Transcript
Speaker: Because last night I went to see the Coyote movie. Did you see the Coyote movie? Yeah, I was supposed to, and then I didn't. Pretty sad about actually. Meaning like you wrote it on a to-do list, and then you just didn't do it? Yeah, I actually did. I had it in my email. I had an invite from one of my friends to go oh then I didn't. And then you didn't? it's It's good. heard that, yeah. It's really good. It's not it's no Roger Rabbit, but it's better than like...
Speaker: It beats Space Jam. It's better than Cool World, right? It's better than Cool World for sure. It's better than Space Jam. Not as good as Roger Rabbit. Okay. But, but, like, it's but that was kind of supposed to be, I thought, I think they were going for, like, our generation's Roger Rabbit. They just didn't quite get it. and Okay, listen.
Speaker: Point is, this my biggest takeaway from the movie. What's Wile E. Coyote's first name? Um, Dirk.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: What, no? we know We all know his first name. His first name's right there in his name. Is that Dirk? Is it Wile? It's Wile. It's Wile E. Coyote, right? Yeah, terrible name. Everybody in the fucking movie calls him Wiley.
Speaker: And I'm like, that's not his name. i was sitting there the whole time, like, seething. Like, that's not his fucking name. Hang on. Hear me out. Hear me out for one second.
Speaker: Some people in Murder, She Wrote call Jessica JB. Maybe that's kind of the same because isser that's her first initial and middle initial JB. They're not calling him...
Speaker: they're not calling them w e they're calling w e they're calling them why wi have you ever referred to somebody as their first name and then their middle initial nobody can start matt matt matt r um it's not working it's not good wouldn't go if somebody did that to you if somebody was like hey pushing you but because what the fuck are you talking about what are you talking about? understand because Wile is not a name. It's just not. But that's the problem. What's up, Wile? I think they shouldn't understand the pun.
Speaker: They shouldn't understand that Wile is a word. Yeah. So they... a word yeah so they Because that that kind of ruins the... That takes you out of that world. So if they know to call him Wily, then they know his middle name his middle initial...
Speaker: works with his first name to create a word that describes what he is he is a wily guy so it breaks the immersion for me so every time you hate this movie now because they call him wily instead wild it's a well-written movie with good acting and good animation and um a cute story and i hate it because they call him wily instead of while you are a tough critic no
Speaker: It's the same screenwriter who did May, December. That really heady psychological drama with um fucking Natalie Portman and.
Speaker: ah ah And that guy. who ah oh Julianne Moore. feel like I have not seen that, but I know what you're talking about because I like Natalie Portman. Julianne Moore was a play-dip person,
Speaker: who was jailed when she was younger for being a teacher who slept with a 13 year old. And they were making a that is dark. They were making a movie about her and Natalie Portman was playing her and she's still, and in this, in this movie, once she got out of prison, she married. i know what you're talking about. Was once the 13 year old. Yes, I know here that that whole story is crazy.
Speaker: I've seen it covered on many a true crime. I didn't know there was like a i didn't know there was a movie made for it, though. So the thing about it is, well, so this is, it's based on a couple different, and I think it's based on a couple different true stories. I don't think it's based on a single one. I might be wrong about this. But the the story is Natalie Portman is playing her in a biopic and goes to Julianne Moore's house.
Speaker: Julianne Moore and what's the other guy's name is apparently Charles Melton goes to their house to live with them and like research them for the role.
Speaker: okay Oh, okay. and he becomes like weirdly obsessive about her method acting. in Anyway, really intense movie.
Speaker: Yeah. And fucking that is the screenwriter who wrote Coyote versus Acme. Listen, I think if you can do drama, you can also do comedy the same way I i think that a lot of horror writers can also do comedy and vice versa.
Speaker: Because they're like two extremely intense genres. So i think I think it makes sense. Maybe. Yeah. Hey, everybody. This is Save Your Game. right. That's all staying in. I'm Matt Allcamp. I'm one of your hosts with me is your other person. I can't ever think of superlatives quick enough. I don't know how you do it.
Speaker: i i I'm just strange. I don't know. The strange, the I don't know, and pushing up roses. It's me. Hi. You couldn't think of a so a single superlative for me.
Speaker: i i I thought of strange, but it was only after you said it. Yeah, only after I thought of strange. um I asked somebody what the strangest thing about me is, and they said it it's my it's it's how much I like King's Quest. Yeah. They're wrong. I mean, you're like, they're wrong. There are so many other weirder things about you, actually. Yeah, but I can't I can't I can't like pull any off the top of my head. Like what is so weird about roses? But you like in King's Quest is not in the top 10.
Speaker: everybody likes Everybody likes stuff. You know what I mean?
Speaker: I think their argument is that it was just like very, a very unique thing to be extremely passionate about. Yeah. They're they're not really in the gaming space. So it's to them. It's just like, what is that?
Speaker: It's that fairly unique as far as like the common person, but it's not yeah so unique. Like, I think your love your um obsession with Murder, She Wrote is weirder than your obsession with King's Quest. Yeah.
Speaker: That's not true. How dare you? I'm not saying it's bad. How dare you? I quit.
Speaker: but Listen, this is a podcast where we talk about, I don't know, narrative games and each other. processsis What's the weirdest thing about me, Matt?
Speaker: You got to give me some time. I don't i can't. it's That's a tough question. Is it? Yeah. Okay. Your hands. No, I don't know.
Speaker: I'm just making How dare you? I just picked a word at random. You didn't say physically. I quit. and What's the weirdest thing about you? You don't.
Speaker: Oh, ah that you don't use your kitchen for anything. I hate you. I you.
Speaker: ah dare you call me out like that you called yourself out i think in the last episode and i was like oh yeah she doesn't she doesn't though but it's it's cute kitchen i put some stuff on the walls you can like make yourself a sandwich sometimes i don't though i basically just like i go in there and i take like a ah honk of bread and i just bring it with me
Speaker: Yeah. yeah Yeah. That's pretty good. That's, that's pretty good. Give me, give me some time in this episode and I will point out the weirdest thing about you. I didn't ask. and i just want to point out. I didn't ask. You did not. And I don't care. Listen, I want to know what's something you enjoyed this week. That's what I really want to know. Oh, oh, oh, I am stoked. Oh, okay.
Speaker: Guess what I bought.
Speaker: A hunk of bread. A hunk of bread? I did. Wow, you're so perceptive. No, I got the Switch 2. Yeah! and I'm so excited and like got the Switch 2. I got everything like transferred from my other Switch. was like I don't think we played the Switch while you were here, but that thing is broken. your Actually, you would have remembered it because it would have made a terrible noise. Switch makes a terrible noise? My old one does. Yeah. The one I had with but my original Switch. It's really bad.
Speaker: all right. So you got a new Switch and um you played all sorts of brand new games. The newest generation of Nintendo games. Tell us which brand new spanking new shiny new game did you play?
Speaker: Well, here's the thing. um Here's what happened. Oh, good. So I got my Switch. I pre-ordered the Ocarina remake. Cool. i But then I'm like, oh, shit, now I'm broke. um I looked at Pocopia, and i was like, definitely I need to get that at some point.
Speaker: At some point? And then I found the N64 emulator and expansion pack. Am I playing Banjo-Kazooie for the 50 billionth time? Yes, I am. Okay.
Speaker: And I am teaching someone how to play it, and it's bad. And I kind of i kind of want to embarrass them, but I kind of don't want to embarrass them. what What's our – are we okay with embarrassing people on this show?
Speaker: ah If we love them. Hmm. I think we can embarrass people that we love. I don't think you can embarrass. You can't like go out and embarrass strangers. You can't like embarrass unless they're evil. Okay. If they're evil or we love them, then you're allowed to embarrass them. Okay. Well, okay. I'm teaching my partner how to play Banjo-Kazooie. Okay, you love him. This has been an experiment in my patience. But also... He's very good at falling off of things. um But also, this is very interesting, too. If you've ever...
Speaker: um If you're like a more modern gamer and you grew up mostly, let's say you're maybe even a younger gamer or you didn't start gaming until like the PS4 type of things, and you're playing all these modern games. You are going to have a very hard time going back to a game like Banjo Kazooie. The camera's fucking terrible. The controls are fucking terrible. I'm good at it because I played it a billion times, right? So it's like nothing for me. But watching someone else play it, oh my God, it is bad. and yeah To his credit, the camera is very bad.
Speaker: If you had an n sixty four when you were young, we all just got used to it. That's just what it was. That's what we had. You didn't you didn't get to... There was there's no controlling the camera with the second stick. And I think people really forget how huge it was when that started to be possible.
Speaker: Absolutely. Was that like a... hey was that like I'm sure another game did it, but was it Halo? I wasn't ah i wasn't a shooter. I wasn't a shooter guy. But like I think it might have been like think it might have been Halo or something that first like it wasn't like um pioneered it for everybody. Elder Scrolls or something? Which was like the one stick controls the camera. Yeah. yeah And the other stick controls your...
Speaker: character Like you, yeah. And that was such a massive innovation that, again, I think we we like forget yeah how bad video game cameras were before that and how much of the challenge of video games was just getting it to do what you wanted it to do. Because now, yeah it's bad video games, 99% of the time, do what you want it to do want them to do, and it's just a matter of, like, can you be...
Speaker: quick enough or can you discover everything in the thing? But like, yeah, back then part of the challenge, like part of the challenge, like when people talk about the tank controls and say resident evil, part of the challenge of resident evil was how do I get my guy to go where he fucking, I want him to go. Damn it. And like, that would make you anxious and tense when you were trying to get away from like a big monster who had, yeah had a big, ah what did he have? he had a tooth for a face. Ah, he's going to get, uh,
Speaker: No, it's it's really, it's tough. It shows how how clunky it was. yeah But man, if you grew up on it, you know how to how to handle it. But yeah, I got the N64 emulator and I started Banjo-Kazooie. But also I'm really excited because i never really played through Majora's Mask.
Speaker: And now I have that. oh i know. i can't i have to stop getting excited because there's so many times, look. I love you very dearly. Oh, God. Oh, no. You are one of my best friends in the world. But there is so many times that you say, oh, I'm going to play this game. And I get excited. and weeks pass. And it's like, okay, I guess she's not going to play the game.
Speaker: Look, my heart is in the right, things I genuinely. My heart is in the right place. I know you're never lying when you say it. from your tone of voice, I know from knowing you, that when you say it, you mean it fully. yeah Like, I was listening to,
Speaker: but i edited two episodes ago. Okay. writer i edited last episode no i edited the last episode so i was listening through it and there was ah so ah at least two games and no i did the i did the last episode you did the episode prior to okay so that episode i was listening and there was at least two games you were like i am going to play this game i was like she's not though i know she wants to again i know she means it And I know she wants to. was Paradise Killer, I think, was the big one. Oh, I do want to play it, though. I know she means it, but, like... Okay, so anyway. excited. But here's the thing, though. Yeah. will play Majora's Mask. Oh, yeah?
Speaker: Yeah, it just it flew over my head. I love Zelda. um I didn't like Tears of the Kingdom, so I want another Zelda game that... is Easier to get you to play a classic game than it is to get you to play a modern game. I don't know why. You like modern games. I do. I know. I don't really quite understand. I think it's because I have a problem with time. Period. What? The end. I have a problem. have problem. Moving have problem with time.
Speaker: I have a problem with like time and like wasting time and like what is a waste of time and what isn't a waste of time. I was just talking to somebody about this. so This is the way that like sometimes time just disappears. And like sometimes you can be like, oh, OK, I know what I did. I was looking at my phone for an hour or whatever. yeah But other times you like you clearly wasted two hours of your day.
Speaker: Yeah. You don't remember. You can't. You like walk back through it. and You're like, I don't know when or where. I know there was a time that two hours disappeared. I can't figure out what I was doing during that two hours. Honestly, I was probably doing nothing. Right. There might be times we just stare at a wall and then forget that we stared at a wall.
Speaker: It's true. It's true. And i listen, I know. I know. i have said I will play a lot of games, but that i i really am. I'm still excited about Paradise Killer. I'm very excited to rehab everything on the N64 collection. Yeah, yeah. Like very, very happy to have a good way to play it, honestly, because I don't like emulating it on the computer. That fucking sucks. But here's the other thing I know.
Speaker: yeah Is that we have two themed months coming up, which means you are obligated to play a bunch of games. That's true. You're probably, you're always probably happy about that. Like, oh, Sarah's going to play them this time. When we have a themed month, you play them. I play them. I like a theme. What can I say? I like themed things. um And if you, if you didn't want to play it, you will, you will text me like the entire time you're playing like angry. I'll like, I'll like, I'll come home from some event or something or I'll wake up from a nap and I'll have like seven texts of you just getting just more and more breaking down about or sometimes I'll be at work like know like
Speaker: like you rarely crash out about a video game you rarely catch me when I happen to be looking at my phone so so like it'll just be it's always fun it's always fun You are calling me out hard. These are the things that would well, you asked me to think of the strangest things about you. And I think we're nailing some, but they all happen to be things I love about you. I do, guys. I will crash out about a video game if I'm not enjoying it. And unfortunately, since Matt gets it and like you we play the same, he ah he's the person who gets the brunt of it. God, when you played Lust from Beyond. Oh, no. I was probably so angry.
Speaker: Was I angry or was I intrigued? I think there was a couple of times where like, oh, this isn't so bad. And then I get another one like, what the fuck was that? Guys, my texts are roller coasters of emotion. do You are missing out. And they know that.
Speaker: There's no way that they would imagine texting you and not imagine that's how it would be. And they get a very calm response. No, no, not going to happen. I'm going to either be very excited to talk or i will crash out about a video game. Majora's Mask. So like...
Speaker: I am excited. Yeah, it's ah it's a great game. it It takes some real patience, though. um I know. And I am afraid because it is, again, in that style that the the controls are a little different. Yes. Because I didn't play it, i'm I'm afraid I won't have the patience for it. And it'll do that thing to you where, because it's a time loop.
Speaker: you'll be like, ah, fuck, I missed it. Right. And you might not yet have the like special song that reverses time. So you're like, well, then what the fuck do I do for the next five hours? Right.
Speaker: It's not five hours. No, I hope not. It's like 45 minutes or whatever to get through day. But it's still like, you're like, what what now what ah what am I supposed to do with this loop? this is That's all I planned for. So you just have to then like take a breath and go like, okay, this is the game.
Speaker: This is what the game is. Yeah, and you know you know I'm not great with time loops. it It kind of causes me anxiety. But the point is, i have it now. yeah I have a good way to play it, and that makes me happy. And I have like Donkey Kong 64 and fucking Wave Race. The best game about a jet skids ever made. What about Jet Moto?
