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00:00:01
Reading "Why Adventure Games Suck"
1 Playsin 13 hours
Week 1 of the syllabus assigns Ron Gilbert's design manifesto from 1989, so Ben & Jess decide to read and discuss it.
Ron Gilbert's Why Adventure Games Suck: https://grumpygamer.com/why_adventure_games_suck/
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
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Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
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Transcript
Naming the Podcast for Better SEO
00:00:31
Speaker
It the Quest Quest podcast. Of adventure games. ah I was hoping you would just say the adventure game podcast.
00:00:42
Speaker
Like the Quest Quest podcast. The adventure game podcast. yes I mean, that's good SEO. I mean, that's what i because right now, like you you search for us, you're going to get like Quest Oculus. You're to get like Quest Diagnostics, things like that. But, you know, if we really hammer home the word adventure a little bit more in our title, you know, have it in there two to three times. I feel like we could really start to you grab more of those direct Google searches for the phrase quest quest.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah. Now let me try once again. how you doing, Jess? You know what? I'm doing great, man. I'm having a fantastic day. I'm very excited to talk about adventure games. But first, I feel like we should talk about other things that don't have to do with that. Because, i mean, we've been really on topic lately. I feel like we've been firing on all cylinders and really focusing. I think it was missed. I think missed did this to us. It gave us a laser like focus on talking about adventure games. And
00:01:45
Speaker
while that may gain us a small new audience, what will it do to all of our audience that we had already built that doesn't care about adventure games? Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. And I mean, the, the problem with mist was that I enjoyed it. I think mist like you and I both loved mist. And I think the, the,
00:02:04
Speaker
I think it got um some extra juice because neither of us went into it really expecting to enjoy it. I was less trepidatious than you, but I was still like, I'm going to try this and then I'm just going to use a walkthrough. And then at the end, I'll be like, that was interesting.
00:02:25
Speaker
um like That was kind of what the, what the, the plan was, and then I was surprised at how, how good a time I had. And it sounds like it was similar to you. Yeah. i mean, and that's a much better premise for an episode. you know, that it's like, we were shocked to discover this game that we had avoided for decades. We loved as opposed to, you know, I played about an hour and then I watched a long play video to finish it out. Yeah.
Chicago Air Quality Compared to Video Game Graphics
00:02:54
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, here's the thing is that it's too bad this isn't a video podcast because I can see i'm closing my eyes. And if you are not driving, listening to this podcast or or doing something that requires your active attention, close your eyes. It's like chopping Close.
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, don't chop a finger off. ah Close your eyes right now. And just, I'm not even going to say what I'm not even going to describe it because I see the YouTube of what our faces look like. And then the, the text I'll say what the the text is. it's It's like, we liked missed.
00:03:35
Speaker
And then, and then just in my face. And, and again, I'm going to leave that to you that has your eyes closed or your eyes fixated on the thing that you're you should be paying attention to.
00:03:49
Speaker
But you see it. You see both of our our faces making that face. That shocked face that I can't believe it. I be like I am so shocked. It looks almost like I'm about to vomit.
00:04:03
Speaker
Like I'm right on the edge. If actually vomiting. Yes, because we do, we like that gross out humor around here. That's like a big part of our brand. We like, we like the gross out humor.
00:04:14
Speaker
We like the fart jokes. ah Ben, like a lot of you, if you go back and listen, like Ben spent half of our Quest for Glory 2 episode just doing armpit farts. yeah And I was like, this is a game I really love, Ben. Could you take a little bit more seriously? And he was like, sure. And then just like three seconds later, just the loudest armpit fart you've ever heard. Yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
But we love that. We love that sort of raunchy humor around here. Yeah. So, so Jess, I'm talking to you, ah in, in smoky Chicago, Illinois. We are, I can barely see Ben right now. He is like mostly obscured.
00:04:52
Speaker
We are in the absolute, uh, like, uh, eye of the storm of like wildfire smoke.
00:05:04
Speaker
And, um, it is, you can, you can smell it outside if you choose to be outside and you should probably dig into your closet for one of those, like, you know, find your old COVID masks. Cause you gotta have one of those on.
00:05:22
Speaker
And, uh, uh, Jess, going to open up, uh, the, uh, the air now, app on my phone which gives me the air quality the aqi i is it's it's like harry s truman okay yeah it doesn't stand for anything yeah it's air quality so uh what uh what do you think uh price is right uh uh closest without going over what what do you think the aqi is
00:05:55
Speaker
The AQI now in Chicago, Illinois, uh, uh, it, the last time it took a reading, it says, uh, 8 PM. So, so about, what is the maximum on that scale?
00:06:10
Speaker
Um, that's a great question because i was led to believe it was a certain number and, uh, it is ah higher. going to say,
00:06:22
Speaker
I'm going to say it is 385. Oh, I... No. 385 just...
00:06:27
Speaker
oh i i ah no so three hundred and eighty five is a just over like uh is is is just over half oh wow the isn't like air quality already like hazardous isn't like 385 like in the hazardous zone well it says hazardous on my phone um so yes uh the air quality eye outside is 720. wow
00:07:07
Speaker
wow I have only been What? but Like that snowboarding game? Yes. Like the the
Review of Indiana Jones Sands of Adventure Board Game
00:07:16
Speaker
Atari snowboarding boarding game or my favorite resolution.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Yes. But I have only left my home three days or three times today. And I was like masked up. And when I came back in, my eyes hurt.
00:07:36
Speaker
like Wow. it's it's it's It's bad. It looks... We were talking about this before. I even shared a ah photo with you. It looks like Fallout outside. There is ah a haze, like a thick haze.
00:07:54
Speaker
and We've had like wildfire jet stream air and bad air before, but never like this, like where it's just like...
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, I'm looking at this photo been sent. It looks like the draw distance is turned way down. Yeah, there I've got a really crappy. ah Yeah, like, you know, why?
00:08:19
Speaker
It's it's I'm moving from my gaming PC to play something like the equivalent version on the switch. Like, you know? Yeah. but And you can really tell. Yeah, Chicago isn't rendering well today.
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's the mayor gave press conference and he said, yes, yes, I am aware we are going to turn on like the RTX, you know. The ray tracing. Yeah, they had to disable all ray tracing for Chicago. Not the tracing. The like the frame generation. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. DLSS. Thank you. DLSS. Thank you. We were both trying to remember what it was. Yeah. We turned on the DLSS, but as you know, it kind of makes everything look a little muddy, but does give you that speed with less hardware load.
00:09:16
Speaker
you know And people are raising their hands like, Mr. Mayor, or Mr. Mayor. or And he's like, please... We don't have time for all these questions, as you are aware. ah We wanted to get a better GPU, but when we were building the city, they were using GPUs to mine crypto.
00:09:37
Speaker
So we had to deal with like ah a used 3060 CPU. Yeah. And forget turning on ray tracing because the fan for Chicago is so loud. If that's running like, yeah, it looks great, but you can't hear anything. i mean yeah That's why call it the Windy City. Yeah, that's right. They they call it the Windy City because of our extremely loud GPU fan.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, it all makes sense. I love, I love fucking, i know I hate that the world is metaphorically on fire, but it's almost worse when it's literally on fire.
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah. You know? I, but I will say I kind of prefer metaphors, but then again, it's still also metaphorically on fire at the same time. Like it's not exactly like one ended and the other began. So now we're just metaphorically and literally on fire.
00:10:45
Speaker
And speaking of literal things, what have you been playing? Well, literally earlier today, Ben, I had a lovely board game experience that I want to share.
00:10:56
Speaker
What? Yes. Board gaming on a Thursday afternoon, as one does, with the family. um So I recently picked up a copy of a board game titled Indiana Jones Sands of Adventure.
00:11:14
Speaker
And you know this is a high quality product. You always get the most interesting licensed board games. Yeah, well, you know it's for a publisher you can trust because it was published by Funko Pops, which right away, you know it's good. Actually, i like this game a lot. Let me tell you sort of the setup of it.
00:11:33
Speaker
So you pick one of four characters. It's basically based around Raiders the Lost Ark. You're Indian,
00:11:50
Speaker
And the game begins in sort of a, You're exploring different parts of the the film Raiders of the Lost Ark while dodging one of the villains from the game, one of the evil Nazis or evil archeologists or whatever.
00:12:08
Speaker
But as you're doing this, as you're making moves to the game and trying to dodge this villain, You're also putting little gemstones into um bucket, like a mime car looking thing, that's part of a large contraption that forms an hourglass.
00:12:25
Speaker
So the idea is once you put enough gems into this thing as you progress through that round, The hourglass flips and now you're on like a three minute timer where it becomes a speed round. It basically turns into crazy eights where you're having to play cards on top of cards like Uno, matching colors, matching symbols, things like that to defeat this bad guy before the timer runs out. so It's an interesting sort of thing like you You start the round doing like kind of slow cooperative play where it's almost like a pandemic where you're trying to think, if I make this move, it'll set up the next player to do this move. It'll set the next player to do that move.
00:13:00
Speaker
So it's a very slow, meticulous planned out. How do we build this? And then once that timer flips over and it's a big like probably like a foot tall. It's a nice centerpiece. It's a it's almost like mousetrap or one of those games. It's all about the contraption. It's all about the contraption.
00:13:18
Speaker
But once it flips over now, it turns into this frantic. Yeah, just like and like speedo. Yeah, like you you need to be able to get through like eight trips around the table in three minutes. So there's not even really time to think. It throws everybody into panic mode. And then a new round begins with the new villain. It's actually, for a licensed game from a sketchy company, um it's...
00:13:44
Speaker
pretty good. Like the, the shift from, okay, we have time to be strategic. We have time to think this out. We have time to work together to, ah, should play you this card or that card is a neat little gameplay mechanic. I don't know if I've ever played a game that suddenly shifts into high gear like that. But, you know, it was pretty neat. I was pleasantly surprised. I found a new copy at Half Price Books where had been remaindered for $13.99. And if your Half Price Books is anything like the one I was at, they have roughly 900 of them at that price. So this is very attainable for a low price. Worth checking out. it's good If you like a cooperative game for up to four players, not bad.
00:14:24
Speaker
Now, there's go do thats how does this compare to designer Jeff Probst's earlier effort? You know, I think both of them have, both of them have sort of some neat physical elements. Like that game, the game box turned into like a ballot box to cast your travel council votes. And I bought an expansion pack to that game since the first time we played it, which comes with an actual immunity idol you can wear around your neck, just like on the show. So I like doodads in a game. Like there's something appealing about a game with doodads and contraptions.
00:15:02
Speaker
But Sansa Adventure, i think, is actually a much better game. I think this pacing of... And and it kind of mirrors Indiana Jones' pacing, where a lot of it is, you know, Indiana Jones is exploring, he's putting the pieces together and stuff, and then it turns into a big action set piece. It kind of gets that pacing, that slows down again for the next round with sort of more exploration, more hiding from the buildings, everything. And then all of a sudden, it's...
