Transcript
Speaker: me quite so much.
Speaker: No, it's not glaring on me so much as in on my eyeballs.
Speaker: Ah, I gotcha.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Didn't look like it.
Speaker: I'm just going to put it into full screen and there we go.
Speaker: You know what else is full screen?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel.
Speaker: My name's Kevin.
Speaker: With me, as always, as I've been on today's show, we're doing more of Fable Over the Hedge.
Speaker: Over the Hedge, yes.
Speaker: Madagascar 2.
Speaker: Electric Boogaloo.
Speaker: Megatron's Revenge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fable edge of the world and fable edge of the world.
Speaker: Fable edge of the world.
Speaker: This and ladies and gentlemen, we were just talking about this, Kevin and I, and we had a choice between this and another fable book that was a much fatter book almost twice as long.
Speaker: It was.
Speaker: And I said, yeah, and I was it was dummy thick, thicker than a snicker.
Speaker: And the clap of his ass cheeks kept alerting the guards.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I said, no, we just wrapped up goddamn Disco Elysium shit.
Speaker: We need something a little lighter, a little easier on us.
Speaker: So I went with this very humble, slim tome of a book.
Speaker: And it is so dull that I think it's taking me twice as long to read as a book twice as long as it would have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If that book had any level of quality, this is this has been this has been a slog.
Speaker: I regret everything.
Speaker: I am frustrated with Peter Molyneux for creating the franchise that allowed this to happen.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's fair.
Speaker: I think it's fair to really take it out on the man who created.
Speaker: It's no good to... It's just... Come on, man.
Speaker: This has ruined fable for me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I liked Fable Fables.
Speaker: The Fables.
Speaker: I still like Fable.
Speaker: Fable is a pretty great franchise for as I went off on a whole rant about it last episode.
Speaker: You all don't need to hear my 14000 cents about it again.
Speaker: But I like this.
Speaker: I don't like this as much as Kevin, for example, likes Dark Souls.
Speaker: But I can't help but feel a comparison can be.
Speaker: Yeah, this is your Dark Souls.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I thought you already had your Dark Souls.
Speaker: I have.
Speaker: I've had several.
Speaker: You've had several Dark Souls moments.
Speaker: None of them have ever reached the pure, unbridled pinnacle of hatred that you had.
Speaker: I've made up for it in quantity.
Speaker: You have a quality of pure razor sharp hate.
Speaker: Pure Raja Sharpe, I owe Michael Stackpole one kick of the nuts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then a hug, you know, for all the other stuff he's done.
Speaker: For all the other stuff.
Speaker: But like the overall, yeah.
Speaker: No, you've had a few Dark Souls experiences.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I remember, too, about 15 minutes ago when I said I wasn't going to go too hard in on the book and all that stuff.
Speaker: I changed my mind, bitches.
Speaker: I changed my mind as soon as you started talking about the book.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: This book is just like...
Speaker: It's so boring.
Speaker: It's so boring.
Speaker: It's so fucking boring.
Speaker: It's remarkably boring.
Speaker: It is like we were talking about before the show how like Dead Space was when we read Dead Space and now that is that's going to be like three goddamn years ago.
Speaker: Oh, God, yeah.
Speaker: That was a while.
Speaker: Oh, Jesus Christ.
Speaker: I thought you were just, like, throwing out a number.
Speaker: And no, you're absolutely 100% correct.
Speaker: It's going to be three years ago.
Speaker: We've been at this for a while, dude.
Speaker: We have been at this for a while.
Speaker: I love you, man.
Speaker: This podcast rules.
Speaker: I love you, too.
Speaker: This is great.
Speaker: But still, three years ago, we read Dead Space.
Speaker: And we were like, oh, man, this fucking sucks.
Speaker: But it was an enjoyable suck.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like I am forcing myself to talk about Dead Space to get a rise out of myself in comparison to this book.
Speaker: Because at least Dead Space was interesting and it sucked.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: This is a paint-by-numbers, just... I was telling Kevin that when we were reading Dead Space, for example, I looked forward to getting on the show and being like, oh, holy fucking shit, what the hell is Kevin going to have to say about this?
Speaker: This is going to be great.
Speaker: I was looking forward to it, and with this, it's just so... You already said it, paint-by-numbers, and it just...
Speaker: It's a D&D campaign, but I can't.
Speaker: I'm not having this adventure with my friends while eating pizza.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like a D&D campaign that was put together and you don't know the DM.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You're not totally familiar with your... It's like a friend of a friend group that you're playing with and they kind of have a vibe that you're not chill with.
Speaker: You're not a part of it.
Speaker: You're not part of it.
Speaker: They might be making in-jokes that you don't get.
Speaker: They ordered cauliflower crust pizza because one of them is gluten-free.
Speaker: right right and look cauliflower crust pizza is actually surprisingly good but it still feels weird it's a lie phil don't don't give it is a lie but don't give them an inch
Speaker: give it an inch okay i won't don't give it a single uh inch but you know what you should give an inch is patreon.com pixelitpod you should go over there and uh give us an inch and you know give us a dollar this was the best segue into the patreon shill that i've ever done
Speaker: I think you should reward us for that by going over to their Patreon at patreon.com slash pixelipod.
Speaker: And seeing what we got going on there, we got a free tier where you can just like get episodes early.
Speaker: We have, I dropped them early access, or you could pay a dollar and get access to Phil's book review posts.
Speaker: $5 gets you ad-free episodes and $10 gets you shouted out in an episode.
Speaker: And to that end, I want to shout out Ruthless Butter, Kyle Seaman, Jesus loves you, and friendly friend.
Speaker: Friendly friend for supporting us at the $10 tier.
Speaker: Thank you so much to, to all of you, the, the geek scholars, the friends of the pod and, and the lit nerds and everybody who follows us for free.
Speaker: Thank you so much for making this podcast such a wonderful thing to do week in and week out.
Speaker: We love you.
Speaker: We love you so damn much.
Speaker: Makes it fun.
Speaker: Yeah, it does make it fun.
Speaker: It's it's it's lovely.
Speaker: So, Phil, thank you for taking the lead on this book, because as I told you before the show, I would not have been able to because I have not just I've read it.
Speaker: I read the book.
Speaker: I'm really having trouble retaining anything that happened.
Speaker: So why don't we just go ahead and put that Balvarine body in the marsh?
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Let's do it to it.
Speaker: Somebody walking a fucking dog in three feet a month.
Speaker: What kind of fucking size a dog is that?
Speaker: That's a big fucking dog, man.
Speaker: All right, we're starting at chapter seven.
Speaker: The king and his army, they have sighted land, and Joy goes all around the ships because they are all sick.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: They are sick to death of riding these boats.
Speaker: And they find the land just in time to be attacked by zombie pirates.
Speaker: It's a bunch of ships filled with hollow men who are zombies, effectively, but also...
Speaker: Some of them have some level of what's the word sentience so they can actually steer a boat and that kind of thing, which is weird, but OK, right on.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Yeah, so they get into a big cannonball scrap with these guys.
