in Time. And this game, it's still sort of styled after a LucasArts game, but imagine if LucasArts existed, you know, today. So a little bit better graphics, but still that sort of like quirky, angular cartoon style.
01:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, almost like a Telltale-esque kind of game. ah Just aesthetically, not. Yeah, like... ah It's its own sort of version of 2.5D, right? Yeah. It's 3D, but everything looks a little 2D in screenshots. like um You feel like they're stickers pasted on a background. Yeah. it's it's Honestly, it works really well. It's super cute. There's a part of me that wishes it was more kind of old school pixel, but I am actually kind of glad they did something unique with this game but because it makes sense with the actual mechanic. So the thing here is, it much like it their previous games, they are going for something beyond just a point-and-click adventure here.
01:11:26
Speaker
You are Sherlock Holmes and Watson trapped in an adventure about game development. um Which I want to say sounds like something that would just irritate the fuck out of me because i don't like meta anything.
01:11:42
Speaker
But this works. It works works for me really well. It's very funny. They they sort of they're slowly becoming aware. i don't think they ever become aware of the fact that they're in a game. They see the elements that of every, you go through every element of designing a game, right? Like you go back in quote unquote back in time and you end up in like a beta version of the game where there's like um frames around all the 3d models and like elements are missing or broken or upside down. at some point, you know, you end up back in like the, what what do you call it? In like the designer and its software,
01:12:27
Speaker
arranging sprites to solve puzzles. Really, really clever stuff. All the way back to at some point you end up in the game designers brains pushing around, like associating ideas to come up with associating um concepts to come up with ideas. Yeah. Yeah.
01:12:47
Speaker
But largely, this still functions as a point and click adventure game. Although instead of pointing and clicking, you are. do you want to tell them the main mechanic here? So the mechanic is the beginning of Mario 64 when you can stretch out like Mario's face and like it stretches like back into him. Except in in this game, that's the mechanic.
01:13:08
Speaker
So like you can click and hold down parts of the screen and like snap it back and it'll move stuff. Or it'll hit one of the characters and make them move. It's it's hard to explain. Hopefully that like gets some of the point across. Yeah.
01:13:24
Speaker
But like the screen is stretchy. Like you can, you can grab can actually do this anywhere on the screen. Yeah. You can even do it. You can do it anywhere on the screen. You can grab any part of the screen and just stretch it. And then when you let go, it snaps back to where it was. But if you grab, say, an item that is interactable on the screen, it might allow you to throw it across the room.
01:13:48
Speaker
Mm hmm. um And like you said, if you slap, if you grab somebody's face, they act like they've been slapped by an invisible hand and they complain about it and they move. So if you need them in a different part of the screen, you just slap them and they move around.
01:14:04
Speaker
Yeah. um You can also interact with like parts of the, like you can slap, you stretch a door open or stretch like ah a drawer or something like that too. You can kind of interact with the background in in in interesting ways.
01:14:19
Speaker
Yeah. And what's really funny is that you are the player doing this. And every time you do this is this cracks me up. Every time you do something, Sherlock and Watson are like, how did that happen? I was just standing here doing nothing.
01:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, I just think that's so funny. And that's why the meta thing doesn't bother me is because these really are just characters. They don't know what the fuck is going on.
01:14:47
Speaker
You know what I mean? So they often I guess I don't mind because it's not a wink at me. These were this is the game. They are video game characters. Yes, exactly. And they they come up with all these ways to justify what's occurring.
01:15:01
Speaker
And they're like, oh, I guess the wind is very strong today. or like Or like Sherlock will keep accusing Watson of doing things, even though he can clearly see that Watson's nowhere near the thing that's happening.
01:15:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. it's it's really There's some really great laugh out loud moments. and Oh my God. yeah Yes, absolutely. Throughout the entire thing too.
01:15:30
Speaker
There's a lot of interesting point and click puzzles towards the beginning. And I think i but I was thinking about this as I was playing it and this like weird stretching mechanic, right? And this like flinging things around.
