Transcript
Speaker: Then we're doomed.
Speaker: We're doomed.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: We're just good to know.
Speaker: It's just good to know that we're doomed.
Speaker: It's good stuff to know.
Speaker: I like to know.
Speaker: I like to know too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know who else is doomed?
Speaker: Who's that?
Speaker: Hey there, buddy.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin with me as always is Phil on today's show.
Speaker: We're continuing on through the dig by.
Speaker: Is that a hardcover that you got there?
Speaker: I got, I got, it was a library edition I found.
Speaker: Oh, library edition.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, so yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: A hardcover.
Speaker: Wrapped in plastic.
Speaker: Wrapped in plastic.
Speaker: Cool, right?
Speaker: As the library edition should be.
Speaker: Science fiction.
Speaker: That's where it goes.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, we're digging our way through the dig.
Speaker: It's a it is an interesting book so far.
Speaker: It sure is.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But before we get into it, I just want to say one thing.
Speaker: If you want to hear what we were talking about right before this episode aired, you should go to Patreon.com slash Pixel It Pod and join.
Speaker: The $5 tier gets you access to that.
Speaker: $1 gets you access to blog posts and $10 gets your name read out.
Speaker: The beginning of every episode, patreon.com slash pixel.pod.
Speaker: So if you want to be part of this illustrious list, it's the $10 tier.
Speaker: And this list includes Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Chet Beaks, Dammit Thick, and Friendly Friend, thank you for being a friend.
Speaker: Patreon.com slash pixel.pod.
Speaker: Do it today.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So but yeah, it is an interesting book.
Speaker: I'm really glad you picked this one.
Speaker: This is this is fascinating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is it.
Speaker: So you got a library copy.
Speaker: I'm actually reading a copy from the Internet Archive.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a, it's a scanned version of the, from the internet archive.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: I like the way they do it.
Speaker: Like you, you're reading it.
Speaker: It basically, if you, if you stop reading it for like a few minutes, it's, it's like, we're going to check this back in now.
Speaker: If you're not.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, God damn it.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: Like a screen saver, you've got to keep moving your mouse.
Speaker: As long as you're continuously active on the site, they keep it checked out for you.
Speaker: But as soon as you pause for any length of time, they're like, boop.
Speaker: That is funny.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: I mean, you're dealing with the whole internet here, so I guess.
Speaker: Yeah, you're dealing with the whole internet, fighting over copies of Alan Dean Foster's The Dig.
Speaker: The Dig.
Speaker: Which we're going to get to right now, Body in the Marsh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Body, Marsh, do ye.
Speaker: I'm a Nick.
Speaker: I'm a my boy.
Speaker: I'm a Nick.
Speaker: I'm a my boy.
Speaker: I'm a Nick.
Speaker: I'm a my boy.
Speaker: I'm a Nick.
Speaker: I'm a boy.
Speaker: I'm a boy.
Speaker: I'm a boy.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Where we last left off, the asteroid had just zip, zap, zapped away.
Speaker: We're in chapter eight.
Speaker: The crew arrives on an alien planet filled with oceans and trees and caverns and so on and so forth.
Speaker: It's a real deal planet and it has air and everything, which is good news because they were running out of air.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: That's nice to know.
Speaker: It's nice to know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The trio try to contact someone, anyone, but they don't even receive static back.
Speaker: You know, you're out of you're out of range when it's just dead silence.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Brink even tries in German and Russian and nothing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Meanwhile, on another plane of existence, the thought patterns of the former inhabitants of this world debate if the new people who have arrived will be of much help to them.
Speaker: And let me pause right here.
Speaker: This is something that is not in the game.
Speaker: No, this is not in the game.
Speaker: Brilliant addition.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think in the hands of a worse writer, it would be really easy to go, why is this here?
Speaker: This is kind of – but he makes – but they observe in a way that actually adds something to it.
Speaker: It's pretty cool.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they observe – because basically they are – as we kind of get into it, they're like the ghosts of the people who used to live here.
Speaker: And they have been spending a long time in this eternity and their individual essences kind of merge and break apart and go back together.
Speaker: It's a real interesting way of handling it.
Speaker: And it reminds me of when a chaos marine dies and
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the demon, the chaos demon that inhabits him goes back into the warp.
Speaker: It just like it's a
Speaker: Its individuality disappears.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It becomes part of the whole, you know, you've heard the expression.
Speaker: I contain multitudes.
Speaker: It's a very literal thing with this.
Speaker: Like, I think at one point, probably not in this chapter, but later when they describe one of them as having having the the.
Speaker: What's the word?
Speaker: Like the consciousness of a thousand people within its self.
Speaker: And they refer to themselves as we and they.
Speaker: And the pronoun usage is fascinating.
Speaker: It's really, really very interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maggie's able to seemingly sense the presence of these alien ghosts better than anyone else at this point.
Speaker: And the ghosts make a note of that.
Speaker: Brink and Lowe are.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Oh, so Maggie's like, there's, it's like, there's a ghost or something or whatever.
Speaker: She pointed and they're trying to pry more about it.
Speaker: And Brink is like, fannies, ghosts.
Speaker: And then she says, Uber mentioned.
Speaker: And Maggie is like, stop speaking German at me.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: You know, I don't understand German.
Speaker: You know, I don't speak German.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, Baxter, my little man.
Speaker: But I just think it's funny that Maggie flipped out at the word Uber mentioned was like, OK, I feel like a lot of people know what what like.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's a German word that a lot of people would know.
Speaker: I mean, it is a red flag of a word.
Speaker: It's a red flag of a word.
Speaker: Real red flag of a word.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is 1995.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: A little different.
Speaker: We're in the post-Cold War glow.
Speaker: The warmth of, you know, Bill Clinton is playing sax on late night TV.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The world, like, world issues are over.
Speaker: It's 1995, buddy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Gen X is making up stuff to be upset about.
Speaker: You know, Gen X is literally has so little things to be upset about that.
Speaker: They are just making shit up at this point.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And Gen X don't come at us because, you know, it's true.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Every Gen Xer I've ever spoken to her like, look, it was there was the 90s.
Speaker: It's different.
Speaker: Like, yeah, they know that they know they have to like, oh, you had a lovely economy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: That sounds like we had a surplus.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Very interesting.
Speaker: So Robbins, Maggie, complains that Brink is too preoccupied with the science instead of working on what they need to survive.
Speaker: And Lo mentions that they need to find drinkable water and keep the soup water as a reserve.
