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S2 Ep169: The Wolf Among Us
81 Plays4 years ago
MAJOR SPOILERS: The Wolf Among Us Chapter 1
MODERATE SPOILERS: The Wolf Among Us Chapters 2-5
Join Dave and Jake as they see what clues they can sniff out in Fabletown for this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
MODERATE SPOILERS: The Wolf Among Us Chapters 2-5
Join Dave and Jake as they see what clues they can sniff out in Fabletown for this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Greetings
00:00:31
Speaker
How's it going everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake and I'm joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Peachy, how are you? I'm doing pretty well.
Peach vs Daisy: A Character Comparison
00:00:42
Speaker
Didn't know you were a Peach main.
00:00:46
Speaker
Well, the thing is, Daisy just sucks. I don't know if it's just because she's a brunette, but can't trust them. I think they have the exact same move set. Yeah. But there has to be some type of difference. Maybe like in the projectiles, perhaps, or do they both?
00:01:02
Speaker
No, still polling turnips and whatnot. Interesting.
The Fresh Produce Dilemma
00:01:07
Speaker
Oh, speaking of peaches real quick, I hate to always bring up food stuff, but I think I had a peach recently, a fresh peach or as an apricot. No, I never hate to bring up food. You know that. Yeah.
00:01:19
Speaker
It was delicious. Fresh fruit. It's good. I saw they had like a table of like apricot cartons. It was either peaches or apricots at Wegmans. I was like, do I like get a box of peaches? I'm like, I'll eat two of them. Yeah. I'll eat two and then they'll go bad. That's the thing. If you get fresh stuff in bulk, it's like, well, it's me, maybe one other person. Oh, it's bad.
Peach Cobbler vs Apple Pie: A Dessert Debate
00:01:45
Speaker
Oh, it's all bad. Yeah.
00:01:47
Speaker
I would love to, apricots are okay. I like apricots probably raw more than peaches, but like a peach cobbler. Dude. I'm gonna nod. Dude. Cobbler's just so good. Peach cobbler's really freaking good. People say apple pie. It's really not the best. There is a good apple pie,
Fast Food and Convenience
00:02:07
Speaker
but there are good apple pies, but a lot of apple pie, at least from what I remember, is more like
00:02:13
Speaker
Here's the apple slices in. It's not like jelly, but it's a very manufactured thing. And those pies are still good. Like give me the fake ass pies or like the little 50 cent sliders. You can get it like a gas station. Love it. But if you want good baked fruit, a fucking cobbler like it's just got everything in perfect proportions. It has texture and flavor variety. It is delightful. And you can still go all a mode with it if that's your fancy.
00:02:43
Speaker
Yep. Which is with, um, sour cream, I think. No, whipped cream. That's what it is. It's ice cream. I think you could try either. Um, if you really want to see if you're brave. Uh, there's, um, I agree. I also really liked the lattice work on the pies where it's just like, which overlaying
American Cuisine: A Melting Pot
00:03:05
Speaker
pie crust. Um, really nice touch.
00:03:10
Speaker
But I mean, the people should do it because it's, it's really good. Um, but I really like that the phrase is American app is apple pie. Like doesn't make any sense because the earliest apple pie recipe was from England. So it's not even, it's not an American thing whatsoever. I mean, everything that America has is pretty much taken from somewhere else. Yeah.
Diving into The Wolf Among Us
00:03:35
Speaker
Including the people.
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah. Especially the people. But I like that we have an eclectic cuisine. I haven't traveled enough to say, but I think it would be weird if I was in another country. I'm like, oh, I'm feeling this. They're like, I don't know what the fuck that is. We don't have that type of cuisine here. You're like, really? Burger.
00:04:02
Speaker
Like certain things are definitely universal, like McDonald's. I was going to say anything they offer at McDonald's is going to be known. You can get some simple Americana anywhere, but I just like having access to the variety. Yeah. As much as I talk about loving Thai food and I haven't gotten it in several years, it's nice to have it nearby. Yeah.
00:04:26
Speaker
Anytime you want it, then you could get it. What was the song? Any, any way, any way you need it. Any way you want it. Yeah. But if you want Burger King, there's one nearby is basically what I'm trying to say. I haven't done that in a while either.
00:04:42
Speaker
I mean, it's probably fine. I've done McDonald's a lot more recently than Burger King just because of proximity. But do you get it delivered? No, that would actually that would be a bridge too far. It's one of the only thing audience. It's a.
00:04:59
Speaker
Jake's a strong enough person. I legitimately believe he could throw a stone and hit the McDonald's. Yeah. That's how close it is. But I haven't. If McDonald's is actually listening, that is not me. I think the closest thing I've ordered, delivered, I don't know if we ever did jewels. That would be pretty crazy. But Firebirds, which is literally just across.
00:05:26
Speaker
If you're at the McDonald's, you could throw another rock. Yes. And that would that would hit Firebirds for sure. But that one actually has good reason, because one time I did. OK, this is reverse rationale because I ordered it delivered before I went there in person. But the time I went there in person, it was like a 20 minute delay or something like that. I'm just sitting in my car like. OK, so now I just make other people do that.
00:05:58
Speaker
Speaking of food though, recently we ordered metropolitan, got more of the, uh, the Angus chili, nice good stuff. And then I tried, um, they have like pulled pork, uh, Yukon gold, mashed potatoes and onion rings. Um, onion rings, I'm more, I'm less of a fan of than I used to be because they're just like the greasy and.
00:06:23
Speaker
not that great for someone with gastroesophageal reflex disease. But the rest of it is really good. I think I'll leave it like at it just because it's greasy. I'm like, Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah, I remember them having a lot of good food. Hmm.
