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Dante's Inferno (The Dig: Part 2)
2 Plays4 months ago
A Dante's Inferno reference? In MY LucasArts Game Novelization? That's RIGHT!
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Book Synopsis
When an asteroid out of nowhere threatens to hit Earth, a space shuttle is sent to nudge it into a safe orbit. Venturing to the surface, three crew members become trapped as the asteroid suddenly leaves orbit, transporting them to a strange planet light years away.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Humor
00:00:01
Speaker
Then we're doomed.
00:00:02
Speaker
We're doomed.
00:00:02
Speaker
Okay, great.
00:00:03
Speaker
We're just good to know.
00:00:04
Speaker
It's just good to know that we're doomed.
00:00:06
Speaker
It's good stuff to know.
00:00:07
Speaker
I like to know.
00:00:08
Speaker
I like to know too.
00:00:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:10
Speaker
You know who else is doomed?
00:00:12
Speaker
Who's that?
00:00:13
Speaker
Hey there,
Discussion on 'The Dig' Book
00:00:14
Speaker
buddy.
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixlet.
00:00:15
Speaker
My name is Kevin with me as always is Phil on today's show.
00:00:18
Speaker
We're continuing on through the dig by.
00:00:21
Speaker
Is that a hardcover that you got there?
00:00:25
Speaker
I got, I got, it was a library edition I found.
00:00:27
Speaker
Oh, library edition.
00:00:28
Speaker
Nice.
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:29
Speaker
So, so yes.
00:00:30
Speaker
Yes.
00:00:30
Speaker
A hardcover.
00:00:33
Speaker
Wrapped in plastic.
00:00:34
Speaker
Wrapped in plastic.
00:00:35
Speaker
Cool, right?
00:00:36
Speaker
As the library edition should be.
00:00:38
Speaker
Science fiction.
00:00:40
Speaker
That's where it goes.
00:00:40
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:00:41
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:00:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:44
Speaker
So, you know, we're digging our way through the dig.
Patreon Promotion
00:00:49
Speaker
It's a it is an interesting book so far.
00:00:53
Speaker
It sure is.
00:00:54
Speaker
It really is.
00:00:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:58
Speaker
But before we get into it, I just want to say one thing.
00:01:01
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.
00:01:11
Speaker
The $5 tier gets you access to that.
00:01:13
Speaker
$1 gets you access to blog posts and $10 gets your name read out.
Formats of 'The Dig'
00:01:20
Speaker
The beginning of every episode, patreon.com slash pixel.pod.
00:01:24
Speaker
So if you want to be part of this illustrious list, it's the $10 tier.
00:01:30
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.
00:01:41
Speaker
Patreon.com slash pixel.pod.
00:01:43
Speaker
Do it today.
00:01:45
Speaker
Do it.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:47
Speaker
So but yeah, it is an interesting book.
00:01:52
Speaker
I'm really glad you picked this one.
00:01:53
Speaker
This is this is fascinating.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:56
Speaker
This is it.
00:01:57
Speaker
So you got a library copy.
00:01:59
Speaker
I'm actually reading a copy from the Internet Archive.
Exploration of 'The Dig' Plot
00:02:03
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:02:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:04
Speaker
It's a, it's a scanned version of the, from the internet archive.
00:02:07
Speaker
Thanks.
00:02:08
Speaker
I like the way they do it.
00:02:09
Speaker
Like you, you're reading it.
00:02:10
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.
00:02:18
Speaker
If you're not.
00:02:19
Speaker
Right.
00:02:19
Speaker
Right.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:20
Speaker
It's like, God damn it.
00:02:21
Speaker
Like, yeah.
00:02:22
Speaker
Like a screen saver, you've got to keep moving your mouse.
00:02:25
Speaker
As long as you're continuously active on the site, they keep it checked out for you.
00:02:31
Speaker
But as soon as you pause for any length of time, they're like, boop.
00:02:36
Speaker
That is funny.
00:02:37
Speaker
That's funny.
00:02:38
Speaker
I mean, you're dealing with the whole internet here, so I guess.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, you're dealing with the whole internet, fighting over copies of Alan Dean Foster's The Dig.
00:02:47
Speaker
The Dig.
00:02:49
Speaker
Which we're going to get to right now, Body in the Marsh.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:54
Speaker
Body, Marsh, do ye.
00:02:56
Speaker
I'm a Nick.
00:02:57
Speaker
I'm a my boy.
00:02:58
Speaker
I'm a Nick.
00:02:58
Speaker
I'm a my boy.
00:03:01
Speaker
I'm a Nick.
00:03:02
Speaker
I'm a my boy.
00:03:02
Speaker
I'm a Nick.
00:03:03
Speaker
I'm a boy.
00:03:04
Speaker
I'm a boy.
00:03:04
Speaker
I'm a boy.
00:03:05
Speaker
All right.
00:03:06
Speaker
Where we last left off, the asteroid had just zip, zap, zapped away.
00:03:12
Speaker
We're in chapter eight.
00:03:14
Speaker
The crew arrives on an alien planet filled with oceans and trees and caverns and so on and so forth.
00:03:20
Speaker
It's a real deal planet and it has air and everything, which is good news because they were running out of air.
00:03:27
Speaker
That's true.
00:03:27
Speaker
That's nice to know.
00:03:28
Speaker
It's nice to know.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker
The trio try to contact someone, anyone, but they don't even receive static back.
00:03:35
Speaker
You know, you're out of you're out of range when it's just dead silence.
Alien World and Inhabitants
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:41
Speaker
Brink even tries in German and Russian and nothing.
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:45
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.
00:03:57
Speaker
And let me pause right here.
00:03:59
Speaker
This is something that is not in the game.
00:04:02
Speaker
No, this is not in the game.
00:04:03
Speaker
Brilliant addition.
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:08
Speaker
I think in the hands of a worse writer, it would be really easy to go, why is this here?
00:04:13
Speaker
This is kind of – but he makes – but they observe in a way that actually adds something to it.
00:04:19
Speaker
It's pretty cool.
00:04:20
Speaker
Right.
00:04:21
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.
00:04:30
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
Character Interactions and Challenges
00:04:47
Speaker
together.
00:04:47
Speaker
It's a real interesting way of handling it.
00:04:52
Speaker
And it reminds me of when a chaos marine dies and
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:01
Speaker
And the demon, the chaos demon that inhabits him goes back into the warp.
00:05:07
Speaker
It just like it's a
00:05:11
Speaker
Its individuality disappears.
00:05:14
Speaker
Right.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:16
Speaker
It becomes part of the whole, you know, you've heard the expression.
00:05:20
Speaker
I contain multitudes.
00:05:22
Speaker
It's a very literal thing with this.
00:05:24
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.
00:05:34
Speaker
What's the word?
00:05:35
Speaker
Like the consciousness of a thousand people within its self.
00:05:40
Speaker
And they refer to themselves as we and they.
00:05:43
Speaker
And the pronoun usage is fascinating.
00:05:46
Speaker
It's really, really very interesting.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:50
Speaker
Maggie's able to seemingly sense the presence of these alien ghosts better than anyone else at this point.
00:05:56
Speaker
And the ghosts make a note of that.
00:05:58
Speaker
Brink and Lowe are.
00:06:02
Speaker
Hold on.
00:06:05
Speaker
Oh, so Maggie's like, there's, it's like, there's a ghost or something or whatever.
00:06:10
Speaker
She pointed and they're trying to pry more about it.
00:06:12
Speaker
And Brink is like, fannies, ghosts.
00:06:16
Speaker
And then she says, Uber mentioned.
00:06:18
Speaker
And Maggie is like, stop speaking German at me.
