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Episode 24 - Dreams in the Witch House
1.9k Plays4 months ago
IT'S BAKING TIME! Matt makes bad cookies and then Roses and Matt plan some really cool Stardew-themed Macarons. We briefly revisit the Detective Grimoire series and talk about Rise of the Golden Idol. Then we do a deep-dive into a game that captured the hell out of our imaginations: Dreams in the Witch House!
PLUS A RETURN OF A BELOVED SEGMENT!!!
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Tangle Tower
- Detective Grimoire (THE ORIGINAL FLASH GAME)
- Rise of the Golden Idol
- Quest For Glory
- Dreams in the Witch House
- The Dunwich Horror (Upcoming Sequel)
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Transcript
The Baking Experiment Begins
00:00:00
Speaker
Well, OK, so I made some cookies the other night ah and I did so bad. I was OK. I just I just had this inkling like, oh, I want to make chocolate chip cookies. So I just started making chocolate chip cookies randomly. And I didn't I was like missing all sorts of ingredients. Like I didn't have baking soda. OK, you didn't check your anger. You didn't like check first to see the other hints. No. but how I was like, I probably do. and then So and so i was I looked it up. I was like, how do you replace baking soda? I didn't want to go to the store. oh my My first thought was, oh, I do have baking soda. I've just been using it to air out these like ah moldy toys from my mom's basement.
00:00:51
Speaker
So maybe I can just use that. And ah my partner was just like, no, you cannot. And she started like heaving. She's like, I cannot believe I can't even. like She's like like, like her stomach could not handle the idea of me using baking soda that had been used to purge the mildew from old toys.
Is Reused Baking Soda Safe?
00:01:17
Speaker
That's absolutely disgusting. Well, I was like, okay, the heat's going to kill any of the mildew that got into the baking soda, right? The baking soda's just there to make the cookies rise.
00:01:33
Speaker
So then the heat will kill the mildew. If there's any of the mildew in there even. I'm pretty sure, listen, I'm pretty sure that the heat has to be astronomically high to- To kill mildew? To kill anything, to kill like bacteria and stuff like that. that's That is not true because that's why like you can cook the salmonella off of eggs or bacon or whatever. or chicken. Okay. and But yeah, still don't do that. Okay, continue. What did you do end up doing? I'm horrified. But please, because there are plenty, there are plenty of things that you cook that have not deadly, but like bacteria that'll make you sick on them until you cook them.
00:02:17
Speaker
Okay, anyway so I didn't have baking soda. So I just, I was like, I'll use more baking powder, but I don't want to use so much baking powder that you taste the baking powder. So what else can you do? So then I looked it up and I was like, Oh, you could just ah whip the eggs into stiff peaks. Just the edge so like meringue. Yeah, exactly. So I did that. But then I didn't wanna have like meringue cookies. So instead of like folding the dry ingredients into that, I just blended them in. And I think that completely negated all the work on the egg whites. So let me understand this real quick. You looked up ah a different solution because you didn't have, well, you had baking powder, but that's a no-go. So you looked up a different solution yeah and you didn't follow the directions?
00:03:07
Speaker
yeah after finding the solution? Yeah, I used some, and let's, I just want to say I used some baking powder, but I didn't use, it's supposed to, you they're like, use triple the amount. if you don't have baking soda. And I was like, no, cause then you'll taste the baking powder and it'll be yucky. And then the other thing was like, oh, you know, whip the eggs. And I was like, okay, I can do that. But then when it's like folded in gently, it's like, I don't feel like it. watch what you So feel like it. Again, I didn't want them to be merengue cookies. I wanted them to just be chocolate chip cookies. So anyway, so so I beat the egg whites back in and that probably took all the air out of them. and then and then um and then also for literally no reason.
Cookie Mishaps and Unexpected Flavors
00:03:54
Speaker
I still can't understand why I did this, because I used, you know, a cup of butter, the recipe, ah but still for some reason I just grabbed the vegetable oil. I just went like um and did a whole blink into the did the batter. This is a disaster. Into the dough. I don't know why I did that. i so
00:04:17
Speaker
but Like, I don't know. I was like, oh, maybe this will make them moister. I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't think you were thinking. I think you had an idea and you got like too excited. And it was like, you know what? You can't fuck up cookies in any moment. So I have some really hard, um really weirdly colored cookies. Why are they Because they didn't cook evenly. And so and they're so they're very pale, but the bottoms are burning. Oh, what?
00:04:53
Speaker
say which ah They were just I don't know they were too weird and some of them are like chunky and others are flat like it's just it didn't go well, but As much as they like hurt my mouth they taste yummy you ate them. I've been eating them non-stop i i mean like I've eaten like of these cookies, and it's been two days. Do do you have pictures? i want If you have pictures of this abomination of nature, I would love to see it. The pictures I have left, you're just going to look at it and be like, oh, that just looks like kind of subpar cookies. it's not like They don't look so bad that you're going to be like, what the fuck? I can't believe it. And if you had them, you'd be like, ah, I could eat these. But you'd still be like, these are, but Matt, don't make cookies this way again. I don't, Matt. I like to improvise. I went through all the trouble to like whip up peaked like beret, but you didn't want to like order baking, but but baking powder or baking soda.
00:06:02
Speaker
Oh, order. Oh, you're saying I could have like go puffed it. You could have. You could have done that. Oh, yeah, I should have done that. Oh, my God. Well, lessons learned. I didn't I didn't want to go all the way out to the store. So you'd rather. OK, we're going to. If I was going to go out to the store, I would have just bought cookies.
Mastering Macarons
00:06:43
Speaker
So like I've made a ton, I make macarons every single year. I love macarons. Oh my God. I'm so hungry. I make them just about every year. And you know, here's the fucking thing, okay? I know we're supposed to be talking about adventure games by this point, but here's the fucking thing. So I make, i the first time I made macarons and I just just was being myself in the kitchen, right? And just fucking shit up. I made nearly perfect macarons. They were amazing. What flavor? What flavor? um well i did a couple Let me think of the first ones I did. I did a chocolate with peanut butter, and then I dipped half of them in like a chocolate ganache. Oh, man. So a peanut butter buttercream and a chocolate.
00:07:33
Speaker
um maaron um I'm trying to just think of some of the macarons I've done over the years, cause I can't remember all of them. Oh, I did one that was like, they were pumpkin macarons. And inside I did like a hard caramel, like as a circle on like just on the edges. And then I filled the middle of the sandwich with like an apple jam. Oh shit, that's like very ah autumn. It's very like fall. yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love to do seasonal macarons. And so even the chocolate. Wait, wait, wait, what's, what's a, no, no, no, that would be Christmasy.
00:08:11
Speaker
All right, what's a spring? I've done Christmas-y ones. I've done eggnog macarons. Wait, what's a spring one? What's a spring one? I have never done them in the spring or the summer. I only do them in the fall and the winter. But maybe, OK, maybe winter spring summer or fall. You never hear anybody talking about spring flavors. What's a spring flavor? So we have a long time until spring comes along. But maybe next spring, I'll try to make some spring macarons. I don't know. What would you even do? I don't know. I have no idea. Berries are summer, water and summer. Okay, wait, I have an idea, Matt. Oh my God, I'm the smartest person in the room. Parsnip, parsnip macarons. was thinking like, what are the crops, the spring crops? In stardew, yeah. And then we make macarons based on those crops. I would love to, because I've made ah ice cream like this and I've had even better ice cream than the ice cream I've made of this.
00:09:11
Speaker
Corn is actually a very good flavor for sweets. I agree. I agree with you for sure. So corn ice cream is incredible. Yeah. So you have now suddenly inspired me. What about a corn macaron? I kinda like that idea too. Like I bet you could, like as gross as this is gonna sound to some people, I bet you could do a corn buttercream that would fucking rule. And then you just do some sort of like sweet and salty kind of shell. Oh shit. And it would rule.
00:09:45
Speaker
I bet it would. I have no doubt about that. Anyway, we haven't been playing anything. We've just been. We've been, we've been baking. No. Okay. Let me tell you, let me tell you this summer, the spring crops in Stardew. Yeah. Let me. Yeah. What is, what is it? Blue jazz flowers. Not good for macarons. No. Cauliflower. Ew. No. Garlic. Kale. ah No, never to, no, I have a big problem with Kale. Just ask anybody who's ever met me. I hate Kale. I think we should, I think we should delete it. Okay, parsnips, potatoes, rhubarb. There you go, rhubarb. Ew, rhubarb is so yucky. I mean, strawberry rhubarb. Unmilled rice.
00:10:38
Speaker
a rice macaron. But specifically, a milled rice. Yeah, tulips. Oh, a flower. Actually, okay. Tulips is making me think. ah's Like lavender? Yeah, like lavender macaron or even rose macaron. Yeah, that much rose water. I think- Okay. Carrot? That's not a bad, carrot's not a bad idea. Carrot's not bad. I don't think it'd be good, but it's not bad. yeah ah Green bean and strawberry. So strawberry, definitely. Oh, strawberries. But wait, let's go back to green bean a side note.