00:06:44
Speaker
I would often order like their tacos. Yeah. They're like gyro tacos. And I'm like, Oh, cool. Am I getting like three tacos? Like every other restaurant does like, you'll be fine with five. You're like, what? Slam, slam, slam. Consume tacos.
00:07:02
Speaker
What was that place? I'm gonna like, I'm basically like, by the way, if you can find all of these restaurants on a Google map, you can find out where Jake lives. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, triangulating my position. But there's a place we used to go that had tacos to my recently. It's a little further back. I can't remember the name of it. They also had hot donuts was the other place.
00:07:27
Speaker
I think. I'm doing a big squint at the moment because I'm not jumping to my mind. You might have moved before the discovery of this taco place. I'm not a part of this research stuff. I'm not sure. I'll let you figure it out. I can't recall. I won't be able to figure it out. Mystery left unsolved. I'm not a detective.
00:07:49
Speaker
But you know who is a detective? I should have picked up on that. That's fair. I was just like, no, you're not. Do I say it? No, it just kind of seems kind of dismissive. So today's game, it's not like we cover one every day. This week's title, we don't even cover a game every week now. But anyways, we're talking about the Wolf Among Us.
00:08:12
Speaker
which is not the most referenced
Choices and Player Experience in Gaming
00:08:15
Speaker
game because Dark Souls is a series, right? But we've referenced it so much that I was talking to Mike and he's like, didn't you guys have an episode on that? I'm like, no, actually. Right. Just like we haven't done one about Nier Automata.
00:08:30
Speaker
That's true. We have talked, I would say that there's a fair amount of talking about Nier Automata as well, but did we cover other tail-tail games? I don't know if we did. No. We talked about them in passing. The only other one we might've would have been Tales from the Borderlands. I think we both played. I haven't actually, I don't think I own that. It's actually pretty good.
00:08:55
Speaker
I saw a clip from it. The only clip I saw from it was a pretend gunfight. And it was just so good. I was like, man, this is some solid writing. Yeah. But I know we talked about Telltale in the past. I remember it was a news item when they filed bankruptcy. So no longer around. They can't come after us if we criticize this game.
00:09:20
Speaker
Just their fan base, and thankfully no fan base overlaps with our fan base, so we should be okay. Yeah. They actually did it in 2019 at that E3 conference. I think they had a teaser for Wolf Among Us 2. Yeah. And someone with Wikipedia, the date's TBD. It is dead though. Yeah.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's what TBD stands for is totally boned. Dead. Totally boned-y. Boned-y, yeah. If you want some of this boned-y. So what is Wolf Among Us? So I can go to the Steam tags for this one. Hit me. Adventure. True. Detective. We already established that. Story. Rich. Episodic. And noir. I mean, that all tracks.
00:10:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's the game. But also there's never been a story poor tag. Right. It's just like story deprived or something like that. I would love to see that as a tag on a game. Story absent. Call of Duty. We need to add tags to Call of Duty. Call of Duty actually has, ironically, a story arc going through it because they do always release a single player part. Weird.
00:10:43
Speaker
Price, Soap, McTavish, all of those words, things like that. Ramirez. But I think we both played this, I hope, based off the amount we've talked about it in reference, at least. And I actually played it the year
00:11:04
Speaker
The full version came out because I checked on Steam before launching it. And 2014 was the year the last episode was released. And that was the last time I played the game. Oh, so they actually had literal episodic releases. Yeah. Episode one through five. It's the same way they handled their other games like Walking Dead. I don't know if they did for Tales of the Borderlands or not, but like Sam and Max.
00:11:30
Speaker
Um, where they're just like, Hey, here's the teaser. We're working on the next part. And then once it's all done, you can just play through it in sequence, which is why I was, I played through in preparation for this episode and it's like, uh, here's the preview for the next time. And then right after that it's credit. So you can skip those, go back to main menu, hit last time on dragon ball last time. Yeah, exactly. And it's kind of funny to do that while playing through an order.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yeah, I, whenever I got on board, I think everything was already out because I remember just playing through, but it was very much a genre I'd never experienced. Right. I don't even know what the draw was or somebody got it for me like, Hey, here's this thing. Check it out. But it's got that nice borderlands type art style for like how they do with the, I think, I think it's shell shading. Yeah, shell shading.
00:12:25
Speaker
but it just had like that noir vibe. It's very much like a kind of point and click adventure game where you like make some choice along the way. It's not completely open where you're exploring to find clues and whatnot. But it very much drew me in with like the characters, the writing and the story. And then at the end of episode one, I was like,
00:12:47
Speaker
Oh fuck, we're hooked. Yeah. Cause like each episode is about an hour and it'll usually start with something in the beginning. And then when there's like a good transition point for a scene, they're like, Hey, here it is. Here's the game. And they play like the wolf among us intro music. And you see big, be kind of like walking through the city. It has really cool art style. Like the music plays and you're like, yeah.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, it just gets on board really quick The the cell shading really lands for this they used it in all of their other games Also, you guys have heard the intro music if everything goes as planned when this intro when this episode goes live um, but the
00:13:29
Speaker
style the the cell shaded style they used that for sam and max it was different there that was more cartoonish right they used it for walking dead it was fine there but it like it really shines in wolf among us i really like the um they use like magenta and purple and pink tones there's like the loading thing is just like a flower petal in the corner kind of like pulsing um
00:13:54
Speaker
And it just all flows together really nice. Like the walk sequence you're describing, talking about for the opener. Like sometimes someone will like bump into big B and he like turns and his eyes flash yellow for a second. And then he like kind of shakes his head, goes back, keeps walking forward. Eyes go back to normal. It's really cool.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's the whole style that they put forward is really good. Also attached with the noir aspect. It's like the eighties and all of the characters that you give a shit about are fables. So like characters from storybooks or other tangential things. Comic books in this case. True. I mean, like you're Bigby Wolf, aka Big Bad Wolf.
