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Episode 32 - Kings Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella & Paul Korman
2.2k Plays2 months ago
Guess what folks? The season of spookiness is upon us, and your spooky queen PushingUpRoses reins it in with Matt Aukamp, the real-life inspiration for Jack Skellington and their terrifying guest, Paul Korman – The Phantom Fellow himself.
Paul talks to us about his newly-released game The Phantom Fellows (available on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/1581490/The_Phantom_Fellows/and GOG https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_phantom_fellows) and other various things about adventure games in general.
Then, we dive into the spooky-adjacent classic Sierra adventure Kings Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella
Plus, PlayDate with Matt and ranking every adventure game ever!
Absconded.
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Uno
- Devil’s Hideout
- The Heist of the Argonaut Limited
- Post Hero
- Bloom
- SIMULACRA
- Tender: Creature Comforts
- Fields of Mistria
- The Phantom Fellows
- Strange Horticulture
- King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella
- Miasmata
- Violett
- Free D.C.!
- And Then There Were None
- Clam Man
Recommended
Transcript
Veneers and Dental Drama
00:00:00
Speaker
So ah a couple months ago, I got veneers and it was a lot is a lot of work ah and a lot of effort and a lot of pain and things have been getting better like day by day. And then the other day, I injured myself on a potato chip and had to go back to the dentist because I literally caused myself a bleeding wound.
00:00:22
Speaker
But it was unrelated to the veneers though, right? Correct. You tripped over a potato chip. She came out of nowhere.
00:00:32
Speaker
and drive by chipping. yeah No, yeah it's not related to the veneer, but because it wounded me so close to a veneer, I had to go in and get x-rays taken and to make sure that like nothing was infected. Did you lie and make it sound like you you chipped you chewed on something cooler sounding, like something harder?
00:00:53
Speaker
No, I definitely said it was a chip. was eating but it was see It was kettle cooked, all right? Those are those the hard ones. It was kettle cooked. Well, because if they... Was it actually kettle cooked? Thank you. I think it actually was, because I do like kettle cooked chips.
00:01:08
Speaker
so Yeah. Well, if you had said it was something else, they would have just been pissed off at you. If you're like, sorry, I got this from eating a jawbreaker or I got this from eating a handful of glass. Well, that made me super mad at me. They'll be like veneers in your mouth or eating a jawbreaker. Get the fuck out.
00:01:28
Speaker
Terrible. to what You know, is there like, do you have limitations? What are you allowed to eat? If chips are off the table. Then what's on the table? Yeah. Yeah. No, I've been eating a lot of oatmeal, mashed potatoes. Right. Oatmeal. This is taking me back. Yeah. Oatmeal in mashed potatoes. Simple scones that are very soft. Potato flavored oatmeal. That sounds good. Ew, what?
Spooky Season Theme Song
00:02:30
Speaker
Well, I am pleasantly surprised at our new theme song. Hey, everyone, pushing a process here. Welcome back to Save Your Game. That was our new theme song for Spooky Season, courtesy of my co-host. Spooky Season is upon us. It's upon us. It is here. ah You laughed over top of the witch's laugh. I did, because I thought it was great.
00:02:54
Speaker
but so i've I wonder if people heard the witch's laugh or just heard your laugh and then assumed that you figured out how to double your voice.
00:03:05
Speaker
I will cut out my amusement if it irks you, man. No, I don't want you to cut out your amusement. I don't i don't know what I want. I don't i don't even know what I want anymore. Yeah, I hear that. I just want pizza and that's the only thing that I want.
00:03:22
Speaker
ever in my entire life. What? Who's here with us today? We have a special guest for you guys. ah Paul, Paul, I can never remember your last name. And if you want, but I know i I have a very good memory. I have something called exceptional memory, which is not just an adjective. It's actually a medical condition. And yet Corbin. Paul Corbin? Did I did it? Did I do it? Yeah, you did. Yeah, you nailed it. I was going to suggest you just start, you make one up every time you can't think of it. that almost said I almost prefer that now, but it's fine. No, it's fine. Say the real one, whatever. We can go back. I can edit in like Paul George-son, which is definitely a real name.
00:04:04
Speaker
Paul Norseman.
Introducing Paul Corbin and The Phantom Fellows
00:04:08
Speaker
Paul here is an adventure game developer, and he has a game coming out very soon called the Phantom Fellows. Congratulations on ah finishing completing your game, Paul. How are you feeling? Good. Terrified. So scared. Yeah. I hope it i hope it works when people press the gope to double click the on button.
00:04:29
Speaker
the ah so i That the game will be out by the time people are hearing this, too. So ah we'll talk about it in a bit, but you can all go to Steam and look up the Phantom Fellows right now. Yeah, wow. Yeah, do supplies last. Steam only has so many but not sponsored. um And ah Paul, you also host the Classic Gamer Guild podcast.
00:04:56
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't, I didn't name it. It was, you but yeah, I do. It's like, I won't get into pedantics with the name right off the bat. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a podcast. It's another podcast. We talk into, we say words with our mouths about adventure games. Oh man, that sounds, that sounds familiar. Did you know we do a podcast?
00:05:18
Speaker
And yet you decided to keep doing yours. Interesting. That's an interesting thing is that you knew that we were doing them and you decided to keep recording yours. That's just an interesting thing. And it just. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he was here before us. Actually.
00:05:35
Speaker
ah No, no, I yeah adventure ah classic Gamers Guild podcast. Go check it out, everybody. It's a very fun show and we're happy to have you here on our dumb show.
00:05:48
Speaker
Well, you know shucks, first of all. Thank you for thank you for having me. And also ah absconded. I wrote that word down and it just says, please shoehorn this in during the episode. So this is me saying absconded. I i thought I would do it with more grace, but... Why? Okay, hold on. Walk me through this. What?
00:06:11
Speaker
and So you're saying at some point today, you thought of the word absconded, and you're like, oh, that's good, I should say that. yeah And I was like, it'll make you sound smart,
Games Without Strong Narrative Elements
00:06:19
Speaker
so.
00:06:24
Speaker
In all fairness, it's a great word. yeah it is yeah It is a good word. It doesn't come up very often, because people don't abscond very often. This is my fear. That's why I was like, let's just say it. Right. Hey, Paul. Yeah. You been playing any games lately?
00:06:41
Speaker
ah Uno, playing a lot of Uno. just Hey, it's a classic. Digital of analog. but Spectacular failing to read the room, he goes with the card game. No, I'll talk about Uno, fuck it. We'll talk about Uno.
00:06:58
Speaker
It's a short-lived conversation. I i you know what it is but i think the reason I ended up doing an adventure game podcast because I struggle to talk about other games like platformers and like Mario, like when there's no story, it's like, well, I've ran and jumped and then, you know. ah Yeah. ah As a reviewer of adventure, like I write reviews and if I ever tried to write something that does like a review about something that doesn't have a story, it's yeah, it's very much just like,
00:07:25
Speaker
The jumping was good, and I liked the art. like I don't fucking know. ah It was cool when i the guy got blown up. like I don't fucking know. Yeah. Each boss got a little harder to beat, the end. you know like I guess even those games tend to have some level of like if not direct story, at least like thematic. Right. Right. Like, like, yeah, like like some it's telling it's t it's telling you something. It's telling like a vague story thematically, even if it's not.
00:08:04
Speaker
you know, even if it's not dialogue and the three act structure, but still. I mean, when I was when I was doing retro gaming, I didn't just do like computer games. I did like just a variety of stuff. And somehow I managed to review like yeah the Lion King and Aladdin for the Genesis and just go off the rails and talk about like personal Let's just put personal things and how I felt about each character and and what they were thinking. That's how I review games. I don't know about the rest of you. Reviewing the Lion King game from the from the point of view of the giraffes whose heads you jump on. All those poor things. They are definitely concussed.
00:08:48
Speaker
Uh, well, I hate to repeat myself, but Paul, have you been playing? I thought I could get away with just, yeah. All right. He came back to me. Fair enough. oh if If you haven't, it's fine. No, it's fine. You know what? I'll be helpful. I'll be useful. I'm a guest in your home and it's not one of those weird take your shoes off homes. I appreciate that. Um, okay. I played, I played, uh, I beta tested devil's hideout for cosmic void and that's a spooky game and an adventure game. How thematic of me.
00:09:17
Speaker
I'm really interested in that game. I think they gave me a key. And this is not a slight to any devs out there. I ignore a lot of my stuff because I'm so overwhelmed all the time. But don't think for a second that I don't appreciate keys and stuff like that. I just
Beta Testing Devil's Hideout
00:09:39
Speaker
am stressed. So I'm very interested in that. If you want us to review it, you need to send a physical key. You do.
00:09:48
Speaker
it were It worked for Paul. He sent me a physical key. And it was like the best thing I've ever seen in my life. Because as an adventure gamer, I like keys. I see, what? Did I joke? Dare you. I mean, my whole, yeah, no, i there is something about being an a adventure gamer. Like now when I see, if I see like a skeleton key somewhere, I am immediately drawn to it. Same.
00:10:15
Speaker
Same. ah Yeah. If you want me to review your game, you better fucking butter me up because I, I don't know, Paul, I don't know if you knew this, ah but I'm an artist.
00:10:28
Speaker
ah You know, I just got a lot of creative stuff that I'm working on, you know? I don't want to let people know. Nobody sends me keys. I don't get any keys. and wa these you know Are you talking about physical keys? Now I don't know what we're talking about. Nobody gives me any keys of any kind. I'm trying to get in it. I want to play games. I want to go in houses. I can't do either.
00:10:56
Speaker
ah Paul, will you please send this man a key? Send me a key to your apartment. It's gonna come with a little note that says, only works on garage door. it's ah No, what'd you think of Devil's Hideout? I've played some of the, um that's like that's a Cosmic Void game, right?
00:11:16
Speaker
Yes, yeah yeah. And Cosmic's awesome. He beta tested my game, so he's like, well, you beta test my game, the other my. It's it's all very you know third-persony. But I was like, well, you know ah clearly, I have to. you You know that. I don't get to say no. You're in the middle of testing mine. Well played, you bastard. um He's also, I say this as a friend. I love Cosmic. he's hes I don't know if he wants to be staged real name, so I'll just keep saying Cosmic. But the game is funny. No, it's not funny, actually, at all. It's terrifying.
00:11:43
Speaker
um Oh, no, it's not supposed to be funny. So that's here's the thing. I like I've read. I'm a spooky gal. I like spooky things. I like horror things. But I don't know if I like being flat out scared. So on the level of, you know, spooky to like, absolutely terrifying. Where would you place this game?
00:12:03
Speaker
Right, see I feel you on that. I like jeepers, spooky, not not like scary, it has a lot of jump scares. At one point I jump sneezed and peed a little, all at the same time. Oh no! Get a handle on yourself, man!
00:12:22
Speaker
and don't Nobody tells this as an adult. I don't understand bladder management. like I can't leave the house ever. like I always have to pee everywhere I go. I don't know how people do it. I feel like people should just be urinating all the time. Man, that's what happens when you need to stay hydrated. This is adulthood. Exactly. It's like one or the other. I'm either going to be hydrated or just peeing three times for one Walmart trip.