Speaker: Are you what that is going to play the new Donkey Kong? Oh, yeah, heard about that. Bananaza? Maybe. i like Donkey Kong. Bananaza.
Speaker: Bananaza? Bananza. That was a show, right? I think it's just called Bananza, but it's spelled like banana. Like stupid? Yeah. so if you're true and if so if you say it out loud...
Speaker: It just sounds like you're saying Bonanza. Right. So you've got to mispronounce it. You've got to pretend like you don't remember what the title is and go Donkey Kong Bananarama. Bananaza. Bananaza.
Speaker: Bananaza. And then people are like, oh, I get what the pun is. But if you just say Donkey Kong Bonanza, they're like... Okay. Yeah, that's the normal name. Anyway, I'm stoked. And yes, I was called out by one of my friends who were like, did you just buy a Switch 2 to play old ass games?
Speaker: And yeah, kind of. Yeah. A little bit. Shut the fuck up. but What have you been enjoying lately? Fuck. All right. Is it Banjo-Kazooie?
Speaker: No. I've got to narrow this down because... um I've been playing a bunch of cool stuff, but the embargo just popped on a game that um I got a code for a couple weeks ago.
Speaker: And i want to tell people about it because it's fucking really interesting. All right. It's a game called The Merleys. The Merleys? The Merleys. M-E-R-L-I-E-S. And it is it is a Metroidvania. You know how I love those. Yep.
Speaker: But it is a combat-less Metroidvania. You don't fight anything. You are a bunch of cute little bird, birdie people. And the beginning of the game, I i will say this.
Speaker: i'll getll I'll throw my criticisms up top. the The top of the game is very confusing. The... UX, not the UI, but the UX, the user experience, is very rough in this game.
Speaker: um The intro sequence, it's like it's kind of confusing to figure out to realize you're in the intro and that's not what the whole game is. And then the beginning of the game is...
Speaker: I guess the whole game is technically mission-based, but the beginning of the game is very short mission-based, and there's storybook cutscenes in between. so you start to So at the beginning, I was like, why did they call this a Metroidvania?
Speaker: This feels like... just a little kids game and it feels so chopped up and segmented. i don't think I'm going to like this no matter how good the art style is and how cool the idea is, but it opens up really quickly. If you get past the first 20 minutes of the game, the game opens up into a real Metroidvania.
Speaker: So, Now to talk about what I love about this game. It's really cute. Really cute. It's this cartoony, hand-drawn looking style of ah you're these little birds and your nest where you and all your little bird friends live gets destroyed and you guys get scattered across what seems basically like somebody's front yard or backyard. And now you have to wander. You're you're
Speaker: big Metroidvania map is this yard where you're wandering around finding all the other lost little birdies And sending them back to the new nest you found And the other thing you're doing as you're going is you're finding like, you'll find like a soccer ball.
Speaker: And if you get all, ah eventually you start as one guy, you end up as a team of three. Eventually you get a fourth. I don't know if you go beyond that. I haven't beaten the game yet, but yeah.
Speaker: You switch between your Murlis and some of them have different abilities. Like that first one you, when your team expands to four, you get a guy with an umbrella. So you fall slower or you can find updrafts and pop your umbrella and he makes all of you guys fly in the air.
Speaker: so you So you can switch between these little Murlis and you're running around. And if you position them in just the right way around, say again, and like a dented soccer ball, they will wrap it up in tape.
Speaker: And then next time you go back to your like hub world, your base, you now have an observatory that is built out of a broken soccer ball ah that is um that they they use to spy interesting locations on the map.
Speaker: ah Or um I can't remember. like You get a pencil box that you find, and that turns into your... ah ah Ability to like upgrade equipment or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah. Because it turns into a little workshop. Anyway, and so you're collecting these Merleys. There are a bunch of obstacles that you have to revisit like any Metroidvania when you get a new ability. But there's also obstacles that the only way to pass them is you have to get enough Murlis. So you come across like ah a broken bike and it's like, ah, we can't get past this bike until we have 18 Murlis.
Speaker: um and And that's what that way it almost feels like a Lemmings or something. Yeah, yeah. it um But you're walking around as a group of these little birds. And.
Speaker: Because you're in a group, you have certain powers. Like if you hold, i can't even remember the, um like I said, the UX is a little confusing. So the control scheme can be a little rough to manage. yeah um It doesn't,
Speaker: Not tough to run around and jump and do stuff, but it can be tough to remember how to do specific like special things. yeah There's one thing where you can pile all ah on top of each other's heads and make yourself a little ladder, make yourself into a ladder to reach our things. And then there's one where you can, once you've piled up, you can compress everybody.
Speaker: So you can spring the top guy way up in the air when you let go. There's ah one where you can all stick together. You can all kind of like hug each other so that if you're, say, bouncing on a bunch of mushrooms or whatever, you're not having to worry that somebody's going to miss a jump.
Speaker: Because, again, you're controlling like the leader of a pack of little birds. Right. you're in cute You're in the front and the others Like your little blackbirds. They're so cute. Yes. They're called Merleys. The other thing about that is when I said the thing about getting yourself into position. So you also can change. This is this is a tough one to master just because they don't explain it great. But you can change.
Speaker: like teams. So you have, say if you have three Murlis, they all have red scarves and you can press a button to change the leader's scarf to gray. And now the leader can move independently of the ones with red scarves. And then you can switch back over and turn another one.
Speaker: you can turn a scarf to yellow. So he can move independently of the other two. Anyway. So like if you need three Murlis in three different spots to solve a puzzle,
Speaker: That's how you separate them. yeah Again, a little clunky to do stuff like that. But anyway, it's super cute. I love the idea. i loved this with Animal Well. um I love the idea of a Metroidvania that's not built around combat. um Yeah.
Speaker: Unbound Worlds Apart is another game like this. um ah A Metroidvania that's not built around combat, that's built around the developers thinking really cleverly about like,
Speaker: What are other ways we can develop abilities that help open up pieces of a map? Yeah. And this is a really cute way to do it. And I think this would be a cute, again, you're going to have to help them through at least the first 20 minutes of it because they're a little little clunky. But it would be a good game to play with a kid.
Speaker: Sure. ah Like, ah you know, pass back and forth the controller and they can pass back to you when something's a little too hard. but Yeah, yeah. yeah um Really cute. It's called the Merleys. I really enjoyed it. That's so cute. ah do I get cute aggression when we talk about cute games. It's a super it's a super cute game. um And i I hope it gets some attention. i don't think it's gonna i don't think it's going to be anybody's game of the year.
Speaker: um No. full of The majority of games we talk about not going to game of the year. Right. But yeah yeah I'm really glad i got the chance to play around with it. And I probably will...
Speaker: beat it um yeah eventually like I want to see the whole game I i really i think it's something I think it's a special little game yeah it is but it does look special oh I also I a game that I haven't really played but I think I want to touch on just for a second is um I haven't really gotten into Nighthawks yet oh I yeah I haven't either but I saw it was selling pretty well which is always exciting Yeah, I started it and i think I was just playing so many other games at that moment that it didn't... A very reading heavy game. Anyway, just so people know. If you don't know, Nighthawks is the new game published by WadgetEye. It's developed by the Curiosity Engine, but it's published by WadgetEye. And instead of a point click, it is text-based
Speaker: And...
Speaker: and It's like a vampire story. Seems fun. Yeah. That's been in production for a really long time. Yes, yes. And they had some... I don't know if if anyone saw this. This very public knowledge. But they had a a thing where they told Steam... They were trying to be honest with Steam. And be like, hey, there's some adult scenes in here. Not like nude ditty. Not like... not like huh Not like dongs and nipples and yeah stuff. But like, there's some sexy scenes. And there's some...
Speaker: There's some adult content. So we just wanted to let, you know, so. Yeah. and Steam rated the game as porn and took it off all the search engines and people's wishlets Oh, my God. Porn?
Speaker: And so they had to, like, argue. They had to, like, they had to like appeal it. And it Steam apparently doesn't have really, like, an appeal process. So they had to like they had to, like, find a way to fight this. And, yeah. And they got it before release. They managed to get it so labeled as, like,
Speaker: a normal ass game, but that's still so funny. Uh, yeah, I'll talk about the other games I've been playing. I'll still be playing for the next couple weeks, probably. So I will talk about them later because today we have a the continuing and monumental task ahead of us.
Speaker: Rosas, you want to hear some really old music? Yeah, I And then come and give people our... The older, the better, my friend. do you want to give people our ultimate recommendations, Eleganza Extravaganza?
Speaker: Yes, I do. Here we go.
Speaker: Everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. I am one of your mysterious hosts, Pushing Up Roses. I am with me as Matt. Matt.
Speaker: am one of your mysterious ah hosts pushing a roses i am with me is matt I'm mysterious. He's super mysterious. Try and guess me.
Speaker: All right. ah Is it Dirk? Fuck. Damn it. How was your break, Matt? It was good. i took one sip of water. Wow. You're so hydrated. and Now I took a second one. so Holy shit. So proud of you.
Speaker: How was your break? It was good. You know, I stayed here. Yeah. it's It's not never that we... Like, sometimes... we will take a little break and walk away from our computers.
Speaker: Sometimes. But it's rare. It's pretty rare. So most the time we pretend to have a break. We don't even pretend anymore. What am I saying? For the past like 40 episodes, we have been being honest about this fact. so yeah
Speaker: you're breaking the You're breaking the fourth wall. Stop it. Of course we already take a long five-hour break. We outside of the fourth wall. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm working on building a fifth wall. Since i that's exciting. Since I ah explained to the people what we were doing last time, would you like to explain this time? You know. You're like, no You know, we're ah pushing up roses. You know, pushing you.
Speaker: would. Oh, good. I'm glad. So listen, we, here's a segment we do on this show. It's called ah reing ranking every adventure game ever.
Speaker: But that thing is fucking slow.
Speaker: We only get to do like five games every like six episodes or something. maybe Less, maybe. huh Well, because it's more like 10 games every 12 episodes. Anyway, yeah my point is... Sometimes we've done a lot, but go on. We haven't gotten to the really good games yet.
Speaker: hm We got to Chance of Cenar. We got to Portal. But there's so many really good games we haven't gotten to. So what we thought we would do is we would do the secondary...
Speaker: ranking-ish segment called the Ultimate Recommendations Eleganza, whatever that means, extravaganza. what it is, is we are breaking down the other thing we wanted to do for ourselves as much as for you guys.
Speaker: We'll to talk about this in a second. yeah We wanted to try and break down all the different genres of adventure games because it's such a broad category with so many different um nuances between what's the difference between a puzzle adventure and a a and ah and an escape room? What's the difference between a deduction game and a mystery game? And we think there are differences, but these aren't But, you know, so what we're doing is we're defining a series of 15 genres and telling you what our, like, top... Me and Rose is each what our top recommendations are in each genre. And then we're deciding, like, as far as a show, what we what would we recommend? What would be our top three recommendations for each genre?
Speaker: So... There's been a lot of arguing in the Discord about some of some of our stuff. There have? or there has? Like, i they're arguing?
Speaker: in in In very civil and polite ways. There are good people in there. But first thing I want to address is that people made the point that a text parser isn't really a genre. It's a type of UI.
Speaker: And I want to argue... that there are all sorts of things that make a genre. Yeah. Right? First person shooter is a UI.
Speaker: Yes. You know what i mean? Like the there are third person shooters and there first person shooters and these are different games and they're based on a UI. So I so i didn't include text parser. I felt the way that the um Discord user felt um where it's like, I'm not going to separate text parser because, but then you came to me and you were like, we're missing the most important genres. And I thought about it. I almost argued and I thought about it for, you know, a couple minutes and I was like, you know, yeah, oh a UI element, a control scheme can define a genre.
Speaker: I agree. And so. Because you would never, you would never put like a text parser game within the same category as a point and click. There are people who hate text parser games.
Speaker: Right. Right. You wouldn't... the The point of genre to begin with is saying, hey, if you like this, here's some other stuff you might like. Absolutely. It is not to box things in and exclude things. It is to say, here are some...
Speaker: ah characteristics of ah one type of thing that you enjoy yeah that you might find those same characteristics in this other type of thing. And if you throw away the broad category of genres, no matter how weird genre might be,
Speaker: Then you end up with what is basically 70,000 genres because every game or every song or every movie is its own genre. And that's absurd. And there are some snobby people. And I'm not – the Discord is not this way. No, they're just having a fun time. Yeah, please sign please don't think that I am accusing them of this. They – I wanted to respond to some of these things, but I don't want to call anyone out because they are all, I love that they're having the discussion and I love their opinions. And even with when I disagree with them, I think it's so cool.
Speaker: think It's just such a cool community. If you're not part of the discord, fucking join it. These guys, these folks are are so cool and funny and creative and smart. And they blow me away. Right. But yeah,
Speaker: Yeah, there are some in the world out, not in our discord, but in the world, there are some pretentious people who like fight against the concept of genre. And it's like, nobody has fucking time to like, to be like, oh, there is no such thing as there is no such thing as genres in music. Every band has its own sound. And it's like, okay, well, then.
Speaker: Okay, I guess go listen to all 70 billion bands that have ever existed to find the thing that you like. Or you could say, i like punk music, and then you only have 2 billion bands to sort through. and If you say, I like ah noise punk, now you only have 20,000 bands to listen to. Yeah, i think if you I think if you look at, like in this example, if you look at the UI as part of the experience, then that makes sense to me as a genre. That's part of a genre to me is the way that you, that the way it's presented, i guess. Does that make sense?
Speaker: Yeah, i okay. if ah You're talking about music. So like, if you look at it, As like a category instead of a genre. maybe they Maybe the word genre just is multi-useful. I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know. i've been I've been listening to the Ruby Sons lately. And I've i've been thinking. i listened to them before. I think I saw them in Chicago, actually. cool. Like 20 years ago. oh shit. I'm old. Wow.
Speaker: I think it's like 2007 at Pitchfork Music Fest in Chicago. Oh, cool. You didn't even come and say hi? I can't believe it. ah ah So... um And it's like they fit into the the genre of like indie, like the early 2000s, mid-2000s indie rock, that craze that was going on.
Speaker: But don't sound like any of those other bands. And they were trying to be a world music band, but they don't sound like world music. So it's like, yeah, there's stuff that's going to break the genre. m And that's fine.
Speaker: Right? Like it's still... There's still if if you're a world music fan, ah try the Ruby Suns. You might not like them. If yeah you're an indie rock fan, try the Ruby Suns. You might not like them. Right. Like it just gives you a starting point. So, yeah, that's why I say look at it as a category instead of like a more specific specific genre, you know.