01:15:44
Speaker
m And i was thinking about it in the conceptual level, right? Like, this is a game about game design. And I i was thinking about, like, you're there's a lot of, like, bugs and testing and betas and alpha like different versions and stuff and I was thinking about it like okay when you're designing a game yeah or you're doing any sort of piece of art like this you're pushing and pulling the different parts of the game trying to get them just right so on a conceptual level it works and then I was thinking about it like as okay in the early point and click days right
01:16:30
Speaker
every studio kept trying to think of different ways to make interaction easier, right? They started with text parser and they're like, this is too much. What if we just give a list of verbs that people can click on so they don't have to type them in and we'll just try to think of all the verbs that they might be using. Which made things honestly worse. Yes. yeah and And then they were like, well, what if we just pare down to just like three verbs and when you click on any any object,
01:17:01
Speaker
It'll ask you which of those three verbs you want to use. And then some, and then, you know, now a lot of point and click games are like, it's context dependent. If you click on something, it kind of knows what you want to do with it. It's like single clicking these days. We played a game that was single click. Was it, um...
01:17:18
Speaker
Was it the last postmodern? It was at rights of Arkham. That was, I think, yes. The last rights of Arkham was single click. yeah Yeah. Yeah. So helpful. Like, I know we want to be fancy and stuff. Like I'll accept a verb coin every now and then, but man.
01:17:32
Speaker
Yeah. I like so some single click. I was thinking about it and I was thinking like, if they had this tech, not like this is sort of this, this is a sort of mechanic that,
01:17:44
Speaker
that they definitely would have, LucasArts would have tried in the 1990s if they had the technology, right? While they were like digging around for different ways to make you interact with things on the screen, if somebody there had thought of this and they had the technology, grabbing stuff and chucking it around the room definitely would have been a game we would have seen back then. Yeah.
01:18:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It's, um... It's both good and bad. Like, I really enjoyed the beginning parts of this game because it was so unique. I was just like, what am I doing? I'm like launching a doorknob into really clever puzzles. And some of them like later, and we'll talk about this later in the game, were just like so I was so frustrated. But it's hard for me to be mad at this game because it's...
01:18:38
Speaker
is so clever yes and so smart that I just had such a delightful time with it. Do we do we want to kind of say what the... I mean, the story... You kind of touched on it already. The storyline is like we're kind of... It's about game development, right? But there is kind of a story happening... Yeah....that relates to the game development.
01:19:01
Speaker
Yeah. So... Yeah, what well, we could kind of go back and forth about the actual beats of the story. So um Sherlock and Watson are at home and Watson gets a letter um asking... where There's a woman who needs his help at some mansion.
01:19:19
Speaker
um And on the way... they so that that's when they start to run into these meta problems. The title screen of the game crashes on them, almost wrecks their car. um And they run into this this conspiracy theorist guy named um Mr. Wilhelm. And he he does the Wilhelm scream several times in the game.
01:19:41
Speaker
okay Who's telling them like something isn't quite right here. Like things in this world feel fake. And they're like, ah this guy's crazy.
01:19:53
Speaker
There's also a little love story. So yeah, you want to get to that? They get to the mansion. So cute. they Also, there's a sheep in this game that is so fucking cute. And we have to solve a puzzle with this sheep, but we don't get to keep him. You don't sheep. And I was devastated, but that's a side note. So we get to the mansion, and we meet this a character named Emma.
01:20:16
Speaker
And she's like this beautiful redhead character that that's who signed the note to Watson. But she's like, i didn't write this. This is not I don't know what's going on here. But she like is very smitten with Watson. She's also upside down.
01:20:30
Speaker
Oh, yeah, we meet her and she's upside down. That's true. Your first puzzle with her is like, how do you get her right side up? How do you get her to the floor? Yeah. And like, yeah, it's just really cute. They're like very smitten with each other. It's so funny. The way that they show that is Watson will give her a kiss. Like she'll extend her hand and he'll kiss her hand and he'll do it for so long.
01:20:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. long. Just the longest, just like...
01:21:01
Speaker
I don't know if I would be like offended or like charmed if somebody kissed my hand for like a minute long. Don't test that, by the way, at Adventure X, people. Don't do that. This is not a challenge. This is just reflection.
01:21:14
Speaker
As you are walking around this mansion with Emma Files. emmaify Yes, Emma Files. the The mansion starts to kind of like...
01:21:27
Speaker
deconstructed. so It start starts to kind of like because you because when you get there she's not there and this other weird guy Mr. Placeholder yeah emmet em Emmett Placeholder is there and he steals your car puts a little time travel device on it and goes back in time so you have to make a time machine you go back in time you find Emma Files in the past but because you're in the past things are not nothing is Nothing is working right. Everything, it's like a it's like a game in like, it's pre-alpha yes stages where assets are in the wrong place and you have to use the mechanics of the game and solve puzzles to like, the mansion should be on the ground. though
01:22:21
Speaker
like your Your reflection should be a reflection of you, not an upside down picture of you or whatever. Right. Just... Yeah, there's bugs, essentially. the yes exactly. yeah it's newly in development. There are bugs. um We run into like...