00:12:50
Speaker
It's absurd. But no, to answer your question, it's quite scary. It's got a lot of jump scares. And then the ambiance, the overall mood has got a lot of dread and mystery. And yeah, it's good. I had a lot of fun with it. It's a perfect spooky. And it's breezy, in a sense, too. Not in a light-hearted way, but in, I don't know, three hours, a perfect spooky Halloween night kind of game. Oh, I like that. I like hearing that.
00:13:19
Speaker
I am in my later adulthood and I don't need an eight hour game. I just don't. I'm sorry. I have any I've liked. to Yeah, I've liked a lot of cosmic void scale. Like I i really liked corruption within.
00:13:35
Speaker
um ah one of One of, I guess, his his earlier games, right? And then ah maybe his first like big release was Corruption Within. because he Because he did the Tachyon Dreams game. Anyway, then Blood Nova I talked about on the show. I liked it pretty good. ah Enough that I wanna get around to playing all his other games. I actually didn't know it was one guy.
00:14:02
Speaker
I didn't know cosmic void was a person. so ah But interesting. Yeah, that's that's that's cool. um Yeah, I'm looking forward to looking into
Playdate Device and Game Mechanics
00:14:13
Speaker
it. I yeah, I like I definitely have a soft spot for ah those those kind of eerie ambient like tense very tense games even though i live alone and i will think that a serial killer is out to get me while i play this game that's just the nature of it that's fair no i turned a light on when your theme music came on today
00:14:35
Speaker
so There are so few serial killers that like you even you have to think, like oh, even if I do get killed, I'm probably never going to get killed by a serial killer. No, it's going to be something stupid. If with it that's going to be cool. Right. you just Yeah, if you find yourself being murdered by a serial killer, just be like, you know, I probably had this coming because the odds were astronomical. Yeah, exactly. There was almost zero chance I was going to get killed by a serial killer, and here I am. Look at me now.
00:15:04
Speaker
Well, don't, because my intestines are across my face and it'd be upsetting, but like figuratively look at me now, Ma. Figuratively look at me. Matt, what have you been playing? um You know, what why don't we, I have not oh boy been playing, I've not been playing that much outside of, why don't we do this early? Throw the theme song on. All right, here we go.
00:15:38
Speaker
Playdate with Matt. Hey everybody, it's Playdate with Matt, a segment inside our podcast where I talk about my awesome little Playdate and the games I play on it. And I've been playing actually a lot on my Playdate recently. So I'll talk about three games real quick. um ah so Paul, wait, Paul, do you have a Playdate? Are you familiar with the Playdate?
00:16:00
Speaker
Okay, so it's not a person. No, I don't. It is not. my Yeah, me and my play date, we usually hang out. I was like, okay, Matt is adorable. No, play date is like this. So I'll explain it. I've explained it on the show before um a listener but bought it for me. It is a small little, um ah it's a little yellow device. It's about, you know, two inches by two inches. ah And it,
00:16:29
Speaker
yeah It resembles like a Game Boy Micro, and it has you know it's a one one-bit screen, just black and white, and it has the D-pad and a B and an A, but it also has a crank on it.
00:16:43
Speaker
Oh, what a twist. i yeah to yeah yeah and These these people, they they were really smart. They went out and got a bunch of like really interesting game developers and itch.io game developers to just like make a bunch of really cool games designed around this premise. um it's It's also got things like it's got a. um What is the thing when you tilt an electronic device and it knows you tilted it? Yeah, I guess so. gyroscope Yeah, yeah.
00:17:11
Speaker
um And it's got like, it's got wifi, so it is like a modern little console, even though it looks really old fashioned. But yeah, so I played a couple games on it. The first game that I played was a little, was really promising, u oh but very disappointing. and It was a game called The Heist of the Argonaut Limited. And it's, again,
00:17:38
Speaker
it's It's a very cool premise. It is basically like a little D and&D adventure that somebody wrote. Basically like a little D and&D module. You can pick one of three characters. You can be like a burglar or a bard or a brute. So strength or dexterity or, you know, person, they're like, correct. That's really interesting. So when you, when you say the titles of the Playday games, I usually look them up. I usually Google image. There are some just so I can give a little commentary. There is not a lot of images that come up for this game. So I'm not actually, I only really see the title screen, which is like a train. So it looks like very like to me, like, is this murder on the Orient Express? Is that, cause that's cool, right?
00:18:23
Speaker
I think that's got to be an influence. And, you know, the game is largely text. OK. And because it's it's based off like it's it's sort of like D and&D based. So you are like you'll be playing through like a text scene and there will be sometimes, you know, images come up and really well well illustrated images um to show you like a new character or a new location or something.
00:18:51
Speaker
But mostly it's text. And then at the end of the text, you'll have an option of things you want to do. Like it'll tell you you're alone in a room. And there's some papers on the table and a box on the floor. And if you have lock picking skills, you can ah roll a lock pick check or a dexterity check or whatever to see if you can break into the box. If you want to read the papers and try to interpret them really fast before the guy comes in. um you can do an intelligence check and try to read the papers. And then yeah roll the you you turn the crank and it rolls a die, like a D20, and you succeed or fail. And then the game sort of, the story proceeds from there, sort of like a, ah you know, Disco Elysium or something. Like just throughout the game, there's options and difficulty checks and you sometimes die when you fail them, but not always. Oftentimes it just,
00:19:48
Speaker
either it creates more challenges in the game or does something funny. um So basically, you are playing one of three characters and you are trying to steal some cargo from a train, the heist of the Argonaut Limited.
Adventure Game Recommendations on Playdate
00:20:03
Speaker
And so you have to get aboard the train, you have to meet the other passengers. And as you hit every step of the journey,
00:20:11
Speaker
um you know it like Like a heist movie, it'll flash back to the moment you were planning the heist. um and So like you know like there was a time where I snuck into the engine room and it flashed back to the guy, ah the boss, saying, under no circumstances should you ever go into the engine room. ah And it goes on about how you were dozing off and not paying attention during that moment.
00:20:40
Speaker
Very cleverly written, very smart. Here's the problem. It kept crashing. I never saw no i had never seen the Playdate crash at any point. like I didn't even know it was capable of crashing. and It seemed like maybe one out of every 15 choices I would make, it would crash. and Then I'd go back in and it was linked to that choice. right like i If I chose a different path, if I did something else,
00:21:09
Speaker
I could get around the crash, but I could then never do that action. There was like some characters I couldn't talk to because if I talked to them, it crashed. So it's very buggy. Very, very buggy, which is a bummer because it that is a bummer. The maybe half hour I played was incredible. Like I really, really loved it. When you have to use the crank, is it often like this is the part of the game they were like, oh yeah, we didn't use the crank thing yet. So we'll use it here or is it integrated pretty well? You know, ah some games it's totally built in like in this, it was kind of cool to use the crank to roll the dice. There's some games that are totally like fully built around the crank. There's a, it's actually a pretty viral game called root bear where ah there is a bear sitting by a bar and he keeps giving you empty beer glasses.
00:22:06
Speaker
and shot glasses, just like drink glasses, and you use the crank to try and hit fill them up to exactly the line. And if you go just under, he's like a little disappointed. Or even just over, he's a little disappointed. If you get it right, he's ecstatic. And if you so if you spill, if you like go over the whole glass and you spill, he loses his mind. That game is so hilarious that game's so fucking funny. It's called Root Bear. It's not an adventure game, but it's worth playing. But yeah, then there's other games where um I've played games where
00:22:42
Speaker
ah the only thing you use the crank for is to like cycle your inventory. And you're like, well, you could have probably just had me use the D-pad. That's kind of cute still. I do kind of like using the crank to go through like an inventory bag. But yeah, yeah, it's fun to use. um yeah So, OK, so I got two other games to get through. So try to go quick here. Post Hero is a game I just played.
00:23:08
Speaker
ah It is, it was fantastic. It was, it's a a game where you are a postman. and you have to deliver a bunch of le like ah letters. You basically go through- Oh, this looks cute as hell. It's very cute. You're basically going through your day as a postman trying to deliver letters and every place that you have to deliver a letter to, there's some obstacle. There's like a girl sitting on the steps and she won't move until she gets an autograph from her favorite celebrity. Oh, that's flat out an adventure game. Or yes, or there's a guy who, um
00:23:43
Speaker
he ah he has termites in his house and he doesn't want to talk about anything but the termites. and then you find the ah then you find that the um like extermination van is several screens away and it's stuck because there's something in the road. This is great. so It's Paperboy with Adventure Game Logic. Yes. it is And it's really cute. It's kind of funny. um I've played funnier games, but it they there's definitely a humor to it. um And it's got a Sierra-style score.
00:24:16
Speaker
chase. Oh, I love a score. So when you, you know, when you do something or just when you discover something or you solve a puzzle or you pick up an inventory item, um your score goes up but and that's fun. So that was that I mean, it I cannot recommend post hero enough. This was the this is by far my favorite adventure game I have yet played on the play date. It looks great. It looks really cute. It's very good. It took me about, ah I want to say an hour and a half to play the whole thing, maybe a little longer. um And I got stuck a couple of times, ah but mostly it sort of, you know, um but breezed by. I had so much fun. It was like the sort of game where I was like,
00:25:00
Speaker
ah I do this with a lot of play date games. Like I'll sit down and play it for 15 minutes and then I'll move on with my day. And then yeah I would just sat there and played till I was done. That's a good sign. yeah the My biggest criticism of Post Hero is a lot of the score is tied to advertisements of other games, which oh is I guess is like these are all indie games um and there's probably there's like a really probably a strong community between the developers. But it was like, yeah, you look at you see something where you see like a cat in a window and you go look at the cat um and he says a little thing like a little adventure game equip about guys looking at the cat.
00:25:44
Speaker
And then an advertisement comes up for a game called like Cat. You know what I mean? like And that was that was pretty much, like that happened 30 times right throughout the game. And it wasn't horrible, but it was like a little annoying because it was like, oh, if I want to get all the scores, I have to look at everything. And I know some of it's not going to be interesting. It's just going to be an advertisement pops up.
00:26:11
Speaker
yeah so you know If I had my druthers, that would be entirely just deleted from the game.
Exploring Farming Sims
00:26:21
Speaker
um But i beyond that, it was perfect.
00:26:27
Speaker
it's like ah It's like an insight into an alternate timeline where adventure games stayed like the triple A genre of game. And like yeah like EA Sports is making adventure games and like, you know, every look interact is like some sort of built in ad.