Speaker: At the end of the chapter, Maggie smells something that smells like cloves.
Speaker: And Lowe is like, great, all the spices and nothing to eat them with.
Speaker: Chapter nine, the alien ghosts decide to continue watching humans as a diversion.
Speaker: They find some water and drink it and manage to not get sick from it.
Speaker: But despite Lowe's concerns about microbes or toxic salts that had been dissolved in it.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: Lowe and Brink discuss what to do next and Maggie gets annoyed because they're like, we're the men and we're the leadership.
Speaker: And she's like, I've probably been in more dangerous situations than both of you.
Speaker: She's not wrong.
Speaker: Yeah, not wrong.
Speaker: Despite despite low being on a space shuttle a lot.
Speaker: She's been like held at gunpoint by, you know, terrorists.
Speaker: So, yeah, don't don't don't underestimate the danger of a journalist can get into.
Speaker: It's it's unreal.
Speaker: They settle on a name for the planet, which is Cossetus after the ninth circle of hell in Dante's Inferno.
Speaker: Got a kick out of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The ghosts continue to hold court about their thoughts and feelings on the crew, as well as their new name that the crew decided on for their planet.
Speaker: And one of them decides to make themselves briefly visible to them in order to guide them in the right direction.
Speaker: Maggie sees the spirit, if only briefly showing them to go down a different path than they're on.
Speaker: She points it out to the other two who basically were like, that's a trick of the light.
Speaker: Swamp gases.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Literally, they say swamp gases.
Speaker: Swamp gases.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Weather balloons.
Speaker: Weather balloons.
Speaker: It's a naturally it's probably naturally occurring phenomenon.
Speaker: But she's like, well, I saw a face in it and it wants us to go this way.
Speaker: And Lowe and Brink are like, fine, but we're going to be really shitty about it.
Speaker: Yeah, we're not going to, but we're going to get real testy this whole time.
Speaker: It's going to be very passive aggressive.
Speaker: Meanwhile, back in the ghost world, the ghost who did the appearance is exhausted and the others are like, well, that did nothing.
Speaker: I'm glad we tried something, I think.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: As they continue down the path, Lo is like, this is dumb and we shouldn't be listening to ghosts or women.
Speaker: Both.
Speaker: equally reliable, if you know what I'm saying.
Speaker: Equally reliable.
Speaker: And then Maggie points out that there is one of the metal plates on the ship off in the distance.
Speaker: And they're like, well, that's just a coincidence.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Brink runs after it.
Speaker: And when they move the plate, they find a shaft underneath it.
Speaker: And Lowe's like, well, Brink, you're the geologist, archaeologist, whatever you are.
Speaker: You should go down first.
Speaker: And Brink is like, okay.
Speaker: And Brink.
Speaker: Okey-doke.
Speaker: Okie doke.
Speaker: He starts climbing down and then the shaft collapses.
Speaker: The ground underneath Lowe and Maggie also begins to give way and they jump out of the way and look down and call for Brink.
Speaker: They go down to the bottom of the shaft and they find him buried under a pile of debris.
Speaker: Lowe tries CPR for like a second and then he's like, nope, he's dead.
Speaker: Ha ha ha.
Speaker: Yeah, when you try CPR, your mouth immediately fills with their blood.
Speaker: It might not be.
Speaker: You might be past that.
Speaker: No, he's dead.
Speaker: He's clearly dead.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: He's gone.
Speaker: Later, Lo is going to mention that, like, yeah, I knew you're dead when your head just kind of flopped around.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He dies horribly.
Speaker: In fact.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Maggie at first refuses to cry because it would be unprofessional and silently condemns fate.
Speaker: Chapter 10, the ghosts postulate on the nature of human grieving.
Speaker: Some say some of the ghosts say they will give up and others say will drive the group forward.
Speaker: Stay tuned.
Speaker: I'll find out more.
Speaker: Yeah, I do love that they kind of emphasize with them that well, Alan, Mr. Foster.
Speaker: uh emphasizes with them that it's like you have no idea just how bored these beings are they have right nothing to do and this is essentially tv for them anytime and they they imply that this has happened several times uh with all kinds of different species uh it's not the first time like aliens from their perspective have landed on their planet
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's it's it's fascinating to them.
Speaker: So or, you know, honestly, for a lot of them, it is not fascinating, but it is something, you know, it's something.
Speaker: It at least lets them debate something like.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Something they're reading.
Speaker: They're reading highlights in the dentist's office because their phone died.
Speaker: Like that's that's that's where they are.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: They are highlights in.
Speaker: It is that scene in Beetlejuice at the end.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But they're not going anywhere.
Speaker: No, not going nowhere.
Speaker: And yeah, you've got different levels of cynicism as to how well this will do with them.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Maggie calls Lo a son of a bitch for making Brink go down first.
Speaker: They get into a back and forth about who they would have rather died.
Speaker: It's terrific.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: And Lo's a bit of a downer during this situation, has clearly never interacted with a grieving person before.
Speaker: No, I don't know if he's ever dealt with a human being before.
Speaker: Like, Lowe is the most robotic person I have ever read.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's so true.
Speaker: Lowe is all like, it's likely that we aren't getting off this planet.
Speaker: And Maggie is like, you know what?
Speaker: Fuck this.
Speaker: And walks off and to be on her own.
Speaker: And like, I agree, Maggie.
Speaker: He is a real bummer.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: He's not making you feel any better.
Speaker: Time to move on.
Speaker: Time to move on.
Speaker: Uh, low considers the nature of his relationship or friendship with Maggie and continues adventuring on his own.
Speaker: Uh, he finds a large chamber and explores finding a plate that resembles one of the ones that were on the ship.
Speaker: He initially considers leaving it by the rock pile that they entered on before noticing a depression in a wall, uh, similar to what they saw on the ship.
Speaker: Uh, the ghosts noticed low's problem solving acumen, but worry he will do the wrong thing with the plate.
Speaker: Lowe ultimately decides putting the plate into the depression and the same thing happens as as the on the asteroid and the plate sinks into the depression.
Speaker: But this time a door opens up, revealing another room below.
Speaker: He calls for Maggie, but she either doesn't hear him or is ignoring him.
Speaker: My money at this point is on ignoring him.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In the room, Lowe finds a bunch of weird devices and a little droid starts following him around.
Speaker: As he gets close to an impossible barrier, the droid inserts itself into a bunch of tiny holes and causes the barrier to melt away, revealing to Lowe a long tunnel that he can't see the end of.