00:15:27
Speaker
Super action packed. You got to this right now. um It's a neat way to try to get the pacing of an action adventure movie into a relatively simple board game. So I actually recommend this one. Indiana Jones Sands of Adventure.
00:15:41
Speaker
Wow.
00:15:53
Speaker
I get the sense that
00:16:04
Speaker
largely become like just overall better. like Yeah, i think the floor is much higher. yeah yeah like It seems like
Riven Game Difficulty and Immersion
00:16:16
Speaker
the bad...
00:16:19
Speaker
Uh, like, uh, the bad board games that, uh, like, of-of our respective youths. Yeah, especially licensed stuff like this.
00:16:30
Speaker
like Because like listening to you talk about both that Survivor game and this, and I'm looking at like i'm looking at reviews on BoardGameGeek, which aren't 10 out of 10, but everybody's like, this is better. like in in like Everybody seems a little little surprised that it's better. And everybody, like it also seems like it's like, this is great to play with the family, which is...
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, this was good. I mean, I played it with my wife and my 13 year old daughter and all three of us had a good time. It was I think we played the full game, maybe lasted, don't know, about 30 minutes and everybody had a good time. And if it wasn't creeping up on dinner, I think we would have done a second game.
00:17:18
Speaker
So, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. What have you been playing, though? What licensed board games have you been playing? Well, you know, Jess, you know what I've been playing?
00:17:32
Speaker
After... Sorry, go ahead. I don't even know what I did, which was funny. I don't know yet. I don't know. Go ahead, please.
00:17:47
Speaker
last week's episode... we recorded last week's episode And when I say last week's episode, I mean two weeks ago. because Of course. Of course, this is not.
00:18:00
Speaker
Their immediate follow-up to Myst. Out of order.
00:18:06
Speaker
But I went and I bought Rhythm because it was on sale. That's what I was pre-laughing about was knowing where this was going and just how amazing it is. And I will say, will say, truly do not anticipate. Like I think that this was a, like me playing it now is just a little dabble.
00:18:32
Speaker
I don't think I have the time in me. to to really dedicate to ah to a Riven game. And this is, I played the, there like I picked up the the new remake, came out just two years ago.
00:18:47
Speaker
And it's, and i and I want to say, it's absolutely gorgeous. Oh, wow. Yeah. Strikingly good. um And I've also been told by a few people that this version of Riven is not quite the like the mega challenge that the original was.
00:19:12
Speaker
That they like more so than with Myst, which had like a couple light touches and added or or refreshed the Rhymeade. And added that difficult elevator door puzzle.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:29
Speaker
I mean, they did. They added it. That's crazy. Yeah. But... I'm probably the first person that was a point of friction for it. i You know what? I'm going to say no. I'm going to say other people have have done that. But anyway,
00:19:44
Speaker
like, I've been told that this version of Riven... they had a heavier hand fradual slope in slope difficulty up and kind of...
00:20:07
Speaker
uh, cluing some super difficult puzzles that, that people had a lot of problems with. And, like, and I do know that, like, you know, and I've also heard from like, some people are like, yes, but yeah the original one,
00:20:23
Speaker
You know, if you if you solve this big pain in the ass puzzle, if you actually do it, you like the greatest person alive. And you know what? I'm sure that's true. I've gotten a babble fish in my ear before in Hitchhiker's Guide. i don't need any puzzle that Riven has to offer to make me feel like a tough guy gamer.
00:20:46
Speaker
But anyway,
00:20:50
Speaker
the, like, so I've only played ah just a little bit of it, but I will say, pretty filled a page. Wow, there it is. And I'm not even, I'm i'm going to say i'm not even...
00:21:07
Speaker
like an inch far, but like immediately I'm like, that seems like something I should know. That seems like something that's important. That seems like something but that's important. That seems like something like I'm just immediately like not noting down like a ton of stuff.
00:21:22
Speaker
And I could be wrong on all of that. but it's just there's a lot of little things where I'm just like, this seems like this might be of importance, right?
00:21:35
Speaker
And so don't think... Like, because, because Myst is like a five, six hour game, like five, seven hour game.
00:21:47
Speaker
Like, Riven, I think, is is supposed to be like in the, like, 20s, 30s. Wow, that's a lot more game. um Is my my understanding. let's Let's take a look at how long to be.
00:22:01
Speaker
How long to be Riven 2024. Let's put those. Wow.
00:22:10
Speaker
This says, uh, this says 9, uh, uh, 9 to 11.
00:22:20
Speaker
Well, then, so I thought I'm i'm i'm wrong on that, but I... It'll probably take me at least 30 hours. Yeah, it will also so probably take me...
00:22:33
Speaker
i i don't know if I agree with that based off of what people have said to me. But but in any case... I, like, Myst took an enormous amount of focus, which was great and a lot of fun. Yes.
00:22:51
Speaker
That's what I really loved about it that we didn't talk about last week was, I mean, surrealistic adventure that will become your world. It kind of did. Like, I was very locked into that game in a way that, you know, it was sucking up enough attention that I could forget about other things, which is nice.
00:23:09
Speaker
But anyway, the like, yeah, you know what? Actually, no, I was starting to change the subject. But it's like that's something. And, you know, the reason that I didn't stream Myst and I assume you didn't and why I won't stream Riven is that like I really like...
00:23:31
Speaker
that it's just me alone and I'm sitting there with my notepad and I'm just kind of like poking at stuff and I'm not yeah being distracted. It's like being engrossed in a movie. Yeah. It's sort of a twofold thing. On the one hand, like, I mean, it takes some degree of attention to hopefully be entertaining while creating content like that. So you kind feel the need to like play for the audience a bit, but also,
00:23:55
Speaker
There's really nothing worse than being stuck on a puzzle with an audience. Like, that's no fun either. Like, if it takes me 30 minutes to figure out something that everyone else in the chat already knows, that that may be fun for them to watch me struggle, but I don't know if it's much fun for me to have all eyes on me being an idiot.
00:24:15
Speaker
yeah which would be about half of the Myst or Riven experience. You know, something i think we haven't talked a lot about that we really need to though is, Ben, you posted some of the notes you took for Myst on social media, and I think you put some in the
Nostalgia and Note-Taking's Role in Memory
00:24:30
Speaker
Discord. um Ben, you have really lovely handwriting.
00:24:34
Speaker
What? No. My handwriting quite messy. Oh, no. I mean, if you saw mine, like I was thinking it's like I would be ashamed to show someone my handwriting online. Like it is truly chicken scratch.
00:24:50
Speaker
well the Well, thank you very much. That's a nice thing to hear. I've never... i Like, that handwriting, like, the all caps, it is... You know, my extremely strange middle school that I went to, I had, like, probably I was among...
00:25:10
Speaker
the last one of the last generations that had to like one of the last classes that took a drafting class wow we had drafting and home ec wow and and stuff like that and i'm like no way in 2026 those are are still at my middle school no wonder you've been so successful on the nascar circuit with all that drafting I'm sorry, that's a really dumb joke. Edit that out. No, I'd say that. Cut me out. No way. I only edit out if if if I don't like my own jokes.
00:25:47
Speaker
Yes. Yours all stay in. Ha ha ha ha
00:25:55
Speaker
Have you noticed how Ben never has a joke that doesn't land on the podcast, but Jess is just constantly throwing out real boners? What's up with that? There there are people listening who are just like, well, Ben's doing a very bad job editing.
00:26:10
Speaker
but um But yeah, I took a ah drafting class and so there you go. Thank Mr. Kaminsky, my drafting teacher, ah that like that was the specific script like that all caps like clear because it's not like because I have a like a mixed caps one, which is way messier. But like if I'm writing for clarity,
00:26:39
Speaker
Like if I'm taking notes that I want to refer back to as I'm, you know, ah playing a puzzle heavy game, because I did. But like, you know, playing playing that, um I did refer back to it frequently, but also like, and I'm i'm sure you you feel this way too. Like, there are a lot of times I take notes, like either in a meeting or in a class or whatever, and I never refer back to them.
00:27:08
Speaker
But if I didn't take the note, I wouldn't remember. Yeah. The act of writing it down promotes active listening. It promotes retention, all those sorts of things. These are things that I tell my students on a regular basis, and they don't believe me. They're like, whatever, prof. they're sitting there with their hats on backwards and their sunglasses and their feet kicked up on the desk in front of them. And, yeah, it's just. Okay, Dr. M, whatever. Yeah, that's right. And they just got their skateboards and skate out of the classroom. They don't listen to me. They don't want to or write something down.
00:27:42
Speaker
hey jm i'm going back to the canteen to play 720 that's what they're constantly saying to me uh yeah and i'm like we don't have a canteen we have a student center and yeah don have it
00:28:00
Speaker
Next to you. then they skate out of there. yeah um Yeah. They rollerblade out. they They put on their Oakley shades. They take off their Ray-Bans. They put on their Oakley shades and they just, yeah, they rollerblade out of the room. God, they look cool.
00:28:16
Speaker
Yeah. They look so cool.
00:28:20
Speaker
You know, so ah you were talking about a a board game you were playing with your family.
Family Traditions of Vacation Board Games
00:28:28
Speaker
I am, so tomorrow ah afternoon, i am flying back east to i have a big vacation trip with my family. We rented out a house near a lake in the middle of nowhere.
00:28:46
Speaker
um And the amount of board games that that my family, like board games and card games of every difficulty and complexity level that in dice games, um, that, uh, uh, we packed,
00:29:09
Speaker
if If, like, you stopped my older brother, like, if you were, like, if he was crossing a ah border and, ah like, Border Patrol, like, looked through, ah like, his his car...
00:29:25
Speaker
they would think that he was like a prepper for a board game apocalypse. Like there are, we always have, and this is the funny thing, like, because i was like having, we were having this chat on my family discord.
00:29:42
Speaker
um where bunch of nerds yeah and like my my my uh brother pete was like okay i'm bringing this and he lists off like a dozen board games and then my sister margo is like okay well yeah and i'm bringing all of this and it's just like ben is there anything that you want to bring like keeping in mind that i'm not driving there was like
00:30:06
Speaker
You know, like the thing is, is that we have so many board games and we're not going to like, we're not even going to come close to playing all of them. But you want the options. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You want the options.
00:30:17
Speaker
I, that would be a great way to smuggle contraband. yeah Like if you had like 20 board games in your car and like the first 10 on the stack didn't have anything illegal in them, but then the ones below that you just pack full of, like like by the time the cop has looked through a few, he's just like, this dude's just a board game nerd. guys whatever can nerd He doesn't have hugs. uranium.
00:30:41
Speaker
yeah he doesn't have uranranium He doesn't have unobtainium in this box. Avatar, the the board game of the movie designed by Jeff Probst.
00:30:56
Speaker
How'd he get on that one? Wow. um I know you're a big avatar head. i won't. if to To give a sense. and and No, that's my friend Trenton. um To give ah a sense of.