00:14:44
Speaker
So you're no longer that guy, per se, but like they have Little Red Riding Hood's mansion, Snow White, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:14:57
Speaker
I do like some of the, the, the difference in the fables relationships. Like one of the standout characters for me is Colin. He's like a pig that lives in big B's apartment and he's one of the three little pigs. And so it's, it's actually just, it's a hilarious kind of twist on that. He's also got a great attitude. He's freaking great. I think his first line in the game is he wakes up and he's like, I'm in your chair.
00:15:28
Speaker
So what, you actually liked Colin? Oh, I liked Colin. Yeah. I think Colin's a dick. I mean, he is. He absolutely is, but those aren't exclusive. That's true. For me.
00:15:45
Speaker
I have like a list of like 20 characters here and then I didn't get to the rest of notes. I'm like, there's a lot of fucking characters. There are a whole lot. That kind of is the game. Even in episode one, like you meet so many people. Yeah. That's kind of something that Telltale does.
00:16:02
Speaker
because you might not have an important interaction with them right now, but they're a part of the story. So you get to learn a little bit about who they are, or maybe you have an interaction, but also as telltale's signature thing, so-and-so will remember that. Whether you're nice to them or you're mean to them, it will come back later, either in that episode or in future episodes. Or they tell you it'll come back. And they do that pop-up enough
00:16:30
Speaker
that you might start to be like, does this all really matter? The answer is pretty much always no one tell tell games like it doesn't all matter. But a few things might. Overall, like you're not going to lose the game now. But it's also like they do one of the hallmarks of like this era of telltale games was very much I guess the last era of telltale games was very much like
00:16:58
Speaker
sell the illusion of choice, even if the choice doesn't really exist. So like you should always feel like the choice you're making is impactful, even if in reality it really doesn't matter. And like an example of that I would use is a very, very common gameplay choice in the game is like, here are two different places to investigate. Pick one to go to first.
00:17:26
Speaker
So like in episode one, which is like the, the, the opener for it, they opened with a kind of like a tutorial. I mean, I guess we should describe the first episode at least to some extent. Um, it opens with, uh, big B going to a disturbance at Toad's house, who is just like, he's, he's just a toad. He's standing, standing up, um, gets after him for not using a glamor, which like hides their nature from the Mondays or the mundane table.
00:17:56
Speaker
A glamour is like a magical spell to make them look human. Yeah, because they are in like 1980s, New York. Yeah. So Bigby Wolf looks like a just a grizzled, you know, grizzled detective. But like, that's what he looks like. That's because of a glamour.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I think actually in his case, he even has like, I did read the character bios, but the characters that are like, had a default human appearance, like Snow White. There's an implicit sort of bias in the fabled society that they'll end up in places of leadership.
00:18:33
Speaker
they'll end up in the city because they don't have to hide their nature as much. So you go up and the first altercation is between a prostitute and the woodsman from the fable of Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.
00:18:58
Speaker
And it's like violent and you get in the way and you have some choices, quick time events, stuff like that, but.
00:19:06
Speaker
I think regardless of how it goes down, you end up tumbling out of the window and into a car on top of a car to its car. Yeah, it's it really jumps into the violence super quick. Yeah. And that you will get into multiple altercations throughout the game and that's like fight people. And one of the things with the choices is you don't always have to attack people. Yeah.
00:19:32
Speaker
So much so, I tried like a very pacifist play through this time around. I actually did lose at one point because I needed to keep hitting somebody, but I wanted it to be like, gentle enough, like, hey, I'll push you off of me, but I'm not going to come after you with like a pool table type thing. But I didn't know where the game was going to draw the line exactly.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah. But do you find yourself jumping into, like, here's a prompt, punch him in the face. You're like, I'm going to
Comparative Analysis: Telltale Games
00:20:00
Speaker
punch him in the face. Freaking get him. Yeah, it's very much a mass effect, like a renegade option, red light flash. And you're like, right now, let's do it. Let's shoot the guy. But I did it less this time. I wanted to try to go absolutely, I think, similar playthroughs. Maybe we should have coordinated beforehand. I also went pretty pacifist.
00:20:22
Speaker
But in the past, I did do a more violent route, so I know that is perfectly acceptable. And there's like there's a few options in the game where it's like, do you want to be real violence? And you can either do that or not do it. And it does have like a bigger impact on how people see you. But again, telltale at the end of it, you still pretty much have the same choices.
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah, it it doesn't matter. It's more of just it's a fun.
00:20:59
Speaker
conversation or mental experiment, I guess. Yeah. It's role playing. Yeah. But at the end of each episode, it'll show like, hey, here were some important decisions where you were given option A, option B. Here's what you chose. And here's what percentage of all the other players chose. So it's cool to see like, oh, I'm following the pattern of a lot of other people. They also feel the same way. Or, oh, oh, nobody else did that. Or you didn't even realize something else was an option. Right.
00:21:27
Speaker
And I actually, I can tell that you're not on the podcast notes document right now, which is excellent, because I can use that to quiz you on some of the choices you made, depending on how far you got in the game.
