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Episode 14 - Q&A: Pollen Count Edition
1.9k Plays6 months ago
Roses falls in love with Disco Elysium and Matt goes frickin' ham discussing Marvel Midnight Suns. We take a ton of audience questions and discuss a variety of topics. Text Adventures, games that we hated after we loved but thought we'd hate, "That doesn't work!", genre distinctions in games, "The Power of Cheese", and an EXHAUSTIVE dissection of Detective Games.
Michael's amazing fan art: https://imgur.com/a/KnLj7Wg
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Disco Elysium
- Midnight Marvel Suns
- Breath of the Wild
- Majora’s Mask
- Siberia
- A Space for the Unbound
- The Last Door
- The Legend of Skye
- Contradiction
- Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus
- The Cat Lady
- Burnhouse Lane
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Softporn Adventure
- Portal & Portal II
- Sanitarium
- The Monkey Island Games
- The Dig
- The Invincible
- Chants of Sennaar
- Strange Horticulture
- Papers, Please
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Kathy Rain
- Mixed Up Fairy Tales
- Journey Man Project 3
- The Laura Bow Games
- Return of the Obra Dinn
- Case of the Golden Idol
- Paradise Killer
- The Sexy Brutale
- LA Noir
- The D'avekki Studios Games
(btw these are relatively in order, but it's unlikely we'll ever go through the exhaustive work of putting timestamps on our YouTube videos, so... sorry about that. BUT if ya'll wanna do it in the comments, we'll shout you out on the show)
Thanks for listening!
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Transcript
Cheating in Disco Elysium
00:00:00
Speaker
Man it's it's really playing with my OCD though because I know in an RPG, you're not just going to get everything and level up every single stat you kind of have to strike a balance. Yeah, and decide what kind of character you want to be.
00:00:15
Speaker
but i'm like no i want every stat how do i get every stat i know that's that's why i did the cheat that's why i cheated so i so that i have every stat like you can you can go in and you can uh edit your save file to increase your stats you can increase all your stats to 20
00:00:37
Speaker
You cheated at Disco Elysium? I told you I've beaten it two times already in the like way past and so I was like you know I want to see everything in this game.
00:00:49
Speaker
I didn't know you cheated, I thought you just did it. No, there's so much that you can't see, that you won't see if you don't, like it's so weird because I guess in any given playthrough you're supposed to see about, you know, what, like a fourth of the game. Sure. So everything I do, it's just pop up after pop up after pop up as like different skills of mine are talking to me.
00:01:16
Speaker
but you cheated at Disco Elysium. I'm recording this. Everyone, Matt cheated at Disco Elysium.
00:01:25
Speaker
I highly suggest cheating. Okay, I suggest your first playthrough. You don't cheat at Disco Elysium. I highly suggest everybody who plays Disco Elysium cheats at it at least once. Like everyone should bump all of their stats up to 20 and then just go through and just like succeed at every check. It rules. Great. We're such, this is a gaming podcast and we're like, you know what? Fuck it. Just cheat.
Meet the Hosts
00:02:15
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Pushing up Rose is here. Welcome back to Save Your Game. As always, with me, the brilliant, the clever, the very special extraordinaire, Matt Aucamp. Hey, Matt. Hey, I thought maybe there was another guy on the podcast. You're like, surely not. You're like, with me, the brilliant, the clever, the extraordinaire. And then another call opens up, like another name pops up in the call. And somebody's like,
00:02:20
Speaker
Hey, games are meant to be played.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yes, I am Raphael. Thank you for having me on your podcast. And he's like, here I am. Like, yep, that's it. And then you just hang up on me. I don't know how this guy Matt got in here. Let's just cancel the call. How's it going? I'm doing okay. My allergies have been really wild now lately.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's spring, baby.
00:03:14
Speaker
this is a this is a this is a pollen count for the ages breaking news on the savior game podcast pollen count very high highest it's been in a very long time pollen count so high this is a high pollen count you guys want to see a high pollen count you got one right here who else is suffering from springtime allergies I'm mucus mad this is this is
00:03:53
Speaker
Like, because pushing, pushing up, so is there a P? Is there a yucky word? Pushing up pollen! Pushing up pollen! We still got an R. We still got an R. Wait, pollen up, pollen up roses. This sucks. This is the worst content we've ever given the people. I think it's the best content. I think you're wrong. Have you been playing anything lately?
00:04:06
Speaker
You can do it, I believe in you.
First Impressions of Disco Elysium
00:04:17
Speaker
Yes, I have, Matt. Okay.
00:04:21
Speaker
Did you hear my voice start to waver? I feel like it wavered for a second from excitement, like a dog tail wagging. I couldn't tell if it was excitement or like you've been playing something incredibly harrowing. Yeah, it's both. I've been playing Disco Elysium. I've never played it. And I think
00:04:43
Speaker
I think the reason why, very candidly, is because the fandom got a little bit much for a short spell there. You know what I mean? And I have friends who played it too, and they're like, yeah, it got a little bit much for a little while. I am surprised.
00:05:01
Speaker
how big of a fandom this game builds, right? Because it like it has, you know, it has its fans in adventure games and like extreme fans of RPGs, right? Because it's kind of both. But it also has a fandom amongst like capital G gamers, like the real gamey gamer crowd. Yeah. And usually they don't like to read this much.
00:05:29
Speaker
Right. It's maybe the heaviest narrative game that I've ever come across. It's very dialogue heavy, which is fine because it's also it's game heavy too. There's so many tasks. There's so many. I'm so distressed. I'm like every time I text you about disco, it's not like I'm having so much fun. It's always like I am so anxious right now.
00:05:57
Speaker
You're just like, I read a letter and died. I don't know if I should do this. Can you lose at this game? Can you play it wrong? I don't know. I haven't been reading anything about it online. I've only been talking to friends about it that have played it and like it.
00:06:14
Speaker
And I do really love it. It's unlike anything that I've ever played. But you're right. It seems like I'm enjoying the game, but I'm distressed a lot of the time. And I think it's because my poor neurodivergent brain is like, oh no, you got to do everything. You can't just, you got to be the best cop. Kim's got to like you. You got to do every task. And there's a lot of tasks that you can do in this game.
00:06:44
Speaker
Which is kind of why I think I like it so much is beyond. Obviously, it has a main story that you could follow. But kind of like every RPG ever made, you have side quests that you can decide to do or not do. You don't have to do them. I have accepted all of them thus far. Yeah. Well, so, you know, you say like you want to be the best cop. And I agree. I feel the same way when I'm playing the game. But there's a push and pull.
00:07:11
Speaker
Because you want to be the best cop, but you also want to be the best force for anarchy Because those are the two things that the main character I was about to say his name, but I think that's actually a spoiler Yeah, let's not say his name
00:07:25
Speaker
But those are the two things you want, you are as a person in that game as like a force of pure chaos and a cop and the two things are diametrically opposed or so you think. But we're trying to make it work. Like I'm trying to make it work. So every time it's like, okay, I could help this little kid sell drugs or I could confiscate the drugs and I kind of want to do both at the same time.
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's rough. There's some tough decision making. And I've never played a digital game with dice
Marvel Midnight Suns Review
00:08:02
Speaker
rolls. I've played D&D with actual dice. I've never played a game that has randomized digital dice roll, which is so brilliant to me. I really do love it. I love the excitement of passing a dice check, just like in a tabletop RPG. It's like, oh, a successful roll.
00:08:23
Speaker
Oh, I can sing karaoke. I'm so excited. And I like the mundane things you need to pass to be able to do them successfully. I needed to pass a dice check to sing karaoke successfully, you know, which I did. I had a very high dressed in the most ridiculous clothes that gives me better stats. And I just went for it.
00:08:47
Speaker
And I had him look at his partner and be like, look, Kim, I'm doing karaoke. I'm so excited. He's like, yeah, I see that. In the middle of the song, you can say that right before you start. Oh, OK. You can either start singing or you can kind of, you know, like look around, see who's there. And I look directly at Kim. And then afterwards, I dedicated the song to Kim and he liked it. Oh, oh.
00:09:17
Speaker
So that's what I've been playing. We'll talk more in depth about it, I'm sure. Let's just say I can see why people either quite love it or just don't want to deal with such heavy narrative and heavy dialogue. But personally, I'm enjoying it. I know I sound stressed out, but that's just my brain for you. And that's the proper way to play Disco Elysium. I think it is supposed to be a...
00:09:45
Speaker
is supposed to be a harrowing, not to use that word again in the same, but it's supposed to be a harrowing experience. Also, one of the funniest games I've ever played, which is such a juxtaposition, and I'll explain more in a future episode, but in the meantime, Matt, what have you been playing? Oh, I've been playing Disco Elysium. I know, we've both been playing it. That's amazing. Again, we are going to talk about it.
00:10:14
Speaker
Uh, I don't know less than you judging by your steam play time. Cause I've played this. I played this before. Listen, no, I did accidentally leave it running for a while. Just on my desktop. So I don't know how accurate that play time is. But I started a new game and got a little ways into it and realized that.
00:10:38
Speaker
Like I played the game before, so I knew a lot of this stuff and I had a thought. I was like, you know what, I wanna see what happens when you pass every check and then I wanna see what happens when you fail every check. So I went in and I edited my stats so that basically I pass every single check I come to, except for the ones that are impossible.