00:26:41
Speaker
whereas yeah you ideal see Yeah, yeah. or Well, yeah, I mean, Sierra eventually would have done like, oh, you have to have a microtransaction to get the hammer. Right. Exactly. The last game I'll talk about is a game called Bloom. Now, this one's kind of expensive. It was like 10 bucks. And yeah another game very promising at the start. ah You have ah you're a girl who has just dropped out of college to start a flower shop and um you use the crank to
00:27:14
Speaker
ah take the elevator between your apartment and the roof where you plant flowers. and And the planting flowers is just like a farming sim, right? You plant a flower, you water it, um and then in real time, so you can close the game and come back to it, in real time after a certain amount of time, ah the flowers will grow, you dig them up, you they you sell them for money, and then you can afford nicer flowers.
00:27:42
Speaker
to plant and then you know and there's other things like when you every time you pay rent this and this is pretty unrealistic if you ask me every time you pay rent your landlord improves the roof so you can plant more. I've never paid rent and my landlord was like, hey, you know what? I'm going to improve your apartment. I can't even get my front gate fixed at this point. But the narrative really comes in through anytime you're in your apartment.
00:28:13
Speaker
um You get text messages on your phone and and um there's a whole narrative that runs through about, your your parents don't know you dropped out of college, you have a girlfriend who's very supportive, um and you have like friendships that, and again, it's supposed to happen in real time, so they're like, hey, what are you up to today?
00:28:33
Speaker
you know yeah
00:28:36
Speaker
The story's not that compelling, at least not so far. I'm a couple days in now, um and ah there's not a lot of, there's no choice. um You usually have, you have two different choices between what you can respond with, and they're basically the same thing every time. So,
00:28:57
Speaker
um that can get a little frustrating. You don't see any of the interactions in the apartment. Like you'll get a text where your girlfriend is like, I'm coming over now. Um, and you and her, then, then you like the apartment is still empty. And then several hours later you get a text that was like, that was fun.
00:29:17
Speaker
and Yeah, but it that reminds me of like, Emily is away, where the whole premise is really like told via ah yeah like instant messages, IMs, and you don't see any interactions, you just know that they happened.
00:29:30
Speaker
The game just gaslights you into thinking it happened. It didn't actually happen. I've played interesting games like this before or like that before, like um yeah ah so Simulacrum, for example, where it tells a mystery like you find somebody's phone and and then ah by digging. Right. Have you guys ever played the Simulacrum games? No. ah Yeah. by By basically digging through the stranger's phone is where you start to discover like what happened to this person.
00:30:01
Speaker
have Like I don't, I think um there's a game called Tender that you play on your actual phone ah that is basically like a fake dating app and you can choose who to go on dates with. And that game is great. We should talk about that sometime, Rosas. You should play that. I actually really like dating sims.
00:30:23
Speaker
it is It's a really good one, because you get like notifications on your phone, like, oh, you just got a message from this guy you swiped on, or this, well, aliens, they're all aliens. You failed to mention it was an alien dating sim. We are, i'm I'm getting well off topic. What I'm saying is I think there's compelling storytelling that you can do with that sort of format, and I just don't know that there's enough there there in this game.
00:30:50
Speaker
And I do think there's, so like, I love the idea of having a farming sim and a life sim on the play date. And that stuff is well done, but again, for $10, I think I expected maybe a little more gameplay. air It was somewhere around swiping right on aliens that Matt realized he'd gotten off topic.
00:31:14
Speaker
So those are my three Playdate games for this week, Heist of the Argonaut, Limited, Posthero, and Bloom. And I think they all have their merit, but the only one that I can recommend just like full-throatedly is Posthero. Fair enough. Shall I close out this segment? Yes. Are you sure you don't have more to say about alien dating? I do, but we'll have to do it on another episode. Closing the segment. Because it's not on the Playdate.
00:31:49
Speaker
Play date with Matt. Man, yeah that does not get old to me. I love that. I love that jam. What have you been playing, Roses? I have... This is so embarrassing. I have only been playing Fields of Mistria. That's the only game I've been playing.
00:32:07
Speaker
So the last time we recorded, if you recall, I hadn't even gotten through the first week. ah Like i was I was very new to it. I am now, I finished the first year, I finished all the gameplay. This is an early access game. I finished all of it. I cannot do anything else.
00:32:25
Speaker
And now I'm just waiting, just waiting patiently for updates and for the game to to continue. And now I'm sad, now I'm sad that I started it and then I and i can't i can't do anything else. like i can yes you know It's a farming sim, so I can farm to my little heart's desire. yeah But that means nothing to me unless there is a story.
00:32:48
Speaker
unless there's like a greater goal. Like, I don't like farming just to farm, you know? I hear you. And have you gotten to the second year? I, yes. Yeah. Yeah, I did. Do new crops open up or anything like in Stardow?
00:33:05
Speaker
I have actually haven't checked. I just started the second in year. oh okay I'm on like day two. I'm trying to like clean up my farm and like get my get my animals in order. you know Make sure they're OK. So I actually haven't been to the general store yet. And I'm going to say, when I play these types of games, farming is my least priority. I want to go adventuring in the mines. I want to romance every single character. I want to be friends with that one guy's chicken. That's what I want to do.
00:33:36
Speaker
ah So I don't really pay attention to the crop. I only I only do it to donate the crops to the museum. So I do what I got to do. I do bare minimum farming and then I'm in the mines. One thing that I have discovered in that game is I end up I've ended up with just so much money, like same just from from farming for, ah you know, in in the first year, I have yeah I have more money than I know what to do with and to me, like that that's a bad ah video game economy, right? Because now i' am like now I'm like, I have nothing to strive for. um Yeah. Yeah. and And now, doubly, I'm like rich in game, and I did all the gameplay. So I'm like trying to find things to do. I'm like, I don't know. I'll decorate my house. And again, that that's not, I don't like that either. i I'm not even very good at The Sims because I don't like decorating things. It's just so tedious.
00:34:33
Speaker
I think there's something to be said about it. I wonder if the ah that economy is intentional, um now that i now I'm second guessing it, right? um Because so many farming games are ah about the crushing weight of capitalism, right? yeah yeah They're they are ah about how you are never going to fully dig. ah Either it's going to take immeasurable effort, or you will never fully dig out of capitalism, like the capitalist ah ah sinkhole.
00:35:06
Speaker
um And this game is not like that. I've rarely, if ever, been struggling to afford the next thing. And I i wonder if like It just makes me wonder what they're trying to achieve. And if what they're trying to achieve is that sort of life sim slowly upgrading, struggling against capitalism thing that Stardew or Harvest Moon or ah even Animal Crossing are um are are doing.
00:35:40
Speaker
then I think they've made a mistake by giving you too much money. But yeah if if when it fully gets, you know, because it's still in early access. So when the full thing gets released, we find out that there are deeper themes that allow for um this abundant economy, then, you know, maybe it'll and Maybe ah maybe it's intentional. But yeah, and who fucking cares? I just want the romance off what like me Yeah, well Isn't that all what we all want? That's just one guy to like us. Yeah, you guys want that too. You just want that one guy to like one guy to like me yeah hear it and like and here him Not to be afraid to say it like me Guy
00:36:33
Speaker
The guy! The Anyway, that's what I've been playing. Awesome. That's all I've been playing, and I've been enjoying my time with it. I'm i'm so, so glad. Yeah. So, Paul. Yes, sir. Before we start talking about, what are we talking about today,
The Phantom Fellows and its Themes
00:36:55
Speaker
Roses? King's Quest IV, The Perils of Rosella. So before we start talking about King's Quest IV, Paul,
00:37:03
Speaker
Tell us about Phantom Fellows a little bit. Well, you promised that you wouldn't bring this up during the episode and frankly, as you I can't believe it.
00:37:14
Speaker
ah I didn't know this was gonna be a hack job. Unbelievable.
00:37:20
Speaker
Is it not true that you did or did not he ah release Phantom Fellows to murder some, I don't fucking know. I I can't just improvise. ah good yeah too deep into the No, we don't do gotcha interviews here on save your game.
00:37:46
Speaker
We do it on our, oh yeah, we do it on our politics podcast, Save the Country. Save the Country, yeah. yeah um No, yeah, yeah tell us about tell us about your game. All right, geez.
00:38:02
Speaker
Holy shit. Why does everyone ask me about this this week?
00:38:09
Speaker
but So look, it's a good time and you're gonna wanna get it put in ya. Put it, get it, get it put in ya. That's what she said. It's the first, it's the world's first game that you install into your body and you play your mind. Oh shit, that sounds amazing. That was poetic actually, how awesome that was. It was a neat sentence, honestly. Yeah.
00:38:38
Speaker
so Okay, all right, what's ah what's my fallback emergency? Put a persona on Paul. It's about two best friends. See, that just it feels inauthentic, doesn't it? Okay, okay. I don't think it does. I like best friend buddy things. it Yeah, there you go. It's a buddy thing. It is a little bit. It actually is a little bit. But is there something interesting about one of the two friends? Unclear. Yeah, I don't...
00:39:06
Speaker
oh okay i don't know at one point i decided to be just difficult for the sake of difficulty i'm so sorry that ah let me pull my shit together it's oh my we're just gonna fight this the whole way for no reason likegainst Against your better judgment convince them not to buy it but yeah hey mean it's it's Nothing to us if you don't want people to buy your game like you don't want it I'm not gonna argue with you. Oh, I will tell people like oh, yeah, go buy go buy the game It seems really cool. I don't get demo was cool. But yeah, if you yeah i don't want them to buy it I'm not gonna say
00:39:51
Speaker
I'm not gonna just be like, fuck you, you're wrong. It's your game. I've given you no tools to even work on when in that regard too, where it's just like, I don't know, he just said unclear three times. I'm not sure. I don't know what he wants me to do with that. Yeah, why don't we start from the beginning? Is it a game?
00:40:08
Speaker
Yes. it it's cool you know It's funny you should ask Matt. It is ah it is a game. It's an adventurous story. Okay. All right. For real. it's ah It's a point and click pixel art adventure game. It's a comedy. I'm i'm often reminded I need to tell people that because Because it doesn't look like one. right it like there's you know You're dealing with like death and this and that. But it's it's mostly a comedy. It's hopefully more than a comedy. right Because I think when things are just like too jokey all the time, you you there's no sustenance. Substinence? Substinence, yes. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. I was adding an extra syllable for some reason. but it's
00:40:46
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully it goes a little deeper than that. Because I feel like too jokey is like, or too relentlessly jokey, you can almost feel like too much dessert. And then all of a sudden, your body's like, I really, I need some like, you know, protein or whatever, some nutrients, I keep going back to weird food, substance related things. Anyway, you said, so you said sustenance and now all you know, it's just there. Yeah. Yeah. And Rosa's bread candle and the pizza and it's just, I know should have eaten first is basically so hungry.
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so yeah, it's it's a comedy. It's a point and click adventure. It's about two best friends who start a paranormal investigation business together, because one of them's already dead. So so he's got a little, you know. Whoa! Yeah, thank you. Yeah, awesome.