00:11:16
Speaker
yeah ah um Okay, so anyway, so ah those are, yeah, okay. We're gonna have to do some seasonal macaron talk. ah every time when at every change of the season this will be a new feature on our adventure game podcast listen though I think we should do them inspired by Stardew Valley crops I want to make Stardew Valley macarons every change of the season me and you will invent a couple different macarons oh my god
00:11:50
Speaker
We're going to be so famous for our macarons. Next year we'll open up a little pop up or something and be like, yeah savior jim par get your
00:12:04
Speaker
okay so i I know what mostly me and you have been spending all our fucking time playing, but have you been playing anything besides the game we're talking about today? ah sort of ah okay sort of because um given Excuse me. I actually streamed the sorry. I have coffee caught in my throat. How does this happen? Why does this happen? I know I'll drink more but i't Yeah, that'll help hang out my drink more
00:12:39
Speaker
but so This is all being left in. This is god this is me, okay? This is just me. you want to know You want to know roses? This is how roses is. i I mean, do you agree? This is just kind of who I am. Yeah, yeah absolutely. So I've been streaming the game that we're going to talk about. and after that stream, after I finished that game, uh, I actually, the other day I got raided by like three other producers and I'm like, well, now I can't end this. I was like done with the game. I'm like, well, I can't end it. Cause I got all these new people. okay So I actually started playing tangle tower again. Again. Okay. for Yeah. For the stream. And I'm just really curious about how that's,
00:13:21
Speaker
I'm always curious about how a game streams, like if my commentary is good for it, if there's too much talking, there's not enough talking, you know, if the puzzles are sound, you know, for streaming. And so far, people really like it. And I think it's because it is fully voiced. People kind of just like lay back and listen to the game. You know, you don't even have to really watch it if you don't want. I recommend you watch it because, as we said last time, the animations in Tangle Tower are very stunning. But I think people just like to listen to a good story. yeah But at the same time, I also want to be like active. Sometimes I find it difficult to find a game that is ah good for streaming because a few months ago, I think back in June, I streamed, what was it? Nightmare Frames.
00:14:10
Speaker
And you that was after I had played it by myself. I really liked it. I'm like, this is going to be a great game to stream. And it was so dialogue heavy. I felt that I was not even really playing a game. I felt like I was reading a novel. However, I will say this. The game we're going to talk about is a pretty good stream game for a lot of different a lot of different reasons. Oh, yeah, I bet. Yeah, so I had played, ah in terms of, again, what I was playing, I started to stream, Tangle Tower, if you guys are interested, you could check, you know, go to my stream, and I finished the game on stream that we're gonna talk about, but I also played that off stream because, and we'll get into it because there are different ways to play this game. So many different ways. ah Yeah. And you can change strategies mid-play too. You can, you can.
00:15:03
Speaker
So speaking of Tangled Tower, we actually got an email that I want to read because it's actually super interesting. We kept talking about the chronology of the detective grimoire games as being detective grimoire and then Tangled Tower yeah and then, you know, the upcoming mermaid mask. Yeah. But we got a email from Philip Q who says, having previously played all the detective grimoire games a long time ago while listening to your latest podcast, ah some memories started to resurface and took me a while to figure out what's wrong. While talking about the first game, you kept referring to that game setting as a bog while my mind was telling me that the first game setting was an amusement park. But I also remember exploring a bog. Did the first game take place in a swamp-themed amusement park? Or an amusement park-themed swamp, which it kind of does. It is a um state park
00:16:00
Speaker
yeah swamp that everybody keeps referring, like keeps commenting on how bad bad of an idea it is to try and build some sort of amusement park in a swamp. But anyway, he says, but then it hit me. You kept referring to detective grimoire, secret of the swamp and tangled towers, the first and second game. Well, they are actually the second and third game. The first game simply titled detective grimoire. And now I'm going to interject here because on steam, and what Philip is referring to as Detective Grimoire's secret of the swamp is just called Detective Grimoire. Right. Right. Right. But it is not the first game that was called Detective Grimoire. As Philip lets us know, in the the the first game was released on Newgrounds in Flash, and the SFB in SFB games stands for Super Flash Brothers, which apparently was their... Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, so here's the thing. I did know about this first Flash game. I did know about that. I did see it on YouTube, but I'm almost kind of looking at it. I understand it is a grimoire game. I almost look at it as a prototype for what's to come, and I think that's why I was referring to, you know, Detective Grimoire.
00:17:21
Speaker
The swamp is one and then Tangle Tower is two. Yeah. But I did know about it. However, I didn't know that their name meant Super Flash, but that is so interesting. So, yeah, i so he goes on to say that he remembers it being pretty fun. Matt should be able to find it in his Flash arcade app. And I did, I found it in Flashpoint, and I played a little bit of it, and yeah, it is very rough. It is very Newgrounds-like. yeah um It is, you know, circa 2005 DeviantArt style tao r yeah but it has a lot of the, yeah, has a lot of the core mechanics of Detective Grimoire.
00:18:07
Speaker
you can clearly see an evolution that starts as far back as this game, which does take place in, I don't think it's an amusement park, I think it's like a fair. okay Yeah, you're just solving a murder. And also where the little girl that shows up in Detective Grimoire, Secret of the Swamp, ah like there's a little girl that shows up for seemingly no reason, it is a reference to that first game. Okay, that makes more sense because she does kind of come up out of out of nowhere. She's just and she doesn't come back. Yeah. for Yeah. Or and they kind of elude. Remember how last episode I was kind of like, I just don't understand how tangle tower is the next game. I don't understand how it's a sequel. It's because of things like that. It's because I felt like some things were unresolved or unanswered.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the little girl is seems consistently part of the arc where Detective Grimmar is missing his hat. And he finds it at the end of the swamp one. Yeah. So I don't know, maybe that's why she doesn't appear again. I have no idea. I don't know, but I don't know i can see even more why you felt those were disconnected. um But anyway, I thought that was interesting and I thought we should read that email because I find it i found it cool. Thank you very much, Philip Q, for your input. I have played one thing that I did want to talk about. You have? Yeah. I'm impressed. What have you played? I played just today. I finally got around to it. Oh, wow. The demo for Rise of the Golden Idol. Oh, cool. Cool.
00:19:46
Speaker
And holy shit, roses, it rules, it rules. it is It is an improvement in every way on Case of the Golden Idol. I'll say this, it was a little simple, it was just the demo, and it's the first chapter. yeah It was a little bit simpler to solve than Case of the Golden Idol, but I will also ah remind myself and anyone else who plays the demo, that the first chapter of Case of the Golden Idol is also pretty simple. Yeah. Like it ramps up in difficulty. Yeah. Pretty supremely. I don't, I don't, you know, like obviously demo is a good way to get to know, ah get to know a game to see if you will like the characters, the setting, but I try not to judge difficulty level on a demo because because you're trying to reel people in. and Yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
um So so that was that was one part of one thing that I noticed about it. ah the The other thing is it has this multi-layered structure now. Not only, okay, you can leave windows open now and move them around. So like you can leave the identifying characters window open and then go back and start reviewing evidence with it just like floating there. Cool. so that you don't have to keep going back and forth. You can like be you know looking at the piece of evidence that gives you somebody's name while you're filling in the name, and um which is very, very, like ah a huge quality of life upgrade. And there's this other layer to it now where you are putting together each individual murder, like the the what exactly happened in the scene.
00:21:35
Speaker
yeah And then you were pulling out to like a like the chapter and then... you are using things that you found in each scene to put together the story of the whole chapter. Oh that's cool. So kind of like the last chapter of Case of the Golden Idol was you having to go back over all the previous chapters and find little bits of evidence to put together the entire story. Yeah. You're doing that the whole way through this time and and
00:22:08
Speaker
I just found that so cool. I found that very, very cool. I see that graphic style changed very slightly. Am I wrong or is it is it more smooth and fluid now? Yeah, there's more of a 3D element to it. It's clearly got that same sort of rough and ready style, but it is, yeah, it's a little smoother. It looks more painterly, if that makes any sense. Definitely, it's a little smoother, it's a little more painterly um rather than pixely, and it is, i and there's like a 3D aspect to it. It seems like it was painted in 2D and then um modeled on 3D so that people could turn their heads or things like that. yeah um Anyway, I am really excited for it. The demo looks so good.
00:23:02
Speaker
I am too, I'm gonna play the demo. I'm excited now. Yeah, let me know what you think when you play it. Yeah, I will, for sure. I'm i'm shocked you had a chance to play anything at all, considering how much time- We've been spending so much time on this other game as I did not expect it. I thought we'd just play this game and move on, but how many times have you beat the game we're about to talk about? Three. Yeah, me too. Yeah, three times. Three times and I died once, so. I did not die, I was pretty happy with that. Well, I mean, I'll explain, I'll explain. Okay, all right. I did die on accident. We just gotta fucking get to it, so. Yeah, let's get to it. Let's play all of Grim Fandango and then. Yes, it's my favorite. I'll see you guys in eight hours.
00:24:12
Speaker
Hey, everybody, welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm Matt Aucamp. Your host with me is... Pushing a process. How's he doing, Rises? Hi! Yeah, I just got done playing Grim Fandango. That was great. Yeah, how did you how'd you do? I beat it. I won. As as you would say, ah you you win at adventure games. yeah but I won. Do you ever try speed running? feed but Speed running Grim Fandango feels like something you would do. Not Grim, not Grim, but I have tried speed running other adventure games. I've tried speed running dagger. I've tried to do a pretty good speed run on Kings Quest 6, which is actually possible. You can do a speed run.
00:24:53
Speaker
on some of these games, because there are different ways of playing them and beating them, especially King's Quest 6. You can you kind of... ah You can end the game early. Don't, because it's so depressing if you end the game early, but... Oh, really? like for speed Oh, yeah. ah our Our colleague at um Adventure Game Hotspot, one short eye, and does it but does a whole series on Adventure Game speedruns on YouTube. His videos are great. Like if you miss my adventure game videos, fret not. Cause there are other people that now do amazing adventure game coverage. And one short eye does some amazing adventure game coverage, like beyond even speed speed run games. He did a great video on the, on ah the Colonel's bequest and one of my favorites and what have not Matt's favorites sanitarium. I don't hate sanitarium, but yeah, there's some really shady parts of that game. Yo.
00:25:53
Speaker
i I hate to keep bringing us so fucking far from what we're supposed to be talking about today, but I saw ah on Awesome Games Done Quick. yeah i I don't know if you know of that. ah Oh, yeah, of course I do. um So this year's this year, they somebody did a speed run of Animal Well. Oh, wow. That was so mind blowing.
00:26:22
Speaker
for a game that is already full of shit where you you learn to do something and you're like, I had no idea I could even do this. Or you see somebody else do it and you're like, I know it. Like this speed run is that times like a billion. it is It's wild and I suggest everybody, like he beats the game and I don't know, one of them was I think like, ah These are gonna be off, but something like he like the first one, somewhere around like 11 to 15 minutes. And the second one I think is like four minutes. It's wild.