00:31:15
Speaker
Jeff Probst makes and the world takes. um Now, to to give a sense how intensely board game and game focused my family is, that my my sister always has in her purse like a little like clear plastic container that has like 20 to 25 mini dice. all us,
00:31:45
Speaker
wow and as a family all of us we'll play like if we're at a restaurant or if we're waiting, like if we're all at a place and we're all waiting for something, those dice come out and we play a Perudo, which is a variation on a liar's dice.
00:32:04
Speaker
Wow. And we all play liar's dice. and Just like leisure suit Larry larry seven, just like leisure suit Larry seven, or as our friends across the pond say, leisure suit Larry seven.
00:32:19
Speaker
Or said. Yeah. Thank you. I was getting there.
00:32:29
Speaker
but yeah know, that's so funny because that is the experience of, I imagine someone with, you know, a lot of siblings as an only child. My experience growing up was having a bunch of board games that would just sometimes like walk into a room holding and everybody but just shake their heads. No, like we're not playing. yeah There's no time for board games. We have serious adult business. So yeah, I can't imagine. like Literally, my board game experience, credit I tell you, like, we played a lot Trivial Pursuit in my family. Like, that was the game. And you have to think, you know, i am six, seven years old. So that's not an ideal, like, playing field Trivial Pursuit. But my answer, rather than just, like, refusing to play with my parents, was just to...
00:33:18
Speaker
read encyclopedias and other reference books until eventually I could compete with them. And you know what? It worked. And now you're a professor. That's right. That wanting to be able to beat my dad at trivial pursuit, like all men, most of my accomplishments are about defeating my dad. And that's where it all began.
00:33:38
Speaker
Did you ever beat your dad? and Absolutely. I started dusting that guy, but that I was like eight or nine. Incredible. It took lot of work though. There's a, the, the, the onion recently republished this, this one, this is from like 10 years ago, of the headline relationship at point where woman has to learn boyfriends, families, weird card games.
00:34:00
Speaker
Oh, no. Like that's, that's the thing. yeah That's the thing with, it's certainly with my, with my family. It's like, That's when you're fully initiated. Like, you well, I mean, it's initiated, like, once once you're, like, you meet my family, like, you are going to end up Like, it's not even we're letting you in and you're you have to play a game with us. It is you've met us. Now you're playing a game with us. Ah, gotcha, gotcha. Now, does your family do anything like conventional along the lines of poker or is it all going to be? are not poker players.
00:34:39
Speaker
okay yeah um Okay, Like, we've stayed at like, so this is a ah summer thing we've done for, i think, like,
00:34:51
Speaker
we' renting these places has been like kind of a post 2020 uh thing and um we've stayed at places because it's like all of these like big rental houses that you get like they'll usually have some game like a game room in them yes usually board games that have many of their pieces oh yeah yeah yeah and the greatest uh art that says i'd rather be living on the lake that you can purchase at a target um i but like lake shoes here yeah they'll man we stayed at this one that had like
00:35:34
Speaker
Each room had like three to four, like of like that crappy, like on wood, like Tony TJ Maxx home goods. Yeah. Terrible.
00:35:49
Speaker
Every room, just more and more and more and more. It was wild, but that's in the kitchen have some of the, like, yeah don't talk to me until I've had my coffee or it's nine o'clock. Yes. It had, I think it had both of them.
00:36:02
Speaker
Like, Um, but it also had, ah like a full and well kept like poker table with like clay chips and everything. yeah And I remember being like, I guess we'll play poker. This is pretty cool. And we never played poker.
00:36:20
Speaker
We'll play shuffleboard because a lot of these places will have shuffleboard and we'll play foosball. Oh, like the table shuffleboard. Now that's a game. Yeah. Table shuffle. Like, uh, that's, that is a lot of fun. Um, especially if it's, it's well maintained.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, I don't I don't ah I mean I like ah I looked at it I'm pretty sure this has some of those amenities I'm pretty sure it has one of those like one up boxes or like you know just a BAME multi-cade kind of thing yeah um Because that was that was last summer when I taught everyone, I think I talked about this on the the podcast, i in amazed my nieces and nephews with the Galaga two ships trick.
00:37:13
Speaker
Which you taught me. I never knew that because I wasn't much a Galaga player. And then when I saw you do that, I was just like, wait, what? you what You could liberate the other ship? Then you have two ships?
00:37:24
Speaker
You always think about when I accidentally shoot that other ship, though. Oh, heartbreaking. I've killed a comrade, probably someone I went through starfighter training with. You know, they're now dead.
00:37:36
Speaker
And it's by my hand. but at that point they'd already been subverted by the enemy that's not the person i knew that's not the person that i trained alongside you know that's not the person that they're already dead it's too late they're already dead yeah unless i'd shot them free and then they would have rejoined me as my brother in arms yeah um anyway let's uh let's you know let's do something a little different let's talk about the topic uh The topic. Oh, man. So last week, we went through the the Sierra syllabus.
Critique of 1989 Adventure Game Design
00:38:11
Speaker
Yes. And when I say we, I mean you. Yes. This week. A whole week ago. ah Class is in session. let me Let me open up. ah I actually, I don't have this.
00:38:24
Speaker
I don't have this open. So let me let me pull it up. ah the syllabus. do you have that with you? What week was the, ah was this? That was week one right off the bat. Great. So yeah, we are let's, you know, let's just say this. i don't know if we're going to follow it because what was in week two? Yeah, right away. No, I think that, yeah, no i'm not doing any of that yeah and all the rest scene's pretty boring um i'm probably dropping this class after the first week um before on friday before like the schedule locks for the semester um but uh but required reading week one ron gilbert why adventure games suck
00:39:08
Speaker
Yes, this is an article by the one and only Ron Gilbert, of course, designer of The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2, a number of other beloved games. And this originally appeared way back in December of 1989 in the Journal of Computer Game Design, which It's actually a fascinating journal. i don't know if you've ever gone back and looked at any of these. It's a really fun read, looking at people relatively early in the history of yeah when people are first starting to think critically about what game design could and should look like.
00:39:45
Speaker
It's some really like luminaries in the field weighing in on some of these questions. Great read to go back to. It was published... I think six times a year. Is this on archive.org? Because I would believe it is i spent a few years since I've accessed them.
00:40:00
Speaker
But they all I have to like access like an academic database to something. No, I think these are available somewhere like on archive or something like that. I'll double check it. But he publishes a an editorial essay um in the December 1989 issue titled Why Adventure Games Suck. And this has been online for years as well. Grumpy Gamer. So it's like to save you and the the link will be
00:40:31
Speaker
ah if If you'd like to to read it before listen or check it out after the discussion, the link to it on Ron Gilbert's blog, Grumpy Gamer, will be in the show notes.
00:40:46
Speaker
And we want to use this essay as a jumping off point, I think, to talk more broadly about LucasArts design philosophy and how they envision this at this sort critical turning point, you know, 1989, 1990, as they're getting ready to break out in a big way with a series of massive hits. um Talk little bit about um how They viewed adventure game design a little bit differently, maybe than Sierra and Infocom and some of the other big players in the in the market. And how I think this essay by Ron Gilbert is in a lot ways sort of presaging a little bit of that.
00:41:30
Speaker
I definitely have thoughts on like frustrations with other publishers, but I'll i'll hold those until we start to to go down like kind of bit by bit. um Because it does feel like there are a couple ah like of his his points here that are very clearly like pointed shots. um It's interesting thinking about uh, and it's, it's clear that the, like, so you said, uh, this was in the December issue, eighty December 89. And so nearly one year later, October, 90, uh,
00:42:16
Speaker
is the release of, uh, secret of monkey Island. Um, and so like he was probably, would not even probably, he was certainly in the thick of development of secret of monkey Island. I would have to, i would have to guess, right. Yeah. Um, because he works on last crusade, Indiana Jones the last crusade, ah i
00:42:46
Speaker
he he works on that game. 89. that comes out in of 89. That's already out. in july of eighty nine that's already that's already out And ah definitively, that game does not follow this. Right. this this That game yeah has all sorts of problems that this, ah like, i I'm, you know, and I, and like, you know, even perhaps he might even feel little frustration because my understanding of
00:43:24
Speaker
uh it says may of 89 why it's on wikipedia it says july and then you scroll down and it says may get your shit where's my wikipedia man uh anyway um it's interesting to the timing of this because while ron gilbert is really spelling it out here pretty clearly in this essay um we already see in in some of LucasArts advertisements by that point, a lot of this philosophy is already starting to coalesce. And we'll talk about that a little bit as well. Ads as early as 1988 are starting to frame the idea that LucasArts is taking a different approach to design adventure games. And this essay, i think does a good job of walking through why they felt like there was a need for a different approach.
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah, and, um, the, like, uh, you know, I have just, just to, to loop back a little bit on, on Last Crusade, I think it was also made to, like, coincide with the release of the film.
00:44:33
Speaker
Yeah. And so they, they kind of were under the gun for it. Um, But yeah, let's I feel like we have the necessary context. I do. Yeah, one of the things one little additional piece of context that things pretty hilarious. um When Ron Gilbert posted this on his blog Grumpy Gamer in 2004, that's when he put it back online.
00:44:54
Speaker
um He writes a little preface to it that at one point, right off the the top in the second, second paragraph, who says adventure games are officially dead. I think this article from old man Murray written in 2002 sums it up pretty well, which is the infamous old man. Murray adventure games are dead article that believe we talked about in our adventure games are dead episode, but I kind of love that Ron Gilbert in 2004 is like, yep, they're dead. All right. It's genres over, but I'll go ahead and post this essay. And it was of course killed by mist. Um, now,
00:45:35
Speaker
And good riddance. Yeah, I agree. i But um I think he also says, I'll i'll revisit ah ill i'll revisit this at a point, but I'll get to that later.
00:45:47
Speaker
ah maybe I didn't read the intervening 22 years of his blog just to see. Yeah. That's going to be a project for next week. We're going to, we're catch you up on everything Gilbert has said since 2004. This, this is going to cover what he said in 1989. Something he wrote in 1989.
00:46:10
Speaker
So I, I want to, so there like it it, it begins and this is ah with, and I, i i'm i'm I'm going to read this quote here.
00:46:22
Speaker
One of my pet peeves is the recent trend to call story games, which we'll get to that phrase, ah story games, quote, interactive movies, end quote.
00:46:32
Speaker
They are interactive, but they are not movies. The fact that people want to call them movies just points out to how lost we are. What we need to do is establish a genre for our works that we call our own.
00:46:44
Speaker
ah And then he he goes on ah like, and then did it a later. The other source for the name interactive movie is what I call Hollywood Envy. Envy.
00:46:57
Speaker
Envy. Hollywood Envy. A great number of people in this business secretly, and not so secretly, wish they were making movies, not writing video games.
00:47:08
Speaker
Knock it off. If you want to make movies, then go to film school and leave the game designing to people who want to make games. And my little note here is snaps fingers. ah But it's.