00:21:41
Speaker
Because I realized we already beat it and the game is kind of long and it's a little difficult to make it through full display I had enough time to replay the entirety of it, but I replayed the first two episodes in a passive manner in that When there's conversation usually have like four options three of which are Whatever and then the fourth one is just silence, but if you don't input at all, it's also just silence So for like two hours, I just wasn't talking to anybody. It's funny. They're like
00:22:11
Speaker
Because they respond to you not responding like are you gonna say nothing? It was just entertaining to see it's actually kind of hilarious. I love that there's um Usually it has a sort of Bioware like Tree where there's usually a sort of placating option or something more chill I guess a more aggressive option and then silence and then one more option You have like four
00:22:39
Speaker
And I was mostly doing the placating things here, but there was a couple times I did pick the silent route because I was just like trying to stay out of it. I'll either stay out of it or just let this person kind of keep going. And I did find that entertaining sometimes. One of the characters, Georgie, actually remarked on it when I let you silence on him. He's like,
00:23:02
Speaker
you're trying to do that thing where you get me to keep talking until I placate myself, right? And I'm just like, ah, I was actually trying to do that thing. I appreciate the game for its meta moment. But yeah, the first interaction you have, break up this fight.
00:23:21
Speaker
beat the crap out of the woodsman is also where you find out fables are really hard to kill. I guess they're the, um, the tunes from, uh, what was loony Roger rabbit. Right. Oh, yeah. Um, but like the woodsman literally takes an ax to the head, uh, at one point, um, to like incapacitate him. And later he crawls off. So I guess he's all right.
00:23:50
Speaker
But the first decision, I believe, the real decision that the game has is the prostitute is like, hey, I can't go back. I'm going to get in trouble if I go back and I don't have money. And you can offer to give her your own money or withhold that for yourself. What did you pick?
00:24:14
Speaker
So going back to original playthrough, which would have been the freshest and most honest, I think I gave her money.
00:24:24
Speaker
Simp till I die. Exactly. But it was just like she was a nice character. And at this point in the game, they've not said like, oh, you need money for stuff later on. So it's basically like, do you want to help somebody out or not? I'm like, well, yeah, sure. Why not? Right. So I think I provided money to the prostitute. All right. For services unrendered. Right. 84.5% of people did give her money. 15.5% did not in that particular case.
00:24:55
Speaker
Hey, I'm part of a group. Yeah, that's one thing. There's not that many choices that actually, like a lot of people, there was a very, very even split, but there's a few. One of the choices that actually does matter in this episode is, so I guess we can go to the reveal, right? This is the mid episode.
00:25:24
Speaker
reveal the prostitute who is there. Later, you find her head, disembodied head on the doorstep to the hotel. And it's like done done done. And here's the interrupt, like here's the intermission and all this stuff. And
Impact of Player Choices: Narrative Journey
00:25:43
Speaker
you can choose to either you get a call from Toad asking for help or you can go to her husband's apartment, Prince Lawrence.
00:25:53
Speaker
And this one actually matters. And I remember I did this in the opposite order the first time. Yeah, same. Yeah. Just to mix it up, basically. Yeah. So where did you go this time? So the very first time I went to Toads. So this time around, I went to Lawrence's. Yep. What was the outcome?
00:26:14
Speaker
If you don't mind me asking if you remember Lawrence's. Yeah. So if you go to Lawrence's first, and we've already done a spoiler thing at this point, the game's seven years old. So he was still alive, but barely. So he is dying. He's like, I'm sorry, Faith, I love you. I miss you. And she kind of goes black. And then I think
00:26:43
Speaker
You have to open a door and that's when like the Tweedle brother like runs out and you do your chase. Ah, okay. So then when I went to Toad's, cause I was. So you might be remembering your first play through. Cause I think the, the brothers only hiding there if you go to Lawrence's second.
00:27:03
Speaker
Otherwise you get there before the brother does and Prince Lawrence is actually still alive. Oh, no, no, no, you're right. You're right. Yeah. So I went to Toad's first time around cause I'm like, Oh, Lawrence is already dead from what I remember. Yeah. Cause yep, that all sounds right.
00:27:21
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. The only reason I know is because I did go Lawrence's first, and you can keep him alive if you go to his place first. It doesn't actually matter if you go to Toad's place first. I think his situation's largely the same. Yeah. He gets beeped up in both cases, which is kind of a shortcoming, I think, of the game. But you can keep Lawrence alive if you arrive there.
00:27:46
Speaker
Excuse me, if you're right there in time. But he has no impact on the entirety of the game until the very, very end. And then he's just like, yeah. And that's his input. I think it's literally just, oh, OK, cool. He's just part of a crowd actually at the end. That really is a thing like it does seem to be
00:28:11
Speaker
Like it's cool how it feeds in to like at the end of the game, we're interacting with a lot of people at once and their view of you matters at that point.
00:28:23
Speaker
That's kind of cool. But yeah, a lot of the choices you make seem to kind of just alter like, oh, this person died or they didn't. Are they there or not? Like it, it's kind of, it's kind of fuzzy for how much it matters. Yeah. It's more just how you're feeling in the moment of how much do I like Toad versus we should check out this Lawrence guy who's definitely there's blood on the floor. It's all we know.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah, there's like the knife and stuff. But you are with the 69.2% of people that went to Toad's apartment first. That's because Toad's good. I like Toad. He's like super vulgar and hilarious. He's got this... Is it Cockney? It's something, yeah. It feels a little English, but he's very much like a poor guy who runs like a tenement building.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, ten a minute. And the whole place is shitty, but it's just him and his son that are running away as TJ. Yeah. But he is very vulgar and straightforward. He's never glamored up, which is one of the ongoing things.
00:29:34
Speaker
But as much as of an asshole he is to Bigby, you see him as he's just an every guy. He's just somebody who's going through a hard time and that's what they do with a lot of the characters.