Speaker: The main ship of the whole group, the Queen Layla, is overrun and burns to a cinder, but not before most of the crew and the king get off of it.
Speaker: And they make their way to the shore, find more hollow men out there, kill them.
Speaker: By the end of a great big nautical slash land battle, they've lost four ships, 200 men and a bunch of supplies and weapons.
Speaker: So not off to a great start.
Speaker: How many men did they bring with them?
Speaker: Because as we'll get into it, there's just like loss upon loss of life.
Speaker: Yeah, it is a running tally that we get into.
Speaker: And I want to say that they brought a thousand people with them.
Speaker: So this is effectively a fifth of their army that died drowning slash being.
Speaker: Drowning slash being munched on by the zombie.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Horde men, the hollow men.
Speaker: And I will say the one positive about this is it is an actual honest to God battle scene that we get.
Speaker: It's not a bad one.
Speaker: And and it does leave you feeling kind of the tally at the end of the day leaves you feeling kind of like, oh, shit, they are in trouble.
Speaker: This is we are we are setting our heroes up for a big fall.
Speaker: This is this is pretty cool.
Speaker: This will be one of the last times this sort of thing happens in the book for a lot of reasons.
Speaker: Not the tally marking.
Speaker: It's just that as we go, this becomes very much like a video game where you finish a level and it says, here's how many people you lost.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker: It starts to feel very much like that.
Speaker: And, and it's frustrating.
Speaker: So the ships that brought them there that have survived are going to leave to give Albion news of their arrival.
Speaker: They made it safe and we'll return to pick them up in a few months.
Speaker: Which is just, I guess that's the practical way to do it.
Speaker: It just feels weird.
Speaker: They're going to leave and then come back again.
Speaker: So the army has to cross the desert.
Speaker: We cut to chapter eight.
Speaker: Paige is at a bar considering the queen.
Speaker: The queen is trouble in many ways.
Speaker: On one hand, she is incredibly beloved.
Speaker: Everyone likes the king.
Speaker: Everybody loves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, but she has become this overnight, this like figurehead for the people.
Speaker: She's their lady die.
Speaker: They freaking love her and she loves them back.
Speaker: And that poses a huge security risk.
Speaker: And so they're dealing with how are they going to keep her safe and that sort of thing?
Speaker: Yeah, she keeps she keeps talking to people and touching, interacting with them.
Speaker: touching their hands and kissing their babies and things like that.
Speaker: It's too much going over.
Speaker: Well, it's too much.
Speaker: It's too much.
Speaker: So she finds her in the weapons room and says, not sleeping well.
Speaker: Page asked concerned.
Speaker: Is it that obvious to someone who knows you?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Page said it's funny.
Speaker: Layla said we were not some old married couple, but I find it odd now not to awaken next to him.
Speaker: You slept in the same bed with him once.
Speaker: Let's chill out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You woke up next to him once because they made a big deal of the, like they imply they never straight out said it, but they implied very heavily that the wedding night was you guys bumping uglies for the first time, making the beast with two backs.
Speaker: And so you can't have me believe that you have this long history of like she, and she says like, yeah, we're not some old couple.
Speaker: I know, but no, no, it's not even that you spent the night together once.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Girl, calm down.
Speaker: She's having bad dreams.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Calm down.
Speaker: Yeah, just chill out.
Speaker: Which actually is good advice for her, as we'll find out.
Speaker: She's having bad dreams about the darkness, and she's concerned that those bad dreams are a bad sign, to which Paige points out, no, you're worried that that's going to kill your husband and take over our land.
Speaker: So that's kind of a normal thing to have bad dreams about, honestly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Timmons arrives and gets dark immediately, brings the whole mood down, starts just talking shit about like, yeah, if you don't learn to protect yourself, we're all going to die.
Speaker: Like we're all going to die.
Speaker: The darkness, the darkness is coming and they're bringing a dog with them named Black Shuck.
Speaker: Let me tell you.
Speaker: That dog don't give a fuck.
Speaker: He don't give a fuck.
Speaker: Now, Timmons is 24-7 Quint drunk on a boat, remembering his past deeds energy.
Speaker: And that can only keep you happy for so long.
Speaker: Just trust me on this one.
Speaker: He's bringing everybody back.
Speaker: So, 700 men went into the water.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes, I know.
Speaker: You said that 40 times.
Speaker: I've been like this for months.
Speaker: Shotcut the rest.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We delivered the bomb.
Speaker: Yeah, the bomb.
Speaker: You delivered the bomb.
Speaker: Here's your bomb.
Speaker: Here's your bomb.
Speaker: So in between in in between sips of his own his own quince juice apple apricot brandy.
Speaker: Timmons decides he's going to he's going to test her on her shooting.
Speaker: She's actually a pretty decent shot, but not as good as her husband, as he points out to which she correctly responds.
Speaker: Well, as soon as I've been spending my entire life shooting monsters and fighting and stuff like that, then, yeah, I suppose that's a good thing to hold me to.
Speaker: I got to tell you, this whole section of the book, like...
Speaker: I know how like Timmons and Paige are going to talk separately about how Timmons is just being hard because he has to be to get through to her, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And like, they're the two fucking worst teachers.
Speaker: They're awful.
Speaker: They are awful.
Speaker: They're like, they're like, oh, well, we, we think if we piss you off enough, we will.
Speaker: And we'll find out that that does the acts.
Speaker: That's the wrong thing.
Speaker: It does the thing that, yeah, it does the thing that all it does to all parents who try this fucking bullshit with their kids.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, so we'll like, and that is hanging out with a dandy, uh,
Speaker: And you don't want to fucking my chemical romance tattoo with it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With a, my chemical romance tattoo.
Speaker: I'm getting ahead of myself.
Speaker: But you know what?
Speaker: But it's, it's valid.
Speaker: It's, it's valid.
Speaker: It's valid.
Speaker: So page is frustrated with both of them.
Speaker: She's worried and worried that when they finally do throw down, because that's what this is leading to that everyone's going to lose because neither of these people are going to want to do anything, but yeah, it's real Godzilla versus Kong energy in here.
Speaker: Very much.
Speaker: Yeah, let them fight, but don't.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the king and his army cross the desert.
Speaker: They decide to take a break at a place called-
Speaker: at the sky blue lake of sky blue lake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're excited.
Speaker: They they they're running low on water.
Speaker: As they get closer, the men start kind of throwing themselves into the water, just crystal, beautiful blue water.
Speaker: The king remarks on how the winds, the winds in the areas are that's kind of crazy.
Speaker: It sounds like singing, doesn't it?
Speaker: To which Sean kind of goes, well, cut to Ben.
Speaker: who immediately upon dunking himself in the water meets a beautiful woman who tries to seduce slash kill him.
Speaker: I mean, he's into it right away.
Speaker: Oh, he loves it.
Speaker: He loves it.
Speaker: And it makes sense.
Speaker: It makes sense.
Speaker: It makes sense.