01:22:39
Speaker
placehold of placeholders of our own characters of as Sherlock and Watson. And they just say, testing, testing. Testing, one, one, two.
Game Design Challenges and Praises
01:22:47
Speaker
They're so cute. For saying absolutely nothing, they have their own personalities. And I just wanted to protect them. Yeah, they follow you around for most the game. This is funny.
01:22:57
Speaker
This game is super funny. Oh, so we should talk about. So as another thing that happens as you travel back in time is you go through different um like eras of game design.
01:23:12
Speaker
So you do go through a text adventure section. You also go through a game and watch section where you have like a little, one of those little, you know, handheld video game devices that has two buttons or whatever yeah um that everybody's stuck in. There's another point where you go into the re you go far into the future and go into the remake of the game.
01:23:37
Speaker
And this is, I thought this was so funny. um Everything's a quick time event. So Watson starts complaining about how he can't move.
01:23:48
Speaker
And then it zooms in on his foot and you, and it's like, lift left leg. And you lift his foot. It lift right leg. And you lift his right leg. And Watson's like, or Sherlock is like, why are you doing that? Why don't you just like walk up to the door? And Watson's like, I can't. I can't move my my my feet. He also says something in that part that made me laugh so hard. Like Watson lifts one foot and Sherlock sherlock is like, by Jove, what a good flamingo impression. Those little those like little wholesome jokes, which are scattered throughout this game, just delight me.
01:24:30
Speaker
There's a point where he can't, he's trying to tell Mr. Placeholder that Emma's name, like he's trying to tell him the situation that's going on because Mr. Placeholder doesn't remember it for some reason in this version. And...
01:24:45
Speaker
You have to go through these like dialogue options and you have to get them wrong sometimes to unlock the correct answers. Right. um And so you can just have Watson just say the wrong name and everyone would be like what are you talking about? Why did you say that? And he's like, I have no idea. I have no idea why that name came out of my mouth. yeah And then you can say it again. and Sherlock is like like, I don't know what is wrong with you.
01:25:17
Speaker
that that's That was another joke I think I texted you. I'm like, this is my favorite joke. is During the spelling section, ah he's trying to like spell Emma's name, but he can't. And he just says, ro and Sherlock's just like, what a striking bovine impersonation. Why do I think those are so funny?
01:25:39
Speaker
um Man, I don't know how much we want to keep giving away. but i mean i know. It's basically like that. There's a point where you end up on a drawing board. There's a point where you end up in a in a in a mobile phone. yeah There's a point where – There's a lot of, like, different style – of adventure game mechanics yes like so that that that that spelling one where we're spelling things wrong that is reminiscent of something um i don't know if that's reminiscent of like a telltale game or something else but it felt or like uh the uh i feel like there are some sections that kind of mimic like indigo prophecy or heavy rain do you feel that way
01:26:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think that is what it was going after in that yeah remake version. um Because that that get that that chapter was called Quick Time Eventually. Yes, Quick Time Eventually. So it's making fun of the over-prevalence of quick time events in modern adventure games.
01:26:36
Speaker
um There's... a There's one part. This is a little spoilery, just a little bit. Okay. Because I won't give the context, but there's one point where everybody is Watson. Yeah.
01:26:51
Speaker
And that that is my favorite part of the game because they're all very alarmed to be Watson. They are you very alarmed, yes. You are going around looking for Watsons and collecting Watsons. because It's like that bug where everybody just every character looks like the same character.
01:27:08
Speaker
Yes, and they're all screaming, so you find them, and it's all Watson's voice, and they're all just like, oh So like you just keep like going to different, like a hidden object game, you keep going to different environments, and like... opening like drawers or lifting paintings or like looking behind bushes and there'll just be another Watson by there that just goes oh there's a part there's a part in that game funny there's a part in that part where we're looking for Watson's and we're back in Sherlock's office looking for Watson's
01:27:43
Speaker
And we're doing kind of the similar gameplay of stretching and moving and things like that. And ah we move the Watts into a phone and it rings and he picks it up and screams. it hard so hard um yeah like what This game is fantastic at little touches like that.
01:28:05
Speaker
Little details that are just so hilarious and make just very well-rounded game. So wildly funny. I laughed out loud at this game so many times. um I will say that I'm a little surprised that that last part is your favorite part. It is like very fun. I thought it went on a little too long. I thought there were too many Watsons. There was 30 Watsons. So many Watsons.