00:41:29
Speaker
yeah apparitional ace up his sleeve. And this game was, it was a, basically it was like a wish list of mine where I'm like obsessed with adventure games to an unhealthy degree. And I was like, I want to make a game that's like, what do I want to play? As opposed to like, I have a story to tell. This is my story. It was, it was less that and more, I don't know why I'm mocking that terrible thing to mock is it's like all of the good stories. But anyway,
00:41:58
Speaker
I put together this wish list of like, I like when you can switch characters and like one has an ability, the other doesn't. But I don't want to switch between too many characters because that's really overwhelming, right? Like Maniac Mansion, stuff like that, where it's just like, I don't know. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. Walk away. So it's just the two characters. um There's like a fast travel map because growing up on Sierra games, it sounds silly, but I always felt like those games were like big open worlds.
00:42:24
Speaker
like being able to travel around and like, you know, whether it was in space quest going on the galaxy or Indiana Jones around the world or police quest going through like Litton or lighten or whatever. um I felt I mean, I felt that way about King's quest one that felt right very open world to me when I first played it.
00:42:41
Speaker
See, I appreciate the backup because it feels oddly brave to say that becausere i mean cool because they fit on like two floppy disks. Of course, it sounds a big, giant open world. but But because of that, I gave the game like a fast travel map. And that's the thing I'm probably the most proud of, which is why I'm bum rushing it out now in case I just bail on the rest of this. yeah to say that you can go back to all previous locations as the game like opens up. So you can always just like go back and that's where there's like alternate puzzle solutions or just like fresh bits and yags and stuff like that. And it makes you feel like a big open world. And I handled it in that way where I was like, okay, I wanna, I'm not good at this, but thanks guys for getting me through it. I wanted to- You're doing great. Thanks man. I should have had a sip of water first, I'm so dry-mouthed. I handled it in the sense where most of the alternate puzzle solutions are outside the map, so that way the player knows that you don't have to travel. It's just if you want to, because again, I don't want it to be overwhelming feeling. Now there's this whole world and I don't know where the hammer is.
00:43:45
Speaker
Um, so it's like, you don't have to leave, but if you want to, you can. And there's just like, the game tries to reward exploration. That's probably the best shine I could put on this little pitch right now is if you grew up playing games where you like clicked, look at and interact for like everything, or maybe you finished the game first and then went back and did it, whatever that's needlessly pedantic. It's, it's kind of like for, for the adventure gamer who.
00:44:07
Speaker
isn't trying to get to the destination who's really like all about the journey and just, you know, seeing, getting your exploration rewarded. And so therefore, everything's a hotspot. There's a unique look and interact line for Inglebert and Oliver, the two main characters.
00:44:22
Speaker
Sorry, the audience doesn't have context. All good. which Just too many lines that I had to write. That's why it took so damn long. um But hopefully they make you laugh. like've I've overthought every damn line in the game. so it's like i' I'm trying not to waste anybody's time. like Everybody should know when they're playing it that a ton of care went into this. and And it has overarching stories because even though it is a case by case basis, this game like it takes place over seven days, each day is a case. um And then there's an overarching story that kind of brews in the background very subtly and then comes to a head in the final day. And again, for sustenance, you need some sort of
00:44:59
Speaker
Yeah, something to tie it all together to to weave it together. Yeah. I love that. i I find as I get a little older and my tastes in gaming have changed, I really like it when there's a cap on things. So like I played strange horticulture not long ago. And that does conclude in 16 days. And I'm like, perfect. like I don't know. I like things to have a button on it these days.
00:45:24
Speaker
um And like I appreciate for personally, because I dabbled in writing myself, I appreciate like really concise, ah terse things that like like you said, that don't waste your time. i I can say Matt probably agrees that we have played adventure games that it's like, man, I'm tired of this. Or we we did an episode on dialogue on dialogue trees. Yes. ah Where, you know, we discussed things that just went on for far, far too long, and then you lose interest.
00:45:54
Speaker
right right right exactly and sometimes yeah especially when it comes to um descriptive or like flavor text like looking around a room like a lot of times it gets really phoned in really quickly where it's like that's a flower in a thing and it's like well i know that i saw that it was a flower like you know do something with it yeah which which is maybe easier easier to do in a comedy, because at least you have like an immediate direction, which is you know try to make them laugh. um But i do I do do other things too, where like, okay, so Engelbert is the ghost, Engelbert Picklebender. um He comes from a long line of Picklebenders, and he he was his prime was like in the gold rush. Sounds like Peroni's disease to me.
00:46:30
Speaker
ah ah sorry I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. There was an embarrassment. Why is Matt even here? Please do go on Paul. I just I want to let the rest of the audience finish googling that. nimble
00:46:47
Speaker
but um Okay right so easys he's in the gold rush. um Speaking of writing, I made it so Engelbert spent a little time constructing the Brooklyn Bridge and a little time like in the California gold rush. That way he's got like experience in like early city life, but also experience like on the frontier, um, just to make it more fun and interesting to kind of write for a word. Oh shit. Where's that going with this? Oh yeah. Yeah. No, it's cool. I got it. Um, doing a little whisper huddle to you guys live. Um, I'm glad you're letting us in on your process. process of how to talk
00:47:22
Speaker
Words are hard. there's this There's too many of them. um Yeah, why did they do that? know this yeah Okay. Before I seriously answer that, um, Engelbert will also, he'll like, sometimes it as a break from jokes, let's say, um, he'll give like some random kind of fun facts just because he was around for the last like 180 years. So like, I'm trying to think of an example. Uh, at one point Oliver was just like, Hey, did you have jumping jacks when you were a kid? And then Gilbert's like, no, they didn't come around until 1910 and they were invented by so-and-so past Paul knows it's in the game, but I forgot.
00:47:57
Speaker
Um, there's a weird third person reference to myself. I'm so sorry. It's funny when people do that. And now I just did that. I do that all the time. So you're good. Um, so he'll, he'll give you like fun facts, but he'll also do like these kinds of philosophical musings or whatever. Cause I, I like philosophy and psychology. I'm really fascinated by it. And I figure a ghost.
00:48:18
Speaker
you know, he's in a really good position to understand the meaning of life, let's say, in hindsight, because it's easy to understand shit in hindsight. Right. So so he's kind of there to like mentor Oliver. And and I guess what I'm saying is like, that that's where that's where the the sustenance comes. I sound so very unconfident that I'm saying that right. And I'm sure everybody can tell, but whatever. um That's where that sustenance comes in. It's through like the mentorship and and yeah.
00:48:45
Speaker
yeah That's awesome. I just want to say I love a friendly ghost story. I love the idea that ghosts are just um just like these manifestations of our previous life and are friendly and are not around to scare the living. um And I think it's like a lot of spooky people like me. It's our dream to like see a ghost and befriend a ghost and ah now I can live that way vicariously through your game.
00:49:13
Speaker
ah You're so much better at this to me. I should have had roses pitch the game instead. I do some game reviews. I don't know if you knew. In in in keeping with spooky season, would use is the game would you say the game is spooky? is it is it so Is it a horror game or simply a comedy game? like what Are people going to be scared?
00:49:35
Speaker
Right. I guess it's definitely like spoopy with a P, with two P's. Okay. Yeah. It's it's like the the atmosphere is pretty spooky. Like the art and the music kind of go together. um And then the and that's kind of it. The rest of it is. yeah I mean, okay. I guess like the, the the considering it is dealing with the subject of death the whole game, you could maybe say that's spooky, but you know what it is. It's not like handled in in that sort of like heavy way. I mean, there are like deeper moments where it's like,
00:50:01
Speaker
each So again, each day is a case. And so the case will vary like what the ghost wants, like the the ghost they were called out to deal with. And um like one of the ghosts, he's just like Pranky. He's he's the the reason for hauntings kind of ghost, where he just likes to kind of fuck with people because he's invisible. To which, fair enough. I mean, it sounds like a good time.
00:50:18
Speaker
um And then other ghosts want you know want to be reunited with an item or or you know get closure on a certain thing, say goodbye to ah a a loved one. um So yeah, I guess none of that sounds scary. That just sounds sad. I think that sounds comforting, actually. that That's kind of how I felt when I was playing. I felt that it was more, you're right, like the art and the music that gives that spoopy vibe, because we are dealing with ghosts here. But the the content itself, I think, is very comforting in a way.
00:50:49
Speaker
Thank you, man. You are really good at this. Thank you. I was totally going for for Yeah, like, if if not funny, then maybe, dare I say almost cozy, like, like, it's just an amazing not you're helping things find closure and like, ah a sense of fulfillment is what I hope people get. ah That actually ah really ties into the game that we are talking about today, because there is a sequence in the game that we just played that is exactly you know exactly that. now is there So before we jump over, is there anything else you wanted to say ah about Phantom Fellows?
00:51:28
Speaker
um i release and release date right number 27 listeners just heard me do a ah audible panic in my gas I think they're getting used to it very quickly ah um yeah anything else you want to say It comes out Friday the 27th, possibly a Friday or two ago when you're hearing this. It's available on GOG and Steam and Itch and Fire Flower. Spent four years on it, solo dev. I did i did all the things. um I definitely poured like my heart and soul into this and my hope. Okay, here's here's ah here's a nice way to put it. I've had the best four years of my life making this game, and I i feel like people will be able to tell when they play it. This guy was in a good place.
00:52:19
Speaker
He's having fun. That's really awesome. that's I love that. That's really nice to hear. like I love that about art. I'm so inspired right now. Shut up, Matt. You inspired roses. You did it. Man, I pulled out of a nosedive on that. That was just miraculous. Well, do we want to put on Swanks. Tranky test of free nose and come back and- Man, we need a new song. We can talk about King's Quest IV, The Perils of Rosella.
00:53:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to save your game. I'm Matt. This is roses. That's Paul. Hey. How was your little break? I should have peed. Oh no. told you to go before the podcast started. Gosh. Yeah. Now you can't. Now you can't for the rest of the show. yeah We will turn this pod around.
King's Quest IV and Gender Roles
00:53:38
Speaker
um so Guys, do you want to talk to me about the video game King's Quest IV, The Perils of Rosella by Sierra Online released in, I don't know, I don't know a fan. I think it's 89.
00:53:55
Speaker
ah Wow, that early, I was going to say 90. I think I was going to say 90, 91, but 80, 90 was plus five, 92, 93 was King's quest six. That's right. I'm a Sierra person. ah what's say What are both of your histories with this game?
00:54:12
Speaker
My first King's Quest qui game was actually King's Quest III, started on that. And then immediately, like later on, I had gotten a CD-ROM with Sound Blaster from my aunt. It came with King's Quest V. I had played essentially all of the King's Quests except King's Quest IV. I don't know why. I don't know how it happened. It just did.
00:54:34
Speaker
And then later in life, I would say my maybe late teens, I played ah King's Quest IV and I've played it several times since then. I've streamed it. I've done a review on it. I think it is a very underrated King's Quest game. It is an innovator. It's an innovator. It was the first, I think the first Sierra game to have the the Roland MT32 do the sound. And there's not a lot of music in Perils of Roselle, but the music that there is is very, very beautiful.