00:47:20
Speaker
That's a crazy that is a patently crazy thing to say in 1989 when ah like, you know, he is standing astride ah what all trends in adventure games or as he refers to them story games ah like all trends in story games where everybody and you know we we ah talked about this in like Grace and I spoke about this in the return to Zork episode it's like
00:47:54
Speaker
It's like, well, eventually these are going to be movie games. Like that's, that's where we're going. um That's the goal. Yeah. No, absolutely. And you know, like I think about this, you know, from 1989, like juxtaposed against a lot of Sierra's advertising for King's quest for that is all about like, you know, we have this, you know,
00:48:21
Speaker
this cartoon introduction and this fabulous score. And you will believe a computer game can make you cry. mean, this, as I read it, almost felt, i mean, i doubt that he had Ken Williams specifically in mind, but i think Ken Williams is someone who is very much on the, we want to be in the Hollywood business. We want to be the Disney Hollywood.
00:48:43
Speaker
computers and we are striving toward interactive movies, even in 89 when such a thing was still a few years away from even being technically all that feasible in terms of full motion video. But yeah, I kind of like the, I mean, you got to hand it to Ron. He really is a grumpy gamer. He's not just going to go with the, he's not going to go along to get along.
00:49:05
Speaker
Well, you know, it's interesting thinking about this, this document and like, it's clear as you were saying, like, it's clear that the, this was stuff on their mind even before 1989. Right.
00:49:16
Speaker
Like even, you know, in, and we'll talk about those ads, but it's, it's, it's a really interesting thing because,
00:49:29
Speaker
um like they're kind of these, like this, this weird upstart, but it's a weird upstart funded and backed by one of the most powerful and wealthy names in entertainment.
00:49:48
Speaker
Yeah. It's like a punk rock band on a major label, but yeah, it And so yeah, it is and and so And like you read about like the early days Lucasfilm games and it is, it's a very scrappy operation.
00:50:08
Speaker
but it's a scrappy operation, uh, you know, from George Lucas who yeah like, isn't it was, it's like, do whatever you want as long as you It's like, don't lose money. And don't, was it like, don't embarrass me or is it just, don't ask of the yeah baby it's yeah, it's like hard scrabble times at Skywalker ranch. Right.
00:50:28
Speaker
And like, you know, ah like, know steven spielberg played their games and would call for hints um and so it's it's interesting like but but that gives them you know that's that's kind of the ideal if you're an iconoclast right is to be an iconoclast with with out of fear of like you know, of hitting the ground, like, you know, ah tightrope walking and just knowing that yeah like, there's a a massive trampoline beneath you. yeah It's like a trust fund baby.
00:51:08
Speaker
Like, but, but, but they're like, i I'm not ah like, I'm, I'm there. They're there.
00:51:19
Speaker
Because I think so much when there's a lot of money involved, Like, let's say you're one of the largest, wealthiest corporations on the planet.
00:51:30
Speaker
And let's just say, perhaps, that you make an operating system that, like, the majority of computers are on ah For some reason, even though you have all of that money, you're still going to choose to be every, like...
00:51:50
Speaker
Every cycle, you'll you'll cycle back and you'll cycle the other way. ah Remarkably conservative with your money. um And so like, when you look at like this, it's just like, all right, well, we're we're not going to ah like, you know, kind of turtle up with this and and try to make very safe things like.
00:52:12
Speaker
you have people like Ron here to like understand that this is actually a really wonderful opportunity to ah you know, like attack ah the the most powerful companies in the in the industry, 1989. Like, that's really interesting to me because it's like they didn't have to, they they could have easily done way less and it would have been fine.
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah, probably would have made them more money. There were plenty of companies out there not thinking a lot about game design and releasing very successful games anyway. Yeah. At the time, there was a lot of tolerance for a poorly designed game in this in this medium. And it is kind of interesting to see that you not only is Ron Gilbert you know thinking about making bears ah better design games, but he's also able to articulate exactly what he sees as the problems with the genre and what needs to be done to correct this.
00:53:13
Speaker
Well, and you also it's always, it's always refreshing to read something like this because there's always a temptation. ah if you're looking back, you're playing like some weird old game, playing some weird old game on the and NES. You're playing some weird old game, like, you know, from like, you know, on a DOS box or whatever, where it's just like, well, they didn't know. They didn't know that this wasn't fun. There was no way to know that the stealth affair wouldn't be a good game. People were simple then. They didn't know that this was yeah fun. And then like you read something like this, which like plainly says, it's like you, you, you play like, you know, you you get really pissed off at a Sierra game or you get really pissed off when you're playing Zork one because you didn't like your, your lantern ran out of ah energy and like, it's way too late and they have to restart the whole game.
00:54:03
Speaker
Like someone I know. yeah ah And like there's somebody who's like, yeah, no, that sucks. And we all know it. Everyone knows this. This is a yeah common, this is not a secret.
00:54:14
Speaker
Yeah, this this is happening to a lot of people. And if you're honest with yourself, you have to admit it's not as fun as it could be. So, and you know, in in Ron's defense as well, as he's getting ready to really like, you know, pick apart a lot of the the kind of tropes of this genre in the 1980s. He openly admits that there are, ah he violates a bunch of these rules in Maniac Mansion. Yeah. in In Maniac Mansion, in one place or another, i violated all but one of these rules.
00:54:47
Speaker
Some of them were violated by design, others by sloppiness. If I could redesign Maniac Mansion, all of the violations would be removed and I'd have a much better game. Which, well, let's we're let's ah let's just ah Put a pin in that last yeah phrase, because that I think is something we want to explore toward the end of this, you know, do we want to sand down all the rough edges, but we'll save that for a little bit later on.
00:55:13
Speaker
And I'll also say here, there's, there's one last thing before we get to the rules that he wrote down, which were, ah he says, some people say that following these rules make the games too easy to play. I disagree. That's interesting.
00:55:28
Speaker
And that's a really interesting kind of... That's a really interesting argument um because that is definitely a big-time argument. Like, it's like, well, so what, do you want to make these games ah too easy?
00:55:41
Speaker
And it's also like... He doesn't say this explicitly, but it sounds pretty clear to me that he's pro parser, which is interesting. Like when you consider like, you know, how a lot of like the Sierra developers felt like when they lost the text parser or like when they he's pro like point click parser.
00:56:02
Speaker
Yes. Yes. And I think it's ex parser. Yeah, throughout this whole thing, and I think it hits to that exact point that, you know, just following these rules make games easier. You know, i think that Ron is really trying here to get us to distinguish between a game that's difficult and a game that's frustrating.
00:56:25
Speaker
And I think he, a lot of these rules are about removing frustrations more so than the idea of taking away challenge from a game. Now, I think his critics would say that oftentimes what makes a game frustrating is its difficulty or what makes a game difficult is the frustrations that come with playing it. But he seems to be trying to sort of thread that needle a little bit.
00:56:49
Speaker
Yeah. So let's, uh, let's look at the, the rules, uh, the rules of thumb, uh, as, as he says, um, I'll, I'll, I'll read them off if you if you'd like me to. Yeah. And I think, I think as we read this thinking about how we see them reflected in monkey Island, I think you can really see a lot of this come through.
00:57:07
Speaker
Okay. Easy. All right. All right. Here, I'll read it. And you tell me, uh, the answer here and objective needs to be clear. What's the end objective of monkey Island? Okay, the end objective of Monkey Island Say in one, like, quickly, not not like, just one, like, nut sentence. Get to Monkey Island and stop the evil ghost power pirate LeChuck.
00:57:30
Speaker
I would say it's even simpler. He wants to be a pirate. Well, yeah, there you go. That's even better. Yeah. A mighty pirate. Because that's the first, that's the very, yeah it's that's how the game opens. yeah Like he he he he opens and he says, this is my objective.
00:57:43
Speaker
I want to be a mighty pirate. Yeah. um Okay. Next one. Sub goals need to be obvious. Okay. What are the sub name? What are the immediate sub goals in The secret of monkey island, keeping in mind that this isn't our secret of monkey island episode. No, which we will never do. Yeah.
00:58:04
Speaker
Never. Um, this, uh, yeah. I mean, the three trials are your immediate goal. You need to, uh, need to prove yourself to the pirate leaders. Uh, then you need to set sail and find monkey island.
00:58:19
Speaker
And then you need to escape monkey on to stop the ghost pirate LeChuck. And I'll say that, ah like, the sub-goals need to be obvious thing is is clear that that's something he's still thinking about, if you think about, like, in Return to Monkey Island. And I really like, you see other games with this feature nowadays, too, is that ah he, um like, and Thimbleweed Park has this as well, is the checklist.
00:58:46
Speaker
um like just really making it literal. Like it's like, just in case you really didn't know. um Next. And I do think Mikey Allen does that better than and like just in terms of laying out immediately, like literally calling it the three trials and yeah, just starting you down this very clear path of, you know, you know exactly what you need to be doing. You can kind of be working on these non linearly if you want to, to some degree at least. But yeah, I think that it is, there's a reason why it is,
00:59:15
Speaker
kind of the the quintessential version of this sub goals need to be obvious. All right, next one. Live and learn, which is to say it is bad designed to put puzzles and situations into a game that require a player to die in order to learn what not to do next time.
00:59:32
Speaker
This is quote, this is not to say that all death situations should be designed out danger is inherent in drama but danger should be survivable if the players clever.
00:59:43
Speaker
Is that in monkey island and in any way i don't remember. I mean, there's the there's the stay underwater for 10 minutes ah death, of course, in the secret of Monkey Island that, you know, if you're down there too long, guy brush can no longer hold his breath and and does. And then there's the there's the fun gag on Monkey Island with walking off the ledge, the restart, restore, quit Sierra gag where he bounces back up off the rubber tree. But yeah, this is something that I mean, you see deaths in Last Crusade.
01:00:16
Speaker
Mm Absolutely. And don't know the player learns a lot from them. can Zack and you can die in Maniac Mansion. Right. um But by Monkey Island time, I mean, I feel like the 10 minute death doesn't really count. Monkey Island essentially you can't die. Like you have to intentionally, because also the puzzle, like the 10 minute thing, like the solution to that is remarkably easy.
01:00:40
Speaker
Right. Yeah. um Backwards puzzles, which is to say the solution is found before the puzzle. that's a hard one. I feel like that's a difficult one to work around.
01:00:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, there, there are a couple of puzzles in, in monkey Island where I think you might, i think in general, that's not the case.
01:01:03
Speaker
That's kind of a like, it's kind of a weird thing to say that something does or doesn't like, i I, think what is ah annoying, which is kind of like a cousin to this, and maybe this is is when ah you are ahead of the game and think of the solution, but you have to do a bunch of other little things.
01:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, because I don't think he means here. I hope he doesn't mean yeah like something like I picked up the fish from, ah you know, the scumbar before I knew that I would need to give a fish to somebody. Like, I don't think he just means finding an inventory item before you found the puzzle that it solves.
01:01:46
Speaker
I don't think... That's what he means because that's hard to avoid. i mean, if, and if you only find an inventory items, once you've encountered the puzzle first, that's a tough thing to design.