00:29:52
Speaker
Maybe two top characters who are just so one-sided, where you're like, Jesus Christ. Everyone else, you see them like an asshole and you're like, well, fuck you too. And then later you're like, so my kid just died. You're like, oh shit. And then it kind of brings you back and forth between the two. And I feel like Toad's a good balance of that.
00:30:09
Speaker
He really is because he's, he's balancing like the fatherhood. Um, and then also not really respecting authority that doesn't help him out at all. That is the core. Um, one of the core plot lines of the game is just the, like, if you're not part of the elite, you're kind of, you're kind of screwed. Yeah. You're not really being helped out. Um,
00:30:35
Speaker
But yeah, there's so many decisions. I don't really want to get into all of them. There's a lot of murder twists back and forth. One thing I did want to point out while we were talking about the decisions made and the fact that we both were going down pacifist routes is I did play through episode five. I took a couple of sessions for it because it's difficult to play this game a whole lot in one session. There's natural break points in times where it's like, I'm going to stop.
00:31:06
Speaker
But I did do pacifist basically the entire way through and I had an interaction with Georgie, Georgie Porgy, the fable. And he's like running a strip club slash prostitution ring. And there's specifically a point where it's like you got to pump him for information.
00:31:28
Speaker
And you can go through getting a prompt to smash all of the stuff in his bar, basically. Item by item by item.
00:31:41
Speaker
And I smashed nothing. I chose not to hit anything in his whole place. And every time I walked up to another item, Big V's just like, I'm going to freaking destroy your jukebox. And Georgie's just like, no, man, don't do it. Don't do it. And I just pass it over. And I'm just like, I'm going to destroy your register. He's like, nah. Just pass it over to the next thing. And I whipped him the entire sequence.
00:32:05
Speaker
destroying none of his belongings. Some cups, some glasses were knocked off as a bag, a bat. A bat was drawn across the counter, yeah. Yeah, that was it. But otherwise, like, didn't harm anything in the entire place. And when I declined to damage the last piece of property in this sequence, he's like, fine, fine, I'll tell you what I know. And I'm just like, what, what is this game? You just go around like this, just pointing a bat at things, like, hmm?
00:32:35
Speaker
He's just growing increasingly distraught for no reason as I walk around doing nothing And it really is like It kind of represents the core fault in a lot of the telltale games in this like the decisions don't matter if they have to give you the information anyways Yeah, like
00:32:57
Speaker
They do work around it a lot. So when I was going this full silent thing, like you're having a deep, like something important happened and people are talking about it and you're involved. Um, and like, maybe you're prying somebody for information, but again, you're not saying anything. And then someone's like, Oh, did you mean this? And you're like, did you kind of snap and point at them? You're like, ah, it's like a, it's like a game of sure aids. That's a really, but like, they will kind of fill in the,
00:33:26
Speaker
Oh, do you think he's murdering them using like rubber hoses? And you're like, that's a good place. Raise your eyebrows at him. But yeah, like, uh, it is nice that you can have your own play through in that regard. So you're not forced into like, you have to do it this way, but at the same time, um, if all paths lead to the exact same point, it feels a little bit less meaningful. Yeah. But as far as just like, uh, along for the ride, the story experience still good.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah,
Character Development and Narrative Progression
00:33:56
Speaker
it's it's really it's kind of like a meta game you can play with um, tail tails plot lines As if there was an obvious opportunity for a character to die Now you should just watch out for them in future episodes to see much How much impact they actually have on anything because the answer is going to be none Because because of that core kill everybody and all your playthroughs is home Yeah, I mean you can basically
00:34:22
Speaker
Walking Dead is a much better example for that. Anytime someone has an opportunity to die, whether they die or not, they have a massively reduced impact on the rest of the game. And I understand why it's difficult to write all of that branching dialogue and options and choices. Yeah, Divinity Original Sin 2. Right.
00:34:44
Speaker
But games do it, right? Divinity does it. And particularly for a very narrative game, I feel there should be some expectation that the world conforms to your choices and your choices don't conform to the world, if that makes any sense. Like the outcomes of whatever happens in this game is being pulled back to the prime world line that Telltale developed.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's unfortunate, I think. Yeah, that is kind of more the design, though. I agree with you that it should be that way, and I prefer it personally. But for how they do the, hey, here's where you landed on the decision tree, it seems like more their angle for like, here are these decisions. Which one did you make? I don't care about your opinion, but I'm just curious. I'm just curious. Just asking. And then just kind of jot it down like tally.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yep. They love to do that. They love to like really highlight the decision itself, not the consequences of the decision. So like near the end of chapter one, there's like a question. It's like, who is your prime suspect? It was between Prince Lawrence, Woodsman, Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, Bluebeard, or Georgie. And you're like,
00:36:07
Speaker
Nothing that you say there matters at all, but it is a choice, right? I also do like that...
00:36:15
Speaker
And I think the game even lets you like start commenting on it well before you have any concept of who Bluebeard is. But you can just like be like freaking Bluebeard. It was Bluebeard all the time in the observatory with the lead pipe. You get to just accuse the heck out of him. And you're like, I don't even know who the guy is, but yeah, that guy. I will say even after playing the game again, I still don't know who the fuck that guy is. I just know he's such a kind.