Speaker: He goes through the tunnel and finds a spherical room with a bench.
Speaker: And when he enters the room, he looks around and the door behind him closes.
Speaker: And then it moves forward, revealing itself to be some sort of transit system.
Speaker: This is very different than the book.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We get a lot of the bones are the same.
Speaker: A lot of the beats are the same.
Speaker: You know, losing our German friends, the spherical tram situation, even the little droid situation.
Speaker: But
Speaker: whether through not having access to the game quite when he was writing it or just not wanting to give away solutions to the game.
Speaker: When it comes to the details, Foster...
Speaker: just changes things around a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the droid is not a little walking thing in the game.
Speaker: No, no, it's a little, it's a, I think it hovers if I remember.
Speaker: It's a hovering thing.
Speaker: And also Maggie, although Maggie walks off on her own, you get back in touch with her almost immediately through the little communicator device.
Speaker: In this, she's not going to, they're not going to see or speak to each other for a long time.
Speaker: Not even a little.
Speaker: It's it's it's it's either through it's I again, it's either out of necessity because you don't have all the information because they're developing the game while you're writing it.
Speaker: Or I think more likely he knows that we've got to create something different here because otherwise, what's the point?
Speaker: You know, we're giving everything away.
Speaker: And I'm going to be honest, I like his vision of what the world looks like in the book than I do what you see in the game.
Speaker: I think I think what they go through in the like, there's a lot of as as as you said, there's a lot of the broad brushstrokes are kind of there.
Speaker: But the way he describes things.
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, I like that better than what is in the game.
Speaker: Yeah, he just he just he he sets the stage very, very well.
Speaker: It's a much more Ray Bradbury and like.
Speaker: Alien world as opposed to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You immediately see who you're dealing with as far as a writer's concern.
Speaker: Hey, this guy's a contemporary of the classic sci fi people.
Speaker: So it makes a lot of sense that that's the direction he'd go with it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Chapter 11, the ghosts discuss Lowe's progress in figuring out various puzzles through the course of the game.
Speaker: I mean, book.
Speaker: He arrives at the docking chamber at the other side of his transportation, and he's in a room similar to the one he left behind with a view of the sea that looks enticing to him as an experienced diver.
Speaker: Lowe looks around the room and we're treated to a bunch of descriptions of the pastel and multicolored environment, which is averse to sharp edges and repetition.
Speaker: He activates a projection of what seems to be instructions on how to use a set of green crystals for anything from repairing machines to repairing people.
Speaker: He decides to try to figure out a way to open the case with the crystals inside of it.
Speaker: And then he just touches and he's able to reach through the silvery glass that the crystals are being held in.
Speaker: And he grabs the crystals and no alarms go off.
Speaker: Lowe returns back the way he came shouting for Maggie, but he's but she's still out of earshot.
Speaker: He goes to Brink's Brink's corpse and he lays the crystals on his chest and weights, begins to glow and then absorbs into Brink's chest.
Speaker: Brink then wakes up and is seemingly no worse for wear.
Speaker: He wonders.
Speaker: He's like he's like, are you telling me the truth that I actually died?
Speaker: I feel great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is also a little more realistic than what you'd get in the game.
Speaker: In the game, it's just like he immediately accepts the explanation, goes, this is amazing.
Speaker: This is a miracle cure and that kind of thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This one, he's more, I feel like, a lot of people would be in a situation like that.
Speaker: Like, okay, sure.
Speaker: Are you sure I was dead?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lowe says, well, I'd like to show you the crystal, but I don't have it because it absorbed into you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lowe tells Brink that Maggie went off on her own after his death and that Brink is like, okay.
Speaker: Although Lowe is getting worried at this point, Brink dismisses it with either she comes back or she dies alone.
Speaker: That's that Teutonic humor.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: She comes back or she dies by herself.
Speaker: She dies with us or without us.
Speaker: One of the other.
Speaker: Come see, come see.
Speaker: How you say, que sera sera.
Speaker: Whatever will be, will be.
Speaker: There's a Russian version of it, but it's far more violent.
Speaker: The future is not ours to see.
Speaker: Lo shrugs his shoulders at that, and they go off to check out the museum that he was just in.
Speaker: And I forgot to mention, it's basically a museum, is the room that he was in when he gets the crystals.
Speaker: Meanwhile, on another plane, the ghosts are like, hey, look, he's doing things.
Speaker: And they continue arguing about that because that's all they can do at this point.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: They've got no agency in this whatsoever.
Speaker: No agency.
Speaker: Anytime they try, nothing happens.
Speaker: So what's even the point?
Speaker: They're just observers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 12, when they get back to the museum, Lowe has been keeping a close eye on Brink, making sure he was himself.
Speaker: They get into a discussion about the nature of the green crystal, and Brink wonders how it could possibly have diagnosed what was wrong in his system.
Speaker: Brink seems like Brink, but as the reader can tell, Brink is being weird.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Anyway, they find more of those robots, but instead of opening big doors, they're used to open smaller storage doors.
Speaker: Lowe doesn't find anything interesting, but then Brink finds a door with a bunch of green crystals sealed away and Brink flips out saying they must get them, get them out.
Speaker: And Lowe is like, hold up.
Speaker: Why must we do it?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Lowe isn't really buying Brink's scientist act when it and just then he spots another light show, which we all know is one of the ghosts trying to get their attention.
Speaker: Meanwhile, in the ghost plane, they discuss how they're disappointed in not being able to help humans.
Speaker: Now, in the game, with the way this particular scene plays out, is the light show, the ghostly light show, like, forms into a skull over top of the green crystal.
Speaker: Like, don't touch them anymore.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, they're a little more overt about it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the ghosts in this are like, no, they use the crystal, right?
Speaker: Well, they knew how to use it.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: And if I'm remembering correctly, I believe in the game that you actually like crack it open like an egg and pour the insides on.
Speaker: Like a Cadbury cream egg.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: Which is so weird.
Speaker: Like, like, like you're living in a sci fi universe fantasy kind of situation, a gem or a crystal that can bring back the dead or something.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Right on.
Speaker: That's what we've all heard of things similar to that.
Speaker: And you're like,
Speaker: Like cracking it open on the countertop and you're like, hold on.
Speaker: I got to bring back to life.
Speaker: Remember when you're cracking your crystal, try to do it on the countertop instead of on the edge of a bowl.
Speaker: That way you don't get shell in the in the sucking chest.