00:06:23
Speaker
Stop it.
00:06:24
Speaker
You know, I don't understand German.
00:06:26
Speaker
You know, I don't speak German.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:32
Speaker
Oh, Baxter, my little man.
00:06:36
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.
00:06:45
Speaker
Right.
00:06:46
Speaker
That's a German word that a lot of people would know.
00:06:49
Speaker
I mean, it is a red flag of a word.
00:06:51
Speaker
It's a red flag of a word.
00:06:53
Speaker
Real red flag of a word.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:56
Speaker
This is 1995.
00:06:56
Speaker
Right.
00:06:57
Speaker
A little different.
00:07:00
Speaker
We're in the post-Cold War glow.
00:07:03
Speaker
The warmth of, you know, Bill Clinton is playing sax on late night TV.
00:07:07
Speaker
Right.
00:07:08
Speaker
The world, like, world issues are over.
00:07:11
Speaker
It's 1995, buddy.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:14
Speaker
Gen X is making up stuff to be upset about.
00:07:16
Speaker
You know, Gen X is literally has so little things to be upset about that.
00:07:20
Speaker
They are just making shit up at this point.
00:07:22
Speaker
Exactly.
00:07:24
Speaker
And Gen X don't come at us because, you know, it's true.
00:07:28
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:07:29
Speaker
Every Gen Xer I've ever spoken to her like, look, it was there was the 90s.
00:07:32
Speaker
It's different.
00:07:32
Speaker
Like, yeah, they know that they know they have to like, oh, you had a lovely economy.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:38
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:07:39
Speaker
That sounds like we had a surplus.
00:07:42
Speaker
Wow.
00:07:43
Speaker
Interesting.
00:07:43
Speaker
Very interesting.
00:07:46
Speaker
So Robbins, Maggie, complains that Brink is too preoccupied with the science instead of working on what they need to survive.
00:07:53
Speaker
And Lo mentions that they need to find drinkable water and keep the soup water as a reserve.
00:07:59
Speaker
At the end of the chapter, Maggie smells something that smells like cloves.
Planet Naming and Ghosts
00:08:05
Speaker
And Lowe is like, great, all the spices and nothing to eat them with.
00:08:13
Speaker
Chapter nine, the alien ghosts decide to continue watching humans as a diversion.
00:08:19
Speaker
They find some water and drink it and manage to not get sick from it.
00:08:22
Speaker
But despite Lowe's concerns about microbes or toxic salts that had been dissolved in it.
00:08:27
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:08:28
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.
00:08:38
Speaker
And she's like, I've probably been in more dangerous situations than both of you.
00:08:43
Speaker
She's not wrong.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah, not wrong.
00:08:47
Speaker
Despite despite low being on a space shuttle a lot.
00:08:51
Speaker
She's been like held at gunpoint by, you know, terrorists.
00:08:55
Speaker
So, yeah, don't don't don't underestimate the danger of a journalist can get into.
00:09:00
Speaker
It's it's unreal.
00:09:03
Speaker
They settle on a name for the planet, which is Cossetus after the ninth circle of hell in Dante's Inferno.
00:09:10
Speaker
Got a kick out of that.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:12
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.
00:09:20
Speaker
And one of them decides to make themselves briefly visible to them in order to guide them in the right direction.
00:09:27
Speaker
Maggie sees the spirit, if only briefly showing them to go down a different path than they're on.
00:09:32
Speaker
She points it out to the other two who basically were like, that's a trick of the light.
00:09:36
Speaker
Swamp gases.
00:09:37
Speaker
Right.
00:09:38
Speaker
Literally, they say swamp gases.
00:09:40
Speaker
Swamp gases.
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:41
Speaker
Weather balloons.
00:09:42
Speaker
Weather balloons.
00:09:44
Speaker
It's a naturally it's probably naturally occurring phenomenon.
00:09:47
Speaker
But she's like, well, I saw a face in it and it wants us to go this way.
00:09:52
Speaker
And Lowe and Brink are like, fine, but we're going to be really shitty about it.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, we're not going to, but we're going to get real testy this whole time.
00:10:01
Speaker
It's going to be very passive aggressive.
00:10:03
Speaker
Meanwhile, back in the ghost world, the ghost who did the appearance is exhausted and the others are like, well, that did nothing.
00:10:09
Speaker
I'm glad we tried something, I think.
00:10:13
Speaker
I guess.
00:10:15
Speaker
As they continue down the path, Lo is like, this is dumb and we shouldn't be listening to ghosts or women.
00:10:20
Speaker
Both.
00:10:25
Speaker
equally reliable, if you know what I'm saying.
00:10:27
Speaker
Equally reliable.
00:10:30
Speaker
And then Maggie points out that there is one of the metal plates on the ship off in the distance.
00:10:35
Speaker
And they're like, well, that's just a coincidence.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:10:39
Speaker
Brink runs after it.
00:10:40
Speaker
And when they move the plate, they find a shaft underneath it.
00:10:43
Speaker
And Lowe's like, well, Brink, you're the geologist, archaeologist, whatever you are.
00:10:49
Speaker
You should go down first.
00:10:51
Speaker
And Brink is like, okay.
00:10:54
Speaker
And Brink.
00:10:54
Speaker
Okey-doke.
00:10:55
Speaker
Okie doke.
00:10:56
Speaker
He starts climbing down and then the shaft collapses.
00:11:00
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.
Tragic Accident and Its Impact
00:11:07
Speaker
They go down to the bottom of the shaft and they find him buried under a pile of debris.
00:11:12
Speaker
Lowe tries CPR for like a second and then he's like, nope, he's dead.
00:11:18
Speaker
Ha ha ha.
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah, when you try CPR, your mouth immediately fills with their blood.
00:11:24
Speaker
It might not be.
00:11:25
Speaker
You might be past that.
00:11:29
Speaker
No, he's dead.
00:11:29
Speaker
He's clearly dead.
00:11:30
Speaker
He's dead.
00:11:31
Speaker
He's dead.
00:11:32
Speaker
He's gone.
00:11:33
Speaker
Later, Lo is going to mention that, like, yeah, I knew you're dead when your head just kind of flopped around.
00:11:38
Speaker
Right.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:41
Speaker
He dies horribly.
00:11:43
Speaker
In fact.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:47
Speaker
So Maggie at first refuses to cry because it would be unprofessional and silently condemns fate.
00:11:54
Speaker
Chapter 10, the ghosts postulate on the nature of human grieving.
00:11:59
Speaker
Some say some of the ghosts say they will give up and others say will drive the group forward.
00:12:04
Speaker
Stay tuned.
00:12:05
Speaker
I'll find out more.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah, I do love that they kind of emphasize with them that well, Alan, Mr. Foster.
00:12:13
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
00:12:37
Speaker
Right.
00:12:38
Speaker
And it's it's it's fascinating to them.
00:12:40
Speaker
So or, you know, honestly, for a lot of them, it is not fascinating, but it is something, you know, it's something.
00:12:47
Speaker
It at least lets them debate something like.
00:12:50
Speaker
Right.
00:12:50
Speaker
Something they're reading.
00:12:51
Speaker
They're reading highlights in the dentist's office because their phone died.
00:12:56
Speaker
Like that's that's that's where they are.
00:12:58
Speaker
They are.
00:12:59
Speaker
They are highlights in.
00:13:01
Speaker
It is that scene in Beetlejuice at the end.
00:13:05
Speaker
Exactly.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:08
Speaker
But they're not going anywhere.
00:13:09
Speaker
No, not going nowhere.
00:13:13
Speaker
And yeah, you've got different levels of cynicism as to how well this will do with them.