00:26:58
Speaker
ah it's wild I love speed runs. i I think they're fascinating. I love watching the Mario 64 speed runners. I think that stuff is so fascinating. And yeah, there are people who try to beat the records for like Dagger of Amun-Ra, King's Quest VI, King's Quest V even. Maybe I'll look into that. Maybe I will try to break a record. Not Animal Well. There's no way. But I could maybe do a more traditional point and click. Speed run, Sam and Max. A lot of point and clicks, it's it's hard because they are so tied to... They're so linear.
00:27:40
Speaker
They're so tied to their story. yeah So, you know, all you're not going to be finding new paths. You're not going to be coming up with, you're not going to be looking for glitches. More like you're going to be just clicking really fast and clicking through all the dialogue. And like, that's not very fun. Yeah, I know. But for example, the game we're talking about today, Dreams in the Witch House. Dreams in the Witch House. I don't think you could speed run this game. At least. You don't? No. Okay. Because you have to you have to survive and uncover a whole mystery. oh But do you? Do you have to uncover the mystery? You actually don't. You're right. So, okay, this is by the developer Adam Brain Games. it is
00:28:31
Speaker
a point and click. Oh man. What would you call it? It's like a life sim survival horror yeah it's like adventure. RPG. Yeah, it you know what, it's almost very, very much like quest for glory, where you are doing like I think about quest for glory five, where I need to keep my stupid character fed, or he'll starve. um um He has to go to sleep, like or in rest, like very similar mechanics. I picked that up.
00:29:04
Speaker
right away, even like looking at the stats. ah So yeah, it's a hybrid. It's a adventure RPG with some survival elements. And I would say very close to the mechanic of quest for glory. So yeah, you got to feed your character. ah He has a sanity meter because this is based on the HP Lovecraft ah story, the dreams in the witch house. ah so you have a set I mean, I think in almost every Lovecraft game, you have a sanity meter. That's kind of canon at this point right right for that. ah But yeah, you have um have your sanity meter. You have like two different sets of stats, right? You have your survival stats, which are like, are you hungry? Are you tired?
00:29:49
Speaker
um Are you cold? That's one of them. Are you yeah sick? are you Are you injured? Are you drenched? And there's a lot of people in this game that will beat you up. So like injured actually happens ah of pretty frequently. Yeah, you definitely will probably get injured to some degree in this gameplay. So that's your survival stats. And then you have your like more RPG stats, which are like, that's your sanity meter. That's ah how good you are at math. um And your health, ah your health, health beat which is based on how sick you are, how well fed you are, how tired you are. Like it it's like a common, how hungry you are. It's a combination of these things.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, and then you've got your adventure game inventory, where you you know collect items, clues, evidence. It sounds overwhelming. It's actually not. I found this to be pretty easy to understand, like what well how everything connects mechanic wise. Roses? Yes. You mentioned inventory? i Yeah, inventory. And so I think it is time. Oh, boy. Once again. for us to return to how much do my pants weigh? I'm gonna play some music right here.
00:31:10
Speaker
Oh, I can't wait to hear what the how much do my pants way theme song is How much how much do my pants way it is a It is like a game show I guess within our podcast in which I tally up all of the adventure game items that a character has on their person at any time in the game. And then I try and get roses to guess how much at any given point.
00:31:43
Speaker
that person's pants way. Because the veteran game characters certainly carry way too many things in their pants. So think about, so why don't we start with, what do you think some of the heaviest stuff that, okay, the main character in this game is Walter Gilman. Why don't you start with, what are some of the heaviest stuff Walter Gilman carries in his pants throughout this game? Well, definitely right away, ah firewood. Firewood has to be pretty heavy, I would think. I don't know, they don't make it look heavy in the game, but I would think it does. ah We also carry like cans of tomato soup. That's true. For almost the whole game, and and usually about three of them.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, three of them, ah I do. I carry three at a time. A plank of wood, I'm not really sure on the specs of that plank. I think the firewood's probably gonna be more, ah way more than a plank of wood. Books, like a ton, I always have a ton of books in my inventory. um God damn, he carries a lot of heavy stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You carry a hammer for basically the entire game? Yeah, that's right. He's carrying so many books. He's carrying so many books. So many books. Usually two books from the library, sometimes a book he finds in a cave, and always two math books. Always two math books, yeah, always. So that is a combined. If he has all those books, which again, most of the game he does, that's five books, that's 10 pounds.
00:33:22
Speaker
because they are textbooks. so i have So I have here what I think he would be carrying okay in the latter half of the game. ok When you have most of your inventory items and you are financially secure enough to have most of the stuff you generally need. Okay. What do you think? Walter Gilman's pants as he's walking all around the city of Arkham, which I think is supposed to be based on Boston. That is potentially, yeah, that's potentially true. Uh, let me think. Yeah, it is in Massachusetts for sure. Okay. I'm going to take into account.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'm gonna take into account the the heavier items, but but also keep in account that I'm also carrying lightweight items like like like ah ear plugs. And letters. Two razor blades, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna say like end game, ladder game, oh God, 53 pounds. I might be low balling it, I'm not sure. You are, you're actually ah ah over. Oh, okay, so I am on the right track, that's good. So I had him at the end of the game ah carrying, okay, hold on, wait, let me adjust for how many pieces of paper he's holding. He has 39.74 pounds. Oh, I mean, that's my guess was not that bad. Not that bad, so just under 40 pounds.
00:34:54
Speaker
Who does that? So let's see if you had, and then okay, if you have just killed a rat. I was gonna say, did you include the rat though? You are now, and I did the weight of a possum because this is a huge fucking rat. Good call, yeah. So you are now at 53 pounds. Oh my God! I basically got it. And if you have the cold medicine, most of the time I didn't have the cold medicine. If you have the cold medicine, We are now at 54.59 pounds. If you're carrying the second key that you get sometime, yeah, it's still about 54.55 pounds. That's nothing. I wish in this game, because there's a store, a general store, I wish we could sell some of that stuff back.
00:35:42
Speaker
There's so much stuff we didn't need anymore and I needed money so bad. I know. It's like the idea of a one use kitchen item. Why would you need that? You know what I mean? Speaking of, how about the tin of glue? I never bought it and I never bought it and I don't know what it's for. but know if you If you look at the tin of glue, you can learn how to make your own super glue and then you don't need the tar. So do you wanna guess what your pants, so it's not that different, but do you wanna guess what your pants weighed by the end of the game? I'm guessing it's gonna be lighter, so I'm guessing my pants.
00:36:24
Speaker
27 pounds. Ah, 33 pounds, because you're still carrying almost all the heavy, very heavy stuff. Stupid books. God damn it. And I don't think this is possible, but you have if you had everything in the game in your inventory at once, it's 70 pounds. Damn, Walter. Yeah, so, Walter's carrying around some heavy pants. What in the world? That was, What Do My Pants Way for Dreams in the Witch House. man but yeah if If going through the inventory is boring, feel free to just cut that out and see if people can just to hear like a quick snap to the end. But then leave this in so they know why they heard it all weird.
00:37:12
Speaker
How do we want to approach this game? I know this game is tough. So we've kind of hit on what kind of game it is. I just want to it's not I'm going to say this. It is not the most story heavy game that there is. It is very engrossing. I like uncovering things, but I would say just compared to maybe nightmare frames or an English haunting, you know, games that had kind of heavy narrative. This one was a little bit lighter, but keep in mind, it also has different mechanics. There's a lot of things going on that you have to
00:37:47
Speaker
ah keep track of. So in this game, you're playing, as we said, Walter Gilman, he looks like he's 40. But apparently he's a college student. Like, why does he look 40? Yeah. So you're you're playing a college student. And this is pretty close to to the story, the dreams in the witch house. You're a student that goes to Massachusetts to Miskatonic University. ah and you have ah a slight interest in the occult. You have started a theory paper on the occult. yeah your theory Your theory is that ancient ideas ancient occult ideas seem to, and and like non-Euclidean, all the words that fucking HP Lovecraft likes to use all the time, like non-Euclidean and Cyclopean and like things like that, um you feel like
00:38:43
Speaker
there's a connection between non-Euclidean mathematics and occult folk traditions from the past. He believes that you know like old ah people who believed in magic may have uncovered things about modern math that we even now are still trying to understand. yeah Yeah, it's interesting. um And again, very close to the... i think Is it a short story or is it a novella? I want to say it's a short story. It is a short story. It was originally published in a magazine um called Weird Tales. Yes, and I'm familiar with that. ah
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, so that that's all very ah familiar. But also, as you're going to this college, you're at a boarding house ah with a few other tenants and and ah ah a lady landlord, she's old and kind of grumpy. And you Get the attic room. How lovely. Don't just love being a broke student. You get this attic room. It is curiously angled, like the walls are at a curious kind of slant, which is but normal for an attic, to be to be honest.
00:40:00
Speaker
But everybody thinks it's weird. that Everybody thinks it's weird, yeah. That the room is shaped that way. but um in the Even in the short story, they talk about it a lot. And you're looking at it in the game and you're like, no, attic rooms generally have a slanted wall. I don't think it's that strange, but yeah. And there's something absolutely wrong with this room. And you will pick that up by the ominous music that always freaked me out in the game. But yeah, there's something kind of weird, something off about this room, you figure it out right away when you find a rat hole in your wall. And it also smells kind of weird as well. So maybe there's a dead rat, maybe there's a live rat, we don't really know yet. But there's something a little off.