01:28:32
Speaker
ah feel There was 30 Watsons. But what I liked about that scene that series of scenes is that um it was, it was every single one was a different puzzle, like a different one room puzzle.
01:28:48
Speaker
Every Watson, the solution to the puzzle was in the room.
01:28:56
Speaker
It was in the room with you. Yeah. at ah At all times. So like it it was just, It was just kind of a series of logic puzzles. Right. But done in such a funny way. I think the reason and it was a few too many, but the reason I liked it was because every, yeah the reward for everything was a screaming Watson. And that was so funny every single time. have to say that some of the Watsons,
01:29:27
Speaker
have the assets of like the sheep and like a bird like they are also a bird Watson and a sheep Watson there's lady Watson's man Watson's and there's so many Watson's and you get them all into a room together and they're all screaming at each other it's so funny then the rest of the from there's a the last few chapters of the game are just a non-stop series of action like a non-stop action um in a way that I did not expect which And it was good because I was starting to grow weary of the game. Like, it was like, oh, man, this game's a little long.
01:29:59
Speaker
It is a little long, yeah. It's about five five, you know, you're going play between five and six hours, I'd say. Yeah. I think there were times, i feel like there were times I spent way too long on some of these some of these puzzles. Like, i finish your point, and then well ah maybe we can talk about some of the things that were a little more frustrating. Because I have some frustrations.
01:30:19
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. um i think my point is just like I liked that the end of it was so kinetic and that it just it just kept moving because i was.
01:30:32
Speaker
um Running out of energy. Yeah. Yeah. I can see why you would, because the game also in tone is very enthusiastic and in your face and energetic. So and that's not a bad thing. It's just to be able to handle all that and one can get weary.
01:30:50
Speaker
Right. um So yeah, what what we can talk about criticisms. Yeah. Well, I mean, these are obviously, these are very personal, you know, subjective criticisms. right um I am not the most fond of logic puzzles, and that is because I grew up on moon logic, which that's a problem in and of itself that I don't really know how to fix.
01:31:12
Speaker
But there are some puzzles that are... overly complicated and also somewhat timed. And when I say that, so you have to stretch out, you know, you have to like click on something, make it move, make another thing move at the same time that thing is moving. And just so for me, and this is maybe just how my brain works. Some of the puzzles just weren't very clear. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing. And and that's because I'm not used to those puzzles. You know, when we played Myst, I'm like, I don't, how do you know how to do this? Because I'm not used to these puzzles at all.
01:31:44
Speaker
But they're like coming very naturally. But there's that one puzzle that we at least agreed on that was frustrating, which is like rearranging like assets in like a game making program. Yeah, a game making software. um And they had a hard time with that.
01:32:03
Speaker
And the angles at which you have to put them, they they overlap. Yes. So they just kept, you you just keep like, and you have to, a lot of this game is about aiming. Yeah.
01:32:14
Speaker
Aiming and angles. And it can be really finicky. and Now, you can't fail. Ever. right You can have to start a small sequence over, right? Like you, for example, you launch a Watson into the air.
01:32:32
Speaker
He falls in the ground. And if you're not in the right space to do the thing you need to do with him, he'll go back to where he was. And then you got to go all the way back and launch him into the air again. So not a big you know, time sink in retrying. It's just frustrating for me as somebody who yes I'll start clicking and clicking and clicking and then I don't quite know what I'm doing. and it is It is, yeah, there are parts of it that are frustrating in that way. And again, like having to aim constantly is, yeah, it's frustrating it's frustrating because like you're saying, not only do you sometimes not know
01:33:14
Speaker
what you're doing because some of these puzzles are a little difficult actually yeah um and agreed on top of that it also involves you having this sort of spatial awareness this like spatial reasoning spatial reckoning i guess that is a very different part of your brain in the puzzle solving part of your brain and sometimes it's just like Yeah, the two the two wires can get crossed. It can get it can get a little annoying.
01:33:46
Speaker
Yeah. And I think I think you got the right word for it. The right description is that it's a little finicky. You know, there were times where I'm sure i would I thought I was getting the timing right. But and I was I just wasn't doing it like correctly. It's hard to explain. If you play it, you'll see like you'll see what I mean. Same as when I'm like arcing certain things. Every now and then I thought I had the arc just right and then would just not go where I wanted it to go. And then you'd have to, you have to mess with it. And especially in those, the end, the action sequences towards the end of the game. um Right.