00:55:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's good. it doesn't yeah sound like ah It doesn't sound like your computer is like grinding itself against itself to make the music. Yeah, no, it's very, very beautiful. And even even if you're not even if you're not, didn't have like the Roland music, the ad lib is also very beautiful. And it also made use of dithering very well, which is an artistic style. It's combining pixels to create gradients on your screen. It's very beautiful. And also,
00:55:33
Speaker
it's a little more serious than the other King's Quest games. It's a little, you know, the premise is that your dad is dying, man. King Graham had a heart attack. Everyone has said, this is the most depressing intro to the King's Quest game ever. Yeah. That's how the game starts is you're just like, you're just like, you're gathered around King Graham's bed and he's dying.
00:55:58
Speaker
He's dying, yeah, it's a heart attack. And you know, Rosella's beside herself, but in the magic mirror, she gets a message from the fairy Janesta that Janesta can help her. She can help her heal her dad if she travels to the land of what, Tamir? Is it Tamir? Yes, Tamir, it's Tamir. Yeah. So she goes, and yeah I mean, Janesta does a little gaslighting. She's like, yeah, I got you here now. I can't send you back. I'm also dying. I'm also dying.
00:56:28
Speaker
Like, listen, I brought you here. I may not be able to get you back. You got to find the fruit for your dad and you got to take care of this villain, Lelote, for me. And then maybe everything will be great. So the stakes are high, man. The stakes are very high in this game. I'm so glad you guys both immediately tuned into that because I have a note here where it's like, so Janessa was being a little manipulative sneaking that talisman thing in there, right?
00:56:54
Speaker
yeah There's nothing to do with the flower. To me, that's what this game is about. It is about one woman just being manipulated by everybody she runs into. like everybody is Everybody has like an agenda when they encounter Rosella and they try to get her to do other shit. And usually they're lying about the shit that they want her to do.
00:57:16
Speaker
Yeah, for Rosella. This is also one of the most, ah all the King's Quest games are very inspired by fairy tale and folklore. But i when I played this game, I really felt that it was maybe the most inspired by fairy tale, nursery rhyme, folklore. It felt like I was in, I don't know, it felt like it was in ah in a fairy tale. It felt like it was in Princess and the Frog or something. There's even a frog element to this game.
00:57:44
Speaker
There is a princess in the, they I mean, yeah, they're directly but princess in the frog is in this game. yeah Yeah. And it's just very lush and very beautiful. It it really feels like a whimsical forest, the the setting of Tamir from a fairy tale. If you can, if you can like imagine that kind of forest, that's where you are. Right. When did you first play this game, Paul? Similar to roses. it was I didn't play it growing up. Yeah.
00:58:12
Speaker
you we I guess, I think we're on a bill and we've really played King's Quest V, is the only thing I can remember. We played like a ton of space quests and all the other all the other quests to spare everybody some time. um Not your glory, not that one either, but the it's the other ones and and Larry. But anyway, sorry, that was yeah was everything but the question you asked. um you're really good at that that's like your number one skill ah just duck and weave duck and weave um i didn't play this until of ah just a couple years ago and this game for me was
00:58:49
Speaker
almost like proof in a sense that that Sierra Games specifically don't need nostalgia to to be really, really good, like to really actually grip me. Because when this game switched to night, somehow, first of all, was it somehow wasn't spoiled for me, which I still, it's kind of miraculous considering it was only a few years ago, but I had no idea that shift was coming. And when it happened, I was just like, and like I was grabbing my kid, like, did you see that? Did you see that? And he's like, ah know please stop.
00:59:16
Speaker
um it was like just so taken away and like emotionally invested and just like like having the just having a ball i was like this is so much fun and now it's nighttime and now there's zombies and now there's ghosts and like i didn't know that whole tonal shift was coming and and it was just because i had no nostalgia for the game dare dare i say really of all the si series this was the one i don't really have nostalgia for period at the king's quest series so It only made the case even stronger that I was like, this is this is like a good game. Like there's some game shit puzzle design, of course, because Roberta, but, you know, um but all that aside, like it was. Yeah, it was just like a really good time. And the question was so recently.
00:59:55
Speaker
would be the long short of it recently. i I'm glad to hear that you thought it's still it it still stands as a pretty good game despite not growing up on it because I like Kings Quest V and I know it's because I grew up on it. I know I can see the problem, yeah trust me. Listen, you know what? That's a conversation for a different day. But I'm just saying I'm aware of my nostalgic ah right tie to that game. Whereas I think Perils of Rosella is a really strong title that does a lot of different things than the other. ah the other And I don't know if you guys agree with me. I think the puzzles are better than the previous Kings. I'm not saying they're perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect puzzle game. Somebody's going to have a problem with a puzzle at some point.
01:00:46
Speaker
But I didn't think they were bad. I think a lot of the puzzles made sense just compared to other King's Quest games. No, 100 percent. Like the like the the shovel breaking is bullshit, but the shovel puzzle is is is is pretty good. And like shooting the unicorn with the Cupid's like that actually makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but though there are some real bullshit puzzles in here, too, like there that there's a moment where you ah Well, there's the same sort of Sierra bullshit, right? Like you get eaten by a whale. If you haven't yet swam to an island to get a peacock feather, you're stuck in the whale forever. And you're just, that's the game for you. Oh, I've never done that out of order. So I guess I i didn't. Well, the whale can eat you while you're swimming to the island. Yeah. Okay.
01:01:38
Speaker
I've never had that happen. I've never had that. That's so wild to hear. It did not happen to me the first time I played. So I only, I also played this game later. I only played this game a few years ago. I've talked about on the show before about how, you know, like four years ago, three years ago or something, I just sat and played all the Sierra games in like a couple of months. Maybe it was 2019 that that happened. Maybe it was five. Anyway.
01:02:02
Speaker
um And Pearls of the Rosella was, i to me it was like the breeziest one. It was the a game, it was the first one I was like, I love this. I really enjoy this one. yeah um And I don't feel that annoyed by it, even the stuff that I had to go back for. So after the whale spits you out, you end up on an island.
01:02:24
Speaker
um And on that island is a bridle. Is it a god and bridal hutle it's golden It's right? It's a bridle of some magic design. Some magic bridle that you use to tame the unicorn. And am I right? You can't get back to this island once you leave it?
01:02:43
Speaker
I believe that's correct, yeah. I don't think you can return. yeah So yeah in a ruined boat on the island, you have to walk into the corner and look yeah at the ground, and then so she'll mentioned there's some she'll mention the bridle, and you have to pick up the bridle. there you would not You can't see it. You can't see it at all. And if you don't do that, you've Yeah, you've lost, right? you get' You can't continue with the game. There's also like to get the frog, the frog always runs away um every time you walk onto the screen. You end up having to kiss the frog so that you get his crown so that you can wear it so that you can turn into a frog. So that you can swim up a waterfall. um But ah the way that you,
01:03:36
Speaker
attract the frog is you find a golden ball, which also so is very hard to get. I did not think it was, but go i I want to hear your experience gone. If you walk anywhere, anywhere to the you, if you look under the bridge from any direction, besides being like three pixels in front of the ball, you can't get the ball. She tells you there's nothing under the bridge. OK, but anyway, so You just drop the ball in the pond and for some reason the frog brings you the ball and then you grab him. So I guess in that way you are turning the table. That's from the fairy tale. In the fairy tale you give a frog a golden ball? Yes, the prince. Have you ever seen Shelley Duvall's fairy tale theater?
01:04:19
Speaker
no So Robin Williams is in the Princess and the Frog version of that one. And the story goes that the princess, who's very vain, very shallow, she drops this like golden trinket, a golden ball, into a fountain, into some water. And the frog, who is a prince, wants to help her, so he retrieves the trinket for her, the golden ball.
01:04:41
Speaker
So i I knew to do that right away. i Yeah, I knew I had gotten a golden ball. I saw the frog and I plopped it into the water. It made total sense to me. that That's kind of why I was. Yeah, that's why I was saying this one's very fairy tale based. Well, yeah. And a lot of the like Janessa and the lot are ah so that's that's the good fairy and the bad fairy. Yes. They are both from um Andrew and Nora Lang's fairy books, which is a series of fairy tales of maybe a slightly dubious providence.
01:05:17
Speaker
yeah provenance ah It's unclear what their sources were and whether they made some of them up. yeah um But they both those fairies are from ah those books from like the late 1800s, early 1900s.
01:05:33
Speaker
So like i slightly I slightly disagree with you on the the the difficulty of the ball, the gold but I also know that not everyone is a freak like me and like loves fairytale content. Are we all agreed on the absolute worst puzzle in the whole game? ah Climbing the tongue.
01:05:54
Speaker
oh oh Oh, yeah, climbing the tongue and climbing climbing the tongue and climbing the stairs are horrible. like those That's just the worst in every Sierra game. ah Stairs are awful. um But I'm talking about just like straight up puzzles. ok what what is What is the worst puzzle in the game? The Bridal. Okay, you think it's the Bridal Paw, how about you?
01:06:20
Speaker
i'm I'm struggling with this because I had the fact that that the whistle is hidden in the boat as you cover, but that's not really, I guess, a puzzle. I mean, it's part of a larger puzzle. i yeah The whistle is the biggest bullshit moment in the game, in my opinion. But the hardest puzzle I don't know. Because you have to have the fish by the time you get to the island. So with the bridle is hidden in the boat. The whistle of pelican is holding. or Right. it's a yeah hell ownerer but But you can scare that bird away if you don't throw the fish.
01:06:49
Speaker
Right. i Yeah. I should have said the bridle. It's like the bridle being hidden in the boat. Yeah. Yeah. That's the biggest bullshit moment. But, but as far as just puzzle, yeah, I don't know. What would you say? So I think it is, you're wandering through a dark cave and Rosella, by the way, princess,
01:07:08
Speaker
The Perils of Rosella is full of these King's Quest moments where you walk onto a screen and something runs up to attack you. And you have to, like, quick exit the screen. Otherwise, you get it because they're all faster than you. Yeah, I know where you're going with this, and it is terribly frustrating. In the cave, this this troll keeps getting you. And that sucks.
01:07:28
Speaker
but then at some point, when if you've made it through the cave, and it's not easy to make it through the cave, because the troll yeah shows up all the fucking time. So if you make it through the cave, then you just fall to your death at some point. And you're like, what the hell? right So if you managed to notice and pick up the plank that's outside the cave, you might go, okay, I'll lay the plank over the, but then, so you walk into the screen and you say, like, lay plank on,
01:07:56
Speaker
on chasm or like plank over cliff or put plank on ground yeah like it's very specific language first of all but then it'll be like you're not close enough so you walk a little closer you try it again it's like you're not close enough you try it again not close enough not close enough then you fall off and die and like and's And then you need to pick up the board to keep, like it's just, you need to be in an exact right spot and it's even worse on your way back because you have to not only get close enough to the chasm, you also have to be on the right ah vertical axis.