00:40:47
Speaker
Anytime you try to sleep in the room, you hear noises. Yeah, footsteps, noises. um And this will this will ramp up throughout the game, but that that's basically how your suspicions start. And from there, it's sort of, yeah, like it's like a life sim combined. like If you've ever played the game Citizen Sleeper, um you are trying to keep yourself fed. You're trying to make enough money. to um ah to survive ah while also you know trying to fend off sickness and just the normal things that a person normally encounters. And that is the most ah addictive part of this game, is just trying to like keep your character alive while at the same time, and again, like Citizen Sleeper, but also like um ah Quest for Glory, you're also trying to build up your skills because they have effects on
00:41:45
Speaker
things that unravel in the game so you always have an exam score, which you are in college. So you have an exam coming up pretty much all of the time. And you have an occult score because you are trying to understand these weird things around you. And at the same time, you're trying to write this paper. So you need to be really things educated about both the occult and unravel about math. in And you also have the game. a math- And you gotta keep your health up.
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah, so so but so those are these three things that you're trying to, while you are trying to keep your health and your hunger and your sleep all and your sanity all in check, you are trying to just constantly build these three skills. right Math. If you want. If you want. Math and the occult. And um Math and the occult and exams. And then you find out at some point you can also learn chemistry. It's not in your list of stats. Right. It's not. You just read. a You read a book and then you read acquire that knowledge. Yeah. If you manage to read the book five times, you just are. You just can do chemistry from now on, which I did. I did in my play through because I found, and you know.
00:43:06
Speaker
But yeah, that's that's an easy thing to do. And this is also a game that is ah similarly timed like Quest for Glory. That's why you have the option to rest. Let's say you want to pass time. You can rest and that will pass time. ah If you study a book, that will pass time. ah if you Even if you do like things like ah listen to the wall for footsteps, that will pass time. That's an entire hour. Yeah, building a fire in your room takes an hour. Yeah, yeah. Studying takes five hours having coffee with a friend takes three hours. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think it is also time is also going as you're walking around. It is a real time mechanic, except that days are or are much shorter than say Stardew or quest for glory. I can make the day go by pretty fast.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, just read a book three times and it's done again. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I did. You know what? I did not. We, we decided to play this game. I did not know that it was going to be this mechanic. I saw, I went into it pretty blind yeah and I saw the screen caps and I thought it was just point and click adventure. That's what it looked like to me. Yep. I thought we were just going to be playing basically another ah ah Hobbs Barrow. Yeah, yeah, no. Not at all. and the thing The thing that struck me the most, Roses, when I started playing this game is like, here is a here is a dude who looks like he's in his middle ages.
00:44:41
Speaker
ah And he is ah trying to, he's in college, so he's trying to spend time studying, but he's always completely broke. So he's like struggling to survive while eking out any time he has to study for his exams and pursuing ah this other like esoteric hobby that requires him to spend a ton of time studying and writing about weird folklore. I was like, this is a Matt Aucamp simulator. This is just the stressful parts of this game is just what it's like to live my life. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Like my specific life.
00:45:29
Speaker
Actually, that it's interesting, I thought you were gonna say this is a Matt Aucamp game, because I'm like, interestingly, this has a bit of everything for both of our likes, I think. I think this is totally a, yeah, this is one of these cases of, and granted, there are a lot of games both of us like, but this is a game that hits, I think, like every box for both, like this is, you could not call this a Matt Gamer Roses game, this is a both of us game entirely. Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. And when I start games like this, like similarly to Stardew, I always get so overwhelmed. I'm like, I this is I won't like this game. No, this is too much work. But then I end up yeah loving it because of the mechanic, because I'm determined.
00:46:14
Speaker
Um, and that determination kind of comes from, this is one of the most randomized games I've played. So part of the, part of the difficulty level is you can't, um you can look up a guide per se, but you're not going to really find a ah good walkthrough on it because events are not events, but things are maybe events, things are random. Yeah. Events are random. Uh, your dreams can be random, even where inventory items are. yeah Um, even, uh, even like route, there's, there's a, there's a part in the game where certain rooms are not in the same place as my game, kind of like clock tower. Uh, so I was like, how are we going to play this game? And there are many endings. They're like,
00:47:06
Speaker
think I think we know of six, and there might be more, but I think there are six endings officially. There's a lot of like, yeah, there's a lot of like, I i got at least four endings and yeah just a lot of like ah there are a lot of like, wait, I guess I got five. We'll go over them, but um there there's a lot of like minor differences, like spins on an ending. Like, yeah you know, if there's three endings, there's also ending one A and one B and one C and ending two A and two B and then ending three A. But like, yeah. um
00:47:45
Speaker
So, so do I, I'm trying to figure out how we approach this. Do you want to hear my experience with this game? I do. I do. I just, I want to say like, when we're talking about the randomization, like they're just to give some examples, uh, early on you get a package from your aunt who is proud of you for going to school and she is she sends you just like some stuff to help you out. That stuff is randomized and it's the stuff that you either can find in the world or have to buy from the store. Well, it's all stuff that you can buy from the store, but some of it you can also find out in the world. um yeah And so it just gives you a little leg up, but it can be, like sometimes I played and it was just a pair of long underwear and other times it was like,
00:48:30
Speaker
a pair of earbuds, a thing of cold medicine and two days worth of food or whatever. um Which ruled, right? Like sometimes it ruled and sometimes it was like, oh, okay, this just saved me $4. And other times like, oh, this saved me like $9. And also another thing like you have to study for Uh, your exam cycles, I don't know exactly what day cycle they're on, but it's something like 15 days. yeah Um, and the subjects you have to study are completely random. Right. So into yeah, you can't like prepare ahead of time and you can't, if you're filing a walkthrough, the walkthrough couldn't tell you what you were studying that week, for example. Yeah.
00:49:17
Speaker
um Okay, so yeah, I wanna hear about your specific. So here's what happened, guys. ah
00:49:26
Speaker
Okay, so in this game, it's called Dreams in the Witch House because a witch used to live in this house. And this witch named Kaziah Mason is now haunting this this area and you Walter Gilman are interested in the in the occult so you are kind of this we the player were kind of this great target to be harassed and like to be to be influenced maybe not for it does feel like harassment but to be influenced by uh and so you know the main i would say the main purpose of any lovecraft story right is that we're trying to call upon these gods and like be in a different dimension um it's and i do think that the story is part of the kathulu mythos is that right yes yeah it is
00:50:19
Speaker
it's this It's this Lovecraft idea that like knowledge like knowledge can be dangerous, be careful. yeah yeah So um and we're also being kind of terrorized, much like in the story, if you read it, by a rat named Brown Jenkins. ah He has the face of a man and like hands of a man, but the body of a rat. He is horrifying and it was a pain in the ass to deal with him. So here, so knowing all this, here's my experience. I boot up the game and it says easy, hard or right easy, normal or hard. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, all right. I'll do with it. Normal says this is the way you're meant to play the game, like on normal. I'm like done. I'll do normal. Same. Yeah. ah So I started with normal.
00:51:01
Speaker
And I wasn't really sure what I was doing, to be honest, I felt that, you know, there's a way you need to make money, you can do odd jobs around the house, you can get good grades, and then your aunt will send you money. And I'm like, cool, I'm gonna get good grades. And so I tried really hard to do the exams. and failed them all. And I'm like, fuck this, I'm not doing any of the exams. So then I pivoted my game to I started to learn about the occult, I started to learn about math, ah all while trying to have this social life, right? All trying to help other people. i'm I'm making friends at the university. I read the whole chemistry book, so I could learn chemistry. There was one point where I desperately needed food.
00:51:45
Speaker
But then one of my friends showed up and her name is Allison and she wanted to hang out and I like could not say no. And then I nearly starved. I didn't. I didn't starve. But I'm just letting you know that that happened. So I'm doing pretty well. And I'm streaming it. I'm streaming this game as we go. And I think I'm doing pretty good. Pretty solid. I stream up until about like the April 13th. And the game takes place from March 1st to May 1st. And did you know that? I did not know that. Me neither. I think I knew at some point, but that i but I didn't. I didn't quite realize I'd i had an inkling. Yeah. Well, OK, we'll talk about it when I tell tell my story. Yeah. Yeah. So um I streamed until about April 13th, meaning technically I would have 17 more days until Endgame. Great. So in order to prep for this podcast, I actually played the rest off stream
00:52:45
Speaker
And I got a terrible ending. Absolutely awful. And I think because my sanity was so low. So at that point, I was trying to read all these books on the occult. And when you do that, that affects your sanity. But so but I'm also like, not really sure if I should do it. So my stats were all over the fucking place. I had like zero in exams. I had five in a cult, which is like half, I think 10 is max. I had like three in math. And I can't I keep having these insane dreams that are knocking me back. They're knocking my sanity down. So by the time Endgame came, you are basically abducted by the switch. And she's also she's also abducted a small child as a sacrifice and you have to make a choice. You can strike the child.
00:53:39
Speaker
or you can strike yourself or you can try to strike Kazaiah. I didn't have the health or the sanity to strike Kazaiah. So now I'm left with two endings. Like you neither strike myself or strike the child. I couldn't strike the child. I struck myself, which was all for nothing because Kazaiah was like, oh, I'll just do it. So why am I even here? Why am I even here if Kazaiah is just gonna do it? worst ending ever. I disappear forever. My friends are like what the fuck happened to him. I didn't have enough like stat in a in I didn't have enough like experience with Dr. Armitage who was a professor that you work with.
00:54:21
Speaker
that you tell your experiences to and you have this like trusting relationship you talk about the occult and kind of what you should do. and And yeah, I also, just so you know, I also did try to strike the child. but Also a terrible ending. You can, you can strike the child. Oh no, I didn't know you could kill yourself. I assumed you could kill the child. No, I did both. But first, first I struck myself. And then in ah in a different way, and then in a different, I loaded and I struck the child just to see. And they are two different endings because what happens to you is different. ah Because if you strike yourself, you're just dead. If you strike the child, you're kind of now in this other, you know, Lovecraft dimension, right?
