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Dead Space Catalyst (Now With 50% Less Dead Space)
8 Plays11 months ago
We back in the Dead Space universe. Member how we didn't like Dead Space Martyr? Well we are reading Dead Space Catalyst thinking, hey... maybe it will be better?
But what this book presupposes is... maybe it isn't?
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Transcript
Humor in Menstruation Ads
00:00:00
Speaker
It's a thing that happens and babies and you got a poor, you don't need the blue Gatorade in a period commercial.
00:00:08
Speaker
You need the Kool-Aid.
00:00:11
Speaker
You need Kool-Aid man.
00:00:12
Speaker
Red.
00:00:13
Speaker
Tipping over and a pad absorbing all of all of Kool-Aid man's innards.
00:00:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:21
Speaker
You remember that scene from the shining where it all comes pouring out of the elevator?
00:00:25
Speaker
This is what I approve.
00:00:27
Speaker
That's what we need to normalize talking about menstruation and not shying away from it as, and as two, two men, um,
00:00:39
Speaker
Notably, like, you know, I wouldn't say we're not on the effeminate spectrum.
00:00:47
Speaker
Oh, no, no.
00:00:47
Speaker
But I would say, as two men, we support this and more power
Introduction to 'Pixelate' and Today's Topic
00:00:54
Speaker
to you.
00:00:54
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:00:55
Speaker
You know what else is more power to you?
00:00:58
Speaker
What's that?
00:00:58
Speaker
Hey there, everybody.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixelate.
00:01:00
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:01:00
Speaker
With me as always is Phil.
00:01:01
Speaker
And on today's show...
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
00:01:05
Speaker
I let off the show talking about periods.
00:01:10
Speaker
It's going to be more interesting than the book.
00:01:12
Speaker
It's going to be more interesting than the book because we're talking, we're back in the Dead Space world, Dead Space Catalyst.
00:01:17
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:01:19
Speaker
By B.K.
00:01:20
Speaker
Evanson.
00:01:21
Speaker
Yep.
00:01:22
Speaker
The B.K.
00:01:22
Speaker
stands for Burger King.
00:01:25
Speaker
I would like to think so, yeah.
00:01:28
Speaker
I would like to think so.
00:01:29
Speaker
So, Phil,
00:01:31
Speaker
tell me a little bit about BK?
B.K. Evenson's Horror Background
00:01:34
Speaker
And you said you read a few of his things.
00:01:37
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:38
Speaker
So we read Dead Space Martyr years ago now.
00:01:43
Speaker
Years ago.
00:01:44
Speaker
It was in our first year of doing this.
00:01:47
Speaker
We did like six goddamn episodes on it.
00:01:50
Speaker
We're not doing that anymore.
00:01:52
Speaker
We have locked in on three.
00:01:56
Speaker
It's either one episode for shorter things or three episodes for longer things.
00:02:00
Speaker
We're not going to waste your time.
00:02:01
Speaker
We're not going to waste your time.
00:02:04
Speaker
So, yeah, we read Dead Space Martyr, same author.
00:02:09
Speaker
And then in between then and now you've read some of his other works.
00:02:13
Speaker
So what's the deal with this guy?
00:02:15
Speaker
I may have mentioned his real name is Brian Evans and BK is just kind of a pen name.
00:02:21
Speaker
And I mentioned this when we read the first one.
00:02:25
Speaker
Because I myself am a horror writer and I knew Brian Evanson's work and he was a he is a Bram Stoker award winning horror writer who a lot of people really respect and admire.
00:02:40
Speaker
So I was I was kind of I was.
00:02:43
Speaker
That's why if you watch or listen to the first episode, I remember.
00:02:47
Speaker
Or when we when we I don't know if it was the first episode we were talking about at some point, I was like, I'm looking forward to this.
00:02:51
Speaker
This should be really interesting.
00:02:53
Speaker
And and we all know how that turned out.
Beginning of Dead Space Catalyst
00:02:56
Speaker
Sure.
00:02:57
Speaker
And since then, now, I have not read any of his longer work, but I have read several short stories of his, which I think he's kind of best known for short stories.
00:03:09
Speaker
I think it was a collection of short stories.
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:11
Speaker
that won him the award.
00:03:12
Speaker
I mean, the guy's won Shirley Jackson, Shirley Jackson Award.
00:03:16
Speaker
He's got a Guggenheim Fellowship.
00:03:18
Speaker
Oh, Henry Award.
00:03:19
Speaker
The guy has some serious clout.
00:03:23
Speaker
And the short stories I've read are actually very, very good.
00:03:27
Speaker
He has a real good handle on body horror and the metaphors that go with that, which you would think
00:03:37
Speaker
would be tailor made for an adaptation of dead space.
00:03:44
Speaker
I don't know.
00:03:45
Speaker
I don't know how it happens like this.
00:03:47
Speaker
He is.
00:03:49
Speaker
I know now that he is actually a good writer beyond these books.
00:03:54
Speaker
So, Brian, if you're listening, I want you to know we respect you as a writer.
00:03:58
Speaker
We really do.
00:04:00
Speaker
But these are not very good.
00:04:02
Speaker
No, it's it's and we're going to get into that.
00:04:06
Speaker
We're going to get to it.
00:04:07
Speaker
So Dead Space Catalyst is currently out of print.
00:04:09
Speaker
You can't get it anywhere.
00:04:10
Speaker
We found it and we are reading it for you.
00:04:14
Speaker
So that's just the way it is.
00:04:18
Speaker
You can't buy it.
00:04:19
Speaker
You can barely buy used copies.
00:04:22
Speaker
Would it be advisable to tell them what you told me you saw someone said on Reddit when someone was looking for a PDF of it?
00:04:31
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Yeah, somebody said, hey, I'm looking for a copy of it.
00:04:35
Speaker
And then somebody posted the link and said, here you go.
00:04:42
Speaker
Here you go, but you won't enjoy reading it.
00:04:44
Speaker
Right.
00:04:48
Speaker
I love it.
00:04:49
Speaker
It's like, you're not going to be happy about it, but here you go anyway.
00:04:52
Speaker
Here it is.
00:04:55
Speaker
And then the original poster responded with a, why is that?
00:04:59
Speaker
And then there was no further action on the thread.
00:05:02
Speaker
That was it.
00:05:03
Speaker
This thread has been closed.
00:05:04
Speaker
This thread has been archived.
00:05:08
Speaker
That's oh, man.
00:05:10
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:05:10
Speaker
And I've got to say, and I told you this earlier, after reading the third FNAF book most recently, I have been engaged in my mind as we led up to this in a moment of like, hey, the FNAF books totally
00:05:28
Speaker
came through and pulled a full redemptive cycle and pulled themselves out of just bullshit and terror and ended on a very, very strong note.
00:05:40
Speaker
And there are only two of these books.
00:05:42
Speaker
Maybe, maybe Evanston can do the same.
00:05:47
Speaker
So anyway.
00:05:49
Speaker
Maybe he can.
00:05:50
Speaker
Maybe he can.
00:05:52
Speaker
Will he?
00:05:53
Speaker
I don't know.
00:05:54
Speaker
Let's put the body in the marsh.
00:05:56
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:05:57
Speaker
To dump a body in the marsh.
Family Challenges of Jensi and Istvan
00:06:00
Speaker
Dead Space Catalyst, chapter one.
00:06:04
Speaker
We meet the main characters, Jensi and Istvan Sato, because, sure, we, I guess, those are names probably from somewhere.
00:06:20
Speaker
Why not?
00:06:21
Speaker
It's from Jensi's point of view, and Jensi, first, he's a little kid, and it's about how when he was a kid, he didn't realize that anything was wrong with his brother, and that Istvan was always a little bit
00:06:34
Speaker
You know, he had unusual behaviors.
00:06:36
Speaker
Now, I'm going to list some of these unusual behaviors.