01:01:58
Speaker
And that's a note like a locomotive has that. If you remember, like there's like an inventory item at one point, like in like one of the earlier parts of the game where you can't like, you see it and you know, you're going to pick it up and you know, you need it.
01:02:13
Speaker
But like the, your, your guys like, well, why would I want that? And then later It's like, okay, I'll get it. Yeah, that's right. i mean, that and that's a little weird. You know, maybe um maybe I'm misremembering this. Maybe this is just a product of only having watched you streamed it but and not played it myself. But I seem to remember when you played Toonstruck, there was a lot of, I'm going to go around the world and gather a whole bunch of inventory items and then look for puzzles like, But maybe I'm misremembering that one. But yeah, this is this backwards puzzle thing is ah is is kind of a tricky one to get around. um He says, you know, imagine you find a a crevice. i Ideally, the crevice should be found before the rope that allows the player to descend.
01:03:01
Speaker
Whereas literally, I think you can find you find the crevice at the start of monkey island too. It's like the opening cuts. Yeah. So there you go. There you go. And you immediately see the rope and then he solved that problem anyway. All right.
01:03:13
Speaker
I forgot to pick it up. um That's say the the famous like Sierra, ah like, oh, you didn't pick up the boot and soft lock. Yeah, soft lock. Yeah. dan man Doesn't have those great. um ah Those do really suck. those It is i mean it's something that I think LucasArts doesn't get as much credit for as they deserve. This idea that you are literally not going to be able to leave Melee Island until you have everything you need for the rest of the game. There is no way to get out of there without having checked off all those boxes. Yeah, I remember I first really noticed when I was playing...
01:03:55
Speaker
it was I remember like when i when I was playing Curse Monkey Island for the first time, like I remember having this this feeling, even as a kid, playing at release, was like 11 or 12, and like you know having this realization of it's like, I'm always going to have what I need. Yeah. And that feeling really good. like That's reassuring. Like,
01:04:22
Speaker
No matter where, like, it's like, all right, I'm like, I remember like when you, when you're in the quicksand and like you're sinking down and there was part of my brain that was just like, what if I'm stuck here? Because you can't leave the quicksand.
01:04:38
Speaker
What if I'm stuck here? And like, you know, I need to go back to an earlier save. And like, and then I was like, no, i everything I need is, is here. And like, and I mean, that game comes out eight years after this and they'd, you know, Lucas had already been making a ah ton of games following this template, but like I'd played so many Sierra games up to that point that like that moment of being trapped.
01:05:09
Speaker
Yes. And then being like, oh, my God. And then, like, this feeling of relief. Like, whatever it is, I can get out of here. Well, I remember even as early as when I was first playing King's Quest 2 as a kid, you know, being Dracula's castle. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah.
01:05:30
Speaker
And as I was getting ready to leave, thinking, you know, even as a kid, like, I don't think I'll be able to come back here. Did I do everything I needed to do while I was here? And as far as I know, I don't think you can go back. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can go back and forth across that polluted lake.
01:05:48
Speaker
You can't go back. All right. um So ah let's say here, puzzles should advance the story. Quote, what a waste of time and energy for the designer and player if all the puzzle does is slow the progress of the game.
01:06:03
Speaker
Oh,
01:06:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. good yeah Yeah. Like, you know, what would really is. And actually later on, there's, there's, you know, all I'll, I'll, I'm going to skip ahead later on. There's arbitrary puzzles, which feels like kind of a cousin to this. which these logic e academy these are These are two things like they're like arbitrary puzzles.
01:06:31
Speaker
Uh, it's like puzzles and their solutions need to make sense. They don't have to be obvious. Just make sense. Um, You can't use a monkey as a monkey ranch, for instance. Yeah. I was like, I was planning on saying later that like monkey Island to kind of breaks a couple of these. um I I'll say that puzzle should advance the story slash.
01:06:53
Speaker
I guess arbitrary puzzles are more moon logic. I guess puzzles should advance the story is like, as far as I'm concerned, like when ah ah game kind of lards up, you know, a ah you know, and adds like a mosaic or, you know, like towers of Hanoi, just like a stack puzzle. It sucks. Yeah.
01:07:15
Speaker
That doesn't feel like part of the world. Doesn't feel like part of the story that just feels like, yep, you dropped this in here. So i'd have one more hurdle to clear. Uh, next one. Um, real time is bad drama. When Indiana Jones rolled under the closing stone door and grabbed his hat just in time, uh,
01:07:35
Speaker
a chill and a cheer through everyone ah in the audience. If that scene had been done in a standard adventure game, the player would have been killed the first four times he tried to make it under the door. The next six times the player would have been too late to grab the hat. um That's, that's a really interesting, like, yeah, it's like do it in story time.
01:07:57
Speaker
Um, or, or something like that, you know, like either do it in a fake story time or like where, mean, it's like Indiana is doing it in story time because that, that, that door is moving at different velocities, different shots. Right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. As needed, uh, as needed for maximum drama. It is true that by the time you finally get something like that, correct.
01:08:24
Speaker
yeah you've you've gone through this sequence of precisely entering the right commands or clicking the right things to finally get to the end of it. It does suck some of the drama and excitement out of it when you have, there may still be a sense of accomplishment, but I do think it it doesn't give you that dramatic moment the same way.
01:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Incremental reward, ah which is like, you know, you got to feel like you're advancing as you play. Yeah, you need a t-shirt that says, I found the treasure of melee island. yeah And all I got was this stupid t-shirt.
01:09:00
Speaker
So the next one is arbitrary puzzles. We already talked about that. ah Reward intent. Or wait, wait. No, no. Reward intent. Reward intent?
01:09:12
Speaker
Reward intent. Like, because when I first read reward intent, it was like... ah verb. Yeah, yeah. But no, it's reward intent. Intent being the the action.
01:09:24
Speaker
Yes. It's like, um, essentially... You start out noun and you were looking for verb. Yeah, but it's actually, it's it's funny because that kind of of phrasing being confusing to me is ah ah contains actually what this ah means, which is very funny, which is that if the player knows what to do but doesn't have the exact correct words, yes they you they know.
01:09:58
Speaker
There's something i think about a lot, um which and I think i've and you know, stop me if I've already said this on the podcast, because I think about it a lot. I've probably already said it on the podcast, but... um there ah You're familiar with Tim Rogers, right, Jess? Tim Rogers, like he used to... like He wrote for Kotaku for a while. Before that, he had like a blog where he wrote like unbelievably long reviews. I don't know if I am familiar now. But like he did... ah And now yeah he still does... like
01:10:35
Speaker
video reviews which are extremely long and have like ridiculous tangents and like go down like weird paths and are very encompassing and it yeah i don't enjoy that kind of content like where people are there to talk about games but then they go off on some weird long tangent kids stick to the games that's what i that's my advice uh for everyone um yeah but he did i think when he was doing stuff just for Kotaku, did ah like a review of one of the new super Super Monkey, or Super Monkey, Super Mario Brothers games, the new Super Mario Brothers games, if you remember. Which were new at the time.
01:11:21
Speaker
But their title was the new Super Mario Brothers, which in them all are old. Yeah. Did they ever think, knowing at that time that people were playing Mario one still, did they ever think like, maybe we shouldn't call this new super Mario brothers because ostensibly people will continue playing this anyway. Yeah. Were they not even thinking about this? Yeah.
01:11:45
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think they were thinking, i don't think, what were they thinking? yeah Yeah. What was Nintendo thinking? Miyamoto. Anyway.
01:11:56
Speaker
um But ah in, in one of the, I like and I think he was talking about like the for like the one for the Wii or the Wii U or some shit. Wii U. Paul, you hear about this? Wii U. Anyway, but he was talking about how like the bosses, the boss fights New Super Mario Brothers for the Wii or whatever.
01:12:22
Speaker
um were not fun because it was just you're doing the same action just over and over. And he's like, I wish that some of these games had a I get it button.
01:12:37
Speaker
like where you're fighting a boss and you know exactly what you have to do and you have to do it like three to five times and it's just the same thing maybe a little faster you just want to push a button like an i get it button i think about that all the time i think i that's probably of all the and i've watched some of his like really fucking long reviews um of all of all the Tim Rogers shit that I've ever watched and read. That's the one thing I've walked away from it with, which is like the, I get it button is one of the most brilliant. Like, I'm just like, yeah, like if any time now, and now you're going to notice this too.
01:13:18
Speaker
Anytime now that I'm like fighting a fucking boss where it's just like the same fucking pattern, like multiple times. And I'm just like, why am I doing this multiple times? This is just an endurance run. This isn't like,
01:13:30
Speaker
you know, challenging my, so like, if this is just tedious, it's just like, I want to press the, I get it, but I'm bored. Ben, can i ask you a question? Maybe privately without the listeners?
01:13:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. tro your clothes suck yeah turn out yeah Please just second. whisper bruce leeto Ben, do we need an i get it button for insult swordfatting
01:14:00
Speaker
Because I got it way before it was over.
01:14:06
Speaker
It's kind of annoying when you just can't get the right pirate to spawn with the right that is prompt. So that part is annoying. I do think that...
01:14:17
Speaker
i i I think that it is just about as closely designed as you can have that.
01:14:29
Speaker
Like, and have that sequence work. like If there was, like, one more round of it, it would be too much. Yeah, it's I think it's... it's You know remember in Austin Powers when the general is making the call and it shows the screen and he says, and remember to feed my fish, not too much.
01:14:55
Speaker
Yeah, of course. And then the little dripper pulls out some of the food because the guy did put a little too much. Yes. And the general light could tell that might be a problem. Yeah, he says, not too much.
01:15:08
Speaker
That's one of the most beloved scenes from Austin Powers. You hear that quoted all the time. yeah You're going to quote Austin Powers. That's one of the go-tos. Not too much.
01:15:21
Speaker
I dressed up as Halloween is not too much, General. And and everyone, they opened up the door. They're just like another one
01:15:33
Speaker
We all just stood around and drank punch together. ah Charles Napier, the great Charles Napier. he also voiced a Duke in The Critic. Wow. Wow.
01:15:45
Speaker
Quizzy Buck.
01:15:48
Speaker
I don't get the reference, but I'm sure it's delightful. Terrific. Should we bring the listeners back in? Yeah, yeah, yeah. come on Come on back in. Put your ear buds back on. You're welcome back.
01:16:01
Speaker
ah ah Unconnected events. If the designer wants to make sure that six objects have been picked up before opening a secret door, make sure that there is a reason why those six objects would affect the door.
01:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, Monkey Island is good about this because there's a lot of And you know what? I'll pull in the next one, which is give the players options, um which is like, this is the real LucasArts meat of it.
01:16:28
Speaker
And um which is like the, ah it can't be strictly linear. You have to have multiple things that like, so give the players options. He's talking about how,
01:16:42
Speaker
Like a lot of adventure games have like a handful of rooms and then you solve everything in those rooms. And then your reward is get a new handful of rooms and you solve the problems there.