00:55:09
Speaker
um So that was what happened first. And then so I'm like, as I'm playing the game, right, I learned something kind of interesting, or I noticed something interesting about the gameplay. I'm talking to the professor who knows a lot about the occult. And he tells me, you know, you should just try to stay away from it. you know, and you can kind of take that as like a character warning, right? You can kind of yeah Yeah, you can keep in mind, maybe your fate is already sealed. Maybe this is just not part of the game. But I took this warning to heart. And Dr. Armitage is like, Hey,
00:55:46
Speaker
the more you feed the occult, the more you believe in it, the more you surround yourself with it, the more it's going to affect you and the more you will be you will succumb to it. So I'm just thinking in my brain, fine. I'm pivoting. I'm not going to do anything with the occult. So I went back to my stream. I went back to April 13. And I played it straight. I went out with my friends. I ignored all my dreams. I got an occult point taken down.
00:56:18
Speaker
<unk>ve been Talking to one of my friends. Yeah. Because they asked you if it was rational or if it was supernatural and you said rational. I did. I did. So I got an occult point taken down and I'm like, this is great. This is going to be great. I did everything to keep my health up. I was simply surviving. I'll tell you this. It is the most boring gameplay you can do. It is nothing compared to what you can do if you get into the occult. But I was curious. I was curious if the game would let me reject its own ideas. And this is one of the first games where yes, you can do that. If you want to play it that way, you can do it. So that pivot where I played the rest of the game completely straight. I didn't read any math books. I didn't read. Actually, no, I maxed. I think I maxed out my math stat, but I didn't read any books on the occult. I just played it
00:57:08
Speaker
And yeah, I won. I got the good ending that way because I was so sane. I was so rational and so sane and strong. I was able to strike down the witch. There's a lot of interesting stuff here. Let me tell you my story and let's compare. OK, so my first game, I did not know when that there was an end date. I kind of had an inkling yeah because time was passing. um And there's a point at which Dr. Armitage disappears. Yeah, at the end of the game, yeah. You stop being able to do anything with him. And so that made me think, oh, I bet this is the end of the game. I bet I was supposed to have already done all the stuff with him by now. But I don't know for how long. And then one night you go to your neighbor and he is drunk as fuck and he is acting absolutely nuts. And I was like, oh, I bet this is. It's like close to ending. I bet this is the very end of the game and it was.
00:58:06
Speaker
So that that game, you know I was trying to pass my exams, which i I passed a few, because when you pass your exams, you get a bonus. It's a bunch of money from your aunt, so it makes it yeah easier to survive if you pass your exams. um And I was trying to study the occult. At some point, you graduate from just reading books in the library to going down to the special collection, where they have these like interesting tomes that you know the professor warns you about reading. yeah Sometimes your friends warn you about reading. Like for example, the Necronomicon. Yeah, I was just gonna say the Necronomicon is down there. um And so I was doing pretty good. I think I had over, so you can get over 10 in math and in a cult.
00:58:55
Speaker
yeah Those can get, those you can go super high with those stats. For your exams, the max stat is 10. So i was I was getting solid, you know, like hi anywhere from an A to a C on my exams, and I'd made good friends with Allison and Elwood, and like the two pals in the game. and I had not, I'd talked to Armitage a bunch, but we hadn't really,
00:59:26
Speaker
We hadn't come to much of an understanding. Mine was pretty my pretty like defined. we i I definitely did a lot of collaboration and puzzles with Dr. Armitage. um I presented him with a bunch of evidence and he seemed happy about it, but i we didn't we didn't come to any conclusions together. okay He did warn me to stop looking into the occult. I agreed to for a while and I passed an exam that week and then I think that really set me by. Because here's another thing that's random. Some of the books you read have solutions to later puzzles.
01:00:07
Speaker
right And that is random, you don't know which ones do. There are five secret books and in the special collection and one of them will always have the spell to, I'm just gonna start giving some stuff away, the spell to teleport. yeah will always be in one book. um In another book the spell to, and it might be the same book, but there will always be a spell to protect your bed from the witch taking you in the middle of the night. right um And there in one book you will always find
01:00:49
Speaker
a clue to this weird, you get taken, at the places you get taken in your dreams are you get taken to Keziah's lair. Where she eventually has you try sacrifice the baby. You get taken to ah like an alien planet where you can do some weird little point and click puzzles. yeah um And you get taken to, you get taken out of your physical body into like some weird spatial realm with these geometric shapes. yeah And if you play ah Simon with those shapes and yeah follow their, you know like match the noises they make with with your memory, ah then it takes you onto this higher realm of shapes. And if you have found the solution to that puzzle in one of these tomes,
01:01:45
Speaker
you can just input that solution and oh wow ah you get extra math skills basically. Yeah. See, I read a lot of the special collection because of that I was going to, but at that point I decided to reject the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah you know I decided to reject that, but like I really want to go hard next time, because there's so many things that can happen in this game. If you, if you do read the special collection, there's different ways of solving puzzles, there's different ways of ending the game. And it's more interesting. And I think that's such an interesting thing right for a game, ah just that it's it's challenging you almost to do those wilder things, even though you're sealing your faith that way.
01:02:36
Speaker
Well, or not, you can still get a good ending and know about the occult. But it's, you know, it's harder to do it that way. Right. So it's a risk. But the game is like challenging you to take that risk so you can have a better story. Because if you just play it straight like I did on my on my stream gameplay, it's maybe not the most interesting thing you can do. You're missing a lot of events for the sake of what, ah you know, a good ending that you can maybe get. you know Yeah. So yeah, it's hard it's really hard to balance trying to stay alive and trying to stay sane with trying to study these things and get all the knowledge that you need to beat the game as a person who understands the occult. Like that is the hardest thing to do, to beat the game as an expert in the occult yeah um and beat the witch at her own game by teleport, like building, and I'll get to this in my next play through, but so, okay.
01:03:34
Speaker
I'll just tell how this playthrough ended. So- Oh boy. I love your ending. It's wild. Well, this is not that one. This is not the one you love. Okay. So I got to the very end. I was best friends with Elwood and Allison. I'd gotten an A plus. I'd made a chemistry potion. I'm like looking at my achievements right now. I started to uncover the cult on the island. there's like there's this There's an island in the game and that, there's a cave underneath. I had not gotten into that secret cave, but I knew it was there. I just didn't know how to get into it. yeah and um And I'd encountered some criminals that were doing something on that island, island but I didn't know what. yeah So at the end, I get taken to sacrifice the child. And I refuse to.
01:04:28
Speaker
yeah Um, I didn't. How do you refuse to? I do not remember. Oh, I remember. Okay. So I stabbed Kaziah. and she falls over, and then I try to take the baby, and he's like, if I take her she he's ah because i if i take the baby, Kaziah's just gonna follow me, so he won't. And so I'm just looking around, like, how can I beat Kaziah? I guess I need more magic. it's like I was like, I know I could make a portal on this wall with all these weird symbols on it, but I don't know how.
01:05:07
Speaker
And so eventually she just gets up and she takes you to this other realm with um oh but the, ah what's his name? ne The black man. The black man, Nyarlothotep. He's like this shadow demon. You're a lot of tip. Yeah, it kind of looks like um sometimes in some animations, he reminds me of like the alien from aliens. I don't know why. um And then she demands that you sign the book of Azathoth. And if you say no, she just leaves you there. Yep.
01:05:46
Speaker
that I got that ending and I was just standing there like, what the fuck? And I was like, I guess I have to sign the book. So I signed the book. And then I got, a re i got the end is near the worst ending. Because it was, you know, it was just like, I just caused the cult to succeed, the baby to die, I disappeared forever, I became her apprentice. Yeah, you're not even dead like I was, because I struck myself the first time, yeah. yeah um So I loaded an old save, ah and then I did some other stuff, like I i got into the cave, i um I finished reading a whole book in the special collection, I finished my whole theory,
01:06:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I just want to say in my game that the the one that I pivoted, I did finish the theory and I did find the cave. yeah So I think because I was like too far along or I wasn't, you know what happened? Pivoting worked because I wasn't far along enough in my occult studies hu to to to get a good ending. Yeah. So I think that, or sorry, to I was able to get a good ending cause I didn't do enough occult stuff. okay But now that I know like some of the occult stuff you can do and some of the stuff you're telling me from like your play through, cause I did find the rod. I did do the cave. I thought it was fascinating.
01:07:07
Speaker
It's a really cool puzzle. But then I pivoted. So I think because I just didn't do enough, I wasn't able to, I think I had to go more on the actual stuff. This is what happened here, right? So in this playthrough, I finally, well, I died at one point because I realized I was losing it. So I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna keep on going and not feed myself and see what happens. Good Lord. And at some point he just falls over and dies.
01:07:35
Speaker
um but Anyway, so but then I reloaded ah that save and I kept going again in this ah in this normal mode. um i had read this this is my This is my reloading the save mode. I managed to poison Brown Jenkins enough so the rat keeps coming back into your room. He keeps chewing through the boards you put up on the rat hole. He chews through the tin that you put up on the rat hole. if you put But you can always put poison on it. And you can learn to make your own poison if you learn chemistry. yeah yeah So if you put poison
01:08:17
Speaker
Every single time, like he'll heal. This is what I think. This is how I think it works. I don't think it does. Cause I missed a day. Well, i he'll heal, but he won't heal entirely. So if you miss like three days, you've undone a lot of progress, but. So pretty much every time he chews through the boards, you have to put another board up and put poison on it. and Every time that poison disappears, like he chews a little bit and the poison's gone, put more poison on it. um And I killed Brown Jenkins pretty early in that run.
01:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, I did not. I can i yeah i was late. I did. I did kill him, but, ah you know, I was running low on money. I was going on dates with Allison. I was trying to, I don't know. Yeah. I, now I understand a better way to play this. um And so hopefully, because the rat takes down your sanity or he could injure you, the rat can bite you too. At some point, so if you poison him, he'll just wander into the room and vomit on the floor and die. And then you have his corpse and you can give it to the landlord and be like, hey, uh...