Speaker: Right. And with that said, there was a lot of controversy about the different... is mised Should Mistlike be a different genre than Metroid Brainiac, right? Yeah. and I get it.
Speaker: Mistlike
Speaker: in is more environment-focused while Metroid Brainiac is more... um I guess puzzle focused, but also it's my thought there is like, yes, not every Mistlike is going to be a Metroid Braini and not every Metroid Braini is going to be a Mistlike, but both of them are, if you come across an oven and you've never seen an oven before, you've never even heard of an oven, how would you know how to make it work?
Speaker: It is just a thing that exists in somebody else's world. Right. Like a Metroid Braini, if you already know, You just turn it on and bake your little pie and you're done. yeah Yeah. If you don't already know, then it's it it is a deep and complex puzzle that makes you have to understand somebody else's world to get it.
Speaker: And because that sort of thing, if if I had that puzzle, that That sort of puzzle defines both Metroid Brainias and mislikes to me. And that's why I put them together. Yeah.
Speaker: There was also controversy about whether or not we should have put... I know it's it's funny to say it that way. It's just people having discussions and respectful ones. but Yeah. I like to be dramatic. um About whether we should have put, and we knew this was going to happen, Roses.
Speaker: Yeah. Should we have put puzzle platformers in with Puzzle Adventures? And what is Puzzle Adventures? Everyone leave us alone. i don't i I didn't even understand the genres for like ah an entire episode. No, don't leave us alone. It's fun that you're doing you guys are doing it. She doesn't mean it. She doesn't what she's talking about. She doesn't mean it. We love it. We love it, but...
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, thats it's fair. I mean, I like having the discussions. Also, here's the last thing, guys. We needed only, we needed 15 categories. We needed five categories per episode. So we had to combine a few.
Speaker: We didn't need to do that. That was optional. Well, what what what else, how else would we have done it, right? You know what I mean? Like, we could have either done, we could have either done, You didn't want to do anything. Listen, i'm not going to be I'm not going to be called to task on this. You specifically said you said my my OCD will not be able to handle it if we do different that's amounts per episode. It's true, and I do have OCD. I am not just saying. it's That's not an adjective to describe me. I actually do have it. Oh, yeah, yeah. I forgot that people use that. It's like when people... like i have ah i have a legitimate panic disorder. So when people use panic attack wrong, I'm like... It's like, look, I know you're just trying to under explain your experience and you're experiencing something real. But, oh, great. like As a dude who sat in an emergency room because I thought I was dying when I was actually fine. Like... Like going to the... Calling 911 to be like, I'm dying. And they're like...
Speaker: Hey, think they're just anxious. It's like, okay, yeah, when you get nervous to go to a party, you're not having a panic attack. Fuck. Right. Listen. I'm, like, so used to it. Go ahead go on, though.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think people use it colloquially, too. like I should just let that one go. But listen, my point is...
Speaker: What are we talking about today, Rizs? Oh, my God. ah we Wait, I thought... You are such a menace! What did I do? You were supposed to ah to describe what we're doing today. He flipped it back on me! all right, here. No, it's fine. I've got it but what's our first category? Give it give it to us. our first category that we are doing today is one of my very favorites. I'm very excited. And that's horroror horror. Horror. Horror.
Speaker: roar ah It's like an uproar whores. The reason that we decided that. that What? I don't know. It's a bunch of whores causing an uproar. And we love whores here in this podcast. like look Don't get us wrong. um I resemble that statement. If they cause an uproar, then it's a whore roar.
Speaker: So the reason we decided that. What are we talking about? Stop it. Okay. The reason we decided that this is a genre as opposed to what we were just ah mostly what Matt was just talking about with UI being like, I think horror more than any other ah category is very prominent in video games, which is interesting because we have another like, like potential genre that doesn't work quite as well, but a horror does for some reason. And I think it's because it's so interactive that a horror just lends itself to a good genre. And there are games that I would a hundred percent,
Speaker: Call a horror game. It's meant to be scary. The mechanics make it scarier. These are horror games. Right. You know. And that's why i wanted to separate. So my definition here is narrative games in which the narrative or gameplay centers on creating anxiety or fear in the player. Right. yeah yeah Because there are plenty of games that are horror themed.
Speaker: Right. Or meant to be scary that are. I wouldn't call them horror games. I would say, oh yeah, that is a, and know, a horror platformer or a horror point and click. like look ah You have to kind of look at it this way. Like, I'm a spooky girl. Horror is part of my interest, right? Yeah.
Speaker: So I like things like Tim Burton, which are not frightening. You wouldn't you wouldn't call Tim Burton's oeuvre like horror. Right, right. I'm not watching Nightmare. I mean, ah tim it's not really it's Tim Burton's story, but whatever. That's splitting hairs. But you wouldn't call night Nightmare Before Christmas a horror movie. It is a spooky movie. But I think that it's just an aesthetic that that Tim Burton likes. And same, like I'm a spooky girl, but that's not horror. I also happen to like horror and I distinguish them a little bit differently. So like Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, kind of weird, right? Kind of yeah spooky, ah but not horror.
Speaker: of The Shining, horror. And I think when it comes to, and who knows, we might end up arguing about this, but when it comes to horror games, might what what so what it comes to horror video games, right? What strikes me is that the game has to be centered around the...
Speaker: fear and anxiety it creates in the player. It doesn't even have to it doesn't have to be that scary, but it has to be trying. like That has to be where it's where it's leaning. but i mean I agree with that. I don't think every horror thing scares you directly, yeah but I think there is horror that that will unsettle you. or i wouldn't put dreams in the witch house here, for example. You know what I mean? Yeah, I probably wouldn't either. like it's It's a horror story told through a point and click slash...
Speaker: Survival Immersive Sim, but it is not a horror game. Right, correct. um Because it's not literally playing with your idea of horror.
Speaker: Right. Playing with horror to build its... But anyway, so what's your first recommendation here? Okay, so this is going to even, I think, clarify things even more in terms of genre, because my first pick is Clock Tower for the Super Famicom.
Speaker: ah We talked about this. think Yeah, we talked about this game at some point. I made Matt play it because I think it's important kind of in the survival horror genre.
Speaker: um That's how you know it also is a genre. We have a survival horror genre in in video games. kind of The main proponent of that was probably Alone in the Dark. But Clock Tower was the first for the Super Famicom. That's very important, you guys. um That is the first point and click game that really, truly terrified me. I think when I was young, because if you grow up on point and clicks, if you grow up on adventure games, they really are mostly lighthearted and funny. There's an amount of humor that goes alongside like point and clicks, especially. This is not funny even a little bit. There's nothing funny in in Clock Tower. And played it when I was younger. I ran into something horrifying and I quit for the longest time. I found it so frightening.
Speaker: And as you said, in order to define this genre, like you are... The point of that game is to build anxiety in you, the player. Yeah. Right. The point of the story is horror. It's actually based on a horror movie ah called Phenomena with um Jennifer Connelly. Do you know what Suspiria is, Matt?
Speaker: The movie Suspiria? I know that there is a movie called Suspiria. I don't know it. ah There's a movie called Suspiria directed by Dario Argento. He also did Phenomenon. And that's kind of where the scissor man ah Scissorman guy comes from and and alongside some of the stories. Even if you look at Clock Tower, the main girl looks like Jennifer Connelly. Like they're using her likeness. yeah yeah So it's even based off of ah off of a very famous horror ah horror movie. But yeah, there's it's so scary. The mechanics are scary because you are using these mechanics to hide. um It's very tense.
Speaker: Yeah, man, that... Ugh. I'm just thinking back when I was young and the first thing... i mean, I was drawn to it because it's point and click, right? The same way i was drawn to like the Dagger of Amun-Ra not knowing that there would be some kind of goofy gore.
Speaker: and they I was afraid of that, too. but i was i was afraid of everything as a kid. This genuinely, oh I quit for so long. I looked in a mirror and you know what happened, right? What happens when your character looks in a mirror in a horror story?
Speaker: Suddenly. So you're looking you look in the mirror and you see yourself. you look You wash your face. You look down. You look back up. Uh-oh. There's somebody behind you. Well, that's definitely... Yes, correct. That is a trope. That's not what happened to me in this game. I looked in the mirror and my reflection came through and tried to strangle me. And I was so terrified. i think... I don't know how...
Speaker: It's aged compared to other frightening games because we have truly frightening games that have gone up the ranks in terms of what people like. I do think this is a scary tense game.
Speaker: The first time you play it. Speaking of a truly frightening game. Yeah. You want to my number one? I do. It's Scratches. Holy shit. Oh my god, I forgot to put Scratches on it. That's okay because did. Scratches is so scary. It is a very frightening, very frightening game. And they put in a jump scare that I have not forgiven anyone for. It's so frightening. is moment when you go into the basement and you're looking for the sound. You're looking for little window. Oh, Girl in the Window.
Speaker: it's it's a It's not a window. It's just like a little hole in the wall or something. And suddenly something goes past you. I screamed. I was so scared. There's a scene. might be the same one you're talking about where you hear scratches and you go downstairs and you're kind of looking in like the boiler in the basement. Yeah, that is what I'm talking about. It is the...
Speaker: it is the worst jump scare I've gotten from any piece of fiction in anything in my life. It's terrifying. It is so scary. So the the the the premise of Scratches is um you are
Speaker: but Oh, you... Yeah, you're... You just moved into a new mansion? Yeah, well, I think you're... Or you are... Somebody moved into a new mansion, or you're...
Speaker: You're like supposed to meet somebody there. You're supposed meet somebody there. The previous, I think you just bought the mansion and the previous owner says that they'll meet you there or the real estate agent whatever says they'll meet you there. I think it's real estate agent. But there's a storm that's so bad that they can't get there.
Speaker: Yeah. So you spend a few days, it's first person, and you spend a few days like walking around this mansion kind of just discovering some horrible shit about the past, like the history of this mansion and the family that lived there, um the Blackwoods, you start to hear scratches at night.
Speaker: And that's the premise. Like, it is that simple. It is that simple of a premise. That's scary in itself, though. Like, I think that really plays on the fears of so many people who are, like, trying to get to sleep somewhere and they hear something.
Speaker: Yes. It's like my fear to start hearing, like, scratches in the wall, you know? It uses every... it uses every
Speaker: It uses everything to its fullest extent. The soundtrack, the 3D first-person environments, the shadows of the house. It uses the um it it kind of breaks it into slightly episodic natures because it's it'll be like, oh, you have a couple tasks that... Like, gameplay-wise, it's kind of like you have a list of tasks you have to perform and then it'll cut to the next time period. Like, it'll cut to the afternoon or it'll cut to the night or it'll cut to um him going to bed, right? And so as a Just as a straight-up game...
Speaker: if you cut the horror out as a straight game, it kind of sucks, right? Like it wouldn't be good by itself, but because everything it does leans into this horror thing, leans into making you feel tense and building up to its, its jump scares and it's, it's like scary moments.
Speaker: Everything works. It is, ah To me, Scratches is actually, like not to be too overdramatic here, oversell it, but to me, Scratches is the perfect horror game. It sets...
Speaker: it it Which is not to say it's the perfect game. but it it sets everything up just perfectly. Sure. To make the scares hit as as hard as they possibly can. And the simplicity of the story is like an M.R. James short story, or maybe even like a Lovecraft short story. Like it just works through its simplicity. Um,
Speaker: And the final reveal ah is pretty horrifying. Yeah. When you find out what's actually going on in the house. So, i yeah, Scratches is my, to me, the best horror game that's ever been.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: yeah Best horror adventure game. i'm I'm sure there are other scary. Like we're not including, I don't know if you put these on your list, but I'm not including like Resident Evil or Silent Hill or anything like that. Because to me those are like action horror games. I think those are, so well I think that goes into survival horror because a lot of survival horror has action in it. But I know what you mean. i don't think of them in the adventure. I mean I know they're adventures, but I don't think of them as, I think of them as a slightly different genre. Yeah, that's fair. And hey, look, if you disagree, I understand. And you can go into the Discord and yell about it. I would love it.
Speaker: i will That's what I want you guys to do. That's fun for me. We want you to yell at us. Only in the Discord bell. Next up is sex games. Hey, wait. I have a lot of like, no, that would be fun. No, no, no, no, no. Oh,
Speaker: We can't. Lust from beyond. I'm kidding. Ew. Ew. Yucky. Yucky. ah So the next game on my list, and by the way, my list is in no actual order of what I prefer. um I don't know if the rest of my list is. I just know Scratches is my number one. Yeah, yeah. um I put Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth on here.
Speaker: That was for the original Xbox. You might be able to play it on Steam these days. It was a very broken game, unfortunately, and it it was difficult to figure out a way to actually play it. But I will say, this had one of the the most frightening...
Speaker: sections in a game okay that i i've ever and and at at the time when i played it i didn't know much about hp lovecraft i didn't really know understand the cthulhu stuff but there is a section slightly early on in this game where you're in one one of the lovecraftian cities where the fish people are what's it oh my god what is it called why am i blanking on this it's based It's based on part of the story where you're in this village and everything's like a little bit off about the people. Spoiler, it's because they're fish people. Is this Ralea?
Speaker: Ralea? i Ralea? It's called Ralea. You pronounce it Ralea? I have no idea how to pronounce. I don't know how to pronounce Ralea.
Speaker: Most words. Most, most weirds.
Speaker: Um, but yes, anyway, it, it has this part in the game where you're in, I'm trying to look it up so I can remember. Like I said, where I'm newly, um,
Speaker: Like, I'm a new Lovecraft fan, so I don't have all the settings, like, completely down yet. But you're in ah a village. You're staying in a village and in a kind of creepy hotel. And there's just something off about everyone. You can just tell in that Lovecraftian way, right? Everything's dreary. Everything's, like, fucking green.
Speaker: um It's very psychologically horrifying. Green, the scariest color. The scariest color. And then at night... they like start chasing you and you have ah a mental, like a mental health, like ah a heartbeat thing. And it's, it's adding, just adding to your anxiety. And you basically have to like go through all these doors and these, these people are terrifying looking and they're following me. And it was so frightening to me. It was so frightening. It looked scary. Yeah.
Speaker: i had to And then your vision kind of gets blurry because you're so anxious. And now you're seeing these these blurry, weird people who are trying to kill you. At least that's the assumption. is that they're trying I don't know why they would be running after you if they were just trying to be nice. Hug us! Hug us!
Speaker: But yeah, it's I think it is a very successful, scary game. Unfortunately, i think that it was kind of broken.