01:16:55
Speaker
The, uh, I would say, the Like, so then the the solution to that is, you know, giving the players the options. So you give them all of Melee Island and they have all three trials and they can work on them in, you know, you can kind of,
01:17:17
Speaker
Like, especially like the first time you play Monkey Island, you know, you kind of work on it piecemeal. You might like kind of go down one path and then it's just like, I don't know what I'm doing here anymore. Get a roadblock there. It's like, oh, you know, maybe if I do this, then like you start to move down another path.
01:17:35
Speaker
Like, and that's that's kind of a fun thing about it. And pretty much... most of the Lucas games, I would say full throttle kind of really like kind of small room to small room to small room. That's also because it's short.
01:17:53
Speaker
Yeah. yeah ah But like, you know, I'm kind of
01:18:03
Speaker
mixed on on that and and i'll know that it's like then that solves the unconnected events problem because it's like if you give people a ah big world to to kind of explore and do stuff in then like when they complete all of those big objectives then they complete them and then move on and then they get to be on a boat for a little bit and then they get to the monkey island like this one can be a double-edged sword, though. I feel like give the player options works great if you have a good game design.
01:18:34
Speaker
but if your game design is a mess options can be the worst thing that you could hand a player i think it's also that you have to be careful with how open and how many options and like you know and i think that's like Secret of Monkey Island and I'd say Curse as well are fairly kind of tighter focus.
01:19:08
Speaker
So it's not like you do have... almost always like three things you got to do, which fucking telltale does too. But yeah, beautiful. Obviously you just, you're playing tales right now. I'm playing tales right now. Yeah, and absolutely. That is the format. I mean, it it is definitely leaning heavily on this.
01:19:25
Speaker
You know, a game that I think from Sierra that does a really beautiful job of this give players options is quest for glory one. Yes, I was just about to say, i Quest for Glory 1 does that. You can kind of, like, and you have, like, an open, and you can kind of work towards each of the, like, things.
01:19:44
Speaker
but um But what I was, like, is that, like, when it doesn't work is because there are too many options it's and it's a little too big. And I would say...
01:19:55
Speaker
like you know and some you know some may disagree with me but i think that's a problem with monkey island too i think you have too much interesting i think there's too much i would also say ah i would i would say it's a little less controversial to say that of uh the part of grim fandango i like the most which is rubicava i think rubicava would be better served by being a little tighter.
01:20:23
Speaker
Gotcha. ah And I know you agree with me on that. Yeah. watch i say that I do. Yeah, no, that was, yeah, that was too much for me. you know, and I think about like bad games that like give players options that don't do it well. You're like, I think like a game like Simon, the sorcerer, Yeah. You know, it's like lot of options out in front of you to pursue things as you see fit, but it's not tightly designed enough in a way that, to me at least, I know this is ah a classic for many, that, you know, it felt like endlessly frustrating and directionless. And I think this is where my key island just...
01:21:00
Speaker
does this yeah disc world I think is very similar. I'm not saying this is just an incompetent wizard problem, but disc world much like Simon, the sorcerer, I think has a very similar issue.
01:21:11
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I think because I, I, I think too many options, i you know, the, the, the response to this is actually contained within this document itself, which is that sub goals need to be obvious. Um,
01:21:29
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and that like, and then I think you could break that down further. The sub goals of the sub goals need to be obvious. It's like, okay, well, the three trials and then like you, you kind of are given some direction.
01:21:46
Speaker
Like you're given a couple of breadcrumbs to go down. Yeah. Where to start. Yeah. yeah Figuring out how get the treasure. Yeah. How to become a sword master. Yeah. know all that yeah and that makes a lot of sense i think yeah mikey allen does this as well as any game you can tell that this was on ron's mind when he was developing this like and yeah like i love i love the you know i would also say that um the the The big, like, open area, ah like, Lucas formula, um which, like, I love those, but I also...
01:22:34
Speaker
like I don't doctrinaire prefer them. I don't think no that they are always necessary because it's like Monkey Island's great. that They're funny. They're, they're extremely well designed, like especially secret Monkey Island, as we're saying, but I, you know, I don't, I don't think ah of it because it doesn't become the only way to do this. And honestly, we've seen so many attempts to do it exactly this way um,
01:23:02
Speaker
you know it's kind of nice when a game deviates from this formula a bit you i think that monkey island became so much the template for how to do this for a lot of people that we saw especially a lot of later you know generations of adventure games uh you know almost becoming know too attached to this doctrine at some level it's fun when a game bracing like i think about game like the drifter that breaks several of these rules in some pretty interesting ways and is quite successful in doing You all the time in the drifter. Yeah, for instance. yeah Ron's conclusion to all this too, like in his wrap-up.
Game Length vs. Price: A Historical Perspective
01:23:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:41
Speaker
Some interesting stuff there. Like he says, if I could change the world, there are a few things I'd do. And the first one he mentions is i get rid of saved games. If there have to be saved games. If I would change the world and then like you're you're cutting out him saying like, if I could change the world, it wouldn't be about games.
01:24:00
Speaker
You see, it would be. I'm a hardcore gamer. Yeah, first you all i would care about games more. First of all, I would make Grand Theft Auto 6 come out today. whoa wow you're a real gamer.
01:24:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, you know, I love my Grand Theft Auto. So that'd be the first thing. No, but he says he get rid of saved games and says, if you have to have them, the only point saved game is just so you can basically bookmark your place until you pick up this game to play it the next day that he doesn't think saved games should be about like safety saves or in case I miss something and have to go back or in case I die over and over again, i can restore a game and get through this. um his his argument here is, yeah, save games should just be basically a bookmarking system that if your game requires constant saving as a gameplay mechanic, that that's not really ideal. um
01:24:57
Speaker
So that's that's an interesting one to me. And I i see where he's coming from. yeah I do think there's something nice about, you know, sometimes I have that thought when I'm playing a Sierra game today.
01:25:09
Speaker
like, Oh, no, it's been like 20 minutes since I've saved. This could be a disaster. Yeah. Whereas with you know, that safety net is waiting for you there in a in a LucasArts game, you know, you can, it's like, yeah, I'm not gonna have to go back to an earlier save and try again. He also mentions the the price, which I think is kind of really this is Yeah, the second thing I would change would be the price ah for between 40 and $50 a so there's a game People expect a lot of play for their money. This rarely leads to huge deep games, but rather time-wasting puzzles and mazes.
01:25:44
Speaker
The designer ever thinks the game might be too short. He throws in ah another puzzle or two. These also tend to be the worst thought out, most painful to solve. And then he writes, one day there will be Space Quest V and it will be mostly good. And then they'll throw in a maze at the end, which was incredible that he knew this. That's part of the game. um Pac-Man cameo. Yeah.
01:26:04
Speaker
and then And then he says, if I could have my way, and then I bolded this in my narrative. i designed games that were meant to be played in four to five hours, which is amazing. I love You know, I've had mad differences with Slick Ronnie Gilbert in the past.
01:26:23
Speaker
And you know this as well as anyone, but he could not be more correct here. Yeah, bolded, underlined. Like, obviously, i enjoy, like you know, games. Like, listen, I i purchased Riven, the se sequel to Mist, which is a game that, ah how long to be? Between nine and 30 hours to finish. Yeah, it says, said like, nine, ten, or eleven hours. Yeah.
01:26:50
Speaker
Won't take me that long. It will take me much longer. ah I thought you were getting ready to like drop a big brag. It's like Riven isn't going to slow me down that much. i see myself fishing that in an hour and a half.
01:27:05
Speaker
um But now like and and again, you know, I there there is a sweet spot. I would say it's actually a little longer than four to five. Mm hmm.
01:27:18
Speaker
But no, not too much. Not too much. it's I think I remember. Guess who I was quoting? and ah ah the The general from Austin Powers. yeah Not too much.
01:27:48
Speaker
so But you know you know what I say. ah Never pay more than 20 bucks for computer game. He he says, ah he he does, like, say, like, he he does talk about cost, and it's like, you know, shouldn't cost that much.
01:28:04
Speaker
Which is like, that's, you know, that's something a little out of, like, I don't know ah like, how how much did Seager Monkey Island cost at release?
01:28:19
Speaker
Probably if I had to take a guess, 49 or 59, I'd say that those are your two most likely price points. I'm betting manufacturers suggested retail price 59 sold typically at 49. Uh, a court, uh, this is from a press release, uh, from, uh, on, scumbar.com.
01:28:42
Speaker
Okay. Okay. The Secret of Monkey Island will release in the fourth quarter of 1990 for the IBM, Amiga, Atari ST, and Macintosh personal computers. Suggested retail price for all versions is $59.95 $1990.
01:28:55
Speaker
fifty nine ninety five and wow ninety dollars There you go I was correct. Yeah, I was... Ben, I read a lot of old video game magazines. don't if you knew this about me. And yeah, those prices are very locked into my brain. Can you imagine paying $60 for a video game? So let's say October i in let me put in let's say october of
01:29:26
Speaker
ah is today one hundred and fifty dollars wow That's how I'm going to play for the collector's edition of GTA six. now Now, keep in mind, you know, we can all, all be like, wow, everyone complains about the cost of games today, but they were more expensive.
01:29:45
Speaker
but Keep in mind that the cost of everything else has risen precipitously. yeah yeah probably like 11 people made monkey island. So the the the cost of everything else and i'm not referring to games like the cost of everything else and uh has raised precipitously so it's like yes we can go like seeker of monkey allen cost 150 dollars and uh 2026 uh money but keep in mind none of us are making as much money as we would have been anyway um uh but um
01:30:19
Speaker
Yeah, like, you know, that's an interesting observation of his, and I think it's it's the right one, because it it is. Like, it's like, if you're spending $150 in Yeah.
01:30:32
Speaker
you'd expect like a game that is going to entertain the shit out of you forever Yeah, because that's the thing that it's easy to forget is a lot of these games that are like historically awful adventure games also retailed for $59. Well, and I mean, i you know, and that's like, you know, why I assume I'm not looking up the cost of loom, but that's like why people are so pissed off about loom. Like, it's like you you spend that much money and then you're done in like two hours. Like, come on.
01:31:05
Speaker
Um, the the i think the the thing is is that and mean you know i think like uh you know we've we've already talked about this but it's like you know you have to make like you know boxes and you have to get discs and you have to print manuals and like wheels you have code wheels don't just print themselves you have to go to that strange old man that hand creates each code wheel Yeah, he does the riveting himself.
01:31:37
Speaker
Unique code wheels for each game. Yeah. Well, otherwise you could just copy the code wheel. Now, in all note, that you can actually pay him ah in ah pine nuts. Not peanuts, but pine nuts, because he loves pesto. And he's allergic to peanuts. Yeah, he can't have peanuts. Yeah, he's he's allergic to peanuts, so you pay him in pine nuts.
01:32:00
Speaker
Not too much. a ton
01:32:13
Speaker
See, it's one of the best jokes in Austin Powers.