Alien Technologies and Discoveries
00:13:21
Speaker
Meanwhile, Maggie calls Lo a son of a bitch for making Brink go down first.
00:13:27
Speaker
They get into a back and forth about who they would have rather died.
00:13:31
Speaker
It's terrific.
00:13:33
Speaker
It really is.
00:13:34
Speaker
And Lo's a bit of a downer during this situation, has clearly never interacted with a grieving person before.
00:13:40
Speaker
No, I don't know if he's ever dealt with a human being before.
00:13:44
Speaker
Like, Lowe is the most robotic person I have ever read.
00:13:48
Speaker
It's true.
00:13:49
Speaker
It's so true.
00:13:51
Speaker
Lowe is all like, it's likely that we aren't getting off this planet.
00:13:54
Speaker
And Maggie is like, you know what?
00:13:56
Speaker
Fuck this.
00:13:57
Speaker
And walks off and to be on her own.
00:14:00
Speaker
And like, I agree, Maggie.
00:14:01
Speaker
He is a real bummer.
00:14:04
Speaker
Right.
00:14:04
Speaker
Right.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:05
Speaker
You know what?
00:14:06
Speaker
He's not making you feel any better.
00:14:08
Speaker
Time to move on.
00:14:09
Speaker
Time to move on.
00:14:10
Speaker
Uh, low considers the nature of his relationship or friendship with Maggie and continues adventuring on his own.
00:14:16
Speaker
Uh, he finds a large chamber and explores finding a plate that resembles one of the ones that were on the ship.
00:14:22
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.
00:14:29
Speaker
Uh, the ghosts noticed low's problem solving acumen, but worry he will do the wrong thing with the plate.
00:14:36
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.
00:14:44
Speaker
But this time a door opens up, revealing another room below.
00:14:47
Speaker
He calls for Maggie, but she either doesn't hear him or is ignoring him.
00:14:52
Speaker
My money at this point is on ignoring him.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:58
Speaker
In the room, Lowe finds a bunch of weird devices and a little droid starts following him around.
00:15:04
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.
00:15:15
Speaker
He goes through the tunnel and finds a spherical room with a bench.
00:15:19
Speaker
And when he enters the room, he looks around and the door behind him closes.
00:15:23
Speaker
And then it moves forward, revealing itself to be some sort of transit system.
00:15:30
Speaker
This is very different than the book.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:15:34
Speaker
We get a lot of the bones are the same.
00:15:38
Speaker
A lot of the beats are the same.
00:15:40
Speaker
You know, losing our German friends, the spherical tram situation, even the little droid situation.
00:15:51
Speaker
But
00:15:53
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.
00:16:04
Speaker
When it comes to the details, Foster...
00:16:07
Speaker
just changes things around a lot.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:11
Speaker
Like the droid is not a little walking thing in the game.
00:16:16
Speaker
No, no, it's a little, it's a, I think it hovers if I remember.
00:16:18
Speaker
It's a hovering thing.
00:16:19
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.
00:16:31
Speaker
In this, she's not going to, they're not going to see or speak to each other for a long time.
00:16:38
Speaker
Not even a little.
00:16:40
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.
00:16:52
Speaker
Or I think more likely he knows that we've got to create something different here because otherwise, what's the point?
Resurrection and Obsession
00:17:00
Speaker
You know, we're giving everything away.
00:17:01
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.
00:17:11
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.
00:17:19
Speaker
But the way he describes things.
00:17:22
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, I like that better than what is in the game.
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, he just he just he he sets the stage very, very well.
00:17:32
Speaker
It's a much more Ray Bradbury and like.
00:17:37
Speaker
Alien world as opposed to.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:40
Speaker
You immediately see who you're dealing with as far as a writer's concern.
00:17:44
Speaker
Hey, this guy's a contemporary of the classic sci fi people.
00:17:48
Speaker
So it makes a lot of sense that that's the direction he'd go with it.
00:17:51
Speaker
Right.
00:17:52
Speaker
Chapter 11, the ghosts discuss Lowe's progress in figuring out various puzzles through the course of the game.
00:17:59
Speaker
I mean, book.
00:18:00
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.
00:18:11
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.
00:18:19
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.
00:18:29
Speaker
He decides to try to figure out a way to open the case with the crystals inside of it.
00:18:32
Speaker
And then he just touches and he's able to reach through the silvery glass that the crystals are being held in.
00:18:40
Speaker
And he grabs the crystals and no alarms go off.
00:18:43
Speaker
Lowe returns back the way he came shouting for Maggie, but he's but she's still out of earshot.
00:18:48
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.
00:18:56
Speaker
Brink then wakes up and is seemingly no worse for wear.
00:19:00
Speaker
He wonders.
00:19:01
Speaker
He's like he's like, are you telling me the truth that I actually died?
00:19:05
Speaker
I feel great.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:09
Speaker
And this is also a little more realistic than what you'd get in the game.
00:19:14
Speaker
In the game, it's just like he immediately accepts the explanation, goes, this is amazing.
00:19:19
Speaker
This is a miracle cure and that kind of thing.
00:19:21
Speaker
Right.
00:19:21
Speaker
This one, he's more, I feel like, a lot of people would be in a situation like that.
00:19:26
Speaker
Like, okay, sure.
00:19:28
Speaker
Are you sure I was dead?
00:19:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:30
Speaker
Lowe says, well, I'd like to show you the crystal, but I don't have it because it absorbed into you.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:38
Speaker
Lowe tells Brink that Maggie went off on her own after his death and that Brink is like, okay.
00:19:45
Speaker
Although Lowe is getting worried at this point, Brink dismisses it with either she comes back or she dies alone.
00:19:52
Speaker
That's that Teutonic humor.
00:19:54
Speaker
That's good.
00:19:55
Speaker
It's good.
00:19:57
Speaker
She comes back or she dies by herself.
00:20:00
Speaker
She dies with us or without us.
00:20:02
Speaker
One of the other.
00:20:03
Speaker
Come see, come see.
00:20:11
Speaker
How you say, que sera sera.
00:20:15
Speaker
Whatever will be, will be.
00:20:17
Speaker
There's a Russian version of it, but it's far more violent.
00:20:22
Speaker
The future is not ours to see.
00:20:26
Speaker
Lo shrugs his shoulders at that, and they go off to check out the museum that he was just in.
00:20:31
Speaker
And I forgot to mention, it's basically a museum, is the room that he was in when he gets the crystals.
00:20:36
Speaker
Meanwhile, on another plane, the ghosts are like, hey, look, he's doing things.
00:20:41
Speaker
And they continue arguing about that because that's all they can do at this point.
00:20:45
Speaker
Right, right.
00:20:46
Speaker
They've got no agency in this whatsoever.
00:20:49
Speaker
No agency.
00:20:50
Speaker
Anytime they try, nothing happens.
00:20:52
Speaker
So what's even the point?
00:20:53
Speaker
They're just observers.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:56
Speaker
Chapter 12, when they get back to the museum, Lowe has been keeping a close eye on Brink, making sure he was himself.
00:21:02
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.
00:21:12
Speaker
Brink seems like Brink, but as the reader can tell, Brink is being weird.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:18
Speaker
Anyway, they find more of those robots, but instead of opening big doors, they're used to open smaller storage doors.
00:21:24
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.
00:21:33
Speaker
And Lowe is like, hold up.
00:21:34
Speaker
Why must we do it?
00:21:37
Speaker
Right.
00:21:38
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.
00:21:46
Speaker
Meanwhile, in the ghost plane, they discuss how they're disappointed in not being able to help humans.
00:21:52
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.