01:09:27
Speaker
this was in my room and she'll be like, oh, I'm sorry. Or- I sold it. Or you can give it to Armitage and he sells it to a museum collection and it's also evidence to help him believe you. So in this run, I also, I learned to make the protection sign on my bed. I became a master at the occult. I became a master at math. I convinced Armitage to convince the police to stop the ritual. Nice. I didn't really, so you could talk to the police I didn't either. Yeah, you can talk to them. They just walk past you on the street and you can stop them and talk to them. There is kind of a little hint early on. Like if you try to talk to the police, he'll be like, I don't want to talk to them unless I absolutely have to. But I didn't realize I didn't realize that was a hint. I thought he was just like, oh, I'm talking to him. That's how I. But now I realize that if you have something to talk about, yeah, you know, like if you find stuff about
01:10:24
Speaker
the the raid or the the cult or the baby missing, because obviously a baby goes missing, you can talk to the police about that. In fact, did you know that you can return, you probably do know this, because you did some of the some of the spells, which is so cool. You can return the baby early. yeah The baby, that yeah, that's wild to me. There's so many things that can happen. I did not return them to the cop, I returned the baby to the woman's doorstep. The woman, yeah. um Okay, so. Yeah. So this is interesting. So again, I did all this really cool stuff and then I ended up in the same exact place. Oh, no. I was at the ritual and I was like, I'm not going to kill the baby. I'm going to kill Kaziah. And I did. I stabbed her and she fell over and I still could not figure out what the fuck to do now. Oh, I see. So Kaziah gets up, takes me to the thing and I'm left there. And this time I'm like, I'm not signing the book. Fine. And if you wait for a couple of minutes,
01:11:23
Speaker
If you wait there for a couple of minutes, Azathoth shows up and you go insane and you get the bad ending again. Yep. So you who were missing the key element to that end game, because if you stab Pizaya, she's still alive. Yes, I could have solved a puzzle. I could have in either of those playthroughs saved the baby and gotten a better ending, not the best ending, but a better ending. Yeah. And I didn't. So my my journey doesn't stop here. I know i it start the game over and I start the game in easy mode and I kick ass. I get A's on.
01:12:05
Speaker
all of my exams, I i beat the astral challenge. i give it I get Armitage all the evidence. I get ah get Joe drunk and I get the full story about the house from him. I killed, cause I learned how to rescue the child early by creating portals through the walls. wow and And so I saved the child early and then cause I has me try to kill a chicken. Yeah, I forgot, yeah, if you save the baby early, why even, whatever, it's fine. Why even go through this? Why have the baby? And why have you, yeah, there's a lot that doesn't make sense, but they had to make a game out of it in a way that- Gotta make a game, gotta, yeah. Yeah, because it makes more sense in the book, but, so you, so it turns out, I could have killed with Cesiah, and you just use a different inventory item that's in the room with you that I know you could click on.
01:13:01
Speaker
Correct, so what did you use? Because to kill Kaziah, I used a chain. I used a chain. Okay, cool. um And then ah there wasn't a baby to save, so I just walked back through the dimensional rift, and then I passed out, and then all my friends found me, and it was the best ending. Everything was good. Yeah. So I did that on easy mode. But my story doesn't end there! because I decide I'm going to play this game and not learn one, one piece of occult. Not even one stat, not even one point in the occult. Unlike me, remember guys, I pivoted halfway through. huh So I start the game over on expert mode because i so i god I think to myself, listen, if all I'm gonna do is keep myself alive,
01:13:56
Speaker
I bet I could take this at the hardest level possible. And I fucking do it. And so I get through the entire game, I ace all my quizzes. um like you get When you play it on expert mode, everything sucks. So. Yeah, I can't even imagine. You get hungry more often. You get jumped by thieves more often. Do you get less money? You get less money from everything. um You get sick faster. It seems to rain more. And again, it's random. So some of this might have just been also bad luck, but it seems to rain more like it is. It sucks on expert mode, but I made it all the way fucking through.
01:14:40
Speaker
and I get to the end and it's so funny because Kazaya will still show up at all the places she shows up in the game. Like at one point she shows up in the, at one point you see her like in town and you're supposed to follow her. And she'll see- But you don't have to, do you? No, so every, so she was just up it for a month straight every time I went to town. Kazaya was there and it would go, and the music would go like dun dun. And I would just go into the store and get food. like i like I'd get there and Walter would just be like, I'm hungry. And he'd walk into the store and buy food. Or he'd just walk past her and buy a newspaper. And it's so funny because she thinks you're following her if you was like her AI. So yeah if you start walking towards her, she'll walk away and then turn around and look at you.
01:15:32
Speaker
Yeah. And if you walk back, she will walk back. That's so funny. So she seems like, oh, he's following me. And then when she realizes you're not, she'll walk back. She seems so stupid and so pathetic in this version. I'm hungry. Yeah, I'm hungry. Yeah, it's so great. And then, uh, yeah, like a lot of it just fucking doesn't A lot of it is just so ridiculous. Yeah. but way if So if you don't learn a single thing, like if you haven't and you've not done any occult stuff, right? yeah yeah i At the end, are you like, what is this? Are you completely clueless? So you can't publish your paper. ah Yeah, you don't there you have no idea what's happening. You know that some you're having dreams. You know that they're weird.
01:16:27
Speaker
yeah um but you don't, and you know there's a rat, like you don't know anything about the witch. right So then you get kidnapped, and this baby that has been kidnapped is there, and you have a knife in your hand, and you're just like, what is this? So you still, I stabbed Kaziah, strangled her with the chain, and this is what happens in this this is what happens in the short story, in the actual book. yeah He stabs Kaziah, she falls over, and then Brown Jenkins bites the baby. What? Brown Jenkins then kills the baby. Oh, and he also strangles her in the book, but but yeah, Brown Jenkins kills the baby to complete the rap ritual. wow And then later Brown Jenkins burrows his way into ah Gilman's, while Gilman is like recovering in his room, Brown Jenkins eats Gilman's heart.
01:17:22
Speaker
burrows his way into his chest and eats his heart. right right um Which does not happen in the game. I don't think it does. But I didn't get this ending because Brown Jenkins jumps up on the table to get the baby and I'm i'm holding a board. And so I try to hit him with the board. Like um like my the normal board I would use to board up the ah rat hole. yeah And Walter's like, this board's too flimsy, it won't work. So I go over to the shelf and I grab a board off the shelf. and a fucking tea ball. Brown Jenkins off the table through the portal.
01:18:02
Speaker
And then, and that's when I strangle Kaziah to death. So I stab Kaziah. I bat this fucking rat through a portal. I strangle Kaziah to death. And then I'm like, ah how do I get out of here? Cause I don't know anything about the occult. I can't make a portal or anything like that. And so I searched Kaziah's dead body, find a key to the trap door, go down and it's dark. So I have to go back up and get a candle. I come back down, find out there's dead bodies in the wall. um
01:18:34
Speaker
And then i I forget what I used, but I used something to start trying to bash the wall, and then Brown Jenkins comes back in through the rat hole. And he's like, I'm gonna get ya. So I grab a human leg bone, and I beat Jenkins to death.
Game Storyline Choices
01:18:52
Speaker
I can't believe that. Then I smash a hole in the wall and start shouting, and all my friends come in, and they save me and the baby. And it fucking rules, because they're There's no occult shit whatsoever. I'm just a guy who is at college having weird dreams. I suddenly get kidnapped by a witch. I beat the fuck out of her and her weird pet rat. And then I just go about living my life. The cult doesn't get stopped. ah The black man, Nyara Thiptep, is still alive.
01:19:27
Speaker
ah everything is, but it's still in an Armitage barely, doesn't even know, I've never talked. I've never talked. Not even really. Oh, you just didn't. Roses, I have never talked to Armitage. but
01:19:48
Speaker
He keeps walking past and I have no... There's no reason for me to know anything about him. I never see the special collection. I never go to the island, because I never even follow Kaziah, so I don't even i don't even like know there is an island. I'm just a guy going to college who suddenly has to beat the fuck out of a witch and a demon rat. That is maybe the best ending I've ever heard. It was so good. Let me ask you this though. Yeah. um I mean, you played it on hard. So obviously that's a challenge in itself. But is that as I mean, cool ending, really funny and really neat. But is that that's not as fulfilling as finding all of the occult stuff you can find? Because yeah, you didn't talk to Armitage. You didn't discover the island. Like there's just so much to discover.
01:20:41
Speaker
Yeah, I did learn chemistry, but you don't learn most of the potions. So I can make like I can make rat poison. Right. And that was it. it um Oh, I can make glue if I want. that No, I don't make rat poison. I probably could have learned to make rat poison, but in this place where I just did. that's I even looked up to see if I could find your ending with like getting the rat that way, like beating this rat with a wooden plank. I couldn't even find it. I would love to see if you could like record that end. I would love to see that ending. Booting the rat through the portal with the board was the funniest thing.
01:21:22
Speaker
i like but This game, because this game is really, again, it's really addictive, it's kind of stressful, and yeah and but eventually it becomes very repetitive if you're trying to get all the endings, like any game where you're trying to get all the endings, right? yeah You end up doing the same shit over and over again. And in this playthrough, it's the most repetitive, because every day you're just waking up studying, eating, going to bed, waking up studying, talking to Allison, going to bed, waking up, you know, Yeah, like I said, the last half of my pivoted game, even though I had found some really interesting things at that point, the last that when I pivoted, it was a little, it was repetitive. I'm just trying to do my best, you know, I did a lot of chores in that run. ah Yeah, because, because I was running out of money. So I did a lot of chores for the last time somehow. Otherwise,
01:22:11
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I got my and getting my I couldn't write my thesis. I couldn't write my paper. So that's another way you get money in this game is by turning in evidence to Armitage. um One of the things, the thing that you didn't get is the little statue. So if you're on the other planet and you look over the side at this at the crazy elder thing city below, how you get that? Yes, one of the statues on the fence post snaps off and when you wake up it's in your room. And you can take it to Armitage, he gets it. And this happens in the written story. Okay.