Speaker: He is Ben is a is very much a ladies man.
Speaker: And so the attention, even if it's as much as we know about his character, which.
Speaker: admittedly is not a lot that really sticks with me.
Speaker: Not a hell of a lot.
Speaker: Just that he likes, he likes the ladies.
Speaker: He likes the ladies.
Speaker: Uh, so Sean warns the King, uh, that this is, this is going in a bad direction.
Speaker: And they start shouting for everyone to get out.
Speaker: Ben is attacked.
Speaker: And then we cut to him waking up after all the action is over and he has been saved and yanked out of the water.
Speaker: We are told, uh,
Speaker: that the king uses magic to still the siren song and get most of them out.
Speaker: We are told this, which I, you know what, Kevin, I was, I was relieved because after, after the exciting battle, the naval battle against the zombie pirates and stuff, I was worried we were going to get another thrilling pulse pounding action scene.
Speaker: Yeah, it's so much easier when they just report on what happened.
Speaker: We get a nice recap of the event.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: A bullet point.
Speaker: That's why I prefer when it comes to award ceremony shows like the Oscars or something.
Speaker: I just read the thing the next day because I don't want to feel the thrill of the moment.
Speaker: I just I'm just now I don't want emotion attached to my news.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Because facts don't care about your feelings.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The facts don't even acknowledge your feelings.
Speaker: It's like Ben Shapiro wrote a fantasy novel.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: It's totally that.
Speaker: Oh, it's very that.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: You're absolutely, it's like annoyingly by the books kind of shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: This is bad.
Speaker: This is, yeah.
Speaker: I think, I think you just nailed it.
Speaker: Uh, now this, this is not the first or last time this is going to happen in this book.
Speaker: And I,
Speaker: I think it brought to mind why we've talked about on the show so many times about showing and not telling.
Speaker: And it just made me think of the exact reason why that's so important.
Speaker: And it's because when you're reading a story, you're already being told something.
Speaker: a story.
Speaker: You are not one of these characters as much as you might fantasize about it or find yourself in the world.
Speaker: You are being told the story.
Speaker: And when someone comes up to you and says, well, the King saved so-and-so and, and, and then, well, sorry, no, when someone goes up to another character in the book and tells him that,
Speaker: what just happened instead of showing him that's second second hand like that it's a copy of a copy that is we got we got hearsay inadmissible in court exactly exactly dull as dishwater and that's and that's what we got here and it's not the last time it's happening unfortunately no not the last time it's happening what do you got there what are you drinking
Speaker: My mom and dad came to visit and see the baby this past weekend.
Speaker: And my mom bought, I always make sure to get some booze for them before they get here.
Speaker: And I never need to because mom always brings her boxed wine.
Speaker: She comes equipped with.
Speaker: Yeah, it's naive of me to assume she would need a hand with this shit.
Speaker: And this is just like black box boxed wine, which is actually not terrible boxed wine as far as boxed wines concerned.
Speaker: But I'm just, I'm just.
Speaker: Drinking it like my own personal little juice box now that they've gone.
Speaker: Just stick a straw on it and go from there.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So we get another report on dead men.
Speaker: About 20 went to their graves in the sky blue lake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And level complete.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And the king considers what a disaster this is all turning out to be.
Speaker: And I couldn't agree more.
Speaker: Chapter nine.
Speaker: The army makes it to what is called Sweetwater Tree Village.
Speaker: They are parched.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They meet the leader there who offers them trade, hospitality, all the stuff that they're going to need.
Speaker: They're, you know, we need to refill our canteens, get some more food.
Speaker: We'll be happy to pay for it.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Come in.
Speaker: Enjoy everybody.
Speaker: We're going to do some some shows for you, show you, show you a little hospitality, feed you a little booze, a little alky hall.
Speaker: And they got a show with dancing girls, one of which I fucks Ben, who never learns his lesson, never learns his lesson.
Speaker: He just got out of a situation like this.
Speaker: He never learns this lesson.
Speaker: And he, cause he's loving it.
Speaker: He's absolutely loving it.
Speaker: Eventually the King goes to sleep and wakes to Ben and Shalia, who is the dancing girl, waking them up.
Speaker: They tell, they tell him that she knew about their villages plan.
Speaker: They work with the sand bandits in the area and they're going to, they were going to kill them all in their sleep and take their shit because that's what they do.
Speaker: And she,
Speaker: Partly out of guilt, partly because she wants to see Ben's penis.
Speaker: She really, really wants to see his peen.
Speaker: That is literally one of the reasons.
Speaker: King saved by penis news at 11.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The king literally says it's a good thing.
Speaker: Your sex appeal carries so much.
Speaker: Like it's it's it.
Speaker: Anyway, so they success.
Speaker: It's bad.
Speaker: We get the siren scene.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like basically we're basically getting saved by it's like it's like if Star Trek had back to back episodes where Riker saved the day by fucking.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Which we all wanted, but Ben doesn't have all the Ben does not have any of the charisma that William Riker has.
Speaker: He doesn't have the sitting.
Speaker: He doesn't have the sitting prowess.
Speaker: He doesn't have the first date chit chat charisma.
Speaker: Apparently that sit that that thing where he would hop over the back of the chair had to do with a back injury.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's his name?
Speaker: Jonathan Frakes.
Speaker: Like hurt his back or something.
Speaker: And certain chairs just was more comfortable for him to like step over the back of the chair rather than step around it to sit down.
Speaker: So then man took it and made it iconic.
Speaker: And you made it iconic.
Speaker: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker: I don't even watch Star Trek and I know about that shit.
Speaker: That's how widespread.
Speaker: You really should watch.
Speaker: I know you should just next generation.
Speaker: Just throw on next generation and binge it.
Speaker: I think you'll really appreciate it.
Speaker: I know you're more of a I know you spent more time in Warhammer and Star Wars than than anything.
Speaker: But I think if you're going to touch anything, Star Trek next generation.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: I really should.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Our heroes successfully fight back the ambush and find out that there is another ambush up the road waiting for them, that these bandits have set up a basically a cliff trap for them if they are to go.
Speaker: And Shalia points out that they are going to have to take they could take a long way around it to get to the other side, but that they're going to have to go through
Speaker: Assur Kala.
Speaker: Which, goddammit, it sounds like some of the names, and I don't know if this is a Christie golden thing or if it's just a dumb fable thing.
Speaker: Probably a dumb fable thing.
Speaker: I was thinking of it as these I'm hearing these names and it's like these are names of people who don't speak any other language making up names of things that sound foreign.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Which is a huge issue in fantasy writing in general.
Speaker: And admittedly, Fable is very old fashioned, very British fantasy.
Speaker: And I mean, you see it here with this.
Speaker: There's a lot of Orientalism here, like a lot of that because these people are clearly based on the Indian subcontinent and there's a certain exoticism to them that they're trying to add.
Speaker: It just feels very problematic.
Speaker: Yeah, the king is talking about how they're such a hardy people and-
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're dusky, dark skin and da, da, da, da.