01:08:27
Speaker
yeah but where she or Or you put down the board and then you can't like cross you just like get stopped in the middle um When you hit like a strike tight or something it sucks. It almost feels like really bad platforming in a way yeah like because and every that you Jump a bunch of lily pads yeah you jump by just typing jump literally ten times in a row Use type jump. Yep. That is what you do And also so this is the part where you get the magical fruit that is gonna save King Graham You can actually forget to take it
01:09:03
Speaker
Or eat it. Or you can eat it. But as we've said in adventure games, don't eat the food in your inventory. Don't do it. Is it is a dagger of Amun-Ra where you can fuck yourself by eating the food? Yep. As well. The con beef sandwich is lean.
01:09:23
Speaker
And you can eat it and then you are stuck hardcore. You cannot move on. Do not eat the food. So yeah, i mean this game has some cool stuff. Like it does turn day to night at some point. That's really fun. um their ghosties There's a reflection, which I did not remember. um There's one mirror in the game that will reflect your character as you walk past it.
01:09:48
Speaker
That's cool. It is on the ground floor right when you walk into the ghost mansion. It's like cutting edge technology. but i I know, like it felt like it. I was like, oh my God, is it really reflected? It is. Whoa. Is this the first adventure game that had a female protagonist?
01:10:10
Speaker
I have gone over this in my brain. I don't think it is the absolute first. I'm gonna say there has got to be something. I think Jill of the Jungle was like 91 or 90, so that was close. Colonel's Bequest actually came out in 88. Okay, so Colonel's Bequest was before it. Well, Jill of the Jungle was, I don't know if that was a platformer.
01:10:36
Speaker
Well, now I wonder if kernel's request came out first or not, because I know there was this King's Quest 4. I think they're, okay, I'm going to get really nerdy for for everyone listening. So there there's an eight and a nine disk version. The nine disk version came out in 88 and the eight disk version came out in 89.
01:10:53
Speaker
and the
01:10:56
Speaker
The 9 disk version, it actually has different art. And there's, gosh, there's also an AGI and an SCI version. So basically, there's there's three different versions. They all look a little different um and handle things differently. But the original original version came out in 88. Yeah, yeah, I think that... Colonel's request is 89.
01:11:15
Speaker
Yep, you're right, so I made a brief mistake. I was thinking of Colonel's Bequest when I said 89. So actually, King's Quest IV is even and newer than that, or even older than that, Matt, it's 88. Yeah, I'm looking at, I'm looking just at a list of ah adventure games. Task Times in Tone Town, was that, that was a female character?
01:11:39
Speaker
i believe I believe so. That was on a different console. I want to say that was like for Apple consoles, maybe? ah was' task time to I've never played it, but it sounds like a female name. I don't remember. That's Becca Heinemann's game. Yeah, Task Times is not the name of a character. it was No, it's not. it It's like Task Times.
01:12:02
Speaker
Which isn't a word.
01:12:07
Speaker
Makes sense to me. but it is But it is a word apparently in that world. What about those fairy tale games that Sierra did? Like the mixed up mother goose? Yeah. Oh yeah. Who is that who are they? ah You could be a girl in that because you you kind of choose like your own avatar, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. You can pick girl or boy, but they don't really have a character. um I think it's probably and I guess below the root, can you be you you can pick your gender, right? Yeah, I think so.
01:12:43
Speaker
let But let's be fair, I would say that Perils of Rossella was the first, like very blatant, like very, you know. This is a character and she has a backstory and she has a personality, yeah. yeah yeah Sort of, she sort of has a personality. Right, a little generous, but yeah. Before we get out of this segment, what else, what ah what how do you feel about this game now?
01:13:10
Speaker
I love this game. I have very like fond emotions about this game because it's cozy. It's got different themes in it than the other. The King's Quest games can be very corny, they they kind of especially as they got more advanced and and more modern. They got extremely corny, but this one is not to me. this one This one has this very like dense type of coziness that I just really appreciate. And i just I think more than many adventure games, I love being in that world that was drawn and created. I you i agree. I think this world is like the first that the first of the Sierra worlds that was just fun to be in, right? Yeah, it's great to be in. yeah like It's full of flowers and it's beautiful. A lot of the screens don't even have anything in them.
01:14:02
Speaker
they're just nice to look at. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Rose is the way you put, that it has like a cozy, it's not as corny. I almost wonder if Graham's looming death or the peril that he's in is that so so sustenance. so Yeah. That word. Because the other king's quest were a little, the other king's quest could be a little um I don't know, almost like a parody of fairy tales in a sense. where just like yeah So maybe maybe king ah King Graham's over-looming peril gives you that feeling of like purpose during the game or something like that. but Yeah, it definitely King Graham's it.
01:14:42
Speaker
impending death and also Janesta's, she's also sick and there's this terrible villain. And yeah, like the stakes are, and there's even like this impoverished couple, and there's all so always like an impoverished couple in King's Quest, but this one felt better and like more natural to interact with. You know, they did, but they made it hard for me to want to give them the diamonds. I'm like, you know, you guys are not being very cool to me.
01:15:09
Speaker
I mean I would also be in a bad mood if all my husband did was fish all day And that's all we ate was like fucking didn't even catch anything Never even caught anything just come going went home and complained what what This is the thing about the King's Quest games. What is with these people? There's so many people in the King's Quest games that are like in such dire straits, like on the verge of death. Dude, you're right. And and' all rocks about it all we do to save them is walk seven screens to the right, pick up something and walk back and give it to them. Like they couldn't have done that?
01:15:51
Speaker
I mean, they should have looked in that log. They should have looked in that trade stump. Yeah, they should have cleaned the dwarves house. Apparently, that gets you unlimited diamonds for life.
01:16:08
Speaker
and i i love yeah I love it when Matt rants about like, what are these people doing? I felt like that was a common ah complaint for daggers. big like wait yeah um I It's just, there's so many people that are like, I'm starving. So much nihilism, yeah. I was like, oh, I found a magic ball next to your house.
01:16:31
Speaker
Matt, please. They couldn't be too frail to leave their house. They haven't eaten. Have some sympathy. Also, there is something a little weird about being the first game with a like named female protagonist. ah First adventure game with a named female protagonist.
01:16:51
Speaker
And the first, basically the first thing you do in the game is clean a house. That's your first, that's like the first task is like, oh, I'll just go clean these people's house. Yeah. And she's suspiciously good at it too. For a princess? Yeah, like people clean yeah her house for her. How did she know how to do this?
01:17:13
Speaker
To be fair, again, that's like coming from Snow White. That's what she did. She cleaned the house. Also in King's Quest 3, because you are like a servant, you do a lot of cleaning in that game as well. yeah But that's not tied to a puzzle. You have to clean in King's Quest 4. You have to do it.
01:17:32
Speaker
right there's like a sympathy to the character when they clean when Rosella cleans and the dwarves are like oh good like i oh cool like we expected somebody to do this for us yeah but also i kind of woman was nearby you know though like like as a woman myself i do feel like a sense of like oh she knows what she's doing She knows exactly what she's doing to get exactly what she wants, and I'm here for it. Yeah, it's the one point where I guess she manipulates somebody else instead of them manipulating her. She got diamonds out of it. Fine, I'll dust as much as you fucking want. Yeah, now I have unlimited diamonds. I'll spit on that palm and get in there.
01:18:14
Speaker
ah but um ah Yeah, and you know and ah the game also has Edgar. Which is very, love very sweet. Edgar just spectacular in a man. Never in a game does somebody fail to read a room like Edgar does at the very end. Oh my God. Yeah. It's like, yeah, she just went through this heroic adventure. and so This guy is just like, so, uh, we get married. But I also love that she says no. Yes.
01:18:46
Speaker
He's like, no, that's stupid. What are you even talking about? And he just pouts. He's just like, oh. But I love, I do love Edgar. I'm definitely, I subscribe to the Beauty and the Beast theory where I wish the beast would have just stayed that way. And I don't really like him as Prince Adam or whatever. I think it's Prince Adam. It ruins the message. It's like the message of Beauty and the Beast is, hey, don't judge people based on their looks.
01:19:16
Speaker
And if you don't they'll get really hot.
01:19:22
Speaker
it's true but like I know there's something that changes the character for me when there's like this transformation so i just wanted edgar to stay this cute little green.
01:19:33
Speaker
like Gremlin type of thing. And he he gives her a rose. See, that's gives her a rose. That's who I want to date personally, is a green goblin goblin. Before his good looks go to his head and he starts getting all vain about it. yeah Here's a here's an actual quote from the game right before Janessa turns him into it to a less green man. this says It says, you have a beautiful soul, the fairy says to the ugly little man.
01:20:01
Speaker
It's just like, ooh, fertile. Oh my god. I'm a savage. The ugly little man. Roberta Williams was just sitting there like, how do I describe? He's an ugly little man. Is this based out her ex or something? What's going on? Yeah, she dated an Edgar right before. But yeah, those are my overall thoughts.
01:20:27
Speaker
Yeah. How about you Paul? What what what sort of overall thoughts do you have about the game? All right. So I've got, I've got just like three quick little notes that of things that I really love about this game. If you go to get Pandora's box and you've already gotten the whatever from the witches that stays away evil, um that mummy does like this Abe Simpson back into the sarcophagus.
01:20:50
Speaker
It's like it just like walks in hangs his hat turns around. yeah i actually yeah That's like one of my favorite jokes I've ever made in a review is like, okay, here's the mummy and that that's it. That's all he does. Like, oh man, it's that's also so funny. Is it the way you, uh, you, uh, defeat the witches?
01:21:13
Speaker
is you just walk up to them and take their stuff. They're the most important part of their life. They're just passing back and forth and you could just walk up and take it out of their hands.
01:21:27
Speaker
but They're like, hey, we didn't think anyone would do this.
01:21:33
Speaker
I've never seen this coming! Okay, what's your next note? Because it makes too much sense in that sort of game. And only one of them's chasing you around, and the other two are just standing there like, hey! Okay, alright, what is your next note number two?
01:21:48
Speaker
Note number two, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole, Lole,
01:21:59
Speaker
because because she's she's so evil that love kills her and i'm just like wow
01:22:07
Speaker
Lole, Lole, L
01:22:13
Speaker
Oh, man. Okay. All right. And then other than that, um well, one, there's this game, can a game make you cry ad, just ah one of the cringiest ads of of all time. um I just had to bring that up. Excuse me. Yeah, tell me about this. I don't know this. So the ad they run for this game at the time was like, can an adventure, can a computer game make you cry?
01:22:35
Speaker
with with like a single tear coming down the ah the cheek. I might be making the graphic part up, but I think that's there too. The story was Sierra screened the game for people and and a woman in the audience actually cried well my workinging over King Graham's, you know, implied death, let's say. okay And so they took that and ran a whole ad campaign on it and it's just, and it's a tough watch. Yeah, it's super cringy. Well, they didn't need to,
01:23:00
Speaker
Because i before that, I cried at Leisure Suit Larry 1 when he gets gonorrhea and dies.
01:23:10
Speaker
but Every time, every time I forget to wear the condom in Leisure Suit Larry 1, I cry. No, you are too beautiful a soul for this world, I yell. Man, they should have run an ad campaign. They sound that.