01:22:50
Speaker
um This happens in HP Lovecraft's story. You can go get it analyzed for metal. I didn't want to do that because I noticed my obviously my sanity, my health went down when I looked over. So I thought that was a bad idea. I loaded my game. ah Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Then you immediately get attacked by the Elder Things when you do that. So um like four of them come into the room after you. Did you learn how to use the alien machine and heal yourself? I did not. OK, so I'm going to try to go. Like I said, in my next playthrough, I'm going to go hard on the occult. Well, yeah, like i like I said, on my easy mode run, I learned everything and I did everything. And I was like a fucking God. Right. Like I was I could just walk through walls, basically, whatever I wanted to and go to this alien planet and heal myself if I got hurt. Like I was I was so I I had like fifty dollars, which is unheard of in this game.
01:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's insane. That's a lot. I was eating at the cafe every day. Nice. It ruled, but... but Oh, also, ah in the playthrough where I wasn't doing any occult stuff, I slept in Elwood's room as often as possible. so Yes, that's a good idea too. And if you sleep with the lights on, you also don't get kidnapped by the witch. But every if you you leave your lights on too often, your light bulb explodes and it's really fucking annoying. It's very annoying. Two to three days for her to get you a replacement. And then it's like a lot of pointing and clicking to actually replace the light bulb. Yeah, that's true. But that that's just so ah I'm so impressed by that. I'm so impressed.
01:24:30
Speaker
that, that the game allows you to play all these different ways. But I'm especially, yeah I'm especially impressed that the game did exactly what it said it would. If you listen to Dr. Armitage, you know, it's not that your fate is really sealed, you can play it this way. I've never played a game where I've just all ah where I've just rejected the story all together, you know, yeah but the game allows you this is what okay this is what gets into what i think the themes of this game are and there's probably a bunch of other weird stuff we can talk about with this game that's funny and interesting but i think that really speaks to the themes of this game which is
01:25:10
Speaker
it is it is dangerous to have that knowledge. Stepping into this world of at the in there like understanding the infinite of the cosmos and the blackness that is evil and like understanding these things is harmful to you as a person. And you're probably better off not knowing it, but if you want to know the truth, you have to make sacrifices. yeah And I think that's a big theme in Lovecraft's work and it is often unclear what him as and he as an author is saying. Is he saying that all of his characters have made a mistake in pursuing these things and it's wrong to? Or is he saying that we all should be trying to do this but we should understand there's consequences?
01:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's a tough one because like just looking at the gameplay mechanic, like I kind of mentioned earlier, it's not as fulfilling to reject it. It's a repetitive, boring life, right? You know there's this amazing thing spinning and working around you, and you are just refusing to look at it. And that makes you feel like you're living half a life. Yeah. And it makes you it I mean, the game makes you want to play hard then so you can find all these things. I mean, the game kind of guides the game kind of lures you into playing it either way. Right? Because if you get that bad ending, like I did, I felt so deflated. I was just I just wanted a good ending, man.
01:26:46
Speaker
And so it kind of inspired me to get that good ending, but the good ending inspired me to, or or or actually playing it half and half the way I did, it inspired both ways, right? So now
Real-life Parallels in Gaming
01:26:58
Speaker
I've gotten half of it and now I want more and now I've pivoted to the safe way. And you know what I mean? So yeah, it is an interesting thing because you can still beat the game with a good ending, even if you know that knowledge, even if you're careful with that knowledge. Right. and So here's what I think is the other and much more human theme of the game. Whether it was intended or not, this is something that really spoke to me. And it's this idea of, okay, you're Walter Gilman, you have just left your home.
01:27:33
Speaker
and your life, you have a big idea, yeah right? You have this big idea, you have this paper that you wanna write and it is ah it is built out of your own idealism, right? You are like, I'm going to set the world on fire with this crazy theory. I'm gonna learn everything i there is to know about this. um And then you get, and I'm gonna live on my own. And then you get there and living on your own is hard. yeah and it's scary and learning and trying to ah participate in this larger world outside of the little world you you grew up in is also hard and scary, right? yeah In our world, there might not be cosmic monsters floating around in space who wanna eat the planet, right? but But there are people who will take advantage of you. there are
01:28:31
Speaker
um ah there are things you that are unknowable, things that aren't unknowable, but things you're going to have to come to grips with, um'm you're never going to know. You are never, unless you start early, you're never going to be a nuclear physicist. You're never going to understand quantum mechanics besides like the weird bullshit version that ah yeah that ah new age people publish in their books. You're not gonna learn how to, I don't know,
01:29:03
Speaker
fix a carburetor, right? Like there are these bits of knowledge that you are going to have to realize, like I'm never going to know this stuff. And that lack of knowledge makes the world more scary, but also just trying to, like like trying to pursue that knowledge is hard and takes something from you. And I think like that, again, if you remove all of the ghosts and monsters,
01:29:34
Speaker
that is an experience that all of us have, right? All of us have when we diverge from our parents and our childhood. um And I found that really, again, I found that really affecting. Yeah, I agree. Even though like when you're in the game and not thinking about that consciously, you're probably just more annoyed by it. Like, oh my god, my character is hungry again. and I just fed him two days ago. You know what I mean? like yeah it In game, you might you might not be thinking that. But yeah, I could absolutely see parallels to that. you know Yeah, I mean, like this this cosmic knowledge, right like how is that any different?
01:30:19
Speaker
Right. And the struggle to survive against, um, an evil witch and her brown rat. Like, how is that any different than actually trying to struggle against paying rent and, uh, getting your car registered so it doesn't get impounded while you're driving and then get it, you get your license suspended, right? Like, uh, trying to find a job, right? Like these things are hard and scary. And at first there's. like a cult and esoteric. um And like, I think this game, again, with whether it's trying to or not really captures the anxiety of setting off into like the unknown world and trying to attack. Yeah. I think there's, there's definitely, you can kind of draw a metaphor for, for depression there, considering we do have a sanity meter. Right. you know, the more you're exposed to the world, the more you learn about the realities of the world, yeah the more affected you are, you know, and yeah, and just the way interestingly, even the ways you stay
Adapting Lovecraft: Ethical Concerns
01:31:23
Speaker
sane, kind of play into a metaphor for depression is the ways you stay sane or what other itself care, eating a good meal, hanging out with your friends, staying grounded. That's how you stay sane.
01:31:36
Speaker
If you talk to the people in your life about these subjects, the deeper of conversations you have with them, the more your sanity goes up. So just letting out what has been happening to you is... is like the best thing you can do for your sanity. And some of the things that drive down your sanity meter are like getting mugged, right? Getting a bad grade. Getting hurt, yeah. Getting hurt, missing a night of sleep. These are the things that drive down your sanity meter, of course, also touching the cosmic void and unknowable knowledge of silver gods. Yeah, don't touch the cosmic void. You don't want none of that.
01:32:21
Speaker
um Like that that that shit also drives down your sanity meter, but there's a lot of human things in this game that drive down your sanity meter that I think, yeah, like really do drive that point home. Absolutely. That's that's a great theme, honestly. And yeah, maybe unintentional, but I mean, I don't know, maybe intentional. Definitely the way the sanity thing is intentional, like talking to your friends, talking. I think that is very intentional. Well, I think, yeah, I think a lot of art makes points, like they make by doing intentional things like that, they're making a broader point that maybe the artist didn't sit down and think, okay, I'm going to make this as a metaphor for growing up. and right ah But they are conscious of it in the fat and the sense that they were they're like, what makes a person who is paralyzed by
01:33:14
Speaker
anxiety feel better talking to their friends and yeah in that way they are yeah and that way they are talking about growing up yeah and they're doing it consciously even if they don't you know even if that's in their mind not the central theme of the work but in my mind that was that was the central theme of the work. Okay so the developer Uh, let me get their name. Adam, Adam brain games, Adam brain games, uh, has announced they're doing the done which horror as their next game, which is a another Lovecraft story. Um, and and that actually features Dr. Armitage, right?
01:33:52
Speaker
Yes, that is the story that Dr. Armitage comes from because, you know, there's all sorts of stuff that is in this like HP Lovecraft universe, like Miskatonic University and the city of Arkham, the Necronomicon. He made all that stuff up. I remember one time online seeing some some people argue about whether the Necronomicon was real. And some dude was posting a pic. He's like, ah this dude was pretending, like claiming to be this like master of the dark arts and this mystic, ah you know, ah scholar. And he was like, no, the Necronomicon's real.
01:34:31
Speaker
you idiot, I have it, and then kept posting pictures of himself with it. ah Like he was like winning an argument. It's like, dude, that was ah that was written in like 1975 by people who were trying to just like profit off of people like you. Like that that's a novelty, my man. my god um But yes, so ah yeah, so he like, all these things are in a shared universe in the Dunwich horror. In fact, in the game, Armitage leaves to deal with the Dunwich horror. Yes, he leaves at the towards the end of the game. He leaves to do his he leaves to go to Dunwich. So I have some concerns. First of all, I think it's gonna be so hard to do a game like this again, right? Yeah. um I'm excited. Yeah.
01:35:24
Speaker
ah whatever they're gonna make because this game was so impressive and so good, I wanna play another game like it. um And they ah they they're they've the developers talked about how um the next game will have multiple characters with different skills and abilities that you play. Oh no, I get really upset when I have to deal with multiple characters, go on though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, i that's gonna be interesting. um
01:35:52
Speaker
There's a thing about the Dunwich Horror, and and I reached out to the developer and asked him about this on ah on Steam. The Dunwich Horror is one of the stories in which H.P. Lovecraft's eugenicist beliefs start to come out. yeah yeah um It is about a community where the breeding has gotten so poor that the people have you know, fallen into isolation and become sort of like semi-human, like less than human because of their genetics, right? right it is It is part of this idea ah that stems, that goes through a lot of HP Lovecraft books about
01:36:41
Speaker
ah this idea that there's this perfect human that we can make out of the right genes. yeah This was all in the 1930s. I mean, some people at that point, to be fair, knew eugenics was racist and argued against it even back then. yeah But there were a lot of people at that time who thought maybe eugenics was a scientific way yeah to solve things like, solve for things like cancer or disabilities or or whatever, but it was all paired with this idea of like, if there's a perfect person, then that means there's a perfect hair color, there's a perfect skin color, there's a perfect skull shape, like all this stuff that's absolute bullshit and completely racist. I reached out on
01:37:26
Speaker
Steam to say like, hey, ah you know, Dunwich Horror is actually kind of fairly entrenched in eugenics and some racist ideas. So I wonder like, how are you guys going to deal with that? That must be a challenge. And the developers seem to feel like Dunwich Horror is not very problematic. Okay. um And felt like it's more based around the themes of isolation and g degeneration. Okay. Which, and you know, and said they don't share Lovecraft's personal beliefs, won't feature them in their adaptations, but there are much more interesting things to focus on is what they said. Okay. I think that has me just a little bit worried. Okay, that's fair.