Speaker: They're swarthy.
Speaker: They're swarthy and hardy people.
Speaker: And they're- It's never overt, but it feels weird.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: It feels weird.
Speaker: Feels weird, man.
Speaker: Feels weird, buddy.
Speaker: So, Ashur Kela, which is written as if it's the phonetic spelling of it as well, is- I thought maybe this was them pronouncing it, but no, that's actually how they spell it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It translates to the place from where no living thing returns.
Speaker: Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Speaker: So that's where they're going to have to go.
Speaker: Chapter 10, Shalia says she's going to join them in the cursed city that they're heading towards.
Speaker: The Sand Furies, the bandits, even they won't go there.
Speaker: So there's a good chance they'll be safe there.
Speaker: Maybe probably not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They are chased into a cave by these sand furies and they blow a gunpowder trap.
Speaker: The army does to seal the cave shut, to cut them off from the bandits.
Speaker: But unfortunately, as they point out, there's literally no going but forward at this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And at this point, they've also left behind a bunch of siege weapons and ballista that they brought along with them.
Speaker: And so they've got like they're just like losing men, losing firepower.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: It's going to be the king and, you know, Ben's right arm by the time they get to this place.
Speaker: It's like we can't bring the siege weapons anymore.
Speaker: We can't bring the horses anymore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Remember when you play a strategy game like this that requires you to make certain decisions and the first time you play through it, you end up like getting to the final boss with like three of the 400 people you started with.
Speaker: And you're like, oh, that can't be right.
Speaker: I'm going to have to redo this game.
Speaker: Yeah, I got to I got to restart here.
Speaker: It's like it's like the world's worst dark.
Speaker: It's darkest dungeon player.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just support characters because they think they look cool and that's it.
Speaker: And they're fucked.
Speaker: So this book needed Wayne June to do the narration.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: He could look, I'm going to, I'm going to put this out there, Kevin.
Speaker: This is going to be controversial.
Speaker: I don't think Wayne June could have even helped this.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: I don't think this.
Speaker: I don't think Wayne June could have helped.
Speaker: He's a beautiful man.
Speaker: And it would have been the water greedily.
Speaker: I posted somewhere that my sipped greedily count was one and it needs to be zero for a book.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Per book.
Speaker: Per book.
Speaker: Sip greedily.
Speaker: Greater than zero equals you're in trouble.
Speaker: Equals failure.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You gotta just, just find a stronger word than sipped.
Speaker: I don't need a sift greedily.
Speaker: To sip greedily is like, it's like to jog furiously.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: To stroll panickedly, you know, like it's and that's not a word, but still like just it doesn't.
Speaker: It is now there's a better panickedly.
Speaker: There's got to be a better way.
Speaker: OK, so we cut to all you need is gulped, gulped, gulped, gulped.
Speaker: It's right there.
Speaker: It's right there.
Speaker: It feels greedy.
Speaker: I said I wouldn't go into the adverbs again.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: It's all right.
Speaker: You're passionate.
Speaker: And that's what we love about you on the show, Kevin.
Speaker: Among other qualities.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: Fucking slash fiction.
Speaker: People stay the fuck off of our show.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: We cut to Paige and Layla.
Speaker: Layla is still pissed off about how Timmons is treating her.
Speaker: She's getting kind of bratty if we're being fully honest here.
Speaker: So she decides she's going to go for a walk in the garden, blow off a little steam.
Speaker: She's kind of considering how worried she is about everything.
Speaker: And she's approached by a charming man with a My Chemical Romance heart tattoo on his cheek and asks in a top hat,
Speaker: And asks if he can help her in any way and introduces himself as Reaver.
Speaker: So we finally got Sir Reaver joining us.
Speaker: Chapter 11 opens with Reaver telling Layla basically he wants to help her.
Speaker: Uh, he's pretty straightforward about it.
Speaker: He's like, I don't, I, I, I totally have ulterior motives.
Speaker: Uh, I totally just want my businesses to make more money.
Speaker: But, and as he correctly points out, uh, if our kingdom is fucking ashes, uh, then I can't make any more money.
Speaker: I'm not making any money.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So she says she will consider his help.
Speaker: Meanwhile, meanwhile, the army follows a route through the cliffs of a desert and crosses this.
Speaker: It looks like just this wide expanse of desert, but they are told that this is all that is remained all that remains of this cursed city that no one returns from.
Speaker: So it looks just like a big, wide open patch of sand.
Speaker: But there's energy.
Speaker: There's a statue.
Speaker: With an inscription at the base.
Speaker: And it says, look ye mortals upon my works and play Fable.
Speaker: Play Fable.
Speaker: Play the new Fable that's probably coming out this year.
Speaker: Of that colossal wreck boundless and bare, the lone and level molynews stretch far away.
Speaker: You know, my parents came to visit this weekend and me and my wife and my dad were just kind of hanging out in the living room on the last day.
Speaker: And, um, I don't, and dad wasn't referencing anything specific.
Speaker: He was just, we were just chatting and suddenly, and it was appropriate to what we were talking about, but he starts, uh, reciting the poem, the grass, uh, uh, by, uh, fuck, what's his name?
Speaker: Uh, he,
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I have to leave grass poem.
Speaker: The great Carl Sandberg calls Carl Sandberg.
Speaker: And it's it's I love this poem.
Speaker: And so does he.
Speaker: And he just kind of like starts reciting it and talking about what it means.
Speaker: And it's about war.
Speaker: And it's kind of like what we're talking about here.
Speaker: We're like, you know.
Speaker: I am the grass.
Speaker: I cover all.
Speaker: I pile high over the bodies at Waterloo and Austerlitz.
Speaker: And and people come through here and they go, where are we?
Speaker: And it doesn't they don't know about all the death and power, you know, pain that happened here.
Speaker: I'm the grass.
Speaker: I cover all.
Speaker: And dad's talking about this.
Speaker: And we're going, uh-huh.
Speaker: And I'm used to that with my dad.
Speaker: I remember my dad reciting Macbeth.
Speaker: Christmas morning one day when he asked for a knife to open up a present.
Speaker: So like I'm used to, but after they left, it was like, because all she knows of my dad is he's, you know, this ex military, you know, older Southern guy.
Speaker: He's the Colonel.
Speaker: He's the Colonel.
Speaker: And so they leave and she goes, what?
Speaker: the fuck was that?
Speaker: And I was like, I told you he's weird like that.
Speaker: He's a well-read man.
Speaker: I know, but I didn't think he was going to recite poetry.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, I know.
Speaker: It's strange.
Speaker: How else do you think he did his job?
Speaker: I don't come from nothing.
Speaker: Phil did not form in a void.
Speaker: This is
Speaker: It's all very too real for me.
Speaker: There are times that I look at my parents and go, how the hell did I come from them?
Speaker: And then things like that happen.
Speaker: Then your dad just starts reciting Carl Sandburg poetry in the middle of a conversation.
Speaker: And there you have it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He puts on a one man play of Macbeth in the living room.