00:22:03
Speaker
Like, don't touch them anymore.
00:22:05
Speaker
Right.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah, they're a little more overt about it.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:11
Speaker
Meanwhile, the ghosts in this are like, no, they use the crystal, right?
00:22:15
Speaker
Well, they knew how to use it.
00:22:17
Speaker
That's good.
00:22:18
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.
00:22:26
Speaker
Like a Cadbury cream egg.
00:22:28
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:22:31
Speaker
Which is so weird.
00:22:33
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.
00:22:42
Speaker
Cool.
00:22:42
Speaker
Right on.
00:22:43
Speaker
That's what we've all heard of things similar to that.
00:22:45
Speaker
And you're like,
00:22:47
Speaker
Like cracking it open on the countertop and you're like, hold on.
00:22:51
Speaker
I got to bring back to life.
Alien Encounters and Puzzles
00:22:53
Speaker
Remember when you're cracking your crystal, try to do it on the countertop instead of on the edge of a bowl.
00:22:58
Speaker
That way you don't get shell in the in the sucking chest.
00:23:02
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.
00:23:13
Speaker
When you do it on the edge, you're just shattering the shell right inside.
00:23:17
Speaker
Right.
00:23:18
Speaker
So that's your cooking tip for today.
00:23:21
Speaker
This guy's already got an infection.
00:23:24
Speaker
We don't need crystal shards in there too.
00:23:26
Speaker
This guy omelets.
00:23:33
Speaker
So Brink becomes obsessed with taking the crystals and Lowe is really put off now and relents when Brink starts losing his cool.
00:23:40
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.
00:23:47
Speaker
Lowe is confused by how Brink suddenly has this idea, but hey, it works.
00:23:51
Speaker
And they're able to get four more doors open.
00:23:54
Speaker
Lowe wonders if the crystal did anything to Brink's brain.
00:23:58
Speaker
They take another transit system sphere to another island and arrive in a room with schematics and maps and all that jazz.
00:24:04
Speaker
And they find a 3D map projector that fits in the palm of your hand.
00:24:10
Speaker
Ooh.
00:24:12
Speaker
Science.
00:24:13
Speaker
Science.
00:24:14
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.
00:24:25
Speaker
So it just like fucking not wire it.
00:24:28
Speaker
It shocks the shit out of them.
00:24:32
Speaker
But Lowe manages to force one of the doors open.
00:24:35
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.
00:24:41
Speaker
And Brink is like, it's luck.
00:24:44
Speaker
And Lowe asks him to get lucky about fixing the asteroid ship.
00:24:47
Speaker
And Brink is unamused.
00:24:50
Speaker
It's good.
00:24:51
Speaker
It's good.
00:24:52
Speaker
It's good stuff.
00:24:52
Speaker
It's good stuff.
00:24:55
Speaker
We get a scene of the Cossetons debating the progress of Brink and Lowe.
00:25:01
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.
00:25:13
Speaker
Meanwhile, Lowe and Brink are looking for Maggie.
00:25:17
Speaker
Brink mentions that maybe she's gone for a swim to relax.
00:25:20
Speaker
And if that's the case, she's in a better headspace than either of them are, given the circumstances.
00:25:25
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, fair enough.
00:25:27
Speaker
You know, it's like good for you.
00:25:29
Speaker
Good for you.
00:25:30
Speaker
I got nothing to argue against that with.
00:25:33
Speaker
That's yeah.
00:25:35
Speaker
Lowe checks the communicator, which if I recall in the game was called the penultimate.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:42
Speaker
I, that was, I, I couldn't, I shouldn't have liked that, but I did.
00:25:48
Speaker
I, I, yeah, I can't help myself.
00:25:51
Speaker
I did find that very funny.
00:25:52
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.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:03
Speaker
Second to last.
00:26:04
Speaker
Second to last.
00:26:05
Speaker
Wonderful.
00:26:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:08
Speaker
Maggie has hers turned off, though, meaning no contact.
00:26:12
Speaker
Brink mentions that she could be anywhere looking for and she could be looking for them as well.
00:26:17
Speaker
So best to just keep moving and that she's likely survived worse.
00:26:21
Speaker
Low is testy.
00:26:24
Speaker
And then they discuss the structural engineering of the transportation system before arriving in the third spire, which they find to be empty.
00:26:31
Speaker
Lowe is like, so what would happen if they just collapsed?
00:26:35
Speaker
And Brink is like, well, I think the ship would just stop and go back.
00:26:42
Speaker
And Lowe is like, but what if the backup systems had also broken?
00:26:47
Speaker
And Brink is like,
00:26:49
Speaker
Why are you thinking that I am the one that got changed by the crystal?
00:26:52
Speaker
You're a real bummer, man.
00:26:54
Speaker
Why are you asking me these questions?
00:26:56
Speaker
Stop looking at me.
00:26:57
Speaker
Stop looking at me.
00:27:01
Speaker
Hmm.
00:27:02
Speaker
Ah.
00:27:03
Speaker
Um.
00:27:05
Speaker
So they go into the third spire and find it to be empty.
00:27:10
Speaker
And then the room disappears around them to reveal some sort of holographic illusion.
00:27:14
Speaker
And it is a planetarium.
00:27:17
Speaker
They play around with the stars and planets like zooming in and zooming out, trying to see if they recognize any galactic landmarks.
00:27:25
Speaker
But they are landing on the idea that they are indeed very far from home.
00:27:31
Speaker
As they begin walking through the map to leave, Ludger sees something.
00:27:35
Speaker
It is a giant eel like thing with nasty teeth and it begins approaching them.
00:27:42
Speaker
Brink and Lowe try to figure out how to get away from them or deal with them.
00:27:46
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?
Book vs Game Differences
00:27:54
Speaker
Eventually, Lowe breaks down a sealed door by ramming it with a shoulder reveal.
00:27:59
Speaker
The bone and biological matter pit where the eels have been maybe leaving their stuff.
00:28:05
Speaker
Just a viscera room.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:08
Speaker
Just an organ pit, if you will.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:11
Speaker
This wasn't in the game, was it?
00:28:13
Speaker
No, this this there are a lot of these things.
00:28:16
Speaker
I'm like, well, the droid wasn't like this, but that happened.
00:28:19
Speaker
And this wasn't like, no, this has no equivalence.
00:28:23
Speaker
It's a deleted scene from the game.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:27
Speaker
Especially with what you said last episode with this being toned down.
00:28:31
Speaker
This feels like something that would have been toned down.
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:35
Speaker
It makes me think that it was like what Alan got were maybe like concept art.
00:28:42
Speaker
Like, here's the story and here's the concept art sketches.
00:28:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:45
Speaker
And like half of those were removed by the time he wrote the book, you know?
00:28:51
Speaker
Which is basically how movie novelizations are made.
00:28:55
Speaker
You get a lot of deleted scenes in those.
00:28:57
Speaker
So that would make sense.
00:28:59
Speaker
There's deleted scenes in the Empire Strikes Back novelization.
00:29:06
Speaker
There's so many.
00:29:10
Speaker
I think in the Ghostbusters novelization, there's more about the place where Ray gets his dick sucked by a ghost.
00:29:21
Speaker
Oh, that's, oh, I've got, okay, now I've got to read that.
00:29:24
Speaker
That's hilarious.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the next, there's more to that.
00:29:27
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.
00:29:38
Speaker
So, okay, you know how,
00:29:42
Speaker
Ghostbusters discussion real quick.
00:29:43
Speaker
You know how Ray and Winston are coming back from a job when they have that discussion about, do you believe in God?
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:54
Speaker
And Ray is talking about Revelation, the book Revelation and all that stuff.