00:11:06
Speaker
you're saying that you booted up every stat. And so that must mean that you're constantly getting perception things and updates and like voices, like what? That's not overwhelming. But I can skip the stuff that I know, right? Like, so I know all the, I know so much of the main story anyway, I can skim that stuff and then I'm basically only reading all this new stuff.
00:11:33
Speaker
Plus, the voice acting is incredible. So you don't even have to read all the time if you don't want. You can just sit back and listen to these incredible voices. We are talking about this so much for a game that we are about to go really deep on. Now, it's OK. There's so much more to talk about, I promise. I have thoughts. I have thoughts.
00:11:53
Speaker
Good kind, not like T-H-O-T thoughts. I've got a collection of thoughts over here. I've got a collection of thoughts there. And they all want to talk about disco Elysium.
00:12:08
Speaker
So I am, I'm really enjoying it and doing it this way. And then I am going to go back through with all my stats. Cause I didn't know this. You don't have to put stats in everything. You don't have to use up all your points. You can set all your stats to one and then click create character. And you're just in the game and horrible at everything.
00:12:33
Speaker
And I don't know how one- You should look back on that, because I want to know, honestly, if you can, quote, fail. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, you can die. You can die from low morale and you can die from low health. Health, yeah. So I do not know how you keep alive. Right. With your stats that low, but it'll be a fun challenge trying to find out. So I've been playing Disco Elysium. I finally, and this was, I could have beaten this.
00:13:03
Speaker
weeks ago, but I just I was being a completionist. I just beat Marvel Midnight Suns. Oh, you beat it. I'm surprised. I'm surprised because you were super into that game. I would have thought you would have played it five times by now. No, I I was playing it. It was again for a while my go to game, as I've said on the show before, but
00:13:30
Speaker
I was just, I was living in the last, like I had the last quest ready to go. And I was just playing missions over and over again, just going through and like playing missions and getting resources and upgrading things and making all my guys as good as they can be.
00:13:48
Speaker
I love doing stuff like that. But the end of Marvel Midnight Suns is amazing. And since I'm going to kind of spoil it, since this is not an adventure game podcast and not a strategy game podcast. So I don't think many people will care. But your final mission, you get to bring every hero along.
00:14:10
Speaker
rather than playing just three characters per mission, there's like these mechanics where you can rotate characters mid-fight. So you still only have three at a time, but you have, you find these like abilities to switch. So it's really cool. Like you're Wolverine and Captain America and Hulk, and then suddenly you're Ghost Rider and magic and I don't know.
00:14:34
Speaker
Iron Man, right? And it's just so cool. It ends so well. And I know I've heard the game didn't do that great financially. Yeah, that's too bad. So we probably won't see another one. But man, I really hope
00:14:52
Speaker
that this was like a passion project for the studio. I mean, the studio's Firaxis and the publisher's 2K. So I really doubt a passion project is going to get through, but I am very disappointed that it didn't do better. And I'll be very disappointed when inevitably it never gets a sequel.
00:15:12
Speaker
Oh, it's you guys know what to do. Go try to get a sequel started. I this should have been and granted twenty twenty two was a crazy year for games. Right. Was that.
00:15:27
Speaker
Oh yeah, 2022 was Elden Ring, and God of War Ragnarok, and like, inscription vampire survivors. I get why this was not a big part of everybody's like game of the year discussions in 2022.
00:15:45
Speaker
But it was really the luck of the draw to you, you know, it's same thing with movies. What are you competing with? Even if it's a good movie, you're competing with the best like upper echelons of movies. Yeah, it's tough, you know, it just didn't stand a chance, but it bums me out because it's just it's just so good. I'm glad you liked it.
00:16:09
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Even those not as popular games will have a fan. But you never know. It might it might in the future get a cult following like Grim Fandango. That did very bad for the same reasons. Other games kind of trumped it at the time. Didn't very bad commercially. But now look at it. It's definitely a cult classic.
00:16:32
Speaker
But I think since it's Marvel, right? What they'll just do is they'll be like, okay, that approach didn't work. Let's try a new approach on our games, right?
Listener Q&A Session
00:16:42
Speaker
Like it doesn't seem like the sort of thing where somebody, like if this was its own property, I could see that happening. It getting a cult following and then people advocating for it. But again,
00:16:53
Speaker
since it's Marvel, they're just gonna be like, all right, Midnight Suns didn't work, scrap that, and think of something brand new, and that pums me out, because also, as I'm playing this game, I'm like, an X-Men game would be perfect for this, because the video game world has never figured out how to do the X-Men, right? There's so many personalities and so many unique powers that it's,
00:17:21
Speaker
People have always, and it requires a team. The X-Men aren't as good solo as they are together. And it's hard to juggle that in gameplay. But this is like the perfect way to do it. And it would have been great.
00:17:40
Speaker
All right, I'll stop. I'll stop going on about it. But guys, Matt is a huge X-Men fan. If you didn't put that together yet, you might have put it together. I don't know. But if it needs reiterating very big X-Men fan. Yeah, I doubt there's a person listening to this that has read more X-Men comics than me. And if you think you have, email us and we'll compete.
00:18:03
Speaker
That's a big, all right, guys, you hear it here first. Matt is challenging you. The amount of X-Men I've read is nearly unconscionable. I think you would have to be the hosts of Jay and Miles, Explain the X-Men, that podcast. You would have to be them to have read more X-Men comics than me. Lord.
00:18:30
Speaker
Okay, with that note, I'm glad this gauntlet was thrown down. Yeah, I threw a gauntlet. I can't wait to check our email to see if any of that's challenging. What would we even say? They'd be like, I've read a thousand, and I'd be like, I've read 2,000, right? How would you even quantify? I have no idea, but I'm going to give it some thought to see how we can prove. It's such an impossible challenge, yeah.
00:18:58
Speaker
I'm just going to have to grill you on every single comic and be like, so this one, tell me the whole story. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. We just like bring somebody on and have a trivia off. All right. I am going to start our, uh, interstitial music because then we're going to answer some questions. Oh, hell yeah.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's another it's our second Q&A session. We got some great questions. Thank you for writing them in. And we're going to be answering them after these messages. That makes no sense. We've got the instruments of the song are going to be playing one series of messages for you.
00:19:56
Speaker
Everyone, we're back. I'm pushing up roses with me, Matt Aucamp. Matt, how was your break? It's me, Matt. My break was good. I took, I took a hat off. Cool. Cause I got hot and then I got uncomfortable. So I put the hat back on and then I got hot again and I took the hat off. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. How was your break?
00:20:19
Speaker
Good, I thought about Disco Elysium. I thought about what I should be doing. It was stressful, but now we're back here, so. That's what breaks are supposed to be. Breaks are supposed to be stressful. Yeah, they're supposed to be very stressful. That's what people don't tell you is that work is supposed to be relaxing and breaks are supposed to be stressful. But now we can kind of relax and be a little less formal today because we're going to be answering your questions.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'm super stoked. I really love doing Q&A episodes. Good, I'm glad. So do you want me to just dive right in and read our first question? Yeah, dive right in. Just dive into the deep end. All right, deep end. A good Brent comma dogs says.
Adventure Games Insights
00:21:07
Speaker
We know your level of interests can cloud how you receive a game. What adventure games have you been hyped for that disappointed you at first, but were better in hindsight or replay? Conversely, were there any you had no interest in or had low expectations for that impressed you at first, but then didn't live up to the initial impressions? Okay. Okay, so wait, the first one is you started playing it, you're like,
00:21:36
Speaker
I don't like this, but I'll push through and then you're like, I really like this. His third, her second question is a triple fake out where you're like, I don't think I'm going to like this. Oh, I like this. Oh wait. I don't like this. I'm not sure. Cause I read the question prior. I don't know, honestly, if I have an answer for the first or sorry, for the second part, I do have an answer for the first one though. Right. Okay.
00:22:03
Speaker
So would you like to answer first, or would you like me to answer? I want you to answer first. I have not looked at these questions. This will become apparent throughout this episode, but I have not looked at the questions first. So I'm going to be answering everything on the fly. So I might need to take some space. I would say that the closest thing that happened to me that I was very hyped for
00:22:30
Speaker
and kind of disappointed me was probably Breath of the Wild. I had a very hard time getting into it, which is weird because that game is amazing. It's one of my favorite games now of all time, but I was very hyped. I'm always hyped for a Zelda game, but you know, your mileage may vary. There's a lot of Zelda games and some are better than the others. And I think what happened was I just wasn't
00:22:54
Speaker
like the general public I wasn't used to Zelda suddenly becoming Skyrim like this very open world and I was never really an Elder Scrolls fan so I was like I don't know but but obviously I played it somebody convinced me to play it and it wasn't just better
00:23:11
Speaker
in hindsight, it was the best in hindsight. It's it is absolutely one of my favorite games now. It's my favorite Zelda game, even more than maybe Ocarina. And yeah, that's my answer. What about you, Matt? So you've inspired me to also pick a Zelda game because I when I was young, I.