00:06:41
Speaker
They are normally in the real world associated with autism or ASD in certain regards or other types of neurodivergence.
00:06:57
Speaker
In this book, you are not going to see any reference to neurodivergence despite this taking place in the far future.
00:07:07
Speaker
And OK, so Istvan has always been a little always had unusual behaviors, obsession with patterns, light and sudden emotional outbursts.
00:07:18
Speaker
Well, well, then.
00:07:19
Speaker
Well, well.
00:07:21
Speaker
Good thing we have no words to describe anything that this child might be going through.
00:07:27
Speaker
We're just going to... Not a goddamn thing.
00:07:29
Speaker
Not a goddamn thing.
00:07:30
Speaker
The...
00:07:31
Speaker
Eventually, they grow up a little bit.
00:07:33
Speaker
Gen Z starts to see that, okay, Estevan is different than everybody.
00:07:37
Speaker
And they end up kind of alone.
00:07:41
Speaker
You know, they're kind of loners for the most part.
00:07:45
Speaker
One day, there's a game that these kids are playing where they're kind of like running towards, there's like a
00:07:54
Speaker
like a window that looks out into the vacuum of space, I believe.
00:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, they live in like a dome situation.
00:08:02
Speaker
They live in like a dome on a planet.
00:08:05
Speaker
And there's air inside.
00:08:06
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There is no air outside.
00:08:08
Speaker
And these kids are like, there's like a hairline fracture on the dome.
00:08:12
Speaker
And these kids like run over to the hairline fracture.
00:08:15
Speaker
We're like, ah!
00:08:17
Speaker
and run back.
00:08:18
Speaker
And then Istvan is like, no, that's not right.
00:08:21
Speaker
And he charges full bore head first into the hairline fracture with his head and cracks it more.
00:08:32
Speaker
And he said he had to do it to make the shape right.
00:08:37
Speaker
And then, yeah, so...
00:08:42
Speaker
Anyway, the carrying on, Istvan and Jensi, their mother is the mother from Carrie, who is basically always telling them that they're all going to laugh at you and that Istvan is like evil and all that stuff.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:59
Speaker
Jensi wants to help help Istvan.
00:09:02
Speaker
Doesn't matter though.
00:09:02
Speaker
Mother's like, Oh, I'm going to laugh at you.
00:09:06
Speaker
Um, at one point, uh, the mother collapses and she's like, from what it's described as she's like chewing her own lips off or something like that.
00:09:15
Speaker
And her, her tongue.
00:09:17
Speaker
Um, and Jensi is trying to help her, their mother and Istvan is just staring at a, at a stack of packages, um,
00:09:25
Speaker
like just like looking at the shape of the stack of packages.
00:09:32
Speaker
So the mother gets taken away, put in a mental ward, and they are taken into, they're going to be taken into some foster care.
00:09:44
Speaker
But Istvan is like, well, no, this is our time to leave.
00:09:48
Speaker
This is our time to get out.
00:09:49
Speaker
And Jensie's like, I don't,
00:09:52
Speaker
think that's a good idea.
00:09:54
Speaker
We are still children.
00:09:56
Speaker
And then Istvan basically escapes and Gen Z goes along with the Child Protective Services and is put into a foster care facility.
Jensi's Normal Life and Istvan's Struggles
00:10:09
Speaker
Chapter, that's the end of chapter one.
00:10:11
Speaker
Chapter two.
00:10:13
Speaker
Uh, Jancy is with a new family.
00:10:16
Speaker
Um, he starts doing pretty well in school.
00:10:19
Speaker
Uh, and he makes a friend named Henry and they are awkward together.
00:10:26
Speaker
You always need someone to be awkward.
00:10:28
Speaker
You always need someone to be awkward with.
00:10:31
Speaker
Like the book talks about how like Henry just kind of like stands next to Gen C for a while and day after day after day.
00:10:39
Speaker
And then like Henry's like, hey, do you like do you like prog rock?
00:10:45
Speaker
Do you ever listen to Yes?
00:10:48
Speaker
No, that's exactly it.
00:10:50
Speaker
It's like you're just sitting next to a guy long enough that he becomes your best friend.
00:10:55
Speaker
I kind of miss the simplicity of those days.
00:11:01
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:11:05
Speaker
So, yeah, they...
00:11:08
Speaker
Jensi, though, overall feels guilty about his new life, knowing that Istvan is out there, and he starts talking to Henry about Istvan.
00:11:19
Speaker
And then...
00:11:24
Speaker
They, uh, Gen C, uh, and Henry go and to look at the old apartment where they used to live, which is like now a crime scene.
00:11:34
Speaker
Um, yeah, the wrong, almost literally the wrong side of the tracks.
00:11:39
Speaker
It's basically the wrong side of the tracks.
00:11:42
Speaker
They get to the apartment and they see notice they go inside and they see that one of the doors is open and they're like, we got to check it out.
00:11:54
Speaker
And it is a filthy man attacks and basically is like choking Henry out.
00:12:02
Speaker
And Jensi is like looking at him and it's Istvan.
00:12:05
Speaker
And he basically has not bathed since.
00:12:09
Speaker
It's been years since he last saw him since he last saw him.
00:12:13
Speaker
It's been a couple of years and it's fun.
00:12:16
Speaker
It's just covered in, in dirt.
00:12:20
Speaker
And eventually he gets through to Istvan and he
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, Istvan is just kind of disconnected.
00:12:31
Speaker
He seems to switch between knowing that he is in the world and thinking he is somewhere else.
00:12:43
Speaker
And then, yeah, so that happens.
00:12:48
Speaker
Chapter three, we cut away to, oh, fuck, Istvan.
00:12:54
Speaker
I don't want to even talk about it because I hate these characters are so fucking boring.
00:13:01
Speaker
It is truly, this is truly the chapter where the book goes, hey.
00:13:06
Speaker
We got the grant.
00:13:07
Speaker
Remember?
00:13:08
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:10
Speaker
You remember the thrilling scene of getting a goddamn grant to study, uh, uh, uh, you know, the marker and all that shit.
00:13:18
Speaker
Uh, hope, hope you brought your barf bags because we are knocking it out of the park to bring you right back to where we get.
00:13:25
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:26
Speaker
I'm, I'm, I'm,
00:13:29
Speaker
So a bunch of these dudes are gathered around a table and they're talking and there's a guy named Blackwell and he's like, we got a project.
00:13:39
Speaker
And then there's another guy, Kurzweil.
00:13:41
Speaker
No, not the guy who invented the synthesizer.
00:13:46
Speaker
talks about the black marker.
00:13:48
Speaker
I mean, it could be.
00:13:50
Speaker
You never know.
00:13:52
Speaker
And they talk about convergence and like we need to the new facility needs to be built somewhere else in space, not on Earth because it's dangerous and the convergence and the thing and
00:14:09
Speaker
The Blackwell, Commander Grotter is going to take control of the plan according to Blackwell.
00:14:15
Speaker
But then there's dudes that we need to meet Commander Grotter because it's going to, we need to trust the guy, but we don't trust the Blackwell guy.
00:14:27
Speaker
There is a, I will, yeah.
00:14:29
Speaker
And scene.
00:14:30
Speaker
I will say, I will say there is some good writing here where, uh, what's the name of the, the, the religious cult that kind of takes unitology unitology.
00:14:40
Speaker
Um, the way that he handles the mention of unitology in the scene, I think is well done where it's just kind of like, it's kind of casually mentioned, like, this is just the world we live in now.
00:14:51
Speaker
Um, it is, you aren't knocked over the head with it too hard.
00:14:54
Speaker
And, uh,
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:55
Speaker
It's like a bunch of them are just wearing the amulets.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:59
Speaker
It's just part of their, it's just, it's, it's, you know, in name only, I believe they even say.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:05
Speaker
And I think just because now I know that Brian Everson actually really is a solid writer.