Speaker: And be like, oh, is he still going?
Speaker: And be like, well, it's almost intermission.
Speaker: So we might as well.
Speaker: Let's let him go.
Speaker: I'm just going to open this other present.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So damn spot.
Speaker: It was laundry day.
Speaker: And so they're above this cursed city and the sun goes down and hundreds upon hundreds of hollow men pour out of the sand and an epic battle royale happens.
Speaker: All those cabin bacons.
Speaker: All those Kevin Bacons, all of them.
Speaker: That movie was awful.
Speaker: I saw it in theaters.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: Oh, that movie sucked.
Speaker: So they're, they're trying to drag everybody into the sand with them.
Speaker: Just, just kill everybody like that.
Speaker: The King included he's pulled out by Kaelin and a horse.
Speaker: Uh, uh, I mean the horse is yanking a rope that brought him out, not the horse, like digging them up with his little hooves.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I want to be clear.
Speaker: So works, reaches out his hoof and says, give me your hands.
Speaker: Give me your hands.
Speaker: Give me the lap.
Speaker: And so he so the king gets out of the sand.
Speaker: He looks around.
Speaker: He sees this epic battle happening.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's filled with like hollow.
Speaker: Every time they kill a hollow man, like two more come up out of the ground and he sees this battle happening and goes, this is taking too long.
Speaker: And so he goes and finds a section of ground that no one's there.
Speaker: And he just basically shoves his magic into the sand.
Speaker: He just forces his magic into the sand.
Speaker: He fucks the desert.
Speaker: Just magic fucks the desert and just sends the magic out.
Speaker: just splurting down into the, into the ground, just, just splattering everywhere.
Speaker: Just fucking just, just, just going deeper and deeper into the ground.
Speaker: Thank you for that.
Speaker: I need a minute.
Speaker: And so his and the magic, he just magics this city that's under the sand and all of the hollow men just stop.
Speaker: And he closes the portal essentially.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the city smokes a cigarette.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The city just goes, God damn.
Speaker: And crosses one leg over the other.
Speaker: Just thinks about the good old days.
Speaker: He gives this really weird speech, assuming heavily that they've ended this curse that the people in the surrounding area have been afraid of for a while.
Speaker: It's like suddenly he starts giving the speech from fucking Independence Day.
Speaker: Yes, that's absolutely what he does.
Speaker: It's so weird.
Speaker: He just gives this weird ass speech.
Speaker: He hasn't been.
Speaker: It just gives the speech like, well, we just saved all these people.
Speaker: They ought to be grateful.
Speaker: It's really weird.
Speaker: And it doesn't help with the colonial vibe.
Speaker: It really doesn't.
Speaker: No, it doesn't.
Speaker: In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world.
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: We're fighting for our right to live, to exist.
Speaker: You got to get my Bill Pullman growl in there.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It's a classic.
Speaker: And like 12 year old me watching that and was like hair standing up on the back of my neck.
Speaker: I'd never heard anything.
Speaker: Hey, listen, Bill Pullman speech the fuck out of that speech.
Speaker: Bill Pullman's great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you're going to have anyone do that, it needs to be Bill Pullman.
Speaker: He pulled it off.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Bill Pullman of the... Bill Pullman's still alive and he's still kicking.
Speaker: He sure is.
Speaker: He plays weirder characters now.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: I think he got sick of playing the same kind of vaguely handsome leading man that he was playing for.
Speaker: Yeah, now that he's like in his 60s and everything's a little bit looser, he kind of plays like the...
Speaker: You're weird.
Speaker: There's a show that he was on.
Speaker: It was really good, too.
Speaker: It was a mystery show.
Speaker: Maybe that'll bring it up.
Speaker: It's called The Sinner.
Speaker: I'll never know that one.
Speaker: So Bill Pullman plays a cop who is basically from a small town.
Speaker: And the first season is like there's a murder.
Speaker: And there hasn't been a murder in the town in like 20 years or something like that.
Speaker: But he's really interesting.
Speaker: Like the character is extremely neurodivergent coded.
Speaker: But it's not like...
Speaker: it's not really talked about.
Speaker: And he also has all this other trauma going.
Speaker: It's, it's a, it's an interesting show.
Speaker: It's pretty heavy though.
Speaker: I would, but I, I recommend there's only four, there's only four seasons.
Speaker: And, you know, they kind of tell a complete story, so to speak over the four seasons.
Speaker: The fourth season is like, it takes place after he retired or something like that.
Speaker: But yeah, worth, worth checking out.
Speaker: Bill Pullman, everybody.
Speaker: Bill Pullman.
Speaker: Anyway, the king is pulling a Bill Pullman.
Speaker: He's pulling a Bill Pullman, but not as well.
Speaker: Not as not as he, sir.
Speaker: Is no Bill Pullman.
Speaker: No Bill Pullman.
Speaker: None whatsoever.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So the army, of course, cheers because they're legally obligated to legally obligated cheering.
Speaker: Yeah, for the king and Shalia Max on Ben, which big surprise.
Speaker: We were having a brief moment.
Speaker: They were teasing us at this point with a brief will they won't they thing.
Speaker: And we all and they do.
Speaker: Yeah, they do.
Speaker: They.
Speaker: They do.
Speaker: They, yeah.
Speaker: Um, chapter 12, Timmons and page are called to see Layla and they find her there with Reaver and lose their shit.
Speaker: Um, Layla points out to them that Reaver can in fact help and, uh, and that she wasn't in fact tricked by, uh, by him, that she's considered all of this.
Speaker: And that while he, uh,
Speaker: He's a bad dude.
Speaker: He's a bad dude.
Speaker: He's financially obligated to actually help.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And we've done this before.
Speaker: My husband did this before with him, has worked with him to keep things afloat.
Speaker: And you may not like him, but we might have to do this.
Speaker: And I'm kind of fucking pissed off at y'all's implication that I'm some wilting flower who couldn't handle this.
Speaker: Just choose him out.
Speaker: And it was well, well earned, especially Timmons, where she's like, listen, I can't demote you, but I'm but your service is like you serve at the pleasure of the of the queen and you are no longer pleasing me.
Speaker: So get the fuck out.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: It's as simple as that.
Speaker: And then she chews out Paige.
Speaker: It's like, we've known each other a long time.
Speaker: And you just, you know, just like wouldn't let me do shit.
Speaker: You're treating me like a child.
Speaker: And we literally get a moment where Paige is like, and Paige can't cry, doesn't cry.
Speaker: So there must have been some dust in the air that she had to leave to rub out of her face.
Speaker: I'm not crying.
Speaker: It's just raining on my face is basically what happened to her.
Speaker: And it's like, this is like, this is what happened.
Speaker: Paige realizes this is what happens when you let people get too close to you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: Is that what?
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: Is it Paige?
Speaker: Or are you shitty at this?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So and then we're left with Layla and Reaver and Reaver got a bullseye like, oh, you know, you had to do what you had to do.
Speaker: She's like, shut the fuck up.
Speaker: Shut the fuck up.