Speaker: Because when you crack it on the countertop, it keeps the membrane intact, but it cracks the shell so that when you split it open, now the shell is still fused, like stuck to the membrane.
Speaker: When you do it on the edge, you're just shattering the shell right inside.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that's your cooking tip for today.
Speaker: This guy's already got an infection.
Speaker: We don't need crystal shards in there too.
Speaker: This guy omelets.
Speaker: So Brink becomes obsessed with taking the crystals and Lowe is really put off now and relents when Brink starts losing his cool.
Speaker: They return to the chamber with multiple doors that they were unable to open and Brink suggests using multiple robots at once to open the doors.
Speaker: Lowe is confused by how Brink suddenly has this idea, but hey, it works.
Speaker: And they're able to get four more doors open.
Speaker: Lowe wonders if the crystal did anything to Brink's brain.
Speaker: They take another transit system sphere to another island and arrive in a room with schematics and maps and all that jazz.
Speaker: And they find a 3D map projector that fits in the palm of your hand.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Science.
Speaker: Science.
Speaker: They walk around the room trying to figure out how to open the door when Lowe notices a plate on the floor that can be pulled up, revealing the cabling that controls everything.
Speaker: So it just like fucking not wire it.
Speaker: It shocks the shit out of them.
Speaker: But Lowe manages to force one of the doors open.
Speaker: As they enter another station, Lowe asks Brink about how he's kind of feeling his way through everything if he's a scientist.
Speaker: And Brink is like, it's luck.
Speaker: And Lowe asks him to get lucky about fixing the asteroid ship.
Speaker: And Brink is unamused.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good stuff.
Speaker: It's good stuff.
Speaker: We get a scene of the Cossetons debating the progress of Brink and Lowe.
Speaker: Some of the group still thinks that they will give up at the next obstacle, while the first one, who is the one that has been like making the ghostly shapes, believes that they're going to keep going.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Lowe and Brink are looking for Maggie.
Speaker: Brink mentions that maybe she's gone for a swim to relax.
Speaker: And if that's the case, she's in a better headspace than either of them are, given the circumstances.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker: You know, it's like good for you.
Speaker: Good for you.
Speaker: I got nothing to argue against that with.
Speaker: That's yeah.
Speaker: Lowe checks the communicator, which if I recall in the game was called the penultimate.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I, that was, I, I couldn't, I shouldn't have liked that, but I did.
Speaker: I, I, yeah, I can't help myself.
Speaker: I did find that very funny.
Speaker: Because it's a, it's a PDA that uses a pen and it was called the pen ultimate, which pen ultimate means before the ultimate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Second to last.
Speaker: Second to last.
Speaker: Wonderful.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Maggie has hers turned off, though, meaning no contact.
Speaker: Brink mentions that she could be anywhere looking for and she could be looking for them as well.
Speaker: So best to just keep moving and that she's likely survived worse.
Speaker: Low is testy.
Speaker: And then they discuss the structural engineering of the transportation system before arriving in the third spire, which they find to be empty.
Speaker: Lowe is like, so what would happen if they just collapsed?
Speaker: And Brink is like, well, I think the ship would just stop and go back.
Speaker: And Lowe is like, but what if the backup systems had also broken?
Speaker: And Brink is like,
Speaker: Why are you thinking that I am the one that got changed by the crystal?
Speaker: You're a real bummer, man.
Speaker: Why are you asking me these questions?
Speaker: Stop looking at me.
Speaker: Stop looking at me.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Ah.
Speaker: Um.
Speaker: So they go into the third spire and find it to be empty.
Speaker: And then the room disappears around them to reveal some sort of holographic illusion.
Speaker: And it is a planetarium.
Speaker: They play around with the stars and planets like zooming in and zooming out, trying to see if they recognize any galactic landmarks.
Speaker: But they are landing on the idea that they are indeed very far from home.
Speaker: As they begin walking through the map to leave, Ludger sees something.
Speaker: It is a giant eel like thing with nasty teeth and it begins approaching them.
Speaker: Brink and Lowe try to figure out how to get away from them or deal with them.
Speaker: Lowe suggests throwing one of the crystals at them and Brink flips out, causing Lowe to be like, OK, well, what's this guy's deal?
Speaker: Eventually, Lowe breaks down a sealed door by ramming it with a shoulder reveal.
Speaker: The bone and biological matter pit where the eels have been maybe leaving their stuff.
Speaker: Just a viscera room.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Just an organ pit, if you will.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This wasn't in the game, was it?
Speaker: No, this this there are a lot of these things.
Speaker: I'm like, well, the droid wasn't like this, but that happened.
Speaker: And this wasn't like, no, this has no equivalence.
Speaker: It's a deleted scene from the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Especially with what you said last episode with this being toned down.
Speaker: This feels like something that would have been toned down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It makes me think that it was like what Alan got were maybe like concept art.
Speaker: Like, here's the story and here's the concept art sketches.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like half of those were removed by the time he wrote the book, you know?
Speaker: Which is basically how movie novelizations are made.
Speaker: You get a lot of deleted scenes in those.
Speaker: So that would make sense.
Speaker: There's deleted scenes in the Empire Strikes Back novelization.
Speaker: There's so many.
Speaker: I think in the Ghostbusters novelization, there's more about the place where Ray gets his dick sucked by a ghost.
Speaker: Oh, that's, oh, I've got, okay, now I've got to read that.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's the next, there's more to that.
Speaker: And I've seen, actually, what's funny is I've actually seen stills of parts of that scene that, like, because there's more to it.
Speaker: So, okay, you know how,
Speaker: Ghostbusters discussion real quick.
Speaker: You know how Ray and Winston are coming back from a job when they have that discussion about, do you believe in God?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And Ray is talking about Revelation, the book Revelation and all that stuff.
Speaker: They are coming back from that fort scene in the original version of the movie.
Speaker: That's where Ray and Winston are.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because in the, that scene is shown in a montage as that scene shown in the montage before Winston is even hired.
Speaker: In the way the final movie is edited together.
Speaker: Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So there's like, there's like more.
Speaker: What's funny is though, is that scene is never appeared on a deleted scenes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't, I'm not, I'm not sure it ever made it to like the stage of being edited together.
Speaker: I think it was cut.
Speaker: I think they might've filmed parts of it and then cut it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's just gone.
Speaker: And it's just gone.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: Ugh.
Speaker: Interesting stuff, right?
Speaker: That is interesting.
Speaker: That is the idea that there still could be undiscovered Ghostbusters footage that no one has seen before is pretty.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, that's a pretty nerdy.