00:29:58
Speaker
They are coming back from that fort scene in the original version of the movie.
00:30:06
Speaker
That's where Ray and Winston are.
00:30:08
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:30:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:10
Speaker
Because in the, that scene is shown in a montage as that scene shown in the montage before Winston is even hired.
00:30:22
Speaker
In the way the final movie is edited together.
00:30:24
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting.
00:30:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:27
Speaker
So there's like, there's like more.
00:30:28
Speaker
What's funny is though, is that scene is never appeared on a deleted scenes.
00:30:33
Speaker
Right.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
I don't, I'm not, I'm not sure it ever made it to like the stage of being edited together.
00:30:39
Speaker
I think it was cut.
00:30:40
Speaker
I think they might've filmed parts of it and then cut it.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:44
Speaker
And it's just gone.
00:30:45
Speaker
And it's just gone.
00:30:46
Speaker
But yeah.
00:30:47
Speaker
Ugh.
00:30:48
Speaker
Interesting stuff, right?
00:30:50
Speaker
That is interesting.
00:30:51
Speaker
That is the idea that there still could be undiscovered Ghostbusters footage that no one has seen before is pretty.
00:31:00
Speaker
Right.
00:31:00
Speaker
I mean, that's a pretty nerdy.
00:31:01
Speaker
Holy grail.
00:31:03
Speaker
It's a nerdy.
00:31:03
Speaker
Holy grail.
00:31:04
Speaker
I like that.
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:05
Speaker
All I've ever seen is a still of Ray and Winston outside of the Ecto-1 looking up at the fort.
00:31:13
Speaker
But that's it.
00:31:14
Speaker
That's the extent of it.
00:31:16
Speaker
And what's in the what's in the montage in the movie where he gets a ghost goes down on him.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:31:23
Speaker
Which that's really all we needed, right?
00:31:26
Speaker
That's all we needed.
Adaptation Quality Discussion
00:31:29
Speaker
So anyway, back to back to this.
00:31:33
Speaker
They're in the viscera pit and Lowe then realizes maybe the eels are just looking for bones and meat.
00:31:39
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.
00:31:47
Speaker
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
00:31:50
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.
00:32:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's the equivalent of cockroaches on this planet.
00:32:06
Speaker
It's like, oh, God, we need to get out of here.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:12
Speaker
Chapter 14, the Costitans think that the humans handled the eels relatively well.
00:32:17
Speaker
Well, most of the Costitans do.
00:32:19
Speaker
There's some that are just like, man, it's luck.
00:32:21
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.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:27
Speaker
Lowe and Brink return to the first room with the collapsed ceiling and there's no sign of Maggie.
00:32:32
Speaker
Lowe says it's time to look for her.
00:32:33
Speaker
And Brink says instead he has to do something first with the life crystals, examining them.
00:32:38
Speaker
He has to attend to them.
00:32:41
Speaker
And Lowe's like, you're being weird.
00:32:42
Speaker
What's up?
00:32:43
Speaker
And they get into a back and forth and Brink becomes more and more unhinged about needing to attend to the crystals.
00:32:50
Speaker
Lowe is like, all right, fine.
00:32:52
Speaker
Go do that.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:53
Speaker
It's a weird thing to say, but okay.
00:32:56
Speaker
Fuck it.
00:32:57
Speaker
Fuck it.
00:32:58
Speaker
I'm going to go find Maggie.
00:33:00
Speaker
He looks around for Maggie, checking all the rooms, then decides to head to the final spire by himself.
00:33:06
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.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:19
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.
00:33:27
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.
00:33:37
Speaker
Also, not in the game, right?
00:33:39
Speaker
Right.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:40
Speaker
No, no, not that I recall.
00:33:42
Speaker
This is like, oh, this would have been a cool puzzle.
00:33:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:47
Speaker
In the game.
00:33:50
Speaker
He plays around with various ways to open the door before we're finally getting lucky and it shimmers open.
00:33:56
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.
00:34:06
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.
00:34:17
Speaker
Like, why would he know what we are versus what any other animal was?
00:34:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:24
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.
00:34:36
Speaker
He continues on and enters a new chamber, accidentally triggering something to happen.
00:34:41
Speaker
The Kossatan chorus bemoans that this is it.
00:34:45
Speaker
He's dead.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, finally, he's gone farther than anyone else has in centuries.
00:34:53
Speaker
But this is it.
00:34:55
Speaker
The mechanism he accidentally activated by entering the room releases a life crystal into a horror of a guardian reviving it.
00:35:03
Speaker
Low sees it and backs away and ducks just in time for it to avoid taking his head clean off.
00:35:09
Speaker
It's basically all mouth and legs.
00:35:13
Speaker
He keeps ducking and diving until he is for the most part cornered.
00:35:16
Speaker
And then he throws the map at the creature and it has no effect.
00:35:22
Speaker
He spies another one of the creatures below and throws a life crystal at it, reanimating it.
00:35:27
Speaker
The second monster jumps up and begins fighting the first one while he makes his escape.
00:35:33
Speaker
The costume chorus is absolutely buzzing at this as as like no one has ever gotten past the Guardian.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah, that that at least is in the game.
00:35:43
Speaker
That is in the game.
00:35:44
Speaker
I found it as I clicked through and I was like, oh, it's very lame in the game.
00:35:50
Speaker
It's a little more.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty lame.
00:35:56
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.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:06
Speaker
It's the dogs from Ghostbusters.
00:36:08
Speaker
Basically, yeah.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:11
Speaker
And then you've got to revive one another one.
00:36:15
Speaker
So it's the same solution, but it's a lot more harrowing in the book.
00:36:20
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:22
Speaker
Because the dog never actually attacks you in the game.
00:36:24
Speaker
It's just standing there in the way.
00:36:26
Speaker
It's one of those adventure games where the fail state –
00:36:32
Speaker
You're not there's no ticking clock, you know, it's not so bad there.
00:36:36
Speaker
Right.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:40
Speaker
So low goes into a new chamber and climbs the top of platform with what seems to be a sculpture.
00:36:49
Speaker
But no, it's a Cosseton.
00:36:54
Speaker
Chapter 15.
00:36:56
Speaker
Lowe debates what to do only momentarily before using his remaining life crystal on it to revive it.
00:37:02
Speaker
It wakes up and Lowe realizes that it's clearly intelligent and the Cositan chorus is like, oh my God, he did it.
00:37:09
Speaker
Lowe then tries speaking to it, but its response is unintelligible to him.
00:37:13
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.
00:37:20
Speaker
He tries Maggie on the communicator and this time she actually answers.
00:37:23
Speaker
Apparently she has been like everywhere that he has been.
00:37:27
Speaker
They've just been missing each other each time.
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:33
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.
00:37:39
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.
00:37:48
Speaker
So she like held something to her forehead and just like injected the language into her brain.
00:37:54
Speaker
Right.
00:37:56
Speaker
Lowe tells her to get back to the ceiling collapse room and that if he doesn't show, just, you know, stay safe.
00:38:02
Speaker
She apologizes.
00:38:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:05
Speaker
She apologizes for stopping off and Lowe mentions that Brink is alive again, BT dubs.
00:38:10
Speaker
Take it easy on him because he's being weird.
00:38:14
Speaker
As Maggie arrives back in the room, she finds a giant crab like creature.
00:38:19
Speaker
She tries to run away from it, but it grabs her and she thrashes against it.
00:38:22
Speaker
Meanwhile, Lo is yelling into the communicator to get her attention.
00:38:25
Speaker
He's sprinting back and he realizes that he has to cross through the two guardians again.