Speaker: She's like, I don't like you.
Speaker: Don't get it twisted.
Speaker: Don't get it twisted.
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: I didn't do that for you.
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: Shut the fuck up.
Speaker: You sit there and you... Over there.
Speaker: You don't talk unless I tell you to talk.
Speaker: And Reaver's like, yeah, sure, fine.
Speaker: I'll be over here counting my money.
Speaker: Which, so far, this has been my only scene that I really loved in the entire book where the queen is like, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck you.
Speaker: Yeah, it's...
Speaker: It's pretty cool.
Speaker: Cause as you pointed out before, they are treating her like an asshole.
Speaker: They are being really shitty to her.
Speaker: And this is her finally like coming in and going, okay, up yours.
Speaker: And, and, and I'm worried at this point.
Speaker: Because it feels to me like the lesson will not be learned.
Speaker: Like that won't be the point.
Speaker: I'm still worried.
Speaker: Yeah, the point will be like, oh, she should have trusted her friends.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, I'm worried about that.
Speaker: I'm worried that we're going to get the wrong.
Speaker: I'll be surprised if it's if it land, if the plane lands where I want it to land.
Speaker: That's just it.
Speaker: That's just it.
Speaker: Just so.
Speaker: I'm genuinely concerned because, and here's the thing, that would be a very Fable lesson.
Speaker: Like that would actually be very much in keeping with Fable, which does, to its credit, it doesn't go as far as they always wanted it to and how much Molyneux wanted it to.
Speaker: But to its credit, it did always set you up with sometimes,
Speaker: uh, questions that had solutions that none of them were going to be particularly good, you know, and, and I respect that.
Speaker: I think that's really cool.
Speaker: Um, so, uh, yeah.
Speaker: So if this, if I don't think it's going to, uh, but it could end up actually serving, uh, the adaptation very well.
Speaker: So, but we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Cut to chapter 13.
Speaker: The army continues to march.
Speaker: They have to decide where to go next.
Speaker: Sean says that they should go to the cave of a thousand guardians for water.
Speaker: It'll it'll have a natural spring in there.
Speaker: And it also has a thousand guardians.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Spiritual protectors in there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Shalia recommends that they go to this series of underground wells that are nearby to get water.
Speaker: And this is another video game moment.
Speaker: Like make your choice, you know, make your choice.
Speaker: And the king ultimately agrees that they should go to the underground wells because when they went, anytime they've been to full open bodies of water, bad shit has happened.
Speaker: And he's worried the darkness will be waiting for them if it's if it's a place as obviously useful as that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which not bad logic, not bad logic.
Speaker: So they make it to the wells.
Speaker: They've sent scouts ahead who came back, you know, with water and said, yeah, there's plenty of water.
Speaker: And they filled their canteens.
Speaker: And the king being a magnanimous king is like, go out there and give your friends some fresh water.
Speaker: They're not running out of water, but it's like stale at this point or whatever.
Speaker: So whatever.
Speaker: So the sun goes down and they start hearing howling.
Speaker: And the scouts who drank the water who went ahead are now transmogrifying into Jakala, which are the jackal Balverines that they've mentioned before.
Speaker: And the king quickly finds out that basically the water has been poisoned.
Speaker: That's how they transform you into a Balverine instead of the usual bite.
Speaker: And anyone who drank that water is now going to be turning into a jackal Balvarine and they're going to have to kill all of them as quickly as possible.
Speaker: We get a moment here that's it's heavily implied, never actually stated, but the king, it's like a huge fight and it's heavily implied that the king is going to have to use his magic that will deal like a lot of collateral damage.
Speaker: Yeah, he is like he's just going to have to go napalm.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: Like he's going to kill some innocent civilians.
Speaker: There's going to be.
Speaker: Yeah, there's going to be collateral damage here.
Speaker: There's going to be some innocent civilians.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to break some of the Geneva Conventions here directly, but it's heavily implied.
Speaker: It's heavily implied that this is his first real war crime.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: They lose a lot of men, but ultimately win.
Speaker: Shalia is ashamed, you know, because it was her idea.
Speaker: And the king says, it's okay.
Speaker: You know, you made, you had to make a call.
Speaker: I understand why you made this call.
Speaker: There's a reason.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't know that the water was filled with Wolverine juice.
Speaker: I didn't know.
Speaker: I didn't know the last time it wasn't filled with Wolverine juice.
Speaker: And, uh, it's now they lost a lot of men.
Speaker: They didn't now to their credit.
Speaker: They don't give us the running tally anymore.
Speaker: Uh, because I think the math isn't going to work out, frankly.
Speaker: I thought they said something like 300 or something.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I may have missed it.
Speaker: Maybe I thought there was like a, there was a tally and it was a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's like no one left.
Speaker: Yeah, they're running out fast.
Speaker: It's the king and Ben and Ben's girlfriend.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: And this kid with PTSD.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they decide that they're going to go to the cave of a thousand guardians instead.
Speaker: And that is where we are.
Speaker: That is where we leave off.
Speaker: What are you thinking so far of the edge of the world?
Speaker: I think it's we still have not really gotten anywhere meaningful in the book.
Speaker: Almost two thirds of the way through the book.
Speaker: And we have got it's got to wrap up pretty fast for anything real.
Speaker: It's it's you know what I was thinking?
Speaker: I was thinking about like.
Speaker: I don't know why this book reminds me structurally, not structurally.
Speaker: It just gives me the vibes of the second Diablo book that we read, which we were pretty fond of overall.
Speaker: Yeah, I like that one.
Speaker: Yeah, I like that one.
Speaker: Had some weird missteps, but I get that vibe, but it's just like not...
Speaker: it's like a pale imitation of it.
Speaker: Cause we get the sea battle and we get the stead.
Speaker: It goes all over the place a little bit, doesn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, and we're, it's like, what are we doing here?
Speaker: We're going to confront the Empress.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Uh, and we needed to go all this route and so many people have died and it's all based on the word of this one fucking guy.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: It also does that fantasy trophy thing where it's like people like the characters who are from that, that this country are like, oh yeah, I've not been to this part in like in a while, a couple of years.
Speaker: And I haven't been to this part and like a baby.
Speaker: And like, why have you been to this part at all?
Speaker: Like, right, right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's just makes sense.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: People don't, I don't like where people just traveling around willy nilly.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I think I was pretty hard on the book already before we even started talking this episode.
Speaker: And I am in the same spot now, just even listening to you recap.
Speaker: And I'm like, yeah, I guess that all that happened.
Speaker: There's only one good moment.
Speaker: And the entire thing is when the queen says, shut the fuck up to everybody.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I was just going to say that.
Speaker: It's shocking.
Speaker: She's like, I'm going to gatekeep gaslight and girl boss my way out of here.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's so weird how, how, um,
Speaker: the more interesting part of the book is the wife back home, uh, dealing with drama.
Speaker: I wish it was just the wife back home.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Uh, that, that would be a more interesting.