Speaker: Holy grail.
Speaker: It's a nerdy.
Speaker: Holy grail.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All I've ever seen is a still of Ray and Winston outside of the Ecto-1 looking up at the fort.
Speaker: But that's it.
Speaker: That's the extent of it.
Speaker: And what's in the what's in the montage in the movie where he gets a ghost goes down on him.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Which that's really all we needed, right?
Speaker: That's all we needed.
Speaker: So anyway, back to back to this.
Speaker: They're in the viscera pit and Lowe then realizes maybe the eels are just looking for bones and meat.
Speaker: And he pulls Brink out of the way and the eels just like waddle past them and flop onto the pile of goop and just start going.
Speaker: Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
Speaker: And they are a bit shell shocked and they go back to the transport sphere and Brink is like, well, maybe they're just like local vermin, like roaches, which is just a terrifying thought.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the equivalent of cockroaches on this planet.
Speaker: It's like, oh, God, we need to get out of here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 14, the Costitans think that the humans handled the eels relatively well.
Speaker: Well, most of the Costitans do.
Speaker: There's some that are just like, man, it's luck.
Speaker: Yeah, there are plenty of them that are always going to be saying all the way up until the end, I have to believe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lowe and Brink return to the first room with the collapsed ceiling and there's no sign of Maggie.
Speaker: Lowe says it's time to look for her.
Speaker: And Brink says instead he has to do something first with the life crystals, examining them.
Speaker: He has to attend to them.
Speaker: And Lowe's like, you're being weird.
Speaker: What's up?
Speaker: And they get into a back and forth and Brink becomes more and more unhinged about needing to attend to the crystals.
Speaker: Lowe is like, all right, fine.
Speaker: Go do that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a weird thing to say, but okay.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: I'm going to go find Maggie.
Speaker: He looks around for Maggie, checking all the rooms, then decides to head to the final spire by himself.
Speaker: When he gets there, it's clearly some sort of haphazard storeroom with a massive crystalline edifice that he muses that Tiffany had made once at the Met.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He takes out a small map projector, the small map projector he had picked up earlier, and he uses it to try to see it, see if he can see inside the crystal pyramid.
Speaker: And he doesn't find anything, but instead it reveals that there's a passageway out of the room that would be there if it was not blocked by a wall, which is an interesting thing.
Speaker: Also, not in the game, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: No, no, not that I recall.
Speaker: This is like, oh, this would have been a cool puzzle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In the game.
Speaker: He plays around with various ways to open the door before we're finally getting lucky and it shimmers open.
Speaker: The next room displays various creatures of Cossetus, and he looks around, noticing that some of the creatures they had seen during their time on the surface.
Speaker: Meanwhile, on another plane of existence, the Cossetans are annoyed that he doesn't recognize them as different from the other animals, while still others point out that there would be no way for him to know the difference.
Speaker: Like, why would he know what we are versus what any other animal was?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Low realizes that Brink should be here with them, given that he is the scientist and he hopes he is able to move past his obsession with the life crystals.
Speaker: He continues on and enters a new chamber, accidentally triggering something to happen.
Speaker: The Kossatan chorus bemoans that this is it.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: Yeah, finally, he's gone farther than anyone else has in centuries.
Speaker: But this is it.
Speaker: The mechanism he accidentally activated by entering the room releases a life crystal into a horror of a guardian reviving it.
Speaker: Low sees it and backs away and ducks just in time for it to avoid taking his head clean off.
Speaker: It's basically all mouth and legs.
Speaker: He keeps ducking and diving until he is for the most part cornered.
Speaker: And then he throws the map at the creature and it has no effect.
Speaker: He spies another one of the creatures below and throws a life crystal at it, reanimating it.
Speaker: The second monster jumps up and begins fighting the first one while he makes his escape.
Speaker: The costume chorus is absolutely buzzing at this as as like no one has ever gotten past the Guardian.
Speaker: Yeah, that that at least is in the game.
Speaker: That is in the game.
Speaker: I found it as I clicked through and I was like, oh, it's very lame in the game.
Speaker: It's a little more.
Speaker: Yeah, it's pretty lame.
Speaker: No, I mean, basically you go to you get to a door, you accidentally trigger a life crystal to animate basically what's like an attack dog.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's the dogs from Ghostbusters.
Speaker: Basically, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And then you've got to revive one another one.
Speaker: So it's the same solution, but it's a lot more harrowing in the book.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Because the dog never actually attacks you in the game.
Speaker: It's just standing there in the way.
Speaker: It's one of those adventure games where the fail state –
Speaker: You're not there's no ticking clock, you know, it's not so bad there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So low goes into a new chamber and climbs the top of platform with what seems to be a sculpture.
Speaker: But no, it's a Cosseton.
Speaker: Chapter 15.
Speaker: Lowe debates what to do only momentarily before using his remaining life crystal on it to revive it.
Speaker: It wakes up and Lowe realizes that it's clearly intelligent and the Cositan chorus is like, oh my God, he did it.
Speaker: Lowe then tries speaking to it, but its response is unintelligible to him.
Speaker: He realizes that Maggie would be more helpful here with her years of experience dealing with various people who she didn't share a language with.
Speaker: He tries Maggie on the communicator and this time she actually answers.
Speaker: Apparently she has been like everywhere that he has been.
Speaker: They've just been missing each other each time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maggie is in the museum spire and Lowe tells her to meet him back in the center so they can try to figure out what the Cossetan is saying.
Speaker: Maggie reveals that she's been studying the Cossetan language since going off on her own and she found a device that teaches her the language via cerebral induction.
Speaker: So she like held something to her forehead and just like injected the language into her brain.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Lowe tells her to get back to the ceiling collapse room and that if he doesn't show, just, you know, stay safe.
Speaker: She apologizes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She apologizes for stopping off and Lowe mentions that Brink is alive again, BT dubs.
Speaker: Take it easy on him because he's being weird.
Speaker: As Maggie arrives back in the room, she finds a giant crab like creature.
Speaker: She tries to run away from it, but it grabs her and she thrashes against it.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Lo is yelling into the communicator to get her attention.
Speaker: He's sprinting back and he realizes that he has to cross through the two guardians again.
Speaker: Uh, he waits until they take their battle to a corner away from him and he silently jogs through the room.
Speaker: And as he gets towards the transport sphere, he realizes that in all likelihood to save Maggie, he's going to have to involve Brink.
Speaker: And that's where we're stopping for tonight.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Phil, what do you think?