01:32:18
Speaker
I think it's
Speculating on New Austin Powers Movies
01:32:19
Speaker
going to make a comeback. i think that They're going to make a fourth Austin Powers. You know this, right? That's the word on the street. Ben, would would you be excited for that? Is there any way that a fourth Austin Powers movie could be good?
01:32:33
Speaker
yeah Is there a universe in which it is good? Yes, but it's not going to be. but It won't be because no legacy comedy sequel is ever good.
01:32:43
Speaker
I think a couple revived television shows are good. Yes. in fact of here But movies.
01:32:52
Speaker
Trying to think if there is like, I can't think of one. You're going to Zoolander 2 this, I feel like, is what's going to happen. like i mean I didn't like the first Zoolander. You didn't like the first Zoolander? It's terrific. I'm really a Zoolander guy. The gasoline fight? I saw that in theaters. I saw Zoolander in theaters. I did too. And I didn't like it at the time. And then I've gone back and rewatched it to be like, everybody loves this movie.
01:33:19
Speaker
and I don't know. It just didn't connect. and Listen, you don't have to tell me. You don't have to tell me that you like Zoolander. You don't have to reach out to me or chat me or whatever. I know. Everybody loves Zoolander. Just didn't hit.
01:33:30
Speaker
Yeah. But no, Austin Powers 4, like, does Mike Myers still have funny in his body? Yes, but will he go the distance to to conjure it?
01:33:44
Speaker
No. I don't think so. yeah yeah because here's the the the thing i've been made i've been saying this for years it's it's like yeah austin powers takes place 20 years uh like so it's what like uh 1967 to yeah so now we are one year from years from austin powers so it's like you could just ah do that but I e like so there's your premise um it's just and and that's probably what the the premise is going to be it's just that i don't I don't think they're it's also like the aesthetics of like 1997 movie
01:34:27
Speaker
coming to like twenty twenty six is less interesting other than to say it's like, yeah, like, i don't know, a lot of movies like suck right now. ah That's true. This is a real problem. like And also, you keep box office comedies don't exist is another issue.
01:34:45
Speaker
Dude, Jess. ah you Have you, I assume you haven't. You gotta see. Of course I saw Jackass Best and Last, Ben. Yes, I saw Jackass 5. I haven't seen ah Jackass Best and Last yet, but I would like to. um But no, have you seen Gil Daughtry and the ah celebrity ah sex pass?
01:35:12
Speaker
No. This is ah David Wayne's new movie. Oh, yeah. No, I was just hearing about this earlier today on a podcast. so And now you're recording a podcast and it's coming up. How interesting.
01:35:23
Speaker
Interesting. Conflict of interest, honestly. Conflict of interestings. Now, that... ah dad i think I think that comedy as as a the state fan. yeah how do you How do you feel about like Wet Hot and like Stella and like some of that stuff? Dig them. Like they're not my favorite iterations of the state sort of family. Like honestly, probably I prefer...
01:35:53
Speaker
maybe reno 911 and that subset of the former state people which is like show up a lot of them have like little one-off uh bits like yeah uh but love the state and just generally love all those people like you know give me kim marino and anything i'm gonna be a happy man you know What got me in the door to see ah ah that movie on its opening weekend also, like, was that I listened to a podcast with David Wayne and ah Ken Marino, and I just heard Ken Marino's voice, and I was just like, yeah, I got to see this. I love Ken Marino's voice. I love that guy. love that guy. He seems like a nice guy, but it's also, it's just like, when I hear his voice,
01:36:33
Speaker
I'm just like, this guy's just got a funny way of talking, yeah you know? Big, good-looking Pazano. Yeah, he's just a funny he's just a funny, like, a really just a very naturally funny guy.
01:36:44
Speaker
um And what I will say, though, of, because a lot of the state have, like, um uh like bit parts in it um if if they're not already like uh starring in it but like of like across the like so uh but uh kevin allison has a little yeah a little one-off bit like he's on camera i would say maybe five minutes maybe like around there he has one little bit and it's i have been like just thinking about it and chuckling
01:37:21
Speaker
uh for the past week ah and and so like it is it is nice to see all of like it it is nice to have like all the the little cameos you know michael ian who a guy who i agree with everything he posts on social media yes you've always endorsed everything by him so no i get that uh but uh ben upsettingly i saw him do stand-up once and he made me like cry laughing like he is a very very funny guy who i don't want to know anything about his opinions he hosted maybe my favorite podcast of all time uh mike and tommy snacks where they would just write snack food together it was a wonderful podcast ben if we bring back austin powers sure
01:38:10
Speaker
Will they be able to resist like, oh, the world's so woke now jokes? No, no. That's the problem. That's the biggest danger of that project. I feel like.
01:38:23
Speaker
Well, and the, the, the funny thing is, is that's kind of, I mean, that's the joke of the first Austin Powers though, is that already. Yeah. We already done that first. Here's what you do. It's like, oh, we're in the nineties and it's so politically correct now.
01:38:35
Speaker
Yeah. Here's the thing you, here's how you do Austin Powers four. Somehow Austin Powers, like, sperm was frozen in the past or something like that. And now his son from the past has come to the present. So now it's a fish out water where Austin has to teach his adult son from the past how to live in the present day. His adult son is now played by Ryan Gosling.
01:38:58
Speaker
um That's how you do Austin Powers for That's my pitch. If anyone out there is is looking for my pitch, I mean, I don't know that i want direct, But I would be one to like do a quick script pass. That's that's my ideas like Austin has to we we do a repeat of all the jokes from the first Austin Powers with Austin now being the modern day man.
01:39:21
Speaker
Let's very quickly look at those two Lucas ads. No, I want to talk more about Austin Powers four and the potential there. Did you enjoy Austin Powers three? Jess, we're breaking the rule.
01:39:34
Speaker
The rule is one not too much. Is this a maze? No, it's not too much. um Oh, from Austin Powers. Okay. Well, fair enough. Fair dinkum, as we like to say around here. Very quickly. What I love about this, like Ron is not only on the one hand, you know, designing a game with these principles in mind and, And he's publishing an essay in sort of an industry journal about this as well. But this is something that LucasArts was also doing in a public-facing way, which
Marketing of 80s and 90s Adventure Games
01:40:09
Speaker
is fascinating to me. The idea that any company was trying to sell you on its adventure game philosophy
01:40:16
Speaker
in 1988 would be kind of crazy if Infocom hadn't been doing this since 1984. I was like, likeney let me cut you off right yeah there. No, exactly. Yeah, no, and that's right. I mean, this was, Infocom had been advertising. This is in those great days where like you would run a print ad in a magazine and it would have several paragraphs of copy. And Infocom loved these things, right? That's what the next Austin Powers is going to be about.
01:40:43
Speaker
Why can't I... Why aren't the ads... Why don't they have all these paragraphs, baby?
01:40:55
Speaker
Everything's just a tag. What am I even doing? What was that for? It's like Austin Powerspeed's just been like severely shocked. But no, I mean...
01:41:08
Speaker
good but no i mean even Infocom had been doing this for a while. But yeah, LucasArch jumps in as early as 1988. And I love this advertisement. um It's one that ran a number of magazines around this time. It's titled New Hope for Battered Story Gamers. Do you think New Hope is being used here explicitly as a Star Wars reference?
01:41:34
Speaker
Yes. Okay. ah So this is as it says. They didn't say a new hope, which is interesting. Anyway, continue so that was probably trademarked. Oh, and I do want to say, speaking of trademarks, ah if anyone wants to attempt to publish and sell Ron Gilbert's Why Adventure Games Suck article, I'm looking at the footer of his webpage and it says here, all content is copyright 2004 to 2025. Okay.
01:42:00
Speaker
So this essay is no longer. Yeah, it's expired officially. So if you want to try to publish this as like an Amazon ebook, I'm printing now is your time. I'm not stopping on the corner the smoke choked streets of Chicago. I'm going out there like with a bell, like am a columnist with a pamphlet to hand out. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'm going to go to a protest and like stand right in front of the guy with the newsprint communist newspapers.
01:42:35
Speaker
here's always i don't know i don't know how many protests you've been to, but there's always one of those guys here. There's always a guy with actual newsprint communist newspapers. And I'm just like, hey, man, keep it. there there's there's There's some communist that has ah and a fucking newsprint machine, like a fucking printing press. and I'm just like, you remember when Austin Powers was de-thawed and they're like, the Cold War's over, Austin. And he's like, ah, capitalist pigs. Yay, capitalism. of We showed those bourgeois pigs. Yeah. really good that's a really good joke yeah but you know my one all right yeah my my philosophy when it comes to like talking about austin powers i mean we're talking about ron gilbert's game design philosophy my philosophy when it comes to talking about austin powers on the podcast is not too much
01:43:38
Speaker
I think we broke that rule. um no okay So yeah, this this is New Hope for battered story gamers. And it really like it starts out with a quote, allegedly, from a player.
01:43:50
Speaker
There's a lot I like about computer adventures, but it sure isn't getting killed all the time. That's why a Maniac Mansion is so refreshing. i can play from start to finish without dying once. And this ad goes on to really hop up. It's an ad for both Maniac Mansion and Zach McCracken. And it's offering these up as like, oh, have you been battered by these story games with all of their horrible mazes and tapping interfaces and constant deaths and everything else? We have two breezy g light adventures for you, Maniac Mansion and Zach McCracken.
01:44:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it it does highlight also that it has new typing interface, which is probably like, that's really the the exciting, like the super exciting thing.
01:44:37
Speaker
Because they haven't quite gotten to especially in Zach, not you know, their mazes and shit. How's this line? ah Today's story games evolved from text adventures. The interface in most cases remained in the swamp.
01:44:52
Speaker
Oh, I say because it's evolution. Yeah. Yeah, it's like evolution that goes on to say it's like, oh, suppose you to pick up a green leafy object. Well, you might try tapping pick up plant. If that doesn't work, you might try bush, shrub, tree and so on.
01:45:06
Speaker
After a while, you might try a different form of entertainment. So they're really hitting on a lot of these exact points Ron is talking about. Yeah, as I was going to say did ah Ron is steal the keyboard from somebody in marketing? Like did he just say like, no, no, no, let me write this ad. Yeah, no, I mean, it really feels like it talks about like, you that's why Lucasfilm story games. And again, they're really hammering story story games, which yeah I think it's in um Quest for Glory refers to them as like frips or something like. ah like something like type of role, like full role. It's like something like, you know, it, this is early days. It's heady early days. And so it's just like, we're not adventure games because this isn't a colossal cave.
01:45:58
Speaker
That's right.
LucasArts' Design Philosophy: Story Over Challenges
01:45:59
Speaker
But i mean, it's really driving home a lot of these same kind of concepts. You know, like now you can play an entire 50 hour game without typing a single word or putting your life on hold until you realize the green leafy thing is a plastic fern.
01:46:13
Speaker
So this is very much, I mean, it is drawing directly on this. So seeing LucasArts using this, not just as ah design philosophy internally, but trying to then market that design philosophy.