01:38:10
Speaker
Now, this adaptation was really good, and I'm really so i'm excited about what their next thing is going to be, but it does leave me a little bit worried that if they could not see the eugenics in the text. Um, how do they avoid that when making the adaptation? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I think there's things they can do to to rewrite some stuff because obviously even even dreams in the witch house is not a perfect adaptation. It's a very good adaptation. But the evil guy is called the black man. Yeah. And the, you know, the end.
01:38:49
Speaker
I think that that obviously the end of the story of is completely different. So I think there are things that they can change around. And games do that a lot. ah They'll take you know problematic things and change them yeah for the better. So I'm hoping they find a way around it. I understand your concern, though, because that is an integral part of this plot, it seems like. You know what I mean? Yeah. yeah And I can see how some people might not read eugenics into that there's another
01:39:21
Speaker
I can't remember which story it is. I think I'll say this. Yeah. Had we not had but Lovecraft not been so egregious, had he not been so blatant about his views? Yeah, it's fair to maybe not read eugenics into that. But I think because we know what his belief system was at that time, that that's important to to consider, you know, that there might be a pattern or a parallel there. you know And I think, yeah, I think as readers, it is it is definitely, i I don't begrudge anybody who doesn't see eugenics in Dunwich horror or in like another one of his ah you know eugenics sort of ah heavy stories, The Lurking Fear.
01:40:06
Speaker
yeah um where a family's genes degrade so much that they resort to ah inbreeding and cannibalism and they they create a race of monsters that live beneath their old family house. Which again is about having quote unquote good breeding. But I can see reading Lovecraft and not feeling those things as a reader and I wouldn't begrudge anybody for that. My problem is if you're adapting it It seems like that's something you do have to reckon with. And you can avoid it. I don't think it needs to be in there, but you need to, to me, it it feels like you would need to know it was there in order to avoid repeating it. Yeah,
Future Game Announcements
01:40:53
Speaker
that's fair. That's absolutely fair. even sort of the developers use of the word degeneration. Yeah, yeah that's yeah that it makes me wonder if they haven't quite made the dots, like connected the dots between what degeneration meant to HP Lovecraft and what degeneration means when you're talking about a ah a race of animal. That race being human beings in this case. So,
01:41:18
Speaker
That all said, so if the Dunwich Horror comes out and it still has this problematic stuff in it, but it is as good a game as this one, I think I will still say this game fucking ruled. yeah But we'll have to talk about this one element, that. Yeah, of course, yeah. So ah so anyway, so that's just my little that's just my little thought about that. What do you think about Dunwich Horror? like Does it excite you? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But do you know what, though? that's that is the That's basically how I react to a lot of Lovecraft video games yeah um that I have ended up liking. So yeah when I first played Drudge, I was like, eh. But then I ended up loving that game. So I don't know what it is. I don't know
01:42:02
Speaker
I'm not but personally, personally, I am not a Lovecraft fan. I wouldn't call myself that. But I am a fan of spooky things and horror things. So I'm more of a like in terms of authors, right? I'm more of a book person than an author person. If the book is very good, I will like it. the same thing with maybe even music, I'm very much a song person, if the song is good, then I like it. So like, I have this like, base level opinion where I'm like, ah I don't know. Okay, the biggest fan of HP Lovecraft, but I'm always willing to give a story a chance. I'm always willing to give art a chance, you know, no matter what it is. So my excitement doesn't come until I actually play the game.
01:42:47
Speaker
So you would maybe have been more excited if they had announced the next game had nothing to do with Lovecraft. You'd be like, ah, sweet, another game by them. And I don't have to worry that it's about Lovecraft. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe so. So I think that's our coverage of this game. That was fun. That was fun. and It was a long one. And like, there was just so much to say about this fucking game. I know, I ah it it's almost wanna play together. No, I've gotta give myself a break. I've played it so much, it's insane. I know, I know, I know, I know. I i am putting it away. I am in fact uninstalling it as we as we record this because I cannot keep fucking playing this game and I i might like be tempted to do another play through. I know because it's one of those. you know There's one achievement I didn't get.
01:43:41
Speaker
Only one one? Yeah, and that achievement is apparently if you warn um the woman whose baby gets stolen. There's a creepy man in her in her neighborhood. Yeah, the bootlegger guy. Yes, and if you warn her that he's a bootlegger and he had some knowledge of the kidnapping and then show her the whiskey that you buy from him, she will ah like stay away from him. She'll be like, oh, that guy sucks, and avoid him. And then the little ending thing with her and the baby, I'm guessing he's not like creeping, peeking through the doorway like he was. That's awesome. I love that. I'm gonna have to try it. Dammit, no. Dammit, no. Okay, do you wanna throw up
01:44:39
Speaker
tren look clackily you know betray Tranquil music. Yes, I'll put on some ASMR for you. tran Tranquil smacks my vino.
01:45:11
Speaker
Roses. Hi. Hey. It's me. And me. um Listeners, by the time you're hearing this, God, ah we will be, I will be on my way to the adventure game fanfare. Nice, I won't be like sorry. I will be like on the plane probably or in Tacoma, Washington. So if you, ah you know, if you happen to have tickets or if you live near Tacoma and ah you you you already are coming or you want to come, I will be hosting a panel along with Anna from the Classic Gamers Guild.
01:45:52
Speaker
podcast about fantastic. Yeah, yeah. She's really, she's really good. Uh, on that should be a ton of fun. We have a lot of ideas for it. Um, and it's about Phantasmagoria too, with Lorelei Shannon and Paul Morgan Stettler. It's at 3 PM on Friday. Uh, and then late Friday night and during the after party, me and, uh, some other cool people We'll be doing a panel ah where basically we're doing a riff tracks on plumbers don't wear ties. That is so funny. I'm i'm a little jealous because riffing is kind of my thing. I'll be there and that's okay. I believe in you.
01:46:35
Speaker
I am, yeah, I am excited. It's gonna be- Gotta to be funny for the both of us. Remember who you're representing here. It's gonna be weird. It's gonna be funny. ah Please, yeah, if you if you come, come say hi. If you come and you're a listener, come say hi. And please we'll ah talk venture games for a minute. But also, also, also, yes I will be in England later this month, into August. And this is, I guess, for all my UK people. So let me think, on August 1st,
01:47:14
Speaker
it's It's that Thursday. It's either going to be like, I think it's August 1st. Why don't I ever have a calendar? I just never do. Right? I think August 1st, whatever that Thursday is, I will be at Barcadia in Norwich for their open jam night. I'm not performing. Don't get your hopes up. I'm simply going to be there. So if you are in the UK, if that is close to you, that might be your only time to ever get to meet me. So if you wanna come meet me there, that's where I'll be that night. There's also an open jam night. ah So you can ah jam out and win a prize potentially, if you're good. very Again, I will not be performing, don't even ask.
01:48:01
Speaker
ah We are going to try to keep up our ah release schedule through this. I hope so, yeah. But I will be in Tacoma, Roses will be in England, and I will be in ah the Outer Banks for vacation. So we are going to have a busy couple of weeks between us, but we're going to try and and keep up our release schedule. But if we miss if we miss an episode, ah please forgive us in advance. Or cry about it. Yeah fucking cry about it cry about it. What's your cry about it in your little sandbox? Why do people listen to me? I can be so ah So like feisty and salty with people and they'll be like, oh, I just love roses. She's America's great art I'm like, oh god, what's wrong with you?
01:48:55
Speaker
You're just actively trying to get them to hate you. And they're like, aw, what is happening? It's like ah that episode of Adventure Time with the with the cutie king and his little army. And he wants to be tough. And he's trying to beat up Finn and Jake. And then it's just their failures are so cute. And they're like, stop calling us cute. That's just me. Yeah, that's you. That's me. um You keep attacking everybody. And they're just like, aw. I'm that like spooky black duckling that there' that there's a meme that's like when you're spooky but also adorable. That's me.
01:49:30
Speaker
ah Guys, feel free to email us and matt and roses at.com. I don't know what game we're going to talk about next. We actually have to do some planning. so Oh, yeah, we do. Oh, poo. We can't tell you guys what ah to prepare for. but Yeah, come back next week. Yeah,
Humor and Reflections
01:49:51
Speaker
come back next week, see what we got. There might be something, there might be nothing. And lastly, we're part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. Check them out at adventuregamehotspot.com. Okay, we are, I think, at the end of the episode. Woo-hoo! And I hear a weird rat scratching in my walls, so I probably gotta go. Oh god, do you have a plank of wood and some poison? Do you have a bone? Do you have a human bone? I'm gonna go ask one of my neighbors if he has one.
01:50:16
Speaker
ah Funny story before we leave, I asked my neighbor in that game like every night if he had a plank of wood and he never did. Not once? Maybe once, but I'm talking out of like 20 times I asked. It became a joke in my stream. It's like, well, he's not going to have one. I don't know why we're asking. Yeah. yeah Well, hey, if you can get a free plank of wood, you got to go. You got to try everything you can to get a free plank of wood. Always try to get a free plank of wood. That's what I say. um do you so do you ever say anything else you know what i do sometimes say something would you would you like me to share it with you is it uh is it dirty oh uh i have to pivot i guess no no no no sometimes i just think to myself and out loud that uh podcasts is art
01:51:12
Speaker
I sometimes think about how artists suffer. Solid.