00:15:10
Speaker
Sure.
00:15:10
Speaker
I'm going to, I'm going to defend him where I can.
00:15:13
Speaker
Where you can, you defend him.
00:15:15
Speaker
I don't feel that responsibility personally, but you go, you do that because one of us needs to.
00:15:22
Speaker
One of us needs to.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
So chapter four, we cut back.
00:15:27
Speaker
Gen Z has calmed Istvan down.
00:15:30
Speaker
Henry is like, what the fuck?
00:15:34
Speaker
And Gen Z starts like caring for Istvan and like, you know, cleans him and feeds him and stuff like that.
00:15:42
Speaker
And Istvan's like, hey, can I come live with you?
00:15:44
Speaker
And Gen Z's like, well, no, they can't.
00:15:48
Speaker
They wouldn't.
00:15:48
Speaker
They wouldn't allow us to be together because that them's the rules.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:53
Speaker
apparently.
00:15:56
Speaker
So Istvan is sad and won't talk to Gen Z anymore.
00:16:03
Speaker
And then Gen Z and Henry just leave as they're walking home.
00:16:10
Speaker
They get the vibe that somebody is following them and they get there and back to Gen Z's house and Istvan is there.
00:16:19
Speaker
And he's like, this is my house now.
00:16:23
Speaker
And Istvan scares the shit out of Genzy's foster mother.
00:16:30
Speaker
It's just taking food out of the place.
00:16:35
Speaker
The foster mother calls the calls the cops.
00:16:39
Speaker
Istvan is is pissed off and then flees.
00:16:43
Speaker
And then basically the police know that who Istvan is at this point, because Henry kind of let the cat out of the bag when he was being interrogated.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:57
Speaker
And then Gen Z, after all this settles down, Gen Z goes back to their old apartment again to try to find Istvan.
00:17:06
Speaker
And Istvan, it's gone.
00:17:07
Speaker
He's gone.
00:17:08
Speaker
The apartment's totally empty.
00:17:12
Speaker
Chapter five, we proceed through Gen Z's life a little bit faster.
00:17:17
Speaker
He gets it.
00:17:18
Speaker
He goes through university.
00:17:21
Speaker
He goes through a technical college.
00:17:23
Speaker
He begins working as a picker, which what was a picker?
00:17:31
Speaker
What did you did you understand?
00:17:33
Speaker
It was some kind of industrial job.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:36
Speaker
Manufacturing job.
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:40
Speaker
So Henry was gone for a bit, but returns after flunking out of off world university and they occasionally cross paths, but they were, it was, you know, high school friends.
00:17:54
Speaker
It was just like, Hey, Hey, you know, um,
00:17:58
Speaker
So four years later, Istvan suddenly returns.
00:18:03
Speaker
And he mentions that he has found his purpose and that he'll be famous in
00:18:13
Speaker
It tells Jensie to watch him on the news and then he leaves and Jensie reaches out to Henry and is like, hey, I think my brother is going to like do a terrorism.
00:18:27
Speaker
I'm not sure.
00:18:28
Speaker
This doesn't look too good.
Istvan's Crime and Political Imprisonment
00:18:31
Speaker
I'm not an expert, not an expert, but I think he might do a terrorism.
00:18:36
Speaker
So they figure out the four sites that he might do a terrorism.
00:18:39
Speaker
And they each take two to try to like cover and figure out what's up.
00:18:45
Speaker
And Gen C goes to the first one and it's not there.
00:18:47
Speaker
And he goes to a political rally and he sees Istvan and he tries to stop Istvan, but it's too late.
00:18:55
Speaker
Isfahn draws a gun and he shoots and kills the dude, an ambassador, just blowing his head up.
00:19:04
Speaker
Like that it's, it is the end of Bionic Commando.
00:19:08
Speaker
And this guy's head is Adolf Hitler's head.
00:19:11
Speaker
It just goes, um, and then Isfahn like wakes up, um, from his, um,
00:19:23
Speaker
Oh, did I?
00:19:24
Speaker
Oh, I skipped ahead.
00:19:25
Speaker
I skipped ahead.
00:19:26
Speaker
Sorry.
00:19:28
Speaker
We'll get back to that because first we've got to talk chapter six and Commander Grotter.
00:19:34
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:36
Speaker
What a name.
00:19:37
Speaker
What a good name.
00:19:39
Speaker
They got he's picking his crew.
00:19:42
Speaker
There's a woman named Jane Haley who does good intelligence and unitologist named Eric.
00:19:52
Speaker
uh, that Blackwell made grotter take.
00:19:55
Speaker
And then, uh, they, they got to find a planet for the marker facility, uh, far from any, uh, like inhabited planet.
00:20:10
Speaker
Um,
00:20:13
Speaker
Basically, some of Blackwell's associates talk to Grotter, and he talks to them about like, hey, I found this planet, but it has like a small colony on it.
00:20:26
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, we don't...
00:20:28
Speaker
We don't care.
00:20:29
Speaker
It doesn't matter.
00:20:29
Speaker
It doesn't matter.
00:20:30
Speaker
That's, that's, that's a good, good place for it.
00:20:33
Speaker
These are, they're prisoners.
00:20:34
Speaker
So, you know, fuck it.
00:20:36
Speaker
Right.
00:20:37
Speaker
Warhammer 40 K rules, baby.
00:20:39
Speaker
That's really it.
00:20:40
Speaker
You got a prison planet.
00:20:42
Speaker
You got a planet for experiments.
00:20:44
Speaker
Let's go.
00:20:44
Speaker
That's what we're doing.
00:20:46
Speaker
All hail the emperor.
00:20:48
Speaker
All hail the emperor.
00:20:51
Speaker
God.
00:20:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
Okay, so chapter seven, picking up, yeah, he shoots Councilman Fisher.
00:21:03
Speaker
I had already said most of chapter seven because I was just too caught up in the... Just so excited for the tension.
00:21:09
Speaker
So excited for the tension.
00:21:11
Speaker
The thrill ride that we're on.
00:21:14
Speaker
He kills the guy and Istvan is suddenly kind of lucid again.
00:21:19
Speaker
And he's like, oh, what the fuck?
00:21:21
Speaker
This wasn't my purpose.
00:21:22
Speaker
And they're like, who told you to kill the guy?
00:21:24
Speaker
And he keeps saying they did.
00:21:26
Speaker
Who is they?
00:21:27
Speaker
They did.
00:21:30
Speaker
Anyway.
00:21:33
Speaker
Any fart.
00:21:34
Speaker
Any fart.
00:21:35
Speaker
Bet.
00:21:38
Speaker
Up.
00:21:41
Speaker
Up.
00:21:42
Speaker
Up.
00:21:43
Speaker
Uh-oh.
00:21:46
Speaker
Hello.
00:21:48
Speaker
Hello.
00:21:49
Speaker
How you doing, kiddo?
00:21:51
Speaker
Good.
00:21:52
Speaker
Good.
00:21:52
Speaker
Good.
00:21:53
Speaker
What did your shirt say?
00:21:54
Speaker
What was that?
00:21:56
Speaker
It says, I got this.
00:21:58
Speaker
I got this.
00:21:59
Speaker
Excellent.
00:22:00
Speaker
I just threw on a random suit.
00:22:02
Speaker
I get it.
00:22:03
Speaker
I get it.
00:22:03
Speaker
And I appreciate that.
00:22:10
Speaker
And she fades into the background as mysteriously as she arrived.
00:22:21
Speaker
Kills me.
00:22:22
Speaker
That is my offspring.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:22:24
Speaker
Right.
00:22:25
Speaker
That's gotta be a good feeling.
00:22:27
Speaker
Um, uh, chapter eight, uh, the news is talking about the assassination.