00:38:30
Speaker
Uh, he waits until they take their battle to a corner away from him and he silently jogs through the room.
00:38:36
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.
00:38:43
Speaker
And that's where we're stopping for tonight.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:49
Speaker
Phil, what do you think?
00:38:50
Speaker
Um, I, I'm of two minds on one hand.
00:38:54
Speaker
It's, it's, it's, it's really well written and I love, um,
00:39:00
Speaker
the creativity that Foster's taken with this.
00:39:03
Speaker
This is definitely we've we've we've read lots of adaptations where we're like, why the hell is this?
00:39:09
Speaker
Does this exist?
00:39:10
Speaker
What does this add to anything?
00:39:14
Speaker
And this this and knowing that because this came out like a handful of months before the game,
00:39:21
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.
00:39:32
Speaker
People can read this book and it will get them into the game and then the game will have a similar...
00:39:40
Speaker
Well, it'll have that storyline, but you're not missing out on anything and it didn't spoil anything for you.
00:39:45
Speaker
It's it's a really interesting companion piece.
Audience Engagement on Adaptation
00:39:50
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.
00:40:00
Speaker
Sure.
00:40:03
Speaker
But I got to tell you, though, I'm more interested than not.
00:40:10
Speaker
This is definitely, I said this last week, and I'll say it again, this is...
00:40:14
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
00:40:40
Speaker
you know, Captain fucking America, you know?
00:40:42
Speaker
Right.
00:40:42
Speaker
Right.
00:40:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:44
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.
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:03
Speaker
Whereas in this, it's like, oh, Boston is very cold.
00:41:08
Speaker
Maggie has a lot of good reason to be fucking pissed at him.
00:41:12
Speaker
Right.
00:41:13
Speaker
Because he says none of the right things.
00:41:17
Speaker
And it's a difference between Alan Dean Foster and Orson Scott Card.
00:41:23
Speaker
Very much so.
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:27
Speaker
And I really do enjoy Alan Dean Foster's take on the story more than I enjoyed the game.
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:35
Speaker
And it's literally Foster versus card in this death battle.
00:41:39
Speaker
And I'm saying, yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker
Well, we're team Alan Dean Foster.
00:41:45
Speaker
All the way.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:46
Speaker
That's yeah.
00:41:46
Speaker
But still, regardless.
00:41:51
Speaker
But yeah, and you know, the little changes between the book and the game.
00:41:55
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.
00:42:01
Speaker
You're like, OK, yeah, the game is just has a lot more.
00:42:04
Speaker
It's like the book sounds like a sci fi adventure.
00:42:09
Speaker
And when I look at the game, I'm like, all right, let's go.
00:42:12
Speaker
But of it's got a lot of moon logic stuff going on.
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:18
Speaker
And it's not trying to translate these puzzles into the book.
00:42:22
Speaker
That's the thing that we have complained about constantly with these adaptations, especially of puzzle games.
00:42:30
Speaker
There's no need to tell us about the puzzle they have to do.
00:42:35
Speaker
It's not interesting as a reader.
00:42:37
Speaker
Right.
00:42:38
Speaker
Unless unless you're doing like some Da Vinci Code shit.
00:42:41
Speaker
That's a little different in that situation.
00:42:43
Speaker
But like a physical visual puzzle, that's not interesting.
00:42:48
Speaker
And as a and Alan Dean Foster does away with that.
00:42:52
Speaker
And as a result, for the most part, and as a result, it's a stronger story because it clips along.
00:42:58
Speaker
It's interesting.
00:42:59
Speaker
It's exciting.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:02
Speaker
It's interesting stuff.
00:43:06
Speaker
All right.
00:43:07
Speaker
So we will be finishing this book up next week.
Game Reviews and Insights
00:43:12
Speaker
So Phil, in the meantime, I have a question for you.
00:43:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:20
Speaker
Oh, oh, I I'm glad you asked that.
00:43:23
Speaker
Bubba to bubble the ball.
00:43:28
Speaker
No, I actually it was a very good devolving into Simlish.
00:43:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
Just that's what we do.
00:43:33
Speaker
If the Resident Evil for weapons dealer was in the Sims.
00:43:39
Speaker
But the.
00:43:45
Speaker
Outstanding.
00:43:50
Speaker
I actually it was a very good week for games for me.
00:43:52
Speaker
I got through a couple started in on some first I'll talk about the demo I played.
00:43:58
Speaker
I played the Donkey Kong demo, the the new one that's supposed to be coming out for Switch two.
00:44:03
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:44:04
Speaker
I was never a Donkey Kong- So wait, there's a Switch One demo for the Switch Two Donkey- Yes.
00:44:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yes, which I think is a great idea.
00:44:11
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.
00:44:23
Speaker
You were Donkey Curious.
00:44:25
Speaker
I'm Donkey Curious.
00:44:26
Speaker
I wouldn't say I'm Donkey Kong-ed, but I'm Donkey Curious, sure.
00:44:34
Speaker
But it's it's beautiful.
00:44:36
Speaker
It's really, really gorgeous on this hardware, on the regular switch hardware.
00:44:42
Speaker
It plays well.
00:44:43
Speaker
It's a terrific kind of classic platformer.
00:44:46
Speaker
It's funny.
00:44:47
Speaker
It's got a great sense of humor.
00:44:49
Speaker
It's it's great.
00:44:50
Speaker
It's I think I think it's going to be, you know,
00:44:54
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.
00:45:04
Speaker
But it's it.
00:45:06
Speaker
I don't have much to say because I don't have a lot of experience with it.
00:45:08
Speaker
It's just a very smooth.
00:45:11
Speaker
It feels good to play.
00:45:13
Speaker
It's beautiful.
00:45:14
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.
00:45:32
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.
00:45:39
Speaker
And
00:45:40
Speaker
It's just such a simple thing, but the expression is so good.
00:45:43
Speaker
It makes you smile.
00:45:45
Speaker
It's yeah, it reminds you why Nintendo is the best toy maker out there right now.
00:45:50
Speaker
Sure.
00:45:50
Speaker
This is this is this is a terrific, terrific little toy, I think.
00:45:55
Speaker
Terrific toy.
00:45:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:58
Speaker
So after that, I did play and finish digging a game about digging a hole.
00:46:03
Speaker
OK.
00:46:04
Speaker
After you talked about that one, I really had to play it.
00:46:07
Speaker
And I'm not going to you.
00:46:09
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.
00:46:19
Speaker
And I've been playing that game for a good long while.
00:46:22
Speaker
I was taking my time.
00:46:23
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:46:24
Speaker
I was just really enjoying the process of like
00:46:28
Speaker
busting it all apart and just really digging deep.
00:46:31
Speaker
I really, plus I also, I also didn't realize what the purpose of dynamite was for way too long.
00:46:36
Speaker
I'm an idiot.
00:46:37
Speaker
Uh, so I was like, Oh, mine shafts.
00:46:40
Speaker
Great.
00:46:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:41
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.
00:46:47
Speaker
Cause I'm maxed out on everything.
00:46:50
Speaker
All the same, a very satisfying game.
00:46:53
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.
00:46:59
Speaker
And finally she sits down and she goes, what is this game about?
00:47:02
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, okay, well it's this, this, this.
00:47:04
Speaker
And I'm showing her and she's like,
00:47:06
Speaker
Oh, well, that's really cute.
00:47:07
Speaker
That's really charming.
00:47:08
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.
00:47:18
Speaker
Right.
00:47:19
Speaker
And she starts going, did you know about this?
00:47:22
Speaker
I didn't know about this.
00:47:22
Speaker
So it's us screaming while we're dealing with...