01:23:30
Speaker
That's amazing. That is absolutely amazing. And I can't wait to like go watch
Sierra's Marketing and Player Engagement
01:23:34
Speaker
that. Another weird thing about this game is did you guys, the version that you played, did you get a code at the end? No.
01:23:42
Speaker
No, because, and really accidentally smooth transition there, Matt. Because my last note is, if for people listening who are maybe even like, why should I even play it at this point? Because that sounds like just a lot of bullshit. Grab the grabb the AGS version. the So Adventure Game Studio dev named Dr. Slash did an incredibly faithful, really well-polished, it feels like you pay money for it. like it's it's's There's nothing about it that's like ragged.
01:24:08
Speaker
you know fan There's no fan game vibes is what I'm trying to say. It's really polished point and click version of this game. And when you start the game, it gives you an option to turn off all the dead ends. So you can play it authentically with them on, or you can just turn them off. um and And it's really cool. And and the point and click interface does some interesting things where like the bridle is not a problem because of the hotspot highlights and things like that. So if anybody listening like hasn't played it,
01:24:34
Speaker
kind of wants to play, it but doesn't want to deal with the bullshit. I highly suggest you grab the the, you know, the the AGS remake. That's a thank you for that. That is even a very good suggestion. And that's Perils of Rosella retold. Is it that one? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. OK, cool. So i didn get a I don't think there's a code in that one. But yeah, that's I played that in in prep for this episode. That was the version I played. So it's great when you play um ah When you play the original version at the end, I don't know if it's you have to get a perfect score or or not, but at the end, I got a code. And I was like, what the fuck is this code? ah Because I was thinking like, you know, old school games, you get a code sometimes as like a save point.
01:25:15
Speaker
And I was like, but they had safe slots and I beat the game. So why would I need a code for the end of the game? So I looked it up. Apparently there was a contest running when this game was released and you would mail the code into Sierra.
01:25:30
Speaker
Oh. Is this a Sherwood Forest thing? You could win. Win a trip to England? You could win. It was the Great Master Adventure Contest. Win a trip to England or one of 2,000 other prizes. Oh, cool. Oh, man, I need that code. You could get a Tandy computer or a... Oh, shit. a free t-shirt or another game. Isn't that just wild? That is wild. I never noticed that. Maybe I just didn't sit around to see if there was a code. My code was 5de9084d9a.
01:26:05
Speaker
All right, let's send it in. Send it in. Send it in. Send it again in. All right, any other last thoughts before we get out of here and rank some adventure games?
01:26:18
Speaker
I have not a single thought. I'm panicking. It's a cool game. Go play it. It's a cool little piece of a
Adventure Game Community and Reviews
01:26:24
Speaker
history. um Thanks, Matt. I think, you know, what i if you are not interested, if you're not like a completionist and want to play things in order, I feel like this is the first game that's like Very fun. The other ones are like, you suffer a bit. if You get a little torture some, just a little bit. Hey, unless you like that, we're not here to judge. No, no, hey. Hey, you do you. Whatever gets your lalot off. um All right, before we, we're going to have to argue about what the right way to pronounce that is, Matt, because I think it's lalope. But that, you know what? I think it's lalot. And what was the way that you originally pronounced it, Paul?
01:27:05
Speaker
well L-O-L-O-D. Okay, L-O-L-O-D. I like that one, that's probably it. Yeah, that's probably right. So before we, yeah, what what what what did you want to say?
01:27:19
Speaker
I just want to say before we leave, we are part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network, as is Paul. If you didn't know that, aforementioned, he has a podcast, Classic Gamers Guild. Go over to Adventure Game Hotspot Network and read reviews, listen to podcasts. ah Happy to be a part of that. And if you have any comments, questions, peeves, gripes, send it to us, madnroses.gmail dot.com.
01:27:45
Speaker
Did you win the trip to England? Tell Matt and roses and they'll tell me. Tell us about it. Yeah. Did you send in the code? We want to hear from you. You recently had an interview, uh, go up on adventure gamers, adventure game hotspot. Whoops. Uh, uh, the good one adventure game hotspot dot.com. Right? Yes. I did. Yeah. Um, it's super wordy. So if anybody just listened to this episode, you're off the hook. That's, that's enough.
01:28:13
Speaker
Okay, we are going to take a quick break. I'm going to throw on Swinky Max Amino, and we'll be back for the best segment ever created, where we rate every adventure game ever made, whether we played it or not.
01:28:43
Speaker
Okay everybody, welcome back to save your game. I am Matt Aucamp, with me is PushingUpRoses. Hey. And we also got Paul Korman with us. Ta-da. So this is our segment where we rank every adventure game ever. I have a list of 3,000 some adventure games and a random number generator, and we just pick five random games off the list and rank them, even though we haven't played most of them. So remember,
01:29:15
Speaker
There's a new, we added a new rule. We haven't employed it yet, I don't think. But we added a new rule where we can skip. If there's one where we just look at it and we're like, I don't fucking know. You can skip one and only one per episode. So are you guys ready to rank some adventure games? Yes. Okay. All right. The first game is a game from, this is 1239. So it's a game from 2012 by the company Ion FX. Oh. And it's called Miasma. I feel like- Mias, sorry, Miasmata. I apologize. That's a totally different thing. Miasmata. Okay, so this is a- First person survival adventure.
01:30:04
Speaker
I was gonna say it's a survival game, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how to look it up. Sorry. We just Google real fast. We just Google, yeah. Me as Mata. Me as Mata. Me as Mata. I've never heard of this game ever. I have not either, and I'm not getting a good sense. It's like a first person 3D game, but it looks like survival, but there's some...
01:30:34
Speaker
puzzle elements i'm actually mean i'm yeah you're right I'm having a hard time getting a sense of this one. and i'm looking at the latest fleet of mazda cars Oh, okay. Well, how is that helping? How's that going? Yeah, you know what? It's it's inspired me. I was going to go pretty hard on this game, but I feel I feel like bumping it up to, to a you know, wait, how do we rank it? Is it out of 10? No, we have. ah So we have a list. ah um ah You know, I'll just read. I'll read down the list. We haven't done that in a couple of episodes. All right.
01:31:05
Speaker
number We have 30 games on here so far, and so one to 30. And remember, they are ranked by mediocrity. So start with the good ones and then say when we enter mediocre. We do, yeah, okay. Well, ah that's just that's just a thing that we've decided. There's like an island of mediocrity in the middle of the list. Well, that helps us rank it. Yeah, that we kind of like... uh we realized we were putting experiment like the good games that we've played and we like at the top and then be like right below that we realized we were putting experimental games that looked interesting even if not good and then we realized right below that it was just all the mediocre-ist games that the world couldn't
01:31:46
Speaker
ever encounter. And then after that, it's just like games that just look legitimately bad. So this is, I just got like crazy deja vu. And part of the deja vu is where I say that because Mazus are uninspired and they're not fun to look at, but they're reliable.
01:32:02
Speaker
Oh, this is so weird. And I know it's unfair to you guys because it's like, it's like when people explain their their dreams, like you don't really know what to say. Like, yeah, I'm happy for you, bud. I guess. I'm glad you're having a deja vu. But yeah, anyway, so it's passing. I will read you the list that we have so far. It goes, Portal Fran Bow.
01:32:21
Speaker
Papers, please. Cube escape the lake. Scratches. Bend there, Dan that. Amnesia, rebirth. Wavetail. Midnight girl. Amos Green's final repose. Last half of darkness beyond the spirit's eye. Byzantine the betrayal. Murder she wrote. Legend of hand. Ben Jordan, paranormal investigator. Case 7. The cardinal sins.
Evaluating Adventure Games
01:32:41
Speaker
Hell, a cyberpunk thriller, dark grim mariupolis, the seventh guest, a whisper in the twilight, deponia doomsday, krabat and the secret of the Sorbian king, Randall's Monday, again, Elena, displaced reality, Astronomica, the quest of the for the edge of the universe, Minecraft story mode, but Batman partners in peril, Blue Force, the fan, and then the worst adventure game of all time, Wild Wild West, the Steel Assassin. See, I think this game looks kind of bad.
01:33:11
Speaker
me as Mata, yeah it kind of does look bad, huh? I actually get, honestly, I get very bad vibes from this game. Oh, like it's spooking you out. Like you feel like if you played this game, something bad would happen in your life. ah No, not like a bad omen, just like I don't like it. Like something is icky about the um graphics to me.
01:33:35
Speaker
They look grungy. They look like they're, it looks like finished. It looks like a dirty, it looks like somebody made a game and then like spilled pond water on it. I was like, fuck. oh Well, it's gotta go out somehow. Like it looks like it's one of those games. It looks like it has potential, but I would ultimately put this kind of low.
01:33:57
Speaker
It's got the sort of like 3D assets of like, yeah of like Morrowind or something where it's kind of like. That's why I'm getting it.
01:34:10
Speaker
I want to put this low, but I'm open to. I'd put it. I'm also thinking low. What are you thinking, Paul? I'm not going to fight for it. Yeah. Yeah. yeah All right. Why don't we put it pretty low? I'd say it's let's go below mine. No, below.
01:34:29
Speaker
I'd say below Batman partners in peril. Cause at least that's Batman. Yeah. That looks interesting. But above, above blue force, because it doesn't look like morally bankrupt. Yeah. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. Yeah. All right. Here's our next game. 1368. So this is from 2013. I've actually played this game from forever entertainment. It is violet with two T's.
01:34:57
Speaker
Oh, okay. I actually, I own that game. I haven't played much of it. Okay. Have you ever played this game, ah Paul? No, but I was able to search it. So that's, we're we're doing, we're doing better over here. Yeah. All right. I will tell you it's not good.
01:35:16
Speaker
Yeah, I'm reading reviews. Yeah, it's actually a very it was a very disappointing game yeah because it looks very pretty, um but it is just substanceless. The puzzles are bad and annoying. There's a lot of like there's there's a lot of stuff. It's like just difficult to like wrap your head around the mechanics. There's a lot of like pixel hunting. Yeah, it's not.
01:35:42
Speaker
It's not a good game. It's a bad, I'd say it is a bad game. And I think a lot of people agree with you. So i yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I understand what they're saying. Yeah. I would pitch this one pretty low. I think it's above like the games that are legitimately awful. Sure. I think it, I think it's going to fall ah to me, it would fall somewhere towards the low end of the mediocre Island.
01:36:07
Speaker
I mean, if it's as bad as people are saying, I would actually put it in the bad game section almost. I mean, I i think it's probably better than like Minecraft story mode. i I very much think so because at least it wasn't like the problem with it. The biggest problem with it was it was boring.
01:36:28
Speaker
but at least it wasn't the length of a telltale game and boring. Okay, fair. I will leave it because Matt has played it. I will leave it to Matt to place it. Yeah, that's fair. all All I can add to it is it's got one room with MC Escher vibes. So okay I saw that it gets a gets a bonus point for that. Yeah, there's some there's some cool design in it. Right. Like there's some that there's like MC Escher style stuff. There's a lot of like absurdist yeah looking and like fairy tale looking stuff.