00:23:37
Speaker
played and beat Ocarina of Time and I loved it like everybody and then Majora's Mask came out and I was super hyped for it and I turned it on and it was one of my early experiences of being like
00:23:54
Speaker
Oh, this doesn't feel as, it doesn't feel like they put as much effort into this game as the last one, is what my initial feelings were. It was like, I feel like I was too young to understand this, but my feelings were like, oh, they just reused all the assets. It feels like they just, they took the game,
00:24:19
Speaker
Ocarina of Time and just like remixed it, like just tried to make a different story out of it. And I put it away for years. And not that long ago, just like three or four years ago, I picked it back up and played it again. And it is so good. It's one of my favorite Zelda games. It is so well written. It is beautifully structured. I understand why people have
00:24:46
Speaker
trouble with it because it is very different than any other Zelda game. And it requires a certain type of thought process that I totally understand is hard for people. But. Yeah, I. Absolutely love it. It is. It might be my favorite Zelda game. This question comes from Matthew, not. Oh, OK.
00:25:14
Speaker
But Matthew, have you ever played any of the games in the Siberia series? That's what introduced me to adventure games. Okay, so, um,
00:25:24
Speaker
No. Oh, really? Yes, truly. I do have them. I have all I have the Siberia games. I did. I made an attempt and I don't really know what happened there. I don't know if I didn't like the graphic style. If I just felt that it was desolate.
00:25:44
Speaker
I'm not sure I'm really not sure what happened there, but I didn't play them when they came out. So I keep in mind, I have no nostalgia for them. I so like that happens, right? It's it's kind of like people who grew up with like the Princess Bride versus someone who's never seen it. It's never going to live up to their expectation. And I think that's that's what happened. But I know they're beloved. Matt, have you played them? Interesting. Yeah, I have.
00:26:11
Speaker
played Siberia 1 and 2. I'm trying to remember if I played Siberia 3. I'm actually going to pull up the wiki to see because I remember the last moment of the last Siberia game I played. Yeah, okay. I played 1 and 2. I did not play 3. You know,
00:26:34
Speaker
There's some interesting puzzles. The world is interesting, but it is, it's got all those problems that early 2000s adventure games had, right? It is, as you say, Rose is very desolate. It's a little clunky too. I feel like I remember it being desolate and a little bit clunky. And that's kind of, that will put me off of an adventure game real quick. It's pretty clunky.
00:27:04
Speaker
the dialogue is not great, you know, similar to, similar to like keepsake or what's another game from that era? The longest journey or something like that. I was gonna say maybe the longest journey, yeah. It's like the dialogue is a little clunky and a little maybe poorly translated too. And,
00:27:33
Speaker
There are some really amazing moments. The last moment of Siberia 2 is incredible. And you know, the last moment of Siberia 1 is incredible too. Kate Walker makes a very like huge decision at the end and it's like, fuck yeah. But
00:27:51
Speaker
the game moment to moment is just really difficult to stomach, because it's just so slow. And it's the sort of, again, it has that problem of the early 2000 adventure games where you wanna walk between two locations, you have to pass between like nine screens. It's like you're just walking through from like
00:28:16
Speaker
you're outside a gate. You're like on a street and then you see a gate and you see like a fountain beyond the gate. So then you walk towards the gate and now suddenly you're in another screen where you have to walk through the gate. Now you're on another screen where you're just inside the gate. Now you're on another screen where you're on a path leading to the fountain. Now you're on another screen with a fountain. And it's like, you could have just, there was nothing between those two places. You could have just taken me from the street to the fountain.
00:28:45
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm sure it was going for something atmospheric right but again, it's not The game or story itself. It's more like you said that kind of 2000s Issue that maybe it's kind of a product of its time Maybe if I had played it then it would have been different One of my favorite games is King's Quest 3 and that's no one's favorite game and it's because I played it when I was very young and so it was like a product of the time that I was very very excited about but
00:29:15
Speaker
I actually love hearing about what got people into adventure games, so I'm glad that you like them so much, Matthew. This one's from Eric. He says,
00:29:33
Speaker
He says, have either of you played A Space for the Unbound? It's a game from an Indonesian studio that came out last year and it's one of my favorite adventure games I've played in years, mostly due to the story. He'd love to hear his deep dive on it sometime. Did you play Space for the Unbound?
00:29:49
Speaker
I'm not even, I'm gonna be very frank with you. I'm not familiar with this one. I know it seems like I know every adventure game, guys. I know I get it. I don't. Yeah, I'm not familiar with this by name, but I am gonna look it up real quick. It is a game that I own on Steam. I have also not played it. I have an interest in it. It's very well reviewed.
00:30:14
Speaker
Oh, it's very, it's very interesting looking. Maybe it is based on this. The cover art does not speak too highly for it. It looks like, yeah, you know, it looks like one of those.
00:30:29
Speaker
dime a dozen point and click games that people but then when you go and when you open up the page it looks really it's like interesting pixel art and yeah there's like it looks like there's combat in it there's a it seems like there's a lot of facets to this game
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah. So hear you me with adventure games. I try to ignore some of the cover art because it doesn't like historically, it doesn't always speak. Well, let's be honest. Do you do you remember the first like that? Or sorry. Do you remember the Nintendo version for like King's quest five? It's awful. It makes no sense. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but there's literally a cover for one of the King's quest games. That's just a dude in Knight armor.
00:31:15
Speaker
you know, all those times that King Graham wore knight armor. So yeah, I don't I don't judge adventure games by their covers or by their cover art. I immediately looked at the screen caps. And yeah, I, I'm very interested in this. I like this suggestion a lot. This person wants to be addressed as mop. That's very cute. I feel like I feel like I can name my next cat mop.
00:31:43
Speaker
So mop asks, are there any times in adventure games where you wish you could do something personally reasonable that the protagonist, for whatever reason, refused to go along with?
00:31:54
Speaker
Uh, I feel like this happens a lot in adventure games. Even if I feel like I've even had a very, an experience I just had, and I'm trying to think of what it was. I think it might've been in the last door.
00:32:09
Speaker
The answer to this is, yeah, I've had this happen so many times, and it is an incredibly frustrating thing in an adventure game. Yeah, it's the that doesn't work problem. Yeah, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. Have you played Discworld? Because that game encompasses your question quite well, Mark.
00:32:31
Speaker
Right, I've complained about this very recently with the Legend of Sky. There are, and it does have a lot of unique dialogue for these things, but it is incredibly frustrating as like, you need to cut something open and you have a hand saw and a knife and an arrow and she just has a reason for why none of those will work.
00:32:56
Speaker
right and or you know you need to you need to grab something that's a little out of your reach and you have a fireplace poker and you have uh you like whatever you have like a series of stick like things and she's like that's not long enough that's not strong enough that won't reach and it's just like you reminded me you reminded me of what i'm thinking of but go on
00:33:17
Speaker
So I really like the Legend of Sky. It feels a lot like a lost LucasArts game in so many ways. It's got just the right sort of feeling for it. But that is a thing that I find just so exhausting because you're not put into a world that makes sense to you. You're put into a world with rules that you don't know.
00:33:42
Speaker
So it's perfectly reasonable for you to say, oh, I need to reach this thing. It's up high. I'm going to use the fireplace poker to reach it. Yeah. Yeah. Until she says, oh, it's not long enough. And then you're like, OK, well, I don't then I don't know what's long enough.
00:33:58
Speaker
You want to hear my more specific answer? Go ahead. There is, and it was the last door and you've reminded me with this kind of stick analogy here. In the last door, there's something in a very large cage that you can't reach. And in your inventory, you have like long things to help you to reach it. I don't remember if it was a fire poker, but I had something.
00:34:22
Speaker
And I couldn't use it. I'm like, I just don't understand why I can't. Logically, I should be able to do this. I don't know why I can't do this. You have to roll up a piece of paper. The thing you're trying to get is a feather. You have to roll up a piece of paper, blow through it, and then it flitters to the ground. And I'm like, I couldn't use my stick.
00:34:45
Speaker
I had the same problem. I had the same problem with that puzzle. I think either I looked up a walkthrough or I just did the use everything on everything. No, I did look up. I looked up a walkthrough because I was like, that sucks. I had to use everything on everything. That is absolutely what I did for that.
00:35:03
Speaker
It's one of the biggest criticisms in adventure games, I would say, is the, that won't work. What were we gonna call that? The that won't work idea. We should call it something, right? Well, I don't know. Yeah, it should have a name that Francisco Gonzalez gives a really good talk on this at a recent adventure, or was it Adventure X? Yeah, it was last year's Adventure X, I think. It might be, yeah, it probably was, yeah.
00:35:29
Speaker
Well, we'll work on it. Hey, if every, anyone wants to email us, I'd give it like for a nickname for the, that doesn't work problem. Let us know. We'd love to. I'd truly, I would love to hear it. Okay. So this one is from Dana brain. Dana brain's written us before, right?
00:35:50
Speaker
I don't know. Have you, Dana? Write again to let us know. Write again to let us know if you wrote us in a previous. Dana, keep writing us, please. Yeah. Okay. Dana Brain asks if either of us have played the Cat Lady.
00:36:10
Speaker
I couldn't do it. I could not. I did play quite a bit of it. The Cat Lady just by nature is a depressing one. That's not bad. I believe video games are art, and I don't believe that they need to be enjoyed in any conventional way. Yeah, because as we know, artists suffer.