00:47:27
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.
00:47:39
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.
00:47:46
Speaker
It was a lot of fun.
00:47:47
Speaker
Amazing.
00:47:48
Speaker
Really enjoyed that game.
00:47:50
Speaker
I also played and finished a game called Things Too Ugly.
00:47:55
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
00:48:20
Speaker
Sure.
00:48:22
Speaker
And you have to, they, you know, you have different files, five files you got to get through and you have, um,
00:48:29
Speaker
formulas you have to finish based on the evidence you get in the files.
00:48:34
Speaker
And the first one I played, I wasn't quite clear on what it was they wanted from me.
00:48:40
Speaker
Right.
00:48:41
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.
00:48:50
Speaker
It's it only took me a couple of hours to finish.
00:48:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a nice little bite sized kind of puzzle thing with a little spookiness to it.
00:48:59
Speaker
And it's a lot of fun.
00:49:01
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.
00:49:09
Speaker
Sure.
00:49:10
Speaker
They make a point of there's no save option.
00:49:14
Speaker
They tell you right off the bat, they're like, they're like, you know, this is meant to be played in one.
00:49:19
Speaker
One go, no saves, just play it, sit down and play.
00:49:23
Speaker
And I, I understand.
00:49:26
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.
00:49:34
Speaker
Like, yeah, I get it.
00:49:35
Speaker
What difference does it really make?
00:49:38
Speaker
Like, you're screwing yourself over.
00:49:41
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
00:49:49
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
00:50:16
Speaker
How's it going to hurt your game by putting in a save, for Christ's sake?
00:50:21
Speaker
I get it.
00:50:23
Speaker
And finally, I'm playing through Look Outside.
00:50:27
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:50:28
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes.
00:50:29
Speaker
I'm excited that you're playing it.
00:50:32
Speaker
Whoa.
00:50:33
Speaker
This game is... Wow.
00:50:36
Speaker
This game is... Yeah, this is Game of the Year material.
In-Depth Game Analysis
00:50:40
Speaker
Not even in the sense of...
00:50:43
Speaker
The gameplay, the gameplay is fine.
00:50:46
Speaker
I feel like sometimes I'm putting up with the gameplay just to see what the next thing around the corner is.
00:50:53
Speaker
Right.
00:50:54
Speaker
Gameplay is like it's like just standard RPG maker, Japanese RPG style.
00:51:01
Speaker
Gaming, attack, run, defend, et cetera.
00:51:05
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.
00:51:19
Speaker
It's so gross.
00:51:21
Speaker
It's so gross.
00:51:22
Speaker
And it's only 16-bit level graphics, but it's still like...
00:51:27
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.
00:51:35
Speaker
I can't think of the last time a game left me that unsettled and upset.
00:51:39
Speaker
I'm not going to tell you guys what it is, but I will hint.
00:51:41
Speaker
It's when you feed one thing to another thing.
00:51:46
Speaker
Do you know what I'm talking about?
00:51:47
Speaker
I know what you're talking about.
00:51:48
Speaker
That I did that and I was like, okay, I think I need a break.
00:51:51
Speaker
I don't feel good.
00:51:52
Speaker
Like, I just I was really, really not happy about it.
00:51:55
Speaker
And I'll I'll tell you there's a way around that.
00:52:00
Speaker
I and that's the thing I was sure there was.
00:52:02
Speaker
I was like, I'm sure there is.
00:52:04
Speaker
But I'm playing this on easy.
00:52:05
Speaker
I'm getting of getting the vibe.
00:52:08
Speaker
No, no challenges, just vibes.
00:52:10
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:52:10
Speaker
That's that's yeah, that's I'm in my 40s now.
00:52:12
Speaker
That's what I do.
00:52:13
Speaker
And but God damn, this game is is vicious.
00:52:20
Speaker
It is a vicious little bitch like it is.
00:52:22
Speaker
It is the beasties and the things that happen and the paranoia.
00:52:29
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.
00:52:45
Speaker
So no.
00:52:46
Speaker
So like I got characters like that joined my party based on like who knocks at the door.
00:52:56
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.
00:53:05
Speaker
But some of them you're just you might on a playthrough just might never meet them.
00:53:08
Speaker
You know, I only just got my first one.
00:53:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:11
Speaker
I've been playing for a minute, too.
00:53:13
Speaker
I think, well, that's the thing.
00:53:14
Speaker
What is it?
00:53:15
Speaker
12 days, 14 days?
00:53:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:18
Speaker
And I 15.
00:53:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:20
Speaker
15.
00:53:20
Speaker
And I've been playing according to steam for about five hours.
00:53:23
Speaker
I think I'm four days in.
00:53:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:27
Speaker
And it's yeah, it tells you how much there is.
00:53:30
Speaker
But I did.
00:53:31
Speaker
I finally did get one companion, which is going to be interesting.
00:53:35
Speaker
I don't I haven't I haven't played with her yet.
00:53:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:39
Speaker
But damn, this is going to be this is this is it's it's such gold out of such a
00:53:49
Speaker
simple foundation.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:51
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.
00:54:01
Speaker
That stuff is important.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:54:03
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.
00:54:13
Speaker
That is my prediction.
00:54:14
Speaker
This is this is.
00:54:15
Speaker
This is a studio maker.
00:54:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:17
Speaker
As far as I'm concerned, this is some good shit.
00:54:19
Speaker
So yeah.
00:54:20
Speaker
And they have something else that they're working on.
00:54:23
Speaker
The guy who made Look Outside is has been working on something else for years.
00:54:27
Speaker
Excellent.
00:54:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:29
Speaker
Francis Columbe.
00:54:30
Speaker
Francis Columbe.
00:54:32
Speaker
Yep.
00:54:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:33
Speaker
So I'm looking for whatever I'm sold, whatever else you make.
00:54:39
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
00:54:50
Speaker
Ah, what am I playing?
00:54:51
Speaker
So, okay, I played and I beat post trauma.
00:54:58
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:54:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:59
Speaker
So that's a it's a little it's a little ditty.
00:55:02
Speaker
It's a six hour about a six hour long Resident Evil like, you know, survival horror game.
00:55:10
Speaker
has fixed camera.
00:55:13
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.
00:55:22
Speaker
But yeah, they did it.
00:55:25
Speaker
It was funny.
00:55:26
Speaker
It was like a lot of the criticisms I had of the gameplay were patched after I beat it.
00:55:32
Speaker
Of course.
00:55:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's hilarious.
00:55:35
Speaker
This looks fun.
00:55:35
Speaker
This looks really good.
00:55:37
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?
00:55:45
Speaker
Right, right.
00:55:46
Speaker
It's, um, it's so, um, the story seems like nonsense.
00:55:56
Speaker
It's one of those where it's like, oh, this is like evil within level nonsense.
00:56:01
Speaker
I get it.
00:56:01
Speaker
Right.
00:56:02
Speaker
Right.
00:56:03
Speaker
We're in a dream within a dream within a space of a of a god or whatever.
00:56:08
Speaker
And we're our main characters, a fat middle aged man named Roman.
00:56:13
Speaker
Love it.
00:56:14
Speaker
Love it.
00:56:14
Speaker
No notes.
00:56:15
Speaker
Love it.
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:16
Speaker
No, so done.
00:56:19
Speaker
But yeah, there's like combat combat and controls and all that stuff.
00:56:24
Speaker
Those were my main criticisms of the game, but it seems like the developer is actively working on patching those.
00:56:31
Speaker
So I don't have a lot to say there.
00:56:33
Speaker
I'd say if you're interested, if you're like a hardcore survival horror guy,
00:56:39
Speaker
or gal or them, non-binary friend, go and play post-drama because it's fine.