00:36:46
Speaker
Like he's always like, let's do it this way, brute force, why aren't we doing the thing? Um, but I don't know who the fuck he is or how he relates to even like in game universe. Like what the fuck's going on with him? Yeah, I think he's, he's helps with finances or something.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah, I looked at all the character. You're correct. His backstory is like he basically was one of the one of the fables that maintained his wealth and he just bankrolls like the whole organization in Fabletown, basically. Also, the fables,
Endgame Theories and Mysteries
00:37:23
Speaker
you didn't really touch on it too much, but like a little bit, I guess, with one of the first interactions being the domestic violence dispute between like
00:37:31
Speaker
woodsmen and a prostitute but like they have dark backstories or sometimes just happenings and the game is pretty violent, it's pretty vulgar. Bluebeard's fable in particular, his origin thing was that he's this rich guy that kept killing his wives.
00:37:49
Speaker
He'd like kill his wife, find somebody else, marry her, years pass, whatever, kill her. And that was just his thing for a long time. And then they're like, all right, we're going to move to New York. And he's like, all right, I'm good now. I'm not going to do that anymore. There's no women in New York. So real quick,
00:38:16
Speaker
Which characters do you really like as far as maybe it's how they're designed or like, oh, they're just generally good. Yeah. Um, let's see. I mean, I already talked about, I do like sarcastic characters. So Toad, Colin, um, both people, I really like.
00:38:37
Speaker
I kind of like Flycatcher also. He doesn't show up in every game, depending on choices. But a lot of times you'll run into him. He's just he's got like a frog hat and like hair that completely covers his eyes and he's like a janitor. And he's just the most like soft-spoken, friendly character that even like Big B finds it nigh impossible to be a douchebag to him.
00:39:06
Speaker
And that was related in one of the choices regarding him. It was like, oh, here it is. You have a point in the story after you basically caused a ruckus to offer Flycatcher a job at like the main bureau. And I'm gonna let you guess what the percentage of is of people that offered him a job to didn't offer him a job. 95 did.
00:39:35
Speaker
That's very close. That's good. 96.3 to 3.7 within 2%. Um, yeah, almost the entirety of the player base, even the douchebags based off of the rest of the stats, we're just like, get that manager. Um, I really like him. I also like, um, I don't really like her character, like personality that much, but I like the concept of her a lot. Uh, bloody Mary near the end of the game.
00:40:05
Speaker
Interesting. I don't like her personality. I want to be clear on that point. Just her power set. OK, that's her. So I think certain characters are more rounded than others, where you get to see kind of both sides, like where they have redeeming qualities. Flycatcher is one of those where I don't think he really has any negative qualities that they show. No. And where Bloody Mary is the opposite, and she's just
00:40:33
Speaker
a bitch the whole time. But also, but also, uh, like she leans into it so hard. It's like borderline comical. Yes. Like when she's even first introduced, she's like, I'm Bloody Mary. I come out at kids birthday parties and kill their dogs. I'm like, what? And then she does like imitating like a whimpering dog noise while smiling. I'm like, okay, we get it. But like, next time you see her, same shit. Like she's still that 100%.
00:41:02
Speaker
She's the opposite. No redeeming qualities. Yeah. She's the exact opposite. There's just one scene in particular in the game. There's the magic mirror. You can like say a rhyme with someone's name to look through and see where they're at.
00:41:21
Speaker
I really like that. I actually kind of think that's really cool from a world building perspective and I would steal it for like the tabletop game. But there's a time where you look at someone else and Bloody Mary happens to be near that person.
00:41:38
Speaker
and she kind of like looks around like she knows she's being observed and then reaches towards the mirror and it starts to like shudder as she's like gonna come through it and then like they're like shut the whole thing down stop coming like stop looking stop looking and i just love that interaction that's a goosebumps interaction for me i think it's so cool that hurt her shtick is cool it's just man i dislike that yourself yes yeah she's an absolutely dismal character but
00:42:08
Speaker
I will say, uh, talking about shitty characters, because nobody really stands out for me as like, uh, Oh my God, they're the great, I mean, told obviously like Buffkin is kind of just an all a hundred percent sweet. Um, if you get, you get butterflies when you're friendly to Buffkin and like the early part of the game and it's like Buffkin, we'll remember that and be like, yeah.
00:42:33
Speaker
He literally just asks you like how your day is. And if you're like, I'm doing good, thanks Buffkin. He smiles in response. It's so good. We should describe, Buffkin is also just one of the monkeys from Wizard of Oz. Yes. That's what he is, literally.
00:42:55
Speaker
I think one of the most hated characters for me, like is just, I don't like them in any way, shape or form. And they're all sort of like a really shitty individual. Yeah. Is Crane. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's meant to be hated. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's just always a dick in the workplace. And then when you find out things about him later, you're like, Oh, you know, what's funny though about that is there is like a middle section where
00:43:24
Speaker
I'm actually dialing back a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Where he's slightly more sympathetic. Um, and it's like, how do you, how did you respond to character about this thing that happens? And you can either sympathize with him or accuse him of not caring. What do you think the breakdown is on that? I would say like 75% probably accused. Okay.
00:43:54
Speaker
So it's close to the opposite. 60% sympathize with him. Wow. And around 40% accuse him of not caring. And that surprised me too. So maybe that's kind of like the bounce back. Cause like when you first interact with me, like, Oh, he's an asshole. And then you can see a sympathetic side of him. So maybe like, okay, I was kind of a, but then later when you like, you find out the bad shit,
00:44:19
Speaker
I feel like it extra undermines any sympathy you gave him. Yeah. Because if you think about the motive behind his reasoning, you're like, ooh. Oh, yeah, it conceptualizes. Conceptualizes? Contextualizes. Yeah. It's kind of like, oh, you stabbed me. And they're like, oh, crap, dang. And they pull the knife out. And you're like, oh, thank god. And then they stab you again. What?