00:36:34
Speaker
artists suffer. Look, I'm anxious about Disco Elysium right now. And yet here I am. The cat lady had some things that that hit a little too close to home for me. So it's actually it's interesting. It's the perfect game for me to have an opinion on and to to play. And I love the artwork. I love it. It's it's it's using like my favorite color palettes and everything kind of this red, black and white.
00:37:02
Speaker
situation, but I, I mean, I could, I could give it a retry when I'm in a better head space, but that's a rough one. Cat lady's a rough one. What about you, Matt? So I have played burn house lane. Oh yeah. You met, you've mentioned that before. Yeah.
00:37:17
Speaker
And I loved Burnhouse Lane beginning to end. I thought Burnhouse Lane was a masterpiece and it was incredibly disturbing and terrifying and weird. It has a very similar, you know, it has a very similar look to it.
00:37:36
Speaker
And as I was playing Burnhouse Lane, my partner began playing the Cat Lady and she loved it as much as I loved Burnhouse Lane.
00:37:49
Speaker
and she really wanted me to play it. So I went to play Cat Lady and it felt like an under polished version of Burnhouse Lane. And I know- Oh, that's too bad that you played that first then. I know, I know. And I know it's not. I know it has value. And I think I was waiting for Burnhouse Lane to burn off before I went back to Cat Lady so that I can experience it like it's fresh and experience it for what it is.
00:38:18
Speaker
That's legit though, it does happen. Sometimes if you play something that was a little more technically advanced first, and then you kind of go back, it feels like you can be backtracking, but I do think the Cat Lady is worth your retry if you ever watch that. These Harvester games, games, that's the developer Harvester games, they are- Oh, I thought you were talking about Harvester, the best adventure game in the world. Go on.
00:38:46
Speaker
Don't worry, one day we'll do a deep dive on Harvester. I would love to do a deep dive on Harvester. We should dedicate an entire episode to Harvester and talk about it for like three hours. Let's do it. Let's go. We could spend three hours on why the mom responds to that one word that way. Yes, we can. Most people won't know what we're talking about, but the few people who do are going good. A few people will. They're going to be losing it.
00:39:16
Speaker
These Harvester Games games are really, they're just really intense. Yes, they're intense. In every single way.
00:39:26
Speaker
Yeah, I do want to play The Cat Lady. I want to go back to it and play the whole thing. So going on the recommendation list. We got two now. Space for the Unbound, The Cat Lady. So our next question is about the cheese puzzle from King's Quest 5 from Cory. Oh, I'm so excited. I could talk about the cheese puzzle for way too long.
00:39:51
Speaker
I see a lot of people talking about the King's Quest V Puzzle to Power the Wand and wondering why cheese does the trick. I'm pretty sure it's a pop culture reference to an ad campaign around that time where the slogan was, Behold the Power of Cheese. And that's very interesting. I feel like I do remember that because this is our generation. I remember Behold the Power of Cheese. Do you?
00:40:14
Speaker
like in a very vague way. I remember the phrase, behold the power of cheese, but I do not remember seeing the ad. Right, it's definitely something that I have to dig deep into my brain that's obviously been like hidden for a very long time. That's a really cool association that, who is this question asker?
00:40:44
Speaker
Courtney, that is a really cool association that Courtney made. I would never have thought about that. That's the problem with doing pop culture jokes. When they come out of context, if the reference isn't basically like sighted in some way, you can lose it completely and it can just become a nothing.
00:41:12
Speaker
This is sort of like an anthropology thing. There's an example of this in tattoos, right? A lot of people get pop culture tattoos and they have been for, since, you know, the beginning of tattoos, which is the beginning of mankind. So they, you know, people get tattoos about something in their culture and
00:41:31
Speaker
When anthropologists look back, they see a woman on a person's arm or something like that. And they're like, oh, that must have been that person's true love. And there have been people that have gone back. There's tattoo historians who go back and like, okay, this assumption was wrong. This tattoo this person had was on a box of raisins at the time.
00:42:01
Speaker
Right? This person was referencing something silly from their culture in the whatever 1800s or something that we have since forgotten about. And now for the rest of time, nobody's going to know what that thing is. But yeah, it's interesting when you put things like that in art.
00:42:20
Speaker
I'm looking it up, and I'm seeing a Behold the Power of Cheese commercial from 1997. I'm having a hard time finding anything prior to that, and King's Questify was either 90 or 91, so I don't know if this predates the power of cheese.
00:42:42
Speaker
But I love the correlation to be honest with you. I think that's so funny. If you want to know my personal theory, this is just a personal theory. I think the cheese was moldy and the mold when it hit whatever liquid was in the wand machine. I think that's what I don't know. It makes no sense. I can't make it make sense. However, if the power of cheese campaign was in that time or before that time, that makes me think.
00:43:12
Speaker
Courtney, I really love that you put this thought into it. I love that, yeah. And I'm really sorry to say that I think you're wrong. Because, yeah, I am looking at forums by people that are obsessed with advertisements. And some people are talking about the Behold the Power of Cheese ad campaign. And it seems like it's all late 90s.
00:43:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think it is. I think it is later. But I still love I just I just love that core. I think that was I think that's extremely thoughtful to have even thought that up.
00:43:52
Speaker
I think, yeah, it points to a really interesting thing. There could have been some other pop culture reference, do you know what I mean? That is lost, that the cheese puzzle is related to. Yeah, something is lost in translation with the cheese puzzle.
00:44:14
Speaker
So this one's from Joe, Joseph. He says, I was just wondering if your love of retro games extends to classic text adventures. He asks about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And then he goes on to ask us how we would classify the Portal games, Portal and Portal 2. Are they adventure games, he asks. So let's take the first part first.
Portal Series: Adventure or Puzzle?
00:44:40
Speaker
What's your history with
00:44:42
Speaker
text adventures. You know, I kind of dig them. I kind of like them. It was there's something interactive fiction. Choose your own adventure game about them. Don't get me wrong. They're hard. Some of the hardest retro games ever written. But I have to I have to share this. One of my very first like
00:45:03
Speaker
text adventure games I ever played it came and you guys might know this if you've been following me for a while came on a compilation called game empire it was this it was this compilation I got for Christmas and had all these DOS games and had all these genres like here's some from the adventure game here's some from action here's some from data board digital board games I found this text adventure game called humbug and I can never figure it out
00:45:31
Speaker
But I loved it. It was just it was just your very average adventure game you're trying to get into like I think your grandpa's home and there's like something wrong. There's something strange and mysterious going on in there. I think at one point I was talking to a shark. I don't
00:45:47
Speaker
Okay. I was never able to beat it because these games are notoriously difficult, but they're, I think they really do. I think they really do have a charm to them. It really lends itself to using your imagination. And I like that. I know they're out of style. I do not think they will come back, but I think that I do think they have a charm to them.
00:46:09
Speaker
I've played soft porn adventure. That is the text-based adventure that, okay, number one, it inspired Leisure Suit Larry. Yes, correct. Roberta Williams is topless on the cover of it. Sure is. In a hot tub, yep. In a hot tub, you can't see anything. Yeah, you can't see anything. You can try, you won't. You look really, really close at it. It won't change it.
00:46:39
Speaker
soft porn adventure, yeah, was basically, it was basically Leisure Suit Larry. Like if you've played Leisure Suit Larry, you've basically played soft porn adventure. I think it's pretty almost one-to-one. One thing that I did do when I was a kid, I was really into,
00:46:56
Speaker
the realm online and very early massively multiplayer online role playing game. And at the time, most massively multiplayer online role playing games were muds. They were text based online video games. And I tried playing a few of those in that era. But I have the same problem with text adventures that I had with those muds. It didn't feel like I was playing with other people.
00:47:25
Speaker
Text adventures don't feel like I'm in a vibrant world to me. I feel right right I feel isolated. I feel alone And it just yeah, it does not strike me the same way though. I am interested about hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
00:47:41
Speaker
one of the most infamously difficult text adventures of all time. Is it funny? Have you played it? I have played a little bit of it. It didn't capture me quite enough, but it is funny. And kind of that discworldy nonsensical way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. All right. Well, let's go to the second part of the question. Portal and Portal 2. Do you classify those as adventure games?
00:48:10
Speaker
What an interesting question. I think, I don't want to get hate for like, my classification opinions, because you know, you know that I do, right Matt? Like you've seen, probably seen some of the comments. I do want to talk about that though, because I think genre is meant to serve you, not, you know, like genre is our servant, not our master, right? Like when,
00:48:37
Speaker
When you use genre to find other things you like, you don't use it to exclude things from your interests. And I do think if a person likes adventure games, it is worth their time to check out Portal.
00:48:58
Speaker
that you know what, you've read my mind. That is exactly what I was gonna say. I was gonna say I personally, I would categorize it more as a platformer with puzzles, like a puzzle platformer type of a game. But
00:49:15
Speaker
It doesn't matter if you like it. It's going to hold hands with adventure games, right? So if you like adventure games, you might also like Portal. And I kind of had this discussion a long time ago when people were asking if like walking simulators were really games or really adventure games.