00:22:38
Speaker
Jensi is like, is my brother, you know, fit to stand trial?
00:22:45
Speaker
They're trying to figure out.
00:22:46
Speaker
Very fair question.
00:22:47
Speaker
Very fair
Legal Proceedings and Manipulations
00:22:48
Speaker
question.
00:22:48
Speaker
They're trying to figure out where Estevan is.
00:22:50
Speaker
Doesn't seem like they're going to really find that.
00:22:54
Speaker
And they they they're like, is Estevan a political prisoner?
00:23:00
Speaker
Jensi meets some dude named Granon.
00:23:05
Speaker
Grannon's like, we have Istvan and he's a political prisoner and he doesn't have standard legal rights.
00:23:12
Speaker
And they they got a lawyer.
00:23:14
Speaker
His name is Lee Tompkins and he files some writs and some he and some documents with the judge.
00:23:26
Speaker
And they have a meeting with the magistrate.
00:23:30
Speaker
And there is like a legal proceeding for a good 40 pages.
00:23:35
Speaker
Um, at the end, um, the, the, the, the Tompkins is like, uh, objection and the judge says overruled and, uh, anyway, chapter nine.
00:23:52
Speaker
Um, it really is that they, they signed things in triplicate the end.
00:23:57
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:00
Speaker
It is really like that, guys.
00:24:03
Speaker
Chapter nine is basically just...
00:24:06
Speaker
from Istvan's point of view, what's going on.
00:24:09
Speaker
And it's like, oh, he sees things and he doesn't understand what's going on.
00:24:17
Speaker
And sometimes he sees patterns and other times he sees whatever.
00:24:24
Speaker
And he sees, anyways, he's a guy named Gray Man.
00:24:29
Speaker
Ah, yes, the Gray Man.
00:24:30
Speaker
The Gray Man, who, and the way that it's described is like, he squishes.
00:24:33
Speaker
Gray Man!
00:24:34
Speaker
Gray Man!
00:24:35
Speaker
He squishes the gray man down into a cube.
00:24:40
Speaker
I don't think that actually happens.
00:24:41
Speaker
I think the gray man was a hologram that was talking to him.
00:24:44
Speaker
I think that's what we're supposed to assume.
00:24:48
Speaker
He's being manipulated.
00:24:49
Speaker
He's being manipulated.
00:24:51
Speaker
And now Istvan is kind of being tortured for what's going on.
00:24:58
Speaker
And Istvan beats the shit out of the guy that's questioning him.
00:25:06
Speaker
And then this continues with the he's being abused.
00:25:12
Speaker
He's all this stuff.
00:25:15
Speaker
And then he after pages and pages of this, he sees the gray man again.
00:25:24
Speaker
And then the gray man is trying to dig into what Istvan might have saw or who he saw.
00:25:31
Speaker
And that Istvan needs to be taken off planet to a secure location for further interrogation.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:41
Speaker
And he's like, we'll meet again.
00:25:43
Speaker
I'll get you next time.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:51
Speaker
Chapter 11, more torture for Istvan.
00:25:55
Speaker
Sure.
00:25:55
Speaker
Why not?
00:25:56
Speaker
He's being no food.
00:26:01
Speaker
He's in space now.
00:26:03
Speaker
They're transferring him on a spacecraft.
00:26:06
Speaker
Uh, and then he docks at a space station and he meets the gray man, um, who is like, it's my turn to interrogate you.
00:26:14
Speaker
Uh, Oh, good.
00:26:18
Speaker
And then fucking he goes on a larger ship and then, uh, they're like, he, the gray man's like, ignore the, what's happening.
00:26:28
Speaker
And the crew is like, okay.
00:26:30
Speaker
And, uh,
00:26:34
Speaker
Isvan is strapped to a chair and the gray man is like, okay, I'm going to hurt you now.
00:26:44
Speaker
And then, okay.
00:26:48
Speaker
So he injects him with something and it's, it's very painful.
00:26:54
Speaker
That was three chapters of
00:26:59
Speaker
Torture and smoke and daggers and shit.
00:27:04
Speaker
Smoke and mirrors, cloak and daggers.
00:27:06
Speaker
It's all the same.
00:27:08
Speaker
Just fucking Jesus Christ.
00:27:11
Speaker
What the fuck am I reading?
00:27:14
Speaker
I don't care.
00:27:17
Speaker
Like, stop showing me Istvan's point of view.
00:27:20
Speaker
I don't care.
00:27:22
Speaker
Like, we have done nothing to care about what Istvan's point of view.
00:27:27
Speaker
We have done nothing to care about anybody's point of view.
00:27:30
Speaker
Gen Z is, like, mealy-mouthed about whether he even likes his brother.
00:27:34
Speaker
He's like, I guess, fucking... Anyway...
00:27:40
Speaker
Gen Z has a dream that's kind of like mirroring what's happening to Istvan, suggesting that they have some connection or whatever.
00:27:51
Speaker
And like he imagines the same pain that Istvan is going through.
00:27:55
Speaker
And then he wakes up and then he gets a message.
00:28:03
Speaker
He goes to work and he
00:28:07
Speaker
He's he submits requests to the military for contact with his brother and he's doing his job and he gets a message from his mother who remember was asylumated earlier.
00:28:22
Speaker
She was sanitarium.
00:28:24
Speaker
She was sanitarium earlier in the book.
00:28:29
Speaker
And so, yeah, yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker
Then Jensie also gets a message from Henry about a job opportunity, but lacks details about the location.
00:28:43
Speaker
And then Jensie learns of his mother's sudden death.
00:28:49
Speaker
Like the next day, his mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
00:28:55
Speaker
And he's like, I must find Istvan.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:02
Speaker
Chapter 13, Grotter is back, wakes up in his bed and answers a vid call from a man who was introduced by Blackwell.
Commander Grotter and Political Conspiracy
00:29:13
Speaker
And the man is the gray man.
00:29:15
Speaker
And Grotter's like, well, what's up with Blackwell?
00:29:18
Speaker
And the gray man is like, what do you know about this guy, Fisher?
00:29:23
Speaker
And Grotter's like, I don't know.
00:29:25
Speaker
And the gray man's like, he was shot.
00:29:29
Speaker
in the head and we got the guy Istvan and Grotter's like okay and then Grotter informs Istvan will be going to the prison camp that we've already established is on the world where they've decided to do the experiment for the marker
00:29:51
Speaker
stuff.
00:29:53
Speaker
And then gray man who is like, we bought, we all the also, we don't trust Blackwell.
00:29:59
Speaker
And I'm like, isn't Blackwell in the fucking room?
00:30:01
Speaker
Didn't Blackwell.
00:30:02
Speaker
Right.
00:30:02
Speaker
He's like right there.
00:30:03
Speaker
Right.
00:30:03
Speaker
It's kind of, kind of awkward guys.
00:30:07
Speaker
You're kind of awkward.
00:30:09
Speaker
Gray man tells Grotter like, all right, pretend this conversation never happened.
00:30:17
Speaker
Easily done.
00:30:17
Speaker
And he goes back to bed.
00:30:20
Speaker
Chapter 14, Jensee considers joining the, hey, Colonial Marines, to get security clearance.
00:30:33
Speaker
And then he gets a call from Henry, who is like, listen, I don't have a lot of time, but I like there.
00:30:46
Speaker
And it's risky that I'm telling you this, but I know I found out your brother is alive and well.
00:30:52
Speaker
And Henry can't disclose where it is, but he's at the penal colony where Henry works.
00:31:00
Speaker
And then Gen Z is like, well, where the fuck is he?
00:31:03
Speaker
And then Henry's like, I can't tell you.
00:31:05
Speaker
And then she's like, well, what the fuck?
00:31:07
Speaker
Why are you calling me then?
00:31:08
Speaker
And then Henry's like, oh, OK, Aspera.