01:46:28
Speaker
I think is interesting. And this is an ad I know as a kid when I remember seeing it in magazines, um, piqued my curiosity because I was just like, I don't know if I knew at the time well enough that it was at some level, I think safe to say taking shots of Denfocom and Sierra, right? Oh yeah, no, this is, this is,
01:46:48
Speaker
obviously coming out of being really pissed off and playing both in for that and and I do think sometimes it's easy to I think a lot of people who talk about some of this LucasArts design philosophy think that it was solely in response to Sierra games I think that now we've rewritten this history of adventure game history was LucasArts versus Sierra but you can't ignore that Infocom is a big part of this yeah this discussion. They're on their way out. They're definitely the
01:47:20
Speaker
yeah They're done. They're the sick man of adventure gaming. Yeah. At that point, they they aren't long for this world, but they were such a defining force in this entire genre. These ads and this philosophy and this essay and everything are speaking out directly to to Infocom as much as Sierra. And then, you know, also this this shows up in the secret of Monkey Island Manual.
01:47:45
Speaker
We believe you buy games to be entertained, not to be whacked over the head every time you make a mistake. So we don't bring the game to a screeching halt when you poke your nose into a place you haven't visited before.
01:47:57
Speaker
So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And then, yeah, we, we think you'd prefer to solve the game's mysteries by exploring and discovering, not by dying a thousand deaths. i And I will note because there's a lot of until you stumble upon the computer's word for a certain certain object.
01:48:15
Speaker
Well, this is a little infocommie. I would say it's like, you know, keep in mind, Sierra has a text parser ah still at this point. yeah and and it's that was the user was never as good as info yeah that was a way less responsive and understanding purser info comms especially like as those games went on like the uh the they just kept refining and refining and refining especially in comparison to and this also it it might not even necessarily be info com because there were a lot of other like text adventure games that we just don't
01:48:52
Speaker
really talk about it anymore. Oh, there were countless. Yeah. That just haven't really survived as part of the popular memory. And those had garbage parsers. Yes. I mean, I played a lot of text adventures that were written in basic.
01:49:07
Speaker
And the parsers, you know, are quite limited in in that regard. But yeah, you know, this is interesting. And there's something else that he talks about. Like this is, we didn't mention this we talked about the essay, but Ron also mentions little things there, like a Sierra annoyance of,
01:49:26
Speaker
There's an item on the screen you want to interact with, but you're not standing close enough to it. And the game doesn't either walk you over to it or make it clear you need to walk closer. I mean, these are all frustrations along with the not knowing what to type or knowing what to type and not being able to get in there. We've all hit that for a lot of us. I think that struggle is part of the fun of a text parser game.
01:49:49
Speaker
And as a kid, it was part of the freedom of I can do anything I want, even if hey you can write of it. pew like You're not butt and poop. All the words. I was a good kid.
01:50:02
Speaker
There are a few dangerous situations where Guybrush can die, but anticipate them ah ah but to anticipate them takes just a little common sense, not excessive paranoia.
01:50:13
Speaker
ah okay There's only one. yeah This is really treating the the player like a child.
01:50:25
Speaker
You know, it's funny. Um, you know, I've kind of come around, uh, to, to death as a mechanic, which is funny because it's like the, the, the Lucas philosophy in some ways, like this, this, you know, why adventure games suck philosophy, uh, you know, did, uh, survive as this massive template.
01:50:48
Speaker
Um, um, But I will say, like, because there are a couple games that that have brought them, and it's like, I'll note that it's like a lot of them also have ways ah to like, kind of throw you back to the last, like, kind of moment before peril is helpful because it's like I think what really makes a death suck and what this hits on and it even says this in the rules it's like you can have death just kind of you know play fair is like a death where it's like oh like you open up a door and a monster jumps out and you had no idea there wasn't even an indication
01:51:26
Speaker
No clue, no, like you hear growling sounds behind the door or anything else that might hint to you that you should be careful here. But what's interesting is is that that's not like, well, that's accounted for in this document.
01:51:39
Speaker
um ah Essentially deaths just never occurred generally in in Lucas games. Like you can die Atlantis.
01:51:54
Speaker
and like i mean you die but you immediately like they're not even really deaths like it's like you die and you immediately like respawn in like full throttle and re respond if you lose a motorcycle battle in full throttle or does it just start Ben over I can't remember if there's like a implied death there you just know it's you just didn't fall over and then he just got you just gets back up and goes like it's yeah it's really the end sequence where it's just clear that like Ben dies and it's just like no he doesn't like now it is worth noting and i don't think this document counts for it at all everyone in Grand Fandango is dead
01:52:33
Speaker
Oh, that's such bullshit. I hate that game now. It breaks this rule over and over again. Like every single character you meet. Yeah, yeah. All the others.
01:52:44
Speaker
Yeah. The girl.
01:52:49
Speaker
Meche. Yes. All right. all right Well, do you have anything else to say about why adventure games suck? Gladys. Gladys is dead.
01:53:01
Speaker
Is Claudus dead or is he a demon? think he's just a demon. He's just a spirit that you conjure. Okay, that's true. Yeah, yeah. All right. He's not. Yeah. No, I think that, you know, I think this is fascinating. i think for me, if anything, you know, just the level at which The work that was done on Secret of Monkey Island with this essay being written in tandem with LucasArts really trying to reify this idea of what's design philosophy should be. It's remarkable how it goes on to shape what become
01:53:34
Speaker
i think safe to say the some of the most beloved adventure games of all time and how we still see a lot of this logic playing out today i mean there's still people you will talk to an adventure game fandom that have no tolerance for deaths adventure games because i think they have fully internalized this philosophy to a point that that's immediately ah turnoff and I, you know, this is my, my feeling about like, and I was kind of saying this earlier, my feeling about any, any blueprint like this. And, and, and, and this acknowledges that. And I also, i have to take a look, uh, again, I think in his like 2004 revisit, uh, he let's, let me, let me pull this up.
01:54:21
Speaker
Um, um,
01:54:25
Speaker
i edited at a oh yeah he says as i read this some 15 years later i'm not sure i agree with everything in here anymore i learned a lot from monkey island one and two plus countless kids adventure games at humongous which uh you know ah i think we should do something we should do an episode about because i've been playing i've played like on my stream and like i've played some of those humongous games and actually they have Really incredible design.
01:54:54
Speaker
um Yeah. ah Which I think you can kind of see in return less so in Thimbleweed, but like some of the more player friendly stuff. Like I, I kind of felt like I saw in return anyway.
01:55:08
Speaker
So it's like, he doesn't even agree with all this, like in 2004, probably not in 2026, I would wager, a guess. And, um, and so it's like, you know, reading this is, it' it's like, this is a wonderful template and like following it, like directly, ah produced secret of monkey Island, which is like kind of empirically a perfect, uh, adventure game. It's like, yeah,
01:55:36
Speaker
uh but but that's not the only lot people say it should have won our bracket for the greatest lucas arts game of all time well which one did wasn't it day of the tentacle yeah it probably was i don't remember don't either like that was a challenge because i was like maybe it was secret but maybe it wasn't i have no idea hard to say i listen and all and and remember if you know the answer ah too much We have a no corrections. Yeah, not too much. um ah ah Yeah. Keep Jonathan Franzen out of here now. um
01:56:15
Speaker
but ah but yeah, like it's like I don't think, you know, to make anything in art, it's it's it's never. um you will make a perfect piece of art if you follow like, you know, like sometimes you'll see like a steam review that like tries to like take a game apart, like, you know, piece by piece. And it's like, well, empirically, oh believe yes this is this, like, as so therefore the, you know, the, the graphics fidelity was ah
Art and the Creative Process
01:56:43
Speaker
exactly perfect. And therefore I give it that, that, that part a 10 out of 10, but now i love the people have like a copy and paste form that they use for this stuff. Yeah.
01:56:54
Speaker
yeah those those are we all know we've all seen them um yeah but uh but anyway it's like that's not that's not how any any like any art form works like it's like no no good art gets produced by a paint by numbers but also the thing is is that it's like but a lot of good art this isn't doesn't say that this has to be true, but a lot of good art does come from people with formal like art training and the go to art school and they learn a whole bunch of rules.
01:57:22
Speaker
And then, you know, like a lot of the time you have to know all the rules to, so you can destroy them in very interesting ways. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, like, if you can break these rules in an interesting, engaging, unexpected way, it's also a template to do something really cool. You know, yeah, I think that like Drifter shows how you can break this no player deaths rule in a really fascinating way.
01:57:48
Speaker
And have it really work for your game, have it be like the defining feature of it and part of what people love about, you know, that's a good example of how you you sort of challenge what at some point I mean again I think this becomes almost an internalized set of what a good adventure game is which you know I think Ron makes a lot of good points here but if you decide this is the only way a good adventure game can exist you're really limiting what this genre can be quite a bit yeah
01:58:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I am curious. And, you know, when we, we get to not next week's of course, but like down the line, when we get to having read every other grumpy gamer blog between.
Humorous Wrap-up and Listener Engagement
01:58:32
Speaker
and now yeah yeah And if you want to read grumpy gamers blog, just go to Amazon. You're going look for an ebook. It's going to be i say the collected works of grumpy. Yeah, the collected works of Grumpy Gamer edited by Jess Morissette, PhD. That is available for $34.95 an That's an incredible steal.
01:58:54
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, it's amazing. yeah What am I referring to? the The cost or what you did? Mm-hmm. Well, it's not stealing if it doesn't belong to anybody, Ben. And as of January 1st, it no longer belonged to anybody. That's right.
01:59:08
Speaker
Well, ah thank you so much for listening to Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. We really appreciate If you enjoyed this podcast and all this discussion of Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, 1997,
01:59:23
Speaker
Jay Roach, director. Yeah, Jim Roach, director, written and starring Mike Myers, with Michael York, Elizabeth Hurley, ah Charles Napier,
01:59:35
Speaker
a really charming cameo from Tom Arnold. Oh, a very charming cameo from Tom Arnold. ah ah Seth Green, of course. Another wonderful cameo by the great Carrie Fisher. Rest in peace.
01:59:48
Speaker
ah And probably a couple other little performances I forgot about. Yeah. yeah Quincy Jones' Sol Bossa Nova as the theme song, just flawless. Yeah. Anyway, but if you liked all that discussion of Austin Powers, and remember, not too much, ah give us a five-star review. And if you don't care for Austin Powers, or or if, ah you know, you don't care us... Oh, behave, and don't leave us a review.
02:00:16
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Well, that's it. Join us next week when we, oh, and also you can follow us on Twitch. The links are in the show notes. yeah Join us next week when we discuss discuss Space Quest 4.
02:00:30
Speaker
But not too much. Jess, this is an important question and I have this for you.
02:00:42
Speaker
jess this is an important question and i have this for you What's the biggest thing you think is missing from Space Quest 4? Wow, the biggest thing i think is missing from Space Quest 4.
02:00:59
Speaker
i would like a scene where Roger's broom floats away because I really enjoyed that Space Quest 2.