00:49:33
Speaker
And I'm like, I don't know if it matters, because if you like adventure games, you're probably gonna like this game, too. And I think they're linked, you know? So I think they're, you know. That's what we use genre for. If you like this, then you will, not necessarily like this, but if you like this, then you should check this out. And I think if you like adventure games, you should check out walking simulators. If you like adventure games, you should check out Portal. Yeah, I agree.
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me to exclude it. Yeah, I can see it being called a puzzle platformer. When I think of puzzle platformers, though, I think of limbo or braid or something like that. So if somebody were to tell me of limbo.
00:50:21
Speaker
Oh, I've played the, here's this new puzzle, or here's the new. It's new to us. Here's this puzzle platformer, it's called Portal, you should check it out. I would be like, oh, this doesn't feel like the puzzle. This doesn't feel like a puzzle platformer, right?
00:50:46
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't know exactly how, I don't know exactly that it fits into any classification. Maybe it fits into puzzle game, but there's such a strong narrative and there's so many strong, there's such a strong sense of character in the portal games. Yeah.
00:51:02
Speaker
I would, you know, I would put Portal one more, I guess in if like I had to write, which I don't. But if I had to, I would put Portal one more in the sense in the place of like, yeah, puzzle games, maybe puzzle platformers. And I would put Portal two. More towards adventure game.
00:51:24
Speaker
That's fair. All right. This next question is from Nick. Nick is a longtime fan. I recognize your name. Your question to us is within your all time favorite adventure games, what are your least favorite puzzles? So his example is in my case,
00:51:40
Speaker
What are the puzzles I hate the most in, say, King's Quest 3 or Grim Fandango? Those are, in fact, my favorite games. I do have more than that to pull from, though, so I might pull from something else. I think my immediate answer
00:51:58
Speaker
is probably gonna be from Sanitarium that is within my all-time favorite adventure games. And I'm gonna lump two of them together. There's a water pipe puzzle and then there's like some kind, I don't even know how to describe it. It's some kind of thing where if you pull one lever, two levers go up and then you push one down and three go up and push another one down. You know what I'm talking about, those. This is so bad.
00:52:23
Speaker
Those are so bad. They're so bad. But those, I would say, are kind of minor annoyances compared to, say, some of the puzzles in Discworld. The whole game, really, of Discworld. And Matt's probably not going to agree with me, but there were some clunkers in Salmon Max for me that I just honestly
00:52:46
Speaker
I don't want to say like, it's hard to categorize least favorite things, right? You know what you like and you know what you do. But for me, there were some clunkers there. Do you have a couple examples? The alligator golf thing, I think, which we talked about. Oh, man. Okay. It just annoyed me, I think. It's not that I couldn't figure it out. It's just I didn't really want to be doing it. And I think even though
00:53:14
Speaker
even though I love Monkey Island 4, I really do.
00:53:17
Speaker
The combat monkey fighting, I think, are some of the worst puzzles ever. I think the combat monkey fighting in Monkey Island 4 is maybe just the worst thing to ever be in a video game. Just to ever exist, basically. Not just in a Monkey Island game, not just an adventure game. You can't even call it a puzzle. It's the worst idea that anybody has ever put into a game. It's worse than capitalism, you guys. Matt hates it.
00:53:47
Speaker
If the person who designed that happened to be listening, and then was like, and had their feelings hurt, I don't even think I would be, I don't think I'd even feel bad. I think this is like- Maybe you know how I feel about the game, and I'm just like, yep, yep, that's true. That's just true.
00:54:04
Speaker
You know, I don't want, yeah, I don't like people, I don't like to make people feel bad, but this is a scenario where I kind of would like the person who made Monkey Combat to feel bad, but they did it. Even if it's just so you never do anything even close to that again. So your favorite game, if I'm recalling, is one of the Monkey Island games, correct? Yeah, it bounces around sometimes it's secret and sometimes it's cursed, but let's see, worst puzzle in Curse of Monkey Island
00:54:32
Speaker
It's hard to quantify that, like you said. And it's hard also because, it's hard to think because in curse, the puzzles are so interdependent that it's hard to isolate one.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah. And Curse is just so charming, I'm even failing. I have a few puzzles in mind, but I don't- I don't hate them. They're not my least favorite, you know, getting the gold tooth.
00:55:04
Speaker
was a little strange from Blondebeard, but I love Blondebeard. I had trouble figuring out the getting the gold tooth puzzle, but I liked it. I liked it a lot. I did too. Once I had that, yeah. In Mega Monkey, you have to do something with a jawbreaker that I found particularly weird and just not intuitive to do. And I will say, and you might agree with me, and I have more to say on it,
00:55:29
Speaker
the ending parts and secret on the island itself. I had such a hard time with it. It seemed to advance in difficulty so much for me. I don't know. Maybe I was stressed out when I play. Look at me, people. I get stressed out. I don't think I have a specific puzzle, but I'm going to agree with that.
Challenges in Classic Adventure Games
00:55:57
Speaker
I'm gonna even broaden it out. I think just being on Monkey Island is the worst part of Secret of Monkey Island. And any time I replay that game, I'm like loving it when I'm on Melee Island, I'm loving it when I'm on the ship. And then I get to Monkey Island and oftentimes I'm like, I don't feel like playing anymore. And I turn it off. That's fair. I think these are fair answers.
00:56:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if we, yeah, I don't know that I have a very specific answer, but yeah, that's what springs to mind. All right, this is from Stefan or Stefan. I think it's probably Stefan from Sweden. Well, maybe it is Stefan then. I think Stefan is the Swedish pronunciation, Stefan is,
00:56:48
Speaker
My ancestors are Swedish, I am bad at this. Yeah, I think Stefan is more like the Western European pronunciation. Yeah. So basically, Stefan just asks if we have played the dig. So it's basically just a recommendation email. Have you played the dig?
00:57:12
Speaker
Yes I have. It's hard. Seriously LucasArts, what are you doing? That game I very much struggled with. I know it has kind of a beloved nostalgic thing for people.
00:57:28
Speaker
I found it immensely difficult. And honestly, I don't remember a lot about it. It's been at least 12 years since I played it, since I booted that up. But I do remember it being aggravating. What do you think? So when I played it the first time, it was incredibly hard. I went back to it.
00:57:49
Speaker
maybe like five six years ago and I found it a lot easier like I made my way through it I was really I really enjoyed it I didn't find myself banking my head against it as much as I did when I was a kid as a kid that game is incredibly hard I don't yes
00:58:07
Speaker
I don't exactly know what it is about it, but somehow it just, it does not penetrate the kid brain the way that the other LucasArts games do. But the puzzle where you have to reassemble the bones of an alien turtle in the exact right way to bring it back to life is just about the hardest adventure game puzzle I've ever played.
00:58:32
Speaker
It's no joke, man. It is not intuitive. There are pieces that look a lot like each other. There's a bone that looks like a head that is actually the tailbone. It's so hard and you can't have one piece out of place.
00:58:55
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't continue to clue you. It's not like the turtle comes to life and you can notice that one of the arms is backwards. Or the turtle comes to life and you can... The turtle comes to life, looks exactly like a turtle.
00:59:13
Speaker
and then melts into goo. So you have, it's not like, like a better way to design that puzzle would be the turtle comes to life and yeah, again, is wrong. Right. Right. And then you can look at what's wrong and then go back and fix it. I think, I think that being said, like, I think
00:59:36
Speaker
Stefan wants to know he didn't directly ask a question. But I think he wants to know if it he's saying that, you know, the voice acting was good and the music, the graphics makes sense for LucasArts. I think he mostly wants to know if this holds up as well as he may or may not think it does. And just by this conversation that we're having, I don't think it does. I don't I don't think the dig holds up
01:00:00
Speaker
I was gonna say the opposite. I think it was, I think it wasn't, I think in its time, it was poorly timed. Like I don't think, it didn't fit in with the library of LucasArts games. And so when you're playing it, expecting a LucasArts game, you don't get that and makes the game more frustrating and less enjoyable. But now if you go back and you think, oh, this is a game,
01:00:29
Speaker
that is very serious and difficult and designed in part by Steven Spielberg. You then know a little bit more what to expect. I think in that way it really holds up.
01:00:50
Speaker
is better in the modern day revisiting it than it was when it came out. And I think it's also interesting that, and I like both of these games, but Loom and the Dig were designed by Brian Moriarty. Yes, yes.
01:01:08
Speaker
So yeah, it seems he's like the black sheep of the LucasArts family. The games that he developed have very specific taste. Here's another thing. The dig was written by infamous homophobe Orson Scott Card.
01:01:31
Speaker
Good gravy, I am so sad that he has a stain on the LucasArts history because he also wrote some of the insult sword fighting clips from Seeker. Oh, does it, did he? I didn't know that. I'm pretty sure, yeah. All right, so what's our next question?
01:01:49
Speaker
Our next question comes from Steve. He wants to be called. He, he signed it as Steve and he has a game recommendation for us. He wants to know if we have tried the invincible. He describes it as a first person, sci-fi adventure game. That's based on the novel of the same name.
01:02:08
Speaker
He also he just wants to also say that it is described as a walking simulator and then he says but don't let that turn you off Oh, sir. No, that would never never turn me off. Yeah I'm turned on right now. It's it's uncomfortable. We should stop the recording I Have not played it, but I have absolutely no qualms about walking simulators. I enjoy them. I
01:02:36
Speaker
Yeah, and the invisible looks amazing. I have not played it. It looks very pretty. It looks amazing. I guess you're exploring some sci-fi world as an astronaut. I don't know. This is going on the recommendations list. We gotta play this one, Roses.