00:31:11
Speaker
And then he hangs up.
00:31:13
Speaker
And that's that's the end of the chunk that we're covering tonight.
00:31:18
Speaker
So that's it.
00:31:19
Speaker
That's it.
00:31:19
Speaker
That's it.
00:31:20
Speaker
That's it.
00:31:21
Speaker
How did I do?
00:31:22
Speaker
You did good.
00:31:23
Speaker
You did good.
00:31:23
Speaker
I think you covered everything pretty well.
00:31:26
Speaker
Thank you.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
What do you think?
00:31:34
Speaker
I actually did give this a lot of thought because there were certain...
00:31:41
Speaker
I was having certain feelings that I couldn't completely understand.
00:31:44
Speaker
There was like a level of sympathy I had for the book that I didn't have last time.
00:31:48
Speaker
And I think I do believe that it has more to less to do with the fact that I do respect him as a writer more now than I did before.
00:31:58
Speaker
It comes from the fact that.
00:32:02
Speaker
If in any good thriller, scientific thriller, Jurassic Park, stuff like that, it's fun to have some interesting kind of like sciency, boring background stuff, like to really invest yourself in your characters and to so that when you wipe them out, it's it's that much more painful.
00:32:28
Speaker
Stephen King knows this very well.
00:32:30
Speaker
He does it very well.
00:32:31
Speaker
Um, the problem with this and with, cause I can tell you, I know what's going to happen.
00:32:38
Speaker
Um, if it's anything like the last book we read, it will be bureaucracy, political, cause it's been turned into like a political drama.
00:32:50
Speaker
uh, uh, like the last one, it's like, it's, it's the background guys.
00:32:54
Speaker
It's like, like take all the shit that they talk about in like the audio logs and a game of dead space and give it life and make the characters, uh, uh, real.
00:33:05
Speaker
And, and, and it's so fucking boring.
00:33:07
Speaker
Right.
00:33:08
Speaker
Uh, and then in the last 10th of the book, we get, uh,
00:33:12
Speaker
Monster, monster, monster, monster.
00:33:14
Speaker
And as I recall, that was where it actually was pretty cool.
00:33:17
Speaker
I was like, oh, that's fun, at least.
00:33:20
Speaker
And but the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
00:33:24
Speaker
Not even close.
00:33:25
Speaker
It's not worth the squeeze.
00:33:27
Speaker
And the problem is, is that.
00:33:30
Speaker
It's a very interesting idea to get into the brass tacks of the religion and the marker.
00:33:39
Speaker
And it's a very interesting idea.
00:33:42
Speaker
But if you don't balance it with what made the Dead Space franchise great,
00:33:48
Speaker
which is body horror and science fiction horror and just scares and action and stuff like that.
00:33:56
Speaker
If you don't balance it out, it becomes what we have with these books.
00:34:00
Speaker
And that is a very dull, dry piece of work.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:04
Speaker
That barely resembles...
00:34:07
Speaker
It's source material.
00:34:10
Speaker
It's not as overt.
00:34:11
Speaker
It's not as egregious as like the Dark Souls novelization, for example.
00:34:14
Speaker
Right.
00:34:15
Speaker
Which was clearly just a by the numbers fantasy novel that he just slapped Dark Souls on.
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker
It's not as bad as that.
00:34:22
Speaker
But it's close.
00:34:23
Speaker
It's close.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's pretty close.
00:34:26
Speaker
And I was hoping we would hit a redemptive arc with this book.
00:34:30
Speaker
But it's clear that this was just this was a paycheck.
00:34:33
Speaker
Evan said needed a need a new car or something like that.
00:34:36
Speaker
Right.
00:34:37
Speaker
And he took on the task of, you know, doing a sequel for however much money.
00:34:41
Speaker
And get your paper, boo boo.
00:34:43
Speaker
I don't I'm not.
00:34:46
Speaker
Not mad about that.
00:34:47
Speaker
It's just that this is such a, it's no wonder this is out of print.
00:34:51
Speaker
No one wants to read this.
00:34:52
Speaker
Right.
00:34:53
Speaker
If you were a dead, because here's the thing, you and I, Kevin, are overly educated.
00:34:59
Speaker
Let's be real.
00:35:00
Speaker
We are.
00:35:01
Speaker
Too many degrees.
00:35:02
Speaker
Too many dang degrees.
00:35:04
Speaker
At our best, we're ruining parties.
00:35:06
Speaker
At our worst, we're pretentious as hell.
00:35:11
Speaker
And we cannot appreciate what he's doing here.
00:35:14
Speaker
So what do you think your average bonehead who's like dead space, scary monsters and aliens and shit, and they give a book a try and they pick this up.
00:35:24
Speaker
It's like, how well do you think that went over with them?
00:35:27
Speaker
Like, yeah, like if it's if it's going this badly with a lead, lead balloon, right?
00:35:33
Speaker
Noisish lead balloons.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
Am I right?
00:35:36
Speaker
Exactly.
00:35:37
Speaker
And so it's so it's very I don't I don't know who this book is for.
00:35:43
Speaker
Uh, which we've run into a lot with, with, uh, with adaptations.
00:35:47
Speaker
So yeah.
00:35:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:49
Speaker
Not, not, not thrilled.
00:35:51
Speaker
I see where they're going with it.
00:35:52
Speaker
They're, we're going, we're going to that planet and it's going to go haywire.
00:35:55
Speaker
And that could work if we haven't, if we haven't gotten through a third of the fucking book to get there.
00:36:02
Speaker
A third of the book is done.
00:36:04
Speaker
That was a third of the book.
00:36:06
Speaker
These details are 10, 15% of the book at best.
00:36:11
Speaker
We need to start fucking this.
00:36:13
Speaker
If anything, if there was any book that needed an in media res start.
00:36:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:21
Speaker
There was this, it was this we needed to already be on Espera.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:26
Speaker
With like fucking Jensie trying to get his brother out and then shit hits the fan.
00:36:32
Speaker
And we find out.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker
There's nothing overtly wrong with the storyline of Jensie and Istvan.
00:36:41
Speaker
It's kind of a there's a gray, weird area where it's like autism equals something.
00:36:46
Speaker
But he's being manipulated.
00:36:48
Speaker
It's clear that that's not what it is.
00:36:49
Speaker
Sure.
00:36:50
Speaker
So it's a little gray there, but okay, I can look past that.
00:36:53
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with a storyline like that and that leading into a dead space antics horror kind of thing.
00:37:01
Speaker
But we've got to get our fuck on.
00:37:03
Speaker
Like we've got to, like we're lubed up.
00:37:06
Speaker
We're ready to roll.
00:37:09
Speaker
Fucking put the P in the V for Christ's sake.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:14
Speaker
It's just so dumb.
00:37:16
Speaker
Like the entire stuff with the military guys.
00:37:18
Speaker
Like I don't need to know any of this information.
00:37:23
Speaker
This is not relevant to, and maybe it's relevant to the story that he is telling.
00:37:30
Speaker
What I'm saying is this isn't the story you should be telling if this information is relevant.
00:37:36
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:37:37
Speaker
That's it.
00:37:38
Speaker
No, you nailed it.
00:37:39
Speaker
That's exactly what it is.
00:37:41
Speaker
This it's not, it's not that this isn't relevant to the story he's telling.
00:37:44
Speaker
It's that this is the wrong fucking story.
00:37:47
Speaker
It is.
00:37:47
Speaker
It's you need to, we should have started over from the beginning.
00:37:52
Speaker
Um, it's, it's.
00:37:54
Speaker
I was so wound up.
00:37:55
Speaker
I knocked my mic off.
00:37:56
Speaker
I know.
00:37:57
Speaker
I saw that.
00:37:58
Speaker
It was, it was, it was violent and cool.
00:38:01
Speaker
Uh,
00:38:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:03
Speaker
It's like, I need to, I need to do something with this.