01:37:01
Speaker
It looks really cool, but it wasn't fun to play. So I'm gonna put it, a I'm gonna just put it right above Minecraft Story Mode and right below Astronomica, the quedish quest for the edge of the universe. So this is our new 26. Oh, Adventure Game Titles. What are you even doing? That's the best part of this segment. It's just the insane Adventure Game Titles. Okay. This one is actually a pretty,
01:37:30
Speaker
early one from 1991. I ah have never heard of this game. Okay. um It is by Cineplay Interactive. Oh boy. And it is called Free DC exclamation point.
01:37:51
Speaker
The sound of three people googling. Yeah, you know it. Wait, what's it called again? Free DC. You can find it on the abandonware website. Just D, like letter DC. D dot C dot. Okay. Exclamation point, sorry. D dot C exclamation point. Okay, I found, okay. There's some FMV. So I do know things about Cineplay. Okay. I believe Cineplay
01:38:25
Speaker
Let me look it up real quick before I say anything real dumb. This game is not fun to look at. No, it is not. It's not fun to what? It's not fun to look at. Oh, no, no. It's got this horrible like inventory, like UI that takes up more than it looks like maybe I'm just exaggerating because it's so obnoxious, but it looks like it takes up more than half of the screen. Right, it does have a 60-45 totally.
01:38:55
Speaker
Okay, so here's here's what I kind of know about this, right? so And this is kind of what I thought and what I was thinking of. ah There was a developer called CinemaWare. They did a slightly-ish well-known game called The King of Chicago and a couple other games. It's a little old classic-y. And CinemaPlay is some of those former designers. They went on to um other, the former employees went to do this ah this company.
01:39:23
Speaker
um They only have two games credited on MobyGames, Power Politics, and Free DC. ah
01:39:33
Speaker
i Okay, I didn't like the cinema wear games, so that being said, I don't like this one either. ah there is just something about It's like Paul said, it's not great to like look at. It hurts the eyes. And here's something I'll tell you guys. The entire time you've been talking, I've been watching a YouTuber just try to get past a single sequence, and and it looks like he's fighting a robot, and he's just clicking around, and he's clicking the same thing multiple times, and he's just like walking back and forth, and unable to figure it out, and then it cuts to black, and it stays black for like three to five seconds before the next screen loads. Oh no, I mean, I would put this pretty damn low. Yeah, I think that's low. I think this looks like it sucks.
01:40:24
Speaker
ah on on this ui it says there's three it' says gun feet matt those are three verbs
01:40:34
Speaker
Yeah, I don't like looking at this game. i Why are all the games bad today? Like, what is going on? I don't understand. You know, gun feet ah the the Gun Feet map reminds me, do you guys ever hear about the Tiger Electronics Doug game? Yeah. It's got two buttons, Doug and Faster. So you can do two things in the game. You can either Doug or you could Faster.
01:41:07
Speaker
ah You know what it's missing? it's It's missing a good crank. That would have helped it. All right. Where do you guys put free free DC from Cineplay Interactive? I mean, I want this to even go below Blue Force, because even though Blue Force might be a little morally weird, I know that because I know there's going to be some amusement. Like charm. Yes. Yeah. yeah This looks charmless. Yeah, it really does look charmless. but And that's why we put Wild Wild West at the bottom because it looked yeah like absolutely devoid of charm. Do you want this to go? Is this our new bottom? This might be the bottom for me. Free DC? Yeah. How bad do you think this game looks, Paul? I am more than halfway through forgetting it ever existed. All right. Free DC is our new worst adventure game of all time. Oh, oh no.
01:42:00
Speaker
All right. All right. ah We got two more unless you guys skip one. Can I just say sorry really quickly on blue on Blue Forest? I played that game. And here's the here's here's the problem with Blue Forest. The one cool idea is like, hey, you get to be a cop. So you're going to get to do cop things. And then the whole game takes place with you off duty having to sneak around.
01:42:22
Speaker
doing cop shit, even though you're a cop, but you're not allowed to be being a cop right now. Whoa, really? It makes no sense. wait You play a cop who's restricted to the rights of just a civilian, but who still has to do cop shit. That is, wow. i That is amazing, truly.
01:42:42
Speaker
Several balls were dropped in the first game. Thank you for ah validating the fact that we have it as our 30th of 33 games. Okay, so this one is from 2005 by AWE Productions. It is Agatha Christie, and then there were none. I have played that one.
01:43:06
Speaker
Okay. But let me, uh, let me bring it up real quick. I've played a lot of the games. I've never played an Agatha Christie game. I think I have murder on the Oregon express. Is this the, is this the we version?
01:43:19
Speaker
I don't have specific versions on the list. Let me just say this. I've also played Murder on the Orient Express, and these games, even though they're kind of games of their time, if you look at the aesthetics, it's like, yeah, that looks like a 2005 game.
01:43:41
Speaker
This was a game made by the adventure game company who did a lot of interesting things with adventure games. They have a wild game called Crime Stories that is not anywhere to play and it's too hard to run, but I would love to revisit it. I like these games. I think they're cozy. I think they're better than a lot of non-franchised and licensed games. I really do. I do think there's a fun element to them.
01:44:06
Speaker
So I'll say um it looks a little like the Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games, which are mixed bags in terms of quality. um it's It's not made by the adventure companies, published by the adventure company. It's made by AWE Productions. Oh, right, right, right, right. um Sorry, i don't I don't mean to be a know-it-all there. I just ah was just looking at it. On mine it says both. It was like dev'd and...
01:44:34
Speaker
by both companies. Oh, interesting. Yeah, maybe there was a maybe there was some crossover there, which makes sense to me because this is exactly the kind of style games that they develop and and would publish as well. Have you played these games at all, Paul?
01:44:51
Speaker
I know I have. I um mean, I like the idea of it just because it's Agatha Christie. And the other thing going forward is, have you guys ever played um or familiar with the Brownstone Chronicles, Blackstone Chronicles? ones of guns I'm familiar. Yeah, I'm familiar. I haven't played them. It's like it's just ah it's it's a little tough to look at. It's yeah it's from 98, but it actually looks pretty similar to this. it does Yeah, it does. It does look similar. You have to really.
01:45:16
Speaker
I don't want to say ignore the graphics, but I would say like in spite of the graphics, it's like about these graphics, though, the characters. Here's what I like. I didn't say I like them. I said carefully like like about them. The characters look like ah plastic action figures just like set up right these rooms. They do. Totally. OK, where where are we going to put it on the list?
01:45:44
Speaker
I would put this above murder, she wrote. um i'm I'm kind of like doing a little comparison there. Yeah. So I would put this above murder show. I would put it above Amos green. Whoa. Oh, this is going high. Okay. I think, I think highly of some of that that means it yeah it cracks. That kicks Amos green's final repose out of the top 10. Well, it had to happen. summer I don't think, I go i don't think I'm still really intrigued by Midnight Girl. No, I haven't completed it. I am, too. So I will allow, like, I'm not going to argue that this should be below Midnight Girl, but that's my instinct because I think Midnight Girl looks really fucking rad. That's fair. That's totally fair. Yeah. All right. So it's our new number 10, Agatha Christie, and then there were none. All right. So we've got one more. Again, unless you guys skip. So.
01:46:39
Speaker
This is a game from 2019. Wow, okay. I have not played this game, but I find it kind of intriguing. ah It's a game called Clam Man. Clam Man? I'm inclined to love this. yeah claim but I mean, I knew about this game before this came up just now. um Okay, wait, this looks kind of adorable. It kind of looks adorable, right? Like it's a little cartoon clam man. That's like the thing. And it's got a sequel coming out soon. That doesn't change. That looks really cute. And it's got very positive reviews. He's a very confident looking clam. He is. And for that, he's got a nice little tie.
01:47:29
Speaker
And it looks like it looks like a mystery. A little ensemble. Sorry. And the sequel looks like it's ah the sequel says it's going to be an RPG, but this first one is a point and click game. and um And it's yeah, it's a little stylish. It's like hand drawn, it looks like. I actually really like I do not get the ick when I look at these graphics. No, me neither. Oh, wait, Clam Man 2.
01:47:56
Speaker
is not made by the same company. whoa This is interesting. All right, we're gonna have to do ah some detective work into Clam Man at some point. But ah yeah, Clam Man. I think it looks cool. An absurd, strange, and hilarious underwater adventure featuring office work, the duck of truth, nasty drinks, and the horrifying reality of mayonnaise crime. I'm digging this. yeah I am too. Okay.
01:48:26
Speaker
I have no idea where to put it on the list though. I don't either. I really have no idea where to put this. I think it's worse than I guess a Christie. Yeah. Let's start from there. ah Okay. I, I, that's a hard question. Cause if they're so different in in nature. so I'm having trouble. Like where do you, so where do you stick this in? I would almost compare it to Ben there, Dan that, but I played that game and I liked that.
01:48:52
Speaker
then maybe put it below that because you've played that one and they're kind of comparable. And and I'd rather pick this. So of of two games I haven't played, I think I'd rather pick up clam man than amnesia rebirth. Yeah, I would agree with that.
01:49:08
Speaker
But you know what that does, that kicks out into the Christie right back out of the top 10.
01:49:14
Speaker
So our new number six is Clam Man by Team Clam. Love it. Man, we gotta raise this bar at some point. Jesus Christ. The bar is on the ground. The bar is in hell right now. The bar is low. You know, but I still like our top five, our Portal, Fran, Bo, Papers Please.
01:49:32
Speaker
cube escape and scratches. Like that's just pretty good good. Top five. I would play any of those at any time. But OK, there's our games. Hey, Paul. Yes, sir. Thanks so much for coming on the show, man. Oh, my God. Thanks for having me, you guys. Seriously. I love you both. And I'm so this was so much fun. I really just wanted to come on here and talk to you guys and have fun and and big old big old check mark.
01:49:54
Speaker
Well, yeah yeah we love you too, and i i I think I speak for both of us when I say we're both really, really looking forward to Phantom Fellows. Yep, definitely, definitely. But more so me.
01:50:12
Speaker
It's a roses game. It is a game meant for me. yeah you like personally me. So you made this game for roses is what I'm learning just now. You know, that's not entirely wrong because roses is actually makes makes ah a bit of a cameo in the game and there's a roses achievement in the game too. who I didn't know this.
01:50:35
Speaker
Hey, Ola, it was a gamer gate. oh Nobody disclosed this information before we had... No, ah no, that's awesome. Sometimes we just like to shout, gamer gate. It happens. I need to have a get a whiff of... a conflicting interests, a yellow gamer gate. It's everyone's favorite part of the podcast. Well, Paul, yeah, thanks for coming on. We'll have to have you on sometime again. It was really, it was a really fun time. I hope you had fun as well. Do so much fun. Thank you so much. So I guess there's only one thing left to say. And I think I need to start it because I'm an artist. So did you know that podcast is art?
01:51:25
Speaker
Well, you know what art is, right? No, do what is it? Artists suffer. It's true.