01:02:59
Speaker
Okay, sci-fi, I'm gonna say this, sci-fi is not my favorite genre when it comes to video games. It's not my favorite, but I will always give something a chance. Especially if it's an adventure game because that kind of spans so many things, you know? This game looks like, you know how Firewatch was like a big leap forward for the quote unquote walking simulator genre? For sure.
01:03:24
Speaker
The Invincible's given me similar vibes, not that it's similar to Firewatch, but similar in that this looks like another jump forward that could be the new standard bearer for the best example of it. But who knows, I haven't played it.
01:03:41
Speaker
Maybe it'll disappoint me, but just based on visuals and these trailers, it looks real good. It actually does. I see what you mean with the Firewatch. Sorry, I just started. This is a David Lynch podcast now, Firewalk with me. No, I can see how it reminds you of Firewatch. All right.
01:04:07
Speaker
Email is not signed, but this person asks a Stardew Valley episode when? I mean, isn't every episode a little bit of a Stardew Valley episode? A little bit of a Stardew Valley episode. A little bit of a Stardew Valley episode. We seem to talk about it all the time.
Future Episode Ideas
01:04:25
Speaker
We talk about it not on the podcast, but I could be convinced to do a deep dive.
01:04:31
Speaker
My feeling is let's see how we feel after the new update hits consoles because I play Stardew Valley on Switch.
01:04:42
Speaker
and I'm not keen on moving over to a different way of playing it because I've put so many hours on the, it wouldn't feel comfortable for me to jump to another console now with that game. So let's see, when I finally get that update in my hands and I'm digging through and I'm using chewy blue grass, we'll see if I'm inspired.
01:05:10
Speaker
to do an episode, and we'll see how, Rosa, we'll see how you're feeling at that point. Yeah, for sure. And I also needed, as I had said in previous episodes, I had really just played this not long ago. So it's kind of hard, even with updates. And I'm sure they're amazing, because they always are. I just needed a little bit of time before I'm like, yeah, let's plant the parsnips again. Talk to Mayor Lewis again.
01:05:38
Speaker
The next question comes from Blake. Hi, Blake. He says he's loving the podcast. Thank you so much. They say I've always enjoyed the narrative side of adventure games, but I feel the gameplay and puzzle aspect haven't evolved nicely as we all do. And he actually includes a list of cliches like crowbars, first person mazes, safe behind a painting. Oh, yeah, you know it.
01:06:03
Speaker
oh my god yeah you know it oh here's a good one gathering items for a costume yes oh man that's a good one so uh yeah he had this list of cliches do you have any recommendations that don't feel so derivative i would love to know your thoughts you know it's tough uh because
01:06:25
Speaker
I feel like the very nature of adventure games has some of these things and some of these things that, you know, they're more tropey, for example, a safe behind a painting. I feel that's kind of a classic trope across so many mediums, not just adventure games, but noir films and books and mysteries and stuff like that. So I'm not.
01:06:48
Speaker
mad at that particular, at that particular trope, we'll call it. As of recommendations that don't feel so derivative, I think the best route then to go is something like a walking sim or something that's maybe even lighter on the puzzle aspects. I don't necessarily think you need to go that direction. I think you just need to go away from
01:07:15
Speaker
simple point and clicks. Yeah. Honestly, let's be honest, you might need to go away from retro and just kind of. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Is is is Blake specifically looking for retro games? They don't say derivative, but they say they've enjoyed they do enjoy the narrative side of adventure games.
01:07:38
Speaker
I would recommend some of the more kind of experimental games that aren't necessarily you pick up items and combine them and try to use them. So Chance of Cenar, for example, is a game about decoding a language, right? Well, decoding several languages. You're like a monk in, it's basically a fictional, well,
01:08:06
Speaker
I was going to say a fictionalized version of the Tower of Babel, but I'm pretty sure the Tower of Babel was fictional too. But yeah, you're climbing a tower and you're meeting all these different cultures and you don't know what language
01:08:24
Speaker
you don't speak their language. So they say something and in a little journal you have, you match them up, match like the words you find up with images and you know, like,
01:08:40
Speaker
you'll find a thing labeled, you'll find like a switch, maybe there's two words on either side of the switch, and if you move it left, a door opens, you move it right, the door closes, so you know that the symbol on the left is open, the symbol on the right is closed.
01:08:57
Speaker
And you know, maybe the symbol above the switch is door, right? So it starts from there and then it goes, it builds out and you have to make some really thoughtful deductions.
01:09:12
Speaker
That's very unique. It's a very unique puzzle. Off the bat, I was going to say something like Night in the Woods or read-only memories, but now that you've said that, for kind of less conventional, I would also say things like contradiction and who pressed mute on Uncle Marcus. Were there
01:09:32
Speaker
just interesting ways to get to the end of a game. Obviously, contradiction is more about deduction, and I like how they did the deduction part. I think it works very well. Everybody knows my thoughts on Uncle Marcus because I've lost my ability to skip cutscenes, but had I not,
01:09:51
Speaker
I think that's an interesting way to suss out ideas and get through a game. You know, it's interrogation, it's listening, it's eavesdropping. So I don't think those are very particularly derivative of anything, you know? Yeah, I think, yeah, that's the sort of places you have to look like. I'm kind of scrolling through my Steam library right now and I'm looking at like strange horticulture. Yes, that's a good one. That's a great one.
01:10:18
Speaker
you have to look at a book of plants. You get plants, and you have people coming in that have certain ailments, or they give you certain clues as to what plants, what properties certain plants have, and you have to kind of look through this book and sort through your clues, and you have to identify plants. So when somebody comes to you asking for, say, a farmer's worry,
01:10:45
Speaker
you have to figure out which plant that you have is farmer's worry and give them the right plant.
01:10:51
Speaker
I love that. Yeah, that's a very, I love that mechanic. I had another one and I lost it. When you said strange horticulture or something. Oh, right. You know, this might be cliche or maybe some people think it's overrated or over talked about, but I would also say papers, please. I think- Oh my God, yes. Yeah, I think that's a very interesting mechanic. It's very narrative, but it's got unique things that you do in that game.
01:11:21
Speaker
Do you want to explain how that works?
01:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'm trying to remember. So in Papers, please, you are playing what? What is your title? immigration, like an immigration, like border guard. Yeah, like border patrol. And so basically you are checking people's documents, passports or papers, papers, please. And you have to make some interesting, sometimes unethical, sometimes ethical decisions on who you stamp through, essentially. So let's say
01:11:51
Speaker
Let's say there is an illegal immigrant, but you just you really want to help this person. It's going to go against your job, right? Right. But that's up to you to decide these are decisions that that you can make. So the puzzles are obviously they're not they're not switch. But if they're not those kind of puzzles, they're different.
01:12:13
Speaker
you're scrutinizing passports and other documents. And every day the rules on who's allowed in and what documents different people need change and what stamps they need and what, you know, and you have to like talk to them. And if they say something that contradicts what's on their paperwork, then you know, like it's, yeah, it's, that's a very good,
01:12:39
Speaker
Recommendation. I'll do one more, which came out in 2021. It's called Overboard. And it is a time cycling game by Inkel, that's the developer, where you just killed your husband.
01:12:58
Speaker
That's not a spoiler, that is the first moment of the game. You just killed your husband, now you have to get away with it. And there's several ways to get away with it, and it's sort of like a...
01:13:14
Speaker
It's sort of like a period piece. It's from maybe 1920s-ish or something like that. And you walk around the boat and you get to know everybody. You get arrested a bunch of different times. And then, yeah, you just keep cycling the day over and over and over until you get all the different endings. And you just try different ways to get away with murder. I love it.
01:13:39
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, I think that's where Blake needs to look is in these sort of experimental, non inventory point and click based games. Yeah, thanks, Blake. Okay, this one is from Marcus. He basically just wants to know if we've played what remains of Edith Finch.
01:14:00
Speaker
I have, I have played and special bonus, there's a video on it on my YouTube channel. So you can just Google pushing a brosis, Edith Finch, and I'm sure it will come up right away. It is, I won't give any spoilers if you don't want me to, but it is an overall positive review.
01:14:18
Speaker
Yeah, I've played What Remains of Edith Finch. I really enjoyed it. There's some parts of the story that feel a little contrived. But the idea of exploring a house, so that's what you do in What Remains of Edith Finch. You explore a house and
01:14:40
Speaker
there's not really puzzles right it's you know again more of this walking simulator genre um you uh you're exploring a house and you're sort of putting together how everybody in your family died and each person's each uh family member's story is represented by these
01:15:04
Speaker
it pulls you out of the house into new narratives. I think there was a suicide and you have to live through a couple of this person's miserable, repetitive days in sort of a symbolic way to understand why he did what he did. And yeah, it's a game about discovering
01:15:29
Speaker
Just the ways that people die. I mean, it is. It is a ghosts of the past, shadows of the past kind of game. Yeah, I would I like those kind of things. I live for those kind of darker, darker kind of things. So, yeah, I thought it was a really good game. I don't know if we will do a deep dive on it, but, you know, it will. It's something to keep in something to keep in mind. And I what remains to be the finish, I think is a really good game.