01:34:22
Speaker
that you You do have to go back, you know, a little, a few more steps than just like, and I was describing a situation, most of the situations, you have to go back one step maybe. But in the end part of the game, you sometimes have to go back to two, three steps.
01:34:43
Speaker
And it's a little frustrating. Yeah. It can get frustrating ah because of that type of puzzle design and that type of gameplay. But I didn't give up on it. um Yeah. Yeah.
01:34:55
Speaker
And like if I needed a hint, dude, I have no shame. I think there's an in-game hint system that kind of- Oh yeah, there is, isn't there? I didn't use it, but um how, so how is it?
01:35:06
Speaker
It's great. Yeah, it that you can get gentle hints or you can, it's kind of like, um it's incremental. So you can get like a gentle hint or you can go all the way and get like the full solution if you wanted.
01:35:20
Speaker
um But yeah, there were multiple times in looking at that where I was, like I knew how to do it. I simply wasn't doing it in the timing or the in the aiming that they wanted it to. So I'm glad there is a hint system to like reinforce that.
01:35:35
Speaker
you know, I am doing this right. Unlike, you know, kind of contrasted to Letter Lost, where it's like, I don't know if I did this right or not. Like, I just don't know. Right. But that being said, i was delighted by this game. I loved playing it. I think it's super funny. It's so... It's it's so clever. It's so clever. It's clever. It's funny. It's bright.
01:35:59
Speaker
it is it is a It is a pick-me-up of a game. every Every moment of it is like... makes you happy. If you are in a bad mood, this is a game you can pick up and just be like,
01:36:12
Speaker
all right ah All right, I feel better. All right, the world's not that bad. Everything's okay. No, it is it is really great. It actually really exceeded my expectations because you keep in mind that this is based on just a small segment of another game. That's it. And so I'm actually, yeah, it it exceeded my expectations as a puzzle game.
01:36:37
Speaker
Even when you start the game, it's that's such a gimmicky idea. Yeah. From a game that in and and of itself is a little gimmicky. And then.
01:36:50
Speaker
When you start playing. And you and you learn the mechanic. the the fully The stretching thing. You're like well that's gimmicky too. okay And then you play through the game. And you're like game is not gimmicky at all. This game rules this game is very sincere. And. sincere ah And thoughtful. And like well constructed. i I love this game. I'm.
01:37:12
Speaker
Yeah. This is a game that says to me that the developers loved making it. Yes. I can just tell that they loved their ideas and they committed to them. And I can just tell that they had a good time making this game.
01:37:27
Speaker
Yes. and And it really, it captures those old that old LucasArts feeling by just being...
01:37:38
Speaker
by just being fun every moment of it, right? Every moment of it is fun and funny and you love the characters and you want to spend time with them. And sherlock Sherlock Holmes is a real dope and he's mean to Watson the whole time. And Watson and watchingson is um the driver of the story. Like he is definitely the more heroic and the smarter of the two of them, but he's also a dope um and he's totally lovesick throughout the whole thing.
01:38:04
Speaker
um The villain isn't really a villain. the The villain is like a really sympathetic and really sweet character yeah um who is put in a bad situation. um emma Files, the love interest, is also like a really important character.
01:38:23
Speaker
part of the game in a way that feels like she's way more than just a love interest. This game fucking rules. It's yeah, it's hard to, for me, it's hard to articulate exactly why it it is so clever, but it felt so smart in a way that I was like jealous. I'm just like, I, do they think to even make a puzzle like this? That's wild. And yeah, Yeah, super creative.
01:38:48
Speaker
And I kind of hope they do. And I kind of hope it's more like Duck Detective, where they maybe we can release another mini... I mean, this is a longer game, but I hope they do. Another Sherlock and Watson mystery from... Yeah.
01:39:03
Speaker
it Yeah, i mean because even even in its... um metatextual way it holds together as a straight as a story yeah i think so like beginning to end i think it i think it really they tell us they they tell a story beginning middle and end yeah so do we have anything else we want to say about crushed in time
Upcoming Games and Podcast Engagement
01:39:28
Speaker
i don't think so but i had a random I forgot it again. There was something I super wanted to mention about Perfect Hide Station to Station. Oh my gosh. Okay. And I didn't mention it. and then i And then I remembered it. And then I forgot it. And now I can't remember it again.
01:39:47
Speaker
can't believe But yeah, it's it's not like it's weird. It's not it was I should have wrote it down. It's not like a simple thing. It's something I really wanted to highlight.
01:39:58
Speaker
But if I remember it for next week, you guys. I'm going to say it. Well, make sure you guys turn in to turn in.