Speaker: Yeah, it was kind of broken and that made it difficult to play. Yeah. And don't know, but i I just, I do think there's something special about how frightening it is and how psychologically scary it is. There's kind of these surreal moments in the game where you're seeing like tentacles and like Cthulhu-esque stuff and Yeah, I still say that that section where I'm running away from those villagers is one of the scariest things like I've ever seen. That you've ever seen in a game. i I might not think so today, but man, I was... But it affected you so much at that age. That's yeah something that horror does. This isn't on my list, but I feel the same way about um that Slenderman game, The Last Eight Pages or whatever. remember, yeah. um
Speaker: that i i I almost couldn't play. Like I would, i remember trying to play that a couple times when I was a little younger, when I was, ah I guess ah ah in my late teens, early 20s. I can't, maybe it was 20s.
Speaker: And ah now now I want to find out when was it released? Yeah. Slender the eight pages. Oh, it was only 14 years ago. So I was in my twenties. Yeah.
Speaker: I remember trying to play it. i a go dude i remember trying to play it and having to like, i would get so almost like existentially terrified.
Speaker: Yeah. I'd be no, I can't, I can't. And I'd have to turn it off. Um, And I did that for years. Like, I kept coming back to it because I was like, because I would keep remembering it. And like, it's that what a silly, silly thing for me to have done, like ah not be able to finish a game because it was too, quote, scary. Ridiculous, Matt. And I'd go back to it and be like, nope, nope, nope. I can't. I can't. I literally can't. It feels like I'm going to die if I do. It feels like I'm going to die.
Speaker: um On that same tip, and this is a game that I'm not sure, much like you just said, there's there's it's flaws in Call of Cthulhu, which might hamper your recommendation of it.
Speaker: This is a game that has a lot of flaws in it. um
Speaker: To the point where it it I would only recommend it to somebody who wanted to be scared, not somebody who wanted to play a really good game. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. um So this is a game called At Dead of Night. Oh, yeah. um It is an FMV game.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, we've spoken about it at night. We've spoken about At Dead of Night. It's an FMV game where you play a a girl... who is on a backpacking trip across the English countryside and you find yourself in like a backwoods hotel where, where your friends have already arrived.
Speaker: But I think there's like a storm and you're, you know, your cell phone is broken, like that kind of thing. sure And you get there, you don't see any of your friends, but the person who's running the front desk is like kind of like a weird dude, a weird, lonely looking dude. And he tells you he's got a comedy routine that night. If they, if she wants, if you want to come down to like, that's fucking scary. Never go to anybody's comedy routine. And he's like, oh, I do like a little character. And yeah she's like, um no, I think I'm just going to go to bed. And he looks and you get that sense, right? yeah That you get in some horror stuff where you're like, oh, this dude's fucking pissed and is trying not to let it show. This dude's fucking pissed off. um This dude is like psychotically angry and he's trying to keep it. He's trying to hide it
Speaker: This is like jump scare the game. Yes. And then he starts talking to himself. And um it's clear like this is this this comedy character is like a secondary personality of his. And it's it's just him in suspenders with like a bald wig on. and he looks fucking terrifying. Yeah, it's it's an unsettling design for sure. Yeah.
Speaker: And I forget what the impetus is for you wandering around the hotel. You might hear somebody scream or whatever. um But you're wandering around the hotel trying to, I guess, ultimately find a way out. But yeah ah i'll get I'll get to what you're doing in a second.
Speaker: This guy keeps showing up just, like, around corners. You're, like, walking around this FMV hotel. And every now and then you'll see him at the end of a hallway. And you'll have to, like, go into a room and hide. um And he has, or or like you'll go around a corner and he'll just appear and kill you with an ax. And so like that's scary enough, but that's just a jump scare. If it were only that, I would not put this on this list.
Speaker: Yeah. What makes me put this on this list is the tasks that you are doing. You have this ghost meter. that This like radio that allows you to communicate with ghosts. and you're walking around the hotel trying to get reception.
Speaker: And when you get reception, you hear the ghosts. They sort of give you a clue as to what their specific story is. And you use that to try and figure out where they'll show up next.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: when And there are times that you find the ghosts and they are just these ghostly people yeah who were killed in the hotel and want to tell you their story. and you're also finding like um items around that hint towards the story, like a wooden paddle or some ah or a hidden so or a blood-stained cloth or some hidden... like What type of thing you find? A hidden sword. Yeah. But they
Speaker: um they each sort of hint at the larger story that's going on and it's the story of what happened to this to make this guy into the insane psycho murderer that he is.
Speaker: Yeah. um And that stuff's really fascinating and really, really spooky. So that's what I love about this game is it's got the
Speaker: kind of broken survival aspect of you going around and trying not to get jumped by this guy like it's kind of broken like at certain points it's like almost literally impossible um and at other points it's just fucking annoying yeah um so like I don't recommend it for that but if you can get over that Or you can hack the game to get him the guy to show up less, maybe.
Speaker: sure um And you can just like do all the ghost stories. It's still a fucking scary-ass game. And it's great.
Speaker: I will not be playing that. That part of it is great, anyway. It's half great, half terrible as a game. I don't like jump scares like that with with live acted people. That is terrifying to me. So I will not be playing this game. It does make you go like, but and you're like, like if you're holding a controller, you throw it. If you're, you've got headphones on, you chuck them off your head. Like you've got, it's, it's got that quality to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, I put in a screen cap of the people who are chasing you in Call of Cthulhu. So it's in the Zencaster chat if you want to look at it.
Speaker: ah Don't they look fucked up and weird? You jump scared me on our podcast. Yeah, they look fucked up and weird. No, it's it's I feel like the the Xbox like the original Xbox graphics also contribute to that. But yeah, um I do. I will not be playing at a dead of night. Sure.
Speaker: It I know I wouldn't play. Yeah, I don't blame anyone for not playing at dead night. There's so much wrong with it. Just the screen caps are kind of frightening me. Yeah. All right. What's your next one? My next one is where did I put my thingy? Oh, that's a good game.
Speaker: I know my next one. I referenced this actually earlier when we were talking about, I i think about point and clicks. This is where I put nightmare. This is where I put nightmare frames.
Speaker: Oh, it's fine, Matt. oh okay no it's fine uh i put nightmare frames it is not only one of my favorite horror games but it's also just one of my favorite games now i am crazy about nightmare frames the reason i think it goes in into horror yeah why wouldn't you put it in point and clicks is one of my questions i think i think because it has its own genre of So the the the development team that makes these, and I always fucking forget every single time, but they made- Postmodern Adventures. post Thank you. Postmodern Adventures. i think it's just one guy. Yeah.
Speaker: I think that, um yes, they are all point and clicks, but for me, they are ah Nightmare Frames was vastly different than an English haunting to me. Nightmare Frames was almost like this parody of itself as well. It's very 80s horror. yeah um It's got a lot of these tropes that 80s horror would have in them. um You know, unlikable characters in the beginning.
Speaker: And then a completely like... I don't want to say surreal, but a completely fantastical, horrifying kind of conclusion. Right. To me, it really speaks to a lot of different of even like horror movie, you know, it covers ah this cult thing. It's about a horror movie. The whole premise is about finding a horror movie. And and how that kind of goes into the game. And it's just very tropey in that way. So I think it it is really parodying a kind of a B horror movie, right? And there's even... i just love this game so much. There's even a setting where there's like um makeup art, like horror makeup artists. And it's very 80s. And it's so fun. And I'm like, oh, they... Whoever...
Speaker: Whoever wrote and made this game likes horror as a genre. They like it. They like horror makeup. They like the different ways you can present horror.
Speaker: And that's why it's here in horror for me. I wouldn't necessarily put Dark Rites of Arkham or an English haunting, but because this is taking so much from like horror, it just it's it's very.
Speaker: don't know. It just makes sense to me. Yeah, I would still, I think, put that in point and clicks because I think it leans more like as a game gameplay wise. I don't know if I don't know if the gameplay relies on the horror. i think it does at the end, which is absolutely horrifying. Oh, right, right. Yeah. That whole thing. i see what you're saying. Was that? Yeah. But I think I think to your point.
Speaker: I think it would... One of the reasons it it could belong here, and again, i I wouldn't necessarily put it here, but one of the reasons I think you could be right and it could belong here is that I think if you like horror stuff, and but you you aren't like...
Speaker: I think if you hate point and clicks, you're not going to like this game um no matter what. Yeah. But if you're not like a fan of point and clicks, if you're not like, I love point and clicks. Like if it's not one of your favorite genres, but you love horror, you still might like nightmare frames. Like that's why i'm that's why I'm putting it there. Um,
Speaker: Yeah, so that's... It's like, i like horror, but I'm not going to play at Dead of Night because I don't like that gameplay, right? yeah So i don't I'm not going to play it. But it's still horror. Right. ah But yeah, I think it does... I think it can fit either way.
Speaker: i think it can fit just easily into more basic point and click, but also... yeah I just... ah I think it kind of exudes what the horror genre is. Well, to...
Speaker: continue with that theme then I guess um my next one is Burnhouse Lane right I don't think I didn't play that oh did I play that did you play the cat lady yeah by the same yeah people yes now I know now I remember yes um and I think Burnhouse Lane is the better game so I think the reason I put this here is because I think the, this is by Harvester games. Sorry. All the Harvester games games are generally about a person who's in sort of a framing based, like a a situation that's more of like a frame for them to go through like three or four or five short stories, short horror stories. um
Speaker: And usually there's like a slasher horror story and a ghost story. And ah like there's ah i And I think this one is, if I remember correctly, you die
Speaker: and you are told you can come back to life. Okay. they' They'll bring you back to life if you do these, the series of tasks for them. And it's like making a deal with a demon, like making a deal with the devil kind of thing. Yeah. um and all the tasks...
Speaker: are scary and terrible but I think are based around giving somebody like their their punishment for some for some sort of guilt that they yeah they have incurred um and it's just every moment of it is thrilling and tense and so much of it is existentially terrifying, right? Like you're playing and you're having to think of it through these horrifying questions about like
Speaker: who gets to live and who gets who doesn't, right? yeah Yeah. Which is one of the scariest questions a person can ponder, um right? ah And the vibe, the tone is so good. And it it is a one of the things that these games do in Burnhouse Lane specifically does really well is combining supernatural horror and thriller horror and folk horror all into one cohesive piece.
Speaker: um And it's the way the game works is it's like sky side scrolling. There's a little bit of action. There's a little bit of point and click puzzle solving. But the largely...
Speaker: All the gameplay is is mostly like an excuse to get from one scene to the next, right? that Again, which is why I'm putting it in horror because it is abundantly clear the entire way through the game that the horror story is the point and the gameplay is just is just a servicing that point. i think I think Cat Lady is also a horror game. Oh, yeah. cat All of them are horror games. Those are good examples of horror games. behouse lane is my I like all of them. yeah And they all sort of have um they tie together. But Burn House Lane is my favorite of them.
Speaker: that's all I didn't know that one was your preferred one. That's awesome. Oh, yeah. maybe I did know that. um Okay. Would you like my last... I only put a few on here because I really wanted to showcase them. Sure.
Speaker: I wonder, though... i mean, I wonder... This is an interesting question. Where does a game like Phantasmagoria You know? Like, I'm not saying it's a good game, but I am saying it it's one of those like kind of innovative horror games that came out at the time.
Speaker: I think Phantasmagoria has to go in horror. I just don't know if I really want to recommend it or not. Yeah, me neither. um there's we will have that discussion in the next category about a specific game too. It's like, yes, this game might fall in here, but I'm not going to think about it too hard because I'm not going recommend it anyway. um But I do think, I think 100%, think it would 100% i think it would hunt one hundred percent be Phantasmagoria would be a horror game because it's not... um
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, I agree. um Yeah, I'm not going recommend it. Just putting that out there, ah that that would be like in the within this genre. um I put as my other one, the Last Door. ah It's the scariest game I've ever played. I felt scared the whole way through.
Speaker: i found the story scary. I found this... I'm not going to call them jump scares. I'm going to call them startle scares because I'm not quite... like it's not It's not like a dead of night where suddenly you're like very, very startled and you're throwing stuff. It's more like something changed in this room abruptly.
Speaker: and I don't like that. That unfeasles me. There's a lot of screens where the lighting is very dark and you don't know what's around the corner and everything is just a little horrific and things start happening that are...
Speaker: unsettling um like my my biggest the thing that i think really scared me uh was you are in at some point so you're going around we both played this game and we talked about it but it takes place in different settings in different what i would call scary settings uh and one of the settings is like this um it's not a church what's it called that's where all the nuns are it's uh it's a Not a coven. That's for witches. What am I talking about, Matt? Where nuns live?
Speaker: con Convent. Convent. There we That was almost the exact opposite. So you're in a convent and, you know, peopleba nuns are like taking care of people there. But there's this very kind of immoral, evil priest that has been doing things and like weird things are happening. And there is a section of this game where you can go talk to a nun and she's just kind of standing by the ocean.
Speaker: She has a cane. She can't walk really well. And the next time I, and this is where, you know, the screens will change in an unsettling way. Next time I went on that screen, I get ah a horrifying music sting. It's not even startling. It's just unsettling. It's like, yeah, it's, it was, it's a very scary sting. Her cane is there and her habit is there.
Speaker: And I think she just drowned herself like that. Yes. They don't show it. They don't show show that happening. But just the idea of it is absolutely horrifying. I was very uncomfortable. I also had found, again, they're very good in Last Door at using very minimal kind of like music stings to ah to show you something happened.
Speaker: ah But it was like off screen. So I looked at someone's bed and there was a terrifying note on it. Just like repeating. It was a note kind of ah kind of like the shining note. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. And they hit a sting to it. and I'm like, what the fuck? This is fucked up. This game is actually legitimately frightening to me.
Speaker: And yeah, not because of jump scares, but because of. Unsettling things that happen. The game starts with an unsettling thing and I won't I won't spoil it. We might have spoiled it on our episode, but it starts right away with something pretty horrific. So, the but it's so worth it. It's so worth going through.
Speaker: Like I felt very engaged the whole time. The thing I remember the most from that game is the walking into a room, seeing crows just suddenly just like a appear in various places. And there's like a lot of crows in different places. And the crows start to become like they start to you start to figure out that the crows have a meaning.
Speaker: And then almost immediately after you figure out what the crows kind of means symbolically, you walk into a room and suddenly it is filled with crows.
Speaker: And it's like red and yeah and there's no music. I think so that they use silence very well yeah in The Last Door. Yeah, that's that minimal screen change.