00:38:06
Speaker
Cause it's like, I tighten it as much as possible and it's still a little bit loose and sometimes it just goes dunk.
00:38:15
Speaker
Oh, and when your microphone's like, I'm out.
00:38:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:19
Speaker
And when you're making firm, serious points, you need a microphone that'll stand up scrutiny and physics.
00:38:26
Speaker
Let's face it.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:28
Speaker
So that's, that's how I'm feeling.
00:38:29
Speaker
You know, that's,
00:38:31
Speaker
How are you?
00:38:33
Speaker
I'm fine.
00:38:34
Speaker
Fine.
Patreon Promotion
00:38:35
Speaker
We're all fine here.
00:38:36
Speaker
How are you?
00:38:38
Speaker
No, I don't like it at all.
00:38:41
Speaker
I think it's boring.
00:38:42
Speaker
And I think it's the characters don't really appeal to me in any particular fashion.
00:38:50
Speaker
There's nothing.
00:38:51
Speaker
Here's the thing.
00:38:52
Speaker
There's nothing interesting about Jensi as a character.
00:38:55
Speaker
Oh, he's just your bland narrator.
00:38:57
Speaker
Basically.
00:38:57
Speaker
He's just there and just saying, but what about my brother?
00:39:03
Speaker
If he's there for things to happen to.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:39:08
Speaker
And, you know, there's a lot of like weird stuff with the mothers in it always being like, yeah,
00:39:16
Speaker
Like the foster mother being, you know, scared and attacked.
00:39:22
Speaker
And then the mother, the original mother being a carry mom.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:27
Speaker
Honestly, I started like tracking and like,
00:39:32
Speaker
a whole lot of women in this book.
00:39:34
Speaker
There weren't a lot of them in the last one.
00:39:36
Speaker
There weren't a lot of them in the last one.
00:39:38
Speaker
And the last one was all about trying to find wasn't the last one trying to like find the girl or something like that or she was kidnapped or something like that.
00:39:48
Speaker
I don't.
00:39:49
Speaker
If I was if I was a professional, I would have like reviewed all that, but I just can't bring myself.
00:39:55
Speaker
Can't do it.
00:39:56
Speaker
Can't do it.
00:39:57
Speaker
I can't.
00:39:58
Speaker
Can't.
00:39:59
Speaker
And I'm not a professional yet.
00:40:01
Speaker
Not professional yet.
00:40:03
Speaker
Change my world, Internet.
00:40:06
Speaker
If this is our day job and I didn't look at it well, then I wouldn't have any goddamn excuse, would I?
00:40:11
Speaker
I wouldn't have any excuse.
00:40:12
Speaker
But guess what?
00:40:13
Speaker
You know how you can make that our day job?
00:40:16
Speaker
How's that?
00:40:16
Speaker
You could go to PixletPod.com or Patreon.com slash PixletPod.
00:40:22
Speaker
Either one will get you there.
00:40:24
Speaker
And you'll be on our Patreon page.
00:40:26
Speaker
And you, too, could become a patron of us.
00:40:30
Speaker
Much like the random dudes paying Michelangelo.
00:40:36
Speaker
It was the, the, the Medici's did they, were they?
00:40:39
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:40:40
Speaker
Was that, was it the Medici's?
00:40:42
Speaker
Was it the Medici's?
00:40:44
Speaker
Italian history is a big blank or the other like famous Italian family, the Borgias.
00:40:51
Speaker
Don't know.
00:40:52
Speaker
Don't remember.
00:40:54
Speaker
But somewhere my, my Italian history professor silently weeps.
00:41:00
Speaker
He weeps.
00:41:02
Speaker
Who cares?
00:41:02
Speaker
He's a Trump supporter.
00:41:03
Speaker
Anyway, I,
00:41:09
Speaker
Uh, yeah.
00:41:09
Speaker
So go over on patreon.com slash pixel.
00:41:12
Speaker
Uh, there you could join for free.
00:41:14
Speaker
You could, uh, $1 tier, $5 tier, $10 tier.
00:41:18
Speaker
Each one, uh, gets you something, a little something special.
00:41:22
Speaker
$1 gets access to, uh, some of our private posts, uh, Phil's review blog, uh, $5 gets you access to the bonus, uh, content that we record before every episode.
00:41:34
Speaker
Uh, uh,
00:41:35
Speaker
And $10 gets you your name shouted out at the beginning of the episode.
00:41:42
Speaker
And bear with me.
00:41:44
Speaker
Okay, I got it.
00:41:46
Speaker
Thank you.
00:41:49
Speaker
See, I used to have the names memorized and then we added a bunch of names and now I don't have them memorized.
00:41:54
Speaker
And then more of you came in and started giving us money.
00:41:57
Speaker
God damn it.
00:41:58
Speaker
Jesus loves you.
00:42:00
Speaker
Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Chut Beaks, Dummy Thick, and Friendly Friend.
00:42:08
Speaker
Thank you for being a friend.
00:42:09
Speaker
We love you.
00:42:13
Speaker
We love you.
00:42:15
Speaker
And you know what else I love?
00:42:18
Speaker
What's that?
Demo for 'Keep Driving' Strategy Game
00:42:19
Speaker
What are you, Brian?
00:42:22
Speaker
Oh, OK.
00:42:22
Speaker
All right.
00:42:22
Speaker
So there's a very obvious one here.
00:42:25
Speaker
But so I'm going to start with my demo of the week.
00:42:28
Speaker
Demo of the week.
00:42:31
Speaker
Imagine a cool theme song going in there.
00:42:34
Speaker
I got to tell you, I have I kind of made a decision at some point in the past month that next year I was not going to.
00:42:42
Speaker
I was not going to be so beholden to trying every new game that like came out, like in the interest of like trying to chip away at my backlog.
00:42:53
Speaker
Sure.
00:42:55
Speaker
And then I played the demo for a game called Keep Driving.
00:43:00
Speaker
Oh, you know what?
00:43:01
Speaker
I think Jesse Grasher talked about this.
00:43:05
Speaker
This game fucking rules so far.
00:43:09
Speaker
Like, as far as the demo is concerned, it is, I don't know where it's going.
00:43:14
Speaker
But the whole point of the game is it's a kind of a strategy game where you are some guy or girl in a car.
00:43:24
Speaker
Usually you can have like a beat up sedan.
00:43:26
Speaker
You can get some sort of muscle car, a truck, and they all have different advantages and disadvantages.
00:43:30
Speaker
And you got a big ass map and you got a goal.
00:43:33
Speaker
And so you're going to follow the map.
00:43:35
Speaker
and take a route to get to like, and in the demo, your goal is you got, you've got a video game.
00:43:40
Speaker
You're going to go meet your friend way down on the South side days away and play video games with your friend.
00:43:46
Speaker
That's the whole point.
00:43:48
Speaker
Um, and so you get in the car and it's got lovely pixel style graphics.
00:43:56
Speaker
Uh, and you,
00:43:58
Speaker
turn on the music and it's this kick-ass college radio indie rock that's awesome they've got like yeah they've got all these they've got a whole playlist of like bands you've never heard of uh playing kind of kind of in my opinion kind of perfect road music you know uh like i said just like that kind of college indie sound right um
00:44:21
Speaker
You start out with a job, you can pick your job and that will give you advantages.
00:44:25
Speaker
You can start unemployed and there are advantages and disadvantages to that.
00:44:30
Speaker
And you've just got all these little options like you do in a game like this.
00:44:34
Speaker
But the whole point of the game is you're just driving.
00:44:37
Speaker
Now, as you drive, you run into hazards.
00:44:39
Speaker
This hazard might be it's and it's usually something pretty simple, like trying to get around a truck that's going too slow or finding something on the side of the road or something along those lines.
00:44:52
Speaker
And there are puzzles.