01:15:57
Speaker
All right, so our next question comes from Zia again. That's what she says. She says, or they, I'm not quite sure. It's me Zia again. Oh yeah. If you guys want to put your pronouns in, that would be
Detective Games Discussion
01:16:10
Speaker
helpful. I think we've been doing some gender assuming based on the traditional gendered names, but yeah, if you want to put, you know, your pronouns. Zia's a little bit of a tough one. I'm not quite sure. We will always honor your pronouns if you include them.
01:16:27
Speaker
But thank you for coming back, Zia. They're wondering if either of us have ever finished Kathy Raines and what our thoughts are. First got it because I saw roses do a video on playing the first 20 minutes or so and now I'm replaying it. Yeah, I finished it. I did finish the whole thing. I think what I did, if I'm recalling my own work correctly,
01:16:46
Speaker
I hope I am, is I think I did a first impressions. There was a time when I did more so first impression videos on new adventure games. I had met the Kathy Rain developers at PAX when it was before development and I played a demo there as well. They're really great guys. And I did finish it and I really liked it.
01:17:09
Speaker
I'm gonna say something that is minorly might people might not agree with or find just innocuous. I thought it was a little pick me girl.
01:17:19
Speaker
I thought the main character of Kathy Rain was a little pick me. Keep in mind, keep in mind that this was developed by a group of men with best intentions. They wanted a strong female protagonist. And I think they accomplished that. But I think as a woman myself, I can identify that a little bit. However,
01:17:43
Speaker
That being said, I really loved the game. It reminded me of Gabriel Knight, just the whole atmosphere, very mysterious, very brooding, and I did enjoy it as a whole. I was gonna say the exact same thing about Gabriel. Really? Yeah, it is Gabriel Knight. It is alternate universe Gabriel Knight. Yeah, because he feels like a pick-me-dude, right? Yeah, it could have been a Gabriel Knight. It's interesting.
01:18:13
Speaker
Kathy Rain has a bunch of forced quirks where it feels like she's like, I'm not like other girls. Yeah, there's actually almost a verbatim, I think she says that.
01:18:27
Speaker
is I'm not like other girls. And I know what they're going for, I do. I'm not lost on point or nuance or anything like that or character. I just, personally, I cringe when I hear stuff like that. There's a way to make a character, I mean, there's a way to make a character a strong female and not to say that this isn't a type of person. This type of person exists. Yeah.
01:18:53
Speaker
there are strong females in the world who don't display many feminine characteristics or display a lot of counter-cultural characteristics. And there are many, many people in the world who display counter-cultural characteristics that don't really fit them that feel like they're doing it for show, which isn't something I really grudge people because like, who cares? Anybody can be aesthetically however they want, even if it's,
01:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, but anyway, I don't see.
01:19:27
Speaker
what's worse about somebody wearing, you know, the uniform of a punk rocker versus wearing a uniform of a like Abercrombie and Fitch kid. Did people still wear Abercrombie and Fitch? Is that story still existing? I don't know. I don't know what the kids are doing. I'm not hip like that. I will also entertain. I will also entertain the idea and context of she's not like other girls because she has this kind of power.
01:19:55
Speaker
So I can see her. I could see that line also being taken as not a pick me, but no, I'm really not like. Yeah, honestly, not like I'm not like other humans. I'm not like anybody. Yeah, exactly. So I will also entertain that. But yeah, I see exactly what you mean there. Yeah, it does feel like a couple of men trying to think of what would make a girl
01:20:23
Speaker
interesting and sort of discounting the things about femininity that make women interesting. But all that said.
01:20:37
Speaker
I really loved Kathy Rayne. Yeah, it felt like a long lost Gabriel Knight game and people are really down on the ending of that game for some reason, I think because it gets really metaphysical. It does, yeah. I remember liking it, but-
01:20:56
Speaker
weren't expecting that but Gabriel Knight games get really metaphysical and Indiana Jones gets really metaphysical and like you get like it was about a woman becoming like a paranormal detective right you gotta expect by the end you're gonna experience a paranormal shit um
01:21:16
Speaker
I wonder if people were just surprised, kind of like the surprise and like the prestige, where you think you know what this plot is, but then it's like, what? It's this? I'm not going to do any spoilers for that, that I went into that movie blind. I was like, what? So maybe people were just taken aback that it felt so grounded.
01:21:39
Speaker
You know, kind of like Thimbleweed Park, right? It feels grounded in a certain reality. And then it's not. So I feel like I liked the ending though. Our next question comes from James. And yo, he just has two recommendations. Okay, hit me.
01:21:58
Speaker
Number one, mixed up fairy tales. I love mixed up fairy tales. I love mixed up mother goose. I love mixed up fairy tales. They're so sweet. I just like them. They're very sweet. They're very fun games. Well, because what these are early Sierra games that are meant for basically meant for kids. Yeah, they are. Where it's a bunch of fairy tale characters in a world that are all missing something important.
01:22:28
Speaker
and you have to go around the world, find the important thing, and then bring them back to the characters. It's fetch quest the game. Yeah, I don't think there's anything more complicated than any puzzle more complicated than that in the game. But they're very cute. Yeah, very cute early Sierra games. Okay, second recommendation.
01:22:55
Speaker
Roses, have you ever played any of the Journeyman project games? I am sad to say that I have not played any of them, so I can't give you an opinion on that.
01:23:04
Speaker
So James specifically says the Journeyman Project 3, having not played either of the first Journeyman Project games, I still really enjoyed this FMV-laden time-traveling romp through three mystical locations of El Dorado, Atlantis, and Shangri-La. That's what that means now. You have my attention. Did you say FMV live acted? You have my attention.
01:23:28
Speaker
and El Dorado, Atlantis, and Shangro, that's cool. Yeah, okay, this is going on the recommendation list. Thank you. Yeah, Journeyman Project 3, I've never played them. Thank you for the recommendation. All right, I think we have time for- Are we coming to our last question? Yeah, I was gonna say, I think we have time for one last question. This comes from, go ahead.
01:23:49
Speaker
I was just gonna say, we have other ones that we didn't get to. So if you emailed us, you might hear your question in a later episode, but also don't stop emailing. Keep going.
01:24:04
Speaker
We only have so many time and we ramble. You know how we are. It's what we do. This might, this is one of our longest episodes. And that, you know what, I'm okay with it for a Q and a people know what they're clicking on. And we have thoughts.
01:24:22
Speaker
And thoughts. So this comes from Chris from Germany. Nice. And thoughts with thoughts. Guten Tag. Thoughts with thoughts. We should let our thoughts speak their thoughts. I agree. We should do that. Next episode. I'll invite them. I'll invite them the next time. Not this one. I will answer this one for you, Chris. But next time, it'll be from a thought. Yeah, next time we'll let the thoughts. We'll let the thoughts answer them.
01:24:53
Speaker
All right, so they'd like to start out by saying, as mad as a huge fan of Obra Dinn, congratulations, by the way, for not being only a special boy, but also having impeccable taste. Yeah. And I love Laura Bow and Jessica Fletcher, obviously. They're interested in hearing our thoughts on just detective games in general, like what makes a good detective game? What makes a good detective in a game?
01:25:18
Speaker
even. And I, I've always had this topic in the back of my mind for a video, but it's, it's, I'm just kind of wondering how many ideas I can really grab from this. So I'm gonna say I love the idea. I love the idea of dagger, dagger of Amun Ra. The reason I don't think it's gonna speak to people
01:25:43
Speaker
is because it's too difficult. For Dagger of Amun-Ra, they're putting together sometimes illogical puzzles or unwinnable puzzles with gathering evidence and being, not a detective, you're a reporter, but you are playing detective, it's a detective game. You're gathering evidence. I love the idea of collecting the evidence, interrogating people, eavesdropping on people. I think those are great mechanics. However, they combined it with some of that
01:26:12
Speaker
Moon logic, some of those difficulties. So that's unfortunate, right? I think otherwise it would be a good detective game. I think the Colonel's bequest is a great detective game because it has such an emphasis on eavesdropping and really paying attention to that evidence. I think there are a few things that make a good detective game. One of them
01:26:33
Speaker
is, yeah, the elimination of those point and click inventory moon logic puzzles. I don't think those fit in a detective game. So, you know, I wouldn't- Let's be honest. Yeah, I mean, I consider like Tex Murphy games, for example, most of them to be just point and click adventures with a detective in them, right? Yes, absolutely.
01:26:59
Speaker
And I think that's the way a lot of detective games go. They're puzzle games or point and click adventure games with a detective as the character. Games that I consider detective games would be Return of the Obra Dinn as one.
01:27:19
Speaker
Kiss the Golden Idol is one. Contradiction, I think, is flat out a detective game blatantly. I've still not played Contradiction, but I believe you. Oh, it's fantastic. It's really good. Highly recommend. I think The Sexy Brutale is a detective game. The Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Games, not the Sherlock Holmes
01:27:46
Speaker
What is it? The case of the rose tattoo, a case of the straight-and-set scalpel.