01:40:09
Speaker
Make sure you turn in next week. Turn in your homework. Make sure you turn in your homework. ah We will ah be assigning more. So you don't want to fall behind. No, ah makes you make sure you tune in next week. ah I don't know exactly what we're talking about yet. You said the exact same thing last episode. We should just say that every episode. yeah and People like, we know. we know you don't know what you're talking about.
01:40:36
Speaker
but i But last week, I had some ideas of what we might be talking about this week. I i don't think I... I know what we'll be talking about in like two weeks. That's true. We do know that. But I don't know what we're talking about next week. Maybe we'll just. God, it better be Jazz and Faust or I'm going to have a conniption.
01:40:54
Speaker
somebody Somebody direct me how to play fucking Jazz and Faust. Here's the good news. I think somebody found a way to play like Dark Earth in the Discord. oh i already had I already had a way to play Dark Earth.
01:41:08
Speaker
Oh, you're just okay. Okay. Maybe it was. I don't remember then. I had, i had dark earth. um I don't have jazz and faust. Listen, in, in three days, it's Matt's birthday and all he wants.
01:41:22
Speaker
It's jazz. It's jazz and faust. All he wants is to play jazz and faust. Man. Please make this the best birthday. i know. And I wouldn't ask this of somebody, but I know there's somebody in our audience that is like good with computers. Hell yeah.
01:41:40
Speaker
And could spend time figuring out how to make one of these games playable. I'm not going to ask that of them. You kind of are asking a little bit. Well, hold on. We have to put more silence in there.
01:41:54
Speaker
I'm not going to ask that of them.
01:42:01
Speaker
Okay, so... So ah so anyway... Yeah, anyway. ah Look, everybody, thank you so much for tuning in.
01:42:18
Speaker
ah i I had fun with these games. These were fun games. I did too. I'm having a lot of fun with adventure games lately. I'm keeping all my promises. I am playing the games I said I was going to play.
01:42:31
Speaker
i can't wait to tell you more about Gilbert Goodmate once I get past this whatever bug that I'm experiencing. And Krabat, more about Krabat. And yeah, I'm glad I picked up a Letter Lost, too. i wasn't I wasn't going to because we had we were going to talk for sure about Question and Time, but I finished that really quickly.
01:42:51
Speaker
ah so Yeah, I was really surprised. I i told you id i was playing it, and you were like, maybe I'll play it, too. And then i was then you started, and I was like, all right, if you want to talk about it, though, you have to get through at least one loop. I was like, you don't ah you don't have to, but...
01:43:10
Speaker
It's going to be hard to talk about if you don't know this thing. Yeah. And then and then you got and then you got hooked. Yeah. I did. i did i did. I literally picked it up yesterday. That's so funny. And played right before we hopped on this recording. I played an hour extra. Jeez. Yeah. So i could get it I wanted to know what I was talking about. yeah I'm an expert. That's where my expertise is. Yeah. You're right. You're right. Well...
01:43:37
Speaker
um Anyway, everybody, thank you for listening. You can, the best way to support us, the best way to show your appreciation if you love us is by sharing this.
01:43:51
Speaker
Just share it with a ah friend or social media followers. a folks Share it with a foe. Kidnap a foe. Time to a chair. Whoa, Hold on. Hold on.
01:44:05
Speaker
I'm going somewhere with this. Kidnap a foe. Tie him to the chair. Oh, God. Force them to listen to about seven to eight hours of this podcast.
01:44:16
Speaker
Was that supposed to get better or? Yeah, no, I actually didn't. ah It was exactly where you thought it was going to go. is thing It wasn't.
01:44:28
Speaker
ah How about don't do that? ah just Just share our stuff. If you feel so inclined, follow us on Instagram. We're Save Your Game podcast on Instagram. Matt works very hard at our little graphics. So go follow us. We'd be very appreciative.
01:44:44
Speaker
um Yeah, and ah you can email us, mattandroses at gmail.com. We haven't done an email episode in a while. I don't know when we will, but ah we do we do keep an eye on that inbox. um So if you email us, just know we are we are looking at it, and we do appreciate it.
01:45:09
Speaker
We do. Yes, absolutely. What else?
01:45:16
Speaker
I think that's it. Yeah, I think that's it. Well, guys, I guess all that's left to be said is the eternal lesson that you need to take from every episode of Save Your Game.
01:45:31
Speaker
Matt's a kidnapper? That lesson is Matt's a kidnapper and kidnapping is art. ah And art is kidnapping.