00:44:54
Speaker
It's kind of like a it's like a it's like a matching game.
00:44:57
Speaker
Basically, you've got certain abilities and the puzzles have different colors and the colors correspond to different things.
00:45:03
Speaker
And you're just trying to match them up.
00:45:05
Speaker
And it's pretty simple stuff.
00:45:08
Speaker
You can also pick up hitchhikers.
00:45:10
Speaker
You get passengers and the passengers provide bonuses and they level up with you and all that shit.
00:45:16
Speaker
And then you even got these moments that are like moments of introspection.
00:45:19
Speaker
Where it's like a storyline thing and you get like you're just sitting there driving and suddenly the guy next to you is like, hey, do you ever think about dying or something like that?
00:45:27
Speaker
And you and you get to choose how you respond to it and it will change your it's like disco Elysium.
00:45:34
Speaker
It kind of changes your stats and your character based on the answers you give.
00:45:39
Speaker
I don't know what this game's getting at.
00:45:41
Speaker
I don't know if there's a higher story to it or if it's literally just a game about driving wherever and living your life and all that shit.
00:45:50
Speaker
But there is something about it that is really keyed into...
00:45:55
Speaker
a lot of shit that really appeals to me that the music, um, as I mentioned earlier in the episode and in a sadder context, uh, I grew up driving everywhere, grew up moving constantly.
00:46:06
Speaker
So the road dog aspect of it really appeals to me.
00:46:10
Speaker
It's got a, an engaging puzzle system and I think it's coming out next year and I can't wait.
00:46:16
Speaker
I think this might be of all the demos I've played.
00:46:19
Speaker
This is the one that I can't wait to play the most.
00:46:22
Speaker
And I played some good demos.
00:46:24
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:46:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:25
Speaker
So keep driving.
Exploration of UFO 50 Games
00:46:27
Speaker
It's free on Steam.
00:46:28
Speaker
The demo anyway.
00:46:30
Speaker
Check it out.
00:46:30
Speaker
See what I mean.
00:46:31
Speaker
I really think this is going to be it looks like it's going to be something special.
00:46:36
Speaker
On to the more obvious thing.
00:46:38
Speaker
I got UFO 50.
00:46:43
Speaker
Welcome, brother.
00:46:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:45
Speaker
My life is over.
00:46:46
Speaker
I think I think this is it.
00:46:50
Speaker
It's like that card says at the front play forever.
00:46:53
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:46:55
Speaker
That's exactly what's so appropriate.
00:46:57
Speaker
And I, I got in there and you had mentioned some games, the pilot quest game.
00:47:03
Speaker
I knew that was like a clicker that you would want to come back to momentarily.
00:47:07
Speaker
So I started with that.
00:47:08
Speaker
I started getting like that rolling so that in between games, I could pop in there and, you know, up my guy and all that shit.
00:47:14
Speaker
Cause that's, that's a real long tail thing.
00:47:18
Speaker
Something's in my shirt biting me.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:20
Speaker
So I, I, I, I threw myself around briefly, uh, got started on that, uh, started bug hunter and I'm not good at it at all, but you're stuck on it, right?
00:47:32
Speaker
I'm stuck on it.
00:47:33
Speaker
I, I, I keep coming back to it.
00:47:36
Speaker
Uh,
00:47:37
Speaker
Because I really enjoyed the gameplay.
00:47:38
Speaker
There's something that Bug Hunter is.
00:47:41
Speaker
And the thing is, for anyone who's playing the home game who for some reason hasn't heard us talk about this game, this is 58 bit style games.
00:47:51
Speaker
There seems to be a theme.
00:47:52
Speaker
There seems to be something time together.
00:47:54
Speaker
There's probably something meta to this whole thing that maybe I'll find it eventually.
00:47:58
Speaker
Maybe I won't.
00:48:00
Speaker
I don't care because honestly, the surface level of it, it's like that one game you were talking about that was on your game of the year last year.
00:48:07
Speaker
Right.
00:48:09
Speaker
You know, it's like there's a meta to it.
00:48:11
Speaker
And if there is and if I find it fine, but I don't give a shit because.
00:48:15
Speaker
Sure.
00:48:16
Speaker
The surface level of it is good enough.
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah, you're you're in regardless.
00:48:21
Speaker
Right.
00:48:21
Speaker
Right.
00:48:22
Speaker
And I popped in and tried some of the other ones and rolled around and there are some other games that I'll get to.
00:48:29
Speaker
Then I found Grimstone.
00:48:32
Speaker
It's just it's Final Fantasy in the Wild West.
00:48:35
Speaker
That's really what it is.
00:48:37
Speaker
It's great.
00:48:38
Speaker
It's very grindy.
00:48:40
Speaker
It's pretty authentic in that sense.
00:48:43
Speaker
But it's really clever in these funny kind of ways.
00:48:48
Speaker
When you start the game, you're in this tavern that's burning to the ground and there's an angel.
00:48:54
Speaker
And there are like eight people in the tavern and the angel can only save four of them.
00:49:00
Speaker
And that's your party.
00:49:02
Speaker
So, and they don't tell you shit about these guys.
00:49:04
Speaker
So you just have to make, you have to make the picks based on like a real vague description of them.
00:49:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:11
Speaker
And I got kind of lucky and I got a pretty okay balanced group.
00:49:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:16
Speaker
And a very cool multicultural group, by the way, I got like this big, like gruff white guy who blows things up with guns, which, which I mean, that's, that's just a Southerner.
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:27
Speaker
That's just that.
00:49:28
Speaker
I got Lee, who's this Japanese like hand to hand expert.
00:49:34
Speaker
I've got her name and who is this like I think she's Mexican like dancer girl who she can learn, you know, different dances that like boost that buff everybody.
00:49:45
Speaker
And I'm playing and I've also got this Native American
00:49:50
Speaker
a spell caster, but you don't buy his spells.
00:49:53
Speaker
You, if you see an animal on the, on the map, you'll see, you'll find these random animals out in the middle of nowhere.
00:49:59
Speaker
And you go up to the animal and talk to the animal and the animal will talk to him and give him a spell and like teach him something.
00:50:05
Speaker
So he's like, it's like a druid shaman kind of character.
00:50:09
Speaker
And it's grindy and I'll probably be done with it before too long.
00:50:13
Speaker
And I have to move on with my life.
00:50:15
Speaker
Uh,
00:50:16
Speaker
But if this is what these games are capable of, this might be it.
00:50:22
Speaker
I might just be playing this for the rest of the year.
00:50:24
Speaker
It's just because why not?
00:50:27
Speaker
Like, there's just so much to play with here.
00:50:30
Speaker
And I'm enjoying myself so much.
00:50:32
Speaker
I think the most interesting thing about it is, like I said, they're Nintendo games.
00:50:36
Speaker
They're 8-bit games.
00:50:37
Speaker
But there are mechanics involved in
00:50:41
Speaker
that did not exist back then.
00:50:43
Speaker
And if they did, then they would be groundbreaking games.
00:50:47
Speaker
Like the cow clicker style game did not exist back then.
00:50:52
Speaker
You know, certain aspects of the Grimstone game that I'm playing didn't exist.
00:50:56
Speaker
Like you don't just...
00:50:58
Speaker
choose to attack and they hit you, you've got you've got a hit at a certain right mark and everything like that.
00:51:05
Speaker
You got to get the timing right.
00:51:07
Speaker
So it's fascinating to see that mixture of the old and the new.
00:51:11
Speaker
And that's what keeps it fresh and interesting.
00:51:13
Speaker
I don't know if we'd really enjoy this as much as we did if it was truly indicative of like 1988 video games.
00:51:21
Speaker
I don't know how much we'd really enjoy that.
00:51:23
Speaker
We say we'd enjoy it.
00:51:25
Speaker
But have you booted up Ultima four recently?