01:27:51
Speaker
or the later Sherlock Holmes Frogwares games, those have detective elements. Like there is deduction in those games, but I don't necessarily consider those detective games, I consider those adventure games with starring a detective. But the consulting detective games, I think are detective games. Paradise Killer, I think of as a detective game. All right, so what ties all these together? And it is deduction.
01:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's deduction. It is that you have clues and you have to yourself in your brain, not your character, just makes the deductions in front of you and you get to watch that. You have to make the deductions and you have to be correct for the game to proceed.
01:28:39
Speaker
Yeah. And that's kind of why I mentioned daggers, because it does have those elements. It's just masked by how completely absurd and difficult, you know, it can be. And I think I think Colonel's Bequest is a better, a better example.
01:28:55
Speaker
Now I will say Paradise Killer also has like these weird platformy, metroidvania things where you're jumping around the town and air dashing, which is very strange. But Paradise Killer has, and you don't have to be correct at the end of Paradise Killer. You can accuse the wrong person if you want, and you do get an ending, and I don't think it tells you you got it wrong, but.
01:29:20
Speaker
you know, you, in Paradise Killer, you can sit down and you can write down all your clues and you can really think it through and make some deductions and that's what you have to do in case of the Golden Idol. You won't progress if you don't get the right questions. And that's really hard to do, or right answers. It is really hard to do to present somebody with a puzzle that they have to solve that they can't guess. Yes, yes.
01:29:49
Speaker
I think that's why a lot of these other game-starring detectives tend to just put a bunch of puzzles in. Honestly, I think I've maybe said this before, I think mystery games are very difficult to design.
01:30:06
Speaker
In most cases, the game designer wants the action to unfold in front of you, and they have to let that happen. What are they gonna do? If you don't figure it out, then the action doesn't unfold. So I understand the challenges of building a game like that. But again, I think the games that I've listed are all games that did it really well. And one of the ways that
01:30:35
Speaker
these games accomplish that is by quizzing you and saying like, hey, okay, what do you think happened here? And if you don't get it, they're like, okay, nope, go back and.
01:30:49
Speaker
try and figure it out, you didn't quite get it this time. Or- Yeah, and famously, Dagger has that. Famously, it has a quiz at the end. But again, it's so difficult. It's just way too difficult. But it does have that. It does make an attempt to use that mechanic. I would also say that needing to get three or more things correct
01:31:16
Speaker
for the game to confirm that you did it right, is a very good mechanic that's in Obra Dinn. And, you know, in Case of the Golden Idol, you have to get one section, correct? But it'll tell you if you have- We are skipping over one, a very blatant one, Matt. What's that? Yeah, what's that? LA Noire.
01:31:39
Speaker
I've not played LA Noir. Really? Oh, I love it. I really do. I really do love it. And I would call the detective a detective adventure game where you are interrogating people and deciding whether you believe them or not believe them or press them and you're following leads as well. So I think that's a pretty good modern example. Well, modernish, I guess.
01:32:04
Speaker
The other games that I will mention here are the Davecki Studios games, so that is the Infectious Madness of Dr. Decker, the Shapeshifting Detective, and Murderous Muses.
01:32:18
Speaker
and- Ooh, mysterious. They are FMV games, not so much the Dark Knights with Poe and Monroe. That's more like a choose your own adventure game. But the other three, yeah, you are con, well, in Shapeshifting the Detective and Infectious Madness of Dr. Dector, you are conducting interviews and you have to, you know,
01:32:44
Speaker
you know, put together clues and ask the right questions and think through what you've heard. In Murderous Muses, you're just like watching interviews that have already happened. The thing that separates these a little bit from these other games, which are, these other games are just like impeccably designed mysteries with solid answers. The Devecki Studios games
01:33:14
Speaker
have randomized, like they randomized who the guilty person is, each play through. And some of the things that you hear from people are different based on who is actually guilty, but some of them are the same. So there's a lot of wonkiness in,
01:33:36
Speaker
what you need to pay attention to and what you don't. And that's the one big flaw, I think, about those games. But I love, I will play anything Devecki Studios ever releases, because I love the game. That sounds like a glowing recommendation.
01:33:50
Speaker
I'm a really, really big fan of them. And I love that Dr. Decker, I think is their first game. It might be their second game. One thing I love about it is that it has a, like your interviews are conducted through a text parser. You have to listen to what people are saying and then type in the right questions to hear.
01:34:15
Speaker
to get the right information and you can miss stuff. And I think that's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. I like that mechanic a lot.
01:34:24
Speaker
I have over-answered this question. That tends to do that. He's like, oh, a simple question. Well, hold on. I think, you know, honestly, I don't think, yeah, I think what makes a good detective game is not a simple question. I think it's not. It's not simple. Yeah, I think they've been I think adventure games have been wrestling with this since the very beginning of
01:34:50
Speaker
their existence and only in the past like 10 years have people started to figure out how to do it right yeah I agree and I agree with what you're saying too it's like adventure game can have a detective in it but there's no mechanic that
01:35:05
Speaker
You know, I view Grim Fandango as a noir mystery game, but I don't necessarily think it's a detective game, but it is like, you know what I mean? There's so many ways we can branch off here, you know? There's mysteries in a lot of adventure games, and you don't have to understand the mystery for your character to solve it. That's the big difference.
01:35:32
Speaker
you know, George Stobart will figure out who is at the bottom of the cult of Baphomet or whatever without you, the player, figuring it out. You, the player, don't have to figure it out. George Stobart will figure it out for you. We're talking about Broken Sword, by the way, for any non-adventure game players here. But in Return of the Obra Dinn,
01:36:02
Speaker
you won't solve it if you don't, if you don't solve it. Like you can't get to the end of the game. Correct, yeah, correct. Okay, anyway. I think these are good answers. I think these make sense.
01:36:19
Speaker
All right, thank you everybody for the questions.
Community Engagement and Podcast Future
01:36:23
Speaker
Remember to email us your questions and recommendations and anything else you want. We got our first fan art. I'm so happy. From Michael and it's really cool. It's so sweet. It's so sweet. Thank you for that. Maybe we'll put it in the show notes.
01:36:43
Speaker
Yeah, that would be great. That's a good idea. So yeah, anything you want to send us, hey, or you know what we've gotten since last...
01:36:55
Speaker
since our last Q&A episode in emails is game keys. Feel free to send those. Always feel free. Matt's always going to play whatever you give him. I'm kind of a busy body just being artist and YouTuber. So I don't always have time to play what you send, but we're always grateful to to hear about it.
01:37:19
Speaker
If you send us your games, we will check them out. I can't guarantee, we'll dedicate an episode to them and I can't guarantee when we will talk about them, but we will always at least try to get around to talking to them. So yeah, email us, mattandrosesatgmail.com. Roses, I don't know if we wanna tease it at all. I'm really looking forward to the next episode.
01:37:45
Speaker
No, don't. Just tease it in a way that you're like, oh, you have to, you got to be there for this next one. That's what you should say. So us two and a special guest will be talking about a game that we've mentioned on this episode a lot. And very excited. A second game.
01:38:09
Speaker
And that's all I'll say. And that second game may or may not have some relation to the first game in interesting ways. Okay, that's all I'll say. That's all I'll say. I'm really excited. It's one of the episodes I've been most excited for in the past couple months. Nice. Nice. Wait, we've only been going for a couple months. A couple weeks? I lose track of time.
01:38:34
Speaker
What is time? What is it? What's it doing? Who are we? Why does it do that? All right. I think we can successfully wrap up this episode then. Sure. Matt, I said our slogan last time. I will give you the chance to say it this time.
01:38:56
Speaker
We got to say a few housekeeping things. Oh, fine. Besides email us at mattandroses.gmail.com. Also, we're part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. Check them out at adventuregamehotspot.com. Lastly, make sure you guys are reviewing us on things. We just had a really cool, really, like I'm really happy that people are digging the show. We just had a spike in listenership.
01:39:19
Speaker
but we did not get a spike in reviews. So I'm telling you- Guys, he's gonna keep asking if you don't do it, so please. I'm telling you, it is like the only way the show will grow is if you guys review and share and tell people about it.
01:39:36
Speaker
literally the only way that the show will grow, and if this show doesn't grow, we're gonna eventually stop doing it. So if you like the show. I mean, I hope we're eventually gonna stop at some point. We can't do this till we're 80. No, yeah, we can. Of course we can. You're not gonna be playing hidden object games when you're 80 years old. I'm still gonna be like, Matt, I'm playing Disco Elysium again. I'm so stressed. I will be like, I forgot every single thing in it.
01:40:06
Speaker
What do I do? Would you like a Werther's candy? Yes, shove it through the microphone. I'll put my mouth up to the speaker.
01:40:19
Speaker
We are gonna be hilarious old people. I'm just putting that out there. It's gonna be so good. So yeah, if you guys wanna hear us keep doing this when we're 80, we need, okay, in order for us to do this when we're 80, we need, no, hold on, let's say 50,000 listeners. That's fair. If we have 50,000 listeners per episode, we will do the show till we're 80. We'll do the show till we're 80, yep.
01:40:47
Speaker
I look forward to it, Matt. I hope our fun ship is strong enough to do the show weekly until we're 80. You guys just need to multiply the amount of listeners by 50s. No, it's perfect. I like this goal. Okay, so podcast is art and artists suffer.