Speaker: But you didn't expect it. And so it's scary. Yeah, this is another one I might argue is more point and click. But I like i don't think I'm going to make that argument right now. Because i like i yeah it is it was very scary. And I think it is... um I think it's a horrifying game. God, it's like the scariest game I've ever played. I was so anxious. I'm going to rush through my next one just because the next one I put was No, I'm Not a Human.
Speaker: Okay. We talked about that one. i just think, again, that game is built around horror mechanics, um and it is... It's existentially very scary thinking about um yeah the decisions you have to make and the... I don't know. the the the Even in its mechanics, it and makes you unsettled. um For sure. But you can listen to the Immersive Sim ah two episodes ago if you want to hear us talk more about No, I'm not a human. But the last one I'm going to say is... ah This is... I was thinking today as I was driving home from work that...
Speaker: We don't have a good category for these types of games. And I don't know if they should go in visual novel or if they should go in walking sim or if they should go in.
Speaker: Like, I don't know where they should go. okay But the. The choices matter. Telltale style games like Wolf Among Us or the Walking Dead games or.
Speaker: sure In this case, this is not by Telltale, but the quarry. I put the quarry here in horror because it is... Oh, interesting. Interactive drama is what Wikipedia calls these. Yeah. Interactive drama. Sure. I could see that. I could see that. We probably should have had an interactive drama category. No! gory Stop it. Stop it. We should have though, right Because those are a huge part of adventure games now. Anyway, whatever. We're not going to go backwards.
Speaker: Interactive drama. Sorry, the quarry, what I mean to say, is just like playing a horror movie. It is choice. It is one of those choices matter games. So you are a bunch of kids who you arrive a day early to start summer camp.
Speaker: um Like you are a bunch camp counselors or sorry, a couple of you arrive a day early and go missing. And then two months later, it's the end of camp. it's yeah And the camp counselor has already left. And you guys, and he tells you like, look, do not go outside today, tonight. Like it is dangerous to go outside for reasons you don't even know.
Speaker: If you're going to stay here tonight, if you can't get home today, you can stay the night, but do not go outside. And I can't be here. Bye. um and then you kind of switch back and forth between the characters. It's a really good game to play with a partner. I played it with my significant other at the time. Nice. we just passed the controller back and forth every time it switched characters, which is also really funny because sometimes a character, sometimes a chapter will be like,
Speaker: five minutes and the next chapter will be 20 minutes or like an hour long so so she kept getting these like so like one time we were playing and i kept getting all the really short chapters and i had my controller right back and the next time she kept getting up so it can be funny but it's a lot of quick time events and some explore and a lot of exploration and a lot of dialogue but it's one of these choices matter ones where again, it is just, you're watching a horror story. You're making the choices and things that you do significantly affect the path that the story takes. um
Speaker: It's very, I would say that survival horror. So I think it does count in this genre. What makes it survival horror?
Speaker: I thought you were describing like interactive events that are, am I incorrect? No, no, no, go no. i want to hear, I want to hear what you're saying. Okay. I thought because it was like a little telltale, telltale that you would need to be making like survival horror um ah ah choices. There we go.
Speaker: As in like, if you make a wrong choice, does that affect your, like, is it scary if you don't make the right choices? Yeah. Interesting. So I i think of survival horror as about, like, obstruction, right? Like, um
Speaker: I don't have enough resources. i have to manage my resources. i can't do everything I want because I have to manage my resources. Or I can't do everything I want because... Or it's like, it's hard to get away because of this thing or that thing where this one is about, and I guess there's a little bit of that in quick time events, um yeah like limits your choices a little, but this is about like,
Speaker: do you shoot Jeff or do you shoot Bill? Those aren't characters in the game. Um, okay and then how does the game continue with that choice is, yeah is Bill dead for the rest of the game or did, did Jeff survive when you shot him? And like, you know what i mean? Like, yeah, I don't know that I would call that survival horror.
Speaker: Um, Because surviving is maybe the point of the story, but I don't know if it's necessarily the point of the gameplay. I guess it could. I don't know. Anyway. understand. um I'm not an expert in survival horror, so I could be defining that wrong. But the quarry is what I'm putting here as my fifth game.
Speaker: all right.
Speaker: Okay. You already selected scratches. I think that's correct. Yes, I think for our recommendations out of these nine, Scratches has got to be on there. I'm also, I would make a big push for Clocktower. I think Clocktower.
Speaker: I also agree with Clocktower. So Scratches and Clocktower. I'm going to cut at Dead of Night again because I have trouble actually recommending it. I'm going cut No, I'm Not a Human because it's not as good as the other games on here.
Speaker: Yeah. um
Speaker: The quarry is so unique in terms of the games that we've suggested here. But something about me really wants to push to put one of the...
Speaker: Because if I could just take all of the Harvester Games games and throw them on here in a big bundle, would. Yeah, it's tough i'm I'm actually quite... I'm torn between Burnhouse Lane and The Last Door. i think they have i have i think they have similarities that kind of put them in a similar...
Speaker: category But I feel like Burnhouse Lane has the edge because it also is like aesthetically horror. You know what I mean? Like it's just every moment of it. just yeah Yeah. Like it it it really overwhelms you with the horror where. Yeah.
Speaker: And it it it covers so many categories of horror, too. Yeah. So I would push for Burnhouse Lane. Yeah. I'd say Burnhouse Lane. I feel really.
Speaker: I love The Last Door. i know. It's legit. It's the scariest game I've ever played. So for it to not go on there is kind of hard, but... Right. But I do think Burnhouse Lane has the edge just in terms of genre. Yes. And I feel bad for the quarry not to make it just because it's so different than the other games we've put here. Sure. But I i think i think if this were a couple of regular folks making this list,
Speaker: The quarry would beat out one of the... Yeah. be But it's us making the list. And so so it's going to be Burnhouse Lane into the last door. And I agree with you, though. I think Burnhouse Lane gets the edge, but not by much. I think it just, like, very slightly edges it out.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure. So we've kind of a difficult genre here. This one's going to cause some some arguments. I think horror might, too. But what's the category? don't think as many. I think we did a good job on the horror genre.
Speaker: what do you So what's the name of the category? So the name of the next category is comedy. And let's see let's see what Matt wrote. Games in which the rules of comedy override rules of narrative cohesion or predefined mechanics. Being funny is the primary purpose. Not a matter, of course, within a larger purpose.
Speaker: That's so tough. Right. So Monkey Island is funny. It is funny. about It is not a game where that is structured around the rules of comedy.
Speaker: It is structured around the rules of narrative, and it is a funny narrative. It's so tough, though, because i could we could also make an argument that... um that Monkey Island is purposefully being a parody of something and thus purposely inherently having that comedic undertone. But I understand, I understand what you're saying. I do have a thing on my list that maybe you'll argue, but I think I also have a good argument for it. So we'll see.
Speaker: So like, ah I'm going to start with one that to me is definitional here. And maybe that'll get people to understand what, what we're trying to say here with comedy as a genre of game, because I think this is a very new, very recent genre. And it is a very rare genre, to be honest. um Yeah.
Speaker: So the game I'm going to start with is thank goodness you're here. Nice. um
Speaker: I think, um, Thank goodness you're here. It's a game where you just play a weird little lemon man who's running around slapping people. And like that's all, you have a jump button and you have a slap button and you are exploring a town, um doing little tasks for people, getting caught in these little mini games. Your size keeps changing. Sometimes you are so small that you could like fit on a spoon. other times you are tall enough to like hit a guy in the shin. Right? Like you... yeah They just change it. This is the thing about Thank Goodness You're Here. The rules of the game constantly change as to they just keep thinking what would be the funniest thing to do at this moment. Right. There's a scene in Thank Goodness You're Here where you
Speaker: you are in control of a lawnmower. I forget how you even get the lawnmower. But you suddenly have a lawnmower. And... You, can take a minute to even figure out what the gameplay is. Cause now I think you're just using the arrow keys to go back and forth. You're just pressing left and right. That's all you're doing. Yeah. yeah,
Speaker: but It can be hard to figure out because at first you're just looking at two beautiful little flowers saying, i love you. and the other one says, no, I love you. and then the first flower goes, no, I love you. and then the first second one goes, I love you. And just back and forth they're saying, I love you. um And then you realize you are controlling this lawnmower. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And you were just going left and right across the screen, getting closer and closer and closer until finally you reach the flowers and you completely destroy one of the flowers and the other one breaks down. It's so fucking funny. There's a guy who You keep, there's this there's ah one screen where it is a fence with a hole in it.
Speaker: And every time you walk past this fence, the game like knows you're going to walk past this fence this this number of times and in the if you're progressing yeah narratively through the story. hu So they've programmed it.
Speaker: That every time you walk through this fence, past this fence, there's like a guy, his little eye appears in the hole and he's like, hey do you do you want a sausage?
Speaker: And you're like, and you can't you can't talk. So you just watch. And then he slowly stuffs a sausage through the hole. oh of the fence and then every time you come past he stuffs more sausages through the hole
Speaker: in the fence it's it's such a fucking funny game and again the only thing this game exists for it's not to make you It's not to challenge your skills. It's not to make you think about it.
Speaker: It's not for the puzzles. It's not for the gameplay. it's not for It is for the funny of it. Yes, yes. If this game stopped being funny, it would be the worst game of all time. It is yeah only about being funny. none of the other No other element of this game matters. Yeah. um and so thank goodness you're here. That's why. a good call. I like that. That is that is to me what defines, like that that that game is an adventure game and it doesn't fit into any other genre at all. Right.
Speaker: um So, yeah. So I'm going to kind of follow that up with um something that I think fits exactly what you're saying. That's Death of the Reprobate. Okay. Yeah. Joe Richardson games. um Strangely, Death of the Reprobate, I think, was the first one I played, which is really interesting. So um he was able to, you know, polish his style. and But those games are just absurd. They would exist to be absurd.
Speaker: Explain to people what it is. So the Joe Richardson games are made up of these old Renaissance style, like paintings and pieces of art. And he basically collages them to create backgrounds and settings and screens. The characters as well. So everything looks utterly absurd because it is taken from these absurd times in art.
Speaker: um And again, it's kind of like the game ah you were just talking about. There's a slap button. You can just like punch people or slap. You don't punch them. You slap them. It's more funny than punching. ah You can do like a little flippy in the air, just a little somersault. There's just a flip button for no reason. Yeah.
Speaker: And I mean, it looks funny if you it looks funny. It plays funny. I definitely had laugh out loud moments and there's really no other reason for it. It's not there to make me think I'm not getting like the most insane story. i can't even tell you what the story is, to be honest. I don't remember. i really don't remember. um But I do remember the screens and I remember ah the the little kicks and the and the at the end. There's like these little cute little skellingtons that like follow you that are like playing music. It's just funny. It's just these are funny games and I think they're meant to be funny.
Speaker: I, I, these games are so funny. It's part of the ah immortal John. he doesn't call it a trilogy. He calls it a triptych because it's, because it's Renaissance art yeah um and classic art. um But, uh,
Speaker: The one I put on here was pre Procession to Calvary, which i I just thought was a little funnier. That's fair. You play in that game, you play like a knight who is traveling to Calvary to tell Immortal Jon about...
Speaker: you're Oh, fuck. You're trying to tell... again Like you said, the the stories are not super important, but you're trying to tell Immortal John about... Or no, are you traveling all the way there to kill Immortal?
Speaker: Fuck, now I'm... See, exactly. It doesn't matter. No, Immortal John sends you to Calvary to kill somebody, to kill the guy. It's part of the Crusades.
Speaker: Yeah. Anyway... I take a little bit of argument with you saying it's not there for the story or the puzzles because I think those do exist within the game and they are they are somewhat important. But to your point, in Procession to Calvary,
Speaker: you don't have to solve any of the puzzles. You have a stab button. Yeah. And you can literally run through the whole game and stab every NPC that gets you in your way until you get all the way to whoever the guy you're looking for is. It's been a while since I played the game. I apologize. But um whoever the guy you're looking for is.
Speaker: And then stab them. And then the game is over. And the game can take like 10 minutes. It is so fucking funny. And like there are times that I couldn't think, I couldn't figure out a solution. And so I thought the solution was to stab the guy. And then later realized, oh wait, no, there was another solution. But yeah, you can just stab anybody at any time. It is it is so funny. And that totally fits this idea of like the rules of comedy override the rules of any ah the the rules of narrative or the rules of mechanics.
Speaker: um I don't know of anything like that happening in... what would um in but The one that you just said, God damn it. Death of the Reprobate. But I think they all count in this same yeah they do framework.
Speaker: um Yeah, they do. But Death of the Reprobate does have those cute little skeletons at the end that I giggled at. Yes. Death of the Reprobate, I think, is incredibly funny. And like you said, by the time he got to Death of the Reprobate, he... Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: By the time he got to death of the reprobate, he had really defined his style. Yeah, agreed. So, right.
Speaker: So yours was death of the reprobate. Mine was procession of cavalry. Do you want to give you your next one? Yeah, and this is where things get a little ah iffy. I put untitled goose game online. Yes.
Speaker: No, I think that 100% fits. I think that's also definitional. I think. Okay, go ahead. Well, I mean, I do think kind of like what we were saying about the Joe Richardson games, the puzzles do matter. You are doing puzzles. The thing is, the puzzles are hilarious. The first thing I did when I booted up on titled Goose Game was like laugh at it because the very first thing you do is you're you're focused in on this little green bush. Very cute graphics. by the way, it like cel-shaded, cartoony, inoffensive graphics. Very cute. um the First thing you do is press a button and like a goose head pops out of this bush and just honks. And it's just so funny. it's just so cute.
Speaker: You do get a honk button. It's very cute. And yeah, you can just do funny things in this game. You can steal people's shit and make them like lose their fucking minds. I think a lot of people don't even play the missions or the... ah Like, I think a lot of people play Untitled Goose Game and don't even do, like, follow the story.
Speaker: I think some people just run around and annoy all the people because it's it's funny to do that. And it's cute. You know, it's it's funny in that, like, very cute way. It's not funny in a way that somebody told a really clever joke.
Speaker: It's just something that is going to make you laugh. And that stems directly from the gameplay, not from the story, not from... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: So there's there's really not much to say about Untitled Goose Game, you guys. Well, just in the basic... I don't think you've given the basic premise. Okay, so you are playing a goose and you're going through that. I know it's shocking. And you are going through these screens, like ah figuring out puzzles to be. It seems like you're just trying to make things harder for people, actually. So like in one screen, you're like harassing a farmer. um in another screen, you're making two neighbors like hate each other by fucking with their stuff, like in their lawn. Yeah.
Speaker: um Really, I think the the the main premise of the game, which is also very funny, is that you just want something. Like as a goose, you want like a shiny a shiny thing to throw into your like little ditch of stuff. That's what you do. You must have these things because you're a goose. It's just so cute. It's cute and you will laugh.