00:56:50
Speaker
It's perfectly acceptable.
00:56:52
Speaker
It's perfectly cromulent.
00:56:54
Speaker
And you don't get a lot.
00:56:57
Speaker
There's not enough survival horror games released in a year to really be... Beggars can't be choosers.
00:57:03
Speaker
Yes, 100%.
00:57:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:05
Speaker
So that's my tepid recommendation for post-trauma.
00:57:09
Speaker
Very nice.
00:57:10
Speaker
Not going to be on my game of the year list.
00:57:13
Speaker
I'll say that, but it's fine.
00:57:15
Speaker
Cool.
00:57:17
Speaker
By the way, game of the year list update.
00:57:18
Speaker
I have six games on my game of the year list right now.
00:57:24
Speaker
So the games that are rated as overwhelmingly positive on my game of the year list are the root trees are dead.
00:57:34
Speaker
Promise mascot agency.
00:57:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:37
Speaker
Look outside.
00:57:40
Speaker
You know what?
00:57:41
Speaker
Even though it's only 15 minutes, the children of clay.
00:57:44
Speaker
That is on my list too.
00:57:47
Speaker
That is, that is.
00:57:49
Speaker
It doesn't matter that it's only 15 minutes.
00:57:51
Speaker
It's like, it's a really affecting like 15 minute little thing.
00:57:54
Speaker
Those 15 minutes were fucking excellent.
00:57:57
Speaker
They punch.
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah, no.
00:57:58
Speaker
I'd rather have that.
00:57:59
Speaker
Well above their weight class.
00:58:01
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:58:02
Speaker
I'd take that over 80 hours of some bland, you know, open world bullshit.
00:58:08
Speaker
Blueprints.
00:58:11
Speaker
And the other game I want to talk about is Clara Obscure Expedition 33.
00:58:17
Speaker
Here we go.
00:58:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:58:18
Speaker
So, okay.
00:58:20
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.
00:58:36
Speaker
It is unapologetically French.
00:58:39
Speaker
Your main character in the English version is voiced by Charlie Cox, who is Daredevil.
00:58:45
Speaker
can't go wrong there.
00:58:46
Speaker
His face is clearly modeled after Robert Pattinson.
00:58:50
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.
00:59:00
Speaker
Right, right.
00:59:01
Speaker
And Charlie Cox's voice.
00:59:02
Speaker
The other characters, your...
00:59:10
Speaker
Myelle, who is your ward, is voiced by Lauren English.
00:59:19
Speaker
I can't remember her name, but she voiced Shadowheart in Watergate 3.
00:59:24
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:59:26
Speaker
So turn based JRPG, very persona like, but it has real time elements, quick time inputs for battle.
00:59:37
Speaker
So that are parrying and dodging or jumping.
00:59:43
Speaker
So
00:59:45
Speaker
some enemy attacks, enemies will come up and they'll start their attack.
00:59:48
Speaker
And if you time if you time the parry right, you'll parry it and you'll do a counterattack.
00:59:53
Speaker
And if you're really good at parries, you can actually trivialize a lot of fights in the game.
00:59:59
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.
01:00:12
Speaker
OK, OK.
01:00:13
Speaker
And, uh, there's also dodging, which is easier to do than parrying.
01:00:19
Speaker
The window for pulling off a dodge is a lot wider.
01:00:22
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so, uh, basically the, the gist of the plot is, uh,
01:00:30
Speaker
It's a Belle Epoque version of France, of Paris.
01:00:37
Speaker
It is set 67 years after some massive calamity involving a creature known as the paintress.
01:00:45
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.
01:00:56
Speaker
She started at 100.
01:00:57
Speaker
And as they find out, as she's counting down,
01:01:01
Speaker
the number that she's writing is a limit to human lifespan.
01:01:07
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...
01:01:23
Speaker
Thus, everybody who is over 33 and up is now deceased.
01:01:31
Speaker
So it's a real powerful opening to kind of introduce you to that world.
01:01:38
Speaker
You are a member of Expedition 33.
01:01:41
Speaker
So every year, the What Remains of Society
01:01:48
Speaker
sends out a group to the islands that the paintress is on this landmass that she inhabits.
01:02:00
Speaker
No one has ever returned from one of the expeditions, but they send them out every year regardless.
01:02:07
Speaker
So you're a member of Expedition 33 and you're there to try to figure out a way to stop the paintress.
01:02:14
Speaker
So that's kind of like the long and short of it.
01:02:16
Speaker
Sounds excellent.
01:02:18
Speaker
I've heard good things.
01:02:20
Speaker
It's really fun.
01:02:21
Speaker
I'm having a blast.
01:02:22
Speaker
And the writing and the voice acting is tremendous.
01:02:26
Speaker
There's these creatures called gestrals, which are like, I guess it's some sort of French fairy tale type thing.
01:02:40
Speaker
But
01:02:41
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.
01:02:53
Speaker
And when you talk to the gestural, its only response is this is fine.
01:03:02
Speaker
I like it.
01:03:03
Speaker
I like that.
01:03:04
Speaker
That's a good reference.
01:03:05
Speaker
That's terrific.
01:03:06
Speaker
That's a good use.
01:03:07
Speaker
I like it.
01:03:08
Speaker
It's a good use.
01:03:10
Speaker
There's a creature I was just talking to that SGA who is supposed to help you get across the ocean.
01:03:19
Speaker
And he's like, you must face off against my nemesis.
01:03:25
Speaker
And they're like, and your your main character.
01:03:31
Speaker
It's like, where are they?
01:03:34
Speaker
Are they located within a cave filled with nephrons?
01:03:37
Speaker
And nephrons are like the evil demon things that we have to fight our way through.
01:03:42
Speaker
And the guy asking you is like, no, they're right over there.
01:03:48
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:03:53
Speaker
It's like, he is my nemesis and his name is Francois.
01:03:58
Speaker
He's over there.
01:04:00
Speaker
I like that.
01:04:00
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:01
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:02
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.
01:04:13
Speaker
That just like makes you laugh.
01:04:15
Speaker
That's wonderful.
01:04:16
Speaker
I love that.
01:04:17
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.
01:04:27
Speaker
I love that.
01:04:28
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:04:29
Speaker
So you have to have that really.
01:04:31
Speaker
You have to have that.
01:04:32
Speaker
You really have to have that.
01:04:34
Speaker
So Claire Obscura Expedition 33.
01:04:36
Speaker
I'm only, you know, nearly seven hours into it, but I'm I'm digging it.
Conclusion and Humorous Mango Tree Discussion
01:04:43
Speaker
I'm digging it.
01:04:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's it.
01:04:46
Speaker
That'll do it for tonight's episode.
01:04:48
Speaker
Thank you all so much for listening.
01:04:52
Speaker
If you can, go and follow us on Blue Sky.
01:04:56
Speaker
Go follow us on Patreon.
01:04:58
Speaker
And, you know, go to all the places.
01:05:05
Speaker
Now, Phil, I had a...
01:05:11
Speaker
I feel like you might know how to deal with this.
01:05:14
Speaker
There is a rock that has fallen from space and landed in the mango tree.
01:05:23
Speaker
It's kind of a purplish color.
01:05:27
Speaker
This purple color has come from outer space and it's hit the mango tree and now the mangoes are...
01:05:37
Speaker
I don't know, uh, coming to life.
01:05:39
Speaker
Uh, so what do I do here?
01:05:43
Speaker
I think the key thing that you have to remember is that all mangoes are inherently homophobic.
01:05:52
Speaker
Uh, so if you show up there, you have to come with an army of