00:44:47
Speaker
Man who stabs once more likely to stab twice local news. Oh my god. Yeah I Will say despite sort of that I
00:44:59
Speaker
Even if you go in knowing that the choices don't matter all that much, it's still easy to get pulled into the world and the kinetic energy of the investigation and moving forward. It's also pretty dank. I think it's actually impossible to really guess where it's all going because there's just certain pieces of information they don't really tell you until late. I feel like certain things kind of
00:45:30
Speaker
At least from what I remember playing around the first time, it feels like episode one. Amazing. Episode two. Amazing. Episode three. Great. Episode four. Okay. Episode five. Bro, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, there's a lot of that in five. They're like, how do we close this before the business closes? I still like a lot of what they did with it. It's just certain things. I'm like,
00:45:54
Speaker
And it doesn't tie up neatly or nicely. I'm not sure which word I'm going for there. A lot of it does kind of tie up nicely. But since we have time, I want to explore the theory at the end of the game.
00:46:18
Speaker
who's the other prostitute, also the Little Mermaid who's been kind of like helping you out, feeding you some information when she's able to because of magic reasons. She says the same line that
00:46:32
Speaker
Faith, who is the other prostitute, says to you at the beginning of the game. Yeah. Right. And so you kind of like go to follow after her and then you get like end credits. Doesn't matter. You have the choice to stay or follow and end credits happen both ways. Again, your choices don't matter.
Narrative Satisfaction and Player Experience
00:46:47
Speaker
But so Telltale doesn't have an official stance on that. What is your theory about that? Because basically I've read two. Yeah. I mean,
00:47:02
Speaker
Well, it's kind of tough. I haven't thought about this enough to like immediately be like, all right, whiteboard, let's go. Can I give the quick either way? Yeah, sure. I'll take the either way. So the two theories proposed online that I read were either A, Narissa is actually Faith.
00:47:23
Speaker
the prostitute who died at the beginning because since glamours exist in this world and people can or fables can be made to look like other people or fables, which we see with another prostitute at another point in the game, that essentially she was like swapped out and faked to die. So faith essentially is now glamoured as Nerissa.
00:47:53
Speaker
It kind of like takes her place. So she's alive at the very beginning of the game. Then technically a glamored original Darissa dies and now Faith takes her place. So you assume that Faith is dead from then on. So for her to say that line again at the end of the game fits to, oh, it was Faith the whole time. And then the other option is pretty much the inverse.
00:48:20
Speaker
where they are not the same person. It's just what you believe the first time through or they're the same person. Um, but that faith was actually the one who died. And then.
00:48:33
Speaker
Nerissa's glamored as faith for the beginning, but then not later. Gotcha. I think both of them would work within the timeline. Um, cause one of the, the, this is another spoiler, but who cares? It's not like the main plot. One of the reveals at the end is that Nerissa placed the head there.
00:48:58
Speaker
in front of the building Bigby works at. But it does definitely conceptualize
00:49:08
Speaker
What that might mean, right? Yeah. Well, basically the theory in either case for what you're talking about is that she was like helping move along the investigation. Yeah. Because for how it's portrayed in game universe, that main office is always busy with stuff. And when Lily, another prostitute, or who you find out is a prostitute later, goes missing, it kind of gets not swept under the rug, but overlooked.
00:49:35
Speaker
Yeah. Because of like how busy they are. Like they didn't have the resource, they didn't react, whatever it was. So like by placing that head there, it's kind of like, hey, this is your thing, deal with it. Yeah.
00:49:48
Speaker
Yeah, it could be either, really. Either, I guess it would depend on whether you trust her final story or not, because she said Faith and Lily. Larissa says she turned them in, and then Faith and Lily were both, oh, actually, I'm thinking about it.
00:50:16
Speaker
It would make a lot of sense that Nerissa actually was in glamour as Faith. Because I realize this might not translate well to a podcast, but I'm thinking through it while we're talking.
00:50:34
Speaker
Because you haven't played this game, but you want to skip to 54 minutes. Yeah, right. Because like these 10 minutes will not make sense. Yeah, they absolutely won't. But I think that makes sense because I could see the situation where Faith was already killed.
00:50:51
Speaker
Um, as like part of this punishment, Narissa goes out to actually, I'm wondering why she would glamor up though. Um, like for the first encounter with a woodsman, I don't actually know if there's an incentive for her to do that. Probably not.
00:51:15
Speaker
But in the other case, Faith survives, which means that she's not a reliable narrator at the end of the game when she's telling you, hey, I'm Narissa and I like and Faith and Lily are dead. It instead would have been Narissa and Lily that died.
00:51:36
Speaker
But if she's taking Narissa's place, she's not going to out herself, right? Right. But it is kind of like a sort of like, hey, just letting you know at the very, very end of the game. Yeah, I think it's faith in faith. I think that's that's my personal head cannon. We'll never know because the city is bankrupt, but I think it's faith in faith. I think that makes the most sense to me.
00:52:05
Speaker
It is that that's actually it's kind of like a sucker punch at the end. They're like and mystery. And I don't think there's a definitive answer to that question. It's a really nice hook to go back to like tabletop RPG stuff for a second, where it's like, oh, crap, that's interesting. But I can't think of a solution for that. And it's not something I can use right now. It's just cool. And I'm sure that's probably where they were going with the Wolf Among Us, too. But yeah, yeah.
00:52:35
Speaker
It's like all that stuff aside, there's not as much to necessarily theory craft, but there's just so much good writing in the game with the characters and interactions that seem to fit.