Speaker: um It is funny to scare people by just like honking and s flapping them. Yeah. oh oh i love it i yeah it's honestly if you want a fun time and do you want to like smile just boot up untitled goose game i i only have one more because there's a lot of other games that i know of that are funny sure esoteric ebb is funny yeah that very funny game it's true uh uh uh
Speaker: What else? um that's thats Phoenix Wright is funny. yeah monkey Monkey Island is funny. There's a lot of funny games, but very few that I would say this is a comedy game.
Speaker: um So the only the only other one that I have played that I could think fits this genre that I would recommend, thats it all three of those checkboxes, is...
Speaker: The Stanley Parable. Yeah. Yeah. And I have that on my list as well. ah Even though I would venture to say I didn't exactly laugh out loud at the Stanley Parable. It's a dry game. Like, it I think it's a little more dry.
Speaker: i did, but not yeah often. um
Speaker: The best description of the Stanley Parable... is it starts out like a walking simulator. And you are working in an office and a narrator's like, this is Stanley. And Stanley works in an office. um And every day was the same, except for one day, things were a little different. Stanley walked out. And then you stand up from your desk and you are now in control of the character. And this...
Speaker: You really only have one choice, you know, to walk, walk down this hallway. Right. And he's like, Stanley walked down the hallway and everything you're doing, the game knows you're going to do it. So the, the, the narrator who is fucking fantastic, by the way,
Speaker: The narrator yeah is saying what you're doing. And then suddenly you come to two doors, a red door and a blue door, if I'm remembering correctly. And the narrator says, Stanley came to two doors.
Speaker: He walked through the blue door. Right. And now you as a player, you're standing there like, huh should I? i I don't have to if I don't want to. Yeah, yeah. I could walk through the blue door, but I could also walk through the red door. And then you're, like, guessing, like, should I walk through the blue door or the red door? And either thing you choose, the game just gets so much more bizarre from there. And you start basically fighting with the narrator. Oh, that gives me another thought.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. about a game to add here um you're basically fighting with the narrator and he is trying to change the game as you're going because he gets he gets angry with you based on what you're doing or not doing um and it's funny it's a funny game it's a thoughtful game yeah um And it is constantly changing its own identity and mechanics in order to suit the hijinks, the hilarity, the absurdity.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I put that on my list as well. um Even though, again, for me, it's not... something that I think I've laughed a lot at, but I do think it fits being a comedy game. You know, i can see why people really liked it. um So I have, this is going to be an interesting end of the discussion here. i just added one more oh to my list, so it won't be the end, but let's, I want to hear. you yeah Yeah, I mean, i'm I'm just wondering. I'm just throwing some thoughts out there. yeah I don't think either of us would put Monkey Island on there.
Speaker: um but i am i'm ah i am rethinking it a little bit, but I don't think we would put that on there. I think it is simply a funny game. I think Grim Fandango is a funny game, but that's even further away. Yeah, the difference between funny and comedy is so... yeah So I think these are funny games. I think... I do think, though, that and Max Hit the Road has potential to be a comedy game. And and the reason I think that is everything is a joke in that game.
Speaker: Everything. Everything is a joke in that game. Everywhere I go is a joke. Everything I do, like Sam and Max, have some kind of witty quip for um And it just doesn't seem to be... i think Monkey Island takes itself a little seriously with with with the game that it's being. I feel like sometimes Salmon and Max doesn't take itself seriously. It breaks the fourth wall a lot. Yeah. um I don't know. There's something about that. And then I also, I don't, I'm not saying it should go on the list, but course sure search shirt if I did think about some, I also thought about Discworld. um
Speaker: That game is based on comedy. It's based on the works of Terry Pratchett and it's, it's all the Discworld stuff is a parody. Um, Although i don't know if I could recommend anyone Discworld. Because while I love that game, it's maybe the hardest game I've ever played. I think because it is trying to be comedic, they're like, well, the puzzle's got to be funny.
Speaker: So they made the puzzles just the most absurd shit you've ever heard. Yeah. ridiculous um but yeah i wonder if those kind of games could be in comedy because like i said even even sam and max to me is a little bit of a standout i always found it more leaning on simply being like a snarky time the whole the whole game just reeks of snark whereas like monkey island kind of more reeks of wholesomeness i think
Speaker: I think you'll find a lot of people that agree with you. i i i think you know which way I'm going to lean on that. i Yeah, no, I get it. A very funny point and click. Yeah. um But...
Speaker: But yeah, I think there's a lot of people that would agree with you on that. And I fucking love Sam and Max. I think it's a great game. And made me laugh so much as a kid. It just feels different. It feels different to me than like Grimm and Monkey Island. But no, I totally get it. I agree that it's more comedy based than those. But I do think that's... It's based on a comic. You know, so it is, you know. I do think it's point is to be a point and click more than to be funny. But I don't know. Anyway. Anyway. What about something like the strong bad game?
Speaker: Oh, I don't know. I never played it. Oh, okay. That's fair. Here's my last one. There is no game. Now. Okay.
Speaker: little puzzle focused you could call it like a weird kind of escape room in a sense um but again it's constantly breaking it's so it's very stanley parable-esque and then it's constantly breaking its own mechanics and redefining itself um to be funny right um
Speaker: It's an edge case. Again, again i think ah if you call there is no game an escape room game, I don't think you're entirely wrong. Right. um But the the whole pro premise of There is no game, by the way, is if you haven't played it, you open up a game and there's a narrator that and you're at a title screen that says there is no game. And there's a narrator that tells you, sorry, we didn't make a game. There's no game here.
Speaker: um But then you sort of realize you can interact with certain things in the screen and maybe you break a off the T from there is no game. Right, right. And it falls off and he's like,
Speaker: And he's like, oh, you broke it. But still, there's no game here. And then you take the T and you maybe use it as a screwdriver to unscrew the O. Right? and you And you start to realize there's all these game mechanics hidden throughout this thing. And you start using the user interface. Like, at some point, you take the gear from the settings to, like, yeah, it's just it's just a bunch of silliness. um And it's really fun.
Speaker: It is fun. I don't think that's going to make it to our last three, but I just wanted it to. I think maybe this is a tough genre to really define, but I think maybe there is no game counts.
Speaker: Yeah, I just I wanted there to be a place for these games that.
Speaker: They again, their mechanics are comedy. Yeah, yeah. And that's tough. You know, it's it's not a genre that is that that is a standout genre in video games the way it is yeah movie. It's so hard to do comedy through video games. Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's because we, I mean, we know as adventure gamers that we value really good story. And comedy doesn't always have to be just one long story. You know, it can just be standup. It can just be jokes, right? So, yeah, I think we got really good examples on here. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah Because it's not it's not hard to tell it to write a funny joke and dialogue in a game. Yeah. But it's really hard to make the act of playing a game funny. and Yes. i mean I mean, that's why a lot of people call Dark Souls comedy. Right. Right. Because it is some things that they do to you that you could not have possibly seen coming. And suddenly you're crushed by a boulder or suddenly a guy comes out of a place you had no idea you could, you should even be looking and he yeah chops you with a big sword and you're suddenly dead. Like that is funny. And it's supposed to be funny, um but but it's not an adventure game. So it didn't go here, but.
Speaker: I also think that people would put the leisure suit Larry games in this particular genre, which I think I might agree with. uh again because it is meant to be a comedy yeah if you think about what leisure suit larry is it's meant to be a comedy and the especially in leisure suit larry 7 the mechanics are meant to be funny that the the puzzles are meant to make you they don't make me laugh yeah there's only so many fart jokes i can take okay that's what i was referring to when i was saying like
Speaker: There is an argument for Leisure Suit Larry. It's an argument that, like Sam and Max, I would disagree with. But yeah I don't even need to think about it because I'm not going fucking recommend Leisure Suit Larry to anybody.
Speaker: I do like Leisure Suit Larry 7, which is the one that's on the ship. It's on the sea. ah It's lowbrow humor, ah but so is Death of the Reprobate. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I think people would put Leisure Suit Larry in more of a comedy yeah thing because it's like, who cares? hey He just wants to get laid. Like the whole premise is... is Roses. silly Yes.
Speaker: You also know liking isn't the same as recommending. You like Leisure Suit Larry 7. Do you recommend Leisure Suit Larry 7? No, probably not. Fine. Probably not. Yeah. All right.
Speaker: I do like I... i the two that I'm going to make the big, well, okay.
Speaker: I'm going to make a push for thanks. Goodness. You're here an untitled goose game, because I think those are definitional again to the comedy genre. They, they are built around like their purpose is not to play a game. And also it's funny. Their purpose is to be funny. And also it's a game.
Speaker: I agree with both of that. Um, And now it's tough because we love the Joe Richardson games. Yeah. But Stanley Parable is also very definitional of this genre.
Speaker: don't like it as much as I like that. Me neither. Yeah. If we're going to talk about, if we're going to talk about, uh, recommendations, I think Stanley Parable is more of a comedy game than the Joe Richardson games, since they could also be called, um, what do you call it? Uh,
Speaker: Point clicks. You can just call them just straight up point clicks. yeah But if we're recommending,
Speaker: I'm okay with going with Death of the Reprobate over pre Procession to Calvary. Okay, let's do that. Because I know you have a stronger attachment to that. and Yeah. i also and it's it's It can be hard to choose between any of them.
Speaker: i like yeah Yeah. So let's do Death of the Reprobate. Nice.
Speaker: All right. This is...
Speaker: This next category is only controversial in that we Westerners define this genre wrong. Right. But we are going by the Western definition of this genre.
Speaker: um And um'm so it's going to be kind of broad. um Because...
Speaker: Again, there's a there's much narrower definition in um the global global East. But this is the visual novel.
Speaker: Yes. And it is okay that we have two definitions for it. We recognize, I think, what a visual novel could be for us versus yes like a different culture. Yeah.
Speaker: And... there's a bola There's a video on YouTube I always recommend when this topic comes up. um There's a video on YouTube by the user Bowl of Lentils. Lentils.
Speaker: Yes. Are you a fan of lentils? don't like lentils. hungry. Yeah, i love lentils. Fucking hungry over here. God, I wish... i Man, I should just...
Speaker: favorite this video so i always have it here it's called the origins of visual novels should put it on a qr code and like hand it out and it hey this is one of the best this is look this is very specific but it's also very good and um pat don't explain it just walk just keep walking it's about the or It's called The Origins of Visual Novels. It's by the user Bowl of Lentils. It's fucking phenomenal video about ah the the way that visual novels are defined differently in the West and the East. um
Speaker: But for us, it's narrative games in which the player's primary responsibility is reading with limited interactions. That is a very broad definition, but that is how that is how we define it here in the West pretty much, right? That's why Phoenix Wright and...
Speaker: um House of Fata Morgana and Paranorma Sight. And that's how all of these very different games with very different mechanics all end up on the same list. um And Danganronpa, even some people put, person the I think the Persona, get no, Persona games are more RPGs. never They're more RPGs. Yes, I agree. Persona has a lot going on.
Speaker: But, you know, and you'll see as we talk about them here,
Speaker: um some of these games are vastly different from each other. And it's true in the East, a visual novel is literally just all you do is click next. Right. Click next.
Speaker: And that's it and anything That kind of reminds me of like, I don't know if you played these as a, ah one as a younger person, but the, like the living books, those are like literally visual, like, like by definition.
Speaker: Yeah. novel I had a ton when I was younger. And in in this scenario, like the way we define them, if there's limited interaction, but it's ma but but it's like styled after a visual novel. Yeah. We still call them a visual novel. Yeah. So what's your first...
Speaker: ah My first one is the one I think that got me back into liking visual novels. That's Paranorma Sight 1. The Seven Mysteries of Hanzo. The Seven Mysteries of Hanzo. I can't do believe how much I loved that game. But I can't because I like Square a lot.
Speaker: And this is Square doing a more narrative driven. they they Square, Saw, Square Enix, they did the Final Fantasy series. um And then I had no idea they did these visual novels. There's two paranormal sites now.
Speaker: But I chose the first one. And man, did I think we played that for spooky month because we thought it was going to be more frightening than it is. There's only one scene that is truly, truly terrifying. Otherwise, it's more eerie. You're getting this kind of eerie story. And yeah, there's not there is not a lot of.
Speaker: quote, puzzles, ah there's some ordering that you need to to do but you're not you're not a character that's walking around. You're not doing point and click inventory object puzzles. It is mostly um a a mystery story that you're kind of progressing through. is a lot of reading. Oh my God. And again, this is this is a game that in the in the East, they would call game.
Speaker: just an adventure game. This would just be an adventure game. But for us in the West, we would generally call something that looks like this and plays like this a visual novel. um But it's it's it's great.
Speaker: The premise of Paranormous, because it's also my number one, is you you start out in a playground and there's a girl and she's looking for this... um She's looking for the site that some like mysterious legend is based around. And at that site, there is a ah like, I can't remember what they call it, but like a little artifact. um And yeah, she's basically looking for it. She enlists your help to do it. And then suddenly she dies.
Speaker: In a pretty horrifying way. Yeah. That's why we thought it was more. That's why I thought it was more of a a scary game. But it it it's not consistently scary. And then you find an artifact on the ground. And then like ah like a ghost thing tells you. You know.
Speaker: what What is it? It's if somebody turns their back on you. Yeah. You can instantly kill them. Yeah, it's like ah it's a curse, essentially. It's a curse. Yeah. and then you go through the entire city seeking out these other mysteries in Hanjo to find these. what look I think they're called curse stones, right?
Speaker: Yeah. To find these curse stones and get get all these other curse powers. um And you you basically go through and you just start kind of fucking killing people and taking curse stones and um evading the police. And then at the end, i think you get killed.
Speaker: And then you meet a strange man.
Speaker: Strange masked man who's like, well, you died. um but I'm the storyteller and I'm here to help you explore different avenues and different choices you could have made. And now you basically open up this like timeline view where you test all these different ways of making your way through this story. You have a couple different characters that you take on like perspectives of the story um to try and work your way to basically a good ending.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's not the most elegant description, but that's basic the basics of the get game. Yeah, and i think I think something that contributes to kind of this visual novel definition is if you think about the choose-your-own-adventure books, some of these games are kind of like that. They have like kind of these branching stories. And yeah it's not that you're solving a puzzle to get the branch. It's just you are the storyteller in this game is giving you different...
Speaker: ways to do things i've been i i binged that game i think well the first night i was too scared to play it but then the next night i binged it for like nine yeah gets kind of stuck in your head and you're like damn i want to see what was going on there and yeah so is that our first is that both of our first both of our first okay All right, I guess I'll go into my next one, which you might may or may not argue. I'm not really sure. i put Doki Doki Literature Club on here. no I think that counts.