Speaker: If it was just talking about the Queens, like how the queen is dealing with this shit, because like the adventure that the guy is having is not interesting.
Speaker: It's just a slog through this country.
Speaker: And there's nothing particularly fascinating about it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, yeah, the little the court, the the the moments at court with the queen are the best, best written parts of the book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, they totally are.
Speaker: And because they they actually have some character development and it's it's kind of the same character development you're going to run into a million times a lot of this shit.
Speaker: But it's something.
Speaker: Yeah, because the king is not going to develop.
Speaker: He's not going to change it all.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: He has to have a personality in the first place to change.
Speaker: He has no personality in the first place.
Speaker: And he's also just like going to Superman his way through this adventure anyway.
Speaker: Like he's going to do weird, weird willpower magic and, you know, fucking ancient city and, you know,
Speaker: It's just how it's going to have to work.
Speaker: Commit war crimes with napalm on on Jackal Balverines, Jackal Reins, Jackal Rines.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Jackal Rines, Jackal Lanterns.
Speaker: So anyway, that's that's my thoughts.
Speaker: My thoughts are all over the place, just like this book.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's totally fair.
Speaker: I think that's totally fair.
Speaker: Okay, well, now that we've covered that, Kev, I just have one oh-so-important question to ask you.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh!
Speaker: Uh, thank you so much for asking me.
Speaker: Um, so, okay.
Speaker: I, I, I was playing this last time we talked, but I forgot to mention it.
Speaker: Um, I'm playing a little Metroidvania called Ultros, um, which is an interesting game.
Speaker: Um, I'm not sure if it's my cup of tea quite yet.
Speaker: I'm just going to keep playing it.
Speaker: Um, but there's, uh, it's, it's,
Speaker: You are... How do I... I'm not sure how to actually explain what's going on in the game.
Speaker: You are inside the sarcophagus of an elder god.
Speaker: And you are killing these dudes in order to...
Speaker: Hatch the God or not hatch the God.
Speaker: The story, I don't, I'm not sure I'm, I'm totally getting it, but look at, look at game and it's so fucking art direction.
Speaker: It is very psychedelic.
Speaker: So it's like, it's like Lovecraftian stuff mixed with psychedelics, which to me is,
Speaker: I think is actually a very interesting take because when you think about like Lovecraft, one of the stories color out of space, it reminds me of that where it's supposed to be like these colors that you aren't supposed to necessarily comprehend.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's what we get with Ultros.
Speaker: So you the game takes place over the course of loops.
Speaker: So every time you get through a loop,
Speaker: you kind of reset your progress.
Speaker: So as you're playing, it's so it's kind of got to get some weird roguelike, roguelite mixed with Metroidvania type stuff, I guess in the way that if you ever played Dead Cells, except Dead Cells is more roguelite and this is more Metroidvania on the spectrum of
Speaker: that.
Speaker: So basically, as you're exploring, you go down a certain path and you go down and you finish the path and you beat a boss or whatever, and you learn a little bit more of the story each time.
Speaker: And then you go back to the beginning and it's like you remember what happens, but other characters don't necessarily remember what happened.
Speaker: And then there's ways to keep your upgrades as you're playing.
Speaker: So you can like invest points into as you unlock things.
Speaker: If you complete the loop and go back to the beginning, all the things you unlocked are now locked again.
Speaker: All the abilities that you that you unlocked, except unless you find a certain item to like keep it open.
Speaker: So you remember how to do it from loop to loop.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: I'm not 100% sure if it's my bag.
Speaker: I would say I'm leaning more towards it's not than it is, but I'll probably play it a little bit more and see what's cooking.
Speaker: It definitely looks interesting from just a looks point of view.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: From an aesthetic point of view, it's fascinating.
Speaker: I'm just not sure I totally jive with the gameplay, the genre mix that it's going with.
Speaker: Like, I really like Dead Cells, but I'm not sure if the balance is totally my...
Speaker: my thing in ultras, but it, you know, it does have a lot of really positive reviews.
Speaker: I think it's, it is one of the more favorably reviewed games to come out this year so far.
Speaker: Um, so we'll see another game that I have been playing that is more my speed is the Thalmaturge.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I've heard, I've heard interesting things about this.
Speaker: So the Thaumaturge, you play as a guy who is basically, he's like a wizard known as a Thaumaturge.
Speaker: And it is set in the early 1900s in Eastern Europe.
Speaker: um so the bulk of the game takes place in warsaw uh in poland uh your character is polish he's part of like the upper crust his family is part of the upper crust of polish society uh there is a basically at the beginning of the game you are looking for a healer that can
Speaker: fix your problems with your... I'm trying to remember the name of like... It's like a spirit that you're linked with.
Speaker: I'm trying to remember the name that he gives it.
Speaker: But anyway, you're looking for a healer to kind of help that help fix your link between you and your spirit.
Speaker: And as you're in this small town, you find the healer and oh, look, it's Rasputin.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Of course it is.
Speaker: He hypnotizes you and you go through and you fix your connection with your spirit friend.
Speaker: And then you solve some like a little crime that happened in the town by like
Speaker: You basically walk around, you look for clues, you start piecing it together.
Speaker: And once you get all the clues together, it says you can make an observation or draw a conclusion from all your observations.
Speaker: And then when you talk to people, basically, if you talk to somebody too early, you'll get the dialogue tree and things will be locked.
Speaker: You won't be able to say certain things because you haven't found all the clues yet.
Speaker: in a town or in an area, for example.
Speaker: So basically the story you kind of have to track down who killed the other who killed the town elder or something like that.
Speaker: You have to you have to kind of figure that out as like the tutorial mission and you get your second spirit dude by the end of the tutorial.
Speaker: So you have your first two.
Speaker: And each spirit represents like a certain part of your mind.
Speaker: It's like your heart, your will, it's like knowledge and another one.
Speaker: I haven't unlocked the fourth one yet.
Speaker: I mean, I've been able to level up.
Speaker: Heart.
Speaker: Heart.
Speaker: Um, anyway, after that, you're like, uh, you take the train back to Warsaw.
Speaker: Rasputin says he's going to be coming like to with you to Warsaw just to hang out because he hasn't been.
Speaker: And then the rest of the game is, I think takes place so far, um, since that opening tutorial area takes place in Warsaw, which is like a pretty big city map now.
Speaker: Um, and as you go through the game, you're, you know,
Speaker: you're walking around you see a newspaper you pick up the newspaper and every time you like find something it's like oh new side quest unlocked uh go find this guy or whatever um and so i i like it so far it's really interesting it is very um sort of like how you know sacred and terrible air uh we're talking about that eastern block this is pre-communism like the pre the fall of the empires and things like that
Speaker: but it's still very cool to kind of get a game set in eastern europe uh around this time uh especially you know they're talking about all the all the old hits are there they're talking about franz ferdinand um you know and things like that and obviously before he is uh uh he is killed uh by
Speaker: Who's the guy who shot him?
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: Oh, Gabrielle Prince?
Speaker: I forget.