Speaker: Um, I, I'm of two minds on one hand.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's, it's really well written and I love, um,
Speaker: the creativity that Foster's taken with this.
Speaker: This is definitely we've we've we've read lots of adaptations where we're like, why the hell is this?
Speaker: Does this exist?
Speaker: What does this add to anything?
Speaker: And this this and knowing that because this came out like a handful of months before the game,
Speaker: So I think it's really cool that people who were pumped about the game, the idea, I don't know how pumped people were, but the idea was that you get the hype going.
Speaker: People can read this book and it will get them into the game and then the game will have a similar...
Speaker: Well, it'll have that storyline, but you're not missing out on anything and it didn't spoil anything for you.
Speaker: It's it's a really interesting companion piece.
Speaker: On the other hand, kind of just by itself, it's just kind of like, okay, I wonder about the value of it as a standalone thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But I got to tell you, though, I'm more interested than not.
Speaker: This is definitely, I said this last week, and I'll say it again, this is...
Speaker: fascinating uh for people like us who who talk about adaptations this is very very much uh it's it's very different from other stuff that we've talked about in the past and i i love that so yeah um i think in terms of adaptation of the characters i think it does a decent enough job making because like in the game boston low is just like
Speaker: you know, Captain fucking America, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Maggie is, I think, I feel like Maggie is a little bit more stereotypical, like, like mid nineties women, female character kind of written to be like more annoying than she should be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Whereas in this, it's like, oh, Boston is very cold.
Speaker: Maggie has a lot of good reason to be fucking pissed at him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because he says none of the right things.
Speaker: And it's a difference between Alan Dean Foster and Orson Scott Card.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I really do enjoy Alan Dean Foster's take on the story more than I enjoyed the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's literally Foster versus card in this death battle.
Speaker: And I'm saying, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, we're team Alan Dean Foster.
Speaker: All the way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's yeah.
Speaker: But still, regardless.
Speaker: But yeah, and you know, the little changes between the book and the game.
Speaker: I appreciate a lot of the stuff that's in the book, especially when I go through and watch a long play of the game.
Speaker: You're like, OK, yeah, the game is just has a lot more.
Speaker: It's like the book sounds like a sci fi adventure.
Speaker: And when I look at the game, I'm like, all right, let's go.
Speaker: But of it's got a lot of moon logic stuff going on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's not trying to translate these puzzles into the book.
Speaker: That's the thing that we have complained about constantly with these adaptations, especially of puzzle games.
Speaker: There's no need to tell us about the puzzle they have to do.
Speaker: It's not interesting as a reader.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Unless unless you're doing like some Da Vinci Code shit.
Speaker: That's a little different in that situation.
Speaker: But like a physical visual puzzle, that's not interesting.
Speaker: And as a and Alan Dean Foster does away with that.
Speaker: And as a result, for the most part, and as a result, it's a stronger story because it clips along.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: It's exciting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's interesting stuff.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So we will be finishing this book up next week.
Speaker: So Phil, in the meantime, I have a question for you.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, oh, I I'm glad you asked that.
Speaker: Bubba to bubble the ball.
Speaker: No, I actually it was a very good devolving into Simlish.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Just that's what we do.
Speaker: If the Resident Evil for weapons dealer was in the Sims.
Speaker: But the.
Speaker: Outstanding.
Speaker: I actually it was a very good week for games for me.
Speaker: I got through a couple started in on some first I'll talk about the demo I played.
Speaker: I played the Donkey Kong demo, the the new one that's supposed to be coming out for Switch two.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I was never a Donkey Kong- So wait, there's a Switch One demo for the Switch Two Donkey- Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yes, which I think is a great idea.
Speaker: I don't know if it's coming out for Switch One, but I think it's a great idea to get people pumped about it because I was never a Donkey Kong Country guy, but I was very curious and- Oh, it's good.
Speaker: You were Donkey Curious.
Speaker: I'm Donkey Curious.
Speaker: I wouldn't say I'm Donkey Kong-ed, but I'm Donkey Curious, sure.
Speaker: But it's it's beautiful.
Speaker: It's really, really gorgeous on this hardware, on the regular switch hardware.
Speaker: It plays well.
Speaker: It's a terrific kind of classic platformer.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: It's got a great sense of humor.
Speaker: It's it's great.
Speaker: It's I think I think it's going to be, you know,
Speaker: I think it's going to be something that people who really enjoyed that franchise kind of rush out for after after they're done playing Mario Kart, of course.
Speaker: But it's it.
Speaker: I don't have much to say because I don't have a lot of experience with it.
Speaker: It's just a very smooth.
Speaker: It feels good to play.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: The expressions that they get out of these these characters, it's so cartoony and fun, and it's constantly not just in the the cut scenes, but in the game itself, like you're running forward and there are these towers in the background with faces on them.
Speaker: It's like Easter Island kind of looking things, and they kind of go and they fall over and you have to dodge them and everything like that.
Speaker: And
Speaker: It's just such a simple thing, but the expression is so good.
Speaker: It makes you smile.
Speaker: It's yeah, it reminds you why Nintendo is the best toy maker out there right now.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: This is this is this is a terrific, terrific little toy, I think.
Speaker: Terrific toy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So after that, I did play and finish digging a game about digging a hole.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: After you talked about that one, I really had to play it.
Speaker: And I'm not going to you.
Speaker: I'm just going to say the same thing you said, where you see that there's a horror tag on it and you don't really know what you're dealing with.
Speaker: And I've been playing that game for a good long while.
Speaker: I was taking my time.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I was just really enjoying the process of like
Speaker: busting it all apart and just really digging deep.
Speaker: I really, plus I also, I also didn't realize what the purpose of dynamite was for way too long.
Speaker: I'm an idiot.
Speaker: Uh, so I was like, Oh, mine shafts.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I went back and like blew up some mine shafts to get in and get some treasure chests for shit that I don't need anymore.
Speaker: Cause I'm maxed out on everything.
Speaker: All the same, a very satisfying game.
Speaker: And my wife had seen me kind of out of the corner of her eye playing that game over the course of a couple of days.
Speaker: And finally she sits down and she goes, what is this game about?
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, okay, well it's this, this, this.
Speaker: And I'm showing her and she's like,
Speaker: Oh, well, that's really cute.
Speaker: That's really charming.
Speaker: As we're talking about it, we dig through a floor and fall into the reason this game has a horror tag on it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And she starts going, did you know about this?
Speaker: I didn't know about this.