Speaker: Which um is also a horror game, strangely strangely enough. But um I think it is a very engaging, very disturbing a visual novel.
Speaker: What happens in Doki Doki Literature Club? ah Let me try to remind myself. I think I did a video on this one. I don't I don't quite remember. But you are in, i want to say a high school. Does that sound correct? Hang on. Let me let me bring it up so I can actually remind myself.
Speaker: Yes, it is it is a school, and it kind of presents itself as like a dating sim. um There's like all these cute girls at your school. um However, i think it kind of parodies itself a little bit because it starts to get horrific. um I'm looking at the screenshots, and it it does a really good job of keeping it innocent. like if If you're at home like um Google image searching this, you're going to find like a lot of innocent stuff, but...
Speaker: it does get very disturbing. I don't remember why it gets disturbing, though. Well, the game is... Oh, it's free to play. The game is complicated. um i do remember it gets disturbing. i I don't know if I want to spoil it I don't know if I even would... would so I don't even know if I would spoil the... Well, whatever. We already said it. um
Speaker: It comes across as a very cute little yeah dating sim where you're basically composing poems for other girls in this literature club that you're part of but then yeah bad things start happening um and you do do a little bit of a time loop you get to try it again you get to try the story again but um it asks you some questions about what it means to try a story again and what um what is your responsibility to characters in a video game? Yeah. um
Speaker: In kind of an Undertale sort of way. And it gets very meta. Yes, it does. There are puzzles that require you to leave the game. i don't know if that's all I'll say. I don't want to spoil anything. Honestly, that this whole the the game and like the page on Steam, it does a very good job keeping things kind of nebulous. So I'm also trying to keep things a little vague. Yeah, ah because it's it's great storytelling. It's shocking storytelling.
Speaker: I think that's what makes it worth it, because I think a lot of people maybe don't have the patience for for a visual novel. Even I, we've talked about getting kind of ah weary on reading too much. You know, sometimes like for just an example, sometimes I got tired of reading esoteric ebb stuff. i'm like, oh my God, this is so much reading. But because I think Doki Doki is really about kind of surprising you and subverting expectations. it just It's very good at telling the story and it doesn't it doesn't feel as casual like as it is. Because it is a very casual game. it's You're not doing oh like a ton. yeah
Speaker: But I do remember being pretty disturbed by it. I think at the time I played it, it was like the most disturbing game that I had played. So you guys should check it out and let me know if you think it's disturbing.
Speaker: um My next one is Danganronpa. Oh, that's way more disturbing. Well, is it though? Is it way more disturbing? They make the blood pink instead of red, so you don't have to be scared by it.
Speaker: Okay, that's fine. The premise of Danganronpa is um is you are a you are a kid who gets accepted into this special high school um where only the ultimate examples of...
Speaker: of of of different types of students um are accepted. you So you meet this cast of characters um and then you suddenly, I think it's like you pass out and you wake up in a completely different high school where a weird, demented bear tells you that you're part of a killing game and only one of you is allowed to leave this school alive um the way it works is you have to kill the other students but when a body is discovered the other students have a chance to investigate the murder and then hold ah trial
Speaker: to try and figure out who the murderer was. And it's a series of like locked room um for the most part. Very, very complicated murder scenarios. here um If you get, if you manage to kill someone, that's right. Yeah. If you manage to kill someone and get away with it, you get to leave the school and everyone else dies. If you get caught,
Speaker: If you kill somebody and then get caught, you get killed. So that's that's the premise. It's a pretty simple premise, but it it goes places. It gets interesting. The characters are fantastic. There's also almost like a dating sim element to it where yeah you are trying to pick gifts for the different characters and spend time with them. And I i would argue that a lot of dating sims also hold hands with yeah with visual novels for sure.
Speaker: um it's disturbing and it gets more disturbing as time goes on. And like, there's a lot of like, man, it's got some tropes that I don't love um from the, from this genre and the anime genre in general, um such as children killing each other, but also, um also like sexy cheesecake,
Speaker: pictures of what are basically yeah like high school kids um granted they're not necessarily drawn to be that like like high school kids right um but it's still again these are these are tropes that i don't love yeah um But I'm able to overlook them for how fucking good the Danganronpa games are. I love all three of them. And I'm really excited about Danganronpa that's supposed to be coming out this year. um
Speaker: Because there's there's such a meta layer to the Danganronpa games. There's a lot of people who are assuming... So Danganronpa presents itself...
Speaker: presents itself As a remake of Danganronpa 2. But there are three games so far in the Danganronpa series.
Speaker: And what's two times two? Four. So there's some people who think that this game might be hiding Danganronpa 4 inside of it.
Speaker: who Okay. Weird. I am not going to say that that is true. ah huh But that is something that these I could 100% see these developers doing ah based on other things they've done. And the person who put forth that theory is, i think... And he said he had no inside knowledge, but he is ah the greatest video games journalist that we have today and that we've probably ever had. So...
Speaker: no I don't know. Anyway, regardless, Danganronpa, I'm going to say number one because I think you should play him in order. Okay. I think maybe two is a little better, but I wouldn't play two without playing one. Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm not quite sure if my I only did three because I don't play a lot of visual novels. I do like them, but visual novels are often a time sink.
Speaker: Yes. It's a lot of reading. It's a lot of Oh, my God. Bang and Romp is like 50 hours. Yeah, exactly. So it can be um it can be a little intimidating. i We can argue this, but I put um The Wolf Among Us. Is that a visual novel?
Speaker: Yeah, interesting. So that's what I was saying earlier is I think that is – um what was What was the thing that we, that, that we, the, the genre we saw that they called the core interactive drama. interactive drama But isn't that just, it that isn't that just like interactive fiction though? That's the same thing. It's just a different, like, well, i think one the difference is that the difference is they move. um Yeah.
Speaker: But I guess they move in Danganronpa. So here's why I think we should allow it. Um, Like we said, we didn't make a category for these Choices Matter Interactive Drama kind of games. Yeah.
Speaker: Like the... What are they called? the um Whatever like Heavy Rain is or something, right? Oh, yeah. Heavy Rain. The David the david Cage. Is that his name? The David Cage, yeah. David Cage games. Detroit Become Human. to Yes. ah The Quarry is an example of this. And most of the later Telltale games are an example of this. Yeah. we didn't We didn't create a separate category for those. So while I'd say the answer...
Speaker: is no, these are not visual novels. I would say, for our purposes, let's fucking include them. Who cares? yeah yeah i think i and Yeah, I think there's a case for Wolf Among Us. um It's very story-rich. It's based on ah like literature figures. It's based on fairy tales, I should Well...
Speaker: Sorry, not to correct you. I don't mean to be this guy. Oh, go ahead. But it is based on a series of comic books by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham called Fables. Right, right.
Speaker: That... themselves are based on fairy tales in ah in ah an interesting way. Why don't you tell us about tell us about what Wolf Among Us is, and maybe I can give some context on Fables if you haven't read it.
Speaker: Wolf Among Us, yes, it is based on those comics, ah which are based on fairy tales. So you are... It's kind of a detective noir thriller type of a story. But imagine that with, like...
Speaker: with like dark fairy tale s characters so you're playing like like what's his name bigby wolf bigby wolf bigby wolf um and there is like a murder and you are investigating this murder and like the femme fatales are like um snow white's not the femme fatale is she I haven't played this game. Oh, okay. i haven't played I haven't played it in many years. But um it does follow that hard-boiled noir setting, except with fantastical characters like Bigby Wolf. and um like There's ah a mirror but ah person in the mirror type of character. It's all fantastical characters is who you're dealing with. Can I give a little bit of context? Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So the the story of fables is that there is a world in which all fables coexist. A big, big world where they they they coexist, but they don't have to like live with each other, right? Because they might be kingdoms and kingdoms apart, right? So um they they they may be like, you know, Cinderella and Snow White maybe don't even know each other, right? yeah But a dark...
Speaker: ah entity called the, I think the adversary is his name, takes over Fable Town, Fable World, the world of the fables, and drives them into our world. The mundane world. And they all live in New York City. um Where they have to take on human personas because they can't let anyone know that they exist. So now there's like a big building or Or small area where Snow White and Cinderella and yeah ah Beauty and the Beast live. there's like a There's like a drama in the early issues where um when when Beauty loves the Beast, when Belle loves the Beast. ah I don't know if her name is Belle outside of the...
Speaker: movie i think she might just be called beauty so when beauty loves the beast he's human but when she's mad at the beast he turns more bestial so they have to like go through marriage counseling because it if somebody sees him be a beast it gives their secret away um but anyway so big uh snow white ends up being sort of like the administrator of this uh this this fable town. yeah and b That's interesting because Snow White in the game is a sex worker.
Speaker: Right? And I haven't seen it. No, maybe not. But there are set there are sex workers ok in this game because it starts off with a sex worker being attacked.
Speaker: Okay, yeah. It couldn't be Snow White. It's not. But but Snow White is an important character. But the big bad wolf ends up being the sheriff of Fable Town. Right.
Speaker: And that's who you're playing in this game, formerly the big bad wolf. yes But like there's all kinds of interesting like characters. I think that's why I like it so much. I like fairy tale. I like fables and things of that nature. But um like Ichabod Crane is in it. Tweedledee and Tweedledum from yeah Alice in Wonderland. So I love it when games take all these characters from like classic literature and put them together. And I like that it's a thriller noir. And I guess that's why it comes across as very, very um interactive fiction, very bookish, you know, very chi it's even it even was ah like a lot of the Telltale games was put out in chapters. So it is kind of feeling like you're reading a chapter from this like visual novel book about fairy tales and comics.
Speaker: Yeah. And that's why I think it does kind of count a little bit. And I think it's one of the better ones from the Telltale games. I'm sure people would argue that with me. It's also just very pretty looking.
Speaker: i think I think it is generally accepted that The Wolf Among Us is one is one of the best, if not the best. Okay, that's good. I think people think The Walking Dead is maybe the best one.
Speaker: The Walking Dead is very inconsistent. I like the Walking Dead games, but and and I think the overall story they tell is pretty epic and pretty, pretty incredible. But yeah, game to game, they're very inconsistent and moment to moment. I know. i um That was actually my last one. So do you have anything? Yeah, you have a couple. um i've played ah I've played a bunch of visual novels, but not not some of the biggest classics. So we are going to skip... So you guys will notice, we are going to skip some of the most classic visual novels here. and We haven't played Steins Gate. We haven't played... Right, yeah, I haven't played Steins Gate. House of Fata Morgana. We haven't played... um I don't know. What are some of the other, like... There's some there's just some huge visual novels yeah me and Rosas have not played.
Speaker: yeah But... Well, one game that I played, this is this is one of those edge cases. It it has the trappings of a visual novel, um but has a bunch of other... It makes visual novel fans cringe yeah when you say this one because it has so many other mechanics that they're like, it's not a visual novel, but 100-Line Last Defense Academy.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember that. um I think that just came out last year. It's, ah similar to Danganronpa you um but you get plucked from your life and then you're put in a school with a bunch of other um with another a colorful cast of characters um but it is the end of the world you're plucked from like a post-apocalyptic world and put in this school that is like the last defense against um these invaders who are trying to wipe out humanity and
Speaker: And you have another cute little mascot who tells you all this. um And the reason you guys are pulled, the you kids, is because you are the only ones who can um use your blood to turn into weapons.
Speaker: Yeah. and So you have to last 100 days at this academy. And then basically what they say is your shift is over. And you get to go back to your home. And then another group of kids will come in and defend for 100 days.
Speaker: A lot of the stuff that they're telling you ends up not being true. You can tell that right from the very fucking beginning. That is not a... yeah That's not that big of a spoiler. um From the very beginning, you kind of know, I don't think this is true. Yeah.
Speaker: But like many of these other visual novels we're talking about, ah it the game sort of starts when you get, you know, fucking 40, 50 hours in and you've beaten all, one you've passed all 100 days and you get an ending and the ending sucks. Yeah.
Speaker: And then you discover, so what one other thing, ah the game is broken up between these visual novel chapters and these, this sort of dating sim, like getting to know your friends sort of thing. um And um it's that stuff is broken up by invasions.
Speaker: And then you have these short tactical battles, like grid-based tactical battles, where you get to use your blood weapons, and everyone kind of has their own sort of power. And what your power is, is you can rewind turns.
Speaker: and And at the end, what you realize is oh, you can just rewind time. So you can go all the way back to the beginning.
Speaker: And do the whole 100 days again. Right. And make different choices. um And then it creates a giant branching story. There's literally 100 endings to the game. my God. You have to do so. That's crazy. you have to do so many paths to get to the true ending or what what people consider. like There's like three endings out of 100 that people consider like the best, end the good endings, the endings that are satisfying. Yeah.
Speaker: And fucking, man, I've played 123 hours of 100-line Last Defense Academy, and I have not unlocked the conditions to follow those paths yet.
Speaker: Okay. So sometimes the paths will be just, it'll be like, it'll say like comedy path and things will just get really wacky. There's one where it is just a dating sim and you spend 33 days dating one person, 33 days dating another, 33 days dating a third. And at the end you have to pick, right? Like some of the paths are just ridiculous. Yeah. um But a lot of them deepen the lore and tell a deeper story. And um you are the only one who remembers it when you when you travel back in time. Right. So you are having to introduce yourself to people again. You're having to decide, do I tell them the truth or do I not tell them the truth? um
Speaker: Interesting things like that. um Anyway, it was the last 100 line, last Defense Academy. i think it's really great. Nice.
Speaker: One day I'll finish it. Really great. I think that speaks to you a lot. So the game is a ah collaboration between Kazutaka Kodaka, who did the, who worked on the Danganronpa games, who, yeah, was sort of the creator of the Danganronpa games, and Kotaro Uchikoshi, who was a the creator of the um Zero Escape games. So it's like ah like an all-star collaboration. yeah And it so it has a lot of Danganronpa DNA in it, including a cast of high school kids that are all super cool and interesting and you want to get to know them. um So it's 100 Line Last Defense Academy.
Speaker: i can't get through this without talking about Phoenix Wright. Yeah. um So Phoenix Wright... Ace Attorney is there's a series of games and a we'll just recommend the first one. It's a series of games where you play this kind of down and out lawyer. um its It was so sort made to be a parody of the Japanese criminal justice system where everybody's a buffoon, including you. um And you're like, it goes through two phases. One is your investigation phase where you go around and you,
Speaker: examine crime scenes and you find clues and whatnot um and talk to people. And then you cut to a courtroom where you have to argue your case. And usually it is an absolutely absurd murder scenario with really ridiculous characters. And you as Phoenix Wright are arguing these cases in court and it's very funny.