00:52:52
Speaker
And it makes you really invested in the universe, like a lot, a lot. Yeah. Because they throw a lot of characters at you, but as things weave together, you're like, but I understand where they're coming from. Ah, shit. And then you have to come make a snap judgment with something. Yeah. Maybe the moment you're like, that was right. And then later, like you see their sad face, you're like, I might've fucked up. Wait, am I the baddie? Yeah, right.
00:53:18
Speaker
That harkens back to the, do you choose the ultra violent options when they pop up in fights? Some of them do status. I'm not going to spoil it, but there's a do kill, don't kill.
00:53:34
Speaker
option. And it's one of the ones that's pretty close to 50-50. When most of the time people are doing sort of sympathetic things, that particular character is hated enough that it went 50-50. I
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:53:49
Speaker
would always opt into that one first. Yeah. It's fairly
00:53:54
Speaker
There's a masochistic, sadistic satisfaction based off of how much of a douchebag that character's been at that point in the game. And that really is the thing. If somebody is always an antagonist, you're like, oh, well, I will do you violence. Versus if they don't, you're like, oh.
00:54:17
Speaker
but it's, it's human nature, right? Like I don't want to be, someone's really nice to me. I'm not going to go out of my way to be shitty. Yeah. If I'm in a bad mood, I might be kind of like short and kind of like, yeah, okay. Uh-huh. And then get away. So I'm not like pushing my negative shit onto them. Uh, but if somebody's like an asshole, it takes me two seconds to go, Hey, fuck you. Right. Have you ever driven like? Yeah, no, it's,
00:54:46
Speaker
There's some interesting choices in there. And some of the statistics are quite interesting. At the very end of the game, if a character is leaving due to a certain circumstance, as a kid, they'll give you a gift to give to another close character. And I think this is the highest percentage I've seen.
00:55:14
Speaker
You can choose to accept the gift from this like small, small child, literally like their hope or just not just be like, nope, see, a person wouldn't want it, you know. And the split for accepting the gift versus not accepting the gift is ninety eight point five to one point five. Wow. That's one point five percent of people were just like, well, see what happens. Right. You're an asshole.
00:55:41
Speaker
They click the button on accident and then they quit the game, force quit the game to reload the scene. As far as Telltale's games though, I played this, I played The Walking Dead. I have no interest to go back to play The Walking Dead. I didn't mind going back to play this. I do like the universe of The Wolf Among Us and I realized that Telltale's
00:56:03
Speaker
An IP comes to them or they come to an IP and they were like, hey, let's make a game based off your thing. And that's what happened with Borderlands, Walking Dead, Batman, Wolf Among Us. Was there a Batman? There was a Batman. Oh, wow. I didn't know that one. Nobody else did. Sam and Max, I think, actually. And.
00:56:24
Speaker
Like this is one of the universes that it was really, it was a verdant soil for them to, to grow some cool ideas, play with the characters that exist there. And it makes me want to read the comics, the Vertigo comics for Fables. I'll let you read it. The cover art does not sell me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I also looked at the cover. Some of them are better than others, but.
00:56:47
Speaker
as a whole, I was like, I'm a sucker for noir and dark fables. And what's the thing, right? There's a certain nostalgia of
00:56:59
Speaker
I guess literally just fables or like things you grew up with. You're like, oh, that's kind of cool. And that's said in modern day. And then it goes like the very dark twist very quickly. Yeah. So it's cool to see like, hey, where are these fable things going to overlap? Right?
00:57:19
Speaker
Like how close are they to the story version versus what they are now? Yeah. Right. So like Larissa doesn't do a whole lot of little mermaid type shit, right? No, a lot less actually. Yeah. Big mermaid. Huge mermaid. Large mermaid. Whereas like Bigby Wolf like does some wolf shit throughout. Mm-hmm.
00:57:45
Speaker
but still like nobody is verbatim their character. So which is interesting to see like, Oh, where is it going? Or for a lot of characters, you're like, who is that? Like Georgie, then you have to like go back and say like, what was that for again? Yeah. All right.
00:58:03
Speaker
It's really funny because in the world, they've been alive for hundreds of years. It's literally just hypothetical. It's interesting to set up as a universe where it's like, take fables. They're alive for hundreds of years. You remove them from the stories they were originally in. You throw them into modern times. How do they react? A lot of them get broke, go into prostitution, become alcoholics.
00:58:28
Speaker
It's not super pretty, but it makes a great noir setting. Yeah. I saw that you have like a really, really good job with it. I think so. Yeah.
00:58:41
Speaker
This is beyond all of the other Telltale games, the one I would recommend. But if you are a Borderlands fan, which I'm not particularly, but it actually is canon, the Telltale game. True. So like I just checked it out and it was actually there's really good. I enjoyed it even though I wasn't a Borderlands fan going in. I'm sure the other ones are good too, but I just can't speak to them. Yeah.
00:59:12
Speaker
Yeah, I can't I can't speak to most of them. I would say that based off the scenes I saw from Borderlands, it looked quite promising. Yeah, they really did to do Batman, did they? Oh, they also did Minecraft story mode. They were all over the place. Like they were trying to take as many games as they could at a time. And that was one of the things that. Crashed all the way down. They never made their Stranger Things game.
00:59:44
Speaker
I don't know how I'd feel about that. Hmm. I don't know either. But if it was anything like the wolf among us, that would have had a fighting chance. Speaking of fighting chance.
00:59:58
Speaker
If you have any fighting games to suggest to us, you could send those in at soapstonepodcast.gmail.com, or you could join the fight on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. And if you want a chance to fight me, email me at davefights.com. Don't worry, it resolves to a Gmail address, I promise. It definitely doesn't.
01:01:05
Speaker
you