Speaker: So it's us screaming while we're dealing with...
Speaker: this thing, I'm not gonna spoil it, but like, it's just us screaming, because I had told her this was a sweet, calm, gentle little game, and I had also fallen to that trap myself.
Speaker: So suddenly, we're both, she's only just been introduced to this game, and we're both just screaming and running all over the place.
Speaker: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Really enjoyed that game.
Speaker: I also played and finished a game called Things Too Ugly.
Speaker: um this is another i this has just been a really great year for puzzle games for me this is another um you know mystery kind of thing and you play uh the theme gets very similar i will admit you play uh uh you know a cog in a mindless uh uh corporation kind of thing with it that has that has done evil things question mark
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And you have to, they, you know, you have different files, five files you got to get through and you have, um,
Speaker: formulas you have to finish based on the evidence you get in the files.
Speaker: And the first one I played, I wasn't quite clear on what it was they wanted from me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But when when it clicked into place, I found that it was it I clipped along really good after that, and it was really enjoyable.
Speaker: It's it only took me a couple of hours to finish.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's a nice little bite sized kind of puzzle thing with a little spookiness to it.
Speaker: And it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: The one criticism I'll give them is it does only take a couple of hours to play, maybe three hours if you're not used to these kinds of games.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: They make a point of there's no save option.
Speaker: They tell you right off the bat, they're like, they're like, you know, this is meant to be played in one.
Speaker: One go, no saves, just play it, sit down and play.
Speaker: And I, I understand.
Speaker: I, I did play it in one sitting and I understand why that's better, but that just stuck in my crawl a little bit.
Speaker: Like, yeah, I get it.
Speaker: What difference does it really make?
Speaker: Like, you're screwing yourself over.
Speaker: If like somebody is playing this game and they get to the very end and they've got like one or two puzzles left and
Speaker: life happens and they and they you know whether you have to leave or or power goes out or something like that and what are the odds that a person's going to want to just like go through all those puzzles again to get to that point um it's it's i don't know it feels like they're doing themselves a disservice there's no point to it as far as i was concerned you can tell people it's better to do it in one sitting and i would agree with you but
Speaker: How's it going to hurt your game by putting in a save, for Christ's sake?
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: And finally, I'm playing through Look Outside.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker: I'm excited that you're playing it.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: This game is... Wow.
Speaker: This game is... Yeah, this is Game of the Year material.
Speaker: Not even in the sense of...
Speaker: The gameplay, the gameplay is fine.
Speaker: I feel like sometimes I'm putting up with the gameplay just to see what the next thing around the corner is.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Gameplay is like it's like just standard RPG maker, Japanese RPG style.
Speaker: Gaming, attack, run, defend, et cetera.
Speaker: But the things you fight and the creatures you meet and holy shit, the cosmic horror and the quality of the beasties, they're disgusting.
Speaker: It's so gross.
Speaker: It's so gross.
Speaker: And it's only 16-bit level graphics, but it's still like...
Speaker: And there was, once again, I'm not going to give it away, but there was a part of the game that I played.
Speaker: I can't think of the last time a game left me that unsettled and upset.
Speaker: I'm not going to tell you guys what it is, but I will hint.
Speaker: It's when you feed one thing to another thing.
Speaker: Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker: I know what you're talking about.
Speaker: That I did that and I was like, okay, I think I need a break.
Speaker: I don't feel good.
Speaker: Like, I just I was really, really not happy about it.
Speaker: And I'll I'll tell you there's a way around that.
Speaker: I and that's the thing I was sure there was.
Speaker: I was like, I'm sure there is.
Speaker: But I'm playing this on easy.
Speaker: I'm getting of getting the vibe.
Speaker: No, no challenges, just vibes.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: That's that's yeah, that's I'm in my 40s now.
Speaker: That's what I do.
Speaker: And but God damn, this game is is vicious.
Speaker: It is a vicious little bitch like it is.
Speaker: It is the beasties and the things that happen and the paranoia.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's it's honestly like and also there's a beautiful element of randomness to it because like you as you're playing the game, you get knocks at the door in your apartment and that's totally randomized.
Speaker: So no.
Speaker: So like I got characters like that joined my party based on like who knocks at the door.
Speaker: And there's like I want to say there's like eight different people in the building that you can recruit into your party.
Speaker: But some of them you're just you might on a playthrough just might never meet them.
Speaker: You know, I only just got my first one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I've been playing for a minute, too.
Speaker: I think, well, that's the thing.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: 12 days, 14 days?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I 15.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: 15.
Speaker: And I've been playing according to steam for about five hours.
Speaker: I think I'm four days in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's yeah, it tells you how much there is.
Speaker: But I did.
Speaker: I finally did get one companion, which is going to be interesting.
Speaker: I don't I haven't I haven't played with her yet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But damn, this is going to be this is this is it's it's such gold out of such a
Speaker: simple foundation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, this is what you can do with, you know, with the rules and the rule sets and the loop and all that stuff.
Speaker: That stuff is important.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But with enough and with enough brass balls, frankly, you can make something that people are going to people are going to be talking about this one for a while.
Speaker: That is my prediction.
Speaker: This is this is.
Speaker: This is a studio maker.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As far as I'm concerned, this is some good shit.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: And they have something else that they're working on.
Speaker: The guy who made Look Outside is has been working on something else for years.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Francis Columbe.
Speaker: Francis Columbe.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm looking for whatever I'm sold, whatever else you make.
Speaker: uh i'm in uh just so you know yeah so so yeah great stuff great stuff but that's that's that's uh that's me kevin what are you playing
Speaker: Ah, what am I playing?
Speaker: So, okay, I played and I beat post trauma.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's a it's a little it's a little ditty.
Speaker: It's a six hour about a six hour long Resident Evil like, you know, survival horror game.
Speaker: has fixed camera.
Speaker: They just did a big update actually after I beat it, including like adding tank controls in, which a bunch of people were asking for.
Speaker: But yeah, they did it.
Speaker: It was funny.
Speaker: It was like a lot of the criticisms I had of the gameplay were patched after I beat it.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker: This looks fun.
Speaker: This looks really good.
Speaker: Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's, uh, I would say it's my six and a half out of 10 game of the year, you know?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: It's, um, it's so, um, the story seems like nonsense.
Speaker: It's one of those where it's like, oh, this is like evil within level nonsense.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We're in a dream within a dream within a space of a of a god or whatever.
Speaker: And we're our main characters, a fat middle aged man named Roman.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: No notes.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, so done.