Speaker: ah And it is where the, the objection meme came from. Right. Yes. um They are Beloved for a reason.
Speaker: but The Phoenix Wright games are legitimately super funny and super good. The only reason I haven't played them is because they are handhelds. Like you can probably emulate them, I imagine, but.
Speaker: They have them on Steam now. Oh, do they? Okay. And i think Switch. so So they can be. But yes. Yeah. They started as handhelds. Yeah. In the last game, I will put. And this is maybe a questionable question.
Speaker: okay Is just because it's it's overboard. okay. Okay. So interesting. Wikipedia has it as a visual novel. So I'm right. Fine, you're right. it's one of these It's one of these Inkle games. yeah And Inkle is known for games like this um that are almost like these card-based visual novels. Not card as in you have a series of cards, but card as in... um it's almost like they're almost slideshow-y. It's almost like passing through a series of flashcards to tell the story. um
Speaker: It's just how I visualize it in my weird little brain. but You pick up the story where you play a woman um in the, what what era would you say overboard takes place? The 40s, 20s? I think ford and you have just, you pick up the story on a boat, on a on on a ship in that era. You've just murdered your husband.
Speaker: Might be might be 20s. You've just killed your husband. yeah And now you have to get away with it. And basically you just kind of keep playing this same. It's ah again another time loop. A lot of visual novels apparently are. um Where you're you're sort of memorizing people's schedules. You're trying out different things. Seeing how they work how they work. How they fail. You're gathering knowledge to use in future runs. And you are just trying. You're just a woman trying to get away with murder.
Speaker: relatable ah um it's fun i don't know i don't know i can't say more than that it's just fun it's uh it's cute it's ridiculous it's silly so this is gonna be tough what do we do obviously paranormal sites going on our list yes i think paranormal psychos um we have no other we have no other overlap
Speaker: I think Phoenix Wright might have to. yeah because it's just such a classic. Yeah, especially in that genre. I'm going to cut 100 line Last Defense Academy. i think it's probably... yeah. yeah um
Speaker: i am between I'm between Danganronpa and Doki Doki. oh man. Okay. Danganronpa is a little more classic to the...
Speaker: ah to the genre i would recommend both of them and i recommend all these games yeah yeah and they they have similar creepiness and kind of disturbing nature to them as well so they're a little i mean i i would go with the danganronpa i'm not gonna argue danganronpa i man that does feels like it it would feel cool to include an inkle game on our on our show list yeah I think we have to do Danganronpa because it just not and it doesn't necessarily follow that if you like Paranormacite, you're going to like overboard.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. yeah but There you go. Yeah. Yeah. All right. right. Paranormacite, Phoenix Wright, and Danganronpa. All right, Roses. we We did it again. Oops, we did it again. Can you believe that when when we first pitched this idea, we thought it would be one episode? No, I never did, actually, Matt. You pitched it and thought it would be one episode, and I knew in my heart that it never would be.
Speaker: but So we talked too much, and now we have two categories left, and we don't we're out of freaking time. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. Next one, we're just going to rush through one that is not we you don't we do not have a lot to say about.
Speaker: And then there's going to one category left over and you guys are just going to have to, it's, we're just going have to have stuff it into spooky month and you guys are going to have to deal with it. I hope you guys are enjoying this, but let's just rush through it. Let's just get this fucking thing over with. Let's just get this category over with. We love it, but like, what is there to say about it? It's the heoonob here is the fucking hidden object.
Speaker: can i start Yeah, let me let me quick define it. It's games in which progress is gated by mini games where the player searches for objects within a static scene. There might be other logic puzzles or mini games, but these games always center around object finding. All right, let's go Murder, She Wrote, the hidden object game. It's a hidden object game. There's murder a Murder, She Wrote, hidden object game. Dude, it's on our ranking list.
Speaker: Oh, that is... ah I didn't... i For whatever reason, I forgot that was a hidden object game. Yeah, it's hidden. mean, yeah, hidden object slash... Sure, there's some adventure-y stuff, right? Because hidden object is story-rich and adventure-rich. But come on! What writer she wrote? It's funny!
Speaker: These fucking hidden object games, you don't need much of a story there. There's like ah usually a story that's like vaguely tear taking them along, but mostly it's about... turning your brain off and looking for objects in a little thing or doing the simplest point and click or simplest logic puzzles ever.
Speaker: Here's what I'm going to say about hidden object games. They are fantastic for cheap games about fan stuff that you like. So like there's like a house MD game. There's this murder. She wrote hidden object game with like pictures of Jessica Fletcher Honestly, it's great for mindfulness. You can always find one that is like up your alley, right? yeah This one's Murder, She Wrote. Yeah, but look up your alley. There's one up there. Look up your alley. there Did you try looking up your alley? Look up you look up your alley. there's We hit a game in there. Check it out.
Speaker: I only have three, but I'm just going quickly. I don't know what I wrote here. I wrote, i through him I wrote quote, those weird family secrets games that I played.
Speaker: I don't know what that is. So if you look on steam, there's these like games that are called like family secrets and they're not, they're not connected, but I played all of them and I streamed all of them and they were super fun. You guys,
Speaker: Family secrets? I can't even find. I don't find. these Oh, House of 1000 Doors, family secrets. Hang on. Hang on. Let me see if I can find it. Family secrets. House of 1000 Doors, family secrets.
Speaker: Barbarous family secrets. Hang on. Did I mistitle this? Because that's that' embarrassing. ah Let me just look at my. Family mysteries. Family mysteries.
Speaker: I'm looking. I'm looking. Give me two seconds. Yes. Family. Sorry. What did I call them? Family secrets. Which sounds like an incest-based game. I'm so sorry. They are called Family Mysteries.
Speaker: Family Mysteries. And the first one I played was Poisonous Promises. is's true It's a little detective-y. It's little true crime. And then Echoes of Tomorrow. And then Criminal Mindset, which takes me to science-y things. a single one of the stories? Oh, not at all. But man, did I have a fun time playing these. I'm just looking at the hours I put in to ah Family Mysteries 3. 46 hours. What the fuck? there's like a There's like a grid strategy so sequence in one of them. What the fuck is this? Dude, they're fun.
Speaker: These are so weird. I'm putting them all on my list. Matt, please play one. You get to beat somebody up in the in like one of them. That's so cool. I'm putting them all on my wish list. Every now and then will be a sale and all of the all of these will be like a dollar.
Speaker: yeah i don't I don't know why I called it Family Secrets. You can see how I got there, right? This is a generic name. But like, just as it may be, i did remember them.
Speaker: That's pretty impressive, right? How many In-Object games do you all remember? I remembered these because they were yeah unhinged. i had to look I had to look up the ones on my list. But okay, what's your third one? ah My Brother Rabbit is my third one. We talked about that on our hidden object episode. That is my first one. It is a so very, it is a surreal story about a rabbit.
Speaker: And i don't know, you're like, there's one where you're like looking for balloons. i don't know. You're going through these screens doing hidden object stuff. But there's a second story beneath it.
Speaker: Yes. That is very touching and very personal about um a sick relative. Yes. And
Speaker: Yes, one of the better quality ones for sure. so i'm gonna So my first one's My Brother Rabbit. I'm gonna rush through the next two, which are Enigmatis and Haunted Hotel. enigmatis It's like you're a you're a woman and you're chasing some like you're like... You're like investigating a murder and it leads you to chase like a magical priest. an evil a magical evil priest through three different games and he's like casting spells by the third one. It's so it's so wild. um
Speaker: yeah you makes friends with a little girl in pretty much every game. it's yeah the And his Enigmatis games are very... they are just yeah there's like four of them and i think so funny no there's three and they're just uh they're artifacts made by artifacts monday monday and they are yeah just prime shit speaking of prime shit the next one is called haunted hotel it is haunted hotel x maybe okay
Speaker: um Haunted Hotel. Oh, yeah. And then there's it's called The X Collector's Edition is the one that's available on Steam. That's why I got X from. Okay. It's by BFG, which is the other big. Oh, yeah. There's only two. i think BFG also did Murder, She Wrote. BFG and um ah Artifacts Monday. And i don't know, you're going through a haunted house.
Speaker: why is Why is every hidden object game like a mystery ghost thing? Yeah. They're like all like that. Yeah. so there's nothing to say about these. They're just fucking hidden object games. And they're great. And in Modus and Haunted Hotel. and those And those weird family mysteries games. Quote, those weird family secrets slash mysteries games I played.
Speaker: The one that I'm going to slow down for first, the only one I'm going to slow down for is ah Tower Full of Cats. Cute. It is part of a series of games by the publisher DevCats, and they, a chunk of this money, yeah they started making these games for...
Speaker: to raise awareness about cats who need homes, cats who needs to be need to be adopted. And I think a chunk of money for these games goes to cat shelters.
Speaker: um But these games, <unk>s just there's there's a bunch. There's arcade full of cats, castle full of cats, building full of cats, tower full of cats, park full of cats, shelter full of cats, building full of cats 2.
Speaker: but um And coming up is flats full of cats. oh They just show you an illustrated scene. And it has like a ah thousand fucking cat, usually like 50 cats or something hidden yeah throughout the scene.
Speaker: um they You just have to look really hard like a Where's Waldo and click on the cats. And then... um And everyone, there's like there's like some special things you have to find. And there's some cats that are hidden. So you have to click on stuff that isn't cats. Like click on the drawer and the drawer will pop open and there'll be a cat in there. But most of the cats are in plain sight. So...
Speaker: so Yeah, so it's a different type of cozy game, or it's a different type of hidden object game, but it's still very good, very worth playing, also very cozy. The reason I picked Tower Full of Cats out of all of them is because you were ascending this tower where each level of the tower is kind of a different historical era, yeah and there's one theme song that plays, and as you travel up the tower, it sort of changes its instruments instrumentation to full ah to fit that era and fucking so good. You're like playing and you're like, holy shit, why is this game fucking like bop?
Speaker: <unk> So that's why I picked Tower Full of Cats above all the other ones. Arcade Full of Cats may be a little cooler, but Tower Full of Cats is like, man, it it really, ah loved that soundtrack stuck in my head forever. So,
Speaker: Like said, we're just zip through Hidden Object Game. Yeah. You're not going to let me not put Murder, She Wrote on here, right? um I think it needs to go on there because it's kind of beloved a little bit.
Speaker: And. and My Brother Rabbit probably because it's such a sweet. Yes. Gain with more substance. Here's my thing. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Family Mysteries, Enigmatist, Haunted Hotel, they are all the same. They're all the same. And they are probably covered by the, like, that ground is probably covered by Murder, She Wrote.
Speaker: Yeah. Right? Like, Murder, She Wrote is probably the same as all these games, too. Oh, for fuck's sake. click the Put the cat game on there. That's what saying. Cat game's to go there. put the cat game on there. All right.
Speaker: Do you want to quick read down our, before we, and then we'll say goodbye? You want to quick read down what our recommendations all were? Yes. Show recommendations? Yes. closed the file.
Speaker: Hang on. Yeah, sorry. I closed the file. We started with horror, right? We're just trying to rush to bed, guys. We got stuff to do, like sleep. Don't leave this in. Okay, i won't leave it in.
Speaker: Am I editing? Yeah, this one's yours, man. Damn, I'm going to be so sleepy. All right. Well, sorry. Somebody was busy all weekend. Okay. ah Beginning with horror, we've got Scratches, Clock Tower, and Burnhouse Lane.
Speaker: Good games. And then continuing with visual novel, we have Paranormous Sight. Wait, you skipped comedy. I skipped. Oh, God. What's wrong with me? It's late. It is late.
Speaker: All moving forward with comedy, we've got Thank Goodness You're Here, Untitled Goose Game, and Death of the Reprobate for visual. Why are you laughing at me? Those are funny games. I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at the things. a remembering shit from these games, and they're fucking funny.
Speaker: Wonderful. ah Visual. I'm laughing. Visual novels. We've got Paranormous Sight, The Seven Mysteries of Hanzo, Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney, and Danganronpa. And then for the last one we did today, we did Hidden Object Games. This crazy category. Murder, She Wrote, My Brother Rabbit, and Tower Full of Cats. And then in our next episode, we will be doing...
Speaker: Should we tell them or should it be a surprise? I think we should tell them just because we meant to do it this episode. So we we didn't mean to keep this a secret. Yeah, we're doing walking simulators, which I think I personally was pushing for a different episode because I think we are going to have a lot to say yeah about some of these games. I do. So, yes.
Speaker: um So next month, next week, everybody. Spooky month. Spooky month. and we get to talk about some spooky shit. we got We got some interesting games lined up to talk about this spooky month. ah So, you know, tune in. It'll be fun. And couple things, couple of other pieces of business. First of all, um we will be at Adventure X. Woohoo! Doing a live save your game On...
Speaker: on On seventh the 7th of November. Saturday the 7th of November at 5.30. Get your tickets.
Speaker: Come to London. see See our show. Just Come say hi to us. Listen, if you got a cute English accent. Give us a big kiss. I will talk to you. Give us a big French kiss. Give us a big, wet, sir disgusting French kiss.
Speaker: Ew. No, just come say hi to us and be cool. Ew, gross. Yeah, be normal with us. Look, if we really like you, we'll kiss you. But but I doubt. But look, like don't guarantee don't come here expecting to get kissed. You were likely not going to kiss you. a Matt might.
Speaker: But we're open it. I'm not going it. But we're open to it. Who knows? Anything could happen. Look, it's a whole weekend. Jesus Christ. Anything could happen. Let me keep going on about this for about 10 please. Could you just mention that 40 more times for the week for?
Speaker: I'm so tired. Listen. Here's what else I want to tell you. could see you follow us an instagram save game podcast ah You can us can email us Matt Rose's at gmail.com. But what you should really do, the thing we want you to do the most is to join our discord. It's in the show notes. There's a link in there. Do it. Then the other thing you can do is just come back next week for spooky month and have fun with us.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, anything we're so tired you guys was there anything else you need did i say the thing about making out with our fans uh that's why is it getting worse no oh hold on i'm just running down the checklist of things you told me i had to talk about this episode um conflict of interest what i don't think that's a conflict of interest it's a conflict of interest if We're a legal body.
Speaker: i Save your game. You can't kiss us because in interest it's a conflict of interest and we'll get arrested.
Speaker: but but um I've never kissed anyone before. Oh, my God. We need to end. Don't make me yell at you. Podcast is art.
Speaker: Art is supper. Matt's kind of manslaughter.