Speaker: It was a mess from what I recall, from what I've read, but I don't remember his name.
Speaker: Yeah, like, um, uh, he was assassinated by, I have to, yeah, Gavriel Prinkap.
Speaker: That's what I said.
Speaker: Gavriel Prinkap.
Speaker: Um, yeah, at one point, uh, what's his name?
Speaker: Rasputin says, uh, I've had dreams of Franz Ferdinand, uh, on the sidewalk with his brain leaking out of his head.
Speaker: Right on.
Speaker: Right on.
Speaker: So yeah, the Thalmaturge, I really dig it.
Speaker: It's very story heavy.
Speaker: It's a little bit of a mystery.
Speaker: And then it's got random turn-based combat, which is actually really fun because you have like your attacks as like a dude, and then you have your little spirit attacks.
Speaker: So you can do things like your spirit can reduce the focus of the guy that you're fighting.
Speaker: And once the focus is all the way down, you can use like a super heavy attack on him.
Speaker: And like the super heavy attack is just called concussion.
Speaker: It cuts straight to the point.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Cut straight to the point.
Speaker: But yeah, Thaumaturge.
Speaker: I'm digging it so far.
Speaker: I don't know how long it is.
Speaker: I'm not sure how far I am into it, but I'm having fun.
Speaker: That's definitely gonna be worth a look.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Phil, what are you playing?
Speaker: I am playing a couple of new things.
Speaker: I started playing this game called Slice and Dice.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Is that a bullet heaven game or?
Speaker: What's a bullet heaven?
Speaker: Vampire survivors.
Speaker: Oh, oh no, no, no.
Speaker: It has a similar vibe in a way.
Speaker: It's very, you know, eight bit style.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I was thinking of something else.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's a dungeon crawler, essentially.
Speaker: You get assigned a group of characters.
Speaker: and with very random classes, like one of them is just literally called lazy and you have a dice for each one of them and they get different abilities based on the dice, which you can upgrade and change based on the items you get and that sort of thing.
Speaker: And it's very quick paced.
Speaker: And the whole point is that it's a 20 level dungeon, which changes a little bit from playthrough to playthrough.
Speaker: But the whole point is trying to get through this 20 level dungeon.
Speaker: And I don't know a thing about it because I can't even beat it on easy and I've been playing it for hours.
Speaker: It is a brutal game.
Speaker: You have to really pay it.
Speaker: Its level of simplicity aesthetics wise kind of belies
Speaker: some complexity in the way that the game can be played and you really do need to pay attention, which is tough because that's not generally my MO when it comes to games.
Speaker: I'm playing on my phone because I was playing the demo on Steam and then I found out you could get a full price on my on the phone.
Speaker: I was like, oh, well, that's perfect.
Speaker: And it is on a certain level.
Speaker: But on the other level, I feel like I'm underestimating it constantly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's making me pay for that.
Speaker: It's probably because you're on your phone.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: And I'm just, I'm constantly underestimating it and it's making me pay for that.
Speaker: Ultimately, I don't know if I'm going to play it enough to get through to
Speaker: beating it, it's it.
Speaker: It can be very one note on a certain level.
Speaker: And frankly, it's trying to hit the same button that a lot of the games that I've been playing this year are.
Speaker: It's hitting the same buttons that Bellatro hits.
Speaker: It's hitting the same buttons that vampire survivors hits.
Speaker: Very disposable and quick and good.
Speaker: And that's great if it weren't for the fact that I'm playing those games.
Speaker: also.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I'm finally getting to a point.
Speaker: I realize now that I'm finally getting to a point where I don't want to play just bite sized nonsense games in 2024.
Speaker: So in in that vein, I went ahead and got a game called Withering Rooms.
Speaker: Ooh, that sounds interesting.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: This is an indie game.
Speaker: What's the name of the studio does this?
Speaker: It's very interesting.
Speaker: Oh, now it's playing.
Speaker: It was developed by Moonless Formless, and this is their first game, and it is a...
Speaker: a strange little like side scroller.
Speaker: It kind of resembles a Metroidvania on a certain level, but it isn't at the same time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You it could be a Metroidvania, but it is.
Speaker: But there are levels to it, basically.
Speaker: And when you beat a level, you know, it goes away.
Speaker: But you do find yourself going all over this mansion.
Speaker: You play this girl who is in a mental institution.
Speaker: And she is having these dreams and you are playing in her dreams in this nightmare world.
Speaker: And it's very Victorian, very Alice in Wonderland.
Speaker: They were very inspired by American McGee's Alice of that.
Speaker: There can be no question.
Speaker: I loved so right on.
Speaker: It's got some I thought at first when I was playing, I was like, OK, this is going to be pure survival horror.
Speaker: In fact, there isn't much in the element of survival.
Speaker: You can hide, but it only works for a short amount of time before you have to get out and fight.
Speaker: And the fights have kind of a Dark Souls feel to them in a way.
Speaker: uh, there's your heavy, your light, and you have to, you know, dodge and get to know the patterns of the monster's attacks and everything like that.
Speaker: I think my problem with that is that the controls are a little clunky and if you're going to, yeah, if you're going to have a game where that's so important, you really need sharper controls.
Speaker: Maybe that's the point.
Speaker: Maybe that's what they wanted.
Speaker: Um, I don't know.
Speaker: I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: I keep telling it's one of these games that I play for like half an hour or something.
Speaker: And I get to a point and I go, I don't know if this is for me.
Speaker: And I step away and I go and then I come back and go, let's try it again.
Speaker: And I get further.
Speaker: So I'm probably going to finish it, but I don't know if it's going to be on my game of the year list or not.
Speaker: I love the aesthetic quality to it.
Speaker: Well, knowing you, it's going to be top of your game of the year list.
Speaker: Yeah, at this point, yes, we're talking number one.
Speaker: That's where I'm putting my money.
Speaker: If you guys are betting people, I recommend top three at least.
Speaker: The aesthetic quality is grim and gross and wonderful, and I love the art direction of it.
Speaker: But I'm not completely sold on the gameplay of it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It's very witchy.
Speaker: You're interacting with a bunch of witches and they're teaching you different spells and you've got your your candle wax and your ingredients for your spells and whatnot.
Speaker: That's very fun.
Speaker: And you kill these monsters and take like their thumbs to sacrifice on altars to unlock different things.
Speaker: And come on, that's that's fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I can't enjoy that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: That's that's that's been my bag lately.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Well, you know what?
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you want to follow us, follow us on all the social media platforms at Pixel at Pod.
Speaker: If you have a moment, rate us five stars on the platform that you're listening on.
Speaker: Really helps us out.
Speaker: And remember, if you love the show, please, please share.
Speaker: Care and share.
Speaker: Share and care.
Speaker: It's literally how everyone is finding us.
Speaker: It's how everyone finds us is just being shared.
Speaker: So be kind, rewind, and you know what?
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Oh, I thought you were actually going to cut it off there.
Speaker: I might.
Speaker: There's still time.
Speaker: There's still time every...
Speaker: Bye.