Speaker: But yeah, there's like combat combat and controls and all that stuff.
Speaker: Those were my main criticisms of the game, but it seems like the developer is actively working on patching those.
Speaker: So I don't have a lot to say there.
Speaker: I'd say if you're interested, if you're like a hardcore survival horror guy,
Speaker: or gal or them, non-binary friend, go and play post-drama because it's fine.
Speaker: It's perfectly acceptable.
Speaker: It's perfectly cromulent.
Speaker: And you don't get a lot.
Speaker: There's not enough survival horror games released in a year to really be... Beggars can't be choosers.
Speaker: Yes, 100%.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's my tepid recommendation for post-trauma.
Speaker: Very nice.
Speaker: Not going to be on my game of the year list.
Speaker: I'll say that, but it's fine.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: By the way, game of the year list update.
Speaker: I have six games on my game of the year list right now.
Speaker: So the games that are rated as overwhelmingly positive on my game of the year list are the root trees are dead.
Speaker: Promise mascot agency.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Look outside.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Even though it's only 15 minutes, the children of clay.
Speaker: That is on my list too.
Speaker: That is, that is.
Speaker: It doesn't matter that it's only 15 minutes.
Speaker: It's like, it's a really affecting like 15 minute little thing.
Speaker: Those 15 minutes were fucking excellent.
Speaker: They punch.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: I'd rather have that.
Speaker: Well above their weight class.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I'd take that over 80 hours of some bland, you know, open world bullshit.
Speaker: Blueprints.
Speaker: And the other game I want to talk about is Clara Obscure Expedition 33.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: If you are a fan of Persona style JRPGs, but you wish they were more tight and approachable, then Claro Obscure Expedition 33 is for you.
Speaker: It is unapologetically French.
Speaker: Your main character in the English version is voiced by Charlie Cox, who is Daredevil.
Speaker: can't go wrong there.
Speaker: His face is clearly modeled after Robert Pattinson.
Speaker: I don't understand, like, this is how Robert Pattinson isn't, like, suing for some sort of infringement or whatever, because it's just Robert Pattinson's face.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And Charlie Cox's voice.
Speaker: The other characters, your...
Speaker: Myelle, who is your ward, is voiced by Lauren English.
Speaker: I can't remember her name, but she voiced Shadowheart in Watergate 3.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: So turn based JRPG, very persona like, but it has real time elements, quick time inputs for battle.
Speaker: So that are parrying and dodging or jumping.
Speaker: So
Speaker: some enemy attacks, enemies will come up and they'll start their attack.
Speaker: And if you time if you time the parry right, you'll parry it and you'll do a counterattack.
Speaker: And if you're really good at parries, you can actually trivialize a lot of fights in the game.
Speaker: So it's kind of like a it's not an easy mode because parries are hard to do, but your skill at this one thing rewards you by making things a lot easier in the game.
Speaker: OK, OK.
Speaker: And, uh, there's also dodging, which is easier to do than parrying.
Speaker: The window for pulling off a dodge is a lot wider.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, so, uh, basically the, the gist of the plot is, uh,
Speaker: It's a Belle Epoque version of France, of Paris.
Speaker: It is set 67 years after some massive calamity involving a creature known as the paintress.
Speaker: And every year the paintress wakes up and she writes another number up on a, this massive stone column that you see out off the distance.
Speaker: She started at 100.
Speaker: And as they find out, as she's counting down,
Speaker: the number that she's writing is a limit to human lifespan.
Speaker: So we are now, the beginning of the game, you see the 34, and through the course of the introduction, the paintress wakes up and writes 33, and...
Speaker: Thus, everybody who is over 33 and up is now deceased.
Speaker: So it's a real powerful opening to kind of introduce you to that world.
Speaker: You are a member of Expedition 33.
Speaker: So every year, the What Remains of Society
Speaker: sends out a group to the islands that the paintress is on this landmass that she inhabits.
Speaker: No one has ever returned from one of the expeditions, but they send them out every year regardless.
Speaker: So you're a member of Expedition 33 and you're there to try to figure out a way to stop the paintress.
Speaker: So that's kind of like the long and short of it.
Speaker: Sounds excellent.
Speaker: I've heard good things.
Speaker: It's really fun.
Speaker: I'm having a blast.
Speaker: And the writing and the voice acting is tremendous.
Speaker: There's these creatures called gestrals, which are like, I guess it's some sort of French fairy tale type thing.
Speaker: But
Speaker: you come upon a village of them and you're going through and you're talking to them and there's that you find one and it's sitting in the middle of a house and the house is on fire.
Speaker: And when you talk to the gestural, its only response is this is fine.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: That's a good reference.
Speaker: That's terrific.
Speaker: That's a good use.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: It's a good use.
Speaker: There's a creature I was just talking to that SGA who is supposed to help you get across the ocean.
Speaker: And he's like, you must face off against my nemesis.
Speaker: And they're like, and your your main character.
Speaker: It's like, where are they?
Speaker: Are they located within a cave filled with nephrons?
Speaker: And nephrons are like the evil demon things that we have to fight our way through.
Speaker: And the guy asking you is like, no, they're right over there.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: It's like, he is my nemesis and his name is Francois.
Speaker: He's over there.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's like a level of, it's like, there's so many heavy moments in the game that are countered with absolute, the absolute silliest things that are- That's terrific.
Speaker: That just like makes you laugh.
Speaker: That's wonderful.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I love when you're there when, you know, creators able to take what is nominally a crazy heavy subject and still find room for some silliness and that sort of thing.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So you have to have that really.
Speaker: You have to have that.
Speaker: You really have to have that.
Speaker: So Claire Obscura Expedition 33.
Speaker: I'm only, you know, nearly seven hours into it, but I'm I'm digging it.
Speaker: I'm digging it.
Speaker: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you all so much for listening.
Speaker: If you can, go and follow us on Blue Sky.
Speaker: Go follow us on Patreon.
Speaker: And, you know, go to all the places.
Speaker: Now, Phil, I had a...
Speaker: I feel like you might know how to deal with this.
Speaker: There is a rock that has fallen from space and landed in the mango tree.
Speaker: It's kind of a purplish color.
Speaker: This purple color has come from outer space and it's hit the mango tree and now the mangoes are...
Speaker: I don't know, uh, coming to life.
Speaker: Uh, so what do I do here?
Speaker: I think the key thing that you have to remember is that all mangoes are inherently homophobic.
Speaker: Uh, so if you show up there, you have to come with an army of