00:51:27
Speaker
No.
00:51:28
Speaker
And there's a reason for that.
00:51:31
Speaker
And not gonna.
00:51:32
Speaker
Not gonna.
00:51:34
Speaker
So those are the that's that's that's it.
00:51:35
Speaker
It's just been UFO 50 next week.
00:51:38
Speaker
I'll sure I'm sure I'll I'll have to report what games I've moved on to since then.
00:51:44
Speaker
But that's good enough for me at this point.
00:51:46
Speaker
What about you, Kevin?
00:51:47
Speaker
What are you playing?
00:51:47
Speaker
So what have I been playing?
00:51:50
Speaker
What have you been playing?
00:51:52
Speaker
Uh, let's see here.
00:51:54
Speaker
Uh, I'll, I'll work backwards.
00:51:55
Speaker
So today, before we got on, I was playing a little point and click horror game called devil's hideout.
00:52:01
Speaker
Um, which is, I just saw it on my, on the steam, uh, the queue.
00:52:08
Speaker
And I was like, point and click horror came out just like a couple months ago.
00:52:13
Speaker
All right.
00:52:14
Speaker
Like I'll do it.
00:52:16
Speaker
Um,
00:52:18
Speaker
Yeah, and it's like fully voice acted and all that stuff.
00:52:21
Speaker
So, you know, I'm interested.
00:52:24
Speaker
I'm interested and I started playing it.
00:52:28
Speaker
There's like some spooky stuff in there.
00:52:32
Speaker
So I'm digging it so far.
00:52:37
Speaker
Nice.
00:52:39
Speaker
So Devil's Hideout.
00:52:41
Speaker
I'll put a half hour to it.
00:52:45
Speaker
UFO 50.
00:52:47
Speaker
This little game called UFO 50.
00:52:49
Speaker
This teeny little game.
00:52:51
Speaker
Teeny little game.
00:52:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:54
Speaker
Let's see.
00:52:54
Speaker
I'm trying to think of what I've been playing recently.
00:52:56
Speaker
Oh, I've been trying to get the gold on Ninpec.
00:53:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yeah, which is you just have to beat it in order to actually get the gold on that one.
00:53:09
Speaker
So that's been my kind of, you know,
00:53:13
Speaker
the thing I've been going for.
00:53:14
Speaker
And I've also been quibble racing recently, which is just a hilarious little game.
00:53:23
Speaker
It's basically horse racing.
00:53:25
Speaker
You're just betting on these little things called quibbles and they run.
00:53:29
Speaker
You don't control them, but you can do things like give them steroids or have a guy break the knees of the other quibbles in the race.
00:53:37
Speaker
Oh,
00:53:39
Speaker
Oh, shit.
00:53:41
Speaker
I'm looking forward to that.
00:53:42
Speaker
That sounds great.
00:53:44
Speaker
That sounds great.
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:47
Speaker
So I started playing a game called Life Eater.
00:53:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:53:55
Speaker
Life Eater.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:57
Speaker
Not sure if I'm sticking with it, though.
00:54:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:01
Speaker
I didn't stick with that one as much as I thought I was going to.
00:54:03
Speaker
I was like, oh, this is really interesting.
00:54:05
Speaker
And then I was like,
00:54:08
Speaker
it feels like just kind of random.
00:54:09
Speaker
You just feel like you're clicking around a lot and it'll be like, no, this thing doesn't unlock.
00:54:14
Speaker
And we're like, well, I have no idea how much I got to do to unlock a thing on the timeline.
00:54:20
Speaker
Like there's no information.
00:54:23
Speaker
So you just try it until you get to a certain point and then you like get your points back or whatever.
00:54:29
Speaker
I don't know.
00:54:31
Speaker
I don't think it's got really neat.
00:54:34
Speaker
It's a really neat concept that is just not really executed particularly well.
00:54:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:44
Speaker
So what else have I been playing?
00:54:47
Speaker
I have a few demos downloaded.
00:54:54
Speaker
that I want to get to.
00:54:57
Speaker
Sorry, we're closed.
00:54:58
Speaker
I downloaded the demo.
00:54:59
Speaker
And, you know, I'm really, I really think that's going to be a neat one when I get into it.
00:55:09
Speaker
I've been playing, you know, because I had a stressful week, you know what I play when I have a stressful week.
00:55:17
Speaker
Fire up the old power wash simulator.
00:55:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:55:20
Speaker
I just got a clean.
00:55:21
Speaker
I just got a clean, to be honest.
00:55:26
Speaker
And also, I bought Call of Cthulhu on sale.
00:55:30
Speaker
Which one?
00:55:32
Speaker
It's the one.
00:55:34
Speaker
It's the detective game one that came out a couple of years ago.
00:55:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:55:40
Speaker
I enjoyed that.
00:55:40
Speaker
I enjoyed that.
00:55:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:42
Speaker
I was like, yeah, I'll get it.
00:55:44
Speaker
It was like randomly on sale for two bucks.
00:55:46
Speaker
So I was like, yeah, sure.
00:55:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:55:49
Speaker
That's worth that.
00:55:52
Speaker
That's the price to buy it at.
00:55:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:55
Speaker
So why not?
00:55:57
Speaker
We're there.
00:55:57
Speaker
And I also picked up a game that I got it.
00:56:03
Speaker
I'm looking forward to playing called While We Wait Here.
00:56:09
Speaker
And it's a little horror game where you are in a diner, trapped in a diner with a bunch of other people at the end of the world.
00:56:18
Speaker
It's like the world is ending outside.
00:56:20
Speaker
Sick.
00:56:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:21
Speaker
And you're just talking to folks and it's like, you know, one of those choose your own adventure, choices matter type things, depending on what you say to folks in the diner.
00:56:32
Speaker
Interesting.
00:56:33
Speaker
Interesting.
00:56:34
Speaker
You know, I like those kind of stories, those little end of the world existential stuff.
00:56:40
Speaker
I mean, I got it.
00:56:41
Speaker
Like, the first horror-ish story that ever really, like, reading-wise that ever really hooked me was that Ray Bradbury short about the end of the world and how, like,
00:57:01
Speaker
passe it was where everybody wakes up the next day from having a dream that the world will end like today is the last day and it's just like these parents are like should we tell the kids and they're like
00:57:18
Speaker
Well, I don't know if they had the dream, but if they didn't, there's no use in telling them, you know, no use in worrying them.
00:57:25
Speaker
And it's just like time zone by time zone, you know, people, it like everything goes out of contact until the world is over.
00:57:34
Speaker
And it's, it's a really, it chilled me when I was a kid, just how like,
00:57:41
Speaker
like everyone ends up having just accepting like this is this is the end I guess there's nothing else you know yeah this is happening no matter what this is happening so yeah that's that's it that's what I've been playing a very eclectic collection of games there that's very eclectic yeah eclectical I've downloaded a couple more demos
00:58:11
Speaker
Yeah, get those demos.
00:58:13
Speaker
Hell yeah.
00:58:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:17
Speaker
But that'll do it for tonight's episode.
00:58:18
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening.
00:58:21
Speaker
If you want to find us on social media, you can always find us on Blue Sky, on Instagram.
00:58:27
Speaker
Honestly, those are the two main places that we kind of post.
00:58:30
Speaker
Yeah, go find us there.
00:58:32
Speaker
If you want to get involved and talk with us though and talk with fellow fans, join our Discord.
00:58:40
Speaker
You know, it's free to join.
00:58:41
Speaker
You can find the link on the Patreon page.
00:58:44
Speaker
There's a link directly to the Discord.
00:58:47
Speaker
So go ahead, hop in there.
00:58:50
Speaker
It's a good time.
00:58:52
Speaker
And how do we normally end episodes?
00:58:55
Speaker
I can't remember that I've ever had a normal way
00:59:01
Speaker
of ending an episode,